This one is all about the call-in feedback for the discussions I recently shared with Anthony, aka Runeslinger, from Casting Shadows on the topic of the Story Divide. More specifically, these messages largely relate to the longest episode ever - S15 Ep9 What are Roleplaying Games - in which we discussed the emergence of the Story Divide through the lens of what game designers were writing in their books. Big thanks to Anthony, aka Runeslinger, for adding his responses to this call-in episode. Th...
Jun 21, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 15Ep. 11
This one’s another conversation with Runeslinger, aka Anthony from the Casting Shadows blog, podcast, and Youtube channel. He hails from South Korea and, having just enjoyed a week off work, I was able to cue up some chats with him. This conversation is essentially the third part that began in Episode 6, The Story Divide, and explores - through the lens of D&D - the process by which the character became a protagonist… and the impact this change had on play. Big thanks to Anthony for coming t...
Jun 14, 2025•56 min•Season 15Ep. 10
This one’s a conversation with Runeslinger, aka Anthony from the Casting Shadows blog, podcast, and Youtube channel. He hails from South Korea and, having just enjoyed a week off work, I was able to cue up some chats with him. This conversation continues from Episode 6, The Story Divide, and delves deeper into the history of the emergence of a perception that roleplaying games are about storytelling as opposed to being about, well, something else. The approach was to dig out several texts - both...
Jun 07, 2025•1 hr 52 min•Season 15Ep. 9
This one’s a conversation with a new friend. My guest hails from Florida, USA, and this is probably the beginning of a sequence of chats I’d like to have with him. Our focus was on what my guest calls, "world first" play and we specifically take his currently running Twilight 2000 campaign as an example. Yes, we talk GURPS and we talk modern post-apoc but that's not quite the point: this is about methodology. Big thanks up front to Patrick for coming to talk! Game on! Pat's T2K blog: t2kcampaign...
May 31, 2025•57 min•Season 15Ep. 8
This one’s an eclectic collection of thoughts emerging from listener messages and the ongoing experience of running games in the wake of recent episodes. When I started this podcast, it was really about getting my concern about losing gamers to the experience of play - of people giving up the play which enriches our lives under the pressures of modern living. At the same time, I was aware that the title - Roleplay Rescue - implies that the show is about recovering the art and depth of roleplayin...
May 24, 2025•22 min•Season 15Ep. 7
This one’s a conversation with an old friend. My guest hails from South Korea and this continues a sequence of chats that we’ve shared over a number of months. Fear not though - this episode stands alone. Big thanks again to Anthony, aka Runeslinger from Casting Shadows for having this conversation and allowing me to record it. Game on! Casting Shadows: castingshadowsblog.com/ Roleplay Rescue Details: Voice Message: speakpipe.com/roleplayrescue Patreon: patreon.com/rpgrescue Email: roleplayrescu...
May 10, 2025•59 min•Season 15Ep. 6
What if roleplaying games are not about telling stories? Is there another way to approach these games? And what happens if we stop treating the game like it’s a movie? This one is about expressing where I am in my own quest for improved roleplaying game experiences for my players. As the GM, this episode discusses where I am coming from and helps to explain some of the choices that I am making. Big thanks to Wiebe, Bob, and Jason for the call-ins! Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Voice Message:...
Apr 26, 2025•37 min•Season 15Ep. 5
This one's a conversation with Joe, the host of the Dekahedron podcast where he talks about his love of the tabletop RPG hobby. On his show Joe talks about a range of stuff from OSR gameplay ideas through to newer (?) games like Fudge and Dungeon World. Joe's renowned for his honesty in RPG reviews and it’s that which triggered an invitation to the show. He recently did a couple of episodes reviewing Fudge (1995) and so I invited him on to explore it a little more. Big thanks to Joe for taking t...
Apr 19, 2025•55 min•Season 15Ep. 4
What happens if we drop the script and the expectation that this is going to be a thought-provoking analysis of some aspect of roleplaying? What happens if we lean into improvisation and see where things end up going? What if I just riff off the call-ins and other seemingly-random thoughts that pop into my head? Wouldn’t that just be a descent into the raw and unedited mess of the GM’s Journal? Or would it be me becoming unshackled? Big thanks to Jason Wiebe and Carl D for the call-ins! Game on!...
Apr 12, 2025•38 min•Season 15Ep. 3
What happens if we lean back into the roots of our hobby - which for me is largely the 1980s - and realise that the kind of roleplaying we enjoy the most is in fact the Old-School variety? But instead of landing back in the realm of Dungeons & Dragons, what if we find the kind of system that emphasises the roleplay is actually found in the emergence of a game designed to encourage just that: roleplay? In 1985, Steve Jackson Games published the combat system from their forthcoming roleplaying...
Apr 05, 2025•31 min•Season 15Ep. 2
If roleplaying games are really about roleplay then how come so much of our time at the table is spent doing all sorts of other things that aren’t roleplay? Is there a way in which we can craft our play experience to put the roleplay back into the roleplaying game while still remaining a collaborative game? There comes a time when many a roleplaying gamer realises that they are unsatisfied with the way in which the game is being played. I’ve been in this place for longer than I can remember, and...
Mar 29, 2025•27 min•Season 15Ep. 1
This episode emerged from a Zoom call I shared with today’s guest which he was gracious enough to allow me to record and share. The episode is as simple as that: a recorded chat in which we catch up and then start to talk about Dungeoneer, also known as the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG from 1989. My conversation is with Simon Williams, a British artist and illustrator as well as being the creator of the Legend of The Bones podcast, a hybrid Solo Old School Dungeons and Dragons actual play and d...
Mar 15, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 14Ep. 22
This episode emerged from a Zoom call I shared with today’s guest which he was gracious enough to allow me to record and share. The episode is as simple as that: a recorded chat in which we catch up and then start to talk about a question I raised: what would you do if you had a new player to add to your existing roleplaying group? My conversation is with Johnn Four, the founder of RoleplayingTips.com which began as a GM tips newsletter back in the late 1990s. Johnn is perhaps best known for the...
Mar 01, 2025•59 min•Season 14Ep. 21
Back at the beginning of 2025, I decided that I wanted to double-down on my mastery of GURPS as the roleplaying game system that I actually consistently enjoy. Alongside that I decided that I wanted to take on the challenge of developing my own science-fiction space-based game. This would involve creating a sector of space and working out the basis for different approaches to SF play within it. With a month of anxious dithering behind me, I found inspiration while sitting with the face-to-face g...
Feb 15, 2025•43 min•Season 14Ep. 20
This one’s filled with the voices echoing out the of Abyss - in other words, it’s a call-in episode. These all stacked up from the 4th December 2024 into 2025, so there’s plenty of good comments, questions, and ideas to hear. I love to hear from you because it encourages me. Without your voices - the listener’s feedback - it would feel a very empty and dark abyss to be shouting into. Big thanks in advance to Jon, Simon, Wiebe, Matt, Karl R, Michael, Andrew, and Carl D for taking the time to reco...
Feb 01, 2025•35 min•Season 14Ep. 19
What if prep didn’t have to feel like work? What if there were ways in which we could be more playful with our prep? Would that transform the way in which we feel about being the GM? Following a call-in from listener Jon M, who was responding to some comments in GMJ #270, I was inspired to comment on the topic of making prep less like work and more playful. Big thanks to Jon for the call-in! Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Voice Message: speakpipe.com/roleplayrescue Patreon: patreon.com/rpgres...
Jan 18, 2025•29 min•Season 14Ep. 18
As the year turns from 2024 into 2025, I decided to invite Grail Knight Patron and regular caller Jason Wiebe to come and have a chat on air. The topic was broadly, “Becoming a Game Master” and based on the notion that Wiebe has been struggling his way to the GM’s chair over many years and finally feels he has a handle on what it all entails. For my part, I was curious to find out what he had to say. Jason is a long-time listener and Patron to Roleplay Rescue. Hailing from Montreal, Canada, he’s...
Jan 04, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Season 14Ep. 17
This episode is a pitch for building a tiny roleplay habit using 30-minute sessions and one-on-one play with the rules behind the GM’s screen. The idea, taken from solo play, is to gather more often for shorter periods. In busy lives, dropping online to play for 30 minutes is much easier to schedule. This is viable because RPGs work best on the accumulation of play over many sessions. One-on-one places the player’s focus on just their own character’s perspective. If we blend this with the desire...
Dec 21, 2024•34 min•Season 14Ep. 16
The most important game mechanism is, of course, the Game Master of a roleplaying game. Roleplaying games are all about making choices as-if you are your character and then seeing what happens as a consequence. This week the Angry GM gave me a long-overdue kick up the butt when I read an article on his blog. This episode is a response to that kick up the butt. Big thanks to the Angry GM for his book and blog - I hope he won't mind the extensive quotation from them. Thanks to Frank T for calling ...
Dec 07, 2024•20 min•Season 14Ep. 15
What happens if we lean in hard to the Roleplay in roleplaying game? What if we take away the elements which distract from the enjoyment of being in-character, as-character, in a fantastic world? The first move is to start caring more about the fantastic Otherworld. The second is to push for greater Rules Opacity. Thanks to Jason Wiebe for calling in once again. Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Voice Message: speakpipe.com/roleplayrescue Patreon: patreon.com/rpgrescue Email: roleplayrescue@prot...
Nov 23, 2024•34 min•Season 14Ep. 14
Why do I spend so much of my time drifting from game to game, system to system, and between diverse imaginary worlds? Why do I find it hard to settle on a game and make it come alive? Am I doomed to roam for the remainder of my life never quite experiencing the games I want to enjoy? I’ve been adrift in the hobby for a long, long time. And then something clicked. That click was a simple question: What’s it for? The answer is simple: the RPGs that I want to play are first and foremost vehicles fo...
Nov 09, 2024•27 min•Season 14Ep. 13
I love to hear from listeners and, while email and social media messages are great, the best moments are when people call in with a voice message. This episode collects four listener calls which I have been wanting to respond to for a few weeks, plus a bonus-length call-in from Patron Carl D. These date back over the period from the 7th September until the 19th October 2024 and cover thoughts on a few past episodes. Big thanks in advance to Patrons Jason Wiebe, Spencer aka Free Thrall, Jason Con...
Oct 26, 2024•43 min•Season 14Ep. 12
Chris Casciano is a medieval fantasy illustrator and author from Syracuse, New York. He has illustrated for novels, tv shows, and numerous games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Game of Thrones. His personal art series, “The Iron Cast,” is a world of medieval knights and environments painted with a combination of realism, abstract shapes and textures. Chris has also written and illustrated his own Solo RPG novel, Escaping Tynebris: The Dungeons. Beyond being a professional creator, ...
Oct 19, 2024•48 min•Season 14Ep. 11
On April 2nd 2004, Pyramid Magazine published an article entitled, “Designer's Notes: GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition” by Sean Punch. Twenty years from that article in 2004, GURPS - the Generic Universal Role-Playing System - is still with us. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not a dead game. GURPS Fourth Edition might be out of fashion but it’s truly a standard in the RPG community. Last episode, I spoke of my rediscovery of the spirit of the Third Edition through the pages of Roleplayer. A mo...
Oct 12, 2024•42 min•Season 14Ep. 10
In February 1986, a free newsletter began to be posted out to customers from Steve Jackson Games: Roleplayer. Now available again from Warehouse 23, in the summer of 2024 I got curious to discover what insights this old newsletter might hold about the development of GURPS. What I found was a portal back to 1986 which began to inspire me towards play in directions both old and, strangely, new. Thanks to Jason Connerley who, by sending me GURPS Second Edition, unlocked this whole episode’s content...
Oct 05, 2024•33 min•Season 14Ep. 9
This is a special bonus episode to celebrate the forthcoming Reaver Sword and Sorcery Roleplaying Game by Raven God Games. Because Reaver is on Kickstarter right now until 7th October 2024, I couldn’t wait to share this conversation with the game’s designer. Joe Salvador is a freelance cartographer, writer and game designer hailing from Ohio, USA who has been involved with role-playing games for more than 30 years. He is the writer and creator of Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Roleplayin...
Sep 22, 2024•32 min
My guest, Arlen Walker, is the host of Live From Pellam’s Wasteland which you can find both as a podcast and on YouTube in video form. In this, the last of my holiday chats with gaming friends, Arlen raises the question of how to deal with dragons in our roleplaying campaigns. Big thanks up front to Arlen for coming on to the show. As ever, it was a fascinating conversation which I hope you’ll find as interesting as I did. Game on! Pellam's Wasteland Plays Solo Podcast: Pellam's Wasteland Plays ...
Sep 21, 2024•41 min•Season 14Ep. 8
Today’s chat is with Menion, aka Rob, the creator and host of Confessions of a Wee Tim'rous Bushi, a podcast that hails from Japan. This one follows on from Rob’s call-in at the top of the show as we pick up his points in response to Episode 3 and wrestle together to make sense of the elusive intangibility of the fantasy Otherworld. Big thank you in advance to Rob for hopping online (back in August) and sharing this delightful and insightful chat. I hope that you’ll find our discussion helpful a...
Sep 07, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 14Ep. 7
Jason Connerley is the voice behind the Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast podcast and a regular caller to several shows, including this one. We’ve gamed a few times over the years and always seem to enjoy ourselves. As I began the summer break, I was grateful for Jason being willing to have a chat about something he was curious about… and it ended up that he interviewed me. Big thanks up front to Jason for taking the time to record this conversation about some practical questions for face-to-face gaming. ...
Aug 24, 2024•29 min•Season 14Ep. 6
Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Jon McNally has been a listener and Patron for some time now and regularly calls in. His thoughts and questions are always provocative for me in a positive manner, inviting reflection and deeper consideration. The call at the top of the show is the one message that I held off on including in Episode 3 and wanted to tackle in a separate show. So, here we are… and what could be better than to invite Jon onto the show to discuss it? Big thanks to Jon for agreeing...
Aug 10, 2024•50 min•Season 14Ep. 5
