RyanImelDM

Encounters to Inspire Book 2-Pack (Print + Digital) Each of these little books is full of encounter ideas and tables to help you put together your next game. "Monstrous" is all monster encounters and "Mysterious" is full of head-scratchers to pull your...

I’m proud to have released my first printed gaming product! (It’s available digital-only too.)

Encounters to Inspire is a 2-pack of books full of tables designed to bring more interesting monstrous and mysterious encounters to your table. I’ve even rolled ideas worthy of their own campaigns.

Being a dungeon master is a bit like being a magician. You can jump off the stage to join the audience and enjoy another magician’s work (as a player) but you’re always going to know how the tricks work.

One of my pet peeves is seeing “thin your paints” as the number one piece of advice for new miniature painters.

I’d rather point to the 2-foot rule. When a mini is actually on the table nobody can see all the details. Your work will actually look better than you thought!

Okay, I think this is just the right amount of chaos now. Nothing more to add…

…almost positive. Pretty sure…

Adding magnetized papers to my foam tables has been the highlight of my cottage build lately.

I love that “thunk” sound when the magnets connect.

Then, I aimed to improve a little bit each time I prepped. Nowadays it’s rare that I have a single like in my notes that doesn’t serve a purpose during a session.

(3/3)

But I started paying attention to (1) notes I actually used at the table, (2) notes that I didn’t use because I remembered them after writing them down, and (3) things I wish I had written down but didn’t.

(2/3)

The first notes I ever prepped to run the game were terrible.

I wrote out a notecard for each NPC, with full quotes of what they would say. Most of my notes were still following the “yellow box” examples from modules (which aren’t great).

(1/3)

…I’ll let them know how much of my prep they skipped.

“There are 3 encounters I built out in the other room that you guys totally skipped. I’m impressed!”

And I’m only lying about 70% of the time.

I make terrain for my games. Typically I set up a scene ahead of time, anticipating locations combat could take place. Sometimes I use terrain for other types of encounters, but it’s usually combat.

When my players are clever, avoid trouble, or otherwise outsmart their enemies…

“Don’t railroad your players” is the “thin your paints” of tabletop game design advice. More of a slogan than useful advice at this point.

“Railroading” has become a really unhelpful word. At best it points vaguely at a style of game design that downplays player agency. At worst it makes it so much harder to talk about game design principles by hand waving “bad practices” without really identifying what any of those practices are.

Why do players investigate? | Preparing to Fail YouTube video by RyanImelDM

Going live for a few hours, working on a one shot I've been developing. youtube.com/live/GfdqNUg...

I have a bad habit of tucking everything naturally wild and unexplained into the feywild. My plan this year is to ease up on that and start building out crazier natural locations on the material plane of my games instead.

I love the feywild, as a concept. But I also think my love for it is the reason I don’t have as many weird and exotic locations in my world as I should.

And every time I let myself run with that thought, I end up loving the “broken” game even more. It’s always more exciting. And then I try to think up ways to tempt my players into making the scary decision.

Here’s my new favorite thing to do when prepping my games.

I ask myself how I would handle it if the players made that one game-breaking decision I’m secretly hoping they don’t make. We all have one of those.

Destroy the sacred artifact. Guess the traitor right away. Let the guild fail.

My name’s Ryan, and I’m a dungeon master, game designer, and crafter. I run 2 homebrew campaigns each week for friends & family, each of which has been running for 4 years now.

I post videos almost every day. I talk about one shots, props, crafting, and all the crazy ideas I try at the table.