Gaming on the Frontier

Episode 32: How big is BIG?

This week Blix and Bruce discuss how differences in scale can radically change the nature of an adventure and any solutions to problems presented in the adventure.  Why this is important in a science fiction game. 01:20 – Dealing with super fast speeds in space. Astronomical Unit, Speed of Light 04:10 – Saving an entire society and dealing with large scale problems. 06:30 – Dealing with the small scale. 13:20 – The scope of the adventures and campaigns. Little game time requires a small scope. Lots of games time allows for bigger scope. 18:50 – Fringe Pirate example of story arcs. 24:20 – Running one adventure after another with no big arcs. 25:50 – Know your players. Only run scopes as big as their desires.

Episode 31: Adventuring in the Past - Persia and India

We explore Persia and India from the 5th to the 11th century.  Hop a ride with sinbad and catch the belt of Vishnu. This one is a little fact heavy but we have provided plenty of links to everything disscussed so you can listen without taking notes. You can look everything up from the notes page later on.

Persia

01:50 – Trade in Persia

Caliphate, Sunni, Shi'ah, Caliph

03:30 – Missions

04:20 – Historically accurate – the “real” ugly dirty past vs. “movie style” pristine romantic past.

Sinbad, Richard Burton, 1001 Nights,  Black Plague, Islamic Golden Age

08:50 – Beware the religion bomb. See Episode 7 for more info.

10:31 – Battles and Wars

Ottoman Empire, Bagdad

11:15 – Mellors in ancient Persia

12:00 – The effect of the crusades.

Saladin, Crusaders

 

India

16:00 – Dynasties of ancient India.

India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam

17:45 – The role of the caste systems.

Caste System

22:00 – Cultural influences on India.

Alexander the Great, Khyber Pass

24:00 – Caste conflicts within the party and “on-world”.

27:20 – How are outsiders treated during this time?

29:45 – Adventure idea #1 - Plausible Deniability.

31:30 – Adventure idea #2 – Temple of Doom.

Hashshashin, Thuggees, Temple of Doom

32:15 – Crypto archeology in India.

Erich von Däniken, Crypto Archeology, Hinduism in the Ice Age

33:34 – Ancient Indian treasures.

34:20 – Graphic novels featuring Indian mythology.

Deepak Chopra’s India Authentic, Ramayan 3392 A.D.

35:30 – Religious aspects of Hindu - Buddhism in game play.

 

Episode 30.5 Plots that Worked Part 2

We continue our discussion of what adventure and play technique bring the awesome.  This week we concentrate on teams pooling their skills and backgrounds to provide better solutions than trying to create uber characters.

01:20 – The role of the essential skills. Giving free skills, allowing automatic successes, including NPCs. Ways to handle failed essential checks.

09:25 – Playing more than one character at a time.

10:30 – Skill checks. Puzzles, the GM’s bane.

16:40 – Knowing your PC’s and players.

18:20 – Letting each character shine.

21:20 – Make characters a real person!

26:20 – The 3x3 method.

 

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Episode 30: Plots that worked

Part 1 of our discussion of adventure design and play techniques that either worked well or were really terrible ideas.  We discuss good methods to motivate characters and how to make the game more fun for new and experienced players.  Sometimes both. Note: We now move to our summer format we announced 2 weeks ago.  Our episodes will only be 1/2 hour long instead of about an hour .  Episodes that are split will have the rest published the next week.  We will be returning to our normal format in the fall after Dragoncon.  Hope to see you there. 02:00 GM’s entertain your players – Combat! Putting in a teaser, setting the mood, flashback combat scene, medias res. 08:00 Don’t use capture or blackmail to make the player’s friends with an NPC. 11:30 Players, surrender is sometimes an option. 12:50 Give the characters more tasks than they can possibly complete. 14:15 GMs, use the player’s comments to influence the adventure. 16:10 Big story arcs along with short story arcs. 20:12 Being funny, it’s harder than you think. Let it happen naturally.

Episode 29: Adventuring in the past: Africa

We continue our adventuring in the past series with a set of podcasts on the 5th to 11th centuries.  We start off with Africa, ramrodded by our good friend Trav.

 

Essay on Africa

Metallurgy in Africa

Route of Lost Kingdoms

Kingdoms in Pre-Colonial Africa

Ancient African Kingdoms

Swahili Language

Black Like Me

African Folklore

Ark of the Covenant - Ethiopia

Ark of the Covenant - Southern Africa

Tarzan and the Lost Empire

Roman Empire

Episode 28: Time Travel

So you want to time travel and the time shifted worlds aren't enough.  Okay.  We tell you what works, what doesn't and how to not wreck your campaign and avoid screwing over your players with time travel.    Players take note:  This is the hardest kind of adventure to write and run so if the gm hands it to you, drink the Kool-aide.  It's yummy!

Episode 27: Failure

This week we discuss how to handle failure in a campaign.  This is a companion piece to the Jay Hailey interview.

Episode 25.5: The Middle Campaign

In this episode we talk to Bruce about his new group running in the middle campaign. we then go on to discuss the middle campaign in general. We wrap it up with a little discussion about the upcoming Fringeworthy Savage Worlds edition. This was originally part of the water vehicles episode but this bit ran fairly long. Sooooo, I stripped it out into it's own short episode. Think of this past week as two mini-episodes rather than one long one. The water vehicle episode will be posted in the next day or two. Enjoy! Oh, and post some comments dagonit!

Episode 25: New Tri Tac Products

Got behind in the next podcast so I'm editing a recent interview with Richard Tucholka and his crew in Tri Tac Central (Michigan).  He talks about his recent releases of WeirdZone and HardWired Hinterland and his game in development ElfWinds.  I'll have the audio file posted soon.  Please be patient.  And I'm trying to get back on schedule for next Sunday's release as well. Well, it is pretty obvious I didn't get it posted soon.  So this one will replace the one normally published this coming Sunday.  That gives me a week to finish up on the next topic:  Failure.  Ironic yes?

Episode 24: Jay Hailey Interview

We are joined by Trav of the Trav cast for an interview of Jay Hailey.  Jay recently chronicled his attempt at running a variant Fringeworthy campaign with just one player.  He shares his successes and failures. There is some really good ideas about running what he calls a Meta Campaign.