Ludonarrative Dissidents

In this livestream, we reveal the topics for season 3! If you have questions about them, ask on our Discord. You can watch the livestream here.

Our Kickstarter for Season 3 is doing well but we have a long way to go! We livestreamed on March 10, which you can view here on Youtube, but this episode has cleaned up audio. We're looking at the free adventure released by NASA, The Lost Universe. We dive deep into it and answer viewer questions.

The Kickstarter is live! Back it today so we can have a full season of great episodes! The Lady in Blue, a mysterious figure of cosmic power, enlists a band of simple peasants for a strange task. They are to follow an invisible bridge until they arrive at a hole in the sky – and then jump through. Death awaits all but the bravest, strongest, and luckiest, but the Lady offers a reward beyond all the riches of the world: the chance to change the very stars these peasants were born under, and thus change their destiny. We're reviewing our first adventure for this season! We played it as the finale of last season and now you can hear what we think of the adventure as a published scenario.

We're back with more info on season 3 and here to talk about RPGs. https://www.ludonarrativedissidents.com/

We livestreamed back in December to update listeners about Season 3 and answer questions about RPGs. You can watch it on Youtube or just listen to it here. Enjoy!

The Lady in Blue, a mysterious figure of cosmic power, enlists a band of simple peasants for a strange task. They are to follow an invisible bridge until they arrive at a hole in the sky – and then jump through. Death awaits all but the bravest, strongest, and luckiest, but the Lady offers a reward beyond all the riches of the world: the chance to change the very stars these peasants were born under, and thus change their destiny. NEWS: On Saturday December 16th, at 23:00 UTC (18:00 EST, 17:00 Central) Greg, James, go live for an hour of discussion, conversation, and answering your questions. RPPR on Twitch RPPR Streaming on Youtube If you miss the livestream, the Youtube version will stay up afterwards. We are planning an episode 0 of season 3 to discuss this adventure so stay tuned for that! Get full show notes at our website! Discuss this episode on the LND Discord!

Pendragon is a game of Arthurian legends, first released in 1985. The sixth edition starter set was released in 2023, with a full released plan next year. It is set in a world of brutal medieval realism. Player characters are knights in King Arthur's court, striving to uphold the code of chivalry despite their passions and flaws pulling them in other directions. The starter set contains pre-made knight player characters, several adventures, and all the rules necessary to run the game. Get full show notes at our website! Discuss this episode on the LND Discord! Our next episode is the season finale, an actual play in Dungeon Crawl Classics with two guest players!

Traveller is a science fiction roleplaying game of bold explorers and brave adventurers. The Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 contains everything you need to create one of these adventures and begin exploring the galaxy. Spaceports, ancient civilisations, air/rafts, cold steel blades, laser carbines, far distant worlds, and exotic alien beasts – this is the futuristic universe of Traveller, the original and classic science fiction roleplaying game. Get full show notes at our website! Discuss this episode on the LND Discord!

Experience Points are a common game mechanic in tabletop role playing games, but what are they? From Dungeons and Dragons to the World of Darkness, a wide variety of games use experience points to measure character progression and improvement. We discuss how these mechanics affect play and brainstorm ideas for alternative progression systems. Check out The Night Clerk, a RPG scenario zine, written by Ross Payton, now on Backerkit! Get full show notes at our website! Discuss this episode on the LND Discord!

Fiasco is an award-winning, GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with no preparation. During a game you engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust. It’s like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it’d take to watch one. Tell cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. Listen to an actual play of Fiasco 2E guest starring Caleb Stokes, author of Red Markets! Get full show notes on our website! Discuss this episode on the LND Discord!

Diceless RPGs are games that do not use dice to randomize game elements. Many of these games do not have any randomization elements and include games like Amber, Pantheon, and Marvel Universe. Others use randomizers like shuffled cards or spinners. We discuss these systems and how they affect game play and storytelling. Check out the LND website for links to games and more! Discuss this episode on the LND Discord!

The landscape was full of machines and scrap metal connected to the facility in one way or another. Always present on the horizon were the colossal cooling towers, with their green obstruction lights. If you put your ear to the ground, you could hear the heartbeat of the Loop – the purring of the Gravitron, the central piece of engineering magic that was the focus of the Loop’s experiments. The facility was the largest of its kind in the world, and it was said that its forces could bend space-time itself. Scifi artist Simon Stålenhag’s paintings of Swedish 1980s suburbia, populated by fantastic machines and strange beasts, have won global acclaim. Now, you can step into the amazing world of the Loop. Show notes for Season 2 are on the LND website. Discuss this episode on the Ludonarrative Dissidents Community Discord!

Dread is a game of horror and hope. Those who play will participate in a mutual telling of an original macabre tale. The goal of Dread is to sustain the delicate atmosphere that invokes the hand quivering emotion that lends its name to the game. The thrill of a Dread game lies within the tension between desire and loss. Players take on the role of someone trapped in a story that is only as compelling as it is hostile. Discuss this episode on the Ludonarrative Dissidents Community Discord!

Planet Mercenary RPG is a space opera adventure game based on the popular web comic Schlock Mercenary. It contains everything you need to create characters, equip them, and load them onto warships for adventures across the galaxy. Build your own mercenary company and accept all the best contracts. Rescue ecotourists from Eina Afa’s Stormring Sea. Leap between the Pereri Ring’s tethered asteroids in pursuit of pirates. Brave the dark heart of Ellwor’s mechorganic jungle in search of the Greater Meatsnatch. Engineered for speed and simplicity, the Planet Mercenary RPG lets you play out these adventures quickly with three six-sided dice and the 108-card Mayhem deck—a set of story-building, plot-twisting, occasionally explosive elements that can transform even a mundane encounter into a turning point for the entire mission. You and your group will weave magnificent, raucous, and probably hilarious adventure stories, and everyone will enjoy themselves …even when things go terribly wrong. Discuss this episode on the Ludonarrative Dissidents Community Discord!

Call of Cthulhu is the world’s best game of secrets, mysteries, and horror, first published in 1981 and now in its seventh edition. Playing the role of steadfast investigators, you travel to strange and dangerous places, uncover foul plots, and stand against the terrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. You encounter sanity-blasting entities, monsters, and insane cultists. Within strange and forgotten tomes of lore you discover revelations that humanity was not meant to know. If you want to discuss the episode, join our community Discord!

Initiative systems are an important but often overlooked element in role playing games. They determine who can act and when. They allocate spotlight time for players and influences the action economy of a game. We talk about different ways of determining initiative and if you even need them.

Eclipse Phase is the post-apocalyptic game of transhuman horror. Humanity is enhanced and improved, but also battered and bitterly divided. Technology allows the re-shaping of bodies and minds, but also creates opportunities for oppression and puts the capability for mass destruction in the hands of everyone. And other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the Fall, dangers both familiar and alien. In this harsh setting, the players participate in a cross-faction conspiracy called Firewall that seeks to protect transhumanity from threats both internal and external. Discuss this episode in our Discord!

MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world. Who are you? The tomb-robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world’s heart away from it’s inevitable end? Confront power-draining necromancers, skulking skeletal warriors and backstabbing wickheads. Wander the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the Bergen Chrypt or the bedevilled Sarkash forest. But leave hope behind – the world’s cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts are destined to end in death and dismay. It was created by Pelle Nilsson and Johan Nohr. Discuss this episode on our community Discord server!

The Laundry Files Roleplaying Game is based on the best-selling novels by Charles Stross. In the game, you play officers of the Laundry, that eccentric and underfunded agency dedicated to protecting the United Kingdom from unthinkable horrors. The Laundry uses the Basic Roleplaying System - the same system that powers the classic Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game (so you can easily convert adventures from one game to the other). As Laundry staff, you're trained to deal with the weird and ghastly spawn of the Mythos, you're equipped with the best equipment your committee-approved mission budget can buy, and you've got back-up on call from the SAS. All of that means you're only terrifyingly underprepared, as opposed to completely screwed, when the shoggoth hits the fan. If you want to discuss this episode, join our community Discord server!

Meta currencies are a type of game mechanic found in tabletop role playing games. They are an abstract resource used by players to affect the narrative but do not represent something in the game except luck, fate, or willpower and so forth. Examples include fate points in Fate, willpower in Red Markets, and Resolve in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We discuss types of mechanics and why they are used in RPGs. Discuss this episode on our community Discord server!