Thac0 with Advantage 72. Dungeon Ecology

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D gives us a closed set of places to explore.

What is a dungeon? Well, that depends on what kind of podcast you’re listening to. But since this is D&D, a dungeon is a closed location with a limited set of options to explore, usually containing traps and monsters. We’re going to look at how dungeons function, and how far you can push that suspension of disbelief when beholders, a dragon, some kobolds, and a whole mess of grimlocks share the same address.

Thac0 with Advantage 71. The Fine China

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D has regeneration and we forgot to use fire.

We’ve talked about making sure you use iconic elements of epic fantasy in your games, going big so that your players will get what they want from the kind of game they signed up for. Today we’re going to talk about doing that early in the campaign. How do you introduce those big iconic elements of epic fantasy without overwhelming or annihilating new player characters just starting their career?

Thac0 with Advantage 70. Fantasy Gaming News Episode

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, someone told us that if we stuck with D&D everything would turn out okay.

We’re talking about news in this non evergreen episode. We hit Perkins and Crawford going to Darrington Press, Daggerheart in general, some state of the industry stuff, and the laying off of Todd Kenreck.

Heck, we missed Ivan Van Norman leaving Darrington Press, Jess Lanzillo leaving Wizards of the Coast, Daggerheart selling out their second printing of the core game, the leaked video of the cancelled DnD video game, and the Horrified D&D board game coming out soon.

Thac0 with Advantage 69. Metagaming

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, someone told us that if we stuck with D&D everything would turn out okay.

Once upon a time, one of the greatest sins you could commit was to perpetrate the iniquity of metagaming. Thou shalt not act on information you know, but your character wouldn’t. But is that always a bad thing? Why do we assume that every time we act on information our players don’t have, that we would do it in a way that would be detrimental to the game? We’re going to look at metagaming and why you may not need to be banished to the depths of Nesus for participating in the activity.