Posts Tagged ‘Cartography Hut’
Episode 293: Kill America’s Famous Pigs
May 18th, 2018 | Robin
Stop plinking those kobolds and pop into the Gaming Hut as we ask if today’s median gamer is less motivated than before by the prospect of in-game reward.
In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Neal Dalton asks Ken how he chooses game systems and pitches them to his players.
We enter the Cartography Hut to look at the persuasive qualities of maps. Check out Cornell’s online archive of polemical maps. Maps referenced include The Awakening, The Russian Octopus, and Pig Nicknames of the US States.
And finally, at the request of backers Rich Ranallo, Jurie Horneman, and also everyone, the Archeaology Hut asks why the Hobby Lobby retail chain was importing looted Sumerian incantations.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
In Atlas Games’ wickedly different cooperative deck-building game Witches of the Revolution, you and your doughty coven fight the American Revolution the way it was really fought: with spells aplenty! Resurrect Ben Franklin, cure Paul Revere of lycanthropy and keep those red-coated witch hunters at bay.
Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available for preorder from Atlas Games. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agent hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.
Grab the translated riches of FENIX magazine in a special bundle deal from our friends at Askfageln, over at Indie Press Revolution. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, a cornucopia of articles, complete games, plus the cartoon antics of Bernard the Barbarian. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish.
With your Handlers Guide already at your side, it’s time to assemble some operations to spiral your Delta Green operatives into paranoia and Mythos horror. Delta Green: A Night at the Opera features six terrifying adventures from the conspiratorial minds of Dennis Detwiller, Shane Ivey, and Greg Stolze. Preorder before it’s desperately too late!
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Episode 280: Problem Solving Gases
February 16th, 2018 | Robin
February loses its rep as the cruelest month when we confront it with an all-hut, all-request episode, in tribute to our fabulous Patreon backers.
In the Gaming Hut, Tom Bagatelle seeks guidance on a sandbox time travel campaign.
Peter Williamson adds reclining couches to the Food Hut as we consider the Roman cookbook attributed to Apicius.
Zachary Joyner meets us in the Cartography Hut for the 101 on telling stories with places.
Finally David Sowa makes an urgent topical request in the Eliptony Hut. Dare we crack the mystery of Taco Bell’s Belluminati ads?
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
In Atlas Games’ wickedly different cooperative deck-building game Witches of the Revolution, you and your doughty coven fight the American Revolution the way it was really fought: with spells aplenty! Resurrect Ben Franklin, cure Paul Revere of lycanthropy and keep those red-coated witch hunters at bay.
It wasn’t on the maps. No one talked about it. But now you live there. Cthulhu City. Where the mayor goes everywhere with twin sacred jaguars, and the chief of police blinks at your with fishy eyes. Where the cultists run city hall and the investigators are hunted criminals. Cthulhu City, the new Trail of Cthulhu sourcebook from Pelgrane Press, by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.
It’s tiny, it fits on your keychain, it’s complete and flexible, and it’s already almost gone. Askfageln presents the Kickstarter for the Keychain RPG, now in English, not Swedish.
With your Handlers Guide already at your side, it’s time to assemble some operations to spiral your Delta Green operatives into paranoia and Mythos horror. Delta Green: A Night at the Opera features six terrifying adventures from the conspiratorial minds of Dennis Detwiller, Shane Ivey, and Greg Stolze. Preorder before it’s desperately too late!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 271: The Friends We Met Along the Way and Ate
December 8th, 2017 | Robin
Hey, it’s an all-request episode!
Patreon backer Joshua Trowbridge entreats us in the Gaming Hut to return to a perennial puzzler: how to convince change-averse players to try the awesome new thing you want to run for them.
Patreon backer Josh Mannon summons us to the Cartography Hut, to explain that hole where the Kong Mountains used to be.
In Ask Ken and Robin Patreon backer Adam Grotjohn asks Ken and Robin if roleplaying games could be used to teach criminological procedure.
And finally Patreon backer Rick Neal has been hanging out next to Ken’s Time Machine, wanting to know why Time Inc. needed Kaspar Hauser dead.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
In Atlas Games’ wickedly different cooperative deck-building game Witches of the Revolution, you and your doughty coven fight the American Revolution the way it was really fought: with spells aplenty! Resurrect Ben Franklin, cure Paul Revere of lycanthropy and keep those red-coated witch hunters at bay.
The book has been written.The book has been read. Now it rewrites you. Across time it spreads, creating dread new realities. And you’re in all of them. Robin’s epic new GUMSHOE project, The Yellow King Roleplaying Game has concluded its Kickstarter run, but is now available for pre-order at the Pelgrane Store for those who missed it.
In Highway Holocaust you are Cal Phoenix, the Freeway Warrior, champion and protector of Dallas Colony One. Defend this fragile convoy from H.A.V.O.C. bikers with this exclusive hardcover (with dust jacket and book ribbons), the first choose-your-own-adventure-gamebook in Joe Dever’s post apocalyptic series. From the fine folks at FENIX, now available from Modiphius.
Delta Green Game Moderators, take heart! Reinforcements have arrived in the form of the Delta Green Handler’s Guide from Arc Dream Publishing, bursting with operational details, threats and eldritch history to keep your players locked, loaded, and terrified. 
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Episode 253: That’s More of a Gloss on Aristotle
August 4th, 2017 | Robin
The Gaming Hut falls all over itself answering a question from Patreon backer Daniel Krauklis: “What does the choice to have fumbles in your rules that tell us about your game and the moral universe in which the characters operate?”
We fortify the Cartography Hut for a workshop on designing strategic locations into your world.
How to Write Good examines tragedy and anagnorisis.
And the Consulting Occultist gets all semiotic to reply to a query from Patreon backer Polydamas on what the Secret Masters were up to when they invented post-modernism.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your Support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
In Unknown Armies, Atlas Games’ modern-day, occult roleplaying game, you play the heroically broken people who conspire to fix the world. That conspiracy just got easier, with the arrival of the game on store shelves near you!
The book has been written. The book has been read. Now it rewrites you. Across time it spreads, creating dread new realities. And you’re in all of them. Robin’s epic new GUMSHOE project, The Yellow King Roleplaying Game has concluded its Kickstarter run, but is now available for pre-order at the Pelgrane Store for those who missed it. (You think you hear us say Backerkit in the ad in this episode, but that’s just a reality shattering manifestation caused by your exposure to the Yellow Sign. Please bear with us as we clear that up.) Do intervals between episodes plunge you into Hite withdrawal? Never fear! his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. 
John Scott Tynes’ Puppetland is ready to knock the stuffing out of a game store near you in its gorgeous new full-color hardcover edition. Join the good folks at Arc Dream in battling the horrific forces of Punch the Maker-Killer! 
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Episode 252: A Different, Less Pear-Like Shape
July 28th, 2017 | Robin
Are your modern investigators getting cocky? Join us in the Gaming Hut as we riff a rival team to toss some sand in their gears.
The Cartography Hut looks at the process of mapping fictional cities, like those invented by H. P. Lovecraft.
In Ask Ken and Robin, John Scheib wants to know about habits of mind to transition from OSR to narrative style gaming.
Then we stand in proximity to Ken’s Time Machine as we learn why our hero had to borrow the white doe of Sertorius.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your Support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
In Unknown Armies, Atlas Games’ modern-day, occult roleplaying game, you play the heroically broken people who conspire to fix the world. That conspiracy just got easier, with the arrival of the game on store shelves near you!
The book has been written. The book has been read. Now it rewrites you. Across time it spreads, creating dread new realities. And you’re in all of them. Robin’s epic new GUMSHOE project, The Yellow King Roleplaying Game has concluded its Kickstarter run, but is now available for pre-order at the Pelgrane Store for those who missed it. (You think you hear us say Backerkit in the ad in this episode, but that’s just a reality shattering manifestation caused by your exposure to the Yellow Sign. Please bear with us as we clear that up.) Do intervals between episodes plunge you into Hite withdrawal? Never fear! his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. John Scott Tynes’ Puppetland is ready to knock the stuffing out of a game store near you in its gorgeous new full-color hardcover edition. Join the good folks at Arc Dream in battling the horrific forces of Punch the Maker-Killer!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 235: He-Man’s Woman Hating Civilization
March 31st, 2017 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut Patreon backer Joan Guardiet asks us to make a game set in a warrior woman society work for a party of male PCs.
Speaking of requests, in Ask Ken and Robin backer Kalin Kadiev seeks tips on researching Bulgarian occultism.
Tell Me More teams up with the Cartography Hut for a tour of cursed places.
And in a switcheroo, Robin dons the smoking jacket of the Consulting Occultist as we look at the cultists and gurus of 1930s L.A., as seen in Cthulhu Confidential.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Wish to introduce innocent children to the horror of the Mythos, while remaining on budget? Atlas Games is here to affordably twist young minds with a buy two, get one free deal on Ken’s Mini Mythos line of childrens’ book parodies: Where the Deep Ones Are, Goodnight Azathoth, Cliffourd the Big Red God, and Antarctic Express.
Want to plunge headlong into Lovecraftian mystery, but lack a gaming group? Want to introduce a friend or loved one to the roleplaying hobby? GUMSHOE One-2-One has come to your rescue! Find this new system by some guy named Robin D. Laws, in the line’s flagship title, Cthulhu Confidential. Now pre-ordering at the Pelgrane Press store. 
Do intervals between episodes plunge you into Hite withdrawal? Never fear! his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. John Scott Tynes’ Puppetland is ready to knock the stuffing out of a game store near you in its gorgeous new full-color hardcover edition. Join the good folks at Arc Dream in battling the horrific forces of Punch the Maker-Killer!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 181: Taking Latitudes with Longitude
March 11th, 2016 | Robin
In this special theme episode, we start in the uncharted waters of the Cartography Hut, to look at the struggle to accurately measure longitude at sea, and its underdog hero, clockmaker John Harrison.
We shift to the Gaming Hut to ask ourselves how to introduce navigational uncertainty into magic-rich F20 worlds.
Then the Consulting Occultist tours us through the colorful career of privateer, courtier, cookbook author and magic powder maker Kenelm Digby. The connection? The rejected magical dog injury method of longitude measurement.
When the astronomer Giovanni Cassini wanted to establish a reference point for longitude he went to the ruins of Uraniborg, the observatory erected by Tycho Brahe. Can Ken’s Time Machine prevent it from being destroyed in the first place?
Ken and Robin have oft been accused of being cards. Well, we can deny it no longer. We have become super-limited promo cards for Murder of Crows, Atlas Games’ fast-paced card game of murder and the macabre, for two to five players in the mood for something a little morbid. It’s Edward Gorey meets Caligari, by way of Edgar Allan Poe. Wait a minute, what does that graphic say? I’m not so sure about this… 
Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. 
You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. In a move that surely violates someone’s security clearance, this episode is also brought to you by our friends at Arc Dream Publishing. The Kickstarter for Delta Green: the Roleplaying Game has come to an end, but don’t let that stop you from indulging your fever for this classic game, or that pinnacle of the Cthulhu game zine world, The Unspeakable Oath. 
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Episode 176: Shut Up, Fungus
February 5th, 2016 | Robin
Get your chlorophyll on as we enter a vine-choked version of the Gaming Hut to riff an alien species that feeds via photosynthesis.
Ken gets you started on your collection of books about maps in a bibliographic Cartography Hut.
It’s been a while since Ask Ken and Robin had a lightning round, so let’s have a lightning round.
Then the Eliptony Hut blows up real good with a look at the Martian nuclear armageddon theory.
Ken and Robin have oft been accused of being cards. Well, we can deny it no longer. We have become super-limited promo cards for Murder of Crows, Atlas Games’ fast-paced card game of murder and the macabre, for two to five players in the mood for something a little morbid. It’s Edward Gorey meets Caligari, by way of Edgar Allan Poe. Wait a minute, what does that graphic say? I’m not so sure about this… Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. In a move that surely violates someone’s security clearance, this episode is also brought to you by our friends at Arc Dream Publishing. The Kickstarter for Delta Green: the Roleplaying Game has come to an end, but don’t let that stop you from indulging your fever for this classic game, or that pinnacle of the Cthulhu game zine world, The Unspeakable Oath.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 168: Real Made-Up History
November 27th, 2015 | Robin
The New York Public Library online map collection provides a feast of gameable treasures. We gather in the Cartography Hut to pick our favorites and riff on ways to put them to use.
Ken’s first map, of Brasov, appears here.
Robin’s map, to the residences of Ebenezer Ingalsbie and T. R. Wolcott, is here.
Ken’s second map, of 1840s Brooklyn, is here.
Among My Many Hats has Ken turning your players into an official bulwark against UFO incursion in his latest Ken Writes About Stuff installment, MAJESTIC OVERWATCH.
Ken and Robin Recycle Audio as the audience of Deep Ones at Toronto’s FanExpo pepper Robin with questions about exciting endings, compelling darkness, and NPCs your players care about.
Finally the Consulting Occultist gets architectural to discuss the occult tendencies of Le Corbusier.
Ken and Robin have oft been accused of being cards. Well, we can deny it no longer. We have become super-limited promo cards for Murder of Crows, Atlas Games’ fast-paced card game of murder and the macabre, for two to five players in the mood for something a little morbid. It’s Edward Gorey meets Caligari, by way of Edgar Allan Poe. Wait a minute, what does that graphic say? I’m not so sure about this…
Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.
In a move that surely violates someone’s security clearance, this episode is also brought to you by our friends at Arc Dream Publishing. The Kickstarter for Delta Green: the Roleplaying Game has come to an end, but don’t let that stop you from indulging your fever for this classic game, or that pinnacle of the Cthulhu game zine world, The Unspeakable Oath.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 152: X-Acto Athame
August 7th, 2015 | Robin
Buckle up your extra special rapier for a jaunt into the Gaming Hut to consider the connection between gear and status.
Take extra reindeer with you, for your predecessor lost all of his when he entered the far confines of the Cartography Hut to talk Soviet map-making.
From hominids and their tapir pals to the contents of a teen’s bedroom, Ken and Robin delineate some great opening scenes in the Cinema Hut.
Then paranoia goes old-timey as the Conspiracy Corner recounts the story of America’s Anti-Masonic Party.
Look out, Lieutenants of evil! The sinister mastermind you work for has taken some time to shake the post-conquest blues. But he’ll be back soon, and your survival depends on impressing him. Thankfully, our lead sponsor Atlas Games has just what you need: their delightful new card game of competitive minion-stacking, Three Cheers for Master.
What’s that hiding behind your baseboards? Could it be a PDF copy of Philip Masters’ The Small Folk, in which you play fairy folk descendants sneaking, scheming, and avoiding the attentions of wily housecats? Grab it at Warehouse23.
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