Guest GM Jess Snyder joins Andy and Chris to address the timeless question: do you run published adventures or exclusively homemade ones? And how do you address the challenges that arise with each approach?
How do you go about bringing a new RPG to the table? Andy and Chris discuss—and do a little reflecting on the first year of Roll for Topic.
Happy holidays everyone! We’re back with an episode in which we play through the dungeon that we made during the last episode. Andy is your esteemed GM for this one and we were pleased to have Aaron, Matt, and Brandon join in as players!
If you liked this two-part experiment of building and playing a dungeon, please reach out to let us know! We’re thinking about doing more in the future!
This episode is going live a few days early just in case you have upcoming holiday travel and want something to listen to. We’ll be back in early January with a “normal” episode.
Also, for the parents out there: all Roll For Topic episodes strive to be PG. No swearing, but there are discussions of violence.
As a change of pace for the holidays, Andy and Chris team up with previous guest Kyle to design a dungeon one-shot on the fly! Will the end result be a masterpiece of adventure design or a hilarious trainwreck that features psychic whales, post-apocalyptic shopping malls, and something called a “hyperskeleton”? Tune in to find out.
Call it stage fright, nervousness, or GMing anxiety, but all gamemasters must deal with it. What are some ways to minimize it? Andy and Chris discuss.
Episode 25 appendix:
We’re joined by Aaron this week to talk about reading the written block text from adventures. When there’s block text in the adventure module you’re running, do you read it out loud? Verbatim, do you paraphrase, do you throw it all away because you know best?! Join us as we talk all about narrating at the table!
Appendix:
This week it’s just Andy and Chris jabbering about how to introduce non-gamers to your game. We talk about such things as: character creation, whether players should have to read the rules cover to cover, and when and how to introduce mechanics into the game.
Appendix:
Guest GM Al McWilliams joins Andy and Chris to talk about his Damage Dice Kickstarter, and to talk about the question that’s on every GM’s mind: How do you handle doors in dungeons?
Episode 22 appendix:
Audrey, who was on the show back in Episode 13, came back on to talk a bit about how the AADL RPG Fest went and then to help us think about what stuff from other media (videogames, movies, books, etc.) we bring into our tabletop games. Unsurprisingly a LOT of stuff came up in this one:
Andy is out sick this week so rather than skipping Chris decided to jump on the mic and blab about whatever struck his fancy for a few minutes, which happened to be running Halloween themed games! It’s only September; however, if you’re planning on doing something for Halloween now is the time to start prepping!
We apologize for the short episode and will be back next time with a proper length one with a guest and everything.
Episode 20 Appendix:
