I’d love to have a podcast listening habit, but I don’t. I love text. Anyway, I try to pay attention, and I listen to snippets here and there when something catches my eye. There are lots of cool RPG focused shows out there now, here’s a small sample (not even capsule reviews. More like skimming, sampling and thinking out loud).

The Gauntlet

The Gauntlet Episode 39 keeps on delving into the indie RPG scene. From 26:59 onwards, there’s a special focus on Dungeon World and what makes it awesome, as they say. Dungeon World is one of the more well-known of the Powered by the Apocalypse World engine games. For a show often covering obscure shit like Nørwegian Style games, this is pretty much mainstream. Apocalypse World reskinned  with a D&D flavor? One of my groups will be dipping into it this spring. Some timestamps is a great improvement this year, as it alleviates podcast surfing for those of us with an attention span near 0.

I’m impressed how many games the hosts manage to play in addition to recording, editing and presumably holding down day jobs. I think the collective running it are considering a third, more Actual Play-focused, weekly show? Please check out their Google Plus community for news, if you have interest in keeping track of new (primarily) US indie games. There are online Hangout sessions, Face to Face meetups in the US… cool, cool. I will keep paying attention and letting the timestamps help me navigate to the content I’m most interested in.

You can also check out The Gauntlet’s Dungeon World podcast Discerning Realities. Episode 4 also out this week.

Backstory

Part of the One Shot network, Backstory is a charming new kid on the block. «BACKSTORY is an ongoing series of interviews with game designers and other notable members of the role-playing community, hosted by Alex Roberts.»

On the show released Thursday, Alex talks to Lizzie Stark (author, game designer, organizer and journalist). The interview delves into Lizzie’s exploration of US and European larp scenes, her interest in structured freeform and many of the interesting pathways that can bring you into the hobby. Sorry, art.

Of special interest to Imagonem’s readers, Lizzie has traveled extensively in the Nordic countries to research the regional larp and freeform traditions, and has been an important ambassador/bridge-builder between US and Nordic larp scenes. She co-edited the Larps from the Factory book, a collection of Norwegian short larps published in 2013.

Designers and Discourses

This show was new to me when researching this blog post. It seems fairly new (6 episodes), and covers an interesting spectrum of classic games, OSR and indie. The format for the most recent shows is designer interviews. Episode 6, out January 11, features an interview with Luke Crane, who’s behind Burning Wheel (which supposedly is so crunchy Matthijs won’t even let me play it) and it’s more lightweight version Mouse Guard (which I have played some LotR adaption of), both modern self-publishing classics. Crane is head of games at Kickstarter since last year.

At the end of December, the show invited James Raggi, an American living in Finland where he publishes one of the OSR movement’s flagships, Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I’m fascinated by the OSR, as it seems to exist as kind of a parallel DIY universe to the «storygame»/other self-publishing scene I’ve followed far closer over the years. I dig the vibe I’m getting from many of these blogs, games and – not to mention – fanzines, I’m just late to the party and there’s lots to explore. The Raggi interview gives some interesting details of the development of the movement and the games.

On a related note, the Game School podcast released a new episode January 16, talking with Zak Smith, creator of the ENnie award winning supplement for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, A Red and Pleasant Land.

Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff

Game design veterans Kenneth Hite (contributed to GURPS, WoD, Nephilim and several other games) and Robin D. Laws (Hillfolk, Feng Shui, Gumshoe ++) have been doing this podcast for four years. Episode 174 was out yesterday (January 22), and covers a trip to Vegas, dramatic scene construction and thai food with a healthy serving of history.

The talk about Las Vegas is an interesting, knowledgeable walkthrough of the city’s history. The hosts obviously tie all the mob history and noir aspects into game ideas towards the end of the conversation. All presented with what I guess is kind of a classic US radio show style banter?

The discussion on dramatic scene construction is also highly relevant to GMs and scenario authors. 

Design Games

Also out this week is the Design Games podcast episode 23, covering setting! Some insightful and detailed ideas on that. With game designers Will Hindmarch (Eternal Lies, Storium ++)  and Nathan D. Paoletta (The World Wide Wrestling RPG, Annalise, carry and more).

If you understand Spanish, you can also check out Podcast Explosivo, out today!

What did we miss? Please let us know in the comments.