Did you miss out on the cosmic horror and community vibes at Chaosium Con in Ann Arbor, Michigan? This week on Good GMs, James and Chuckie sit down to recap Chuckie’s weekend at this uniquely intimate tabletop gaming convention. Boasting a comfortable crowd of around 450 attendees, Chaosium Con is the ultimate space to skip the massive stadium crowds of Gen Con and actually rub shoulders with industry legends, swap horror stories with fellow Keepers, and level up your skills as a Game Master.

• Convention Etiquette & Bad GMs: The critical importance of showing up early and knowing your rules. When a neighboring GM flaked out on their players, our friend "Big Stompy Robot" from the Savage Sessions RPG Podcast stepped up to absorb the players and save their hard-earned vacation time.
• Propping Up Your Con Game: Why presentation is everything. Chuckie talks about laminating massive custom maps, while James details packing an entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles session inside pizza boxes (complete with colored eye masks and custom dice trays) to turn a regular game into an unforgettable show.
• The Campfire Tales Leak: A look at Chaosium's upcoming Call of Cthulhu book Campfire Tales (focusing on scouting themes) and how modern safety mechanics stop horror GMs from becoming actual "monsters" when running high-terror games involving younger characters.
• A Brush with Chaosium Royalty: Chuckie shares a hilarious story about running The Haunting, navigating a wagon full of oversized props, and unknowingly talking shop with Chaosium's Vice President and Creative Director, Jeff Richard, and his multi-table-running wife!

Resources in This Episode:

• Pick up community-made sourcebooks or publish your own gaming content over on DriveThruRPG.
• Listen to Bridgett Jeffries over at the Miskatonic University Podcast.
• Watch incredible, system-agnostic GM advice from Seth Skorkowsky on YouTube.
• Check out Chuckie's Live Play show, featuring E.E. Morris, our producer, Rainey, and our buddy Big Stompy Robot at the Savage Sessions RPG Podcast
• Organize your TTRPG worlds, NPCs, and hyperlinked lore sheets with Kanka Campaign Manager.
• Download the free Call of Cthulhu starter scenarios mentioned in the show: The Haunting Quickstart and What's in the Cellar?

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Welcome back to the Good GMs Podcast! Today, James Currie and Chuckie Tee are talking about the art of "Frankenstein-ing" your tabletop games. We’re looking at those specific rules or mechanics from one system that are just too good not to steal and port over to another. After all, it's your homebrew—might as well make it the game you actually want to play.

What We’ve Been Playing Lately:

Chuckie highlights a recent Vampire session run by our mysterious and crime-positive producer, Rainey Robertson, who handled her first time in the Storyteller's seat with a story she wrote herself.

Discworld (Modiphius): James shares his experience with this wacky, pun-filled system where stats are descriptions and character traits like "always knows where 'lost' is" lead to some very creative loophole-finding.

Honey Heist: A look at Grant Howitt’s notorious one-sheet RPG where you play bears in hats trying to pull off a heist while balancing "Bear" and "Criminal" stats.

Vegas and Vampires: Chuckie catches us up on his modern-day Call of Cthulhu run in Lost in the Lights.

The Art of the Steal: We dive into the specific mechanics we love to "cannibalize":

Luck as a Benny: How to adapt the Call of Cthulhu Luck mechanic into other systems to decide things outside of character skills—like whether a cab will actually show up at 3:00 AM in a bad part of town.

The Pushed Roll: Borrowing from Cthulhu to give players a second chance after a failure—with the caveat that the GM tells you exactly how bad things will get if you fail the second time.

Failing Forward: Using "adversity tokens" from Kids on Bikes or experience systems from Powered by the Apocalypse to ensure that failing a roll still drives the story forward.

Support Mechanics: Making sure every player has a way to "shine" even if they aren't the primary character in a scene—whether it's holding a candle for the lockpicker or providing a social distraction.

Clocks and Progress Bars: Taking a cue from Blades in the Dark and The Quiet Year to give players a visual countdown for everything from reading a massive tome to the growing power of a Big Bad in the East.

Gritty Horror Tweaks: James shares a survival horror hack for Savage Worlds where the entire table shares one finite bowl of "Bennies," creating desperate tension as the resources disappear.

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Welcome to a very special episode of the Good GMs Podcast! Today, we PIVOT TO VIDEO~ And are joined by the legendary founders of 12 to Midnight, Ed Wetterman and Preston DuBose, to talk all things Savage Worlds: East Texas University (ETU).

*Youtube listeners have heard this episode, and can skip ahead to the eleven minute mark to hear an EXCITING ANNOUCEMENT! Good GM's will be hosting our first ever actual play on Patreon, FOR FREE, of Fresh Blood - join now and get notified when it drops! The show is available to all member tiers of the Patreon, but you must join as a member to see it! It's live as of 5/24/2026, go check it out!

Whether you’re a long-time fan of the Pinebox, Texas setting or a new GM looking for the perfect "gateway drug" into modern horror, this episode is packed with insights. We dive deep into the upcoming ETU: Fresh Blood Kickstarter, exploring how this new edition for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) revamps the college horror experience with graduate school options, refined ritual magic, and brand-new plot point campaigns.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Origins of 12 to Midnight: Revisit the 2003 release of Last Rites of the Black Guard and how it all began.
• Fresh Blood Details: Why this is a "new game" with all-new plot points, Savage Tales, and monsters.
• Rituals & High Strangeness: How the magic system has been refined and why technology and magic definitely don't mix.
• GM Wisdom: Ed and Preston share their top tips for building a shared, communal storytelling world and keeping the "hook" alive between adventures.
• Chickens in the Mist: The notorious TPK adventure returns as a graphic novel.

Support the Show & Our Guests!

🎓 Back the Kickstarter! Don't miss out on East Texas University: Fresh Blood! Enroll at your own risk and grab those early bird rewards. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/545820095/east-texas-university-fresh-blood-savage-worlds

🌐 Visit 12 to Midnight: Explore the cosmology of Pinebox, check out the latest blog posts, and find classic adventures like The Beast Within and the Last Rites of the Black Guard. https://12toMidnight.com

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