Listen Now

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

The Worldship is back! There’s a new edition of the Synibarr and we’re diving into it. I got a full round table of RPPR regulars to explore the Ultimate Adventurer’s Guide. Baz, Caleb, Noah, and Thad and I found so many different things, it’s hard to keep track of them

Like so many other things, game design has changed in the post-pandemic world. Jeff Barber, author of Blue Planet, and Caleb Stokes, author of Red Markets, and I talk about work and the industry. Jeff’s been hard at work on Blue Planet: Recontact and Caleb talks more about Fae’s Anatomy

The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI) is an amazing website that categorizes popular aesthetic trends from the last 70 years in pop culture. Baz, Thad, and I browsed through the categories and used them to come up with ideas for new RPGs, campaigns for existing RPGs, D&D source books, and

The Multiverse is back! Films and TV shows featuring the concept of a multiverse are more popular than ever, even though they are old hat in tabletop RPGs. Special guest Patrick from RPX and Tech Diff podcasts and I talk about ways you can implement a multiverse in your RPG

Many RPGs use cards in their mechanics, from playing cards to Tarot to custom decks of cards. We discuss some of these games, the types of mechanics we’ve seen and the history of card-based games. If you enjoy this episode, back our Kickstarter for Season 2 of Ludonarrative Dissidents. This

The Terminator RPG was released as a PDF recently. A special guest, Jacqueline Bryk and I went through the game. It contains a lot of rules, including a dense system for hacking, something I hadn’t seen since Shadowrun and Cyberpunk. What makes a licensed game good or bad? We talk

News: The RPPR Patreon just finished a six part podcast series on the mega dungeon Castle Greyhawk. It’s a very funny and weird module and we had a lot of reviewing combing through it. Patrons at the $10 level and higher can get one on one RPG design/advice consultations in

Castle Greyhawk (module WG7) might be the worst official D&D module of all time. A massive dungeon of 12 levels, each written by a different author, sounds like a great hack and slash module, but Castle Greyhawk has a twist. It’s supposed to be…funny. Puns, pop culture references and other

The public domain expanded this year and Caleb and I dive into it to find gameable material. Anyone can use these books, images, or music, for whatever project they can imagine. I found a list of characters from pulp fiction magazines with such interesting heroes like the vigilante Crimson Clown,

Quake 1 is an incredibly influential video game, not just to other video games, but to tabletop RPGs as well. We played Slipgate: Chokepoint recently. Now that we’ve re-played Quake 1 and a RPG inspired by it, Chris and I discuss the thematic and mechanical differences in translating pixels to

A new crew of smugglers start taking jobs in Duskvol. They call themselves the Blind Eyes and specialize in the weird and the occult. As the gang grows in power, they learn of an invisible war for control over the city between supernatural beings and ruthless factions and an incredibly

My friend Chris (the voice of Ab3 in our early radio plays and a cool guy on Twitter) had an idea for a new series on RPPR. Tabletop RPGs have influenced video games since their creation. Video games have influenced tabletop RPGs for a while as well. In Pixel 2

A cluster of enclaves in Missouri faces annihilation at the hands of a massive horde of the undead. Their only hope is to prepare for war, a job for their preeminent taker crew, the D4s. The crew uses an armored vehicle to take the largest scores of valuable goods they

News: Check out Cody’s Kickstarter, Lose Your Own Paradise, a multiple choice adventure novel! Cody’s back and we’re examining an interesting Ravenloft scenario, The Created. It’s about an evil puppet trying to murder all the adults in a village. Only a group of heroic adventurers can stop it! Cody and