System Shop

In this relatable episode, we’re joined by special guest Avery Alder - creator of Monsterhearts, Dream Askew, and The Quiet Year - to talk about relationship mechanics.  

How does your game change when you model relationships as variable stats, states of being, currencies, cycles, roles, or power dynamics?

How do you provide mechanical handles for specific types of relationships, while allowing them to be messy and emergent? What happens when two characters have wildly different interpretations of their mutual relationship? Where do relationships even exist, in terms of the physical sheet or game component that bears them?

Avery sees the kids for the trees. Violet hassles her vassals. Freya sticks to the classics. Avery seizes the means of narration. Violet doctors the narrative. Freya draws her friends close.

*** Check out Avery’s Stuff! ***

https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/

*** Check out JourneyMon! ***

https://ilgingell.itch.io/journeymon

*** Check out Freya’s Blue Skies Sabbatical, Volume 1! ***

https://severalseals.itch.io/drake-barcode-morse-inspector

https://severalseals.itch.io/foleynauts

*** Timestamps ***

No mailbag this time!

Intro to topic [*1] - 0:15:16

Why mechanise relationships? - 0:20:37

Design questions - 0:31:00

History - 0:53:47

Three angles on the Taxonomicon - 1:01:30

Rivalries - 1:07:51

Digression about Shock and conceptual poles - 1:13:45

Authority hierarchies - 1:21:46

Peer relationships - 1:30:49

Relationships as a resource - 1:39:00

Parasocial relationships - 1:45:16

Odds and ends and anecdotes - 1:53:17

Difficult relationships (and more Monsterhearts) - 2:02:16

Design Dreams - 2:12:27

Wrapup - 2:27:45

*** Design Dreams ***

Freya: the League of Super Frenemies

Violet: Hand Inarticulate Hand

Avery: Love’s Letters Lost

Bonus: The Dream Ghost Conspiracy [*2]

*** Games discussed ***

Monsterhearts

Dream Askew / Dream Apart

The Quiet Year

JourneyMon

Underwhelming Acolytes of an Ageing Immortal [-]

D&D 3.5e

D&D 4e

AD&D

Good Society

The Deep Forest

Masks

Exalted Essence

Vampire: The Masquerade

Delta Green

Pendragon

Sagas of the Icelanders

Girl Frame

Hot Guys Making Out

Star Crossed

Interstitial

Riddle of Steel

Burning Wheel

Blades in the Dark

Reign

A Place To Fuck Each Other

Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Lady Blackbird

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

Dogs in the Vineyard 

Apocalypse World

Masks

Dungeon World

Bluebeard’s Bride

World of Darkness (assorted)

Aberrant

Genius: the Transgression

Over The Moon

Tournament Arc

Transit

Shock

Lasers & Feelings

Avatar Legends

Flabbergasted

The Between

Pathfinder

Everyone Is John

Belonging Outside Belonging

Mad Alien With A Box

Golden Sky Stories

Blue Rose

The Serpent’s Tooth

Lost Kingdom (The many gm one streamer game)

Dialect

Going For Broke

Smallville

Last Fleet

Exalted (not Essence)

The Thunder Perfect Mind

Silver And White [-]

Microscope

Children of Time [-] [*3]

Seven-Part Pact [-]

Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast

Voidheart Symphony

Midnight Muscadines

*** Other media discussed ***

Earthborne Rangers

Steven Universe (obliquely)

The L Word

Animal Crossing

Homestuck (inevitably)

Kingdom Hearts

Beastieball

Pride & Prejudice

Jeeves & Wooster

Dr Who

The Order Of The Stick

Mage Knight

Gloomhaven

Battlestar Galactica [*4] 

Final Fantasy XIV

Buffy the Vampire Slayer [*5]

Dispatch

Persuasion

Portal 2

Philosophers in Space

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

A Close And Common Orbit

Shogun (the board game, not the show)

The World Ends With You: NEO

*** Notes & Links ***

[*1] …and apparently a local dog immediately goes wild in the background of Freya’s audio, sorry! It doesn’t last forever.

[*2] if you know of a game that already implements Dream Ghost Conspiracy’s mechanics, tell us about it! It saves us having to write it ourselves.

[*3] Predictably, the Children of Time crowdfunder ended some time before we finished editing this episode.

[*4] the board game, but also the licensed RPG I guess!

[*5] all this Monsterhearts talk and it took us two hours to mention Buffy. Spoilers at ~2:12:00!

[-] games with this tag are unpublished (not yet released) or un-published (un-released).

It is a fact universally acknowledged that when you make a joke and say “that was rubbish, you can edit it out,” that makes it funny enough to leave in.

According to the dictionary wot I done red, a pastiche does not have to also be parody. The term, delightfully, is derived from a name of a pie with a melange of many ingredients.

Sorry, Francis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man

*** Contact us! ***

Thank you to everyone who has emailed into our mailbag - If you too have a question, idea, or interesting game you’d like to share with us, email [email protected]

*** Additional Credits ***

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

System Shop is made by humans. We do not use generative AI at any stage of our process, from research to editing.

Hello, systemic shoppers! This is (hopefully) part one of a 2-part bonus about the nominations for the 2026 Ennies: the annual public-vote awards for TTRPGs.

We realised that the games tended to fall into either “I own and have played this” or “I haven’t even heard of this”. 

Now, we’re not going to talk at length about impressions of games we haven’t played, because judging a book by its cover is only appropriate for the games nominated for Best Cover Art.

But we are going to each pick one game, give it a spin in the near future, then reconvene with part 2 to talk about our experiences.

******

Voting will have closed by the time this episode goes up (it’s only open for like a week!) but the list of categories and nominees is on their website:

https://ennie-awards.com/2026-nominees/

******

The Girl Frame review Freya references is by Caelyn Ellis of Rascal News: https://www.rascal.news/girl-frame-confidently-stomps-its-way-into-a-niche-mecha-genre/ 

******

We also had a discussion about Deadline: A Clockwork Press that was definitely comedy gold, but (ironically enough) didn't make the cut because we’d decided to end the recording immediately before it. Whoops!

Vrrrroom! (Sorry, I had to). In this all-hands-on-deck episode, we’re talking about vehicular play and the scale shifts it introduces as it opens new horizons. 

What happens when you bring a knife to a tank fight - and how do you avoid trivialising the whole game when you’re the one in the tank? How do you set stakes when everyone might go down with the ship? And when does hyper-specialisation for crew roles actually cripple your cooperation?

Violet puts the cart before the oars. Freya mounts her soapbox. Violet rigs the game. Freya floats a flotilla.

*** Timestamps ***

Mailbag - 0:09:02

Topic intro & design questions - 0:17:34

History - 0:49:20

Comparing Wildsea experiences - 0:55:59

Taxonomicon - 1:03:13

Freya admits her serial salvage surplus & shipmate shortage - 1:41:59 to 1:52:05

Design Dreams - 1:53:23

Freya’s insectile aspiration announcement - 2:12:01

Wrapup (and oops, more bugs) - 2:12:54

*** Design Dreams ***

Violet - Record of a Spaceborn Fugitive

Freya - Disney Pixar’s Cars: The Driver’s Licensed TTRPG

Violet - Wormhole Long Haul

Freya - Transform and Role Out

*** Games discussed ***

Tool Team[*1]

Bestial Princess Disease: A Torture Chamber[*1] (can be seen here: https://files.catbox.moe/5mb50b.webp)

Several collage contributors

Drake Barcode: Morse Inspector [*1]

Shadowrun (2e, specifically)

Pathfinder

Lancer

D&D 5e

Scherzando! [*2]

Break!!

Sword World

Pico

Classified

Rifts

Traveller

Mothership

OD&D

D&D 3.5e

Star Trek Adventures

Wildsea

Last Caravan

Ribbon Drive

Car Wars

GURPS

Heavy Gear

Apocalypse World

Scum and Villainy

Blades in the Dark

Edge of the Empire / Genesys

Fate

Homeworld [*3]

Mothership: Gradient Descent

Transit

Horse Girl

My Girlfriend Has Turned Into A Car (And We’re Escaping This City)

Savage Worlds

Cypher

The Magnus Archives RPG [*4]

Electric Bastionland

Mythic Bastionland

Intergalactic Bastionland

Wanderhome

Stars Without Number

Eberron

Ion Heart

Last Fleet

Songs for the Dusk

Pasión de las Pasiones

Honey Heist

Good Society

*** Other media discussed ***

Affinity Publisher (does that count as media??)

Magic: the Gathering

Camel Up, Heat, Thunder Road, and Magical Athlete

The works of Adrian Tchaikovsky (as usual)

Shadowrun series (Harebrained Schemes)

Fuga: Melodies of Steel

Slay the Spire

Captain Sonar

Star Trek (Voyager & DS9 specifically)

Sunless Sea

Rogue Trader

Get in the Car, Loser!

Subnautica

Star Wars: Galactic Racer

X-Wing

Radio On (1979, dir. Christopher Petit)

One Piece Live Action Season 2

Pacific Drive

Magic Mike XXL (and other roadtrip movies)

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Shut Up & Sit Down

Gaslands

Akira

Hot Fuzz

Bug Fables

The Wandering Village

Dunecrawl

Star Trek: Armada

XCOM

Moby Dick

Railsea

Embassytown

Record of a Spaceborn Few

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters

Battlestar Galactica

Disney Pixar’s Cars

Rocket League

Iron Lung

Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture)

Transformers

Thunderbirds

Nowhere (1997)

Cowboy Bebop

Shadows of the Apt

*** Notes & Links ***

[*1] if you haven’t heard of these games, that’s because they’re ours and some of them aren’t released yet.

[*2] now with canon-compliant exclamation mark.

[*3] which is indeed published by Modiphius.

[*4] the Magnus Archives RPG is indeed based on the Cypher system.

Some research thanks to my local tank museum (and also, totally normal people on the internet) suggests that modern tanks have dedicated commanders among a crew of 4, and WW1 tanks had crews of 8 or more because they were huge and horrible and required a lot of manual labour. My tolerance for military history forums hit its limit at that point so I refuse to research WW2.

American Psycho (Wet) - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eY9ccvv7Nlg

Living spaces in space, from Cowboy Bebop - https://www.tumblr.com/bluedelliquanti/123202722454/one-of-my-favorite-things-about-rewatching-cowboy 

Random bug generator - https://perchance.org/bug-species 

My chair is unusually creaky in this one, so keen ears will probably pick it up occasionally. Sorry about that!

*** Contact us! ***

Thank you to everyone who has emailed into our mailbag - If you too have a question, idea, or interesting game you’d like to share with us, email [email protected]

*** Additional Credits ***

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this bonus episode, Violet discusses the games she ran and played at Con-Pulsion 2026…. Which she in-con-veniently forgets to name during the recording. Whoops!

***** Timestamps *****

Panels & speakers - 02:55

Unravel - 06:01

Unravel… again! - 13:57

Spoilers for the Unravel quickstart scenario - 15:39 to 16:53

More mechanical discussion of Unravel - 17:39

Freya’s extremely subjective opinions about Earthborne Rangers - 21:40

The Thunder Perfect Mind - 25:08

Dream Askew - 34:57

Reflection & Wrapup - 43:13

***** Games discussed *****

Unravel

Liminal Horror

Delta Green

Lasers & Feelings

CBR+PNK

Earthborne Rangers

The Thunder Perfect Mind[*1]

Vampire: The Masquerade

Daggerheart

Dream Askew

PbtA

Wanderhome

Mad Alien With A Box

Gloomhaven

***** Other media discussed *****

Black Wave, by Michelle Tea

Cross stitch (like, the actual textiles hobby)

Elder Scrolls 3 : Morrowind

Arkham Horror (the card game)

Arkham Horror (the board game)

Elder Sign (the other Arkham Horror board game)

Orphan Black

Trios

***** Notes & Links *****

Unravel quickstart: https://studio-mothmen.itch.io/unravel-the-work-is-in-good-hands

Discord link: https://discord.gg/cMP257y8

[*1] the game by Tanya Floaker, not the 2,000 year old poem

Freya will be wandering the halls of UK Games Expo in May, wearing her white JourneyMon t-shirts as usual. (In related news - the digital edition of JourneyMon has now released to kickstarter backers! Exciting!).

In this foolish episode, we…. Wait, what is it we do here again? I… I can’t remember… we’ve got a long road ahead of us if we’re going to make sense of all this.

(Seriously. It turns out we can’t even begin to answer this question without talking about the nature of storytelling, improv, kayfabe, the role of GM, the purpose of rules, being instructed to *break* those rules, what it means to “play”, the promises made when a game describes itself… this was meant to be a silly joke episode, dangit!)

Freya turns her lovers into fighters. Violet collates a collaborative coventure. Freya is drawn to a new role. Violet explores the past pre-tense. Freya breaks free of her bindings. Violet imagines a world without imagination.

*** Timestamps ***

What’s new - 02:56

Mailbag - 11:07

Intro to the topic - 18:30

History - 25:12

Taxonomicon - 40:16

Actual start of the taxonomicon - 41:06

Just kidding, it’s a discussion of the spectrum between ‘board game’ and ‘improv theatre’ - 41:07

Could this be the taxo- oh, no, now we’re talking about the nature of rules - 46:32

Listen, I think we’re just not going to have a normal taxonomicon in this one - ?:??:!?

Wait! A list of games in quick succession! This must be it! - 53:20

Discussion about Wanderhome and Kishotenketsu and game Promises and- are we sure we actually know what this podcast is about at all? - 01:05:36

Who’s Game is it anyway? (Discussion on the nature of GMs) - 01:21:08

The Counterexampliad, whatever that means - 01:27:25

Exclusive unlocked patreon content preview [*1]: international paper size deep dive - 01:31:51 to 01:33:17

Design Dreams - 01:56:58

We made it! - 02:12:59

*** Design Dreams ***

Two Truths And A Lie-Fall

Parasocial Investigations

Diararchaeology

Redaction RPG

PBTA Chaos Draft

Co-Op Adventure QWOP

RPG: Rebus-Picto-Glyphs

*** Games discussed ***

D&D 3.5e

Heavy Gear

D&D 1e

Pathfinder 1e

Eat the Reich

Unravel

Stories from the Grave

Wildsea

Eberron

GoGo Golf

Kagematsu

Triangle Agency

Hyborea

Coventry [*2]

Tunnels & Trolls

Pasión de las Pasiones

In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas

Vampire: the Masquerade

Apocalypse World

Dogs in the Vineyard

World Wide Wrestling

Monsterhearts

A Song Of Ice And Fire RPG

Genesys

Fellowship

Masks

Do: Fate of the Flying Temple

Avatar Legends

Yazeba’s Bed And Breakfast

Troika

Mausritter

Golden Sky Stories

Savage Worlds

Wanderhome

Journeymon

Alas for the Awful Sea

Transit

Lancer

Chuubo’s Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine

Slugblaster

Interstitial

Pitcrawler

Triangle Agency

Mothership

Cypher

RuneQuest II

Monster of the Week

Brindlewood Bay

Scherzando

Lost Kingdom

Belonging Outside Belonging

Colostle

For Small Creatures Such As We

Wreck This Deck

Hot Damn Deadly Alien Overlord Au Pair [*3]

Tacklebox

For The Queen

Our Queen Crumbles

The Tragedy of GJ237B

Paranoia

Toon

Microscope

I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic

Acts Of Evil [*4]

“Messed Up Little Guy” [*5]

Goblin Country

Dream Askew

Band of Blades

Ars Magica

Everyone Is John

Star Trek Adventures

This Discord Has Ghosts In It

Goblonia

Everything Is Tables

Your Body A Landscape

Spire

De Profundis

Apothecaria

*** Other media discussed ***

Mass Effect

The Twilight Zone (and its ilk)

Majora’s Mask

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

The Elusive Shift

Kriegsspiel [6]

The Lord of the Rings

Battleship

Mastermind

Kiki’s Delivery Service

Star Wars: Empire At War

FTL

Nier

Final Fantasy XIV

Fighting Fantasy

Grapefruit (Yoko Ono)

Foundation

Unwritten Earths Symposium

October: Ten Days That Shook The World

Spyfall

Pacific Rim

Dicey Dungeons

City of the Six Moons

Wildermyth

Penny Arcade

*** Notes ***

[*1] This is a joke, we don’t have a patreon and if we did we’d serve you something better than this gag, probably.

[*2] As you’ll discover when listening, this and several other entries on this list are debatably proto-RPGs. I’m giving them the honour of not being relegated to the ‘other media’ zone…

[*3] Once again - I’m sorry, world.

[*4] The author’s name is Paul Czege.

[*5] By Grant Howitt. This is a paraphrasing of the game’s name, but delightfully, you will find it if you google this.

[*6] Unlike Coventry, this one definitely goes on the ‘other’ list. Because it definitely is a wargame. It’s in the name.

*** Links ***

The term “ashcan edition” derives from quick, low-quality mockups used in the comics industry to quickly establish trademarks, and not intended to be read: something you’d take one look at, then thrown in the (tr)ashcan. In publishing, the term has shifted to mean early promotional materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcan_comic 

Ironically, if you haven’t seen this xkcd, we may have overestimated your familiarity. https://xkcd.com/2501/ 

“Fafhrd”, of “Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser”, probably isn’t pronounced the way Violet valiantly attempted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser 

Violet quotes from The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, by ludologist Bernard Suits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusory_attitude 

Freya only references webcomics if they’re at least 17 years old. https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/03/20/in-search-of-a-robust-cosmology 

*** Contact us! ***

Thank you to everyone who has emailed into our mailbag - If you too have a question, idea, or interesting game you’d like to share with us, email [email protected]

*** Additional Credits ***

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this tradition-setting bonus episode, Freya debriefs about the mechanics and tabletop experiences of seven games she played, two she ran, and one she designed (!) at Contingency 2026, the UK’s premier seasonally skewed seaside TTRPG convention.

As always, a massive thank you to all the GMs and players who make this con a highlight of my year ~

Timestamps

Immediate digression about competitive tabletop games - 0:07:04

The Code of Steam and Steel - 0:13:35

Tournament Arc - 0:22:42

Guest appearance from my cat - 0:29:53

Nibiru - 0:33:42

Inhuman Game Jam - 0:38:51

Phoenix: Dawn Command - 0:49:28

Goblonia - 0:57:26

Digression about games for actual toddlers - 1:05:20

Demigods - 1:08:55

Slugblaster* - 1:12:49

Rivers of London - 1:14:42

Break!! - 1:27:14

Con Haul - 1:35:10

Digression about settings where you’re just a lil guy - 1:38:32

Wrap up & what we’d like to play again - 1:42:48

Games discussed

Wildsea

Cosmere RPG

Shadowdark

Black Code

Black Rune

The Code of the Space Lanes (briefly)

The Comics Code

Belonging Outside Belonging

JourneyMon

Interstitial

The We-ness

Warhammer (briefly)

Wanderhome

Vampire: The Masquerade

Spire

The Sprawl

The PBTA genre in genre-al

Call of Cthulhu

D&D

Pathfinder

Delta Green

The One Ring

Die

Avatar Legends**

Cypher System (2019 edition)

Magnus Archives RPG (briefly)

Genesys

Mouse Guard

Mausritter

Mythic Bastionland

Other media discussed

Warhammer

Magic: the Gathering

Battletech

(Is Tarot “media”? Hmm.)

Megaman: Battle Network

Yu-Gi-Oh

Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged

The works of Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Mind

The concept of the mechsploitation genre

Leverage

That children’s memory game where you flip and match pairs of cards

Baby youtuber thumbnails

Various other infant toys, sorry, we got stuck on A Thing

Rivers of London (the novels themselves)

Inscription

Iron Lung (briefly)

Waters of Leith***

Battlecon: War of Indines

Millennium Blades (briefly)

Hollow Knight

Roadside Picnic****

STALKER 

Notes & Links

* You may have noticed this section is short. There’s not much to say about Slugblaster! It’s good. More verbose and video-oriented reviewers have talked much about it already.

** Mild spoiler warning in the final few minutes for some of the season premises (and a canon ship, ha) of Legend of Korra.

*** I have now *finished* listening to Waters of Leith. It’s a fun and competent production… but despite the GM’s stated intentions, it doesn’t really engage with the anticolonialist antagonist in an interesting or nuanced way. Which is not great, considering it’s set in (a version of) the real world and names real locations, peoples, and cultural artifacts. 

**** Spoiler warning for a seminal 1970s sci fi story.

Wolfram Alpha reports that the probability of at least one 4 on 4d4 is a bit over 2/3rds. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=probability+of+at+least+one+4+on+4d4 

“Nibiru” is an Akkadian term for “point of transition”. Nice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_(Babylonian_astronomy) 

Games For Crabs is running July 18th - 19th, 2026, in Sheffield (UK). https://gamesforcrabs.co.uk/ 

Toast Tea in Edinburgh is indeed a good café, and they are not - unfortunately - paying us.

Violet will be at Conpulsion in April - https://conpulsion.org/ 

In this ravenous episode, Violet is joined by returning guest Roz Leahy as we* talk about hunger mechanics. Don’t get confused with cozy campfire cooking: we’re discussing the tension and drama of *not* getting the sustenance you need. Everyone’s gotta eat in real life, but what does it mean for our storytelling?

How do you make ingestion interesting? Should there be benefits to “staying hungry”? Does it matter whether your tummy is half full or half empty? Are toothless hunger mechanics worse than none at all?

And most importantly, why does mechanised hunger work great for vampires, but not so well for hunters, a grab bag of “beasts”, and *checks notes* mummies?

Violet’s calamari hooks her on a white whale. Roz struggles to retain retainers. Violet snacks on a hunger bar. Roz hungers for punishment. Violet rates rational numbers. Roz has one square meal.

Timestamps

What’s new? - 0:01:18

Intro to the topic - 0:11:16

Content warning (eating disorders) - 0:29:41 to 0:30:49

History - 0:34:37

Deep dive on Vampire: the Masquerade et al - 0:51:27 to 1:04:59

Taxonomicon** - 1:07:47

Strong opinions about “usage dice”*** - 1:46:54 to 1:53:13

Content warning (eating disorders) - 1:55:25 to 1:56:25

Design Dreams - 1:56:36

Wrapup - 2:09:44

Design Dreams

Violet - Expeditions & Anticipations

Roz - Truly Miserable Hunger: Trench Foot Edition

Violet - Hungry Hungry Homunculi

Games discussed

Carved in Stone

Leathers

OD&D

Bluebeard's Bride

Heart

Castle Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd 

Vampire the Masquerade (in particular, 5th edition)

Mothership

Black Hack

Wilderfeast

Delving Deeper

Basic Fantasy

OSE

Hyperborea

Chivalry and Sorcery

Traveler

AD&D, specifically Wilderness Survival Guide, and Dark Sun

The Morrow Project

Aftermath!

GURPS

Rifts (briefly)

Werewolf the Forsaken

Mage the Awakening and Exalted (briefly)

Hunter: the Vigil 

D&D 3.5, 5e

Beast: the Primordial

Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Hunter: the Reckoning, Changeling: the Lost (briefly)

Mummy: the Curse

Monsterhearts

Masks

Apocalypse World

Torchbearer

Ryuutama: Book of Gastronomy

Golden Sky Stories

Lamentations of the Flame Princess

His Majesty the Worm

Errant

Knave (Briefly)

Mausritter

Daggerheart (Beast Feast)

Yes, Chef

Bakto's Terrifying Cuisine

Algophilia

Nechronica (Briefly)

Spire

Swyvers

Other media discussed

Articles by Jay Dragon (see links below)

Resident Evil & Stardew Valley (in the same breath!)

It Has Come To Pass (painting by Sergei Lukin, 1958)

Delicious in Dungeon / Dungeon Meshi

Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit

Outdoor Survival

Chainmail (briefly)

The Complete Guide To Role-Playing Games (Rick Swan, 1990)

Article by Merritt K (see links below)

The Score (Thi Ngyuyen)

Radical Uncertainty (John Kay & Mervyn King)

Battle Chef Brigade

Consume Me

Fear and Hunger 

Notes & links

* Well, not me, Freya. I’m writing the shownotes, but I wasn’t in this one!

** …which does, as it happens, start with two more World (well, Chronicle) of Darkness games!

*** We don’t strictly define “usage dice” in this section, though! Basically, instead of tracking item quantity / durability on a numerical scale, you roll a die of a certain size when you use it, and something bad (such as the die shrinking next time) happens if you roll badly. As Violet remarked when I was writing this comment, we *did* talk about usage dice way back in episode 1, so, long time fans will surely remember ;-) 

The official-ish website for ZiMo - Zine Month - doesn’t actually commit to when exactly Zine Month might happen, other than to clarify that it’s distinct from the two other things also called “Zine Month”. So, keep an eye out and solve their riddles three if you want to participate next year! https://iwanttoplay.games/zinemonth 

Jay Dragon articles:

https://possumcreek.medium.com/a-dozen-fragments-on-playground-theory-684104bcb4ab

https://possumcreek.medium.com/the-game-left-unplayed-60062beadded

https://possumcreek.medium.com/rules-are-a-cage-and-im-a-puppygirl-69e8d569b2b6 

The rather endearing life level index chart from Outdoor Survival:

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/254292/outdoor-survival 

The Merritt K article no longer seems to be available, or at least neither of us could find it - sorry!

“Sekhem” appears to be etymologically related to words for “power” and “form”, with connotations along the same lines as mana / chi / your life force of choice. Googling it in 2026 provides a long list of new-age healing businesses…. Followed by the White Wolf wiki. Disclaimer: I am not an egyptologist.

Content warnings

Given the subject of this episode, we discuss:

- Eating disorders

- The biology and physiology of starvation

Notable instances are logged in the timestamp section.

Contact us!

Thank you to everyone who has emailed into our mailbag - If you too have a question, idea, or interesting game you’d like to share with us, email [email protected]

Additional Credits

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this genre-defining episode, Violet and Freya are joined by fiancée of the show Imogen Gingell to talk about bringing a beloved videogame genre to the tabletop. How can you faithfully capture the themes while adapting mechanics to a new medium? How do you make each little guy mechanically unique and full of personality, without losing track of your travelling zoo? We explore how different games answer these questions - including, of course, Imogen’s upcoming JourneyMon, on Kickstarter right now!

Freya builds buzz for her broadcasting bees-ness. Violet dabbles with disobedience. Imogen reflects on symmetry. Freya draws a circle, then a blank. Violet bundles babies in her backpack. Imogen opens a box of dogs.

Check out JourneyMon on Kickstarter now!

journeymonrpg.com

Funded in seven hours, and (at time of press) well on the way to our second stretch goal! Campaign ends on Thursday, November 27th 2025.

Timestamps

What’s new? - 0:03:25

Tabletop Scotland - 0:11:03

Mailbag - 0:15:36

Intro to the topic - 0:23:37

Mechanics & design questions - 0:33:27

History - 0:56:44

Digression about 00’s homebrew forums - 1:08:21

Taxonomicon - 1:13:55

Design Dreams - 1:55:59

Wrap up - 2:13:02

Design Dreams

Violet - PokémOSR, Squires & Spirits

Freya - Isekai Ecologists, Everyone Is Mon

Imi - JourneyMon!

Games Discussed

Eberron

Cosmere RPG

Journeymon

Mythic Bastionland

Monsterhearts

Stonewalkers (Cosmere adventure path)

Escape From Riedra (Eberron adventure path)

Fall of Magic

City of Winter

Delve

Microscope

Armour Astir

Masks

Daggerheart

Apocalypse World

D&D

OSR (in general)

Runequest

Shin Megami Tensei TTRPG

Big Eyes, Small Mouth

Cute And Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters

Pokéthulhu

Pokemon Tabletop Adventures

Pokémon Tabletop United

Pokémon 5e

Pokéroll

Pokeymanz

Monsters Tail

Magimonsters

Animon Story

Monsters And Other Childish Things

Monster of the Week

Pocket Monster of the Week

Lancer

Everyone is John

Lasers & Feelings

Kids With Critters

How To Train Your Mutant Fire Dog

Genepals

Convocation Prime

Bones Deep

ForeverDex

Transit

Wilderfeast

Other media discussed

Arkham Horror (card game)

Game Soup

Escape This Podcast

Pokémon*

Final Fantasy

Digimon**

Dark Souls

Battletech (the tabletop wargame)

His Dark Materials

Megami Tensei

Dragon Quest

Critical Ditto

The Adventure Zone

Microsoft Excel

Battletech (the videogame (2018))***

Ben 10

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Pokemon: Too Many Types

What Beats Rock

World of Warcraft

Let’s Learn Everything

Decktamer

My Card Is Better Than Your Card

Encounters of the Spooky Kind

Cassette Beasts

Jade Empire

My Trainer is Dumb?!

Disco Elysium

Inside Out

Monster Hunter

Dungeon Meshi

Notes and links

* we make it 25 minutes before naming Pokemon…

** …and it took us 42 minutes to namedrop Digimon!

*** I got the year wrong, clearly I’m not a True Fan

ProZD’s Q&A about his home Pokemon TTRPG -https://youtu.be/pndtlIKl0Qw?t=272 

One youtuber’s report from the front lines of Pokemon: Too Many Types - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjoLQvj7lAE 

I couldn’t find the Chansey Death Stranding game again. I’m moderately confident that it wasn’t a fever dream.

Contact us!

At [email protected]

Additional credits

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this conclusive episode, we round off our discussion of mapmaking. How can random map generation both add and remove meaning in a world? Is verisimilitude in tension with playability? Do spaces need to generate conflicts?

Violet re-orients her priorities. Freya turns on the worm. Roz breaks the annual silence. 

Violet goes loopy. Freya goes flat-out. Roz throws shade on the dark. 

Violet’s ideal excludes idylls. Freya enjoys a beach episode. Roz edinburrows through Edinborough.

We will be at Tabletop Scotland!

In Edinburgh *this weekend* (5th - 7th September). 

Say hi if you spot us! Freya says if you spot her in her white JourneyMon t-shirt and enthuse about your favourite companion monster, she’ll give you a bag of monster munch.

Check out Roz’s stuff

Roz’s portfolio can be found here - https://rozleahy.carrd.co/

Her Philip K Dick podcast, Chicks with Dick, can be found in your preferred podcasting place.

Timestamps

Map-related news - 01:03

The ever-popular taxonomicon - 13:38

…including but not exclusively extended discussions of…

The Quiet Year - 17:20

Seas of Sand - 44:37

Wanderhome - 1:03:38

Mappa Mundi - 1:10:21

Spotlighting some games that we found through a keyword search on itch.io - 1:19:27

Design Dreams - 1:38:00

Surprise! Actually it’s a discussion about real world architecture - 1:38:01

Okay, now Design Dreams - 1:43:41

Wrapup - 2:10:11

Design Dreams

Violet: Spiral School, Blobworld, Urchins Under Adventurefication, Border Loopers, Gold Rush God Game

Freya: Isekai Leyline Wizards, Turns & Tides 

Games discussed

Keep on the Borderlands (“very slight spoiler” warning around the 1 hour mark)

On Mighty Thews

Swords Without Master

In A Wicked Age

Beyond the Wall - Further Afield

Microscope

The Quiet Year

I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic

Your Cool City Needs A Food Supply

Delve

Dawn of Worlds

Bottled Sea

Undying Sands

Umbra

Rise

Mothership

The Vast in the Dark

Seas of Sand

Dark Sun

Mausritter

D&D (took us a while to mention it this time!)

Wanderhome

Journeymon (took us a while to mention this, too!)

Ryuutama

Under Hill, By Water

Mappa Mundi

Heart

Bad Maps

World In Your Hand

Sock Puppets

A Show of Hands

Your Body a Landscape

Walking to France

Wisher, Theurge, Fatalist

My Bad Galaxy

Into The Odd

Delta Green

DOGS (which may or may not be in the Vineyard)

Cosmere RPG

Other media discussed

Pseudoregalia

Majora’s Mask (specifically the 3DS remake)

Blue Prince

Harvest (2024)

Conan the Barbarian

Lord of the Rings

The Domesday Book

Seeing Like a State

Invisible Cities (Violet tried not to talk about it, but successfully failed)

Hello Future Me

Victoria 3

Small World (board game)

Carcassonne

Civilization: New Dawn

Dwarf Fortress

Flatland

Planet Zoo

Dark Souls

Citizen Sleeper

Tress of the Emerald Sea

Magic: The Gathering

Diablo

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Skyrim

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis

Talisman

Captain Sonar

Zelda (in general)

Bloodborne

Hobbit Tales From The Green Dragon Inn

Hand of Fate

Advance Wars

Delicious in Dungeon

Lil’ Guardsman

Hundreds of Beavers

Too Many Cooks (cw: surprise horror)

Late Shift (2025)

Inis

Notes and links

The National Underground Asset Register appears to require an account to access its beta form - https://portal.nuar.uk/ 

Restrictions breed creativity in the WTF game jam - https://itch.io/jam/wtfjam2025/entries 

Watabou’s generators on itch are just one of the many map-making tools out there - https://watabou.itch.io/ 

If you find the post about the guy getting stuck in the backstage of a hotel, send it to Roz because she can’t find it and it’s driving her crazy.

Isekai is a truly prolific genre of anime and manga about protagonists who get magically transported to other worlds. But you knew that, you weeb ;-)

Contact us!

At [email protected]

Additional credits

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this trailblazing episode, we have our first ever guest and our first ever two-parter! We’re joined by Roz Leahy, game designer and editor, to talk all about maps. Who makes the map, and when? How is the act of mapmaking at the table reflected within the fiction? And when can a “bad” map be better than a “good” one?

Freya invents Bawdy&D. Roz lays her cartography on the table. Violet joins the little leagues. Freya is inclined to descend. Roz delivers a north-winded explanation. Violet goes dotty. And most importantly, everyone enthuses about local history. There’s no pun there, we just think it’s neat.

Check out our various things!

The kickstarter prelaunch page for Journeymon, the monster-training RPG written mostly by Freya’s award-winning fiancée but also partially by her, is waiting for you at https://journeymonrpg.com/ . There’s also a free quickstart adventure. Check it out!

Roz’s portfolio can be found here - https://rozleahy.carrd.co/ . Her Philip K Dick podcast, Chicks with Dick, can be found in your preferred podcasting place.

Timestamps

What’s new - 3:05

Mailbag - 11:46

Intro to topic - 15:05

Design Qs - 22:00

History - 58:50

Wrapup - 1:18:55

TTRPGs (and a lot of specific modules this time!)

Border Riding

Keep on the Borderlands

Journeymon

Going for Broke

Masks

Dungeons & Dragons: Men & Magic booklet

Cosmere RPG

Stars Without Number

Mothership

Mausritter

Mörk Borg

Planescape

Dawn of Worlds

Hyperborea

Hyboria (not to be confused!)

Descent into the Depths of the Earth

West Marches

Dungeon Geomorphs

Traveller

Microscope

The Quiet Year

Dark Forest

I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic

Songs for the Dusk

Other media things discussed

The Carry On film series, for some reason

Kill James Bond

Original Podcast Do Not Steal

Escape This Podcast

City of Six Moons

Chicks with Dick

Pathologic

A prospective map of unified Germany from 1848

Shadow & Bone (season 2)

Game of Thrones

Babylon 5

Sword of the Stars

Stellaris

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Captain Sonar

Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space

Outdoor Survival

Chainmail

Guild Wars 2

Elden Ring

Big Walk

Ratatouille

Fallout 3

Assassin’s Creed

Notes and links

The virtual escape room “Break this Game” praised in Freya’s intro can be found here - https://mattj375.itch.io/vr-game-escape-room 

“On Exactitude in Science”, by Jorge Luis Borges, happens to only be one paragraph long, and you can read the text in translation here - https://neilgreenberg.com/ao-quote-borges-on-exactitude-in-science/ 

The National Library of Scotland’s archive of maps is available here - https://maps.nls.uk/ 

Mystic Arts’ Video on 3-mile hexes is on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEIg1DlRkLg 

More information about the singular phenomenon that is Hyboria can be found here - https://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/p/tony-baths-hyboria.html 

Contact us!

At [email protected]

Additional credits

Our intro music is 

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/