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: Doing no prep can make it incredibly difficult to run an encounter — but too much prep can easily do the same. Always look to find the sweet spot where your prep focuses on things that could happen. Then let the players and the game decide the direction of what actually does happen.
FRPG Player Tip: Especially if you love rich character backstory, leave space in that backstory for connections to other characters. Instead of a specific event having changed your life, leave it vague so you and another character can share the same inciting incident — or be on opposite sides of it.
FRPG GM Tip: Improvisation at the game table isn’t about coming up with story or encounters built randomly from nothing. It’s about having a sense of the many somethings going on in your game, and how those somethings can interact with randomness to create a narrative foundation you can build on.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: Giving enemies unique physical characteristics — notable scar, tattoo, unusual hair, specific gear, et al. — is a great way to keep track of foes during combat. But don’t just leave that to the GM. Every player should get to decide what the foe they’re facing looks like.
FRPG GM Tip: Solo monsters with a ton of extra action options can easily overwhelm a combat encounter, so always feel free to play a solo at less than peak optimization. Even if the dragon can unleash area effects weapon twice a round, maybe they want to kill the characters more slowly than that.
FRPG Player Tip: RPGs are a social endeavor, and as with every other type of social endeavor, patience is often a virtue. When another character has the spotlight, let them take it. Celebrate the other players’ cool moments. Wait for your turn to be the center of the attention, because it’ll come.
FRPG GM Tip: Improv at the game table is about finishing a house that’s already framed. It’s not about trying to install paneling, lights, and furniture on empty air. You don’t know the story you and the players will tell, but setting up supporting walls for that story means you’re ready to build.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: Deciding what to do when a player misses a session is a great discussion for the whole group. Is one player comfortable running a second character with the missing player’s approval? Do all the players want to run a character together, each taking charge of certain die rolls?
FRPG GM Tip: If one character is significantly more threatening than the others — even if just in specific circumstances — it’s totally okay to target that character with beefier foes in battle. The moment a hero’s combat superiority becomes obvious, the monsters should be able to pick up on that.
FRPG Player Tip: If your game restricts the use of magic items, talk to the GM about tweaking those restrictions in the name of fun. If a warrior with a magic sword and an arcanist with a wand doesn’t break the game, each character figuring out how to use the other item instead will work just fine.
FRPG GM Tip: Whenever the campaign shifts its focus to specific characters, it’s easy to forget that the other characters still need a chance to shine. Watch out for particular characters falling into the background narratively and look for hooks that can bring them back in.
FRPG Player Tip: The best way to build a character is to ask and answer the question: “Which of these features is going to be the most fun?” But ensuring you get to have that fun requires a subsequent question to the GM: “What can I do to make sure I get to use this feature as often as possible?”
FRPG GM Tip: An always-on damage-dealing aura is one of the most potent tricks a monster can bring to a fight. But be aware that all such effects can be seen as a way to punish melee-focused characters for doing what they’re best at. Defenses that fight back should always have a way to be overcome.
FRPG Player Tip: Your character has certain things they’re great at, but if those are the only things you ever do, you’re missing out on being part of the game’s full story. That moment when your barbarian gets a critical success to identify magic that the wizard missed will resonate forever.
FRPG GM Tip: Striving too hard to create “balanced” combat encounters can easily lead to encounters that feel arbitrary or lifeless. Instead, focus first on the story of the encounter, starting with which foes would be the most fun to fight. Then adjust the threat level as necessary while you play.
FRPG Player Tip: If mechanics are your jam, don’t be surprised to find yourself caught up in roleplaying eventually. If you’re a natural roleplayer, expect to get strangely excited about your character’s math at some point. RPGs have a way of bringing out all sides of what it means to be a player.
FRPG GM Tip: Betrayal is a great trope in fiction, but fiction is a story that happens to other people. The story in an RPG happens to the players as much as to the characters, so be very aware that having an NPC betray the party can feel personal enough to ruin a game — or upend an entire campaign.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: The ideal number of players for your game depends on the style of that game and what level of complexity you prefer. Five or six players can be great for a fast-moving action-focused story. Three or four might be better for intrigue and a ton of spotlight-focused roleplaying.
FRPG GM Tip: Any time the players react in a positive way to something in the game — an NPC interaction, a fight in a cool location, the way a journey plays out — make note of it. Then try to hit those high points again by revisiting the same tropes and mechanics that worked the first time.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: Especially as part of a new group, talk about the tone of the game the other players are expecting. In-game humor, dread seriousness, high lethality, characters with complicated secrets — everything can potentially make for a great game as long as everyone’s on board with it.
FRPG GM Tip: The best traps offer multiple ways to engage with and overcome them. If the character with thieves’ tools is the only one who can deal with a specific trap, that’s like throwing a monster into combat that only one character can fight.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: In class-based games, some restrictions on what characters can and can’t do are important. Others are strictly flavor, so if that flavor isn’t to your liking, just change it. Druid character can’t use a longbow? Sure they can, because who cares?
FRPG GM Tip: For most fantasy games, history creates useful layers of coolness ready to be added to locations, relics, and more. Everything you create for your campaign, ask yourself, “How long has it been around? Did it used to be something else? What connections to the past does it reveal?”
FRPG Player Tip: Tracking just the important stuff that happens in a campaign can be difficult. Make it easier by keeping a simple session-by-session list of each main location the party passes through and each NPC you meet there. You’ll be amazed how much you’ll remember based on those prompts.
FRPG GM Tip: The player characters are the heroes of the story you and the other players are telling. That doesn’t mean they have to be the only heroes in that story, though. They just need to be the heroes who are in the right place at the right time to make a difference.
FRPG GM and Player Tip: Maps are cool, regardless of how you use them in your games. Use regional maps as a backdrop for your VTT just to set the scene. Print out area maps as decor for your game room. Archive your campaign maps for whenever you want to remind yourself what it felt like to be there.
FRPG GM Tip: If the party takes down a tough foe too easily, sometimes it's okay to let the players have that win. But sometimes it’s okay to have reinforcements suddenly arrive, or to decide that the boss was using magic that brings them back — especially if doing so lets the players win again.
FRPG Player Tip: If your game features downtime, it sometimes takes a bit of tacit agreement to get everyone ready to take downtime at the same time. Take it in stride if your character is the only one without vital downtime plans — and talk to the GM about what you might get up to during the break.
Art by Dean Spencer