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Build Cities That Breathe: Mastering “Show, Don’t Tell” in Worldbuilding
Here are today's sponsors:
Worldsmith - Easy D&D Prep - Start a Free 7 Day Trial: https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast
Roll and Play Press - Easier D&D: https://session0studios.com/rollandplay
Studio Fantasms: https://session0studios.com/fantasms
Our Patreon: https://session0studios.com/patreon
Your world deserves to feel alive. In this episode of How to Be a Better DM, Justin dives deep into the art of “show, don’t tell” — not for your villains this time, but for your cities and settlements. Discover how to make your game world feel like a living, breathing place through cultural cues, architecture, layout, and behavior. You’ll learn actionable techniques to bring immersive environments to life and create settlements that feel like characters in your campaign. Plus, a secret about “show, don’t tell” that no one talks about!
Special thanks to:
Benj Weyland for Graphic Design (https://www.instagram.com/benjweydesign/)
TJ Max, Juka, and TechSenpai for being amazing moderators
Kyle Wilson, Nick Ammann and Professor Nobody for being our patrons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay
When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios.
Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.
Monument Studios
Brought to you by Session 0 Studios
Visit session0studios.com for more information.
Start Leveling Up As a DM
Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities?
In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters?
We’re happy to tell you that now, you can.
We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide.
It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering.
It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount.
In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try.
You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide.
Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.
Level Up Guide
Give Us a Rating and Review
You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.
View all episodes
By Justin Lewis
4.8
3939 ratings
Here are today's sponsors:
Worldsmith - Easy D&D Prep - Start a Free 7 Day Trial: https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast
Roll and Play Press - Easier D&D: https://session0studios.com/rollandplay
Studio Fantasms: https://session0studios.com/fantasms
Our Patreon: https://session0studios.com/patreon
Your world deserves to feel alive. In this episode of How to Be a Better DM, Justin dives deep into the art of “show, don’t tell” — not for your villains this time, but for your cities and settlements. Discover how to make your game world feel like a living, breathing place through cultural cues, architecture, layout, and behavior. You’ll learn actionable techniques to bring immersive environments to life and create settlements that feel like characters in your campaign. Plus, a secret about “show, don’t tell” that no one talks about!
Special thanks to:
Benj Weyland for Graphic Design (https://www.instagram.com/benjweydesign/)
TJ Max, Juka, and TechSenpai for being amazing moderators
Kyle Wilson, Nick Ammann and Professor Nobody for being our patrons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay
When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios.
Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.
Monument Studios
Brought to you by Session 0 Studios
Visit session0studios.com for more information.
Start Leveling Up As a DM
Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities?
In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters?
We’re happy to tell you that now, you can.
We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide.
It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering.
It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount.
In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try.
You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide.
Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.
Level Up Guide
Give Us a Rating and Review
You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.
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