Epic fantasy actual play with bad plans.
Bad Heroes turns Pathfinder 1E into serialized fantasy peril, with ruined places, ghouls, portals, curses, and tactical table chaos. Its dramatic stakes sit beside quick jokes, rules talk, and character moments that can land hard in the middle of a fight.
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Bad Heroes is a Pathfinder 1E actual play built around dramatic fantasy stakes and the unruly pleasure of a table making decisions in real time. It has curses, undead, magic, ruined places, and bad timing. The show’s recent material around “The Eternal Hunger” places the party in catacombs, flooded tunnels, crypt rooms, and broken urban spaces where one solved problem tends to open another door. Ghouls press in. Traps burn. Portals throw people into danger. A full moon matters because lycanthropy is not just flavor here; it is fear, anger, and a looming loss of control. The world around the party feels broad without losing the immediate scene, moving from Queen Sephira’s throne room in Vyre to divination pools, dwarven forges, royal armories, druidic enclaves, pirates, catfolk, and seers carrying warnings. The show likes vivid fantasy nouns, but it also likes consequences. A character running down stairs can be read as abandoning someone. A hand held too long can say what exposition would flatten. At the same time, Bad Heroes keeps the game table openly present. Players ask about spell effects, movement, fatigue, darkness, stealth, and whether a proposed plan is merely possible or actively regrettable. The rules texture matters, especially when the group shifts from standard Pathfinder movement into custom chase zones or stealth-alert logic. It is not polished into radio drama. The pleasure comes from the collision: ornate narration, tactical problem solving, player panic, and cleanly timed jokes sitting in the same scene. The table can describe a thundercloud destroying a ghoul, then immediately pivot into action economy. It can build dread around a sarcophagus, then undercut itself with a joke about having solved one problem into a worse one. Bad Heroes is at its best when danger, character history, and mechanical uncertainty all arrive at once. The fantasy is earnest. The table is playful. The result is a show where epic peril still leaves room for someone to make a terrible suggestion and find out exactly what happens.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants Pathfinder actual play with visible mechanics, serialized fantasy stakes, and character tension. Best fit for someone who enjoys danger, table banter, and tactical scenes sharing the same space.
What sets it apart: Bad Heroes keeps its rules crunch and its dramatic narration in direct contact. The show’s distinctive charge comes from letting tactical choices, jokes, curses, and emotional fallout all affect the same scene.
One evil queen, three deadly curses, and four bad heroes in over their heads.Bad Heroes is a narrative-rich, character-driven Pathfinder 1E actual play podcast with a love of comedy, adventure, and the more charming forces of Hell.
A ghoul meets an aggressive thundercloud, and your tactical brain gets to laugh before it panics.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Tonrir's anger turns a ghoul fight into a tense test of trust, control, and party fallout.
Tonrir's temper gives the ruin crawl its real bite, turning a fight with ghouls into a question of whether he can still steer himself. With the full moon only two nights off, Ira helping the injured Jasmine hits a nerve, especially while Jasmine's reason for being in the city…
A prophecy, a crypt chase, and one failed will save keep the danger close and personal.
The episode opens with courtly menace and a prophecy that sounds less like a warning than a survival test. Eilish Talatria steps into Queen Sephira's throne room in a worn linen dress, with a scepter-like mask and a hellfire burn scar, carrying a vision of Tanrir in a broken…
Drakdor's green pools frame a charged fight and a tense push toward the city's center.
Drakdor's circular green pools give the episode a strong visual spine. A frog-like humanoid watches an elven militia gather below Silverscale, dwarven forges burn behind two fallen queens, and Lady Thalia stalls as a century of planar research snaps into focus.
A whispered warning, a painful retreat, and doors opening at the worst possible moment.
The episode starts small, almost warmly, with chickens outside Dania's cottage, soup burning, and Danny trying to keep Eilish away from a queen already beset by a headache, two demons, a giant snake skeleton, and about 50 living suits of armor.
A tea-leaf warning collides with spider-body panic, improvised butter, and one very unhelpful ghoul.
A tea-leaf warning in Sanguine Silvus turns the episode into a compact pressure cooker, with Ning reading danger close enough to feel immediate as the group tries to keep moving quietly.
Grim fantasy at mud level.
Fantasy rereads with jokes sharpened into arguments.
Bad Heroes S1E77, The Eternal Hunger - Part 17, centers on Tonrir, Ira, Gideon, Riva, Jasmine, and Theda fighting through catacombs full of ghouls and a ghast.
Bad Heroes S1E76: The Eternal Hunger - Part 16 opens in Vyre with Eilish Talatria standing alone in Queen Sephira's lava-lit throne room, facing a hellhound, two demon advisors, and blood-splattered armor.
Bad Heroes S1E75: The Eternal Hunger - Part 15 opens with Drakdor, a "famous bard and poet and secret seer," watching pools in a mangrove swamp on the Gulf of Zirin.
Bad Heroes S1E74: The Eternal Hunger - Part 14 follows a catacomb crawl through a symmetrical six-legged chamber where the party tries to keep ghouls quiet.
Bad Heroes S1E73, "The Eternal Hunger - Part 13," starts with Ning in Sanguine Silvus reading tea leaves that show a broken wheel, bared teeth, rose hips, and a shattered griffin.
Bad Heroes S1E72, “The Eternal Hunger - Part 12,” follows Eilish into Vyre while Tanvir, Gideon, Reyna, and their companions navigate a crypt containing two ghouls.
Bad Heroes S1E71: The Eternal Hunger - Part 11 follows Ira, Gideon, Tanrir, and their companions through flooded crypts beneath a city occupied by hungry dead things.
Bad Heroes S1E70: The Eternal Hunger - Part 10 follows Reva, Ira, and their pirate companions into catacombs where the entry hall is submerged beneath a 50-foot-deep pool.
Bad Heroes S1E69: The Eternal Hunger - Part 9 follows Ira, Gideon, Riva, and their pirate allies into catacombs while ghouls scratch at a sealed stone door.
Bad Heroes S1E68, "The Eternal Hunger - Part 8," continues a Pathfinder battle around a burning shipwreck, a pirate vessel, and a growing ghoul attack.
In this episode of Bad Heroes, the party encounters a horde of ghouls and is rescued by a mysterious orc woman who breaks through a magical barrier.
In this episode of Bad Heroes, the party pursues Iris through a river while Gideon attacks her invisibly and Tanrir summons giant spiders.
In this episode of Bad Heroes, the group discovers a werewolf attack and confronts Iris, who has lost all reason.