Welcome to the third and final part of our Monsters in Role Playing Games (RPGs) episode. This time we are joined in the Room of Role Playing rambling by Tomas Harenstam from Free League. He talks about his formative years in Swedish role playing and how to create a great Bestiary.

Dirk and Blythy answer listener Monster questions before having a chat about When we were Wizards.

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We continue to explore the worlds of monsters in role-playing games (RPGs). In this episode, we are joined by James Holloway, from the Monster Man podcast. He adds a new entry into the ever expanding Appendix G.

Judge Blythy and Dirk talk about the famous monsters of Hollywood and beyond and consider what we can learn from them.

The end music is Concrete by Omari, from Phunk Media

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This time we are looking at bestiaries from our book shelves. We talk about:

Numenera,

Forbidden Lands,

Call of Cthulhu,

Dragon Warriors,

13th Age,

Vaesen,

This was at the request of GROGSQUADer China Miéville who Dirk talked to at an RPG Symposium earlier this year.

Next time, James Holloway, Monster Man joins us, because monsters are great.

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Following our podcasts about home computing in the 1980s, we turn our attention to the emerging culture of ‘Cyberpunk’ and how it shaped a new imaginative space – especially for gaming.

We look at Neuromancer by William Gibson, with writer Alister Davison who has added the novel to Appendix G, the list of media that has inspired us. Do you have any suggesions?

Judge Blyhty is in to Roome of Role-Playing Rambling to look at Cyberpunk Red and its influnce.

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We’ve talked about our formative years in RPGs, what about computers? They were as important as a common-ground to become friends.

In this episode Dirk and Blythy talk about their exposure to computers in the 80s.

Also, we discuss Rippers for Savage Worlds and the crisis of confidence when creating a setting.

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At this year’s virtual GROGMEET we were joined by Dan Whitehead, the author of Speccy Nation, who took us on a tour of The ZX Spectrum. The 8-bit computer was a staple of our every day lives in the 1980s.

There’s an advert for Third Floor Wars which recently featured Burn After Running’s Guy Milner.

The next season of the Book Club features classic science fiction.

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Welcome back, just when you knew you had enough of Dirk the Dice and Judge Blythy rambling on and on about TTRPGs, they’re back with more.

These are the answers to the GROGPOD listener questions that didn’t fit into the first part.

There’s also a Post Bag section, where we talk about to the favourite covers of White Dwarf identified by our listeners.

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The return of @dailydwarf with an article about Good, the Bad and downright Odd covers of White Dwarf from 1 – 106 (when they stopped doing RPGs). Join us as we go into a time capsule and review some of our favourites.

If you’d like to play along and let us know your favourite White Dwarf cover, then head to Daily Dwarf’s site where he has helpfully put together a catalogue of the covers.

Dirk and Judge Blythy join in the fun as well as answering listener questions. There’s more to come (sorry about that).

There’s an advert for Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes Podcast, where Dirk recently appeared talking about ‘Why we RPG’.

If you would like to know more about the symposium Dirk attended, then follow the substack.

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In this episode, we have a very special guest. Marc Miller is the creator of the Traveller Role-Playing game and in this interview he talks to Dirk the Dice about his first encounter with Dungeons and Dragons. He also talks about the origins of Traveller and his trip UK Games Day.

Judge Blythy, our resident rules lawyer, revisits the rules that we looked back at in Episode Three and assesses the changes that have been developed in the latest version. We are playing Traveller regularly again, and really enjoying it.

Space Ship art by Ian Stead (thanks for making the contact!).

The outro music is My Face will Murder Me by The Static Music Club (Omari)

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This episode follows the theme of the previous one, where we looked at Adventure Design. This time at the book club we have the amazing Johnn Four who shares his Five Room Dungeon method and explains how story techniques can add to our gaming.

Judge Blythy and Dirk the Dice look back at the games that they have played over the past 12 years and try to identify what made them work.

They also set out their resolutions for 2024 – a year on the grog.

Dirk is recommending the following podcasts: The Rest is History, The Rest is Entertainment, Immortals, Land of the Giants: Twitter, ACFM, Scarred for Life, Mason and Fricker’s Eldritch Tales, Bud and Griff’s Gaming Creepshow, and Between 2 Cairns.

Outro music is Ickle Pickle by Static Music Club (Omari)

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