Tag Archives: Roleplaying Games

Episode 21: Three Favored Systems – A Contest

Summary

Originally Published: February 23, 2022 at 8:27 PM

The blame for this episode rests squarely on the shoulders of Jason of the Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast. If you have not yet given him your thoughts on this matter, please do so now:

Contest Link

⁠Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast⁠ ⁠Voice Mail link to Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast⁠

Links from this Episode:

System 1   ⁠System Details⁠     ⁠Campaign Recap⁠       ⁠Actual Play Series⁠

System 2  ⁠System Details⁠      ⁠Numerous Actual Play Series⁠ (some with annotations)

System 3   ⁠Actual Play Series⁠ (with annotations)

Additional Links:

The Written Blog:  ⁠Casting Shadows⁠         

The tie-in post for this episode: ⁠Three Favored Systems? A Contest~⁠

The YouTube Channel: ⁠Runeslinger

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Episode 12: On Playing on Multiple Levels

Summary

Using Star Trek Adventures as a point of reference, this episode looks at stepping away from the skill of making judgement calls without oversight (using fiat) and toward the enjoyment which arises from the use of tools which challenge how and when you can interact with the objective truths of the campaign~

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Episode 10: On ‘Story’

Summary

What does it mean to participate in a roleplaying game? Is it ‘to play a character?’ or ‘to tell a story?’ or is it ‘to play a character in a story?’ Something else? This episode looks at that word ‘story’ and poses some questions on play, our intentions, and how our actions – intentional or not – shape the outcomes and limit what outcomes are even possible~

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Episode 7: On Facilitating Fear

Summary

Broaching the subject of roleplaying games focused on emotional reactions of self-protection, we take some broad examples such as Call of Cthulhu and FFG’s Star Wars Roleplaying to get things going. We look at two shades of this disquieting emotion: Horror and Fear. We look at how our two example games invoke it mechanically for the character, and what we as players can do to facilitate more than a hat tip to the reaction the character is experiencing. This episode covers a lot of ground, digs up a few graves, kicks in a few doors, and perhaps opens some old books that should stay closed, but all of that is being done in the spirit of sharing how we actually play~

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Episode 5: On “What is a Roleplaying Game?!”

Summary

Like the previous episodes so far, this was drawn from thoughts from the distant past, but which have not been shared widely and publicly until now. That’s right, the release date of both the article and podcast are the same – October 7th 2020 – but reaching back in time to the mid-eighties and a small town where playing an RPG was pretty much the only good thing. 

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Episode 4: On Cracking Open the Skull of Evil

Summary

This practical post of three specific tips for villains in an RPG was originally posted in response to a blog Carnival prompt on ‘How to think like a villain.’ Using examples from Actual Play which are accessible on the written blog, this post lays out simple means of getting into the heads of characters in your setting and seeing where that takes you in terms of villainy~

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Episode 3: On Genre being Rule 0

Summary

This post relates an idea which appeared in written and video form in 2013, as an expression of earlier and less specific ideas. Genre is Rule 0 is a set of posts which have proven to be of more use and be more relevant to my RPG conversations than almost anything else. As such, I think it is a good idea to include in the introductory posts of this podcast. Also, taking a cue from Ron Edwards, I reclaim some preferred jargon from the discard pile and reconnect this functional piece of theory with an ambiguous but possibly helpful term: idiom. I still feel that it will confuse some, but it will help others, and that is ultimately what matters to me. 

Relevant Links:

Genre Is Rule 0 (Casting Shadows Blog)

Genre is Rule 0 (YouTube)

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Episode 2: On Character Poisoning

Summary

This is the second of five introductory episodes. On a notion put forward on the written blog in 2011 based on my musings in the 90s, this episode examines both the post and the idea of character poisoning. This is a look at a potential source of dissatisfaction in play, rooted in unintentional conflict between system, setting, fellow players, and/or the character concept~

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Episode 1: On Premature Imagination

Summary

In this first of five introductory episodes to this podcast, 2010 meets 2020 as an early but somewhat important post from the written blog is shared with commentary. The post deals generally with culture of play and the difference between rules and procedure, while going into specifics on an effect of going against a necessary order of operations in play, and an influence on our imagination~

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