The Critshow

Overview

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
Monster of the Week (2012)Monster of the Week (MOTW) is an urban fantasy-horror tabletop role-playing game developed by Michae...Rules-lightHorrorModern
and other
Powered by the Apocalypse
Powered by the ApocalypsePowered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is a tabletop roleplaying game design framework created by Meguey B...Beginner-friendlyRules-light
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 https://www.thecritshowpodcast.com/ - Official website youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/@TheCritshow - Youtube channel twitch.tv https://www.twitch.tv/thecritshow - Twitch channel patreon.com https://patreon.com/TheCritshow - Patreon page podcasts.apple.com https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-critshow/id1390944329 - Apple Podcasts page

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Other entries

Rola Iniciativa
Actual Play & Podcasts

Rola Iniciativa

Portuguese
Dungeons & Dragons
Actual Play
Rola Iniciativa pretende ser uma ferramenta de divulgação dos jogos narrativos em Língua Portuguesa! Links youtube.com - Youtube channel twitch.tv - Twitch channel

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When the Moon Hangs Low
Tabletop Roleplaying Games

When the Moon Hangs Low

English
Horror
Indie
When the Moon Hangs Low is a gothic action roleplaying game in which the players take on the roles of Hunters; people possessed of strange abilities who find themselves fated to oppose the forces of darkness. Set in Harrowmire, a decaying city teetering on the edge of chaos, it is a game of intrigue, investigation, and combat. Games in When the Moon Hangs Low can cover a range of themes; from hunting vile beasts through collapsing sewers, to investigating gruesome murders, to intrigue and politics in the heart of the city. When the Moon Hangs Low has been inspired by a number of other works. Most heavily it draws inspiration from the computer games Bloodborne by From Software and Darkest Dungeon by Red Hook Studios. It also takes notes from the Dishonoured game series by Arkane Studios, the Bas-Lag Cycle by China Miéville, and the Berserk manga series by Kentaro Miura.

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Invincible RPG
Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Invincible RPG

English
Rules-light
Modern
Invincible - Superhero Roleplaying is a tabletop RPG based on Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley's Invincible comic and its Prime Video animated adaptation, designed by Adam Bradford (founder of D&D Beyond) and Tomas Härenstam (Free League co-founder and lead designer of the ALIEN RPG), and published by Free League Publishing in partnership with Skybound Entertainment.  Announced in February 2025, it was funded through a Kickstarter that raised over $400,000, with a Core Rulebook and Starter Set illustrated by original series artists Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley and graphic design by Johan Nohr of Mörk Borg fame. It runs on an adaptation of Free League's Year Zero Engine, streamlined down to nothing but six-sided dice. Description Playing Invincible means stepping into the franchise's own particular flavor of superheroics: cityscape brawls, sidekicks, team-ups, alien invasions, and witty banter, all delivered without the usual plot armor. Violence is graphic and injuries genuinely last, with death often permanent unless a character has the specific power to avoid it, which keeps the stakes tense rather than routine.  Mechanically and tonally, the game leans hard into the comic's central tension - ordinary teenage life, school, and relationships colliding with a level of power handed down from, and sometimes fought against, a parent - rather than playing superheroics as a straightforward power fantasy.

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