Steve Townshend on Adventure Design Podcast
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish and Steve Townshend, freelance WotC designer and trained actor, discuss the ins and outs of great adventure design in this most recent Critical Hits podcast. Listen in as Steve gives his three top tips for good adventure design, discusses how to draw players into the story, gives ideas on making your players love your NPCs, and discusses improvisation tips for being an active storyteller at your table.
Steve Townshend on Adventure Design (67 minutes, 69 MB)
[Download MP3 Version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link]
Steve’s work:
Critical Hits Podcast #34: The Id DM and the Psychology of D&D
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish and Michael Mallen, practicing psychologist and author of the Id DM D&D blog, discuss the psychology of the gaming table. This podcast discusses some of Mallen’s excellent studies into the mind of the players and the dungeon master and statistical studies of the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts.
Psychology of D&D (70 minutes, 69 MB)
[Download MP3 version|Podcast Feed|iTunes Link]
Related articles:
- I am the Entertainer and I Know Just Where I Stand
- I’m a Bad DM, Now What?
- Penny Arcade Combat Encounter Analysis
- Analyzing Combat Encounters, Returning to the Penny Arcade Podcasts
- Riot Acts: The Dungeon Master Experience
- Power Options, Status Effects, and Mutual Assured Destruction
- Rule-of-Three: 12/19/2011
Critical Hits Podcast #33: Erik Scott De Bie and Mike Shea on Sandbox Gaming
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish and Erik Scott De Bie, author of Gloomwrought, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting, Shadowbane, and more, discuss sandbox gaming, especially how it relates to Dungeons & Dragons. How to run your game in a way that gives plenty of options without driving yourself crazy, top tips for keeping a sandbox campaign running, incorporating character backgrounds into sandbox play, what level of preparation you need for running a sandbox game, the mix of roleplaying vs. combat in a sandbox game, and much more.
Sandbox Gaming (62 minutes, 57 MB)
Critical Hits Podcast #32: Mike Shea and Dave Chalker on Epic Tier Play
I’m interviewed by Mike Shea of Slyflourish about the epic tier of play in D&D 4th Edition, as we compare our experiences running and what we like and don’t like about levels 21 to 30 of D&D. We talk about the five biggest tips for running epic games, running an epic level finale session with nine players, designing epic tier encounters, how to tweak the upper levels of an epic tier campaign for more playability, using epic level monsters, designing encounters, and more.
Epic Tier Games (55 minutes, 52MB)
[Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link]
Since it’s between 99% and 100% useful, be sure to check out Mike’s “Running Epic Tier D&D Games” book.
Critical Hits Podcast #31: Quinn Murphy and Mike Shea on Skill Challenges
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish talks to Quinn Murphy of At-Will about skill challenges. Learn the top 3 tips for effective skill challenges. Get the hot button questions answered like when to say or hide the fact that players are in a skill challenge, how do you write up skill challenges, how to add interesting choices into skill challenges, how to engage players in a skill challenge, using skill challenges in combat, and much more.
Be sure to check out the Worldbreakers series and Etherkai, the Nightmare Dragon, both mentioned in the show.
Skill Challenges (63 minutes, 61MB)
[Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link]
Critical Hits Podcast #30: Chris Sims and Mike Shea on Encounter Design
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish continues his interview series by talking to Chris Sims (author of many D&D products, as well as the Analysis Paralysis columnist) about designing encounters in D&D 4e. Learn about how a professional adventure writer comes up with his encounters (both for print and for his home game) and listen to two experienced DMs compare notes on effective encounters. Learn about how to handle such tricky situations as three way encounters, adding motivations to encounters to add more depth, and how to “cheat” to be ready for your players.
Encounter Design (63 minutes, 61MB)
Critical Hits Podcast #29: Randall Walker and Mike Shea on Terrain
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish interviewed Randall Walker of Initiative or What? (Deadorcs on Twitter) about the use of terrain in your 4e D&D game. Learn how to effectively use terrain to mix up your encounters and hear plenty of ideas on how to take an ordinary monster fight and give it a whole new dimension by shaping the battlefield. Also learn tips about using and making physical terrain in order to give your encounters another dimension.
Additional Reading:
- Heroic Level Trapbook PDF
- It’s a Trap! Introducing Epic Security Systems
- Void Gamers
- WorldWorks Games Cardstock Terrain
- HirstArts
- Gaming Paper
- Confessions of a Prop Whore DM: The Found Object
- Tomb of Horrors in Dwarven Forge
- Dwarven Forge Buyer’s Guide
- Dundjinni
Terrain in 4e (70 minutes, 66 MB)
[Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link]
Critical Hits Podcast #28: Mike Shea and Matt James on Power Creep
What is power creep? How does it manifest in 4e? What are some of the consistently problematic examples? How can a DM deal with all those many classes, races, powers, and items out there? These questions and more are discussed by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish and Matt James of Loremaster.
Further Reading:
Power Creep in 4e (67 minutes, 65 MB)
[Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link]
Critical Hits Podcast #27: The Out
Mike Shea, guest writer here and head honcho of Sly Flourish, interviewed me once again, this time about “The Out,” a method for shortening combats by defining alternative ways that the battle can end instead of one side or the other being wiped out. We discuss why to use it, how to implement it, planning it, some potential pitfalls to using it, and more.
Further Reading:
- Avoiding the Early Out
- Three Examples for Ending a Battle Early
- Designing 30 Minute Skirmishes in 4e
- Sly Flourish’s Dungeon Master Tips Book
The Combat “Out” (50 minutes, 24 MB)
[Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link]
Pax East 2011: House Rules and Stealing from Other Games in RPGs
Prior to this year’s PAX East, we pitched three panels about RPGs. One was accepted, with the following description:
Most Game Masters do it. Hacking your favourite RPG is as old as the hobby itself. However, one can often get bogged down with rules that defeat their intent and make the game less fun. Others have so many house rules that players and master alike get confused and lose sense of what game they’re playing. That’s why we invite you to join 3 well-known RPG bloggers from Critical-Hits and At-Will to discuss how to design, test, and organize house rules. They’ll also tell you how to explore other classic and modern RPGs to “borrow” their best ideas into your games and give you tangible examples.
Panelists include: Dave Chalker [Editor-in-Chief, Critical-Hits], Phil Menard [Featured Bloggers, Critical-Hits], Quinn Murphy [Editor-in-Chief, At-Will]
We were happy to have our panel accepted, but it wasn’t until we got there that it sunk in how big this was. While we’ve all done panels before, nothing would prepare us for something of this size. Pax has a much more limited seminar schedule, which means there’s more attention on each panel. People lining up in advance is common, as is getting turned away. [Read the rest of this article]
