Gaming on the Frontier

Adventuring in the 5th to 11th centuries:  Americas This week John Reiher takes us on a tour of ancient americas.  Mayans and Mixtecs and Mound Builders, Oh my! 1:49: Exploring the New World 5th to 11th Centuries 2:03: The Mound Builders . 2:27: The Anasazi . 3:00: The Mound Builders: What we know about them. 4:00: The Mayans: the Classic period . They lived in city states, ruled by a God king . 5...

Bruce and Blix continue their discussion of how taking the time to understand how objects of huge or micro scale can greatly affect an adventure.  They continue on and add the meta discussion of how big or small to  make your campaign as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSY42-QTfDM&NR=1

This week Blix and Bruce discuss how differences in scale can radically change the nature of an adventure and any solutions to problems presented in the adventure.  Why this is important in a science fiction game. 01:20 – Dealing with super fast speeds in space. Astronomical Unit , Speed of Light 04:10 – Saving an entire society and dealing with large scale problems. 06:30 – Dealing with the small...

We explore Persia and India from the 5th to the 11th century.  Hop a ride with sinbad and catch the belt of Vishnu. This one is a little fact heavy but we have provided plenty of links to everything disscussed so you can listen without taking notes. You can look everything up from the notes page later on. Persia 01:50 – Trade in Persia Caliphate , Sunni , Shi'ah , Caliph 03:30 – Missions 04:20 – H...

We continue our discussion of what adventure and play technique bring the awesome.  This week we concentrate on teams pooling their skills and backgrounds to provide better solutions than trying to create uber characters. 01:20 – The role of the essential skills. Giving free skills, allowing automatic successes, including NPCs. Ways to handle failed essential checks. 09:25 – Playing more than one...

Part 1 of our discussion of adventure design and play techniques that either worked well or were really terrible ideas.  We discuss good methods to motivate characters and how to make the game more fun for new and experienced players.  Sometimes both. Note: We now move to our summer format we announced 2 weeks ago.  Our episodes will only be 1/2 hour long instead of about an hour .  Episodes that...

We continue our adventuring in the past series with a set of podcasts on the 5th to 11th centuries.  We start off with Africa, ramrodded by our good friend Trav.   Essay on Africa Metallurgy in Africa Route of Lost Kingdoms Kingdoms in Pre-Colonial Africa Ancient African Kingdoms Swahili Language Black Like Me African Folklore Ark of the Covenant - Ethiopia Ark of the Covenant - Southern Africa Ta...

So you want to time travel and the time shifted worlds aren't enough.  Okay.  We tell you what works, what doesn't and how to not wreck your campaign and avoid screwing over your players with time travel.    Players take note:  This is the hardest kind of adventure to write and run so if the gm hands it to you, drink the Kool-aide.  It's yummy!

Hey fringers, We were are a little bit behind this week but we threw together a short segment about what's going on with Fringeworthy. John and Blix talk about Savage Worlds, convention appearances, and our summer schedule. Enjoy! We also threw in a promo at the end of the PodCast for the new Scott Sigler novel Ancestor. Let's help him reach number one this month by pre-ordering his book! Go to ww...

This week we discuss how to handle failure in a campaign.  This is a companion piece to the Jay Hailey interview.

This episode we talk about sea vessels and all of the adventure aspects of using them. This is part of our on-going series about vehicles on the Fringepath. Enjoy maties! Show notes to follow soon with lots-o-links.

In this episode we talk to Bruce about his new group running in the middle campaign. we then go on to discuss the middle campaign in general. We wrap it up with a little discussion about the upcoming Fringeworthy Savage Worlds edition. This was originally part of the water vehicles episode but this bit ran fairly long. Sooooo, I stripped it out into it's own short episode. Think of this past week...

Got behind in the next podcast so I'm editing a recent interview with Richard Tucholka and his crew in Tri Tac Central (Michigan).  He talks about his recent releases of WeirdZone and HardWired Hinterland and his game in development ElfWinds.  I'll have the audio file posted soon.  Please be patient.  And I'm trying to get back on schedule for next Sunday's release as well. Well, it is pretty obvi...

We are joined by Trav of the Trav cast for an interview of Jay Hailey.  Jay recently chronicled his attempt at running a variant Fringeworthy campaign with just one player.  He shares his successes and failures. There is some really good ideas about running what he calls a Meta Campaign.

This week we turn our eyes skyward as wondrous vehicles fill the heavens with explorers no doubt.  Join us as we discuss the best vehicles for exploration and travel.   0:00 types of vehicles --exploration --long distance --bad land or water access 3:30 surveillance -- drones -- balloons -- limits of drones and how to surmount them. 10:30 Powered Parasails and Powered Hang gliders . 16:30 The pers...

here is a promo for Tri Tac Games latest RPG - Hard Wired Hinterland.  A wonderful place for pulpish action and high flying fun.

In this short broadcast we discuss putting 01:15  Fringeworthy Facebook Page 02:11  Fringeworthy can be in any game or adventure you play 03:45  Fringeworthy tools in Rogue 417 06:00 Calling all listeners for podcast topics you want to hear 06:25 We need someone to post a review of Fringeworthy on the various rpg discussion sites. RPGNet The Forge 07:30 We will provide convention support for anyon...

Being a fringeworthy explorer is a great honor but it gets old after the mellor are chewing at your boot.  We discuss monetary and intangible rewards that can be given to the characters to keep them and their players interested in the campaign.  Also we discuss how a detailed backstory or player created character motivations helps the gm and the other players to trigger events that interest the ch...

This week we talk about all the different kinds of vehicles you can use for your land explorations from trucks to assault vehicles and more. 02:00 vehicles have to match the look of vehicles on the world or it will raise notice. 03:00 first recon use dirt bike 05:00 keeping motorcycles quiet (mufflers or electric engine)  Issues with air powered bikes? http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/03/zero-motor...

For this episode we talk about Fringe in Space! What takes to get into space, where you can go once you're there, and what sort of adventures you can have in space! Oh the places you can go to in space, and you can bike there with ease! If you really want to get into the nitty gritty of space travel, we recommend the renown web site: The Atomic Rocket Page ! Put together by Winchell Chung, also re...

Welcome to James P. Buchanan.  He is our guest this week, the best expert on transhumanism I know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

We showed you which vehicles could work with the standard technology of Earth Prime.  Now we go with the workhouse engine for most fringe exploration before we jump off to the really high tech with gravity powered vehicles, fringe trains, and the fringeworthy people mover. 02:30 – Diesel Engines: The most common and useful type of fringe vehicle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine 12:50 –...

This week we do part 1 of our study of what options for vehicles that actually can work on the Fringepaths. (Links will be added soon!) 1:09 Introduction: Fringe enabled vehicles. The problems and pitfalls. 2:09 In the beginning, we talk about the history of vehicles on the pathways. 2.31 Bicycles: Mountain, Touring bikes. Why bikes are easy to use on the pathways. You can carry much more and tow...

This week we mix it up. We had three segments that came up on three different shows. None of these segments were relative to the topic of the show and none of them were long enough to run as their own show. Sooooo.... we decided to put them together into one "mix mash" show. 01:02 Topic 1: Listener Mail Billion6 asks "Does IDET hire alien fringewalkers?" 12:00 Topic 2: Fringeworthy Bible We talk a...

This week our hosts discuss how wearing the right protective gear can make all the difference in an encounter.  Straight armor and differences between systems is noted plus protective gear vrs hazards such as fire, noxious fumes, and nerve gas.  We also discuss the best defense: a good offense - Weapons.  Each host lists his favorite weapon loadouts and why for both general exploration and mellor...