Fear the Boot

* (0:52) Wayne visits Brodeur at Miniature Market (their Facebook page ). * (5:21) Prologue games. Taking them seriously while recognizing their disposability. * (15:20) A shared history that's played instead of just written. * (18:57) How a prologue identifies issues, and what to do when one is found. * (24:46) The value of the missing middle. * (31:22) Finding your voice. * (35:49) Expecting too...

* (0:29) There and Back Again Kickstarter. * (0:51) Simplification of Fear the Boot's Patreon . * (5:17) How can a wonderful dream become a nightmare? * (9:57) What We Do in the Shadows . * (12:49) Players that pad a a situation. * (16:41) Allowing for deliberation. Power-gaming through roleplay. * (25:14) Strategies for discouraging trap cards. * (35:35) The motivation for these contingencies. Ho...

* (0:29) Welcoming Jason Brick to the show. Baby Shoes , Flash , Sojourn 1 , and Sojourn 2 . * (3:04) Setting up today's topic. Jason's Kickstarter for There and Back Again . * (5:41) Harkening back to The Gamer Traveler . Daniel Perez' current website . * (8:36) How real experiences affect your roleplaying games. Some examples from security work and drug use. * (19:36) The way things look, the wa...

* (0:41) Welcoming Eric from GamersTable . Almost crashing Brodeur's place of work. * (1:23) GM Impostor Syndrome . The Dunning-Kruger Effect . * (6:35) Some help with that feeling of intimidation. * (10:02) How we suck. Failing fast. * (21:57) Effectively communicating criticism. * (32:53) To thine own self be true. * (44:52) Nobody's perfect. Hosts: Chad, Dan, Eric, Wayne

* (0:27) What we're looking forward to in 2018. * (1:02) Roleplaying games and related material. * (8:08) Video games. We somehow failed to mention the upcoming Battletech game. * (29:36) Upcoming movies. Hosts: Chad, Dan, Wayne

* (0:50) Wayne takes his entire party prisoner in a Necessary Evil game. * (2:03) Setting some boundaries on the discussion. Giving the concept of "agency" a clear definition. * (8:19) Keeping it fair and purposeful. * (14:16) Understanding the subconscious, social transaction. * (24:02) The relationship between failure, agency, and story. * (35:31) Gnarl ties it all together. * (40:43) Knowing wh...

This was a short episode I cut a while back when life got in the way of our regularly-scheduled recordings. I've got a full-length one we did a bit later, which I'll be releasing immediately after this one—meaning, in a matter of minutes or hours. * (1:06) Backing off my own ideas to let truths about the player-characters decide where the game will go. * (4:45) Reminding players about their charac...

* (0:28) 1d4Con on April 13th - 15th, 2018. * (2:16) Brodeur GTFO. * (4:42) Some comments on Salt in Wounds. Fear the Boot's Discord server . * (9:43) Keeping a game fresh during someone's hiatus, without moving the game forward or leaving it on pause. * (18:02) Converging story-lines. * (20:03) Exploring the same story and setting from other perspectives. * (22:49) The difficulty of integrating a...

* (0:49) Fear the Con and its Con Planner site . All our love to Fred. * (2:47) The Salt in Wounds game setting, and why it intrigues Brodeur. * (14:40) Unpacking the human psychology of why we like dark things, starting with some examples from Dan's life.  Resident Evil VII and Alien Isolation . Revenge stories. * (22:40) When these impulses manifest at the meta-game level. The traitor mechanic i...

* (0:41) A look back at the Big Board. * (3:37) Lesson prep for a church and how it demonstrates a social concept that applies to gaming. * (7:17) Performance by one versus content by all. * (15:14) Recognizing what's important to another person. * (25:01) Whose benefit is the game for? Setting the right level of control. Hosts: Brodeur, Chad, Dan

* (0:28) Fear the Con's site is ready . * (1:13) Our emails have been fixed, including the confirmation for forum signup . * (8:56) The planned ending for a session of the Actual Play goes awry. * (14:59) Being fair to your players. The song that inspired the intended scene. * (21:23) Reinventing the end. * (22:02) Giving your players the freedom to surprise you. * (32:16) Changing up instead of p...

* (0:37) Non-player characters that can be used to guide the party. * (2:04) Tying the NPC to the group while avoiding them becoming a GMPC. * (8:14) Needing them all the time is a sign something has gone wrong. Keeping them within their own character limits. * (15:36) The ways to avoid overshadowing the party with a guiding NPC. * (25:44) Not giving an NPC a planned future since the story isn't a...

* (1:16) Thanks to Sgt. Dan and Mumswear for the shirts. * (2:33) Thanks to Mark Larson for the Crown Royal bags. * (5:19) A shout-out to Andrew Martin. * (7:33) Brodeur's two episodes on running a game store can be found here and here . Miniature Market's website . * (12:49) A non-gamer opens a game store. * (19:01) Building an FLGS from scratch. * (26:17) Consolidating overhead expenses. * (30:3...

* (0:29) Brodeur thanks John Wells, Mark Lawson, and Sgt. Dan for help with Crown Royal bags. * (2:33) Dan gets a copy of Battletech's Alpha Strike rules. * (4:25) A shift—or new fad—in tabletop roleplaying games: consuming play instead of participating in it. * (12:32) New technologies allowing a new market, misinterpreted as a change in an existing market. Hosts: Brodeur, Chad, Dan

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* (0:18) The Caring Bridge site for Pat. * (1:50) An update on Pat. (As of the episode release, the information is a bit outdated. Pat is now home on hospice care.) * (2:47) Whether to continue a game when a player passes. * (7:31) Keeping mementos from those we've lost. * (13:10) Moving on after loss. * (19:18) More mementos we've kept. Hosts: Brodeur, Chad, Dan, Wayne

* (0:28) The father-daughter podcast, Reading Radio . * (1:57) Brodeur beats the negative association with reading. * (8:35) Wayne doesn't have access to a computer and decides to go retro. * (12:31) The lingering value of the old way of doing things. * (22:11) The flexibility of a three-ring binder. * (24:18) Plot powerful. * (31:43) The appeal of tangibility. Online ordering for Crown Royal bags...

* (0:28) Event signup for Fear the Con 11 is now open . Additional shots at the stretch goals will be coming up in the next few months. * (2:13) Brodeur's love for minis. The Toy Soldiers video game. Jim McClure's Satanic Panic . The Army Painter Quickshade dip . * (10:21) Drawing inspiration from visual sources, tropes, and other sources. * (22:41) Daphne vs Velma. * (23:28) Replacing a character...

* (0:36) Chad's patience. * (1:33) This show will reference episode 13 of the Skies of Glass Actual Play . * (2:41) Characters finding hope in hopelessness. * (6:34)  The mixed morality of a group of player-characters. * (15:14) Joe's innocence and the loss of it. * (29:19) The moment it all changed, and the unexpected poetry of it. * (38:52) Gaming being more like writing than acting. Dan's appea...

* (0:29) Dan was a guest on The Greatest Show. You can see  the video here  or grab  an audio version here . * (0:53) Dan was also a guest on the Connections radio show, talking about RPG culture. You can find that episode here . We hope you'll listen to the whole thing, but if you just want to hear Dan's part, that's at about 38:40. * (3:23) Fear the Boot now has a Discord server . * (4:56) Using...

* (0:29) Brodeur turns a negative episode into a regular one. * (4:52) An end to a long-running D&D campaign. * (6:34) An unexpected finish. Microscope . * (10:20) Balancing player agency against story coherence. * (17:04) Confinement forcing creativity. * (21:30) The signs it was a successful ending. * (25:59) How Brodeur will end the next leg of his campaign. Hosts: Brodeur, Chad, Dan, Wayne

* (0:23) Introducing Beth and Adam. * (1:27) Dan will be on the Connections radio show on Wednesday, November 8th, from 10:30pm - 11:00pm Eastern time. You can find how to tune-in here . * (4:00) Whatever this con is called, it's occurring on June 22nd and 23rd, 2018. If the Wing Night funds, that will be on June 21st. * (12:03) Admission to the convention is free. Whether it happens or not is pur...

* (0:28) Charles has too little British for Brodeur and too little beef for Wayne. * (3:34) The flash fiction anthology, FLASH!, which you can grab from Amazon . * (4:54) The Lairdbalor . * (6:22) More properly introducing Charles. * (9:38) Corsana: The Phalanx Syndicate . * (12:43) Using an RPG to play-test a story. * (16:47) The relationship between forms of creativity. * (25:35) Intimidating th...

* (1:02) FLASH!, an anthology that includes Dan and several booters. You can get a copy on Amazon . * (2:20) Dan was a guest on The Greatest Show. You can see the video here or grab an audio version here . * (3:32) Playing characters that suck at their jobs. * (16:20) Portraying inter-factional politics in a roleplaying game. The Skies of Glass Actual Play . * (18:33) Defining who the factions are...

* (0:32) Making up reasons for why Wayne couldn't make it. * (1:45) Brodeur and the Marilith: A Dramatic Reading, coming soon. * (3:29) Trying to win over the group when you have a different plan. Just charge in! * (8:32) Playing the social dynamics around the table. * (19:24) Handling the issue character-to-character, whether through RP or in-game abilities. * (30:14) When the other plan is genui...