Hook and Chance: Recent Episodes
Hook and Chance
Hook & Chance is a Dungeons and Dragons advice and game enrichment podcast for players and Dungeon Masters full of entertaining ideas for incredible games!
All Hollows Eve is upon us, and like many, we often find ourselves scrambling to create a memorable Halloween gaming experience. Costume panic and game prep panic, it all feels the same. Can we muster up a session that we can run with minimal prep that feels unique and fun?
Ever wished your tabletop RPG sessions felt more like epic 'do-or-die' tales and less like casual dice-rolling? Well, in this episode, our friend Ollo delivers us a golden key to unlock another level of immersive storytelling and roleplay. Character status, both internal and external, is that roleplay key, but the players are the ones who hold it.
Great moments are created on the foundation of well-designed encounters. But encounter prep is hard to get right every time. It's easy to forget something or miss the mark. We've done it in nearly every imaginable way. From those mistakes, and with the help of our patrons, we've created a system that streamlines great encounter prep. It's system agnostic. It has a broad definition of encounter. It's as thorough as possible while only including what is absolutely vital.
Homebrew adventures. The unlimited freedom to follow the fun wherever it leads. The ability to create thrilling sessions time after time, following the path that the party feels driven to follow, and feels satisfied in doing so. This is what we want for our table. But there are so many ways to miss the mark. And we've missed it plenty. We've run meandering campaigns, spent hours on game prep only to not use it, or have just confused ourselves. Had cool ideas we didn't know where to put. We've seen our tables lose interest, stop roleplaying, and start making decisions they aren't excited about based purely on the numbers on their character sheets. Well, we've solved all that with a simple storytelling structure. This episode breaks it down, puts it to use, and shows you how you can use it to cut down prep while playing the best games.
The final showdown. After smashing aside all the diversions, mental games, tricks and traps, the party has caught up to the villain. They've been forced to face their demons along the way, made sacrifices, but have finally earned the chance to end the villain's reign of terror once and for all. That's the kind of villain we want to bring to the table. And in this episode, we're discussing our best techniques for doing just that by creating a charismatic, manipulative father figure villain for our adventure, Corruption in the Temple of Trials.
Some of the best moments in a game come from when a brave party of adventurers stares the worst conjurings of your imagination in the eyes and says "Not today, death!" Especially when the monster feels unique, like it's come into the world just to face down these heroes, and even manages to shock and delight the players. In this episode, we show by example how we go about achieving exactly this.
NPC's are the tool of a GM. They are how you draw the players into your world, they're how you communicate with them, they're expressions of all your plots and schemes and worldbuilding. They're entertaining, they hold secrets to uncover, they allow great roleplay, and work together to create suspense! Easier to just say they do everything. So we better make 'em good. We offer our NPC Creation Guide in order to do just that.
Want to work up a corner of your world that feels rich with history, friendships, rivalries, and details that all kinda make sense? Something that makes the party curious, and allows you the space to improv more at the table, while keeping it all connected? That's what we're talking about today, with the help of our culture creator.
Want a faster route to planning out the major players in an adventure? Something that focuses you efforts like a laser, and results in a living, breathing world? In this episode we use the four-corner opposition method to create rich, dynamic antagonists for our adventure.Trying to cook up awesome villains can be tough. Many failed approaches were attempted before we found this one. We've spent ages crafting what felt like the perfect villain, only to have them not really resonate. We've jammed all our "baddie" ideas into one mega villain, only to have it feel disjointed and out of place. We've read tomes of lore from different settings, just to have none of it feel quite right. With this approach, we now outline a handful of awesome, custom opposing forces in the time it takes to listen to this episode.
Want to ensure your TTRPG campaign is a success? Start with successful session zero. In the first episode of our first official season, we provide a complete guide that will help you give your players a game they'll love. Whether you use it as is, or just snag a few new ideas, you'll hear us talk through it and use it to establish the foundation for a new adventure.
The Basilisk. A violent, monstrous lizard that can turn you to stone with a glare. While fun at first glance, this monster betrayed us. The first time using it turned into a panic, when we realized how immediately and irreversibly deadly they can be against a fledgling party of adventurers. “Wait, petrified? Like, for good?” Not only that, but they come across like a beast to just plop in front of the party for slaying. But wait! Turns out there’s plenty of lore and real-world inspiration we can use to turn these scaly brutes into battles to remember.In this episode, we run through inspiration and frameworks to create a compact horror adventure around the Basilisk.
Ever throw down a giant nasty monster only to have the most memorable moment be when you couldn’t figure out the hp math for a minute? Without the party even realizing this was supposed to be the fight? We’ve been there.The last episode introduced our method of running massive, world-ending monsters in a way that feels complex, with frenetic action, epic scale, and lots of collateral damage. In this episode, we take that format and flesh out three scenarios of different scales. Hopefully, it helps your next gigantazord to be that much more intense.
We all desperately crave the boss monster moment. When we pull out the miniature bigger than our heads and slam it down on the table. The players go wild. One of them is screaming while ripping out chunks of hair. One is vomiting in their dice bag in the corner. One is lighting the map on fire. You sit back and cross your arms, a satisfied grin creeping across your face as the chaos grows.Okay, maybe that’s a little much.But in order to get this kind of grand reaction, there’s a little leg work we have to do. If we don’t, people will get a little excited. Then they’ll run up and start swinging. Then 4 hours later, they strike it down. Or, maybe you made it real tough, in which case they can’t hurt it, get frustrated, and die. Also not fun. In this episode, we cover some planning you can do to ensure your boss-monster fight lives on forever as an epic moment.
Incredible concepts for games can be ruined without a few key details. Open-world "sandbox" games can leave players feeling lost and unmotivated, meandering through locations. Epic storylines can be swept away because the player characters didn't seem to care. Hours of game prep can be lost from players not realizing how compelling that direction could be. Grand finales can feel like math class. With just a few key details these problems vanish, and games can go as smoothly as we imagine they will when we're preparing for the big night.
You consume a story. Maybe a movie, or book. You love it. It speaks to you. It moves you. You want to jam it into your games, but how do you jam in the things that captured you? The things that matter? Throw in a character with a bullwhip and a fedora, you're not going to have what made Indiana Jones great.On the other hand, perhaps you are running dry on inspiration. Your mind, like ours, can act as a sieve that retains nothing of value. When it comes time for game prep, you slap at concepts like "monster" and "quest", hoping that something happens. In this episode, we hope to help you create a font of inspiration that matters to you, and never runs dry.
There are some odd addendums in the spell description of Alter Self. The challenge of using this spell for both GMs and players is that the rules as written confines us from the places where our imaginations naturally go. What a pain. With some minor clarifications and gentle relaxing of the rules, we can find some middle ground that both sides of the table can love.
Returning with another literal book full of wisdom is Keith Ammann. He's bringing the same strategic brilliance that he's brought to monster and player offense to base defense. It creates games that feel grounded, flexible, and full of potential. Most of all, it gives you the tools to create the lair of anyone or any monster you can dream up. We love it, and we think you will too.
The Firbolg represents an archetype that's been around a long time, and is a blast to play—the gentle, nature-loving giant. Like most player options, however, there's a few traps to fall in if we don't consider their potential. Firbolgs are more than just the cultural equivalent of druids. And they can offer so much more than cliches about hippies or becoming the "shaggy" of the group.
The group of adventurers pledging themselves to a dangerous mission...The guttural clicking of a monster stalking the party...A passing shadow that clues the party to look up, its source an enormous red dragon. All tropes! All Incredible moments! We were once resistant to the power of tropes, until we realized that you can't avoid them, and that they're actually a useful tool for running games. They're a shorthand that gets everybody into the moment because we all have a meaningful reference point. For this episode we have the talented Paige Ford joining us! She's used her favorite tropes, mostly horror and romance, to write a delightful plethora of gripping adventures for different TTRPG systems.
Revenants capture a particular genre of monster, and we love it. They have been represented in the great slashers in the form of characters like Jason and Michael Meyers. No matter how many times you think you got 'em, they're back and angrier than ever. And as a GM, nothing sounds more fun than chasing the party with an undead foe that, no matter how many times you blast to bits or behead, will just keep coming. But to use them in a satisfying way, as always, we need to do more than plop them into a session. They risk being a boring fight that just turns into a chore every time they come back from the dead. That's why we go through three stages of a revenant adventure that will hit all the right beats to terrify and delight your table.
Every rule should engage. That's the episode. Playing D&D can feel like you're constantly getting buckets of rules tossed in your face, and you're trying to sort out which ones matter. Then there are rivers of homebrew. How could we possibly know what's good, and what's trash? With the question "Does it engage?", which is what our incredible guest Heavyarms is here to help with. He's created some of the most useful supplements we've ever touched, including The Armorer's Handbook and The Alchemy Almanac among others.
It's always tempting to use monsters like the rust monster because they seem iconic. Classics. Gotta try 'em at least once. The problem comes when we mix the original punishing design principles of D&D with the modern character and story first playstyle that we love so much. Now they just feel like an annoying trap that steals from me. In this episode, we adapt the Rust monster to the way we like to play games.
So we've got dimension-surfing cyborgs with cultural values, motivations, and personalities. Now we have to plan for the inevitability that some frantic adventurer is gonna wanna throw down. But as they're currently presented, we're a little underwhelmed by their combat dynamism. Advanced beings from a plane of law, and they're throwing javelins at us? In this episode, we aim to create encounters with Modrons that engage, confound, and allow for triumphant victories.
Modrons capture attention and imagination—bio-mechanical beings from an alien plane, with reality-bending inspirations. But when we start unpacking the lore, we can't figure out how or why to use them, how to roleplay a modron, how they behave, or what they really want. So in this episode, we answer these questions by tweaking the concept while staying true to its roots.
These magical minions add so much to a character. They're tiny strategic powerhouses that possess pure condensed roleplay potential. They're the dark matter of RPGs. Yet the same problems pop up again and again with these critters. They're easily forgotten, it's hard to get others invested in them, we keep leaning on the one gag that got a laugh until they're just a punchline, or with a massive amount of backstory, they start to take up too much game time. This episode is about creating just enough familiar to make them shine.
Chimeras are legendary creatures that have invaded folk's imagination since the ancient Greeks cooked them up. An epic three-headed beast conquered by the son of a god. Juicy. But have you ever been a part of an uninspired Chimera fight? Yes, they're deadly, but after a couple flyby triple head attacks, things get stale. In this episode, we talk about building up to a Chimera reveal and spicing up combat to engage every player at your table.
There are many games with near-infinite themes, genres, flavors, new ideas, and fresh inspiration. It's an exciting world of possibility, and we'd love to play them all. Of course, there's only so much time, money, or x resource that we have to try these new games. Unfortunately, this stops us from even beginning to explore different systems. This episode aims to give you the same nudge we needed. The GMTim, with his experience as a professional DM running dozens of different systems, presents a few based on our favorite genres, and we discuss their merits as we try to figure out what to learn next.
Hags offer so much potential as ruthless negotiators, incredibly clever antagonists and uneasy allies. But like many of the most brilliant monsters out there, their plots can be hard to actually conjure up in our games. And not just that, but the classic hag tales are ones in which someone a little foolish enters a bargain we all know they shouldn't have. So we need the ability to come up with clever plots that our players don't automatically dismiss. This episode aims to give you the steps to do just that.
Warlocks inspire a lot of wonder, right out of the gate. They've got an incredible story hook baked right in, and one can sit there considering how terrifying they look for ages. But where we've fallen down before is really making that hook pay off. This episode explores the themes and potential stories that warlocks offer us, and how to play them to their heights.
Hold Person is wildly powerful and feels pretty cool when you get to snag a baddie with it. But it's one of the classic save or suck spells, meaning that either nothing happens, or something absolutely awful happens. This means dice start flying out of pure rage at the table when your barbarian is stuck in place during a climactic throw-down. Well, we demand better from our spells, and we hope you enjoy our exploration in making this enchantment feel as gripping as it sounds.
The Bulette is such a cool monster. A deadly tunneling, armored hunter, a leaping surprise attacker, a vicious apex predator. So then why does running one exactly as they allude to feel so lackluster? It turns out the answer may all be in the build-up.
Ever find yourself scrambling to hit the gas, or notice that something is getting stale, but you just can't tell what? Well, this episode is packed with techniques that will keep everyone on the edge of their seats. The wisdom comes from the experience of our incredible guest Roz Young, the masterful storyteller of Ready to Roll, a boundary-pushing actual play YouTube series.
Ever thrown in a sentient item, thinking it would be an epic fantasy moment, only to have it become a joke? Or forgotten? A forgotten joke? Nothing worse. In this episode, we get into how to avoid their pitfalls and what you can do to unleash the many wondrous powers they give not just the heroes of your story, but you as the DM.
We also discuss The Beasts of the Dissonance, an incredible new resource for dark fantasy loving DM's.
Those great sessions that are packed with character moments, epic fights, and emotional highs seem almost magical. Well, this episode unlocks a piece of that magic. We talk to Ollo Clark from Escape Plan Games all about how the storytelling concept "show, don't tell" can apply to all the elements of TTRPG's, and help us encourage those memorable moments.
If you listened to our last episode, you've got an original cult to grip your players with their twisted, dastardly plans. Well, now it's time to play out those plans. And it's not always easy to prep for a game that needs to give players a plot to unravel, horrifying cult activities, and a captivating villain to lead the way. There are so many missteps that can quickly derail the tension and terror you want to build in these games. That's why in this episode we explore how to use a collection of our resources to create a cult mystery horror adventure by making one ourselves, and we're pretty excited about how it turned out. It's got shadow demons, brood mothers, dark rituals, and more!
D&D cults have some entertaining details, to be sure. Chanting, robes, and funky daggers are fun for the whole family. But what we've always run into is that beyond this, they're simply another group of evildoers that must be stopped, most likely with a mace to the face. But when we take a look at real cult-like behavior, from the charismatic leaders to the psychological manipulation they use to induct the innocents of your world, they become a force to be reckoned with. Your party is going to need not only their most explosive abilities, but their most cunning words, their most deceitful tactics, and their heaviest moral choices. The real-world details in this episode come from the books Cultish by Amanda Montell and Cults Inside Out by Rick Alan Ross.
We've all sat down in the tavern, only to not know where to go next. As GM we've accidentally described the blandest, most cookie-cutter fantasy drinking hole, and can't conjure up an NPC that does more than asking "what're ye havin'?" while everyone looks around, hoping for something to engage with. Well, that's why Mike Pisani and Colin Heffernan from Escape Plan Games join us in this episode to bring us techniques and tools to create more dynamic and inspiring taverns.
Have you ever felt the backstory pains that we used to? This was our strategy: We write an elaborate backstory full of murder, mystery, and utter loss. We imagine telling our friends around the gaming table, hearing their "oohs" and "aahs" as their minds are blown by our creative genius. Then we get to the game and realize that it's probably inappropriate to give a half-hour monologue about how Goretrax the dragon emperor tricked us into shooting our family into the sun. And so the backstory is forgotten. To top it off, we play a character that exists completely separately from the backstory we labored over! Well, since then, we've grown and considered how the tragic backstory can not only be interesting to the party but create incredible moments for our characters.
When you're in the middle of an epic fight, whether you're the one inspiring the darkest fears in your enemies, or they're the one summoning the terror within you, it feels like that should be a big deal, right? Yet what we so often end up with is a restrictive mechanic slapped down that makes someone hang out for a turn or two. But we're talking about one of our most primal human emotions here! The one that can reduce us to a shivering pile, or cause us to funnel it all into pure rage and explode against our foes! Shouldn't this be a moment? We think it should, so that's what this episode is about.
Playing good vs. evil games is great! You get to take down baddies, fighting your way towards ultimate and definitive justice! Morality, though? That's a whole different kind of fun. For the role-player, it’s the fun of putting a character through the trenches of what defines them. For the DM, it’s turning the party into a group of philosophers, debating the best path forward, and accepting its consequences. That's why in this episode we break down moral dilemmas, and figure out a way to build them up so we can present the most powerful, customized problems for our party.
Sorcerers are channelers of cosmic power, and that's rad. They don't need all that book-learning, they've just got that something special. Roleplaying that something special can be a little tricky, however, and figuring out how a sorcerer might behave has never been as obvious as some classes. Our pitch is that sorcerers that draw from the chaos of magic is shockingly similar to artists that draw from the chaos of creative inspiration. So, we read The Mind of the Artist: Personality and the Drive to Create by Dr. William Todd Schultz, and boil it down to what we can use to play our most fascinating sorcerers yet.
Kuo-Toa seem like just another throw-away low-level mook at first glance. But with a little attention paid to their strengths, they can become a powerhouse of creepy, unsettling, off-putting, and downright nasty gameplay. Bring their god-conjuring freakiness in full force to your party.
Special celebrations can be a great addition to your games. You can use them to flesh out and ground your cultures. You can use them to add to the backstory of a character. You can use them to insert some truly bizarre events that wouldn't otherwise fit. Weirdly, you can even create traditions in your games that your players are excited to come back to! The possibilities are many, and this is why we wanted to cover how to create great holidays quickly.
Trying to respond to spells like Detect Thoughts can be tough. The challenge for a DM is either improvising a rich inner world for every NPC or revealing your secrets too soon due to a single spell. That's why we wanted to tackle this one. It threw us some serious curveballs when we were new to running the game. In this episode, we get into what surface thoughts are, how to simplify them in your own mind, and an option for making the spell part of a tense scene where information is teased out slowly, rather than as a single move.
There's nothing worse than trying to introduce a character you think is going to kick off the adventure with whoops and hollers, but ending up with everyone leaning back, getting hungry, and talking about the cool movie they're gonna watch once this game is over. In this episode, we're going to learn to create characters that engage. Characters that get players to lean in. Take notice. All of a sudden they care where the story is going because this new character is a part of it.
As newer DM's, we would prep for games by throwing d&d spaghetti at the wall and trying to see what would stick. It was a mess. This podcast is about finding systems and structures that help with that, to consistently play great games. Well, it's pretty rare we discover something simple that can be applied to every layer of our prep and our collective storytelling, but that's what this episode is about. We hope these steps help you as much as they did us.
There are a million ways to conduct a session zero, and a lot of them will work. The basic thing to keep in mind is getting everyone on the same page, and the more we learn, the more we realize this means so much more than telling your players what the game's gonna be. In the effort to continue our education, we have an awesome guest joining us for this episode. David Rae, a talented comedian, improv performer, and DM, shares with us how he goes about getting his players invested.
Goblins get plenty of attention, and we love the classic chaotic little beasts. A lot of the time, they end up wherever a game master needs something to fight. But this episode is all about getting into a goblins head and figuring out what they're really up to. Next time you use goblins in a game your players will learn to fear the relentlessly clever survivability the goblin brings to every encounter.
Halloween is creeping up like an Allip creeps through walls, and we are bringing you another monster episode that really fits the tone for your Halloween games. The Allip is an underused undead, and that's fair. They have so much potential, it would be a damn shame to just slap an encounter in willy-nilly. These spirits can be plot movers, mystery creators, mind-melters and more.
Continuing our Monster Month because elementals are monsters too! Elementals are very inspiring, but we find the details leave a lot to be desired from the perspectives of where do they live and what do they do? So, we figured out those answers for ourselves, and if you enjoy it, for your games too!
Some monsters are meant to merely distract a party of adventurers, and some are meant for the spotlight. This monster is the latter. It combines elements of some of the greatest horror classics like The Thing and Body Snatchers. Its abilities are well-considered for horrific tension building, and it can mess with people's minds to no end. That's why we are super excited for this episode, where we get to dissect and put together the Oblex into a haunting adventure.
This episode gets real specific, then real broad. We started with the fact that meditation is unique to elves in the D&D world. and the most we've seen on the subject in our games has been "cool, I have four hours to kill every night while my party sleeps." Well, we wanted to get into what makes the minds of people in the real world that spend a lot of their time meditating unique, and apply that to elves. So we did just that!
Too often is this spell discussed only in relation to its conditions and mechanics. Immerse yourself in the inky blackness that is darkness, and make sure the next time you use shadow magic, it feels fantastic.
So here we are. You want to throw a combat at your party that's dynamic, overwhelming, strategic, and involves multiple waves of enemies that get increasingly harder. When pulled off properly, these moments can be among the most celebrated in your whole campaign. Join us as we talk about how to pull it off while avoiding all the mistakes we've personally made before, and leaning into the strengths of this particular form of encounter.
Fighters are unique in that they dont necissarily come from a particular legend or source, like Druids or Bards. A fighter is... a fighter, someone who fights. The whole of human history we could draw inspiration from has fought. Like a menu with far too many options, the choices of what to inspire you when creating a fighter can be so many, it's paralyzing. It's no wonder we end up making so many people that hit stuff with a sword, as opposed to characters we find compelling and unique.
These creatures have so much potential as villainous foes. Almost too much! Evil entities from alien realms, hyper intelligent and terrifying in every way. All the detail and lore is great but it can be challenging to portray at the table, and the biggest crime would be to throw these brain suckers at the party like any other stat block. So we're looking at the things we like the most, and considering how we can use that to inform our portrayal of Mind Flayers in our games. This episode will focus more on the culture that defines Mind Flayers as a whole, then our next episode will focus in on how to make them as horrifying as possible.
When creating your character, when was the last time you considered how they learned to fight with any real weight? If you've ever done it, congrats! You got us beat. That's why we've got an incredible guest on today to share how to add an onion's worth of layers to our characters fighting styles. James Mendez Hodes has written, designed, and culturally consulted for a ton of different games, and also has deep personal experience with martial arts and world history. This leaves him super equipped to guide us down the rabbit hole of martial culture in a way nobody else can. Also, he's a senior developer on Avatar: The Last Airbender Roleplaying Game, currently in the middle of a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign.
These creatures have so much potential as villainous foes. Almost too much! Evil entities from alien realms, hyper intelligent and terrifying in every way. All the detail and lore is great but it can be challenging to portray at the table, and the biggest crime would be to throw these brain suckers at the party like any other stat block. So we're looking at the things we like the most, and considering how we can use that to inform our portrayal of Mind Flayers in our games. This episode will focus more on the culture that defines Mind Flayers as a whole, then our next episode will focus in on how to make them as horrifying as possible.
Want to capture that feeling when the game keeps picking up steam, the tension is rising, and everyone's in sync, almost instinctively knowing the flow of the game? Well, we wanna make it easier to get there, and we're going to do it by talking about the building blocks of the best action movies. Following this structure can keep the pace going and enrapture your players, making them feel like the odds are against them moments before they celebrate their hard won victory.
Overlooked cantrips are some of our favorite places to look for creative gameplay opportunities. This one covers a lot of ground. Since it has so much potential, however, it's easy for it to become a game de-railer, whether you get an overcautious GM that doesn't want things to get out of hand, or an overzealous player that wants to break the game with a low powered spell. In this episode, we hope to find a great middle ground that keeps things fun, challenging, and full of surprises.
In our third and final look at character arcs (for now), we look at morality arcs. These ones are particularly useful to consider for tabletop games like D&D, because we all know or have been the person who's built an amazingly interesting morally grey character. They've got a tragic backstory, a twisted perspective on the world, and we're all curious to see where their story goes. Well, if it's ever fallen flat for you like it has for us, join us as we figure out how to make it work.
Here's our second installment in the Character Arc series. This topic is one that appeals to us, because it's one that we struggled with for a long time as new players. Once it clicked, however, it made planning out our parts of the game so much more engaging. We started to feel like we had some control over our characters. Join us as we look at another type of arc, one that deals in personal growth.
Character arcs can be a dangerous topic in tabletop gaming. There's always the concern that if you are following an arc you could be railroading the story too much, and it can seem difficult to pull off with so many other characters and plots around. Well, we see it a little differently. Having a path you are on doesn't mean you can't make a new one at any time, and it's way more fun than hacking away at the forest without going anywhere. There's also room for a million surprises along the way, and a good character arc always leaves us in suspense until the end. It doesn't even have to be that complicated, so join us as we figure out arcs.
Creating a great paladin character that gets everyone else at the table excited is kinda tough. A bad reputation has been made, of people playing them strict, unwavering, and all conquering. As people that do not get along. That stop the game on behalf of their god. Well, it doesn't have to be this way, and we think there's some incredible roleplay opportunity that comes from going down the path of the Paladin a little further.
Trolls have the potential to be some of the most disturbing monsters out there, yet are unfortunately the easiest monster to let sit as a never-ending bag of hit points. A monster whacking slog to end all monster whacking slogs. If we examine them a little closer, and look at how their unique abilities can be used to greater effect, then we can avoid that sloggy fate, and create monsters that horrify in new and terrible ways.
Warforged have some serious potential for incredible storytelling. If we're worried about anything, it's that we won't do them justice. But there's a lot of angles you can take to play a compelling character with solid goals and a satisfying arc if you start with the Warforged, without reading a dozen novels and sourcebooks about Eberron. In this episode, we're going to dive into as many as we can.
As a knowledgeable spellcaster with a deep understanding of the arcane arts, you want to be able to pull out the right skills at the right time, like the rogue when they're picking locks, or the barbarian when they're cracking skulls. But magic is a little less straightforward, and there's a few abilities that get used and confused in these moments. They often either get mixed up, or used to very underwhelming effect. So here we are to help your spellcaster shine in those magical moments!
We always want our games to be more immersive, and jam packed with the drama and fun of our characters. Having goals and conquering foes is great, but in this episode we want to turn the focus to roleplaying out what it's like for your character to gain their new stats, abilities, and spells. The whole table can end up a lot more invested if every player is adding this to the pot.
The debate rages on in all corners of the TTRPG world. In one corner we have leveling with experience points, with all its precision and flexibility. In the other, milestone leveling, with its ease of use and story focused approach. Which is the correct system? Well, whatever you and your players like. It really is that simple. But in this episode we explore the potential and drawbacks of each, and figure out what we could do to make the most out of our leveling.
The power a druid wields is great. They are an incredibly flexible class, and can go in a wonderful amount of character directions. But the classic druid embodies nature and wisdom. The wisdom of nature, if you will. We want to dive into the details that can make a druid great, and maybe even inspire ourselves from history while we're at it.
Creating a world as a group, or by yourself, is a powerfully satisfying creative experience. When a whole bunch of great ideas come together, and you start twisting and mixing them in a unique way, you're gonna come up with something you want to explore more, because it's yours, and it's new. That's what we're doing in this episode with the help of our fantastic guest, Matt Sernett, and the input from our fantastic friends on Discord.
Owlbears can be a fun threat, a D&D roadside encounter classic, but as new DM's we had no idea how to effectively use them. Our encounters were barely a step up from Winnie the Pooh stumbling onto the road with a beak taped to his face, yelling for the party to treat him like a pincushion. In this episode we want to explore all kinds of ways to use owlbears, from a tool to menace your party with, to a dangerous part of nature, even as a friendly pet. Join us, and hopefully by the end you'll have all the fuel you need for your next Owlbear.
Playing in existing fiction is fantastic, but a lot of us, at one point or another, get that itch to create a world of our own. So what makes them great? Not a formula, but the collection of ideas that makes up your mind. That's why this is not a step by step guide to creating your own wonderful world, but rather a collection of ideas to visit along your way, and ways to explore combining things you already love into something new. Matt Sernett, someone with extensive knowledge and experience with what makes a fictional world mean something, guides us through.
There's a million ways to build worlds, and it's a powerfully fun thing to do. But the greatest worlds come not from a formula, but from a mindset of creating something all your own. Here to share his experience and wisdom on the subject is someone that's made a career of diving deep into fictional worlds, Matt Sernett. Join us as we learn new ways to think about this fundamental part of the gaming experience, with Matt as our guide.
Give a little thought to where your Tabaxi character hails from, and avoid falling prey to playing a walking cat joke. We've wanted to explore this culture for a while, since it's one that hasn't been deeply explored in the lore. So in this episode, we take inspiration from what does exist, and dive into it a little more.
There's so many opinions of how to handle Charm Person, and being charmed in general. And they're all right! Obviously, we'd never tell you our way of acting charmed is the only way. But we will tell you how we keep it pretty simple in our heads, and are able to actually play this out in a way that fits the game. Too many times we've gone too big, and let them befriend the big bad for all time, or too small, and planted a big juicy "no" on our reactions.
We're finally talking about what's better than throwing in random travel encounters! All you've gotta do is consider what actually matters about your encounter, and then why the outcome matters. This episode gets into those points a little deeper.
Knowing why you're playing through travel is huge. If you have a great answer for that, you'll probably have some great travel. Join us in this episode to learn how to answer that question, and never deal with a dying story due to random encounters or "accurate" travel experiences.
If you want a tested method for engaging the table with stories, the ticking clock is invaluable. When used well, you avoid those meandering five session detours from the wicked adventure idea you created for your table.
Learning to pace games intentionally is a part of running games that eluded us for a long time. Done well, it results in those grand gaming wrap ups, where everyone is coming down off the high of a great session. Done poorly, it leaves us sad and confused as to why that session went down about as well as a juiced cockroach. That's why in this episode we give solid steps on fluctuating the pace of your games to keep everyone in it, and everything on time.
Mimics are the classic monster that's fun in concept, horrendous on execution. They are designed to be a trap that cannot be detected, and this drives us up a wall. So join us as we talk about what elements we would add that make them a lot more useful and fun for us to include in our games.
Want to learn some techniques that will leave everyone stunned at how well a session brought their characters and their visions to life? Here to help is The GMTim! He runs about 10 games a month, writes adventures, and constantly discovers new ways to push his skills as a Game Master. We are so excited to have him share his skills with us in this episode.
The Artificer is a class that stands out as way to visually express your stunning creativity. You can have mechanical friends, suits of super armor, incredible weaponry, the list goes on. It's incredibly fun to keep detailing out these aspects of the artificer. With these concepts, however, we find it easy to forget to build a rich character underneath it all, with a story and a personality that's gonna shine as brightly as their robo-monkey-cat. That's why we talk about what steps you can take to create a great artificer character in this episode.
Sometimes you get an idea of the kind of game you want to run in your head. Like, a twisty, turny, confusing labyrinthine adventure would be rad, right? Everyone would have so much fun trying to navigate the endless sprawling passageways of the Underdark, right? Well, it is a great idea, just don't mistake an adventure in a maze for having the players solve a real maze. That make sense? If not, join us as we discuss making great mazes.
Well, it’s kinda tough to say. Y’see, we think it’s all a matter of how getting the expectations right for this incredibly utilitarian sorcery. In this episode, though we take a deeper look into a spell that tends to blow up in players’ faces with a single lucky roll.
Hey, look, we still love Giants. So join us as we explore the culture of Fire Giants! Go past their angry exterior and discover what really motivates them, how they treat humanoids, what they do when they are not fighting, how they talk to each other, and plenty more fiery fun. By the end, we hope you know exactly what to do when you pull a Fire Giant out of the ol' creature stash. Our favorite part of monsters is what lives beyond the stat block. To get into what makes Fire Giants unique, we went to Kinship Camp, and turned to our Culture Creator. You'll hear great additions that you can use to roleplay fire giants to their fullest in your games. We go from broad strokes, like talking about their cultural values and beliefs, all the way down to suggesting that they yell "Rust!" when frustrated, or give away forge hammers as a thank you.
Making mistakes as a DM or player was once our biggest fear. Then, we learned that the greatest games happen due to unexpected occurrences, and that the best thing we can do in the face of creative adversity is just keep moving. In this episode, you'll learn how to do that in any gaming situation that seems bad.
You know we love some giants, and maybe you do too. Maybe even your whole table does too! If you want to mix it up and use something that no one has seen, and lives somewhere no giant would live, please meet the desert giant! We created this new culture of giants using our culture creator, which is a great tool to create whatever giants that you want to bring to the game as well.
Have you ever struggled to flesh out a society in your games? Or multiple cultures at once? If you're working off of lore, it can be a lot to absorb and figure out how to use. If you are starting from scratch it can feel like becoming a novelist just to run a game. Well, we've wrestled this beast more than a few times, and we've got a system that makes it all much more manageable. In this episode, we're using it to simplify a creature in D&D with some of the oldest and richest lore, with subcultures and innate magic galore.
If you've listened to our last episode, you heard us create a system to create unique gods and religions. Well, now it's time to apply that to your incredible character! We combine our culture creator and our character planner and show you how flipping fun it is to create characters that have a lot to them and their beliefs, without studying manuals of lore or spending months creating your own.
So you want your world to feel real, and it's time to scheme up some godly goodness. There's two ways we know to screw this up real good. The first is to just forget to do it, and all the sudden you've got a fantasy ripoff of whatever religion you know best in real life. The second is to go way too deep. Reading a 350 page tome cover to cover that goes into a wild fantasy pantheon, then realizing your table did NOT do their homework, and this is gonna take a lot of exposition. Well, following the system in this episode will give you just enough for some incredible roleplay.
There's so many different kinds of delighful horror to dive into, but if you've ever wanted to explore the themes associated with body horror in a way that creates a disturbing sense of dread while respecting everyone at the table, this is the episode for you. We promise, if you put this planning in you'll have a great adventure, and it's much more interesting than plain old gore.
Ever want to pop off your hand and throw it across the room? Try Mage Hand instead. It's a cantrip that has an incredible variety of uses, and they're all fun as heck. Well, I'm sure you could fold laundry or something, but you're playing D&D here. Well, then again, if laundry's your jam, go for it. The lesson is there's very few situations in which you shouldn't cast Mage Hand.
Can you keep the threat of death in a game without worrying about pissing off the players? We think so. There's a few strategies that can make death a lot more important and meaningful in a game, which leaves everyone a lot more satisfied. It goes a lot farther than the classic rationalization of "let the dice fall where they may".
Want a little help getting that finely crafted character or NPC from the page into the game? Or maybe you've got all these ideas as a DM, but find it tricky to run those flowing, exciting sessions you see in your mind? Well, Joanna Gaskell is here to help. She's a cast member of a D&D improv show, DM's professionally, and even wrote, produced, and starred in a long-running D&D inspired web series!
One of the most satisfying things you can do as a DM is to truly shock your players. The bigger the better. That's why we're figuring out plot twists in this episode, and exactly how to put them in your game.
Cliffhangers are an incredibly powerful tool for your games. They create a serious psychological desire for closure, which makes people eager to return to the table. Sitting with that unresolved story also means they'l have time to roll it over in their minds, imagining all the possibilities. Ending on such a great moment also means your players are gonna remember what's happening a lot faster! So many reasons to use cliffhangers!
Wizards are pretty incredible, what with their dazzling array of cosmic powers and daunting intellect. They can, however, be challenging to roleplay due to said intellect, and it's easy to rely on classic archetypes when you aren't sure where to go. That's why in this episode we try to get into the minds of the real life wizards that have blown away our perceptions of reality throughout history, known as scientists, and create our best wizards yet.
Staring at another player, sweating through the seconds, thinking to yourself "must...roleplay..." is a rough moment. Instead, we want the moments where people are verbally bouncing off each other, and it feels like a real group of people chatting about the dangers of dungeons. Well, a little consideration of the relationships your character has with each party member can go such a long way.
Figure out where you fit into a group, and the roleplaying between party members becomes so much easier. The fundamentals of this concept is that there's two characters that contrast each other, and there's characters that bridge the gap. This plays out in different ways in different group sizes. Think of any great team or ensemble cast and you'll find these principles.
Make your players feel like masterminds, plan for the spells that threaten to throw a wrench in your mystery, and avoid groans at the final reveal. Also, we chat about the essential traits to help build a great detective character.
A good D&D game always benefits from rising tension, heightened stakes, and a grand finale. Knowing how a mystery story typically works and having some idea of where the party can go, who they can talk to, and when things are gonna start getting intense is essential. Without these story beats as a starting point, its easy to streamline to the solution, or have things drag out far too long.
Mystery adventures are some of the most complex you can run. This series of three episodes simplifies the process as much as possible while still allowing for mysteries that have the potential to surprise and feel like a great ride. In this first one we look at the essential ingredients you need to create in order to run a grand whodunit.
The lumbering hulk of rotting plant matter known as a Shambling Mound can be so very misused. Usually, it is simply used as a large block of hit-points to chip away at, at worst, it is a TPK waiting to happen. So how do we avoid this?
Keith Ammann, author of Live to Tell the Tale and The Monsters Know What They're Doing is here to explain how players can think a bit differently about their characters and their desire to survive. Using new concepts like Ability contours he explains how characters can lean on their strengths, position themselves in combat, and know how to escape deadly situations.
Friends is an often overlooked and criminally misunderstood spell, and it's easy to make this mistake. It doesn't sling poison or prevent certain death or create illusions in the minds of your foes, but the versatility of this spell deserves a second look. It can make your charming character an ace in the hole for every talky part. As a reminder, Friends gives you advantage on Charisma checks for a bit, then makes your target turn hostile towards you. And it's fun as heck, okay? If it's good enough for Obi-Wan Kenobi, it's good enough for you! Easy now.
Dragons deserve the dramatic and complex fights that keep parties talking about the time they barely escaped alive. How would you go about writing such an encounter? Sounds like art. Could amazing encounters be systematized? Also, the Unbreakable Anthology is awesome... that is all.
Dragons are fearsome, dragons are big but that doesn't inform how they behave. Preparing and knowing the personality traits of your dragon will will inform their portrayal and ultimately insures your grand reveal doesn't fall flat.Taking a look into some of the core traits exhibited by dragons in fiction and breaking down those common behaviors allows us to study how they might behave.
Dragons have an incredibly vast history, mindbogglingly big. But if we look at the fact that dragons are pretty much an amalgam of all the real animals that have scared humans forever, then we've got something to work with, and draw ever more details from.
What if we didn't just drop puzzles into D&D, but played it a little more like the great puzzle games? By taking some simple rules from game design, we can improve our encounters, giving players the satisfaction of overcoming some seriously tricky situations.
There's a lot of baggage around puzzles, and many players have some serious beef. In presenting them as a DM, you risk players that get angry, lose interest, or table flip and light a fire in their pure rage. Well, In this episode we address the reasons behind this fury, and provide guidelines that help you put enjoyable puzzles into D&D.
The options seem binary when writing; spend less time and carefully avoid dodgy tropes or sterotypes or write a truly unique piece of fiction and spend more time writing than playing in your unique world. Too bad there is no better options... or is there? Wonder not, we have a solution!
It's challenging to choose the right flaw for your character. This is because character flaws range from a humorous quirk like hiding weapons around the office to a representation of everything they fight against like being afraid that they can't protect their loved ones. In this episode we cover different types of flaws, what ties them to your characters story, and how to run them through a quick test to see if they're good for D&D.
The Umber Hulk is far more than just a stat block. This humble entry in the massive tome that is the Monster Manual is easy to underestimate. An encounter with this beastie should feel like going mano a mano with the most fearsome people gnasher around and it all comes down to setting the tone and mood.
The choices appear to be only two as a DM, run a game on rails and remove player choice, or run a sandbox game where anything can happen but finding meaning in the story takes some digging. Well taking inspiration again from John Trubys book The Anatomy of Story, we can drop in some simple structure to campaign or even adventure planning.
What is four corner opposition? Well, it's a writing method that allow the creation of messy interweaving webs that are fun and interesting to explore. DM's and players everywhere deserve rich worlds that feel dynamic and evolving, and this system provides the best results!
Monks are among our favorite classes, but the question of how to avoid playing a cliche (or hella problematic and groan worthy) monk is always top of mind. The Shaolin monks have an incredible history, one that is worth exploing and paying respect to as the primary inspiration for D&D monks. That or we can reskin a monk into something nobody would expect!
Getting everyone invested in the story seems like a challenge sometimes, and as soon as you see them cell phones, you know it's game over. It's tick But as soon as everyone feels like they have a hand in directing the game, they jump right back in. We can get everyone on board a lot easier with a little more crafting of character choices.
Presenting an antagonist that your players care about can be maddening. To release your brainchild of a baddie complete with haunting eyes and a tragic tale to your group feels fantastic! Right up until a player asks "Who's this? Are we supposed to kill them? Will this level us up?" Well, we've been there, and that's why we spent time figuring out what we were missing. This episode takes you through our process.
- Know your heroes
- Choose your villain archetype
- Build the Character of your villain
- Build up to your villain
Take a look at our Patreon for the free resources mentioned in this episode.
Think D&D needs more maps and minis? Theatre of the Mind, or more simply, playing D&D with only a character sheet, can be daunting, especially for such a math and map driven game. So the talented GMTim joins us to teach how to try Theatre of the Mind and all of the benefits it brings with none of the challenge or fuss.
There's so much out there on character creation that makes you think you're creating the ultimate hero. It's creative, fleshed out, nuanced, detailed, and has a killer backstory. We've made our fair share of those, and we usually find that once you try to roleplay those characters, they don't have much to say or do. We lose interest fast. This episode is about fixing that. If you define three problems your character has, their journey becomes effortlessly engaging and playable.
The most satisfying part of using a Doppelganger is that glorious moment where they shapeshift to their true form and everyone at the table gasps, Gary is screaming "Oh, Pelor, Why!?" and Susan slams her first through the table. Well, this only happens when you plant the proper seeds of mystery and intrigue. Join us, and run your next Doppelganger with vigor.
Google “5e Ranger” and all you’ll find is a lot of people talking about how underpowered they are. But what if playing them with a few key ideas in mind and a tweak here or there made them tremendous? If you’re considering playing a Ranger, playing with one or DMing for one, this is an episode for you.
The spell Vicious Mockery has created some of the funniest moments at our gaming table. That's why we wanted to start this episode with some fun looking at hilarious inspiration for insults. We also take a look at the more dramatic side and talk about how your character can really get inside the head of their enemies with a few words. But it wouldn't be complete without talking about how a DM can respond to these insults in satisfying ways. To top it all off, we create a monster based off of this wonderful spell.
So what is this really all about? Well it's always tough balancing the decision to give your players epic loot. If you do, you may run into balance issues forevermore, if you don't... well we call that a mutiny. So what is a DM to do? Well we wanted to explore what a middle ground looked like in this episode.
Supporting Content
The Homebrewery
The Complete Armorers Handbook
A Guide to Crafting Magic Items in 5e
Crafting Magic Items: A guide to Artifice
Have you ever had sat there brooding because you ended up with a sloppy broken club while your ally has the finest elven blade of shimmering splendor? We feel your pain. That's why we talk about five ways to introduce magic items, including our favorite, which we will dive into during our next episode. This one's also got a new short segment, for our grandma!
The air is calm. The rush of a dragons wings interrupts as it dives over the edge of a chasm with a halfling in its claws. Moments behind, you rush up to the edge of the chasm, brushing pebbles and dust into its gaping maw. The dragon gets farther away with every heartbeat. Cries of the wounded reach out from behind you, and you can see the distant approach of yet another set of wings. Ally or foe, it is too far to tell. What do you do? We talk about this subject from both sides of the table. For the noble DM it's about gently directing the game to provide these moments of character defining choice. For mighty players, set yourself up for glory, and considering how these moments shape your character. We had fun, so enjoy a listen!
Ever have issues creating Non Player Characters that people you are playing with really connect with? We propose that there's a few crucial elements to start with. What do they have in common with your party, what do they have in contrast, and how do they fit in to the story? The temptation to spend the first 3 hours focusing on the design and origin of their walking stick is strong, we know, but stick with us here, and have a listen.
David Adams joins us! He laser beams his many amazing thoughts on party immersion into this episode. We talk about drawing yourself into party members characters, using catchphrases, honoring the tone at the table, and, of course, more. David has created lots of great content, so find him on twitter @level2npc, and find links to his work there or at our website.
Character backgrounds can be long, confusing, random, restrictive, or overly world shattering. Or, they can be clear, badass, and help you play an amazing game! We provide a structure for your glorious character concept that can do just that. It covers story beats, personality, wants and needs, and how to quickly get your vision across to your party.
Backstories are a troublesome foe. What is too much, what's to little? Character backstories done well inform about everything that means anything to the character themselves. At the worst they can be a boat anchor of lore that is never used and muddy the experience. Also, why do they never seem to match the background that was picked?
In this episode, we discuss the problems with this ability and seek to solve it with a simple system. We do this by providing a system that allows rogue players to use Thieves' Cant in a way that isn't intrusive, doesn't require extensive study and can be done while still speaking secretively at the table.
We look at three historical figures that embody different visions of what a rogue could be, discussing what the best parts of these tales are that we can portray in an amazing character. Don't put them all in the same character, though, or you'll end up with Max "Mad Dog" Mcpuncher, the master of invisible crime wars.
We run through some of the most dangerous and commonly used personality traits of rogues, like "I work alone", and propose ways to mold them into things that work in D&D. What if your job is actually spying on the party? Then you're still working alone, ya sneaky weasel.
Now you may have figured out game preparation, but now you need to actually play it. Now your preparation for your best D&D session will be tested, but you need not do it alone. With the advice of expert Dungeon Master Erik Frankhouse, host of Erik Frankhouse Presents, cartographer and game designer, you can boil down the immensely challenging task of DMing into something not just do-able, but easily doable.
You can find Eriks work here: https://erikfrankhousepresents.myportfolio.com/projects
His Patreon here: www.patreon.com/ErikFrankhousePresents
And his podcast here: https://anchor.fm/efp
Check out a great idea generator at eigengrausgenerator.com
Take a look at our Adventure Template for new dungeon masters at patreon.com/hookandchance.
There are so many more resources than this for new Dungeon Masters, but here’s a direction or two that we’ve enjoyed.
DND beyond new player guide
Geek and Sundry DM Tips
Sly Flourish
Shots going wide is reserved for foul balls and Stormtroopers. Why would we aim for the wild blue yonder and how do we as players and DM’s make our characters act with intent rather than fumble and bumble through an adventure?
You know the feeling… when that dice teeters on a heroic 19 but instead rolls over to a 1. Your hero is now a dingus. What could have been epic is now a slap in the face. What horrible fate has the DM cooked up for your character? Will they lose their pride or are they about to lose a limb?
We cover why crit fumbles aren’t a thing and add a homebrew rule to take the sting out of the dreaded 1.
Wanna play a more human hero when terror strikes? We provide concepts for playing out a fear while you are facing down nasty beasts and twisted foes. It’s tricky to decide on a fear sometimes too, so we talk about how to derive them from character values and ideals. There’s also a simple mechanic for deciding when those fears actually influence a characters mind in the episode. All this and more, because everybody gets the goosebumps sometimes.
Jonathan and Beth Ball of D&D Duet take a break from teaching, creating, writing, and having a general blast to join us! First we get to know the magic that makes them them. Then we learn one on one gaming secrets, like how to create a fantastic dynamic between the player and the DM, how to create a cast of DMPC's that highlight the hero, and how this style can make a more engaging player out of everyone. Then we explore the wondrous fantasy versions of themselves, and it gets weird in all the right ways, folks.
In this 3rd and final episode focused on Tiefling society, the brothers ponder about how their unique physiology would change the function of their cities. Taller doorways would be a start... yeah, and ice cream vendors, lot's of em, to cool them down because they are muy caliente.
Growing up with horns in an intolerant world can be a challenge for Tieflings. How does it this kind of thing affect them? We find out in this episode how a Tiefling named Tivius might develop an affinity for wingless ducks and suffer from performance anxiety. Wait what?
What is life like for Tieflings? Some characters aren't as welcome as others, sometimes they need to go underground. In part 1 of the series on Tiefling Government or lack thereof, we look at the structure of how people stay hidden.
Check out Keith's blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, then his book Live to Tell the Tale, and his twitter.