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BACKSTORY — Games & Hobbies
BACKSTORY

BACKSTORY is an ongoing series of interviews with game designers and other notable members of the role-playing community, hosted by Alex Roberts. This show is all about the person behind the work: how did they get into gaming? Why did they start designing? What are they most excited about for the future? Alex loves getting to know people, and you’ll love coming along for the ride.

Latest Episodes:

13. Evan Torner Jun 23, 2016

Show notes

What do game design and education design have to say to each other? How about larp and VR? Larpwright and academic Evan Torner joins us to talk uncertainty, ideology, transparency, and other fun things hiding in your games.

Evan's website
Evan on twitter
Evan's talk on Teaching German Literature Through Larp
Eirik Fatland
What's a "nanogame?"
Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
Larps from the Factory
The #Feminism Nanogames Anthology
The Golden Cobra Challenge
What's "Jeepform?"
DiGRA
Ernest Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"
Dante's Inferno, from The Divine Comedy
Dante's Inferno, the video game
Robin D. Laws' "Hamet's Hit Points"
Mary Flanagan
Ian Bogost
Lizzie Magie's "The Landlord's Game"
The Wyrd Con Companion Books
Greg Costikyan's "Uncertainty in Games"
Inside Hamlet
Treasure Trapped
Darkon
Uber Goober
Delirium
College of Wizardry
EVE Online
Undertale
Slayer Cake (and many more!)
Analog Game Studies
Gone Home

12. Kira Magrann Jun 09, 2016

Show notes

Can games unite the mystical and the digital? Writer, game designer, and cyberwitch Kira Magrann is here to talk magic, technology, and her new digital zine, RESISTOR.
Kira on Twitter
Kira on Tumblr
RESISTOR
A Cyborg Manifesto
Eliza Gauger's Problem Glyphs
The Witch (2016)
Aleister Crowley
Meg Baker on Rituals in Play
Mad About the Boy
Origins Game Fair
Vampire: The Masquerade
White Wolf
Strict Machine, in the Indie Mixtape Megamix
Mistress Matissse
Blue Rose
Just a Little Lovin'
I Say a Little Prayer
Night Witches
Coming Out Under Fire
Daughters of Bilitis
The War Birds Anthology

11. Sara Williamson May 26, 2016

Show notes

Freeform designer Sara Williamson chills and chats with Alex about co-designing, designing for bleed, designing adaptations, and the potential of touch as a game mechanic. Also: a few very exciting announcements.

Sara on Twitter
Sara on Google+
Gen Con Industry Insider Featured Presenters
New World Magischola
Babycastles
Sleep No More
Double Exposure Events
Fastaval
See Me Now
183 Days
Group Date, in the 2014 Golden Cobra Anthology
6 Months, 3 Days by Charlie Jane Anders
Shelter and Darlin' Corey, in the Indie Mixtape Megamix Anthology
Liz Gorinsky
The Clay that Woke
Twine
Freeform NYC
Emily Care Boss on Bleed
The Skeletons

10. Sean Nittner May 12, 2016

Show notes

Podcaster and Big Bad Con organizer Sean Nittner shares his love of Actual Play reporting, staying positive, and making gaming events safer and more inclusive. Key quote: "If you feel awkward or like you're going outside your comfort zone... you're probably on the right track."

Sean's website
Big Bad Con Kickstarter
Have Games, Will Travel
Blades in the Dark
Fiasco
Mage: The Ascension
Adam Koebel on Twitch
George R. R. Martin's LiveJournal
Narrative Control
Katanas & Trenchcoats
Big Bad Con
Double Exposure Envoy Program
Social Deduction Games
One-Night Werewolf
Coup
FATE
Good Omens
Call of Cthulu
Hero System
Ars Magica
Iron Heroes
Castles and Crusades
End Game
Magic: The Gathering
Katherine Cross
Dungeon World
Welcome to Night Vale
Dread
Pronoun Badge Ribbons
Whitney "Strix" Beltrán on Getting Women and other Minority Folks to Write for Your Game
Tanya D

9. Kathryn Hymes Apr 28, 2016

Show notes

Game designer and computational linguist Kathryn Hymes shares her love of locksmithing, larpspotting, and the incredible power of play. Is this the golden age of gaming? We certainly think so.

Thorny Games
Star Wars RPG by West End Games
The Battlestar Galactica Board Game
Games on Demand
CAT
Sign
The Golden Cobra Challenge
Big Bad Con
Dialect
Conlanging
J Li
Jason Morningstar
Metatopia
Xenolanguage
"Stories of Your Life" by Ted Chiang
"The Dispossessed" by Ursula LeGuin
Notre Dame de Paris (French Rock Opera)
Agglutinative Language
Living Games
New World Magischola

8. Glenn Given Apr 14, 2016

Show notes

Game designer Glenn Given joins Alex to talk about the theater, philosophy, taxonomy, loving analog games in a digital world, and the curious gratification found in following the rules. Want to hear Alex call Wittgenstein a dirty word? You should hear what she says about Hegel. This episode comes with a content warning for brief discussion of self-harm. Take care, heroes.

Games by Play Date
Metatopia and Dreamation
XCOM
Majestic
The Golden Cobra Design Competition
Nemesis 382, in the Seven Wonders Anthology
Just a Little Lovin'
Bad Habit
Pleasant Dreams
Hearts Blazing
Slash
Editions of Dungeons & Dragons

7. Shanna Germain Mar 31, 2016

Show notes

Shanna Germain, co-founder and Creative Director of Monte Cook games, joins Alex for a deep dive into her creative process and bevy of current projects. We chat about everything from the challenges and rewards of designing games for kids to the interesting parallels between the role-playing and kink communities. What could be more intriguing than that?

Shanna Germain's Website
Monte Cook Games
The Numenera Kickstarter
Digipen
No Thank You, Evil
The Cypher System
Bunnies and Burrows
Hero Kids
Faery's Tale
Adventure Maximus
Predation
The Strange
The Poison Eater

6. Sarah Richardson Mar 19, 2016

Show notes

This episode we're joined by game designer, graphic designer, illustrator, and Director of Marketing at Magpie Games: Sarah Richardson! She chats with Alex about designing, GMing, and what is really at the heart of the OSR movement. Plus: two very special announcements about two very special events!

Sarah's website
Magpie Games
Ken Hite on Twitter
The Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN)
Lamentations of the Flame Princess
Fire on the Velvel Horizon, by Scrap Princess and Patrick Stuart
Indie+ Spotlight on Sarah Richardson
Apocalypse World
Frank Mentzer
Jim Ward
A quick guide to the editions of D&D
Shadowrun
Earthdawn
Dread
Fiasco
Kristin Firth
Bluebeard's Bride
Emily Care-Boss and Tanya D's Our Many Games
Jean Wells' Palace of the Silver Princess
The Work of Erol Otus
TSR
Lilian Cohen-Moore
Meg Baker's 1,001 Nights
The Con Crash Zine
Pandemic
Women Write About Comics
Strix
Elsa Henry's Dead Scare
Nicole Winchester and Cheyenne Wall-Grimes
Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill!
Switchblade Sisters
Frontier #2 by Hellen Jo's
Dungeon World

5. Sarah Lynne-Bowman Mar 03, 2016

Show notes

Sarah Lynne-Bowman, PhD, sits down with Alex to chat about educational larps, transformational larps, and what place words like "fun" and "self" can have in role-playing discourse. We also take a moment to defend that Lightning Bolt guy. See you at Living Games, heroes.

Sarah's website
Living Games Conference
The Functions of Role-Playing Games
Østerskov Efterskole
Kapo, the Danish Prison Larp
Shoshanna Kessok's Nordic Larp Talk
X-Card
College of Wizardry
Wyrd Con Companion Book
Trols Pedersen on Safety Culture
Dystopia Rising
This Miracle
RuPaul's Drag Race
Jung's "Personae"
Erik Erikson's "Ego Identity"
Analog Game Studies
Keith Johnstone's Impro
Chuubo's Marvellous Wish Granting Engine
Amtgard
Treasure Trapped
Planetfall
Mind's Eye Society
New World Magischola
Role Models
"The Nordic Convention"
Fastaval
Nordsplainer vs Amerijerk

4. Laura Simpson Feb 18, 2016

Show notes

Designer and artist Laura Simpson chats with Alex about too many things to list! Highlights include her upcoming game Companion's Tale, designing in community, and pretending to be a vampire on the internet. If you remember what a MUSH is, you're in luck.

Laura's Website
http://www.laura-simpson.com/

Laura's Twitter
https://twitter.com/labmouse

What's a MUD/MUSH?
http://www.topmudsites.com/article01.shtml

Changeling: The Dreaming
https://rpggeek.com/rpg/426/changeling-dreaming

Mind's Eye Theatre
http://www.bynightstudios.com/products/about-minds-eye-theatre-vampire-the-masquerade/

Planescape
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape

Dungeon World
http://www.dungeon-world.com/

BESM
https://rpggeek.com/rpgfamily/327/besm-big-eyes-small-mouth

Dev Purkayastha
http://devpurkayastha.com/

The Dance and the Dawn
http://ndpdesign.com/the-dance-and-the-dawn/

Elizabeth Sampat
http://www.elizabethsampat.com/

It's Complicated
https://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetail.asp_Q_ProductID_E_2147439062_A_InventoryID_E_2147747520_A_ProductLineID_E_2137424806_A_ManufacturerID_E_2145084393_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_

Shreyas Sampat
https://summerbird.wordpress.com/

Emily Care-Boss
http://www.blackgreengames.com/

Breaking the Ice
http://www.blackgreengames.com/shop/breaking-the-ice-pdf

Meg and Vincent Baker
http://www.nightskygames.com/

Michael Miller
https://stalwart1000.wordpress.com/

Julia Ellingboe
http://www.stoneskinpress.com/index.php/authors/julia-bond-ellingboe/

Metatopia, Dreamation, Maelstrom conventions
http://www.dexposure.com/home.html

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