Gunpowder Treason, No Plot is a weekly actual play podcast using Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. Running since 2018, the show introduces its audience to a lived-in fantasy world, so lived-in the campaign is several sessions old before episode one. It’s not often a TTRPG series that has the guts to start midstream, let alone far enough to necessitate a 300 word lore-dump on the show’s website. If one’s interest is piqued, the podcast has spent three years building out its WordPress free-blog-turned-wiki, creating in-depth bios of characters (including links to in-character Twitter accounts).

There’s a lot of effort being put into things that other podcasts don’t necessarily allocate resources to. GTNP embodies the old maxim “work with the tools you have.” The show’s first episode comes with a baked-in warning from the future promising better audio quality in the second arc.  Artwork of the player characters are, in actuality, screenshots of models generated in popular D&D custom minifigure website Hero Forge. While commendable in its current state, it would be nice to see that can-do attitude shifted from gimmicks toward accessibility. Transcripts for TTRPG shows require a lot of effort, but would make GTNP far easier to pick up. 

We were fortunate to talk with Cookson about the podcast, how they differentiate from other podcasts, and their future plans in podcasting. See below for our full Q&A.

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DISCOVER PODS: How’d you get into podcasting?

COOKSON: I’ve been listening to podcasts for years now, with RPG and history pods being a personal favourite on any long commute. Initially GTNP started as just a game between long-time friends to keep in touch despite time and work commitments pushing us to live at opposite ends of the country. We played regularly for a few months until one day a conversation arose around whether other people would have fun listening in to our game. From that kernel of an idea the show you see today was born, we never started D&D with a podcast in mind but the support we have received has been amazing and it’s driven us to work hard on providing an enjoyable product every week.

DISCOVER PODS: In your own words, why should listeners tune in to Gunpowder, Treason, No Plot?

COOKSON: If you enjoy D&D and RPG podcasts but fancy a show that tells a darker story centred around cosmic horror, player madness, societal revolution, and an air of mystery then GTNP is certainly the show for you. Our players often walk a thin line between heroic deeds and villainous acts as the world we have built together is more morally grey than most. This unique homebrew setting allows for the truly bright moments to shine all the stronger but also allows the macabre story beats to create a sense of dread.

DISCOVER PODS: What kind of feedback have you heard from your listeners?

COOKSON: Our listeners have always been great at providing feedback for our show. We know that they love our characters and dark, complex, horror themed story, and that we offer something unique in the RPG space by having a group who do not play into the traditional heroic architypes. As all cast members are long-time friends, we have also had great success in providing natural reactions and humour for anyone listening. That said, our first hurdle was getting people past our technical issues at the start of our show. The sound quality has come on leaps and bounds since then, but it understandably turned a few people away early on. Additionally, as none of our team were professional podcasters, our nerves are showing in those first few recordings before we really settled into a rhythm.

DISCOVER PODS: Describe your recording set up? What equipment are you using?

COOKSON: We have always been an online only podcast. As our team is located too far apart to record in a studio, we have had to make the show work across long distance since the very beginning. We use discords craig bot and OBS as our main and backup recording tools, roll20 to run the session, and D&D Beyond for character building. I’m using a Blue Yeti microphone mounted on an adjustable microphone arm, with some Audio-Technica headphones and a HDMI monitor switch so that I can keep as much information at my fingertips as possible. Editing is usually done in Audacity, with Syrinscape for additional music and sound effects. My partner, Margarida, has also provided additional custom music work using garageband to really amp up our most climatic moments.

Read more: The 69 Nicest Actual Play Podcast Highlights of 2020

DISCOVER PODS: What’s the biggest challenge you face as an indie podcaster?

COOKSON: Getting noticed and having a new listener give us a real time commitment. We exist in a space that contains hundreds of RPG and D&D specific podcasts, so listeners are inundated by choice, and as most of these shows are an hour or longer it’s a big decision for someone to comment their time to one podcast over another. Additionally, as our show is designed around a long running story it can take a few episodes for our hooks to really sink in and have you coming back for more each week. On the positive, that slow burn does have a nice pay off as most of our fans go from listening a few hours a week to binging our whole campaign!

DISCOVER PODS: Where do you want to take your podcast?

COOKSON: We’re a show that has grown a great deal over our lifetime, we started with minimal resources and knowledge, but we’ve been able to reach a point where our show can compete with any indie RPG pod on the market. Our next steps involve a few different expansion areas as both an organisation and as a D&D story. We’ve been working on building more of a community with our Discord server and Patreon, as well as helping new listeners out with a fan contributed wiki that’s under construction by one of our long-term fans (shout out to Skeletor!). Our technology has undergone numerous upgrades over the last few years and audio quality is something we will always look to improve upon.

As for the pods story and characters, I can say that there’s a lot of tale left to tell. Where the players will be going from Arc 2 onwards should hopefully keep our fans eagerly awaiting our next instalment and there will be plenty of payoff for those long-time listeners who love to pour over every little detail of the narrative.

DISCOVER PODS: What other podcasts are you listening to now?

COOKSON: I’m a huge fan of the Glasscannon Podcast, Adventure Zone, NADDpod and Critical Role. Outside of keeping up with other RPG pods I also listen to Hardcore History and the Revolutions podcasts.

DISCOVER PODS: Anything else you’d like to add?

COOKSON: I will constantly be surprised by the amount of love and positivity our show has generated over these past few years. We started the show just for fun and could never have dreamed that it would grow a following and have fans who want more and more of our adventures put out into the world. So, I just want to say thank you to the tabletop RPG community for welcoming our little slice of madness into their space and to all the listeners who have shown their support.

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