#ftlcast

[strangeharpy]

Thinking about the time we played "This Game Takes Place In Your Home Town" on FTL. Thinking about how we set out to play a horror game but ended up telling a melancholy story about loss and the memories people leave behind. Thinking about the hope we had at the end.

It's a good arc, only two episodes long. Give it a listen if you've got a couple of hours to spare for some introspection at the end of the world. Part 1 & Part 2.

[ftlcast]

You know you want a little sneak peak of what Season Eight holds. :3 Enjoy this snippet of Episode 86.1, where we play Last Train to Bremen by Caro Ascersion.

Music is "Railroad's Whiskey Co" by Jahzzar.

Check out our previous seasons at https://ftlcast.podbean.com/!

[littleladymab]

OC Kiss Week - Rain

So like I knew I was doing the official prompts out of order, but I hadn't realized that I wrote them down out of order on my doc. So anyway, Rain is day one for me!

Requested by @jadeoxfordrose and @citadelofswords! Love and miss these kids :') I don't think this is "what the ghost" verse, but it is the same setting that I alluded to in my SlumberZine piece!

Theo belongs to Jade 💞

+++ 

The rain is completely unexpected and Davey doesn’t know how to take this change in plans into consideration.

“C’mon,” Theo urges, nudging him with their elbow and then smacking him in the chest with something. “Date’s not over yet.”

Startled, Davey catches whatever it is against his chest and looks down to find an umbrella. “There is no way you planned this,” he says, and Theo’s grin is more than enough to make up for the interruption.

“Nothing catches you off-guard when you’re always prepared,” they tease. “Now are you going to open it up or are we going to keep huddling here?”

They’re under the awning of a hardware store, caught halfway between the cafe they had lunch at and the park with the pop-up exhibit that was supposed to be part two. People hurry past, many caught as unaware as Davey was by the sudden downpour.

Davey obliges, since he’s the taller of the two, and holds it expertly over both of their heads as Theo presses in against his side. “The exhibit isn’t going to be open in this weather.”

“That’s true…” Theo’s voice trails off, and Davey hopes that he isn’t imagining the disappointment in it. “We’ll have to cut the date short then.”

“I suppose it just means that I have to see if you’re free next Thursday and if we’ll be able to catch it before it closes,” Davey chimes with as much enthusiasm he can muster.

“Ah,” Theo says and laughs. “A literal rain check, hmm?”

“They call it that for a reason.”

They laugh again. “Yeah, next Thursday is fine.”

“Good. Good! Alright then. Wow, a second date before the first is even finished—” Davey cuts himself off with his own laugh as Theo playfully shoves his shoulder. “Shall I walk you to the bus stop?”

Theo loops their arm through Davey’s to ensure the umbrella is covering as much of them as possible. “I’d like that.”

His brain short-circuits at the gesture before his expression melts into a probably quite stupid grin. “After you, then.”

It’s not until they’re halfway down the block that Davey’s brain finally does catch up with the situation and he wonders that since he lives nearby, should he have asked Theo to come over? Or would that have been too forward? They’ve known each other for a year now and while this is their first date-date they’ve hung out before but just never at either of their places. It’s always been with the girls or Parker.

Putting the sudden pressure of the invitation back to his place feels like a bit much, even if it does feel a little rude since it is close by.

Once they’re beneath the shelter of the bus stop, Davey shakes out the umbrella and folds it up to hand back to Theo. They take it without comment, still going on about the rude customer that Merril had to deal with earlier in the week.

“I wanted to punch him,” Theo finishes vehemently.

“I’m surprised Merril didn’t,” Davey confesses and they snort.

“It was a near thing.”

Davey opens his mouth, about to ask when is the next time that Theo and Merril are working and maybe he’ll stop by to see them both but secretly it will be a chance to take Theo out after they get off and well maybe he should ask Merril and make it a surprise— But then the bus rolls up to the stop and they have to dance out of the way to avoid the water splashing up onto the curb.

Theo already has their bus pass in hand and has a moment when the other people at the stop file on and off. They look like they’re also about to say something, but in the end, they square their jaw like they’ve made up their mind.

“Text me when you get home,” Davey says for a lack of anything better to say. He shuffles the few paces closer to the bus in time with Theo and the line. “And we’ll plan for next week. Well, after I check the forecast.”

“Make a back-up plan if it does,” Theo says, then just before they can step out from under the awning to board the bus, they whirl around and press a kiss to Davey’s lips and the umbrella into his hands.

Davey’s so startled he’s barely able to catch the umbrella but utterly fails to return the kiss as Theo does the mad dash through the rain into the bus. “Wait,” Davey says, holding out the umbrella.

“Keep it,” Theo laughs as they swipe their pass, hair clinging to their cheeks and their shoulders drenched. “Give it back to me later.”

The last thing Davey sees as the bus driver decides he’s not one of the oncoming passengers and closes the doors in his face, is Theo’s silhouette waving to him.

Davey is still standing there, clutching the umbrella in both hands, chilled to the bone and more wet than not as the wind shifts the rain into every crevice of the stop. But there’s little pinpoints of warmth against his jaw from their fingers, and his lips from theirs.

Finally, a buzz in his pocket jolts him back to his senses, and he checks his watch to see a message from Kari about pizza soon, and Davey pops open the umbrella.

Right, he thinks, giddy in a way he hasn’t been in years. Maybe an invitation back to his place next time wouldn’t be so bad. He can make dinner for them after the exhibit.

Davey spins the handle of the umbrella and heads to the crosswalk, grinning.

[sassytail]

Doin some design for my character for a recording this weekend.

[lotsadeer]

Have you listened to @ftlcast? No? Well you should! They have a giant crab called Daddy Crab!

commission for @citadelofswords

[strangeharpy]

God this game is SO GOOD, and if you wanna hear it played, listen to our Exquisite Biome episode! It's a great stand-alone episode with a great guest!

Have you played EXQUISITE BIOME ?

By Caro Asercion

Exquisite Biome is a game about the symbiosis of the natural world. Create an ecosystem, populate it with strange and wondrous animals, and see how they interact with one another.

[swithxblade]

Wizkid Poster designed by me

Follow me on Insta for more: @blackcherrybuckcherry

[hopeshearthpod]

A Sapphic Story

Our first guest we had on Hope's Hearth was @jadeoxfordrose !

Playing "Be Not Afraid" by Nora Blake, Jade and Dirk crafted a delightfully sapphic story between a god and a mortal.

You can find Jade on @ftlcast, Escafil Files, and Dumb Kids Playing Hero

[catverst]

Kerri and Sol of ftlcast for @littleladymab! A little Witcher AU, as a treat~

[littleladymab]

I'm so glad you included Davey and Theo hehehe 💞💞💞

OC Kiss Picrew Meme

Alrighty y'all, @littleladymab tagged me in this and who am I to resist a challenge that involves picrews or heroforge :)) Taking inspo from Mab, here are 5 ships involving characters of mine getting their smooches in xD

Adelaide Sylvestri nee Ontano & Thea Cuore (Il Covo Nostro:Court of Blades)

(Thea is my character, Adelaide is her paramour who is an NPC played by Zach) So these two haven't actually kissed yet in canon but the yearning, oh the yearning! Still, I'm hoping that there will be a chance soon xD Their situation is complicated to put it mildly- some of it can be found explained in my 'Thea Cuore' tag.

Max Valera & Merrill Whitmer(Space Gorls)

These two have it all - childhood friendship, faked deaths, pining, the slow rebuilding of trust, banter - and I miss playing them. Merrill is @citadelofswords's roller skating jewel thief of a dream girl and Max is my sarcastic to a fault mechanic.

Davey-Jane & Theo Delaney (Multiple FTL universes)

Sometimes they are a less tragic version of Hamlet & Horatio in ✨Space✨, sometimes they are a version of Orpheus & Eurydice, sometimes they're youtubers (one hunts ghosts, the other does crafts) - regardless, they always give me feels. Davey-Jane is @littleladymab's character (I'm sorry the picrew does not show how truly beautiful he is Mab), Theo is mine and I cherish them deeply despite my continuing to put them in awful situations.

Arkady & Arctorus (formerly of Stormhold | Fall of Magic + Mages Against the Machine)

These two began life as Fall of Magic characters played by me and Zach respectively, who came from the same place and from that came a goldmine of character fuel. Amusingly, I didn't even realise I'd started shipping them until after we wrapped the game - I blame the sheer number of delicious tropes that provided ship fuel we hit upon the way. They've only been played once since, and Arctorus (renamed Arthur in a new universe) was more of a cameo but the relationship was officially canonized xD Characters that I need to do more with to be sure.

Benny LaFontaine & Dante Voight & Kel Mahoney (Dumb Kids Playing Hero)

Oh my wonderful, messy, complicated Team Chaos (played by Richard as Benny, Bryan as Dante, and myself as Kel). A slow-burn of an OT3 despite active shipping from multiple people, all I can say here is please go listen to @dumbkidsplayinghero - it's Animorphs inspired Boston college students in the early 00s and I'm supremely proud of the story we all told together.

Alrighty, I've said enough - tagging anyone who fancies having a play in picrew and talking about their OC OTPs xD

Edited to include link to the picrew used x

[strangeharpy]

I am deep in my feelings about Follow the Leader today. It's almost six years old (will be turning six on 7/23) and it's been such a major part of my life that whole time. Technically longer since our first test recording (episode 0 if you will) was recorded on 5/25/2018.

It's something that's brought me closer to several of my friends, something that has really changed my life, and something that I'm deeply proud of. We're always improving, always striving to tell good stories in an engaging manner. I feel like we hit that goal almost all of the time.

I'm just a little sad because we've had some absolute banger recordings for season eight (which started Monday) and I worked really hard to make them cinematic and impactful, but we don't have much of an audience so not a lot of folks will hear them. Seriously, I feel like we've gotten some really great roleplaying out of all our players this season, and it just sucks that we don't have a wide reach. Like, I can't stop thinking about the recording we just did (for ep 88), or the one before that.

Idk, it's just a little discouraging. I'm not going to let it stop me from having fun with my friends, which is why I started the podcast in the first place. I still want to continue telling stories. It's just... no one out there is doing it like we do, and it makes me sad that because we're not playing D&D, people who might find our stories interesting won't give us the time of day.

Bleh. Oh well. The only thing to do is keep doing what we do and being who and what we are. Which we're not going to stop doing any time soon. Here's to six years and as many more as we can manage.

[ftlcast]

Join the whole gang as we conclude our game of House by Marn S. A salvage crew lands on the broken remains of the Bastard after a hard six month journey. Do riches await there, or is there only ruin ahead of them?

Marlin is played by Zachary.

Bazda is played by Sam.

Cai is played by Jade.

Thorn is played by Cory.

Marnie is played by August.

Berry is played by Annya.

Produced by August.

Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ftlcast for bonus content like outtakes and bloopers as well as early access to episodes and special bonus episodes.

Find out more about the games we play (and where to buy them): https://www.ftlcast.com/games-weve-played

Episode summaries available here: https://goo.gl/3nXVpA

Join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/zzuPqne

Cover image by Sam and original music by Zachary

Follow the Leader is part of the Standing Stones Productions podcasting guild. Find out more about us and our projects on Twitter: @stones_standing

[littleladymab]

wip wednesday???? not really, because I don't think I'm allowed to share anything i'm writing for this project outside of the event space, but I WILL share something else I wrote awhile ago so you can get an IDEA Of what i'm working on 👀

(also I originally posted this back in 2019 on my DW.... wow....)

+++

Kerri tugs her hair out of the bun she keeps it in while working, combing her fingers through it with a sigh as she turns the corner into the deck -- and immediately freezes when she notices that there is another person sitting on the floor.

It's the woman from before -- the one she winked at -- tall, surly, and kind of hot.

Several responses run through Kerri's brain as the woman turns to look at her, just as startled to see someone in this spot as Kerri is.

She could flirt her way out of this, but she's not in the mood and there's something on the woman's face that says she isn't in the mood either. She could be abrasive, but to be honest, don't need to push everyone away immediately.

So Kerri settles on polite, and a practiced smile of embarrassment takes over. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I didn't think anyone else would be here."

"It's fine," the woman says, her voice slow and resigned. "There's enough space here."

Kerri isn't too sure what to make of that response, so instead she turns towards the window -- which looks out into the literal emptiness of space -- and says, "Well, you're not wrong, but I'd advise on a suit if you're going out."

There's a beat, and then the woman on the floor snorts in amusement and shakes her head. "You know what I meant."

"Is that an invitation for me to join you?"

The woman waves a hand to indicate the stretch of wall around her, which while it isn't all that big, still would fit two and give each of them their own space.

Kerri hesitates before dropping down primly on a spot a few feet away. Then she closes her eyes and tilts her head back against the wall, content enough to sit in silence.

A minute passes, then two. Then the woman asks, "You're new on the station, aren't you?"

"Three weeks. What gave it away?"

"Your hair is too nice."

Kerri laughs, the sound startled out of her, and she covers her mouth with the back of one hand. "The day my hair doesn't look nice is the day I will die, thank you -- and even in death, I expect it to be fabulous."

"Give it another two weeks on the Bastard, and then we'll talk."

She looks over at the woman with a grin. "Oh? Then it's a date."

The woman lifts a brow. "Don't even know my name and you're already asking me out on a date?"

Kerri responds with a flutter of her eyelashes, which earns her another snort of amusement. "Well, in my defense, you started it."

She considers this, then holds out a hand -- leaning across the space between them. "I'm Sol."

"Kerri," she says, and returns the gesture. "A pleasure to meet you."

[lotsadeer]

Some Actual Play podcast recommendations

Party of One, Jeff Stormer and guests play different indie ttrpg oneshots. If you ask him for a vibe check, he can absolutely recommend a game he's played

@dumbkidsplayinghero is an actual play playing a Forged in the Dark (a Blades in the Dark hack) called Idiot Teenagers With A Death Wish. It's based on Animorphs and one of my personal favourite podcasts

@ftlcast is a gmless actual play podcast where they play short campaigns and one shots of different GMless systems

Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined is a PbtA actual play, which I know OP isn't super into, but I think folks would enjoy this fanfiction inspired podcast that's VERY Kingdom Hearts. And on that note-

Riley Hopkins and Their Amazing Friends, an actual play podcast where they take company's IPs and make their own stories with them. We've got cool Star Wars games, a Poker based game, more Interstitial, it's all PRETTY GOOD

@theroomwhereithappenedpod STARTS using hacked fishfifth edition dnd, but after season 1 they branch out into other games and other types of stories. I highly recommend this podcast if you like narrative and character driven stories

@threeheartscast is a three person actual play following two detectives as they try and solve mysteries, murder, and whether or not they're gay for each other. It's a fun actual play that always has me giggling and is a good one to listen to

@hopeshearthpod I have to plug my own podcast where we play multiple indie ttrpgs from longer to shorter campaigns all set in the same universe.

Unfortunately none of these are Video Podcasts, theyre all audio only, BUT, theyre phenomenal to listen to and the players make them fun to listen to. You'll get invested in the games and characters and want to play whatever they're all playing.

Help Save the World of TTRPGs and Their Creators.

Okay I’m being a little dramatic, but at the same time I’m pretty serious. This is a call to action, and the livelihoods of myself and lots of other people, many of them (like myself) disabled, are depending on it. This is a post about why, what you can do about it, and (perhaps least often answered) how.

This post is actually an accompaniment to another discussion by someone else. If you don’t want to listen to a 90-minute in-depth discussion of much of what I’m about to tell you, you can just keep reading. Otherwise, click here or here and listen to this either before or after you read this post. (They’re the same thing, just different sources.)

If you have ever made or reblogged posts urging people to switch from Google Chrome to Firefox, you should be willing to at least give a try to other TTRPGs besides D&D5e for much the same principle reasons. I’m not telling you you have to hate D&D5e, and I’m not telling you you have to quit D&D5e, I’m just asking you to try some other games. If you don’t like them, and you really want to go back to D&D5e, then go back to D&D5e. But how can you really know you won’t like other games if you have literally never tried them? This post is a post about why and how to try them. If you’re thinking right now that you don’t want to try them, I urge you to look below to see if any of your reasons for not wanting to try them are covered there. Because the monopoly that WotC’s D&D5e has on TTRPGs as a whole is bad for me as a game designer, and it’s bad for you as a game player. It’s even bad for you if you like D&D5e. A fuller discussion of the why and how this is the case can be found in the links above, but it isn’t fully necessary for understanding this post, it’ll just give you a better perspective on it.

If you’re a D&D5e player, I’m sure at some point or another, you’ve been told “play a different game”, and it must get frustrating without the context of why and how. This post is here to give you the why and how.

[The following paragraph has been edited because the original wording made it sound like we think all weird TTRPGs suck.]

Before that though, one more thing to get out of the way. I'm going to level with you. There’s a lot of weird games out there.

You are gonna see a lot of weird TTRPGs when you take the plunge. Many of them try to completely reinvent what a TTRPG even is, and some fail spectacularly, others really do even up doing something very interesting even if they don't end up being what a core TTRPG player wants. But not every indie RPG is a Bladefish, lots and lots of them are more 'traditional' and will feel very familiar to you, I promise. (And you might even find that you like the weird experimental bladefish type ones, these are usually ideal for one-session plays when your usual group can't play your usual game for any reason.)

You're also going to probably see a lot of very bad games, and man have I got some stories of very bad games, but for now I'm just saying to make sure you read the reviews, or go through curators (several of which will be listed below), before you buy.

Now that that is out of the way, I’m going to go down a list of concerns you may have for why not, and then explain the how.

“I don’t want to learn a whole new set of rules after I already spent so much time learning D&D5e.”

Learning a new set of rules is not going to be as hard as you think. Most other TTRPGs aren’t like that. D&D5e is far on the high end of the scale for TTRPGs being hard and time-consuming to learn and play. If you’ve only played D&D5e, it might trick you into thinking that learning any TTRPG is an overwhelmingly time-consuming task, but this is really mostly a D&D5e problem, not a TTRPG problem as a whole.

“D&D5e has all of these extra online tools to help you play it.”

So what? People have been playing TTRPGs without the help of computers for 50 years. To play a well-designed TTRPG you won’t need a computer. Yes, even if you're bad at math. There are some TTRPGs out there that barely even use math.

“I’m too invested in the narrative and characters of my group’s current ongoing D&D5e campaign to switch to something else.”

There are other games, with better design made by better people for less money, that are the same kind of game as D&D5e, that your current characters, lore, and plot will fit right into and do it better. And no, it's not just Pathfinder, there's others.

“I can’t afford to play another TTRPG.”

You probably can. If you’ve only played D&D5e, you might have been made to think that TTRPGs are a very expensive hobby. They aren’t. D&D5e is actually uniquely expensive, costing more than 3x more than the next most expensive TTRPG I can think of right now. Even on the more expensive end, other TTRPG books will cost you no more than $60, most will cost you less than $20, and a whole lot of them are just free. If you somehow still can’t afford another TTRPG, come to the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book club mentioned below, nominate the game, and if it wins the vote we will straight up buy it for you.

(By the way, if you had any of the above concerns about trying other games besides D&D5e, that really makes it sound like you are in a textbook abusive relationship with D&D5e. This is how abusers control their partners, and how empires control their citizens, by teaching you to think that nothing could ever get any better, and even though they treat you bad, the Other will treat you even worse.)

“If I don’t play D&D5e, which TTRPG should I play?”

That’s a pretty limited question to be asking, because there will be no one TTRPG for everything. And no, D&D5e is not the one TTRPG for everything, Hasbro’s marketing team is just lying to you. (Pathfinder and PbtA are not the one system for everything either!) Do you only play one video game or only watch one movie or only read one book? When you finish watching an action movie like Mad Max, and then you want to watch a horror movie, do you just rewind Mad Max and watch it over again but this time you act scared the whole time? No, you watch a different movie. I’m asking you to give the artistic medium of TTRPGs the same respect you would give movies.

“I want to play something besides D&D5e, but my friends won’t play anything else!”

I have several answers to this.

Try showing them this post.

If that doesn’t work: Make them. Put your foot down. This works especially well if you are the DM. Tell them you won’t run another session of D&D5e until they agree to give what you want to do at least one try instead of always doing only what they want to do. This is, like, playing 101. We learned this in kindergarten. If your friend really wants to play something else, you should give their game a try, or you’re not really being a very good friend.

If that doesn’t work, find another group. This doesn’t even mean that you have to leave your existing group. A good place to start would be the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club which will be mentioned and linked below. You can also go to the subreddit of any game you’re interested in and probably meet people there who have the same problem you do and want to put together a group to play something other than D&D5e. You might get along great with these people, you might not, but you won’t know until you try. Just make sure to have a robust “session zero” so everyone is on the same page. This is a good practice for any group but it is especially important for a group made of players you’ve just met.

“I only watch actual plays.”

Then watch actual plays of games that aren’t D&D5e. These podcasts struggle for the same reasons that indie RPGs struggle, because of the brand recognition and brand loyalty D&D5e has, despite their merit. I don’t watch actual plays, or else I would be able to list more of them. So, anyone who does watch actual plays, please help me out by commenting on this post with some non-D&D5e actual plays you like. And please do me a favor and don’t list actual plays that only play one non-D&D5e system, list ones that go through a variety of systems. The first one I can think of is Tiny Table.

“I can just homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e.”

Even though I want to, I’m not going to try and argue that you can’t actually homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e. Instead, I’m going to ask you why you’re buying two $50 rulebooks just to throw away half the pages. In most other good RPGs, you don’t need to change the rules to make them fun, they’re fun right out the box.

“But homebrewing D&D5e into any kind of game is fun! You can homebrew anything out of D&D5e!”

Firstly, I promise that this is not unique to D&D5e. Secondly, then you would probably have more fun homebrewing a system that gives you a better starting point for reaching your goal. Also, what if I told you that there are entire RPG systems out there that are made just for this? There are RPG systems that were designed for the purpose of being a toolbox and set of materials for you to work with to make exactly the game you want to make. Some examples are GURPS, Savage Worlds, Basic RolePlaying, Caltrop Core, and (as much as I loathe it) PbtA.

“I’m not supporting WotC’s monopoly because I pirate all the D&D5e books.”

Then you’re still not supporting the smaller developers that this monopoly is crushing, either.

Now, here’s the how. Because I promise you, there’s not just one, but probably a dozen other RPGs out there that will scratch your exact itch.

Here’s how to find them. This won’t be a comprehensive list because I’ve already been typing this for like 3 hours already. Those reading this, please go ahead and comment more to help fill out the list.

First, I’m gonna plug one of my own major projects, because it’s my post. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club. It’s a discord server that treats playing TTRPGs like a book club, with the goal of introducing members to a wide variety of games other than D&D5e. RPGs are nominated by members, then we hold a vote to decide what to read and play for a short campaign, then we repeat. There is no financial, time, or schedule investment required to join this book club, I promise it is very schedule-friendly, because we assign people to different groups based of schedule compatibility. You don’t have to play each campaign, or any campaign, you can just read along and participate in discussion that way. And if you can’t afford to buy the rulebook we’re going to be reading, we will make sure you get a PDF of it for free. That is how committed we are to getting non-D&D5e RPGs into people’s hands. Here is an invite link.

Next, there are quite a few tumblr blogs you can follow to get recommendations shown to you frequently.

@indierpgnewsletter

@indie-ttrpg-of-the-day

@theresattrpgforthat

@haveyouplayedthisttrpg

@indiepressrevolution

Plenty of podcasts, journalists, and youtubers out there do in-depth discussions of different systems regularly, a couple I can think of off the top of my head are:

Storyteller Conclave (I’m actually going to be interviewed live on this show on April 10th!)

Seth Skorkowsky

Questing Beast

The Gaming Table

Rascal News

Lastly, you can just go looking. Browse r/rpg, drivethrurpg.com, indie press revolution, and itch.io.

Now, if you really want to support me and my team specifically Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is going to launch on Kickstarter on April 10th and we need all the help we can get. Set a reminder from the Kickstarter page through this link.

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, there’s plenty of ways to get one!

Subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

Donate to our ko-fi and send us an email with proof that you did, and we’ll email you back with the full Eureka prerelease package with the most updated version at the time of responding! (The email address can be found if you scroll down to the bottom of our website.)

We also have merchanise.

[sassytail]

It occurs to me that I’ve never really explained. What our podcast is, on here.

So here goes nothing!

Follow the Leader (#ftlcast) is an anthology style actual-play podcast where we tell short character- driven stories through the use of a wide variety of gmless tabletop roleplaying games.

Typically, we record a single-session game (sometimes we do two sessions if it seems the story we’re telling is going to take longer than just the one recording session) and then we split that one recording session into as many ~1 hr long episodes as we can!

Each of our all-queer cast members has a pool of ocs, and we try to bring them back often in various games as aus.

New episodes come out every Monday during our true seasons and every other Monday during FTL Presents interstitial seasons. (we're in one of these at the time of posting on 3/7/23) Each short story comes out as a numbered arc, and you can start our podcast at any story you like by listening to any #.1 episode!

I personally recommend arc 42 (episodes 1, 2, and 3) where we play Lady Winter in the Protocol series by Post World Games and Jim Pinto, in which i play Mihva Namethari, a dryad mage-princess being woo'd very sweetly, if a bit awkwardly by a himbo Bugbear. (pictured below)

and arc 56 ( 1 ), where we play I Came Here to Win by Peach Garden Games. My primary character in this episode is Garion, a vampire tailor for the supernatural, desperately pretending for television that he is a Normal Adult Human Thank You. My secondary character is Daydream, a bitchy track star who is also just me blatently doing my best taako impression. Both of these fine boys are competing in a television show to become the lucky one to get a scholarship to a prestigious wizarding university.

Or you could jump right in with our current season, Ftl Presents: Pathfinder

A more traditional style of ttrpg actualplay, where we do a short campaign made up of the pathfinder official adventure modules! Its already shaping up to be quite the journey, and it's only getting more so by the week!

so yeah! give us a listen! and if you talk abt the show, we'd really appreciate it if you'd tag it #ftlcast so we can see what folks think!

[lotsadeer]

Three new sticker designs from ko-fi clients, featuring Mechs from Hope's Hearth, Marius from Follow the Leader, and Kiki from The Room Where It Happened

ID under the cut

-First image is art of Mechs from the Galactic game on Hope's Hearth. Mechs is a grey skinned human with dark hair, looking up with closed eyes and a concerned expression. Mechs' arms are down by Mechs' side. Mechs' is wearing a brown shirt and a grey tool belt with two pouches, as well as a cardboard robot costume. The costume is spray painted to look like metal with buttons and things drawn on. It consists of a box chest piece and two arms pieces. There is text next to Mechs saying "When did you assume I was a robot?" in a pixel font

-Second image is of Marius from Follow the Leader, with a big CANCELLED stamp in red over them. Marius is a pale, delicate featured human with brown hair and blue eyes. They're wearing a green turtleneck and have their arms crossed, and what can be seen of their expression looks unimpressed.

-Third image is a red wolf werewolf, grinning knowingly at the camera and flexing her big strong werewolf arm. The werewolf is Kiki from The Room Where it Happened's Elder County season.