Dungeon Master of None

Game over, man! Game over! Rob and Matt review Mothership 1e, a TTRPG about the galaxy's worst jobs. There's sci-fi, horror, and some of the best game design and DM advice you'll read this century. 

Mothership https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership-core-rules 

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; David Bowie - Blackstar. 

Matt and Rob return to the archives to review three adventures each from back issues of Dungeon and Dragon magazines!

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Steel Shadows

Fedifensor

Mightier Than the Sword

The Chapel of Silence

Chadranther's Bane

The City Beyond the Gate

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Generique, Miles Davis (from Ascenceur Pour L'Echafaud) Van Morrison - The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword Disturbed - The Sound of Silence The Clash - London Calling

DMs Rob and Matt attempt to roll a persuasion check on you the listener! Let us convince you that there are other and better ways to set the scene, the stakes, and the execution of social role-playing encounters. In three parts, we discuss why social encounters can be difficult or different, the interesting mechanics and prep to use from a myriad of TTRPG systems, and our favorite tips and tricks for running character-to-character interaction. 

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Run DMC - You Talk Too Much. 

Matt and Rob discuss the Tian Xia world guide from Paizo, a triumphant return to the continent on Golarion and a much-needed update to some outdated regions, peoples, and ideas.

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Xian - Ancient Fantasy Journey Chinggis khaanii Magtaal - Batzorig Vaanchig North Korean National Anthem 《如懿传》片尾曲 Closing Theme Song - Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace - 《梅香如故》 毛不易+周深

Have you ever played something that isn't a TTRPG? Well, it turns out there games out there that are not D&D or even a role-playing game that also generate story through play. In the first episode about things that are not RPGs, DMs Rob and Matt will take you on a whistle-stop tour of the wide world of narrative miniature wargaming. 

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Links:

Mordheim

Frostgrave

Rangers of Shadowdeep

One Page Rules - Age of Fantasy: Quest

Five Parsecs from Home

28 Magazine

Trench Crusade

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Dear Hunter - The Tank. 

Happy Solstice! Rob and Matt are here to answer your Dungeon Master questions about starting sessions, Vecna/Kas shipping, old systems, failed MMOs, the benefits of classical education, X-COM, and more! 

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Links:

Vecna and the Tears of Unmaking - Sly Flourish

Vecna Remix - DMofNone

Whatever Happened to Pathfinder Online, Anyway?- Kai Tave

AGON RPG - John Harper

Odyssey of the Dragonlords

Pathfinder - IMDb

The Lost Universe - NASA's Tabletop Role-Playing Game Adventure

Swords without Master - Epidiah Ravachol

Twilight 2000 - Free League

Matt and Rob talk about Rogue Trader, the now-defunct Warhammer 40k TTRPG. It's got orks, it's got big gothic cathedral ships, it's got chonky weapons, it's got profits, folks, it's got it all!

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DMs Rob and Matt clock into the Dice Workshop for a long shift working on custom dice mechanics and discuss dice probabilities and mechanics put in practice!

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Matt and Rob talk about dice! Mechanics, systems, resolution, modifiers, taxonomies, the whole shebang! It's not boring, we promise.

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Links:

• https://anydice.com/ 

• https://snake-eyes.io/examples.html

• https://anydice.com/articles/the-pool/

• https://thoughtfuldane.com/2023/05/05/game-design-with-anydice/

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice NMIXX - DICE Odetari - Dice and Roll

Follow your rod to the second half of WotC's final 5e Adventure, Vecna: Eve of Destruction. Rob and Matt discuss missed opportunities, share some secrets, and offer some tips to fix this adventure. 

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Turtles - Eve of Destruction.

Matt and Rob talk about the newest WotC Adventure, Vecna: Eve of Ruin, a celebration of D&D and an adventure through the multiverse! You guys love multiverses, right?

DM Matt walks you through his prep for a Friendly Local Gaming Convention and his tips for running a successful Con slot.

Links:

Subscribe to the DMofNone Patreon! 

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

RPG Geek Global Game Conventions List https://rpggeek.com/wiki/page/Game_Conventions

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Dschinghis Khan - Dschinghis Khan.

A tome! A tome of forbidden dungeon master knowledge has been unearthed by your intrepid hosts. DMs Matt and Rob discuss the first principles and Apocalypse World-style GM moves for Old School Rules games from the Principia Apocrypha! 

Principia Apocrypha: Elementary Axioms & Aphorisms On Running & Playing Tabletop RPGs In The Old School Style - Ben Milton, Steven Lumpkin, David Perry, Evlyn Moreau

https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Keith Mansfield - Funky Fanfare.

Matt and Rob talk about what they learned from running Brindlewood Bay, what worked, what didn't, what to watch out for, and what you can learn and take away for your own games.

Hear the full episode (and more!) on our Patreon.

Almost everyone has house rules for their games, but are there house rules that are good for (nearly) every game? DMs Matt and Rob share over a dozen house rules from their games and their favorite systems that can (probably) be lifted and inserted into whatever TTRPG system your table plays.

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Links to rules: 

FATE CORE, "Declaring a Story Detail"

Year Zero Engine SRD, Chapter 4, "Rounds & Initiative"

Giffglyph, Darker Dungeons, "Chapter 20: Active Defense"

Traverse Fantasy, "Damage Roll as Attack Bonus"

13th Age SRD, Character Rules, "Choose Your One Unique Thing"

Cypher System SRD, Creating Your Character, "Character Descriptor, Type, and Focus"

Daggerheart Playtest 1.4, Open Playtest Manuscript, "Maps, Range, and Movement"

Odd Skull Blog, "Combat Maneuvers, The Easy Way"

Blades in the Dark SRD, "Progress Clocks"

Troll Smyth, "Shields Shall Be Splintered!"

Lich Van Winkle, "The Genealogy of Advantage and Disadvantage in RPG Mechanics"

5e SRD, Rules, "Advantage and Disadvantage"

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Odetta - Hit or Miss. 

Matt and Rob travel back in time to the era of mullets and shoulderpads to talk about a strangely relevant article from 1984 in DRAGON MAGAZINE #82. What happens when your players have grown TOO POWERFUL?

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Brew your tea, pack your knitting needles, and put on your most comfortable jogging suit because DMs Matt and Rob are off to solve the coziest murder this side of Cape Cod!

Brindlewood Bay is a mystery RPG that combines the Golden Girls with Call of Cthulhu using an innovative set of mechanics to sidestep the frustration of running a whodunit. Then, head across the pond to gothic London for The Between, an anti-cozy game using the same "Carved From Brindlewood" mechanics. 

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Links:

Brindlewood Bay: A Dark and Cozy Mystery Game by Jason Cordova https://www.brindlewoodbay.com/brindlewood-bay.html

The Between: A Game of Monster Hunters in Victorian London https://www.brindlewoodbay.com/the-between.html 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; John Addison - Murder, She Wrote Theme.

Here is a preview TWO of our subscriber episodes reviewing what could be the best published megadungeon and the best published hexcrawl. To listen to the full episodes subscribe below and check out these adventures for yourself. 

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Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls by Michael Curtis

The Dark of Hot Springs Island by Jacob Hurst, Evan Peterson, Donnie Garcia, and Gabriel Hernandez 

DMs Matt and Rob wade into The Discourse discussing if “system matters” and “rules elide.” 

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Links:

Fireside Chat for Chapter 2 of World Beyond Number - Dimension 20  

Detours and Lies (1, probably) - “What Is A D&D Anyway? - Combat Orientation and Stoves” - The Daily Blade 

Rules Elide - Jared.blot (Archived)

The Baker-Care Principle - Emily Care Boss

The Fruitful Void - Lumpley Games 

Stance Theory - Socratic Design 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Bruce Springsteen - Pony Boy. 

Rob sits down with designer Andy Pressman to talk about, well, design, but also about games! The conversation ranges from Andy's active projects to onboarding players to mechanics to game jams and hacks and more.

Andy's Itch

Patchwork World

Errant

Matt and Rob cover the REST of the Daggerheart playtest, including the GM section, adversaries, maps, worldbuilding, and the included starting adventure -- there's a lot going on here!

Download the playtest materials here for free:

https://darringtonpress.com/daggerheart/ 

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Luca Turilli - Demonheart Slowdive - Dagger

DM "Dagger" Matt and DM "Heart" Rob are here to chat about the recently released playtest of Daggerheart, a fantasy TTRPG by Darrington Press and Critical Role. 

Download the playtest materials here for free:

https://darringtonpress.com/daggerheart/ 

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Blondie - Heart of Glass.

Matt and Rob are joined by Daniel Kwan of Asians Represent to talk about his TTRPG of lethal melodrama, Wandering Blades! We talk wuxia, TTRPG design, playtesting, mechanics, inspirations, and more!

Daniel's Patreon Daniel's Itch.io

So you want to run an RPG. No, not the one you are running right now, but a different one. DMs Matt and Rob are here to talk through their method and tips for learning a new game system. 

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Paul Simon - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.

Matt and Rob sit down with Lin Codega and Rowan Zeoli of rascal.news, the new independent TTRPG news site that is rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes of, well, several other sites. We talk plans, the state of TTRPGs, the death of journalism, and more! In Search of a Hot Pink Bitch Named Breakfast

Harlem Hellfighters Never Die

DMs Rob and Matt are joined by Keri Blakinger, investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, to talk about her piece for New York Times Magazine, "The Dungeons & Dragons Players of Death Row," which can be read for free at the Marshall Project, "When Wizards and Orcs Came to Death Row."

Links:

Keri Blakinger - The Marshall Project https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/08/31/dungeons-and-dragons-texas-death-row-tdcj 

Keri Blakinger - Corrections in Ink: A Memoirhttps://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250272850/correctionsinink

Smriti Mundhra - I Am Ready, Warden at Big Sky Film Festival https://www.bigskyfilmfest.org/festival/films-2024-view/i_am_ready_warden/ 

Books to Prisoners Programs https://prisonbookprogram.org/prisonbooknetwork/

Inside Books Project (Texas) https://insidebooksproject.org/ 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Lead Belly - The Gallis Pole.

Special West Marches Correspondent Andy joins Matt and Rob to explain a wonderous campaign where all are welcome: The Open Table! Learn what an open table-style game is, why you might want to ditch your old dedicated story-driven campaigns, and how to prepare and GM an open table game. Plus, learn the Five "S"s of Open Tables: Setting, System, Scheduling, Starting, Stopping!

Links:

Andy - Tales of the Iron league https://ironleague.org/ 

Tales of the Iron League Discord https://discord.gg/xY8K7qS9

Ben Robbins - West Marches https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/ 

Kelsey Dionne - Shadowdark: The Cursed Scroll https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/products/cursed-scroll-zine-vol-1-diablerie-print 

Trial of the Slime Lord https://jordanrudd.itch.io/trial-of-the-slime-lord 

Inkwell Ideas - Hexographer  https://store.inkwellideas.com/products/hexographer-hexographer-2-pro-version 

OwlCon in Houston, Texas https://owlcon.com/

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Matt and Rob talk about how to make role-playing adventures, player guides, and games look nice. Join us for a journey through design and layout tools from simple to complex. 

Listen to the full episode on the DMofNone Patreon! 

Links:

Homebrewery 

GM Binder 

GIMP 

Cartographers' Guild 

Explorers Design 

Adobe InDesign 

InDesign Template for 5e 

DriveThruRPG - Stock Art 

Open Access at The Met 

Matt and Rob talk about how to run a one shot! As it turns out, finishing a whole adventure in one sitting is a lot more complicated than it sounds.

Rat Queens They Want to Be Us Savage Worlds One Sheets Summer in December The Great Grav Train Robbery Bite Sized Dungeons

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Hamilton - Aaron Burr, Sir Eminem - One Shot, Two Shot Ferran - One Shot

Rob abuses his power to force the podcast audience to listen to him ramble about his unfinished campaign setting, Thunder on the Steppe! We talk through the idea behind the campaign, issues with getting it presentable, next steps and takeaways.

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Link to the Thunder on the Steppe Preview doc. 

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice The Hu - Wolf Totem

Matt and Rob review So You Want to be a Game Master? by Justin Alexander (of thealexandrian.net), which is exactly what it says on the tin. We talk about Alexander's approach, what you'll find in the book, and what you can use in your games!

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Duck Tales Theme Mission Impossible Theme Jefferson Starship - We Built This City

Matt and Rob reflect on the events of the year, go over the many (12!) systems they've reviewed, and talk about what they're looking forward to in 2024.

Listen to the rest of the episode (and an entire day's worth of premium episodes) on the DMofNone Patreon!  https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Lorne Balfe - Juice of the Vine.

DMs Rob and Matt are back to answer your questions about Game Mastering! Plus, the triumphant return of Unwanted Advice! 

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Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Du gamla, du fria - Sabaton; Young Folks - Peter Bjorn and John.

Matt and Rob review some more Pathfinder adventure paths, focusing on Serpent's Skull and Carrion Crown! One of these is good! One of them is not! Listen to find out which. Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Crab Rave! Earth Wind and Fire - Serpentine Fire Monster Squad Theme Song - Rock Until You Drop

"Temba, his arms wide!" DMs Rob and Matt give the gift of a Trekkie TTRPG to you this holiday season. Learn about why playing a Starfleet crew is so much fun and how to use Mophidius's 2d20 system with its momentum and threat pools to create rewarding play at the table. Don your redshirt and get ready for a simulation that you can't win...no, not the Kobayashi Maru...but Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game! 

Links:

• Continuing Mission: A Fan Site for Star Trek RPGs https://continuingmissionsta.com/ 

• Star Trek Character, Ship, and Token Creator https://sta.bcholmes.org/ 

• The Shield of Tomorrow Actual Play https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT955aQO-G-3LR6kgX4EU2qrHg 

• Star Trek RPG Core Rulebook https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/products/star-trek-adventures-core-rulebook 

• Captain's Log: Solo Roleplaying Game https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/products/sta-captains-log-solo-roleplaying-game 

• Star Trek RPG Free Quickstart https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222948/Star-Trek-Adventures-Quickstart 

• Star Trek RPG Starter Set https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/products/star-trek-adventures-starter-set-pdf 

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Faith of the Heart - Russell Watson.

DM Matt shares with DM Rob advice from his many years in the classroom that you can bring to your RPG table. Learn to game master like a teacher with these pedagogy tips! 

Session Plan Template on Patreon 

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Who - Substitute; Win Ben Stein's Money Intro (Beethoven - Ode to Joy). 

Matt and Rob discuss the brand new mystery horror TTRPG from Darrington Press, Candela Obscura! This highly-anticipated freshman offering from Critical Role's in-house press has, to say the least, a lot going on! Delve into a world of spooky mystery, vaguely fin-de-siècle aesthetics, and questionable architectural choices.

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On the Patreon, Matt and Rob revisit a controversial book from the late-stage D&D 3.5e era -- The Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords! This is a messy, bloated, confusing book, but there are a few gems buried there, and moments of real potential, especially if you like cool martial abilities, fantastic combat, and tactical gameplay.

Matt and Rob are joined by veteran board game and RPG designers, Elizabeth Hargrave and Sen-Foong Lim, to discuss the Tabletop Game Designers Association, a new trade organization for tabletop creatives of all types. The TTGDA will advocate, educate, and fight for living wages in our community and will need your solidarity!

Learn more and sign-up for updates on the TTGDA here at ttgda.org

Guests:

Elizabeth Hargrave is the Kennerspiel des Jahres award-winning designer of numerous games including Wingspan, The Fox Experiment, and Mariposas. Her kickstarter for Undergrove, a game about how mushrooms and trees are friends, is live right now!

Sen-Foong Lim is Gold ENnie award-winning designer whose credits include Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, the Revenant Society, Avatar: Legends, Mind MGMT, Dungeons & Dragons: Rock Paper Wizard, and Junk Art. 

Fundraisers:

Meguey Bakerhttps://www.mealtrain.com/trains/lk908w?rf=1

Jennell Jayquays https://www.gofundme.com/f/jennell-jaquays-has-a-long-road-back

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Hazel Dickens - They'll Never Keep Us Down

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Matt and Rob are joined by Special Tarot Correspondent Nat, to celebrate the death of Henry Kissinger, discuss the basics of tarot, the history of tarot and tarot-like decks in D&D, how to use tarot with your players, and ways to prep adventures using cartomancy!

You can follow Nat on Twitter @ashesforfoxes

Links:

The Deck of Many Things (5e SRD)

The Tarokka Deck from Curse of Strahd

Pathfinder Harrow Deck

The Official Dungeons & Dragons Licensed Tarot Deck by Fred Gissubel

Check out our Patreon!

Join us on Discord!

Matt and Rob strap on their goggles and top hats, ingest a few milliliters of laudanum, and review Vaesen, Free League Publishing's Nordic horror fantasy monster hunting RPG! No myrling or brook horse is safe!

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Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Grimm TV Show Theme Into the Woods - Witch's Lament Unsolved Mysteries Theme Finntroll - Trollhammeren

What's your players' signs? DMs Rob and Matt take a look at the many different typologies, stereotypes, and taxonomies of players at your table and how you can best observe, identify, and harness these different motivations and goals to improve your game. 

Some of the many lists of types of role-players. 

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Join us on Discord!

DMs Rob and Matt review MCDM's psionic system and psion class, The Talent. Long splat book short: it's pretty good. And it bodes well for the RPG system MCDM will be kickstarting in a couple months. While certain aspects of the class certainly stressed (strained?) us out, MCDM may have designed a better magic system for 5e than D&D's traditional Vancian casting. 

Listen to the full episode on our Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Matt and Rob return to Sigil to talk about the other two books in the Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse box set! This includes Sigil and the Outlands, which is exactly what it sounds like, and Morte's Planar Parade, a planar-focused monster manual. I hope you like opinions, berks, because we've got em!

Check out our Patreon!

Join us on Discord! Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Heimdall - Haephestus Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You The Skye Boat Song - Kathryn Jones/Raya Yarbrough (Outlander Theme Song)

Listen up you berks, Matt and Rob are here to talk about Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse -- well, one part of it anyway, the Turn of Fortune's Wheel campaign. We hate to say it cagers, but these leatherheads really piked it.

Sigil slang glossary

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Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Wheel of Fortune Theme Casino Royale Theme

Take us out to the black, because DMs Rob and Matt are reviewing Coriolis - The Third Horizon by Free League Publishing. 

Coriolis RPG

The Third Horizon Map

Year Zero Engine SRD

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Matt is down with COVID (don't worry, he's fine), so Rob is stealing the mic to talk about Baldur's Gate 3, the unexpected gaming phenomenon of the season. Turns out there's a lot of cool stuff you can do if you're willing to bend the rules of 5e (and have six years to polish a game).

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Happy spooky season, y'all! To celebrate, it's the Monster Mash...up...again! Listen to DMs Rob and Matt mix up on the fly the bugbear with the ankheg, a swarm of rats with a trademarked giant brain-eating worm, and a lion with a gladiator. Stick with it on that last one. Sounds boring, but it's worth it! 

Check out our Patreon for the full stats of each monster!

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Matt and Rob answer your letters! Hear our not-so-expert opinion on magic items, spontaneous spellcasting, AI art, and more!

Creative Commons Licenses

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DMs Rob and Matt discuss one of the most challenging, most interesting, and weirdest RPGs to come out in the last decade: Monte Cook Games' Invisible Sun. Pour yourself some tea made of thoughts and shuffle your soothe deck because we are heading into the black cube. 

Announcing Invisible Sun: Return of the Black Cube

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Justin Alexander of the Alexandrian joins Matt and Rob to talk about his upcoming book and about what he's learned in his many years of GMing! Get a sneak peek of So You Want to be a Game Master and hear some PRO TIPS for your games!

Listen to the full episode on our Patreon!

The "ult" episode to our earlier combo on RPG Kickstarter grifts, detailing just a few of the many exploits of Jamison Stone and Satine Phoenix. 

StudlyStone: A collection of stories involving Satine Phoenix, Jamison Stone, Apotheosis Studios 

"Accusations Of Bullying And Blacklisting Surround Dungeons & Dragons Creator Couple" by Dan Arndt

"Dungeons & Dragons Personalities Satine Phoenix and Jamison Stone Accused of Bullying, Mistreatment" by Christian Hoffer 

"Red Opera and Sirens RPG writer Rick Heinz discusses the tribulations of working at Apotheosis" Interview by Chase Carter 

Kickstarter Links:

Sirens: Battle of the Bards 

The Red Opera 5e Tarot 

The Red Opera: Last Days of the Warlock 

Destination Fantastic 

Special guest Kyle Latino, aka the MapCrow, joins DM Matt to talk about Cloud Curio's new Kickstarter, Monstrous, how tapping into the fantastic creates better monsters, and how to map more engaging worlds for your players. 

Check out Monstrous, on Kickstarter now!

Building Better Monsters on YouTube

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Matt and Rob talk about some of our favorite Kickstarter grifts and teach you, valued consumer, how to identify and steer clear of obvious crowdfunding scams.

Far West Salt in Wounds Grimmerspace Swordsfall

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Will Smith - Wild Wild West

DMs Rob and Matt review Flee, Mortals! The MCDM Monster Book. Spoilers: it's good.

Discord Patreon

Matt and Rob discuss a contentious topic -- power gaming! Come listen to find out why it's cool and good, actually.

Hey D&D Powergamers... On Power Gaming

The Stormwind Fallacy

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Kanye West - Power Puiblic Enemy - Fight the Power

Tabletop News is your weekly rundown of the tabletop gaming industry's latest news created for gamers by gamers.

Links:

The Worst Heist of All Time at GenCon

Paizo Announces New Starfinder Edition at Gen Con 

Largest Third-Party D&D Marketplace Restricts AI-Generated Products 

Hasbro May Be Eyeing AI for Dungeons & Dragons 

Dungeons & Dragons tells illustrators to stop using AI to generate artwork for fantasy franchise 

Pathfinder and Starfinder have no plans to take on D&D’s virtual tabletop with their own VTT, Paizo says | Dicebreaker 

Goonhammer Roundtable: The Roadmap for Magic from GenCon 

Baldur’s Gate 3 enters Steam charts’ all-time top 10 in first weekend - Polygon 

Baldur's Gate 3 - Character Creation Stats

Dungeons & Dragons' Designer Explains How Playtests Have Moved From Experimental to Focused 

Tal’dorei Campaign Setting Reborn - Sourcebooks - Marketplace - D&D Beyond 

Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club | EN World Tabletop RPG News & Reviews 

D&D 5e Rule Changes - Baldur's Gate 3

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Matt and Rob sink their teeth into the biggest, bloodiest, sexiest dracula-having RPG around: Vampire: the Masquerade! We only scratch (bite?) the surface of what's possible, but it should give you a taste of what's to store in this world of darkness...

patreon.com/dungeonmasterofnone Discord Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings Buffy Theme Angel Theme Slayer - At Dawn They Sleep Def Leppard - Love Bites

Has an older sibling, friend, or classmate introduced you to "role playing fantasy games?" Make sure your parents are in the room for this one, as Matt and Rob take a trip through the tail end of the Satanic Panic in the Imagination Station to Odyssey, U.S.A. and the Focus on the Family's 1990 radio play, "Castles and Cauldrons." 

Join us on Patreon for the full episode!

Rob reviews a fan translation of the Japanese Dark Souls TTRPG by Kadokawa. Is it better than the 5e version? Can he git gud or will he go hollow reading it?

Matara Makes Games

@Gahostan

Every couple years, DMs Rob and Matt get curious about which TTRPGs everyone is playing. Which system (that isn't D&D) is the most popular? Which adventure has been played the most?

Unfortunately, there isn't a giant database of what everyone is playing, at least, not since the Orr Report ceased its quarterly publication back in 2021. So, we have done our best to compare the popularity of various systems, settings, adventures, and communities using social media subscriptions from Reddit.com. It's hard to draw too many specific conclusions from this dataset, so take any analysis with a grain of salt. Listen in for a comparison of D&D adventure popularity, a ranking of non-D&D systems, and an analysis of the gap between the number of Kickstarter backers and subscribers to a system. 

Here's the full dataset. 

Discord Patreon

Matt and Rob dig into the depths of the monster manual to find some underused and underappreciated monsters to use in your games.

Discord Patreon

Music

Pac Div - Roll the Dice The Living Tombstone - Spooky Scary Skeletons (Remix) Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire Attack on Titan Theme Song Kanye West - Monster

With the help of Special Playtest Correspondent Alex Clippinger, DM Matt dives into 127 pages of playtest material for OneDnD. 

OneDnD Playtest 5 and Playtest 6

Asians Represent Podcast - Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?

Alex Clippinger's RPG Design

Discord

Patreon

Hate the metaplayer, not the metagame. DMs Matt and Rob break down the common definitions and misconceptions around metagaming in TTRPGs as well as how Game Masters can leverage metagaming to improve play. 

LegalKimchi - Metagaming in Roleplaying Games

Metagames, Paragames and Orthogames: A New Vocabulary

Discord

Patreon

Time to return to the Stolen Lands and review the updated and revised Kingmaker adventure for Pathfinder Second Edition. Is this our favorite published adventure? Maybe. Probably. Do we like it even more since the last time we reviewed it? Also, probably yes. 

The Kingmaker 2e Adventure Path 

Join us on Patreon for the full episode!

Matt and Rob give some game updates, discuss The News, and then delve into some ancient wisdom from Dragon Magazine #74.

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue The Police - Every Breath You Take

Take a tour of the gnoll-infested island of Katapesh and the gloomy streets of Westcrown as we review Legacy of Fire and Council of Thieves in our second entry on the Pathfinder Adventure series.

Discord

Patreon

Matt and Rob delve deep into the first three Pathfinder adventure paths from Paizo -- Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness! Three down...and a lot still to go.

Discord

Patreon

Songs:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Angels & Airwaves - The Adventure Dethklok - Awaken King Crimson - Starless Coldplay - Adventure of a Lifetime

Hey, you got modern game design in my old school RPG! Hey, you got old school RPG in my modern game design! DM Matt and Vice DM Andy review the brand new Shadowdark RPG system by Kelsey Dionne and published by the Arcane Library fresh off of its $1.3 million kickstarter campaign.  Time to attack the light! 

Download the quick start or purchase the rules for Shadowdark here.

You can join DMofNone on Discord

and support the show on Patreon!

You have Dungeon Master questions. We have Dungeon Master of None answers! 

Send your questions to our email: [email protected] 

You can join DMofNone on Discord

and support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob play TRIVIAL PURSUIT: DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ULTIMATE EDITION to find out who knows more obscure and pointless D&D lore (it's Matt).

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone

https://discord.gg/ZAjPWQCp7u

🚩Happy May Day!🚩

DM Rob takes Matt through a deep dive into the sordid history of one of the most evil corporations in American history: the Pinkerton Detective Agency. 👁️ We never cast sleep. 👁️

You can listen to Rob's other rants about and research into Radical History right here!

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Once again, it's time for our yearly "Must Listen" clip show! Sit down and listen to our three-part series on the history of reactionary thought about RPGs, then tune in to our interview with Justine Alexander and Legal Kimchi on the leaked Open Game License, plus our discussion of parentages with game designer V.J. Harris, and finally our two-part "Actual Prep" designing the perfect starting adventure for new RPG players. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

DMs Matt and Rob discuss running heists at your table. Also, f*$k the Pinkertons and anyone who hires them! 

The Roleplayer's Guide to Heists on DriveThruRPG and Itch

You can join DMofNone on Discord

and support the show on Patreon!

With the most money ever raised for a TTRPG, Magpie Games has written an official, licensed adaptation of one of our favorite settings, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra. DMs Rob and Matt discuss the game. Is it a slapdash adaptation to make money off of a beloved franchise, or a ground-breaking, amazing new RPG system, or maybe something balanced in-between those extremes? Hint: it's probably the last one. 

You can join DMofNone on Discord

and support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob discuss one of the OG narrative RPGs -- Fate!

Is there honor among thieves? Maybe! Sort of. Let's find out as DMs Rob and Matt review the fourth and newest Dungeons and Dragons movie, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. 

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and support the show on Patreon!

Rob found a magazine at the supermarket filled with bizarre AI art and questionable Dungeon Master advice: The Unofficial Ultimate Guide to Dungeons and Dragons. 

Listen to the whole episode on our Patreon here.

DMs Matt and Rob break down the stats for our titular Thieves from Honor among Thieves. 

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and support the show on Patreon!

We review the Dungeons and Dragons movie! No, not the new 2023 D&D movie with Michelle Rodriguez, or the even the 2000 film with Jeremy Irons, but 2005's straight-to-DvD Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God. With the help of some special guests, we listen to the thrilling return of our favorite wacky henchman, Damodar, and meet our new adventuring party of Lord Beric, Mage Wife, Obad-Hai Guy, Apestaff Wizard, and Claxx the Lich. We may have lost $10.3 million and 1:42:59 of our lives, but we collected a lot of cool 🔮Orbs🔮 along the way, and at the end of the adventuring day, isn't that what RPGs are all about? 

Check out Kevin's research here

and Sam's film productions here.

You can also join DMofNone on Discord

and support the show on Patreon!

DMs Matt and Rob discuss the newest OneDnD playtest: the Druid and the Paladin. Plus, we answer your letters: adding diversity, player-run factions, and rules clarifications! 

Get the full episode on our Patreon! 

Rob reviews Coyote and Crow, a very exciting new RPG by native creators. Cool adventures, sweet outfits, awesome alternate future tech -- this book has it all folks.

Find it here: https://coyoteandcrow.net/

Note: Rob mangled a couple of native words and will re-upload with better pronunciation when he learns how to talk properly

DM Matt walks you through prepping for a new campaign using lots of plagiarism and how to prep making new characters and creating handouts to speed through the process with new players. You can support the show on Patreon to gain access to our "Best Starting Adventure" plus the handouts and maps Matt prepared for this new campaign. 

Links: 

Inkarnate

R-N-W

Arcadia Magazine

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Matt and Rob talk about MÖRK BORG, the greatest metal-inspired, Swedish, grimdark, rules-light TTRPG you've ever seen.

Check it out here!

The Unseen Vaults of the Optic Experiment

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Putrescence Regnant - The Floating Basilica Judas Priest - Nostradamus Gloryhammer - Rise of the Chaos Wizards Fintroll - Trollhammaren Electric Wizard - Barbarian Putrescence Regnant - The Calendar of Nechrubel

DMs Matt and Rob review the megadungeon adventure path for Pathfinder 2e: Abomination Vaults. For the next week, the campaign is available along with the core of the PF2e system and a ton of other goodies on Humble Bundle. 

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob quantum leap back to the 80s and dive into Dragon Magazine #80 to ponder our orbs, rock out to some tunes, and read about The Five C's of DMing.

Join our Patreon for the full episode!

Award-winning Special Journalism & NFT Correspondent Linda Codega of i09 returns to the show to talk about how they broke the OGL story, how Wizards/Hasbro has breached the "trust thermocline," and what the TTRPG future may look like now that WotC has taken an "L" and released of the SRD into the Creative Commons. 

Cool games that Linda recommends:

Orbital Blues

Apollo 47

Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined and Interstitial - Kingdom Hearts Actual Play

World Champ Game Co.

ARC

Apocalypse Keys

Wanderhome

Mothership

And as always, join DMofNone on Discord and support the show on Patreon!

So, you're thinking about running Pathfinder for the first time? Well, you read a lot about the new classes, cool monsters, and massive adventure catalog, but you don't know much about being a PF Game Master. This episode has you covered! DMs Rob and Matt discuss exactly what a GM switching from old Dungeon and Dragons to PF2e should expect, what to look out for, and what can help make the transition easier for players. 

Pathfinder 2e SRD

Action/Activity Cheat Sheet

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Matt and Rob get together to discuss further developments in the OGL and other things that suck. Also, WotC released a survey, and you should fill it out and tell them what you think! This is the last OGL conversation for a bit, we promise. The survey link is at the bottom of this post:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest

After the bombshell report by friend-of-the-show Linda Codega on Wizards of the Coast’s disastrous new version of the Open Gaming License, we discuss the controversy with two guests: Justin Alexander and LegalKimchi. We dive into what the Open Gaming License (OGL) is, its history and context, the legal issues raised by the new document, why no company in their right mind will sign the new license, the reasoning that may be guiding WotC’s decision, and where companies and fans can go from here. 

Linda Codega’s article on Gizmodo 

Full text of the new OGL 1.1

Justin Alexander’s The Alexandrian blog and his three part series on the history of the OGL

LegalKimchi’s YouTube Channel

Atlas Games 

The Original Open Game License 1.0a

And the just announced open and system neutral ORC License!

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Rob takes Matt on a journey through history to talk about when America was great and Satan was real -- the 1980s! We talk about Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, the Satanic Panic, Andy Rooney, and more! This one's kind of a doozie, hope you enjoy it! D&D 60 Minutes Clip The Pulling Report Role-Playing Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic Dungeons and Dragons: Witchcraft, Suicide, Violence

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And listen to the rest of our premium episodes on Patreon!

We answer your DM problems: taking hats off our hats, explaining underdark ecology, damage immunity frustrations, putting the One Ring into Shadowrun, reactions to the "Reaction" series, and more!

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob talk about the good, bad, and ugly of prestige classes, and even whip up a couple of examples you could try to integrate into your 5e games. 

Join our Patreon for the full episode and three example prestige classes for 5e!

Special Krynn Correspondent Meaghan, returns, as we attempt to fixup the newest D&D 5e adventure, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen.

Get a copy of Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything Revised at the DMsGuild!

Listen to the Dragonlance Nexus podcast for more Ansalon goodness.

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob interview VJ Harris, GM, game designer, writer and most recently author of An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby. We talk about D&D races, DMing, some recent WotC news, and more! You can find VJ on Twitter, the DM's Guild, TikTok, their website, and on their podcast.

There's even more OneDnD playtest rules. On deck are the rules for everyone's favorite effective yet bland class: the Cleric. Special Freelance Correspondent Alex Clippinger joins us to tell us why we were wrong about the Jump Action rules. Like the Great Bambino calling his shot home run shot, Alex lays down a prediction for the Counterspell mechanics. Last, listen to a thrilling Oxford-style debate on the motion: Are textbook style rules superior to natural language writing? 

Check out all of Alex's creations

and his brand new Dragonlance adventure!

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Part three of our series tracing the roots of reactionary thought in Dungeons and Dragons: the anti-diversity backlash, the never-ending outrage machine, an overwhelming fear of change, common contemporary reactionary arguments, and our final conclusions. 

Thank you for listening and a special thank you to all our Patreon supporters! 

The podcast Three Black Halflings does and excellent deep dive into the lore of the Hadozee in the new Spelljammer book.

You can write the hosts with questions, comments, or critiques here. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and Elynatracks. 

Part two of our series tracing the roots of reactionary thought in Dungeons and Dragons: the emergence of the right-wing D&D outrage machine from below and from above. 

Stay tuned for part 3 tomorrow! 

You can listen to the first episode of the series here.

You can write the hosts with questions, comments, or critiques here. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and Elynatracks. 

Part one of our series tracing the roots of reactionary thought in Dungeons and Dragons: defining our terms, the long consequences of the Satanic Panic, the anti-diversity campaign in speculative fiction, and GamerGate's influence on RPGs. 

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow! 

You can listen to our episode on the Satanic Panic and D&D here.

You can write the hosts with questions, comments, or critiques here. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and Elynatracks. 

It's another premium episode of Actual Prep. This time, put your head phones on for a hi-fi episode in which we build an open-ended, all-bard adventure: The Bards Are Back In Town!

Listen to the full episode and get all our rockin' bonus content over at Parteon! 

Matt and Rob continue their review/deep read of the Pathfinder Gamemastery guide! This week they get to the really crunchy stuff.

DMs Rob and Matt are back "in the garage" with a discussion of the Dungeon Master advice in Pathfinder 2e's Gamemastery Guide.

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob get spooky and engage in highly unethical behavior by randomly mashing up classic D&D monsters! Listen to us deal with complicated physiological questions like how many limbs and other appendages mashed-up creatures should have, and more!

You can download our full stats for 5e of each monster on our Patreon page. 

We discuss season 1 of The Rings of Power. Find out what we think of all your favorite characters: Frito, Spam, Gimlet, Legolam and the rest of the wacky gang. Wait, did the good guys lose because they forgot to unwrap the MacGuffin?

Listen to the full episode on our Patreon here! 

Enter the long dark teatime of the soul with DMs Matt and Rob as they prepare to outlive--or unlive--the hell out of everybody through the profane miracle of becoming a lich. Listen for why liches are some of the best villains for your heroes and four or six alternative uses for our favorite immortal skeleton wizards.

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And support the show on Patreon!

There's more OneDnD playtest rules. This time it's personal. This time it's the expert classes: the bard, ranger, and rogue. DMs Matt and Rob jump into the rules with thoughts to help you process the newest round of updates to Dungeons and Dragons. 

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob answer your mail! They talk about magic items, fantasy authorities, wizard people, and more! Donjon's Magic Item Generator Sane Magic Item Prices 100 NPCs You Might Meet in a Tavern

Music:

Trophy Hunter - Within TemptationThe Doors - Celebration of the LizardRage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name OfBrad Neely - Wizard People, Dear ReaderThe Postman Theme

One of the many jobs that gets dumped on Dungeon Masters is the role of character builder and advisor. DMs Rob and Matt will help you get in the right mindset to help your players create interesting characters and walk you through building eight example characters for 5e Dungeons and Dragons. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

DM Matt and Rob discuss their favorite spacepunk/scifi/exploration/magitech/sequel/OGL role-playing game: Starfinder. Roll up a rat-person technomancer star pilot with necrograft tail, a spellbook, and freeze ray pistol and join us!

Starfinder SRD (Free Rules)

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob blast off into the 25th century -- or something like it, in any case, in their review of Light of Xaryxis, an adventure for 5th-level players included in the new Spelljammer boxed set. This one needs some work, but there's a lot of good ideas as well.

Music

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Stu Phillips - Battlestar Galactica Main Theme Stu Phillips - Buck Rogers In The 25th Century Main Theme

Crank up the volume on Ziggy Stardust and gaze into your favorite Christian Reisse Lassen print, because we are heading back to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism...Wildspace! It's DM Rob and Matt's review of the new Spelljammer boxed set for 5e! 

Spelljammer: Adventures in Space

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And support the show on Patreon!

Matt and Rob return to one of their favorite topics -- the many works of J.R.R. Tolkien, in anticipation of Amazon's new billion-dollar boondoggle, The Rings of Power! Listen to two dorks ramble about obscure lore that no one cares about and will likely be discarded on episode one of the new show.

It's a (sort of) new (sort of) edition of Dungeons and Dragons: One D&D. Here's DM Matt and Rob's hot takes on the good (some nice things!) and bad (one major whiff) from the first set of playtest rules on character origins. 

Get the playtest rules and submit feedback to Wizards here.

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And support the show on Patreon!

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Three Dog Night - One.

DMs Rob and Matt are still on a bogus journey through the Radiant Citadel. Part 2 has 10, yes 10, adventure reviews. Talk to a dying snake god, eat a dream egg, fight infinite stone golems, solve a mystery full of plot holes, traverse a skybridge of dragon bones, debate philosophy in an underwater city, join an anarchist revolution against an angel, put a lava axolotl back to sleep, or just do it all! 

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel

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And support the show on Patreon!

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Spin Doctors - Two Princes; Bettye Swann - Angel of the Morning; The White Stripes - Blue Orchid. 

Matt and Rob review Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, the newest book by WotC and one that features adventures exclusively written by PoC! Locations and inspirations run the gamut from Southern Gothic to pulp western and just about everything in between, so buckle up because this is at least a two-parter.

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Mass Effect OST Cuphead - Gnome Way Out Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground Los Caminantes - La Carcel de Cananea

DMs Matt and Rob are joined by special Krynn correspondent Meaghan J., host of the The Dragonlance Canticle podcast. We discuss all things Dragonlance: the history of the IP, why you should run a game using this campaign setting, what's coming down the pike for Dragonlance 5e, and how to deal with some of the problematic elements in Krynn.

Follow Meaghan's RPG Creations

Listen to the Dragonlance Canticle podcast

The Dragonlance Nexus website

Tasselhoff's Pouches of Everything, the free unofficial guide to Dragonlance for 5e players and DMs

Matt and Rob talk about the 80s -- nostalgia, bad haircuts, synthwave, neoliberalism ascendant, it's the decade that has it all folks! We review the RPG Tales from the Loop and talk about how to incorporate it into your games.

Music:

Pac Div- Roll the Dice Jefferson Starship - We Built this City A Ha - Take on Me Journey - Separate Ways Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It Metallica - Master of Puppets (please don't sue) REO Speedwagon - Can't Fight This Feeling Abba - Lay All Your Love On Me Meatloaf - I Would Do Anything for Love

It's Part 2 of our best and greatest starting adventure for a Dungeon and Dragons campaign. 

You can listen to part 1 here in episode 223 and

read the first draft of the written adventure by joining our Patreon here. 

Your questions. Our answers. Pirate campaigns, play-by-post advice, good liches, Mechwarrior hacks, and more!

Listen to the full episode on our Patreon here! 

Matt and Rob discuss the Lost Omens World Guide and the Golarion setting from Paizo. We talk about what works, what doesn't, what sorts of games you might want to run in Avistan and the Age of Lost Omens, and how you can use this in your own campaigns if not!

Music Pac Div - Roll the Dice Conan the Barbarian OST Sound of Music - My Favorite Things Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill

Special guest, DM Sally Tamarkin, joins us to discuss designing magic items, working as a sensitivity reader on RPGs, and publishing your first adventure. Check out all the cool stuff Sally is creating below, including the brand new Cloud Curio project!

The Cloud Curio 

Arcadia vol. 14 with Sally's module, "The Afterparty"

The Talent class open beta 

The Storytelling Collective

Listen to Oh, I Like That

Follow Sally on Twitter or on Sally's website

TEASER - Subscribe to the Dungeon Master of None Patreon for the full episode! 

Rob takes Matt on a journey through history to talk about when America was great and Satan was real -- the 1980s! We talk about Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, the Satanic Panic, Andy Rooney, and more! This one's kind of a doozie, hope you enjoy it! D&D 60 Minutes Clip The Pulling Report Role-Playing Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic Dungeons and Dragons: Witchcraft, Suicide, Violence

Have you ever heard of Lost Mines of Phandelver, Sunless Citadel, the Village of Hommlett? Boring. Uninspired. Confusing.  DMs Matt and Rob are back with another actual prep in which they destroy and humiliate all other starting adventures by creating the greatest and best starting adventure in the world. Or, just a tribute. 

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And support the show on Patreon!

DMs Rob and Matt break down how to prepare and run published adventure modules, paths, and campaigns for both new and experienced Dungeon Masters. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Nickel Creek - In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Okay, you are ready to start a new campaign or bring new people into the community...so, how do you do it? DM Matt analyzes the 7 criteria needed to run the best, no, the greatest starting adventure for Dungeon and Dragons for new group, new players, or a new Dungeon Master (or all three). 

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And support the show on Patreon!

We are at the mountains with the monsters in the multiverse of madness. DMs Matt and Rob review the "Bestiary 2" of Dungeons and Dragons 5e: Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

You wouldn't steal a map.

You wouldn't steal a NPC. 

You wouldn't steal a monster.

Stealing is against DragonLaw. 

Dungeon Mastering. It's a crime. 

No jokes in this one; it's a serious episode of solving Dungeon Mastering problems from your letters. 

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

That's right folks, it's the news! DM's Woodward and Bernstein report on all the latest happenings from throughout the multiverse, from fresh information about Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, to the latest on Wizards of the Coast's brand expansion plans.

April, 1805. Vlaakith the Lich Queen is master of Astral Sea. Only the Dwarven fleet stands before her. The Crystal Spheres are now battlefields.

It's time to build some ship encounter rules to celebrate the announcement of Spelljammer for 5e. We try to create rules for both abstract encounters and tactical grid combat.

To listen to the whole episode and get a copy of our ship encounter rules, support us on Patreon! 

It's yearly clip show time! Here are some of our favorite bits from the last year in Dungeon Master of None podcasting: organizing the first TTRPG union with the Paizo Workers Union, discussing Dune's origins and worldbuilding with Nat of Metamashina, learning GMing tips from Blades in the Dark, trashing D&D NFTs with Linda of i09, and interviewing Orion of Dimension 20. 

Join our Discord

Support the show on Patreon

Matt and Rob talk with Linda Codega (they/them) of io9 about their article "NFTs Are Here to Ruin Dungeons and Dragons", which is about Gripnr, the Web3/blockchain company behind The Glimmering, and why maybe that's not such a good idea, actually. Check out our Discord Subscribe to our Patreon Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Meghan Trainor - Lips are Movin' Bush - Glycerine

James Introcaso, Lead Designer of MCDM Productions, joins DMs Matt and Rob to chat about a new monster-focused book, Flee, Mortals!, and designing for 5e D&D. 

Flee, Mortals! Kickstarter and Preview

MCDM Productions

DMs Rob and Matt do a netherdeep dive into Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep. This campaign has a lot to offer but, like any published module, it needs fixing to work well. We once again take the approach of trying not to just review and critique but to review, critique, and offer suggestions for improvement. Without getting into spoilers, this module has a very high ceiling for very cool sh*t. However, there is a lot of work to do to get that payoff. Listen to find out if this module is the right fit for you and your players. 

Join our Discord to discuss this campaign or any campaign with some cool DMs!

You can also support the show and gets lots of bonus episodes by putting down $5 a month on Patreon. 

TEASER for our March Patreon episode!

We head down into the darkness to the 666th level of the Abyss to discuss the most controversial DMing opinions ever. 

Matt and Rob talk about the GMing section of BLADES IN THE DARK, which is very cool and stylish and full of good advice. Matt switches to his LATE NITE voice midway through because we were recording LATE at NIGHT.

Fire up your demon-powered lightning fence because Dungeon Master of None is taking the podcast to Doskvol for a game of Blades in the Dark. This is a great system and setting for any DM to read and run, and there is so much to learn about world-building, running heists, character creation and more! 

Blades in the Dark 

Join the Dungeon Master Union Hall on Discord

And support the podcast on Patreon! 

We are back with advice for your tables and worlds.

How do balance Strength? Are Owlbear pellets canon? Can you run a "reverse level" campaign? What is a good length for a dungeon? Is it problematic to have magical and non-magical species? What does the cult of Tiamat need? Are really short sessions okay? 

Send us your DM question here!

Join our Discord!

And support the show on Patreon! 

We've unlocked our August 2021 Patreon episode so all can glory in some VINTAGE DM advice! Hop into the WABAC machine as DM "Mr. Peabody" Rob takes DM "Sherman" Matt on a journey to Dragon Magazine #63, "Plan before you play: Think it over, then map it out" by Ed Greenwood.

Take a listen to a preview of February episode for our Patreon supporters as we attempt to answer the inevitable question: How do you end a campaign? 

You can unlock the full episode and tons of cool adventures, classes, NPCs, monsters and other fun stuff by supporting us on Patreon.

Matt and Rob talk with Cinder Blocksally, dungeon master and homebrewer extraordinaire, to talk about cool monsters, designing encounters, the best low-level spells, making TikToks, and more!

TikTok Twitch

And more!

Special Warhammer Correspondent Ben Wenham joins DM Rob and Matt to update us on his excellent breakdown of 40k and fascism and to talk about the indie RPG scene, zines, and publishing on Kickstarter. 

People can find Ben at:  https://twitter.com/DarkForestPress 

and

https://benjaminwenham.itch.io 

People interested seeing some of the interesting stuff happening in the indie space right now can check out: https://www.zinemonth.com 

You can join Ben, Matt, Rob, and hundreds of other amazing DMs on the DMofNone Discord. 

Matt and Rob become as talk about gods, how to design them, when and where to include them in your game, and answer the most important question of all: what if God were one of us?

Discord Link

patreon.com/dungeonmasterofnone 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Drake - God's Plan NanowaR of Steel - Vallhalelujah Alanis Morissette - What if God Were One of Us

Rob and Matt cook up four NPCs for you to steal for your campaign: a do-gooding noble in a suit of celestial armor, a pair of gnomes purveying pretentious potables, a talking tomcat, and a modron actuary.  Plots hooks are attached in .doc and .pdf formats on our Pateron page!

Rob sits down to talk DMing, actual plays, cosplay, lifting, and so much more with Asians Represent co-host DM Steve!

Unbreakable Volume 1

Dungeon Master, game designer, and actual play creative director Orion D. Black joins the show to talk about game design, creating actual plays, and world-building, and shows us what we can learn from the current wave of creative and inspiring DMs and RPG shows. 

Follow Orion on Twitter

Dimension 20

plot ARMOR single-player RPG

Transplanar RPG 

Bee Zelda

New year, same Dungeon Master of None

DMs Matt and Rob discuss their game mastering New Year's resolutions and say goodbye to our favorite fantasy TV series of 2021 (spoilers for the Witcher and Wheel of Time end at 27 minutes). 

Then, on to some DM advice...loving the brain mole...finding ways to fix publish modules...getting campy with it...using political factions...breaking the interplanar economy. 

War never changes folks, except when it does. Rob talks to Matt about the Fallout franchise, hopefully explaining who that little guy is, why everything looks like that, and what's cool (and not so cool) about these games that you can borrow for your own worldbuilding!

patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone

Discord

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Ink Spots - I Don't Want to Set The World on Fire Bing Crosby - Something's Gotta Give Sheldon Allman - Crawl Out Through the Fallout Dion - The Wanderer

Matt and Rob answer patron questions about copyright, PC rerolls, sound waves, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and more!

Complete the mindmeld with DMs Matt and Rob with the epic conclusion to our 200 DM Inspirations for your campaigns and adventures. 

Links for all 200 Inspirations 

Join our Patreon here! 

And discuss this episode and DMing on our Discord! 

200 Dungeon Master inspirations—films, books, shows, historical events, old modules, and sourcebooks—to keep your D&D tank running at full. 

Links for all 200 Inspirations 

Join our Patreon here! 

And discuss this episode and DMing on our Discord! 

DMs Matt and Rob do a deep, deep dive into running the adventure in Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos. Think of this as your Dungeon Master syllabus for creating and running this campaign. And the information you need is ALWAYS IN THE SYLLABUS. 

Matt and Rob discuss Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, the newest Wizards of the Coast adventure! No spoilers for this one, we got distracted talking about dialectics and didn't get to the actual adventure.

Get your lanyard on and your schedule ready, because DMs Rob, Matt, and Andy are off to your friendly local gaming convention. Let's learn how to prep and run a con game, how cons can help you experience new RPG systems and new types of play, and how to keep yourself and your players safe at the con table. 

Join the DM Union Hall Discord!

Support the show on Patreon! 

From behind the vault, it's one of our premium episodes: Making Villains! DMs Matt and Rob build four foes for use in your next campaign. 

Links: 

You can also get the statblocks for all four villains along with all our premium episodes, adventures, and homebrews by joining our Patreon.

We would also love to see you over at the DM Union Hall on Discord. Drop by for discussions and friendly game advice!

Pack your bags and stuff your turkeys! Let's discuss building calendars and holidays for your campaigns and one-shots.

Attached below (for patrons) is our set of tables and hooks for various types of holidays to throw into your current game.

Join our Patreon for four one-shot adventures, two custom class documents, monsters, NPCs, magic items, and a whole work day of bonus episodes. 

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, friends! DMs Matt and Rob get out their ter'angreal, tug on their braids, and swear on the Oathrod to speak no word that is not true about the new Amazon The Wheel of Time TV show and the classic fantasy doorstoppers by Robert Jordan.

Join our Discord here!

Sign up for our Patreon bonus episodes and content here!

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Robert Berry - Ladies of the Tower; Robert Berry - Theme for the Wheel of Time. 

Matt and Rob answer more letters, and one very unusual voicemail. Random encounters, spicing up humanoid encounters, setting boundaries at the table, and more!

Discord Patreon Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Dream Theater - Invisible Monster RUSTAGE - Yu-gi-oh Rap ("Time to Duel")

Hey, the boys are back in town! DMs Rob and Matt are recording in the same room and they have a treat for you! Today, it's time to grab your StarLot and practice your WordRunes as we dive into DragonRaid Adventure Learning System, the RPG written by your cool Youth Pastor. It's a blast from the 1980s past, so come with us to Sunday School to play a Biblical D&D. 

DragonRaid Image Gallery

Get out your textbooks everyone because Matt and Rob are talking about what the D&D genre is -- is it fantasy? Is it something else? How does the structure of the game affect the stories you tell? Does any of this matter?

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice James Horner - Pagemaster Theme James Horner - Storyteller Theme Earth, Wind, and Fire - Fantasy

Fizban, your favorite fourth wall-breaking, wise-cracking DMPC is here to sing, stat, and chat about dragons in our review of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.

DMofNone Patreon 

Don't Split the Party! We are honored to be joined by two members of the Paizo Workers Union: Jason Tondro and Andrew White. They tell us about the unionization drive at Paizo and how everyone can help support Paizo writers, editors, artists, designers, engineers, warehouse workers, and freelancers. 

To help, you should:

• Email the Paizo executives (Jeff Alvarez, Erik Mona, and Lisa Stevens) politely requesting that they voluntarily accept the union. 
• Post your support for the union on the Paizo forums. 
• Share your support under the #UnionizePaizo and follow @PaizoWorkers for updates. Visit the union website for logos, art, a FAQ, and daily updates.
• Contact your players, game masters, and friends to do the same ASAP! 
• DO NOT boycott Paizo at this time. 
• Read the "How do I Help" for more information. 
• Be ready to keep the pressure up in case this goes to a NLRB election. 

Solidarity forever! 

DMs Matt and Rob answer the silliest spooky season RPG questions. First, we take a look at the new Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse and the new revised monster stat blocks.

Join us on Discord;

and subscribe to our Patreon! 

Matt and Rob finally get around to talking about superheroes, which they somehow haven't managed to do yet? They discuss MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS by Green Ronin games, how to run a superhero game, lycra vs. spandex, and more!

Discord Patreon

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Three Doors Down - Kryptonite Nickelback - Hero David Guetta & Bowie - Just for One Day Seal - Kiss from a Rose

Celebrate! Good times! Come on! DMs Rob and Matt discuss the future releases from Wizards of the Coast and 50th anniversary edition update to 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons before tumbling through the looking glass into the newest hardcover adventure for D&D: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. 

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

Discord - The Dungeon Master Union Hall

DMofNone Patreon 

Matt and Rob talk about GOLD -- specifically, what to spend it on, how to reward your players, what to do about the broken economy in 5e, exchange value vs use value, the works.

Sane Magic Item Prices

Kingdoms and Warfare Discord Patreon

Songs:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Pink Floyd - Money Smash Mouth - All Star Death Cab for Cutie - Gold Rush Kanye West - Gold Digger

DMs Matt and Rob spent a Night at the Museum and all the cool stuff came to life and turned into magic items. Join them as they build 5e stats for five open source historical objects and a discussion what makes a magic item great in Dungeons and Dragons. 

Object Gallery

Listen to the full episode and get the document with all the item stats, here, on our Patreon. 

Fantastic Animals and How to Homebrew Them! DMs Rob and Matt take real animals and turn into cuddle, strange, or terrifying monsters for your campaigns. Follow along with the link below:

Real Animals - Fake Monsters 

You can also join our Discord here for DM advice from other listeners or sign up for our Patreon for more homebrew stuff!

Matt and Rob answer your letters! We talk about undead, problem players, reverse Indiana Jones, The Elder Scrolls, and more!

Check out our Patreon and Discord below and if you can please consider donating to one of the charities we've linked to help protect reproductive rights in Texas and elsewhere. patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone Discord Frontera Fund

Fund Texas Choice

Texas Equal Access Fund

West Fund

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Cee Lo Green - Fuck You JT Music - Undead Lullaby Internationale

Listeners, if you can, please help the people of Texas and give to the following organizations:

Frontera Fund

Fund Texas Choice

Texas Equal Access Fund

West Fund

Strap on your coolant vest, plug in your neurohelmet, and power up your fusion XL engine because its Battletech! DM Matt explains the entire history of Battletech franchise and lore to DM Rob. We've got international IP lawsuits, Neofeudalism, stompy robots, hard sci-fi worldbuilding, corporate mismanagement, 40k exiles, thinly-veiled Mongol Empires, Space AT&T, more giant robots, and Jim Belushi. 

P.S. Don't forget to join our Discord! 

Hop into the WABAC machine as DM "Mr. Peabody" Rob takes DM "Sherman" Matt on a journey to Dragon Magazine #63, "Plan before you play: Think it over, then map it out" by Ed Greenwood. Lots of good advice in this one, folks! https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Rob is flying solo today, talking about one of his longest running campaigns, and hopefully imparting some useful advice about what NOT to do and how to avoid making the same mistakes.

I do not roll with my hand. They who roll with their hand have forgotten the face of their father. I roll with my heart. 

It's time to talk about cannons, blunderbusses, shattershots, fowling pieces, tanegashimas, arquebuses, fire lances, flintlocks, wheellocks, matchlocks, snaplocks, pepper boxes, and muskets. DMs Matt and Rob discuss how to include gunslingers and firearms in your campaigns. But first, a kickstarter updates on two popular and cool RPG campaigns: 

The Devil Made Us Do It

Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game

Nat (@ashesforfoxes) of Metamashina joins Matt and Rob to talk about Frank Herbert's 1965 novel DUNE -- which you may have heard, is being made into a major motion picture -- as well as the myriad prequels, sequels, and spinoffs that the book has produced.

It's a mailbag episode! Time to help Dungeon Masters with their notes and organization, running fantasy cops, GMing for neurodivergent players, worldbuilding better planar cosmologies, and more!

TEASER for our July patron episode: 🐉🐉🐉 Have you talked with your players about Dragonology? We are here to help! It's a dive deep into one of our favorite supplements from 3e, Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons. Time to think deep about dragon ecology, colors, and metals. Let's put some engaging dragons into your world. 🐉🐉🐉

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Grab your wands and quills because MAGIC SCHOOL is in session. Inspired by the upcoming release of STRIXHAVEN for D&D, DMs Rob and Matt discuss the stories and pitfalls of using a magical school, college, or university as your campaign. 

Matt and Rob discuss recent book announcements, read a classic Dragon Magazine article, and dig into the biology and behavior of your favorite RPG monsters!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Skillet - Monster Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber - Monster

It's the Great Railroading Debate! Get your ticket punched and head into our dining car for a discussion of railroading and player agency. Choo choo, Dungeon Masters. 

You can access our June patreon reward (and all our patreon rewards) by subscribing now. It's a spooky mythos murder mystery one-shot with coal mines, Yog-Sothoth, snake-handlers, and Egyptology in Appalachia! 

It's time to talk about the train wreck that is the corpse of TSR a.k.a. the "New TSR Games" a.k.a. "Weekend at Ernie's." Matt introduces Rob to the cast of grifters and bigots behind this company before getting to some dungeon master advice on handling difficult spells and introducing new players to the Forgotten Realms. 

Preview of our June 2021 Patreon exclusive episode! Join us at https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone for the full episode for a discussion of DMing for Jack Black, Railroading, playing other systems, and speculation about future D&D releases. 

Our favorite historian, Paul Sturtevant of the Public Medievalist, is back to talk with us about the barbarian and paladin. But first...flails are cancelled! Then, stick around for a great conversation on history, colonialism, Basques, and Smite Evil. 

You can read Paul's article on the barbarian here and his short Twitter presentation on the paladin here.

Rob sits down to talk with Caleb Stokes about his many many many projects, especially his upcoming Kickstarter, Fae's Anatomy!

More links:

http://redmarketsrpg.com/ http://slangdesign.com/rppr/ https://arcdream.com/home/ https://www.patreon.com/dgdc https://www.patreon.com/themixedsix

Our favorite D&D writer from St. Louis (who is NOT a member of the Veiled Prophet ball) is back to share his experience publishing his stuff, writing for larger projects, and running horror games. Alex also takes us into his own personal Domain of Dread: a forever posting war in reactionary D&D Facebook groups. 

Links to some of Alex's projects:

Ezmerelda's Encyclopedia of Evil

Eldritch Sands Kickstart & Eldritch Sands Preview

They Want to Be Us: A 5E Adventure

Matt and Rob dive into the actual Domains of Dread -- there's evil carnivals, dangerous games, sewer steampunk, land of the influencers, and more!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Phantom of the Opera - Masquerade Avatar - Hail the Apocalypse Flesh to Flesh (Night of the Living Dead 2 Theme)

Hey, it's new book time and it's a good one. Lots of great Dungeon Master advice in this one, folks. 

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

Matt and Rob answer your mail! Death! Reading campaign settings! How to pronounce "McElroy"! It's all here folks.

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Dethklok - Go Forth and Die Fief - II The Postman Theme

TEASER for our first premium episode: Making Villains. You can join the International DM Union by subscribing to our Patreon page to get the full episode plus write-ups and stats for each villain.

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone  "Matt and Rob sit down and roll up four villains for you to use today in your games: the relentless lich bounty hunter Dead Eyes, the schemer and social climber Don Marcelo Scarsi, the awakened displacer beast Iluros, and the warforged mastermind Quicksilver. Files with the villain descriptions and stats are included with the full episode. Enjoy!"

Matt and Rob are back "In the Garage" for Dungeon Master tips, advice, and strategy from the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. There's some real hidden gems, solid advice, and useful tables for planning at you table here! Thanks 4e! 

Check out our new Patreon for Bonus Episodes and Cool Stuff!

4e Dungeon Master's Guide

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Jenn Champion - In the Garage

Matt and Rob discuss THE ADVENTURE ZONE, specifically the now-finished arc, Graduation, which has generated some discourse. There's a lot to learn from other DMs, even and especially Travis McElroy. Also Rob gets really worked up.

Everyone Loves the McElroys, So Why Is Everyone Mad at the McElroys?

Join DMofNone on Discord.

And support the show on Patreon!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Alice Cooper - School's Out O Brother Where Art Thou - Man of Constant Sorrow Vitamin C - Graduation

WARNING: This is a very niche episode reviewing the design and making of third-party classes for 5e D&D. DM Matt dives into the excellent Illrigger by MCDM Productions and our own Warlord. Links below! The Illrigger Class

DMofNone Patreon

The Warlord Class on DMsGuild

It's a clip show! Listen back to our episodes on running games for kids, MST3K-style riffs for the awful Dungeons and Dragons film, our interview with game designer Olivia Hill, our trip back in time to do some D&D demography, advice from game designer Daniel Kwan, and world-building with Eberron's creator Keith Baker. 

Patreon is live! Join the International DM Union for a bonus episode and a cool homebrew thing each month! Plus, you get all of our backlog of neat stuff. This month: the Warlord class for 5e! Give us money! Seriously, this will help keep us working on fun stuff, pay for hosting, buy dope art, and give future guests honorariums. Here's the link: Dungeon Master of None Patreon 

Ahead of the publication of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Matt and Rob talk about the SPOOKIEST official Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting -- the Domains of Dread! Spooky, scary, and more than a little bit racist!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme Song Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings Tracy Jordan - Werewolf Bar Mitzvah Bobby "Boris" Pickett - Monster Mash

You have built the perfect world. Now, with DM Matt and Rob as your guides, let's turn it into something to adventure in.  Links:

The Warlord Class by Matt & Rob

New Draconic Unearthed Arcana

Cute Armadillo Girdled Lizard 

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Godfathers - The City. 

DMs Matt and Rob have compiled their 25 favorite tools, resources, and websites to help you build, plan, and run your campaigns! Links below!  DMofNone Patreon coming soon! Let us know what you would like to see! 

Mapping: Dyson’s Dodecahedron https://dysonlogos.blog/ 

The Cartographers’ Guild https://www.cartographersguild.com/ 

HexTML http://hextml.playest.net/ 

Hexographer https://worldographer.com/ 

Medieval Fantasy City Generator https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator 

Alex’s Dungeon Map (of the Root Mine) https://i.redd.it/ka1xnwdjq8o61.jpg 

Blogs: Master the Dungeon https://www.masterthedungeon.com/ 

The Alexandrian https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101 

Sly Flourish https://slyflourish.com/index.html 

ThinkDM https://thinkdm.org/ 

Keith Baker http://keith-baker.com/ 

Public Domain Stuff: The Public Domain Review https://publicdomainreview.org/ 

Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/ 

Campaign Management: Chronica https://www.chronica.ventures/ 

World Anvil https://www.worldanvil.com/ 

Obsidian Portal https://www.obsidianportal.com/ 

Tools: Rolz https://rolz.org/ 

Token Stamp http://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/ 

RP Tools https://www.rptools.net/ 

Encounter Builders: DnD Beyond https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounter-builder 

Donjon https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html 

Kobold Fight Club https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder 

Name Generators: Behind the Name https://www.behindthename.com/ 

FaNG App https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.crystalpeak.fantasynamegenerator&hl=en_US&gl=US 

Paid Stuff: A Simple Character Sheet https://www.dmsguild.com/product/212909/Jos-custom-character-sheet 

MCDM Patreon https://www.patreon.com/mcdm 

Matt and Rob review a curated selection of the remaining Candlekeep Mysteries adventures.

Your hosts are joined by special guest and Candlekeep Mystery author, Daniel Kwan. Join us for a discussion about leaving the academy, thoughtful world-building, deconstructing Kara-Tur, learning from other games, and Daniel's adventure "The Book of Inner Alchemy." 

Links:

Daniel's Patreon 

Daniel's itch.io

Ross Rifles

Asians Represent! Podcast

The Wrap Up on Twitch

Candlekeep Mysteries

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; I Hate My Job - Cam'ron. 

Matt and Rob review the new WotC adventure anthology, Candlekeep Mysteries! It's spooky! Also we don't get very far. But there's some cool stuff here!

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice

DMs Matt and Rob answer your Dungeon Master questions. But first! The most ridiculous DM cease & desist letter plus a brief discussion of a new Feywild-themed Unearthed Arcana. Also, let your players start a union. 

The questions: What is thac0? How do you calculate damage in Mutants & Masterminds? How do I describe diverse NPCs? How should I best transition from the virtual tabletop to in-person games? How can increase the tension in my campaign? What are your favorite adventures written by BIPOC & LGBTQ+ authors?

Unearthed Arcana - Fold of the Feywild 

Writing With Color 

Adventure Recommendations: Uncaged Anthologies, Eat the Rich, Eyes Unclouded (Anthologies)

The Harrowing by Crystal Frasier 

M5 Talons of Night by Jennell Jaquays

Mythic D6: Bastion by Jerry D. Grayson, Matthew Bottiglieri, Kieran Turley

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Woody Guthrie (r. by Old Crow Medicine Show) - Union Maid. 

Matt and Rob sit down and go through the process of designing a Call of Cthulhu investigation, based on Matt's con-based one-shot, At the Monongahela's of Madness!

The final adventure is here on our Patreon!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice Big Rock Candy Mountain Take Me Home, Country Roads Sinnerman

This episode is flat circle. It's time to discuss your problematic faves: H.P. Lovecraft and the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. DMs Rob and Matt get into the racism and legacy of all-time weirdo H.P. Lovecraft, the good (great Dungeon Master advice) and the bad (the sanity system) of the world's second most popular RPG. 

Links:

"Lovecraftian Horror — and the Racism at its Core — Explained" by Aja Romano

Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed. Keeper Rulebook

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Eben Brooks - Hey There Cthulhu.

Matt solo reviews the brilliant solo role-playing game, Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings.

Thousand Year Old Vampire

Power's back! DMs Matt and Rob answer your mailbag questions about house rules, Genesys, creating trans-friendly worlds, new plane-touched races, and counterspells.

Links:

Trans Inclusivity from Monster Darlings: Creating a Safe Table and Running Trans/NB Characters 

Stuff We Like: The Dread Dome and the Wagadu Chronicles

Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages and Dragon Subclasses

Non-European History Recommendations: 

Revolutions Podcast - Haitian Revolution

The Comanche Empire

Empires in World History

Gender in History: Global Perspectives

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Under the Black Flag

White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates

Pacific Worlds 

They say lightning never strikes twice... They were wrong.

DMs Matt and Rob are back for part 2 of their John McClain-inspired adventure: Dice Hard! Come down to the Wizards of the Coast and have a few laughs as the actual prep continues. 

You can access the adventure here on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dice-hard-54603904 

Rob rambles about why he's disappointed in recent cyberpunk media and why the genre is interesting or useful as a storyteller or gamemaster.

CD Projekt Red Catered to Its Edgiest Fans Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk The Role-Playing Game That Predicted the Future

Another episode of actual prep! Matt and Rob work on the outline for a one-shot loosely inspired by DIE HARD. Ten stories of sheer adventure!

You can access the adventure here on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dice-hard-54603904 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Beethoven -  Ode to Joy Guyz Nite - Die Hard

DM Matt takes a look Arcadia, MCDM Productions' new magazine for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. What is Arcadia? It ain't in Greece, Louisiana, or the plane of Peaceable Kingdoms in the Great Wheel cosmology. Knowing Matt Colville it's probably a Duran Duran reference. Confusing name aside, this magazine rules. Check out the review!

Links:

Arcadia #1

Strongholds and Followers

DMofNone Eyes Unclouded Review

DMofNone Strongholds and Followers Review

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Meters - Cissy Strut; Jonathan Coulton - Still Alive; Jay-Z & UGK - Big Pimpin'; Beastie Boys - Slow Ride; Step Rideau and The Zydeco Outlaws - Yippi Yai Yo Yippi Yai Yay. 

Our house...our rules.

DMs Matt and Rob go through the most popular, and the most hated, house rules for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. 

Links:

Half-Feats (Updated with Tasha's) 

Inspiration by the Apocalypse (D&D 5e Houser Rule)

That GWM / SS Fix by Think DM 

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Talking Heads - Burning Down the House. 

New year, same Dungeon Master of None. 

DMs Matt and Rob reflect on the best of 2020. Good vibes only! Then, they dive into the generic narrative Roleplaying System from Fantasy Flight Games: Genesys! Here's some pictures below, because it's hard to understand the system without looking at the dice, the outcome symbols, and the probability chart. Stick around for DM Matt's Goodfellas parody at the end of the show! 

Pictures:

Links:

Genesys Roleplaying System

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire

Genesys/Star Wars Dice Roller

Recommendations: 

Matt: Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City

Rob: Hades

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze; Tony Bennett - Rags to Riches.

DMs Matt and Rob explore N.K. Jemisin's Hugo award-winning novel, The Fifth Season. 

Plus, your DMs take a brief aside into "DragonLaw: The Contract Chronicles" with an update on the Weis & Hickman lawsuit and into the idea of Minor Advantage/Disadvantage in 5th edition. 

Links:

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Numenera RPG

"I build a world with fantasy master N.K. Jemisin" on The Erza Klein Show

Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Carole King - I Fell The Earth Move.

Matt and Rob answer your letters! A lot of which were about how wrong we were about Tasha's Cauldron of Everything!

Get out of that Cyberfunk and start playing Cyberpunk RED, the brand new edition of the classic Cyberpunk RPG by R. Talsorian Games! 

Link: Cyberpunk RED

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; 3RA1N1AC - Flash RAM. 

DM Matt dives deep into Eyes Unclouded, a heartwarming and thought-provoking adventure anthology for Dungeons and Dragons inspired by the films of Studio Ghibli. 

Link: Eyes Unclouded Anthology

We finally get to the really good stuff, the Dungeon Master sections of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything: how to use Group Patrons, Tasha's magic items and artifacts, and a delightful section of supernatural manifest zones. Then, DM Matt and Rob force themselves to discuss the puzzle section at the end of the book and how to create better puzzles that won't make your players hate you.

DM Rob and Matt continue deep diving into the new player options for Dungeons and Dragons presented in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Monks, Sorcerers, Rangers, Rogues, Paladins, Wizards, Warlocks, feats, and spells! 

Links: ThinkDM - "Blade Cantrip Changes"

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Mott the Hoople & David Bowie - All the Young Dudes.

DM Matt and Rob are back and diving deep into each tasty bit of the newest Dungeons and Dragons supplement: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Thurston Harris and the Sharps - Little Bitty Pretty One; David Bowie - Oh! You Pretty Things.

DM Rob is England and DM Matt's school is fighting a COVID outbreak, so here is our first ever replay of one of our favorite episodes, "82 - Anyone Can DM." There is a lot we can all learn from the basics and some good Dungeon Master thinking here. We hope to bring you more of these types of episodes in the near future. See you next week! 

Episode 82 - Anyone Can DM DMs Matt and Rob discuss the basics of what a Dungeon Master is and what a Dungeon Master does. Today, we review the DM advice presented in the 5e D&D Essentials Kit. But first, a game of "Weal or Woe," in which, Rob has to guess whether the RPG product is real or fake! 

Matt and Rob discuss the roles presented in the Essentials Kit: referee, storyteller, and role-player. They break down the core mechanics and goals of any Dungeon Master. Conclusion: Anyone can DM!

Letters:

Dalton asks: "Do I need a wizard in my party?"

Adam writes: "Aren't there times when it is good to hide your DM dice rolls?" 

Alexander writes: "Where are my half-feats?"

Links:

Matt's Homebrew Half-Feat Rules

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; BTS (featuring Hasley) - Boy with Luv; Weezer - In the Garage .

Special OSR Correspondent Andy explains the joy of hexcrawls in Dungeons & Dragons! Learn how to build a sandbox exploration game, one hex at a time. 

Links:

Hex TML

Hexographer

US GIS Maps

Swordfish Islands, a system neutral hexcrawl

Arcana of the Ancients

X1 The Isle of Dread

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps. 

It's the return of the classic Dungeons Master of None reading series as we go back, back to the future, to 1984 and read one of the most bizarre articles ever published in Dragon Magazine. Then, your hosts head to into the 9th Layer of #DnD TikTok Hell. 

Here are the accompanying equations and tables you will need to master to play D&D:

Links:

https://thealexandrian.net/ 

https://slyflourish.com/index.html 

https://thinkdm.org/ 

https://writingexcuses.com/ 

http://oneshotpodcast.com/ 

http://oneshotpodcast.com/interview-discussion/asians-represent/ 

https://systemmasterypodcast.com/ 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Tina Turner - What's Love Got to Do with It?

DM Matt and Special Legal Correspondent Brent discuss Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast. 

Links: 

Margaret Weis, LLC and Tracy Hickman v. Wizards of The Coast LLC

Brent's Twitter

Story first reported by Cecilia D'Anastasio of Wired

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Belle and Sebastian - Legal Man. 

Dungeon Master advice served hot and fresh, plus our rule of three wish list.

Questions: Do I need to make my party roll some healers? Can I design my own monster for the Shadowfell? Why do the geeks love fascism so much? Is offline one-to-one communication with players a good thing? Is my worldbuilding idea too much for my players to handle? Will you review Against the Giants? What is your advice for getting back into D&D? 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Nickel Creek - In the House of Tom Bombadil; Grandmaster Flash - Apache. 

Rob reviews the newest edition of Shadowrun, Sixth World, a book that was definitely not rushed out unfinished by a bunch of amoral grifters!

It's 2 Frost, 2 Maidens as DMs Rob and Matt return to Icewind Dale for the second part of the newest Dungeons and Dragons adventure module.  

Matt and Rob talk about the new WotC release, Rime of the Frostmaiden, and get a little carried away. This one's a doozie folks!

It's Dungeons and Dragons....IN SPAAAACE! Finally, DMs Matt and Rob take a look at their favorite but flawed campaign setting: Spelljammer! 

Links:

Spelljammer Books

Wildspace Commercial 

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Bob Marley & The Wailers - Jamming; David Bowie - Space Oddity. 

Oh, you like Dungeons and Dragons? Then, name five dragons. We'll wait.  DMs Rob and Matt are here to prove the uselessness of lore knowledge by beating the nerds at their own game...the most dangerous game...the game of trivia.  But first, a discussion of what to except from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the coming of Magic: The Gathering to Toril. And last, should I adapt my favorite novel into a D&D game?  Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Meters - Hand Clapping Song; Funkadelic - Can You Get to That  

Writer and designer Mikayla Ebel joins Matt and Rob to talk about the upcoming WotC release, Icewind Dale: Rime of Frostmaiden, and how they ended up writing for the big leagues. Goats, labor relations, anxiety -- folks, this interview has it all.

Follow Mikayla on Twitter or visit their website!

Another week of piping hot Dungeon Master advice, served with a smile! Plus, join us for a discussion of Kate Welch's departure from WotC and some amazing analysis of fascism and 40k from Special Warhammer Correspondent CthulhuBen! 

What is the best old UA subclass? How should I build a campaign around a city in the Feywild? What is the deal fascism in Warhammer 40k? How to create some great homebrew subclasses for the monk and sorcerer? How does a DM deal with role-playing multiple NPCs in one place?

Links:

Ben's Twitter 

David Roth's on "Starship Troopers"

When Warhammer Was Radical: The Egalitarian Origins of the Fantasy Battle Game

Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco 

Bolt Thrower vs. Neo-Nazi Scum

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Cake - Frank Sinatra; Bolt Thrower - The Killchain; Look at Miss Ohio - Gillian Welch

Rob is back with a functioning microphone, and the DMs are talking about WotC surveys, APPS, and of course, encounter design. If you're mad that Matt said "WILLIAM Dafoe", don't worry, so am I.

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/dd-survey-2020

Inclusive TTRPG List

Music:

Pac Div -- Roll the Dice Nightwish - Wishmaster Imagine Dragons - Warriors

Is T1 - The Village of Hommlet by Gary Gygax the best adventure for novice players and new Dungeon Masters? Should you run it or adapt it for your group? Is it even any good?

DM Matt and Special OSR Correspondent Andy do a deep dive into this classic of grognardia. Your hosts go into the history of Hommlet, the reasons why you might want to play T1, and how to learn DM skills by converting and putting your own spin on this old school adventure.

The Village of Hommlet by Gary Gygax on the DMsGuild

Links: Tales of the Iron League Rules by Andy The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon The Delian Tomb Intro Adventure by Matt Colville

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice Iris DeMent - Our Town

In a special bonus episode, DM Matt reviews two new big, stompy robot RPG systems: Mechwarrior: Destiny and Lancer. Matt explains why the Battletech Universe kicks ass (01:50), how Mechwarrior: Destiny fails to harmonize its narrative and simulationist mechanics (22:20), and why you should play the Lancer RPG (36:00). Spoilers: there is a free version of the Lancer rules and it does what Mechwarrior fails to do, combine rules-light play and fun tactical combat mechanics. 

Links:

Lancer RPG

Mechwarrior: Destiny

Free Intro to the Battletech Universe

Music: Zipper Interactive - Opening Cinematic to Mechwarrior 3; Flight of the Conchords - Robots; Mechwarrior 2 Soundtrack by Jeehun Hwang, Gregory Alper, and Kelly Walker Rogers - Sable Flame; Yoko Takahashi - A Cruel Angel's Thesis; Ragtime Revolutionaries - Chicks Dig Giant Robots.

How many hobgoblins are too many? How can you mix up antagonists so your players aren't bored? What is the best system for a Last Airbender game? How can you get your foot in the door if your group is all experienced Dungeon Masters? DMs Matt and Rob do their best to answer these and other questions! Plus, they discuss a refutation of the erasure of people of color in medieval Europe from a fan, new RPGs on the horizon, the joy of one of your players taking over as Dungeon Master, a pro-D&D take from a Christian Dungeon Master, and some kick-ass Icelandic runic spells and world-building! Never fear a Tilberi as long as you have your Butterknot stave handy. Trust us, that'll make sense after you listen. 

Links:

Carta Marina

Icelandic Staves

Jacob's Amazing Map for "Tremors"

The Christian Response to D&D

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Louis Armstrong - You're the Top; Sigur Rós - Starálfur; Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand; Ozzy Osbourne - Fire in the Sky; Kaleta & Super Yamba Band - Jibiti

It's our favorite Dungeons and Dragons world-builder himself, Keith Baker! Keith is here to talk about his awesome new book, Exploring Eberron, out now! We discuss Keith's "Rule of Three" for world-building details, how to include fairy tales in your lore, how to fight a war with magic, what 5th edition gets right, why you should start small and build out, how to plan history with random tables, when to follow your players, and more Eberron advice from the Hellcow himself! 

Links:

Exploring Eberron on the Dungeon Masters Guild

Keith Baker

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice 

DMs Matt and Rob are joined by special guest Olivia Hill to discuss her new tabletop RPG, iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy. Stay tuned for a discussion of RPG design, FATE mechanics, writing games for working and marginalized people, and some great game master insights from our guest! Can you guess who the real monster is? (Hint: It begins with "capitalist..." and ends with "...mode of production.")

Links:

iHunt the Tabletop RPG: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy by Olivia Hill and Filamena Young

Machine Age Productions  

Olivia and Filamena's Patreon  

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice 

The Coup, Lakeith Stanfield - OYAHYTT