Divine inner conflict
What happens when two warring tribes worship the same god? In a fantasy setting, things can get weird.
Strategic communications of the gods
How do powerful beings spread their messages? Why do bards have magic powers? What if both questions have the same answer?
Next Gen Princes 01: The Future
Welcome to my new project: creating a glimpse of the future of tabletop roleplaying games
Surreal weather
Want to inject some mundane fantasy into your setting? Don’t neglect the weather. Here are a few ideas.
Beyond handcrafted
Is everything in your world “handcrafted”? Should it be? Here’s how even mundane objects can have fantastic origins without making them overpowered.
QQ&A: AI
ChatGPT is impressive. It summarised psychoneuroimmunology for me, while also creating poems glorifying stoicism. But can it help with your campaign prepping?
QQ&A: Pitching puzzles
How do you design a puzzle that’s not too easy and not too hard, but just right? That’s far simpler than you might think.
QQ&A: Control freak GMing
Can you be a control freak and a great GM? The conventional wisdom is no. Here’s how that wisdom might be wrong.
QQ&A: Dwindling resources
Do you track ammo? Rather than counting the arrows in your quiver or having an infinite supply, there’s a richer way to track resources of any kind.
Improv 8: The Full Improv Process
It’s been a fun journey. Here, I lay out everything we covered in less than 250 words. Thanks for reading.
QQ&A: Overwhelm
Game Masters have a lot to keep track of. That means it’s easy for the players to overwhelm them, deliberately or otherwise. Here’s the mature way to stop that.
The best stories tell themselves
Bold claim: the disasters of Game of Thrones’ last season were preventable, if only the writers had read this simple guide I wrote for Dungeon Masters.
QQ&A: Splitting the party
Hardcore players get “Never split the party” tattooed on their sleeves, and for good reason. Here’s how and why you might encourage them to do it anyway.
Improv 7: Alluding to the encounter
You’ve improvised an encounter, but the players don’t go for it. Is that the end of the story? It doesn’t have to be.
QQ&A: Levelling’s ludonarrative “lunacy”
Is this a problem? Of course not. And here’s the solution.
Improv 06: Running the Encounter
You’ve built the encounter - now what? What you do next can really sell the idea that you’d planned this all along, even if you just pulled it out of hammerspace.
QQ&A: Simulating Stupidity
Today, I share a simple algorithm I often use when running encounters. It mixes up the fights and (usually) lets the players feel smart, cool and professional.
Unlocking psychological warfare
Psychological warfare in D&D isn’t great, boiling down to just a few basic skill checks and spell saves. That’s because GMs need to add this before it can work.
Improv 5: Getting Personal
This is Step Four of my encounter improv process, where we add yet another layer of fun and uniqueness.
QQ&A: Balancing a party
What does a GM need to do to balance a party? Depending on the situation, either something or nothing. Here’s how to tell the difference.