Tools & Techniques Archives - Roleplaying Tips

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When We Improvise Ourselves Into A Corner

“How do I get these 13 things I dropped into the game because I thought they’d be fun to now integrate and make sense?” That question came up in July’s GM Q&A call. Gameplay takes us in a direction where we start improvising, and afterwards we’re left with square pegs that need to fit the […]

The Minnie Haul GM

So I’m a cheap bastard. That’s number ten on The Gamemaster’s Hall Of Shame: Monty Haul’s Top Ten Cousins all the way back to Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #3: 10 Minnie Haul Players in previous campaigns joke about it. I like to pretend there’s no treasure chapter at all. Mice must’ve eaten those pages. But the […]

Try This Fantastic Adventure Mad Lib

On the Roleplaying Tips Discord, @Kodia Tomekeeper reminded me about the fantastic template Pixar used for story spines. It works well for our own adventure, campaign, and even world seeds: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. Let’s […]

What’s the Point (Crawl)?

Here’s a tip for new GMs or those new to point crawls. What’s a point crawl? I don’t know the official definition, but mine is an adventure you make based on story gates characters must get through. When the final obstacle’s been beaten and that gate traversed, the party’s won. Creating a point crawl confused […]

Retroactive Clues

Happy Monday, Game Master! Friday’s tip about using flashbacks for backstories garnered a great response from the community. You sent in several fantastic ideas on how to take this mechanic even further. Today, let’s look at a great breakdown from GM Allen (pictured here with his Magic 8 Ball USB button) on how to use […]

Try Flashbacks For Backstories

The first time I encountered a flashback mechanic was at Intrigue Con here in town in a Night’s Black Agents game. The second time was the following morning playing Blades in the Dark. The cool thing about flashbacks is you can add them to any game system. I’m doing it right now for my Lost […]

How to Create Non-Combat Encounters

A Brief Word From Johnn Hola Game Master! First, a quick note to say that yesterday I fixed the broken video links in the 7-Day GM Organization Challenge. To get the fresh links, you can re-join the challenge or feel free to email me and I will send you the link list directly. Today’s tip […]

Make Your Battlemap Worth Fighting Over

A quick trick to make melees more exciting from this week’s GM’s Log. Ankhegs are one of my favourite monsters. Looking at their stat block, they’re a one-trick pony. Just a brute that deals damage. But their strategy involves verticality, making the critter agile, reusable, and always a challenge. Ankhegs burrow, but most characters cannot. […]

What’s The Heart Of An Encounter?

Read Time: 3 Minutes What’s one thing I do to make every encounter better? This morning I was drafting up a document explaining my CampaignCraft membership program, and I got to writing about my core GMing philosophy of encounters being the atomic unit of gameplay. Players judge our campaigns by how they feel last session […]

3 Tips For Better Player Engagement

How can you get players engaged more in roleplaying encounters? Game Master Vildara presents this tricky session situation: Last night was a bit of a first for me and I find myself here looking for advice to avoid a situation like this. The crew is escorting a bride to her new husband on some backwater world. […]

3 Questions To Turn Boring Loot Into Instant Encounters

Here’s a great tip from Game Master Cam on how we can add zest to objects, items, and treasure: Dear Johnn, Your Man/Nature/Monster dungeon history idea makes me think of my object history table: Thanks Cam, this is a great approach. I especially like the last bullet: Who wants the object? I used to make […]

The Sovereigns of Stink – My Lost Isle Troglodyte Faction

How do we take a standard monster and make it feel alive without writing pages of lore? Today during Tiny Prep I added the first faction to my Lost Isle campaign. I am running troglodytes I call the Sovereigns of Stink, though in-game they’re the Rotscale Clan. To bring them to life and make them […]

Anatomy Of A Back Pocket Encounter: The Screaming Ambush

Tuesday, I shared out the tip to create Back Pocket Encounters you can push into play in case you need to change the pace, stall, or provide a transition or clue. In response, Roleplaying Tips GM TT writes: Examples of each of the 3 Back Pocket Encounters would have been nice. Thanks for the suggestion, […]

Create These 3 Back Pocket Encounters For More Confident GMing

What do you do when the party gets stuck, the game gets bogged down, or you simply need to stall for time? In a recent Tiny Prep Challenge on our Discord server, one GM mentioned they were preparing a “backup/extra encounter to keep the fight-oriented players happy, if things go too lore-heavy.” This is an […]

A Great Isometric Point Crawl Map

Here’s a super Daggerheart point crawl map created by @muted and shared with the Roleplaying Tips community that I thought you might enjoy. From @muted: I am running a loop countdown (started on a location just outside of the dungeon – the Dig) and the dungeon is a collection of a few custom Daggerheart environments […]

My 7-Step Strategy For Successful Long-Term Campaigns

Run your campaigns like the best board game in the world. In 2018 I got back into board games in a big way. I had stopped playing in 2003, so did not get to experience the new wave and evolution in design of the 2000s and 2010s. Then I dropped into a board game day […]

How Do You Reveal Your Maps To Players?

Players can draw on my maps and on my table. And I love it. My group used to have a player assigned to drawing the map. I would describe things, player would struggle to make squiggles, party would still get lost. Then I tried simplifying my maps to make them easier to, er, map, which […]

4 Ways To Track Resources Without Slowing Down Your Game

Resource tracking has come up twice in my orbit recently, so I thought I’d share a couple thoughts on how to reduce tracking friction on encumbrance, spell slots, and other meters and pools. Case in point, Roleplaying Tips GM @jcauseyfd asks on the Discord: Has anyone run across any good systems/mechanics for DnD (5e) to […]

Use Moves To Beat Brain Freeze & Deepen Play

How to simplify things at the table and drop dynamic game pieces onto it. In response to a description tutorial I sent out, Wizard of Adventure GM Will asks: I want to know more about the “Moves” section Thanks Will. I first discovered Moves in the Dungeon World RPG. At first, I didn’t understand the […]

How To Fix A Dull Setting (Without Writing More Lore)

A great way to craft and maintain a consistent atmosphere without the heavy prep. I’m experimenting with a Sensory Bible for my Obsidian Invictus campaign to solve a specific problem. How to keep the vibe consistent without writing a tome of lore? One of my first steps was creating a Sensory Bible for the city, […]

Make Melees Faster With Combat Outs

How to end combats without grinding down to the last health point every time. Roleplaying Tips GM Paul asks: One thing that has always been difficult is that when the party have relatively low skills in combat and magic. A fight can take up to 2 sessions to get through. Fatigue playing a major part […]

Design First, Draw Second

5-Minute Megadungeon Maps. You have a great idea for a massive complex. But the thought of drawing every 10ft. corridor before you even know what goes where is so daunting that you never actually start. I’m faced with this proposition right now as I need to map the megadungeon for my Obsidian Invictus campaign. I […]

My Heuristic For Better Descriptions

Today’s word of the day is indite, which is also today’s tip. So, here is how I indite better descriptions. Earlier this month I shared my 3-step description trick in a Tuesday Tutorial with Platinum Wizards of Adventure. I call these descriptions Lore Drops. They give us a robust mental framework we can apply to […]

In A TPK They Can’t Hear You Screen

To screen or not to screen, that is the question from Roleplaying Tips GM Eli: Johnn! Thank you for these wonderful articles. I was wondering, could you tell me why you do or do not use a DM screen? I’m interested to hear what you think! Thanks Eli. I stopped using a GM screen in […]

Why Dungeon Maps Feel Fake – The Dungeon Timeline Method

How to make logical dungeon maps. Nonsensical maps were a major theme in the fantastic feedback I received from Monday’s request about your biggest pain point with dungeons: How to make dungeons make sense and believable? Most GMs think they need to design a dungeon for the adventure they are running right now. You sit […]

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