Undercommon Taste

This week, we're playing a one-shot of Cezar Capacle's solo-capable RPG Wraithound. Join us as we build a fantasy ghost hunter, walk him into a spooky mansion, and watch his attempts to identify and banish the spirits haunting the Cobblestone Chateau.  Wraithound is one of many excellent games designed by Cezar Capacle. You can find his work on Itch at capacle.itch.io ; Wraithound is currently on...

This week, we start our look at the dragons native to the Outer Planes with the Lawful Evil quadrant of D&D's Great Wheel cosmology.  Join us as we look at the dragons native to Acheron, Baator, Gehenna, and Hades, as well as the impressive Shadowdrakes living in the River Styx.   Our website is live! Head on over to  undercommontaste.com  to find links to all of our social media, streaming si...

This week, we're brainstorming and developing one-shot outlines inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, in preparation for a game at a library event celebrating the publication of The Hobbit (not Tolkien's birthday - sorry, got that bit of info wrong). Join us as we figure out how to put the Nazgul on Bikes, how to steal treasure from a dragon, and just how far we can stretch the trope of three k...

This week, we're celebrating our fifth anniversary (and Tarrasquemas) with Spencer Campbell's solo souls-like necromancer RPG, REAP. Join us as James reaps his way across the realm of Kyrie, Ian gets *most* of the rules right, and we find out if Petrov the Necromancer can defeat the Horror at the end of the game.   You can find REAP, and Spencer Campbell's many other games, through his website gil...

This week, we start looking at some of the dragons native to planes beyond the Material. Join us as we discuss dragons from the Feywild, the Underdark (okay, not TECHNICALLY another plane), and the Elemental and Paraelemental Planes.   Our website is live! Head on over to  undercommontaste.com  to find links to all of our social media, streaming sites, Patreon, Itch store, and Discord. Our theme s...

This week, Ian is recounting his adventure to the distant city of Indianapolis to be counted among the record 72,000 attendants of GenCon 2025. Join us as he gives a recap of the games he played, shows off the games he purchased, and poorly describes some game mechanics (I was tired, okay?).   Here's a list of the games mentioned this week, plus places where you can find them (if they aren't avail...

This week, we're taking a meme and making the framework for a TTRPG out of it. Join us as we discuss themes and mechanics, define some terms, and just generally have a good time figuring out how we might get our own booth at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.    Here's a link to the meme in question: https://imgur.com/wkK73kR     A large amount of the information I know regarding the 1893 World's Fair...

This week, we discuss the variety of undead dragons available in the D&D rulebooks. Join us as we discuss the mechanics of undeath with regards to dragons, create a dragon mummy, and revel in the terror from the 3.5e Fiend Folio that is the Hullathoin.   As mentioned in the episode, we discuss the dracolich at length in Episode 92, "Lich Please". Here is a link to that episode: https://www.pod...

This week, we take a look at the Module Maker Kit for One Shot in the Dark, the solo-capable game written by Jon from Tale of the Manticore. Join us as we assess the advice, play with the Mythic GM Emulator, and start our work creating a module for One Shot in the Dark. We forgot to mention it in the actual episode, but you can find all of Jon's work on DriveThruRPG ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/...

This week, we're turning back the clocks to look at some of the dragons from 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D which haven't been updated to 5E in official books. Join us as we discuss seven different types of dragons - each one interesting and, often, unreasonably deadly - that have been relegated to the annals of time.   Our website is live! Head on over to  undercommontaste.com  to find links to all...

This week, we welcome returning guest Clark (C.R.) Rowenson, who has come to discuss his new LitRPG novel Spawn Point. Join us as we discuss the his new book, the LitRPG genre as a whole, and some ways to adapt LitRPG into your tabletop games (and vice versa). You can preorder Spawn Point for Kindle here (Release date Oct. 24th, 2025): https://www.amazon.com/Spawn-Point-New-Eternity-Book-ebook/dp/...

This week, we make the best of our scheduling conflicts to talk about some of our favorite depictions of dragons in non-D&D media. Join us as we talk about some of our favorite dragons, what makes them different, and ways to change up how you run dragons in your game.   As noted, we had some scheduling conflicts come up and were unable to get our interview with C.R. Rowenson done in time for t...

This week, we return to our draconic conversation by visiting the third major dragon category - the gem dragons. Join us as we discuss these neutral, neurotic, and psionic dragons, plus how to incorporate dragons narratively into your game in a meaningful way.   The Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle is almost over! You still have until May 20th, 2025 to pick up this bundle, which you can find here: http...

This week, we're taking unconventional inspiration from the holiday season to discuss different ways to bring characters back from the dead. Join us as we talk about boons from otherworldly entities, reincarnation, reanimation, and what comes back when you call across the veil.   The Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle is also still ongoing, and it has reached its $20k goal! You still have until May 20th,...

This week, we're continuing our draconic conversation by discussing the metallic dragons. Join us as we talk about ways to play with the "physical vs. magical" nature of dragons, the evolution of metallic dragons through the editions, and some interesting ways to implement metallic dragons in your settings.   I mentioned a video by TikTok creator Felix in this episode. Here's a link to the video i...

This week, we're revisiting an aspect of a previous topic and talking about festivals. Join us as we discuss celebrations of all types, a food-eating contest minigame, and some ideas about how to implement these ideas in your home game.   As mentioned in the episode, we had another episode a little over a year ago where we talked about creating holidays for your game. There are multiple topics whi...

This week, we're fulfilling a promise from almost a year ago and starting our discussion about dragons. Join us as we briefly discuss D&D cosmology from a draconic perspective, followed by an analysis of the five primary chromatic dragon types - black, blue, green, red, and white - and some unconventional ways to incorporate them into your games.   The Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle is finally li...

This week, we're still talking about the economy, but not the monetary kind. Join us as we discuss different forms of player economy, from action economy in game design to how to prioritize which (and how many) aspects of gameplay you want to focus on with your players at the table.   As I mentioned in the insert at the beginning of the episode, we were invited by Eric and Matt to join them for Th...

This week, we're talking about economies. Join us as we discuss ways to use economy, currency, and wealth as worldbuilding tools.    The Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle is finally live! You can find it here: https://itch.io/b/2865/solo-but-not-alone-5   Here are a couple of bonus links for this week. First off, here's a link to YouTuber RamsesThePigeon's video about aluminum: https://www.youtube.com/w...

This week, we're taking a step back to discuss where we see the podcast now, four years in, and what we're planning to do in the future. Join us as we talk about why we're stepping away from making content specifically geared towards D&D, what we're going to do instead, and how we aim to get from Point A to Point B.   The Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle is finally live! We got word from Cat that t...

We're back in 2025! To kick off this year's episode lineup, we welcome back Cat from Peach Garden Games to discuss both the Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle and their Carta SRD (System Resource Document). The Carta SRD is a mechanical system designed to assist game developers with creating single-player RPGs powered by a humble deck of playing cards.  You can find Cat on BlueSky ( bsky.app/profile/catl...

This week, we're playing a holiday themed game of Kids on Bikes! Join us as we try to figure out how to play with Dr. Mary Crowell and Mike Daniel; our game may not be an ideal example of Kids on Bikes gameplay, but we sure had a whole lot of fun doing it.  This is our last episode for 2024. We'll be taking time off through the holidays, as we do every year, and will be back with new episodes in J...

This week, we're having a chat about Appalachia with our friend and West Virginia native Kelly West. Join us as we discuss the history and culture of Appalachia and some ways to incorporate it as a setting in your home games. Please excuse the quality of Kelly's audio. I cleaned it up as best I could, and hopefully the content of our conversation overrides any unpleasantness with the audio quality...

This week, we're talking about the Old Gods of Appalachia roleplaying game by Monte Cook Games. Join us as we discuss the inner workings of the Cypher system and how it has been modified to run games set in 1930s Appalachia.    To pick up a copy of OGoA, you can visit the Monte Cook website ( https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/old-gods-of-appalachia-roleplaying-game/ ), or check your loc...

This week, we're taking a break from our regular episodes for a one-shot game of The Lost Bay. Join us as we try to find our way through the darkness and out of the mall. Special thanks to Kris for writing and running the adventure, and to Danny for coming on to play with us. Kris didn't have any media links he wanted to provide, but Danny can be found with the handle @dannyrmendoza on Twitter and...