Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

With the smoke from our burning village billowing behind us, we take momentary refuge in the Gaming Hut to discuss great migration campaign frames.

Under the war-room glare of the Geopolitics Hut we look at the averted strike on Syria and the limits of military intervention.

Ask Ken and Robin features a Tim Daly question about the relative virtues of designing a game engine from the ground up, as opposed to adapting an existing house system.

Finally the Consulting Occultist goes back to basics to study the surprisingly young history of the Tarot.

Our anchor sponsor this episode is Engine Publishing and their system-neutral GM resource, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management. Get $5 off in the Engine Publishing store using code KARTAS20, good through November 2013!

Gather your Hegelian war band around the speakers to listen to our opening Gaming Hut segment, in which we look at ways to transform groups of murder hoboes into ensemble procedural casts.

We open a historical case file in the Tradecraft Hut, looking at the role spy novelist William Le Queux, abetted by the Daily Mail, played in whipping up espionage fever in the nineteen-oughts.

Among My Many Hats prompts Robin to share his preparatory thinking on the new edition of Feng Shui he’ll be working on, in partnership with Atlas Games and Atomic Overmind.

Finally we dust off Ken’s Time Machine and send him off to extend by at least a generation the golden age that was Periclean Athens.

Take a moment to appreciate the support of episode sponsor and Eliptonic essayist Matthew Rossi. Check out his Kindle-ready books Things That Never Were, Bottled Demon, and At last, Atlantis at Amazon!

If it’s late September, it must be time for Robin to exit bleary-eyed from the Lightbox theater and stumble into the Cinema Hut to regale us with his findings from the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Listen to Ken wish he had more crossover with the upcoming Chicago Film Festival, or follow along at home.

Then Ken and Robin Recycle Audio, capping off their suite of excerpts from the Gen Con GUMSHOE panel.

Finally, popular demand decrees that we venture into the Eliptony Hut to tackle the recent appearance of a monument to Azathoth in Ken’s old stomping ground, Oklahoma City.

Joining us as sponsor this episode is Engine Publishing and their system-neutral GM resource, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management. Get $5 off in the Engine Publishing store using code KARTAS20, good through November 2013!

Also aboard the sponsor train, Eliptonic essayist extraordinaire Matthew Rossi. Check out his Kindle-ready books Things That Never Were, Bottled Demon, and At last, Atlantis at Amazon!

Join us for a very special live episode of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, live from FanExpo Canada. Hop in our time machine and journey back to Toronto on the weekend before Labor Day to hear about ninja anti-competition efforts, our most hated gaming clichés, and much, much more. Not to mention the toxic menace of the cronut burger.

Joining us as very special sponsor is the Bundle of Holding, which just happens to be offering an incredible Ken and Robin-related deal—the Bundle of GUMSHOE! Until Saturday, Sept 28th, you can grab PDFs of Ashen Stars, Mutant City Blues, See Page XX v1, and the first four issues of Ken Writes About Stuff — plus a 1-year KWAS subscription. Pay more than the current average and grab Night’s Black Agents and The Zalozhniy Quartet, too—plus additional sweeteners yet to be announced!

Also sponsoring us this week, writer and musician David Maurice Garrett. Check out his book Tome of Horror and his album Al Azif.

Having survived his epic three weekends, three conventions journey into the heart of geekdom, Ken returns to issue a Travel Advisory on his final leg, which took him to the newly de-asterisked DragonCon.

In How to Write Good we consider discipline, routine, and various techniques to keep the productivity flowing at the keyboard.

Then Ken and Robin Recycle Audio, with the first of two excerpts from the Gen Con GUMSHOE and investigative roleplaying panel.

Finally we give the weary Consulting Occultist a topic he should be able to do while standing on his head—those diffusely mystical purveyors of alchemical imagery, the Rosicrucians.

Temp

Special thanks to this episode’s lead sponsor, Genesis of Legend Publishing, and its Spark RPG.

Also joining us as sponsor this week, writer and musician David Maurice Garrett. Check out his book Tome of Horror and his album Al Azif.

After a prefatory Travel Advisory on their activities at FanExpo Canada and a Food Hut trawl through the gustatory delight’s of Robin’s neighborhood, Ken and Robin take a nostalgic look back over the haul of treasures secured in Toronto for Ken’s Bookshelf. Gangsters, pirates and ancient Americans flood into the Hite Memorial Library as we learn the secret graphic signifier that announces the presence of prime crazy.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Rob Heinsoo swings by the podcast to discuss the design process for 13th Age, as seen through the lens of traps and their evolving role in fantasy roleplaying.

Finally we enter the Gaming Hut to consider techniques for collaborative worldbuilding. That last segment idea comes courtesy of this episode’s lead sponsor, Genesis of Legend Publishing, and its Spark RPG.

Somewhat rested but still with a fog upon their vocal chords, Ken and Robin issue a joint Travel Advisory for Gen Con 2013. Come for the shameless bragging, stay for the awards analysis, industry temperature taking, panel highlights, and Indianapolis food tips.

Join us in a hearty welcome to our latest sponsor, Gorilla Games, now Kickstarting Monster  Derby, their full contact road rage road race board game!

In the Gaming Hut we power up our universal translators to contemplate the treatment of languages in roleplaying.

Then we review our way through the summer blockbuster season in the Cinema Hut.

In an Ask Ken and Robin lightning round, we dispatch questions right and left, entertaining queries from the diceless to the non-violent.

Then, under the watchful eyes of benevolent Google gods, our Cartography Hunt/Conspiracy Corner co-production takes the aerial view of the Kazakhstan pentagram.

Join us in a hearty welcome to our latest sponsor, Gorilla Games, now Kickstarting Monster  Derby, their full contact road rage road race board game!

Join hands and sing fhtagn fhtagn as we self-congratulate ourselves on an epic year of podcasting.

Then sidle past the mutual back-patting into the Gaming Hut, where we consider the export potential of DramaSystem series pitches to other roleplaying games.

Rear back in shock as the Food Hut hosts our most heretical segment ever, in which Robin argues that the vaunted Indy steakhouse St. Elmo’s is, in fact, a terrible restaurant.

Settle in for an extended stay as Ask Ken and Robin tackles Alasdair Sinclair’s question about maintaining a single campaign for the long haul.

Then look up to the strangest sight in the skyline of Bandung, Indonesia as, at the request of Tom McGrenery, the Consulting Occultist tries to infuse its Octopus House with more weirdness than it already contains.

In Ask Ken and Robin, Jacob Ansari asks about playing Night’s Black Agents in previous time periods.

The Tradecraft Hut hosts a look at Jasper Maskelyne, the so-called War Magician.

In The Business of Gaming we examine the unfortunate implosion of the Kickstarter-funded boardgame The Doom that Came to Atlantic City. This episode was recorded a day before Cryptozoic Entertainment announced plans to publish the game and fulfill orders to Kickstarter backers gratis, giving a happy ending quality to our link to designer Keith Baker’s site.

Finally we open the Eliptony Hut to the truth and legend of Nikolai Tesla, as we wonder what might be found under the grounds of his last laboratory, now slated as a museum in his honor.

Want those ad guidelines we mentioned in the show? Download our rate sheet, in handy PDF format.