The Jaunty Mantis TTRPG Podcast

We reviewed Troika! by Melsonian Arts Council once before — but we hadn't played it yet. Now we have. Does actually playing it change anything? (Yes. And no.) Jesse, Matty, and Chris dig into what it's actually like to sit down at the table with an acid fantasy OSR system, whether rules-light games are good for new players, and the eternal question: if story is all that matters, why try different...

A bull-bodied hero eats twenty people's worth of fondant in one fistful, and asks for one thing: a sausage. They're illegal in Troika. He's offering money.

Roll to ignore the cats. The tiger can tell you really want to pet it, so it's ignoring you harder. Part 7 of our Troika! one-shot on The Jaunty Mantis. The elevator gets four new passengers, the attendant makes an extremely poor choice, and a tiny knight in painted armor enters the party's life and never leaves. Cast Jesse as Gormer the Underbursar Matty as Darlo Tik'l Anna as Moth Chris as Game...

Gormer pulls a gas mask out of the door in his forehead. Moth's fashion sense becomes an Art Nouveau gas filter. A small egg-shaped man hustles them out of eleven silver. Part 6 of our Troika! one-shot on The Jaunty Mantis. The party rides the elevator up through floors none of them asked for, solving puzzles that didn't need to exist. Cast Jesse as Gormer the Underbursar Matty as Darlo Tik'l, Red...

Darlo rolls double sixes. The oops table opens. From there, things only get worse. Welcome to The Jaunty Mantis — a podcast of creative questions for curious gamers. This is Part 5 of our Troika! one-shot at the Blanc Mange & Thistle, where three strangers share a hotel room on the eve of the Feast of the Chiliark. In this episode: a demonic puddle on the stairwell, an experimental burning, an...

Moth picks a fight with an owl. Everyone else suffers the consequences. Plus: Darlo discovers his new favorite hobby, Gormer's combat strategy is "wave knife around hopefully," and the staircase ahead has a problem the party is not prepared for. The session-one finale of our Troika! Numinous Edition mini-campaign. Session 2 incoming. CAST - Jesse as Gormer the Underbursar (Sorcerer of the Academy...

A staircase mural of beaked figures, serrated keys, and a horde of screaming demons. Two knowledge rolls. Both fail. The party concludes everything is fine. Spoiler: it is not. Episode 3 of our Troika! Numinous Edition mini-campaign. SYSTEM - Troika! Numinous Edition by Daniel Sell, published by the Melsonian Arts Council. Buy the game: https://www.melsonia.com/ We are not affiliated with the Mels...

Darlo bonds with his new roommates the only way he can: by demanding the most inedible pickled vegetable on the menu and sharing it with them. Plus: a herbal beverage best described as "Jagermeister, but vodka," and a hotel festival that involves shooting fireworks at neighboring rooftops. Episode 2 of our Troika! Numinous Edition mini-campaign. CAST: Jesse as Gormer the Underbursar (Sorcerer of t...

A door-wizard with disastrous luck, a death-priest who'd rather be elsewhere, and a swamp-mystic with a mission walk into a hotel. It's the only room left. They're sharing it. Episode 1 of our Troika! Numinous Edition mini-campaign. Character creation, the first stat-roll catastrophe, and the most reluctant agreement to share a drink in podcast history. Jesse as Gormer the Underbursar (Sorcerer of...

We played a few sessions of Mothership and then immediately gathered around the microphone like a group of nervous space janitors who just opened the wrong airlock. In this episode of the Jaunty Mantis, we poke, prod, and lovingly scream about the sci-fi horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games.

Welcome to the Jaunty Mantis Mothership RPG Actual Play series! This is Part 2 and the chilling conclusion. Mothership is a sci-fi horror tabletop roleplaying game focused on survival, panic, and cosmic dread. Previously, the crew boarded a long-lost colony ship that vanished three centuries ago with 1,000 souls in cryosleep. Fired from a massive railgun and tasked with offering a corporate “reset...

Rich Ranallo of Signal Interruption drops in to run a series of Mothership sessions based on an adventure he’s bringing to publication.

Three expert GMs explore the craft of tabletop roleplaying—why rules feel good, why scenes work, and how stories land. Through casual conversation, creative experiments, and honest breakdowns, this podcast celebrates what makes the hobby special and helps you run better games.

Three expert GMs explore the craft of tabletop roleplaying—why rules feel good, why scenes work, and how stories land. Through casual conversation, creative experiments, and honest breakdowns, this podcast celebrates what makes the hobby special and helps you run better games.

Death and danger aren’t just threats in Dungeons & Dragons—they’re what give stories weight. In this episode of Jaunty Mantis, the gang digs into why real risk matters at the table, how rules and scenes create tension, and what makes RPG storytelling truly land. The Arcane Library article discussed on the episode: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/blogs/news/the-importance-of-danger-and-death-i...

Should you really never split the party? In this episode of Jaunty Mantis, Jesse and Chris dig into one of tabletop RPG’s oldest rules of thumb—and turn it on its head. From D&D and Vampire to Traveler and Powered by the Apocalypse, we talk about why splitting the party can actually improve pacing, roleplay, tension, and storytelling at your table. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

What do healthy, fun, and sustainable tabletop gaming goals actually look like in 2026? Jaunty Mantis here, this week we sit down to talk about our personal and shared TTRPG goals for the year ahead—as game masters, players, creators, and people who love this hobby but want to avoid burnout. From campaign pacing and storytelling priorities to how often we actually want to be at the table, we break...

Ending a tabletop RPG session can feel awkward, rushed, or flat—even when the rest of the game was great. So how should a session end? In this episode of The Jaunty Mantis, we unpack why session endings matter, why Game Masters are often overly self-critical, and how to end sessions in ways that build momentum instead of killing it. From cliffhangers and cutaways to ending mid-combat (on purpose),...

Why do we play tabletop roleplaying games? In this episode of Jaunty Mantis, we dive deep into the philosophy of RPGs—exploring power fantasy, collaborative storytelling, violence as conversation, rules vs. narrative, and why dice-driven games feel so different from novels, improv, or video games. Funny, thoughtful, occasionally unhinged, and deeply personal - heres what we cover: Whether RPGs are...

What happens when a player can’t make it—and the story needs them? In this episode of Jaunty Mantis, Jesse, Matty, and Chris tackle one of tabletop gaming’s most frustrating problems: last-minute absences. From running flashbacks and side games to stealing scenes, leaning into OSR one-shots, and even letting story beats happen without the missing player, the crew shares hard-earned advice, devilis...

Can a tabletop RPG ever be fully serious — or is humor baked into the DNA of playing with your friends? In this episode of Jaunty Mantis, Jesse, Matty, and Chris dive into a surprisingly complex question: Is humor an unavoidable part of tabletop role-playing games — or can you truly run a serious, emotionally resonant campaign? Drawing from decades of combined experience, the hosts explore how lau...

Cybernetic heartbreak, social disasters, noble nepo babies, improvised space romance, mishaps that should have been fatal, and the wild joy of letting dice determine your fate. The Jaunty Mantis crew spirals into utter chaos building Traveller RPG characters. Buckle up — it gets weird Welcome back to The Jaunty Mantis, the podcast with creative questions for curious gamers! In this episode, Jesse,...

Can an open table completely change the way you run RPGs? The Jaunty Mantis crew dives into The Alexandrian’s Open Table Manifesto to explore how it reshapes campaigns, players, and prep. In this episode of the Jaunty Mantis podcast, Jesse, Matty, and Chris unite to explore The Open Table Manifesto from thealexandrian.net , and how it can revolutionize the way we run tabletop RPGs. From rotating p...

Jaunty Mantis here — and today we’re tackling a massive 96 oz steak of an RPG. We read the entire Draw Steel book so you don’t have to. Is it genius? Is it too much? Let’s find out. Welcome back to The Jaunty Mantis — the show where insectoid fantasy creatures dissect tabletop RPGs with ungoverned cylinders and way too many analogies. In this episode, Jesse and Matty review MCDM’s Draw Steel, a ma...

What if I told you your tabletop RPG doesn’t need skills… or stats… or even weapon proficiencies? Today we commit a little RPG heresy—and ungovern the cylinder. The Jaunty Mantis returns with another episode of chaotic brilliance, high-level RPG design debate, and extremely questionable metaphors. Today, Jesse and Matty tackle a deceptively simple question: Do tabletop RPGs actually need their cor...