Inside The Table: A Tabletop RPG Talk Show – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode, we recap our top games of 2023! After checking out a grand total of 82 games last year, Marley and Cole cover what they think is the most Innovative, the best story game, the game we want to play the most, the most "Us" (whatever that means) game, all the way to our Top Game of 2023.

But first, some news: Riley Daniels is creating an Itch Bundle to support her local Trans Youth charity! If you have a game and want to support a great cause, join the google form here! Or if you want to donate directly, click here.

Speaking of bundles, Jex Thomas of Bump in the Dark has created a itch bundle to donate to Pathfinders, a local, Milwaukee-based organization dedicated to connecting youth with housing and mental health support. Please offer your support and check out the bundle!

Claymore has set out with the FIST JAM IV currently live and ask you to finish your supplement! Create your offering to the FIST community and submit to the FIST jam.

Marley finds the joys of Project Zomboid! Cole tries to find 10 candles during New Years and fails to!

On to TTRPGs, Marley shares his experience with Evil Hat's Playtest of Abyssal by Ash Cheshire and Lara Paige Turner, a new refreshing take on Forged in The Dark about humans, monsters, and those in between. Abyssal provides new takes on playbooks, and has 3 times and settings from which the players can explore the horrors of the abyss.

Cole checks out the Fall of House Prosh by NotWritingGames, a sci-fi tragedy and melodrama that is staged similarly to a play. Join one of 3 factions and gain or spend tokens in order to bring your faction (or yourself) to power after the death of the Emperor.

Finally, on to the main topic: The games of 2023! We had 5 categories to consider this year, and we want to know: What was your favorite TTRPG of the past year?

Featuring Cole (⁠⁠⁠@IceColeBrew⁠⁠⁠) and Marley (⁠⁠⁠⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Produced by Cole, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on ⁠⁠your Social Media of Choice⁠⁠ and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to ⁠InsideTheTable@gmail.com⁠! 

And support us via ⁠our Patreon

In this episode, we talk about how notions of plagiarism, inspiration, and copyright fit into the TTRPG space. We both watched Hbomberguy’s recent video Plagiarism and You(Tube) so that’s where our heads are at.

But first, Marley has finished Alan Wake 2 (it’s fuckin great), then started and stopped playing Hunt: Showdown after convincing himself he was good at shooters after playing lots of Fortnite.

Then Cole has brief breaking news about a court case in progress about AI art!

Cole also checked out Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, and even found time to learn fighting games…

 Then onto TTRPGs!

After reading Mothership last episode, Marley has been on an OSR kick and stumbled across RAD by ¡Hipólita!, a Metro 2033-inspired post-apocalypse TTRPG. It’s everything he wished Mothership was, particularly given how it’s clearly inspired by non-OSR systems. GMs have a lot more agency and it's thrilling to see a modern iteration.

Meanwhile, Cole stumbled across The Marvelous Children of Inang-Uri by Momatoes, a generational world-building game set on the back of a living chimera. The game is itself a chimeric mix of Avery Alder’s The Quiet Year, Ben Robbins’ Kingdom, hidden role games, and even those complicated board games where you add up prestige at the end to figure out who won.

Then onto the main topic!

We both recently binged the gut-punch that is Hbomberguy’s recent video Plagiarism and You(Tube), which investigated several popular Youtubers who flagrantly stole their scripts from other creators and didn’t bother to credit them. So we take a moment to think about how that video fits in the context of the TTRPG space. How does hacking an existing game fit into that? How should we approach being inspired by other designers? And how does drawing heavily from an existing IP fit into that? 

Also, shout outs to the Ind of the Year Bundle, which has Rad, Planet Fist, and a bunch of games we’re very excited for! 

Featuring Cole (⁠⁠@IceColeBrew⁠⁠) and Marley (⁠⁠⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠⁠⁠).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on ⁠your Social Media of Choice⁠ and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com! 

And support us via our Patreon!

With world-building complete (see previous ep), we jump in to our Star Wars-y noir one-shot of Ironsworn: Starforged by Shawn Tomkin, featuring an insect-like robot and a grub-like jedi-like!

(⁠⁠⁠And yes, you can also watch this full episode with visual accompaniments on our Youtube channel!)

Of course, we take the time to briefly go over the facts of the galaxy (and our characters) that we came up with last time (0:02:18), before outlining the communities and factions we came up with in between episodes (0:24:19), before finally jumping into the game itself (0:43:39)!

And gosh, this one-shot has everything:

• A sabotaged vending machine containing the leader of spy network and a trade hub
• A techno dance-club which inexplicably offers hotel accommodation
• A Wheel of Fortune-based convenience store, hiding an illegal auction house somewhere deep within...
• And yes, a Space USB that everybody wants to get their hands on, even though nobody (not even us) knows what's on it...

With a lovely three hour and forty minute run-time, we even had the time to give our final thoughts about the system (03:25;39) and give Shout Outs (03:35:35) to some projects we've been checking out while making this extra long ep!

Featuring Marley (⁠⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠⁠) and Cole (⁠@IceColeBrew⁠).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

In this episode, we just start playing Ironsworn: Starforged by Shawn Tompkin!

It's a rad PbtA Star Wars-y game that Cole has been extremely excited to play. Marley, meanwhile, is approaching it with an empty head and an open mind, curious to learn what an Ironsworn game is... (⁠⁠And yes, you can also watch this episode on our Youtube channel!⁠⁠)

Now, as one of our longest episodes and so you might be wondering, "Hey, is this both world-building, character creation, and a full game??"

Nope!

Honestly, we just take our time introducing the system (0:01:06), establishing the truths of the setting (0:16:31), and create some characters who exist within the world we built (1:39:50).

It was an absolutely delightful experience and we look forward to jumping into full gameplay in the next episode!

Featuring Cole (⁠@IceColeBrew⁠) and Marley (⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

It's our birthday episode! One full year (give or take a few weeks) of talking tables and we're celebrating by doing an episode where we talk about our feelings about sanity mechanics.

On the topic of sanity mechanics, Cole's been checking out Darkest Dungeon 2 (0:04:10) and has found this new one has more interesting interpersonal connections. Also, it's less about treasure hunting and more about restoring the hope of the world.

Then, of course, we spend a decent while talking Tears of the Kingdom (0:14:59). Marley, who doesn't own a Switch, has been watching four different let's plays and loves seeing how people learn the game. Cole, meanwhile, has been passing the controller between their fiance and himself and has been really enjoying the new mechanics... and fish people.

(We also very briefly talk about what would be our dream TotK tabletop game and our hopes for how this game will inspire future TTRPGs.)

Then, onto tabletop games!

Marley has been checking out Wreck This Deck (0:25:50), a game about defacing playing cards and summoning demons. His big takeaway is that it feels legitimately occult in a really interesting way.

Cole has been checking out Starforged (0:37:45) in preparation for a potential let's play we might do... It's a scifi hack of Ironforged which gives you and opportunity to create your own galaxy to exist within. And, as Cole learned a little too late, it has an app which streamlines that relatively crunchy process.

In preparation for a writing thing, Marley has been checking out Skyrealms (0:44:25), a system-less setting set on floating islands in a sea of mist. It's also a coloring book? With Adventure Time vibes? It's reminded him how much he loves almanacs and the subtle connections that world-building books can have.

Then, we reply to an excellent email from listener Laurie about how two different systems Vaesen & Darington Press's Candela Obscura approach santity mechanics (0:51:26), using it as a springboard to talk about our feelings about sanity mechanics in general.

We close with Cole shouting out doing shout-casting with Swordfish eSports & ML eSports, and maybe getting back into twitch streaming??

Marley has also released a Lasers & Feelings hack of complicated 4x strategy games, Explore! Exploit! Expand! Exterminate! which he did because he thought was funny.

Featuring Marley (⁠⁠⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠⁠⁠) and Cole (@IceColeBrew).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

In this episode, we straight up design a TTRPG. It's only the initial brainstorm, but we do just improvise and troubleshoot the beginnings of a new tabletop system LIVE (and pre-recorded).

But first, it's been a month since our last proper episode, so we have a lot of inspirations to chat about:

• Marley talks about reading the Akira manga (0:00:48) and finding that he loves it more than the film (which he also loves).
• Cole has been checking out Tails of Iron (0:07:50), a 2D-platformer with an angry mouse that's Redwall meets Hollow Knight, but actually takes the time to explore
• To take a break from watching incredible (but deeply cynical) prestige dramas, Marley's been watching the Limitless TV show (0:14:39), which is bizarrely very nice and wholesome for a show about a man who takes brain stimulants to help the FBI catch people comitting high treason.
• Cole gives his final verdict on The Super Mario Bros. Movie (0:19:55).
• Cole also chats about the newest hotness in the gaming world, Omega Strikers (0:23:11). What's that, you ask? Well, it's a hero sports game that's part Rocket League, part Pyre that Cole has been enjoying. It's got all the characters you'd expect from such a game: the witch, a person in a devil mask, a dragon guy, several MILFs, and a giant hamster.

Then onto TTRPGs!

Cole has gotten their hands on getting the Spindlewheel deck (0:32:01) he kickstarted from Tea Cabbage Studios, aka Sasha Reneau. It's a really fun tarot-like storytelling game with some very beautiful cards that can work with any setting. We've also thought about using them to guide the structure of a podcast at one point...

Marley then talks about the excellently named The Devil City & its Seventy-Seven Vicious Princes (0:39:50) by Alex D. It's a game where you play as a aristocratic house meddling around in a cut-throat city, concocting schemes, putting your nose where it doesn't belong, and syphoning power from demons. This book is worth it for the world-building alone, but it is fascinating to play as an entire faction that uses (and perhaps sacrifices) player characters to achieve its goals.

Cole has also been reading through the preview for Stoneburner (0:52:49) by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas and Galen Pejeau. It's a solo-friendly game that asks the question: "What if some dwarves dug too greedily and too deep... IN SPACE?" The result is a Dwarf Fortress-inspired system as they try to safely rebuild a community, while dealing with rival dwarves, demons, and growing responsibility. Also, there are DOOM vibes.

Then onto the main topic in which we basically brainstorm and troubleshoot a brand new TTRPG (0:58:37) based on stuff we've talked about in the episode and ideas that are floating around. It's a fun look into the process of making stuff, asking (and answering) questions, and throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks.

We close up with some shout outs:

• Marley has a system-less random encounter supplement coming out with this month's Let's Role Play Pass.
• Cole is getting back into streaming with a bunch of interesting games planned...
• Cole's fiance Holly has contributed to Soaring Heart, a Tifa Lockhart Zine that is now crowdfunding! She's a dope artist and it's absolutely worth checking out!

Featuring Cole (@IceColeBrew) and Marley (⁠⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠⁠).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

In this episode, Marley plays a TTRPG all by his lonesome, as Cole has been feeling under the weather (P.S. You should send them your well-wishes to @IceColeBrew on Twitter...). In any case, Marley takes this opportunity to explore the 110 year history of the Spaceship Theseus with a really good world-building game.

See, the world-building game in question isThe Ground Itself by Everest Pipkin. It's an evolution of The Quiet Year with some Microscope thrown in. And yes, it's not technically a solo game, but the game's prompts make it easy to play with as a journaling game (even though collaborating with friends is far more fun).

The episode closes out with shout outs to the Sci-Fi Is The Best vs Fantasy Is The Best bundles, which are currently competing to settle the issue once and for all.

(Btw: Sci-Fi is the best, even though we are perhaps biased on that front given that Marley's Apocalypse Roadtrip is one of the games in that bundle...)

And also, The Awards (an indie TTRPG awards show that presents itself as an Ennie-alternative for weird, alternative TTRPGs) is looking for designers to submit their TTRPGs and judges to judge them. Last year's winners included some stone cold bangers, so be sure to read through them...

Featuring Marley (⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

In the newest episode of Inside The Table, we ask: "What The Hell Brings Player Characters Together?" We discuss the tools (or lack of tools) utilized in games that encourage building bonds and investment in the story at your table.

But first, Cole talks about their experience with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which was a joy to watch, even if it was a little Marvel-y. We also chat about the surprising behind the scene videos showing the incredible puppets and practical effects that were used in this film, especially given the industry's focus on CGI in recent years.

Marley has been excited for the latest fishing survival horror game, Dredge. It's a game with three things he loves: Inventory management, cool maps, and eldritch horror. It's also a great, if sometimes stressful way to while away a few hours and damn, it would be sick to write a TTRPG like this.

On the tabletop side of things, Cole revisits Scum & Villany by Stras Acimovic & John Lebouf-Little – it's the sci-fi space drama hack of Blades in the Dark, swapping out crew playbooks with different ship types to use on their space escapades. Also, Cole is about to use it as an introductory game for his D&D group, so that should be interesting!

Marley jumps feet first into Skyfarer: The Sunless Skies Role-Playing Game by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor. It's a TTRPG set in the Fallen London universe, in which you play as a crew of a spacefaring locomotive who have lost their captain for one reason or another and must delve the High Wilderness themselves or die trying. It's a really neat game with some solid mechanical ideas, if perhaps a little inaccessible for the non-Fallen London-heads among its players (as might be expected).

Finally, Cole looks at Briar Sovereign's April Fool's joke and new Armour Astir supplement: Amor Astir, which allows you to elope with your rival, have sex with your buds, and become a poster child for the revolution. (And also in the game.)

Then, on to the main topic: "What The Hell Brings Player Characters Together??"

In this, we have an extended discussion about how TTRPGs build up relationships between player characters (mechanically and narratively), building connections to the game-world, and what we do when some TTPRGs don't include rules for teamwork. We also answer the vital question: Which TTRPG has the TTRPG world's greatest approach to player bonds??

Featuring Marley (⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠) and Cole (@IceColeBrew).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

In this episode, we talk about the TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida bundle which collects 505 games for $5, and the TTRPGs which caught our interest.

But first, Marley talks about recently finishingThe Wire then immediately finding out about the death of Lance Reddick. Cole talks about the influence the show has had on them and they both talk about how the show has got them so excited for seeing the cast in other things.

Cole checked out the poorly-advertised Strange World and was refreshingly surprised to see that it was a pulp adventure story about the dangers of exploiting the earth, rather than instilling a legacy on the young.  And it has Disney's first queer protagonist. Again.

In TTRPG talk, Cole went to Tanuki Games and got some cool physical TTRPGs, including:

Beak, Feather, and Bone, a map-labelling ttrpg about factions of cute corvids shaping the city they live in. Cole got into it to try and convince their DM to mess with the D&D module they're playing.

Cole also checked out Anamnesis by Sam Leigh. It’s a journaling game that uses tarot cards to piece together a character’s identity after losing their memory. We knew about it from the Anamnesis Jam, but we also had the sudden realisation we heard it on Friends At The Table, too.

Meanwhile, Marley checked out The Between by Jason Cordova, a Victorian gothic mystery game inspired by Penny Dreadful, League of Extraordinary Gentleman, and Blades in the Dark. It’s a game with no set solution to a mystery, but the players brainstorm a solution themselves through play. There is also a long-term mystery involving a Moriarty-type figure who masterminds everything from behind the scenes?? It's sick.

Apocalypse Keys has released it physical copies, and so Cole takes this opportunity to talk briefly about this Hellboy-inspired PBTA game. 

Then, we talk about our favourite games from the TTRPG Bundle for Florida Trans Rights, which has over 500 games, but we sat down to talk about 10 games we were excited about (or roughly 2% of the total), including:

• die RPG by Nala J. Wu - A very charming game written while Nala was alseep.
• Sherwood | A Game of Outlaws and Arcana by R. Rook Studio, which Marley loves specifically from reading Page 4, which encourages you to smash down many pre-existing notions from Robin Hood depictions and also Fuc... not give a damn about the True King.
• Thirsty Sword Lesbians by April Kit Walsh- A flexible system that can give Revolutionary Girl Utena vibes to any setting. It’s a game that Cole may or may not have done an actual play of at some point. 
• Lighthouse At The End Of The World by Bannerless Games - The kind of nautical horror journaling game that Marley has been looking for recently, especially after watching a lot of Dredge and thinking about The Lighthouse. 
• Serious Reading by Jordan Boschman - A game in which you play as an opinion columnist ostensibly writing about one topic, but sneaking in another topic on the sly. Very “Don’t Even Get Me Started!” vibes.
• ECO MOFOS by David Blandy - An optimistic and non-grimdark OSR game. It’s specifically Weirdhope, about punks building up communities after the end of the world. 
• FIST by CLAYMORE - A paranormal paramilitary hack of Offworlders, which we get so hyped about during the recording that we vow to do an actual play of it in future. 
• Boondock Cartomancy by Hook, Line, & Sinker - Which Marley declares his favourite game in the bundle based on vibes alone.
• Maharlika RPG by Makapatag - A Meka game built around Filipino mythology, which just has such a distinct sense of place to it.
• Errante by Mundos Infinitos - One of those games which takes the perspective of characters who don't often appear in a TTRPG, which Marley appreciates.

Featuring Cole (@IceColeBrew) and Marley (⁠@Mynar_Lenahan⁠)

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!

In this episode, Marley and Cole are talking about pitching a campaign to the table, the difference between running a streamed game vs a home game, and campaigns we've always wanted to play.

But first, Cole chats about finishing Hi-Fi RUSH (and immediately starting a new game), before Marley talks Kings of the Wyld, a fantasy book that reminds him how much he likes a good fantasy map and good, grounded, fantasy world-building, but kind of doesn't 

Then, Cole chats about Bleak Spirit by Chris Longhurst, a GM-less game where players alternate between describing the world and describing the strange, unknowable protagonist moving through it. It's really fun in how it approaches the mystery of a Soulsborne game, encouraging players to flesh out the history of a ruined location and what kind of adversary waits at the centre of it, while never saying for certain if the story is true or not.

Marley got his hands on The Score by Steve Dee, an exciting heist card game out now on Kickstarter! In it, players plan a heist with simple prompts, build and create your character from random trait cards, then jump into a heist. The game is quick, and fairly easy to pick up and can lead to some fantastic heists all in under 18 minutes! (unless you're us, in which case it's a 47 minute Actual Play on YouTube).

Then, onto the main topic, where Cole leads us through their history of playing in and pitching campaigns both at home and online. This broadens out into a discussion about how pitches change for different TTRPG systems, our favourite pitches that we wish we could play, how missing out on playing campaigns can lead to writing TTRPG systems, and what a chemistry test is. 

Closing up, we have a bunch of shout outs, including The CalazCon Indiegogo campaign (ending soon!), Marley's appearance playing Ghoul Boys for The Fiction First Network, and a Pentiment-inspired Cosmic Horror mystery he wrote for the Let's Role Play Pass. 

Cole meanwhile is about to begin a new season of Fire In The Dark at Huntsmen's Hydra, continued working on MLE Sports, and shouts out the incredible work done by The Roll Plus Bond community raising over $8,404.98 for Trans Lifeline!

Featuring Marley (@Mynar_Lenahan) and Cole (@IceColeBrew).

Produced by Marley, as well.

Follow Inside The Table on your Social Media of Choice and be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, send in your Listener Questions to InsideTheTable@gmail.com!