Plot Points

Play a trash panda! Raid suburbs for the garbage that is rightfully yours! Check it out here!

One of our favorite publishers is Pelgrane Press. Geek journalist extraordinaire Ben Riggs sat down with Pelgrane co-owner Cat Tobin to see what the publisher of 13th Age and Dracula Dossier is up to!

Synthicide: Sharpers in the Dark takes the setting from a bestselling game of grimdark cyberpunk and translates it into the brilliant Forged in the Dark game system. Listen to find out more in this interview with creator, Dustin DePenning! Click here to support it on Kickstarter!

These bards go to eleven! Gamer glitterati Satine Phoenix and Jamison Stone of Apotheosis Studios are Kickstarting a campaign of intrigue and art, songs and spycraft, portraying a city in which art and abomination abounds! Click here to check out the Kickstarter! Image courtesy Apotheosis Studios.  

A D&D adventure with a rocket ship? Probe "Kandlekeep Dekonstrukted" by Amy Vorpahl, part of Candlekeep Mysteries for 5E! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon! Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast.  

Imagine running an adventure online, and instead of books, notes, and PDFs, everything is in a single app, right before your eyes. Now imagine the app has art from world-class artists, and design from RPG luminaries. That is what the brilliant and bodacious designers of Monte Cook Games have created: an adventure made to be run online. Explore more at The Darkest House Kickstarter today!  Image courtesy Monte Cook Games.

City of Winter and Fall of Magic are story games centered around journeys in fantasy worlds. Play revolves around gorgeous, hand-made scrolls, and mechanics so simple and elegant that they bring one to question where RPGs end and storytelling begins. Furthermore, these games get to the good stuff of RPG play with shocking speed. We probe these questions and more with the games' designer, Ross Cowman! If you're interested, City of Winter is on Kickstarter right now. Play a demo here now!  Image by Doug Keith and courtesy Heart of the Deernicorn.   

Hear a stellar panel of nerds discuss the Appendix N text, At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft! Included are 7th edition Call of Cthulhu designer Mike Mason, RPG academic Scott Bruner, and the regular Plot Points crew! Never tried Call of Cthulhu? Hie thee forth to Chaosium.com for all your sanity-blasting needs! If you want to see the most eye-goggling and disturbing edition of At the Mountains of Madness yet published, check out this edition illustrated by Francois Baranger and published by Design Studio Press and Free League Publishing here! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon! Image by Francois Baranger courtesy Design Studio Press & Free League Publishing.   

An impenetrable table! Rolling attributes! Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Eighth in a series! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon! Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast.

Inspired by epic poetry and pulp television, John Harper & Sean Nittner's Agon takes an old system, dice pools, and makes it new to produce a play style more Greek than Gygax!  Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon! Check out Agon here! Wanna hear more epic Agon adventures featuring our own Sarah Babe? Click here to experience Theatre of the Mind Players actual play of the series! Music: "Highland Song" by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Image courtesy Evil Hat Productions.

Is Vaesen the best new RPG of the year? How does it stack up against Call of Cthulhu as a horror game? What does it teach about how to make an excellent RPG? All these questions and more are tackled in this week's Plot Points! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon! Image courtesy Fria Ligan.

Unnatural aging and disease! Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Seventh in a series! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now.  Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast.

Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Sixth in a series! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now.  Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast.

Urban Shadows is the addicting as hell PbtA game of machiavellian monsters living in metropolises! Its second edition has new fun faction rules, and the best explanation of combat in a PbtA game I've ever seen! Learn more in our interview with designers Marissa Kelly & Mark Diaz Truman! Also, here's the Kickstarter!  Death Divers is in its last days! Back it here! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now. Image courtesy Magpie Games.  

Explore Dustin DePenning's carbines and demons sci-fi RPG! It's on Kickstarter right now, and has a fascinating new game engine in its bloody and beating heart, the Heroic Dark! Old school in danger, 21st century in execution, Heroic Dark keeps your characters on the edge of doom and their players on the edge of their seats! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now. Image by Vladislav Orlowski and courtesy Will Power Games.

Lester Smith is a stalwart of GDW and TSR, designer of such games and Dark Conspiracy and Dragon Dice! He has a new game out, D13 which uses a D4 and D10 as the core mechanic. Check the game out here! He also explains how Dragon Dice is actually a sonnet in this interview! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now. Image by Larry Elmore and courtesy GDW.  

A role-playing game like no other. In Rest in Pieces you are room-mates with Death! In addition to a story concept never before seen, RiP takes RPG mechanics another step forward, using a block tower with a twist! Check it out on Kickstarter now! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now. Image courtesy Imagining Games.

Craig Campbell is an innovative RPG designer whose current Kickstarter, Good Strong Hands, is a game of relationships and fantasy exploration inspired by fictions like The Neverending Story, Labyrinth, and Willow!  Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now.  Image courtesy Nerdburger Games and created by Serena Malyon.

Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Fifth in a series! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now.  Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast.

A warlock-based 5E campaign inspired by a heavy metal album? And the album was retooled and recorded by the Budapest Scoring Symphonic Orchestra? Can such a thing be? Hearken to The Red Opera! Inspired by the DiAmorte album of the same name, today we interview game designer Rick Heinz about this eye-and-ear-grabbing Kickstarter! Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG. Click here to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on Patreon at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now. Image courtesy Apotheosis Studios.