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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While Kevin was over in Chicago to hang out with the Jank Cast he got a chance to sit down with Ron Edwards for an hour or three.  I’ve broken the interview down into two parts for ease of consumption. In this first part, we talk a bit about his inspirations for his new game S/Lay /w Me vis a vis early gaming history and the conservative crackdown on all things considered “obscene.” Then we move on to discuss how identity politics can interfere with system discussion, and then a bit about why and how he wrote Trollbabe. Stay tuned for part two!

Relevant Links

• Adept Press
• IPR
• Monte Cook
• Sorcerer
• Skype
• Code of Unaris
• The Forge
• Actor, Director, Writer stance
• Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser
• Henry Kuttner and CL Moore
• H.P. Lovecraft
• S/Lay W/ Me
• Rob Bohl
• Clyde Roher
• Forge Midwest
• Moral Majority
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• B.A.D.D. and The Pulling Report
• Comics Code Authority
• Zap Comics
• Robert Crumb
• S. Clay Wilson
• Gilbert Sheldon
• Meese Report
• Tipper Gore
• Frank Frazetta, Frazetta “Cat Woman” and Boris Vallejo, Vallejo Conan the Barbarian
• Elmore (Red Box)
• Elric of Melnibone
• The Riddle of Steel
• The Shadow of Yesterday
• Dave Arneson
• Blackmoor
• Nine Worlds
• GURPS
• Champions
• Heroes Unlimited
• Vampire: The Masquerade
• Over the Edge
• Prince Valiant
• Chivalry and Sorcery
• The Jank Cast
• The Infamous Five Threads
• Spirit of the Century
• Robert Jordan
• Vincent Baker
• Trollbabe
• Andrea Dworkin (who apparently denies attribution for the quote Ron used, see the 6th question here)
• Liz Danforth
• The Fantasy Trip
• Eastern Promises
• Anna Kreider
• Dragonlance
• XDM
• Jonathan Tweet

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by .

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Due to some lucky circumstances, I managed to land an interview earlier this week with Ryan Macklin and Lenny Balsera. This was a serendipitous event, as Evil Hat had just released their official press release announcing the release date and info about the Dresden Files RPG. I sit down with these two and BS about the challenges of creating a game from the Dresden Files license, then we dive into some of the nitty gritty about how FATE was used to create the world of Harry Dresden.

Relevant Links

• Dresden Files RPG
• Evil Hat
• Lenny’s Blog
• Ryan’s Blog
• The Sunless Citadel
• Duke Nukem Forever
• Urban Fantasy
• Perdido Street Station
• Endgame Oakland
• Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
• Ptolus
• Chris Hanrahan’s Blog
• Scribd
• bittorrent
• GURPS
• Hero
• D20
• Starblazer Adventures
• Diaspora
• Spirit of the Century
• Jared Sorenson’s 3 Questions
• The Wire
• Clark and Amanda Valentine
• Caine  (Kung Fu)
• Las Vegas: The Strip, Sumerlin, Henderson
• Steve Wynn
• Burning Empires
• The Bracelet Problem
• Mage (The Awakening and the older Ascension)
• In Nomine
• In Nomine Fate Fan Conversion
• Robert Bohl (and our interview with him)

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by .

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The gang spends a good 45 minutes ranting and raving about how awesome In A Wicked Age… is.

Relevant Links

• Lumpley Games
• In a Wicked Age…
• Sword And Sorcery
• Tanith Lee
• Jack Vance
• Robert E Howard
• Iron Age
• Marvel Comics Conan
• Lumpley Games Oracle Generator
• Misspent Youth
• Duel of Wits
• Emily Care Boss
• Mouse Guard
• The Dreaded D&D 3.5 Grapple Rules
• The Dreaded D&D 3.5 Attacks of Opportunity Rules
• Abulafia
• Silver Age Comics
• GURPS
• Grey Ranks
• Spirit of the Century

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro Music from The Prince of Persia by Inon Zur and Stuart Chatwood published by Ubisoft.

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Kevin gathered up Shaun Hayworth from This Modern Death and Robert Bohl from the Independent Insurgency to talk about how much roleplaying is done in a usual session. Rob had recently been listening to some podcasts that seemed to at time discourage roleplaying in some situations, and that surprised and baffled him.  He started a thread on Story-games.com and this whole topic flowered forth from there.  I had a great time talking to these two, and look forward to many conversations in the future!

Relevant Links

• Robert Bohl – The Independent Insurgency
• Shaun Hayworth – This Modern Death
• Misspent Youth
• Greaser Ghouls from Outer Space
• System Does Matter
• White Wolf
• D&D
• Storygames Thread Robert Started
• Burning Wheel
• The Gamers/ The Gamers 2
• Prime Time Adventures
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• 3:16
• In A Wicked Age
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Millennium’s End
• GURPS Vehicles
• No Exit
• Zombie Cinema

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music provided by

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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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