299 - D&D on Death Row with Keri Blakinger

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DMs Rob and Matt are joined by Keri Blakinger, investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, to talk about her piece for New York Times Magazine, "The Dungeons & Dragons Players of Death Row," which can be read for free at the Marshall Project, "When Wizards and Orcs Came to Death Row."

Links:

Keri Blakinger - The Marshall Project
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/08/31/dungeons-and-dragons-texas-death-row-tdcj 

Keri Blakinger - Corrections in Ink: A Memoir
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250272850/correctionsinink

Smriti Mundhra - I Am Ready, Warden at Big Sky Film Festival
https://www.bigskyfilmfest.org/festival/films-2024-view/i_am_ready_warden/ 

Books to Prisoners Programs
https://prisonbookprogram.org/prisonbooknetwork/

Inside Books Project (Texas)
https://insidebooksproject.org/ 

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Lead Belly - The Gallis Pole.

298 - The Open Table

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Special West Marches Correspondent Andy joins Matt and Rob to explain a wonderous campaign where all are welcome: The Open Table! Learn what an open table-style game is, why you might want to ditch your old dedicated story-driven campaigns, and how to prepare and GM an open table game. Plus, learn the Five "S"s of Open Tables: Setting, System, Scheduling, Starting, Stopping!

Links:

Andy - Tales of the Iron league
https://ironleague.org/ 

Tales of the Iron League Discord
https://discord.gg/xY8K7qS9

Ben Robbins - West Marches
https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/ 

Kelsey Dionne - Shadowdark: The Cursed Scroll
https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/products/cursed-scroll-zine-vol-1-diablerie-print 

Trial of the Slime Lord
https://jordanrudd.itch.io/trial-of-the-slime-lord 

Inkwell Ideas - Hexographer 
https://store.inkwellideas.com/products/hexographer-hexographer-2-pro-version 

OwlCon in Houston, Texas
https://owlcon.com/

Check out the DMofNone Patreon! 

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Join DMofNone on Discord!

TEASER: InDesigning RPGs

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Matt and Rob talk about how to make role-playing adventures, player guides, and games look nice. Join us for a journey through design and layout tools from simple to complex. 

Listen to the full episode on the DMofNone Patreon! 

Links:

Homebrewery 

GM Binder 

GIMP 

Cartographers' Guild 

Explorers Design 

Adobe InDesign 

InDesign Template for 5e 

DriveThruRPG - Stock Art 

Open Access at The Met 

297 - How to Run a One Shot

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Matt and Rob talk about how to run a one shot! As it turns out, finishing a whole adventure in one sitting is a lot more complicated than it sounds.

Rat Queens
They Want to Be Us
Savage Worlds One Sheets
Summer in December
The Great Grav Train Robbery
Bite Sized Dungeons

Check out the DMofNone Patreon! 

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice
Hamilton - Aaron Burr, Sir
Eminem - One Shot, Two Shot
Ferran - One Shot

BONUS - Actual Prep: Thunder on the Steppe

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Rob abuses his power to force the podcast audience to listen to him ramble about his unfinished campaign setting, Thunder on the Steppe! We talk through the idea behind the campaign, issues with getting it presentable, next steps and takeaways.

Check out the DMofNone Patreon! 

Link to the Thunder on the Steppe Preview doc. 

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice
The Hu - Wolf Totem


296 - So You Want to be a Game Master?

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Matt and Rob review So You Want to be a Game Master? by Justin Alexander (of thealexandrian.net), which is exactly what it says on the tin. We talk about Alexander's approach, what you'll find in the book, and what you can use in your games!

Check out the DMofNone Patreon! 

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice
Duck Tales Theme
Mission Impossible Theme
Jefferson Starship - We Built This City

TEASER - Farewell to 2023

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Matt and Rob reflect on the events of the year, go over the many (12!) systems they've reviewed, and talk about what they're looking forward to in 2024.

Listen to the rest of the episode (and an entire day's worth of premium episodes) on the DMofNone Patreon! 
https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Join us on Discord!

Music: Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Lorne Balfe - Juice of the Vine.

293 - Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game

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"Temba, his arms wide!" DMs Rob and Matt give the gift of a Trekkie TTRPG to you this holiday season. Learn about why playing a Starfleet crew is so much fun and how to use Mophidius's 2d20 system with its momentum and threat pools to create rewarding play at the table. Don your redshirt and get ready for a simulation that you can't win...no, not the Kobayashi Maru...but Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game! 

Links:

Check out the DMofNone Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; Faith of the Heart - Russell Watson.

292 - Game Master Like a Teacher

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DM Matt shares with DM Rob advice from his many years in the classroom that you can bring to your RPG table. Learn to game master like a teacher with these pedagogy tips! 

Session Plan Template on Patreon 

Check out the DMofNone Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice; The Who - Substitute; Win Ben Stein's Money Intro (Beethoven - Ode to Joy). 

290 - Tabletop Game Designers Association with Elizabeth Hargrave and Sen-Foong Lim

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Matt and Rob are joined by veteran board game and RPG designers, Elizabeth Hargrave and Sen-Foong Lim, to discuss the Tabletop Game Designers Association, a new trade organization for tabletop creatives of all types. The TTGDA will advocate, educate, and fight for living wages in our community and will need your solidarity!

Learn more and sign-up for updates on the TTGDA here at ttgda.org

Guests:

Elizabeth Hargrave is the Kennerspiel des Jahres award-winning designer of numerous games including Wingspan, The Fox Experiment, and Mariposas. Her kickstarter for Undergrove, a game about how mushrooms and trees are friends, is live right now!

Sen-Foong Lim is Gold ENnie award-winning designer whose credits include Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, the Revenant Society, Avatar: Legends, Mind MGMT, Dungeons & Dragons: Rock Paper Wizard, and Junk Art. 

Fundraisers:

Meguey Baker
https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/lk908w?rf=1

Jennell Jayquays
https://www.gofundme.com/f/jennell-jaquays-has-a-long-road-back

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice;
Hazel Dickens - They'll Never Keep Us Down

Check out the DMofNone Patreon!

Join us on Discord!

289 - Tarot of Many Things

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Matt and Rob are joined by Special Tarot Correspondent Nat, to celebrate the death of Henry Kissinger, discuss the basics of tarot, the history of tarot and tarot-like decks in D&D, how to use tarot with your players, and ways to prep adventures using cartomancy!

You can follow Nat on Twitter @ashesforfoxes

Links:

The Deck of Many Things (5e SRD)

The Tarokka Deck from Curse of Strahd

Pathfinder Harrow Deck

The Official Dungeons & Dragons Licensed Tarot Deck by Fred Gissubel

Check out our Patreon!

Join us on Discord!

TEASER - The Talent

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DMs Rob and Matt review MCDM's psionic system and psion class, The Talent. Long splat book short: it's pretty good. And it bodes well for the RPG system MCDM will be kickstarting in a couple months. While certain aspects of the class certainly stressed (strained?) us out, MCDM may have designed a better magic system for 5e than D&D's traditional Vancian casting. 

Listen to the full episode on our Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone 

286 - Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse

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Matt and Rob return to Sigil to talk about the other two books in the Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse box set! This includes Sigil and the Outlands, which is exactly what it sounds like, and Morte's Planar Parade, a planar-focused monster manual. I hope you like opinions, berks, because we've got em!

Check out our Patreon!

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice
Heimdall - Haephestus
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK
Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You
The Skye Boat Song - Kathryn Jones/Raya Yarbrough (Outlander Theme Song)


285 - A Turn of Fortune's Wheel

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Listen up you berks, Matt and Rob are here to talk about Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse -- well, one part of it anyway, the Turn of Fortune's Wheel campaign. We hate to say it cagers, but these leatherheads really piked it.

Sigil slang glossary

Check out our Patreon!

Join us on Discord!

Music:

Pac Div - Roll the Dice
Wheel of Fortune Theme
Casino Royale Theme