Author name: Ken Newquist

A green and white tackle box re-tasked for use as a game master toolbox. It includes a number of card decks in its top compartment. The center section includes a Savage Worlds rulebook and plastic trays.

S3E9 The Game Master’s Toolbox

The Game Master’s Toolbox – a physical tool for organizing your gaming supplies – is the focus of this episode of Radio Active. Before delving into our repurposed Plano boxes though, we explore the St. Louis Science Center and take an extensive detour through the Game Room to talk about the Atari VCS, Portal Companion Edition, gaming at work, and consider the benefits of a gamer journal. We also geek out about the new Willow streaming series on Disney+.

A rogue in a cloak, side-lit in reds and orange, emerges from black/gray shadows.

Blades in the Dark Playbooks

Before we played Scum & Villainy, even before starting the Lair of Secrets, we played Blades in the Dark. It’s an urban fantasy role-playing game centered on heists and inspired by the likes of Leverage, the Ocean’s movies, Peaky Blinders, Heat, and Reservoir Dogs. Like its successor games, in Blades in the Dark, player characters are documented using playbooks. The playbooks are like a …

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Green alien characters on a black background stream down the screen (aka The Matrix code).

S3E5 Cyberpunk Inspiration

As we build momentum toward our Cyberpunk RED campaign, we take a moment to reflect on the cyberpunk movies, books, games, and other media that inspires our take on the subgenre. We also talk National Novel Writing Month, hockey (yes, hockey), virtual gaming via NVIDIA GeForce Now, and the TaleSpire virtual table top.

Porto city hall and plaza by night.

S3E4 Travel and RPGs, Game Room Reclamation, Steamdeck Redux, Andor, Cyberpunk RED Critical Mass

The subject of travel and how visiting other parts of the country and the world can improve your game is the main topic for Episode 4 of the Lair of Secrets podcast. Before we delve into that globe-trotting topic, we geek out about AirPods, resurrecting the game room after the pandemic, variant endings for Cyberpunk …

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