Tony Spengler/ April 13, 2023
I was happy to find another veteran player to interview, the ttrpg community is full of amazing GMs and players! This week I met Shaun of House of Bob, and talking with him for a while made me want to sit at their table and join their games. Always a new game, different mechanics, and great times with amazing people. With a knowledgeable crew and quality recordings, House of Bob should be on your list of APs to listen to!
Origin: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Names/Handles: Shaun Makes
TTRPG Gaming Experience: Arthritis is on the horizon, I have been playing RPGS since my senior year of high school... Just shy of 20 years! Thanks for making me feel old....
Age: 36
Q) I haven’t gotten a chance to listen to your podcast, but it's on my list! Could you give an elevator pitch for your podcast for our readers to know what you’re about?
A) House of Bob is a hobbyist club of nerds and geeks that bring their disparate strengths and hobbies together to create actual play content that will make you laugh, cry, shiver and gasp! We play games in a variety of systems, from D&D 5e and Pathfinder to smaller indie games like Mausritter, The Sprawl, Paranoia, and Og! Some of us are writers, some artists, some love to make music.
Q) Do you have an episode that you would suggest to get a good taste of your podcast?
A) Mike would insist that [we] point you towards “Cave of Bob”, our Og One-shots. Og is a game of humorous cave people with limited vocabularies and even more limited intelligence trying to survive in a prehistoric world. Here's a link:
If you want to jump into something more long form (don't worry, our longest series rarely break 30 episodes), try our series “Vertigo”, where we play the mud and lasers robo-mech RPG Lancer in a campaign written and run by Jake (@javocs):
Q) What are your favorite races, archetypes and/or classes?
A) I found Tolkien early in life, so I'm very partial to Dwarves. I also love playing religious characters, because it gives my character a strong motivation and ways to respond to whatever the GM throws at me... That doesn't mean being a cleric! I rolled up a barbarian for a game a while ago that worshiped precious metals. He knew that if he ate enough gold, he would turn into an avatar of his dragon god. I mean, he knew it, but it might not have been true.
Q) Are you all experienced in other ttrpgs? If so, which?
A) I make it my business to read a new RPG cover to cover every few months. Alien to Mörk Börg to Into the Odd... there is so much to be learned about running a game by seeing how different systems structure the rules. I highly recommend GMs interested in tactical combat read the Lancer RPG for their advice around mission briefs and encounter design!
Q) How long have you all been working together on this AP?
A) House of Bob formed in 2017 and started our first long form series playing “Tomb of Annihilation”. We just wrapped recording on “Vertigo”, and already have a few episodes in the bank for our next outing: Alien from Free League!
Q) Behind the scenes, what kind of equipment and/or software do you use for recording?
A) Some of us are on Windows and some on Macs, but we can't say enough good about Reaper. It's a powerhouse of a Digital Audio Workstation software, and is free to trial. I personally have ATR2100s, but if you want some great advice about setting up a professional quality audio setup, talk to Alex! (@astronomicaudio || https://www.astronomicaudio.ca/) Alex runs a podcast production company and knows his business.
Q) Sounds like you guys bounce around systems often in your AP, huh?
A) Yeah we try to do something new once a year, even if it's just a one shot or something for Patreon.
Q) What are you guys currently playing?
A) For the podcast our currently running series are Lancer on the House of Bob RSS feed, and Pathfinder 2e (“The Quest for the Frozen Flame” adventure path) on the Tales of Bob RSS, which is our Safe for Work/non-explicit feed. After Lancer ends, we'll have a short series run of Alien RPG.
My off-air games are all Pathfinder 2e at the moment.
Q) Is it the same crew that plays in both feeds?
A) We have 14 card-carrying members and we rotate who's playing on air based on: who wants to run a game, who has the interest in the systems the GMs want to run, and who has the time to commit! Sometimes our players have a busy few months (or year!) and need to step back. It's all good because we're all friends and know that our turn will come back around.
Right now I'm the only one on both feeds, but that's because I twisted some arms to get out of the Forever-GM seat.
Q) That sounds like a well-oiled machine, in the early years were you the Forever-GM? Or was this rotating process in place from the beginning?
A) Usually myself and Jake would rotate campaigns, but we have a rule to keep a max of 4 players plus a GM on the podcast to keep it easier to edit. So I was just getting hungry to play and bullied Mike until he agreed to run the Pathfinder game, which I've really been wanting to get into as a player.
Q) I have yet to try out Pathfinder (either edition), what's your opinion of it?
A) For a tactical power fantasy game, it is my top pick. You have to want grid combat for sure, but with the digital tools available today, I far prefer it over [D&D] 5e. If I didn't have apps like Foundry VTT or Pathbuilder2e, it would be more of a bear to run, but as a GM I far prefer it to [D&D] 5e. It has really finely tuned rules for building monsters from scratch, balancing encounters, and awarding treasure. Once you know the encounter building rules, it's a breeze to build out encounters that are actually Easy, Moderate or even guaranteed TPKs, where [D&D] 5e required you to really change things on the fly because your players would either steamroll everything or collapse because you put them up against something you thought they could handle "by the math." There was something unaccounted for in the mix when they wrote the [D&D] 5e system that I can't put my finger on.
Q) You use Lancer in your other game, what's that one like?
A) Lancer has two modes: a narrative mode where your character, a mech pilot, is doing the usual RPG stuff of going around, exploring a world, talking to people, investigating and solving problems, and then encounter mode.
In narrative mode gameplay is supposed to be pretty quick to resolve. Simple rolls with simple modifiers that allow the story to take charge and allow lots of player input. You often use this mode to earn assets and bonuses that will help with specific mission objectives for encounter mode.
Encounter mode is highly tactical, with the emphasis on the mechs, the terrain, and the mission objective. The GM starts every encounter with a mission objective, and from there it's balls to the wall action with missiles and machine guns, destructible terrain and trying to keep your mech from overheating or getting structured. Enemies often receive constant reinforcements each round that keep the pressure high. Each encounter feels like a big action movie or anime set piece. Most combats will not end with you mopping up the last enemies and killing everyone, they end with you capturing the hill, recovering an objective, or loading a VIP onto a drop ship while holding off hordes of enemies. Completing the objective (or failing as you run out of time) ends the encounter and prompts the GM and players to collaborate to narrate a resolution to the action. Sometimes that's a victory, other times it's a shameful retreat.
Q) Reminds me of Rifts, but finer tuned for better flow. How long is an average episode for you guys?
A) We strive to keep each episode under 60 minutes!
Q) The next game, Alien, is that based on the movies?
A) Yeah, Free League Publishing is a TTRPG company that produces a wide variety of games, and has licenses for a few popular franchises. Alien is one, but they also produce a Lord of the Rings game, Blade Runner, and The Walking Dead, among many others that all have their own flavour and style.
We're going to be playing the Alien scenario from Free Leagues starter kit, a funnel adventure heavily inspired by the first film that comes with premade characters, maps, tokens and other cool assets.
Q) I love Alien, that sounds amazing. How often do you air new episodes?
A) We alternate releases between our two feeds, so you get a new episode from us every Monday.
Q) Do you only run modules/adventures/pre-made stories, or are there campaigns that are all homebrewed?
A) We do mix it up. Right now, our Lancer campaign "Vertigo" is all homebrewed by Jake.
Q) Real talk, GM to GM....do you fudge rolls in critical moments? Do you save characters, or let Dice Christ decide their fate?
A) I don't! Sometimes I play up the tension and put on the evil GM mask. I particularly like to tease that animal companions are fair game. But now that we record and play remotely, lots of the rolls are up on the screen for everyone to see! A 20 is a 20! In our original series “Tomb of Annihilation” there were more than a couple PCs that didn't make it to the end credits, and I'm yet to have a character who has survived all the way through one of Jake's campaigns.
Q) Speaking of 20s, do you house rule that crits are auto success/fails?
A) Man I could rant forever about this stuff. Great interview so far! Haha!
I used to house rule stuff like that, but now more and more I'm relying on the system as designed and only house ruling on the fly when I don't remember how something works at the moment. Game designers put a lot of work into working out the mechanics and math in their games, and I tend to trust their intent to create the experience that's special to that particular game. In [D&D] 5e, having a consequence beyond missing on a natural 1 is disproportionately punishing on martial characters that get extra attack - the thing they are supposed to be the best at! In Pathfinder 2e, a critical fail on a save is a baked in part of the system, and to make that worse than it already is on a whim is to add salt in the wound!
Q) I agree with the disproportionate punishment, at my table 1 is always fail, 20 is always success. Usually nothing extreme happens, it's just a promised fail/success.
Anyhow, back to the podcast. Do you guys ever script moments for the show?
A) I've occasionally scripted out a flashback scene or piece of villain exposition, but those moments are few and are trying to highlight a piece of history or information that ties into the themes of the series, we like to keep the focus on the players and their choices.
Q) Do you have guests on your AP?
A) Occasionally, particularly for one shots and Patreon content. I'd like to start inviting more guests in the future!
Q) How about yourself, do you seek to be a guest on another AP? Or any of your crew looking to be on as a guest?
A) A couple of us have guested occasionally, particularly for the Tales From the Glass Guarded World podcast. I don't think I could join another show regularly, but if there was an exciting sounding one shot or limited series I'd be down!
Q) Where would be the best place to reach out to you to discuss guest spots, on your show or theirs?
A) Definitely via email: houseofbobpodcast@gmail.com
Q) Just now realized I didn't ask an important question....who is Bob and why his house?
A) Lol well 4 of our group used to all live in the same apartment, and that is where we'd play. Rather than saying "Dave/Shubert/Dan/Jake's place" we'd just call it Bob's House.
Q) Time to wrap it up, any parting thoughts for our readers?
A) Thanks for the great chat! If any of your readers are interested in checking us out, I'd love feedback and reviews! If anyone is looking for fantasy art or RPG adventures and supplements, they can check out my linktree!
Hope you have a great day, and roll on! 🎲
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