Rich and I have been mulling over a list of questions that we got in the new year.

I’ll admit I can’t answer all of them, but I’ve picked a few that seem interesting enough to repeat here.

REVERB GAMERS 2012 MASTER LIST Courtesy of Atlas Games. Visit us at www.atlas-games.com

Read the rest

Rich and Arnold sit down to catch up on the myriad of games they’re playing. Of particular note is Arnold’s Dread hack and how he used it to bridge a gap of time in the campaign. Rich just blathers on about the Skype and play-by-forum games he’s playing.

• Arnold’s Dread questions can be found here: http://story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=15585&page=1#Item_0
• Myth-Weavers is where Rich is playing in a Smallville game.
• Snail’s Pace is where Rich is running Lady Blackbird and Don’t Rest Your Head and playing Apocalypse World (The Island) and Monster of the Week.

We’d love your feedback! What did you think of this chatty episode?

Direct Download:

http://www.canonpuncture.com/audio/123-canonpuncture123-atourtables2.mp3

(Outtro music is Such Promise By Brett Adkins)

Our RPGCrosstalk forum

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Rich interviews Michael Sands about his upcoming RPG Monster of the Week. This exciting modern day hunter game (that isn’t made by White Wolf, Jarvis) is coming soon. Get a beta copy and even more cool goodies by pledging on his Indie Go Go campaign (which ends January 29, 2012).

Monster of the Week Indie Go Go

A Story Games thread about the game

http://www.canonpuncture.com/audio/122-canonpuncture122-motw.mp3

(Outtro music is Such Promise By Brett Adkins)

Our RPGCrosstalk forum

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

 I got Elder Scrolls – Skyrim for Christmas and I’m really loving it. It’s teaching and reminding me a bunch about sandbox-style tabletop RPGs. I’m thinking about doing a weekly 5-7 minute segment reflecting on moments in the game and how they map to tabletop RPGs. Its part AP, part gamer diary, part… advice? It will be Skyrim-focused for a while, but if I enjoy it, I may continue when Mass Effect 3 comes out.

Would this interest you at all? What would you want out of it? What would you NOT want out of it?

What the heck should I call the segment? Video Tutorial? My XBox the GM tutor? Orc tales (since I’m playing an orc in Skyrim)? Something else entirely?

Welcome to our annual year-end wrap-up!

We both got 50% of our 2011 resolutions, which is batting .500! I’ll take it!

You really should check out our Top Three Gaming Moments of 2011.

Rich’s 2012 Gamer Resolutions:

• Play some two-GM games
• Finish the Lady Blackbird audio drama scripts
• Game Advocate something I like
• Hack Heroica into a beginner’s RPG
• Play Time & Temp

Arnold’s 2012 Gamer Resolutions:

• Play Mystic Emperean
• Attend and rock Camp Nerdley
• Play the Kelly game schedule
• Continue the Ironclaw “only a year to live” campaign
• Record more play sessions

Promos on this episode:

• Grumpy Celt
• Gamerstable

http://www.canonpuncture.com/audio/121-canonpuncture121-yearend2011.mp3

(Outtro music is Such Promise By Brett Adkins)

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Game Advocates is a series of interviews about a single game, not with the game designer(s) but with people who have thoroughly played the game. In Game Advocates we ask about how the game plays, what’s fun about it, possible pitfalls for new players, and why this and not another game.

This episode’s advocate is Jocelyn Robitaille, admin of the excellent bilingual Montreal gamer forum Roludo. Jocelyn advocates for Dirty Secrets by Seth Ben-Ezra.

Direct Download: http://www.canonpuncture.com/audio/120-canonpuncture120-GA-DirtySecrets.mp3

(Outtro music is Such Promise By Brett Adkins)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

We’re BACK! We’re switching some things up for the fifth season of the show, so Arnold and I sat down to catch up and then talk about what’s in store for you.

We have a Google Plus Group now (look for Canon Puncture in G+) and we’re still on Facebook and as always, we have a forum on the wonderful rpgcrosstalk.webs.com. We’d love to hear from you!

Promos:

• Ruthless Diastema
• RPG Crosstalk Community

http://www.canonpuncture.com/audio/119-canonpuncture119-fifth-primer.mp3

(Outtro music is Such Promise By Brett Adkins)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:35 — 21.6MB)

Some quick hits today for shows I recently caught.

The Game’s The Thing vs. Honor + Intrigue

Ron and Veronica Blessing interview Chris Rutowski of Basic Action Games. The show started off with announcements and feedback, which as I’ve stated before (about Knights of the Night), is not my preference. Skip ahead to 9:09 for the interview about Honor + Intrigue.

Chris discusses why he didn’t build this swashbuckling RPG with his own BASH system, which I admire. I think it’s a cool thing to look at your own work and know what it does and to find the best fit for what you want to do. I dig interviews with Mr. Rutkowski; he should be on Ruthless Diastema since he created BASH for an after-school program. Pete Figtree, if you’re reading this, make this happen!

Side Note: Over on the RPG Haven forum, Chris posted up some designs on his Honor + Intrigue character sheet. It is really cool to see a timeline of his development. Check out the Honor and Intrigue character sheet here: http://therpghaven.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1696 (It is a thing of beauty)

Yellow Menace Podcast Lady Earthdawn AP Part 2

This show is a guilty pleasure for me. Its one of the few shows I listen because I genuinely like the hosts. Well, I don’t know Patricia, who was on their movie review episode recently, but she seems pretty fun. This episode is a continuation of the game group’s multi-year saga in the Earthdawn setting. Ed is the GM, Alex plays Landis the dirty elf, Step plays a T-Sang lizard-lady and… the other guy (who I don’t know, but he plays Candance).

A few months ago, Yellow Menace started releasing some Actual Play recordings of their Earthdawn game. They had ported their characters over to the Lady Blackbird ruleset to streamline the system and get a fresh take on playing through the story. This love letter to stripped down gaming is well worth your time. You can find it on their website, look for Gamecast Gaiden Ep 1A ? Let’s talk about Lady Earthdawn! (I’d link the file, but then it would show up on the Canon Puncture feed).

This episode is entertaining as the group is very witty. But its also a yuk-fest. If I didn’t know these guys, I’d probably not go out of my way to listen to it because even though I’ve tried to keep up, they have so much history in the characters and stories that isn’t conveyed but inferred that it is hard to be a fly on the wall and follow what’s going on. This was the first episode where I heard hwo Candance was played, and that was… interesting. She’s played kind of… butch. She’s a nice counter-point to Alex’s portrayal of Landis as a very down an dirty person with Steph’s T’Sang playing the quiet and competent one and Ed playing many of the NPCs as straight men. The storyline of this episode was pretty wacky, including people thrown into poop, a headless godling losing his face, a die roll over a punch to another PC’s face… its really silly miss-adventure stuff. I enjoyed listening to them enjoy playing.

Jennisodes 70 – Editing your game book

Jenn continues her quest to interview as many people about making games as she can while making her own. The editor she spoke with, John Adamus,  had some really positive and helpful hints for budding game developers. His examples of games that he used  showed his game preference as he name checked Call of Cthulu and… some other popular game, I dunno. It’s cool and all and makes sense since most small press games are edited on the cheap. Still, I wonder how he felt at Metatopia with those crazy small press folks running around. His advice about staying positive and forgiving yourself was nice to hear.

Pulp Gamer – Out of Character 196: From the Shadows

I just recently started listening to this show. Its more focused than most multiple hosts gabbing and loosely discussing a topic style of shows. Thank the Lord above to Jason Corley. He really consistently makes this show awesome for me. The rest of the crew is pretty traditional in their RPG tastes and when they discuss play styles and GMing, I sometimes cringe. When Don talked about “teaching players a lesson” as a GM, I got sick in my mouth a bit. But Jason came along and gently redirected it to some great advice for how to structure games, even overriding dissenting opinions from other hosts. He rocked on toast in this episode. I’m thankful that the discussion was had and I know not everyone likes playing games the way I do. Its nice to hear someone I agree with say things the way Jason does. I feel smarter vicariously.

Side Note – The podcast Jason Corley is so soo different from forum JD Corley. Hard to believe they’re the same person. Maybe there’s a Fake Steve Jobs deal going on?

Shark Bone 84: Kill Bill, Part 1 and The Mtn Witch Duels

This show is routinely a great hour (or so) of listening and imagining for me. The three hosts (Devon, Jarvis and Aakin… woohoo I got their names without looking) talk for half an hour about a movie of TV show (or a song, but the songs aren’t my thing, just don’t work for me). Then they talk for another half an hour about a game mechanic and finish off by talking about whatever they’re into at the moment.

This episode had a guest host because the main host Devon was sick. Devon came on at the start and sounded pitiful! I felt for the guy. The guest host was an avid listener who it turns out has his own podcast, which is neat.

Side Note: I have this general opinion that half of every podcast’s listenership has their own show and it often comes true… kind of like how almost every fan of indie RPGs has written or MORE LIKELY, is writing their own RPG.

This episode had some good ideas, but unfortunately the guest host, DJ Allen, had a few clunkers. He led off by using Kill Bill, part 1 as an example of how using real-world references is a great thing and should be done all the time in RPGs because its so fun. I loved how Jarvis gently suggested the potential pitfalls of this technique, but DJ’s response was amusing, “We never had a problem in my group”. Around 14 minutes in, DJ proclaimed that he had only run White Wolf games since 1994. I’ve heard of honing your skills, but dang, that’s some specialization! And I was confused, too, because he listens to Shark Bone and even talked about how he has drifted his Vampire game by using rules suggested on Shark Bone. So, in a way, he isn’t really running Vampire anymore, he’s telling a Vampire story and trying different ways to play or run it. I can dig that.

In the mechanics section, they discuss the one roll resolution seen in The Mountain Witch. They discussed how hard it is to find a copy of TMW, (which is at Indie Press Revolution in PDF form only) and how that justifies downloading a torrent of it. I thought that was bizarre logic. Jarvis suggested that the duel mechanics of TMW (where basically players can make multiple attack rolls in secret until they are satisfied with their result, then the results are all cumulative) could be easily ported over to White Wolf (surprise) or D&D. I’m not buying it, since resolution in D&D and old World of Darkness (I don’t recall new WoD resolution, I think it is a one roll reso now?):  both have two rolls, one to hit and one for damage. So, which are you rolling multiples of? I’m sure it could be kitbashed, but at least for D&D, I don’t see how it could instill the dread and fear that TMW does (oh, you do 24 points of damage to my 10^th level barbarian? Ouch, here’s my d12 damage back atcha). 

I realize I’ve harped on DJ a little harshly. I know when Aakin first came on, I would have given lots of feedback if I’d been writing this back then. But, I got used to Aaakin’s point-of-view and he sparks some interesting conversations. I’m sure DJ would grow on me over time.

Okay, I’m not done harping… I think I will pass on DJ’s Vampire AP podcast for now based on the way he described his GMing on this episode.  For example, he described offering narration to a player for a resolved roll, telling them “do whatever you want” then telling them, “don’t kill the NPC” . Then when they maimed the the NPC, he tells them, “no, you can’t do that, I’m going to use him later”. He expressed consternation that his players aren’t taking up the reins when he offers narration. If I were in the situation he described, I’d hang back, too! He obviously wants to try new things in gaming. When I hear he’s taken it a bit further, I may give the show a shot. What’s the show? Uhm, let me go check Shark Bone’s show notes for it… here we go, the Lime Flavored podcast (http://www.limeflavored.com/)

UPDATE: Somehow the links I put in for these episodes were picked up on the Canon Puncture feed. I think I fixed it now… SORRY!

Playing catch-up. Here are a few shows I recently caught.

All Games Considered vs. Hex Games

Mags and Carol of award-winning All Games Considered podcast interview three guys who are Hex Games. The stated purpose of the interview was to get to know the guys behind the RPG called QAGS. They succeeded in giving them space to gab about their friendship and how their game came to be. It would have been nice to hear them describe what their game IS and how it is shorter than taking eight hours to make a PC and how it makes games so fun. They sound like a great group of GMs for con games based on pop culture mash-ups with lots of laughs. I’m sure we’d have a great time gaming together, but as far as giving me details on what QAGS actually is and does, I felt lost and a little let down. Their game titles are funny.

Jank Cast 114 – Janksgivinger

I alternatively love and frown at this show. They recently completed a series of episodes they labeled “Gaming As…”, which is some of the best RPG-related content I’ve heard this year. But occasionally, the group just sits down and gabs. I don’t like gabbing for gabbing’s sake, it causes the frowning. From my use, if I want to sit down and listen to a bunch of gamers talk about their day, I’ll… talk to gamers I personally know.

This episode is their second annual Janks-giving episode. Its half gab and half good solid RPG reflection that I dug. What’s Janks-giving? They don’t explain it (maybe they did last year, I didn’t listen then and I’m not going back), but it appears to be where they talk about things they’re thankful for. It takes them about 32 minutes to talk gaming but once they do, they discuss how their play styles and thought processes have changed recently and I really found myself identifying with how their conversations about gaming have changed. They ramble a bit even in the second half, but overall the last half hour was very good stuff.

Side note – I wonder why they have a Photobucket picture removed icon for their album art? Do they know?

Ruthless Disatema Gamescast 17 – Are You a Werewolf?

Pete’s short cast is always a glimpse of joy for me. Ruthless Dee is normally seven to ten minutes long and its all Pete talking about how he uses games to teach, whether at his job as an elementary school teacher or at home with his kids. It’s an inspiring show that highlights the joys and the power of gaming.

Only Pete could convince me to listen to anything about Are You a Werewolf? Man, I have hated that game from afar for a couple years now. See, back in the 90s, I hated Magic the Gathering because when I went to conventions, it was everywhere. My friends played it instead of RPGs, the floor space was littered with people sitting on the floor playing the game: it really annoyed me. Eventually, I realized that most of the people who became addicted to Magic the Gathering weren’t usually the people  I enjoyed playing RPGs with, so I came to grips with it. The same thing happened with World of Warcraft, but I got over that rather quickly. Now there is Are You a Werewolf? The thing that makes the game extra annoying is that half the game consists of a throng of people beating on a table and lots of shouting. It makes playing a quiet RPG pretty much impossible.

Okay, enough pre-amble, on with the amble – Pete runs down the rules and gave me a solid idea of what I thought I’d figured out from overhearing. Still have no interest in playing the game, but at least now I know more about it! Man, I wish I could bottle Pete’s infectious energy. I once emailed him telling him that I have this not-so-secret desire to move to his home town when my son would be old enough to have him as a teacher.

Side Note – what a great promo on there for that Canon Puncture Show!