Over on Bluesky and Mastodon Dice Camp, I post daily fantasy roleplaying game tips for GMs and players. At the end of each month, you get the full collection of that month’s tips right here for your reading pleasure. And please feel free to follow me at either of the above locations to get new tips every day, fresh out of the idea forge.
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FRPG GM Tip: Uncovering hidden things — a concealed door in a noble’s bedchamber, a secret pocket on a cultist courier, a code in a mundane message — can provide a great sense of accomplishment for players. Whenever characters are investigating, slip in secrets for them to discover.
FRPG Player Tip: Playing a reckless character can be great fun — as long as they’re the only one affected by their recklessness. When a profound lack of danger sense puts the other characters in serious peril and is clearly irritating the other players, it’s time to dial up the caution a bit.
FRPG GM Tip: When the characters have pets, companions, and familiars, find ways to work those creatures’ goals and backstories into the game. Maybe a familiar’s magical nature lets them solve a puzzle or crack a code? What if a companion has a connection to an NPC their master doesn’t know about?
FRPG GM Tip: Within the boundaries of giving the players what they enjoy the most, always look to let different modes of play interrupt each other. Find room for roleplaying in combat. Interrupt long exploration with easy encounters. Work practical skills and physical challenges into social scenes.
FRPG Player Tip: If you’re having trouble deciding what to do, or if the party is stuck at a decision point, rank all the choices you can think of from safe to risky. Then roll a die covering the number of choices, say “My character thinks we should do X” based on the roll, and see what happens.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: The best number of dice to own is the number you routinely need to roll. Playing a damage-dealing caster? Have d6s and d8s on hand. Make a ton of attack rolls each turn? Have groups of d20s and damage dice. And if you ever come up short, don’t be afraid to ask to borrow.
FRPG GM Tip: Thinking like a player is a great way to create challenging encounters as a GM. Don’t just focus on what the villains are plotting. Think ahead of time about what plans the players might hatch to counter those plots — and then expect to be surprised by the plans you didn’t expect.
FRPG GM Tip: Irredeemably evil NPCs can be great fun in a hack-and-slash campaign where everyone is fully on board with the idea of taking no prisoners. But if that’s not the case, NPCs who are misguided, corrupted by magic, or the dupes of evil overlords often make for a more interesting story.
FRPG Player Tip: Few things excite other players more than being asked to help a new player build a character. But feel free to ask about simpler options if suggestions feel complicated. It’s easy for veteran players to forget when they were just as overwhelmed by all of a game’s choices as you are.
FRPG GM Tip: While you’re making notes about the boss villain’s carefully laid plans, also make notes on the things they’ve overlooked or forgotten about. Those omissions and gaps in focus will give the characters and players something to focus in on as they try to disrupt those plans.
FRPG GM Tip: The level of challenge for a monster is an estimate of how that monster stands up to an average party. But no party is ever average. Take notes of how your group fares against different types of creatures and in different combat scenarios, and use that to adjust your encounter design.
FRPG Player Tip: Conflict between party members can be fun if everyone is on board with that kind of roleplaying. But springing conflicts by surprise, or going behind other players’ backs to steal from or betray the other characters, is almost always a single-ingredient recipe for a failed game.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: You can step out of in-game mode or break character at any time if you’re not sure what’s going on or something’s making you uncomfortable. Pause the action and talk about plot developments, character choices, villain actions, or other details so that everyone’s on board.
FRPG GM Tip: If a character takes on a companion creature modeled after a pet they’ve lost, that character’s player is doing you the favor of bringing a level of love to your game’s narrative that nothing else can touch. Embrace that love and return it, and your campaign story will reap the reward.
FRPG Player Tip: The point of the game is for everyone to have fun, but it’s easy to lose track of that while focusing on rules and tactics during play. Every once in a while, don’t worry about the best tactical decision, and have your character do something that leaves the other players smiling.
FRPG GM Tip: Especially with a group of characters who don’t have enough common goals to create a strong party bond, set up a faction whose goals are broad enough that every character can bond with them. Then let a shared commitment to the faction create the glue that holds the party together.
FRPG GM Tip: Even the most comprehensive published adventure is intended to be the model you build your campaign around, not the campaign itself. Builder’s plans can show you every detail of what a house might look like. But the way you build and finish that house determines how you live there.
FRPG Player Tip: Active listening might be best skill a player can bring to a game. Focusing on what the GM and all the other players are bringing to the table scene by scene is the best way to stay centered in the story — and to make sure the GM and other players are listening to you in turn.
FRPG GM Tip: Setting up multiple ways to get into a site-based adventure is always a good idea — as is having the characters discover even more ways out once they’re inside. Not having to work back through previously explored areas helps keep a dungeon crawl or stealth fortress assault moving.
FRPG GM Tip: When running for a new group of players, think about a short campaign — five sessions, maybe. If the characters work and bond well, you can always continue the campaign. But if players realize they built the wrong character, changing that up in the middle of a long story can be tricky.
FRPG Player Tip: A lot of “old school” exploration tricks are worth picking up if you do a lot of dungeon crawling. A 10-foot pole to test floors and unknown recesses, a mirror for looking around corners, and extra rations to throw at hungry monsters have saved innumerable characters over the years.
FRPG GM Tip: If rolled initiative sees all the characters acting as one block and all the enemies acting as another, feel free to quietly adjust the enemies’ initiative to create a bit of back-and-forth. Switching the focus between the characters and their foes regularly helps keep combat engaging.
FRPG Player Tip: Your character sheet covers most of what you can do in a scene, but the details the GM lays down always add to that. Cover in combat, useful bystanders in a social encounter, advantageous terrain in exploration — all of it can grant you additional benefits if you look for them.
FRPG GM Tip: If you run villains with abnormally long lifespans — liches, dragons, and such who’ve been around for millennia — dial up the idea of what those villains have lost over the years. Every ageless undead loved someone once, and they’ve had a thousand lifetimes to obsess over that loss.
FRPG GM Tip: The classic presentation of monsters in games is the default, but it doesn’t need to be the norm. Give melee brutes an equally effective ranged attack. Have typically slow monsters move quickly. Give a leader type a one-off spell. Any small tweak can help make a monster unique.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: A last-session “Where are they now?” scene detailing the characters’ lives a year later makes a great end to a campaign. A game’s narrative unfolds as an ongoing present, and it can be fun to think about the future that the sum total of those present moments might create.
FRPG GM Tip: Foes who drop or flee quickly create an upward beat in the narrative. Foes who deal out high damage create tension. So if you’re looking for one thing or the other at any point in the campaign, adjust hit points and damage on the fly to get the combat encounters you need.
FRPG GM Tip: Giving every party-interacting NPC a quirk or mannerism can seem trite, but nothing cements a character’s place in the story like a single detail the players can latch on to. It’s often hard to keep track of names, but everyone remembers the goblin mage who talked in a fast whisper.
FRPG Player Tip: Understanding actions is important, but it’s even more important to think about the possible activities actions represent. Don’t focus first on what actions are available. If you want to do something, tell the GM that’s what you want to do, then figure out what actions you need.
FRPG GM Tip: Characters interact with the world and its stories by default. But making sure the world and the story encourages debate and interaction between the players and their characters is key to a satisfying game. An RPG should never feel like four players telling a story in isolation.
Art by Dean Spencer