Role Playing Public Radio

My campaign for Monsters and Other Childish Things, Road Trip is available for pre-order! Buy it here! The Codex of War is out! Download it here. If you like our AP episodes, donate to the ‘Get Aaron to Gencon’ Kickstarter to get early access to 5 AP episodes. The real world holds just as much adventure as any fantasy or sci-fi setting. In this episode, Tom and I discuss various types of games you could run based in the real world with normal PCs (with no extraordinary abilities or cinematic fighting skills). There are more possibilities than you might realize. Shout Outs The Good, The Bad and The Weird Blue Collar IT Crowd Killing Floor Dresden Files RPG Fuller Memorandum Trying Human String Theory Music: Anything 4 Adventure by the Jim Morey Band. If a real world campaign interests you, check out the following resources below the fold. I outlined a campaign based on contemporary insurgencies and guerrilla warfare. Imagine the challenges a Human Terrain Team in Afghanistan faces or normal people caught between warring factions in Iraq. There’s also the Naxalite rebellion in India, Mexican drug cartels challenging the government and gang war in Brazilian Favelas. Global Guerrillas: A great blog on guerrilla warfare, terrorism and insurgencies McMafia: a book about the new trends in criminal syndicates and cartels around the world. Cities Under Siege: a book on political violence in cities today and how it affects life in them. Shock Doctrine: How governments and corporations exploit disasters for profit. Off the Books: A study of the black market economy in the ghetto. Wonga Coup: An account of how a few Westerners tried to take over a country in Africa and failed.

Adam Scott Glancy is one of the co-authors of Delta Green and is the man behind Pagan Publishing. I talked to him over Skype about the newest Delta Green book, Targets of Opportunity, a collection of new DG antagonist groups and M-EPIC, a Canadian anti-mythos organization.  We also talk about the resurrection of The Unspeakable Oath, the legendary Call of Cthulhu magazine, a scenario about templar zombies and their mastery of the Dewey Decimal system and advice for running Call of Cthulhu for new keepers. This is a long interview but well worth the listen.

Role playing is a collaborative hobby but conflicts between players and the GM inevitably arise. Cody, Dan, Tom and I discuss how adversarial gaming can affect your game and how to deal with it. RJ and I also talk about the new online tabletop section of the RPPR forums and we get into a discussion of the differences between long standing campaigns and shorter ones. We also have a few anecdotes and shout outs: The RPPR Steam Group: If you play games over Steam, then join us and play l4d2 or other games with Ross or other RPPR fans. Battlefield Baseball: A crazy Japanese action movie about baseball and zombies. Coup de Torchon: A brilliant crime movie and an “engrossing and unsettling meditation on moral collapse.” Rocket Knight: vidya game about a steam powered opossum knight. The Hidden: Great HL2 mod. One invisible monster vs a team of commandos. Who will win? Player Strategy Guide: A 4E book for players new to the game. Good advice on tactics and role playing. Joe the Barbarian: Grant Morrison written comic of a child’s fantasy world. Think Narnia but crazier. Music: Joe’s Confession by Game Over

RPPR regular Cody reads 3 classics of fan fiction: The Music Destroyer, Guess Who, and Napoleon Dynamite in the Outer Space. This is accompanied by Beethoven’s Concerto no 5 in E flat major.

For this episode, we have Cody and RJ as guests and we discuss how to deal with improbable and implausible player devised plans. While heist movies are based on elaborate schemes, does every game need a 20 step plan in order to slip past a single guard? We also talk about current RPPR projects. The Codex of War is still underway but we have made significant progress. RPPR regular Aaron will undergo training as a Call of Cthulhu GM and I’ve written a campaign for Monsters and Other Childish Things. We also talk about an anecdote about a truly terrible GM. Shout Outs Echo Bazaar: Very original and unique browser based game. Free to play and features great writing! Sword of the Stars: A fun 4X PC game with 3 expansions out. Frozen Synapse: Indie PC tactical strategy game. Lead a team of commandos to take out the enemy. Hell House: A documentary about Christian haunted houses. Bigger Bads: A new Monsters and Other Childish Things supplement. Play giant monsters! Targets of Opportunity: A brand new Delta Green book! Over 300 pages! HOLY FUCK IS IT AMAZING. Music: Hyrule’s Angel (The Sleeping Beauty) by Game Over

In this episode, we have a special guest: Mike from Bear Swarm. We discuss why edition wars and hating on games in discussions is a pointless endeavor and why people endlessly flame each other over them.  We also talk about Catalyst Game Labs and of course, Tom has a letter. Shout Outs: Triangle: A great horror film that is better the less you know about it before you watch it. Pandemic: A board game about stopping a global pandemic. You usually fail. Imaginary Monsters: A web comic about monsters and dungeons. Poo: A card game about monkeys flinging poo. Casshern: The live action Japanese 2007 sci-fi flick. Crazy effects and nonsensical plot. MD Geist: Ultra violent 80s anime that features gamer logic. Iron Tyrants: ROBOT SMASHING FIGHTING TIME Sin Titulo: Eisner nominated web comic. Very creepy and a great read. Music: Cataclysmic Crash by Game Over.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Codex of War Ransom! In this episode, Cody, Tom and I discuss the use of social skills against other players, because of this blog post. When I ran a game at Fear the Con, I disallowed a player to use a persuasion skill against another player. We disagree and explain our beliefs towards the use of social skills and free will in games. RPPR Forums Threads of Note The Tomb of Coddowalshagoth: Fan Project I am a Horrible Monster for not letting a PC mind control another PC Shout Outs Ninite: The easiest way to get apps! Green Hornet comics The RPPR Community AP Podcast Rifftrax: New Moon Mouse Guard Nedroid Lost Comics music: social critique of madison by The Hussy

New Rewards for the Codex of War Ransom! Have Ross run a game of YOUR CHOICE over Skype! In this episode we discuss how to add a sense of wonder to your game. Tabletop RPGs are only limited by your imagination yet too many games are dull dungeon crawl affairs of 10 foot wide corridors and orcs guarding pies, forever.  So how do you get that overwhelming awe in your game? We both talk about a few ways to introduce it using examples from earlier games. As Tom was too busy playing video games to write a letter (again), I read a story from Ichor Falls called Candle Cove. Forum Shout-outs Codex of War Ransom The Long Pig Anecdote Arcadia Signal Rifts Palladium Conversion Community AP Podcast Other Shout-outs Ichor Falls Horror Recognition Guide Henry Rollins in London Shattered Horizon Supergod Music: Wonder 2 Wonder by The Flavor Foundation

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT RPPR AND THE NEW WORLD CAMPAIGN! GET 10 PREVIEW ACTUAL PLAY EPISODES. HAVE YOUR CHARACTER WRITTEN INTO THE NEW WORLD CAMPAIGN. LISTEN TO CODY’S UNEDITED READING OF MY IMMORTAL! In this fanfiction reading, Chris, Jason and I each read a timeless classic. Jason reads Batman: Nemesis Fight a tragic tale of loss and fireballs. I read Halo: Halos in Space, an epic saga of shooting and wepons. Finally Chris reads Metal Gear: Fight of Metal Gears a legend of a son following in his father’s footsteps.

Zombies of the World: a web series from RPPR co-host Ross Payton. Visit the Zombies of the World website and tell your friends about it! The Codex of War: A New World Campaign PDF ransom is up! Donate now to make sure we meet the goal! Synopsis: Running a mystery based game is far different than an action based game. Tom has realized this after running several Call of Cthulhu games so we decided that talking about the differences in structure from an action to an investigative game would be a good topic for the show. We go over how to prepare a mystery game, what you should read to learn more about them and how to run them. If you want to see how I run a mystery that I created myself, check out the AP I just posted, The Arcadia Signal.  Instead of a letter from Tom (since he is too busy playing Mass Effect 2 to write one), I read an excerpt from the utterly hilarious novel, How I became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. Shout outs below the fold. Shout outs: Soma FM Mission Control: Chillax music and live audio from the ISS. Groovy! (Thanks Patrick F!) Skin Deep: A webcomic about monsters, set in the Ozarks. Stuck and The Killing Room: Two decent horror/thriller movies. Beyond the Pale: A Jim Gaffigan comedy album. Playborg Photographers: A Greg Stolze short fiction ransom This Kenneth Hite blog post – great design advice for all you rpg writers Sleepyhead – an amazing and HAPPY music video using only old archival footage. Great editing! Hanna is not a Boy’s Name: A webcomic also about monsters. This one has zombies. How I became a famous novelist: The funniest fucking novel I’ve ever read. Music: Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton.