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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

The Indie RPG Newsletter

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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

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Today we're talking to Max and Aaron from RTFM. Maxwell Lander is a game designer, photographer, visual artist, and also musician with an album of dungeon synth. Aaron King is a game designer whose works including Patchwork World Sixth Edition. They are both the co-hosts of RTFM, an RPG book club podcast.

Show Notes:

[00:02:49] Why start an RPG bookclub podcast?

[00:14:43] What each person brings to the table

[00:28:47] Critiquing RPGs as an artform

[00:41:24] Infectious Enthusiasm: Sagas of the Icelanders, Bloodfeud

[00:45:03] Tyranny of Numbers

[00:50:08] RePlay

[00:53:13] All Advice is Advice For Myself: Prep more, be less?

Other Links:

It's up to you really, an all vtuber actual play of Patchwork World

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Today, we're talking to Quintin Smith aka Quinns, who has been reviewing boardgames for more than a decade with the iconic show, Shut Up and Sit Down. Then about 3 years ago, Quintin joined People Make Games to cover everything from Roblox's relationship to child labour to the battle for ownership and control of Disco Elysium, from the revival of kabaddi in India to phenomenon that is jubensha in china. Now, he's gone and started Quinns Quest, a new youtube channel to review tabletop roleplaying games that feels like a lot like that one weird show where William Riker from Star Trek looked at the camera and asked us if we believed in ghosts. Don't worry, listeners, we're going to ask the question on everyone's mind: why?

Show Notes:

[00:02:00] What makes a good review?

[00:08:02] Horror versus Tension: one of the challenges of reviewing RPGs

[00:16:12] Would you ever do a bad review?

[00:23:22] Why playing games are vital for reviews

[00:40:44] Infectious Enthusiasm: World Wide Wrestling by Nathan Paoletta

[00:43:26] Tyranny of Numbers: Youtube drop-off

[00:45:12] Replay

[00:50:31] All Advice is Advice For Myself: Use your hands?

Other references:

I mentioned an article by Quinn Murphy which talks about promises, consistency and economy, you can find that here

If you liked this podcast, you'll probably love the Indie RPG Newsletter

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On this episode, we have Hannah Schaffer and Evan Rowland, the two creators behind indie game design outfit, turtlebun. They've published games like Questlandia, Noirlandia, Damn the man save the music, Mud: a golem memoir, and many more. You can find more about those games at turtlebun.com.

Evan and Hannah also co-host a podcast called Design Doc , which is in their own words, about "trying to make a living as people putting things out in the world". If you read any reviews of that show, you'll hear it being described with words like honest, vulnerable, caring, friendly. It's one of my favourite podcasts in the world and you should listen to it. Then, you can too get vulnerable insights into the daily practice of being a game designer and you can also learn that Carrie Fisher once overtweezed Hannah's mom eyebrows at a workshop.

Follow them on Instagram

Show Notes:

02:46 Getting started (Evan reinvents microtransactions)

09:07 Going from making big things to making medium-small things

11:30 Getting deep with Design Doc

25:00 What is collaboration and how do you even do it?

36:25 Infections Enthusiasm: The Beast and Usagi Yojimbo

39:40 Tyranny of Numbers

43:46 RePlay

45:33 All Advice Is Advice For Myself

Some of my personal greatest hits from Design Doc :

A guest episode on the feed today as I share with you something from the folks over at Playing at the Hearth, the podcast from the Open Hearth gaming community. It's a nice, welcoming online place where people from all over the place get together and play games. It's like having access to a convention all year round. If you'd like to join, head over to their website.

This episode has members of the community sharing their favourite games played in 2023. Lot of cool games mentioned and I add my 2 cents at the very end but I also got to play in two campaigns mentioned by other people which was Capitalites and Nahual.

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In this round-up episode for 2023, every single one of my guests sounds off about one game that they want to recommend to you!

[00:02:05] Judd Karlmann recommends Into the Odd, The Between, and As The Sun Forever Sets
[00:05:55] Lowell Francis recommends Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition
[00:08:27] Jahmal Brown recommends Legacy: Life Among The Ruins 2nd Edition
[00:12:05] Indrani Ganguly recommends Alice is Missing, Blase Monotony, and Bubble Bubble
[00:13:55] Tan Shao Han recommends The Nightmares Underneath
[00:17:07] Fiona Hopkins and Stephanie Burt recommend Wool of Bat and Monsterhearts
[00:20:20]  Paul Beakley recommends a|state and Fellowship
[00:24:08] Becky Annison recommends Escape from Tentacle City
[00:27:38] Emily Friedman recommends The Quiet Year
[00:29:46] Chris Chinn recomends Errant
[00:31:58] Josh Fox recommends Microscope and Microscope Union
[00:35:23] Evan Torner recommends Prism

Listen to the other round-up episodes of 2023 on the Yes Indie'd patreon!

The Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

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Evan Torner is the Associate Professor of German Studies and Film / Media Studies at University of Cincinnati. He's the Director, UC Game Lab and has a co-edited volume (with William J. White) entitled Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media. He's also co-founder and one of the editors at Analog Game Studies, which has been publishing research into RPGs and larps for more than ten years, and the Golden Cobra Challenge, which is a larp competition. He's a lifelong game master and a game designer and larpwright including his freeform scenario “Metropolis” was nominated for an award at Fastaval.

Show Notes:
[00:02:38] Starting out as a GM
[00:10:02] Railroading Is Good Actually
[00:22:20] Actor stance is "commercially default, not culturally default"
[00:29:43] Where do tabletop RPGs stand in game studies?
[00:39:55] Game design as media analysis
[00:45:19] Infectious Enthusiasm: Prism by Whitney Delaglio
[00:46:54] Tyranny of Numbers
[00:49:17] RePlay
[00:51:21] All Advice Is Advice For Myself

Transcript of the entire episode can be found here.

The Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter