The 2011 Forge Midwest con in Madison Wisconsin was a huge success. While there, Kevin managed to round up several other podcasters to do an All-Star Actual Play of John Harper’s Lady Blackbird. It was a lot of fun to game with Luke and David from The PodgeCast, Timo Newton from The Jankcast, Jen from our own The Walking Eye, and Clyde from Theory From the Closet. This is a fairly large group, and it was on saturday night, so this AP is a bit more chaotic than most of ours, but it’s still an excellent demonstration of Lady Blackbird, and we all had an absolute blast! Hope you enjoy it.

Relevant Links

• The Podge Cast
• The Jank Cast
• Theory from the Closet
• Lady Blackbird
• John Harper
• Sarlacc Pit
• Watto
• Shadow of Yesterday
• Alladin
• The Gift
• Steampunk Han Solo
• Speed Suit
• Hasidic Jew
• Mass Effect 2
• ““
• Dear Liza
• “Right in the mean bean machine!“
• Tribes 2
• Unicron voicing
• It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia
• 3.0 Iconic Monk
• The White Washing of Akira
• Council of Wyrms

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro and Outro music from “Midnight Sonata” by E.S. Posthumous

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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, Jen, CJ, and Troll gather around to discuss the ins and outs of D. Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World. There were a wide variety of opinions about Apocalypse World, and we spend some time discussing the particulars of the GM style of AW and how the tone of the text affects some people’s enjoyment of the game. Overall, we really enjoyed Apocalypse World.

Relevant Links

• Apocalypse World
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• Mad Max
• Waterworld
• Fallout
• Gamma World
• Mutants and Masterminds
• Campaign Cartographer
• The Caller
• ““
• Chaos Rising
• Mark Singer
• The Beastmaster
• D&D Hack for AW
• Parkour Hack for AW
• Human Contact
• Elizabeth Sampat
• Sight for Sore Eyes Charity
• DLC
• Dragon Age
• Mass Effect 2
• Planescape

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro “The Day The World Went Away” by Nine Inch Nails
• Outro “The Earth Died Screaming” by Tom Waits

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The crew gets together for our final session of Apocalypse World. We sit down and generate a new character for Jen and integrate her into the game world. It works out pretty well, and we have a nice setup for further stories. Also, Errol’s efforts to seduce Midnight finally come to a… head?

Relevant Links

• Apocalypse World
• Vincent’s Blog
• Atomic Monstrosity (actually the Atomic Beast by Judd Karlman)
• Saffron
• The Red Rocket
• Dreamcatcher
• Mischievous (Troll was right)
• ““
• I said Abrams APC but I meant Bradley.
• ““
• Tom Clancy
• I-80 Truck Stop
• The Fountain of 1000 Chemicals
• Yiffing
• “The Errol King“

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Song “The Day The World Went Away” by Nine Inch Nails
• Outro Song “Bad Things” by Jace Everett

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This was a tumultuous session! Corbett, the leader of Princey’s personal security, decides he’s had enough of playing second fiddle to Midnight. There are no status quos in Apocalypse World! This session proves that, as everything changes, drastically and preeminently.

Relevant Links

• Apocalypse World
• Vincent Baker’s Blog

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Song “The Day The World Went Away” by Nine Inch Nails
• Outro Song “Blaze of Glory” by Bon Jovi

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After a nice break from the holidays we’re back with a vengeance! Things get rolling nicely this session: A Kidnapping, a Rescue, and more creepy amorous advances by Burroughs.  Enjoy!

Relevant Links

• Apocalypse World
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• Check out our to see the pic Jen snapped of CJ during the “Exploding Teeth” discussion.

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Song “The Day The World Went Away” by Nine Inch Nails
• Outro Song “The Horror of Our Love” by Ludo

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Jen and Kevin have been playing in a “warm-up” Apocalypse World game for the last couple months and its been an absolute blast. We were all very excited to show our listeners D. Vincent Baker’s new game. In the first session, we do a little bit of world creation, character creation, and a few quick scenes to get a feel for the characters. Jen may have created her most disturbing character yet! Enjoy.

Relevant Links

• Apocalypse World
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• (more to come!)

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro Song “The Day The World Went Away” by Nine Inch Nails
• Outro Song “Whiskey, Chitlins, and Skirt” by The Gone Jackals

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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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We were fairly convinced Paul Tevis’ A Penny for My Thoughts was cursed. Both of our warm-up games were a huge flop, and it took two attempts to get a recording. Once we got the recording done, there were innumerable transfer problems. All in all, I think things turned out pretty well, though. This episode is edited slightly differently from others, as we actually stay in character the entire time. It was a fun little twist on our sessions!

Relevant Links

• A Penny for My Thoughts
• Paul Tevis

Crunchy Bits!

• Outro Song by… I’m sorry. Dear Lord I am so very sorry…

It was our great pleasure to sit down with Fred Hicks of Evil Hat and Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files.  It’s a rare treat when Fred and Jim, longtime friends, are actually on the same side of the mic together. Troll, Kevin, and Jen talk with them about their gaming history, their friendship, and what dealing with the Dresden Files has taught them about themselves and their friendship. Enjoy.

Relevant Links

• Fred Hicks’  blog
• Evil Hat
• Jim Butcher
• Dresden Files RPG
• Jim’s Livejournal
• (More Notes coming soon!)

Crunchy Bits!

• Intro music from “The Wizard” by  of Idle Thumbs
• Outro music is dedicated to Jen’s PC in our DFRPG run: Danny, and his almost-girlfriend, Valerie. “Don’t Try” by Marian Call.

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