campaign-spotlight

[campaign-spotlight]

Four days to go until Season 2! When we recorded this episode we didn't realize that it would come out at the same time as a Dune movie.

Episode 7: Dune with Jesse

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.

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Five days to go to Season 2! This episode kicked off a whole rabbit hole of research that turned into a whole next season of Flashlights.

Flashlight: AD&D

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.

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Just six days to go until Season 2! We're reblogging an episode a day from the first season to count down. So grateful to our first-season guests like Kyros for bringing these detailed and thoughtful experiences and then being so patient with us while we figured out how to record a podcast.

Episode 6: Curse of Strahd with Kyros

In this week's episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Kyros (tumblr's own @blogwizard) 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.

[campaign-spotlight]

One week to go until Season 2! Since we first played Radical Catgirl Anarchy on the podcast (which was our first time trying the game) we've repeatedly inflicted this game on all our friends with great success. It's legitimately easy enough to pick up and play even if you're not used to TTRPGs and living in Seattle honestly doesn't feel that far off from living with your commune of fellow radical catgirl anarchists so the setting has some verisimilitude.

Flashlight: Radical Catgirl Anarchy

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 (created by tumblr's very own @prokopetz), 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.

[campaign-spotlight]

Eight days to go until Season 2! We can't wait to show you what we've been working on.

(You might be wondering why yesterday we said ten days but today it's eight days. The schedule for the release didn't change - we just realized that we had the math wrong. This is why we don't run a calendar podcast.)

Episode 5: Long-running campaigns with Jake

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. Here are 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. 

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Ten days to go!

Flashlight: Warhammer 40k

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.

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Eleven days to go!

This interview was so fun! But wow an audio-only medium doesn't do justice for Sam's intricate three-dimension sets.

Episode 4: Combat encounters with Sam

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. Here are some pictures Sam sent us, so you can see what we're talking about:

Sam mentioned the John Green YouTube channel Crash Course. Jake mentioned the @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.

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Twelve days to go!

Still so steamed about what happened with the Genesys publisher.

Flashlight: Genesys

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.

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Thirteen days to go!

In retrospect, this interview really fully changed my mind on DM PCs. I'm way more willing to inflict persistent dynamic NPCs on my players now.

Episode 3: DM PCs with Chris

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.

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Fourteen days to go!

Flashlight: Dungeon World

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.  

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Fifteen days to go!

We've referred back to this interview so much when we're talking about Powered by the Apocalypse systems and OSR games. Still so grateful to Prim for talking this all through with us.

Episode 2: Narrative control with Prim

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.

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Sixteen days to go!

Microscope is genuinely one of the best concepts we encountered among all the games we tried in the Season 1 Flashlights. But, since it was the first Flashlight we recorded, we didn't realize quite how interesting it was. It's wild to listen back on these episodes and realize how much we've learned while putting this show together.

Flashlight: Microscope

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. 

[campaign-spotlight]

Reblogging an episode from our first season every day as we get ready to release our second season starting June 5. Seventeen days to go!

Episode 1: Worldbuilding with Mike

In our very first episode of Campaign Spotlight, we chat with Mike (tumblr's very own @mikerickson!) 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.

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.

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Bumping this for people in other time zones! Let us know if you'd be interested in showing off your PC chops.

this time we're looking for players rather than GMs

We're hard at work on Season 2 production and we're planning on having people introduce episodes in character as their PCs. The goal here is something that sounds like an radio bumper, where you tell us your character's name and something about them and then tell the audience that they're listening to Campaign Spotlight. So an example might sound something like this:

I'm Belladonna Nightshade, wicked fairy of the Summer Court. These friendly fools I'm travelling with know nothing of my plans, but they'll learn soon enough. For now, you're listening to Campaign Spotlight.

Or maybe something like this:

I'm Peter Picklebrine, licensed broker-dealer of Thayan antiquities in Waterdeep. The incident with the tentacles is completely unrelated to me or my business. I'm proud to be this week's sponsor for Campaign Spotlight.

But really, we're completely open to the format - as long as it stays around fifteen seconds in length and showcases an actual character that you've played in some kind of tabletop campaign. (Just to emphasize, it absolutely does not need to be D&D or even a similar genre!) Recording yourself on your phone is absolutely fine.

If this sounds fun to you, please DM us and we'll figure it out. The show has showcased a whole lot of very cool GMs so far. We're excited to get to feature some players' voices too.

[campaign-spotlight]

this time we're looking for players rather than GMs

We're hard at work on Season 2 production and we're planning on having people introduce episodes in character as their PCs. The goal here is something that sounds like an radio bumper, where you tell us your character's name and something about them and then tell the audience that they're listening to Campaign Spotlight. So an example might sound something like this:

I'm Belladonna Nightshade, wicked fairy of the Summer Court. These friendly fools I'm travelling with know nothing of my plans, but they'll learn soon enough. For now, you're listening to Campaign Spotlight.

Or maybe something like this:

I'm Peter Picklebrine, licensed broker-dealer of Thayan antiquities in Waterdeep. The incident with the tentacles is completely unrelated to me or my business. I'm proud to be this week's sponsor for Campaign Spotlight.

But really, we're completely open to the format - as long as it stays around fifteen seconds in length and showcases an actual character that you've played in some kind of tabletop campaign. (Just to emphasize, it absolutely does not need to be D&D or even a similar genre!) Recording yourself on your phone is absolutely fine.

If this sounds fun to you, please DM us and we'll figure it out. The show has showcased a whole lot of very cool GMs so far. We're excited to get to feature some players' voices too.

#rpgs #ttrpgs #indie ttrpg #podcast #dnd #pathfinder

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Flashlight: Season finale!

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 @mikerickson 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.

#ttrpg #tabletop #podcast #rpg #Spotify

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Episode 8: Ending a campaign with Chris

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.

#ttrpg #dnd #rpg #tabletop #podcast #Spotify