501 – The Mountain with Matt Boothman (Creator, Merely Roleplayers, I Need a Miracle)

Matt is the host and creator of Merely Roleplayers, a long-running actual play podcast focused on theatrical performers enjoying tabletop RPGs together. He’s also the creator and writer of I Need A Miracle, an audio drama about a world purely through its people’s prayers for miracles, some of which are granted in ways that cause problems for everyone. Season 1 was a NJ Web Fest selection and award finalist, and season 2 is currently crowdfunding.

We sat down for a creative interview and discussion over a game of The Mountain, a Spindlewheel Microgame about a god, locked in the peak of a mountain, and its followers, scaling the mountain to free that god… for good or for ill.

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500 – The Party of One Episode 500 Spectacular (The Creation of Wonder with A Bunch of My Friends)

To celebrate 500 episodes(!) of the show, I sat down with a bunch of my friends to play The Creation of Wonder by Eve Golden-Woods. We told the story of The Singularity Cycle, Phase I. The Blade of the Exarchs, a multimedia rock opera cinematic experience adapted from 20 years of TTRPG campaign notes.

Thank you to my guests on this episode: Noah Houlihan, Jonaya Kemper, Hazel Amber Goswick, Alex Pearlman (Pearlmania500), Audrey Ladytabletop, KeganEXE, Marn Lastname, Caleb Zane Huett, Christine Prevas, Dr. Emily Friedman, Sophia Ricciardi, His Name Was Dusk, Kendrick Smith, AJ Ray AKA Hooshakid, Meghan Cross, Kienna Shaw, Jadzia Axelrod, Cate Osborn (Catieosaurus), Aaron Voigt, Dillin Apelyan, Stentor Danielson, Caro Asercion, Kevin Gallagher, Riley Hopkins, Lucas, Sarah Gailey, Matt Boothman, Elisabeth McCaughrean, Quinn Majeski, Grant, Mike Schubert, Patrick Kenny, Barclay Travis, Richard Kreutz-Landry, Steph Beck Fey, Dewayne Feenstra, and Adam Vass.

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499 – Project ECCO with Caldwell Tanner (NADDPOD, Mystery Castle, Drawfee)

Caldwell is an illustrator, storyboard artist, writer, director, producer, and voice actor. You know him from Not Another D&D Podcast, as one of the creators of Drawfee, and from his new game, Drawnsters, a DIY card game battle video game currently on Kickstarter.

We wanted something weird, and inventive, and funny, and surreal, and so Project ECCO by Elliot Davis felt like an absolutely perfect fit. So I cracked out my calendar and we broke down a story of a time agent chasing a temporal anomoly across time and space (causing untold havoc along the way).

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498 – In the Shadow of Glory with Emily Jaye (Host, This Week in Fandom History)

Emily is one of the hosts of This Week in Fandom History, a podcast which breaks down different foundational moments that shaped and shook fandom culture over the years–from those you know like the back of your hand, to those you might never have heard of before.

We got deep in the paint with our shared love of superhero fandom in a game of In The Shadow Of Glory, a two-player letter writing game about a hero and villain so deeply intertwined, they have become the only people on earth who understand one another.

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497 – Un-Navigateable with V Arrow (Host, This Week in Fandom History)

V is one of the hosts of This Week in Fandom History, a podcast about notable events across fan culture, from the very recent to the pioneering moments of fandom. We sat down to play Un-Navigateable by K Ramstack, a solo tabletop RPG about the experience of cataloging an old blog off before taking ti down from the internet. It’s a great opportunity to examine our own history of fandom, and the particular ways we came of age on the Internet.

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496 – Together We Write Private Cathedrals with Avery Alder (Designer, Monsterhearts, Ribbon Drive, Dream Askew)

496 – Together We Write Private Cathedrals with Avery Alder (Designer, Monsterhearts, Ribbon Drive, Dream Askew)

Avery is the designer of some of the most influential games in TTRPGs, including Monsterhearts, The Quiet Year, Dream Askew, Ribbon Drive, and more. We sat down for a beautiful and intimate story of queer romance told in the margins in Together We Write Private Cathedrals by Weaver Walker.

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495 – HOME with Shing Yin Khor (January, A Mending, A Field Guide to Memory)

Shing is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work ranges from film and puppetry to comics and graphic novels and incredible keepsake games such as A Mending and their newest, January. January is a postcard writing game for two about distant but persistent friendships in an alternate universe filled with kaiju–AKA, the most “Me” pitch I’ve ever heard in my life.

Appropriate to the topic of January, we sat down to play HOME, a mapmaking RPG of Kaiju vs. Mecha, in which pilots step into the shoes of colossal war machines to do battle with invading monsters. Can they survive the battle, or will the Kaiju tear their home to pieces?

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494 – Last Shooting with Adam Mac (The Disappearances of Lydia Fountayne, Feddie Scum)

Adam is a cast member on The Disappearances of Lydia Fountayne, an award-nominated new audio drama about books, birds, and life beneath the all-seeing electronic eye of the internet. He also GMs Feddie Scum, a Gundam fanfiction actual play podcast set during the events of the Universal Century.

In the spirit of big robots, bigger drama, and even bigger feelings, we sat down for an epic battle in Last Shooting by dear friend of the show Grant. Get ready for spies vs. soldiers in the battle before the war!

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493 – Tether with Justin C. Key (Author, The Hospital At The End Of The World)

Justin C. Key is a speculative fiction and horror author whose new book, The Hospital At The End Of The World, is available in stores now. It’s a murder mystery set in the last human-run hospital in a world overrun by a seemingly (but not quite) perfect AI algorithm overseen by a sinister corporation. Talk about an unfortunately timely premise.

We sat down to play Tether, a two-player journaling game about people decades apart staring down the same supernatural curse, with only a journal spread across time to help them stop it.

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492 – Elf With a 10-Page Backstory with Johnny Stanton IV (Adventuring Academy, Almost Friday TV D&D Games)

Johnny is a professional athlete, professional nerd, and ambassador for all things D&D and tabletop RPGs. You can catch him right now on the Almost Friday TV D&D series on YouTube, running the cast through their first-ever Dungeons & Dragons game.

We sat down for an indulgent celebration of all things trope-y tabletop fantasy in a game of Elf With a 10-page Backstory, in which over-the-top TTRPG characters unleash their overwritten origins to stop apocalyptic threats.

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