Roleplay Rescue

I’ve sat on the conversation that you’re about to hear for far too long. Back in late September, I hopped online for a conversation with Augury Ignored - the voice behind the Augury Ignored blog. Thomas - for that is his actual name - reached out across Mastodon and we hopped online to chat. It was a first time conversation between gaming strangers but it was a hugely influential chat for me. With...

The barriers to finding face-to-face community are many. But this was the very problem I began the whole podcast to resolve and, weirdly, find myself right back where I began. I want to face this challenge full on and see what actions I can take. This is pretty personal but I hope you'll find it useful nonetheless. Thank you to all the callers this week - to Infinity Devil for helping inspire the...

On the 28th November 2018, the eight minute and 14 second episode zero of Roleplay Rescue was aired. Now, as we reach the 5th anniversary of that fateful episode, I’m wondering… has it been worth it? What have I learned? And is it mission accomplished? I mean… has anyone’s roleplaying been rescued? Big thanks to the callers today - Jason, Hobbs, Spencer, Jean-Francois, Carl, Matt, and Jon. Please...

Draw a quick regional map on hexed paper. Grab the rules from an old roleplaying game. Sit down with some friends and begin to play. Is it really that simple to start a fantasy roleplaying campaign? Today, I want to share some of the things I’ve experienced and what these moments have taught me about being a fantasy RPG GM. Big thanks to the callers today - Andrew, Jason, Anthony aka Runeslinger,...

YUMDM is the creator of the d12 Monthly ‘zine which started in mid-2021 and has grown from a humble 8-pages to - in September 2023 - 27 issues at a whopping 28-pages! Hailing from Australia, Russ has been roleplaying for 30+ years and allegedly played his first game as Tasslehoff in a Dragonlance module. He has been creating his own campaign world since 2019 and has seen it grow and develop i...

Alex Macris is the lead designer for the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System, an old-school fantasy RPG designed to support campaign play. He’s the founder of Autarch LLC, a game design studio from Durham in North Carolina, USA which publishes ACKS and several other titles. Alex is also an entrepreneur and the author of “Arbiter of Worlds”, a primer for Gamemasters - as well as having made a h...

What’s going on with the school Roleplay Club? Why would you even run such a thing? What are the best steps in getting started? Today, I want to take you through the story of the first two weeks of the School Club project and outline the progress, but also the pains, of getting myself back in front of teens gamers. I’ve even grabbed two short clips from the GM’s Journal - recorded immediately afte...

What do you do when you know you used to enjoy playing RPGs but the whole thing has, frankly, become a chore? How do you move forward when the reality is that you are anxious about GMing the next session and you have bailed more times than you run the game?  This season is shifting to a bi-weekly format and I hope that listeners will understand. This season I’m going to work on presenting the...

This episode is the final one for this season - no, really - and it’s my pleasure to bring you a conversation about a significant new book for the RPG scene. Justin Alexander is a freelance writer and the author of the grand repository of ideas that is The Alexandrian. This is an interview with Justin about his forthcoming book, released in November 2023, "So You Want To Be A Game Master". Big tha...

The last episode was supposed to be the final one for this season but, well, then I got a whole barrage of messages and call-ins from you, the listeners. It seems a shame not to share them in one last hurrah of community positivity and thoughtfulness. So… here we are. Big thank you, once again, to Frank, Brian, Anthony, Jason, John, Barry, Jean-Francois, Hobbs, and James for all of their call-ins!...

This episode is the final one for this season, another of the extended conversations I’ve shared with gaming friends over recent weeks. It was largely unplanned as I hopped online to talk and discuss some key ideas with my guest.  Jason Connerley is the voice behind the Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast podcast and a regular caller to several Anchorite shows, including this one. Jason started gaming ar...

This one’s a chat about FKR - Free Kreigspiel Roleplaying - with someone I am only beginning to get to know but who has also been so generous with their time that I feel deeply appreciative of and in debt to. The episode is the penultimate one for this season, another of the extended conversations I’ve shared with gaming friends over recent weeks. It was largely unplanned and is really just that -...

So, yes, I want to be a Game Master. And I want to become a good Game Master. I’m ready to learn and I’m willing to put myself into the space of running a game for my friends. Where do I start? This episode is being put together on Day One of my Apprenticeship as a GM. I’m sharing it partly so that I can externalise and understand where I am going - it helps to explain my rationale and direction....

This episode is basically a call-in show with lots of messages interspersed with my thoughts in response. It’s unscripted and probably a little rougher around the edges… but I would encourage you to stick around and listen because this collection of messages from the community has been some of the most insightful stuff in all my years of podcasting. Big thanks up front to the callers - Simon, Wieb...

What does the phrase “Game Master” mean? It is simply a synonym for other labels we stick on the poor soul who organises and runs a traditional tabletop roleplaying game, or might it have deeper meaning? And if we wanted to master our craft, how would we begin? This episode is about the idea of mastery and the fear which arises whenever one speaks about attaining such status. Of the sense of inade...

This episode is the third extended conversation I’ve shared with some gaming friends over recent weeks. The conversation was unplanned and is really just that - hopping online to talk and discuss some key ideas with my guest. Daniel Jones is the originator of the term Otherworld-immersion and a published author, game designer, philosopher, podcaster, and the man behind the Eudaimonic Geekery blog....

Today’s episode is a Transition - a shift from one place towards another, the ending of one chapter and the opening of another. In part, this is a reflection upon the journey so far. It’s also a reorientation towards what I want for my future with roleplaying games. But the episode is also a sharing, both of my own thoughts and ideas but also those from the community which have gathered over the p...

Hello Rescuers! Here's a early-access bonus for the Swordbearers which will become open to all Patrons prior to general release as a bonus episode on Roleplay Rescue. Roleplay Rescue’s Solo Tales is a podcast recounting the solo tabletop roleplaying adventures played by me. The core of the game is being played with Basic Roleplaying by the Chaosium and the Mythic GM Emulator Deck. There are adult...

Today is the second of two extended conversations I’ve shared with some gaming luminaries over the course of a week, focused on answering some practical questions around the barriers I have long experienced in running consistent campaigns. These conversations were largely unplanned and are really just that - hopping online to talk and discuss some key ideas with my guest.  This second convers...

Today is the first of two extended conversations I’ve shared with some gaming luminaries over the course of a week focused on answering some practical questions around the barriers I have long experienced in running consistent campaigns. These conversations were largely unplanned and are really just that - hopping online to talk and discuss some key ideas with my guest. The first conversation was...

Newfound clarity has given birth to some confidence and a much greater sense of my preferences in gaming. The last few weeks have seen seismic shifts in my sense of wellbeing alongside a growing sense of who I am as a GM. As with much of Roleplay Rescue, there is a sense that in sharing my own journey back towards the roleplaying I enjoyed so much as a young man, perhaps there is also an invitatio...

Today I have another of my conversations with a friend within the roleplaying games community. This episode we dipped into talking about sparking creativity with younger students of varying ages - a comparison between my guest’s creative writing courses that utilise roleplaying games and my own school-based RPG club for teens. My guest today is Runeslinger - Anthony Boyd - the creator of Cast...

Hello Rescuers! Here's another bonus - the third episode of Roleplay Rescue's Solo Tales! This episode picks up where that one left off. Because this is a personal solo game, I’m going to be using a variety of tools and methods to create a game that I enjoy. In other words, while I am sharing the game in the hope of inspiring others to try solo play, I am also very much playing the game for my own...

Having realised that I’ve been chasing my tail for the past 40 or so years in accepting a very simple misunderstanding as truth, the past couple of weeks have been an enriching and enjoyable period. While work and other commitments still limit my time to engage in play, the times when I do sit down to roleplay have been increasingly rich and enjoyable.  The mission of the podcast has always b...

What if you didn’t need anything more to have the best games of your life? What if you didn’t need another product, another tool, or another set of rules? What if everything you really need to have a cracking session, whether with your friend or online, was already in reach? Today’s episode is inspired by my recent reading of Jamie Smart’s hugely interesting book, “Clarity” - the second edition of...