Many of us have at least a few failed game designs sitting around somewhere. Instead of lamenting those failures, we talk about how to leverage them to improve your skills and inspiration. Whether you’ve already got a game published or are just now thinking about entering the fray, we want to share some of our stories of failure turned into something positive from various angles of the tabletop game design field.

Panelists: Andrew Hackard [Munchkin Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games], Scott Morris [Director of Business Development, GTS Distribution], Mike Abrahamson [Game Designer, Adventurer’s Guild Games]

News: Get Zombies of the World and both Base Raiders supplements for $30! I will also be attending Go Play NW this month. I don’t have a schedule yet for games I will run yet but I will post on social media when I do. Stay tuned!

Synopsis:The small town mystery is an old but still viable subgenre. From Murder She Wrote to Stranger Things, we can’t get enough of local citizens sleuthing brutal murders and occult conspiracies. Shaun, Caleb, and I discuss the genre and how to use it in a tabletop RPG environment and how to apply elements of it in other genres and games. We also have an Unknown Armies anecdote!

Shout Outs

  • Bestiary 6: I finally had time to read the latest monster book from Paizo. Lots of interesting critters that could be used in other games.
  • Cadfael: A TV show about a medieval monk solves crime through deduction. It helps that all the bodies are dumped in the same pond.
  • Outcasts: A sc-fi TV show about a space colony that has to deal with mysteries and surviving in a harsh universe.
  • Belly of the Beast: A tabletop RPG about surviving in belly of a giant monster. An AP is coming!
  • 8 Tracks: Music streaming site that emphasizes playlists created by users.
  • Mystery in Space Volume 2/The Weird: A little known DC hero vs a jerk JLA.
  • The Murderbot Diaries: A great sci-fi novella about a rogue robot that just wants to watch TV but has to keep its free will secret.
  • 28 Days Later Omnibus: a collection of comics set in the same post-apocalyptic universe as the movie.
  • Agents of Dreamland: an excellent new interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos in the modern era.
  • We also talked a bit about Wonder Woman and Nier Automata. Both are good.

Song: ?????_?????????.adx by High School Drama Teacher

I interviewed Jim McClure, a game designer and fellow RPG podcaster, about his latest Kickstarter, Satanic Panic. It is a tabletop role playing game set in the fictional 1970’s and 1980’s where players take on the role of secret government agents tasked with combating the evils of tabletop. The players work as a team with the common purpose to contain, control, and eliminate the threats to our world. They must do all this while keeping the truth from the public, lest a panic ensue.