Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

In the Gaming Hut Robin asks Ken to resolve Robin’s ambivalence toward creativity rewards.

The Politics Hut puts one of Ken’s rules distinctions to real life use as we contemplate Stability, Sanity, and ISIL.

Another lightning round flashes its electrical mayhem in Ask Ken and Robin.

Finally Chris Huth prompts Ken’s Time Machine to journey to an even worse version of WWI.

Atlas Games again devotes its coveted anchor sponsor slot to windmill-kicking promotion for Robin’s Hong Kong action movie roleplaying game, Feng Shui 2, which is Kickstarting even as we speak. Worldspinner makes setting construction a breeze, from the map to the themes driving your adventures. Welcome them to the podcast sponsor roster by showing some geographical love to their Kickstarter.

Ask Ken and Robin starts us in a murderous frame of mind as Dreaming Johnny wonders about settings and play styles for games where you play assassins.

In The Business of Gaming we helpfully collate all of our advice on breaking into game design as a career in one handy segment.

How to Write Good finds us looking at contrivances and how to avoid them.

Finally the Consulting Occultist gives us the real lowdown on synarchy.

Atlas Games again devotes its coveted anchor sponsor slot with windmill-kicking promotion for Robin’s Hong Kong action movie roleplaying game, Feng Shui 2, which is Kickstarting even as we speak.

Heroic Journey Publishing joins us to tout their Kickstarter for the Mecha: Kaiju sourcebook for their anime-styled, speed-line riddled Mecha RPG.

Before getting to the main meat of the episode, a Preamble Hut seems necessary to update a few stories of interest to KARTAS listeners. So gather round as Ken dispatches fresh claims of a DNA solution to the Jack the Ripper mystery, and Robin covers the latest bizarre twist in the Rob Ford saga. Or is that now the Doug Ford saga?

Then nestle in with your popcorn as Robin reports back from the Toronto International Film Festival for the 2014 edition of an obligatory Cinema Hut.

Ken’s Time Machine departs from formula to contemplate an omnibus question from Fridrik Bjarnason.  Which characters in history are so serendipitous or unlikely that they must have been undercover time-travelers?

Finally, Among My Many Hats sees Robin chatting about Feng Shui 2, which is Kickstarting even as we speak.

Join us for another Ken and Robin live episode, this time from beautiful and now slightly better smelling Indianapolis, Indiana. We nerdtrope magical slave revolts, fit the Fords into the Cthulhu mythos, riff on our favorite spice, and more. Hurtle back into mid-August with us!

Lead sponsor Atlas Games alerts you to a project near and dear to Robin’s heart, not to mention a good chunk of his year so far. That would be the freshly inaugurated Kickstarter for Feng Shui 2! Head on over and help add as much awesome as possible to the new version of the action movie roleplaying game.

Questions of pacing kick us into fall, as Ask Ken and Robin tackle a query from listener Michael Bowman.

In Crime Blotter we hunker down in our tarmac-damaging humvee to consider the trend of police militarization that catapulted to world attention in the wake of the Ferguson protests.

Ken and Robin Recycle Audio serves up the promised second helping of GUMSHOE scenario design master class.

Then in Ken’s Time Machine our intrepid chrononaut shortens the US Civil War.

Lead sponsor Atlas Games sharpens your desire for a project near and dear to Robin’s heart, not to mention a good chunk of his year so far. It fires off warning shots concerning the upcoming Kickstarter for Feng Shui 2! Click the link to be notified when the campaign goes live.

In Ask Ken and Robin, we field a Tuukka Heimola question about running great one-shots and convention games.

The History Hut reveals itself to be a series of rapidly constructed forts as we look at the Battle of Poltava.

Joined by co-panelist Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, Ken and Robin Recycle Audio in part one of a two-part excerpting of their Gen Con GUMSHOE adventure master class.

Finally, Sarah Helen Whitman, spiritualist and jilted fiancee of Edgar Allen Poe, summons herself into a particularly gossipy installment of Consulting Occultist.

Lead sponsor Atlas Games announces a project near and dear to Robin’s heart, not to mention a good chunk of his year so far. It fires off warning shots concerning the upcoming Kickstarter for Feng Shui 2! Click the link to be notified when the campaign goes live.

Stone Skin Press has a deal for you. Until September 1st, all hardcopy purchases of Robin’s action-driven Mythos fiction anthology Shotguns v. Cthulhu come not only with the expected free electronic edition of that book, but also an ebook of Schemers, Robin’s anthology of betrayal and conspiracy. Just buy it at the Pelgrane Press store, as you normally would, no special links or offer codes required.

It’s Gen Con, Gen Con and more Gen Con as we issue our usual bumper Travel Advisory in the wake of the big show.  Robin comes home wreathed in Hillfolk glory, Ken and Robin snag gold, Ken makes the flipper motions of supreme pleasure in the presence of Greg Stafford, and we limn unmistakable evidence of the Roleplaying Golden Age. All that and a slightly bleary much, much more.

Lead sponsor Atlas Games announces a project near and dear to Robin’s heart, not to mention a good chunk of his year so far. It fires off warning shots concerning the upcoming Kickstarter for Feng Shui 2! Click the link to be notified when the campaign goes live.

Stone Skin Press has a deal for you. Until September 1st, all hardcopy purchases of Robin’s action-driven Mythos fiction anthology Shotguns v. Cthulhu come not only with the expected free electronic edition of that book, but also an ebook of Schemers, Robin’s anthology of betrayal and conspiracy. Just buy it at the Pelgrane Press store, as you normally would, no special links or offer codes required.

Ken slaps down suggestions of a Gaming Hut renovation, but that poses little impediment to Robin as he sets out the four key components that make for an engaging obstacle. For more, see Robin’s latest publication, a fundraiser chapbook for the Kraken Convention called Sharper Adventures in HeroQuest Glorantha, available to the public soon after that con wraps.

Cartography Hut finds Ken searching for Dracula’s castle, finding not one site but many, each dripping with gore and story potential.

Ask Ken and Robin has our titular podcasters flopping their pseudopods in response to a MarcAddress challenge to create a civilization absent fine motor control.

Finally theories about the Holy Grail taking up residence in the Oak Island money pit infuse the Eliptony Hut with a salty spray of Canadian content.

Lead sponsor Atlas Games announces a project near and dear to Robin’s heart, not to mention a good chunk of his year so far. It fires off warning shots concerning the upcoming Kickstarter for Feng Shui 2! Click the link to be notified when the campaign goes live.

Stone Skin Press has a deal for you. Until September 1st, all hardcopy purchases of Robin’s action-driven Mythos fiction anthology Shotguns v. Cthulhu come not only with the expected free electronic edition of that book, but also an ebook of Schemers, Robin’s anthology of betrayal and conspiracy. Just buy it at the Pelgrane Press store, as you normally would, no special links or offer codes required.

Ask Ken and Robin tackles a Tim Isakson question on ways to handle tone as a GM.

Among My Many Hats tips its pith helmet to Ken’s new GURPS Horror book, The Madness Dossier.

How to Write Good sits in the chair to examine discipline, morale, the value of routine, and the hazards of self-doubt.

Thanks to a reminder from listener Joe Taylor, we finally let the Consulting Occultist loose on the Cathars, as we’ve been planning to do all along.

From the magical land of sponsors comes Atlas Games, who with a twinkle of fairy dust revive their 2nd Edition Once Upon a Time clearance sale.

Joining us for the first time as sponsor is Jeffrey Wikstrom’s Arthur Dies at the End, an ebook series that spins the tedium of Malory into erudite fun.

Stone Skin Press has a deal for you. Until September 1st, all hardcopy purchases of Robin’s action-driven Mythos fiction anthology Shotguns v. Cthulhu come not only with the expected free electronic edition of that book, but also an ebook of Schemers, Robin’s anthology of betrayal and conspiracy. Just buy it at the Pelgrane Press store, as you normally would, no special links or offer codes required.

Our multi-episode arc about the underwater dead who sell life and buy dreams comes to a conclusion in the Gaming Hut as we break out specific scenario ideas for our riffed setting.

In a new segment called Recommendation Engine we tell you what’s catching our fancy in the worlds of books, TV, movies, and food.

Rob Ford is back from rehab and onto the Toronto mayoralty campaign trail, and you know what that means: a midsummer night’s Politics Hut.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine takes a trip to 7th century India to save Buddhism’s bodhi tree from the conquering forces of King Sassanka.

From the magical land of sponsors comes Atlas Games, who with a twinkle of fairy dust revive their 2nd Edition Once Upon a Time clearance sale.

Joining us for the first time as sponsor is Jeffrey Wikstrom’s Arthur Dies at the End, an ebook series that spins the tedium of Malory into erudite fun.

Stone Skin Press has a deal for you. Until September 1st, all hardcopy purchases of Robin’s action-driven Mythos fiction anthology Shotguns v. Cthulhu come not only with the expected free electronic edition of that book, but also an ebook of Schemers, Robin’s anthology of betrayal and conspiracy. Just buy it at the Pelgrane Press store, as you normally would, no special links or offer codes required.