Role Playing Public Radio

The Kickstarter for season 3 of the Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast is now live! Back it today to help us fund another full season of this podcast. The Lady in Blue, a mysterious figure of cosmic power, enlists a band of simple peasants for a strange task. They are to follow

Mega Dungeon Meandering is a deep dive into one of the best reviewed mega dungeons of all time, Stonehell: Stonehell Dungeon is a classic-style mega dungeon, filled with enough  monsters, traps, weirdness, and treasure to keep you gaming for a long,  long time. Explore over 700 rooms, encounter more than

We conclude the post mortem discussion of Impossible Landscapes, after the interruption from the previous episode. We now have a campaign index page, so you can easily find al of the episodes and other relevant bits for the campaign. Maddy as Ryan West, paramedic Thad as Marley Madelyn, FBI agent

Our actual play run of the surreal horror campaign, Impossible Landscapes, is now done. The cast and I discuss the characters, plot, and more! Find out the secrets behind the campaign and my advice for running this challenging but rewarding campaign. Maddy as Ryan West, paramedic Thad as Marley Madelyn,

We’re back for another episode! I found a bottle of Blanton’s bourbon and to celebrate my discovery, we recorded a new episode. Spencer even has a new food rating system! Back The Night Clerk zine! A modern horror RPG scenario from Ross Payton! We’re talking about a wide range of

The Flash is a spectacularly bad movie. Caleb, Spencer, and I got together to discuss exactly WHY it was so bad. I was part of a podcast called The Mixed Six for nearly 6 years. I had a blast making it and I’m proud of the episodes we made. It

Architectural horror is a subgenre of intention. Novels like House of Leaves, movies like The Shining, the Saw series, and games like Control can all be called architectural horror, but what does that mean? Rob Stith of the Orpheus Protocol and I talk about the genre and my new scenario,

A system-less RPG scenario is designed to be able to run in any system for a particular genre. Writing one is just as challenging as writing one for a single system. I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit for The Night Clerk, a system-less modern horror scenario, as a zine.

Many RPGs use d20s for resolving combat, like D&D, 13th Age, and Lancer. Caleb and I have been playing a lot of d20 games recently and we wanted to talk about the nature of d20 combat. It’s a very swingy system, where every combatant can miss in a single round,

We ran a Fate Core campaign called Cointract Island on RPPR Actual Play. Over 16 episodes, a trio of heroes explored an island overrun with genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced creatures. In this post mortem, Bridget, Fae, Lydia, and I discuss the campaign’s themes, the Fate system, and crypto bro

I talked with Greg Stolze, author of Reign, Termination Shock, co-author of Unknown Armies, and writer on many other books (and my co-host on Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast) about his new Kickstarter for Ships, a supplement for Termination Shock. We talked about the core mechanics for Termination Shock, game design, and

Delta Green is a popular horror RPG but it can be hard to understand how to get its tone or its procedural elements. Caleb, Jason, and I discuss some media to look at when trying to ‘get’ the Delta Green vibe. This is a preview episode of our new series

Caleb is back discussing his progress on Red Markets. After a recent gaming retreat, Caleb developed a theory he wanted to discuss in this episode, about the obscene and the scene. The scene represents the public, socially acceptable aspects of a given object or activity. The obscene refers to the

In this episode, James Wallis, co-host of Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast and author of “Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made,” and I talk about what RPG designers can learn from board games. We talked about the history and influence of board games, the challenges of playtesting

Wizards of the Coast has stepped on a series of rakes with a series of proposed changes to the Open Gaming License (OGL). What is the OGL and why is WOTC is trying to destroy a popular thing in the industry? Caleb and I discuss what’s going on and what

Caleb and I discuss the possibility of creating a second edition of Red Markets and Base Raiders. It’s a major task, so examining the pros and cons is a necessary first step. Updating the mechanics, revising the lore, and improving the information design are all big challenges, not to mention

We’re back for one more round with Synnibarr 3ED. Caleb, Thad, Baz, and I dive into the GM (or Fate in the parlance of Synnibarr). We’re all guests in Raven’s house, so find out what his wisdom for running a RPG is. What is the ADDA model? Why are there

News: There’s a horror video marathon on the RPPR Patreon Discord on Sunday October 30, starting at 3 pm CDT! Sign up for the RPPR Newsletter and get a FREE Monster PDF! Synopsis: After watching the first 7 Saw movies in the last week, I realized that game design comes

Making a player character for Synnibarr Third Edition is perhaps the most challenging part of the game. Baz, Noah, Thad, and I attempt to make a group of characters for the game and discover that do not perceive reality in the same way that Raven McCracken does. We do learn

Designing new monsters for your RPG is a time honored tradition for most GMs. I got Greg Stolze and Caleb Stokes to talk about their approaches to creating new creatures for games. Is the monster a metaphor or just a weird new enemy to fight? Get some tips on becoming