For something that’s so integral to our everyday real life, it’s surprising to me how often we as DMs simply ignore the economy. Part of it is that “ew I don’t want to have to deal with tracking that stuff” sentiment, but part of it is that we simply forget, I think. Myself included. Now, […]

If you ever decide to publish a D&D adventure, you’ll need to be aware of copyright, and various licensing issues. But if you’re just running a home game for your friendos, I hereby give you permission to steal things outright from other people. See a cool puzzle in a video game? Steal it. Like that […]

I realized recently that I probably spend less time preparing for D&D sessions than most. Our sessions last usually three or four hours, and it’s pretty rare for me to take more than about an hour of prep. That comes out to around 15 minutes per hour. That being said, I do sometimes frontload sections […]

Last night at the AL-esque D&D group my wife and I attend as players, I was having a conversation with the lead DM and another guy (whom said DM was trying to recruit for DMing). The conversation turned to Adventurer’s League rules (especially season 8) and why the store didn’t really abide by them. Ultimately, […]

Or have been out. Sick, that is. My apologies for a few skipped days! There’s enough to catch up on in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, so I’ll shut up and let you peruse all the links today, but I’ll be back with more thoughts tomorrow.   Links: Angry’s Question of the Week: Martial Archetypes […]

… bull. Absolute and total bull. I’d go all the way, but I don’t want this to get blocked by spam filters in your email. As an English teacher, I see this phrase bandied about a lot and it’s always bugged me. I’m going to take a little longer today than usual to engage in […]

I’ve been on a RimWorld kick lately. It’s a fantastic game and (under the surface) has a lot of storytelling elements similar to D&D if you look for them. One of the best parts of the game is its stellar soundtrack. Just like other iconic game soundtracks (Skyrim comes to mind), RimWorld often has its […]

If you’ve never heard of “Into the Wild,” you might want to watch it. TL;DR version is that a dude went out and lived and died alone in the wilderness of Alaska. His supposed final words, written, are “Happiness only real when shared.” As DMs, we tend to do a lot of planning in the […]

One of the principles of dramatic writing is to keep a good pace. When you get to slow spots, speed up. Nobody needs a thirty-page travel sequence if the only thing that happens is “they get there.” When you get to fast spots, slow down. Describe the smell of combat and the taste of blood. […]

I’m a high school English teacher, and – especially near the end of the day – I see students just dying in their seats every day. It’s actually kind of exhausting having to sit and pay attention for eight hours. Try it some time. Because of this, I try to incorporate some kind of “get […]