By Subject|Chronologically

You Want ‘Em By Subject?

For GMs|Design and Writing|Guest Experts|Monica and Rai BS

For Gamemasters/Storyguides/Facilitators

• Season 1 Ep01: GMing 101 – How to prepare for and run your first game
• Season 1 Ep02: House Rules, the Gateway Drug to Game Design – About house ruling and its connection to design
• Season 1 Ep03: Player Engagement and Trust – How to get these sorry fools to trust you and care about your game
• Season 1 Ep05: Games and the Art of Railroading – Railroading is good, actually, and let us tell you why
• Season 1 Ep09: Tips for Running Long Campaigns – When running longer campaigns, what to plan for, how to plan for it, and how to keep everyone (including you, GM) engaged.
• Season 1 Ep10: Tips for Running One-Shots – When running single- or double-episode games, how to manage your time, how to stay on task, and how to pack a kick-ass story into a limited amount of time
• Season 1 Ep15: Making—and Playing—Great NPCs – On embodying your NPCs with minimal effort, and making sure your NPCs are richly realized and not just a GM mouthpiece.
• Season 1Ep17: Emergency NPCs and Canon NPCs – On dealing with the players unexpectedly latching on to NPCs, creating characters on the fly, and making good use of canon characters.
• Season 1 Ep19: Failing Forward – On the practice of not embarrassing characters after failure, and the importance of partial successes in your game design. Also some math talk.
• Season 1 Ep 21: Tone, Scope, and Power Scale – On making sure your play experience matches your intentions as GM and designer; also balancing rules to achieve the right game feel.
• Season 2 Ep2: How Do You… Play Online? – Some common pitfalls of running your games online, how to avoid them, and humblebrags on how fast both of us can type.
• Season 2 Ep3: How Do You… Surprise Players? – Keeping things secret from your players, how to keep them from getting mad about it, and orangutans… those damn orangutans…
• Season 2 Ep4: How Do You… Bring Diversity to Your Table? – Diversity and Inclusion 101. Some tips on how to avoid accidentally making another “Solemn white folks walk through temperature European forest from inn to inn” game.

Design and Writing

• Season 1 Ep02: House Rules, the Gateway Drug to Game Design – About house ruling and its connection to design
• Season 1 Ep07: What’s Real When We Play Pretend: Diegesis and Writing Games – Knowing what is real for the “story” and what is real for the “rules,” and how to keep them separate, maintains clarity in your game design.
• Season 1 Ep11: We Need to Talk About Skill Lists – How many skills are TOO many, and how to make your skills/abilities relevant not just to your system but your theme
• Season 1 Ep16: Game Repair and LARP Design with Danielle Lauzon – Danielle Lauzon of many, many projects talks to Monica about repairing game design flaws and the cornerstones of LARP design.
• Season 1 Ep20: Steal Like a Designer – Did you think we came up with all of this ourselves? On best practices using open licenses for publication, and Rai’s love for the Ship of Theseus.
• Season 1 Ep 21: Tone, Scope, and Power Scale – On making sure your play experience matches your intentions as GM and designer; also balancing rules to achieve the right game feel.
• Patreon Preview! Homebrew Jam: Pokémon by the Apocalypse – We try to get as far as we can designing a Pokémon hack of PbtA without any prior planning or negotiation. And actually get farther than you’d think!
• Season 2 Ep5: Hack D&D 5e with Kitty of D&Destiny – Kitty of D&Destiny fame lends us her considerable expertise as we dish out advice on how to hack and home-brew the fifth edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game.

Interviews and Guest Experts

• Season 1 Ep14: Interview with Sandy Pug Games – Liam Ginty of Sandy Pug games talks to us about Americana, and writing inclusively in infamously exclusive settings
• Season 1 Ep16: Game Repair and LARP Design with Danielle Lauzon – Danielle Lauzon of many, many projects talks to Monica about repairing game design flaws and the cornerstones of LARP design.
• Season 1 Ep18: DINOSAUR PRINCESSES! with Dana and Hamish Cameron – Dana and Hamish Cameron talk to us about Dinosaur Princesses, and writing gender-inclusive, kid-friendly games.
• Season 1 Ep22: THE METAL WORLD INTERVIEW – Nick Zachariasen of Maniac Clown tells us all about his TOTALLY FACE MELTING GAME THAT USES D12s!
• Season 1 Ep23: Rosenstrasse with Jessica Hammer – Dr. Jessica Hammer of Unruly Designs sits down with Monica to talk about Rosenstrasse, a game of love, survival, and resistance in 1930s Berlin. Also, Monica’s stunned, reverent silence.
• Season 2 Ep1: Ken Spencer of Why Not Games – Ken Spencer drops in to have a chat about Rocket Age, Imperial Jupiter, and unfortunate dragon design choices.
• Season 2 Ep5: Hack D&D 5e with Kitty of D&Destiny – Kitty of D&Destiny fame lends us her considerable expertise as we dish out advice on how to hack and home-brew the fifth edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game.

Monica and Rai Bullshit for 30+ Minutes

• Season 1 Ep04: War Stories, vol I – Reliving the, uh, not-so-glory days, when men ate Elemental Bolts and wizards stank of feces
• Season 1 Ep08: Our Favorite Systems – In which we get all starry-eyed over our current game crushes.
• Season 1 Ep12: Listener Mail and GenCon Wrap-Up – We get message! Main screen turn on! —What happens when players and GMs have different expectations? How does chronic illness impact running a game? And assorted GenCon nonsense.
• Season 1 Ep13: War Stories, vol II – Remember that one time you didn’t know how to make an effective character, and the GM just sort of snickered and let you do it all wrong? So do we.
• Patreon Preview – the Bonus Bonus Experience Experience – Monica and Rai have a casual discussion about books, the YA category, their Redwall fursonas, and anime club.
• Patreon Preview! MORE Bonus “Bonus Experience” Experience?? – Monica and Rai talk about their favorite cliches in storytelling and gaming.
• Season 1 Ep26: Happy Birthday to Us! – We’ve been recording for a year, let’s talk about it! And let’s share the plans we have for the year to come.

You Want ‘Em Chronological?

Season 1

• Ep01: GMing 101 – How to prepare for and run your first game
• Ep02: House Rules, the Gateway Drug to Game Design – About house ruling and its connection to design
• Ep03: Player Engagement and Trust – How to get these sorry fools to trust you and care about your game
• Ep04: War Stories, vol I – Reliving the, uh, not-so-glory days, when men ate Elemental Bolts and wizards stank of feces
• Ep05: Games and the Art of Railroading – Railroading is good, actually, and let us tell you why
• Ep06: Dealing with Garbage Players at the Table – Keep discomfort and bad behavior to a minimum, save your game and your players.
• Ep07: What’s Real When We Play Pretend: Diegesis and Writing Games – Knowing what is real for the “story” and what is real for the “rules,” and how to keep them separate, maintains clarity in your game design.
• Ep08: Our Favorite Systems – In which we get all starry-eyed over our current game crushes.
• Ep09: Tips for Running Long Campaigns – When running longer campaigns, what to plan for, how to plan for it, and how to keep everyone (including you, GM) engaged.
• Ep10: Tips for Running One-Shots – When running single- or double-episode games, how to manage your time, how to stay on task, and how to pack a kick-ass story into a limited amount of time
• Ep11: We Need to Talk About Skill Lists – How many skills are TOO many, and how to make your skills/abilities relevant not just to your system but your theme
• Ep12: Listener Mail and GenCon Wrap-Up – We get message! Main screen turn on! —What happens when players and GMs have different expectations? How does chronic illness impact running a game? And assorted GenCon nonsense.
• Ep13: War Stories, vol II – Remember that one time you didn’t know how to make an effective character, and the GM just sort of snickered and let you do it all wrong? So do we.
• Ep14: Interview with Sandy Pug Games – Liam Ginty of Sandy Pug games talks to us about Americana, and writing inclusively in infamously exclusive settings
• Ep15: Making—and Playing—Great NPCs – On embodying your NPCs with minimal effort, and making sure your NPCs are richly realized and not just a GM mouthpiece.
• Ep16: Game Repair and LARP Design with Danielle Lauzon – Danielle Lauzon of many, many projects talks to Monica about repairing game design flaws and the cornerstones of LARP design.
• Ep17: Emergency NPCs and Canon NPCs – On dealing with the players unexpectedly latching on to NPCs, creating characters on the fly, and making good use of canon characters.
• Ep18: DINOSAUR PRINCESSES! with Dana and Hamish Cameron – Dana and Hamish Cameron talk to us about Dinosaur Princesses, and writing gender-inclusive, kid-friendly games.
• Ep19: Failing Forward – On the practice of not embarrassing characters after failure, and the importance of partial successes in your game design. Also some math talk.
• Ep20: Steal Like a Designer – Did you think we came up with all of this ourselves? On best practices using open licenses for publication, and Rai’s love for the Ship of Theseus.
• Ep 21: Tone, Scope, and Power Scale – On making sure your play experience matches your intentions as GM and designer; also balancing rules to achieve the right game feel.
• Ep22: THE METAL WORLD INTERVIEW – Nick Zachariasen of Maniac Clown tells us all about his TOTALLY FACE MELTING GAME THAT USES D12s!
• Patreon Preview – the Bonus Bonus Experience Experience – Monica and Rai have a casual discussion about books, the YA category, their Redwall fursonas, and anime club.
• Ep23: Rosenstrasse with Jessica Hammer – Dr. Jessica Hammer of Unruly Designs sits down with Monica to talk about Rosenstrasse, a game of love, survival, and resistance in 1930s Berlin. Also, Monica’s stunned, reverent silence.
• Patreon Preview! MORE Bonus “Bonus Experience” Experience?? – Monica and Rai talk about their favorite cliches in storytelling and gaming.
• Patreon Preview! Homebrew Jam: Pokémon by the Apocalypse – We try to get as far as we can designing a Pokémon hack of PbtA without any prior planning or negotiation. And actually get farther than you’d think!
• Ep26: Happy Birthday to Us! – We’ve been recording for a year, let’s talk about it! And let’s share the plans we have for the year to come.

Season 2

• Ep1: Ken Spencer of Why Not Games – Ken Spencer drops in to have a chat about Rocket Age, Imperial Jupiter, and unfortunate dragon design choices.
• Ep2: How Do You… Play Online? – Some common pitfalls of running your games online, how to avoid them, and humblebrags on how fast both of us can type.
• Ep3: How Do You… Surprise Players? – Keeping things secret from your players, how to keep them from getting mad about it, and orangutans… those damn orangutans…
• Ep4: How Do You… Bring Diversity to Your Table? – Diversity and Inclusion 101. Some tips on how to avoid accidentally making another “Solemn white folks walk through temperature European forest from inn to inn” game.
• Ep5: Hack D&D 5e with Kitty of D&Destiny – Kitty of D&Destiny fame lends us her considerable expertise as we dish out advice on how to hack and home-brew the fifth edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game.