Reading D&D Aloud

Today, we have two remarkable designers here to share with us their insights and thoughts. Alex Roberts is the winner of the Diana Jones Award, and the designer of STAR CROSSED and FOR THE QUEEN. Joining her is Graham Walmsley, creator of CTHULHU DARK and a TRAIL OF CTHULHU designer with many credits to his name. Back Graham's current Kickstarter for PLAY UNSAFE here: https://www.kickstarter.com/p...

Tonight's first guest is a hunter of hunters, a designer who seized upon the monster-of-the-week TV formula and used it as the bones of a horrifying gaming monstrosity of freakish limbs, a brutish head, a harsh brow, a criminal brain, and yes, it's alive!! Michael Sands is the creator of Monster of the Week, the game that turned supernatural investigation, bad decisions, and glorious improvisation...

My first guest tonight is one of the great mad scientists of tabletop gaming. Epidiah Ravachol helped create Dread, the game that made a horror RPG out of a Jenga tower. It's brilliant, cruel, elegant game design that makes players sweat before anything terrible has even happened. He's just launched a sword & sorcery RPG called Swords Without Master. Please welcome Epidiah Ravachol! My next guest...

5E + dragon mounts = :) Chris Lindsay is the godfather of the DM's Guild, and that institution brought us titanic names in the world of game design, such as Kelsey Dionne & MT Black, to name just a few. He is now at Goodman Games, and is crowdfunding THE DRAGONRIDER'S PRIMER, a 5E supplement for winged mounts, everything from dragons to dung beetles. Click here to see more!  

Tonight I'm joined by W.F. Smith, the mind behind Prismatic Wasteland, one of the sharpest OSR blogs in the game. And if you've heard of Barkeep on the Borderlands , that's him too: the barhopping, pubcrawl-fantasy fever dream that took home a Gold ENnie. W.F. writes like a man with a notebook full of bad ideas he's somehow made playable. We're going to talk about design, tables, taste, and why th...

Apparently, snakes have something called "hemepenes," something I only know because of Emily Allen.  Emily is a designer, writer, and the mind behind The Gardens of Ynn , one of those RPG books that feels less like a "setting" and more like a living dream you accidentally walked into and now can't stop exploring. Emily's work has that rare combination of elegance and danger: it's imaginative, it's...

If you know Infinity of Ships , you know their vibe: big imagination, tight design, and the kind of tables-and-ideas toolkit that makes a GM's brain start sprinting. Their latest release, 100 Strangers , gives us NPCs with story fuel, despite how incredibly clipped they are. That's right. Today, I've got Adam Good and Jaimie Perez, the creative engines behind STATIONS.  Adam and Jaimie build for t...

The Wild 90s in TTRPGs! This conversation was a great one! First up today is Wolfgang Baur, a creator and businessperson whose fingerprints are all over the hobby. He can write fantasy like Tolkien and run a business like, uh, someone whose geeky, good at running a business, and not at all ethically challenged in this year of 2026. He's the creator of the MIDGARD campaign setting and the founder o...

Today we welcome back Joshua McCrowell, designer of His Majesty the Worm, a game that looks at the classic dungeon crawl and hits it with a Tarot deck. The Worm won ENnies for best rules and best game this year. Josh has a gift for taking old-school adventure DNA, labyrinths, delving, danger and giving it a new spine. Welcome Josh! Pick up Josh's work here! On Patreon, I posted my Gamehole Con sem...

This conversation was incredible.  The participants in today's talk designed the following games: D&D 3rd Edition, Apocalypse World, Ars Magica, Over the Edge , and even an "Additional Writing" credit on Daggerheart .  You have to check this out.   First up: Jonathan Tweet! A legend with a designer's designer résumé, the kind of mind that can build a rules engine and make it sing. Lead designer of...

Tonight on D&D Outloud, I'm joined by Joseph Laycock, a scholar of religion who explores what happens when belief, culture, and controversy collide. Joe is an associate professor of Religious Studies at Texas State University, and he's written some incredibly relevant work for anyone who remembers when D&D was treated like a portal to perdition, including Dangerous Games , his sharp look at the mo...

Jim Lowder is a writer, an editor, a lore architect, and if we're being honest, a kind of Indiana Jones of shared worlds. From Ravenloft to Forgotten Realms to the trenches of TSR itself, Jim has chronicled the industry, shaped it, and occasionally had to wrestle it into coherence with nothing but a red pen and stubborn Massachusetts resolve. He brings history, insight, and the kind of war stories...

Today, we converse with two firehoses of the human imagination: Mark Diaz Truman and Jay Dragon! Some people play games. Some people publish games. And then there are the people who change how the whole industry works. Mark Diaz Truman is one of the architects of the modern tabletop renaissance; designer, publisher, organizer, and strategic mastermind behind Magpie Games, one of the forces that he...

Happy Thanksgiving Americans! Here's a seminar from Gamehole Con 2025 about why YOU should be writing geeky nonfiction.

My favorite RPG book of the year is a book of spaceship p*rn designed by two poets! INFINITY OF SHIPS is random tables for spaceship creation along with stunning artwork and essays that are as fun as they are engaging. The book was brought to us by Adam Good & Jamie Perez, and the pair have another book Kickstarting right now:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/72stations/100-strangers-misfits-...

This is an RPG historian you have to hear from. Shannon Appelcline. He's the mind behind Designers & Dragons, which chronicles our hobby's wild past, from basement print runs to global pop culture phenomenon. Shannon has done the research, interviewed the legends, and connected the dots between decades of dice-rolling history. So grab your character sheet, because today, we're diving deep into how...

What do Cormac McCarthy, Charles Dickens, & Scheherazade say to each other on the podcast? Today, we find out!  First up, we have Meguey Baker: game designer, textile historian, and one of the most revolutionary voices in the history of tabletop gaming. You might know her from 1001 Nights, Psi-Run , or her work on Apocalypse World , a game that cracked open an entire design movement. Meguey's game...

Shamelessly, 30 minutes into this interview with Cam Banks & Fred Hicks, I share leaked D&D sales data.  He's the Kiwi conjurer who helped create the Cortex System, which has been used on everything from Firefly to Marvel. He's made the rules that make the stories sing, and he's living  proof that spreadsheets and sorcery can coexist. Please welcome the unflappable, unstoppable Cam Banks! He's the...

This conversation is absolutely brilliant. I talk to a lot of game designers, but this episode is easily a favorite.  Today, we discuss with two engines of creativity: Jay Dragon of Wanderhome & Watt of Cloud Empress ! Watt is a designer, artist, and architect of the beautifully bizarre. Watt's games feel like dreams with teeth, lush, lyrical, and a little dangerous. Their work digs into ecology,...

Why borg? Today on the show, we're joined by Zac Goins, RPG designer, Kickstarter consultant, and all-around tabletop creative. Zac has worked with Marvel, Wizards of the Coast, Modiphius, and more, and currently serves as Director of Marketing for Limithron. He's designed for systems like Old School Essentials, Mörk Borg, Shadowdark, and beyond. Also today, we are joined by Erica Lowe-Tarpley, Ow...

Today, we've got a four-way! Listen and marinate in the brilliance of Justin Alexander, Panayiotis Lines, & Aled Lawlor! Aled Lawlor and Panayiotis Lines are the creative duo behind Leyline Press. In just a few short years, Leyline has carved out a reputation for distinctive, atmospheric RPGs that blend striking visual design with elegant, playable mechanics. I purchased SALVAGE UNION at Gen Con,...

Today, I am going to talk turkey with fellow historian and bestselling author, Michael Witwer. His books, such as Empire of Imagination , the acclaimed biography of Gary Gygax, and the lavish Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana , have helped bring the hidden history of role-playing games into the mainstream. His work combines deep research with a storyteller's flair, making the origins of our hobby v...

Welcome to D&D Outloud with Ben Riggs, I am Ben Riggs, apparently controversial D&D historian and author of Slaying the Dragon A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons, and over the past 13 years of writing and podcasting, I have met hundreds of creative geniuses in and around the world of TTRPGs. Here on this show, I ask two of these flaming torches of the human imagination to come on and have a fa...

Does 4E D&D have the best combat? The question leads us to a conversation with two of the game's three lead designers. First up, we have Rob Heinsoo, one of the leading minds behind Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. He's also the co-creator of 13th Age , a system that blends narrative freedom with crunchy mechanics in amazing ways. He's a designer, a worldbuilder, and a relentless innovator in table...

Wanna know what the hell is going on at WotC? Let's ask people who used to work there.  It is difficult to describe what a superstar gathering this is on the show. These are not the first names that you think of when you hear D&D, but they are just as significant if not more so than the names we all know.  First Liz Schuh, whose final title at Wizards was Head of Publishing and Licensing for Dunge...