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 6 Players. 11 Deaths. Uh Oh.
Posted: Tue, 15 Sep 03:17:19
Category: Players & Characters, Combat & Action, Encounters

Game Master Arvindh asked today in the Roleplaying Tips Community: Yesterday, I ran my first ever Shadowdark game… and MAN! WHAT A RIDE! So simple, so beautiful, so fast and so deadly! 6 players. 11 deaths. And they didn’t even start the damn adventure. Like not even get to the adventuring site! The hilarious session […]

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 Solutions For The Tough Academic Wizard Problem
Posted: Sun, 13 Sep 01:03:49
Category: World Building, Design, NPCs & Roleplaying

A while back, community member Sir Tainley brought up a great world-building quandary: In a D&D type system, and a magic-rich setting where spells are taught academically, professional spellcasters inevitably gain high levels and unrealistically large hit point pools. Are there existing guides or workarounds to balance NPC levels so a typical scholar isn’t physically […]

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 The Prison Experiment
Posted: Sun, 13 Sep 00:51:27
Category: Adventure Building & Campaigns, Adventure & Campaign Building, Plots

Over in our community, Game Master Bart shared a fantastic campaign report and premise: Had my first session of the campaign yesterday, it was a blast! We all agreed in session 0 to start in a prison. Players didn’t know what to expect beforehand, some thought it was just the escape to get going. But […]

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 When We Improvise Ourselves Into A Corner
Posted: Tue, 08 Sep 03:58:44
Category: Running Games, Agile Gming, GMing - Advance

“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 […]

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 Big Bang Events
Posted: Mon, 07 Sep 03:29:31
Category: Adventure Building & Campaigns, 5 Room Dungeons, Adventure & Campaign Building

Big Bang Events: How to Create Player-Proof Plots I’m very excited to announce GM’s Log #12 is now available. The topic is a core method I developed in the early 2000s that’s saved my Canadian bacon for over two decades now. A problem that hits my inbox and my coaching sessions on the regular is […]

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 The Merchant Says No, But…
Posted: Thu, 03 Sep 03:56:20
Category: Treasure Rewards & Items, Gming - Beginner, Items & Equipment

The gear and equipment tip the other day drew a large response. In the Roleplaying Tips Discord, for example, Game Master Ian offers this idea: re: Double prices then mine their gear. I think a better way is not to change prices but availability. There’s a system in ACKS that restricts the number of items […]

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 Double Prices Then Mine Their Gear
Posted: Tue, 01 Sep 06:05:12
Category: Treasure Rewards & Items, GMing - Advance, Items & Equipment

Hola Game Master! Here’s a callout to a tip buried in the recent How to Make Haggling Fun piece I did: “Players’ Guide price is the floor, street price is double that.” Raise your merchant, equipment, and services prices to give you haggling room and siphon more party treasure. Game Master Rafael sent me a […]

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 8 Things Worth Starting a Dungeon War Over
Posted: Fri, 28 Aug 04:49:58
Category: NPCs & Roleplaying, Adventure & Campaign Building, Dungeons & Megadungeons

Just picked up Level Up by Courtney Campbell. It’s a small book of tables on random topics. And the first table I started reading spawned an article idea. The table is titled “Top Ten Dungeon Resources” and has this description: Well, you’ve got a dungeon. And you’ve got all these factions. Apparently they all live […]

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 Know Of Any Good Mystery Resources?
Posted: Tue, 25 Aug 03:17:09
Category: Adventure Building & Campaigns, Adventure & Campaign Building, Inspiration

Over on ze Discord, Al Dente wants to noodle on mystery resources: Hey! I’m trying to get better at designing mystery scenarios for investigative games like Call of Cthulhu. I was wondering if you guys could suggest any resources i should check out @Loz replied: GURPS Mysteries could be a good source. I remember their […]

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 Handling Noise At Cons
Posted: Wed, 19 Aug 05:17:16
Category: Running Games, Organization, Running the Game

Game conventions too loud to hear? Old Man Masha asks about this on the Discord: I recently ran a convention with 15 tables. I spaced them so that the chairs would be 4 feet apart after people sat down. But many folks complained about the noise. Can anyone here give me tips on how to […]

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 Everything You Need to Start D&D 5.5 For Free
Posted: Sat, 15 Aug 03:27:58
Category: Running Games, Gming - Beginner, Running the Game

How can you get started with D&D 5.5/2024 without spending any gold pieces? New community member GW asks: Hi everyone. I learned about DnD but thought it was going to be too hard way back in about 8th grade, so that was like 1989. The books and the rules were very different than they are […]

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 Never Trust a Kenku
Posted: Thu, 13 Aug 03:43:59
Category: Adventure Building & Campaigns, Adventure & Campaign Building, Agile Gming

My friend in high school tricked me one time. He was GMing me 1:1 in a new campaign. I was following a Kenku. We played for an hour and he described the desert. And nothing happened. Just following the kenku. So, finally, I say something along the lines of, “This is boring.” My friend cracked […]

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