Hey everyone, we are back from our quasi-impromptu hiatus with an episode all about getting and keeping players! We talk about scheduling, player-group composition, and which traps and pitfalls are best for ensuring that your players keep coming back to your game week after week because they can’t escape! Monster of the Week: Fire Giants (So big! So hot!!)

Carpe DM: Make Your Game

Episode 11: Genetically Engineering the Perfect Player

Welcome to our Big Bad Con episode! We had a great time there, and interviewed some wonderful folks, including the founder of Big Bad Con, Sean Nitner! Interviewees: Brian Thomas Ian Norris Dev Purkayastha Sean Nitner

Episode 10: Big Bad Con

We’re not dead!! We’re alive!! Kind of! Undead, maybe!! But we’re back, and we’re bringing you Episode 9 of Carpe DM! This episode, we talk about plotting out your first adventure arc, and reveal the secrets of the Turtle Mountain Harvest Festival! We also talk to our friend Noah about balance in games, and about how to give PCs leeway to build parts of the world! Monster of the Week: The Cockatrice, about which many terrible jokes are almost made.

Episode 9: A Creature of Unutterable Foulness

In this episode, the gang puts together a map for Turtle Mountain itself, pointing at some of the interesting things that players will explore. We talk about the importance of blank spaces, vantage points, and how Disneyland can guide your map-making. No monster of the week this week, unfortunately!  

Episode 8 (Actually 7.5): Turtle Cartography

Hey everyone, welcome to the (slightly belated) Episode 7. We split this one up into two eps for technical and content reasons, so 7.5 is coming out next week. This week, we're talking specifically about making NPCs for Meredith's Turtle Mountain campaign.

Episode 7: And Then It Eats You

Welcome to Episode 6 of Carpe DM. In this episode, we talk about the monsters that infest the various worlds of Dungeons and Dragons. How to read stat-blocks, choose monsters for encounters, and make monsters unique and memorable! Is a Zombie Ogre an ogre who's a zombie, or a zombie who's an ogre? We literally never find out.

Episode 6: Moaning in Ogre (Monsters)

Hey everyone, thanks for bearing with us through our technical difficulties. This week on Carpe DM we talk about NPCs as party members, a giant demon who explodes when you kill it, and we delve into some of the inhabitants of the mysterious Turtle Mountain.

Episode 5: Hero Fatigue (NPCs Part 2)

This week, James Rouse Iniguez joins us to talk about the basics of sketching out a campaign's NPCs, or Non-Player Characters. We discuss making memorable NPCs, the Rule of Cool, and delve even more deeply into the Mystery of Turtle Mountain.

Episode 4: Dramatis Personae (NPCs Part 1)

On today's episode, we look at different structures for adventures, and talk about methods of introducing adventures and villains to make them exciting to players. We're joined by our now-permanent co-host, Chris Hockabout and our guest, Colin Fahrion.

Episode 3: Into the Wilderness

In this episode, Meredith and Alexei dig into the fundamentals of setting up a campaign world. We talk about the various "underlying assumptions" that go into building a fantasy world, and how to communicate those to your players. What's the difference between an "epic" game and a "mythic" game? When should or shouldn't you "cross the streams?" And why are barbarians and swamps so intimately intertwined?

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Carpe DM: Make Your Game

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