Game Podcasts
I listen to a lot of podcasts, on-and-off. These are the game-related ones currently in my catcher, alphabetically.
![A teacher with a short bob of hair points to a chalkboard in the front of a classroom, while five or so students sit on benches around her. A pole partially obstructs the view. On the board, words are written with no apparent purpose: “TRAINING,” “Roleplay,” “Fisher Folks,” “Dynamite [indecipherable],” “Using of Cyanide,” “Pollution,” and “Props, Posters, Costumes.”](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Role_play_CLASS.gif "ROLE PLAY CLASS by Krisna kristiandi hartono, CC-BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Look, podcasts are hard to illustrate, so expect these images to only get weirder.")
Bastionland Podcast
- Weekly, about an hour.
- In the current season, Chris McDowall interviews guest designers about the three games that most influenced their practice.
- Link
Beacon of Creation
- Weekly, about 50 minutes.
- Broad examinations of design for Magic: the Gathering, both canon and custom. Many hosts, recurring games, episode formats, and community events.
- If you’ve ever wanted to dip a toe into the custom design scene, this community is one of the most manageable and welcoming. (If you’re not into MtG, this probably won’t do much for you.)
- Link
Between Two Cairns
- Weekly, about an hour.
- Yochai and Brad review RPG adventures every week, occasionally with a guest.
- Really good. Despite the chaotic nature of the hosts’ conversations, it’s clear that a lot of care goes into production: being sure to hit the same structural points each time (eventually), marking potential spoilers as “deep dive,” and really considering the use of modules in play.
- Link
Blogs on Tape
- Aperiodic bursts, about 10 minutes.
- Nick LS Whelan reads good blog posts aloud. Both as a way of highlighting and preserving worthwhile ideas from blogs, and of making them more accessible.
- Link
Design Doc
- Monthly, about 50 minutes.
- Hannah and Evan have wide-ranging discussions, nominally about game design but effectively about the nature of creative work.
- I was unsure of this one, but every time I start an episode it hooks me. So you know, give it a shot if you’re unsure.
- Link
Dice Exploder
- Weekly, about 40 min.
- Sam Dunnewold interviews a guest reach week about a favorite single game mechanic. They go into detail about why it works the way it does, and what makes it appealing.
- Tight editing (I assume) keeps each episode punchy and engaging, and the community around it is really good.
- I joined their game jam! It was a good time.
- Link
Dungeon Regular
- Weekly, about 5 minutes.
- Nova a.k.a. Idle Cartulary reviews all the modules in Dungeon magazine, chronologically, one-at-a-time.
- I’m a real sucker for any bite-sized media, and this is no exception. Nova’s modern eye finds lots to love and lots to hate about the prevailing design trends of the time, and she classifies quickly.
- Link
Into the Megadungeon
- Fortnightly, about half an hour.
- Ben Laurence interviews veteran GMs about the allure and practice of running megadungeon-centric campaigns.
- I eagerly await the next season.
- Link
Lyrical Ludology
- Frequent but not daily, about 10 minutes.
- Logan Timmins interviews the designers of “Lyric Games” about what that even means and how they approach it. Each interview is broken up across several episodes.
- Link
Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast
- Frequent but not daily, about half an hour.
- Mark Rosewater talks about the design of Magic: the Gathering, the history of the game, the design of other games, lessons learned, general design principles, stories about people, and occasionally interviews. Usually, as the gimmick goes, while commuting.
- Even if you play MtG, not every episode will be for you. But Rosewater is a really good designer who’s been at the top of the industry for a really long time, and his insights are really interesting. So even if you don’t play MtG, you’re bound to find something interesting.
- Link
Monster Man
- Twice weekly, about 10 or 20 minutes.
- James Holloway reviews monsters from old editions of D&D and elsewhere, and considers their practical applications in tabletop games. Currently working through the monsters of Athas.
- Without fail, every episode gets my brain whirring and makes me want to play a game.
- Link
Patron Deities
- Fortnightly (?), about 20 minutes. Costs money.
- James Holloway does the same thing for deities that he does for monsters.
- Look, this sounds like a bad idea, but maintaining a narrow focus on gaming, a scholarly distance, and plenty of cultural awareness, he makes it work.
- Link (Patreon exclusive)
Pretending to be People
- Weekly, about an hour.
- Street-level Delta Green campaign. Horror, absolutely wild, good music picks.
- This is the only long-running Actual Play podcast that I haven’t bounced off of (even if I’m way behind). I lack the insight to say why.
- Link
RTFM
- Weekly, about an hour.
- Maxwell Lander and Aaron King read and critically discuss RPG books. These tend to be current or recent indie darlings, but the selection isn’t otherwise limited by type.
- Link
System Mastery
- Fortnightly, about an hour-twenty.
- Jef and John read and critically discuss RPG books. These tend to be older or forgotten systems, so there’s a lot of dreck with occasional gems.
- Jef and John also host a Star Wars podcast, a movie podcast, a relationship advice podcast, probably some other podcasts, and bonus content for lots of these. And they’ve been doing it for a decade. So it’s really interesting to hear them rapidly break down a “new” system in terms of all this shared experience and heuristic knowledge of play.
- In the bonus content of System Mastery, they usually create characters in it, or attempt to otherwise engage with it in a manner more direct than reading but short of actual play.
- Link