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 Jan 28, 2026
Wednesday Jan 28, 2026
Episode 276 of Mastering Dungeons!
Main topic: Rethink Your Session Zero!
Shawn and Teos rethink all that a session zero is trying to do and how to approach each of the many goals to start your campaign!
News: D&D Beyond’s Partner Schedule, D&D Proves AI’s Shortcomings, AI RPG Scams, Shawn is a Warlock, and more!
Contents
00:00 Shawn is a Warlock!
05:59 How Should Death Saves Work?
27:10 Jean Rabe Passes
29:59 DDB Partnered Content Schedule
34:50 Hasbro's New Board Members
36:31 Demiplane Adds Campaigns
38:23 4th Player Theory of RPG Design
43:19 D&D Proves AI Shortcomings
46:10 RPG Maps Bundle AI Scam
48:45 How to Please Your Layout Designer
49:42 Rethinking the Session 0
52:03 FEYPOP's Video on What is a Session 0
55:57 Effective Safety Tools
01:01:54 Challenge Level and Behavioral Expectations
01:04:23 Theme, Tone, and Characters
01:10:01 Allowed Sources
01:12:32 Collaborative Campaign Planning
01:14:38 Character Creation
01:16:21 First Adventure?
01:19:12 As a Social Event
01:20:22 Shout-Outs
01:24:12 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/
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.
No comments yet. Be the first to say something!