Archive
Interview: James D’Amato – Dungeon Dome
James D’Amato, creator of the One Shot group of tabletop gaming podcasts, stopped by to talk about his newest project, Dungeon Dome! Dungeon Dome will be presented to audiences as a series of matches between larger-than-life characters played out on the tabletop. It’s a delicious mashup of D&D and professional wrestling.
If you haven’t heard any of James’ podcasts, they are outrageously entertaining! I strongly suggest giving them a listen:
http://oneshotpodcast.com/
The Kickstarter for the first season of Dungeon Dome is live and will be running through August 10th, 2017.
Go and check it out! http://kck.st/2ueX6hM
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
Does Canon Matter? Part 5 – The World of Darkness
I ramble for way longer than I’d planned about the various versions of White Wolf‘s World of Darkness tabletop RPG titles. For the last quarter of a century, four (soon to be five) editions of WoD games have been released, along with two editions of games set in the alternate reality of the Chronicles of Darkness. With a history like that, the games’ continuity has grown ponderous indeed. But how do you even approach the idea of canon when every story is told by an unreliable narrator? I talk about that and many other things – and I’ve been playing since the `90’s, so it turns out I have plenty to talk about.
Come see me at ConCarolinas! http://www.concarolinas.org/
As I mention near the beginning of the show, Fabled Environments is partnering with Yellow Piece Games on a new Savage Worlds setting called Buccaneer: Through Hell & High Water. Their kickstarter for the game runs through June 20th, 2017. Check it out! http://kck.st/2rlOfG3
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Interview: Charles White – Olympus, Inc.
A few days ago I did a quick interview with Charles White about his crowdfunding project for Olympus, Inc. It’s the first foray into a full-blown RPG setting for his company, Fabled Environments, and it presents a very interesting take on Greek mythology – as seen through the lens of the modern world.
The Indiegogo campaign is ending very soon! It’s running until Tuesday, April 26th, so I urge everyone to go and check it out! You can find that campaign HERE.
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
Interview: John Wick & Rob Justice – 7th Sea, Second Edition
My friend Michael Carlucci (of the Chaotic Neutral podcast) and I sit down and interview the developers of the second edition of the glorious fantasy Restoration-era tabletop RPG 7th Sea! We talk about the game’s origins, the ongoing Kickstarter for the new edition and the nature of the changes we can expect to see. We even take some time out to get a 7th Sea location pronunciation guide on record and take a few quick side trips down various geeky memory lanes.
The Kickstarter runs through March 13th, 2016 and can be found HERE.
You can find more info at johnwickpresents.com and sailthe7thsea.com.
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Music by Tim Beek
Discussion: SCARAB 2016
A few weeks ago I went to the SCARAB Gaming Convention in Columbia, South Carolina. I had the opportunity to hang out in the media room with some of the folks behind the con along with a couple of gentlemen running some of its events. As it happens, some of them were fellow podcasters! We had a nice, rambling, chaotic chat and talked about the con, our favorite games, costumes and all manner of other things.
Jon Maness and Ruby Jones are on the SCARAB staff and also run the SCARAB Swarm Cast. Their friend Tim helps out with all manner of things including photography and managing activities, and is well known for his games of “All Flesh Must Be Eaten.” Donald Dennis, who ran several games at the con this year, is one of the minds behind the site Inverse Genius and lends his voice to their various podcasts. He also runs Shush Con in Pawley’s Island, SC.
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Gamesmashery
Let’s chat for a little while about the idea of using one kind of game to generate ideas for another. I go deep into gamer geekery this episode to explore the idea of creating scenarios for tabletop RPGs using other role playing games or even board games.
In my ramblings I bring up a blog article by James Walls about using Small World in this way – that article can be found HERE.
I also mention a few other games that may be of interest – here are some links for those:
Dungeon Crawl Classics
Fiasco
Dungeons & Dragons
Dawn of Worlds
The Quiet Year
Microscope
Dungeon World
Lady Blackbird
In a Wicked Age
Vampire: the Masquerade
Durance
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The Numenera Bifrost
For the second year in a row, one of the other podcasts I’m involved with, Transmissions from the Ninth World, has been nominated for an ENnie Award! So I decided to ramble for a bit about the topic of that podcast, the tabletop RPG Numenera. I look at it as a game that could be a potential bridge between different kinds of gamers and a gateway to greater gaming diversity. A new Gaming Valhalla, perhaps? 😉
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To Puzzle or Not To Puzzle
I like puzzles. I also like tabletop role-playing games. But for the life of me I have yet to figure out a decent way to combine the two. I love the idea of throwing puzzles at a group of players when I’m running a game, but actually doing it has proven very challenging. Do players enjoy puzzles? Sure, I try to make sure I seriously entertain any ideas players have for getting around the puzzles I present them with, but I’d also like the puzzles themselves to be fun. Is there a good way of doing that? I’m still not sure, but I ramble about it for a while in this episode.
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
Deadlands and More Deadlands
Image courtesy of Imgur.
Sorry about the delay in getting this one posted, folks. This week I’ve been doing the literary equivalent of trying to ski uphill during an avalanche. So I’ve been a wee bit more distracted than usual.
This time I’ve decided to geek out about Deadlands, a Weird Western role playing game. I talk a bit about the game in general, my experiences with it and the various Deadlands campaigns I’m running these days. I also talk a little bit about why I think these particular kinds of genre mashup games work as well as they do.
(No jackalopes were harmed in the making of this podcast.)
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The Fred Friendly RPG
Image by Robert Bruce Livingston
At a time that the concept of role-playing had mostly been thought to be the purview of actors and psychiatrists, some folks thought of a different application. No, not Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, but television producer Fred Friendly. The Fred Friendly Seminars got well-known experts together to discuss major issues of the day by participating in a sort of role-playing game – a “hypothetical” moderated by a host. It is this fascinating thing that both is and is not an RPG – one that seemed well-accepted by the mainstream, it would seem – that will be the subject of my ramblings in this episode.
LINKS!
PBS – About Fred Friendly Seminars
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Syndication
Jim Ryan
This is what Jim looks like uncomfortably close up.
Jim's Podcasts
http://www.crucibleofrealms.com/
http://www.rpgdebate.com/
https://cyphercast.wordpress.com/Jim's Writing for Sale!
Abduction Etiquette
Farrago on Amazon Kindle- Farrago on Smashwords
From the Dark Side on Amazon- From the Dark Side on Smashwords
- In the Bloodstream: An Anthology of Dark Fantasy and Horror
- Kaiser's Gate: Tales from the Front on Amazon Kindle
- Kaiser's Gate: Tales from the Front on DriveThruRPG
Main Street Rag – Spring 2010
Titanic Jocularity!
License
Jim - Yes, THAT Jim by Byron James Ryan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Jim - Yes, THAT Jim 