Ken And Robin Talk About Stuff

In the Gaming Hut we demonstrate scenario construction by brainstorming a Fear Itself adventure featuring the fearsome Crate Man. Duck furtively into the Cartography Hut as we look at maps as secrets. In Ask Ken and Robin we field a query from Tom Allman on prepping for Cthulhu games. Then we sidle up to Ken’s […]

The Gaming Hut reverberates with spectral dread as we find ways to make ghosts and hauntings scary in roleplaying. Fun with Science looks for story and gaming grist in the increasingly respected, and increasingly mind-blowing, multiverse theory of cosmological physics. In That Thing I Always Say Robin goes on about the lasting influence a game’s […]

In the Gaming Hut, Robin asks Ken to specify a suitable period of occult ferment and together they riff it into a DramaSystem Series Pitch. We unseal the stone door of the Mythology Hut to give Lilith the once-over. The Cinema Hut joins forces with the Horror Hut as we mull the current cycle of […]

Ken’s return from Portland’s HP Lovecraft Film Festival and its sister event Conthulhu prompts the issuance of an especially eldritch Travel Advisory. Listener Greg Gray gets an unprecedented answer when he poses an Ask Ken and Robin question about the paucity of info in roleplaying rules books for spanking new players. How to Write Good […]

Pull up an extra special chair in the Gaming Hut as we look at ways to put guest players to good use. In the Tradecraft Hut, Ken helps listener Rick Jonzz start a beginner’s tradecraft bookshelf. In Ask Ken and Robin, Joshua Weiss wonders what we might say about miniatures in narrative-based gaming. Then we […]

In Ask Ken and Robin, Kevin Maroney asks us to expand on an earlier Ken comment questioning the suitability of the d20 structure for Cthulhu gaming. The History Hut flies the Jolly Roger to examine best practices of, and essential conditions for, piracy. In the Gaming Hut we recount our least favorite setting cliches. And […]

The Gaming Hut rings with the sound of accents and impressions as we examine the role of voice work in GMing. The Crime Blotter finds a surprising nexus of grift, elephant materialization and the technological spread of 20th century entertainment in the person of Harry Thurston. A less famous follower in his magician brother Howard’s […]

Is that a displacer beast in your pocket, or are you just glad to listen to us? Convene in the Gaming Hut as we discuss monster abilities and to what extent they enter into player awareness. The Tradecraft Hut furtively considers stolen passports. Don’t let your characters leave theirs as collateral for motorcycles in Phuket, […]

In the Gaming Hut we again lift the RPG design hood to tinker with PC/NPC asymmetry. Eerie Horror Hut riffing ensues as we sift the story possibilities of 3D-Printed Clone Dolls. Ask Ken and Robin opens in the middle of a Philippe Marcel question about starting game sessions in media res. Purely hypothetically, you understand, […]

In the Cartography Hut we set out techniques to add a dose of psychogeography to the map of your imaginary city. The Gaming Hut looks at the elasticity of vampire mythology, as inspired by Ken’s golden steampunk vampires of El Dorado, as seen in Fenix magazine. How to Write Good confronts the pesky threat of […]

Gaming Hut starts on a somber note as we remember the roleplaying innovations of Aaron Allston (1960-2014.) We go on to discuss one of the key themes of his work, genre emulation at the tabletop. The Eliptony Hut takes on a distinctly octagonal shape as we look at the eight-sided architectural influence of phrenologist and […]

Grab your retrospective popcorn and hunker down in the Cinema Hut as Ken and Robin review their movie top tens for 2013. Responding to popular demand, the Consulting Occultist assesses competing new claims of having cracked the cryptobotanical mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript. In Ask Ken and Robin we hit the dimmer switch to address […]

Find new reason to plunge into the dungeon as the Gaming Hut tackles ways of giving narrative meaning to F20 combat encounters. Look at Fluffy in a new light as the Tradecraft Hut examines the animal spying  claims of trainer Bob Bailey, who in addition to creating the chicken Tic-Tac-Toe machine says he was a contractor for the CIA. In Ask Ken […]

They said it couldn’t strike twice, but the Ask Ken and Robin lightning round is back, tackling game designer payment, Day After Ragnarok, book hunting, and a Rob Ford mini-update. In the wide open spaces of the Genre Hut, we look at ways to nerdtrope the Western, including Ken’s Once Upon a Time in the […]

We start this episode in the Gaming Hut, where we bat around ways to activate your player character’s character hook. In our new segment, Crime Blotter, we examine the four categories of hit man, as proposed by a recent Birmingham City University study of British hired killers. Tropes face off against cliches as we once […]

A curious case study, in which a regrettable glacier incident leads listener Joe Tyne to a Call of Cthulhu stumbling block, warrants treatment from the experts in Ask Ken and Robin. At the request of listener Benjamin Blattberg, we essay a hidden gems segment of the Cinema Hut. In Among My Many Hats, Ken quizzes […]

Keep your silver dagger ready in the Gaming Hut as we look at campaign setting creation through the example of Ken’s Werewolves of Dacia, which will appear in the upcoming Best of Fenix anthology. Hat tip to Big Think for its Middle Earth-to-Earth conversion map. Next, Derek Upham Asks Ken and Robin to solve the […]

Ask Ken and Robin dispenses advice on running SF and space opera games, in response to a query from Ed Hirsch. In a curiously hexagonal Book Hut, we examine the seminal work of Argentinean fantasist Jorge Luis Borges, and the beautifully idiosyncratic English Lit class he once taught, courtesy of the newly translated book Professor […]

Seize the narrative steering wheel as a player in the Gaming Hut, where we discuss techniques to productively exercise character agency. Uncover the layers beneath the layers of the History Hut, in which we find gaming and story fodder in multispectral palimpsest recovery. In Ken and Robin Talk To Someone Else, we speak together to […]

We ring in 2014 with an Ask Ken and Robin from Ross Ireland, who wants to switch to a more serious horror tone after years of loosey-goosey play. Then we zoom back in time to the dying embers of 2013, for a segment of Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else featuring James Wallis of […]