Twitter makes for interesting connections. We met Ari there and he had desires to be on a podcast. In talking with him some we realized he had insight into a world Rich and I only saw from a distance. Live Action Role Play (LARP) and specifically a national organization of fantasy LARP called the New England Roleplay Organization (NERO) We learn some surprising facts and briefly expose my own history of Vampire Larping back in the 90s with mixed results.

You can find Ari on twitter @ari_covert

Listen now on:

iTunes | GooglePlay | Spotify | Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

In this episode, we are joined by Patrick Kanouse, a sci-fi and mystery novel author, who happens to be a huge fan of Traveller RPG. As one of the first and certainly the most popular space opera RPGs Traveller is one of the classic mainstays of the role-playing industry. Patrick helps us unpack some of the primary themes of Traveller and break down the various editions of the game. 

Some helpful links:

Traveller Map

Wiki

Freelance Traveller

Subreddit

Game Forums

Far Future Games 

Listen now on:

iTunes | GooglePlay | Spotify | Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

Steve from our past episodes about LEGO Mind Storms joins us to talk about a series of LEGO events throughout the United States, Brickworld. This unique LEGO convention is a place for experienced builders to connect and trade tips and display their creations to the public.  We get into a LOT of Steve's creation, talking about Super Robo Rally and some of what we can expect at Gen Con this year but more so talking about the Great Ball Contraption! 

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

A great friend of mine, Mitch, has somehow convinced his company to let him use the office at night to run a 10-person Dungeons & Dragons game! Such a cool story and we wanted to share his nuggets of wisdom with our audience. It started out as a simple board game night to team build in a way that was totally free to his employer. Mitch slowly ratcheted up the complexity of the games he provided, and the duration of game night grew organically. Soon enough, it was a tiny step further to make it a D&D game for those interested.

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

Rich and David finally get to talk about a game they fell in love with years ago at Gen Con 50. Yes, it's XCOM The Board Game by Fantasy Flight. Yes, it has an application you need to play it, but we were hooked back then and wanted to give it a couple years to see if our enthusiasm stuck. It did. Here are our thoughts on it. 

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

Rob Croy, from The Table is Yours podcast, returns to talk Horror RPGs and Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium. This episode dives into the system but spends most of its time talking about how to start and maintain a horror game. We spend a lot of time discussing 'horror maps' and other methods to keep the suspense up without letting the terror escape the game. Horror games can be tricky, but a ton of fun when they come together.

We also discuss several great modules by Chaosium that could be adapted to fit your group and even other systems quite easily.  

Resources: 

CoC quickstart rules - scroll to find the Free PDF

Scenario - Masks of Nyarlathotep 

The Trajectory of Fear - a guide to how to map horror throughout a game

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

Rich and David are back to talk all about the history of their favorite gaming convention, Gen Con. How it got started, and what steps led to its enormous success. Everything from the humble beginnings as a place to play "Fight in the Skies!" and other war games to the ideal incubator for D&D and TSR. early on Gen Con becomes the place to launch games like Magic the Gathering, whos founding company goes on to purchase TSR and Gen Con... Really an interesting story.

^ Turns out this convention does turn style accounting instead of estimating headcount. It's a fair bit smaller than GenCon. Unless it doesn't, then it is larger. We're getting conflicting reports and I can't read German.

Gen Con Wiki

40 Years of Gen Con, a hardcover book detailing waaaay more than we ever could

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

Mike returns! Rich and Dave talk with Mike about the apps, tools, resources, and websites we use when making worlds, adventures, and games for tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) like D&D, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, and others. In this episode, we make a theme song, talk about my celebrity look alike, try and help the audience, talk about old school web tools like Web Rings, and oh yeah MAKE A THEME SONG. It's a terrible song, but I love it, so it stays in.

Tools we cover:

Azgaar Fantasy Map Generator

DiceCloud D&D 5e Character Tracker

Reddit's World Building subreddit (join their Discord, it's awesome!)

Legend Keeper - A great way to keep all the lore of your world organized and tagged to maps

Adventure Lookup

DM's Guild

Dragon's foot - early DnD resource!

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

A competitive introverts dream game - Shara returns to chat with us about a game we've all been playing a ton of in our Roll for the Galaxy. This is a dice chucking, dice pool building sci-fi game that's tons of fun for the type of gamer who doesn't need a lot of interaction or 'screw your neighbor' type play. Born from Race for the Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy is its far more successful offspring.

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN

We bring Heather back to chat about a broad swath of fantasy RPGs. If your group has been playing tons of D&D 5e, and wonder what else is out there we cover lots of systems.  We cover diceless systems like Amber and Dread, low-dice systems focused on story and roleplay, and more tactical and crunchy systems that are popular and available. We even sneak in a Fantasy / Sci-fi hybrid of ShadowRun.

Also, In the end, Rich exposes his fursona as a bear.

We've already covered so many games that we discuss in greater detail. Here are some links to our past episodes covering these great games:   

ShadowRun

Pathfinder 1st Edition, 2nd Edition (pre-beta)

Legend of the Five Rings and other Samurai Fantasy RPGs

And Old School D&D

Listen now on:

iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher 

Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:

Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast

Twitter @highshelfgaming

Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming

Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN