Tag: Game Talk

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 can still be unpredictable.

We all know the fantasy archetypes that spring from fantasy RPGs. The naïve but steadfast paladin, the stoic ranger who relates better to animals than people, the arrogant wizard that looks down on anyone less intelligent than they are. But we also know people that intentionally play against those archetypes. The hard drinking hedonistic paladin of the goddess of love, the ranger that has friends in every tavern in every city along the Sword Coast, the wizard that loves teaching and explaining new things to others. Today we’re going to look at playing against type, why you may want to do it, and how sometimes it can be very similar to playing a rigid archetype.

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 isn’t on its last breath.

Only two things in life are certain. Death and Taxes. Or in D&D, Death Saves and Upkeep rules. In this episode, we’re going to look at character death. How should you handle it? Can you run a game without it? How does it affect the stakes of your game? What does it mean to have a meaningful death in the game? We’re going to teeter on the boundary between life and death today in this episode of THAC0 w/ Advantage.

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 is a spawn point for new players.

On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about zero level humans. But in this case, we me people that haven’t played D&D before. We’ve talked about new players before, but what about specific techniques? How do you introduce concepts in bit sized chunks that will go down easy? We’re going to talk about setting up your D&D sessions with new players by looking at video game tutorials in today’s episode.

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 collects stray fantasy elements the way English accumulates unrelated words. 

The lore of D&D was pieced together from a ton of fantasy and folklore. But what if you took that approach to the mechanics and procedures of your game? What can you steal from Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games that will help you run your D&D games, or any other fantasy RPG? We’re going to podcast to find out.

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 collects stray fantasy elements the way English accumulates unrelated words. 

The lore of D&D was pieced together from a ton of fantasy and folklore. But what if you took that approach to the mechanics and procedures of your game? What can you steal from Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games that will help you run your D&D games, or any other fantasy RPG? We’re going to podcast to find out.

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 is our computer’s eternal desktop theme.

Once again, we’ve rolled high enough to have an encounter, and this time we’re going to talk about what goes into making a thematic encounter. How do you tailor your encounters to fit the theme of your campaign and communicate the wider story you want to work toward? We’re going to look at the building blocks that go into creating thematic encounters.

The Mind Flayer first showed up in TSR’s Strategic Review publication, the precursor to Dragon Magazine, in 1975. If you had a really low intelligence, their mind blast would kill you outright, and if you had a really high intelligence, you risked permanent insanity, so its best to be just kind of mediocre around a mind flayer. In the Ecology of the Mind Flayer in Dragon Magazine #78, in 1983, Mind Flayer’s alternate name, Illithid, courtesy of a Githyanki hired to provide information on them. Apparently Illithids aren’t willing to eat the brains of lycanthropes or Grimlocks. So the safest person to interact with a mind flayer is a Grimlock wererat with average intelligence. I wonder if there’s a Baldur’s Gate III mod to add one into the game.

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 cast Guards and Wards and it makes it really hard to leave.

Now that we’ve talked about what living in a dungeon is like, this time around we’re going to look at how to design a dungeon that doesn’t eat up your life for months at a time. We’re going to look at five room dungeons, and how to use them in your games. Make those rooms count.

Saving Throw categories have changed a bit over time in D&D. Instead of saves based on ability scores, the saving throw categories were obviously logical Death Rays and Poison, Wands, Turn to Stone, Dragon’s Breath, and Spells and Staffs. This certainly didn’t lead to long discussions at the table about what happens if a wand casts a spell, or a spell creates a death ray, or a dragon’s breath causes petrification. Thank goodness we never get confused of what saves are logical now.

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.

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?