You can support this show on Patreon ! In this episode, we talk to Luke Jordan aka Wildwood Games, a queer non-binary game designer, writer, editor, performer, and professional GM. Their own games often combine a poetic sensibility, spooky themes, high emotion, and light mechanics. They've contributed to games like Girl by Moonlight published by Evil Hat and Koriko and The Slow Knife by Mouse House Press. Today, we're talking about two of their games that were crowdfunded in a double-barrel ca...
Jun 14, 2025•1 hr 10 min
You can support this show on Patreon ! Spoilers for Andor S2 from 04:30 to 10:30 Spoilers for Rogue One all through the episode In this episode, I speak to Jess Levine. She is a teacher, organizer, writer and game designer. She publishes RPGs under the label, Jumpgate Games. Her work includes I Have the High Ground —a game of "banter, posturing, and capes"—and her satirical military scifi game PLANET FIST . Today we'll be talking about going rogue 2e, an award-winning game of war, rebellion, a...
May 24, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Season 5Ep. 8
You can support this show on Patreon ! In this episode, I speak to Navaar Seik-Jackson who is a game designer, writer, and the host of the Secret Nerd and other podcasts. Navaar makes action drama games — his The Last of Us inspired survival game, The Corrupted, is published by Plus One Exp through their Zine Club programme . You can listen to a lovingly produced actual play of the game called The Ties That Bind run by Navaar on the Secret Nerd podcast. He's currently working on Soothwardens ,...
Apr 30, 2025•51 min•Season 5Ep. 7
You can support this show on Patreon ! In this episode, I speak to Paul Czege, a game designer with a deep catalogue that is hard to pin down. An article on RPG.net from 2009 reads "Paul himself defies any sort of easy classification" . It continues, "Depending on your viewpoint, Paul is either one of the most prolific of the Gaming Outpost/Forge designers or one of the least. Also, depending on you how look at it, his best contribution lies in a single game (the still popular My Life With Mas...
Apr 09, 2025•59 min•Season 5Ep. 6
You can support this show on Patreon ! In this episode, I’m talking to Viditya Voleti, a game designer and interactive artist. He's a visiting instructor at the Pratt Institute in NYC. He's freelanced for Paizo, Possum Creek Games, Evil Hat, and RRD. His own tabletop designs include vampire cowboy game, Bloodbeam Badlands, GMless optimistic scifi game, Space Between Stars (forthcoming from Possible Worlds Games), and A Land Once Magic , a post fantasy worldbuilding game currently crowdfunding ...
Mar 15, 2025•58 min
You can support this show on Patreon ! In this episode, I’m talking to Gabriel Robinson, a writer and game designer. He's the lead writer on the Silt Verses , an RPG published by the Gauntlet press adapted from the hit audio series. He's contributed to a number of other Gauntlet publications like Trophy, Brindlewood Bay, and more. Through his own imprint Glowing Roots press, he's published Token , a two-player tragic fantasy game, and Candlelight , a GM-less game of lost spirits revisiting the...
Mar 02, 2025•43 min•Season 5Ep. 4
You can support this show on Patreon ! In this episode, I’m joined by Caro Asercion , who is an interdisciplinary artist, game designer, and theatre person. They do a lot of work in theatre as a dramaturg and producer of various kinds. In games, they're best known for im sorry did you say street magic , a game of cities and their secrets, based on the classic world building game, Microscope . They've also co-designed supplemental material for Beam Saber with Rufus Roswell, coining the mantra, ...
Feb 17, 2025•59 min•Season 5Ep. 3
You can support this show on Patreon ! On this episode, I’m joined by Levi Kornelsen, previously known as Amagi Games. He is a Canadian designer who's been part of the scene for a long time. He's designed a bunch of games like the Schema framework and the recent Saints of the Empty Throne but is probably best known for his RPG theory, such as the essential Manyfold Glossary. He's a big open source advocate and most of his work is distributed for free under a creative commons license. Everythin...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 2
You can support this show on Patreon ! On this episode, I’m joined by Meguey Baker. She's the designer of PsiRun and 1001 Nights, published under her label, Night Sky Games. She's also the co-designer of Apocalypse World, which started the fundamental Powered by the Apocalypse design movement. She wrote the influential Fair Games blog with Emily Care Boss for many years. She's a textile conservation specialist who works with museums, a quilter, a trained sex ed teacher, and a breast cancer sur...
Jan 16, 2025•59 min
Bonus episode, where guests from across the year chime in with games they've played that they loved and want to talk about. Games mentioned: Hannah Shaeffer recommends T he Beast Evan Rowland recommends Usagi Yojimbo Quinns recommends World Wide Wrestling Aaron King recommends Saga of the Icelanders Max Lander recommends Blood Feud Graham Walmsley recommends Lumberjills Sidney Icarus recommends Bump in the Dark jay dragon recommends Last Train to Bremen Tom McGrenery recommends Wolves Upon the C...
Dec 23, 2024•41 min
You can support this show on Patreon ! On this episode, I’m joined by Quinns from Quinns Quest as we look back on the last year together. Show Notes: Rascal News Indie RPG Newsletter Quinns mentioned Mythic Bastionland , Good Society , Public Access , The Siltverses , Blood Borg Thomas mentioned Hearts of Wulin and its expansion, Numberless Secrets Also : Draw Steel , Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast , Triangle Agency Jubensha video on People Make Games Street Fighter RPG from White Wolf Mothership ...
Dec 09, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 20
On this episode, I talk to Marsh Davies and Jim Rossignol . Jim was the co-founder of videogaming website Rock Paper Shotgun, where he worked for many years. He's also the author of This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities. Now, he does things like write the Ludocrats with Kieron Gillen and develop indie games through his company, Big Robot. Marsh is a writer and illustrator who has written about video games at RPS and PCGamer and was former head of creative writing at Minecraft developer Mojan...
Nov 30, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 19
On this episode, I speak to Elliot Davis , an artist, podcaster and, game designer. He's one of the co-founders of Many Sided Media, a podcast production company behind shows like My First Dungeon, Bitcherton and Talk of the Table. His games include Rom Com Drama Bomb and solo timetravel game, Project Ecco. He's currently crowdfunding his latest game, The Time We Have , a tragic game about two brothers, one of whom is slowly but inevitably turning into a zombie. Show Notes: 03:09 - The Time We H...
Nov 15, 2024•47 min•Season 4Ep. 18
You can support this podcast on patreon! On this episode, I talk to MV Soumithri and Zoheb Mashiur who are cast members of Desperate Attune , a Blades in the Dark actual play set in Uduasha, a Middle Eastern/South Asian inspired alternative to Duskwall. They've now released a free supplement called Sunmirror , which brings a re-imagined city of gods and magic to the table....
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 4Ep. 17
You can support this podcast on patreon! On this episode, we talk to J Strautman and B Marsollier. J Strautman is a bass player, composer, sound designer, game designer, and podcaster. B Marsollier is an illustrator, voice over artist, game designer, podcaster and former antique rug salesperson. They are the co-DMs of the D&D actual play podcast, Planet Arcana. The podcast is fully sound designed and scored with original music by J. Last year, 2023, Planet Arcana received 9 nominations at th...
Oct 15, 2024•59 min•Season 4Ep. 16
Support this show! On this episode, I talk to Ara Winter, who has spent the last few years playing old and out of print tabletop games. What did he learn from this? Let's find out! Show Notes: 05:03 - Ara's antique gaming 19:14 - Discussing Bifrost (1977) 33:55 - Discussing Shadowrun 2nd Edition (1992) 48:58 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Fantasy Medieval Campaigns 50:14 - Tyranny of Numbers 52:08 - RePlay 54:18 - All advice is advice for myself The Indie RPG Newsletter...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 15
Support this show! Aaron Voigt is a writer, game designer, podcaster and critic. You can find his video essays about tabletop games like They Took Our War, Heart, & Spire on his YouTube channel AA Voigt. He has two podcasts: one discussing Christian media called Bible Boys and one discussing sometimes-bad media called Mortified: The Friendship Quest. He's a first reader for Khoreo Magazine, an ignyte winning and Hugo nominated magazine for speculative fiction from immigrant and disap...
Sep 17, 2024•38 min•Season 4Ep. 14
Support this show! Huffa is a game designer and art historian. You can find her work at: https://huffa.itch.io/ Between the Skies @ Exalted Funeral Show Notes: 03:06 - Introducing Between the Skies 11:50 - Working with Exalted Funeral 15:45 - The joys of playing without systems 40:00 - How does this relate to old school d&d? 48:63 - Art history and RPGs 54:42 - Infectious Enthusiasm: Wanderhome, here there be monsters 57:41 - Tyranny of Numbers 59:28 - RePlay 1:03:18 - All advice is a...
Aug 30, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 13
Support this show! Joshua McCrowell is the designer of new tarot-based dungeoncrawler His Majesty The Worm , published by Exalted Funeral. He's also the current editor of Knock Magazine, the OSR focused anthology zine that has quickly became a fan favourite, and a blogger at riseupcomus.blogspot.com where he talks about everything from how to adapt tolkien in games to what makes a good social encounter. Show Notes: 02:22 - Running a game for 8 years 05:39 - Dungeoncrawling in 2024 16:46 - T...
Aug 15, 2024•47 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Support this show! Mint is an rpg designer and blogger from New Foundland, Canada. She runs There's a TTRPG For That , an rpg recommendation blog on tumblr, which has lists for all kinds from the general to the very specific, "games that are grunge" to "two player games" to "games where you don't need to write anything down". She's currently working on a game called Protect the Child, a game of monster babysitters, that is equal parts comedy and queer found family. You can find the Protect t...
Jul 31, 2024•49 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Support the show! Prismatic Wasteland aka WF Smith is the prolific blogger behind prismaticwasteland.com and the creator / writer of Ennie award winning fantasy adventure, Barkeep on the Borderlands. He's also running a game jam where participants create their own pub or tavern, which is live as this episode comes out and runs until August 15th 2024. Show Notes: 02:02 - Producing Barkeep on the Borderlands 10:03 - The design of the adventure 16:41 - Good random encounters and tracking time 25...
Jul 17, 2024•45 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Support the show! Tom McGrenery is an RPG writer and translator from Hong Kong, who publishes under the banner, Porcupine Publishing . He's contributed to products like Feng Shui and Night's Black Agents as well as designed his own games like his hack of the Drama System featuring brazilian layabouts and swashbucklers, Malandros. In 2020, he translated and published the Brazilian rpg, the Elephant and Macaw Banner. He's also the co-host of the long running podcast, Fear of a Black Dragon. Show...
Jul 01, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Support the show! Jay Dragon is a queer disabled game designer behind such games as summer camp horror game, Sleepaway and the pastoral fantasy indie darling, Wanderhome. Jay is the editorial director at Possum Creek Games . As of publishing this episode, they print version of Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast has come out. It's a project of immense scope and skill that is clearly full of love and artistry. Show Notes: 05:14 - Introducing Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast and how it started with specific cha...
Jun 17, 2024•56 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Because of some travel, instead of an interview, something from the patreon feed makes it way into the main feed. This is a round-up of 2023's answers to the question, "What is something you're trying to do better at the gaming table?" Enjoy!
May 31, 2024•30 min
Support the show! On this week's episode, I talk to Sidney Icarus , a game designer of, among other things, the scifi horror game, Decaying Orbit, published by Storybrewers Roleplaying, which won the 2023 ARPIA Game of the Year. But I first heard of them as the fantastic host of the now-concluded Hard Move, a wonderful podcast where every episode, Sidney and a guest analysed one move from a PbtA game. Show Notes: 03:12 - RPG Descriptivist 14:49 - The "Who Says What When" Framework 22:06 - What i...
May 14, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Support the show ! On today's show, we're talking ship with Sebastian Yue , a game designer, writer, and editor. Apart from their own self-published games and DMs Guild modules, They work full-time at Hit Point Press which is best known for various very succesful third party D&D 5e products like Heckna and Humblewood. They've also contributed as a designer to some wonderful projects like Apocalypse Keys, Cloud Empress, ennie-award winning Uncaged Goddesses anthology, and the currently in-pr...
Apr 29, 2024•48 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Support the show ! Today, we're talking to Graham Walmsley, the celebrated game designer behind tabletop RPGs like Cthulhu Dark and A Taste for Murder, larps like Will That Be All, and lovecraftian scenarios for games like Trail of Cthulhu. He's also the author of two non-fiction books called Stealing Cthulhu about telling lovecraftian stories and Play Unsafe about techniques for being a better player of tabletop games. This year, he's got two new games out, Cosmic Dark, a sequel to Cthulhu Dark...
Apr 15, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Support this show! This week, we're talking to Nico MacDougall and returning guest Tan Shao Han about The Awards , an alternative tabletop RPG awards project. Show Notes: 03:56 Introductions 13:31 Being a judge 16:09 The process of picking a winner 21:30 Who should be a judge? 25:36 Infectious Enthusiasm 27:59 Tyranny of Numbers: Breaking down submissions to the Awards 31:02 All Advice is Advice for Myself...
Mar 30, 2024•39 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Support this show! Today we're talking to Max and Aaron from RTFM. Maxwell Lander is a game designer, photographer, visual artist, and also musician with an album of dungeon synth. Aaron King is a game designer whose works including Patchwork World Sixth Edition. They are both the co-hosts of RTFM, an RPG book club podcast. Show Notes: [00:02:49] Why start an RPG bookclub podcast? [00:14:43] What each person brings to the table [00:28:47] Critiquing RPGs as an artform [00:41:24] Infectious Enthu...
Mar 14, 2024•57 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Support the show! Today, we're talking to Quintin Smith aka Quinns , who has been reviewing boardgames for more than a decade with the iconic show, Shut Up and Sit Down. Then about 3 years ago, Quintin joined People Make Games to cover everything from Roblox's relationship to child labour to the battle for ownership and control of Disco Elysium, from the revival of kabaddi in India to phenomenon that is jubensha in china. Now, he's gone and started Quinns Quest , a new youtube channel to review ...
Feb 26, 2024•57 min•Season 5Ep. 2
