Hello Rescuers! We’re back! Sort of. As I said a few weeks ago, I am changing the pace of Roleplay Rescue from a regular podcast to being a, well, irregular podcast - in other words, although this is the first episode of the resurrected show, it may be some time (or not) before I record another. But this episode couldn’t wait. I thought about holdi…

Here’s the short version: I’m going to take a break - once again - from podcasting. When I do return, whether it’s in a couple of weeks, two months, or a year, I’m going to take the approach of recording when I have something I’m interested in saying. No more weekly or bi-weekly schedule, just grabbing the mic whenever ideas are worth developing. A…

This is the last in a series of four conversations I’ve enjoyed with various guests over the tail end of 2023 and into January 2024. Joaquin Lippincott is the founder of RPGMatch, an application where you can register and meet other TTRPG players who like to play like you do. Following the call-in and my not-entirely positive feedback about the app…

It has been a month since I last hopped on the mic and spoke. This episode is a GM Intrusion into the flow of the season to do two things: First, I wanted to share and respond to a few call-in messages I’ve received through January and February. Second, I thought I would update you on a couple of areas in my own hobby and thought - we just played a…

This is the third in a series of four conversations I’ve enjoyed with various friends and new acquaintances within the Roleplay Rescue community over the tail end of 2023 and into January 2024. My guest today is Bob from the SAFCO podcast. Bob Loftin is co-host of SAFCOcast, a podcast about the Traveller roleplaying game and its derivatives. SAFCO …

This is the second in a series of four conversations I’ve enjoyed with various friends and new acquaintances within the Roleplay Rescue community over the tail end of 2023 and into January 2024. My guest today is Mr_Sandman, aka Andrew from Long Island. Andrew is a long-time GURPS GM and the mind behind his blog, In The Sandbox, which contains lots…

I got back to running a game face-to-face. More than that, it looks like this newly formed group of gamers wants to meet again in February. I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m so entirely made up about this event that I thought I’d share a few quick thoughts as an episode. Thanks right up front to all the new players in that session who absolutely mad…

This is the first in a series of four new conversations I’ve enjoyed with various friends and new acquaintances within the Roleplay Rescue community over the tail end of 2023 and into January 2024. My guest today is Daniel Jones of the Primaeval Fantasy YouTube and podcast channels, plus the Eudaimonic Geekery blog. I ask him to outline the nature …

As the New Year for 2024 arrives, where am I at with table top roleplaying games? What are my plans for the year ahead and what lessons am I carrying forward? Happy New Year! Welcome to 2024 and I wish you all the very best for the 50th anniversay of the publication of Dungeons & Dragons - that funny old boxed set that sparked this whole roleplayin…

I’ve sat on the conversation that you’re about to hear for far too long. Back in late September, I hopped online for a conversation with Augury Ignored - the voice behind the Augury Ignored blog. Thomas - for that is his actual name - reached out across Mastodon and we hopped online to chat. It was a first time conversation between gaming strangers…

The barriers to finding face-to-face community are many. But this was the very problem I began the whole podcast to resolve and, weirdly, find myself right back where I began. I want to face this challenge full on and see what actions I can take. This is pretty personal but I hope you'll find it useful nonetheless. Thank you to all the callers this…

On the 28th November 2018, the eight minute and 14 second episode zero of Roleplay Rescue was aired. Now, as we reach the 5th anniversary of that fateful episode, I’m wondering… has it been worth it? What have I learned? And is it mission accomplished? I mean… has anyone’s roleplaying been rescued? Big thanks to the callers today - Jason, Hobbs, Sp…

Draw a quick regional map on hexed paper. Grab the rules from an old roleplaying game. Sit down with some friends and begin to play. Is it really that simple to start a fantasy roleplaying campaign? Today, I want to share some of the things I’ve experienced and what these moments have taught me about being a fantasy RPG GM. Big thanks to the caller…

YUMDM is the creator of the d12 Monthly ‘zine which started in mid-2021 and has grown from a humble 8-pages to - in September 2023 - 27 issues at a whopping 28-pages! Hailing from Australia, Russ has been roleplaying for 30+ years and allegedly played his first game as Tasslehoff in a Dragonlance module. He has been creating his own campaign world …

Alex Macris is the lead designer for the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System, an old-school fantasy RPG designed to support campaign play. He’s the founder of Autarch LLC, a game design studio from Durham in North Carolina, USA which publishes ACKS and several other titles. Alex is also an entrepreneur and the author of “Arbiter of Worlds”, a primer…

What’s going on with the school Roleplay Club? Why would you even run such a thing? What are the best steps in getting started? Today, I want to take you through the story of the first two weeks of the School Club project and outline the progress, but also the pains, of getting myself back in front of teens gamers. I’ve even grabbed two short clips…

What do you do when you know you used to enjoy playing RPGs but the whole thing has, frankly, become a chore? How do you move forward when the reality is that you are anxious about GMing the next session and you have bailed more times than you run the game? This season is shifting to a bi-weekly format and I hope that listeners will understand. Thi…

This episode is the final one for this season - no, really - and it’s my pleasure to bring you a conversation about a significant new book for the RPG scene. Justin Alexander is a freelance writer and the author of the grand repository of ideas that is The Alexandrian. This is an interview with Justin about his forthcoming book, released in Novembe…

The last episode was supposed to be the final one for this season but, well, then I got a whole barrage of messages and call-ins from you, the listeners. It seems a shame not to share them in one last hurrah of community positivity and thoughtfulness. So… here we are. Big thank you, once again, to Frank, Brian, Anthony, Jason, John, Barry, Jean-Fra…

This episode is the final one for this season, another of the extended conversations I’ve shared with gaming friends over recent weeks. It was largely unplanned as I hopped online to talk and discuss some key ideas with my guest. Jason Connerley is the voice behind the Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast podcast and a regular caller to several Anchorite shows,…

This one’s a chat about FKR - Free Kreigspiel Roleplaying - with someone I am only beginning to get to know but who has also been so generous with their time that I feel deeply appreciative of and in debt to. The episode is the penultimate one for this season, another of the extended conversations I’ve shared with gaming friends over recent weeks. …

So, yes, I want to be a Game Master. And I want to become a good Game Master. I’m ready to learn and I’m willing to put myself into the space of running a game for my friends. Where do I start? This episode is being put together on Day One of my Apprenticeship as a GM. I’m sharing it partly so that I can externalise and understand where I am going …

This episode is basically a call-in show with lots of messages interspersed with my thoughts in response. It’s unscripted and probably a little rougher around the edges… but I would encourage you to stick around and listen because this collection of messages from the community has been some of the most insightful stuff in all my years of podcasting…

What does the phrase “Game Master” mean? It is simply a synonym for other labels we stick on the poor soul who organises and runs a traditional tabletop roleplaying game, or might it have deeper meaning? And if we wanted to master our craft, how would we begin? This episode is about the idea of mastery and the fear which arises whenever one speaks …

This episode is the third extended conversation I’ve shared with some gaming friends over recent weeks. The conversation was unplanned and is really just that - hopping online to talk and discuss some key ideas with my guest. Daniel Jones is the originator of the term Otherworld-immersion and a published author, game designer, philosopher, podcaste…

Today’s episode is a Transition - a shift from one place towards another, the ending of one chapter and the opening of another. In part, this is a reflection upon the journey so far. It’s also a reorientation towards what I want for my future with roleplaying games. But the episode is also a sharing, both of my own thoughts and ideas but also those…

Hello Rescuers! Here's a early-access bonus for the Swordbearers which will become open to all Patrons prior to general release as a bonus episode on Roleplay Rescue. Roleplay Rescue’s Solo Tales is a podcast recounting the solo tabletop roleplaying adventures played by me. The core of the game is being played with Basic Roleplaying by the Chaosium…

Today is the second of two extended conversations I’ve shared with some gaming luminaries over the course of a week, focused on answering some practical questions around the barriers I have long experienced in running consistent campaigns. These conversations were largely unplanned and are really just that - hopping online to talk and discuss some …

Today is the first of two extended conversations I’ve shared with some gaming luminaries over the course of a week focused on answering some practical questions around the barriers I have long experienced in running consistent campaigns. These conversations were largely unplanned and are really just that - hopping online to talk and discuss some ke…

Newfound clarity has given birth to some confidence and a much greater sense of my preferences in gaming. The last few weeks have seen seismic shifts in my sense of wellbeing alongside a growing sense of who I am as a GM. As with much of Roleplay Rescue, there is a sense that in sharing my own journey back towards the roleplaying I enjoyed so much …

Today I have another of my conversations with a friend within the roleplaying games community. This episode we dipped into talking about sparking creativity with younger students of varying ages - a comparison between my guest’s creative writing courses that utilise roleplaying games and my own school-based RPG club for teens. My guest today is Run…

Hello Rescuers! Here's another bonus - the third episode of Roleplay Rescue's Solo Tales! This episode picks up where that one left off. Because this is a personal solo game, I’m going to be using a variety of tools and methods to create a game that I enjoy. In other words, while I am sharing the game in the hope of inspiring others to try solo pla…

Having realised that I’ve been chasing my tail for the past 40 or so years in accepting a very simple misunderstanding as truth, the past couple of weeks have been an enriching and enjoyable period. While work and other commitments still limit my time to engage in play, the times when I do sit down to roleplay have been increasingly rich and enjoya…

What if you didn’t need anything more to have the best games of your life? What if you didn’t need another product, another tool, or another set of rules? What if everything you really need to have a cracking session, whether with your friend or online, was already in reach? Today’s episode is inspired by my recent reading of Jamie Smart’s hugely i…

What’s the deal with Rolemaster? Why did we love it back in the 1980s and does the recent release of Rolemaster Unified invigorate us to play it again? Back in Episode 1, I declared that I was embarking on a new quest. It’s a journey into the deep past to find a new pathway towards enjoying the games I like to play in the way that I most enjoy play…

Bonus episode leaked from the Patreon to give listeners a taste of the raw and unedited horror that is the GM's Journal. A few folk have asked what the GM's Journal is all about so I thought the best way to respond would be to share one episode by way of a taster. Remember: the Journal is a very candid snapshot of my life as a gamer, is recorded th…

Having spent quite a few episodes now revisiting and developing my own return to a more coherent practice with roleplaying games, I thought I would make a brief pitstop and talk about the Roleplay Rescue community. The community is the life-blood of this podcast. Without it, I would be alone and isolated. I would possibly have stopped playing, but …

Hello Rescuers! Here's a bonus! I have this vague idea that if I can produce a few episodes then I might release them on their own podcast feed, Roleplay Rescue's Solo Tales. This episode follows on from the main Roleplay Rescue Season 12, Episode 2 entitled “Crag’s Ruin”. I began wanting to explore the roots of my own hobby by revisiting my first …

Today I have another of my conversations with a friend within the roleplaying games community. This episode we dipped into talking about characterisation in our RPGs, especially around NPCs. My guest, Simon Williams, is a British artist and illustrator as well as being the creator of the Legend of The Bones podcast, a hybrid Solo Old School Dungeon…

Following the release of Episode 5 to the RPR Patreon, Patron Brian called in with a long series of seven questions about GURPS which I felt were worthy of a full episode to respond to. Not only are they truly excellent questions, they were also deeply insightful and are perhaps the kinds of questions that many listeners unfamiliar with GURPS would…

In Episode 5, Barry aka GMShadow chatted with me about the need for a simple introduction to GURPS. Since then, we’ve been collaborating - along with other interested folk from the RPR Discord - to create Simple Dungeon GURPS. We have a working draft of Simple Dungeon GURPS and the playtesting is underway. In this episode, I wanted to share the pro…

Do you ever find yourself not physically starting something but instead spending inordinate amounts of time and effort reading, researching, and trying to decide where to start? If not, I envy you. It's a particular problem I have and been struggling with again. In simple terms, this is the Resistance in a pretty unsubtle form. Thanks to Matt for t…

Following my recent conversation with GMShadow, my good friend Barry from The Shadow of the GM podcast - which you can listen to in Episode 5 - I’ve been delving back into both the Great Library of GURPS and rekindling my love of the megadungeon. This episode, I want to talk about the reasons why I’ve returned to the Dungeons of Thaarl - my own meg…

Today, I want to talk about the most durable, long-serving, and under-rated game structure in roleplaying games. Most GMs use some form of it in most sessions - anytime they come to a location in their world where the Player Characters need to explore. I want to talk about the humble Dungeoncrawl which has become tarnished over the years by people …

This is another one of the conversations I’ve been having with various friends within the roleplaying community. This episode is a chat about how to introduce new players to GURPS by making the whole thing simpler and more familiar. One thing to say is that I got my timeframes all wrong: I began monkeying around with GURPS around 5 years ago or so …

Ever since I first began roleplaying, I have always been engaged by a good fight scene. Combat has been the way in which I almost always begin to learn a new game and you can bet your bottom-dollar that any scenario I run with open with a fight. Why is that? Is it because, as I alluded to back in Season 9, I am at heart a Munchkin? One of those kid…

This is the first in a fresh sequence of conversations I’ve been having with various friends within the roleplaying community. This episode features a chat about how to move from beer and pretzels style gaming towards something a little deeper, richer, and longer lived. My guest, Arlen Walker, is the host of Live From Pellam’s Wasteland which you c…

This one's a highly experimental episode. As I said last episode, I want to explore the roots of my own hobby by revisiting my first imaginary game-world. Through dreams and many hours of day-dreaming as a teenager, I uncovered a rich fantasy realm that I am long-overdue returning to visit. Despite a few attempts to bring other tools to the table, …

Somehow I’ve found my way back to the microphone and it’s time to embark on a new quest. For me, it’s a journey into the deep past to find a new pathway towards enjoying the games I like to play in the way that I most enjoy playing them. It’s my hope that, at least for someone else, this quest will resonate enough to carry you along with me too. Ma…

Back in July, as Season 11 opened, I spoke about how some roleplayers experience deep anxiety around playing and running games. One of the most repeated comments I have received over the past 4 years of producing this podcast has been the one about how much my honest talk about anxiety has resonated with others. This episode ends a season of Rolepl…