Rene Plays Games

Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    As Cassidy & crew make their way to the Kyrody capital of Carcordia to make contact with the Ebb and find out what's next, Azriel Stirling avoids Kyrody law enforcement by hiding out down in the ruins below the capital, and he's not the only one down ther...

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!   In the 2nd community-focused Perspective Checks of the month, Adrian & Alex from the Dungeons & Degrees Podcast come on to talk about navigating the TTRPG space and finding your people. We keep it silly, do a little self-ther...

Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Cassidy and the crew of the Revenant are on their way back to the main island of Kyros to meet up with an Ebb contact in the capital city of Carcordia. Along the way, Cassidy attempts to reverse the Bloodsworn curse on Marama, but their ship is recognized in...

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!   June is (apparently) community month here on Perspective Checks, and the first interview is with Matt Caulder , host of the Whatcha Doing? Podcast , a wonderful interview podcast with creators about their projects, as well as Twitch...

Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    After cleansing the second altar, the Bloodsworn are affected and taken aboard the Revenant, which is also experiencing negative effects. The crew make for safe harbor on the island of Nuboka, headquarters of the Cynosure Society and Explorer's Guild to rest...

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 small crew of the Revenant scatter to fight the Bloodsworn who have ambushed them at the second altar, and when Cassidy enters the narrow tunnels of the sea cave system where the altar lies, she finds more traps and puzzles await...   Learn more about Iro...

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!   Perspective Checks #2 this month! I'm joined by the prolific duo A Couple of Drakes to talk about their journey in the TTRPG space. If you don't recognize the name, maybe you've heard of any of their incredible games out there, like:...

Get MECH & more in the TTRPGs for Trans Rights - Ohio Itch Bundle!   Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Cassidy has an experience with the island of Nameera, but while she is unconscious her crew struggles to escape the island unscathed. After a short sojourn with the nomadic Sularia, the...

Go check out Tales of Aetheria - An Unexpected Quest on Kickstarter now!   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!   For the first Perspective Checks this month I'm joined by Nicole, a.k.a. Game Master Mom to talk about playing TTRPGs with kids and her upcoming children's bo...

Get MECH & more in the TTRPGs for Trans Rights - Ohio Itch Bundle!   Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Time for a little one-player one-shot!   I sat down to play Pilgrimage of the Sun Guard by Amanda P! This is a prompt-based solo game about playing the last knight or other capable member of the Sun Guard setting off on a pilgrimage to an ancient holy site for the order. It captures...

Get MECH & more in the TTRPGs for Trans Rights - Ohio Itch Bundle!   Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Cassidy & Senator Minos explore the cavern full of mysterious glyphs, but struggle to make sense of the complicated language. Leigh does his best to interpret for the island's bound...

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 I'm joined by Peach of The Dice Sisters discord! They're a community who helps curate and provide safe gaming space for women, nonbinary, and trans TTRPG players. As I say early on in the episode, I'd love to believe that...

Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Cassidy leads the Revenant to a mysterious island at the behest of Senator Minos. Along the way, Damaris Iver describes the terrible secrets he began to uncover about the Kyrody Dominion's use of sky iron, the nature of these islands in the Heart of the Domin...

Join the DMs After Dark discord!   Tabletop Two-torial! It's the second episode of this two-player "learn a game together" series and this time I'm joined by Troy from the DMs After Dark for a game of Hunt(er/ed) by Meghan Cross & Dillin Apelyan of the One Shot Podcast Network! Hunt(er/ed) is a game of a hunter and a monster, and the back and forth in the game of life and death between them. T...

Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!   Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Cassidy has reached Damaris Iver in the guise of the companion Blythe Bannister, but Leigh senses trouble coming to stop their prison break. Someone much higher up the social power ladder has taken an interest into the unfolding events that Cassidy has found...

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 is LONG overdue and is a sit down and chat with Christian from the DMs After Dark about playing games in sandbox worlds. Christian and I have been friends for many years now and have been fueling one another's RPG collecti...

Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    Having fled the horrible ambush on the sky island, Cassidy gets back to the Revenant just as several ships close in on the sky island for their own chance to reap the rare sky iron resources - known in the Dominion as oléthrios iron. She musters the crew and sails boldly back through the ships and mee...

Welcome back to Mining Media where we turn your binging into better TTRPG experiences by missing my chance to say the right thing, then botching the chance I got to redeem myself, then thinking it's all hopeless until the stars align and we're standing across from one another in the first place we ever met... We're talking Romance!  Continuing our February Valentine's theme through to Mining Media...

Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    After a brief conversation with Quon, the clockwork contact for the Ebb, about freeing an important prisoner in Deepwater Harbor's dungeons, Cassidy rushes to fulfill her iron vow to Church of the Enduring Servant's Inquisitor Azriel Stirling to protect the crew of the Enduring Blade as they claim it...

Happy Heart Day! As a bonus episode for the month of February (and because we love a good reason to do a holiday themed session), I've brought my wife Lynn back for a Valentine's Day one-shot. Last year was the not-so-romantic Call of Cthulhu scenario, but this year we're really leaning into the theme with...   Star Crossed by Alex Roberts ! A game about two characters with a forbidden love, who r...

Welcome back to the Heart of the Dominion and season 2 of my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles series.    In this episode, Cassidy negotiates with Azriel - an Inquisitor of the Church of the Enduring Servants and the resurrected brother of her ghost lover Leigh Stirling. After swearing an iron vow to protect the Enduring Blade in the upcoming race to the sky isle, she then reflects on the vow made in bloo...

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 dropping on the first of the month because Tanya Floaker 's newest game Mum Chums is now crowdfunding on Kickstarter! Tanya is a game designer, writer, and consultant out of Edinburgh, Scotland and they are so...

A new series?! I hope so! I'd love to make this concept for a monthly episode happen, so if you have a game that you're itching to play but have no one to play it with, please email me at reneplaysgamespod@gmail.com !   For the very first Tabletop Tutorial I'm joined by Dan Bronson-Lowe of Almost Bedtime Theater , a podcast of a father and daughter (and her cousin) who learn and play TTRPGs togeth...

Aaaaand it's officially begun! Ironsworn: Sundered Isles season 2 is underway with the first episode of this series. Cassidy makes her way to the Talan Flotilla, a neutral collection of traders dealing in vice and smuggling in Kyrody waters, to track down the captain of the Enduring Blade, who may or may not have valuable information toward achieving her goal of ridding herself of her ex-lover's g...

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 a late upload from last year, but it fits perfectly well to kick off 2025 - we're talking about getting into TTRPGs with Amber & Jess from DMs After Dark , my original RPGs on the internet homies! We talk...