Yaruki Zero Podcast #15 (34 minutes, 58 seconds)
This episode is an attempt to unpack certain underlying “big picture” things in role-playing games that I’ve been thinking about lately. It’s not about how they fare in the marketplace (though there’s a little bit of that), but RPGs are and how they work. There’s a good chance other (smarter) people have said this elsewhere, but I need to put it out there in my own words.
Show Notes
- Intro
- A-Kon – Lots of receptive people, my thoughts and observations seemed really new to most of those folks.
- Got to meet Malcolm Harris of Channel M Publishing, Jonathan Thompson of Battlefield Press.
- Text vs. Play
- Old-School D&D
- The Perrin Conventions (Word doc)
- Traditional RPG play
- Are skilled GMs really that common?
- Structured RPG play
- Artists vs. Consumers
- Non-Commercial Gaming
- Gaming as Consumption
- Structured RPGs and Creativity
- Consumption as Shortcut
- Rules vs. Not-Rules
- Redrawing the Lines
- “Missing” Rules
- Naked rules vs. Clothed Rules (Guy’s posts on Blinders)
This podcast uses selections from the song “Time Machine” by To-den from the Grünemusik album of the same name, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website or via Jamendo.
Very awesome caricature of Ewen courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.
Yaruki Zero Games 
A little critic feedback.
Around 26′ the sound volume drops suddenly, was that your Sony device playing tricks on you?
I don’t care for your first part. It felt heavy handed forge gospel, bordering on the badwrongfun acrimony toward “pixel bitching”. I’m not saying you’re not entitled to your opinion but I think your episode would have been better without it.
At the very end when you talk about heart warming play style I was all happy because I think you’ve got more things to say about it than old school D&D for instance. But coitus interruptus! That was too short :/
I hope you don’t take the critic personally. I’m happy following your podcast and want more of it, especially the bits that other podcasts don’t talk about.
The third part was recorded on my computer rather than the recorder, and the recorder produces recordings with dramatically higher gain for some reason. I definitely need to be more careful about that.
And here I was worried that I’d gone overboard trying to frame things as merely being my opinions…
Great episode, Ewen! Welcome back to the podcasting – I’m happy to hear that you’ve recovered from illness. I suspect I might have had a similar strain of the flu if the symptoms you mentioned are anything close to the ones I was suffering from about a month ago. Even a few weeks after major recovery I am still fighting a cloggy throat. *sigh*
As for roleplaying, we are currently playing a homebrew version of Aberrant (storyteller) and D&D 3.5. Both are weird, but it is this focus on the bizarre that makes the games interesting. The players are forced to think outside of the box which is challenging us in new ways. If a game is too easy, then players don’t enjoy it as much, but the same can be sad about games that are too difficult to negotiate.
While I am here, did you hear that Tracy Hickman is now doing courses for GM’S? I saw a link on one of his websites a few months back and saw great potential. Here’s the link if you’re interested in checking it out: http://www.xtremedungeonmastery.com/