DM Gives Inspiration: Recent Episodes
Kyle Fergusson
Questions answered. How do you get players to roleplay? How should DMs handle the "evil" races? How do you know your big bad fight will be good? How do you avoid frustration when players miss something you worked hard on?
"The father of role-playing games," Gary Gygax's, story. A tumultuous tale of obsession, backstabbing, and betrayal, that, in the end, defined him as the creator of the beloved game Dungeons and Dragons.
What do you do if violence is the only solution your players present to your problems? If you feel your players are constantly ruining your game with their murderous antics, how can you fix that? And did you actually throw the first stone?
For the past year, I have been DMing a three season live play show on the Frogpants Network—There Will Be Dungeons: Delvers. This episode is a peek behind the curtain to talk about the production goals of that show and how it was run. It's also a tale of corporative storytelling and the importance of music.
There are many magical damage types: poison, acid, fire, cold, radiant, necrotic, lightning, thunder, force, and psychic. They all follow the rules of damage, but different monsters host different interactions. Use these elements to design interesting combat encounters and even entire dungeons.
Three big questions with three big answers. How can you make puzzles make sense? While things may not be realistic all the time, here are several tricks to get a puzzle working in your world. Kyle also tackles how to end a campaign and how to home flavor an undead dragon for your big bad ending.
Puzzles are not content unless they are interactive. Riddles, codes, logic, and grid puzzles can all be crafted to create a cooperative challenge. This episode includes famous puzzles such as One Tells the Truth One Lies and the Ravensborg's Guild.
Rules for player weapons continued. Player weapons are divided into three types: bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing. These damage types can play into features on your monsters, particularly their defenses—resistances , vulnerabilities, and immunities. To use these effectively as part of the combat monster puzzles, we must first understand their mechanical meaning.
A DM must know what the players know. Weapon properties, two-weapon fighting, and finesse can all be quite confusing if not overwhelming. This episode goes over the simple and martial proficiencies, where proficiencies come from, and how your players got them. Understanding these will allow you to give proper loot, make better custom monsters, and help steer your players toward optimization so you can run more difficult encounters.
How to read a character sheet as told through a goblin adventure. The age of digital D&D player preparations have left DMs ill-prepared for teaching players. Here, Kyle discusses not only how to teach players to read their characters but also what the DM should know to look for when starting a session.
Season 8 wraps up with questions from the mailbag. How can you handle players roleplaying outside their stats? Why do groups always fall apart? Should a level 3 spell deal 48d6 damage? And is it the job of the DM to make sure the party is balanced?
Balls and gala events are great climactic set pieces, but pulling them off can be tricky. By taking a look through history, we can identify what makes them unique and how you can transform an overwhelming night of NPC interaction into an interactive skill challenge and social event for your players.
Players will surprise you with roleplay, be it a natural 20 Persuasion or unknown spell. Be prepared for the odd languages and have a plan for player spells, like comprehend languages, tongues, speak with dead, and speak with plants.
There is nothing wrong with filler combat when used appropriately. Give yourself a break from planning the main plot and add some filler while you figure out the next step.
Traps are cool, but they need proper setup and delivery. It's not just order of operations and mechanics, it's about tension and theming.
This mailbag tackles a multipart question from a new DM, how to make use of player theories, setting your own expectations for session zero, and how to deal with one of the most difficult problem players—the "but that's just what my character would do."
Every DM wants big set pieces packed with crowds for their players to be heroic in, but how do you manage such a scene? Here are tips and strategies to reduce your burden in executing the masses while still giving your players achievable goals and objectives.
Players love the idea of owning a castle, but all the hard work of running and managing its execution falls on the DM. Use these tricks to keep your fort from getting bogged down!
The life of adventure can be thrilling, but a functional world and economy means that some tasks might be more mundane. Create a montage for your players using assorted skill challenges to help showcase their impact on the world beyond just saving it from the big bad.
Livestreams and podcasts of D&D should be different from your home games. Factors like linear stories, paid actors, an audience, combat adaptations, world lore, and even being stuck in a chair change D&D from a game into a product. Enjoy your hobby and avoid stressing.
On this season's mailbag finale, Kyle answers a lot of questions, including those about "Help! I agreed to DM!", planning your adventurers' day, working with established worlds, time jumps, fast travel, and ending or continuing when losing players.
On this episode, Kyle delves into the origins of the paladin class, starting with the original use of the word in epic poetry. The class has evolved constantly throughout the editions, culminating in the 5e version we have today.
In a D&D campaign, you are going to run through a lot of villains. In this episode, Kyle teaches you a technique for quickly creating an array of villain types you can use to build a diverse rogues' gallery.
The continuing saga of Conditions! This episode poses paralyzed, peaks at petrified, prepares poisons, postures prone, reminisces on restrained, and uncovers the mysteries of unconscious—all with strategies for players and monsters.
Navigate combat buffs and debuffs smoothly with an understanding of Conditions! This episode tackles blinded, the horribly misused charmed, deafened, the frustrating frightened, grappled, incapacitated, and the RAW-wrecking invisible.
In-party deception, length of play, traps, group skill checks, and professional DMs. The mailbag is open and questions are answered!
Downtime activities don't have to be relegated to shopping and drinking. You can help your players craft their characters, meet NPCs, gain new features, and vary their ways to play by setting up a training or university system as a gateway to the greater world.
Death is a constant threat in D&D, but with some monsters, it's more instantaneous than others. Prepare your players accordingly. Avoid cheap deaths by presenting dangerous monsters as puzzles to be solved rather than lucky survival.
Writing lore can seem insurmountable, but there are several rules and tricks you can use to get things underway. Once established, it's as simple as filling it out top to bottom and choosing the location where your big reveal takes place.
Zombies make great evil servants but don't function in D&D like they do in pop culture. If you're looking for an outbreak of creatures to engineer an apocalypse, there are several monsters that would serve you better—shadows, wraiths, gas spores, vargouilles, ghouls, gnolls, constructs, golems, and animated objects.
This mailbag we talk dissecting premade adventures, deals with devils, writer's block, and double skill checks. But first is the announcement of my crafted mini adventures now being posted at kylefergusson.com!
Forgotten Realms is the primary campaign setting for D&D 5E official materials. While it has a rich history spanning books, video games, and published adventures, do not be intimidated. It is a foundation for mystery that lets you build your own story atop it.
Blindsight, tremorsense, and truesight—supernatural and magical vision types broken down for use by the everyday DM. Increase your monster arsenal and be prepared for the most persistent of rules lawyers.
How do you use darkness when everyone has darkvision? What are the rules of darkvision and how can we still make a scary, tense environment in a world of magical sights and senses? This episode discusses the vision mechanics of bright light, lightly obscured, and heavily obscured.
Every story has life and death. Use player descriptions and "fade to black," as well as your own authority, to create a welcoming table that works for everyone.
In this mailbag, Kyle answers questions about DM types, adding mystery, and figuring out how much to prepare for the first session. Big questions need a big episode.
Change up your combat scenarios through purposeful use of initiative. While side objectives and gimmicks can be great, they are only flavor unless they provide your characters with interesting choices.
Start your campaign plan not with lore but with monsters. Fill out your world and let the story tell itself.
Limit skill checks while traversing dungeons in order to encourage tactical choices and interact with the passive senses. Use surprise and initiative to reward or punish players for their choices.
Season 6 kicks off with how to use skill checks and challenges as a narrative device. The more information you have, the better you can describe the outcome.
DMing, playing, and podcasting—big questions on this mailbag. Also, a special focus on getting that quiet player to roleplay.
Fueled by mounting fears, D&D became embroiled in devil worship. Forgotten now, why did the tabletop game come under fire?
Describing combat is hard work. Help your players describe their own actions and make your job easier. What makes this fireball different from every other? How does one class's magic missile look different from another's? And how are your villain's spells unique from your players'?
Everyone loves a populated battle—a pack, a horde, an army—but managing it on the DM side is difficult and time consuming. It also comes with its own set of CR balancing. Here's how to better manage large encounters.
Kyle describes how to run a dragon as a solo encounter using the Young White Dragon as the primary example.
This mailbag is a doozy! Kyle addresses player problems; missed sessions; schedules; turning one shots into campaigns and subplots; and rules clarification.
Using arithmetic as an ally, Kyle gives a rundown of some of the criteria to follow and warning bells to look out for when selecting that big monster for your climactic first boss encounter at level 1.
Make the most of your space. What is hidden and what is public knowledge? Divide and conquer but don't burden yourself with being the answer to everything. Kyle also shares some of his personal equipment for the job.
NPC quest givers ground and set up your entire adventure to come. Whether or not you can add a twist or action-packed start is entirely based on the savings in your emotional bank account.
Your players' abilities will sneak up on you and you need to be prepared! Work portals and teleport spells into your world early and avoid the tragic pitfalls of magical escalation and bureaucracy.
In this final episode of Season 4, Kyle answers a myriad of questions concerning things like invincible players, item lists, big bads, downtime, and reincarnation.
RAW, RAI, RAF, and ROC. What do these mean and how can they help you establish your players' expectations for your game? Kyle also gets into how to make rulings should a disagreement come up.
Don't reinvent the wheel! Making a dungeon from scratch doesn't have to be hard. Follow three simple rules to populate yours with puzzles, traps, and combat in a way that allows for players to enjoy each piece while also feeling like they completed a great journey along the way.
The best way to have a challenging boss fight for your group is to custom build a monster for your group's exact makeup. To do so, we need to understand the basics of D&D balance while ignoring all the trappings of creating official content.
Don't go burning all your prep time making the perfect board game. Don't be limited by fantasy art. Make your own using the philosophy of MIND GRAPHICS!
Too many 20s? Not getting to play enough? Stepping down as DM? Staying Organized? All this and more on this week's DM Gives Inspiration mailbag episode!
Chase scenes are a classic part of any action story. Today we learn how to mechanically pull it off on the tabletop with some house rules to make sure the chase doesn't fall flat.
What do Ghostbusters and The Terminator have in common? City building! Join Kyle as he talks you through building your first city. From designing locations using the district method to coloring a town based on the reactions of the locals to the players, crafting a city doesn't have to be complicated.
Kyle goes over how to make the most of your tabletop maps, including better ways to work in difficult terrain, vision, elevation, traps, water, and more.
Season 4 of DM Gives Inspiration kicks off with a blast as Kyle explains time travel in D&D. Learn how to take on the past, the near future, and the future. Hint: destruction is much easier than creation.
In this mailbag episode, Kyle answers your questions, including how to work in guest characters, take feedback as a DM, and start games with higher level characters.
Clerics, druids, paladins, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. Kyle continues the discussion about leaving room in your campaign for player classes to shine by feeling unique. Just remember to keep your closet stocked and your decorative skulls handy.
Ranger, fighters, barbarians, bards, and rogues. Kyle discusses leaving room in your campaign for player classes to shine by feeling unique. Just remember to watch out for those bards and rogues.
When alignment doesn't matter, it's up to you as the DM to create a compelling balance in the world through villains.
In this mailbag, Kyle discusses creating custom abilities, how to match the work you put into your campaign to how much planning time you actually have, kid-friendly campaign ideas, and more.
Kyle explains how to gather information for your campaign during player character creation and use it to set the tone for your table.
Kyle explains how to conduct rest in a way that is effective and meaningful for your players.
In this mailbag, Kyle goes over balance on the fly, too many NPCs, and house rules fresh from the Fergusson table.
Kyle talks spells—how to read them, how to help your players read them, and how to add just the right flavor.
Kyle delves into mailbag number three with answers regarding exploration, one shots, and the Force.
Kyle discusses loot—when to give it, what to drop, and how to not totally break your game.
Kyle breaks down how to build your first encounter and how to extract strategy from stat blocks.
Kyle goes over travel in an RPG setting and how to make it more fun and more meaningful.
For production quality and producer sanity, every ten episodes Kyle will take a week off to plan the next string of topics and ideas. See you next week for the start of Season 2!
Kyle answers questions about downtime, taking 10, something always happening, calculating time, organizing ideas, and tracking ability checks.
Kyle answers questions about role playing, accents, and designing level-appropriate encounters.
Kyle explains how to take a quest from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and use it in your own game.
Kyle outlines how to deal with your everyday problem players: bummers, slow bros, rival DMs, meta gamers, and jokesters.
In this inaugural episode, Kyle walks you through his plans for upcoming episodes as well as how to make traps fun for the whole party.