Paul & Dan chat about the history of attempts to remove the DM from D&D games. The Dungeon Master (DM) assumes the role of the game master or referee and describes for other players what they perceive in this imaginary world, and what effects their actions have. That person is responsible for preparing each game session, and must have a thorough understanding of the game rules. The DM is responsible for narrative flow, creating the scenario and setting in which the game takes place, main...
Aug 20, 2022•59 min
Dan & Paul chat with Zach Glazar of Necromancer Games on their new Kickstarter! Whisper & Venom, the acclaimed adventure setting, is being resurrected and expanded for Fifth Edition and Old-School Essentials. Originally released in 2013 by Necromancer Games’ very own Zach Glazar under his publishing venture Lesser Gnome, Whisper & Venom’s success was a surprise to everybody, especially its author. After many years of disingenuous promises, Whisper & Venom is here, and it is bigge...
Aug 18, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Dan is challenged by viewer Stephen Wendell to an old-school D&D Jousting tourney! How was Jousting in Original D&D performed? It referred back to the mini-game in the pre-D&D Chainmail ruleset by Gygax and Perren. Players took the role of armored knights, and on each pass picked a defensive posture and an aiming point, and consulted a matrix for the effect of the pass. No dice or random outcomes involved, it's purely a test of player skill! Some of us still use it in our D&D gam...
Aug 16, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Paul & Dan discuss the presence of Dinosaurs in D&D! Do you love D&D? Do you love Dinosaurs? Well, if you're like us, it's a lock you'll want to run your PCs up against these terrible lizards, and maybe part of your campaign is a "Lost World" where dinosaurs roam in great numbers. But is that a good idea, or does it break the idiom of the medieval fantasy world? Can dinosaurs be central to your campaign, or are they best left as rare side dressing? What's the best was to use them in ...
Aug 14, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Dan & Paul discuss Flanking and other combat options in D&D. 5th Edition D&D has several optional combat rules in the DMG: Flanking, Facing, and Diagonal movement. These echo rules laid down in earlier editions of D&D: all the way back to 1st Edition, and even before. And yet these rules remain highly contentious between different D&D play tables. Should you use them? Are they a net positive or negative to your game? What other ways are there to play around with these combat ...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Paul & Dan play a hot game of Fiasco with our best-ever gaming friends. This special episode recorded for Paul's birthday includes nearly two and a half hours of actual play with Dan, Paul, and friends! The Hasty and the Hateful is a card playset for Fiasco 2nd Edition: "We race for the same reason we breathe—it is life, the connection to the pavement is like our connection to family. What we do isn't legal but we answer to the god of the stoplight and the nitrous injection. Some of us are d...
Jul 18, 2022•2 hr 24 min
Dan & Paul discuss the newest, diceless edition of the Fiasco RPG. Fiasco is a role-playing game by Jason Morningstar, independently published by Bully Pulpit Games. It is marketed as a "GM-less game for 3–5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation". It is billed as "A game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control" and "inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong—films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, ...
Jul 01, 2022•1 hr 4 min
They've done a number of Dungeon Design Dashes before, but for the first time ever, Dan & Paul go to create a complete wilderness adventure in an hour live on camera. With no advance prep and no safety net, can they do it? Working from a map by Dyson Logos, and using Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design, plus other classic Dungeons & Dragons design tools & tricks, find out what Paul & Dan discover in this pumpkin-spice themed journey into the unexplored wild lands beyond the mou...
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Paul & Dan chat about the presence of giants in D&D from the elder times to now. Giants are found in the legendary tales of all cultures around the world, and they're critical tentpoles in the D&D monster roster. In fact, arguably, they be the very first type of D&D monster -- when you're playing historical miniature wargames, just grab a miniature at a different scale and you have yourself a giant fantasy monster. The initial sequence of D&D monsters, which we now call "huma...
Jun 29, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Paul & Dan reminisce on the Advanced D&D Gold Box computer game, Pool of Radiance. Pool of Radiance was a role-playing video game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) in 1988. It was the first adaptation of TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) fantasy role-playing game for home computers, becoming the first episode in a four-part series of D&D computer adventure games. The other games in the "Gold Box" series used the game engine pioneered in Pool o...
Jun 20, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Dan & Paul chat with award-winning comic creator Kieron Gillen on his new DIE RPG. Kieron Gillen is one of our favorite comic authors working today -- he's written series for the X-Men, Avengers, Eternals, Star Wars, Warhammer, Starcraft, and many more. He's also worked as a game journalist and co-founded the site Rock Paper Shotgun. Now, on the tail of his recent 20-issue fantasy series, DIE, he breaks new ground with his own RPG set in that world, years in the making, and currently funding...
Jun 17, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Dan & Paul review our favorite Wild West RPGs. Some gamers argue that any fantasy or sci-fi RPG, including Dungeons & Dragons, is mostly Wild West plot tropes covered over with fantasy dressing. How true is that? How much influence did the development of Western RPGs have on mainline D&D at the outset? How easy or successful have you been at crossing over from Western to full-blown Fantasy in the same game campaign? Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful di...
Jun 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Dan & Paul catch up with James Maliszewski of Grognardia on his "House of Worms" campaign! Have you ever managed to run a D&D campaign for 7 years and counting? Well, James Maliszewski has in his long-running Empire of the Petal Throne campaign -- so we wanted to get his advice and hear about how to keep a campaign fresh, exciting, and players returning for more. Plus catch up on his prodigious ongoing output at the Grognardia blog, the Hall of Blue Illumination podcast, The Excellent Tr...
Jun 13, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Paul & Dan interview Spencer Crittenden, the GM on HarmonQuest and other shows! Spencer Crittenden is one of our favorite famous DMs. He ran the game on Dan Harmon's HarmonQuest as, of course, The Game Master. He's also been a regular on HarmonTown, Great Minds with Dan Harmon, and appeared on Community and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Now he hosts the That Happens podcast with Jeff Bryan Davis, and produces D&D content on his YouTube channel for Patreon subscribers. Lets find out his unique take...
Jun 11, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Christian & crew recap our Inner System Blues cyberpunk game in the 2400 system. Let's chat about the 2400 game system we used for our Inner System Blues cyberpunk game. What worked well? What could possibly be improved? Check out Inner System Blues here The TDR crew play short series of unique roleplaying games, then analyze what worked and what needs work at the end of each game. The GM changes but the fun remains the same every week on TDR!...
May 30, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Dan & Isabelle assess the D&D art of the 90's. Brooklyn-based fine artist Isabelle Garbani joins us again for another installment of "Art of D&D": this time, in the 1990's, the era of 2nd Edition AD&D (leading to the last gasps of TSR, and its acquisition by Wizards of the Coast). It was a time of wild experimentation with many different campaign settings: Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and more. How well did the art follow that expedition, and what kinds of artistic discoveri...
May 27, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Dan & Paul interview Karen Twelves, author of "Improv for Gamers". The Wandering DMs love improv and think using tools from that field are essential to a great D&D game. In this episode we get to interview Karen Twelves, the author of one of our favorite books, "Improv for Gamers", now being crowdfunded for a revised second edition. Based on hundreds of hours of professional workshops, Improv for Gamers provides fun and easy exercises designed to take your tabletop or live-action gaming ...
May 25, 2022•1 hr
Christian & crew conclude our Inner System Blues cyberpunk game in the 2400 system. Amidst the burning wreckage of a carrier ship, a violent storm at sea, gunfire from guards and drones -- what else could go wrong? The TDR crew will explore all the possibilities extensively. See Thinkbot's true face revealed! Gasp at BECCA's fast and furious driving! Bemuse at Victor and KIT-95's co-parenting choices! Check out Inner System Blues here The TDR crew play short series of unique roleplaying game...
May 23, 2022•1 hr 51 min
Dan & Paul review the history of Golems in D&D. It's been said that the Golem is "a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism". Springing from Jewish folklore, the Golem represents a powerful but dimly aware, perhaps overly-literal, servant. As such, it's the possibly original inspiration for stories about out-of-control scientific monsters, robots, and AI (as well summoned stalkers and wish spells in D&D). In original D&D, they are the mightiest of fighters, and...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Christian & crew continue our Inner System Blues cyberpunk game in the 2400 system. In Inner System Blues part III, the NULL crew of KIT, BECCA, ThinkBot, and Victor finally get aboard the giant burning out-of-control car carrier ship they're tasked with burgling. As usual, their entry plan works perfectly, and then things start going elliptical. A tragic subplot of romantically entangled robots is revealed. What qualifies as the coolest car is extensively debated. And someone gets shot. Che...
May 16, 2022•2 hr 2 min
Dan & Paul reflect on their first "house con" in three years. In normal times, Dan, Paul & their friends have a private "house convention" for a weekend each spring. That was put on hold the last few years due to COVID, but now we're back! After a long weekend of wall-to-wall gaming on the New England seacoast, Paul & Dan reflect on what it's like to be back gaming in person after a long hiatus. Plus special guest Rebecca Kinraide. Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins ho...
Apr 08, 2022•48 min
Dan & Paul discuss our most influential fantasy readings. Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.
Apr 06, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Can the gang break out of the trap at Arasaki Geo Tech industrial park? Christian & company continue our Inner System Blues cyberpunk game series in the 2400 system. Having raised the alarm on the industrial park break-in last time, Victor, BECCA, and Thinkbot need to think fast and find a way out of cages, armed guards, and flying drones. Will a run of natural-1's seal their fate? Plus: existential cyber-dilemmas (to backup or not to backup), and folks who are possibly a bit too into robots...
Apr 05, 2022•2 hr
Dan & Paul talk to legendary fantasy & horror writer Ramsey Campbell! The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He's been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award...
Mar 26, 2022•1 hr
New cyberpunk PCs get made live, and a very hot & wet mission is put forth. We start a new cyberpunk series, with Christian running the Inner System Blues system for 2400. Special guest Dan Collins fills in as a player for Paul. We make new characters live: how many androids and how many humans? Their contact Metal Mouth puts forward a proposal to steal cars from a super cargo ship burning at sea, but where is it? They'll need to break into an Arasaki Geo Tech industrial park first to find o...
Mar 25, 2022•2 hr 1 min
Dan & Paul a high-level dungeon, live in one hour! Hey, what's that flying rock overhead, and what are those dark winged shapes flying around it? Only the bravest of superheroes and wizards dare explore it. Let's find out what sinister traps the lich has laid for them… Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-ed...
Mar 24, 2022•1 hr 7 min
The wrap & retrospective of our Kids on Bikes live play series. What did you think? Check out Kids on Bikes here The TDR crew play short series of unique roleplaying games, then analyze what worked and what needs work at the end of each game. The GM changes but the fun remains the same every week on TDR!
Mar 23, 2022•58 min
Frog God Games tell us about their new adventure path & temples sourcebook. We're joined by Jeff Harkness & Gary Schotter to tell us about Frog God Games' upcoming mega-campaign "Splinters of Faith". How easy is it to structure a level 1 to 15 adventure path? Why did they design temples of every type to fill a whole continent? What's it like to bring old-school hard difficulty to a modern audience? See a preview of Splinters of Faith here Visit Frog God Games here Wandering DMs Paul Sieg...
Mar 12, 2022•56 min
The big finale of our game of Kids on Bikes run by Colleen. What is this strange new dark video game in the arcade? Perhaps the closing of the arcade is not the scariest thing the kids must face. Check out Kids on Bikes here The TDR crew play short series of unique roleplaying games, then analyze what worked and what needs work at the end of each game. The GM changes but the fun remains the same every week on TDR!...
Mar 11, 2022•1 hr 25 min
Dan & Paul are joined by special Guest Luke Gygax to talk about the upcoming GaryCon XIV, the return to live conventions, and navigating how to keep everyone safe & secure. Plus we'll talk about his own adventures in the World of Okkorim and other projects! Register now for GaryCon XIV live and virtual events Check out Luke's own adventures at DriveThruRPG Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the p...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 2 min
