The Secret Cellar

In which the Proprietor dreams of a world he visited long ago — and fears he may never find a return. (It's Gen Con weekend, or it would be in a non-pandemic timeline.) As balm for the saudade, we’re playing a live interview recorded at Gen Con 2019: Ethan Schoonover visits the Cellar to talk about his fascinating #DnDGirls project — teaching D&D Club at Lake Washington Girls’ Middle School in Seattle. Ethan is an absolute delight — as are these young women who have made D&D their own.

In which the Proprietor tells tales of one of his favorite half-worlds, a place of distant memory and deep dreams, far beneath the surface of the sea. Richard Kreutz-Landry and Rich Howard stop in to discuss the impending Kickstarter for Descent into Midnight — which you heard about long ago, in episode 5. The discussion also winds (inevitably) toward memory, origami, hospitality, technology, live theatre, and bedsheets.

In which the Proprietor, bleary from travel and a bit out of sorts, welcomes two new guests, who seem nonetheless somehow familiar. John Harness and Takuma Okada discuss their experiences creating and curating the Emotional Mecha Jam on itch, and ruminate on the role of game design in communicating personal experiences. Time and place, memory, mortality, melancholy, identity, sexuality, and Giant Robots are all on the menu tonight. It’s a frank conversation, and in moments an adult one. (Marked explicit for language and adult sexuality)

Tonight, Jason talks with Glenn Fleishman about his ambitious Tiny Type Museum project — as well as typography, design, technology, and the weird spaces between digital and analog. Also, a conversation with Steve Robinson, owner of Wolf Mountain Books, about what makes books so special.

Tonight, Jason talks about Bot Land, an indie game he’s been working on for the past few years — and interviews creator/lead developer Adam Damiano and Illustrator Kendra Hinojosa.

The Secret Cellar has been absent, for months. Jason explains why, and what next. My deepest gratitude to my guests for bearing with me as I sort this thing out. Kate Taylor (@tolkientrash) is a linguist who has constructed a language for use within Numenera — Seaspeak, spoken in the Rayskel Cays far to the West of the Steadfast. Jim Ryan (@otherdoc) has recently been experimenting with Twitch as a medium for live podcasting of his show The CypherCast — you can follow it (and all of Jim’s other wonderful content) on Twitch or in podcast form.

It was honor to host James D’Amato (@oneshotrpg) and Adira Slattery (@adiraslattery) this week in the Cellar. You may know James from his previous work on season 1 of A Woman with Hollow Eyes (among many other fine works of entertainment at OneshotPodcast.com), but Adira is possibly new to you? She’ll be joining James and Darcy Ross as Shayna in season 2. We’ll also be hearing from Jess Meier (@burstofhope), who has been hard at work un-secreting the secrets of the Black Cube.

If you could construct a Venn diagram of the topics about which I am most likely to GEEK, Matt Gemmell would land right there in the middle. Tonight we discuss Story as joy, as curative, as facilitator of connections — and what it means to order your life around its creation. Matt has recently published TOLL, the second novel in his KESTREL series. I’ve also got an idea to float by you all — it’s a product I very-much wish to see in the world: a “Walking Simulator Simulator” that facilitates translation of a certain type of video game into a face-to-face dinner party. I’ll take some time to talk through the product design of such a thing at a high level — I’ve also got UI scribblings and implementation details in my mind. If you’re an iOS developer and this sounds like an interesting project to partner on, let me know.

Join me this evening for a multi-beverage chat with Brie Sheldon, who is on the cusp of making the world a better place by (among many other things) successfully Kickstarting his new game, Turn, a “slice-of-life supernatural roleplaying game with quiet drama about shapeshifters in small, rural towns.” I know: until this moment you neither knew such a thing existed, nor that you needed it. But now you do, and must. If you hang around til the end of the show, you’ll also discover a new segment, “The Streets of Satyrine” — in which I’ll regale you with stories about the personal games I am running. Tonight we’ll kick off with a little in-world fiction from The Truth Bleeds at Twilight.

Tonight is a celebration of Invisible Sun. Monte Cook joins the show; we’ll hear a bit about how the Black Cube has been affecting those still trapped in Shadow — and also learn more about “Return to the Actuality,” the currently-active Kickstarter to reprint Invisible Sun. You’ll also get to hear from several members of the community about the effect it’s had on their own lives.

Tonight, I’ll be talking with painter Molly Holland, about one particular means by which magic can seep into the Grey. Her work is lovely, as are her words. Which, as you’ll discover, is another way of saying the same thing. You’ll also get to meet Matthew Dimalanta, community member and board-member-at-large of our ongoing sponsor, Gamers Giving.

Our guest tonight is Rich Howard (@umbralwalker), whom you may recognize as the concept lead for Descent Into Midnight, of Episode 5 fame. Role-playing gamers allow us, for just a moment, to change our shape… which can be more impactful than you might realize. I learned a lot from Rich tonight. ALSO! If you’re the nerdy Invisible Sun type, stick around for my analysis of the structure & signifance of the Sooth Deck. There are still many Secrets to be discovered, but I may just drop some Hidden Knowledge on you.

I had not been familiar with the notion of ‘Con crash’ until both reading about and experiencing it this year, on the way back from Gen Con. So, join me as I un-crash myself. You’ll be treated to  conversations about the mind & heart of the most incredible public RPG game I’ve ever played in, a Sunday morning romp in the (literally) wonder-full undersea world of Descent into Midnight. You’ll marvel, or weep, at one of the first live recordings with an actual Goetic to make it out into the Grey. You’ll also hear terrible puns and amateur foley cranked up to 11.

Today I chat with Alexei Othenin-Girard about the historical Surrealism movement as a basis for understanding and telling stories within Invisible Sun — but more interesting, Alexei takes issue with some elements of the setting. What is really going on in the Grey? I also perform a (spoiler-free!) virtual unboxing of the Directed Campaign for Invisible Sun.

A quick-and-dirty, unscripted/unedited conversation with Scott and Dave from Incantations podcast — now that NDA has lifted, we’re talking freely about our experiences GMing for Invisible Sun.