PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, PA is a massive gaming convention that we look forward to every year. We went as a group and traversed the floor, sat in on panels, saw Critical Role play live, talked with dozens of people and more. This episode is a conversation about what we liked, what needs improvement, and our favorite games, etc. Listen in!

We know that newer players and DM's often worry about what could derail or upset their game. Experienced DM's and players are always looking to make the start of a campaign better.  

So we are having a conversation about what to do and what not to do when starting a D&D campaign. This conversation lays the framework for a more detailed video down the road. What do you do or consider when making your campaign? How do you get your players to care about one another as characters? We have so many questions. 

Traveling between locations in D&D can be boring, predictable, eventful but empty and so many other anticlimactic things. Often times, DM's will just abandon travel as part of the game and magically transport their party to the next location. 

This is not necessary and we see travel as a fertile place to explore role play, exploration and more. Have a listen.

Once a month, we look at a class in D&D and how to play it. We also explore some of the history of that class and strategies for digging into your character a little deeper. This episode, we are looking at some of the huge differences in the Monk and how things are much much better. 

Making a backstory for your character can be something that gets over worked or completely ignored. We talk about some approaches to creating backstory that could help you if you are a player or a DM. 

In this episode, Todd and Rich are discussing the implications of Artificial Intelligence as a whole as well as how it impacts the community of table top role playing games. 

Where do you stand on this issue? In what ways are you for or against AI's relatively new appearance in our world? 

With Halloween right around the corner, we had a Ten Candles session that was really intense. We had great narrative flow, a compelling story and we learned a lot about the game. 

Ten Candles is a tragic horror table top role playing game that streamlines a minimal rule set in order to focus on the narrative. Head over to our YouTube channel at Wither and Bloom Studios to check out our game play and a new how to video we should be dropping very soon. 

How does lore work in your game?
In this episode, we talk about the differences between lore and story and how lore impacts the game, the various ways we deploy lore in our storytelling, and the ways in which players like to receive that lore. 

We also have a special guest on this episode, Jay Balsamello, a Dungeon Master and World Builder with some great insight on this topic. 

In this episode we talk about the ups and downs of puzzles in table top role playing games. We talk a little about the history, the pros and cons and how to potentially make them better. 

If you have struggled with this, then give this episode a listen. Hope you like it. 

We thought with Halloween looming we would talk about making the game more scary. What tactics or mechanics from other games can you employ to make things a little more tense? Let's talk about it.