The Independent Insurgency
Interviews from the indie game design world.

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WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 18.4 MB big and 20:08 long.

In this Talk To Me Now episode I talk to Ron Edwards of Adept Press and The Forge about a recent trend in indie game design: two-player games and single protagonist games. The two are not necessarily synonymous. This came out of my observation/contention that most fiction is about single protagonists, but most RPGs are not. We mention a load of games, and you can find info on them here:

Ron's own Trollbabe, S/Lay w/ Me, Sorcerer & Sword, and Spione
Kevin Allen Jr.'s Sweet Agatha
Julia Bond Ellingboe's Tales of the Fisherman's Wife
Seth Ben Ezra's Showdown
Tim Koppang's Mars Colony
Emily Care Boss's Breaking the Ice
Ben Lehman's The Drifter's Escape and Clover
Matt Weber's Showdown

The outgoing song on this episode is The Arrivals Gate by Ani DiFranco from the album To the Teeth. I spent a lot of time in airports on my way back from Gen Con.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-031.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 4:32 PM
Comments[4]

In this design episode, I talk Emily Care Boss of Black and Green Games about Sign in Stranger, her game of alien exploration. Called "the Peace Corps in space" game, Sign in Stranger is about human beings who've elected to leave a quarantined Earth behind to try to build a life for themselves out in space, among aliens who at best regard them with curious pity for their benighted condition. I've played and enjoyed it, and since it's coming out at Gen Con this year, you can do the same.

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 60.6 MB big and 01:06:11 long.

00:00:55: About the game
00:01:46: The "Mad Libs" thing
00:06:20: The interesting role of humanity in the game, reminds me of Asimov's Elijah Baley stories
00:07:45: A rare indie game with a strong setting
00:09:20: Science fiction and the Native American analogy, and an NPR piece on the subject (which I can't find), which then reminds me of The Celluloid Closet
00:10:41: Why such a specific setting?
00:12:24: One of the early playtesters, Clinton R. Nixon, felt it accurately captured his past experiences of going to live in foreign cultures
00:14:21: Jonathan Walton has a vision for the game that makes it rather like Red Mars
00:15:38: Goofiness
00:16:57: Emily talks about gaming at NerdNYC's Recess
00:17:36: Dadaist games like Eat Poop You Cat
00:20:26: Emily gets all John Stavropoulos (of NerdNYC) on me
00:21:13: Ideal number of players
00:23:20: How long is the play cycle?
00:27:01: Blue booking
00:30:05: Spotlight sharing
00:32:49: The way dice work, inspired by Otherkind
00:37:39: Why complete and publish this game?
00:41:26: Emily was recently inspired by Montsegur 1244 at Camp Nerdly
00:46:37: A dropped system where players—a la Misspent Youth and Dread (Jenga)—asked leading questions of one another.
00:49:40: Emily mentions "Loading the wrong ammo" and "flags," ideas created by Chris Chinn
00:50:03: What was difficult to fix?
00:51:17: Archipelago, shock: social science fiction, and Annalise all do some cool stuff with owning pieces of the world
00:54:42: Getting playtesters
00:57:05: SIS got some very nice exposure on The Durham 3 (who are now back in action!), from episodes 49 to 51
00:58:51: Emily has agreed to do a cross-longer-term-play exchange with Mendel Schmiedekamp
00:59:21: How many times has the game been played?
01:00:15: Defining success

There's a new The Hub City Stompers album called Ska Ska Black Sheep and I'm all excited about it. It's half new songs and half dub versions of older songs. I decided to start with what is probably my favorite track from the album to close this show, Ska Train to Dorkville.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-030.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:14 PM
Comments[0]

In this Talk To Me Now episode I talk to Emily Care Boss of Black & Green Games about two related topics: Pirate Jenny, the booth (number 2023) at Gen Con Indy 2009 featuring games designed by women; and RPG= Role Playing Girl (RPGirl), the zine about women in the gaming industry that she's worked on, which will be on sale at the booth. We touch briefly all of the new/interesting/focused-on games that you can find at Pirate Jenny, the purpose and function of the booth, and what you'll find inside RPGirl.

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 25.2 MB big and 27:27 long.

00:35: Defining Pirate Jenny
02:01: Anna Kreider of Tasty Bacon Games has Thou Art But A Warrior, which is a Muslim knights setting supplement for Ben Lehman's Polaris, which I interviewed her about
02:28: Danielle Lewon's Cream Alien Games has Kagematsu, a game about the seduction of a samurai by women who need his aid; Danielle is the wife of Paul Czege
03:23: Kagematsu is based on a design by Scott R. Knipe; the game is partly an examination of Knipe's experience as a transgendered person
04:52: Kat and Michael Miller's Incarnadine Press will have Serial Homicide Unit, a game where you play civilians at the mercy of a serial killer, and the cops who are out to catch him; I interviewed the Millers about this game
07:14: Shreyas Sampat and Elizabeth Shoemaker's Two Scooters Press will have Homecoming, Elizabeth's game about the re-integration of returning war vets
08:24: Julia Bond Ellingboe's Stone Baby Games is releasing the full version of Tales of the Fisherman's Wife (which I interviewed her about), a game of sexy Japanese ghost stories
10:00: Emily's own Black & Green Games is going to release her game of alien exploration, Sign in Stranger, which will be the subject of a future episode of my show
12:56: Terry Hope Romero, awesome lady and totally famous vegan cookbook writer will be there running demos and helping out
13:58: The mission and purpose of Pirate Jenny
17:48: RPGirl is a zine by and about women in gaming
20:20: The interesting pricing scheme and profit-routing plans for RPGirl
20:50: Possible international people for RPGirl 2 include: Anna Westerling, Johanna Koljonen
21:18: RPGirl 1 is already pretty international, contributors include: UKian Charlotte Law (of Mongoose Publishing); Jenni Dowsett from New Zealand; and from from Denmark, the Gnavpotveksler project, run by Luisa Carbonelli, which came out of conversations at Fastival

The outgoing song on this episode is Little Plastic Castle by Ani DiFranco from the album Little Plastic Castle. It seemed particularly apropos to me, given that we're dancing around—and avoiding—defining what femininity and feminism are in this episode.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-029.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:49 PM
Comments[0]

This design episode is part of a series from the Indie Design Roundtable from DexCon 12, which I was the moderator of. In this one, we talk to photographer, writer, podcaster, contortionist, awesome chick, and game designer J.R. Blackwell about her zombie LARP in development, Shelter in Place. I had to pass up a chance to play this the night before but I was glad we were able to talk about it, as it sounds pretty cool.

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 45.5 MB big and 49:37 long.

03:43: The premise
04:38: Ultimately, what's the game about?
05:33: How is the game about what it's about for the humans?
07:27: What does it mean when you say "it's about fear?"
09:40: What mechanical pressure exists to make humans be jerks to each other?
11:44: We hear from someone who just played in the game
13:56: More testimony of the goodness from someone who played
16:45: Zombie game with a twist
18:47: Do you have questions for us?
20:10: Problems getting people to follow the rules
23:39: Prisoner's dilemma
24:24: The Road and The Walking Dead
25:33: Creative agenda clash, and why it's your fault when people don't follow your rules
30:00: State markers
32:00: Setting-interactive rules
38:31: Lightning round

The closing song is Night Of The Living/Deoch An Dorais by The Hub City Stompers

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-028.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 1:07 PM
Comments[1]

In this design episode, I talk to John Stavropoulos and Jim Sullivan of the Imagination Sweatshop (ISS) and NerdNYC about their new playstormed gamein-a-jiffy for JiffyCon Greenfield June 09, MonkeyDome. MonkeyDome was a vast collaboration including Jim, John, Emily Care Boss (of Black and Green Games), Jason Keeley, Epidiah Ravachol, and Terry Romero. It's a game where you see-saw between incredibly grim and really wacky moments in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and it's available for free on the ISS website.

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 56.2 MB big and 1:01:20 long.

00:59: I interviewed Eppy in the last episode about playstorming and MonkeyDome came up
01:17: What's the game about?
02:46: The game was designed in (almost less than) a week!
08:11: The difference between funny and zany.
10:22: Playable as an ongoing game?
12:06: The mechanics
19:52: What it means to learn a lesson
21:02: Endgame
25:14: The GameBlaster's Tools: The Fuel and the Fire
26:03: World creation and what the characters do in the game
29:02: Other games you came up with?
30:20: Jim mentions a game idea that's a lot like Jason Morningstar's Fiasco (which he talked about on Canon Puncture #66)
31:20: Who did you steal from?
32:07: John is always inspired by Eppy's game Dread
34:00: What had to be dropped that you liked?
34:44: The hardest thing to fix
35:24: Playtesting
36:43: Trial and Terror is the prior game-in-a-Jiffy for JiffyCon game
38:13: Division of labor and editing
43:06: The ISS used a site called A.nnotate which lets you upload a fully-laid-out document that others browse through and comment on
44:06: What the art (by Scott LeMien and John) is used for
47:11: Luke Crane loves John's flow chart
48:05: Why this form factor?
48:41: Marketing
50:21: Branding and credit
51:24: Defining success
53:46: Selling the game
56:58: The next JiffyCon may be paired with MaulCon

The closing song is Skins Don't Cry by The Hub City Stompers

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-027.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 6:30 PM
Comments[5]

In this Talk To Me Now episode, I speak with Epidiah Ravachol, writer of the best horror game I know of, Dread about a style of game design which is a combination of playtesting and brainstorming that he and some friends engage in (and, arguably, invented) called playstorming.

This episode is 23.4 MB big and 25:34 long.

00:35: We're at the home of Joshua A. C. Newman
01:34: Playstorming developed between bouts of making hate with Jim Sullivan
02:40: The first game playstormed (kinda) was Time and Temp
03:49: The gamebearer
05:36: Games in a Jiffy for JiffyCon: Trial and Terror and MonkeyDome
09:30: Techniques for successful playstorming?
12:06: What do people get wrong about playstorming?
13:00: The pitfalls of playstorming
14:55: Joshua joins us, opening the door to discussing his game in development, Xenon:
16:06: A list of games that have had some level of playstorming
18:09: Jason Keeley and John Stavropolous are seminal members of the Imagination Sweatshop, the group that they created to do playstorming

The outgoing song on this episode is Fuel by Ani DiFranco from the album Little Plastic Castles.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-026.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 4:29 PM
Comments[0]

In this Talk To Me Now episode, I speak with Vincent Baker about his "cloud and box" theory and accompanying diagrams explaining his take on the interactions between fiction and real-world materials. There are a series of posts on his blog about this: How RPG Rules Work; 3 Resolution Systems; Scale, Depth, Clouds, Dice; cloud-to-cloud; A Moment of Judgment; Dice and Cloud, Mix and Match; GM fiat put to work for the good; and Dice & Cloud: a Symmetry.

This is a longer TTMN episode than I intend them to be, usually, but I felt there was enough worthwhile stuff here that going long was ok.

This episode is 53.7 MB big and 58:40 long.

01:36: What clouds and boxes are
02:16: Ben Lehman got excited on Vincent's blog
04:02: The purpose of the diagrams
06:12: The problem with traditional games
10:00: Constructing a diagram via theater of the mind
10:26: The problem with "story games" (he's talked about with me, Joshua A. C. Newman, Emily Care Boss, and Ben, about which he expects to get death threats)
15:34: Where Vincent's interests are at now: rightward-pointing arrows (RPA)
17:30: An example of RPA from Vincent's pirate game Poison'd
22:23: My malformed objections
24:08: The high ground example
30:28: Danger or problem in focusing on RPA?
30:51: The GM's attitude toward play
35:41: A false ending
42:35: The GM's role in Dogs in the Vineyard is similar to what he found when running D&D and what he wrote into Storming the Wizard's Tower
45:14: I'd like to see GMless games that employ RPA
45:52: I played in a GMless game called Salt River that uses a version of Otherkind dice
51:25: Wherein I give up
53:25: Apocalypse World is like super-Poison'd

The outgoing song on this episode is Superhero from the album Dilate.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-025.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:41 PM
Comments[5]

In this episode, I talk to Julia Bond Ellingboe about her forthcoming game, Tales of the Fisherman's Wife. The game is set in medieval Japan and is a GMless game for telling ghost stories. Our discussion includes handmaking books, the difficulty of finding playtesters, and issues of appropriating others' culture.

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 53.5 MB big and 58:25 long.

00:43: Set in the Edo period
01:48: The mechanics have you playing War
08:15: The title comes from a famous painting, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife by Katushika Hokusai
09:11: Why design this game?
11:20: Thematic links between card suits and fiction
12:40: Is this an adult game?
18:15: My prior interview with Carrie Bernstein
19:29: What did you steal from?
20:11: 1001 Nights by Meguey Baker
21:33: What did you have to change from the ashcan?
24:13: What was difficult to fix?
25:36: The trouble with getting playtesters
26:37: JiffyCon and Double Exposure's Dreamation conventions
27:26: Editing the book
28:45: What use, art?
30:36: Getting the game printed (Collective Copies)
31:37: Layout and design challenges
35:19: Form factor
37:27: Marketing the game
38:05: Oh My, a "Sensuality Shop" that Julia would like to market the game in.
39:09: What is success?
44:06: Taking yourself out of the equation
48:43: The cultural sensitivity issues around designing a game about a culture that you're not a part of

The closing song is Tocotta and Droog by The Hub City Stompers

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-024.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:09 PM
Comments[0]

This episode is 21.4 MB big and 23:44 long.

In this episode, I speak with Joshua A. C. Newman about the In A Wicked Age... game we've been playing in with Meguey and Vincent Baker. The game was about first contact between two human species at the fictional level. At the gamey level, we were making a real effort to make sure to provide world-fiction details, and we talk about that impulse in this episode.

During the show, we talk about Apocalypse World, Sign in Stranger, shock:, the oracle for Human Contact, The Brilliant Gameologists, and JiffyCon.

The outgoing song on this episode is Subdivision by Ani DiFranco from the album Revelling/Reckoning. I like it for this 'cause it's got interesting synchronies with the topics that get brought up in our game.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-023.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 4:28 PM
Comments[0]

In this episode, I speak with Carrie Bernstein about how she fell away from the roleplaying hobby. We discuss creativity, socialization, and the way the culture views the hobby.

This episode is 18.5 MB big and 20:15 long.

NOTE: This is the first in a new sub-series within The Independent Insurgency that I'm calling "Talk To Me Now." In this series, I'm going to have brief conversations with friends (and sometimes strangers) about things they are interested in or want to say about roleplaying games.

Going forward, these episodes will be marked as TTMN and my other episodes will be marked as Design Episodes (DE).

The outgoing song on this episode (as well as the incoming one for the series) is Talk To Me Now by Ani DiFranco from the album Ani DiFranco.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-022.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 1:41 AM
Comments[0]

So right now, I have no material recorded for the show and it's getting to the point where it might be hard for me to keep up a biweekly schedule. I may have to dedicate far more time at cons to doing interviews if I'm going to avoid this in the future.

If you are (or know) an independent game designer within driving distance of Western MA, and you want to be on the show, please let me know. The show's email address is at gmail, and it's indie.insurgent there. You can also just email me if you know my address.

(I should note that I do not do Skype on my show, face-to-face interviews only.)
Category: general -- posted at: 10:23 AM
Comments[0]

In this episode, I talk to Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen about the game they've designed for Peter Adkison at Hidden City Games, FreeMarket (previously known as "Project Donut"). FreeMarket is a transhumanist science fiction game in which you try to gain prestige ("flow") on a Utopian space station.

Also, I had a cold.

Also, big news on the music front (scan down).

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 64.8 MB big and 01:10:46 long.

00:01:08: The origin of the "Project Donut" working title
00:04:00: What's it about?
00:06:20: The primacy of cooperation
00:07:17: Transhumanism
00:07:54: Blade Runner (in case you didn't know)
00:10:13: Jared claims FreeMarket is one of the first real science fiction games (and his explanation for what that means for shock: social science fiction by Joshua A.C. Newman)
00:10:58: What is science fiction?
00:11:13: J.G. Ballard's three pillars of science fiction
00:13:45: How the game works
00:15:30: The game's concept of Flow reminds me of face rank in Extras by Scott Westerfeld
00:15:43: Cory Doctorow
00:17:17: "Deathing" people
00:19:35: Setting is built into the skills, and characters use the same game terms players do
00:20:34: Division of labor
00:21:29: Oldboy
00:23:16: When I played FM, I created a Y.T. gene line for my character (from the book Snow Crash)
00:24:08: Luke ran a game of Jared's game Lacuna for he and Peter
00:25:36: Luke and Jared would have liked to have done the Bella Sara RPG
00:27:28: The influence (or lack thereof) of other games
00:32:07: Rebekah "Spyder" Bennington has done art for FreeMarket
00:33:22: Difficult things to fix
00:37:42: Things they couldn't make work
00:40:17: The fascinating role of death(ing) in the game
00:42:16: Sengoku
00:42:47: The GM is called the "Superuser" and the other players are the "users"
00:44:33: FreeMarket is a no-prep game
00:45:45: How to get playtesters and get them to give you feedback
00:47:30: A RadioLab episode on choice that I babble on about
00:49:17: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
00:51:03: Darcy Burgess
00:51:54: Playstorming
00:52:03: The purpose and use of art
00:53:49: Pictures of the "white book" for the game are on its site
00:55:46: Slugfest Games put them in touch with their printer
00:56:28: The PDF of the game will be given out for free
00:57:23: Skekses
00:57:32: You'll be able to register as a "colonist" and choose the number of the game you want
00:58:37: The contents of the boxed set
00:59:28: Empire of Dust by KNRPG Productions is another boxed set
00:59:34: Marketing
01:02:50: Jim Munroe, author of Everyone in Silico and the movie Infest Wisely, which were inspirations for FreeMarket
01:03:27: Jared has visions of one day playing the game with Doctorow, William Gibson, Munroe, and Bruce Sterling
01:05:00: George W. Bush as the Manichean president
01:05:09: When will it be out?
01:06:45: The Farm is not happy

I'm super-lucky that Righteous Babe Records gave me permission to play music by Ani DiFranco. I'm going to start doing so for a while, since she's my favorite musician. We're going to start with a song about a corporate entity trying to get you to sell yourself out, a song called The Next Big Thing.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-021.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:28 PM
Comments[1]

In this episode, I talk to Malcolm Craig of Contested Ground Studios about his new game, Hot War. Hot War is set in a post-apocalyptic 1960s London, and is a thematic sequel to Malcolm's earlier game, Cold City. I had played and really enjoyed the game the night before, so I can tell you it's a ton of fun. Also, Malcolm is such a generous person that I frequently had to fight to get us back to talking about his game, rather than mine. He's a great guy and I loved talking with him.

WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 65.3 MB big and 1:11:18 long.

00:00:59: What Contested Ground Studios is
00:04:29: Twilight 2000 is one of the first games Malcolm played
00:05:16: Hot War was also inspired by British authors like John Wyndham (specifically Day of the Triffids) and J.G. Ballard, and is unlike "cozy catastrophe" books like A Canticle for Leibowitz
00:06:00: Hot War is set after a nuclear (and quasi-occult) war touched off by the Cuban Missile Crisis
00:06:30: The Zone of Alienation, where physical laws don't work properly, is inspired by the film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky and the novel upon which it's based, Roadside Picnic, as well as the Chernobyl Disaster
00:08:01: Characters in the game have secret agendas that often come into conflict with their organizations' agendas
00:09:32: A rundown of the game's mechanics
00:13:09: Ani DiFranco's song Letter to a John
00:13:31: We talk about music and politics as influences on game design and life
00:15:13: Malcolm's soundtrack for Cold City is dominated by non-50s music like DJ Krush, DJ Shadow,Fingerthing, and the Joe Acheson Quartet
00:16:10: The soundtrack for a Contenders game Malcolm played set in New Jersey (where I used to live) in 1983 included Blondie, Bauhaus, Talking Heads, The Cure, and The Clash
00:17:41: Malcom needs to visit New Jersey, if only for Dexposure's Dreamation gaming convention
00:18:15: We talk about more music: Nine Inch Nails, Front 242, and Green Day
00:19:11: How Hot War's conflict system works
00:19:55: Malcolm and I both worked the Playcollective booth at Gen Con
00:25:03: Megablockbuster 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars handles character death in a cool way
00:26:30: Why design this game?
00:31:09: "The people are not motor-bike-riding leather-clad, crossbow-wielding neo-barbarians"
00:32:46: The prevalence of kilts at gaming cons, Gen Con in particular
00:33:52: Jennifer Rodgers
00:36:17: What other games have you begun to shit out?
00:37:18: Malcolm wrote a game based on the song I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper
00:39:20: The possible third game in this thematic trend would be set in 1920s Constantinople and inspired by the book The Orientalist
00:41:36: The main differences between Hot War and Cold City
00:46:15: Gen Con's t-shirt problems: aggression, passive-aggression, and fascism
00:49:32: Malcolm "nicked mercilessly" from The Mountain Witch, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Covenant
00:53:38: Use of art in the book
00:56:54: The printer for the book is Fidlar Doubleday
00:58:44: Marketing (which Malcolm thinks Evil Hat are particularly good at)
01:02:19: Defining success

Closing song is Thick Ass Stout by Skankin' Pickle which can be found at Podshow's Podsafe Music Network, http://music.podshow.com/
Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-020.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:41 PM
Comments[5]

In this episode, I talk to Seth Ben Ezra of Dark Omen Games about his game, Dirty Secrets. Dirty Secrets is a modern crime/noir/mystery game without the mystery being predetermined. Our conversation touches on many issues surrounding the game, including how it intersects with Seth's religious faith and the roles of race and class in the game and in society. We also talk briefly about Seth's new game, A Flower for Mara.

NOTE: This episode was shot in a hotel room where the air conditioning kept popping on and off. Hopefully it's not too distracting. Sorry!

This episode is 63.6 MB big and 1:09:25 long.

00:00:57: Dirty Secrets is a "detective crime noir" game, similar in tone to the works of Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and Dashiell Hammett, but it's set in "your home, last week," and thus also bears similarity to the movie Brick or the show Veronica Mars
00:02:05: Robin Laws covers similar ground with his GUMSHOE rules system in a somewhat more traditional way (with a gamemaster and pre-plotting, for example)
00:03:03: Fred Hicks describes the game as having one player and many GMs
00:05:46: Situation generation
00:07:40: Scene framing
00:10:10: Conflicts use liar's dice and has a back-and-forth similar to Dogs in the Vineyard
00:12:05: Structuring the session
00:14:18: I make reference to the HBO TV series The Wire which is, in the context of this interview, absolutely obligatory
00:16:50: The crime grid
00:22:08: "When Ron Edwards in [The] Sorcerer's Soul talks about relationship maps and drawing them out of detective novels, he's using Ross Macdonald novels as an example."
00:26:31: Seth blames John Tynes and Greg Stolze, and their game Unknown Armies (which was pitched as James Ellroy meets Tim Powers, for his designing Dirty Secrets
00:27:58: The darkness of Ellroy's books and the perhaps-surprising implications for Seth as a Christian
00:30:56: The place that Dirty Secrets has vis a vis Seth's other games, Legends of Alyria and Mara
00:32:28: Ben Lehman describes Alyria as something C.S. Lewis would have written if he'd grown up playing Final Fantasy VII, but Seth sees it as the "intersection of Tolkein and Gene Wolfe"
00:35:41: An obligatory Chinatown reference
00:40:04: Seth loves In A Wicked Age..., and feels that Grey Ranks, Steal Away Jordan, and Dogs in the Vineyard are really "about stuff"
00:42:08: The demographics system, the racial implications, and my issues with it
00:47:14: Challenging design issues
00:47:32: Seth was inspired by the The Iä! Iä! Ph’iles by Christoph Boeckle, which reminds me of Kat and Michael Miller's Serial Homicide Unit
00:49:22: How many times was the game played before you published?
00:55:51: Anything you'd change in the book as published?
00:57:49: Defining success
01:00:18: A bit about Flowers for Mara, Seth's Jeepform game.

Closing song is Toccata and Droog by the Hub City Stompers
Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/
Direct download: independent-insurgency-019.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:25 PM
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