RPG Cookbook

Roleplaying Games (RPGs Roleplaying Games (RPGs) are open-ended adventure games based on shared storytelling and imaginary adventures. Playing them is often similar to taking part in improvised drama. Some videogames borrow features from Tabletop RPGs...

Retro-clones or clones typically use Open Gaming License (OGL) content to re-visit the gameplay of rules-light, dungeon-focused RPGs. Most clones are based on early versions of the original rules written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. They’re often a...

Adventure Playparks Populating RPG games and campaign settings with key in-game RPG challenges, or core challenges, (which form easily unpacked RPG 'adventure playgrounds'), aims to make it easier to: 1. design authentic settings 2. construct enjoyable...

Cutting The Cloth Ideally, every Tabletop RPG Gamesmaster (GM) who wished to have the time to plan, prepare and deliver roleplaying adventures could sit down and 'cut the cloth' for their own campaign settings and scenarios. In practice this can't...

Ask any Tabletop RPG Gamesmaster (GM) what kind of game they'd like to run and the answers that come back are likely to include some or all of the following: a game with a rich, authentic and immersive game world gameplay focused on a variety...

With a videogame or a computer operating system it's expected that you'll be able to style and customise various features, e.g. choosing avatars, adjusting play settings and/ or adding themes/ skins. However, despite these freedoms, it's not so likely...

We've managed a bit of tabletop RPG coverage about rules light systems, (e.g. Traveller and Treasure). We've also taken a quick look at the ever present AD&D in its 4th Edition. There'll be more on those and similar systems soon. While we're waiting...

Dark Heresy's (DH) religious fervour and Rogue Trader's (RT) epic starships have already delivered high quality, 'rules heavy', battle games for Tabletop RPG groups. Deathwatch is the third core rule book in the 40K Tabletop RPG series and it's due out...

The makers of the custom RPG dice mentioned in our recent list of 'Our Favourite Tabletop RPG Props ' have replied to our request for images. They're based in Poland and make a wide range of fantasy and RPG dice, which look great and offer 'persistent'...

Free RPG Day has just been held at game stores across the USA and UK. Plenty of players and potential players will have had a chance to pick up hard copies of selected tabletop RPGs and RPG scenarios. We applaud the whole exercise but what about those...

Boudica The Roman invasion of Britain involved a policy of setting tribes against one another and bribing British leaders by allowing them to stay in power unopposed, so long as they declared the Roman Emperor as their heir. Boudica’s husband Prasutagus w...

GMs, games designers and many players often need themed and styled artwork to help to design, illustrate, promote and play games. The following sites offer licenced images, which can be used freely for a variety of game related purposes. Possible uses...

Out of the Blue Traps are 'part and parcel' of many Tabletop RPG adventures and have been for a very long time. Certain types of scenarios and encounters might reasonably be expected to contain dangerous traps, (e.g. an ancient tomb or an assassin's...

Designing intriguing or fearsome monsters for PCs to take-on isn’t straightforward. Many options are already covered by existing categories found in plenty of Tabletop RPGs and it takes a bit of thought to come up with something novel. New monsters, t...

Pets and animal companions play a part in many tabletop RPGs. The most common animal companion has probably always been the trusty mule, which serves as an inexpensive option for transporting large amounts of gold out of dungeons. War hounds are another...

Recent postings at tabletop RPG forums ENWorld and RPG.net have talked about how to make better commercially published RPG scenarios and modules. Most of the replies on the topic have either discussed cosmetic changes to existing AD&D module formats...

A few more sites which can help with preparing tabletop RPG settings and scenarios have turned up recently. Prism Prism is a Mozilla development project which, “lets users split Web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their d...

Rogue Trader is a standalone follow-up to the excellent but 'rules heavy' tabletop RPG Dark Heresy. This time round players are invited to take the part of interstellar traders, though not in the manner of a 'rules light' space adventure system like Traveller....

Kids are natural roleplayers and 'let's pretend' is central to early learning games and activities. It's not difficult to tap into their enthusiasm for imaginative play by offering access to a variety of imaginative play and by adapting RPGs to offer...

In the mid-1970's parents were nervous about RPGs. Concerns were fuelled by inaccurate and sensational media reports that re-branded D&D as a cult. This may have increased sales of D&D at the time but it also left tabletop RPGs with a reputation...

Designing scenarios and campaign settings for Tabletop RPGs puts GMs (Gamesmasters) in the tricky position of trying to balance players' existing expectations alongside the degree of novelty required to make each adventure or campaign seem fresh. For...

We definitely had some posts on spies and heroes around here at some stage. They seem to have vanished over the summer, but I'm sure we can fetch them back out of a daily save. Cracked have been covering similar ground recently with one of their lists...

Tabletop RPGs allow players to take the part of adventurers exploring open-ended models of alternative worlds or 'realities'. Doing so usually involves a group of players working together to use their player characters (PCs) to overcome various challenges,...

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Like original D&D, AD&D 4e often involves going down dungeons, beating up monsters and taking their treasure. However, 4e is a 'rules heavy' game that works differently from original D&D. It uses...

Mouse Guard The Mouse Guard RPG is based on David Petersen's fantasy books about anthropomorphic mice combating the predators that threaten their territory. Players' characters join the 'Mouse Guard' and play through plot driven adventures using a moderately...

Traveller Traveller has been around for almost as long as D&D. It arrived as a stripped down set of SciFi rules with streamlined character design and straightforward combat rules. Character advancement was only sketched out, combat often ended badly...

Treasure An Indie RPG can be thought of simply as a small press publication. D&D started out Indie and there's a long list of Indie games which have gone large, alongside a longer list of Indie games which have fallen by the wayside. Indie RPGs...

Tabletop RPGs offer far more options for player choice than most games. Players can easily get involved in choosing the rules, shaping the setting and putting player characters (PCs) into situations the players want to try out. Many players aren't looking...

The D&D 4e Essentials line-up has been filled-out with the addition of the Dungeon Master's Kit and the Monster Vault. With these titles available alongside the D&D Starter kit, the 'Heroes of' player books and the Essential Rules Compendium,...

It's been common knowledge for a while that Lego are going to be selling an adventure game and model kits combination called Heroica from August 2011. The premise behind the series of four kits sounds great, as Lego has long been used to encourage kids...

Imaginative play and roleplaying games form a widely accepted and highly valued part of children’s early play and learning. The same combination of fun and learning is also used in many schools, colleges and universities, because roleplaying exercises a...

Regrettably, during the 1970s and early-1980s a number of self-interested groups and individuals used scaremongering sound bites to promote outlandish stories about the Tabletop RPG hobby. These opinions were consistently presented without evidence and...

Girls generally have more social skills at a younger age than boys. They also tend to be involved in more elaborate pre-school roleplaying than most boys. As girls get older many enjoy videogame RPGs, puzzle games and ARGs. They also take part in fantasy...

Time for a quick glance at the WotC crystal ball to see where they're heading with AD&D 4e. There's a lot of premium competition on the horizon from Goodman Games and Pathfinder, so they need some decent products over the next year. (We'd mention...

Tricks and traps have been a part of most Tabletop RPGs since the first dragon set up house in the first dungeon. RPG tricks, (including deceptions and distractions), and traps, (including all kinds of pits, poisons or spikes), are intended to set players...

Most RPGs rely on exploring a conflict between heroic  player characters (PCs) and evil non-player characters (NPCs). The best villains are usually unpleasant to the point of making the skin crawl. They also tend to be worthy adversaries equipped with ...

The second free Tabletop RPG promo featured this week is an interesting offering for kids. The Warriors Adventure Game is a short RPG based around the popular 'warrior cats' books by Erin Hunter. Unsurprisingly, players roleplay the adventures of  the ...