CHAINMAIL: 08.11.2023

Random GM Tip – Three Point Plotting - The Alexandrian

This is an Alexandrian article that somehow slipped through the cracks for me. I thought I'd caught up with all of Justin's blog posts but, alas, another really fantastic piece of advice eluded me. Three-point plotting refers to: disruption, reversal, and conclusion. With these three tools, you can create consistently exciting and addicting D&D sessions. Justin makes them extremely easy to understand in the article so I recommend giving it a read!

Oops No Plot: The Raw Power of Episodic Storytelling - LocalScriptMan

If you were to compare a session of D&D to another medium, in my opinion, the TV show is the one that captures the flow of the game the most similarly. Sessions flow from week to week like the episodes of a show. It's not just the pacing that mirrors TV shows, but also the tendency to be character-focused. While TV shows explore different themes and may have an overarching plot, the focus is usually on the characters and how they navigate situations. This video does an amazing job at analyzing how to tell character-centered stories and is a really great resource to have in order to help construct better content for your games. At its center, D&D is about the characters so it's best to explore resources that help us do just that.

Principia Apocrypha - Ben Milton & Steven Lumpkin

"The more of the following a campaign has, the more old school it is: high lethality, an open world, a lack of pre-written plot, an emphasis on creative problem solving, an exploration-centered reward system (usually XP for treasure), a disregard for "encounter balance", and the use of random tables to generate world elements that surprise both players and referees. Also, a strong do-it-yourself attitude and a willingness to share your work and use the creativity of others in your game."

While D&D 5E is the first TTPRG I've ever played, I am a child of the OSR (Old School Revival). The majority of the articles I share in this newsletter are from blogs that I myself found extremely helpful while discovering what it means to be a DM and basically all of them are from the OSR background. To me, the OSR tends to understand the core components of what makes TTRPGs so special. The subtitle for Principia Apocrypha reads "Elementary Axioms & Aphorisms On Running & Playing Tabletop RPGs In The Old School Style".  This free pdf is a collection of advice on how to run an old-school style game of D&D as well as how to align yourself as a player with the old-school mentality. It is super concise, easy to follow, and is fairly short.

I am so into it I think I'm going to print this out and leave it on my desk for easy reference.

I hope these resources inspire you! If you haven't already, the best way to stay up to date with everything hothead related is to join the discord. Leave a comment down below and let me know which resource from this week's newsletter is your favorite. See you next week!