100 Ways to Improve Your GMing

Everybody loves a big list

In the early days of the pandemic, the blogosphere was abuzz with suggestions for “cheap tricks” for GMs to implement in their games.

These “tricks” were less typical advice, like saying “yes, and…” or protecting player agency, and instead were more things like “use your hands more” or “when in doubt, just roll dice—even if they aren’t doing anything.”

I loved this concept—so much so that I’ve been taking that advice, adding to it with my own thoughts, and writing a list of tricks to implement at my table(s).

So here’s a list of what I think are around 100 ways you can improve as a GM. I’ve organized them into the following broad categories:

• Adjudicating

• Characters

• Combat

• Consequences

• Creatures

• Descriptions

• Dungeons

• Rewards

• Players

• Puzzles and Traps

• Social Interaction

• Travel

• Worldbuilding

Where possible, I’ve attributed the original author of the tip. Because I gathered these five years ago or so, many are missing attribution but I’ll come back around and add it when I can.

Expect this list to expand over time and be sort of a live document.

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Adjudication & Delivery

Body Language

• Talk with your hands. “The spider crawls creepily” is eh; “The spider crawls around like this fingersome gesture” is better. [Spiceomancy]

• Talk with your body. When I really need to get in character, I get out of my chair. Sounds silly, but it helps. [Spiceomancy]

Pacing

• As a GM, you dictate where the camera is pointed at all times. If there are boring parts you'd rather skip, you have the power to do so. [Sahh]

• Unless you're learning the game for the first time, don't pause the game to look up rules. Make the call the players want you to make, then get a rules lawyer to look it up while you continue the flow of the game. [Rise Up Comus]

• Similarly, if you can make a ruling and move on, do so rather than grinding the game to a halt. That way, you're not taking everyone out of the fiction in order to hunt down a rule you're unsure about. [Sahh]

Rolling Dice

• When in doubt, roll a d6. If the number is higher events are favorable to the players, lower and its bad for the players. Super handy oracle. [Cosmic]

  • The 2d6 reaction roll/morale check is one of the greatest tools given to humankind. I use it for all “psychological” things: does the guard fall for the player character’s lies * ? Is the captive intimidated by the threats? [Eldritch Fields]

• Resolve games of chess, blackjack, etc. with a single die roll. All you need is “how good are you at this game” and “are you playing safe or risky” to adjudicate. [Spiceomancy]

• When in doubt, roll some dice. The least it can do is stall a few seconds so your intuition can catch up to you, the most it can do is define your game plan going forward.

Rulings

• When you make a ruling, explain your justification out loud. If you're targeting a random person, tell the players the stakes before you roll. "OK, evens the wyrm goes after Faust but on odds it'll go for Drena even though she's on the ground." [Rise Up Comus]

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Characters

Engaging with PCs

• Have some NPCs that are nice, have them invite players to tea, show them hospitality. It'll make the dangerous and duplicitous parts of the world stand out more and endear NPCs to players. [Cosmic]

  • Colliery to above, have weird or scary NPCs that are nice. Nothing makes an encounter memorable like a giant eldritch demon-spider inviting players to a tea party. [Cosmic]

• Have NPCs who hold grudges and act upon them. That street thug the players slighted is going to jump them with his buds the next time they come into town. [Cosmic]

Flavor

• Flags, symbols, and badges are cool. Give your bad guy a badge. [Phlox]

• Something with multiple names is cool. Give important people and places epithets, nicknames, courtesy names, and true names. [Phlox]

• It has already been said; young, female, or outcast NPCs are easy to love. The inverse is true; old, male, socially advantaged NPCs are easier to hate. [Spiceomancy]

• Strong, gay, woman. Pick 2 and your players will love them.

• Pathetic, non-human, funny voice. Pick 2 and your players will love them.

• Put at least one big buff boisterous man who sounds like Brian Blessed in your game. [Cosmic]

• Give NPCs tics like eating something, chewing on something, fiddling, tapping, pacing, and so on. It characterizes and is easy to remember to include in description. [Cosmic]

• Let NPCs be overly enthusiastic and brash. Remember that some people are in fact the kind of person who'd join a bunch of strangers in doing something dangerous and stupid. [Cosmic]

• Talking animals/objects are universally hits.

Place in the World

• Get it in your head that the average inhabitant of your setting isn't some boring neutral. They are, generally, provincial, cunning, passionate, and concerned with the mores of the land. They are quick to try something and to join something. This makes a lot of incidental encounters more dramatic. [Phlox]

Relationships

• Everybody has a family. Give NPCs filial connections to each other. Have widows of dungeon massacres put bounties on the party. Have the family of dead party members assist their old friends. [Phlox]

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Combat

Ending Combat

• Sometimes fights should just devolve into cartoonish masses of flailing limbs that resolves when the dust clears. [Cosmic]

• Have combatants surrender when combat starts to slog and only a few dregs are left fighting. It’s better to end a fight early than have a fight go on too long.

• Asking "Describe how you finish it" when the player would drop a monster is great for 3 reasons. 1) Opportunity for the player to give a cool description 2) Opportunity to be non-lethal ("I tie it up!") 3) Evil GM trick: If the monster needs some special gimmick (e.g., stake to the heart, decapitation, fire) to kill it, it doesn't actually die unless the PC specifically says it. [Rise Up Comus]

Initiating Combat

• Let players, NPCs, and monster all get caught out in the middle of public of doing things..... [Cosmic]

Pacing

• At the start of combat, roll a d4. In that many rounds, something (usually something bad) will happen. Really puts the pressure on.

Roleplaying in Combat

• Ask players spooky questions in combat. When they fight a giant snake, ask if they're looking in its eyes. They'll be all "oh damn, I guess not." [Phlox]

• Throw in little details to spice up combat. Instead of the player just successfully hitting their opponent, they press the advantage, causing the brigand to slip on a patch of moss, and surely driving their blade into the brigands heart. And so on. [Cosmic]

Signals

• Strong enemies with obvious weaknesses. [Phlox]

• Weak enemies who cleverly secured an advantage for themselves. [Phlox]

• NPCs that hit 0 HP aren’t dead, they’re just helpless (disarmed, KOed, socially cowed, etc.) Make it clear that nonlethal options are always on the table. [Spiceomancy]

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Consequences

• Sometimes, having the consequences of a fight, such as being beaten up and robbed of all their belongings, is better than death. Everyone hates getting their stuff stolen. [Cosmic]

• Have players get stuck, in squeezes, on thorns, in mud, and so on. As consequence, hinderance, and flavor. [Cosmic]

• Sometimes a consequence is that your clothes are filthy and you stink and nobody wants to talk to you. This is a good way to get players to slow down and the world to feel a bit more lived-in.

• Give players split-second moments of reaction as things go bad, traps go off, bushes are sprung, wrong levers are flipped, and so on. [Cosmic]

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Creatures

Animals

• Animals are cool. Use them to reskin stock fantasy shit. Crocodilian dragons w/ deathroll attacks and swordswallows picking their teeth. Hippo+tiger+crocodile chimera. Burrowing owl goblins. Mindflayers but they’re axolotl who can grow limb buds on anyone they look at and control them. [Spiceomancy]

• Sometimes, the biggest possible animal is scarier than a supernaturally giant animal. [Phlox]

• Sometimes, a lot of small animals are scarier than a really big animal. [Phlox]

Monsters

• Small tweaks to the monsters of an area can do a lot for mood. Got a dungeon full of undead? Drape them in plants. Got a dungeon full of goblins? Give them birds or copper armor or woodworking talent or or or [Phlox]

• Take a normal monster and change one feature to make it seem interesting. A cowardly troll covered in unhealed burns. A cyclops that sees six seconds into the future. A skeleton but it has a wasp's nest in it. [Rise Up Comus]

• Players love it when some random goblin has a goal that the other ones don't. Maybe it has a vendetta against someone or it just wants to steal your purse and run in the middle of the fight. Hilarious. [Phlox]

• If a monster entry says it's immune to something, try to think of the in-fiction reason for why this should be. The classic D&D gargoyle is immune to nomagical weapons, and I can only assume it's because a sword can't cut through stone very well. The way that should work, and the way a wise DM should run it, is that the gargoyle is immune to weapons that can't hurt a gargoyle. Maybe that's most normal weapons, but a sledgehammer or at least a pickaxe should work. Magical weapons that enhance your puissance without augmenting the physical force of your attacks should be no more effective against the stone creature. The idea behind this principle is to turn a gamey mechanic into an in-universe quality, something that the characters can think around without getting no-selled by a blanket restriction. [Phlox]

• Giving monsters (and NPCs) a gimmick upon death (like exploding) is good fun. Especially if more than one entity has it allowing players to learn it and potential exploit it. [Cosmic]

• Easy way to make monsters unnerving is to put human teeth and/or eyes where they’re not supposed to be.

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Descriptions

Actions

• Don't forget that teeth can be just as useful as hands. [Cosmic]

• Sometimes simply repeating what the player wants to do back at them slowly is enough to have them question their idea. “I want to attack the leader.” “You want to… attack the leader?” “Well, shit, maybe not!”

At The Table

• Use as many generic tokens as you can when you need to represent stuff on a tabletop to prevent all your great descriptions falling flat because the players are clearly seeing that you just placed down generic goblin miniatures #1 - #6 on the table. Personally I've come to like chess pieces as tokens in my online games since they are distinct enough without betraying any solid information on what they represent. [Sahh]

Atmospheric

• Hair standing on end is handy for conveying powerful magic... or electricity. [Cosmic]

• The character’s physiological reactions to stressful events are a valuable point of description. Burning lungs, heartbeat pounding in the ears, muscles sore and torn, face going beet-red.

Creatures

• A list of twenty animals is a great all-purpose random generator. I use it to quickly generate:

  • Random NPC quirks or appearance (fidgety like a mouse / proud like an eagle / lion-maned / walks like an elephant)

  • Random mutations or powers (acquire tiger stripes / wolf fangs / octopus tentacles), roll twice or thrice for chimeric monsters (antlered snake / winged bear thing / lizard-scaled chicken that hides in a snail shell)

  • Create a place name (Fox River / Gerbil Mountain)

  • Random visual details (lion-shaped knocker / snake-shaped dagger)

  • Spell ingredients (eyes of bat / scales of catfish)

  • ... and so much more. [Eldritch Fields]

• Describe what monsters look like, not what their name is. A goblin is much grosser when it's "a stinky little guy about the size of a 3 year old but with bat ears and it has most of what-was-once-a-rat in its fanged mouth". [Rise Up Comus]

Magic

• Ask the spellcaster what their Magic Missile spell looks like. Is it a purple flash of lightning? Is it a tornado of teeth? Does it leave behind the smell of sulfur, ozone, or rosewater? [Eldritch Fields]

• Monsters, spells etc are much more mystifying and interesting when you don't immediately blurt out their names when speaking about them. Let the players name these things and stick with those names yourself for extra fun. [Sahh]

Mundane

• Get one step more specific when describing materials. Instead of "stone," "limestone." Instead of "wood," "pine." [Phlox]

• Don't forget to describe what languages sound like in addition to what's said. In general terms of course, don't go full conlang. [Cosmic]

• Describe food a bit, even if it’s just a simple tavern meal or some campfire cookery. Tubers, roots, mushrooms and wild herbs make for great detail. A meal with an unusual ingredient can be like a rumor or hook (“yeah, we use this herb to flavor our food, but some say it can also cure blindness”). [Eldritch Fields]

• Be like Shakespeare. Use real-sounding fake words to flesh out the world, both in NPCspeak and in descriptions. [Spiceomancy]

• There should be crates, barrels, or otherwise mundane receptacles strewn about wherever possible. It encourages elevation play and looting. Same for plant/fungal growths to be harvested.

Names

• Play with the juxtaposition of mundane names against fantastical ones. Bernard the Dwarf, Jim the Goblin.

• Sometimes, you don’t need to try that hard on small details. Sheriff Beriff and Mr. Placeholder are equally as memorable as Symarin Esre, or moreso. Lint Jehovah is a name that a real person could have and its just two words put together. You can always go back and flesh them out later. [Spiceomancy]

• Get really good at mashing syllables together in your head. If you can make names for NPCs or locations on the drop of a hat without aid of generator or list, you’ll have a much easier go of things. Kerukhazat. Melichor. Vessindin-Chesleaz. I have no idea who or what those are, but they emerged from the brain soup and they’re here to stay.

Sound Effects

• Sound effects/accents virtually never hurt and often help. I’ve had an encounter with a mechanical spider go from doldrum to hair-raising just because my players didn’t like the metallic clicking and shuffling I did every time the spider shivered in its malaise.

World and Locations

• Locales, people, and monsters are almost universally improved by the addition of some incongruous element you wouldn't normally think of. [Cosmic]

• Describe the world with your 5 senses before resorting to symbols. My last big bad was heralded by the smell of detergent and raw meat. [Spiceomancy]

• Avoid “just a (temple/tavern/office/corridor)” as often as possible. This is a sin I fall to often, but just one remarkable detail is all you need to crystallize a memory.

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Dungeons

Exploration

• Put a lever in your dungeon somewhere. A PC will probably pull it, and then you can have something wild happen. [Phlox]

• Put things under stairs. It makes sense, it's memorable, and players will stop thinking of stairs as warp pads to the next map. [Phlox]

• Draw pictograms of a dungeon room’s contents onto the main map so you can try to run it without having to check a key. Even if it’s too complex to recall from doodles alone, it’ll sure help you either way.

• Don’t put in a door trap (poison dart, scythe, spikes, etc.) unless you want the players to question every single door forever. Some things just aren’t worth the hassle.

• Color-code things. Brass key? Goes in the brass lock. [Phlox]

• Secret doors, hidden pockets, and so forth should always have some outward sign in the description letting you find them. They should be easy to see if someone is paying attention. [Cosmic]

Monsters

• Put a dragon in every dungeon. A dragon is anything powerful and secretful and recognizably lethal. just put more dragons in your game, period. [Spiceomancy]

  • Why do you not have a dragon in literally every dungeon you make? You fool. You simpleton. [Rise Up Comus]

• When exploring an area with low amount of encounter/wandering monster rolls, roll wandering monster check as well as the dice that determines the encounter table entry at the same time. If the wandering monster wasn't triggered then give an omen instead of that creature being in the area. This gives the impression of the area not being deserted even if no monsters are being encountered. [Sahh]

Social Exploration

• Put noncombatant camp followers in the dungeon. Gives the PCs someone to talk to, technically aligned against them but full of useful information and possible persuadable. [Phlox]

• Travelers on the road might buddy up with players for a while if their going in the same direction. Especially for safety and conversation. [Cosmic]

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Maps

• Create quick maps by taking an existing place, rotate it by 90°, stretch in one direction by 150%, done. Very good for natural looking coastlines. [Eldritch Fields]

• Give your players an in-character map. Seriously. Choosing the routes gives players an interesting decision point and discovering the room contents is fun. Saying "Wait, you said TWO exits on the north wall? I gotta redraw" is less fun. [Rise Up Comus]

  • You can still have secret rooms. Seeing the "gaps" on the map and finding the door will make players feel smart. [Rise Up Comus]

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Rewards

Agreeing to Rewards

• When you do use NPCs to hire the party to play the game, don't bother to have a tedious haggling scene. Just give a vague assurance that they will be paid approximately handsomely or that the local lord will owe them a favor (a far more interesting prize). If they worry about it, assure them this is how it's done in this part of the world.

Mundane

• Concealed weapons and hidden pockets are excellent fun for both players to have and NPCs to use. [Cosmic]

• “I owe you one” is one of the best rewards an NPC can give to players. [Eldritch Fields]

• If you give your players a vehicle, which is always always always a good idea, let them name it, and have them each go around and name one of its idiosyncrasies. Maybe the barnacles on the bottom of the boat are shaped like skulls, or the caravan has square wheels that inexplicably work as normal. Investment in the vehicle immediately skyrockets, and they will 100% come up with cooler things than you.

• Non-monetary rewards are cool. Give a PC a byname (e.g., "the Troll Slayer"). Give a PC a spouse (e.g., "The duke offers his daughter's hand). Tell the PC that the necromancer "owes you one." [Rise Up Comus]

Relationships

• Marriage is a great reward for completing an adventure. "Thanks for returning the Orb of Auremis, would you like to have me as an ally and my handsome son as a cool minion/spouse you buy gifts for and all sorts of plot hooks?" [Phlox]

Setting Up Quests

• Old modules used to have treasure maps as common loot. This is a great idea. Remember to do this every time. Put it on your checklist. [Phlox]

• The greatest secret of all is that the reward a quest-giver offers for going into the dungeon is unimportant. Not only will players go into the dungeon regardless, because dungeons are fun, but it's much more interesting for them to find the bulk of their treasure in the dungeon itself. [Phlox]

World-Altering

• Let PCs take advantage of the big, setting-altering toys that the bad guys are trying to take advantage of. [Phlox]

• Give players a goodly but finite quantity of explosives. It will wreck so many things but its worth it. [Cosmic]

• Explosives or flammable things are always a good thing to find in a crate or barrel in a pinch.

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Players

Above the Table

• Tell the players to be reckless, in a light and challenging way. Tell them to pull that lever. [Phlox]

• Talk with your players. Ask them if you can’t remember an NPC’s voice. Let them know if the session has taken an unexpected or uncomfortable turn. Remember, you are also a player. [Spiceomancy]

• Steal from your players. Ask them about their theories. Take notes when they speculate about what’s behind that locked door, or over the ridge, or for sale at the bazaar. Even Especially if they’re joking. (This is how we ended up with Mysterio the Mind Goblin). [Spiceomancy]

• If you’re not sure whether to roll, favor the players. Roll to avoid consequences. [Spiceomancy]

• Ask players to recap the session for you each time. a) This makes them actually take notes and pay attention. b) You can better understand the gap between your understanding and theirs. [Rise Up Comus]

  • When players help out with some of the tasks a GM normally does (like the recap, above) throw them a bennie. Giving them a reroll or something is free. [Rise Up Comus]

• "Please give me feedback" is too unspecific to be helpful. Take some time to ask for "highs and lows" between games. Each player says their favorite/least favorite part of the session/arc/campaign. [Rise Up Comus]

Offloading to the Players

• Trick players into doing your work for you. Give them dungeons to defend. Let them make up NPCs. When you don't know how to make a ruling, ask them to do it for you, and use it. [Phlox]

• Players are delighted by vague, harmless anachronisms. The Rusted Goat is the only place in the world where you can get waffles. Orcs invented funk music. “My Affections are Naught but for Lucy” is a hit Elvish comedy play-cycle.

• Occasionally asking "what does it look like as you do so?" can add a lot of flavor to things. Regardless of situation or character class. [Sahh]

• Offload some of the narrative load to the players as well. Ask them what they have heard of about the surrounding region when they enter a new area, ask them what happens during their nightly watch, let them describe the day they spent shopping in town before or after the book keeping is done. [Sahh]

• Players will make content and draw out conclusions out of the smallest details, you just have to remember to mention them. This is free real estate to base future adventures on. [Sahh]

Pacing

• If someone is taking their turn slowly and you want to keep momentum going, count down from 10. They’ll have something by the count of 7 nine times out of ten.

Player Characters

• “What are you looking for?” ← best question to ask any PC about anything. [Spiceomancy]

• “What’s their name?” ← second best question to ask any PC about anything. [Spiceomancy]

• To the end of encouraging players to manipulate things, there should be a good chance that the dividends of their experimentations reap positive results. Especially near the beginning of the campaign- condition them with the carrot so the stick isn’t as harsh.

• "How does your character feel about that?" is a great question to share the spotlight with someone who isn't directly involved in the action. [Rise Up Comus]

• When a player describes something they want their character to do, ask what are they aiming to achieve with that. This can make it much easier to adjudicate for the action as well as help solidify why and what their character is doing to the player, potentially bringing up reasons it might not work as well. [Sahh]

• "What do you have in your hands?" is the most important question you can ask. How can they pick a lock if they have a torch in their hand? How can they pick a lock if they don't have light? [Rise Up Comus]

• Don't have characters call spells by their rulebook names. Avoid doing so yourself when talking about what NPCs are doing. [Phlox]

• Introduce members of the PC's family and resist the urge to kill them for dramatic effect. "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" produces a stronger emotional reaction than "Oh no your dad is dead." [Rise Up Comus]

Setting Up Mysteries

• Give players unreliable information, but let them know its potentially unreliable so they can choose to act on it or not. Out of date information especially is useful as players know its potentially going to be misleading but can they afford, or even get up to date info? [Cosmic]

• Generally, having the players go around the table and saying something pertaining to the matter at hand is never a bad idea. Why their character is in this jail cell to start the campaign, what they’ve heard about Sir Darkwyn, a piece of loot in the treasure hoard.

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Prep

Generating Ideas

• Keep an ideas book. Record miscellaneous ideas and shower thoughts, plots from stories, interesting images, anything. If you number the entries, it is also a random table… [Eldritch Fields]

• Steal from other media. Paradoxically, the more things you steal from, the more original it will be. You could (un)charitably call my current campaign Castle in the Sky + Chrono Trigger + Hollow Knight + Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. [Spiceomancy]

• Steal from yourself. I keep a shortlist of joke NPCs that got good reactions the first go around and sprinkle them in as filler where appropriate. [Spiceomancy]

• Go on Wikipedia spirals as frequently as you can muster.

Handouts

• People like poring over long lists of equipment with the costs attached. Make one of those up or steal them from somewhere, not because its functional but because people like it. [Phlox]

Session Prep

• Every session, introduce one piece of information that you don’t fully understand yet. Fly by the seat of your pants; discover the world alongside the rest of the table. [Spiceomancy]

• Start the session’s narration with a reliable little ritual. “In the wine-dark waters of the Norrungardt ocean, an epic tale unfolds. When last we left our heroes...”

Tables

• An oldie but goodie: have a list of names. I’m bad at coming up with names on the spot. Do not just cross off the ones you use: make a not next to them about who is called this way (“Wank Hilliams – blacksmith the players are super obsessed with for some reason; snake-like in appearance”). [Eldritch Fields]

• Having a list of names, one name for each letter of alphabet, that you cross entries off of an replace them as they get used. Don't fumble with names every time the party meets a new NPC. [Sahh]

• Look up related words and describing words. Create tables for them. Use these all the time. [Eldritch Fields]

• Cannot undersell the importance of a good trinket/minor magical item table, especially if you have trouble improvising fun little items. Side note, my players were thrilled when they found a treasure haul containing a glass eye, bent needle, torn linen sheet, and an outdated anatomical textbook- weirdness over value.

• Good "I search the body..." table will keep going through random thugs' pockets interesting, potentially even creating new adventure leads. [Sahh]

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Problems to Solve

Puzzles

• Players are engaged by puzzles, even really simple ones. If you put your treasure map on nine tablets and make the easiest possible jigsaw puzzle, the five seconds spent realizing that they need to arrange the map so the features line up will with time spent happily. [Phlox]

Riddles

• The key to a good riddle is "something the players know but one detail changed." Take a riddle from The Hobbit and change the wording around. Players'll feel smart. [Rise Up Comus]

Traps

• When designing traps and mechanisms, rely on the simplest possible engineering. It will be easier for you to describe and for the players to visualize. [Phlox]

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Social Interaction

Giving Information

• Have players overhear NPC conversations more often as a way of imparting info. This helps make NPCs feel less like information-kiosks, and can let players in on details about hostile NPCs that they might not easily get otherwise (such as that these minions are dissatisfied with their boss). [Cosmic]

  • That said, distill these inter-NPC conversations to a summary rather than a beat by beat dialogue. Nobody wants to hear the GM talking to themselves for 20 minutes.

• Little dream sequences for characters can be fun (“I can say it again: ‘Some ideas arrive in the form of a dream’”). Especially lucid dreams. Recurring lucid dreams, where the character explores something step by step is also cool, but maybe it’s too much spotlight on just one person. [Eldritch Fields]

Unusual Situations

• Seriously just have more tea or coffee or brunch parties. Having discussions over meals keeps conversations with NPCs more interesting and can provide some fun set-pieces. They can even be tense or hostile. [Cosmic]

• Theatre and plays are fantastic ways to deliver information, world build, and have some fun. Also have your players exploits be turned into comedic theatre once they become sufficiently known. [Cosmic]

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Travel

• For a travel montage, go around the table and have each PC name an obstacle they face on the road (driving rain, wandering skeleton, running out of rations). Then have them choose another PC to propose a solution and roll to see how well it works, then narrate what ultimately happens. Keep going until everybody has presented a problem and a solution, or until you think they’ve feasibly gotten to their destination.

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Worldbuilding

Creatures

• Overemphasizing things can be good for some levity and to really reinforce an idea. 'It's a really big pig, like really really big, really really really big, this is just a whopping huge pig.' [Cosmic]

• Weird fish are a great way of adding subtle flavor to the world. Casually describe a fish market full of coelacanths and radiodonta. [Cosmic]

• Unconventional steeds are always a hit. This includes bears, giant snails, and horses who are kidnapped princesses of the horse kingdom. Also horses who are just absolute bastards. Name all of them. [Spiceomancy]

Language

• Make up plausible vocabulary and never acknowledge it. [Phlox]

• A small immersion detail you can add is to replace “heaven”, “hell”, and “god” with the setting appropriate replacements in NPC speech patterns. “Damn it all to Inferno!” “Saints help us all...” “Oh my Trennibar, you can’t possibly be suggesting we get voluntarily eaten by the rhinoceros?”

Locations

• Replace typical casino betting fare with snail races. All the snails should have names. [Spiceomancy]

• You can have multiple of the same biome, but generally, if you have multiple similar biomes of the same character, it starts to get boring. Sure, they may both be marshes, but one is cozy and the other is rotting.

Magical

• Astrological events are a great way to build time limits into your game, teach players about the world’s cultures, and cheaply create suspense and mystique. Best part is, there’s a bajillion of ‘em, so there’s no limit to the amount you can throw at the players. Same goes for holidays.

• Have a good grasp of how magic works diegetically. It’ll save your bacon often.

Mundane

• Describe what happens to leftover food, or prompt your players to. [Cosmic]

• Colors are a quick way to flavor and name things. The Purple Barony. The Greenfolk. So on. [Cosmic]

• In-world lurid or saucy literature and songs are good fun. [Cosmic]

• Slightly uncommon but historical currency names are great for flavor. Get some ducats in there. [Cosmic]

• Reference the characters’ smell after a few days of traveling. Telling them they stink will be enough for (most of) them to seek out a bathhouse or inn.

Oddities

• The Men In Black can fit into nearly any game. [Cosmic]

• Drugs > potions.

• Use graffiti and murals.

People

• Have crowds gather when players do unusual things in populated areas. Have them heckle and provide un/helpful advice. [Cosmic]

• There is never enough queerness in your setting.

• Each caravan or circus should have a fortune reader. Players love paying for tarot readings even if you have no real clue on how they should be done. [Sahh]

• Having customs that people in your world follow can make the world seem much more alive. Simple things like "always say a prayer when crossing a river or a body of water." [Sahh]

Stuff

• Give items, locations, objects, and such personalities. Perhaps as explicit spirits, or even just in a 'my rusty umbrella can be temperamental when I try to open it'. Anthropomorphizing things quickly fixes them in peoples minds. [Cosmic]

Technology

• Think of all the cool stuff we have now that we didn't have five hundred years ago, like eCigs and motorcycles, and find ways to translate them to your game's milieu. Maintain the cool factor. [Phlox]

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