Joe's Table Podcast

This week, we are talking about our thoughts and feelings about meditation. Warning, we do talk about mental health including anxiety and depression. Your discussion ranges through our thoughts and feelings about why meditation does and does not work for us and ways we could make it work better.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're talking one of the most nerdy subjects ever, and this is coming from folks who make tabletop roleplaying games. We'll touch on how to use spreadsheets for fun and profit.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're talking about the Silcore TTRPG system, our favorite system of all time. We'll touch on the history of the game, Dream Pod 9, our history with it, metric rpg systems & mecha calculus, scale and scope, converting other games, RPG vs Skirmish game design, Skill vs Knowledge, implementing fantasy, reimplementing L5R in Silcore, modular design, how nice it is to have clear xp values for things, how easy it is to skin, injury penalties, stats that mirror reality, Silcore's lack of rules bias, damage systems, accuacy multipliers to damage, bonuses and sniping, things we don't like, ignoring edge cases, and later developments to Silcore.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're talking about that strange sensation of desire for stylish, aesthetic things. We're going to touch on the weirdness of incorporating these things in to your identity, spindly space ships, tools and equipment, character designs, style in RPGs, brushstrokes, artfully arranged cheeseboards, miniatures & sculpts, music inspiring game design, hobby butterflies, books & fantasy aesthetics, the show hole but for books, Liz's excellent story recall, cute aggression, and a suggested name for the phenomenon.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're taking a hard look at how you give out information in TTRPGs, and why you should be more generous than you might think. We'll be covering how players require information to keep playing, how anti-gameplay binary checks for information can be, how meta-behaviors can arise from players trying to keep playing, different ways to handle failed rolls, red herrings leading to further interest, paying too much attention to the rules at the expense of the fiction, chopping people's arms off, immutable characters and status changes, "whoops, I'm out" behavior in traditional games, trap-style modules, how other systems handle failures and how that's more interesting, telegraphing dangers & giving hints, snake holes, and the option to succeed at a cost.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're talking about one on one roleplaying, IE playing a TTRPG with only 2 people: 1 player and 1 GM. Specifically we'll cover topics such as custom tailoring your story to your player, team requirements in group games, "Main" characters, being open to unusual story structures, how 1 on 1 reduces chaos, reading the room, bears, getting buy-in, how it's difficult if you don't have the right kind of relationships, how one on ones can easily evaporate, finding the right game, how it can be more difficult mechanically depending on the game system, how crunch takes longer in 1 on 1, how Silcore works well for 1 on 1s, options for running D&D 1 on 1s, Chosen One Mode, writing the world around the PC, and other types of stories that you can tell in these types of stories.

You can check out or rules for Chosen One Mode on my blog here: https://arcandio.com/post/the-chosen-one/

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, Liz will take you on a behind the scenes look into the worldbuilding for a game she is creating for Joe. Today we are talking about Russian history, bloodsoaked rulers, sneaky mages, weaponized magic, and how to fit it all into a world. Shh, Joe hasn't heard this one, so no spoilers.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week is our 3rd and final week of D&D critiques. Today we're focusing on the social aspects surrounding the D&D ttrpg culture, including advantages of our 1 on 1 roleplaying, deemphasizing higher levels, the avarice of D&D, experience points & the structure of the game, starting at higher level, how it's hard to run 1 on 1 D&D, D&D Beyond, push-button level-up obscure details & diffuses the excitement, playing D&D with guys from Curse, and how we're still coming back to D&D.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

Our D&D criticisms continue this week, in part 2 of 3. Today, we're talking about the actual mechanics of D&D and how they don't fit so well for our narrativist adventures. Today, we're talking the mechanics of D&D, including about rules as adversary, optimization & theorycrafting, optimal paths & false choices, holding actions are a often losing strategy, optimal actions are often meta, D&D runs on might makes right, linear fighters & quadratic wizards, how running D&D is just plain hard, and encounters.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're starting a flame war, and it's only part 1 of 3! Today we're talking about our criticisms of D&D 5E, and why it isn't the optimal system for our personal roleplaying adventures a lot of the time. We'll cover GNS theory, D&D as primarily a Gamist ttrpg, D&D as the elephant in the room, problematic traditions in D&D, alignment, naming spells after the designers, apparent choice vs optimal choice, optimize or fail, false choices, module troubles, tabletop design & racism, discrimination, and concept limitations.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

This week, we're talking about HOW to worldbuild, with tips and tricks for making your worldbuilding actually usable at the table. In this episode, we'll be talking about Wikis, non-linear planning, rolling with unexpected player choices, flexibility, avoiding railroading, planning for allowing player decisions, injecting conflict, the switchboard engine, mining your players for ideas, gluing ideas together, and useful prep lists.

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Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/

Today, we're going to give you an example of some collaborative worldbuilding by constructing a science fiction world before your very ears. We make it through the rough ideation stage, into some specifics about how the world works, what characters might be like, what groups are active in the world, talk a bit about what major challenges will exist in the world, and finally coin one big bad villain for the game.

Subscribe for more episodes! https://anchor.fm/joes-table

Check our the blog: https://arcandio.com/

Support us by playing our games! https://voidspiral.com/