Matthew Lillard, most known for Scooby-Doo and SLC Punk!, joins hosts Cynthia Marie, Ryan Omega, and Kai Norman to talk about being one the owners of a luxury gaming merchandise company, Beadle & Grimm's! We talk about what inspired the move to go into the luxury tabletop world and why they've become successful in this market. In this episode, we also talk about stories of the films he's in, as well as geeking out to Magic: The Gathering! To watch our live programming, go to...

After a slight break, Ryan Omega, Cynthia Marie, and Kai Norman get together to talk about their personal losses and how they have handled in both LARP/roleplaying and in real life. This episode is more of a casual conversation among friends as we figure out our new direction with the talk show.

Kai Norman and Ryan Omega talk with guest, Anthea Tuley, a LARP runner of Refuge San Francisco and Alliance LARP in the SF Bay Area about the experiences and challenges of running a LARP. Discussion includes how LARP leadership has evolved over the years, how community management has become an important aspect, and giving suggestions for others in running their games. This podcast was originally recorded May 23rd, 2021.

Cynthia Marie, Kai Norman and Ryan Omega invited Kelly Lynne D'Angelo, Native American writer and DnD Personality and Dr. Diana Leonard, Associate Professor of Psychology at Lewis and Clark to talk about the differences between appropriation and inspiration when it comes to roleplaying characters and creating world builds. In this timely topic, we address considerations of roleplaying an underrepresented group, what to do when you come across details that are not authentic in these cultures,...

On this episode, Dom Zook, producer of the Twitch channel, Saving Throw, joins Cyn, Kai, and Ryan about what it takes to produce a livestreamed roleplaying game show. We cover everything from the technical side, production logistics, and tips on balancing paying attention to the players of your game and to the audience at home. Dom Zook's Twitch channel is twitch.tv/savingthrowshow Life. Action. RolePlay's Twitch channel is twitch.tv/lifeactionroleplay for their latest content.For behind the...

Hosts Kai Norman and Ryan Omega invite Mike Graves from Eldritch Sky Gaming and Spencer Winter to the show to talk about what makes a character that you are creating "memorable" in the eyes of other players.The discussion includes how to work with archetypes yet avoid stereotypes and why creating a character that is "cool and perfect" will be frustrating to play rather than memorable. Also covered in this topic are tips on playing characters with underrepresented backgrounds (racial, gender,...

Ryan Omega and Kai Norman invite two guests who play archetypical characters of faith yet atypical concepts in LARP: Vivid Vivka, who plays a crow-fae druid in Twin Mask LARP and Dylan Buchanan, who plays a Telling Visionist priest inspired by Walt Disney in Dystopia Rising.We discuss what attracts people to playing characters of faith and why it can be addictive roleplay to those players, tips on how to enhance conveying spirituality with costuming and props, and why preaching your religion...

For today's episode, Cyn, Kai, and Ryan tackle a more light-hearted topic where you had to roleplay a character or plan a LARP or roleplaying game and things fell apart at that moment. So we talk about our epic fails (and how we dealt with them) and our unexpected triumphs when things in our roleplay took a wide left turn! And we did this over drinks. So some of the podcast also didn't go as planned (but decided to keep this in editing!)

What happens if you no longer find joy in roleplaying or LARP? Is it because your time with the hobby or game is over is there something else happening?We invite back Tessa Thurman to the show as we discuss what happens in our brain chemistry when we experience LARP fatigue (or Roleplay fatigue) and what are solutions to resolve these issues so we can find joy in roleplay again in our games.Tessa Thurman is a game designer and game writer who also runs escape rooms, including virtual escape...

Bleed, the roleplay concept where emotions you feel as your character are carried over into your real life, seems to be heightened while we roleplay over Zoom during the pandemic. Ryan, Cyn, and Kai talk with our guest, Tessa Thurman, about the scientific and chemical processes in our brain that allow us to feel the highs and lows of roleplay and discuss strategies on how to mitigate those lows from affecting our everyday mood.

Outline Storytellers and Game Masters guide their players along a prescripted path. Sandbox Storytellers and Game Masters give their players freedom to do things until confronted with boundaries. How can you tell which one you are and how can you prevent railroading your players, where players are given no options except the story you wrote?Joining us is Kailey Bray, the DM for Damsels and Dice, the Disney Princess DnD game, as we collectively figure out which types of storytellers we are,...

With the current quarantines in place, there has been a couple of questions most LARPers are afraid to ask: What will the future of LARP look like? Will things ever return to normal?Joining us for this topic are Garrett Hallows, the Head of Story for Twin Mask, and Fabienne Miskelly, one of the producers for the Twitch channel, Scabby Rooster, to talk about the adaptations current LARPs need to continue making roleplay accessible, including an in-depth discussion on the different virtual...

Cynthia Marie, Kai Norman and Ryan Omega welcome Mikey Strange, a storyteller for Twin Mask LARP and the puzzle maker for Aetherhaus Academy on the Twitch channel, Scabby Rooster. Cyn takes the host helm while Mikey, Kai and Ryan all talk about how their methods of creating puzzles and using puzzles in their storytelling. Mikey shares where his inspirations for puzzles come from, Kai explains in detail his favorite puzzle, the Einstein Puzzle, and Ryan talks about his favorite storytelling...

Ryan and Cyn are joined by Krystina Arielle, Jordan Raskopoulos, and Sharang Biswas and together, they were all part of #RealityRP, one of the featured events for DnD Live 2020. Sharang and Ryan were two of the five narrative designers and Krystina, Jordan and Cyn were three of the ten performers.Reality RP was a comprehensive roleplay event that included roleplay on Instagram, discussions on Discord, twine adventures, the audience finding clues on the DnD Live 2020 website, and a...

Kai, Cynthia and Ryan invite Greg Tito, the Senior Communications Manager for Dungeons & Dragons, to talk about his D&D event of the year: DnD Live! Greg talks about the history of DnD Live, how the event showcases a different way to play and upcoming things about #DnDLive2020! Ryan, who is one of the Narrative Team/game designers for DnDLive2020, will also talk about the development of #RealityRP which is a mixture of Reality gaming, LARP and canon DnD characters, and his experiences...

Ryan, Cynthia Marie and Kai invite their friends, Shea Gibbons, the new Head of Story of Dystopia Rising: Northern California, and Ezekiel Bradshaw-Little, from the Community Management Team for Twin Mask, to talk about using costume, props and physical movement to enhance your characters.This audio track was taken from the live talk show of "Life. Action. RolePlay!" on the new Twitch channel: twitch.tv/lifeactionroleplay  This has been edited to tighten the track without removing the...

From our second live talk show of Life. Action. RolePlay! We are honored to bring back Jason Carl, Storyteller for LA by Night and Brand Marketing Manager for the World of Darkness. We talk about roleplaying in this time of COVID and how the World of Darkness, and roleplaying and LARP in general, are affected by it. We took questions from the live chat and answer them here.The podcast has been edited from the live broadcast to remove long pauses or live broadcasting issues. To catch live...

Ryan, Cynthia Marie and Kai did their first livestreamed talk show on their new LifeActionRolePlay twitch channel and invited the audience to ask questions live!For the first live talk show, the topic "How to Roleplay" is kept general enough to involve people from beginners to veterans, and also address multiple roleplay scenarios from LARP to tabletop to livestreamed games.The show has been edited to reduce pauses or stray noises.If you want to support the Life. Action. RolePlay podcast and...

The hosts get together remotely to record a podcast about games we playing through this time of social distancing. At the time when we recorded this, lockdown has been effect for a while and we talk honestly about how we are doing and how we are coping.The conversation moved into trying to be motivated to get throughout the day, so we also talk about using gaming as a way to accomplish things.We reference a book of microLARPs called "work/play" by Alex Flanigan in this podcast, found...

Cynthia Marie, Kai Norman, and Ryan Omega are finally back together for this episode of Life. Action. RolePlay! The topic is "Making Character Backgrounds" and we start with a test to see what KIND of character we like playing by taking the "Bartle Test" that tells us how we like to game.We also segue into the idea of "Play to Lose," an advanced concept in roleplaying where you make bold narrative choices that could end badly for your character.You can take the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology...

While visiting Seattle, Ryan interviews Tobias McCurry, a regular guest here on Life. Action. RolePlay! except visiting him in his hometown on Valentine's... er... Sonic Day! The topic is "How to Do The Dumb," a phrase referring to being brave enough to make a foolish choice as your character in a game rather than the wiser choice in real life. It means letting go of ego and embracing the fun in failure!  Tobias McCurry is a maker, costumer, and performer out of Seattle, WA. Known primarily...

Cynthia Marie, Ryan Omega and their guest, Lex the Chameleon talk about the differences between roleplaying in LARP and roleplaying while on camera in a livestream. They use examples from their own shows such as LA by Night and Blank Slate as well as the LARPs they've attended, such as Twin Mask and Vampire LARPs.We also address ideas like, "How much of your roleplaying is performing when you know you are watched on camera?" and "What kind of characters are more difficult to roleplay in a...

First podcast of the new year and we're back!Kai Norman interviews his co-host, Ryan Omega, on the creation, inspirations and the methods to create his livestream LARP show, Blank Slate, on the Scabby Rooster channel on Twitch. They go into several behind-the-scenes details on how to storytell with several players, giving them player agency, and also break the fourth wall to involve the chat into influencing the overall story.This episode will have some spoilers as we get into the details of...

Ryan Omega sits down with Ryan Galiotto, who has been a site manager dealing with many LARP game sites, to talk about LARP logistics. This includes acquiring sites for a LARP game with tips on making it easier, challenges to deal with and some stories of the best and worst sites in our experience.We also talk about Galiotto's involvement in the early days of the vampire network One World by Night, as he was responsible for getting those sites for LARPs in Chicago when the games first began in...