Taking 20 Podcast

Skill challenges were one of the best things to come out of the much maligned 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons.  What are they?  How can you use them in your campaign?  Will Jeremy ever be able to limit himself to a 20 minute episode again?

Like most people who have done something for a while, I look back at my early days of playing D&D and cringe at some of the mistakes I made as a new player.  In this episode we talk about 15 of those mistakes and the lessons I've learned since then.

Adding aerial or swimming combatants to your battlefield can make things very complicated very quickly.  It doesn't help matters when the different game systems are so different in the way they handle these situations.  In this episode, Jeremy talks about the challenges, reasons to persevere through those challenges, and tips he's learned running these complicated combats.

Tune in next week when I'll talk about what I wish I'd known when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons

I received a listener suggestion to talk about some of the classes available in 5e and Pathfinder.  This episode starts that series, beginning with the Barbarian and the Bard.  Jeremy talks about tropes, playing with them and against them, and his wife helps him with a beep button when things get a little...suggestive.

"Part of the journey is the end," as it was so wisely said.  As tough as it can be guiding the adventure to an end, handling the end properly can be surprisingly tougher.  In this episode Jeremy talks about his favorite method to put a bow on a campaign and prime the next one for success.

Oops.  One of your PCs was just bitten by a werewolf and have begun the transformation into a howling, flesh-devouring monster.  How do you handle this as a GM?  Does the PC automatically become an NPC?  Tune in and find out.

Combat encounters are easy.  Stab, slash, or shoot the other team until they aren't trying to kill you.  Non-combat encounters can be just as challenging and fun, though.  In this episode Jeremy talks about types of this important tool in your arsenal and how to challenge PCs with them.

The Blood War isn't good vs evil.  It's evil vs evil.  In Dungeons and Dragons Demons and Devils have been battling it out for millennia in what's known as The Blood War.  What do we know about this conflict and more importantly, how can you use it in a campaign?

Do you struggle describing what the characters see?  Do you need a magic method to instantly make you better?  I can't help with that but I can provide a couple of formulas I've used to describe scenes for my players.  Thank you Trevor for the topic idea.

Is combat getting a little bit...stale?  Are your D&D or Pathfinder combats taking too long and they have become a long battle of hit point attrition, rules research, and having to explain 3 times per round what's going on?  Are you willing to try a few things that are...unconventional?  Well, my good open-minded listener, we talk about 20 ideas in 20 minutes for making combat faster, easier, crazier, and maybe a little better.