Dice Exploder

Transcripts available at diceexploder.comAlex Roberts and Sharang Biswas are back for round two, this time with “roll to seduce,” that classic action so many people try and even succeed at taking across any number of games. If I roll high enough on my persuasion check, surely the dragon will fuck me instead of killing us, right? In some games, yes! Right indeed!This is such a weird dynamic, but clearly so appealing to so many people, and today Alex and Sharang get into the why and how of it all. That leads to all kinds of places, but in particular the seductive choice to quantify sex and romance, but put a number to all these ephemeral and scary ideas about sex and romance, presumably so we might better understand them or be able to avoid dealing with how potentially embarrassing and messy they can be.Further ReadingThe Book of Erotic Fantasy by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel and Duncan ScottLove and Sex in the 9th World by by Shanna GermainStrixhaven: A Curriculum of ChaosAlex Roberts on Dice Exploder discussing KagematsuFog of Love by Jacob JaskovBluebeard’s Bride by Whitney “Strix” Beltran, Marissa Kelly, & Sarah RichardsonSocialsAlex on Bluesky and carrdSharang on Bluesky and itchSam on Bluesky and itchThe Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.comLove, sex, and romance: huge human topics, wildly under-discussed in roleplaying games. At least in my opinion. So today on Dice Exploder we’re kicking off a new miniseries on the subject hosted by NOT ME. Instead, for the next four episodes, Alex Roberts (Star Crossed, For the Queen) and Sharang Biswas (editor of Honey and Hot Wax) are taking over the show to bring you all things love and sex.And today they’re kicking off with an episode on sex moves from Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts, classic PBTA moves that trigger when two characters have sex. Let’s get into it!Further ReadingApocalypse World by Meguey & Vincent BakerMonsterhearts 2 by Avery AlderMy Girl’s Sparrow by Troels Ken PedersenHow Do Aliens Do “It”? by Kieron GillenPop! by Alex Roberts, found in Honey and Hot Wax, edited by Sharang Biswas and L. KahnSocialsAlex on Bluesky and carrdSharang on Bluesky and itchSam on Bluesky and itchThe Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.comMoira Joy "MJ" Smith is the Dungeon Master for the Try Guys D&D actual play show "The Die Guys". She created the show in 2024 along with the Try Guys, and I was her right-hand dude during production and the show's video editor.Today, ahead of a whole series I have planned later this fall on actual play, MJ and I sit down to talk about how we made The Die Guys. We start with a bunch of background - how shows get made for YouTube at large, how the Try Guys specifically make shows, and how this show came about - but we get granular to, all the way down to how I made choices in the edit about whether to leave in or cut individual jokes.Further ReadingThe Try Guys streaming service, where you can find The Die Guys season 2The Die Guys episode 1 on YouTubeSocialsSam on Bluesky and itchThe Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Support Dice Exploder on Patreon!

Dice Exploder: Afterimage is a new show format I'm trying, a mashup of This American Life with a play report.I have a box full of memories that lives in my closet, a pair of drumsticks, a half smoked cigar, a thimble full of sand from a beach I've never been to. If I passed away and you were cleaning out my closet, you would look at this box and you would know it was important, but you wouldn't know why. You wouldn't know whose funeral I played at with those drumsticks, or on which rooftop in my hometown, I smoked that half a cigar. But you would feel their weight all the same...Written, edited, and performed by Sam DunnewoldTranscript available at www.diceexploder.comCity of Winter at Heart of the DeernicornMusic by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/My games: sdunnewold.itch.ioFollow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceexploder.com

Dice Exploder: Afterimage is a new show format I'm trying, a mashup of This American Life with a play report.When I was in the third grade, there was this cartoon that aired while I was coming home from school, so I could only ever watch the second half of episodes. The name of that show was Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast... or was that the name of a tabletop roleplaying game?Written, edited, and performed by Sam DunnewoldTranscript available at www.diceexploder.comMusic by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/My games: sdunnewold.itch.ioFollow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceexploder.com

Hello and welcome to Party by the Apocalypse, an actual play miniseries where we play Apocalypse World while breaking down how it works and the choices we're making as players so you can learn how to better play it.Party by the Apocalypse is Dice Exploder’s first foray into actual play, and the whole thing is out right now wherever you get your podcasts.In the full show, we over any number of mechanics and how they play out at the table: character creation, violence and combat, player vs player, prep, and more. But today on the Dice Exploder main feed I wanted to bring you a taste of the show featuring a part of Apocalypse World I find people are often intimidated by: the sex moves. What does the conversation look like around a sex scene in Apocalypse World, both mechanically and just as people? For one answer, come take a listen.Party by the Apocalypse is:Sam Dunnewold of Dice Exploder, a podcast about rpg designAaron King of RTFM, an rpg book club podcastKeganEXE of PlusOneEXP, a publisher of rpgsEssay of Three of Hearts, an actual play podcastTheme music: Phantasm by Purely Grey

Today the folks over at Many Sided Media, the production house behind My First Dungeon and Talk of the Table, are launching a new podcast network... and Dice Exploder is a part of it!Nothing on the show should change much, but today I wanted to sit down with Brian Flaherty, a co-founder of Many Sided Media, to talk about what this network is going to look like.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.comIn the unreliable urban fantasy world of Changeling, Clarity is a mechanic that measures... well, for now let’s go with a character's ability to trust their own reality. But finishing that sentence is kind of what this episode is all about, because Clarity has deep ties to various sanity mechanics from any number of Call of Cthulhu inspired games, even as it’s trying to do something different, maybe a little more nuanced and less obviously offensive as measuring a person’s sanity with a flat number.There’s any number of metaphors you might find meaning in with Clarity. It’s not clear to me that that makes it much better than sanity. And yet, today's cohost MintRabbit loves this game and this mechanic dearly, sees so much of herself in it. And seeing yourself in a flawed game, still finding beauty in it, that's what makes today's episode interesting.Ad LinksSpectacula by Jeremy MelloulKiss Me If You Can by me, Sam DunnewoldFurther ReadingChangeling the Lost 1e by White Wolf GamesChangelings, Trauma & Gaming by Mint RabbitA second post from Mint about ChangelingDice Exploder on safety toolsSocialsMint on Tumblr, Bluesky, itch, dice.camp, and ko-fiSam on Bluesky and itchThe Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Support Dice Exploder on Patreon!

Transcripts available at diceexploder.comFor the two year anniversary of Dice Exploder, my first ever cohost Ray Chou returns for what starts off as a brand new episode about Stoneburner by Fari RPGs and that game’s oracle mechanic: a way to use dice, random tables, and the careful framing of stakes to adapt the game for solo play.But at some point the conversation morphs into a deserving sequel episode to our first go around on rolling the dice in idie rpgs more broadly. When do you roll dice? Are partial successes good? And how does all of this change for solo and GM-less play? We didn’t ask all these questions last time, and we didn’t have great answers to the ones we did. So let’s check in on the state of rolling the dice!Further ReadingStoneburner by Fari RPGsApocalypse World by Meguey and Vincent BakerBlades in the Dark by John HarperSocialsMythworks homepageMythworks on BlueksySam on Bluesky and itchThe Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Dice Exploder on Patreon

Transcripts available at diceexploder.comThis is, at long last, the end of this Dice Exploder miniseries on larp. And I wanted to send it off by returning to the question I kicked it off with: what can tabletop designers learn from larp? To get into that, there’s few people I’d rather have on than Jay Dragon (Wanderhome, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast).When I pitched Jay this topic, Jay wanted to bring in the 10 Candles from 10 Candles. This is a game best known for, what else, the 10 candles you light at the beginning of play. And the act of doing so, and then turning out the lights, sets a mood that feels like a ritual, something deeper and more visceral than most tabletop games, something not exactly larp-like, but that feels of a piece with the emphasis on environment and embodiment that larp often brings…Ad LinksSpectacula by Jeremy MelloulMake a Scene festivalFurther Reading10 Candles by Cavalry GamesYazeba’s Bed & Breakfast by Possum Creek GamesWanderhome by Possum Creek GamesGame Design Study Buddies on Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow SchüllDice Exploder on Ribbon Drive by Avery AlderA Dozen Fragments On Playground Theory by Jay DragonSocialsJay on Bluesky and Possum Creek Games on itch and Warehouse 23Sam on Bluesky and itchThe Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Dice Exploder on Patreon