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A collection of 36 posts

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D&D's 4th Pillar

As a game master, it's frustrating when you've put considerable time into preparing a session only to have it canceled in the 11th hour. But there are right and wrong ways to handle it in the moment and in the long run.

5e

Overland Travel Is a Dungeon Crawl

We don't need to overcomplicate overland travel.

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Making Death Matter

The threat of death provides excitement and meaning to our choices as players. We should make it meaningful.

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Landmark, Hidden, Secrets and Clues

What if there was a way to make secrets and clues easier to design and deploy? Enter the idea that information can be landmark, hidden, or secret.

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What's in a Name?

Naming things in D&D is hard. But it doesn't have to be.

5e

Running Shorter Sessions

We don't need as much time as we often think to run meaningful RPG sessions.

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How to Make a Great RPG Recap

When we establish a ritual and prepare our recaps ahead of time, we can prime the players for a great RPG session.

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Empty Rooms

We fill our games with interesting worlds, dungeons, and stories. Empty rooms are a simple yet powerful tools we can add.

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Don't Optimize the Fun Out of Your Game

When we focus on productivity at the expense of the experience, we risk destroying the fun.

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The Best Villains

A good villain elevates your Dungeons & Dragons game by creating fun opportunities and lasting memories. But designing and deploying good villains isn’t easy.

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Make Each Session Better Than the Last

Most game masters want to improve their craft. They want to make better monsters, craft better worlds, and run better games. The perfect game. But with the inundation of online advice that can feel overwhelming. Should you run a sandbox? Use fronts? What about side initiative? OSR? The path to

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Creative Origins

All of the articles and advice we read on running Dungeons & Dragons, while useful, can’t replace what you bring to the game. Your experiences, inspiration, and creative origins1 are more important than anything created by someone else. Recognize and reuse that which inspires you and don’t look

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Power of Polyhedrons

In RPGs, dice can transcend the players and game master as the ultimate arbiter and creator of outcomes. Without rolling dice (or insert other resolution mechanic here) in RPGs, it’s hard to say that we’re playing a game. But dice are the crucible through which our imaginary creations

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The Elusive Game

We’ve all thought about running the perfect game of Dungeons & Dragons. A game that maximizes everything we desire in a TTRPG and minimizes that which we dislike. It’s elusive—even our best game sessions could be better. And those of us that consume tips and advice from

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Beyond the Plot in D&D

In a game where the game master only presents plot, much of the value of our hobby is lost. The opportunities for players to uncover the likes of forgotten truths, secret trysts, or mysterious locales beyond the scope of the plot(s) are what bring the game to life. Fantasy

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Books Over AI

When you reach for AI1 instead of a book, you lose the serendipity that’s fueled generations of creativity. A good prompt might return some details about an interesting devil and even a (probably broken) stat block. But you won’t happen to notice the much more interesting devil on

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Fast Forward

Not every moment in a TTRPG campaign needs the spotlight. Focus in on the moments that matter to you, your players, and your campaign themes. Embrace the idea that you can hit fast forward at any moment. Most of my weekly games are between 90 and 105 minutes long. That’

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Everything is Something

A setting that feels alive encourages enjoyment and even immersion. It aids in the suspension of disbelief that allows us to explore fantastic realms and go on imaginary adventures. But building or running a setting that feels alive is no small task. Let’s look at a simple tool for

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Selling in RPGs

Here’s an idea that will level up any game you’re running or playing in: improve roleplay and engagement by selling.  As a game master, we’re often focused on moving the story and game forward while adjudicating rules at the table. But there’s an easy tool to

5e

Improving High Level Play

High level play is a hot-button topic for 5E as well as previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Few groups experience high level play. Most complain that the game falls apart at higher levels. Others lament the “lack of support” for high level play. While true, these might not be

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Best of 2023

Let’s take a quick look back at the best of PhD20 in 2023. Organizing Obsidian for D&D This series helps game masters simplify and secure their approach to organizing D&D with Obsidian. * Organizing Obsidian for D&D | The Big Picture on Vaults * Organizing Obsidian

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Chronicle RPG Adventures with Discord Embeds

Discord’s built-in embeds are a great way to chronicle your RPG adventures. Give weight to the moments that matter and impress your players with a better experience. Embeds are a stylized way to post content to a Discord channel. They can include titles, links, text, key-value pairs, images, and

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TTRPG Creators to Follow

Here’s a non-comprehensive list of TTRPG creators that I’ve found inspiring and/or valuable over the last decade. * Questing Beast. Ben has an excellent newsletter and videos focusing mostly (but not all) on “old-school games.” He’s also a game designer and one of the best communicators of

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The Dark Side of D&D Beyond

D&D Beyond’s tools are great. But they come with some unintended consequences that impact our creativity and play.

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3 Myths About Using Published Settings

Artwork by Zsolt Kosa from Crown of the Oathbreaker I used to scoff at the idea of using a published setting for my D&D campaigns. I’d happily steal from them to inspire my own setting, but use them outright? Outrageous. I’m a worldbuilder, not a worldborrower.