Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

In the Gaming Hut we demonstrate scenario construction by brainstorming a Fear Itself adventure featuring the fearsome Crate Man.

Duck furtively into the Cartography Hut as we look at maps as secrets.

In Ask Ken and Robin we field a query from Tom Allman on prepping for Cthulhu games.

Then we sidle up to Ken’s Bookshelf to vicariously paw through the spoils of his recent raid on Powell’s Book City in Portland.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

This week’s show is also brought to you in part by the World of Aetaltis. The Temple of Modren, the first sourcebook introducing this exciting new Pathfinder Compatible world, is now Kickstarting.

The Gaming Hut reverberates with spectral dread as we find ways to make ghosts and hauntings scary in roleplaying.

Fun with Science looks for story and gaming grist in the increasingly respected, and increasingly mind-blowing, multiverse theory of cosmological physics.

In That Thing I Always Say Robin goes on about the lasting influence a game’s first adventure has on the way it is played thereafter.

The Consulting Occultist finishes his major figures of the French enlightenment trilogy with the immortal Comte de Saint Germain.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

This week’s show is also brought to you in part by the World of Aetaltis. The Temple of Modren, the first sourcebook introducing this exciting new Pathfinder Compatible world, is now Kickstarting.

In the Gaming Hut, Robin asks Ken to specify a suitable period of occult ferment and together they riff it into a DramaSystem Series Pitch.

We unseal the stone door of the Mythology Hut to give Lilith the once-over.

The Cinema Hut joins forces with the Horror Hut as we mull the current cycle of haunting movies.

Finally, we respond to a Justin Mohareb request for Ken’s Time Machine. The suspicious revocation of Richard Nixon’s FBI application sure smells like time stream interference. Did Ken do this, or was it the work of a rogue time effectuator he must now reverse?

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

The Bundle of Holding rejoins us as sponsor with a deal relevant to your specific Ken and Robin needs. Aeons in the making and finally rising, it’s the Trail of Cthulhu Bundle, in eldritch partnership with Pelgrane Press! Get it before it sinks beneath the waves again, on May 12th.

Ken’s return from Portland’s HP Lovecraft Film Festival and its sister event Conthulhu prompts the issuance of an especially eldritch Travel Advisory.

Listener Greg Gray gets an unprecedented answer when he poses an Ask Ken and Robin question about the paucity of info in roleplaying rules books for spanking new players.

How to Write Good serializes its commas and regularizes its colons when we tackle the hot topic of punctuation gray areas.

Finally the Consulting Occultist pulls a long con and at least half of a badger game as we consider the grifting career of Cagliostro, alchemist and influential Freemason.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

Pull up an extra special chair in the Gaming Hut as we look at ways to put guest players to good use.

In the Tradecraft Hut, Ken helps listener Rick Jonzz start a beginner’s tradecraft bookshelf.

In Ask Ken and Robin, Joshua Weiss wonders what we might say about miniatures in narrative-based gaming.

Then we flip Ken’s Time Machine to mythic setting, assigning him to stop Circe from turning Odysseus men into pigs.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

In Ask Ken and Robin, Kevin Maroney asks us to expand on an earlier Ken comment questioning the suitability of the d20 structure for Cthulhu gaming.

The History Hut flies the Jolly Roger to examine best practices of, and essential conditions for, piracy.

In the Gaming Hut we recount our least favorite setting cliches.

And in spoiler-ready last position, we point the remote at the Television Hut to give our take on True Detective.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

After ten years delighting the Swedish gaming scene, our pals at Fenix Magazine now bring the Best of Fenix to English-language GMs and players with their now-active Indiegogo campaign. This project so resounds with Hitean goodness that you have surely chipped in already. But if you haven’t, that burning bird of prey is still passing the hat.

The Gaming Hut rings with the sound of accents and impressions as we examine the role of voice work in GMing.

The Crime Blotter finds a surprising nexus of grift, elephant materialization and the technological spread of 20th century entertainment in the person of Harry Thurston. A less famous follower in his magician brother Howard’s footsteps, Harry made his influence felt through connections to the Chicago mob.

We drink deep of mead, wine, beer and polyglot alcoholic beverages in the Food Hut, as we take a look at prehistoric and ancient drinking. A bookshelf hat tip goes out to Uncorking the Past by Patrick E. McGovern.

Get sleepy, very sleepy, letting go of cares and worries as the Consulting Occultist casts your mind toward the tale of Franz Anton Mesmer.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

After ten years delighting the Swedish gaming scene, our pals at Fenix Magazine now bring the Best of Fenix to English-language GMs and players with their now-active Indiegogo campaign. This project so resounds with Hitean goodness that you have surely chipped in already. But if you haven’t, that burning bird of prey is still passing the hat.

Is that a displacer beast in your pocket, or are you just glad to listen to us? Convene in the Gaming Hut as we discuss monster abilities and to what extent they enter into player awareness.

The Tradecraft Hut furtively considers stolen passports. Don’t let your characters leave theirs as collateral for motorcycles in Phuket, Thailand!

In Ask Ken and Robin, Jim Crocker prompts us to evaluate the works of William S. Burroughs as a source of gaming horror and weirdness.

The Eliptony Hut goes nautical to explore the fate of the Mary Celeste, whose mystery might have been a tad embellished by one Arthur Conan Doyle.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

After ten years delighting the Swedish gaming scene, our pals at Fenix Magazine now bring the Best of Fenix to English-language GMs and players with their now-active Indiegogo campaign. This project so resounds with Hitean goodness that you have surely chipped in already. But if you haven’t, that burning bird of prey is still passing the hat.

In the Gaming Hut we again lift the RPG design hood to tinker with PC/NPC asymmetry.

Eerie Horror Hut riffing ensues as we sift the story possibilities of 3D-Printed Clone Dolls.

Ask Ken and Robin opens in the middle of a Philippe Marcel question about starting game sessions in media res.

Purely hypothetically, you understand, a certain Ken’s Time Machine segment might tell you who murdered Alexander the Great, and why Ken helped cover it up.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.

After ten years delighting the Swedish gaming scene, our pals at Fenix Magazine now bring the Best of Fenix to English-language GMs and players with their now-active Indiegogo campaign. This project so resounds with Hitean goodness that you have surely chipped in already. But if you haven’t, that burning bird of prey is still passing the hat.

In the Cartography Hut we set out techniques to add a dose of psychogeography to the map of your imaginary city.

The Gaming Hut looks at the elasticity of vampire mythology, as inspired by Ken’s golden steampunk vampires of El Dorado, as seen in Fenix magazine.

How to Write Good confronts the pesky threat of word clusters, and how to avoid using the same word twice in one…dammit!

Consulting Occultist meets Tradecraft Hut as, at the request of listener Johnstone Metzger, we examine the work and shocking demise of mythological studies scholar and Romanian dissident Ioan Culianu.

Once again Fenix Magazine occupies our coveted anchor sponsor slot. After ten years delighting the Swedish gaming scene, they’re now bringing the Best of Fenix to English-language GMs and players with their now-active Indiegogo campaign.  This project so resounds with Hitean goodness that you have surely chipped in already. But if you haven’t, that burning bird of prey is still passing the hat.

It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games serves up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical sea battles, Pieces of Eight.

That rumble in your molars heralds the thundering approach of the Open Metalcast Podcast, joining us as sponsor in a crescendo of aural extremity!