The madness of August has passed, so we’ve finally gotten the chance to edit and put up our follow-up discussion about Jen’s LARP experience. Kevin and Jen are joined by Clyde Rhoer of Theory from the Closet and Jim Ryan from The Great Debate to discuss some of the finer points of our previous episode. Clyde brings his experience running a large troupe (Non-Camarilla) game Back In The Day and Jim is a current Venue Storyteller in Charlotte, North Carolina. We discuss the Cam’s similarities to cults, as well as a few other behaviors and quirks of this particular brand of LARP.

Relevant Links

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 23: LARP Follow-up Part 1
• Intro and Outro music by Oh Possum

Jen and Kevin regale Brandon and CJ with many the tales of drunken debauchery and gaming that was GenCon 2010. This was Jen’s first GenCon, Kevin’s second, and both had a pretty amazing time. Many cool people were met, and awesome games were played. If this doesn’t sell you on GenCon next year, I don’t know what will!

Relevant Links

• Star Trek Episode with a shock collar
• NPR
• The Ames Flood of ’10
• One Cool Thing I Saw at GenCon
• 500 Point Purity Test
• This Just In… From GenCon!
• Ryan Macklin
• Monte Cook
• Robin D. Laws
• Will Hindmarch
• Kenneth Hite
• Skol Vodka
• The Podge Cast
• Bear Swarm
• The Brilliant Gameologists
• Kevin Motorboating Timo
• Jen “Undamaged Goods” Picture
• Apocalypse World
• Graham Walmsley
• The Jank Cast
• Steal Away Jordan
• Remember Tomorrow
• Shock: Social Science Fiction
• Misspent Youth
• Not Roleplaying in Role Playing Episode
• Warhammer
• This Modern Death
• Skeptical Gamers
• Island Dwarfism
• Cargo Cults
• Cryptozoology
• EMF Detectors
• EVP Recording
• Indiana Ghost Hunting Society
• White Wolf
• TF2 Spy
• Grease Medley
• Eddy Webb
• Lords of Acid
• Magic: The Gathering
• Settlers of Catan
• Dominion
• Speed Dating
• Geek’s Dream Girl
• King Crimson
• Pen & Teller: Bullshit!
• Steve Kenson
• SageFight Video
• Daniel Solis
• SageFight!
• John Harper
• Robert Bohl

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 22: GenCon 2010 Wrap Up 1 Hour
• Intro Music by Oh Possum
• Outro Music “I’ll Still Be a Geek After Nobody Thinks It’s Chic” by Marian Call

Jen took a camera with her to GenCon this year, and boy howdy did she ever make use of it. We’ll be posting TONS of little videos over the next few weeks.  The big release, though, was One Cool Thing I Saw At GenCon, a tradition started by Jason Morningstar.

Behold!

Here’s a link for the full channel. Keep an eye out for more videos to come!

Kevin and Jen got the chance to hear Luke and Jared’s GenCon panel on the fundamentals of game design. It was a very interesting and entertaining discussion. Many thanks to Sorencrane for letting us record it for them! Hope you all enjoy it.

Relevant Links

• Luke’s Games
• Jared’s Games
• Storygames
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Rage Quit
• Dollar Auction
• Starcraft
• Fog of War
• Candyland
• Prisoner’s Dilemma
• The Magic Circle
• Bunny Hopping
• Steal Away Jordan
• Memoir ’44
• Axis and Allies
• Warsaw Ghettos
• Jungle Speed
• 80th level pacifist WOW character
• Sim City
• The Sims
• Rules of Play

Crunchy Bits!

• GenCon 2010 Panels: Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen: Game Design is Mind Control 1 Hour 50 Minutes
• Intro and Outro music provided by Oh Possum

During our interview with Vincent Baker, he agreed to tell us about a secret project in exchange for a promise to have him back on to discuss the topic of abandoning games. With GenCon right around the corner, this seemed like a great time to hold up our end of the bargain. We grabbed two of Vincent’s good friends Joshua A.C. Newman and Robert Bohl to join us in this discussion since, well, none of us here at The Walking Eye have designed, let alone abandoned, a game before. Kevin moderated as these three discussed the different aspects of abandoning games: how difficult it can be, what you can learn from it, and how to know when to let an idea go.

Relevant Links

• Vincent’s Blog
• Joshua’s Blog
• Robert’s Blog
• The Dragon Killer
• Under The Bed
• Shock: Social Science Fiction
• The Dark Crystal
• Human Contact
• Prime Time Adventures
• Apocalypse World
• The 20×20 Room
• The Mouth That Gives Me Nightmares
• Misspent Youth
• Otherkind
• In A Wicked Age
• Psi-Run
• Kagematsu
• Jared Sorensen
• Key Parties
• Paul Czege
• Acts of Evil
• Night’s Master by Tannith Lee
• Ron Edwards
• Beowulf
• Fantasy Heartbreakers
• GameChef
• Myers-Briggs Personality Test
• PAX East
• Mike and Jerry
• Dreamnation

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 21: Abandoning Games Round-table: 53 Minutes
• Intro and Outro music provided by Oh Possum

After a few speedbumps we were finally able to get together with Jared Sorensen to discuss our experiences with FreeMarket. The original plan was to interview both Jared and Luke, but sadly  due to some technical difficulties Luke could not join us. Things ended up working out really well, though, as CJ and Kevin got a chance to dig pretty deep into some of their concerns and questions about FreeMarket.

Relevant Links

• FreeMarket
• Our FreeMarket Review
• Jared Sorensen
• Luke Crane
• Burning Empires
• Mutants and Masterminds
• System Matters
• Robert A. Heinlein
• Game Design is Mind Control GenCon Panel
• Beta Software / Feature Complete
• Peter Adkison
• Ron Edwards
• Project Donut Facebook Group
• Project Donut Twitter Page
• CHOIRS Project
• Rob Bohl
• Wikis
• Jason Morningstar
• Blade Runner
• The Coen Brothers
• Joshua Bell
• Existentialism
• Boing Boing
• Osprey VTOL
• Inside the Donut GenCon Panel
• Jared’s Events
• Inspectres Movie
• Parsley

Crunchy Bits!

• The Walking Eye Interview 14: Jared Sorensen
• Intro Music “Inner Universe” from the Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST
• Outro Music “More Human Than Human (Meet Bambi in the King’s Harem Mix)” by White Zombie

It is with great pleasure that we welcome Jen back to the podcast! She’s been away due to a scheduling conflict, and for the past few months has been exploring the wild and woolly world of White Wolf Live Action Roleplay. She sits down with Kevin, Brandon, and CJ to discuss her feelings on the Camarilla LARP.  Unfortunately, Jen’s experience was less than ideal. Listen in to hear about her experiences!

Relevant Notes

Special note:

Turns out you can’t just look up the FBI Cult Watch List. Funny that. Several people within the Camarilla have claimed that the LARP is on that list, but as far as we can tell, there’s no way to verify that information. It’s mostly likely a rumor. Update Jason Morningstar was kind enough to point us towards this article about the FBI’s stance on “cults”. Very informative, and makes it seem very likely the FBI is not watching the Cam at all.

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 20: Jen’s LARP Experience 1 Hour 36 Minutes
• Intro music provided by Oh Possum
• Outro Music Brand New Sucker by Jonathan Coulton

A brief note about our comments:

The comments section is closed for now. We got a lot of great feedback! From my experience with the Internets, I’m guessing most of what needed to be said has been said. From here on out we’ll just be getting repeats on these basic themes. If you’d like to discuss this episode more, I welcome you to head to our forum, which is much more loosely moderated.

Turns out we had a lot to say about Jared Sorensen and Luke Crane’s FreeMarket. This is our longest review yet, clocking in at a full 90 minutes.  This game was certainly a challenge for us, and we spend quite a bit of time breaking down our impressions and problems we had with the game. We’re all looking forward to our interview with Luke and Jared coming up next week!

Relevant Links

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 19: FreeMarket Review 1 Hour 34 Minutes
• Intro Music “Inner Universe” from the Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST
• Outro Music “Rocket Man” by Elton John, performed by Jon Langford and the One Day Band

After running three of his games back-to-back-to-back, we were pretty excited to sit down with D. Vincent Baker to chat about our experiences. We spend some time talking about aspects of Dogs in the Vineyard, In a Wicked Age…, and Poison’d, as well as cover some of his basic design philosophies. Unfortunately our first attempt to conduct this interview met with some nasty technical difficulties. There are a couple references to the fact that this is the 2nd attempt, but we only got about 10 minutes in, so no worries, you didn’t miss anything. This interview was great fun, and we can’t wait to have Vincent on again to talk about abandoning games!

Relevant Links

• Vincent’s Blog (RSS Feed)
• Vincent’s Twitter
• Lumpley Games Forum
• Kill Puppies for Satan
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• In A Wicked Age
• Mechaton
• Poison’d
• Storming The Wizard’s Tower
• Apocalypse World
• GTAIV
• ZORK
• Traveller
• Dragon Magazine
• Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon
• rec.games.frp.advocacy
• The Forge
• Drew Baker
• The Gaming Outpost
• Ron Edwards
• Clinton R. Nixon
• Ed Healy
• Jared Sorenson
• Universalis
• FreeMarket
• The Cheap and Cheesy Fantasy Game
• Graham Walmsley
• No Country for Old Men
• Matt Snyder
• Brigham City
• Burning Wheel
• Tanith Lee
• Jack Vance
• Willow Palecek
• Wicked Nights (Vampire Oracle)
• True Blood
• Judd Karlman
• Matt Wilson
• DexCon
• GenCon
• Dread
• Oo! Let’s make a Game!
• ROCK OF TAHAMAAT, SPACE TYRANT
• The Dragon Killer

Crunchy Bits!

• The Walking Eye Interview 13: Vincent Baker: 1 Hour, 12 Minutes
• Intro and Outro music provided by Oh Possum.

Kevin sits down with Willow Palecek, writer of Escape from Tentacle City, Winner of the 2008 Game Chef Golden Katana that Shoots Smaller Katanas Award for Game That Looks Like it Was the Most Fun to Write. We talk about the core mechanics of the game, as well as what message, or lessons, could be learned from play.

Relevant Links

• Escape from Tentacle City
• Willow’s Blog
• FreeMarket
• Kagematsu
• Ron Edwards
• Fiasco
• Legendary Lives
• Other Worlds
• 3:16
• Gen Con
• S/lay W/ Me
• Shab-al-Hiri Roach
• Zombie Cinema
• Game Chef
• Jason Morningstar
• Mark Adams
• Hentai (NSFW)
• Shaun of the Dead
• George A. Romero
• Poison’d
• Grey Ranks

Crunchy Bits!

• Interview 12: Willow Palacek on Escape from Tentacle City: 30 Minutes
• Intro and Outro music provided by Oh Possum.