Yes Indie'd Pod

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On this episode, I'm chatting with Fiona Hopkins and Stephanie Burt, who are the co-hosts of Team Up Moves, a podcast about playing and discussing superhero tabletop RPGs. I'm a big fan of the podcast and so I reached out to the two of them. Apart from RPGs, Fiona is a front-end software engineer by trade who worked at Google, Twitter, the City of Boston and now the Democratic party. Stephanie is a poet and a professor of English at Harvard University. She's also a critic, who has published a number of books, which you can read about on her Wikipedia page, which she has.

Show Notes:
00:43 - Introducing Fiona and Stephanie
01:51 - Why supeheroes?
13:28 - Analyzing superhero RPGs
34:01 - Picking games for the podcast
44:02 - Infections Enthusiasm: Wool of Bat, Monsterhearts 2
50:21 - Tyranny of Numbers
52:13 - All Advice Is Advice For Myself

You can find a written transcript of the episode here.

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

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On this episode, we're talking to Tan Shao Han, a TTRPG designer, writer, and cultural consultant from Singapore. He's contributed words to various Paizo Pathfinder books, including Lost Omens: Impossible Lands, new Dagger Isles supplement for Blades in the Dark, and other games like Monster Care Squad and ARC.

He's the co-founder of Curious Chimeras, a company that makes games and games-adjacent interactive experiences. Shao Han interestingly did his Master’s Thesis on tabletop role-playing games and their ability to engage, empower and educate.

Show notes:
00:27 - Shao Han's bio
01:41 - Learning D&D from videogame manuals
08:01 - Merging gaming and history and mythology
23:08 - Da Xia, a WIP game of folk heroes in WW2 Singapore
24:04 - Showcasing indie RPGs in the community
33:42 - Infectious Enthusiasm: The Nightmares Underneath
36:28 - Tyranny of Numbers
37:48 -  RePlay
38:46 - All Advice Is Advice For Myself

You can find a written transcript of the episode here.

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

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On this episode, we're talking to Indrani Ganguly who is the marketing manager for Hunters Entertainment, the publisher of Kids on Bikes, Alice is Missing, among other games. She is also the co-founder of Desis n Dragons, probably India's largest community of tabletop roleplayers. Of which, I am a humble member. Indrani is also a dicemaker, an artisan, making beautiful and custom math rocks under the name Nonagon Dice. She was a part of last year's Big Bad Con PoC Leadership Team and expertly organized the India programme where three people from India were invited to attend Big Bad Con 2022. She is an inductee of the TheGameAwards Future Class of 2022.

Show notes:
00;30 - Indrani's bio
02:24 - Getting started
08:26 - Starting Desis & Dragons
14:14 - The vision for the community
24:04 - Showcasing indie RPGs in the community
30:03 - Marketing TTRPGs
35:50 - Up All Night, a game of bargaining with your brain for one night's rest
37:29 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Alice is Missing, blase monotony, Bubble Bubble
38:54 - Tyranny of Numbers
40:24 -  RePlay
41:52 - All Advice Is Advice For Myself

You can find a written transcript of the episode here.

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On this episode, we're speaking to Jahmal Brown aka Mad Jay Zero. Jay is a podcaster, designer and rockstar GM. His podcast Diceology features interviews with folks from the RPG scene as well as fun recaps of his various games in Last Week in Gaming. As a game designer, he's contributed words to books like Pathfinder's magnificent Mwangi Expanse as well as designed his own games, Lifted Vol 1: Indomitable, a people with superpowers game primed by cortex. He also did some Pro GMing before it became cool when he kickstarted a West Marches campaign called Into the Mad Lands.

Show Notes:

01:05 - Introduction to Jay
04:13 - About the Diceology podcast (talking to Mike Pondsmith and Sarah Doombringer)
06:19 - Jay, on playing with kids
10:45 - Jay's 30+ session Twilight 2000 campaign
14:16 - GMing Practices
21:50 - Running West Marches
28:36 - Lifted Vol 1: Indomitable
37:43 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Legacy 2e: Life Among The Ruins
41:09 - Tyranny of Numbers: Kickstarter Advice
47:40 - RePlay: Jay shares story from Lifted/Champions Now about every table making corporate superhero teams

You can find a written transcript of the episode here.

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On this episode, we're speaking to Lowell Francis the writer behind the Ennie award winning RPG blog, Age of Ravens, which you can find at ageofravensgames.com. He's the co-designer of the fantastic Hearts of Wulin, a PbtA game of wuxia melodrama. He is also the Gauntlet Gaming Community Manager and co-host of Gauntlet Podcast. He is a comics author (he wrote Superman!), met his wife playing Magic the Gathering, and got knocked over by the fifth Dr. Who at a signing event.

Show Notes:

00:45 - Introducing Lowell
02:56 - Discussing Age of Ravens
07:08 - Reviews
12:12 - RPG Chronology Lists
15:43 - Post-Apocalyptic Games
20:57 - GMing Styles
26:54 - PbtA and Hearts of Wulin
34:20 - Community Management
41:04 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition
42:44 - Tyranny of Numbers: GMing 200 Games a Year
48:05 - RePlay: Scott Pilgrim via Hearts of Wulin

This episode comes with a transcript automatically. If your podcast reader does not display the transcript, you can find a version here.

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On this episode, we're speaking to Judd Karlman, the podcaster behind Daydreaming about Dragons, my personal favourite source of GM advice. Every episode of his podcast has two parts: table techniques, where Judd talks offers techniques to play roleplaying games, and inspiration goat, where a real goat recommends media to Judd and he explains how that media can inspire your game. Judd is also the author of gaming supplements, most notably Dictionary of Mu, a setting for Sorcerer written like a dictionary. And you can find Judd's blog at GithyankiDiaspora.com. Also on reddit, where he's often on DM advice subreddits helping new DMs picking up D&D for the first time.

Some helpful timestamps:
00:54 - Introducing Judd
02:24 - Talking about Sons of Kryos, an early experiment in RPG podcasting
06:38 - Talking about friendly versus snarky advice, and generally the problem of talking on the internet
11:47 - My favourite episodes of Daydreaming about Dragons: Episode 85. Playing Chess With Villains  and  Episode 70. Making World History Relevant.
24:45 - How Judd preps for games
26:10 - Using socialism to find the fun in dungeons (the municipal, unionized dungeon-delving actual play with Sean Nittner)
31:19 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Judd recommends The Between, Into the Odd, and As The Sun Forever Sets
34:48 - Tyranny of Numbers: Judd shares his podcasting statistics
37:30 - RePlay: Judd shares a Dictionary of Mu gaming story

If your podcast player supports transcripts, you should see one automatically. Otherwise, please go here for a full transcript. 

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

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

Marx interviews Thomas Manuel about games journalism, the synergy or dissonance between being a playwright and being a game designer, and about his games The Spider and the City, Hypercity, and Depths Unfathomable.

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All music derived from: be quiet from the album Sketches by Jahzzar is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License • available from Free Music Archive

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Marx interviews Cezar Capacle about Push and philosophies of game design, I Guess This Is It and minimalist story gaming, and how to publicise oneself in a post-Twitter world.

This episode is kindly sponsored by Matthew Gravelyn, whose game Tapestry is available now.

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• Donate via Ko-Fi

• Cezar Capacle on Twitter
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• Cezar Capacle bio page

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• Thomas Manuel on Itchio
• Thomas Manuel official website

All music derived from: be quiet from the album Sketches by Jahzzar is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License • available from Free Music Archive

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

Marx interviews Michael Low of Luck of Legends Games about games in the classroom, education in games, and about the choose-your-own-adventure colouring book RPG training manual Starsworn.

This episode is kindly sponsored by Matthew Gravelyn, whose game Tapestry is available now.

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• Donate via Ko-Fi

• Starsworn on Kickstarter
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• Cezar Capacle on Twitter
• Cezar Capacle on Itchio

All music derived from: be quiet from the album Sketches by Jahzzar is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License • available from Free Music Archive

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