Tavern Watch Podcast

We're entering the winter doldrums of game scheduling, and many of our TTRPG adventures have been coming to a halt (or at least a slow) for the winter due to the difficulty of getting this many adults in a room, even a virtual one, for the holidays. But the snowier season here in the Northern Hemisphere doesn't mean a lack of new tabletop game material, especially if you like D&D. We've been enjoying the two Forgotten Realms books released in November, including new dangerous magical items and a thoroughly non-heroic Rogue subclass, the Scion of the Three. But playing a maybe-evil character (and everybody at the table still having fun), can be tricky, so we talk about the importance of party buy-in when bringing such a character to the party, and maybe how to reskin the subclass if pledging allegiance to the Realms' sometimes-dead, sometimes-alive, always-scheming miscreant gods isn't up your alley.Elsewhere in the multiverse, Eberron: Forge of the Artificer is finally be coming out (for real this time) on December 9, and besides serving as a miniature guide to the fascinating realm of Eberron, it also brings back D&D fan favorites -- and, at this point, staples -- like the Warforged and the Artificer. The latter gets all its subclasses revised to match the expected power levels of 2024 5th Edition characters, as well as a whole new subclass: the Cartographer! Want to wield an array of esoteric map-based powers? Here's the subclass for you. Outside of the D&D sphere, we also gush about upcoming game Twilight Sword, which doesn't just wear its Zelda influences on its sleeve -- it dons the whole shirt, but we sure don't mind. And Daggerheart is already coming out with an expansion, called (appropriately) Daggerheart: Hope & Fear, due out in 2026. This book adds the Dread domain, as well as four new classes (you may have already heard us playtesting the Warlock and the Brawler when we played Daggerheart earlier this year). Daggerheart has really been getting a full-court press of support (did you know there's already new stuff for playtesting?) and we have to wonder when that support will slow down... hopefully not any time soon.

It's time to take to the stars in search of interplanetary adventure as Tavern Watch plays Starfinder's newly-released second edition. This system blends the crunchy, high player choice character building of Pathfinder with a wholly original science fantasy setting, and there's really nothing like it. If you've ever wanted your space wizard to cast doom scroll (and yes, it does exactly what you think it does), this is the show for you.In this case, our crew of completely licensed and insured adventurers has immediately found the trouble, and is on the way to stop it -- by passing through the maintenance tunnels of the station, carefully ignoring the confectionary building restaurant that's on fire. We'll find one that's not on fire next time, I promise. Our tunnel-delving crew includes:Liz as Zee, a Skittermander Witchwarper, which means she's about three feet tall, has six arms, is covered in fur, and is just the most adorable reality-warper ever.Joe as K'sol, a Shirren Mystic, making him a psychic bug-man from the stars.Phil as Sobok, a Vesk Soldier, who is seven feet of scaly lizardman with a two-handed chainsword.This is the second in our three-part actual play series of Starfinder -- look for new episodes every Monday, and listen to episode 1 if you missed it!This game was played using the second edition of Paizo's Starfinder, which expands their Pathfinder game into space. The core books are all released at this point (and they're starting to release their more compact "pocket editions" of the core books), so if you like the game you hear on this podcast, you can check it out for yourself!Music from this episode is "Start a Trek," by Edgar Henderson; you can check out more of his music on Soundcloud.

It's time to take to the stars in search of interplanetary adventure as Tavern Watch plays Starfinder's newly-released second edition. This system blends the crunchy, high player choice character building of Pathfinder with a wholly original science fantasy setting, and there's really nothing like it. If you've ever wanted your space wizard to cast doom scroll (and yes, it does exactly what you think it does), this is the show for you.In this case, our crew of completely licensed and insured adventurers returns to a spaceport to sell some very legitimately obtained goods and stumbles almost facefirst into a plot to take over, or destroy, the station! We can't have that, now can we? After all, we haven't even sold this weird statue yet. Our intrepid spacefarers include:Liz as Zee, a Skittermander Witchwarper, which means she's about three feet tall, has six arms, is covered in fur, and is just the most adorable reality-warper ever.Joe as K'sol, a Shirren Mystic, making him a psychic bug-man from the stars.Phil as Sobok, a Vesk Soldier, who is seven feet of scaly lizardman with a two-handed chainsword.This is the first in our three-part actual play series of Starfinder -- look for new episodes every Monday!This game was played using the second edition of Paizo's Starfinder, which expands their Pathfinder game into space. The core books are all released at this point (and they're starting to release their more compact "pocket editions" of the core books), so if you like the game you hear on this podcast, you can check it out for yourself!Music from this episode is "Start a Trek," by Edgar Henderson; you can check out more of his music on Soundcloud.

On the Tavern Watch Podcast, a mention of a crowdfunding campaign for Lodestar leads us to discussing areas where the community has picked up for Wizards of the Coast's slack on the Tavern Watch Podcast. While D&D's modern stewards often seem content to take a one-and-done approach to campaign settings (as opposed to multiple lines of products like in the past), the ever-creative community is stepping up to fill these gaps, leading to some fantastic third-party supplements. Lodestar seems to pick up where the Spelljammer release leaves off, while dark fantasy setting Dungeons of Drakkenheim and also-upcoming product Chapelwick are poised to fill a horror-shaped hole in the product lineup (although it's a more Soulslike approach to horror than the classic Curse of Strahd). If there are any third-party content creators out there who want to fill the void in my heart that used to be occupied by Dark Sun, I'm just saying, I would throw a little money at that. However, sometimes more familiar stomping grounds are nice, too; to that end, if you just want some rollicking fun in the Forgotten Realms, you can jump right into a free level 3 adventure from the upcoming campaign book for the Realms coming later this year.If you need a good reason to do so -- we get it, scheduling is tough, everyone you know is tired, sometimes you need a little motivation -- you can check out StartPlaying's survey on relationships and roleplaying games, wherein 75% of the respondants said playing tabletop RPGs helps keep friendships alive, 57% said they forged core relationships through roleplaying, and 28% even found real-life love outside of their Bard's high-Charisma Persuasion rolls. There's also a good discussion of how to deal with dice derailing, or not derailing, the story that you and the other players at the table want to tell -- an especially timely discussion in light of the discourse about dice fudging that's circulating in online communities again.Tune in for this and more games we’re playing, games we’re looking forward to, and liveplays we’re watching!

It’s spooky season here on Tavern Watch, so we’re playing something appropriately spooky — Shadowdark! But a spooky old-school-esque system isn’t enough on its own, so we’re diving back into one of the most classic horror tabletop game modules of all time — the original I6: Ravenloft for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1E. When new spooky rules meet old haunts, will our heroes survive the night?Episode three brings our adventurers into possibly the spookiest part of Castle Ravenloft: the expansive crypts underneath the castle, home to a wide variety of creepy things, from garden variety dead bodies to shambling zombies — and also, according to the adventure module, three thousand bats. On top of that, Strahd’s deadline from episode 1 is running out — he’ll show up to clean up his little adventurer problem on his own sooner or later! Our brave adventurers include:Liz as Serl Sparrow (Halfling Wizard), whose destiny is it to enter Castle Ravenloft and emerge victorious.Nick as Ninir (Elf Thief), whose destiny is… to steal as much loot from the infamously rich Count as he possibly can.Chris as Faran (Elf Priest), a brave and doughty religious elf who will face the darkness or die trying.This is the finale in a three-part game of Shadowdark! You can check out the first episode hereand the second episode here; look for new episodes of our actual plays or news and discussion shows every Monday.This game was played in Shadowdark, an Ennie-Award-winning tabletop RPG that marries the familiarity of D&D with the stripped-down, rulings-not-rules sensibility of older versions of the same game, yielding something that’s fast, fun, and easy to play. Shadowdark places an emphasis on being easy to understand and easy to run, making it a great game to pick up and play — even if it’s your first tabletop game! If you’re interested in picking up your own copy of Shadowdark, you can grab it at The Arcane Library. If you want to check out our adventure in Ravenloft for yourself, you can pick up I6: Ravenloft from the DM’s Guild. (We’re also using Venatus Maps’ Castle Ravenloft Battle Maps to play in these episodes.)The music in this podcast is “Some Amount of Evil” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

It's spooky season here on Tavern Watch, so we're playing something appropriately spooky -- Shadowdark! But a spooky old-school-esque system isn't enough on its own, so we're diving back into one of the most classic horror tabletop game modules of all time -- the original I6: Ravenloft for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1E. When new spooky rules meet old haunts, will our heroes survive the night?Episode two finds our trio of adventurers exploring the dusty back hallways and secret corridors of Castle Ravenloft, meeting some unusual individuals -- some of whom have unusual tastes, while others just want to be left alone. Our brave adventurers include:Liz as Serl Sparrow (Halfling Wizard), whose destiny is it to enter Castle Ravenloft and emerge victorious.Nick as Ninir (Elf Thief), whose destiny is... to steal as much loot from the infamously rich Count as he possibly can.Chris as Faran (Elf Priest), a brave and doughty religious elf who will face the darkness or die trying.This is the second in a three-part game of Shadowdark! You can check out the first episode here, and look for new episodes every Monday.This game was played in Shadowdark, an Ennie-Award-winning tabletop RPG that marries the familiarity of D&D with the stripped-down, rulings-not-rules sensibility of older versions of the same game, yielding something that's fast, fun, and easy to play. Shadowdark places an emphasis on being easy to understand and easy to run, making it a great game to pick up and play -- even if it's your first tabletop game! If you're interested in picking up your own copy of Shadowdark, you can grab it at The Arcane Library. If you want to check out our adventure in Ravenloft for yourself, you can pick up I6: Ravenloft from the DM's Guild. (We're also using Venatus Maps' Castle Ravenloft Battle Maps to play in these episodes.)The music in this podcast is "Some Amount of Evil" by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

It's spooky season here on Tavern Watch, so we're playing something appropriately spooky -- Shadowdark! But a spooky old-school-esque system isn't enough on its own, so we're diving back into one of the most classic horror tabletop game modules of all time -- the original I6: Ravenloft for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1E. When new spooky rules meet old haunts, will our heroes survive the night?In this case, our intrepid heroes, outsiders to the realm of Barovia investigating some disturbing rumors surrounding the Burgomaster's daughter, Ireena, have found themselves invited to a dinner with the infamous ruler of the region, Count Strahd von Zarovich. Will they feast... or be feasted upon? Our brave adventurers include:Liz as Serl Sparrow (Halfling Wizard), whose destiny is it to enter Castle Ravenloft and emerge victorious.Nick as Ninir (Elf Thief), whose destiny is... to steal as much loot from the infamously rich Count as he possibly can.Chris as Faran (Elf Priest), a brave and doughty religious elf who will face the darkness or die trying.This is the first in a three-part game of Shadowdark! Look for new episodes every Monday.This game was played in Shadowdark, an Ennie-Award-winning tabletop RPG that marries the familiarity of D&D with the stripped-down, rulings-not-rules sensibility of older versions of the same game, yielding something that's fast, fun, and easy to play. Shadowdark places an emphasis on being easy to understand and easy to run, making it a great game to pick up and play -- even if it's your first tabletop game! If you're interested in picking up your own copy of Shadowdark, you can grab it at The Arcane Library. If you want to check out our adventure in Ravenloft for yourself, you can pick up I6: Ravenloft from the DM's Guild. (We're also using Venatus Maps' Castle Ravenloft Battle Maps to play in these episodes.)The music in this podcast is "Some Amount of Evil" by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

There are a lot of games we're excited to play — and excited to watch! — on this week's Tavern Watch Podcast. A Thundercats game by Dynamite Entertainment will be launching Kickstarter soon (you can join us in watching for the campaign by clicking "notify me" on the Kickstarter campaign). It's a 5e game, which could make it an easy sell to play with friends since 5e is so well-known, so this may be a better bet than coming up with a unique system. But we may be even more excited for what this game means about other properties in the Dynamite catalog, which publishes comics for Supernatural, Battlestar Galactica, Army of Darkness, Barbarella, and a whole lot more. Could we be getting other interesting games from Dynamite if Thundercats does well? We're excited to find out.This is hardly the only game on the horizon, as we're also looking forward to the release of Sword World 2.5, a wildly popular 35-year-old Japanese TTRPG that's getting its first English language release. You can download a quickstart now by signing up for the game's newsletter. But if you're looking for a game that's already available, we have only good things to say about the new D&D Starter Set, Heroes of the Borderlands. It's a great introduction to the game and it comes with tons of accessories you can use for future games, with 18 maps, hundreds of cards and tokens, dice, three adventures, and quickstart game rules — everything you need to play. Our only question is why Wizards of the Coast didn't put this out when the 2024 edition first released.Tune in for this and more games we're playing, games we're looking forward to, and liveplays we're watching!Music from this episode is "Midnight Tale" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.