Tabletop game live streaming in Aotearoa started in a parody superhero universe, and we still don’t need dragons to have fun. (Maybe it’s because we already have our own lizard from the dinosaur ages.)

Even when kiwi actual plays stick to Dungeons & Dragons, homebrew settings are common. In one extreme case, The Tear-able Adventures of the Janderson Breffords Parchment Company is set in a world missing gods, where magic is only available in the form of the (elsewhere much maligned) electrum coin.

But there are lots of great games from Aotearoa and the world, and kiwis are keen to play them for your entertainment!

For real dedication to this idea, go straight to Don’t Forget Your Towel. Launched in 2020, this podcast’s goal is to play every TTRPG game or die trying – and I hope they live a good long time. By my count they are currently on the 25th system of their many-flavoured survey of the world of roleplaying. You might start into DFYT by listening to them play kiwi designer Steve Hickey’s eldrich horror game Soth.

Horror games do seem to be popular around here: Rycon Roleplays started on YouTube in 2017 with their own zombie survivor game Z-Land, while RKDM, Casual RP, and Evldoa have all mixed Vampire: The Masquerade chronicles with D&D and other systems. (Evldoa recently finished well-known vampire-related D&D campaign Curse of Strahd; streamers Getting Dicey and Dice Dice Baby are both continue their own playthroughs. Apparently we like vampires. Who knew?) 

And when Season Quest completed their podcast’s initial goal, a year of four seasonal D&D campaigns (each led by a different member of the cast), their next game was the Anthology of High School Horrors (AHH!) created by Season Quester Charlie Leeming. Since then they’ve kept sharing the lead and haven’t looked back to D&D – Charlie is currently running an epic teen superhero adventure, showing off the storytelling potential of the Powered by the Apocalypse-based Masks system.

Diceratops Presents has mixed D&D with other games – ones that aren’t horror at all (unless you’re particularly afraid of Jason Statham or pro wrestlers) while in GM Breakout kiwi player Jeremy joins an international crew of forever GMs playing the (fearful for some?) Pathfinder system.

The kiwi RPG crossover streams also began with one-shot level 20 D&D adventures but, in the words of Dungeons and Comedians’ Brendon Bennetts, “there’s this whole other world of games to play“! Bennetts led two crossover crews back to back episodes of Lasers and Feelings (‘original series’ and ‘next generation’). For Kiwi RPG Week, DFYT DM Azul ran Monster of the Week: The Faces of Toltetotl.

And, in an earlier crossover stream, Fate of Isen DM Brad Zimmerman introduced his own system, d12GO. Brad and Fate of Isen had form for exploring new systems, employing the game system Suited for their family-friendly spinoff podcast The Gigantic Adventures of Jeff and Simon, and d12GO takes this to a new level.

d12GO is a simple and adaptable system designed to be easy to pick up and play. You can see the fun and storytelling freedom that can be had with earlier versions in the crossover stream and in several Fate of Isen interlude episodes.

The rules for d12GO are out now, and on Tuesday May 6 you can join us live as a new crossover team tackles a randomly generated scenario: Are a band of criminals with nothing to lose the only ones who can save Robot Island?

Check the Kiwi RPG Week schedule for details!

— Lyndon and the #KiwiRPG crew