•8 min read
Create Captivating Traps
Design traps with purpose to advance plot and energize combat, using environmental challenges, skill-driven complications, and scalable DCs.
Blog Posts
•3 min read
Level Up Your Game with these RPGs
Explore a crowd-sourced list of RPG systems beyond DnD to expand your skills in narration, pacing, mechanics, and new approaches to play.
•6 min read
Thoughts on the First Issue of Arcadia
A practical look at how this 5e magazine adds a drop-in encounter, a sorcerer subclass, mounted combat options, and fresh celestials, plus tooling quibbles.
•13 min read
RotF Remix: Foaming Mugs
Remix this Icewind Dale side quest with an inside-job twist, a yeti-lured ambush, goblin negotiations, a haunted locale, and a secret crime-boss stinger.
•2 min read
Icewind Dale NPC: Arnold Beitz
Elitist Waterdeep-educated magnate in Bryn Shander runs salvage and crimes for the Chardalyn Syndicate, sabotaging rivals with goblins to seize the speakership.
•2 min read
Be Friends with your Roleplaying Group
RPGs ask for vulnerability, so invest in real friendship with players and your DM—chat, bond, and see the people behind characters to strengthen the table.
•6 min read
Simulating Sadness: Great Weapon Fighter Damage
Analyzes GWF and Champion crits in 5e using math and simulations, finding modest damage gains and evaluating common house rules.
•10 min read
RotF Remix: The Far North & Ten-Towns
Remix adds Icewind Dale politics and Duergar intrigue, caravan hooks, harsher travel and survival rules, and darker Auril sacrifices for 5e.
•5 min read
RotF Remix: Heart of Winter Supernatural Regions
Introduce volatile planar cold zones in Icewind Dale with triggers and a d100 table of chilling effects to reshape rests, spells, and encounters.
•5 min read
Progressive Failures and Rising Tension in 5th Edition
Proposes a rule-of-three progressive failure framework for 5e skill checks to build tension, preserve agency, and avoid swingy all-or-nothing outcomes.