Offscreen is a series where I interview game masters of various actual plays to discuss the crunch craft differences between running a home game and running an actual play. 

Today’s episode features Dane Miller. Dane is the GM of No Quest for the Wicked, a story-driven actual play using Paizo's sci-fi space opera system Starfinder in a homebrew setting. No Quest for the Wicked received three Audioverse awards for Best Player Direction, Player, and New Improvised Show, as well Best Villain at the Crit Awards. 

Dain and I walked through why Actual Play’s low barrier to entry is appealing for independent creatives, how to maintain pacing for shorter episodes, and how to create a creative space for players who don’t come from a performance background.

You can find Dan on twitter @thedainiac on Twitter. You can find No Quest for the Wicked on any podcasting app, @NoQuestCast on pretty much every social media, and noquestcast.com for links to everything.

This week's guest is Erik Morrison. They are one of the DMs for NPC Incorporated, an actual play collective that runs campaigns, one shots, offers DM advice, and more. Among the games Eric has ran for NPC Incorporated is Donna Avanzi’s Deception, a no magic D&D two-part mini-series in the world of Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora. 

Given my own background as a musical theatre performer and stand-up comedian, my conversation with Erik focused first on the similarities and differences between Actual Play and Improv comedy, the difficulties of comparing yourself to full-time creatives with funded productions, and when narrative can supersede mechanics.

You can find Erik on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok at @ErikMoreover; and on Bluesky as @ErikMorrison. You can also see them live in Chicago, where they produce ⁠Thirst For Adventure⁠, a live-action, rules-light D&D show with a rotating cast of improv comedians.

Welcome to the first installment of Off Screen, a series where I interview Game Masters of various actual plays to discuss the differences between running a home game and running an actual play. 

Off Screen’s inaugural guest is Tony Kiger. In this first episode, Tony and I discuss their love of the Monsterhearts system, their theatrical improv background, and how their improvisational GM style can create more reactive stories to their player’s choices, but can sometimes get them into trouble.

Tony is the DM of Devils in the Dice, a rotating cast short-form actual play. Tony’s run shows in a number of TTRPG systems like Leo Lion's Kingdom of Horrors, a theme park horror game using the Call of Cthulhu system, Stratford High, an angsty dark academia game of Monsterhearts, and their most recent Cthulu series Beasts of the Bog. 

You can find Tony on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok at @TonyTheKiger. 

You can read an article with highlights from this podcast on TheFandomentals.com