Tag: Dungeons & Dragons 4e (RPG)

Episode 189: Five Games, One Shelf

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In this episode, we pick the five RPGs every role player should have on his or her shelf, including which edition to have. These aren’t our five favourite games or the five most popular games of all time. Nope. These are five games whose mere possession will contribute to your overall gaming experience.

These are the criteria we used. Play along at home.

Innovative
Impact
Representative of a specific type of a game
Widespread
Paid us to mention them (Kidding. No company took us up on our offer.)

Episode 156: Encounters

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During this episode, listeners may encounter the following (roll d100):

  • 01-10 Boredom
  • 11-20 Lame jokes
  • 21-30 Extremely late movie reviews
  • 30-80 Chris & Wayne fighting
  • 81-90 Tangents
  • 91-98 The ghost of Lyal, sighing
  • 99-00 Interesting, lively conversation

In another Lyal-less episode, Chris and Wayne discuss encounters (both random and planned). Should encounters in RPGs be balanced, or should they follow the fiction of the setting? How to plan encounters, and how to make them interesting, balanced or not. This episode was inspired, in part, by an awesome (and angry)  article by the Angry DM.

Episode 147: Campaign Confessions: Pathfinder Part 2

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“Crafting a mystery can be tricky. Too easy and your players get bored. Too hard and your players get frustrated and, yes, bored. When in doubt, err on the side of hard and turn a blind eye when the paladin starts torturing NPCs for clues.”
– Michael West(en), burned Rogue/Illusionist

In part 2, we discuss Chris’s story, “Best Served Cold”.

Episode 146: Campaign Confessions: Pathfinder Part 1

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“Fighting a dragon is always a challenge. They are the kind of problem that calls for an A-10 Thunderbolt II and lots of rockets. Unfortunately, these things won’t be invented for another thousand years or so. In a pinch, you can get by with some household cleansers, rope, and magic, the duct tape of the fantasy world.”
-Michael West(en), Burned Rogue/Illusionist

In Part 1 of our latest Campaign Confessions, we give our thoughts on the Pathfinder system.

Episode 57: Narrative Structure

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Is Savage Worlds better than Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Basic Game?

[Three sentences before.]
In this episode, we discuss narrative techniques from movies and novels that you can use to make your games more fun. We look at in media res, flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways, epistolary novels, and reverse chronology. We also offer advice for new gamemasters, including which games are good to start with. Is Savage Worlds better than Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Basic Game?