We all love our furry (or not furry) companions, but how should they be used in stories? What separates animal companions from traditional side characters? Is R2-D2 an animal companion? We answer these bold questions and more on this episode of the podcast – plus we […]

      

Sometimes a sentence is very long, and it keeps going and going with commas in places that a period could be and extra clauses that don’t necessarily need to be there. Other times a sentence is short. Which is better? As is so often the […]

      

Some writers start every sentence with “there are,” others can’t stop italicizing, and still others write sentences that never end. We’ve all got bad habits in our writing, and this week Ariel returns to discuss them with Chris and Wes. Our hosts are all editors, […]

      

What’s this? Ariel has returned from the wilderness of freelance editing to grace our podcast yet again. She joins Chris and Wes for an in-depth discussion of emphasis in writing. How should writers make key passages stand out? How much is too much? Is bolding […]

      

We had so much to say about dice mechanics last week that we could have made it into two episodes. So, we did! Welcome to part two, where Chris describes a system so weird it sounds like an April Fools’ joke, Oren revels in rolling […]

      

Roll to understand game mechanics, because today we’re talking about core dice mechanics. This aspect of a game’s rules can sometimes get overshadowed by flashier combat and spell mechanics, but the way a game rolls dice is essential. So essential that we had way too […]

      

Which one of the hosts will turn out to be evil this week? Surprise, none of us are villains! Or perhaps we all are, since we threw in spoilers for Shield and Child of Light without any warning. How rude. This week, we talk about […]

      

This week we address a listener question: How do you depict post-scarcity societies? This is hard since there haven’t ever been any post-scarcity societies to use as examples, but we’ve never let that stop us. Chris raises deep questions about what government and private property would […]

      

Grab the dice and print out some character sheets – it’s time for an evening of roleplaying, or at least a podcast about an evening of roleplaying. This week we’re talking about oneshots and how they compare to longer games. We discuss everything you’ll ever […]

      

This podcast won’t be very long. We promise, no more than 10,000 words. That’s because today we’re talking about short stories, those bite-sized morsels of narrative. We discuss how short stories are not simply scaled-down novels, how they’re useful for new authors, and how they […]