On the Tavern Watch Podcast, a mention of a crowdfunding campaign for Lodestar leads us to discussing areas where the community has picked up for Wizards of the Coast's slack on the Tavern Watch Podcast. While D&D's modern stewards often seem content to take a one-and-done approach to campaign settings (as opposed to multiple lines of products like in the past), the ever-creative community is stepping up to fill these gaps, leading to some fantastic third-party supplements. Lodestar seems to pick up where the Spelljammer release leaves off, while dark fantasy setting Dungeons of Drakkenheim and also-upcoming product Chapelwick are poised to fill a horror-shaped hole in the product lineup (although it's a more Soulslike approach to horror than the classic Curse of Strahd). If there are any third-party content creators out there who want to fill the void in my heart that used to be occupied by Dark Sun, I'm just saying, I would throw a little money at that. However, sometimes more familiar stomping grounds are nice, too; to that end, if you just want some rollicking fun in the Forgotten Realms, you can jump right into a free level 3 adventure from the upcoming campaign book for the Realms coming later this year.

If you need a good reason to do so -- we get it, scheduling is tough, everyone you know is tired, sometimes you need a little motivation -- you can check out StartPlaying's survey on relationships and roleplaying games, wherein 75% of the respondants said playing tabletop RPGs helps keep friendships alive, 57% said they forged core relationships through roleplaying, and 28% even found real-life love outside of their Bard's high-Charisma Persuasion rolls. There's also a good discussion of how to deal with dice derailing, or not derailing, the story that you and the other players at the table want to tell -- an especially timely discussion in light of the discourse about dice fudging that's circulating in online communities again.

Tune in for this and more games we’re playing, games we’re looking forward to, and liveplays we’re watching!

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