News: Night Clerk Radio is now available! Birk and I have created a new music review podcast focusing on vaporwave, dark ambient, and other haunted genres of music. Listen today on your podcasting app of choice or on Youtube.

Synopsis: Running and playing tabletop games online has become extremely popular lately so Birk, Kyle (from Best Pal Brigade featured in our episode art) and I discuss our experiences. There are many platforms to play games but choosing one is not the only challenge. Learning the differences between online and IRL games is essential to having a great time.

Promo: Thinking Too Hard About Anime, a new podcast from friends of RPPR!

Shout Outs

Song: Miles to Midnight. Listen to our review of the album on Night Clerk Radio.

RPPR’s most innovative GM, Bridget, and Fae have released the first chapter of their kinetic novel, Cry. It’s about “a road-tripping story about two cryptid-hunters. Follow the exploits of Lorelei Loveless, destitute witch, as she travels the countryside and comes face-to-face with the weird, the wild, and the forgotten.” I talked to them about how they came up with the idea, the challenges they faced making it, and what they have planned in the future.

Support Cry on Sponsus to get regular updates about its development.

Follow Crynovel on Twitter.

Follow Bridget on Twitter.

News: RPPR B-Sides Volume 5: Gaming Gains is now on sale! Get 20 exclusive actual play episodes featuring a Caleb mini-campaign, Red Markets, Delta Green, and more! Also, check out the trailer for our upcoming new podcast, Night Clerk Radio! Don’t forget to check out Best Pal Brigade as well.

Synopsis: Itch.io is an indie game storefront that has recently expanded to physical games like RPGs and card games. As a competitor to DrivethruRPG, Itch.io has attracted a variety of indie tabletop games, including ones that you can’t find on DrivethruRPG. Kyle from Best Pal Brigade, David, and I talk about the tabletop PDF marketplace and review a bunch of games:

Shout Outs

Song: Nightfall Aboard by New Gaia

News: We are working on a new podcast called Night Clerk Radio, where we review vaporwave, dark ambient, and other haunted genres of music. Our website is live with a trailer. We plan to launch soon!

Synopsis: Skills in RPGs are an important element but many games don’t get them right. Many games have too many skills while others have no skills at all. Caleb and I talk about good and bad skill systems in RPGs and how it has changed over the years. Caleb also brings up real life skills, like rhetoric, versus their in-game equivalents.

Shout Outs

Song: Harps and Dreams by Indreba

News: The RPPR Patreon has a special offer. Back at the $10 level by February 3 and get RPPR B-Sides Volume 5! This new volume contains 20 actual play episodes featuring Zweihander, Red Markets, Delta Green, and some unique games in development! Learn all the details in this post.

Synopsis: What is a Mega Game? Mega Games are a mash-up of Traditional Roleplaying Games, Board Games, and LARP, with a bit of war-gaming thrown in to spice things up. They are large scale activities played in one session over several hours, involving as few as twenty and as many as hundreds of different players.

This panel was recorded at PAX South 2020 and hosted by Dallas Mega Games.

Panelists below the fold.

Lee Yancy [Co-Founder, Dallas Mega Games], Logan Doty [Co-Founder, Dallas Mega Games], Jason Cook [Lead Control, Dallas Mega Games], Brian Parker [Lead Control, Dallas Mega Games], Joanna Yancy [Designer, Dallas Mega Games], Nick Alqhuist [Control, Dallas Mega Games]

News: Birk and I are working on a new podcast called Night Clerk Radio. We have a Twitter account set up to make future announcements. We plan to launch it early next year. Stay tuned!

Synopsis: Alien the Role Playing Game is out, based on the long-standing franchise. So how does it stack up? Birk and I have read through the rules and I’ve run a scenario (Chariot of the Gods, soon to be on RPPR Actual Play) so we have some thoughts on it. Find out what we have to say about it and whether its’ worth playing.

Music: Selections from the Music d20 Patreon.

Many listeners have asked me for advice on running their first game. After the most recent question, I realized we didn’t have an episode explicitly focused on this topic. Special guest Kory Bing, Tom, and I discuss how to prepare for your first game, from session zero, to the social contract, and designing your first adventure. We also talk about Kory’s comic, Skin Deep, and its rich lore.

Shout Outs

Music: Above the Southern Rim by Music D20. Back the Patreon to get access to more music to use with your games!

The SCP Foundation is a subgenre of speculative fiction, covering horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, all contained in a very specialized writing style, meant to reflect the internal documentation of a mysterious organization that secures, contains, and protects weird objects and entities. I talked to a volunteer of the SCP Wiki, Vivax, to discuss how SCP fiction can inspire GMs and players. Check out the following resources on the wiki:

Music: The SCP Foundation main theme by Ajoura

Red Markets has a whole line of supplements, such as Veblen Goods and Trabajo, an enclave book. Sean Farris, one of the writers behind the Veblen Guide, visited Springfield and talked to Caleb and I about Red Markets. We discussed the challenges writing supplements for an existing game and collaborating with others, among other topics.

Song: Needle and Thread by Kill Matilda

News: Check out the latest RPPR After Hours for an in-depth discussion on traps in fantasy RPGs!

Synopsis:Thad and I both recently played Control, a new video game about a secret government agency that tries to protect the world from supernatural forces while also trying to exploit that power for their own ends. Obviously, this is a riff on the SCP Foundation, but even that is part of a larger tradition of giant and usually evil (or at least corrupt) bureaucracies in horror games. Whether they are corporate or governmental, these bureaucracies wield as much power as an elder god and cannot be easily stopped or slain. We talk about how to subvert or change these tropes to make your next game or player character more interesting.

Thad is @ThaddeusStrange on Twitter and I am @rosspayton

Shout Outs

Songs: Selections from The Iron Triangle: Bureaucracy by The Great Wall