Ack Ack Johnn! Before I give you today’s tip, I have exciting news. First draft of my new book on dungeon design is done! It’s called Logical Dungeon Design: Tactical Cartography.  Here’s the cover: It’s about how to design dungeon maps and levels that respond to the players. Living Dungeons. This book is also about […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

The post Why Dungeon Maps Feel Fake – The Dungeon Timeline Method appeared first on Roleplaying Tips.

What do you do when the party becomes the eight-pointed chaos symbol and splits up in every direction? RPT GM Lessa asks: If you can manage to keep your players together, tell me how. First thing my players do is split the party… Now, Lessa is a very experienced GM and actually has this under […]

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During Tiny Prep this morning I added factions to my setting, and that inspired three ideas. I’m finding the bottom-up approach great for inspiration in this way. For each campaign I have in Campaign Logger I create an Ideas Log. And today I added these: However, I feel like I could squeeze more value juice […]

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Hei Game Master. And happy New Year. On Sunday I got to play in a Daggerheart one-shot run by @mungo9494. Great session. Fun system too, though I need to lean more into the Hope mechanics next time. The GM did something at the end that I liked a lot. And I’m now noodling on how […]

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Hello Game Master and happy Super Wolf Moon! In these parts, it’s the first full moon of the year (wolf) and Luna is at perigee (super). Snowing here in the morning darkness, so I can’t see it. But the clouds sure are bright. It’s great getting mooned on a Friday. This week I started prepping […]

The post Three New Layers for My Shadowdark World Building appeared first on Roleplaying Tips.

The Rule of Cool.Yes, And.Be a fan of the characters. These tenets push us to let players try clever, chaotic, and unexpected PC actions. For example, saket asked this on the Roleplaying Tips Discord: In the middle of combat, one of my players wanted to create an opaque, black orb around my main villain’s head, […]

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How do you make an NPC likable so you can predictably say “The players will latch onto this one”? Right now, for many of us, it feels like a roll of the dice. RPT GM @Harebrained Tom asks this great question, and the top tip comes from @saket._.: I think overall my view is that […]

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Where does your villain stash their cash? That’s the topic of a brand new weekly mapping challenge starting today on the Roleplaying Tips Discord called 5 Minute Map Fridays. Because villains need money to support their operation, lifestyle, and goals. And many settings only operate with physical currency, be it coins, bank notes, or other […]

The post Designing Your Villain’s Vault appeared first on Roleplaying Tips.

Caller You’re on the Air Have you ever tried using a Caller? The topic came up in Saturday’s Wizard of Adventure Zoom session, and the role has several great uses. Gygax used this method a lot. Here are Mentzer’s instructions on using a Caller from the 1983 D&D Red Box (bolding is mine): The caller […]

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Quarrel at the Quarry: Bottom-Up Encounter Prep Here’s how I’m building certain types of encounters in my Basilica campaign using world logic. By world logic, I mean starting with a map based on terrain and environment details, and then having plot and gameplay wrap around that. Using biome, hex, and other relevant details from my […]

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