The Goblins and Growlers Podcast

We finally get a chance to talk about Wizards of the Coast's new 5E Planescape release. It's snazzy as "box set"-style releases go these days, but is it worth your gold if you're looking for something new and different?  What do you think of the new Planescape release? Let us know in our Discord ! SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER (Indie game recommendations, TTRPG news, podcast updates) https://...

Following long on the heels of our massively successful "Unpopular Dungeons & Dragons Opinions" episode, we're back with "Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2." We once again have solicited some controversial and curmudgeonly thoughts on the state of Wizards of the Coast's TTPRG crown jewel. Do you have some unpopular opinions about D&D? Drop 'em in our Discord -- if we get enough, we'll do a...

And now for something completely different. For our Halloween-week release, The Goblins and Growlers Players present the haunting tale of... The Machine! " The Machine " is "A serial journal roleplaying game for as many players as you wish by  Adira Slattery  and  Fen Slattery . Gameplay happens across days, weeks, or even months. Only one person plays this game at a time, but many people play it...

This week we take a look at Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. It's The Lost Mines of Phandelver plus, essentially, an extra adventure. Is this a full adventure or just half of one since the first part of it (more or less) was released as part of the original Starter Set? And how does that look coming right after Wizards of the Coast raised the price of the physical Dungeons & Dragon...

A mere 2 weeks and change after its release, the GGP boys are talking about Bigby's Glory of the Giants.   Topics include but are not limited to: What's in the book? Is the $60 price tag justified? The AI art debacle that occurred shortly before release. AI in general. Having book content call on another (non-standard) book's content. And more!  SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER https://goblinsan...

We all get tired of D&D (or Pathfinder or Other Gaming Systems Are Available) eventually, so this week we're touching base on some cool indie games available (mostly) on itch.io. It's a mix of high-concept, interpretations of other systems, and tossed salad and scrambled eggs. We'll be callin' again in two weeks with scrambled eggs all over our face. SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER https://...

At the recent Queen City Anime Con, we were fortunate enough to meet Ash (they/them) who, by pure coincidence, happened to be as big a fan of animatronic children's entertainment pizza robots as Brandon. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we got them on the podcast to chat about Nolan Bushnell, Pizza Time Theatre, Showbiz Pizza, Rock-a-Fire Explosion, and Charles Entertainment Cheese...

Gather round and I'll tell you a story from long ago. Way back in the 1970s and 80s, if you wanted an interactive game that didn't require other people, you were basically out of luck. Fortunately, there was an option for those of us whiling away our elementary school days: The Choose Your Own Adventure books. These books had stories with branching paths that sometimes went is *extremely* weird di...

This week, we divided and conquered to cover a couple of excellent 5e-compatible setting books from writer and illustrator Andrew Kolb. Josh decided there was no place like Kolb's "Oz" setting , while Brandon refused to grow up and talked about " Neverland ." They have lore, unique stat blocks, maps, and tables - oh so many tables.  I would have liked to write more for these show notes, but I have...

You'll hear on the intro why we had to pull this one out, but this is an interview we've been holding back for a while in case of a rainy day. That day has come. A good while back, Brandon interviewed Jason Michal, author of the upcoming "Questing for Glory," about his book. It's the definitive history of the "Quest for Glory" computer game series from the 90s which he's writing in collaboration w...

Bad news for this week, GGPeeps, technical issues have taken our ability to release an episode. We'll be back in 2 weeks right as rain! SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER https://goblinsandgrowlers.beehiiv.com/subscribe JOIN 800+ GOBLINS ON OUR DISCORD http://bit.ly/goblindiscord Catch you all next episode! LISTEN, RATE, AND SUBSCRIBE! If you like the show, please tell a friend about it. And if yo...

In this week's episode, we discuss the D&D Movie Honor Among Thieves (because we're very timely with these things), the chapter 7 bankruptcy filing of Ernie Gygax and Justin LaNasa's TSR, and finally a reflexive C&D issued by Renegade Game Studios to The Polyhedral Knights over the title of their Kickstarter project Renegade City. If you haven't reviewed us yet, take a minute to do so! If you have...

I'll share something with you all. The edit on this episode has been done for a couple of days but it's only now, late on Sunday night, that I'm finally uploading it, scheduling it, and writing the show notes. I'd love to be able to translate this into a personal lesson on time management, but I truly believe we'll find ourselves in this scenario again in two weeks. ANYWAY. In this week's episode,...

It's a news roundup this week. Fresh off the heels of sending Pinkertons to hassle someone with pre-release Magic cards, Wizards of the Coast is upping the price of their D&D books! Fortunately, though, Kobold Press' "Tales of the Valiant" Kickstarter launched and it's already clocking in at more than $750,000, so you'll have options if you want to play some mainstream TTRPGs even if you bail on D...

This week we had the treat of an interview with Collyn Messier, the lead rules designer for Nations & Cannons, a new Revolutionary War setting for Fifth Edition. Because of a comedy of errors, it took about five months to schedule this interview and, unfortunately, we weren't able to publish it until just *after* their (highly successful) Kickstarter ended -- but the upside is that you can still p...

It’s a news roundup this week on the Goblins and Growlers Podcast! We’ve got a few nuggets from Wizards of the Coast (including that Pinkerton situation with the pre-release Magic: The Gathering Cards) and a Pathfinder update along with some interesting news from smaller and indie publishers, including a fantastic Kickstarter for a fishing “DLC” for your 5e game. Also! We have a big Spring Sale go...

Episode Introduction  Large Language Model AIs like ChatGPT and Bard are revolutionizing the way we create content in basically all sectors of business. We're back for part 2 of our discussion on the responsible use of AI tools for gamemastering and overall content creation for your tabletop games.  How are you planning to use this tool, and what are your thoughts on the ethics of using AI-generat...

Episode Introduction  The internet is abuzz with a variety of different ways to use Large Language Model AIs such as Chat-GPT and Bard. Today our hosts and special guest are going to discuss what the hell "Large Language Model AI" even means, how it's currently used, and how you might use it (ethically!!) to generate content for your at-home TTRPG adventures. Brandon shares some prompting tips, Te...

Episode Introduction First things first: We've launched a new monthly newsletter, the Goblins and Growlers Gazette. Here are your key takeaways: It's got some TTRPG news, indie game recommendations, and some hot takes from our podcasts and elsewhere. Also, showing us you're subscribed will get you 10 percent off our booth merchandise at conventions. It's a quick read and a way for all of us to sta...

Episode Introduction Is the mere depiction of enslavement enough to classify an entire Dungeons & Dragons setting as problematic? Maybe. Recently there was some low-grade Twitter fire about D&D's "Dark Sun" setting, a fan-favorite from the Second Edition era. The setting is known for being D&D on hard mode -- a mostly barren planet ruled by draconic sorcerer kings who revel in oppression, enslavem...

Episode Introduction Wizards of the Coast, D&D and the 5e SRD have been dominating the news lately. The whole situation has gotten people talking and thinking a lot more about cool indie games that shouldn't be overlooked. To get away from the 800-pound gorilla that is Dungeons and Dragons, Josh and Brandon picked out a few cool indie games from itch.io . One's about ghosts and another is about de...

Episode Introduction Important stuff happening once again! Thanks to intense community backlash, Wizards of the Coast has changed their mind about creating a new, uber-draconian Open Gaming License designed to take the money of the hard-working third-party publishers who've been popularizing D&D since Fifth Edition came out. They've gone a step further than a lot of us were expecting by releasing...

Episode Introduction Well, a lot certainly happened while we were gone. All anyone's talking about is Wizards of the Coast trying to roll out the new Open Gaming License and, presumably, put a lot of third-party publishers out of business with the royalty clauses et al. We invited attorney Noah Downs (@MyLawyerFriend pretty much everywhere) to talk through all the legal issues here, read between t...

Episode Introduction Welcome to the first-annual Geepers Awards! With 2022 being our first full-year of The Goblins and Growlers Podcast, we decided to take a spin through the last 12 months and touch on each episode from the year. We blitz down the episode list and discuss our favorite and least-favorite topics, guests, and product reviews. At the end of the episode we vote on our favorites and s...

Episode Introduction Goblins and Growlers recently resumed regular gaming events in Richmond after more than two years dealing with fits and starts depending on COVID numbers. We've always written our own, original adventures for these games, so starting up games again meant having to write some more original content.  Over the years, we learned not only how to write targeted adventures that laste...