Alphastream

The Alphastream Game Design Blog

Reviewing Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons: A Mastering Dungeons Index

Learn all about Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons with this index of our Mastering Dungeons podcast review!

February 22, 2022 · Leave a comment

Reviewing Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for Players and DMs: A Mastering Dungeons Index

We provide an index to our podcast coverage of the book Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

July 15, 2021 · Leave a comment

Special Reasons Why DMs Have Trouble Challenging Players

We review special reasons why a DM may have trouble achieving the right challenge level for their players.

June 23, 2021 · 2 Comments

Reviewing Player and DM Options in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything: A Mastering Dungeons Index

We provide an index to our podcast coverage of the book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

April 6, 2021 · Leave a comment

Mastering Dungeons? Absolutely!

I join Shawn Merwin as the new co-host on my all-time favorite podcast!

July 24, 2020 · Leave a comment

My Process for Creating a Cool Character (using Fantasy AGE as an example)

A great character concept makes the games we play even better. How can we create memorable characters? What is a good process to tease ideas from our minds? What can we learn from different RPGs? And, how do we create characters in Fantasy AGE? Let’s find out!

May 7, 2020 · 2 Comments

The Seldom Recognized Dangers of Playing Ranged or Stealthy Characters

Range and Stealth offer awesome offensive potential, but carry risks players may not foresee. Here’s how to mitigate the issues.

March 19, 2020 · 2 Comments

Critical Role and Bringing Emotional Investment to Campaigns

Critical Role, the acclaimed and influential livestream series, showcases how a campaign can create emotional invested players. Find out how to create emotionally rich play in your campaign.

November 16, 2017 · 1 Comment

Breathing (Extra) Life into Characters

Extra-Life is an opportunity to help children’s hospitals, and to explore how to create a memorable character based on a few initial parameters. Exciting developments are coming soon due to donors’ efforts, and the week is stuffed full of podcasts!

September 22, 2016 · Leave a comment

5 Questions for Character Creation

5 Questions is a supplement designed to help you create robust and interesting characters. It works well as both a DM and player tool.

January 30, 2016 · 4 Comments

Using Classic Adventures with DnD Next: ToEE and Relationships

Learn how to converte the classic Temple of Elemental Evil to 5E, and how to incorporate FIASCO-styled relationships into your D&D campaign.

October 17, 2015 · 2 Comments

Defining Character

Every RPG struggles with how best to allow players to tell the story of the characters, both their origin or backstory and their ongoing story as they advance in power through accomplishments.

October 13, 2015 · 4 Comments

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