Dice Exploder

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com It’s a Dice Exploder EMERGENCY POD! Less than 24 hours ago as of recording, John Harper, designer of Blades in the Dark, released a brand new official supplement for the game: Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts. It’s 110 pages packed full of new setting and new mechanic ideas, and I really wanted to talk about it! I love Apocalypse World’s concept of “advanced fuckery,” and I’ve never seen such a good and extended example of it all in one place. Further Reading: Deep Cuts by John Harper How to Overcome Your Hyperdiegesis Allergy by Idle Cartulary Errant by  Otherkind Dice on Dice Exploder, with John Harper Socials John on Bluesky and Twitter. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Hello from the between-season malaise! Today I'm joined by Aaron King, back again, who interviews me about my new zine Dice Forager: a 50 page collection of games, manifestos, and mini written-out episodes of Dice Exploder. We talk about how setting goals is great and people should do it for, what counts as a manifesto, and how making art meant just for your friends can be just as if not more rewarding than for any other reason. Preorder Dice Forager now! (if you live in the US, otherwise DM me and maybe we can work something out) Further Reading: Dice Exploder blog: Hospitality, Safety, and Calibration  Traffic Lights are Communication Tools by Meguey Baker World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin Your public library Socials Aaron King on itch and the RTFM podcast. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript This week I’ve got James D’Amato (Campaign: Skyjacks, the Ultimate RPG book line, and the upcoming Oh Captain, My Captain) here to talk about custom oracle decks. Yeah a Tarot deck is cool, and great for doing Tarot, but James makes the case that it’s the “custom” in “custom oracle deck” that will really bring the not-quite-but-feels-like magic of an oracle to your table. But before we get into that, we dig deep into a mysterious black cube to get to our specific custom oracle deck: the Sooth Deck of Invisible Sun. Further Reading Invisible Sun Invisible Sun on the One Shot podcast Spindlewheel by Sasha Reneau Campaign: Skyjacks Oh Captain, My Captain preorder link Socials James on Bluesky and Twitter Sam D on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Characters Without Stories, including my episode Indie Press Revolution

Transcript Today, Caro Asercion (i'm sorry did you say street magic) brings us a game and mechanic all about instinct and physical embodiment: Keys from the larp Keymaster. This game isn't like most games. It’s so much about physical embodiment and exploring group identity rather than pesky shit like “storytelling”. Physicality! Larp! The Golden Cobra Challenge! We've got it all. Further Reading Keymaster by J Li The Golden Cobra Challenge i’m sorry did you say street magic by Caro Asercion Socials Caro on itch Sam D on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato Stout Stoat Press

Transcript Thrilled this week to have on one of my favorite movewrights, it’s Aaron King of the RTFM podcast. Aaron brought on Love Letters from Apocalypse World, a kind of custom move the GM can write when it’s been a while since we played and everyone might need a refresher on what was going on to get the ball rolling again. I think custom moves are a wildly overlooked part of Apocalypse World, and today we go deep on why that is and how and when to write your own. Further Reading Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meguey Baker Aaron King’s Worksheet Manifesto The SF Ultra podcast Reading the Apocalypse by Aaron King Socials RTFM podcast and Patreon Sam D on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Chris Greenbriar. Thanks Chris! Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Jukebox by Jar of Eyes Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato

Transcript It’s the crossover event of the season! This week I’m joined by Jeff Stormer of the Party of One podcast to talk about the core mechanic of Desperation by Jason Morningstar. In this game full of dread about a small Kansas town struggling through a never-ending winter, instead of deciding what happens, each turn you draw a card and decide who the thing on the card happens to. It’s a super slick mechanic. Meanwhile over on Party of One, you can listen to Jeff and I actually play the game. Further Reading Me on the Party of One Podcast Desperation by Bully Pulpit Games Socials Sam D on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Ad Links Spectrum Roleplaying by Nat Knight Sock Puppets by Kurt Refling

Transcript For this final episode of the Dice Exploder D&D miniseries, I wanted to go back to the source, to my first experiences playing the game. And I figured who better to do that with than someone else who was there, my first DM, my very own father. We get plenty nostalgic for back when I was 8 years old, but I also made him talk to me about THAC0, early D&D's needlessly opaque and complicated version of an attack bonus. I made him do this because I think of THAC0 as so representative of how D&D's rules have worked for me over the years, and because my dad has never given a crap about any of those rules. When we played, he barely even read the rulebooks. So how did we still end up playing D&D? What were we even doing? Further Reading Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, second edition Dice Exploder on Theorize from Brindlewood Bay, and the pros and cons of a fixed world vs one you’re making up together at the table. E.T. (1982, dir. Steven Spielberg) Ad Links Reacting Consortium Fractals Co-op Socials Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript I have a list of mechanics I’d like to cover on Dice Exploder, and I’d say about a third of them are jokes. One of those jokes is Rule Zero, a maxim that says "the DM (or GM) is always right." I think of Rule Zero as originating in D&D culture, and as part of this D&D miniseries, I thought it'd be interesting to use as a way into talking about the play culture around the game, how it's actually played at the table, and how many of its rules people actually use. There's no one I'd rather talk with about "do rules matter" than returning cohost Em Acosta (Exiles, Crescent Moon) who's spent a lot of time thinking about what rules they find actually useful in play. And in the end, we find yet another answer to my series-long quest for an answer to the question: "what actually is Dungeons & Dragons?" Further Reading: Rule Zero on TV Tropes (I do not endorse this but interesting context) Neverland Quest Pathfinder Errant Em’s Patreon Em’s banger games Exiles and Crescent Moon Socials Hire Em Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Back ⁠⁠Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit⁠⁠ now! ⁠Transcript This episode I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to talk about prestige classes, special classes from D&D 3e that you could only take by multiclassing into them. Sam thinks of these things as a noble failure: a very cool idea whose execution almost immediately dropped the ball. But what can we learn from their corpse? We get into that, along with a boots-on-the-ground discussion of what our experiences were like actually playing D&D 3rd edition and an exploration of advancement as a concept at large: how does it work in most games, and how might it work instead? Further Reading The Game Left Unplayed, blogpost by Jay Dragon D&D third edition D&D 3.5 edition Sam R’s game Escape from Dino Island Socials Sam D on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Back ⁠Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit⁠ now! Transcript Welcome to the D&D miniseries! I wanted to kick this off with a look into the mechanical heart of D&D, but I didn't really know what that meant. So I asked my friend Tristan! Designer of the award winning game Shanty Hunters and author of the Molten Sulfur blog, Tristan now spends his time as a designer on Nations & Cannons, a hack of D&D set in the American Revolutionary War. Tristan brought on a mechanized design principle underpinning D&D, the Adventuring Day, which says the game should be balanced for parties to go through 6-8 combat encounters between each long rest. It’s an interesting idea... even though absolutely no one in the known universe actually plays D&D like that. So where’d it come from? And how do you approach it as a designer? Further Reading: From the Dice Exploder blog: D&D Is A Comedy Game Molten Sulfur Blog Shanty Hunters 7th Sea Mork Borg Errant Nations & Cannons Socials Tristan on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Back ⁠Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit⁠ now! Transcript Today I'm kicking off a miniseries of Dice Exploder episodes all about the Tarrasque in the room: Dungeons & Dragons itself. But before we get into that, I wanted to lay out for context where I'm coming from, what my relationship is like to "the world's greatest roleplaying game™" is like, and what questions I was hoping to answer with this series. If you listen to this show, you probably come from a community that's skeptical of D&D. I'm not personally a fan. But it's unquestionably doing something for many people, and I don't buy that they simply don't know any better. So what's the deal? What's good about Dungeons & Dragons? Further Reading At 50 Years Old, Dungeons & Dragons Is An Artifact post by Lin Codega on Rascal News Dungeons & Dragons Is A Comedy Game on the Dice Exploder blog Homage to the Players Handbook by Tim Hutchings Rascal’s pledge drive Socials Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Back Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit now! Transcript Among my favorite RPGs is Alex Roberts' triumph of minimalistic, elegant design: For The Queen. Today I'm doing just with along with Kimi Hughes of Golden Lasso Games. For The Queen is a card drawing prompt game, and one prompt is always the game's last: "The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?" That's today's mechanic, but we cover most of this pretty small game at some point. You can back Kimi's new game Starscape on Kickstarter now! Further Reading: For The Queen by Alex Roberts Starscape by Kimi Hughes Oh Captain My Captain by James D’Amato Socials Kimi on Bluesky as well as Golden Lasso Games. Happy Jacks on YouTube. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript It is still designer commentary season on Dice Exploder, and today I'm talking with Jason Morningstar (Fiasco, Night Witches, a million other games) about Northfield: a game we co-designed about when Jesse James tried to rob the bank in my home town, we shot the hell out of him and his gang, and then we started an annual small town fair to celebrate our victory. You play as both a member of the James-Younger gang and as a person in the present day portraying your gang member in a reenactment. It's a weird little game, much like its subject matter, and surprisingly personal to me (Jason was not surprised). On this episode, we break down the process of our collaboration and how we feel about the results (very positively). More than any other designer commentary I've done, I hope you check out this game. I'm really proud of it. You can get it on the Bully Pulpit Patreon now for $5. Further Reading Northfield, the game, on the Bully Pulpit Patreon Video of the Defeat of Jesse James Days reenactment Official Defeat of Jesse James Days website Photo of (allegedly) Charlie Pitts’ ear Wikipedia articles on Northfield and the James-Younger gang Socials Sam on Bluesky and itch. Jason on ⁠Bluesky⁠ and ⁠dice.camp⁠. ⁠Bully Pulpit Games⁠ The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript For Ken Lowery’s Disc 2 jam, I decided to finally release the game I’ve been working on for nearly four years: Space Fam. This is a game about, you guessed it, found family in space. In particular, it takes a lot of inspiration from The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet in that you’re the crew of a ship escorting a traveler from point A to point B, and along the way you deal with your feelings of guilt and stress about living under an oppressive government. It’s a hack of Our Traveling Home by Ash Kreider, and it’s like 90% of the way to really great. But that last 10% is always the hard 10%, and I decided it was time to let this game just be what it is and push it out into the world. As a part of that, I wanted to look back on the design process. What went well, what didn’t, what would I change if I was going to spend another 30 minutes or 30 years on this thing. To do that, I sat down with two of my friends who playtested the game, and we talked about all things Space Fam. Further Reading Space Fam on itch The Disc 2 jam. A commentary podcast episode for Space Fam is available here. I wrote about the design of Space Fam's "scenes menu" here​. I wrote about the design of the Space Fam character sheet here​. Our Traveling Home by Ash Kreider Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern by Takuma Okada Space Post by Jason Morningstar The Watch Night Witches by Jason Morningstar Socials Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript The first ever Dice Exploder game jam came to a close about a month ago, and today I sit down with the three hooligans from the discord who put it together and go through some of our favorite entries. If Dice Exploder is a show about concrete examples, this episode is as Dice Exploder as it gets. All the games we talk about are pretty short, so it should be easy to follow along at home. Check out all the jam submissions here. Thanks to Audrey Stolze (aka Lady Tabletop), Chris Greenbriar, and Sam Roberts for running the jam! Further Reading: Game Exploder full list of entries Sam D's late entry: World Ending Game (Sam's Version) Socials Sam D on Bluesky and itch. Sam R's game Escape from Dino Island. Audrey on ⁠Tumblr⁠, and her podcast ⁠Alone at the Table⁠ about solo games. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript What if your D&D adventuring party settled down and opened a tavern, and the vibes went from dragon murderers to Bob’s Burgers? That's my pitch for Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern, one of my favorite RPGs. It's currently on Backerkit, and you should check it out. This week I'm talking about a super simple unnamed mechanic from Stewpot, and presumably other games before it, that's inspired much of my own work: everyone goes around and adds a detail about the scene at hand or whatever we're talking about. Simple but effective. I think of this mechanic, and Stewpot generally, as especially welcoming to people new to the hobby. And so I brought on my favorite new to the hobby person: Lee Conrads, acclaimed theater director (there's a lot of theater and audience theory in this one) and also my spouse. It's a very special episode. Further Reading: The Stewpot backerkit campaign Circle X theater company Great Reckonings in Little Rooms Comedy Book by Jesse David Fox Socials Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript Is sharing music with your friends an RPG? It sure is when you're playing Avery Alder's game Ribbon Drive. Takuma Okada, the designer of Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern (⁠on Backerkit right now⁠), joins me this week to talk about music, contemplation, and unconventional ways to inspire players. Further Reading: ⁠Ribbon Drive⁠ ⁠Spindlewheel⁠ Everything Is Illuminated, the book and film ⁠Ten Candles⁠ ⁠Dread⁠ ⁠Star Crossed⁠ ⁠Our Radios Are Dying⁠ ⁠Void 1680 AM⁠ Sam’s ⁠playlist⁠ from playing Ribbon Drive ⁠The Awards⁠ website ⁠The Awards interview on Yes Indie'd⁠ Socials Takuma on Twitter and Bluesky. Sam on ⁠Bluesky⁠ and ⁠itch⁠. The Dice Exploder blog is at ⁠diceexploder.com⁠ Our logo was designed by ⁠sporgory⁠, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the ⁠Dice Exploder Discord⁠ to talk

Transcripts are available at diceexploder.com People talk a lot about how and whether RPGs emulate TV and movies, but this week cohost Meguey Baker (Apocalypse World, Under Hollow Hills) brings in a game that takes that sentiment to a compelling meta level. Fan Mail, from Primetime Adventures by Matt Wilson, is the core of the game's key metaphor: that players are simultaneously writers of a TV show, fans watching that show, and the characters portrayed on screen. We talk about the storygame scene in the early 2000s, how Primetime Adventures has influenced Meg's work, and how different this mechanic can feel in a one shot vs a full campaign. This game feels like a classic. I wish I'd known about it ten years ago. Further Reading: Primetime Adventures by Matt Wilson The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall Inspecters by Jared Sorensen A Thousand and One Nights by Meguey Baker Ritual in Game Design by Meguey Baker Meguey & Vincent’s new game Under Hollow Hills Socials Meg on Twitter and Bluesky. The Baker family blog and games. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript What's the deal with Playbooks? That's a question that's way too big for one episode. But Moe Poplar, of the RPG Academy podcast Show & Tell, had a very particular effect of playbooks that he wanted to talk about on the show today: how playbook choice can be a line of communication between players, GM, and designer. This is one of those episodes that's as much play advice as it is about design. I should do more of those. Further Reading: Monster of the Week Blades in the Dark Socials Moe’s website, including his games. Moe’s podcast via The RPG Academy, Show & Tell Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Transcript This week, now that the part of season 3 that was funded by Kickstarter is over, I’ve got a treat for you: the backers-only bonus episode with Mikey Hamm, designer of Slugblaster. You didn’t think I was gonna just hold on to an episode this good forever, did you? It’s the show’s namesake mechanic! Mikey is currently Kickstarting Two-Hand Path, a solo game roll-and-write dungeon crawler. Check it out. While I thought this episode would be a big of a goof about a goofy mechanic (and it is), it also brought out some of the most thoughtful thoughts on deploying mechanics with precision and purpose that I’ve had on the show yet. Also, we had a blast. A slug blast. List of Games with Exploding Dice Middle Earth Roleplaying Game Shadowrun Earthdawn Luck of Legends The Burning Wheel 7th Sea Heart (Deep Apiarist class) Renegade Racers Kids on Bikes Armello Socials Back Two-Hand Path and buy Slugblaster now! Mikey on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!