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One of the things I really dislike that has come out of the rise of popularity of D&D (and to some degree other RPGs; but let's be honest, it is mostly D&D) is the monetization of convinging people that being a Dungeon master is hard. Early on as 5E gained steam, we had people like Matt Coville...

Let's talk about map design for dungeons in D&D. What works, what doesn't. What promotes good exploration play versus what hinders it. I see a lot of maps on r/battlemaps (for example) that are IMO bad dungeon design (even for small dungeons) They are usually linear, without any real choices in...

FIRST: This is a + thread, meaning that as we discuss this, we all recognize that we can have differing opinions about what "simulation" means in the context of TTRPGs. SECOND: As the thread title suggests this is about your personal definitions and opinions, not necessarily the S of GNS or...

Just for fun: You are put in charge of adapting an existing campaign length adventure to prestige television for WotC. It can be any campaign from any edition, but it HAS to be a campaign not just a single adventure (so no Keep on the Borderlands or the orginal Ravenloft. Note that the "short"...

The newest episode of the wonderful Our Fake History podcast is diving into hoe Buffalo Bill Cody "invented" the Old West by way of the stories he told about himself and his involvement in major events of the era. This got me to thinking about a potential from for an RPG: instead of the PCs...

I am planning on running a big dungeon thing (using Shadowdark, but I don't think that is relevant) and I am considering options for how to deal with mapping from the player side. My first impulse is to do "theater of the mind" exploration, letting the players map as they will (or won't; that's...

I know we have a bit over a month left, but sometimes these things take some thinking and planning. So, do you have any New year's Resolutions for your gaming life for 2026? A big project you want to embark on, or a new campaign, or a a character to play, or whatever?

Over the weekend, I listened to the brief (3 hour) lecture series "A Short History of Role-Playing Games" by Jamin Warren, from the Great Courses and available on Audible. In short: it is okay. It is definitely a "short history" and glosses over much of the kind of historical detail that...

We have all been there: the dice go bad, or someone makes a terrible choice and everyone ends up rolling on the floor with laughter. Let's share those stories today! This happened a very long time ago, playing BECMI. My oldest brother was the DM, and my middle brother was playing along with a...

We have done this poll before, but it has been a while and I see new usernames pretty regularly, so I thought it worth asking anew.

This is a question primarily from a player perspective. As a player, do you prefer to get XP from finding treasure? Killing monsters? "Overcoming obstacles"? Identifiable Milestones? GM Fiat? There is a lot of nuance, of course, so feel free to comment as well as choose multiple answers in the...

I am generally a minimalist Gm when it comes to tabletop accoutrements: my TacTiles and dry erase markers with some tokens for monsters and stuff is usually enough for me. However, I kind of have an itch to do something more elaborate for a con coming up in February. So what are the various...

Between Realms threads and Dark.Sun speculation, I am more and more convinced that every edition of D&D needs a(t least one) bespoke setting. 5E never really got one -- it experimented with MtG settings, but there was no Dragonlance or Eberron if you understand my meaning. Instead of...

I think we, as a community, should write a high (16th+) level 5E 2024 adventure -- particularly one that a) is not a "save the wrodl adventure" and b) is specifically designed as a product to be easy to run. Let's prove that high level adventures can be written and work for other groups, and...

In my campaign, the PCs are trying to finance a revolution (as well as find cool gear to take on the BBEG). They recently went to explore a location where they discovered that a cult had tried to summon Tiamat from Avernus by amassing a treasure hoard worthy of her. The ritual was interrupted by...

As a companion to the threead about non-D&D dungeon campaigns, I figured I would ask which D&D or D&D adjacent game (general) you would use for a dungeon centric campaign. That might be megadungeon exploration, a campaign full of 5 room dungeons, or anything in between. For this discussion, all...

Just chatting: Whether it is a game about going from dungeon to dungeon in search of the 13 Shards of Whatsit, or a sandbox megadungeon exploration: what non-D&D RPG (this includes official, retroclones, OSR and clear derivatives like Shadowdark) would you use for this purpose? Why? What tools...

I am currently in the middle of The Lost City of Z by David Grann (Goodreads link), a nonfiction story about early 20th century exploration and it got me thinking about the pretty wide gulf between what a real world adventurer is, and what most RPG adventurers are. Are there any TTRPGs that...

THIS IS A + THREAD. If you don't think it is possible to enjoy high level play in 5E, awesome! But maybe this isn't the thread for you. This thread is about discussing and providing ideas and support for making high level (16+) 5E (any flavor) work at the table and be fun, since WotC and most...

Typically speaking, how much time do you prep for any given unit of time you actually play? For example, when I run convention games, I typically prep for an hour to effectively run a 4 hour game slot. it is less (half an hour) if I am running something a little lighter like Shadowdark, and a...