“Where’s Carlos?”

“Who?”

“Your hireling.”

“Oh. Crap. Right… uhh…. He’s been here the whole time.”

“Really? Even when that dragon attacked us?”

“I guess so?”

Never let this happen to you again.

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Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is designed as a sandbox. And not just in name only. It’s the real deal: A campaign where the players are empowered to either choose or define what their next scenario is going to be.

In the latest Advanced Gamemastery video, I simulate the opening sessions of a campaign in Icewind Dale, walking you through how a master GM brings the Forgotten Realms to life.

ICEWIND DALE ARTICLES
Review: Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden
Icewind Dale: Running the Sandbox
Icewind Dale: Travel Times
Icewind Dale: Goat-Ball
Sandbox & Simulation

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What are the three types of scenario hook? How can you twist them? Why should you have more than one? What’s a bait hook?

We have a new Advanced Gamemastery video today. I’d mentioned last week that I was hoping to test pilot some fancy new features in this video. The result? Onscreen titles! My hope is that they’ll increase the clarity of the presentation.

Good gaming! And I’ll see you at the table!

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I’m running a few days late with this week’s installment of Advanced Gamemastery.

I’m actually planning to modify my recording rig, but before doing that I wanted to get some raw footage in the bag, so I actually ended up filming the next three videos this week. It took a little longer than I’d hoped to finalize the scripts, but this way if the new rig doesn’t work for some reason, I’ll have some time to figure it out while still being able to roll out the other videos.

The next two videos have also been designed to test some “fancy” new features (like onscreen bullet points), but in a way that allows me to abandon those features and still have a good video in case it all goes horribly wrong. (If next week’s video doesn’t have any new stuff, you’ll know that something did, in fact, go horribly wrong.)

The videos so far, and in the upcoming slate, are mostly bouncing around the topics of mysteries and sandboxes in RPG scenario design. If you’re familiar with the site, I’m guessing that won’t come as a huge surprise to you! Advanced Gamemastery — and the channel as a whole — will continue branching out, but the Three Clue Rule and active play are fairly foundational concepts to a lot of the work that I do, so as new viewers discover the channel I want to make sure we’re all working from the same base.

Good gaming! And I’ll see you at the table!

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This week’s Advanced Gamemastery takes a first look (and then a much closer look!) at what it’s like to run a sandbox campaign. I use a D&D-esque campaign as the example, but the lessons can be applied to almost any RPG.

This is the third installment in the series. I’ve been very humbled by everyone’s excitement to see more of these videos! While I know it’s a cliche, it remains true that subscriptions, likes, and comments make a big difference in helping the channel grow! You can help bring these videos to a wider audience by training the algorithm!

If you’d like to keep helping the channel, though, can you do one more thing for me? Share the video! Whether that’s just texting it to someone you think would love it or posting it to social media, that would be huge!

I’d also love to chat about sandbox campaigns.

What have been your best/worst sandbox experiences?

What sandbox campaign have you always wanted to run/play?

Good gaming! And I’ll see you at the table!

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