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A Secret Society Of Character-Hunters For Your Campaign

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0802 This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is about Occult Mysteries and Magic. To celebrate that theme, here is a quick and adversarial secret society idea for your campaign. The Masters of Destiny These guys hunt adventurers. They believe an ancient evil will soon awake, but the world is doomed because there are […]

Teleport With Style

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0808 Hau?oli Friday, %FIRSTNAME% Today’s Musing is both a fun bit of inspiration and some age-old advice. While surfing, I found a great table from John Stater over at Land of Nod. It asks, and answers, the question of how you appear when coming out of a teleport. Here’s a few of […]

Do This Now Every Session For Easy World-Building

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0811 There’s a doc out there called Tight Dungeon World One-Shots. It’s great advice for running a night’s gaming with no prep. The doc offers a section called Setting Questions. You ask each player something about their character that relates to the world. For example: Druid, what is your homeland? How is […]

What If Weather Tells a Story?

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0838 Roleplaying Tips GM Iona has a tip for us today about turning random weather into a storytelling tool, which is a great idea. Take it away Iona…. Dear Johnn, I love weather tables and I’ve used them in the past for the adventure I created with the Adventure Building Workshop. Something […]

Myth Crafting in RPGs

There is a better way to give your games vibrant life and compelling conflicts for your gods and game world. Don’t describe them. Instead, give them a myth story.

World Story Meets RPG Story For Designing Better Adventures

A tip for you today about making your world feel dynamic and amping up your stories at the same time.

Add Spikes Of Danger To Get Deeper Campaigns

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1084 An RPT GM asks about a design technique from my Adventure Building Workshop: Hey Johnn, I was reviewing the links in your 2019 Compilation and saw reference to “Spikes of Danger”. What is that referencing? I googled around and couldn’t find anything. Thanks, Paul I replied to Paul directly, but thought […]

3 Common World Building Mistakes

By Danny O’neill and Ivan Sadzakov from Hammerdog Games Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1081 Mistake #1: Avoiding All Tropes While it seems like everything has been done before, our favourite characters, locations, and world features fit many tropes. It’s less about being original and more about how well you execute and whether you can make these […]

Add Lost Civilizations To Your World

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1066 Been watching a lot of history videos on Youtube lately. I especially like the short ones with time lapse maps of changing settlements and populations. For example, this one on Europe from 400 BC to present. It’s fascinating to see how countries grow, shrink, migrate, and disappear. On a similar note, […]

Build Your World With This Cool Map

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1065 Brief word: Roleplaying Tips Monthly Round-Up — October 2019 Here’s a simple world-building method from Reddit user MordecaiKravits. [OC] Finally developed a world building method that appeals to my love of hexagons and straight lines. This a relationship map he created that illustrates the technique: In his words: I’ve been trying […]

Three Ways To Make Your Coins Special

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1060 I created a coinage system for Duskfall last week and did three things to make money special. Today I’ll share what these are for you to consider using in your worlds. These tips are inspired by NOD #1 (Amazon affiliate link, Lulu link, blog link) where there’s a short article on […]

Deep World Building Using The Estates Method

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1050 A beloved RPG, Ars Magica, splits its setting into three estates: the Church, the Nobles, and the Commonfolk. Wizards are outcasts. Hunted, exiled, or slain for blasphemies and politics. Players run Magi in the Mythic Europe setting. Forced to hide and handle a delicate power balance between the three estates, play […]

Drawing Maps Based On Cultures

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1020 RPT GM Mike G sent me this tip about treasure, and a comment about building an alien culture: Regarding PCs getting anxious for treasure — if they are far from home, throw a big box of treasure in their lap. It need not be a giant statue — just something they […]

Factions Done Blades In The Dark Style

I’ve become a big fan of the way that Blades in the Dark handles world-building. Assign basic stats and create agendas tracked with progress clocks.

What Do I Do When My Players Try To Rob A House?

I’ve got a DM question for you. What do I do when my players try to rob a house?

How The Stars Could Inspire Your Games

A friend at work just got a deluxe telescope. Always interested in astronomy, he contacted a local club and a member approached him with a used one for sale.

1d12 Food Fights

So, what exotic diets might people eat in different lands?Dining on cats is normal for the half-orcs and goblins in the slums, but the royals worship a goddess with feline characteristics so they revere the animals.

Cut Away The Dross For Better Campaign Craft

How is your game going?I ask because many campaign problems seem complex, but you can often drill down to simplicity.

hre's-a-new-source-of-treasure-for-your-campaigns

Here’s A New Source Of Treasure For Your Campaigns

So I’m building a world.Because I’m so busy with work and projects these days, I’m letting the world come to me.

The Difference An Overlay Makes

I’ve been following your tips for a while and they are damn awesome, so I thought I would chip in with a little something from my campaign.

What I Learned While Creating My Latest Thieves’ Guild

How do you catch a unique bird?Unique up on it.How do you catch a tame bird?

A Mad Lib For Random Festivals

Festivals create awesome backdrops for encounters. The crowds, the noise, the events…the chaos!

World Conversion

Backers of my Demonplague Kickstarter are asking how to convert their setting to mine and vice versa. Here’s my recipe on how to convert an adventure to just about any setting.

The Achilles Heel of Many World Builders

How can players change your world?

Top-Bottom-Up World Building

Today’s short tip is about taking a different approach to building your own world to host all your adventures in.

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