Ryan tells us about his new adventure, Serenity Springs! It's a cozy little suburb. Or at least it seems like it at first. Until you realize its in a dimension like Ravenloft and evil entities lurk around every corner to threaten the citizens and visitors with awful, gruesome death. Just don't bleed on Mrs. Dotty's petunias! You can follow the Kickstarter for Serenity Springs at this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grinningportal/serenity-springs-campaign-setting-for-fantasy-ttrpgs?re...
Apr 08, 2026•57 min•Ep. 78
Dan talked with me about his Kickstarter campaign, Idols of the Neon Dark . It's a D&D 5e supplement that tries to bring the fun and atmosphere of K-pop to Dungeons and Dragons. The media frenzy around KPop Demon Hunters inspired Dan to create a product based on the musical genre that his young daughters could enjoy with him. Idols of the Neon Dark contains an Idol character class to represent the teamwork and coordination of K-pop groups. Alongside the Idol class there's a setting called Lu...
Mar 25, 2026•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 77
Alan tells us about his Daggerheart campaign setting, Fractus, that is launching on Kickstarter soon. Fractus was a normal planet until it exploded and stopped halfway through. Now bunches of asteroids rotate a swirling magical maelstorm at the center of the planet. The people of Fractus survive on the asteroids which are large enough to support life. The land is now separated by air rather than oceans, resulting in a different path for technology along the lines of flight rather than sea travel...
Mar 11, 2026•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 76
Joel tells us about his actual play podcast, Critical Bits! The campaign was a teen super hero story using the Powered by the Apocalypse system Masks . The Masks system is great for teen drama and coming of age stories for superheroes that still live with their parents, have school, and don't know who they want to be yet. Joel and the players did a great job of capturing those feelings in a world where superpowered individuals are under threat. The government attempts to register all teen superp...
Feb 25, 2026•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 75
The Fallout TV show has ended, but you can still get more Fallout in your life with TTRPGs! Kylie talked with me about her actual play campaign, Fallout: The Garden of Atom. The show follows Pete and Reed as they leave their Vault in Florida. They travel towards Orlando in search of Pete's father who left Vault 71 a few years previously. Along the way they meet the wasteland survivor, Ruthie, and the Mrs. Nurse robot, Hawke. The campaign is played using Modiphius's Fallout 2d20 system, the perfe...
Feb 11, 2026•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 74
Duncan Rhodes comes on the show to talk about his new book, The Creative Game Master's Guide to Extraordinary Locations: & How to Design Them or just Extraordinary Locations. The book is filled with 30 adventure locations to drop into your campaign, modify, or use as a full adventure path! The locations are loosely stated out for D&D 5e but could easily be adapted for any fantasy system. Additionally, the book has a step-wise guide for crafting your own adventures based around locations ...
Jan 28, 2026•53 min•Ep. 73
This is the second of a two part interview with Calico. If you haven't listened to the first episode with him, you should go do that before listening to this one. The first episode was #72 and this is #72.5. Calico returns with additional info on the world of Psychomortis. We get to hear more information about the Ecclesia church that rules over the world above Pandora's Labyrinth. More about the physical locations of the world. And EVEN MORE on the philosophy behind Psychomortis that makes it s...
Jan 14, 2026•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 72
CalicoVisions tells us about his game system and setting Psychomortis. The game is constructed to challenge players and characters to look inside themselves to find what's really important to them. In the far future the Earth has suffered from the arrival of the Iris which caused vast changes across the world. PCs are trapped beneath the Earth in a vast maze known as Pandora's Labyrinth. They seek an exit and/or spiritual absolution as they survive and explore in the dark depths. The experience ...
Dec 31, 2025•2 hr 37 min•Ep. 72
I talked with Aaron Ryan about two of his book series, Dissonance and The End . Dissonance is a near future world where aliens have attacked, killing most humans and animals on Earth and driving humans into hiding underground. Humans finally develop technology to fight back and the war enters a new stage while the characters also struggle to determine the motivation for the alien invasion and nefarious actions of the government. The End is a Christian End Time series based loosely on the events ...
Dec 17, 2025•2 hr 2 min•Ep. 71
Sensei Suplex joins us to talk about his campaign, Project Aurora. Suplex started Project Aurora in college with some friends. They agreed to have a few different campaigns done by different DMs to all exist within the same shared world. Suplex transitioned to paid DMing and the world expanded beyond that into a huge RPG experience with dozens of DMs and thousands of people playing, all in a shared universe. With such a large pool of players and DMs there's a decent effort to match groups in sty...
Dec 03, 2025•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 70
There were some audio issues in this episode that we did our best to correct. Hopefully you can understand everything or close to everything! If you can't, you can always drop into the Discord to ask additional questions. The story of Godstorm starts 70 years ago when a fisher from the city of Gulia went deep into the ocean. He came back many days later covered in various marks. The marks gave him magical blinking powers. The king of Gulia unjustly executed the fisher to remove a threat. The bur...
Nov 19, 2025•56 min•Ep. 69
John tells us about his campaign setting, Tahlvaen. The world was something he dreamt up in childhood that he's now turning into a campaign setting for D&D. Tahlvaen is threatened by eldritch entities known as the Outer Five. These nasty beings were cast out beyond the Veil that separates them from the Tahlvaen. The eight Veilborn gods protect the world from the Outer Five, but all planar travel is cut off as a consequence. New magic classes exist in Tahlvaen to reflect this, focusing on mus...
Nov 05, 2025•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 68
John tells us about his actual play show, Blittle League Blaseball! The show is based on the now passed internet phenomenon, Blaseball. In Blaseball, baseball teams play against each other while using magical and technological powers. Their furious battles satisfy the Elder Ones and prolong the time before the Antediluvians rise and consume the world as we know it. So if there are professional Blaseball players... There must be a Blaseball Little League, right? That's where Blittle League Blaseb...
Oct 22, 2025•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 67
KC Broadhead is a certified life coach who uses D&D and other TTRPGs as a motivational force for his clients, mostly young men and boys. He meets with each person weekly to check on their goals for self improvement. Based on their progress each client is rewarded some building points that can be spent on their character in their weekly session. People who work more consistently on their goals get greater rewards in the game, instilling a sense of competition in the other participants to do b...
Oct 08, 2025•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 66
Al from the Point of Insanity Game Studio and Podcast is here to talk about a couple of different things! We started off by discussing the Dark Sun campaign setting, which was a post-apocalyptic campaign setting released for D&D in 1991. Next was the changes in D&D over the editions/years. After that was Al's Point of Insanity Network podcast, a variety podcast about a number of different topics in the geek and horror space. Next we discussed one of Al's RPGs he's designed, Strange Thing...
Sep 24, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 65
Kevin tells us about his setting and TTRPG, Orbis. It's a crunchy mech combat game! Central to Orbis is the Ion Tempest storm. It started long ago and afflicts the world with electrical storms, cold snaps, heat waves, and odd magnetic and gravitational fields. History of the world before the arrival of the Ion Tempest is lost. Some sort of apocalypse occurred to this science fiction civilization that destroyed everything and created the Ion Tempest. The storm also has sentient representations of...
Sep 10, 2025•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 64
John tells us about his setting and TTRPG system he's developing, Dalteria. Dalteria the world was originally lifeless. Long ago on Earth, magic existed. When God flooded Earth, the wizards took all the magic with them. Noah built his ark while the wizards left Earth to settle and terraform Dalteria with their magic. Millenia later the people of Earth advanced enough to develop colonization starships. One of these colonies made it to Dalteria, but were not received peacefully. The resulting war ...
Aug 27, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 63
Deor tells us about his game system and setting, Black Noon. Interesting fact about Deor is that he has never GMed a game of his own. Black Noon should end up very player-facing in how its written and how it plays. The Black Noon system is a 2d6 system. Rolls are modified by adding more dice or with bigger modifiers. When adding more dice you always select the best two dice from the bunch (or worst two if you're receiving a penalty). The system is still in early development, but is shaping into ...
Aug 13, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 62
Today's guest is Helix, the GM of the actual play podcast, RPG Major . RPG Major is a detective show in a fantasy version of modern Seattle. The show is half RPG/half musical improv, setting it apart from many other actual plays. The game is run using the Genesys system. Every few minutes a song drops in to cover the group's activities and emotions. The whole show is accompanied by live acoustic guitar music. There's a little chord the guitarist plays whenever the dice are rolled or a bad thing ...
Jul 30, 2025•3 hr•Ep. 61
Todd tells us about his world, Skjaald, and his fantasy TTRPG system he's designing for it called Skjaald Sagas . The main continent for Skjaald is Driktsuung, a place with varied biomes similar to North America. The people of Driktsuung are divided into the Six Realms with different governmental structures for each Realm. All the typical fantasy races are present with a few twists. Magic is deeply connected to the soul in Skjaald, causing changes in the nature of all magical creatures. Dragons ...
Jul 16, 2025•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 60
Ryan is designing a TTRPG system and setting called Ethereal . In the setting all cryptids like Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, and Mothman are real. An international government organization known as the Beacon exists to control these cryptids and keep them away from humanity. The players act as agents of the Beacon, solving different cryptid crises in an X-Files or Men in Black fashion. The stories take place during the 1910's, but with slightly more advanced technology available for Beacon m...
Jul 02, 2025•1 hr 53 min•Ep. 59
Luca presents his world, dubbed Codex Inversus. Luca is from Italy and has used Italian Renaissance art as the inspiration for his campaign setting. Whenever he writes a new piece of lore its accompanied by a photoshopped piece of Renaissance style art. To see all the amazing art you can check out Luca's links below. Codex Inversus is a world that its creator god abandoned. With the creator gone, all the lesser divinities, devils, angels, and elementals began fighting. This conflict resulted in ...
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 58
Daniel tells us about his community published campaign, Mists of Eldoria! Mists of Eldoria is available for anyone to download and run for themselves via Daniel's Patreon page. Of the nine parts of the campaign four are finished so far. You can follow along with the adventure as Daniel and his own group explore Eldoria and get closer to defeating the ancient evil at the heart of the continent. Eldoria is a magical continent hidden in the mists of Toril, the world that Faerun is on. It was cut of...
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 57
Austin is here to talk about her Forged in the Dark game, Beam Saber, and one of the setting's she's released for it, Rush Wars. Beam Saber is designed for mech battles but with the numerous supplements it can be adapted for any sort of vehicle conception. Gundams, planes, robot dinosaurs, fast cars, or even the vertical maneuvering equipment in Attack on Titan are all possibilities within Beam Saber. After a mission PCs rest and relax to remove stress and repair their gear just as in the Blades...
May 21, 2025•2 hr 7 min•Ep. 56
Ben tells us about Kobold Press's fantasy setting, Midgard. Midgard started off as an open design campaign setting in which the main author, Wolfgang Baur, allowed fans to vote on options for what would be included. That project expanded into the Kobold Press company which now has their own TTRPG, Tales of the Valiant. Ben is a contributing author to many different RPG publications, including but not limited to Kobold Press. Ben's work for Kobold Press has earned him two ENnie awards, a silver f...
May 07, 2025•2 hr 19 min•Ep. 55
Dylan tells us about his campaign, set in the official Forgotten Realms setting! At long last Setting the Stage is covering the big D&D setting. Set sometime in the future of Faerun, Dylan's campaign focuses on a sentient and malevolent crystal that wants to mind control everyone in the world. This crystal is a representation of the forces of Lawful Evil within D&D's alignment spectrum along with eight other crystals for the other alignments. A war broke out between the crystals for cont...
Apr 23, 2025•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 54
Maia is our guest today presenting her actual play campaign, Pinehurst Academy. Maia used the City of Mist system for her game. From the City of Mist website, "In City of Mist you play ordinary individuals with powers that emanate from myths and legends investigating supernatural crimes and mysteries in a noir City where the truth is always hidden behind the pervasive Mist." Maia has used a fairly straight interpretation of that setup with a twist, her story takes place in a suburban high school...
Apr 09, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 53
This week's stars are Arin and Caleb from the Black Flare podcast. Arin is the GM for the podcast using the Delta Green rules system and Caleb is the podcast's producer and editor. They work together to create a phenomenal, slow-building horror story. Delta Green is an RPG for telling Cthulian Lovecraft stories in a more modern setting typically in the late 1990's or early 2000's. The PCs all have a connection to a secret government organization named Delta Green that deals with paranormal event...
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 52
This week's guest is Amanda, another member of the Quelmar organization. Quelmar was featured previously in episode 32 with James, the original creator of Quelmar. Amanda is a Quelmar DM and is currently DMing a Quelmarized version of Hitpoint Press's Heckna!. Her interview focused on her homebrew campaign without a "proper" name dubbed the Delicious Homebrew. The Delicious Homebrew focuses on a world that has lost connection to its magic. One hundred years ago a powerful magician felt that magi...
Mar 13, 2025•2 hr•Ep. 51
Somewhere there is a door. Today's guests are Emma and Maia, the creators of the Yeldplay actual play podcast which was nominated for a 2024 CRIT award. Yeldplay is the official podcast of the Yeld RPG to showcase the system's unique mechanics and style of play. The Yeld RPG lets your roleplay as children that find a door to the Magical Land of Yeld. The children can explore Yeld and return home, but eventually the door locks behind them on one of their journeys. Now they are trapped and must fi...
Feb 26, 2025•2 hr 24 min•Ep. 50
