Tavern Watch Podcast

All good things must come to an end, and sometimes, so must all foul things -- like vampiric rituals meant to bring one's wife back from the dead by opening the very gates of Hell itself. Our pirate crew has done a good job so far freeing prisoners and seeing them off to safety, preventing Albrecht the Tideborn from having any more sacrifices for his ritual. But does he actually need more? Only one way to find out -- and that's by ferreting out his hiding spot, disrupting his ritual, and probably soaking his fancy coat and hat in some lukewarm pineapple juice, the bane of the lord of the pelagic vampires.

Wrapping up this game of Pirate Borg, GM'd by Phil Ulrich, won't be an easy ordeal -- but I know just the buccaneers for the job.

• Eric O'Dea as Cornelius "Noseface" Collins, an erstwhile sorcerer and escapee from cannibals who is growing increasingly, concerningly, gangrenous
• Trish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Octavia, a swashbuckler who just happens to also be at least half octopus
• Liz Harper as Tama, an actual talking parrot -- a very pretty blue lucky parrot, to be precise, although she wasn't born that way

This is the finale in a four-part actual play of Limithron's Pirate Borg, running the boat portion of "Into the Maelstrom" from their first expansion, Down Among the Dead. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you missed the first half of our game you'll want to check out, episode 1, episode 2, and episode 3 first.

The music in this episode is "Dark Tides," by PhatPhrog Studios.

You can listen to the podcast directly from this post or click on “Follow” in the player below to follow the podcast in your podcast player of choice and download directly to your device.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

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Stop me if you've heard this one before: a bunch of crypts in the lowest level of a vampire's lair, holding silver, lurking undead enemies, a secret our big bad guy doesn't want found, and more. Curse of Strahd? Not this time! The rotting vampirate vessel haunting the Dark Caribbean, the Maelstrom, of course includes a graveyard at the very lowest level -- one with three feet of salt water in it, but a graveyard nonetheless. Where there's graveyards, of course, there's buried treasure, and if there's anything our player pirate crew loves, it's buried treasure. Well, treasure and vampire-slaying.

Our spooky season game of Pirate Borg is in in full swing now. Our GM this time is Phil Ulrich, and the folks digging through graves like it won't come back to haunt them are:

• Eric O'Dea as Cornelius "Noseface" Collins, an erstwhile sorcerer and escapee from cannibals who is growing increasingly, concerningly, gangrenous
• Trish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Octavia, a swashbuckler who just happens to also be at least half octopus
• Liz Harper as Tama, an actual talking parrot -- a very pretty blue lucky parrot, to be precise, although she wasn't born that way

This is the third in a four-part actual play of Limithron's Pirate Borg, running the boat portion of "Into the Maelstrom" from their first expansion, Down Among the Dead. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you missed the first half of our game you'll want to chcek out, episode 1 and episode 2 first.

The music in this episode is "Dark Tides," by PhatPhrog Studios.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Deep in the bowels of the vampirate-laden Maelstrom, our scurvy scallyways discover something truly unexpected: an entire forest, inside the hull of a ship. Not only that, but those crows seem to be cawing somewhat ominously, and inside the forest is a cave. But the real machinations of the pelagic vampires are yet to be discovered, Albrecht the Tideborn still stalks those who would disturb whatever is happening aboard the ship, and there's still something high above waiting for our crew to find... even if it's hanging by a thread.

Our spooky season game of Pirate Borg continues, with GM Phil Ulrich running full-sail adventures among the dead for:

• Eric O'Dea as Cornelius "Noseface" Collins, an erstwhile sorcerer and escapee from cannibals who is growing increasingly, concerningly, gangrenous
• Trish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Octavia, a swashbuckler who just happens to also be at least half octopus
• Liz Harper as Tama, an actual talking parrot -- a very pretty blue lucky parrot, to be precise, although she wasn't born that way

This is the second in a four-part actual play of Limithron's Pirate Borg, running the boat portion of "Into the Maelstrom" from their first expansion, Down Among the Dead. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you missed episode 1, you'll definitely want to check that out first.

The music in this episode is "Dark Tides," by PhatPhrog Studios.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the briny seas of the Dark Caribbean sails a ship unlike any other; a ghostly ship, made of rotting wood with sails of red flesh, heralded by an ominous green fog, and crewed by vampiric pirates: the Maelstrom. Last time it made landfall, the Maelstrom took aboard several captives, including a specific VIP; on top of that, the ship contains untold wealth gathered from across the seas, and a mysterious Spanish Inquisitor has offered a bounty of silver for each of these vile pelagic vampires that meets their permanent end -- especially their captain, Albrecht the Tideborn. That's more than enough to get our scurvy scallywags interested, wouldn't you think?

Captaining our spooky season actual play of Pirate Borg is GM Phil Ulrich, and our crew of cutthroats and ne'er-do-wells for this excursion is:

• Eric O'Dea as Cornelius "Noseface" Collins, an erstwhile sorcerer and escapee from cannibals who is growing increasingly, concerningly, gangrenous
• Trish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Octavia, a swashbuckler who just happens to also be at least half octopus
• Liz Harper as Tama, an actual talking parrot -- a very pretty blue lucky parrot, to be precise, although she wasn't born that way

This is the first in a four-part actual play of Limithron's Pirate Borg, running the boat portion of "Into the Maelstrom" from their first expansion, Down Among the Dead. Watch for new episodes every Monday!

The music in this episode is "Dark Tides," by PhatPhrog Studios.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Against all odds, the Dungeons & Dragons Warcraft crossover book seems like it might actually be good. It could've gone the way of the cheap cash grab, but instead early previews make it look like Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard have put a lot of thought into the implementation of classes, dungeons, and all of the details that make Warcraft Warcraft. Honestly, no one is more surprised than us.

And in more tabletop news, we took a look at some upcoming projects like biopunk fantasy RPG Twisted Lands, Shiver's upcoming book of cryptids, and Yatagan, a cosmic space opera RPG drawing from Turkish and Mongolian culture and myths. AI continues to suck, with automated agents begging game site Rascal to buy their automatically generated D&D module and 90,000 LLM scraper bots taking down EN World, but at least the UK Games Expo has banned AI products from the show floor. Plus an exciting little sneak peek at Dragonlance!

Music from this episode is “Midnight Tale” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are a lot of interesting things to touch on in the tabletop RPG space in this month's Tavern Watch Podcast, especially if you're a fan of Paizo's games like Pathfinder or Starfinder. Paizo offering everything they've ever published on DriveThruRPG looks to be a winning move as the company continues to struggle with a large stock of print books to be locked up in the Diamond Comics Distributors bankruptcy. It looks like Paizo and other publishers may finally be getting their books back, but it's been over a year. It's good to see another way to get Paizo books.

We have a short but spirited (pun fully intended) conversation on the use of gods, patrons, and other higher powers in your game, which can be a fun narrative hook as long as they don't overrule player agency. D&D news is a little quiet between book releases, but there is a new Underdark-themed Unearthed Arcana, which you can pick up and playtest for yourself. Plus Phil effusively glazes Lancer for five or ten minutes because we talked about giant anime mechs and that is evidently one of his sleeper phrases (plus they have new books coming out next year).

Music from this episode is "Midnight Tale" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some days in the Wasteland, you accidentally stumble into a robot-operated dinosaur cloning facility, and then you have to make an ethical judgment on what to do with the lives of intelligent (and very polite) cloned dinosaurs and deathclaws. But being a resident of the Wasteland means being adaptable, so we'll probably figure it out. So join us for the final episode of our actual play of the Fallout TTRPG! 

GM Matt Rossi is leading our oddball crew of adventurers, so it's really no surprise that we've wound up here. These are our players:

• Liz Harper as Nellie, a Miss Nannie who's long-since moved from babysitting to robot repair... though being able to wrangle toddlers is a widely applicable skill for adventuring.
• Rob Flanagan as Fidget, a scavenger who's making the most of life in the Wasteland, but he's gotten a bit lost on his way back home to West Virginia.
• Eric O'Dea as Hack, a super mutant who's the backbone of this party... and the only one who's fought a Deathclaw before. Possibly for fun.

This is the third of a three-part actual play series of Fallout, a 2d20 game from Modipheus that does a good job of replicating the feel of the video game version. Listen to the first episode here, the second episode here, and look for new episodes of Tavern Watch every Monday! If enjoy this actual play, you can pick up your own copy of Fallout from Modipheus or check out the free quickstart for a preview of the rules.

The music in this episode is "In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It turns out being kidnapped by talking Deathclaws really isn't that bad, as long as you don't mind the moral quandaries that come along with them... and I'm not sure anyone in our party is actually came prepared for moral quandaries, but we're going to do our best. Join us as GM Matt Rossi escorts us across the wasteland in this actual play of the Fallout TTRPG!

Here's our misfit crew for this adventure, and not a philosopher among them:

• Liz Harper as Nellie, a Miss Nannie who's long-since moved from babysitting to robot repair... though being able to wrangle toddlers is a widely applicable skill for adventuring.
• Rob Flanagan as Fidget, a scavenger who's making the most of life in the Wasteland, but he's gotten a bit lost on his way back home to West Virginia.
• Eric O'Dea as Hack, a super mutant who's the backbone of this party... and the only one who's fought a Deathclaw before. Possibly for fun.

This is the second of a three-part actual play series of Fallout, a 2d20 game from Modipheus that does a good job of replicating the feel of the video game version. Listen to the first episode here, and look for new episodes every Monday! If enjoy this actual play, you can pick up your own copy of Fallout from Modipheus or check out the free quickstart for a preview of the rules.

The music in this episode is "In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the wasteland, where our plucky party of adventurers is on a high-speed (relatively) train to the star-studded town of New Vegas. If they ever make it out of the Gary Wasteland, of course, because GM Matt Rossi is here to disrupt our day (with adventure). So if you'll come this way, your train is waiting...

Here's our misfit crew for this adventure:

• Liz Harper as Nellie, a Miss Nannie who's long-since moved from babysitting to robot repair... though being able to wrangle toddlers is a widely applicable skill for adventuring.
• Rob Flanagan as Fidget, a scavenger who's making the most of life in the Wasteland, but he's gotten a bit lost on his way back home to West Virginia.
• Eric O'Dea as Hack, a super mutant who's the backbone of this party... and the only one who's fought a Deathclaw before. Possibly for fun.

This is the first of a three-part actual play series of Fallout, a 2d20 game from Modipheus that does a good job of replicating the feel of the video game version. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If enjoy this actual play, you can pick up your own copy of Fallout from Modipheus or check out the free quickstart for a preview of the rules.

The music in this episode is "In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Those kids from Tavern Watch are finishing up our run of the Kids on Bikes TTRPG, and pretty much everything is hitting the fan all at once. The town of New Novemberwood, and one of its founding patriarchs -- the famously-lucky Mr. Pineapple -- have had it too good for too long, and after a few unexpected spikes of good luck for a lucky few, it's time for the other shoe to drop. Repeatedly. Be careful what you wish for.

Our GM Joe Perez brings this story of kids in over their heads to a close today. Those kids, of course, are:

• Liz Harper as Rhiandrea "Ree" Rains, an independent young Scout and local bookstore employee who doesn't like being told what to do by her parents -- or their ideas of how to run her life
• Trish, aka AwkwardishPanda, as Ginny Jacobson, an extremely precious girl and fish out of water who got advanced to her junior year six years early
• Matt Rossi as Jacob Jacobson, who's kind of a weird kid, but he looks out for his little sister and maybe believes in magic
• Phil Ulrich as Randall Fletcher, who could really be something if he applied himself, but he doesn't see why it's worth trying so hard all the time, man

This is the finale of a three-part actual play series (the first part is here, and the second part is here!) of Kids on Bikes, a rules-light and very accessible system for achieving the kind of feel you'd expect from media like The Goonies, Stand By Me, or E.T. -- any of those kind of 80s and 90s coming-of-age media where maybe something supernatural happens. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you think this game is rad, you can pick up your own copy from Hunters Entertainment or Renegade Game Studios.

The music in this episode is "Hiding Your Reality" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.