D&D Dads

This week we’re talking about how to make your game more accessible. Guest Dad and game designer Russell Collins visits the show to talk about methods you can use to make your game more inviting and accessible. We talk about designing, layout, sensitivity readers, and cooking burgers.

Right now, Russell is Kickstarting his game, The Tears of a Machine SC, which is a table-top role-playing game of young adult melodrama and giant robot combat. The Kickstarter funds the release of the game in print, PDF, EPUB, SRD, and as an audiobook with human narration that can be read through free, open-source software. There will be community copies for those in need through itch.io.

This week your Dads call on guest Dad James Mendez Hodes for a question about when to care, and when not to care, about historical accuracy in a game. We also talk about about bedtime, budgets, and finding that stick you really like. Just like, a really good stick.

James Mendez Hodes is a Filipino-American writer, game designer, cultural consultant, and martial artist from the greater New York metropolitan area.

We call on fellow Dad Kevin Sonney to talk about how to stay productive with a hobby, especially when times get tough. Kevin Sonney runs a podcast called Productivity Alchemy where he talked about this topic so he’s a bit of an expert. We discussing making time for the things you love and baby chicks. Your basic Dad stuff.

We’re celebrating Father’s Day with a Dad Takeover! We’ll be asking the questions this time. We discuss tools in the attic, building things, our favorite moments in gaming, what position we like to play in a game, coffee, and other Dad stuff. This episode has some powerful Dad energy. Maybe the biggest Dad energy yet.

On this second season of D&D Dads your Dads are going to try something a little different. We are going to follow one game designer through the process of making a game and the questions that come up along the way.

This episode introduces Ben, who is a rabbinical student designing his first game. With Ben’s help, our show someone how becomes even more wholesome, bringing us ever closer to some kind of wholesome singularity.

In this episode your Dads bring back friend of the show Dr. John Cmar to figure out when we can game together again. You may remember John from Season 1, Episode 9 of the show where we brought him on for some medical advice on how to get dice out of your kid’s nose. Now we’ve brought him back to chat about his expertise, which is infectious diseases, and answer some questions about vaccines, risk, and sanitizing game pieces. This is a casual friendly chat between friends about trying to make good decisions to keep the people we care about safe. You know, Dad stuff. Just one of us happens to be a doctor of infectious diseases and the other two host a podcast.

This episode was recorded in April 2021, and we advise listeners to check out the CDC for the latest advice and guidance regarding Covid-19.

Happy Mother’s Day! This season we are celebrating Mother’s Day by bringing you the first ever episode of D&D Moms hosted by Jadzia Axelrod and Krista White! This week, your Moms open by talking about Godzilla and Mothra, bring you a dose Big Mom Energy, which is ongoing journey (both a particle and a wave), and break all the rules around the brand new recommendations segment. They also make you eat your vegetables.

The question this week is all about fudging dice rolls. Is it lying to your children or bending the rules for fun? Your Moms are here to help.

Welcome to Season 2 of D&D Dads! In this, our first episode of the season, we talk about how to keep your players from misgendering your non-player characters(NPCs). What can you do to get your players to use the correct pronouns? Your Dads have some strategies to try for helping players to remember pronouns and other important details about your NPCs.

It's the intermission episode! In this episode your Dads reflect on season one and talk about our plans for season two!

Thank you to everyone who helped make season one happen including our incredible sponsors, the supporters of our Patreon, our producer, Seamus, and Kate Nyx, who wrote our theme song.

In this last episode of Season one your Dads talk about how to leave a game. Our special guest this week is Brennan Taylor’s actual human offspring. A true treat! This episode was so much fun that we’ve resolved to invite more of our children on to the show.

Thank you for listening to Season one of D&D Dads. We recorded this in 2019 and released it in 2020 and, like everything else in this world, it has been quite The Ride. Thank you to all our listeners, sponsors, and our amazing Patreon supporters. Want to share your feedback? Ask a question? Write to us at [email protected]. We’re currently recruiting guests and new questions for the show, so if you’d like to help us answer a question or if you’d like to ask your Dads a question, drop us a note, we’d love to hear from you.

This week, D&D Dads was supported by Evil Hat! In our D&D dADs segment we talk about Blades of the Dark, a tabletop role-playing game about a crew of daring scoundrels seeking their fortunes on the haunted streets of an industrial-fantasy city. Brennan plays a bad guy, which, we assure you, is against character. Check out this, and many other excellent games including Fate and Monster of the Week at Evil Hat!