Role Playing Public Radio

News: The Killsplosion Kickstarter is a success! I’ve acquired a HD camcorder so we’ll start recording videos soon. The Artemis Spaceship Simulator will take some planning to figure out but we will do it. I’ve also set up a RPPR Minecraft server ! Check this thread for the address. Synopsis: We usually focus on advice for GMs creating or running games. This time, we want to focus...

News: Support the Killsplosion Kickstarter and get 10 new preview RPPR AP episodes! Zombies of the World Episode 4 is online. Watch it here. Synopsis: World building is an important skill for GMs but it’s a tricky skill to learn. It’s easy to get lost in the details, obsessing over minor elements that will never see the light of day. Tom and I discuss how we approach world building and...

This episode is sponsored by Audible Books. Sign up today and get a free 14 day trial and audiobook. News: Check out the newest RPPR Kickstarter: Killsplosion! A rules light competitive PvP tabletop RPG. Get 10 preview RPPR Actual Play episodes when you contribute $20 or more. Zombies of the World on sale! Get your print copy autographed by the RPPR group or get the PDF for only $2.99 Synopsis : W...

News: This episode is sponsored by Audible Books. Sign up today and get a free 14 day trial and audiobook. Zombies of the World is on sale during October! Save $5 off the print edition or $2 off the ebook edition. Synopsis : Adventure design for long term campaigns is different than designing for a one shot scenario. Keeping up with the entirety of a complex ruleset is impossible for a campaign so...

Ad: Critical Miss magazine edited by Jonny Nexus. Synopsis: Adventure design is a complex topic so we’d thought we would delve into it once again. In this episode, Tom and I discuss the difference between good design choices and style choices. While good design is applicable to any genre of RPG scenario, it is possible to make choices in creating an adventure that only work under certain cir...

News: Check out Raillery Redux, my new video game focused podcast. Synopsis: In this episode, we bring in Aaron and David to discuss their experiences at Gencon 2011. Aaron ran three sessions of a Monsters and Other Childish Things game based on the Secrets of NIMH while this was David’s first Gencon. David cosplayed as an anime character, so he had a different experience. We also go over ou...

This year’s Gencon was so great, we will have to do two episodes to cover it all. In this episode, we bring RPPR regular Caleb to discuss his first impressions of the con and the games he ran and played in. We all talk about the newest games we picked up and Tom discusses the game he ran and other things he did. I also interviewed George Strayton, creator of The Secret Fire , a new fantasy R...

I recorded a panel discussion of Eclipse Phase designers Rob Boyle and Adam Jury as they discussed their current plans for the transhuman sci-fi horror RPG. In this discussion, they go over planned releases, their business model and the themes behind Eclipse Phase. If you’re curious about what’s in store for Firewall and the rest of transhumanity, this would be a good listen.

News: Vote for Monsters and Other Childish Things: Road Trip (Cubicle 7/Arc Dream Publishing) in the best adventure category. Be sure to vote it as #1! Zombies of the World products now have free US shipping. Order your copy today. Synopsis: THIS IS A NSFW EPISODE. Tom remembered a horribly boring dungeon crawl campaign he suffered from in his youth. He wanted to take the cliches he saw in that ga...

The New World is the grave of Lemuria, the greatest of all nations. The barbaric tribes that live in the New World now walk upon its bones, the ruins of temples and palaces, ignorant of the wisdom and power buried beneath their feet. When a colony from the kingdom of a distant continent settles on the shores of the New World, whispers of Lemuria flutter through the winds. Adventurers from the colo...

Zombies of the World is now available in print, PDF and Kindle format! My book, Road Trip, has been nominated for an Ennie! Synopsis : Bildungsroman is a fancy way of describing the ‘youth to adulthood’ genre – stories like “to Kill a Mockingbird” where the character grows from a child to become an adult or closer to an adult. Role playing games are often like these s...

oh 80s cyberpunk, you will always have a place in my heart Synopsis: Science fiction is an under appreciated genre in role playing games. Fantasy (Dungeons and Dragons) and horror (World of Darkness) dominate RPGs and most of the popular sci-fi games out there aren’t really science fiction or are horribly anachronistic. Tom and I discuss the state of science fiction and how it is different t...

Watch Zombies of the World episode 1: Migration and learn how it was made on the ZOTW blog . If you want to contribute art for the Lemurian Ruins – email rpprpodcast@gmail.com. Synopsis : Game balance is a tricky thing. While in some cases, it’s easy to spot an unbalanced system like Palladium or Synnibarr but other times, a game’s imbalances won’t be revealed until you&#82...

RPPR News: We have a mirror of all of our episodes on archive.org . Catch up with our older episodes or send the link to a friend to introduce them to us.  I’ve also updated the Zombies of the World blog going behind the scenes on how I created it. Synopsis : Running a game in a timely manner is a daunting task. Many convention games fail to finish in 4 hours and a lot of players think that...

Preorder my new book Zombies of the World and get a free poster and shipping! The RPPR Forums now support the iPhone and Android app Tapatalk. Post wherever and whenever you want. Go nuts! Synopsis : Every once in a while in a campaign, you need to shake things up with a big event – an epic boss fight or jaw dropping action scene that ties up a campaign or story arc. Of course, in order to m...

Immersion is a tricky element of tabletop RPGs. In order to achieve it, a GM must first design a good scenario. In this episode, Tom, special guest Caleb and I discuss how we design adventures and other related topics. The effects of a game system on immersion and how to deal with players that lose immersion in a game. Tom also has a letter and of course shout outs and anecdotes. Shout outs RPPR C...

Jolly Blackburn is the creator of the comic Knights of the Dinner Table and one of the principal game designers behind Hackmaster and Aces & Eight . He was at Visioncon 2011 and I got to sit down with him to discuss what’s new with Kenzer Company, the tabletop rpg industry, the Old School Renaissance and of course, KODT.

Thank you RPPR listeners! The Ruins of Lemuria PDF Ransom was a success! We are hard at work behind the scenes creating many cool things for you and running games over Skype for the ransom contributors. Synopsis: Rhetoric is a divisive issue in tabletop games. Where do you draw the line between a player’s skill in speech and the PC’s ability? Tom and I discuss how rhetoric touches on g...

CONTRIBUTE  TO THE RUINS OF LEMURIA KICKSTARTER TO GET 10 PREVIEW AP EPISODES OR A SEAT A SKYPE GAME RUN BY ROSS PAYTON! Synopsis: Chase scenes are an underutilized element in many games. A staple of action stories but RPGs focus on social scenes and combat. This is because it’s hard for a GM to make a chase scene actually exciting. Special guest RJ joins us as we discuss ways to make a bori...

Synopsis: In fiction, revealing too much information right away is a sign of bad storytelling. In role playing games, it’s often essential for a good session. Game masters have to realize that what they think the players should know is often not enough for the players to actually understand what’s going on. We discuss the importance of information and how to make sure that everyone kno...

Halloween is right around the corner so we are once again talking about running terrifying games. RPGs can’t really provide shocks like film or TV, but it’s still possible to run a truly scary game by keeping a few principles in mind. Specifically, a GM should focus on presenting ambigious information, giving players some but not total control and characterizing NPCs and monsters well....

Morality and alignment are two of the trickiest issues in tabletop RPGs. Every player has their own perspective, beliefs and biases and they frequently come out during play. How do you deal with conflicts over moral dilemmas? We go over several possible reasons why this occurs and how to resolve it. Tom forgot his letter at work, but we do have several shout outs and anecdotes: Minecraft : A highl...

My campaign for Monsters & Other Childish Things, Road Trip is out!  Buy your copy now. Cody has a new blog, Popgun Chaos. Read his reviews and essays about comics and bask in his glory . The Get Aaron to Gencon Kickstarter was a success! Listen to Aaron’s gam e. If you contributed enough to get a button or DVD, bug Aaron about it . Episode Synopsis: The newest campaign setting for Dunge...

My campaign for Monsters and Other Childish Things, Road Trip is available for pre-order! Buy it here! The Codex of War is out! Download it here. If you like our AP episodes, donate to the ‘Get Aaron to Gencon’ Kickstarter to get early access to 5 AP episodes. The real world holds just as much adventure as any fantasy or sci-fi setting. In this episode, Tom and I discuss various types...

At long last, the Codex of War is finished! This is the third book in the New World Campaign setting . The colony has survived its first winter in the New World, a testament to the courage and fortitude of its inhabitants, but now a greater threat looms over the fledgling settlement. While nearby native tribes have decided to live peacefully with the colony, a powerful coalition of tribes farther...