D&D diverges from our own world in seven major ways. How would our games be different if we moved away from these core assumptions?
Seven twists to make your D&D world unique
The Great 2023 RPG Gift Guide
Here we go again! WELCOME to the 2023 Scroll for Initiative Holiday Gift Guide. A few things first. This is an independent blog. There are no affiliate links here, nor am I being paid in any way to endorse these products. (Believe me, I wish I were!) As always, please support your Friendly Local Game … Continue reading The Great 2023 RPG Gift Guide
So You Want to Be a Game Master: Review
If you're serious about DMing, you will know who Justin Alexander is. So what is his new book all about, and what did I make of it?
How to make Final Fantasy VII in D&D
A few weeks ago, I watched a video called ‘Why Final Fantasy VII Matters’ made by YouTuber ‘Mr Itchy Wrath’. It came out a year ago and has 644k views, 7.5k likes, and well over a thousand comments – which is pretty remarkable, considering this is a video which is longer than two of the … Continue reading How to make Final Fantasy VII in D&D
What Are the Best Dungeon Denizens by Level?
According to Appendix A of the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide, around half of the chambers in a given dungeon will be inhabited by ‘monsters’, and of these, around a third will be the dungeon’s ‘dominant inhabitants.’ My question: who are these dominant inhabitants? For the purposes of this article, I am thinking mostly about humanoids. … Continue reading What Are the Best Dungeon Denizens by Level?
A Complete Guide to the 13 Damage Types in D&D: Part Three
Today is the final article looking at the 13 different damage types in 5e D&D. For this post, I am looking at what I consider to be the four ‘magical’ damage types. These ones don’t actually exist in the real world, so we have a bit of creativity as to how we imagine them.
A Complete Guide to the 13 Damage Types in D&D: Part One
Have you ever wanted to dive deep into the different damage types in D&D? If so, this post is for you. The aim is to help DMs (and players!) understand what damage means in D&D and how best to describe it.
7 ways to hack your creativity
I’ve been doing a lot of adventure writing recently, and even though writing is something I enjoy doing, it isn’t always easy. Creativity is hard! Over time, though, I have picked up several tips and tricks that I thought I would compile in today’s article. I’m writing with D&D and tabletop roleplaying games in mind, … Continue reading 7 ways to hack your creativity
How to make your game badass by stealing from Borderlands
Today’s post might seem like an odd proposition, but Borderlands has considerable shared DNA with D&D: its most significant forerunner is probably Diablo, which itself is based on roguelike dungeon-crawlers and ultimately . . . yep, D&D.
10 Ways Chat GPT Can Help You DM Great Games
I have wanted to write a post like this for some time now but have been wary about doing so. AI is everywhere at the moment, and not all of it is good. In fact, a lot of it isn’t good. MidJourney is essentially just repurposed theft, yet sites like Drive Thru RPG are already … Continue reading 10 Ways Chat GPT Can Help You DM Great Games