Introducing: Your Character

It turns out that it’s actually important for players to periodically describe their characters to the group. Unfortunately, players suck at everything. Especially describing characters. Fortunately, I wrote a script you can force them to follow.

Well Begun is Half Done

How you start your game determines how it goes. And that doesn’t just affect you, it affects your players. Fortunately, Angry’s got a startup script you can install in your GM brain.

What if Your Players Don’t Want To?

I’ve been pushing GMs to turn all the bookkeeping and character maintenance crap in D&D into a game of its own. Or rather, into a part of the game at the table. But many GMs have raised a question: what if their players don’t want to do that crap.

How to Corrupt a Warlock (Or Anyone Else)

So, how does one go about turning a warlock — or any PC — to the Dark Side? In what will likely prove to be the most divisive and controversial post I’ve ever written, I’ll tell you…

Tutorializing the Hard Way

If there’s one thing people ask me a lot, it’s how to get their players to. So, I’m going to teach you a great trick for getting your players to. You’re just not going to like it.

Town Mode: What Happens in Town Mode

It’s time to explore Town Mode once again. But before you waste too much time on this s$&%, you might want to know why it’s actually worth it.

Town Mode Lesson 1: Town with a Capital T

On the heels of Let’s Start a Simple Homebrew Campaign, it’s time for a new masterclass. This one about building, running, and playing in town. Or rather Town.

Let Start a Simple Homebrew Campaign: Your Cast of Characters

Time for the fourth article containing the third which explains the second step in the Simple Homebrew Campaign startup process: how to sit your players down and squeeze them until playable characters come out. And how to stop them from ruining the simplicity of your Simple Homebrew Campaign.

How You Handle Your Dice Bag

I don’t have a Long, Rambling Introduction™ today. Sorry. I considered several rants that might fit here. I thought about pissing and moaning about modern dice designs and dice accessories like dice towers and dice trays and how the people who use that s$&% need to die in a fire. I also thought about whining,…

Let Start a Simple Homebrew Campaign: Your First Adventure

Sit down and shut up. Class is back in session. Time for the second real lesson in this whole simple, homebrew campaign thing. Or maybe the third. Or the fourth. I’ve lost track. I probably shouldn’t count the bulls$&% introduction wherein it took me 5000 words just to define the word campaign — and I…

Silver and Gold: How I Handle Treasure at the Table

Since you all asked, here’s an article about How I Handle Treasure — especially art objects — in D&D. Which isn’t how “you” should do it. I’ll tell you How You Should Handle Treasure later.

Plotting Murder and Other Crimes

The topic for today is mysteries. Not mystery adventures. Mysteries. Yeah, I know that sounds like a bunch of semantical bulls$&%. But it’s not. There’s a difference between designing a dragon — you know, making a stat block — and writing an adventure about slaying a dragon. You never thought about that, did you? Thing…

Lets Build Baby’s First Dungeon (Part 2 of 2)

Two weeks ago, I started building what I called Baby’s First Dungeon. I didn’t call it that because it was meant for newbie players, but because I was showing newbie homebrewer GMs how to scratch-build their own dungeon adventures. If you haven’t read that first article yet, go back and read it now. Because this…

Lets Build Baby’s First Dungeon (Part 1 of 2)

Because of the way it was written, this article doesn’t have a Long, Rambling Introduction™. The whole thing was kind of written like a Long, Rambling Introduction™. It’s pretty stream of consciousness. A mix of me explaining s$&% and thinking through s$&% and showing you the results. I didn’t outline it. I just started writing.…

How to Wilderness Right

You wait patiently for one week. Then, on the morning of Wednesday, October 13, an Angry article appears! It reveals Angry’s Secret Step-by-Step-ish Wilderness Travel Adjudication System! And that’s the problem with real life. You’ve got to actually wait through the passage of time. No time for a Long, Rambling Introduction™ today, though. We’ve got…

As the Game Turns

Basic RPG turn order. It’s easy when the actions are easy. But when the actions are big and complex, it’s still easy. You just have to know how to handle arbitrary s$&%.