Plot Points

Is  Vaesen  the best new RPG of the year? How does it stack up against Call of Cthulhu as a horror game? What does it teach about how to make an excellent RPG? All these questions and more are tackled in this week's Plot Points! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon! Image...

Unnatural aging and disease! Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Seventh in a series! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level, and you'll get a sneak peek into Ben's book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of t...

Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Sixth in a series! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level, and you'll get a sneak peek into Ben's book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns...

Urban Shadows is the addicting as hell PbtA game of machiavellian monsters living in metropolises! Its second edition has new fun faction rules, and the best explanation of combat in a PbtA game I've ever seen! Learn more in our interview with designers Marissa Kelly & Mark Diaz Truman! Also, here's the Kickstarter !  Death Divers is in its last days! Back it here ! Ben's book on RPG adventure des...

Explore Dustin DePenning's carbines and demons sci-fi RPG! It's on Kickstarter right now, and has a fascinating new game engine in its bloody and beating heart, the Heroic Dark! Old school in danger, 21st century in execution, Heroic Dark keeps your characters on the edge of doom and their players on the edge of their seats! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRP...

Lester Smith is a stalwart of GDW and TSR, designer of such games and  Dark Conspiracy  and  Dragon Dice ! He has a new game out,  D13  which uses a D4 and D10 as the core mechanic. Check the game out here! He also explains how  Dragon Dice  is actually a sonnet in this interview ! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential vo...

A role-playing game like no other. In  Rest in Pieces  you are room-mates with Death! In addition to a story concept never before seen, RiP  takes RPG mechanics another step forward, using a block tower with a twist! Check it out on Kickstarter now! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support i...

Craig Campbell is an innovative RPG designer whose current Kickstarter,  Good Strong Hands , is a game of relationships and fantasy exploration inspired by fictions like  The Neverending Story , Labyrinth , and Willow !  Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 leve...

Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs! Fifth in a series! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level, and you'll get a sneak peek into Ben's book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns...

A warlock-based 5E campaign inspired by a heavy metal album? And the album was retooled and recorded by the Budapest Scoring Symphonic Orchestra? Can such a thing be? Hearken to The Red Opera ! Inspired by the DiAmorte album of the same name, today we interview game designer Rick Heinz about this eye-and-ear-grabbing Kickstarter! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveT...

We're back after an unexpected two-week hiatus with Dale Donovan, an editor, game designer, TSR alum, and Dragon Magazine  veteran. He takes us through a career that made him a witness to some pivotal events in RPG history.  Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2...

How the deal to buy the world's first role-playing game company was negotiated and sealed. Ben Riggs has interviewed those who were there and can tell for the first time the whole story. Recorded live at Gen Con Online! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level...

The 2020 version of my research on how TSR went from grossing $40 million a year to being bought by Wizards of the Coast. Performed live at Gen Con Online! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level, and you'll get a sneak peek into Ben's book about the sale of...

Imagine inserting Cthulhu, Aladdin, and the Easter Bunny in your 5E campaign. That is exactly the kind of role-playing madness allowed by  Mythological Figures & Maleficient Monsters, on Kickstarter now! In this episode, we talk to Mike Myler and Russ Morrissey of EN Publishing about this fine new tome! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pic...

RPG designer WJ MacGuffin comes on the show to talk  Paranoia , the dystopic/comic sci-fi RPG of clones and treason! They've got  Project Infinite Hole  on Kickstarter right now! Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level, and you'll get a sneak peek into Ben's...

Mark Diaz Truman is one of the madcap masterminds of Magpie Games. Magpie's Zombie World , a card-based, Powered by the Apocalypse game of zombie survival is up for multiple Ennies. In this deep discussion, Mark and Ben chew over the role of writing in generating great games, playtesting, and different models of RPG companies.   Plot Points, and Ben's book,  Encounter Theory , are both up for Enni...

David Larkins, writer of  Berlin: The Wicked City  takes us on a tour of Weimar Berlin, now with more tentacles! Learn more about Chaosium in the 21st century with this article Ben wrote.  Here's an episode on Greg Stafford from a few years ago. Plot Points, and Ben's book,  Encounter Theory , are both up for Ennies! Please  go vote now ! To encourage you, Plot Points is going to be putting out an...

Robin Laws had a dream, which led him to write a short story, and use that to create The Yellow King Roleplaying Game . Once HP Lovecraft dreamed of a book called the  Necronomicon . Will Robin's RPG turn out to be as baleful as that unsettling tome? There is only one way to find out... Also, it's nominated for an Ennie, along with companion work Absinth in Carcosa ! Go vote now ! To encourage you...

John Tynes writes RPGs so good it makes me stutter. I've interviewed him twice. Each time, I've been fidgety and nervous beforehand. The man's games take up the #1 and #2 slots on the RPG.net game index! That's a frightening level of RPG chops. And now he has a new book out,  The Labyrinth , and that's just as good as his other material? By Arneson's beard, how?  Plot Points, and Ben's book, Encou...

Michael Prescott is the motivating genius behind  Trilemma Adventures , a beautiful book of two-page adventures for fantasy role-playing games. How did he go from writing a blog to Kickstarting a book so magnificent that it's nominated for an Ennie this year? Plot Point, and Ben's book,  Encounter Theory , are both up for Ennies! Please go vote now ! To encourage you, Plot Points is going to be pu...

Brad, Sarah, & Ben take a deep dive on  Thousand Year Old Vampire , the lonely RPG where you live the life of an immortal undead!  Check out the bizarre gaming deeps at Tim Hutchings' Play Generated Map & Document Archive.  Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 l...

Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs!  Learn more about the conference Scott talked about, NarraScope, here.   Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level, and you'll get a sneak peek into Ben's book about the sale...

A solo game of "lonely role-playing" allows you to become an immortal drinker of lives! Ben Riggs interviews game-creator and total mensch Tim Hutchings in this interview about his seminal work,  Thousand Year Old Vampire .  Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2...

Hear the 1st edition DMG read aloud with RPG academic Scott Bruner and host Ben Riggs!  Also, check out Ben's prior work on demons & devils & Dungeons & Dragons , and this 60 Minutes piece on  D&D from the early 1980s. Ben's book on RPG adventure design,  Encounter Theory , is on DriveThruRPG.  Click here  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  Patreon  at the $2 level,...

Imagine a notebook with everything you need to create your own fantasy campaign already in it. Blank hex maps, pages set up for charts, even high-frequency fantasy words and eye-violating fantasy art, all between the same clothbound covers. This, is the Worldbuilder's Notebook , currently on Kickstarter. In this interview, Ben Riggs hears about the whys and wherefores of the product from ENnie-win...