Podcasts about Gen Con

Matt Forbeck is all that and so much more. He grew up in Wisconsin as what he describes as a wimpy kid, too short and not overly healthy. He took to gaming at a pretty early age and has grown to be a game creator, author and award-winning storyteller.   Matt has been designing games now for over 35 years. He tells us how he believes that many of the most successful games today have stories to tell, and he loves to create some of the most successful ones. What I find most intriguing about Matt is that he clearly is absolutely totally happy in his work. For most of Matt's career he has worked for himself and continues today to be an independent freelancer.   Matt and his wife have five children, including a set of quadruplets. The quadruplets are 23 and Matt's oldest son is 28 and is following in his father's footsteps.   During our conversation we touch on interesting topics such as trust and work ethics. I know you will find this episode stimulating and worth listening to more than once.     About the Guest:   Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer of over thirty-five novels and countless other books and games. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming.    Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer.   Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, interactive fiction, interactive audiobooks, games for museum installations, and logic systems for toys. He has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into at least 15 languages.   His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook, the Spider-Verse Expansion, Monster Academy (novels and board game), the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels, and the Minecraft: Roll for Adventure game books. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife and a rotating cast of college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.   Ways to connect with Matt:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/mforbeck Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbeck Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/forbeck.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mforbeck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mforbeck/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forbeck/ Website: https://www.forbeck.com/     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset today. We get to play games. Well, not really, but we'll try. Our guest is Matt Forbeck, who is an award winning author. He is a game designer and all sorts of other kinds of things that I'm sure he's going to tell us about, and we actually just before we started the the episode, we were talking about how one might explore making more games accessible for blind and persons with other disabilities. It's, it's a challenge, and there, there are a lot of tricks. But anyway, Matt, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Matt Forbeck ** 02:02 Well, thank you, Michael for inviting me and having me on. I appreciate it.   Speaker 1 ** 02:06 I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I think it'll work out really well. I'm I am sure of that. So why don't we start just out of curiosity, why don't you tell us kind of about the early Matt, growing up?   Matt Forbeck ** 02:18 Uh, well, I grew up. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin, which actually live in now, despite having moved away for 13 years at one point, and I had terrible asthma, I was a sick and short kid, and with the advent of medication, I finally started to be healthy when I was around nine, and Part of that, I started getting into playing games, right? Because when you're sick, you do a lot of sitting around rather than running around. So I did a lot of reading and playing games and things like that. I happen to grow up in the part of the world where Dungeons and Dragons was invented, which is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from where I live. And because of that I was I started going to conventions and playing games and such, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started doing it when I was a little bit older. I started doing it professionally, and started doing it when I was in college. And amazingly enough, even to my own astonishment, I've made a career out of it.   Speaker 1 ** 03:17 Where did you go to college? I went to the University   Matt Forbeck ** 03:21 of Michigan over in Ann Arbor. I had a great time there. There's a wonderful little college, Beloit College, in my hometown here, and most of my family has gone to UW Milwaukee over the years. My parents met at Marquette in Milwaukee, but I wanted to get the heck out of the area, so I went to Michigan, and then found myself coming back as soon as we started having   Speaker 1 ** 03:42 kids well, and of course, I would presume that when you were at the University of Michigan, you rooted for them and against Ohio State. That was   Matt Forbeck ** 03:50 kind of, you know, if you did it the other way around, they back out of town. So, yeah, I was always kind of astonished, though, because having grown up in Wisconsin, where every sports team was a losing team when I was growing up, including the Packers, for decades. You know, we were just happy to be playing. They were more excuse to have beers than they were to cheer on teams. And I went to Michigan where they were, they were angry if the team wasn't up by two touchdowns. You know, at any point, I'm like, You guys are silly. This is we're here for fun.   Speaker 1 ** 04:17 But it is amazing how seriously some people take sports. I remember being in New Zealand helping the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind. Well now 22 years ago, it's 2003 and the America's Cup had just finished before we got there, and in America beat New Zealand, and the people in New Zealand were just irate. They were complaining that the government didn't put enough money into the design of the boat and helping with the with the yacht and all that. It was just amazing how seriously people take it, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 04:58 once, I mean, it becomes a part of your. Identity in a lot of ways, right for many people, and I've never had to worry about that too much. I've got other things on my mind, but there you go.   Speaker 1 ** 05:08 Well, I do like it when the Dodgers win, and my wife did her graduate work at USC, and so I like it when the Trojans win, but it's not the end of the world, and you do need to keep it in perspective. I I do wish more people would I know once I delivered a speech in brether County, Kentucky, and I was told that when I started the speech had to end no later than preferably exactly at 6:30pm not a minute later, because it was the night of the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the Kentucky Wildcats were in the championship, and at 630 everyone was going to get up and leave and go home to watch the game. So I ended at 630 and literally, by 631 I timed it. The gym was empty and it was full to start with.   Matt Forbeck ** 06:02 People were probably, you know, counting down on their watches, just to make sure, right?   Speaker 1 ** 06:06 Oh, I'm sure they were. What do you do? It's, it is kind of fun. Well, so why did you decide to get started in games? What? What? What attracted to you, to it as a young person, much less later on?   Matt Forbeck ** 06:21 Well, I was, yeah, I was an awkward kid, kind of nerdy and, you know, glasses and asthma and all that kind of stuff. And games were the kind of thing where, if you didn't know how to interact with people, you could sit down at a table across them and you could practice. You can say, okay, we're all here. We've got this kind of a magic circle around us where we've agreed to take this one silly activity seriously for a short period of time, right? And it may be that you're having fun during that activity, but you know, there's, there's no reason that rolling dice or moving things around on a table should be taken seriously. It's all just for fun, right? But for that moment, you actually just like Las Vegas Exactly, right? When there's money on the line, it's different, but if you're just doing it for grins. You know, it was a good way for me to learn how to interact with people of all sorts and of different ages. And I really enjoyed playing the games, and I really wanted to be a writer, too. And a lot of these things interacted with story at a very basic level. So breaking in as a writer is tough, but it turned out breaking as a game designer, wasn't nearly his stuff, so I started out over there instead, because it was a very young field at the time, right? D and D is now 50 years old, so I've been doing this 35 years, which means I started around professionally and even doing it before that, I started in the period when the game and that industry were only like 10 or 15 years old, so yeah, weren't quite as much competition in those   Speaker 1 ** 07:43 days. I remember some of the early games that I did play, that I could play, were DOS based games, adventure. You're familiar with adventure? Yeah, oh, yeah. Then later, Zork and all that. And I still think those are fun games. And I the reason I like a lot of those kinds of games is they really make you think, which I think most games do, even though the video even the video games and so on, they they help your or can help your reactions, but they're designed by people who do try to make you think,   Matt Forbeck ** 08:15 yeah. I mean, we basically are designing puzzles for people to solve, even if they're story puzzles or graphic puzzles or sound puzzles or whatever, you know, even spatial puzzles. There the idea is to give somebody something fun that is intriguing to play with, then you end up coming with story and after that, because after a while, even the most most exciting mechanics get dull, right? I mean, you start out shooting spaceships, but you can only shoot spaceships for so long, or you start out playing Tetris, and you only put shapes together for so long before it doesn't mean anything that then you start adding in story to give people a reason to keep playing right and a reason to keep going through these things. And I've written a lot of video games over the years, basically with that kind of a philosophy, is give people nuggets of story, give them a plot to work their way through, and reward them for getting through different stages, and they will pretty much follow you through anything. It's amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 09:09 Is that true Dungeons and Dragons too?   Matt Forbeck ** 09:13 It is. All of the stories are less structured there. If you're doing a video game, you know you the team has a lot of control over you. Give the player a limited amount of control to do things, but if you're playing around a table with people, it's more of a cooperative kind of experience, where we're all kind of coming up with a story, the narrator or the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, sets the stage for everything, but then the players have a lot of leeway doing that, and they will always screw things up for you, too. No matter what you think is going to happen, the players will do something different, because they're individuals, and they're all amazing people. That's actually to me, one of the fun things about doing tabletop games is that, you know, the computer can only react in a limited number of ways, whereas a human narrator and actually change things quite drastically and roll. With whatever people come up with, and that makes it tremendous fun.   Speaker 1 ** 10:04 Do you think AI is going to enter into all that and maybe improve some of the   Matt Forbeck ** 10:09 old stuff? It's going to add your end to it, whether it's an ad, it's going to approve it as a large question. Yeah. So I've been ranting about AI quite a bit lately with my friends and family. But, you know, I think the problem with AI, it can be very helpful a lot of ways, but I think it's being oversold. And I think it's especially when it's being oversold for thing, for ways for people to replace writers and creative thinking, Yeah, you know, you're taking the fun out of everything. I mean, the one thing I like to say is if, if you can't be bothered to write this thing that you want to communicate to me, I'm not sure why I should be bothered to read this thing well.   Speaker 1 ** 10:48 And I think that AI will will evolve in whatever way it does. But the fact of the matter is, So do people. And I think that, in fact, people are always going to be necessary to make the process really work? AI can only do and computers can only do so much. I mean, even Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when people and computer brains are married, but that still means that you're going to have the human element. So it's not all going to be the computer. And I'm not ready to totally buy into to what Ray says. And I used to work for Ray, so I mean, I know Ray Well, but, but the but the bottom line is, I think that, in fact, people are always going to be able to be kind of the, the mainstay of it, as long as we allow that, if we, if we give AI too much power, then over time, it'll take more power, and that's a problem, but that's up to us to deal with?   Matt Forbeck ** 11:41 No, I totally agree with that. I just think right now, there's a very large faction of people who it's in their economic interest to oversell these things. You know, people are making chips. They're building server farms. A lot of them are being transferred from people are doing blockchain just a few years ago, and they see it as the hot new thing. The difference is that AI actually has a lot of good uses. There's some amazing things will come out of llms and such. But I again, people are over the people are selling this to us. Are often over promising things, right?   Speaker 1 ** 12:11 Yeah, well, they're not only over promising but they're they're really misdirecting people. But the other side of it is that, that, in fact, AI as a concept and as a technology is here, and we have control over how we use it. I've said a couple times on this this podcast, and I've said to others, I remember when I first started hearing about AI, I heard about the the fact that teachers were bemoaning the pack, that kids were writing their papers just using AI and turning them in, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether it was something that was written by AI or was written by the student. And I come from a little bit different view than I think a lot of people do. And my view basically is, let the kids write it if with AI, if that's what they're going to do, but then what the teacher needs to do is to take one period, for example, and give every student in that class the opportunity to come up and defend whatever paper they have. And the real question is, can they defend the paper? Which means, have they really learned the subject, or are they just relying on AI,   Matt Forbeck ** 13:18 yeah, I agree with that. I think the trouble is, a lot of people, children, you know, who are developing their abilities and their morals about this stuff, they use it as just a way to complete the assignment, right? And many of them don't even read what they turn in, right, right? Just know that they've got something here that will so again, if you can't be bothered to read the thing that you manufactured, you're not learning anything about it,   Speaker 1 ** 13:39 which is why, if you are forced to defend it, it's going to become pretty obvious pretty fast, whether you really know it or not. Now, I've used AI on a number of occasions in various ways, but I use it to maybe give me ideas or prepare something that I then modify and shape. And I may even interact with AI a couple of times, but I'm definitely involved with the process all the way down the line, because it still has to be something that I'm responsible for.   Matt Forbeck ** 14:09 I agree. I mean, the whole point of doing these things is for people to connect with each other, right? I want to learn about the ideas you have in your head. I want to see how they jive with ones in my head. But if I'm just getting something that's being spit out by a machine and not you, and not being curated by you at any point, that doesn't seem very useful, right? So if you're the more involved people are in it, the more useful it is.   Speaker 1 ** 14:31 Well, I agree, and you know, I think again, it's a tool, and we have to decide how the tool is going to be used, which is always the way it ought to be. Right?   Matt Forbeck ** 14:42 Exactly, although sometimes it's large corporations deciding,   Speaker 1 ** 14:45 yeah, well, there's that too. Well, individuals,   Matt Forbeck ** 14:49 we get to make our own choices. Though you're right,   Speaker 1 ** 14:51 yes, and should Well, so, so when did you start bringing writing into what you. Did, and make that a really significant part of what you did?   Matt Forbeck ** 15:03 Well, pretty early on, I mean, I started doing one of the first things I did was a gaming zine, which was basically just a print magazine that was like, you know, 32 pages, black and white, about the different tabletop games. So we were writing those in the days, design and writing are very closely linked when it comes to tabletop games and even in video games. The trick of course is that designing a game and writing the rules are actually two separate sets of skills. So one of the first professional gig I ever had during writing was in games was some friends of mine had designed a game for a company called Mayfair games, which went on to do sellers of contain, which is a big, uh, entry level game, and but they needed somebody to write the rules, so they called me over, showed me how to play the game. I took notes and I I wrote it down in an easy to understand, clear way that people had just picked up the box. Could then pick it up and teach themselves how to play, right? So that was early on how I did it. But the neat thing about that is it also taught me to think about game design. I'm like, when I work on games, I think about, who is this game going to be for, and how are we going to teach it to them? Because if they can't learn the game, there's no point of the game at all, right?   Speaker 1 ** 16:18 And and so I'm right? I'm a firm believer that a lot of technical writers don't do a very good job of technical writing, and they write way over people's heads. I remember the first time I had to write, well, actually, I mentioned I worked for Kurzweil. I was involved with a project where Ray Kurzweil had developed his original omniprent optical character recognition system. And I and the National Federation of the Blind created with him a project to put machines around the country so that blind people could use them and give back to Ray by the time we were all done, recommendations as to what needed to go in the final first production model of the machine. So I had to write a training manual to teach people how to use it. And I wrote this manual, and I was always of the opinion that it had to be pretty readable and usable by people who didn't have a lot of technical knowledge. So I wrote the manual, gave it to somebody to read, and said, Follow the directions and and work with the machine and all that. And they did, and I was in another room, and they were playing with it for a couple of hours, and they came in and they said, I'm having a problem. I can't figure out how to turn off the machine. And it turns out that I had forgotten to put in the instruction to turn off the machine. And it wasn't totally trivial. There were steps you had to go through. It was a Data General Nova two computer, and you had to turn it off the right way and the whole system off the appropriate way, or you could, could mess everything up. So there was a process to doing it. So I wrote it in, and it was fine. But, you know, I've always been a believer that the textbooks are way too boring. Having a master's degree in physics, I am of the opinion that physics textbook writers, who are usually pretty famous and knowledgeable scientists, ought to include with all the text and the technical stuff they want to put in, they should put in stories about what they did in you bring people in, draw them into the whole thing, rather than just spewing out a bunch of technical facts.   Matt Forbeck ** 18:23 No, I agree. My my first calculus professor was a guy who actually explained how Newton and Leipzig actually came up with calculus, and then he would, you know, draw everything on the board and turn around say, and isn't that amazing? And you were, like, just absolutely enamored with the idea of how they had done these things, right? Yeah. And what you're doing there, when you, when you, when you give the instructions to somebody and say, try this out. That's a very big part of gaming, actually, because what we do this thing called play testing, where we take something before it's ready to be shown to the public, and we give it to other people and say, try this out. See how it works. Let me know when you're starting out of your first playing you play with like your family and friends and people will be brutal with you and give you hints about how you can improve things. But then, even when you get to the rules you're you send those out cold to people, or, you know, if you're a big company, you watch them through a two way mirror or one way mirror, and say, Hey, let's see how they react to everything. And then you take notes, and you try to make it better every time you go through. And when I'm teaching people to play games at conventions, for instance, I will often say to them, please ask questions if you don't understand anything, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Means I didn't explain it well enough, right? And my job as a person writing these rules is to explain it as well as I humanly can so it can't be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Now that doesn't mean you can correct everything. Somebody's always got like, Oh, I missed that sentence, you know, whatever. But you do that over and over so you can try to make it as clear and concise as possible, yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 19:52 Well, you have somewhat of a built in group of people to help if you let your kids get involved. Involved. So how old are your kids?   Matt Forbeck ** 20:03 My eldest is 26 he'll be 27 in January. Marty is a game designer, actually works with me on the marble tabletop role playing game, and we have a new book coming out, game book for Minecraft, called Minecraft role for adventure, that's coming out on July 7, I think, and the rest of the kids are 23 we have 423 year olds instead of quadruplets, one of whom is actually going into game design as well, and the other says two are still in college, and one has moved off to the work in the woods. He's a very woodsy boy. Likes to do environmental education with people.   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 Wow. Well, see, but you, but you still have a good group of potential game designers or game critics anyway.   Matt Forbeck ** 20:47 Oh, we all play games together. We have a great time. We do weekly game nights here. Sometimes they're movie nights, sometimes they're just pizza nights, but we shoot for game and pizza   Speaker 1 ** 20:56 if we get lucky and your wife goes along with all this too.   Matt Forbeck ** 21:00 She does. She doesn't go to the game conventions and stuff as much, and she's not as hardcore of a gamer, but she likes hanging out with the kids and doing everything with us. We have a great time.   Speaker 1 ** 21:10 That's that's pretty cool. Well, you, you've got, you've got to build an audience of some sorts, and that's neat that a couple of them are involved in it as well. So they really like what dad does, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 21:23 yeah. We, I started taking them each to conventions, which are, you know, large gatherings gamers in real life. The biggest one is Gen Con, which happens in Indianapolis in August. And last year, I think, we had 72,000 people show up. And I started taking the kids when they were 10 years old, and my wife would come up with them then. And, you know, 10 years old is a lot. 72,000 people is a lot for a 10 year old. So she can mention one day and then to a park the next day, you know, decompress a lot, and then come back on Saturday and then leave on Sunday or whatever, so that we didn't have them too over stimulated. But they really grown to love it. I mean, it's part of our annual family traditions in the summer, is to go do these conventions and play lots of games with each other and meet new people too well.   Speaker 1 ** 22:08 And I like the way you put it. The games are really puzzles, which they are, and it's and it's fun. If people would approach it that way, no matter what the game is, they're, they're aspects of puzzles involved in most everything that has to do with the game, and that's what makes it so fun.   Matt Forbeck ** 22:25 Exactly, no. The interesting thing is, when you're playing with other people, the other people are changing the puzzles from their end that you have to solve on your end. And sometimes the puzzle is, how do I beat this person, or how do I defeat their strategy, or how do I make an alliance with somebody else so we can win? And it's really always very intriguing. There's so many different types of games. There's nowadays, there's like something like 50 to 100 new board games that come out and tabletop games every month, right? It's just like a fire hose. It's almost like, when I was starting out as a novelist, I would go into Barnes and Noble or borders and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these books. And now I do the same thing about games. It's just, it's incredible. Nobody, no one person, could keep up with all of them.   Speaker 1 ** 23:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, way too much. I would love to explore playing more video games, but I don't. I don't own a lot of the technology, although I'm sure that there are any number of them that can be played on a computer, but we'll have to really explore and see if we can find some. I know there are some that are accessible for like blind people with screen readers. I know that some people have written a few, which is kind of cool. Yeah.   Matt Forbeck ** 23:36 And Xbox has got a new controller out that's meant to be accessible to large amount of people. I'm not sure, all the different aspects of it, but that's done pretty well, too   Speaker 1 ** 23:44 well. And again, it comes down to making it a priority to put all of that stuff in. It's not like it's magic to do. It's just that people don't know how to do it. But I also think something else, which is, if you really make the products more usable, let's say by blind people with screen readers. You may be especially if it's well promoted, surprised. I'm not you necessarily, but people might well be surprised as to how many others might take advantage of it so that they don't necessarily have to look at the screen, or that you're forced to listen as well as look in order to figure out what's going on or take actions.   Matt Forbeck ** 24:29 No, definitely true. It's, you know, people audio books are a massive thing nowadays. Games tend to fall further behind that way, but it's become this incredible thing that obviously, blind people get a great use out of but my wife is addicted to audio books now. She actually does more of those than she does reading. I mean, I technically think they're both reading. It's just one's done with yours and one's done with your eyes.   Speaker 1 ** 24:51 Yeah, there's but there's some stuff, whether you're using your eyes or your fingers and reading braille, there's something about reading a book that way that's. Even so a little bit different than listening to it. Yeah, and there's you're drawn in in some ways, in terms of actually reading that you're not necessarily as drawn into when you're when you're listening to it, but still, really good audio book readers can help draw you in, which is important, too,   Matt Forbeck ** 25:19 very much. So yeah, I think the main difference for reading, whether it's, you know, again, through Braille or through traditional print, is that you can stop. You can do it at your own pace. You can go back and look at things very easily, or read or check things, read things very easily. That you know, if you're reading, if you're doing an audio book, it just goes on and it's straight on, boom, boom, boom, pace. You can say, Wait, I'm going to put this down here. What was that thing? I remember back there? It was like three pages back, but it's really important, let me go check that right.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 There are some technologies that allow blind people and low vision people and others, like people with dyslexia to use an audio book and actually be able to navigate two different sections of it. But it's not something that is generally available to the whole world, at least to the level that it is for blind people. But I can, I can use readers that are made to be able to accept the different formats and go back and look at pages, go back and look at headings, and even create bookmarks to bookmark things like you would normally by using a pen or a pencil or something like that. So there are ways to do some of that. So again, the technology is making strides.   Matt Forbeck ** 26:37 That's fantastic. Actually, it's wonderful. Just, yeah, it's great. I actually, you know, I lost half the vision of my right eye during back through an autoimmune disease about 13 years ago, and I've always had poor vision. So I'm a big fan of any kind of way to make things easier,   Speaker 1 ** 26:54 like that. Well, there, there are things that that are available. It's pretty amazing. A guy named George curser. Curser created a lot of it years ago, and it's called the DAISY format. And the whole idea behind it is that you can actually create a book. In addition to the audio tracks, there are XML files that literally give you the ability to move and navigate around the book, depending on how it's created, as final level as you choose.   Matt Forbeck ** 27:25 Oh, that's That's amazing. That's fantastic. I'm actually really glad to hear that.   Speaker 1 ** 27:28 So, yeah, it is kind of fun. So there's a lot of technology that's that's doing a lot of different sorts of things and and it helps. But um, so for you, in terms of dealing with, with the games, you've, you've written games, but you've, you've actually written some novels as well, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 27:50 Yeah, I've got like 30, it depends on how you count a novel, right? Okay, like some of my books are to pick a path books, right? Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff. So, but I've got 35 traditional novels written or more, I guess, now, I lost track a while ago, and probably another dozen of these interactive fiction books as well. So, and I like doing those. I've also written things like Marvel encyclopedias and Avengers encyclopedias and all sorts of different pop culture books. And, you know, I like playing in different worlds. I like writing science fiction, fantasy, even modern stuff. And most of it, for me comes down to telling stories, right? If you like to tell stories, you can tell stories through a game or book or audio play or a TV show or a comic, or I've done, you know, interactive museum, games and displays, things like that. The main thing is really a story. I mean, if you're comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a drink with somebody, doesn't have to be alcohol, just sitting down and telling stories with each other for fun. That's where the core of it all is really   Speaker 1 ** 28:58 right. Tell me about interactive fiction book.   Matt Forbeck ** 29:01 Sure, a lot of these are basically just done, like flow charts, kind of like the original Zork and adventure that you were talking about where you I actually, I was just last year, I brought rose Estes, who's the inventor of the endless quest books, which were a cross between Dungeons and Dragons, and choose your own adventure books. She would write the whole thing out page by page on a typewriter, and then, in order to shuffle the pages around so that people wouldn't just read straight through them, she'd throw them all up in the air and then just put them back in whatever order they happen to be. But essentially, you read a section of a book, you get to the end, and it gives you a choice. Would you like to go this way or that way? Would you like to go beat up this goblin? Or would you like to make friends with this warrior over here? If you want to do one of these things, go do page xx, right? Got it. So then you turn to that page and you go, boom, some, actually, some of the endless quest books I know were turned into audio books, right? And I actually, I. Um, oddly, have written a couple Dungeons and Dragons, interactive books, audio books that have only been released in French, right? Because there's a company called Looney l, u n, i, i that has this little handheld device that's for children, that has an A and a B button and a volume button. And you, you know, you get to the point that says, if you want to do this, push a, if you want to do that, push B, and the kids can go through these interactive stories and and, you know, there's ones for clue and Dungeons and Dragons and all sorts of other licenses, and some original stories too. But that way there's usually, like, you know, it depends on the story, but sometimes there's, like, 10 to 20 different endings. A lot of them are like, Oh no, you've been killed. Go back to where you started, right? And if you're lucky, the longer ones are, the more fun ones. And you get to, you know, save the kingdom and rescue the people and make good friends and all that good stuff,   Michael Hingson ** 30:59 yeah, and maybe fall in love with the princess or Prince.   Matt Forbeck ** 31:02 Yeah, exactly right. It all depends on the genre and what you're working in. But the idea is to give people some some choices over how they want the story to go. You're like, Well, do you want to investigate this dark, cold closet over here, or would you rather go running outside and playing around? And some of them can seem like very innocent choices, and other ones are like, well, uh, 10 ton weight just fell on. You go back to the last thing.   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 So that dark hole closet can be a good thing or a bad thing,   Matt Forbeck ** 31:28 exactly. And the trick is to make the deaths the bad endings, actually just as entertaining as anything else, right? And then people go, Well, I got beat, and I gotta go back and try that again. So yeah, if they just get the good ending all the way through, they often won't go back and look at all the terrible ones. So it's fun to trick them sometimes and have them go into terrible spots. And I like to put this one page in books too that sometimes says, How did you get here? You've been cheating there. This book, this page, is actually not led to from any other part of the book. You're just flipping   Speaker 1 ** 31:59 through. Cheater, cheater book, do what you   Matt Forbeck ** 32:04 want, but if you want to play it the right way, go back.   Speaker 1 ** 32:07 Kid, if you want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, some people are nosy.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:15 You know, I was always a kid who would poke around and wanted to see how things were, so I'm sure I would have found that myself but absolutely related, you know,   Speaker 1 ** 32:23 yeah, I had a general science teacher who brought in a test one day, and he gave it to everyone. And so he came over to me because it was, it was a printed test. He said, Well, I'm not going to give you the test, because the first thing it says is, read all the instructions, read, read the test through before you pass it, before you take it. And he said, most people won't do that. And he said, I know you would. And the last question on the test is answer, only question one.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:55 That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 32:57 that was cute. And he said, I know that. I that there's no way you would, would would fall for that, because you would say, Okay, let's read the instructions and then read the whole test. That's what it said. And the instruction were, just read the whole test before you start. And people won't do that.   Matt Forbeck ** 33:13 No, they'll go through, take the whole thing. They get there and go, oh, did I get there? Was a, there's a game publisher. I think it was Steve Jackson Games, when they were looking for people, write for them, or design stuff for them, or submit stuff to them, would have something toward the end of the instructions that would say, put like a the letter seven, or put seven a on page one right, and that way they would know if you had read the instructions, if you hadn't bothered to Read the instructions, they wouldn't bother reading anything else.   Speaker 1 ** 33:42 Yeah, which is fair, because the a little harsh, well, but, but, you know, we often don't learn enough to pay attention to details. I know that when I was taking physics in college, that was stressed so often it isn't enough to get the numbers right. If you don't get the units right as well. Then you're, you're not really paying attention to the details. And paying attention to the details is so important.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:07 That's how they crash from those Mars rovers, wasn't it? They somebody messed up the units, but going back and forth between metric and, yeah, and Imperial and, well, you know, it cost somebody a lot of money at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What do you   Speaker 1 ** 34:21 this is kind of the way it goes. Well, tell me, yeah. Well, they do matter, no matter what people think, sometimes they do matter. Well, tell me about the Diana Jones award. First of all, of course, the logical question for many people is, who is Diana Jones? Yeah, Diana Jones doesn't exist, right? That's There you go. She's part game somewhere? No, no, it doesn't be in a game somewhere.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:43 Then now there's actually an author named Diana Wynne Jones, who's written some amazing fantasy stories, including Howell's Moving Castle, which has turned into a wonderful anime movie, but it has nothing to do with her or any other person. Because originally, the Diana Jones award came about. Because a friend of mine, James Wallace, had somehow stumbled across a trophy that fell into his hands, and it was a pub trivia trophy that used to be used between two different gaming companies in the UK, and one of those was TSR, UK, the United Kingdom department. And at one point, the company had laid off everybody in that division just say, Okay, we're closing it all down. So the guys went and burned a lot of the stuff that they had, including a copy of the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the only part of the logo that was left said Diana Jones. And for some reason, they put this in a in a fiberglass or Plexiglas pyramid, put it on a base, a wooden base, and it said the Diana Jones award trophy, right? And this was the trophy that they used they passed back and forth as a joke for their pub trivia contest. Fell into James's hands, and he decided, You know what, we're going to give this out for the most excellent thing in gaming every year. And we've now done this. This will be 25 years this summer. We do it at the Wednesday night before Gen Con, which starts on Thursday, usually at the end of July or early August. And as part of that, actually, about five years ago, we started, one of the guys suggested we should do something called the emerging designers program. So we actually became a 501, c3, so we could take donations. And now we take four designers every year, fly them in from wherever they happen to be in the world, and put them up in a hotel, give them a badge the show, introduce them to everybody, give them an honorarium so they can afford to skip work for a week and try to help launch their careers. I mean, these are people that are in the first three years of their design careers, and we try to work mostly with marginalized or et cetera, people who need a little bit more representation in the industry too. Although we can select anybody, and it's been really well received, it's been amazing. And there's a group called the bundle of holding which sells tabletop role playing game PDFs, and they've donated 10s of 1000s of dollars every year for us to be able to do this. And it's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd be end up running a nonprofit, but here I'm just the guy who writes checks to the different to the emerging designer program. Folks are much more tied into that community that I am. But one of the real reasons I wanted to do something like that or be involved with it, because if you wander around with these conventions and you notice that it starts getting very gray after a while, right? It's you're like, oh, there's no new people coming in. It's all older people. I we didn't I didn't want us to all end up as like the Grandpa, grandpa doing the HO model railroad stuff in the basement, right? This dying hobby that only people in their 60s and 70s care about. So bringing in fresh people, fresh voices, I think, is very important, and hopefully we're doing some good with that. It's been a lot of fun either way.   Speaker 1 ** 37:59 Well, I have you had some success with it? Yeah, we've   Matt Forbeck ** 38:02 had, well, let's see. I think we've got like 14 people. We've brought in some have already gone on to do some amazing things. I mean, it's only been a few years, so it's hard to tell if they're gonna be legends in their time, but again, having them as models for other people to look at and say, Oh, maybe I could do that. That's been a great thing. The other well, coincidentally, Dungeons and Dragons is having its best 10 year streak in its history right now, and probably is the best selling it's ever been. So coinciding with that, we've seen a lot more diversity and a lot more people showing up to these wonderful conventions and playing these kinds of games. There's also been an advent of this thing called actual play, which is the biggest one, is a group called Critical Role, which is a whole bunch of voice actors who do different cartoons and video games and such, and they play D and D with each other, and then they record the games, and they produce them on YouTube and for podcasts. And these guys are amazing. There's a couple of other ones too, like dimension 20 and glass cannon, the critical role guys actually sold out a live performance at Wembley Arena last summer. Wow. And dimension. Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden. I'm like, if you'd have told me 20 years ago that you know you could sell out an entire rock stadium to have people watch you play Dungeons and Dragons, I would have laughed. I mean, there's no way it would have been possible. But now, you know, people are very much interested in this. It's kind of wild, and it's, it's fun to be a part of that. At some level,   Speaker 1 ** 39:31 how does the audience get drawn in to something like that? Because they are watching it, but there must be something that draws them in.   Matt Forbeck ** 39:39 Yeah, part of it is that you have some really skilled some actors are very funny, very traumatic and very skilled at improvisation, right? So the the dungeon master or Game Master will sit there and present them with an idea or whatever. They come up each with their own characters. They put them in wonderful, strong voices. They kind of inhabit the roles in a way that an actor. A really top level actor would, as opposed to just, you know, me sitting around a table with my friends. And because of that, they become compelling, right? My Marty and my his wife and I were actually at a convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and this group called the McElroy family, actually, they do my brother, my brother and me, which is a hit podcast, but they also do an actual play podcast called The Adventure zone, where they just play different games. And they are so funny. These guys are just some of the best comedians you'll ever hear. And so them playing, they actually played our Marvel game for a five game session, or a five podcast session, or whatever, and it was just stunningly fun to listen to. People are really talented mess around with something that we built right it's very edifying to see people enjoying something that you worked on.   Speaker 1 ** 40:51 Do you find that the audiences get drawn in and they're actually sort of playing the game along, or as well? And may disagree with what some of the choices are that people make?   Matt Forbeck ** 41:02 Oh, sure. But I mean, if the choices are made from a point of the character that's been expressed, that people are following along and they they already like the character, they might go, Oh, those mean, you know that guy, there are some characters they love to hate. There are some people they're they're angry at whatever, but they always really appreciate the actors. I mean, the actors have become celebrities in their own right. They've they sell millions of dollars for the comic books and animated TV shows and all these amazing things affiliated with their actual play stuff. And it's, I think it, part of it is because, it's because it makes the games more accessible. Some people are intimidated by these games. So it's not really, you know, from a from a physical disability kind of point. It's more of a it makes it more accessible for people to be nervous, to try these things on their own, or don't really quite get how they work. They can just sit down and pop up YouTube or their podcast program and listen into people doing a really good job at it. The unfortunate problem is that the converse of that is, when you're watching somebody do that good of a job at it, it's actually hard to live up to that right. Most people who play these games are just having fun with their friends around a table. They're not performing for, you know, 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. So there's a different level of investments, really, at that point, and some people have been known to be cowed by that, by that, or daunted by that.   Speaker 1 ** 42:28 You work on a lot of different things. I gather at the same time. What do you what do you think about that? How do you like working on a lot of different projects? Or do you, do you more focus on one thing, but you've got several things going on, so you'll work on something for one day, then you'll work on something else. Or how do you how do you do it all?   Matt Forbeck ** 42:47 That's a good question. I would love to just focus on one thing at a time. Now, you know the trouble is, I'm a freelancer, right? I don't set my I don't always get to say what I want to work on. I haven't had to look for work for over a decade, though, which has been great. People just come to me with interesting things. The trouble is that when you're a freelancer, people come in and say, Hey, let's work on this. I'm like, Yeah, tell me when you're ready to start. And you do that with like, 10 different people, and they don't always line up in sequence properly, right? Yeah? Sometimes somebody comes up and says, I need this now. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of this other thing right now, so I need to not sleep for another week, and I need to try to figure out how I'm going to put this in between other things I'm working on. And I have noticed that after I finish a project, it takes me about a day or three to just jump track. So if I really need to, I can do little bits here and there, but to just fully get my brain wrapped around everything I'm doing for a very complex project, takes me a day or three to say, Okay, now I'm ready to start this next thing and really devote myself to it. Otherwise, it's more juggling right now, having had all those kids, probably has prepared me to juggle. So I'm used to having short attention span theater going on in my head at all times, because I have to jump back and forth between things. But it is. It's a challenge, and it's a skill that you develop over time where you're like, Okay, I can put this one away here and work on this one here for a little while. Like today, yeah, I knew I was going to talk to you, Michael. So I actually had lined up another podcast that a friend of mine wanted to do with me. I said, Let's do them on the same day. This way I'm not interrupting my workflow so much, right? Makes sense? You know, try to gang those all together and the other little fiddly bits I need to do for administration on a day. Then I'm like, Okay, this is not a day off. It's just a day off from that kind of work. It's a day I'm focusing on this aspect of what I do.   Speaker 1 ** 44:39 But that's a actually brings up an interesting point. Do you ever take a day off or do what do you do when you're when you deciding that you don't want to do gaming for a while?   Matt Forbeck ** 44:49 Yeah, I actually kind of terrible. But you know, you know, my wife will often drag me off to places and say we're going to go do this when. Yes, we have a family cabin up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that we go to. Although, you know, my habit there is, I'll work. I'll start work in the morning on a laptop or iPad until my battery runs out, and then I shut it down, put on a charger, and then I go out and swim with everybody for the rest of the day. So it depends if I'm on a deadline or not, and I'm almost always on a deadline, but there are times I could take weekends off there. One of the great things of being a freelancer, though, and especially being a stay at home father, which is part of what I was doing, is that when things come up during the middle of the week, I could say, oh, sure, I can be flexible, right? The trouble is that I have to pay for that time on my weekends, a lot of the time, so I don't really get a lot of weekends off. On the other hand, I'm not I'm not committed to having to work every day of the week either, right? I need to go do doctor appointments, or we want to run off to Great America and do a theme park or whatever. I can do that anytime I want to. It's just I have to make up the time at other points during the week. Does your wife work? She does. She was a school social worker for many years, and now as a recruiter at a local technical college here called Black Hawk tech. And she's amazing, right? She's fantastic. She has always liked working. The only time she stopped working was for about a year and a half after the quads were born, I guess, two years. And that was the only time I ever took a job working with anybody else, because we needed the health insurance, so I we always got it through her. And then when she said, Well, I'm gonna stay home with the kids, which made tons of sense, I went and took a job with a video game company up in Madison, Wisconsin called Human Head Studios for about 18 months, 20 months. And then the moment she told me she was thinking about going back to work, I'm like, Oh, good, I can we can Cobra for 18 months and pay for our own health insurance, and I'm giving notice this week, and, you know, we'll work. I left on good terms that everybody. I still talk to them and whatever, but I very much like being my own boss and not worrying about what other people are going to tell me to do. I work with a lot of clients, which means I have a lot of people telling me what to do. But you know, if it turns out bad, I can walk I can walk away. If it turns out good, hopefully we get to do things together, like the the gig I've been working out with Marvel, I guess, has been going on for like, four years now, with pretty continuous work with them, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. They're great people to work with.   Speaker 1 ** 47:19 Now, you were the president of Pinnacle entertainment for a little while. Tell me about that.   Matt Forbeck ** 47:24 I was, that was a small gaming company I started up with a guy named Shane Hensley, who was another tabletop game designer. Our big game was something called Dead Lands, which was a Western zombie cowboy kind of thing. Oh gosh, Western horror. So. And it was pretty much a, you know, nobody was doing Western horror back in those days. So we thought, Oh, this is safe. And to give you an example of parallel development, we were six months into development, and another company, White Wolf, which had done a game called Vampire the Masquerade, announced that they were doing Werewolf the Wild West. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Fortunately, we still released our game three months before there, so everybody thought we were copying them, rather than the other way around. But the fact is, we were. We both just came up with the idea independently. Right? When you work in creative fields, often, if somebody wants to show you something, you say, I'd like to look at you have to sign a waiver first that says, If I do something like this, you can't sue me. And it's not because people are trying to rip you off. It's because they may actually be working on something similar, right already. Because we're all, you know, swimming in the same cultural pool. We're all, you know, eating the same cultural soup. We're watching or watching movies, playing games, doing whatever, reading books. And so it's not unusual that some of us will come up with similar ideas   Speaker 1 ** 48:45 well, and it's not surprising that from time to time, two different people are going to come up with somewhat similar concepts. So that's not a big surprise, exactly, but   Matt Forbeck ** 48:56 you don't want people getting litigious over it, like no, you don't be accused of ripping anybody off, right? You just want to be as upfront with people. With people. And I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody, at least in gaming, in tabletop games, rip somebody off like that. Just say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're stealing that it's easier to pay somebody to just say, Yes, that's a great idea. We'll buy that from you, right? As opposed to trying to do something unseemly and criminal?   Speaker 1 ** 49:24 Yeah, there's, there's something to be said for having real honor in the whole process.   Matt Forbeck ** 49:30 Yeah, I agree, and I think that especially if you're trying to have a long term career in any field that follows you, if you get a reputation for being somebody who plays dirty, nobody wants to play with you in the future, and I've always found it to be best to be as straightforward with people and honest, especially professionally, just to make sure that they trust you. Before my quadruplets were born, you could have set your clock by me as a freelancer, I never missed a deadline ever, and since then, I've probably it's a. Rare earth thing to make a deadline, because, you know, family stuff happens, and you know, there's just no controlling it. But whenever something does happen, I just call people up and say, hey, look, it's going to be another week or two. This is what's going on. And because I have a good reputation for completing the job and finishing quality work, they don't mind. They're like, Oh, okay, I know you're going to get this to me. You're not just trying to dodge me. So they're willing to wait a couple weeks if they need to, to get to get what they need. And I'm very grateful to them for that. And I'm the worst thing somebody can do is what do, what I call turtling down, which is when it's like, Oh no, I'm late. And then, you know, they cut off all communication. They don't talk to anybody. They just kind of try to disappear as much as they can. And we all, all adults, understand that things happen in your life. It's okay. We can cut you some slack every now and then, but if you just try to vanish, that's not even possible.   Speaker 1 ** 50:54 No, there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said for trust and and it's so important, I think in most anything that we do, and I have found in so many ways, that there's nothing better than really earning someone's trust, and they earning your trust. And it's something I talk about in my books, like when live with a guide dog, live like a guide dog, which is my newest book, it talks a lot about trust, because when you're working with a guide dog, you're really building a team, and each member of the team has a specific job to do, and as the leader of the team, it's my job to also learn how to communicate with the other member of the team. But the reality is, it still comes down to ultimately, trust, because I and I do believe that dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that people that dogs are much more open to trust, for the most part, unless they've just been totally traumatized by something, but they're more open to trust. And there's a lesson to be learned there. No, I   Matt Forbeck ** 52:03 absolutely agree with that. I think, I think most people in general are trustworthy, but as you say, a lot of them have trauma in their past that makes it difficult for them to open themselves up to that. So that's actually a pretty wonderful way to think about things. I like that,   Speaker 1 ** 52:17 yeah, well, I think that trust is is so important. And I know when I worked in professional sales, it was all about trust. In fact, whenever I interviewed people for jobs, I always asked them what they were going to sell, and only one person ever answered me the way. I really hoped that everybody would answer when I said, So, tell me what you're going to be selling. He said, The only thing I have to really sell is myself and my word, and nothing else. It really matters. Everything else is stuff. What you have is stuff. It's me selling myself and my word, and you have to, and I would expect you to back me up. And my response was, as long as you're being trustworthy, then you're going to get my backing all the way. And he was my most successful salesperson for a lot of reasons, because he got it.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:08 Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I mean, I've worked with people sourcing different things too, for sales, and if you can rely on somebody to, especially when things go wrong, to come through for you. And to be honest with you about, you know, there's really that's a hard thing to find. If you can't depend on your sources for what you're building, then you can't depend on anything. Everything else falls apart.   Speaker 1 ** 53:29 It does. You've got to start at the beginning. And if people can't earn your trust, and you earn theirs, there's a problem somewhere, and it's just not going to work.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:39 Yeah, I just generally think people are decent and want to help. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had issues. Car breaks down the road in Wisconsin. Here, if somebody's car goes in the ditch, everybody stops and just hauls them out. It's what you do when the quads were born, my stepmother came up with a sign up sheet, a booklet that she actually had spiral bound, that people could sign up every three three hours to help come over and feed and bathe, diaper, whatever the kids and we had 30 to 35 volunteers coming in every week. Wow, to help us out with that was amazing, right? They just each pick slots, feeding slots, and come in and help us out. I had to take the 2am feeding, and my wife had to take the 5am feeding by ourselves. But the rest of the week we had lots and lots of help, and we were those kids became the surrogate grandchildren for, you know, 30 to 35 women and couples really, around the entire area, and it was fantastic. Probably couldn't have survived   Speaker 1 ** 54:38 without it. And the other part about it is that all those volunteers loved it, because you all appreciated each other, and it was always all about helping and assisting.   Matt Forbeck ** 54:48 No, we appreciate them greatly. But you know every most of them, like 99% of them, whatever were women, 95 women who are ready for grandchildren and didn't have them. Had grandchildren, and they weren't in the area, right? And they had that, that love they wanted to share, and they just loved the opportunity to do it. It was, I'm choking up here talking about such a great time for us in   Speaker 1 ** 55:11 that way. Now I'm assuming today, nobody has to do diaper duty with the quads, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:16 Not until they have their own kids. Just checking, just checking, thankfully, think we're that is long in our past,   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 is it? Is it coming fairly soon for anybody in the future?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:27 Oh, I don't know. That's really entirely up to them. We would love to have grandchildren, but you know, it all comes in its own time. They're not doing no well. I, one of my sons is married, so it's possible, right? And one of my other sons has a long term girlfriend, so that's possible, but, you know, who knows? Hopefully they're they have them when they're ready. I always say, if you have kids and you want them, that's great. If you have, if you don't have kids and you don't want them, that's great. It's when you cross the two things that,   Speaker 1 ** 55:57 yeah, trouble, yeah, that's that is, that is a problem. But you really like working with yourself. You love the entre

Red Markets 2nd Edition is holding an open beta playtest for all of 2025. Come discuss the ongoing process! The new edition of the Profit System is more concise, more viscous, and closer than ever before. A panel of the game's creators will take questions on the upcoming new edition

The word is Pallet, because Keith and Andy have pallet-related stories to tell about their recent adventures at GenCon. Then Keith gives a few hints about the new world he's creating for the Daggerheart RPG system. Moving on to one of their Favorite Things, they discuss their favorite vampires. Lastly, after dropping the spoiler curtain, they discuss the first 5 episodes of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Spoiler Warning: Contains spoilers!

On this episode of On Board Games, Erik talks with Rob Searing from Board Games with Rob and Insert Here about games (and other things) they've played including: Merchants of Andromeda Samurai / Hanami Lightning Train Stroop Bouba/Kiki Koi Nemesis: Retaliation You can get a discount on Zencastr.com using this link. (24:01) Then, the two talk about length of game play and is playing mulitple short games better than one long one or vice versa. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Inverse Genius: http://www.inversegenius.com/   Patreon account: http://www.patreon.com/obg   Twitter: @onboardgames RSS Feed: http://onboardgames.libsyn.com/rss Email us: onboardgamesmailbag@gmail.com On Board Games Guild at Board Game Geek

August 30, 2025 - Gabe and Rob discuss Gabe being published, technical difficulties, Gen Con 2025, Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan, talk radio show hosts, politics, a video game platform dilemma, and video games.

Hey hey BATT Family! Thanks for the wait on this main episode to come out! August, even removing Gen Con from the equation, turned into (politely) a lot for the entire BATT crew. Between medical scares and surgeries, job changes, and all manner of other things it just became the month where we ended up needing to take the break. But we're stoked you're still with us and this episode is a lot of fun! We have some serious ups and downs on opinions through this one, so be sure to let us know how you feel about everything by emailing us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com! On with the show! --- This episode's segments: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:50 - What's Been on the Table 00:08:55 - Topic of the Week: Games We Care About in Themes We Don't 00:20:33 - Why Did I Play That: Nyet 00:36:16 - Table / Shelf / Trade 01:03:35 - Rotating Segment: Surprise Party 01:16:14 - Contact Info   01:17:04 - Outro ---   Notes! 1) Endless Winter did leave the collection. It made Scott happy, but it was worth it to track down a super hard to find grail game for Mark.  2) Sorry for how clumsy the guys were in this episode. Way more mic knocking than we've had in ages. Gonna blame that on it being very late the night we recorded. 3) Mark picked up Wrath of Fire Mountain at Gen Con 2024 for what it's worth. It took like ten months to table the thing. 4) The Table / Shelf / Trade segment this week got abbreviated because each of the guys brought two games and while the first game from each was short enough, each of their second games went on for over 15 minutes. We left Mark's in because of a later part of the episode, you'll hear Scott's as a standalone review in short order during season 2, and Jason's will be released in a future episode.   5) Since the time of recording, Mark has played Fractured Sky more in both multiplayer and solo. His opinions have not changed at all.  --- You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com. We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time.  We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for board gaming, so definitely check us out on there at https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social If you would like to check out Mark's Top 100 list, it can be found at: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/347553/top-100-games-2024-edition If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6 We'd like to thank our sponsors as well: Secret Door Games! They can be found at https://www.secretdoorgames.org or 215 S. Main St, Elkhart Indiana We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

The HOBI crew is almost complete this week as Jim returns for the second week in a row and Blake is back! Sadly, Jeff is out sick so Jason is behind the board as Bryan is watching a herd of animals, Jim reviews Wednesday, Jason did not die on a jet ski and Blake has lots of pop culture to talk about! Plus a wrap-up of GenCon, Joe Manganiello is afraid of Blake, Peacemaker's new season is weird, ChatGPT helps Blake with a Top Five and more Worsley Award Nominees! This episode is sponsored by the Cincinnati Comic Expo.

Afternoon Wolfnet! In today's episode the guys discuss everything that happened at Gencon 2025!   Cast Members Host: Matthew "Bloodbath" Behrens Co Host: Aaron "Coach" Krull Co Host: Andrew "Minnow" Krull Co Host: Tommy "Silent C Raven" Kruger   Be sure to check out our Wolfnet Radio Apparel store at https://wolfnetradio.qbstores.com/   Also be sure to follow us on our Facebook Page, Youtube Channel, and also join our Patreon. Alpha Strike 350 Rules and Tools can be found at wolfsdragoons.com   This Episode is proudly sponsored by Aries Games and Miniatures. You can find everything you need for your Battletech addiction at https://ariesgamesandminis.com/

On this weeks show the guys talk Gen Con 2025, Worldcon 2025, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Battlefield 6 Beta, Robocop Rogue City, Lies of P, Fields of Mystria, Dead Island 2 Neighborhood, Huntdown, Wild Guns Reloaded, Mafia: The Old Country, Donkey Kong Bananza, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, Amber Isle, Gamescom and more!

Today, Brent, Chandler, Derek, Mario, and our special Guest Kevin "Brushido" discuss our shenanigans from GenCon 2025! Edited by: Chandler Reller Patreon https://linktr.ee/uroboros_of_old Email: ontheoriginofbattlemechs@gmail.com Student Patrons: Harris Hoffman, Squared, Andrew B, Mario, Paladin58, and Phaz Ace Pilots: John Keith III

We have lots to talk about on this episode! We discuss the Summer of Plunder conclusion, and Garrett's experiences as Gencon and Nashcon before jumping into our main topic: Crew Management. Running a ship well in Blood & Plunder takes some experience and finesse. You have lots of options, and lots of potential problems to manage once you make contact with the enemy. We talk through some of the common pitfalls and give some "expert tips" on building and managing a crew that will work well on your Blood & Plunder ship. 

Two segments with two amazing Canadians - Matt Robertson and Roger Leroux. Plus a GenCon recap with Erwin and Gubbins.

Join Aaron and Brittany for this episode as they recap their experience at the largest gaming convention in North America: Gen Con! Aaron also had the chance to do a short interview with a board game creator right from our very own hills, Chris Kincaid of Lonely Hero Games!Let us know what you thought!Email us at hillshavenerds@gmail.comCome on our Facebook!www.facebook.com/The HillsHaveNerdsCome inside our Discord!https://discord.gg/cruXwRyQjmCheck us out on Youtube for live stream game nights and other stuff!www.youtube.com/@ThehillshavenerdsWe want to thank our Ko-fi supporters! You help us make the show even better.Brittany JohnstonNick De RosaYou can support us on Ko-fi for membership rewards!www.ko-fi.com/thehillshavenerdsCheck out Lonely Hero Games! Tell 'em the Nerds sent ya!https://lonelyherogames.com/

Two segments with two amazing Canadians - Matt Robertson and Roger Leroux. Plus a GenCon recap with Erwin and Gubbins.

The Glass Cannon Network was back at the Athenaeum in Indianapolis during Gen Con 2025 with a cast of GCN all-stars ready to once again take on a modern Call of Cthulhu nightmare one shot. In this scenario custom written by Scott Dorward, a ragtag group of criminals learn about the location of a mysterious vault that belonged to a 1920s gangster, but what they find inside is anything but rewarding. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/o3sW2RRRNfA Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After another amazing GenCon trip we are back to start off a new journey as we start from the beginning of Heir to the Dragon by Robert N. Charrette Heir to the Dragon can be purchased @ https://a.co/d/7497wAR You can reach us @ Email: advice@heat.management You can follow us @ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/ofmechsandmen/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/ofmechsandmen/⁠  TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@ofmechsandmen⁠ Twitch: ⁠https://www.twitch.tv/ofmechsandmen⁠ Join us on the Valhalla Club Discord: ⁠https://discord.gg/bt9WaQMFhJ⁠ A special thanks to Robert N. Charrette for writing this amazing book. Catalyst Game Labs for being phenomenal stewards of the Battletech franchise. All works belong to their respective owners. Seyla!             Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We love Gen Con so much, we couldn't fit everything into our Games of the Show episode. And Corey Thompson loves Gen Con so much that he became a part-owner of the giant North American gaming convention. Corey leads Above Board TV, cohosts the Board Games Insider podcast, co-owns Play to Z Games, and...lots more that will just take up way too much space to write all out. So he was the perfect guest to invite on our show to chat about about more Gen Con highlights -- and some of our recent and classic two-player favorites. Timeline: 3:48 - Going Analog's game pick: Panda Spin. 7:30 - Corey's game pick: Giberrers. 10:57 - Going Analog's topic: final Gen Con thoughts and highlights. 29:36 - Corey's topic: great two-player games (classic and new).

In Express episode 111, Don, Tony, and Jamie are inspired by a listener question and discuss patterns and fads in game design and try and answer the question - is there truly anything original out there?

Send us a textI waved goodbye to Mike and Christina and made my way through the throngs of people getting their last chance to shop in the exhibit hall. By 1pm on Sunday of GenCon 2025 I was tapping out.I was exhausted, hungry, and my capacity for patience was at an all-time low.By the time I got back to my car and put Indianapolis in the rearview mirror I started to settle down and even though GenCon was only an hour behind me I realized I was already starting to miss it.For those gamers out there not familiar with GenCon, shame on you. For the rest, here is a quick rundown.GenCon is the largest and longest running tabletop gaming convention in North America. It was started by Gary Gygax and friends in 1968 and was originally called the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention. The name was quickly shortened to GenCon and in the early years the convention bounced around from location to location, but in 1985 it landed in Milwaukee Wisconsin. GenCon called Milwaukee home until 2003 when the convention moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, and that's when it really blew up. If it is even close to the tabletop gaming space, it's at GenCon.Fast Forward to 2025 where the convention once again broke previous attendance records with over 72,000 people, 595 unique vendors, and nearly 30,000 events. Our friends at the Finding Attoria Podcast described it aptly as “Butts to Nuts” But GenCon just uses the tagline “The Best 4 Days of Gaming” and for once, they're underselling it.In this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to do a little wrap-up of GenCon 2025. We'll throw out some observations, complaints, kudo's and maybe even chat about what's planned for next year.Christina, let's start with you. Give me your big takeaway from GenCon.Kick to ChristinaMike, what about you. What's your big takeaway from the con.

We have a special episode for you this week discussing the latest entry in the filmography of Scott Derrickson: THE GORGE. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller, The Gorge tells the story of an unexpected bond that forms between two soldiers who are each posted on opposite ends of a wide, cavernous opening that holds untold horrors in its depths. The film garnered mixed reviews -- even among our panel, which includes Gory Gamer Matt Murray, friend of the show Nicole Amato, and new guest, Will Frank -- but led to a vibrant, thoughtful, and often very funny conversation.This conversation also features a look back at this year's GenCon, which featured some exciting new and upcoming board games, as well as a new kickstarter for Camp Grizzly, a refreshed edition of a once rare and highly valued survival horror game. All this and more this week for a lively discussion that we really hope you enjoy.7:45 - Two Questions with Will Frank of Trick or Treat Studios (including their latest kickstarter campaign, CAMP GRIZZLY)35:08 - Whatcha (GenCon Edition)57:09 - THE GORGESee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are you ready for a new Star Wars board game? Asmodee announced Star Wars: Super Teams at Gen Con, and Dan Patriss has the news for you. Subscribe to the Major Spoilers Podcast Network Master Feed! Major Spoilers Podcast Network Master Feed RSS Feed

Are you ready for a new Star Wars board game? Asmodee announced Star Wars: Super Teams at Gen Con, and Dan Patriss has the news for you. Subscribe to the Major Spoilers Podcast Network Master Feed! Major Spoilers Podcast Network Master Feed RSS Feed

TEXT US YOUR THOUGHTS!In this episode, Tony Recaps his trip to the GenCon gaming convention in Indianapolis and talks about the boardgames he brought back. Plus, Jaime dominates a birthday party full of nine year olds.Support the show https://discord.gg/3yfGt9gahB

Welcome Pathfinders to After Party LIVE! Join us each month as we chat about all the nerdy things we love! In this After Party we talk about GenCon 2025 and the new Starfinder 2nd Edition! After Party LIVE! is recorded as a live Twitch stream on the first Saturday of the month, at 11am central. [...] The post After Party LIVE! Episode 28 appeared first on Find the Path Ventures.

A documentary about how Magic debuted at Gen Con. I had the pleasure of participating in it, and this podcast talks all about that.

We're reaction streamers now! Gen Con recap, Rangers cosplay, no shadow drops, the Artist's intent, take fatigue, The Rise and Fall of FFG, Vantage, and humour in games.(00:00:00)Intro(00:07:50)What's Happening!?(00:23:11)Reactions(00:52:00)Mailbag!(01:14:30)Stuff We're IntoEmail: info@earthbornegames.com Website: https://earthbornegames.com/ Discord: https://discord.com/invite/mXN2cUNPXE Merch: https://earthbornegames.teemill.com/ EBR Soundtrack: https://earthbornegames.bandcamp.com/ Gamefound: https://gamefound.com/en/creators/earthborne-games BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/49415/earthborne-games Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earthbornegames Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthbornegames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/earthbornegames.bsky.social Threads: https://www.threads.net/@earthbornegames Twitter: https://twitter.com/EarthborneGames#earthborne #earthbornerangers #rangers #hubworldaidalon #hubworld #aidalon #tabletopgaming #cardgame #gamefound

  GENCON – sometimes known as the great gathering of our people!  Gamers come from far and wide to the amazing and fascinating tourist destination of – INDIANAPOLIS…  there they find… about 80,000 other gamers, lots of beer, pizza, food trucks, meeples and lines… especially lines!  But along with that, we have the best selection […]

At Gen Con this year, we kicked off Ascension's 15-year anniversary celebration. I had the chance to meet so many fans who have been part of this community for over a decade; the experience was both humbling and rewarding.We just launched the Gamefound Campaign for the Ascension 15th Anniversary Collector's Edition and I've been reflecting on the incredible journey that brought us here. What began as a casual prototype I created to play with friends between rounds of Magic tournaments has grown into a game that connects millions of players around the world.Here are the five most important lessons I've learned, each has transformed Ascension from a prototype to a global phenomenon.Lesson 1: Prototype and Iterate FastWhen I first started working on Ascension, I never expected it to become the success it is today. It was 2009, and I had just quit my job to start my own game company. The funny thing about starting a company is that until you're making money and collaborating with others, the difference between “CEO/Game Designer” and “guy sitting on his couch” is mostly a matter of attitude.At the time, I had spent over a hundred hours playing the deckbuilding game Dominion. This game pioneered the genre, offering the fun of deckbuilding without the hassle of collecting cards. As a Magic: The Gathering Pro, I loved that it delivered the joy of constructing a deck without buying packs or managing a collection. Eventually, however, the game became predictable. Because each setup of available cards was fixed from the start, I rarely needed to change my strategy. I also found that the game took too long to set up, impacting the ratio of fun to busy work in a way I thought could be improved.The secret to creating Ascension was simple: remove the things from Dominion that get in the way of fun.My first prototype was literally just a shuffled pile of Dominion cards, which instantly cut 20 minutes off setup time. Mind you, this prototype wasn't good, but it gave me a quick sense of how the gameplay might feel, and I could see a spark of something great there. My next prototype was nothing more than sharpie scribbles on blank cards. Since my prototypes were quick and ugly, I had no problem throwing them out and making rapid changes. That freedom allowed Ascension to go from idea to store shelves in under 18 months.The lesson: Your first prototype should be so ugly you're embarrassed to show it to anyone. That embarrassment is freedom—freedom to fail fast, change everything, and find the fun without falling in love with your first ideas.Lesson 2: When in Doubt, Cut it outMost new designers try to solve problems by adding things to their games. The correct answer is almost always to cut instead.Ascension started by cutting Dominion's purchase and play restrictions. This streamlined the game and gave players more choices each turn, but also required me to add a second resource [power] to keep tension high. This change was just the start, the biggest cut came much later in development.Ascension's signature innovation was the ever changing center row, which dramatically increased the variety in each game. At the same time, this mechanic also created the risk of a stalled board state, meaning that if players weren't able to buy anything from the center, nothing would change and the game would drag on. My original solution was a “conveyor belt” mechanic, where, at the end of each turn, the rightmost card was banished and everything slid down. This guaranteed movement and created tension as cards neared the edge.The problem was that players kept forgetting to slide the cards down. Every. Single. Game.I tried everything: special cards that interacted with the conveyor belt, giant reminder text on the board, entire mechanics to make sliding feel essential. Nothing worked. Then one playtester asked the question that should have been obvious but I was blind to: "What if we just cut that rule?"We shuffled up, played without it, and never looked back. The game was cleaner, faster, and more fun. Did the board stall occasionally? Yes, but we could mitigate that by subtly adjusting card costs and adding banish effects players could buy when needed. In this case, the conveyor belt cure was far worse than the occasional stalled board disease.The lesson: Every mechanic costs mental energy. When facing a design challenge, always ask first: "What can I eliminate to solve this problem?" Remember, "dead now" doesn't mean "dead forever." Cut mechanics make great expansion content later.Lesson 3: Perfect Your Pitch Through RepetitionEvery game needs a killer hook, and the only way to find it is through repetition. Brutal, exhausting repetition.I learned this the hard way at my first Gen Con booth, where we sold the first copies of Ascension 15 years ago. Over the course of the show, you pitch the game a hundred times. You refine, adjust, and figure out what works. By the end, I could pitch and demo Ascension in my sleep. I knew exactly how to get someone hooked, and the moment I no longer needed to be there (for Ascension, it's usually turn three, when players start seeing the new cards they purchased and get excited about improving their decks).Whenever possible, use things your audience already knows as a reference, combine two familiar concepts, or give a twist to something they've seen before. You need to get information about your target audience and customize the pitch to them. Once they're hooked, you can guide them into a demo and, hopefully, into buying the game and sharing it with friends.In 2010, if I knew my audience played Magic, my go-to pitch was:“Imagine all the fun of drafting card packs in Magic, all with just one lifetime purchase.”If they were familiar with Dominion, an effective pitch was:“Ascension is like Dominion, but with a fun fantasy theme and you can play an entire game in the time it takes to set up a game of Dominion.”If they weren't familiar with either game category, I would usually start with a more theme forward pitch:“Ascension is a 30 minute card game where you recruit mighty heroes and weapons to defeat monsters and earn honor.”At first, pitching this way feels awkward. You have to train yourself to read the audience, adapt, and take feedback from their reactions. The best games also make it easy for players to teach friends, and those people become your best marketers. The more you practice pitching and running live demos, the more it will shape your design choices, helping you create games that are not only fun to play, but also fun to learn and teach.The lesson: Practice pitching your game early and often. Alex Yeager's 2-2-2 demo framework is a fantastic tool for game designers (you can hear more about it on my podcast with Alex here). Whether you need a two-sentence pitch, a two-minute overview, or a two-player demo, tailoring the level of detail to your audience is key. This approach prevents overwhelming your audience with too much information at once while still providing a clear and concise introduction to your game.Lesson 4: Know Your Core Tension and Protect ItEvery great game revolves around one central tension that hooks players.* In Uno, you're trying to empty your hand without unlocking your opponents' cards.* In chess, you protect your king while threatening your opponent's king.* In poker, you want to win the pot but must risk chips without knowing what others hold.* In Magic: The Gathering, the one-land-per-turn restriction forces agonizing tradeoffs about which spells to cast.For Ascension, the core tension is this: adapting to an ever-changing market while your opponents threaten to snatch the exact cards you need.The game sings when there are multiple exciting cards supporting your strategy, but your opponent might grab them first. Every choice matters because the board state is temporary. Purchasing a Mechana construct early makes each successive mechana construct better, but if your opponent cuts you off from the cards you need then your strategy could fall apart.Understanding this core tension has guided 15 years of expansions. Every new mechanic is built to enhance this central dynamic, but never replace it. Our newest expansion, Ascension Legends, turns faction choice into a higher-stakes decision than ever with the Legendary Track system. As you climb each faction's track, you unlock powerful bonuses. Suddenly, that “meh” Lifebound hero becomes essential because it pushes you toward a game-breaking legendary power. Multi-faction cards become contested treasures. The tension ratchets up, but the heart of Ascension remains intact.In the 15th anniversary campaign, I've designed an entirely new card type that impacts every game called Chronicles. Chronicle cards were an interesting challenge to design, because I wanted to make something that honored Ascension's history, impacts every game, and could work with whatever expansion(s) you chose to play it with. But I've always believed constraints breed creativity and these constraints were no exception. There are 17 Chronicle cards available in this campaign. At the start of the game, you can select any two of them and set them beside the center row. Each one adds a new game rule or unique cards to the game. Each of these 17 cards was designed to highlight one of our previous expansions and compress its impact on the core tension into a single effect. Because they are promos and players can opt in to which ones they want to play with, I also felt more free to make more powerful abilities that I would never put into a normal set. For example, one card representing Darkness Unleashed, where we first introduced transforming cards, adds the rule: “At the start of the game, each player removes one Apprentice and one Militia from their Starting Deck and Transforms them into one Mystic and one Heavy Infantry.” These cards are a great way to radically shake up the game and have some fun reevaluating old cards and strategies in the light of new mechanics. You can learn more about the new card type in our update here.The lesson: Identify your game's core tension in one or two sentences. Write it down. Frame it. Before adding any new mechanic, ask: "Does this enhance or dilute our core?" As your game inevitably grows more complex, staying true to its core ensures it evolves in the right direction.Think Like A Game Designer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Lesson 5: Create Space for Community and ConnectionAt GenCon, a father approached me with his 11-year-old daughter in tow."I just wanted to thank you," he said. "Ascension has become our special thing. We play together almost every night, and it's given us this amazing way to connect."His daughter beamed and jumped into the conversation, eager to tell me about her favorite faction (lifebound) and the strategies she'd discovered.What struck me wasn't just their enthusiasm—it was the math. She wasn't even born when Ascension first released in 2010. Yet here she was, fifteen years later, experiencing the same joy of discovery that's captivated players from day one. That's when I realized we hadn't just created a game—we'd built something that bridges generations.From the beginning, Ascension was deliberately designed to feel less confrontational than other strategy games. You're not attacking other players—you're all racing toward your own goals while your opponent does the same. Only the shared center row and occasional monster effect encourage direct competition.This makes Ascension approachable to partners, friends, and family members who might be intimidated by more aggressive games. I've heard from hundreds of players who say Ascension was their entry point into tabletop gaming. Even the partner of a hardcore gamer can enjoy Ascension because even when you lose, you still get to build something cool and feel progression throughout the game.This design philosophy has created a community where parents can genuinely enjoy playing with their children, where couples can bond over evening games, and where someone whose only card game experience is Uno can sit down and have fun within minutes. The rules are simple enough to teach quickly, but the strategy is deep enough to reward returning players.The secret to lasting community is making everyone feel welcome at the table. Even competitive card games like Magic have benefited enormously from more social formats like Commander which allow new players to enjoy the experience without as much direct conflict. Even for SolForge Fusion, the game I co-created with Richard Garfield as a very competitive game, we created a campaign mode and storyline tournaments that make players allies against a common cause, helping them root for each other and take on challenges that are less directly antagonistic with other players.The lesson: Your game's community will outlive any individual player if you design it to include rather than exclude, to welcome rather than intimidate, and to create shared positive experiences rather than zero-sum conflicts. Think about how your design allows players of different skill levels to enjoy the journey together. The best victories are the ones you can celebrate with the person across the table, not at their expense.Fifteen years ago, I was just a guy on a couch with a dream and a Sharpie. Today, Ascension connects hundreds of thousands of players across the world—parents and children, partners and friends, veterans and newcomers. As we launch our 15th anniversary campaign on Gamefound, featuring exclusive anniversary editions and the brand-new designs, I'm not just grateful for the game we've built. I'm grateful for the community you've helped us create.I am beyond grateful for the community that has supported the last 15 years, and I can't wait to continue to grow together over the next 15!Join our 15th anniversary celebration at Gamefound and get exclusive anniversary rewards available nowhere else.— Justin Gary This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Lord Mortis, Father time, and Old Man Eric share their experiences from GenCon 2025, chat about the new Force Builder for Mythic Earth (Crux Creator), Mythic Earth News and much more.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1514619081/heroes-of-mythic-americas?ref=clipboard-prelaunch

Jason, John, and Ron recap their Gen Con Experiences and Ron also shares some big news! Listen Now! Ron Lundeen is an employee of Wizards of the Coast and his opinions are his own.

Matt and Rob report back to you, dear listeners, on what we learned from GenCon, the biggest collection of TTRPG enthusiasts/sweaty nerds in the world! https://playstorypress.org/books/gathering-of-gamers/ Jon Peterson The Cunning Folk Follow Dungeon Master of None on Blue Sky:  https://bsky.app/profile/dmofnone.bsky.social  https://www.patreon.com/DungeonMasterOfNone  Join the DMofNone Discord!

If you need a change, just run away from home. That's Andrew McKee's advice on the latest Brobdingnagian Bards Podcast. You'll hear more about road trips, vacations, Gen Con and learn what's new at Dragon Con this year.  Dragon Con takes place on Labor Day weekend, August 28-September 1. See our schedule. Find out more about upcoming shows of Marc Gunn and Andrew McKee on our websites. Find out more about Brobdingnagian Bards and subscribe to our newsletter on Patreon.  

Ryan and Ben look into some Gen Con leftover news and then discuss running in game romance. Community Pages: Collaborations and Partnerships interview with Laura Hohman; Todd Kenreck's Starter Set Deep Dive and Stranger Things Interview; Ginny Di's How to do D&D romance without making it weird; Sadie Lowry's Critical Role announcement post; Tales from … Continue reading "Episode 140 – Small Bit of News and In Game Romance"

* Mailbag!* GenCon recap* Email from Chris: Space travelers using magic to travel to Earth?* Email from Patrick: Alachia, Immortal Elves, and the Books of Harrow* Email from Konrad: Plans to rework other old adventures for Fourth Edition?* Email from Matt: Many questions about the Passions?* Email from Brandon: Any information about old dwarf Kingdoms mentioned in Throal Sourcebook?* Expanding on undeveloped areas like Landis, Ustrecht, Scavia, etc?* Sourcebooks on other parts of the world?* Any information on the Slithering Wastes?Find and Follow:Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EDSGPodcastFind and follow Josh: https://linktr.ee/LoreMerchantGet product information, developer blogs, and more at www.fasagames.comFASA Games on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fasagamesincOfficial Earthdawn Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/officialearthdawnFASA Games Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/uuVwS9uEarthdawn West Marches: https://discord.gg/hhHDtXW

On this episode we wrap up our final thoughts on Gen Con. Greg fills us in on some news from Roxley games.We talk about some recently played games, and we wrap it up with a first look at the new Spirits of the Wild!

Shadowdark is a fantasy role playing game built on OSR design principles with several new mechanics, including a real time torch light rule and experience point rules that emphasize exploration over violence. I sat down with the game's creator, Kelsey Dionne at Gen Con to discuss the game's creation, its

You bring a suitcase with your clothes, and an empty suitcase for all the crap you're gonna buy.  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu sifts through the gigantic pile of stuff he bought at GenCon, including The Sutra of Pale Leaves for Call of Cthulhu, Age of Vikings, Bunny Borg, Kala Mandala and one zine that arrived while he was away, Tiger's Figure Folio. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Your hosts Chris Yi, Wendy Yi, and Mike DiLisio start off your week with a variety show about board games and the people who play them.

Welcome to Gehenna: It's Like Hell, but With Worse Real Estate and More Bureaucracy” Announcement: Missed an episode? Repent your sins and redeem yourself on YouTube, where archived episodes of The RPGBOT.Podcast are now available for your listening pleasure. Come for the laughs, stay for the existential dread. Show Notes – Episode Title: “Gehenna: Evil Slopes and Infernal Bureaucracy” Summary: In this infernal episode of the RPGBOT.Podcast, the hosts return from Gen Con only to plummet straight into the burning basalt slopes of Gehenna—a plane so depressing it makes the Shadowfell look like Disneyland. They dive into the lore of the plane's inhospitable geography, wildly impractical city design, and the kinds of inhabitants that only a sadistic game designer could love. Along the way, we meet Nymicry (a city that wants to eat you), the Tower of Arcana (where bureaucracy is tattooed into your skin), and the city of Portent (built on a corpse, because why not). The hosts explore the goddess of torture, debate whether the Rogue class needs therapy or just a rebrand, and try to answer the ultimate question: “Why would anyone go to Gehenna… on purpose?” 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide (affiliate link) 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide (affiliate link) Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (affiliate link) Forgotten Realms Wiki - Gehenna Ghengis Sean  RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes The Abyss Archeron Arcadia The Beastlands Bytopia Carceri Celestia The Ethereal Plane The Feywild Hell Part 1 Hell Part 2 Limbo Mechanus Pandemonium The Shadowfell Key Takeaways: Gehenna is the DMV of the multiverse—agonizingly slow, unbearably hostile, and absolutely full of paperwork. Gen Con was great! Unlike Gehenna, which is a hostile volcanic rockslide with a bad attitude. Every layer of Gehenna slopes downward, because gravity hates you too. Nymicry is a mimic the size of a city, proving once again that your GM can be too creative. The Tower of Arcana is where contracts are etched into skin, because parchment is for cowards. Portent is a yugoloth-shaped city with a throne that whispers spoilers into your ear. The only native species are bar guests, who seem suspiciously like people who got stuck at Gen Con after dark. Leviatar, the goddess of torture, rules with cruelty and creativity—think “Hellraiser meets HR onboarding.” Torch is a city where crime is a feature, not a bug. Bonus: there's a blood swamp. Rogues are cool, but maybe need a PR team—they're mechanically solid but struggle to stand out. Gehenna is full of flavor, if your flavor is emotional suffering and lava. At RPGBOT.net and The RPGBOT.Podcast, our brains are made of real meat. We are not the fever dream of a rogue algorithm trying to understand humor. We are, tragically, real people—with dice in one hand and sarcasm in the other. RPGBOT: It's Soylent Green for the RPG crowd—made from actual humans, not generative AI. Want more planar deep-dives, class analysis, and volcanic despair? Visit RPGBOT.net for guides, breakdowns, and the kind of nerdy brilliance that even Gehenna can't melt. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. It's a quick, free way to support the podcast, and helps us reach new listeners. If you love the show, consider joining us on Patreon, where backers at the $5 and above tiers get ad free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT.Podcast, can chat directly to members of the RPGBOT team and community on the RPGBOT.Discord, and can join us for live-streamed recordings. Support us on Amazon.com when you purchase products recommended in the show at the following link: https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ Meet the Hosts: Tyler Kamstra – The tactical mind behind RPGBOT.net, Tyler sees the Pathfinder action economy like Neo sees the Matrix. Randall James – Technologist, lore enthusiast, and fully prepared to duel Peter Jackson over which LotR edition reigns supreme. Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare. Fueled by sarcasm and sweet, sweet table-flipping energy. How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra BlueSky: @rpgbot.net TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games BlueSky: @GravenAshes YouTube: @ashravenmedia Randall James BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG Amateurjack.com Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link) Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

This week we get a report from the field about Gen Con 2025.  Despite a microscopic demonic onslaught, Jorge was able to see some of the newest table top games.  What have we discovered?  Well, the Souls-like genre seems to be transcending the boundaries of video games.  Prepare to sit across the table from your old friend, Patches.

Send us a textTy and Troy return from Gen Con 2025, and special guest host Raf Cordero takes the interviewer's chair! From first impressions and surprise discoveries to gaming highlights, hidden gems, and funny convention moments, Raf guides Ty and Troy through their Gen Con 2025 recap. Plus, the crew shares what they've been playing, hobbying, and reading. Whether you were in Indy or following from home, this episode has the insider scoop you don't want to miss.There is also a video version of the podcast: https://youtu.be/eLTWy7-ZtaAOur theme music is by FADEBACKGames (Played / Talked About)Yu-Gi-Oh! TCGD&D – Dragon's SandboxD&D Clank: Catacombs7 Wonders Duel – Lord of the Rings EditionThunder RoadInterceptorWrothVantageLegions ImperialisMörk BorgRangers of ShadowdeepSnapShipsChinatownAxolotl with a GunBattle MonstersLord of the Rings PandemicGundam TCGCrowdfunding / PurchasesNemesis: RetaliationThe Dead KeepForsaken

Ken is back from Gen Con to share his main takeaways from the 2025 show in OUR latest Travel Advisory. The Cinema Hut fantasy film essentials series covers the early 1970s. Speaking of Gen Con, the ENnie Awards just celebrated their 25th anniversary. Organization director Stacy Muth joins Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else […]

Listen to the full episode here!  DMofNone is back from GenCon and over GenCon sicknesses for another edition of Your Kickstarter Sucks: Tabletop Edition (here are entries one and two). This time, DMs Rob and Matt are talking about Tabletop News, a crowd-funded video news show, that unlike our previous projects, actually delivered what it promised in a timely fashion. Our discussion gets into the show's weird production, cringe tone, hiring practices, refusal to do "journalism", and strange metrics. Was it awful? Not really. Did they do some shady stuff? Tune in to find out! Links: https://www.youtube.com/@watchtabletop Matt's TtN Metrics Data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14ON2dsDSU2TGb4NGT0GRFA2ZkUO7W8cM1W0jy-8wKhA/edit?usp=sharing Read some better TTRPG news: https://www.rascal.news/ https://www.enworld.org/

Tonight Dan is joined by Chris, Adam and Ryan for a nice long talk about Crowdfunding, some TV and of course what we all played saw and loved at this year's Gen Con! It's a long one b/c it's been too long since we have talked to each other! 

We are back from Gen Con, and ready to talk about our adventures! We discuss the crowds, the events, and the games we enjoyed, and maybe a little about the food we ate as well. We also share a new Tale of Boardgaming Horror, and share our latest crop of Roses, Thorns, and Hula Hoops. 00:46 - Announcements: Dice Tower West and Dice Tower Cruise 01:40 - Gen Con: Crowds and Fans 10:25 - Gen Con: Sales and Sellouts 12:50 - Gen Con: What Did We Buy? 16:20 - Gen Con: Tom's Trends 20:42 - Gen Con: Dice Tower Awards 23:27 - Gen Con: Food 26:36 - Tale of Boardgaming Horror 37:25 - Giraffe Raffe 40:13 - Tag Team 43:24 - Oddland 44:50 - At The Gates of Loyang 47:27 - Fliptoons 49:35 - The Four Doors Questions? Tales of Horror? tom@dicetower.com

GenCon 2025 is done and we’re back! This convention gets better and better every year.  More people. More things to see. More games to play. More fun.  To everyone who … Read More

In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, our host Charles is joined by Wesley and Eric to talk about Mafia: The Old Country, a prequel set in early 20th century Sicily, as well as the experience of Gen Con 2025, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, and Wheel World. We discuss knife fighting and stealthy sneaking, the power scale of Metroidvanias, and... I'm reading a note here about Italian frogs?The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Thursday for chats about your favorite titles – past and present – alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry.Subscribe to Game Informer Magazine: https://gameinformer.com/subscribeFollow our hosts on social media:Charles Harte (@chuckduck365)Wesley LeBlanc (@wesleyleblanc)Eric Van Allen (@seamoosi)Jump to a specific discussion using these timestamps:00:00 - Introduction04:18 - Mafia: The Old Country35:05 - Gen Con 20251:10:26 - Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound1:17:05 - Wheel World

Renata Price joins Rob and Chia on this episode of Remap Radio. Ren has been busy playing four different Monster Hunter games basically simultaneously. Chia is back from Gen Con, and with Patrick on his European vacation, that means it's time to talk way too much about board games. Rob's loving his time in F1 '25, and he and Ren dive deep on F1 talk. Discussed: Ren's Monster Hunter Adventures 0:54, Chia's Gen Con Adventures 21:04, Galactic Cruise 29:15, Galileo Galilei 54:44, F1 Talk 1:06:39, F1 '25 1:36:08, Rimworld 2:04:18, The Question Bucket 2:36:58See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Glass Cannon Network CEO Troy Lavallee kicks off Gen Con 2025 with a huge announcement. The heroes level up for the final time and continue their journey to the Nameless Spires. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/CDVKpRYFJXA Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices