Ludonarrative Dissidents

SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE is a game of fantasy shenanigans in a labyrinthine sinking city populated by rogues, schemers, cultists, swashbucklers and your player characters, written by Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner, and published by Pelgrane Press in 2022. It uses a variation of the Gumshoe system originally created by Robin D. Laws in 2007. Swords of the Serpentine at Pelgrane Press Swords of the Se...

Our livestream discussion for June! Watch the episode on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

CHICAGO BY NIGHT is a 2018 city sourcebook for Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition , written by Matthew Dawkins and a host of others, and published by Renegade Game Studios, who have the rights to do all this stuff these days. The most recent iteration of a sourcebook that first appeared in 1991, this edition is by far the longest at 357 pages. It describes the vampire culture, clans, people, locat...

Our livestream discussion for May, featuring special guest Jerry Grayson of Khepera Publishing . Check out the Godsend Agenda today. Watch the episode on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Our April livestream! Watch the livestream on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

IN MEDIAS RES is a short modern-horror scenario (‘adventure’ is the wrong word for it) by John Scott Tynes, originally designed for Cthulhu Now and first printed in The Unspeakable Oath issue 10 in 1993. It was reprinted in The Resurrected #3 – Out of the Vault in 2003. Thirty years after its publication, it still lives up to its reputation as an unflinching piece of modern horror RPG design that’...

Our March livestream! Watch the livestream on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

MAELSTROM is a paperback-format RPG written by Alex Scott and published in 1984 by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books in the UK. It contains rules for roleplaying in Europe, mostly England, at the time of the Tudors (the 1500s), with a solo adventure, a sample adventure and a herbiary. It is an interesting comparison to the other 1980s British RPG set in a faux-Europe of the early Renaissan...

We have a special guest, Adam Scott Glancy, one of the Delta Green co-authors! He clarifies a few points about Delta Green Countdown. Watch the livestream on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Sponsor: Technical Difficulties Podcast - check out an excellent actual play RPG podcast, featuring Delta Green, Eclipse Phase, and many other fine systems featured on LND. Delta Green Countdown is a massive sourcebook for the original edition of Delta Green. It blows the doors off the world of Delta Green, reaching wider and digging deeper to map the terrain of the twisted pulp apocalypse we call...

Our first livestream of the year! We talk about new games we played and a grabag of topics. Watch the livestream on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

ALICE IS MISSING is a self-contained one-session RPG for 3–5 players, designed by Spenser Stark and released in 2020 by Hunters Entertainment with Renegade Game Studios, after a Kickstarter that raised $138,000. It’s been described as ‘unique’, ‘sublime’ and ‘a little masterpiece’, and has won a bagful of awards including three 2021 Gold ENNIEs and the Indiecade award for tabletop design. Read the...

Our monthly livestream for December! Watch the livestream here. ⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Gradient Descent is a module/campaign setting/megadungeon for the SF-horror RPG Mothership , released in 2020. It is written by Luke Gearing, with art by Nick Tofani and layout by Sean McCoy, and was published by Tuesday Night Games. Dimensionally it is a tightly packed 64-page digest-sized booklet, and the PDF sells for $20, or as part of the Mothership deluxe boxed set . Mothership homepage The...

Our monthly livestream for November 2025. We talk about larping, new games in development and Dragonmeet! Watch the Livestream here . ⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

EABA (End All Be All) 2e is a generic roleplaying system with a core rulebook and a collection of sourcebooks designed by Greg Porter and published by his company BTRC (Blacksburg Tactical Research Centre). The first edition was released in 2003, the second – which is what we discuss in this episode – in 2012. Read the full show notes here. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Our livestream for October 2025! Watch it on Youtube. ⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Our livestream for September 2025! Watch it on Youtube. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Trabajo (Hebanon Games, 2019) is a 32-page ‘portfolio’, part sourcebook and part adventure pack, for the Red Markets post-apocalypse RPG of economic and undead horror, written by Ludonarrative Dissidents’ own Ross Payton. We analysed Red Markets last season and liked it a lot, as you can imagine, and this episode is an opportunity to hear more about how it looks in action, and get Ross’s insights...

Brindlewood Bay  is a tabletop roleplaying game that combines  Murder, She Wrote  with H.P. Lovecraft. In it, you play a group of elderly women, members of the local Murder Mavens Mystery Book Club, who help the authorities solve murder cases in a picturesque New England Town. Read the show notes here Discuss this episode on our Discord.

JAILBREAK is a one-session scenario for Unknown Armies , originally written by Greg Stolze of this parish, in 1998 as a demo adventure for conventions, and subsequently published in the One Shots adventure anthology. It has since been described as one of the great horror adventures for any RPG. Greg is, of course, one of the creators of Unknown Armies , along with John Tynes, and his insights here...

Our livestream for July! We talk about Gencon, the Ennies, and we get a surprise visit! Watch the episode here on Youtube if you want to see the visuals. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

RIFTS is a role playing game designed by Kevin Siembieda and originally published by his company Palladium Books in 1990. In this episode we examine the Rifts Ultimate Edition from 2005, a revised and expanded version of the original game rulebook. Like it, hate it or previously unaware of it, there’s nothing like it on the market today and we enjoyed the chance to delve into what makes it work. R...

BLACK CHROME IS A 2023 gearbook for the Cyberpunk Red roleplaying game, written by James Hutt, Jay Parker, Turbo, J Gray, Anne Morrison, Chris Spivey, Fran Stewart, and Linda M Evans, and published by R Talsorian Games. Read the Wikipedia entry for the Cyberpunk RPG Read about Black Chrome on DriveThruRPG See the Cyberpunk Red rulebook on DriveThruRPG Read the full Show Notes on the LND website ⁠D...

We talk a bit about conventions - Greg visited a small con called Forge Midwest and Ross prepares for Gencon this year with 7 events. We also answer audience questions. Watch the livestream if you want to see the visuals. ⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord server!