Rene Plays Games

After trumpeting a magical horn found in the burnt remains of the homestead, Iorlas has earned the trust of a majestic steed en route to Fornost Erain, the ancient keep and capital of Men from Ages past.
 
When he arrives, he finds it twisted and overgrown, treacherous and eerily abandoned, but of course trouble lurks within... Trouble in the form of evil Men and undead, but what is it that Gandalf has sent him here to learn?
 
Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
 

Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
 
For the first Design Diaries of the year that isn't about Gardens of Rust, I decided to go back to what was going to be the original Design Diaries episode of 2026... my two-player buddy cop TTRPG Decktectives.
 
In this game, the two players sit down and create a pair of detectives or investigators who are going to solve a crime in around 1 hour of real time like an episode your favorite procedural using a deck of cards and a Three Act Structure with "commercial breaks."
 
The game mechanics are very simple, using cards from small hands to overcome prompts and obstacles flipped from a 3x3 grid representing each Act of the investigation to create piles of Clues & Complications. By the end, hopefully your duo has amassed enough evidence to put away the culprit (or solve the crime and let it slide).
 
I'm confident this one's done design-wise, I just need to get the layout done. SOMEONE YELL AT ME UNTIL I DO!
 

Iorlas spends time recovering between the small community of Archet in the Chetwood and a visit to Bree, where he runs into Gandalf again. After hearing news of an attack on a homestead along the Greenway to the north, Iorlas assumes it must be Drustan and his allies, so he ventures slightly out of the way to investigate. He finds a wondrous item...
 
Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
 

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
 
This month I have the pleasure of talking with Brian Flaherty, AP performer, GM, sound designer, producer, game designer, and one of the founders of the Many Sided Media network with an insane lineup of TTRPG podcasts including:
My First Dungeon
Talk of the Table
Bitcherton
And many, many more of some absolute staples in my own podcast queue like Dice Exploder and Maia's Game Room.
 
Anyway, this is just to say Brian wears A TON of hats that make him and his crew so aspirational and inspirational. One of my favorite quotes of this interview is him describing the idea for this TTRPG podcast adventure to show people "the peak of an indie game through actual play," and to get people excited about the game so they can play anywhere on that mountain in terms of how much production or extras they want to add onto it, but the goal is to provide an immersive, enjoyable experience with a game that tells a story like no other can.
 
Brian's episode is full of so much wisdom not just about podcasting professionally, but also about supporting creators, artists, and all the people whose work goes into making the things we love and play to tell great stories. 
 
Please go check out everything Brian and his friends work on over at Many Sided Media and pay it back for him demanding that you leave me a rating (please do) by going and 5-star bombing all of their shows, too!
 

The adventure continues.
 
As Iorlas and Fitch Talltree, Forester of Archet hunt for the escaped servants of Saruman in the Chetwood, something from Fitch's past comes back to settle a different score. Iorlas is wounded.
 
Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
 

Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
 
We're back to talk more Gardens of Rust, the post-catastrophe survival and community rebuilding game by myself and Christian from the DMs After Dark. 
 
This is the final episode of this series for Gardens of Rust and it goes over the Community Phase of the game; when the PCs return back to their small settlement of survivors in the Rust, play zooms out and the players make decisions from a community-wide perspective. Based on the Comm's stats, the players have a limited number of actions to handle issues facing the community, make progress on forward-looking projects, enjoy moments when they can be enjoyed, and more, which in turn inform the goals of the next PC-focused Player Phase.
 
Please email or join the DMs After Dark Discord server to tell me about the kind of character you'd make for a post-collapse game so we can make it together! I want to start playtesting this game more with new players, so maybe we can set something up on the Discord.
 

The adventure continues.
 
Iorlas takes Drustan the Mercenary to Bree to face justice, but underestimates the extent of his resources. When Iorlas beseeches the folk of Bree to help him search for the escaped man, he must convince them before it's too late. In the end, he moves on, refusing to let evil men spread.
 
Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
 

Bonjour! Salut! Ça va? Bienvenue a un autre Perspective Checks episode where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG Community to talk about all the things we love about this wonderful hobby.
 
Today you're getting not one but TWO Renes! I'm joined by Rene-Pier (RP) from Fari RPGs, creator of so many incredible games that almost all have free SRDs so you can learn the rules and make your own games with them! We're finally linking up to talk about RP's amazing effort to consistently share all of his own knowledge and experience making indie TTRPGs with the community, as well as
 
Breathless: Frightmare Edition funding now on Kickstarter!
 
RP is a designer who actually walks the walk, and he's created an amazing community of people through his free releases of his games SRDs, running game jams, putting out Affinity Publisher tutorials to help new designers with layout, and more! It's no surprise that his Breathless system has been used to make over 300 games and his other games continue to inspire others.
 
Hope you enjoy this episode, I apologize for my French, and I want to hear from everyone what game they have waiting to be made so we can get to playing it!
 

The adventure begins.
 
Iorlas, Ranger of the North, Dunedain, descendant of Numenor, leaves the Grey Havens in spring on a quest from Cirdan, the Shipwright to investigate a blight on the sacred trees with which the elves build the ships that ferry the elves on to Valinor upon their departure from Middle Earth.
 
On his way through the Shire to head south to the ruins of Eryn Vorn, Iorlas runs into Gandalf the Grey, who has his own quest for the Ranger. To the north, in the ruins of Fornost Erain, the ancient capital of the Dunedain, the shadow has lured other Men, Rangers who have not returned.
 
Iorlas opts to head north to save the Men who have less time than the trees to the south, but quickly runs into opposition once he leaves the Shire...
 
Learn more about The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
 

Another episode of Tabletop Tutorial, where I'm joined by a guest to learn a new game together, one-on-one!
 
This time I'm joined by my wife, Lynn, for more Lynnsanity. She recently bought me a zine by Wolf Manzella a.k.a. Wyrd Wolf Entertainment called Dick Wizards! Yes, you read that right, and what a title! It's provocative, it gets the people going!
 
Now temper those thoughts, because this is a game about apprentice wizard detectives in the city of Providence, Rhode Island investigating Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos in the form of crime and strange happenings around the city. On brand, Lynn keeps it real wild, and I think we had a great time playing this game.
 
I highly recommend checking this zine out, it has some really cool mechanics with tarot cards, spellcasting, and creating enemies!
 
Hope you enjoy, and I hope it makes you crave some Rhode Island specific food (somehow we didn't mention our amazing seafood even once, just the junk food).
 

Good day to you, I say, fair folk of the internet, and welcome to the character creation episode for my next solo podcast series of The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
 
This is a short episode I'm putting out because things have gotten a little out of control here in March for me, and will continue to be for April, so please be patient with my episode releases for the next month and a half, but!
 
Let's make a character for a new game! If you want to add ideas or throw out potential cool locations/scenes/anything from your favorite bits of Middle Earth lore, be sure to join me for my 2nd Twitch Stream coming up Monday March 30th!
 
Anyway, hopefully I get the rules of this character creation right, but we have the following cool guy for this upcoming series:
 
Iorlas, Ranger of the North, Dunedain & descendant of the Numenoreans that sailed to the shores of Middle Earth fleeing the fall of Numenor. He is a capable Ranger, a Messenger that travels the land to spread word and ensure that the Free Folk of the world are ready for the spreading shadow from Mordor...
 
He wields a famous ancient blade of the Numenoreans known as Nimloth's Tear, foe-slaying blade to Evil Men and Undead, forged to harken the silver light of Telperion of old, what would be the light of the white tree of Gondor.
 
Very excited to tell a story in Middle Earth! I hope you're excited to hear :)
 

Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
 
We're back to talk more Gardens of Rust, the post-catastrophe survival and community rebuilding game by myself and Christian from the DMs After Dark. 
 
In episode 3 I go over the usual responsibilities and role of the GM. Calling for rolls, how to prep (minimally, because I'm not a prep kind of GM), and the kinds of things a GM would be doing during the Player & Community Phases.
 
This episode also has a mini-example of play with the two characters we made in the last Design Diaries. Nothing crazy comes up, but maybe next time (the last time for Gardens of Rust?) we'll do a combat or more involved example of play.
 
Please email or join the DMs After Dark Discord server to tell me about the kind of character you'd make for a post-collapse game so we can make it together! I want to start playtesting this game more with new players, so maybe we can set something up on the Discord.
 

Apologies for Laurence's Audio in this episode, the recording was a little strange when it exported from our video call, but I did the best I could. If you have any questions, please message or email me! (Or reach out to Laurence!)
 
Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
 
This episode is an early interview for Laurence's upcoming Kickstarter for his Italian horror/mystery cinema inspired Il Fantasma Del Giallo, a game about the actors, their roles, and the thinning line of reality and fiction! It's a neo-noir slasher inspired TTRPG that has some really interesting framing and mechanics, I am looking forward to see how it plays at the table!
 
You can find more of Laurence's games on the Hardy Roach Games itch.io page, or check out his BlueSky thread about giallo movies on his BlueSky.
 
Some movies to watch if you want to experience classic giallo include:
Deep Red by Dario Argento
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage by Dario Argento
Blood & Black Lace by Mario Bava
The Girl Who Knew Too Much by Mario Bava
 

Sybil's time in the Dungeons comes to an end. She leaves with a friend on a new journey.
 
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich's Patreon page!
 

Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
 
We're back to talk more Gardens of Rust, the post-catastrophe survival and community rebuilding game by myself and Christian from the DMs After Dark. 
 
In episode 2 I walk through the Character Creation process and create two different characters to try and show the breadth of characters you may be going into this game with!
 
Hopefully this gets you excited and thinking about the types of characters you'd want to bring to the post-collapse world who can rebuild a community and new life in the Rust. Definitely join the DMs After Dark Discord or email me to tell me about a character idea, we can build it together!
 

Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
 
Sybil and friends explore the Rookling Forge and discover a dark secret. They follow the spectral chains down to the source to save a friend.
 
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich's Patreon page!
 

We're back again for another totally romantic Valentine's Day one-shot!
 
The annual tradition continues as my wife Lynn joins me for a tangentially-love-related one-shot of a TTRPG session. This year we go back to Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu to play the 2nd scenario in the Does Love Forgive? collection of 1-GM-1-Player mysteries!
 
One day after Chicago's St. Valentine's Day Massacre in February 1929, a simple dog retrieval turns into a long-simmering love triangle gone very, very wrong!
 
 

Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
 
Ian and I met playing in a short TTRPG series for previous guest of the show C.R. Rowenson's LitRPG series New Eternity and knew we had to chat more from our brief interactions and roles as the tankybois of the party.
 
Ian is one-half of the podcast Undercommon Taste, a TTRPG Homebrew podcast, so it's perfect that he's coming on to talk about all things homebrewing! This is a big umbrella in the TTRPG space. House rules are homebrew, technically, but so are some games that hack existing systems, so when do you know it's time to make something new? How much do you need to do? What do you need to consider?
 
We barely scratch the surface of the topic, but there's a lot of great nuggets of wisdom in this chat!
 
Also, you best believe that there's a Powered by the Aporkalypse file in my Google Docs now...
 

Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
 
Sybil returns to the major labyrinth Castle Revolving to reach the heart of the dungeon and find what lies within. Then, a new friend leads the crew straight to the Rookling Forge.
 
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich's Patreon page!
 

Helloooooo my favorite nerds.
 
Welcome to the first episode of my monthly design diaries series here in 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
 
I have already pivoted! The first episode was supposed to be about my upcoming playing card-based 2-player buddy cop TTRPG Decktectives, but the state of the modern world made me really not want to talk about any kind of law enforcement, so instead we're talking about a post-societal collapse game, which is way more fun.
 
I know you've heard me talk about this one before, but I can promise big things are happening and you can expect it sooner than later. In this episode I'm talking about Gardens of Rust, the post-catastrophe survival and community rebuilding game by myself and Christian from the DMs After Dark.
 
I'll be doing a few episodes about this one, but in this I just tell you about what the game is going to be, how it's going to feel, and give the basics of the core resolution mechanic we've designed known as the 2dDifference System.
 
Next month I'll make a character and do some solo actual play previewing of the game, and after that we'll dive into how the GM role will play out in Gardens of Rust, as well as ideas for the future beyond that.
 
Get excited, it is coming. (The game, not the collapse of society. I hope)