Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

  The Gaming Hut makes room for our collection of crystal balls as Patreon backer Rob Towell asks for hints on GMing prophecies and divinations. The Crime Blotter looks at a rash of highly professional heists targeting relics looted from the Old Summer Palace and held in European museums. Patreon backer Polydamas asks us to […]

On the alert for treacherous banana peels, we gather in the Gaming Hut to wonder if GUMSHOE can handle incompetent PCs. In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Frank Rafaelson wants Ken to pitch a new edition of Nephilim. How to Write Good posits that idiot plotting is not just an issue in procedure-heavy narratives. […]

    Another all-request episode opens in the familiar confines of the Gaming Hut, where Patreon backer Trung Bui wants to know how we pull out all the stops for climactic campaign-ending episodes. In the Horror Hut, backer Samwise Crider asks how to incorporate the newly discovered Icelandic and Swedish versions of Bram Stoker’s Dracula […]

  Patreon backers, specifically Patreon backer Brian Malcolm, demand yet more dungeon talk from us in the Gaming Hut. How do you lend a dungeon complex a narrative quality, instead of making it a random collection of rooms and fights? In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Christoph Sapinsky tells us about his new […]

  We’re scratchy voiced and mushy headed from our journey to Gen Con 18. The Best Four Days in Gaming got bigger than ever this year, and we’re here to sort through the awards, the announcements, and perhaps a spot of food. Also at Gen Con we talked to Emily Reinhart, whose magical girl RPG […]

  Once more we’re in the same room together with an episode recorded in our hotel the day before Gen Con. Hmm, what easy topics shall we tackle? Does the game system you’re playing expect you to generate a plot hook for your character? We’re waiting in the Gaming Hut with tips and advice. The […]

  Mystery scenario construction is once again on our minds in the Gaming Hut, as we discuss ways to run a mystery in which the investigators respond to an ongoing spree of murders, monster attacks, or the like. We make sure the roof of the History Hut is well-patched as we consider the cosmic terror […]

  Most RPG scenarios assume that it’s up to the player characters to conclusively defeat the bad guys at the end. In the Gaming Hut we ask when it’s okay to leave the mop up to outside forces. In the History Hut Patreon backer Jake asks us to unveil the mysteries of the Cagots. Ask […]

  In the Gaming Hut we look at how the same adversary can play very different roles from one game to the next. Serving as an example is Red Jack, created for Night’s Black Agents but presently contemplating a killing spree in The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. The Tradecraft Hut examines China’s latest hacking coup […]

  The Gaming Hut lies at the end of a ten foot corridor this week as Patreon backer Elias Helfer asks us, as paragons of story-driven RPGs, to explain why we think dungeons are awesome. In Fun With Science we extrapolate a future with affordable carbon reclamation. With the Over the Edge Kickstarter now in […]

  It’s been 300 installments, just a smidge shy of six years, and longtime listeners and backers know what that means. Time for another episode-length Lightning Round, as we provide uncharacteristically snappy As to Qs about games, beverages, monsters, bees and the ever-proverbial so much more. Want to pose a question to the show? Get […]

  The Gaming Hut has a bunch of vampires in the shop for adjustments as we look at the process of adapting creatures between systems. In Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else, Ken talks to Rich Ranallo about the new edition of Velvet Generation, now on Kickstarter. Listen close and you’ll hear Ken’s lightning […]

Having both recently moved big projects off our plates and into post-production, we convene in the Gaming Hut to look at lessons and surprises from our design work on Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition and The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. In the Horror Hut, we respond to the wish of Patreon backer Stephen Perpitch-Harvey to […]

Do gamers like choice more than ordinary humans? We raised the question several episodes back, and now it’s all grown up into its very own Gaming Hut segment. In the Tradecraft Hut we look at the espionage allegations leveled against the Chinese telecom giant ZTE. Then the time comes for a brand new segment, the […]

  Not by chance do we start in the Gaming Hut, for a look at the role of coincidence in various mystery genres. Then at the behest of Patreon backer Stewart Robertson we duck into the secret recesses of the Mythology Hut for a 101 on Gnosticism. In Ask Ken and Robin, backer Aaron Galen […]

  Another all-request episode begins in the Gaming Hut, where Patreon backer David Shaw wants us to turn supermarket tokens into an eldritch menace. In the Architecture Hut Ken fills us in on the Chicago Spire Pit, at the behest of backer Neal Kaplan. Backer Steve Sick joins us in the plush seating of the […]

  Patreon backer Andy Olson invites us to plan a fantasy heist in the Gaming Hut. In the Tradecraft Hut backer Andrew Miller debriefs us on the Fat Leonard case. How to Write Good looks at invented slang, with examples from Robin’s upcoming King in Yellow novel, The Missing and the Lost. Then we check […]

  Stop plinking those kobolds and pop into the Gaming Hut as we ask if today’s median gamer is less motivated than before by the prospect of in-game reward. In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Neal Dalton asks Ken how he chooses game systems and pitches them to his players. We enter the Cartography […]

  The Gaming Hut takes place inside the Tradecraft Hut, or is it the other way around, as we, with the assistance of a FOIA request, investigate CIA-designed board games. How to Write Good looks at the particular challenges of creating game fiction. In the Food Hut we open a few bottles alongside Patreon backer […]

  In the Gaming Hut, Patreon backer SR points us to an archived trove of CounterSpy magazine and asks how to make use of it in Fall of DELTA GREEN. We wouldn’t lead you on in an elaborate scheme of deception, and so have returned for the second part of a Cinema Hut question from […]

  In the Gaming Hut we cover ways to design monsters to star in investigative scenarios. We tromp into the Command Hut at the behest of Patreon backer Thomas Vallejos, who wants to know the deep secrets behind a proposal to revive the US Army’s iconic WWII-era uniform style. In Ask Ken and Robin, backer […]

  Picking up a thread left hanging a few episodes back, the Gaming Hut looks at ways to make a mundane solution to an apparently occult mystery work satisfyingly for your players. The Tradecraft Hut peers behind the headlines of the Skripal poisoning case. In the Cinema Hut Patreon backer Chris Camfield asks for the […]

Another all-request episode begins in the Gaming Hut, as Patreon backer Ruth Tillman asks us how we might game Annihilation in both its film and novel iterations. We head into the Book Hut at the behest of backer Sean Gomez, who wants to know more about Ken’s recent William Haggard fixation and spy thriller inspiration […]

Robin tries out a new maxim in That Thing I Always Say: in a game RPG session, the only way to go off track is a dead end. In The Culture of Gaming, we look at gatekeeping, which rears its head once more with the rise of streamed play. Finally, in Ken’s Bookshelf, our resident […]

  Keep a close eye on your open beverage as the Gaming Hut spins a Fall of DELTA GREEN arc from that most notorious of covert programs, MKULTRA. The Food Hut goes sequel for Instant Pot II: The Instant Pottening. Look over your shoulder for copycats as the Horror Hut investigates doppelgangers and body snatchers. […]