Setting the Stage Episode 53 – Maia and Pinehurst Academy

Published by

Isaac

April 9, 2025

Maia is our guest today presenting her actual play campaign, Pinehurst Academy. Maia used the City of Mist system for her game. From the City of Mist website, “In City of Mist you play ordinary individuals with powers that emanate from myths and legends investigating supernatural crimes and mysteries in a noir City where the truth is always hidden behind the pervasive Mist.” Maia has used a fairly straight interpretation of that setup with a twist, her story takes place in a suburban high school just outside of the City. The PCs are a bunch of first year students at the exclusive private school, Pinehurst Academy. The school has a yearly scavenger hunt competition for freshman to find a set of ten artifacts. There are only one of each artifact, so the scavenger hunt teams must also steal the artifacts

Maia made an enormous amount of material for the campaign along with many custom rules for managing the more detailed parts of school life. If you’re planning on running a similar campaign you should get in touch with Maia and ask for some advice.

The Pinehurst Academy playlist on YouTube
Maia’s TTRPG links
Maia’s Electric State narrative play podcast
City of Mist website

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One response to “Setting the Stage Episode 53 – Maia and Pinehurst Academy”

Applying TTRPG Customer Profiles to the Setting the Stage Podcast – GoCorral

February 20, 2026

[…] 40 – Kevin and Wing Women, 48 – Udy and Pendragon, 50 – Emma & Maia and Yeld, 53 – Maia and Pinehurst Academy, and 70 – Sensei Suplex and Project Aurora might be good fits. I could pull some nice clips […]

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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.

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