Run the Game. Forget the Noise.

There’s no shortage of advice for new Dungeon Masters. Most of it is fine. Some of it even works. But a lot of what actually matters never shows up in the books. These are the things I learned the hard way. The stuff that actually changed how I run games. 

Not every fight needs to end in death.
The best encounters I have run were not about dealing the most damage. They were about buying time. Breaking a ritual. Escaping the scene. Surviving. Fighting with a goal changes everything. Players start thinking creatively. They stop counting damage and start solving problems. A good objective turns a fight into a story.

Read weird things. Steal it all.
You do not get better by consuming more RPG content. You get better by pulling ideas from outside of it. Read pulp novels and folklore. Watch bad sci-fi and old horror films. Scroll through metal album covers and weird art blogs. Your brain needs off the hook fuel. The best sessions come from mixing strange ingredients and throwing them at your players to see what sticks.

Avoid the DM tool trap.
There is an entire market built around selling DMs stuff they do not need. It is the golf industry all over again. Selling expensive gear to people who think a better driver will fix their swing. It will not. Experience is the only thing that levels you up. Run games. Make mistakes.That is how you get good. Just like the characters in your world, you earn experience.

Learn from other DMs. Do not try to be them.
Watch how other DMs run their tables. Use their good ideas. Drop the rest. Never fall into the trap of thinking you have to run like they do. Their voice is not your voice. Their timing is not your timing. Your presentation will become the style your table remembers. Let it happen. Find your own rhythm.

You will get better. Not by buying. Not by waiting for it to feel perfect. You will get better by running the game.

Frazetta Armor

Heroes wore less when stories were bigger. 

On the covers of pulp paperbacks and the canvases of Frank Frazetta, warriors strode bare-chested through blood-soaked temples, cloaked in smoke, steel, and not much else. Their armor was always minimal, but their presence? Untouchable. 

I’ve been making Frazetta Armor jokes for years. The chainmail bikini. The enchanted loincloth. That ancient pulp rule that the less you wear, the harder you are to hit. But while prepping my Hyborian-themed Shadowdark campaign, I stopped laughing and started designing. Why not make it real?

This isn’t just a funny item. It’s narrative logic, baked into the bones of pulp fantasy. Frazetta’s heroes didn’t survive because of the gear they wore. They survived because they were the story’s center of gravity. The enchantment doesn’t protect your body, it protects your myth.

Mechanically, the armor keys off two things pulp heroes are known for: being hard to hit or too stubborn to die. You get to choose. DEX or CON, whichever suits your build. But either way, it’s powered by style. Always style.

Here’s the item as it’ll appear in my game:

Frazetta Armor
1 slot, does not count as armor

• This enchanted garment of fur, chain or hide offers no true defense, only undeniable presence.
• While wearing no armor, your AC becomes 10 + CHA modifier + DEX or CON modifier (your choice).
• You may use a shield.Wearing any armor suppresses the magic.
• After a full day, it leaves behind a perfect magical tan line in its exact shape.

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It hasn’t shown up yet in my campaign, but it will. Sooner or later, someone’s going to toss their armor aside, grab a torch, and step shirtless into the crypt like they were born for it. This item works just as well in D&D, or whatever hack you’re running. If the game speaks pulp, this armor listens. 

And when they do, they won’t just look unstoppable. They’ll be unstoppable.

Because in pulp fantasy, you don’t survive with AC. You survive because you look too cool to die.

Want to see the real deal? I visited the Frazetta Art Museum years ago, and the atmosphere is pure magic. Highly recommended if you ever want to feel like you’ve stepped into a painting.

When the Light Goes Out

There’s been a lot of noise lately about the one-hour torch timer in Shadowdark, and most of it comes from people who haven’t actually played the game. I keep pointing this out because once you do, it becomes immediately clear that the torch rule is not arbitrary. It is essential to how the game creates tension, risk, and atmosphere.

In Shadowdark, darkness is not just mood lighting. It is danger. When the torches go out, the game enters the Deadly condition. That is a defined mechanical state where the GM begins checking for random encounters every crawling round. You are no longer just exploring. You are in survival mode, and every moment counts. 

What makes this even more powerful is that no one in Shadowdark has darkvision. There is no fallback. No elf cutting through the dark. No wizard spamming a Light cantrip for free. The Light spell does exist, but like a torch, it only lasts one hour of real time and takes a spellcasting check. You carry a torch or a lantern, or you are blind. That is it. Darkness is not an inconvenience. It is a countdown to danger.

This is why the real-time torch timer matters. It is a shared, objective measure that every player can see. You have one hour of light. When it ends, the Deadly condition begins. If torch duration were left up to the GM’s judgment, it would feel inconsistent or punitive. You might get ten minutes one session and twenty the next, all depending on how the GM is feeling. That kind of uncertainty makes the danger feel unfair.

With a set timer, the pressure becomes part of the game. Players make real decisions. Do we press deeper or turn back now? Do we use our last torch or save it for the way out? Time becomes a resource just like hit points or spells, and the looming threat of darkness shapes the entire dungeon experience.

This mechanic is not a gimmick. It is not nostalgia for the sake of it. It is good design. The torch timer gives structure to the danger. It supports the core loop of risk and reward. It turns exploration into a timed challenge without needing any extra mechanics. And most importantly, it makes the dungeon feel alive, hostile, and real. 

If you have only read the rulebook but never played with the torch burning down in real time, then you have not truly experienced what makes Shadowdark different. Let the light fade. Let the dungeon go Deadly. Only then will you understand why the torch timer is not just a rule. It is the heartbeat of the game.

“Just House Rule It” Is a Lazy Answer

Critique a TTRPG mechanic, ask a design question, or point out a flaw in something like D&D, and you’ll see it pop up like clockwork.

“Just house rule it.”

“Fun is different for everyone.”

These responses might sound open-minded, but they rarely are. More often than not, they’re used to shut down conversations, not open them up. They don’t engage with the question. They dodge it.

When someone takes the time to examine how a rule impacts gameplay, how a mechanic drags or how a system unintentionally punishes certain playstyles, they’re inviting a conversation. Saying “just fix it at your table” might sound helpful, but it skips past the real work of understanding and improving the system.

Design isn’t sacred. Design is iterative. It thrives on feedback.

Fun might have personal flavor, but it isn’t unknowable. Most players come to the table for tension, drama, clever decisions, challenge, narrative payoff, or the thrill of pulling something off in the moment. These are recognizable patterns. There are tools and philosophies in game design that can foster those experiences reliably and intentionally. That’s what good design does.

Waving away critique with “fun is different for everyone” avoids responsibility. It puts the burden of fixing problems on the GM or the players instead of acknowledging where the system itself could be stronger.

And look, homebrew is great. House rules can be incredible. But they shouldn’t be used as excuses for why broken or inconsistent design doesn’t matter. If people are regularly tweaking or ignoring a rule, that’s not a defense. That’s a red flag.

When someone points out that a mechanic slows things down or causes friction, or that a spell always dominates play, or that a class feels weaker in practice, the honest response isn’t “well, everyone’s different.” The honest response is to dig in and talk about why it happens, what it means, and how it could be better.

Game design deserves that. Players deserve that. GMs deserve that.

“Fun is subjective” doesn’t mean “all design is valid.”
It means design needs to work for people.
And that only happens when we stop dodging and start engaging.