Fear the Boot

* (0:28) The  Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023  is live! * (1:12) Things a Game Master has done to make a world seem a little more alive (with credit to JoshB for the topic). * (5:46) Plot hooks, substories, and unanswered questions about my character. * (9:16) Allowing characters to have goals, ambitions, and projects. * (13:32) Giving me things I can trust that won't betray me or become a vulne...

* (0:28) The new fiction podcast,  Bite Size Tales . * (1:43) Dan re-reads the D&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Wayne watches  Secrets of Blackmoor . The inspiration D&D's creators drew from  Strategos . * (6:38) The rather disjointed rules of early RPGs. * (8:23) The heavy crunch of early RPGs that might be as much unearned reputation as reality. * (13:02) Why an early RPG may have needed...

* (0:36) An odd tangent on names. * (3:39) A conversation about AI art. Some parameters we're putting on this episode. AI art  wins a fine arts competition . * (8:08) An admittedly non-technical overview of how AI generally creates its work.  Syntax versus semantics . * (17:43) AI creations as a starting point instead of the final product. Why the lack of semantics may distinguish what inspires hu...

* (0:30) Giving a remote episode a try. We have a fix for Dan's audio that should improve the quality on our next remote show. * (1:42) Catching up with Brodeur and DJ, who was on  episode 466  to talk about  BuJoRPG . * (4:43) Putting some parameters on the topic. * (9:42) Does Wizards of the Coast hate you? Envy other publishers? Or just not understand the market? * (16:36) Why people went along...

* (0:44) Friday night chit-chat  on Discord  each week, starting at 8pm Central. * (2:18) Fear the Con 2023 dates have been reserved with the hotel for June 16th and 17th of 2023, with the Wing Night on June 15th. * (3:37) Wayne preps his players for a Savage Worlds: Alpha Flight game. * (8:18) Learning through trial-and-error by running homebrews and setting-dense games. * (10:42) Give your playe...

* (0:22) The villain as the dark inverse of the hero. * (9:20) A big CGI fight at the end that seems visually out of continuity. * (16:06) Zombies and Lovecraft. * (20:37) The freedom to like or dislike, and how little that says about you as a person. * (23:33) Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, and Disney. * (26:59) Let's not be too reductive. * (34:26) Maybe we've just been around too long a...

* (0:24) Brodeur recommends a manicure and pedicure to Dan. * (5:58) Dan, Wayne, and their muscle tension. * (11:24) A straight-razor shave and the thrill of death. * (15:56) Fandoms that (at least temporarily) put people off from the product they love. * (28:08) On anime. * (31:37) The need to be inviting within gaming, since it's a social hobby. * (37:56) Gratuitous violence and opinion as ident...

* (0:28) Brodeur flees to Oregon. * (4:08) Failure comes to East Texas University. * (7:26) Dividing the blame between the players and Game Master. * (11:40) Player silence and passivity. * (17:30) Things lost for lack of time. * (19:34) Substance use, depression, and the option of just narrating the ending. * (26:32) Was there a post-mortem with the players? Not judging a whole campaign by its en...

* (0:33) Wayne gives a shoutout to  Gaming with Gage + Friends  (but not Brodeur). * (1:53) Wayne ends a D&D campaign without a boss fight. * (3:11) The mutual theft of ideas between video games and tabletop roleplaying games. * (8:00) Considering all the ways a story can end. * (13:18) Another example from a D&D game. * (21:06) Post-campaign, no-boss epilogues. Player freedom in shaping the endin...

* (0:29) Brodeur's post-Gen-Con review. (I know, we're right on top of the latest news.) A shoutout to  Imagining Games ,  Acheron Books , and RogueOperative. * (8:02) Customizing modules for your players and characters. * (11:48) Modules as a framework, not a full script. * (18:26) Know the module well enough that you can deconstruct it into its components. * (24:37) An imaginary scenario using a...

* (0:29) A listener, James, gets us talking about integrating player-character backstories into your game. It starts with the players giving you something to work with. * (3:01) Sitting for too long on too much information, or mining the backstory abusively. * (7:43) Finding the possible connections between backstories. * (11:08) Let's do it live! Dan sets up a D&D game with Wayne as his player. B...

* (0:29) How awful can a few years be? (Spoilers: Multiple things got worse since this recording!) * (3:49) An experiment in unequal levels of preparation and participation. * (8:34) Not all players will bring the same level of contribution, nor do all games encourage it. * (14:32) Pattern versus incidence. * (18:52) Reasons to not just sit it out. * (20:43) Why using past experiences of what was...

* (0:24) Releasing episodes out of order. * (1:24) The little convention that could, despite how hard life tried to stop it. * (6:59) All of the hurdles that weren't COVID. * (14:00) The obstacles that came up during the convention. * (24:24) In spite of everything arrayed against it, the con went really well. * (31:42) Thanking Eric Van Note for the picture of Gnarl, which  you can see here . You...

* (0:29) Interrogating Mary on her gaming history. * (1:33) The last few days before  Fear the Con ! * (4:54) The distinct moral perspective of a child. * (7:39) Leif responds to our show on vertical creativity. * (13:58) A thought exercise on who should win the 51/49 preference: players or GMs. * (15:41) Wayne and Dan's answers. * (18:09) Mary's answer. * (21:12) Brodeur's answer. * (26:15) Dan's...

* (0:29) A difficult GM learns a lesson from an Uno game. * (4:10) Navigating the internal conflict between "roleplaying" and "game". * (11:20) The need for control that ultimately comes from fear. * (16:45) Giving the players their wins. * (23:34) The ugly math about how many people aren't that good at a given task. * (29:32) The importance of having rapport before doing this. * (32:29) Saying, "...

* (0:29)  Fear the Con  appears to have catering, but we could still use more GMs! * (5:21) Laundering identities. * (7:03) Game Masters getting fixated on things that aren't important to the game they're running. * (12:00) A lack of flexibility. The  three clue rule . * (19:36) GM distress when the party solves something too quickly. * (26:32) Let's get passive-aggressive and make the GM solve th...

* (0:29) A new show type on the horizon: phone the Boot, or something similarly clever. * (2:04) Kids' games at  Fear the Con . Our episode on gaming with children  can be found here . * (4:15) Brodeur goes on  Safest Family on the Block  and  My 10th Level Paladin . * (6:17) Brodeur gets invited to crash someone else's game as a guest GM. * (10:02) The whole situation is awkward, starting with th...

* (0:29) A shoutout and thanks to  WashingCon ! * (1:09)  Fear the Con  is coming up in mid-June. * (2:25) Wayne annihilates his player-characters in a  Legion of Liberty  game, and they love it. Our episode on  action economy . * (10:22) The perspective that comes from getting your butt kicked. * (13:52) The difference between the party getting defeated, the party getting cheated, and the party g...

* (0:29) June 16th, 17th, and 18th for  Fear the Con ! You can see Mikey Mason's material  on BandCamp . * (2:40) Reviewing the idea of horizontal and vertical creativity. * (4:56) Horizontal creativity doesn't mean the player has to get lazy. In fact, it may mean the GM is getting lazy. * (12:35) How horizontal creativity can add complexity to the story. * (16:22) Understanding why a GM is limiti...

* (0:29) – Bordeur, Dan, and Julia will be at  Washingcon  this weekend: March 26th and 27th, 2022. * (2:23) – Defining how we'll be using "vertical" and "horizontal" creativity over the next two shows. * (5:45) – The laziness that often accompanies horizontal thinking. * (8:08) – Creativity within seemingly narrow (i.e. "vertical") ideas. * (11:10) – Playing within the GM's parameters and rules....

* (0:44) Get signed up for  Fear the Con ! * (1:02) Brodeur is now on TikTok for some reason.  Here's the link . Do what you will. * (5:45) Welcoming Jason back to the show. * (6:31) There I Was…When Nothing Happened. The Kickstarter  can be found here . * (11:26) Why "winning the fight" may not be a winning strategy. * (17:24) Seeing another way out. * (22:16) The five stages of avoiding violence...

* (0:28) The teeth on the dog go click, click, click. * (1:30) Brodeur discovers New Game+ mode in video games. * (10:23) Weather and environmental effects in an RPG. * (13:09) Weather as a reflection of some other truth in the setting. * (14:53) Setting the mood and adding immersion. * (19:21) Does the environment not come up more often because it's not in the rules? * (25:02) The storytelling si...

* (0:18) Time to set the mood for bedtime. * (5:06) Wayne, Boxman, and the latex room. * (14:32) Watching sports for all the wrong reasons. Brodeur joins TikTok. God forgive us all. * (16:57) Wayne pulls a plane, and Brodeur brings the pain. * (26:22) Kids versus bikes. Bikes win. * (28:54) Kids versus cars. Cars win. * (32:39) On blowing up toilets and toys. * (38:07) Waynezilla. Meanwhile, Phoen...

* (0:28) The site for  Fear the Con  is now live! * (2:07) Monday Morning Quarterbacking your own games ( the definition  for anyone that doesn't know that phrase). * (3:36) Getting past being your own worst critic. * (8:17)  Speech disfluency  and  filler words . * (12:57) Using game recordings to prepare for the next session. * (17:01) Approaching your recording with the right mindset, goals, an...

* (0:29) A fond farewell to Chad. * (4:50) Keeping the perspective that we all started somewhere. * (7:34) The amount of good advice every human being ignores; sometimes experience is the only effective teacher. * (12:49) The less you're willing to step up, the more you ought to be patient. * (16:24) Don't confuse personal style with absolute right and wrong. * (21:40) Determining whether you shou...