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Episode 22: Mirror of Mystery, part 3

This is the final part of our Halloween 2018 one-off adventure that Lucia created and ran for us, the Mirror of Mystery.

 

As long as we have a regular group that can all meet periodically to play, many roleplayers will gravitate toward campaigns: extended stories composed of related in-game events played out over many game sessions. But there is also the “one-off” game: a game that you play from beginning to end in one session. One-off games are a wonderful way to try something new, whether it is a change in the game’s tone, trying a new DM, playing a new character,  playing with an entirely new group of players, or sampling a different or new game system. Playing the occasional one-off game session can also help in blowing off some steam for the players and DM if they’ve been playing a long campaign, which might otherwise lead to burnout or stagnation.

 

As I (Harold) write this, we’ve been playing and recording our games for more than a year. We started on 11 November 2017, and it’s 1 December 2018 as I write this. I don’t in the slightest feel that I am even close to burning out, but we’ve also played several one-off games over the past year. It is only because this one was themed for Halloween that we present these episodes out of the order in which we played the game. Our other one-shots will appear in the podcast in the coming next few months.

 

What do you like to play for a one-off? What have you tried?

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Episode 21: Mirror of Mystery, part 2

We continue our Halloween 2018 one-off D&D 5e adventure, “Mirror of Mystery,” written and run by Lucia. Having defeated the shadow wolf, the party is preparing to leave the tower to return to the Quester’s Rest to determine what their next steps are.

 

The party is:

– Karol Vane Melboy, the avaricious noble with a luxurious mullet

– Jaboc Gardon, the human sorcerous forger

– Pumpko Boi, the homicidal artificer who wears only pumpkin shells as armor

– Tyranthraxus, the solar-powered robot who is resigned to live in the worst of all possible worlds

– Stumpy, the dwarf who just wants to never visit his family again

 

Lucia is curious about whether people would be interested to read and/or play “Mirror of Mystery” as a published module. Let us know if you’d be interested!

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Welcome to our worlds

Hi. My name is Harold, and I’ll be your Dungeon Master today.

This is how every session of our current campaign, Guardians of Indir, begins. But how did we get there, and who are we?

I discovered RPGs when I was 10, got more heavily into them when I was 12, and have been playing and mostly running games since then (it’s been more than 30 years). But that went out of the window when my kids were born – most parents will tell you how difficult it is to accommodate any schedule that isn’t based on the kids – and for years I hardly played at all.

After nearly a decade, my son was finally old enough to be interested in playing RPGs with me, and I started teaching him games that we could play together. A couple years after that, my daughter joined in, too. Soon I was able to share all my passion for gaming with them.

Well, nearly all…because I love to listen to RPG podcasts, and for the longest time I couldn’t find ANY RPG podcast I could listen to with a family audience. Grandparents or kids, neither were appropriate audiences for all the podcasts I listened to and enjoyed. Why was that? I was frustrated. Eventually I found one that was family-friendly, and shortly after that, some friends started a side campaign with their kids on their podcast. Suddenly the kids and I could listen to other people playing RPGs, too! I was very excited to share this aspect of RPG life with them.

But what did my kids say as soon as they listened to an RPG podcast? Naturally, they said “Well, we could do that. Why don’t we?”

This site and the associated podcast are the result.