DMs After Dark

Rene's back at it again with the new solo roleplaying series and episode 2 of the super cute and fun exploration game Colostle by Nich Angell!  Please go check it out, it's an incredibly accessible and easy to learn game with great art and all you need is a deck of cards!   We pick up where the last episode left off, with Marco and his Ice Rookling companion (now named Berger!) taken prisoner by s...

Step up, come on in, one ticket to the big top here, kid! Sights you've never seen, visions you'll never forget, we've got the most exotic acts you can imagine!  Welcome to the Crossroads Carnival.   Hello all and welcome to the first episode of our last series of 2022.  Amber's back to back after her marathon Dread session to bring you a story of sideshow circus acts in 1930s dustbowl Depression...

What's this? This isn't a Modified Rolls RPG discussion podcast?  This isn't even a chaos baby from the mind of Sara!  What are we doing here?   Welcome to the very first episode of Playing With Myself (On The Internet), a solo roleplaying actual play series that we're going to be doing from time to time and maybe more, who knows?!  Rene sits down to play the one-player, card-based roleplaying gam...

Welcome to our very first fully in-person stream! Amber runs the DMs and two special guests through a scenario for the tense horror RPG Dread . One *generic wooden block* tower, six players, endless tension!   If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdiness, please consider giving us a 5-star rating  on your podcast app of choice! Like, follow, and subscribe to our  Facebook ,  T...

Alright, we all know Rene's got some bad RPG opinions, but now you get to hear ALL of our hot takes!   In this episode of 1d6 | 1d4, what is supposed to be a short little podcast, we each get 3 minutes to spout our spiciest RPG hot takes - the opinions we have about our beloved hobby that would probably be considered somewhere on a scale from unpopular to downright blasphemous.   If you have any h...

To honor those who bravely launch themselves into terrifying and urgent medical situations for October as First Responders Month... we play goofballs in a hospital on Halloween!   DM Troy runs Christian, Jess, and Sara through a one-shot of Magpie Games The Ward , a Powered by the Apocalypse medical drama RPG reminiscent of ER, Grey's Anatomy, House, and other health care related series.  Join our...

Don't wanna read a whole 300 page rulebook to run a game your friends can't schedule time to play?  Well we've got good news for you, there are a LOT of games out there to pick up and get playing fast.  No complicated rules mechanics, no overarching stories, rules lite games tend to focus on a theme or desired experience and tailor everything to fit that kind of story.  But making a cohesive game...

Everyone knows the world is full of magic. It's dangerous stuff. The vampires, werewolves, fey folk, they're all a part of every day life, but the people who mess around with magic? They bring about the Omens. They bring nothing but trouble.    In the very first stream of The Midnight Codex EVER, we play four poor souls who wake up one morning with little memories of the night before, but a book o...

Metacurrency (noun) - A player resource in a game that allows the player to apply an advantageous effect within the fiction without actually interacting with the game at a character level.   Not exactly Merriam-Webster, but hey, you get the idea.  Metacurrencies are popular in many RPGs as a way to incentivize players to engage in the game as its meant to be played, reward players for playing the...

The crew make their way onto the mysterious island led by Grandma Mari and her successor, Lana.  While they've lost the French ships, they're still trailed by one English ship carrying Mallory, the "cartographer" from the Spanish villa.    Will the island bestow its miracles upon the crew of the Lady Saskatoon or take everything from them for some other purpose?   If you enjoy our streams, podcast...

What's more magical than an incredibly crowded nerdy convention in ... Indianapolis? We can't think of anything either! In this episode of Modified Rolls, half of the DMs After Dark crew (Amber, Jess, and Troy) sit down with two guests Alex and Kent to discuss their 2022 Gen Con experience!  While Gen Con is a big one, there is some great advice for conventions in general, especially any you'll ne...

The crew of the Lady Saskatoon find themselves sailing blindly into a thick fog and mist with no land in sight.  The stars have betrayed them and are unfamiliar to all aboard.  The old woman, Mari, shows no fear, but is beginning to show remorse.  Tailed by an English ship with an old enemy and a fleet of French ships with something valuable of the strange old woman's, the promises of this island...

Ever feel like you're in a fight that there's no chance you can win? Maybe it's the dice betraying you or maybe it was a hint that you weren't supposed to pick that fight (yet or maybe ever).  Balance in RPGs is an expectation that both players and GM need to communicate clearly during a session or campaign.  Sometimes imbalanced encounters function as "gates" to areas you shouldn't explore yet, o...

Captain Red's come down with something after the escape from the villa, while the rest of the crew aboard the Lady Saskatoon race toward the mysterious island, led by a more mysterious old woman.  As the Lady sails her way to the treasure and destination, secrets are uncovered, stowaways found, and treachery may yet be afoot.   If you enjoy our streams, podcasts, or just our general nerdiness, ple...

Have you ever played in an RPG campaign where the DM makes a character to be a member of the party?  Were they mostly in the background or did they happen to always be the strongest, best, or have the best treasure?  There are definitely wrong ways to do DM PCs, but we're here to talk about the ways to make them work for your game.   In this episode, we dive into a hot topic and come out the other...

Out there in the vast expanse of ocean lie countless islands full of opportunity, treasures unclaimed, and mysteries waiting for fortunate, or maybe unfortunate, souls to come bring back into daylight...   100 years ago a French ship went missing - its crew and cargo assumed to be lost to time... until now.  Recently, a survivor has been spending the gold long thought gone with that ship, and rumo...

Before it even starts, before a sword is swung, a blaster pulled, or punch thrown, the dramatic dance of words, taunts and snide remarks sets up that tension, the stakes, the honor on the line...   Welcome to our 2 player one-shot of Jess Levin (Jess from Online) 's wonderful new game I Have the High Ground , a wonderful collaborative game about banter, posturing, and capes in the moments that lea...

Yo ho! Ahoy! Arrgh ya landlubbers! Other vaguely piratey things to say!   Welcome to the Session 0 and Character Creation portion of our new series for Honor + Intrigue, a swashbuckling adventure RPG by Chris Rutkowsky, published by Basic Action Games.  Jess will be running us through her first series and we have a lot of fun exploring this game system and building some pretty cool characters, if...

You know what time it is! Chaos time courtesy of Sara's brain child 1d6 | 1d4!   For the first time we only have 1 minute each to talk about our topic, and this week's topic is...   Our first ever hopefully annual award show - The DMies!  We're going full Hollywood and making a big ol' spectacle of ourselves to pat each other on the back, laugh about dumb stuff we've said on the internet, and occa...

Well hello there campers! Welcome to Camp Pine Island, a wonderful little tract of wilderness you'll be exploring all summer long!  Nothing at all is haunted, dangerous, or creepy at all, and the summer's going to be just peachy... right?   Thank you for checking out another installment of our one-shot shenanigans, this time with Rene running the DMs through he and Christian's original game Pine I...

Roll dice. Flip cards. Spend tokens. Pull the wooden block. This episode of Modified Rolls breaks down the different types of resolution mechanics in roleplaying games and why they're important for providing a certain kind of experience.  From the mathematics of probability underlying the success/failure ratio of games to the tactile aspect of cards (just ask Amber & Christian how they feel about...

Welcome to Hjem, we've got all things to make your house a Hjem... *sigh*...   In this one-shot between our Invisible Sun and upcoming Honor + Intrigue series, Sara runs us through Short Order Apocalypse Advanced by SaintBaileys on itch.io The game itself is available as Pay What You Want on Itch ( https://saintbaileys.itch.io/ ), and is also featured in the Tiny Tome collection of short rules-lig...

I don't know about all of you out there in RPG podcast-land, but I'm a pretty typical millennial, binging TV series on streaming platforms and dealing with piles of books to-be-read that somehow just keep growing despite my best efforts.  Well, what if I told you literally everything you ingest makes great building blocks for your RPGs?!  Your in luck, because all you gotta do is a little bit of w...

Greetings one more (but maybe not the last) time from the Actuality.  Christian sits down with Rene and Sara to talk a little bit about his process prepping for and running Invisible Sun.  We talk about the game from a design perspective, Christian's thought process for the concept of the Hollow Men and Elpada, and rates the game.   We hope to do more of these in the future following our series of...

It started with dreams.  Dreams of Shadow.  Dreams of each of our characters' goals and desires.  It, too, ends in dreams.  The Deeps of Sleep hold the headquarters of the Hollow Men and the Bornless One plots to erase the very concept the young girl Elpada represents.   Bridget shows her true self.  Darcian has a theory.  Henri guides the crew through strange new planes.  Istanbull guards his fri...