Tabletop talk with sharp edges and long memory.
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast covers tabletop gaming through board game conversations, RPG game-master advice, and convention-season storytelling. Its best moments balance practical hobby talk with rowdy chemistry, from encounter design and play culture to which games still deserve shelf space years later.
PRESS PLAY
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast is a tabletop show built around the lived texture of the hobby. It covers board games, role-playing games, collections, conventions, miniatures-adjacent interests, and the strange social energy that gathers around all of them. The feed is not one single format. Express episodes can turn into arguments about classics, favorites, sponsor-featured games, and what belongs in a restarted board game collection. Dungeon Masters Ludus episodes slow down and work through the craft of running RPGs. Those conversations define encounters, separate campaigns from adventures and scenes, and ask what happens when players bring different expectations to the same table. The show likes practical vocabulary. It also likes jokes. A discussion of RPG structure may begin in fantasy-library grandeur, then pivot into teasing, old-store nostalgia, or a quick aside about someone snickering at the wrong phrase. That looseness is part of the appeal. The tabletop talk is informed by years of play, but the delivery keeps the room noisy and human. Games are judged by table time, staying power, excitement, and the way taste changes as players mature in the hobby. Episodes about older games ask whether they aged like wine or turned sour. Collection episodes get concrete about deck building, Euro games, cooperative action, tableau building, and titles such as Tapestry, Ark Nova, Cthulhu Death May Die, Shackleton Base, and Thunderstone Quest. The RPG side is equally grounded. It talks about inspiration from books, movies, music, history, video games, and stray comments from players, then turns those sparks into stories worth exploring. Convention material adds another layer: Origins Game Fair, meetups, travel confusion, archive segments, and the comic memory of almost getting kicked out of an event. The result is hobby criticism with fingerprints on it. It is useful, opinionated, sometimes unruly, and clearly made by people who have spent a lot of hours around game tables.
Made for: For board gamers, RPG game masters, and tabletop regulars who enjoy detailed hobby talk with informal friend-group energy. It especially suits listeners who care about why games last, how campaigns work, and what actually happens around the table.
What sets it apart: The show pairs practical tabletop analysis with recurring in-jokes, archive callbacks, and convention stories. It can define an RPG encounter carefully, then immediately swerve into teasing banter without losing the thread.
Tune in every Wednesday to immerse yourself in The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast, dedicated to board games, card games, role-playing, and the miniatures hobby. Join The Secret Cabal Founders: Jamie, Chris, Steve, Don, and Tony T, as they present a captivating array of perspectives on board games, all delivered with a generous dose of irreverent nonsense. Explore the world of role-playing games with The Lord of the Dungeon, and accompany the Filthy Casuals as they delve into the miniatures gaming hobby in Battletome. The Founders and Lords are devoted to providing you with irreverent entertainment, thought-provoking commentary, and an enthusiastic experience centered around the hobbies we love.
A natural 20 still won't save your insult, and that is exactly the table talk here.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical shelf-reset debate about which games truly earn their space, with Tapestry drawing the sharpest defense.
Restarting a board game collection becomes less about owning favorites than about knowing what will actually earn table time. Don, Chris, and Jamie keep the discussion grounded in function and feel, weighing deck building, a strong Euro slot, action-heavy cooperation, tableau…
A bridge-city game night turns into a practical case for making modules feel personal.
Lords of the Dungeon makes for a lively game-night listen, with laughter around the table and a memorable bridge city driving the talk. The setting stands out: a vast bridge over an immense river, crowded with shops, taverns, criminals, and odd residents, so the players always…
A practical look at when an encounter should lean on the dice, the player, or both.
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast uses this Dungeon Master's Ludus installment to settle on what an encounter really is, then carries that idea through social interaction, combat, and skill checks.
The Lords of the Dungeon recap a recent game session in Jess's homebrew setting, a bizarre city built on a bridge inhabited by monstrous races.
Jamie interviews his friend Rodney Smith, a board game tutorialist, about hobbies and their long-standing friendship in this casual podcast episode.
The hosts discuss upcoming board game releases at Essence Field 2025 in Germany while also sharing excitement for PAX Unplugged and fall gaming conventions.
The Secret Cabal hosts Jamie, Jesco, Jess, and Bender discuss the art of designing RPG encounters, breaking them into social, combat, and environmental categories.
Jamie, Tony, Don and Steve mark Oktoberfest by each choosing three games from the BGG Spiel Essen 2026 preview list.
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast episode “Dungeon Masters Ludus 04: The Art of the Encounter” defines encounters as structured scenes involving obstacles, risk, and changing player circumstances.
Jamie, Chris, and Don compare board games that age like fine wine with games that turn into vinegar when revisited years later.
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast's Dungeon Masters Ludus 03: The Culture of Play defines culture of play as the shared expectations and priorities an RPG group brings to the table.
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast's Best of Volume 1 assembles archival segments from Episodes 90, 182, 245, and 258, including Origins Game Fair, chicken-wing damage to Nemesis cards, and a gum mishap.
The Dungeon Master's Ludus episode 02 opens with George Land's 1968 NASA study of 1,600 children, in which 98% of three-to-five-year-olds scored at genius level versus 12% of 15-year-olds and 2% of adults.
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast episode “Express 114: Restarting Your Board Game Collection” asks Don, Chris, and Jamie to choose five games after a catastrophe destroys every game they own.
The Lords of the Dungeon open with a final-week push for The Secret Cabal's Kickstarter, which funds more than 100 hours of podcasting in 2026 and a second zine.
The hosts discuss the confusing timing of recording episodes around the Origins trip, express excitement for the upcoming meetup at the Whistling Keg, and reflect on playing games.
The hosts discuss Aaron's new Planescape Dungeons & Dragons campaign, highlighting his preparation for an on-rails adventure and the tension between sandbox and structured gameplay.
This episode features an interview with Justin Jacobson, president of Restoration Games, discussing how recent U.S.