Hi there — owing to recent concerns with the mp3 format I’m switching to the more open and accessible A4 format. My hope is to make the ‘cast more accessible to all with this move. The downside is it may need a little more screen real estate and production time, so please bear with me. I’ll probably release the ‘cast a page at a time over a few weeks. Let me know what you think
I’m interviewing Frances Hardinge! We talk about her novels including The Lie Tree and A Face Like Glass, her ideas and characters, unreliable landscapes, closed communities and islands, literary influences, and ghost stories.
00:06 preamble
01:02 Frances’ fiction (The Lie Tree, A Face Like Glass, research inc. cheese making)
21:56 Literary influences (and ghost stories from East Anglia)
36:16 playing RPGs
47:00 more ghost story recommendations: Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones, The Shadow Cage by Philipa Pierce, An English Ghost Story by Kim Newman
With special guest Paul Baldowski of Just Crunch games, author of the Dee Sanction, The Cthulhu Hack and more!
Intro 00:07 // Synopsis 02:53 (spotting Marvel characters, Strange=Dee and Fury=Walsingham, pocket universes, three act structure, hating on bards) // Commentary 35:50 (the Dee Sanction and the Cthulhu Hack, the Duffer’s Guide to Historical Roleplaying and why you should visit actual bookshops) // Media 1:10:58 (Maelstrom, Mage: the Sorcerer’s Crusade, GURPS supplements, Lords of Creation, Luther Arkwright, The Discovery of Witches, The Irregulars, The Nevers) // Contact info for Paul 1:30:45
If you’re listening to this when the podcast is hot off the press, All Rolled Up will be at UKGE! Check the end of the podcast for the stand. If you’re not going, buy their stuff online, and contact Paul at twitter.com/cthulhuhack and twitter.com/deesancion
Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes ep 11: interview with Paul Mitchener
I liked Paul’s interview (and he sounds much better than in the episodes we recorded together) and also I don’t much care for actual play but the editing of this episode to focus on the hilights really works.
Inevitably I’ll go back to some favourite shows. This one from the League of Moveable Type is great both for uniwidth fonts, and for the legibility vs. readibility discussion.
+1 FWD the PbtA Podcast discusses Moonpunk with its creators Wannabe Games. The game is apparently inspired by Robert A Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
BUT the most interesting part is the discusson on the use of PbtA in the classroom, including moves and playbooks.
This is a special episode of Fictoplasm where I interview the Everway Company on their forthcoming Silver Anniversary release of Jonathan Tweet’s Everway, coming to Kickstarter in January 2021.
Show Notes
Preamble 00:07 // Introductions 00:30 // History 04:55 // The anniversary edition 18:55 // The indie connection 25:39 // Supplements 31:35 // The new Fortune Deck 36:43 // Kickstarter 39:29 // Fictional touchstones for Jesse and Rich 42:00
defining cosmic horror 04:30 // gothic horror 07:50 // everything is delusion 09:50 // gothic motifs (question for Matt Sanderson) 13:20 // cosmic horror without Lovecraft 15:07 // house on the borderlands 16:54 // what would Sandy Petersen’s KiY look like? 21:05 // 1980s game design and Dallas 27:43 // Pelgrane’s Yellow King (Hillfolk vs Gumshoe) 34:55 // investigative horror 36:25 // consent 38:04 // Hellraiser comics and damned by crossword 39:11 // memes 50:58 // cosmology 53:44 // the stars are gods 55:37 // Shakespeare’s King in Yellow 58:20 // Clive Barker’s living city-gods 1:00:17 // uncaring vs. moralistic gods 1:02:10 // Scott’s dream team of fan writers (Karl Edward Wagner, Robert Aickman, Clive Barker, Brett Easton Ellis, Ramsay Campbell, Nathan Ballingrud) 1:03:44
Interview with Roz Morris, author of Not Quite Lost, Lifeform Three and My Memories Of A Future Life
Show Notes
Introduction to Roz Morris 00:35
Literary inspiration 01:25
Genre 04:40
The Bridge by Iain Banks
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Blindness by Jose Saramago (note: the film I was struggling to remember is Perfect Sense, starring Eva Green and Ewan McGregor and scored by Max Richter)
In this seasonal special, Ralph interviews John Cocking and Peter Williams, authors of Beyond the Wall.
Show Notes
Ralph Lovegrove with John Cocking and Peter Williams of Flatland Games.
About Flatland Games 00:30 // Reading background 01:35 // Fantasy and D&D 04:40 // Swallows and Amazons 05:40 // Aiming for a roleplaying experience 07:05 // The lone wolf hero in fiction and RPGs 08:30 // The World of Darkness 10:45 // A shout out for Dragon Warriors 18:35 // How Beyond the Wall came to be 20:45 // What is the “D&D experience”? 24:30 // A four year-old’s perspective on system matching 25:55 // The lingua franca 29:30 // The playbooks and layers for other D&D 31:05 // BtW’s spells (and Ars Magica) 33:10 // Design — what came first? 36:25 // BtW and Appendix N 41:40 // Other fiction properties that should be RPGs 43:00 // Your favourite Eternal Champion (Ralph blathers a bit here…) 44:50 // Stormbringer RPG 48:30 // US-UK cross-cultural 49:20 // Flatland Games’ other offerings (Action Movie World, Wizard’s Museum Construction Kit) 52:20
Music credits
“Cylinder Eight“ and “Cylinder Nine” from Cylinders by Chris Zabriskie