Taking 20 Podcast

In Part 2 of the interview, Jeremy and Johnn discuss how to hand out treasure, and making compelling cultures.  Part 3 will release this Thursday!

In the first of what I hope will be many more to come, Jeremy sits down to answer listener and reader questions with Johnn Four of www.roleplayingtips.com.  The rest of the interview will be released Tuesday and Thursday this week.

RPG Gatekeeping is the practice of deciding someone isn't worthy of participating in our hobby or that because they look different, have different beliefs, or lead a different lifestyle, they can't participate in our hobby.  It's wrong.  In this episode Jeremy talks about the need to be accepting of everyone in the hobby, young/old, straight/gay/bi, cis/trans.  None of that matters.  What matters is can you sit at the table and have a good time together.

Random Encounters, some DMs love them, some hate them.  In this episode Jeremy discusses strategies for using Random Encounters that still make your world feel alive and active but won't derail your gaming session.

In this episode, Jeremy fights through a sinus infection to talk about how you can use real world organizations as a framework for groups and guilds that could exist in your world.  He also mispronounces a lot of words and generally sounds rough.  I apologize for that.

Seems simple, doesn't it?  Your players' characters do something amazing and you give them something for it.  Players, your characters slay the beast and stare at a huge pile of stuff.  However, when mishandled, players can feel like they're getting shafted when it comes to loot and this can cause hurt feelings, rifts in the party, and even cause players to leave your game.

In RPGs, skill checks are different from attack rolls, saving throws, and other d20 rolls.  Jeremy discusses some ways that skill checks can be used in your game and how they can be adjucated in multiple ways.

In one of is rare DM-only episodes, Jeremy discusses the secret to ratcheting up the tension for the players to make them feel their characters' lives are on the line.  

There are two primary ways that combat can be run in Role Playing Games - Using battle maps that are printed or digitally produced or theater of the mind where all the action happens in everyone's imaginations.  Like nearly everything else, there are advantages to each and this episode discusses pros and cons of each with some lessons Jeremy has learned along the way.

Dragons.  They should be important encounters and villains.  Hell, they're in the name "Dungeons and Dragons".  How do you make encounters with them epic?  How should they take on the plucky band of adventurers who seek to steal their treasure from their lairs?  In this 20 minute episode, we look at things from a dragon's perspective and discuss tips and tricks for running these all powerful badasses like they should be run.