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Posts Tagged ‘How To Write Good’

Episode 355: If Abstract Expressionism Doesn’t Do the Trick

August 2nd, 2019 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut, we build on some recent articles by Robin to further explore a crossover between the surrealist adventures of Dreamhounds of Paris to the psychedelic spycraft of THE FALL OF DELTA GREEN.

Speaking of expanding on recent articles, How to Write Good provides tips for keeping your brain in gear for that most challenging of phases, the revision phase.

The Consulting Occultist doesn’t usually muss his smoking jacket in the realm of politics, but with Marianne Williamson running for President he has little choice but to roll up his sleeves.

We conclude on a retrospective note with a Cinema Hut examination of the first mega cycle of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, from Iron Man to Spider-Man: Far From Home.

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.

 


 

Be cute! Be cunning! Be fierce! Most of all, be someone backing the Kickstarter for Atlas Games’ Magical Kitties, the roleplaying game of supernatural felines. Suitable for play with young children, it pits its four-footed heroes against robots, witches and more!

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.

 

Episode 353: You Can’t Say Eliptonic Without Tonic

July 19th, 2019 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we deconstruct scenarios where the PCs have to wait for certain events to take place.

How to Write Good comes to the aid of Patreon backer Dustyn Mincey, who seeks guidance on the naming of people and places.

The Politics Hut gets drunk on codeine and loco root with a look at the connection between fringe politics and medicine shows new and old.

Then Ken’s Time Machine answers the call of backer Michael Dinos to rectify the disappointments DC Cinematic Universe.

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.

 


Be cute! Be cunning! Be fierce! Most of all, be someone backing the Kickstarter for Atlas Games’ Magical Kitties, the roleplaying game of supernatural felines. Suitable for play with young children, it pits its four-footed heroes against robots, witches and more!

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.

 

Episode 331: Tomb of the Kardashians

February 15th, 2019 | Robin


In the Gaming Hut we imagine what will happen when LARPs meet e-sports. Call our people, TV industry.

Patreon backer Jason Thompson summons us to the Cartography Hut to express disbelief in the non-existence of maps in the Hellenistic era.

In How to Write Good we dig deep into word clusters and ways to eliminate them.

Then we slip into the Eliptony Hut as backer Stephen Brandon demands rampant speculation on the case of the disappearing airman.

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.

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.

Just in time to save the world, though perhaps not your team of hardened covert agents, from the Mythos, the Delta Green Handlers Guide from Arc Dream Publishing is now in print and either at or headed to a game store near you. The slipcase print edition includes both the Handlers’ Guide and Agents’ Handbook, fitting snugly into your go bag along with your extra passports and list of weapons caches.

Episode 327: Good Luck Getting Any Wood

January 18th, 2019 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we examine the desire to play less than competent characters.

The History Hut takes us back to the 7th century BC and the reign of Assyrian super-king Ashurbanipal.

In How to Write Good we look at the connection between character sympathy and emotional rhythm.

Finally we sidle into the Eliptony Hut, where we peer into the library of unexpected paranormalist Jackie Gleason.

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.


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.

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.

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.

Just in time to save the world, though perhaps not your team of hardened covert agents, from the Mythos, the Delta Green Handlers Guide from Arc Dream Publishing is now in print and either at or headed to a game store near you. The slipcase print edition includes both the Handlers’ Guide and Agents’ Handbook, fitting snugly into your go bag along with your extra passports and list of weapons caches.

Episode 322: The Cinnabon of the 17th Century

December 7th, 2018 | Robin

Not to spoil anything, but we open in the Gaming Hut as Patreon backer V Weather asks us what to do when it turns out you’ve already read the adventure your GM is running.

In How To Write Good, we examine the uses and abuses of ambiguity in RPG setting materials.

Then it’s off to the Tradecraft Hut, where earlier we promised a segment based on a random page from Christopher Andrew’s The Secret World: A History of Intelligence. The number generator has assigned Ken page 227, which means we’re talking about Cromwell’s spies.

Then our Belle Epoque occultism series again jaunts into the Eliptony Hut for a visit with astronomer, parapsychologist, spiritist and science fiction writer Camille Flammarion.

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.


If you dig clever, take-that game play and/or ironic Soviet robots, Atlas Games’ new card game Cogs and Commissars was made for you. Buy it at a brick-and-mortar game store and send a selfie to Atlas, to get a special Neon Botsky promo card.

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.

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.

Just in time to save the world, though perhaps not your team of hardened covert agents, from the Mythos, the Delta Green Handlers Guide from Arc Dream Publishing is now in print and either at or headed to a game store near you. The slipcase print edition includes both the Handlers’ Guide and Agents’ Handbook, fitting snugly into your go bag along with your extra passports and list of weapons caches.

Episode 319: Eventually You Run Out of Zigs

November 16th, 2018 | Robin

Under the black stars of Carcosa, we celebrate the impending publication of Robin’s The Yellow King Roleplaying Game and the manuscript completion of Ken’s The King in Yellow Annotated Edition with an all-Pallid Mask edition of our decadent podcast.

In Among My Many Hats, Ken shares what he’s learned about Chambers and the Hyades while working on the aforementioned project.

Then in How to Write Good he lays out the steps involved in creating an annotated edition of an existing work.

The Food Hut explores what your Belle Epoque Yellow King characters might be eating and, more likely, drinking.

Finally the Consulting Occultist changes identities to embark on a series on the wizards and paranormalists you might encounter in 1890s Paris. First up: pioneering trickster Leo Taxil.

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.

 


If you dig clever, take-that game play and/or ironic Soviet robots, Atlas Games’ new card game Cogs and Commissars was made for you. Buy it at a brick-and-mortar game store and send a selfie to Atlas, to get a special Neon Botsky promo card.

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.

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.

Just in time to save the world, though perhaps not your team of hardened covert agents, from the Mythos, the Delta Green Handlers Guide from Arc Dream Publishing is now in print and either at or headed to a game store near you. The slipcase print edition includes both the Handlers’ Guide and Agents’ Handbook, fitting snugly into your go bag along with your extra passports and list of weapons caches.

Episode 312: Short Inspirational Napping Pieces

September 28th, 2018 | Robin

Advice for players kicks us off in the Gaming Hut, as we suggest ways to react when the GM provides you with a magic gun.

Then in a segment we persist in calling How To Write Good, rather than Robin Yells Into the Wind, we show you how to tag jokes on the Internet.

Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else features our Gen Con chat with Shanna Germain, who applies her poetic concision to her many hats and projects at Monte Cook Games.

Finally we gather in the shadowy Conspiracy Corner to field a question from Patreon backer Kevin Nault, who wants some theory about conspiracy theory, national and otherwise.

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 White Box is a game design workshop in a box, bursting with inspiring theory and the basic components to turn that theory into playable reality. Brought to you in tandem by Atlas Games and Gameplaywright, it’s the perfect gift for the aspiring game master in your life—who might well be yourself.

Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available for preorder 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.

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.

Just in time to save the world, though perhaps not your team of hardened covert agents, from the Mythos, the Delta Green Handlers Guide from Arc Dream Publishing is now in print and either at or headed to a game store near you. The slipcase print edition includes both the Handlers’ Guide and Agents’ Handbook, fitting snugly into your go bag along with your extra passports and list of weapons caches.

Episode 309: Snort the Pringles

September 7th, 2018 | Robin

On the alert for treacherous banana peels, we gather in the Gaming Hut to wonder if GUMSHOE can handle incompetent PCs.

In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Frank Rafaelson wants Ken to pitch a new edition of Nephilim.

How to Write Good posits that idiot plotting is not just an issue in procedure-heavy narratives. We look at ways to avoid it in dramatic scenes.

Finally, Patreon backer Adam Grotjohn wonders what fell reality Ken’s Time Machine was preventing at the cemetery now known as Lincoln Park in Chicago.

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 White Box is a game design workshop in a box, bursting with inspiring theory and the basic components to turn that theory into playable reality. Brought to you in tandem by Atlas Games and Gameplaywright, it’s the perfect gift for the aspiring game master in your life—who might well be yourself.

Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available for preorder 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.

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.

Just in time to save the world, though perhaps not your team of hardened covert agents, from the Mythos, the Delta Green Handlers Guide from Arc Dream Publishing is now in print and either at or headed to a game store near you. The slipcase print edition includes both the Handlers’ Guide and Agents’ Handbook, fitting snugly into your go bag along with your extra passports and list of weapons caches.

Episode 294: More Poison Duck

May 25th, 2018 | Robin

 

Patreon backer Andy Olson invites us to plan a fantasy heist in the Gaming Hut.

In the Tradecraft Hut backer Andrew Miller debriefs us on the Fat Leonard case.

How to Write Good looks at invented slang, with examples from Robin’s upcoming King in Yellow novel, The Missing and the Lost.

Then we check backer Karl Schmidt’s goblet for traces of toxin as the History Hut visits that remarkable foe of Rome, Mithridates VI, aka the Poison King.

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 Pelgrane Press. 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!

Episode 292: Double Skeleton Town

May 11th, 2018 | Robin

 

The Gaming Hut takes place inside the Tradecraft Hut, or is it the other way around, as we, with the assistance of a FOIA request, investigate CIA-designed board games.

How to Write Good looks at the particular challenges of creating game fiction.

In the Food Hut we open a few bottles alongside Patreon backer Tim Vert, who wants to know about wines in fantasy worlds.

Finally the Eliptony Hut tackles the mystery of the Roanoke Colony disappearance.

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 Pelgrane Press. 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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