Here is a final "spooky" episode for everyone! DMs Rob and Matt review Kenneth Hite's Night's Black Agents. It's "Spies vs. Vampires" in a "mystery inside a thriller." While it may not be the perfect system, (or the perfect system for Matt and Rob), it is an endlessly fascinating bit of TTRPG design. It may have some of the most interesting and useful campaign building tools of any rule book. While it's maybe not for slacker DMs, if you like to prep your campaign using flow charts and story maps or if the phrase "dramatic villain response algorithm" fills you with glee, then NBA (Night's Black Agents) is for you! Plus, Rob and Matt finally get to chat about GUMSHOE. Night's Black Agentshttps://pelgranepress.com/nights-black-agents/ GUMSHOE Systemhttps://pelgranepress.com/2018/02/14/gumshoe/ Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social Join our Patreon for bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Two years late, but Matt has finally finished Baldur's Gate 3, which means we can talk about what you can take away from it as a game master! Here's a few tips and some advice about what to do, what not to do, what worked, and what didn't. Don't get mad at us. Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social Join our Patreon for bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Happy Halloween! Do you need a last minute one-shot (or two or three-shot) adventure to get your players into the holiday spirit? DMs Rob and Matt have 7 or so adventures to fright and delight your role-players! Death House https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/Curse%20of%20Strahd%20Introductory%20Adventure.pdf Mothership - Haunting of Ypsilon IV https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/products/the-haunting-of-ypsilon-14 Mothership - The Plea https://goatinthewoodgames.itch.io/the-plea-a-trifold-module Pathfinder 1e - Carrion Hill https://paizo.com/products/btpy8baj?Pathfinder-Module-Carrion-Hill/1000 Vaesen - Summer in December https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/331182/summer-in-december Delta Green - Observer Effect https://shop.arcdream.com/products/delta-green-observer-effect-paperback Rippers - The Last Lion https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/162471/rippers-resurrected-the-last-lion Rippers - https://peginc.com/savage-settings/rippers/ Teeth - https://teethrpg.itch.io/ Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social Join our Patreon for bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob talk with historian, game designer, and GenCon expert Matt Shoemaker about his new book, Gathering of Gamers! Free PDF: https://works.hcommons.org/records/kfcpx-xqb42 https://best50yearsingaming.com Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social Join our Patreon for bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob review and test out the Agnostic: TTRPG Prep Method , a zine from Map Crow and Cloud Curio that uses the books and materials that you already have lying around to help you generate a one-shot adventure! Come listen to us spin up a super weird adventure about holy books and ghosts! Full episode at patreon.com/dungeonmasterofnone
Maps. We love them. Love reading them , love planning adventures. Love seeing how things relate topographically. Maps are knowledge. Maps are a form of power. Maps are also fun! Let's talk about how to create them for your TTRPG games. Links: Catalan Atlas, Cresques Abraham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Atlas Medieval Fantasy City Generator https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator Incarnate https://inkarnate.com/ Wonderdraft https://www.wonderdraft.net/ Worldographer https://worldographer.com/ Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ Free Maps! https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/fptxv5/psa_there_are_hundreds_of_incredible_free_maps/ Cartographers' Guildhttps://www.cartographersguild.com/ Pointcrawl Abstract Maps, Murkdice https://murkdice.substack.com/p/you-liked-that-map-huh Paleomaps, http://scotese.com/earth.htm Mapbox, Freemium GIS https://www.mapbox.com/ Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social Join our Patreon for bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob finally have enough experience under their belts to talk about GMing Daggerheart! Tips, pitfalls, and observations that can help you whether or not you've made the switch! Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
You are ready to play something else. Your players have doubts. How do you convince them to switch to a new system? Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob are back for the second book of the new MCDM RPG Draw Steel, now the the time of Monsters. https://www.mcdmproductions.com/ Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob review the new MCDM RPG Draw Steel, now fully finished and released into the wild! Learn more about heroic, tactical, cinematic, fantasy combat and you! Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
DMs Rob and Matt review what might be the best pointcrawl ever designed, Luka Rejec's Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City 2e. Forests of meat, underwater VOMEs, psychic cats, and not-quite-liches await your caravan as you transverse the prismatic heavy metal wastes on a definitely Dying Earth. It rules. It rocks. Check it out. Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e: https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/collections/wizard-thief-fighter Just the PDF: https://wizardthieffighter.itch.io/uvg-2e The sequel, Our Golden Age: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/exalted-funeral/our-golden-age-an-ultra-violet-grasslands-rpg-sequel "Plagiarism in Unconquered (2022)," Traverse Fantasy, Marcia B. https://traversefantasy.blogspot.com/2023/12/plagiarism-in-unconquered-2022.html Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
What if Pathfinder was...rational? What if the ruling House Thrune of Cheliax embraced effective altruism as an economic and social policy? What if you taught the god Nethys game theory? What if hot women wanted to listen to lectures about intelligence-promoting alleles and arbitrage? Tune in for the answers to all these questions and more (and by more we mean this game's harems, torture, rape, and eugenics...so CW!) as DMs Rob and Matt discuss the worst and most influential Pathfinder game/fanfic you will probably never read.
We talked to Mason Allen about his new game, Ivory Tower! Be a terrible immortal archmage in a fallen world and resolve your disagreements with committee meetings! https://riftkidgames.itch.io/ivory-tower http://sky.app/profile/riftkidgsmes.bsky.social YouTube.com/@riftkidgames Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob report back to you, dear listeners, on what we learned from GenCon, the biggest collection of TTRPG enthusiasts/sweaty nerds in the world! https://playstorypress.org/books/gathering-of-gamers/ Jon Peterson The Cunning Folk Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Listen to the full episode here! DMofNone is back from GenCon and over GenCon sicknesses for another edition of Your Kickstarter Sucks: Tabletop Edition (here are entries one and two). This time, DMs Rob and Matt are talking about Tabletop News, a crowd-funded video news show, that unlike our previous projects, actually delivered what it promised in a timely fashion. Our discussion gets into the show's weird production, cringe tone, hiring practices, refusal to do "journalism", and strange metrics. Was it awful? Not really. Did they do some shady stuff? Tune in to find out! Links: https://www.youtube.com/@watchtabletop Matt's TtN Metrics Data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14ON2dsDSU2TGb4NGT0GRFA2ZkUO7W8cM1W0jy-8wKhA/edit?usp=sharing Read some better TTRPG news: https://www.rascal.news/ https://www.enworld.org/
Matt and Rob talk about writing and presenting good descriptions -- what to do, what not to do, with lots of examples! NOT a writing course! No one wants to hear your gratuitous description of horse fetlocks, Robert Jordan! Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord!
Matt and Rob do some more campaign prep live, expanding on their sandbox, building more points, and then (the fun part) linking the nodes together! Part 1: 362 - Actual Prep: Sandbox Related Past Actual Preps: The Best Starting Adventure (Part 1) The Best Starting Adventure (Part 2) Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord! Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice
Matt and Rob do some campaign prep live, this time with a sandbox. We get a little weird with it and only make it about halfway, so stay tuned for part two! Past Actual Preps: The Best Starting Adventure (Part 1) The Best Starting Adventure (Part 2) Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord! Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice
Matt and Rob return to Greyhawk to talk about the setting guide included in the new 2024 DMG, discuss what's there, and what you can use for your games. Our discussion of the Greyhawk setting: https://dmofnone.libsyn.com/ep-80-greyhawk Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord! Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice.
The savage cries of its defenders now silent and still as its ruin was overseen by the architect of its very destruction. A 16 HP Dragon - Sage LaTorra Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Join the DMofNone Discord! Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice.
Genneral Killroy
I didn't care for this episode to political veiwed and don't like Warhammer.
Ryan McKay
There's no way Bulette is pronounced "boo-lay" haha, and "byoo"-lette is almost as weird imo. Personally, I would just go for "Bull-ette". 😆 Sounds like you're trying to Frenchify the name, but in French "-ette" sounds like it's spelled - with a hard T. If, on the other hand, it was spelled Bulet (and you were Frenchifying it), then it would be within-reason to pronounce it boo-lay. Anyway good episode haha.
Ryan McKay
I understand the motivations behind calling D&D races "species" -- however, the word species as a biological term is related to reproduction. If humans and elves are different species, it's implied that they cannot reproduce with one another. And yet half-elves exist. "Race" may leave a bad taste in your mouth, but it still might make the most sense for D&D. Ancestry is also a good way to spin it though.