Game Master’s Journey is a discussion podcast for GMs and players of Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs hosted by Lex Starwalker. The show explores strategies players and GMs can use to enhance the gaming experience for everyone at the table. Lex also discusses the creation of his homebrew D&D setting, Primordia, providing a valuable worldbuilding resource for DMs creating their own setting.
Lex returns to his exploration of the Dungeon Master’s Guide . This week he discusses mapping a wilderness and wilderness survival. He shows how concerning yourself with how the PCs survive in the wilderness can really add a lot to your game and enhance the players’ feelings of accomplishment as their characters progress through the game.
Lex returns to his exploration of the Dungeon Master’s Guide to discuss techniques for using wilderness travel in your adventures. He outlines two basic techniques—the travel-montage approach and the hour-by-hour approach—and he gives advice and strategies for both.
Any GM (or player!) can experience burnout. Lex investigates signs of possible burnout and explores various strategies of coping with GM burnout.
Even with the near-glacial release schedule for D&D fifth edition, the game is long enough in the tooth now that we have quite a few products to choose from. Which products are the most useful? Lex gives his opinions on which order to purchase the various supplements in today's episode of Game Master's Journey.
Lex gives an overview of the new D&D supplement, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes .
Lex returns to his exploration of the Dungeon Master's Guide to discuss one of his favorite adventure environments--dungeons.
Lex investigates the rules and (not-so) common sense of darkness & light in D&D.
The PCs finally reach the magic tree and negotiate with Anna, the dryad, for a seedling to take back to Dianara’s Rest.
The PCs enter the Faerie Forest and search for the magic tree. They get to know their new companion Dahlia, and they learn that not all denizens of Faerie are friendly.
The PCs continue their journey to the Faerie Forest, and they meet a new companion along the way.
Lex returns to his exploration of the DMG. He discusses Chapter 4: Creating Nonplayer Characters. This chapter has lots of useful advice and tables for fleshing out your NPCs.
In the latest installment of the Hinterlands of Elandria D&D actual play, Lex gets together with Jaime to flesh out the backstory of his character, Marcos the College of Lore Bard.
How much of the rules should you know as a beginning GM? Lex gives a breakdown of where the basic rules of the game can be found and what to focus on. He also gives his thoughts on how to approach campaigns that make certain classes, subclasses, races, etc. undesirable to play as PCs.
This episode's topics of discussion are guided by fantastic feedback from listener-GMs. Lex discusses his new Relics of Power supplement for D&D, some thoughts about organized play as a first experience with RPGs, and a blast from the past--some thoughts on the Tyranny of Dragons campaign.
This week the PCs continue their struggle against the horrors spewing from the rift to the far realms. They meet a new friend and have to save a friend from a fate worse than death.
Things get real in this episode as the PCs endure the consequences of past actions. They also are reminded that the Breaking of the World and the Time of Rifts are still occurring in Primordia.
This episode is a vignette featuring Fir, the fire genasi lore master wizard. Fir returns to Elandria to report back to Druinda on what the party has found in the village of Dianara’s Rest. While she’s there, she learns some new spells, goes shopping for Lerissa, and acquires a new member of the party...sort of.
The PCs leave Korcyryx’s lair to continue their journey to the Faerie Forest. They learn first-hand that the Wilds of Primordia are a very dangerous place.
This week our heroes leave the village of Dianara's Rest in search of a magic tree....
Wahl has a vivid dream, perhaps sent by the goddess Elandra herself.
Lex covers a variety of RPG and GMing topics. How do we deal with players who make rolls we haven’t called for, or expect to always “win” the game with little to no effort? How do we know what kind of magic items and treasure to hand out? Lex also discusses an upcoming supplement which will allow you to create relics in your game—magic items that grow with the PCs who wield them.
The heroes defend the people of Dianara's Rest from a vicious attack.
Lex discusses the ins and outs of running the second session in his latest D&D campaign, Hinterlands of Elandria.
This episode follows the PCs as they spend a week in Dianara’s Rest. Each character pursues their own and the party’s goals in their own way, and hilarity ensues.
Matthew Colville rejoins Lex on the show today to discuss his upcoming D&D 5th edition supplement, Strongholds & Followers . This long-awaited tome is just part of Matt’s Kickstarter campaign, Strongholds & Streaming. The campaign is also providing some awesome gemstone dragon miniatures as well as studio space so Matt can produce a high-quality actual play of his next campaign.
Hinterlands of Elandria is a new D&D campaign set in Lex's homebrew campaign world, Primordia. Five years after the beginning of the Breaking of the World, the Time of Rifts and the Retreat of Humanity, a new team of adventurers leave the safety of the city of Elandria to explore rumors of a lone village somehow surviving in the Hinterlands to the east. Very few cities survived the Breaking, and it's believe no smaller settlements did. If there is a village out there, how has it survived on ...
Lex continues his exploration of the Dungeon Master's Guide with discussion of random encounters from chapter 3. He discusses how, why and when to use random encounters, and he explains how they don't really have to be random at all. A better term to describe how Lex, at least, uses these types of encounters is "flexible encounters".
Hinterlands of Elandria is a new D&D campaign set in Lex's homebrew campaign world, Primordia. Five years after the beginning of the Breaking of the World, the Time of Rifts and the Retreat of Humanity, a new team of adventurers leave the safety of the city of Elandria to explore rumors of a lone village somehow surviving in the Hinterlands to the east. Very few cities survived the Breaking, and it's believe no smaller settlements did. If there is a village out there, how has it survived on ...
Hinterlands of Elandria is a new D&D campaign set in Lex's homebrew campaign world, Primordia. Five years after the beginning of the Breaking of the World, the Time of Rifts and the Retreat of Humanity, a new team of adventurers leave the safety of the city of Elandria to explore rumors of a lone village somehow surviving in the Hinterlands to the east. Very few cities survived the Breaking, and it's believe no smaller settlements did. If there is a village out there, how has it survived on ...
Hinterlands of Elandria is a new D&D campaign set in Lex's homebrew campaign world, Primordia. Five years after the beginning of the Breaking of the World, the Time of Rifts and the Retreat of Humanity, a new team of adventurers leave the safety of the city of Elandria to explore rumors of a lone village somehow surviving in the Hinterlands to the east. Very few cities survived the Breaking, and it's believe no smaller settlements did. If there is a village out there, how has it survived on ...
