The Gaming Hut continues its look at scenario structures, as found in Robin’s new Adventure Crucible chapbook, with the chain of fights. In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Eric Prister from The Nature of My Game Podcast provides tips on GMing for an actual play podcast. Stay tuned after this episode’s credits for […]

Episode 567: All This Stupid Wheat

In the Gaming Hut, we look at the second of the scenario structures Robin breaks down in his new Adventure Crucible chapbook, the mystery. Beloved Patreon backer Joshua Randall beckons us into the Cartography Hut as he seeks places on Earth with the widest variety of F20 friendly biomes. Then Charles Picard puts up multiple […]

Episode 566: You Are a Special Island

Ken and Robin were together once more for a live show at Gen Con, and here it is, with the mystical confluence of Elvis, Ben Franklin, and zombies, plus harissa, fancy liquor labeling, our nemeses, why Robin would never have Ken assassinated, Schrodinger’s frogs, and what the hamsters and guinea pigs are really up to. […]

Episode 565: Live at Gen Con 2023

The Gaming Hut hosts part one in a series breaking down the various scenario structures, as inspired by Robin’s new Kraken chapbook, Adventure Crucible. We start with a look at the dungeon and other area-based scenarios, finding its hidden and not-so hidden strengths. An anonymous patron beckons us into the History Hut for a look […]

Episode 564: Speciation Event

Among My Many Hats looks at Robin’s new Adventure Crucible Kraken chapbook, in which he breaks down the structures of various scenario types to help you design them better. Get in PDF from DriveThruRPG or in physical form from All Rolled Up. Beloved Patreon backer Matthew Preston beckons us into the Archaeology Hut to ask […]

Episode 563: The Human Salmon of 1737

In the Gaming Hut, we propose ways to respond to the characters’ failures of stealth without killing story momentum. In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, both of us chat with author Howard Andrew Jones about the state of sword and sorcery and his new novel, Lord of a Shattered Land. In Ask Ken […]

Episode 562: Never Refer to Peoples’ Necks

For the first time since the Great Unpleasantness, not only Ken but also Robin made it to Gen Con. Picking up a tradition where it left off, we devote the episode to recapping our experience there. From the new stuff at the Pelgrane booth, from the flow of the show to the state of the […]

Episode 561: If Sauron Was an Eye of Love

The episode we record together in Indianapolis before Gen Con is back, starting with a Gaming Hut look at using the vagaries of attendance to guide your plot developments. In the Food Hut we look at new additions to our list of techniques, grocery lists, and home bars. Our Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essential Series […]

Episode 560: A Total Gef Move

In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer Lauberfen asks for tips on achieving balance with F20 magic items. How do GMs find the sweet spot between a boring +1 sword and a full MacGuffin? The Book Hut looks at the career of SF, fantasy and crime writer Avram Davidson, in the centenary of his birth. […]

Episode 559: It’s Not a Two Demon Bag

In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer Hector Trelane asks us to discuss the Jeepform game design movement. A Crime Blotter investigation has us looking at Captagon, a licit pharmaceutical product that traveled from Germany to the Eastern Bloc and finally morphed into a war-fighting or party drug with a geopolitical reach throughout the Middle […]

Episode 558: Any Other Stupid Cave Lake

In the Gaming Hut, beloved Patreon backer Michael David Jr. wants to know how to fold the 19th century French interest in Ancient Egypt into The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. In the Food Hut we look at gum arabic, a ubiquitous ingredient in processed food and other products whose worldwide supply is now threatened as […]

Episode 557: All Four-Sided

Beloved Patreon backer and longtime GM David Rourke convenes us in the Gaming Hut to ask, is it okay if running published adventures doesn’t work for you? Travel Advisory features a report from Ken on his recent trip to the Diversão Offline game convention in São Paulo, Brazil. The Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials Series […]

Episode 556: We Touched the Thing in Tomb of Horrors

The Gaming Hut looks at collaborative worldbuilding. Our Cinema Hut Science Fiction Cinema Essentials series reaches the back half of the 90s. In Ask Ken and Robin, beloved Patreon backer Kevin Greenlee asks how to fit DramaSystem into other games. Finally the Consulting Occultist tells the tale of a magical assassination plot aimed at Edward […]

Episode 555: Do We Get a Deal for Seven?

In the Gaming Hut we look at a common GMing pitfall, which we like to call the Case of the Tight-lipped Informant. The Tradecraft Hut opens the dossier on 18th century antiquarian and spy Philipp von Stosch. Installment 22 of the Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials series finds us in the mid 90s. Finally beloved […]

Episode 554: The Best Way to Annoy a Husband

Beloved Patreon backer Ryan McClelland ventures into our seedy, low rent Gaming Hut to ask how Sam Spade’s monkeywrenching style of investigation fits in GUMSHOE. In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Somebody Else, Ken talks to Improv for Gamers author Karen Twelves. The Cinema Hut Science Fiction Cinema Essentials series makes the turn from the […]

Episode 553: They Get a Really Great Poem Out of It

In the Gaming Hut we suggest ways to design your player character backstory to make you a premise accepter. Learn with Ken as Among My Many Hats discusses his upcoming online adult education course “H.P. Lovecraft: Maker of Modern Horror,” available Thursdays in July through Signum University. The Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials series reaches […]

Episode 552: Worse Hats

In the Gaming Hut, beloved Patreon backer Elias Helfer wants to hear our take on our esteemed colleague Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s take on investigative leads. Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else finds Ken talking to tabletop roleplaying pioneer Jennell Jacquays. Part eighteen of our increasingly epic Cinema Hut Science Fiction Film Essentials series brings us […]

Episode 551: It’s a Bad Gun

The planet Earth has hurtled through time and space yet again to take this podcast to another milestone: our five hundred and fiftieth episode. Longtime listeners know what that means—LIGHTNING ROUND!!! questions as posed by our beloved Patreon backers. In rapid fashion we address queries about overrated foods, stingy players, satellite imagery, and so much […]

Episode 550: LIGHTNING ROUND!!!

Flashbacks and cold opens fill the Gaming Hut as beloved Patreon backer Kelly Fisher asks how scenes without the player characters work as downbeats. In the Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials Series, we reach installment 17, which might not get us all the way through that most speculative year, 1984. Then our bibliomaniacal hero regales […]

Episode 549: Secretly About Papyrus

Your heroes don masks and top hats in the Gaming Hut as beloved backer Daniel Fidelman asks how to use iconic French pulp villain Fantomas in The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. The Tradecraft Hut gets a little too online as we look at the tabletop implications of the Jack Teixeira spy secrets leak case. We […]

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