Hook and Chance

Mimics are the classic monster that's fun in concept, horrendous on execution. They are designed to be a trap that cannot be detected, and this drives us up a wall. So join us as we talk about what elements we would add that make them a lot more useful and fun for us to include in our games.

Want to learn some techniques that will leave everyone stunned at how well a session brought their characters and their visions to life? Here to help is The GMTim! He runs about 10 games a month, writes adventures, and constantly discovers new ways to push his skills as a Game Master. We are so excited to have him share his skills with us in this episode.

The Artificer is a class that stands out as way to visually express your stunning creativity. You can have mechanical friends, suits of super armor, incredible weaponry, the list goes on. It's incredibly fun to keep detailing out these aspects of the artificer. With these concepts, however, we find it easy to forget to build a rich character underneath it all, with a story and a personality that's gonna shine as brightly as their robo-monkey-cat. That's why we talk about what steps you can take to create a great artificer character in this episode.

Sometimes you get an idea of the kind of game you want to run in your head. Like, a twisty, turny, confusing labyrinthine adventure would be rad, right? Everyone would have so much fun trying to navigate the endless sprawling passageways of the Underdark, right? Well, it is a great idea, just don't mistake an adventure in a maze for having the players solve a real maze. That make sense? If not, join us as we discuss making great mazes.

Well, it’s kinda tough to say. Y’see, we think it’s all a matter of how getting the expectations right for this incredibly utilitarian sorcery. In this episode, though we take a deeper look into a spell that tends to blow up in players’ faces with a single lucky roll.

Hey, look, we still love Giants. So join us as we explore the culture of Fire Giants! Go past their angry exterior and discover what really motivates them, how they treat humanoids, what they do when they are not fighting, how they talk to each other, and plenty more fiery fun. By the end, we hope you know exactly what to do when you pull a Fire Giant out of the ol' creature stash. Our favorite part of monsters is what lives beyond the stat block. To get into what makes Fire Giants unique, we went to Kinship Camp, and turned to our Culture Creator. You'll hear great additions that you can use to roleplay fire giants to their fullest in your games. We go from broad strokes, like talking about their cultural values and beliefs, all the way down to suggesting that they yell "Rust!" when frustrated, or give away forge hammers as a thank you.

Making mistakes as a DM or player was once our biggest fear. Then, we learned that the greatest games happen due to unexpected occurrences, and that the best thing we can do in the face of creative adversity is just keep moving. In this episode, you'll learn how to do that in any gaming situation that seems bad.

You know we love some giants, and maybe you do too. Maybe even your whole table does too! If you want to mix it up and use something that no one has seen, and lives somewhere no giant would live, please meet the desert giant! We created this new culture of giants using our culture creator, which is a great tool to create whatever giants that you want to bring to the game as well.

Have you ever struggled to flesh out a society in your games? Or multiple cultures at once? If you're working off of lore, it can be a lot to absorb and figure out how to use. If you are starting from scratch it can feel like becoming a novelist just to run a game. Well, we've wrestled this beast more than a few times, and we've got a system that makes it all much more manageable. In this episode, we're using it to simplify a creature in D&D with some of the oldest and richest lore, with subcultures and innate magic galore.

If you've listened to our last episode, you heard us create a system to create unique gods and religions. Well, now it's time to apply that to your incredible character! We combine our culture creator and our character planner and show you how flipping fun it is to create characters that have a lot to them and their beliefs, without studying manuals of lore or spending months creating your own.