A podcast about board games, role playing games and gaming conventions! We bring on game designers, creators, players and game masters to talk about their passion.
Episodes
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
This week the phenomenally talented B. Dave Walters (Victor Temple on LA By Night) joins us to talk gaming, streaming, comics and philosophy. We cover some serious ground in this episode. Everything from his upcoming comic book, games that he's running and playing in on Twitch and other streaming venues along with an absolute wealth of background, history, and thoughts. B. Dave could teach a master class on what it takes to achieve your goals.
He's available in many places all at once: @BDaveWalters, Patreon, New D&D Comic, His regular crew at @UncommonTrust, and several shows on Geek and Sundry: Ask Your Black Geek Friend, We're Alive: Frontier, and of course LA By Night! He's also appeared on Stream of Many Eyes and will certainly be in tons more shows in the future.
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Wednesday Oct 24, 2018
Wednesday Oct 24, 2018
This week Rich schools me in what it takes to raise kids into being gamers. He's two for two on this and I figured he'd be a great resource! Rich has some interesting ideas... And it looks like my hopes of turning my new child into a Go (Baduk) master are perhaps too ambitious...
Tons of fun making this episode! please enjoy
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Thursday Oct 04, 2018
Thursday Oct 04, 2018
This week two accomplished artists from the RPG and gaming community join us to talk about all kinds of stuff! we talk about their relationship to the industry, their specialties and cover some important social topics as well. Rich and I mostly hold on as Jabari and Crystal reveal some fascinating underpinnings of the industry from their experiences.
Huge thanks go to both of them for coming on the show and being cool during our technical difficulties during recording!
Crystal's work can be found here:
http://crystalsully.com/ | @CrystalSully | http://untamedbeasts.com/
Jabari's work can be found here:
www.jmwillustration.com | www.lunarveil.press | @jabariweathers | IG @jmwillustration | www.fortuneandfey.tumblr.com
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Tuesday Sep 25, 2018
Tuesday Sep 25, 2018
LEGO Super User, Steve Hassenplug, joins us to talk about some truly remarkable creations and how they came to be. Steve created Super Robo Rally using LEGO Mindstorms and Raspberry Pi based on the award-winning game, Robo Rally by Richard Garfield (of Magic the Gathering fame).
Steve is an accomplished builder, joining a special group of adult Lego builders to help improve LEGO Mindstorms. He was featured in Wired Magazine talking about the experience and of course, we get into it on the show as well. He is also partner to Brickworld, the nationally-known, family-friendly LEGO events. He tours with them as well as makes time every year for Gen Con.
Steve's creation kicks off our Gen Con every year and is near and dear to our hearts. If you've been listening to this podcast you've heard us gush about these guys since the very beginning with Episode 1. We're already looking forward to next year and can hopefully pick up a full run again and make it an event for the whole HSG family at Gen Con 2019!
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
This week we continue our talk with Cody Pondsmith from R. Talsorian games who just designed and published the tabletop RPG of The Witcher, based on the video game series by CD Projekt Red. The co-creative projects between these two companies have been a favorite topic around here at High Shelf Gaming. Getting to talk with Cody covering so much material has been a real treat for us.
This episode covers much of the lethality in the system, some mechanics discussion and reasoning behind those rules along with some future expectation for the product line. Lastly, we get into some fun stories about the trials of being a GM.
We don't talk about it in the episode but Cody and the rest of the development team have been doing an absolute ton of Q&A discussion with the community. Every week they post several Q&A threads detailing different aspects of the game and updating errata as necessary.
Catch R. Talsorian Games and the TRPG Witcher Community here:
TRPG Witcher Facebook group
TRPG Subreddit
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Tuesday Aug 28, 2018
Tuesday Aug 28, 2018
This week we're joined by Cody Pondsmith from R. Talsorian games who just designed and published the tabletop RPG of The Witcher, based on the video game series by CD Projekt Red. The co-creative projects between these two companies have been a favorite topic around here at High Shelf Gaming. Getting to talk with Cody covering so much material has been a real treat for us.
This episode covers much of the genesis of the game, their process for putting it together and the depth that Lisa and Cody Pondsmith went through to get it right from a lore perspective. Impressive effort on their part. I don't think another studio would have contributed so much to the lore of another product in such a responsible way as they have. Already their product is credited with confirming several rumors about Witcher Schools other than the one which gave rise to Geralt.
We don't talk about it in the episode but Cody and the rest of the development team have been doing an absolute ton of Q&A discussion with the community. Every week they post several Q&A threads detailing different aspects of the game and updating errata as necessary.
Catch R. Talsorian Games and the TRPG Witcher Community here:
TRPG Witcher Facebook group
TRPG Subreddit
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Thursday Aug 23, 2018
Thursday Aug 23, 2018
This one is special. Heather (AKA @Kratrina) returns with a friend from the Critical Role community, Conner (AKA @Cybrwulf1201) joins us to talk all about their first time at Gen Con. We cover everything from the many live shows and panels they got up to, lessons learned, and some great laughs as Rich and I are exposed to a completely different side of the show from anything we've ever seen.
Huge shout out to the amazing and wonderful Critical Role show and their community (critters as they like to be called), to Dungeon Master - Interactive Stage Show (@DungeonMasterLA), Library Bards (@LibraryBards, @bonniebellg, @xanderrific), @theanimegoddess, Maze Arcana with @satinephoenix, @mazearcana, Dread game system (@hydra_lord) https://dreadthegame.wordpress.com/about-dread-the-game/
And lastly, two amazing artists who really took great care of @kratrina (Heather) @crystalsully @kristinacarroll
You can find more of Connor's stuff here:
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Monday Jul 30, 2018
Monday Jul 30, 2018
This week Mike returns to talk with Rich and me about Cyberpunk 2077/2020's primary location: Night City!
We had to come back to talk about the history of the city, take a safari and discuss the local wildlife... Gangs, Corps, and of course the Combat Zone. We also talk DM tips for finding great floorplans for any combat scenes you want to put together.
Mike talked about this Soviet-era abandoned airbase which he uses regularly to inspire firefight terrain.
RPG books worth picking up (affiliate links):
- Night City sourcebook full of general city knowledge good for folks hungry for details of what might be in Cyberpunk 2077
- Cyberpunk 2020 game system
- Chrome books 1 & 2 Gear
- Chrome books 3 & 4 More Gear
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Tuesday Jul 24, 2018
Tuesday Jul 24, 2018
Our True Dungeon Guru, Larry, returns to share with us some more basics about this game, talking event types, difficulty levels, and volunteering opportunities. But the real fun of this episode is hearing Rich and Larry talk about True Raid, a special invite-only event that they got to participate in. At the end of this episode we talk N1 - Journey in to the Astral Bliss, the first part of the new True Dungeon storyline.
There are a couple spoilers at the end so if you're hoping to go into N1 fresh we warn you ahead of time so you can stop the episode when we start the discussion about N1.
In this episode, we talk about one of my favorite D&D lampoons: Cubicles and Careers
Topics:
Gen Con E-Tickets (and true dungeon ghost tickets)
Volunteering for True Dungeon
True Raid (a special event for true dungeon backers)
N1 - Astral Journey to the Bliss (first installment of the new TD story line)
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN
Tuesday Jul 10, 2018
Tuesday Jul 10, 2018
Heather (@kratrina) returns to tell Rich and me all about Shadowrun 5th Edition (affiliate link)! This is such a large game to unpack. We just scratch the surface and provide an introduction to the game and setting. We'll be revisiting this game to dive deeper into the storyline and system.
Bonus towards the end: Heist sessions can involve a ton of planning, where characters figure out how to do the heist. If your game struggles to fit all that planning time in at the table and still do the heist, this rule hack from HSG can help! It serves to make the heist more cinematic, and encourage improvisation and adaptability from the players and GM.
Listen now on:
iTunes GooglePlay Spotify Stitcher
Other places you can connect with the HSG Squad:
Facebook @High Shelf Gaming Podcast
Twitter @highshelfgaming
Friday Night Twitch /highshelfgaming
Discord Chat https://discord.gg/tMPCXgN