Reading D&D Aloud

Today, we have two remarkable designers here to share with us their insights and thoughts. Alex Roberts is the winner of the Diana Jones Award, and the designer of STAR CROSSED and FOR THE QUEEN. Joining her is Graham Walmsley, creator of CTHULHU DARK and a TRAIL OF CTHULHU designer with many credits to his name. Back Graham's current Kickstarter for PLAY UNSAFE here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grahamwalmsley/play-unsafe You can pick up Alex's award-winning STAR CROSSED here: https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/star-crossed

Tonight's first guest is a hunter of hunters, a designer who seized upon the monster-of-the-week TV formula and used it as the bones of a horrifying gaming monstrosity of freakish limbs, a brutish head, a harsh brow, a criminal brain, and yes, it's alive!! Michael Sands is the creator of Monster of the Week, the game that turned supernatural investigation, bad decisions, and glorious improvisation into one of the great engines of modern tabletop roleplaying. From Wellington to game tables all over the world, he's built not just a hit game but a whole haunted ecosystem around it, with books like Tome of Mysteries, Codex of Worlds, and the newly released Hunter's Journal and Slayer's Survival Kit. It's also what I'm running for my group at the moment. Welcome Michael! Our other guest tonight is Tim Denee, a designer with a gift for taking sharp ideas, stylish worlds, soldering them to systems under pressure. He's the mind behind Deathmatch Island, which is Battle Royale or The Hunger Games the RPG, and he has pushed forward the timeline of John Harper's magnum opus Blades in the Dark forward a hundred years with Blades '68, which recently funded, creating a retrofuturist new age of crime, glamour, and trouble. Welcome Tim! You can find Tim's BLADES 68 here: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/evil-hat/blades-68 MONSTER OF THE WEEK can be found here: https://evilhat.com/product/monster-of-the-week/ Yesterday, I interviewed 1st edition D&D artist Erol Otus an 2nd edition D&D artist Jeff Easley in the Hugh Hefner suite in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Sometime soon, it will be up on our Patreon page. Join here for a mere $3 a month!

My first guest tonight is one of the great mad scientists of tabletop gaming. Epidiah Ravachol helped create Dread, the game that made a horror RPG out of a Jenga tower. It's brilliant, cruel, elegant game design that makes players sweat before anything terrible has even happened. He's just launched a sword & sorcery RPG called Swords Without Master. Please welcome Epidiah Ravachol! My next guest is Quinn Murphy, the creator of COMMUNITY RADIO, an improv-driven RPG about a weird town, dark humor, supernatural trouble, and the public radio station trying to narrate its way through the madness, which, frankly, is an incredible pitch. He's also the founder of Thoughtcrime Games, which is a ten-out-of-ten company name. An editor and contributor and layout designer of the GRIOT ANTHOLOGY of African-American game designers. Please welcome Quinn Murphy! Support Epidiah's SWORDS WITHOUT MASTER here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unwrittenearths/swords-without-master Pickup COMMUNITY RADIO here! Enjoy the GRIOT ANTHOLOGY here!

5E + dragon mounts = :) Chris Lindsay is the godfather of the DM's Guild, and that institution brought us titanic names in the world of game design, such as Kelsey Dionne & MT Black, to name just a few. He is now at Goodman Games, and is crowdfunding THE DRAGONRIDER'S PRIMER, a 5E supplement for winged mounts, everything from dragons to dung beetles. Click here to see more!

Tonight I'm joined by W.F. Smith, the mind behind Prismatic Wasteland, one of the sharpest OSR blogs in the game. And if you've heard of Barkeep on the Borderlands, that's him too: the barhopping, pubcrawl-fantasy fever dream that took home a Gold ENnie. W.F. writes like a man with a notebook full of bad ideas he's somehow made playable. We're going to talk about design, tables, taste, and why the tavern should be an engine of chaos, not a loading screen. W.F. Smith, welcome! Also on the show: Brad Kerr, writer at Necrotic Gnome and co-host of Between Two Cairns, the podcast that reviews modules with the seriousness of scholars and the emotional stability of goblins. Brad's the author of Hideous Daylight, and Temple of 1000 Swords. and he's also the guy who, along with Skullfungus, created The Dream Shrine, which won Gold at the 2025 ENNIEs for Best Adventure, Short Form. If you want to see WF's Pokemon parody game, click here! Brad recommends you check out his adventure anthology, Wyvern Songs. On Patreon, I posted my Gamehole Con seminar where I went over 18 years of leaked D&D sales data. You can enjoy it posthaste if you subscribe to my Patreon! It's only $3 a month! Click here!

Apparently, snakes have something called "hemepenes," something I only know because of Emily Allen. Emily is a designer, writer, and the mind behind The Gardens of Ynn, one of those RPG books that feels less like a "setting" and more like a living dream you accidentally walked into and now can't stop exploring. Emily's work has that rare combination of elegance and danger: it's imaginative, it's playable, and it demands to be brought to a table and enjoyed. I am sorely tempted to start running her Stygian Library ASAP. If you like your fantasy uncanny, like wonder with teeth, Emily is your person. And today we welcome back Josh McCrowell, designer of His Majesty the Worm, a book that basically looks at the classic dungeon crawl and hits it with a Tarot deck. With this appearance, Josh may be the most-frequently appearing guest in the history of the pod. The Worm won ENnies for best rules and best game this year. If you want to to explore the full panoply of Emily's work, from Ynn to the Library, click here! Preorder The Worm's first expansion, The Castle Automatic, here! On Patreon, I posted my Gamehole Con seminar where I went over 18 years of leaked D&D sales data. You can enjoy it posthaste if you subscribe to my Patreon! It's only $3 a month! Click here!

Jamie Perez, co-creator at Stations and improvisational sci-fi designer. Adam Good, dense-idea sci-fi designer behind Infinity of Ships. They riff on Stations' origins and pandemic game-group roots. They discuss 100 Strangers and its clipped NPC sparks. They tease 100 Spaces, Kickstarter plans, punk influences, and how music and community shape their weird, playable locales.

Satyros Phil Brucato, a 90s White Wolf designer blending myth, philosophy, and occult themes. Wolfgang Baur, veteran creator and Kobold Press founder who builds games and a business. They reminisce about wild 90s convention scenes, intense White Wolf work culture, starting Kobold from a tip jar, and how crowdfunding and playtesting reshaped modern TTRPG publishing.

Today we welcome back Joshua McCrowell, designer of His Majesty the Worm, a game that looks at the classic dungeon crawl and hits it with a Tarot deck. The Worm won ENnies for best rules and best game this year. Josh has a gift for taking old-school adventure DNA, labyrinths, delving, danger and giving it a new spine. Welcome Josh! Pick up Josh's work here! On Patreon, I posted my Gamehole Con seminar where I went over 18 years of leaked D&D sales data. You can enjoy it posthaste if you subscribe to my Patreon! It's only $3 a month! Click here!

Join game design legends Jonathan Tweet, Meguey Baker, and Vincent Baker in an insightful discussion about their groundbreaking contributions to RPGs. Jonathan, the mastermind behind D&D 3rd Edition, reflects on the design intent of impactful games. Meg and Vincent share their experiences in creating narrative-focused titles and the significance of collaborative storytelling. They delve into the influence of Ars Magica, explore the intricacies of character flaws, and discuss the evolution of Apocalypse World. It's a vibrant conversation full of nostalgia and fresh perspectives!