In a solo episode, Ben reads aloud an essay from the 2nd edition Vampire: The Masqerade Player's Guide which asks us to consider: How is a TTRPG group like God? We are taking a break from the podcast until the week after the week of November 15th. I have turned off the Patreon payments, so no one will be charged for October. Frankly, this podcast has been much more successful than I could have anticipated when we started. I cannot overstate how much we owe this community for its support in...

If you give your villians psychology, do they lose their mythic status? Scott & Ben examine that and the debate between narrative-ism and game-ism in the TTRPG space on today's show!

Gollum getting Sam those rabbits seems out of character somehow... Could there be something more behind it? I run a podcast, so I got Tolkien scholar John Rateliff and The One Ring game writer Gareth Hanrahan on the show to discuss! Buy The History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff here! As I write this, it is 50% off on Amazon! Sign up to be notified of the launch of Trail of Cthulhu 2nd edition here! Learn more about the Tolkien collection at Marquette University here!

It's digression all the way down on this one folks! Are you looking for the juiciest of juice and the hottest of tea? Well, Ben has released his Gen Con 2024 seminar, "The Battle for the Soul of D&D," which is the culmination of dozens of hours of interviews with former Wizards of the Coast employees, and may be a sort of rough draft of his next book. The things he's heard will shock you! But the only way to get it is to become a subscriber on Patreon. Patreon subscribers will be...

A reading of the spell Cure Blindness leads to the King James Bible, and a discussion of the most-controversial of D&D topics: the contributions of Gygax vs. Arneson in the creation of D&D. Are you looking for the juiciest of juice and the hottest of tea? Well, Ben has released his Gen Con 2024 seminar, "The Battle for the Soul of D&D," which is the culmination of dozens of hours of interviews with former Wizards of the Coast employees, and may be a sort of rough draft of his...

Was Gygax a great game designer? Or was he merely in the right place at the right time to connect and publish world-shaking ideas? We discuss, along with the implications of "Continual Light" from that 1st Ed DMG.  Soon, we'll be releasing another of Ben's Gen Con seminars to Patrons. If you want that juicy historical goodness, join our Patreon here!

In this erudite and thoughtful episode, world-renowned anthropologist Dr. Thomas Malaby joins Scott & Ben to discuss the practice and history of the tabletop role-playing game. Fascinated by the ideas of Dr. Malaby? Get more of him on September 9th, when he teaches an online class at the Royal Anthropological Institute entitled, "Legitimacy through Contingency, or How to Do Things with Games. Click here to register to attend!  

Does D&D succeed in translating the mythology of the vampire to the gaming table? Is the ritual of the tabletop role-playing game a rehearsal and practice for our own deaths? Today, we ponder these and other questions in our continuing discussion of combat as war vs. combat as sport with Harvard's own, Dr. Christopher Robichaud!  Pick up the Robichaud-edited Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophy here! Get a primer on old school gaming by Matthew J. Finch here! Next month, we'll...

This conversation goes places I'd never imagined it going.   Today, we discuss 1E vampires, whether combat is war or sport, Satanists at Harvard, and zombie pandemics with Dr. Christopher Robichaud, the senior lecturer in ethics and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  Dr. Robichaud's TED talk is here. My interview with the Hickmans about Curse of Strahd is here. Join us on Patreon! Hear Ben's seminar on 4th edition D&D from Gen Con 2023 with your Patreon...

"Animate Dead: It is, of course, possible to animate the skeletons or corpses of demi-human and humanoid, as well as human, sort."  -pg. 41 of the 1st edition Advanced Dungeon Masters Guide. Is that the worst sentence in the book? It is confusing, ill-constructed, and hideous to the ear. Or is it merely the worst sentence so far? Scott and Ben discuss! Join us on Patreon! Hear Ben's seminar on 4th edition D&D from Gen Con 2023 with your Patreon subscription! We'll be releasing a...

Scott & Ben continue their exploration of spells as described in the DMG, and discover more examples of spells with contradictory instructions in the two AD&D corebooks! We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best. 

Regrettably, sources are confirming what we all fear: that Hasbro's digital future will leave little room for Dungeons & Dragons as we know it. Ben & Scott discuss.  We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best. 

Last week, the empty position of CEO at Wizards of the Coast was filled. But does it really matter at all when Chris Cocks, the gentleman who thought ending the OGL was a good idea is still running Hasbro? Ben and Scott discuss, and also talk over the spell light from both the 1st edition PHB and DMG.  We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best. 

Today, we take time to talk to the third voice of our show, Madeleine Craig! Madeleine is an actress and long-time DM who got her start with 5th edition. We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best. 

Given the racist tropes baked into the fantasy genre, how does the institution of D&D move forward into a brighter, better future? Are there also questions of stories for children versus stories for adults to be weighed? And all that is bookended by a discussion on spells in AD&D 1st edition.   We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best.  Image by Mike...

We read aloud "Tribal Spellcasting" from the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, and reflect on how it codifies racist stereotypes into the game. We also read sections from "Hack the Orcs, Loot the Tomb, and Take the Land" by Daniel Heath Justice, which you can and should read here.   We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best.     

You will not hear a conversation like this anywhere else. Was the D&D magic system an extension of the existing Western occult tradition, or a break from it? To answer that question, historian of magic, author, and eldritch librarian Dan Harms joins Dr. Scott Bruner, TTRPG academic, & Ben Riggs, D&D historian, for a discussion that takes us from real-world wandering medieval mage-priests to the pages of the blasphemous Necronomicon itself! Dan recommended a few books for our...

When you cast Fireball, what really happens in the fiction of the game? Today, Scott Bruner & Ben Riggs take a look at that very question by continuing to examine the "Magic" chapter of the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best.  Image by Jeff Easley and courtesy Wizards of the Coast. 

Today, we talk with one of the most significant game designers of his generation: Jonathan Tweet. Best well known for being the lead designer on 3rd edition D&D, Tweet's D20 rolling fantasy game, 13th Age, is Kickstarting its second edition right now! Did you know that 13th Age, the premier D20-rolling fantasy TTRPG, is funding a 2nd edition right now? Back 13th Age here! We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the...

Scott & Ben read an ancient OSR oddity aloud with D&D and 13th Age designer Rob Heinsoo! The book is both deeply weird and incredibly inspiring. Imagine a TTRPG world with phasers, machine guns, ESP, evil wizards, demigods, and reincarnation.  Did you know that 13th Age, the premier D20-rolling fantasy TTRPG, is funding a 2nd edition right now? Back 13th Age here! You can buy Arduin Grimoire here! We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to...

Would anyone designing a magic system for an RPG today use D&D's fire-and-forget magic system? A reading from the DMG on how the Illusionist gets their spells spins into RPG history and, shockingly, a link to Scott's dissertation. We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best.  

If you have not heard Dr. Joseph Laycock speak about the religious elements of tabletop role-playing games, prepare to have your mind blown. This conversation is like nothing you've heard before.  Check out his book on D&D and other RPGs here.   We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best. 

Cthulhu is an unknowable eldritch blasphemy. How many hit points does it have? Was it copyright infringement for this octopoid monstrosity to appear in an AD&D product? Find out today when Ben & Scott talk to Jim Lowder, TSR alumnus, master freelancer, and specialist on the big green guy.  We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best. 

A discussion on how 1st edition Wizards got their spells leads us down unexpected paths, and leads us to Dangerous Games... We enjoy you. Do you enjoy us? If so, support us on Patreon! You'll get access to our Discord server, and have the pleasure of knowing that deep down, you really are the best.