Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #9: In All Fairness
Ludological Alchemy: The HypothesisShow Notes
We know that for many, today is a day known as "Christmas Day", however, we here at Ludological Alchemy celebrate a more esoteric event: the final episode of our podcast The Hypothesis for the year 2024. Our first year of podcasting and blogging has been tumultuous, perilous, enlightening, frustrating, joyous, fraught, and entirely worthwhile, by our estimation. However, rather than looking back on this year in this episode, we instead bring you an altogether different experience. This very month, only a few weeks ago, Luke and Christopher met in person in the Lair of the Crane, where we recorded in person an episode about fairness in games. We also filmed it, as mentioned in the recording, and though that video recording is not yet available, it shall be released to subscribers of our substack in the first month of the new year. Tune thyself! Stay tuned. Were we able to uncover all of the secrets and possibilities concerning fairness in games? Or did we not give the topic a fair shake? Let us know your thoughts! Comment and reveal your true feelings! We look forward to bringing you more delves into the depths of games and their makings in the year ahead. We wish unto you all a reflective and thriving holiday times, and that the turning of the calendar treats you far better than any of us deserve. Throughout it all, we remain your Ludological Alchemists.
More from Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Alchemically Minded Followers and Friends, Our guest for this month's episode is none other and the inimitable, indefatigable Paul Beakley. You may know this tireless gentleman from his insightful blog, Indie Games Reading Club, in which he offers cogent, easily digested thoughts on roleplaying game design and practice. I confess that I am extremely partial to his musings, as he has written excellent analyses of The Burning Wheel Fantasy Roleplaying System. In this interview, we discuss Paul's long and storied history with games, his crowdfunding spreadsheet and his thoughts on the state of the RPG world. Enjoy! —Luke, Christopher and Sam
Seekers of Truth, This year at Gen Con Christopher and I altered our traditional format and instead ran a traditional game design advice panel at Gen Con in the guise of your humble Ludological Alchemists. We had a fair turnout, many of whom had not heard of our stygian recordings of our maundering. For the topic, we elucidated nine questions that Alchemist Luke had posed to his students regarding their final assignments for his Tabletop RPG Design class in April. 9 Questions for RPG designers What is the game about? What's the concept? What genre or format does the game take? What materials does the game use? The number of players and their roles. Session time, number of sessions. What is the content of a session?
Star Knights, Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. But hope was not yet lost, for Christopher and Luke discuss one of the most fascinating RPGs of the past 20 years: Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North. Polaris confronts the most persistent problem in all RPGs: how to resolve conflict through dialogue alone. It's ambitious design, dripping with flavor that cloaks its unique system.
Humble Supplicants, Seekers of knowledge, I bring to you a conversation with one of our game design titans — Greg Costikyan. Greg is a designer of war games, board games, computer games and roleplaying games. His roleplaying games credits include Bug-Eyed Monsters, Toon, Paranoia, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, The Price of Freedom and Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed. We talk about his start in games as an eager, earnest 14-year-old playtester who evolved into a developer at game designer at SPI and West End Games. A few things that we touch on with Greg during the interview: Poverty is a motivator for young game designers.
Fiends, There was no guarantee that we achieve this momentous step. And yet, through sheer grit and determination, we have arrived at the first episode of our third volume. In this episode we talk about podcast money, why we make games and then dive deep into Gregor Hutton's 2008 masterpiece, 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars. To learn more, see some cool images, comment, and potentially optionally support our endeavors, visit our now-free Substack! Ad Astra!