Role Playing Public Radio » zombies

1001 uses for Zombies seminar at Gencon 2011

Ross — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:17:09 +0000

At Gencon 2011, I ran a seminar on how to use zombies in role playing games – not just as low level enemies to fight but as elements of drama. I also went into how to world build with zombies. They can be used in nearly any genre as enemies, obstacles or even unlikely allies. Enjoy! I’ve also included the two handouts I made for the seminar:

1001 uses for a zombie in role playing games

If you liked this, then perhaps you might be interested in buying my book?

RPPR Episode 61: Post Gencon 2011 wrapup part 1

Ross — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:14:10 +0000

This year’s Gencon was so great, we will have to do two episodes to cover it all. In this episode, we bring RPPR regular Caleb to discuss his first impressions of the con and the games he ran and played in. We all talk about the newest games we picked up and Tom discusses the game he ran and other things he did.

I also interviewed George Strayton, creator of The Secret Fire, a new fantasy RPG. It’s a short interview but I added in place of Tom’s letter. He discusses the design philosophy behind the game, his background as a screenwriter and more.

Shout outs

Panopticon: The newest Eclipse Phase supplement.
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland: A hilarious book by Patton Oswalt.
Old School Hack: Awesome free rules-light RPG and gold Ennie winner.
Delta Green Gencon Panel: Listen to the informative Delta Green/Unspeakable Oath panel recorded at this Gencon.
Cthulhu Invictus: Cthulhu in ancient Rome. A winning combination!

Song: Zombie by Anssi 8000 and Maria Stereo

RPPR Episode 59: Bildungsroman

Ross — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 21:58:01 +0000

Zombies of the World is now available in print, PDF and Kindle format!

My book, Road Trip, has been nominated for an Ennie!

Synopsis: Bildungsroman is a fancy way of describing the ‘youth to adulthood’ genre – stories like “to Kill a Mockingbird” where the character grows from a child to become an adult or closer to an adult. Role playing games are often like these stories – characters grow from being relatively weak and naive to eventually becoming epic badasses of destiny. However, many game systems do not encourage character growth – advancement is slow, ponderous and mechanically difficult. Furthermore, most campaigns are relatively short – interrupted or abandoned for myriad reasons. If you want players to grow at a faster pace, what should you do? How is mechanical growth different from role playing growth? Tom and I discuss these issues and more. Plus, instead of a letter, Tom and I read an excerpt from the infamous rpg.net review of FATAL. It’s definitely NSFW.

Shout outs

Attack the Gas Station 1 and 2: Hilariously insane Korean comedies.
The Eliminators: An action sci-fi movie with ninjas, mandroids, cavemen, robots and time travel. Follows the conventions of RPGs coincidentally enough.
Ugly Americans: an animated sitcom about monsters and normal people living together.
Killing Floor: Steampunk/circus summer event going on right now! Monkeys with chainsaws!
Steam Summer Sale: only a few days left!
The Man From Nowhere: Intense Korean action/thriller. Do not fuck with the pawnshop owner.

Promo: Explodey File podcast.

Song: Growing up and Getting out by Adam Boucher.

Interview with Adam Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing

Ross — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:50:28 +0000

Adam Scott Glancy is one of the co-authors of Delta Green and is the man behind Pagan Publishing. I talked to him over Skype about the newest Delta Green book, Targets of Opportunity, a collection of new DG antagonist groups and M-EPIC, a Canadian anti-mythos organization. We also talk about the resurrection of The Unspeakable Oath, the legendary Call of Cthulhu magazine, a scenario about templar zombies and their mastery of the Dewey Decimal system and advice for running Call of Cthulhu for new keepers. This is a long interview but well worth the listen.

RPPR Episode 41: The Smoking d20

Ross — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:31:21 +0000

Zombies of the World: a web series from RPPR co-host Ross Payton. Visit the Zombies of the World website and tell your friends about it!

The Codex of War: A New World Campaign PDF ransom is up! Donate now to make sure we meet the goal!

Synopsis: Running a mystery based game is far different than an action based game. Tom has realized this after running several Call of Cthulhu games so we decided that talking about the differences in structure from an action to an investigative game would be a good topic for the show. We go over how to prepare a mystery game, what you should read to learn more about them and how to run them. If you want to see how I run a mystery that I created myself, check out the AP I just posted, The Arcadia Signal. Instead of a letter from Tom (since he is too busy playing Mass Effect 2 to write one), I read an excerpt from the utterly hilarious novel, How I became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely.

Shout outs below the fold.

Shout outs:

Soma FM Mission Control: Chillax music and live audio from the ISS. Groovy! (Thanks Patrick F!)
Skin Deep: A webcomic about monsters, set in the Ozarks.
Stuck and The Killing Room: Two decent horror/thriller movies.
Beyond the Pale: A Jim Gaffigan comedy album.
Playborg Photographers: A Greg Stolze short fiction ransom
This Kenneth Hite blog post – great design advice for all you rpg writers
Sleepyhead – an amazing and HAPPY music video using only old archival footage. Great editing!
Hanna is not a Boy’s Name: A webcomic also about monsters. This one has zombies.
How I became a famous novelist: The funniest fucking novel I’ve ever read.

Music: Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton.

RPPR Presents: Doom – Repercussions of Evil

Ross — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:03:02 +0000

During the holidays, we got together to record some classic fanfiction for your enjoyment. First off is Tom reciting Doom: Repercussions of Evil a classic story of horror and rocket missiles. Read the entire story below the fold.

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn’t see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad “I want to be on the ships daddy.”
Dad said “No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS”
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
“This is Joson” the radio crackered. “You must fight the demons!”
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
“HE GOING TO KILL US” said the demons
“I will shoot at him” said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
“No! I must kill the demons” he shouted
The radio said “No, John. You are the demons”
And then John was a zombie.

RPPR Presents: 3 Fan fictions as read by Cody

RPPR Episode 36: Gencon 2009 Wrapup

Ross — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:56:07 +0000

We’re back from Gencon and we’ve gathered our thoughts. It was an exhausting, exhilarating and expensive four days but well worth it. We cover everything from the trip to Indy, hotels, to the actual games we played or ran and our purchases. Tom tried out a few official games while I ran seven games, including an after hours Call of Cthulhu game. Of course the big news is that we played in a 2 part, 12 hour WW1 CoC scenario run by Adam Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing. It was suitably epic. On top of that, we have some tips for all you con-goers including a few of my hints on running games at a con.

Shout-Outs

Eclipse Phase: Transhumanist Sci-Fi Horror Rpg. Very awesome, very pretty and well worth a look.
Mecha & Manga: Mutants and Masterminds Animu setting book. If you want school girl ninjas and giant robots in M&M, try this.
Shotgun Diaries: John Wick’s zombie survival horror rules-lite rpg. No link because there’s no website for the game.
Shard: High-concept fantasy furry rpg.
Zombie Cinema: A story game about zombies, sold in a VHS box. Very cool.
Hills Rise Wild: Pagan Publishing’s Cthulhu Mythos board game.
Mysteries of Mesoamerica: A Call of Cthulhu 1920s sourcebook for central america and has 4 scenarios.
Hobocon: A documentary about some gamers trying to survive Gencon with no cash and no plan.
Dragon Magazine Annual 2009: A collection of some of WOTC’s best stuff from Dragon magazine. Great material on kobolds and more
Grim Wars: A new setting for Wild Talents written by Greg Stolze and Ken Hite.
Damnation City: A nWoD sourcebook for cities – building your own, pulling the strings and so on.
America the Audiobook: Hilarious audiobook from the Daily Show.
I’m America and So Can You: Another funny audiobook, this one from Stephen Colbert.

Music: Untitled song from Click Clack Kaboom.

RPPR Episode 31: Be A Team Player

Ross — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:43:47 +0000

In this episode, Tom and I more or less interview each other about our habits as players. Find out what can truly surprise Tom in a game or what my favorite character type is. If you want to get an idea of how to improve your game, think about how you play, what works and what doesn’t work. Also, to make up for the recent lack of content, we’ve made this episode nearly 90 minutes long. Tom has an improvised Letter, plus two new anecdotes and more.

Our favorite RPPR forums threads:

One of Tom’s characters comes to life: Oh the humanity!
A Tribute to Sir Redgar Orphanbane: Find out more about the origins of the NPC adventurer from the New World Campaign
The Cody Fan Club: We have some dedicated fans…
Omegle – For All your random chat trolling: Talk to random strangers on the Internet? Why nothing could possibly go wrong!

Shout Outs

Kenzer Company: Congratulations on issue 150 of Knights of the Dinner Table!
T-Rex Cafe: A dinosaur themed restaurant in Kansas City.
Dungeon Crawl: I’ve mentioned it before, but the new version is even better. And more addicting if that’s possible.
A Wee Bit of Revolution: Craig Ferguson stand up comedy. It’s funny.
Rifftrax: The new Twilight Rifftrax is hysterical. You must watch it.
Zombietown USA: Zombies in small town America. Also dual statted for Autoduel!
Fans, Friends and Follwers: A great book with advice on how to use the Internet to build a creative career.
Friday Night Firefight: Cyberpunk combat system. No pansy roleplaying. Just hardcore 80s style combat rules.

Music: There is no I in team but there is a me by Western Civ.

RPPR Episode 28: Great. Expectations.

Ross — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:00:54 +0000

Synopsis: Every gamer has their own expectations at the gaming table. Most of the time, everyone has similar enough expectations that they can all enjoy the same game but this isn’t always the case. How do you deal with people who seem to have mutually exclusive expectations of a RPG? Ultra realism or cinematic action? High fantasy or hard sci fi? We discuss how to collaborate and compromise so that the game can reach a suitable middle ground. We discuss the five hot spots where expectations are frequently violated: genre, style, violence level, maturity level and consistency in the game. Plus, a letter from Tom to Splynncryth the alien intelligence from Rifts, anecdotes and shout outs:

Shout outs:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The classic regency romance novel, with new scenes of zombie mayhem. Can Mr. Darcy find love in a zombie apocalypse?
Root of All Evil: A Lewis Black Comedy Central series about pop culture and evil.
Armored Trains: A book about the use of armored trains in war, especially WW1 and WW2, with lots of great pictures. What’s not to like?
Look Around You: A BBC parody of educational TV. The Water and Sulfur episodes are hilarious.
Lovecraft is Missing: A horror/pulp webcomic about H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Music: Wagering Lights by Venn & Euler.

RPPR Episode 21: So You Want to Create a Campaign

Ross — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:53:19 +0000

Most games start as an idea in the GM’s head. However, it takes some work to go from idea to having a full campaign ready to run. Tom and I discuss the process of creating a campaign and our experiences in creating and running them. If you want to make a game that lasts more than a few sessions, you should give our advice a try. Plus, a very personal letter from Tom, in which he admits that he’s a cheating bastard, shout outs and new anecdotes!

Shout Outs:

Day by Day Armageddon: If you write a zombie apocalypse novel do NOT do what this novel did. It’s just terrible. So very very terrible.
Mutant Chronicles: A movie based on the RPG, Mutant Chronicles. And it’s so horrible that words can’t adequately describe how horrible it is.
Bigger Faster Stronger: A documentary about power gamers in real life, steroid users. An excellent look into the mindset of the athletes and gym rats who use it and the culture that condones winning at all costs.
House of Leaves: This is a crazy book. I’m not done with it but it is worth reading.

Music: Write My Story by Air 5.
Promo: RPG Life.

RPPR Episode 13: The Awesome Action Packed Alliterative Adventure