Tag: Gaming

Thac0 with Advantage 61. Mixing and Matching Player Types

Thac0 with Advantage 61. Mixing and Matching Player Types

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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

Thac0 with Advantage 60. Mixing and Matching Player Types

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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

Thac0 with Advantage 59. Lair Actions

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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

Thac0 with Advantage 58. 2024 Year in Review and Looing Forward to 2025

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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

Thac0 with Advantage 57. DnD and Diversity

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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.

Thac0 with Advantage 56. Companion Characters

Thac0 with Advantage 56. Companion Characters

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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.

Thac0 with Advantage 55. Worldbuilding Part 2

Thac0 with Advantage 55. Worldbuilding Part 2

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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.

A few episodes ago, we talked a little about homebrewing and setting building, but much of that was hypothetical. This week, We’re getting practical by talking to Chris about his homebrew ideas and how he’s used them in our play, The Heroes of Hovel’s Way. We’ve custom-crafted a new episode just for you.

Thac0 with Advantage 54. Range of Player Skill

Thac0 with Advantage 54. Range of Player Skill

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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 was our training wheels for getting into roleplaying games.

How much experience do your players have? Not their characters, but your players. What do you need to do to run a game for players that don’t think about tactics and how classes complement one another, versus players that know the best collection of abilities to actions to defeat monsters way above their weight class. On the other hand, what about players that are naturally tactically minded, but haven’t quite warmed up to the aspects of D&D that doesn’t revolve around finding the best way to navigate combat? We’re going to look at different levels of player and their ability and appetite for tactics.

Thac0 with Advantage 53. Backgrounds

Thac0 with Advantage 53. Backgrounds

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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 the five page backstory we wrote for our characters.

Characters in our fantasy stories have always had varied and interesting backgrounds. From Conan being born on the battlefield to Raistlin being weak and sickly his entire life. These moments in their lives helped push them into who they were as the characters we’ve enjoyed in fiction. RPG characters can be the same but it’s nice when the game helps us get there. Jared and Ang discuss the history of backgrounds in DnD and then their current implementation in D&D 2024 and other contemporary high fantasy games.

Thac0 with Advantage 52. A Question of Evil?

Thac0 with Advantage 52. A Question of Evil?

Posted on by Christopher Sniezak

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 almost completed the process of ceremorphosis on us..

Senda and Phil, our beloved Pandas That Talk About Games, were recently discussing nefarious player characters in a campaign and how to handle them, and they just happened to ask “I wonder what Ang and Jared think about this topic in D&D.” Today, we’re going to explore what Ang and Jared think about evil characters in D&D campaign. Does it work, and if it does, how does it work. Join us in our descent into evil.