Tavern Watch Podcast

It's the beginning of one year and the end of the next here on Tavern Watch, and so we're both looking back with fond remembrance on the games we played this year (including the ones we played on Tavern Watch Plays, which you should check out!) and the ones due to come out next year. Liz was particularly pleased and surprised by Legend in the Mist, a statless rustic fantasy RPG. Matt played a lot of solo mythical create-your-own-god game Deify this year, but also is still thinking about that game of Masks we played (me too, Matt, me too). Joe had a great time with Rebel Scum, which is part of a lineage of games that really lower the barrier of entry on the rules and let you get straight into telling cool stories with your friends, and is hoping to get to play Cohors Cthulhu -- the Roman Empire meets cosmic horror, sounds good to me! And, a lot of games crossed Phil's table this year, including the phenomenally weird Triangle Agency and the tactical crunchy cinematic action of Draw Steel, but it's really Fabula Ultima that lives in my head rent-free.But it's not all nostalgia. In current events, we discuss Wizards of the Coast's light 2026 schedule, James Ohlen leaving Archetype Entertainment to become a tabletop game consultant for WotC directly, Ed Greenwood's new independent Forgotten Realms project, a general sci-fi toolkit coming to 5th Edition in the form of Dark Matter, and we're wondering whether a video game about a single class (and from a studio with a shaky reputation) can be a satisfying experience. I guess we'll see! Kickstarters are still going strong into 2026, too; a whole passel of them funded around the end of the year (including Thundercats, which funded fully in one minute). MCDM has funded an entire year's worth of content with their Crack the Sun crowdfunding campaign, and we're all mesmerized by Fomoria, which is funding in the near future and really needs to be seen for its striking art style and dark fantasy story.Last but definitely not least, we pay brief tribute to the passing of Tim Kask, TSR's first employee back in the 80s. Tim was not just part of this burgeoning industry we love in its infancy, but also a person who continued to be funny, opinionated, and inclusive right up until the end -- who could ask for anything more?

It's a valid question for our group of little old lady detectives, who have learned more than they expected about the strange history of their little town on a casual visit to the Brindlewood Bay Whaling Museum... with a little side of murder.It happens a lot in Brindlewood Bay. It's probably fine.This is the last episode of our game of Brindlewood Bay, a cozy mystery with a few dark twists. I'm running this game, along with some excellent role-players on the team who have taken well to mystery solving. Here is our party of little old ladies:Joan as Louisa, resident gardener who loves getting her hands dirty and has seen absolutely every episode of MacGyver. Always carries her Swiss Army knife (the TSA hates her).Matt as Ludmilla, an ex-powerlifter who has retired to a peaceful life in Brindlewood Bay. She keeps an indeterminate number of cats (and is never seen anywhere without at least one of them).Mitch as Bordy, a collector of all things, who has never seen a bauble she didn't want to add to her collection. She's also been getting mysterious messages on her answering machine lately, but it's probably nothing.Confused about what's going on? You should listen to the first episode and the second episode before starting this one!If you enjoy our game, you can give it a try yourself! You can pick up the Brindlewood Bay rulebook from from The Gauntlet, including the Nephews in Peril supplement which includes the adventure we're playing here! The whole thing is a little bit Murder, She Wrote and a little bit X-Files, and a whole lot of roleplaying. We had a lot of fun with it, so check the game out!Music from this episode is "Villainous Treachery" by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

A peaceful visit to the annual Brindlewood Bay Whaling Museum fundraiser has taken a turn for the worse when one of the volunteers turns up dead. Fortunately we have a team of little old lady detectives on the case... and they're pretty sure it wasn't an accident at all. (The harpoon stuck in his back is a pretty big clue.)This week we're playing a game of Brindlewood Bay, a cozy mystery with a few dark twists. Elizabeth Harper is running this game, along with some excellent role-players on the team who have taken well to mystery solving. Here is our party of little old ladies:Joan as Louisa, resident gardener who loves getting her hands dirty and has seen absolutely every episode of MacGyver. Always carries her Swiss Army knife (the TSA hates her).Matt as Ludmilla, an ex-powerlifter who has retired to a peaceful life inBrindlewood Bay. She keeps an indeterminate number of cats (and is never seen anywhere without at least one of them).Mitch as Bordy, a collector of all things, who has never seen a bauble she didn't want to add to her collection. She's also been getting mysterious messages on her answering machine lately, but it's probably nothing.This is the second episode in our three-part game! If you haven't had a chance to listen, start with the first episode.If you enjoy our game, you can give it a try yourself! You can pick up the Brindlewood Bay rulebook from from The Gauntlet, including the Nephews in Peril supplement which includes the adventure we're playing here! The whole thing is a little bit Murder, She Wrote and a little bit X-Files, and a whole lot of roleplaying. We had a lot of fun with it, so check the game out!Music from this episode is "Villainous Treachery" by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. 

Welcome to Brindlewood Bay, a peaceful New England village on the sea with picturesque views, cozy bookshops, and quaint B&Bs. It also has an unusually high murder rate, and that's where today's adventure comes in to play, as our party of sleuths attempt to untangle a mysterious death.And, of course, our adventurers are all little old ladies. Let me introduce them:Joan as Louisa, resident gardener who loves getting her hands dirty and has seen absolutely every episode of MacGyver. Always carries her Swiss Army knife (the TSA hates her).Matt as Ludmilla, a retired powerlifter who has retired to a peaceful life inBrindlewood Bay. She keeps an indeterminate number of cats (and is never seen anywhere without at least one of them).Mitch as Bordy, a collector of all things, who has never seen a bauble she didn't want to add to her collection. She's also been getting mysterious messages on her answering machine lately, but it's probably nothing.So let's dive into today's adventure, where our little old ladies talk about the first mystery they solved... and head to the whaling museum. Probably no one's going to get murdered. (Probably.)If you enjoy our game, you can give it a try yourself! You can pick up the Brindlewood Bay rulebook from from The Gauntlet, including the Nephews in Peril supplement which includes the adventure we're playing here! The whole thing is a little bit Murder, She Wrote and a little bit X-Files, and a whole lot of roleplaying. We had a lot of fun with it, so check the game out! Music from this episode is "Villainous Treachery" by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

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 game for you.In this exciting finale, our crew of completely licensed and insured adventurers is faced with their foe in the computer core -- and has no choice but to turn up the heat. We also discover that a door, once locked really well, sometimes has to be unlocked equally as hard. Our hard-fighting core technician team 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 last in our three-part actual play series of Starfinder -- look for new episodes every Monday, and listen to episode 1 to start from the beginning!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 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!