Table Talk - A D&D Podcast

The season finale of Table Talk! In celebration of almost 24 hours of content, join Maddi and Robert as they play through Table Talk’s first official actual play- The Spire and the Scab by Jasmine Bhullar. Robert DM’s the tale and the DMPC Ybba , the goliath fighter as Maddi plays the puzzle solving Sparrow , a tiefling sorcerer. Full of chaos, four nat ones in a row, cheese, and some interesting...

Does your DM take a sick and twisted pleasure in killing characters? Maddi’s does! (A little, at least). How do you deal with character death, from both the DM’s and player’s perspective? What do you even define as death in D&D? A fun little episode for heavy topics, including unsatisfying character deaths, sunsetting characters and the concept of schrodinger's encounters.

What makes the big difference between y our campaigns and Critical Role ? Production value? Years of experience? Talent? None of the above. It’s the power of friendship! No seriously, join us for a conversation all about approaching one of the most terrifying parts of role play: kissing the other players. Pull a seat up to the table as we go in depth about the lack of relationships at our own tabl...

AI. Thoughts? We have plenty. Maddi and Robert have a conversation from two different ends of the spectrum : welcoming our AI overlords in with welcome arms and waiting for AI with a sniper rifle trained on it. From where AI fits in at the table to the recent strikes from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, we dissect and debate Artificial Intelligence and it’s future in our world.

Do you ever rank moments you’ve had at the table in your head? Are there moments that keep you up at night in real life? Join us as we share ours and draft our best and worst moments from each of the campaigns we’ve played together.

Have you ever wanted to throw a stick of deodorant at another player? What about the sourcebook when a player says they know more than THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE STORY??? Join us at the table as we talk all things pet peeves, both as a player and a dm. Using some too true to life examples from our own adventures at the table, we dig deep into the things other people do that just piss us off . From p...

Loki, Darth Vader, Sauron, and… Robert ? BBEG’s and villains are the backbone (and bane) of many a D&D campaign- so how do you make a good one? Join us as we walk through the different archetypes of villains, talk tropes, and most of all: how to make every player at your table hate the villain so much they do the unthinkable: work together.

From scratch or from Wal-mart? As the most recent host for our friends-giving, we can confirm it is a delicate balance . How far can you go when making your own make-believe world? Does every twig have a backstory? Do the ants have social-security numbers? Or are you buying a 200 page source book and stretching that as far as it can go? Join us as we talk making stat blocks, the basis for every gr...

Fantasy racism. Thoughts? We share ours! Join us for an episode all about ethics at the table as a DM and as a player. How does a DM broach sexism and discrimination in a make believe universe? Negotiating players who want shopping episodes and a DM who wants blood, guts and glory ? How do you DM ethically so that everyone walks away with acceptable trauma? Is it okay to lie about dice rolls? And...

Ah, the scariest part of DnD: role playing . How do you act like an elven ranger at a table full of friends or strangers without looking and feeling like a total dumbass? How do you stay in character when your PC is so different from you? How the fuck do you even do voices?? All questions will be answered, rest assured, as well as rants about Bean Soup on Tik Tok, how to navigate metagaming, and h...

Join us for our 10th episode AND our longest episode yet...again! A whopping 2 hours , we spend the first half talking about how to select those fancy spells for Madison's make-believe spell caster, Sparro w! After she's done telling you about her all time favorite spells, listen in to the second half all about everyones favorite cathartic exercise, combat! Ybba and Sparrow go on the hunt for some...

Talking about something we want to for once, listen in as we start a new series all about our previous campaigns: Tales from the Inn! First up is our first ever campaign together, The World Serpent's Inn . Can you guess where the series title came from? Join us as we do a deep and off-the-rails dive into part 1 of the most convoluted campaign. Ever. With twists worse than M. Night Shyamalan and ba...

Part two of character sheets! Join us as Robert takes the lead on character building as we make a Goliath fighter inspired by Abby from The Last of Us - Part Two . We also talk about flavor and how to deviate characters from their original counterparts to play in your game. Like last time, pull up a character sheet and play along or click here to follow along with us!

Join us for the long awaited character sheet creation episode! Well, part one, anyway. Bearing through technical difficulties (Maddi’s mic breaking in the middle of the episode), join us as we walk you through making a character in real time as we build Sparrow, a wild magic sorcerer tiefling! Pull up your own character sheet and join along, or, click the link here to look at ours and follow along...

Everyone’s favorite topic: failure. What happens when you roll a nat one at the wrong time? How do you keep from getting mad at the table? What happens when you accidentally kill your BBEG halfway into the campaign? Join for an episode all about failing forward (cringe, I know), our relationships with failure at the table, and a few highlights from one of our own games where we ate shit. Hard.

In the fifth session of Table Talk, join us at the table as we talk flavor and all the fun ways to turn your character from an extra in Baldur's Gate to a Lord of Waterdeep. All that to say in this episode, we officially hit part three of our series on character creation and cover everything background. Sit down and listen for an hours worth of families dying in tragic fires and of course, how not...

In the fourth session of Table Talk, join us at the table to talk everything classes, from clerics to...rangers. This time around, we somehow have and even LARGER episode of you all, coming in at just under 2 hours . I know. Listen in as we give an " in-depth " breakdown of the core classes, minus most sub-classes, and the various features your pact-making warlock has to the extra attack the samur...

In the third session of Table Talk, join us at the table as we attempt to cover the behemoth topic that is: Character Creation. Having gone way over per usual, we just barley make it through all of our races, not including every. single. sub race. Listen in as we give an " in-depth " breakdown of the core races like humans ...elves, and dwarves, to a few guest races like the angelic Aasimair and t...

In the second session of Table Talk, dive into the terrifying waters of worldbuilding, and ask the question: how does your DM sift through all that information to make a world that rivals Tolkien? Join us as we talk about stealing anime plots lines, acknowledging that you're not Christopher Nolan, the Barbie movie, how to make a world that fits your PC's and learn that sometimes, it's okay to just...

In the first proper session of Table Talk, we tackle what exactly DnD is , and answer the age old question: what is a TTRPG anyway? Join us as we talk about where and how to get into your first game of D&D, our favorite actual plays (shoutout Dimension 20), and talk about places where you could happen to find sourcebooks at affordable prices.

Our pilot session! A laid back, formatless session where we introduce ourselves (and our podcast) to you. Prepare for a winding conversation that takes many sidequests, from how our backgrounds drew us to DnD, some of our favorite moment’s we’ve had at the table, companies calling the Pinkertons, and how Stranger Things single handedly saved Robert’s favorite hobby.

Table Talk is a passion project hosted by two sides of the TTRPG table: Maddi Conway (she/her), the player, and Robert Lopez (he/him), the Game Master. Whether you’ve never rolled a D20 before or have DM’d for twelve straight campaigns, Table Talk welcomes you in. From Dungeons and Dragons to Kids on Bikes, the two tackle topics ranging from character creation, to dealing with that player at the t...