These pages chronicle how a circle of friends who all happen to be talented voice actors built the most-watched tabletop role-playing livestream of all time.Discover dazzling new illustrations and richly written insights into the locations, characters, and adventures featured in the hundreds of episodes across Critical Role’s two campaigns, Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein. Go behind the scenes with archival photos and exclusive interviews with Dungeon Master Matt Mercer and the entire Critical Role cast as they explore their characters’ most triumphant moments and darkest hours. And celebrate the massive community of Critters who support and expand the show’s world through a highlighted tour of the crafts, cosplay, and art they create every day. Featuring a foreword from the cast, lush illustrations, and the inside story you won’t find anywhere else, this book is your indispensable guide to Critical Role. The adventure begins!

    It took startling leaps of imagination as well as careful thought and planning to create places like these: places that readers and players want to come back to again and again.Now, eleven of adventure gaming's top designers come together to share their insights into building worlds that gamers will never forget. Learn the secrets of designing a pantheon, creating a setting that provokes conflict, determining which historical details are necessary, and so much more.Take that creative leap, and create dazzling worlds of your own!Essays by Wolfgang Baur, Keith Baker, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, David "Zeb" Cook, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Michael A. Stackpole, Steve Winter, with an introduction by Ken Scholes.

    As an experienced dungeon master you've run dozens, if not hundreds of games. You put a lot of work into making your games great. What if there's another way to look at how you prepare your game? What if it turned out you could spend less time, less energy, and have a better game as a result?It's time to unleash the Lazy Dungeon Master.Written in the style of Sly Flourish's Dungeon Master Tips and Running Epic Tier D&D Games, The Lazy Dungeon Master shows a new approach to game preparation, one that takes less time and gives your game the freedom to grow at the table. This book will help dungeon master prepare awesome games for any version of D&D.Based on the real-world experiences of hundreds of dungeon masters and dozens of professional game designers, the Lazy Dungeon Master includes interviews with veteran D&D DMs and a complete toolkit to help you improvise an entire game.Whether you play 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Pathfinder, or the D&D Next playtest; The Lazy Dungeon Master has tips, techniques, and advice to make preparation easier and help you run a flexible and entertaining game.

     Fate Core is that engine. Fate Core is the latest evolution of the award-winning Fate roleplaying game system from Evil Hat Productions. We’ve streamlined and clarified the rules while maintaining the system’s trademark flexibility. Name your game; Fate Core can make it happen. Inside, you’ll discover: Easy-to-follow rules for character and world creation. Rock-solid storytelling advice for players and GMs to produce the best play experience. Clearly-defined systems to guide players both new and old. New and improved approaches to character actions, aspects, compels... and more! TELL YOUR TALE. ROLL THE DICE. EMBRACE YOUR FATE!

    Trade Paperback. Book Condition: Good. The cover does show some normal wear. Fraying on lamenation along edges of front and back cover.

    Want to explore an epic history of your own creation, hundreds or thousands of years long, all in an afternoon? That's Microscope.You won't play the game in chronological order. You can defy the limits of time and space, jumping backward or forward to explore the parts of the history that interest you. Want to leap a thousand years into the future and see how an institution shaped society? Want to jump back to the childhood of the king you just saw assassinated and find out what made him such a hated ruler? That’s normal in Microscope.You have vast power to create... and to destroy. Build beautiful, tranquil jewels of civilization and then consume them with nuclear fire. Zoom out to watch the majestic tide of history wash across empires, then zoom in and explore the lives of the people who endured it.Mock chronological order.Defy time and space.Build worlds and destroy them.A role-playing game for two to four players. No GM. No prep."Microscope is incredible! A truly brilliant design. Also, the book is extremely well done. Highly recommended."-John Harper, designer of Agon & Danger Patrol"Ben Robbins' Microscope may be the clearest-written game text I've ever read - which is helpful, because it is also one of the most innovative games I've come across in a long time. Microscope engagingly challenges assumptions and upends long-held conventions of play while delivering a singular and satisfying evening of gaming. And "fractal role playing" is no joke - the minute you finish, you'll want to dive back in and explore some interesting sliver of the vast history you just built."-Jason Morningstar, designer of Fiasco"It's been a long time that a game captures my attention like Microscope. Bypass the hype, it's a truly remarkable well-instruction'd game"-Andy Kitkowski, founder of story-games.com

    Join adventures renowned as they trek across Toril in the detailed, beautifully illustrated atlas. Ride with the Ffolk in the magical Moonshae Isles. Brave the brutal elements of Icewind Dale. Follow the gods as they wreak destruction from the Dales to Waterdeep. Watch as empires of East and West collide. Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of "The Atlas of the Dragonlance World", "The Atlas of Middle Earth", "The Atlas of Pern, and "The Atlas of the Land", now brings you the spectacular and dynamic settings of the Forgotten Realms.

    This is the essential volume for the well-equipped Dungeons and Dragons character.

    The Fiend Folio is a collection of monsters for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, similar in format to the original Monster Manual and effectively a supplement to that book.

    Maybe you and your girlfriend figured you could scare your wife into a divorce, but things went pear-shaped and now a gang of cranked-up Mexicans with latex gloves and a pit bull are looking for you.It seemed like such a good idea at the time.Fiasco is inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong - inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You'll play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won't go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. Lives and reputations will be lost, painful wisdom will be gained, and if you are really lucky, your guy just might end up back where he started.Fiasco is a GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust. It's like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it'd take to watch one.

    The Burning Wheel is an award winning fantasy roleplaying game in which player take on the roles of vibrant, dynamic characters whose very beliefs propel the story forward.

    

    This primer will teach you how to build living, breathing worlds for your players to explore; how to host game and manage game sessions; and how to create powerful experiences of adventure that your players will talk about for years to come. Learn the secret to becoming a judge, an adversary, a worldbuilder, and a storyteller and become an arbiter of worlds! “Every Macris campaign starts with a rich, open world; the edge of a massive map; and the ability to find adventure in any direction. After playing in a dozen of his campaigns, I can assure you that Macris is the best prepared, most thorough GM on the prime material plane. He balances “deadly adversary” and “the party’s greatest supporter” perfectly. I’ve been lucky to contribute to some renowned video game worlds, and to discus world design with some of the most accomplished writers alive. And I’m honestly not sure there’s been someone more thorough at and passionate for world building than Macris since ... maybe Tolkien? (Okay, maybe G.R.R. Martin, but he’s not as organized or efficient.) It takes organization, creativity, and careful technique to build a massive world efficiently and deliver it effectively, and Macris can show you how he does it.” - Dr. Michael Capps, award-winning videogame executive, writer, designer (*Gears of War*, *Fortnite*, *Unreal Tournament, Unreal Championship*) “Armed with decades of experience as both a player and a designer, Macris cuts to the marrow with razor sharp insights in an unapologetic and often painfully insightful analysis of every imaginable facet of being a Game Master. From implication of play inherent in a game’s design, to world building, to the often delicate nature of unspoken social contracts inherent in the hobby, the guidance found in Arbiter of Worlds is a much-needed breath of fresh air to veterans of the hobby and a forged-in-the-fire bootcamp for those taking their first steps behind the screen.” - James M. Spahn, Ennie and Origins Award Winning RPG designer “A superb read. He makes his points the way you would expect a Harvard-trained lawyer to do. If you read this book, you are going to come out knowing real things you did not know before that will help you run games at the table…” - Courtney Campbell, Hack & Slash

    To our knowledge, this is the first book entirely devoted to the process of prepping for tabletop RPGs.Never Unprepared breaks game prep down into its component phases—Brainstorming, Selection, Conceptualization, Documentation, and Review—and provides the tools you need to make the most of each phase. If you hate prep, you’ll find ways to make it more enjoyable. If you already have a great system for doing your prep, you’ll learn how to make it even better. Ten years in the making, Never Unprepared is award-winning author Phil Vecchione’s epic rock ballad to game prep.

    Sections address life in a feudal culture, the duties of the nobility, and the true meaning of knighthood. You'll find a complete system for the design and construction of castles, new BATTLESYSTEM rules for the resolution of sieges, a quick resolution system for massive military campaigns, and an assortment of generic castles to spark your imagination.