Daggerheart (2025)

Welcome to The Critshow - an actual play podcast where a group of friends uses tabletop role playing games to walk the line between humor, horror and heart. Focused on character-driven storytelling, our show features a variety of systems, from pulse-pounding horror to high fantasy to fast-paced sci-fi and beyond. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or new to TTRPGs, The Critshow offers engaging narratives, hilarious moments, and captivating arcs that will keep you coming back every Wednesday. Seasons 1-6: The Other Side of the Coin - Three friends find themselves as the last line of defense between the everyday world and the things that go bump in the night. Using Monster of the Week and other Powered by the Apocalypse games, the team works to save the Omniverse in this dimension hopping story. Season 7: The Clockwinders – Cadvini is in peril and it’s up to a group of Clockwinders in training to rediscover and repair the movement cores to save their world from the looming threat of destruction by fire, frost, and Fey. Using the Fate system in a world where there are eons of lost history, players unlock a world's worth of mysterious lore. Shows The Clockwinders The planet Cadvini is dying. Tidally locked, with one side a burning wasteland, and the other side a frozen forever-night, its people have managed to forge their lives in the temperate zone between. But the great old machines that keep the planet steady, called Movement Cores, have started to break down. The planet is beginning to spin, which could mean the ruin of all. Join Arkady ‘Kade’ Atwater, Einon Kerning, and Maxine Hollis as they venture across the wilds in order to find and fix the broken cores. They have Fey folk, aether-enhanced beasts, and all other manner of dangers to face… but this is their duty. They are The Clockwinders. Shadows in the Smoke Shadows in the Smoke tells the story of Hargrave House, a group of mysterious investigators in Victorian London who tackle the cases that Scotland Yard can’t or won’t. Amidst the monsters and murderers on the shadowy streets, an ancient power is growing in strength – a Queen in her own right, seeking vengeance against Victoria. Can the hunters discover her plot and save Queen and country, or will they succumb to their own darkness and become little more than the monsters they once hunted? Find out in Shadows in the Smoke, a Victorian gothic horror Actual Play utilizing The Between by Jason Cordova. Other Side of the Coin Our Monster of the Week campaign, wherein the characters are alternate-universe versions of the players themselves. Imagine that one minor thing could mean  the difference between our universe and another; something as simple as a  coin flip having the opposite result can lead to two drastically  different outcomes. We set the game in what is  essentially our world, albeit a version in which one small  decision changed the course of our hunters’ lives and set them on a  completely different path. While Monster of the Week will always  be the “home base” of our show to which our team will return,  our show is that it exists in a Powered By the  Apocalypse universe with many worlds… each of which conveniently seems  to be set within a different PBtA game! Links thecritshowpodcast.com - Official website youtube.com - Youtube channel twitch.tv - Twitch channel patreon.com - Patreon page podcasts.apple.com - Apple Podcasts page

Threadfall is a campaign management platform built for live tabletop role-playing games. It records the session, transcribes speech in real time with speaker diarization, and turns the resulting transcript into a recap, a running campaign codex, and a live screen for the table, so the Game Master can stop taking notes and focus on running the game. The product was built by a Game Master frustrated with the gap between what happened at the table and what survived to the next session. Notebooks, spreadsheets, and post-session memory dumps consistently failed to keep up with multi-session campaigns where NPCs accumulate, loose threads multiply, and the party's choices weeks ago suddenly matter again. Threadfall treats the session itself as the source of truth: whatever was said at the table becomes structured, searchable, and remembered. /images/general-media/1779959619_6fDtbiNW.png Description What it does at the table During a live session, Threadfall captures audio, transcribes it in real time using state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition, and identifies who is speaking. A live screen, designed for a second monitor, a tablet at the table, or a shared display, shows the unfolding session in a clean, distraction-free view. The Game Master sees recent dialogue, current scene context, and tracked entities without breaking flow. What it does between sessions When the session ends, Threadfall produces a recap that captures what actually happened, character actions, key dialogue, decisions, and consequences: drawn from the transcript rather than from the GM's memory. It updates the Living Codex: a structured repository of characters, locations, factions, items, and plot threads that grows automatically as the campaign progresses. Entities are extracted, relationships are mapped, and the codex is searchable from the next session onward. Who it's for Game Masters running ongoing campaigns, particularly online or hybrid groups using voice chat, but equally useful for in-person tables with a recording device. It's system-agnostic: nothing in the product assumes Dungeons & Dragons or any specific rule set. It's been built and tested against D&D 5e and 5.24, but works equally well for Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, indie systems, and anything else where a group of people talks for hours and the GM has to remember it all. Free tier New users get two complete live sessions and recaps to try the product, with no credit card required. Founder rate Game Masters who subscribe during the launch window receive a Founder rate of $7.99/month for as long as they remain subscribed, including three campaigns, six AI sessions per month, the full Living Codex, and the live screen. /images/general-media/1779959641_ywkMFifG.png Technical foundation Threadfall is built on real-time speech-to-text with speaker diarization, large-language-model summarization and entity extraction, and a knowledge-graph backend for the campaign codex. The infrastructure is designed for the unusual demands of multi-hour, multi-speaker, jargon-dense sessions where the participants invent proper nouns on the fly. Independent and actively developed Threadfall is built by an independent developer who is also an active Game Master and player. The product is shipped iteratively, with bug fixes and features released as feedback comes in from the founding group of Game Masters using it weekly. Links thread-fall.com - Official website discord.gg - Discord server hello@thread-fall.com - Contact e-mail

You have found a D&D group, your characters are ready and the players are hyped for the start of the game. However there is a thought that keeps cropping up in the back of your head: “What if they take the story in a direction I don’t feel comfortable with?” Tabletop roleplaying games are built on imagination and improvisation. Therefore setting boundaries might feel wrong or tricky. Perhaps you or someone else has a phobia of spiders, or some situations might make you uncomfortable. This is where safety tools come to play. Before you start thinking that these are borderline “censorship” methods - they are communication shortcuts that ensure everyone in your group is having fun, even if the story gets dark or brutal. What are safety tools? Think of safety tools as subtle “safe words” in a stunt show or a timeout in sports. It doesn’t mean that the show can’t go on, instead it allows for the participants to pause, edit or skip certain bits of content that might not be something everyone is comfortable with. It avoids the need for that awkward, long speech about themes and decisions while making some people feel uncomfortable with either expressing their creativity or feeling targeted in another way. When everyone at your group knows where the “emergency brake” lever is, players usually feel more comfortable with intense roleplay situations, as everyone feels more in control of the direction the story is going. /images/general-media/1778077472_okHsoUPF.gifIf the game goes in a direction that everyone is comfortable with - rewind. The big three Lines and Veils This is a list that is collaboratively created during Session Zero. Everyone agrees upon setting limitations regarding various topics and when to let the story progress in a “skip cutscene” manner. Lines: Hard boundaries. If a “line” is drawn at harming animals, these situations do not occur in your games. Veils: A soft boundary - this is more of a “fade to black” moment, where the story overlooks specific details and situations, but still acknowledges their existence. The X-card If a situation makes you uncomfortable, signaling (either with a physical card with an X on it, or writing it in the chat) the X-card means that whatever is going on is skipped or retconned. The game continues but avoids the specific direction it is currently headed. This is a no questions asked situation. You don’t have to explain why this situation bothers you, a healthy group will respect your choice and preference and move on. Open door policy In a situation, where you do not feel comfortable, you are permitted to simply get up and leave the table to either “take five” or stay away until the current situation is resolved. Or if the theme is simply overwhelming, you can excuse yourself for the rest of the session. It is important that the group agrees beforehand to respect the open door approach and will not judge the person choosing to opt out. “This will ruin the mood!” As a DM (or a player), you might fear that using safety tools will break the immersion. In reality, the opposite is true - players knowing that they and their preferences are respected will keep everyone on the same page. When a group has no discussed boundaries beforehand, players are likely to simply “shut down” during specific situations and simply disconnect either mentally or digitally from the game at hand. Since the story involves everyone in the group, everyone should feel like they want to be part of it. Knowing beforehand which themes and topics may be an issue for your players will help everyone in the group focus more on the game, and less on worrying or playing the “guessing game”, wondering whether the topic at hand is appropriate for everyone. How to react when a tool is used If you are the DM and someone uses the X-card or reminds of a “line”, here is a professional way to handle it: Stop. Pause the narration or situation immediately. Acknowledge. Say “Thanks for letting me know.” Don’t ask “Why” or try to downplay the situation. Respect the player and their decision Adjust. Change the scene. Feel free to “rewind” the scene and take it in a different direction. Instead of spiders in the room, there are goblins, wolves, mimics, dragons (okay lets not overdo it…), or nothing at all. Check-in. A quick “Everyone good?” to check whether the situation has been resolved. And continue the game. Why do we promote using safety tools? When meeting new people for the first time, you don’t have years of history to know what their triggers or boundaries are. And circling back to the “guessing game” - you shouldn’t be expected to know these. Instead clear communication will help your group in the long run. Using safety tools should be seen as a strong green flag. It tells others that you are a thoughtful player or a DM, who cares about the people behind the characters. You will turn the group of strangers into trusted players much faster. Be a brave player Great tabletop gaming stories are ones where players take risks, are vulnerable, come up with stupid plans (that somehow work) and defeat villains. Safety tools will guide your game in a direction where you don’t step on anyone’s toes and lets you focus on the game at hand. Ready to get into a game? Post your player profile on Groupfinder, or find a group where you can gather other like-minded, respectful, players.  If you know of a DM, who is looking to level up their group management - then share this article with them and help make the tabletop community a better and more enjoyable place for everyone. If you are ready to jump into a game, head over to our directory to find a D&D group looking for players right now.