Paul & Dan dig into the buried fossils of original D&D -- like the hidden encounter table for Ice Age adventures in the original boxed set. Where else can you get to use Cave Bears, Woolly Mammoths, and Saber-Toothed Tigers in your fantasy RPG? Pour a cup of hot cocoa and bundle up for this one. In the Late Pleistocene, both marine and continental faunas were essentially modern but with many more large land mammals such as Mammoths, Mastodons, Diprotodons, Smilodons, tigers, lions, Auroc...
Jan 22, 2024•56 min
Dan & Paul take a look back at published adventures for D&D in the 70's -- at the time, a revolutionary and controversial idea! And also take a look back at the pioneering contributions of Jennell Jaquays (creator of Dark Tower, Caverns of Thracia, and many more), and our other favorite early adventures. The first published Dungeons & Dragons scenario was "Temple of the Frog", included in 1975's Blackmoor Dungeons & Dragons rules supplement. This scenario was later developed into...
Jan 15, 2024•59 min
Paul & Dan kick of season 6 with an examination of the physical shape of RPG books. How does the choice of number of books, size, binding, and layout impact the overall design of the game? How did the three book format of D&D come to be, and why is it the one design aspect that has persisted throughout every edition? The layout and binding of a role-playing game are integral aspects that significantly influence its overall design and user experience. A well-thought-out layout enhances re...
Jan 08, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Paul & Dan look back at the year in old-school D&D for 2023. And moreover, the first 5 years on Wandering DMs! What were your favorite encounters of the year? And what can we expect in the future? The Wandering DMs YouTube channel has been a hub for tabletop gaming enthusiasts, offering a diverse range of content related to dungeon mastering, role-playing games (RPGs), and tabletop gaming culture. Over the past few years, the channel has gained recognition for its unique approach and com...
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min
In this episode of Wandering DMs, Dan and Paul discuss the role of mentorship in teaching D&D. How did the role of mentors help the spread of D&D in the early days? How has that changed over the years? And how does the game present itself to new players who aren't furtunate enough to have this kind of personal introduction? The word mentor was inspired by the character Mentor in Homer's Odyssey. Although the Mentor in the story is portrayed as a somewhat ineffective old man, the goddess ...
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr
Dan & Paul reflect on the history of rules for flying in D&D. How easy and powerful should it be to achieve? Does it make castles and climbing skills useless? Is the standard spell sufficient, or should your PCs seek out flying mounts -- and what rules provide a market for that? From the earliest days, humans have dreamed of flying and have attempted to achieve it. Greek and Roman mythology have examples of gods who were gifted with flight. Daedalus and Icarus flew through the air, and I...
Nov 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Paul and Dan reflect on Dan's epic saga playing through the AD&D Pool of Radiance Gold Box game live in 2022-2023, and dig into the 1988 print publication of the same adventure, Ruins of Adventure. How similar are they? Does this one adventure work better as a computer game, as a tabletop game, or something else? What lessons can we take for converting scenarios between different systems and media? Ruins of Adventure is a Dungeons & Dragons module that was based on the "Gold Box" role-pl...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Dan and Paul discuss money in D&D, and how they've both independently arrived at the need for a silver standard. From measuring encumbrance in coins to stocking dungeons with treasure, to how to drain the players of their inflated wealth, the Wandering DMs will cover everything numismatic in your D&D game. Many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of commodity money. The Mesopotamian shekel was a unit of weight, and relied on the mass of something like 160 grains of bar...
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr
Paul & Dan discuss Werewolf and Mafia-style games -- party-style games with secret roles assigned, including a hidden evil faction, and a group of mostly-innocent civilians trying to survive and uncover the adversaries. What different variants of this game work the best? What psychological lessons can we take away? And what elements can be worked into your D&D and other role-playing games? Mafia, also known as Werewolf, is a Russian social deduction game created by Dimitry Davidoff in 19...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Dan hosts a watch party for the Fearful Ends actual play, as we roll into Halloween and the last few days of the Fearful Ends Kickstarter. Join us and watch along with Dan for the first time! Fearful Ends is a rules-light, story-centric roleplaying system for horror themed games. It features nihilistic stories about characters discovering impossible horrors. It aims to allow players to roleplay characters that experience mental or emotional collapse in a safe play environment that neither stigma...
Nov 06, 2023•2 hr 16 min
Dan & Paul are joined by Matt Finch, to talk about ways it can be more efficient in your D&D game setup to get random results with dice. Consider cards, chits, spinners, toppling block towers, or Matt's new app for the Fantasy Adventure Builder, now on Kickstarter? Dice were just the start! Physical devices were used to generate random numbers for thousands of years, primarily for gambling. Dice in particular are known for more than 5000 years (found on locations in modern Iraq and Iran)...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Dan & Paul host Justin Alexander, creator of the Alexandrian and the new book So You Want to be a Game Master, for an in-depth chat on the best ways to adapt content to and from D&D and other RPGs. What tricks work well? What things should you avoid? And what content is simply incompatible with other systems? Have you ever wanted to step into your favorite movie or book or television series? Do you want to take your friends on impossible adventures? Do you want to play a cunning elf, a d...
Oct 16, 2023•1 hr
How do we play characters reacting naturally to highly stressful situations without completely stressing ourselves out? Paul and Dan discuss the variety of safety tools in use in modern roleplaying systems, and how those impacted the development of Paul's upcoming horror RPG Fearful Ends. John Stavropoulos, creator of X-Card, said on why to use this safety tool: "The X-card creates a specific mood at the table. It says "We're here together. If you need to stop, we'll stop. The people playing are...
Oct 11, 2023•59 min
With the launch of the Fearful Ends Kickstarter imminent, Dan and Paul discuss roleplaying impossible situations. How do we maintain player autonomy when the deck is clearly stacked against them? What does it mean to "play to fail", and how do we enjoy games when there is little to no hope of success? Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) defined autonomy by three themes regarding contemporary ethics. Firstly, autonomy as the right for one to make their own decisions excluding any interference from others. ...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Without magic, how fast does a character heal in D&D? It may surprise you how much the answer has changed over the editions! Dan & Paul debate which rule is best. And what are hit points, anyway? Wound healing refers to a living organism's replacement of destroyed or damaged tissue by newly produced tissue. In undamaged skin, the epidermis (surface, epithelial layer) and dermis (deeper, connective layer) form a protective barrier against the external environment. When the barrier is brok...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Assassins were prominently available for hire in the earliest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and they became a core character class of their own in 1st Edition Advanced D&D. Where did they sneak off to since then? What's the best way to handle PC's wanting to run a solo assassination mission? Some famous assassination victims are Philip II of Macedon (336 BC), the father of Alexander the Great, and Roman dictator Julius Caesar (44 BC). Emperors of Rome often met their end in this way, as...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr
Dan and Paul dive into character sheets! Between edition changes and advancing technology, how have they changed throughout the years? And what's the best way to keep tabs on your character's most important details now? Original Edition Dungeons & Dragons (1974), did not include a character sheet. The first one ever published was in the Haven Herald fanzine of Stephen Tihor published on May 3, 1975. One month after, another character sheet was released in the APA magazine Alarums and Excursi...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Join Dan and Paul as they discuss the use of mazes in D&D adventures! They will explore the twists and turns of these navigation puzzles, and try to discover the line between captivating challenges and maddening exercises in frustration. The word maze is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. The pathways and walls in a maze are ...
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Paul & Dan chat about the huge influence that tales set on Mars (Burroughs' John Carter Barsoom stories) had on the design of early Dungeons & Dragons. Did you know that original D&D had a built-in table for Martian encounters in the core books? That Gygax released a "Warriors of Mars" book almost simultaneously with D&D? We'll delve into the ancient sands to find lost treasures! Warriors of Mars is a 1974 miniatures wargame rule book, written by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume and pu...
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Dan & Paul chat about using the world around them to create D&D and other TTRPG scenarios. They share personal anecdotes of times they stumbled upon real places that sparked their creativity, reinforcing the notion that the real world is a goldmine of inspiration for game masters and storytellers.
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr
Dan & Paul chat about different weather systems for D&D they've seen over the years. Do you prefer yours simple, or very detailed? Dice-based or DM narrative fiat? And why is it so important for wilderness adventures and wargaming? Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of computer simulation in the 1950s that numer...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Fresh from playing the Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game, Dan and Paul discuss their experience with various editions of the Paranoia RPG. Stay alert, trust no one, and keep your laser handy! Paranoia is a humorous role-playing game set in a dystopian future along the lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, Logan's Run, and THX 1138; however, the tone of the game is rife with black humor, frequently tongue-in-cheek rather than dark and heavy. Most of the game's humor is derived from...
Jul 23, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Paul's acquired an ancient treasure: A copy of M.A.R. Barker's 1975 "War of Wizards" game, still in the shrink wrap, from Gary Gygax's personal collection no less! This is the first-ever publication set in Tékumel, the world of the Empire of the Petal Throne. Inspired by the D&D spellcasting system, it features two opposing wizards cast a barrage of spells at each other across an arena. What does these elder rules look like? Can Dan & Paul make sense of them within an hour? War of Wizard...
Jul 09, 2023•1 hr 32 min
Dan & Paul chat about the complications of invisibility in D&D, how to handle it, and how easily opponents can counter it, through the ages. How often have you cursed because of it? In fiction, people or objects can be rendered completely invisible by several means: Magical objects such as rings, cloaks and amulets can be worn to grant the wearer permanent invisibility (or temporary invisibility until the object is taken off). Magical potions can be consumed to grant temporary or permane...
Jun 26, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Paul & Dan share their thoughts on Unicorns, which have been part of the standard monster list since the earliest days. Are they meant to be magical, fey representations of ineffable mysteries? Or are they meant to be a high-level brute melee attacker? Do they really belong in the world of D&D at all? In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, ...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Dan & Paul give their thoughts on the 2023 movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. For old-school D&D players, is it worth the watch, or another one for the garderobe? Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a 2023 American fantasy heist comedy film directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Gilio from a story by Chris McKay and Gilio. Based on the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, it is set in the Fo...
Jun 05, 2023•58 min
Paul & Dan reflect on lessons we've learned for our D&D games based on playing wargames in the recent past. Is there anything we can use to improve our fantasy RPG? Heck, yes! The original Dungeons & Dragons set, subtitled Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures, was written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and was published by TSR in 1974 as a digest-sized boxed set in a brown wood-grain box. The set included three digest-s...
May 29, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Dan & Paul discuss the large variety of different morale rules in classic D&D -- and its roots in related wargaming. Which method is best? What would be most believable? What makes the best gameplay? What's easiest for the DM to manage? Clausewitz stresses the importance of morale and will for both the soldier and the commander. The soldier's first requirement is moral and physical courage, both the acceptance of responsibility and the suppression of fear. In order to survive the horror ...
May 22, 2023•48 min
Paul & Dan discuss the history of what counts as the "standard" die in D&D used for hit dice, damage, miscellaneous checks, and more. Was switching from the six-sided to the eight-sided die really such a great idea? Various shapes like two-sided or four-sided dice are documented in archaeological findings; for example, from Ancient Egypt and the Middle East. While the cubical six-sided die became the most common type in many parts of the world, other shapes were always known, like 20-sid...
May 15, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Dan & Paul reconsider some of the most feared undead in D&D -- wights, wraiths, and spectres. You know: the types that are most likely to drain your character's XP. How do you like your level draining best? The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by supernatural means, technology, or disease. I...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 3 min
