Calling All Dungeon Masters - Spire RPG Review 

I'm sure they take a while to make both in knowing the game, and making the video, but I'd love more TTRPG video reviews from shut up & sit down, love em!

Finished a Spire campaign, can confirm all of Quinns' zeal here. One of my player characters had the ability to shapeshift, not into an animal or people, but into the *idea of rebellion*. By leveraging the fact that even high-level player characters are going to eventually bite it, the game is happy to hand you the keys to extremely fun, extremely exciting moments the whole way down.

OMG i really love you guys doing rpg reviews in video format, should do them more often

I fucking love this guy. When I hear him talk about games, i allways secretly whish I could play some with him or discuss some shit. He definitly is one of a rare kind that I miss in my circle of idiots.

Loved this review. It's a pain that the process of playing a tabletop RPG campaign can take so long, because it makes so much of the coverage of it you can find be people's impression of the RPGs after reading the book and not actually playing the game.

Huh, I would've thought mouseguard would be inspired by guards. The more you know.

I drew these maps and am still available for map commissions fyi... 😁🗺️

Went and looked at this game on Amazon as I was watching this video right after it came out; the site said it was in stock, no caveats. Did some stuff and came back an hour or two later and it said “13 left! Order soon!”, so I ordered it. Just looked again and now it’s out of stock. Nicely done, SUSD!

As someone whose entire adolescence was getting together with my little siblings and running Star Wars RPG and Changeling: the Lost for hours and hours every day, the Tabletop RPG content is so delightful to see from SUSD. Quinns and Tom’s musings on Thousand Year Vampire we’re some of my favorite SUSD content in years… and now, again, I find myself inspired to hop back in. Thanks, Daddy Quinns. Glad you dislike Shadowrun, too. :)

I've been playing a lot of Slay the Spire recently, and while I'm convinced there's no connection between that game and Spire, I find it a happy coincidence that both games feature a massive, unsettling Spire with a horrific Heart in the center.

As if I needed another reason to love SUSD, Quinns shares with such an incredibly wide audience the excellence that is N.K. Jemisin and her Broken Earth trilogy. Such a class act.

I loved this! I have Heart, have played BitD, and am interested in Spire so this checks many boxes. I would very much be interested in more ttrpg-content from this channel!

I find, when DMing characters that are supposed to know the world, it's easiest to allow characters to improvise details within a framework. As they know the world. It is harder to do in such a fleshed out world, but I still find it so rewarding.

Oh my God! I've been absolutely obsessed with spire (and moreover it's spinoff HEART) for a good while now and it's so nice to see you guys bringing attention to one of the most underrated RPGs I've ever seen

The Shadowrun comment was spot-on: I own the fifth edition rulebook and the spine of it has broken off from the sheer amount of rules I had to constantly look up during just one campaign

I appreciate the smoothly integrated book review for N.K. Jemisin. This trilogy really is terrifyingly good.

If one would want an example of play of Heart, the always amazing Friends At The Table podcast ensemble have played it in their most recent season. They played in an absolutely amazing homebrewed world though.

I honestly really hope you guys do more RPG reviews. It's so helpful to have a channel you trust give their opinions on a game before you subject you and your friends to it. Knowing what to look out for and what to prepare for is SO unbelievably helpful.

Yesss not only do we get an RPG episode but Quinns is a Torchbearer fan? Hell yes.

Really loved this review, thanks for creating it and loved hearing your thoughts and experiences with RPG's that you've played previously. Also loved the cosplays everyone did of their characters in the final Spire session, so cool! Will definitely check out the RPG reviews on the Shut Up & Sit Down website. 😊 Would love to see more rpg content if that's video reviews or running a campaign if you were all up for sharing that online on here or on Twitch. 😊 Thanks again for the amazing content. Really appreciate all the love that goes into them.

"breaking the speed limit going down memory lane". Can we all take a second to appreciate that line, because that's a bloody good line.

I loved reading this book and the character classes are the most fun I've seen. However, it was *not* a good fit for an online campaign for us: everything felt so alien and weird that we'd have needed at least the familiarity of hanging out with friends around the same irl table to ground us. As a GM, it was one of the most exhausting RPG experiences I've had.

I love the abilities that revolve around throwing a wrench into the game master's narrative. I imagine it would be the same awesome feeling as finding a way to complete a goal in a video game that the game didn't expect you to do.

You got me fully sold when you mentioned the Broken Earth trilogy. Top notch detailed and entertaining review.

A SHSD rpg reveiw. What end of times have we reached.

I loved this review, you should do more RPG reviews on this channel. It made me SO HAPPY when you got to your copy of Deadlands and it was stuffed full of notes and character sheets, just like my own copy.

Just got introduced to DND and fell in love with it. Very excited to branch out into some of the RPGs here. I owe a lot of thanks to Shut Up and Sit Down for re-igniting my joy for board games.

A big thing to deal with getting players to learn a lot of lore about the setting is either 1: See if they're interested enough to do their own reading about it 2: Give them a few important hooks and get the players to fill in the rest! Ask the players to name and describe the local mafia or the weird art tastes of the elite etc. They will care more and remember more if they helped create the world.

Getting strong Necromunda vibes, and I like it!

What a treat. I've found, now that I have less time to prepare as a GM as life does its thing, the new OSR wave has breathed new life into my group. Stuff like Into the Odd, Mothership, great for one-shots, at the same time allowing for repeat players, and best of all, almost 0 prep.

more TTRPG videos please!!!

Hiya, in case you read all your comments I just wanted to say I admire your content. I stumbled upon your channel when looking for crokinole reviews. Ever since that moment I’ve checked out your reviews of games I wanted to buy and now even games I’ve never heard of. And I love all of it!

Loved this, please do more RPGs

Love the game, loved this review. I would be happy to see even more RPG material here.

Love the RPG content from you guys! The Mothership playthrough was actually my first video from this channel. Please do more! :)

Lovely video! I'd absolutely adore more RPG reviews if you guys can fit it in the schedule, as someone who'd love to play RPGs in theory but in reality doesn't often get to.

Loved seeing the end with the countdown to best memories playing and GM'ing these games. This gives me a way better idea of whether a game is good for my group or not than most reviews do. And there's always something about seeing the excitement on someone's face, rather than in written text, that helps when it comes to a game where the social elements are so important.

More video RPG reviews please! This was amazing and a pleasure to watch.

Loved the walk through the campaigns. That's valuable insight.

Genuinely a great review, your perspective on the practical reality of how it feels to play is good stuff!!

I'm gonna chime in here too. This video review of a ttrpg game was awesome! I absolutely love your content and would be stoked to see more rpg videos from you. Definitely going to check out the review on the site in the meantime :)

Quinns, this is the best review I've seen you do on this channel in years. Thank you, thank you, for the wonderful count-down to your favorite RPG. Your love of games is evident here.

More of this format please, this was great.

As a boardgamer who is RPG curious, thanks for doing those quick reviews. Now I want to try one myself!

Great review. By the way, if you like: - Free League stuff (publishers of Tales from the Loop) - "What if D&D was sad?" - A setting that's full of possibilities whilst also being constrained and coherent - A comparatively simple rules system ... I highly recommend Symbaroum. It ticks all of those boxes. I've played a bunch of TTRPGs and it's easily one of my favourites.

Honnestly Quins (is it with one or two ns?), your almost manic energy when talking about this game and the world it's set in is enough to sell me on the whole concept.

This was great. I know you have alot if RPG reviews in other formats, but I would love to see more video reviews of them!

SUSD has rolled a natural 20 and got the better of technology! Great review, loved the round up at the end.

Really enjoyed both the Spire review and the treat! Would love more video TTRPG reviews from Quinns and SUSD.

As someone who happily marathoned your entire game of Twilight Imperium, and am tempted to go watch it again just thinking about it, if you guys ever decide to record one of your TTRPG campaigns, you’d definitely have viewers for it

"Welcome to Perdido Street Station." LOL. This is where a lot of OSR presentation shines in introducing crazy cities in more digestible bits. Oooor players could read more. Just saying.

I can't recommend Mouse Guard enough! It's a delightful, playful, and rich game! It's also beautiful. I love it! Mouse Guard, Blades in the Dark, and Torchbearer are my favorites!

Delightful enthusiasm, i love it. This looks SO up my alley.

Haven’t watched the video but seeing a channel with as many subcribers as you having tons of tabletop rpg content is incredible. We need more people playing more games in this hobby!

Loved this vid, would love to see more toes dipped into videos of table top RPG stuff! (in fact, I think I first came across you guys from your review of Thousand Year Old Vampire!)

A fantastic review!! I think if I were to try and run this, Id probably restrict play to a level or two so I could reign in that insane scope

So when you said play on one floor - honestly, that kind of sounds like the intention almost and was my first intuition when hearing you explain how vast it is. A single floor is both physically and culturally contained if I'm reading this right and the others might as well be different worlds or countries. They're just somewhat close to each other compared to our own. In that sense it seems like the richness of the setting is quite malleable and can be diced up neatly - which is great. A choose your flavor of grimdark fantasy.

I found Spire a few years ago and just fell in love with the setting. I still have yet to play it, but I'm constantly tempted to buy all the books and maps.

There's some really fantastic insights here; I know, as you mention, that RPGs aren't really your "brand," but I'd love to see SU&SD review more RPGs.

This was awesome, hope you guys do more rpg reviews like this one!

Neat! I really like world-building that's pushes the envelope and takes risks, I might check this one out just to read about the world

This was fantastic! Please do more! Loved every minute of it!

SW: Edge of the Empire strangely missing from the list of "All of the roleplaying sets that I have ever played", ZB-33...

Thank you for this review. I love these RPGs and I would not have discovered them otherwise.

Really happy to see this. I haven’t had an RPG group in a long time, but I still find myself buying them. Getting the Aliens RPG from Free League was a highlight of my game buying recently because of how well they tied all the years of world building together in one book. Will have to check these out.

Got the link to this review via the Indie RPG Newsletter, so I checked it out and loved it. You did a great job of making it entertaining and providing depth. Next, I dove into your channels back catalog of videos, and was disappointed with the lack of RPG content. Don't get me wrong, I know you were trying something different with this video. I get it. Just wanted to see more RPG reviews, now. lol Anyways, this isn't a negative comment. Your board gaming content looks cool, too. I just hope, you dive into more RPG content in the future. Either way, I clicked the SUBSCRIBE button. Keep up the great work!

Wonderful review. I love Spire but I found The Heart (its even darker and more visceral companion) to be easier to run and easier to convince players to try. Please continue to review the RPGs you love!!!

Absolutely agree with the Blades in the Dark parts. One of my favorite campaigns with my favorite group of people. Always looked forward to GM'ing it no matter how unprepared I was

I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG TO HEAR A REVIEW ON AN RPG FROM YOU GUYS! If you need more recommendations: Kult, No way Home, Cyberpunk, Twilight 2000! So happy you guys have reviewed an rpg, you present something that is viewed as so static with something that has so much life and colour.

Loved that you did a video review of an RPG! Yes please to more of this kind of thing!

Love the Cowboy Bebop shoutout/reference! Bought the pdfs of Spire. Thanks for covering this one on video!

Just want to echo others and say, I'd love to see more RPG reviews from you guys. If you want to put them on a separate channel or something to not "dilute" the brand or whatever, so be it, but there's definitely an explosion in interesting RPGs and RPG review content on RU-vid feels like it is 10 years behind that of board games.

I loved this, and would love to see more videos about roleplaying games

Very informative and entertaining review. Would love to have more ttrpg reviews on the channel, as I am an ape that dislikes reading.

Thanks for the reviews! Lovely video!

Your criticism resonates very much with me, it also echoes my criticism of blades in the dark. having lots of pre-generated world seems great at first but I made the discovery that it's really annoying for everyone involved who doesn't like to remember 100+ pages of lore just to play the game to it's fullest. I think it's better to communicate the principles of the world not the world itself in all it's details, so that the group can create a world that has those interesting problems and still feel it's their own.

Ive always wanted to do rpgs but i feel like theres a massive gap to getting started so instead ive buried myself in board games. This video was exquisite, i could listen you talk for hours!

RPG reviews in video format are very much appreciated.

Those candles looked very real, but knowing your track record with tech, I bet the candles were electronic and blowing on them caused a short-circuit... Great video!

Hey....I did the artwork for Spire, great team to work for.

THIS IS MY JAM!!!! I love me some RPGs. And I love comparing rules systems. You hit me in the wheelhouse, Quinns.

Echoing some other comments, I'd love to see you cover Into the Odd! Especially since it's releasing in it's new Remastered format through a larger distributor very soon and should therefore be readily available at most FLGS and online stores in the future. It's also an absolutely beautifully bound book too!

Thank you for talking about Spire/Heart and for getting video content out for RPGs in general. I just recently pulled the trigger on Blades in the Dark, Spire *and* Heart because I love bizarre, creepy, depressing fantasy settings, especially those with relatively simple, narrative-focused rules that give more player agency and that take some weight off the GM's shoulders. I've been taking my time to digest all the setting fluff, the process of which has been a joy in and of itself, even if it is a little overwhelming at times. I'm very eager to start putting my friends through a campaign. I'm actually torn between whether I want to start them with Blades or with Spire. I'm leaning toward Blades, simply because I think my players will enjoy the "crew development" aspect and watching how their decisions change the growth of their criminal enterprise. Truth be told, though, I will probably run them through campaigns of all three and have them tell me which they ended up enjoying most. Cheers!

You're reviewing RPGs? I didn't know! Damn, this channel will take even more of my time now! :-)

I really like the SUSD RPG reviews - I also like that they focus on indie's RPG that can use the attention. I think they should do one RPG video once in a while - it a good change of pace from board games while related, the two communities overlap a lot, and is good if they bring an interesting take or present games from smaller publishers. I personally have both the Spire and the Hearth - they are both a joy a read but have yet to play them so this is a nice play review that will certainly help me set-up my campaign in this magnificent setting.

I've wanted to try out Blades in the Dark for awhile now. I love the RPG content. I would love to suggest Ryuutama as an RPG if you want something chill to roleplay with friends. It might be the best palate cleanser between big dramatic campaigns.

This was a great video! Might have to check Spire out. Would love other RPG reviews!

Great review, love the RPG content. You all rock!

More RPG reviews on the channel please! Awesome video

Great review that has definitely got me excited for spire and heart. The spaceship problem has a simple solution. You do kill them all, you do let them know that if that ship blows up, they better be in suits, or running to the shuttle ASAP. Space combat becomes the single most intense thing they have ever done.

Seeing San Miguel bottles on your table made me smile.

Good timing. I just bought a grim dark setting yesterday. I'm totally sold on the Cypher / Numenera rules set, and bought "Gods of the Fall". The setting reminds me of Spire, except all the old gods are dead, and you are the demi-god heroes on your way to ascension. I grim, and downtrodden world, but with a less tragic ending.

Love the Stone Sky shout out. One of my favorite series.

Love to see more RPG reviews!

Got so so excited when you pulled out the N.K. Jemisin. By far one of my favorite contemporary specfic writers, if not absolute favorite.

I was one of the kickstarter supporters for Heart. It' such a wonderful book to read and the art is fantastic, but i've found trying to persuade anyone to actually sit down and play it with me a bit challenging.

This was great! Please do more TTRPG reviews. Learning a TTRPG game is always such an investment of time and energy, it's great to know what's good about the TTRPG and if it's worth it.

Btw, in Tales from the Loop, there is no mention of playing your favorite song to auto-pass a skill check.That might've been a houserule. As far as I can tell, it has no mechanical effect. Or I'm completely blind and jsut can't find the page where it says so. Either or.

And I loved seeing Quinn in love while making this video. Inspirational as always.

Great stuff and I love seeing stuff on non Dnd rules sets as a GM that has abandoned DMing in DnD. To add to your list here is mine! City of mist, DnD 3.5e, DnD 5e, Shadowrun 6, Vampire the Masquerade 5e, Lancer, and my favorite TTRPG to ever DM was.... Monster of the week! I have a few rulesets that I haven't played yet: Band of blades (Same core system as blades in the dark but a different setting) Cortex Prime (trying to make my own pirate ruleset), Mork Borg and Things from the flood (which is tales from the loop a bit older kids and in the 90s rather than the 80s).