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?
Episode 28 — How to Introduce a New Game to Your Gaming Group
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.
Holiday Special Part 2: Live Play-a-dungeon!
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.
Holiday Special Part 1: Live Build-a-Dungeon (with guest GM Kyle Latino)
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.
Episode 25 — How Do You Deal with Anxiety as a GM?
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:
- Hotel Artemis.
- The Improv for Gamers book.
- The videogame Ion Fury.
- Junji Ito’s horror manga Uzumaki.
Episode 24 – Do You Read the Block Text in Your Adventure? (special guest, Aaron)
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:
- D&D 5e, of course
- Blades in the Dark, of course
- Tomb of Annihilation
- TSR Audio CD Adventures!
Episode 23 – How to Introduce Non-Gamers to Your Game
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:
- The Adventure Zone’s MaxFunCon East Live show where they run through the “Trial of Teamwork”. Chris ripped off the core idea for a recent session and recommends you do the same.
- Alexa’s Dungeon Adventure – AI is coming for GM’s too.
- Star Wars Roleplaying game.
- Chris did a bad job remembering the raddest board game of the 90s: The Omega Virus.
- Scum and Villainy, which is a space opera Forged in the Dark game.
Episode 22 — How to Handle Doors in Dungeons (with guest Al McWilliams)
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:
- The Damage Dice Kickstarter project
- Gyld, Al’s company that makes cool gaming stuff
- Orcpub, a character generator for D&D 5e
- The Tomb of Annihilation campaign
Episode 21: What Elements from Other Media do You Bring into Your Tabletop Games? (with Audrey Huggett)
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:
Episode 21 Appendix
- AADL RPG Fest – They’re going to do this again!
- Gyld’s Damage Dice kickstarter
- D&D 5e
- The Quiet Year
- Numenera
- The Terror
- Redwall by Brian Jacques
- The Black Company by Glen Cook
- Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
- Blades in the Dark
- The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
- Culture series by Iain Banks
- Humblewood – RPG setting that looks heavily inspirited by Redwall
- “Beyond the Mountains of Madness” Cthulhu campaign
- Final Fantasy
- Oct. 26th Gallagher’s Gallery Murder Mystery at the AADL
Episode 20 – The Shortest Episode: Running Halloween Themed Games
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:
- The Quiet Year
- Kids on Bikes
- Yes, Chris still managed to reference Blades in the Dark.