Kevin, Troll, Kat, and CJ sit down to discuss their experiences with Steve Kenson’s ICONS. The end result was a bit of a mixed bag, check it out for details!

Relevant Links

• ICONS
• Golden Age
• Superman
• Elongated Man
• Levelator
• The Question
• Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition
• FATE / FUDGE
• Shadowrun / Karma
• Deadlands
• Dresden Files
• Burning Wheel
• Mouse Guard
• Lady Blackbird
• Weapons of the Gods
• Marvel Superheroes
• Roy Chapman Andrews
• Burning Wheel Gold

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Song “Song of India” by Tommy Dorsey
• Outro Song “The Worst Superpower Ever” by The Double Clicks

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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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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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After a month and a half of cons, vacations, natural disasters and technical difficulties, we finally get a chance to sit down and play us some Dresden Files RPG by Evil Hat. This first session is our second try at city creation. The first time we decided on Anchorage, AK, and this time around we go a very different direction with Washington, D.C. A few changes have happened since our last run though a game. We got Jen back on the show as a regular, we lost Dan due to Real Life (aka. work schedule conflicts, but he’ll still be doing the Comics Cast) and for this game we’ve got the return of Troll, whom you may remember from our Dread Halloween Special.

Relevant Links

• Dresden Files RPG
• Evil Hat
• Dresden Files TV Show
• Dresden Files Books, comic, and audiobooks, and short stories
• Jim Butcher’s Home Page
• Fables
• Dexter
• Burn Notice
• Miami Vice
• A-Team
• Deadlands
• Nightwatch
• Deadwood
• Spoine
• Yakov Smirnoff
• H.P. Lovecraft
• Freakanomics
• Roe vs. Wade lowering crime
• The Library of Alexandria
• The Centurion (Dr. Who)
• Gilgamesh
• Dolley Madison
• Indiana Jones
• Emeritus
• Ley Lines
• George Washington (7 Feet Tall…)
• Rifts
• Pierre Charles L’Enfant
• Chowda!
• Cheney and Google Maps
• Roanoke
• Sir Richard Grenville
• Hopping Vampires
• Legion of Superheroes

Crunchy Bits

• Intro music from “The Wizard” by of Idle Thumbs
• Outro Music “The Man With the Hex” by The Atomic Fireballs

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Dogs in the Vineyard wraps up with the small ranching town of King’s Crossing. The players experiment with taking on conflicts solo, and finds some pretty serious challenges facing their characters. The defeats culminate with a very tense final showdown!

Unfortunately this is our last session of Dogs. We had a pretty rough three months this winter and have only managed to record twice due to plague, work, weather, and holidays. It was very difficult to keep the momentum going, but we all feel this is a good session to end on. The conflicts were tough, the morality fuzzy, and the ending suitably tragic.

Relevant Links

• Clancy Brown
• Deadlands: Los Diablos
• Wolf Brother
• Conner from Angel

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)
• Outro music from “God’s Gonna Strike You Down” by Johnny Cash.

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And here we have our first full town for D. Vincent Baker’s Dog’s in the Vineyard. The gang learns a few good lessons this session. Namely, there’s pretty much no stopping a group of Dogs when they team up, and no matter how bad you don’t want your cousin to be a Sorcerer, sometimes you just have to face facts.  This town was created by Jason Morningstar, and is based on the true story of Olive Oatman. When Jason found out I was running his towns, he shot me an email warning that a few of his early town designs aren’t the most ideal. I thanked him for his concern, but went ahead anyway.

Since then, I’ve done a LOT of reading on the lumpley forums on The Forge about town design, and gotten a bit of play under my belt. I now know what Jason was concerned about. I’m not sure if it comes through in the recording, but this town lacked the tension of some later ones I’ve run, and I know exactly why: The situation was too clear, the antagonist too one-sided, and the problems of the town hadn’t escalated to Hate and Murder yet. Vincent recommends ALWAYS designing a town up to Hate and Murder. I learned a lot from running this town, and my second town is one I made myself, and I think really hits all the right spots for what a town should be. Stay tuned for that!

Relevant Links

• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• Dogs in the Vineyards Forum
• Kevin’s Post on the DitV Forum about this session.
• January Branch Document
• Jason Morningstar’s awesome play aids
• Mouse Guard
• Wheel of Time
• Detect Evil
• Carnivale
• Deadlands
• Unknown Armies

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)
• Outro music from “When The Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash.

Podcast: |

Everyone here at The Walking Eye has been champing at the bit to finally get some sweet, sweet Dogs in the Vineyard action. It marks the half way point of or Vincent Baker Marathon (the final chapter will be Poison‘d) and it’s been an absolute blast. In this first session we handle character creation and establishing the basic facts about the world. It’s a good demonstration of how to pick Traits, and gives three different and interesting Initiation Conflicts. Check it out!

Relevant Links

• Lumpley Games, Vincent Baker’s website and blog.
• Dogs in the Vineyard materials
• State of Deseret
• The Noble Savage
• Blade Barrier
• Mouse Guard
• Deadlands

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)

Podcast: |

In early April Jen and I took a road trip up to Forge Midwest 2009 in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. We played a lot of games and met a lot of cool people, expect a fair amount of content related to that in the upcoming weeks. One of the high points was a chance to play Hero’s Banner with it’s creator Tim Koppang. After running it for myself and two others (Edward “Sabe” Jones and a dude named Tim who’s contact info I didn’t get) I grabbed Tim (Koppang, not the player) and did a short interview with him. We discuss his inspirations for the game, the term “Storygames” (he’s not a fan), his gaming history, and whether free will actually exists or not. It was a real pleasure to meet and interview him.

Relevant Links:

• Hero’s Banner Homepage
• Song of Ice and Fire
• Bill Mudron (Cover Art for Hero’s Banner)
• Keith Senkowski
• The Forge
• The Gaming Outpost
• GURPS
• Deadlands
• Shadowrun
• Story Engine
• Dust Devils
• Storygames Forum

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro Music Provided by

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