No Plot, Only Lore

We talk about some characters from Christmas and what you might steal for your D&D games. Want to play Santa? Or Frosty? Or... Jesus? Let's talk about it!

Part One in our four-part Christmas series! Josh and Kris talk about various ideas for getting your players into a Christmas themed one-shot or arc with a variety of Christmas hooks (though they tend to involve a concerning amount of child murder...) Chr

Dungeons & Dragons is a kid's game. So how the heck do you go about playing it with kids?

In which we come up with more cool ideas for ways to personalize and customize some of D&D's most iconic lore.

Where we fiddle with levers and try to come up with some fun new ideas for classic D&D monsters, species, and items!

Josh and Kris rummage through their stacks of old board games to see what mechanics they can steal for RPGs.

In which we discuss the various things that can happen in your games, as thiefed from Georges Polti.

Where Josh and I talk about TV shows that have good ensemble casts and relationships that you can steal from them.

Part one of our four-part series on things you should steal from other people who make good stuff. In this episode we go over cool setting ideas from popular video games (some of which we've even played!)

We discuss one of my most embarrassing high school memories, a game we like to hear stories about more than play and... Oh, that thing Wizards of the Coast wanted to do with D&D Beyond not having 5th Edition Spells anymore as part of a strange subscription business model, I guess.

We talk about humanoid raccoons and that time I gave my DM Joey a duotang full of backstory for a country that didn't exist for my character to be from.

Josh tries to make a dirt-simple character while Kris asks him ridiculous questions about his deep, detailed backstory.

www.noplotonlylore.comThis week we talk about balance in tabletop role-playing games!

In this episode, Josh and Kris tackle the benefits and drawbacks of game systems appearing in everything from childhood education to modern gambling. But like, in a fun way?

Digging into a few saucy controversies in the TTRPG space with some hot takes on people doing stupid stuff!

www.noplotonlylore.comhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-plot-only-lore/id1717725243https://open.spotify.com/show/4aRL19z6CwVhoDaFWoRgqqThis week we talk about Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and how it doesn't really apply to planning a role-playing game. And also hyper-critical analysis of media via plates of corn.

www.noplotonlylore.comhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-plot-only-lore/id1717725243https://open.spotify.com/show/4aRL19z6CwVhoDaFWoRgqqTalking about the nature of Genre and how we interact with genre tropes in our tabletop games!

www.noplotonlylore.comThere's a new D&D edition coming out this year. Sort of. We figured we should probably talk about that.

www.noplotonlylore.comWe talk about that time a guy came into my game store to insult my mom, and also about the nature of complex systems in role-playing games!

Star Wars has some pretty good villains sometimes. Your roleplaying games can have some pretty good villains in them too!

Kristoffer's failings as a parent are a jumping-off point for a discussion of themes, tone, and context in storytelling and role-playing games.

In this episode of No Plot, Only Lore, we dive deep into the rich and varied world of media homages to Dungeons & Dragons. Join us as we explore the fascinating intersections between D&D and popular culture, with a special focus on comic books, actual play media, and the unique trend of Reddit thread readings on TikTok.

We discuss adaptations of role-playing games.

Social and non-combat encounters are great, but can be super awkward and weird to run.

Bringing historical elements into your games is sometimes fraught with peril, but the past contains all the the things that have ever happened, so it's a decent resource.

Josh and Kristoffer discuss 'problem players' and how to deal with them.

We talk about sourcebooks a lot!

We talk about what makes a cool character with basically no notes.

Wherein we discuss the role of house rules at our tables and the difference between a house rule that enhances things and a house rule that sucks.

We talk about how to run a single-session game!

We let Josh go off about Warhammer 40k. Lore is had. Mistakes were made.

Kris and Josh discuss all of the various ways to make your character's gear more memorable and interesting!

A chat about open, honest communication at the table, session zero, and techniques for handling difficult topics.

Going through a few of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) published D&D settings and the sorts of games we like to play in them.

Josh gets to go off on one of his favorite topics as a fair trade for listening to Kris talk about theory for an hour.

Sometimes Kris comes across as a pretentious dickbag. That's because he's a pretentious dickbag. But he's also pretty well versed in rpg theory and critique, so let's talk about that.

Josh and Kris break down planning for a D&D session into small, manageable steps.

Is your role-playing game combat boring? Let us help!

Wherein we discuss the technological tools we use when playing role-playing games.

Kristoffer mostly tries to have a calm discussion about the evolution of role-playing games and art while Josh goes off on a guy for being wrong on the internet!

Where Kristoffer and Josh talk about ONLY the subject they're supposed to discuss and don't go on any tangents or side-quests at all!**Spoiler Warning** We discuss Neal Stephenson's Seveneves in its entirety about halfway through this podcast. There's a spoiler warning there too. You probably don't want this book spoiled. Go buy it and read it and then come back and listen to us talk about games!

Josh plays a lot of D&D. He doesn't play a lot of other games. This is Kristoffer going through a list of weird games off the top of his head and seeing what Josh thinks of them.

Failure is a natural part of life and gaming. Sometimes failures are catastrophic in nature! A couple of experienced DMs talk shop about failure, critical failure, consequences of poor decision making, and how system (including house rules and off-the-cuff table rulings) can impact how failure manifests in tabletop role-playing games.