Episode 610 – the value of chaos
by Dan Repperger

* (0:29) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live for one more week!

* (1:56) The wonderful confusion new players and GMs bring to a roleplaying game.

* (16:59) An imagined internal-consistency is sometimes more fun than an intended one.

* (22:17) The burden of your own expectations.

* (28:29) When contradictions aren’t actually contradictions. The Law of Non-Contradiction.

* (35:16) The emotion of Muscle March.

* (36:22) The ideas that mistakes allow us to explore.

Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

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Episode 609 – the best mechanics
by Dan Repperger

* (0:31) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live!

* (1:04) The new fiction podcast, Bite Size Tales.

* (3:09) Game mechanics we’re particularly fond of.

* (4:54) Rerolls and other roll-modifying mechanics.

* (10:13) A close relationship between skills and attributes.

* (15:46) Life paths in character creation.

* (24:48) Using all the dice.

* (30:12) Injury instead of a simple health pool.

* (38:08) Lots of randomness.

* (40:31) Building something bigger than your character.

* (44:13) Double-edged character traits.

Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

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Episode 608 – bringing a world to life
by Dan Repperger

* (0:28) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live!

* (1:12) Things a Game Master has done to make a world seem a little more alive (with credit to JoshB for the topic).

* (5:46) Plot hooks, substories, and unanswered questions about my character.

* (9:16) Allowing characters to have goals, ambitions, and projects.

* (13:32) Giving me things I can trust that won’t betray me or become a vulnerability.

* (19:52) Investing the players in world-building that matters.

* (29:25) Don’t constantly veto your players.

* (31:55) Digging through enough specifics may reveal a general truth you can use.

Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

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Episode 607 – maybe a misunderstanding
by Dan Repperger

* (0:28) The new fiction podcast, Bite Size Tales.

* (1:43) Dan re-reads the D&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. Wayne watches Secrets of Blackmoor. The inspiration D&D’s creators drew from Strategos.

* (6:38) The rather disjointed rules of early RPGs.

* (8:23) The heavy crunch of early RPGs that might be as much unearned reputation as reality.

* (13:02) Why an early RPG may have needed to describe concepts that would be misinterpreted as immutable rules.

* (16:06) Narrative examples of play.

* (19:17) Separating old games from OSR games. Conveyed interpretation and social tradition.

* (27:07) The shortcuts around setting building, and how rules may have gotten caught up in those.

Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne

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Bonus Episode 99 – AI creativity
by Dan Repperger

* (0:36) An odd tangent on names.

* (3:39) A conversation about AI art. Some parameters we’re putting on this episode. AI art wins a fine arts competition.

* (8:08) An admittedly non-technical overview of how AI generally creates its work. Syntax versus semantics.

* (17:43) AI creations as a starting point instead of the final product. Why the lack of semantics may distinguish what inspires humans as opposed to AIs.

* (29:32) The positive impact of AI creativity, contrasted with the intellectual property and monetary concerns.

* (37:02) The human-seeded meta-thought used by AI, and the inevitability of its adoption across multiple industries.

* (47:26) After taking jobs, technology may also improve lives and push humanity forward. Automating simple tasks or “shifting them left”.

* (54:45) The financial incentive to use AI art versus the status incentive to use human art.

Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

Some of the sample AI art Dan made while playing around with an app…

A man with two beards that’s holding a third beard (stupid beard hog), Jesus with hot dogs for fingers, and…OH NO! Its mini-Jesus off the ropes!

What’s that Lassie? Jesus is here? And he thinks our dogs are gnolls? And Gabriel is also a dog?

OK, so now we’ve got gnolls with underbites, some random people in the background, Jesus with John Wick levels of determination, and…what the hell is that thing in the lower-right!?

What the AI thought Gnarl should look like. I’m totally going to stat this out and use it in a fantasy game.

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Episode 606 – contexting the OGL
by Dan Repperger

* (0:30) Giving a remote episode a try. We have a fix for Dan’s audio that should improve the quality on our next remote show.

* (1:42) Catching up with Brodeur and DJ, who was on episode 466 to talk about BuJoRPG.

* (4:43) Putting some parameters on the topic.

* (9:42) Does Wizards of the Coast hate you? Envy other publishers? Or just not understand the market?

* (16:36) Why people went along with the OGL to begin with. A genuine belief that some people in the mix have the best of intentions.

* (24:47) Why care at all?

* (29:23) The silent majority that may neither know nor care this is all happening.

* (36:21) Why this might be a good thing. The episode on Dan’s resentment of what D&D represents, despite his enjoyment of the game.

Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, DJ, Wayne

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Episode 605 – dosing out setting
by Dan Repperger

* (0:44) Friday night chit-chat on Discord each week, starting at 8pm Central.

* (2:18) Fear the Con 2023 dates have been reserved with the hotel for June 16th and 17th of 2023, with the Wing Night on June 15th.

* (3:37) Wayne preps his players for a Savage Worlds: Alpha Flight game.

* (8:18) Learning through trial-and-error by running homebrews and setting-dense games.

* (10:42) Give your players a little homework.

* (15:04) Where will the game begin?

* (20:37) What the characters need or want.

* (24:53) Trickling out more information as the game goes on.

* (31:31) Pay careful attention to the questions your players ask.

Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne

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Bonus Episode 98 – tired tropes
by Dan Repperger

* (0:22) The villain as the dark inverse of the hero.

* (9:20) A big CGI fight at the end that seems visually out of continuity.

* (16:06) Zombies and Lovecraft.

* (20:37) The freedom to like or dislike, and how little that says about you as a person.

* (23:33) Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, and Disney.

* (26:59) Let’s not be too reductive.

* (34:26) Maybe we’ve just been around too long and seen too many stories.

* (37:15) Elves with short hair.

Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne

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Bonus Episode 97 – manis, pedis, and fandoms
by Dan Repperger

* (0:24) Brodeur recommends a manicure and pedicure to Dan.

* (5:58) Dan, Wayne, and their muscle tension.

* (11:24) A straight-razor shave and the thrill of death.

* (15:56) Fandoms that (at least temporarily) put people off from the product they love.

* (28:08) On anime.

* (31:37) The need to be inviting within gaming, since it’s a social hobby.

* (37:56) Gratuitous violence and opinion as identity.

Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne

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Episode 604 – crapping on an ending
by Dan Repperger

* (0:28) Brodeur flees to Oregon.

* (4:08) Failure comes to East Texas University.

* (7:26) Dividing the blame between the players and Game Master.

* (11:40) Player silence and passivity.

* (17:30) Things lost for lack of time.

* (19:34) Substance use, depression, and the option of just narrating the ending.

* (26:32) Was there a post-mortem with the players? Not judging a whole campaign by its ending.

* (30:09) If the players don’t know how to answer, ask a more specific question.

Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne

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