May 10, 2024 • 25 mins
The DMs discuss the importance and practicality of third-party resources for game masters looking to enrich their role-playing experiences. They spotlight 'How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck' by Goodman Games, a collection of essays from 25 authors offering actionable advice on crafting compelling D&D adventures. While examining its applicability across different RPG systems, the hosts analyze its significance among essential GM tools, particularly for seasoned GMs aiming to refine their game design skills beyond standard modules and official D&D materials. The episode also touches on broader third-party publishing trends, highlights notable publishers like Kobold Press, and provides thoughtful insights on maintaining a balance between creativity and user-friendly adventure design.
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buy the book HERE!
tell us your favorite 3rd party book at helloadventurerspodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:21):
Hello, Egg podcast for role playersand gms to help level up your game.
We are Dungeon Masters. I amJason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall,
and I am Jim Crocker. Sotoday we are going to continue a series
we started last month. This isthe Third Party book Club, you know,
kind of behind the scenes here.We relocated to my office to record
(00:41):
for today, and I'm staring rightat my my my personal library and a
lot of third party stuff in here. Yeah, so this is this is
this is a fun one. Thisis I think where you can really a
branch out. We're gonna do thatepisode on like what to buy and when
and like how to how to fleshout your library. We'll do that one
really really soon to be books thatare just not published by Watts exactly.
Yeah, sore. There's some reallycommon third party publishers like Coobol Press is
(01:04):
probably the biggest one, the mostprolific for sure, definitely. Yeah,
I mean seeing the Game Masters booksand the actually really popular two. Yeah.
Took a took a little trip aroundTarget yesterday. Yeah, you know,
just a little bit of a laparound Target with a coffee and four
later and we were under one hundred. I mean, we were very close
to one hundred, but we wereunder one hundred, right, right.
But I saw the game Master's book, saw a couple of them. Which
(01:26):
ones did I see villains? Isthat a newer one? I think that's
the newest. Yeah, so Ialmost picked it up. It was thirty
percent off of target. So Isaw the book of Villains and yeah,
with the other one, I mighthave been random encounters. The random account
was one was really good. Itwas a Dungeons. I thought, I
(01:46):
thought you had the Traps one too. I have traps at home, but
this is what I saw at Target. Okay, gotcha, And so I
almost picked up the villain Villain one. I thought that was really neat.
We'll cover some of those books onmore. Tho. I love that you're
the six about it, because thenmaybe you can lead one. But yeah,
but we can. We can goahead and do a book report on
that one soon. Today though,we're doing a little bit different book and
(02:07):
I wanted to get this one donebecause last time we did this, we
did the Lazy DMS Guide and thatwas one that's like, you know,
it's like a must have for DMStoo to have in their collection. This
one is a little more optional inmy opinion, and we'll kind of get
into what it is and why Ithink that. But today we are talking
about how do The book is calledhow to Write Adventure Modules that Don't Suck.
(02:28):
I think we all want to dothat. I mean, it's yeah,
this is the concept that we allwant to have with us. This
is published by by Goodman Games,and it is it is twenty five authors
in there, so I'm not goingto list them all, so we're just
going to say it is good.I guess the thing we should the thing
we should say about Goodman Games isthat they publish kind of a like a
D and D adjacent game called DungeonCrawl Classics that has literally hundreds of dungeon
(02:52):
modules associated with it that are likethat you could convert to five E without
too much difficulty. I mean,technically, it's its own system that's kind
of like sort of a you know, like I mean, it's like a
very traditional F twenty sort of thing. That's the game that uses all those
weird like seven sided dice and sixteensided dice smallest kind of stuff, and
(03:13):
that's a lot of fun and ithas a very kind of pulp you know,
like like appendix En sort of sortof feel to it. But this,
even though like it's it's published withtheir game, their dungeon crawl classes
game, in mind, everything that'sin there is applicable to you know,
your your ongoing five weeks. Thisbook in particular. Yes, and this
(03:35):
is just role playing in general.This is going to be the least dm
D centric book that we're probably evergoing to cover. And that's because it
is not a textbook. It's nota playbook. This is not a book
full of mechanics and tables and likethings are specific to any module. Is
this the one that's kind of acollection of essays? That's exactly what it
is. Yes. So there's twentyfive authors and in here's like articles,
(03:58):
essays, whatever you want to callit. You know, there are anywhere
between a page and the three fourpages. They're quick reads, all of
them. So this is the FederalistPapers of Dungeons and Dragons, Yes,
except palatable. Yeah, and Ididn't our IPMPS Hamilton. And if this
was a SIGNI me in history class, I would actually read it. Yeah.
Ok. Yeah, So uh solet's get into the categories that we
(04:25):
judge these books on so number one, we've got subject matter and author credibility.
So, as Jim just said,this is by Goodman Games. They
do publish their own system, andeach of these authors have you know,
multiple credits in multiple modules, mostof which you can find on Dungeon Master's
Guild or draft the REPG. Butwhat this is is a, like I
(04:45):
said, a collection of articles oressays that cover either very specific or very
broad areas of game design and explorekind of like intangible concepts that are meant
to more inspire the re Yeah.I think that's right, And I think
the thing that's really cool about itis that because of the nature of that
(05:06):
essay collection, they have people writingabout the stuff that they're genuinely interested in,
you know, and passionate about,which is really kind of cool.
It's not you know, like,you know, if somebody has like a
page and a half of really interestingstuff about how you can work interesting traps
(05:28):
into you know, an environment,but that's all they got is a page
and a half. You know,the book says, yeah, this is
what we got for you as apage and a half of this, But
this person really knows their stuff.You know, the kind of the that
they've done, like the editing andthis is is real good. That's one
of the things I think the best. I think the best books is RPG
books. The RPG books specifically whenit comes to design, right, I
(05:53):
think the best parts of those designparts, if you will, are going
to just are really their job isto kind of get the old noodle working.
Yeah, yep, you know.I don't want to your point,
Jim, I don't want a playbook, right, I want something that's going
to inspire me to think up myown things. Well, have you both
in your collection? Is important?No? Absolutely, And like I said,
(06:13):
we're going to cover a lot ofexamples. Yeah, or you are
going to cover exactly that in avery soon upcoming episode that we're going to
record it today, so it's definitelycoming. But I give an idea of
what kind of things that they're talkingabout. I'm just going to read off
just the titles of some of thesearticles. There's twenty five of them in
here, so I'm just gonna I'mjust gonna pick at random, so make
your players world go around. Listen. Do you smell something? Is the
(06:35):
names of the article logical first Contactinviting, inventing intelligent science fiction aliens,
making a villain, how to writeencounters that don't suck, keeping your encounters
within the capabilities of your players.So it is like it is kind of
fairly to a point. It's notas abstract as I may have made it
sound. But is this isn't like, okay in five E use these stat
(06:56):
blocks. It's not that kind ofthing, right, It's it's meant to
kind of teach an educated audience.Yeah, Like, because I love the
I love that one that says designingencounters that are within the capabilities of your
players, because that's a very differentthing than you know, did I get
the challenge ratings? Right? Sure, you know. Like, but but
(07:18):
like, if you design an encounterthat requires them to approach it in a
particular way, that like is justa play style that they never use and
has never shown any interest in.Even if it's technically a you know,
air quotes balanced encounter, it's nota good encounter to bring to the table.
And and the book is really goodabout, like you say, those
(07:40):
kind of kind of bigger picture sortsof things. Yeah, And what is
very cool is at the end ofmost, if not all, of these
essays. They end it with anencounter that kind of highlights the point that
they're trying to make. Right,it's not a full flag one shot,
but it's like it's it's a onelittle part and you probably even string a
bunch of these together and squeeze oneshot out of it. Yeah, you're
(08:01):
trying to get you twenty nine.That's where like the game Master's guides,
like they they are just all example, you know what I mean? Yeah,
And that's that's how I think thepoint I was trying to make was
just that this is a little alittle more abstract. It's not, as
I mean, a lot more abstract. Yeah, right, right, but
they're not just giving you They're they'regiving you homework. They're not just giving
you the answers. Yeah, exactly. And like like I said, this
(08:22):
is this is meant to be inspiration, right, I'm going to give you
inspiration. This is the truest formof inspiration. It's also very much one
of those books where there's absolutely norequirement to read it in order you can
totally pop it open and go.You know, I could use some I
could use a little nudge on thisparticular thing this week read that essay,
(08:46):
you know, and and give yourselfsome you know, like you say,
some inspiration and you don't go coverto cover on it. They're not in
any particular. Each one is likethree to five pages, and that includes
the encounter like this is like thelightest of light reading. If this came
in a paperback you it was inmy bathroom probably ye. So that's a
subject matter of author credibility. Individually. I'm not going to go through in
(09:09):
each of these authors you know bios, but they are all part of Goodman
Games and that should be enough toknow that they know what they're talking about.
Next, we go through a complexitylevel and depth of analysis. So
while the articles themselves are all easyto read and follow, and the book
is itself is pretty much devoid ofall technical game mechanics. So the only
(09:31):
reason I'm not going to call thislow complexity is because everything it takes a
little bit of interpretation to apply toyour games is a little more a little
more abstract inspiration than it is agame guide. So it is a very
easy read, but getting the mostout of it is no just you just
(09:52):
have to go into it with withintention to be more and more inspired than
learned. Yeah, those, Imean they do. They do have the
like like you say, like sampleencounters and stuff like that. But like
specifically, if you're if you're lookingthis with an eye towards five E,
you're gonna need to do a littlebit of Okay, well they say there's
five goblins in this room. Butyou know, like I said, if
(10:13):
you want to set the you know, the challenge ratings or whatever, that's
going to require a little bit ofwork on the back end. It's definitely
something that presumes you've got some chopsas a d M before you're popping the
cover hunt. I almost see thatas an advantage too, though, because
then you can apply it if youplay And I think, Jim, maybe
you are guilty of this. Uhyou don't just play one system of tt
(10:37):
RPG like you. Oh yeah,I don't think that's guilty. Well yeah,
that stuff black, right, Andso I have friends that exact same
way over the pandemic. Like oneday I'd be playing in the Alien,
playing the Alien tt RPG. Nextday I'd be playing an OSR game and
then a five game. And that'show we got through the pandemic. The
(11:01):
pandemic, Yeah, the game Iwas playing just before I joined you guys,
we're at the end of it.I'm like, okay, we got
to wrap it. I gotta gorecord a podcast. And it was like
nothing like D and D completely separate, you know, one of these like
indie story game things that I wasplaying in the morning. So yeah,
yeah, but I do like thataspect of this that you can apply it
to anything. Yeah, yep.And and it's books like this, and
(11:24):
it's concepts like this that like,I know, even in our little speech
at the beginning of the episodes,I specifically do say game masters and not
specifically dungeon masters. While and whilethis podcast is mostly D and D centric,
and you know, we're just kindof playing the numbers on that one.
But it's you know, we wedo hope that this show is educational
for people who just want to beor you know, DND players that want
to branch out. Even I thinkit's probably the most the most fair demographic
(11:48):
for this. Yeah, but thatthen that requires finding like like six friends.
We know, we need more friendsthan I'm a couple that I played
Dungeons and Dragons with almost on I'mnot getting new friends ball I barely the
ones I have. So as faras complexity level and depth analysis, it's
(12:11):
not a super deep, divy typeof book that there's no charts, there's
no grassters or anything like that.Uh, there's no stat blocks. This
is you know, kind of Idon't want to say surface level. This
is like it's meant to be asimple read of complex ideas that come from
you know, combined decades and decadesof experience and kind of all just put
into a nice little stack of papersthat you can peruse at your leisure and
(12:37):
complexity level, you know, easyto read. But then like you know,
I wouldn't blast this book in aday. I would read you know,
one or two essays even a weekand just kind of like really process
and really learn from them. GMingis a fairly abstract concept as it is,
and like you know, being ableto shape like your your version of
doing that, it's a it takesa little introspection. This is an introspective
(12:58):
kind of book. Hello Adventurers,Thank you so much for listening. If
you enjoy the show, the absolutebest thing you can do to support us
is to subscribe so you'll be notifiedwhen new episodes are released. You can
also leave us a review five stars. Of course, that will help us
get seen by more D and Dplayers, and more than anything else,
(13:18):
just tell your friends about us.If you like what we're doing here,
then there's a good chance that yourDM or your players will enjoy it too.
And you don't need to loop goldto do any of that. We
appreciate your listening. Now back tothe show. Next is innovation, and
I said, this is maybe nota fair category for this book because we're
not introducing anything like mechanics. Wise, there's nothing in this book that you
(13:39):
can't find in the Dutch Master's Guide. And you know, as far as
like learning from others experiences, youknow you can eventually learn from experience yourself.
So with this kind of fast trackingthe years of experience that it would
take to you know, kind ofeven consider a lot of these concepts in
your normal games. So innovation isnot it's not breaking any mold, it's
(14:01):
not any it's not any new informationthat's out there. It's just kind of
like putting things that you may nothave tangibly put ideas took yeah, or
or that you would normally only figureout through trial and error exactly, like
like you do things wrong a fewtimes and you settle on some best practices.
I mean, and I like Ilike that word that that phrase best
(14:22):
practices, because there's a lot ofthat kind of thing going on throughout this
book, you know, like likephilosophical approaches and you know things that people
have tried that you know that theyfound work that might work for you kind
of thing going on with it.Yeah. Yeah, So being in non
a non game book, it's hardfor me to call this particularly innovative.
(14:48):
So our next rubric is relevance.And you know, we're huge fans of
the lessons that are in this book. I can totally see this as being
a very optional in your collection.But as far as like the the concepts
being taught are just super relevant toDMING, and it's this is it's it's
(15:11):
years of experience condensed into a book, right and specifically DMING if you're making
content, like if you're doing likeI don't like the word homeword to describe
people, you know, making theirown adventure, making their own adventures and
building their own encounters and stuff likethat. But but this is particularly useful
(15:33):
if you have taken that step fromexclusively running out of you know, published
modules, and you are, likethe title says, writing adventure modules.
They use that that phrase modules todescribe the you know, like kind of
the old school you know, ina cardboard cover stapled on the side,
you know adventures that Yeah, theway that they used to publish them before
(15:56):
they were all you know, biglike hardcover mega dungeons and stuff like that.
But but it's it's like most particularlyuseful, especially if you're relatively new
to just sitting down and going allright, I'm going to write the dungeon
tonight. But you know, ifyou're kind of in that stage of GMing
(16:17):
where you're starting to do your owncontent, or if you're you know,
picking and choosing, doing a littlebit of a you know, kind of
a buffet style thing and picking fromother modules to kind of k bash your
own stuff that's more relevant to yourown campaign, that's really the sweet spot
for it. I think, Yeah, players don't need to read this,
it's not There may be some interestingstuff in there, but it's very much
(16:38):
aimed at people that are that arecreating content for their players. Yeah,
and like you said, like creatingcontent if you're just running out buying the
Crisis Straw book, you know,curs. The stradbook tells you everything you
need to know about how to runthat campaign and make it not suck.
Yep. But if you wanted torun your own campaigns in what's it?
(17:00):
No, yes, Brovia, Ifyou want to run your own campaign in
Brovia, then this would really starthandy. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's
probably the way that I like todo things, Like I want the world
established. Yeah, I want totell my own story, right. Word
building is hard. World building isvery difficult, So I don't want to
do that part. Yeah. AndJoe, you started to you, I
(17:22):
mean you started to say strix Haven, but there are some more sandbox y
kind of settings for five, thestrix Haven aberon, you know, the
the Ravnika book for the you knowthat like spins off from the Magic Thing.
Wild is pretty much that book.Yeah, what is the Explorers Guide
to Wild Explorer's Guide to Wild Mount? I was like myself, Explorer's Guy
(17:48):
to Wild Mount is really just thesetting, Like they give you some stuff
to do and they're like, yeah, here's this, but a lot of
it is just like this just theworld, thankfully. Yeah, and and
this book interacts with those, likeI say, kind of sandboxy sort of
D and D books really really welldefinitely, you know, tells you how
to drill down and you know,run that run that alley way, set
(18:11):
up that alleyway, encountering Sharn foryour ebon game. You know, but
but it relieves you of the burdenof like who what are all these factions
and nations and all that kind ofstuff. But it does that for you,
like, yeah, so you candrill down into the you know,
the you know, the individual countersunparts, right, the actual fun parts.
(18:34):
So that kind of brings us tothe last section here, which is
to me the most important one.Who is this for and when is the
right time to buy it? Yep, and this and we kind of just
covered this. This book is specificallyfor experienced DMS. I would not get
this for a new DM, andI definitely want to get this for a
player. Yes, this is specificallyfor experienced d MS. Kind of the
(18:56):
opposite of the last book we coveredwhere we kind of would recommend this for
a newer DM new where newer ormaybe not brand new? Yeah, so
this I would get this after Soyou, in my opinion, you would
you would get, you know,get your DMG stuff once you kind of
learn the concepts from that, thenget lazy Dungeon Master, and then once
you've kind of internalized that stuff,this is going to kind of get you
(19:18):
to that next level. Yeah.And I would get this after like years
of dming not a whole not awhole lot if you wanted to. Yeah,
I think it depends too if ifif you're playing three four times a
week, yeah, for a fewmonths, like you could probably and you're
ready, Yeah, sure, youcould probably do this. Back in my
retail days, this book this wasthe go to to the question that I
(19:44):
would get asked relatively frequently, whichis very specifically like, hey, you
know, we just finished out ofthe Abyss and like, with that experience
that I've gotten under my belt,my next campaign, I really want to
do my own stuff, Like isthere a guidebook to help me do that?
And I would be like you,you know, you, sir madam,
(20:06):
you want this book right here howto write a venture modules that don't
suck. And one of the coolthings about it is that title is just
so great because people look at it, they chuckle a little bit, and
like it's a title that says,look, you can do this. It's
not that big a deal, sure, which is one of the things that
I really like about it, andkind of consistently throughout the book, the
(20:26):
tone is not, you know,like like somber, like this is a
huge responsibility and you don't want toget it wrong. It's like, this
is super fun and it's really easy. Let me let us show you how
we do it. It's such areally good book book in that regard.
Yeah, and I like too thatit's like not how to write perfect adventure
minds, it's great exactly. It'sjust just ones that don't suck. And
(20:48):
that's really listen, that's the bar, friends, that's the bar of suck
in dming, like just just don'tlet it, don't let people have a
bad time. You know, youdon't have to be you don't have to
be Matthew Mercer. You don't haveto be my man, Joe Manjanello from
a Dealer No Deal Island. Youknow, you you can just be you
(21:10):
can be Joe the or just bethe person that like you're as having fun
with your group of friends, yeah, and making that fun. So I
got this book at Jim's recommendation.Actually, when I actually said that,
I asked the community. I putit in the Facebook group, I even
put it out on Reddit, andthe question I said was, you know,
(21:30):
my bookshelf was looking pretty full,what else could I possibly add?
Hey, guys, how do Iwrite adventure modules that just don't? And
that's that's all. That's the otherquestion too, But that's the question Jim
got. And like, no,for me, my collection felt fairly complete
because I had tons of resource booksand I was looking for things that were
like beyond that, and this wasthis is the perfect first book to reach
(21:52):
beyond the resource books. Yeah,and for me, like when I when
I said to myself, what elsecould I possibly get? Was the perfect
time for me to get this?Yes, And I'll also say that this
is this might be because it's notgame mechanics. It's because there's not resource
stuff in there, there's no spoilers. This makes probably the best gift out
of everything on my shelf for yourd M. Yeah, I think this
(22:15):
is a isn't a must buy.No, I think this is a This
is a It depends on your circumstanceexactly, but I think I think this
is an excellent addition to an alreadycomplete collection. Yeah, what do you
buy the DM that has everything?Yeah, you know, and but and
and they don't have this book thisbook, yeah, and and and more
so and and because like I said, there's no game mechanicsts in here,
(22:37):
so like it's not like the Iwould say, hey DM, here's a
straw book. And then I waslike, okay, I guess that they're
on straw now cool. It's like, hey DM, here's a book on
just how to just my mother waskilled by a vampire. Thanks. It's
like, here's a book that justis just general concepts in dming. Yeah.
Yeah, and you and you getto imply that the reventure modules suck
without really implying it, and thestraight their face Yeah, actually that's not
(22:59):
auctually might be kind of I mean, no perfect gift, perfect gifts,
so what they call it backhanded?So hey, I saw this book and
it made me think of you.There's also breath strips end. Yeah,
your mom letting you know you wellevery Christmas made me think of you.
(23:21):
Oh because my adventure modules don't suck. Yeah yeah, but still read the
book, yeah, yeah, thewhole thing. Yeah, but read it
though, Yeah, listeners can't seethat you just did the slow, slow,
slow slide across the table as longas you just like two little pats
on the top of it. Iactually feel really good. None of my
(23:42):
players have bought me this book,so I have encouraged you to borrow my
copy though, So yeah, butI think that's can cover for today.
I do like this book a lot, and I know I kind of like,
you know, spend a lot oftime in the episode saying like this
is not an absolutely must have,but I am very glad that I do
have it. I think that's that'sthe fairest way to makes what makes break
(24:03):
your figure DM. And if youwant to get into D, I mean
this should be on your list ofthings to eventually get. We'll get to
where it fits exactly on the list. I'm a very assumed forthcoming episode.
So we'll put a link in theshow notes below where you can find the
book. Looking for a hardcover copyright now, they may be in between
print runs at the time of thisrecording, but you can get the PDF
(24:25):
off of drive through our PG sowe'll have a link to that at least,
and if we find a good linkfor a hardcover copy. We'll throw
that download too. I did abunch of researcher this episode, but not
that much, so missed that one. But that's going to wrap it up
for today. Thank you for listeningto Hello Adventures. We're your host Jason
Portiso, Jim Crocker and Joe McCall, producer, editor and engineer Jason Portiso.
(24:45):
Music by Nick Spurrier, artwork byKristin Roderick and you can reach out
to us with any feedback, ardsuggestions by emailing Hello Adventures podcast at gmail
dot com. Hello Adventures is aJTP audio production. Goodbye Adventures, The l
Hello, Egg podcast for role playersand gms to help level up your game.
We are Dungeon Masters. I amJason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall,
and I am Jim Crocker. Sotoday we are going to continue a series
we started last month. This isthe Third Party book Club, you know,
kind of behind the scenes here.We relocated to my office to record
(00:41):
for today, and I'm staring rightat my my my personal library and a
lot of third party stuff in here. Yeah, so this is this is
this is a fun one. Thisis I think where you can really a
branch out. We're gonna do thatepisode on like what to buy and when
and like how to how to fleshout your library. We'll do that one
really really soon to be books thatare just not published by Watts exactly.
Yeah, sore. There's some reallycommon third party publishers like Coobol Press is
(01:04):
probably the biggest one, the mostprolific for sure, definitely. Yeah,
I mean seeing the Game Masters booksand the actually really popular two. Yeah.
Took a took a little trip aroundTarget yesterday. Yeah, you know,
just a little bit of a laparound Target with a coffee and four
later and we were under one hundred. I mean, we were very close
to one hundred, but we wereunder one hundred, right, right.
But I saw the game Master's book, saw a couple of them. Which
(01:26):
ones did I see villains? Isthat a newer one? I think that's
the newest. Yeah, so Ialmost picked it up. It was thirty
percent off of target. So Isaw the book of Villains and yeah,
with the other one, I mighthave been random encounters. The random account
was one was really good. Itwas a Dungeons. I thought, I
(01:46):
thought you had the Traps one too. I have traps at home, but
this is what I saw at Target. Okay, gotcha, And so I
almost picked up the villain Villain one. I thought that was really neat.
We'll cover some of those books onmore. Tho. I love that you're
the six about it, because thenmaybe you can lead one. But yeah,
but we can. We can goahead and do a book report on
that one soon. Today though,we're doing a little bit different book and
(02:07):
I wanted to get this one donebecause last time we did this, we
did the Lazy DMS Guide and thatwas one that's like, you know,
it's like a must have for DMStoo to have in their collection. This
one is a little more optional inmy opinion, and we'll kind of get
into what it is and why Ithink that. But today we are talking
about how do The book is calledhow to Write Adventure Modules that Don't Suck.
(02:28):
I think we all want to dothat. I mean, it's yeah,
this is the concept that we allwant to have with us. This
is published by by Goodman Games,and it is it is twenty five authors
in there, so I'm not goingto list them all, so we're just
going to say it is good.I guess the thing we should the thing
we should say about Goodman Games isthat they publish kind of a like a
D and D adjacent game called DungeonCrawl Classics that has literally hundreds of dungeon
(02:52):
modules associated with it that are likethat you could convert to five E without
too much difficulty. I mean,technically, it's its own system that's kind
of like sort of a you know, like I mean, it's like a
very traditional F twenty sort of thing. That's the game that uses all those
weird like seven sided dice and sixteensided dice smallest kind of stuff, and
(03:13):
that's a lot of fun and ithas a very kind of pulp you know,
like like appendix En sort of sortof feel to it. But this,
even though like it's it's published withtheir game, their dungeon crawl classes
game, in mind, everything that'sin there is applicable to you know,
your your ongoing five weeks. Thisbook in particular. Yes, and this
(03:35):
is just role playing in general.This is going to be the least dm
D centric book that we're probably evergoing to cover. And that's because it
is not a textbook. It's nota playbook. This is not a book
full of mechanics and tables and likethings are specific to any module. Is
this the one that's kind of acollection of essays? That's exactly what it
is. Yes. So there's twentyfive authors and in here's like articles,
(03:58):
essays, whatever you want to callit. You know, there are anywhere
between a page and the three fourpages. They're quick reads, all of
them. So this is the FederalistPapers of Dungeons and Dragons, Yes,
except palatable. Yeah, and Ididn't our IPMPS Hamilton. And if this
was a SIGNI me in history class, I would actually read it. Yeah.
Ok. Yeah, So uh solet's get into the categories that we
(04:25):
judge these books on so number one, we've got subject matter and author credibility.
So, as Jim just said,this is by Goodman Games. They
do publish their own system, andeach of these authors have you know,
multiple credits in multiple modules, mostof which you can find on Dungeon Master's
Guild or draft the REPG. Butwhat this is is a, like I
(04:45):
said, a collection of articles oressays that cover either very specific or very
broad areas of game design and explorekind of like intangible concepts that are meant
to more inspire the re Yeah.I think that's right, And I think
the thing that's really cool about itis that because of the nature of that
(05:06):
essay collection, they have people writingabout the stuff that they're genuinely interested in,
you know, and passionate about,which is really kind of cool.
It's not you know, like,you know, if somebody has like a
page and a half of really interestingstuff about how you can work interesting traps
(05:28):
into you know, an environment,but that's all they got is a page
and a half. You know,the book says, yeah, this is
what we got for you as apage and a half of this, But
this person really knows their stuff.You know, the kind of the that
they've done, like the editing andthis is is real good. That's one
of the things I think the best. I think the best books is RPG
books. The RPG books specifically whenit comes to design, right, I
(05:53):
think the best parts of those designparts, if you will, are going
to just are really their job isto kind of get the old noodle working.
Yeah, yep, you know.I don't want to your point,
Jim, I don't want a playbook, right, I want something that's going
to inspire me to think up myown things. Well, have you both
in your collection? Is important?No? Absolutely, And like I said,
(06:13):
we're going to cover a lot ofexamples. Yeah, or you are
going to cover exactly that in avery soon upcoming episode that we're going to
record it today, so it's definitelycoming. But I give an idea of
what kind of things that they're talkingabout. I'm just going to read off
just the titles of some of thesearticles. There's twenty five of them in
here, so I'm just gonna I'mjust gonna pick at random, so make
your players world go around. Listen. Do you smell something? Is the
(06:35):
names of the article logical first Contactinviting, inventing intelligent science fiction aliens,
making a villain, how to writeencounters that don't suck, keeping your encounters
within the capabilities of your players.So it is like it is kind of
fairly to a point. It's notas abstract as I may have made it
sound. But is this isn't like, okay in five E use these stat
(06:56):
blocks. It's not that kind ofthing, right, It's it's meant to
kind of teach an educated audience.Yeah, Like, because I love the
I love that one that says designingencounters that are within the capabilities of your
players, because that's a very differentthing than you know, did I get
the challenge ratings? Right? Sure, you know. Like, but but
(07:18):
like, if you design an encounterthat requires them to approach it in a
particular way, that like is justa play style that they never use and
has never shown any interest in.Even if it's technically a you know,
air quotes balanced encounter, it's nota good encounter to bring to the table.
And and the book is really goodabout, like you say, those
(07:40):
kind of kind of bigger picture sortsof things. Yeah, And what is
very cool is at the end ofmost, if not all, of these
essays. They end it with anencounter that kind of highlights the point that
they're trying to make. Right,it's not a full flag one shot,
but it's like it's it's a onelittle part and you probably even string a
bunch of these together and squeeze oneshot out of it. Yeah, you're
(08:01):
trying to get you twenty nine.That's where like the game Master's guides,
like they they are just all example, you know what I mean? Yeah,
And that's that's how I think thepoint I was trying to make was
just that this is a little alittle more abstract. It's not, as
I mean, a lot more abstract. Yeah, right, right, but
they're not just giving you They're they'regiving you homework. They're not just giving
you the answers. Yeah, exactly. And like like I said, this
(08:22):
is this is meant to be inspiration, right, I'm going to give you
inspiration. This is the truest formof inspiration. It's also very much one
of those books where there's absolutely norequirement to read it in order you can
totally pop it open and go.You know, I could use some I
could use a little nudge on thisparticular thing this week read that essay,
(08:46):
you know, and and give yourselfsome you know, like you say,
some inspiration and you don't go coverto cover on it. They're not in
any particular. Each one is likethree to five pages, and that includes
the encounter like this is like thelightest of light reading. If this came
in a paperback you it was inmy bathroom probably ye. So that's a
subject matter of author credibility. Individually. I'm not going to go through in
(09:09):
each of these authors you know bios, but they are all part of Goodman
Games and that should be enough toknow that they know what they're talking about.
Next, we go through a complexitylevel and depth of analysis. So
while the articles themselves are all easyto read and follow, and the book
is itself is pretty much devoid ofall technical game mechanics. So the only
(09:31):
reason I'm not going to call thislow complexity is because everything it takes a
little bit of interpretation to apply toyour games is a little more a little
more abstract inspiration than it is agame guide. So it is a very
easy read, but getting the mostout of it is no just you just
(09:52):
have to go into it with withintention to be more and more inspired than
learned. Yeah, those, Imean they do. They do have the
like like you say, like sampleencounters and stuff like that. But like
specifically, if you're if you're lookingthis with an eye towards five E,
you're gonna need to do a littlebit of Okay, well they say there's
five goblins in this room. Butyou know, like I said, if
(10:13):
you want to set the you know, the challenge ratings or whatever, that's
going to require a little bit ofwork on the back end. It's definitely
something that presumes you've got some chopsas a d M before you're popping the
cover hunt. I almost see thatas an advantage too, though, because
then you can apply it if youplay And I think, Jim, maybe
you are guilty of this. Uhyou don't just play one system of tt
(10:37):
RPG like you. Oh yeah,I don't think that's guilty. Well yeah,
that stuff black, right, Andso I have friends that exact same
way over the pandemic. Like oneday I'd be playing in the Alien,
playing the Alien tt RPG. Nextday I'd be playing an OSR game and
then a five game. And that'show we got through the pandemic. The
(11:01):
pandemic, Yeah, the game Iwas playing just before I joined you guys,
we're at the end of it.I'm like, okay, we got
to wrap it. I gotta gorecord a podcast. And it was like
nothing like D and D completely separate, you know, one of these like
indie story game things that I wasplaying in the morning. So yeah,
yeah, but I do like thataspect of this that you can apply it
to anything. Yeah, yep.And and it's books like this, and
(11:24):
it's concepts like this that like,I know, even in our little speech
at the beginning of the episodes,I specifically do say game masters and not
specifically dungeon masters. While and whilethis podcast is mostly D and D centric,
and you know, we're just kindof playing the numbers on that one.
But it's you know, we wedo hope that this show is educational
for people who just want to beor you know, DND players that want
to branch out. Even I thinkit's probably the most the most fair demographic
(11:48):
for this. Yeah, but thatthen that requires finding like like six friends.
We know, we need more friendsthan I'm a couple that I played
Dungeons and Dragons with almost on I'mnot getting new friends ball I barely the
ones I have. So as faras complexity level and depth analysis, it's
(12:11):
not a super deep, divy typeof book that there's no charts, there's
no grassters or anything like that.Uh, there's no stat blocks. This
is you know, kind of Idon't want to say surface level. This
is like it's meant to be asimple read of complex ideas that come from
you know, combined decades and decadesof experience and kind of all just put
into a nice little stack of papersthat you can peruse at your leisure and
(12:37):
complexity level, you know, easyto read. But then like you know,
I wouldn't blast this book in aday. I would read you know,
one or two essays even a weekand just kind of like really process
and really learn from them. GMingis a fairly abstract concept as it is,
and like you know, being ableto shape like your your version of
doing that, it's a it takesa little introspection. This is an introspective
(12:58):
kind of book. Hello Adventurers,Thank you so much for listening. If
you enjoy the show, the absolutebest thing you can do to support us
is to subscribe so you'll be notifiedwhen new episodes are released. You can
also leave us a review five stars. Of course, that will help us
get seen by more D and Dplayers, and more than anything else,
(13:18):
just tell your friends about us.If you like what we're doing here,
then there's a good chance that yourDM or your players will enjoy it too.
And you don't need to loop goldto do any of that. We
appreciate your listening. Now back tothe show. Next is innovation, and
I said, this is maybe nota fair category for this book because we're
not introducing anything like mechanics. Wise, there's nothing in this book that you
(13:39):
can't find in the Dutch Master's Guide. And you know, as far as
like learning from others experiences, youknow you can eventually learn from experience yourself.
So with this kind of fast trackingthe years of experience that it would
take to you know, kind ofeven consider a lot of these concepts in
your normal games. So innovation isnot it's not breaking any mold, it's
(14:01):
not any it's not any new informationthat's out there. It's just kind of
like putting things that you may nothave tangibly put ideas took yeah, or
or that you would normally only figureout through trial and error exactly, like
like you do things wrong a fewtimes and you settle on some best practices.
I mean, and I like Ilike that word that that phrase best
(14:22):
practices, because there's a lot ofthat kind of thing going on throughout this
book, you know, like likephilosophical approaches and you know things that people
have tried that you know that theyfound work that might work for you kind
of thing going on with it.Yeah. Yeah, So being in non
a non game book, it's hardfor me to call this particularly innovative.
(14:48):
So our next rubric is relevance.And you know, we're huge fans of
the lessons that are in this book. I can totally see this as being
a very optional in your collection.But as far as like the the concepts
being taught are just super relevant toDMING, and it's this is it's it's
(15:11):
years of experience condensed into a book, right and specifically DMING if you're making
content, like if you're doing likeI don't like the word homeword to describe
people, you know, making theirown adventure, making their own adventures and
building their own encounters and stuff likethat. But but this is particularly useful
(15:33):
if you have taken that step fromexclusively running out of you know, published
modules, and you are, likethe title says, writing adventure modules.
They use that that phrase modules todescribe the you know, like kind of
the old school you know, ina cardboard cover stapled on the side,
you know adventures that Yeah, theway that they used to publish them before
(15:56):
they were all you know, biglike hardcover mega dungeons and stuff like that.
But but it's it's like most particularlyuseful, especially if you're relatively new
to just sitting down and going allright, I'm going to write the dungeon
tonight. But you know, ifyou're kind of in that stage of GMing
(16:17):
where you're starting to do your owncontent, or if you're you know,
picking and choosing, doing a littlebit of a you know, kind of
a buffet style thing and picking fromother modules to kind of k bash your
own stuff that's more relevant to yourown campaign, that's really the sweet spot
for it. I think, Yeah, players don't need to read this,
it's not There may be some interestingstuff in there, but it's very much
(16:38):
aimed at people that are that arecreating content for their players. Yeah,
and like you said, like creatingcontent if you're just running out buying the
Crisis Straw book, you know,curs. The stradbook tells you everything you
need to know about how to runthat campaign and make it not suck.
Yep. But if you wanted torun your own campaigns in what's it?
(17:00):
No, yes, Brovia, Ifyou want to run your own campaign in
Brovia, then this would really starthandy. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's
probably the way that I like todo things, Like I want the world
established. Yeah, I want totell my own story, right. Word
building is hard. World building isvery difficult, So I don't want to
do that part. Yeah. AndJoe, you started to you, I
(17:22):
mean you started to say strix Haven, but there are some more sandbox y
kind of settings for five, thestrix Haven aberon, you know, the
the Ravnika book for the you knowthat like spins off from the Magic Thing.
Wild is pretty much that book.Yeah, what is the Explorers Guide
to Wild Explorer's Guide to Wild Mount? I was like myself, Explorer's Guy
(17:48):
to Wild Mount is really just thesetting, Like they give you some stuff
to do and they're like, yeah, here's this, but a lot of
it is just like this just theworld, thankfully. Yeah, and and
this book interacts with those, likeI say, kind of sandboxy sort of
D and D books really really welldefinitely, you know, tells you how
to drill down and you know,run that run that alley way, set
(18:11):
up that alleyway, encountering Sharn foryour ebon game. You know, but
but it relieves you of the burdenof like who what are all these factions
and nations and all that kind ofstuff. But it does that for you,
like, yeah, so you candrill down into the you know,
the you know, the individual countersunparts, right, the actual fun parts.
(18:34):
So that kind of brings us tothe last section here, which is
to me the most important one.Who is this for and when is the
right time to buy it? Yep, and this and we kind of just
covered this. This book is specificallyfor experienced DMS. I would not get
this for a new DM, andI definitely want to get this for a
player. Yes, this is specificallyfor experienced d MS. Kind of the
(18:56):
opposite of the last book we coveredwhere we kind of would recommend this for
a newer DM new where newer ormaybe not brand new? Yeah, so
this I would get this after Soyou, in my opinion, you would
you would get, you know,get your DMG stuff once you kind of
learn the concepts from that, thenget lazy Dungeon Master, and then once
you've kind of internalized that stuff,this is going to kind of get you
(19:18):
to that next level. Yeah.And I would get this after like years
of dming not a whole not awhole lot if you wanted to. Yeah,
I think it depends too if ifif you're playing three four times a
week, yeah, for a fewmonths, like you could probably and you're
ready, Yeah, sure, youcould probably do this. Back in my
retail days, this book this wasthe go to to the question that I
(19:44):
would get asked relatively frequently, whichis very specifically like, hey, you
know, we just finished out ofthe Abyss and like, with that experience
that I've gotten under my belt,my next campaign, I really want to
do my own stuff, Like isthere a guidebook to help me do that?
And I would be like you,you know, you, sir madam,
(20:06):
you want this book right here howto write a venture modules that don't
suck. And one of the coolthings about it is that title is just
so great because people look at it, they chuckle a little bit, and
like it's a title that says,look, you can do this. It's
not that big a deal, sure, which is one of the things that
I really like about it, andkind of consistently throughout the book, the
(20:26):
tone is not, you know,like like somber, like this is a
huge responsibility and you don't want toget it wrong. It's like, this
is super fun and it's really easy. Let me let us show you how
we do it. It's such areally good book book in that regard.
Yeah, and I like too thatit's like not how to write perfect adventure
minds, it's great exactly. It'sjust just ones that don't suck. And
(20:48):
that's really listen, that's the bar, friends, that's the bar of suck
in dming, like just just don'tlet it, don't let people have a
bad time. You know, youdon't have to be you don't have to
be Matthew Mercer. You don't haveto be my man, Joe Manjanello from
a Dealer No Deal Island. Youknow, you you can just be you
(21:10):
can be Joe the or just bethe person that like you're as having fun
with your group of friends, yeah, and making that fun. So I
got this book at Jim's recommendation.Actually, when I actually said that,
I asked the community. I putit in the Facebook group, I even
put it out on Reddit, andthe question I said was, you know,
(21:30):
my bookshelf was looking pretty full,what else could I possibly add?
Hey, guys, how do Iwrite adventure modules that just don't? And
that's that's all. That's the otherquestion too, But that's the question Jim
got. And like, no,for me, my collection felt fairly complete
because I had tons of resource booksand I was looking for things that were
like beyond that, and this wasthis is the perfect first book to reach
(21:52):
beyond the resource books. Yeah,and for me, like when I when
I said to myself, what elsecould I possibly get? Was the perfect
time for me to get this?Yes, And I'll also say that this
is this might be because it's notgame mechanics. It's because there's not resource
stuff in there, there's no spoilers. This makes probably the best gift out
of everything on my shelf for yourd M. Yeah, I think this
(22:15):
is a isn't a must buy.No, I think this is a This
is a It depends on your circumstanceexactly, but I think I think this
is an excellent addition to an alreadycomplete collection. Yeah, what do you
buy the DM that has everything?Yeah, you know, and but and
and they don't have this book thisbook, yeah, and and and more
so and and because like I said, there's no game mechanicsts in here,
(22:37):
so like it's not like the Iwould say, hey DM, here's a
straw book. And then I waslike, okay, I guess that they're
on straw now cool. It's like, hey DM, here's a book on
just how to just my mother waskilled by a vampire. Thanks. It's
like, here's a book that justis just general concepts in dming. Yeah.
Yeah, and you and you getto imply that the reventure modules suck
without really implying it, and thestraight their face Yeah, actually that's not
(22:59):
auctually might be kind of I mean, no perfect gift, perfect gifts,
so what they call it backhanded?So hey, I saw this book and
it made me think of you.There's also breath strips end. Yeah,
your mom letting you know you wellevery Christmas made me think of you.
(23:21):
Oh because my adventure modules don't suck. Yeah yeah, but still read the
book, yeah, yeah, thewhole thing. Yeah, but read it
though, Yeah, listeners can't seethat you just did the slow, slow,
slow slide across the table as longas you just like two little pats
on the top of it. Iactually feel really good. None of my
(23:42):
players have bought me this book,so I have encouraged you to borrow my
copy though, So yeah, butI think that's can cover for today.
I do like this book a lot, and I know I kind of like,
you know, spend a lot oftime in the episode saying like this
is not an absolutely must have,but I am very glad that I do
have it. I think that's that'sthe fairest way to makes what makes break
(24:03):
your figure DM. And if youwant to get into D, I mean
this should be on your list ofthings to eventually get. We'll get to
where it fits exactly on the list. I'm a very assumed forthcoming episode.
So we'll put a link in theshow notes below where you can find the
book. Looking for a hardcover copyright now, they may be in between
print runs at the time of thisrecording, but you can get the PDF
(24:25):
off of drive through our PG sowe'll have a link to that at least,
and if we find a good linkfor a hardcover copy. We'll throw
that download too. I did abunch of researcher this episode, but not
that much, so missed that one. But that's going to wrap it up
for today. Thank you for listeningto Hello Adventures. We're your host Jason
Portiso, Jim Crocker and Joe McCall, producer, editor and engineer Jason Portiso.
(24:45):
Music by Nick Spurrier, artwork byKristin Roderick and you can reach out
to us with any feedback, ardsuggestions by emailing Hello Adventures podcast at gmail
dot com. Hello Adventures is aJTP audio production. Goodbye Adventures, The l
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