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Posts Tagged ‘Travel Advisory’

Episode 230: Not the Helsinki Mojitos

February 24th, 2017 | Robin

Know us by our funny voices and exaggerated mannerisms as we meet in the Gaming Hut to discuss what makes a Game Master character easy to play.

Grab a mojito and light a fine cigar as Ken supplies a Travel Advisory on his recent jaunt to Cuba.

It’s Oscar time, and you know what that means. Months after the rest of the critical world, we take our seats in the Cinema Hut to reveal our Top Ten Movie lists for 2016.

Support 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, Cliffourd the Big Red God, and Antarctic Express.

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!

Episode 214: The Puppet Below

October 28th, 2016 | Robin

The Gaming Hut looks at top temporal locations for TimeWatch scenarios. Pelgrane Press celebrates our segment by offering you, the listener, a voucher code to order from its online store. Plunk in TIMEWATCH at the voucher prompt for 10% off any TimeWatch product. In keeping with the chronological confusion of TimeWatch, the offer is good for a limited but indeterminate time period, so act fast, before it shimmers away into nothingness.

Next up Robin issues a Travel Advisory for his trip to THE KRAKEN, a Gaming Retreat held at the Schloss Neuhausen in the rural depths of the former East Germany.

Its founder Fabian Kuechler can tell us more about the unusual history that led to THE KRAKEN, so in Ken and/Robin Talk To Someone Else, we get him to do just that.

Ken also spent his time since our last recording session on the road, occasioning a jaunt into the Cinema Hut for a review of the latest H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

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Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press. For those seeking yet more Ken content, 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. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Episode 162: Of the Massachusetts Necrotaurs

October 16th, 2015 | Robin

The Gaming Hut turns over the hourglass as we discuss villain clocks.

Ken issues a Travel Advisory on the latest installment of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

In Ask Ken and Robin we field a Pete Darley question about our adherence to canon in published scenario.

And in a pulse-pounding, pumice-raining edition of Ken’s Time Machine, sabotage places our doughty chrononaut in Pompeii, eight hours ahead of the head cloud that will flash-cook its remaining residents.


Ken and Robin have oft been accused of being cards. Well, we can deny it no longer. We have become super-limited promo cards for Murder of Crows, Atlas Games’ fast-paced card game of murder and the macabre, for two to five players in the mood for something a little morbid. It’s Edward Gorey meets Caligari, by way of Edgar Allan Poe. Wait a minute, what does that graphic say? I’m not so sure about this…

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter will want to sink their fangs into the pre-order for the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. 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.

It’s not easy teaching in America’s second worst school district and being a wizard on the side. But Nathan Kulwicki thought he had it covered. Until he received news of the worst kind. Inoperable cancer. He’ll be dead before the start of the next school year. Now, he will have to scour time and unheard of dimensions to find a magical cure to save himself.  But what will he be willing to do to find it?  Find out in Terminal Magics, a novel by Plot Points impresario Ben Riggs.

Episode 156: Crazily Pork-Bellied

September 4th, 2015 | Robin

In the dog days before Labor Day, Ask Ken and Robin happily accepts a softball from Cam Banks (a ringer name if ever we heard one.) “Why is “fantasy” supposedly a genre in RPGs but people mostly mean “F20 fantasy”? Why is there no equivalent in science fiction RPGs?”

Ken issues a Travel Advisory for Necronomicon 2015, with a detour to pork belly obsessed Providence, RI. Restaurants mentioned: Den Den Café, Kitchen, Ken’s Ramen, Red Stripe, Pizza Gourmet.

Ken and Robin Recycle Audio dips back into the Pelgrane Press panel from Gen Con, as we learn about Fearful Symmetries, Cat’s untitled story game anthology project, The Fall of Delta Green and the Trail of Cthulhu Starter Box.

Then either we or our clones open up the Eliptony Hut to consider the free love alien contactee doctrine of the Raelians.


It blew up Kickstarter.  It slid into Gen Con on a gurney with both guns blazing. And now Feng Shui 2: Action Movie Roleplaying is laying down the kung fu, the gun fu, and the cybernetic primate fu, and rocketing its way to a retail store near you. Join our friends at Atlas Games in celebrating the long-anticipated release of Robin’s classic game, accompanied by the GM Screen: Fistful of Fight Scenes  and Blowing Up the Movies.

 

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter will want to sink their fangs into the pre-order for the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

Episode 143: You Can’t Just Set It on Fire

June 5th, 2015 | Robin

Using the conveniently public domain 1972 film Horror Express as a baseline, we demonstrate how to adapt a movie into a scenario worthy of the Gaming Hut.

In a flood-threatened Travel Advisory, Ken takes us on a tour of the sights and horrors of his hometown, Oklahoma City.

Then Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else, checking in on Keith Baker and his recently Kickstarted game Phoenix: Dawn Command.

Finally we sidle discreetly into the Conspiracy Corner for urgent whispers concerning the sinister closing of select Wal-Mart locations.


Attention, class! Anchor sponsor Atlas Games wants to enrol 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.

 

Episode 104: Stabby Detective Stories

August 29th, 2014 | Robin

It’s Gen Con, Gen Con and more Gen Con as we issue our usual bumper Travel Advisory in the wake of the big show.  Robin comes home wreathed in Hillfolk glory, Ken and Robin snag gold, Ken makes the flipper motions of supreme pleasure in the presence of Greg Stafford, and we limn unmistakable evidence of the Roleplaying Golden Age. All that and a slightly bleary much, much more.

Lead sponsor Atlas Games announces a project near and dear to Robin’s heart, not to mention a good chunk of his year so far. It fires off warning shots concerning the upcoming Kickstarter for Feng Shui 2! Click the link to be notified when the campaign goes live.

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.

Episode 94: The Simpering Bridegroom

June 20th, 2014 | Robin

A fog-shrouded Travel Advisory sees Robin reporting on his trip to historic (and Fortean) St. John’s, Newfoundland.

In Ask Ken and Robin, donor Brendan Power asks about handling spotty game night attendance.

The Horror Hut mulls over that very odd foundation of the Gothic tradition, The Castle of Otranto.

Finally the Consulting Occultist looks at husband and wife demon-busters Ed and Lorraine Warren.

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.

Among the two new sponsors we welcome to the show this week is the Play Generated Map and Document Archive, a scholarly game studies resource searching for game notes, character sheets and maps from gamers like you, and from your ex-gamer friends. Help them secure the history of roleplaying for future generations.

 

Also joining us is 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.

 

Episode 91: The Envy Must Flow Through Me

May 30th, 2014 | Robin

The titular emotion exudes from a certain Chicagoan as we issue a Travel Advisory for Robin’s trip to the Chimeriades convention in sunny Provence.

In Ask Ken and Robin, Chris Shorb asks about making alternate histories plausible in roleplaying.

We take another request in the Eliptony Hut, because Alan Scott wants to know about the Lemurians of Mount Shasta.

Finally an overdue Politics Hut catches up on the latest turns in the Rob Ford saga, which landed him in rehab and temporarily out of Toronto’s mayoral race.

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.

This week’s show is also brought to you in part by the World of Aetaltis. The Temple of Modren, the first sourcebook introducing this exciting new Pathfinder Compatible world, is now Kickstarting.

Episode 87: The Whacking Shovel

May 2nd, 2014 | Robin

Ken’s return from Portland’s HP Lovecraft Film Festival and its sister event Conthulhu prompts the issuance of an especially eldritch Travel Advisory.

Listener Greg Gray gets an unprecedented answer when he poses an Ask Ken and Robin question about the paucity of info in roleplaying rules books for spanking new players.

How to Write Good serializes its commas and regularizes its colons when we tackle the hot topic of punctuation gray areas.

Finally the Consulting Occultist pulls a long con and at least half of a badger game as we consider the grifting career of Cagliostro, alchemist and influential Freemason.

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.

 

Episode 62: Watch Out, Boys, He Has the Power of Transcendentalism

October 25th, 2013 | Robin

Feel all leafy-like as Ken issues an autumnal Travel Advisory for his recent road trip to Lovecraft’s Vermont and Marblehead.

Bathe in the cathode rays of the Television Hut as we compare and contrast two nerd-relevant new shows—”Sleepy Hollow” and “Marvel’s Agents of Shield.”

In Ask Ken and Robin we take on a Jeromy French query on the use of music in roleplaying games.

Finally, with a sigh of palpable reluctance, the Consulting Occultist educates us on the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Our anchor sponsor this episode is Engine Publishing and their system-neutral GM resource, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management. Get $5 off in the Engine Publishing store using code KARTAS20, good through November 2013!

 

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