foldedfrequencies

A Table Full of Chaos Monkeys: Con Games with Greg and Casey [S4E3]

In this week’s episode, Greg and Casey of Black Shield Productions share their experience running large-scale games at conventions. We hear about the flow of information between players and tables, deciding whom to leave behind on a doomed planet, and the trope of a preacher with a gun. Thanks to Black Shield Productions for making this interview possible!

We first encountered a Black Shield Productions game back at OrcaCon in January. Their games use a modified version of the Fate system. The Black Shield Productions crew has also done some streaming, including the Elder Scrolls RPG and the Adventures in Middle-earth RPG.

Thanks to Theo for providing this week’s intro!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon or supporting us on Ko-Fi. A special thanks to Hannah W, Jake K, Perry C, Elvin Prince, Jason K, and Smokie Derg for supporting us on Patreon!

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at VancouFur (Part 1) [S4T4]

This week, we’re on location at the VancouFur furry convention in Vancouver! We hear about capitalist considerations in a fantasy world, a plucky little rat, and the cuthtroat Vancouver real estate industry. Jake exposes an embarrassing ignorance of the order of the Discworld books. Thanks to the organizers for giving us permission to record at the convention!

We’re grateful to Jade, Fion, Edge, Herman, Asher, Reno, Musrom, Rainyatsu, and Laurien for taking the time to chat with us! Here’s that building in Surrey that Musrom was talking about. It looks like it did sell recently, so maybe it won’t be empty for long?

We unfortunately didn’t receive any art that we could link to in the show notes. If you’re reading this and you have cool art of your character or campaign, get in touch! We’d love to see it, and if you like we’d be happy to share it on social media.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at the Grand Opening of Chance Encounter Games (Part 2) [S4T3]

This week, we’re once again on location at the grand opening of Chance Encounter Games! We hear about a sham trial and a public execution at a LARP, very ambitious notetaking, and playing a nonmagical character in a very magical world. (Also, a little bit about Jake’s long-running campaign.)

This is the TTRPG store and gaming space that Dante told us about during our interview earlier this season. Thanks again to Dante for letting us record at your grand opening! Also, thanks to Alaria, N, Miller, Aidan, Kathrin, and Mario for taking the time to chat with us. If you haven’t already heard it, go listen to the first half of our coverage.

We hear about a very intense storyline at Legacies LARP in this episode. Last season, Andrew talked about the experience of writing storylines for Legacies.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Tactical Immersive Experience: Miniatures Combat with Simon [S4E2]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Simon about using soda cans and pizza boxes as terrain, the shift away from miniatures in TTRPGs, and the incompatibility of the Seattle real estate market with large-scale miniatures combat. Plus, Jake gets grumpy about indie TTRPG marketing.

Simon (whom we met at OrcaCon) runs the Brush Wielders Union and the associated podcast as well as a Horus Heresy fan podcast. He has a ton of experience in TTRPG publishing, including work on Warmachine, Hordes, Iron Kingdoms 2e, Eclipse Phase, The Hammer and the Stake, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and Unhallowed Metropolis. As a result, this conversation goes very far afield of our original plan to talk about minis, because Simon really has such a depth of experience. We wound up chatting about folk knowledge and traditions in popular games, the history of D&D’s status as a cultural juggernaut, and the extremely nineties television show Kindred: the Embraced. Here are those stats on the most common systems played on Roll20, in case you were wondering. Some previous Campaign Spotlight episodes come up in this conversation:

Simon also discusses some fun rulesets:

Dungeon Crawl Classics (not a minis combat system, but a fun OSR TTRPG)
Necromunda (a very miniatures-intensive Warhammer system)
Strength and Honour (a wargame system for battles in the ancient world)
Test of Honour (a miniatures system focusing on samurai skirmish combat)

After we recorded this interview, Simon sent us some pictures of the incredible minis he’s painted:

Thanks to Delta for introducing this week’s episode! Delta is a player in Jake’s long-running home game.

Thanks to Goblin Society Games for supporting this week’s episode! Go check out their website and take a look at Mukrag’s Compendium of Curios, the HELBINE setting, and all the other cool games and supplements they make. Through July 23, if you purchase Goblin Society Games products on DriveThruRPG, they’ll donate 10% of the proceeds to Partners in Health.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon or supporting us on Ko-Fi. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at the Grand Opening of Chance Encounter Games (Part 1) [S4T2]

This week, we’re on location at the grand opening of Chance Encounter Games! We hear about the economy of game publishing, the joy of playing your character like you’re driving a stolen car, and the impeccable vibes of a cast-iron portcullis. This is the TTRPG store and gaming space that Dante told us about during our interview earlier this season. Thanks again to Dante for letting us record at your grand opening! Also, thanks to everyone who took the time to chat with us:

Allen
Tom
Adam
Parker, who runs the Seattle RPG Variety Society and mentioned a few game systems:
- Copperhead County, which uses the engine from Blades in the Dark
- Dungeon Crawl Classics
- Delta Green
Davi, who gave us a hot take and mentioned a couple game systems in the process:
- Dragon Age from Green Ronin Games (whom we’ll be talking more about later this season)
- The Cosmere TTRPG
Max, who talked about the business model of game stores and mentioned a system and a sourcebook:
- Unknown Armies
- Monster Overhaul
Brian

In this episode we mention Distant Worlds Coffeehouse – which is a block away from Chance Encounter Games, and a very chill space with excellent food. We also mention OrcaCon, which is an extremely fun gaming convention in Seattle every January. Here’s the first part and here’s the second part of our experience at OrcaCon.

In the outro, Jake refers to polytopes as “polyhedra”. We sincerely apologize for this error. Here are some cool renderings of four-dimensional polytopes you can look at while deciding whether to forgive us.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

On Location at Vulpine Taproom (Part 2) [S4T1]

In this week’s Streetlight, we’re back on location at Vulpine Taproom in Seattle asking people about their characters and campaigns! We hear about liches with day jobs, wild magic druids, and the downsides of digital dice.

We’re very grateful to Vulpine Taproom for letting us record at their game night! We talked with so many people in one evening that we ended up breaking it up into two episodes. The first episode aired towards the end of last season – go give it a listen.

Thanks to Margaret, Shawn, Brandon, Chris, and Andrew for featuring in this week’s episode! Margaret and Shawn mention a ton of TTRPG systems in our conversation:

Here’s a review of Champions 4th Edition, which Margaret and Shawn repeatedly refer to as the Big Blue Book. Here’s a brief contemporary review of the system from a 1988 issue of Computers and Video Games.
This is the Ars Magica system they discuss.
Here’s a 2005 review of the Serenity system they discuss. If you weren’t around for Firefly and Serenity, the reverence might seem a little disorienting. The entire rulebook is also available on Internet Archive.
Here’s the concept for Mage: the Ascension.
We talk briefly about Lancer and Jake mentions last season’s interview with Tyler.
Here’s the synopsis of the book Shawn is working on based on the steampunk campaign he ran. The illustrations here are really incredible.
Here’s a lot more of the art Shawn has worked on professionally.

Throughout our conversation, Margaret and Shawn were showing us pieces of physical art. All of these were extremely cool! Here’s some of Shawn’s art:

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon or supporting us on Ko-Fi. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Cats That Herd Themselves: Running a Campaign across Multiple Tables with Dante [S4E1]

Welcome to Season 4 of Campaign Spotlight! This week, we chat with Dante about running eleven weekly parallel tables in the same campaign, falling in to becoming a professional GM, and embracing the tropes of the fetch quest. Plus, Dante has some sage advice for GMs like Jake who love spreadsheets.

During the interview, Dante mentions that they’re opening a physical storefront for Chance Encounter Games in Seattle. In the time since we recorded this interview, we attended the grand opening and asked the customers about their campaigns, characters, and hot takes. Expect to hear all about it in an upcoming Flashlight.

Dante also mentions two useful mapmaking Patreons:

Way back in March 2024, we chatted with Jesse about a very different approach to running the same campaign across multiple tables. Last season, we heard from RP about the experience of professional GMing.

Thanks to Bramble for introducing this week’s episode! Bramble is a player in Jake’s long-running home game.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon or supporting us on Ko-Fi. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Season 3 Finale [S3F8]

In the very last Flashlight of Season 3, Jake describes Reilly’s rations, Reilly shows off some sound effect finesse, and we commit to a timeline for Season 4. Spoiler alerts for either Inspector Gadget or Mission Impossible, potentially. This was our first time recording one-on-one in the studio in a long time, and we’d really missed it.

Listen to the episode to hear what we have in store for Season 4! If you’re enjoying the show, and you’d like to support it, here are some ways you can make that hapen:

Subscribing and leaving a review helps other people find Campaign Spotlight! When people find the show, they sometimes get in touch with us about cool campaigns, and we interview them on the next season, and that’s how we can keep making more episodes.
If you’d like to introduce a Season 4 episode in-character as your PC, call that intro in to 724 320 2020. This has been a really fun part of the last couple seasons, and we’d like to keep it going.
If you have a cool character or campaign you’d like to show off, feel free to call 724 320 2020 and tell us about it! If you’ve played it and it was fun and interesting, we’d love to hear about it and feature it in an episode.
If you have something you’d like to promote on the show (an actual play, a new game, a work of fiction) that’s related to TTRPGs, get in touch with us at campaign.spotlight@gmail.com about advertising.
Subscribing to our Patreon helps us pay for production, hosting, and distribution, and also lets us record at more cons and other events.

Thanks so much to everyone who’s continued to listen to the show! This has been such a fun and rewarding project. We hope you enjoy what’s coming next.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Black Trenchcoats and Pink Mohawks with Ev [S3E8]

In our very last interview of Season 3, we chat with Ev about spontaneous goblinization, nanite infestation, and a future Seattle that’s even grimmer than the one we live in. Quite a bit of Seattle talk in this one, but also a lot of discussion of playing a TTRPG in a grounded and realistic world where actions have consequences. Also, spoilers for iZombie, Mr Robot, and possibly Oceans Eleven? Jake would like to sincerely apologize for making a Homestuck reference.

In addition to the Shadowrun system, Ev mentions a few other science fiction-themed TTRPG systems:

Jake mentions this Flashlight from last season where we tried out a system that uses a bunch of lookup tables for combat.

To get used to the rhythm and rules of Shadowrun, Ev recommends checking out the Shadowrun subreddit, the Complex Action YouTube channel, this massive PDF tome called Shadowrun Storytime, and the Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong CRPGs.

You can find more about Ev’s music and events here and you can find more about Impact Foundation events here. Maybe we’ll head to a future Impact Foundation event to interview people about their PCs?

This week’s intro comes from Rex, who was a guest in Season 2! Go check out Rex’s writing projects.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

On Location at Vulpine Taproom [S3F7]

In this week’s Flashlight, we’re at Vulpine Taproom in Seattle! We hear about the appropriate attire for a fantasy cosplay wedding, the hazards of getting emotionally invested in a gimmick character, and the downsides of having a life outside of gaming. Thank you so much to Vulpine Taproom for letting us record at your game night.

Thanks to Josh, Chris, Abraham, Shoe, Brandon, Sean, and another Chris for taking the time to talk with us! (And, once again, serious gratitude to Vulpine Taproom.) As usual, we have some notes on our conversations:

Abraham mentioned the Mothership system as well as the original Dragonlance setting which starts with Dragons of Despair. We talked about why TSR had to release so many sourcebooks back in this Season 2 Flashlight about the history of D&D.
We discuss the right system for running a cyberpunk-themed game with Shoe. Neither of us remembers the year for Cyberpunk Red – it’s 2045. Sorry about this. We also discuss the Shadowrun system, which you’ll be hearing about in next week’s interview! Also, if anyone has any suggestions for running a cyberpunk-themed game, send them our way and we’ll pass them along to Shoe.
When we talk with Chris (the second Chris) we discuss Cortex and also mention Lancer. You might remember Lancer from last episode’s s interview with Tyler.

We ended up talking with way more people than we can fit in a single episode. Given that we’re getting close to the end of Season 3, the second half of our evening at Vulpine Taproom will likely end up in Season 4. You’ll hear more from some of these people in that episode.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.