News: The No Soul Left Behind Kickstarter is HERE. Buy Caleb’s book! The Morph Recognition Guide is out, featuring some of my material from Transhuman. We’re coming to Gencon and we’ll our RPPR meetup on Thursday night. Details here. Raillery is still putting out silly Payday 2 videos (mostly).

Synopsis: Tom was on vacation, so Caleb and I got together to record an episode. This time, we talk about the complexity of rules in RPGs, specifically at the point where they are too cumbersome to improve the quality of the game. Do we really need vehicle collision rules or grenade scatter tables? Of course, Phoenix Command, Synnibarr, and other…interesting games are discussed as well. We also have shout outs and an anecdote!

Shout Outs

  • Sword and Mythos: An excellent sword and sorcery and Cthulhu Mythos anthology
  • Mice and Mystics:A co-op adventure board game about mice trying to save the king from a mystic evil.
  • Pervert’s Guide to Ideology: Zizek discusses Marxism and critiques pop culture from a leftist perspective. On Netflix! Then go to the gym.
  • Year Walk: A creepy and fascinating iOS and PC adventure game based on Scandinavian folklore.
  • Delta Green: Tales from Failed Anatomies: An anthology of stories written by Dennis Detwiller set in the Delta Green setting. Highly recommended!
  • Many Wars Ago: World War 1 was fucked. In Italy, it was more fucked than in other countries. Watch this movie to see why and then be depressed.
  • The Rover: The apocalypse is bad, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to steal Guy Pierce’s car.

Music: Future Club by Perturbator

fiendish-fourThanks to Laura for the art!

Caleb’s Better Angels campaign, No Soul Left Behind (formerly known as The Spared and the Spoiled) is complete. We decided to take a look back, discussing the origins of the campaign, our favorite moments, and the dubious morality of the protagonists. The Kickstarter for the campaign should be up soon and we’ll let you know when it is!

Promo: Mythcreants

Song: Better Angels by Lesley Gore.

fear-the-con-7Caleb and I recently attended Fear the Con 7,(Thanks Fear the Boot!) running events, and promoting our work. It was a great con and we both had a blast there, but gaming conventions can be tricky for new game designers. For this episode, Caleb and I talk about our experiences at gaming cons and an aspiring professional should approach con work. Plus, we have an anecdote or two about the games we played and ran at FTC!