In this week's Tavern Watch Podcast, we're discussing Daggerheart, the much-hyped TTRPG from Darrington Press and Critical Role which is celebrating its first anniversary. One year in, our biggest complaint is that the game still doesn't do anything radically new to break typical TTRPG paradigms, but it packs a lot of mechanics (and tools for GMs) in a flexible system that's relatively easy for players to pick up — and for third party creators to build on. Daggerheart is still going strong, with the Hope & Fear expansion due out in August, as well as a new Age of Umbra actual play series coming in July, and several free adventures (the first is available now). We also talk about Paizo's upcoming game 13 Omens, a d6-based horror game from the creators of Pathfinder and Starfinder; our hopes for the upcoming Justice League TTRPG; and the untitled D&D video game from Giant Skull that Hasbro has canceled (as well as what that means for the company's other video game projects).

And, of course, we had to talk about the latest from Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks as he describes Dungeons & Dragons as a "live service" franchise and D&D Beyond adds weekly content drops for subscribers. We'll see how that goes.

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

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In Tavern Watch's finale of our three-part run of See You Space Cowboy, our tenacious bounty hunters have tracked the NFTHound and his remaining cronies to an unmarked warehouse, full of cheaply-paid goons and a bunch of impressionable youth that the villain is trying to sway to the side of his sleazy world of electronic currency and extremely expensive digital pictures of ugly apes. Will our heroes win the day, or will we discover that in the end, there must alwaysbe a Crypto King?

You can probably guess how this'll go. Joe Perez as GM keeps the action rolling and never lets up for our team of bounty hunters:

• Trish Olson as Kit Brooksfield, who's all brains, a little cool, and maybe some kind of hacker (but for all the right reasons!)
• Chris Chesno as Colt Sterling, a hard-smoking professional chaos gremlin who maybe looks like Temu Vicious
• Joan Albright as Veronia Graves, a former housewife whose bad run-in with the law now has her on a mission
• Liz Harper as Jen, who is definitely not the crew's kleptomaniac
• Phil Ulrich as Luke Navarro, a brick wall of a man who's ostensibly the ship's captain but mostly the team dad

This is the third in a three-part actual play series of See You Space Cowboy; the first part is here, and the second one is here! You can also pick up a copy of See You Space Cowboy yourself on Tidal Wave Games' itch.io page; it's only five American dollars to bring all this fun to your own table!

The intro and outro songs for this episode are both by Phat Phrog Studios; the intro is "Mech Imperium," while the outro is "The Pain Unwritten."

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

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Hot on the trail of some scumbag NFT and crypto traders (aka their latest bounty targets), the Tavern Watch team lays an ambush for their bounty in this week's episode of See You Space Cowboy on our TTRPG actual play podcast. What follows is one of the most chaotic fight sequences we've ever had; shots are fired, a few people get knitting needled, there's a mishap with a hot dog, and it all ends with Jen riding on top of the same Cybertruck she's demolishing -- and that's not even including following these chumps back to their home base.

Joe Perez as our GM somehow manages to direct all this chaos in a cohesive direction; meanwhile, the rest of us doing our best to cause trouble are:

• Trish Olson as Kit Brooksfield, who's all brains, a little cool, and maybe some kind of hacker (but for all the right reasons!)
• Chris Chesno as Colt Sterling, a hard-smoking, hard-bitten hot dog and gunplay enthusiast
• Joan Albright as Veronia Graves, a former housewife whose bad run-in with the law now has her on a mission
• Liz Harper as Jen, who is definitely not the crew's kleptomaniac
• Phil Ulrich as Luke Navarro, a brick wall of a man who's ostensibly the ship's captain but mostly the team dad

This is the second in a three-part actual play series of See You Space Cowboy; the first part is here, and new episodes come out every Monday! You can also pick up a copy of See You Space Cowboy yourself on Tidal Wave Games' itch.io page; it's only five American dollars to bring all this fun to your own table!

The intro and outro songs for this episode are both by Phat Phrog Studios; the intro is "Mech Imperium," while the outro is "The Pain Unwritten."

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's time for a brand new game on Tavern Watch, called See You Space Cowboy; this one takes place in a solar system that looks a lot like famous anime Cowboy Bebop's but with the serial numbers... well, not even filed off, just kinda smudged a little bit. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, talk to people who always know something for a cost, and hunt down some of the most notorious criminals this side of Ganymede, bounty hunting is definitely one way to make that big payday (and/or just pay the bills) However, in the universe of See You Space Cowboy, there's only one crime that rewards hunters for bringing in their prey dead rather than alive: possession of cryptocurrency and NFTs. So of course this ne'er-do-well is our target (and it doesn't hurt that he's a litterbug, either).

The band leader for these shenanigans is the enthusiastic and creative Joe Perez, and our motley crew of hunters is played by:

• Trish Olson as Kit Brooksfield, who's all brains, a little cool, and maybe some kind of hacker (but for all the right reasons!)
• Chris Chesno as Colt Sterling, a hard-smoking, hard-bitten hot dog and gunplay enthusiast
• Joan Albright as Veronia Graves, a former housewife whose bad run-in with the law now has her on a mission
• Liz Harper as Jin, who is definitely not the crew's kleptomaniac
• Phil Ulrich as Luke Navarro, a brick wall of a man who's ostensibly the ship's captain but mostly the team dad

This is the first in a three-part actual play series of See You Space Cowboy; watch for new episodes to come out every Monday! You can also pick up a copy of See You Space Cowboy yourself on Tidal Wave Games' itch.io page; it's only five American dollars to bring all this fun to your own table!

The intro and outro songs for this episode are both by Phat Phrog Studios; the intro is "Mech Imperium," while the outro is "The Pain Unwritten."

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 this episode of the Tavern Watch Podcast, we're talking about the return to Strixhaven (where their undergraduates can now prepare spells like D&D Wizards), some of our upcoming favorite crowdfunding projects -- among them the multiplayer expansion to Ion Heart, Austin Walker's debut game Realis, and the genre-straddling Cypher System megadungeon Jewel in the Sky -- and also how when you leave fans alone with high-quality free products they'll do things like convert the core rules of Ars Magica into the easy to read and use Markdown format. Plus there's a four-part Ravenloft comic coming soon with some big names attached to it; which cover is your favorite? (Team TWP is pretty solidly fans of the Hammer movie poster vibe of Cover C, just for the record.) The D&D cartoon from the 80s is up for you to check out on YouTube for free (and I'll be watching it too, since somehow it bypassed me in the 80s); are you or were you a fan? We also tackle a pretty interesting reader question that delves into the line between tabletop RPG history and missing your favorite properties, which can be summed up as: where's Dragonlance?

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's just another average day in Ternion City: four agents of the Triangle Agency, paragons of order keeping reality safe from anomalous activity that wants to rend it asunder, find themselves confronted with the job of what to do with the remains of a Wuhan-Baxter corporate killsquad, while their final member comes face-to-face with her biggest challenge so far: an extremely well-presented business pitch slide deck. Will the rest of the team reunite with Louisa in time? Will they become minor corporate overlords (or at least franchisees) themselves? And just what the heck is a pizza rat?

All those questions and more are part of the narrative being spun by Director Phil Ulrich. Our highly competent team hunting for answers is:

• Liz Harper as Louisa Gibson, a perfectly normal vampire working in a perfectly normal PR gig
• Eric O'Dea as Tad Silverfield, always here to lend a friendly ear and find what you need
• Chris Chesno as Roger Hensley, for whom the struggle is real but cleaning up messes is just business
• Nick Marino as Case, Company R&D man who's always right on time
• Joan Albright as "Dotty" Blackthorne, a time-and-space displaced intern in the right place at the right time

This is the finale in a three-part actual play series of Triangle Agency; if you haven't listened to part one yet, you'll definitely want to do that first, then follow it up by listening to part two next. New episodes come out every Monday! If you like what you hear and want to pick up a copy for yourself, you can pick up Triangle Agency from Haunted Table Games or Modiphius.

Music from this episode is "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under the 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 back to serene Ternion City, where things are heating up in the case of the missing-then-returned-but-boneless Zbarro renovators. After their investigations last time at the hospital yielded some frankly disturbing results, the agents of the Triangle Agency have decided that the best way to get to the bottom of what's going on at the Wuhan-Baxter Building shopping promenade is to investigate on-site. I'm sure nothing weird will happen.

Just in case something weird does happen, they've got their Director, Phil Ulrich, but this team can clearly take care of themselves:

• Liz Harper as Louisa Gibson, a perfectly normal vampire working in a perfectly normal PR gig
• Eric O'Dea as Tad Silverfield, always here to lend a friendly ear and find what you need
• Chris Chesno as Roger Hensley, for whom the struggle is real but cleaning up messes is just business
• Nick Marino as Case, Company R&D man who's always right on time
• Joan Albright as "Dotty" Blackthorne, a time-and-space displaced intern in the right place at the right time

This is the second in a three-part actual play series of Triangle Agency; if you haven't listened to part one yet, you'll definitely want to do that first. New episodes come out every Monday! If you like what you hear

and want to pick up a copy for yourself, you can pick up Triangle Agency from Haunted Table Games or Modiphius.

Music from this episode is "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under the 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 back to beautiful Ternion City, where the agents of the Triangle Agency are looking out not just for your best interests, but all of reality. We love reality! That's where all our stuff is! And our agents definitely have a doozy of a case on their hands this time: some contractors who had been working on an outdated shopping promenade (conveniently located in the basement of one of Triangle's business competitors) disappeared, only to reappear perfectly fine a few days later... well, other than the fact that all their bones are missing. Seems like just the kind of anomalous activity that our team is trained and ready to handle.

Director Phil Ulrich is here to guide our team of corporate ladder-climbers through their case; that team, of course, is:

• Liz Harper as Louisa Gibson, a perfectly normal vampire working in a perfectly normal PR gig
• Eric O'Dea as Tad Silverfield, always here to lend a friendly ear and find what you need
• Chris Chesno as Roger Hensley, for whom the struggle is real but cleaning up messes is just business
• Nick Marino as Case, Company R&D man who's always right on time
• Joan Albright as "Dotty" Blackthorne, a time-and-space displaced intern in the right place at the right time
• And a special guest appearance by Joe Perez as Terrance Howard Mothicus, the mothman barista who knows exactly what you need, even if he's out cleaning up a different team's mess

This is the first in a three-part actual play series of Triangle Agency; check back every Monday for new episodes! However, this is not our first time playing Triangle Agency; in fact, if these characters seem familiar, it's because we're picking up with the same team as last time! If you like what you hear and want to pick up a copy for yourself, you can pick up Triangle Agency from Haunted Table Games or Modiphius.

Music from this episode is "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under the 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.

On this episode of the Tavern Watch Podcast, the team gets a win -- a win in naming things, it turns out, as Wizards of the Coast (in addition to finally announcing some products for 2026) also has started referring to the 2024 revision of D&D as "D&D 5.5e." Considering it ended up being more a balance update than the massive revolution in tabletop gaming that we were originally sold, we're all of the opinion this is for the better (and is easier to say, to boot). On top of that, Joe's really, really excited about the Godzilla Roleplaying Game both due to a general all-abiding love for Toho's kaiju but also because of some of the titans of the tabletop industry that are featured in its staff list now, Phil has been completely enamored with Cairn (and its creator Yochai Gal's podcast, Between Two Cairns) as far as things in the OSR tabletop gaming space goes, and Liz has a thought or two about Wizards CEO Chris Cocks' statement that they're keeping generative AI out of some of their biggest product spaces -- namely D&D, Magic: the Gathering, and video games -- because the creatives and the audience don't want it. Hopefully they can stick to that, though we've got bad news if you're a fan of Peppa Pig as far as AI in your intellectual property space goes.

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.

The team of adventurers-turned-detectives in our playthrough of Starfinder's Murder in Metal City has the body of Tier-99-Professor on their hands and the assumed murderer hot in their trail for getting too close -- but does anyone think they're really going to stop before they get answers about what happened? They'll delve into the depths of the Striving university archives and uncover something much bigger than a simple hit before it's all said and done, but that's because sometimes finding the answer is just the first step, not the last one.

Liz Harper is the GM for this exciting finale; the group of intrepid folks who keep finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time are:

• Joe Perez as "Nitpick" Bennit, Ysoki Witchwarper, who always knows a guy, and is a daft hand with both magic and technology
• Phil Ulrich as Lunar-17, Android Mystic, who's so terminally online that it gave her magic powers
• Matt Rossi as Tooth Hug, Skittermander Solarian, who could really use a snack right now
• Special guest Trish Olson, a.k.a. AwkwardishPanda, as Jaedana, a Kasatha Operative gamer who's uncannily good with a gun, but doesn't know why she's here

This is the final part in a three-part actual play series of the Starfinder 2E published adventure Murder in Metal City -- you can check out the first episode here and the second episode here, and be on the lookout for new episodes every Monday!

This game was played using the second edition of Paizo’s Starfinder, which expands their Pathfinder game into space. We're really fond of this rollicking science-fantasy game system -- so much so that we've even played it before on the show -- and if you like what you hear today, you can easily pick it up for yourself!

Music from this episode is “Start a Trek,” by Edgar Henderson; you can check out more of his music on Soundcloud.

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.