Author Archives: Dana

by | July 20, 2013 · 2:24 pm

IPMM 47: Problem Players

“Judgment laser eye-beams”

Blake rants about a movie that he saw recently, then we talk about dealing with players who don’t seem to get the game you’re all trying to play together.

Today, we’re joined by Blake Mutschler, owner of Fun N Games, the friendly local game store in Blacksburg, VA (facebook – website).  Topics in this episode include:

Note: it is word of God (or D. Vincent Baker) that sex has to be consentual in Apocalypse World to trigger the sex moves.  I can’t find the link, but I’ve seen it explicitly on one of the forums, in a post by the author. –Ed.

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by | July 15, 2013 · 10:16 pm

IPMM 46: Psi*Run Part 2 (of 3)

“Just a simple country tractor”

This is the second episode of our actual play of Meguey Baker‘s masterful Psi*Run, a game about amnesiac fugitives with superpowers running from something sinister.

We’re joined by Blake Mutschler, owner of Fun N Games, the friendly local game store in Blacksburg, VA (facebook – website).

We’ve cut this AP into three bite-sized, one hour episodes.  Episode 1 was posted last week and Episode 3 should be posted next week.  In this episode, our runners escape to the open road but find themselves drawn back to the train where the adventure all started.  We also learn a little more about the chasers…

IPMM-46-PsiRun-Episode-2-hq

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by | July 10, 2013 · 11:46 pm

Apocalypse World Cheat Sheet

The various Apocalypse World player spread PDFs have pretty good summaries of the rules and player moves, but I like my rules in simple layout with color coding for easy access.  To that end, and in the spirit of our previous Monsterhearts Cheat Sheet, I’ve created a player (and GM!) cheat sheet for AW.

These are not all word-for-word renderings of the original rules; in some cases they’re more compact paraphrases that hit all of the important points.  The document released under a Creative Commons license, so feel free to remix.

Enjoy!

ApocalypseWorldCheatSheet (Word Format)

ApocalypseWorldCheatSheet (PDF Format)

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by | July 8, 2013 · 11:06 pm

IPMM 45: Psi*Run Part 1 (of 3)

“The dog can talk now?”

Our actual play of Meguey Baker‘s masterful Psi*Run, a game about amnesiac fugitives with superpowers running from something sinister.

We’re joined by Blake Mutschler, owner of Fun N Games, the friendly local game store in Blacksburg, VA (facebook – website).

We’ve cut this AP into three bite-sized, one hour episodes.  Episode 2 should be posted next week and Episode 3 the week after.  In this episode, we go over the rules, create characters, and get to know them as they escape a train crash and cause havoc in a suburban neighborhood.

IPMM-45-PsiRun-Episode-1-hq

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by | July 3, 2013 · 11:32 pm

IPMM 44: Story Time with Blake and Highcove #1

“Hurling lightning from the sky like a vengeful deity.”

In this brand new feature from I Podcast Magic Missile, guest hosts Blake and Highcove tell hilarious stories from their gaming past!

Blake Mutschler is the owner of Fun N Games, the friendly local game store in Blacksburg, VA (facebook – website).

Matthew Highcove writes regularly on DMing with Charisma, his outstanding GM advice blog.

Today’s episode covers how the dynamic duo first met, as well as: PvP in D&D, John Travolta, furniture construction, and Dead Rising. We promise it’ll all make sense once you listen!

IPMM-44-Story-Time-1

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by | June 28, 2013 · 12:00 pm

IPMM 43: Monsterhearts Finale

“fin”

The Hiver

The Hiver (image courtesy of Curiomira)

Mara is dead, Chloe is gone, Chassie’s gang and Gabe’s team are in tatters, and the Hiver is still out there… somewhere.  What’s a Chosen to do? Oh, right, go kill the monster.

Except that won’t be quite as easy as anyone expects, even if they can figure out how to counteract its power and use its secret weakness against it.  You see, the Hiver has a new friend…

At the end of this episode, for the sake of time, we go into “full cinematic” mode and stop rolling dice. Fortunately, it works because we’ve all got a really good notion of the shared fiction. However, we realize that we’re not playing the game as intended, so apologies to anyone who wanted to see the final interaction played out that way.

We’re pretty sure you’ll find the end product entertaining, though!

IPMM-43-Monsterhearts-Finale

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by | June 25, 2013 · 12:00 pm

IPMM 42: Monsterhearts Episode 10

“Volatile and Hot”

This is the first half of the two-part finale of our Monsterhearts season!

In this episode, Chassie, Gabe, and Robin all go to rescue Mara… but who really needs rescuing?

IPMM-42-Monsterhearts-Episode-10

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by | June 24, 2013 · 12:06 pm

IPMM 41 – Bonus Episode: Transhumanism!

“It’s like doing Bayesian inference without the priors.”

We talk about transhumanism and body augmentation, then about made-up religions. Topics covered include:

IPMM-41-Bonus-Transhumanism

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by | June 18, 2013 · 9:33 am

IPMM 40: Monsterhearts Episode 9

“Endgame”

As if things weren’t dark enough…

We start with love letters in the form of hospital charts.  Chloe desperately tries to stave off damnation just a bit longer, but that puts Mara in the crosshairs.  The rest of the cast are blindsided – they know they have to do something, but what?

IPMM-40-Monsterhearts-Episode-9

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by | June 15, 2013 · 12:00 pm

IPMM 39: Be Gentle, It’s My First Time!

“Learn how to play Korean”

In this episode we talk about running games for the first time – either the first time with a new system, or the first time as a GM.  What keeps people from GMing?  What are some of the challenges of running a game with more experienced players (and how do you handle people who are jerks about it)?

We also talk about Joanna’s awesome Dread scenario (which Dave also ran at Forge Midwest) and how to write Dread questionnaires.  This was Joanna’s first time writing a module or running a game, ever.  We’ll post the scenario at some future point, once we’ve done a final editing pass.

Finally, we talk about Caitlin’s upcoming Apocalypse World campaign.  We talk about silliness in serious games.  Dave and Yanni give some advice from their own experience as MCs.

Stuff mentioned in this episode:

IPMM-39-Be-Gentle-Its-My-First-Time

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