Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

We start with a visit to the Gaming Hut to discuss the play utility of illustrations. In the Food Hut we explore the legends and lore of packaged goods, including the secret origins of Cool Whip, the Twinkie, and Gatorade. Conrad Kinch Asks Ken and Robin how one guides a playtester to greatness. Michael Cule […]

The undertones of jet lag in Robin’s voice indicate the issuance of another Travel Advisory, in this case concerning his lovely trip to Germany’s Hannover Spielt. Beers mentioned include: Herrenhäuser Pilsener, Astra Arschkalt, Schneider Aventinus, and Robin and John’s fave, Höss Doppel-Hirsch (the name of which Robin completely mangles during the podcast.) The trip also […]

Ken and Robin hit a bare and blackened stage to bring the improv concept of “yes anding” to the Gaming Hut. In Ask Ken and Robin, they answer Kevin J. Maroney’s question about picking a game for roleplaying newbies. In its return appearance, How To Write Good tackles the basics of short story structure. And […]

We start in the leatherbound precincts of the Book Hut for a look at a classic piece of early travel writing, Alexander William Kinglake’s Eothen. Grab as a Gutenberg ebook, or in print. Still in a choleric mood, we nip over to the Gaming Hut to examine the presentation of epidemic disease in fantasy gaming […]

Ken and Robin meet in the Gaming Hut to workshop a game mechanic—the interpersonal disadvantage. The Tradecraft Hut uses further evidence that Blackwater served as a CIA front as an opportunity to riff on the differences between reality levels in espionage games and fiction. Ask Ken and Robin sees our intrepid heroes venturing from behind […]

We kick off with another Travel Advisory, this one centered on Ken’s quest to Las Vegas and the Gama Trade Show, to prise from it premonitions of the new hotness. Then History Hut takes a turn for the glandular as we examine the careers of quack testicular transplanter John R. Brinkley and perfectly respectable testicular […]

Scoops of polyhedrals in hand, we enter the Gaming Hut to contemplate the power of experience points. Are they justified in a genre-emulative design? In Ask Ken and Robin, Darren Watts asks Ken to explain how zombies can be one of the two great 20th century myths, since this means either Superman or Godzilla aren’t? […]

In the Gaming Hut, we consider the soul of the orc. How do you present this classic fantasy trope without letting in the toxin of real world racism? History Hut returns to crime in Chicago for a consideration of its gangland, then and now. In Ask Ken and Robin, Robin is asked to further expound […]

In our latest venture into the Gaming Hut, we consider the classic sandbox versus railroad opposition. Useful dichotomy, or intellectual black hole that swallows all other argument? From there we gain access to the Tradecraft Hut, to examine the wartime disinformation career of thriller novelist Dennis Wheatley. In Ask Ken and Robin, Craig Maloney prompts […]

We start by venturing into the Genre Hut to limn the fraught boundaries of the Fake Nerd crisis. Our examination of the Chelyabinsk meteor takes us into the Eliptony Hut, where we trace its impact on, and incorporation into, a cluster of competing conspiracy theories. In Ask Ken and Robin we tackle the role of […]

That Vitamin D sheen you see on Ken’s glossy coat shows that he recently escaped Chicago’s frigid embrace for the sunshine of California’s Bay Area, necessitating another Travel Advisory as we review his trip to Dundracon. An unusual clatter of gunfire punctuates activities at the Food Hut, as we parse press reports of connections between […]

In Ask Ken and Robin, we field Conrad Kinch’s query about the politics of game design. Do a designer’s political beliefs show up in his work? Then, as you knew we would, we engage in some History Bending in honor of Richard III’s recently-confirmed excavation from a Leicester car park. Our new segment How To […]

In an unprecedented merger of the Gaming Hut with the Politics Hut, we look to political scientist Steven Teles’ theory of government as kludgeocracy to demonstrate why government should hire game designers like Ken and Robin to playtest their legislation for them. Then we take latitudes with the longitudes of the Cartography Hut to examine […]

In the Gaming Hut, we mull the economics of game design. Will the Kickstarter wave usher in a new era of component-driven play? Then it’s off to the History Hut for Ken’s long-anticipated final showdown with the historical legacy of Woodrow Wilson. Was he really America’s worst president? In Ask Ken and Robin, we are […]

After two bits of preamble business, one elegiac and the other bathetic , we issue a Travel Advisory to wring vicarious enjoyment from Ken’s journey to WarpCon in Cork, Ireland. We then step into the Cinema Hut to regale one and all with our top ten picks from the sterling movie year that was 2012. […]

Kicking off with another service-oriented segment of Ask Ken and Robin, we suggest ways to introduce a rich setting to players who are unfamiliar with it. Then we inaugurate the Eliptony Hut, first by explaining what the heck eliptony is, then squeezing adventure and story ideas from the latest in white-hot weirdness, the Martian ground […]

In a special Cartography Hut / Ask Ken and Robin crossover, Troy Holoday invites us to contemplate the vanished D&D roles of mapper and caller. On a serious note we go to the History Hut for a sense of perspective, if not solace, on America’s relationship with the gun. In the Cinema Hut Robin finally […]

Our first episode of the new year begins in the Gaming Hut, where we examine the difference between showing up to be entertained, and showing up to play. Ask Ken and Robin fields Paul Weimer’s question about fudging die rolls—when, if ever, is it acceptable? The Politics Hut takes on the classic modernist curvature of […]

In our final episode of 2012, we issue a Travel Advisory on our recent trip to Dragonmeet in London. A seamless segue then ushers us to the wonder of Ken’s Bookshelf, in which Robin vicariously enjoys the impressive pile of tomes Ken liberated from the British Isles during his journey. With yet another end of […]

Join us for our first episode recorded in front of a live audience, in the council chambers at Kensington Town Hall as part of Dragonmeet 2012. We welcome special guest Simon Rogers for an uber edition of Ask Ken and Robin, which in turn encompasses a panoply of our trademark huts. In the process as […]

This week’s episode  commences with a trip to the Gaming Hut to consider Robin’s dichotomy of rewards versus incentives, which segues into a discussion of the co-designer syndrome in playtest feedback. Ask Ken and Robin fields a question from Brett Evill on how one might bend history to add Ruritania-style postage stamp states back to […]

In Ask Ken and Robin, we examine the popularity, or lack thereof, of the western as a roleplaying genre, and point to models historical and cinematic for the adventuring party in spurs and Stetsons. We venture into a particularly cramped and cluttered iteration of the Cartography Hut to spin a passel of story threads from […]

Inspired by Christian Marclay’s cinechronological video installation The Clock, Gaming Hut examines time and pacing in roleplaying. The Schaudenfreude Institute initiates a new PhD course and Ken plots a bold path forward for his beloved Republican party as we enter the ballot booth-like confines of the Politics Hut to mull the 2012 Presidential Election. In […]

In The Business of Gaming, Robin shares the Kickstarter lessons he learned from the recent bumper crowdfund of his new roleplaying game, Hillfolk. Ken brings the light of his presence to a devastated New Jersey in Travel Advisory, recounting his adventures at Metatopia. Ask Ken and Robin envisions the Dominion of America, the alternate world […]

We kick off with another film festival wrap-up in the Cinema Hut, this time Ken’s visit to the Chicago International Film Festival. Ask Ken and Robin asks us to contemplate the differences between two of Robin’s game engines, DramaSystem and Skulduggery, leading us to contemplate a broader old saw: does system matter? In the Cartography […]