There are two main places used to run table-top roll-playing games- Theater of the Mind and Battle Maps.
Which one is right for your group depends on what your group is looking for from fights, and what you’re willing to put into preparation.
Read MoreToday, random tables pop up all over the place- from the Dungeon Master’s Guide to every player's background you can find lists of randomized options to roll from. They’re also almost always tied to “roll or pick from” notes, hinting at some other ways you can make the most out of these tables.
This article includes five tips that you can take to optimize your usage of random encounters.
Read MoreOne of the largest gripes I have with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is Initiative because… well, you read the title. It sucks. It's awful. It's so bad that at my personal tables, I’ve stopped running it- I only run it rules as written as a convention DM where I don’t know who I’m DMing for ahead of time.
Read MoreSo you’ve got a superb character concept down- you’re going to be a circus runaway with a heart of gold who dodged enlistment and sought adventuring to fight back against their cruel government.
Great start- from there, you’ll still need a “Background” in the mechanical sense, and none of the Player’s Handbook or other expanded options fit exactly how you want. Fear not!
Dungeons & Dragons has a myriad of possibilities to build all kinds of crazy characters with special powers and abilities. Sifting through all of what the game has to offer is daunting- if you’re looking for some quick and easy options to start your experience off right, here are two recommendations per class that give you tools to help contribute to your party’s success, each denoting where you can find these subclasses.
Read MoreAdventure Atlas: the Mortuary is a $10 digital-only adventure toolbox produced to go alongside Sigil and the Outlands and the other Planescape products available on D&D Beyond.
Read MorePlanescape: Adventures in the Multiverse is a package produced by Wizards of the Coast starring three books and a DM screen designed to give DMs tools to run campaigns in the Planescape multiversal setting.
Read MoreMonstrous Compendium Vol. Four: Eldraine Creatures is a D&D Beyond exclusive monster catalog with a few paragraphs of additional worldbuilding information for playing Dungeons & Dragons in the Magic: the Gathering setting of Eldraine.
Read MoreSince I get asked this question just about every day, I'm just going to write up an answer that I can copy and paste in response.
It’s been a rough few years for me professionally. The world stubbornly decided that it wasn’t interested in some of the funniest books I’ve ever written, and I’ve been having a harder time getting new readers to try out the Caverns & Creatures series.
So I did what anyone who likes to eat does. I got a job.
Unfortunately, that means I’m progressing extremely slowly on Critical Failures 10, tapping out a few words here and there when I can spare an hour or two.
But fear not, friends, for I have a strategy to get back to writing full time.
Some authors successfully market their books through advertising on different social media platforms. I initially had some success with that, but over time it produced diminishing returns to the point that I was spending more on ads than I was making from book sales.
So about a year ago, I decided to funnel my advertising budget into content creation instead.
Rather than throw money at Facebook and Amazon to show my ads to a few people for a fleeting second, I thought, “Fuck it. I’ll bring the audience to me.”
I started writing reviews of D&D spells, then started outsourcing that when I realized I’m not very good at writing spell reviews. Over time, this website began ranking for more and more search terms on Google, driving more and more of my target nerd audience to the site.
From there, we’ve been covering feats, classes and subclasses, eldritch invocations, etc…
My website traffic since its inception according to SEMRush.
Then I started doing the same thing on YouTube. Each video I put out has a corresponding written article linked in the description, and each written article links to the corresponding YouTube video. Most importantly, they all have ads for Critical Failures.
Thanks to these efforts, I’m finally starting to move a few books again. But I’m still a long way from selling enough to be able to go back to writing full time.
If you’re wondering how you can help, the biggest thing you can do (aside from buying the books) is to engage with the content. Read the articles. Share them with your friends and in your gamer groups. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Watch the videos. Like them and leave comments.
The more engagement I get, the higher Google and YouTube rank my content, making them visible to more people, some of whom will be lured by my advertisements into reading Critical Failures.
Believe me. Nobody is more eager for the release of Critical Failures 10 than I am. When that happens is largely going to depend on when I’m able to start devoting more time to writing it.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
When you’ve spent so much time building a world and a campaign setting it can be really crushing to have the players completely disregard it. How do you salvage the situation? Is it a lost cause?
Read MoreXP vs Milestone is a common debate that is had among the table for DM’s and players alike. It can be hard to decide what is the best approach, especially given that not every table is combat focused. In games where the expectation is to reach level 20, something extremely rare, it can be even more difficult to navigate the malaise of XP vs Milestone.
Read MoreCombat is both omnipresent in D&D and onerous to occasionally get through. Between players who are new to the game and expect a video game-like experience and people from all walks of life having to learn how to cooperate and navigate a roleplay-oriented adventure, it can be a headache.
Read MoreWhat is that turns a boss fight into an epic legend around the table? How do you make them amazing experiences that players continue to talk about for years? What’s the formula to pull it off? Stay and listen, dear reader, and I shall tell you.
Read MoreFor veteran players and newbies alike, this is often a question that tends to stick on their minds. What does make a good DM, and why does the difference seem so stark between a good DM and a bad one? What makes a DM a bad DM even?
Read MoreOne of the best parts about being a Dungeon Master is sitting down and crafting out the campaign that your players will partake in. From a pre-stock setting like Ravnica to something wholly original in a Homebrew, there’s a lot of flexibility in how a DM approaches worldbuilding.
Read MoreRoleplaying together generates amazing memories that you and your friends can talk about endlessly. Remembering times like these is predicated on being able to engage in meaningful roleplay. But what do you do if your players at the table aren’t interested? What happens if they just nod or shake their head to questions posed by NPCs or by you as the DM?
Read MoreYou could have the most unique setting, the most compelling backstories, but without NPCs that can rise to the occasion, your players will never know.
Read MoreWizards have access to more spells than any other class in Dungeons & Dragons. Honestly, it’s obscene the amount of spells they have at their disposal to manipulate the elements and warp reality. But with such a wide variety to choose from, deciding what to cast can sometimes feel overwhelming.
Read MoreTechnique is going to vary based on your character, the terrain, not to mention the enemies you face in each battle, but if you asked me how to die in a glorious flurry of blood and guts, I’d tell you to follow these simple steps.
Read MoreCantrips are a caster’s bread and butter early in the game. A good selection of cantrips offers you the tools to enact wacky and wild solutions to a variety of problems, and can provide a foundational problem solving baseline.
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