Sponsor: Check out the Chew RPG Kickstarter!

After running a two part game with the new Forged in the Dark RPG, Chew, I wanted to talk to Pete Petrusha about the game. I liked how Chew ran differently than Blades as it focuses on investigating crimes instead of pulling off heists. Chew uses the FitD system but changes quite a few things about the mechanics from the original Blades in the Dark. Pete talks about the development cycle, how certain changes were made, and game design principles.

Caleb and I sat down to talk about his new project, Fae’s Anatomy. It parodies the stories found in procedural medical dramas. Think General Hospital, Grey’s Anatomy, M.A.S.H, or House. Only insane, because who needs realism? It mixes over the top melodrama role playing with cooperative puzzle solving. Caleb talks about the design process, preparing it for Kickstarter, and using online tools like Discord for development and community management.

It’s currently on Kickstarter so check it out now.

Song: Pain Management by Zephyr Medical Group

Ludonarrative Dissidents is a new podcast series from Ross Payton, Greg Stolze, and James Wallis. Check out the Kickstarter to help fund this project and get unique rewards!

In each episode, we plan to focus on a particular RPG, looking at its mechanics, setting, and everything else to see what makes this game tick. In this preview episode, we look at Apocalypse World, the RPG that launched a revolution in the indie RPG scene. We try to answer the following questions:

1) What the game does.
2) How it does it.
3) How people play it.
4) Why people play it that way.
If you want to hear more episodes, help us get our goal for a season of six episodes, with the games chosen by backers! We also have rewards for bundles of our games in PDF, a chance to play in an online game run by one of us, and get your game critiqued by us!