Playing at the Hearth

Step into the era of the New Republic, where the Empire may be defeated, but its remnants still lurk in the shadows, and the galaxy is far from at peace. You and your team are about to embark on a high-stakes journey through the Tapani Sector - a system where the gilded halls of noble houses clash with the gritty starports full of rogues, smugglers, and daring pilots. This is a place of glamour an...

A playtest of my Microscope Hack Writers' Room, featuring Rod and Marc. We hash out the plot and casting of a season of a hypothetical live action X-Men tv series. Here's a link to the results, including images of the cast: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sShHri7GeOvl0f8jaw3DbDyLcLvFXAAl_t-_rn0GQu8/edit?usp=sharing Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlNkd9vToCg ★ Support this...

Two Summers is a game of sunny adventures and light drama across two timelines by Côme Martin. We'll be using the supplement Other Summers - which means that our adventures will have less sunshine (as befits Silent Falls). In this game, players take the role of characters living an adventure during two different time periods, freely alternating between adolescence and adulthood. These are light ad...

This week in the Ultraviolet Grasslands, our caravan briefly rested at the Behemoth Shell before mounting an expedition up another ossified giant into a floating park full of poison gas and tasty fruit. Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2-xXJDYeig ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

This game is part of this year's 'May the 4th be with You' Mini-Con' with the Open Hearth. The child Grogu is lost on Tatooine, and it seems like everyone wants to get their hands on them. A small group protects the child, tries to earn their trust and understand their goals. Protect the Child is a Forged in the Dark game about monsters caring for a young human, a human who contains strange and my...

Alun R facilitates a one-shot of his own game, Against the Dark Conspiracy, hacked for play in the Star Wars Universe. This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community's 2025 Star Wars Mini-Con (https://openhearthgaming.com/ RPG) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/th...). More than 30 years after the Battle of Yavin a cold war between the ruling New...

It's December of 2012 and The Mouse now has the rights to Star Wars. All over the world, groups are rushing to create pitches for what the next trilogy will look like. We use Microscope to create a "What If?" history, going from the end of Return of the Jedi to the first of a new set of films. Not a definite history, but one of many possibilities. See the end result document here: https://bit.ly/3...

The Jedi Academy isn’t some gleaming tower of wisdom - it's a few lowly stone buildings swallowed by the forest. The canopy above hums with life, shadows shifting as sunlight fights its way through. Master Skywalker walks among you students like a man carrying something heavier than a lightsaber, and Master Katarn teaches like he’s been through hell and doesn’t want us to follow. But you’re here,...

A special session for Open Hearth's Star Wars minicon using Clark Valentine's Tachyon Squadron. We meet our squadron of Rebel pilots, pulled in different directions. After an initial skirmish, we see their day-to-day lives briefly before an Imperial attack forces them into a dogfight where they're outnumbered and faced with ghosts of their past. Game Keeper here: https://bit.ly/42P0VIU This is par...

Take the role of Clone Troopers caught in a war that has overtaken the entire Galaxy. Discover who you and your fellow Clone Troopers were and who you might become in the stressful throes of conflict. This game, part of the Star Wars Minicon, is set during the Clone Wars. Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue_9WNFjnHo ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Mr. Suit reunites with the group and we learn more about the nature of the goblins. Together again, the foursome makes their way through the house, discovering two very different spaces carved out by the sinister missing Sunken, as well as a door which refuses to yield to them... This is a modern urban fantasy PbtA game inspired by Changeling the Lost, The Magicians, DIE, isekai, and more. This se...

Content Warning: vampirism, gore. This is a prequel to a series of Alice is Missing & Monsterhearts 2 & taking place during the 80s in between subsequent series of A Town Called Malice & Bump in the Dark. COME ON IN is a role-playing game about a grisly murder case that rocks the small coastal Louisiana town of Bon Soleil and unravels a conspiracy that cuts into the depths of the night...

We undertake the setting building and character creation process from Sundered Isles, the Starforged remix which takes the game into the age of cannon and sail. We establish truths, create factions, sketch characters, set up the ship, and finally do some map-building at the end. While world-building is play, there's no actual character play here, just trying out Session 0. This is part of Open Hea...

"The Trials of Damocles" The crew recovers and checks over the results of the first leg of the race as well as the impact of the Experimental Impulse Drive module. After a somewhat tense reception with the captains of the other vessels, the second leg of the race begins. But things escalate quickly, beginning with a freak radiation burst knocking out controls on the Lyran vessel and rising as a hy...

In the Ultraviolet Grasslands this week, the caravan spent a month at the Stele of the Pierced Blossom: Phaedred translating ancient poetry and trading with time-slipped ghosts, Modan training with a bear, and Adoron getting mind blasted and ba-synced with The Rebuilder. Totally fine. Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdJU0v4gT-o ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Introducing a new ghost, Mirage! During this session, Mirage and The Witch encounter conflict in the basement, a drifter with the ability to perceive the supernatural appears, Autumn loses her arm, and a haunted painting offers terrible revelations. This is the second of six sessions of Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi. For more on Our Haunt, visit https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/our-haunt This session is...

Step into the era of the New Republic, where the Empire may be defeated, but its remnants still lurk in the shadows, and the galaxy is far from at peace. You and your team are about to embark on a high-stakes journey through the Tapani Sector - a system where the gilded halls of noble houses clash with the gritty starports full of rogues, smugglers, and daring pilots. This is a place of glamour an...

Content Warning: aftermath of a bloody massacre. This is a prequel to a series of Alice is Missing & Monsterhearts 2 & taking place during the 80s in between subsequent series of A Town Called Malice & Bump in the Dark. COME ON IN is a role-playing game about a grisly murder case that rocks the small coastal Louisiana town of Bon Soleil and unravels a conspiracy that cuts into the dept...

Character and setting creation followed by a quick opening scene in our six-session run of Rae Nedjadi's Belonging Outside Belonging game "Our Haunt." We are introduced to our four ghosts, a Betrayed ghost called "The Witch," a haunted doll named Autumn, a Faceless ghost named Elle, and a ghost returned from heaven (or something like it) named Sienna. This is the first of six sessions of Our Haunt...

In the Ultraviolet Grasslands this week, Triumph Ventures gets back on the road, opening a totally safe dull-way portal at Waystone, finding a thousand lost soles at the Mausoleum of Wire, and inviting the wise bear Ottokar to join the caravan. Onward to Fallen Umber! Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8GTlHgaSRE ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

"The Trials of Damocles" En route to deliver a shipment of rare botanical samples to a conference at Babel, the Kintsugi is retasked to assist in an experiment/demonstration involving a radical new impulse drive modification. However on arrival the crew discovers fighting vessels from there alien worlds in a stand-off, plans for a space race, and an eccentric but brilliant Gorn scientist. This is...

Step into the era of the New Republic, where the Empire may be defeated, but its remnants still lurk in the shadows, and the galaxy is far from at peace. You and your team are about to embark on a high-stakes journey through the Tapani Sector - a system where the gilded halls of noble houses clash with the gritty starports full of rogues, smugglers, and daring pilots. This is a place of glamour an...

This is a prequel to a series of Alice is Missing & Monsterhearts 2 & taking place during the 80s in between subsequent series of A Town Called Malice & Bump in the Dark. COME ON IN is a role-playing game about a grisly murder case that rocks the small coastal Louisiana town of Bon Soleil and unravels a conspiracy that cuts into the depths of the night. Two homicide detectives of the L...

In the Ultraviolet Grasslands this week, our caravan finishes out the winter in the Last Serai, get visits from the Butcher Bank and Oenerics Unlimited, settles some debts, listens to some rumors, and gets ready to set back out on the trail come spring... Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YafHON1qfJc ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The away team rushes to uncover the truth behind the plague affecting a pre-contact world: is the Federation research team to blame for the outbreak? Meanwhile the Kintsugi tries to evade the Jem'Hadar ship, leading Captain Vate to a radical move... This is part of Open Hearth Gaming Community, you can find out more at openhearthgaming.com Our audio version of these episodes can be found here: htt...