Mastering the Art of Table Topics: A Nautical Adventure

In the vast ocean of public speaking, Table Topics stand as a lighthouse, guiding speakers through the fog of impromptu speaking. Whether you’re navigating through a business meeting or steering your way through a casual conversation, the ability to think on your feet and deliver coherent, engaging responses is a crucial skill. Toastmasters International has long recognized this, and the practice of Table Topics has become a cornerstone of their approach to developing confident communicators.

But how do you ensure your Table Topics responses are more than just surface-level chatter? How can you dive deep and deliver responses that are well-structured, action-packed, imaginative, and linguistically rich? Let’s set sail on a journey through four key elements that can transform your impromptu speaking skills: Structure, Action, Imagination, and Language. And to keep things exciting, we’ll explore these elements through the themes of Dungeons & Dragons and sailing—two worlds where quick thinking and creativity are essential for survival.

Hello everyone! It’s your friendly Zoom-hood quest master, here. I’m excited to announce that the Path of the Game Master is LIVE!

I am not sure why the integrity of the website colors did not maintain when I took a screenshot but once you click on the path, you’ll be able to navigate the projects.

Please pay attention to the information in parenthesis next to the project name. It will tell you which Pathways project the GM Path project aligns to.

Remember, these projects are built to work with two paths: Visionary Communication and Team Collaboration. I recommend choosing Visionary Communication if you have not already because Team Collaboration will be going the way of the dodo.

As you can see, only the first two levels have been integrated with the site. I’m working on getting the final three up there and should be able to by the end of September. Thanks to Loni for all her help navigating the WordPress Pathways interface.

Looking forward to all the game master speeches and ideas!

If there’s one thing that Toastmasters like to do, it’s express themselves, and every August, an individual named Autocratik gives TTRPG fans a chance to do that through his “RPGaDay” essay challenge.

He created it originally in about 2015 to give RPG fans an opportunity to share their stories, and to show the hobby in a good light. The results were fantastic, and people engaged with the essays and each other in such a wonderful way that he’s done it every year since.

I’ve done it several times, fully or partially as time permits, and always look forward to the opportunity to address the prompts with philosophy, anecdotes, analysis and humor.

This post is to both let people know that I am participating it this year, on my game blog dicedeliberations.com, and also to give others an opportunity to take it on. The answers don’t have to be long; some people address them through tweets or short Facebook posts; others combine multiple answers into a single essay. Either way, they can be fun whether you are a novice or experienced TTRPG player.

If you do participate, let us know in the comments!

With the introduction of a full catalogue of purchasable magic items in Heirs of the Dragon, gold pieces have become more important. In an effort to ensure that quests that award gold to members upon completion continue to be valuable over the course of the year, we are happy to announce that gold rewards will scale based upon the current guild level (defined as the average level of active members). This means that, as we progress as a group, so too will monetary rewards, at a rate of 8.5% per level. As an example, the Raid! achievement worth 200 GP at the beginning of the year (guild level 1), will be worth 217 GP at guild level 2 (200 * 1.085), 235 at guild level 3 (200 * 1.085) * 1.085, 254 at guild level 4 ((200 * 1.085) * 1.085) * 1.085) and so on (subject to rounding differences).

In the same vein, the Join Us achievement — one created to help newly joined members catch up in terms of items — will scale up over time, starting at 500 GP in July and maxxing out at 7,500 GP in the month of May.

Greetings from the depths off the Dragon Coast,

The time is upon us for you to give me your gold. Not all of it. (Unless you want to.) Also, I only accept
dollars, not gold. Anyway, Toastmasters and Dungeons & Toast guild dues for the period of October 2023
through March 2024 are due September 30, 2023. The total cost of dues for 6 months is $65 ($60 to
Toastmasters International and $5 to the club). I urge you to pay ahead of time to avoid the technical
issues that inevitably occur around the due date. In fact, if you pay your dues on or before August 31,
2024, you will receive 20 XP for the Early Dues Renewal Spirit Quest:

Early Dues Renewal
Service Quest

20 XP

Renew your dues within the month of February or August.

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I bid you adieu.
Kelly, Master of Coin

As a descendant of the heirs of the dragon, each character in our annual TTRPG campaign gains a set of abilities, accessible for 1-minute or 1-hour, depending upon the lineage chosen. Each set of abilities has been created as homebrewed feat in D&D Beyond:

• Heir of Bi’an
• Heir of Bixi
• Heir of Chaofeng
• Heir of Chiwen
• Heir of Fuxi
• Heir of Pulao
• Heir of Quiniu
• Heir of Suanni
• Heir of Yazi

To add a feat to your character sheet:

1. Click on the Features & Traits tab.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the pane where Feats are listed. Click the Manage Feats button.

3. Scroll through the list of available feats until you find the “Heirs” feats. (You must be a member of one of the official D&T campaign groups to be able to access these feats.)

Note: It is not possible to homebrew abilities that are only activated for a certain duration; all members will need to manually keep track of the benefits of their lineage when activated.