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“So, what did you guys think”

If I’ve asked that question once at the end of a game session, I’ve asked it a hundred times.

Feedback, it’s all about feedback.

As a game master I want to know what worked, what didn’t work, and did I get my ideas across to the players. Where they surprised by anything, did the rules make sense, what do they want to see more of and most importantly, did they have a good time.

Recently we started a new game with our Thursday Night Game Group. Our core crew was present of course and we brought back some old players and added a few new players to the mix. We decided on playing Twilight 2000, a game from my past that Free League had picked up and made some significant changes by plugging their Year Zero engine into it.

I started by reading the rules and then ran the players through the lifepath system to help them create characters and finally we played the first session. As of this recording we have 2 sessions under our belt, and I wanted to take this episode to talk to the players and get their thoughts on the game.

We started this podcast to mimic those conversations we have after the games, and I can’t think of a better use for it then to actually have one of those conversations.

Let’s start with you Mike, what did you think?

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, I felt like you agreed to play the game, because you’ll never say no to a roleplaying game. That makes for a different view than some of the other players. What did you think about it.

[Kick to Christina]

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.

I evidently missed this announcement in November of 2025, so when I got the email from Backerkit about an upcoming launch I might be interested in, I was surprised. Traveller 5e from Mongoose Publishing was coming to Backerkit in March of 2026. 

https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/4bb4fe4f-753f-484d-8133-870c7c591797/landing?ref=home-page

My first thought was they were printing a new edition of Traveller, but then I remembered Marc Miller had produced Traveller 5th Edition in 2013. Of course, Mongoose has taken over publishing, but they are in the 2nd edition…then it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was Traveller for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

I’m sure if I tried real hard, I could come up with something more useless, but I gotta tell you, right now I’m out of ideas. 

What a complete waste.

Traveller is an iconic roleplaying game with specific systems that work perfectly in that science fiction world it portrays. Rewriting the entire thing for D&D 5E … Stop it. Just Stop it. I know that 5E is the biggest selling game out there and I know this is just a money grab, but Damit people, open another roleplaying game book.

I typically cheer for anything that brings more eyes to our hobby, but this isn’t a rising tide, it’s a tsunami destroying what’s good about independent games and alternatives to D&D.

I’m tapping out on this one.

Christina, thoughts?

[Kick to Christina]

Mike

[Kick to Mike]

You might think after my lead in I would avoid all things Hasbro, but our next article from EN World is just too interesting to pass up. We’ve talked a lot about AI on our podcast and in Hasbro’s latest earnings call Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks addressed the company’s use of AI.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/hasbro-ceo-says-ai-integration-has-been-a-clear-success.717852/

“We're beyond experimentation. We're deploying AI across financial planning, forecasting, order management, supply chain operations, training and everyday productivity.” Cocks said. He also broke down how creatives use the tools.

Mike, AI has recently become a huge part of your life and after diving into it and embracing it in the workforce you got promoted to COO. Briefly breakdown why AI is the future, whether we like it or not.

[Kick to Mike]

Christina hit us with the ethical issues

[kick to Christina]

And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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“As the four of you move into the open cavern you see a large Goblin on the far side. He turns and raises a club banging his crusty and broken shield. Three more goblins step from the shadows, their bows raised.”

Bob who was playing a first level fighter smiled. “This is perfect. Four Goblins against our Four 1st level characters. Let’s Do This! I charge forward with a war cry.”

20 minutes later as the players all sit in disbelief, their characters dead or dying with no possibility of survival. “What the hell just happened” they mumble as they start working on new characters.

What happened is that no matter what the book says about Challenge Ratings, there is no such thing as a balanced encounter.

On this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about Balancing Encounters in your games. Why there is no such thing as a balanced encounter and the difference between a Roleplaying and Gaming at the table.

Mike, this is your favorite thing to say, so why don’t you kick us off.

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, you are heavy on the story telling side or what I like to call Roleplaying. I know you believe that the only way to balance encounters is between your ears.

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Welcome to you heard it here last, where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.

First up we are looking at EN Worlds results from their fan vote Most Anticipated Games of 2026. Malcolm and I talked about our favorites a few weeks ago, but now we have the official results from EN World.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/here-are-2026s-most-anticipated-ttrpgs-as-voted-by-you.717141/

The top 10 fan voted games are interesting for a number or reasons. We have some new players to the game world, some old favorites getting a face lift and at least one that left me scratching my head.

But let’s get the Doctor’s thought’s first. Christina, what stood out to you on EN World’s Top 10 List of Most Anticipated Games for 2026.

[Kick to Christina]

Mike, I know you have opinions, what did you pull from this?

[Kick to Mike]

In business news Drive Thru RPG announced an increase in it’s print on demand prices.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/drivethrurpg-print-on-demand-prices-increasing-again.717604/

This comes on the heels of last March’s almost 50% increase in printing costs. Drive Thru’s announcement indicates that there will be a 3 – 5 percent increase in costs for their print on demand service. This increase went into effect on February 1st, 2026. The announcement places the reason for the increase squarely on the shoulders of rising costs of materials, from paper to ink to labor.

Mike, I know the printing world is something you keep an eye on, so what observations do you have for the laymen out there wanting to get books printed?

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, is the future of TTRPG’s digital and what does that ultimately mean for the hobby?

[Kick to Christina]

And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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I homebrew all my games. Well, not all of them. Over the years I have tried my hand at running modules to mixed results. As I have talked about before on this podcast, I like the freedom of homebrew, the ability to change things up at a moments notice and the freedom to let the players take me on a ride. As a matter of fact, I am putting together a Twilight 2000 game and while I am stealing the name and location setting of the classic first adventure, I am homebrewing everything else.

Recently I have been making these homebrew adventures a little more formal in there set up and construction and I have even written a series of adventures for Oddfish Games, How To Roleplay With Your Cat, that hopefully will be available at GenCon this year. I wrote a one-shot Call of Cthulhu game that came out beautifully last month and I have gone down the path of formalizing my upcoming adventures, for posterity’s sake of nothing else.

I decided that since I had a smattering of experience now, I should probably sit down with the experts and chat about how to write an adventure for roleplaying games and since I have a podcast designed for just such a topic, here you go.

On this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about writing an adventure for roleplaying games. The basics, structure, format, and of course the does and don’ts.

Christina, Do you remember the first time you sat down and officially created a new adventure? And was it a formal process or more informal?

[Kick to Christina]

Mike, what about you? First Adventure?

[Kick to Mike]

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last, where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.

We start this week off with an article from EN World about Daggerheart and Darrington Press.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/daggerheart-sold-out-in-two-weeks-has-three-year-plan-in-place.716975/

The article reports that the first printing of Daggerheart was planned to last a year. Instead, it sold out in 2 weeks. But don’t fear, the article goes on to say that Darrington Press has a 3-year plan in place for Daggerheart, Yipee!

The article is based on another article by Business Insider that highlights Ed Lopez and Ben Van Der Fluit the COO and Senior Vice President of Business and Content Development respectively. Now I am an avowed capitalist, unlike my co-hosts, but even I get annoyed with the little games designed to separate a fool and his money. I mean you can’t even read the original article at Business Insider unless you pay them money. If any of you are buying this crap, then shame on you. Darrington Press is simply a WOTC and Hasbro wannabe that are adapting the same bullshit that we have seen from those companies, I mean they even hired the people that come up with the bullshit to begin with. You mean to tell me that professionals in a business behind the most successful actual play show in the history of actual play shows screwed up their product ordering by 96%. I mean not even weathermen and the airlines are that bad. On top of it, if you tried to pick up the game at GenCon then you saw their business idea first hand. Small windows where the product was available everyday to create artificial scarcity and only provide the most expensive version of the game. I mean you couldn’t even buy just the basic rulebook. You had to get the entire starter set, which was of course…more expensive. 

But anyway, that’s my opinion. 

For our next bit of information, we are diving into a specific release.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/rpg-print-news-%E2%80%93-traveller-d-d-mothership-and-more.717021/

https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2148379689/Omendrome?awid=1086

Omendrome by Alewood Games is a brand-new softcover adventure for Mothership using the ARKYVR supplement. Now I have heard a ton about Mothership, but I haven’t read any of it. Lots of word of mouth and lots of love, but it just hasn’t crossed my path and this is the first time I have heard anything about the ARKYVR supplement. Mothership is a Sci-Fi Horror Game that lets you play out all your Aliens and Space Hulk adventures. ARKYVR is a system that builds on that putting the characters behind the lens so to speak and letting them “Film” the action and choose the direction of the stories. All of that sounds amazing. The Omendrome adventure set puts the player character in the driver’s seat of a pirate TV station that films and shows all of the horrors of space. Are those horrors real or just made up for the TV, well the players and characters get to decide that. I love the TV aspect of horror. My favorite Call of Cthulhu games are set in the modern era with the players taking on rolls of TV employees. And one of my favorite cult horror films is Videodrome which clearly Omendrome drew heavily from when they wrote the adventure. So Mothership, ARKYVR and Omendrome just hit my buy list for 2026.

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In February of 2019 Ron Burgandy started his podcast. You know, Ron Burgandy, “Stay Classy San Diego”, the fictional 70s character from the movie Anchorman played by Will Ferrall. 

When Will Farrall started the Ron Burgandy Podcast was when the AV Club announced that “Everybody has a podcast.” And that’s not far from the mark. But while the sentiment might feel like it’s a bad thing I completely disagree. The ability for everyday people to broadcast their thoughts, hobbies, ideas, and passions to the world for like minded people is truly one of the great marvels of our world and we should embrace it instead of making fun of it.

I started my first podcast in 2020 when the world was shut down and in 2023 I started this one to showcase my love of roleplaying. Since then, I have listened to hundreds, hell thousands of podcasts, many have come and gone but the ones that endure and become successful do so for a variety of reasons. That’s what we are going to talk about today on this Behind-the-Scenes episode of Epic Adventure.

Joining me today will be my friend Malcolm from the Finding Atoria Podcast and we are going to talk about whey we started our podcasts in the first place, the challenges of getting them off the ground and how we keep them rolling from week to week.

Malcolm, who’s idea was it to start the Finding Atoria Podcast and how hard was it to put together that first episode?

[Kick to Malcolm]

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Welcome to you heard it here last, where we talk about news you’ve already heard.

Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with your podcast and you don’t have to change the dial. This isn’t Morning Drive on FM 103 The Wave, it’s just Malcolm from the Finding Atoria Podcast stepping in this morning.

Say Hello Malcom,

[Kick to Malcolm]

You know ever since we started chatting, I felt like we had our own Berry White and Isaac Hayes thing going on, so hopefully the listeners can sit back, relax and enjoy.

So here is the deal, we are going to break down some recent RPG news and give our opinions, ideas, and feelings on the topic.

Our first story comes to us from EN World and its there Most Anticipated RPG of 2026 Fan Vote.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/its-time-to-vote-for-your-most-anticipated-ttrpg-of-2026.716726/

By now the voting is likely done, but I thought it would be interesting to throw out our votes and get the debate rolling.

Malcom, what are your three most anticipated RPG’s for 2026?

[Kick to Malcolm]

[Here are my Three, in no particular order; Toon, 2nd Edition from Steve Jackson Games. Procedural from Occupied Hex Games and the mind of Rob Kerkovich. Sisterhood: Nuns with Guns from Parable Games.]

https://www.enworld.org/threads/james-ohlen-shifts-from-archetype-entertainment-head-to-creative-consultant-for-tabletop-rpgs-at-wizards.716766/

Next up is the announcement that James Ohlen is leaving Archetype Entertainment a Wizards of the Coast video game company and he is being replaced by Blizzard Veteran Paul Della Bitta. This comes as Archetype Entertainment is moving into the final phase of bringing Exodus to release in 2027. But Ohlen isn’t leaving Wizards. He is sticking around as a consultant to focus on Table Top Roleplaying Games. This whole thing smells like the fishing docks at low tide to me. What are your thoughts Malcolm?

[Kick to Malcolm]

And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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I’ve got a lot of games on my book shelves. Some are old games that I have played a lot, others are games that looked good in the store and I picked them up, but never got around to playing them. And then there is my Kickstarter addiction. Yea, I’ve got several that I picked up through Kickstarter because they sounded good and then once I got them, I never broke them out and played them.

I don’t think I’m unique in that regard and I also know that I’m on the low end of the collecting scale so really my problem is in my own head. But, it doesn’t change the fact that I have a lot of games I want to play.

So my New Years Resolution is to pick three of those games on my shelf I’ve never played, and play them this year.

That’s it. Just play three games I haven’t played before in 2026

That couldn’t be easier, could it?

Well not so fast. You see I’m running an ongoing Conan Campaign that the players seem to love and of course Christina is running her Ghost Hunters in Space game and then Mike keeps promising Cyberpunk … He’s a busy man I can’t give him too hard a time.

So when do you fit it in. What do you stop playing and when do you start a new game.

That’s a problem for another show. In this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about the three games we are going to try and run this year and why we want to run them or play them so badly.

We will do this round robin style with each of us talking about one game we want to play and why, and of course I’m going to start with Christina?

[Kick to Christina]

Mike, Your turn

[Kick to Mike]

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Welcome to you heard it hear last, where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.

Well, here we are in 2026 and this is our first episode of Season 4. We are having a great time and I hope you are as well. Speaking of great times our first bit of news is like a blast from the past for me.

https://www.rascal.news/steve-jackson-games-announces-toon-second-edition/

Steve Jackson Games has just launched a Backerkit for Toon Second Edition. Toon is a roleplaying game set in the world of cartoons. Not the animie stuff, but the good old fashioned Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons produced by Warner Brothers. I grew up on those, routing for Bugs Bunny and always laughing when proclaimed the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Steve Jackson Games launched the first edition in 1984 and I loved it. Now, over 40 years later they are bringing out the Second Edition.

Mike, did you ever play Toon?

[Kick to Mike]

What about you Christina, where the Looney Tunes big for you growing up?

[Kick to Christina]

Next up we have a little interesting piece of news and maybe, just maybe a view of something to come.

https://www.rascal.news/why-did-his-majesty-the-worm-skip-the-kickstarter/

His Majesty the Worm is a tarot card RPG that was released in 2023. The creators utilized Itch.io and put up chapters as written with a pay-what-you-want request. They used the money gathered to help pay for artists and final printing costs. Now they are launching a supplement to His Majesty the Worm titled Castle Automatic. This mega dungeon in the Castlevania style isn’t going the route of backerkit or kickstarter. Nope, they are simply doing pre-orders through Exalted Funereal. We have talked several times on the podcast about the problems with big companies getting involved in platforms that were originally designed for new creators and this seems like the logical outcome of those markets being dominated now by the big brands.

Mike, Put on your business hat. What’s this mean?

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, Thoughts?

[Kick to Christina]

And there you have it. All they news, you’ve already heard.