Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

It's the Dice Exploder 2025 year end bonanza! This year I'm joined by Lin Codega and Diogo Nogueira to go over a whole bunch of game mechanics that we think represent where rpgs were at in 2025 and where they might be going in the future.

Further Reading

Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall

Praise the Hawkmoth King by Sage the Anagogue

I want to fight my friends in the back of a moving truck by Seraphina Garcia Ramirez

Traffic Lights Are Communication Tools by Meguey Baker

Daggerheart

Draw Steel

The One Ring starter set

Sam Sorensen’s overview of Over/Under and one of Lin’s pieces on the aftermath

Apocalypse World 3e Kickstarter (now finished)

Socials

Rascal.news

Weird Games and Weirder People

Lin and Diogo on Bluesky.

Sam on Bluesky and itch.

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Mausritter is an old school dungeon crawling game where instead of playing as elves fighting dragons, you play as mice fleeing from owls. It’s not unlike any number of other old school games like Cairn or Into the Odd, but its inventory system is the only inventory system I’ve ever actually liked. Does it work differently than other games? At a raw numbers level, not really! But instead of a bunch of paper bookkeeping, Mausritter turns items into little cardboard squares like board game pieces that you put in a grid on your character sheet. That physicality makes all the difference.

Further Reading

Mausritter by Isaac Williams

The Lonely Oak by Victor Lane

Cairn by Yochai Gal

Blades in the Dark by John Harper

Quinns Quest on youtube and patreon.

Socials

Quinns on Bluesky.

Sam on Bluesky and itch.

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Apocalypse World 3rd edition is on Kickstarter right now. In many ways, it hasn’t changed much. In many ways, it's a whole new apocalypse. So I thought it'd be fun to have on the Bakers and go through a playbook - the Brainer in 2e vs its equivalent the Brain-Picker in 3e - and ask them about every single change on the sheet, from updating the basic moves all the way down to a single name on a single picklist.

Further Reading

Apocalypse World: Burned Over 3e on Kickstarter and a preview of The Brain-Picker

Apocalypse World 2e handouts, including the Brainer

Designing a seduce or manipulate replacement on the Dice Exploder Patreon

Preview the Bakers’ seduce or manipulate replacement on their Patreon

Socials

Meguey and Vincent on Bluesky.

The Baker House Blog

Sam on Bluesky and itch.

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

To close out this miniseries on actual play, I wanted to feature a game that I think uses actual play as a game mechanic. Hear me out. Void 1680 AM is a solo playlist-building game in which you create a fictional radio broadcast. Except when you're done, you can send it to the game's creator (this week's cohost Ken Lowery), and he'll broadcast it out onto the real radio via the AM antenna in his garage (and on YouTube).

Obviously it feels different to play the game knowing it's going to go out on air. But I think it feels different even just knowing that it could go out on air. And while most actual play feels first and foremost like an act of performance, Ken's broadcasts feel more like an extension of gameplay and an act of community building. How's it feel to be inside all that? Come take a listen.

Further Reading

Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery

Void 1680 AM Community Broadcasts archives on YouTube

Sam’s Void Community Broadcast

Chinese larp of Void on Instagram

Characters Without Stories featuring Sam

Socials

Ken on Bluesky and itch. You can purchase physical copies from his imprint Bannerless Games.

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Last Train to Brooklyn is an actual play from Twice Rolled Tales where they play Last Train to Bremen on a New York City subway car. It's also probably my favorite actual play full stop. Why? I think because it leans into what I'm most excited about this medium: treating capturing the act of play more like a documentary than a means towards fiction. It's excited at least as much about its nonfiction story as its fictional one.

Today I've invited Linnie Schell, one of the main creatives behind Last Train to Bremen, to come give me a beat by beat director's commentary on everything that went into it, all building to the moment I really wanted to highlight: its ending.

Further Reading

Twice Rolled Tales

The RuPaul videos Linnie mentions

Comedy Book by Jesse David Fox

Last Train to Bremen by Caro Asercion

Socials

Maia on Bluesky

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

One of my favorite parts about these episodes where I'm highlighting a single moment from an actual play is how many practical lessons I can bring back to my own table by going beat by beat through a significant moment in play. And today, Maia Wilson has brought a particularly significant moment from her show Maia's Game Room in which one character, in desperate straights, is pressured by an NPC to pay for his help with sex.

It's an intense moment. It may not be for you (and this episode may not be, either). But I think there's no better way to learn about how to establish good communication and try to keep people safe at the table than by breaking down a specific example. Plus, when you get this right like I think Maia and her table do, the results can be cathartic and compelling. Let's get into it.

Further Reading

Maia's Game Room: Electric State, episode 5

The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity by Jonaya Kemper

The Electric State rpg

The Electric State art book

Socials

Maia on Bluesky

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

In The Wildsea, you play as sailors on a sea of trees in a climate post-apocalypse where the climate won. And in the My First Dungeon mini series of this game, today's co-cohost Brian Flaherty took it on himself - along with co-player J Strautman - to write an original song, a “tree shanty,” that played on each episode.

Today Brian and I, along with his Talk of the Table cohost and Wildsea GM Elliot Davis, break down one of those tree shanties: how it came to be, and how this moment blends together preproduction, production at the table, and post production in a bunch of compelling ways. We also get to see some lessons on display about how to pace a campaign and how when you know you can trust your fellow players, you can take more risky creative swings. Take a listen!

Further Reading

The Wildsea by Felix Isaacs

My First Dungeon: The Wildsea episode 5

Talk of the Table podcast

Socials

Brian on Bluesky

Elliot on Bluesky and his games

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

It's a new series on Dice Exploder all about actual play. For five episodes, instead of breaking down one mechanic, we're going to break down one moment from one actual play show. And to kick things off, I'm joined by actual play critic and all-around-writer Rowan Zeoli of Rascal and Polygon. We cover an overview of actual play as a medium and the current state of the scene, we dig deep into the fine line this medium walks between fiction and nonfiction, and then we get to our moment: the very beginning of My First Dungeon's six episode miniseries on Orbital Blues. How can you make the most of those precious opening moments when there's so much to establish?

Further Reading

Orbital Blues by Sam Sleney, Joshua Clark, and Zachary Cox

My First Dungeon: Orbital Blues episode 1

Em Friedman on Patreon

Socials

Rowan on Bluesky and Rascal News

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Last summer a hot new game hit the indie rpg scene: You Will Die In This Place, a surreal and experimental... dungeon crawler? Technically? ...that seems to have more in common with House of Leaves than it does many roleplaying games. And for a couple weeks I saw so many discussions about this game that I eventually broke down and was like, do I need to do an emergency podcast about this?

No. I did not. I was busy with a hundred other things. But past cohosts Merrilee Bufkin and Jay Dragon did. So I invited the two of them to take over the show for a special bonus episode where they talk all things, or at least some things, You Will Die In This Place. It’s a dense text. They get into House of Leaves, gender, autism, misogyny, the state of the games industry, and a ton more. Take a listen.

Further Reading

You Will Die In This Place by Elizabeth Little

YWDITP on Gamefound

Socials

Jay on Bluesky and Possum Creek Games on itch and Warehouse 23

Merrilee on Bluesky and itch

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon

AP season "reading" list:

My First Dungeon: Orbital Blues, session 1

My First Dungeon: Wildsea, episode 5

Maia's Game Room: Electric State, episode 5 - CW: sexual coercion

Last Train to Brooklyn

Void 1680 AM broadcasts

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Today we’re wrapping up the Dice Exploder series on love, sex, and romance with Will That Be All? by Graham Walmsley, a game about the social relationships between the downstairs staff at Melton Hall, a fictional British estate, over the course of about a decade between the first and second world wars.

It’s a lovely game about finding solace and community even as the world outside feel deeply uncertain - and that’s what Kim wanted to talk about: how setting, and in this case the spectre of war, can encourage and affect how not just romance but relationships of all kinds can play out in a game.

Further Reading

Will That Be All? by Graham Whalmsley

Breaking the Ice, and The Romance Trilogy, by Emily Care Boss

Rosenstrasse by Jessica Hammer and Moyra Turkington

Downton Abbey

Socials

K Lam on Bluesky and itch

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Dice Exploder on Patreon