Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

This episode features one of the other CRIT award nominees from 2024, Josh, who tells us about his game Last Fleet. Josh and his partner, Becky, are the main drivers at Black Armada Games which makes TTRPGs (among other games). Last Fleet is a Powered by the Apocalypse game that simulates a situation similar to that of the Battlestar Galactica show. In the far future humanity is on the run in the titular Last Fleet. Human planets have been taken over by the Corax, a fungal species that is able to infiltrate Earthling society through perfect mimics of humans. Now humanity is in a desperate bid to escape from the Corax, but the fleet is low on fuel and Corax infiltrators could already be aboard sabotaging the ships that protect the last of the human species.Josh presents his games through actual plays on the podcast, Black Armada Tales. There's a bunch of games that have been featured, but here is a link to the first episode of the Last Fleet arc: https://open.spotify.com/episode/37f5ee6Z05iebdPUNh3dGSYou can check out Last Fleet on the Black Armada website here: https://blackarmada.com/product/last-fleet/Or you can check out the general Black Armada website for their other games. That includes the latest Lovecraftesque release and a playtest for a soon-to-be-released, grimdark, scifi game called Ex Tenebris: https://blackarmada.com/Our website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Udy tells us about his experiences with the Seventh Sea TTRPG system, the Scion system, and the focus for this episode, Pendragon! Pendragon is a generational RPG where you play a small noble house in England during the time of Arthurian legends. You play a knight or lady that is the head of your household with responsibilities to your subjects, your lord, and the king. As play proceeds, your character finds friends, makes enemies, gets married, has children, goes on quests, fights wars, and all that other good stuff from Medieval history and myth. Eventually your character dies and you transition to playing the heir you'd raised as the campaign proceeds. There are many campaigns you can play, but the main focus is on the Great Pendragon Campaign that details the events from the ~480 to ~570. This covers the rule of King Uther, King Arthur's rise to prominence as the boy who pulled the sword from the stone, Arthur's rule, his decline and death, and a small wrapup afterwards. The PCs can be directly involved in these events or on the fringes depending on a group's preference.Historical sources indicate that there was a King Arthur who ruled over parts of Britain in the 500's. Little is known about this real person. King Arthur became a legendary figure due to French moral fables written about the Knights of the Round Table in the 1100's. At that time Christian Europe was losing lots of wars to Muslims. Many Christian nobles were spending more time fighting amongst themselves instead of looking outward to what the Catholic Church considered a greater enemy. To prevent this infighting, many priests and educated men wrote stories with the intention of improving the moral character of European nobility. These stories used the Knights of the Round Table as a common setting. The hope was that if European nobles read these stories they would become moral people, stop fighting each other, and join the Crusades against the Muslims.Udy and I talked about a few different sources for the story of King Arthur. While there are hundreds of books to read on Arthur, both ancient and modern, the best English sources are probably Le Morte d'Arthur written by Thomas Malory in 1485 at the end of the Middle Ages or The Once and Future King written by T.H. White in 1958. If you're in the mood for something lighter and more subversive, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a lot of fun. There are many examples in film as well with my personal favorite being the 1998 Merlin TV miniseries.During the interview we briefly discussed a piece of art that one of Udy's players drew. You can check that art out here: https://gocorral.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/giant.webpIf you're interested in Pendragon the game is available on Chaosium's website: https://www.chaosium.com/pendragon-rpg/Udy also recommended the Pendragon Discord server for all those cool modifications people have made to the system over the years: https://discord.com/invite/CfvJzeXOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Malcolm, a member of the Advanced Age Roleplaying Gamers (AARPG) podcast, joins us to talk about one of his campaigns named Our Town. The concept for Our Town came about accidentally where rather than going on an adventure, the players all stayed in town and wanted to kick out any outsiders that wanted to change their little village. A rival baron to their lord schemes to take over their town and the players formed a neighborhood watch of sorts to punish anyone who threatens their culture. The game was played using the Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS), a great system for simple humans trying to live simple lives.The AARPG podcast that Malcolm is a part of is a group of friends that's been playing RPGs together since the 80's. They met in community college and have been gaming off and on ever since. The podcast is led by Matt and Nathan of the group. It's a variety podcast with mostly short campaigns from different games and the occasional interview segment mixed in.AARPG podcast link: https://www.theaarpgs.com/AARPG YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@theaarpgsOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Ben tells us about his setting and independently designed TTRPG system, Cybertopia. Cybertopia is a fiction first system set in the near future. Amazing Corp saved the world from climate and energy catastrophes with a magical clean energy machine. As the world moves into a post-scarcity economy, Amazing Corp has risen in power and influence beyond most governments. The players are small pieces in this machine, trying to take care of any problems that get in Amazing Corp's way. And maybe they discover something sinister that shakes their confidence in Amazing Corp? Who knows? That's up to the GM.Cybertopia as a system is a d20 system. Characters pick a Core which is like a class, but is really just a guide to what your character is good at without the rigid framework of D&D applied to it. The Core provides a +3 to rolls. Characters also have skills, items, and situational things that provide +1 or +2. All these modifiers stack together just like other d20 systems. Experience points are gained by rolling a natural 20. Three experience points can be exchanged for a skill improvement.This episode was recorded in September where the temperatures were 95°F in California (me) while being rainy and 57°F in Scotland where Ben is located.Ben's itch.io shop where you can check out Cybertopia: https://bennewbon.itch.io/Ben has a actual play podcast to demonstrate Cybertopia. The second season is starting its release now. You can listen to that here or in any of your favorite podcast apps: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cybertopiaapThe Cybertopia podcast is also available on YouTube but still audio only: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIOIGenECSSR95XTfwjbq-l9g8urlYBDEOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Roger tells us about his world Savinaru. It was created by elementals, primal forces of creation. Ever since Savinaru has been plagued by demons, primal forces of destruction. Savinaru is in the midst of its Industrial Revolution via magic. Magically powered public transportation networks are being built and weaponry has advanced to muskets and cannons. Roger wrote Savinaru to have many subversions of the usual fantasy tropes. For example, dwarves and orcs are the same race, but dwarves split off due to going underground.Roger has also been working on his own TTRPG system that he has dubbed Industrial Strength Heroism. It's a heroic fantasy system with a d12 roll-under mechanic. Character stats vary from 2 to 8. Rolls are decided by d12 roll with bonuses or penalties. To succeed you must roll less than the relevant stat.Roger has a World Anvil on Savinaru that he's recently started as of this episode's release: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/savinaru-rogerpellicanoRoger has been working on a video game called Nymar Arisen. It's a base-building survival game similar to Minecraft, but your character commands a whole tribe of ant people to fight back against demon invasions. The game is still in its early stages, but a playable demo has been released on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1682470/Nymar_Arisen/Roger is just starting his social media presence as well to get Industrial Strength Heroism going. If you'd like to be the first to know about it you can follow him on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/rogerpellicano.bsky.socialOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Our guest for this episode is Derry, DM of the Dice Will Roll podcast and winner of a 2024 CRIT award! Woo!Derry talks with us about his journey with RPGs, actual play podcasting, and Pathfinder's official setting of Golarion. Derry started doing actual play podcasting because many of the more popular TTRPG podcasts featured a mostly white suburban dad stereotype and there were not many queer TTRPG podcasters. Seeing a need, Derry stepped in and started the Dice Will Roll podcast which features campaigns from Pathfinder's official adventure paths. So far they've conquered Kingmaker, Extinction Curse, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, and are making their way through Abomination Vaults. While the later part of this episode focuses on Abomination Vaults we discuss many of the other adventure paths.SPOILER WARNING in particular for the Abomination Vaults, Agents of Edgewatch, and Reign of Winter adventure paths.As for Abomination Vaults, the PCs are members of the small lumber town of Otari, close to the mega-city of Absalom. A mysterious lighthouse close to town comes to life drawing the attention of the locals. Exploring the lighthouse reveals a massive dungeon underneath. Enough adventure for levels 1-10, all in the same place as the PCs go deeper and deeper into the Abomination Vaults.You can learn more about Dice Will Roll at their website: https://www.dicewillroll.com/If you're interested in the Abomination Vaults adventure path you can check it out here: https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures/adventurePath/abominationvaultsOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C