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Deep in the bowels of the vampirate-laden Maelstrom, our scurvy scallyways discover something truly unexpected: an entire forest, inside the hull of a ship. Not only that, but those crows seem to be cawing somewhat ominously, and inside the forest is a cave. But the real machinations of the pelagic vampires are yet to be discovered, Albrecht the Tideborn still stalks those who would disturb whatever is happening aboard the ship, and there's still something high above waiting for our crew to find... even if it's hanging by a thread. Our spooky season game of Pirate Borg continues, with GM Phil Ulrich running full-sail adventures among the dead for: Eric O'Dea as Cornelius "Noseface" Collins, an erstwhile sorcerer and escapee from cannibals who is growing increasingly, concerningly, gangrenousTrish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Octavia, a swashbuckler who just happens to also be at least half octopusLiz Harper as Tama, an actual talking parrot -- a very pretty blue lucky parrot, to be precise, although she wasn't born that way This is the second in a four-part actual play of Limithron's Pirate Borg, running the boat portion of "Into the Maelstrom" from their first expansion, Down Among the Dead. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you missed episode 1, you'll definitely want to check that out first. The music in this episode is "Dark Tides," by PhatPhrog Studios. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the briny seas of the Dark Caribbean sails a ship unlike any other; a ghostly ship, made of rotting wood with sails of red flesh, heralded by an ominous green fog, and crewed by vampiric pirates: the Maelstrom. Last time it made landfall, the Maelstrom took aboard several captives, including a specific VIP; on top of that, the ship contains untold wealth gathered from across the seas, and a mysterious Spanish Inquisitor has offered a bounty of silver for each of these vile pelagic vampires that meets their permanent end -- especially their captain, Albrecht the Tideborn. That's more than enough to get our scurvy scallywags interested, wouldn't you think? Captaining our spooky season actual play of Pirate Borg is GM Phil Ulrich, and our crew of cutthroats and ne'er-do-wells for this excursion is: Eric O'Dea as Cornelius "Noseface" Collins, an erstwhile sorcerer and escapee from cannibals who is growing increasingly, concerningly, gangrenousTrish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Octavia, a swashbuckler who just happens to also be at least half octopusLiz Harper as Tama, an actual talking parrot -- a very pretty blue lucky parrot, to be precise, although she wasn't born that way This is the first in a four-part actual play of Limithron's Pirate Borg, running the boat portion of "Into the Maelstrom" from their first expansion, Down Among the Dead. Watch for new episodes every Monday! The music in this episode is "Dark Tides," by PhatPhrog Studios. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Against all odds, the Dungeons & Dragons Warcraft crossover book seems like it might actually be good. It could've gone the way of the cheap cash grab, but instead early previews make it look like Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard have put a lot of thought into the implementation of classes, dungeons, and all of the details that make Warcraft Warcraft. Honestly, no one is more surprised than us. And in more tabletop news, we took a look at some upcoming projects like biopunk fantasy RPG Twisted Lands, Shiver's upcoming book of cryptids, and Yatagan, a cosmic space opera RPG drawing from Turkish and Mongolian culture and myths. AI continues to suck, with automated agents begging game site Rascal to buy their automatically generated D&D module and 90,000 LLM scraper bots taking down EN World, but at least the UK Games Expo has banned AI products from the show floor. Plus an exciting little sneak peek at Dragonlance! Music from this episode is “Midnight Tale” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are a lot of interesting things to touch on in the tabletop RPG space in this month's Tavern Watch Podcast, especially if you're a fan of Paizo's games like Pathfinder or Starfinder. Paizo offering everything they've ever published on DriveThruRPG looks to be a winning move as the company continues to struggle with a large stock of print books to be locked up in the Diamond Comics Distributors bankruptcy. It looks like Paizo and other publishers may finally be getting their books back, but it's been over a year. It's good to see another way to get Paizo books. We have a short but spirited (pun fully intended) conversation on the use of gods, patrons, and other higher powers in your game, which can be a fun narrative hook as long as they don't overrule player agency. D&D news is a little quiet between book releases, but there is a new Underdark-themed Unearthed Arcana, which you can pick up and playtest for yourself. Plus Phil effusively glazes Lancer for five or ten minutes because we talked about giant anime mechs and that is evidently one of his sleeper phrases (plus they have new books coming out next year). Music from this episode is "Midnight Tale" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some days in the Wasteland, you accidentally stumble into a robot-operated dinosaur cloning facility, and then you have to make an ethical judgment on what to do with the lives of intelligent (and very polite) cloned dinosaurs and deathclaws. But being a resident of the Wasteland means being adaptable, so we'll probably figure it out. So join us for the final episode of our actual play of the Fallout TTRPG!  GM Matt Rossi is leading our oddball crew of adventurers, so it's really no surprise that we've wound up here. These are our players: Liz Harper as Nellie, a Miss Nannie who's long-since moved from babysitting to robot repair... though being able to wrangle toddlers is a widely applicable skill for adventuring.Rob Flanagan as Fidget, a scavenger who's making the most of life in the Wasteland, but he's gotten a bit lost on his way back home to West Virginia.Eric O'Dea as Hack, a super mutant who's the backbone of this party... and the only one who's fought a Deathclaw before. Possibly for fun. This is the third of a three-part actual play series of Fallout, a 2d20 game from Modipheus that does a good job of replicating the feel of the video game version. Listen to the first episode here, the second episode here, and look for new episodes of Tavern Watch every Monday! If enjoy this actual play, you can pick up your own copy of Fallout from Modipheus or check out the free quickstart for a preview of the rules. The music in this episode is "In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It turns out being kidnapped by talking Deathclaws really isn't that bad, as long as you don't mind the moral quandaries that come along with them... and I'm not sure anyone in our party is actually came prepared for moral quandaries, but we're going to do our best. Join us as GM Matt Rossi escorts us across the wasteland in this actual play of the Fallout TTRPG! Here's our misfit crew for this adventure, and not a philosopher among them: Liz Harper as Nellie, a Miss Nannie who's long-since moved from babysitting to robot repair... though being able to wrangle toddlers is a widely applicable skill for adventuring.Rob Flanagan as Fidget, a scavenger who's making the most of life in the Wasteland, but he's gotten a bit lost on his way back home to West Virginia.Eric O'Dea as Hack, a super mutant who's the backbone of this party... and the only one who's fought a Deathclaw before. Possibly for fun. This is the second of a three-part actual play series of Fallout, a 2d20 game from Modipheus that does a good job of replicating the feel of the video game version. Listen to the first episode here, and look for new episodes every Monday! If enjoy this actual play, you can pick up your own copy of Fallout from Modipheus or check out the free quickstart for a preview of the rules. The music in this episode is "In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the wasteland, where our plucky party of adventurers is on a high-speed (relatively) train to the star-studded town of New Vegas. If they ever make it out of the Gary Wasteland, of course, because GM Matt Rossi is here to disrupt our day (with adventure). So if you'll come this way, your train is waiting... Here's our misfit crew for this adventure: Liz Harper as Nellie, a Miss Nannie who's long-since moved from babysitting to robot repair... though being able to wrangle toddlers is a widely applicable skill for adventuring.Rob Flanagan as Fidget, a scavenger who's making the most of life in the Wasteland, but he's gotten a bit lost on his way back home to West Virginia.Eric O'Dea as Hack, a super mutant who's the backbone of this party... and the only one who's fought a Deathclaw before. Possibly for fun. This is the first of a three-part actual play series of Fallout, a 2d20 game from Modipheus that does a good job of replicating the feel of the video game version. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If enjoy this actual play, you can pick up your own copy of Fallout from Modipheus or check out the free quickstart for a preview of the rules. The music in this episode is "In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Those kids from Tavern Watch are finishing up our run of the Kids on Bikes TTRPG, and pretty much everything is hitting the fan all at once. The town of New Novemberwood, and one of its founding patriarchs -- the famously-lucky Mr. Pineapple -- have had it too good for too long, and after a few unexpected spikes of good luck for a lucky few, it's time for the other shoe to drop. Repeatedly. Be careful what you wish for. Our GM Joe Perez brings this story of kids in over their heads to a close today. Those kids, of course, are: Liz Harper as Rhiandrea "Ree" Rains, an independent young Scout and local bookstore employee who doesn't like being told what to do by her parents -- or their ideas of how to run her lifeTrish, aka AwkwardishPanda, as Ginny Jacobson, an extremely precious girl and fish out of water who got advanced to her junior year six years earlyMatt Rossi as Jacob Jacobson, who's kind of a weird kid, but he looks out for his little sister and maybe believes in magicPhil Ulrich as Randall Fletcher, who could really be something if he applied himself, but he doesn't see why it's worth trying so hard all the time, man This is the finale of a three-part actual play series (the first part is here, and the second part is here!) of Kids on Bikes, a rules-light and very accessible system for achieving the kind of feel you'd expect from media like The Goonies, Stand By Me, or E.T. -- any of those kind of 80s and 90s coming-of-age media where maybe something supernatural happens. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you think this game is rad, you can pick up your own copy from Hunters Entertainment or Renegade Game Studios. The music in this episode is "Hiding Your Reality" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tavern Watch is back with another episode of Kids on Bikes, catching up with the kids of New Novemberwood as -- despite all the weird stuff happening to them lately, mostly related to astonishing feats of good luck -- they remember that they have a homework assignment due Monday. What starts as an ordinary trip to the retirement home to chat with residents about town history leads to tales that seem suspiciously connected to the present day... tales of derring-do, bad and good luck. (A-woohoo!) Our friendly GM and stellar voice actor for this one is Joe Perez, and the Pineapple Honors class consists of: Liz Harper as Rhiandrea "Ree" Rains, an independent young Scout and local bookstore employee who doesn't like being told what to do by her parents -- or their ideas of how to run her lifeTrish, aka AwkwardishPanda, as Ginny Jacobson, an extremely precious girl and fish out of water who got advanced to her junior year six years earlyMatt Rossi as Jacob Jacobson, who's kind of a weird kid, but he looks out for his little sister and maybe believes in magicPhil Ulrich as Randall Fletcher, who could really be something if he applied himself, but he doesn't see why it's worth trying so hard all the time, man This is the second of a three-part actual play series (the first part is here!) of Kids on Bikes, a rules-light and very accessible system for achieving the kind of feel you'd expect from media like The Goonies, Stand By Me, or E.T. -- any of those kind of 80s and 90s coming-of-age media where maybe something supernatural happens. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you think this game is rad, you can pick up your own copy from Hunters Entertainment or Renegade Game Studios. The music in this episode is "Hiding Your Reality" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's just another day in the sleepy little town of New Novemberwood, just a regular old day like any other. But this is Tavern Watch playing Kids on Bikes, so you know it can't be just any old day. For the students of Pineapple Honors, it sure seems ordinary -- right up until some outrageous (and unlikely) drama breaks out during lunch. Is luck taking a turn for some of their fellow students, or is something else afoot here? Your guide to the mysteries is Joe Perez, and the titular kids on bikes are: Liz Harper as Rhiandrea "Ree" Rains, an independent young Scout and local bookstore employee who doesn't like being told what to do by her parents -- or their ideas of how to run her lifeTrish, aka AwkwardishPanda, as Ginny Jacobson, an extremely precious girl and fish out of water who got advanced to her junior year six years earlyMatt Rossi as Jacob Jacobson, who's kind of a weird kid, but he looks out for his little sister and maybe believes in magicPhil Ulrich as Randall Fletcher, who could really be something if he applied himself, but he doesn't see why it's worth trying so hard all the time, manThis is the first of a three-part actual play series of Kids on Bikes, a rules-light and very accessible system for achieving the kind of feel you'd expect from media like The Goonies, Stand By Me, or E.T. -- any of those kind of 80s and 90s coming-of-age media where maybe something supernatural happens. Watch for new episodes every Monday! If you think this game is rad, you can pick up your own copy from Hunters Entertainment or Renegade Game Studios. The music in this episode is "Hiding Your Reality" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special Gen Con edition of the Tavern Watch Podcast, we're looking at a mountain of new product announcements for our favorite games, some coming soon and others stretched out over the next few years, but all of them exciting. Mostly. Wizards of the Coast rented out out a whole theater for its big reveal, with a bunch of new upcoming releases for D&D -- including, yes, that World of Warcraft crossover that turned out to be real, one of their two announced "Universes Beyond" products (yes, D&D is now getting the Magic: the Gathering treatment). The D&D team also had plenty to say about their own internal projects, but a lot of them appeared to be backward-looking -- rather than something new and innovative, we're returning to old settings like Greyhawk and Dark Sun. There are also improvements to D&D Beyond in the works, including a new "LFG" feature in partnership with StartPlaying; anything that gets more players to tabletop games, we're here for. We also discuss whether Wizards and Hasbro, as corporate stewards of D&D, can actually do a satisfying job reviving what we like about Dark Sun, or if it's just going to be a nonstop blood-guts-and-gore fest like the teaser trailer led us to believe (content warnings for extreme gore and violence on that link). But we may be more excited about the non-D&D stuff, where a whole lot of new ideas are brewing. We discuss Daggerheart and its three-year roadmap, Paizo dipping its toes into horror with an entirely new game system in 13 Omens, the upcoming sixth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade (now in alpha playtesting!), and the open license for the upcoming Cypher System 2E. And of course, what would a Gen Con show be without discussing the ENNIE Awards? Be prepared to grip your wallets in fear when Joe tells you what the price for The Crooked Moon's Ultimate Edition, which won the Gold ENNIE for Product of the Year, actually costs. It makes the thirty pound, $300 Invisible Sun Black Cube look quaint. Music from this episode is “Midnight Tale” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the Tavern Watch Podcast, we wander very naturally into one of the most age-old discussions among tabletop players and GMs alike: do you have a preference for crunchy systems or streamlined ones? Do you get giddy at the idea of Shadowrun's forty pages of equipment and entirely separate game-within-a-game for Technomancers? Is D&Dabout as heavyweight a game as you like to get, or is even that too much and you'd rather have something like Kids on Bikes? Opinions on this always vary wildly, and it's a fun discussion to have every so often -- especially because sometimes playing games will either reinforce or flip an opinion. On the news front, beloved Seattle-area cryptid Jimothy has stats in D&D now, Paizo reaches a new agreement with Archives of Nethys (great news given the incredible service the Archives offer the community), Daggerheart is testing a Summoner class as part of the new Blood domain (shared with Critical Role favorite the Blood Hunter), and Matt's perennial favorite Godzilla is coming to the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game later this year. Will we see the storyline return where Reed Richards shrinks Godzilla and sends her back in time? Were you at all surprised to learn that that was a Reed Richards plan? Of course you weren't. The crowdfunding roundup this time includes Dungeons and Daddies (not a BDSM sourcebook), cozy Hobbit murder-mystery solving game Merryshire Detective Club, and the beginning of developer logs on the Masks 2E Kickstarter ahead of its eventual launch, starting with: why a new edition of Masks?   Music from this episode is “Midnight Tale” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the final episode of our Legend in the Mist actual play, the Inkwell Club has managed to calm down the frenzied (and cursed) Spring Renewal Festival, only to see that several townsfolk are still caught in the thrall of something sinister and being led down the narrow switchback paths to the bottom of Skunk Glen Ravine. What awaits them there, other than a pile of the village's cast-offs? Will they get to the bottom without losing their possessions, their fellow villagers, or their lives? And if it's true that one person's trash is another person's treasure, does that mean Skunk Glen Ravine is full of treasure if you're the right kind of person? Only one way to find out -- down we go. Narrator Phil Ulrich is starting to draw the curtain on this mystery; the Inkwells, as always, are played by: Joe Perez as Daisuke, a studious capybara-person from the local hot spring with a secret talent for water magicTrish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Meadow, a traveling diviner who sees omens and portents in the starsKameron (Tetsemi) as Tom, a young and slightly-cursed runaway lad who tends to dive in head-first without thinkingMatt Rossi as Sorena, a former bear cub polymorphed into a blacksmith's apprentice, torn between two worldsLiz Harper as Selby, the somewhat overworked town alchemist (and her loyal beast of a hound dog, Ollie) This is the finale of a three-part series of Legend in the Mist -- the first episode is here, the second episode is here, and you can watch every Monday for new episodes of whatever we do next! This isn't our first time playing the rustic fantasy game from Son of Oak, however; you can check out our prior adventures here with a different trio of villagers. If you think this game sounds fun, you should be able to pick up your own copy from Son of Oak in the very near future! The music in this episode is by Phat Phrog Studios -- "Mana Malt," from the Bard's Rest collection. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Legend in the Mist actual play continues! Our party, the Inkwell Club, has helped solve a number of weird problems and disputes leading up to the Spring Renewal Festival in the little burg of Ravenhome. Surely all the problems are out of the way, right? Surely it's not an issue that folks are smiling a little too wide, yelling a little too loud, and dancing a little too closely to the edge of Skunk Glen Ravine -- and all before anyone's had a chance to tap into the wine? It's time for our hometown problem-solvers to solve another problem, while not succumbing to the allure of the Festival themselves. Narrator Phil Ulrich guides the story, while the Inkwells are: Joe Perez as Daisuke, a studious capybara-person from the local hot spring with a secret talent for water magicTrish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Meadow, a traveling diviner who sees omens and portents in the starsKameron (Tetsemi) as Tom, a young and slightly-cursed runaway lad who tends to dive in head-first without thinkingMatt Rossi as Sorena, a former bear cub polymorphed into a blacksmith's apprentice, torn between two worldsLiz Harper as Selby, the somewhat overworked town alchemist (and her loyal beast of a hound dog, Ollie) This is the second in a three-part series of Legend in the Mist -- the first episode is here, and you should watch for new episodes every Monday! This isn't our first time playing the rustic fantasy game from Son of Oak, however; you can check out our prior adventures here with a different trio of villagers. If you think this game sounds fun, you should be able to pick up your own copy from Son of Oak in the very near future! The music in this episode is by Phat Phrog Studios -- "Mana Malt," from the Bard's Rest collection. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Legend in the Mist TTRPG has finally released, and Tavern Watch is here to dip our toes back into the world of rustic fantasy adventure! It's time for the Spring Renewal Festival in the little town of Ravenhoem, kicking off the warmer part of the year by tossing out the old and welcoming in the new, but everywhere you look it just seems like things are going awry: there's a commotion blocking the bridge into town, the baker's got a fruit-related conundrum, and the old lady on the edge of town is having a wasp problem. What are the local book club/trouble investigators, the Inkwell Club, to do? Why, pitch in and help of course! Surely there's nothing more sinister going on here, right? Your narrator for this adventure is Phil Ulrich, and Ravenhome's resident nosy problemselves and lore chasers are: Joe Perez as Daisuke, a studious capybara-person from the local hot spring with a secret talent for water magicTrish Olson (AwkwardishPanda) as Meadow, a traveling diviner who sees omens and portents in the starsKameron (Tetsemi) as Tom, a young and slightly-cursed runaway lad who tends to dive in head-first without thinkingMatt Rossi as Sorena, a former bear cub polymorphed into a blacksmith's apprentice, torn between two worldsLiz Harper as Selby, the somewhat overworked town alchemist (and her loyal beast of a hound dog, Ollie) This is the first in a three-part series of Legend in the Mist -- watch for new episodes every Monday! This isn't our first time playing the rustic fantasy game from Son of Oak, however; you can check out our prior adventures here with a different trio of villagers. If you think this game sounds fun, you should be able to pick up your own copy of Son of Oakin the very near future! The music in this episode is by Phat Phrog Studios -- "Mana Malt," from the Bard's Rest collection. If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.