Show Notes
Hello my seekers of knowledge, We apologize for the untimely unseemly delay in launching this our latest episode. Volume 2 Sam and Luke are way behind on their game design writing, if you hadn't noticed. So for Volume 2 of our Hypothesis, Christopher and I decided to change the format of the podcast. For this volume, we shift to an interview format. We're interviewing designers about their backgrounds and processes. Luke developed a list of questions that we're going to ask each designer, so that at the end of the series we can compare and contrast answers. Oh and also, we're trying out video! We'll release the recordings here on the blog first, and then a month later on Luke's Burning Wheel YouTube channel. Let us know what you think about the new format. —Luke & Christopher
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!