Bonus Experience

In today’s episode, Monica sits down with James Mendez Hodes (game designer, developer, friend of the show, and author of this excellent blog) to talk about avoiding orientalism and outright racist language in your martial arts games. 

Are supernatural fighting styles inherently racist? No of course not – but we talk about how to avoid exotifying and othering these ideas, and how not to fall into the trap of harmful language. We also talk about how you can pull plenty of fascinating inspiration from real-world sources. 

…We also talk about Exalted. 

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

Here’s the last entry in our genre series: Tension and Release! Specifically, how those things apply to horror and comedy, as well as how you can use these elements to build mood and tone in your games. What makes things scary? (A question we have the answer to) What makes things funny? (A question we don’t.) Also discussed: Bitchin’ Sauce, Not Taking Food Into the Bathroom, and Erotic Roleplay.  All this and more in Margaret’s Extended Cut!

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

Welcome to Season 3! We start off with a bang with Josh Fox of Black Armada, the creator of the amazing Lovecraftesque, is on and chatting about his new game, Last Fleet, currently in Kickstarter!

Josh has a great perspective on game design and is just a delight to talk to, so enjoy!

Here’s the Kickstarter!

And the site for Black Armada!

And go and support Black Armada on Patreon!

And Josh on Twitter!

Thanks for listening and look for me on Twitter!

BXP went to Metatopia together! We attempt to summarize the things we played, but mostly talk about the things we ate. Also discussed: the definition of an apple fritter.  All this and more in Margaret’s Extended Cut!

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

Monica and Rai break down the anatomy of infamous “heartbreaker” games. We focus on fantasy games and the conventions of the genre. Rai schools us on setting concepts and Monica has a lot to say about mechanical design.

Also discussed: custom Discord emoji, Dunk-Ons & Draggin’, and the struggles of ADHD kids in class. All this and more in Margaret’s Extended Cut!

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

Can you believe it’s been six months since our Patreon went live? Let’s check in and see where we’re AT with this thing. Monica and Rai talk business about changes being made to the tiers and rewards going forward, as well as potential schedule changes.

Then they talk for like 20 minutes about Fire Emblem forums?

Anyway, check it out!

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

The brilliant Jessica Hammer makes her triumphant return to our show and lends us her expertise in the realm of playtesting! We’ve always said you SHOULD do it… but HOW do you do it? How do you sort through the feedback? How do you get the BEST feedback? And how do you surmount your anxiety and get the playtest phase started in the first place? We’ve got answers to these questions and more!

Also, some technical stuff: This is one of the last episodes we record using Zencastr, which, it turns out: Is not so great. We will soon be transferring to Cast, which so far has had GREAT sound quality and no lag. (Cast… call us…)

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

Do you like my new mohawk? I just got it done at the mohawk store. Check out my patches. Oh no, did you find out I’m not actually punk? Please don’t tell anyone! Listen to this episode—the first in our Genre Exploration series—about PUNK GAMES, instead! We talk about the history of punk as a genre, it’s subgenera and trappings, and also how to design a setting and system to feel punk as hell.

Patreon supporters get an EXTENDED CUT of this episode, featuring: Rai Almost Got Banned, Craft Sodas, Steven Universe is Punk as F*ck, and more!

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]

In our last installment of RPG 101, we’re talking about safety tools. You’ve probably seen them, or heard about them. Here’s why you should use them! And here’s a few different toolkits we recommend! Nobody’s got a table group made of psychic, emotionless X-Men, so please consider utilizing a safety tool as part of your gaming.

In this week’s Extended Version, as found on our Patreon, it’s, um… it’s basically just Fire Emblem: Three Houses. They talk about Three Houses for seriously like 20, 30 minutes.

For more information on the toolkits mentioned in this episode:

[ Bonus Experience: the Blog! bxpcast.com | Bonus Experience: the Twitter! @bonusexpcast | Bonus Experience: the Patreon! patreon.com/bonusexperience ]