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Just like the Scooby Doo gang, players tend to split up during a game and ike it or not and unless you know what to do, your game can suffer. Most players get bored when they have nothing to do, a divided game can mean the end of your campaign. We discuss how to deal with a split game and keep everything running smooth. There’s also a letter from Tom and of course, shout outs.

Cave Story: A freeware side scrolling adventure PC game that is a blast to play.

Shadowcaster: An old school PC RPG that has something to do with casting shadows. Which is dumb, because everyone casts a shadow. But, whatever.

Music: Scooby Doo by Baron Von Lichtenstein.

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Tarn Adams
Interviewer: Ross Payton

Synopsis: Dwarf Fortress is a one of a kind computer game. Part roguelike, part RTS, part fantasy world simulator, this game has to be played to be believed. With no graphics (everything is represented by ASCII symbols), the player is charged with building a mighty fortress with only seven dwarves and a wagon load of supplies. Murderous monsters and animals, temperamental workers and countless other challenges stand in your way. And you will lose. But that’s okay, because losing is fun.  I talk with DF’s programmer and creator, Tarn Adams about his experience with role playing games, game design philosophy, beards on dwarves and other pertinent topics.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:31:58 — 41.0MB)

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Music: Can’t Judge a Book by Robin Sylar
Promos: Bearswarm Podcast, Nuketown Radio and the Game Traveler

Hosted by Ross Payton and Tom Church

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Synopsis:
Gamers should broaden their horizons on occasion. To that end, we each picked five books or types of printed media that can do just that and we discuss how to implement each title’s content. These apply to both player and GM, as a clever player can get great character concept ideas or tactics for the game while GMs get a treasure trove of game material. ‘

Tom has updated the classic poem “Casey at Bat” with the Palladium RPG, Rifts, in mind. Plus, shout outs and an anecdote. Find out the conclusion of an 8 month WW2 GURPS campaign where I was a player for once!

My Top Five

  1. Storyteller by Kate Wilhelm
  2. Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker
  3. Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales
  4. Mythologies by Roland Barthes
  5. How to Make War by James Dunnigan / Howdunit by Lee Lofland / Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch

Tom’s Top Five

  1. Newspapers
  2. Punisher Comics – current MAX run by Garth Ennis
  3. City Tour Guides
  4. Zoology Books
  5. Janes Military Guides

Shout Outs
Mount & Blade: An excellent indie PC game of medieval combat and adventure. Players create an adventurer, raise an army of soldiers and rampage across the country side, battling whatever foes stand in your way. Virtually no plot, minimal RPG character development, but great action and it’s tremendously fun to run down dozens of peasants with a heavily armed knight on horseback.

Wrongside: A comic of politics, intrigue, genocide, and fashion right out of the Final Fantasy school of design. Also, furries.

Dwarf Fortress: An ASCII graphic strategy/simulation game that puts you in control of seven dwarves and a wagon in a randomly generated world. The object being of course, to build a fortress. Of course, dwarves are strange little creatures and subject to strange whims and bad luck. That and Dwarf Fortress is a staggeringly complex game that keeps track of every dwarf’s emotional state, fluid mechanics and erosion, among other things. It is in fact, INSANE. Play it…if you dare.

BOATMURDERED: The saga of a Dwarf Fortress run by a succession of emperors. Marvel at the cleverness of Project DOOM (it involves channeling magma), tremble at the exploits of murderous legendary elephants and weep at the sad fate that befalls the inhabitants of BOATMURDERED. BOATMURDERED is, was and ever shall be the most brutal of all fortresses in all of fantasy.

F-117 Flight Simulator: A DOS era flight simulator. Tom really really really hates Saddam era Iraq and likes to blow it up. So, uh, there you go.

Oh and Iron Man. The movie. I’m not going to link it. Fuck that noise. It’s a fun movie but come on. It’s got like a 50 million dollar advertising budget.

Read below the fold for Tom’s entire Casey at Bat
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17:36 — 45.8MB)

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