Hook and Chance

Creating a world as a group, or by yourself, is a powerfully satisfying creative experience. When a whole bunch of great ideas come together, and you start twisting and mixing them in a unique way, you're gonna come up with something you want to explore more, because it's yours, and it's new. That's what we're doing in this episode with the help of our fantastic guest, Matt Sernett, and the input from our fantastic friends on Discord.

Owlbears can be a fun threat, a D&D roadside encounter classic, but as new DM's we had no idea how to effectively use them. Our encounters were barely a step up from Winnie the Pooh stumbling onto the road with a beak taped to his face, yelling for the party to treat him like a pincushion. In this episode we want to explore all kinds of ways to use owlbears, from a tool to menace your party with, to a dangerous part of nature, even as a friendly pet. Join us, and hopefully by the end you'll have all the fuel you need for your next Owlbear.

Playing in existing fiction is fantastic, but a lot of us, at one point or another, get that itch to create a world of our own. So what makes them great? Not a formula, but the collection of ideas that makes up your mind. That's why this is not a step by step guide to creating your own wonderful world, but rather a collection of ideas to visit along your way, and ways to explore combining things you already love into something new. Matt Sernett, someone with extensive knowledge and experience with what makes a fictional world mean something, guides us through.

There's a million ways to build worlds, and it's a powerfully fun thing to do. But the greatest worlds come not from a formula, but from a mindset of creating something all your own. Here to share his experience and wisdom on the subject is someone that's made a career of diving deep into fictional worlds, Matt Sernett. Join us as we learn new ways to think about this fundamental part of the gaming experience, with Matt as our guide.

Give a little thought to where your Tabaxi character hails from, and avoid falling prey to playing a walking cat joke. We've wanted to explore this culture for a while, since it's one that hasn't been deeply explored in the lore. So in this episode, we take inspiration from what does exist, and dive into it a little more.

There's so many opinions of how to handle Charm Person, and being charmed in general. And they're all right! Obviously, we'd never tell you our way of acting charmed is the only way. But we will tell you how we keep it pretty simple in our heads, and are able to actually play this out in a way that fits the game. Too many times we've gone too big, and let them befriend the big bad for all time, or too small, and planted a big juicy "no" on our reactions.

We're finally talking about what's better than throwing in random travel encounters! All you've gotta do is consider what actually matters about your encounter, and then why the outcome matters. This episode gets into those points a little deeper.

Knowing why you're playing through travel is huge. If you have a great answer for that, you'll probably have some great travel. Join us in this episode to learn how to answer that question, and never deal with a dying story due to random encounters or "accurate" travel experiences.

If you want a tested method for engaging the table with stories, the ticking clock is invaluable. When used well, you avoid those meandering five session detours from the wicked adventure idea you created for your table.

Learning to pace games intentionally is a part of running games that eluded us for a long time. Done well, it results in those grand gaming wrap ups, where everyone is coming down off the high of a great session. Done poorly, it leaves us sad and confused as to why that session went down about as well as a juiced cockroach. That's why in this episode we give solid steps on fluctuating the pace of your games to keep everyone in it, and everything on time.