A chat with multiple ENnie-nominee Justin Sirois! Pickup his fantastic game, THE SICKEST WITCH here: https://www.severedbooks.com/ Back his most recent Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/justinsirois/sickest-wretch-for-sickest-witch-new-non-witch-class-book Find more Sick Witch stuff here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnhambonemcguire/under-the-shadow-of-the-noon-day-witch

Delta Green is the RPG of modern existential horror. Events from the game appear to have been bleeding into our reality. We discuss with the following luminaries: Ross Payton is the man with the golden throat. He has been podcasting continuously since George W. Bush was president and YouTube was still good. He has won more ENnies than I have nipples, he created his own RPG, Base Raiders, but my favorite piece of his is The Night Clerk, a system free horror scenario which reminds me of a piece from Delta Green, actually, but that's a separate piece of our discussion. Audience, please welcome a slumming Ross Payton! Next up is a man whom I am somewhat afraid to attempt to summarize. His career has been both broad and deep, and his work was really formative to the shape of myself growing up. Delta Green took the Cthulhu Mythos and made it modern. It imagined a war of shadowy and hyper-competent conspiracies within the bloated bureaucracy of the United States government, which is something that is becoming somewhat more and more difficult to imagine with each passing week, but that is neither here nor there. Additionally, Cthulhu is real and he is coming for us all. Eldritch and hoary members of the audience, please welcome the rector magnificus, the shadow that haunts us in the shape of a man that wears the name Dennis Detwiller. Dennis, thanks for taking the time to come on the show! You are not cleared to click this link: https://www.delta-green.com/ Support Ross Payton's work here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/RPPR  

MUSHIE MISSIONS is the ENnie-nominated game of mushrooms and their parties! Catch up on what the game's creators are doing here: https://brightbardgames.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoo1Ubpl1xozAFe5w9xmzI_j065xA3c2Xet-BCrJRIFaB7Mz2SSM

Wanna know about the products nominated for an ENnie? Start here! We talk to Samuel Gregor-Stewart about TERRA ANTARCTICA, a pulpy adventure of Lovecraftian horror! Buy it here: https://store.asmodee.com/products/arkham-horror-rpg-terra-antarctica-eng Vote here: https://vote.ennie-awards.com/vote/2026/ Check out the Scarring Party here, especially track 10: https://open.spotify.com/album/1UfaEfrl0tcsaZwqUOhgYJ?si=xd7ZN3I5TQmtztAYGx5JlA

Today, we have three of the most brilliant and prolific game designers of our time on the show, and my buddy Brent.  First up is Owen KC Stephens. Owen has more ENnies than I can count, and was part of the design team for STARFINDER 1st edition, and of course STAR WARS SAGA EDITION, and he's the owner and publisher of Rogue Genius Games. Next up is Rodney Thompson. Rodney worked on the 4th edition DARK SUN CAMPAIGN SETTING, and the creation of 5th edition, and is notable today because he was also co-designer of STAR WARS SAGA EDITION Thirdly, we have one of the most nerd-famous people I know, Chris Perkins. Chris's career stretches back to Dungeon Magazine at TSR, and goes all the way up to the release of the 5.5 rules for D&D in 2024. In a career so long and varied, it is hard to pick out highlights, but I would point to CURSE OF STRAHD, which is an excellent expansion and translation of RAVENLOFT into 5th edition, and of course, he is also one of the co-designers of STAR WARS SAGA EDITION. Lastly, and I promise not least, we have my buddy Brent. Brent is here because I have heard from him and others that the best campaign they ever played in was a STAR WARS SAGA EDITION campaign run by him. The concept of the game was simple: "What if a small cadre of fledgling Jedi got mixed up in the early days of the Rebel Alliance and changed the course of events in the Galaxy?"  

Happy Canada Day & July 4th! In honor of the holidays, we are dropping one of our greatest hits from the past. Enjoy! Kevin Kulp & Jeff Grubb have, between them, created entire cosmologies and entire timelines. Kulp is the award-winning creator of Timewatch and the investigative fantasy game, Swords of the Serpentine. Grubb, a legend in his own time, is the engineer of the Forgotten Realms, creator of Spelljammer, and writer of Manual of the Planes. Hear the pair discuss the secrets of creating new worlds with Ben Riggs.

First up, we have fellow D&D historian Michael Calleia. For years, Dave Arneson & Gary Gygax hinted that they could not speak freely about the creation of D&D for legal reasons. Michael followed up this hints, searching archives and court documents all across the United States until he found a gem in Chicago. The July 1973 draft of Dungeons & Dragons. He is a master researcher and has been kind enough to share some of his gems with me. Michael, welcome to the show! Next up, we have game designer Amabel Holland. Her linkedin describes her as I design weird angry board games for a living and am extremely trash online . She is also arguably the game designer with the greatest clippings in America since The New Yorker did a 4,000 word profile of her and her work three years ago. She works at Holland Spiele where her title is, and I quote, GAMES WEIRDO. Her linkedin reads, "I design weird angry board games for a living and am extremely trash online." She is also the second former librarian turned game designer from Michigan I have had on in the past two weeks. She is here because Michael was quite taken by one of her more recent games... Check out Michael's deep dive into the National Archives here: https://chanceand.com/2024/02/27/a-journey-through-the-july-1973-draft-and-dds-foundational-saga/ Pick up Amabel's numerous amazing games at Holland Spiele: https://hollandspiele.com/ Michael was hanging out here when we recorded: http://www.nycwargames.com/    

In which Producer Chris continues to mess with all our minds by leaving at least one obvious error in the show! Today, I have two masters of their craft, two gaming greats whose work is capable of standing on its own two feet and maybe even punching other games in the face, or gutting them like fish, or blasting them out the airlock depending on your genre. First up is Luke Gearing. He is one of the Mothership boys over at Tuesday Knight Games, and is known for Gradient Descent, Fever Swamp, and most relevant to my mind, WOLVES UPON THE COAST, which I am currently running. Welcome Luke! Second in order but by no means in significance we have Kevin Crawford, the man with the mind behind the WITHOUT NUMBER line of games. STARS WITHOUT NUMBER is the dream campaign which I seem eternally unable to get my gaming group to play. His successful crowdfunding campaigns outnumber my ex-girlfriends, and his influence on game design in the 21st century has been remarkable. He is also tremendously hard to lure into an interview, so I will publicly brag that this is the second time I've managed to seduce him into a conversation. Welcome Kevin! Support Kevin Crawford's current Kickstarter here! You can find a free adventure by Luke Gearing for VIOLENCE here!  

This week, in honor of crossing 100 episodes, we take a peek behind the curtain of the show to have a chat about the pod itself. Where we're going, and where we've been, are both chewed over. Enjoy!

Episode 100! And is this our best episode ever? A thing Wizards of the Coast has said is that 2024 D&D was the fastest selling version of that game ever produced. I predict that Wizards sold 50,000 copies in the first couple weeks and then made that boast. I would also predict that the other two people we have on the podcast beat that record, because we have Rowan Hall & Spenser Starke here. Starke and Hall are two of the cooks sweating over the stove and serving us Daggerheart from Darrington Press. Daggerheart sold out its initial print run in two weeks, even though it was supposed to last a year. All of which is prelude to say, Hall and Starke are bestselling game designers whose work has broken out of the nerd ghetto to run riot in the culture at large. ENWorld praised Daggerheart as a high fantasy mash up of D&D 4th Edition, the Genesys System, Blades in the Dark, and the Cypher System, producing high fantasy combat in a collaborative storytelling environment.  Also on the show, we have Ben Costa and James Parks! They are the ENnie-award winning creators of Land of Eem, a warm, funny, and charming fantasy RPG. Before that, they created the world of Eem in their graphic novel Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo, and I am delighted to have them on the show. Welcome Ben & James! Check out LAND OF EEM here! And of course, DAGGERHEART can be found almost everywhere, but here's a link anyway.