Ian, José, and special correspondent Danny put the knowledge we've gained from past episodes into practice. We talk about figuring out what you actually like in a game and advocating for it, playing to lift our fellow players, and Danny's 4-step method for iterative improvement through play.

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Our website - May the 4th is coming soon!
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0:03:38 - Pick Your Poison
0:17:10 - What does it mean to develop as a player?
0:38:14 - Reflection & Table Feedback
0:45:05 - Danny's 4-Step Method
0:52:14 - How we handle "bad scenes"
0:58:46 - Outro

Roll for Origin: Supers TTRPG History looks at two closely linked licensed supers games: Smallville and Marvel Heroic. To dig into this pair, Lowell and Jay bring on Rich Rogers (Hit the Streets: Defend the Block; +1 Forward) to give his perspectives as a GM and player. We talk about the system mechanics of the two games, including the big differences, the publication history of MWP, the media touchstones for these properties, and then give our general thoughts-- including wondering where our Smallville retroclones are...

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Jay's the author of By Aecer’s Light, The Clockwinders for Fate, Cortex Prime's Supers, and a contributing author on Pathfinder’s Mwangi Expanse, Trophy Gold, Hit the Streets: Defend the Block, and the upcoming Lifted: Indomitable RPG, a supers game about everyday folks with extraordinary powers in a tech-aggressive world.

Check out Mad Jay's work at Play.Fearless and at the Diceology Podcast.

You can find Rich's game, Hit the Streets here.

Lowell is the designer and co-author of Hearts of Wulin. He's the ENnie-winning creator of the Age of Ravens blog and community manager for the Open Hearth Gaming Community.

You can find Lowell's work on YouTube, on Itch.io, and on DriveThruRPG.

Find out more about the Open Hearth Gaming Community
Support us on Patreon!
Our actual play podcast can be found here
Follow us on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/open-hearth-rpg
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/openhearthrpg
Mastodon: @openhearthrpg@dice.camp

00:00 Intro
01:48 Pitch and Mechanics
12:11 Publication History
17:46 Where these Licenses Were
23:28 Thoughts

In this episode of the Open Hearth Podcast, host Lowell Francis (edige23) once again talks with a couple of community members about their recent gaming. This time we have veteran community couple Tyler and Patrick. We talk preparations for an upcoming Ars Magica campaign and how it fits with past campaigns, the challenges and joys of long-running story campaigns, and the intersection of current events and modern superhero gaming. We finish up with some of the things we've been digging recently.

May the Fourth: Star Wars Minicon 2026
Ars Magica Manager
Tyler's YouTube

Find out more about the Open Hearth Gaming Community
Support us on Patreon!
Our actual play podcast can be found here
Follow us on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/open-hearth-rpg
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/openhearthrpg
Mastodon: @openhearthrpg@dice.camp

00:00 Introduction
01:40 Patrick & Ars Magica
16:22 Tyler & long-running story campaigns
29:33 Lowell & the challenges of modern supers games
40:52 Giving Me Life