Inside The Table: A Tabletop RPG Talk Show

This episode, we're joined by special guest Brandon AKA AshenWorks (@Ashen_Works) of Huntsmen's Hydra (@HuntsmensHydra) to talk about Blades in the Dark and the Forged in the Dark genre as a whole. 

But, to start with, Cole is stumbling back into Destiny 2, finding too much story and a crafting system? We also spend some time talking about Lance Reddick, because of course we do. 

Then, Marley chats about... doing book layouts in Google Docs? Making a work look nice before writing it has gotten him inspired, and helped him finish a horror game, The Night of the Scarecrow.

Meanwhile, Brandon has been playing the Commander format of Magic: The Gathering, and he's found this hero-focused way of playing has been scratching his character-creation itch and has been inspiring some TTRPG projects he's been working on.

Cole has also been messing around in Google Forms, and Marley takes the opportunity to let Google know where they went wrong...

Then, Tabletop RPGs!

Cole's been checking out Jason Price's Last Sentinels, a game about a doomed mech pilot protecting a ship escaping a besieged planet. We spend some time chatting about tragic games as an interesting alternative to most games, since...

...Marley is talking about a non-verbal Larp he's read about relationship coming to an end, specifically Wilt by Mads Jøns Frausig and Karete Jacobsen Meland. New to nordic larps, Marley found himself blown away by what's happening in it, fascinated by the safety tools, and, at one point, began tearing up a little while reading it. 

To lighten the mood, Brandon chats about Zak Barouh's Animon Story, an adorable game inspired by Digimon & Pokemon, that made all three of our co-hosts pause the episode to look at all the cute animals pictures it has in it.

To close, we spend a good time discussing John Harper's Blades in the Dark and Forged in the Dark games, including Austin Ramsay's Beam Saber and Briar Sovereign's The Brightest Things We Know. We talk how we got into it, its lineage in TTRPGs, how it looks as a PbtA game, and how we feel about the stress and trauma mechanic.

Featuring Marley (@Mynar_Lenahan), Cole (@IceColeBrew), and Brandon (@Ashen_Works).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

Today, we're talking Sparked by the Resistance games with game designer Scampir!

But first, we chat about the strange things RadioTVsolutions have been up to (something about Half Life with self-aware AI?), the weirdness of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, ethical quandries in Cult of the Lamb, and thick thick fantasy book, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon.

Marley also revisits Jennifer Park's Discandying Cleopatra: Preserving Cleopatra's Infinite Variety in Shakespeare's "Anthony and Cleopatra", a fascinating essay he read in university which uses the metaphor of food preservation to examine Cleopatra's position in that play. 

Scampir talks about Brock McCord's Record of Twilight War, an industrial fantasy mech TTRPG that is also a musou game??  

Then, we check out two games by the prolific Briar Sovereign: Armor Astir: Advent & the Red West playtest.

Scampir talks about their love of Armor Astir and spends some time discussing the unofficial playbook he wrote for the game, The Baccentian Guide, a shield maiden with a colossal mech that is half-temple, half-Godzilla, enslaved into becoming a machine of war. It's also kind of about living around a literal embodiment of climate change.

Cole on the other hand, enthuses about Red West, a hack of Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor's Heart: The City Beneath, featuring cowboys and portals to Hell on Mars. Imagine Doom mixed with Westworld and you're most of the way there. It's a wild, outlandish game, which is also so funny it's almost a shitpost.

Marley talks about Broken by Ben Wallis, a biographical game about doomed romance which encourages you to break ten random objects as you play, and Cole wonders if this game could be theraputic for people processing past relationships.

Then, we do another deep dive into the Sparked by the Resistance system. Scampir talks through their experience playing a 14-session campaign of Spire: The City Must Fall (which he wrote about on Cohost), Cole read through Ascendancy, and Marley compares it to the game's "sequel", Heart: The City Beneath. They talk about what they enjoy about the system and where they felt friction with some of the mechanics the system has. 

They also answer the big question: "What are your favourite Resistance playbooks?" And listener, their answers may surprise you.

Featuring Cole (@IceColeBrew), Marley (@Mynar_Lenahan), and special guest Scampir (@Scampir).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

This episode, we're talking about Prep-less Tabletop RPGs: The Tabletop RPGS that you can just sit down and play without any fuss. Most of the time.

But first, Cole's been enjoying baby-faced Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge! and has somehow managed to pick up Star Wars trivia while watching it. He has also been inspired by watching his partner, Holly, "get her ass kicked in Mario Kart live on stream."

On the other side of things, Marley has been checking out Embed With Games by Cara Ellison (currently available at StoryBundle). It's a non-fiction book about the year Ellison spent couch-surfing on various game developers' couches. It was the last thing Cara Ellison wrote before quitting games journalism entirely to become a game developer.

Marley came across it after listening to The Inspirational Quarterly, a hilarious podcast by Cara Ellison and Davey Wreden (which sort of inspired him to make this podcast).

For this week's TTRPGs, Marley starts by talking about the playtest of Ryne by Furtive Shambles, a beautifully-written PbtA game about communities living around gigantic, crumbling gods. Marley says it feels (in his words) "like taking a deep breath" in comparison to the fast-pace of most games out there.

Marley's also been checking out Bloodclotte by Sillion L and Nick Duff, which is a Sparked by Resistance game set in a war-torn hospital. Unlike so many Resistance games, the game has no combat and is mostly a medical drama, which fits in so nicely with the ruleset. 

Cole's been looking at the opening pitch of NovaCross by Yuri Runnel & SniperSerpent, which is a scifi, sports-based Forged in the Dark game. Marley is blown away that a game like that is out there, so they spend some time talking about Riley Hopkins' Extracurriculars, too.

Cole also reminisces about their experiences playing Songs for the Dusk by Kavita Poduri. It's a post-apocalyptic Forged in the Dark game which introduced much softer rules when it came to trauma and harm. The latest version of the game now has some cool maps by Annie Johnston-Glick, too.

Finally, we spend some time talking through our experiences playing through fun Tabletop RPGs that don't require any prep to get started. We mainly talk about Avery Alder's The Quiet Year, which Cole just finished running a session for Huntsmen's Hydra. It's a fun chat.

And at one point, we discuss Air Bud eSports. But I won't say when.

Featuring Marley (@Mynar_Lenahan) and Cole (@IceColeBrew) 

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

This episode, we're gonna talk through our experience doing very first actual play recording of the RUNE playtest by Spencer Campbell (@GilaRPGs).

(You can find said actual play recording at bit.ly/InsideTheTableYoutube, by the way...)

But first, Marley talks about being utterly blown away the buck-wild story in Powerwash Simulator's campaign mode, despite still feeling weird about gaming on GamePass. Cole meanwhile has continued their playthrough of Dishonored and he has also gone to a vinyl and cocktail night. 

However, all is not as peaceful and carefree in the lives of our hosts, for they now find themselves in a  now live in a world in which a new Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer has been released! Marley is inconsolable, as he fears it will likely be a passable action-fantasy film that will do okay at the box office. Cole just hopes it's okay, so long as it does contain some legitimate thieves and not just regular old heroes...  But they also make a comparison that shakes Marley to his very core, and might even convince him to watch the film.

Then, Marley has re-visited one of his favourite Tabletop RPGs, Casket Land, a Powered By The Apocalypse game that is brutal, extremely creative, and refreshingly unlike any game he knows of. He just thinks more people in the tabletop scene should be talking about it.

He also talks about Vaesen, which is a Nordic horror game of trolls and fairytale creatures. It uses a more streamlined version of the Tales From The Loop rpg system (a game which he enjoyed anyway) and he hopes Vaesen will be an oportunity to play as a fun Hellboy-type character.

Cole also shouts out occult-detective-em-up game, Sworn By Moonlight, which uses the Ironsworn system to weave a fun, weird mystery in a strange city that's kind of Bloodborne-y... 

Then, we spend a few moments talking about our exciting experience playing RUNE. Let's not spoil it. (Not while you can check out the whole recorded actual play at bit.ly/InsideTheTableYoutube...)

Featuring Cole (@IceColeBrew) and Marley (@Mynar_Lenahan) 

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

Marley opens the podcast up with a fairly straightforward question, before Cole lets us know what's been inspiring them lately.

Specifically: The moral quandries of stealth-em-up Dishonored and some insights he gained from watching the recent Game Masters of Exandria Roundtable, which has got him thinking about the experience of running games as a GM. Then, Marley talks about the experience of watching Netflix's RRR without knowing the first thing about it. According to him, it has the greatest action movie shot of all time and the Fast & Furious franchise should be taking notes...

Then Games: We finally tie a bow on the FATHOM playtest, which, despite causing a few frustrations during our extended one-shot, still clearly has its hooks in us. Then, Marley talks about The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide: Expanded Genres Edition, which could be a useful tool for adding more depth to your player character (although Marley didn't find it as useful as others might). Finally, Marley's had a terrific session zero with Good Society: A Jane Austen RPG (or, more specifically, the Gothic Society expansion) and he's looking forward to seeing how the game plays out. 

Finally, after finding a long-lost copy of the Sailor Moon Role Playing Game and Resource Book from 1999, Cole also proclaims that they will run it, although how that will go is anyone's guess...

We take a moment to talk about our experiences running tabletop RPGs as Game Masters (GMs). How do we prep when we run a game? How do we feel about GMing principles?  When do we feel like we're nailing it as a GM? Does roleplaying come easy for us? And just how overpowered should players be?

We close with a heartfelt thank you to everybody who's supported us and we read our very first (genuine) listener email.

Featuring Marley (@mynar_lenahan) and Cole (@icecolebrew)

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

Ah, the FATHOM Playtest (v0.21) deep dive.... A whole episode where we sit down to do a book report on an incredibly interesting and surreal tabletop RPG that we've been reading, playing, and thinking about a whole lot. 

But first, we spend some time talking about similarly weird and surreal media that we've been checking out. Marley's been watching The Truman Show and thinking a lot about the rise of personality-focused media on Twitch, YouTube, and even Podcasts over the past few decades. Turns out, the future is more-cost effective than an elaborate, city-sized film set.

Cole meanwhile has been streaming the absolutely fantastic NORCO by Geography of Robots. It's a strange, Louisiana point & click adventure game that is equal parts melancholy and very funny. In particularly, there is a slimey private eye who utterly rules and a cat you should probably not pet. Cole thinks it has Old Gods of Appalachia vibes, too, and this producer promised to put that in the episode description.

Then, FATHOM by Matthew Guzdial and Brendan McLeod!

Since mentioning the game briefly last episode, Marley's done a twitter thread as he read through the current version of the book, while Cole GM'd a session of the game. They both talk about their feelings playing the game, reading through the book, and thinking about how it exists in relation to games like Blades In The Dark & Heart: The City Beneath. Our feelings are largely positive, but we feel that some things will still need to develop as the book continues developing.

Producer Note: This book is rad. The playbooks in particular are absolutely fascinating (Wanna play as Scooby-Doo? John Wick? Charmeleon from Spider-Man, but also a transformer? Well, now you can!), but the whole thing is worth a read.

Finally, in the closing moments of the Podcast, we give a big shout out to The Indie Bundle For Abortion Funds, which is an upcoming itch bundle supporting The National Network of Abortion Funds, specifically The Collective Power Fund. That bundle is now live as a game jam on itch.io and can be found by clicking here.

Featuring Cole (@icecolebrew) and Marley (@mynar_lenahan)

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

This episode, we spend some time talking about media we've been enjoying, starting with "Disney Isekai" The Owl House and The Prestige (a rare film which depicts magicians as "cool"), before talking about our Elden Ring woes and thoughts. For reasons known only to ourselves, we also discuss our favourite video games of the year so far...

Then, on to the Tabletop RPGs!

Recently, we've been focusing on deck-based tabletop games. It wasn't a planned theme, just an incredible coincidence.

Marley opens up the TTRPG talk with journaling game Wandering Dreams by Cody Barr, which he describes as "What if Bloodborne was a narrative rogue-like?" Then Cole discusses The River by Ava Ayers, which uses Texas Hold'Em mechanics to tell a story of people gambling parts of themselves as they die in the woods.

Next is our experimental News segment: We touch on a variety of things on our horizon, including the end of Sangfielle (the latest Friends At The Table season), the latest trailer of the upcoming Sandman TV show, and two very interesting tabletop games which recently released playtests: the surreal FATHOM by Matthew Guzdial & Brendan McLeod and the Dark Souls-y RUNE by Spencer Campbell.

Featuring Marley (@mynar_lenahan) and Cole (@icecolebrew)

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!

In our very first episode, we start with a big discussion about films and shows that have been inspiring us lately. There’s plenty of chat about Nicolas Cage movies and we learn how exactly Marley got… The Morbs.

Then, we go into the meat of the episode: Listener Questions

And, yes, this is our very first episode, so our listeners are ourselves.

Nonetheless, we go deep about our experiences with tabletop roleplaying games, discussing what makes a good TTRPG, speculating about the history of the hobby, and how systems shape the stories we tell.

We also talk about Batman for a little bit and finally answer the age-old question: “Are limited inventory systems good actually?”

Featuring Cole (@icecolebrew) and Marley (@mynar_lenahan)

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on Twitter (@insidethetable). Also, send in your Listener Questions to [email protected]!