G*m*s Magazine Podcast Channel

Some of us have friends all over the world and with social networks and convention attending, it’s very easy to meet people with a common interest. And continuing with a game you start while away, or simply when you’re on holidays be able to attend your weekly game and keep the paladin doing paladin stuff. Virtual tables have been the topic of much talk in the last few years and they’re getting better and better, though some people are still reluctant to use them. Me included. So I decided to get together with virtual tabletop creator and podcast listener Carl Pinder, who is on the process of creating a truly interesting and versatile platform called Tabletop Connect. He did get me a lot closer to be looking forward to using  the software and I have to say there are lots of features that I think are very, very interesting. Please remember to take a look at his website and watch the videos and hope you enjoy the show!

I think it’s safe to say that every single roleplaying games out there has, at some point, wanted to write games. Whether it is for their own adventures, new classes, professions, spells… and fully fledged games too, of course. The RPG industry relies quite heavily on freelancers because few companies can afford to hire full-time writers. And when they do, they can afford to hire the best of the best. Also a lot of *incredible* writers decide to become freelancers anyway because that gives them a lot of freedom to do different projects and never become stagnant. But how does one become a freelance? Well, Jim Pinto has been a freelance for long, long time and has worked with more than can (or wants to) remember. Vickey Beaver does a lot of work with a lot of freelancers and I have a few of them at the office and help with the recruitment process in my company, so between the three of us know a thing or two about becoming one. And if you want to become one, follow this pro who’s making a career as a

In 2005, Green Ronin published a pretty different fantasy game called Blue Rose. It defined itself as a Romantic Fantasy Roleplaying Game and it made a point of having social inclusion and diversity as part of the setting and ethos of the whole game.As oftentimes happen, the game became in need of some updating and TLC and it languished for a few years despite the fact that it was far from forgotten.Now the time has come and Green Ronin is once again gathering a team of writers, illustration artists, game designers and the team needed to get a new and better edition of the game out next year.For starters it’s expanding on the lore of the game and also changing its system from True 20 to AGE.In Kickstarter at the time of recording this podcast, funded and having cracked a few stretch goals, I decided to talk to its line and lead developer, Steve Kenson, to find out more about Blue Rose and what we can expect from this new edition. Hope you enjoy the show!

Playing RPGs is a source of joy and entertainment for those who play them, but sometimes, just sometimes, things don’t go according to plan. Sometimes there’s someone who ruins your game. And it can be you ruining it and not even realise. In this episode, Jim Pinto and I talk about some of the bad experiences we’ve had at the table and we air some dirty secrets, as well as a few tips on how to stop it when “it” goes awry. And we swear a bit in this episode. Sorry… Hope you enjoy the show!

Legendary Games has been creating some impressive material for quite some time now. With a great ability to surround themselves with terrific writers, they hit the mark very, very often. Now Legendary Games have joined forces with a terrific plethora of authors to create Legendary Planet Adventure Path, a very interesting take on the fantasy and science fiction games with this new adventure path for the Pathfinder RPG. I got together with Neil Spicer and Mike Shel, two of the leading people behind this project, to find out more about what it entails and what’s all about. Legendary Planet Adventure path is funded in Kickstarter and I strongly recommend you take a look at it. It looks pretty amazing! Hope you enjoy the show!Apologies for the audio quality in some parts. I tried to clean it up a bit but alas some of it is not great. :(

Onix Path has created some of the most iconic and popular roleplaying games out there and now they want to repeat the feat by publishing Beast: The Primordial, a game in which the players take on the roles of creatures that are the product of nightmares. Or the cause. This game has been in development for over a year by writer and author Matthew McFarland and, if in the past he’s had some good ideas, he’s probably levelled up for this one because it sounds a lot better than I was expecting (and I was expecting a great deal to start with). To find out more about the game and the limited Prestige Edition that’s funded on Kickstarter, I got together with McFarland and with Onix Path’s Creative Director Richard Thomas to ask about the game itself and the future of the line. Hope you enjoy the show!

Sometimes players have to leave the room for a few weeks at the time and sometimes they leave their characters behind so they can come back and retake the session. That happens more often than not in long term campaigns. What should happen to those characters? In this episode Vickey Beaver, Jim Pinto and myself discuss the dos and don’ts of dealing with characters that have been left behind and their possessions, worldly or otherwise. With sordid secrets and everything! Hope you enjoy the show!

Academy Games is currently in Kickstarter with a new version of a game called Mare Nostrum; a game of building empires, defending territories, building alliances and managing lots of resources. The company has had massive successes in the past with games like Fief – France 1429, 1775 Rebellion, Freedon – The Underground Railroad and the Conflict of Heroes series and now they’re poised to repeat the feat with this project. And I am not surprised. It looks amazing and Academy Games has forged a reputation for quality both of gameplay and production that people have come to trust. But, as usual, a new game is also a new risk both for consumers and producers and one can never find enough information before buying to help make the right decision. Which is why I got together with Uwe to ask him a bunch of questions about the game and the project. Hope you enjoy the show and take a look at the Mare Nostrum Kickstarter project.

This project has nothing to do with Kickstarter, I am pleased to say, but it nonetheless relies on the community and its collective imagination. Imagine an imaginary arena where foes are pit against each other. And stories were told about those mighty battles with a winner to be crowned the winner. Well, that is what Tournament of Souls is all about and it sounds pretty excellent. I spoke with Daniel Marshal from Silver Crescent Publishing, who has devised Tournament of Souls, a competition to find the hardest CR7 creature. Head to their Facebook page for Tournament of Souls and find out what’s going on there. Hope you enjoy the show! Apologies for the variance in volume levels.

I bought Boss Monster two years ago and just now I’ve managed to do a review. I know… I know… lazy bugger I am. It’s even worse because the game is very good and fun to play (though annoying at times too). This a dungeon builder game in which the players take the role of the bosses in a retro videogame from the late 80s and early 90s. Said dungeon is built by placing cards beside the boss and completing a dungeon of 5 rooms that will deal damage to the brave adventurers who will risk their lives to loot the newly made villainous homes. And now, after quite a few plays, I can tell you what I thought about the game in this quick podcast. Hope you enjoy the show!

Although not many people think about countries like Greece a country with a board game tradition, some companies are keen on setting a stepping stone and bring some excellent games to the table of as many as possible. Mage Company has been doing that since they released Wrong Chemistry a few years ago and then levelled up with 12 Realms only to then get even better with Hoyuk and now they have something else on the cooking pot. 12 Realms Bed Stories takes the game to its final steps of expansion and pushes it as far as it can go. New rules, new themes, new realms, new characters… and new Kickstarter that will come out very soon. Meanwhile, I got together with Alexander Argyropoulos to ask him questions about the next edition of the game and also about future plans for the companies. Hope you’ll like what I heard as much as I did, because I liked it a lot!

Probably the most anticipated game I’ve backed in Kickstarter, Cthulhu Wars was going to be a massive hit or a huge flop. In this game, you, the player, take the role of one of four faction of Great Ones who are battling to conquer our planet and turn it into your realm. You’ll have to manage you cultists, summon your creatures, fight for the control of lands… And have fun. Lots of fun.The delays and problems with the production filled me with dread for months on end and at some points I even wondered if we’d be able to see the game produced. The thing is that, being a game designed by Sandy Petersen, it was a risk I had to take. Also, the little I know Sandy, merely some interactions in Facebook, a quick hello at Spiel 2014 and references from people who know him better than I do, did reassure me that he’s not the sort of running with the money or give up because things are hard. Quite the opposite, after all the problems, Petersen Games have gone out of their way to make sure people get the game

Apologies for the initial problem with the sound. Using new editing software and found about this too late.Recently a massive outrage exploded onto the Internet on the back, of Bruce Cordel’s game The Strange and a recursion within the game that treats with the culture of Native American people. A petition was started that demanded the immediate removal of the Thunder Plains from the book and that Monte Cook Games never publish anything similar in the future again. Of course the person who created the petition also demanded an apology. I know Bruce Cordell, Monte Cook and Shannah Germain, three people involved in the company and the game in question and I know for a fact they are as far from being racists as anyone can get. They have moved into inclusivity and made efforts to be socially aware that most companies should learn from. So what went wrong? In this podcast episode we discuss the issue of bringing minorities and other cultures into your games and how to approach it to make sure the chance

Shadow of the Demon Lord is a game that I have been looking forward to for many months. Robert Schwalb is a talented designer like few others and anything that comes out of his inkwell is worth paying good attention to. This Kickstarter has funded has funded a game that is breaking with a lot of the traditions of Role Playing Games and offers a new system, both mechanically and in its ethos, to shake up the way we look at games and how they are played. Everything, from the setting to the character sheet, has been designed with the aim of offering a very quick but intense gameplay that moves as fast as you need to. Of course, this was also the perfect excuse for me to have Robert in the podcast – something I’ve been looking forward to for a long, long time – and ask him a few questions about the game. Believe me, you will be gutted if you miss this one! Other material we discuss during the interview: A Song of Ice and Fire RPG Death Mark: A Dark Sun Novel (Dark Sun, Abyssal Plague)

Fablesmith has now a new game in Kickstarter by the name of Hylaria. A storytelling game with different mechanics and quirky art work that sets it apart from the rest. In the past, Fablesmith has brought us Ortus, an abstract game for two players with more strategy one can shake a stick at, and Oh No! Invasion a cooperative game in which the players will have to work together to fight of a series of aliens who want to conquer our planet. This one is very different, though, so I had to get together with Joost Das and find out how he came up with the idea for a type of game he’s never published before. Hope you enjoy the show!

Running a game is not an exact science. Not even sure it is a science but sometimes it feels like it because you have to experiment a lot to get the desired results. And then you have to try again in a different group to get results and you might not get the results you wanted because… well, because people.And yet we do learn to keep our games smooth so they are fun for everyone involved. Or we try.In this episode we are going to give you our view and take on how to make that happen. We’ll tell you our techniques, some more controversial than others, and our approach. Hopefully you’ll find it useful! Also, please please please take a look at the Shadow of the Demon Lord Kickstarter that’s going on as this podcast comes out. It’s truly superb and, just in case you need any more reason, we talk about it in this episode too!

M80 is a very interesting game that has been produced in a record time, play tested in a record time and sent to Kickstarter in a record time too, which makes it a very interesting project in my eyes. I first met Hack at Spiel 2014 and he is a very impressive man who can work more than most people and faster than a good number of super-heroes. When he told me about M80, I had to find out more. Not just because the game sounds like an interesting one, but also because he has some ideas about how to run his Kickstarter campaign that made me very curious. Hope you enjoy the interview!

Sleepers is a conspiracy horror game published by Death Spiral Games and written by Ben Counter, veteran of many Warhammer novels. This game has been in development for a number of years and puts the players in the shoes of agents with super powers who have just woken up after a long slumber and a post cold-war disaster that’s changed how the world works. At the time of this recording this game is being funded in Kickstarter and it’s well on its way to get the money it needs to be printed. The setting sounds good, the mechanics sound good, the book looks good… Is it worth backing it? I spoke with Ben Counter to ask him a bunch of questions about the game, the campaign and where the company is going with this book. Hope you enjoy the show!

The Next Great American Game is a documentary movie conceived and brought to life by producer and director Douglas Morse. In this documentary, we’ll follow Randall Hoyt as he pitches his game, Turnpike, to  publishers in order to get it published. As you can imagine, that is a task easier said than done and in this movie we’ll get some very good reflection of what is like to try and break it as a game designer. I spoke with the director and asked all sorts of questions from funding to how real the situations in the documentary are. With a very impressive cast of designers and publishers, this documentary is a must see for anyone who is interested in any aspect of boardgame and specially to those with an interest in game publishing. Hope you enjoy the interview and you can find more information about the movie in www.tabletopmovie.com.

Spirits of the Rice Paddy is the latest design and offering by Philip DuBarry, who recently was successful with Skyway Robbery and has a number of games under his belt already. However Spirits of the Rice Paddy certainly looks and sounds different. This a farming themed game, but unlike other farming games, this one has an oriental game and a much more focused and thematic farm: Rice. But this game also comes with some special moves, like being able to use different spirits to boost your abilities and giving you special actions to help you grow your rice. And that is not all, a very interesting drafting system, a water delivery system and managing resources carefully if you want any of that water… But don’t take it from me. Here’s an interview with designer so you can hear it from someone with authority. Hope you enjoy the show!