June « 2013 « Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Archive for June, 2013

Episode 45: A Blatant Vowel Swap

June 28th, 2013 | Robin

Summer convention season kicks off with a Travel Advisory on Ken’s trip to Origins.

Robin beckons you into the Cinema Hut to share his rare chance to see the first Wong Fei-Hung film, 1949’s The Whip That Smacks the Candle.

Having established a Tradecraft Hut, we are naturally behooved to mull the implications of the newly whistleblown PRISM program of the NSA.

We wrap with part 3 of our Consulting Occultist series on the Nazi occult, this time focusing in on Irminist prophet and Himmler advisor Karl-Maria Wiligut.

That periodic thumping sound you hear is Robin’s mic falling apart as we record. Apologies for any sonic disorientation this may cause.

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Tags: Cinema hut, Consulting Occultist, Tradecraft Hut, Travel Advisory

Posted in Podcast | 11 Comments »

Episode 44: The Marshy Aunt

June 21st, 2013 | Robin

Meet us in the Gaming Hut for techniques to make your characters’ backstories shine during RPG play.

In Ask Ken and Robin we (meaning mostly Ken) address a question from friend of the site Jeromy French: “are there merits to reading August Derleth’s Lovecraftian fiction and why?”

Then we fire up the grills of the Food Hut to look at prepared condiments and sauces one might use without shame as part of one’s fresh cooking.

Finally, part two of our epic Consulting Occultist series on the Nazi occult sets the stage with Volkisch movements, Guido von List, and the cast of variously psychopathic characters who bring occult thought with them into Hitler’s high command.

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Tags: Ask Ken and Robin, Consulting Occultist, Food Hut, Gaming hut

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Episode 43: In a Non-Necromantic Context

June 14th, 2013 | Robin

This week’s Travel Advisory takes us to unfamiliar territory—not just the capital of Robin’s beloved Canada, but the On Words Conference held by the Writers’ Union of Canada. Come for compare/contrast between traditional and gaming publishing, stay for the Ottawa facts.

We bid a wistful Book Hut farewell to Jack Vance, the titan of SF and fantasy literature who inspired certain key concepts of roleplaying, not to mention the output of our sponsor Pelgrane Press—so much so that it is named after a Vancian creature.

In the Gaming Hut we list techniques for running successful defensive scenarios. Protecting your base needn’t lead to turtling all the way down.

Finally, a very special Among My Many Hats takes you inside the process of The Nazi Occult, Ken’s new history-bending work for the Osprey Adventures line. This serves as the prelude for a multi-part series on that very subject, which we’ll kick off next week!

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Tags: Among my many hats, Book hut, Gaming hut, Travel Advisory

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Episode 42: A Faith Demand Moment

June 7th, 2013 | Robin

First up, Ken and Robin enter the Gaming Hut to transcend their origins and discuss transhuman RPGs. How do we create inhuman characters human players can still portray?

In the Tradecraft Hut, we discuss the implications of the Obama administration’s war on leakers, and how to bring press revelations into your espionage gaming.

Robin then bows to popular demand with a Politics Hut Rob Ford update, this one covering the first thirteen days of the Toronto mayor’s crack video problems. (Warning: contents of scandal may have shifted our recording date.)

Finally Ken’s Time Machine revs up, with an account of how Ken altered our timeline to keep the 1928 Baltimore space program an amusing footnote, and not a historical catastrophe.