Yes Indie'd Pod

A guest episode on the feed today as I share with you something from the folks over at Playing at the Hearth, the podcast from the Open Hearth gaming community. It's a nice, welcoming online place where people from all over the place get together and play games. It's like having access to a convention all year round. If you'd like to join, head over to their website. This episode has members of the community sharing their favourite games played in 2023. Lot of cool games mentioned and I add my 2 cents at the very end but I also got to play in two campaigns mentioned by other people which was Capitalites and Nahual.

Support the show on PatreonEvan Torner is the Associate Professor of German Studies and Film / Media Studies at University of Cincinnati. He's the Director, UC Game Lab and has a co-edited volume (with William J. White) entitled Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media. He's also co-founder and one of the editors at Analog Game Studies, which has been publishing research into RPGs and larps for more than ten years, and the Golden Cobra Challenge, which is a larp competition. He's a lifelong game master and a game designer and larpwright including his freeform scenario “Metropolis” was nominated for an award at Fastaval.Show Notes:[00:02:38] Starting out as a GM[00:10:02] Railroading Is Good Actually[00:22:20] Actor stance is "commercially default, not culturally default"[00:29:43] Where do tabletop RPGs stand in game studies?[00:39:55] Game design as media analysis[00:45:19] Infectious Enthusiasm: Prism by Whitney Delaglio[00:46:54] Tyranny of Numbers[00:49:17] RePlay[00:51:21] All Advice Is Advice For Myself Transcript of the entire episode can be found here.Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonJosh Fox is the award-winning designer of Flotsam: Adrift Amongst The Stars and Last Fleet. He's the co-designer of the highly influential GMless mystery game, Lovecraftesque alongside Becky Annison. And the two of them together run Black Armada Publishing, a UK-based publisher which has been putting out inventive roleplaying games for more than a decade. Josh is also the editor and cast member of Black Armada Tales, an actual play podcast that features a bunch of different indie games.Lovecraftesque 2e is crowdfunding on BackerKit right now.Show Notes:04:18 - How Black Armada Began (2012)08:17 - Lovecraftesque (2015)25:34 - Lovecraftesque in Italian + Blacklight/UV Artwork30:10 - Gaps in releases (2015-2017) 33:16 - Flotsam (2018)41: 41 - Collaborations + Bite Marks (2019)45:01 - Last Fleet (2020)1:00:44 - Financial Side of Publishing1:05:44 - Lovecraftesque 2e (2023)1:14:15 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Microscope Union1:16:39 - Tyranny of Numbers: Backerkit Advertising1:22:33 - All Advice is Advice For Myself: Speaking Out LoudSupport the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonThe first episode in a series of special episodes meant to teach some of my favourite indie RPGs. Listen in to hear Rae Nedjadi, designer of Apocalypse Keys, teach you how to play his game. In Apocalypse Keys, you play OMEN-class monsters working for an organisation named DIVISION tasked with holding back the apocalypse. Inspired by Hellboy and BPRD, the players struggle to find Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring doom on the world. You can learn more on the Evil Hat website or on the itch page. Transcript of the entire episode can be found here.Timestamps:[00:05:36] Part One - Introduction[00:12:46] Part Two - Character Creation: Name, Origins, Prophecy[00:24:19] Part Three - Darkness Tokens, Powers of Darkness, What the Darkness Demands[00:35:28] Part Four - Basic Moves, Conditions[01:00:00] Part Five - Ruin, Ruin Moves, Bonds, End of Session[01:13:53] Part Six - Building out DIVISION, Running A MysterySupport the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on Patreon Dave is a youtuber, reviewer and game designer. His Youtube channel, Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews, currently has about 180 videos and more than 25,000 subscribers. He's also got a great newsletter where he publishes written interviews game design luminaries. Links to all of this stuff will be in the show notes. He's designed supplements for the Index Card RPG but his most recent standalone game is Fluxfall Horizon, a zany, scifi PbtA game of dimension hopping do-gooders (and some potential do-badders). Show Notes:00:52 - Introducing Dave01:56 - Youtube journey and the challenge of constant comparison with other creators09:29 - Dave's process15:34 - Making sponsored content16:55 - Favorite games to review21:43 - Do reviewers have to play games?35:52 - Advice for reviewers38:12 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Wanderhome39:22 - Tyranny of Numbers41:45 - All Advice is Advice for MyselfSupport the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonEmily C. Friedman is an associate professor of English at Auburn University and director of 18thconnect, a website dedicated to scholarship of the 18th century. Though an 18th-century literature scholar and critic by training, Emily is now one of the foremost chroniclers of the phenomenon we call actual play. She teaches games and actual play in the classroom and regularly writes about actual play on gaming website, Polygon. In fact, as of recording this, we're close to the one year anniversary of her first piece on Polygon, about New York by Night, a Vampire the Masquerade AP. She's also working on a book titled Improvised Worlds: Digital Storytelling Through Play. Also, here's her youtube channel, CriticalProf.Show Notes:00:46 - Emily's bio02:28 - How did you start working on actual play?09:22 - What is actual play anyway?15:39 - The state of actual play today23:07 - Examples of actual play that break the form36:52 - Infectious Enthusiasm: The Quiet Year38:42 - Tyranny of Numbers40:07 - All Advice Is Advice For Myself If you'd like a written transcript for this episode, you can find it here. Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonThis week, we're talking to Paul Beakley has been involved with the games industry since at least the mid 1990s. He's a Game Chef finalist, a Golden Cobra honourable mention, and an official designer/adventure module writer for games like Deadlands, Earthdawn, Mutant Chronicles and more. He's also been writing about games for a long time, across various websites, forums, and magazines like Pyramid and Inphobia. But we're here today to talk about the Indie Game Reading Club, which began on the long lost shores of GooglePlus in 2015. It's now a standalone website and slack community where there's a lot of great writing and discussion of small-press storygames. I love reading it and you will too!Show notes:1:38 - Starting the Indie Game Reading Club16:32 - Why do we write about games?21:31 - Roleplaying as faith practice26:03 - How to be critical without being mean38:02 - Who is your audience?43:54 - Infectious Enthusiasm: a|state, Fellowship49:58 - Tyranny of Numbers: the economics of criticism51:53 - RePlay59:30 - All Advice Is Advice For MyselfThis episode was edited by Gabriel Caetano.Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonOn this episode, we're talking to Tan Shao Han, a TTRPG designer, writer, and cultural consultant from Singapore. He's contributed words to various Paizo Pathfinder books, including Lost Omens: Impossible Lands, new Dagger Isles supplement for Blades in the Dark, and other games like Monster Care Squad and ARC.He's the co-founder of Curious Chimeras, a company that makes games and games-adjacent interactive experiences. Shao Han interestingly did his Master’s Thesis on tabletop role-playing games and their ability to engage, empower and educate.Show notes:00:27 - Shao Han's bio01:41 - Learning D&D from videogame manuals08:01 - Merging gaming and history and mythology23:08 - Da Xia, a WIP game of folk heroes in WW2 Singapore24:04 - Showcasing indie RPGs in the community33:42 - Infectious Enthusiasm: The Nightmares Underneath36:28 - Tyranny of Numbers37:48 - RePlay38:46 - All Advice Is Advice For MyselfYou can find a written transcript of the episode here.Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonOn this episode, we're speaking to Jahmal Brown aka Mad Jay Zero. Jay is a podcaster, designer and rockstar GM. His podcast Diceology features interviews with folks from the RPG scene as well as fun recaps of his various games in Last Week in Gaming. As a game designer, he's contributed words to books like Pathfinder's magnificent Mwangi Expanse as well as designed his own games, Lifted Vol 1: Indomitable, a people with superpowers game primed by cortex. He also did some Pro GMing before it became cool when he kickstarted a West Marches campaign called Into the Mad Lands.Show Notes:01:05 - Introduction to Jay04:13 - About the Diceology podcast (talking to Mike Pondsmith and Sarah Doombringer)06:19 - Jay, on playing with kids10:45 - Jay's 30+ session Twilight 2000 campaign14:16 - GMing Practices21:50 - Running West Marches28:36 - Lifted Vol 1: Indomitable37:43 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Legacy 2e: Life Among The Ruins41:09 - Tyranny of Numbers: Kickstarter Advice47:40 - RePlay: Jay shares story from Lifted/Champions Now about every table making corporate superhero teamsYou can find a written transcript of the episode here.Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Support the show on PatreonOn this episode, we're speaking to Judd Karlman, the podcaster behind Daydreaming about Dragons, my personal favourite source of GM advice. Every episode of his podcast has two parts: table techniques, where Judd talks offers techniques to play roleplaying games, and inspiration goat, where a real goat recommends media to Judd and he explains how that media can inspire your game. Judd is also the author of gaming supplements, most notably Dictionary of Mu, a setting for Sorcerer written like a dictionary. And you can find Judd's blog at GithyankiDiaspora.com. Also on reddit, where he's often on DM advice subreddits helping new DMs picking up D&D for the first time.Some helpful timestamps:00:54 - Introducing Judd02:24 - Talking about Sons of Kryos, an early experiment in RPG podcasting06:38 - Talking about friendly versus snarky advice, and generally the problem of talking on the internet11:47 - My favourite episodes of Daydreaming about Dragons: Episode 85. Playing Chess With Villains and Episode 70. Making World History Relevant. 24:45 - How Judd preps for games26:10 - Using socialism to find the fun in dungeons (the municipal, unionized dungeon-delving actual play with Sean Nittner)31:19 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Judd recommends The Between, Into the Odd, and As The Sun Forever Sets34:48 - Tyranny of Numbers: Judd shares his podcasting statistics37:30 - RePlay: Judd shares a Dictionary of Mu gaming storyIf your podcast player supports transcripts, you should see one automatically. Otherwise, please go here for a full transcript. Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Marx interviews Thomas Manuel about games journalism, the synergy or dissonance between being a playwright and being a game designer, and about his games The Spider and the City, Hypercity, and Depths Unfathomable.Yes Indie'd Pod on TwitterYes Indie’d Pod websiteYes Indie’d Pod PatreonDonate via Ko-FiThomas Manuel on TwitterThomas Manuel on ItchioThomas Manuel official websiteMarx Shepherd on TwitterMarx Shepherd on ItchioAll music derived from: be quiet from the album Sketches by Jahzzar is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License • available from Free Music ArchiveSupport the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter

Marx interviews Michael Low of Luck of Legends Games about games in the classroom, education in games, and about the choose-your-own-adventure colouring book RPG training manual Starsworn.This episode is kindly sponsored by Matthew Gravelyn, whose game Tapestry is available now.Yes Indie'd Pod on TwitterYes Indie’d Pod websiteYes Indie’d Pod PatreonDonate via Ko-FiStarsworn on KickstarterMichael Low on TwitterLuck of Legends on ItchioCezar Capacle on TwitterCezar Capacle on ItchioAll music derived from: be quiet from the album Sketches by Jahzzar is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License • available from Free Music ArchiveSupport the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter