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

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

I talked with Dain about his 2024 CRIT award nominated, actual play campaign, No Quest for the Wicked. Dain's campaign uses the Starfinder rules and is loosely based off the Starfinder setting by using the same set of basic aliens for racial options.Each of the different races experienced some sort of disaster on their homeworld. Before extinction they were saved by the Val'ai, an advanced alien species. The Val'ai uplifted these different races with magic and technology, setting them all on a path towards the Casa-Mal system. Casa-Mal has six terrestrial planets and many other planetoids/asteroids that orbit the sun. Humans have mainly settled on a self-sufficient modular space station known as the Cube. The Cube is constructed of thousands of modular Aeris spaceships that humans used to escape Earth's solar system. Small settlements spread out through the rest of Casa-Mal receive assistance from traveling TVRN (Tavern) Aeris ships. Taverns trade goods and provide aid however they can with specialized services in a similar manner to adventuring parties in D&D.The PCs are crew members of a Tavern when they discover a mysterious silver liquid in space. They bring some of the liquid back to the Cube for investigation, but are attacked by the Cube's administration soon afterward. The PCs are forced to leave their captain behind as they flee the Cube in their Tavern. They must repair their damaged spaceship, figure out what's going on with the silver liquid, clear their names at the Cube, and rescue their captain in a complex conspiracy that goes deeper than they could've ever foreseen.Dain and I also discussed what its like running podcasts, upcoming work for the No Quest crew, and the importance/responsibility of diversity in media representation.If you want to learn more about No Quest for the Wicked you can check them out on your podcast app or on their website: https://www.noquestcast.com/No Quest also has an active Discord if you'd like to talk to Dain, the cast, or other fans of the show: https://discord.gg/Zbn3BVEvGBOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Bob tells us about his various experiences with D&D and writing. Bob is the writer of the Jubal County Saga, a series of books about Howard Marsh, a meth addicted magician living in the American South. Bob has also designed and published a few dozen single page RPGs and a few longer ones. All of this in a joking collaboration with three partners who are definitely not octopi in trench coats.Bob's campaign world of Aelriss is much like Earth only during the Medieval Age a Cthulhuian horror emerged along with monsters known as the Fathomless. These monsters transformed Aelriss into a waterworld with only a few islands where civilization has survived. After the initial catastrophe, an equilibrium was established. Ships could still travel and trade between islands, but only up to a certain size. Too big and the creatures of the deep would notice and swallow such a vessel. The disaster also birthed a new set of gods while the old faiths of Aelriss merged into a single religion of the old ways.And we also got into a discussion about horror films and their connection to different cultural themes in American society.Bob's website: https://talesbybob.com/Bob's publishing front: https://beardedbardinkworks.com/Bob's itch.io shop for all of his RPG games: https://beardedbardinkworks.itch.io/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

Peter tells us about Tales of Elsewhere, his own RPG system that he's using for his campaign. Characters are made with a Culture (where they're from), a Profession, and an Inciting Incident that sets them on their adventuring path. These different traits combine to decide your character's skills which are the only character number relevant to action resolution. In Tales from Elsewhere skills decide how many dice you roll for a challenge. The difficulty of the challenge decides the size of the dice you roll. Low rolls are better, so after a roll you look for the lowest die and that is your result. There are different levels of success all the way down to a critical success on a one.Peter's first setting for Tales from Elsewhere is Clockworld, a mashup of Wild Wild West and a Lovecraftian apocalypse. With guns and Cthulhuian monsters the setting has a dangerous feel to it where combats quickly accelerate to a lethal end. Steampunk androids known as Clocks also make an appearance. Clocks are the same as you or me in their mental and moral capacity, just put together with metal instead of flesh. The world is threatened by monsters and demons on all sides as well as four vicious entities known as Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, creatures from outside reality that have taken on human form.Tales from Elsewhere is available on Peter's website at https://www.talesfromelsewhere.com/ and to learn more about the game you can check out Peter's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@TalesFromElsewhereGamesOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

This marks the first of a couple episodes where I got the chance to interview different people/groups nominated for one of the 2024 CRIT Awards.Kevin tells us about his campaign and actual play podcast, Wing Women. The campaign uses the Powered by the Apocalypse Night Witches rules system developed by Jason Morningstar of Bully Pulpit Games. Night Witches is inspired by the WW2 Russian 588th Night Bomber Regiment, a group of bomber pilots made up entirely of women. The bombers earned the nickname, Night Witches, due to the sweeping sound of their planes as they dropped bombs on the Germans at night. Kevin's game follows a fictionalized version of the Night Witches, starting with a crew just out of training and following their exploits at camp and in the sky. The game explores many themes of oppression, sexuality, and gender expression in the totalitarian and hierarchical structure of the wartime Soviet Union.The Wing Women podcast is available on all major podcast apps. You can learn more about the Wing Women at all their links here (especially the Instagram page!): https://linktr.ee/wingwomenpodThe Night Witches game is available from Bully Pulpit Games. The print versions are out of stock at the moment, but the digital version is always in stock: https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/night-witchesOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Jeph started playing D&D in school with a group of friends as most typically do. They played a couple different small campaigns, swapping between different DMs. One constant in their group was "Big Campaign," the world that Jeph ran that everyone always came back. Jeph has run Big Campaign for at least seven major campaigns and now hosts a podcast that covers the continuing adventures within the world. Heroes have defeated liches, dragons, robots, and worse as the campaign's lore continues to increase. Each campaign is separated in time from the others allowing large technological leaps to happen between campaigns. PCs started off with swords and shields but now have access to cybernetics, guns, and a plane of information that stands in for the Internet.The current challenge for Big Campaign is that the Elemental Planes of Fire and Earth are locked away from the rest of the world. Fire and earth magic no longer work and water and air have become too powerful. The world is out of balance and someone must restore it before the world's oceans consume the land. Meanwhile modern corporations, militarized borders, and religious fanatics stand in the way of progress.You can learn more and listen to Big Campaign at https://www.bigcampaign.com/ or you can join Big Campaign's Discord server at https://discord.gg/kn8XbxqQ4nDuring the episode I mentioned a nature "documentary" on dragons. It's titled The Last Dragon or Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real and you can check it out on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYY5ksNCjCYOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Gallo tells us about his D&D campaign that was designed for a girlfriend's teenage daughter. Her one request, "I want Bob Ross to be in it." Gallo ran with the idea and created a world where Bob Ross's evil alter ego, Rob Boss, is the villain. He used his paint brush to create a painted forest full of painted monsters. The physics and tone of the world are heavily inspired by Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Cool World. The monsters are two-dimensional cartoons making battle positioning key to their defeat. Eventually the PCs succeeded and broke the paint brush of Rob Boss, freeing the world from his evil spell.Also a prescient commentary on DnD Beyond Licensing in the later half of the episode. We were discussing the OGL debacle, but Wizards of the Coast recently went for round 2.Today's thumbnail was made by JP Ahonen for his comic, Belzebubs. Check it out at his website: https://jpahonen.com/belzebubsOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Adam is the main DM for the Majestic Goose Network, a collection of actual play podcasts that grew out of Adam's home games with his family. The network started with One Shot Onslaught, a series of one shot D&D adventures from DM's Guild. It grew from there to around a dozen shows on various TTRPG topics. This episode focuses on Adam's homebrew campaign dubbed Halfway to Heroes. The campaign was conceived of as a subversion of the typical "kids in school" story for young adults by instead focusing on the characters' lives after school.Halfway to Heroes takes place in Modras, a world that previously saw many attacks by mindflayers. The PCs start off taking their final practical exam for graduating as the last class from Scrimore Academy, a school dedicated to training mindflayer hunters. The school is closing down as the threat of mindflayer invasion has passed. After the exam the PCs are tasked with recovering four weather controlling orbs that have gone missing from Scrimore's magical item vault. The adventures feature lots of puzzles and comedy banter alongside old-fashioned D&D combat.You can check out all the Majestic Goose podcasts on their website: https://www.majesticgoose.com/And you can talk to Adam and the rest of the cast on the Majestic Goose Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/BQyEbaSAdam talked about a world creating game he'd used for his second Halfway to Heroes campaign called The Quiet Year. You can check it out here: https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-yearI mentioned a similar game called Dawn of Worlds. You can check out the PDF for that game for free from the creator's website here: http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdfAnd of course a link to Nathan's Kickstarter for The Amethyst Dragon's Hoard of Everything - a 5e Supplement: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theamethystdragon/the-amethyst-dragons-hoard-of-everything-a-5e-supplementOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C