RPT GM J wrote in and asked me how to kick-off a campaign: I have a lot of trouble coming up with the first session of a campaign. I am struggling (as always) to come up with an interesting start to kick things off with a bang. How do you get first level characters into […]

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An RPT GM asked me this morning to give feedback on a curriculum for a kids GM Boot Camp. I share my response below. I don’t know if the kids are young teenagers, younger, or older. I’ll assume around 12 years old. At that age, in my opinion (I never had kids), you want to […]

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Here’s a idea I think is cool from Points of Inspiration: single use monster powers. There are similar examples out there of this type of mechanics already. We’ve got limited dragon breath uses, D&D 4th edition rechareable dailies, and one-shot magic items. However, upon reading Craig’s article, I wanted to explore the idea further, And […]

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Today, I’m sharing an interesting XP system from Wizard of Adventure @valenpendragon where you buy your next level. This method of XP came up during last Saturday’s monthly Wizard of Adventure Q&A call. Speaking of which, Wizards of Adventure: the call recording (MP4, MP3, transcript) from Saturday is now available here. I found the system […]

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Could I interest you in some interesting ways to defend a castle? There’s a fantastic article in Dragon #185 (a Dark Sun special, nice!) that lists 20 ways to defend castles in D&D. Below I give you d12 methods: some of my own, and some from the article rewritten in my own words. 1. Get […]

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Some great GM tips today from our fellow GMs around the world. But before I share those, I wanted to remind Wizards of Adventure that our monthly GMing Q&A call happens in two days: this Saturday, 12pm Mountain. Get the call link and more details here. Let me, and your fellow smart GMs, help you […]

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I was skimming Dragon #340 and tucked in the back is an article about ritual markings. Instead of being ornamental decoration, scars and other marking types had several uses in communication and status in Earth’s history. If you have a copy of Dragon #340, check out pages 92-93. Today, I’m going to curate the article […]

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Privilege & Power: Using Nobility in Your World-Building and Plots. Read Part I here. And happy Wednesday. Yesterday, we looked at the rights and privileges nobles may get in your world. This helps flesh out noble PC backgrounds, aids in world-building, and inspires plot and encounter ideas. A fantastic way to balance out some of […]

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Before digging into today’s GM tips, I wanted to mention a podcast I was on with Harley Stroh of Goodman Games and Ian Rotondi-Gray from StoryTogether. Listen to the podcast episode on Youtube here. It was great talking about Dungeon Crawl Classics, GMing, and creativity. d8 Non-Combat Encounter Seeds for Weak PCs Part II, GMing […]

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Privilege & Power: Using Nobility in Your World-Building and Plots. Read Part II here. The idea of nobility comes up often in our campaigns. Villains, character backgrounds, NPC classes, settlements, and intrigue and politics, for example, can make nobility important in your milieu. Noble NPCs are special because they have special privileges and responsibilities most […]

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Wizard of Adventure Andy asked me for ideas on how to challenge a party of three 1st level PCs, particularly as the party lacks a tank. Since we’re constrained by the party’s overall strength, we should focus less on combat and more on other types of engaging encounters. Moreover, since game systems often reward typical […]

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Here’s another sneaky GM trick to use sparingly. I believe I’ve written about this before, but as I was cleaning up old files this week, I came across this note and wanted to make sure I shared it with you before deleting: Delayed gratification vs. instant gratification = GM takes advantage of human nature for […]

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