Synopsis: Because of the holidays, we’ve decided to take a look at the most neglected of subjects in gaming: happiness and joy. Given that the average RPG is a angst ridden world of grim and gritty darkness populated by hideous monsters and slightly less monstrous player characters where the typical encounter is a savage bloodsoaked battle to the death, what place does happiness or optimism have? Using examples from our own games, we talk about how adding even a lone bright spot in a game can add great value and provide awesome emotional payoffs for the players.

Shout Outs:

The Adventure of Lucky Pip and the Incomparable Ithamar Conchie: a $1 game of storytelling and fortune cookies.
Left 4 Dead: I like zombies. They are kawaii :3
The Majesty of Colors: A brilliant little flash game about a giant sea monster.
Night of the Cephalopods! An awesome and free PC game about evil octopi and procedural Lovecraftian narration.

When we role play, we almost always imagine an action scene, whether it’s kicking down dungeon doors and slitting the throats of whatever lies beyond them or kicking open vampire coffins and staking whatever lies inside them or kicking down giant metal doors with giant robot legs and stomping whatever lies beyond them. So no matter what genre you prefer, action is part of it. But how do you run a great scene or fight or base an entire scenario or campaign in an action adventure genre? Of course there’s also a letter from Tom, an anecdote from our listener Captain Scraps and some shout outs:

Music: Various by The Inkspots courtesy of Archive.org. These are public domain. Horray!

Horror deserves more than one episode, so we’re going to keep talking about it. We cover everything from foreshadowing scares to some of the best and worst horror games we’ve been in. If you want to improve on terrifying players, grab from our bag of tricks and treats.

Music: More number stations from the Conet Project

Shout outs:
Dead Space: Insanely freaky 360 game
Fatal Frame 1: Another freaky survival horror video game
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
Book of Unremitting Horror