Dice Exploder
120 episodes · showing the newest 120
44 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Socials Sam's short film Toothless, live today Em on Bluesky and Linktree Sam on Bluesky and itch Sera on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
1 hr 9 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Pendragon 6e, The House Edge Socials Caleb on Bluesky and Haunted Table Seraphina on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was hosted by Seraphina Garcia Ramirez, and edited by Em Acosta.
46 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Dark Ages, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Under Hollow Hills, 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars Socials John on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
45 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Beyond the Pale, Tannic, Landmark, Hidden, Secret Socials Amanda P. on Bluesky and at Weird Wonder Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
42 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Dark Sun, New Class: Really Good Dog, Lorn Song of the Bachelor, Nine Space Games, A Perfect Wife Socials Zedeck on Bluesky and at his blog Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
38 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Liminal Horror, Heart, Blades in the Dark, Cairn Socials Craig on Bluesky and Linktree Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
54 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further reading Back Tower Runners on Kickstarter! DrachenFest Incantrix Productions Imagi-Ne'er-Do-Wells Socials Caro’s website Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
59 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further reading Our Lives in the Wood episode 5 This Game Takes Place in Your Home Town Socials Kendo on Bluesky and the web Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
56 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Note: the "What Is There to Eat in Duskwall" pages of Blades in the Dark were written by Andrew Shields. Further Reading Blades in the Dark by John Harper Socials Jeeyon on Patreon, Bluesky, and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
39 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading The Watch 2e is on Kickstarter now Night Witches by Jason Morningstar Socials Ash on Bluesky Ash's website, including listings for their games and books Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
41 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Signs of the Sojourner by Echo Dog Games Band-Aids & Bullet Holes by Sam, on Kickstarter now Slay the Spire 2 by Mega Crit Socials Lady Tabletop on itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
52 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands by Meguey & Vincent Baker The King Is Dead by Meguey & Vincent Baker Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern by Takuma Okada Socials Viditya on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
1 hr 5 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My new game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes is still on Kickstarter! Check it out today. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it. In keeping with this show's increasingly loose definition of "mechanic," today I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to tackle one of this game's greatest influences: the 2014 Keanu Reeves movie John Wick. The first half of this ep is basically a movie podcast. We go deep on what makes John Wick tick (in brief: the first 30 minutes). But the back half we get into the extremely popular concept within indie rpgs of genre emulation: making games that evoke another piece of media or genre of media. What makes genre emulation work? What do we think most people get wrong when they attempt to do it? And is it even a worthy goal? Further Reading Back Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter now! John Wick (2014) Escape from Dino Island by Sam Roberts and Sam Tung Socials Sam Roberts on Bluesky Sam Dunnewold on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta
1 hr 4 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Today is the launch of Band-Aids & Bullet Holes, my melodramatic action game of bloody revenge. It's a one shot, capsule game, box set, deckbuilder rpg. Check it out. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it, starting today with the idea of character nonmonogamy. Traditionally in rpgs each player gets one main character. This is often true regardless of whether or not there's a GM: certain characters "belong" to each player. Not so in Band-Aids & Bullet Holes. But what does that look like? And what does it do to play? There's a lot of games that have played with other models, but to kick things off today we're digging into how it works in Jason Morningstar's Space Post, a game about delivering the mail in space, where main postman and space ship characters are passed around between players. And to do that I'm joined by Sidney Icarus, game design smarty, designer of Decaying Orbit, and former host of The Hard Move aka the podcast whose format I stole for Dice Exploder. Come on, let's get into it... Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Space Post by Jason Morningstar Bluebeard's Bride Band of Blades Everyone Is John Ars Magica Socials Sidney’s website, YouTube channel, and Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta
32 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My first stand-alone print game, Band-Aids & Bullet Holes, goes live on Kickstarter next week on May 5th. I have a lot to say about it, and I'm gonna say a lot of it: May's going to be all episodes about mechanics from other people's games that inspired me in this design. Today I wanted to talk about Band-Aids & Bullet Holes straight up, but I didn't want you to just take it from me all the stuff I love about it, so I'm handing the show over once again to Lady Tabletop and Seraphina Garcia Ramirez. They're gonna tell you about Band-Aids & Bullet Holes through its core mechanic: take a marker, sharpie your character's core traits onto playing cards, then shuffle those up and flip them at each other, high card wins. As Sera says, somehow adding flavor to the classic card game War makes it so much better... Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Socials Seraphina on Bluesky and itch Lady Tabletop on Tumblr and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta
30 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I love pregens! But why do I love pregens? I dug into this a bunch on an episode last year with Aaron Lim about the characters in Last Train to Bremen: I love being given a clear goal and baseline temperament when I sit down to play so I can get into drama as fast as possible. But the game Lady Blackbird goes a step further. Each character has "Keys" which lay out not just character traits and goals, but the central dramatic questions and stakes each character's arc is likely to concern itself with. And that, more than anything else, is probably what I want from my pregens. Whitney Delaglio joins me to talk about Lady Blackbird's Keys (originally from The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon). She's got her own game coming to Backerkit next month - The Old, The Cold, The Bold - which iterates on Keys. So today we get into not just how they work but how you can make them work for you. Further Reading Lady Blackbird by John Harper The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon The Old, The Cold, The Bold by Whitney Delaglio - second edition on Backerkit soon! Socials Whitney on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
57 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Austin Walker's new game Realis is on Kickstarter now, and it's been making splashes in the indie rpg scene since last year when the ashcan came out. The game's core mechanic, Sentences, feels like the exact kind of mechanic I love covering on this show. But where did it come from? I asked Austin to come talk to me about it and bring one of his influences, and he came back with another diceless, GM-less resolution mechanic: the token economy of weak, strong, and regular moves from Dream Askew / Dream Apart. So today we're completing Dice Exploder's accidental Dream Askew / Dream Apart trilogy (paired with the episodes on lures and setting elements from the past couple months) and then digging into what makes this system work and what Realis learned from it. Further Reading Realis is on Kickstarter now! Follow Sam’s game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter! Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Austin on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta
32 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Follow Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter! The Awards are back! The rpg awards show with a bent towards indie games and the guaranteed worst SEO of all time is back for another around, and the current steward of The Awards - Nico MacDougall - is back on the show this week to talk through some of our favorite mechanics from the last batch of winners. If you want to get involved in The Awards, you can apply to be a judge through the end of April and you can submit your games during the month of May! This year's Awards will cover games published between June 1, 2024 and May 31, 2025. Further Reading The Awards 2026 - apply to be a judge today! Cloud Empress by Watt Border Riding by Stout Stoat Press This Maze Will Be Big Enough To Call Home Someday by Anna Anne Anthropy Stirring the Hornet's Nest at Het Thamsya by Munkao Socials Nico on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
27 min
Transcripts are available at diceexploder.com Bee and Barclay are the hosts of Tabletop Book Club, a podcast that is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a show with such fun energy, and of course good design talk. Because Barclay has a new belonging outside belonging game that's just come out - Begin Again, check the link below - today I'm talking with them about lures, maybe my favorite part of the belonging outside belonging engine, and specifically how they're implemented in Heave in the Dust... Further Reading Heaven in the Dust by Luke Jordan Begin Again by Barclay Travis Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Tabletop Book Club, Bee, and Barclay on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
36 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My friend Tristan Zimmerman is currently crowdfunding Ballad Hunters, a GUMSHOE game, meaning it’s based on a core mechanic built for investigation games and gathering clues. That mechanic goes like this: “always give the players the clue.” Simple! And I think so astute as to what the actual fun part of investigation is in RPGs: it’s not “can we roll high enough to progress,” it’s “once we have all these clues, how do we put them together and what do we do with them?” Further Reading Ballad Hunters by Tristan Zimmerman, now on Kickstarter GUMSHOE by Cat Tobin, a list of resources for and articles about GUMSHOE The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola Socials Tristan on Bluesky. Molten Sulfur Blog, Nations & Cannons, and Shanty Hunters from Tristan Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
1 hr 57 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I bet you’ve heard of this game Triangle Agency. Big exciting Kickstarter, super flashy product design, a game with… spoilers in the back? It’s corporate horror, it’s packed gorgeous art, it’s a game I spent 20 sessions with in 2025. And I… had a pretty frustrating time with the game. There is so much I love and admire about Triangle Agency, but also so much I struggled with, and I wanted to break it all down on the show. And I didn’t want to do that without bringing on someone who could unabashedly sing this game’s praises, because I think the game deserves that too. So today I’m joined by the general manager of my campaign, moderator of the Dice Exploder discord, my friend Seraphina Garcia Ramirez, to talk about the voice of Triangle Agency's game text and really the whole game at large. It's the longest episode of Dice Exploder ever. Let's go. Further Reading Triangle Agency by Caleb Zane Huett and Sean Ireland Socials Seraphina on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
48 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com If the thesis of last week’s episode was “hey the fiction of your game matters a lot and can even have mechanical effects,” how do you know how deeply to define that fiction? Maybe no one in indie games has recently faced that question on quite the scale of Tim Denee with Blades ‘68, an expansion to Blades in the Dark. I wanted to have him on to talk about when you completely reinvent the setting, how do you think about what parts of the fiction are important and need to be kept vs what parts should evolve and change? And to do that, we picked an old mechanic from Dungeon World that cuts to the heart of it: draw maps, leave blanks. But how detailed of maps, and how big of blanks? Further Reading Blades 68 on Backerkit Blades in the Dark by John Harper Dungeon World Tim’s maps of Doskvol Socials Tim on Bluesky and olddog.games Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
46 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In Blades in the Dark, you play as criminals in Doskvol a haunted city where the ghosts are such a problem that they built giant lightning barriers around the whole city to keep them out. That sentence alone already makes me want to get the game to the table, and we haven’t even gotten to the rules of Blades in the Dark yet. That’s the conversation I wanted to take a crack at today: rules are important, they can radically shape play, but the fiction a game brings is just as important. Doskvol’s lightning barriers mean you can’t just run away into the wilderness after you’ve committed some crimes, and that’s just as important for ratcheting up the tension and consequences of your campaign as the mechanic of devil’s bargains... Further Reading Blades in the Dark by John Harper Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall Apocalypse World 3e/Burned Over by Meguey & Vincent Baker Wanderhome by Jay Dragon Vincent Baker on How Apocalypse World Is Structured (like an onion) In Praise of Legwork by Sam Sorensen 1d20 Diegetic Rules, 1d20 Hypo-Diegetic Rules by Sam Sorensen The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola Socials Nova on Bluesky. Nova’s blog, Playful Void. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
43 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com There's many ways to decide who has authority over what in an RPG. Traditional games have a bunch of players with one PC each and a GM responsible for everything else, while Dreams Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Ben Rosenbaum takes a very different approach: divide that "everything else" up into flavorful pieces, like "gossip & reputation" and "the wild forest" and give everyone a piece. That choice has become one of the backbones of Belonging Outside Belonging games (hacks of Dream Askew / Dream Apart), and today I'm joined by my good friend Kodi Gonzaga, a designer making just such a game, to break down exactly how it works at the table. Kodi's game Extra Ordinary is on Kickstarter now. Check it out! Further Reading Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Extra Ordinary on Kickstarter! Kodi on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.
36 min
Dice Exploder: Afterimage is alternative show format, a cross between play report and personal memoir. The Experimental Role-Playing Laboratory, or ERPL, was a thrice a year mini convention put on by students at my college back in the 00s and 10s and onward to this day. It's how I got into indie games. I still think about it, and the people I met there, to this day. They still mean something to me. What might I still mean to them? Written, edited, and performed by Sam Dunnewold Tristan Zimmerman at the Molten Sulfur blog Steven’s newsletter and novels. Try Black Velvet to start. Transcript available at www.diceexploder.com Music by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/ My games: sdunnewold.itch.io Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceexploder.com
46 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com It's the Dice Exploder 2025 year end bonanza! This year I'm joined by Lin Codega and Diogo Nogueira to go over a whole bunch of game mechanics that we think represent where rpgs were at in 2025 and where they might be going in the future. Further Reading Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall Praise the Hawkmoth King by Sage the Anagogue I want to fight my friends in the back of a moving truck by Seraphina Garcia Ramirez Traffic Lights Are Communication Tools by Meguey Baker Daggerheart Draw Steel The One Ring starter set Sam Sorensen’s overview of Over/Under and one of Lin’s pieces on the aftermath Apocalypse World 3e Kickstarter (now finished) Socials Rascal.news Weird Games and Weirder People Lin and Diogo on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
59 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Mausritter is an old school dungeon crawling game where instead of playing as elves fighting dragons, you play as mice fleeing from owls. It’s not unlike any number of other old school games like Cairn or Into the Odd, but its inventory system is the only inventory system I’ve ever actually liked. Does it work differently than other games? At a raw numbers level, not really! But instead of a bunch of paper bookkeeping, Mausritter turns items into little cardboard squares like board game pieces that you put in a grid on your character sheet. That physicality makes all the difference. Further Reading Mausritter by Isaac Williams The Lonely Oak by Victor Lane Cairn by Yochai Gal Blades in the Dark by John Harper Quinns Quest on youtube and patreon. Socials Quinns on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
1 hr 12 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Apocalypse World 3rd edition is on Kickstarter right now. In many ways, it hasn’t changed much. In many ways, it's a whole new apocalypse. So I thought it'd be fun to have on the Bakers and go through a playbook - the Brainer in 2e vs its equivalent the Brain-Picker in 3e - and ask them about every single change on the sheet, from updating the basic moves all the way down to a single name on a single picklist. Further Reading Apocalypse World: Burned Over 3e on Kickstarter and a preview of The Brain-Picker Apocalypse World 2e handouts, including the Brainer Designing a seduce or manipulate replacement on the Dice Exploder Patreon Preview the Bakers’ seduce or manipulate replacement on their Patreon Socials Meguey and Vincent on Bluesky. The Baker House Blog Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
49 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com To close out this miniseries on actual play, I wanted to feature a game that I think uses actual play as a game mechanic. Hear me out. Void 1680 AM is a solo playlist-building game in which you create a fictional radio broadcast. Except when you're done, you can send it to the game's creator (this week's cohost Ken Lowery), and he'll broadcast it out onto the real radio via the AM antenna in his garage (and on YouTube). Obviously it feels different to play the game knowing it's going to go out on air. But I think it feels different even just knowing that it could go out on air. And while most actual play feels first and foremost like an act of performance, Ken's broadcasts feel more like an extension of gameplay and an act of community building. How's it feel to be inside all that? Come take a listen. Further Reading Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery Void 1680 AM Community Broadcasts archives on YouTube Sam’s Void Community Broadcast Chinese larp of Void on Instagram Characters Without Stories featuring Sam Socials Ken on Bluesky and itch. You can purchase physical copies from his imprint Bannerless Games. Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
1 hr 6 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Last Train to Brooklyn is an actual play from Twice Rolled Tales where they play Last Train to Bremen on a New York City subway car. It's also probably my favorite actual play full stop. Why? I think because it leans into what I'm most excited about this medium: treating capturing the act of play more like a documentary than a means towards fiction. It's excited at least as much about its nonfiction story as its fictional one. Today I've invited Linnie Schell, one of the main creatives behind Last Train to Bremen, to come give me a beat by beat director's commentary on everything that went into it, all building to the moment I really wanted to highlight: its ending. Further Reading Twice Rolled Tales The RuPaul videos Linnie mentions Comedy Book by Jesse David Fox Last Train to Bremen by Caro Asercion Socials Maia on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
48 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com One of my favorite parts about these episodes where I'm highlighting a single moment from an actual play is how many practical lessons I can bring back to my own table by going beat by beat through a significant moment in play. And today, Maia Wilson has brought a particularly significant moment from her show Maia's Game Room in which one character, in desperate straights, is pressured by an NPC to pay for his help with sex. It's an intense moment. It may not be for you (and this episode may not be, either). But I think there's no better way to learn about how to establish good communication and try to keep people safe at the table than by breaking down a specific example. Plus, when you get this right like I think Maia and her table do, the results can be cathartic and compelling. Let's get into it. Further Reading Maia's Game Room: Electric State, episode 5 The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity by Jonaya Kemper The Electric State rpg The Electric State art book Socials Maia on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
56 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In The Wildsea, you play as sailors on a sea of trees in a climate post-apocalypse where the climate won. And in the My First Dungeon mini series of this game, today's co-cohost Brian Flaherty took it on himself - along with co-player J Strautman - to write an original song, a “tree shanty,” that played on each episode. Today Brian and I, along with his Talk of the Table cohost and Wildsea GM Elliot Davis, break down one of those tree shanties: how it came to be, and how this moment blends together preproduction, production at the table, and post production in a bunch of compelling ways. We also get to see some lessons on display about how to pace a campaign and how when you know you can trust your fellow players, you can take more risky creative swings. Take a listen! Further Reading The Wildsea by Felix Isaacs My First Dungeon: The Wildsea episode 5 Talk of the Table podcast Socials Brian on Bluesky Elliot on Bluesky and his games Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
48 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com It's a new series on Dice Exploder all about actual play. For five episodes, instead of breaking down one mechanic, we're going to break down one moment from one actual play show. And to kick things off, I'm joined by actual play critic and all-around-writer Rowan Zeoli of Rascal and Polygon. We cover an overview of actual play as a medium and the current state of the scene, we dig deep into the fine line this medium walks between fiction and nonfiction, and then we get to our moment: the very beginning of My First Dungeon's six episode miniseries on Orbital Blues. How can you make the most of those precious opening moments when there's so much to establish? Further Reading Orbital Blues by Sam Sleney, Joshua Clark, and Zachary Cox My First Dungeon: Orbital Blues episode 1 Em Friedman on Patreon Socials Rowan on Bluesky and Rascal News Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
48 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Last summer a hot new game hit the indie rpg scene: You Will Die In This Place, a surreal and experimental... dungeon crawler? Technically? ...that seems to have more in common with House of Leaves than it does many roleplaying games. And for a couple weeks I saw so many discussions about this game that I eventually broke down and was like, do I need to do an emergency podcast about this? No. I did not. I was busy with a hundred other things. But past cohosts Merrilee Bufkin and Jay Dragon did. So I invited the two of them to take over the show for a special bonus episode where they talk all things, or at least some things, You Will Die In This Place. It’s a dense text. They get into House of Leaves, gender, autism, misogyny, the state of the games industry, and a ton more. Take a listen. Further Reading You Will Die In This Place by Elizabeth Little YWDITP on Gamefound Socials Jay on Bluesky and Possum Creek Games on itch and Warehouse 23 Merrilee on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon AP season "reading" list: My First Dungeon: Orbital Blues, session 1 My First Dungeon: Wildsea, episode 5 Maia's Game Room: Electric State, episode 5 - CW: sexual coercion Last Train to Brooklyn Void 1680 AM broadcasts
45 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Today we’re wrapping up the Dice Exploder series on love, sex, and romance with Will That Be All? by Graham Walmsley, a game about the social relationships between the downstairs staff at Melton Hall, a fictional British estate, over the course of about a decade between the first and second world wars. It’s a lovely game about finding solace and community even as the world outside feel deeply uncertain - and that’s what Kim wanted to talk about: how setting, and in this case the spectre of war, can encourage and affect how not just romance but relationships of all kinds can play out in a game. Further Reading Will That Be All? by Graham Whalmsley Breaking the Ice, and The Romance Trilogy, by Emily Care Boss Rosenstrasse by Jessica Hammer and Moyra Turkington Downton Abbey Socials K Lam on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
1 hr 2 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I’m back! Alex and Sharang have done an amazing job talking love, sex, and romance over the past month but I have plenty to say on the subject myself. In particular, I wanted to approach the conversation Alex and Sharang started about the quantification of romance from the perspective of how I feel when I’m actually at the table playing these games. Because that quantification makes me feel kinda weird… but what do I want instead? Because freeform romance is tough for me. Romance is scary! I want some help, some guidelines, some dare-I-say rules and mechanics for it. But if not quantification... then what? What else might help alleviate my fear and awkwardness? Or is that awkwardness part of the fun and charm of romance, and really we should leave it in? Today, Tasha Robinson returns to the show to talk it all through with me. Further Reading Steal My Heart by Sam Dunnewold The King Is Dead by Meguey and Vincent Baker Socials Tasha on Bluesky The Next Picture Show podcast Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
44 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In this final episode hosted by Sharang and Alex, perhaps their climactic episode, they are turning up the heat on sex mechanics all the way to physical contact, both as a way to simulate sex acts through other kinds of physical touch... and through actual sex acts being used as game mechanics. This stuff is fascinating, I think much more broadly applicable than you might believe at first blush, and I think also very obviously under discussed in the way that all things sex and sexuality are under discussed. Let's get into it. Further Reading The Sleepover by Kat Jones & Julia B. Ellingboe This interview by Lizzie Stark with Emma Wieslander, who created Ars Amandi for the 2001 larp Between Heaven and Sea A Place to F**k Each Other by Avery Alder Kirigami Dominatrix Display Simulator by Aura Belle Praise the Hawkmoth King by sage the anagogue Vice & Violence by Scalli ORKFUCK by SympatheticSapphic Sapphicworld by Darling Demon Games Socials Alex on Bluesky and carrd Sharang on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
34 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Our series on game mechanics centered around sex and romance continues with returning champions Alex Roberts and Sharang Biswas, and today they are talking about dicks. “The phallus.” Or more generally, physical objects. I did some episodes on physicality earlier this year and how the physicality of a game undeniably affects how it feels to play it. But Alex and Sharang go a step further, talking about how in a game you can use an object as almost a vessel for player emotions. Take a listen. Further Reading Tales of the Fisherman’s Wife by Julia Bond Ellingboe The Beast by Aleksandra Sontowska Just a Little Lovin’ by Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire Let These Mermaids Touch Your Dick Maybe by Riverhouse Games Socials Alex on Bluesky and carrd Sharang on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
49 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Alex Roberts and Sharang Biswas are back for round two, this time with “roll to seduce,” that classic action so many people try and even succeed at taking across any number of games. If I roll high enough on my persuasion check, surely the dragon will f**k me instead of killing us, right? In some games, yes! Right indeed! This is such a weird dynamic, but clearly so appealing to so many people, and today Alex and Sharang get into the why and how of it all. That leads to all kinds of places, but in particular the seductive choice to quantify sex and romance, but put a number to all these ephemeral and scary ideas about sex and romance, presumably so we might better understand them or be able to avoid dealing with how potentially embarrassing and messy they can be. Further Reading The Book of Erotic Fantasy by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel and Duncan Scott Love and Sex in the 9th World by by Shanna Germain Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos Alex Roberts on Dice Exploder discussing Kagematsu Fog of Love by Jacob Jaskov Bluebeard’s Bride by Whitney “Strix” Beltran, Marissa Kelly, & Sarah Doom Socials Alex on Bluesky and carrd Sharang on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
43 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Love, sex, and romance: huge human topics, wildly under-discussed in roleplaying games. At least in my opinion. So today on Dice Exploder we’re kicking off a new miniseries on the subject hosted by NOT ME. Instead, for the next four episodes, Alex Roberts (Star Crossed, For the Queen) and Sharang Biswas (editor of Honey and Hot Wax) are taking over the show to bring you all things love and sex. And today they’re kicking off with an episode on sex moves from Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts, classic PBTA moves that trigger when two characters have sex. Let’s get into it! Further Reading Apocalypse World by Meguey & Vincent Baker Monsterhearts 2 by Avery Alder My Girl’s Sparrow by Troels Ken Pedersen How Do Aliens Do “It”? by Kieron Gillen Pop! by Alex Roberts, found in Honey and Hot Wax, edited by Sharang Biswas and L. Kahn Socials Alex on Bluesky and carrd Sharang on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
1 hr 50 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Moira Joy "MJ" Smith is the Dungeon Master for the Try Guys D&D actual play show "The Die Guys". She created the show in 2024 along with the Try Guys, and I was her right-hand dude during production and the show's video editor. Today, ahead of a whole series I have planned later this fall on actual play, MJ and I sit down to talk about how we made The Die Guys. We start with a bunch of background - how shows get made for YouTube at large, how the Try Guys specifically make shows, and how this show came about - but we get granular to, all the way down to how I made choices in the edit about whether to leave in or cut individual jokes. Further Reading The Try Guys streaming service, where you can find The Die Guys season 2 The Die Guys episode 1 on YouTube Socials Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Support Dice Exploder on Patreon!
32 min
Dice Exploder: Afterimage is a new show format I'm trying, a mashup of This American Life with a play report. I have a box full of memories that lives in my closet, a pair of drumsticks, a half smoked cigar, a thimble full of sand from a beach I've never been to. If I passed away and you were cleaning out my closet, you would look at this box and you would know it was important, but you wouldn't know why. You wouldn't know whose funeral I played at with those drumsticks, or on which rooftop in my hometown, I smoked that half a cigar. But you would feel their weight all the same... Written, edited, and performed by Sam Dunnewold Transcript available at www.diceexploder.com City of Winter at Heart of the Deernicorn Music by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/ My games: sdunnewold.itch.io Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceexploder.com
20 min
Dice Exploder: Afterimage is a new show format I'm trying, a mashup of This American Life with a play report. When I was in the third grade, there was this cartoon that aired while I was coming home from school, so I could only ever watch the second half of episodes. The name of that show was Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast... or was that the name of a tabletop roleplaying game? Written, edited, and performed by Sam Dunnewold Transcript available at www.diceexploder.com Music by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/ My games: sdunnewold.itch.io Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceexploder.com
22 min
Hello and welcome to Party by the Apocalypse, an actual play miniseries where we play Apocalypse World while breaking down how it works and the choices we're making as players so you can learn how to better play it. Party by the Apocalypse is Dice Exploder’s first foray into actual play, and the whole thing is out right now wherever you get your podcasts. In the full show, we over any number of mechanics and how they play out at the table: character creation, violence and combat, player vs player, prep, and more. But today on the Dice Exploder main feed I wanted to bring you a taste of the show featuring a part of Apocalypse World I find people are often intimidated by: the sex moves. What does the conversation look like around a sex scene in Apocalypse World, both mechanically and just as people? For one answer, come take a listen. Party by the Apocalypse is: Sam Dunnewold of Dice Exploder, a podcast about rpg designAaron King of RTFM, an rpg book club podcastKeganEXE of PlusOneEXP, a publisher of rpgsEssay of Three of Hearts, an actual play podcastTheme music: Phantasm by Purely Grey
5 min
Today the folks over at Many Sided Media, the production house behind My First Dungeon and Talk of the Table, are launching a new podcast network... and Dice Exploder is a part of it! Nothing on the show should change much, but today I wanted to sit down with Brian Flaherty, a co-founder of Many Sided Media, to talk about what this network is going to look like.
37 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In the unreliable urban fantasy world of Changeling, Clarity is a mechanic that measures... well, for now let’s go with a character's ability to trust their own reality. But finishing that sentence is kind of what this episode is all about, because Clarity has deep ties to various sanity mechanics from any number of Call of Cthulhu inspired games, even as it’s trying to do something different, maybe a little more nuanced and less obviously offensive as measuring a person’s sanity with a flat number. There’s any number of metaphors you might find meaning in with Clarity. It’s not clear to me that that makes it much better than sanity. And yet, today's cohost MintRabbit loves this game and this mechanic dearly, sees so much of herself in it. And seeing yourself in a flawed game, still finding beauty in it, that's what makes today's episode interesting. Ad Links Spectacula by Jeremy Melloul Kiss Me If You Can by me, Sam Dunnewold Further Reading Changeling the Lost 1e by White Wolf Games Changelings, Trauma & Gaming by Mint Rabbit A second post from Mint about Changeling Dice Exploder on safety tools Socials Mint on Tumblr, Bluesky, itch, dice.camp, and ko-fi Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Support Dice Exploder on Patreon!
41 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com For the two year anniversary of Dice Exploder, my first ever cohost Ray Chou returns for what starts off as a brand new episode about Stoneburner by Fari RPGs and that game’s oracle mechanic: a way to use dice, random tables, and the careful framing of stakes to adapt the game for solo play. But at some point the conversation morphs into a deserving sequel episode to our first go around on rolling the dice in idie rpgs more broadly. When do you roll dice? Are partial successes good? And how does all of this change for solo and GM-less play? We didn’t ask all these questions last time, and we didn’t have great answers to the ones we did. So let’s check in on the state of rolling the dice! Further Reading Stoneburner by Fari RPGs Apocalypse World by Meguey and Vincent Baker Blades in the Dark by John Harper Socials Mythworks homepage Mythworks on Blueksy Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
55 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com This is, at long last, the end of this Dice Exploder miniseries on larp. And I wanted to send it off by returning to the question I kicked it off with: what can tabletop designers learn from larp? To get into that, there’s few people I’d rather have on than Jay Dragon (Wanderhome, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast). When I pitched Jay this topic, Jay wanted to bring in the 10 Candles from 10 Candles. This is a game best known for, what else, the 10 candles you light at the beginning of play. And the act of doing so, and then turning out the lights, sets a mood that feels like a ritual, something deeper and more visceral than most tabletop games, something not exactly larp-like, but that feels of a piece with the emphasis on environment and embodiment that larp often brings… Ad Links Spectacula by Jeremy Melloul Make a Scene festival Further Reading 10 Candles by Cavalry Games Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast by Possum Creek Games Wanderhome by Possum Creek Games Game Design Study Buddies on Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll Dice Exploder on Ribbon Drive by Avery Alder A Dozen Fragments On Playground Theory by Jay Dragon Socials Jay on Bluesky and Possum Creek Games on itch and Warehouse 23 Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
56 min
Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Here near the end of Dice Exploder's larp series, I wanted to have on Caro Murphy (Galactic Starcruiser) to talk about experience design, and specifically how to think about curating all those parts of an experience bigger and larger than most of us at home will ever have access to. How do you design the set a game is played on? How do you design something for hundreds if not thousands of participants? And Caro delivered so much more: we get into bleed and empathy and how Caro sees games as an inherently educational medium. Let's get into it! Ad Links Vesta Mandate by Story Games Chicago Sign up for the Spectacula pre-release newsletter from Jeremy Melloul Further reading Meghan Gardner at Guard Up Adventures Club Drosselmeyer Caro on Imaginary Worlds and then Again Galactic Starcruiser on Wikipedia Socials Caro’s website Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon
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