Recommended

Gaming

• Matt Colville
  • The YouTube channel of Matt Colville, longtime game writer and now kickstarter record-breaker. His Running the Game series (linked) strips DMing down to its basics and gets you started today.
• Chamomile Has A Blog
  • This site’s most popular author spun off into his own venture some years ago and keeps up an excellent stream of game and fiction content.
• WASD20
  • WASD20’s YouTube channel which has the best walkthrough of “how to play D&D” I am aware of. It’s short, sweet, and focused on the experience, not understanding all the stats right off the bat.
• Roll20
  • A free-to-use online virtual tabletop with built-in features to take your online game to new heights.
• The Alexandrian
  • Some of the must-read D&D prep advice is right here. The Gamemastery 101 section is required reading if you want to really understand adventure design.
• Sly Flourish’s Blog
  • Sly Flourish, aka Michael Shea, the author of the Lazy Dungeon Master series of books and a slew of articles on approaching Dungeon Mastery with utmost efficiency.
• Dungeon Craft
  • Professor Dungeon Master’s YouTube channel walks you through playing and running the game from an old school perspective, as well as painting miniatures and creating terrain.
• The Importance of Motivation
  • An essay at the Fantasy Library about character motivations, their place in driving stories, and how that relates to TTRPGs. Enlightening.
• Your Business Sucks
  • A blog about the current state of the tabletop game industry, with great insight.
• Schemes of the Dancing Chimera
  • A very smart blog which delves deep into game design, theory, and has produced quite a bit of home-brew material. Check it out.
• Extra Credits
  • Long-running YouTube series on video games as an art form: the craft, the culture, the criticism, etc. Also see Extra History, Extra Sci Fi, Extra Politics, and Extra Mythology by the same team. All super informative and fun.

Writing

• Film Crit Hulk
  • An anonymous film critic puts on a very articulate Hulk persona to talk about movies. A must-read for lovers of movies, writing or Hulk!
• Helping Writers Become Authors
  • One of the most comprehensive and accessible writing advice blogs. Breaks down character arcs, plotting, and everything else you need into a clear framework, and uses accessible examples from blockbuster movies.
• Hello Future Me
  • Tim Hickson’s YouTube series with a whole lotta stuff on How to Train Your Dragon, the Middle-earth Legendarium, The Elder Scrolls series, and two amazing series: On Writing (the link) and On Worldbuilding.
• Lessons From the Screenplay
  • A deep dive into film writing through exquisite video essays. Every one is a work of art.
• Just Write
  • Analysis of movies, books, etc. Fun and informative.
• The Snowflake Method
  • A process which helps writers organize the stories in their heads into books on paper by developing the “structure” through several steps, which leaves you with the scenes you need to write and what they must accomplish.
• Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing
  • Prolific author Dean Wesley Smith dispels pretty much everything you’ve ever heard about writing fiction. An inspiration to all those who’ve considered writing.

Just For Fun

• The Order of the Stick
  • My favorite webcomic, D&D-based.  Excellently written, hilarious, and worth reading from comic 1.
• Darths & Droids
  • Star Wars and D&D-themed screen-capture webcomic. Very entertaining.
• Door Monster (nee White Lightning HQ)
  • Super funny comedy sketches, with a good D&D-focused playlist (linked).
• Historia Civilis
  • A great YouTube series on ancient (mostly Roman) battles, history, and politics. The Julius Caesar saga (linked) is awesome.
• Lindsay Ellis
  • Film criticism and theory in masterfully-scripted video essays. Her The Hobbit series (linked) is up for a Hugo Award. Check it out.
• Hi, I’m a Marvel, and I’m a DC…
  • This low-budget, action-figure-based parody of the old Mac/PC commercials only gets better and better, with writing that intimately understands each character. Worth watching every one.