Roleplay Rescue

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...

Three major call-ins from three top Rescuers allow me to talk you through three very neat ideas. What's a Game Structure and why should you care? Can you run a module on the fly? How can we find non-5e gamers in an age of D&D5e? All worthy questions tackled off-the-cuff and (hopefully) with good humour. It must be another episode of Roleplay Rescue. Game on! The Alexandrian on Game Structures:...

Another collection of top-notch call-ins followed by my rough and ready DM's Diary entries. Thanks to all of the callers! As ever, you guys make my show better. This one has had one entry removed due to time and you can find it over on my Patreon very soon. I hope you find something useful and thanks for taking the time to listen to my ramblings. Game on! Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music...

Catching up on a host of great call-ins makes this episode slightly longer than I usually prefer... but it's good stuff from the community and definitely overdue. Following the first 15 mins or so of call-ins, I dive into a discussion around the question of whether it's better to be a Roleplayer or a Rollplayer. I've being hearing this dichotomy talked about in several places lately, so I decided...

Squeezing in as many of the fantastic call-in that I can within my self-imposed 25-35 minute episode length, there are still more to come. Thanks to everyone who called in and sorry that my responses are a little brief. This episode I go back to work, get snubbed by teenagers, delve into Star Trek Adventures, and we find out what lay beyond The Iron Door in Thaarl. Game on! Dear Diary Theme Song a...

Brilliant interview with Necrotic Gnome's Gavin Norman, the creator of the Old School Essentials RPG! This one has some announcements about projects coming through 2020 and there's a major scoop about the "big project" of the year. If you want to skip to the "what's next" question, you'll find that at about 34:33. Massive thanks to Gavin for giving me an hour and sharing the latest in the world of...

Catching up on the New Year diary entries, this one is short and (hopefully) sweet. A collection of musings over the period from 1st-3rd January. This also resets the DM's Diary back to running from Saturday to Saturday so that we can have but one episode per week again. Hope you enjoy! Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon: patreon.com/TJD Contact Details: Voice Message: anchor...

This was not an easy episode to put together. Key diary entries running up to and including New Year's Eve are prefaced with responses to DM's Diary #16. I've tried to be honest and respond to people's comments / questions with openness. That said, I fear that what I say will be (once again) misunderstood. But , hey, publish and be damned, eh? Game on! Dear Diary Theme Song and incidental music by...