Ludonarrative Dissidents

Knowledgeable TTRPG luminaries discuss various games and game topics, and episodes are great when they (occasionally) rise above snark and tangents.

Greg is so obnoxious. He constantly cuts the others off, goes on tangents, pronounces a lot of game names incorrectly even when in English, this guy just jerks off to himself. Can’t stand his need to try and make comparisons to something grander ALL THE TIME. He’s so bad he brings the shows quality down. The other two hosts are fantastic and actually can be funny without trying to quiet each other.

This persistent refrain seems to be caused by one of the hosts constantly getting distracted and losing his train of thought halfway through a sentence. Another host interrupts with constant pointless overindulgent digressions. The topics are very interesting, but recent episodes just can’t seem to stay on topic. They never follow through on the framing device questions they supposedly have for themselves. I don’t know if they’re too busy or distracted by a live chat or if their hearts just aren’t in the show anymore. The listening experience this season is frustrating. It feels like the listener has to put more effort into following the conversation than the hosts put into having it.

If you want a morning shock jock attitude on games, this is your show. In their review of Pendragon, one critique of the game was that it can’t stand up to modern sarcasm, with an example of “what is stopping someone from throwing a Frankish axe at a man’s groin and saying ‘I just franked your beans’?” Blame juvenile player behavior on the game? Dice Exploder is a much better game design podcast.