Roleplay Rescue

Quick bonus round-up of calls received from listeners in response to the Solo Sundays episode (903), plus a couple of straggler messages about dice. Good stuff and well worth the listen. Big thanks to the callers: Barry (aka GM Shadow), Jason C, Evil Jeff, Reese, and Karl R. Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Roleplay Rescue Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon. Voice Message: anchor.fm/rp...

Evil Jeff wants to know: "When are we going to hear about Webster’s style?"  It’s actually a little more complex - at least in MY head - than it might at first seem. What do I want from my fantasy roleplaying games? There are three basic elements that I need to consider and today I want to explore what is for me the most important of all: the World. Many thanks to Evil Jeff for calling in and...

Call-ins on the topic of dice have been coming in over the past week or two, plus a couple of great calls about scanning and ADHD. I thought I would share them along with my replies. Hope it's of interest. Big thanks to the callers: Goblin's Henchman, Jason C, Rob aka Menion, Spencer, and new caller Paul. Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Roleplay Rescue Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drenn...

Sometimes I feel like the proverbial Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, torn between two natures, two personalities, two ways of being.  I love roleplaying games. I have loved them ever since I was very small. And yet, because of these two seemingly opposed natures, I feel constantly conflicted.  How I can I reconcile these two characters within my one limited self? The answer, I believe, co...

Two changes in my life have opened up a larger-than-expected chunk of free time. I’ve been able to turn over some of that time to gaming… and, specifically, to solo tabletop gaming. How have I found the time and why, having found some time, would I not just schedule it for more social gaming? That’s what I wanted to address today. Thanks to Reese for the call-in that inspired the episode. Roleplay...

More call-ins have been coming in over the past week or two, so I thought I would share them along with my replies. Hope it's of interest to someone else out there too. Big thanks to the callers: Spencer, Karl, and Frank. Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Roleplay Rescue Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon. Voice Message: anchor.fm/rpgrescue/message Email: hello@rpgrescue.com Patreon: pa...

What is it with dice? Why do these small objects hold such a fascination for me? How can something as simple as a six-sided die have such an impact on how I think and feel? Today I want to talk about dice. I want to talk about dice because, for me, these are probably the single greatest mood enhancer that I know. When I am down - and that can be a pretty frequent emotional state for me - dice are...

There were a bunch of call-ins received at the tail end of Season 8 that I wanted to share. Some are sublime, others utterly ridiculous. Make of it what you will. Big thanks to the callers: Gav, Brian, and Frank.  Game on! Roleplay Rescue Details: Roleplay Rescue Theme Song and incidental music by TJ Drennon. Voice Message: anchor.fm/rpgrescue/message Email: hello@rpgrescue.com Patreon: patre...

I’ve arrived at a place of change and growth. I have recently turned 50 years of age and am beginning to wonder if I’ll ever become the Game Master, Referee, and Creative World Builder that I have been meaning to get around to becoming since I was about 10 years old. Having experienced a mental health crisis in November 2020, I have also had to learn to let go of old unhelpful patterns of thinking...

Hello. This is Roleplay Rescue - the podcast about rediscovering your lost roleplaying hobby. Welcome to the introduction to Season 9 - a great starting point for anyone new to the show. This short episode outlines the background of your host, Che, and gives a brief outline of what RPR is all about. I hope you'll consider giving the show a go and continue listening as we roll on in to a new season...

Hello Rescuers! Yes, I’m pleased to say that it’s another bonus interview episode. This one’s popping up during the Interregnum between seasons because… well… there’s an excellent Kickstarter opportunity that I wanted to make GURPS fans - and, actually, any fan of fantasy roleplaying - aware of… and it’s from Gaming Ballistic. Douglas H. Cole is the owner of Gaming Ballistic, the first licensed th...

It was Friday April 1st 2016 when my regular D&D group got together and, on a whim, decided to play “Red Box” D&D (BECMI). The weekend before, I’d been doodling around with that set and enjoyed myself enough to ask the guys to play the “First Adventure” with me. Little did I know that I was taking the first steps into a larger World - the classic fantasy realm of Mystamyr.  Today, I a...

Hailing from Portsmouth, Virginia, Christopher R. Rice is constantly writing, tinkering with, and running GURPS. A frequent contributor to Steve Jackson Games’ Dungeon Fantasy and Pyramid, if he's not writing for GURPS, he's blogging about it. His site “Ravens N' Pennies” is well-stocked with more GURPS goodies than you could shake a stick at. This episode was originally conceived as a bonus inter...

The Roleplay Rescue Dungeon Master’s Diary 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. It’s raw, glaringly personal, and not everyone’s cup of tea. This is a bonus episode of the DMD that I am sharing wi...

It's a call-in show! I had so many responses in recent weeks that the only way to share and respond to them was to put them together into their own show. Lots of good content from the community here and it's well worth the listen. Thanks to Evil Jeff, Jon C, Wolfchild, Gav, Menion (aka Rob), Colin, and Lieren for their kind call-ins this episode! Game on! "Roleplay Rescue" Theme and incidental mus...

I’ve been bothered lately by the perception I have developed that the roleplaying game community is dominated by negativity. For a while now, I’ve found myself increasingly repelled by that negativity and this has led to a massive downward shift in the quantity of blogs, podcasts, and other social media that I consume. In short, I hear and read a lot of tearing down. I’ve been wondering how to res...

Recently, I’ve been trying to finish a whole bunch of books that I’ve been reading but not quite managed to complete. One of these books was the latest tome from Dungeons & Dragons scholar Jon Peterson, “The Elusive Shift”. This book revealed a number of insights, not least of which was the simple truth that there really is no discussion or debate in which I have ever shared on the topic of ro...

Peter Laws is an ordained minister with a fascination for the macabre, an author, journalist, film critic, public speaker, and regular writer for Fortean Times. He is the creator of the Matt Hunter novel series and the host of the Creepy Cove Community Church podcast - an immersive, horror-themed ‘church service’, broadcast from the mysterious fishing town of Creepy Cove. Besides from horror, Pete...

Something strange has been happening over the past few weeks. I’ve been pushing the edges of my comfort zone and stepping out to see what kind of tabletop roleplaying experience lies outside of the rather narrow confines I had backed myself into. On a whim, I grabbed a copy of the Pathfinder 2nd edition Beginner Box and, well, I’ve been grubbing around with it ever since. This episode I want to sh...

Special bonus episode time! I hopped online to chat to my buddy Jason Hobbs about how mental health and roleplaying games mix. We enjoyed the chat and I felt it'd be good to share it... and quickly. Many thanks to Jason for coming back onto the show! We both hope that this bonus will help someone else out there. Game on! Hobbs & Friends: Hobbs & Friends – Tabletop RPG Podcast Hosted by Jas...

A third (and final) instalment of call-ins responding to Episode 2, "13 Game Master Rules", first released back on January 2nd. In Episode 2, I wanted to explore the Rules that I have - over a lifetime of gaming and roleplaying - constructed around the concept of being the Game Master. As I stated at the beginning of that episode, these Rules are all open to challenge and, in fact, are already und...

A second instalment of call-ins responding to Episode 2, "13 Game Master Rules", first released back on January 2nd. In Episode 2, I wanted to explore the Rules that I have - over a lifetime of gaming and roleplaying - constructed around the concept of being the Game Master. As I stated at the beginning of that episode, these Rules are all open to challenge and, in fact, are already undergoing cha...

Barney from Loco Ludus has been encouraging me to embrace the concept of the Manifesto as a means to discussing my new approach to gaming and I rather like that idea. To my mind, there will be two major parts to my Manifesto For Roleplay Gaming - the first being the principles, policies and intentions of the Game Master, and the second being the principles, policies and intentions of the Player. T...

Today is the first official call-in episode of Season 8 - by which I mean an episode constructed around the audio messages sent in from loyal listeners. In Episode 2, I wanted to explore the Rules that I have - over a lifetime of gaming and roleplaying - constructed around the concept of being the Game Master. As I stated at the beginning of that episode, these Rules are all open to challenge and,...

A journey into 2021 with the specific aim of approaching the question of how I might imagine my roleplaying hobby to develop this year. It’s a sketch of the possibilities and I am going to refrain from allowing the Worry to rise up and get in the way of the project: the goal, of course, is to give myself direction; to place myself upon the pathway towards better gaming; to imagine how I would like...