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Joshua McCrowell is the designer of new tarot-based dungeoncrawler His Majesty The Worm, published by Exalted Funeral. He's also the current editor of Knock Magazine, the OSR focused anthology zine that has quickly became a fan favourite, and a blogger at riseupcomus.blogspot.com where he talks about everything from how to adapt tolkien in games to what makes a good social encounter.

Show Notes:

02:22 - Running a game for 8 years

05:39 - Dungeoncrawling in 2024

16:46 - The design of His Majesty The Worm

36:13 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Vermis, Black Sword Hack and Valley of Flowers

38:14 - Tyranny of Numbers

42:05- All advice is advice for myself

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Mint is an rpg designer and blogger from New Foundland, Canada. She runs There's a TTRPG For That, an rpg recommendation blog on tumblr, which has lists for all kinds from the general to the very specific, "games that are grunge" to "two player games" to "games where you don't need to write anything down". She's currently working on a game called Protect the Child, a game of monster babysitters, that is equal parts comedy and queer found family. You can find the Protect the Child playtest server here.

Show Notes:

02:53 - Getting started with Lady Blackbird

10:18 - RPG scene on tumblr

17:03 - Protect the Child's themes

26:44 - Protect the Child's design

39:09 - Infectious Enthusiasm: ⁠Bones Deep, Mothlight, Spectaculars

42:07 - Tyranny of Numbers

44:38 - Re:Play

45:59 - All advice is advice for myself

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Prismatic Wasteland aka WF Smith is the prolific blogger behind prismaticwasteland.com and the creator / writer of Ennie award winning fantasy adventure, Barkeep on the Borderlands. He's also running a game jam where participants create their own pub or tavern, which is live as this episode comes out and runs until August 15th 2024.

Show Notes:

02:02 - Producing Barkeep on the Borderlands

10:03 - The design of the adventure

16:41 - Good random encounters and tracking time

25:60 - The political side to the adventure

34:19 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Vampire Cruise by Amanda Lee Franck

35:56 - Tyranny of Numbers

39:43 - Re:Play

41:59 - All advice is advice for myself

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Tom McGrenery is an RPG writer and translator from Hong Kong, who publishes under the banner, Porcupine Publishing. He's contributed to products like Feng Shui and Night's Black Agents as well as designed his own games like his hack of the Drama System featuring brazilian layabouts and swashbucklers, Malandros. In 2020, he translated and published the Brazilian rpg, the Elephant and Macaw Banner. He's also the co-host of the long running podcast, Fear of a Black Dragon.

Show Notes:

07:48 - One Shot Saturday in Hong Kong

12:09 - Fantasy Non-fiction

19:41 - Revolution Comes To The Kingdom

31:10 - Games about war

36:45 - More RCTK

46:36 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Wolves Upon The Coast

55:11 - Tyranny of Numbers

57:04 - RePlay

58:26 - All advice is advice for myself

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Jay Dragon is a queer disabled game designer behind such games as summer camp horror game, Sleepaway and the pastoral fantasy indie darling, Wanderhome. Jay is the editorial director at Possum Creek Games. As of publishing this episode, they print version of Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast has come out. It's a project of immense scope and skill that is clearly full of love and artistry.

Show Notes:

05:14 - Introducing Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast and how it started with specific characters

15:02 - The three elements of the game

20:36 - Chapters as self-contained games

31:15 - Characters arcs or journeys

44:40 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Last Train to Bremen by Caro Asercion

45:51 - Tyranny of Numbers

47:23 - RePlay

49:36 - All Advice is Advice for Myself

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Because of some travel, instead of an interview, something from the patreon feed makes it way into the main feed. This is a round-up of 2023's answers to the question, "What is something you're trying to do better at the gaming table?" Enjoy!

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On this week's episode, I talk to Sidney Icarus, a game designer of, among other things, the scifi horror game, Decaying Orbit, published by Storybrewers Roleplaying, which won the 2023 ARPIA Game of the Year. But I first heard of them as the fantastic host of the now-concluded Hard Move, a wonderful podcast where every episode, Sidney and a guest analysed one move from a PbtA game.

Show Notes:

03:12 - RPG Descriptivist

14:49 - The "Who Says What When" Framework

22:06 - What is Action Paths?

32:04 - Analyzing Decaying Orbit using Action Paths

1:08:46 - Sidney's next game: The Most Dangerous Game

1:12:03 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Bump in the Dark

1:13:50 - Tyranny of Numbers

1:16:50 - RePlay

1:18:14 - All advice is advice for myself

The Indie RPG Newsletter

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On today's show, we're talking ship with Sebastian Yue, a game designer, writer, and editor. Apart from their own self-published games and DMs Guild modules, They work full-time at Hit Point Press which is best known for various very succesful third party D&D 5e products like Heckna and Humblewood. They've also contributed as a designer to some wonderful projects like Apocalypse Keys, Cloud Empress, ennie-award winning Uncaged Goddesses anthology, and the currently in-progress official Tomb Raider RPG.

Show Notes

04:18 Getting started with game design

15:18 Working full-time at Hitpoint Press

22:10 Being in both the D&D and indie game communities

24:15 All about editing: style guides & more

29:50 Future plans

34:07 Advice for aspiring game designers

36:56 Infectious Enthusiasm: Ingkit by Pukepeku Games

38:15 Tyranny of Numbers: Annual earnings

42:15 RePlay

43:43 All Advice is Advice for Myself

The Indie RPG Newsletter

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Today, we're talking to Graham Walmsley, the celebrated game designer behind tabletop RPGs like Cthulhu Dark and A Taste for Murder, larps like Will That Be All, and lovecraftian scenarios for games like Trail of Cthulhu. He's also the author of two non-fiction books called Stealing Cthulhu about telling lovecraftian stories and Play Unsafe about techniques for being a better player of tabletop games. This year, he's got two new games out, Cosmic Dark, a sequel to Cthulhu Dark about corporate employees in space, and Darkenwood, a GM-less game about a nightmarish forest.

Show Notes:

01:41 Introducing Graham

03:07 Starting with Lovecraft

12:08 What is weird fiction?

16:55 All the cool stuff in Cosmic Dark

26:24 Rules, advice, setting

39:22 Infectious Enthusiasm: Lumberjills by Moira Turkington

41:50 Tyranny of Numbers

43:44 RePlay

46:25 All Advice is Advice for Myself

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This week, we're talking to Nico MacDougall and returning guest Tan Shao Han about The Awards, an alternative tabletop RPG awards project.

Show Notes:

03:56 Introductions

13:31 Being a judge

16:09 The process of picking a winner

21:30 Who should be a judge?

25:36 Infectious Enthusiasm

27:59 Tyranny of Numbers: Breaking down submissions to the Awards

31:02 All Advice is Advice for Myself