Hearty Dice Friends

Cities on wheels? Boring. Tired. DONE. Dungeons on wheels? That's the next big thing, baby! Hop on, strap in and get ready for the ride of your life! Also in this week's episode: - Doing stuff other than playing games whilst playing games - A NORMAL game for NORMAL people - Improving low level D&D with the addition of magical bullshit - Secret Lemonade Much love, G +C

Terrible and wonderful news! Grant has replaced the need to think up original ideas with a random game name generator that spits out pure gold* every time. Sorry, games design studios. Your time is up. In this week's episode: - Cursed arrow orchards (archards?) - Stitching five games together into a sort of Frankenstein's monster - How granular do you have to go with the old worldbuilding? - A game based on the Inverse Ninja principle - Sleepy spectres - Tennis Vampires - Will-they-won't-they car crashes And more! We adore you. Just look at you, you pretty little thing. - G+C *Bronze, at best

Sure, we all love STARTING campaigns - but who wants to actually go through the long-winded process of PLAYING the damned thing? With our new Dungeons and Dragons module, we'll ensure that no game ever fizzles out because you'll be able to explosively detonate your plot within 45 minutes or less. Or your money back! Also: - Session Zero advice - New Axes of Evil (also Good, Lawful, Chaotic, etc) - Fictional Detectives? Much love. Be good! - Grant and Chris

Bit of a shorter episode this week - we're running an online convention on the HDF Discord, dontcherknow. Coming up this week: - Easily avoidable mistakes that every new game designer makes - How to use published adventures (it involves a red pen and judicious editing) - Also we actually design a real game? Not just one with a rhyming celebrity title or anything. Much love, - Grant and Chris

Who would win in a fight? We spend the first half of the episode dealing with such fantastical matchups as: - The X-Men versus The Omen - Nigella Lawson versus Nigel Slater - Beyonce versus Gilgamesh - Kirby versus.... Anything Then we design a game that's American Football but with drawing in it. Much love, - Grant and Chris

"You've joined us for another brawl, you cheeky little blighter - come for the guts and blood and gore in NICOLAS CAGE FIGHTER!" Also in this week's episode: - Bottle episodes - An extended discussion about the ill-advised Cyberpunk 203X - Theoretical collector's editions of RPGs - A game set entirely within one room, because there's not enough of that going on already apparently - Madame Two Swords versus 100 Bees With a Gun - Ice Cream Wars - Phillipa Forester, our queen And many more. We love you. Stay safe out there. - G+C

Things are weird right now but we're back, baby - kicking in the metaphorical door of your isolation and figuratively stomping around your flat, yelling at everything and clearing out your imaginary liquor cabinet. In this week's episode: - A Quake RPG? - Planning, and not planning - Running games over the internet, for obvious reasons - A sort of stack-em-ups marathon game - Probably the worst idea we've had for a title game so far And many more! We adore you. Be safe, keep your chin up, and play some games. - G+C P.S. Jingles went a bit weird at the start of the episode - hopefully we've fixed it, but apologies if it still sounds funny.

We were off for a bit, but we're back now. JUST YOU WATCH. Or, rather: JUST YOU LISTEN. In this week's show: - Best subsystems? - Disappointing scenarios - Mechanical feedback for cool jackets, neat haircuts and the like - Players that feel scared of Doing It Wrong - Fred Burst - Normal People Don't Need Drugs: A Superhero Drug Game - NFLHeim: Realm of Mist and Sizeable Lads - Splinter Cell, but you're in a taxi the whole time And several more. We love you. Be good to one another. - G+C x

We're confident that we can build a fully-realised world in Unity for just under ten thousand dollars, and what's more, we have support for horses, eighteen kinds of magic, three different kinds of catgirl and something we're calling ULTIMATE LIFE PATH DEVELOPMENT. Also in this episode: - Getting back into GMing after an extended break - Big setting or small setting? - Predestined dooms at character generation - Expensive things that aren't magic items And: - Garbage Vendor Simulator - Schoolyard Heroes - THE MOON IS A LIE We adore you. Be good to each other. - Grant and Chris

What's that, up in the rafters? Why, it's Nicolas Cage, scrabbling around the roof like a big horrible spider and trying to suck secrets out of the ceiling! What a scamp. Also in this week's episode: - How to reveal where the next thing in the plot is happening - An extended reminiscence of Chris' youth as a martial artist - Elimination rounds for con games - Dealing with the impossible dullness of setting sections - Suturing hams onto your fists - VAPORGLAIVE And many more. We love you. - Grant and Chris

Definitely not enough games about shoving. Left stick moves, right stick looks around, all the other buttons shove. We know what you're thinking: what about jumping? Jumping is just shoving the ground so jumping is still allowed. Also in this week's episode: - Breaking the ice with a con group - Sulking players and withholding affection from same - Being a better player - Appropriate amounts of wine - Mascot Rampage - Clown Detectives And possibly several more things in addition to that. How lucky you all are. Much love, - G+C

"Beholder?" Don't even know what one of those is, mate. "Eye stalks," you say? Sounds crazy. Wouldn't want to see one of those. Now, excuse me while I pop off to eat cooked food and then defecate in a hole, as us humans are so wont to do. Also in this week's episode: - Valentine's Day themed games - Grant's very real experience with a very fake tuxedo - Pogs, how to win at them, and our eventual Monte Cook-beating masterpiece - WikiHow Art: The RPG - Haunted Amusement Park Simulator - Def Jam Slam Poetry Wrestling Much love, - Grant + Chris

Poor little Frog Wizard. He's been working so hard. You've decided that it's time he has a holiday; problem is, orcs are invading the village, and he's zonked out on the massage table! Also in this episode: - How to play a Lawful Good Paladin and not be a dick about it - Weird names for standard stats - 10-hour convention slots - Disappointing first times - Ian McShane's House of Pain - OkCryptid (tm) And many more. Lots of love, G+C

Is it time for a gritty reboot of Shrek? Turns out no - but that won't stop us from making it to get our hands on that sweet Dreamworks dolla. In other news: - Rollbacks, and why you oughtn't - Handling player characters being total jerks - Jesus Christ Supercar - Shrek: Blood on the Swamp - First Person Survival Horror Tetris And many more! Much love, be good to each other. - G+C

What if a bear could earn a billion dollars? And then, purely hypothetically, what if that bear hired you as its PA to oversee the difficult Public Relations around their burgeoning MMA career? Then - and again this is really just a thought experiment - what if you fell in love with that self-same bear? Also in this week's episode: - GM sound effects, and which ones are good - How to name NPCs, or rather, we agree that it's hard - Daddy's Dry Old Beak - Do we really NEED leveling up, though? - Brewster's Minions - Dog Bullets And many more. We love you. C'mere, you big hunk of person, and give us a smooch. - G+C

Christmas elves? Old hat, mate. What you want is some Christmas ORCS, ready to do a big krump and dakka on anyone who gets in Santa's way. In other news: - Best D&D centrepiece? - Filing the serial numbers off Christmas, for fun and profit - Can you GM Christmas? Is that a think you'd want to do? - Some sort of weird festive punishment Twister - Orcin' In A Winter Wonderland And much more besides. Merry Christmas - be good to one another, lots of love, - G+C

(We had some audio issues in this one, in as much as Grant just plum used the wrong mic and so he sounds like he's coming through on a submarine transistor radio or some shit. Apologies.) Coracle Racing. How do you make it interesting? Easy: you get the gods involved, sponsoring wipE'out-style teams of corporate racers and upgrading their little one-person boats into one-person KILLING MACHINES. We also talk about death - and how to use it in roleplaying games - a great deal in the first half of the episode, but you're here for the coracles really and that's okay. Much love, - Grant and Chris

"Splice the mainbrace! Trim the topsail! Prepare to repel boarders - and for heaven's sake, stop the Admiral eating all the maps!" On this week's episode: - Good ways to be Evil - What is it that centaurs are into, is it humans or horses or what - Applying human systems of morality to cats - Ape-Drunk, Pig-drunk, Goat-drunk etc - A bold RTS played on a 3DS about stopping a ram from ruining your entire navy Much love, - Chris and Grant

We're a couple of days late but we're ready to rock - and by "rock," I mean "talk about roleplaying games for about an hour." In this week's episode: - How are you gonna break down superheroes into classes? - Canon in settings, and why it's bad - Getting the first session as right as humanly possible - Bin Men - The Revenge, an anti-establishment guerilla game VS Puppet PI, a game where your puppet is a hard-boiled investigator but you're not Much love and hugs, - Chris and Grant

This week's episode is brought to you by some lovely people who asked us about: Terrible past characters we would want to replay. D&D terminology in other games. Ending sessions. People who don't know or care about rules. We then very much go on an introspective journey as we make games about: Clandestine clowns House parties for moles. Thanks for letting us into your ear canals. It is, as always, a please. - G&C