DM Hype Squad

We talk about everyone's favourite horny bois! We have all played bards and DM'd campaigns with bards in, and as the number one roleplay class we are big fans. We all dislike College of Eloquence; Han wants to multiclass a martial bard; and Roz is still obsessed with Artificers.

Han, Lyn and Roz talk about how to run a session 0 that gets all the players and DM on the same page. From consent checklists, to handling romances in game, to checking in with your players along the way, it's all! about! communication!

Han, Lyn and Roz finally delve into the new playtest material for the new core rulebooks coming out this year. If you are looking for hot takes and vibe checks on the new material, you have come to the right place. We ask who the new edition is for, chat through the good, the bad and the ugly, and wonder if Wizards of the Coasts shady business practices might finally push us to move to Pathfinder.

The first episode in a new series where we talk about different classes! We delve into what makes barbarians fun to play, ways to play against type, and our favourite barb mechanics.

Han, Lyn and Roz chat about homebrew! From entire worlds, to subclasses, magic items, and one-shots, we chat about the various ways to homebrew things in your campaign. Roz loves to homebrew subclasses because it's just maths. Han and Lyn would rather die than work out an average.

We're back! In this episode we talk all things multiclassing: having a story reason for the choices you make, not going too far with a million classes, and what to do when your players make unusual multiclassing choices you weren't expecting. We still haven't started Netherdeep, and Roz has a new secret multiclassed character for Nameless.

Han, Lyn and Roz talk about what to do when your players go completely off the rails and you have to make stuff up on the spur of the moment. Lyn had to make up a whole session, including a town and NPCs when we refused to fast travel, and won't let us forget it! We also discuss improvising a character based on a pre-made character sheet and a few prompts, and we all raise a glass to Fantasy Name Generator, the real MVP.

Fresh off a weekend playing together in person, Han, Lyn and Roz talk about the differences between playing face to face and playing online. We chat VTTs (roll20 sponsorship team: call us!), when you need a map and when you don't, and dynamics round the table.

Han, Lyn and Roz chat player characters! We talk about how we build characters when we’re playing, multiclassing, and one of us outs themselves as a character optimiser.

Han, Lyn and Roz are the Greek Chorus of Rules Lawyers! We discuss rules as written vs rule of cool; how we learnt the rules; and how we deal with not knowing stuff (it happens more often than you think). We also chat about how players can help their DM out by learning their character sheet and tracking conditions or ongoing spell effects (if you do this, we love you!) You can find Han’s handy cheat sheet online here: https://www.cryptocartographer.net/blog/5e-player-reference