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Today’s topic is one where I am at a distinct disadvantage: Favorite RPG Podcast. Here’s the thing: I don’t actually listen to podcasts. It’s not that I don’t want to — I’m very interested in the form: I used to work in radio in the early-to-mid-90s (the local NPR station), and I regularly listen to audio dramas from BBC Radio 4 (which thankfully are available streaming internationally) and Big Finish Productions.

I’m fascinated by the possibilities of podcasts… but for whatever reason, I haven’t made the leap into a regular listener, even when everybody was raving about Welcome to Night Vale and Serial. Part of it is time — I’m up to my eyeballs in late projects, and I can’t really concentrate on what needs to be done with anything more than just music playing in the background. On those few days when I leave my office, and take the 45 minute drive to teach at the Kansas City Art Institute, listening to a podcast in my car would be perfect — except my car is old, with no way to connect my phone to the speakers (I’ve tried using a radio adapter, but there are not enough “dead spots” in the signal spectrum in this area, and we can’t use a cassette-adapter because the car has a CD player).

That said, I do semi-regularly listen to a podcast, and it is, at least nominally, an RPG podcast — although they spend more time talking about non-RPG-specific topics. That podcast is Ken And Robin Talk About Stuff, with Ken Hite and Robin Laws. The wonderful thing about this podcast is that it essentially is a slightly-more-categorically-structured version of what it’s like to sit with Ken and Robin at any convention bar. Seriously. Conversations about film, or weird history, or, yes, sometimes even gaming topics — and getting a chance to take part in that, even passively, via a weekly podcast, is far better than the 1 to 3 times a year that I’d otherwise have.

So there’s my answer. It seems that Dave Chapman has a similar difficulty with this topic, as he demonstrates in today’s video:

Today’s #RPGaDay2015 topic is Favorite RPG Illustration. There are so many I could choose from that I’ve loved: The covers of STAR FRONTIERS and JUSTICE INCORPORATED (a cover I loved so much, in fact, that I licensed the artwork so that I could re-use it for Adamant’s THRILLING TALES Savage Worlds book, and also offer it as as a poster), interior illustrations such as Tim Bradstreet’s work on the first edition rulebook for VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE, or Jim Holloway’s work on the first edition of CHILL, or even re-used artwork from non-RPG sources, such as the color plate inserts from the Games Workshop hardcover edition of CALL OF CTHULHU, which used a bunch of horror art, including The Croglin Vampire by Les Edwards. I could go on and on.

Despite all these fantastic choices, though, I’m going to pick something which isn’t particularly flashy or dynamic — a simple pen-and-ink illustration of two characters. This was the interior title page illustration from the very first RPG I ever owned or played, TSR’s first edition of TOP SECRET. The illustration is by Jeff Dee:

That’s it. With that one picture, with the flared pants and the turtleneck, with the pistols and the expressions on the characters’ faces, Jeff Dee managed to distill turn-of-the-80s Spy Cool. I knew that within those pages, I could create a spy to put James Bond to shame. I know it looks really goofy now, but that illustration grabbed me and didn’t let go — and that’s what an RPG illustration SHOULD do.

Here’s Dave Chapman, who talks about his choice (which is another of my favorites), with special guest Jon Hodgson from Cubicle 7 who talks about several of his:

Welcome to Day 11 of #RPGaDay2015, and today’s topic is another tough one: Favorite RPG Writer. Now, after yesterday’s pains to avoid setting one group of friends above any others, you’d think that I’ve have similar difficulty with this topic — and even more so, since it requires that I name ONE person. Well, funny enough, that’s not actually true. I thought it would be the case, but when I thought about my answer, I realized that none of the other game writers that I know would feel slighted or give me any push-back on this choice at all. I’m pretty sure that upon hearing my choice, almost everyone working in the business would nod their heads and say “yeah, fair enough.”

My favorite RPG writer is Ken Hite. I’ve known Ken for about 20 years or so, first through his work with Steve Jackson Games on various GURPS titles and his absolutely brilliant SUPPRESSED TRANSMISSIONS online column and collected editions. From then, up until recently, with his work for Pelgrane Press (notably TRAIL OF CTHULHU, and supplements like SHADOWS OVER FILMLAND and BOOKHOUNDS OF LONDON, to his spies-vs-vampires game NIGHT’S BLACK AGENTS), Ken has never failed to impress the hell out of me with his sharp mind, inventive concepts and erudite prose. The stuff that he casually tosses out as mere conversation, never to revisit, is the kind of stuff that most writers would kill to have come up with. I am reminded of something that Robert Rodriguez once said about Quentin Tarantino, which I feel definitely applies here: Being friends with him is like being friends with Clark Kent… He’s just like any one of your other friends… and then you see something he’s created and get reminded: Oh yeah, he’s also Superman.

So that’s my answer. Let’s check in with Dave Chapman to see his…