We’re starting another new series here at The Flickcast. This time around it’s all about books with the first edition of What We’re Reading. So, what are we reading? Today, it’s some helpful D&D books from author Keith Ammann.

These helpful D&D books are The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters and Live to Tell the Tale: Combat Tactics for Players. We know, those titles are kinda long, but they’re really good books, so we won’t hold it against him. In fact, the info in these books is so helpful and useful, we don’t mind if he uses twenty or thirty words for the title of his next one!

Moving on, you can probably guess these D&D books deal with various aspects of playing Dungeons & Dragons, especially combat. The first, targeted at Dungeon Masters . . .

“. . . lightens the DM’s burden by helping you understand your monsters’ abilities and develop battle plans before your fifth edition D&D game session begins. Just as soldiers don’t whip out their field manuals for the first time when they’re already under fire, a DM shouldn’t wait until the PCs have just encountered a dozen bullywugs to figure out how they advance, fight, and retreat.”

It really helps DM’s get inside the minds and motivations of NPC’s and creatures in the game. It also makes combat encounters more realistic and fun. Sounds great, right? We’ve used it during many of our games with great success. 

The second book is targeted at players and deals with their mindset and tactics during combat. It’s . . . 

“. . . an introduction to combat tactics for fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons players, Live to Tell the Tale evens the score. It examines the fundamentals of D&D battles: combat roles, party composition, attacking combos, advantage and disadvantage, Stealth and Perception, and more…including the ever-important consideration of how to run away!”

It also offers several combat scenarios featuring character and monsters of increasingly higher level. This helps to better illustrate the tactics of each character class, abilities available at various levels, what to do with them during combat and the roles each class can play to help ensure combat success. It’s pretty cool. 

If you’re a D&D player, Dungeon Master (or both) and you want to improve your games, especially during combat, give these books a try. You’ll definately learn something. We sure did. 

You can find these books at Amazon, or your local bookstore. We get a lot of our books at Book People, which is one of our favorite local shops here in Austin. Please support local bookstores when you can. 

Keith’s next book, featuring more combat tactics and monsters from Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, is available for pre-order now. And in addition to the books, you can get more insights and info over at his blog.

What are you reading and enjoying these days? Let us know in the comments or hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Happy reading!

Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.  
Artwork: Saga Press / Keith Ammann

Being at home during a pandemic forced us to find new ways to entertain ourselves. One of the ways that’s worked best for us is playing games online. So, in that spirit, we’re kicking off a new series at The Flickcast called What We’re Playing. 

Each week we’ll highlight a game we’re playing at home. For the first installment of What We’re Playing, we turn to an old favorite: Dungeons & Dragons. 

D&D was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and first published in 1974. Since then its popularity grew considerably. Even with a slump in the late 80s and early 90s, D&D is still played by millions of people around the world. That popularity has exploded even more during the last year or two. You can probably guess why.

If you’re not familiar, or have never played, you may wonder “What’s D&D?” For that we turn to Wizards of the Coast, the company who publishes the game. From their official D&D website:

“The core of D&D is storytelling. You and your friends tell a story together, guiding your heroes through quests for treasure, battles with deadly foes, daring rescues, courtly intrigue, and much more.”

Sounds fun, right? Traditionally, D&D is played by a group of friends sitting together at a table. One person is the Dungeon Master, or DM. This person creates and runs the game, spins tales of adventure, plays all non-player characters (or NPCs) and generally is the go-to for all rules and what happens during the campaign.

The players (not the DM) create characters of their own and rollplay them during the game. You can choose from a variety of character occupations including fighter, ranger, rogue or wizard and races such as human, elf, dwarf or halfling. Then, once characters are created, players explore dungeons or ancient ruins, interact with NPCs and creatures like Orcs or Giants and even, yes, fight an actual dragon.

That’s how it’s usually done . . with everyone together around a table. But what if getting together isn’t possible?

Welcome to a brand new episode of The Flickcast, a pop culture podcast about stuff nerds love. On this week’s show Chris welcomes guest Ashley Warren to talk about a whole bunch of stuff they love.

A small example of this includes writing and her writing process, her love for Dungeons & Dragons, what it means to be a DM’s Guild Adept, working from home, creating official D&D content, saving the world and a whole lot more.

It’s a big episode chock full of insights, thoughts and ideas. Plus, they manage to have some fun along the way too. Hope you enjoy it.

And be sure to check out all of Ashley’s work at her website ScribeMind, the RPG Writers Workshop, the DM’s Guild and find her most recent project Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden wherever D&D adventures are sold.

Thanks for listening.

WARNING: This episode may contain discussions about COVID-19, mental health and quarantine. We understand not everyone is in a place to talk about or hear discussions surrounding these issues. Please do what’s best for you. Stay safe everyone.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.

Photo: Wizards of the Coast

Opening and end music by Kevin MacLeod under Creative Commons License

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If you’re a geek or gamer (or both), chances are you’ve played Dungeons & Dragons, or know someone who has. First introduced in 1974, D&D went on to become an international phenomenon selling over $1 Billion worth of books, 20-sided dice and related materials in over 30 countries.

To this day, many leaders in entertainment, and other industries, hail D&D as a major inspirations for their creativity and imagination. In short, it was quite a game. And to many, it still is. But where did it come from?

The common wisdom is D&D was invented by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, two friends who’s love of gaming led them to create the first rule books, and more, for what would become modern D&D and later, Advanced D&D. But is that the whole story?

Over at Geek Dad they’ve wondered the same thing and a statement about the discovery of a rare manuscript may just hold the key to unlocking the mystery of who really created the game. According to the statement by the Strong National Museum of Play, “A rare manuscript believed by some experts to be the earliest existing version of Dungeons & Dragons” is now on display at their Rochester, NY, museum.

YouTube channel Geek & Sundry has announced two new shows premiering next week. On Tuesday, November 13^th, the satirical sci-fi comedy Space Janitors begins. The show follows two custodians, Mike and Darby, who do their best to keep things neat and tidy aboard an evil space station that’s in the middle of an intergalactic war.

Then on Thursday, November 15^th On The Table will fill the tabletop gaming void left by Geek & Sundry’s TableTop, which is going on hiatus until January. Hosted by Warren Johnston, On The Table offers gaming fans the latest news and gives them a chance to submit their own tips, videos and more.

Check out teasers for both shows after the break and be sure to visit Geek and Sundry’s channel for more nerdy goodness.

Tim Schafer’s Doublefine Adventure Kickstarter fund seemed to revolutionize videogame development forever- but with the success of Miskatonic School for Girls, it seems that tabletop gaming had already figured out how great Kickstarter can be. The project, which raised $52,000 dollars more than the creators asked for it, was available for purchase in the tabletop area of PAX East last weekend, and I sat down with some friends to check it out.

The Miskatonic School for Girls is a very unique institution of higher learning for women, set in the universe of H.P. Lovecraft and Cthulu. Players take on the role of the students at the school, as they attempt to defeat their teachers and survive the day without losing all their sanity.

What makes Miskatonic School for Girls unique in the scheme of deckbuilding games is rather than just using friendship points to assemble new classmate cards to make your own deck powerful, you can use your nightmare points to buy faculty cards that are forced into your opponent’s decks and pin them against difficult foes. But, concentrate too much on messing with other people’s decks without arming your own with friendly cards, and you may go crazy before you manage to defeat your fellow players.