Epic Adventure

Steve Kellams

Are you ready for an epic adventure? Welcome to the Epic Adventure Podcast! Host Steve Kellams and guests discuss all things table top roleplaying. From TTRPG news and tabletop RPG game design to tips and tricks to make your games epic.

  1. You Heard it Here Last S4E3

    HACE 5 DÍAS · CONTENIDO EXTRA

    You Heard it Here Last S4E3

    Send us a text Welcome to You Heard it Here Last, where we talk about news, you’ve already heard. We start this week off with an article from EN World about Daggerheart and Darrington Press. https://www.enworld.org/threads/daggerheart-sold-out-in-two-weeks-has-three-year-plan-in-place.716975/ The article reports that the first printing of Daggerheart was planned to last a year. Instead, it sold out in 2 weeks. But don’t fear, the article goes on to say that Darrington Press has a 3-year plan in place for Daggerheart, Yipee! The article is based on another article by Business Insider that highlights Ed Lopez and Ben Van Der Fluit the COO and Senior Vice President of Business and Content Development respectively. Now I am an avowed capitalist, unlike my co-hosts, but even I get annoyed with the little games designed to separate a fool and his money. I mean you can’t even read the original article at Business Insider unless you pay them money. If any of you are buying this crap, then shame on you. Darrington Press is simply a WOTC and Hasbro wannabe that are adapting the same b******t that we have seen from those companies, I mean they even hired the people that come up with the bullshit to begin with. You mean to tell me that professionals in a business behind the most successful actual play show in the history of actual play shows screwed up their product ordering by 96%. I mean not even weathermen and the airlines are that bad. On top of it, if you tried to pick up the game at GenCon then you saw their business idea first hand. Small windows where the product was available everyday to create artificial scarcity and only provide the most expensive version of the game. I mean you couldn’t even buy just the basic rulebook. You had to get the entire starter set, which was of course…more expensive.  But anyway, that’s my opinion.  For our next bit of information, we are diving into a specific release. https://www.enworld.org/threads/rpg-print-news-%E2%80%93-traveller-d-d-mothership-and-more.717021/ https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2148379689/Omendrome?awid=1086 Omendrome by Alewood Games is a brand-new softcover adventure for Mothership using the ARKYVR supplement. Now I have heard a ton about Mothership, but I haven’t read any of it. Lots of word of mouth and lots of love, but it just hasn’t crossed my path and this is the first time I have heard anything about the ARKYVR supplement. Mothership is a Sci-Fi Horror Game that lets you play out all your Aliens and Space Hulk adventures. ARKYVR is a system that builds on that putting the characters behind the lens so to speak and letting them “Film” the action and choose the direction of the stories. All of that sounds amazing. The Omendrome adventure set puts the player character in the driver’s seat of a pirate TV station that films and shows all of the horrors of space. Are those horrors real or just made up for the TV, well the players and characters get to decide that. I love the TV aspect of horror. My favorite Call of Cthulhu games are set in the modern era with the players taking on rolls of TV employees. And one of my favorite cult horror films is Videodrome which clearly Omendrome drew heavily from when they wrote the adventure. So Mothership, ARKYVR and Omendrome just hit my buy list for 2026.

    13 min
  2. You Heard it Here Last S4E2

    21 ENE · CONTENIDO EXTRA

    You Heard it Here Last S4E2

    Send us a text Welcome to you heard it here last, where we talk about news you’ve already heard. Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with your podcast and you don’t have to change the dial. This isn’t Morning Drive on FM 103 The Wave, it’s just Malcolm from the Finding Atoria Podcast stepping in this morning. Say Hello Malcom, [Kick to Malcolm] You know ever since we started chatting, I felt like we had our own Berry White and Isaac Hayes thing going on, so hopefully the listeners can sit back, relax and enjoy. So here is the deal, we are going to break down some recent RPG news and give our opinions, ideas, and feelings on the topic. Our first story comes to us from EN World and its there Most Anticipated RPG of 2026 Fan Vote. https://www.enworld.org/threads/its-time-to-vote-for-your-most-anticipated-ttrpg-of-2026.716726/ By now the voting is likely done, but I thought it would be interesting to throw out our votes and get the debate rolling. Malcom, what are your three most anticipated RPG’s for 2026? [Kick to Malcolm] [Here are my Three, in no particular order; Toon, 2nd Edition from Steve Jackson Games. Procedural from Occupied Hex Games and the mind of Rob Kerkovich. Sisterhood: Nuns with Guns from Parable Games.] https://www.enworld.org/threads/james-ohlen-shifts-from-archetype-entertainment-head-to-creative-consultant-for-tabletop-rpgs-at-wizards.716766/ Next up is the announcement that James Ohlen is leaving Archetype Entertainment a Wizards of the Coast video game company and he is being replaced by Blizzard Veteran Paul Della Bitta. This comes as Archetype Entertainment is moving into the final phase of bringing Exodus to release in 2027. But Ohlen isn’t leaving Wizards. He is sticking around as a consultant to focus on Table Top Roleplaying Games. This whole thing smells like the fishing docks at low tide to me. What are your thoughts Malcolm? [Kick to Malcolm] And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

    14 min
  3. New Year's Resolution

    14 ENE

    New Year's Resolution

    Send us a text I’ve got a lot of games on my book shelves. Some are old games that I have played a lot, others are games that looked good in the store and I picked them up, but never got around to playing them. And then there is my Kickstarter addiction. Yea, I’ve got several that I picked up through Kickstarter because they sounded good and then once I got them, I never broke them out and played them. I don’t think I’m unique in that regard and I also know that I’m on the low end of the collecting scale so really my problem is in my own head. But, it doesn’t change the fact that I have a lot of games I want to play. So my New Years Resolution is to pick three of those games on my shelf I’ve never played, and play them this year. That’s it. Just play three games I haven’t played before in 2026 That couldn’t be easier, could it? Well not so fast. You see I’m running an ongoing Conan Campaign that the players seem to love and of course Christina is running her Ghost Hunters in Space game and then Mike keeps promising Cyberpunk … He’s a busy man I can’t give him too hard a time. So when do you fit it in. What do you stop playing and when do you start a new game. That’s a problem for another show. In this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about the three games we are going to try and run this year and why we want to run them or play them so badly. We will do this round robin style with each of us talking about one game we want to play and why, and of course I’m going to start with Christina? [Kick to Christina] Mike, Your turn [Kick to Mike]

    44 min
  4. You Heard it Here Last S2E1

    7 ENE · CONTENIDO EXTRA

    You Heard it Here Last S2E1

    Send us a text Welcome to you heard it hear last, where we talk about news, you’ve already heard. Well, here we are in 2026 and this is our first episode of Season 4. We are having a great time and I hope you are as well. Speaking of great times our first bit of news is like a blast from the past for me. https://www.rascal.news/steve-jackson-games-announces-toon-second-edition/ Steve Jackson Games has just launched a Backerkit for Toon Second Edition. Toon is a roleplaying game set in the world of cartoons. Not the animie stuff, but the good old fashioned Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons produced by Warner Brothers. I grew up on those, routing for Bugs Bunny and always laughing when proclaimed the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Steve Jackson Games launched the first edition in 1984 and I loved it. Now, over 40 years later they are bringing out the Second Edition. Mike, did you ever play Toon? [Kick to Mike] What about you Christina, where the Looney Tunes big for you growing up? [Kick to Christina] Next up we have a little interesting piece of news and maybe, just maybe a view of something to come. https://www.rascal.news/why-did-his-majesty-the-worm-skip-the-kickstarter/ His Majesty the Worm is a tarot card RPG that was released in 2023. The creators utilized Itch.io and put up chapters as written with a pay-what-you-want request. They used the money gathered to help pay for artists and final printing costs. Now they are launching a supplement to His Majesty the Worm titled Castle Automatic. This mega dungeon in the Castlevania style isn’t going the route of backerkit or kickstarter. Nope, they are simply doing pre-orders through Exalted Funereal. We have talked several times on the podcast about the problems with big companies getting involved in platforms that were originally designed for new creators and this seems like the logical outcome of those markets being dominated now by the big brands. Mike, Put on your business hat. What’s this mean? [Kick to Mike] Christina, Thoughts? [Kick to Christina] And there you have it. All they news, you’ve already heard.

    13 min
  5. You Heard it Here Last S3E26

    24/12/2025 · CONTENIDO EXTRA

    You Heard it Here Last S3E26

    Send us a text Welcome to You Heard it Here Last, where we talk about news, you’ve already heard. https://www.enworld.org/threads/tolkien%E2%80%99s-writing-desk-on-auction-at-christies.716325/ Christie’s Action House is hosting a live auction in December, 2025 called Groundbreakers: Icons of our Time and in that auction, you will find a simple 19th Century Merton’s College Desk that just happened to be owned by JRR Tolkien. The desk is going for a deal at somewhere between 50 and 80 thousand Pounds. Christina You don’t strike me as much of a collector? Do these things interest you? [Kick to Christina] Along with the desk they also have the Winchcombe Meteorite, the Kenbak-1 First Personal Computer, and the original cover artwork for the first edition of Warhammer. Definitely some cools stuff for the collector out there. Next up we have two of our favorite things; Netflix and D&D. Yep, I read that in my sarcasm voice. https://www.enworld.org/threads/shawn-levy-provides-update-on-netflix-d-d-show.716209/ Shawn Levy the producer for the upcoming live action D&D Show title Forgotten Realms gave a brief update on what’s been going on behind the scenes with the show and his answers are, well, Interesting. Levy said "I think that the reason it's taken so long and the reason why it is a challenging process is you're not adapting story IP, You're adapting a world and a lexicon and a spirit, but story needs to be invented largely from scratch. And it needs to be invented in a way that feels organic to everything that's great about DnD. So that one is in very active every day chipping-away-at-it development at Netflix." Let me translate that for you…This show is going to suck. Christina, what do you think? [Kick to Christina] And finally, from all of us to all of you. Whatever you believe in and however you believe it. Just be happy.  And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

    10 min
  6. Character Advancement

    17/12/2025

    Character Advancement

    Send us a text I remember being a young roleplayer diving into my first rpg’s. Character creation was similar in most of the games on the market. Make a very basic character, adventure with them, kill monsters, find treasure, gain experience points, gain levels, get more skills, rinse, repeat. Back in the day we would memorize the XP charts so we would know when our characters would level up. Those old TTRPG’s were bad enough, but when computer programmers took their favorite table top games and ported them into the computer world the character advancement concept of “leveling up” started to look like heroine dealers giving their junkie friends the first taste for free. Over the years character advancement has been closely tied to the leveling up concept, but I’ve noticed something interesting as I’ve become an older and more mature gamer. I don’t care about leveling up. It’s not the character advancement I’m looking for. I think I first became aware of the anti-leveling up faction when I first started playing Traveller all of those years ago. In Traveller you create a seasoned, experienced character. After character creation nothing really changes. And then there was Call of Cthulhu a game in which your character is more likely to get worse as you play and not better. Funny enough, those are my two favorite roleplaying games. In this episode Christina, and I are going to talk about character advancement. The traditional methods and why it was innovative and important at the time and the current ideas of character advancement and how they have changed over the years. First let’s start with the Doc. Christina, what are you personal thoughts on character advancement, before we get into all the scientific nitty gritty? Kick to Christina

    54 min

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Are you ready for an epic adventure? Welcome to the Epic Adventure Podcast! Host Steve Kellams and guests discuss all things table top roleplaying. From TTRPG news and tabletop RPG game design to tips and tricks to make your games epic.