Before I ever rolled a 20-sided die, I spent many years wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons. I knew the lore and concept mostly through video games and had never come across anyone who wanted to party up IRL. That all changed when, by sheer luck and random timing, I got invited to two campaigns at once. One, a classic D&D adventure, Curse of Strahd. The other? A homebrew creation using the Pathfinder system.
As a lifelong overachiever and former straight-A student, I desperately wanted to understand the rules immediately. My GM helped me create my first druid, a halfling named Selene, and the fact that the character sheet mystified me pissed me off. So, I turned to the group’s mutual recommendation for quickly picking up the rules of Pathfinder – an actual play podcast called The Glass Cannon Podcast.
Falling in love with something new and making it my entire personality is kind of a pattern with me, and as anyone who tried to hold a conversation with me in 2019 can attest, I once lived and breathed the GCP. Until I didn’t.
It’s Always Hard to Leave a Good Campaign Behind
When I first started listening to the GCP, they were midway through the Giantslayer Pathfinder Adventure Path. Because I was a good few years late to the game, I had plenty of catching up to do, and there’s nothing I love more than a loooong podcast queue. That year, I spent hours on long walks getting to know the main cast from the original Glass Cannon Podcast adventure.
In true parasocial fashion, I would sometimes bring up their pre-show banter as if repeating an actual conversation with a friend. As much as I loved the epic adventures of Baron Redheart, Lorc Irontusk, Gormley Call, and Galabrus Finn, I also enjoyed the casual chitchat that let me get to know the personalities behind each one. It was like following two casts of characters – those who were on a campaign to stop the giants from destroying Golarian, and those who were trying to build up their podcast into a juggernaut property.
Unlike some podcasts that cut out a lot of the nitty gritty of rules and rolls, the GCP leaves it all in. That made it easy to pick up on the Pathfinder mechanics by listening. Hearing Troy, Joe, Skid, Matthew, and Grant argue about the rules helped me learn them by heart. Soon, I was the annoying player at the table bringing up obscure possibilities to try and convince my GM to let my druid do all sorts of creative things. It made the game more fun, knowing that semi-professionals messed up the rules, too.
Giantslayer was an epic campaign, and I spent several years of my life listening along as the GPC took it on. The sense of humor just hit, and I loved the way they added their own elements to make the story something all their own. But like any campaign, eventually, the adventure concluded. It felt like leaving behind a piece of myself, saying goodbye to that world and those characters. I’d listened to the podcast for several years at this point, and knowing that the cast and story were about to shift in dramatic fashion left me feeling uneasy.
The new campaign would be something called Gatewalkers, with a much different, more horror-bent direction. Over the years of my fandom, the Glass Cannon Podcast had become The Glass Cannon Network, adding several new shows to their regular rotation. At first, I tried to keep up with them all, but a girl only has so many listening hours. One in particular, Get in the Trunk, became a favorite that brought my husband into the GCP fold. It follows the Delta Green system, which is based heavily on Lovecraftian horror. I’m not a horror girlie, but that show was phenomenal, and I wasn’t surprised to see the crew leaning into something similar eerie for their flagship show.
I wanted to love Gatewalkers. The new cast included two female actors, something that made my little nerd girl heart happy. And the cast is great, truly. But episode after episode, I kept waiting for the story to grab me. When it didn’t, I eventually fell off listening altogether, leaving the constant weekly ritual of GCP banter and actual play adventuring behind.
Reuniting with Old Friends
Before I knew it, nearly a year had gone by since my last listen of The Glass Cannon Podcast. Not only had I fallen behind in the Gatewalkers adventure, I’d also lost track of the network itself. That pre-show banter kept me looped in on the new shows and ventures of the GCP, and without it, they seldom popped up on my social feeds.
At some point late last year, I came across a post that reminded me how long it’d been since I’d heard the GCP. I can’t remember now what it was, but some new show or other bit of news I once would’ve known about well in advance. Looking ahead to 2025 and my goals for the new year, it hit me suddenly how many of the things I used to love I’d left behind.
Becoming a freelance writer was a dream come true in so many ways, but it also means my daily life is a constant grind of searching for clients, pitching, and writing enough to make ends meet. When I was in the big portfolio-building phase, I didn’t prioritize work/life balance at all. I was either writing, browsing job boards, or playing games so I could write about them. Day off? Never heard of her.
Along with that came me drifting away from old hobbies like listening to The Glass Cannon Podcast, baking, or anything else that wasn’t work. In that moment, seeing how disconnected I was from a fan community that once brought me joy, I realized that needed to change in 2025. Yes, I’ll still be busy, but surely I can come back to some of the things I love. A Sunday afternoon baking sourdough with the GPC in the background? I missed that.
A long scroll through the podcast queue brought me back to March 2024, the last time I listened to the Gatewalkers adventure. I’m now a few weeks into my return to form, and it is already filling my emotional cup more than I could imagine. I remember why I love that pre-show banter and why it’s fun to sink into an actual play podcast… even if Pathfinder 2E confuses me almost as much as it confuses the cast.
It’s a small thing, leaning back into a podcast. It takes basically no effort except pressing play in those moments where I might otherwise relisten to an old episode of Maintenance Phase. And yet, it’s setting the right tone for 2025. I want this to be the year I figure out how to do the things I love alongside the work I love, and to have hobbies I haven’t monetized.
To get back on track with being a person, not just a writing machine, a couple of things are gonna happen (if you know, you know). It starts with catching up on the GCP and getting a new sourdough starter ready to go. It starts with taking an actual, honest-to-goodness day off every week.
And yes, it’s probably going to mean I go back to those old inside jokes from pre-show banter that only make sense to me. So to my friends who know me best, get ready to brush up on the lingo of the ‘Naish, ’cause it’s back on the menu.
Looking for more ways to combine TTRPG love with hobbies? Check out our Deck of Many Morsels Review to serve up some recipes inspired by D&D.
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