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Episode 101: It’s Like Football Camp

August 8th, 2014 | Robin

Our multi-episode arc about the underwater dead who sell life and buy dreams comes to a conclusion in the Gaming Hut as we break out specific scenario ideas for our riffed setting.

In a new segment called Recommendation Engine we tell you what’s catching our fancy in the worlds of books, TV, movies, and food.

Rob Ford is back from rehab and onto the Toronto mayoralty campaign trail, and you know what that means: a midsummer night’s Politics Hut.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine takes a trip to 7th century India to save Buddhism’s bodhi tree from the conquering forces of King Sassanka.

From the magical land of sponsors comes Atlas Games, who with a twinkle of fairy dust revive their 2nd Edition Once Upon a Time clearance sale.

 

 

Joining us for the first time as sponsor is Jeffrey Wikstrom’s Arthur Dies at the End, an ebook series that spins the tedium of Malory into erudite fun.

 

 

Stone Skin Press has a deal for you. Until September 1st, all hardcopy purchases of Robin’s action-driven Mythos fiction anthology Shotguns v. Cthulhu come not only with the expected free electronic edition of that book, but also an ebook of Schemers, Robin’s anthology of betrayal and conspiracy. Just buy it at the Pelgrane Press store, as you normally would, no special links or offer codes required.

9 Responses to “Episode 101: It’s Like Football Camp”

  1. John Willson says:

    Hello gents, thanks for taking my question in the lightning round, about Moorcock properties and how to gamify them. I wasn’t expecting Jerry Cornelius (“No one expects…!”). Makes me want to read those books again.

    I’m really enjoying the Dunwich Dead segments; first, for the chance to observe two pros develop a game in real time; and since, because the setting/premise is becoming very compelling. The game concept really came to life in the current episode. Scenario ideas is exactly what I was wanting to hear next. I’m all fired up to play this game now.

    As for launching the game as a Pelgrane product, I would almost be sad to see that happen, only because it feels like a property of the KARTAS community (even though the ideas are 100% Ken’s and Robin’s so far). I was foreseeing some super-fans (with more free time than I have) writing down the Dunwich Dead ideas from the show in a wiki somewhere, and lots of other people contributing scenario ideas, NPCs, locations, and describing their builds of the game in various systems. It would be an open-source game and setting that KARTAS’ active listeners could be proud of! And then the internet would make money obsolete, and a new utopian age would begin, and…

    In closing, have you checked out Roko’s Basilisk, “the most terrifying thought experiment of all time”? Potently pregnant with playable possibilities!

    http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/07/roko_s_basilisk_the_most_terrifying_thought_experiment_of_all_time.html

    All the best,
    -J

  2. Brett Evill says:

    Peepul trees get huge. And by 700 AD the one that the Buddha chose to meditate under in the Sixth Century BC would have been perhaps 1300 years old and correspondingly vast. I think Ken might have had more trouble transplanting it than he reckoned on. Just as well that Time Inc. didn’t go for that plan.

    Also, I suspect that Ken might have slightly muddled two moments in the story of the Buddha. The incident under the Bo Tree was when he saw the folly of and rejected ascetic self-denial. He had turned his back on privilege and luxury a few years before, in an incident involving being on a chariot rather than under a tree. That would have been at Kapilavastu.

    Finally, I think the traditional account is that Ashoka conquered Kalinga in the name of Gupta dynastic aggrandisement and converted to Buddhism after witnessing the slaughter, not that he carried out the slaughter in the interests of Buddhism.

  3. John Willson says:

    P.S.: Also, Shotguns v. Cthulhu is GREAT, all you fellow listeners should grab a copy!

  4. Charles says:

    Would be great if you could arrange to have Scott Glancy as a guest on the podcast.

    He is kickstarting a WWI Cthulhu Adventure companion. While I’m not that interested in the WWI aspect, it might be interesting to hear from another RPG creator clearly heavily influenced by their interest in modern history.

  5. Tom Clare says:

    I think I’d get each Dunwich Dead player to select one or two ‘grey areas’ in their character’s backstory during character creation. These would be parts of their history where, due to selling memories, they only know the ‘official’ or generally known version of what they did during that time. The reality would be up to the referee (and perhaps one or two of the other players – if their characters were involved in the player characters life at the time). During an on-going campaign hooks and hints would pop up, hinting at what really happened. Some lost memories might be merely tantalizing; others could be crucial to player character survival.

    I might also include a game mechanic wherein the more memories lost, the more changes in a character’s personality.

  6. Ben says:

    I think Ken recommended a book named “Ash” in this episode. Was that the right title, and who was the author? There are several books named Ash. I really enjoyed the Recommendation Engine and hope you feature it more often than the Politics Hut. 🙂

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