We kick off our Scum and Villainy Actual play with The Nebula Job, in which the crew of the Stardancer is hired to pick up a box floating in the middle of a nebula … but you know it can’t be that easy. This episode is part of our Scum and Villainy actual play campaign. […]
S2E10 Scum and Villainy Actual Play, Chapter 1 Read More »
On this occasionally rambling episode of Lair of Secrets, Ken and David are joined by long-time friend and gamer (and former occupant of a certain secret lair), Overlord Chris Miller. We talk about our gaming lives in the Before Times, the rise of virtual gaming, and look at what might come in the post-pandemic era.
S2E9 How Gaming Changed During the Pandemic Read More »
On this episode of the Lair of Secrets, we talk about the concluding season (and book) of The Expanse, geek out about Kobold Press’s Tome of Beasts 3 monster compilation, conclude John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire trilogy, and explore the new xenobiology update for Astroneer. For our main topic, we talk about the session zero
S2E6 Session Zero, The Expanse, Tome of Beasts 3, Astroneer, Collapsing Empire Read More »
Unfortunately, we had some flooding in the area of the Lair where Ken was recording. So if it sounds like he was underwater for a time, he was! We feel the audio is listenable at least, so we’ve left it in. As we continue preparing for our Scum and Villainy campaign, we turn our attention
S2E5 Worldbuilding Read More »
Alien gods walk among us. To further their agenda, we’ve jumped forward in time to praise their machinations … and promote the new edition of Godsend Agenda, now on Kickstarter. Introductions Today we’ve got a guest, coming all the way from Las Vegas, Nevada, Jerry Grayson. He’s a friend and here to talk about his
S2E7 Godsend Agenda Read More »
Adventure prep for role-playing games is the main topic of this episode of The Lair of Secrets podcast. We discuss the dangers of too much prep vs. too little prep, and seek the Goldilocks prep time in between. After tackling individual adventures, we discuss prepping for a new campaign and tools to help with that. Finally, we
S2E4 Role-Playing Adventure Prep – fixed audio Read More »
Welcome to the new year … and a new episode of the Lair of Secrets. The main topic for this episode is “Stealing liberally from other game systems to enhance the ones you’re playing”. We look at game mechanics like bennies (Savage Worlds), aspects (Fate), skill challenges (Dungeons & Dragons), plot points (Cortex) and more!
S2E3 Improving Games by Stealing From Others Read More »
Seeking to up the challenge rating after the simple Alpha rocket build, I chose the Skytracer, a Level 2 rocket by Estes. It’s a sleek looking starfighter-like rocket with horizontal wings that end in weapon pods, a tail fin with fuel pods, and a taper nose cone. It also uses wooden dowels to add some
Rocket Build: The Skytracer Read More »
My first two characters for Dungeons & Dragons – rolled up using the 1981 Moldvay Basic Set – were named Magic and Battle Axe. I was 9. And they were so … damned … cool. While cleaning out some of my old gaming stuff, I found Battle Axe’s original character sheet. A fighter/wizard, he ended his adventuring
Geek Archeology: Battle Axe the Fighter Read More »
Welcome to the Lair of Secrets podcast! The podcast about gaming and being a geek by two forty-something geek dads. Ken Newquist is a video game-completing machine who’s probably staying up too late (again). Meanwhile, David Moore is no longer a forty-something geek dad. Summer’s End Ken went to Philmont … but we dedicated a
S1E21 Fire Emblem Completions, RPGs, GenCon, RPG Ideas, Season 1 Retrospective Read More »
