foldedfrequencies

Game Engines and Grunk Pits: Running Green Ronin Games with Chris [S4E7]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Chris Pramas of Green Ronin Games! We hear about adapting a series of novels as a TTRPG, implementing spaceship combat without writing a physics textbook, and the importance of considering what a fantasy city would smell like. Our conversation goes deep into the lifecycle of a tabletop game, the economics of the publishing industry, and the complications of crowdfunding. Spoilers abound for The Expanse and Broken Earth novel series. Thanks to Reilly for editing out the part where Jake tried to say “Fifth Season” but accidentally said “Fifth Element”.

Chris Pramas is the founder and co-owner of Green Ronin Games. They’re the publisher behind Mutants and Masterminds and Fantasy Age as well as some very in-depth adaptations. We talk about the adaptations for The Fifth Season as well as The Expanse in quite a bit of detail, but their original content like Lost Island of the Pirate Queen is also extremely fun and flavourful. This year has been their 25th anniversary, so they’ve been doing some cool monthly specials. Also, the bankruptcy of their physical books distributor has had them in a bit of a bind over the past few months, so possibly consider helping them out?

Green Ronin Games also has some community sites for people interested in building their own game supplements:

AGE Creators Alliance is for Adventure Game Engine supplements.
Chronicle System Guild is for Sword Chronicle supplements, which is the genericized version of the A Song of Ice and Fire system.
Atomic Think Tank is a forum for Green Ronin TTRPGs more broadly.

Chris has some great recommendations for nonfiction history:

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry
Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42 by William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple and Anita Anand’s podcast Empire

Finally, while we were putting these show notes together, we found the program for GenCon 2000, and it’s an excellent examples of turn-of-the-century TTRPG graphic design:

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, maybe go check out the first time we met Chris way back at OrcaCon 2025!

For more conversations about publishing TTRPGs, go listen to our interview with David about self-publishing TTRPGs, our interview with Simon about minis (where we talk a lot about indie TTRPG publishing in the 90s), and our interview with Selius about publishing a third-party D&D supplement.

For a discussion about TTRPG adaptations of sprawling fictional universes from the point of view of a GM, go listen to this episode with Jesse about playing a campaign in the Dune system.

For some Flashlights where we talk about the history of Wizards of the Coast, here’s the one where we talk about magazines and the birth of Paizo and here’s the one where we talk about Chris Cox’s tenure as Hasbro CEO.

Thanks to Emmett for providing this week’s intro! Emmett is one of the writers of the Heir of Smoke D&D supplement, which is extremely cool.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon or supporting us on Ko-Fi. A special thanks to Hannah W, Jake K, Perry C, Elvin Prince, Jason K, and Smokie Derg for supporting us on Patreon!

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Goblins with Satellites: The Magical Land of Yeld with Maia [S4L2]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Maia about tracking the passage of time within a campaign, how GMing changes your persective on the game, and the challenges of playing coming-of-age narratives at a table of adults. Maia is part of the team behind the Magical Land of Yeld TTRPG system, and this ended up being a really thoughtful conversation about designing and playing a game that feels very different from the classical fantasy TTRPG.

This season, we’re experimenting with shorter conversations about how people play games. We heard from the Yeld team (briefly!) at the Dragonflight gaming convention earlier this season, and we’re really grateful to dive deeper into the system with Maia this week.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

A Delver’s Guide to Third-Party Supplements: Building the Beast World with Selius [S4E6]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Selius from Heartleaf Games about building an economy where dungeon delving makes sense, the hazards of concentrating intellectual property in a single company, and the mechanics for noodle-bodied PC species. Initially, we planned to talk with Selius about the Delver’s Guide to Beast World sourcebook (which is extremely cool!), but we ended up talking more broadly about the process of developing third-party supplements for D&D 5th Edition. Since the interview, Heartleaf Games has also released a deck of NPC cards for Beast World campaigns.

We talked way more about Dungeons and Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, and intellectual property in this Flashlight back in Season 2. Jake also mentions the Ironclaw system.

Thanks to Beatrix for providing this week’s intro!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at Dragonflight [S4T8]

This week, we’re on location at the Dragonflight GameCon in Bellevue, WA! We hear about carefully engineered dice, the unsustainability of grimdark campaigns, and orange cats that are not burdened by an abundance of thought. Thanks to everyone who took the time to chat with us:

Norwescon is a Science Fiction and Fantasy convention in the Seattle suburbs in April.
Zephren Varner makes extremely cool minis and dice.
Alchemical Press publishes Mice of Legend (and has a live Kickstarter for their new modules!).
Nailon Realm makes some very fun minis.
Stout Game Tables builds some very practical gaming tables.
Found Family Adventurecrafts makes fun whimsical minis.
PurrnelKitty Studio publishes The Golden Tuna and sells fun orange cat merch.
Gameswell makes really elegant card games.
Yeld is a fantasy TTRPG about children in a magical world (which we’ll be hearing more about later this season).
Sketchsauce sells 3D printed toys and minis from a range of artists.
Majestic Adventures runs some very fun LARP camps and parties.
Alexandria RPG Library does an incredible job preserving and sharing TTRPG sourcebooks. We chatted with David about the old d6 Star Wars TTRPG and also Deadlands.

At the beginning of the episide, we mention the profusion of wizard hats at OrcaCon in January. Here’s the first part and here’s the second part of our time at OrcaCon.

We also remembered to get some pictures at Dragonflight! Here’s some of Zephren Varner’s minis and dice:

Here are some of the minis from Nailon Realm:

Here are some of the minis from Found Family Adventurecrafts:

Here are some of the swords from Majestic Adventures:

Here’s the big glowing sign for the Alexandria RPG Library:

And finally, because there’s probably a decent overlap between people who like pictures of TTRPG minis and people who like pictures of new transit infrastructure, and because this con was Jake’s first chance to ride the 2 Line, here’s a picture of a new light rail station with excellent views and very few riders:

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at Furlandia (Part 2) [S4T7]

This week, we’re back on location at the Furlandia furry convention in Portland! We hear about the virtues of being your party’s straight man (in the comedy sense), PC-on-PC romance, and a party that fails to notice that you’re secretly Mothman. Thanks to Wulfryk, Theo, Dexter, Skia, Jacqueline, MIkiib, Faye, Chloe, and Liam for taking the time to chat with us! Jake (who writes these show notes) promises to Reilly (who does all the audio editing) never to wear a large clanky cowbell while recording podcast audio again.

We hear about the Savage Worlds system in this one – and, in particular, its (unofficial) Fallout setting.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Viciously Destroying the Things You’re Anxious About: TTRPG Therapy with Wesley [S4E5]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Wesley about the enforcement of veils and lines, the virtues of stabbing birds, and the use of TTRPGs in therapy. (Wesley’s an actual literal therapist!) This ended up being a thoughtful conversation about people’s emotional needs when they’re playing TTRPGs, even outside the therapy context.

We make a few references to our episode with Kyros way back in Season 1. (Spoilers for Curse of Strahd in both this episode with Wesley and that episode with Kyros, incidentally.) If you want to hear more about paid GMing in non-therapy contexts, go listen to our interviews with RP and Dante.

As promised to Wesley, we’re going to plug touching grass and donating to your local LGBT centre. In the PNW, we’d suggest Qmunity in Vancouver or Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center (formerly Gay City).

Thanks to Briar for providing this week’s intro! You can book Briar to GM your game or check out a D&D module they co-wrote.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Six-Mile Hex Grids with Seventeen Locations: Exploration in OSR Games with Max [S4L1]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Max about Seattle-appropriate doula gifts, the TTRPG version of porn brain, and the concept of exploration in TTRPGs. This season, we’re experimenting with shorter conversations about how people play games. We first spoke with Max way back in Season 2, and we wanted to keep talking about OSR games, so we convinced Max to come back for another round. This is one of our most game theory-focused interviews, especially when we’re talking about incentives and objectives in TTRPGs. If you’re interested in why so many older systems treated gold as XP, this episode is for you.

Throughout the conversation, Jake and Max both keep saying “D&D”. However, the actual system Max is using is Shadowdark. Jake kind of regrets this inaccuracy, but also it feels like “D&D” becoming a generic term for TTRPGs and losing its trademark protections (like “aspirin” or “thermos” or “escalator”) would be a funny outcome of its cultural dominance.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon or supporting us on Ko-Fi. A special thanks to Hannah W, Jake K, Perry C, Elven Prince, Jason K, and Smokie Derg for supporting us on Patreon!

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at Furlandia (Part 1) [S4T6]

This week, we’re on location at the Furlandia furry convention in Portland! We hear about tricky metallurgy puns, the challenge of playing a character with a limited vocabulary, and the hazard of DMing in Florida. Thanks to Ember, Briar, Sage, Veer, Mud, Celina, Salem, Guy, Scone, King, Kiki, Lavitts, Cotton, Diego, Nathan, Fenric, and Body for taking the time to chat with us!

Lavitts shared some cool character art with us!

We also hear about a fun TTRPG system called Pirate Borg in this one.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

The Hackensack Hack ‘n’ Slash: Rotating GMs with Garrett and the Bucket Buddies [S4E4]

In this week’s episode, we chat with Garrett about highly effective cult leaders, a curse of potential unkillability, and a table of players that rotates GMing duties (and systems!) for each campaign. This was a really thoughtful conversation about short game sessions, building shared ownership of the world, and what it means to be a GM. Plus, three of the other members of Garrett’s table shared their perspectives with us as well!

Garrett has a wealth of knowledge about TTRPG systems. Here are some of the systems that Garrett mentions in this episode:

Swords Without Master
Ars Magica
Nitrate City
Masks
Monster of the Week
Spire: The City Must Fall
Dungeon World, which we heard about from Prim
Blades in the Dark
Boondock Cartomancy
Lasers and Feelings, of which we played a very fun hack called Radical Catgirl Anarchy
Kids on Bikes

We hear about a LARP gone wrong in this episode. To hear about LARP gone right, check out our interviews with Andrew (who told us about Legacies LARP) and Rex (who told us about Gothic LARP).

Garrett also publishes TTRPGs! Check out Garrett’s Itch page for some fun creative GMless games, and also this (now-closed) Kickstarter for another system now under development.

We also hear from some other members of the table! They’re also extremely knowledgeable about TTRPG systems:

Jason mentions Monster Hearts, Dungeon World, Questlandia, Girl by Moonlight, and City Planning Department.
Jared mentions Always/Never/Now and Blister Critters. Jared publishes TTRPGs too! Check out Jared’s Itch page for solo journalling games, micro games, and missions for The Company.
Chris mentions Uranium Chef and Alas for the Awful Sea.

A special thanks to Jason, Jared, and Chris for taking the time to share their experiences! We’re very grateful to all of you for seeing a surprise email from a stranger about your home TTRPG game and still taking the time to record some audio for us. We reached out to all of the Bucket Buddies, but didn’t hear back from the rest by release time.

(Also, we checked out City Planning Department after we heard about it from Jason. We liked it so much that we’ll be playing it in a episode later this season with a special guest! So an additional thanks for that recommendation.)

Thanks to Ruckgar of Orc Style for providing this week’s intro!

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.

Onsite at VancouFur, Part 2 [S4T5]

This week, we’re back on location at the VancouFur furry convention in Vancouver! We hear about a bomb mage, a high-charisma roguelike wizard, and a monk who discovers a new way to defeat Strahd. Reilly’s around for this episode, and so order is restored, even as we need to podcast away from a crisis. Thanks again to the organizers for giving us permission to record at the convention!

We’re grateful to Syren, Pluto, Sappho, Cherry Blossom, Rudy, and Lexi for taking the time to talk with us! We hear about the Starfinder system in this episode. Back in January, we encountered a Starfinder playtest at OrcaCon.

At VancouFur, we commissioned a quick scrungly portrait of ourselves recording the podcast from Chebits. Honestly this really captures our vibe:

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly’s music. You can also listen to Reilly’s DJ sets on Mixcloud.

For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.