Game Master's Journey

Lex and Christopher discuss West Marches campaigns--a style of campaign that features wilderness exploration and player-directed action. Everything from scheduling, to party makeup, to game session objectives is up to the players!

Lex returns to the Dungeon Master's Guide to discuss creating campaign events. These events are the perfect way to begin or end a campaign, or to renew flagging interest in a campaign that's grown stagnant. Finally, Lex discusses ending a campaign.

Lex returns to his exploration of the DMG and discusses creating a campaign. Whether you’re creating your first campaign, or you’ve created so many you’ve lost count, the DMG has some tools to help you.

Lex returns to his in-depth exploration of the DMG with a discussion of how you can use magic to flesh out your world. Whether magic is rare or common, low-powered or high-powered, reviled or respected, the consequences of your decisions will trickle down throughout your setting.

Mike Schley joins the show to discuss art, mapping and worldbuilding in RPGs. He discusses his new Schleyscapes Kickstarter and his setting of Fernweh.

Factions and organizations are a great way to add richness to your world and increase your players' engagement and investment with your setting. Lex discusses how to create organizations, and he illustrates the process with his Honorable Guild of Adventurers Explorers and Scholars and the mystery cults of the gods of Primordia.

Even the best published adventure can be improved by tailoring it to your players and their PCs. Lex discusses some issues with The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and he details some of the changes he's made to the adventure to address these problems. Hopefully this example will help you put your own spin on the next published adventure you run, leading to an even more enjoyable experience for both y...

In this special, Patron-sponsored bonus episode, Lex discusses whether or not we need mass combat rules in our tabletop RPGs. He also presents a listener-GM's fantastic strategy on how to turn player absence into an opportunity for the rest of the group. Finally he gives some thoughts on keeping real-world religious conflicts from ruining the game for everyone.

Lex continues his series on the Dungeon Master’s Guide with a discussion of creating settlements for your campaign.

Lex discusses designing The Trickster’s Labyrinth, his first published D&D adventure. He also talks about some of his experiences thus far running The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

Lex continues his exploration of the DMG with a discussion of creating maps for your campaign and world. He discusses the bottom-up and top-down approaches to mapping, giving some pros and cons of each. He also considers what to do if you don't have any skills with mapping and provides some campaign map resources to help you with your campaign and world.

Lex discusses developing gods and a pantheon for his homebrew world of Primordia. Lex first attempted to base Primordia's gods on the domains in D&D, but finally realized it wasn’t working. Lex shares what he's learned from this and what he thinks is a better approach to creating gods and pantheons for your homebrew world.

Lex continues his exploration of the DMG with a discussion of gods and deities in your world. Lex explores different types of pantheons and religious systems, and provides examples from his own homebrew world of Primordia.

Today Lex discusses Tales from the Yawning Portal, an adventure supplement for Dungeons & Dragons. Lex gives a full review of the book overall and each of the seven included adventures.

Lex begins a discussion of the first chapter of the Dungeon Master's Guide with an exploration of the core assumptions of the published D&D settings and how you can alter them to create a world that’s truly unique. Lex accompanies this with an introduction to his own homebrew D&D world of Primordia and how he's approached these core assumptions. Finally, Lex talks a bit about his continuing journe...

This week Lex begins an in-depth exploration of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. He spends some time discussing the different aspects of a roleplaying game and how you can engage players who enjoy those different aspects.

Lex discusses how he prepared for an upcoming D&D session. He explains how he took a problem encounter and used it as an opportunity to reinforce the themes of the campaign and further the goals he has for this particular session and the campaign overall.

Stephen Rhodes joins Lex to discuss the craft and art of running RPGs. They discuss the similarities & differences between writing for video games & running RPG adventures and Stephen points out yet another way that theater of the mind play is an invaluable tool in the improvisational GM’s toolbox. They also discuss the difference between a DM-PC and an NPC that travels with the party, how to know...

Stephen Rhodes joins Lex on the show today to talk about how being a Game Master helped him get where he is today as a writer for Ubisoft Games. They also discuss writing & publishing RPG adventures, the pros & cons of class-based games, their thoughts on the ultimate RPG super-system, insights on starting a new campaign, & techniques for running RPGs for both new and veteran players.

Lex discusses D&D Beyond, a new online tool for players and DMs. He also discusses how cutting words interacts with initiative rolls, a few initiative variants and using potions. He gives thoughts to consider when making house rules or rules variants—there’s more to it than what makes sense logically. Finally, he gives an update on his upcoming D&D adventure, The Trickster’s Labyrinth.

This week Lex concludes his in-depth discussion of the D&D Player's Handbook with an exploration of the spellcasting, conditions and exhaustion rules.

Lex launches into an in-depth discussion of the combat rules of D&D. If you have any questions about the rules, or you'd just like a refresher, this is the episode for you.

Today I continue my series on the Roles of the GM. In this episode we discuss the GM as a teacher. As GMs we often find ourselves teaching players a new game, or even teaching players who’ve never played an RPG before. I give you strategies to set yourself up for success and ensure your players come back for more. I also give some tips specific to teaching 5th edition D&D to new players, and final...

I continue my discussion of chapter 8 of the PHB. We’ll talk about food & water, & interacting with objects. We’ll also discuss social interaction and the difference between descriptive and active roleplaying. I have some thoughts on how you can encourage more immersive active roleplaying from your players. Finally, we’ll go over resting and downtime activities.

I begin discussing chapter 8 of the Player’s Handbook, Adventuring, which includes travel pace, special types of movement, activities while traveling, falling, suffocating, vision and light.