D&D is for Nerds RSS Feeds and You

Posted: February 29, 2024 by Joel Zammit

In the last year or so you might have noticed some changes to the D&D RSS feed. We’ve done little side quests, bonus campaigns, some connected to the canon, some not. We even had a non-D&D campaign in the feed for a bit and currently it’s a campaign we decided to have another crack at. I figured to make things simple I’d clean up the RSS feed, create a few more and have in essence the main story, the bonus campaigns, things that weren’t canon and a feed where we play different roleplaying systems. As previously mentioned, I hate RSS feeds and so when certain fruit based companies make it a policy to avoid having season and episode numbers in the title, a certain handsome duck needs to go back and change something like 400 odd episode entries. Manually. Thankfully our UI for uploading an episode looks something like this:

Astute readers will notice a beautiful category called Subtitle and you might think to yourself that this is the perfect place to put the title of the campaign, freeing up the Title of the episode and can you believe it? There’s even a season and episode number section to fill out! Surely this will make things easier for the listener and surely there’s a way to mass edit these entries! Nothing could be further from the truth.

You see, what you don’t understand is just how terrible RSS Feeds are. Every podcast app pulls the information from what we fill out but how it’s displayed is entirely up to the app. Some display content via season, some don’t care about that, some take episode art while others only take show art. To make it even better, each podcast provider has something different ranging from overly complicated to bare bones.

I was a naive man. I thought it would be a great idea to clean up the feed, fill out the subtitle section to get rid of the campaign name in the title and only have the season and episode number appear in the season and episode number section. Combine that with the different podcast art for the campaigns, how could this fuck up? If anything I’ll get sweet little accolades from you, our dear listener, sending me blessings that I made everything so easy to navigate and user friendly. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Subtitle? I still don’t know what that does and where that appears in podcast apps. That Link section? We just straight up avoid it. Episode # and Season? Well that only pops up on some podcasting apps. Individual episode art? I see you’re a gambling man! Good luck! What ended up happening was a schmozzle of incoherent episode titles with no discerning beginning or end of each campaign presented to you like someone lifting up a cloche to reveal what was once food but was really about 14 different cuisines, slightly blitzed and poured onto a plate. And there’s me. Holding this mess, grinning from ear to ear, proud at what I had achieved, expecting a tip.

When you run the ship like we do, where by and large most of the campaigns are stand alone with some directly following the other, this is an issue.

I did not get sweet little accolades.

I got the opposite. Confusion and a bit of anger. Now a certain handsome duck needed to go back and change something like 400 odd episode entries. Manually. Again.

With that all said, here I’m going to outline the RSS feeds we currently have as of February 2024.

D&D is for Nerds

The main story. Currently we’re in the midst of a multi-year, multi-campaign interconnected story with Tiefany, Hecktor and Ser Grace. I’ll put together a potential listening order in another post but we’ve got 17 seasons with some having shorter bonus campaigns at the end that either go with the vibe of the main season or were recorded and released around that time. For example we have Season 1 (which we’ve retroactively called Welcome to Ogg Nott) and at the end of that there’s the short Autticus campaign and D&D is for James. Whereas Seasons 2-4 just have the episodes of that campaign. As I mentioned at the top of the post, I did my best to clean it up so for example Jarren’s Outpost used to be split into 2 seasons with some other campaign in the middle, but now it’s just one campaign that follows on from the other.

D&D is for Nerds+

When times were better and not a nightmare, we used to record a lot of D&D and this is where we had a lot of the overspill. D&D is for Dad, Merchant of Grapebirth and so on. With the change over from tiers to bundles, I figured this would be a good time to move some of the campaigns that felt more like bonus campaigns into this feed like The Message, Wet Parents and Do Go D&D. Some of these campaigns are available to listen to on the public feed with the rest being part of the Imagination Adventures+ bundle. Pooch & Pals is here as the bonus campaign Gnomes in Danger (and a few unreleased and yet to be recorded campaigns) relate to each other. Here is also where you’ll find the D&D is for Kings campaign. Both that and the story set up in Pooch & Pals are unfinished. We are aware, and we will eventually return to them but due to life events (mostly me experiencing trying to expand my family and the tragedies that have occurred due to that) they’re on the back burner.

D&D is for Nerds: Not Ogg Nott

In the past we’ve done a few things for Wizards of the Coast and a few other bits and pieces where we play D&D but they don’t fit into Adam’s world (Adam’s world is called Ogg Nott if that wasn’t clear). Here you’ll find Annihilation Now, Trouble at Farrowwind Farm, the audio for Rime of the Frostmaiden and then for subscribers of IA+ the Nomesmas Specials and the original runs we had of Barovia.

D&D is for Nerds: The Further Adventures of the Greyhill Free Company

We wanted a place to have shorter, potentially sillier, less grandiose campaigns that didn’t necessarily have to include D&D is for Nerds regulars or connect to the wider story. So we came up with the Greyhill Free Company. A mercenary group that has the beginnings in the main feed but you don’t have to worry about it to enjoy any of the campaigns in this show. In fact, you don’t have to have listened to any previous campaign in this show as each one is self-contained with the only tentative link being some people may play the same character. But I assure you, our memories are so terrible and dog shit it won’t matter. Subscribers get the campaigns early all in one go, while the public RSS feed has new episodes coming out weekly.

Imagination Adventures

We needed somewhere to put the eclectic shows we’ve done in the past that are TTRPGs but aren’t D&D. Nor the bullshit we do in Dinosaur Park. Mainly a subscriber only show, this is where you can listen to Tales from Handel Creek, Bone Age and the Joe Morse Affair.

Beyond the Map: a World of Darkness Series

While I’m here, I may as well include the other TTRPG we do. Previously called Adam’s World of Darkness: Beyond the Map, but then Jackson went and did a couple of games set in that world so we had to go and change the name. A bit more spooky, a bit more serious than our other content with a rotating cast of characters and players, All set at different times and places and slightly connected. You don’t have to have listened to previous campaigns to listen to the most current ones but longtime listeners might start figuring out the loose connections. We did set it up so it was more of an anthology series. Subscribers to IA+ get campaigns about a year or so in advance while the public RSS feed is about a year or so behind. Look at me really extending that last sentence out.

I hope that clarifies the mess that is RSS feeds and over the next few weeks I’ll piece together a spoiler free listening order and or season explainer for the shows xx o.