Tavern Watch Podcast

This week on the Tavern Watch Podcast, we discuss one of the favorite pastimes of tabletop GMs: stealing borrowing very liberally from our favorite movies, books, and even other games for our own tabletop games. Matt has put players into an episode of Star Trek before, and Phil borrows heavily from everything (including perennial Blizzard Watch Discord favorite Vampire Survivors), but if Joe sends you to the Water Temple from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you are a naughty player and should reconsider the life choices that brought you there. Hope you packed your iron boots.In other news, there was a ton of D&D news to cover -- from the return (finally!) of reference cards and an unexpected crossover with Vampire: The Masquerade, to revised "evil" subclasses and news that Renegade seems to be abandoning their Essence20 system to port some of their biggest licensed games directly to 5.5e. Plus, we talk a little bit about Paizo's unfortunate restructuring in the face of the Diamond Comics distribution debacle.

After finally catching up with the lost pet they were sent to chase, our mercenary crew only has only one problem: they're under attack by goose lizards (or possibly cobra chickens). Well, maybe two problems, because also their ship is grounded. But it's probably fine. It's gonna be fine, right?This week on Tavern Watch Plays, we're doing an actual play of Planet Mercenary, a comic space opera based off of the Schlock Mercenary webcomics (but you don't need to be familiar with the comics to understand the game). Joan Albright is leading this game, with a colorful cast of team players who are doing a great job of coping with being stranded on an alien world for the entertainment of reality TV fans around the galaxy.Here are our mercenaries this week:Trish (AwkwardishPanda) as Raven Crawford, captain of the Jackdaws mercenary company, and who is possibly regretting some of her hiring decisions during this mission.Christian as Brother Ron, the ship's chaplain, who offers the wisdom and comfort of the Star to help guide the crew in their journeys. He also carries a suspicious number of grenades, but that's probably just the wisdom of the Star at work.Liz as Eleanor Goodbite, an awakened polar bear but also the ship's doctor. (She also carries a suspicious number of grenades, because sometimes offense is the best defense.)Kameron (Tetsemi) as Helena Seonwu, the Jackdaws' legal counsel, who is here to read all of the annoying fine print in the contracts — and make sure everybody gets paid.Matt as Hudson James, an awakened wolverine who is also the ship's engineer. Ostensibly that means he's here to fix things, but he's also a wicked shot with the plasma rifle he carries.This is the final episode in a three-part actual play of Planet Mercenary (listen to the first episode here and the second episode here), with new episodes every Monday! If you enjoy the game, you can pick up a copy of Planet Mercenary from the Schlock Mercenary store or DriveThruRPG.Music for this episode is "Galactic Echoes" from ineedmusic.co.

With their ship missing and a cheerful reality TV show host narrating their every move, our mercenary crew's simple mission — retrieve a lost pet — has gotten a lot more complicated. We probably should have expected that when someone hired an entire mercenary company to find one lost pet.This week on Tavern Watch Plays, we're doing an actual play of Planet Mercenary, a comic space opera based off of the Schlock Mercenary webcomics (but you don't need to be familiar with the comics to understand the game). Joan Albright is leading this game, with a colorful cast of team players who are doing a great job of coping with being stranded on an alien world. (And they still have a pet to rescue.)Here are our mercenaries this week:Trish (AwkwardishPanda) as Raven Crawford, captain of the Jackdaws mercenary company, and who is possibly regretting some of her hiring decisions during this mission.Christian as Brother Ron, the ship's chaplain, who offers the wisdom and comfort of the Star to help guide the crew in their journeys. He also carries a suspicious number of grenades, but that's probably just the wisdom of the Star at work.Liz as Eleanor Goodbite, an awakened polar bear but also the ship's doctor. (She also carries a suspicious number of grenades, because sometimes offense is the best defense.)Kameron (Tetsemi) as Helena Seonwu, the Jackdaws' legal counsel, who is here to read all of the annoying fine print in the contracts — and make sure everybody gets paid.Matt as Hudson James, an awakened wolverine who is also the ship's engineer. Ostensibly that means he's here to fix things, but he's also a wicked shot with the plasma rifle he carries.This is the second episode in a three-part actual play of Planet Mercenary (listen to the first episode here), with new episodes every Monday! If you enjoy the game, you can pick up a copy of Planet Mercenary from the Schlock Mercenary store or DriveThruRPG.Music for this episode is "Galactic Echoes" from ineedmusic.co.

Our crew of mercenaries has an unusual mission: to rescue some kind of space kitten, whose owner is very concerned for its wellbeing. But its owner's brother will pay us to not bring it home, so it's probably a troublesome space kitten. (But it's just as likely to be completely average kitten.) At least we're pretty sure it's a kitten. Our client didn't give us many details, but it's got to be kitten-adjacent, right?This week on Tavern Watch Plays, we're doing an actual play of Planet Mercenary, a comic space opera based off of the Schlock Mercenary webcomics (but you don't need to be familiar with the comics to understand the game). Joan Albright is leading this game, with a colorful cast of team players who are sure to be able to handle rescuing a single animal from an alien planet. Here are our players:Trish (AwkwardishPanda) as Raven Crawford, captain of the Jackdaws mercenary company and is possibly regretting some of her hiring decisions during this mission.Christian as Brother Ron, the ship's chaplain, who offers the wisdom and comfort of the Star to help guide the crew in their journeys. He also carries a suspicious number of grenades, but that's probably just the wisdom of the Star at work.Liz as Eleanor Goodbite, an awakened polar bear but also the ship's doctor. (She also carries a suspicious number of grenades, because sometimes offense is the best defense.)Kameron (Tetsemi) as Helena Seonwu, the Jackdaws' legal counsel, who is here to read all of the annoying fine print in the contracts — and make sure everybody gets paid.Matt as Hudson James, an awakened wolverine who is also the ship's engineer. Ostensibly that means he's here to fix things, but he's also a wicked shot with the plasma rifle he carries.This is the first in a three-part actual play of Planet Mercenary, and you can tune in every Monday for another new episode. If you enjoy the game, you can pick up a copy of Planet Mercenary from the Schlock Mercenary store or DriveThruRPG.Music for this episode is "Galactic Echoes" from ineedmusic.co.

This week on the Tavern Watch Podcast, we discuss some exciting news for fans of all things that go bump in the night: a new Vampire: the Masquerade project was teased for GenCon 2026, including a commitment to "human-created" art, as opposed to AI slop. Elsewhere, several of the new and returning Darklords from D&D's upcoming Ravenloft book were revealed, including an all-out stat block for Cthulhu, Darklord of Innsmouth -- does this mean all of Massachusetts is in the Domains of Dread?We also discuss a sorely lacking element of today's tabletop RPG landscape, deeply in-depth city or area guides that don't also feel the need to be an adventure module in and of themselves, and discuss graceful retirements of intellectual property and the community as stewards, in the case of Modiphius ceasing development on Achtung! Cthulhu and turning it over to the community (along with a big bundle of official art for use in your products). Also, are the marbles in Jelle's Marble League sentient? Are they actually capable of making decisions? You make the call. (No, I don't know what this has to do with tabletop either.)

In this week's Tavern Watch Podcast, we're discussing Daggerheart, the much-hyped TTRPG from Darrington Press and Critical Role which is celebrating its first anniversary. One year in, our biggest complaint is that the game still doesn't do anything radically new to break typical TTRPG paradigms, but it packs a lot of mechanics (and tools for GMs) in a flexible system that's relatively easy for players to pick up — and for third party creators to build on. Daggerheart is still going strong, with the Hope & Fear expansion due out in August, as well as a new Age of Umbra actual play series coming in July, and several free adventures (the first is available now). We also talk about Paizo's upcoming game 13 Omens, a d6-based horror game from the creators of Pathfinder and Starfinder; our hopes for the upcoming Justice League TTRPG; and the untitled D&D video game from Giant Skull that Hasbro has canceled (as well as what that means for the company's other video game projects).And, of course, we had to talk about the latest from Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks as he describes Dungeons & Dragons as a "live service" franchise and D&D Beyond adds weekly content drops for subscribers. We'll see how that goes.

In Tavern Watch's finale of our three-part run of See You Space Cowboy, our tenacious bounty hunters have tracked the NFTHound and his remaining cronies to an unmarked warehouse, full of cheaply-paid goons and a bunch of impressionable youth that the villain is trying to sway to the side of his sleazy world of electronic currency and extremely expensive digital pictures of ugly apes. Will our heroes win the day, or will we discover that in the end, there must alwaysbe a Crypto King?You can probably guess how this'll go. Joe Perez as GM keeps the action rolling and never lets up for our team of bounty hunters:Trish Olson as Kit Brooksfield, who's all brains, a little cool, and maybe some kind of hacker (but for all the right reasons!)Chris Chesno as Colt Sterling, a hard-smoking professional chaos gremlin who maybe looks like Temu ViciousJoan Albright as Veronia Graves, a former housewife whose bad run-in with the law now has her on a missionLiz Harper as Jen, who is definitely not the crew's kleptomaniacPhil Ulrich as Luke Navarro, a brick wall of a man who's ostensibly the ship's captain but mostly the team dadThis is the third in a three-part actual play series of See You Space Cowboy; the first part is here, and the second one is here! You can also pick up a copy of See You Space Cowboy yourself on Tidal Wave Games' itch.io page; it's only five American dollars to bring all this fun to your own table!The intro and outro songs for this episode are both by Phat Phrog Studios; the intro is "Mech Imperium," while the outro is "The Pain Unwritten."

Hot on the trail of some scumbag NFT and crypto traders (aka their latest bounty targets), the Tavern Watch team lays an ambush for their bounty in this week's episode of See You Space Cowboy on our TTRPG actual play podcast. What follows is one of the most chaotic fight sequences we've ever had; shots are fired, a few people get knitting needled, there's a mishap with a hot dog, and it all ends with Jen riding on top of the same Cybertruck she's demolishing -- and that's not even including following these chumps back to their home base.Joe Perez as our GM somehow manages to direct all this chaos in a cohesive direction; meanwhile, the rest of us doing our best to cause trouble are:Trish Olson as Kit Brooksfield, who's all brains, a little cool, and maybe some kind of hacker (but for all the right reasons!)Chris Chesno as Colt Sterling, a hard-smoking, hard-bitten hot dog and gunplay enthusiastJoan Albright as Veronia Graves, a former housewife whose bad run-in with the law now has her on a missionLiz Harper as Jen, who is definitely not the crew's kleptomaniacPhil Ulrich as Luke Navarro, a brick wall of a man who's ostensibly the ship's captain but mostly the team dadThis is the second in a three-part actual play series of See You Space Cowboy; the first part is here, and new episodes come out every Monday! You can also pick up a copy of See You Space Cowboy yourself on Tidal Wave Games' itch.io page; it's only five American dollars to bring all this fun to your own table!The intro and outro songs for this episode are both by Phat Phrog Studios; the intro is "Mech Imperium," while the outro is "The Pain Unwritten."

It's time for a brand new game on Tavern Watch, called See You Space Cowboy; this one takes place in a solar system that looks a lot like famous anime Cowboy Bebop's but with the serial numbers... well, not even filed off, just kinda smudged a little bit. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, talk to people who always know something for a cost, and hunt down some of the most notorious criminals this side of Ganymede, bounty hunting is definitely one way to make that big payday (and/or just pay the bills) However, in the universe of See You Space Cowboy, there's only one crime that rewards hunters for bringing in their prey dead rather than alive: possession of cryptocurrency and NFTs. So of course this ne'er-do-well is our target (and it doesn't hurt that he's a litterbug, either).The band leader for these shenanigans is the enthusiastic and creative Joe Perez, and our motley crew of hunters is played by:Trish Olson as Kit Brooksfield, who's all brains, a little cool, and maybe some kind of hacker (but for all the right reasons!)Chris Chesno as Colt Sterling, a hard-smoking, hard-bitten hot dog and gunplay enthusiastJoan Albright as Veronia Graves, a former housewife whose bad run-in with the law now has her on a missionLiz Harper as Jin, who is definitely not the crew's kleptomaniacPhil Ulrich as Luke Navarro, a brick wall of a man who's ostensibly the ship's captain but mostly the team dadThis is the first in a three-part actual play series of See You Space Cowboy; watch for new episodes to come out every Monday! You can also pick up a copy of See You Space Cowboy yourself on Tidal Wave Games' itch.io page; it's only five American dollars to bring all this fun to your own table!The intro and outro songs for this episode are both by Phat Phrog Studios; the intro is "Mech Imperium," while the outro is "The Pain Unwritten."