Playing at the Hearth

"Search & Rescue" In the face of ongoing Dominion gains, the Kintsugi is tasked with a series of readiness drills. Captain Vate finally makes a decision about his first officer, and not a moment too soon. When the ship picks up a distress call, they rush to a scene of devastation and a battle against a pair of enemy ships. This is part of Open Hearth Gaming Community, you can find out more at...

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...

I join up with Gabe, Jim, and Gerwin to create a new live action Star Trek show. Here is the resulting document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QF8wFqqvwiuTHfjwprDnF7TsEhIR-HvBME_QEUkBe7k/edit?usp=sharing Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=941Vv14G-3A ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Heartfelt talks between the protagonists as they try to decide next steps. That leads them back to the Island and the House in the Undertow. There they confront what seems to be the Blood Creature which hunted Mr. Suit, but there's more to its identity than what they expected. That dealt with the return to the last locked room in the house and prepare to brute force open it... This is a modern urb...

A play test session of my game Writers' Room, inspired by Microscope. In this session we create a teen military scifi series inspired by Battlestar Galactica and RoboTech. Here's the resulting series overview: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lRIXBSceJSP8oM5OeqZB5Es4f2XgzaobDo4TGsU0DM4/edit?usp=sharing Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgleQgIwVpI ★ Support this podcast on Pat...

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...

Having left the island, the group reconvenes to talk about next steps. As they recover and consider the costs for what they have gained, we see flashbacks into the lives of several of them. Marrow searches for information and confronts his own ongoing Sinking. Meanwhile, Superbowl Sunday looms... This is a modern urban fantasy PbtA game inspired by Changeling the Lost, The Magicians, DIE, isekai,...

"The Galadriel Incident: Lower Decks" With much of the command staff off answering questions about the events at Epsilon Umbra III, our chief medical officer takes the captain's seat...a little unwillingly. We get a chance to meet some of our ship's ensigns as they participate in the rescue of a Klingon ship. Then they're drafted into a search mission with a strange non-Federation envoy with a hid...

A bittersweet finale. With the assistance of The Witch, both Autumn and Mirage discover their own ways of moving on. This is the final session of our game of Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi. For more on Our Haunt, visit https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/our-haunt This session is part of the Open Hearth Gaming Calendar. To find out more about the Open Hearth gaming community, check out openhearthgaming.com O...

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...

We create the outline of a tv show based on Shadowrun. Here's the end result: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DR9JOYuSfak7079zD0a6tsS2bctnNYxZsmhLL0ya_B0/edit?usp=sharing Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0803-1rohP8 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

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, Epate brings news (and a sack of cash for Modon) from the Last Serai of a polybody-cat wedding, dreams of Long, Long ago Behemoths, Adoron opens their third eye, and Ottokar shamefully transforms into a *shudder* human due to lunar proximity. Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKyeh-aW7aA ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

"Right Hand of Darkness" Ward is taunted by Reagani Vost as sabotage on the Kintsugi prevents the ship from contacting the away team or beaming them up. Meanwhile on planet, the team evades the Lattice Empress's forces and tries to reach the House of Candles and the Farseers. But the situation becomes more dire with the arrival of a pair of Dominion vessels and a betrayal on the ground. This is pa...

Autumn experiences a vivid realization of how she died, losing her doll eyes and restoring her old eyes in the process. Mirage uncovers the truth of their birth and how they came to the Snow Queen, and The Witch disrupts a centuries-old ritual in defiance of an old Hag's Eye. This is the third of four sessions of Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi. For more on Our Haunt, visit https://temporalhiccup.itch.io...

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 ★