RPG Conversation – Casting Shadows Podcast

Episode 70: A Frightfully Cheerful Conversation

Summary

Published: January 19, 2026

What if four fellows with different views on horror in their lives and different approaches to humor found themselves in a chatroom to share their experiences with RPGs? Not telling war stories, not pontificating, but instead finding common ground and simple truths – like we do in a good group of gamers. This time, it’s all about horror, comedy, and when someone gets their comedy in your horror or vice versa~

Special Guests: ⁠ ⁠

⁠⁨@OrcusDorkus⁩ ⁠ ⁠ ⁨⁠

⁠@RPGSean⁩ ⁠ ⁠ ⁨⁠

⁠@ThirdFloorWars⁩ ⁠

Panel Topic: Running Horror, Comedy, or Comedic Horror – in the moment. In this audio-only version of our frightfully cheerful conversation nothing has been cut or lost, but the video version on YouTube has had some extra details, notes, and ideas added to it which you might appreciate. You can also see all the nodding in that version~

Games Mentioned: Call of Cthulhu, Kult: Divinity Lost, Mothership, Ghostbusters, Army of Darkness, The Laundry, Paranoia, Outbreak Undead, The End of the World, Delta Green, Liminal Horror, Rivers of London, and more

LINKS:

GO BAG Podcast

Titterpigs Podcast

Tabletop Talk Podcast

Discomfort, Fear, Terror, and Vast Cosmic Horror, on a dime a day

CONTACT ME:

Send in a voice message via Speakpipe!

Ubiquity Roleplaying Games Discord

@Runeslinger for YouTube, TwiXter, BlueSky, and Facebook

Episode 69: On the Idea of a Better Game

Summary

Published: December 20, 2025

This episode is another review of a post from the ⁠Casting Shadows blog⁠, though this time the Wayback Machine is just taking us five short years (and a few decades of observation and experience) into the past. This time we look at a post based on the increasingly narrowing rhetoric around the technique of the Session 0 which tries to restore the balance required in that technique for long-term play.

This time, the full post is presented before I get into any commentary from the present of the time of recording. Among the things in that commentary is a link to an earlier video on the same theme, but slightly different topic. It is linked below and is called Theories & Practices. It’s almost a rant. One of two I may have recorded in all my time sharing RPG ideas.

LINKS:

⁠A friend of the show, Patrick Mullen, on his Processing GURPS blog has recently referenced the Can I make my game better? post in a post of his own about his process of setting up a new campaign. I think we need many such examples of the great variety of approaches and needs we gamers have and so I share the link here:

⁠Zero Hour⁠

⁠Theories & Practices ⁠video mentioned in the episode. This video was recorded in 2014 in response to an uptick in extreme views in the regular cyclical confrontation between preferences between ‘Just play!’ and ‘Elitist Theory instead of play!’

⁠⁠⁠

⁠Can I make my game better?⁠⁠⁠⁠ blog post on Casting Shadows

Can I make my game better?

CONTACT ME:

Send in a voice message via Speakpipe!

Ubiquity Roleplaying Games Discord

@Runeslinger for YouTube, TwiXter, BlueSky, and Facebook

Episode 68: On What Might Be in a Name

Summary

Published: December 13, 2025

This episode includes a call from Jason Connerley in regard to Episode 65 with the Arcane Alienist, about RPGs and memory, and then sets the Wayback Machine for 2010 and a fresh look at an old post called By any other name~ and the town that got away.

LINKS:

⁠Weird Studies Podcast⁠ Homepage

–⁠Episode on Dungeons & Dragons, or the Reality of Illusions⁠

⁠Nerds RPG Variety Cast⁠

⁠Arcane Alienist Podcast⁠

⁠By Any Other Name⁠ blog post on Casting Shadows

By any other name~

CONTACT ME:

Send in a voice message via Speakpipe!

Ubiquity Roleplaying Games Discord

@Runeslinger for YouTube, TwiXter, BlueSky, and Facebook

Episode 65: On Memory and RPGs (with Arcane Alienist)

Summary

Published: October 19, 2025

This is an OctOSR-adjacent episode. Thanks go out to BJ Boyd, the Arcane Alienist, for being a guest on this episode to help frame and execute a discussion on the nature of memory and some key ways it can affect our play and understanding of RPGs. You can find BJ’s podcast at the link below:

⁠The Arcane Alienist⁠

LINKS relevant to this episode:

⁠Things Gamers Say…⁠

⁠Things Gamers Imagine…⁠

⁠On the Caller in Early RPGs⁠

An interesting and relevant link suggested by Jason Connerley of the Nerds RPG Variety Cast comes from SpectreVision Radio:

⁠Episode 6: Dungeons & Dragons, or the Reality of Illusions

CONTACT ME:

Send in a voice message via Speakpipe!

Ubiquity Roleplaying Games Discord

@Runeslinger for YouTube, TwiXter, BlueSky, and Facebook

Episode 53: On Accommodating Imagination with Roleplay Rescue

Summary

Published: April 12, 2024

In this conversation with Roleplay Rescue‘s host and seeker of immersive and engaging play, Che Webster, we discuss some blog posts about techniques that Che is starting to use to get more of what he wants from play. As that quest is near and dear to my heart, I thought others might resonate with it as well. We talk about making room for imagination, facilitating a more active stance in our imaginations, and consider how we speak to one another when we play.

Podcasts mentioned in the episode:

⁠Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast⁠

_______

CONTACT ME:

Send in a voice message via Speakpipe!

Ubiquity Roleplaying Games Discord

For TwiXter, BlueSky, and Facebook: @Runeslinger