Hook and Chance
172 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 months ago - ★★★★★ - 27 ratingsHook & Chance is a Dungeons and Dragons advice and game enrichment podcast for players and Dungeon Masters full of entertaining ideas for incredible games!
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Episodes
The Last-Minute Spooky-Time Session
October 30, 2023 11:00 - 53 minutes - 74.4 MBAll Hollows Eve is upon us, and like many, we often find ourselves scrambling to create a memorable Halloween gaming experience. Costume panic and game prep panic, it all feels the same. Can we muster up a session that we can run with minimal prep that feels unique and fun?
Let the King Be King ft. Ollo Clark
October 16, 2023 11:00 - 52 minutes - 73.9 MBEver wished your tabletop RPG sessions felt more like epic 'do-or-die' tales and less like casual dice-rolling? Well, in this episode, our friend Ollo delivers us a golden key to unlock another level of immersive storytelling and roleplay. Character status, both internal and external, is that roleplay key, but the players are the ones who hold it.
Simply Prep Flawless Encounters
October 02, 2023 14:33 - 57 minutes - 83.3 MBGreat moments are created on the foundation of well-designed encounters. But encounter prep is hard to get right every time. It's easy to forget something or miss the mark. We've done it in nearly every imaginable way. From those mistakes, and with the help of our patrons, we've created a system that streamlines great encounter prep. It's system agnostic. It has a broad definition of encounter. It's as thorough as possible while only including what is absolutely vital.
Confidently Plot Your Classic TTRPG Adventure
July 10, 2023 11:30 - 53 minutes - 78.1 MBHomebrew adventures. The unlimited freedom to follow the fun wherever it leads. The ability to create thrilling sessions time after time, following the path that the party feels driven to follow, and feels satisfied in doing so. This is what we want for our table. But there are so many ways to miss the mark. And we've missed it plenty. We've run meandering campaigns, spent hours on game prep only to not use it, or have just confused ourselves. Had cool ideas we didn't know where to put. We've...
The Secret to Purpose-Driven Villains
June 19, 2023 11:00 - 50 minutes - 73.1 MBThe final showdown. After smashing aside all the diversions, mental games, tricks and traps, the party has caught up to the villain. They've been forced to face their demons along the way, made sacrifices, but have finally earned the chance to end the villain's reign of terror once and for all. That's the kind of villain we want to bring to the table. And in this episode, we're discussing our best techniques for doing just that by creating a charismatic, manipulative father figure villain for...
Crafting Homebrew Horrors for Your Heroes
June 05, 2023 11:00 - 53 minutes - 78 MBSome of the best moments in a game come from when a brave party of adventurers stares the worst conjurings of your imagination in the eyes and says "Not today, death!" Especially when the monster feels unique, like it's come into the world just to face down these heroes, and even manages to shock and delight the players. In this episode, we show by example how we go about achieving exactly this.
Build a Likeable NPC in Stages
May 22, 2023 11:00 - 41 minutes - 57.6 MBNPC's are the tool of a GM. They are how you draw the players into your world, they're how you communicate with them, they're expressions of all your plots and schemes and worldbuilding. They're entertaining, they hold secrets to uncover, they allow great roleplay, and work together to create suspense! Easier to just say they do everything. So we better make 'em good. We offer our NPC Creation Guide in order to do just that.
Creating Conflicting Cultures
May 08, 2023 12:00 - 51 minutes - 74.9 MBWant to work up a corner of your world that feels rich with history, friendships, rivalries, and details that all kinda make sense? Something that makes the party curious, and allows you the space to improv more at the table, while keeping it all connected? That's what we're talking about today, with the help of our culture creator.
Four Corners of Corrupted Foes
April 24, 2023 12:00 - 43 minutes - 79.7 MBWant a faster route to planning out the major players in an adventure? Something that focuses you efforts like a laser, and results in a living, breathing world? In this episode we use the four-corner opposition method to create rich, dynamic antagonists for our adventure. Trying to cook up awesome villains can be tough. Many failed approaches were attempted before we found this one. We've spent ages crafting what felt like the perfect villain, only to have them not really resonate. We've jam...
Session Zero to Story-Driven Dungeon Crawl
April 10, 2023 12:00 - 48 minutes - 96.3 MBWant to ensure your TTRPG campaign is a success? Start with successful session zero. In the first episode of our first official season, we provide a complete guide that will help you give your players a game they'll love. Whether you use it as is, or just snag a few new ideas, you'll hear us talk through it and use it to establish the foundation for a new adventure.
Beware the Basilisk
February 27, 2023 12:00 - 48 minutes - 66.9 MBThe Basilisk. A violent, monstrous lizard that can turn you to stone with a glare. While fun at first glance, this monster betrayed us. The first time using it turned into a panic, when we realized how immediately and irreversibly deadly they can be against a fledgling party of adventurers. “Wait, petrified? Like, for good?” Not only that, but they come across like a beast to just plop in front of the party for slaying. But wait! Turns out there’s plenty of lore and real-world inspiration we ...
Running a Monumental Monster
February 06, 2023 13:00 - 55 minutes - 76.8 MBEver throw down a giant nasty monster only to have the most memorable moment be when you couldn’t figure out the hp math for a minute? Without the party even realizing this was supposed to be the fight? We’ve been there. The last episode introduced our method of running massive, world-ending monsters in a way that feels complex, with frenetic action, epic scale, and lots of collateral damage. In this episode, we take that format and flesh out three scenarios of different scales. Hopefully, i...
Planning a World-Ending Monster
January 30, 2023 12:04 - 54 minutes - 75.5 MBWe all desperately crave the boss monster moment. When we pull out the miniature bigger than our heads and slam it down on the table. The players go wild. One of them is screaming while ripping out chunks of hair. One is vomiting in their dice bag in the corner. One is lighting the map on fire. You sit back and cross your arms, a satisfied grin creeping across your face as the chaos grows. Okay, maybe that’s a little much. But in order to get this kind of grand reaction, there’s a little le...
Tame Your Game with Ticking Clocks
January 09, 2023 13:00 - 45 minutes - 62.4 MBIncredible concepts for games can be ruined without a few key details. Open-world "sandbox" games can leave players feeling lost and unmotivated, meandering through locations. Epic storylines can be swept away because the player characters didn't seem to care. Hours of game prep can be lost from players not realizing how compelling that direction could be. Grand finales can feel like math class. With just a few key details these problems vanish, and games can go as smoothly as we imagine they...
The Great Homage Heist ft. The GM Tim
December 28, 2022 13:00 - 55 minutes - 76.3 MBYou consume a story. Maybe a movie, or book. You love it. It speaks to you. It moves you. You want to jam it into your games, but how do you jam in the things that captured you? The things that matter? Throw in a character with a bullwhip and a fedora, you're not going to have what made Indiana Jones great. On the other hand, perhaps you are running dry on inspiration. Your mind, like ours, can act as a sieve that retains nothing of value. When it comes time for game prep, you slap at concep...
Alter Preceptions of Alter Self
December 12, 2022 13:01 - 39 minutes - 53.7 MBThere are some odd addendums in the spell description of Alter Self. The challenge of using this spell for both GMs and players is that the rules as written confines us from the places where our imaginations naturally go. What a pain. With some minor clarifications and gentle relaxing of the rules, we can find some middle ground that both sides of the table can love.
How to Defend Your Lair ft. Keith Ammann
November 28, 2022 13:00 - 56 minutes - 77.1 MBReturning with another literal book full of wisdom is Keith Ammann. He's bringing the same strategic brilliance that he's brought to monster and player offense to base defense. It creates games that feel grounded, flexible, and full of potential. Most of all, it gives you the tools to create the lair of anyone or any monster you can dream up. We love it, and we think you will too.
Secrets of the Firbolg
November 14, 2022 13:00 - 46 minutes - 64.4 MBThe Firbolg represents an archetype that's been around a long time, and is a blast to play—the gentle, nature-loving giant. Like most player options, however, there's a few traps to fall in if we don't consider their potential. Firbolgs are more than just the cultural equivalent of druids. And they can offer so much more than cliches about hippies or becoming the "shaggy" of the group.
Using Tropes with Intent ft. Paige Ford
October 31, 2022 11:00 - 47 minutes - 65.8 MBThe group of adventurers pledging themselves to a dangerous mission...The guttural clicking of a monster stalking the party...A passing shadow that clues the party to look up, its source an enormous red dragon. All tropes! All Incredible moments! We were once resistant to the power of tropes, until we realized that you can't avoid them, and that they're actually a useful tool for running games. They're a shorthand that gets everybody into the moment because we all have a meaningful reference...
The Revenant Revival
October 17, 2022 11:00 - 43 minutes - 59.9 MBRevenants capture a particular genre of monster, and we love it. They have been represented in the great slashers in the form of characters like Jason and Michael Meyers. No matter how many times you think you got 'em, they're back and angrier than ever. And as a GM, nothing sounds more fun than chasing the party with an undead foe that, no matter how many times you blast to bits or behead, will just keep coming. But to use them in a satisfying way, as always, we need to do more than plop t...
Rules of Engagement ft. Heavyarms
October 03, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 83.4 MBEvery rule should engage. That's the episode. Playing D&D can feel like you're constantly getting buckets of rules tossed in your face, and you're trying to sort out which ones matter. Then there are rivers of homebrew. How could we possibly know what's good, and what's trash? With the question "Does it engage?", which is what our incredible guest Heavyarms is here to help with. He's created some of the most useful supplements we've ever touched, including The Armorer's Handbook and The Alche...
Rust Monsters: The Biggest Rustholes
September 19, 2022 11:00 - 36 minutes - 49.5 MBIt's always tempting to use monsters like the rust monster because they seem iconic. Classics. Gotta try 'em at least once. The problem comes when we mix the original punishing design principles of D&D with the modern character and story first playstyle that we love so much. Now they just feel like an annoying trap that steals from me. In this episode, we adapt the Rust monster to the way we like to play games.
The Modron Mathematical Mayhem
September 05, 2022 11:00 - 49 minutes - 67.8 MBSo we've got dimension-surfing cyborgs with cultural values, motivations, and personalities. Now we have to plan for the inevitability that some frantic adventurer is gonna wanna throw down. But as they're currently presented, we're a little underwhelmed by their combat dynamism. Advanced beings from a plane of law, and they're throwing javelins at us? In this episode, we aim to create encounters with Modrons that engage, confound, and allow for triumphant victories.
The Modron Metaphysical Motivation
August 22, 2022 11:00 - 56 minutes - 77.4 MBModrons capture attention and imagination—bio-mechanical beings from an alien plane, with reality-bending inspirations. But when we start unpacking the lore, we can't figure out how or why to use them, how to roleplay a modron, how they behave, or what they really want. So in this episode, we answer these questions by tweaking the concept while staying true to its roots.
Find Familiars Unforgettable
August 08, 2022 12:00 - 43 minutes - 60.4 MBThese magical minions add so much to a character. They're tiny strategic powerhouses that possess pure condensed roleplay potential. They're the dark matter of RPGs. Yet the same problems pop up again and again with these critters. They're easily forgotten, it's hard to get others invested in them, we keep leaning on the one gag that got a laugh until they're just a punchline, or with a massive amount of backstory, they start to take up too much game time. This episode is about creating just ...
A Chimera of Chaos
July 25, 2022 11:00 - 45 minutes - 62.7 MBChimeras are legendary creatures that have invaded folk's imagination since the ancient Greeks cooked them up. An epic three-headed beast conquered by the son of a god. Juicy. But have you ever been a part of an uninspired Chimera fight? Yes, they're deadly, but after a couple flyby triple head attacks, things get stale. In this episode, we talk about building up to a Chimera reveal and spicing up combat to engage every player at your table.
Beyond D&D ft. The GM Tim
July 11, 2022 11:00 - 44 minutes - 61.6 MBThere are many games with near-infinite themes, genres, flavors, new ideas, and fresh inspiration. It's an exciting world of possibility, and we'd love to play them all. Of course, there's only so much time, money, or x resource that we have to try these new games. Unfortunately, this stops us from even beginning to explore different systems. This episode aims to give you the same nudge we needed. The GMTim, with his experience as a professional DM running dozens of different systems, present...
Hazardous Hag Bargains
July 02, 2022 19:35 - 43 minutes - 59.4 MBHags offer so much potential as ruthless negotiators, incredibly clever antagonists and uneasy allies. But like many of the most brilliant monsters out there, their plots can be hard to actually conjure up in our games. And not just that, but the classic hag tales are ones in which someone a little foolish enters a bargain we all know they shouldn't have. So we need the ability to come up with clever plots that our players don't automatically dismiss. This episode aims to give you the steps t...
How to Win at Warlock Characters
June 13, 2022 11:01 - 41 minutes - 57.1 MBWarlocks inspire a lot of wonder, right out of the gate. They've got an incredible story hook baked right in, and one can sit there considering how terrifying they look for ages. But where we've fallen down before is really making that hook pay off. This episode explores the themes and potential stories that warlocks offer us, and how to play them to their heights.
Hold Person Handily
May 30, 2022 11:00 - 40 minutes - 56.1 MBHold Person is wildly powerful and feels pretty cool when you get to snag a baddie with it. But it's one of the classic save or suck spells, meaning that either nothing happens, or something absolutely awful happens. This means dice start flying out of pure rage at the table when your barbarian is stuck in place during a climactic throw-down. Well, we demand better from our spells, and we hope you enjoy our exploration in making this enchantment feel as gripping as it sounds.
A More Brutal Bulette
May 16, 2022 11:00 - 45 minutes - 62.6 MBThe Bulette is such a cool monster. A deadly tunneling, armored hunter, a leaping surprise attacker, a vicious apex predator. So then why does running one exactly as they allude to feel so lackluster? It turns out the answer may all be in the build-up.
Pacing like a Producer ft. Roz Young
May 02, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 83.3 MBEver find yourself scrambling to hit the gas, or notice that something is getting stale, but you just can't tell what? Well, this episode is packed with techniques that will keep everyone on the edge of their seats. The wisdom comes from the experience of our incredible guest Roz Young, the masterful storyteller of Ready to Roll, a boundary-pushing actual play YouTube series.
A Study in Spectacular Sentient Items
April 18, 2022 12:00 - 46 minutes - 64.5 MBEver thrown in a sentient item, thinking it would be an epic fantasy moment, only to have it become a joke? Or forgotten? A forgotten joke? Nothing worse. In this episode, we get into how to avoid their pitfalls and what you can do to unleash the many wondrous powers they give not just the heroes of your story, but you as the DM. We also discuss The Beasts of the Dissonance, an incredible new resource for dark fantasy loving DM's.
Show, Don't Tell ft. Ollo Clark
April 04, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 124 MBThose great sessions that are packed with character moments, epic fights, and emotional highs seem almost magical. Well, this episode unlocks a piece of that magic. We talk to Ollo Clark from Escape Plan Games all about how the storytelling concept "show, don't tell" can apply to all the elements of TTRPG's, and help us encourage those memorable moments.
Create a Cult Mystery
March 21, 2022 11:00 - 52 minutes - 72.6 MBIf you listened to our last episode, you've got an original cult to grip your players with their twisted, dastardly plans. Well, now it's time to play out those plans. And it's not always easy to prep for a game that needs to give players a plot to unravel, horrifying cult activities, and a captivating villain to lead the way. There are so many missteps that can quickly derail the tension and terror you want to build in these games. That's why in this episode we explore how to use a collectio...
Essentials to Crafting a Diabolical Cult
March 07, 2022 12:05 - 55 minutes - 75.8 MBD&D cults have some entertaining details, to be sure. Chanting, robes, and funky daggers are fun for the whole family. But what we've always run into is that beyond this, they're simply another group of evildoers that must be stopped, most likely with a mace to the face. But when we take a look at real cult-like behavior, from the charismatic leaders to the psychological manipulation they use to induct the innocents of your world, they become a force to be reckoned with. Your party is going t...
5 Steps for Memorable Taverns ft. Escape Plan Games
February 28, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBWe've all sat down in the tavern, only to not know where to go next. As GM we've accidentally described the blandest, most cookie-cutter fantasy drinking hole, and can't conjure up an NPC that does more than asking "what're ye havin'?" while everyone looks around, hoping for something to engage with. Well, that's why Mike Pisani and Colin Heffernan from Escape Plan Games join us in this episode to bring us techniques and tools to create more dynamic and inspiring taverns.
The Tragic Backstory Made Useful
February 21, 2022 12:00 - 50 minutes - 68.9 MBHave you ever felt the backstory pains that we used to? This was our strategy: We write an elaborate backstory full of murder, mystery, and utter loss. We imagine telling our friends around the gaming table, hearing their "oohs" and "aahs" as their minds are blown by our creative genius. Then we get to the game and realize that it's probably inappropriate to give a half-hour monologue about how Goretrax the dragon emperor tricked us into shooting our family into the sun. And so the backstory...
Fear, Cause Fear, and the Frightened Condition
February 07, 2022 12:00 - 53 minutes - 73 MBWhen you're in the middle of an epic fight, whether you're the one inspiring the darkest fears in your enemies, or they're the one summoning the terror within you, it feels like that should be a big deal, right? Yet what we so often end up with is a restrictive mechanic slapped down that makes someone hang out for a turn or two. But we're talking about one of our most primal human emotions here! The one that can reduce us to a shivering pile, or cause us to funnel it all into pure rage and ex...
Moral Dilemmas Made Meaningful
January 24, 2022 12:00 - 56 minutes - 77.1 MBPlaying good vs. evil games is great! You get to take down baddies, fighting your way towards ultimate and definitive justice! Morality, though? That's a whole different kind of fun. For the role-player, it’s the fun of putting a character through the trenches of what defines them. For the DM, it’s turning the party into a group of philosophers, debating the best path forward, and accepting its consequences. That's why in this episode we break down moral dilemmas, and figure out a way to buil...
Create Sorcerers with Art
January 17, 2022 12:00 - 45 minutes - 63 MBSorcerers are channelers of cosmic power, and that's rad. They don't need all that book-learning, they've just got that something special. Roleplaying that something special can be a little tricky, however, and figuring out how a sorcerer might behave has never been as obvious as some classes. Our pitch is that sorcerers that draw from the chaos of magic is shockingly similar to artists that draw from the chaos of creative inspiration. So, we read The Mind of the Artist: Personality and the D...
Kuo-Toa - The Deep Ones Rise
January 10, 2022 12:00 - 54 minutes - 74.5 MBKuo-Toa seem like just another throw-away low-level mook at first glance. But with a little attention paid to their strengths, they can become a powerhouse of creepy, unsettling, off-putting, and downright nasty gameplay. Bring their god-conjuring freakiness in full force to your party.
Creating Holidays for your Homebrew
November 29, 2021 12:00 - 47 minutes - 64.8 MBSpecial celebrations can be a great addition to your games. You can use them to flesh out and ground your cultures. You can use them to add to the backstory of a character. You can use them to insert some truly bizarre events that wouldn't otherwise fit. Weirdly, you can even create traditions in your games that your players are excited to come back to! The possibilities are many, and this is why we wanted to cover how to create great holidays quickly.
Detect Thoughts Could Be Steeped in Tension
November 22, 2021 12:00 - 39 minutes - 54.9 MBTrying to respond to spells like Detect Thoughts can be tough. The challenge for a DM is either improvising a rich inner world for every NPC or revealing your secrets too soon due to a single spell. That's why we wanted to tackle this one. It threw us some serious curveballs when we were new to running the game. In this episode, we get into what surface thoughts are, how to simplify them in your own mind, and an option for making the spell part of a tense scene where information is teased out...
Designing Lovable NPC's ft. Geoffrey Golden
November 15, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 121 MBThere's nothing worse than trying to introduce a character you think is going to kick off the adventure with whoops and hollers, but ending up with everyone leaning back, getting hungry, and talking about the cool movie they're gonna watch once this game is over. In this episode, we're going to learn to create characters that engage. Characters that get players to lean in. Take notice. All of a sudden they care where the story is going because this new character is a part of it.
Five Simple Steps to Prep Every Story
November 08, 2021 12:00 - 44 minutes - 61.3 MBAs newer DM's, we would prep for games by throwing d&d spaghetti at the wall and trying to see what would stick. It was a mess. This podcast is about finding systems and structures that help with that, to consistently play great games. Well, it's pretty rare we discover something simple that can be applied to every layer of our prep and our collective storytelling, but that's what this episode is about. We hope these steps help you as much as they did us.
Collaborative Session Zeros ft. David Rae
November 01, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 103 MBThere are a million ways to conduct a session zero, and a lot of them will work. The basic thing to keep in mind is getting everyone on the same page, and the more we learn, the more we realize this means so much more than telling your players what the game's gonna be. In the effort to continue our education, we have an awesome guest joining us for this episode. David Rae, a talented comedian, improv performer, and DM, shares with us how he goes about getting his players invested.
Make Menacing Goblins
October 25, 2021 11:00 - 51 minutes - 71.4 MBGoblins get plenty of attention, and we love the classic chaotic little beasts. A lot of the time, they end up wherever a game master needs something to fight. But this episode is all about getting into a goblins head and figuring out what they're really up to. Next time you use goblins in a game your players will learn to fear the relentlessly clever survivability the goblin brings to every encounter.
The Secrets of the Allip
October 18, 2021 11:00 - 36 minutes - 49.8 MBHalloween is creeping up like an Allip creeps through walls, and we are bringing you another monster episode that really fits the tone for your Halloween games. The Allip is an underused undead, and that's fair. They have so much potential, it would be a damn shame to just slap an encounter in willy-nilly. These spirits can be plot movers, mystery creators, mind-melters and more.
Craft Chaotic Elemental Planes
October 04, 2021 11:00 - 36 minutes - 49.7 MBContinuing our Monster Month because elementals are monsters too! Elementals are very inspiring, but we find the details leave a lot to be desired from the perspectives of where do they live and what do they do? So, we figured out those answers for ourselves, and if you enjoy it, for your games too!