Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Episode 8: Late, but not by much

Alright! So, episode 8 is up. There was a bit of a delay- Soundcloud was having issues and it took longer than usual to get it online. But, it's there, and you should listen to it!

In this episode, we talk about bees, honey from the stone age, cutting off limbs, critical hit decks, and why you should or shouldn't use a DM screen. We get a lot of meaningful discussion out of serious issues like character death; it's a big deal, so why not? This week's Dragon's Hoard item comes from Paizo.com's RPG Superstar contest, which is a huge wealth of custom magic items, NPCs, and so on. There'll be a link below. Maybe.

As always, please rate & review us on iTunes. Also, we're on Google Play Music! So check us out there if you can. If you have any questions or items you want us to discuss, send them to InterPartyConflict@gmail.com.

Thanks, and happy gaming!

Edit: It's a week later and I just realized I didn't include a link to the episode. Whoopsie!

Edit again: Apparently there's been several episodes I forgot to include the link. What is wrong with me?

Episode 8: Super Critical

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Questions answered this episode:

1. How do you deal with travel?

2. Is it okay to permanently maim a player character on a critical fumble?

3. How do you handle player character death in your games?

4. Do you prefer levels vs more point/experience based character advancement?

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Noteworthy links:

RPG Superstar, Paizo's contest for contributors

The Tomb of Horrors, the deadly D&D module

The Black Egg, another deadly D&D module we briefly mentioned

Buy a Sega Dreamcast- pretty self-explanatory

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Our episode 7 is way better than anyone else's episode 7.

Alright, guys. We have a cause. An enemy to rally against. We need to group up and take down the Hearty Dice Friends podcast- but take them down through 5-star ratings and positive reviews on iTunes! They'll never see it coming.

In all seriousness, in this episode we talk about about kicking players out of the group, lightsabers, Green Lantern rings, and whether to feel bad about railroading. (Railroading isn't always bad.) I also bring up a couple noteworthy podcasts (which I'll link below) that you should listen to.

The Dragon's Hoard is still kicking, so please send us your suggestions! Items and questions can always be submitted to InterPartyConflict@gmail.com so we can discuss them on future episodes. Also, I've gotten a few requests for our RSS feed address (which is something new to me- I'm still figuring all of this out) so I'll link that here:

http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:277170853/sounds.rss

Thanks for listening!

Episode 7: Inter-Party Drama

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Questions answered this episode:

1. How to deal with a problem player? What are some ideas for resolving issues, and/or expelling them from the campaign while not severing friendships.?

2. Have you ever tried integrating monsters, items, etc from games, movies, or TV?

3. How do you handle the imbalance when one player loves roleplaying and hamming it up and the other does not?

4. How to spread spotlight across every player instead of having one strong player personality dominate it?

5. How to make your story more open-worldy/sandboxy, and how to avoid railroading your campaign?

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Noteworthy links:

Hearty Dice Friends, our rival podcast

Dicey Tales, the Actual Play podcast I talked about (although for some reason, their Soundcloud account seems to have lost the first few tracks... I'll look into it, but in the meantime I'm pretty sure you can still find them on iTunes)

Dragon Dice, the fantasy-themed collectible strategy dice game

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Episode 6: Love is in the Air

Disclaimer: Don't worry, there's very little talk about Valentine's Day in this episode. Just in case that sort of thing bothers you.

In this episode, we discuss solo campaigns, leaving the bad guy alive, and taking revenge on your party members. I keep going back and forth between being satisfied with the sound quality and hating it; I know that we're ahead of the curve as far as most podcasts go, but I still don't like how much echo my voice has. Sometime soon we'll come up with some way to make it so that Jeff's mic doesn't pick up my voice as much. Until then, I'll just keep stressing over nothing.

This episode has another Dragon's Hoard item- if you have any custom magic items you'd like to submit, please do so! Send them to InterPartyConflict@gmail.com. Items with flat mechanical bonuses are less likely to be read on the air than items with unique abilities, or items with interesting thematic details. Think of it this way: We'll get much more discussion out of a non-magical sword with mysterious runes on it than simply a sword that does a bit more damage.

I hope you all enjoy the episode, and keep submitting questions!

Episode 6: Love and Samurai

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Questions answered this episode:

1. What tips and tricks do you have for DMing a one-on-one campaign?

2. As players reach higher levels, how do you balance combat while keeping it interesting, but not too deadly?

3. Which do you think is better, a campaign with a single overarching quest or a campaign that is more like an anthology of different quests?

4. What non-D&D fantasy games do you enjoy?

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Noteworthy links:

The Witch is Dead, the one-page RPG where you play as a witch's familiars

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, the TMNT RPG LOL

The Mountain Witch, the samurai RPG created by Gabe's brother, Timothy Kleinert

Dvati, the race of twins Jeff mentioned


Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Episode Five: With a Vengeance

It's episode five of Inter-Party Conflict! In this episode we discuss attaching someone else's severed limbs, crashing airships, keeping a library in your pocket and refusing your destiny. I'm continuing to be upset with the sound quality, but I think that's just my own perfectionism being unhappy with anything that I create. Also, maybe my headset is too good. I don't know.

Today also marks our first listener-submitted Dragon's Hoard item! I have one or two others lined up for future episodes, but please, submit your own! We'd love to hear interesting items you all have created or encountered in the wild. (I may not have mentioned it yet on the podcast, but I am a huge sucker for unique magic items. They may very well be my favorite aspect of the fantasy genre.) If you'd like to submit a magic item for the Dragon's Hoard, or if you'd like to submit questions for us to discuss, please send them to InterPartyConflict@gmail.com!

Thanks for listening, and keep on keeping on!

Episode 5: Experience Point Innovation

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Questions answered this episode:

1. Should players receive experience points when they find a way to trivialize an encounter?

2. What do you feel has been the single greatest innovation to D&D in the last few years?

3. How should players/DMs come up with why their characters are on an adventure?

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Noteworthy links:

ViewScream, a roleplaying game designed to be played on Google Hangouts

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, a cooperative bomb-defusal video game

The Virtual Boy, the first console capable of stereoscopic 3D graphics