Posts Tagged ‘Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else’
Episode 122: Accelerated Gameable Force
January 9th, 2015 | Robin
The Magicians’ Guild turns out to be rife with factions and competing interests as the Gaming Hut looks at ways to add realistic messiness to your game’s imaginary institutions.
In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Robin asks up-and-coming illustrator Rachel A. Kahn how an artist breaks into the roleplaying game market these days, and what her must-have tools and resources are.
The Cartography Hut unfurls this map of global criminal trading activity, and we wring gaming ideas from it.
Finally Ken’s Time Machine shakes off some mothballs, but not a sense of historical inevitability, as Lisa J. Steele asks Ken to keep Japan allied with the West in the run-up to WWII.
Attention, class! Anchor sponsor Atlas Games wants to enroll you in Mad Scientist University, the card game of evil genius, insane assignments, and unstable elements. Act now, Ken and Robin listeners, and they’ll throw in the Spring Break expansion set for free. Shipping within the US is also free.
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Episode 95: A Big Can of Time Worms
June 27th, 2014 | Robin
Turn your head and sarcophagus as Ask Ken and Robin raises the lid on a @CrazyDogSpirit question on making the most of mummies.
Then it’s time for another Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, in which Allison Fizzard, associate professor of history at Regina’s Campion College, explains Tudor-era retirement plans and how Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries threw them for a loop. Plus, there’s beer.
We springboard from that into the Gaming Hut, examining ways to incorporate legal petitions into fantasy RPGing.
Finally Ken’s Time Machine takes us to that moment when a 16-year-old future George V crossed paths with the Flying Dutchman.
Take a moment to patronize our fine array of sponsors, starting with Atlas Games, who with a twinkle of fairy dust revive their 2nd Edition Once Upon a Time clearance sale.
Once you’ve finished listening to us, tune in to the One SHOT podcast, curing your gaming withdrawal with one-and-done actual play episodes featuring such games as Pathfinder, Feng Shui and, of special interest to devoted Kartasians, Time Watch, the GUMSHOE game of panchronological investigation.
Then take an eerie cinematic journey with The Dreamlands, the first filmic adaptation of Lovecraft’s dream cycle, from the director of the acclaimed Die Farbe. Check out the trailers and decide whether crowdfunding or crowdinvesting is right for you.
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Episode 92: The Werepig Demographic
June 6th, 2014 | Robin
We kick off with Ask Ken and Robin and a Sean Phelan question about asynchronous information dissemination in roleplaying games.
Dire rumors swirl as the Tradecraft Hut looks at disinformation and fear-mongering as a geopolitical instrument, from the Crimea to the ghost dance.
In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Robin chats with Moon Design’s Jeff Richard, who tells tales of the epic heroquest that brought the mammoth and jaw-dropping Guide to Glorantha project back from the mythic realm of Kickstarter.
Finally, Ken, having tackled the topic in a two-part Ken Writes About Stuff entry, dons the Consulting Occultist hat to introduce us to the basics of voodoo.
It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.
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Episode 72: Suckytown was Already Taken
January 17th, 2014 | Robin
Seize the narrative steering wheel as a player in the Gaming Hut, where we discuss techniques to productively exercise character agency.
Uncover the layers beneath the layers of the History Hut, in which we find gaming and story fodder in multispectral palimpsest recovery.
In Ken and Robin Talk To Someone Else, we speak together to two someone elses, Cat Tobin and Simon Rogers of Pelgrane Press, who discuss the logistical lessons from the now-fulfilled Hillfolk Kickstarter.
Then we rev up Ken’s Time Machine to, at the behest of new sponsor Sand and Steam Productions, save the Viking colony of Vinland from extinction.
Yes, we said Sand and Steam Productions, now launching the Kickstarter for their Fate-powered mythic Norse RPG, War of Metal and Bone.
Also clambering aboard the sponsor train is Atlas Games, who in a dappled fairyland warehouse discovered the need to liquidate still perfectly fabulous copies of Once Upon Time 2nd Edition, as the 3rd Edition glimmers on the horizon. Take advantage of this special deal for Ken and Robin listeners!
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Episode 71: Oh, Tentacle Bob!
January 10th, 2014 | Robin
We ring in 2014 with an Ask Ken and Robin from Ross Ireland, who wants to switch to a more serious horror tone after years of loosey-goosey play.
Then we zoom back in time to the dying embers of 2013, for a segment of Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else featuring James Wallis of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Once Upon a Time fame.
We conclude our episode of all-eponymous segments with another dive into Ken’s Bookshelf, this time examining his haul from our recent trip to London.
Once again we thank our anchor sponsor, Slabtown Games, who very soon will be launching a Kickstarter for Storyscape, a tablet-based tabletop roleplaying game Robin is currently designing for them.
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Episode 55: Endemic Clan Warfare and Beautiful Lakes
September 6th, 2013 | Robin
After a prefatory Travel Advisory on their activities at FanExpo Canada and a Food Hut trawl through the gustatory delight’s of Robin’s neighborhood, Ken and Robin take a nostalgic look back over the haul of treasures secured in Toronto for Ken’s Bookshelf. Gangsters, pirates and ancient Americans flood into the Hite Memorial Library as we learn the secret graphic signifier that announces the presence of prime crazy.
In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Rob Heinsoo swings by the podcast to discuss the design process for 13th Age, as seen through the lens of traps and their evolving role in fantasy roleplaying.
Finally we enter the Gaming Hut to consider techniques for collaborative worldbuilding. That last segment idea comes courtesy of this episode’s lead sponsor, Genesis of Legend Publishing, and its Spark RPG.
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Episode 37: Ghost-Kissed Pilsner
May 3rd, 2013 | Robin
The undertones of jet lag in Robin’s voice indicate the issuance of another Travel Advisory, in this case concerning his lovely trip to Germany’s Hannover Spielt. Beers mentioned include: Herrenhäuser Pilsener, Astra Arschkalt, Schneider Aventinus, and Robin and John’s fave, Höss Doppel-Hirsch (the name of which Robin completely mangles during the podcast.)
The trip also provides another opportunity for Ken and/or Robin To Talk To Someone Else—in this case, show sponsor John Kovalic, who discusses the design of his addictively fun party new party game, ROFL.
Ripped From the Headlines finds us grappling with the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt of the Brothers Tsarnaev. Though hardly a fun story, it touches on so many of our perennial topics that a weighing-in seems obligatory.
Then we move on to more entertaining and distant history, as, at the request of Ask Lovecraft, the Consulting Occultist tells us tales of Paschal Beverly Randolph, 19th century exponent of Mesmerism, pre-Adamism, and wholesome sex magic.
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