Hopefuls,

On this eve of this pagan night, we pray we are unvisited by the terrible saint, punisher of children. To propitiate the saint, we present an auditory offering to you.

In this eighth episode of our second volume of recordings, we interview storied game designer Tim Hutchings. Tim is an artist, the founder of Plagmada and the author of games like Thousand Year Old Vampire.

Fun fact: Luke's favorite thing that Tim has created is his Homage to the Player's Handbook.

To see it and to get more notable show notes, check out our Substack!

Yule love it.

— Luke & Sam

One and all,

Beyond the confines of our small, forlorn tower, Marraskuu, the Month of Death, is in full bloom. Life withers as the days grow ever shorter. Within our fastness we huddle around a wavering flame, watching and waiting.

But tonight, we do not wait alone. Trapped in here with us is one Robert Reichle, a friend of ours and now an (unwitting) guest on our humble podcast. In our discussion, we touch on two major topics: the purpose of visual design in games…and the purpose of a Philly cheesesteak married to a piece of pizza.

There are images aplenty on our Substack.

Best to listen first and look later.

Greetings alchemists all,

In this episode Christopher and Luke catch up and discuss game system design. Luke commits the sin of screensharing during the podcast. I hope you have keen visualization skills!

— Luke & Christopher

For subscribers, we have a 45 minute video recording of Luke's screenshare during the call. Same audio content, but now with scintillating visuals! Subscribers can watch here.

Greetings my friends,

In this episode Luke and Sam interview the legendary Mike "Papa" Holmes. Mike is an RPG designer—known primarily for his co-authorship of Universalis: The Game of Unlimited Stories—and a prolific member of many RPG communities. He thinks deeply about small things and has the uncanny ability to point out the obvious to the rest of us who missed it.

If you want a taste of Mike's medicine, you can read his scintillatingly clear thoughts on RPGs in his Standard Rants:

• Mike's Standard Rant #1: Designers! Know your hobby!

• Mike's Standard Rant #2: Species/Race/Culture

• Mike's Standard Rant #3: Combat Systems

• Mike's Standard Rant #4: Stat/Skill systems

• Mike's Standard Rant #5: The Myth of Opposed Rolls

I hope you enjoy our conversation, I know I did.

Ever yours,
—Luke

Greetings, Alchemists.

At the start of this month, we were at Gen Con, where we held our second annual Gen Con Ludological Alchemists panel, involving more Alchemists and Golems than ever before. Many of you joined us, including several brand new alchemists, and all participated in the goleming. Listen to learn of our triumphs and failures! None of them would be possible without you.

Also, check out the post on the Ludological Alchemists blog for images from the event. None of them are worth the full one thousand word standard allowance, but each of them are worth at least seven hundred and forty words, so they're still fairly competitive with the market value.

A grand time was had.

Hello seekers of knowledge,

Here you will find the third installment of Volume 2 of the Hypothesis. Continuing our interview format, this month's victim is none other than me, your humble narrator. In this recording Sam & Christopher torment me using the self-same questions with which I tortured them. We invite you to compare and contrast our outlooks and answers.

And who should our next victim be? We're plan to extend this series and interview other designers, subjecting them to the same 20 questions about their backgrounds, experiences and outlooks regarding game design.

Ever yours,
—Luke

Hello seekers of knowledge,

We again apologize for the untimely unseemly delay in launching this our latest episode. We continue to stumble into a web of technical snares. Due to these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, we are reverting to audio only for the time being.

Sam and Luke are way behind on their game design writing, if you hadn't noticed. So for Volume 2 of our Hypothesis, Christopher and I decided to change the format of the podcast. For this volume, we shift to an interview format. We're interviewing designers about their backgrounds and processes. Luke developed a list of questions that we're going to ask each designer, so that at the end of the series we can compare and contrast answers.

This month's interview victim is our own Sam Roberts. Enjoy!

Hello my seekers of knowledge,

We apologize for the untimely unseemly delay in launching this our latest episode.

Sam and Luke are way behind on their game design writing, if you hadn't noticed. So for Volume 2 of our Hypothesis, Christopher and I decided to change the format of the podcast. For this volume, we shift to an interview format. We're interviewing designers about their backgrounds and processes. Luke developed a list of questions that we're going to ask each designer, so that at the end of the series we can compare and contrast answers.

Oh and also, we're trying out video! We'll release the recordings here on the blog first, and then a month later on Luke's Burning Wheel YouTube channel. Let us know what you think about the new format.

—Luke & Christopher