You know what time it is! Chaos time courtesy of Sara's brain child 1d6 | 1d4! For the first time we only have 1 minute each to talk about our topic, and this week's topic is... Our first ever hopefully annual award show - The DMies! We're going full Hollywood and making a big ol' spectacle of ourselves to pat each other on the back, laugh about dumb stuff we've said on the internet, and occasionally actually compliment one another on awesome moments from our first year in streaming. The DMies w...
Jul 29, 2022•16 min•Ep. 25
Well hello there campers! Welcome to Camp Pine Island, a wonderful little tract of wilderness you'll be exploring all summer long! Nothing at all is haunted, dangerous, or creepy at all, and the summer's going to be just peachy... right? Thank you for checking out another installment of our one-shot shenanigans, this time with Rene running the DMs through he and Christian's original game Pine Island, a summer camp horror game using Caltrop Core , a d4 system by Lex Kim Bobrow and designed as par...
Jul 22, 2022•3 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Roll dice. Flip cards. Spend tokens. Pull the wooden block. This episode of Modified Rolls breaks down the different types of resolution mechanics in roleplaying games and why they're important for providing a certain kind of experience. From the mathematics of probability underlying the success/failure ratio of games to the tactile aspect of cards (just ask Amber & Christian how they feel about cards), different mechanics just feel different and might be more or less appropriate for the gam...
Jul 15, 2022•50 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Welcome to Hjem, we've got all things to make your house a Hjem... *sigh*... In this one-shot between our Invisible Sun and upcoming Honor + Intrigue series, Sara runs us through Short Order Apocalypse Advanced by SaintBaileys on itch.io The game itself is available as Pay What You Want on Itch ( https://saintbaileys.itch.io/ ), and is also featured in the Tiny Tome collection of short rules-light RPGs. Christian, Jess, and Rene play as employees of a certain northern European based furniture st...
Jul 08, 2022•2 hr 38 min•Season 2Ep. 23
I don't know about all of you out there in RPG podcast-land, but I'm a pretty typical millennial, binging TV series on streaming platforms and dealing with piles of books to-be-read that somehow just keep growing despite my best efforts. Well, what if I told you literally everything you ingest makes great building blocks for your RPGs?! Your in luck, because all you gotta do is a little bit of work and all your favorite things you wanna talk to your friends about but they haven't seen or read is...
Jul 01, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Greetings one more (but maybe not the last) time from the Actuality. Christian sits down with Rene and Sara to talk a little bit about his process prepping for and running Invisible Sun. We talk about the game from a design perspective, Christian's thought process for the concept of the Hollow Men and Elpada, and rates the game. We hope to do more of these in the future following our series of games, and are working on a rating system to let you know our thoughts on the games we pick and play mo...
Jun 27, 2022•22 min•Ep. 23
It started with dreams. Dreams of Shadow. Dreams of each of our characters' goals and desires. It, too, ends in dreams. The Deeps of Sleep hold the headquarters of the Hollow Men and the Bornless One plots to erase the very concept the young girl Elpada represents. Bridget shows her true self. Darcian has a theory. Henri guides the crew through strange new planes. Istanbull guards his friends. Frey has a score to settle. If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdiness, please c...
Jun 24, 2022•3 hr 22 min•Season 2Ep. 22
So you wanna be the bad guy, huh? Well, not THE bad guy, but A bad guy. Maybe THE bad guy, I mean, who are we to tell you how your story's going to go? Before you do that, though, champ, let's discuss a few things about playing evil PCs in a tabletop game. In this episode, the DMs discuss how to get the most out of playing evil characters in games that are traditionally team-based and heroic. There are plenty of great ways to play an evil character in an otherwise ensemble cast of good guys, but...
Jun 17, 2022•48 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Even upon waking from the Shadow and returning to the Actuality, there are dreams and there are nightmares... The crew have strange dreams. Fray brings the group to a dangerous location. Henri almost makes a deal. Bridget tests the limits of her circles. Istanbull sees through and makes a wall. Darcian shows they can hold their own. If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdiness, please consider giving us a rating on your podcast app of choice! Like, follow, and subscribe to o...
Jun 10, 2022•3 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Hello and welcome to the 2nd episode of 1d6 | 1d4, Sara's "chaos baby" of a podcast where 1d6 of the DMs sit down and talk about a topic for 1d4 minutes at a time. This week, Sara is joined by Christian and Rene to ask the question: "What if we ran games longer than 3-4 sessions?" Find out what games we want to run long-term and let us know if you think we should explore that in the future! If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdiness, please consider giving us a rating on y...
Jun 03, 2022•23 min•Ep. 23
Welcome back to the Actuality, our fellow vislae. So... that lecture didn't go as planned with the whole exploding snakes and dissolving vislae thing, but our PCs did manage to rescue the strange golden-eyed child Elpada from the strange terrorists. Where will they go and what will they learn? Bridget & Darcian summon for help. Henri bonds with Elpada. Istanbull observes more than he lets on. Fray sees old friends in the shadows. If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdin...
May 27, 2022•3 hr 23 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Muahahaha! You've come this far only to fall into our evil villain monologue! Now you must listen to us as we explain all of the things that weren't communicated throughout the campaign so you understand what it is you're actually defeating! ... Or... maybe your DM gave this episode a listen and realized that they need to sprinkle in details throughout that make the PCs feel like they actually understand the villain, their motive, their means, their goals, flaws, and fears. Maybe this villain is...
May 20, 2022•52 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Greetings from the Actuality... Our story begins around the city of Satyrine, where our PCs are all pulled like matter into a black hole to the Vance campus for a lecture from an eccentric researcher. For a variety of reasons (including the promise of good food, which, unfortunately, appears to have been a lie), the characters find themselves at the center of a mysterious attempted kidnapping. Will they help? Can they help? And what will they learn? The answer to all of these is "barely any." If...
May 13, 2022•2 hr 49 min•Season 2Ep. 19
What a wonderful [insert the name of your made up fantasy word weekday analogue for Friday]! In this episode of Modified Rolls, the DMs talk about their experiences, advice, and ideas on all things homebrew campaigns. Whether it's an original story in an established universe (have you listened to our Modified Rolls about running games with Canon?) or an entirely original world of your (and hopefully your players') imagination, there are some things that will help homebrew games run smoothly. Whi...
May 06, 2022•50 min•Season 1Ep. 14
In our penultimate Meet the DMs, we meet the 2nd half of the Bot, the 2nd half of the gingers within DMs After Dark, and everyone's favorite corn-shuckin Iowan Troy! Troy regales us with his history of roleplaying which goes back to him in 2nd grade making up stories with a D&D 3.5e PHB! He talks about the power of RPGs, his love and involvement with Studio Agate's Shadows of Esteren, which was the first game we ever played on stream, and how it's shaped his life. We also promise, he's a gre...
May 02, 2022•54 min•Ep. 22
Welcome back from the Shadow, our fellow Vislae, take a stroll and reacquaint yourself with ... the Actuality. In this session zero for Monte Cook's Invisible Sun , Christian does his best to herd the cats that are the other DMs as we navigate the complex terminology and incredibly surreal world of Invisible Sun. The DMs sit at computers in the Shadow (our Earth world simulation) to create a crew of vislae (beings of magic) back in the Actuality (the waking real world everyone we know is totally...
Apr 29, 2022•2 hr 38 min•Season 2Ep. 18
In this installment of our interview series, Meet the DMs, we learn all about one half of our librarians and one half of what we affectionately call the Bot (along with her brother Troy), Amber. Rene interviews her about her history with RPGs, how she's turned her love of the hobby into part of her career, and all of the amazing things she believes games can do. She's by far the most professional of the DMs After Dark, and we really owe the entire endeavor to her efforts at our local library, wh...
Apr 25, 2022•46 min•Ep. 21
We're back with another episode of Modified Rolls, continuing our little run of "How to Prep & Run [Blank]." Last episode talked about the wonderful world of one-shots, the stress-free experimentation station of RPGs. This time, we're going bigger - the published stuff. That's right, you bought a big written adventure and you're going to run your friends through an epic tale and all the good stuff is right there in that book, right? ... Hopefully! But we're here to help make sure you'll take...
Apr 22, 2022•56 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Good morning, afternoon, and/or evening, and welcome back to another deep dive into the DMs as we continue our Meet the DMs series with an interview of Sara by Christian. Sara regales her journey in RPGs starting from the amazing 1st Edition D&D game with her grandfather and family, her long and storied history with Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, one-shots and her work with the library, and how she fell into and found her GM style through the years. If you want to see Sar...
Apr 18, 2022•57 min•Ep. 20
Thank you for joining us for the final installment of Good Society , the Jane Austen RPG from Storybrewers Roleplaying. In this dramatic finale, horses will race, hearts will break, and fortunes will be on the line. If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdiness, please consider giving us a rating on your podcast app of choice! Like, follow, and subscribe to our Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram so you can comment & chat with us about all things RPGs. And, as always, come...
Apr 15, 2022•3 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Welcome back to Meet the DMs, our interview style series where we sit down with one another and ask the hard-hitting questions, get real deep and introspective and... or just talk about what we love about RPGs and what led us to this wild endeavor we call DMs After Dark! In this episode, Jess interviews Christian, the elder among the DMs, and he regales us with tales from the beforetimes of RPGs. Joking aside, he shares his humble origins (RIP the 1e Thief), love of comics (leading to Mutants &a...
Apr 11, 2022•52 min•Ep. 19
Hello all you listeners of what we've been referring to as the After Dark Army (let us know if you like the term or not), join us for a little look behind the screen of our first 9 months of streaming and podcasting. Christian, Jess, and Rene briefly discuss what we've learned so far, how we're doing our best to improve quality of our episodes both from a roleplaying game experience for you to watch and listen, but also all the technical stuff that goes into livestreaming, audio and video editin...
Apr 08, 2022•24 min•Ep. 18
Hello everyone, a quick little bonus episode for you to kick off this week, something we've been wanting to do since much, much earlier in our existence - an interview-style little blurb where we discuss our journeys as DMs/GMs and all things gaming. In this first episode Troy sits down with Rene and asks him about what got him into the hobby (and who, because that just happened to be Troy) and what's taken him to where he is, why does he hate 5e so much, and a few little personal details sprink...
Apr 04, 2022•50 min•Ep. 17
Come, all ye faithful, to the annual festival of the turning, a time of goodbyes and new beginnings, when our goddess The Hourglass is sure to renew all in our lives and nothing at all is wrong or anything... Seriously, we've been talking, she's good... She, uh, told me to enjoy the pope corn and pay the tithes and ... bless ... uh oh. Welcome to another one-shot, this time playing Jordan Palmer & Murder Publishing's Our God Is Dead , a hilarious rules-light game with a built-in 3 act struct...
Apr 01, 2022•2 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 16
On this week's Modified Rolls, the DMs After Dark go over one of their favorite things to do: run one-shots. The less-stressful one-night-stands of RPGs are a great way to dip your toes into the DM's seat, offer up an alternative style game amidst a long-term campaign, or just goof on being ridiculous characters in a no-consequences zone. From running published one-shots from the indie RPG community, writing your own one-shots based on your own ideas, or winging it with one-page or rules-light R...
Mar 25, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Welcome to Pineapple Falls - a nice, relaxing retirement community in sunny Florida, where absolutely nothing ever gets weird or flipped upside down (if you know what we mean). At least, not under the reign of Homeowner's Association President Carol, who's turned this place from its rowdy past to a respectable retreat for senior citizens. However, Carol's recent decisions are rubbing some of the grandmas the wrong way, and you know how those Floridians get when they're worked up - they make some...
Mar 18, 2022•2 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 15
On this week's Modified Rolls, the DMs After Dark finally talk about what is, essentially, our mission statement as a gaming group putting things on the interwebz - Why you should PLAY. MORE. GAMES. And by that we mean play different RPG systems. Every new game you play offers an opportunity to experience a new kind of story, to learn other methods of storytelling, understand different resolution mechanics, play characters you can't normally play because of genre-defined roles, you name it! We f...
Mar 11, 2022•58 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Good day and salutations, my fine fellow members of Good Society, and welcome to the visitation episode before the grand finale. In this episode, the DMs pay visits (make calls in the parlance of the era) to one another and scheme, sleaze, and schmooze their way deeper into drama as the Harvest Festival ramps up to a climactic finish. Unfortunately, it will be a month before we finish the story, as Sara is a professional and has a conference to attend. Good Society will conclude on March 25th li...
Mar 04, 2022•2 hr 57 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Welcome to a new mini-show idea from the mind of our own DM Sara, a short little podcast where [[1d6]] members of the DMs After Dark crew talk about a chosen topic for [[1d4]] minutes each. These episodes will be brief little informal discussions mostly just us chatting about random things in our experiences as fledgling streamers, podcasters, and long-time gamers. Hopefully, if we're any good at what we do, there may be some nuggets of wisdom in there, too! This first episode of 1d6 | 1d4 was r...
Feb 25, 2022•29 min•Ep. 14
Sirs, Madams, and all other gentlefolk, we are please to have you joining us for another episode of the Jane Austen RPG Good Society. We here at the DMs After Dark are loving the system, the story that is coming together under the expert guidance of our Storyteller Sara, and hope that you'll enjoy listening as the people of our small English village come together to celebrate the harvest. Romance, drama, tension, and a circus are all sure to grab you by your lapels and lace for a wild ride. We a...
Feb 18, 2022•2 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 13
