GamingPerspectives

     Jolene asked Saul if he bought Indepent publishers TTRPGs.  Saul looked at his book shelves and thought that most of his RPGs he had bought were published by "Indy Publishers".         Jolene asked him why he bought Indy published RPGs.  Saul pontificated why he thought he bought Indy published titles as often as he did.  From supporting the little guy, to the varied systems Indy publishers p...

     Jolene was looking online and came across a post about the top five ttrpgs.  This post garnered a not of response and she asked Saul about this topic.  Saul thought it would a be a great topic to discuss and record an episode about it.      Saul as usual put his own spin on the question of the biggest five TTRPGs.  Saul didn't disclose his list until the recording of the episode to get her un...

      Saul and Jolene had a question from a listener about how to make an player that had played long ago and was returning to playing TTRPGs.   Saul and Jolene talked about this idea.  Saul had read about and heard about players for whatever reasons had stopped playing TTRPGs and now years later had returned to players.      After discussing what things could be done to make returning players mor...

    Jolene was thinking about playing the various RPGs that she had played recently from Saul's Western Mystery adventure called Shadows Over the Quicienera, to Brindlewood Bay game, and Tales From the Loop Adventures.   She asked Saul how do you make a good mystery adventure/game.  Saul and Jolene watched numerous videos on the subject and then compared notes.        After that discussion Saul an...

     Jolene was thinking about Actual Plays especially after we saw Laura and Travis from Critical Role at Galaxy Con in San Jose.  This happened as she was on Reddit and came across a discussion about how actual plays like Critical Role and others were detrimental to the TTRPG Hobby.      She talked to Saul and about it, where he understood where that sentiment came from, to which Jolene totally...

     Jolene was looking online at how GM's run games.  She came across the topic of the GMs asking questions to their players.  Jolene saw a lot of threads and forums discussing this topic.  Jolene asked saw about this topic and they both had a lengthy discussion about this topic.        Saul said he usually asks questions to keep the players "in the game" and keeping the players attention on the...

    Somehow Saul missed the 20th Anniversary of the Leroy Jenkins but it came up during the last gaming session both Saul and Jolene were playing in.  So at one point there is a big battle at a beach where Jolene's character went charging into before any fellow players could react.         Post the game session another player called what Jolene did a Leroy Jenkins which made everyone laugh and Jol...

    Jolene was on Youtube watching various videos and came across Ginny D's video about using a service to write your character's background for a TTRPG.  She wanted to contrast the difference between the work of people that charged a Low, Medium and High fee for this service.        Ginny D was a bit upset on the High priced service when she discovered that the person was using AI.  What was wors...

     Jolene and Saul were on Youtube and came across a video by Dungeon Craft and he was talking about the future of D&D.  He predicted that when a 6th edition of D&D comes out in the next few years it would be "Digital Only", meaning there would be no physical books and the only way to get the rules is going to be online.  Specifically through the D&D Beyond.        As evidence, he po...

Jolene and Saul recently played in a A Fantasy Trip: Melee RPG recently.  Jolene was very interested in the game and wanted to know more about Melee.  Saul explained that it was one of their friend's oldest favorite RPG.      So Jolene took to the internet and found some interesting comment about The Fantasy Trip and how some gamers that had not heard of it before thought it was an OSR.      Saul...

     Saul and Jolene were talking and Jolene asked Saul which did he prefer to do buy an adventure module or make up his own.  That was a complicated answer that lead to a lengthy discussion.  After that chat they decided it would make a good episode to record.       So Saul and Jolene did just that.  They sorted out their notes and recorded a podcast about Buying or Making Up Your Own Adventures....

     Why do GM's, Referees, Keepers, Loremasters of many other people that "run" RPG game do it?  This was a question that Saul across online and since Saul GM's quite a bit he asked himself and other fellow GMs why they GM roleplaying games.     As you would guess not all people that run RPGs do it for the same reason, though many peoples reason does overlap.  Saul asked Jolene why she GMs and af...

A friend of Saul and Jolene ran two TTRPGs back to back on a Friday evening over Zoom using a lite ruleset called There and Back Again, and on Saturday morning The One Ring 2nd Edition RPG.  The games did not use the same characters.       On Friday the players played a group of Dwarves who set out to enter Moria, against the standing order of King Dain Ironfoot.  It was literally a tale of There...

     Saul and Jolene were watching Youtube and came across Dungeon Craft whose host had gone to Gen Con in 2025.  He was amazed at the size of the convention and the number of TTRPGs sessions that were available for convention attendees to play in.      He decided to do some number crunching to figure out what were the top ten TTRPGs by the number of sessions offered.  As he went down the list som...

Saul and Jolene usually do a New Year episode where they pick the RPGs that they are most looking forward to or ones they find interesting.  This episode is a top ten of upcoming TTRPGs that Saul thought were pretty interesting.       Thank you all for Listening!   You can email us at gamingperspective.com@gmail.com Podcast Art by Jim D. Foster Episode Art by Michael Shean-Jones Music by Quadrille...

This topic comes from a Reddit post which asked about what rules should a GM need to know when running a game.  And which rules can they leave to look up later at the game table.      Saul states that he really dislikes the opening of the rulebook at the table as it distracts players and stops immersion of the game world.        Saul and Jolene discuss various games they have played and state thei...

 Saul and Jolene were invited to a weekend RPG event hosted by Bay, a very good friend of theirs.   One game that both Saul and Jolene were eager to play was Brindlewood Bay.  Saul was interested because of the way the “mystery” was “solved” and the use of PBTA rules.  Jolene is a fan of mystery both in book and TV format.  Jolene watches a lot of mystery shows from old to new, American TV to Brit...

When you are playing in a RPG, whether it is online or an in person game,  keeping the player engaged in the game can be  at times hard.   Saul and Jolene over the years have noticed that some people find it hard to pay attention to the game during a session.  Things that make people tune out of the game are many, from cell phones, side conversation, kids, significant other, boredom, the list goes...

      Reading Reddit posts Saul cam across a post about a problem that they had when they joined a new group with an on going campaign.   The Poster was upset at a number of things that happened when he first started playing.  They sought help with dealing with their problems since joining.  Saul thought about things that could minimize problems like this Original Poster had.   He talked to Jolene...

     Saul was reading "RPG Reddit" posts and came across a person who described themselves as a 5th edition D&D player.  In this post they wanted to know about games that were more "lethal" than D&D.  They mentioned that D&D was too easy to survive.      Saul mentioned it to Jolene.  Saul went into his collection and found some RPG systems that were to his mind more deadly than D&D...

     In this Episode Saul was reading a blog where they discussed the Three Different Pillars of D&D.  Saul went on to read other sources from other bloggers to Reddit posts about this idea of what makes a good D&D Game.       Saul starting thinking about how some games or genres don't rely on these Three Pillars for running great sessions or adventures. He discussed it quickly with Jolene...

Jolene was looking at TTRPG topics and came across a Reddit Post where a user was asking why people consider playing TTRPGs a "niche" hobby.  The original poster was quite surprised that people thought that TTRPGs are not that popular. There were quite a few replies to that post and most were proposing that TTRPGs are not that big of a deal in the hobby sphere.       A number of TTRPG players in t...

      Saul and Jolene went to a game convention over Labor Day weekend.  Their first game there was a RPG called Troika.  Saul had seen this rpg mentioned quite a bit in various posts.  From "Best Ever Indie Game", to "Most Underrated RPG" and many other lists.   Even though Saul had bought the PDF of Troika he had not yet looked at the rules, but had been very interested in what the buzz was abou...

      Saul and Jolene went to a couple conventions in late August and Early September.  In late August they went to Galaxycon in San Jose.  It takes place in downtown San Jose at the McEnery Center.  It is the largest convention center in the South Bay.  Saul was really impressed with all the guest speaker, panels, activities that were available at Galaxycon.  This was Jolenes and Sauls first time...

A listener, Phil, asked about how easy would it be for a video gamer to become a TTRPG gamer. At first glance it would be a no brainer that those that played video game on a conole or PC would move to playing TTRPGs.  Saul and Jolene talked about some of those differences and what similarities that video games have to TTPRGs.        There are 3.42 Billion video gamers compared to 50 million TTRPGs...