Fear the Boot is an irreverent, round table discussion of tabletop role playing games. In this weekly show we debate game-related issues, offer advice for improving your game, and poke fun at the hobby. Our cast changes a little from show to show, but we always assemble a group of dynamic individu…
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Fear the Boot, RPG Podcast is a long-running podcast that has garnered a loyal following over the years. With its focus on tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), it offers a wealth of knowledge, advice, and discussions for both players and game masters alike. The podcast covers a wide range of topics related to RPGs, from game mechanics to storytelling techniques, and even delves into more serious subjects such as player dynamics and social challenges within gaming groups.
One of the best aspects of Fear the Boot is the passion and expertise that the hosts bring to each episode. They are clearly knowledgeable about RPGs and genuinely enjoy discussing them. This enthusiasm is infectious and makes for engaging and enjoyable listening. The hosts also have great chemistry with each other, resulting in lively discussions that often include humor and banter.
Another positive aspect of this podcast is its genre-neutral approach. While many RPG podcasts focus primarily on Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Fear the Boot explores a wide range of games beyond just D&D. This diversity allows listeners to discover new games and gain insights into different RPG systems and settings.
However, one aspect that some listeners may find off-putting is the presence of one particular host who is seen as crass, vulgar, and prone to tangents. These tendencies can detract from the overall quality of the show for some listeners who prefer a more focused discussion without explicit or uncomfortable commentary.
In conclusion, Fear the Boot, RPG Podcast is a gem for tabletop RPG enthusiasts. Its extensive back catalog provides a wealth of useful information for both experienced players and newcomers to the hobby. While some may find certain elements of the show off-putting, such as explicit content or tangential discussions, overall it remains an entertaining and informative podcast that offers valuable insights into the world of tabletop role-playing games.
* (0:24) A joke to an AI becomes a show topic. * (2:48) Characters born in a cursed forest, without sunlight. * (7:48) Characters who compulsively collect…feathers…? * (13:18) Characters who accidentally caused a rebellion. * (19:29) Characters with an unusual knowledge of fungi. * (25:03) Characters who cannot stand the sight of open water. […]
* (0:29) Switching to a bucket list of what we want to play. * (1:30) Wayne wants to play Dresden Files. * (4:13) Dan still wants to play an Injustice game. * (6:11) Mary wants to play a necromancer. * (9:05) Doug wants to play Stargate (or something like it). * (10:18) Wayne wants a […]
* (0:29) The bucket list of games we want to run. * (1:31) Doug's long-term campaign. * (3:10) Wayne's Fallout: St. Louis game. * (7:03) Dan's Battletech: Silver Scorpions game. A Fabian war. * (9:37) Mary's Castle Ravenloft / Curse of Strahd game. * (12:41) Doug's western game. * (14:58) Wayne's campaign based on The […]
* (0:30) An old Apple //c computer and early computer RPGs. * (4:16) Transitioning from video games into tabletop RPGs. * (9:44) The expectations players bring from a video game to pen-and-paper games. * (12:41) The tyranny of choice brought on by a lack of a character-driven path. * (18:05) A lack of clear and […]
* (0:29) What is your goal for the first session of a game? * (2:10) Who are these characters really? * (6:08) When the person you wanted to be isn't who you became. * (11:34) A buffet of NPCs. * (16:14) Keeping the first session low pressure and shorter length. * (20:33) The social leader […]
* (0:23) Prompts and prepositions. The clockwork circus is coming to town! * (1:40) Wayne's circus in space. * (4:13) Mary's circus on the frontier. * (7:53) Doug's carnival of nightmares. * (8:41) Dan's carnival of hope. * (13:10) Celestial crystals that grant power. * (14:05) Mary's crystal preppers. * (16:08) Dan's crystal entanglement. * […]
* (0:29) Fear the Con has funded and the sign-up site is live! We hope to see you Thursday, June 20th to Saturday, June 22nd. * (1:58) Getting back to what you love, inspired by Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. * (5:16) The tyranny of compromise. * (9:54) Wanting the GM to […]
* (0:29) Wayne has a problem: the Wardens from Dresden Files. Coming up with too many excuses for why powerful organizations don't care about the characters' problems. * (7:14) Session Zero can help…or maybe not. * (10:29) There's always someone bigger, and maybe your allies lack what you need. * (14:42) What if the characters […]
* (0:30) What steps do we take to bring a character to life? * (1:49) Ask what's important. * (6:53) Seeing the good and bad in a single trait. * (8:06) Doug's personality triangle model. * (10:54) Demonstrating character quirks. * (16:34) Making characters that both have and express personal growth. * (18:57) Taking a […]
Today's ingredient: The dead are consuming the living. Why and how? Let's find out! Fear the Con 2024's Kickstarter can be found here. Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne
* (0:29) In defense of technology at the gaming table. Caleb's setup with Owlbear Rodeo. * (5:13) Dan's Lion King sing-a-long and Wayne's Ghostbusters game. * (6:27) The deeper pool of online players, including AIs. Remoting in a missing player for an in-person game. * (14:04) Working distance and distraction into the game. * (17:54) […]
I decided to skip over the Iron GM and go for a Tungsten GM. The ingredient? All broadcasts cease because something won't let them get through. What's the game plot? Also, the Fear the Con 2024 Kickstarter is now live here! Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne
* (0:30) Dan runs a game a bit too literally. * (4:12) The intersection of technology and roleplaying in a way that isn't required by the game. * (7:32) Why multimedia doesn't pay-off the way it does in other forms of storytelling. * (13:36) The prep time technology adds, and the stability it takes away. […]
* (0:29) Why talk about intelligence? The Why Files episode about Cicada 3301. * (9:24) A game takes an unhelpfully long break, only to be replaced by another RPG. * (12:44) The lack of a bottomless “buffet of ideas” in a closed setting. * (14:24) Use minimal starting information to give you room to work. […]
* (0:22) Picking out the point we became curmudgeons and what exactly that means. * (4:48) Being too set in our ways. * (11:19) The self-destruction that comes with stagnation. * (21:32) Wii have a solution. * (24:32) Ducking new games while at a convention. Playing The Quiet Year on an airplane. * (32:57) The […]
* (0:29) Reintroducing Julia's husband, Mike. * (2:24) Lowered expectations, inspired by a post-pandemic world. * (7:25) Being a bit more experimental. * (13:18) Playing online instead of returning to the table. * (19:18) Returning to the table instead of playing online. * (23:58) The commonality of not being able to find an active gaming […]
* (0:29) Thanks to Eric Van Note for Swole Mole! * (3:15) The value of terrible GMing. * (8:42) Everyone is their own most inept critic. Sojourn Volume 2. * (15:28) The worst possible outcome: something being forgettable. * (22:20) Asking Doug to grade his own game. * (25:35) The value of creating art, simply […]
* (0:29) Dan prefers affiliated groups, Wayne does not. * (2:15) Cohesion, identity, and help. * (9:35) Affiliations you start with as opposed to those you pick up along the way. * (11:56) The party's direction and motivation. Affiliating with an ideal. * (20:23) Affiliations create an obvious pool of NPC relationships. * (25:40) External […]
* (0:28) An update on the Actual Play. * (4:48) The InSpectres RPG (at least temporarily back in print!) and our AP interlude using its rules. * (8:09) Why play InSpectres as an interlude to the main campaign? Apparently only Dan has heard of Michelle Jenneke. * (12:58) Plus an extra player. * (16:10) The, […]
* (0:28) Things are getting set for Fear the Con! An intro to RPGs game is available for newcomers. * (2:03) A shared Minecraft server. You can find more information on Discord. * (5:52) Realigning your game with a mid-campaign session zero. Special thanks to Gaming with Gage. * (8:46) Making the case to have one. * (12:59) […]
* (0:29) Julia ruins everything. * (1:35) Things are getting set for Fear the Con! An intro to RPGs game is available for newcomers. You can also announce your games on Discord. * (9:03) Coming out of a period of deep fatigue. How one game still never missed a week. * (16:18) Spoons and other […]
* (0:28) Running a game when someone else knows the setting a whole lot better than you do. * (2:07) The lack of pronunciation guides in most games. * (3:16) Narrowing down the task by asking what's important about the setting to the players. * (7:59) Getting the essence or feel of the setting right. […]
Show links… * StartPlaying Games * Bite Size Tales * Gaming with Gage Hosts: Chris, DJ, Josh, Wayne
* (0:29) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live for one more week! * (1:56) The wonderful confusion new players and GMs bring to a roleplaying game. * (16:59) An imagined internal-consistency is sometimes more fun than an intended one. * (22:17) The burden of your own expectations. * (28:29) When contradictions aren't actually contradictions. […]
* (0:31) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live! * (1:04) The new fiction podcast, Bite Size Tales. * (3:09) Game mechanics we're particularly fond of. * (4:54) Rerolls and other roll-modifying mechanics. * (10:13) A close relationship between skills and attributes. * (15:46) Life paths in character creation. * (24:48) Using all the dice. * […]
* (0:28) The Kickstarter for Fear the Con 2023 is live! * (1:12) Things a Game Master has done to make a world seem a little more alive (with credit to JoshB for the topic). * (5:46) Plot hooks, substories, and unanswered questions about my character. * (9:16) Allowing characters to have goals, ambitions, and […]
* (0:28) The new fiction podcast, Bite Size Tales. * (1:43) Dan re-reads the D&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Wayne watches Secrets of Blackmoor. The inspiration D&D's creators drew from Strategos. * (6:38) The rather disjointed rules of early RPGs. * (8:23) The heavy crunch of early RPGs that might be as much unearned […]
* (0:36) An odd tangent on names. * (3:39) A conversation about AI art. Some parameters we're putting on this episode. AI art wins a fine arts competition. * (8:08) An admittedly non-technical overview of how AI generally creates its work. Syntax versus semantics. * (17:43) AI creations as a starting point instead of the […]
* (0:30) Giving a remote episode a try. We have a fix for Dan's audio that should improve the quality on our next remote show. * (1:42) Catching up with Brodeur and DJ, who was on episode 466 to talk about BuJoRPG. * (4:43) Putting some parameters on the topic. * (9:42) Does Wizards of […]
* (0:44) Friday night chit-chat on Discord each week, starting at 8pm Central. * (2:18) Fear the Con 2023 dates have been reserved with the hotel for June 16th and 17th of 2023, with the Wing Night on June 15th. * (3:37) Wayne preps his players for a Savage Worlds: Alpha Flight game. * (8:18) […]
* (0:22) The villain as the dark inverse of the hero. * (9:20) A big CGI fight at the end that seems visually out of continuity. * (16:06) Zombies and Lovecraft. * (20:37) The freedom to like or dislike, and how little that says about you as a person. * (23:33) Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, […]
* (0:24) Brodeur recommends a manicure and pedicure to Dan. * (5:58) Dan, Wayne, and their muscle tension. * (11:24) A straight-razor shave and the thrill of death. * (15:56) Fandoms that (at least temporarily) put people off from the product they love. * (28:08) On anime. * (31:37) The need to be inviting within […]
* (0:28) Brodeur flees to Oregon. * (4:08) Failure comes to East Texas University. * (7:26) Dividing the blame between the players and Game Master. * (11:40) Player silence and passivity. * (17:30) Things lost for lack of time. * (19:34) Substance use, depression, and the option of just narrating the ending. * (26:32) Was […]
* (0:33) Wayne gives a shoutout to Gaming with Gage + Friends (but not Brodeur). * (1:53) Wayne ends a D&D campaign without a boss fight. * (3:11) The mutual theft of ideas between video games and tabletop roleplaying games. * (8:00) Considering all the ways a story can end. * (13:18) Another example from […]
* (0:29) Brodeur's post-Gen-Con review. (I know, we're right on top of the latest news.) A shoutout to Imagining Games, Acheron Books, and RogueOperative. * (8:02) Customizing modules for your players and characters. * (11:48) Modules as a framework, not a full script. * (18:26) Know the module well enough that you can deconstruct it […]
* (0:29) A listener, James, gets us talking about integrating player-character backstories into your game. It starts with the players giving you something to work with. * (3:01) Sitting for too long on too much information, or mining the backstory abusively. * (7:43) Finding the possible connections between backstories. * (11:08) Let's do it live! […]
* (0:29) How awful can a few years be? (Spoilers: Multiple things got worse since this recording!) * (3:49) An experiment in unequal levels of preparation and participation. * (8:34) Not all players will bring the same level of contribution, nor do all games encourage it. * (14:32) Pattern versus incidence. * (18:52) Reasons to […]
* (0:24) Releasing episodes out of order. * (1:24) The little convention that could, despite how hard life tried to stop it. * (6:59) All of the hurdles that weren't COVID. * (14:00) The obstacles that came up during the convention. * (24:24) In spite of everything arrayed against it, the con went really well. […]
* (0:29) Interrogating Mary on her gaming history. * (1:33) The last few days before Fear the Con! * (4:54) The distinct moral perspective of a child. * (7:39) Leif responds to our show on vertical creativity. * (13:58) A thought exercise on who should win the 51/49 preference: players or GMs. * (15:41) Wayne […]
* (0:29) A difficult GM learns a lesson from an Uno game. * (4:10) Navigating the internal conflict between “roleplaying” and “game”. * (11:20) The need for control that ultimately comes from fear. * (16:45) Giving the players their wins. * (23:34) The ugly math about how many people aren't that good at a given […]
* (0:29) Fear the Con appears to have catering, but we could still use more GMs! * (5:21) Laundering identities. * (7:03) Game Masters getting fixated on things that aren't important to the game they're running. * (12:00) A lack of flexibility. The three clue rule. * (19:36) GM distress when the party solves something […]
* (0:29) A new show type on the horizon: phone the Boot, or something similarly clever. * (2:04) Kids' games at Fear the Con. Our episode on gaming with children can be found here. * (4:15) Brodeur goes on Safest Family on the Block and My 10th Level Paladin. * (6:17) Brodeur gets invited to […]
* (0:29) A shoutout and thanks to WashingCon! * (1:09) Fear the Con is coming up in mid-June. * (2:25) Wayne annihilates his player-characters in a Legion of Liberty game, and they love it. Our episode on action economy. * (10:22) The perspective that comes from getting your butt kicked. * (13:52) The difference between […]
* (0:29) June 16th, 17th, and 18th for Fear the Con! You can see Mikey Mason's material on BandCamp. * (2:40) Reviewing the idea of horizontal and vertical creativity. * (4:56) Horizontal creativity doesn't mean the player has to get lazy. In fact, it may mean the GM is getting lazy. * (12:35) How horizontal […]
* (0:29) – Bordeur, Dan, and Julia will be at Washingcon this weekend: March 26th and 27th, 2022. * (2:23) – Defining how we'll be using “vertical” and “horizontal” creativity over the next two shows. * (5:45) – The laziness that often accompanies horizontal thinking. * (8:08) – Creativity within seemingly narrow (i.e. “vertical”) ideas. […]
* (0:44) Get signed up for Fear the Con! * (1:02) Brodeur is now on TikTok for some reason. Here's the link. Do what you will. * (5:45) Welcoming Jason back to the show. * (6:31) There I Was…When Nothing Happened. The Kickstarter can be found here. * (11:26) Why “winning the fight” may not be […]
* (0:28) The teeth on the dog go click, click, click. * (1:30) Brodeur discovers New Game+ mode in video games. * (10:23) Weather and environmental effects in an RPG. * (13:09) Weather as a reflection of some other truth in the setting. * (14:53) Setting the mood and adding immersion. * (19:21) Does the […]
* (0:18) Time to set the mood for bedtime. * (5:06) Wayne, Boxman, and the latex room. * (14:32) Watching sports for all the wrong reasons. Brodeur joins TikTok. God forgive us all. * (16:57) Wayne pulls a plane, and Brodeur brings the pain. * (26:22) Kids versus bikes. Bikes win. * (28:54) Kids versus […]
* (0:28) The site for Fear the Con is now live! * (2:07) Monday Morning Quarterbacking your own games (the definition for anyone that doesn't know that phrase). * (3:36) Getting past being your own worst critic. * (8:17) Speech disfluency and filler words. * (12:57) Using game recordings to prepare for the next session. […]
* (0:29) A fond farewell to Chad. * (4:50) Keeping the perspective that we all started somewhere. * (7:34) The amount of good advice every human being ignores; sometimes experience is the only effective teacher. * (12:49) The less you're willing to step up, the more you ought to be patient. * (16:24) Don't confuse […]
* (0:29) Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption 2, and archery in schools. * (8:51) Starting up new games as old ones end. Fear the Boot's Patreon. * (14:34) East Texas University. Preliminary questions and contagious enthusiasm. * (20:56) Wayne passes the GMing torch to Chad. * (28:12) Building a game around a set of […]
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