Rene Plays Games

Slowly adding players to the spooky month episodes, this time I'm joined by returning guest (and wife, I guess that's important) Lynn for a game of Ghost + Human by friend of the pod Dan Bronson-Lowe a.k.a. Almost Bedtime Theater .  This is a wonderful little hack of Badger + Coyote by Pandion Games that sees a human and a ghost working together to solve mysteries. It has asymmetric mechanics for...

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!   This month's episode is one that took months of scheduling (it is the BBEG of TTRPGs after all) to make happen, but I am so happy to share my conversation with Mistress Winter , the GM of the incredible Monsterhearts 2 actual play Al...

Spooky month is upon us, and thus we play horror!   It begins alone, and, in this game, it ends alone. Blood in the Margins by Chris Bissette is another of his incredible Wretched & Alone games about a student who, along with some accomplices, killed another student at their prestigious academy recently, but has to make it through the final year of their academic career without unraveling from...

I'm squeezing in one more episode for Solo September and it's one of the games I've wanted to play (and solo!) the longest - Primal Quest by Diogo Nogueira !   There are also a bunch of supplements for Primal Quest, including the solo supplement Primal Quest: Feral from Exalted Funeral, which has lots of great oracles and tools for you to play your Weird Stone & Sorcery game!   This game rules...

Solo September rolls on and this week's one-player one-shot is the Exploration & Ecology RPG Mappa Mundi by Three Sails Studio !   This game was thrown at me A LOT during its crowdfunding, and I totally get why. The pitch is a game about exploration and observation of wildlife and rediscovering a world after a mysterious event fractured different cultures and places for a century or more. Now,...

Solo September is fully in swing! Time for another one-player one-shot and this time it's one of the solo games I've had in my collection and on my list for the longest: Princess With a Cursed Sword by Anna Anthropy !   In this solo journaling game, you play a - you guessed it! - princess given a cursed sword and tasked with finding where it belongs to get rid of it. I had a great time making Prin...

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!   This month's episode is with the incomparable SuperDillin , host of One Shot Podcast as well as one half of Dorkspawn , the video game book club podcast! Oh and he also recently cowrote the newest addition of the Ultimate Roleplaying...

Beneath the Tree of Woe, the wicked towering tree at the heart of the forest of Eryn Vorn, Iorlas wields his ancestral blade, Nimloth's Tear, against the Flame in the Dark, an ancient nameless thing of evil.    With a sword named for a white tree, a memory of light, Iorlas goes into battle against a shadow that has accumulated the dark shadows of hate for Ages.   Learn more about The One Ring 2e b...

Quick pivot to play a recommended one-player one-shot of Tiago Junges' Ronin, recommended by this month's Perspective Checks guest Cezar Capacle!   Ronin is a solo TTRPG that was the mechanical and framework precursor to the excellent NOTORIOUS & OUTSIDERS which I played on this podcast. You play the part of a Ronin, a masterless samurai of Sengoku period Japan on a journey to achieve your goa...

Sure, we've had one one-shot, but what about second one-shots?   Okay, the joke doesn't land, but you get it! I ran some of the DMs through a one-shot of The One Ring 2e ! Amber, Chris, Jess, and Kent play as members of a new fellowship in the time between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings far away from anywhere you may be familiar with in Middle Earth! West of the Shire, west of the Blue Mount...

Iorlas encounters a population of Ents long separated from their kin in Fangorn Forest out on the cape of Eryn Vorn. It takes some time, but he convinces them to bring him to the heart of the forest where the corruption is most foul... but their interactions are not unnoticed.   Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing .   ----more---- Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   a...

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!   This month I'm honored to have sat down and talked with one of my absolute favorite game designers Cezar Capacle ! You've heard me play multiple of his games on this feed such as Wraithound and Midnight Melodies , and believe me I wi...

After the ambush in the barn, Iorlas rides southeast toward the dark forested cape of Eryn Vorn. Long have the steads and rolling hills of Minhiriath laid unpopulated after the Great Plague, and the massive pine forest on the high cliffs of Eryn Vorn looms over the sea like a shadow...   En route, Iorlas encounters dangers and grim sightings that may be the reason none enter these lands...   Learn...

I've decided to continue my playtesting of the (few years out) upcoming Ironsworn: Legacies!   Five months after releasing the enormous elder shadow wolf god from the glacier, Tessa and Farina - along with some new friends - continue to track the beast.   They find themselves in the coastal village of Fisher's Grove, but their pursuit of Inkanis, the Wolf God is halted by raiders holding the small...

Iorlas departs Bree and heads south along the Greenway between the Barrow Downs and South Downs, a perilous place to travel... Not long after he sets out does he realize his progress is now being observed and his journeys are unlikely to go smoothly as he heads to investigate the cape of Eryn Vorn for Cirdan the Shipwright...   Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing .   ----mor...

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!   This month I'm joined by Ciera, a.k.a. RagePandaPajamas around the internet! Ciera is a media theory enthusiast who loves to look at and review TTRPG actual plays through a critical academic lens, as well as an author on the blog The...

After falling through the floor in the ruins of Fornost, Iorlas discovers something worse than orcs or evil Men. Luckily he gets out and makes it back to Bree, where he begins to recover from the terrifying ordeal and reunites with Gandalf before the next leg of his journey begins...   Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing .   ----more---- Join the DMs After Dark Discord chann...

Playtest session 2 of Ironsworn: Legacies!   Tessa and the hunters get Farina to the site of her dreams on a massive frozen glacial valley, but a broken opening holds sacred secrets of the past, as well as old, corrupt shadows emerging...   If you want to, please head over to the Ironsworn Discord channel which you can find a link to on the Ironsworn website to get in on the playtesting!   ----mor...

A little late, but it's going to turn into 2 episodes of the playtest materials for the upcoming Ironsworn: Legacies from Shawn Tomkin instead of just the one bonus one for next week!   I am SUPER excited to be able to test this out, and if you want to, please head over to the Ironsworn Discord channel which you can find a link to on the Ironsworn website to get in on the playtesting!   In this ep...

Iorlas fights the wraith that rose in the ruins of the plaza in Fornost Erain and gains insight into the past. Going further in he traces the steps of Rangers who came before him, but one wrong step sends him deeper into the darkness...   Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing .   ----more---- Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   I made a Ko-Fi if you feel absurdly genero...

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!   This month I'm joined by Meadow a.k.a. HowdyLoveDarlingM , an incredibly thoughtful TTRPG designer, actual play GM, performer, cosplayer, writer, singer, artist, Meadow does so much! We talk about her collection of games and how she...

After trumpeting a magical horn found in the burnt remains of the homestead, Iorlas has earned the trust of a majestic steed en route to Fornost Erain, the ancient keep and capital of Men from Ages past.   When he arrives, he finds it twisted and overgrown, treacherous and eerily abandoned, but of course trouble lurks within... Trouble in the form of evil Men and undead, but what is it that Gandal...

Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.   For the first Design Diaries of the year that isn't about Gardens of Rust, I decided to go back to what was going to be the original Design Diaries episode of 2026... my two-player buddy cop TTRPG Decktectives.   In this game, the two players sit down and create a pair o...

Iorlas spends time recovering between the small community of Archet in the Chetwood and a visit to Bree, where he runs into Gandalf again. After hearing news of an attack on a homestead along the Greenway to the north, Iorlas assumes it must be Drustan and his allies, so he ventures slightly out of the way to investigate. He finds a wondrous item...   Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free Leagu...

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!   This month I have the pleasure of talking with Brian Flaherty, AP performer, GM, sound designer, producer, game designer, and one of the founders of the Many Sided Media network with an insane lineup of TTRPG podcasts including: My F...