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?Par Hook and Chance

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 ag…

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 mea…

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 tab…

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…

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 b…

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 …

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 fo…

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…

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…

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 cre…

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 c…

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…

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 …

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 lo…

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 …

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 th…

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 …

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 …

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 epis…

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…

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 sta…

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 un…

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 ab…

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 …

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'…

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 …

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,…

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.Par Hook and Chance

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…

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…

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 mo…

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 mis…

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 leade…

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…

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 inappr…

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 a…

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, de…

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…

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.Par Hook and Chance

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 bac…

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 su…

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 tha…

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 collect…

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…

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 cle…

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 …

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!Par Hook and Chance