Are you ready for D&D 2024? The new edition isn’t the leap we’ve seen from previous updates, but it does tweak the classes, add magic items, and modify the stat blocks on many creatures in the Monster Manual 2025. And with the Endless RPG toolkit now supporting D&D 2024, you gain quick access to random maps ranging from dungeons to towers to crypts and caves filled with monsters, treasure, tricks and traps.

Endless RPG treats D&D 2024 as its own system and with the option of including expansions such as Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Xanathar's Guide to Everything. You can also select D&D 5e as an expansion to bring in monsters and treasures not found in D&D 2024.

At the center of Endless RPG are the unique encounters. Not only can individual creatures be equipped with items and augmented with modifications such as spiders with only 7 legs, dented clockworks, frenzied beasts and hidden duergar, the system can also assign some creatures a class and level. This means those orcs might be supported by a pyromancer and that skeleton may have access to necromancy.

More About the Endless RPG Solo Toolkit for D&D:

• Random Maps: Enjoy Caves, Crypts, Dungeons, Strongholds, and Towers and add flavor by designating them as unholy, mystic or abandoned.

• Dynamic Adventuring Options For Solo Players: Endless RPG uses a fog-of-war discovery style, and when confronted with encounters, chests, locked doors or traps, players can choose from a range of options to overcome them.

• Random Encounters: Maps include CR-appropriate random encounters ranging from wandering to normal to difficult encounters. Maps can support a CR from 1/4 to 20.

• Encounter Mode: Finally track down that wizard? You don’t need a map to gain access to random encounters and treasure. Custom encounters allow you to use other solo tools or your own imagination to add to the story.

• Combat Tools: Quick Battle and Battle Map options to help manage combat.

• Systems: Supports D&D 2024 and 5e

Download Endless RPG:

• Endless RPG is on Steam for Windows PCs

• You can download Endless RPG for iPhone/iPad from the App Store.

• Endless RPG is also available on Android devices from the Google Play store.

The Endless RPG 2.13 update enhances quick missions, treasure distribution, and introduces two new enemy types.

The updated quick mission system now spreads quest locations and enemies more evenly across the map. It also separates boss encounters from primary and secondary foes, offering more variety. Mission descriptions have been streamlined and no longer pretend to be an NPC.

Treasure generation has been overhauled to boost the total number of items scattered across the map. Instead of each chest rolling its own loot chance independently, the new system creates all items for the map and randomly assigns them to chests, resulting in a more balanced and reliable loot experience.

Tieflings and Goliaths join the fray as new "advanced" enemy types, capable of leveling up across different classes. Dragonborn enemies have also received an upgrade with increased variety.

Download Endless RPG:

• Endless RPG is on Steam for Windows PCs

• You can download Endless RPG for iPhone/iPad from the App Store.

• Endless RPG is also available on Android devices from the Google Play store.

Endless RPG is focused on allowing people to play D&D as a solo play experience or as a group without a dedicated Dungeon Master. In order to provide more flexibility in the type of adventures Endless RPG can help automate, two new features have been added over the past few months that add more dynamic options.

Build a Random Map for D&D With a Primary, Secondary and Boss Enemy

The core map builder has supported having both a primary and a secondary enemy since the big 2.0 update, but now Endless RPG supports choosing your own boss enemy as well.

This opens up a whole new dimension in flexibility when building random maps. While it is easy to tell the story of an orc lord and their army of orcs, what about an enchanter (boss encounter) who charms a group of ogres (secondary) to force a local band of orcs (primary) to search an unholy crypt for a lost artifact?

The boss option is extended to most encounter groups even if it doesn’t exactly make sense. Hey, who says a giant centipede (boss) can’t command an army of goblins (primary) and worgs (secondary)?

Roll Up Custom D&D Encounters Without a Map

The encounter system is now available outside of the random maps. The new custom encounters allow you to roll up encounters of various sizes (wandering, small, normal, hard, etc.) and even roll up characters with a boss. You can also roll up custom treasure along with your encounters.

Endless RPG currently supports over 200 encounter groups (orcs, goblins, ogres, etc.) of which over 35 “advanced” groups that can level in a class, so you can encounter an orc necromancer, goblin shaman (druid), duergar rogue, or a monk mercenary.

And most enemies within an encounter can have various augments such as being big (more hit points), small (less hit points), strong (more melee damage), precise (bonus to attacks) and even more exotic augments such as being under the effects of a bless spell or being a dented clockwork.

To support more dynamic play, a host of new encounter groups have been added including “basic” groups such as worgs or piercers to help fill in the blanks.

Read more about Endless RPG and how it can help play solo D&D or be a DM’s aid.

Download Endless RPG for D&D:

• Endless RPG is on Steam for Windows PCs

• You can download Endless RPG for iPhone/iPad from the App Store.

• Endless RPG is also available on Android devices from the Google Play store.

CHAPTER ONE

Palestine, 1192

They were still chasing her. Josephine felt them just as she felt the horse’s heartbeat echoing through galloping hooves. Her lungs clutched at every breath, sucking at the rushing wind; fear lodged in her throat.

She stole a glance behind her. A vision of dark men on angry horses flashed in the moonlight. They were gaining on her. Clutching the reins in her trembling hands, she pressed her knees against the sides of the horse, urging it onward. She had never liked horses, but tonight she blessed her father for teaching her to ride.

Father. Tears welled up in her eyes. She could see him standing over mother’s fallen body. He raised his sword, challenging the murderers, and his eyes urged her to run. She obeyed, dashing to the stables and saddling the mare, leaving him there to die.

Josephine leaned down low like he taught her, and the ground flew by beneath her. At the corner of her vision, she spotted a black stain in the darkness of the night, but when she looked directly at it, the shadow disappeared. She might have thought it a trick of the moon’s light if not for the way her heart trembled. Clenching her teeth, she bit into her lip and blood filled her mouth with the taste of her fear.

Was it one of them left on the road to guard against escape? It was no matter. She was past him now. Steam rose from the horse’s breath, and lather dripped from its lips. It could not travel much further. She spurred the horse onward, praying it would outlast the assassins.

Why? It was a question that burned in her soul. Her father was a simple merchant. Her sisters were younger than her, and she used to play hide and seek with them in the hills behind their house. Her mother would sometimes bake a pie and put it in the window to cool, a soothing scent that welcomed them home from their play. Why would anyone want them dead? Why would the murderers turn their blades on innocent children?

The riders were gaining on her, and in the pounding of the hooves, she could hear her sister’s scream. The scream awoke her to murder, and she could smell death approaching in the stench of blood and urine. Again, she saw her father raising his sword in challenge, buying time for his daughter to escape. And this time, she heard the scream of his death as she rode from the estate.

She must escape these men. Father had given his life for her, and she would not fail him. She scanned the hills looking for something, anything that would give her hope. Just past where the road bent around a large hill, she spotted a twinkle of light. She thought it might be a star hanging low on the horizon, but it burned orange, not white. Torchlight! It revitalized muscles drained from fear, and she urged the mare onward. The riders were close now. Turning her head, she could make out the faces that glared back at her.

The horse galloped around the bend in the road, and she saw the old monastery. Josephine gasped. Even under the sparse light of the moon, the signs of ruin overshadowed the building. Had it not been for the lit torches perched on either side of the entrance, she would have thought the monastery closed, long since abandoned. Her horse burst toward the monastery with renewed strength.

Thankfully, the iron gate was open. The horse flew through the gate and down the path. The men were very close now. She only had a few precious seconds. She jumped from her horse, her ankle twisting when she hit the ground, but she ignored the pain in a wild dash up the stairs.

“Help!” she screamed, her voice barely audible over her fists pounding against the wooden doors. “Please help me!”

The riders were through the gate now. The horses slowed as they approached, their riders wary. She continued to slam her fists against the wood with her head half-turned to stare at the riders in horror. Would they cut her down right here, so close to sanctuary?

They flowed off their horses, hands drifting to the long, curved swords at their belts. They were clad in darkness, black cloaks cradling their bodies and black scarves covering their mouths. The flickering torchlight reflected a dire warning in their eyes.

“Please!” Josephine slammed both fists against the door with all her might. Tears streamed down her face, and her body quaked with fear. The last of her strength ebbed from her body. “Please…”

The doors opened, and she fell to the feet of a man. She looked up into a face cloaked in shadows and could make out nothing save two eyes that glowed red in the torchlight. A chill ran through her. She trembled in pure terror, and then the darkness took her.

Geoffrey Furnivall spared the young woman a quick glance before stepping over her collapsed form to face the riders. He folded his arms across a wide chest, the worn hilt of a great broadsword sticking up from his waist. He drew back the hood of his cloak, revealing a scarred face, devoid of emotion. The man stared at the riders, daring them to approach.

The black riders paused, glancing at each other in silent communication. Their prey was in sight, but Geoffrey could see doubt crack their confidence. He drew his broadsword. The iron blade scratched against the leather scabbard, hissing out a dire warning.

“You dare stand before the Templar?”

The black riders turned their eyes to one man in the center. The knight, standing protectively over the collapsed woman, knew this one was different from the others. There was no fear in this one’s eyes, only annoyance. He watched the leader’s hands hover near the two blades hanging at his waist, his fingers dancing across the hilts. A tense moment passed and the man’s lips cracked into a smile. He nodded to the knight, and signaled to his companions.

Geoffrey watched the assassins retreat into the night. “Micah?” he whispered, feeling an unseen presence in the darkness of the monastery.

A young monk in plain, brown robes stepped through the doorway. The monk’s mousy brown hair matched his robes and his eyes. He ran a nervous hand over the neat bald spot cut in a perfect circle at the top of his head. “I heard a noise and came to investigate.”

“Very good.” Geoffrey slid the broadsword back into its scabbard and took a step toward the unconscious woman lying on the steps of the temple. He contemplated the woman, his thick mustache twitching with his thoughts. “We will need a room readied for our unexpected guest.”

“Yes, sir,” Micah said, scurrying back into the temple.

“Is that wise, Geoffrey?” came a soft, musical voice.

The voice held the faint trace of a French accent, and Geoffrey recognized it at once. He turned his head and watched his friend materialize from the night. “What else are we to do, Gerard?” he asked. “You saw the men?” He motioned his head in the direction of their retreat.

“Yes,” Gerard de St. Amand replied. His long, black hair danced in the wind and he ran a hand through it, sweeping it out of his face. He pulled it into a tight ponytail and bound it with a strip of leather. “I spotted the chase on the south road.”

“You know who they are?”

“Isma’ilites.” Gerard hissed the word with disdain.

“The Old Man’s assassins.” Geoffrey nodded. “We must know what interest he has in the girl. He has been very active as of late. We must know more of his plans.”

“But…”

Geoffrey shook his head cutting off his friend’s objection. He knew what Gerard would say. The woman represented danger, not of assassins, but another danger they could ill afford. Yet, this was their duty, and they were sworn to it. He bent down and took the girl in his arms, lifting her with ease, as if she weighed no more than the flowers patterned on her dress. “She will come to no harm,” he said, stepping into the temple. “At least, not on this night. See to her horse and meet me in the study.”

He entered the monastery, and Micah met him on the stairs. “The guest chambers in the northeast wing.” Geoffrey carried the woman into the room and laid her gently on the bed. He wrapped the blankets around her and bowed his head. “Lord, protect her,” he whispered, “And deliver her from evil so that she may know your glory.”

He backed out of the room and closed the door, and heard a growl down the hall. “Fresh meat?” The thick, burly voice of Edward Conyers spoke malice. The big man raised a hairy arm to scratch roughly at his cheek.

Geoffrey Furnivall glared a warning at Edward.

“What?”

“She is not to be harmed,” Geoffrey said.

“Your private play thing?”

Geoffrey raised his arm and put his hand on the taller man’s chest. “She is not to be harmed.” He pushed, sending the man stumbling backward into the wall. Staring at Edward, he dared the larger man to disobey.

Edward’s stare met his in defiance. Geoffrey recognized the lust, and he held the stare until it faded. Edward snarled and looked away.

“Follow me,” Geoffrey said. He turned and walked down the hall, Micah trailing after him. With a final, aggravated glance at the closed door, Edward followed in their footsteps.

“Sit,” he beckoned when they reached the private study. Gerard was already there, and Geoffrey remained standing while the two knights took their seats at the table. Micah hovered at the doorway caught between wanting to stay and knowing he should leave. Geoffrey gave him a quick smile and indicated with a nod that he could remain.

“The men chasing her, as Gerard noted, were Isma’ilites,” Geoffrey said. “We do not know what they want from her, but they chased her some distance. The nearest village is two leagues south of here. It must have been a valuable prize for them to have followed her that great a distance.”

“How do we know they didn’t jump her somewhere on the road?” Edward interrupted, still scowling from their earlier altercation. His hands rested on top of the table, his fingers tapping out a rhythm against the wood. “She could have been traveling to any number of places.”

“There were no bags on her horse, no supplies of any kind. She was not traveling. Her dress is made of a fine material and well stitched. She is not of noble blood, but also not poor. Her father is, perhaps, a prominent citizen of the village, or even a minor merchant of a nearby city, though I doubt she could have evaded them that long.”

“It is a wonder she evaded them at all,” Gerard said. “The Isma’ilites are not known for their incompetence.”

“Aye.” Geoffrey nodded. “Two leagues is too great a distance for one girl to have evaded them, which leads me to believe they did not want to catch her.”

“That makes no sense,” Edward said. “If they did not want her, why would they chase her?”

“Perhaps they wanted something else,” Micah whispered.

The others turned to look in the direction of the monk and Geoffrey could see the shy monk become uncomfortable under the weight of their stares. “Go on,” he said.

“Perhaps they wanted to see where she would lead them,” Micah said. “Though I doubt they expected it to be here.”

“Yes.” Geoffrey smiled his approval at the monk. “There was blood on her dress, fresh blood, though she had no cuts on her body. The girl fled from foul murder, I suspect. Not finding what they sought on the murdered, the assassins followed her in hopes it would lead to their prize. Instead, she led them here.”

“What could the girl have that would interest the Old Man of the Mountain?” Edward asked.

“Not the girl, the family,” Gerard corrected. “It is her family’s blood on her dress. She alone escaped, and the assassins, not finding their prize, followed her.”

“Still, what does this have to do with us?” Edward asked. “She’s a peasant, after all, and her concerns are not our own.”

“If it has to do with the Old Man, it has to do with us,” Geoffrey replied. “Don’t be daft, man. You’d think you were still a bandit preying on the weak in England. You are of the Inner Circle now. Learn to use your mind.”

“You are no better than I,” Edward returned, his fist pounding down on the table emphasizing his words. “You were not higher born. You were excommunicated and had to beg forgiveness from the Bishop the same as I.”

Geoffrey’s eyes glittered dangerously. Like many knights, he had once led a sinful life that had caused his excommunication from the church. It was common practice to allow those of noble birth the chance to redeem past sins by taking up the cause of the knights.

“I have atoned for my sins,” he said. “I now fight for the glory of God. What do you fight for, Edward?”

“I fight for blood, the same as you,” Edward said. “Only I am not too blind to admit it.”

“Enough!” Geoffrey said. “I am your superior, do not forget that, Edward. You live by my grace and by my grace alone. Do not challenge me.”

Edward shot up from the table, his chair crashing to the ground behind him. “Do not talk down to me. I am not some peasant boy that can be pushed around.”

“Gentlemen,” Gerard said, moving to stand between them. “We are all three stuck in this dreadful outpost away from the civilized world. We each know the price we paid on our road here. Whether we be angels or devils, let us, at least, keep enough of our humanity not to come to blows over so petty a thing.”

Edward growled at him, but grabbed the chair and set it back in its place. With a furious glance at the others, he sat. “I’m thirsty,” he said.

“Is…” Micah whispered, his voice wavering and his cheeks flushed red with fear. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, Micah,” Geoffrey said. “I would not ask that of you. You are here to serve, yes, but not in that fashion.”

“Thank you, milord,” Micah said. He lowered his head and trembled in relief.

“We must learn what the Old Man seeks,” Geoffrey said. “I have heard rumor that the Hospitaller have allied with the Isma’ilites. There is no love lost between our brother-knights and us. If the girl has knowledge of something the Old Man wants, then it may very well be something the Hospitaller want as well. We must find out what it is they seek.”

“But, she can’t stay here” Edward said.

“Why not?” Geoffrey asked.

“Because…”

“She need never find out, brother,” Geoffrey said. “Micah will keep her occupied during the daylight hours. We will question her at sundown on the morrow and decide then what our next step will be.”

“Very well,” Edward said. “Just make sure she knows nothing when she leaves here. I will not let her knowledge doom us all, Geoffrey. That, too, is our sacred oath.”

Purchase Blood of the Templar at Barnes and Noble

Get ready for the next level of adventure with Endless RPG 2.0! This major update to the popular RPG platform elevates your Dungeons and Dragons 5e and Pathfinder 1e experience with a sleek new interface and handcrafted random maps teeming with encounters, treasures, and traps. Perfect for groups without a dungeon master or those who rotate game master roles, Endless RPG 2.0 introduces dynamic adventuring, a fog-of-war system for maximum suspense, and flexible combat tools for smooth gameplay. With unique maps, varied treasures, dastardly traps, and other surprises, no two journeys are the same.

Download Endless RPG 2.0:

• Endless RPG is on Steam for Windows PCs

• You can download Endless RPG for iPhone/iPad from the App Store.

• Endless RPG is also available on Android devices from the Google Play store.

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Endless RPG is a D&D 5e toolset for creating random maps filled with encounters, treasures, traps, and other surprises. The app is designed for both DMs who want to quickly put together an adventure, and with it’s fog-of-war discovery system, is ideal for those who want to play D&D solo or in a small group without a dedicated dungeon master.

Dungeons, caves, towers, keeps, strongholds, crypts, outposts and ruins are some of the map types, and each map type also has various themes such as mystic, unholy or military. These themes can also help shape what is found on the map.

The map generator also allows you to mix and match between a primary enemy, secondary enemy and a boss enemy. These could be all the same, which is ideal for taking out an abandoned keep that has been taken over by orcs, or you can use these options to fine-tune the adventure.

For example, a group of goblins (primary enemy) has been forced to search a cave for treasure by a necromancer (boss encounter) who has raised an army of skeletons and zombies (secondary enemy).

The encounter system includes various features that help make the encounters unique and interesting. This includes random weapons and armor, creature modifications such as going up against an unusually large hobgoblin or a 7-legged spider, and the ability to give a monster a class and level them up, even giving them a unique list of spells.

Each random map includes a ‘boss’ encounter and a ‘goal’ treasure that is clearly marked. These can help formulate adventures where the party is questing after a particular item or needs to disable a specific object.

Highlights of Endless RPG include:

• Systems: Supports D&D 5e and Pathfinder 1e

• Handcrafted Random Maps: Enjoy a unique mix of artistry and randomness with five different map types—Caves, Crypts, Dungeons, Strongholds, and Towers—each featuring diverse versions such as Ruins, Abandoned Strongholds, and Lairs.

• Dynamic Adventuring Options For Solo Players: When confronted with challenges like locked doors or traps, players can choose from a range of options, from brute force to the use of magic.

• Random Encounters: Maps include CR-appropriate random encounters ranging from easy to normal to difficult encounters. Maps support challenge ratings from 1/4 to 20.

• Flexible Combat Tools: Quick Battle and Battle Map options enhance combat scenarios, ensuring smooth and engaging gameplay.

• Varied Treasure and Traps: Encounter authentic treasures and formidable traps tailored for both D&D and Pathfinder, suitable for all character levels and classes.

Download Endless RPG:

• Endless RPG is on Steam for Windows PCs

• You can download Endless RPG for iPhone/iPad from the App Store.

• Endless RPG is also available on Android devices from the Google Play store.

One of the hardest tasks of being a DM is the act of keeping the players on course. Most players don't want to feel railroaded, and some play tabletop RPGs (TTRPG) because of the go-anywhere and do-anything feeling they get from the game. But a DM who has worked hard coming up with a homebrew campaign or dished out hard-earned dollars on an official D&D campaign doesn't want the story to go completely off the rails. So what's the solution of railroading versus sandboxing?

Balance.

A common misconception about balance is the idea that it means equality. Balance is actually about symbiotic proportion. It's about adding enough sandboxing to let the players think they are in complete control while adding enough railroading to ensure they (eventually!) proceed along with the story. But in order to achieve this balance, you need to be prepared.

How to Be Prepared for the Open World Sandbox

Your best friends for sandboxing D&D or other TTRPGs are maps and random tables. You should always be prepared to spin a quick one-off in almost any setting in the spur of the moment. But don't let that overwhelm you. The need for maps doesn't mean you need to sit around drawing up various adventures on graph paper. There are plenty of resources you can use to quick start an adventure.

Random Map Creators. I designed the Endless RPG random map generator in part for players who didn't have a DM, but it also works great for DMs who want to quickly generate an adventure. It shines in allowing you to choose a specific enemy to fight (orcs, goblins, undead, cultists, etc.) and different environments like a cave, ruins or a dungeon. I'm also a big fan of the random generators at donjon. Along with map creation, you will want a tool to come up with random encounters and random treasure.

Downloaded Maps. An alternative to randomly generating a dungeon is to simply download some already-produced maps. The DM's Guild is a great resource for buying all types of tools for your adventure including some nice maps. Many map designers offer a free pack, so you can sample different designers before making a purchase.

Random Tables. In addition to maps, encounters and treasures, you will want to round out your adventure with traps, room descriptions and even villains. The Donjon site linked above has a ton of different generators that can help fill in the gaps. You can also come up with your own tables to give your one-off some unique flavor.

Preparing to Railroad in D&D and TTRPGs

Believe it or not, railroading is actually more difficult to achieve than sandboxing. In creating an open world atmosphere, the dungeon master has a number of different tools like random map generators to help them out. The same can't be said for railroading a party of adventurers in a way that it doesn't seem too obvious that they are being railroaded.

While sandboxing takes some general preparation in terms of buying maps, settling on random generators and familiarizing yourself with the process, railroading requires preparing ideas and plot points specific to your adventure.

Many people believe that coming up with story ideas is the hardest part of preparing a hombrew. But coming up with a basic story can be easy if you know where to look. The hard part comes when filling in the details, and some of the most important details to think about is how to deal with players who want to avoid the story.

In my article on where to get story ideas, I came up with a basic adventure that starts with a wizard's agent approaching the party at a tavern with a request to meet with his master and a promise of gold for just attending the meeting. But what happens when the party wants to stay in the tavern and drink a bunch of ale?

An entire D&D session spent in a tavern isn't uncommon. D&D is about roleplaying, not just roll playing. But we can't stay in that tavern forever, so it is important to plan how to deal with the beginning of the story going off the rails.

In the scenario, we can prepare for the adventurers turning down the agent's request by getting them out of the tavern where we can present a new opportunity for them to say yes. Perhaps a brawl breaks out and the town guard clears everyone out. Maybe there's a raging fire in the kitchen. Perhaps a hulking warrior is accusing an elf wizard of cheating at cards and demands a duel to the death, which prompts fellow customers to start taking bets on the winner.

Once outside, the party can be presented with that new opportunity by spotting the agent across the street and overhearing some nearby mercenaries talking about him. "That fellow over there is handy one to know. His master is a wizard. Paid us for clearing some trolls out of a mine he'd bought. But not with gold. I got an enchanted short sword out of the deal."

This sort of hint is far better than having the wizard teleport the characters to his tower and entrap them into listening to his mission requrest.

And what if the players still won't listen? Perhaps after exploring the nearby forest, one of them gets poisoned by a plant and guess who has the cure? Or a local townswoman comes to the adventurers with a plea to rescue her merchant husband who has been taken by bandits. In finding out where the bandits are located, the adventurers are lead to the wizard, who offers to deal with the bandits if they'll take up his quest.

Know When to Say Yes to Sandboxing

That part about balancing the railroad vs sandbox equation? This is where it comes into play. In mapping out a story for an adventure, it is important to understand the various points in the story where the adventure can go off the rails. When the agent propositions the party. After the magician explains his quest. When the adventurers get to the location and decide maybe to do something else.

Part of preparation is having a few ideas on how to get the part back on track. Such as a forest giant chasing them into the dungeon. Creatures vastly more powerful than the party can be a great railroading tour.

But also know when to say yes. If the party has turned down the agent at the tavern, ignored the fellow adventurers boasting about the wizard's reward and decided that they don't need a mage telling them how to find bandits when they have a ranger in the party, then let them have their one-off adventure!

And that forest giant waiting among the trees to chase the adventurer? Maybe don't even use it. If the party has made it that far and suddenly has a whim to go off on their own, let them. Sometimes your job as the DM is to let things go off the rails without any attempt to put things right. This can mean an entire session spent in a bar, an event that often ends when you get out the pummeling tables to see who wins a fistfight, or it can mean reaching into that bad of random maps for a quick adventure.

Headline Image by Alison Walker on Flickr

Too often I see Rainbow Six Siege players choose Frost only to put her traps on the middle of the ground, easily visible and seemingly at random. Not that a trap out in the middle of a room can't work, especially during the frenzied last seconds of a match, but if the opposing team can easily see Frost's trap, the chances of it tricking one of them into stepping into it plummet. Frost is a great all-around operator. She has a useful ability, especially in the lower-tiers and mid-tiers of play, and her gun has very low recoil. And learning where to place Frost traps in Siege is essential to getting the most out of her.

The most common mistake I see with Frost is placing her trap right behind a barricaded door. This is especially true if the door leads to the objective. Players are at their most cautious when confronting a barricaded door, so putting the trap where it can easily be spotted isn't ideal. Here are a few choice spots that work a little better:

Place the Frost Trap at the Top of Stairs

This placement is great because it is using the opposing player's attention against them. Like barricaded doors, players become hyper-alert when going upstairs. However, in this instance, they are mostly focused on what is in the next room or down the hallway, so it is easier for them to miss the trap. The perfect placement is directly above the last step where the trap will almost blend in with the stairs themselves.

Put the Frost Trap Under Ground-Level Windows

Ground-level windows and any other window where the player can stand on the other side such as a balcony window are great spots for a Frost trap. Better players will automatically look down and shoot, but many players at the copper, bronze and silver tiers can be caught in it. To be extra sneaky, put the trap half under the window and half not under the window. This can make it harder to shoot for those who automatically shoot the floor when coming in through the window.

Hide the Frost Trap Behind a Shield

A standard use for the Frost trap is to place a shield in the doorway of the objective and place the Frost trap behind it. This can be especially effective in the last seconds of the match when the opposing team can get into a hurry to push into the room, and even if the player coming over the shield shoots the trap, it can give defenders and extra second to kill them.

Similar to putting the trap under a ground-level window, don't put the trap directly behind the shield. Put it slightly off to one side so that those shooting the floor while coming over it have a chance to miss.

Put the Trap Just Around a Strategic Corner

This one requires knowledge of the map, but if you can put the trap in an area just around a corner where you know players are likely to come, you can catch them with their attention in front of them where they might easily miss the trap. A great example of this trick is the balcony in the garage of Club House. When the objective is on the second floor, opposing players can sometimes come through the garage. The top of those stairs is an obvious place for a trap, but a good secondary spot is just around the corner of the balcony as it reaches the money room. That spot is partially shielded from view, and with players hyperfocused on the window, it can easily be missed.

Place the Frost Trap Near the Defuser

I'll sometimes keep a trap on me when playing Bomb just in case our team downs the person with the defuser. While you can't place the trap right on the defuser, you can place it the likely path an attacker might take or partially hide it by placing it on the dead body of the attacker who held it. This trick works well later in the match when the attacker might be in a hurry to grab the defuser and rush the objective.

Read More About Getting Easy Kills in Rainbow Six Siege

The surging popularity of D&D has given rise to a lot of great campaigns, but I've always felt the best part of any tabletop roleplaying game is the act of creating a story with the players. But creating your own homebrew world can be a monumental task, and perhaps nothing is more intimidating than creating a story plot for your adventure. Does it have to be so hard?

There's a lot written about the basic story plots from the Hero's Journey to the Six Basic Plots to All Stories. These articles can be great reading, but really, you can boil any story plot down into the three basic acts:

• Act 1: Introduce characters

• Act 2: Introduce conflict

• Act 3: Resolve conflict

And if only it were that easy! We can talk about basic story arcs for hours, but none of it would help with the biggest obstacle we all face when coming up with our own stores: filling in the details.

You Don't Need to Create Story, You Simply Need to Find It!

Forget your basic plots. A D&D adventure is not a story, and the last think you want to do is railroad your players to follow an already-established plot. Homebrew D&D is so great because you are creating story as it happens based on the actions of the players, and while a lot preparation is required, too much preparation can sometimes hinder as it will make you want to force the players to discover the cool stuff you created.

In many cases, a good D&D adventure is a good middle. You have your characters, so no need to introduce them. You may also be working with an overarching plotline that will be resolved in weeks or months of playing, so there is no need for an ending. What you need is a good, solid middle that still fills like a full story.

And that's stealing comes in handy.

Look, writing is just taken things that have been written and putting your own spin on it. The great ones might combine things in a way to create something brand new, but the vast majority of stories, movies, series episodes, etc., are a retold story with new characters and different window-dressing.

So the easy way to plot a quick story for your D&D (or Pathfinder or...) adventure is to watch Star Trek. Or the Mandalorian. Or Firefly. Or any show that has a small cast of characters ("the party") and are mostly self-contained stories in each episode.

Obviously, a show like Game of Thrones has story arcs that play out over several episodes along with season-long plotlines, so it is harder to derive a basic plot from it. But a show like Star Trek: Next Generation is perfect because it has a roaming party that gets into adventures that are mostly resolved at the end of the episode. And many of the episodes follow a basic story arc that can be transplanted into a fantasy world with ease.

The Wizard's Request

A strange man with a foreign accent and an odd gait comes upon the party at a tavern beckoning them to meet with his master, a wizard of some renown in the region. "10 gold just for the meeting," he says. "And I think you will find his proposal even more rewarding."

The man leads the party to the wizard's tower where the mage offers them a sizable reward to quest for an enchanted emerald locked away in a dungeon filled with guardians and traps. "And, of course, you can keep whatever you find excepting the emerald," the wizard promises. He shares basic information about the dungeon including its location but can provide little about the final vault itself. "I only know that no one has been able to solve the puzzle in centuries of trying."

After several encounters, the party finally reaches the dungeon. They make their way through traps and magical creatures such as gargoyles and elementals until they find the vault itself. Using what clues they have found, they finally break the secret, but when they enter the vault and reach for the emerald, the entirety of their surroundings vanish only to be replaced by... an old, run-down barn.

The wizard is no where to be found, but traces of his illusion can be found. A stack of hay has been decimated by a sword, no doubt the water elemental faced before arriving at the vault. The door to the barn appears newly broken, and even the fields show signs of the adventurer with trampled corn stalks and a destroyed vegetable garden.

It's a basic story and one that I came up with thinking about how the holodeck might make an appearance in a D&D adventure. The story itself can easily set the stage for an entire campaign where the illusionist becomes the main antagonist leading the party on adventure after adventure as they try to hunt him down and find out what he plans. The illusion itself, they learn, was the wizard using the party to find out how he might break into the vault, but unfortunately, the directions to the vault were incorrect, so the party must first learn of its true location to get a clue to what the wizard has planned.

And that's just from one episode. The next adventure could come straight out of The Mandalorian with the party being roped into a prison escape in exchange for information about the wizard, only the prison escape turns into a double cross... or perhaps the 'prisoner' turns out to be a renowned villain and their escape leads to the party becoming wanted criminals... or the prisoner is also after the wizard because of some wrong deed... etc.

To Find Story You Simply Need to Look For It

The fun part about being the game master is that story is everywhere. Almost any show you watch, movie you see or book you read can become fodder for your campaign. Stuck on how to get started? Think about your favorite movies and how Act 2 ("Introduce Conflict") started. Why did the characters go on their adventure?

For Luke, he received a message from a captured princess. Perhaps the most cliche of all story hooks and yet it started one of the most iconic adventures in film history.

In one of the first episodes of Firefly, Mal takes on a train heist. But the goods he stole was actually medicine for a small mining village. Good start, but what about combining that plot with the pilot episode? So instead of medicine, it was food supplies (scratch that -- let's make it potions!) and a wizard had marked them with an enchantment to allow them to be tracked. So now the party needs to offload the potions, but the wizard's minions show up at the magic shop and a final battle ensues.

The Mandalorin's first season had D&D adventure after D&D adventure, which makes sense for a show about a mercenary. The Witcher gets into some deeper plots, but still has a lot you can take away from it, especially if your adventure is going to have one big deadly fight at the end. What about a Beholder taking over an old cathedral just outside the castle, forcing would-be worshippers to petition the king?

Even science fiction movies can make for good D&D adventures. Take Ready Player One. A D&D version would have the party going on an archetypical quest to find long lost treasure. After finding a mysterious object and consulting with sages, an attempt is made on the party's lives by masked assassins and dark mages. Thus begins their hunt for who is behind the attempts and what they want. Is the mysterious object cursed and attracting this conflict? Is it part of an epic artifact with world-changing power? Is it a religious object and the characters have angered a lesser god?

The great thing is that your inspiration need not be a high fantasy show. We've taken a star trek episode about VR and turned it into a great start to an adventure. The key is to start watching for how the plot begins and how it unfolds and then start putting it into a fantasy setting with your own little twists.

And thinking of story in this way can also help with improvisation. While at times we DMs need to railroad the party in order to start major plot points -- they need to follow that odd man back to the wizard's illusion -- we should also create an open world where the players have real choice both in action and direction. It's a hard balance to achieve and you'll sometimes need to come up with a side quest on the fly when the adventurers go off the broken path. Random map generators can be handy, but they are best when paired with a basic story.

I've been designing roguelike games for almost ten years now. As much as they are replayable, they are also redesignable. There is almost an endless variety of design concepts that can be brought out in an equally endless variety of ways. It makes creating a roguelike something that never really gets boring. Rogue Party is my newest and is the first to have "Rogue" in the name.

Rogue Party is the spiritual successor to Endless Quest, a game that was just too big for me to continue to support. Rogue Party takes the quest out of the adventure and focuses more on what roguelikes are really good at: an endless supply of randomly-generated dungeons!

If you've never played one of my games, one thing I try to put into my RPGs is a flexible class system that really lets you build the character you want to play. I've double-downed on this idea in Rogue Party. There are over 250 different abilities spread out in a system that allows you to multi-class at will.

In fact, calling them classes doesn't do the game justice. I think of them more as ability categories. Weapon skills are grouped in the Warrior "class". The Adventurer class has a mixture of melee abilities that require finesse, stealth abilities, bowcraft, and other miscellaneous skills such as throwing flasks of flaming oil or poisonous darts. Cleric classes are defined by the god they worship, and while magic spells are broken into three categories (sorcery, elements and necromancy), you can mix-and-match betwen them.

The game also features a crafting system that allows you to craft the best weapons and armor in the game. This means you can plan for a dual-wielding thief or a quarterstaff-spinning bard right from the character creation, honing your abilities to your weapon style.

Dungeon delving happens in chunks. You are given a choice between a normal adventure, an easy one or a hard one. The adventure can be in a dungeon, cave, underground fortress, crypt or ruins. Each level of the area can hold various surprises and can be multiple levels. And if you survive, you get adventure points to spend crafting new items.

Adventure points are global and stay with you even if you experience the dreaded Total Party Kill. So while you might miss your halfling sorceress, you can use her adventure points to build the ultimate demon lord cultist!

You can Download Rogue Party on the Apple App Store

Rogue Party Is Also Available on the Google Play Android Store

One of the best things D&D changed in recent editions is the ability to sense or detect evil in characters or non-player characters. The fifth edition rules limit the ability to sense the divine and detect evil to specific creature types such as supernatural or undead creatures. This makes a lot of sense as a demon or zombie would radiate divine power or dark magic whereas a human might not. Unfortunately, the Pathfinder rules are a bit different in this regard.

Technically, the Pathfinder spell gives the ability to detect evil in "creatures" that are at least 5 HD for 1st edition or 6 HD for 2nd edition. But does this make sense?

Should, for example, a swordsman suddenly start radiating a good or evil alignment simply because she swings her sword better? How does skill with a blade have anything to do with a person's innate alignment or aura?

It doesn't.

Should You Change Detect Alignment Spells for Your Campaign?

As many can attest, the ability to detect evil in PCs or NPCs can be quite limiting for a dungeon master trying to craft a story, especially if there is a paladin in the party. And because the ability doesn't really make any realistic sense -- and I know we are talking about fantasy here, but even fantasy has something called "fantastic realism" -- a DM might decide to alter it to become closer to the D&D 5th edition rules.

I like taking a more literal approach to the spell. "Creatures" in this sense would be non-humanoid and non-supernatural beings such as animals, beasts, monsters, etc. Basically, detect evil would detect those beings that are evil by their very nature such as trolls rather than the rather fluid alignment in those beings that can basically choose between good and evil.

The exception to this rule would be those who have dedicated themselves to a god or goddess that is of good or evil alignment. This obviously covers priests, paladins and anti-paladins, but also any other individual who reverently worships a god.

Alignment itself is an awkward attribute in RPGs. We are rarely one thing and our motivations can be quite varied. Perhaps more important, very few people view themselves as "evil." While they may commit evil acts, from their own perspective, they often believe they are acting for good rather than evil. Even someone that worships an evil god may believe the god is in fact 'good' and that the 'good' gods are the ones in the wrong. (And, if you look at most of our mythology, "good" gods like Zeus certainly wouldn't be considered good by any modern standard.)

The big rule of thumb here is that a DM shouldn't feel as if they need to follow every rule to the letter or include every spell/ability. The rules are a guideline. The DM is the master of the game itself. If you are sick of paladins ruining any attempt to introduce a complex storyline where good companions become villains and villains become the good guys, maybe its time to make some changes to those detect alignment powers.

The idea of good and evil as an actual essence that can be detected or a guiding force that is palatable is a popular concept of high fantasy, but should we include alignment in our D&D sessions? If we use our own world as a guide, the idea of absolute good or absolute evil is extremely rare if it even exists at all. So, should this apply to the fantasy world we live in while playing D&D, Pathfinder and other RPGs?

While we might find it easy to label terrorists and others who commit heinous crimes as evil, very few people walk around with the belief that they are evil. Even a terrorist who commits an evil act does so under the belief that they are serving a higher purpose, and while serial killers might revel in evil acts, others might say they are simply suffering from mental disease.

And if we look at the human race, we certainly can see the whole gamut. It can be convenient to label all orcs as chaotic evil and think of them as barbarians, but remember, the Viking barbarians of our history were the same species (human!) as those who built the organized definitely "lawful" Roman empire. This is where D&D alignment hampers creativity rather than amplifying it.

Worst, alignment in RPGs can often pigeonhole a character. What is Lawful Evil? Can a Lawful Evil person do good? Can they fall in love and sacrifice everything for it? Are they doomed to be murderers and thieves?

When we deal with demons and undead and other aberrations or supernatural creatures, the idea of good and evil as an absolute might make more sense, but when we deal with most of the humanoid races -- even those that have historically been cast into 'evil' roles such as the drow elves -- sticking to these labels makes little sense.

Endless RPG Allows You to Play D&D Without a DM

How Much Does Alignment Mean to Your Campaign?

In most campaigns, alignment really doesn't come much into play. You could easily erase the label on your character sheet and play the exact same game. In fact, barring holy or unholy objects or places or spells that detect alignment, the entire idea of keeping track of it seems in opposition to the idea of roleplaying a character whose motivations may change throughout the various adventurers.

Certainly, those classes that dedicate themselves to a god (clerics, paladins, druids, etc.) can fall into the category of alignment. D&D 5e got detect alignment right by restricting it to those dedicated to a god or supernatural beings with a direct correlation to their alignment. But even then, priests are acting on behalf, not their god's alignment, so their actions are dictated more by their god's beliefs rather than any basic idea of alignment.

Note: D&D got it right with new rules on detecting alignment. A good way to bend the Pathfinder Detect Evil rules is to determine that humanoids aren't creatures and as such don't fall into those rules unless their class dictates they do. And really, the rule itself is pretty simple. Why would a warrior suddenly have a good or evil aura just because he's learned to swing his sword better? And why would a thief suddenly have one just because she picks locks better?

For the most part, alignment should be thrown out when playing RPGs. Characters should roleplay their characters, not some idea of "alignment." Incantation and divine spells that detect good or evil should apply only to supernatural creatures that might have some type of "absolute" alignment or those creatures that have dedicated themselves to a deity.

For dungeon masters building a homebrew world, throwing out alignment when designing the world can lead to a lot of great opportunities. That orc tribe that needs to be wiped out? Perhaps they are quite peaceful and only defending themselves!

It is fine to play some monsters as inherently evil. Perhaps goblins were created by the dark gods in their eternal fight against all that is good. We are playing a fantasy with various gods warring against each other in their own way after all. But adding motivations and a point-of-view to the world can go a long way in making the world feel more realistic.

Many homebrew D&D settings have creative regions that range from being governed by feudal systems to tribal communities to independent cities and towns, but what about democracy in the land of D&D? Lords and knights and barons and kings seem to go hand-in-hand with the high fantasy setting, but if you are creating your own world, spicing it up with some democracy can add to the variety.

While we may think of democracy as a relatively new concept that swept through Europe and the Americas following the French Revolution, the concept dates back to 5th century BC in Greece and was used to describe the democracy found in city-states like Athens. The founding of the U.S. was modeled after the Republic of Rome, which was adopted after Rome cast off the early kings. This form of government lasted until Julius Caesar, and later, Augustus Caesar turned Rome into an empire.

The Roman form of democracy can be a great model for how a Republic might look standing aside the tribal and feudal systems often found in a good homebrew setting for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of us have heard of the Roman Senate, but did you know that these senators were comprised of citizens who had been elected Consul or held another elected office? During the years of the Republic, Rome was ruled by two Consuls who were elected and generally did not run for re-election in consecutive years. Either Consul could veto the other, thus preventing "absolute" power and the need for compromise.

This system of changing out Consul's every year and the ability for either Consul to overrule the other kept the power in check. The Senate was comprised of those who had held certain public offices such as Consul or Magistrate and the Senate, being a more permanent political structure, held a fair amount of power.

But get this: There wasn't any real police force in Rome. And with dozens and hundreds of senators trying to hash things out, sometimes things got a bit... violent. In fact, there were more than a few deaths that happened during brawls where senators would break apart chairs and beat their opponent with the chair's wooden legs.

Imagine the party being hired to guard over one political side of a senate meeting. The party might come from feudal or tribal systems of government where the idea of voting for laws seems ludicrous. They sit. They watch. And suddenly all of these old people in robes start beating on each other.

Of course, another extreme would be to go with a true democracy where the people vote on… everything. Not good for anything bigger than a city-state, and even that might be too big. But for a circle of druids in a small grove, true democracy could be a perfectly fine way to go.

If you are playing D&D 5th edition, you probably don't have many adventures that involve railroads, but you may have some that involve railroading. A term for how a game governs the interaction between players and stories, "railroading" is the act of ensuring the players stay on plot by use of game mechanics. It is the opposite of an "open-world" that features full exploration. In most games, there is a balance between railroading and open world aspects.

In D&D and other table-top role-playing games, a DM may railroad the characters in order to keep them on course for the story or map that they've devised. Railroading can take two basic forms: in-game railroading, such as when the DM sends an ancient red dragon to fly over the party and ensure they take the route the DM wants, and out-of-game railroading, which is when the DM simply dictates "You arrive in..." or "You set sail across the..."

Official campaigns can require a certain amount of railroading to keep the characters on script. After all, a campaign book cannot cover the entire world, and were player characters allowed, they could easily leave the designated roadmap and skip the adventure entirely.

When dealing with homebrew campaigns, DMs often have a lot more leeway and the amount of railroading can come down to style and preparation. A good DM tends to balance between these two extremes. Many players dislike too much railroading because they don't feel as if they are playing their characters so much as riding in someone else's car, but a campaign where players are constantly going off in directions the DM hasn't planned for can quickly become devoid of the intricate storylines that can make D&D so addicting.

Have you ever heard someone accused of Gatekeeping or being a Gatekeeper? It certainly sounds very ominous and the type of thing where you might want to ensure they don't come into contact with a Key Master or very bad things may happen such a giant marshmallow man rampaging down the streets of New York City. But Gatekeeping is actually a bit more mundane. It simply means someone who feels as if they can judge the right or wrong way to do something.

The idea of gatekeeping goes far beyond tabletop role-playing games, but for the purposes of this article, we'll keep it to just how it affects Dungeons and Dragons and other pen-and-paper games. A typical D&D gatekeeper might fancy themselves an expert in the rules and often has a lot in common with mansplainers. You can identify them in the wild by their gnarly teeth and fondness for cloaks. They are typically a challenge rating 3 opponent, but they have on major weakness:

It's your game and you can play it however you want to play it.

Gatekeeping can come in many different forms, and sometimes it is so camouflaged it is hardly recognizable. Here's an example of gatekeeping that many people don't even realize: the demand for a group composed of all of the major archetypes (fighter, thief, healer, mage). You may have come across players who are insistent the group must be perfect and not put them together with the idea of gatekeeping, but the truth is a good DM will adapt to the party. If rolling an official campaign, a particular archetype of group balance may be more important, but if doing a homebrew campaign, the DM has plenty of tools at their disposal to deal with -- for example -- the lack of a healer. There are potions, herbs, magic items, and (of course) the NPC Cleric that goes with you on that particularly hard dungeon crawl.

A Few Common Gates the Keepers Like to Guard

One fun thing about gatekeepers is that they don't all agree with each other. But the most consistent thing about them is that they are very adamant about their opinions. Here are a few things that Gatekeepers like to hang their hats on:

The Rules are the Rules!

Rule lawyers are perhaps the most common form of gatekeeping. And they can easily be among the most annoying. An adamant rules lawyer can drag an entire game session down into an argument that sucks all of the fun out of the game. Luckily, most players aren't quite as adamant, and even when a rule "discussion" breaks out, it can be handled without ruining everyone's fun.

The truth is that the DM is allowed to make up new rules or break rules as they see fit. By extension, a DM wins any rules discussion. But that doesn't mean the DM should always go with their own opinion. A good DM will always listen to their players and try to decide on the best path based on the idea of having the most fun. This can mean 'nerfing' an ability, bending a rule, etc. In essence, the DM cannot cheat. Whatever they say goes. But a good DM is always putting the players first even if they aren't always doing what the players want.

You Can't Play D&D That Way!

Another very common form of gatekeeping is demanding the game be played a certain way. Have you ever heard someone say you can't play the game solo? You very well can play D&D and other TTRPGs solo or without a DM! Again: it is your game. Play it how you want. And playing these games with just a couple of friends or even by yourself can be quite fun!

Dice rolling is another popular form of gatekeeping. The ability to do just about anything if they roll a natural 20 is a common one. I once ran a campaign where I did all of the rolling for both the characters and who they fought, and this was (as you might imagine) met with a giant chunk of "that's now how you are supposed to play D&D!"

And, of course, there are many other forms of this type of gatekeeping such as being strongly in favor or against inter-party conflict rules, having evil characters, character death, etc.

Back When I Played...

As someone who began playing the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set before moving on to "Advanced" Dungeons and Dragon back in the mid-80s, I admit I cringe when people of my generation put the old rules up on a pedestal.

Don't get me wrong. I love the old rules. I'll always have a fondness for 1st edition, and I personally think that 3/3.5 is the best version. But those are opinions. Every version of D&D has its good points and its bad points.

The truth is the group dynamic is far more important than the rules. If you have a great DM and a good set of players who really get into the roleplaying elements and don't have many out of character arguments, you'll have fun no matter what RPG you are playing or how you are playing it.

One mainstay in Dungeons and Dragons and most other tabletop roleplaying games is the dungeon or game master as the "absolute power" when it comes to defining and even breaking the rules to the game. This is true in D&D 5th edition rules, which specifically state that the DM -- not the rules -- is in charge of the game. Furthermore, the DM can create new rules, alter the stats for monsters, change how spells work, etc. In fact, the DM can cheat by fudging rolls or simply dictating what happens without even a roll of the dice.

Or, put another way, the DM can't cheat because they are allowed to do whatever they want, thus, if a DM changes a natural 20 to a 17, it is completely within their rights as a DM and thus not "cheating".

The real question is: Should the DM cheat at D&D?

Absolutely.

A good DM will cheat in many ways for many different reasons. In fact, "cheating" or rule-breaking/bending is so commonplace that almost every group does it, including famed groups like Critical Role. Any use of homebrew rules, especially those that outright change how things work in the official rules, is a case of bending/breaking rules.

Cheating does not make a person a bad DM, or for that matter, a good DM. Fudging dice or changing rules on the spot can be the hallmark of a DM that has let the power go to their head or a DM that is trying to create the best time for their players.

Want to play D&D without a DM? Endless RPG can help.

A Few Ways a DM May Cheat for the Good of the Game

What amounts to cheating will differ from person to person, so for this section I will assume that using popular homebrew mechanics are considered perfectly fine. In fact, anything that the players and the DM have agreed upon no matter if it is a change in the rules or an addition to them shouldn't really be considered cheating.

Fudge a Dice Roll. A basic rule of thumb I always used when being the dungeon master was to limit the effect of simply bad luck in dice rolls. In essence, if a player was doing everything right but was constantly rolling poorly on the dice, I might fudge an attack roll against their player and turn a natural 20 into a miss or simply dish out the minimum damage. I wouldn't take this too far. We played with permadeath, so bad rolls were going to lead to death, but I would certainly give the character a fighting chance against that streak of bad luck.

Nerf a Spell or Ability. Many of the spells and abilities in D&D can be overpowered, especially when used by creative players. In fact, challenge ratings and how many encounters a group can face in a day are often dependent as much on how good the players are at tactics as the actual levels involved. In terms of spells, Heat Metal comes to mind. It does a fair amount of damage for a level 2 spell, it can continue doing that damage over time, it doesn't have a way for the target to make a "save" to avoid the damage, and if the target is wearing armor that they discard to get way from taking damage, the spell is effectively a debuff to their armor class as well. And there are far more spells and abilities that can be used in creative ways to create an overpowering effect.

Modifying Encounters On the Fly. The design of many adventures hinge around the difficulty of the encounters. This doesn't mean every encounter is meant to be difficult. In fact, a common DM trick is to produce easy encounters. This might be to scale things up as the adventure progresses, or simply allow the characters to see their own progress. (Hey, remember those bugbears you thought were difficult three modules ago? Now look how easy you take care of them!) But sometimes the best-laid plans are disrupted. For example, a bandit attack on a boat dock that was supposed to overwhelm the party and push them back into the city begins turning into an easy victory thanks to a steady roll of natural 20s. The DM 'cheat' solution? More bandits! Or maybe a sea monster. Of course, the DM might simply alter the story on the fly, but if it is an important plot point, a bit of DM cheating may be required.

Removing Encounters, Traps Etc. This is the opposite of adding more to an encounter. What if you've misjudged how much the group can handle? Or they've had a series of bad rolls that took their toll and now they are going to enter a trap-filled room that has a high chance to being lethal. A good DM might take into account their own mistakes (packing too many monsters into the dungeon) or the role of bad luck (or the bad luck rolls) and tone things down a bit to favor the players.

Sometimes, People Die...

None of this should be taken as advice that characters should be kept alive at all costs. In fact, I'm actually for a bit more 'hardcore' playing where death is very much real. I feel that the prospect of death (or permanent injury) adds to the game by providing a certain amount of tension during combat and a certain amount of achievement when emerging victorious.

This isn't to say that playing with hardcore permadeath is "better" than any other way of playing. There is no better way of playing D&D. There is only fun ways and not-as-fun ways, and if a group is having fun, that's the main barometer.

But you can have a harder stance on death and still help the players avoid it. If players are doing everything right, it is the DMs job to do what they can to help them survive. Sometimes bad rolls are unavoidable and people die no matter how good of decisions they made. As a DM, if I fudge that goblin's roll from a 20 to a 2 so that they'll miss the character with 3 hit points left and the next time I roll for the goblin they get another natural 20, the fates are deciding... It's the type of balancing act that DMs sometimes have to walk.

But Is It Really Cheating?

Again, technically, the DM cannot cheat. They are the master of the rules. If they break them, that is their right. If they change the roll of the dice, that is their right. In fact, this is why many DMs roll their dice behind screens -- so they can do what they want with the numbers.

The better question here may be whether or not a DM playing fast and loose with the rules is doing so for the betterment of the group. A good DM cheats to add to the fun. The DMs job is not to kill the players. Certainly, a bad DM can 'cheat' to the extent of creating a poor atmosphere for the game. But the key here isn't so much the cheating as it is the ability of the DM.

Not everyone is cut out to be a DM in the same way that not everyone is cut out for management at a company. The idea that the DM has the ability to break rules and cheat when it comes to the dice is based around the idea of giving the DM the power to ensure everyone has fun and that the story is told, not to give them power for power's sake. And a good DM uses this as it is intended.

You might have heard the term 'homebrew' bandied about the game table or on your favorite forum. It's actually nothing all that complicated. It simply means player-created. The word derives from home brewing beer and has taken on its own life when it comes to tabletop RPGs.

"Homebrew" can refer to a lot of things in the pen and paper world. You could have a homebrew world or homebrew campaign, which just means the DM created it themselves rather than buying it. You could have a homebrew race or spell. In fact, the DM's guide goes over how to create your own creatures and spells and abilities.

It often refers to specialized rules for dealing with situations or even replacements for the 'official' rules. If you don't like death saves, you might go with a homebrew system like death's door, which causes a character to lose a hit point each round they are below zero and for them to die at negative ten hit points.

For DMs, homebrew rules can be very important, especially if they are running their own campaign. These player-created rulesets can help deal with issues the official rules didn't adequately cover.

Among the great culture wars of our time -- PC vs Mac, iPhone vs Android, Coke vs Pepsi -- nothing is perhaps more perplexing than the war between the genre-reader and the literary reader. OK, the Coke vs Pepsi one was pretty silly too. We all have different tastes, people, so get over it. But we've all heard the "fantasy is a waste of time" or "I just can't get into space ships and things" coming from the literary crowd. And to be fair, I know plenty of people that scoff when I mention they should read Plato's Republic or A Tale of Two Cities or A Man Called Ove or Tina Fey's Bossypants. (Hey, Bossypants is literary, isn't it?)

In the end, we all choose to do... something.. for entertainment. It might be playing a musical instrument, or playing D&D, or writing poetry, or binging Game of Thrones. And for readers, isn't it enough that we all love to read?

I get it. My reading list used to be Dragonlance and Magician's Apprentice and Tolkein at least once a year. One of the last books I read was SPQR, a History of Ancient Rome. Not even fiction! And I can't even call it a page-turner. But when I ponder what to read next, I do often ask myself, "What am I going to get out of this?"

To have lived my entire life without fantasy? Without science fiction? What sort of robot would I be? And would the fact that I turned into some type of intellectual robot make me science fiction? Maybe not. But, if you know one of these "I just don't do fantasy or sci-fi" folks, here are a few novels that might change their mind.

Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut

Which novel to start the list? There's a lot of great choices, but also a lot of good reasons to rule them out. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlen comes to mind. Excellent ideas. Great book for its time. But the rampant misogyny makes it a hard read. Wicked? Awesome choice. But doesn't everyone know it is an awesome choice by now? Hasn't every non-Sci-Fi / Fantasy lover already seen the musical?

Slapstick might be a bit of a stretch to label science fiction -- although it has miniaturization and spaceships -- and is more of a dystopian novel, which I've shied away from in this list. But technically, it's set in a scientifically advanced future, and Vonnegut has always loved to play around with some science fiction elements.

In fact, I'd put Slapstick on a list of "literary" books to recommend to Sci-Fi / Fantasy lovers. But mostly, it's on this list because (1) the writing is superb, (2) it is thought-provoking and (3) it's absolutely hilarious.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Now we are getting into the thick of it. I was introduced to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell via the mini-series on Netflix, but it was a mere days after finishing the last episode before I downloaded the novel on my iPad. I wanted to wait longer so the story could sink further into my consciousness, but I just couldn't. I wanted to be in that world some more, and mostly, I wanted to read about everything the limited series could not cover.

The writing is fantastic. It is both a throwback to the days of having a palpable narrator and yet something modern and new at the same time. It's a long, long read. (Think: A Game of Thrones novel.) But it's worth every word. The pure strength of writing and imagination of this tale can easily keep non-fantasy lovers enchanted.

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I could easily put Miller's Circe on the list instead of Song of Achilles. They are both excellent reads from a master storyteller and one of the foremost authorities on Greek mythology. These books reimagine the myths, filling in those empty spaces in Greek mythology that gives us a context for the stories many of us know so well by now.

When I think of a novel that almost anyone would love no matter which genre they pick as their favorite or how snobbish they might be in their reading, Song of Achilles is one of the first to come to mind. As the name implies, the novel tells the tale of Achilles. But unlike the Iliad and subsequent works, it tells the whole tale, starting with Achilles as a kid.

Dune by Frank Herbert

If Dune were written today, I think it might be as well known for its intellect as its great story. There's just a lot to love about this book from the political intrigue to the idea of forced evolution based on harsh environments. Dune is exceedingly well written, the story itself flows like a river begging you to keep reading well into the night, and it is filled with thought-provoking ideas.

And it's a fun ride. That might be the most important part of it. The movie with Kyle MacLachlan is a bit campy, and I think too often people picture him on the back of a worm when they think of Dune. Hopefully, the upcoming movie will capture more of Herbert's novel -- although, like many Dune-lovers, I am quite fond of the David Lynch version.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I almost wish this one hadn't been made into a movie so more people could experience one of the best-written novels of all time. On the good side, some of the best parts of the novel aren't even covered in the movie as they focus more on Ender than his siblings.

From an intellectual standpoint, there are few other sci-fi or fantasy novels that can stand with it. There's just a lot of cool stuff to think about when you read this novel. From a sci-fi or story point of view, it's again top-notch. It's a fast read that makes you immediately want to read it again.

It's almost unfortunate the Card kept writing. Speaker for the Dead was good... but compared to Ender's Game, it was a B-. Xenocide slid a little further down, and by Children of the Mind, it was time to stop reading. Sci-fi fans often put Ender's Shadow up there against Ender's Game... but, no. Not even close. Ender's Shadow is a very fun read and thought-provoking in its own right, but it just doesn't come close to the impact of Ender's Game.

In short: Feel free not to read past Ender's Game. You might like the subsequent books, you might not, but Ender's Game stands on its own.

Most of us fantasy nuts have heard of "high" fantasy even if the exact definition is somewhat vague, but what about "low" fantasy? Is it different from "high" fantasy? Is one better than the other? And is it possible for a book to be both?

The problem with putting books into distinct boxes is that few books really fit perfectly in any one box. There are plenty of books that combine dark fantasy elements with high fantasy elements. In fact, The Curse of Strahd, a classic D&D module that spawned both a series of novels and an entire game world, easily checks both boxes with its vampire and undead themes combined with the normal high fantasy tropes. And in distinguishing between high fantasy and low fantasy, we find a lot of blending between the two.

What is Low Fantasy?

The standard definition of low fantasy is a fantasy setting that is our Earth with fantastical elements. Think Harry Potter. In the beginning of the books, Harry lives in a suburb of Surrey just south of London. The Dresden Files is another good example. Harry Dresden is a Wizard / Private Investigator who lives in Chicago.

Many low fantasy novels are very similar to our world with only a hint of supernatural, or where the fantastical elements are hidden from the 'normal' people. However, this doesn't mean the fantasy or magic is lacking. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a perfect example of low fantasy. It takes place in 19th century England in a version of Earth where magic once existed but hasn't been seen (at least in its real form) in several centuries until Mr. Norrell pops up. The novel not only has some of the biggest and most spectacular magic you'll read in a novel, it also has an entire fairie realm. (It's also an absolutely fantastic read for both fantasy lovers and non-fantasy readers.)

How Is High Fantasy Different Than Low Fantasy?

High fantasy often brings with it images of hobbits and dwarves and elves and men attempting to cross over the misty mountains only to be defeated by the secret magics of Saruman the Wizard. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is often thought of as the blueprint for high fantasy, and in many ways, he set the standard for the genre.

In high fantasy settings, the action takes place on Not-Earth. The world is different and independent of our world and includes fantastical elements such as magic, different races, etc. The world is generally set in a swords-and-sorcery environment with limited technology and oftentimes has a major distinction of Good vs Evil, although this has blurred through the evolution of the genre.

While high fantasy takes place on another world, it can still use Earth as a partial setting. Piers Anthony's Xanth series takes place in an alternative version of Florida and the characters do make an appearance in the 'real' world. Joel Rosenburg's Guardians of the Flame starts out on a college campus with students playing a tabletop roleplaying game before being transported into a fantasy world. And The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant takes place in part on Earth and in part in Andelain, an archetypical high fantasy setting. Making matters even more cloudy, Thomas Covenant often believes he's dreaming during the series, especially at the beginning.

Can a Novel Be Both High Fantasy and Low Fantasy?

Prepare to have your mind blown: The Lord of the Rings is a low fantasy series of novels. If we take the strictest definition -- a novel set on Earth with fantasy elements such as magic and fantasy races -- Lord of the Rings checks those boxes. The setting for Tolkein's masterpiece is Earth before the rise of the Age of Men (the "fourth age"), which is why it is called Middle Earth.

But, of course, it has all of the earmarks of high fantasy. It has a very distinct Good vs Evil, it has swords and sorcery, it has fantastical races and otherworldly beings, and while it takes place on "Earth," the land itself is completely fictional.

The Magicians is another good example of high fantasy and low fantasy blending together. Much of the series is spent in a prototypical low fantasy setting -- Earth with magic -- but a sizable chunk is also spent in the perfect example of a high fantasy world.

Most of the time, these world-within-a-world stories are considered high fantasy because the action is taking place on Not-Earth, but when the setting jumps between both world, the lines certainly becomes blured.

Does The Distinction Between Low an High Fantasy Matter?

There's really only one good reason to throw a label on novels, music, movies, TV and similar forms of entertainment: to help you figure out if you are going to like something.

If you have a friend that loves the Dresden Files and True Blood but hates the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, you aren't likely to recommend they read the Dragonlance novels or the Kingkiller Chronicles.

But it is definitely something that can be taken way too literally. Look, the Lord of the Rings is high fantasy. Period. It doesn't matter that Tolkein's specifically placed his setting as a fictional past of Earth. The story is high fantasy. The same goes for Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles and Circe. They are great Greek mythology revisionings, but they definitely have more in common with high fantasy than low fantasy.

If the point is to communicate whether or not someone will like a book or a movie or a TV show, it's far better to use the basic feel of a show as a baramoter rather than fitting it into an exact definition.

Can you name the top high fantasy TV shows? It is harder than it seems. We can all come up with a few off the top of our heads, but once you name the obvious, you begin to realize just how few "High" or even "Low" fantasy shows there really are out there in broadcast TV and streaming land. And when you consider just how popular fantasy is these days, the fact that there are so few shows centering on the genre is a bit of a puzzler. The influx of superhero shows demonstrates it isn't a budget issue, and the wild popularity of that show on HBO shows people want to watch them... so what gives?

While I mention high fantasy in the title, I'm going to include some shows that blend with low fantasy as well so long as they do have some high fantasy trademarks. Low fantasy shows are those that take place in a very Earth-like setting with the inclusion of magic. There's a lot of blending that goes on between high and low fantasy, and certainly some disagreements on where to draw the lines, so I'll judge shows by (1) inclusion of magic, (2) residing in a sword-and-sorcery environment at least part of the time and (3) the inclusion of other fantasy-style races or magical beings.

Hercules and Xena

These mid-to-late 90s shows don't really stand the test of time, so it is hard to recommend their viewing, but they are easily among the most famous sword-and-sorcery shows of all time. Featuring the campy style of Sam Raimi (of Evil Dead and Army of Darkness fame), Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and its popular spinoff Xena: Warrior Princess deserve a mention on this list. Of the two, Xena is the easiest to watch in our modern era of big-budget TV shows without cringing, and once you get past the low-end effects and B-flick feel, it is even enjoyable.

The Legend of the Seeker

My admission: I didn't watch past the first few episodes. It wasn't that it was bad, it simply didn't catch hold with me at the time. Based on the Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind, the series wasn't received well by critics, but it did respond well to fans of fantasy. The series should be considered 'loosely adapted' as it does diverge quite a bit from the books, but it keeps with the central themes and overall setting. The Legend of the Seeker may not be the most entertaining fantasy series out there, but if you are dying for some high fantasy, it'll do the trick.

The Shannara Chronicles

What do we feel about the Shannara Chronicles? I'll put it this way. The fact that it makes it on a top list shows that there hasn't been a plethora of great high fantasy to hit the broadcast TV and streaming services.

That's not to say that the series is bad. Once you get past the first few episodes, which had their beyond-the-normal-amount-of-cheese-factor scenes, the Shannara Chronicles is quite enjoyable. It's just not spectacular. At times, it seems as much Dawson's Creek as it does an action-adventure fantasy series. Pretty people saying lines and looking... well... pretty. But it has a good story supporting it, and while the acting isn't great, it is adequate to the task.

Cursed

Of everything on this list (including the you-know-what-is-at-number-one), Cursed is the most D&D of them all. The setting is Arthurian, which some would rule out as "high" fantasy, but considering the emphasis on the different fae races, the magic and the swords (including that sword), I would definitely put it in the high fantasy column along with any Camelot-themed show where monsters and magic are real. (And if you need a bigger hint: there is at least more Arthurian show on this list!)

Cursed is a bit of an interesting pick. Again, not spectacular, but it definitely has its moments. The art direction is fantastic, it is a great story that loosely follows the myths without stepping in their footsteps, and it has plenty to like. Perhaps it's only shortcoming was the lack of a certain compelling nature during the first half of the series. Not bad, mind you. I just didn't feel a need to continue binging it like I felt with the shows I'm about to mention. But by the mid-point, the addiction factor does start to kick in and you can't wait for the next episodes.

Merlin

If I wanted to explain the idea of "cheesy but good," I could think of no better example than Merlin. The dynamic between Merlin, played by Colin Morgan, and Arthur, played by Bradley James, is what drives this show. There's a playful chemistry that really comes out on the screen. The stories are... well... generally cheesy. And at times you have to wonder how Arthur doesn't figure out Merlin's secret. Is he just that dense? Perhaps Giles...*cough*... I mean Uther Pendragon dropped him on his head too much as a kid?

No matter. Cheesy stories. Somewhat B-level effects. It all works. I wouldn't say it is Buffy. I mean, there's no musical episode or anything, so it doesn't have that Buffy-like quality that exists in shows like the modern Doctor Who, but it definitely nails the cheesy goodness that leads to a fun time. It also includes a lot of high fantasy tropes and adventures you think could come right out of a D&D session.

The Magicians

Speaking of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Magicians is the epitome of a Buffy-like show to the point of wondering if they didn't steal Joss Whedon's brain to make it. (That actually might explain some things...) The Magicians takes place in part in our world (or a version where magic exists) and in part a fantasy land. I think enough takes place in the other world that we can classify this one as "high" fantasy even if it is definitely a blend between the two. In this regard, I've put The Magicians on this list and left out Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell -- a truly fantastic show that simply doesn't have enough fantasy elements to make the list.

How to explain The Magicians? Take the old child's tale of our world where magicians really exist and go to a school to learn magic, a student magician who is obsessed with a fairy-tale like fantasy setting from beloved children's books, and the eventual travel to said world. Now take a giant sword of dark fantasy and create a blood-spurting gash into that picturesque world.

It's wicked. But, especially starting with season 2, it's actually pretty funny and a really great time. It can take some getting used to right at first, but it's definitely one of those shows where -- despite maybe wanting to stop watching after the first few episodes -- you should at least watch the entire first season. And by then you won't be able to not watch the rest.

The Witcher

Badass. There's really no other way to put it. I've never read the books and only dabbled with the game, so I'm judging the show on just the show, not any comparison to the source material. Again, badass. Definitely mature. Don't watch it with your kiddos in the room. Henry Cavill as Geralt and Anya Chalotra as Yennefer really nail their parts.

A great part of this story is that while Geralt is obviously a badass, he's not without his failings. He's also constantly going up against powerful monsters where a single misstep (or roll of a 1 on that 20-sided dice) can mean death. It also has a tricky story-line that slowly comes together in the end.

Everything about this show is A+. It has great acting, great sets and art direction, excellent effects and an awesome story. Basically, it is what we all hope the future of TV and streaming will bring.

Game of Thrones

There's no real getting around the number one spot. Even if the last couple of seasons weren't quite up to the preceding seasons, they were still the best of fantasy on TV. The show definitely felt the loss of the source material after they passed by the novels, which caused the show to introduced a bit of a Hollywood-like "oh did this guy really die, no we'll bring him back in the next episode" that the preceding seasons lacked. (Yeah, if someone dies in the first few seasons, you can bet they are dead.)

Hey. We all know that horse. We've kicked it. And beat it. It's dead.

But Game of Thrones was its own thing. It was cross-genre. You didn't have to like fantasy or dragons or political intrigue. It was just an awesome show and most people who started watching it quickly became addicted to it.

Game of Thrones is not without controversy, especially when you consider the showrunners leaned heavy into rape scenes that didn't quite play out that way in the novels, but anyway you slice it, Game of Thrones is easily the best fantasy TV series of all time without even much competition.

It's also the best zombie apocalypse show, which I point out to some friends every time they start talking The Walking Dead. (Hey... I loved The Walking Dead... season 1 and half of season 2.). The only thing Game of Thrones lacked was a final scene where Jon Snow climbs to the top, looks out on the frozen northlands, and yells, "You want me on this wall... you need me on this wall!"