Reading D&D Aloud

My favorite RPG book of the year is a book of spaceship p*rn designed by two poets! INFINITY OF SHIPS is random tables for spaceship creation along with stunning artwork and essays that are as fun as they are engaging. The book was brought to us by Adam Good & Jamie Perez, and the pair have another book Kickstarting right now:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/72stations/100-strangers-misfits-...

This is an RPG historian you have to hear from. Shannon Appelcline. He's the mind behind Designers & Dragons, which chronicles our hobby's wild past, from basement print runs to global pop culture phenomenon. Shannon has done the research, interviewed the legends, and connected the dots between decades of dice-rolling history. So grab your character sheet, because today, we're diving deep into how...

What do Cormac McCarthy, Charles Dickens, & Scheherazade say to each other on the podcast? Today, we find out!  First up, we have Meguey Baker: game designer, textile historian, and one of the most revolutionary voices in the history of tabletop gaming. You might know her from 1001 Nights, Psi-Run , or her work on Apocalypse World , a game that cracked open an entire design movement. Meguey's game...

Shamelessly, 30 minutes into this interview with Cam Banks & Fred Hicks, I share leaked D&D sales data.  He's the Kiwi conjurer who helped create the Cortex System, which has been used on everything from Firefly to Marvel. He's made the rules that make the stories sing, and he's living  proof that spreadsheets and sorcery can coexist. Please welcome the unflappable, unstoppable Cam Banks! He's the...

This conversation is absolutely brilliant. I talk to a lot of game designers, but this episode is easily a favorite.  Today, we discuss with two engines of creativity: Jay Dragon of Wanderhome & Watt of Cloud Empress ! Watt is a designer, artist, and architect of the beautifully bizarre. Watt's games feel like dreams with teeth, lush, lyrical, and a little dangerous. Their work digs into ecology,...

Why borg? Today on the show, we're joined by Zac Goins, RPG designer, Kickstarter consultant, and all-around tabletop creative. Zac has worked with Marvel, Wizards of the Coast, Modiphius, and more, and currently serves as Director of Marketing for Limithron. He's designed for systems like Old School Essentials, Mörk Borg, Shadowdark, and beyond. Also today, we are joined by Erica Lowe-Tarpley, Ow...

Today, we've got a four-way! Listen and marinate in the brilliance of Justin Alexander, Panayiotis Lines, & Aled Lawlor! Aled Lawlor and Panayiotis Lines are the creative duo behind Leyline Press. In just a few short years, Leyline has carved out a reputation for distinctive, atmospheric RPGs that blend striking visual design with elegant, playable mechanics. I purchased SALVAGE UNION at Gen Con,...

Today, I am going to talk turkey with fellow historian and bestselling author, Michael Witwer. His books, such as Empire of Imagination , the acclaimed biography of Gary Gygax, and the lavish Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana , have helped bring the hidden history of role-playing games into the mainstream. His work combines deep research with a storyteller's flair, making the origins of our hobby v...

Welcome to D&D Outloud with Ben Riggs, I am Ben Riggs, apparently controversial D&D historian and author of Slaying the Dragon A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons, and over the past 13 years of writing and podcasting, I have met hundreds of creative geniuses in and around the world of TTRPGs. Here on this show, I ask two of these flaming torches of the human imagination to come on and have a fa...

Does 4E D&D have the best combat? The question leads us to a conversation with two of the game's three lead designers. First up, we have Rob Heinsoo, one of the leading minds behind Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. He's also the co-creator of 13th Age , a system that blends narrative freedom with crunchy mechanics in amazing ways. He's a designer, a worldbuilder, and a relentless innovator in table...

Wanna know what the hell is going on at WotC? Let's ask people who used to work there.  It is difficult to describe what a superstar gathering this is on the show. These are not the first names that you think of when you hear D&D, but they are just as significant if not more so than the names we all know.  First Liz Schuh, whose final title at Wizards was Head of Publishing and Licensing for Dunge...

An in-depth conversation with two of the most remarkable adventure-writers working today: Luke Gearing & Leo Hunt! Luke Gearing, is an incredible voice in the tabletop RPG world. His work includes Acid Death Fantasy for Troika!, the epic and disturbing Gradient Descent for Mothership and the Wages of Sin bounty book. His work is gritty, evocative, and dare I say delightfully lurid at times.  Leo H...

Today, enjoy this conversation between 3rd edition D&D lead designer Jonathan Tweet and TTRPG historians Shannon Appelcline and Ben Riggs! They discuss one of the hotbeds of gaming ferment, St. Olaf College, which produced nerd legends like Lisa Stevens, Mark Rein-Hagen, Nicole Lindroos, and Tweet himself. Then they move on to discuss one of the most influential games of all time: ARS MAGICA. Beca...

Our guest tonight is a giant in the realms — literally and figuratively. Richard Baker is a legendary Dungeons & Dragons designer, novelist, and world-builder whose fingerprints are all over the game we love. He's helped shape settings like the Forgotten Realms, Birthright, and Alternity. He designed iconic adventures. He wrote novels that bring fantasy worlds roaring to life. With all that experi...

D&D is bigger than it has ever been, but being a D&D fan in 2025 is deeply confusing.  The questions come on and on. Why do extensive promotion of a virtual tabletop for D&D, Sigil, and then give it no marketing at rollout and kill it a month later?  Why has there been an exodus of staff from the company?  Why, after a golden age during the game's 5th edition, has Wizards struggled to find tractio...

Is Wizards messing this up? We discuss with two titans of the TTRPG industry! First up, David M. Ewalt – journalist, editor, and author of the engaging and wonderful Of Dice and Men . He is currently the editor in chief of Scientific American , which may make him the most prestigious personage I've ever had on this podcast. He is also the author of Defying Reality: The Inside Story of the Virtual...

This week, we go deep into the Old School Revolution with Old School Essentials creator Gavin Norman and Josh McCrowell of His Majesty the Worm! Gavin Norman is the mind behind some of the most exciting work in the modern OSR scene. He is best known for Old-School Essentials, the gold standard for clean, accessible retro-gaming rules that have brought thousands of new players into old-school play....

My guest tonight is a legend in the world of game design and storytelling. Richard Dansky is best known as the mind behind some of the darkest and most compelling corners of the World of Darkness. He served as the developer for Wraith: The Oblivion and helped shape the haunting masterpiece Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah, one of the most powerful books ever written for a roleplaying game. But...

This one's a banger: D&D designer Steve Winter meets Ben Milton of Questing Beast! Ben Milton is a game designer, YouTube sage, and sorceror-king of the OSR demigod! He's the mind behind Knave 2e and the force behind Questing Beast, your portal to the wild, weird wonders of old-school RPGs. If you like sharp rules, deadly dungeons, and freedom at the table, Ben's your guy. And don't sleep on Steve...

Not one, not two, but THREE RPG HISTORIANS in one hour of amazing audio! Today, we are fortunate to have with us Shannon Appelcline, author of the magisterial THIS IS FREE TRADER BEOWULF, which is a history of the Traveller RPG. He's probably most famous for DESIGNERS AND DRAGONS, which is his multi-volume history of seemingly every role-playing game company that ever put up a shingle and slammed...

I can't believe I got these two on the show together! First, Kevin Crawford is a TTRPG design legend. My favorites from his work are  Stars Without Number , and Worlds Without Number , both of which have been tremendously successful and influential as paragons of sleek game design and peerless GM tools. Stars was what I ran during the pandemic, and Worlds I read, and since the birth of my son, I r...

Who saved Dungeons & Dragons? How many people could say that they saved Dungeons & Dragons? Off the top of my head, I would say that the list of people who could say they saved D&D at some point over the course of its 51-year history is less than 20. But I believe I have one of those people who could credibly tell a story explaining how they saved D&D on the podcast with me today, because today I...

The theme of today's conversation is Ravenloft, but I don't know think that's the best place to actually start introducing my three guests. Instead, I am going to say that I have a very addictive personality. I play one video game about every three years. But one of the video games I have played is MASS EFFECT, and with us today is the accomplished Canadian voice actor, the voice of Commander Shep...

Are hexcrawls the adventure's final form? We discuss that very question with two of the premier purveyors of the hexcrawl format in the 21st century: Jacob Hurst & WF Smith, aka Prismatic Wasteland. Jacob is one of the brilliant minds behind  The Dark of Hot Springs Island, a hexcrawl of evil elves, interdimensional drug dealers, and beached whales. Smith is the lead designer or  Barkeep on the Bo...

I have interviewed bestselling authors, Ivy League professors, and comic creators whose work has gone on to generate billions at the box office.  But as a class, TTRPG professionals seem to be the smartest people I regularly talk to. I discuss this and other fascinating points this week with Stephen Radney-Macfarland, a designer with a TTRPG resume longer than my arm.  Ben interviewed 2nd ed desig...