Roleplay Rescue

At  the tail end of Season 5, I invited listeners to help hit the 30-Patron Goal on Patreon and offered, as a reward, to approach and invite a Tabletop Roleplaying Luminary onto the show for an interview. We are incredibly blessed today to have a second such interview: following on from last week’s interview with Steve Jackson, I was basically greedy enough to ask for permission to speak to t...

In January 2020, I had a call in from the legendary podcaster and game designer, Ray Otus, of Plundergrounds fame. It was in response to an episode I had made about the Eight Engagements of games. He made a mention of wondering how the Eight Engagements connected to the idea of Simulationism. Just a couple of weeks ago, Spencer from Keep Off The Borderlands podcast, called in with a response to so...

The  Roleplay Rescue Dungeon Master’s Diary is the Wednesday bonus episode and features me, a microphone, and whatever gaming-related nonsense flows from my mind. This is recorded in short snippets throughout the week and then roughly edited together to form a diary of one man’s  journey in gaming, shared week-by-week. The DM’s Diary is raw, glaringly personal, and not for the faint-hear...

The Roleplay Rescue Dungeon Master’s Diary is the Wednesday bonus episode and features me, a microphone, and whatever gaming-related nonsense flows from my mind. This is recorded in short snippets throughout the week and then roughly edited together to form a diary of one man’s journey in gaming, shared week-by-week. The DM’s Diary is raw, glaringly personal, and not for the faint-hearted. Here's...

At the tail end of Season 5, I invited listeners to help hit the 30-Patron Goal on Patreon and offered, as a reward, to approach and invite a Tabletop Roleplaying Luminary onto the show for an interview. Today's guest is Steve Jackson, the founder and President of Steve Jackson Games, who was the first and loudest request from the Patrons. Well-known games he created include OGRE, The Fantasy Trip...

Roleplay Rescue Season 6 goes off half-cocked as I get back to the mic. In the face of the Covid-19 lock-down, not only here in the UK but across the world, I've decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, stop making excuses for not being creative, and put something out. This episode contains lots of call-ins from listeners, a brief outline of the plan for Season 6, mention of what's been happening...

Are you someone who used to play roleplaying games, like Dungeons & Dragons, back in the day? Why’d you stop? Did life get too busy for that sort of thing? This is Roleplay Rescue - the podcast about rediscovering your lost roleplaying hobby. Host Che Webster introduces the purpose and approach of the show as it enters its Sixth Season. What's Roleplay Rescue about? Come and find out more! Rolepla...

This is the end. Season Five crashes to a halt in the face of overwhelming odds. That said, I've got a confession to make and a question to ask. Tune in to find out what my crazy brain is suggesting now. Thanks to all the callers in this episode: Jason, Andy, Colin, John, Lieren, David, Menion, and Pandion Knight. Your contributions make this a much better show! Thank you! Roleplay Rescue Theme So...

This is the last DM's Diary of Season 5. There's some lovely call-ins from Juho and Evil Jeff - thanks, guys - and then we plunge into what turned out to be a very challenging week. If you want to keep up-to-date between Seasons, subscribe via Patreon because I do post bonus DM Diary content there. Thanks to everyone for listening and, please, stay safe out there! Dear Diary Theme Song and inciden...

Today’s episode arose from another one of those moments in which I couldn’t keep the passion of the topic inside any longer. It was also triggered by some pretty disparate experiences in my own gaming coalescing into a moment of clarity. Thus, although I am hoping that clarity can be transmitted during this episode, you’ll have to be the judge on whether I manage to pull it off.  Thanks to al...

This one's a treasure-trove of lovely call-ins mixed with the usual snippets from the DM's Diary. As ever, it's unashamedly personal, raw, and poorly edited. Massive thanks to the callers - Spencer, Colin, Lieren, Jason, and Andy! It's a good-un! Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon: patreon.com/TJD Contact Details: Voice Message: anchor.fm/rpgrescue/message Email: hello@rpgres...

This week’s episode is about my sudden return to the Fifth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons and the profound impact this has had on me over the past week and a half. I also want to take the time to share a whole bunch of great call-ins that I’ve received, most of which are in praise of episode 518 in which Andy Goodman and I shared a deep conversation about the Fear and Freedom of Improvisation....

This week is an unusually energetic blast through my thoughts on narrative, description, what happened at the school club, D&D5e, what's going on in my Traveller gaming, and how Dolmenwood is going. As usual, it's a raw and largely unedited collection of random thoughts collected through the week and assembled into a rough diary. Take from it what you will - but it's pretty candid and personal...

This week I’ve been thinking an awful lot about what it means to be a Referee - or Game Master, Dungeon Master, Storyteller, whatever - running your own game. With our theme of getting back to the table firmly in mind, I sat down to jot out a list of the key Referee Tools that I would seek to bring to the table for almost any game I run. I am not necessarily good at remembering to assemble these i...

This week was half-term for me and I was off work with my wife. We spent a fair bit of time zipping out to nice places and in-between I got to do some travelling myself. Alone. Fabulous call-ins included. Many thanks to Andy Goodman, Goblin's Henchman, Rob C, and Menion for taking the time to shoot me a message. Game on! Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon: patreon.com/TJD Con...

Following on from recent thoughts on questions surrounding the role of story and narrative in tabletop roleplaying games, I hopped online to chat with fellow Anchor podcaster, Andy Goodman from Expedition to The Grizzley Peaks. We had a fairly unstructured natter about the role of emergent play, improvisation, and prepared narrative structure in gaming. It was a very illuminating conversation. Tha...

This was the week I ran my first-ever game of Old-School Essentials in Dolmenwood. Call-ins from Jason, ShandyAndy, and Menion kick us off and then we dive through the past week's DM's Diary entries. It all culminates in the outcomes from Dolmenwood and a new project for Traveller entering my consciousness. Remember: this is the DM's Diary so it's raw, uncut, and meandering.  Enter at your ow...

Catching up on my DM's Diary, this episode brings you through to about the turn of the month in February 2020. Lovely call-ins from Goblin's Henchman, John Alan Large, Josh Beckelhimer, and Menion aka Rob. Thanks to all of them!  Remember: this is the DM's Diary so it's raw, uncut, and meandering. Enter at your own risk! Game on!  Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon:...

What if roleplaying games aren’t about storytelling? What if we stop thinking about our games as collaborative attempts to create coherent narratives? What if, after all, we consider that RPGs are - at their roots - actually just games?  I’ve been thinking a lot about the assumptions that we tend to have about roleplaying games. There is one particular oft-repeated phrase that has long niggle...

This has been a tough week with a lot going on. I've been essentially bed-bound for several days, but I have had a lot of time to read and think in the hours during which I wasn't asleep. There is a kind of wondrous freedom in that, despite the fact that I can skant remember a time when I have been more ill. Well, that seems to be coming to an end. I am grateful for my immune system and the wisdom...

This is a very special and yet highly experimental episode: Josh Beckelhimer, from JB Publishing, emailed in an extended audio response to Dungeon Master's Diary #22. At the end of that episode, I had asked for help in relation to Sword & Wizardry as a game system and Josh responded. It's a heartfelt and, frankly, amazing testimony to the S&W game system and its designer, Matt Finch. I fel...

Everything has changed inside about 40 hours or so. Hear my reaction to Gavin Norman's invitation to playtest the Dolmenwood Player's Guide, how this has catalysed a whole host of insights and emotions, and what I have decided to do. This is either one of the biggest breakthroughs in my gaming or the most rash decision from the World's Flakiest Dungeon Master. Time will tell. Be warned - this is v...

This week has been foul: the UK exited the European Union, I went down with a nasty bout of a flu-like illness, and I had a lot of time to think. Is it time to finally transcend my current hobby expectations and try Swords & Wizardry? You tell me. Game on! Thanks to Frank T and Andy G for the call-ins! Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon: patreon.com/TJD Contact Details: V...

This one's a rather fabulous chat I had with fellow Anchorite podcaster, Dave Aldridge about the issues around using RPGs in education. He's a lecturer at a prestigious British university and I'm a classroom teacher in a mainstream UK high school. It seems Dave has some misgivings about using RPGs in the educational setting which led me to engage him in a deeper conversation about those issues. It...

This was the week in which I prepped for the Traveller "High and Dry" scenario, talked to the school club kids about one-shots, figured out how I would run a science-fiction Open Table, and found out that the Satanic Panic is back. It's an emotional roller-coaster made all the better by call-ins from ShandyAndy, Jason Connerley, and Colin Spikepit. Enter at your own risk! Game on. Dear Diary Theme...