Wandering DMs

Dan and Paul are back at it again, creating an entire D&D adventure in just one hour! Armed with only their D&D source books, Matt Finch's excellent Tome of Adventure Design, and the input from live viewers, they'll create a fully stocked and playable D&D dungeon adventure right in front of your eyes. Once it's complete, adventure WDM05 will be posted on DriveThruRPG and free copies distributed to all our faithful patrons!

Dan and Paul reflect on the many changing faces of ghouls in D&D and fantasy literature. How did they become one of the most feared monster types? What flavor is best: the one from Lovecraft, Howard, Leiber, Gygax, or Romero? Should they be unthinking undead, or a sentient organized race? What's the best way to skin (or unskin) them in your D&D game?

In Arabic folklore, the ghul is said to dwell in cemeteries and other uninhabited places. A male ghoul is referred to as ghul while the female is called ghulah. A source identified the Arabic ghoul as a female creature who is sometimes called Mother Ghoul (ʾUmm Ghulah) or a relational term such as Aunt Ghoul. She is portrayed in many tales luring hapless characters, who are usually men, into her home where she can eat them.

Some state[who?] that a ghoul is a desert-dwelling, shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, and eats the dead, then taking the form of the person most recently eaten. One of the narratives identified a ghoul named Ghul-e Biyaban, a particularly monstrous character believed to be inhabiting the wilderness of Afghanistan and Iran.

In "Pickman's Model", a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, ghouls are members of a subterranean race. Their diet of dead human flesh mutated them into bestial humanoids able to carry on intelligent conversations with the living. The story has ghouls set underground with ghoul tunnels that connect ancient human ruins with deep underworlds. Lovecraft hints that the ghouls emerge in subway tunnels to feed on train wreck victims.

Lovecraft's vision of the ghoul, shared by associated authors Clark Ashton-Smith and Robert E. Howard, has heavily influenced the collective idea of the ghoul in American culture. Ghouls as described by Lovecraft are dog-faced and hideous creatures but not necessarily malicious. Though their primary (perhaps only) food source is human flesh, they do not seek out or hunt living people. They are able to travel back and forth through the wall of sleep. This is demonstrated in Lovecraft's "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" in which Randolph Carter encounters Pickman in the dream world after his complete transition into a mature ghoul.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ghoul", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

This week on Wandering DMs, Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins dive into one of the most common challenges DMs face: scaling D&D adventures when the number of players doesn’t match what the adventure was designed for. Whether you're running a session for fewer players than expected or you suddenly have a larger group to accommodate, adjusting on the fly can be tricky. Paul and Dan will break down strategies for tweaking encounters, managing balance, and ensuring every player stays engaged, even when the group size shifts unexpectedly.

Without time to prepare in advance, making adjustments on the fly requires quick thinking and flexibility. How do you rebalance combat encounters without losing the tension or excitement of the adventure? What do you do when a critical puzzle or social encounter suddenly becomes too easy or too hard because of the group size? Paul and Dan will explore these challenges and offer real-world examples from their years of experience running games, helping DMs make smart adjustments in the heat of the moment.

They’ll also discuss how to write adventures that are easier to adjust to variable group sizes and what kind of guidance adventure authors can include to help DMs handle these situations. Whether you're a seasoned Dungeon Master or new to running games, join the conversation and get tips you can apply right away! As always, they’ll be live and taking your questions and comments in real time. Don’t miss it — Sunday at 1 PM Eastern on YouTube and Twitch!

Dan and Paul chat with Matt Finch, the ENNIE-award winning designer of the Swords & Wizardry game, and who also created OSRIC, and the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming. Plus he made our favorite Tome of Adventure Design, as seen in use in the Wandering DMs Dungeon Design Dashes. Next up on Kickstarter is Matt's Tome of Wordbuilding Design. Is this just in time for all our fantasy worldbuilding needs?

The Tome of World Building is written by ENNIE-award winning author Matt Finch, author of the critically-acclaimed Tome of Adventure Design. Using the Tome of World Building, you can create fantasy worlds quickly and fill them out with a wealth of detail from the random-generation tables in this book.

This Kickstarter offers two high quality hardcover books to create a trilogy of creative power with the Tome of Adventure Design. The first is the Tome of World Building, allowing you to create maps, cultures, countries, wilderness regions, and all the history and backstabbing politics of a fantasy world. The second is the Nomicon, with tables to invent fantasy names for everything you'll generate using the Tome of World Building.

Paul and Dan chat with Luke Gygax on the 50th anniversary of D&D and his new old-school mega-adventure, Wrath of the Sea Lich! Wrath of the Sea Lich is a reimagining of his hit series, "Oculus of Senrahbah" originally created for 5e. Luke and Matt enlisted the help of notable designer Sersa Victory to reengineer the scenario for the critically acclaimed Shadowdark system. Together, they have remastered the entire series, the encounters are rebalanced, and the entire work is reformatted to fit the Old School aesthetic of Shadowdark.

n "Wrath of the Sea Lich", the party sets out to recover the Eye of Chentoufi, an ancient artifact sought by a local treasure hunter. Unknown to all, the artifact is sought by the ancient Ydrissid lich, Ireshkigal, who has been dormant for thousands of years in her watery fortress. As the characters venture across the city, they eventually find their way to a submerged ruins and encounter remnants of a forgotten age. As they begin to understand the implications of Ireshkigal’s return, the sense of urgency to find the artifact mounts. The lich’s revival could bring serious consequences to the world, and the party must decide whether to use the power of the Oculus or find a way to destroy it.

Shadowdark RPG is a modern fantasy role-playing game that seamlessly blends classic tabletop RPG elements with innovative mechanics, creating a new experience for players who have grown up with modern role-playing games. Designed to evoke the nostalgia of early dungeon crawlers while introducing streamlined gameplay, Shadowdark encourages exploration, tactical combat, and rich storytelling. Its flexible system accommodates various play styles, making it accessible for both newcomers and experienced adventurers. The game emphasizes fast-paced action, player agency, and a dark atmosphere that challenges players throughout each game session. It won the 2024 Three Castles Award for best game design, as well as four gold ENNIEs: Product of the Year, Best Game, Best Rules, and Best Layout & Design.

Dan and Paul, the Wandering DMs, discuss the right number of players for D&D and other TTRPGs. How many is too many? How few is too few? What factors play into choosing the right range of party size for your adventure design?

Team size and team composition affect team processes and team outcomes. The optimal size (and composition) of teams is debated and will vary depending on the task at hand. At least one study of problem-solving in groups showed an optimal size of groups at four members. Other works estimate the optimal size between 5–12 members or a number of members that can consume two pizzas.

Writers such as Belbin (1981, 1993), Woodcock (1989), Margerison and McCann (1990), Davis et al. (1992), Parker (1990), and Spencer and Pruss (1992) focused on team roles and how these affected team performance. These studies suggested that team performance was a function of the number and type of roles team members played. The number of roles for optimal performance varied from 15 (Davis et al., 1992) to four (Parker, 1990). This variation has been attributed to how roles were defined.

Regarding composition, all teams will have an element of homogeneity and heterogeneity. The more homogeneous the group, the more cohesive it will be. The more heterogeneous the group, the greater the differences in perspective and increased potential for creativity, but also the greater potential for conflict.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Team", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Paul and Dan do a deep dive on the state of travel encounters in classic D&D and other games. Should they be based on random wandering tables, or fine-tuned by the DM for the given adventure session? Is the goal to simulate a living world, or to challenge the PCs at the table? Should the DM know in advance what will happen, or share in the surprise?

Travel in the Middle Ages offered hardships and challenges, though it was important to the economy and to society. The wholesale sector depended (for example) on merchants dealing with/through caravans or sea-voyagers, end-user retailing often demanded the services of many itinerant peddlers wandering from village to hamlet, gyrovagues (wandering monks) and wandering friars brought theology and pastoral support to neglected areas, traveling minstrels toured, and armies ranged far and wide in various crusades and in sundry other wars. Pilgrimages were common in both the European and Islamic world and involved streams of travelers both locally and internationally.

In the late 16th century, it became fashionable for young European aristocrats and wealthy upper-class men to travel to significant European cities as part of their education in the arts and literature. This was known as the Grand Tour, and included cities such as London, Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome. However, the French Revolution brought with it the end of the Grand Tour.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Travel", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Dan and Paul are joined by special guest Adam "Rutskarn" DeCamp, author of the blog Chocolate Hammer. Rutskarn will share his experience running a highly political campaign using the original TSR Western RPG Boot Hill, first published in 1975. How can a game with zero rules for social interactions and a highly deadly combat system actually encourage play focused on politics, deception, and intrigue?

Boot Hill is a western-themed role-playing game designed by Brian Blume, Gary Gygax, and Don Kaye (although Kaye unexpectedly died before the game was published), and first published in 1975. Boot Hill was TSR's third role-playing game, appearing not long after Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and Empire of the Petal Throne. Boot Hill focused on gunfighting rather than role-playing. The first edition and second editions were specifically marketed as a miniatures combat game, but even in the third edition, most of the rules concerned combat resolution, with relatively little information about settings and few rules for social interaction.

Combat could be short and deadly, with death often coming from the first gunshot. This lethality did not change over time since, unlike D&D characters, Boot Hill characters did not advance in levels to develop better defenses or advantages over non-player characters; they remained just as likely to die in their hundredth combat as they had been in their first. As a result, most characters had a very short life span, and players generally had little chance to identify with their player character over the long term, as they could with a player character in D&D.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Boot Hill (role-playing game)", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Dan and Paul wrap up the most recent Wizards D&D Beyond fumble -- a decision to retract all the items, magic, and spells from the 2014 version of D&D 5th Edition, and replace all content globally with the 2024 revised D&D content (whether players wanted it or not!). After public outcry, WOTC flip-flopped on their decision, but was it a preventable mistake? How hard is it for a game company to make old & new customers both equally happy?

There are several incentives for a company to implement backward compatibility. Backward compatibility can be used to preserve older software that would have otherwise been lost when a manufacturer decides to stop supporting older hardware. Classic video games are a common example used when discussing the value of supporting older software. The cultural impact of video games is a large part of their continued success, and some believe ignoring backward compatibility would cause these titles to disappear. Backward compatibility also acts as a selling point for new hardware, as an existing player base can more affordably upgrade to subsequent generations of a console. This also helps to make up for lack of content at the launch of new systems, as users can pull from the previous console's library of games while developers transition to the new hardware. Moreover, studies in the mid-1990s found that even consumers who never play older games after purchasing a new system consider backward compatibility a highly desirable feature, valuing the mere ability to continue to play an existing collection of games even if they choose never to do so. Backward compatibility with the original PlayStation (PS) software discs and peripherals is considered to have been a key selling point for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) during its early months on the market.

The monetary costs of supporting old software is considered a large drawback to the usage of backward compatibility. The associated costs of backward compatibility are a larger bill of materials if hardware is required to support the legacy systems; increased complexity of the product that may lead to longer time to market, technological hindrances, and slowing innovation; and increased expectations from users in terms of compatibility. Because of this, several console manufacturers phased out backward compatibility toward the end of the console generation in order to reduce cost and briefly reinvigorate sales before the arrival of newer hardware.

Backward compatibility introduces the risk that developers will favor developing games that are compatible with both the old and new systems, since this gives them a larger base of potential buyers, resulting in a dearth of software which uses the advanced features of the new system.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Backward compatibility", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Paul and Dan discuss creation of pre-generated characters for one-shot roleplaying games. From the fastest and easiest ways to quickly generate stats, to crafting unique back-stories that fit (or fight) with the plot. How does it differ between styles of game, and when, if ever, to let the players create their own characters for one-off and convention style games.

In both tabletop role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing video games such as Final Fantasy, a player typically creates or takes on the identity of a character that may have nothing in common with the player. The character is often of a certain (usually fictional) race and class (such as zombie, berserker, rifleman, elf, or cleric), each with strengths and weaknesses. The attributes of the characters (such as magic and fighting ability) are given as numerical values which can be increased as the gamer progresses and gains rank and experience points through accomplishing goals or fighting enemies.

Character creation (also character generation / character design) is the process of defining a player character in a role-playing game. The result of character creation is a direct characterization that is recorded on a character sheet. This may include a representation of the character's physical, mental, psychological, and social attributes and skills in terms of the specific game's mechanics. It may also include informal descriptions of the character's physical appearance, personality, personal back-story ("background"), and possessions. Games with a fantasy setting may include traits such as race, class, or species. Character creation is the first step typically taken by the players (as opposed to the gamemaster) in preparation for a game.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia articles "Player Character" and "Character Creation", which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.