Yes Indie'd Pod Thomas M

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On this week's episode, I talk to Sidney Icarus, a game designer of, among other things, the scifi horror game, Decaying Orbit, published by Storybrewers Roleplaying, which won the 2023 ARPIA Game of the Year. But I first heard of them as the fantastic host of the now-concluded Hard Move, a wonderful podcast where every episode, Sidney and a guest analysed one move from a PbtA game.



Show Notes:

03:12 - RPG Descriptivist

14:49 - The "Who Says What When" Framework

22:06 - What is Action Paths?

32:04 - Analyzing Decaying Orbit using Action Paths

1:08:46 - Sidney's next game: The Most Dangerous Game

1:12:03 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Bump in the Dark

1:13:50 - Tyranny of Numbers

1:16:50 - RePlay

1:18:14 - All advice is advice for myself



The Indie RPG Newsletter

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On today's show, we're talking ship with Sebastian Yue, a game designer, writer, and editor. Apart from their own self-published games and DMs Guild modules, They work full-time at Hit Point Press which is best known for various very succesful third party D&D 5e products like Heckna and Humblewood. They've also contributed as a designer to some wonderful projects like Apocalypse Keys, Cloud Empress, ennie-award winning Uncaged Goddesses anthology, and the currently in-progress official Tomb Raider RPG.



Show Notes

04:18 Getting started with game design

15:18 Working full-time at Hitpoint Press

22:10 Being in both the D&D and indie game communities

24:15 All about editing: style guides & more

29:50 Future plans

34:07 Advice for aspiring game designers

36:56 Infectious Enthusiasm: Ingkit by Pukepeku Games

38:15 Tyranny of Numbers: Annual earnings

42:15 RePlay

43:43 All Advice is Advice for Myself



The Indie RPG Newsletter

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Today, we're talking to Graham Walmsley, the celebrated game designer behind tabletop RPGs like Cthulhu Dark and A Taste for Murder, larps like Will That Be All, and lovecraftian scenarios for games like Trail of Cthulhu. He's also the author of two non-fiction books called Stealing Cthulhu about telling lovecraftian stories and Play Unsafe about techniques for being a better player of tabletop games. This year, he's got two new games out, Cosmic Dark, a sequel to Cthulhu Dark about corporate employees in space, and Darkenwood, a GM-less game about a nightmarish forest.



Show Notes:

01:41 Introducing Graham

03:07 Starting with Lovecraft

12:08 What is weird fiction?

16:55 All the cool stuff in Cosmic Dark

26:24 Rules, advice, setting

39:22 Infectious Enthusiasm: Lumberjills by Moira Turkington

41:50 Tyranny of Numbers

43:44 RePlay

46:25 All Advice is Advice for Myself



The Indie RPG Newsletter

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This week, we're talking to Nico MacDougall and returning guest Tan Shao Han about The Awards, an alternative tabletop RPG awards project.



Show Notes:

03:56 Introductions

13:31 Being a judge

16:09 The process of picking a winner

21:30 Who should be a judge?

25:36 Infectious Enthusiasm

27:59 Tyranny of Numbers: Breaking down submissions to the Awards

31:02 All Advice is Advice for Myself

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Today we're talking to Max and Aaron from RTFM. Maxwell Lander is a game designer, photographer, visual artist, and also musician with an album of dungeon synth. Aaron King is a game designer whose works including Patchwork World Sixth Edition. They are both the co-hosts of RTFM, an RPG book club podcast.



Show Notes:

[00:02:49] Why start an RPG bookclub podcast?

[00:14:43] What each person brings to the table

[00:28:47] Critiquing RPGs as an artform

[00:41:24] Infectious Enthusiasm: Sagas of the Icelanders, Bloodfeud

[00:45:03] Tyranny of Numbers

[00:50:08] RePlay

[00:53:13] All Advice is Advice For Myself: Prep more, be less?



Other Links:

It's up to you really, an all vtuber actual play of Patchwork World

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Today, we're talking to Quintin Smith aka Quinns, who has been reviewing boardgames for more than a decade with the iconic show, Shut Up and Sit Down. Then about 3 years ago, Quintin joined People Make Games to cover everything from Roblox's relationship to child labour to the battle for ownership and control of Disco Elysium, from the revival of kabaddi in India to phenomenon that is jubensha in china. Now, he's gone and started Quinns Quest, a new youtube channel to review tabletop roleplaying games that feels like a lot like that one weird show where William Riker from Star Trek looked at the camera and asked us if we believed in ghosts. Don't worry, listeners, we're going to ask the question on everyone's mind: why?



Show Notes:

[00:02:00] What makes a good review?

[00:08:02] Horror versus Tension: one of the challenges of reviewing RPGs

[00:16:12] Would you ever do a bad review?

[00:23:22] Why playing games are vital for reviews

[00:40:44] Infectious Enthusiasm: World Wide Wrestling by Nathan Paoletta

[00:43:26] Tyranny of Numbers: Youtube drop-off

[00:45:12] Replay

[00:50:31] All Advice is Advice For Myself: Use your hands?



Other references:

I mentioned an article by Quinn Murphy which talks about promises, consistency and economy, you can find that here



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