Where character sheets become story engines.
Character Creation Cast turns character creation into the main event. Across multi-part series, guests bring games like Ghost in the Shell, Salvage Union, Wandering Blades, and Monster of the Week while the conversation tracks mechanics, identity, genre, and table feel.
PRESS PLAY
Character Creation Cast makes character creation the subject instead of the paperwork before the subject. Each series brings in a role-playing game, often with a designer or returning guest, and spends time with the choices that shape play before the campaign has really begun. It is a show about rules, but not in a detached way. The useful question is usually what a rule feels like once a player has to make something from it. In the Ghost in the Shell run, the group talks through a Forged in the Dark cyberpunk game and keeps returning to identity, technology, signatures, flashbacks, cybernetics, and the value of leaving some answers unresolved. That gives the discussion a thoughtful edge. Character detail is not only flavor here; it is a way to see what the game wants players to care about. Other series widen the frame. Salvage Union brings post-apocalyptic mech RPG design and playtesting into the room. Strangers on the Net adds the business side of tabletop RPGs and online live action play. Wandering Blades introduces wuxia inspiration, action, and Kickstarter-era design talk. Monster of the Week turns horror urban fantasy playbooks into messy, funny characters with names like Grantham McAllister, Tennessee Novella, and Flapjack the Cat. The show works best when it lets a guest’s system set the tempo. Sometimes that means debating character sheet design. Sometimes it means watching one random table bend an entire concept into a better shape. The tone stays conversational, lightly funny, and deeply interested in how players actually make decisions. It is not glossy theory. It is table talk with enough structure to compare systems and enough looseness for odd ideas to survive. For RPG players, designers, and game-curious listeners, Character Creation Cast offers a close look at the moment where mechanics become a person.
Made for: For tabletop RPG players, game designers, actual-play fans, and anyone who enjoys hearing how mechanics become character choices. It especially suits listeners who like character creation thinking and designer-led examples.
What sets it apart: The show narrows in on character creation as the main lens for understanding a game. Instead of only reviewing systems, it builds within them and then talks through what those choices reveal.
Join Amelia and Ryan on a journey to create characters in many different role playing game systems with guests from across the industry.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It shows how rules turn genre, identity, chance, and small mechanical incentives into playable characters.
Character Creation Cast makes building a role-playing character into a close reading of game design. Amelia and Ryan move through the choices a system presents, then consider what those choices encourage at the table.
A cyberpunk sniper gets a character sheet; you get the question of who they are without the rifle.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful Series 89 closer about what character creation should decide, and what play should leave open.
Character Creation Cast closes Series 89 with Pete Petruccia and his Forged in the Dark Ghost in the Shell RPG, finding its best thread in the value of restraint.
A grounded look at how character sheets and random tables can push a cyberpunk RPG toward stranger, more useful choices.
Ghost in the Shell with Pete Petruccia Part 4 treats character creation less as paperwork than as a design problem. The conversation moves from character sheet layout into the harder task of making a forged-in-the-dark cyberpunk RPG feel like more than a familiar genre exercise.
A practical look at how favors, flashbacks, and signature gear turn character concepts into playable decisions.
Ghost in the Shell's character creation talk works best when it treats rules as invitations to act. Favors and flashbacks are framed as small prompts that can nudge a player toward tools they might otherwise leave unused.
A character-building session turns magical-girl archetypes into a lively study of teenage fandom.
The second Series 86 installment brings Allison K. Cole back to discuss her online live-action RPG, Strangers on the Net, while the table finishes building characters, their in-game personas, and the fandom those personas have invented.
A grounded look at how Ghost in the Shell turns cyberpunk character rules into story pressure.
Character creation becomes the clearest way into how Ghost in the Shell makes cyberpunk identity playable. Returning guest Pete Petruccia moves through shells, natural traits, cyber enhancements, and the Logicoma's allocation, then carries those choices into favors, flashbacks,…
Fantasy peril, table chaos, questionable tactics.
Long-form Apple talk with sharp product judgment and deep tech history.
Weekly film, music, and arts criticism from Monocle 24's Midori House studio in London.
Two product designers talk Figma workflows, button sizing, and AI design tools weekly.
Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert dissect CSS, CMS workflows, and AI coding agents weekly.
Stack Overflow's Ryan Donovan interviews founders and engineers on AI agents, protocols, and dev tools.
Ryan and Amelia interview Daniel Kwan about his new wuxia TTRPG Wandering Blades and dive into character creation.
Amelia and Ryan introduce a Monster of the Week series with guest Tyler Samples to learn about the horror urban fantasy RPG and discuss network updates.
Character creation folds in on itself, in the fun way.
The hosts and a guest discuss character creation for the Monster of the Week RPG, including session zero recap and fan fiction.
Amelia and Ryan, joined by guest Tyler Samples, create characters for the Monster of the Week horror urban fantasy RPG.
Hosts Amelia and Ryan interview game designers about character creation in the Salvage Union mecha RPG.
Amelia and Ryan interview Allison K.
The hosts and guests discuss the process of creating characters for the post-apocalyptic mech RPG Salvage Union and share fan fiction.
The hosts and a guest create characters for the Monster of the Week RPG, discussing their backstories and game mechanics.
Character creation gets crunchy right away.
Less sheet can be the point.
Series 89 hits its fourth discussion stop.
Character Creation Cast's "Ghost in the Shell with Pete Petruccia Part 2" connects cyberpunk's future predictions to the design of a Forged in the Dark role-playing game.
Character creation reaches the signature stage.
Character Creation Cast’s final Series 88 episode examines character creation in Craig Campbell’s Cosmic Corsairs, a space-fantasy game about resisting the Triarchy.