This is bulls$&%. The article you’re about to read I mean. Total bulls$&%. I’m not just saying that because it’s one of my occasional bulls$&% articles. It is that. But it’s probably the most researched, outlined, and carefully planned bulls$&% article I’ve ever written. But it’s still just a bunch of rambling, pontificating crap. Me…

I’ve decided it’s not enough for me to teach you how to run less-worse games. Now, I’m doing your job too. I’m teaching your players how to play role-playing games. Not the rules and mechanics. No. I’m teaching them how to actually do stuff in the game: take actions, portray characters, interact socially, explore the…

Come along with me on a rambling journey regarding training requirements in RPGs, whether it’s okay to make a world that doesn’t level up with the players, and how to make the campaign you want to play. Sort of.

This is my first ever Memo to the Players. Specifically, your players. I’m taking time out of my busy life to do your job. To teach your players how to play D&D right. And I’m not talking about rules and mechanics. No. I’m teaching them how to actually do stuff in the game: take actions,…

Why doesn’t anyone know how to play D&D? And why does anyone think they can teach someone else how to play a game they don’t know how to play? And should I fix the problem? Or am I just full of bulls$%&?

This random pile of bulls$&% isn’t just me ranting at my current batch of players, I promise. It’s just me telling all of you how and I run my game the way I do and what I would rant at my players if I was ever going to do that.

All it took was one word from one image from one hastily scribbled list in last week’s article to find out that you’ve all learned nothing from me in the last twelve years. That word was quicksand.

In this article, the Angry GM will finally tell you exactly what role-playing is and exactly how to do it. He’ll give you a simple four-step process for playing a character. You just have to get through 4,000 words of preface first.

You couldn’t leave me alone about it, could you? Fine, I’ll tell you why I chose D&D 3.5 over Pathfinder and why I banned monks and hate gnomes. And why I can’t give you an answer you’ll like. And how to think for yourself.

It’s time for my occasionally annual New Year’s resolution type post.

After recording an interviewing with Nick at the Brewmaster’s show and trying to test a new way of building D&D towns, I decided I needed to bulls$&% for 5,000 words about the concept of exploration.

Wherein I—a guy who has never turned an adventure into a module—tells everyone else how to turn adventures into modules. Using information hierarchies.

You never know what you don’t know until you try to do it. I didn’t know, for example, that adventure modules really suck at presenting GMs with the information they need until I tried to write one of my own.

Trying to clear my desk before I head off for my writer’s retreat. Found these three, short topics scribbled on bits of paper and hacked them into a crappy three-for-one article about setting DCs, using passive checks properly, and instructing players.

It’s bulls$&% time. And that means complaining about my correspondents again. This time, I’m complaining about how no one understands how to make decisions anymore.

There’s a better way to role-play. A more genuine, more engaging way. You just have to start playing your character before you know anything about them. Sounds crazy, I know. But let me explain…

Time for my monthly pile of bulls$&%. If you’ll indulge me. I’d like to discuss what makes meaningful things meaningful.

Yes, you read the title right. I’m actually going to be positive for once and talk about some of the good design choices in D&D 5E. This is what happens when you get really drunk on the day your next article is due.

Remember last year when I decided to apply Mark Rosewater’s definition of what makes a game a game to D&D? And I got halfway through and then collapsed into a full-bore rant about D&D’s design? Well, I’m back to provide the other half and then collapse into another full-bore rant. Wheeee!

Whenever I even hint at the idea that there’s some specific pile of setting lore that governs everything I do in my home games, I get lots of people demanding I share it all. And publish a campaign setting book about it immediately. Well, that ain’t going to happen. But if I ever did, this is what the part about Undead would look like.

I wish people would stop asking me how “the Angry RPG” is going to handle ability scores or feats or initiative or whatever. Not because I don’t want to tell people about “the Angry RPG,” but because those words don’t mean anything.

Bonus content! After I spent over 5,000 words telling you how to use maps at your game table in a practical, useful way, I’m going to spend 2,800 words telling you how NOT to use maps at your table. And why NOT.

I did an interview for the Investigation Check podcast! Check it out. And look for upcoming livestream content and new articles next week after I’ve recovered from Gamehole Con.

I have a rule against ranting about my players on my site. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use them as an example when they do the same thing that literally everyone else in the world does and I want to rant about everyone. At least I hope that’s how it works. At least, I hope my players don’t read this.

Tracking ammo sucks. Tracking encumbrance sucks. Tracking food and water sucks. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a good reason to do it anyway. As long as the game system doesn’t undermine you.

I have a dream. A dream of a TTRPG whose rulebook you could lose for a month without noticing.

So, we all know that D&D is a game engine, not a game. But what parts of the game does the GM need to complete to bring it up the standards of Magic: the Gathering? Trust me, that question makes sense in context.