Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, someone told us that if we stuck with D&D everything would turn out okay. We're talking about news in this non evergreen episode. We hit Perkins and Crawford going to Darrington Press, Daggerheart in general, some state of the industry stuff, and the laying off of Todd Kenreck. Heck, we missed Ivan Van Norman leaving Darrington Press, Jess Lanzillo leavi...
Jun 26, 2025•54 min•Season 3Ep. 70
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, someone told us that if we stuck with D&D everything would turn out okay. Once upon a time, one of the greatest sins you could commit was to perpetrate the iniquity of metagaming. Thou shalt not act on information you know, but your character wouldn’t. But is that always a bad thing? Why do we assume that every time we act on information our players don’...
Jun 12, 2025•59 min•Season 3Ep. 69
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D wants us to justify all those dice we bought by rolling them at the table. We’ve talked about how being a better player can be just as important to a good game as being a better DM, but what about combining both of those concepts? How important is it for a DM to understand the player experience, and what can they learn from being on the colorful side...
May 29, 2025•59 min•Season 3Ep. 68
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
May 22, 2025•31 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D’s second edition mining rules has us digging for player input. Some modern RPG discourse has framed RPGs as a writer’s room, with the PCs being the primary contributor to their character’s story in the collaborative scheme of things. But what if your “writer’s” have broader ideas for the story beyond just the character that they shepherd in the narra...
May 15, 2025•56 min•Season 3Ep. 67
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
May 05, 2025•35 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, but D&D is having us execute Episode 66. Have you ever had the perfect idea for your campaign, but by the time you made it to a notebook or a computer, you completely forgot what it was? Where do ideas for campaigns come from, and how do we capture them? How do we put the ideas we have into game terms and make them sing for our players? We’re going to lo...
May 01, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 66
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Apr 21, 2025•28 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D knows where we’ve buried the bodies. Sometimes you run the entire night with the assumption that a spell works the way it did from two editions ago, and some poor PCs pay the price. Sometimes the player characters spend three hours exploring something based on what they thought you said, instead of what you actually said. Or maybe what you actually s...
Apr 17, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Season 3Ep. 65
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Apr 07, 2025•43 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, we keep needing to hit the reset button to get another chance to conquer D&D. Not every fantasy adventure story ends with a big fight, but many of them do. During major conflicts, it’s typical for fantasy heroes to face a singular embodiment of their antagonists: a dragon, demon lord, lich, or a conceptual representation (thanks JRPGs). We’re going to ta...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 64
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Mar 24, 2025•40 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D still encourages us to spend our currencies. Multiple classes have resources they can use, but what happens when you want to manipulate the narrative outside of what your character can do? What happens when you’re running a game, and your combat just isn’t unfolding in a satisfying manner, but you don’t quite want to rebuild an encounter on the fly. ...
Mar 20, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 63
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Mar 11, 2025•32 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D has too many fiddly bits to leave it alone. What happens when you want just a little bit more game material to fit in between two other scenes you’ve already got in mind for your game? What can you do if you can only snag half the time you usually have for your regular game night? What if you have a great idea for a scene, but it doesn’t fit into wha...
Mar 06, 2025•55 min•Season 3Ep. 62
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Feb 24, 2025•31 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D keeps us trying to find new ways to start over again. We’ve talked about starting campaigns from the perspective of setting expectations, getting buy-in, and incorporating information from your session zero, but what about one step beyond that? What does the actual beginning of the campaign look like, and how can you frame your beginnings in new a...
Feb 20, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 61
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D has taught us to fill empty voids with creative material It has become almost standard for gamemaster guides to discuss player types. It's important to identify what your players want from the game and how to balance the expectations of the table. But how many people fit into these categories? Can you mix and match player types in the same individual?...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 3Ep. 60
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is a funhouse that has a mind of its own. Have you ever had that feeling that you just walked into a dangerous area, where at any moment, something bad could happen, you just don’t know what? We’re going to be talking about mechanizing that feeling for your D&D campaigns with lair actions. This episode will start playing on initiative count 20...
Jan 23, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 59
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D This past year was a busy, chaotic thing, even if you just look at RPG gaming. Today’s episode will look at what fantasy gaming looked like over this past year, both in the broader industry and in all our gaming groups. We’re set to recap 2024 in fantasy gaming, and talk a little about 2025.
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 58
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D keeps us company on the long roads we travel. Sometimes, when an adventuring party loves an NPC very much, they start traveling together and setting common goals. We’re going to talk about the companion characters, those NPCs with their own goals and sidequests, that we love from CRPGs, why you might want them in your campaign, why you might not, ...
Dec 12, 2024•51 min•Season 3Ep. 57
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D for a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D keeps us company on the long roads we travel. Sometimes, when an adventuring party loves an NPC very much, they start traveling together and setting common goals. We’re going to talk about the companion characters, those NPCs with their own goals and sidequests, that we love from CRPGs, why you might want them in your campaign, why you might not, ...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 56
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Nov 22, 2024•47 min
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Nov 15, 2024•30 min
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D. A few episodes ago, we talked a little about homebrewing and setting building, but much of that was hypothetical. This week, We’re getting practical by talking to Chris about his homebrew ideas and how he’s used them in our play, The Heroes of Hovel’s Way. We’ve custom-crafted a new episode just for you.
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 3Ep. 55
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D was our training wheels for getting into roleplaying games. How much experience do your players have? Not their characters, but your players. What do you need to do to run a game for players that don’t think about tactics and how classes complement one another, versus players that know the best collection of abilities to actions to defeat monsters wa...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 54
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Oct 10, 2024•47 min
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the five page backstory we wrote for our characters. Characters in our fantasy stories have always had varied and interesting backgrounds. From Conan being born on the battlefield to Raistlin being weak and sickly his entire life. These moments in their lives helped push them into who they were as the characters we've enjoyed in fiction. RPG chara...
Sep 18, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 53
The Heroes of Hovel's Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Sep 12, 2024•54 min
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D has almost completed the process of ceremorphosis on us.. Senda and Phil, our beloved Pandas That Talk About Games, were recently discussing nefarious player characters in a campaign and how to handle them, and they just happened to ask “I wonder what Ang and Jared think about this topic in D&D.” Today, we’re going to explore what Ang and Jared t...
Sep 04, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 52
