GM Advice – Page 2 – Polygamerous Podcast Network

Thac0 with Advantage 48. Languages in D&D

Posted on July 10, 2024July 10, 2024 by Christopher Sniezak

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time, and podcasting for two years as of this episode! While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D speaks our language.

Many fantasy stories revolve around lost and arcane languages, or characters that can speak for their party when they encounter creatures that don’t share a language with anyone else. One of the most consistent elements of character creation in D&D has been determining what languages a character knows, but what does that mean at the game table. We’ll be talking about language and seeing if we share a gaming dialect.

Thac0 with Advantage 47. Workshopping Vecna. Eve of Ruin

Posted on June 26, 2024June 26, 2024 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, the multiverse may come unraveled if we don’t play D&D.

Published adventures are often juggling a lot of objectives. The adventure may be trying to illustrate a specific style of campaign, it may be highlighting a certain type of creature or opponent. And sometimes, it may be trying to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. In this episode, we’re going to look at Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and see what kind of fine tuning you might want to explore when engaging with this plane hopping epic adventure.

Thac0 with Advantage 44. Pulling Encounters out of your Bag of Holding

Posted on May 15, 2024May 15, 2024 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 keeps coming up on the random encounter charts.

What happens when player characters come in contact with non-player characters? That interaction in D&D is called an encounter, and its where much of the game takes place. Some encounters happen in a set place in time, some happen at random, and some emerge from play. With all of this variability and versatility, what’s the best way to make encounters sing? We’ll take a look at that on today’s THAC0 with Advantage.

Thac0 with Advantage 43. Running the Same Adventure Again

Posted on May 1, 2024April 30, 2024 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 cast a temporal loop spell over us that we can’t escape.

There are a thousand stories you can tell with Dungeons & Dragons, but what if you really want to tell the same story more than once? Because roleplaying games present players with so many choices, sometimes it can be fascinating to go back and see if your current players will take the road less traveled, or if some mistakes are built to last. We’re going to explore running the same adventure more than once, and how to get the most out of the experience.

Thac0 with Advantage 42. Magic and Technology, I come from a place where they are one and the same!

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 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 recursive program that we’re still running to solve for a perfect campaign.

In some fantasy stories, everything is steeped in myth and magic, and anything that distracts from those themes detracts from the story. But that’s not every fantasy story. For decades, pulp heroes could just as easily wield a sword as a laser pistol. Sometimes it’s worth it to see the looks on your player’s faces when the dragon they’ve been hunting is actually a cyborg with laser vision. Today we’re going to talk about when and how to include science fiction in your D&D campaigns

Thac0 with Advantage 41. Who Goes First? Rolling for Initiative

Posted on April 3, 2024March 29, 2024 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 still acts first in all of our rounds of gaming.

Imagine a table full of gamers. Each one of them has a character with multiple options available to them. Now think of all of those characters in the same scene with a giants, a dragon, and a band of ogres. How do you keep all of those characters straight and make sure that everyone gets to take their turn? We roll for initiative, and let the dice tell us who gets to take what turn and when. We’ll explore how 5e D&D works, as well as variations that exist in the game.