Welcome to Setting the Stage, a podcast where I, Isaac Shaker, talk with guests about different campaign settings for roleplaying games. We cover established settings, such as those made for D&D, like Faerun and Greyahwk. We also discuss settings that are adapted for RPGs, like Middle-Earth and Westeros. I interview members of the D&D community who have created their own campaign worlds. This is a chance for the guest to show off what they’ve made, explain challenges they’ve overcome, and discuss paths that didn’t work for them when creating their campaign setting. Our homebrew worlds often get no attention outside of our own play groups, so this is a way to present a DM’s hard work to a wider audience. This wouldn't be possible without the amazing D&D community and I'm looking forward to interviewing you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hem tells us about their actual play campaign, The Sprouting. Within the world of The Sprouting, Earth's history diverged during the 1800s when an eldritch horror was summoned into our reality. The horror lay in wait for centuries, building up a secret army of plant monsters. In 2020, the plant monsters struck, ruining infrastructure and attacking population centers across the world. One hundred years have passed and our heroes lea...
George tells us about his D&D actual play called Fears and Fortunes. The campaign follows the adventures of Sly, granddaughter of the Seer of Bearuport. Sly accidentally releases a bunch of ghosts from her late grandmother's tarot deck. She and her band of companions must find the fourteen ghosts that escaped and imprison them within the deck once more.
The campaign is sponsored by Forgotten Adventures, the battle map compan...
Seiya tells us about his TTRPG system and setting, Synesthesia Synthetica (SNS). SNS is a biopunk game adjacent to the cyberpunk and steampunk genres. After an asteroid induced climate disaster, Earth has rebuilt itself using bio-technology instead of the metal based tech that surrounds us in the real world. Genetically modified humans have split into distinct species and mutant horrors prowl the wastes outside civilization. The ri...
Travis tells us about his world of Tetara. Travis runs Tetara as a paid game on StartPlaying. Each group's campaign runs in a different region of Tetara. As the campaign progresses that group gets to shape their region through their actions. After a region has been molded through play, Travis tends to run a second campaign in that region to explore the consequences of the first campaign.
Here's a map of Tetara.
Zoe tells us about her campaign in the world of Thedas from the Dragon Age video games. The campaign is an actual play on the Degenerates with Dice YouTube channel. Zoe uses the Dragon Age TTRPG published by Green Ronin. In the campaign, a pair of noble twins are cut out of their family's inheritance. They must go on adventure to make things right and earn their birthright. Lots of fun and definitely more of a beer and pretzels vib...
Ryan tells us about his new adventure, Serenity Springs! It's a cozy little suburb. Or at least it seems like it at first. Until you realize its in a dimension like Ravenloft and evil entities lurk around every corner to threaten the citizens and visitors with awful, gruesome death. Just don't bleed on Mrs. Dotty's petunias!
If you liked what your heard you can follow the Kickstarter for Serenity Springs.
Dan talked with me about his Kickstarter campaign, Idols of the Neon Dark. It's a D&D 5e supplement that tries to bring the fun and atmosphere of K-pop to Dungeons and Dragons. The media frenzy around KPop Demon Hunters inspired Dan to create a product based on the musical genre that his young daughters could enjoy with him.
Idols of the Neon Dark contains an Idol character class to represent the teamwork and coordination of...
Alan tells us about his Daggerheart campaign setting, Fractus, that launched on Kickstarter recently. Fractus was a normal planet until it exploded and stopped halfway through. Now bunches of asteroids rotate a swirling magical maelstorm at the center of the planet. The people of Fractus survive on the asteroids which are large enough to support life. The land is now separated by air rather than oceans, resulting in a different pat...
Joel tells us about his actual play podcast, Critical Bits! The campaign was a teen super hero story using the Powered by the Apocalypse system Masks. The Masks system is great for teen drama and coming of age stories for superheroes that still live with their parents, have school, and don't know who they want to be yet. Joel and the players did a great job of capturing those feelings in a world where superpowered individuals are u...
The Fallout TV show has ended, but you can still get more Fallout in your life with TTRPGs!
Kylie talked with me about her actual play campaign, Fallout: The Garden of Atom. The show follows Pete and Reed as they leave their Vault in Florida. They travel towards Orlando in search of Pete's father who left Vault 71 a few years previously. Along the way they meet the wasteland survivor, Ruthie, and the Mrs. Nurse robot, Hawke. The...
Duncan Rhodes comes on the show to talk about his new book, The Creative Game Master's Guide to Extraordinary Locations: & How to Design Them or just Extraordinary Locations. The book is filled with 30 adventure locations to drop into your campaign, modify, or use as a full adventure path! The locations are loosely stated out for D&D 5e but could easily be adapted for any fantasy system. Additionally, the book has a step-wi...
This is the second of a two part interview with Calico. If you haven't listened to the first episode with him, you should go do that before listening to this one. The first episode was #72 and this is #72.5.
Calico returns with additional info on the world of Psychomortis. We get to hear more information about the Ecclesia church that rules over the world above Pandora's Labyrinth. More about the physical locations of the world....
CalicoVisions tells us about his game system and setting Psychomortis. The game is constructed to challenge players and characters to look inside themselves to find what's really important to them. In the far future the Earth has suffered from the arrival of the Iris which caused vast changes across the world. PCs are trapped beneath the Earth in a vast maze known as Pandora's Labyrinth. They seek an exit and/or spiritual absolutio...
I talked with Aaron Ryan about two of his book series, Dissonance and The End.
Dissonance is a near future world where aliens have attacked, killing most humans and animals on Earth and driving humans into hiding underground. Humans finally develop technology to fight back and the war enters a new stage while the characters also struggle to determine the motivation for the alien invasion and nefarious actions of the government.
The E...
Sensei Suplex joins us to talk about his campaign, Project Aurora. Suplex started Project Aurora in college with some friends. They agreed to have a few different campaigns done by different DMs to all exist within the same shared world. Suplex transitioned to paid DMing and the world expanded beyond that into a huge RPG experience with dozens of DMs and thousands of people playing, all in a shared universe.
With such a large po...
There were some audio issues in this episode that we did our best to correct. Hopefully you can understand everything or close to everything! If you can't, you can always drop into the Discord to ask additional questions.
The story of Godstorm starts 70 years ago when a fisher from the city of Gulia went deep into the ocean. He came back many days later covered in various marks. The marks gave him magical blinking powers. The ki...
John tells us about his campaign setting, Tahlvaen. The world was something he dreamt up in childhood that he's now turning into a campaign setting for D&D. Tahlvaen is threatened by eldritch entities known as the Outer Five. These nasty beings were cast out beyond the Veil that separates them from the Tahlvaen. The eight Veilborn gods protect the world from the Outer Five, but all planar travel is cut off as a consequence. New...
John tells us about his actual play show, Blittle League Blaseball! The show is based on the now passed internet phenomenon, Blaseball. In Blaseball, baseball teams play against each other while using magical and technological powers. Their furious battles satisfy the Elder Ones and prolong the time before the Antediluvians rise and consume the world as we know it. So if there are professional Blaseball players... There must be a B...
KC Broadhead is a certified life coach who uses D&D and other TTRPGs as a motivational force for his clients, mostly young men and boys. He meets with each person weekly to check on their goals for self improvement. Based on their progress each client is rewarded some building points that can be spent on their character in their weekly session. People who work more consistently on their goals get greater rewards in the game, in...
Al from the Point of Insanity Game Studio and Podcast is here to talk about a couple of different things! We started off by discussing the Dark Sun campaign setting, which was a post-apocalyptic campaign setting released for D&D in 1991. Next was the changes in D&D over the editions/years. After that was Al's Point of Insanity Network podcast, a variety podcast about a number of different topics in the geek and horror space...
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
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