Taking 20 Podcast

Prewritten modules and adventures are a DM's friend. They are simple, canned documents that you can insert into your world as needed but they're better if you customize them; make them more integrated with your game world, your players' characters, and important NPCs. Don't know where to get started? I'm here to help.

You're starting a new campaign! Yay! Everything is so shiny and new. Your DM has asked you to come up with a backstory for your dragonborn druid from the high deserts and you have no idea where to begin. How do I incorporate my backstory into the DM's world? How can I help my DM create adventures with my backstory? Or you may be a DM who wants to incorporate backstories into the new campaign and you aren't quite sure how to proceed. Good news everyone! This episode can help you either way.

Owlbears - one of my favorite monstrosities to throw at my players. Sneaky ambushers? Nah. Subtlety is for chumps. In this episode we talk about the history of the owlbear, its properties, and how DMs can use them in their campaigns.

You were looking forward to an antagonist for the PCs that would last a few months. You had a plan to integrate him into two of the PCs' backstories and for a climactic battle on a volcanic rock. But the PCs were smart and found a way to kill your big bad earlier than you wanted. In this episode Jeremy discusses what you should do next and some strategies to keep it from happening in the future.

This topic was suggested by Adrian Young on the Taking 20 Facebook page. Lots of DMs burn out because they spend hours and hours preparing for gaming sessions while their players get to just show up and play. In this episode, we talk about tools that DMs can use to reduce their overall prep time before each gaming session.

Certain conditions that affect characters can have a negative effect at your table. While I don't advocate completely getting rid of some of these conditions, in this episode I talk about how DMs should use them with caution and advice for players whose characters are taken out of the fight or gaming session by one or more of these conditions.

Artifacts can be simple engines to generate adventures or powerful items wielded by the PCs to accomplish a mission or slay a powerful creature. Used without care, however, and artifacts will break your game. In a slightly long episode, we discuss the positive and negatives of artifacts and how DMs can use them in their games.

Succubi and their lesser known male cousins, the incubi: devious, corrupting masters of temptation with pleasures of the flesh and mind. How can a DM use these in a campaign? How do they fight? What would my succubus look like? Tune in and find out!

A good villain can make or break your campaign. How do you make villains that feel real, are well-rounded, and memorable for your players? Come on in and take a listen. Edit: Yes, it's a touch over 20 minutes. I edited down and edited down and feel like I already cut too much. I'm asking for your forgiveness for the 24 extra seconds.

Magic items are supposed to be these powerful relics that can make your PCs harder, better, faster, and stronger (we'll miss you Daft Punk). So why does it feel like most players react with, "Oh, another +1 scimitar." How do you make magic items feel special in your high-magic or low-magic campaign?

Hack and slash games are fun where you don't have to worry about the emotional state of the players or NPCs and you can just throw dice. Suppose you are going to be part of a roleplay heavy campaign or want to learn to be a better role player? Here are a lucky set of 13 tips and tricks you can use to help give your character some depth.

What is it about ruins that make them so good for DMs and players? How do ruins come to be? How can a GM use ruins in a campaign and what are some tips to do so? Grab your favorite drink and let's talk about it!

Continuing the monster series, this time Jeremy tackles the iconic Beholder, a potential floating Total Party Kill with eyestalks. What are these creatures and how should DMs use them in an adventure? Come on in and find out! Like what you hear? Buy me a ko-fi! www.ko-fi.com/taking20podcast.

You may have heard the terms "High Magic" and "Low Magic" when describing adventure settings but what does that even mean? Is LSD involved? Where would I even score any at 8:33 a.m. on a Sunday? Good news is that it's just a way of thinking about the prevalence of magic in your campaign. Just come on in and have a listen.

Once you find a potential DM or players, how do you know they will be the right ones for your game? How do you know the game will be the right one for you? In this episode Jeremy discusses questionnaires, interviews, and meetings to find a good match.

Should you use cliffhangers to entice your players? If so, how and how often? Fear not. This short episode has got all of that covered. Give it a listen and don't forget to subscribe and provide comments and feedback!

Happy Valentine's Day! The Monster Series resumes this time focusing on those alpha dogs of the necromantic RPG world: liches. How do DMs use them in their campaign? What tactics should they take on the battlefield? Tune in and find out.

Wizards of the Coast and Paizo have wisely removed some of the problematic depictions of ancestries and ethnicities, adding nuance to those previously portrayed as universally evil. How does that change our games and what does it mean for DMs?

Sometimes it's good to be bad. Evil campaigns can be amazing adventures unto themselves and can allow good role players to really stretch their wings and embrace being horrible people. There are traps and potential gotchas to both running and being in a campaign. Here's how to avoid them.

This episode idea is courtesy of Daniel in Melbourne, Australia who wanted to know where I get my ideas for quests. In this episode, I talk about the different types of quests that you can run, sources for quest ideas, the importance of flexibility when it comes to quest solutions, and finally best practices for the two categories that all quests should fall under.

There's been a lot of character optimization discussion online the past couple of months. What is it? Should players always optimize their characters? On the flip side, DMs need to say yes to player choices, right? Not always. Jeremy discusses the situations when optimization may be necessary, encouragement for DMs to say yes to their choices when possible, and the powerful ability to say No when necessary.

Another worldbuilding episode where we discuss ways you can make your campaign world feel different than the mundane rock we currently live on. Before you tackle making your first outlandish world, give this a listen!

We all remember our first time, nervously fumbling about. Maybe it was with someone you know well, perhaps a stranger. Maybe it was with a group of people you went to school with. And if we do things the right way, maybe we can be there to support someone's first time having sex...er...tabletop gaming. In this episode we talk about how we support these new players and new Game Masters at our tables.

You've been playing Skyrim and you'd like to test your players' wits by adding a clever puzzle to baffle them in their bonnets and worry them in their wigs. How do you add puzzles without making them boring or too deadly? How do you add puzzles that make sense? Tune in to find out! I'd love to hear your feedback or episode ideas to [email protected].

In the cold open, Jeremy responds to the "I'm Quitting Pathfinder 2e" video by Cody at the Youtube channel called "Taking 20" (not affiliated). Chances are you've watched or listened to a live let's play podcast as they used music, sound effects, and visual puzzles during an episode. What are some tips for doing that in my home game? Jeremy can help with that!

I wanted to address an aspect of Critical Role's success that's mentioned too often called the Matt Mercer effect. Its most common manifestation is that every Tabletop RPG should be just like Critical Role and every DM should be just like Matthew Mercer. In this episode, Jeremy breaks down why that's simply unfair to him and to your DM.

Traps - some DMs love them and others hate them. PCs usually hate them so how do you use them effectively in your campaign? How can they go wrong? Why are Pixie farts brought up so often this week?

Mind flayers - evil alien beings with octopus heads and the ability to fry your mind from 60 feet away then eat it while you're still breathing. I know. Freaky, right? What about these monsters and their abilities? How can you use them in a campaign? Well, wonder no longer.

Let's flip the screen. What should players do to get ready for Session 0 and how can they help make the session a success? I'm glad you asked, voice in my head. Here are some tips!

Most campaigns are better when they start with a Session 0 but what the heck is a Session 0? What do you do during a Session 0 and how do you conduct one?

You're a DM and you have a story you'd like to tell but the darn Player Characters won't follow the story. What do you do? How do you handle the campaign that's not going as planned? Jeremy pulls a major piece of advice from a song from 1980s band 38 Special.

A lot of people dismiss D&D 4th Edition as a mistake but there were a lot of good aspects to that version of the game. One of them was minions which were simplified monsters used in tandem with bosses and boss fights. In this episode Jeremy suggests that bringing the concept back can spice up combat encounters.

It's almost Halloween in the U.S. and maybe you'd like to run a scary One Shot or Adventure. How do you bring scary elements into your game? What types of horror are there? Jeremy waxes poetic about one of his favorite adventure types.

Want a Roc that can teleport giant rocks to drop on the players? How about an alien with acid for blood found on a crash landed ship. That's completely unique and no one else has ever thought of it. In this episode Jeremy gives some tips for customizing monsters and mostly encourages you to be creative with your creatures!

In the finale of the 3-part interview, Johnn and Jeremy discuss garnering emotional responses from your players and a weird question about the Stone to Flesh spell.

In Part 2 of the interview, Jeremy and Johnn discuss how to hand out treasure, and making compelling cultures. Part 3 will release this Thursday!

In the first of what I hope will be many more to come, Jeremy sits down to answer listener and reader questions with Johnn Four of www.roleplayingtips.com. The rest of the interview will be released Tuesday and Thursday this week.

RPG Gatekeeping is the practice of deciding someone isn't worthy of participating in our hobby or that because they look different, have different beliefs, or lead a different lifestyle, they can't participate in our hobby. It's wrong. In this episode Jeremy talks about the need to be accepting of everyone in the hobby, young/old, straight/gay/bi, cis/trans. None of that matters. What matters is can you sit at the table and have a good time together.

Random Encounters, some DMs love them, some hate them. In this episode Jeremy discusses strategies for using Random Encounters that still make your world feel alive and active but won't derail your gaming session.

In this episode, Jeremy fights through a sinus infection to talk about how you can use real world organizations as a framework for groups and guilds that could exist in your world. He also mispronounces a lot of words and generally sounds rough. I apologize for that.

Seems simple, doesn't it? Your players' characters do something amazing and you give them something for it. Players, your characters slay the beast and stare at a huge pile of stuff. However, when mishandled, players can feel like they're getting shafted when it comes to loot and this can cause hurt feelings, rifts in the party, and even cause players to leave your game.

In RPGs, skill checks are different from attack rolls, saving throws, and other d20 rolls. Jeremy discusses some ways that skill checks can be used in your game and how they can be adjucated in multiple ways.

In one of is rare DM-only episodes, Jeremy discusses the secret to ratcheting up the tension for the players to make them feel their characters' lives are on the line.

There are two primary ways that combat can be run in Role Playing Games - Using battle maps that are printed or digitally produced or theater of the mind where all the action happens in everyone's imaginations. Like nearly everything else, there are advantages to each and this episode discusses pros and cons of each with some lessons Jeremy has learned along the way.

Dragons. They should be important encounters and villains. Hell, they're in the name "Dungeons and Dragons". How do you make encounters with them epic? How should they take on the plucky band of adventurers who seek to steal their treasure from their lairs? In this 20 minute episode, we look at things from a dragon's perspective and discuss tips and tricks for running these all powerful badasses like they should be run.

The idiot host of this podcast keeps saying that character death is a powerful and dramatic moment. If that's true, how do we as DMs deal with the death of a character around the table? In this episode we talk about the dos and don'ts of character death and how to handle the moment properly.

Having discussed whether GMs can cheat, Jeremy focuses the lens on how players cheat and recommendations for how GMs can handle the table when players cheat. Please provide feedback to [email protected].

Are Game Masters beholden to the same rules that players are? If it would result in a dramatic story beat or important campaign moment, is it okay for GMs to change prewritten adventures, change monster hit points and abilities in the middle of the battle, or even change the dice rolled behind the screen?

How viable are spells that give the victim a single saving throw before taking them out of a fight, campaign, or existence? Should you use these spells against PCs? What alternatives are there? In this episode we discuss these questions and much more about the spells and abilities where you make the save or it sucks to be you.

Why would GMs play unholy antagonists and Big Bad Evil Guys like morons? In too many prepublished adventures, intelligent undead like liches, vampires, and ghasts are played as rash, unthinking, bumbling buffoons. Jeremy presents alternate ways of thinking. He gets into the mind of an ageless creature and hopefully gets your thoughts going on how to role play these rare, intelligent, monsters.