Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Robin is away at the Toronto International Film festival, and longtime listeners know what that means: it’s time to cover his absence from the podcast mic to drop the live episode we released at Gen Con. Join us for another glorious nerdtrope, a big hand for all our Patreon backers, and all the questions a packed audience (a cramped audience frankly) can pack into one 50-minute time slot!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press.

Our 207th installment starts on a tripartite note as Patreon backer Andrew Young pops his head into the Gaming Hut to ask about the pertinence of three-act structure in roleplaying scenarios.

Speaking of Andrews, the Tradecraft Hut opens the case file on East German spymaster Markus Wolf, at the behest of backer Andrew Collins.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else, we invite Jeff Tidball to reveal all about Atlas Games’ upcoming GUMSHOE game set in Ars Magica’s Mythic Europe.

Having left a suitable interval for you all to finish your binge-watching, we then turn on the Television Hut for a much-requested chat about “Stranger Things.”

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press.

For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

Rules get hybridized in the Gaming Hut, at the behest of Patreon backer Jason Carter, who wants to fuse GUMSHOE’s investigative rules with the combat systems of other games, say for example Feng Shui.

The man who shot Billy the Kid was himself killed in a dispute over goats. Coincidence? The History Hut looks at the killing of Pat Garrett.

Learn the secret of scoring your RPG sessions with music from writer and game designer Will Hindmarch, as Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else.

Finally, erect your anti-wolf defenses as the Eliptony Hut tells the hair-raising tale of the Beast of Gevaudan.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press.

For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

Get your dice and character sheets together and head on into the Gaming Hut as we field Patreon backer Gnoll Warford’s question about preparing as a first-time convention GM.

In How To Write Good, we slake patron Corey Pierno’s desire to know our writing and researching routines.

When Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else, that someone else turns out to be Emily Care Boss, whose classic games of personal interaction have now been collected as the Romance Trilogy. Pre-order it now!

Then Ken’s Time Machine revs up to answer a question from Patreon backer Drew Clowery—can Ken use his time knowledge to finally reveal the identity of the Culper Ring’s Agent 355?

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.    It’s hard to imagine that you listen to this show and have yet to check out The Dracula Dossier. But now that it has taken home Product of the Year and an oodle of other ENnie awards, perhaps you have remembered your blood thirst it. Time to drink deep of Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Voices weary and graveled, but with spirits lifted by ENnies Gold and Silver, Ken and Robin return from Gen Con to regale you with this year’s round-up of the Best Four Days in Gaming. As is our annual wont we throw separate segments to the wind to encompass all the Gaming Hut goodness. Sub-headings include the Diana Jones Awards, industry scuttlebutt, meetings with listeners, the fate of the show and of course, food. All that and much much more.

Thanks to our beloved ENnies voters for allowing us a three-peat, hanging yet another Gold medal around this podcast’s grateful neck.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

It’s hard to imagine that you listen to this show and have yet to check out The Dracula Dossier. But now that it has taken home Product of the Year and an oodle of other ENnie awards, perhaps you have remembered your blood thirst it. Time to drink deep of Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

In a special live from our hotel room episode, we inflate a portable Gaming Hut to field a question from Frent about catastrophe pile-ups in popular continuities.

The Tradecraft Hut looks at the implications of Russian intelligence’s hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. (See The Crusader, by Paul Kengor, pp. 317-320 for the full text of KGB head Viktor Chebrikov’s letter to Andropov about Ted Kennedy’s approaches to the Soviets about the 1984 election.)

Ken demanded it, so we did it—a Food Hut on that most exalted of fruits, the blueberry.

Thanks to Patreon backer Morgan Ellis, we have a Consulting Occultist topic Ken can field in his sleep and/or the day before a big show: ley lines.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.    Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Another all-Patreon backer request episode kicks off in the Gaming Hut as Tom Abella asks what Brexit will do to spycraft in our world and that of Night’s Black Agents.

In The Business of Gaming Wesley Marshal asks about the ethics of working on an IP you don’t care for.

Karl Schmidt wants the Consulting Occultist to spill the astrological and alchemical beans on Rudolf II of the Holy Roman Empire.

Then finally it’s time for another installment of Tell Me More, in which Ken and/or Robin expand their Ken and Robin Consume Media thoughts about Occupied, The Vampire Countess, and The Neon Demon.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.    Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Pokemon fever is back and more feverish than ever. As Pokemon Go breaks loose of the Gaming Hut, forcing players onto the actual streets, is there anything we can riff about it that reality hasn’t already delivered?

Ken watched every Dracula flick he could get his hands on, and now the result of that effort, The Thrill of Dracula, awaits your reading pleasure. We open Ken’s coffin to chat about it in Among My Many Hats.

Our amygdalas alert us to danger whenever we see an upside down triangle. In Fun With Science, we go behind the science to make up explanations for this peculiar phenomenon.

Finally, Patreon backer Jacob Ansari wants to know why Ken’s Time Machine was employed to obscure Palermo’s mysterious Blue Room aka Wonderland Chamber.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! We can remember starting this occasionally humble podcast like it was yesterday, but here we are with our 200th episode. And you know what that means: lightning round questions. This time, served up primarily by our Patreon backers. Among the many topics: underused Lovecraft, why conversion rules will always break your heart, and where huts come from, dealing with rules lawyers, and limes versus lemons.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Conrad Kinch asks what the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan might be up to in 5000 AD. The answer might surprise him!

Now that you’ve worked your way through the filmography we provided in our Westerns 101 segment, the Cinema Hut rides back to the corral to pick some deeper cuts. Yes, it’s Westerns 201.

Fun With Science tackles a question from supporter Antti Elomaa: “Aside from building Geiger-counters and scientific apparatii, what use could one have for pre-nuclear steel, main source of which is the German WWI fleet scuttled at Scapa Flow?”

Then we’re back in the parlor of the Consulting Occultist to hear the tale of reputed 16th century sorcerer Rinaldo des Trois-Echelles du Mayne.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.