My favorite podcasts

My wife is off on an adventure this weekend and I’m alone with a dog who is being a pest, so it’s time to write about my favorite podcasts, which I’ve meant to do for some time, but didn’t get around to. My podcast listening has two phases. There’s the “only in the car with my wife” phase, which started when we were not yet married but driving somewhere together, and there’s the “every day when I walk the dog, because otherwise that activity leaves me alone with my brain for too long” phase, which started when we, somewhat to my surprise, got a puppy, and my wife then got a serious ankle injury leaving me as the sole dog walker for months. The top casts from the first phase are the McElroy brothers surreal “advice show” My Brother, My Brother and Me, usually referred to as MBMBaM (pronounced /məˈbɪmbæm/), and their series of podcasts playing role playing games with their dad, called The Adventure Zone. The McElroy’s are podcasting superstars, so they don’t need me to hype them (but if you’ve never listened, give it a shot), so I’ll instead go through those from the second phase, which are all RPG podcasts I sought out when walking the dog so, so, so much caused me to burn through the McElroy RPG backlog. I’m doing these in order of discovery, because that’s what I want to do.

The Eternity Archives

The Eternity Archives has unfortunately just announced they are wrapping up and then going into hibernation, but they were a great RPG showcasing podcast centered on the aforementioned Archives. Our main cast of three bold archivists from an extradimensional Archive would be sent off to a new universe on missions from the Archive, often to retrieve an item not belonging in the universe. The adventure, each using a different RPG system, was book-ended by the players discussing the system. Some general rules and first impressions before the adventure, and their opinions and experiences after. They had several fun guest stars, amusing and developing Archive lore and I’m going to miss them. Fortunately they were kind enough to give me some suggestions when I asked what other RPG podcasts they recommended which led me to.

Dangerous Times at Chillhaven High

Chillhaven might be my absolute favorite among these. I know, I did go with chronological order to avoid playing favorites, but Chillhaven is just so fun. A primarily Monster of the Week podcast set in the small town of Chillhaven, it follows teenagers Angela, Penny and Zeke as they become Chillhaven’s primary defense against the zany attacks the keeper comes up with.

The show has great audio, wonderful, original score, spectacular lore and lovable PCs and NPCs. Just don’t listen if you are squeamish. It is definitely a horror RPG, even if it is funny as hell. I’m not a fan of horror in general, but love this humorous audio take on … no details. Don’t want to spoil.

Bad Heroes

Bad Heroes is a Pathfinder 2 based fantasy podcast set in a world full of your more or less standard fantasy creatures. The setting is a delightful homebrew world centered on the Unholy Empire ruled by Queen Sephira from the capital of Vyer. Not satisfied with her dynasty’s long alliance with hell Queen Sephira has … “recruited” the cast to help obtain individuals suffering from powerful curses like vampirism, lycantrophy and … they haven’t been sent after a third curse yet. I’m dying to know.

The motley crew of … not exactly misfits and ne’erdowells, but not exactly not that either, have to find a way to work together and succeed against overwhelming odds in missions that might be in service of something terrible, unless they can discover what it is and stop it if it’s bad. GM and players work together to produce a rich world you want to learn more about along with the characters.

Sword of Symphonies

Sword of Symphonies is different. It’s intended to be different. It’s a different system. Yes, it is. The Heroic Chord system is the brainchild of Host King Cat, an author, editor and game designer from Edmonton. They’ve designed a system that is deliberately different from and more cooperation based than most, and are joined by friends Kersten, Nick and Kathleen, playing, most of the time, Penelope, Cobb and Tissa to showcase the game, still under development, through adventures on the post cataclysmic fantasy world of Amylta, where every hero has some magic and the enemies are most often Horrors, spirits of humanities worst excesses still repeating trauma from before the cataclysm, and Noble Demons, beings of superhuman powers and obsessions, who are best left alone and not directly combated if an encounter is unavoidable. That was a very long sentence, but in the spirit of this podcast I shall not apologize.

Shrimp and Crits

I started running a bit low on episodes of some of the show and needed to add to the rotation. Asking the Bad Heroes discord for tips led me to Shrimp and Crits. Another Monster of the Week podcast Shrimp and Crits is set in the Florida panhandle in the fictional town of Gullacochica. Reptile retreat owner and part time cryptid Raymon “Ray Ray” Lareaux, fresh faced Deputy Sara Payne of the GPD, and agent Ari Green of whatever the FAE is, must work together to save Gullacochica from what Sheriff Donnie Terrance prefers to call “Shark attack”s and leave well enough alone.

I’m going out on a limb here, having only seen one episode of X-files, but this is what if Mulder worked for a supernatural agency, Scully was a deputy and there was a third main character who has to be careful not to get drenched in water. I’m not sure they have what it takes to save Gullacochica, or the rest of Flordia, from what is coming, but I thoroughly enjoy finding out.

Not Another D&D podcast

Okay, so chronologically NADDpod belongs earlier, but it’s another juggernaut in the RPG podcasting world so it’s going down here. If you like D&D type podcasts, and get past the deep dive into dragon genitals, by which I mean an overly detailed discussion, not a literal dive, though I wouldn’t quite put it past them, do give this one a go. Everyone has so much experience in comedy, improv and RPG that it is a joke a minute from the first to the last.