Game Master's Journey

Hinterlands of Elandria is a new D&D campaign set in Lex's homebrew campaign world, Primordia. Five years after the beginning of the Breaking of the World, the Time of Rifts and the Retreat of Humanity, a new team of adventurers leave the safety of the city of Elandria to explore rumors of a lone village somehow surviving in the Hinterlands to the east. Very few cities survived the Breaking, a...

Listener-GM Ali Buck joins Lex on the show to discuss her experiences as a new GM.

Martin Hébert, a professor of anthropology, joins Lex to talk about how anthropology can help us create more realistic and more interesting cultures and worlds for our RPGs. They discuss some of the most common mistakes made by worldbuilders, and they tell you how you can avoid making those mistakes yourself.

Lex continues his exploration of Xanathar's Guide to Everything , the latest rules supplement for Dungeons & Dragons. This week he digs into Chapter 2: Dungeon Master's Tools. Topics include basic rules & assumptions of the game as well as expanded rules for falling, sleeping, adamantine weapons, tying knots, identifying spells, random encounters, downtime activities and awarding magic ite...

Lex discusses how he created the encounter table for the Misty Wood, the first area players will likely explore in the campaign.

Lex discusses how he prepared for the second session of his new D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria.

Lex continues his exploration of Xanathar's Guide to Everything , the latest rules supplement for Dungeons & Dragons. This week he digs into the outstanding work done to improve the value of tool proficiencies in the game.

Lex begins a series of episodes discussing Xanathar's Guide to Everything, the new D&D rules supplement. Today he gives an overview of the book with a tour of its contents. Whether you're a player or a DM, Xanathar's Guide has something for everyone.

Behind the Screen is a series of GM commentary companion episodes to Lex's new D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria. This week Lex discusses running session 1, Into the Wilds.

Behind the Screen is a series of GM commentary companion episodes to Lex's new D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria. This week Lex discusses how he prepared for the first session, Into the Wilds.

Behind the Screen is a series of GM commentary companion episodes to Lex's new D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria. This week Lex discusses his preparation for the campaign.

Behind the Screen is a series of GM commentary companion episodes to Lex's new D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria. This week Lex gives an introduction to his homebrew D&D world, Primordia.

Lex returns to his discussion of the Dungeon Master’s Guide with an exploration of the astral plane. This is the first part of a two part discussion. We'll go over the basics of the astral plane. We’re not given a lot of details on this plane in the 5e DMG compared to previous editions, so in part two we’ll refer to the Manual of the Planes from 3rd edition to fill in the gaps. This week Lex also...

In October's livestream episode, Lex discusses his upcoming D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria, which he'll be livestreaming on YouTube. He also talks about the future of Game Master's Journey, adjusting encounters in a published adventure for PCs of a lower or higher level, Tomb of Annihilation and Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

Lex discusses why game balance is important. We often think of game balance when coming up with campaign-affecting house rules, but we should also keep it in mind when making rulings on-the-fly during play. These spontaneous house rules can have just as much impact on our games as the ones we spend time designing.

Lex covers a variety of RPG topics today including getting PCs back to town at the end of the session in West Marches campaigns, Limitless Adventures' Limitless NPCs, stepping on toes, Jeremy Crawford's DM hacks and handing out legendary and other powerful magic items. Finally Lex discusses the belief that worldbuilding is a waste of the GM's time because the players won't care about the setting a...

Lex shares what he learned from his latest D&D campaign. Then he begins a discussion of chapter 2 of the Dungeon Master's Guide: Creating a Multiverse. He covers the different types of planes and different ways you can fit them together into a cosmology. Finally he discusses some of the ways PCs can access and travel the planes.

Brett joins the show again for a GM to GM discussion of some general GM philosophy and tips, and Lex goes into some detail on his upcoming campaign and his homebrew world of Primordia.

Encounters seldom turn out in practice as they appear on paper. Today Lex discusses some ways to scale an encounter on the fly during play.

Today Lex discusses feedback from Listener-GMs on recent topics. He discusses his opinions on Professional Game Masters. He also talks about "random" encounters, player honesty, competition, theater of the mind and the impartialness of the GM in West Marches style campaigns.

Lex wraps up his exploration of chapter 1 of the Dungeon Master's Guide with a discussion of the flavors of fantasy.

Today Lex talks about what he's done to prepare for his next campaign, The Hinterlands of Elandria. 

Lex returns to the DMG to discuss play style and tiers of play. Not all D&D campaigns are the same, and this is the point in your campaign creation where you decide exactly what kind of an experience you’re going for.

Lex discusses preparation for his new campaign.

Today Lex moves to the other side of the GM screen to talk with his DM, Brett. Lex has been playing in Brett’s campaign quite a while now and having a lot of fun. Lex asks him about his GMing style and about his homebrew setting of Terindal. They also talk about how to avoid railroading the PCs, and Brett's experiences running D&D at the higher tiers of play.