Reading D&D Aloud

An in-depth conversation with two of the most remarkable adventure-writers working today: Luke Gearing & Leo Hunt! Luke Gearing, is an incredible voice in the tabletop RPG world. His work includes Acid Death Fantasy for Troika!, the epic and disturbing Gradient Descent for Mothership and the Wages of Sin bounty book. His work is gritty, evocative, and dare I say delightfully lurid at times.  Leo H...

Today, enjoy this conversation between 3rd edition D&D lead designer Jonathan Tweet and TTRPG historians Shannon Appelcline and Ben Riggs! They discuss one of the hotbeds of gaming ferment, St. Olaf College, which produced nerd legends like Lisa Stevens, Mark Rein-Hagen, Nicole Lindroos, and Tweet himself. Then they move on to discuss one of the most influential games of all time: ARS MAGICA. Beca...

Our guest tonight is a giant in the realms — literally and figuratively. Richard Baker is a legendary Dungeons & Dragons designer, novelist, and world-builder whose fingerprints are all over the game we love. He's helped shape settings like the Forgotten Realms, Birthright, and Alternity. He designed iconic adventures. He wrote novels that bring fantasy worlds roaring to life. With all that experi...

D&D is bigger than it has ever been, but being a D&D fan in 2025 is deeply confusing.  The questions come on and on. Why do extensive promotion of a virtual tabletop for D&D, Sigil, and then give it no marketing at rollout and kill it a month later?  Why has there been an exodus of staff from the company?  Why, after a golden age during the game's 5th edition, has Wizards struggled to find tractio...

Is Wizards messing this up? We discuss with two titans of the TTRPG industry! First up, David M. Ewalt – journalist, editor, and author of the engaging and wonderful Of Dice and Men . He is currently the editor in chief of Scientific American , which may make him the most prestigious personage I've ever had on this podcast. He is also the author of Defying Reality: The Inside Story of the Virtual...

This week, we go deep into the Old School Revolution with Old School Essentials creator Gavin Norman and Josh McCrowell of His Majesty the Worm! Gavin Norman is the mind behind some of the most exciting work in the modern OSR scene. He is best known for Old-School Essentials, the gold standard for clean, accessible retro-gaming rules that have brought thousands of new players into old-school play....

My guest tonight is a legend in the world of game design and storytelling. Richard Dansky is best known as the mind behind some of the darkest and most compelling corners of the World of Darkness. He served as the developer for Wraith: The Oblivion and helped shape the haunting masterpiece Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah, one of the most powerful books ever written for a roleplaying game. But...

This one's a banger: D&D designer Steve Winter meets Ben Milton of Questing Beast! Ben Milton is a game designer, YouTube sage, and sorceror-king of the OSR demigod! He's the mind behind Knave 2e and the force behind Questing Beast, your portal to the wild, weird wonders of old-school RPGs. If you like sharp rules, deadly dungeons, and freedom at the table, Ben's your guy. And don't sleep on Steve...

Not one, not two, but THREE RPG HISTORIANS in one hour of amazing audio! Today, we are fortunate to have with us Shannon Appelcline, author of the magisterial THIS IS FREE TRADER BEOWULF, which is a history of the Traveller RPG. He's probably most famous for DESIGNERS AND DRAGONS, which is his multi-volume history of seemingly every role-playing game company that ever put up a shingle and slammed...

I can't believe I got these two on the show together! First, Kevin Crawford is a TTRPG design legend. My favorites from his work are  Stars Without Number , and Worlds Without Number , both of which have been tremendously successful and influential as paragons of sleek game design and peerless GM tools. Stars was what I ran during the pandemic, and Worlds I read, and since the birth of my son, I r...

Who saved Dungeons & Dragons? How many people could say that they saved Dungeons & Dragons? Off the top of my head, I would say that the list of people who could say they saved D&D at some point over the course of its 51-year history is less than 20. But I believe I have one of those people who could credibly tell a story explaining how they saved D&D on the podcast with me today, because today I...

The theme of today's conversation is Ravenloft, but I don't know think that's the best place to actually start introducing my three guests. Instead, I am going to say that I have a very addictive personality. I play one video game about every three years. But one of the video games I have played is MASS EFFECT, and with us today is the accomplished Canadian voice actor, the voice of Commander Shep...

Are hexcrawls the adventure's final form? We discuss that very question with two of the premier purveyors of the hexcrawl format in the 21st century: Jacob Hurst & WF Smith, aka Prismatic Wasteland. Jacob is one of the brilliant minds behind  The Dark of Hot Springs Island, a hexcrawl of evil elves, interdimensional drug dealers, and beached whales. Smith is the lead designer or  Barkeep on the Bo...

I have interviewed bestselling authors, Ivy League professors, and comic creators whose work has gone on to generate billions at the box office.  But as a class, TTRPG professionals seem to be the smartest people I regularly talk to. I discuss this and other fascinating points this week with Stephen Radney-Macfarland, a designer with a TTRPG resume longer than my arm.  Ben interviewed 2nd ed desig...

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 Be...

Shannon Appelcline is a TTRPG historian par excellence. His  Designers & Dragons  set a high bar for the field and I cannot recommend it too highly. HIs recent Traveller history,  This is Free Trader Beowulf, is similarly excellent. Today, we talk with Shannon about his time in the trenches of RPG history! Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's vide...

Ask a round of nerds what the first RPG was, and you'll likely get D&D as your answer. Some might shout out Blackmoor. A few may say Braunstein. But what if the answer was... something else? A long talk with the Thucydides of RPG history, Jon Peterson! Pick up the first volume of  Playing at the World 2nd Edition  here! Read Jon's article on  Western Gunfight  here! You can read Michael Korns's  M...

Mary Fan is a sci-fi stalwart, a prolific author whose novels include the Jane Colt series among many, many, others, and lifelong reader. She shares with us her favorite short story, which happens to be by Polish genius Stanislaw Lem, and of course we argue about Star Wars and Star Trek.  Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and there's video! You NEED to see...

You will not regret spending an hour listening to this conversation between 5th edition designer Mike Mearls and Shadowdark designer Kelsey Dionne. The pair are without question two of the most outstanding game designers working in TTRPGs today, and in this episode, they each give us a peek into their persons and processes. You can find Mike's Patreon here! And you can be a late backer of Kelsey's...

Lin Codega is the most important gaming journalist in the history of TTRPGs. They broke the OGL scandal wide open and changed the industry forever. In this hour-long conversation, Ben picks their brain about the state of things today, and where they are going next.  Find further delight in Lin's words at Rascal!   Ben interviewed 2nd ed designer Zeb Cook in Hugh Hefner's suite at Gary Con and ther...

The pulp fiction that influenced Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu was once considered disposable entertainment. But now it is taught in school! This week we pick the brain of Dr. Jason Ray Carney, a professor of English at Christopher Newport University who teaches weird fiction!  The next thing we're going to release on the Patreon feed is an interview with 2nd edition designer Zeb Cook fro...

Stu Horvath is an RPG historian you need to hear about. His book,  Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground  is enlightening, engaging, entertaining, and informative. Oh, and gorgeous! It is a romp through 50 plus years of iconic RPG products, from the obvious to the obscure. In this episode, we discuss Chaosium's  Theives' World . Pick up Stu's book here!   The next thing we're going to release...

Shadowdark  is the new hotness in the OSR community. Shadowdark is a cobra. Fast. Elegant. Deadly. Beautiful. I'm running Shadowdark because it is a game that demands to be played. The internet asks, is  Shadowdark  a D&D-slayer? In this hour-long seminar from Gary Con, Kelsey Dionne gives us a deep look into the workings of the game, her company, and most relevant to the question of Shadowdark  a...

Michael O'Brien is vice-president of Chaosium, the oldest extant RPG company, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year! In this interview, Ben & Michael go back to the dawn of fantasy RPGs, and talk about the brilliant minds that have made Chaosium home this past half-century.  Check out O'Brien's  Sun Country, which he described as "Spartans in the old west" here! Want to hear  Call of...

Cory Burns is at the forefront of D&D actualplays, because his incorporates audience participation! We chew the fat with Burns, creator of Adventures Improvised, which plays D&D in front of an audience using powerpoints and audience participation. He has his own RPG, Wanderverse , which will be kickstarting on March 25th. Playtest materials for the game can be found here! We discussed MIT's ion dr...