Role Playing Public Radio

Rejoice! Game 4 of the RPPR 4E Dungeons and Dragons New World campaign is here! The party has to deal with the horde of goblins migrating to the new world as they are threatening their grippli allies! Plus, romance, orc migration, intrigue and a daring escape from a goblin ship. Oh and loads of profanity, banter and violence. Sweet, sweet violence. This episode brought to you by RPGNow. GM day is March 4 and they have a big sale going on all week with tons of titles at 25% off or more.

Recorded by Ross Payton I was one of the little dots you see here on the National Mall on Jan 20 2009. I brought my H2 digital recorder (which I use to record all of the RPPR actual play sessions) and recorded president Obama’s Inauguration speech as an experiment in field recording. Unfortunately in my haste to get to the Mall that morning I did not pack enough batteries to record everything. This is in stereo and I made use of the surround sound recording feature of the H2. This has nothing to do with RPGs or gaming but I thought you might want to hear what it sounded like on that day. I’ll have session 4 of the New World campaign up tomorrow.

Tides of Doom, part of In Search of Adventure Run at Visioncon. Synopsis: The village of Crafthaven has awoken an ancient evil buried underneath. Can the brave heroes stop the cult from completing its ritual? Oh, and this dungeon isn’t just filled with Lovecraftian monsters. It corrupts all who spend time in it. Even the poor halfling paladin who becomes a freakish hunchback by the end of the adventure. Find out if good prevails before the Tides of Doom drown them all… I wrote the adventure for Goodman Games and ran it for some friends at a local gaming con,  hence the people wandering in at random intervals. As an after hours game, this is a more relaxed and casual game than usual. Also, this is a classic hack and slash dungeon crawl, filled with combat and traps. Very little social interaction compared to the new world campaign.

Synopsis: Every gamer has their own expectations at the gaming table. Most of the time, everyone has similar enough expectations that they can all enjoy the same game but this isn’t always the case. How do you deal with people who seem to have mutually exclusive expectations of a RPG? Ultra realism or cinematic action? High fantasy or hard sci fi? We discuss how to collaborate and compromise so that the game can reach a suitable middle ground. We discuss the five hot spots where expectations are frequently violated: genre, style, violence level, maturity level and consistency in the game. Plus, a letter from Tom to Splynncryth the alien intelligence from Rifts, anecdotes and shout outs: Shout outs: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The classic regency romance novel, with new scenes of zombie mayhem. Can Mr. Darcy find love in a zombie apocalypse? Root of All Evil: A Lewis Black Comedy Central series about pop culture and evil. Armored Trains: A book about the use of armored trains in war, especially WW1 and WW2, with lots of great pictures. What’s not to like? Look Around You: A BBC parody of educational TV. The Water and Sulfur episodes are hilarious. Lovecraft is Missing: A horror/pulp webcomic about H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. Music: Wagering Lights by Venn & Euler.

4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons The New World Campaign- NSFW! GM: Ross Payton Players: Tom, Cody, Jason and Dan Synopsis: The adventurers have gained some new friends, a tribe of grippli. They’ve also made some new enemies, the thieves guild.  Furthermore, a horde of goblins has arrived in the new world, their massive hulk anchored in the bay. The goblins seem content to work as laborers for the colony but who knows how long that will last? The party starts their new business as water barons selling precious H20 to the settlers. They also decide to try to sign a peace treaty with the Black Raven tribe. Oh and there’s a giant lobster monster named Pinchy, a dwarven cartographer, snotty noblewoman, Cordelia and a goblin ambush. Plus all four players are together for the first time in the campaign!  Oh and this is still very not safe for work.

Synopsis: Open-ended or Sandbox games can be extremely fun but it requires a lot of work on the part of both the GM and the players. Our friends over at the Bearswarm recorded an episode about sandbox games recently but we thought we would give it a shot (and neither of us has listened to it yet). Also, we have four anecdotes in this episode, including the legend of the nautical druid – written by a player from a D&D game I ran a few years back. Don’t miss it! Shout Outs: Midnight Meat Train: A crazy horror movie based on a Clive Barker story directed by a Japanese guy. Starring Vinnie Jones as a killer. Survive Style 5: A Japanese movie featuring Vinnie Jones as a hitman. It’s sureal and awesome. Fall of Cthulhu: A cthulhu mythos type godwar comic book. Fun stuff. Cthulhu vs Nodens vs Nyarlathotep. Asian Horror Movies: A website featuring Asian horror movies for free – streaming online. I recommend Noroi. Open Grave: A great new WOTC 4E D&D book about the undead. In Search of Adventure: I wrote one of the adventures, a Lovecraftian dungeon crawl using 4E rules. Music: Giant Enemy Crab remix

The New World a 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Session 2 Players: Tom, Cody and Dan IMPORTANT NOTE: This game is full of profanity, even by our standards. This is very much NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Synopsis: The kingdoms of the old world have discovered a vast new continent across the ocean. Brave settlers have started the first colony in the net world. Among them, a small band of adventurers eager to earn glory and gold. In the first session, the characters ventured into the wilderness to find a source of fresh water. Upon finding a river, they came across a band of natives part of the The Black Raven tribe who fought them. After capturing one of the tribal warriors, the players learn of an ongoing tribal war and decide to talk to the other tribe, known as the Gray Fangs. The Gray Fangs tell them that a powerful water spirit can teach them a ritual that will conjure enough fresh water to supply the colony. However, after the characters ask for the spirit’s help, the spirit sends them to a dungeon in order to see if they are worthy. The characters must find a way out of the dungeon in order to learn the ritual. Two groups stand in their way: a band of thieves and a tribe of primitive frog people. In this session, I called them tasloi, but in proper D&D lore they are called the Grippli. This mistake is corrected in the next session. Due to a technical snafu on my part, the first session recording is gone. However all other sessions are backed up so this will not happen again.

We’ve received a lot of messages from listeners so we thought we discuss a few of them. This show covers a lot of topics, from our personal favorite RPGs, the indie RPG Dread, to dealing with out of control house rules and other issues. We also got our first donation, so if you like the show, help us pay for the hosting and Gencon this year. Plus Tom has some gaming New Year’s Resolutions in his letter and of course shout outs and an anecdote. Shout outs: 221 Films and The Assemblage of the Crystal Sphere: A D&D Story: A mockumentary about the culmination of a 5 year D&D campaign, in a very wry manner. We will have a full review in the next episod. Wild Country: A Scottish werewolf movie.  It has gore and nearly indecipherable Scottish brogue. Crossover  Comic Archives: As listener Tadonari Oyama writes “A very silly sprite comic series” If you want to read comics where Chun Li teams up Sonic the Hedgehog to fight illiteracy and mutant badgers. Poultrygeist: A Troma movie about chicken spirits, Indian burial grounds and zombies. Also, blood and gore. Saving Stone: A prequel to the hilarious novel, Game Night and it’s a free pdf to boot! Read it already. Spelunky: A roguelike platformer with randomly generated levels. Get the treasure before you die a horrible death. Music: Mailing it in by Allied Radio

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a delightful story by L. Frank Baum with an intriguing mythos. Rankin-Bass produced a claymation adaptation, which is where Katie and Jonny first discovered it. There have been a few other incarnations as well, including a Japanese anime. Jonny always thought it would serve pretty well as a fantasy RPG setting, so when Katie suggested a one-shot game based on it, he heartily agreed. There will be two “adventuring parties” if you will- the immortals of the forest of Burzee, and the children of the laughing valley of Hohaho. Katie will act as a storyteller for the children, and Jonny for the immortals. The two groups will have separate adventures leading up to a unified finale. We will have pre-generated characters. We’ll be using the Reign system, which is based on the One-Roll Engine. (Note from Ross: I was a player in this game but I forgot the names of all of the players. If you were there, post in the comments and I’ll update it.)

Synopsis: Because of the holidays, we’ve decided to take a look at the most neglected of subjects in gaming: happiness and joy. Given that the average RPG is a angst ridden world of grim and gritty darkness populated by hideous monsters and slightly less monstrous player characters where the typical encounter is a savage bloodsoaked battle to the death, what place does happiness or optimism have? Using examples from our own games, we talk about how adding even a lone bright spot in a game can add great value and provide awesome emotional payoffs for the players. Shout Outs: The Adventure of Lucky Pip and the Incomparable Ithamar Conchie: a $1 game of storytelling and fortune cookies. Left 4 Dead: I like zombies. They are kawaii :3 The Majesty of Colors: A brilliant little flash game about a giant sea monster. Night of the Cephalopods! An awesome and free PC game about evil octopi and procedural Lovecraftian narration.