Episodes
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In this episode Ariel and Ray take one last look at the Armorsmith's Handbook, a massive endeavor from the Grim Press that has to introduce twenty unique places to your campaign setting. Ray and Ariel discuss how to read and prepare box text so that your players immediately know where they are and why they should care about it. Then they talk about how to expand on a setting idea once you've settled on where you want to go, so that the setting feels alive and your players feel engaged after the first impression.
Sign up for your copy of the Armorsmith's Handbook at bit.ly/armorsmith today!
Included in this this 175+ page sourcebook, we've created 20 drop-in merchants for your game of 5th Edition.
Accompanying each armorsmith is
A fully-illustrated portrait art piece A detailed background and roleplaying guideline A top-down map of their shop and a full table of unique wares tailored to their shop specifically. On these tables you will find food, wonderous magic items, spell scrolls, potions, and of course, magical armor. In fact, Aaron Gentry and Ray created 10 new pieces of magical armor for each armorsmith and Sandy Lawson created art for every single piece. That's 200 brand new fully arted pieces of magical armor for your game of 5th edition. -
Sign up for your copy of the Armorsmith's Handbook at bit.ly/armorsmith today!
Included in this this 175+ page sourcebook, we've created 20 drop-in merchants for your game of 5th Edition.
Accompanying each armorsmith is
A fully-illustrated portrait art piece A detailed background and roleplaying guideline A top-down map of their shop and a full table of unique wares tailored to their shop specifically. On these tables you will find food, wonderous magic items, spell scrolls, potions, and of course, magical armor. In fact, Aaron Gentry and Ray created 10 new pieces of magical armor for each armorsmith and Sandy Lawson created art for every single piece. That's 200 brand new fully arted pieces of magical armor for your game of 5th edition. -
Missing episodes?
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In this episode, Ariel tries to convince Ray that the very best magic items have abilities that make your character immediately recognizable, but don't overshadow their already heroic abilities, using magic items that Ray himself designed in Grim Press's new Armorsmith's Handbook!
Ariel picks his five favorite magic items out of the two hundred brand new magic armors in the Grim Press Fifth Edition supplement, The Armorsmith's Handbook. Ariel argues why each modestly-powered item is the perfect fit for the PCs at your table, while Ray gives behind the scenes details on how they were designed.
Armorer's Handbook: https://bit.ly/armorsmith
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Physical Copy:
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397328/Emerys-Log-of-Legendary-Eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Last Summer Ray collaborated as a co-author on a book of 20 Armorers and the 200 pieces of magical armor that they offer. Ray discusses what the experience of writing the ~35,000 words was like and what the book has to offer players and Dungeon Masters.
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Ray and Ariel play 2024 catch up. We discuss what has been going on in our lives and chat about books and media we've been consuming. We will return to topic-focused, prepared content next episode.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Physical Copy:
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397328/Emerys-Log-of-Legendary-Eminences
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss how to make your players feel like they are as infamous as Robin Hood or Geralt of Rivia in their own fantasy worlds. Unfortunately, these cherished characters from fiction are also infamous, and risk being chased out of any town they enter. So we need a system of notoriety for our games that still allow the PCs to walk through the world even after they've made some enemies.
Ray and Ariel review two examples of Notoriety: the bounties from One Piece which create benchmarks for progress and comparison with other pirates, vs Reputation from Gloomhaven which is multidirectional but can actively erase progress. Through these examples, Ray and Ariel devise a framework that is both multidirectional and tracks consistent forward progress.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Physical Copy:
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397328/Emerys-Log-of-Legendary-Eminences
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss how to make a villain that your characters will care about—specifically care about killing them ASAP. This episode covers a classic screenwriting technique called "Kick the Dog" which establishes the bad guy by having them hurt a helpless character in the world.
Ray and Ariel review two great examples of Dog Kicking from the new One Piece series and the Disney Classic, The Emperor's new groove. Both masterclasses in establishing characters you want to punch right in the jaw.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Physical Copy:
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397328/Emerys-Log-of-Legendary-Eminences
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss the different categories of sentient magic items that appear in popular fiction and Dungeons and Dragons.
From Nightblood to the One Ring, we deconstruct their sentience so that you can use the pieces to build your own items at your own tables.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss Ariel's homebrew class he first played seven(!) years ago that is in its final stages before publishing to the DMSGuild. The Medium is a fortune-telling, multi-verse traveling class for 5th edition inspired by all kinds of plane-shifting experiences from Stranger Things to Everything Everywhere All at Once. Ray and Ariel go over the process of homebrewing, the core functions of the class, and how core DnD classes don't always offer the same things that you can find in homebrew material.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel have a more casual conversation this episode discussing the playtest Ray ran for the Emery's kickstarter stretch goal, featuring Za'ul the Lich King. They discuss what to prioritize for a major boss battle, and how to inject some new mechanics into minion fights with Za'ul's magical golems as examples. Ray and Ariel also tease the next episode where they will be reviewing Ariel's push-your-luck style homebrew class, which (he promises) will finally be ready for publishing.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel provide mechanics that address specific criticisms they made of 5e in the previous episode. Here are some short rules that will...
Prompt players to choose between a more diverse set of weapons Inspire new rivalries between different types of spellcasters Help you to present more varied loot and rewards to your players.Three design tools modern games use to make interesting encounters: power budgets, counters, and hands/throws. Dungeons and Dragons falls short in implementing these design principles sometimes for the sake of simplicity. Let's fix it.
Show Notes: https://www.runningofftherails.com/en-us/articles/decisions-episode-notes
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss the three design tools modern games use to make interesting encounters: power budgets, counters, and hands/throws. Dungeons and Dragons falls short in implementing these design principles sometimes for the sake of simplicity, but often because it is catering to a different experience than a video game with instantaneous game-matching and player feedback. Ray and Ariel dig deeper though, and look for the specific places where Dungeon and Dragons could implement these concepts and improve on players' decision-making experience
Amazing video by Game Designer's Toolkit that discusses Trade-offs, Counters, Hands and Throws and how video games get balanced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXQzdXPTb2A&ab_channel=GameMaker%27sToolkit
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss how to spice up the Find Familiar spell in dungeons and dragons. Familiars can often feel like a spell effect in our campaigns rather than fully fledged characters. Ray and Ariel were both inspired the hilarious fox familiar in Worlds Beyond Number to think up different ways DMs can create memorable familiars for their players.
Ray and Ariel present mechanics for familiar progression, discuss how to treat familiars as NPCs in your world, and come up with a few modifications to the find familiar ritual.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss achieving prestige fantasies in D&D 5e. Why did the 5e Prestige Classes unearthed arcana miss the mark?
Then Ray and Ariel present mechanics for how they think that discovered and unexpected character paths can be successful in D&D 5e.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Link to Worlds Beyond Number: https://worldsbeyondnumber.com/
Ray and Ariel discuss their newest source of D&D inspiration, Worlds Beyond Number. Their first project, The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One is a captivating coming of age story. The story told by Brennan Lee Mulligan, Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, and Lou Wilson invokes the wonder of Hayao Miyazaki movies and inspires us to bring a more curated experience to our games of D&D.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel continue their discussion on how to create puzzles ingrained in the setting of your world that your players will enjoy. They have each prepared puzzles to add some concrete examples for how to run puzzles effectively and published them in the RotR blog here https://www.runningofftherails.com/en-us/articles. In this episode, Ray and Ariel work through six points that helped guide their puzzle design. They use these checkpoints to make sure that the puzzles are a meaningful part of their campaign setting, and their players have total agency in how they tackle them.
If you enjoyed the show today, please follow us on Instagram and Twitter for updates about giveaways, blog posts, new Youtube content, and new DM's guild content.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel discuss their problems with puzzles in the traditional D&D style. They talk through different ways puzzles can be more involved in the story of your campaign, while simultaneously not getting in the way of a good role playing session. The best puzzles can be the focal point of a fun and memorable session, but Ray and Ariel have both played in more sessions where the puzzle interrupted gameplay and even prevented the party from continuing the plot of the campaign.
In this episode, the goal is to dissect all the possible options for puzzles, and put them back together in a multi-faceted, thematic way. Ray and Ariel walk through a variety of types of puzzles and give examples that are more nuanced and less of a road block than puzzles you'll find in published modules. That way the adventuring party can enjoy the session by creatively solving the puzzle or leaving it for some other adventuring party to figure out while they move on to the rest of the story.If you enjoyed the show today, please follow us on Instagram and Twitter for updates about giveaways, blog posts, new Youtube content, and new DM's guild content.
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel look back on the year, share updates on Emery's Log of Legendary Resistances kickstarter, and discuss plans for the future of the podcast.
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RunningOffTheRails/
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Ray and Ariel layout examples and tools that will dungeon masters implement cliffhangers in their games of D&D. Cliffhangers define how the time in between sessions feel to your players. They can be crucial for keeping a new group of players together during the time before they are invested in their characters. They can also be sources of hype and inspire plans and character motivation in the downtime in between sessions. Drive player engagement during the times away from the table by bringing cliffhangers to your table.
This episode draws heavy inspiration from Joseph Bendoski and J Washburn's creative writing podcast, Start Writing. Listen to one of their episodes about cliffhangers here: https://joseph-bendoski.com/sw106-dis-chapter-cliffhangers
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RunningOffTheRails/Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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Game designer Heavyarms joins Ray to discuss the Legacy of the Ranger in 5th edition dungeons and dragons. Ray and Heavyarms take a look at the fantastical origins of the ranger and try to make sense of the different versions that have been published by Wizards of the Coast. Then Heavyarms discusses the approach he took when designing his own 5th Edition Ranger class and why it delivers on the promise of the ranger where other attempts have fallen short.
Heavyarms Ranger class: https://www.heavyarms.com/products/ranger?variant=42490049953956Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RunningOffTheRails/
Website: https://runningofftherails.com
Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunningOffRails
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