Podcasts – Fear the Boot, RPG Podcast

* (0:24) A joke to an AI becomes a show topic. * (2:48) Characters born in a cursed forest, without sunlight. * (7:48) Characters who compulsively collect…feathers…? * (13:18) Characters who accidentally caused a rebellion. * (19:29) Characters with an unusual knowledge of fungi. * (25:03) Characters who cannot stand the sight of open water. Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) Switching to a bucket list of what we want to play. * (1:30) Wayne wants to play Dresden Files. * (4:13) Dan still wants to play an Injustice game. * (6:11) Mary wants to play a necromancer. * (9:05) Doug wants to play Stargate (or something like it). * (10:18) Wayne wants a settlement building game. Rebuild 3 demands FTB-9000 compliance! * (14:38) Dan wants to play ourselves. The End of the World. * (18:08) Mary wants to play multiple characters. * (22:25) Doug wants to play Greek mythology. * (26:00) Wayne wants to play a Sliders game with plenty of alternate history. * (28:50) Dan wants to play Battletech (plus Mechwarrior). * (30:17) Mary wants to play a group of paladins (with strong nods to David Eddings’ The Elenium). * (35:37) Doug wants to play assistants to Cold War spies. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) The bucket list of games we want to run. * (1:31) Doug’s long-term campaign. * (3:10) Wayne’s Fallout: St. Louis game. * (7:03) Dan’s Battletech: Silver Scorpions game. A Fabian war. * (9:37) Mary’s Castle Ravenloft / Curse of Strahd game. * (12:41) Doug’s western game. * (14:58) Wayne’s campaign based on The Quiet Year. Decuma and Home. * (18:57) Dan’s Hunter game. Dayshift, watchable on Netflix. Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation. * (22:39) Mary’s Mummy game. Spirit of the Century. * (25:40) Doug’s Midgard campaign. * (26:51) Whatever Wayne backed last on Kickstarter. Right now, that’s Planet of the Apes. * (29:47) Dan’s Battletech: Solaris VII game. * (33:36) Mary’s Oregon Trail (with dragons). Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:30) An old Apple //c computer and early computer RPGs. * (4:16) Transitioning from video games into tabletop RPGs. * (9:44) The expectations players bring from a video game to pen-and-paper games. * (12:41) The tyranny of choice brought on by a lack of a character-driven path. * (18:05) A lack of clear and connected outcomes. * (19:50) Mixing new and veteran players. * (26:13) Expanding intra-party roleplaying. * (28:39) Asking why someone wanted to make the jump. * (35:06) Trying to translate one medium into another. Hosts: Caleb, Dan, Doug, Mary

* (0:29) What is your goal for the first session of a game? * (2:10) Who are these characters really? * (6:08) When the person you wanted to be isn’t who you became. * (11:34) A buffet of NPCs. * (16:14) Keeping the first session low pressure and shorter length. * (20:33) The social leader of the group. * (25:30) The flexibility in session one. Using the first game as a test of session zero. * (33:43) Testing the waters as the Game Master. * (37:09) Using rules and rolls a bit more than you otherwise would. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:23) Prompts and prepositions. The clockwork circus is coming to town! * (1:40) Wayne’s circus in space. * (4:13) Mary’s circus on the frontier. * (7:53) Doug’s carnival of nightmares. * (8:41) Dan’s carnival of hope. * (13:10) Celestial crystals that grant power. * (14:05) Mary’s crystal preppers. * (16:08) Dan’s crystal entanglement. * (19:45) Wayne’s crystal invasion. * (24:57) Doug’s crystal gift. * (27:05) A whole lot of tests, quandaries, and Faustian deals. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) Fear the Con has funded and the sign-up site is live! We hope to see you Thursday, June 20th to Saturday, June 22nd. * (1:58) Getting back to what you love, inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing. * (5:16) The tyranny of compromise. * (9:54) Wanting the GM to build the world instead of “yes-and” player input. * (15:43) Why Wayne discarded some ideas he was excited about. * (19:06) The passion for sharing stories. * (22:06) Watching players engage with obstacles and NPCs. * (26:06) Hopeful or despondent? Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) Wayne has a problem: the Wardens from Dresden Files. Coming up with too many excuses for why powerful organizations don’t care about the characters’ problems. * (7:14) Session Zero can help…or maybe not. * (10:29) There’s always someone bigger, and maybe your allies lack what you need. * (14:42) What if the characters are the backup? Or maybe they’re starting to get a reputation. * (17:41) Not letting it become a chip on the GM’s shoulder. Players that hamstring themselves. * (23:45) The assistance not being what the players expected. * (27:54) Falling back to the mature answer. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:30) What steps do we take to bring a character to life? * (1:49) Ask what’s important. * (6:53) Seeing the good and bad in a single trait. * (8:06) Doug’s personality triangle model. * (10:54) Demonstrating character quirks. * (16:34) Making characters that both have and express personal growth. * (18:57) Taking a hobby, off-topic skill, or development path. Keeping your character in continuity. * (23:11) Practicing a character. * (29:43) Developing your idea in other creative media, but consider leaving a gap before the game begins. * (35:35) The last few days of the Fear the Con 2024 Kickstarter! Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

Today’s ingredient: The dead are consuming the living. Why and how? Let’s find out! Fear the Con 2024’s Kickstarter can be found here. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) In defense of technology at the gaming table. Caleb’s setup with Owlbear Rodeo. * (5:13) Dan’s Lion King sing-a-long and Wayne’s Ghostbusters game. * (6:27) The deeper pool of online players, including AIs. Remoting in a missing player for an in-person game. * (14:04) Working distance and distraction into the game. * (17:54) Digital storage and organization. The wonder of CTRL-F. * (25:21) Minimalization of the gaming experience. * (30:01) Dodging some issues by allowing only one person to have technology. The visual obstruction created by laptops and such. * (41:01) Getting digital audio to work for you. * (45:00) Balancing it all out. Advantages, disadvantages, familiarity, and the passage of time. Hosts: Caleb, Dan, Mary, Wayne

I decided to skip over the Iron GM and go for a Tungsten GM. The ingredient? All broadcasts cease because something won’t let them get through. What’s the game plot? Also, the Fear the Con 2024 Kickstarter is now live here! Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:30) Dan runs a game a bit too literally. * (4:12) The intersection of technology and roleplaying in a way that isn’t required by the game. * (7:32) Why multimedia doesn’t pay-off the way it does in other forms of storytelling. * (13:36) The prep time technology adds, and the stability it takes away. * (15:59) The time spent digging up the right asset on-the-spot. * (20:52) The physical space taken up by technology. Playing “follow the leader” at a subconscious level. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) Why talk about intelligence? The Why Files episode about Cicada 3301. * (9:24) A game takes an unhelpfully long break, only to be replaced by another RPG. * (12:44) The lack of a bottomless “buffet of ideas” in a closed setting. * (14:24) Use minimal starting information to give you room to work. * (18:12) How to run a school (everyone go play Persona 5). * (24:48) Create a wide variety of NPCs and give them their own lives. * (30:38) Keeping the party together, even if it doesn’t quite make sense. * (31:57) PC-specific NPCs, so you know the players are bought it. Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:22) Picking out the point we became curmudgeons and what exactly that means. * (4:48) Being too set in our ways. * (11:19) The self-destruction that comes with stagnation. * (21:32) Wii have a solution. * (24:32) Ducking new games while at a convention. Playing The Quiet Year on an airplane. * (32:57) The role of pragmatism. Why expand your horizons when no one lets you go there, anyway? * (38:43) There’s always going to be something wrong. * (41:09) A lesson learned from The Why Files. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Wayne

* (0:29) Reintroducing Julia’s husband, Mike. * (2:24) Lowered expectations, inspired by a post-pandemic world. * (7:25) Being a bit more experimental. * (13:18) Playing online instead of returning to the table. * (19:18) Returning to the table instead of playing online. * (23:58) The commonality of not being able to find an active gaming group. * (31:54) Not lower expectations—just different ones. Hosts: Dan, Mary, Mike, Wayne

* (0:29) Thanks to Eric Van Note for Swole Mole! * (3:15) The value of terrible GMing. * (8:42) Everyone is their own most inept critic. Sojourn Volume 2. * (15:28) The worst possible outcome: something being forgettable. * (22:20) Asking Doug to grade his own game. * (25:35) The value of creating art, simply for the act of creation. * (37:04) A few too many contacts in someone’s eyes. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) Dan prefers affiliated groups, Wayne does not. * (2:15) Cohesion, identity, and help. * (9:35) Affiliations you start with as opposed to those you pick up along the way. * (11:56) The party’s direction and motivation. Affiliating with an ideal. * (20:23) Affiliations create an obvious pool of NPC relationships. * (25:40) External versus internal affiliations, and how they’re not mutually exclusive. * (32:06) Taking extreme positions just to highlight the topic. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Julia, Wayne

* (0:28) An update on the Actual Play. * (4:48) The InSpectres RPG (at least temporarily back in print!) and our AP interlude using its rules. * (8:09) Why play InSpectres as an interlude to the main campaign? Apparently only Dan has heard of Michelle Jenneke. * (12:58) Plus an extra player. * (16:10) The, “yes and,” style of gaming. * (21:31) Assisting new players when they’re stuck. * (26:24) Seeing roleplaying games as a starting point, not a finished product. * (33:43) It’s not just a game; it’s on the mics. * (39:19) No takebacks! Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:28) Things are getting set for Fear the Con! An intro to RPGs game is available for newcomers. * (2:03) A shared Minecraft server. You can find more information on Discord. * (5:52) Realigning your game with a mid-campaign session zero. Special thanks to Gaming with Gage. * (8:46) Making the case to have one. * (12:59) Remembering the times we did this during the Skies of Glass campaign. * (16:38) Reusing or reviewing the exact same work you did in session zero. * (23:15) Being too specific or too general. Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) Julia ruins everything. * (1:35) Things are getting set for Fear the Con! An intro to RPGs game is available for newcomers. You can also announce your games on Discord. * (9:03) Coming out of a period of deep fatigue. How one game still never missed a week. * (16:18) Spoons and other finite resources. * (20:06) Why it might be best to bite off a bit less. You may not be gaming as much as you think, anyway. * (26:41) Does gaming with strangers help the problem? * (31:37) Kids, you’re already in the real world. * (34:32) Strange schedules and cascading cancellations. * (37:42) Gambling with the eleventh dollar. Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

* (0:28) Running a game when someone else knows the setting a whole lot better than you do. * (2:07) The lack of pronunciation guides in most games. * (3:16) Narrowing down the task by asking what’s important about the setting to the players. * (7:59) Getting the essence or feel of the setting right. We need a Thug Notes recap of BattleTech lore. * (12:53) Start small and work outward, learning just what you need for each step along the way. * (21:15) Tell your players you only know some canon and therefore will only use some canon. * (24:01) Setting an ending to the canon so you can tell your own story. Breaking continuity early to get it over with. * (28:35) Keeping a chunk of authentic setting. Otherwise, why run it at all? * (33:56) Asking your setting experts to give you limited homework. * (35:09) We look forward to seeing you at Fear the Con! Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

Show links… * StartPlaying Games * Bite Size Tales * Gaming with Gage Hosts: Chris, DJ, Josh, Wayne

* (0:29) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live for one more week! * (1:56) The wonderful confusion new players and GMs bring to a roleplaying game. * (16:59) An imagined internal-consistency is sometimes more fun than an intended one. * (22:17) The burden of your own expectations. * (28:29) When contradictions aren’t actually contradictions. The Law of Non-Contradiction. * (35:16) The emotion of Muscle March. * (36:22) The ideas that mistakes allow us to explore. Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

* (0:31) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live! * (1:04) The new fiction podcast, Bite Size Tales. * (3:09) Game mechanics we’re particularly fond of. * (4:54) Rerolls and other roll-modifying mechanics. * (10:13) A close relationship between skills and attributes. * (15:46) Life paths in character creation. * (24:48) Using all the dice. * (30:12) Injury instead of a simple health pool. * (38:08) Lots of randomness. * (40:31) Building something bigger than your character. * (44:13) Double-edged character traits. Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:28) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live! * (1:12) Things a Game Master has done to make a world seem a little more alive (with credit to JoshB for the topic). * (5:46) Plot hooks, substories, and unanswered questions about my character. * (9:16) Allowing characters to have goals, ambitions, and projects. * (13:32) Giving me things I can trust that won’t betray me or become a vulnerability. * (19:52) Investing the players in world-building that matters. * (29:25) Don’t constantly veto your players. * (31:55) Digging through enough specifics may reveal a general truth you can use. Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:28) The new fiction podcast, Bite Size Tales. * (1:43) Dan re-reads the D&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. Wayne watches Secrets of Blackmoor. The inspiration D&D’s creators drew from Strategos. * (6:38) The rather disjointed rules of early RPGs. * (8:23) The heavy crunch of early RPGs that might be as much unearned reputation as reality. * (13:02) Why an early RPG may have needed to describe concepts that would be misinterpreted as immutable rules. * (16:06) Narrative examples of play. * (19:17) Separating old games from OSR games. Conveyed interpretation and social tradition. * (27:07) The shortcuts around setting building, and how rules may have gotten caught up in those. Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:36) An odd tangent on names. * (3:39) A conversation about AI art. Some parameters we’re putting on this episode. AI art wins a fine arts competition. * (8:08) An admittedly non-technical overview of how AI generally creates its work. Syntax versus semantics. * (17:43) AI creations as a starting point instead of the final product. Why the lack of semantics may distinguish what inspires humans as opposed to AIs. * (29:32) The positive impact of AI creativity, contrasted with the intellectual property and monetary concerns. * (37:02) The human-seeded meta-thought used by AI, and the inevitability of its adoption across multiple industries. * (47:26) After taking jobs, technology may also improve lives and push humanity forward. Automating simple tasks or “shifting them left”. * (54:45) The financial incentive to use AI art versus the status incentive to use human art. Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne Some of the sample AI art Dan made while playing around with an app… A man with two beards that’s holding a third beard (stupid beard hog), Jesus with hot dogs for fingers, and…OH NO! Its mini-Jesus off the ropes! What’s that Lassie? Jesus is here? And he thinks our dogs are gnolls? And Gabriel is also a dog? OK, so now we’ve got gnolls with underbites, some random people in the background, Jesus with John Wick levels of determination, and…what the hell is that thing in the lower-right!? What the AI thought Gnarl should look like. I’m totally going to stat this out and use it in a fantasy game.

* (0:30) Giving a remote episode a try. We have a fix for Dan’s audio that should improve the quality on our next remote show. * (1:42) Catching up with Brodeur and DJ, who was on episode 466 to talk about BuJoRPG. * (4:43) Putting some parameters on the topic. * (9:42) Does Wizards of the Coast hate you? Envy other publishers? Or just not understand the market? * (16:36) Why people went along with the OGL to begin with. A genuine belief that some people in the mix have the best of intentions. * (24:47) Why care at all? * (29:23) The silent majority that may neither know nor care this is all happening. * (36:21) Why this might be a good thing. The episode on Dan’s resentment of what D&D represents, despite his enjoyment of the game. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, DJ, Wayne

* (0:44) Friday night chit-chat on Discord each week, starting at 8pm Central. * (2:18) Fear the Con 2023 dates have been reserved with the hotel for June 16th and 17th of 2023, with the Wing Night on June 15th. * (3:37) Wayne preps his players for a Savage Worlds: Alpha Flight game. * (8:18) Learning through trial-and-error by running homebrews and setting-dense games. * (10:42) Give your players a little homework. * (15:04) Where will the game begin? * (20:37) What the characters need or want. * (24:53) Trickling out more information as the game goes on. * (31:31) Pay careful attention to the questions your players ask. Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

* (0:22) The villain as the dark inverse of the hero. * (9:20) A big CGI fight at the end that seems visually out of continuity. * (16:06) Zombies and Lovecraft. * (20:37) The freedom to like or dislike, and how little that says about you as a person. * (23:33) Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, and Disney. * (26:59) Let’s not be too reductive. * (34:26) Maybe we’ve just been around too long and seen too many stories. * (37:15) Elves with short hair. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne

* (0:24) Brodeur recommends a manicure and pedicure to Dan. * (5:58) Dan, Wayne, and their muscle tension. * (11:24) A straight-razor shave and the thrill of death. * (15:56) Fandoms that (at least temporarily) put people off from the product they love. * (28:08) On anime. * (31:37) The need to be inviting within gaming, since it’s a social hobby. * (37:56) Gratuitous violence and opinion as identity. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne

* (0:28) Brodeur flees to Oregon. * (4:08) Failure comes to East Texas University. * (7:26) Dividing the blame between the players and Game Master. * (11:40) Player silence and passivity. * (17:30) Things lost for lack of time. * (19:34) Substance use, depression, and the option of just narrating the ending. * (26:32) Was there a post-mortem with the players? Not judging a whole campaign by its ending. * (30:09) If the players don’t know how to answer, ask a more specific question. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne

* (0:33) Wayne gives a shoutout to Gaming with Gage + Friends (but not Brodeur). * (1:53) Wayne ends a D&D campaign without a boss fight. * (3:11) The mutual theft of ideas between video games and tabletop roleplaying games. * (8:00) Considering all the ways a story can end. * (13:18) Another example from a D&D game. * (21:06) Post-campaign, no-boss epilogues. Player freedom in shaping the ending. * (28:02) Redefining the game in a character-centric way. * (32:33) Allowing other solutions to small problems and other endings to the game. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne

* (0:29) Brodeur’s post-Gen-Con review. (I know, we’re right on top of the latest news.) A shoutout to Imagining Games, Acheron Books, and RogueOperative. * (8:02) Customizing modules for your players and characters. * (11:48) Modules as a framework, not a full script. * (18:26) Know the module well enough that you can deconstruct it into its components. * (24:37) An imaginary scenario using a well-known story as a module, adjusted to an obviously unique character. * (36:44) How the whole context of a pre-written scenario can be changed by just swapping proper nouns. * (42:32) Separating story-writing from story-telling. * (43:31) Some great example modules include Chris Hussey’s The Wolverines Take the Highway to the Danger Zone for Savage Worlds and Gooey Cube’s Red Star Rising campaign for D&D 5th edition. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) A listener, James, gets us talking about integrating player-character backstories into your game. It starts with the players giving you something to work with. * (3:01) Sitting for too long on too much information, or mining the backstory abusively. * (7:43) Finding the possible connections between backstories. * (11:08) Let’s do it live! Dan sets up a D&D game with Wayne as his player. Building story by eliminating coincidences and undefined areas. * (19:22) Wayne sets up a Skies of Glass game with Brodeur as his player. Remembering that NPCs have their own lives that still go on, even when the PC isn’t around. * (30:02) What’s the “therefore” there for? Continuing thoughts that seemed otherwise complete. * (31:42) Integrating character backgrounds into a story that’s already written. Even the most fleshed-out plot still has gaps that can be filled with player-made content. * (37:59) Too little, too much, or no background at all. * (42:35) Punting Mary’s insight, because it deserves its own episode. * (44:32) Paying attention to backgrounds for what should be important in your game, because it’s important to that player. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) How awful can a few years be? (Spoilers: Multiple things got worse since this recording!) * (3:49) An experiment in unequal levels of preparation and participation. * (8:34) Not all players will bring the same level of contribution, nor do all games encourage it. * (14:32) Pattern versus incidence. * (18:52) Reasons to not just sit it out. * (20:43) Why using past experiences of what was to infer what ought to be may not be the best approach. * (25:11) Setting expectations for the division of labor. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne

* (0:24) Releasing episodes out of order. * (1:24) The little convention that could, despite how hard life tried to stop it. * (6:59) All of the hurdles that weren’t COVID. * (14:00) The obstacles that came up during the convention. * (24:24) In spite of everything arrayed against it, the con went really well. * (31:42) Thanking Eric Van Note for the picture of Gnarl, which you can see here. You can contact him for your own commission at: [email protected] * (33:50) Wishing we’d had more time to talk to people and paced ourselves better. * (39:11) A request, an idea, and a placeholder. June 15th, 16th, and 17th are the tentative dates for Fear the Con 2023. * (43:46) A big “thank you” to our community! Hosts: Brodeur, Caleb, Dan, Wayne

* (0:29) Interrogating Mary on her gaming history. * (1:33) The last few days before Fear the Con! * (4:54) The distinct moral perspective of a child. * (7:39) Leif responds to our show on vertical creativity. * (13:58) A thought exercise on who should win the 51/49 preference: players or GMs. * (15:41) Wayne and Dan’s answers. * (18:09) Mary’s answer. * (21:12) Brodeur’s answer. * (26:15) Dan’s retort about the assumed-risk of the Game Master. * (30:51) The courtesy inherent in having a group with multiple GMs. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Mary, Wayne

* (0:29) A difficult GM learns a lesson from an Uno game. * (4:10) Navigating the internal conflict between “roleplaying” and “game”. * (11:20) The need for control that ultimately comes from fear. * (16:45) Giving the players their wins. * (23:34) The ugly math about how many people aren’t that good at a given task. * (29:32) The importance of having rapport before doing this. * (32:29) Saying, “yes,” while camouflaging the railroad. Hosts: Brodeur, Caleb, Dan, Julia

* (0:29) Fear the Con appears to have catering, but we could still use more GMs! * (5:21) Laundering identities. * (7:03) Game Masters getting fixated on things that aren’t important to the game they’re running. * (12:00) A lack of flexibility. The three clue rule. * (19:36) GM distress when the party solves something too quickly. * (26:32) Let’s get passive-aggressive and make the GM solve their own problem! Obstructionist Game Masters. * (33:39) Problems should have purpose. * (43:24) Difficulty that’s out of place. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne

* (0:29) A new show type on the horizon: phone the Boot, or something similarly clever. * (2:04) Kids’ games at Fear the Con. Our episode on gaming with children can be found here. * (4:15) Brodeur goes on Safest Family on the Block and My 10th Level Paladin. * (6:17) Brodeur gets invited to crash someone else’s game as a guest GM. * (10:02) The whole situation is awkward, starting with the style of game. * (16:59) The gut-punch of unintentionally outshining the person that invited you. * (18:51) Or, maybe outshining the other person isn’t such a bad thing. * (25:42) Expect the players to keep doing whatever you allow to work. * (33:10) The right kind of consultant. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Tex

* (0:29) A shoutout and thanks to WashingCon! * (1:09) Fear the Con is coming up in mid-June. * (2:25) Wayne annihilates his player-characters in a Legion of Liberty game, and they love it. Our episode on action economy. * (10:22) The perspective that comes from getting your butt kicked. * (13:52) The difference between the party getting defeated, the party getting cheated, and the party getting destroyed. * (19:44) Rewinding as opposed to setting up round two. * (27:35) Consequences don’t have to be applied directly to the player-characters. * (33:35) Allowing players to choose the form of their defeat. * (36:44) Brodeur terrorizes his staff. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne

* (0:29) June 16th, 17th, and 18th for Fear the Con! You can see Mikey Mason’s material on BandCamp. * (2:40) Reviewing the idea of horizontal and vertical creativity. * (4:56) Horizontal creativity doesn’t mean the player has to get lazy. In fact, it may mean the GM is getting lazy. * (12:35) How horizontal creativity can add complexity to the story. * (16:22) Understanding why a GM is limiting something. * (20:56) Players taking ownership for how far off the ranch they’ve gone. * (31:59) Learning more about the game through player experimentation. * (36:27) It’s OK to just let players have their fun. Hosts: Brodeur, Caleb, Dan, Wayne

* (0:29) – Bordeur, Dan, and Julia will be at Washingcon this weekend: March 26th and 27th, 2022. * (2:23) – Defining how we’ll be using “vertical” and “horizontal” creativity over the next two shows. * (5:45) – The laziness that often accompanies horizontal thinking. * (8:08) – Creativity within seemingly narrow (i.e. “vertical”) ideas. * (11:10) – Playing within the GM’s parameters and rules. * (19:16) – What is it about the player that refuses to conform? * (28:27) – How horizontal creativity forces the GM to tell a story they may not have wanted to tell. * (31:08) – Why is it so hard to compromise a bit? Hosts: Brodeur, Caleb, Dan, Wayne

* (0:44) Get signed up for Fear the Con! * (1:02) Brodeur is now on TikTok for some reason. Here’s the link. Do what you will. * (5:45) Welcoming Jason back to the show. * (6:31) There I Was…When Nothing Happened. The Kickstarter can be found here. * (11:26) Why “winning the fight” may not be a winning strategy. * (17:24) Seeing another way out. * (22:16) The five stages of avoiding violence. * (31:33) The relationship between anger and fear. Understanding your own psychology. * (38:55) Designing encounters with a clear understanding of your NPC’s motivations. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Jason, Julia

* (0:28) The teeth on the dog go click, click, click. * (1:30) Brodeur discovers New Game+ mode in video games. * (10:23) Weather and environmental effects in an RPG. * (13:09) Weather as a reflection of some other truth in the setting. * (14:53) Setting the mood and adding immersion. * (19:21) Does the environment not come up more often because it’s not in the rules? * (25:02) The storytelling side effects of being inside when we game. * (26:53) Using the environment to control the flow of the game. * (35:05) Integrating environment into your rules and narrative. * (39:09) Don’t forget to sign up for Fear the Con! Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne

* (0:18) Time to set the mood for bedtime. * (5:06) Wayne, Boxman, and the latex room. * (14:32) Watching sports for all the wrong reasons. Brodeur joins TikTok. God forgive us all. * (16:57) Wayne pulls a plane, and Brodeur brings the pain. * (26:22) Kids versus bikes. Bikes win. * (28:54) Kids versus cars. Cars win. * (32:39) On blowing up toilets and toys. * (38:07) Waynezilla. Meanwhile, Phoenix gets really crazy and burns…a candle. * (44:23) Oh, the places you’ll go. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Phoenix, Wayne

* (0:28) The site for Fear the Con is now live! * (2:07) Monday Morning Quarterbacking your own games (the definition for anyone that doesn’t know that phrase). * (3:36) Getting past being your own worst critic. * (8:17) Speech disfluency and filler words. * (12:57) Using game recordings to prepare for the next session. * (17:01) Approaching your recording with the right mindset, goals, and expectations. * (25:20) Using game audio to exonerate yourself in your own mind. * (29:53) The freedom to no longer take notes during the game. Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne

* (0:29) A fond farewell to Chad. * (4:50) Keeping the perspective that we all started somewhere. * (7:34) The amount of good advice every human being ignores; sometimes experience is the only effective teacher. * (12:49) The less you’re willing to step up, the more you ought to be patient. * (16:24) Don’t confuse personal style with absolute right and wrong. * (21:40) Determining whether you should stick around or just find another use for your time. * (24:04) When you’re the only one loving or hating the game. Hosts: Brodeur, Chad, Dan, Wayne