Episode 223 of Mastering Dungeons! Main topic: Monster Manual Previews! Previews have begun for the 2025 MM! Shawn and Teos discuss the preview and just how hard it is to create monster books. News: Pinball Wizards, Most Anticipated RPGs, Singapore GMing, and more! Contents 00:00 Rip Off the 2025 Band-Aid 02:50 New Crafting Rules? 11:29 Games for Campaigns vs One Shots? 27:08 Pinball Wizards 30:28 2025 Most Anticipated RPGs 32:19 Appelcline's Year in Review 39:45 Singapore Professional GMing 42:40 Universal Fan Fest D&D Details 43:58 Will Doyle on Directive 8020 45:53 Kobold Press Monster Vault 2 46:16 Shawn Merwin's Design Tips! 46:59 Monster Manual Previews 49:14 The Challenge of Monster Books 51:26 Describing Monsters in the World 57:38 New Art to Represent D&D 01:00:52 All Paths Lead to CR 01:09:35 What Changed and Monster Families 01:11:45 Monster Type Changes 01:16:46 Bloodied and Exhaustion 01:18:29 Biggest MM Ever? 01:19:49 The 2014 DMG is Bigger than 2024 01:21:07 Shout-Outs Thank you for listening! Get the full show notes with links on Patreon. Show Search Engine: https://mdsearch.alphastream.org/ Our intro and outro music is Metropolis Fanfare, provided royalty-free by Tabletop Audio (https://tabletopaudio.com) under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). MP3 file metadata populated with Online MP3 Podcast Chapter Editor, built by Dominik Peters. https://mp3chapters.github.io/ and customized for Mastering Dungeons by Vladimir Prenner from Croatia.
Full Episode
Hello and welcome to the first episode of 2025 of Mastering Dungeons, your favorite tabletop role-playing game. News, interviews, reviews, game design, all the stuff tabletop role-playing game plus. I'm Sean Merwin here with Teos Abadieh sporting the Duke shirt. Hey Teos, what's going on?
Can it even be seen? There we go. You know, a lot is going on. I have been... So yesterday I disassembled the entire Christmas apparatus of our house. It became a mundane home. I survived again being on ladders. We took our second kid off to the airport. So we are now kidless once more. I'm not going to cry, but it's, you know, it's always so. So we did it all at once.
It was like the giant bandaid of like, you know, staring at the room that is empty, not only of people, but of Christmas accoutrement and joy. And then we watched all the things we wanted to watch without anyone interrupting us. So there's some, you know, Upsides, but the kids are already missed. How about on your end? What's going on? What's the deal?
I was suffering serious burnout working through Christmas, working right up until New Year's Day. And then with a little bit of time off, my wife and I took a little trip to Las Vegas. to see some sites, some national parks, catch a sporting event, catch a show, and just chill out. So I am back, not burnt out, but then life implodes, right?
It's like, oh, I forgot to do this, and oh, the car needs this, and oh, that. And it's like, you take even a millisecond off and it's, you know. So my 2025 is off to a calm slash hectic start. But we are here. That's the important thing. Yes, we are. We are here to talk gaming, and we do so for our listeners. And sometimes those listeners talk back to us.
And so this first one, I believe you put in, Teos, and I'm not sure who asked the question.
Oh, you're right. I missed that part. I'm going to have to find out who it was. Yeah, I think it's because this was our first show notes for the year. So apologies to the person who will be nameless for now, but I will hunt it down and put in the show notes. Pretty sure it was through YouTube, but I could be wrong. So yes, there was a question from a person who is wonderful.
Yeah, and so this is what wonderful person via some incredible piece of technology is asking. How do you both feel about the new crafting rules in 2024? In particular, the idea of players crafting their own magical equipment. I have seen what I believe to be a lot of misinformation being spread by creators about this topic.
I've read both the 2024 PHB and DMG, and the only rules I can find about players crafting items is in the PHB under crafting equipment. Using the rules below, characters can make non-magical items, potions of healing and spell squirrels. I highlight non-magical because as far as I can find rules as written, players cannot craft magic items other than potions of healing and spell squirrels.
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