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, but D&D is having us execute Episode 66.
Have you ever had the perfect idea for your campaign, but by the time you made it to a notebook or a computer, you completely forgot what it was? Where do ideas for campaigns come from, and how do we capture them? How do we put the ideas we have into game terms and make them sing for our players? We’re going to look at that today on THAC0 with Advantage.
Tag: Advice
Thac0 with Advantage 65. When Things Go Awry
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 knows where we’ve buried the bodies.
Sometimes you run the entire night with the assumption that a spell works the way it did from two editions ago, and some poor PCs pay the price. Sometimes the player characters spend three hours exploring something based on what they thought you said, instead of what you actually said. Or maybe what you actually said, instead of what you meant to say. We’re going to talk about mistakes at the table, what they look like, and how to roll with them.
Thac0 with Advantage 64. BOSS BATTLES!!!
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, we keep needing to hit the reset button to get another chance to conquer D&D.
Not every fantasy adventure story ends with a big fight, but many of them do. During major conflicts, it’s typical for fantasy heroes to face a singular embodiment of their antagonists: a dragon, demon lord, lich, or a conceptual representation (thanks JRPGs). We’re going to talk about what makes a boss battle interesting and challenging and explore ways to use the concept in your games.
Thac0 with Advantage 63. Metacurrencies
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 still encourages us to spend our currencies.
Multiple classes have resources they can use, but what happens when you want to manipulate the narrative outside of what your character can do? What happens when you’re running a game, and your combat just isn’t unfolding in a satisfying manner, but you don’t quite want to rebuild an encounter on the fly. That’s where metacurrencies can come in handy.
Thac0 with Advantage 62. Modular Encounters
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 too many fiddly bits to leave it alone.
What happens when you want just a little bit more game material to fit in between two other scenes you’ve already got in mind for your game? What can you do if you can only snag half the time you usually have for your regular game night? What if you have a great idea for a scene, but it doesn’t fit into what you’re doing right now? We’re going to look at modular encounters, building blocks you can store and pull out when you have just the right place to put them.
Thac0 with Advantage 61. Mixing and Matching Player Types
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D keeps us trying to find new ways to start over again.
We’ve talked about starting campaigns from the perspective of setting expectations, getting buy-in, and incorporating information from your session zero, but what about one step beyond that? What does the actual beginning of the campaign look like, and how can you frame your beginnings in new and different ways? That’s what we’re going to look at today on the show.
Thac0 with Advantage 60. Mixing and Matching Player Types
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D has taught us to fill empty voids with creative material
It has become almost standard for gamemaster guides to discuss player types. It’s important to identify what your players want from the game and how to balance the expectations of the table. But how many people fit into these categories? Can you mix and match player types in the same individual? Is someone always the same player type? That’s what we’re going to look at today.
Thac0 with Advantage 59. Lair Actions
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is a funhouse that has a mind of its own.
Have you ever had that feeling that you just walked into a dangerous area, where at any moment, something bad could happen, you just don’t know what? We’re going to be talking about mechanizing that feeling for your D&D campaigns with lair actions. This episode will start playing on initiative count 20, losing initiative ties!
Thac0 with Advantage 58. 2024 Year in Review and Looing Forward to 2025
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D
This past year was a busy, chaotic thing, even if you just look at RPG gaming. Today’s episode will look at what fantasy gaming looked like over this past year, both in the broader industry and in all our gaming groups. We’re set to recap 2024 in fantasy gaming, and talk a little about 2025.
Thac0 with Advantage 57. DnD and Diversity
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D keeps us company on the long roads we travel.
Sometimes, when an adventuring party loves an NPC very much, they start traveling together and setting common goals. We’re going to talk about the companion characters, those NPCs with their own goals and sidequests, that we love from CRPGs, why you might want them in your campaign, why you might not, and how to make a standard NPC feel like a companion character.