Gaming on the Frontier

This week we finish our discussion of different kinds of Bureau 13 adventures.  Not the same old find and kill the monster adventures. This week we concentrate on more subtle changes.  Ultimately it depends on you the player and GM to be willing to step outside your comfort zone and try something truly different.

This week we open a new book on Bureau 13 Adventures.  The adventures we've never run or experienced but would like to. Each game has its genre tropes.  That can limit the game.  How can we break out of those expected adventures and run truly new adventures?

Mike Larsen ran 2 Bureau 13 games at a convention in New England called Carnage recently.  He tells us all about the fun he had. If any of our listeners are running any Tri Tac Games at any convention.  Please contact us about prize support.  We love to support game demos of our products.

This week we finish our exploration of playing an animated character, either in an animated world or here in the real world.

In the Fringeworthy Portal Maps there is a world where cartoon characters - toons are real.  We explore what their reality would be like and whether is would be possible for a  team of explorers to even visit them.  What are the rules of physics, psychology, even biology? 1. Toons only injured by cutting weapons -- can be stunned for an action by bludgeoning objects exploding objects electrified o...

This week we conclude our discussion on how to defeat the mellor invasion of Earth Prime.  We jump right into it after just a minute or so of review so you might want to listen to the first part again where we explained how quickly the mellor could create a massive assault force while undermining defense efforts with biological attacks and command replacement by mellor 4th columnists. We concluded...

We finish our holiday podcast discussing what a world would be like if Santa Clause was as he is depicted in 20th century America and had the job of providing toys for all good girls and boys on Christmas.  Assuming that he didn't do everything with magic, it would be a very different world.

This our famous holiday episode.  First we discuss what we would bring to the holiday feast if we had no limits.  This is both an in and out of game discussion.  Everything from T-rex to the dish of the day is game. Then we hypothesize why there are so many mid winter traditions in our world.  We give examples and background if we have them.  Mid winter festivals and rituals are excellent addition...

This week we continue our exploration of taking back Earth Prime if taken over by an outside force.  We move into the middle campaign and sic the mellor on the Fringeworthy.  This is the first time we've really detailed how to use the mellor to destroy a planet and we were all surprised to find out that in a modern setting, it only takes about a month.  Wow. Jay Hailey returns as a host.  Welcome...

We return to our episode "We Lost EarthPrime" and examine the possibility that Earth Prime could be recovered if it was taken by Fringe Pirates. We discuss the likely Fringe Pirate tactics, their long term plans, and what resources exist to mount against them to take back Earth Prime.

We conclude our discussion on how to best play the inhuman aspects of monsters in games, especially Bureau 13.

This week we followup on a very early episode where we laid out the best supernatural creatures to add to a bureau 13 team.  In this segment we talk about making sure the monsters are played in all their inhumanity, not just a pc in a rubber suit. Next week we conclude this episode.

This week we take a sober look at what losing your planet means to your campaign.  While this can be a campaign ender, it can also provide the fresh start you might be looking for. While we discuss this in the context of the interdimensional exploration game, Fringeworthy, this topic is germaine to almost any game and campaign.  What happens when the characters are cut off from all that they know...

This week we finish our discussion of sample missions that can be used to evaluate your Bureau 13 team's effectiveness.

This week we finish our discussion of phobias, character or player and how they can and should affect your game.

This week Amber leads on a fearful run as we shudder and flee the subject of Phobias.  How can they be represented in your game?  What advantages are there to having such a crippling quality?  Find out this week and next.

That's right.  We've completed 3 years of your favorite podcast of interdimensional exploration and adventure.  This week we look back over all the episodes we've done.  We are joined by Richard Tucholka who give us a lot of insight into his newly released products, some Tri Tac Lore, and what is planned for next year.

This week we begin our assignment of creating effective Bureau 13 training mission.  These are missions that are designed to evaluate some aspect of a Bureau 13 team's performance, perhaps to allow them to be given high security rating or more difficult missions.  The crucial aspect is that these are not "real" supernatural incidents, even though the supernatural may be part of the trapping of the...

Bruce and Blix talk about our time running games at Dragon*Con 2012. This was originally a ConMen PodCast episode but it was so full of Tri Tac goodness we decided that you would like to hear it. When you get done with this episode make sure to check out the ConMen at conmenpodcast.com and look for us on iTunes and Facebook .

This week we finish our discussion of what was life like during the very early years after the discovery of the Fringe Portal in the antarctic. We discussion the construction of Hatsumi base,  political ramifications of the portal discovery,  contact with intelligent aliens, and contamination of Earth Prime and other worlds by unthinking actions of the early explorers and the Victorians.

This week we return to our user questions.  What happened after the Fringe Portal was discovered in the Antarctic until the first expeditions ventured out onto the Fringepaths? Turns out it was a political hotbed.  We discuss the initial construction of access to the portal as well as possible alternatives to Hatsumi base as a starting point for your campaign. This is part one.  We will finish nex...

This week we step back from the trenches and catch a load of shrapnel as we discuss Character Deaths:  When is it okay for a character to die.  What kind of deaths are meaningful.  What kind of campaigns support memorable character deaths.  We have Erik Spahr from the TravCast visiting this week as well.

this week we are distracted by all the things that take us away from the main quest line.  What are these things and can we eat them?  "SQUIRREL!"

Almost Dead from Gencon 2012!  We recorded this about 2AM on Saturday right after Savage Saturday Nights.  We ran 10 demos of Tri Tac Games this year, at least half using the Savage Worlds System, two using d20 Modern and even 2 using the original Tri Tac rules by Richard Tucholka, himself. This was the first time all the podcast hosts were physically in the same room together.

We continue to re-broadcast the John Reiher's SundaySkyper, Sunday Brunch episodes of HardWired Hinterland Actual Play.  In episode 5 we have a knock down, bone breaking, bare fist fight between one of our heroes and a great ape.  Who will break a bone first?  Will it end in a knockout or will it go to the bloody end? The descriptions are realistic so you were warned.