RPG veterans and game designers Teos Abadía and Shawn Merwin look at the game and the hobby of D&D from a variety of viewpoints: reporting the news, understanding the business, reviewing the products, and illuminating the design. Whether you’re a fan, a player, a DM, or a designer, Shawn and Teos cover topics of interest to you!
Episodes
Wednesday Aug 13, 2025
Wednesday Aug 13, 2025
Episode 253 of Mastering Dungeons!
Main topic: How to DM Parenting with Shelly Mazzanoble!
D&D’s Shelly Mazzanoble joins us to discuss her new book: How to Dungeon Master Parenting! This hilarious and insightful book offers a lot for DMs and parents. We discuss how the two compare and Shelly’s storied past where she has worked to promote women in D&D and D&D’s philanthropic efforts.
News: Japan’s D&D Initiative, Diablo RPG, Tropes that Ruin RPGs, and more!
Contents
00:00 We're 159!
03:18 Is D&D Scrutiny New?
07:55 RPGS Cannibalizing Each Other?
14:48 If We Knew 1 Spell?
18:28 Criminally Overlooked Game Design?
26:14 D&D in Japan
28:04 New Fallbacks Novel
29:27 5 Tropes Ruin D&D
33:36 Stranger Things Minis
35:11 Metaphor vs Mechanics
39:00 Diablo RPG
40:21 Shelly Mazzanoble
41:15 Shelly's Amazing D&D Contributions
43:45 Shelly's and Global Philanthropy
48:59 Women and New Players in D&D
57:37 How to DM Parenting
01:10:07 Child Stat Blocks
01:13:10 DM and Parenting Styles
01:21:06 Find Shelly and Her Book
01:24:24 Shout-outs
01:28:45 What Are We Gonna Do?
Thank you for listening! Get the full show notes with links on Patreon.
Show Search Engine: https://mdsearch.alphastream.org/
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