Every week, Recall Knowledge recaps the Know Direction content of the past week, a preview of the Know Direction content of the week to come, and the director of operations, Ryan Costello, thoughts on the state of the network.

You may have noticed a lack of Adventurous lately. Unfortunately, scheduling has been a bear, with a huge scheduling hurdle on the horizon. I’d like to get one more recording in before that hurdle, because it feels like we are on the cusp of the end of War For The Crown Book 2.

After that, Adventurous might get retooled. Adventurous debuted a little more than 3 years ago. The RPG industry, and Pathfinder specifically, has changed since then. While I’ve made no secret that Pathfinder 1e remains my favourite RPG system, I’m in the minority on our cast. Even though no one’s against 1e, system familiarity is fading, and that’s an obstacle for how smoothly the sessions run.

At the same time, it’s one of the few systems that we all understand. We’ve tossed around ideas like converting to 2e, Pathfinder -licensee Savage Worlds, or Green Ronin’s FantasyAGE. What it comes down to is that converting War for the Crown is work for our illustrious GM Crystal Frasier. Of the four options, running it as a FantasyAGE campaign makes the most sense for her. The question then becomes how well that fits the network.

While we work out the future of Adventurous, we’ll be running a series of short actual play sessions and one-shots, tentatively called the KD Adventure Series. These will include a mix of Know Direction staff as well as guests. We’ve had a lot of fun with one shots in the past, and this gives us the opportunity to tell stories without asking people to commit to a game for years.

Speaking of network content, here’s a recap of what you might have missed last week from the Know Direction Network:

Recap of April 26^th to April 30^th

What happened last week on knowdirectionpodcast.com and twitch.tv/knowdirection?

Monday, April 26^th

Article

Recall Knowledge – GM Style Afterthoughts
By Ryan Costello

I love GMing. Generally I’m not a performer, but GMing is the one performance that I love above all others, and one of my favourite ways to pass time.

Tuesday, April 27^th

Podcast

Legend Lore 025 — Sorcerer

Luis and Loren return to class features to cover the sorcerer, a class they helped me realize is more complicated than I realized. I’m still curious if I would like playing one, since 2e is the weird alternate reality where I enjoy casters but am not into martials.

Next time I need to build a character (for non-playtest purposes) and I can’t settle on one, Legend Lore class features will probably be the tie breaker.

Article

Fox’s Cunning – Summon-Dex Bestiary 3 Update Part 2
Written by Dustin Knight

Another round of invaluable tools for 2e summoner builds. Maybe my next character will be a summoning sorcerer, and I just use Know Direction’s April 27^th, 2021 content as my guide.

Wednesday, April 28^th

Discord

Geek Together – GMing Without A Net

This was both not what I was expecting, and a lot of fun. I ran listener Sevren_Loreat through a solo social combat gauntlet. The system and setting were vaguely Pathfinder-esque, with the story and mechanics building as we ran. He was a treat of a player, important given that he was the only player so he needed to carry a lot of the energy and fun factor.

Podcast

Presenting – Jessica Redekop

Hey, it’s new Know Direction staff member Jessica Redekop, from way back when she was just a Know Direction cast member on Valiant. It was great getting to know Jessica better by way of her conversation with John.

Article

Guidance — An A-Maze-Ing VTT Experience in My Teenaged Wasteland

By Alexander Augunas

Labyrinths are notoriously challenging to run in tabletop RPGs, with the GM either drawing a top down map as per usual and then spoiling the maze, or the GM going without a map and then needing to describe the confusion. Alex found a way to use Foundry VTT to run a maze that was appropriately intriguing and claustrophobic, including a series of puzzles. It sounds like an amazing experience for both the players and Alex as the GM.

Thursday, April 29^th

Podcast

Valiant Episode 15: In Which They Go Shopping

I’ve said before that my game changed when I realized that I didn’t have to roleplay every interaction, and a shopping trip could just be a player subtracting wealth on their character sheet and adding gear. However, that doesn’t mean a shopping trip can’t be roleplayed. The last few episodes focused on combat and puzzles, so this was an excellent time to indulge in some character interaction.

Article

Investing In: Wanderhome
By Rob Pontious

Rob shares everything he loves about Possum Creek Games’ Wanderhome, a GMless, emotional journey RPG about adorable animals with complex feelings. Even if I never play it, I might pick this up just to read it over. It sounds amazing.

Friday, April 30^th

Podcast

Geek Together – GMing Without A Net

I left in about 10 minutes of me interacting with the few listeners who arrived to give perspective of the active/passive mind we talked about in Know Direction 248 – GM Style with Luis Loza. There isn’t a second of this recording that I’m not thinking about the game, including panicking that maybe no one showed up to play. I trimmed a bit of conversation that was really in the weeds, but otherwise, this is an hour of unedited audio in which I juggle socializing and GMing with nothing prepared by my beverages.

Article

Monstrous Physique — Pokémon (PF2E)
By Luis Loza

I’m so unaware of Pokémon that I couldn’t even tell you all three pocket monsters in this article based on the header (I can never remember Bulbasaur’s evolutions). However, I am jealous of anyone who knows Pokémon well, because there is a deep well of ideas and terminology to mine for RPG monsters and description.

Preview of May 3^rd to 7^th

This is back to Block 1 of our 2-block schedule.

Monday, May 3^rd

Article

Adventurous Status and Other Adventures
By Ryan Costello

Onward to adventure!

Tuesday, May 4^th

Podcast

Digital Divination 029

John and Ron talk about Starfinder from the perspectives of a fan and a Paizo developer.

Article

Burst of Insight by Andrew Marlowe

Andrew Marlowe shares GM and design advice for and from other game systems.

Wednesday, May 5^th

Twitch

Know Direction 249 Live – Small Group Gaming with designer Quinn Murphy and Tommy from Black Dragon Gaming

We tried to book Quinn for the previous episode to talk about solo gaming. He wasn’t available, but said he could make the next recording, meaning I’ve had an episode booked for three weeks that I’m looking forward to.

Add to that, a recent conversation between Perram and Tommy from Black Dragon Gaming about GMing for smaller groups, and he seemed like a solid addition to the segment and a natural evolution of the topic.

Podcast

Game Design Unboxed 14 – BOSK

After appearing on the Meeple Syrup Show episode, Inside the Industry, Danielle turns the tables on Meeple Syrup Show host and fellow designer Erica Hayes-Bouyouris, inviting her onto Game Design Unboxed to talk BOSK.

Article

Groundbreaking by Randal Meyer

Randal Meyer brings a Pathfinder campaign setting to life, one blog post at a time.

Thursday, May 6^th

Podcast

Know Direction  249 – Small Group Gaming with designer Quinn Murphy and Tommy from Black Dragon Gaming

The latest episode of Know Direction, the Know Direction Network’s flagship podcast.

Article

Something Creates by Andrew Sturtevant

Andrew Sturtevant creates Starfinder content, and shares insight into his decisions and his struggles along the way.

Friday, May 7^th

Podcast

Intrepid Heroes 59

An actual play podcast of the Starfinder Adventure Path Dawn of Flame from Paizo, currently GMed by book 4’s writer, Paizo developer Ron Lundeen.

Bend the Knee  – Riding a Fantasy Taxi with The Dimension Door Podcast

By Loren Sieg

Loren asks members of an actual play podcast an elaborate question about their tabletop gaming opinions.

Now you know,

Ryan Costello