Episode 83: Locales: Prisons

In our second Locales episode, we look at prisons with their bars, confinement, monotony, brutality and rape. Your players will love them.
We also review, with no spoilers, Prometheus and The Avengers, and discuss how to improve your Werewolf: The Forsaken game.

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Episode 77: Literature Lessons: Science Romance

Let’s look 100 years into the future to see what 2012 will bring!

A pneumatic tube messaging craze will sweep the country!
Science will find the cure for racism: all babies born in 2012 will be white!
Automatons will do all domestic chores! Women will stay in the kitchen for the fun of it!
Man will teach dogs and cats to talk! Will learn that they never really had much to say!
The Idle Red Hands, a radio program about Marxism, will win best show of the year!

In this Literature Lesson, we look at the science fiction of Verne, Wells, and Burroughs. Despite having an outline that includes colonialism, eugenics and xenophobia, we’re actually surprised when the show gets dark.

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Episode 76: Rogues: Black Marketeers

“In the criminal Idle Red Hands system, Rogues will be separated into two separate yet equally important groups: the crimes and the people who commit them. These are their stories.”

The month of debuts gets another debut! This time, it’s Rogues, a look at criminals and the crimes they commit. We look at the proud noble tradition of deal dealers, gunrunners and pimps (and those guys that sold jeans and Beatles records in the Soviet Union). Believe it or not, we actually suggest how to play black marketeers. Chris tries to cheat by recommending a “black” marketeer who provides food to the starving, but Wayne and Lyal put a stop to that nonsense.

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Episode 62: Warriors: Legionaries

“Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war!”
– William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

We don’t let slip dogs, however. We let slip men, manly men, men’s men. Roman men whose virtus strained against the chains of disciplina. Men who could march all day and then spend three hours setting up camp, until their short, sweaty tunics clung to their broad shoulders and powerful backs. Men with thick, stubby fingers and stocky bodies covered in coarse, black hair. (Hmmm, this shouldn’t be turning me on, should it?)

In this installment of Warriors, we answer the age-old question of “Who da man?”

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Episode 57: Narrative Structure

Is Savage Worlds better than Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Basic Game?

[Three sentences before.]
In this episode, we discuss narrative techniques from movies and novels that you can use to make your games more fun. We look at in media res, flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways, epistolary novels, and reverse chronology. We also offer advice for new gamemasters, including which games are good to start with. Is Savage Worlds better than Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Basic Game?

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Episode 51: Dungeons and Dragons 5e

In this episode, we seize this rare opportunity to be topical and talk about the biggest news in gaming since the announcement of Dungeons and Dragons 4e: the announcement of, uh, Dungeons and Dragons 5e. We give our 5e wish list and, oddly enough for three guys that have yet to figure out to how to monetize their podcast, give our thoughts on what Wizards of the Coast’s business strategy should be.

Next episode, we look at Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game. Here to stay?

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Episode 48: Campaign Confessions: Cosmic Patrol

What do two and a half white men know about blaxploitation movies? Unsurprisingly, very little, but we totally dug playing Soul Patrol, Wayne’s funky version of Cosmic Patrol. In this episode, we chill, get our groove on and review the righteous Cosmic Patrol from Catalyst Game Labs. We also discuss what other genres would work well with this slick game. Solid!

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Episode 46: Campaign Confessions: Savaged Worlds Part 2

It was to be a story for the ages. Its heroes dwarfed The Iliad‘s. Its pathos rivaled Oedipus Rex. It had more earth-threatening disasters than a Roland Emmerich film. And it lasted three sessions.

In this episode, we discuss The Marius Chronicles and its premature demise. We talk about party design, “yes” GMs, “no” GMs, and the dangers of elevator pitching a game.

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Episode 45: Campaign Confessions: Savaged Worlds Part 1

Eight years after its release, the always topical Idle Red Hands review new(ish) RPG kid on the block Savage Worlds. Does the game live up to its promise of being “fast, furious, and fun”? Well, one of us found it fast, another found it fun, and someone was furious. Listen to find out who thought what.

Yujiro guest hosts. (Hey! That makes four people. Now, you really need to listen to the episode.)

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Episode 42: Comic Chameleon

SPECTACULAR SPECIAL EPISODE!
Comic books!
Comic book movies!
Comic books in games!
PLUS: Who is the Talking Man, and why are the Idle Red Hands helpless before his barrage of words?
All this and more inside!

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