GamingPerspectives
Gaming Perspectives with Saul and Jolene is a husband and wife team that love Hobby Gaming. We play RPGs and Boardgaming and wish to share our love of this hobby with everyone we know.
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Episodes
Sunday Mar 03, 2019
Sunday Mar 03, 2019
In this Episode Saul and Jolene talk about Magic Items in your campaign. They discuss what thoughts and processes they use to come up with magical items. First decision for the GM is how much magic is in your world. Whether its a home brew world or one that you buy this first decision has a great impact on the amount of magic in your world and therefore the amount and type of magical items in that world. Saul spills the beans on why he puts up magic shops in his world even though he personally doesn't like the idea of a "magic shop" in his world. Jolene brings up a magical item that Saul gave to a player as he passed the campaign to Jolene. This item shows how a GM has to be careful in dole out magical items with strange abilities as players can often exploit these items in ways the GM had not envisioned.
As always thank you for listening. We only ask one favor and that is to share this podcast in your social media to help us get our podcast to as many listeners as possible. Thanks again.
Music by Myndra, song Magic Tool off the album Songs From Your Collarbone.
Available at FreeMusicArchive.com
Saturday Feb 23, 2019
Saturday Feb 23, 2019
Fresh from going to Dundracon, Saul and Jolene talk about one of the most influential literary works that has influenced Fantasy Role Playing Games. Middle-Earth the world created by J. R.R. Tolkien is one of the most well known worlds in the fantasy genre. Saul proposes that if it were not for The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books that RPGs as we know them probably would not have existed or at least not in the way they are today. That is because, Saul says that Gary Gygax was influenced greatly by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Jolene has her view on the matter but regardless on where you stand on that discussion, there have been many attempts at making a RPG where you could play in that world. From M.E.R.P to The One Ring, Saul and Jolene talk about playing an RPG in the world of Middle Earth.
Music by Jahzzar, song Wizard off the album Dune.
Available at FreeMusicArchive.com
Monday Feb 18, 2019
Monday Feb 18, 2019
We got all kinds of people to join us on the microphone as we recorded Live at DunDraCon on Sunday.
We would like to especially thank David Jones for coming back to us to tell us what his DDC experience had been. We had a Pre-DDC interview where we got to know David. Mike E. the executive producer of Kublacon and shared us new things happening at his game convention. We got Dundrcon staff Rachelle B the Publicist, Ariel P LARP coordinator, Meg C Demo coordinator and Con Reg Deputy, Becky T. Teen Room coordinator.
And we got a long time running GM Doc Cross a legend at DDC who has run a Toon rpg for the last 33 years!!
Items mentioned in our podcast.
Kublacon
The Roleplay Workshop
SCA
Doc Cross on Face Book and d.cross on Twitter
Dystopia Rising
Please if you can do us a huge favor by sharing our podcast in your social networks it is your good word that will help us get our podcast into as many ears as possible.
Next is KublaCon where we will be doing another Live Recording of Gaming Perspectives with Saul and Jolene.
Thanks again.
Monday Feb 18, 2019
Monday Feb 18, 2019
Saul and Jolene attend one of the favorite local gaming conventions called DunDraCon, which was nice enough to give us room in their very busy and packed to the gills convention to do a live recording of our podcast. For us we learned a great deal about setting up our podcast for live recording. But it was a lot of fun and we got some great comments by con attendees that stopped by our table. This was our first recording in a crowded space so the level of background noise if much higher than our regular "studio". Its also not edited except for a bad word than had to be bleeped, but I think it was a good first effort.
We would also like to Thank Dundracon attendees Cathy M. Elaine C. and Bay C. for stopping by and answering our questions.
Saul and Jolene.. Sorry no intro or outro music which should return with our regular Episodes.
Have a Good Day!!
Saul and Jolene
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
The Last but not least of the Pre-Dundracon interviews, this one is with Ezra Denney. I got to know these GM's by going to local gaming conventions. Ezra is one of the best at running games that uses a lot of improvisation, which is not an easy skill to develop. I had the pleasure of playing in one of his Paranoia games at Big Bad Con about 5 years ago and it is the best Paranoia game I have ever played in. So when I sent out a call to do the interviews, Ezra was one of the first ones to sign on. This was the 2nd attempt at the interview as the first one was during a West Coast Storm that knocked out Ezra's internet. But he was gracious enough to try again and we are lucky to have him on our show.
Ezra is doing a actual play of Mask's of Nyarlathotep on Twitch and You Tube here is the link to the You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3c5fFMm1k&fbclid=IwAR1dr6jedHEplcSr6VUYfZDIEAVf5GRWLXh1KKuyVOMgz7nx0dcX-Ex3RD0
These interviews were recorded in our non-standard time. We usually record Sunday morning at 6 am which is why you might hear us yawn and stretch but here you have phone ringing and particularly loud cars zoom by. No intro music with these bonus episodes..
We will be recording LIVE at : http://www.dundracon.com/ Saturday and Sunday from 9:30am to 11am.
And Thanks to Ezra, David and Shannon for letting us interview them. See you at DunDraCon!!!
Wednesday Feb 13, 2019
Wednesday Feb 13, 2019
The Second Interview with a GM that is attending and running games at Dundracon. Shannon is a very accomplished GM and usually has many people trying to get into his very well regarded games.
Saul and Jolene will be doing a live recording from Dundracon on Sat and Sun. Hope to see you all there.
Thanks to Shannon for taking time out of his busy schedule to do this interview with us.
Wednesday Feb 13, 2019
Wednesday Feb 13, 2019
Saul and Jolene are taking Gaming Perspectives on the road when they attend DunDraCon taking place over President's Day weekend. This is the first GM David Jones. He will be running a Tales From the Loop game on Friday Night. You can see the DDC program online.
We would like to thank David for taking time to do this interview.
See you at DunDraCon!!!
Saturday Feb 09, 2019
Saturday Feb 09, 2019
Saul and Jolene discuss what systems are good for running mystery adventures. Saul really likes the Gumshoe line of RPGs which are specifically made for running mystery games. Also good for mystery games is the Fate Core system as it is not a combat heavy game. Jolene reminds Saul that he had run a couple mystery games using Pathfinder and 5th Edition D&D. Other subjects relating to mysteries are discussed in relation to rpgs from movies like Murder on the Orient Express and tv shows like, The Rockford Files, The Republic of Doyle, and Scooby Doo.
The Full line of Gumshoe games can be found here: http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/gumshoe/
Information about the Rockford Files show: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071042/
The Saturday Morning Cartoon Scooby Doo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby-Doo
The Republic of Doyle tv show : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Doyle
Music by Jared Leibowich, song We Love Mystery
Available at FreeMusicArchive
Saturday Feb 02, 2019
Saturday Feb 02, 2019
In this episode Saul and Jolene talk about Player Narrative Control in RPG's. It is sometimes difficult to define some of the terms that pop up in Role Playing games. Saul defines what Narrative Control means to him and Jolene questions his definition. Saul and Jolene discuss this term and what it means in role playing games. Saul describes games that don't have implicit narrative control like old school games like Original D&D, Space Opera, Shadowrun and those that do like Feng Shui, Fate and GM less games. Jolene questions if it is needed or even wanted by players, Saul ponders that with certain players that want that kind of experience player narrative control can make a good rpg session.
Some links to things mentioned in this Episode,
Critical Role a very popular actual play program played and GMed by voice actors. They are very famous in video games and animated shows but are very good at playing D&D. They play D&D 5th Edition using a world made up by Matt Mercer a very inventive storytelling GM. They are playing their 2nd campaign. Both campaigns are available as a video and pod cast. https://critrole.com/
The Secret Kabal Podcast is mainly a board game podcast but recently included another podcast that deals with RPGs, mainly D&D 5th edition
http://www.thesecretcabal.com/
Music by The Blend, song Control on the album, Losing the Game.
Available at FreeMusicArchive.com
Sunday Jan 27, 2019
Sunday Jan 27, 2019
Can roleplaying games be more than games? Saul and Jolene talk about psychology in roleplaying games. Jolene curiosity was piqued when this subject was brought up in the many esoteric conversations she has with Saul. After a bit of research and discussion with Saul the present episode was born. There has always been talk about how rpgs can be used other than a game. It turns out there have been many programs and research on the subject of roleplaying games.
Below are articles and programs where rpgs are used as tools for therapy.
Operation Z Day, a program to help clients use public transportation in Tocoma http://www2.rpgresearch.com/blog/using-role-playing-games-for-autism-spectrum-participants
http://www.seattleschild.com/Valuing-Difference-Local-Programs-Help-Kids-on-the-Spectrum-Connect/
https://geekandsundry.com/role-playing-gamers-have-more-empathy-than-non-gamers/
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1609&context=etd
Music by Nick Bommorito, song Folk Psychology from the album Harp Fragments.
Available from FreeMusicArchive.com