Pit fights, poltergeists and friends flipping cards instead of dice.
Murder Hobros is an actual play podcast in which Josh, the DM, runs his friends through a tabletop campaign; its fourth season uses Through the Breach, a Malifaux roleplaying game played with cards instead of dice. Sessions swing from pit fights against mining constructs to a poltergeist hissing out of the dark.
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Murder Hobros is an actual play podcast with a disarmingly plain premise: by the DM's own account, the campaign is how he and his friends stay in touch. Josh runs the table. The first season was the group's take on Ghosts of Saltmarsh in Dungeons and Dragons 5e, but the fourth made a clean break for Through the Breach, a roleplaying game set in the Malifaux universe. The dice go too. Actions resolve with playing cards instead, so the table talks in flips, pulls and target numbers. The DM frames the episode 'Through The Breach' as a session zero that teaches the players the card system and brings in their characters, which makes it the obvious place to start that season. Elsewhere the arithmetic stays audible. A shotgun blast in 'The Source of it All' needs an eleven, lands an eighteen, gains a point from extra powder, then loses half its damage as some of the shot passes through a poltergeist. The ghost screams anyway, and the DM describes it, for the first time, as genuinely panicked and hurt. The same episode turns up candles, a blanket, signs that people have been down there, and an egg bearing what look like TNT blast marks; one player's answer is to suggest blowing it open. The titles show a longer arc too: 'Build Up To The Pit Fight', 'Pit Fight Pt. 1' and 'Pit Fight Pt. 2' form one run, and a recap elsewhere describes a series of three pit fights at Arlen Derrick's World of Fisticuffs. Those bouts set characters such as Clyde against mining constructs animated by slivers of soul stone, with Egg at one point slipping dynamite into an exhaust. One construct carries an integrated grenade launcher, and its soul stone, which the DM compares to Iron Man's arc reactor, sits behind a heavily armored chest. A crowd above the pit chants 'the noose', and one dodge of a mining pick succeeds with nothing to spare after a player swaps in a better card. In 'Build Up To The Pit Fight', the players needle a big man named Ned with a jab about his mother that makes him go very serious. The same episode has Egg peering through a window at a clinical, neutral woman cleaning a saw, who curses in a sudden burst of frustration. 'Entering The Well' goes darker: a lantern barely reaching the edges of a flooded cavern, the sound of pouring water, and a poltergeist with thinning hair, a sickly yellow scalp and one glint of awareness in its dark eye pits. The talk around all of it is loose, profane and prone to tangents, down to a player who cannot find their own pneumatic arm on the character sheet. Even wardrobe gets negotiated: when a mining pick slashes a character's hoodie, the player clarifies that there is a long coat over it. It is actual play with the seams showing, held together by a DM who can make a receding hairline sound like a threat.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes actual play with the rules chatter and friendly ribbing left in, and who is curious how Through the Breach runs when playing cards replace dice.
What sets it apart: Through the Breach swaps dice for playing cards, so the tension turns on flips, target numbers and swapping in a better card, and the DM teaches that system to the players on the show itself. Set pieces such as a series of pit fights stretch across several episodes.
Join Josh (@lilpower), the DM, as he and his friends keep in touch through the medium of a weekly roleplaying game. Season 1 is their version of Ghosts of Saltmarsh for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Expect an idiotic navigation through monster's, puzzles and quests! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-hobros. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A pneumatic fist meets an armored construct, and you get a rules debate in the same breath.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A nasty poltergeist fight opens into a blasted egg mystery, with oddball table banter keeping the underground horror lively.
The underground fight gives this episode a nasty, memorable centerpiece: a poltergeist shaped out of green light, all missing nose, swollen gums, black claws, and sharp teeth. The threat lands because it is not just described as eerie; it reacts.
Egg's rope descent finds a water-filled dark, a slowing mind, and a poltergeist with one bright point of awareness.
The Well makes a rope descent feel like a compact lesson in tabletop horror. Egg is lowered into a dark cavern, where the lantern only reaches the edge of a water-filled space, with pouring water below and raised rocks somewhere past the light.
A chaotic final fight turns improvised mechanics into comedy, then pays it off with a dented armored foe.
The final fight plays less like a simple brawl than a table-side problem to solve. The group circles an enemy whose built-in grenade launcher feels strange, too forceful, and maybe alive in some way.
A bruising arena bout where improvised character work keeps pace with the machinery.
This arena bout drops its fighters into Arlen Derrick's World of Fisty Cuffs, a sunken circle about 40 feet wide where a mining pick keeps swinging and a pneumatic-drill arm stays dangerous even after it loses power.
A mangled insult, a cleaned saw, and a long-awaited pit fight edge toward collision.
An insult aimed at Ned turns an ordinary night toward violence, with Clyde dragged into a confrontation over a deliberately mangled joke about Ned's mum.
Dice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
Murder Hobros episode “The Source of it All” centers on a poltergeist fight in a mine-like cavern and a later discovery of a floating silver-gray egg that is leaking water.
The episode follows the group leaving Arlen Derrick's pit after three fights, including Clyde versus a rock hopper, Shira Aizawa against a "10 thunder brother," and Krant Dupont tearing open a rogue construct with his pneumatic arm.
Murder Hobros’s “Pit Fight Pt.
Arlen Derrick’s World of Fisty Cuffs opens with Clyde the Noose Boyd entering a packed pit where Rock Hopper, a steam-and-coal construct with a pneumatic drill arm and mining pick, is the last-minute opponent.
The group uses a trip to Dr.
Murder Hobros plays through an election campaign in the town of Innocence, where the group seeks support for Widow Ferris.
Christopher Tenenbaum gives the group rough mine maps that suggest a route to the well may lie five to twenty-five meters away.
Murder Hobros follows Egg and Krant as they investigate Tatterson Flay, the gaunt owner of Flay's Rare Bookshop.
The DM introduces a new season of their role-playing game, switching to Through the Breach with a card-based mechanic, and begins a session zero to create characters.
A group of friends play Dungeons & Dragons, continuing their Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign with a talent show at sea.
A group of friends play a comedic Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
A group of friends play a Dungeons & Dragons campaign called Ghosts of Saltmarsh, with the DM introducing a shorter episode and teasing a future homebrew season.
A group of friends play a Dungeons and Dragons campaign called Ghosts of Saltmarsh, with the DM introducing the episode and thanking listeners.
Friends play a comedic Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, in this actual-play podcast.
A group of friends play a Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in Ghosts of Saltmarsh, with humorous banter and a fantasy adventure.
A group of friends play a Dungeons and Dragons campaign set in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure.