Podcasts about game masters

"The storm is both battleground and teacher. In the high storm's fury, we discovered not merely survival checks or combat mechanics, but the weight of choice. Humor became a shield, laughter our shardplate, as the Shardblade in hand revealed itself to be more than a weapon. Against the chasm fiend's relentless rhythm, the bond between friends became the only path to victory. The storm needs a guide. Ash Ely is that guide. Some stories wait for the storm to pass. Others demand a guide who will lead you into its very heart. A Game Master is more than a storyteller — they are a Shardbearer of narrative, a wielder of dice and destiny. Ash Ely is such a guide. On StartPlaying.Games, Ash shapes campaigns where camaraderie becomes steel and laughter binds tighter than plate. Their table is not just a game; it is a high storm of story, where each choice carries weight, and each player becomes part of something greater. If you seek tabletop RPG adventures, if you wish to test your courage in battle against chasm fiends, or to weave tales of character development, teamwork, and role-playing, then step into Ash's storm. The path begins here: StartPlaying.Games — Ash Ely "I saw how tactical decisions, combat strategies, and even failed dice rolls wrote a story more enduring than steel. This was no simple role-playing game; it was a tale of character development, teamwork, and storytelling woven into the very stormlight itself." — From the journals of a forgotten scout, on the eve of battle Shownotes This second half of the Stormlight Archive RPG actual play begins with grounding moments: life updates, the struggles of moving, and even the grudges of pets that mirror the stubbornness of men. These personal stories remind us that whether in Dungeons and Dragons, tabletop gaming, or life itself, the storms we weather shape who we become. The session then surges into epic tension. The looming high storm, the enigma of Shardblade bonding, and the terror of a chasm fiend boss fight create a crucible for both game mechanics and storytelling. Every player choice feels sharp, every dice roll a heartbeat. Humor, often chaotic, interlaces with danger, proving that friendship and camaraderie in role-playing games can hold fast even in the fiercest winds. The players grapple with combat strategies, team dynamics, and the consequences of their actions. Critical hits, failed rolls, and unexpected outcomes shift the battle's tide, while persuasion and leadership test not only the characters but the trust among players. Through it all, the narrative storytelling of the Stormlight Archive RPG shines — a reminder that fantasy adventures are not just about survival, but about the truths revealed when we choose together. Key Takeaways Life mirrors the game: Moving, pets, and family stories parallel the challenges of tabletop RPGs and character development. Humor in the storm: Laughter and camaraderie in role-playing games lighten even the heaviest encounters. Shardblades as destiny: Shardblade bonding and mechanics test both characters and players, demanding patience and commitment. The chasm fiend fight as crucible: A true boss monster encounter forces combat strategies and tactical decisions. Choice as stormlight: Every dice roll, persuasion attempt, and player choice illuminates the narrative. Friendship as armor: Teamwork and communication in RPGs are more powerful than steel. The rhythm of mechanics: Fast and slow turns, survival checks, and RPG game mechanics create tension and triumph. Story as aftermath: Critical hits, moral dilemmas, and unexpected alliances linger beyond the session, becoming part of the shared fantasy adventure. "A story is not complete until it is shared. Storms are faced together, and victories mean little without companions to witness them. If this tale has moved you — if the laughter, the choices, and the clash of Shardblade against chasm fiend struck true — then carry it outward. Tell a friend. Invite them to listen. Let them stand with us in the storm, dice in hand, part of the fellowship that makes role-playing more than a game. For in unity lies strength, and in shared story lies immortality." Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you. Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players. Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings. Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community. Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix. Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme. Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy. Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos. How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra BlueSky: @rpgbot.net TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games BlueSky: @GravenAshes YouTube: @ashravenmedia Randall James BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG Amateurjack.com Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link) Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

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Matt Forbeck is all that and so much more. He grew up in Wisconsin as what he describes as a wimpy kid, too short and not overly healthy. He took to gaming at a pretty early age and has grown to be a game creator, author and award-winning storyteller.   Matt has been designing games now for over 35 years. He tells us how he believes that many of the most successful games today have stories to tell, and he loves to create some of the most successful ones. What I find most intriguing about Matt is that he clearly is absolutely totally happy in his work. For most of Matt's career he has worked for himself and continues today to be an independent freelancer.   Matt and his wife have five children, including a set of quadruplets. The quadruplets are 23 and Matt's oldest son is 28 and is following in his father's footsteps.   During our conversation we touch on interesting topics such as trust and work ethics. I know you will find this episode stimulating and worth listening to more than once.     About the Guest:   Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer of over thirty-five novels and countless other books and games. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming.    Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer.   Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, interactive fiction, interactive audiobooks, games for museum installations, and logic systems for toys. He has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into at least 15 languages.   His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook, the Spider-Verse Expansion, Monster Academy (novels and board game), the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels, and the Minecraft: Roll for Adventure game books. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife and a rotating cast of college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.   Ways to connect with Matt:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/mforbeck Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbeck Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/forbeck.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mforbeck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mforbeck/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forbeck/ Website: https://www.forbeck.com/     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset today. We get to play games. Well, not really, but we'll try. Our guest is Matt Forbeck, who is an award winning author. He is a game designer and all sorts of other kinds of things that I'm sure he's going to tell us about, and we actually just before we started the the episode, we were talking about how one might explore making more games accessible for blind and persons with other disabilities. It's, it's a challenge, and there, there are a lot of tricks. But anyway, Matt, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Matt Forbeck ** 02:02 Well, thank you, Michael for inviting me and having me on. I appreciate it.   Speaker 1 ** 02:06 I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I think it'll work out really well. I'm I am sure of that. So why don't we start just out of curiosity, why don't you tell us kind of about the early Matt, growing up?   Matt Forbeck ** 02:18 Uh, well, I grew up. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin, which actually live in now, despite having moved away for 13 years at one point, and I had terrible asthma, I was a sick and short kid, and with the advent of medication, I finally started to be healthy when I was around nine, and Part of that, I started getting into playing games, right? Because when you're sick, you do a lot of sitting around rather than running around. So I did a lot of reading and playing games and things like that. I happen to grow up in the part of the world where Dungeons and Dragons was invented, which is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from where I live. And because of that I was I started going to conventions and playing games and such, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started doing it when I was a little bit older. I started doing it professionally, and started doing it when I was in college. And amazingly enough, even to my own astonishment, I've made a career out of it.   Speaker 1 ** 03:17 Where did you go to college? I went to the University   Matt Forbeck ** 03:21 of Michigan over in Ann Arbor. I had a great time there. There's a wonderful little college, Beloit College, in my hometown here, and most of my family has gone to UW Milwaukee over the years. My parents met at Marquette in Milwaukee, but I wanted to get the heck out of the area, so I went to Michigan, and then found myself coming back as soon as we started having   Speaker 1 ** 03:42 kids well, and of course, I would presume that when you were at the University of Michigan, you rooted for them and against Ohio State. That was   Matt Forbeck ** 03:50 kind of, you know, if you did it the other way around, they back out of town. So, yeah, I was always kind of astonished, though, because having grown up in Wisconsin, where every sports team was a losing team when I was growing up, including the Packers, for decades. You know, we were just happy to be playing. They were more excuse to have beers than they were to cheer on teams. And I went to Michigan where they were, they were angry if the team wasn't up by two touchdowns. You know, at any point, I'm like, You guys are silly. This is we're here for fun.   Speaker 1 ** 04:17 But it is amazing how seriously some people take sports. I remember being in New Zealand helping the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind. Well now 22 years ago, it's 2003 and the America's Cup had just finished before we got there, and in America beat New Zealand, and the people in New Zealand were just irate. They were complaining that the government didn't put enough money into the design of the boat and helping with the with the yacht and all that. It was just amazing how seriously people take it, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 04:58 once, I mean, it becomes a part of your. Identity in a lot of ways, right for many people, and I've never had to worry about that too much. I've got other things on my mind, but there you go.   Speaker 1 ** 05:08 Well, I do like it when the Dodgers win, and my wife did her graduate work at USC, and so I like it when the Trojans win, but it's not the end of the world, and you do need to keep it in perspective. I I do wish more people would I know once I delivered a speech in brether County, Kentucky, and I was told that when I started the speech had to end no later than preferably exactly at 6:30pm not a minute later, because it was the night of the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the Kentucky Wildcats were in the championship, and at 630 everyone was going to get up and leave and go home to watch the game. So I ended at 630 and literally, by 631 I timed it. The gym was empty and it was full to start with.   Matt Forbeck ** 06:02 People were probably, you know, counting down on their watches, just to make sure, right?   Speaker 1 ** 06:06 Oh, I'm sure they were. What do you do? It's, it is kind of fun. Well, so why did you decide to get started in games? What? What? What attracted to you, to it as a young person, much less later on?   Matt Forbeck ** 06:21 Well, I was, yeah, I was an awkward kid, kind of nerdy and, you know, glasses and asthma and all that kind of stuff. And games were the kind of thing where, if you didn't know how to interact with people, you could sit down at a table across them and you could practice. You can say, okay, we're all here. We've got this kind of a magic circle around us where we've agreed to take this one silly activity seriously for a short period of time, right? And it may be that you're having fun during that activity, but you know, there's, there's no reason that rolling dice or moving things around on a table should be taken seriously. It's all just for fun, right? But for that moment, you actually just like Las Vegas Exactly, right? When there's money on the line, it's different, but if you're just doing it for grins. You know, it was a good way for me to learn how to interact with people of all sorts and of different ages. And I really enjoyed playing the games, and I really wanted to be a writer, too. And a lot of these things interacted with story at a very basic level. So breaking in as a writer is tough, but it turned out breaking as a game designer, wasn't nearly his stuff, so I started out over there instead, because it was a very young field at the time, right? D and D is now 50 years old, so I've been doing this 35 years, which means I started around professionally and even doing it before that, I started in the period when the game and that industry were only like 10 or 15 years old, so yeah, weren't quite as much competition in those   Speaker 1 ** 07:43 days. I remember some of the early games that I did play, that I could play, were DOS based games, adventure. You're familiar with adventure? Yeah, oh, yeah. Then later, Zork and all that. And I still think those are fun games. And I the reason I like a lot of those kinds of games is they really make you think, which I think most games do, even though the video even the video games and so on, they they help your or can help your reactions, but they're designed by people who do try to make you think,   Matt Forbeck ** 08:15 yeah. I mean, we basically are designing puzzles for people to solve, even if they're story puzzles or graphic puzzles or sound puzzles or whatever, you know, even spatial puzzles. There the idea is to give somebody something fun that is intriguing to play with, then you end up coming with story and after that, because after a while, even the most most exciting mechanics get dull, right? I mean, you start out shooting spaceships, but you can only shoot spaceships for so long, or you start out playing Tetris, and you only put shapes together for so long before it doesn't mean anything that then you start adding in story to give people a reason to keep playing right and a reason to keep going through these things. And I've written a lot of video games over the years, basically with that kind of a philosophy, is give people nuggets of story, give them a plot to work their way through, and reward them for getting through different stages, and they will pretty much follow you through anything. It's amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 09:09 Is that true Dungeons and Dragons too?   Matt Forbeck ** 09:13 It is. All of the stories are less structured there. If you're doing a video game, you know you the team has a lot of control over you. Give the player a limited amount of control to do things, but if you're playing around a table with people, it's more of a cooperative kind of experience, where we're all kind of coming up with a story, the narrator or the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, sets the stage for everything, but then the players have a lot of leeway doing that, and they will always screw things up for you, too. No matter what you think is going to happen, the players will do something different, because they're individuals, and they're all amazing people. That's actually to me, one of the fun things about doing tabletop games is that, you know, the computer can only react in a limited number of ways, whereas a human narrator and actually change things quite drastically and roll. With whatever people come up with, and that makes it tremendous fun.   Speaker 1 ** 10:04 Do you think AI is going to enter into all that and maybe improve some of the   Matt Forbeck ** 10:09 old stuff? It's going to add your end to it, whether it's an ad, it's going to approve it as a large question. Yeah. So I've been ranting about AI quite a bit lately with my friends and family. But, you know, I think the problem with AI, it can be very helpful a lot of ways, but I think it's being oversold. And I think it's especially when it's being oversold for thing, for ways for people to replace writers and creative thinking, Yeah, you know, you're taking the fun out of everything. I mean, the one thing I like to say is if, if you can't be bothered to write this thing that you want to communicate to me, I'm not sure why I should be bothered to read this thing well.   Speaker 1 ** 10:48 And I think that AI will will evolve in whatever way it does. But the fact of the matter is, So do people. And I think that, in fact, people are always going to be necessary to make the process really work? AI can only do and computers can only do so much. I mean, even Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when people and computer brains are married, but that still means that you're going to have the human element. So it's not all going to be the computer. And I'm not ready to totally buy into to what Ray says. And I used to work for Ray, so I mean, I know Ray Well, but, but the but the bottom line is, I think that, in fact, people are always going to be able to be kind of the, the mainstay of it, as long as we allow that, if we, if we give AI too much power, then over time, it'll take more power, and that's a problem, but that's up to us to deal with?   Matt Forbeck ** 11:41 No, I totally agree with that. I just think right now, there's a very large faction of people who it's in their economic interest to oversell these things. You know, people are making chips. They're building server farms. A lot of them are being transferred from people are doing blockchain just a few years ago, and they see it as the hot new thing. The difference is that AI actually has a lot of good uses. There's some amazing things will come out of llms and such. But I again, people are over the people are selling this to us. Are often over promising things, right?   Speaker 1 ** 12:11 Yeah, well, they're not only over promising but they're they're really misdirecting people. But the other side of it is that, that, in fact, AI as a concept and as a technology is here, and we have control over how we use it. I've said a couple times on this this podcast, and I've said to others, I remember when I first started hearing about AI, I heard about the the fact that teachers were bemoaning the pack, that kids were writing their papers just using AI and turning them in, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether it was something that was written by AI or was written by the student. And I come from a little bit different view than I think a lot of people do. And my view basically is, let the kids write it if with AI, if that's what they're going to do, but then what the teacher needs to do is to take one period, for example, and give every student in that class the opportunity to come up and defend whatever paper they have. And the real question is, can they defend the paper? Which means, have they really learned the subject, or are they just relying on AI,   Matt Forbeck ** 13:18 yeah, I agree with that. I think the trouble is, a lot of people, children, you know, who are developing their abilities and their morals about this stuff, they use it as just a way to complete the assignment, right? And many of them don't even read what they turn in, right, right? Just know that they've got something here that will so again, if you can't be bothered to read the thing that you manufactured, you're not learning anything about it,   Speaker 1 ** 13:39 which is why, if you are forced to defend it, it's going to become pretty obvious pretty fast, whether you really know it or not. Now, I've used AI on a number of occasions in various ways, but I use it to maybe give me ideas or prepare something that I then modify and shape. And I may even interact with AI a couple of times, but I'm definitely involved with the process all the way down the line, because it still has to be something that I'm responsible for.   Matt Forbeck ** 14:09 I agree. I mean, the whole point of doing these things is for people to connect with each other, right? I want to learn about the ideas you have in your head. I want to see how they jive with ones in my head. But if I'm just getting something that's being spit out by a machine and not you, and not being curated by you at any point, that doesn't seem very useful, right? So if you're the more involved people are in it, the more useful it is.   Speaker 1 ** 14:31 Well, I agree, and you know, I think again, it's a tool, and we have to decide how the tool is going to be used, which is always the way it ought to be. Right?   Matt Forbeck ** 14:42 Exactly, although sometimes it's large corporations deciding,   Speaker 1 ** 14:45 yeah, well, there's that too. Well, individuals,   Matt Forbeck ** 14:49 we get to make our own choices. Though you're right,   Speaker 1 ** 14:51 yes, and should Well, so, so when did you start bringing writing into what you. Did, and make that a really significant part of what you did?   Matt Forbeck ** 15:03 Well, pretty early on, I mean, I started doing one of the first things I did was a gaming zine, which was basically just a print magazine that was like, you know, 32 pages, black and white, about the different tabletop games. So we were writing those in the days, design and writing are very closely linked when it comes to tabletop games and even in video games. The trick of course is that designing a game and writing the rules are actually two separate sets of skills. So one of the first professional gig I ever had during writing was in games was some friends of mine had designed a game for a company called Mayfair games, which went on to do sellers of contain, which is a big, uh, entry level game, and but they needed somebody to write the rules, so they called me over, showed me how to play the game. I took notes and I I wrote it down in an easy to understand, clear way that people had just picked up the box. Could then pick it up and teach themselves how to play, right? So that was early on how I did it. But the neat thing about that is it also taught me to think about game design. I'm like, when I work on games, I think about, who is this game going to be for, and how are we going to teach it to them? Because if they can't learn the game, there's no point of the game at all, right?   Speaker 1 ** 16:18 And and so I'm right? I'm a firm believer that a lot of technical writers don't do a very good job of technical writing, and they write way over people's heads. I remember the first time I had to write, well, actually, I mentioned I worked for Kurzweil. I was involved with a project where Ray Kurzweil had developed his original omniprent optical character recognition system. And I and the National Federation of the Blind created with him a project to put machines around the country so that blind people could use them and give back to Ray by the time we were all done, recommendations as to what needed to go in the final first production model of the machine. So I had to write a training manual to teach people how to use it. And I wrote this manual, and I was always of the opinion that it had to be pretty readable and usable by people who didn't have a lot of technical knowledge. So I wrote the manual, gave it to somebody to read, and said, Follow the directions and and work with the machine and all that. And they did, and I was in another room, and they were playing with it for a couple of hours, and they came in and they said, I'm having a problem. I can't figure out how to turn off the machine. And it turns out that I had forgotten to put in the instruction to turn off the machine. And it wasn't totally trivial. There were steps you had to go through. It was a Data General Nova two computer, and you had to turn it off the right way and the whole system off the appropriate way, or you could, could mess everything up. So there was a process to doing it. So I wrote it in, and it was fine. But, you know, I've always been a believer that the textbooks are way too boring. Having a master's degree in physics, I am of the opinion that physics textbook writers, who are usually pretty famous and knowledgeable scientists, ought to include with all the text and the technical stuff they want to put in, they should put in stories about what they did in you bring people in, draw them into the whole thing, rather than just spewing out a bunch of technical facts.   Matt Forbeck ** 18:23 No, I agree. My my first calculus professor was a guy who actually explained how Newton and Leipzig actually came up with calculus, and then he would, you know, draw everything on the board and turn around say, and isn't that amazing? And you were, like, just absolutely enamored with the idea of how they had done these things, right? Yeah. And what you're doing there, when you, when you, when you give the instructions to somebody and say, try this out. That's a very big part of gaming, actually, because what we do this thing called play testing, where we take something before it's ready to be shown to the public, and we give it to other people and say, try this out. See how it works. Let me know when you're starting out of your first playing you play with like your family and friends and people will be brutal with you and give you hints about how you can improve things. But then, even when you get to the rules you're you send those out cold to people, or, you know, if you're a big company, you watch them through a two way mirror or one way mirror, and say, Hey, let's see how they react to everything. And then you take notes, and you try to make it better every time you go through. And when I'm teaching people to play games at conventions, for instance, I will often say to them, please ask questions if you don't understand anything, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Means I didn't explain it well enough, right? And my job as a person writing these rules is to explain it as well as I humanly can so it can't be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Now that doesn't mean you can correct everything. Somebody's always got like, Oh, I missed that sentence, you know, whatever. But you do that over and over so you can try to make it as clear and concise as possible, yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 19:52 Well, you have somewhat of a built in group of people to help if you let your kids get involved. Involved. So how old are your kids?   Matt Forbeck ** 20:03 My eldest is 26 he'll be 27 in January. Marty is a game designer, actually works with me on the marble tabletop role playing game, and we have a new book coming out, game book for Minecraft, called Minecraft role for adventure, that's coming out on July 7, I think, and the rest of the kids are 23 we have 423 year olds instead of quadruplets, one of whom is actually going into game design as well, and the other says two are still in college, and one has moved off to the work in the woods. He's a very woodsy boy. Likes to do environmental education with people.   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 Wow. Well, see, but you, but you still have a good group of potential game designers or game critics anyway.   Matt Forbeck ** 20:47 Oh, we all play games together. We have a great time. We do weekly game nights here. Sometimes they're movie nights, sometimes they're just pizza nights, but we shoot for game and pizza   Speaker 1 ** 20:56 if we get lucky and your wife goes along with all this too.   Matt Forbeck ** 21:00 She does. She doesn't go to the game conventions and stuff as much, and she's not as hardcore of a gamer, but she likes hanging out with the kids and doing everything with us. We have a great time.   Speaker 1 ** 21:10 That's that's pretty cool. Well, you, you've got, you've got to build an audience of some sorts, and that's neat that a couple of them are involved in it as well. So they really like what dad does, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 21:23 yeah. We, I started taking them each to conventions, which are, you know, large gatherings gamers in real life. The biggest one is Gen Con, which happens in Indianapolis in August. And last year, I think, we had 72,000 people show up. And I started taking the kids when they were 10 years old, and my wife would come up with them then. And, you know, 10 years old is a lot. 72,000 people is a lot for a 10 year old. So she can mention one day and then to a park the next day, you know, decompress a lot, and then come back on Saturday and then leave on Sunday or whatever, so that we didn't have them too over stimulated. But they really grown to love it. I mean, it's part of our annual family traditions in the summer, is to go do these conventions and play lots of games with each other and meet new people too well.   Speaker 1 ** 22:08 And I like the way you put it. The games are really puzzles, which they are, and it's and it's fun. If people would approach it that way, no matter what the game is, they're, they're aspects of puzzles involved in most everything that has to do with the game, and that's what makes it so fun.   Matt Forbeck ** 22:25 Exactly, no. The interesting thing is, when you're playing with other people, the other people are changing the puzzles from their end that you have to solve on your end. And sometimes the puzzle is, how do I beat this person, or how do I defeat their strategy, or how do I make an alliance with somebody else so we can win? And it's really always very intriguing. There's so many different types of games. There's nowadays, there's like something like 50 to 100 new board games that come out and tabletop games every month, right? It's just like a fire hose. It's almost like, when I was starting out as a novelist, I would go into Barnes and Noble or borders and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these books. And now I do the same thing about games. It's just, it's incredible. Nobody, no one person, could keep up with all of them.   Speaker 1 ** 23:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, way too much. I would love to explore playing more video games, but I don't. I don't own a lot of the technology, although I'm sure that there are any number of them that can be played on a computer, but we'll have to really explore and see if we can find some. I know there are some that are accessible for like blind people with screen readers. I know that some people have written a few, which is kind of cool. Yeah.   Matt Forbeck ** 23:36 And Xbox has got a new controller out that's meant to be accessible to large amount of people. I'm not sure, all the different aspects of it, but that's done pretty well, too   Speaker 1 ** 23:44 well. And again, it comes down to making it a priority to put all of that stuff in. It's not like it's magic to do. It's just that people don't know how to do it. But I also think something else, which is, if you really make the products more usable, let's say by blind people with screen readers. You may be especially if it's well promoted, surprised. I'm not you necessarily, but people might well be surprised as to how many others might take advantage of it so that they don't necessarily have to look at the screen, or that you're forced to listen as well as look in order to figure out what's going on or take actions.   Matt Forbeck ** 24:29 No, definitely true. It's, you know, people audio books are a massive thing nowadays. Games tend to fall further behind that way, but it's become this incredible thing that obviously, blind people get a great use out of but my wife is addicted to audio books now. She actually does more of those than she does reading. I mean, I technically think they're both reading. It's just one's done with yours and one's done with your eyes.   Speaker 1 ** 24:51 Yeah, there's but there's some stuff, whether you're using your eyes or your fingers and reading braille, there's something about reading a book that way that's. Even so a little bit different than listening to it. Yeah, and there's you're drawn in in some ways, in terms of actually reading that you're not necessarily as drawn into when you're when you're listening to it, but still, really good audio book readers can help draw you in, which is important, too,   Matt Forbeck ** 25:19 very much. So yeah, I think the main difference for reading, whether it's, you know, again, through Braille or through traditional print, is that you can stop. You can do it at your own pace. You can go back and look at things very easily, or read or check things, read things very easily. That you know, if you're reading, if you're doing an audio book, it just goes on and it's straight on, boom, boom, boom, pace. You can say, Wait, I'm going to put this down here. What was that thing? I remember back there? It was like three pages back, but it's really important, let me go check that right.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 There are some technologies that allow blind people and low vision people and others, like people with dyslexia to use an audio book and actually be able to navigate two different sections of it. But it's not something that is generally available to the whole world, at least to the level that it is for blind people. But I can, I can use readers that are made to be able to accept the different formats and go back and look at pages, go back and look at headings, and even create bookmarks to bookmark things like you would normally by using a pen or a pencil or something like that. So there are ways to do some of that. So again, the technology is making strides.   Matt Forbeck ** 26:37 That's fantastic. Actually, it's wonderful. Just, yeah, it's great. I actually, you know, I lost half the vision of my right eye during back through an autoimmune disease about 13 years ago, and I've always had poor vision. So I'm a big fan of any kind of way to make things easier,   Speaker 1 ** 26:54 like that. Well, there, there are things that that are available. It's pretty amazing. A guy named George curser. Curser created a lot of it years ago, and it's called the DAISY format. And the whole idea behind it is that you can actually create a book. In addition to the audio tracks, there are XML files that literally give you the ability to move and navigate around the book, depending on how it's created, as final level as you choose.   Matt Forbeck ** 27:25 Oh, that's That's amazing. That's fantastic. I'm actually really glad to hear that.   Speaker 1 ** 27:28 So, yeah, it is kind of fun. So there's a lot of technology that's that's doing a lot of different sorts of things and and it helps. But um, so for you, in terms of dealing with, with the games, you've, you've written games, but you've, you've actually written some novels as well, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 27:50 Yeah, I've got like 30, it depends on how you count a novel, right? Okay, like some of my books are to pick a path books, right? Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff. So, but I've got 35 traditional novels written or more, I guess, now, I lost track a while ago, and probably another dozen of these interactive fiction books as well. So, and I like doing those. I've also written things like Marvel encyclopedias and Avengers encyclopedias and all sorts of different pop culture books. And, you know, I like playing in different worlds. I like writing science fiction, fantasy, even modern stuff. And most of it, for me comes down to telling stories, right? If you like to tell stories, you can tell stories through a game or book or audio play or a TV show or a comic, or I've done, you know, interactive museum, games and displays, things like that. The main thing is really a story. I mean, if you're comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a drink with somebody, doesn't have to be alcohol, just sitting down and telling stories with each other for fun. That's where the core of it all is really   Speaker 1 ** 28:58 right. Tell me about interactive fiction book.   Matt Forbeck ** 29:01 Sure, a lot of these are basically just done, like flow charts, kind of like the original Zork and adventure that you were talking about where you I actually, I was just last year, I brought rose Estes, who's the inventor of the endless quest books, which were a cross between Dungeons and Dragons, and choose your own adventure books. She would write the whole thing out page by page on a typewriter, and then, in order to shuffle the pages around so that people wouldn't just read straight through them, she'd throw them all up in the air and then just put them back in whatever order they happen to be. But essentially, you read a section of a book, you get to the end, and it gives you a choice. Would you like to go this way or that way? Would you like to go beat up this goblin? Or would you like to make friends with this warrior over here? If you want to do one of these things, go do page xx, right? Got it. So then you turn to that page and you go, boom, some, actually, some of the endless quest books I know were turned into audio books, right? And I actually, I. Um, oddly, have written a couple Dungeons and Dragons, interactive books, audio books that have only been released in French, right? Because there's a company called Looney l, u n, i, i that has this little handheld device that's for children, that has an A and a B button and a volume button. And you, you know, you get to the point that says, if you want to do this, push a, if you want to do that, push B, and the kids can go through these interactive stories and and, you know, there's ones for clue and Dungeons and Dragons and all sorts of other licenses, and some original stories too. But that way there's usually, like, you know, it depends on the story, but sometimes there's, like, 10 to 20 different endings. A lot of them are like, Oh no, you've been killed. Go back to where you started, right? And if you're lucky, the longer ones are, the more fun ones. And you get to, you know, save the kingdom and rescue the people and make good friends and all that good stuff,   Michael Hingson ** 30:59 yeah, and maybe fall in love with the princess or Prince.   Matt Forbeck ** 31:02 Yeah, exactly right. It all depends on the genre and what you're working in. But the idea is to give people some some choices over how they want the story to go. You're like, Well, do you want to investigate this dark, cold closet over here, or would you rather go running outside and playing around? And some of them can seem like very innocent choices, and other ones are like, well, uh, 10 ton weight just fell on. You go back to the last thing.   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 So that dark hole closet can be a good thing or a bad thing,   Matt Forbeck ** 31:28 exactly. And the trick is to make the deaths the bad endings, actually just as entertaining as anything else, right? And then people go, Well, I got beat, and I gotta go back and try that again. So yeah, if they just get the good ending all the way through, they often won't go back and look at all the terrible ones. So it's fun to trick them sometimes and have them go into terrible spots. And I like to put this one page in books too that sometimes says, How did you get here? You've been cheating there. This book, this page, is actually not led to from any other part of the book. You're just flipping   Speaker 1 ** 31:59 through. Cheater, cheater book, do what you   Matt Forbeck ** 32:04 want, but if you want to play it the right way, go back.   Speaker 1 ** 32:07 Kid, if you want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, some people are nosy.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:15 You know, I was always a kid who would poke around and wanted to see how things were, so I'm sure I would have found that myself but absolutely related, you know,   Speaker 1 ** 32:23 yeah, I had a general science teacher who brought in a test one day, and he gave it to everyone. And so he came over to me because it was, it was a printed test. He said, Well, I'm not going to give you the test, because the first thing it says is, read all the instructions, read, read the test through before you pass it, before you take it. And he said, most people won't do that. And he said, I know you would. And the last question on the test is answer, only question one.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:55 That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 32:57 that was cute. And he said, I know that. I that there's no way you would, would would fall for that, because you would say, Okay, let's read the instructions and then read the whole test. That's what it said. And the instruction were, just read the whole test before you start. And people won't do that.   Matt Forbeck ** 33:13 No, they'll go through, take the whole thing. They get there and go, oh, did I get there? Was a, there's a game publisher. I think it was Steve Jackson Games, when they were looking for people, write for them, or design stuff for them, or submit stuff to them, would have something toward the end of the instructions that would say, put like a the letter seven, or put seven a on page one right, and that way they would know if you had read the instructions, if you hadn't bothered to Read the instructions, they wouldn't bother reading anything else.   Speaker 1 ** 33:42 Yeah, which is fair, because the a little harsh, well, but, but, you know, we often don't learn enough to pay attention to details. I know that when I was taking physics in college, that was stressed so often it isn't enough to get the numbers right. If you don't get the units right as well. Then you're, you're not really paying attention to the details. And paying attention to the details is so important.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:07 That's how they crash from those Mars rovers, wasn't it? They somebody messed up the units, but going back and forth between metric and, yeah, and Imperial and, well, you know, it cost somebody a lot of money at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What do you   Speaker 1 ** 34:21 this is kind of the way it goes. Well, tell me, yeah. Well, they do matter, no matter what people think, sometimes they do matter. Well, tell me about the Diana Jones award. First of all, of course, the logical question for many people is, who is Diana Jones? Yeah, Diana Jones doesn't exist, right? That's There you go. She's part game somewhere? No, no, it doesn't be in a game somewhere.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:43 Then now there's actually an author named Diana Wynne Jones, who's written some amazing fantasy stories, including Howell's Moving Castle, which has turned into a wonderful anime movie, but it has nothing to do with her or any other person. Because originally, the Diana Jones award came about. Because a friend of mine, James Wallace, had somehow stumbled across a trophy that fell into his hands, and it was a pub trivia trophy that used to be used between two different gaming companies in the UK, and one of those was TSR, UK, the United Kingdom department. And at one point, the company had laid off everybody in that division just say, Okay, we're closing it all down. So the guys went and burned a lot of the stuff that they had, including a copy of the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the only part of the logo that was left said Diana Jones. And for some reason, they put this in a in a fiberglass or Plexiglas pyramid, put it on a base, a wooden base, and it said the Diana Jones award trophy, right? And this was the trophy that they used they passed back and forth as a joke for their pub trivia contest. Fell into James's hands, and he decided, You know what, we're going to give this out for the most excellent thing in gaming every year. And we've now done this. This will be 25 years this summer. We do it at the Wednesday night before Gen Con, which starts on Thursday, usually at the end of July or early August. And as part of that, actually, about five years ago, we started, one of the guys suggested we should do something called the emerging designers program. So we actually became a 501, c3, so we could take donations. And now we take four designers every year, fly them in from wherever they happen to be in the world, and put them up in a hotel, give them a badge the show, introduce them to everybody, give them an honorarium so they can afford to skip work for a week and try to help launch their careers. I mean, these are people that are in the first three years of their design careers, and we try to work mostly with marginalized or et cetera, people who need a little bit more representation in the industry too. Although we can select anybody, and it's been really well received, it's been amazing. And there's a group called the bundle of holding which sells tabletop role playing game PDFs, and they've donated 10s of 1000s of dollars every year for us to be able to do this. And it's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd be end up running a nonprofit, but here I'm just the guy who writes checks to the different to the emerging designer program. Folks are much more tied into that community that I am. But one of the real reasons I wanted to do something like that or be involved with it, because if you wander around with these conventions and you notice that it starts getting very gray after a while, right? It's you're like, oh, there's no new people coming in. It's all older people. I we didn't I didn't want us to all end up as like the Grandpa, grandpa doing the HO model railroad stuff in the basement, right? This dying hobby that only people in their 60s and 70s care about. So bringing in fresh people, fresh voices, I think, is very important, and hopefully we're doing some good with that. It's been a lot of fun either way.   Speaker 1 ** 37:59 Well, I have you had some success with it? Yeah, we've   Matt Forbeck ** 38:02 had, well, let's see. I think we've got like 14 people. We've brought in some have already gone on to do some amazing things. I mean, it's only been a few years, so it's hard to tell if they're gonna be legends in their time, but again, having them as models for other people to look at and say, Oh, maybe I could do that. That's been a great thing. The other well, coincidentally, Dungeons and Dragons is having its best 10 year streak in its history right now, and probably is the best selling it's ever been. So coinciding with that, we've seen a lot more diversity and a lot more people showing up to these wonderful conventions and playing these kinds of games. There's also been an advent of this thing called actual play, which is the biggest one, is a group called Critical Role, which is a whole bunch of voice actors who do different cartoons and video games and such, and they play D and D with each other, and then they record the games, and they produce them on YouTube and for podcasts. And these guys are amazing. There's a couple of other ones too, like dimension 20 and glass cannon, the critical role guys actually sold out a live performance at Wembley Arena last summer. Wow. And dimension. Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden. I'm like, if you'd have told me 20 years ago that you know you could sell out an entire rock stadium to have people watch you play Dungeons and Dragons, I would have laughed. I mean, there's no way it would have been possible. But now, you know, people are very much interested in this. It's kind of wild, and it's, it's fun to be a part of that. At some level,   Speaker 1 ** 39:31 how does the audience get drawn in to something like that? Because they are watching it, but there must be something that draws them in.   Matt Forbeck ** 39:39 Yeah, part of it is that you have some really skilled some actors are very funny, very traumatic and very skilled at improvisation, right? So the the dungeon master or Game Master will sit there and present them with an idea or whatever. They come up each with their own characters. They put them in wonderful, strong voices. They kind of inhabit the roles in a way that an actor. A really top level actor would, as opposed to just, you know, me sitting around a table with my friends. And because of that, they become compelling, right? My Marty and my his wife and I were actually at a convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and this group called the McElroy family, actually, they do my brother, my brother and me, which is a hit podcast, but they also do an actual play podcast called The Adventure zone, where they just play different games. And they are so funny. These guys are just some of the best comedians you'll ever hear. And so them playing, they actually played our Marvel game for a five game session, or a five podcast session, or whatever, and it was just stunningly fun to listen to. People are really talented mess around with something that we built right it's very edifying to see people enjoying something that you worked on.   Speaker 1 ** 40:51 Do you find that the audiences get drawn in and they're actually sort of playing the game along, or as well? And may disagree with what some of the choices are that people make?   Matt Forbeck ** 41:02 Oh, sure. But I mean, if the choices are made from a point of the character that's been expressed, that people are following along and they they already like the character, they might go, Oh, those mean, you know that guy, there are some characters they love to hate. There are some people they're they're angry at whatever, but they always really appreciate the actors. I mean, the actors have become celebrities in their own right. They've they sell millions of dollars for the comic books and animated TV shows and all these amazing things affiliated with their actual play stuff. And it's, I think it, part of it is because, it's because it makes the games more accessible. Some people are intimidated by these games. So it's not really, you know, from a from a physical disability kind of point. It's more of a it makes it more accessible for people to be nervous, to try these things on their own, or don't really quite get how they work. They can just sit down and pop up YouTube or their podcast program and listen into people doing a really good job at it. The unfortunate problem is that the converse of that is, when you're watching somebody do that good of a job at it, it's actually hard to live up to that right. Most people who play these games are just having fun with their friends around a table. They're not performing for, you know, 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. So there's a different level of investments, really, at that point, and some people have been known to be cowed by that, by that, or daunted by that.   Speaker 1 ** 42:28 You work on a lot of different things. I gather at the same time. What do you what do you think about that? How do you like working on a lot of different projects? Or do you, do you more focus on one thing, but you've got several things going on, so you'll work on something for one day, then you'll work on something else. Or how do you how do you do it all?   Matt Forbeck ** 42:47 That's a good question. I would love to just focus on one thing at a time. Now, you know the trouble is, I'm a freelancer, right? I don't set my I don't always get to say what I want to work on. I haven't had to look for work for over a decade, though, which has been great. People just come to me with interesting things. The trouble is that when you're a freelancer, people come in and say, Hey, let's work on this. I'm like, Yeah, tell me when you're ready to start. And you do that with like, 10 different people, and they don't always line up in sequence properly, right? Yeah? Sometimes somebody comes up and says, I need this now. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of this other thing right now, so I need to not sleep for another week, and I need to try to figure out how I'm going to put this in between other things I'm working on. And I have noticed that after I finish a project, it takes me about a day or three to just jump track. So if I really need to, I can do little bits here and there, but to just fully get my brain wrapped around everything I'm doing for a very complex project, takes me a day or three to say, Okay, now I'm ready to start this next thing and really devote myself to it. Otherwise, it's more juggling right now, having had all those kids, probably has prepared me to juggle. So I'm used to having short attention span theater going on in my head at all times, because I have to jump back and forth between things. But it is. It's a challenge, and it's a skill that you develop over time where you're like, Okay, I can put this one away here and work on this one here for a little while. Like today, yeah, I knew I was going to talk to you, Michael. So I actually had lined up another podcast that a friend of mine wanted to do with me. I said, Let's do them on the same day. This way I'm not interrupting my workflow so much, right? Makes sense? You know, try to gang those all together and the other little fiddly bits I need to do for administration on a day. Then I'm like, Okay, this is not a day off. It's just a day off from that kind of work. It's a day I'm focusing on this aspect of what I do.   Speaker 1 ** 44:39 But that's a actually brings up an interesting point. Do you ever take a day off or do what do you do when you're when you deciding that you don't want to do gaming for a while?   Matt Forbeck ** 44:49 Yeah, I actually kind of terrible. But you know, you know, my wife will often drag me off to places and say we're going to go do this when. Yes, we have a family cabin up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that we go to. Although, you know, my habit there is, I'll work. I'll start work in the morning on a laptop or iPad until my battery runs out, and then I shut it down, put on a charger, and then I go out and swim with everybody for the rest of the day. So it depends if I'm on a deadline or not, and I'm almost always on a deadline, but there are times I could take weekends off there. One of the great things of being a freelancer, though, and especially being a stay at home father, which is part of what I was doing, is that when things come up during the middle of the week, I could say, oh, sure, I can be flexible, right? The trouble is that I have to pay for that time on my weekends, a lot of the time, so I don't really get a lot of weekends off. On the other hand, I'm not I'm not committed to having to work every day of the week either, right? I need to go do doctor appointments, or we want to run off to Great America and do a theme park or whatever. I can do that anytime I want to. It's just I have to make up the time at other points during the week. Does your wife work? She does. She was a school social worker for many years, and now as a recruiter at a local technical college here called Black Hawk tech. And she's amazing, right? She's fantastic. She has always liked working. The only time she stopped working was for about a year and a half after the quads were born, I guess, two years. And that was the only time I ever took a job working with anybody else, because we needed the health insurance, so I we always got it through her. And then when she said, Well, I'm gonna stay home with the kids, which made tons of sense, I went and took a job with a video game company up in Madison, Wisconsin called Human Head Studios for about 18 months, 20 months. And then the moment she told me she was thinking about going back to work, I'm like, Oh, good, I can we can Cobra for 18 months and pay for our own health insurance, and I'm giving notice this week, and, you know, we'll work. I left on good terms that everybody. I still talk to them and whatever, but I very much like being my own boss and not worrying about what other people are going to tell me to do. I work with a lot of clients, which means I have a lot of people telling me what to do. But you know, if it turns out bad, I can walk I can walk away. If it turns out good, hopefully we get to do things together, like the the gig I've been working out with Marvel, I guess, has been going on for like, four years now, with pretty continuous work with them, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. They're great people to work with.   Speaker 1 ** 47:19 Now, you were the president of Pinnacle entertainment for a little while. Tell me about that.   Matt Forbeck ** 47:24 I was, that was a small gaming company I started up with a guy named Shane Hensley, who was another tabletop game designer. Our big game was something called Dead Lands, which was a Western zombie cowboy kind of thing. Oh gosh, Western horror. So. And it was pretty much a, you know, nobody was doing Western horror back in those days. So we thought, Oh, this is safe. And to give you an example of parallel development, we were six months into development, and another company, White Wolf, which had done a game called Vampire the Masquerade, announced that they were doing Werewolf the Wild West. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Fortunately, we still released our game three months before there, so everybody thought we were copying them, rather than the other way around. But the fact is, we were. We both just came up with the idea independently. Right? When you work in creative fields, often, if somebody wants to show you something, you say, I'd like to look at you have to sign a waiver first that says, If I do something like this, you can't sue me. And it's not because people are trying to rip you off. It's because they may actually be working on something similar, right already. Because we're all, you know, swimming in the same cultural pool. We're all, you know, eating the same cultural soup. We're watching or watching movies, playing games, doing whatever, reading books. And so it's not unusual that some of us will come up with similar ideas   Speaker 1 ** 48:45 well, and it's not surprising that from time to time, two different people are going to come up with somewhat similar concepts. So that's not a big surprise, exactly, but   Matt Forbeck ** 48:56 you don't want people getting litigious over it, like no, you don't be accused of ripping anybody off, right? You just want to be as upfront with people. With people. And I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody, at least in gaming, in tabletop games, rip somebody off like that. Just say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're stealing that it's easier to pay somebody to just say, Yes, that's a great idea. We'll buy that from you, right? As opposed to trying to do something unseemly and criminal?   Speaker 1 ** 49:24 Yeah, there's, there's something to be said for having real honor in the whole process.   Matt Forbeck ** 49:30 Yeah, I agree, and I think that especially if you're trying to have a long term career in any field that follows you, if you get a reputation for being somebody who plays dirty, nobody wants to play with you in the future, and I've always found it to be best to be as straightforward with people and honest, especially professionally, just to make sure that they trust you. Before my quadruplets were born, you could have set your clock by me as a freelancer, I never missed a deadline ever, and since then, I've probably it's a. Rare earth thing to make a deadline, because, you know, family stuff happens, and you know, there's just no controlling it. But whenever something does happen, I just call people up and say, hey, look, it's going to be another week or two. This is what's going on. And because I have a good reputation for completing the job and finishing quality work, they don't mind. They're like, Oh, okay, I know you're going to get this to me. You're not just trying to dodge me. So they're willing to wait a couple weeks if they need to, to get to get what they need. And I'm very grateful to them for that. And I'm the worst thing somebody can do is what do, what I call turtling down, which is when it's like, Oh no, I'm late. And then, you know, they cut off all communication. They don't talk to anybody. They just kind of try to disappear as much as they can. And we all, all adults, understand that things happen in your life. It's okay. We can cut you some slack every now and then, but if you just try to vanish, that's not even possible.   Speaker 1 ** 50:54 No, there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said for trust and and it's so important, I think in most anything that we do, and I have found in so many ways, that there's nothing better than really earning someone's trust, and they earning your trust. And it's something I talk about in my books, like when live with a guide dog, live like a guide dog, which is my newest book, it talks a lot about trust, because when you're working with a guide dog, you're really building a team, and each member of the team has a specific job to do, and as the leader of the team, it's my job to also learn how to communicate with the other member of the team. But the reality is, it still comes down to ultimately, trust, because I and I do believe that dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that people that dogs are much more open to trust, for the most part, unless they've just been totally traumatized by something, but they're more open to trust. And there's a lesson to be learned there. No, I   Matt Forbeck ** 52:03 absolutely agree with that. I think, I think most people in general are trustworthy, but as you say, a lot of them have trauma in their past that makes it difficult for them to open themselves up to that. So that's actually a pretty wonderful way to think about things. I like that,   Speaker 1 ** 52:17 yeah, well, I think that trust is is so important. And I know when I worked in professional sales, it was all about trust. In fact, whenever I interviewed people for jobs, I always asked them what they were going to sell, and only one person ever answered me the way. I really hoped that everybody would answer when I said, So, tell me what you're going to be selling. He said, The only thing I have to really sell is myself and my word, and nothing else. It really matters. Everything else is stuff. What you have is stuff. It's me selling myself and my word, and you have to, and I would expect you to back me up. And my response was, as long as you're being trustworthy, then you're going to get my backing all the way. And he was my most successful salesperson for a lot of reasons, because he got it.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:08 Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I mean, I've worked with people sourcing different things too, for sales, and if you can rely on somebody to, especially when things go wrong, to come through for you. And to be honest with you about, you know, there's really that's a hard thing to find. If you can't depend on your sources for what you're building, then you can't depend on anything. Everything else falls apart.   Speaker 1 ** 53:29 It does. You've got to start at the beginning. And if people can't earn your trust, and you earn theirs, there's a problem somewhere, and it's just not going to work.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:39 Yeah, I just generally think people are decent and want to help. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had issues. Car breaks down the road in Wisconsin. Here, if somebody's car goes in the ditch, everybody stops and just hauls them out. It's what you do when the quads were born, my stepmother came up with a sign up sheet, a booklet that she actually had spiral bound, that people could sign up every three three hours to help come over and feed and bathe, diaper, whatever the kids and we had 30 to 35 volunteers coming in every week. Wow, to help us out with that was amazing, right? They just each pick slots, feeding slots, and come in and help us out. I had to take the 2am feeding, and my wife had to take the 5am feeding by ourselves. But the rest of the week we had lots and lots of help, and we were those kids became the surrogate grandchildren for, you know, 30 to 35 women and couples really, around the entire area, and it was fantastic. Probably couldn't have survived   Speaker 1 ** 54:38 without it. And the other part about it is that all those volunteers loved it, because you all appreciated each other, and it was always all about helping and assisting.   Matt Forbeck ** 54:48 No, we appreciate them greatly. But you know every most of them, like 99% of them, whatever were women, 95 women who are ready for grandchildren and didn't have them. Had grandchildren, and they weren't in the area, right? And they had that, that love they wanted to share, and they just loved the opportunity to do it. It was, I'm choking up here talking about such a great time for us in   Speaker 1 ** 55:11 that way. Now I'm assuming today, nobody has to do diaper duty with the quads, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:16 Not until they have their own kids. Just checking, just checking, thankfully, think we're that is long in our past,   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 is it? Is it coming fairly soon for anybody in the future?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:27 Oh, I don't know. That's really entirely up to them. We would love to have grandchildren, but you know, it all comes in its own time. They're not doing no well. I, one of my sons is married, so it's possible, right? And one of my other sons has a long term girlfriend, so that's possible, but, you know, who knows? Hopefully they're they have them when they're ready. I always say, if you have kids and you want them, that's great. If you have, if you don't have kids and you don't want them, that's great. It's when you cross the two things that,   Speaker 1 ** 55:57 yeah, trouble, yeah, that's that is, that is a problem. But you really like working with yourself. You love the entre

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.0: The SeelieEpisode 55: It SpeaksTUO collects themselves after the battle and does some investigating of the area. The wolf refuses to un-wildshape and Véres tries to get Elara to leave the dam to get her blight looked at.  Content Warnings: Blood, Body Gore, Body Horror: amputated limbs, innards, missing organs, Emotional Distress, Self Inflicted Wounds, Fantasy Violence, Profanity, Reference to romantic and sexual relationships.Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players!If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Follow the Cast:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chriss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hearken, ye Cabalists! Gather round, for this day the Lords convene in discourse. They speak first of Jamie and AC's newest chronicle of dread and mystery, wrought in the Call of Cthulhu. Thereafter, a query from a faithful listener shall be pondered, touching upon the use of relics and tokens within the gaming hall. Lastly, the Roundtable shall be set, where wisdom is shared on the keeping of momentum and the weariness that oft befalls the Game Master. Raise thy voices in mirth! Huzzah!

In today's episode we talk about Making Better Homebrew Items And Monsters.  What makes good homebrew items and monsters?  Why do you want homebrew items?  How do you make better items?  We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

This week I have a roundtable discussion with players from my D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars, that recently ended. Brett, Craig, and Sam join me to discuss our experiences with D&D at high level, both as players and GM. If there's a sweet spot for D&D level-wise, what is it? We also talk a bit about what we'd really like to see from game companies INSTEAD of big hardback adventures/campaigns that go on for 10+ levels. Finally, we talk about the end of the campaign and the final battle. The players give their perceptions on how it all turned out. There are definitely things I could've done better, and we discuss that, so as I always say at the top of the show, you can learn from my mistakes, or at least things I could've done differently and/or better.Check out my sci-fi novel, Critical Balance.Have you read Critical Balance? Please leave a review on Amazon.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

In this episode, we're tackling one of the most overlooked aspects of tabletop gaming—and no, we're not talking about "min-maxing" or "rules lawyer debates." The hosts explore the art and mindset of playing your home game like you're recording for thousands of listeners, diving into why adopting actual play techniques isn't performative theater but rather a powerful approach for creating more engaging and memorable sessions.Whether you're a seasoned GM who's noticed your players scrolling phones during combat or a newer Game Master wondering why your epic campaign moments fall flat at the table, this episode delivers practical techniques with the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from years of watching what works in both intimate kitchen table games and streamed actual plays.Special guest @lexgetspizza is interviewed as we dive deep into the psychology of engagement and explore how narrative pacing, character voice work, and cinematic description can transform even the most mundane dungeon crawl into appointment gaming.Topics Covered:What "actual play energy" really means and why it's not about being performativeThe psychology of engagement: how attention and investment create better storiesCharacter voice and physicality as tools for deeper roleplay immersionSessions that nail the vibe: Critical Role techniques for home tablesDebunking "actual play is fake" and other common misconceptions about performanceThe social contract of engagement: when to dial up the energy and when to keep it casualTeaching cinematic description to players without making them feel like actorsHow structure and intentional pacing fuel memorable moments rather than restrict natural flowManaging the "highlight reel effect" and dealing with comparison to professional showsSo grab your dice, your favorite beverage, and maybe dust off that character voice you've been too shy to use—we're diving into every reason why bringing actual play techniques to your home game will make everyone more excited to show up!Join host Nick Perron as he draws from his expertise in the TTRPG space to explore what makes games truly captivating with creators and players who are elevating the hobby one session at a time.→ Tabletopped's Stuff:→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tabletopped's website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check us out on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We have a new monthly pod as well as behind the scenes clips that you can get on a secret Spotify feed! We will also be dropping some more treats from time to time!Theme music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mitch Poulin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

A half hour commercial for Nintendo animated by people who have clearly never played a single Nintendo game. Contact John on Bluesky or email Paul and John at transformersnitpickers@gmail.com. Full episode archive

Episode 520: This week we have a new edition of Homie and the Bish! NOW WITH VIDEO! Som is the Game Master this time and Nick and Dannie have to rank some of her fav digimon!Play along here before Som reveals the rankings!https://tiermaker.com/create/anime-summit-podcast-series-handtb---soms-digimon-17334201

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.0: The SeelieEpisode 55: A Twisted Kind of Communion The Unlucky Ones go head to head with the creatures who took the form of Dorin and Takoa  Content Warnings: Blood, Body Gore, Body Horror: amputated limbs, broken bones, dismemberment, innards, missing organs, Emotional Distress, Fantasy Violence, Self Inflicted Wounds, Profanity, Reference to romantic and sexual relationships. Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players!If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Follow the Cast:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chriss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠This week we're featuring our friends at Professional Questers. Check out their podcast ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠! 

The party takes the time to regroup and resolve some lingering threads as Ash prepares a submarine to go after the ocean spirit.Podcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/swfrpodcast.bsky.socialThank you to Arcane Anthems for our theme!https://www.patreon.com/arcaneanthemsFollow the cast members:BubblingBrooke as Ashaa-kai: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bubblingbrooke.bsky.socialYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BubblingBrookePractically Silver as Cal'chiin Phimiir: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/practicallysilver.bsky.socialYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Silverkeyblade/featuredBen Lepard as Niks: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/blepardvo.bsky.socialHitenNoRuroni as Raestra AkkanRedAngel as Esphere:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/redangelx3.bsky.socialYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RedAngelPonderingsThis_Justin as the Game Master

In today's episode we talk about Setting Up A Space To Play.  How do we set up a good play space?  What should we focus on?  will this cost me a lot of money?  We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

This week I have a roundtable discussion with players from my D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars, that recently ended. Brett, Craig, and Sam join me to discuss our experiences with D&D at high level, both as players and GM. We also talk about what it was like to bring a new player into a campaign toward the end, when the PCs are all high level. Finally, I talk a bit about my thoughts and strategies going into the final leg of the campaign, and how I prepared and planned for it. The players give their perceptions on how it all turned out. There are definitely things I could've done better, and we discuss that, so as I always say at the top of the show, you can learn from my mistakes, or at least things I could've done differently and/or better.Check out my sci-fi novel, Critical Balance.Have you read Critical Balance? Please leave a review on Amazon.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

The Unlucky Ones AU One Shot Series – That Time they were Murder MavensJoin us for our second standalone oneshot where we play Brindlewood Bay!Get ready because we're yanking our Tales of Three main characters from our homebrew world of Elisora and dropping them into the world of Brindlwood Bay where they're older and hopefully wiser.Content Warnings: Blood, Confrontation with law enforcement, Emotional Distress, Fantasy Violence, Mention of Firearms, Profanity, Real World Religion, and Sexual and Romantic Relationships.Enjoying the game? Find Brindlewood Bay here!Enjoying the mystery? Find Murder a la Mode here! Created by the amazing MeadowLarkGames Our main campaign, Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players!If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Follow the Cast:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty Pennyy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chriss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠

Turning Your TTRPG Into a Chemically Enhanced Nightmare (for the Players, Not the GM) Missed an episode? Accidentally ingested a memory-erasing toxin? No worries! Archived episodes of the RPGBOT.Podcast are now available on YouTube. Binge the banter, savor the strategy, and relive every rules argument—now with video thumbnails. Show Notes Welcome to the episode where the RPGBOT.Podcast crew rolls a Constitution save against bad design decisions and fails—deliberately. In this delightfully dangerous deep dive, Tyler Kamstra, Randall James, and Ash Ely explore one of the most tragically underused tools in the Game Master's arsenal: poison. Not the “ha ha, you take 1d4 damage and feel kind of bad” kind—no, we're talking the really nasty stuff. The stuff that makes players sweat, forget what color their dice are, and suddenly develop a deep appreciation for the paladin's aura of protection. Join the crew as they: Dissect why poison is so often mechanically boring despite being conceptually metal. Share hilarious war stories about poorly-timed venomous traps and failed fortitude saves. Explore how different TTRPG systems handle poison: from D&D's "mild inconvenience" to Pathfinder's "goodbye, pancreas." Offer deliciously evil advice for GMs looking to flavor their campaigns with a little more toxic attitude. Brainstorm better mechanics for poisons that do more than just slap a couple HP off your barbarian and call it a day. Create fictional poisons on the fly—some of which should never be spoken of again. Looking at you, Ash's Spiteful Slime Surprise. Debate whether ingesting a cursed Hot Pocket counts as a magical poison effect (spoiler: it does, and it bypasses resistance). Key Takeaways: D&D poison mechanics are weaker than a kobold's slap fight. It's time for GMs to spice things up with custom creations. Pathfinder 2e offers a better structure, but still leaves room for homebrewed horrors. Poisons should be scary, situational, and strategic. They can shape encounters, plotlines, and even the economy. "Save or suck" poison effects? Lazy. Instead, give toxins progressive effects or interactable consequences. Players love meaningful danger. If your rogue wants to coat their dagger in acid-laced possum venom, let them—then make them regret it just a little. GM tip: If the party stops eating anything in-game, congratulations. You've weaponized cuisine. Bonus insight: Nothing ruins a tavern meal like realizing the stew is a dexterity check away from cardiac arrest. Call to Action: Feeling inspired to poison your friends in the most entertaining and legally safe way possible? Subscribe to the RPGBOT.Podcast wherever you listen, and check out our archives now on YouTube. Share the show, leave a review, and let us know your favorite toxin-laced TTRPG tales. Because nothing says “game night” like a little slow-acting doom in your fantasy casserole. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. It's a quick, free way to support the podcast, and helps us reach new listeners. If you love the show, consider joining us on Patreon, where backers at the $5 and above tiers get ad free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT.Podcast, can chat directly to members of the RPGBOT team and community on the RPGBOT.Discord, and can join us for live-streamed recordings. Support us on Amazon.com when you purchase products recommended in the show at the following link: https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ Meet the Hosts: Tyler Kamstra – The tactical mind behind RPGBOT.net, Tyler sees the Pathfinder action economy like Neo sees the Matrix. Randall James – Technologist, lore enthusiast, and fully prepared to duel Peter Jackson over which LotR edition reigns supreme. Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare. Fueled by sarcasm and sweet, sweet table-flipping energy. How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra BlueSky: @rpgbot.net TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games BlueSky: @GravenAshes YouTube: @ashravenmedia Randall James BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG Amateurjack.com Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link) Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

Turning Your TTRPG Into a Chemically Enhanced Nightmare (for the Players, Not the GM) Missed an episode? Accidentally ingested a memory-erasing toxin? No worries! Archived episodes of the RPGBOT.Podcast are now available on YouTube. Binge the banter, savor the strategy, and relive every rules argument—now with video thumbnails. Show Notes Welcome to the episode where the RPGBOT.Podcast crew rolls a Constitution save against bad design decisions and fails—deliberately. In this delightfully dangerous deep dive, Tyler Kamstra, Randall James, and Ash Ely explore one of the most tragically underused tools in the Game Master's arsenal: poison. Not the “ha ha, you take 1d4 damage and feel kind of bad” kind—no, we're talking the really nasty stuff. The stuff that makes players sweat, forget what color their dice are, and suddenly develop a deep appreciation for the paladin's aura of protection. Join the crew as they: Dissect why poison is so often mechanically boring despite being conceptually metal. Share hilarious war stories about poorly-timed venomous traps and failed fortitude saves. Explore how different TTRPG systems handle poison: from D&D's "mild inconvenience" to Pathfinder's "goodbye, pancreas." Offer deliciously evil advice for GMs looking to flavor their campaigns with a little more toxic attitude. Brainstorm better mechanics for poisons that do more than just slap a couple HP off your barbarian and call it a day. Create fictional poisons on the fly—some of which should never be spoken of again. Looking at you, Ash's Spiteful Slime Surprise. Debate whether ingesting a cursed Hot Pocket counts as a magical poison effect (spoiler: it does, and it bypasses resistance). Key Takeaways: D&D poison mechanics are weaker than a kobold's slap fight. It's time for GMs to spice things up with custom creations. Pathfinder 2e offers a better structure, but still leaves room for homebrewed horrors. Poisons should be scary, situational, and strategic. They can shape encounters, plotlines, and even the economy. "Save or suck" poison effects? Lazy. Instead, give toxins progressive effects or interactable consequences. Players love meaningful danger. If your rogue wants to coat their dagger in acid-laced possum venom, let them—then make them regret it just a little. GM tip: If the party stops eating anything in-game, congratulations. You've weaponized cuisine. Bonus insight: Nothing ruins a tavern meal like realizing the stew is a dexterity check away from cardiac arrest. Call to Action: Feeling inspired to poison your friends in the most entertaining and legally safe way possible? Subscribe to the RPGBOT.Podcast wherever you listen, and check out our archives now on YouTube. Share the show, leave a review, and let us know your favorite toxin-laced TTRPG tales. Because nothing says “game night” like a little slow-acting doom in your fantasy casserole. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. It's a quick, free way to support the podcast, and helps us reach new listeners. If you love the show, consider joining us on Patreon, where backers at the $5 and above tiers get ad free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT.Podcast, can chat directly to members of the RPGBOT team and community on the RPGBOT.Discord, and can join us for live-streamed recordings. Support us on Amazon.com when you purchase products recommended in the show at the following link: https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ Meet the Hosts: Tyler Kamstra – The tactical mind behind RPGBOT.net, Tyler sees the Pathfinder action economy like Neo sees the Matrix. Randall James – Technologist, lore enthusiast, and fully prepared to duel Peter Jackson over which LotR edition reigns supreme. Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare. Fueled by sarcasm and sweet, sweet table-flipping energy. How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra BlueSky: @rpgbot.net TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games BlueSky: @GravenAshes YouTube: @ashravenmedia Randall James BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG Amateurjack.com Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link) Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

Brennan Lee Mulligan Set as Critical Role Game Master, Peacemaker Season 2 Update, Vought Rising Casting, The War Between the Land and the Sea Update. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the RPG series, hosts Dirk Knemeyer and David Heron are joined by Justin Alexander , a renowned game designer and thought leader in tabletop RPGs. Known for his influential essays and innovative GM techniques, Justin shares insights into the role of the Game Master as designer. They dive into how GMs can connect narrative ideas to mechanics, the philosophies behind crafting memorable RPG experiences, and the challenges new GMs often face. Whether you're building worlds or running them, this episode offers practical tools and deep design wisdom.

In today's episode we continue our series of Let's Make A One Shot.  The game we make a one shot for comes from the prompt Grave Peril.  We describe all the details you would need to consider to pull this one shot off.  Enjoy this episode as we make a one shot using the tools we talk about.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.1 OladellEpisode 54: The Blight of the Bone SharkTUO enters the deep waters of the dam and investigate the turbine. Ivy debuts a new wildshape and a new problem presents itself.Content Warnings: Darkness, Deep water, and Profanity Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players! If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy!  Follow the Cast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty Pennyy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres  Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!   Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chriss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art!  Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This week we're featuring our friends at Diceberg Ahead. Check out their podcast ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠! 

Greetings, noble Cabalists! This day, the Lords do commence their grand convocation by heeding a missive from a most inquisitive listener, who doth inquire how they divine their next realm of adventure, be it by the singular vision of a lone Game Master, or by the council and clamor of the whole round table. Thereafter, the fellowship embarks upon a most profound discourse concerning the art of embodying one's hero, weaving a soul and spirit into the character, and bringing them to life through word and deed. Hark, and be entertained!

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.1: OladellEpisode 53: To the Dam! (finally)After a well deserved nap, our trio gets an update from Novick and heads to the dam. Content Warnings: Darkness, Emotional Distress, Fantasy Violence, Profanity, Reference to PTSD and flashbacks, romantic and sexual relationships. Misophonia 59:40-59:45Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players! If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy!  Follow the Cast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty Pennyy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres  Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!   Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chriss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art!  Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This week we're featuring our friends at Fantasy Pants: A DnD Adventure Podcast. Check out their podcast ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠! 

In today's episode we talk about How To Write A Character Arc.  What makes a good character arc?  How do you make them meaningful?  How do you mix them into the other players at the table to keep everyone engaged?  We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

With the problem temporarily resolved, the party leaves the cruise ship in search to solve the corruption.Podcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/swfrpodcast.bsky.socialThank you to Arcane Anthems for our theme!https://www.patreon.com/arcaneanthemsFollow the cast members:BubblingBrooke as Ashaa-kai: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bubblingbrooke.bsky.socialYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BubblingBrookePractically Silver as Cal'chiin Phimiir: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/practicallysilver.bsky.socialYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Silverkeyblade/featuredBen Lepard as Niks: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/blepardvo.bsky.socialHitenNoRuroni as Raestra AkkanRedAngel as Esphere:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/redangelx3.bsky.socialYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RedAngelPonderingsThis_Justin as the Game Master

Thank you to our sponsor World Anvil! Check out World Anvil to use their Worldbuilding, Writing, and Game Master tools for free! If you like what you see, use code "RAMBLE" at checkout for 51% off a yearly subscription! https://www.worldanvil.com/?c=2ToRamble⭐️ Exclusive Book Club! Join/Support on Patreon

In this quick headlines episode, Frank reacts to the big news out of Critical Role. Campaign 4 is coming, and for the first time ever, Matt Mercer is stepping aside as Dungeon Master. Brennan Lee Mulligan, of Dimension 20 fame, is taking over the DM chair. Frank shares his excitement, weighs whether now is the right time to start watching Critical Role, and opens the conversation to fellow fans and newcomers alike. Plus, he teases how this impacts his own D&D campaign as a DM and how Brennan's style has already influenced his game planning.Timestamps:00:00 Brennan Lee Mulligan announced as new Critical Role DM00:16 Matt Mercer steps down, future as player still unknown00:32 Marisha Ray calls Campaign 4 “fresh”00:46 Is this the best time to start watching Critical Role?01:00 How Brennan influences Frank's own DM style01:10 Hoping more people get into actual play contentKey Takeaways:Brennan Lee Mulligan is confirmed as the Game Master for Campaign 4 of Critical RoleMatt Mercer is not DMing this time, and it's unclear if he'll return as a playerMarisha Ray described the upcoming campaign as “fresh stories, fresh characters, and fresh settings”This could be the perfect jumping-on point for new viewersFrank uses Brennan's DM style as inspiration for his own D&D sessionsActual play content can improve your gameplay as both a player and a DMMemorable Quotes:“That is such a Mulligan name… Padmund Pondhop.”“If you guys want to learn how to play better, I suggest you watch this and this and this.”“I don't want them to know I'm stealing some ideas… like that motorcycle chase from Fantasy High. I'm so using that on horseback.”Call to Action:Enjoyed this bite-sized breakdown? Be sure to subscribe to Geek Freaks Headlines, leave a review, and share the episode using #GeekFreaksPodcast. Let us know in the comments—should Frank start Critical Role from the beginning, or wait for Campaign 4?

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.1: OladellEpisode 52: Unique Ways to WorkoutVéres and an Eladrin from the capitol try some new ways of working out, while Elara gets more than she bargained for on the training ground, and Ivy meets some guards, has a lovely breakfast and dishes out some advice she herself cannot seem to take. Content Warnings: Disassociation, Emotional Distress, Flashbacks, Panic Attacks, Profanity, and Romantic and Sexual SituationsTales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players! If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy!  Follow the Cast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty Pennyy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres  Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!   Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chriss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art!  Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This week we're featuring our friends at Diceberg Ahead. Check out their podcast ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠! 

Fred Van Lente is one of Kristian’s favorite comic book writers. Kristian discovered his work years ago while Fred was helping recreate the Valiant line of comic books. On top of having also worked on projects for Marvel Comics and a host of other publishers, Fred has worked on educational non-fiction comics like Action Philosophers […]

The final session of our D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars. The final battle at the World Axis continues. Aided by the many allies they've made throughout their adventures, the PCs fight for the survival of Primordia itself. Together they will make a decision that changes Primordia forever.Check out my sci-fi novel, Critical Balance.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

The final session of our D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars. The final battle at the World Axis continues. Aided by the many allies they've made throughout their adventures, the PCs fight for the survival of Primordia itself. Together they will make a decision that changes Primordia forever. This is part 2 of the session.Check out my sci-fi novel, Critical Balance.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

In this episode, we're tackling one of the most fascinating storytelling techniques in tabletop gaming—and no, we're not talking about "flashback mechanics" or "framing devices." The hosts explore the art and craft of nested narratives, diving into why stories within stories aren't just narrative flourish but rather a powerful tool for creating immersive, multi-layered gaming experiences.Whether you're a seasoned GM who's experimented with tales-within-tales or a newer Game Master wondering how to weave multiple narrative threads without losing your players, this episode delivers practical insights with the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from years of spinning interconnected stories around the table.We dive deep into the world of layered storytelling and explore how nested narratives, character backstories, and multi-level plot structures can enhance rather than complicate the gaming experience.Topics Covered:The psychology of stories within stories: how layered tales create depth and engagementCharacter-driven nesting: when PC backstories become adventures themselvesSystems that support nested storytelling: Blades in the Dark, Burning Wheel, and Chronicles of DarknessManaging complexity: keeping multiple narrative threads coherent and compellingThe social contract of nested stories: when to embrace or simplify your narrative approachHow constraints and structure in nested stories fuel creativity rather than confuse itPlayer agency in nested narratives: maintaining choice across multiple story layersSo grab your dice, your favorite beverage, and maybe dust off that campaign notebook with all those interconnected plot threads—we're diving into every reason why stories within stories deserve more love at your gaming table!Join host Nick Perron as he draws from his expertise in the TTRPG space to explore the cutting edge of game design with creators who are pushing boundaries and making magic happen one dice roll at a time.→ Tabletopped's Stuff:→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tabletopped's website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check us out on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We have a new monthly pod as well as behind the scenes clips that you can get on a secret Spotify feed! We will also be dropping some more treats from time to time!Theme music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mitch Poulin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

In today's episode we continue our series of Let's Make A One Shot.  The game we make a one shot for comes from the prompt Dungeons And Dine.  We describe all the details you would need to consider to pull this one shot off.  Enjoy this episode as we make a one shot using the tools we talk about.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

It's a DM's worst nightmare: your D&D players have made an unexpected choice, obliterating your plans, and you now have to DM on the fly. Those who DM for kids can find themselves in this position more often than DMs with adults, because kids can be wonderfully and chaotically creative players! How can you encourage your players to follow the narrative crumbs without taking away their agency? How can a DM prepare for the unexpected and grow their comfort with going off-script? Ryan and Allison share some ideas that can help!   Welcome to Area of Effect, a podcast from the creators of The Kids Table, where we discuss how tabletop RPGs benefit kids and answer your questions about playing TTRPGs with the kids at your table! About us: When kids are at the table, everyone wins! Playing Dungeons & Dragons (and other Tabletop Role-Playing Games) with kids helps develop critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, & confidence - not to mention the connections you'll build around the table. That's why we produce this original, kid-inclusive show along, share tip videos, and write adventure modules to help you play TTRPGs with the kids at your own table! For Our Kids' Adventures & More: www.thekidstablednd.com To Support Our Work: www.patreon.com/TheKidsTableDnD Follow @TheKidsTableDnD on Instagram, TikTok & Facebook   #dndactualplay #family #dungeonsanddragons #thekidstablednd #dndwithkids #actualplay #ttrpg #familyshow #familygames #kids #adventure #fantasy#drama #storytelling #roleplaying

In today's episode we talk about Daggerheart campaign frames.  What are campaign frames?  How can they be used to improve game planning?  We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.1: OladellEpisode 51: Exes and Oh it's a GhostTUO flee Dorin's home when an uninvited person shows up, Véres gets another message from Aurelious, Ivy wakes up feeling #blessed, and we learn about the types of books Elara reads for fun. Content Warnings: Blood, Body Horror: dismemberment, Fantasy Violence, Gore, Profanity, Reference to sexual relationships. Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy dnd podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Players!If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Follow the Cast:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arianna⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠as Elara Spinelspark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dusty Pennyy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Ivy Nightbreeze- Tinkerfey  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wayra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ as Véres Find our socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!Buy us a coffee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠& ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Monument Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠This week we're featuring our friends at Halfwits and Failed Crits. Check out their podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠!

Join us for a conversation with Eric Betancourt, a storytelling powerhouse, an award-worthy narrative designer, masterful Dungeon Master, and educator who brings worlds to life across tabletop and digital realms. With credits from heavyweights like Wizards of the Coast and Fantasy Flight Games, he's using the power of play to spark creativity, build empathy, and fuel real-world changeLearn more about EricLearn more about usJoin the next episode of the Indie Game Lunch Hour LIVE every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to answer your own burning questions and be immortalized in the recordings.

Our D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars, continues. This week the final battle at the World Axis continues. Aided by the many allies they've made throughout their adventures, the PCs fight for the survival of Primordia itself. They are now level 17.Check out my sci-fi novel, Critical Balance.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

Our D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars, continues. This week the final battle at the World Axis continues. Aided by the many allies they've made throughout their adventures, the PCs fight for the survival of Primordia itself. They are now level 17. This is part 2 of the session.Check out my sci-fi novel, Critical Balance.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

In this episode, we're tackling one of the most controversial topics in tabletop gaming—and no, we're not talking about "edition wars" or "alignment arguments." The hosts explore the art and science of crunchy game mechanics, diving into why complex systems aren't the enemy of good storytelling but rather a powerful tool for creating memorable narratives.Whether you're a seasoned GM who's embraced the mathematical beauty of detailed systems or a newer Game Master wondering if all those modifiers and subsystems are worth the effort, this episode delivers passionate defense with the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from years of rolling dice and crunching numbers.Special guest Derek Kane-Gervais is interviewed as we dive deep into the world of rules-heavy RPGs and explore how probability curves, character optimization, and mechanical complexity can enhance rather than hinder the storytelling experience.Topics Covered:What "crunch" really means and why it's not a dirty word in TTRPG designThe mathematics of drama: how probability creates tension and uncertaintyCharacter building as creative expression and problem-solving artistrySystems that do crunch right: Pathfinder 2e, GURPS, and ShadowrunDebunking "crunch kills roleplay" and other common misconceptionsThe social contract of complexity: when to embrace or avoid crunchy gamesTeaching complex systems to new players without overwhelming themHow constraints and rules fuel creativity rather than restrict itSo grab your dice, your favorite beverage, and maybe dust off that character optimizer spreadsheet—we're diving into every reason why mathematical storytelling deserves more love!Join host Nick Perron as he draws from his expertise in the TTRPG space to explore the cutting edge of game design with creators who are pushing boundaries and making magic happen one dice roll at a time.→ Tabletopped's Stuff:→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tabletopped's website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check us out on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We have a new monthly pod as well as behind the scenes clips that you can get on a secret Spotify feed! We will also be dropping some more treats from time to time!Theme music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mitch Poulin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Thank you to our sponsor World Anvil! Check out World Anvil to use their Worldbuilding, Writing, and Game Master tools for free! If you like what you see, use code "RAMBLE" at checkout for 51% off a yearly subscription! https://www.worldanvil.com/?c=2ToRamble⭐️ Exclusive Book Club! Join/Support on Patreon

In today's episode we talk about how to use excessive detail to improve your games.  Why use extra detail in your games?  What tools can you use to create this detail?  What areas of detail should you focus on?  We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.0: The SeelieEpisode 50: The Fate of DorinThe Unlucky Ones sneak out and go check out Dorin's home.  Content Warnings: Blood, Body Gore, Body Horror: amputated limbs, innards, missing organs, Emotional Distress, Self Inflicted Wounds, Fantasy Violence, Profanity, Reference to romantic and sexual relationships.Tales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy D&D podcast where your three Game Masters are also your three Main Characters. If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5-star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose contentyou enjoy!  Follow the Cast: Arianna as Elara SpinelSparkDusty Pennyy as Ivy Nightbreeze- TinkerfeyWayra as VéresFind RDC's socials ⁠⁠here⁠⁠! Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠!Support us by donation on ⁠Ko-fi⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠Chris ⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠for the character art!  Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠ & Monument Studios

Hark, noble Cabalists, and well met! Gather ye ‘round, for thou art most welcome to yet another enchanted convening of the Lords of the Dungeon! This day, our bold and steadfast adventurers doth recount the wondrous tales of their voyage through the strange and many-layer'd realms of Planescape, with the wise and venerable Archmage AC guiding their path. Thereafter, the Lords dost heed the call of the arcane scrolls sent forth by our loyal listeners - speaking on their most cherished villains, the sacred handling of canon lore, the art of imparting wisdom unto fledgling Game Masters, and the campaign settings they wouldst most desire to conjure for their fellowship. So attend, brave souls, for much knowledge and mirth await within!

Planning sessions, we love to hate them. But, in kids' DnD, do they actually have a distinct purpose? In this episode, Ryan & Allison chat about how planning sessions help kids develop important life skills such as executive function, verbal processing, and teamwork - and, what important role adults at the table fill to help. Welcome to Area of Effect, a podcast from the creators of The Kids Table, where we discuss how tabletop RPGs benefit kids and answer your questions about playing TTRPGs with the kids at your table! About us: When kids are at the table, everyone wins! Playing Dungeons & Dragons (and other Tabletop Role-Playing Games) with kids helps develop critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, & confidence - not to mention the connections you'll build around the table. That's why we produce this original, kid-inclusive show along, share tip videos, and write adventure modules to help you play TTRPGs with the kids at your own table! For Our Kids' Adventures & More: www.thekidstablednd.com To Support Our Work: www.patreon.com/TheKidsTableDnD Follow @TheKidsTableDnD on Instagram, TikTok & Facebook   #dndactualplay #family #dungeonsanddragons #thekidstablednd #dndwithkids #actualplay #ttrpg #familyshow #familygames #kids #adventure #fantasy#drama #storytelling #roleplaying  

Today is about consequences and how we, as Game Masters, can set them up perfectly to crash down onto our player characters when they least expect it. At least that is the idea behind Long Term Consequences, but they aren't always that easy to manage.That is exactly what today is about, we are here to help you manage and create those long term consequencesCheck here for all further information:You can find us on the Web under these Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.doubledm.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bsky.app/profile/doubledm.bsky.socialhttps://www.instagram.com/doubledmpod/?hl=de⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/doubledm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠If you want to reach out to us via E-Mail use: doubledmpod@gmail.comOur Midroll Music is "Midnight Tale" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our Outro Music is "Ascending the Vale" Kevin MacLeod (imcompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tales of Three Campaign OneArc 2.1: OladellEpisode 49: Gathering Information & Getting Spied OnAfter their encounter with the Priest of Corruption, The Unlucky Ones regroup and speak to some townsfolk about the creature. Before bed, they get acquainted with the guards on watch and our trio decides to room together once again. Content Warnings: Emotional Distress, Fantasy Violence, Profanity, Reference to romantic and sexual relationshipsTales of Three is an all-queer, dark fantasy D&D podcast where your 3 Game Masters are also your 3 Main Characters If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us & consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Find our socials ⁠⁠here⁠⁠!  Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠!  If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠!Buy us a coffee on ⁠Ko-fi⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠Chris ⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠ & Monument Studios

In this episode, we're tackling one of the most dreaded phrases in tabletop gaming—and no, we're not talking about "rocks fall, everyone dies." The hosts explore the art and science of managing party splits outside of combat scenarios, diving into practical strategies that keep everyone engaged when your adventuring party decides to scatter to the four winds.Whether you're a seasoned GM who's watched party splits derail entire sessions or a newer Game Master wondering how to handle your first "wait, we're splitting up?" moment, this episode delivers actionable advice with the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from managing countless scattered adventuring parties.Topics Covered:Why party splits happen and when they're actually beneficial to your storyTime management techniques that keep all players engaged during split scenariosThe spotlight system: ensuring every player gets meaningful screen timeCreative solutions for handling multiple simultaneous conversations and investigationsWhen to say no to a party split and how to redirect without railroadingTools and techniques for tracking multiple party threads without losing your mindSo grab your dice, your favorite beverage, and maybe practice your pickup lines—we're diving into every way you can deal with a split party!Join host Nick Perron as he draws from his expertise in the TTRPG space to explore the cutting edge of indie game design with creators who are pushing boundaries and making magic happen one dice roll at a time.→ Tabletopped's Stuff:→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tabletopped's website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠→ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check us out on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We have a new monthly pod as well as behind the scenes clips that you can get on a secret Spotify feed! We will also be dropping some more treats from time to time!Theme music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mitch Poulin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars, continues. This week the final battle at the World Axis begins. The PCs fight for the survival of Primordia itself. They are now level 17.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.

Our D&D campaign, Blood of the Avatars, continues. This week the final battle at the World Axis begins. The PCs fight for the survival of Primordia itself. They are now level 17. This is part 2 of the session.Check Out my NEW PODCAST - Lex Out LoudCall the Game Master's Journey voice mail: 951-GMJ-LEX1 (951-465-5391).If you're a new listener, and you'd like to go back to the beginning, here's a link to Episode 1.If you're interested in worldbuilding and/or my D&D campaign setting of Primordia, check out the first worldbuilding episode. You can go to this page to see all the episodes that discuss worldbuilding.Check out my latest D&D supplement, Adventurers of Primordia.