Firebreathing Kittens

On a plea from an injured pigeon, Bill and Sadie take to the skies to infiltrate a dangerous mountainside fortress, with more at stake than they realise... One Flew the Coup is an actual play podcast of Dicing With Death.

A haunting crime is relived. A cast of suspects is identified. Will the truth be revealed and justice finally prevail? Join Nasty and Sadie as they help Armando solve his parents' murders! Old Cases New Face is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.

A haunting crime is relived. A cast of suspects is identified. Will the truth be revealed and justice finally prevail? Join Nasty and Sadie as they help Armando solve his parents' murders! Old Cases New Face is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.

Nasty MacAntyre Interview

Ozob, Ailbh, and DI Deviteaux are thrown back through time to solve a long-unsolved murder. What secrets will be revealed? Who's the real murderer? And how scandalous can we make this? The Involuntary Time Detectives is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.

Ozob, Ailbh, and DI Deviteaux are thrown back through time to solve a long-unsolved murder. What secrets will be revealed? Who's the real murderer? And how scandalous can we make this? The Involuntary Time Detectives is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.

How to Play 24 Hour Crime Scene 24-Hour Crime Scene is a tabletop RPG in which the players collaboratively solve a murder mystery, by inventing the clues and attaching them to suspects and locations themselves. Ultimately, the solution to the murder is something they come up with together, and not something pre-planned by the GM. In the episodes, I will be facilitating the game, but it can easily be played without a GM entirely. There are three sheets of paper that are shared among the players in this game-- a crime scene to show the location of the murder, a Victim sheet as the players uncover clues about the victim, and some suspect sheets to track clues that connect to the suspects. During the game, the players decide where the murder happened, and who the victim is, and establishing some clues. Then, the players take turns. On each player's turn, they draw a card and answer a prompt associated with it. For purposes of the episode, the facilitator will draw from a single deck of cards and read the prompts to the players to answer. Then, the active player takes an action which may result in a scene. They can investigate by establishing something about the crime scene, the victim, existing evidence, or one of the clues. They can inverview a suspect, which means they will narrate some information that the suspect reveals during the interview-- that information is recorded on the suspect's sheet. They also can find a new suspect, and reveal what their link is to the victim, crime scene, or a clue. Finally, on a player's turn they can Consult with the other players to determine some facts about the case. These questions should never be completely closed or absolute-- instead of "Did this person kill the victim?" they can ask "who seems to be more guilty?" Once the player has done both things-- answered the prompt and taken their action-- the next player takes their turn. When all the cards have been drawn and the last player finishes their turn, the players will have a final Consult scene to decide which suspect to charge with the murder. This discussion ends in a vote by the players. Whichever suspect gets a majority is charged with the crime, and justice shall be served. Some tips for playing are to play with a very "yes and" mindset-- don't have an idea of who committed the crime in advance, and leave it open for interpretation. Do make a lot of connections between the various clues, evidence, and suspects so that they won't seem to be a random collection of things, but instead tie together into a complete story.

Welcome to a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. This is our quarterly rules discussion where we discuss the rules we played in the past dozen games, for mid year 2024. We’ll discuss the TTRPGs Psychic Cat Chaos, Dicing With Death, Alaria Valor and Company, Community Radio, Risus Epic, When Sky And Sea Were Not Named, Daggerheart, Roll For Shoes, Pocket Gumshoe, and Good Society.

Does your heart go out when players actually cry during an episode? Don't miss Trauma Poetry, in which Mary, Zidane, Bill, and Nugh play Good Society. Look alikes and mistaken identities abound, one character loses their magic, and we all suffer terribly for our misdeeds and bad reputations!

Does your heart go out when players actually cry during an episode? Don't miss Trauma Poetry, in which Mary, Zidane, Bill, and Nugh play Good Society. Look alikes and mistaken identities abound, one character loses their magic, and we all suffer terribly for our misdeeds and bad reputations!

Oh what people will do for love. Join Ailbh, Arethor, and Rusty as they prove that their friend Tess is innocent of a crime she was, admittedly, going to commit and in the process, discover a greater conspiracy to turn friends into lovers. Listen into this actual play podcast while we play Pocket Gumshoe to find out who is at the centre of this conspiracy.

Oh what people will do for love. Join Ailbh, Arethor, and Rusty as they prove that their friend Tess is innocent of a crime she was, admittedly, going to commit and in the process, discover a greater conspiracy to turn friends into lovers. Listen into this actual play podcast while we play Pocket Gumshoe to find out who is at the centre of this conspiracy.

How to Play Pocket Gumshoe Pocket Gumshoe is a very short, genre-agnostic implementation of the Gumshoe investigation game system. You play a character in a mystery, which you must solve by finding clues. Clues that must be found in order to progress the mystery are called Core Clues, and you cannot miss them. If you spend time in a scene where there's a core clue, and you use an appropriate approach to looking for the clue, you will get the clue. No dice roll required. You do use a six-sided die for other types of actions and for combat. In Pocket Gumshoe, you have three investigative approaches: Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical, and for each of these you can have a number of tags that help define how you use that approach. In this game, each player starts with one rank in each approach, and can add two more ranks (distributed as they see fit). I gave players three tags per rank in an approach-- Pocket Gumshoe leaves this and skill points up to the GM's discretion. Here's an example of using an investigative approach. I'm playing Tom, an elderly wizard who knows a lot about medicinal plants and likes to paint. I've been hired by a nobleman to find a stolen family heirloom, a necklace. I'm in the kitchen, where there's an elderly cook and a maid, working. I could use an interpersonal approach, and maybe one of my tags is "elderly," so I get along pretty well with older folks. I chat up the cook and learn that the lord fired a footman last week. On my character sheet, I have one rank in Interpersonal, and I want to get a little more information about this footman, so I spend it to get some more dirt. The maid overhears us and shares the gossip that the footman was always flirting with the nobleman's son. From the GM's side of this, the fired footman is a suspect, and the core clue was that the footman was fired-- I want the players to go interview the footman in a future scene, so this sets them up for that. The gossip about the footman is an extra clue, and may even give them leverage when they talk to the footman. When they go talk to the footman, I can still use my interpersonal approach and tags, but I no longer have a point in Interpersonal to spend and get extra clues or benefits. I can still use the ability, but I don't have extra points to spend. In a Gumshoe one-shot, your investigation approach points will not refresh, so use them wisely! In addition to the investivative approaches, you have General Skills, and for this game, the players had 50 points to spend on the general skills. General skills are for actions that don't fall into clue-finding. They're things like athletics and driving, but also include your health points pool. Everyone starts with one point of health and stability. In Pocket Gumshoe, the GM can decide which skills to include or exclude. For our adventure, I excluded Shrink and Stability, as those are for mental health consequences and fit more into a horror investigation rather than fantasy action. I also added a Magic skill to give a general-purpose skill for Firebreathing Kittens who have magic abilities or knowledge. In this case, I also made a special rule that you cannot use a magical ability without spending a point, which we will talk about next. When I want to do something that has a decent chance of failure and is not gathering a clue, I use one of the general skills and roll for it. For most skills, you do not need to have points in the skill to attempt to do it-- my custom Magic skill is an exception to that rule. Health and Stability skills are also not rolled-- they represent your physical and mental health points, and you lose them when you take damage. When I roll in a test-- that's a static check to see if I succeed at a task, the GM usually tells me the difficulty, and I can spend some of my skill points to add to my roll. I roll one d6, and for each general skill point I spend, I add a point to the dice result. The skill points all must come out of the skill I'm using. Let's say my character is inside the treasure vault at the castle, looking for clues. Just after he found a clue, the GM says "hey, roll Sense Trouble for me." I have a lot of points in that, but I decide that I'm a little cocky and hey, I just found a clue, so I only spend one point of Sense Trouble. I know that most of my general skills will not refresh in this one-shot. In a campaign, they refresh between adventures, or for physical abilities they refresh once per day. Health is regained when someone uses the Medic general ability, or at 7a rate of two Health points per day of rest. I erase the point from my character sheet. Sense Trouble is another skill that works a little differently-- the GM tells me the difficulty after I spend the points, and in this case it's 3, which should be very easy, but wouldn't you know it? I roll a one, and even with my plus-one, I fail in my roll. Now my character hears the ominous sound of the door clanging shut! Someone has shut him in! Now he needs to

Rusty Surehoof Interview

In this playthrough of Good Society, we follow Marty, Sadie, and Arethor as they dance through the salsa of salacious gossip and the polka of political maneuvering, to earn their crescendo of consequences.

In this playthrough of Good Society, we follow Marty, Sadie, and Arethor as they dance through the salsa of salacious gossip and the polka of political maneuvering, to earn their crescendo of consequences.

Scandals, lies, and intrigue fly as Ailbh and Armando join Ivy at her high society birthday party! Does love win out? Are the rumors true? Tune in to this actual play of the Good Society TTRPG and discover which bombshells are revealed!

Scandals, lies, and intrigue fly as Ailbh and Armando join Ivy at her high society birthday party! Does love win out? Are the rumors true? Tune in to this actual play of the Good Society TTRPG and discover which bombshells are revealed!

How to play Good Society. Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Good Society. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Good Society yourselves. I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections. Theme Tokens: Resolve tokens Monologue tokens Five tone setting questions Building your major character Desire cards Relationship cards Family background Role sheet Reputation conditions Inner conflict Connections Public information sheet Eight phase cycle of play Novel chapter Reputation Rumor and scandal Epistolary Novel chapter Reputation Epistolary Upkeep The theme of Good Society is that you’re playing as a character who would have fit in comfortably in a Jane Austen novel. This game is a fictional portrayal of the genteel social class in England in the 1810’s. These people aren’t royalty, so they don’t have any royal obligations, but they also are so rich that they never have to work a day in their lives. How is that possible? Through the system of primogeniture, where only one child inherits all of the family’s money, concentrating everything on them so they can pass on the family name and social status. The other kids are out of luck. If you are born into the genteel social class as a boy then your job is to make sure that you’re the one who gets your family’s inheritance. If you’re born into this social class as a girl then your job is to marry a rich husband. Fail to marry well, and you might have to get a job, which means you have lost the game and are out of the genteel class. Maybe your old friends will hire you to sew them a dress for a party one day, but that’s the only time you would ever see them or your old lifestyle again. For the guys, if you fail to make yourself the one who inherits all of your family’s money, the military is an option for working a few years and retiring on a hefty officer’s pension. You just have to hope you don’t die while serving, and hope you’re not too old to find a wife by the time you get out. Your life path is up to you. Your imagination is your only limit in this fictional portrayal of the genteel social class in the 1810’s England. You lose if you have to get a day job. And also, in the words of Jane Austen herself, “Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection.” That was the theme, now let’s talk about Good Society’s mechanics. Tokens. Spending tokens is the major mechanic of Good Society. You won’t be rolling dice or drawing cards. Instead, you have a limited resource action economy in how many tokens you still have left to spend. Each player starts with two resolve tokens on each character they control. The facilitator starts with three resolve tokens. You spend resolve tokens during the novel chapter phase, reputation phase, and epistolary phase. You get more resolve tokens from reputation tags and during the rumors and scandals phase and the upkeep phase. Resolve tokens represent your character’s determination to pursue their goals. You don’t need to spend one for most actions you want to do. Simply speak as your character and act out the role play of your character talking to your fellow players, who will respond speaking as the characters you are talking to. But you will need to spend a resolve token sometimes. Specifically, when you want to compel someone else’s character to do something, add a twist that makes the game more interesting, make a momentous change that significantly alters the story, establish a past relationship with a character you up until now didn’t know, ruin the plan or harm the interests of another player’s character, or learn about a delicious piece of gossip you would have otherwise been unlikely to learn. Doing these types of actions will require spending a resolve token, and if you’re out of them, then you can’t. I made this quick acronym for remembering when you need to use a resolve token: C for compelling someone else’s character to do something, I for making the game more interesting, M for momentous, big changes, E for establishing a prior relationship with a character where none existed before, R for ruining the plans or harming the interests of a major character or connection, U for unlikely or difficult actions succeeding. Compel, Interesting, Momentous, Establish, Ruin, Unlikely. Kimeru, use a resolve token. Do you want to compel Emma’s player to have Emma accidentally trip the Duke’s wife at a ball, or fall in love with a person of ill-repute, or arrange a meeting between your character and Emma’s brother? Spend a resolve token to begin negotiations with Emma’s player. Do you see a point where you could punch up the plot and make the storyline of someone else’s character more interesting? Spend a resolve tok

Ailbh Goldbeard Interview

Bartholomew, Nugh, and Mervon receive a late-night cry for help. A gleaming wizard's tower and family issues? Don’t sleep on this episode! A Nod To Mother is an actual play podcast of Roll For Shoes.

Bartholomew, Nugh, and Mervon receive a late-night cry for help. A gleaming wizard's tower and family issues? Don’t sleep on this episode! A Nod To Mother is an actual play podcast of Roll For Shoes.

After a harrowing welcome to Silverwood Haven, Arethor, Qigiq, and Sadie embark on a quest seeking The Alchemist for… something. This episode uses v1.4 playtest rules for the Daggerheart game system.

After a harrowing welcome to Silverwood Haven, Arethor, Qigiq, and Sadie embark on a quest seeking The Alchemist for… something. This episode uses v1.4 playtest rules for the Daggerheart game system.

Arethor Gowek Interview

Floating jungle islands are rare so when they show up somebody has to explore them. And who better than Qigiq, Ivy Green, and Colette three of the Firebreathing Kittens? Come listen as they find wind monsters, become influencers amongst lizard people, and find something quite unexpected at the center of this mysterious island! Tales of the Wind is an actual play podcast of When Sky And Sea Were Not Named.

Floating jungle islands are rare so when they show up somebody has to explore them. And who better than Qigiq, Ivy Green, and Colette three of the Firebreathing Kittens? Come listen as they find wind monsters, become influencers amongst lizard people, and find something quite unexpected at the center of this mysterious island! Tales of the Wind is an actual play podcast of When Sky and Sea Were Not Named.

A simple errand turns into an impromptu audit as Sadie, Mary, and Bartholomew investigate the astronomic inflation in Shireford Upon Emou. Tune in to this Risus Epic adventure to see if they can solve the town's financial woes!

A simple errand turns into an impromptu audit as Sadie, Mary, and Bartholomew investigate the astronomic inflation in Shireford Upon Emou. Tune in to this Risus Epic adventure to see if they can solve the town's financial woes!

Join Bill and Maeve as they battle capitalism, Ponzi schemes, and fool's gold.

Join Bill and Maeve as they battle capitalism, Ponzi schemes, and fool's gold.

How To Play Risus Epic

Welcome back listeners! Today, Fennis, Mervon and Sadie are playing "Community Radio". In this episode, we draw back a bit, instead of following a single adventure, Niqamui itself is the focus, more specifically- the local radio station's coverage of some of the supernatural events that take place in Niqamui's casual day-to-day. Breaking Council Decrees! Cult politics! 24hr coverage of the slow encroachment of ominous fog! All this and more are coming up, so don't touch that dial!

Greetings and welcome to the Firebreathing Kittens. This is a short overview of how to play Community Radio. Community Radio is a story and improv focused game. We don't have character sheets. Instead, the players play out slice of life moments from a strange community, while the GM plays the Host of the community's radio station. The mood of a Community Radio game captures the voice of a community the way Welcome to Nightvale or Northern Exposure can capture the voice of a community. The game is written by Quinn Murphy and is available at thought crime games.itch.io. A second edition is currently in development. The Firebreathing Kittens will be playing version 1.2 of the game. Community Radio is also the basis for the excellent game Radio Free Kaiju, which centers on a community surviving a world populated by giant, deadly monsters. Prior to the game, all the players have submitted to the GM the following ideas: * An Innocent Person * A Terror * A Place of Interest * A Mood * A Strange Item * Up to 3 original songs or poems to be aired on the radio station. * Optionally, up to 3 decrees from the Niqamui Community Council, to be read on air. The GM has taken these elements and shuffled them into a very loosely connected series of slice of life scenes that the players will play out in an improv manner. Each slice of life scene is 3-5 minutes long. After a slice of life scene, there is a short musical interlude. During the musical break, players who were just in the scene write decrees, sometimes about the scene, or about a previous scene, or just about something else entirely. These decrees are secretly passed to the Host, who selects from the available decrees during the Radio Scene. Radio scenes have a bumper, a report from the Host reacting to and interpreting the slice of life scene, and lastly a decree by the Council. The Host is not allowed to break Council decrees, and the decrees often respond to actions during the slice of life scene. You'll notice there is nothing about "how do you fight in this game" or "how do I convince someone to do what I want." As an improv-heavy game, Community Radio relies on players to adjudicate using "yes, and" to narrate what their characters are doing and how successful they are. The game is heavily player-generated, with the Host acting as an interpreter more than anything else. For purposes of the Firebreathing Kittens format, I have added some structure to the scenes so they aren't as random as suggested in the Community Radio rulebook. The key elements are all provided by the players, however, as are all the decrees. I hope you enjoy our episode featuring Community Radio.

FBK is hired to protect two children as they undergo a pilgrimage. What no one yet realizes is the true danger spreading in the blessed grove. Join Bill, Qigiq, and Armando as they seek a sense of justice and work to become true heroes in this actual play podcast of Alaria Valor and Company.

FBK is hired to protect two children as they undergo a pilgrimage. What no one yet realizes is the true danger spreading in the blessed grove. Join Bill, Qigiq, and Armando as they seek a sense of justice and work to become true heroes in this actual play podcast of Alaria Valor and Company.

How To Play Alaria Valor And Company

Qigiq Steel Interview

During a regular shopping trip, Demyan and Jimmy Potatoes are rudely whisked off by pirates to break into a mysterious complex, which holds secrets that could change the face of the planet... This episode uses the 'Dicing With Death' Playtest TTRPG.

During a regular shopping trip, Demyan and Jimmy Potatoes are rudely whisked off by pirates to break into a mysterious complex, which holds secrets that could change the face of the planet... This episode uses the 'Dicing With Death' Playtest TTRPG.

Fennis, Sadie, and Mervon get body swapped with their furry friends. Can they get back? Are greebles real? SHOULD they be? Tune in! CATegorical Success is an actual play podcast of Psychic Cat Chaos.

Fennis, Sadie, and Mervon get body swapped with their furry friends. Can they get back? Are greebles real? SHOULD they be? Tune in! CATegorical Success is an actual play podcast of Psychic Cat Chaos.

Mervon The Stolid Interview

May 2024 TTRPG Rules Discussion

Marty, Colette, and Sadie are thrown into a most terrifying retro horror story using Summer Camp Slayers game mechanics. Tag along and see who survives the night, and whose light fizzles out.

Marty, Colette, and Sadie are thrown into a most terrifying retro horror story using Summer Camp Slayers game mechanics. Tag along and see who survives the night, and whose light fizzles out.

Hello everybody this is a special episode of the Firebreathing Kittens podcast. I am the Gamemaster for an upcoming episode where I’ll be using the mechanics from the tabletop role-play game, summer camp slayers. You can catch me as ‘Tord Unfrid’ playing a similar game that uses a different flavour of the same mechanics called Pirates of the Bone Blade in episode 266 of the Firebreathing Kittens Podcast. Summer camp slayers is a table top role-play game designed by Richard Woolcock from Zadmar Games using his universal Tricube game system and you can find this and more on DriveThruRPG. I will speak more on the TriCube system towards the end of episode here but for now let’s get into those game mechanics. General Mechanics: In summer camp slayers, you roll between one and three D6 6 sided dice, depending on your characters archetype and you compare your highest result against the difficulty set by the game master. For instance, you may roll two 6 sided dice and have a 3 and 5 on the dice the game master set the difficulty at five meaning you have one success. You start with 2D6 add a die to your roll if what you’re doing falls in line with your trait and you remove a die if what you’re doing falls outside the scope of your concept but we'll get into that more during the character creation section. The main thing to remember going forward is that together your trait and concept make up your characters archetype forming half of your character design, the other half of the character design comes from your perks and quirks. Perks and Quirks (Archetype) Overview: Speaking of perks and quirks, they allow you to influence the difficulty of the challenge you face. You can influence the difficulty of the task by expending one of your karma points to reduce the difficulty of the task by 1 if you can explain how your perk aids you in that moment. You can also decide to make the difficulty of the task harder before rolling, increasing it by 1, describing how your quirk negatively effected you. If you fail the task when using your quirk you get a karma back but if you succeed you can choose to regain a resolve instead if you'd like. If a player runs out of resolve they are typically removed from the scene and gain an affliction. Afflictions are described by the victor and are treated as temporary quirks for your player. A character with three affliction is retired from play, although they can be brought back if one of their afflictions is cured. Now that we've talked about how to decide the outcome of a challenge let's find out what happens if you succeed or fail. Success/Failure: Succeeding a task with one single die above or meeting the difficulty rating will result in a normal success, any additional successful die roll will be a exceptional success. Exceptional successes typical provide additional removed effort tokens or beneficial effects as decided by the game master. The same is true however for failures as well with the distinction being that you have to roll all 1’s on your dice for it to be a critical failure, this typically involves losing double the amount of resolve or additional negative effects as decided by the game master and player such as gaining an affliction. Some tasks are simple and only require a single success to complete them, there are however harder tasks and in these instances effort tokens will be used. A harder task can require anywhere from 2-4 successes or more depending on the situation to whittle down that encounters effort tokens. Character Creation: Now that we know how the game works, let’s talk about creating a character. In Summer Camp Slayers you select from a list of four different options during character creation, those four options as discussed earlier are Trait, Concept, Perk and Quirk. At first all the these four terms may sound the same however they do function differently from each other, let’s get into that. Traits: We’ll start with trait, in this game system a trait is always the same, regardless of the flavour of the system you’re playing. A trait is one of the following: Agile, Brawny or Crafty; the ABC’s of Tricube! Agile covers things like quickness, dexterity, reflexes, or stealth; they also roll 3d6 for ranged combat. Brawny covers things like strength, toughness, stamina or athletics; they also roll 3d6 for melee combat. Crafty covers things like charisma, intellect, willpower or perception; they also roll 3d6 for mental combat (magic, persuasion, intimidation). Unless something falls within your trait you will roll 2d6, if it does happen to fall within your trait however you get to roll 3d6 instead! For example. A brawny kid would roll 3D6 when trying to lift something heavy off their friends, but only 2D6 if they were trying to avoid getting pinned by the same object as it's falling as that would be an Agile roll. Concepts: Next let's talk about concepts, as it is a bit more of a loose idea and changes depending on the flavour of the game type and world you're

When Demyan and Armando find out a sneaky rabbit has stolen a Bag of Tricks, they hunger for justice! Will they follow their nose and find the culprit? Or will they be serially thwarted by multiple challenges? I Eat Challenges For Breakfast is an actual play podcast of the LUCAS rpg system.

When Demyan and Armando find out a sneaky rabbit has stolen a Bag of Tricks, they hunger for justice! Will they follow their nose and find the culprit? Or will they be serially thwarted by multiple challenges? I Eat Challenges For Breakfast is an actual play podcast of the LUCAS rpg system.

Ivy, Tord, Fennis, and Colette have to save a soup kitchen! Naturally this means a heist of a huge diamond, a fake murder, a duel, a pop song from the 70s, and a spaceship?! Join them on this exciting episode of Firebreathing Kittens! Come Fly To Space is an actual play podcast of the No Port Called Home RPG system.