Rene Plays Games

We're a few days late, but if it means anything to you, dear listener, it made me haul a lot of my music equipment up to my office and I am definitely going to try and do more original music for my episodes now!   Welcome to another one-player one-shot where I play games I have been dying to get to the table all by myself. This time it's another by one of my favorite designers in the TTRPG communi...

Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!   Sybil and the Rookling are joined by the traveling Bastion monk, Zorn, who is searching for something known as a Rookling Forge after many of the rooklings from his monastery have left to destinations unknown. When their expedition hits a dead end, they are waylaid by a Lichen Rook and rush away only to find that Sybil's Whisperstone is pu...

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 Craig Hatler (a.k.a. Tezrak the Impslayer most places on the internet), a game designer and educator who came on to talk about the importance of a game's communication and resources when sitting down to l...

Welcome back to the new series of Colostle - Dungeons!   Sybil ventures out of the hanging city of Oubliette with her ice rookling in tow to attempt to find her way back to the surface. The two have more time to appreciate the immensity of the subterranean world and its architecture, but hear a cry for help while investigating a chained rook husk. The find a stranger bound with spectral chains, bu...

Bonus Halloween day episode release and it's one we teased wayyyy back in February in our Valentine's Day bonus episode! I'm joined by my wife Lynn to play another game of Star Crossed ( and in digital ) by Alex Roberts , published by the wonderful Bully Pulpit Games , but this time we're not leaning hard into the expected romance tropes or characters, we're getting spooky! (spoiler: it is not, in...

Can't forget to do a solo one-shot for spooky month, so here is my one-player one-shot experience of Spellbook by DValeris a.k.a. Edaureen Muhamad Nor! This game is based on a familiar game from last year's holiday one-shots, Bucket Of Bolts by Jason Price and uses the Lost & Found SRD to simulate the life of a sentient spellbook that is past down through the hands of witches over three Acts....

Welcome back to the new series of Colostle - Dungeons!   In episode 4, new friend Thorug guides Sybil and the Rooklings to the capital of the Dungeons - the Hanging City of Oubliette! This incredible city hangs from the top of an enormous cavern, lit up in all different colors in a perpetual nightlife. Run by four clans (Cups, Rings, Keys, and Shards), the city is both powerful and dangerous. What...

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 Kate the Great Cosplays talking about the many, many angles she approaches the TTRPG scene through. Not only a cosplay event coordinator including TTRPG cosplay photo sessions and meet-ups, but an actual...

It's spooky month 2025, and that means bonus episodes! They can be Halloween-y, generally spooky, or related to common tropes of the season, but this year it's kicking off with a one-shot of The Witch Is Dead by the incomparable  Grant Howitt !    The Witch Is Dead is a one-page RPG by the master of the one-pager about a kind and good witch who is brutally and unfairly MURDERED by a witch-hunter!...

Welcome back to the new series of Colostle - Dungeons!   In episode 3, Sybil has escaped the major labyrinth of the Cistern only to find herself forced to explore further down into the Dungeons, which turn out to be much more interesting than expected. Incredible architecture and mechanisms are in place from who knows when - a whole world beneath the surface of the Roomlands... But before she can...

It's time for another one-player one-shot!   The Librarian's Apprentice is a solo game I've had near the top of my list to play for a LONG time, and it's a shame it's taken me so long to get this to the table. This is a game by friend of the channel Daniel Bronson-Lowe, a.k.a. Almost Bedtime Theater who you may remember from the Tabletop Tutorial episode of i'm sorry did you say street magic? wher...

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an incredible new game by French developers Sandfall Interactive, and it is AMAZING. This is not a light lift for you TTRPG folks who may want to emulate the game at the table, but that doesn't mean there isn't a LOT for you to mine for your own games without having to try and replicate this masterpiece.   Take home notes: Asymmetric design is awesome, and each chara...

Welcome back to the new series of Colostle - Dungeons!   In episode 2, we pick up with our main character Sybil as she emerges from the water deep below the surface where she fell at the end of episode 1. As she gets her bearings, she realizes she is in an ancient, underground mechanism with no way back to the surface, so the only way out is through. Luckily (or not), she rescues a small Rookling...

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!   There are a lot of tabletop roleplaying ganes, and there is an almost 100% chance you will never sit down and play them all, and even if you could, there would be a a lot of games you probably wouldn't enjoy. This month's episode is...

100 Episodes! That's pretty neat, and it feels right to go back to the very first series I ever played solo for a podcast - the incredibly wonderful Colostle by Nich Angell!   In this series, we'll be playing a whole new character, so you don't have to have listened to my previous Colostle series on the DMs After Dark podcast feed, and I'll be going through all of the character creation, rules, an...

Welcome back to Mining Media where we turn your binging into better TTRPG experiences by telling the next episode or next book "You will not break me," and soldiering on anyway because goddamnit, Donut, someone's gotta try and save all these ideas.   This month we're talking about the absurdly popular (and deserving) LitRPG book series Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman . These books follow Car...

Let's do another one-player one-shot!   This time it's  BOW by the design duo (and team at) Hatchlings Games !   BOW is a solo journaling game that uses the Carta SRD by Peach Garden Games, much like Hatchlings' other solo game Dragon Dowser (which you can hear me play in the backlog!). In BOW, you play a Praeloran diver going out in an annual competition known as The Shoaling, a grueling sailing...

Time for another one-player one-shot!   This is Two-Hand Path, a modern roll-and-write dungeon crawler by Mikey Hamm , designer of Slugblaster. In Two-Hand Path you play a mage searching the cursed ruins of a post-fall city for loot and power after a supernatural war left everything destroyed.    The mechanics use Yahtzee-style combinations with a full set of polyhedral dice, sending you through v...

Welcome to the finale of the Heart of the Dominion, season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Cassidy, Leigh, and the Captain continue to trek toward the center of the cursed Razor Isle at the heart of the Kyrody Dominion's myriad capital, with the Captain experiencing flashbacks to life in this ruined city's heyday. When they reach the three towering iron pillars at the city's center, e...

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 special 1st of the month Perspective Checks episode is with Mat of Role Play Chat , a similar interview-style TTRPG discussion podcast which I think you'll enjoy if you like these episodes!   Mat comes on to talk about the wonde...

Get the 2 New MECH Cities Out Now (for Free!)   Felt like a good time to play through a little bit of me & Raso's Carved by RUNE solo Mech vs. Kaiju TTRPG MECH !   In this demo, I play through Hraunvollr, a city on a fjord below a volcano where a greedy energy company has awakened the ancient lava Dormant Surtr!   ----more----   Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   I made a Ko-Fi if you...

I've heard people like this, so here's an update on some of the games I've got rattling around in my brain, in GoogleDocs, and in various levels of development on notebook pages, sticky notes, and half formed notes on my phone.   If any of these sound like they're games you'd love to play, please let me know so I can get on it and see if I can't put out something you'll love!   Looking forward to...

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!   The second Perspective Checks this month on RPGs and their intersection with creative writing is with Clark R. Rowenson , a.k.a. The Magic Engineer on YouTube, an engineer, author, and writing coach with a lifelong interest in magic...

Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    The penultimate episode sees Azriel Stirling send off Senator Minos and bring down the ruins beneath the Kyrody capital city of Carcordia, while Drake McCabe and others resurrected by the Church of the Enduring Servants find themselves with a strange new gift...

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!   The first of two Perspective Checks this month on RPGs and their intersection with creative writing is with Steve Morrison of Errant Adventures , an excellent solo actual play podcast which has followed a sci-fi epic through multiple...