Critical Success

James talks to Suzanne Wallace and Nolan T. Jones of Roll20 about online play, the changing face of tabletop, and D&D 5th edition OGL on Roll20's virtual marketplace.

Matt Sanchez and Andy Kitowski are the two brilliant minds behind Kotodama Heavy Industries. You'll recognize their work on games that have been translated from Japanese into english like Tenra Bansho: ZERO, Ryuutama, and Shinobigami. They about the history and development of RPGs in Japan, Japanese gaming culture, and the process of translating a game.

James sits down with one of the brilliant minds behind Double Exposure to discuss Metatopia, the Envoy program, and fostering an open gaming community.

In this episode James tells you what's so great about sailor moon character sheets, what you should do about describing actions in combat, and how to handle two players with the same specialization.

James, Kat, and John Patrick Coan discuss playing as performance and answer questions from heroes

James speaks to Jack Norris about the return of Blue Rose, Green Ronin's new take on the original romantic fantasy RPG. We calk about changes to the setting, updates to AGE, and design goals for the new edition.

Today James sits down with Alex Roberts from the Table Top Superhighway Podcast to discuss two often ignored topics at the gaming table: sex and romance.

James invites Jon and Jef from the System Mastery podcast on to the show to talk about bad role playing games and how to avoid making them.

This week James McGhie asked the simple question: "Tiles and minis, yay or nay?"

This week James takes on a new listener question: When my players come up with what seems like a reasonable bargain or deal, my antagonists accept, as long as they're not giving up more than they originally intended to. The greatest *play* experiences I've had came from GMs who created hardline antagonists who would accept nothing less than total acceptance of their demands. Overcoming them gave me a thrill that I want to give my players, but whenever I try to run these guys, my senses of fairness and logic kick in and I accept a reasonable solution.

James discusses the outstanding Metatopia and talks game design with fellow rookie designers Jason Pitre and Mark Richardson

Plenty of OD&D concepts have fallen out of favor. Most of them died out because they put limitations on play. These days swords and sorcery systems are way less restrictive and f20 games are focused on customization. However, 5th edition D&D opted to keep alignment- which has some gamers scratching their heads.

James answers three listener questions in one episode! Gain insights on stronger performance and portraying ambivalence, co-GMing, and intrigue based role play systems.

John Harper is responsible for some of the most fun and influential micro systems on the internet. With games like Lasers and Feelings, Lady Blackbird, and Ghost Echo in his portfolio Harper is the king of micro games. In this discussion James and John discuss Johns approach to gaming, his design philosophy, loosen the definition of "game designer," and fix everything.

What do you do when your party doesn't follow your plot?