Campaign Spotlight (Folded Frequencies)

In this week's episode, we chat with RP about the expectations of the hero's journey, mysterious celebrity clients, and getting paid to DM. Spoilers for Beowulf, I think? We tank our chances for a Neuralink sponsorship in this one, just like we tanked our chances for a Tesla sponsorship earlier this season. (Also, just in case it wasn't clear, we recorded both this interview and the interview with Austin before the election, when joking about Elon Musk's failing companies felt different somehow.)

RP plugs Order of the Stick in this episode, and the fact that this webcomic has been running for more than two decades has made Jake feel intensely mortal. They also plug Demon: A Memoir and The Silmarillion. Head on over to RP's Instagram to see what they're working on, send them an email to ask about playing in one of their professionally DM'd games, or support them on Patreon or Ko-fi.

In this episode we also refer back to a couple previous conversations, including our interview about OSR-style gameplay with Max and our Flashlight on recent decisions at Wizards of the Coast. 

This week's PC intro comes from Hali, who plays in one of RP's home games with friends, and who's also been a player in one of Jake's campaigns.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's episode, we chat with Rob about order and chaos, recruiting a potato peeler, and running an epic high-level campaign. Rob shares a very controversial take on combat that Jake's still not sure about. Spoiler warnings for Mass Effect in this one.

In our discussion of worldbuilding, we mention our very first interview with Mike. We also mention the Genesys system a couple times. Rob introduced Jake to the system many years ago, and we tried it out on the podcast way back in Season 1. (Incidentally, that's also the Flashlight where Reilly introduces Monocles McGillicudy.) Rob also references the D&D 3rd Edition book Weapons of Legacy, which is extremely fun for a high-level campaign. He recommends a few helpful resources:

• WorldAnvil for keeping track of worldbuilding details
• Syrinscape for soundscapes during the game
• RPG Campfire cards for helping build out the PCs and their bonds

This week's unhinged intro comes from Cameron! Thanks Cameron for helping our show earn its explicit rating.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this season's Flashlight episodes, we're taking a deep dive into the history of Dungeons and Dragons. Whether you love it, hate it, or are grimly resigned to playing it because everybody already knows the rules, the long history of D&D parallels the history of modern TTRPGs. We're starting out in the 1960s and working forward to the present day.

This week, we try to talk about the wargames of the pre-D&D era. Along the way, we end up exposing our lack of knowledge of 1790s Prussia, discussing the travails of tavern ownership, and announcing a wholly fictitious live podcast tour. It's our first time back in the studio one-on-one in a while, and as a result we get a little silly.

Here are some links that we used in research for the episode:

• This guide to running a Braunstein RPG is an excellent and comprehensive resource with links to plenty of other resources.
• This article from Ben Robbins (the creator of Microscope!) adds some more flavour to David Wesley’s history with tabletop games.
• The first and second volume of Strategos explore the really deep history of wargames, which were the precursor to TTRPGs.

Also, in this episode, Reilly asks Jake about the history about student loans, and Jake doesn't have a good answer. Jake, who writes the show notes, is still mortified about this. Here's a very long and detailed history of student loans.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In this week's Flashlight, we explore the game Dallas, based on the TV series from the 1970s and 1980s! Reilly leaves in a hot-mic moment, Jake tries to sound knowledgeable about buying horses, and neither one of us can sustain a Texas accent.

Here's the link to SPI Wargame Resources, where you can find the ruleset for Dallas if you really want to try playing it. We also mention a few other old-school TTRPGs based on the hottest IP of the early 1980s:

• Here's a MemoryAlpha article on the original Star Trek TTRPG and here's a (still-active!) forum for it.
• Here's a catalogue of the sourcebooks for the Indiana Jones TTRPG - which are apparently very hard to find today.
• Here's a review of the Judge Dredd TTRPG which is also very hard to find today.
• Here's an archive of the Marvel Super Heroes TTRPG, with a bunch of character profiles as well.
• Here's a modern review for the original Doctor Who TTRPG.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's episode, we chat with Wolfgang about the struggle of making it in showbusiness, the importance of embracing a system's genre conventions, and the deployment of feminine appeal. Spoiler warning for Jaws in this one? And, to a lesser extent, The Young and the Restless. Disclaimers that we're not actually sponsored by Adobe Acrobat and Jake is not actually 5'6. 

Here's the Beginning Idol system that Wolfgang is sharing with us. Here's Wolfgang's own Itch page. And, because we mention Eric a few times, here's Eric's actual real-life band.

We talk about the Dallas TTRPG a little bit, so here's the Flashlight where we try to play Dallas.

This week's PC intro comes from Sonne, who builds travel guides to the best (and worst) places in the multiverse. Thanks Sonne!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Kyros about making your own story out of a pre-existing module, adding too many NPCs to the party, and flesh golem weddings. Spoiler alerts for the Curse of Strahd module - although, as we learn, this isn't necessarily a great choice for your next campaign.

Talking about this module with Kyros got us morbidly curious about old-school Dungeons and Dragons. In next week's Flashlight episode, we track down the AD&D ruleset and try out some of its mechanics.

Here's that full implementation of Castle Ravenloft in Minecraft that Kyros describes.

For a Romani tabletop game developer's perspective on the depiction of Vistani people in the Curse of Strahd, check out this piece by Rue Dickey.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In our very first episode of Season 2, we chat with Perry about running a campaign motivated by spite, building a griot PC class, and becoming a cleric by eating another cleric. Spoiler warnings for the D&D 5e Tomb of Annihilation module - although, honestly, this episode is a great primer for running any campaign set in Chult. This is our first time back in the studio after a big break since Season 1, and you can hear Jake getting back up to speed at the start.

Perry has plenty of great recommendations in this episode: Darker Hue Studios, Black Dice Society, the Wagadu Chronicles, Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer, and the books of Tananarive Due. You can watch Perry on Symphony Entertainment or find his other projects on his Linktree. You can also find many of his creations on DNDBeyond.

This weeks's PC intro comes from Jason. Thanks to Jason for kicking off our PC intros for the season - and also for all the love and support the whole time we've been making this podcast.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In this week's Flashlight, we explore a very old ruleset for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, First Edition! Reilly attempts to befriend a sloth, Jake covets Reilly's dice, and we speculate on the role of a sociologist in a Tolkienesque fantasy world.

Finding an old copy of the rules can be tricky. OSRIC has compiled a set of first-edition rules (excluding the flavour text, which is subject to copyright) which you can read in more detail here.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's Flashlight, we're back on location at the Howloween furry convention in Vancouver! This season, we're getting out into the community and asking people about their PCs and their campaigns. We hear about elfaboos, being dumb in a productive way, and a LARP character that actually steals things. Because we're at a furry convention, one of us is wearing a very clanky bell, and you can hear it throughout the recording. The host who's wearing a very clanky bell would like to apologize to the host who edits the audio for that poor satrorial decision.

Thanks to Shakaar, Ono, Evelyn, Jed, and Shane for taking the time to chat with us! (And if you talked to us at Howloween but you're not featured in this week's episode or last week's episode, stay tuned for the next Flashlight.)

Shakaar mentions Legacies LARP in this episode. Later this season, we're going to be talking with one of the people who writes plot for Legacies.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

This week, we chat with Kit about incorporating intimate character moments in a campaign with a cosmic scale, themes of family and lineage at an all-queer table, and dealing with a whole menagerie of PC pets. Spoiler warnings for A Series of Unfortunate Events. We also talk about the poem "Auguries of Innocence". Unfortunately, we never did manage to land that Cover Girl sponsorship.

Kit shared plenty of great recommendations for your home game:

• The Owlbear Rodeo virtual tabletop system
• Battlemaps from Eightfold Paper, Fantasy Atlas, Morvold Press, and Wizgrids
• The Griffon's Saddlebag for cool items
• Kenku.FM for music

This week's PC intro comes from Chris, who was our guest at the very end of Season 1. You can watch Chris play D&D on Twitch if you're so inclined. He's on the Phandelver and Below streams! 

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

This week, we chat with Mike about killing your PCs' beloved animal companions, treating your players to cool hats with powers, and bringing in guest players for very special episodes. Mike refers quite a few times to our interview with Sam way back in Season 1. Also, spoiler alert for How I Met Your Mother.

Sam also recommends the podcast Dungeoncast, which is sadly shutting down.

This week's PC intro comes from Marquis, who's also one of the guest stars Mike mentions. Marquis also plays in Sam's campaign from Season 1, and played in Prim's campaign from Season 1, and has played in one of Jake's campaigns too. You should go check out all of Marquis's projects.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In the very first episode of Season 3, we chat with Austin about literal truckloads of cryptocurrrency, designing high-level enemies, and the importance of in-game downtime. Austin is an accomplished game designer and brings a ton of helpful advice to the conversation. Unfortunately, we do tank our prospects for a Tesla sponsorship.

A heads up that this episode swerves into a discussion of imperialist military violence in TTRPG campaigns and its parallels in the real world.

Go check out the Beam Saber system, which Austin designed. (To hear more about this system, go listen to last season's interview with Erika. Erika also provided the incredible and intense intro for this episode!) Talking about the Rush Wars supplement made us want to rewatch the Fast and Furious series. Austin also tells us about the CalazCon actual play. It's a huge ambitious actual play project, and we're excited to listen to the whole thing! While you're at it, go check out Austin's itch.io page.

Austin also mentions two podcasts:

• Blowback which is about US military adventurism
• The Great Gundam Project, which covers all of Gundam in production order

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's episode, we chat with Rex about being a mean satyr, the role of persuasion and compulsion in TTRPGs and LARP, and how to step out of your players' ways and let them tell their own stories. This conversation might actually have convinced Jake and Reilly to start getting into LARP. Jake is very concerned about whether you still get to sleep on a comfortable mattress, though.

Rex is telling us about the Gothic LARP system. The two currently-active theatres are Luisant and Runeheim. For a picture of Rex's sword, check out our website.

This week’s PC intro comes from Jake - not host Jake, nor Season 1 guest Jake, but a completely separate Jake. We apologize for the confusion and commit to a moratorium on future Jakes on this podcast.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In our very first Flashlight, we explore the worldbuilding game Microscope! Reilly shows off his voice-acting abilities, Jake is very enthusiastic about a curse, and we both realize we much we rely on the randomness of a dice roll to drive a story forward. Throughout this episode Jake used a very squeaky whiteboard market to track our decisions, which Reilly had to edit out from the audio. Thanks Reilly!

Here's the publisher's website where you can buy Microscope for yourself.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020. 

In this week's Flashlight, we're back on location one last time at the Howloween furry convention in Vancouver! This season, we're getting out into the community and asking people about their PCs and their campaigns. We hear about banishing political figures from the timeline, a party with multiple competing cultists, and becoming the first vampires to climb Mount Everest.

Also this week, Jake and Reilly chat about the season so far and what's coming next for Campaign Spotlight. Along the way, we talk about the difference between GM-only players and PC-only players, and Jake pleads with Reilly to run a campaign someday.

Thanks to Zero, Delcan, Miranda, Masq, and Cylixeen for taking the time to chat with us! Howloween was an incredible experience that really made us realize how much fun we'd have wandering around with a mic asking people about their characters and campaigns. We'll be doing a lot more of this in the future.

Also, here's the PC playlist that Masq mentions in the episode. As of posting, it's over 24 hours long.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Chris about healthcare crowdfunding, LARPing on a remote island, and the virtues of small-scale personal stories. No spoilers this week, although we do discuss quite a few old D&D modules in general terms. Also, it's not clear why Chris and Jake are so dead-set on winning sponsorships from the knife store at the mall.

This is the very end of our Campaign Spotlight season! In next week's Flashlight, we chat about what we learned this season and where we're planning to go from here.

You can watch Chris play D&D on Twitch if you're so inclined. He's on the Phandelver and Below streams!

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's Flashlight, we talk about intellectual property, resolve to go to law school, and finally earn that explicit rating. You can tell that we record a few weeks in advance, because we joke about WotC's next bad decision but we don't know about the DNDBeyond debacle yet. Jake gets into economic theory. Reilly's mic might just be a cursed artifact. Spoiler warning for Fountainhead? Also, we're not actually sponsored by Microsoft.

Dennis mentioned the OGL controversy last week, so go listen to the interview if you'd like to hear another perspective on the whole situation. Also, here's a book by Reilly's professor that looks pretty cool.

Here are some links that we used in research for the episode. 

• Here’s a Wall Street Journal article on the Hasbro reorganization that refers to D&D as “old-school tabletop games”.
• Here’s the Hasbro press release about the WotC CEO becoming the overall Hasbro CEO.
• Here’s the interview with WotC’s VP of tabletop gaming about the rationale for the OGL.
• Here’s an academic journal article with statistics on TTRPG publications after the release of the OGL.
• Here’s a very early Gizmodo piece on the updated OGL.
• Here’s a blog post that lays out the biggest issues with the proposed updated OGL.
• Here’s Hasbro’s annual SEC report for 2022.
• Here’s an article about the plans to release new editions under a Creative Commons license. 
• Here’s a review of Paizo’s ORC license.
• Here’s a Reddit thread on Paizo’s ORC license and whether it’ll be applied to Pathfinder Infinite.
• Here’s Monte Cook’s guide to consent in gaming.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this finale Flashlight of Season 2, Jake is embarrasingly earnest, Reilly gives the listeners a lot of homework, and the sword makes a second ominous appearance. We plug our Patreon, repeatedly give different numbers for the PC intro hotline (it's 724 320 2020), and talk about our plans for Season 3. This is honestly an extremely silly conversation. We've had so much fun getting to make this podcast and we're sincerely grateful to our guests so far and we're really excited to share another season of interviews with you.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's Flashlight, we chat about the complicated corporate history of TSR, monetizing your hobbies, and how we'd deal with getting sued. Reilly wields a sword. Jake makes a metaphor about a goose that calls into question whether Jake has ever seen a goose before. 

In this episode we also introduce Monocles McGillicuddy with absolutely zero context. Monocles was Reilly's PC way back in our Season 1 Flashlight on the Genesys system. 

Here are some links that we used in research for the episode:

• If you’re interested in that Hunt for Red October game from TSR, here’s an analysis of the game complete with a bunch of photos.
• If you really need to see the odious comments that blew up the TSR revival, here’s a rundown of the comments and here’s an article on a lawsuit from Wizards of the Coast about the last iteration of TSR. Reading about this will not brighten your day.
• Completely off-topic, but if you want to play the critically-panned Ringworld-themed point-and-click adventure game that launched at the same 1993 GenCon as Magic: the Gathering, you can still do so.
• Here’s a free character sheet for the Top Secret TTRPG if you want to see what the game is like.

Also, in our last episode, Drew provided the PC intro. Thank you so much to Drew, who is a player in Jake's long-running campaign and every bit as chaotic as that intro sounded. We apologize for the omission last week.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In this week's Flashlight, we're on location at the Howloween furry convention in Vancouver! This season, we're getting out into the community and asking people about their PCs and their campaigns. We hear about hat enthusiasts, revenge at all costs, and giving up the reins of your PC to your DM.

Thanks to Joey, Sean, Kaesu, Shadowsmyst, Fir, Robin, and Kaji for taking the time to chat with us! (And if you talked to us at Howloween but you're not featured in this week's episode, stay tuned for the next Flashlight.) You can see some of Sean's PC art over on our website, you can listen to Kaesu's music on Spotify, and you can see Shadowsmyst's whole webcomic on their website.

Kaji mentions Legacies LARP at the very end of the episode. Later this season, we're going to be talking with one of the people who writes plot for Legacies.

Check out our website for the portrayal of us recording the show we commissioned from Shesta of Critter Cove as well as a picture of the sign we were waving around at the convention.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Sam about running novel and interesting combat encounters, raising the stakes by putting everyone's favourite NPC in danger, and ethically nonmonogamous orc throuples. Spoiler warning for Sam's campaign - although we recorded this a while ago, and we're pretty sure the players have already encountered that set filled with traps.

This interview got us thinking about the type of games that take the physical battlemap really seriously. In next week's Flashlight episode, we'll be talking about Warhammer 40K.

This is an episode where we spend some time admiring Sam's intricate 3D battle sets. Is a podcast the best medium for discussing combat visuals? Probably not, but Jake doesn't have the face for YouTube. We've posted some of the pictures Sam sent us on our website, so you can see what we're talking about.

Sam mentioned the John Green YouTube channel Crash Course. Jake mentioned the David Prokopetz homebrew item Deck of Many Tarrasques.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's episode, we chat with Lew about unsustainable character voices, mixing ABBA with Norse mythology, and the importance of buying in to the fantasy. Very minor spoiler alert for 500 Days of Summer. We do joke about Ikea being our sponsor, but they're not, and this episode probably guarantees that they never will be.

In this episode Lew mentions the Wayward Children series as well as the SCP Foundation. Lew also shared with us a ton of very cool pictures of the maps and minis from this campaign. Head on over to our website to check them out!

This week's PC intro comes from Kyros, whom you may remember from this conversation last season about Curse of Strahd. Thanks Kyros!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's Flashlight, we explore Dungeon World and chat about Powered by the Apocalypse-based games! Reilly gets some serious firepower, Jake approves of biblical plagues, and we both struggle to recall basic facts about modern American history.

Here's the link to the publisher's website for the Dungeon World system, and here are the other Powered by the Apocalypse systems we discuss:

• Apocalypse World launched this whole style of TTRPG.
• MASHED is a PbtA game set in the Korean War.
• Saga of the Icelanders is a PbtA game set during the Norse settlement of Iceland.
• Thirsty Sword Lesbians is basically exactly what it says on the tin
• Spirit of 77 is a PbtA game set in 70s movies, we think? Again, neither one of us knows very much about modern American history.
• The Warren is a PbtA game about intelligent rabbits.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.  

In this week's Flashlight, we explore the Genesys TTRPG system! Reilly expounds a new definition for sports, Jake gets a little heated about private equity, and we seriously damage our chances that Spirit Airlines will ever sponsor the show.

Here's the link to the publisher's website for the Genesys system and here's the dice roller we use in the episode. We mention a few flavour packs, including this one that fleshes out familiars and this one that goes deep into unarmed combat.

We also discuss Paizo's Open RPG Creative License which is worth reading about in full if you're interested in the future of TTRPG intellectual property norms.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

 In this week's Flashlight, we talk about the experience of making a podcast about the creativity and uniqueness of home TTRPGs! Jake describes the terrible initial plan for this project, Reilly recounts an incident of subpar DMing, and we go wildly off the rails by the end.

It's been a real privilege to get to hear about the wild fun games our friends are running. We discuss why we started this show, how it's changed the way we play TTRPGs, and what we're planning for the future of Campaign Spotlight. We also talk about the capricious and inscrutable algorithms that control the flow of information on the Internet and the implications for this podcast.

Also, we should have mentioned this sooner - but Reilly wrote and produced all the music for this season (except for the very first episode, which Mike recorded for his own interview). You can follow Reilly on Bandcamp or listen to some mixes from Reilly's live shows on Mixcloud.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Jesse about the Mophidius 2d20 system, the information flow between players, and improving the lot of your noble house. Spoiler warning for Dune, because Jesse's using the Dune TTRPG system. Also, spoiler warning for Game of Thrones, we guess. What's going on with all the sirens in the background in this episode? Not entirely sure, but maybe we should look into soundproofing.

Here's the publisher's website for the system Jesse is using. Hearing about a really fascinating game based on pre-existing IP made us curious about the history of IP-based tabletop games. In next week's Flashlight, you'll hear about our attempt to play the Dallas TTRPG, based on the 1970s TV show.

Also, here's the site Jesse used to build his game's wiki and here's the virtual tabletop system Jesse used to run his encounters.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's Flashlight, we talk the rise of actual plays, the incredible profitability of Wizards of the Coast, and the professionalization of a hobby. We get into both academic media theory and SEC filings. Reilly is astounded by how many movies Jake has never seen. Spoiler warnings for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves as well as "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream" as well as maybe Rick and Morty? Also, we mention our Patreon on air for the first time.

Here are some links that we used in research for the episode. (It's a research-heavy episode.)

• Here’s a CNBC article about Wizards of the Coast’s financials, including its profitability. 
• Here’s a link to World’s Largest Dungeon Session 01, which is the oldest RPGMP3 episode still online.
• Here’s the host of RPGMP3 talking about actual play podcasts in 2008. 
• Here’s a Polygon article about the history and format of actual plays.
• Here’s an academic journal article on actual play production and monetization.
• Here’s a discussion of actual play shows trying to tell inclusive stories.
• Here’s an academic journal article that analyzes actual plays through a media studies lens. 
• Here’s another CNBC article (sorry) quoting WotC management on the importance of actual play to the business.
• Here’s Hasbro’s quarterly SEC filing from May 2024.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's Flashlight, we explore a rules-light tabletop game called Radical Catgirl Anarchy! Reilly displays a profiency for catgirl name generation, Jake learns about rollerskates, and we ponitificate on the difference between catgirlism and radicalism.

Here are the rules for Radical Catgirl Anarchy, here are the rules for the original game Lasers and Feelings, and here's a list of other Lasers and Feelings hacks. We discussed quite a few other games from this list:

• Potatoes and Molasses
• Paul Blart Mall Cop 2: The RPG
• A Good Day to Roll Hard
• Boy Problems

Jake mentioned Adventure Skeletons, which isn't related to Lasers and Feelings but which is a fun micro TTRPG. Also, Jake apologizes for getting so worked up about Carly Rae Jepsen.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In the very first Flashlight of Season 3, we're on location at Oppegaard Meadery in Seattle! This season, we're getting out into the community and asking people about their PCs and their campaigns. This was a fun episode - not just because people had interesting things to say about TTRPGs, but also because the space was ludicrously cozy and the mead was delicious. Thanks to everyone who took the time to chat with us! Check out our website to see some pictures we took while we were recording.

A clarifying note: we emailed Oppegaard Meadery management asking permission to record at their D&D night, and they were incredibly friendly and helpful, but this episode isn't sponsored. Jake has been buying their mead since before we even knew they had a D&D night at the meadery. If we start advertising on the show, we'll clearly delineate the advertisement and keep it separate from the rest of the episode.

Another clarifying note: Jake refers to the peasants in Warcraft II saying "zug zug". It's actually the orcish peons that say this. We sincerely regret this error.

We discuss the Fate of the Norns game system in this episode.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's Flashlight, we head to the OrcaCon tabletop games convention in Seattle! We hear about a bunch of cool projects, we spot a prominent state official, and Jake is flummoxed by the concept of 24-hour livestreams. This convention was honestly so much fun, and we're already scheming to get to more tabletop gaming events.

Here's everyone we spoke with in this episode. Some of these were booths at the con, and some were people who saw us with a mic and wanted to let our listeners know what they were working on. We're really grateful to everyone who took the time to speak with us!

• Rainbow Roll Network features actual plays by LGBTQIA+ creators and runs Rainbow Roll Fest, which is an online TTRPG festival
• Legends of Gadia is a fantasy card game with an active Kickstarter based on an upcoming fantasy novel series
• Game On Youth is a gaming group for neurodivergent youth in Seattle
• Extra Life is a peer-to-peer fundraising organization that supports Children's Miracle Network hospitals through gaming
• Brush Wielders Union is a community with a bunch of cool resources for miniatures gamers including a podcast
• Terminal City Tabletop Convention is coming up in Vancouver next month
• Chance Encounter Games offers TTRPG workshops, games, and accessories in Seattle
• Outsider Comics is a cozy and inclusive comic book store in Seattle
• Goblin Society Games is an independent developer and publisher of board, card, and tabletop roleplaying games
• Around the Table is a local game store, cafe, and pub in Lynnwood
• Green Ronin Publishing, a roleplaying game company that's producing a Fifth Season TTRPG we're really excited about
• Cay Fletcher is an independent author and artist in Portland

Also, thanks to everyone from the Oppegaard Meadery episode who recommended OrcaCon to us!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's deep dive into the history of D&D, we talk about the origins of two iconic aspects of the game: the variety of dice and the extremely weird and specific monsters. Jake describes probability distributions, Reilly comes up with appealing backstories for creatures, and we take a brief detour into the concept of good and evil in fantasy worldbuilding. Throughout the episode we completely ignore the d10, which is the least aesthetically pleasing die shape.

Here are some links that we used in research for the episode:

• This video from Bob World Builder summarizes the history of the dice used in D&D.
• This blog post shows the chits TSR shipped out during the dice shortage era.
• Here’s the rules for Chainmail, which was a TSR combat system that used d6s.
• Here’s a list of all the US PTO dice patents, which includes some really ambitious dice designs.
• This blog post from Tony Diterlizzi includes pictures and descriptions of the figurines that inspired the monsters we talked about in this episode.

Also, in this episode, Jake implies that 3^8 is "about 6400". It's actually 6561. We sincerely apologize for the error and we promise to never attempt math on the fly again.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Chris about his DM PC, Disney movie monarchies, and the wonders of extremely crunchy combat sessions. Spoiler warning for The Emperor's New Groove, I guess? Although it's not the topic of the episode, this is the first time that Jake and Chris have chatted about the campaign they played together since it wrapped up, so it comes up a few times. Sorry about that.

Here's the link to the publisher's website for the Pathfinder system that Chris used to run this game. All this talk about really crunchy combat gave us the idea to try the even crunchier Genesys system which you'll hear all about on next week's Flashlight episode.

Here's the d10000 table that we roll on in this episode. Chris also recommends Dungeon Fog and PCGen as tools for running your campaign.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's episode, we chat with Max about Old School Revival gameplay, the joys of exploration, and how being a guest on our show can improve your romantic relationship. Minor spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver, if that matters to you. Also, if you're wondering what the production process looks like, the beginning of this episode has a bit of behind-the-scenes conversation.

This is a very theory-heavy episode with long discussions of the connection between TTRPGs and video games as well as the role of skill checks in D&D 5th Edition. Also, we briefly touch on the economic impacts of explorers continually hauling gold back to the village. For more on how dungeon gold can devalue the currency in a world with magic and dragons, Google "fantasy inflation". 

• Here's an overview of the BECMI system Max describes in this episode.
• Here's the MÖRK BORG system Max mentions playing in.
• Here's the Old School Essentials sytem that Max recommends.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In our very first episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Mike about building a vibrant and realistic world for your campaign, NPCs who just want to be messy, and the importance of learning AutoCAD. Spoiler warning - especially for Annihiliation but also for 3:10 to Yuma and maybe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Does Jake's mic discipline get any better as the season goes on? Stay tuned to find out.

Here's the WorldAnvil page for Mike's campaign. Click through to zoom in and pan around on the world map we discuss in the episode - or check out the version on our website.

Here's the Planet Map Generator that Mike used to build the world. On next week's Flashlight, we'll be talking about a very different tabletop game that's all about worldbuilding.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's Flashlight, we talk about playtesting at scale, becoming a cult leader, and the development of D&D 3e and D&D 3.5e as well as Pathfinder. Reilly shares his philosophy on ability checks and roleplay. Jake really doesn't know anything about cinema.

We mention the games Swords of the Serpentine and Time Watch, both of which look extremely fun. Also, here are some links that we used in research for the episode: 

• Here’s a Department of Commerce study called “A Nation Online” that talks about who would be able to access the Internet in the era of the 3rd Edition playtest, complete with some very old-school Excel charts.
• Here’s a forum thread from Jonathan Tweet (the lead designer on D&D 3rd Edition) that talks about the changes in 3rd Edition.
• Here’s a contemporary Death Cookie review of 3rd Edition that discusses some of the changes from previous editions.
• Here’s a review of 3rd Edition play from 2000 that’s mostly positive.
• Here’s another forum thread with a retrospective on how players felt about D&D 3rd Edition.
• Here’s Monte Cook, one of the designers for 3rd Edition (but not 3.5) talking about the development of 3.5.
• Here’s a brief history of Paizo, the publisher of Pathfinder.
• Here’s the character generator we used in this episode.
• We didn’t really get into this, but Roll20’s Orr Report shows the relative popularity of different TTRPG systems. 

Head over to our website to see to the character sheet that Reilly builds in this episode.

 If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

In this week's Flashlight, we explore everyone's favourite minis wargame, Warhammer 40k! Reilly deploys a tape measure to manifest a smite, Jake repents for overly sweaty final showdowns in past campaigns, and we begin to wonder if playing a minis wargame on a podcast was a mistake.

Here's the link to the publisher's website for the Warhammer 40k system and here's the wiki if you're feeling like a few hours of fascinated clicking.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

This week, we chat with Erika about running a campaign using multiple systems, the upsides of metagaming, and worldbuilding at a table of dirty anarchist punks. Spoiler warning for Super Dimension Fortress Macross. In a sure sign that we're close to middle age, we do joke about the contents of our filing cabinets. 

Here are the TTRPG systems that Erika describes playing in this campaign:

• Microscope
• Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands
• Beam Saber
• Fiasco

We also talk about Friends at the Table, which you should go listen to once you're all caught up on Campaign Spotlight.

Erika shared a map of the Citadel from the campaign, which is extremely cool. Go to our website to check it out.

We tried playing Microscope in a Flashlight way back at the beginning of Season 1, and we really enjoyed it.

This week's PC intro comes from Levi, who has been a very fun player in some of Jake's games and who is also an incredible performer.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In this week's Flashlight, Reilly introduces some very special guests, Jake is intimidated by game store employees, and we discuss the meteoric rise of Wizards of the Coast. We also get into the economic situation in the 1990s, the Canadian political system, and how our podcast production works behind the scenes. The bit about unpaid interns was a joke, we promise.

We compare and contrast WotC with its predecessor TSR, so it might help to listen to our Flashlight on the history of TSR as well.

Also, in this episode Jake says "top quintile" without defining it. This just means "top 20%". Sorry about that.

Here are some links that we used in research for the episode:

• You can see those original rules for Wizards of the Coast’s first publication The Primal Order here.
• Here’s a detailed history of the history of Wizards of the Coast through the 1990s.
• This review of the very first Magic: the Gathering World Championships isn’t the very first use of the word “metagame” but it’s an interesting read and an early discussion of the concept.
• Here’s a forum thread on early Magic: the Gathering card prices - we didn’t talk about this in the episode, but it’s interesting history.
• Here are the Consumer Expenditure Survey tables we used to get historical spending on hobbies.
• Here’s WotC’s patent on collectible card games.
• Here’s the Bulbapedia page on the WotC Pokemon card era. As always Bulbapedia is one of the most comprehensive sources of information on anything anywhere on the Internet.
• Here’s a thoughtful critical review of the Homelands MtG card deck.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Prim about sharing narrative control with your players, hitting dragons with sticks, and the joys of being a deeply adversarial GM. Very light spoiler warning for Fullmetal Alchemist. Will Jake ever get on board with a TTRPG system that doesn't let you roll big chunky handfuls of dice every couple minutes? Prim makes a compelling case for Dungeon World.

Here's the link to the publisher's website for the Dungeon World system that Prim describes. (We'll also be talking about this game system in next week's Flashlight episode.)

Prim also mentioned the podcast Friends at the Table and the TTRPG system Stars Without Number as excellent resources.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020.

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Jake about making the most of players' busy schedules, dealing with important story beats happening offscreen, and Philadelphia energy. (This is our third guest this season from the Delaware Valley and yet somehow this is the first episode where Wawa comes up.) Very light spoilers for Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This conversation got us thinking about ways to get a lightweight game session up and running really quickly. In next week's Flashlight episode, we try the very lightweight Radical Catgirl Anarchy.

Our guest Jake was kind enough to share with us some of the cutscenes he built for his players. Check out our website for some screenshots from those (very charming) cutscenes.

Our guest also mentioned a bunch of useful resources: 

• Hamill Illustration, Filibuster Frog, and Amanda Rotten for illustrations.
• Tale of an Industrious Rogue for inspiration.
• The r/battlemaps subreddit for battlemaps.
• FoundryVTT for running tabletop games online.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website. 

Do you run your own home game? Tell us about a cool homebrew item and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. Give us a call and tell us about it at 724 320 2020. 

This week, we chat with Andrew from Legacies LARP about terrorizing the town as a fae abductor, depicting a demonic plague, and writing story for a long-running live-action role-playing game. This is a conversation about a very different type of storytelling experience in a game that's been running continuously for decades where each plot team only controls the narrative for six months at a time. (Also, if you're wondering, the town was called Fortnight long before the game Fortnite even existed.)

Thanks to Legacies LARP for making this interview possible! We're talking about Legacies LARP this week because we really enjoyed learning about Gothic LARP with Rex last season. In addition to Legacies and Gothic, Andrew also mentions Shadow Accord and Dystopia Rising. 

This week's intro comes from Kaji, who's a player in Legacies LARP! We hope the demonic plague didn't get him. Go check out his Twitch channel.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

In this week's episode, we chat with Dennis about branching out from D&D, useful feedback on game design, and the tradeoff between generality and specificity. We're doing something a little bit different this week (talking to someone who's built a new game system) and so the conversation gets a little crunchy at times. Also, you get to hear about Jake and Reilly's whole process of backups on backups when we're recording these episodes.

Spoiler alert for Jane Eyre, which Jake embarrassingly confuses with Sense and Sensibility. Also, spoiler alert for Lord of the Rings. If you're listening to this podcast and you've somehow never read or watched Lord of the Rings, let us know.

If you're interested in downloading SAGAS for yourself, here's the Kickstarter and here's the DriveThruRPG page. Also, go check out Dennis's other projects!  

Here are some of the other game systems that we mention in this episode:

• ezd6, which has some excellently streamlined rules
• Tangled Blessings, which has an extremely strong aesthetic
• Contained, which is a very cute micro-TTRPG that Dennis built previously

This week's PC intro comes from Jordan. Thanks Jordan!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.   

This week, we chat with David about saving the whales, publishing your own game systems, and making a city feel corrupt, classy and discreet. David has built some very cool systems, and our conversation covers rules lawyering, game balance, and what it means for a table to tell a story together. For the first time in a long time, we don't spoil any media and we also don't ruin our changes at any sponsorships.

This episode is heavy on references to other games! First and foremost, you should go check out David's Itch page where you can find Blood and Velvet and other game systems. David cites the following systems as inspiration:

• Noirlandia
• Follow
• Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands (which we discussed with Prim last season)
• Epyllion

We also discuss a few worldbuilding systems:

• Kingdom
• Dialect
• For the Queen
• Microscope (which Jake and Reilly played way back in Season 1)
• The Quiet Year

David also recommends Fallen London, Darkest Dungeon, Black Jack Justice, and Friends at the Table - especially the Partisan arc.

Finally, if you're interested in learning how to code in Python, here's a decent place to get started.

These week's intro comes from Seattle Dungeon Master Bryan Erickson! Thanks for the fun intro.

David composed and recorded the theme music for this week's monologue. As always, Reilly wrote the main theme for the podcast. If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.