DragnaCarta

DragnaCarta is a guest writer for FlutesLoot.com and a veteran DM with 12+ years of experience. He is the author of the popular "Curse of Strahd: Reloaded" campaign guide, a moderator of /r/CurseOfStrahd, and the Dungeon Master and director for the Curse of Strahd livestream "Twice Bitten." You can get his D&D hot takes and commentary by following his Twitter, or get personal RPG mentoring plus early access to projects by joining his Patreon.

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How to Make D&D Combat a Fast & Cinematic Experience

Combat should should feel dramatic, engaging, and deeply personal—a heart-pounding experience (not a slog). Make your players feel like they’re watching a scene unfold on a movie screen. Let’s explore how DMs can develop this experience!

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3-Step Session Prep for Running D&D 5e Adventure Modules

In a perfect world, you have clear, concise information at your fingertips. But official campaign modules for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition are often written in a free-flowing, narrative style that’s difficult to quickly reference. Read tips from master DM DragnaCarta for preparing your sessions for adventure modules.

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How to Engage Your D&D Players with Dramatic Questions

Dungeons & Dragons 5e teaches players a lot about the nuts-and-bolts of dungeon-, character-, and encounter-building. It offers oodles of options for spells, feats, and mechanics. However, it does little to teach DMs how to engage their players with dramatic quests and encounters. If you’re looking to keep your D&D players engaged—and if you’re looking to build a satisfying combat encounter or non-combat scene—we must first explore a fundamental concept of storytelling: the dramatic question.

D&D 5e Fundamental Combat Tactics for Players & DMs

Like many games, D&D 5e is a strategic and tactical experience—but character-building guides can only take you so far. With these basic tactical options in mind, however, even the most unoptimized PC (or the weakest NPC) can play a powerful role in combat. In isolation, a character sheet and a D&D party are just disparate, lonely pieces. Taken together, however, the integrated whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.

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