Rene Plays Games
Hi! I’m Rene (pronounced Rainy) and I want to share my love of roleplaying games with you! Join me as I play through smaller publisher games, talk design and gaming topics with friends, and explore all the ways you can be a better game master or player.
Episodes
Another episode of Tabletop Tutorial, where I'm joined by a guest to learn a new game together, one-on-one!
This time I'm joined by my wife, Lynn, for more Lynnsanity. She recently bought me a zine by Wolf Manzella a.k.a. Wyrd Wolf Entertainment called Dick Wizards! Yes, you read that right, and what a title! It's provocative, it gets the people going!
Now temper those thoughts, because this is a game about apprentice wizard de...
Good day to you, I say, fair folk of the internet, and welcome to the character creation episode for my next solo podcast series of The One Ring 2e by Free League Publishing.
This is a short episode I'm putting out because things have gotten a little out of control here in March for me, and will continue to be for April, so please be patient with my episode releases for the next month and a half, but!
Let's make a character for...
Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
We're back to talk more Gardens of Rust, the post-catastrophe survival and community rebuilding game by myself and Christian from the DMs After Dark.
In episode 3 I go over the usual responsibilities and role of the GM. Calling for rolls, how to prep (minimally, because I'm not a prep kind of GM), and ...
Apologies for Laurence's Audio in this episode, the recording was a little strange when it exported from our video call, but I did the best I could. If you have any questions, please message or email me! (Or reach out to Laurence!)
Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
Sybil's time in the Dungeons comes to an end. She leaves with a friend on a new journey.
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich's Patreon page!
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Join the DMs After Dark Discord channel!
I made a Ko-Fi if you feel absurdly generous and want to help cover podcast h...
Welcome back to the monthly design diaries series of 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
We're back to talk more Gardens of Rust, the post-catastrophe survival and community rebuilding game by myself and Christian from the DMs After Dark.
In episode 2 I walk through the Character Creation process and create two different characters to try and show the breadth of characters you may be going...
Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
Sybil and friends explore the Rookling Forge and discover a dark secret. They follow the spectral chains down to the source to save a friend.
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich's Patreon page!
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We're back again for another totally romantic Valentine's Day one-shot!
The annual tradition continues as my wife Lynn joins me for a tangentially-love-related one-shot of a TTRPG session. This year we go back to Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu to play the 2nd scenario in the Does Love Forgive? collection of 1-GM-1-Player mysteries!
One day after Chicago's St. Valentine's Day Massacre in February 1929, a simple dog retrieval turns i...
Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
Ian and I met playing in a short TTRPG series for previous guest of the show C.R. Rowenson's LitRPG series New Eternity and knew we had to chat more from our brief interactions and roles as the tankybois of the party.
Ian is one-half of the podcast Undercommon Taste...
Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
Sybil returns to the major labyrinth Castle Revolving to reach the heart of the dungeon and find what lies within. Then, a new friend leads the crew straight to the Rookling Forge.
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich'...
Helloooooo my favorite nerds.
Welcome to the first episode of my monthly design diaries series here in 2026 where I am holding myself accountable toward putting out more games.
I have already pivoted! The first episode was supposed to be about my upcoming playing card-based 2-player buddy cop TTRPG Decktectives, but the state of the modern world made me really not want to talk about any kind of law enforcement, so instead we're...
Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
After escaping the Castle Revolving major labyrinth, Sybil recovers back in Oubliette during a festival known as Stillnights.
Learn more about Colostle and the Dungeons supplement here! If you like all of the new additions and ideas constantly being added to the world of Colostle, I highly recommend checking out Nich's Patreon page!
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Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
We're kicking off 2026 with PJ Sack, a fellow solo podcaster and host of the excellent A Wasteland Story Fallout 2d20 solo AP as well as the incredible The Solo Roleplayers Podcast, which you will absolutely love if you're listening to me.
PJ and I sat down to talk ...
Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
Pressing on and into the major labyrinth Castle Revolving, Sybil and the rooklings (and Zorn) quickly realize this is not like the rest of the Dungeons. This labyrinth is hostile and brutally punishing on top of being a confusing maze to navigate.
Sybil begins to figure out the way through, but the elemental attrition and Bastion defenders of the labyrinth force her to ma...
Another year of the podcast is in the books! In this short episode I mostly just want to thank everyone for listening and share some insights from the year.
Some big ones were:
- Over 10,000 downloads in 2025 (whoa, thank you)
- Better gender diversity in Perspective Checks (working on racial diversity, I promise)
- 15 different games on the podcast in 2025 (same as 2024, weird)
And for 2026, I have small plans to slightly...
Happy Holidays!
DO YOU HAVE THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT IN YOU?
Welcome back to another DMs After Dark holiday one-shot! This year we decided to do a sequel to a previous holiday special - the Thursday time loop cheesy holiday movie set in a strange little bean tree town that we have appropriately named Beantree! This year, a group is traveling to avoid holiday get-togethers in a one-shot of Grant Howitt's Christmas Is Coming, a folk ...
Time for another Tabletop Tutorial, the series where I play two player TTRPGs with friends and we learn them together.
BIG OL' CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THIS EPISODE: Death, Alcoholism, Inappropriate Crude Body Humor, Body Horror, and probably a whole lot more, be careful with this one, please. It's heavy.
I'm once again joined by Troy from the DMs After Dark to play the heartbreaking two player TTRPG The Time We Have by Elliot Davi...
Welcome to another episode of Perspective Checks where I sit down with friends and folks from the TTRPG world and discuss what they love about this wonderful hobby!
The last Perspective Checks of 2025 is a wonderful conversation with Kat The Dungeon Mom, a GM, actual play performer, teacher, mom, and so much more as a community member. We sit down to talk about raising the next generation of nerds, maintaining a curiosity and int...
Welcome back for another episode of Colostle - Dungeons!
Sybil wants to return to Oubliette to have her new unique rookstone appraised, but she didn't get here alone, so she continues deeper into the Dungeons with Zorn and the rookling to find the lost rooklings and possibly a Rookling Forge.
Sybil finds a way back to the surface, but with too many questions left unanswered, she stays in the Dungeons and finds yet another majo...
We're a few days late, but if it means anything to you, dear listener, it made me haul a lot of my music equipment up to my office and I am definitely going to try and do more original music for my episodes now!
Welcome to another one-player one-shot where I play games I have been dying to get to the table all by myself. This time it's another by one of my favorite designers in the TTRPG community, Midnight Melodies by Cezar Capa...
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