Gaming on the Frontier

This week we finish our discussion of solo campaigns where there is just a single player and GM and the player only plays one character.  Success in this kind of campaign is fairly hard to achieve, yet many new players or GM's wishing to play a new game find themselve here.  We give our best tips for successful character creation, equipment selection, and adventure design.

This week we explore how to make a campaign successful if you only have a single player who only wants to run a single character.  This informs the campaign from character design to adventure creation.  Naturally you should also review our series:  Packing for Success that was published in the early days of this podcast.  While we concentrate on Fringeworthy, these issues will be similar no matter...

This week we continue with John Reiher's notes on running a successful beginning or Day 0 campaign.  After editing it was a lot shorter than I expected so look for a new episode of the Tri Tac Games podcast also on the site.

This week we continue our introductory episodes on the recently published game Hard Wired Hinterland from Tri Tac Games.  John Reiher captains this episode as we cover his experiences in introducing new players to the game and some surprising differences between HH and other exploration RPGs. Links for this episode FATE RPG Savage Worlds

This week we come live From Balticon! This episode Blix hijacks the show once again to record live from a convention. His co-hosts include Scott Sigler, John Monahan, Chris Lester, and Travis Surber. We discuss ways to kick your adventures out of the mundane and into overdrive. All of my co-hosts have published works and are experienced gamers. This is a must not miss episode! Scott Sigler John Mo...

This week Bruce Sheffer presents his intro campaign for the Hard Wired Hinterland game.  He provides a series of adventures that leads to a great conclusion and forms a platform for continuing adventures.  Peter, John, and Trav help bring the awesome to this adventure arc for fledgling players and GM's in the Hard Wired Hinterland.

The state of things for the Savage Worlds edition of Fringeworthy. Spoilers, contest announcement, and just straight up goodies. Come and get some! Under the break are the new Skills and Edges for Fringeworthy. New Skills: Craft (Agility, Smarts. or Spirit) You are skilled at one of several crafts. Depending on the craft, this skill is based on Agility, Smarts, or Spirit. Some example craft focuse...

This week we explore the concept of always trying to say yes to whatever another player might want to do in a game.  Whether GM or Player we should always support each other's most creative efforts.  However there are some dangers to avoid, and we talk about that too. This starts our summer season where the episodes will intentionally be only 1/2 hour in length.  With all the conventions and famil...

This week we finish our discussion of props, sound, gaming environments, and a lot of other factors that can lift your gaming experience to new heights.

We have a lengthy interview with RPG dramatist Andre Krupa about using props, lighting, sound and more to make your adventures pop.  This week we have the first part with an hour long episode next week finishing it up.

We continue our discussion of the big bad focusing on Tri Tac's much unappreciated gem: Beach Bunny Bimbo's with Blasters.  Also we discussion Stellar Games: Night Life, A.C.E and A.C.E Supers Stellar Games products are available through Tri Tac Games.

Who is the big bad of your game?  Does he/she/it make  the player gnash their teeth, froth at the mouths, and shake their fists?  What are some examples of good big bad antagonists that really drive the story and the characters?

As promised, we have a full episode with is actually two recording sessions.  First we discuss the Fringeworthy advanced crystal powers as part of a question from Eric of the Travcast.  He wanted to know how the protective electrostatic dome power worked.  Then we follow that with a discussion of the Fringeworty Alien Corps race:  The Dimixi.  These spider-like creatures have many nuances that spr...

We continue our review of the podcast Blix recorded on Interdimensional Gaming at TotalCon.

Thanks again to Blix's friends at Totalcon for giving us so much to think about.  We discuss their points and add our own perspectives.  They suggested great enhancements to the game which we shall be developing in the future.

The podcast gang and my regular Fringeworthy group recorded this last summer.  It includes John Reiher, Jay Hailey, John Altizer, Ken Arrondee, Erik Sheffer, and Bruce Sheffer as the GM. We did have some mike dropout problems and for some reason skype recorder compressed JR and JH by 15% which had to be fixed.  However, overall I'm very pleased with this AP episode simply because it showed what I...

This week Blix hijacks the show and takes it to TotalCon. Enjoy this live recording with Blix as your MC and his three guest hosts: Jay Libby, James Carpio, and John Sussenburger. The show was recorded live before an audience and tackles inter-dimensional gaming. Being that my co-hosts, who are all games designers, have never played Fringeworthy, we spoke about inter-dimensional gaming in a broad...

We conclude our inteview with Jess Hartley, rpg developer and blogger, about how gender does and doesn't affect adventure design and character development.  We had a great time.  Thanks again Jess for being such a great guest.

This week we are joined by RPG luminary Jess Hartley who sets us straight regarding how it is in gaming regarding gender roles and how to bring the awesome to our table.  Jess has extensive writing credits and is both a longtime LARPer and table top player.  This is part 1 of a 2 hour interview to be concluded next week.

We continue our discussion of anti-heroes.  This week we concern ourselves with GM difficulties and how they work in different campaigns. This ran shorter than expected.  Next week we will have full hour of an special guest.

We explore what defines an antihero.  We look at how he or she interacts with other characters, with lots of examples from movies and other games. This is part 1.  Part 2 concludes next week.

This week we examine how to build, maintain, and rescue a cover identity in an exploration or investigation game such as Fringeworthy, Bureau 13, Call of Cthulu, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk or others of the many genres that support this kind of play.

We continue our discussion led by Jay on adding Fringeworthy to your Star Wars campaign. Then we continue to a Bureau 13 segment where we show how you can use banes to even the playing field with the creatures you hunt without having to resort to supernatural team players such as Mages, Psionicists, or Vampires.

This is the first part of our exploration of adding Fringeworthy to Star Wars while keeping all that makes Star Wars awesome.

This week we have a full Fringeworthy episode, but we are really talking non-game specific about what super tech is and how it might appear in your games. This is another episode that was found hiding on my hard drive for nearly a year so the sound quality isn't to our current standards.  Please forgive. Links for this episode: Indistinguishable from Magic by Robert L. Forward Puppeteer General Pr...