Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

A few weeks back, a conversation on the Dice Exploder discord lead to a new game jam: the Femininomenon Jam, a jam about femininity and whatever that means to you, happening now on itch.io through February 11th. To help kick off your thinking on what a game in this theme might look like, today two of the hosts of that jam sit down to talk about the challenge deck from Wickedness by M. Veselak. In this game about a coven of three witches, the challenge deck is a bespoke oracle for conflict resolution. And right out of the gate we get to dive into the deep end with this jam's topic as we ask: is this mechanic "feminine"? What would that even mean?

Further Reading:

Wickedness by M. Veselak

The Femininomenon Jam

Socials

Audrey Stolze / Lady Tabletop on itch and tumblr

Seraphina on itch and bluesky

Audrey’s solo games podcast Alone At The Table

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!

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.

This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

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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!

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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!

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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.

This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

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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!