Tripp and I have moved on to other things. Specifically, he moved on to having a family, and I just can’t shut up about playing games, so I’ve started a new show called Long Tail Gamer. Do check it out, won’t you?

The archive of Dice Make Bonk episodes starts here. Enjoy! And thank you!

For completeness’s sake, and because it’s a post that involves Tripp as my DM and our group in general, I give you this link to my latest blog post at the Dire Cafe: The Empty Chair.

A friend in our gaming group died a few weeks ago. That post is one of the many ways we’re coping with it.

Game Designer Hunter Gough ran some friends, myself included, through a pulp-era adventure last weekend using some customized FATE rules. It was incredible fun! You can read his account here.

FATE is one of my favorite systems. It makes storytelling easy and dynamic. Hunter added very intriguing features to the character creation and streamlined the aspects/skills relationship, which I’ll leave it to him to explain. His custom system, F# (F-sharp), fit on a single page, which made it very approachable and easy to accentuate with player creativity.

Tycho and Gabe of legendary webcomic-and-so-much-more Penny Arcade sat down to give 4th Edition a run through with some special guest players.  Some of them are old timers at D&D, and others have never thrown a D20 before in their lives. 

For our listening pleasure, recordings are available.  It’s a fun experience for the personalities involved, and it also clears up a lot of questions I had about the mechanics of 4th Edition. This is some good stuff, folks.  Check out the D&D podcast here — you’ll find the Penny Arcade ones around episode 21.

Unclebear recently sat in on a game of Prime Time Adventures with a great twist: the show was Crime Scene Investigators, and the locale was Gotham City.  Read up on his observations at Unclebear.com for a recount of the game and a walkthrough of how PTA works.  It sounds like a fantastic game, and I’m glad he gave a fly-on-the-wall’s-eye view of it to us.

I followed Berin’s tweets (I have to say, being on Twitter myself is fun), and as the commentary flowed, I found myself pining for the Good Old Days when I could spend hours at the local gaming shop perusing the books, playing games in the back, and connecting with my people.

So I took a walk to the shop.  I’m fortunate to live near one in Albuquerque, and it is *active*.  There must have been thirty teenagers in the back room, sifting through their World of Warcraft decks, eager to play.  I was happy to see so many people there on the weekend, and the shop was providing a place to host the event.  Except for one thing…

I noticed there was no community bulliten board.  This came as a real surprise to me: how are gaming groups growing and drawing in new members?  FIguring maybe the shop had caught up with the 21st century, I checked the web page for a digital equivilent, but to no avail.  There’s a schedule on the web page, primitive but browseable, and it shows that the same three card games will be played nightly through eternity.

I have no idea who’s playing in Albuquerque these days.  I blame my own post-college disconnection fro the scene, certainly.  But I’m open to reconcect if I can find the inroads.  It’s enough to make me want to move to Tuscon to join the SAGA just for the company.