WatcherDM: Adventurous Weirdos Podcast

Austin and Gabriel go over the wins, the losses, and the journey of 2023. We then talk about our hopes for 2024. It's a bit meandering, but that's what we do. I'm going to skip the link soup down here for this one. This is it for season 1. That's a wrap. We will be back with new episodes sometime in 2024. Thanks for the good times you nerds.

Austin and Gabriel discuss a Twitter war over character advancement in this episode. We take stock of how discourse got this way, why vitriolic hyperbole is the worst and how to reclaim our communication spaces. We also discuss character advancement and how they work (or don't) as incentives in our favourite role-playing games. We then dig into Gatekeeping, how it has changed over the years and why, in the end, Luke Gearing was probably right. Just not in the way he thought.

In this episode, Austin and Gabriel discuss the controversy surrounding the Lamentations of the Flame Princess. They discuss the ins and outs of sexual content in role-playing and how Adults consume media in the modern era. They then tackle Summoning spells in role-playing and propose high-level changes to make it work better in games where it is less good. Finally, they dive into controversy as marketing and what it means to engage in "shock" or "niche" to get eyes on your product in a world of monopolistic powers. Be warned, there are some hot takes in this episode, and it is possible some of what they say may make you angry. Please send all hate mail to [email protected].

Who is in this episode?

Gabriel Hernandez @watcherdm

Links:

Reddit Post About Sexual Violence in LOTFP (https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/184peia/psa_lotfp_has_sexual_violence_built_into_the_core/)⁠

In this episode Austin and Gabriel go over the important parts of adventure writing. We discuss coming up with a high level concept and how to choose a location and structure. Then we dive into encounter design and how to make evocative encounters that work for reuse. We discuss quest hooks and how to create reliable motivations for the players to jump on. We discuss some Boss fights and villain tricks. Then we dig into epilogues and consequences. Go into riddles, traps, and puzzles. We discuss a little NPC design and finish off with treasure and rewards.

Who is in this episode?

Gabriel Hernandez @watcherdm
Austin Holm @austinholmwords

Links:

Deep Carbon Observatory (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/131801/Deep-Carbon-Observatory?affiliate_id=3112335)
OnlyCrits (https://www.onlycrits.com/?sca_ref=2785475.8x5faxPlvq)
WatcherDM Website (https://watcherdm.com/)  
Itch.io (https://watcherdm.itch.io/)  
DriveThruRPG (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/19970/WatcherDM?affiliate_id=3112335)  
Patreon (https://patreon.com/watcherdm)

Who is in this episode?

Austin Holm @AustinHolmWords

Andrew Ferguson

In this episode, we talk about being involved in the Trans Right for Florida bundle and some of the cool things that came out of that. Go check out theQueerXP podcast for lots of fun Actual Plays. We discuss tools and tricks for being a "Great" player and how to help the rest of the table have more fun. We cover some fun stuff about how evil alignment can play out within a group of good or neutral characters. We discuss the Deadbutante with the author Andrew Ferguson and how he cleverly designed a game that can work regardless of whether your players would get an ethical vampire. We then get into running games for kids. How to make the environment the enemy (SPOILERS FOR THE EXPANSE SEASON 6) and use that to make the world feel like a character in the story. How deadliness should be proportional to ease of character creation. We talk about playing your values and aligning your values as a safety tool.

Mentioned Friends:

Dice Partner

Total Party Kill Character Generator

WatcherDM

Website

Itch.io

DriveThruRPG

Patreon

In this episode Austin and I catch up on something, poke some fun at some things and cover our opinions about what makes a game fun. Another weird day in the life of some titterpig creators really. Also you should get in on our QuestCrawl Give Away! go to this video and like and comment "Enter me in the drawing" to enter to win a free print copy of QuestCrawl, the exciting GMless exploration RPG for up to 8 players!

Mentioned Friends:

⁠OnlyCrits⁠

WatcherDM

⁠Website⁠⁠

⁠⁠Itch.io⁠⁠

⁠⁠DriveThruRPG⁠⁠

⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠

Austin and Gabriel go over their favorite and least favorite features of the by-gone versions of D&D and construct a frankenstein's monster version that only a mother could love.

Enter to Win QuestCrawl:

https://youtu.be/BImJ20tflZg

Go to the tutorial video link above and comment "Enter me in the drawing" for your chance to win a print copy of QuestCrawl, the GMless exploration RPG for 1-8 players that will keep you coming back for more.

Mentioned Friends:

⁠OnlyCrits⁠

WatcherDM

⁠Website⁠⁠

⁠⁠Itch.io⁠⁠

⁠⁠DriveThruRPG⁠⁠

⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠

In this episode we are talking about how and why we made WarpCrawl the way we did. Sci-fi is amazing and this product is one we are super proud of, but it's got some unique design decisions that we talk about here. Get WarpCrawl for 50% off today on DriveThruRPG using https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?discount=92e0b8dad1

Mentioned Friends:

OnlyCrits

WatcherDM

Website⁠

⁠Itch.io⁠

⁠DriveThruRPG⁠

⁠Patreon⁠

Check out Thessalay Tracy on DriveThruRPG: https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?keyword=Thessaly%20Tracy

In this episode we discuss the finer points of the exploration pillar, why we think its the best pillar and what it means that players aren't given very clear tools for dealing with it. We also cover the difficulty of playing historical fiction, historical fantasy, and how much the classic fantasy setting "get wrong". Finally we knock down our favorite way to address these issues by leaning into the strange. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll probably want to tell us we are wrong.