* (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. * (...
* (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 onli...
* (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...
* (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 bottoml...
* (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 retur...
* (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: so...
* (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 pa...
* (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 ...
* (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) Reali...
* (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 o...
* (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 wha...
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-consis...
* (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...
* (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, ...
* (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 fr...
* (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 t...
* (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 Nig...
* (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. * (17:3...
* (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 an...
* (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 you...
* (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 l...
* (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 play...
* (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 vertic...
* (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 ...
* (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 gam...
* (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) Bro...
* (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 e...
* (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 creat...
* (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 ...
* (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�...
* (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 refle...
* (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...
* (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 ef...
* (0:29) Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption 2, and archery in schools. * (8:51) Starting up new games as old ones end. Fear the Boot’s Patreon. * (14:34) East Texas University. Preliminary ...
* (0:35) Brodeur’s syphi-list. * (3:48) Continuing a game after mass-character-death by playing in the afterlife. * (16:43) What happens to the characters that didn’t die? * (20:15) When a pl...
* (0:28) The scheduling crush of Christmas, and some love for Pete Petrusha. * (7:06) The many stories you can get from a single game idea, as demonstrated by For the Queen. * (11:14) The greater...
* (0:28) Brodeur starts off a game session with a cutscene, which becomes its own pun. * (5:02) Other media as a metaphor for how you structure your storytelling. * (6:50) Not withholding player ...
* (0:44) When only the shell of a character gets made, for lack of knowledge about the world. The episode where we previously discussed this can be found here. * (13:19) Using an opportunity in t...
* (0:33) Brodeur went to Gamehole Con, and Dan can’t take other people’s money. * (8:08) How age changes what you care about. * (10:02) The end-of-year blackhole that consumes our schedules (...
* (0:32) Fear the Con’s room block number is 2413940. You can place your room reservations at this link, which should prepopulate the con dates. * (1:08) Brodeur’s second product pick from th...
* (0:28) Dan is the new Brodeur. * (4:51) Fear the Con coming up June 16th – 18th, 2022. * (5:52) Brodeur hits a few conventions. We start by talking attendance numbers. * (15:33) The companies...
* (0:28) Fear the Con coming up June 16th – 18th, 2022. * (2:54) Making a plot that’s personal to the characters, without falling back to cheap shots. * (9:42) If you don’t want purely viol...
* (0:29) Introducing Vece. You can find the Skies of Glass playtest on our Patreon. * (1:35) Brodeur continues hurting himself. You can find his podcast here. * (11:35) What got us thinking about...
* (0:30) Let the bodies hit the floor! * (5:24) Defining the “action economy”. The video of three master fencers versus 50 random people can be found here. * (14:57) Consider not using a lone...
* (0:28) Dan’s situation with his Blades in the Dark character. * (2:21) The “play cycle” of an RPG. * (6:06) Designing a character that works in the play cycle, but not very well outside o...
* (0:33) Brodeur’s ongoing work to blind himself. * (2:40) Gaming when down a person. Putting some parameters on the discussion. * (7:53) Avoiding cliffhangers that hinge on a single character....
* (0:24) Maybe combat shouldn’t be played to the point of annihilation. Violence as part of the human experience. * (5:50) The social contract of a fight. Jason Brick’s Safest Family on the B...
* (0:29) Wayne gives a shoutout to Old Man Hussey. (Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a link to the AP he ran.) * (3:15) Brodeur gets us started on the joys of combat in roleplaying gam...
* (0:52) A love that makes Brodeur and Wayne uncomfortable. * (4:37) Actor has a seat at Brodeur’s table but doesn’t seem to enjoy it. * (10:14) The importance of looking for context and moti...