The West Marches | Running the Game 

I think that even if someone doesn't run a West Marches style game, there's still a lot of advice here that you can port over to a "regular" D&D campaign such as: letting players make up their own map, dropping multiple plot lines and seeing which ones the players gravitate towards, and exploring the wilds. I've never run a West Marches game, but I have used those tactics and it has turned out great!

"This is a hopefully a short video." Haha. Silly Matt. There's no such thing on this channel.

I am currently the president of the newly founded D&D club at the college I attend. Our members have expressed interest in having the games be set in one world and having the ability to switch groups if they wanted. This game type seems perfect for what we are looking for.

When it's the TPK, players have a hell of a story to tell when they get back to town The most metagame thing I've ever heard)

I would like to make my opinion heard: I do not want shorter videos. Your videos are incredibly indepth and inspiring. I put one on while I work on something else and it is very enriching. If I miss out on pieces of information, I'm not concerned because, like the reference manuals of the game, these videos are fantastic reference materials. Any time I need a little push in a topic described in a video, I can just throw it on again. The explanations and enthusiasm match the first time I watched, only now I am more ready for the information, and I will absorb more. Long story short, your videos are best when they're long

A lot of people assume a West Marches game is the same as a Hexcrawl, but I want to do another video on hexcrawling. Then there'll be one video on Sandboxing, one on the West Marches, and one on Hexcrawling, and people can combine them however they want.

Typical of Dave not to pair up with Lisa...That is such a Dave move

My conspiracy theory is that no one has actually run a west marches or hex crawls. We just love to write and plan them but none has actually happened. Who has 15 friends??

The players explore the maze and kill the Minotaur, but discover a door that can only be opened by a Minotaur. Later, they learn that a Necromancer has moved into the maze. Another group (or the same group exploring the rumor) goes to explore the maze to discover the Necromancer has raised a Skeletal Minotaur, opened the door, and now has access to all the epic loot! Or maybe another floor of the maze! After clearing out the goblins, wolves have been savaging the livestock. Upon exploring further, the players discover that a Werewolf has taken over the pack, leading their savagery. This Werewolf is being opposed by a Werebear, who was once the Werewolf's mentor and friend, who can provide the players with a silver weapon. Remember, every decision should have a consequence.

"Hopefully a short video" *Looks at run time* - *laughs*

Wow, this video is so relevant to some issues I am having with my campaign right now, it really gave me a lot to think about, thanks Matt!

HOLY CRAP For about a week I had this idea in my head... this idea that I really wanted to make a big group conversation with all the players, DMs and aspiring players that I know to schedule stuff so I wouldn't have to deal with all these smaller conversations and wouldn't have to organize everything myself. And the entire time I was thinking: How in the world can I do this efficiently? Won't this become super annoying an complicated? How can I get players to open their mouth and actually organise something? How can I do this without getting overloaded with one shots I will have to run for entirely different groups, with different goals, different levels and perhaps even in different worlds? How can I get players to not only play with other people but with other characters than the one they grew attached to without invalidating the established story? And then, from the heavens shone a brilliant light, blinding not only my eyes, but my very soul. Divine music filled my ears, haunting and joyous, otherwordly yet familiar, as a radiant figure descended through the clouds. His form was sexy, his beard and hair glorious and he smelled of cat. And Matthew Colville, for that was his name, leaned down to me and whispered softly in my ear: "Don't worry, I got you." And all became clear. So yeah I'm totally gonna run a west marches style game. It's gonna be great (I hope)!

An idea for this to keep the level difference from breaking it would be retiring characters. Say that, at 10th level, your character has to retire. Retired characters can still do npc things like share stories, sell items they found, build strongholds in or near the town, and maybe rescue/ shelter current PCs.

Thank you for posting Matt, we know you're busy man. We appreciate you and all your hard work!!! Stay up & take care 💪

I was already organizing a west marches game by the time the video ended

DUUUDE! THIS TOTALLY FITS MY GROUP OF FRIENDS! Three dm's and like 15 players. Thank you!

I've always thought that you could very easily convert the West Marches style of game into a guild based adventure as well. Every player is a member of an Adventurer's Guild, which are hired for something as simple as exterminating a few rats in a lady's house to backing up an entire army or even forming an entire army to deal with another kingdom or some equally large threat. The players form different groups and take different quests, depending on what they think they can handle or how much the reward(s) interests them. The quality and quantity of the rewards for different quests could vary drastically, allowing for anywhere from 1-10 players being involved in a single mission.

I've run four of these kinds of campaigns over the last five years for my University club, we call them 'Living Campaigns'. Each campaign had around 30-50 players (depending on popularity that year) and between 4-9 DMs. We had game nights twice a week, DMs would post their availability, players would form a group and then play the game. Their characters lived in a central hub, a group would go on an adventure and hopefully survive to return to the central hub at the end of the session. We encouraged Write Ups by awarding XP for doing them. Trying something new this year with fixed groups. Essentially, four parties running around in the same world. Really excited for it - four DMs and nineteen players in the world of Ord ( a nod to you Matt :) ).

Need to give the players a reason to explore the world? Have them be hired by the Cartographer's Guild. Why hasn't the world been explored? People just arrived on this world/continent, and it hasn't been explored.

Great video. I was dazzled when I first read the 4-part series on West Marches years ago. A straight Robbins'-Rules table would be too much for me, as I've already experienced intra-competitive dragon-slaying from my days of leading raids in World of Warcraft. While the constant shifting of players who group out of compatibility, convenience, affinity and opportunity is fascinating, the agony and ecstasy are every bit as volatile as Robbins himself recounts - and enough for one lifetime. What I have done is incorporate the decentralized, player-driven, thread-pull style of West Marches in a SWRPG table. Starting with a sector map of 40 systems, each with a Mass Effect Codex-style write-up, I gave players a narrative push in the beginning, and have since maintained a supply of 5-6 new or developed hooks and leads each session. My players love it - when they've said, "There's so much to do, it's almost overwhelming," they've meant it as a compliment.

IF ANYONE RUNS A WEST MARCHES GAME ON ROLL20, let me know! Dying to try this!!

I'd have thought you would have spared a few minutes to mention Steven Lumpkin's The West Marches that was on Rollplay- it was the practical implementation of the West Marches principals. The first few episodes were rocky, but I was extremely impressed with the way Lumpkin procedurally generated game material (he made a mass of random encounters, locations, and roll charts that would often indicate what the players happened across as they explored the wilderness), but managed to make it seem fresh and impromptu. -Nerdarchist Ryan

Oh my gosh! @Matthew Colville THIS is what I've been doing with my son! Didn't know it was a certain style of play. It's just that we can't get the same people together on a regular basis, so I started with your Delian Tomb, and he played to great effect with one of my friends who happened to be in the same waiting room as us. :) Followed up with a companion tomb I made for Lady Delia, whom the knights were sworn to protect. This he played with his best friend, and they've requested a forest adventure next! I didn't know I was doing a certain style - it just fell out that different people are available at different times. My son and I are the only constants thus far. Thank you so much for your Books, and your videos - it's always a pleasure to listen and learn and try things out.

it sounds crazy, but even just idea of having 15-20 people all in like a metagroup could really lead to something amazing. all I could think about while watching was having all my players being apart of a town's Adventurer's Guild. So it gives a sense of camaraderie. What sounds like a lot of fun is having a Session 0 for a game like this. people hammer out their characters but also add in a bit of role playing to it. say it's the Guild's headquarters and everyone is meeting each other as characters for the first time. Allows them to connect and network and gives a face to the characters so when things lead to that forum style, everyone has a general idea of what people are like.

Did anyone else notice the picture in the background move at 22:09? I went back a few second to make sure I saw it right 😂

Ive been running a west marches style game for a couple of years now, we use a priority system based on the last time they played. So I announce when I can run, and people say they want to play and go by priority. The person with the highest priority gets to pick the adventure, usually that player gets feedback from the group on the adventure they want to pursue. Its been really great as a fall back when one of my regular campaigns has player that needs to cancel we will just run a west marches session. Or if I randomly have some time I can run an adventure its easy to get a group together for it.

I really really like this style! It's something I would love to try but I only have like 4 people irl that do want to play! The idea that you make a huge map and do a lot of work once, and then let them decide is something that sounds like a thing I would love to DM. It Would also weed out the people that "want to play" but never bring it up or ask about it so they clearly don't ACTUALLY want to play. This also is great to help out me in particular because it allows me to work on improvisation with small prompts, and being good at improv is great in a lot of situations in dnd and real life. Great video Matt !

wow this came at the perfect time. I just talked to a group of old highschool friends about playing DnD and got a much bigger group interested than i thought i would. I'm definitely going to propose this and give it a shot!

this has been the style of play i've used for decades,love that this has been discussed on your feed.....great job sir

Really glad you've done a video about this; been wanting to get back into RPGs for years and this is one of the things I want to run. Uh, it's Monday tomorrow - it's already Monday here ... go to bed!

In the far corner of Balkan, a small city got a games club in 2014. 3 DMs then made a westmarch type game that they ran for a few years. There was over a 100 players when they stopped. Thats why in our community we call it a 'North of the gate' type game. It was marvelous, the wilds were north of the civilisation split by a wall. The small village on the wall, north most part of civilisation was called 'The gate'. Everything beyond it was a wild, lawlessa land. I met soo many new ppl, loads started DnD because of i its been over two years its done and we still have relics of maps, quests and dead famous characters sheets on poster boards in the game club.

i actually currently play in a marches game where our home base was destroyed by waking a sleeping god :')

I ran a West Marches style game in the Forgotten Realms setting in the middle of the desert of Anauroch, using the 'magical, shifting' sands to make dungeons appear and disappear as I built content for them. I also placed a strong focus on the town and the town building aspect, to the point that NPCs were just there to provide labor and the occasional nudge for the player-run shhops, farms, aquaducts, apothecaries, lumbermills and mines. One interesting behavior i encountered early on would be that while describing a room in a dungeon, I'd have people interrupt me, asking, "So, if I stole that table and put it on my wagon, would I need to find wood for my archery workshop?" or just outright taking 20 while their characters rolled empty casks full of spoiled wine out of the dungeon to clean back at home and use for new alcohol to sell to trading caravans that THEY set up and escorted.

I feel like tracking time in a West Marches style game would be a nightmare.

For a guy I don’t know, you sure are a reliable friend when it comes to consistently having the answers to the questions I have. 🙏🏽

Oh man. I didn't know I needed to be in a game like this, but I do. A subreddit is the perfect forum for this.

I'm watching back these videos for like the fourth time, and now I remember why on earth I invented the throne that magically atracted those who sought power, because that way I could put the players at the other end of the map and they would find more and more powerful and power-hungry monsters and peple the coser they got to the throne of Orrah. And that's why I made the curse which is centred at the throne so that the people of Orrah struggles to organize into larger settlements because "all those who wield illegitimite power (i.e. power not through the throne) shall succumb to madness, illness, or obsession with obtaining the throne for it's power shall be the only one!". I need to keep watching these as I'm rebooting my world!

Thanks for making this vid! It's helping me begin working on my West Marches project again.

I was just watching your 'Running the Game' playlist for the millionth time and what a treat it was to get to a new video! These are great resources, Matt, thank you so much for making these videos.

I think a discord server would probably be perfect for a west marches game, especially if you had specific channels for roleplaying, posting drafts of maps, etc

I just spent so much time coming up with basically this idea of a "map quest" lol. Your maps are marked with stuff like "enemy territory" and stuff like that, and the world grows every time they befriend a new faction, getting access to a set of maps and a more nuanced perspective on world events.

Now you have the creative juices flowing, I absolutely need to attempt this.

Something else to add from some that uses Microscope: if you have players that want to build a rich backstory, play microscope 1x1 with that player and yourself as a DM. Make the book ends be the character's birth and the end when they are introduced into the party. The player who would be previously struggling to create a solid backstory will soon be able to take the reigns and help you create plothooks, places of interest, NPCs, etc. Then while you're going through your campaign, your player and their character will be able to notice and have an emotional time to your NPCs!

20:30 "Heard you had a tough time in the Barrow" "Sure did! Got jumped by half a dozen specters!" "Wow, how'd you survive?" "I didn't! I died!.......any powerful clerics come into town recently?"

An idea i've been toying with for a while is a rebellion themed campaign. The ruling class of the land is some brutal empire, and races such as orcs, dragonborn, goliaths are enslaved or hunted. The goal of the campaign would be to overthrow the empire, so the PC's would start by going on simple missions or maybe even joining the rebellion in the first place, but then gradually start planning their own ambushes, attempts to retake towns, become promoted within the rebellion, before finishing with a huge siege on the capital. I think the explanation of this style of play is exactly what i've been looking for to convince me to go for it. A West Marches game where players plan ambushes, supply runs, recruitment opportunities then dispatch in small groups to go do those things would be fantastic.

I'm not sure my bunch of DnD nooblets would be ready to roll with something like this, but if there's one point that I took out of this video and will definitely apply to my next games is asking the players what do they want to do next at the end of a session. That way I can write something that is interestiing to them and it takes the responsibility of keeping them entertained all on my own off my shoulders.

Giving players extra awards for writing session reports is a briliant idea. The sandbox campaign I am currently preparing is all about hunting ancient relics like Indiana Jones. Characters writing chronicles of their expeditions and sharing it with the explorer community would be something that makes a lot of sense to give them extra experience as explorers. Giving a +10% XP bonus per adventure for writing a report would be a great way to get the other players up to date on what happened and also get everyone more invested in their own characters and the rest of the parties as people.

29:11 That should be the episode thumbnail!

"Hopefully a short video," said Matt Colville, not realizing at the time that he had never been more wrong. I mean, not like it's problem. Loved this video, super inspiring as always.

When I watched this video for the first time I got inspired. I started running my first attempt that horribly failed, then i got some of my Dutch only speaking friends who said they wanted to play and now I’m knees deep in a campaign where they shape everything whilst trying to translate/make the game in Dutch. Fuck my life, but totally worth it would do 5 years earlier if I knew about dnd then.

I played a west marches game for a couple of months but didn't really like it, since I was always playing with different players and dm's and it was like whatever I did last game storywise and rp-wise, didn't matter. It felt more like a bunch of one shots in a setting than a game where I can have character development. I think min-maxers would like it more than people who like rp. We didn't have a main goal that would've taken many games to unfold.

The sound followed by the facial expressions at 29:08; Priceless. For everything else, you can look for it in the "doobly-doo".

I watched this video because I am co-DMing a Western Marches campaign with another DM, and learned so much, I started this series from the beginning. There is something to learn in every single video. You've inspired so much of my content and my friends have even become better players because of it, even in my standard campaign. Thank you for your help!

I've never heard anyone pronounce "cliques" as "cleeks". My entire life, everyone has pronounced it "clicks". Just nitpicking, good video regardless!

I've never run or played a West Marches campaign but I have run two "normal" games where I had my players create the world they were playing in with Microscope beforehand. After they created the timeline they picked what era they wanted the campaign to take place in and I would come up with an adventure that made sense in that time . Both times my players loved it . It gave all of them input into what kind of game they wanted to play and even my new players had some grasp of the lore of the world because they helped to create it.

Dear Matt, I love ur stuff and as a new DM I have a question for you: why does the painting/relief moves between 22:08 and 22:09!? But seriously, this is very interesting and useful stuff. Thank you.

I've accidentally fallen into a style that's a bit like West Marches, without really meaning to. Players got to town. We decided to have a few days downtime. And then nobody actually stayed put! One player is off investigating the Goblin Caves. One player is looking for herbs to make health potions in a nearby forest. Another player is off looting an abandoned wizard's tower. So we've split into subgroups and are arranging to play whenever is convenient. At some point everybody will come back together again I'm sure. I was worried at first! But it's sort of working out. Really interesting.

I read about this Game/style years ago and I've been hyped about it ever since. I think it has an interesting feel to it while allowing a player made story to evolve out of it. Really glad to see that others feel the same!

I've been running a D&D game for kids at the public library the past few months and now that we're getting over 10 kids asking to play, this method seems like something I might want to try. I've been DMing for years, but have never heard of this type of gaming, so thank you for talking about it!

any idea when your Stronghold Rules will be on Kickstarter Matt. I'd like to throw some money your way for completely unselfish reasons of course

This is SO perfect for everybody's busy schedule. I was thinking about just running a bunch of One Shots - but linking them in a single world, with mix-and-match groups is just brilliant! :D

"Short video" *30min long* Now to watch it.

Awesome video as always Matt! Thanks for taking time to relay awesome content and ideas to us!

My friends and I run a somewhat similar game. We have a collection of once-off adventures that take place on islands in a massive, caribbean-esque archipelago. Each of us (8 total) is a sailor on a ship. There are a few ground rules: One able-bodied crew member (doesn't have scurvy) must always be aboard the ship. (This is the DM's character.) Any scurvy-ridden crew members must remain in the belowdecks until they regain healthy status. (Scurvy is for the characters who can't make it to the session.) All treasure (except magic items) is shared in common. No one can do anything to the ship without the consent of ALL players (regardless of "scurvy"). The DM for a session brings a map of the island's coast and anything you could see from the sea (assuming that the ship would sail around at least once to get a feel for things). After that, the adventuring party has to discover everything out for themselves. An adventure prepared by the DM typically reveals itself in short order, although we have had sessions where we never actually found the adventure and just interacted with NPCs and completed minor side-quests. All-in-all, it's a pretty robust and useful system, and it is easy to abandon and then pick up months later, and its also incredibly easy to add or lose party members. The main benefit, though, is that there is never a game-long DM, and every gets to play an equal amount of the time.

So I saw this a little over 3 months ago...and promptly implemented it for a player group of about 30 people at my local university. We just wrapped up the end of gameplay for the semester (finals > D&D) and are now 70 players strong. I recruited additional DMs too to make it flow better, the final DM guild for the campaign contained 14 DMs of varying skill. In 3 months we... Played more than 100 sessions. More than 600 hours of play. Across ~25 adventures. We've adapted many rules from earlier editions to accommodate the motivations of players, such as the 3.5e strongholds supplement book. It's been CRAZY fun... Thanks man!

west Marches sounds like the perfect solution for someone like me, who has my consistent home group but also knows lots of people who want to get into D&D but I can't nor do I want to run multiple groups at once. Thanks so much for elucidating the process in a clear and concise way like this.

I don't know much about Kingdom or Microscope- but I love the idea of using them to make a campaign setting. I think it would be cool to have players who are playing learned characters with high INT scores to create the history of the realm, but frame it as "this is what we have learned from studying history" so it's imperfect knowledge that I can play with. Meanwhile, the players with less learned characters would be playing Kingdom to make their "home" town. This way, players and their characters would be working from the same semi-accurate knowledge of the world at large and the local history.

Great video - yes, we used to play (something) like this (sorta...) - I'm actually putting together a video to discuss how we did it, where I was, and what you can take from the way we played to improve gameplay, now. Well explained, here, though - the West Marches style. The MOST IMPORTANT part of the West Marches style - and also how we played - is the structure. The party starts each adventure session in town (or at the fort or the encampment or village or wherever your 'home base' is...) and then ENDS each adventure session BACK at the home base. As to mapping, we ALWAYS had one player who was the mapper... and, no, I didn't correct them when they got something wrong unless what they got wrong was my fault for not describing it accurately enough. Let me tell ya, Matt... one of the funniest things was when the mapper FORGOT HIS MAP when we played the next session... OH - and one other thing you didn't mention? When you have more than one DM in on this sort of campaign - we had four where I lived, including me... The DMs can play a character when someone else is running the game.

Matt, your eyes are looking a bit tired. You working too hard, bud?

I dont care how long your videos are because I can always count on them being interesting and informative. So many tubers make short D&D videos that are unwatchable and fluffy. You do it right every time Matt. Thank you.

This is the first I've heard of a West Marches game, but I was in a long-running campaign that evolved into a similar style of game. After 2-3 years of weekly gaming, the PCs had built up wealth, power, titles, lands, and--most importantly--a rich history in the game world. As players moved away or got caught up in life, a great deal of the gaming was done solo, with a player calling the GM to say they wanted to spend an hour or two working on their PC's personal affairs. If they needed some help, they'd call in a friend or two. If they needed a lot of help, they'd call in three or four. Occasionally one of the players who had moved away would be visiting, and--funny thing--key game-world events often coincided with these visits, driving the old gang to get back together. That second wind of the campaign is the most enjoyable game I've been involved in. It felt extremely organic, as it was based on the web of personal histories and relations and goals of the individual members of that old adventuring party.

AHHH!!! I've only got 1 left before I'm caught up. Glad this isn't as short as expected. Love your channel and looking forward to future content!

4:10. Back in my day at Lafayette Elementary School it was kind of similar. But I remember you kind of ended up with an understanding among all the DMs in our school, so no 2 DMs had the same modules, a bunch of pretended all our campaigns were in the same world so players could jump from one to the other. Then the players would ask around 'at the Keep on the Borderlands or in Hommlet' to find out who has what module. So we didnt have steady groups per se, but people gathered around specific dungeons, which in our neighborhood would be with which DM.

Played microscope about a month ago to generate a world to RP in. our first session is in a few days and the world has all these sentient swords that keep stories. all decisions were figured out through duelling, which lead to glorious duelling arenas. one dude tripped and dropped his Sword of Poor Decisions which fell into a lake leading to the rise of the aquatic Piscean Empire (fish people). Later on the first sword broke, which lead to duelling being banned, but no one knew how to make decisions and duelling started up again, this lead to people grinding up swords to turn them into dust so people could snort them like cocaine... it started off in a gladiator styled theme and then around when the sword broke it was all cyberpunk. 10/10

Thanks for peeling that off for us, really needed that

After watching this video I realized that i should DM a West Marches game, which was unknown to me, furthermore all of these tips made me confident that i can do it! Thanks Matt!

I am honestly in love with all this information. Giving me a whole new perspective on how to DM and getting players more involved. Thanks for all the videos Matt ^_^

I did buy his books and honestly they are pretty good. I finished the first book and immediately picked up the second book and started reading it because I HAD to know what happened next. Thank you Mattew great work!

"who cares if there's a TPK. now they have a hell of story to tell when they get back" I get what you meant here, but also lol

Another great thing with west marches is just random encounters. A low level party faces a manticore and it flees but not after dealing massice damage to the party. Now everytime someone who heard that story travels through that forrest the wonder (or hopefully worry) about running into that manticore.

So literally an hour before this came out, I was rewatching your video on the Deck of Many Things (one of my favorite topics you've talked about) and thinking "Man, it's already been a week since the last episode. When's the next one? I'm jonesing for it!" Then you uploaded this. Idk what it is about your videos, but I genuinely sit in anticipation for your next tip. I'm just about days away from starting my first dm campaign and I'm dying for every tip you have to give before it begins. Long story short, I really appreciate not just the advice, but the tangents and stories, and even references, you provide that, however minor they are, provide massive inspiration to me.

Matt, I took the plunge and bought Priest a couple days ago. I just started reading it and now its 3 am and I realized I've read over a fourth of the book. You have a new fan!

Thanks Mat. When I started to follow this channel I knew nothing about rpgs, but your tips and experience guided me through my first games as player and as Dm. Greetings from Europe, Peace, out!

The biggest problem with this style of gaming when it comes to the people I usually play with is that you need to be back in town at the end of each session. This limits how much a group is able to achieve, because not only can the travelling itself take a lot of time (with random encounters and getting lost etc), but they also need to finish the dungeon in one session, or find some kind of excuse as to why they have to leave without exploring all of it, even if they still have plenty of resources and lots of health left.

I was thinking of running a PMD style campaign with all of the players in the same explorers guild, and just running different people different nights. This style of play is perfect! Thank you!

This video has the duration of "1.3 Colville". An unit of measurement that is roughly 24 minutes. Congrats!

That one porthole view of Matt's face through one of the templates toward the end of the video was hilarious.

Wow.... running a game the way you describe with kingdom and microscope sounds amazing!!!!

This sounds like a great way to play the game! I love the idea of running a game where people who cannot commit to a weekly game can play when they have time.

Hey, you were great on Dragon Talk. That was a pleasant surprise, you showing up there. I'm glad Greg Tito grilled you on those stronghold rules, because seriously, let me at 'em.

Revisiting this video, really really fantastic stuff.

That look of pleasure when unpacking the templates :) Nothing can beat the fealoing of peeling away any kind of plastic

Just wanted to leave here that I will propose a West March style game for a group of people I've been doing some games. We've been runing like three to four games paralel to each other and everyone of them have been a really short one because people wont commit to play for more than two times a month for a couple months (which is understandeable, really). This might be just what we needed!

In the middle he proposes very Game-y things, including team limitations and write-up rewards... you could totally make them in-universe. The city is safe cause it’s got the Adventurer’s Guild. Adventurers are encouraged to mix up their party regularly, and write good reports.

I do like how this idea immediately puts one in mind of all the players being kind of like freelancers in a Slayers' Take kind of guild organisation, going out on jobs and coming back to compare notes and pay their percentage to the guild in exchange for their various facilities and support.

Matt peeling off the backing to the spell templates was incredibly pleasing

This video couldn't have been more timely. I'm having the issue of too many players and while I'm glad that so many of my friends are getting into the game, it is getting pretty chaotic. I think this will be perfect. Thanks for another great video Matt!

I know this is way, way late, but I was rewatching this and realized that since you like the idea of willingly leaning into the meta-game of 'these challenges would exist' or 'here is the monster stats', instead of arbitrarily assigning restrictions on who can travel together, you can put missions in different places with their different needs or skills. An area of anti-magic, or full of golems can make a spell caster want to pick a different mission, or if another mission is to save an arcane library threatened at the same time somewhere else. A mission requiring stealth from the whole team, or where the enemies all can heat metal or something would make people not want to fighter to come along. At the same time, finding a traveling blacksmith in a different area before he leaves would encourage them to find somewhere else to go for a little bit. This is a really fun idea, and I'm wondering how it worked out for any of you all.

I've played Microscope both just to play it, and also to help create the world for a 5E campaign. For the latter my friend Blake actually ran a few sessions of Microscope (of which I only played in 1-2) to create his world, and in particular the city that would be the main hub of adventures (The City of One Thousand Teeth) and it worked fantastically! Especially as I did not play in all of the formative Microscope games, I didn't know all of the history going into the actual 5E campaign set in the setting that he ran. I highly recommend this, though I might suggest playing a "for fun" game of both Kingdom and Microscope first to get familiar with how they work before using them as a tool.

goddammit, I love this man. every single second of this video is gold