Words In The Dark

Haste! Invite Pat Robertson’s Granddaughter to Game Night, Pay for Unfinished D&DNext Materials?, Fred Hicks Talks Pay What You Want RPG Pricing.

Jerry — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 01:46:54 +0000

| Episode 86 |

Announcements

Be sure to check out FreeRPGDay this year if your local shop is participating, and buy something while you’re there – don’t be a bum! Also, if you’re going to be at the Origins Game fair shoot me a tweet and we can meet up and say hey!

Topics

Oh Pat Robertson…

Recently Pat Robertson was caught talking about Dungeons & Dragons again, this time comparing it to anorexia, bulimia, and suicide. He also referenced it among “many other” demonic games. It’s good to know that Pat keeps up to speed on the gaming industry and all of its evils. Mich and I discuss, and ask you how you’d pitch an RPG to good ol’ Pat if you wanted to get his granddaughter involved.

Exclusive D&DNext Adventure At Gencon

WotC is selling an exclusive Genon-only mini-campaign module for D&DNext this year for the cool price of $30. Micah and I discuss selling beta rules, collectors items, and a bunch more stuff which dovetails nicely into…

Fred Hicks Discusses Pay What You Want RPG Pricing

Slightly re-touching on a recent episode where we discussed RPG bundles, Fred Hicks from Evil Hat has put together yet another splendidly candid blog post about these kinds of pricing models and marketing mechanisms. It’s a great read and lots to think about for those of us who like to nerd out on the industry side of things.

Tip Corner

No tip, but we’ve got a Kickstarter update on the reforging process. Tune in to hear all about it!

Twitter Poll

@Mandarific asks: Why do most groups want to go for the dining room table to game even for games that can be just as easily played on the couch?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Haste! Odyssey, Hit Points In D&DNext, Free Gaming Book, and More!

Jerry — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:16:39 +0000

| Episode 86 |

Announcements

Shout out to DM Chris from his friend Ben Kramer (@BenKramer) for successfully running a year long campaign and bringing it to conclusion. That’s a hard thing to do!

Topics

Gnome Stew’s Odyssey on Pre-Order

You can begin pre-ordering the new how to manage a campaign book from Gnome Stew! This feels like a great resources to all kinds of GMs. Is it worth $25 though? Listen to find out.

D&DNext Hit Points Discussion

In a recent Legends & Lore article, Mike Mearls discusses what HP means in D&D and how they fluctuate depending on the overall purpose and feel of your game and its genre. Micah and I discuss HP and our feelings on Next so far.

Sly Flourish Giving Away Running Epic Tier Games Book for Free

Mike Shea is letting the whole world read his helpful 4th edition guide to running epic tier games for free. Of course you don’t get Jared Von Hindman’s wacky artwork to go with it, but we think this is a really cool idea, as well as a great resource for those who are running (or wanting to run) epic tier D&D 4e games.

Tip Corner

Take a page out of George RR Martin’s book, and kill off one of your unkillable NPCs. If you’ve seen the jaw-dropping response to the latest episode of Game of Thrones, you’ll know how powerful a move like that can be!

Twitter Poll

@SVDPress asks: How do you rekindle the passion for gaming after literally years of barely/not playing?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Rise of the Dead – June’s Campaign of the Month

Jerry — Fri, 31 May 2013 12:20:27 +0000

This month we’re joined by GM Kettle to talk to him about his kick-ass Savage Worlds campaign Rise of the Dead. Read on to hear some truly great wisdom on gaming, great ideas on running a zombie game, and a lot more. Thanks for the great interview Kettle!

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Alter Ego’s? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet? Let us know if you feel so inclined!

I was born in Arizona, but was raised in the California Bay Area where I still live today. I am an Electrical Technician for a company that builds commercial satellites. My work takes me out of the country at least twice a year for a few weeks. This causes minor breaks in my gaming, but I love to travel and seeing new places.

I am an avid gamer that has been roleplaying since 1983 when a friend of mine introduced me to the Dungeons and Dragons Red Box. I have played the Red Box, Blue Box, and 1st edition D&D, but my primary edition was 2nd Edition D&D for well over 12 years. In the early nineties I was all over the place roleplaying wise. I have played Top Secret S.I., Traveler, Gurps, Rifts, and a couple dozen more.

My wife, Kathea on Obsidian Portal, and I met in high school and were a part of the Roleplaying Club at school. She is also an avid gamer and we have been roleplaying together ever since. Kathea plays the character Tabitha in the Rise of the Dead Campaign. Aside from tabletop gaming we have also played a lot of MMO’s such as Everquest, Ultima Online, and World of Warcraft.

Tell us about Rise of the Dead in a nutshell. How did it come to be and how long has the campaign been going on?

Rise of the Dead is a zombie apocalypse game using the Savage Worlds Deluxe rules set. So far we have been playing three months and enjoying every minute of it. The game follows a group of survivors who were on board a Walt Disney Cruise ship during the initial zombie outbreak. The group must survive the aftermath of the outbreak, while trying to protect their loved ones and try to discover a cure for the zombie virus.
There are a number of games, concepts and genres that I have always had difficulty bringing to a roleplaying game and the zombie apocalypse was one of them. Being a big zombie genre fan, I had always wanted to run a game like this, but always felt it was too difficult to do. I was afraid that fighting zombies would become boring after a while, that the plot might be too weak, etc.

After a while thinking about it for a while I realized that a zombie game is no different than any other roleplaying game. The game is not about zombies; the game is about the characters. This changed my mind about how to run a zombie game. By making the zombies a part of the background instead of the focus, I could work with the players to create stories about their personal struggles. Of course there are a lot of zombies to fight, but it is the stories of the characters that I concentrate on. Once I realized that, it was easy to create the plot.

So basically the game started because I wanted to prove to myself that I could run a fun and successful game in an otherwise difficult genre.

How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)

We are a purely tabletop group and play at my house every Friday, unless I’m away on business.

Savage Worlds is a great system, I wish I had time to play it more. How do you like the system and what do you find to be its strong points? Weak ones?

Savage Worlds is one of my favorite games. Its best quality for me, it that it is rules lite. I don’t need complex rules or detailed tactical rules for a zombie game. Savage Worlds does exactly what I need; the rules get out of the way so we can tell a story. It is a quick and balanced system that is easy to learn and fun to play.

I think that Savage World’s greatest weakness is that fact that after a while the characters begin to look the same. With so few skills and edges, once the characters reach the rank of Legendary, players have little choice but to take similar skills and edges. After a while it becomes difficult to distinguish character by their skills and abilities.

Are you using any particular zombie sourcebook/setting for Savage Worlds like Zombacalypse here, or is this all your own doing?

The plot of Rise of the Dead is my own creation. Like most GMs I borrow heavily from TV, Movies, Books, and Game Supplements. Originally I was planning to run the “War of the Dead” adventure series by Daring Entertainment. After reading through it I had a different idea for the main plot and decided to do my own thing. I loved the idea that the characters started on a cruise ship so I went with that.

Aside from SW, I’m sure you play other systems too, which ones do you play most?

Our group plays a wide variety of games. My wife and I have multiple bookshelves of roleplaying books. We enjoy playing a lot of different games. That being said, White Wolf and Dungeons and Dragons are the two most common systems we tend to play. Lately our White wolf games have been mortal games, but I am a huge Mage fan. Currently we are playing a Pathfinder game run by my wife, but have occasionally tried the 5 Edition play test.

How did you get into tabletop gaming?

I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons in 1983 by a neighborhood friend. He showed me the Red Box and explained the concept of Roleplaying. He told me that I could be anything I wanted as a character. Looking at the box I told him I wanted to be a dragon. He said ok. So my first character was a young Gold dragon. For a few hours we role-played out the life of my young dragon. He wrote some stats on a character sheet, which I now realize he just simply made up and off we went.

I was fascinated by the game and the next weekend I went to the mall and bought my own copy of the Red Box. In the first year I didn’t have anyone to play with; my neighbor was older than me so we didn’t see each other much. I think he was just bored that day and grabbed the first neighborhood kid he found.

So I spent the time drawing up my young dragon’s castle and designed all manner of traps to protect his gold. I don’t know why my dragon lived in a castle, but he did. I would write stories about the Dragon’s adventures to explain where he gained all his gold and how bad guys would try to take his gold from him. I had fun. Eventually I was able to find a group and the rest as they say is history.

How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?

I joined Obsidian Portal in May of 2009. I was originally interested in reading about other people’s games. It wasn’t until a few years later that my group started using the site for our games. There is a lot that keeps me coming back. I love having a place to put up campaign details. The ability to share campaign details with the players in a single location helps our game immensely. I also love the community. The people on obsidian Portal are so helpful and fun to talk to. It is great to have a place where I can share my love of the hobby with like minded people. But I think I mainly keep coming back for the stories. I can spend hours reading adventure logs and looking at all the great thing people have created on this site.

Nice use of custom CSS, do you do all that work yourself?

All of the CSS was done by me with help from the Obsidian Portal community. The exception is the players’ journals. Each of my players is in charge of formatting their journal pages and they have done a great job making each journal fit the personality of the character.

KillerVP, Wolfhound, Arsheesh, Duskrien, Stephenwollet and Gaaran have all been very helpful when I needed advice on CSS. I am sure I am missing people.

My players also helped me out a lot. During the creation process I would often ask their advice on the look and feel of the site. Sometimes I would have to change things five or six times before we found a consensus, but I think it made the site better.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? Do your players get involved on the wiki too?

I would have to say that having a place that my players can post their backgrounds and journals is the most helpful part of the site. My players are very active on the site. Every player writes a journal entry from their character’s perspective after every session. This allows me to learn more about the character. What was the character thinking during a particular scene? How has the situations affected the character? The player journals help me adapt the game and the plot to fit the characters better. The wiki style of the site allows the player’s to create pages that fit their character’s personalities, which also helps me to better understand the character.

What do you draw inspiration from when planning your game sessions?

I draw inspiration from a wide array of sources. I take ideas from Movies, TV, books, etc. The funny thing is the idea doesn’t even have to come from the zombie genre. Inspiration can come from anywhere. I could be watching a modern day drama and think to myself, “What if this was in a Zombie apocalypse?” Since stories at their core are about characters, I can take scenarios and drama from almost any genre, change it up a bit to fit the zombie theme and go with it. The zombies are really only window dressing for the actual story. If I do my job as a GM right, the story I am creating with my players should work with or without zombies.

Of course to create the mood for the game the generic zombie tropes need to be present. With all the zombie movies and comics I have watched/read it is not hard to come up with scenes that are distinctly “zombie apocalypse.”

What would you say the single biggest highlight from your game has been so far?

The biggest highlight in the game occurred in session 9. A female NPC, Desirae, was bitten by a zombie and Dr. Rivet was forced to cut off her arm with a fire axe to prevent the zombie virus from spreading through her body. Dr. Rivet’s player could not roll well to save his life, or in this case Desirae’s life. It took him three swings to chop Desirae’s arm off. After stopping the bleeding, Dr. Rivet turned to another NPC, Howard Barclay Jr. who had stood in the room shocked at what the doctor had done. Dr. Rivet told the Howard Jr. to find Desirae’s husband. Howard Jr. stared at Dr. Rivet for a second and said, “But Doctor, I am her husband. She’s my wife!”

The stunned look on the player’s face was perfect. He was speechless.

Are you excited about the upcoming changes to Obsidian Portal?

I am very excited about the Reforge. My wife and I both backed the Kickstater individually and can’t wait for the new changes. I am looking forward to the new Map features and the Natural Editing. While some of my group and I are comfortable with HTML and CSS as few members of our group have not learned to code. Natural editing will allow them to contribute even more to the wiki.

While we’re on the topic of zombies, why do you think as a society we are so obsessed with zombies lately? Is it just pop culture, or something more deeply rooted?

There are numerous reasons for the popularity of zombies, but I’ll just speak about one possibility. Zombies are a metaphor for things that scare us. With all of the natural disasters and terrorist attacks in the last decade, our society is afraid of things that are out of our control. Zombies are a force that we cannot understand or control.

In 2011 FEMA published a readiness plan in the event of a zombie apocalypse. The readiness plan while written for dealing with zombies was really about preparing for disasters. The zombies were used as a metaphor for a wide spread disaster that could affect the entire country. All the things a person would do to prepare for the zombie apocalypse is what they should do to prepare for any type of major disaster.

Our society fears the breakdown of society. A major disaster, like a zombie apocalypse, cannot be controlled by a private citizen, a corporation or even by the government. The idea that our society can break down scares and fascinates us. At the same time, we can laugh off our fears, by saying it’s just zombies, this would never happen.

The loss of society is like the train wreck you can’t take your eyes off of.

Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM’ing pearls of wisdom.

Villains are the heroes of their own stories.

The best villains are the ones who do not think of themselves as villains. Every major villain should have a motivation for the things they do. Sure they want money and power, but why? Does the villain think he/she can make the world a better place and are willing to do evil things to make it happen?

The truth is, no one thinks of themselves as evil and your villain shouldn’t either. The villain has a goal just like the heroes. While the methods may be different, the goals may be similar. A perfect example of this would be Professor X and Magneto in Marvel. Both characters want to protect mutants, but the methods they use are vastly different. Magneto does not see himself as a villain, he believes he’s doing the right thing.

If you can create a villain with motivations that the players can understand, maybe even sympathize with, you have something very special.

That’s it for this month everybody, you know the drill for next month so be sure to send me your suggestions!

Haste! 2 Year Anniversary Show – RPG Bundles, Published Adventure Pitfalls, and More!

Jerry — Thu, 30 May 2013 12:49:49 +0000

| Episode 85 |

Announcements

We bring with heavy hearts the bad news that legendary author Jack Vance has passed away. If you’ve played D&D in some format or another you have been touched by his work, if you were unfamiliar with him we suggest reading more about his amazing life.

Also the fine folks at d20Burlesque need some help getting to cons this year, if you’d like to see one of their shows at a con you’re going to or if you just appreciate half-naked nerds consider pitching in.

Topics

Deadly Sins of Published Adventures

A good yet infinitely-debatable post up on Stargazers world has us wondering, what do you use published adventures for? So many things with them can just go wrong or seem to over complicate things, do you idea mine them like we do?

RPG Bundles for Charity

Recently we’ve seen a few projects in the tabletop RPG space pop up that are very similar to the Humble Bundle videogame pay-what-you-want packs. Namely the Tabletop Drop and the Bundle of Holding and while these are great both in value and in cause we are wondering exactly how practical/usable they actually are.

2 Years In Retrospective

Haste has been around for 2 years now, where did we come from and where are we headed? What makes you want to listen to the next episode? We really want to know! Thank you all for listening to us for this long!

Tip Corner

Gaming may come with huge spikes and droughts for some of us, but don’t always jump on the first chance you have to start up a group. Jumping into an ongoing campaign with near-strangers can lead to some disastrous situations. Feel everyone out first, play some one shots, invite them over for a non-RPG function to see how you mesh before “jumping into the sack” with them for a long campaign. It may save you a lot of time and headache.

Twitter Poll

@ForbesTay (Taylor Forbes) asks: When wanting to play multiple systems should we alternate weeks or do mini campaigns?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Haste! Memorial Day In-Game, Player Expectations, Numenera, and More!

Jerry — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:41:16 +0000

| Episode 84 |

Announcements

The reforging beta forums are open! If you were a Tinkerer Ascendant backer or higher, be sure to get in there and get some discussions going.

Topics

Memorial Day In Your Game

We discuss what Memorial Day means in your game, opportunities for adventures hooks, morally gray conundrums, and goblin barbecue!

Player Expectations

What should players really be responsible for? Honestly, what is the bare minimum to expect from people? Micah and I discuss this article from Gnome Stew and throw our tow cents in.

Numenera Pre-Order

We talk about the Numenera pre-order over at DTRPG, which is actually 1c cheaper than the KS backers got it for. Is this fair? Talk to us!

Tip Corner

Speaking of player responsibility, if players have a thing that they excel at or enjoy doing (keeping notes, making maps, etc.) don’t force them into some rotational schedule, just let them do it every game. No need to micromanage.

Twitter Poll

@Mudbunny74 asks: What us the best way to run a lunchtime (45 minutes per session) campaign?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

The Dark Queen of the West, May’s CotM

Jerry — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:16:47 +0000

Hey everybody, we’re here with GM Rase Cidraen to talk to him about his awesome World of Darkness campaign The Dark Queen of the West this month. Yeah it’s up a little late, but it was totally worth the wait. Check out the interview below!

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Alter Ego’s? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet?

I have to start by saying that it’s truly an honor to even be on Obsidian Portal. I’ve always had a foot in two different worlds (a third, if you count the world of the fantastical and my second left foot) – I come from a deeply southern family, but have lived most of my life in the Northeast corridor of the United States, spending a good number of years up in Boston. That’s where I fell in love with my wife and my gaming career really took off. Aside from tabletop gaming, I play a good deal of video games, with a side of minor cinephilia and an enthusiasm (but lack of time) for musical composition, image manipulation, and authorial inclinations. If you’re going to stalk me, the best place to do it is right here. I’m active on the forums as much as I can be, but I’ll always take the time out to talk to anyone who sends me a message. Nothing makes me happier than meeting people who enjoy our hobby and helping them out however I can. I’ve had a couple of really successful art-for-words exchanges with some excellent people on the site.

Tell us about The Dark Queen of the West in a nutshell. How did it come to be and how long has the campaign been going on?

The Dark Queen was something that started forming in my head back in High School, but she only really began to take shape a few years ago when a bunch of regulars were sitting around the campfire that is the Forums here, thinking ‘Hey, wouldn’t a campaign of people from the site be just grand?’ And the scientist in me exclaimed, ‘This sounds like a great experiment!’ So back in December of 2010, Gaaran and I decided that I was going to run this World of Darkness story for everyone. Its’ had it’s fits and starts, but she’s still plodding along like an implacable juggernaut, trying to get out of my head. Along the way we’ve had a few casualties to people leaving due to lack of time, and we miss them greatly. (Looking at you, Duskreign! Wish you could come back, buddy! You too Jon!)

How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)

We play… well, it’s sort of hard to describe, but it’s more or less constantly. We’re all scattered around the country, so it’s hard to schedule a concrete time for everyone to meet, especially since I’m already in the fantastic Edgerunners . What we’ve built is a fairly relaxed Play by Post story where we play as often as time allows, and it’s worked thus far.

World of Darkness seems like a blast. I’ve always really wanted to try it. How do you like the system and what do you find to be its strong points? Weak ones?

The system itself is really interesting, particularly the flavor – if there’s one downfall that I’ve found, it lacks a certain flexibility that I was hoping, even with the improvised magic system.

Aside from WoD, I’m sure you play other systems too, which ones do you play most?

I have had the most experience with the D&D editions starting from 2E onwards, settling mostly on 3.5e. I have recently fallen in love with GURPS for the sheer flexibility that it offers.

How did you get into tabletop gaming?

I was dragged into tabletop gaming from a group I was playing video games with, and it was further cemented by the Network Administrator for my local public high school, who taught me the old Mage system as well as D&D and martial arts.

Are you new to Obsidian Portal? If so, what brought you to the site?

I’ve been around long enough that some people have started to consider me as part of the furniture. Between myself and co-founder Gaaran, we’ve got a good number of years between us – I started back in 2009, and he’s been around even longer. I was brought to the site by a desire to build a world for players to play in, and I stayed for the community.

Your Wiki is so amazing I almost needed to change my pants, who does all the work?

The work on the world is a labor of love between both Gaaran and I – we have regular meetings to decide what direction to take the site in, and what elements need tweaking and improving. We both love creating art assets of the site, and Gaaran has been able to turn a mean hand of code developing elements like Our Map which I find amazingly useful. His coding is truly what makes the site what it is – it used to be that I could keep up, but now it’s the best I can do to stay on top of the art asset and fluff demand, and plan on adding even more to the News page when the group gets up to more unexplainable hyjinks.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? Do your players get involved on the wiki too?

The Portal helps me stay sane when it comes to organization. I’m a disorganized mess in real life, so having a place to store all of my thoughts and remind me of incidental NPCs that my characters and I create is absolutely invaluable. Gaaran is very active, as is my wife, and Bohemond will be once we get to his part in the story.

What would you say the single biggest highlight from your game has been so far?

The best part of the game has been working with the beautiful and talented people of the site (my wife included), but if I had to pick a single moment, I’d be hard pressed between a few. I loved Duskreign’s alternate takes on our sessions, tweaking what would have otherwise been a mundane encounter into something fascinating. I loved Jon’s vampire breaking into his own museum, as well as Westin, James and Marie (Our resident mages and vampire) dealing with a den of vampires in an apartment slum, struggling to come to grips with their respective abilities.

Are you excited about the upcoming changes to Obsidian Portal?

I am so excited about the upcoming changes it’s hard to express – the moment I heard about it, I went and backed the Kickstarter immediately – I have absolute trust in Micah and crew to deliver something amazing – that’s why I Ascended in the first place. This place is something special, and I want to contribute to keeping it that way!

Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM’ing pearls of wisdom.

I’m hardly one to talk about wisdom, but I’ll do my best to impart some words. The most important thing that I have ever had to remember is that while you might be running the game, it’s not really your story. It might have started from an idea you had, or stole, created or remade, but the moment you put that idea in front of your players? It stops being just yours, but theirs as well. It becomes something amazing – a shared experience among friends, something wild and unpredictable. It’s time to just sit back and enjoy whatever happens, because you’ll have created something alive. Nothing will go as you planned, and that’s okay, because it’ll be more interesting to everyone involved. A meticulously planned story is not as fun as something that surprises and delights everyone involved. My players are constantly surprising me in ways that I never could expect, and I would never want it any other way.

Well that’s it for this month everyone, stay tune for next month when we’ll have another amazing campaign for you all. Have you got someone you’d like to nominate? Shoot me a message or shout it out on the forums!

Haste! With Guest Host Tom Lommel, AKA Bill Cavalier The Dungeon Bastard

Jerry — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:43:44 +0000

| Episode 83 |

Announcements

Tonight we’re joined by Tom Lommel, aka Bill Cavalier the Dungeon Bastard! No Announcements, on with the show! Do be warned though that this episodes runs a bit longer than most. It was hard to try and edit down the awesome time Tom and I had discussing gaming, I hope you enjoy it too.

Topics

The World’s Worst Dungeon Crawl

We talk about Tom’s Kickstarter going on right now for the Dungeon Bastard, the show itself, and lots of general gaming nerdiness.

Weighing In On Print vs. PDF

Tom and I talk about a recent article on Stargazers World about print vs. PDF and which we prefer and for what reasons. We’d love to hear your two cents on it too.

Torchbearer

Another really great looking Kickstarter going on right now is one for a game called Torchbearer. From the makers of Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard, how does this “love letter” RPG look so far? We also talk a bit about “love letters”.

Tip Corner

Tom gives us a general gaming tip this week, and it’s from the heart!

Twitter Questions

We bring Bill Cavalier on the show to answer a few twitter questions from twitter in true Dungeon Bastard style!

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Haste! Marvel RPG Dies, Talking To Yourself, Magic Sources, and More!

Jerry — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:22:16 +0000

| Episode 82 |

Announcements

Thank you all so much for your unwavering support during our Kickstarter, we definitely achieved ‘wildest dreams’ territory and are honored to be part of such a great community. Thank you all, so very, very much!

Topics

Talking To Yourself

Anyone who listens to the show regularly knows that Micah just loves to talk to himself. Recently Robin D. Laws was talking precisely about that on the Pelgrane Press blog. What to do when you find yourself with NPCs doling out dialogue to one another and how to avoid it in the future.

Giant List of Magic Styles

A cool little piece over on the Hipster Games blog goes over nearly every magic system/origin imaginable. Really great stuff for inspiration for GMs and players if you ask us. Micah and I discuss some of the strange ones.

Goodbye Marvel Heroic RPG

Margaret Weis productions recently announced that the next supplement for MHRPG won’t be coming and that the game is being pulled. Micah and I discuss the issues that may have led to its demise, among other things.

Tip Corner

If you’re a Kickstarter backer, keep your eyes out for your survey asking for info like username and t-shirt size…and respond quickly and accurately so you can get your schwag!

Twitter Poll

@RJonesEsquire (Russel Jones) asks: What RPG, any RPG, would you use today to teach someone who’s never played one before?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Haste with guest hosts Robert Schwalb and Stephen Radney McFarland

Jerry — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:31:01 +0000

| Episode 81 |

Announcements

Tonight we’re joined by freelance game designer Rob Schwalb and game designer Stephen Radney McFarland of Paizo Publishing to discuss this weeks RPG news and murmurs. Enjoy!

WARNING: Today’s episode is more NSFW than normal and contains the occasional censored swear word. Game Designers…what are you gonna do with them?

Topics

World’s Worst Dungeon Crawl

The Dungeon Bastard has a Kickstarter going on to create the “world’s worst dungeon crawl” entitled Flaming Deathpits of the Minotaur Mage: Descent Into Doomfire. He’s taking it to Gencon and doing it to prove that DM’ing is easy! We get all philosophical about DM’ing and discuss how easy it really is!

3 Things Dungeon World Does

Gnomestew has a great piece up talking about 3 things that Dungeon World does that you need to put into your game. The article is a good one and basically boils down to “don’t make your game boring and/or suck”. We discuss open ended elements and improvisation in gaming, how we lose sight of it, and what we can do to keep things fun.

Earliest Version of D&D Discovered?

A recent article on Geekdad begs the question “has the earliest ever version of D&D been discovered?”, referred to as the Dalluhn Manuscript, it currently on display at a museum as part of an exhibit called Game Time! The truth is that this article really gives more questions than answers, we’re intrigued but we’d like to know more. Do you know more? Let us know!

Tip Corner

Don’t listen to anything Pat Robertson says about Dungeons & Dragons! D&D doesn’t destroy lives, just look at these two fine gents on the show tonight!

Twitter Poll

@Kilogex asks: If you could have any D&D monster as a pet, which one would it be and why?

@Forbestay asks: If you could live in any setting what would it be?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Haste! W/ guest host freelance writer Steve Townshend: Ultimate Campaign, Steamscapes, 13th Age Bestiary, Improving Adventure Modules and more!

Jerry — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:16:28 +0000

| Episode 80 |

Announcements

Tonight we’re joined by Freelance Writer Steve Townshend to talk to him about all of his recent projects – including Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign, Steamscapes, 13th Age Bestiary, and Owlbear Run. Also, one of our fellow portallers has released a book that was created from a world he started right here on Obsidian Portal! So be sure to check out G. Derek Adams’s Spell/Sword!

Today’s episode is slightly longer than normal (40 min) and I apologize for going over our usual length.

Topics

Photo credit: Greg Inda

Ultimate Campaign, Steamscapes, 13th Age Bestiary

Steve and I discuss his recent writing projects and what they are all about, they include the Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign book, Steamscapes for Savage Worlds, and the upcoming 13th Age Bestiary. We also talk about his most recent D&D adventure “Owlbear Run“, which sounds like it’s quite a blast. All of these things have one thing in common too – lots of focus on roleplaying!

How Can We Make Published Adventures More Readable?

Our second topic is one relating to a blog post that’s yet to be published but I figured it would be a good topic to discuss with someone who writes them for a living. Steve and I discuss the flow of information in published adventures and how we could possibly improve them. Have you got any suggestions or great examples? Tell us!

Tip Corner

Steve gives us a great tip about how to run combat using theater of the mind successfully, in hopes of avoiding all those debates of “no I was standing over there!” when minis aren’t being used at the table.

Twitter Poll

@Bagheer asks: When you fail at the delivery of the opening of the game or session what do you do to recover?

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |