Tabletop Journeys

Your players are about to trek 200 miles through monster-infested wilderness — are you really going to just wing it?

🎲 On this episode of Dr. Homebrew, Josh breaks down how he borrowed the card mechanics from Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon and turned them into a fully randomized, deeply flavorful D20 exploration encounter table for his home D&D campaign.

We're talking layered randomness. Location cards, color-coded encounter types, combat and diplomacy resolution cards all stitched together into a system that keeps every day of the trek feeling fresh, unpredictable, and narratively rich. Josh walks through real examples straight from his table: a Still River with no source, a Giant Vanguard demanding deference, an Inverse Fjord ruled by a rogue knight, and a dusk hag named Arietta Everbleed lurking in a labyrinth of earthquake-shattered stone. 🗺️⚔️

Whether you're running a survival trek, an overland hex crawl, or just want to inject more chaos and creativity into your exploration pillar, this episode is packed with tools you can steal for your own table tonight.

💬 How do you handle exploration at your table? Improvised or meticulously planned? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

And remember:
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🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode

Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon board game (Awaken Realms): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/264220/tainted-grail-the-fall-of-avalon
Monthly NPC, creature & location card sets → patreon.com/ttjourneys

Tabletop Journeys Links:
🧙 Patreon: patreon.com/ttjourneys
🦋 Bluesky: @ttjourneys.bsky.social
📘 Facebook: www.facebook.com/ttjourneys
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ttjourneys
🌐 Website: https://ttjourneys.com/
📧 Email: [email protected]

#DrHomebrew #TabletopJourneys #DungeonsAndDragons #DnD5e #TTRPG #TabletopRPG #DMTips #HomebrewDnD #ExplorationEncounters #TaintedGrail #DungeonMaster #RPGDesign #DnDHomebrew #EncounterTable #TTRPGCommunity

Want a monster card for the Brix Hog — an arcane-infused nightmare creature straight from Josh's campaign? Join the Patreon for monthly card sets, early episode access, Patreon-only games (Star Trek Adventures is live!), and more. 🃏

What if hope itself was dangerous? 🌑✨ In this incredible episode, Josh and Lewanika sit down with professional Game Master, game designer, and industry coach Jayden King to dive deep into his groundbreaking new TTRPG, Light Omens.

This isn't your average tabletop interview. Light Omens is a techno-fantasy RPG set on an alternate Earth where Eldritch entities called Light Eaters feed on extreme emotion and surviving means learning to suppress the very things that make you human.

Sound familiar? That's entirely the point.

🎲 What you'll hear in this episode:
The jaw-dropping cosmology behind Light Omens
The Light Eaters, monsters that hunt your joy, your passion, your hope
Seekers, the player characters who refuse to give up the light no matter the cost
The Truths mechanic, a revolutionary system rooted in the very real experience of code-switching
Why Light Omens is as much a statement about identity, culture, and systemic oppression as it is a TTRPG
How The Hope Engine can power everything from grim-dark fantasy to procedural detective stories to war games
Jayden's personal mission to open doors for BIPOC and Black creators in the tabletop industry

This episode hit different. Jayden brings an authenticity and depth of vision that left the whole crew genuinely awestruck — and by the end, you'll understand why Lewanika called it one of his favorite interviews ever recorded on this show.

If you love games that have something to say, this one is for you. 🎮🃏🧙‍♂️

And remember:
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🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode
🌐 Light Omens — lightomens.com (coming soon!)
📲 Jayden King — @ItsJaydenKing on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky
🏰 D&D in a Castle — jadenking.com

🗺️ Tabletop Journeys Links:
Patreon: patreon.com/ttjourneys
Bluesky: @ttjourneys.bsky.social
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ttjourneys
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ttjourneys
Website: https://ttjourneys.com/
Email: [email protected]

#TabletopJourneys #TTRPG #LightOmens #IndieRPG #TabletopRPG #DungeonsAndDragons #HopeEngine #TTRPGCommunity #IndieGames #RolePlayingGames #GameDesign #Hopepunk #Grimdark #TTRPGTwitter #DnD #TableTopGames #TTRPGPodcast #BoardGames #CallYourBoysTTJ

Preservations (S3 Bonus Ep) – “Talking Trek: The GM Edition?”What happens when the storytellers step out from behind the screen?As Star Trek: Preservations prepares for Season 4, Josh and Lewanika step out from behind the GM screen to discuss campaign planning, Quick Treks, convention play, shared continuity, and the challenge of running interconnected Star Trek Adventures stories inside one living galaxy.From Asselin Station to the A.E.G.I.S. frontier, this bonus episode explores character growth, Season 3 fallout, the future of DC, and the storytelling philosophy shaping the explosive road ahead. If you love cinematic sci-fi campaigns, TTRPG mission design, and behind-the-scenes GM discussion, this episode is for you.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🖖 STAR TREK ADVENTURES RPG━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏢 Star Trek Adventures RPG is published by Modiphius Entertainment🎲 2d20 System Designer: Nathan Dowdell📊 Project Manager: Jim Johnson👏 Special Shout-Out: BC Holmes🌐 https://www.patreon.com/c/bcholmes/posts━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🖖 STA Resources━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📥 Modiphius Downloads:🌐 https://modiphius.net/en-us/pages/star-trek-adventures-downloads🧑‍💻 STA Character Builder (BC Holmes):🌐 https://sta.bcholmes.org💖 Support BC Holmes:🌐 https://www.patreon.com/bcholmes━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙 Credits━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Hosted & edited by Lewanika MillerTabletop Journeys is hosted by Josh Newton and Lewanika Miller, with Michael Ross.🎧 Listen & Watch:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/tabletopjourneysYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ttjourneys━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 Check out our Library of Content━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 On DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/28665/tabletop-journeys-llc🌐 On DM's Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/en/browse?keyword=tabletop%20journeys%20llcYou can support the channel by sharing the episode with your friends and leaving a comment.If you would like to explore the galaxy alongside the Dilamus Christian and those serving aboard Asselin Station. or check out our Patreon at patreon.com/ttjourneysAnd remember:✅ Like✅ Subscribe✅ Ring the Bell to never miss an episode.🌌 #IDICYall #StarTrekAdventuresRPG2E #2D20 #TTRPG #CallYourBoysTTJ #tabletopjourneys

Noble Knight Games' annual clearance sale struck again — and this time Dr. Homebrew walked away with something much bigger than planned. 📦 This week on Tabletop Autopsy, we're cracking open he Age of Legends and Last Knight campaigns for Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon by Awakened Realms. Let's dissect it all for every piece of TTRPG gold hiding inside it.

From progression tracking save sheets that every DM should be using, to hero reference cards that'll make your players' lives infinitely easier at the table, this box is a treasure trove of design ideas. We dig into the dual solo/group play structure, a gorgeous Book of Secrets that handles your behind-the-screen info like a dream, and a massive card deck that opens up a whole new world of gamified exploration, encounters, and NPC interaction.

Oh, and eight beautifully pre-painted miniatures? Yeah. Zero guilt. 🎨🐉
🔜 Next Episode: Watch how these decks get put to work to plan an actual TTRPG session — you're not going to want to miss it.

And remember:
✅ Like
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✅ Ring the Bell to never miss an Episode

🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode

🏰 Tainted Grail by Awaken Realms: awakenrealms.com
⚔️ Age of Legends Expansion & Last Knight Campaign: available via Awakened Realms
🛒 Noble Knight Games (We love you guys, seriously!): nobleknight.com
📋 The Lazy Dungeon Master's 8 Steps by Mike Shea: slyflourish.com

🗺️ Tabletop Journeys Links:
Patreon: patreon.com/ttjourneys
Bluesky: @ttjourneys.bsky.social
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ttjourneys
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ttjourneys
Website: https://ttjourneys.com/
Email: [email protected]

#TabletopRPG #DungeonsAndDragons #TTRPG #DrHomebrew #TabletopAutopsy #TaintedGrail #BoardGames #DungeonMaster #TTRPGTips #TabletopJourneys #HombrewDnD #BoardGameToRPG #DnD5e #TabletopGaming #RPGInspiration

# OtRP (S2 Ep 23) –
“You DON’T Need to Know Trek to Play STA?”What if one of the biggest barriers to growing Star Trek Adventures… is us?This week on On the Right Path, Lewanika tackles a conversation that started online and quickly spiraled into a much larger issue facing the STA and TTRPG community: gatekeeping, accessibility, and the myth that you need decades of Star Trek knowledge before you can sit at the table.From convention tables filled with first-time players to campaigns built on collaboration instead of canon memorization, this episode breaks down why great Star Trek Adventures games are built on trust, support, strong GMing, and shared storytelling, not encyclopedic Trek lore.Whether you are a veteran GM, a curious player, or someone who has always wondered if Star Trek Adventures was “for you,” this episode is aimed directly at you.Because at the end of the day, nobody needs to know Season 2, Episode 6 to boldly go.🖖 Star Trek Adventures RPG 2E Discussion🎲 TTRPG GM Advice & Convention GMing🚀 Mission Brief Design & Narrative Adventure Structure🌌 Beginner Friendly Star Trek Adventures Guidance🛸 Cooperative Storytelling in the 2d20 System---🖖 STA Credits🏢 Star Trek Adventures RPG is published by Modiphius Entertainment🎲 2d20 System Designer: Nathan Dowdell📊 Project Manager: Jim Johnson👏 Special Shout Out: BC Holmes🌐 https://www.patreon.com/c/bcholmes/posts🚀 Our Latest Kickstarter was funded in under 6 hours; join the fun by checking out the link below:🌐 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ttjourneys/make-100-the-bridgedwell-chronicles-part-1---🖖 STA Resources📥 Modiphius Downloads:🌐 https://modiphius.net/en-us/pages/star-trek-adventures-downloads🛠️ STA Character Builder (BC Holmes):🌐 https://sta.bcholmes.org💙 Support BC Holmes:🌐 https://www.patreon.com/bcholmes---🎙️ CreditsHosted & edited by Lewanika MillerTabletop Journeys is hosted by Josh Newton and Lewanika Miller, with Michael Ross.🎧 Listen & Watch:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/tabletopjourneysYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ttjourneys---📚 Check Our Library of Content:🌐 On DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/28665/tabletop-journeys-llc🌐 On DM's Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/en/browse?keyword=tabletop%20journeys%20llcYou can support the channel by sharing the episode with your friends, and leaving a commen..If you would like to explore the galaxy alongside the Dilamus Christian and those serving aboard Asselin Station. or check out our Patreon at patreon.com/ttjourneysAnd remember:✅ Like✅ Subscribe✅ Ring the Bell to never miss an episode.🌌 #IDICYall #startrekadventuresrpg2e #2d20 #ttrpg #callyourboysttj #tabletopjourneys