Posts Tagged ‘Horror Hut’
Episode 463: The Bubble Wrap of Roleplaying Games
September 17th, 2021 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut we continue our series on axes of tabletop RPG design with an examination of Resilience and Robustness.
At the behest of beloved Patreon backer Allen Wilkins, Ripped from the Headlines finds the real truth behind the November incident in which a crashing commuter train was saved by polyester whale tails.
In the Horror Hut we ask ourselves how to write folk horror scenarios without once again repeating the ending of Wicker Man.
Finally the Consulting Occultist profiles the mystical psychologist Claudio Naranjo.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Dig out your plastic T-Rexes and get them ready to stomp and chomp on your players’ character miniatures as our pals at Atlas Games Kickstart Planegea, their dino-filled 5E setting of prehistoric fantasy adventure.
Pitting Salvador Dali against the Mythos just got cheaper! Get an otherworldly 25% off Dreamhounds of Paris in print or PDF from now until September at the Pelgrane Press web shop with the voucher code #ANTDREAM. Add its companion fiction volume The Book of Ants and get 25% off that too.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
![](https://www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Thunderbird_blue_border.png")
Fear Is a Fractal …and your world is a lie. A horror freed from an antique book reverberates through reality. But don’t despair. There is hope. A King waits for us. And Impossible Landscapes, the first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game waits for you. In PDF now, hardback in May. Hailed as “one of the best RPG campaigns ever made” and “a masterpiece of surreal horror!”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 457: A Lot to Lay on the Genius Loci
August 6th, 2021 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut, we look at game balance. What is it, and when do we care about it?
We try not to step on any skulls in the Archaeology Hut as Beloved Patreon backers Liz & Siskey seek the scoop on Roman gravesite in Cambridgeshire containing a surprising number of beheaded remains.
In the Horror Hut, estimable Patreon backer Elias Helfer asks us for cosmic horror without any Lovecraft in it.
And finally Ken’s Time Machine makes the intervention that will lead the earlier widespread adoption of solar power.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Bears need hairstyles! Lumberjacks need beards! Be friends to both in Yukon Salon, a quick, humorous, family card game in a tin, from our snow-dappled pals at Atlas Games. Take Your Place at the Frontier of Style !
You’ve got the Pelgrane greatest hits, but from now, until Monday September 6th, you can gather up the Deep Cuts. Bundle together Skullduggery, Lorefinder, The Gaean Reach, The Gaean Reach Gazetteer, and Owl Hoot Trail together in PDF at the Pelgrane Press shop and get a whopping 25% off!
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Fear Is a Fractal …and your world is a lie. A horror freed from an antique book reverberates through reality. But don’t despair. There is hope. A King waits for us. And Impossible Landscapes, the first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game waits for you. In PDF now, hardback in May. Hailed as “one of the best RPG campaigns ever made” and “a masterpiece of surreal horror!”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 447: The Bert-Adjacent Ugly Wheels of Commerce
May 28th, 2021 | Robin
We start out in the Gaming Hut to tell your GM that the shocking premise subversion they have in mind isn’t as fun or cool as they might think.
A segment that had to hibernate during the pandemic is back! In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Ken talks to colleague Jeff Tidball about his Bert and Ernie dichotomy of creative collaboration, perhaps typified by their upcoming project, Band or Album Remix, soon or now at a Kickstarter near you.
In the Horror Hut, beloved Patreon backer Timothy Coram asks how to inject a heaping spoonful of Edgar Allan Poe into The Yellow King Roleplaying Game.
We end up in the Eliptony Hut, as TikTok convinces users to acquire that most cursed of crystals, moldavite.
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.
Bears need hairstyles! Lumberjacks need beards! Be friends to both in Yukon Salon, a quick, humorous, family card game in a tin, from our snow-dappled pals at Atlas Games. Take Your Place at the Frontier of Style !
A murderous mystery lies beneath the gladiatorial arenas in the majestic, dragon-patrolled city of Axis. Only your first level 13th Age characters can confront it, in Crown of Axis, by Wade Rockett, now available at the Pelgrane Press shop.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Fear Is a Fractal …and your world is a lie. A horror freed from an antique book reverberates through reality. But don’t despair. There is hope. A King waits for us. And Impossible Landscapes, the first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game waits for you. In PDF now, hardback in May. Hailed as “one of the best RPG campaigns ever made” and “a masterpiece of surreal horror!”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 407: You May Be Competent
August 7th, 2020 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer Gene Ha asks about trusting players with knowledge of upcoming secrets, for example the vampire content in Night’s Black Agents.
The Tradecraft Hut delves into the spying career of Dutch painter Jan van Eyck.
Werewolves, vampires and Frankensteins all fit readily into a weird war environment, like The Yellow King RPG’s The Wars. In the Horror Hut, we ask how mummies might stalk the battlefield.
Finally we use Ken’s Time Machine to find out what happens to the timeline if the Quasi-War erupts into full scale conflict between the US and France.
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.
You know your dance crew is the hottest around… but now it’s time to prove it. Breakdancing Meeples is a real-time dexterity game of, you guessed it, breakdancing meeples, designed by Ben Moy and published by Atlas Games. Two to four people, ages six and up, compete for dancefloor glory, in five exciting minutes.
A rare opportunity for entirely legal larceny presents itself to the discerning wanderer. For a few short days the Dying Earth Roleplaying Game and every single one of its supplements has returned to the Bundle of Holding. Until August 17th, get Robin’s core game and the entire line in PDF for a price so low it’s almost a swindle. Grab all of the game that gave Pelgrane its name!
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Suit up, agents of Delta Green. Your battle to save humanity from unnatural horrors is going beyond the Beltway. Delta Green: The Labyrinth is now shipping to a secure dead drop near you. Written by Delta Green co-creator John Scott Tynes, this all-new collection of organizations dives deep into the fissures of America in the new millennium.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 404: Toss In Your Werecows
July 17th, 2020 | Robin
Hey, it’s an all-request episode!
There’s nothing much going on in the Gaming Hut until beloved Patreon backer Rich Ranallo pops by to ask about incorporating boredom into the player experience.
In the Horror Hut, esteemed Patreon backer V R Weather asks Ken to give the Dracula Dossier treatment to Bram Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm.
Insightful Patreon backer Louis Sylvester takes an aisle seat in the Cinema Hut to ask about John Carpenter’s classic film Aliens.
Finally, admirable Patreon backer John W S Marvin calls on the untapped military knowledge of the Consulting Occultist for a look at the esoteric secrets behind the Battle of Kursk.
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.
You know your dance crew is the hottest around… but now it’s time to prove it. Breakdancing Meeples is a real-time dexterity game of, you guessed it, breakdancing meeples, designed by Ben Moy and published by Atlas Games. Two to four people, ages six and up, compete for dancefloor glory, in five exciting minutes.
You’ve heard him talk about it. Now you can get it at retail or in the Pelgrane Press store: The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. Shatter your world with this eerie, physically imposing GUMSHOE game of decadent art and multiple existences. For a limited time only, enter the voucher code YELLOW at the Pelgrane shop to get 15% off all Yellow King items when you combine the core set with Absinthe in Carcosa and/or The Missing and the Lost.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing’s Shane Ivey brings you Swords and Sorceries, fifth edition adventure in a sea-swept world inspired by ancient myth. Seek your fortunes, or find gruesome death in the tombs of forgotten gods and evils best left buried. Seize all three adventures, Sea Demon’s Gold, Song of the Sun Queens, and Tomb of Fire, today!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 394: Fruit Cutting Policies
May 8th, 2020 | Robin
The Cartography Hut gets smart as beloved Patreon backer Gerald Sears asks us to riff on intelligent maps.
Esteemed Patreon backer Sibel Permann urges the History Hut to find gaming gold in the Guelphs and Ghibellines.
The Horror Hut looks at a paper by Francis T. McAndrew on the social-evolutionary psychology of Bad Places.
Finally the Consulting Occultist elucidates the effort to market famously ill-reviewed 50s fantasy novel Kinsmen of the Dragon as an esoteric tome.
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.
The place you only think you remember explodes with weird danger in Welcome to the Island, the first adventure anthology for Over the Edge from Atlas Games. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots that bring the weird to your gaming table.
Until May 18th you can grab the entire GUMSHOE One-2-One line in handy PDF form at the Bundle of Holding. That’s Cthulhu Confidential, Night’s Black Agents Solo Ops, and all of their associated scenarios.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing’s Shane Ivey brings you Swords and Sorceries, fifth edition adventure in a sea-swept world inspired by ancient myth. Seek your fortunes, or find gruesome death in the tombs of forgotten gods and evils best left buried. Seize all three adventures, Sea Demon’s Gold, Song of the Sun Queens, and Tomb of Fire, today!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 379: Stealth Out and Touch the Egg Wrong
January 24th, 2020 | Robin
That knife you smuggled into the Gaming Hut will finally pay off as we provide tips on playing the secret assassin character.
Patreon backer Tom Abella provides us a story Ripped From the Headlines, in which a baffling GPS-spoofing technology deployed on the Yangtze at Shanghai might be a cover for sand thieves. Or, you know, something weird.
In the Horror Hut backer Thomas Wolfe asks us to mull the works of weird fiction stalwart Clark Ashton Smith.
If it weren’t for Ken’s Time Machine, the megalosaurus might be known by another, entirely embarrassing name. Now he reveals what other interventions he staged, or is thinking about staging, in order to erase history’s insignificant but annoying details.
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.
Your survival depends on separating heisting criminals from undercover cops in Never Bring a Knife, the action-packed new social deduction game from our ever-sneaky friends at Atlas Games. Available from Jan 17th at your friendly local game store or online.
What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 371: Werewolf Adjacent
November 22nd, 2019 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer Elias Helfer asks us how to invent great magical artifacts.
The History Hut exits pursued by a bear, and also flying bricks, as we look at New York City’s 1849 Shakespeare riots.
Phil Masters leads a cane-toting pack of his fellow Patreon backers into the Horror Hut, demanding to know how Jekyll and Hyde fit into Robin’s theory about the inherent structural challenge of werewolf movies.
Then backer Andrea Colletta revs up Ken’s Time Machine to find out what history looks like when Richard Nixon’s application to join the FBI is accepted.
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.
Fairytale Mash-ups, the new expansion for Atlas Games’ classic storytelling card game Once Upon a Time, is here to bring you classic characters, hilarious juxtapositions and hungry giant sheep.
What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 364: In the World of Awful Meats
October 4th, 2019 | Robin
The PCs are being pursued! Run to the Gaming Hut to learn how to make this fun!
A sinister substances drips in your direction! Creep into the Horror Hut for an examination of ooze horror.
Fill your cart with processed junk as the Food Hut contemplates objectively terrible comestibles at least one of us loves.
Get communal, or at least manufacture a fork or two, as we enter the Eliptony Hut to make up something fun about 19th century preacher—some might say cult leader—John Humphrey Noyes.
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.
Welcome to the Island is the first adventure anthology for the third edition of the Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games. It features five original storylines by award-winning authors, each with hooks for different characters. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots to bend your players’ heads.
What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.
Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available in print or PDF or both from Pelgrane Press. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agency hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 336: The Trees Need Nutrients
March 22nd, 2019 | Robin
The Gaming Hut stages a baccarat game with the devil as Patreon backer Eain Bankins asks for help introducing the main villain without devolving into an immediate and disappointing fight.
In the Horror Hut we stir the pot on the witch and/or Satanist sub-genre.
Then Ken has another stack of tomes to lovingly riffle through as he adds the fruits of this year’s Bay Area shopping expedition to Ken’s Bookshelf.
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.
A precious few Deluxe copies of Cogs and Commissars, clever card game of are available directly from Atlas Games. The “Most-Equal ‘Apparatchik’ Edition” features wooden screen-printed Citizen tokens, neoprene mats for each faction leader, and a foil-stamped, spot-gloss, magnetic-closure box. Seize the means of collectibility!
Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available in print or PDF or both from Pelgrane Press. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agency hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash.Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE, Western, and Freeway Warrior!
Cthulhu. Hastur. Who’s the Great Old One, and who’s the GREATEST Old One? Time to find out. It’s WRESTLENOMICON, the card game from veterans of Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, Epic Spell Wars, and Delta Green, now on Kickstarter!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
