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PODCAST

Running Off The Rails

Raymond O"Connor and Ariel Rascoe

Ray and Ariel equip new and experienced tabletop RPG players with actionable tips and tricks to bring their game to the next level. We have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for years now and truly believe that tabletop RPGs offer a unique life experience that everyone should enjoy. Find out how you can adapt your game to your players and ensure a successful adventure at your table.

leisure games

All Episodes

00:25:41

Creating an Emotional Journey | How to Pace Your D&D...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/11/21

Ray and Ariel discuss how to pace your dungeons and dragons adventure so the players have enough time to process all the great emotional stories you want to tell. When players are presented with conflict after conflict, the emotion of one story beat can get overshadowed by another. On the flip side, many sessions of d&d can feel slow if the story doesn't progress or the combats drag from round to round. Ray and Ariel talk through the structure of story beats in popular fiction and successful

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00:47:40

Three Ways to Split the Party

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/11/07

Ray and Ariel discuss one of the classic problems in dungeons and dragons: what to do when your players decide to split up. Specifically, they look at three different ways player characters can be separated during your sessions, even if they are technically in the same location. Ray and Ariel both love running games with split parties for different reasons, and share the successes they've had sharing the spotlight across a split group. Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RunningOffTheRails/ Website:

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00:35:12

Running 100 Demons! | Taking On Armies And Huge Scale...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/10/24

Ray and Ariel discuss Ray's recent experiences running a 100 Demon army against in his players. How can you as a DM deliver the fantasy of battling in an army in Dungeons and Dragons? We provide tips and tricks to help army combat be a hit at your table, no matter your player's level. Ray used MCDM's new minion rules available for free to help him run this combat with fast pacing. MCDM Flee Mortals free preview: https://shop.mcdmproductions.com/products/flee-mortals-preview-packet Reddit:

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00:39:45

Gloomhaven | Bring Retirement And Asymmetry To Your...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/10/10

Ray and Ariel discuss Ray's recent experiences playing Gloomhaven with his dungeons and dragons group. Gloomhaven has 11 secret classes that players unlock and play as they retire characters. This is very different from how folks typically play D&D 5e where they typically play one character per campaign. What would a game of Dungeons and Dragons look like if we embraced the idea that we would be retiring our strongest characters and starting new characters that slightly lagged the rest of the

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00:36:16

What Fifth Edition is Missing | Choosing a Setting...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/09/26

Ray and Ariel discuss the the benefit of running dnd in a detailed setting. Fifth edition is largely setting agnostic. People have used the fifth edition ruleset to run games in modern, ancient, high-magic, and low-magic fantasy genres. This gives people a ton of flexibility, but is in stark contrast with most RPGs (e.g. 7th Sea, Blades in the Dark, etc.). Ray and Ariel use some classic examples like the Dark Sun setting from older dungeons and dragons editions to show the benefits of choosing a

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00:27:51

Does Your Character Know Too Much? | Exploring The...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/09/20

Ray and Ariel discuss the Implicit Knowledge Disparity—the gap between what a player knows and what their character knows. When the player and their character are expected to know very little about the setting, dnd tends to run very smoothly. But when the character is expected to know a lot about the setting, you could end up with a large knowledge disparity. Ray and Ariel discuss how to design your campaign so that players implicitly know enough about the world to fulfill the fantasy you're excited

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00:41:04

Taking On High Level D&D | Lessons from EXU Calamity...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/08/29

Ray and Ariel both have found running high level dungeons and dragons to have serious challenges. Players have so many tools it can be hard to challenge them while building a story for your players that feels satisfying. Ray and Ariel look to examples of high magic, high power level adventures in Critical Role's EXU: Calamity and Netflix's DOTA Dragon Blood to discern what makes a good D&D setting for the highest tiers of power. The three most important lessons learned: no rest for the wicked,

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00:32:25

Buff Your Fighters, Nerf Your Wizards

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/08/15

Ray's player JJ feels that his Barbarian isn't as fun to play as Mark's Warlock or Ali's Cleric. This feeling that martial classes are under-tuned compared to spellcasting classes is a feeling that many players feel and take to the internet to discuss. Ray and Ariel lay out the meta reason why they believe this is the case and detail 3 separate approaches that DMs can take to solve this dilemma at their DnD tables. Website: https://runningofftherails.com Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences:

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00:44:03

How To Effectively Evaluate Game Balance At Your Table

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/08/01

Ray and Ariel discuss the loaded subject of "balance" in D&D. Ray asserts that balance is an illusion and that chasing it can be fruitless or a false target. After listening to this episode players and DMs will be able to more effectively evaluate balance at their table and make meaningful decisions that facilitate more fun for all of your players. Website: https://runningofftherails.com Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences:

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00:55:47

Better Mysteries Pt. 2 | Putting Pen to Paper With...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/07/18

Ray and Ariel follow up on the principles for great mysteries that they discussed in the previous episode to create their own mysteries. They each go through the mystery they wrote, discussing the specific tools and strategies they used to ensure that their players would get the full Mystery experience. Ray and Ariel share all the lessons learned from writing these mysteries, differentiating between the challenges of a short mystery and a mystery that is the centerpiece for a full campaign. If you

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00:51:49

Better Mysteries in D&D | Build Setting Appropriate...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/07/04

Ray and Ariel lay out how to deliver on the promise of the mystery genre at your D&D table. They start by teasing apart the nuances of an adventure that is structured around a mystery and how to give players the opportunity to solve a mystery themselves rather than explaining it as the players bear witness. Ray and Ariel discuss the core elements of mystery board games and video games and how to port those key innovations into our D&D experience. What makes a good suspect? What makes good

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00:31:15

Your First Homebrew Class | A Conversation with Cory...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/06/20

Cory joins Ariel to discuss the extensive process he went through when designing his first homebrew class. They discuss how to balance mechanics and thematics, and how to take a concept for a class and split it into subclasses. Then Ariel talks through some of the challenges he's having refining his homebrew class for the publishing process. 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

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00:25:13

The Morals in Our Games | A Discussion on Presentism

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/06/06

Ray and Ariel discuss how to have constructive conversations about the morals your party will live by and society's morals you introduce as a DM. D&D is only partially a medieval fantasy analog, and our morals as people outside the game are going to influence what we enjoy roleplaying at the table. But uncritically adhering to our modern day morals, aka Presentism, can hurt fantasy escapism in the same ways that being inconsiderate of our modern morals can. Ray and Ariel bring up their own

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00:17:53

Creating Iconic Heroes With Gestalt Leveling

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/05/23

Ray and Ariel discuss how to emulate larger-than-life characters from fiction in TTRPGs with a tool called Gestalt Leveling. Gestalt Leveling means that when your characters level, they gain the features of two different classes simultaneously. This works particularly well for small parties that might have too many gaps in their abilities. Many of the best larger-than-life characters are NPCs in your world. It can be difficult to make iconic NPCs because they can overshadow the players. A gestalt

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00:31:05

Escapism | Choosing Hard Problems To Avoid

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/05/09

Ray and Ariel discuss how to maintain Escapism in your game of Dungeons and Dragons. We discuss how tools like Lines and Veils can be used effectively to be deliberate about which hard problems you want to place front and center in your games, and which hard problems are better avoided. Don't forget our kickstarter will in 2 days! For more information, along with instructions for our gemstone dice giveaway (!!), click on the links below. Kickstarter:

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00:05:06

4 New Fiend Eminences | Janek Joins The Team | We Hit...

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/05/04

Ray makes a status announcement on behalf of the Emery's Log team. Janek has joined the team as an editor and prompted us to create 4 new fiend eminences. We hit our first stretch goal, and we will begin work on Za'Ul and his Spire of Bones. Also 5 new raffle entry methods are detailed on the Running off the Rails Kickstarter page. website: https://runningofftherails.com/kickstarter

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00:34:32

Betraying The Party

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/04/25

Ray and Ariel discuss how to betray the party without ruining a campaign. Betrayals are the climax of many great stories, and we want to include them in our tabletop fantasy fulfillment. Ray and Ariel discuss different ways a betrayal can be a win-win for the party and the betraying character instead of a zero sum game. It's important to think about how everyone can have fun before thinking about winning. Don't forget our kickstarter will end soon! For more information, along with instructions for

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00:05:37

$1000 Milestone And New Stretch Goals

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/04/19

Ray announces our Stretch Goals on behalf of the Emery's Log team and celebrates hitting the $1000 milestone. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences Running off the Rails website: https://runningofftherails.com/kickstarter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/

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00:06:24

Kickstarter Thank You Gift

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/04/15

Ray thanks the community on behalf of the Emery's Log team and announces an exciting thank you gift that will be getting added to Emery's Log. Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningofftherails/emerys-log-of-legendary-eminences Running off the Rails website: https://runningofftherails.com/kickstarter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningofftherails/

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00:02:24

Kickstarter Is Live Right Now

Running Off The Rails ·

2022/04/13

Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences is live on Kickstarter Right Now. We added some early backer options explicitly for long time listeners of the show, so be sure to check out the kickstarter sooner rather than later. If you would like a sample of the kickstarter, fill out the form at https://runningofftherails.com/kickstarter. Filling out the form will also enter you once into the URWizards Purple Cats Eye Gemstone Dice Giveaway. There will be up to 10 total opportunities to enter additional raffle

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102 results

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