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In-depth podcast on how to improve your campaign, focusing on the adventure, world and character design. We apply proven and practical game design techniques to the world of running pen and...
Check out Trail of the Behemoth on Drivethru RPG! Seamus and I go deep behind the scenes and talk about the favorite parts of the adventures...
Trail of the Behemoth is an game about hunting giant monsters, a TTRPG you can bring to a boardgame night. I'm working on it with Seamus All...
A listener sent me a question on how to deal with evil PCs, and how to deal with lawful-stupid paladins. I answer.
How do you identify an inherently fun mechanic anyway? What's this 'Decision Engine' thing Dan loves so much and how do you make one yoursel...
Want to run RPGs for new players? Want to get them hooked on this hobby we love? Here's how Dan does it.
The second part of Dan and Reuben's live world building session. This time we're digging into Adventure Hooks and Sample Locations in the Ne...
Dan and Reuben recorded a live session of their world building. They had fun recording it. Will you have fun listening to it? Let's find out...
We didn't finish everything about this topic in one podcast? Huh, who would've thought? Game Designer Dan Felder breaks down how he starts w...
I get a lot of requests to talk about designing and hacking TTRPG systems, so here we go! I make my own systems for nearly every campaign I...
First example of the Content Forge, where we talk about a setting, system, or adventure we've found inspiring and pulled pieces from to use...
Designer Reuben Covington returns to chat about designing Boss Fights in TTRPGs. The two give some advice, and tell a LOT of stories about m...
Dan and guest Reuben Covington break down how to design and run Dynamic Adventures, where the GM role is treated more like a player than a j...
Prepare a full adventure setting, a full region of your world, with just a single page of notes. This format, the one-page setting, is what...
A great sandbox campaign is incredibly fun to play in, and it's a great introduction for new players. I often start new groups in sandboxes...
I love making combat encounters. I have a lot of advice on how to make them, but there's one point that I come back to more than any other:...
Random Encounters are a classic element of TTRPGs, but most aren't fun in practice. Often the table just turns up entries like "2d4 wolves"...
Part 2 of our epic Disney World adventure.
In-depth podcast on how to improve your campaign, focusing on the adventure, world and character design. We apply proven and practical game...
Lore Dungeons are a concept that have worked out incredibly well for my circle of gaming friends. We're talking about them. It's fun. Gabe's...
The most common mistake GM's and adventure designer's make, and how to avoid it.
The GM's Guide is a podcast all about writing and game design through the lens of RPGs and how to run a great game. Today we're tackling Plo...
We apply the principles of how to create great characters and start building Ravenshadow's key NPCs.
In-depth podcast on how to improve your campaign, focusing on the adventure, world and character design. We apply proven and practical game...
Part 2 of the great conversation with the creator of Primordia about world-building.
The brilliant Mark Yohalem, brilliant writer and designer of the cult classic Primordia, drops by for a chat about world building.
We establish our final adventurer's character arc, then lay out the core process I use to destroy writer's block and build the materials for...
Not all characters are easy to work with. Even the best players sometimes pitch spitballs at a GM. Chad's character was a nightmare for the...
Premade Adventures train us to build a campaign first, then figure out how to 'hook' a group of players and drag them into it. Here's how yo...
We return to building a campaign step by step and create the core character and history of the setting's arch-villain, as well as many of th...
How do you make something scary to your players, when they know they're the heroes? We develop the core concept of the camapign's key setpie...
We start creating the foundation of Ravenshadow's world and design a way to get the most out of our player's characters.
The beginning of my richest stories was within the ashes of transformers style action.
It's time to play god.
We all have worlds we love. Let's make them feel as real as possible.
"Why would anyone play a human fighter?" "Why would anyone ever play anything else?"
Dan designs an adventure from scratch live on the podcast.
Tips and tricks and example villains.
Three principles go into making a great villain for a heroic campaign.
Here's a bunch of traps I've made and run for my players. Feel free to introduce them to your own players.
Traps have a huge history in RPGs and they're a MOUNTAIN of missed opportunity.
Dan takes apart some of his adventures to show how they work. It's also an example for how Climactic Event Structure and Four Act Adventure...
When new GM's ask me for advice on how to build a great dungeon, this is the foundation of it all.
When new GM's ask me how to create great adventures, this is what I go through first. No, it's not the hero's journey.
We're back! Story Structure is one of my favorite topics and I've spent more time studying it than probably anything else. If there's anythi...
It's The GM's Guide's Christmas gift: The third and final installment of the epic difficulty trilogy! Today we dig into the secret of weavin...
One podcast wasn't enough. Today we dig further into why High Difficulty is the sonic screwdriver of rpg adventure design and how to impleme...
High Difficulty is the sonic screwdriver of RPG design. While not technically necessary, it does SO many things, comes with SO many advantag...
Don't set your encounter in an empty box.
Why does D&D's own Creative Manager include "Throw out what the rulebooks say about building encounters" in his advice to new DMs? Because t...
DMs have to create tons of characters to fill their world. Here's how to make them interesting and memorable.