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 […]

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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 […]

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What kind of campaign do you run? We had a fascinating discussion in the Discord this week about how some campaigns end with a bang and others quietly retire. From RPT GM Gilladian: Campaign endings are hard. I have been a dm for over 30, maybe 40 years. I don’t remember most of the old […]

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It’s what’s between rooms that’s the real puzzle. Hola Game Master! Before I draw on today’s mapping tips, please consider this my invitation to you to join us for RPT Map Week. Draw, paint, thumbnail, click, sketch, or code a map based on a daily hook. Today’s Map Hook: A Flooding Dungeon. This is a […]

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Constrain one thing to transform your dungeons. Hola Game Master! Continuing our celebration of RPT Map Week (make sure you swing by the #rpt-map-weeks channel on Discord to check out the daily hooks), I want to talk about the hidden rules dictating your map designs. How Architectural Constraints Affect Maps We often draw floor plans […]

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Take Part in RPT Map Week #1 Hola Game Master! Starting next Monday, April 20, @Auke and I are running a fun, free, chill event on Discord for those who like to make maps. Each day for a week there will be a map hook I created. The theme is Locations Under Pressure. Read the […]

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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, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

The post A Great Isometric Point Crawl Map appeared first on Roleplaying Tips.

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 […]

The post My 7-Step Strategy For Successful Long-Term Campaigns appeared first on Roleplaying Tips.

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 […]

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We got to talking about living graffiti on the Discord and @ØCÇÜL? STOÒL shared this great idea: If you can’t see the image above, the message in part reads: I always pictured Druidic hobo signs to be a thing, like most folks that saw branches growing in a strange pattern might notice but someone proficient in Druidic […]

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