Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Codex of War Ransom!

In this episode, Cody, Tom and I discuss the use of social skills against other players, because of this blog post. When I ran a game at Fear the Con, I disallowed a player to use a persuasion skill against another player. We disagree and explain our beliefs towards the use of social skills and free will in games.

RPPR Forums Threads of Note

Shout Outs

music: social critique of madison by The Hussy

New Rewards for the Codex of War Ransom! Have Ross run a game of YOUR CHOICE over Skype!

In this episode we discuss how to add a sense of wonder to your game. Tabletop RPGs are only limited by your imagination yet too many games are dull dungeon crawl affairs of 10 foot wide corridors and orcs guarding pies, forever.  So how do you get that overwhelming awe in your game? We both talk about a few ways to introduce it using examples from earlier games. As Tom was too busy playing video games to write a letter (again), I read a story from Ichor Falls called Candle Cove.

Forum Shout-outs

Other Shout-outs

Music: Wonder 2 Wonder by The Flavor Foundation

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.

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