RPGBOT.Podcast

So you've survived character creation in Numenera. Congratulations! Now it's time to level up, rummage through ancient garbage, and build a giant murder robot that might eventually decide you're the problem. What could possibly go wrong? In this episode, we're spending XP, scavenging the ruins of forgotten civilizations, and exploring the joys of community development. Because nothing says heroic adventure quite like spending six months building a machine that might explode, or thirty years constructing a castle. Welcome to the Ninth World, where yesterday's trash is tomorrow's technology, and apparently nobody can agree on how to pronounce a two-by-four.

Numenera 2-Book Set (affiliate link)
RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 1
Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 2
Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 3
Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 4

Show Notes
In Part 3 of our How to Play Numenera series, Randall, Tyler, and Ash tackle character advancement, salvaging, crafting, and community building in Monte Cook Games' science-fantasy tabletop RPG.
We start with Numenera character advancement, explaining how experience points improve abilities, Edge, Effort, and skills as characters progress through six tiers. Then we dig into the Numenera Destiny crafting system, where ancient technology becomes raw materials for everything from useful cyphers to heavily armed automatons that may eventually turn against their creators. Fun!
Along the way, we explore salvaging iotum, collecting parts, crafting plans, equipment depletion, and the questionable wisdom of building a war machine with trust issues. Finally, we look at community-building mechanics and how players can turn their adventures into something bigger than another pile of mysterious artifacts.
Whether you're learning the Cypher System, planning your next Numenera campaign, or just want to build a robot with swords for hands, this episode has you covered.
Key Takeaways
Numenera character advancement uses XP to improve stat Pools, Edge, Effort, and skills. Four advancements, costing 16 XP total, move a character to the next tier.
GM intrusions provide experience points while introducing complications that keep the story moving.
Salvaging ancient technology provides ordinary parts and valuable iotum needed for Numenera crafting.
Crafting plans determine required materials, difficulty, and construction time. Larger projects can take months, years, or even decades.
Automatons, cyphers, artifacts, vehicles, and installations offer powerful options, but depletion and repair costs can make them risky investments.
Community-building rules let characters develop settlements, construct defenses, and influence the Ninth World beyond individual adventures.
Exploration, salvaging, crafting, and settlement development create a rewarding gameplay loop that gives characters a reason to venture into dangerous ruins.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

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.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

Welcome to Numenera, where ancient technology is magic, character creation is an adventure, and Tyler is already looking for something dangerous to invent. This time, Randall walks us through building characters in the Ninth World, where your personality, abilities, and questionable life choices all become part of your character sheet. Ash wants a loyal adventurer. Tyler wants a reckless inventor. Randall just wants everyone to understand the rules before somebody accidentally destroys civilization. Again.
VBM.games/rpgbot 

Numenera 2-Book Set (affiliate link)

RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 1

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 2

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 3

Old Gods of Appalachia AP Part 4

Show Notes
In part two of our RPGBOT.Quickstart How to Play Numenera series, Randall guides Tyler and Ash through Numenera character creation using the Cypher System and the Discovery and Destiny rulebooks. We're building characters for the Ninth World, a science-fantasy setting where ancient technology powers extraordinary abilities, and understanding what you're doing is entirely optional.
We break down the three essential parts of building a Numenera character: Type, Descriptor, and Focus. Your Type determines your core abilities and role in the party. Your Descriptor adds personality traits, mechanical benefits, and limitations. Your Focus defines what makes your character unique, providing specialized abilities and connections to other characters.
Along the way, we explore the six Numenera character types, compare character-building options, and explain how Might, Speed, Intellect, Effort, and Edge shape gameplay. We also examine how character backgrounds, starting abilities, and advancement work together to create memorable characters without getting buried in complicated rules.
Tyler builds a Risk-Taking Wright Who Builds Tomorrow, an inventive tinkerer with more curiosity than caution. Ash creates a Loyal Jack Who Explores Yesterday, a versatile adventurer drawn to lost civilizations and ancient mysteries. Together, they demonstrate how Numenera's flexible character creation system turns a simple concept into a fully realized character with abilities, motivations, and roleplaying opportunities.
We also dig into GM intrusions, special dice results, and character connections, showing how the Cypher System encourages creative decisions and unexpected consequences.
Whether you're new to Numenera, learning the Cypher System, or looking for a character creation guide that doesn't require a spreadsheet and a minor existential crisis, we've got you covered.
Key Takeaways
Numenera character creation follows a simple formula: Descriptor + Type + Focus, creating a distinct character concept with mechanical and narrative depth.
Character Types define your primary abilities and playstyle. Discovery introduces the Glaive, Nano, and Jack, while Destiny adds the Arkus, Wright, and Delve.
Descriptors shape personality and provide mechanical benefits, limitations, and roleplaying opportunities.
Foci define your character's signature abilities, unlock new features as you advance, and establish connections with other characters.
Might, Speed, and Intellect form the foundation of Cypher System mechanics, while Effort and Edge influence how effectively characters handle challenges.
Character backgrounds and connections help players establish motivations, relationships, and reasons for adventuring together.
GM intrusions and special dice results introduce narrative twists that reward creative gameplay and occasionally punish spectacularly bad decisions.
Numenera's character-building system encourages players to start with a concept and let the mechanics support it, rather than forcing a character into a predetermined class.

Today on the RPGBOT.Podcast, we're talking about secret rolls, the wonderful tabletop RPG mechanic where the GM rolls your dice for you and then refuses to tell you what happened. Pathfinder 2e actually built rules for this. Dungeons & Dragons 5e mostly hands the problem to the DM and quietly backs out of the room.So grab your dice, hand them to the GM, and try not to look nervous. Apparently, not knowing whether you succeeded is a feature.
Show Notes
Sometimes knowing what you rolled is almost as dangerous as failing the roll. In this episode of the RPGBOT.Podcast, we dig into secret rolls in tabletop RPGs and why hiding the result of a check can completely change the way players experience a game. Pathfinder 2e secret checks provide a formal system for keeping certain results hidden, while D&D 5e leaves Dungeon Masters with considerably more improvising to do.
The problem starts with metagaming. A player rolls a 3 on an Insight check, gets told that an NPC seems trustworthy, and suddenly everyone at the table knows exactly how trustworthy that NPC probably isn't. Even when players try to separate player knowledge from character knowledge, ignoring a terrible die roll sitting in front of you is easier said than done. Secret dice rolls remove that information entirely.
We look at how secret rolls work particularly well for knowledge checks, Perception, Insight, Deception, hiding, sneaking, and social encounters. If the player doesn't know whether they succeeded, failed, or critically failed, information from the GM becomes part of the world instead of an obvious reflection of the number on the die.
Pathfinder 2e takes this idea especially seriously. The GM can make a secret check using the character's modifier, determine the degree of success, and describe only what the character knows. A successful Recall Knowledge check might reveal something useful. A critical failure might produce convincing misinformation. Either way, the player has to decide what to do without first checking the d20 for permission to believe the GM.
We also talk about one of the simplest tools available to a D&D 5e DM when secret checks aren't being used: sometimes a failed Insight check doesn't need to produce false information. The NPC can simply be hard to read. That keeps a bad roll from becoming a giant flashing METAGAME HERE sign over the conversation.
Secret rolls can also make exploration more interesting. Searching for traps, sneaking past enemies, or trying to determine whether something dangerous noticed you becomes considerably more tense when nobody knows exactly how successful the attempt was. And yes, some players absolutely hate this.
There is something deeply comforting about seeing your own dice roll. Taking that information away requires trust between the players and GM. But when everyone buys into it, secret checks can create suspense, uncertainty, and some wonderfully uncomfortable moments where the players have to make decisions using what their characters actually know.
We also wander into encounter design and homebrew campaign advice, because this is the RPGBOT.Podcast and staying completely on topic would apparently violate some kind of contractual obligation. Random tables, interesting terrain, multiple monsters, and unexpected complications can all help turn otherwise straightforward encounters into memorable tabletop RPG sessions.
So whether you're running Pathfinder 2e secret rolls, experimenting with hidden D&D 5e ability checks, trying to reduce metagaming at your table, or simply looking for better Dungeon Master techniques, there is one important lesson: Sometimes the most interesting die roll is the one the players never see.
Key Takeaways
Secret rolls help reduce metagaming by keeping players from knowing whether their characters succeeded or failed.
Pathfinder 2e has formal secret check mechanics that work especially well with Recall Knowledge, Perception, Deception, stealth, and other checks where knowing the die result could influence player behavior.
D&D 5e secret rolls are less formally defined, but DMs can still use hidden checks or carefully limit the information provided after failed rolls.
A failed Insight check does not always need to mean believing the opposite of the truth. Sometimes the best answer is simply that the NPC is difficult to read.
Knowledge checks become more interesting when players cannot immediately judge the reliability of the information based on their die result.
Critical failures can create believable misinformation, particularly in Pathfinder 2e, adding uncertainty without requiring players to intentionally ignore information they already know.
Secret Perception checks can make traps, hidden creatures, exploration, and investigation considerably more suspenseful.
Secret Stealth and Sneak checks create tension because players may not know whether an enemy has detected them until something actually happens.
Social encounters benefit from uncertainty. Hidden Insight and Deception checks allow conversations to feel more like interactions with characters and less like comparing numbers.
Secret rolls require trust. Players need confidence that the GM is applying the rules fairly when the dice are hidden.
Good encounter design goes beyond monster statistics. Multiple enemies, terrain, environmental complications, and unexpected problems can make encounters far more memorable.
Random tables can be excellent tools for homebrew campaign inspiration when you need locations, encounters, complications, or ideas you would not have invented on your own.
Whether you're playing Dungeons & Dragons 5e or Pathfinder 2e, secret rolls can create suspense by forcing players to act on character knowledge rather than the number sitting on the die.
And most importantly, when the GM rolls something behind the screen, smiles, and says, "Everything seems fine," everything is absolutely, definitely fine.



Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

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.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

In Part I of our Starfinder 2e Tech Core review, we covered the new ancestries, the Mechanic, cybernetics, Junkomancers, armed starfish, and hoverboard shields.
Now we get to the Technomancer, emoji magic, weaponized guitars, giant robots, streamer builds, and finally, after a very long wait, actual Starfinder 2e starship combat.

Starfinder 2e: Tech Core (affiliate link)
The Technomancer is a prepared caster built around programming languages, Spell Cache, Overclock, and Jailbreak. Its programming language acts like a subclass, with options such as DPS++, FORTRN, Servo Shell, and Viper pushing the class toward weapons, defense, minions, or spell gems. The result feels less like a wizard in space and more like a caster constantly modifying systems, improving gear, and cycling through a very satisfying overclock loop.
Tech Core's new spells are pure Starfinder. There are junk spells, starship spells, Summon Giant Robot, and an entire collection of emoji magic. You can blind enemies with emojis, create slippery pools with a crying face, summon emoji weapons, or spam someone so badly they take mental damage. There's also Kill -9, which turns a Linux command into a devastating high-level spell.
The equipment gets just as weird. Chordpocalypse is an electric guitar that doubles as a weapon. The Magical Mixtape gives you the perfect soundtrack for the moment. Laserdiscs have become weapons because nobody remembers what they were for. And streamer-focused gear can literally let you ask chat for help.
Then we finally arrive at the main event: Starfinder 2e starship combat.
Tech Core introduces full tactical starship rules, including ship construction, sensor maps, headings, shields, hull points, battle stations, system damage, weapons, upgrades, and expansion bays. Starship encounters are designed to involve more than ships trading shots, with boarding actions, hazards, repairs, and internal emergencies all potentially happening at the same time.
Ships come in three main frames: the durable Bulwark, the balanced Explorer, and the fast Skirmisher. They level with the party, and battle stations give individual characters meaningful jobs aboard the ship. Gunnery handles weapons, generators support shields, pilots maneuver, magic conduits give casters access to starship spells, and scanners can identify enemy systems so the crew can target and disable them.
One of the biggest design choices is that starships do not have normal credit costs. The GM introduces them through the story, and the ship improves automatically as the party levels. That keeps the focus on customization and adventure instead of turning the campaign into Space Mortgage Simulator.
Between the Technomancer, new spells and gear, and finally a complete starship system, Part II makes Tech Core feel like the book that fully unlocks the technological side of Starfinder 2e.
And Ash finally has his starship rules.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

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.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati

Starfinder 2e Tech Core is here, and apparently the answer to "How much weird science fiction nonsense can Paizo fit into one book?" is "Yes."
Starfinder 2e: Tech Core (affiliate link)
Show Notes
In Part 1 of our Starfinder 2e Tech Core review, we dig into the player-facing side of the book, starting with new ancestries, moving into the Mechanic class, and then wandering through a pile of new archetypes, companions, augments, grenades, junk magic, and deeply questionable robot design choices.
The new ancestries immediately establish the tone. Living Holograms can be advertisements, mascots, emojis, or full cartoon characters with stretchy arms, which means your next Starfinder character can technically be a homicidal cereal mascot. We also get SROs, fully customizable sentient robots, Virthani, who are basically humans after somebody turned every slider up, and the Cyborg versatile heritage for anyone who looked at their biological body and decided they could improve it with more hardware.
Then we get to the Mechanic, which Ash immediately declares to be the "Chad Inventor." The Mechanic revolves around an exocortex and lets players choose between a drone, mine, or turret setup. Each option changes how the class plays, while the Modify ability lets Mechanics temporarily improve weapons, equipment, and their technological creations without burning through a limited daily resource.
The class also gets one of the most useful pieces of adventuring technology imaginable: the custom rig. It can hold and integrate multiple toolkits, giving the Mechanic a portable collection of hacking, crafting, infiltration, and repair tools without requiring them to carry half a hardware store on their back.
From there, we explore Tech Core's new archetypes.
The Augmented archetype is for anyone who believes the appropriate number of cybernetic implants is "more." Grenadier does exactly what the name suggests, although disposable explosives can get expensive fast. Junkomancer turns garbage into magical resources and is described as less of a school of magic and more of a vibe, which may be the most Starfinder sentence ever written.
Nanocyte returns from Starfinder 1e as an archetype rather than a full class, allowing characters to control clouds of nanobots that can create cover, attack enemies, repair objects, and generally solve problems through aggressive applications of microscopic technology.
Pharmacologist gives you the ability to manufacture medical consumables and literally shoot medicine into people with syringe guns, because apparently Starfinder decided healing needed more firearms.
Shield Ace makes you better at shields. It exists.
Vehicle Pilot, meanwhile, lets characters lean heavily into hoverboards and other vehicles, including the extremely important ability to use a hoverboard as a shield because sometimes game design achieves perfection.
We also take a quick look at Starfinder 2e robot companions and animal companions, including a robot that appears to be a railgun with legs, thumbs, and a knife for reasons nobody can adequately explain.
And this is only Part 1.
Key Takeaways
Starfinder 2e Tech Core functions as a major core expansion, adding new ancestries, classes, archetypes, equipment, technology, and GM options.
Living Holograms might be the most ridiculous new ancestry in the book, with options ranging from advertisements and mascots to cartoon characters with twenty-foot stretchy arms.
SROs let players build highly customizable robot characters with modular upgrades, movement options, sensors, and physical modifications.
Virthani are highly adaptable humanoids with strong sci-fi utility and excellent support for characters built around augmentations.
The Cyborg versatile heritage dramatically increases a character's capacity for implants and opens the door to extremely augmentation-heavy builds.
The Mechanic is one of Tech Core's standout additions, offering three major playstyles through drones, mines, and turrets.
Modify gives the Mechanic repeatable, short-duration upgrades without relying on a limited daily resource.
The Mechanic's custom rig provides portable access to multiple toolkits and reinforces the class's identity as Starfinder's dedicated technology specialist.
The Augmented archetype is built around getting more mileage out of cybernetic implants and increasing augmentation capacity.
Grenadier improves thrown explosives and works well with Soldier abilities, but disposable grenades may create an ongoing equipment cost problem.
Junkomancer turns battlefield trash and scrap into magical resources, equipment, ammunition, and temporary upgrades.
Nanocyte returns as an archetype rather than a full Starfinder 2e class, using swarms of nanobots for offense, defense, repair, and utility.
Pharmacologist lets characters create medical consumables and deliver medicine or poison through syringe weapons.
Shield Ace is mechanically solid for defensive builds, even if nobody on the podcast appeared especially excited about it.
Vehicle Pilot becomes much more interesting in campaigns where vehicles actually matter, especially once hoverboards start doubling as shields.
Robot companions use mechanics similar to animal companions, allowing characters to customize robotic allies with different chassis and upgrades.
Tech Core embraces Starfinder's mixture of serious mechanics and complete nonsense, which is how we ended up discussing murderous holographic mascots, rocket fists, healing land mines, syringe guns, armed starfish, and robot railguns with knives.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.

Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.

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.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Tyler Kamstra
BlueSky: @rpgbot.net
TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET
Ash Ely
Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
BlueSky: @GravenAshes
YouTube: @ashravenmedia
https://ashelydm.com/
https://ashelydm.com/
Randall James
BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG
Amateurjack.com
Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link)
Producer Dan
@Lzr_illuminati