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Better Storytelling With Two-Sided Characterization – Part II

Last Musing we chatted about the importance of characterizing details you bring into gameplay. As you provide encounter descriptions, introduce NPCs, offer treasures, tell secrets, and convey the world to your friends, you can think about both variables of the equation. The first variable is about how you inject physical and emotional energy into your […]

Better Storytelling With Two-Sided Characterization – Part I

Better Storytelling With Two-Sided Characterization Characterization is how you roleplay the people, places, and things in your adventures. Here’s how to add panache, style, and zing via characterization to engage your players more and become a better storyteller. To me, it’s all roleplaying. But in the literary world, they call it characterization. When the PCs […]

Emotions Before the Game

I’m reading an interesting GMing book right now called How to Run by Alexis D. Smolensk. And Alexis has a pre-game welcoming stage I think is brilliant: “…I must motivate [the players], provoking their attention and creating the shared experience that is game play. “At the start of the session, the players enter the theatre, […]

Hello, Are You Listening?

Upon reflection, one of my biggest challenges is listening to the game. I’m not paying enough attention to my players. For example, how many plot hooks did I pick up from my players last session? Zero. The trick to being a happy game master is being present during games. Being in the present. If I’m […]

My #1 Learning from Last Game

Last week I talked about listening to my players better. It turns out listening is HARD. I GM’d last Friday and here’s how it turned out. First, a recap of my GM Quests for the session: Hooks: Get at least one hook from each player from something they mention during the game Excitement: Note at […]

7 Steps To Create A Gamable Culture With Example: The Hotha

I just worked on a culture for Duskfall called The Hotha. These folk have tamed dinosaurs and use the creatures as steeds, beasts of labour, and pets. I’m happy with the results so far as I think they’ll offer great gameplay. Today, I’d like to share with you the basic steps I took to build […]

It’s A Bomb

Here’s a great tip I read the other day: For character actions to be significant and purposeful, players need information about the possible consequences of their actions. I don’t know if there’s already an RPG design term for this, but in past Musings I’ve mentioned this as being part of Stakes. You want encounters to […]

Drama People Versus Object People

Did you know I collect world views? Weird, I know. A world view is the lens through which a person sees. It’s how they interpret what they experience. For example, I found an article with accompanying infographic on how the wealthy view the world differently than people in poverty. One world view difference is food. […]

A Cracking Way To Conjure Compelling Encounters

The best way to start adventure planning is with conflict. Conflict drives gameplay. When PCs must meet and beat something, you’re going to offer up choices, skill checks, attack rolls, and parleys. Roll the dice, say yes, keep the pace storming. A problem I used to face was coming up with enough conflict, encounter, and […]

Thanks to My Players Because…

I live in Alberta Canada, so I had turkey day back in October (though my wife says I’m a turkey every day). However, any reason to be thankful is a good reason. So, taking advantage of the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, I’d like to say thanks to my players because… Thanks to “Still the New Guy” […]

How to Beat Shark Week With This Attraction Technique

When I want something and can’t have it, I want it more. You can attribute half my RPG book collection to that cruel fact. However, we can take advantage of this human flaw to improve our stories. It bugs me when my players go into a shark frenzy. That’s when blood hits the water and […]

Focus on More of This To Have More Fun at Every Game

Forget fiction. Forget scripts. We’re talking interactive storytelling and gaming here. We have our own rules. I think of interactive story games — let’s just call them RPGs for short — as a collection of inputs and outputs. Your Multitude of Inputs On the input side we have: GM Players Dice Rules Adventure material Campaign […]

The Problem With Realism Is…

Imagination. I remember a monster I built to guard a 5 Room Dungeon. It was a bit of a platypus. It spun webs and spit poison. It could climb. It could magically blink. It turned out quite effective and my players got snarky about it. They thought the monster was from a book and they […]

Two Quick Free Game Master Tools

I like online tools where people can make useful stuff and share with others. And then others can build on that stuff and share it back to everyone else. I’ve got two such tools for you today. Roleplaying Tips was conceived on this idea in 1999. GMs around the world receive GM tips I write […]

What Should You Do With First Sessions?

First sessions carry a lot of encumbrance. New setting, new players, maybe even new dice. At the least, for established groups, you face new characters and story arcs. I had a First Session this year. My co-workers who had never played D&D wanted me to GM them. I outline the steps I took below. The […]

How To Stop The Abuse of Your NPCs

In my recent NPC survey [https://goo.gl/forms/FgHvFIPkELEoJcxo1] I asked what problems you have right now with NPCs. Here’s one of the responses and a couple tips from me: NPC Pain: Having them abused or exploited by players. Basically, how NPCs reply to dire situations created by players on the spot. Have NPCs React Like Real People […]

Explosive Session Starts, Part III: The Encounter Pyramid

An Encounter Walkthrough Example As this mini-series about kicking sessions off with excitement winds up, here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of planning my next explosive session start. We’ve been talking about how to launch with instant energy and surfing that wave to have amazing sessions. It’s harder to wind up from a slow start than it […]

Kill GM procrastination with your First Move

Roleplaying Tips GM Leif told me this: “Game prep, or ‘designing’ as my DM Partner and I call it, is my biggest challenge currently. It’s tough to find the motivation to get started.” I asked for a bit more info, and while I wait for his response I’d like to share with you a quick […]

What, When, From Above

Let’s say there’s four goblins in the forest waiting to ambush the PCs. Wait, that’s boring. Let’s say it’s six goblins lead by an NPC with a grudge against the party. That’s a bit better. What if the NPC is a guard who was exiled from The Keep because they failed to stop the PCs […]

Play the Infinite Game

A small book that has made a big impression on my gaming is Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. It’s a philosophy that analyses two types of games. Finite games, like Monopoly and Risk, have a clear start and end. Infinite games, like some campaign-style RPGs, do not have a definite ending. The […]

Psssst, How To Tell A Secret

“Here’s something about myself I’ve never told anyone.” It doesn’t matter what NPC says that, your players are going to stop fiddling with their dice and tune in. Everyone loves a secret. And one of the classic laws of GMing from the old Dragon Magazine column Dungeoncraft [http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/] by Ray Winninger is to give everything […]

GM Improvisation Screen, Weather Tables, Western RPG Elements

Today I have three quick resources shared with me by RPT readers that you might be interested in. Weather Tables The first is a weather generator one-page cheat sheet by Rick Herron. He wrote in response to a Musing where I talked about a weather die-drop table for my Demonplague campaign (which is on haitus […]

May – How to Use the Other Kind of Intelligence

Recently I challenged you to place a spy in the party. In response, RPT reader Joshua Barry wrote in with some excellent tips on Tactical vs. Strategic spying with some great fantasy examples I’d like to share with you today. Let’s dive in! I’d like to expand on your definition of a […]

June – Looking For Game?

Hola %FIRSTNAME% How do you find players and GMs to game with nowadays? Years ago I wrote a book on the topic called How To Find Gamers: Filling The Empty Chair. I’ve decided to make it free now and ask for help in updating the links of places where you can recruit gamers. What’s In […]

Don’t Do This To Yourself

I received this very nice email from Roleplaying Tips Reader Mike D. last week in response to the daily city details Musing: “Hey Johnn! I swear, I heard my voice while reading that list. I’ve used those exact same descriptions in my cities (though I did pick up a couple of new terms, spruikers, for […]

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