Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Gather in the Gaming Hut as we discuss differences of perspective between game players and game designers. In How to Write Good we explore that most ancient of all fiction maxims. What does it mean to write what you know? Erik Otterberg supplies us the subject for Ask Ken and Robin: what if H. P. […]

Feel all leafy-like as Ken issues an autumnal Travel Advisory for his recent road trip to Lovecraft’s Vermont and Marblehead. Bathe in the cathode rays of the Television Hut as we compare and contrast two nerd-relevant new shows—”Sleepy Hollow” and “Marvel’s Agents of Shield.” In Ask Ken and Robin we take on a Jeromy French […]

To what extent should an adventure tell a story to the GM who is about to read it? Journey with us into the Gaming Hut to find out. Then fire up your laptops with their Cartography Hut screensavers and geographic information systems to look at the genre possibilities of digital cemetery mapping. In Ask Ken […]

With the smoke from our burning village billowing behind us, we take momentary refuge in the Gaming Hut to discuss great migration campaign frames. Under the war-room glare of the Geopolitics Hut we look at the averted strike on Syria and the limits of military intervention. Ask Ken and Robin features a Tim Daly question […]

Gather your Hegelian war band around the speakers to listen to our opening Gaming Hut segment, in which we look at ways to transform groups of murder hoboes into ensemble procedural casts. We open a historical case file in the Tradecraft Hut, looking at the role spy novelist William Le Queux, abetted by the Daily […]

If it’s late September, it must be time for Robin to exit bleary-eyed from the Lightbox theater and stumble into the Cinema Hut to regale us with his findings from the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Listen to Ken wish he had more crossover with the upcoming Chicago Film Festival, or follow along at home. […]

Join us for a very special live episode of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, live from FanExpo Canada. Hop in our time machine and journey back to Toronto on the weekend before Labor Day to hear about ninja anti-competition efforts, our most hated gaming clichés, and much, much more. Not to mention the toxic […]

Having survived his epic three weekends, three conventions journey into the heart of geekdom, Ken returns to issue a Travel Advisory on his final leg, which took him to the newly de-asterisked DragonCon. In How to Write Good we consider discipline, routine, and various techniques to keep the productivity flowing at the keyboard. Then Ken […]

After a prefatory Travel Advisory on their activities at FanExpo Canada and a Food Hut trawl through the gustatory delight’s of Robin’s neighborhood, Ken and Robin take a nostalgic look back over the haul of treasures secured in Toronto for Ken’s Bookshelf. Gangsters, pirates and ancient Americans flood into the Hite Memorial Library as we […]

Somewhat rested but still with a fog upon their vocal chords, Ken and Robin issue a joint Travel Advisory for Gen Con 2013. Come for the shameless bragging, stay for the awards analysis, industry temperature taking, panel highlights, and Indianapolis food tips. Join us in a hearty welcome to our latest sponsor, Gorilla Games, now […]

In the Gaming Hut we power up our universal translators to contemplate the treatment of languages in roleplaying. Then we review our way through the summer blockbuster season in the Cinema Hut. In an Ask Ken and Robin lightning round, we dispatch questions right and left, entertaining queries from the diceless to the non-violent. Then, […]

Join hands and sing fhtagn fhtagn as we self-congratulate ourselves on an epic year of podcasting. Then sidle past the mutual back-patting into the Gaming Hut, where we consider the export potential of DramaSystem series pitches to other roleplaying games. Rear back in shock as the Food Hut hosts our most heretical segment ever, in […]

In Ask Ken and Robin, Jacob Ansari asks about playing Night’s Black Agents in previous time periods. The Tradecraft Hut hosts a look at Jasper Maskelyne, the so-called War Magician. In The Business of Gaming we examine the unfortunate implosion of the Kickstarter-funded boardgame The Doom that Came to Atlantic City. This episode was recorded […]

We flip through some pages in the Gaming Hut as we discuss the evolution of roleplaying game graphic design, from aesthetics to utility. Then we slip into the plush seats of the Cinema Hut to review the career of the great Hong Kong director Johnnie To. His latest masterpiece, Drug War, awaits a North American […]

From the Cartography Hut we send our separate adventurers on intercut journeys of exploration, as we riff on the fantasy game potential of the Atlas of True Names series. How to Write Good connects the dots of stakes, consequences, and reader engagement. In Ask Ken and Robin, Geoffery Nelson asks how iconic characters can engage […]

Events in Egypt have us taking shelter in the Gaming Hut to suggest approaches to uprisings and revolutions in roleplaying narrative. Then Robin beckons you to the Cinema Hut for a quick intro to Chinese film, as seen through three rarities recently screened at the TIFF Lightbox: the suppressed censorship satire Unfinished Comedy, showbiz melodrama […]

We start in the Gaming Hut by contemplating the massive Call of Cthulhu campaign. What drives the love for this classic cornerstone of roleplaying obsession? In Ask Ken and Robin, Leó Páll Hrafnsson wants to know what the deal is with the famously lost Ninth Roman Legion. Grab the remote in the Television Hut as we […]

We shuttle over to the Gaming Hut to continue our discussion of omnipresent surveillance, this time in the context of your roleplaying group’s tendency to turtle up. The unveiling of the Word Hut sees us finding our preferences between US and UK words and punctuation. Petrol, anyone? In Ask Ken and Robin, we respond to […]

Summer convention season kicks off with a Travel Advisory on Ken’s trip to Origins. Robin beckons you into the Cinema Hut to share his rare chance to see the first Wong Fei-Hung film, 1949’s The Whip That Smacks the Candle. Having established a Tradecraft Hut, we are naturally behooved to mull the implications of the […]

Meet us in the Gaming Hut for techniques to make your characters’ backstories shine during RPG play. In Ask Ken and Robin we (meaning mostly Ken) address a question from friend of the site Jeromy French: “are there merits to reading August Derleth’s Lovecraftian fiction and why?” Then we fire up the grills of the […]

This week’s Travel Advisory takes us to unfamiliar territory—not just the capital of Robin’s beloved Canada, but the On Words Conference held by the Writers’ Union of Canada. Come for compare/contrast between traditional and gaming publishing, stay for the Ottawa facts. We bid a wistful Book Hut farewell to Jack Vance, the titan of SF […]

First up, Ken and Robin enter the Gaming Hut to transcend their origins and discuss transhuman RPGs. How do we create inhuman characters human players can still portray? In the Tradecraft Hut, we discuss the implications of the Obama administration’s war on leakers, and how to bring press revelations into your espionage gaming. Robin then […]

In the Gaming Hut, we examine the tradition of flaws and disads in RPGs. Do they put the “fun” in dysfunctional? Then Ken and Robin adjourn to the Cinema Hut, where they try not to tell you too much about Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color while urging you to see it, and from there jump into […]

Ken and Robin enter the Gaming Hut to catch you up on what they’re playing right now, from xenoarcheaological exploration to carnies caught between the devil and alien invaders. In Ask Ken and Robin, Terry O’Connell asks, “What’s your take on the Beyonce as Illuminati meme?” How to Write Good leads us into a general […]

Two mysterious doors provide ingress into the Gaming Hut. Which one do we take, as we contemplate adventure structure and the choice points that comprise it? Ask Ken and Robin takes an alternate history turn as Crane Brinton wonders: What does the alternate timeline where the Kaiser won WWI look like? Then we hop into […]