Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Dice Exploder
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Announcement: Dice Exploder joins the Many Sided Network | 02 Jun 2025 | 00:05:09 | |
Today the folks over at Many Sided Media, the production house behind My First Dungeon and Talk of the Table, are launching a new podcast network... and Dice Exploder is a part of it! Nothing on the show should change much, but today I wanted to sit down with Brian Flaherty, a co-founder of Many Sided Media, to talk about what this network is going to look like. | |||
| Clarity (Changeling: the Lost 1e) with MintRabbit | 20 May 2025 | 00:37:32 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In the unreliable urban fantasy world of Changeling, Clarity is a mechanic that measures... well, for now let’s go with a character's ability to trust their own reality. But finishing that sentence is kind of what this episode is all about, because Clarity has deep ties to various sanity mechanics from any number of Call of Cthulhu inspired games, even as it’s trying to do something different, maybe a little more nuanced and less obviously offensive as measuring a person’s sanity with a flat number. There’s any number of metaphors you might find meaning in with Clarity. It’s not clear to me that that makes it much better than sanity. And yet, today's cohost MintRabbit loves this game and this mechanic dearly, sees so much of herself in it. And seeing yourself in a flawed game, still finding beauty in it, that's what makes today's episode interesting. Ad Links Spectacula by Jeremy Melloul Kiss Me If You Can by me, Sam Dunnewold Further Reading Changeling the Lost 1e by White Wolf Games Changelings, Trauma & Gaming by Mint Rabbit A second post from Mint about Changeling Socials Mint on Tumblr, Bluesky, itch, dice.camp, and ko-fi The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Support Dice Exploder on Patreon! | |||
| Spotlight Scenes with Moyra Turkington | 18 Mar 2025 | 00:50:50 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com When you’re playing roleplay-heavy D&D, what does a scene look like? Since the game doesn’t give you much in the way of tools for doing so, are you framing scenes intentionally or just kind of letting them happen? And if the latter, is that serving you well? You very well might be, but I’ve become obsessed lately with how we frame scenes in roleplaying games, and today I want to talk about a mechanic that does so very firmly: spotlight scenes, a procedure in which each player in the game gets a turn to say what they want the next scene to be. To do that, I’m joined by Mo Turkington, designer of many great structured freeform larps including the well-lauded Rosenstrasse and her latest release Lumberjills. We get into the history of spotlight scenes, the pros and cons of including rules for framing and ending scenes in your game, and how even a mechanic like this one that feels so structural and procedural, when used int he right context, can have a beautiful, thematically resonant message in it about agency and self-actualization. Ad Links Song of the Scryptwyrm by Almost Bedtime Theater Further Reading Lumberjills by Moyra Turkington I Say A Little Prayer by Tor Kjetil Edland Just a Little Lovin’ by Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo Rosenstrasse by Moyra Turkington and Jessica Hammer Montsegur 1244 by Frederik J. Jensen Red Carnations on a Black Grave by Catherine Ramen and Juan Ochoa Socials Moyra’s games on itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon | |||
| Shadows with Elin Dalstål | 11 Mar 2025 | 00:37:16 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Shadows are a metatechnique in larp where you have players in the role of something other than a traditional larp or rpg player character. Maybe they’re stagehands turning out the lights because there’s ghosts in this house. Maybe they’re the characters’ worst fears who wander around and whisper into players’ ears to egg them on into terrible actions and choices. They’re special effects, or ghosts, or whatever else you want them to be. Let's talk about them! Ad Links Extra Ordinary on Kickstarter now! Socials Elin on Bluesky The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon | |||
| Workshops with Marc Majcher | 04 Mar 2025 | 00:47:09 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com There's this period of time between when we've all agreed we're going to play a game now and when we start "actually playing." We've got to learn the rules, learn the setting, maybe go over safety or characters. Maybe we order the pizza in here, too. This part of a game is just as much something that can be intentionally designed as gameplay itself, but I don't see much of that in ttrpgs. Meanwhile in larp, workshops to set up a game are standard practice. What do they look like, and what can we learn from them? Ad Links Extra Ordinary launches on Kickstarter March 10th! Further Reading The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker Bleed on the Nordic Larp wiki Playing to Lift, Not Just to Lose by Susanne Vejdemo The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity by Jonaya Kemper Space Train Space Heist by Sam Dunnewold Veins of Corruption, Marc's itchfunding mega-zungeon Socials Marc on Bluesky and itch and actual plays on youtube The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show Support Dice Exploder on Patreon! | |||
| Dice Exploder is on Patreon, plus Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast | 03 Mar 2025 | 00:04:57 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com The show is on Patreon! There's not going to be a lot behind the paywall, but there is right now a pilot episode for a new podcast that's part play report, part games criticism, and part personal memoir. This pilot is about the excellent game Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, and you can listen to it now on the brand new Dice Exploder patreon. https://www.patreon.com/DiceExploder | |||
| Embodiment with Kate Hill | 25 Feb 2025 | 00:50:42 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In a lot of tabletop rpgs, to do something in the fictional world, we engage with abstraction: to pick someone’s pocket, we describe picking their pocket, or we roll a die to see how well we pick it. But in larp, sometimes the action is the action. I pick your pocket... by picking your pocket. This embodiment of play, where my real life actions equal my fictional character's actions, might be what many people understand as the core difference between larp and tabletop games. Today, Kate Hill and I get into the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful of embodied play. Further Reading Playing to Lift, Not Just to Lose by Susanne Vejdemo Chasing Bleed – An American Fantasy Larper at Wizard School by Tara M. Clapper Find Larp Shack on Facebook! Two Hand Path and the Dice Exploder episode about it Ad Links We Three Shall Meet Again by Sam Dunnewold Socials Kate on Bluesky. Kate’s actual play Path of Glory on twitch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Just Read the Card (Ghost Court) with Randy Lubin | 18 Feb 2025 | 00:41:36 | |
Transcripts are available at diceexploder.com Larp! It’s that thing where you dress up like wizards, go into the woods, and hit each other with sticks. Right? Well.. yeah! Except no, because it’s a million other things, too. Today I'm gonna introduce you to the world of larp. If you've ever been intimidated by it, this is a place to start. Because I think tabletop designers have so much we could learn from larp, so much that this is the start of a big series on larp. And where better to start than with a mechanic that makes getting into larp easier than ever: just pick up a card and read what it says. Further Reading Ghost Court by Jason Morningstar We Are Roommates Now by Wendy Gorman Space Larps by Jason Morningstar Welcome Guests by Jason Morningstar The Climb by Jason Morningstar So Mom I Made This Sex Tape by Susanne Vejdemo Behind the Magic by Randy Lubin The Hench Union Larp by Sam Dunnewold Socials Randy onBluesky Randy’s foresight games are at leveragedplay.com Randy’s consumer games are at diegeticgames.com Randy’s online games platformStorySynth The Dice Exploder blog is atdiceexploder.com Our logo was designed bysporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song isSunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join theDice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Mule (Last Train to Bremen) and Pregenerated Characters with Aaron Lim | 11 Feb 2025 | 00:46:03 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Pregens! They're not just a tool to get started playing quicker, they're also a way for a designer to take you by the hand and guide you to a very specific place, and they're a shared language across every table that picks up your game. Today, Aaron Lim and I break down all the joys and beauty of pregens, up to and including Aaron's meme charts. Aaron’s Kickstarter Ithaca in the Cards: Second Expedition and What Should We Have Tomorrow? Full Course Ad Links Growing Thylacine: A Pamphlet Zine TTRPG Further Reading Last Train to Bremen by Caro Asercion Caro Asercion on Dice Exploder Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast by Possum Creek Games Lady Blackbird by John Harper Larp Design and the chapter BASICS OF CHARACTER DESIGN by Juhana Pettersson Socials The Dice Exploder blog is atdiceexploder.com Our logo was designed bysporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song isSunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar and Sam Dunnewold. Join theDice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Coloring Book Character Sheet (Two Hand Path) with Jeeyon Shim | 04 Feb 2025 | 00:54:41 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com What’s the best way to convey the emotional experience of being a post-apocalyptic demon-fighting wizard action hero? Did you say “a coloring book with some Yahtzee on the side?” Because that’s what Two Hand Path designer Mikey Hamm landed on. Last week was an episode all about the joy of destruction and transgression, and I wanted to balance that out today with another episode on physicality in games and the act of creation. But because I’m joined by the wonderful and prolific Jeeyon Shim, this spilled out into so much more: Jeeyon's background in child education, solo games that ask you to do a verb other than journal, how important it is for our humanity to take breaks and touch grass sometimes, and just how much fun art can be. Further Reading Two Hand Path by Mikey Hamm Making Comics by Linda Barry Field Guide to Memory by Shing Yin Khor and Jeeyon Shim A Mending by Shing Yin Khor Ad Links Socials Jeeyon on Patreon, Bluesky, and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Flauros the Demon (Wreck This Deck) with Audrey Stolze | 28 Jan 2025 | 00:50:11 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Don't you hate it when one card in a deck gets a little bent? You ever have someone spill their coffee on your cards while you're playing and wish death upon them? What if I told you there was a game that told you to do these things and worse... on purpose? We're kicking off season 5 of Dice Exploder with two episodes on physicality in games. Today that's Wreck This Deck, and the transgressive feeling you get when the core mechanic of a game is to fuck up a bunch of playing cards. Specifically, we're talking about the revenge demon Flauros and what exactly he demands you do to your deck. Further Reading Audrey’s podcast Alone At The Table podcast and the Wreck This Deck episodes specifically Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings Birds Love Dirt by Emily Jankowski Under the Autumn Strangely by Graham Gentz This video about a particularly infamous Magic: the Gathering commander deck Rookwood by Nerdy Pup Games Ad Links Shownotes The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| 2024 Year End Bonanza | 10 Dec 2024 | 01:35:18 | |
Transcripts can be found at diceexploder.com It's the Dice Exploder 2024 year end bonanza! This year I'm joined by Aaron Voigt, Rowan Zeoli, and MintRabbit plus a cavalcade of friends of the show to go over games and adjacent things we loved from 2024. Come reminisce about the year with us! Aaron’s picks
Rowan’s picks
Mint’s picks
Sam’s picks
Kurt Refling’s pick: Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast by Possum Creek Games Michael Elliott’s pick: Two Hand Path by Mikey Hamm Alex Roberts on The Highlander II: The Quickening Unofficial Roleplaying Game by Adam Decamp Jason Morningstar on The Big Store by Nathan D. Paoletta Randy Lubin’s pick: the Dice Exploder Discord Hendrik ten Napel on Eat the Reich by Rowan Rook and Deckard Sharang Biswas’s pick: Combat in Dungeons & Dragons by Evan Torner Audrey Stolze’s pick: Band-Aids & Bullet Holes by Sam Dunnewold Sydney Icarus’s pick: Working the Case by Randy Lubin Seraphina’s pick: Triangle Agency Socials Sam Dunnewold on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Question Oracle (Stoneburner) and rolling the dice again with Ray Chou | 13 May 2025 | 00:41:23 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com For the two year anniversary of Dice Exploder, my first ever cohost Ray Chou returns for what starts off as a brand new episode about Stoneburner by Fari RPGs and that game’s oracle mechanic: a way to use dice, random tables, and the careful framing of stakes to adapt the game for solo play. But at some point the conversation morphs into a deserving sequel episode to our first go around on rolling the dice in idie rpgs more broadly. When do you roll dice? Are partial successes good? And how does all of this change for solo and GM-less play? We didn’t ask all these questions last time, and we didn’t have great answers to the ones we did. So let’s check in on the state of rolling the dice! Further Reading Stoneburner by Fari RPGs Apocalypse World by Meguey and Vincent Baker Blades in the Dark by John Harper Socials Mythworks homepage Mythworks on Blueksy The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon | |||
| The Challenge Deck (Wickedness) with Audrey Stolze and Seraphina Garcia Ramirez | 26 Nov 2024 | 00:33:01 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com A few weeks back, a conversation on the Dice Exploder discord lead to a new game jam: the Femininomenon Jam, a jam about femininity and whatever that means to you, happening now on itch.io through February 11th. To help kick off your thinking on what a game in this theme might look like, today two of the hosts of that jam sit down to talk about the challenge deck from Wickedness by M. Veselak. In this game about a coven of three witches, the challenge deck is a bespoke oracle for conflict resolution. And right out of the gate we get to dive into the deep end with this jam's topic as we ask: is this mechanic "feminine"? What would that even mean? Further Reading: Wickedness by M. Veselak Socials Audrey Stolze / Lady Tabletop on itch and tumblr Audrey’s solo games podcast Alone At The Table The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| AMA with Merrilee Bufkin | 12 Nov 2024 | 01:01:02 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I usually like to think of Dice Exploder as a pretty focused show with a pretty tight format. Yeah we may sprawl sometimes, but we’re not here shooting the shit, we’re here to talk game mechanics. But sometimes, a guy wants to stretch out like a dog in the sun, hang out for a while, and just yap the day away while answering a bunch of listener questions. And there’s no one I like yapping with more than my friend Merrilee Bufkin. So this week, it’s casual times on Dice exploder as the two of us answer a bunch of listener questions. Further Reading: Aaron Voigt’s youtube essays Kurt Riefling on itch Sam's favorite games blogpost Exiles by Ema Acosta Jiangshi by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim Fiasco by Jason Morningstar The Forge book by William J. White Secco Creek Vigilance Committee by Keith Stetson Killing Time by BrewistTabletopGames Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Deep Cuts with John Harper | 04 Nov 2024 | 00:49:38 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com It’s a Dice Exploder EMERGENCY POD! Less than 24 hours ago as of recording, John Harper, designer of Blades in the Dark, released a brand new official supplement for the game: Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts. It’s 110 pages packed full of new setting and new mechanic ideas, and I really wanted to talk about it! I love Apocalypse World’s concept of “advanced fuckery,” and I’ve never seen such a good and extended example of it all in one place. Further Reading: Deep Cuts by John Harper How to Overcome Your Hyperdiegesis Allergy by Idle Cartulary Errant by Otherkind Dice on Dice Exploder, with John Harper Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Dice Forager: a Dice Exploder zine | 22 Oct 2024 | 00:35:10 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Hello from the between-season malaise! Today I'm joined by Aaron King, back again, who interviews me about my new zine Dice Forager: a 50 page collection of games, manifestos, and mini written-out episodes of Dice Exploder. We talk about how setting goals is great and people should do it for, what counts as a manifesto, and how making art meant just for your friends can be just as if not more rewarding than for any other reason. Preorder Dice Forager now! (if you live in the US, otherwise DM me and maybe we can work something out) Further Reading: Dice Exploder blog: Hospitality, Safety, and Calibration Traffic Lights are Communication Tools by Meguey Baker World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin Your public library Socials Aaron King on itch and the RTFM podcast. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| The Sooth Deck (Invisible Sun) and Custom Oracles with James D'Amato | 18 Sep 2024 | 01:00:39 | |
This week I’ve got James D’Amato (Campaign: Skyjacks, the Ultimate RPG book line, and the upcoming Oh Captain, My Captain) here to talk about custom oracle decks. Yeah a Tarot deck is cool, and great for doing Tarot, but James makes the case that it’s the “custom” in “custom oracle deck” that will really bring the not-quite-but-feels-like magic of an oracle to your table. But before we get into that, we dig deep into a mysterious black cube to get to our specific custom oracle deck: the Sooth Deck of Invisible Sun. Further Reading Invisible Sun on the One Shot podcast Spindlewheel by Sasha Reneau Oh Captain, My Captain preorder link Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Characters Without Stories, including my episode | |||
| Keys (Keymaster) with Caro Asercion | 12 Sep 2024 | 00:48:57 | |
Today, Caro Asercion (i'm sorry did you say street magic) brings us a game and mechanic all about instinct and physical embodiment: Keys from the larp Keymaster. This game isn't like most games. It’s so much about physical embodiment and exploring group identity rather than pesky shit like “storytelling”. Physicality! Larp! The Golden Cobra Challenge! We've got it all. Further Reading Keymaster by J Li i’m sorry did you say street magic by Caro Asercion Socials Caro on itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato | |||
| Love Letters (Apocalypse World) with Aaron King | 04 Sep 2024 | 01:00:11 | |
Thrilled this week to have on one of my favorite movewrights, it’s Aaron King of the RTFM podcast. Aaron brought on Love Letters from Apocalypse World, a kind of custom move the GM can write when it’s been a while since we played and everyone might need a refresher on what was going on to get the ball rolling again. I think custom moves are a wildly overlooked part of Apocalypse World, and today we go deep on why that is and how and when to write your own. Further Reading Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meguey Baker Aaron King’s Worksheet Manifesto The SF Ultra podcast Reading the Apocalypse by Aaron King Socials RTFM podcast and Patreon The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Thanks Chris! Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Jukebox by Jar of Eyes Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato | |||
| Speak Your Truth (Desperation) with Jeff Stormer | 21 Aug 2024 | 00:33:31 | |
It’s the crossover event of the season! This week I’m joined by Jeff Stormer of the Party of One podcast to talk about the core mechanic of Desperation by Jason Morningstar. In this game full of dread about a small Kansas town struggling through a never-ending winter, instead of deciding what happens, each turn you draw a card and decide who the thing on the card happens to. It’s a super slick mechanic. Meanwhile over on Party of One, you can listen to Jeff and I actually play the game. Further Reading Me on the Party of One Podcast Desperation by Bully Pulpit Games Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Spectrum Roleplaying by Nat Knight Sock Puppets by Kurt Refling | |||
| THAC0 (AD&D 2e) with my dad | 13 Aug 2024 | 00:42:05 | |
For this final episode of the Dice Exploder D&D miniseries, I wanted to go back to the source, to my first experiences playing the game. And I figured who better to do that with than someone else who was there, my first DM, my very own father. We get plenty nostalgic for back when I was 8 years old, but I also made him talk to me about THAC0, early D&D's needlessly opaque and complicated version of an attack bonus. I made him do this because I think of THAC0 as so representative of how D&D's rules have worked for me over the years, and because my dad has never given a crap about any of those rules. When we played, he barely even read the rulebooks. So how did we still end up playing D&D? What were we even doing? Further Reading Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, second edition Dice Exploder on Theorize from Brindlewood Bay, and the pros and cons of a fixed world vs one you’re making up together at the table. E.T. (1982, dir. Steven Spielberg) Ad Links Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Rule Zero (D&D) with Em Acosta | 06 Aug 2024 | 00:45:30 | |
I have a list of mechanics I’d like to cover on Dice Exploder, and I’d say about a third of them are jokes. One of those jokes is Rule Zero, a maxim that says "the DM (or GM) is always right." I think of Rule Zero as originating in D&D culture, and as part of this D&D miniseries, I thought it'd be interesting to use as a way into talking about the play culture around the game, how it's actually played at the table, and how many of its rules people actually use. There's no one I'd rather talk with about "do rules matter" than returning cohost Em Acosta (Exiles, Crescent Moon) who's spent a lot of time thinking about what rules they find actually useful in play. And in the end, we find yet another answer to my series-long quest for an answer to the question: "what actually is Dungeons & Dragons?" Further Reading: Rule Zero on TV Tropes (I do not endorse this but interesting context) Em’s Patreon Em’s banger games Exiles and Crescent Moon Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| 10 Candles (10 Candles) with Jay Dragon | 06 May 2025 | 00:55:45 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com This is, at long last, the end of this Dice Exploder miniseries on larp. And I wanted to send it off by returning to the question I kicked it off with: what can tabletop designers learn from larp? To get into that, there’s few people I’d rather have on than Jay Dragon (Wanderhome, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast). When I pitched Jay this topic, Jay wanted to bring in the 10 Candles from 10 Candles. This is a game best known for, what else, the 10 candles you light at the beginning of play. And the act of doing so, and then turning out the lights, sets a mood that feels like a ritual, something deeper and more visceral than most tabletop games, something not exactly larp-like, but that feels of a piece with the emphasis on environment and embodiment that larp often brings… Ad Links Spectacula by Jeremy Melloul Make a Scene festival Further Reading 10 Candles by Cavalry Games Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast by Possum Creek Games Wanderhome by Possum Creek Games Game Design Study Buddies on Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll Dice Exploder on Ribbon Drive by Avery Alder A Dozen Fragments On Playground Theory by Jay Dragon Socials Jay on Bluesky and Possum Creek Games on itch and Warehouse 23 The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon | |||
| Prestige Classes (D&D 3e/3.5e) with Sam Roberts | 30 Jul 2024 | 00:41:09 | |
Back Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit now! This episode I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to talk about prestige classes, special classes from D&D 3e that you could only take by multiclassing into them. Sam thinks of these things as a noble failure: a very cool idea whose execution almost immediately dropped the ball. But what can we learn from their corpse? We get into that, along with a boots-on-the-ground discussion of what our experiences were like actually playing D&D 3rd edition and an exploration of advancement as a concept at large: how does it work in most games, and how might it work instead? Further Reading The Game Left Unplayed, blogpost by Jay Dragon D&D third edition D&D 3.5 edition Sam R’s game Escape from Dino Island Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| The Adventuring Day (D&D) with Tristan Zimmerman | 23 Jul 2024 | 00:52:41 | |
Back Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit now! Welcome to the D&D miniseries! I wanted to kick this off with a look into the mechanical heart of D&D, but I didn't really know what that meant. So I asked my friend Tristan! Designer of the award winning game Shanty Hunters and author of the Molten Sulfur blog, Tristan now spends his time as a designer on Nations & Cannons, a hack of D&D set in the American Revolutionary War. Tristan brought on a mechanized design principle underpinning D&D, the Adventuring Day, which says the game should be balanced for parties to go through 6-8 combat encounters between each long rest. It’s an interesting idea... even though absolutely no one in the known universe actually plays D&D like that. So where’d it come from? And how do you approach it as a designer? Further Reading: From the Dice Exploder blog: D&D Is A Comedy Game Socials Tristan on Bluesky. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| D&D Miniseries Intro (Homage to the Player's Handbook) | 18 Jul 2024 | 00:20:20 | |
Back Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit now! Today I'm kicking off a miniseries of Dice Exploder episodes all about the Tarrasque in the room: Dungeons & Dragons itself. But before we get into that, I wanted to lay out for context where I'm coming from, what my relationship is like to "the world's greatest roleplaying game™" is like, and what questions I was hoping to answer with this series. If you listen to this show, you probably come from a community that's skeptical of D&D. I'm not personally a fan. But it's unquestionably doing something for many people, and I don't buy that they simply don't know any better. So what's the deal? What's good about Dungeons & Dragons? Further Reading At 50 Years Old, Dungeons & Dragons Is An Artifact post by Lin Codega on Rascal News Dungeons & Dragons Is A Comedy Game on the Dice Exploder blog Homage to the Players Handbook by Tim Hutchings Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| The Queen Is Under Attack (For The Queen) with Kimi Hughes | 16 Jul 2024 | 00:36:04 | |
Back Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit now! Among my favorite RPGs is Alex Roberts' triumph of minimalistic, elegant design: For The Queen. Today I'm doing just with along with Kimi Hughes of Golden Lasso Games. For The Queen is a card drawing prompt game, and one prompt is always the game's last: "The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?" That's today's mechanic, but we cover most of this pretty small game at some point. You can back Kimi's new game Starscape on Kickstarter now! Further Reading: For The Queen by Alex Roberts Starscape by Kimi Hughes Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato Socials Kimi on Bluesky as well as Golden Lasso Games. Happy Jacks on YouTube. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Designer Commentary: Northfield (with Jason Morningstar) | 13 Jun 2024 | 00:51:10 | |
It is still designer commentary season on Dice Exploder, and today I'm talking with Jason Morningstar (Fiasco, Night Witches, a million other games) about Northfield: a game we co-designed about when Jesse James tried to rob the bank in my home town, we shot the hell out of him and his gang, and then we started an annual small town fair to celebrate our victory. You play as both a member of the James-Younger gang and as a person in the present day portraying your gang member in a reenactment. It's a weird little game, much like its subject matter, and surprisingly personal to me (Jason was not surprised). On this episode, we break down the process of our collaboration and how we feel about the results (very positively). More than any other designer commentary I've done, I hope you check out this game. I'm really proud of it. You can get it on the Bully Pulpit Patreon now for $5. Further Reading Northfield, the game, on the Bully Pulpit Patreon Video of the Defeat of Jesse James Days reenactment Official Defeat of Jesse James Days website Photo of (allegedly) Charlie Pitts’ ear Wikipedia articles on Northfield and the James-Younger gang Socials Jason on Bluesky and dice.camp. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Designer Commentary: Space Fam (with Claire and Caveat) | 15 May 2024 | 00:41:22 | |
For Ken Lowery’s Disc 2 jam, I decided to finally release the game I’ve been working on for nearly four years: Space Fam. This is a game about, you guessed it, found family in space. In particular, it takes a lot of inspiration from The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet in that you’re the crew of a ship escorting a traveler from point A to point B, and along the way you deal with your feelings of guilt and stress about living under an oppressive government. It’s a hack of Our Traveling Home by Ash Kreider, and it’s like 90% of the way to really great. But that last 10% is always the hard 10%, and I decided it was time to let this game just be what it is and push it out into the world. As a part of that, I wanted to look back on the design process. What went well, what didn’t, what would I change if I was going to spend another 30 minutes or 30 years on this thing. To do that, I sat down with two of my friends who playtested the game, and we talked about all things Space Fam. Further Reading Space Fam on itch The Disc 2 jam. A commentary podcast episode for Space Fam is available here. I wrote about the design of Space Fam's "scenes menu" here. I wrote about the design of the Space Fam character sheet here. Our Traveling Home by Ash Kreider Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern by Takuma Okada Space Post by Jason Morningstar Night Witches by Jason Morningstar Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Game Exploder Jam Roundup | 02 May 2024 | 00:52:08 | |
The first ever Dice Exploder game jam came to a close about a month ago, and today I sit down with the three hooligans from the discord who put it together and go through some of our favorite entries. If Dice Exploder is a show about concrete examples, this episode is as Dice Exploder as it gets. All the games we talk about are pretty short, so it should be easy to follow along at home. Check out all the jam submissions here. Thanks to Audrey Stolze (aka Lady Tabletop), Chris Greenbriar, and Sam Roberts for running the jam! Further Reading: Game Exploder full list of entries Sam D's late entry: World Ending Game (Sam's Version) Socials Sam R's game Escape from Dino Island. Audrey on Tumblr, and her podcast Alone at the Table about solo games. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Everyone Adds a Detail (Stewpot) with Lee Conrads | 25 Apr 2024 | 00:46:39 | |
What if your D&D adventuring party settled down and opened a tavern, and the vibes went from dragon murderers to Bob’s Burgers? That's my pitch for Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern, one of my favorite RPGs. It's currently on Backerkit, and you should check it out. This week I'm talking about a super simple unnamed mechanic from Stewpot, and presumably other games before it, that's inspired much of my own work: everyone goes around and adds a detail about the scene at hand or whatever we're talking about. Simple but effective. I think of this mechanic, and Stewpot generally, as especially welcoming to people new to the hobby. And so I brought on my favorite new to the hobby person: Lee Conrads, acclaimed theater director (there's a lot of theater and audience theory in this one) and also my spouse. It's a very special episode. Further Reading: The Stewpot backerkit campaign Great Reckonings in Little Rooms Comedy Book by Jesse David Fox Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Playlists (Ribbon Drive) with Takuma Okada | 18 Apr 2024 | 00:39:55 | |
Is sharing music with your friends an RPG? It sure is when you're playing Avery Alder's game Ribbon Drive. Takuma Okada, the designer of Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern (on Backerkit right now), joins me this week to talk about music, contemplation, and unconventional ways to inspire players. Further Reading: Everything Is Illuminated, the book and film Sam’s playlist from playing Ribbon Drive The Awards website The Awards interview on Yes Indie'd Socials Takuma on Twitter and Bluesky. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk | |||
| Fan Mail (Primetime Adventures) with Meguey Baker | 04 Apr 2024 | 00:39:11 | |
Transcripts are available at diceexploder.com People talk a lot about how and whether RPGs emulate TV and movies, but this week cohost Meguey Baker (Apocalypse World, Under Hollow Hills) brings in a game that takes that sentiment to a compelling meta level. Fan Mail, from Primetime Adventures by Matt Wilson, is the core of the game's key metaphor: that players are simultaneously writers of a TV show, fans watching that show, and the characters portrayed on screen. We talk about the storygame scene in the early 2000s, how Primetime Adventures has influenced Meg's work, and how different this mechanic can feel in a one shot vs a full campaign. This game feels like a classic. I wish I'd known about it ten years ago. Further Reading: Primetime Adventures by Matt Wilson The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall Inspecters by Jared Sorensen A Thousand and One Nights by Meguey Baker Ritual in Game Design by Meguey Baker Meguey & Vincent’s new game Under Hollow Hills Socials The Baker family blog and games. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Experience Design with Caro Murphy | 29 Apr 2025 | 00:56:32 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Here near the end of Dice Exploder's larp series, I wanted to have on Caro Murphy (Galactic Starcruiser) to talk about experience design, and specifically how to think about curating all those parts of an experience bigger and larger than most of us at home will ever have access to. How do you design the set a game is played on? How do you design something for hundreds if not thousands of participants? And Caro delivered so much more: we get into bleed and empathy and how Caro sees games as an inherently educational medium. Let's get into it! Ad Links Vesta Mandate by Story Games Chicago Sign up for the Spectacula pre-release newsletter from Jeremy Melloul Further reading Meghan Gardner at Guard Up Adventures Caro on Imaginary Worlds and then Again Galactic Starcruiser on Wikipedia Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon | |||
| Playbooks and Communication with Moe Poplar | 28 Mar 2024 | 00:41:49 | |
What's the deal with Playbooks? That's a question that's way too big for one episode. But Moe Poplar, of the RPG Academy podcast Show & Tell, had a very particular effect of playbooks that he wanted to talk about on the show today: how playbook choice can be a line of communication between players, GM, and designer. This is one of those episodes that's as much play advice as it is about design. I should do more of those. Further Reading: Monster of the Week Blades in the Dark Socials Moe’s website, including his games. Moe’s podcast via The RPG Academy, Show & Tell The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Exploding Dice with Mikey Hamm | 21 Mar 2024 | 00:50:54 | |
This week, now that the part of season 3 that was funded by Kickstarter is over, I’ve got a treat for you: the backers-only bonus episode with Mikey Hamm, designer of Slugblaster. You didn’t think I was gonna just hold on to an episode this good forever, did you? It’s the show’s namesake mechanic! Mikey is currently Kickstarting Two-Hand Path, a solo game roll-and-write dungeon crawler. Check it out. While I thought this episode would be a big of a goof about a goofy mechanic (and it is), it also brought out some of the most thoughtful thoughts on deploying mechanics with precision and purpose that I’ve had on the show yet. Also, we had a blast. A slug blast. List of Games with Exploding Dice Middle Earth Roleplaying Game Shadowrun Earthdawn Luck of Legends The Burning Wheel 7th Sea Heart (Deep Apiarist class) Renegade Racers Kids on Bikes Armello Socials Back Two-Hand Path and buy Slugblaster now! Mikey on Bluesky. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Innovation in Game Design with James Wallis | 14 Mar 2024 | 00:37:06 | |
This week's cohost is James Wallis, cohost of the Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast, a show a lot like this one that's Kickstarting their third season now, and designer of one of the first story games: The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Today we're breaking format: instead of talking about one game mechanic, James brought in the concept of innovation in game design. What does it look like, is it important, and how can we do more of it? The show notes for this one are friggin packed. Further Reading: Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast and season 3 Kickstarter The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and on Wikipedia Nordic Larp book by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola Fairweather Manor, the Downton Abbey larp Dominion, the deckbuilder board game by Donald X. Vaccarino Blades in the Dark by John Harper My blog post Calvinballing a Whole Campaign Star Crossed by Alex Roberts Dread by Epidiah Ravachol Apocalypse World by Meguey and Vincent Baker The Beast by Naked Female Giant The Crew by Thomas Sing Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings Bluebeard’s Bride by Marissa Kelly, Whitney Beltrán, and Sarah Doom The Well Played Game by Bernie de Koven Socials James Wallis on Bluesky and dice.camp. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Lyrical Ludology: A New Show About Lyric Games | 07 Mar 2024 | 00:10:37 | |
This week I'm bringing you an episode from the new podcast Lyrical Ludology with host Logan Timmins, a show all about lyric games. I'm very excited for it. There's already at least one more episode of Lyrical Ludology published, so if you like this one, go subscribe and take a listen! | |||
| Solo Game Prompts with Seb Pines | 29 Feb 2024 | 01:07:34 | |
It’s the solo games episode! Hopefully the first of many. I’m joined by Seb Pines, designer of The Awards winning game Dwelling and haver of MFA in basically solo games, to talk about prompts in solo games. This is a broad survey of solo games. We talk about a bunch of games (listed below) that all behave differently. If you’re curious about this side of the hobby, this is the primer for you. Further Reading: Dwelling by Seb Pines Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings Horse Girl by Babblegum Sam Artefact by Jack Harrison Project ECCO by Elliot Davis Notorious by Jason Price Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery I Eat Mantras For Breakfast by Maria Mison The Ink That Bleeds and an excerpt on the Indie Game Reading Club My response to The Ink That Bleeds Socials Seb Pines on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Character Sheets with Emanoel Melo | 22 Feb 2024 | 00:45:47 | |
This is an intensely visual episode. If you'd like to follow along with the sheets we mention and get some extra commentary from me, you can do so at https://www.diceexploder.com/blog/2024/2/22/dice-exploder-aftershow-character-sheets I’m fascinated by character sheets, mostly because there are so so so precious few that I think do a good job. I don’t mean this to call anyone out - I think the job of making a good character sheet might genuinely be impossible. They just have so much they have to accomplish. Today I'm talking to Emanoel Melo, designer of CBR+PNK, about what we like in character sheets and whether there are any we would actually go to bat for. Further reading Aftershow blog post featuring all the character sheets we talk about plus extra commentary on diceexploder.com Bruno Prosaiko, the artist behind the beautiful ornate sheets we talk about, on Instagram A collection of Brazilian tabletop games on itch that Emanoel curates Socials Emanoel on Twitter and Instagram. His website, Cabinet of Curiosities. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Pity Points (Kagematsu) with Alex Roberts | 15 Feb 2024 | 01:00:53 | |
Alex Roberts, designer of Star Crossed and For the Queen, joins me to talk about pity points from Kagematsu, a mechanic that doesn't actually do anything itself beyond evoke a particular feeling when put in opposition to love points. This episode is what I always dreamed Dice Exploder could be. We start from a simple game mechanic, but we get into power dynamics at the table in the past and the future, how people treat you when you’re disabled, cultural appropriation, my personal techniques for flirting, details of a new game Alex is working on, and of course “what is the true nature of love?” Happy day after Valentine’s Day. Further Reading Kagematsu is no longer available in print or online Kagematsu actual play, featuring Alex, on the One Shot podcast What Dice Do blogpost by Graham Walmsley The Quiet Year by Avery Alder Alex’s finished podcast Backstory Star Crossed by Alex Roberts For the Queen, second edition coming May 14th from Darrington Press Socials Alex’s personal carrd page The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lily Pads by my boi Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Third Party License (Mork Borg) with Strega Wolf van den Berg | 08 Feb 2024 | 00:25:56 | |
This week I've got designer and illustrator Strega Wolf van den Berg on to talk about money and the Mork Borg third party license. What, if anything, is the difference between making RPGs for fun, to pay rent, and to be paid fairly? And what is the cost (aha) of bringing money into making art? On the flip side, this is also an episode about community, and how the shape of Mork Borg’s license fostered a community around it that allowed Strega Wolf to find a space in this hobby. Community can give us so many things that money can’t. Further reading: The Mork Borg third party license The Origin Of My Depression by Uboa Socials Strega Wolf's website and itch page Bogfolk, and on itch Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lily Pads by my boi Travis Tessmer. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Rumor Tables (Lorn Song of the Bachelor) with Nova | 01 Feb 2024 | 00:47:58 | |
This week I've got Nova, aka Idle Cartulary, of the excellent Playful Void blog among other places linked below. Nova's one of my favorite writers in the, as she puts it, DIY elf game scene, and I knew that was a world I wanted to cover more this season. Nova brought on the rumor table from Zedeck Siew's Lorn Song of the Bachelor, an excellent elf game adventure. We got to talk about what makes a good random table at large, our taste in how adventures are written, and how point of view is the thing that often turns serviceable fiction into real primo shit. Further Reading: Nova’s kickstarter for The Curse of Mizzling Grove Dice Exploder on pick lists The Isle, in print and on itch Socials Nova’s blog, Playful Void Nova’s podcast, Dungeon Regular Nova’s games on itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lily Pads by my boi Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| The Risk Sheet (Psi*Run) with John Harper | 25 Jan 2024 | 00:37:39 | |
On the season 3 premiere, I’m joined by John Harper, designer of many games featured on past episodes of Dice Exploder including Blades in the Dark, Lasers & Feelings, and Agon 2e. John brought in the Psi*Run risk sheet, a fairly complex dice resolution mechanic, known generically as Otherkind Dice. The risk sheet is such an elegant piece of design, packing essentially a whole game onto a single sheet of paper, and being so clear in both how it works and how you might tear it apart for your own ends. If you’re a new designer, or even just looking to get back in touch with the basics, John and I agree that hacking this thing is a great place to look. It’s good to be back. Further Reading: Vincent Baker’s original 2005 post on Otherkind Dice Vincent’s 2022 Otherkind Dice SRD Psi*Run by Michael Lingner, Christopher Moore, and Meguey Baker Socials John’s website, onesevendesign.com, and itch page. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lily Pads by my boi Travis Tessmer. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Safety Tools, and Players Are More Important Than The Game, with Sarah Lynne Bowman | 21 Apr 2025 | 00:58:26 | |
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Safety in RPGs and larp is a huge topic, one I’ve wanted to cover on Dice Exploder for a long time, but one I’ve avoided it because it feels hard to approach inside the “pick one mechanic” format of this show. Even more than most mechanics I cover on Dice Exploder, I feel like most safety mechanics are in conversation with each other in both logistical ways—how they compliment each other—but also in the philosophy behind their existence in the first place, how including these mechanics at the table is ideally a statement about how we’d like to treat each other both at the table and away from it. So today we’re gonna name that underlying philosophy and call that our mechanic: “players are more important than the game” is something I hear in conversations around safety all the time, and that’s this episode. To break it down, I’m joined by Sarah Lynne Bowman. She studies all this professionally, and she has so much to say and to share about how safety tools work in theory and in practice, how no tool can ever guarantee your safety (even if we should still definitely use them), and how building good communities around our games is at least as important to safer play as any individual tool. Finally, content warning in this episode for mention of sexual assault and emotional abuse in rpg communities. We don’t get deep into any specifics, but they come up. Further Reading Your Larp’s Only As Safe As It’s Play Culture by Troels Ken Pedersen Dice Exploder on accessibility in game design Creating a Culture of Trust through Safety and Calibration Larp Mechanics by Maury Brown Larp Design, the book Bibliography from Sarah Lynne Bowman Koljonen, Johanna. 2019. “Opt-out and Playstyle Calibration Mechanics.” In Larp Design: Creating Role-play Experiences, edited by Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell and Elin Nilsen, 235-237. Copenhagen, Denmark: Landsforeningen Bifrost. 3 pages. Koljonen, Johanna. 2020. “Larp Safety Design Fundamentals.” JARPS: Japanese Journal of Analog Role-Playing Game Studies 1: Emotional and Psychological Safety in TRPGs and Larp (September 21): 3e-19e. Hugaas, Kjell Hedgard. 2024. “Bleed and Identity: A Conceptual Model of Bleed and How Bleed-Out from Role-Playing Games Can Affect a Player’s Sense of Self.” International Journal of Role-Playing 15 (June): 9-35. https://doi.org/10.33063/ijrp.vi15.323 Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2015. “Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character.” Nordiclarp.org, March 2. Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role-playing Games I: Introduction -- Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4. Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role playing Games II: Before the Game -- Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4. Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role playing Games Part III: During the Game -- Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4. Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role playing Games Part IV: After the Game --- Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4. Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role playing Games Part V: Cultivating Safer Communities -- Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4. Socials The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon | |||
| Dice Exploder: Season 3 Trailer | 18 Jan 2024 | 00:02:07 | |
Thursday January 25th Dice Exploder is back with an all new crowdfunded-by-listeners season! The lineup includes John Harper, Alex Roberts, James Wallis, Idle Cartulary, Strega Wolf van den Berg, Emanoel Melo, Seb Pines and MORE - that's right, I'm over-delivering on the Kickstarter as a treat. Check back next week for the season premiere, and visit the blog's new home at diceexploder.com. | |||
| 2023 Year End Bonanza | 12 Dec 2023 | 01:53:34 | |
Hello and welcome to the Dice Exploder 2023 end of year bonanza! I love me a good ranked list of movies on an end of year movie podcast, but ranked lists are bad and this show’s about RPGs not movies, so you get this instead. It’s me, Aaron King of the RTFM podcast, Lady Tabletop of the Alone at the Table podcast, and Sharang Biswas of winning tons of Ennies this year and being a games academic, and the four of us (plus a half dozen other special guests) are here to tell you about a bunch of cool games shit we played, read, and listened to this year. Hope you had a great year in games! Come on down and listen to ours. Our picks: Aaron’s games * GREED by Gormengeist * Undertree Temple of the Elf Gods by Happy Chthonian * Crush Depth Apparition by Amanda Lee Franck Audrey’s games * Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery * Wreck This Deck by Black Armada Games (Josh Fox and Becky Annison) * Extreme Meatpunks Forever by Sinister Beard Games Sharang’s games * Fight With Spirit by Story Brewers Roleplaying * The Silt Verses by Gabriel Robinson and Jason Cordova * The Broadcast by Jason Morningstar and Lizzie Stark Sam’s games * Eating Oranges in the Shower by Hazel Anneke Dixon * Barkeep on the Borderlands by W. F. Smith * Exiles by em acosta Game adjacent things * Aaron: Grog the Frog by Alba BG * Audrey: Roleplaying Games Enter the World of Ballet in a Unique New Performance by Linda Codega * Sharang: The Dungeons & Dragons players of Death Row by Keri Blakinger * Sam: The Ink That Bleeds by Paul Czege (here’s an excerpt from the Indie Game Reading Club) Thing we’re proud of * Aaron: RTFM, Speedrune, and Aaron’s annual list of favorite books * Audrey: Behold: A Game * Sharang: Winning 3 Ennies: Judges choice for MOONLIGHT ON ROSEVILLE BEACH and Best Rules/Best Family Game for AVATAR * Sam: you’re lookin at it Picks from friends of the show: * Ray Chou: Decuma * Thomas Manuel: A.A. Voigt on Youtube, Daydreaming About Dragons podcast by Judd Karlman, the Indie Game Reading Club, and Aaron Marks at Cannibal Halfling. * Mikey Hamm: Picturepedia and other coffee table reference books * John Harper: Girl By Moonlight * Em Acosta: The Zone and Blades in ‘68 * Nova / Idle Cartulary: mindfulness fantasy map drawing (see her Dungeons Regularly vols. 1 and 2) * Moe Poplar: the Dice Exploder podcast Further reading: * Meakpunk manifesto by Heather “Flowers” Robertson * Sharang’s piece about Brindlewood Bay * Amanda Lee Franck’s Comradery * Alba BG’s Instagram * BALLETCOLLECTIVE presents THE MOMENT IS IMMINENT * RTFM patreon episode on VOID 1680 AM * LadyTabletop’s VOID 1680 AM broadcast Socials Aaron can be found on, like, just listen to RTFM, linked above. Audrey on Tumblr, and her podcast Alone at the Table about solo games. Sharang is on itch and Twitter and Bluesky. Sam is @sdunnewold on all socials and itch. Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Designer Commentary: i know the end (with Nico MacDougall) | 04 Dec 2023 | 01:51:33 | |
Today I’ve got for you another between-season bonus episode. This time we’re breaking format to talk about i know the end, a module I published earlier this year about going back home after a long time away and all the horrors that entails. Because if you can’t occasionally publish something self-indulgent in your podcast feed, what’s even the point of having one? My cohost for this is my friend Nico MacDougall, the current organizer of The Awards, who edited i know the end and had almost as much to say about it as I did. For maximum understanding of this episode, you can pick up a free copy of the module here and follow along (or skim it in advance). Further reading: The original i know the end cover art The “oops all PBTA moves” version of i know the end Three of my short films My previous written designer commentaries on Space Train Space Heist and Couriers John Harper talking with Andrew Gillis about the origins of Blades in the Dark The official designer commentary podcasts for Spire and Heart Aaron Lim’s An Altogether Different River, which comes with a designer commentary version Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, a photography theory book that we talked about during recording but which I later cut because I remembered most of the details about it incorrectly What Is Risograph Printing, another topic cut from the final recording because I got basically everything about it wrong while recording (the background texture of the module is a risograph printed texture) Before Sunrise by Richard Linklater Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques Socials: Nico’s carrd page, which includes links to their socials, editing rates, and The Awards. Sam on Bluesky, Twitter, dice.camp, and itch. The Dice Exploder logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||
| Accessibility and Graphic Design (Mork Borg) with Marc Muszynski | 09 Nov 2023 | 00:49:13 | |
It’s a bonus between-seasons Dice Exploder! Wowie! As promised back in my episode with Gem Room Games about Mork Borg, today I’m talking about accessibility in game design using Mork Borg’s graphic design as an example. My cohost is Marc Muszynski, a friend and screenwriter with low vision, and we talk in detail about his experience with Mork Borg. Is this game, with all its important and loud art, accessible to people who can’t see? Like with most accessibility questions, It’s Complicated™! Further reading: Accessibility in Gaming Resource Guide by Jennifer Kretchmer TTRPG Accessibility Drive 2023 game jam on itch Contrast checking tool for visual design. Color checking tool for colorblindness. Sylexiad, my favorite Dyslexia-friendly font: Fate Accessibility Toolkit by Evil Hat Two articles about “sanity” mechanics in RPGs (don’t put “sanity” mechanics in your games) Socials: Marc on imdb (lmao) Sam on Bluesky, Twitter, dice.camp, and itch. Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! | |||