Have you thought about running an epic RPG campaign–perhaps a complex published campaign like Curse of Strahd or Masks of Nyarlathotep–but find yourself unsure how to start preparing? In this episode, Andy talks with Matt Wilson, a GM who has run several large, complex campaigns to learn some tips and tricks for preparing to run … Continue reading …

Andy and Chris talk about running games on holidays and what exactly makes it so compelling. They also talk about the upcoming D&D DMG, Alien tie-in novels, and The Left Hand of Darkness.Oleh Roll For Topic

Have you ever used a mini-game in a tabletop RPG–a game that steps completely outside the official rules of your RPG to resolve a particular situation? We discuss Chris’ experimental one-shot in which he tried out some fun mini-games. Also discussed: Chris’ experience reading The Silmarillion.Oleh Roll For Topic

Recorded live at the fourth annual Roll for Topic Con! Follow along as the audience takes our annual roleplaying trivia quiz, and plays a brand new game called Diamond Heist.Oleh Roll For Topic

What does the criminal underworld in your setting look like, and how do the players interact with it? Andy and Chris discuss the topic of crime in RPG settings, along with their plans to run some one-shots at the upcoming RfT Con.Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris talk about going to the dentist and also about using languages at the table. Chris makes a reference to a 29 year old movie and Andy makes a reference to a 23 year old tv show.Oleh Roll For Topic

Is character alignment a central part of your D&D (and D&D-alike) games, or is it something you change or ignore? Chris and Andy discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the classic alignment chart, and the ways it’s useful at the table.Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris talk about Gen Con, Roll for Topic Con, and what makes cons so special!Oleh Roll For Topic

Have you used a minigame within your RPG to handle a specific scene or sequence? Chris and Andy brainstorm a bit about a jousting minigame for Chris’ upcoming convention game, with discursions into game playtesting, Battletech, and the upcoming RfT Con 2024.Oleh Roll For Topic

Guest host John Corey fills in for Chris this week, bringing his expertise in low-prep GMing! John and Andy discuss what they’ve been reading about the early days of the gaming hobby and then go on to talk about how you can move from high-prep GMing to lower-prep, improv-style GMing.Oleh Roll For Topic

Do you meticulously track the light radius of each torch? Do you handwave it away? Something in between? Inspired by Andy’s recent trip to Mammoth Caves, Andy and Chris talk about the challenges and rewards of taking lighting seriously in your dungeon crawls.Oleh Roll For Topic

Your setting is full of interesting history and fascinating detail. How do you convey that to your players at the table with boring or overwhelming them? Chris and Andy discuss, but not before they talk about what the movie Furiosa can teach us about good RPG action scenes. Show notes:Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris talk for a while about books and then talk about their own personal Mt. Rushmore’s of RPG Creatives:Oleh Roll For Topic

Do any of your players struggle to grasp the rules of the game you’re all playing? How can GMs help them? Andy and Chris discuss, along with discursions into the weirdness of everyday life and Andy’s recent GMing for a group of sixth graders.Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris were on a panel with Phil Cameron at the AADL Game Con! We talked about “How to GM like a pro”. Thanks to everyone who came out! It was a lovely time. The panel is also on youtube if you want to watch us talk instead of listen.Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris talk about sharing the narrative at the game table. It gets surprisingly philosophical! Also, Andy and Chris will be at the 2024 AADL Game Con on Saturday April 13th! Come say hi!Oleh Roll For Topic

What does it look like to shine the spotlight on a particular character in a TTRPG? In this episode, we talk through some player feedback about our last episode, then move on to this important GMing practice. Show notes:Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris ponder what famous figure, past or present, would be most fun to have at the gaming table! We also check in on Andy’s Band of Blades game and Chris’ progress through The Lord of the Rings.Oleh Roll For Topic

Join Andy and Chris as they talk about LotR and Andy’s Band of Blades game!Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris got to game in-person with each other! They talk about the experience of playing Dialect as a world building game for a campaign.Oleh Roll For Topic

We’ve all read books or watched movies that were difficult, but ultimately rewarding. With Andy having just finished Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, we talk about whether that kind of challenging but satisfying-in-retrospect experience has a parallel in RPG campaigns. What kind of value do we get out of dense, difficult settings and … Continue re…

As Andy prepares to run Stormwreck Isle, conversation turns to what makes a great D&D starter set or introductory adventure. What experiences do you think best embody D&D? Bonus content in this episode includes more discussion of The Thing, and (if you listen closely) the sound of Andy’s pet guinea pigs squeaking and chattering in … Continue readin…

How do you calculate odds and probabilities at the game table? What do we get out of random dice rolls and random tables? And how do dice probabilities work, anyway? We’re joined by mathematician and GM Toby, who talks with Chris about both the mechanics of probability and the ways we use randomness to have … Continue reading "Episode 132 — All Abo…

It’s part 2 of our annual Build-a-Dungeon/Play-a-Dungeon specials! Jo, Abby, Liz, and Brandon come on to play through “The Mice of The Artemis” with Chris as GM. Happy holidays everyone!Oleh Roll For Topic

It’s the holidays so that can only mean one thing: it’s time for us to build a dungeon and then play it live on air! In this year’s Build episode, Andy and Chris are joined, yet again, by John Corey and Kyle Latino of The Splatbook!Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris talk about The Walking Dead and videogames before diving into their topic: what questions do long-term campaigns raise that RPG rulebooks do not address?Oleh Roll For Topic

With Chris temporarily away, Andy is joined by guest co-hosts John and Tim for something we’ve never done before: opening a mystery box of gaming goodness live on the air. Tim unboxes a Christmas surprise package from Palladium Books, after which we revisit one old topic and then ponder a brand new one. Show notes…

Andy and Chris take a different approach to gaming in this episode as they discuss the idea of “interesting failures”–art and experiences that don’t succeed, but that nonetheless deliver something worthwhile. After discussing Alien Resurrection, Andy’s favorite example of an interesting disaster, they move on to talk about what “interesting failure…

Andy and Chris talk about Halloween, how to make a party harder for your players, and then about how to maintain momentum when you have long gaps between game sessions.Oleh Roll For Topic

What do you do when your players make in-game choices you weren’t expecting? Should you try to shift them back onto your planned course, or appreciate the challenge they’re throwing your way? Chris listens as Andy describes a recent adventure that went awry (albeit in a fun way) and they discuss what could have been … Continue reading "Episode 125 …

How much rules mastery do you ask of your players? Chris and Andy discuss the unique challenge that roleplaying games present, with their often-massive rules tomes and the complicated relationship between rules and roleplaying that takes place at the game table.Oleh Roll For Topic

Our first live episode in front of a studio (con) audience! Andy runs us through his annual Roll For Topic Swap Table Quiz. Take the quiz while listening and see you how do!Oleh Roll For Topic

Your players probably interact with you, the GM, in character from time to time. But do they roleplay with their fellow players? What does that look like at the table?Oleh Roll For Topic

What makes for a good flawed player character? Chris and Andy explore what it means to be an interesting flawed or anti-hero. But before they do that, they check in on Andy’s “Masks of Nyarlathotep” campaign and talk about what makes “Masks” unique in a hobby full of great campaigns.Oleh Roll For Topic

In a break from the usual format, Andy and Chris talk through the process of choosing the right game to run for a convention one-shot. Together, they go through the half-dozen games on Andy’s list of possibilities until they narrow down the one that will work best. On the way, they talk about spies, mechs, … Continue reading "Episode 120 — Choosing…

Andy and Chris fail to roll on the table for a topic, but of course have plenty to talk about. Listen as they talk about wrangling audio equipment for a live taping, Brindlewood Bay thoughts, Alien worries, and playing the same games over and over again.Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy’s back from a cross-country road trip, and he’s eager to talk about all weird and wonderful claims to fame that small, rural towns celebrate. In this episode, Chris and Andy talk about how to make the small towns in your fantasy setting quirky and memorable places to travel through. But first they take time … Continue reading "Episode 118 — Ho…

Andy and Chris are thieves! Everyone likes reading books and watching movies, but have you ever lifted a scene or character from them for your campaign?Oleh Roll For Topic

We cover a lot of ground in this episode! We talk about health and injury rules, the quirky LitRPG genre, and rethinking alien species in tabletops RPGs. And of course we move onto our main topic: what has the last few years taught us about what makes for a great virtual RPG? Episode notes: Dungeon … Continue reading "Episode 116 — What Goes Into a…

What’s the longest RPG campaign you’ve ever run? Six months? A year? Two? We’re pretty sure you can’t beat our guest for this episode, who’s been running a weekly D&D campaign for nearly three decades straight. Join us as we learn about Bryn’s truly epic D&D campaign and try to identify the secret of his … Continue reading "Episode 115 — The 30-Yea…

Chris and Andy are joined by Jeremy Bai, a prolific translator and author whose RPG Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades: Wuxia Roleplaying brings the wuxia genre to your game table! We begin by talking to Jeremy about his various projects, RPG-related and otherwise, before discussing different ways that you can make food, drink, and meals more … Conti…

Andy and Chris are joined by James Pozenel of Horse Shark Games to talk about the best way to handle hacking scenes in your TTRPGs (as well as others scenes in which one PC is the star of the show). James is uniquely suited to dispense advice on this, since he’s working on a very … Continue reading "Episode 113 – Running Hacking Scenes (with James …

What do you need to know to run tabletop RPGs with kids? Guest GMs Liz Decker and Tim Saucer bring their experience organizing games for kids to a special roundtable discussion. Liz runs an RPG club at a local high school, and Tim incorporates RPGs into a summer camp for kids. Both have a lot … Continue reading "Episode 112 — Running RPGs with Kids…

Does nostalgia for your youth, and the games you played as a kid, play an active role in the games you play today? And it’s impossible to talk about D&D nostalgia without taking note of the upcoming D&D movie. Listen as they share their hopes and dreams (or lack thereof) for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor … Continue reading "Episode 111 – What Role Do…

How do you fine-tune the tone–whether it’s grim, comedic, or something else–at your gaming table? Chris and Andy talk about this, but not before they muse on the challenge of running murder mysteries in the TTRPG medium, among other things.Oleh Roll For Topic

Family, friends, and loved ones of PCs, when they appear at all, often serve primarily as victims whose plight motivates the PCs. Are there more and better ways to make the PCs’ loved ones a part of the game? Andy and Chris discuss!Oleh Roll For Topic

Have you ever struggled to stay focused on the campaign you’re running because you’re distracted by all the shiny new games on your bookshelf that you’d also like to be running? Andy and Chris talk about the challenge of avoiding “shiny object syndrome.”Oleh Roll For Topic

Andy and Chris go back to their Roll For Topic roots and roll on the old Table of Topics for this one! They (briefly) discuss the OGL and D&D and what it all means to them before diving into just what in the world a GM should do when their players have no idea what … Continue reading "Episode 107 — What Do You Do When Your Players Get Stuck?"…

Chris is temporarily out for this episode, which means that there’s nobody to stop Andy and guest GM Matt Wilson from venturing down all kinds of historical tangents! Join us as we try to keep our enthusiasm for the Late Antique period in check, and reflect on the GMing lessons we learned in 2022 and … Continue reading "Episode 106 — Old Year Refle…

In the last episode, we planned a Wild West adventure and “dungeon.” Now, we force a gang of hapless players through it! Guest players John, Ben, Toby, and Brandon team up to take on the sinister Snake Oil Kid and his gang. Will things go smoothly and according to plan? Or will they veer wildly … Continue reading "Episode 105 — Actual Play: Snake O…