GamingPerspectives

     Saul and Jolene were at Dundracon and were asked to do an episode about kids and gaming.  We did an episode about three years ago but decided that our son is now 18 and share a parents perspective on how gaming has influenced and shaped our son to become the adult he is today.        Saul and Jolene go over the positive influences of gaming, especially if kids are introduced to games at a ver...

     Every gamer has that moment when they need to find a new gaming group.  Whether it is because your just moved to a new city, the last group fell apart, or just want to experience a different vibe,  you as a gamer are looking for a group.   Saul talks about the old days when there weren't many avenues that gamers had to find a group.   But today gamers have this new fangled thing called the in...

     Making your RPGs Flow Better is the result of a question posed on Facebook.  Saul and Jolene talked discussed it and decided to do an episode on it.  What can make your game run better at the table.  Make your game run smoother and faster.  Saul and Jolene talk about things the GM can do the accomplish a smoother and faster running game session.    As always, thank you all for listening.    ...

     We took the family to Dundracon's new home now in Santa Clara California.  It was a great gaming convention.  We took some new equipment and it worked really good.  The Zoom Podtrak P8 limiter really quieted down the background noise.  Problem we only have 3 microphones so two of us "shared" a microphone which really didn't work.     We would like to talk DDC staff for giving us the space to...

  Hey there listeners, today Saul and Jolene talk about Alignment in RPGs.  Saul thinks they are a thing of the past and the one RPG that made them famous, Dungeons and Dragons, will be getting rid of them in their 6th edition.   Saul and Jolene discuss, what are alignments, what is their purpose, did players ever use them, are alignments used by today's players?  These and many more questions are...

     What do you do when your Dice Go Bad.  What can you do when a player is getting really frustrated with their dice when they go through a spat of bad luck.  Saul and Jolene were talking about dice and how in a recent game of Feng Shui one of the players was rolling bad through a whole encounter.  Though Steve the Player took it in stride, he is pretty laid back and loves playing RPGs, but what...

    The Balanced Party,  quite a few TTRPG players want to have one before they set off on their adventures. Many Players feel that certain roles have to be covered in order to successfully adventure.        Saul and Jolene discuss why this idea exists and if you really do need or want a "balanced party".       Thank you all for listening      Music by Fast Astronaut, song Balance, off the album I...

     Saul was reading some reddit posts and a user had a question about "good Modern RPG games."   Saul decided it would make an interesting episode for this podcast.         Saul asked Jolene and she had some very good questions about what the user meant by "Modern".  Jolene asked if it meant the 1920's or the 2020's .  She also asked if the user wanted to play a spy game, investigative, or survi...

     Happy New Year,  yes we are well into it already.  Saul decided to share games that will be published in 2022 that he is looking forward to or are too bid to ignore.      Thanks for listening.

      In this episode Saul and Jolene discuss what Homebrews and House Rules are in RPGs.  Saul defines each one and gives examples of each.  They are different creatures though most people might think they are the same thing.        As always thanks for listening.     Music by Nathan Brumley, song Slow Brew    available from Tribeofnoise.com

In running games that have combat one of the most difficult things as a GM to work out is how hard to make an encounter.  This is usually called balancing an encounter.  In this episode Saul and Jolene discuss the idea of the Action Economy in RPGs, and how much it can impact your combat encounters.    Happy New Year and Thanks for listening.      Music by The Legend of  Wolf, song Fragments of Ti...

     This is a Spoiler Free Episode.     Full disclosure Saul and Jolene are have been fans of the Wheel of Time Books since the mid 1990's, and they both love the TV show.        With that out of the way this episode discusses the old WOTC Wheel of Time RPG and what other systems you can use to run a Wheel of Time game.         Also Saul was a bit off on his estimation of the cost of the Wheel of...

   Its the Holiday Season and Saul and Jolene discuss games that would make great gifts for your RPG Gamer.  It's not a definitive list, obviously but it should give you a few quick ideas as Christmas Day approaches.    Thanks for listening,       Music by Darija, song Christmas Story   Available from Tribeofnoise.com

    In this episode Saul and Jolene discuss TPKs.  Saul has very little experience with TPKs and had for many years seen it as negative.  A sign of a terrible GM, or Players not playing very intelligently.     Years later with one whole TPK under his belt his attitude toward TPKs has changed.  Jolene is not totally convinced that TPKs can be a good resolution to a campaign or a game.      Thanks f...

     Saul has been noticing quite a few Kickstarters and new editions of old RPGs.   Some of them really old such as Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls and Twilight 2000.   In fact the Twilight 2000 4th edition by Free League funded extremely well.       In this episode Saul and Jolene discuss what could be driving the reprinting and the new editions of some very old games and why are they doing so wel...

     At one point as a RPG players your going to get into a situation where you may not be playing in a game that isn't your favorite.  Whether the RPG game Shuffler at the Game Con did you wrong or your GM really wants to run a game that isn't exactly the type of game you really like you need to decide to play or make the best of it.      In this episode Saul and Jolene discuss games where the on...

      Saul and Jolene wondered about multiple GMs running a campaign together.  Not at the same time but alternating GM between adventures or story arcs.  When Jolene searched on the subject most of the hits were about GMs running the game together.        Saul has had a few experiences with co-gming one successful another not so much.  For the most part Saul and Jolene think Co-GMing could be a g...

     A while back Saul Kickstarted Flames of Freedom rpg.  Over the Labor Day Weekend Saul and Jolene returned from the first Game Con in over a year and a half and the Flames of Freedom greeted them when they got home.       Saul and Jolene discuss the Flames of Freedom RPG in this episode.     Thanks for Listening and Please share our podcast with Family and Friends.      Song by Silva Breeze, s...

     This topic comes from Jolene reading RPG forum and Redit posts.  Jolene asked Saul if there were any published RPGs and Saul actually had one RPG in his collection and almost Kickstarted two prehistoric RPGs.  They talked about the subject and decided to do an episode on this very interesting RPG topic.      The three games discussed are Paleo Mythic by Osprey Publishing, Wurm from Choasium a...

The Halloween episode, where Saul and Jolene talk about running Halloween Themed Rpg games.      Saul talks about obvious Halloween themes such as Horror and Mystery games that would fit in perfectly with the holiday motif.     Saul discusses well known games such as Call of Cthulhu to lesser known games such as Dark Conspiracy and Stalking the Night Fantastic.       Jolene points out to Saul othe...

     Saul and Jolene discuss playing to your GMing Strengths.  If your good at art, lean into your art skills and bring that talent to the game table.  If your good at making funny voices use that skill at your gaming table.  Saul and Jolene discuss these and other skills that can make your GMing at the game table a better experience.         Saul of course goes way off course a couple of times an...

    A few episodes ago Saul made a comment about 5th Edition D&D.  The gist of the comment was that a ruleset not intended as a generic RPG be used as a generic RPG.   This was aimed specifically at D&D 5th edition due to one the popularity of the RPG and because of that popularity it has spawned many different RPGs using that ruleset.   This was due to the number of RPG PDFs that Saul had bought...

    A listener posed a question to Saul and Jolene, does there need to be a Villain in your RPG adventure or campaign.   Saul's first  thought that sure you can and Jolene wasn't so sure.       Saul came up with three different instances where you may not need a Villain pulling all the strings trying to thwart the player characters.  Listen to that discussion between Saul and Jolene, though even a...

     The One Ring RPG is one of Saul's favorite RPGs.   Saul liked The One Ring so much, he bought extra copies of the rules to give them out to various members of his RPG group.  Two failed One Ring RPG starts he finally found a group that was enthusiastic about playing in the One Ring.  He even found of couple would be Lore Masters to run some games.      The One Ring 2nd Edition was Kickstarted...

     In this Episode Saul and Jolene talk about "Game Balance" in RPGs.  But there was a failure of a "meeting of the minds" between Saul and Jolene.   Saul was thinking of balance in encounters were Jolene was talking about rules balance.       As always thanks for listening and please share our podcast with family and friends.     Music by Brentin Davis,  song On Balance.   Available from Tribeo...