Dnd Tips & Tricks

3 Character Backstories to Use for your Oneshots

3 Character Backstories to Use for your Oneshots

Listen, building a character is incredibly fun and rewarding. Never forget that. But DnD is a time consuming hobby, that requires a lot of time and often a lot of creativity. This is no excuse to make things easy on yourself, but if you're low on time or struggling with inspiration, here are some backstories for your character you can use.
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How to Make DnD Bosses More Interesting

How to Make DnD Bosses More Interesting

What's the point in building up a grand, terrifying enemy if they turn out not to be a threat to players? What is a boss without their minions? How do you turn world-ending narrative into character-ending fights? Let's see if we can break it down.
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5 Tips for Making DnD Combat more Interesting

5 Tips for Making DnD Combat more Interesting

Combat is a huge part of DnD, and generally it's intrinsically fun on its own. There's room for strategy, quick thinking and specialization through classes and spells. But, there's always room for improvement, and I have found in my own games that combat is often where sessions slow down as players decide what to do. That's totally fine, but here's how to keep things interesting despite the change of pace.

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Developing Style: How to Stand Out as a DM

Developing Style: How to Stand Out as a DM

First and foremost, stop worrying so much. If you already care enough to be reading a blog post like this, odds are you have everything you need to present a great session or campaign for your players. That is, unless you're starting with this instead of the Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide. Start there, then come back.
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6 tips for Making your DnD Character Motivated

6 tips for Making your DnD Character Motivated

Often players expect their DMs to provide motivation for an adventure. This is not fair. DMs have a lot on their plates, and while they almost certainly have some idea of what the grand scale story is going to be, a good DM will have accounted for backstories and motivators affecting the PCs outside of the main plot. So, how do you create a character that is motivated.
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How to Describe a Room in DnD 5e

How to Describe a Room in DnD 5e

The number of times I have had a party enter a room, told them exactly what was in it including important things and creatures, only to spend the next five minutes answering questions about what's in the room, the vibe of the room, and whether there is anyone in the room, is infuriating. Today, we're going to do our best to fix that.
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Fantasy High vs Dungeons and Daddies: A Case Study in Real-World(ish) Adventures

Fantasy High vs Dungeons and Daddies: A Case Study in Real-World(ish) Adventures

Dungeons and Dragons typically utilizes high fantasy settings, characters, magic systems and narrative structures. Part of the beauty of TTRPGs are that they provide such a distinct form of escapism. But what does a game look like that incorporates elements of the real world? Does it provide the same sort of escapism? How would real-world stuff be implemented. Well today we're talking about two different DnD gameplay shows that do just that.
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How to Say 'No' as a DM

How to Say 'No' as a DM

One of the first pieces of advice I heard when I began my time as a DM was "don't say no to your players, just let them try." And while in essence this is good advice, it ends up being too broad of a statement. Sometimes you should say no to your players, but that almost never means actually uttering the word "no". Here are some of the ways you can say "no" without making anyone angry or derailing great ideas.
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