This one’s a banger: D&D designer Steve Winter meets Ben Milton of Questing Beast!

Ben Milton is a game designer, YouTube sage, and sorceror-king of the OSR demigod! He’s the mind behind Knave 2e and the force behind Questing Beast, your portal to the wild, weird wonders of old-school RPGs. If you like sharp rules, deadly dungeons, and freedom at the table, Ben’s your guy.

And don’t sleep on Steve Winter — a living D&D legend. From sneaking into TSR through a second-story window to shaping 2e, 3e, and beyond, Steve has been part of D&D’s DNA for decades.

Tune in. Nerd out. 🎲🔥

Find Knave here, and Ben's YouTube channel here!

Tuesday, July 15th at 9 PM EST, Patrons of the show will be able to join a live book discussion on Charnal Houses of Europe: The Shoah. The conversation will include the book's developer, Richard Dansky, and Earthdawn developer Lou Prosperi. But only Patrons can participate live! Click here to back the show and participate in the conversation!

Not one, not two, but THREE RPG HISTORIANS in one hour of amazing audio!

Today, we are fortunate to have with us Shannon Appelcline, author of the magisterial THIS IS FREE TRADER BEOWULF, which is a history of the Traveller RPG. He’s probably most famous for DESIGNERS AND DRAGONS, which is his multi-volume history of seemingly every role-playing game company that ever put up a shingle and slammed some dice on a table. It was a book that got me through the pandemic. He seems to finish writing books at the pace other people finish playing video games.

Second in order but by no means in rank we have Jon Peterson. As I will keep repeating until I see it on Google’s N-gram viewer, Jon is the Thucydides of D&D history. His PLAYING AT THE WORLD and GAME WIZARDS are both required reading if you are going to post about D&D history anywhere online.

The 2nd edition of PLAYING AT THE WORLD is nominated for an ENNIE Award! 

Buy THIS IS FREE TRADER BEOWULF here!

 On July 15th, Patrons of our pod will get a special treat! We will be doing a book club on Shoah for Wraith: The Oblivion. The conversation will include the book's developer, Richard Dansky, and Earthdawn developer Lou Prosperi. Patrons can participate live, and even ask questions! If that sounds good, hie thee forth to our Patreon to subscribe! 

I can't believe I got these two on the show together! First, Kevin Crawford is a TTRPG design legend. My favorites from his work are Stars Without Number, and Worlds Without Number, both of which have been tremendously successful and influential as paragons of sleek game design and peerless GM tools. Stars was what I ran during the pandemic, and Worlds I read, and since the birth of my son, I read about one RPG every six months, but I had to put Worlds in that rotation just to see what Kevin did in it. To give just a taste of Kevin’s influence, Blades in the Dark creator John Harper said that the origin of Blades in the Dark was a Stars Without Number campaign. And Blades, which is itself an epochal piece of design, birthed an entire universe of games using its system. 

Second, we have D&D icon Steve Winter. It is possible that Steve has the longest D&D career of anyone in the history of the game. He began working on D&D back at TSR in downtown Lake Geneva, and once even broke into the offices by climbing in a second storey window. He was a vital voice on 2nd edition AD&D. He was one of the first people to work on 3rd edition D&D, even though that project then passed on to other hands, and he followed D&D from Wisconsin to Renton, Washington where he continued to produce work for D&D through 5th edition.

Check out Kevin's work here!

On July 15th, Patrons of our pod will get a special treat! We will be doing a book club on Shoah for Wraith: The Oblivion. The conversation will include the book's developer, Richard Dansky, and Earthdawn developer Lou Prosperi. Patrons can participate live, and even ask questions! If that sounds good, hie thee forth to our Patreon to subscribe!

Who saved Dungeons & Dragons? How many people could say that they saved Dungeons & Dragons? Off the top of my head, I would say that the list of people who could say they saved D&D at some point over the course of its 51-year history is less than 20. But I believe I have one of those people who could credibly tell a story explaining how they saved D&D on the podcast with me today, because today I am speaking with Ryan Dancey. Ryan is like a Rhode Island private who just happened to be at every major battle of the Civil War. He seems to have been present at a number of important moments during the transplantation of D&D from TSR to Wizards of the Coast. He went to Lake Geneva as part of a team to negotiate an initial purchase with TSR CEO Lorraine Williams. Then, when D&D landed at Wizards, he found himself in charge of D&D, and had to figure out how to make the game make money again.

Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see this! And the only way you are going to get access to this amazing interview is by subscribing to our Patreon. It's only $3 a month! Click here!

Want more of Ben's work? Check out SLAYING THE DRAGON: A SECRET HISTORY OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, available wherever books are sold!

The theme of today’s conversation is Ravenloft, but I don’t know think that’s the best place to actually start introducing my three guests.

Instead, I am going to say that I have a very addictive personality. I play one video game about every three years. But one of the video games I have played is MASS EFFECT, and with us today is the accomplished Canadian voice actor, the voice of Commander Shephard, and probably the most real-world famous person I will ever have on this podcast, Mark Meer!

Another one of the video games I’ve played is SKYRIM, and with me today is the lead designer of SKYRIM, a game which generated more income in its first week than TSR did in its best year, the co-creator of RAVENLOFT and lead author of the 1990 RAVENLOFT Boxed Set, Bruce Nesmith!

Last but not least, we have author of the Ravenloft novel, KNIGHT OF THE BLACK ROSE, editor of more books than I can list, alumni of TSR and Chaosium, James Lowder.

You can play D&D in a castle with Mark Meer by clicking here! 

Check out Bruce Nesmith's LitRPG, GLORY SEEKER, here!

Fear the sanity-blasting secrets contained within the eldritch auction that was THE DAGON COLLECTION, featuring Jim Lowder! Uncover its secrets here!

Are hexcrawls the adventure's final form?

We discuss that very question with two of the premier purveyors of the hexcrawl format in the 21st century: Jacob Hurst & WF Smith, aka Prismatic Wasteland. Jacob is one of the brilliant minds behind The Dark of Hot Springs Island, a hexcrawl of evil elves, interdimensional drug dealers, and beached whales. Smith is the lead designer or Barkeep on the Borderlands, a pubcrawl pointcrawl that is equal parts 1st edition homage, wine-soaked bachelorette party, and Terry Pratchett.  

Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see this! And the only way you are going to get access to this amazing interview is by subscribing to our Patreon. It's only $3 a month! Click here!

Above image courtesy Prismatic Wasteland. 

I have interviewed bestselling authors, Ivy League professors, and comic creators whose work has gone on to generate billions at the box office. 

But as a class, TTRPG professionals seem to be the smartest people I regularly talk to.

I discuss this and other fascinating points this week with Stephen Radney-Macfarland, a designer with a TTRPG resume longer than my arm. 

Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see this! And the only way you are going to get access to this amazing interview is by subscribing to our Patreon. It's only $3 a month! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=121641...

Kevin Kulp & Jeff Grubb have, between them, created entire cosmologies and entire timelines. Kulp is the award-winning creator of Timewatch and the investigative fantasy game, Swords of the Serpentine. Grubb, a legend in his own time, is the engineer of the Forgotten Realms, creator of Spelljammer, and writer of Manual of the Planes. Hear the pair discuss the secrets of creating new worlds with Ben Riggs.

Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see this! And the only way you are going to get access to this amazing interview is by subscribing to our Patreon. It's only $3 a month! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=121641...

Shannon Appelcline is a TTRPG historian par excellence. His Designers & Dragons set a high bar for the field and I cannot recommend it too highly. HIs recent Traveller history, This is Free Trader Beowulf, is similarly excellent. Today, we talk with Shannon about his time in the trenches of RPG history!

Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see this! And the only way you are going to get access to this amazing interview is by subscribing to our Patreon. It's only $3 a month! Click here!

Ask a round of nerds what the first RPG was, and you'll likely get D&D as your answer. Some might shout out Blackmoor. A few may say Braunstein. But what if the answer was... something else? A long talk with the Thucydides of RPG history, Jon Peterson! Pick up the first volume of Playing at the World 2nd Edition here!

Read Jon's article on Western Gunfight here!

You can read Michael Korns's Modern Warfare in Miniature here!

Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see this! And the only way you are going to get access to this amazing interview is by subscribing to our Patreon. It's only $3 a month! Click here!