Episode 21 closes our sci-fi season with a debrief: what we learned when theory met the table. We revisit the systems we ran—Coriolis, Freemarket, CBR+PNK, Mothership, Twilight Imperium among others—and pull out the through-lines that surfaced across very different design priorities, moving between genre, system, and setting.

Across the season, certain levers kept showing up, including Dark Points and panic clocks. Downtime becomes a design layer, not just a breather. Tech and transportation aren’t just stylistic; they’re constraints you can plan around, exploit, or get trapped inside. Memory and transhumanism come into focus too: what happens to stakes when identity is modular.

One question kept circling throughout the season: what makes something science fiction at the table? Vibes matter, but so do the costs the rules make visible—risk, logistics, scarcity, and human limits. The boundary gets tested against fantasy: when is “sci-fi vs. fantasy” a productive restriction, and when is it an empty category you paint over with aesthetic? No single answer lands, but a few useful ways to frame the problem emerge.

If you’ve been with us all season, this is the after-action report. If you’re new, it’s a fast way to see how we read mechanics as part of story structure.

Topics Discussed:

00:00:45 Talk of Genre

00:29:00 What we played

00:45:00 Heroes and the Everyman

00:01:00 Media Touchpoints

01:05:00 Downtime and Resource Management

01:19:15 Games we didn't play

01:52:30 Season Favorites

For more on the discussion of System and Style check out our written articles and Scott’s additional thoughts on specific systems on our YouTube channel.

ModernMythology.net

This week is an interesting collision between board games and tabletop RPGs as we jump into Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power, the Free RPG Day adventure built for the Genesys roleplaying system. Designed as an easy on-ramp, Ashes of Power comes with simplified Genesys rules and pre-made characters—so you can go from “what is Genesys?” to “roll initiative” fast.

In play, we focus on what makes Genesys narrative dice work: a roll doesn’t just hinge on success or failure. It also includes story-driving fallout like Advantage vs. Threat, plus swingy moments of Triumph and Despair that change the scene in surprising ways.

If you’re curious how a “board-game readable” resolution engine can still generate rich improvisation, this episode is a great sampler of Genesys in motion.

This is also our final sci-fi themed system for the time being in our actual play series. Next episode, we’ll look back on the sci-fi games we’ve played and what we learned along the way.

Topics Discussed:

00:00:30 Boardgame to RPG

00:03:40 Free RPG Day

https://www.edge-studio.net/shares/twilight-imperium/

00:11:35 Setting Info dump

00:17:45 Scene 1: Ashes of Power

00:22:15 Scene 2

00:41:40 Scene 3

00:48:40 Scene 4

01:05:25 Scene 5

01:11:25 Scene 6

01:18:30 Scene 7

01:40:30 Scene 8

01:44:10 Scene 9

01:48:00 Debrief

01:55:40 Let’s Roll Some Dice...

For more on the discussion of System and Style check out our written articles and Scott’s additional thoughts on specific systems on our YouTube channel.

ModernMythology.net

In this episode, Jamie and Scott dig into troupe-style play—campaigns where each player might run multiple characters over time instead of a single, fixed PC. We talk about what changes when you treat the cast as an ensemble instead of a party, and how that shift can affect spotlight, continuity, and the kinds of stories your table can tell.

Using games like Ars Magica, Pendragon, Blades in the Dark, Street Fighter, and Call of Cthulhu as examples—plus related play styles like West Marches, (featured in the newest Critical Role campaign), we trace how different designs handle rotating characters, support casts, and backup sheets. Some lean into covenants, households, or crews as the “real” protagonist; others quietly assume you’ll have replacement investigators or alternates waiting in the wings.

We also get practical. Why would you run a campaign in troupe mode? How do you build emotional investment when players are juggling multiple sheets? What are the pros and cons—the real pitfalls like prep overhead, continuity snarls, uneven buy-in—and what tools actually help you avoid them?

Topics discussed:

00:00:45 What is Troupe Style play

00:07:15 Why?

Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon Series

00:16:50 Pros and Cons

00:30:00 The Funnel/Attrition

Elder Goblin Games

00:39:00 Generational Play

00:42:00 Exploring the setting

00:49:40 The Hex Crawl

Legendary Kalmatta #61 OSE West Marches Hexcrawl Actual Play

00:57:00 Implementation

Ars Magica

For more on the discussion of System and Style check out our written articles and Scott’s additional thoughts on specific systems on our YouTube channel.

ModernMythology.net