Gods, fae and dice at a rowdy table
Top of the Round is an actual-play tabletop show with Kennan as game master and Nikki and Jordache as players. Campaign 1 is played in Dungeons and Dragons, Campaign 2 is set a thousand years later in Pathfinder 2e, and the feed also has a lore quiz, an AMA, an epilogue and a primer on the rules switch.
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Top of the Round is an actual-play tabletop show built around one table: Kennan as game master, with Nikki and Jordache as players. Campaign 1 was played in Dungeons and Dragons. Nikki played Talos, who prefers daggers to swords. Jordache played Chaz, a druid who later goes by the grander name Corvallis Blackwood. Their world is full of powers: Celestials with full names, old gods and new gods, archfey, portals, crowds of fairies, and a rakshasa who guards a single stretch of beach as his own. The dice decide most things. When a perception check comes back at thirty-six, Kennan describes a character's aches and tiredness simply disappearing. Scenes can hurt, too. In one, a character learns that the person who had been like a parent to them is the one who attacked them. Campaign 2 moves the story a thousand years forward and switches to Pathfinder 2e, with Nikki as Clover and Jordache as Varian. The cast says the new campaign works for newcomers, and that Campaign 1 listeners simply bring more lore with them. That makes 'B01E01 - God's Chosen Preview' a sensible place to start, though it ends by sending listeners to a separate feed for the rest of Campaign 2. 'Beginner's Guide: Pathfinder' gives a plain explanation of what the switch changes: three actions per turn, feats that change how those actions work, spells that cost one to three of them, and some homebrew changes to combat. The players also say Kennan killed them many times in practice battles before the premiere. The feed also carries episodes about the story rather than from inside it. In 'C1 Pop Quiz: Nikki & Jordache', Kennan quizzes the two players on Campaign 1 lore, and they argue about whether they were ever told a god's last name. 'Campaign 1 AMA: Grilltopia' answers listener questions and ties up loose ends, including an alternate-future version of a character and whether a newscaster named Brad ever had a character sheet. In 'Campaign 1 Epilogue: What Follows', Talos and Chaz describe their next five to ten years, after Kennan apologises, not very sincerely, for ending on a cliffhanger. Even the ads are played in character: Corvallis Blackwood pitches the merch, worried about what trouble Talos might get into. The table also thanks reviewers by name and invites listeners to Discord listen parties, a game night and a giveaway. The tone is loose and fast, with strong language throughout. Jokes interrupt lines spoken in character, and nobody waits their turn to talk. The result is dense lore from a table that is glad to argue about it, laugh at it and sometimes forget it.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes actual play with a rowdy, foul-mouthed table and a lot of invented lore, and who would enjoy hearing a group switch from Dungeons and Dragons to Pathfinder 2e.
What sets it apart: Besides the sessions, the feed makes episodes out of the gap between campaigns: a quiz on its own lore, an AMA, an epilogue for the characters and a rules primer for the move to Pathfinder 2e. The second campaign is set a thousand years after the first.
Welcome to Top of the Round! An original actual play Dungeons and Dragons adventure set in the dark, mysterious world of Ishnar. What happens when a naive druid, a mysterious drow elf, and an orphaned monk are roped into becoming mailmen for a goddess?Rated Explicit for language, violence, some horror themes, and suggested adult content.
An anchor crashes through a roof; you get the chaos without having to roll initiative.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A comic campaign opener turns vanished aches into the first sign of a dangerous new world.
Campaign 2 opens in Top of the Round Paradise, a place where aches vanish without explanation and silence feels like its own warning. Varian's attempt to speak with a fully armored passerby pulls the story toward citizens, fallen bodies, and plant-like creatures killing people…
A final AMA where alternate futures meet the unappetizing logic of Grilled Tapioca.
The final Campaign 1 AMA treats audience questions as a loose tour through the show's mythology, then keeps happily bending that tour out of shape.
Talos and Corvallis map out the next five to ten years while campaign two waits just out of reach.
The campaign epilogue turns a cliffhanger into a five-to-ten-year sketch of what Talos and Corvallis might do next, while keeping the show's elastic sense of time intact. A story that took months to play can still make room for one evening stretched across ten episodes.
A comic fantasy session where an underwater cheese hunt leads into stolen armaments, missing bodies, and betrayal.
Hollow turns its fantasy campaign into a comic knot of portals, stolen armaments, missing bodies, and one determined search for cheese beneath the sea. The boat opening sets the tone fast, treating a sunken vessel as a possible cheese stash while Talos still needs help.
A falling anchor, a blood-soaked pursuit, and one last attempt to restore Zakhar's body.
A raw creature crashes through the roof with an anchor attached, turning Chaz's warning into immediate panic. His command has to cross a language barrier, and the persuasion and insight rolls give Enby's escape the snap of a real split-second choice.
Dice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
Introduction to an actual play Dungeons and Dragons campaign set in the dark fantasy world of Ishnar, with character introductions and promotional announcements.
An actual play Dungeons and Dragons campaign where a group of adventurers become mailmen for a goddess in a dark fantasy world.
Top of the Round's Campaign 2 opens with Kennan, Nikki, and Jordash introducing a Pathfinder 2E actual-play set in Ishnar, with heavy-content warnings, a story-first rules approach, and a promise that new listeners can jump in without Campaign 1.
Top of the Round's final Campaign 1 AMA, titled Grilltopia and glossed as Grilled Tapioca, opens with Podchaser shoutouts to Orange77, Bluebird, Wyatt, Knickknack, Rucklin, Akamb62, Rene, Sixfate, and Corey underscore Fouch.
Top of the Round's "Campaign 1 Epilogue: What Follows" has Kennen turn the ending into a five-to-ten-year forecast for Talos and Corvallis after campaign one.
Top of the Round B05E202, Hollow, starts with Talos already standing in Rath's blood after Zakhar's death and the finale countdown.
Top of the Round's "B05E201 - Sacrifice" follows Talos, Chaz, Zakhar, Wrath, and Feywild allies as a roof fight spills into a collapsing foyer.
Top of the Round's "B05E200 - A Promise Kept" continues Campaign 1 with Talos fighting Wrath in a forest while Chaz, Zakhar, Envy, and Sloth face Azrael's reanimated corpse.
Top of the Round episode B05E199 opens with the cast announcing the Campaign 1 finale for June 19 and a Discord listening-party schedule, including a Campaign 1 look-back on Sunday, June 18 at 6 p.m.
Top of the Round episode B05E198 opens with Sally Scoop's "Inside Scoop" recap of the party's non-violent talks with the Titan Sloth, whom the Discord nicknamed "Trent." Kennan, the DM, then runs the scene in which Sloth's arm opens a view into Emory's space and six swords circle an angry Envy.
An actual play Dungeons and Dragons adventure set in a dark fantasy world, with a group of characters tasked with delivering mail for a goddess.