To help my get my players thinking like their characters ahead of our sessions I message our group chat on the morning of the game with a warmup question. Something that makes them think about what their character likes, doesn’t like, or how they would react to certain situations.

Your first walk through the town is met by friendly faces and smiles from the locals passing by, yet the warmth of the reception doesn’t seem to outweigh the feeling of cold seeping into your bones…

I thought this month I would share my checklist to make sure any important information between GM and players is shared either before or after the session.

This approach to Experience Points aims to make the moment feel more collaborative. At the end of the session, when it comes time to grant XP instead of just the GM handing out points we now have 4 sections…

Travel is more than just getting from point A to point B. At the beginning of a campaign, these portions offer an acknowledgement that stepping outside of the boundaries of civilization can be dangerous…

It seems no matter the creative endeavor, whether it be painting, music composition, or adventure writing, we can all reach a point utter nothingness, a sudden and usually unexpected point devoid of all inspiration.

We’re no strangers to improvising, however, there are times when repercussions, consequences, and ‘what comes next’ just needs more time to be thought out. How can we buy ourselves that time?

Adding ‘Luck’ as a seventh ability score to represent an adventurer’s uncanny luck can be a tool to help - It can give the game master time to decide on some options while the player is rolling, the result of the roll can help shape the story, and putting the fate back into the players’ hands can take a little bit of weight off the GM’s shoulders while they’re already holding up the rest of the world.

In times like these, it’s good to take a breath and remind yourself that you’re not alone in this - There’s a whole table of players here with, ultimately, the same aim; to tell a fantastic story together.

Even at the best of times healing magic can be expensive and limited in its effectiveness of curing large crowds of creatures, but when things get dire it makes sense to call on it, to hopefully prevent illness from spreading. What if you couldn’t though?

Learning how to be a Game Master can be incredibly daunting and difficult. Sadly it’s not something that can be taught in the conventional sense, so how does one become a good GM?

It’s only natural that at some point during a campaign there will be combat which was completely and utterly unplanned for. Here’s a rough guide I use whenever I need to cobble a fight together at the last second.

Whoa, hold up! Don’t actually do anything to the dog! ‘Kill The Puppy’ is a story from my wife’s college years. You can put the puppy down, it has to do with creative writing.

What’s the one thing that sets TTRPGs apart from other games? Specifically, what makes them different from a video game RPG, like Skyrim or Mass Effect? There are lots of great answers which help highlight the truly special features of this game style, and I would argue that the biggest and most important one is freedom.

We have come up with 20 random bits of conversation for your players to overheard and enjoy. Keep in mind these don’t actually have to lead to anything real or be a plot hook, they are just rumors and gossip.

Towns, villages, and cities. Civilization. The markers of safe respite from the beast-filled wilds, and the unprotected roads. Nothing could go wrong here… right?

Eventually your party will get to the point where the amount of gold in their possession is just too impractical to carry, and they don’t have a keep or HQ yet… or maybe the rogue is just paranoid somebody else in the party will steal their stuff. Banks could be a solution.. but in medieval times?

Legendary actions can make your Big Bad Evil Guy particularly devastating and truly a force to be feared. By contrast it almost makes you wonder what makes your heroes so special?

While traveling the country side or across town, what happens to your players?

While I enjoy the Death Saves mechanic, it sadly eliminates the idea of a "hero's end", or a "glorious death" from most combat encounters - We're going to try and come up with a way to fix that with a homebrew!