Patrick Mullen (@navaronegun.bsky.social)

Episode 72: A Friendly, Conversation about Natural-Feeling Characters~ In this installment of the Friendly Conversations about RPGs series, I am joined by Erik Schmidt of the Setting First YouTube Channel, Blog, and Discord (Links Below). Our topic for this discussion is the interplay of setting, character, and player perspective to help foster characters which feel believable and lead players toward play that feels natural and grounded in that setting. If you enjoy where this conversation goes and how it gets there, I encourage you to take a look at Erik's channel and follow the link to the Setting First Discord (if Discord survives its own shenanigans). As usual with this series, it also has a YouTube video version which is annotated extensively to share further detail, explanation, subtext, and context. http://castingshadowspodcast.com/2026/02/19/episode-72-a-friendly-conversation-about-natural-feeling-characters/