After recording my first episode of Setting the Stage I needed a place to host the RSS feed so that people could download the episodes.

My first thought was hosting on the blog right here. WordPress has options for that and they’re pretty cheap, coming along with other upgrades to the website (fewer ads slapped between paragraphs in blog posts).

But… I’m a cheapskate and wanted to start the podcast off with zero upfront investment. That meant delving into free hosting solutions. Lots of hosting services have free or trial plans. The trial plans have the obvious issue of having to pay for them eventually. The free plans have other restrictions, like how many episodes you can upload or how long each episode can be.

After reading the terms for about ten different websites I settled on ACast. Their free plan has no meaningful restrictions. The only negatives I could identify were no mobile support for managing the podcast and the paid plans are a bit more expensive than other hosting services.

So with a hosting site locked down the next step was distribution. ACast hosts the podcast, but your podcast app isn’t searching every hosting site for podcasts, it searches distribution lists like Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music.

Getting onto those lists is actually quite easy once I had an account with ACast. Four of them (Samsung, Podchaser, JioSaavn, and Deezer) are automatically submitted. Two others (Spotify and Amazon Music) I submitted with a button click on ACast’s website. The final four (Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher) I had to create accounts on those websites to submit them, but ACast had links that took me to the right place without having to search.

Getting accepted into the distribution lists happened within a few hours, but the final step of getting indexed in the search function of different apps took about half a week.

So now Setting the Stage is searchable on all podcast apps and I can just tell people to search for it instead of giving them a huge link: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/setting-the-stage-campaigns-for-dd-and-other-rpgs

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I’m Isaac

Welcome to the GoCorral website! I’m Isaac Shaker and this is a place for me to write about D&D and occasionally other topics. I host a podcast called Setting the Stage that interviews different DMs about their campaigns. I’m currently focused on completing the Cimmeria campaign setting and turning it into a book.

Setting the Stage Podcast

84 – Horseback Riding D&D Camp (Michael and SaddleSnaps) Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

Michael tells us about a D&D horseback riding experience at SaddleSnaps! The Chicago-based stable hosted a weekend camping, horseback riding, and D&D event. About 50 players came from across the country for this new experience. During the event, the players were split up into three groups. Each of the groups engaged in the "Exploration" and "Social Interaction" pillars of RPGs as a LARP. They used horses to go out on rides around the area to find clues to a developing mystery. After returning to their base camp they'd set up around tables for the D&D "Combat" pillar. Michael was the main DM of the adventure along with lots of support DMs and NPC actors helping him out.SaddleSnaps is planning to do more rides like this in the future, both single day rides as well as full weekend campouts like this first one. There are evening rides every Thursday for the rest of July 2026 with more to come in future months. You can check out everything about SaddleSnaps on their website.Michael has his own website for his RPG resources called Paragon Provisions that you can check out as well.Michael also runs his own Discord server that you connect with him on if you'd like to keep up with all the cool D&D stuff he's doing.Check out the Setting the Stage website!Want to be on the show? Fill out this survey.Join our Discord!Support Setting the Stage on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
  1. 84 – Horseback Riding D&D Camp (Michael and SaddleSnaps)
  2. 83 – Call of Cthulhu's Garden (Hem and The Sprouting)
  3. 82 – Tarot Ghosts (George and Fears & Fortunes)
  4. 81 – Biopunk 2287 RPG (Seiya and Synesthesia Synthetica)
  5. 80 – Dynamic RPG Countries (Travis and Tetara)