Roll Mates: Recent Episodes
Gregory and Allie McMillan
Greg is an experienced DM. Allie is a novice player. What keeps their marriage together? Learning about Dungeons and Dragons together! In each episode, Allie asks Greg a question about D&D. The answers can help new players learn the game and experienced players think about it in new and interesting ways. Topics cover everything from mechanics and how-tos... all the way to pop-culture analyses and campaign reviews. Grab your sword, grab your dice, and get ready for some insightfully rambly conversation about Dungeons and Dragons.
In this super special episode, Greg chats with his long-time friend and DND nerd - Jim Evans! Greg and Jim discuss all things building aventures. This is definitely an episode you cannot miss if you're a DM!
Allie really likes loot, but she doesn't really understand how DMs know what loot to give when to who and why. Luckily Greg does... sort of.
In this mini-session, Greg flies solo and explains why downtime can be such a great thing for your session!
Allie and Greg like villains. Like, we really, really like villains. They pretty much make or break most stories for us. This week, Allie wants to know what makes a truly great D&D villain? What should you think about while homebrewing the villain of your story? What should you avoid? And how can DMs create villain their players will never forget?
Allie and Greg are big fans of watching/listening to the horror stories other people share from their worst DnD sessions. There are tons of ways players can ruin the games, but most fall into specific categories. In this episode, Allie and Greg discuss how DMs can prevent and troubleshoot problem players at the table.
Allie and Greg took a bit of a break, but they are coming back with new episodes of Roll Mates!
In this episode, Allie and Greg talk about what makes Curse of Strahd such an amazing campaign. Everything from the characters, settings, story structure... down to Strahd himself! This episode also features a very special guest co-host!
Actions are what makes D&D stand out against a lot of other game styles. But Allie is strugglign a little bit to understand exactly how they work and all the different types of actions. This episode is great for players who want to know how to manage their action economy, but also good for DMs who want to encourage creative use of actions in their games!
So many people have had their interest in D&D destroyed by bad DMs. If you want to be a DM, or are wondering if you're doing a good job, give this episode a listen! Greg walks through what makes a good DM, his own DM best practices, and some common pitfalls that can make your session less than critical.
Allie often gets races, classes, and backgrounds mixed up. In this episode, Greg goes over what races and classes and background are for, how they help build characters, and things to keep in mind when choosing them. Soon to come - deep dives into specific races, classes, and backgrounds!
We all know the D20 (see our logo!) But there are a handful (wink, wink) of other kinds of dice. Not knowing what they are for or how to use them can make the game much slower and more complicated. In this episode, Greg explains the benefits of having different kinds of dice and why we need each and every one.
In this episode of Roll Mates, Allie and Greg talk through the Dungeons and Dragons alignment chart. Usually applied in memes to pop culture characters, they go through what each alignment signifies, apply a popular character to each alignment, point out which alignments aren't best for player characters to choose, and discuss why the alignment system is inherently flawed.
In session 0, Allie and Greg introduce Roll Mates! They talk about their interests in Dungeons and Dragons, what the podcast will be about, and what listeners can expect from future episodes.