Neverwhere and Sandman: World’s End by Neil Gaiman The City and The City by China Mieville Wanted by Mark Millar The Invisibles (and Marvel Boy) by Grant Morrison The films Night Watch and Day Watch
Samples: “Is that you or are you you?” from Reappear // “Cylinder Nine” from Cylinders // “Take off and shoot a Zero” from Stunt Island // “I don’t know where I’d be without it” and “Another version of you” from Thoughtless
Samples: “Is that you or are you you?” from Reappear // “Cylinder Nine” from Cylinders // “Take off and shoot a Zero” from Stunt Island // “Another version of you” from Thoughtless
Samples: “Is That You Or Are You You?” from Reappear // “Cylinder One”, “Cylinder Six” and “Cylinder Eight” from Cylinders // “Another Version Of You” from Thoughtless
Synopsis 00:40 // Themes 12:05 // Wonderlands of Flesh and Blood by Christian Daumann 12:15 // Metaphors for the body 13:41 // The Patriarchal God 14:44 // Gender: female 15:22 // Gender: male 18:41 // Pie’oh’Pah 20:34 // Carnivale and the grotesque 21:53 // Corporeal transformation and extension 27:53 // Cities 28:05 (City Accelerated) // Games 30:56 // Mechanising gender 32:35 // LARP is awful 33:36 // Sagas of the Icelanders 36:01 // Representing the spirit 40:42 // Nephilim 41:50 // Imajica card game 46:28
Synopsis 00:35 // Themes 13:25 // What is Portal Fantasy? 13:52 // The sub-genre (self-contained, relative to our world, superstructures, identity, travellers, geography) 17:25// Dopplegangers 26:00 // Games (Portal Rats, Day Trippers, Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, Everway, Grand Tableau) 32:33
This is the first in a series of 3 episodes discussing Imajica by Clive Barker, covering chapters 1-17.
Show Notes
Synopsis 04:45 // Themes 16:39 in which I rant about 1e vs 2e Vampire the Masquerade, plus some waffle about the Urban Fantasy genre // Games Keeping Urban Fantasy “fresh” 21:15 // Department V (embarassing nostalgia; Blavatsky, Atlantean Colonies; Arktos) 31:36 // Options for interesting modern fantasy (Conspiracy X 2.0; Silent Legions; why PbtA sucks for mystery games)
Episode 51: fiction within fiction, part 1 (The Magicians, When the Dark is Gone)
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This is the first of a series looking at secondary worlds that exist as known fiction inside a primary, fictional world. In this episode Ralph tackles Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, and talks to Becky Annison about her game When the Dark is Gone.
Show Notes
The Magicians by Lev Grossman When the Dark is Gone, a game by Becky Annison, part of the Seven Wonders anthology
Synopsis 00:56 // Themes and remarks 05:38 // When the Dark is Gone with Becky Annison 14:00 // end bit 44:05
Music Credits
All of the music in this podcast was composed and performed by Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie.com // bandcamp // free music archive). This episode included Is That You Or Are You You? from Reappear, Cylinder Three, Cylinder Four and Cylinder Nine from Cylinders, and Another Version Of You from Thoughtless.
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
Episode 13pt1: The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison
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We’ve split our “season finale” into two separate episodes, the first of which is a bit of an experiment — it’s quite short and a solo recording which I did a while ago. But, it’s thematically linked to the next episode, which will follow shortly.
Ralph muses over the liminal fantasy genre and M. John Harrison’s The Course Of The Heart.
“Liminal Fantasy” 00:35 // Synopsis 00:45 // RPG bit 04:05 // Changelings 04:50 // Tarot Tales and The Horse Of Iron 07:55
Elizabeth Lovegrove and Becky Annison with Ralph Lovegrove
Synopsis starts at 00:40, RPGs at 16:05
Games
Bite Me! by Becky Annison is a Powered by the Apocalypse Game debuting at the Revelation convention in Sheffield on 25th and 26th February 2017
Other games Ralph mentioned in a desperate attempt to be relevant to the conversation: Werewolf (White Wolf publishing) // Buffy and Angel (now OOP, Eden Studios) // Ghosts of Albion (Eden Studios)
Music credits
“Is That You Or Are You You?” from Reappear by Chris Zabriskie
“But Enough About Me, Bill Paxton” from Direct To Video by Chris Zabriskie
