HOW TO PLAY STAR WARS: EDGE OF THE EMPIRE 3: Pt 3 - "In a galaxy where everything is broken..."
Release Date: 03/30/2026
CYBERPUNK RED: How to Play 5 Actual Play Conclusion - Unpaid Internship Edition
The RPGBOT.Podcast
The good news is we found J-ZK. The bad news is her skull is open, Dave is fighting a man inside the internet, Marky has replaced diplomacy with a hand chainsaw, and everyone involved is eventually on fire. Welcome to the Cyberpunk RED finale, where friendship conquers evil, violence solves several problems, and our heroes save the girl, kill the villain, jump out of a twentieth-floor window while playing guitar, and discover the most important rule of Night City: heroic acts are not reimbursable. Show Notes Marky Day and Dave Costanzo face off against Mr. Frommiter, better known as Gangster...
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THE PLANE OF BYTOPIA (Remastered): Land of Nice Weather and Adamantine Dragons
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Welcome to Bytopia, the Upper Plane for people who looked at Heaven and said, “This is nice, but could we make everyone work a little harder?” The weather is lovely, the neighbors are aggressively helpful, the economy is apparently powered by ethical commerce, and there’s another entire world hanging upside down over your head. Also, there are adamantine dragons, because apparently even paradise needs something capable of turning your adventuring party into a fine red mist. Pack a lunch, bring your climbing gear, and try not to become so content that you forget you were supposed to...
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CYBERPUNK RED: How to Play 4 Actual Play - Capitalism Has a Boss Fight
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Welcome back to Night City, where Tyler has acquired a another cat, Randall has acquired a bedazzled bulletproof vest, and Ash has apparently acquired the Cyberpunk equivalent of Five Nights at Freddy’s. This week, Marky Day becomes Marky Knight and walks willingly into something everyone immediately identifies as a murder hallway. Dave gets set on fire by a computer, Marky discovers that cartoon mascots are weak against bullets, and together they spend every remaining resource to adopt a homicidal digital hyena. Somehow, all of this turns out to be the easy part, because at the end of the...
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CYBERPUNK RED: How to Play 3 Actual Play - We have Cyberware, but no affordable housing...
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Welcome to Night City, where housing is a shipping container, breakfast is kibble, and your most reliable neighbor is a rat named Greg. This week, Marky Day and Dave Costanzo accept a perfectly normal freelance job involving stalking, blackmail, corporate espionage, breaking and entering, and possibly assault. Fortunately, Marky has love in his heart, a mandolin in his bag, and the negotiating instincts to voluntarily reduce their payment by half. Dave, meanwhile, is an elite Netrunner capable of defeating corporate security, provided nobody asks him to walk quietly across a lobby without...
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2014 Ranger Part 2 (Remastered) - Yeah, I'm not going to be using Hunter's Mark either...
The RPGBOT.Podcast
The ranger’s journey from level 5 to 20 is a majestic tale of growth, survival, and discovering that Hunter’s Mark may not actually deserve permanent custody of your concentration. Randall’s Gloom Stalker becomes an invisible crossbow machine, Ash’s Drakewarden takes to the skies aboard a fire-breathing murder lizard, and Tyler spends sixteen levels converting every available feat, spell slot, and medical supply into increasingly desperate attempts to keep one flying snake alive. By level 20, two of these characters are legendary hunters. The third is still shouting, “Don’t worry,...
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CYBERPUNK RED How to Play 2 - Character Creation: Mr. Rogers Builds a Cult
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Character creation in Cyberpunk RED is simple. First, choose whether you want to be a violent criminal, a corporate criminal, or a musician who can accidentally start a cult. Then roll enough childhood trauma to explain why you live in a shipping container. This week, Randall creates Cyberpunk Mr. Rogers, a relentlessly loving rockerboy whose most treasured possession is a weapon, while Tyler creates a fashionable netrunner who values money, wants power, steals programs from people he brain-burns, and has somehow made a mortal enemy entirely through bad vibes. Meanwhile, Riverside attempts to...
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VAMPIRES: Children of the Night, What a Mess They Make
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Tonight, we’re talking vampires, history’s greatest transformation from suspiciously bloated corpse to immortal bisexual aristocrat with a castle, a cape, and absolutely no respect for personal boundaries. We dig into garlic, holy symbols, counting mustard seeds, bricks shoved into mouths, and the alarming number of vampire prevention methods involving someone’s severed head near their butt. Then we compare D&D’s growing collection of bitey hit-point bags with Pathfinder’s bold decision to let you turn almost anything into a vampire. Grab a wooden stake, protect your neck, and...
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2014 DnD 5e RANGER (Remastered): Levels 1 - 4 - Archery to Beast Mastery: Choosing the Right Build
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Welcome to Ranger levels 1 through 4, where you can become a deadly shadow archer, command your own miniature dragon, or sacrifice your entire action so that a flying snake with the structural integrity of wet parchment can participate in combat. In this episode, we explore Favored Enemies nobody tracks, terrain nobody visits, spells competing for the same concentration slot, and the revolutionary discovery that the Ranger becomes significantly better when you replace most of the Ranger. Grab your longbow, release your drake, and prepare to whisper, “Go get ’em, little buddy,” moments...
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2026-2027 DND RELEASE SCHEDULE: A Roadmap Written in Blood and Marketing
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Wizards of the Coast has revealed its plans for the future of Dungeons & Dragons, and apparently the strategy is simple: fix D&D Beyond, return to Gen Con, outsource adventures to people who know what they are doing, cross over with World of Warcraft, and traumatize a convention hall full of children with a Dark Sun trailer featuring a freshly removed spine. Tyler attended the secret briefing and emerged with five pages of notes, several enormous announcements, and absolutely no idea what D&D Icons are. So prepare yourselves for new books, old settings, digital upgrades, live...
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CYBERPUNK RED: How to Play 1 - Talk Before You Glock
The RPGBOT.Podcast
Welcome to Night City, chooms, where the sky is red, the rent is due, your landlord is probably armed, and health care arrives by helicopter only if your credit score has a body count. In this episode, Ash introduces Randall and Tyler to Cyberpunk Red, a game about surviving late-stage capitalism after it bought a katana, installed cyberlegs, and decided empathy was bad for quarterly growth. The internet is dead, the new internet is haunted, corporations have private armies, your apartment is a cargo container, and if you get shot badly enough, your best hope is that Trauma Team thinks your...
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In Part 3 of this Star Wars Edge of the Empire actual play, the RPGBOT crew finally delivers on the promise teased since Episode 1: full-on Star Wars space combat! And it is every bit as chaotic, cinematic, and barely-survivable as you’d hope.
Picking up immediately after their explosive escape from the pirate station, the crew aboard the Malarkey finds themselves pursued by TIE fighters. What follows is a crash course in Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars starship combat mechanics, including initiative slots, range bands, shield management, and the ever-chaotic narrative dice system.
Ash’s pilot (Nehl) takes center stage, showcasing how gunnery checks, autofire mechanics, and Destiny Points can turn a desperate dogfight into a highlight reel of explosions. Meanwhile, Randall’s Wookiee slicer (Fricata) attempts to disable enemy ships mid-combat using computers checks and slicing mechanics, with… mixed results.
The real wildcard? Brap-Brap.
The party’s astromech droid is tasked with performing astrogation calculations to escape to hyperspace, but apparenly no one told him that the party was in hurry. A series of stunnin failures turn what should be a tactical retreat into a frantic, high-stakes fight for survival, pushing the ship and the crew to the brink.
Peak Star Wars, honestly.
Key Takeaways
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Starship combat in Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPG emphasizes narrative over precision, using range bands instead of grids.
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Initiative slots (not fixed turns) allow flexible team strategy, letting players choose optimal action order.
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Autofire is incredibly powerful, especially when stacking advantage—capable of destroying multiple enemies in one turn.
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Destiny Points are critical for survival, enabling upgrades that can swing entire encounters.
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Astrogation is a bottleneck mechanic for escape, creating tension when the party is under pressure.
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Critical hits don’t end the fight—they escalate it, adding narrative consequences like engine damage instead of instant destruction.
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Support roles (like slicing or repairs) matter, but can feel situational depending on enemy design.
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Shield management and evasive maneuvers are essential for survivability in multi-enemy encounters.
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Failure can still generate advantage, reinforcing the system’s focus on story over binary outcomes
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Meet the Hosts
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Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
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Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
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Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI’s worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
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