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Episode 228: I Assume Someone Has Blood-Typed All the Monkeys

February 10th, 2017 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we ask ourselves how far rules and GM influence should go to prevent the players from idiot plotting their own characters.

Speaking of gaming the system, esteemed Patreon backer Jeremy Forbing acts as a stalking horse for a certain shadowy figure to convene the Politics Hut. With a mysterious knowledge of Ken’s thought processes, Jeremy asks for his theory on how Trump will destroy the Republican party.

On the Crime Blotter we find a report about Los Angeles organized crime in 1937, which just coincidentally happens to feature in Cthulhu Confidential.

Finally at the behest of backer and Hillfolk illustrator Jan Pospisil, the Eliptony Hut considers the connection between Rhesus blood factor and survivors of Atlantis.

Want to pose questions of your own? Support the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Sleepers awake, and travel through the secret pathways of the occulted world to preorder the new edition of Unknown Armies from Atlas Games. From the deluxe printed edition to ebooks in a variety of formats, the weird wonders of UA beckon!

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!

11 Responses to “Episode 228: I Assume Someone Has Blood-Typed All the Monkeys”

  1. Matt says:

    Disappointed that Ken seems anti-refugee and pro-Sessions, but I guess I don’t listen to this podcast for the politics. Great segment on old-timey gangs.

    • Zer040 says:

      The difference between Sessions and most of the other cabinet is that Sessions is a normal Republican, and not an incompetent meant to burn their department down (Perry/deVos/Carson/Pruitt) or a friend to Russia (Tillerson/Flynn)

    • Phil Masters says:

      Is there any substantial reason to think that Trump will “destroy” the Republican Party without appeal to the No True Scotsman principle? Because the Republicans in the House seem quite happy to let him play, so long as they have the prospect of (a) their pet bills being rubber stamped, and (b) the Dems being hosed.

      Sure, we keep hearing that some of them are unhappy with him, but why should we believe that if they don’t act unhappy? And they had plenty of opportunity to block his crazier appointments, and they surely have all the material they’d need if they wanted to go for impeachment. But they didn’t and they don’t.

      So I’m assuming that the Republican Party, in its manifestation as a force in government, is really entirely happy with Trump, and not feeling at all destroyed.

      • Dantheman says:

        I will second the “I don’t listen for the politics” sentiments. I agree with Ken mostly but that’s not the point….KARTAS is (or was) a refuge from the omnipresent and relentless politicization of every single damn corner of every single damn part of life. Politics of the past is fine, but it’s just so exhausting to constantly hear about Trump. I’m just gonna go read books, there are only a couple of podcasts left that are nonpolitical.

  2. mrm1138 says:

    Sadly, one of my very favorite film genres, horror, tends to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to the Idiot Plot trope. Even worse, I often see cases where films that suffer from it are highly praised by genre fans. One of the best examples of this is the French film Inside (a.k.a. À l’intérieur). The writers had their characters behave in every stupid way imaginable to push the running time to feature length, and yet it’s a movie I often find on various best-of lists.

  3. Steve Dempsey says:

    My game of Dreamlands died when one the players decided to kill King Kuranes and didn’t think he should be stopped. We tried to talk it out but he was too emotionally invested in king stabbing.

  4. Steve Dempsey says:

    Cagots have a very strange history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot. There doesn’t seem to be any reason as to why someone should, or shouldn’t be cagot. They were all up and down the west coast of France.

  5. Phil Masters says:

    I sometimes think that the bigger problem in games is insufficient player idiot plotting. That is, players treating their characters as perfectly rational optimised playing pieces, perpetually at least teetering on the edge of exploiting player-level knowledge inaccessible to the characters, rather than acting like impassioned, flawed protagonists in fiction. Because they want to win.

    But then, someone comes along and balances that by acting like a complete idiot.

  6. I’m a little surprised Ken didn’t mention the theory that the Basque are the last surviving population of Neanderthals (or, more correctly, the human population with the largest degree of Neanderthal ancestry). This article on the topic doesn’t *seem* very crackpottish, and even if it is, that just makes it more eliptonic!

  7. Tom Vallejos says:

    I sent a friend a link to this episode because he tends to get idiot players.

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