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By Sam Dunnewold
5
1616 ratings
The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
I usually like to think of Dice Exploder as a pretty focused show with a pretty tight format. Yeah we may sprawl sometimes, but we’re not here shooting the shit, we’re here to talk game mechanics. But sometimes, a guy wants to stretch out like a dog in the sun, hang out for a while, and just yap the day away while answering a bunch of listener questions. And there’s no one I like yapping with more than my friend Merrilee Bufkin. So this week, it’s casual times on Dice exploder as the two of us answer a bunch of listener questions.
Further Reading:
Aaron Voigt’s youtube essays
Kurt Riefling on itch
Sam's favorite games blogpost
Exiles by Ema Acosta
Jiangshi by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim
Fiasco by Jason Morningstar
The Forge book by William J. White
Secco Creek Vigilance Committee by Keith Stetson
Killing Time by BrewistTabletopGames
Socials
Merrilee on Bluesky and itch.
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
It’s a Dice Exploder EMERGENCY POD! Less than 24 hours ago as of recording, John Harper, designer of Blades in the Dark, released a brand new official supplement for the game: Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts. It’s 110 pages packed full of new setting and new mechanic ideas, and I really wanted to talk about it! I love Apocalypse World’s concept of “advanced fuckery,” and I’ve never seen such a good and extended example of it all in one place.
Further Reading:
Deep Cuts by John Harper
How to Overcome Your Hyperdiegesis Allergy by Idle Cartulary
Errant by
Otherkind Dice on Dice Exploder, with John Harper
Socials
John on Bluesky and Twitter.
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
Hello from the between-season malaise! Today I'm joined by Aaron King, back again, who interviews me about my new zine Dice Forager: a 50 page collection of games, manifestos, and mini written-out episodes of Dice Exploder. We talk about how setting goals is great and people should do it for, what counts as a manifesto, and how making art meant just for your friends can be just as if not more rewarding than for any other reason.
Preorder Dice Forager now! (if you live in the US, otherwise DM me and maybe we can work something out)
Further Reading:
Dice Exploder blog: Hospitality, Safety, and Calibration
Traffic Lights are Communication Tools by Meguey Baker
World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin
Your public library
Socials
Aaron King on itch and the RTFM podcast.
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Transcript
This week I’ve got James D’Amato (Campaign: Skyjacks, the Ultimate RPG book line, and the upcoming Oh Captain, My Captain) here to talk about custom oracle decks. Yeah a Tarot deck is cool, and great for doing Tarot, but James makes the case that it’s the “custom” in “custom oracle deck” that will really bring the not-quite-but-feels-like magic of an oracle to your table. But before we get into that, we dig deep into a mysterious black cube to get to our specific custom oracle deck: the Sooth Deck of Invisible Sun.
Further Reading
Invisible Sun
Invisible Sun on the One Shot podcast
Spindlewheel by Sasha Reneau
Campaign: Skyjacks
Oh Captain, My Captain preorder link
Socials
James on Bluesky and Twitter
Sam D on Bluesky and itch
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Ad Links
Characters Without Stories, including my episode
Indie Press Revolution
Transcript
Today, Caro Asercion (i'm sorry did you say street magic) brings us a game and mechanic all about instinct and physical embodiment: Keys from the larp Keymaster. This game isn't like most games. It’s so much about physical embodiment and exploring group identity rather than pesky shit like “storytelling”. Physicality! Larp! The Golden Cobra Challenge! We've got it all.
Further Reading
Keymaster by J Li
The Golden Cobra Challenge
i’m sorry did you say street magic by Caro Asercion
Socials
Caro on itch
Sam D on Bluesky and itch
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Ad Links
Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato
Stout Stoat Press
Transcript
Thrilled this week to have on one of my favorite movewrights, it’s Aaron King of the RTFM podcast. Aaron brought on Love Letters from Apocalypse World, a kind of custom move the GM can write when it’s been a while since we played and everyone might need a refresher on what was going on to get the ball rolling again. I think custom moves are a wildly overlooked part of Apocalypse World, and today we go deep on why that is and how and when to write your own.
Further Reading
Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meguey Baker
Aaron King’s Worksheet Manifesto
The SF Ultra podcast
Reading the Apocalypse by Aaron King
Socials
RTFM podcast and Patreon
Sam D on Bluesky and itch
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Thanks Chris!
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Ad Links
Jukebox by Jar of Eyes
Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato
Transcript
It’s the crossover event of the season! This week I’m joined by Jeff Stormer of the Party of One podcast to talk about the core mechanic of Desperation by Jason Morningstar. In this game full of dread about a small Kansas town struggling through a never-ending winter, instead of deciding what happens, each turn you draw a card and decide who the thing on the card happens to. It’s a super slick mechanic. Meanwhile over on Party of One, you can listen to Jeff and I actually play the game.
Further Reading
Me on the Party of One Podcast
Desperation by Bully Pulpit Games
Socials
Sam D on Bluesky and itch
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Ad Links
Spectrum Roleplaying by Nat Knight
Sock Puppets by Kurt Refling
Transcript
For this final episode of the Dice Exploder D&D miniseries, I wanted to go back to the source, to my first experiences playing the game. And I figured who better to do that with than someone else who was there, my first DM, my very own father.
We get plenty nostalgic for back when I was 8 years old, but I also made him talk to me about THAC0, early D&D's needlessly opaque and complicated version of an attack bonus. I made him do this because I think of THAC0 as so representative of how D&D's rules have worked for me over the years, and because my dad has never given a crap about any of those rules. When we played, he barely even read the rulebooks. So how did we still end up playing D&D? What were we even doing?
Further Reading
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, second edition
Dice Exploder on Theorize from Brindlewood Bay, and the pros and cons of a fixed world vs one you’re making up together at the table.
E.T. (1982, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Ad Links
Reacting Consortium
Fractals Co-op
Socials
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Transcript
I have a list of mechanics I’d like to cover on Dice Exploder, and I’d say about a third of them are jokes. One of those jokes is Rule Zero, a maxim that says "the DM (or GM) is always right." I think of Rule Zero as originating in D&D culture, and as part of this D&D miniseries, I thought it'd be interesting to use as a way into talking about the play culture around the game, how it's actually played at the table, and how many of its rules people actually use.
There's no one I'd rather talk with about "do rules matter" than returning cohost Em Acosta (Exiles, Crescent Moon) who's spent a lot of time thinking about what rules they find actually useful in play. And in the end, we find yet another answer to my series-long quest for an answer to the question: "what actually is Dungeons & Dragons?"
Further Reading:
Rule Zero on TV Tropes (I do not endorse this but interesting context)
Neverland
Quest
Pathfinder
Errant
Em’s Patreon
Em’s banger games Exiles and Crescent Moon
Socials
Hire Em
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Back Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit now!
Transcript
This episode I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to talk about prestige classes, special classes from D&D 3e that you could only take by multiclassing into them. Sam thinks of these things as a noble failure: a very cool idea whose execution almost immediately dropped the ball. But what can we learn from their corpse?
We get into that, along with a boots-on-the-ground discussion of what our experiences were like actually playing D&D 3rd edition and an exploration of advancement as a concept at large: how does it work in most games, and how might it work instead?
Further Reading
The Game Left Unplayed, blogpost by Jay Dragon
D&D third edition
D&D 3.5 edition
Sam R’s game Escape from Dino Island
Socials
Sam D on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.
101 Listeners
116 Listeners
25 Listeners
36 Listeners
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21 Listeners
18 Listeners
23 Listeners
58 Listeners
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10 Listeners
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