Tag: GM Toolbox

World Building 2 : StoneFall

Hello students, Crunch here with an article from Faculty Member Ryan Porta. In this article, he introduces us to the city of StoneFall, describes what makes it unique, and provides some plot hooks to use. The intention of this article is not only to demonstrate how to generate home-brew content, but also to give you …

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How to build a better backstory

Backstory: It’s quite common for a DM to ask their players to come up with the background or backstory of their new character before the start of a new game. I see questions on forums quite often where players are asking for advice on how to do this, or what to include.   I am …

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An example of world building

Hello students, Crunch here with an article from Faculty Member Ryan Porta. In this article, he introduces us to the city of Redfern, describes what makes it unique, and provides some plot hooks to use. The intention of this article is not only to demonstrate how to generate home-brew content, but also to give you …

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Creating a complete and satisfying campaign – Part 1: The introduction

Hello students, Crunch here with an article from Faculty Member Jared Smith (@TheOtherJared1)   SERIES INTRO Did you ever think of a great campaign concept that you knew would make for an epic story, but never saw it come to fruition because of the fear it wouldn’t play out the way you pictured it in …

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14 ways to easily add new PCs to the party.

Hello students, Crunch here with an article from Faculty Member Ryan Porta.    Fun Suggestions for Introducing the New Party Member Your gaming group has been together for over a decade. The party was cleaning out caves of kobolds and goblins while you were in  grade school. In high school, saving towns and villages from …

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Coding the Mundane – guest article by Red Rabbit

Hello students, Professor Crunch here. Today, I am happy to bring you an article written by fan of the show Red Rabbit. You can find Red on the Academy forums. I have had the pleasure of discussing all kinds of game theory with Red and believe me, you are in for a treat with this …

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Fewer skill checks, please.

  Note to readers, this article was inspired by Table Topics # 68  – Setting DC’s in D&D  You can listen to that episode here: www.therpgacademy.com/table-topics-episode-68-dcs-in-dnd   Fewer skill checks, please.   Role Playing Games, by their very nature, are an odd mixture of free-form cooperative storytelling and rigid mechanics. Everyone approaches this mix according to …

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Intro to Player Narrative Control

  Note to readers, this article was inspired by Table Topics # 88  – The matrix. You can listen to that episode here: www.therpgacademy.com/table-topics/the-matrix   Introduction to Player Narrative Control: The idea of Player Narrative Control is that you allow players to create details of the story that then become real in the game world. …

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What’s in a Name?

  Note to reader: This article was inspired by Dungeon Talk Episode 1 of The RPG Academy Podcast. You can listen to that full episode at : www.theRpgacademy.com/dungeon-talk-episode-1-the-beginning/ What’s in a name? Less than you might think. When I first started running games I was terrified that a player would ask me questions I couldn’t …

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DnD Arts & Crafts: Spell Slot Tracker

Hello and welcome to DnD Arts&Crafts. I am Michael and I’m going to show you a couple ways to keep track of the spell slots your caster has to use with the spell cards we made for our DnD next game. Now that we have the spell cards, what is the best way to keep track …

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