When gaming, the important thing is to have fun—even if that means turning an unfortunate turn of luck into a story point or giving a player a second chance.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When a game gives you lemons, be more creative. Fashion yourself a lemon cannon and fire those things right back! Or, you know, make the best of your character's stats by turning them into personality traits. Whichever.

Combat is usually a large part of the role-playing experience, and making that combat feel real, varied, and interactive can make or break the experience. So, sit back and let Wil Wheaton give you some tips on how to get the most out of your combat system in this week's Game Master Tip.

If your players feel like "fight evil and win" is their only choice, a game won't feel nearly as nuanced as the real world, where things are rarely that simple. This week, Wil Wheaton has some tips on presenting your players with moral dilemmas.

Good ideas don't just spring forth out of nowhere, so make sure you have some good sources of inspiration to make your next tabletop role-playing campaign!

A good Game Master needs to be able to improvise to make players feel like they can really explore their imaginations, and like improv acting's "yes, and..." guideline, saying yes to what your players want to do can go a long way towards building characters and worlds together.

It's a common problem: you, as a GM, have given your players exactly what they wanted because they reached the end of a dungeon or put down the big baddie. Where do they go from there?

Back in The Long-Ago Time of the 1980s, most people sitting down to an RPG like D&D weren't playing with miniatures and battle grids. As D&D evolved, however, so did gameplay and the incorporation of little tactile figures bopping around a grid. That's awesome if you enjoy maneuvering tactically...but does it take away from the imaginations of the players? In this week’s Game Master Tips from Wil Wheaton and Geek & Sundry, Wheaton talks the pros and cons of minis and maps.

If there's an area where tabletop gaming really outdoes RPG video games, it's in storytelling that can really react and adapt to player choices to make participants feel like they're actually involved in shaping the narrative instead of just playing an interactive movie. In this week's Game Master Tips from Wil Wheaton and Geek & Sundry, Wheaton suggests ways to work that to your game's advantage.

South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the largest music and media festivals of the year, begins tomorrow in Austin, TX, and thanks to Legendary Digital there will be a heavy geek presence. Even better: thanks to Legendary's acquisition of both Geek and Sundry and Amy Poehler's Smart Girls last year, that presence will be heavily female!