CJ, Troll, and Kevin attempt (with some difficulty) to define tone, how it affects play at the table, and different systems that use a variety of tricks to reinforce their tone.

Relevant Links

• Paul of the Podgecast
• Weapons of the Gods
• Joss
• Don’t Rest Your Head
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Vincent Baker
• In A Wicked Age
• Our Interview with Vincent about DitV and IAWA
• Apocalypse World
• Dungeon World
• Dread
• Lady Blackbird
• Planescape
• Dresden Files
• Fiasco
• HOL
• Shock: Human Contact
• Luke Crane
• Burning Wheel
• RPG.net Thread about Author’s Tone
• John Wick
• Houses of the Blooded
• Paranoia
• Rolemaster
• Grey Ranks
• FATAL
• Kill Puppies for Satan
• Ars Magica
• Dudes of Legend
• Hackmaster
• Baldur’s Gate
• SSI
• Shadow Run
• China Mielville
• Arcanum
• Call of Cthulhu
• RPGA
• World of Darkness
• GURPS
• GNS
• Arcana Evolved
• Burning Empires
• Mouse Guard
• Millennium’s End
• Rifts
• Captain Indigo

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music by 

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A while ago Kevin stumbled across Chris Chinn’s “Deeper in the Game” blog and quickly became a fan. Chris discusses a lot of interesting topics and puts a lot of thought into each post. One entry in particular caught his attention: The Same Page Tool. This was a tool RPG gamers can use before playing a game to make sure everyone is on the same page for what they expect out of this game, with these people. Kevin, Jen, and Troll had just been in a Mutants and Masterminds game with a new GM, and it became very obvious after just one session that we were not all on the same page. We go through the Same Page Tool question by question and discuss the implications of each question, using the aborted M&M game as an example of how it could help.

Relevant Links

• Deeper in the Game/Same Page Tool
• Mutants and Masterminds
• Tom Moldvay
• Competitive D&D
• Our Apocalypse World Coverage
• White Wolf
• Paranoia
• Weapons of the Gods
• Neverwinter Nights
• Gary Gygax
• Burning Wheel
• Deadlands
• Progress Quest
• “Stay A While, and Listen!”
• Zombie Cinema
• Traveller
• 3:16
• Arcana Evolved
• Mouse Guard
• GURPS
• Rifts
• Burning Empires

Crunchy Bits

• Intro and Outro music by 

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Kevin sits down with Ryan Macklin, John Wick, and Eddy Webb to discuss the pros and cons of drifting the rules in RPG’s. It’s a good discussion, and fair warning, the last 10 minutes or so are actually a tangent on the realities of being an internet microcelebrity, and how people act vastly differently to said celebrities when they meet them in person rather than how they talk about them on internet forums. Still  a pretty interesting conversation, but if you’re here just to hear about drifting, you might wanna skip the last 10 minutes.

Relevant Links

• Ryan Macklin
• John Wick
• Eddy Webb
• AEG
• White Wolf
• “Dick Fingers“
• Game Design is Mind Control
• Hoyle
• Star Wars Live Action Adventures
• Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
• Mods
• Race for the Galaxy
• Gloom
• Apocalypse World
• Mage
• Camarilla Fan Club
• FATE
• Houses of the Blooded
• GURPS
• Wilderness of Mirrors
• The Farm
• Champions
• The Wheel of Time
• Chuck Wendig
• Dudes of Legend
• Pendragon
• Spirit of the Century
• Mage Noir
• Russel Bailey
• D&D Encounters
• Thirty
• Joseph Campbell
• GDC
• Montsegur 1244
• Burning Wheel (what, you thought we’d get through an entire episode without mentioning it?)
• Eddy’s Camarilla LARP Theory
• Will Hindmarch
• 7th Sea
• RPG.net Thread about writers tone getting in the way

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music by 

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Jen and Kevin sit down and have a brief chat with Paul Tevis about their recent experience with his award winning game: A Penny For My Thoughts. Paul talks about his experience with improv, how Penny came to be, and what his future plans are.

Relevant Links

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro “Song Morning Bell/Amnesiac” by Radiohead
• Outro Song “Where is my Mind?” by the Pixies

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When Ron Edwards announced posted on The Forge that the site would be entering it’s “winter phase” there was a bit of a hullabaloo about just what exactly that would mean for the site. I quickly shot Ron an email asking if he’d like to take some time to discuss what this all meant, and the general perception of The Forge on the internet as a whole. What followed was a fascinating conversation about identity politics, the economics of small-press gaming, and the difficulties of communication on the Internet. Enjoy!

Relevant Links

• Ron Edwards
• The Forge
• Winter Phase Post
• Pendragon
• Houses of the Blooded
• GNS
• Apocalypse World Forums
• Essays on The Forge
• RPG.net Thread about the Winter Phase
• The Gaming Outpost
• Greg Stolze
• Story Games Forum
• Indie Press Revolution
• Brennan Taylor
• Bliss Stage
• Universalis
• Burning Wheel
• Des Moines Social Club
• Metagaming Concepts
• Steve Jackson
• Wizard
• Champions
• GURPS
• Hero System
• White Wolf
• Lion Rampant
• Rifts
• Deadlands
• Legend of the Five Rings
• Chicagoland Games
• 3rd Coast Comics
• Games Workshop
• Diana Jones Awards
• Irish Charity Auctions
• Origins Award
• Shadowrun
• FAFSA
• Peter Atkinson
• Ryan Dancey
• The Podgecast
• Iron Tyrants
• Battletech
• Dogs in the Vineyard AP
• Burning Empires AP
• Complexity Round-Table
• Jason Morningstar
• Jonathan Tweet
• Robin D. Laws
• Over the Edge
• Naked Went the Gamer
• Kevin Siembieda
• The Meese Comission

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by 

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Kevin hopped on Skype with Jason Morningstar, Judd Karlman, and Jonathan Tweet to discuss how the complexity of a rules system affects the narrative in RPG’s.

Relevant Links

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by 

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Regular play begins in earnest! We cover a lot of basic ground this session: The Sight, Soul Gazing, a social conflict, and a few compels. The PC’s investigate a mysteriously exploding brothel and are manipulated by seen and unseen forces!

Relevant Links

• Dresden Files RPG Homepage
• Mutants and Masterminds
• Burning Empires
• The Crusades
• Dick Cheney
• Fallout 3
• The Smithsonian
• Dolley Madison
• The Archive (spoilers!)
• ’77 Dodge Charger
• Crocodile Tears
• Schadenfreude
• ““
• Burning Wheel
• In A Wicked Age
• Phlogiston
• Futurama
• Ghostrock

Crunchy Bits

• Intro music from “The Wizard” by  of Idle Thumbs
• Outro Music “I’m Your Late Night Evening Prostitute” by Tom Waits

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After running three of his games back-to-back-to-back, we were pretty excited to sit down with D. Vincent Baker to chat about our experiences. We spend some time talking about aspects of Dogs in the Vineyard, In a Wicked Age…, and Poison’d, as well as cover some of his basic design philosophies. Unfortunately our first attempt to conduct this interview met with some nasty technical difficulties. There are a couple references to the fact that this is the 2nd attempt, but we only got about 10 minutes in, so no worries, you didn’t miss anything. This interview was great fun, and we can’t wait to have Vincent on again to talk about abandoning games!

Relevant Links

• Vincent’s Blog ()
• Lumpley Games Forum
• Kill Puppies for Satan
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• In A Wicked Age
• Mechaton
• Poison’d
• Storming The Wizard’s Tower
• Apocalypse World
• GTAIV
• ZORK
• Traveller
• Dragon Magazine
• Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon
• rec.games.frp.advocacy
• The Forge
• Drew Baker
• The Gaming Outpost
• Ron Edwards
• Clinton R. Nixon
• Ed Healy
• Jared Sorenson
• Universalis
• FreeMarket
• Graham Walmsley
• No Country for Old Men
• Matt Snyder
• Brigham City
• Burning Wheel
• Tanith Lee
• Jack Vance
• Willow Palecek
• Wicked Nights (Vampire Oracle)
• True Blood
• Judd Karlman
• Matt Wilson
• DexCon
• GenCon
• Dread
• Oo! Let’s make a Game!
• ROCK OF TAHAMAAT, SPACE TYRANT
• The Dragon Killer

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by 

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The crew sits down to discuss the big issue we’ve been avoiding for the entire time this podcast has been around: Player and GM Authority. We break down the different kinds of authority and cite examples of how different games use them. Then we discuss how the traditional model of authority (most of it being in the hands of the GM) can cause problems.

Relevant Links

• Renato Ramonda (who’s name I butchered, sorry!)
• DRYH Italian
• Forge Thread about Authority
• Weapons of the Gods
• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Gygaxian Lexicography
• Rule Zero
• Knights of the Dinner Table
• Shadowrun
• Burning Wheel
• Burning Empires
• Moldvey Basic
• The Czege Principal
• Soggy Cracker
• Polaris
• Grey Ranks
• Zombie Cinema
• Capes
• Wild Talents
• DOOM
• Marathon
• GNS
• In Nomine
• Ron Edwards Brain Damage
• Arcana Evolved
• Mutants and Masterminds
• Massive hero lists for Mutants and Masterminds
• Batman/Superman: Public Enemies
• FreeMarket
• FATE
• Spirit of the Century
• Dresden Files RPG
• Diaspora
• Starblazer Adventures
• Traveller

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by

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Kevin, CJ, Dan, and Brandon sit down for our third and final D. Vincent Baker game: Poison’d: A Pirate RPG. This session covers the creation of our individual pirates, as well as the crew and specifics of our pirate ship. We do just a tad of roleplaying at the end to get a feel for how Success Rolls work, and set things up nicely for next session. So far we’re all enjoying it a lot!

Roles

Brandon: Dirty Dick Wiggins Ship’s Gunnery Master Soul: 4 Devil: 4 Brutality: 4 Ambition: 4 Brinkmanship: 4

CJ: Bloody John Parr Ship’s Surgeon Soul: 4 Devil: 4 Ambition: 4 Brutality: 3 Brinkmanship: 4

Kevin: Solomon Cruikshank Ship’s Quartermaster Soul: 4 Devil: 4 Ambition: 5 Brutality: 5 Brinkmanship: 5

Relevant Links

• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• Poison’d
• Sgt. Hatred
• Cervantes
• A map of the Caribbean
• Burning Wheel
• Sid Meyer’s Pirates!
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• In a Wicked Age
• 2-Masted Bermuda Sloop
• “That’s a REAL GHOST!”
• Misspent Youth
• Hardtack
• Rogue Trader
• Lego Tie Defender

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Music “Plunder” from Sid Meyer’s Pirates!
• Outro Music “” from Lazytown.

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