It’s Table-talk Tuesday baby, and I’m excited to announce that the Life’s a Battle podcast will be returning with a new season and a new story to tell! If you don’t like D&D or storytelling podcasts, I’m going to need those vibes on low right now, because I AM ECSTATIC.

About a year ago, I decided to start recording the game of Starfinder I was playing with my wife and brothers. It was fun, our chemistry was great, and I loved the sessions and writing the story. But for life reasons, I was the one also doing the editing, social outreach, and the audio engineering. I was also starting work at a non-profit that I was very passionate about, so it ended up being a lot. The way I was editing those early episodes, I spent over twenty hours per episode and learned audacity on the fly. We still have over twenty unreleased episodes from the first campaign.

But for this second campaign, a few critical things have changed. For one, my next three years are devoted to my creative pursuits while I earn my MFA. I’ve also changed the mode of editing the podcast, leaning more heavily into front end production. This way when I’m in my editing hole, I’ll have a more streamlined process. But wait there’s more.

In our last campaign, we played Starfinder because it’s one of my favorite sci-fi systems. Even Wizards of the Coast has noticed, as they plan to release Spelljammer material very soon. If some didn’t come out already?

Anyways, in this campaign, WE ARE PLAYING FIFTH EDITION DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS BABY! And we’ve brought friends. We will be playing in a Souls-like homebrew setting inspired by Miyazaki and the wonderful folks at From Software. Not only does D&D have greater pull in the zeitgeist, but traditional fantasy stories tend to have a broader audience than goofy sci-fi/fantasy. I learned a lot of lessons the first time I launched the show (still learning too bb), so I hope to avoid some pitfalls and be more consistent this time around.

So, I’m rebranding the show as A Fantasy Adventure Podcast. I think that is good language, but I’d love some feedback. Dungeons and Daddies has a great tag, but I don’t want to steal too many ideas from my man Freddie Wong. Our story will follow six magical commandos from the Knights of the Hollow Order in a combat focused campaign. I’m pretty much trying to kill the characters, so they’ve power-gamed in recompense. I could not be more stoked.

Life’s a Battle is back! Or soon, at least. I have eventual plans to stream the show live ala Critical Role, but until then, it is good to keep pursuits in manageable portions. And honestly, I don’t know how or care to start monetization. I’ll let someone else come knocking before I worry about that.

The next episode of Life’s a Battle will be out sometime in August, but I’ll have an announcement and/or a trailer out before then. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. I promise the mics will sound less potato-ey this time. Thanks for giving this a breeze and remember to do something amusing for yourself today! If you have never played D&D, I highly recommend the “Crap Guide to D&D” videos by JoCat on YouTube. They are fun and informational, and a really great starting guide to playing the game.

Or if you want, you can just talk about it with me here! with that, I’ll leave you with a question.

If the characters of Encanto were classes in D&D, what would they be? I’ll tell you right now that Mirabel is an Artificer, and you can fight me if you want. Stay rad, danger buddies.

Kbizzle