So yes.

Well said, Chris.

Phil, I gave Timo a ruffie before the cast.

We are also the 8th most listened to podcast by women. I attribute that mostly to me and my beautiful man-voice.

Having said that, I think we’re all just pretty psyched that we made that top 20 list at all, even at the very bottom. We tend to think of ourselves as fairly niche (how about “boutique?” Is there such a thing as a boutique podcast?) so to actually have ANYONE care about what we do is very cool and humbling to us.

I would also add that one thing the survey found is that podcasters have a large influence on what games people play and buy. As we say in our (new and shiny!) intro, we play a lot of games and we want other people to play them too. I really think of us as a delivery mechanism for getting games, including some under the radar games that deserve people’s attention, to people. If we help with that, I’m happy.

I mean… thanks man!

Onmyouza
http://youtu.be/PyF7tCzuSwo

Area51
http://youtu.be/hLuidYvXTow

Boris
http://youtu.be/emJmRpLRLdg

Blood Stain Child
http://youtu.be/2oi-8xl7uZs

Corrupted
http://youtu.be/zWJw7tsInY4

Dragon Guardian
http://youtu.be/BaKhYIWiNkY

Gaia Prelude
http://youtu.be/gtyyTaCwC_E

Gallhammer
http://youtu.be/Hnxu9x-k_eI

Knights of Round
http://youtu.be/GN3M3pPODaY

Hizaki Grace Project
http://youtu.be/BW1lfMGTbtA

Iron Attack!
http://youtu.be/b-Pj5SzcyYc

Sword of Justice
http://youtu.be/zj5vOR_t4JI

X Japan
http://youtu.be/_ovAk5avdzE

Versailles
http://youtu.be/FCJfhEWpoeM

Azrael
http://youtu.be/ogJB2dFO_9E

Greenmachine
http://youtu.be/b5NhiYzC7_o

Church of Misery
http://youtu.be/05uI1tjBlHU

Jank is probably the best RPG podcast right now – as informative as the BGs plus a regular release schedule and awesome APs.

What I’m getting at is this: More people should be listening to the Jank Cast. Is there anything I can do to help evangelize? We gotta get the word out!

Either way, as I said, her pronunciation was the least of her problems.

But fine. If it means that much to you, I retract my condemnation of her alternate pronunciation. You have bested me, valiant defender. I yield.

Quinoa
Pronunciation: /ˈkiːnəʊə, kwɪˈnəʊə/

Maybe check a dictionary for alternate pronunciations before condemning people based on how they say certain words…

The biggest problem with foreshadowing, Chekhov’s gun, etc. is that they’re techniques for an artist to use on an audience. We want to feel that delight or dread when the details snap into focus and we suddenly know where the story is taking us. But in gaming, I want to be both artist and audience. I can’t purposefully surprise myself. All I can do is contribute to a creative foment that will allow me to accidently surprise myself, and be surprised by the other players.

I had a thought about Chekhov’s Gun: what about props? In a sense, Chekhov’s gun is precisely that: a prop on the stage. Being, as you know, a prop kinda guy, and having brought a gun as a prop the last time we gamed Dogs — and NOT firing it! — I was wondering to what extent bringing real objects to the table have an impact on your discussion. I guess I would say that my gun, at least in the service of Dogs and specifically that last session with Brother Joshua, did sort of act for me at least as a kind of “character magnet.” What I think I mean by that is that the object itself had something fundamental to do with the character, allegorically speaking. So the gun might have represented Joshua’s potential for internal combustibility, for instance. The object itself, when turned either on someone — whether an enemy or oneself — also offers up more dimensions to Joshua: I found myself asking, “is he the kind of character to shoot himself in the head?” Dogs in general is a good game to bring up in terms of Chekhov’s guns for obvious reasons. We all carry our own very special gun, but also hat, coat, etc. But when I brought my real gun to the table, how did its physical presence make it more like Chekhov’s gun?

Circles, as Todd pointed out, really make it a better place to talk about specific (and quasi-private) subjects than similar venues. I’ve got my Gamers circle, of course. And circles for all the various RPGs I’m involved in, too. I’ve got a circle for the people who tend to come to our nightly hangouts, and one for Chicago people, and one for all the people I play Team Fortress 2 and other Steam games with. I’ve got and Atrocity Tourists circle for when I want to share horrible Internet treasures with the kind of people who appreciate such things. I’ve got a circle for folks who enjoy bad movies. Inevitably, there’s a huge amount of overlap in these groups (Oh, man, wouldn’t it be rad if G+ could generate a Venn diagram of your circles?), but the distinctions are extremely useful.

But, yeah, almost my whole range of friends is extremely Internet, so it’s a perfect fit for me.

I should probably talk at you via Google+, instead.

Also, in regards to On Mighty Thews and the facts, I was running a one shot and the people I was playing with were adding their facts like crazy, but they were adding actually more bad fact than good. And like Todd said, it made their lives more interesting.

Seriously, thank-yous to Timo for bringing up incentives in the discussion. My comment on Thews was that the one thing it lacked was an incentive for the players to invent those “facts” that make things more challenging for the characters. Our group’s dynamic was that there were about half of us creating more challenges and half of us solving them, so it came out well, but I wouldn’t want to be pigeonholed into either role over the course of a whole campaign. It could be made easier for the GM to present harder challenges, as Dave suggested, but I think you’d want to keep the creativity of the players involved instead of putting it all on the GM.

How about this: Change the healing mechanic slightly so that in order to heal a point of damage, a player has to invent something that sufficiently makes life more complicated for the PC’s.

However you choose to run it, I think it’s going to take the players and GM all knowing each other’s playing styles and a good deal of trust as Todd mentioned, since creative abuse of “facts” could theoretically make the PC’s invincible, or lead them all to ruin.

And a Celtic themed D&D game influenced by Slaine sounds totally awesome.

2) Humans in the Star Trek universe are Luddites for anything over the accepted technological level. (Nerd alert) When they developed metaphasic sheilds, the technology was shelved. Later, when fleeing the borg, Dr. Crusher had two no-name engineers apply the technology to the Enterprise to hide inside a star. They had complete immunity to all know weapons, but didn’t do anything with it.

1) Disney is evil, clearly. I don’t know why you folks can’t see that. They’re gobbling up every good kids’ entertainment in sight; Pixar, the Muppets, Marvel, where will it end? The princesses are a clue as to how the new ‘royalty’ will rule over us after their fiendish plot to take over the world is hatched: from behind cute, smiling faces with perfect politeness.

2) A labor dispute in Shadowrun? No, you see, in the future of Shadowrun, the corporations have won and the unions have lost, period. That’s why the term “MegaCorp” and “Wage Slave” are common in the setting. Any problem that the MegaCorps can’t squash legally, they hire someone (often called “shadowrunners”) to squash illegally. In fact, one of the main draws of becoming a runner is that you get to live outside the system that the megacorporations control. I guess I have to give the GM credit though, for bravery in getting presented an idea that goes against the grain of the setting and running with it.

3) You left out an example of productive fun that I think applies to both the listener and recorder side: The Jank Cast.

The chart of fun!

Let’s look at the quadrants, shall we?

Unstrcutred/unproductive = Just hanging out with your friends.
Structured/unproductive = Playing a sport, for example.
Structured/Productive = Playing in a band, playing an RPG, perhaps.
Unstructured/productive = This one is hard. I would say something like brainstorming goes here.

Ta-da! I’m a dork.

I *love* the idea of playing long-term campaigns in “seasons”. One of the drawbacks of long-running games is that the pressure builds on the GM to create the conditions for situations to arise that the PC’s haven’t been in before, and the characters themselves become so familiar that everyone would be able to predict what they would do in almost any scenario. With seasons, the GM would be encouraged to set up a long story arc with an “episode” that would be a natural ending point. The downtime between seasons would give the GM a chance to recharge, and a chance for the players to reflect on how the last season’s events might have changed their characters.

On a side note, I need to reassure Megan: I thought it was cool to have my daughter’s first birthday party at Chicagoland Games, but *only* her first. At that age, the party was more for the adults that we invited (many of them gamers) than it was for her, and I’m fairly certain she won’t remember any of it, especially since she slept through half of it. I promise you, when she’s old enough to have a party with her future little friends of a type that would turn the Dice Dojo into a Chuck E. Cheese, I’ll be taking her to… well, Chuck E. Cheese.

-Doc

For example, in my Deadlands campaign early on I the players deal with a train load of vampires, a rather famous canned adventure which killed a lot of PCs. I don’t think the party ever forgave me, or forgot. Two years (real time) later while the crew was in Tombstone and they heard the whistle from an unscheduled train. Now normally they kept a low profile as they were being actively hunted by one of the reckoners. an inbred magical family, and a persistent a “wife” (guess who scared the party more ) But they heard those words unscheduled train and out came the heavy artillery. The best line came from the normally calm Priest who always tried to talk his way out of a problem (at least while humans were involved) which was to the ‘can I shoot it yet’ riflemen. “Get the dynamite”.

The whole point being that the entire line HAD been just a throw away line on my part. A way to set the mood before the next adventure. When they started to gear up and acting as if I said “the forces of hell and damnation are descending upon you” I was gobsmacked. Until they pointed out that they last “unscheduled” train they had to deal with was full of vampires.

So there the party was carrying enough firepower magical and otherwise to level a state, infront of townsfolk who really didn’t know what was going on and off of this train comes a British Noble who just wanted to bring “the wonders and enlightenment of art and culture to his unwashed American cousins. ”

I still have one players who honestly feels that the train load of vampires was the lesser of those two evils.

Sandy

Though, honestly? I’d probably be more demanding in a long term game, because whatever is created now is possibly part of the session not only next week, but 3 months down the line. If something is going to bother me every time it comes up, better to nip it in the bud earlier rather than later.

It was interesting to hear the other side.

Sandy

http://www.amazon.com/Treat-Your-Own-Back-9th/dp/0987650408

I’d grab the setting and ditch the system, because it actually brings nothing new or special to the table. It has attributes, skills, and that is it. The only additional system are the actions points (AP) based on two of your attributes. They mainly come into play during fights and serve as you hitpoint for trauma damage (like the stun monitor in Shadowrun, but without negative modifiers). But you can also use them to boost your initiative, to reduce target numbers, etc.)…so nothing special.

Even the developers admitted in an interview some years ago that the rule system is lacking and full of flaws. So (some) people are still waiting for a revised (or rather redone) version…

Pinkys.Brain

p.s.: You can get the free German pdf from the German Degenesis page…

But I do like the podcast survey, it’s nice and shiny and make me feel special.

The game solicitation section isn’t a check box list, it’s a write in of your PREFERRED system.

You’ll get no disagreement from me that the survey is a little less than ‘scientific’. The game distribution isn’t the point of the survey, by a lot, so it’s somewhat disingenuous to draw conclusions from that.

There’s a huge bias in the data getting skewed: shows that promote it primarily have an bias toward indie games.

We’re definitely open to suggestions on how to improve the survey process. In fact, every year before we run it, we solicit feedback and ask for people to promote it. If you’re actually interested in making it better, you could definitely help out.

And that reminds me: I also wanted to make a formal apology to all German RPGers out there about comments made in this cast: I do not think that Germany is 20 years behind in RPGs. There is a ton of good work out there – I’m particularly excited about “Ratten!” and all the cool stuff that’s coming out with Kopfkino, for instance. I also hope to go to Internationale Spieltage in Essen – the German version of GenCon – at the end of October to see what’s new. I’m just a little nervous about the DeGenesis system, is all. Any thoughts on that system in particular would be most welcome, since I’ve only skimmed the English translation, and would love to play it.

Congrats to Rob, both on the job and the wedding.

Btw, I’m having trouble finding the Jank circle you guys have on Google+

For example: in the very first mission after the tutorial part, when you have to go get the terrorists out of the factory or whatever, you enter and there’s a hallway with three guys in it. I spent about a half hour getting killed over and over by them before I realized that they’re cops and you’re not supposed to fight them, just walk right past them.

1 – the system might not be right for you, and you might be better of changing it. Just because I’m suggesting changes, it’s not because I’m defensively trying to protect the game and put loads of blame on you. So you can listen!

2 – not everyone plays for the same reasons, so you and your freind might be better off playing different games or two games each other’s way. But that is because there is better stuff you can do, a more intense, in depth and pure version of the stuff you like, here’s what it might look like, or some ways to get it…

3 – gaming is damned complicated, and there are so many different ways people play. But because we are now comparing different people’s games instead of pretending they are the same, I can make more justified assumptions of audience, because you have self-selected on the basis of style of play, and similarities between the game systems you use. So you know when my advice is likely to have any appropriateness to your game.

Also after reading the thread, I have an idea:

We’ve got this stuff about players who want to play games where the gm manipulates his players. Or more specifically, manipulates his player characters. Players play some people who are fated to go a certain way, but doesn’t in any way act towards that. They just do their thing and see what happens.

Has anyone anywhere designed this game? A game that like smallville, apocolypse world or fiasco, puts the rules where the meat is?

Surely the meat of that game is in finding ways for the GM to naturally manipulate characters. While giving players total freedom to act in the world and react to it without having to consider what would make a good story arc?

Surely you should stick the rules right there, about ways for the GM player to react to the other players and contain and redirect them towards your story goals!

Random extra comments:

Magic players only steal to feed their habbit, it’s not them, it’s the rare symbols, it’s the metagame.

As a british person, people already gamble on games here, it’s just that it needs to get enough coverage that the bookies start posting odds, then your sorted. In fact I think some of them probably already are.

Uh oh, just opened the door for new analogies… So, imagine that GURPS is the Chicago Cubs…

OTOH, not all indie games are simple apps. I’ve been playing Burning Wheel. Oy.

One of the main reaction to the app in the cast seemed to be, “Why would anyone take the time to do/use this?” I admit, sometimes I look at certain “little” games and think the same thought.

And there are always the people who glance briefly at the screwdriver and hammer instructions, then throw them away so they can use the tools as paperweights, or lawn darts, or cooking implements. (Don’t even ask what they do with the pepperoni.)

Imagine the first traditional systems are pepperoni pizzas, the only ones available. They are yummy and fill you up, but right away you have folks that feel like something is missing, so they still buy the pepperoni pizza, but when they get it home they sprinkle their own green peppers, Canadian bacon, etc. on it as they see fit. Opinions on toppings vary, and soon you have people sharing advice for the PM (Pizza Master, who is seen as the final word on what goes on a group’s pizza) on how to come up with the “perfect” set of toppings, or how to deal with a group of eaters that have different tastes in toppings.

Eventually, independents develop pizzas to fulfill different tastes, so you have Veggie Pizzas, Supremes, Deep Dish, Cheese-in-Crust, even Hawaiian Pizza (Kagematsu?) and Peanut Butter and Jelly Pizza (there’s a restaurant that sells these near us, true story.) Inevitably, some of the old pizza lovers claim that these aren’t “real” pizzas, just as some claim that the new pizzas are superior to the old. Some embrace the new as the pizzas that they wanted all along and discard the old completely, while others cling to the old and never give the new a try.

I’ll stop before the metaphor degenerates into a pizza fight, but my main point is that the choice of game is important not just for its functionality, but to satisfy the individual tastes of the participants, Some folks will enjoy it more to buy a pizza designed as they would have it right out of the box, while others might prefer to add their own toppings to an existing pizza, despite the additional effort required. Some will have more than one favorite and will jump between them, and of course some will enjoy making their own pizza from scratch.