"

John and I geek out completely for about an hour about pro wrestling and the lessons you can learn from it to use in gaming. I always enjoy recording this show, this was was a real joy because it blended two of my favorite things and it was with somone who's just as crazy for the subjects as I am.

Joel Shempert, Mickey and I talk about Nicotine Girls by Paul Czege and emotional exploartion in play.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/stabbingcontest/Stabbingcontestep028.mp3.mp3

mtfiercewrites "How to best redirect a subgroup of players who are going off to deliberately break your adventure?"

This is a hard one for me to answer because even when I was playing traditional games I was always flying off the cuff. years before I heard the term sandbox I was doing just that and more, just reacting and creating by the seat of my pants. I ( Read more... )

graypawn  asks "Is it true that, once you've played Indie Games, you can't go back to playing Trad games? Why?"

Ben's answer was, simply, no, but mine is just slightly more detailed.

No, but your opinion of what makes a game worth playing might change.

jrcraig42 writes "D&D 4E: Great game, or greatest game?"

4E is a well balanced game that has potential for really fun tactical combat and provides some basic, but well designed roleplaying elements of the top of that wargame style combat. It's almost engineered rather than designed and the parts all fit together and actually work. It's amajor change from ( Read more... )

In my last post I talked about heading off potential problem players before they have a chance to be problematic, but I get the feeling the question was more directed at a situation where there were already problems and there was a need to talk to the player at the root of it ( Read more... )

sgtjesse wants to know how to approach difficult players, and I'm gonna guess that he means about their difficult behavior, not how to invite them to games or ask them out or something.

There's a lot of discussion lately about whether or not it's ok to kick people out of a game or not. The one thing that almost everyone agrees upon is if you'd kick someone ( Read more... )

caliban1227writes "What do you feel is the best catalyst for the creative process in a new gaming group?"

I play a lot of con games which is kind of like starting a whole lot of new gaming groups all the time. So, I use several approaches.

1. Share out the burden of creativity: Don't let anyone sit back and watch. If everyone helps make the situation and the ( Read more... )

So benlehman  wants me to talk about shared mythology, how it's created, how it works and what part of our lives it plays.

Ok, well, I'm not really that kind of Campbell style of thinker, but I'm stuck at home caring for my sick wife, so I'll give it a shot.

Ben gives some examples in the comments to his question and I'll further illustrate here to give some ( Read more... )