Inspiration Point

This week, Adam and Tiana look at principles presented by Treant Monk for handling design choices. There's a lot of thought that goes into game design balance, but we think Treant Monk had a good set…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about character voices and do a short exercise to play with voice. We can put so much of what makes a character who they are into the way we choose to speak as them, an…

This week, Adam and Tiana reflect on the Patron Westgate game we played the day before, and what it taught Adam in terms of GM control and how to let go. At the core of it all, punitive punishment AN…

This week, Adam wraps up taking Tiana through a campaign planning document he assigns to his D&D students in his day job. We've been having a good time diving deep into the core concepts of creating …

This week, Adam continues taking Tiana through a campaign planning document he assigns to his D&D students in his day job. We'll be diving deep into the core concepts of creating a campaign over the …

This week, Adam begins taking Tiana through a campaign planning document he assigns to his D&D students in his day job. We'll be diving deep into the core concepts of creating a campaign over the nex…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about a part of the Dungeon Master's Guide that isn't commonly used: Chapter 8, Diseases and Poisons. While diseases and poisons touch our real world in some interestin…

This week, Adam and Tiana continuing talking about first level D&D spells and where we rank them. Bucking the usual tier list conventions, we rank them by things like RP potential and how much they s…

This week, Adam and Tiana continuing talking about first level D&D spells and where we rank them. Bucking the usual tier list conventions, we rank them by things like RP potential and how much they s…

This week, Adam and Tiana start talking about first level D&D spells and where we rank them. Bucking the usual tier list conventions, we rank them by things like RP potential and how much they serve …

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about making encounters more than just trading hit points, using an encounter that happened in the Westgate Patron game Adam runs. We specifically look at page 81, wher…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about making a monster for encounters that may not fit the typical mold. Whether that's something silly for a joke game (as we inevitably did) or changing up a known mo…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about the ways Baldur's Gate 3 changed D&D 5e rules, and which of the changed rules we'd bring into our games. Some of the changes are great! Others...well, it's a vide…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about ways to begin your TTRPG game that doesn't involve "you walk into a tavern..." While that is a time-honored tradition, we feel like there's a ton of ways to get p…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about suffering in games, and how conflict results in a story that everyone remembers. While we don't advocate for GM sadism, there is an element of suffering and striv…

Happy New Year, everyone! This week, Adam and Tiana look back at the year we just wrapped up and talk about what we liked, and what we want to improve. New Year's Resolutions are always a challenge, …

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about the issue of player engagement from the player side. It's so easy to get distracted and veer off in various directions, but it's so important to keep combat turns…

This week, Adam and Tiana talk about NPCs who become part of the party, or otherwise aid the campaign in significant ways. There are real dangers about DMPCs, or other ways that NPCs can steal the sh…