InTarotgation

InTarotgation presents a simple concept that is somehow also entirely unique compared to anything I’ve ever seen: What if you did in-character tarot readings for people’s TTRPG characters. Dusty, the host of the show, executes this concept beautifully, encompassing an introduction of the guest and their character, some well-thought-out questions about the character (to get the guest in the headspace for what’s next), and then a roleplay session where Dusty plays their own persona, The Guide, doing a tarot reading for the guest’s character. This is followed by a short discussion about thoughts and feelings about the reading. The whole thing is accompanied by beautiful background music, and wraps up in a very comfortable 45 minutes. A 45 minutes that leaves me feeling like I’ve gotten a deep insight into the star character of the episode, like I’ve sat down and had an intimate conversation with them myself.

For the screener episode, the guest is Sea and their character Rune, the protagonist from Transplanar’s Godkiller: First Blood. Despite having not seen the original material Rune is from, the introduction gives a very good feel of who they are as a character. They also talk about the creation of Rune, and where both the character and performance came from for Sea. The insights into Rune become even clearer after Dusty’s questions, exploring the character’s beliefs, experiences, relationships. I consider this segment another unique element of the show, as ‘getting into character’ or what some might call ‘pre-roleplay’ is a part of actual play productions that doesn’t really get shown to viewers, so to speak. What came next surprised me in the best way, and in hindsight makes SO much sense: Sea is asked where and when the roleplay scene for the Reading will be set, and when the Reading begins it is Sea who sets the scene and starts off the roleplay. The Guide is introduced by Dusty soon after, quite naturally someone Rune encounters and gets a reading from. Three cards are pulled, Rune gets insights about their world, The Guide hands them a card to keep and tear, and Rune leaves, ending both the Reading and the roleplay.

There’s many wonderful moments throughout this main segment. Rune is an interesting choice for this show, as their world has a lot of lore built around tarot cards, with the God character’s domains corresponding to some cards and suits (from my understanding). This plays out with Rune associating each card in the Reading with a specific presence in their life. At the end of the Reading, they are given the final card to keep and eventually ‘tear into a million pieces’, something I couldn’t make sense of at first. As they discuss in the final segment of the show, it conveyed tearing up that element in Rune’s life, and letting go of it. Also in this segment, Sea comments “This transience isn't something I think about Rune usually”, a testament to the brilliance of this show’s concept, that even the player of the character learns more about them through it. A cherry on top for me personally was that in the concluding segment they also talked about the tarot deck used, and the imagery on the cards.

Overall, I found the show very enjoyable. Dusty is excellent as both an interviewer and a tarot reader, knowing what insights to draw out from the character. Everything comes together to provide a very holistic view of the star character of the episode. It’s exciting tohear a show about TTRPGs that’s exploring them in such an interesting way, and I can’t wait to see what else InTarotgation has in store!

This review was written collaboratively by Aida and Michelle, two staff at EUphoria. We both watched/listened to the assigned show, made individual notes, then discussed and collated our thoughts into one review. In particular we aimed to consider how each show screener delivered on their stated purpose and themes, as well as considering the following elements: accessibility and inclusion, visual/sound design, incorporation of game mechanics, and performances.

Conveyance of Theme and Clarity of Purpose:

The show info document described this show as “an in-character interview show.”  Given that this show intends to guide the guest through exploring their character more deeply via a tarot reading, we felt that too long was spent on the out-of-character chat section before getting to the tarot reading scene. The reading scene was introduced at 18 minutes in, and the first card was not pulled until 27 minutes in. As a first-time listener expecting a show about tarot reading, listening for almost half an hour before a tarot card was pulled was surprising.

The prepared questions, which started 10 minutes in, were excellent. They were very thoughtful, clear, and allowed the guest to give directed and useful information about their character. Because the opening, unstructured monologue from the guest was quite long, it was difficult for us to follow. Those of us who were not familiar with their Godkiller show only truly began to understand who the character was once the prepared questions were introduced. We would therefore encourage you to get to these questions much sooner, if not straight away, after the intros.

Following on from this point, we would encourage you to consider who your target audience is. We were unsure of whether you are aiming the show more at regular listeners who tune in to hear a different tarot reading each episode, or at fans of the guests who would only tune in to hear that guest’s episode. Either of these is a valid audience to target, but which you are aiming more at does have implications for what aspects of the conversation should make it to your final edit. For example, from the perspective of a fan who knows the guest’s show, the background information about the differences between the original home game and the show may be very engaging, while somebody who is tuning in for the tarot reading and doesn’t know the guest’s show may find this confusing and hard to follow.

Access and Inclusion:

We appreciated that the show started with a simple introduction of the host and guest, including pronouns, and the guest spoke straight after being introduced so that as listeners we knew exactly which voice connected to which person.

We would suggest also including an introductory sentence at the top of the show stating what the show is (i.e. that you are going to do an in-character tarot reading with your guest) as you never know if this is the first episode someone is listening to, and setting expectations is very helpful for some listeners.

We liked the inclusion of the guest talking about their vulnerability in playing a very emotional role, and the steps taken to improve their safety at the table. It’s always great to model and normalise safety tools and speak frankly about the emotional toll that roleplaying can take.

Game Mechanics:

The mechanic of using a real-life tarot deck to guide an in-character reading is novel, and although neither of us are very familiar with tarot-reading ourselves we were intrigued by it. We appreciated that at the start of the reading segment you explained a bit about how tarot is very interpretive and not exactly fortune telling or predicting the future, as this both established more about how the mechanic would be used and helped set the scene and transition us nicely from the chat section to the AP section. We think that you should have mentioned you were really pulling cards from a physical deck at this point, if not at the very start of each episode, as it is important information for the listener so having it at the end of the episode felt confusing.

We liked that you handed your guest the metaphorical reins and gave them a GM moment where they could describe the world and the scene as well as their character coming upon the  character of The Guide. This brought us nicely into the world of the game and having some visual information to paint a picture in our minds helped to establish the change from host and guest chatting to two characters interacting.

The card reading itself was interesting to listen to as an audience who do not know very much about tarot. We don’t feel qualified to comment on the interpretations but we enjoyed them as a jumping off point for discussion and introspection. This show relies a lot on conversation with very little action, movement or narration, so we felt that when you did bring in visual information such as descriptions of the cards this shift in energy helped us refocus.

You didn’t mention until the end that you were describing the real cards in your hands so we wondered whether you were inventing illustrations for each card you pulled, creating in-universe ones to suit your guest’s character. It might be a nice idea for you to try this! Or if you use a different deck for each episode, again mention which deck you are using at the start rather than the end, to help your audience visualise what is happening. Your excitement when describing your deck was infectious, and it would have been good to hook the audience in with that enthusiasm for tarot sooner.

Our favourite moment was when you gave the guest character a card and told them to rip it up when the time was right. This little bit of physical interaction and visual information broke up the long conversation and added intrigue and story. We would encourage you to keep using moments like this, with simple action and visuals, to keep your audience immersed in the world of the story throughout the reading.

Performances:

The concept of temporarily joining a character in their world is really interesting, and both host and guest gave lovely performances throughout the AP section. The fact that they took thescene seriously allowed the characters to take it seriously, and in turn we as an audience took it seriously.

We enjoyed hearing the guest reflect on the reading afterwards and tell us what the reading revealed or made them reconsider about their character. It might have been nice for the host to tell us what they learned about Rune from the reading too. We found that the end of the show was a little abrupt, with no goodbye or outro from the guest. Consider adding a little solo reflection from the host on the conversation, or just a simple wrap-up message to make the ending of the show more gentle. 

Sound Design:

The choices of backing music set a warm, inviting atmosphere which we enjoyed. The piano backing music during the chat section was a little busy and one of us found it distracted from the speakers because of this. We would suggest lowering this music in the mix or substituting for something similar but with less ornamentation. The music used during the tarot reading itself was simpler and we therefore enjoyed it more and none of us found it distracting.

We found the very upbeat intro music hard cutting into relaxing piano backing music a little jarring. The show might benefit from swapping out the intro music for something that conveys the chilled tone of the show a little better, and transitioning more smoothly between the intro music and the show.

The volume of the two speakers was balanced nicely and the audio was clean and easy to understand without pops, crackles or plosives. This made for a very pleasant listening experience throughout.

Overall/closing thoughts:

Intarotgation has a unique premise and the idea of combining interview and AP in one podcast is really clever. We enjoyed the use of tarot reading as a prompt to drive an in-character conversation and especially liked the moments that made the reading feel more like an AP by including description and actions as well as dialogue. We think the show could benefit from either getting more quickly to the unique and exciting section, namely the tarot reading scene, or from altering the marketing of the show to describe it more as an interview show with a tarot reading at the end. Ultimately we commend the innovative use of tarot as a framework for character exploration and hope that our thoughts and feedback are helpful as you continue to work on this project.

Podcast, PG-13

Experimental, Interview

System: 3 card tarot read for a character in an AP

Content Notices: Mentions of war in character backstory

Description

An in character interview show where the Host (dustehill) does tarot reads for a single guest and a character of their choice from a TTRPG they play them in. The themes of the show is to really learn who the character is by delving into something as vulnerable about talking about their dreams and fears.

Liberatory Artistic Practices 

When reaching out to people for this show, I make it very clear that the show will not have anyone that is bigoted, Zionist, or supports the ongoing genocides all across the world. It also lets people confront the stories they are writing with their characters and explore what being involved in perhaps world ending events or stop a tyrant from taking over their world and what impact that they, a single person, has had. I think that's an important thing to explore right now.