Category: Podcast

This episode, we tackle a surprisingly complicated topic: Relics and holy items! Grant’s out sick, what with his entire house having been struck by plagues of all sorts, so Jenny and Peter have the mics to themselves. For our Patreon question, they get handed a very tough question from Jared—”What was the most rewarding campaign you ever ran or played in?”—which takes a bit to answer. Then after our Scripture, it’s on to our main topic. We discuss Catholic and Orthodox traditions around relics to lay some groundwork before moving on to talking about the use of relics in our own games: How they might work in certain sorts of settings; what to do with them; and what to do about fakes. Also, a helpful warning: Never go full Blackleaf.

Mentioned in this episode: Two Atlas Obscura articles,

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After over two years as a two-person show, Saving the Game is proud to announce our new permanent host Jenny Dickson! This is her first episode, and she’ll be joining us going forward.

The episode starts off with an introduction of Jenny and then moves into our Patreon question about hacks and drifts, and then the three of us dig into our main topic: limiting the evil of villains in games. We cover why to do it, how to do it, and what effects it has on the story you’re telling.

Scripture: Exodus 5:6-8, Judges 3:13-14, Revelation 3:14-19

Links: High-Heel-Face Turn on tvtropes […]

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Grant and Peter are back to talk about exploration as a major feature in RPGs! First, a bit of sad news from Peter; then, we spend a bit of time talking about Grant’s Fellowship game, and how strange the system feels to him. We also answer a fun question from Patreon backer Jim, who asks what little, almost insignificant feature factors into our decision-making when we buy cars.

After our Scripture readings, we delve deep into our main topic, discussing why exploration is fun and why it matters; what sorts of characters might be motivated to explore unknown territory; how to set up random or incidental encounters so that they don’t feel artificial; a brief discussion of hex crawls; and sources of inspiration for wilderness and exploration encounters.

This episode topic was selected by our Patreon supporters, who bring you this show every two weeks and help us make the show better. If you’d like to help support us on Patreon,

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In this episode, Grant and Peter discuss naming characters and renaming characters! We kick things off with a conversation about the games Grant’s playing right now—Pugmire, Fellowship, and No Thank You, Evil!—and attempt to answer a question from Patreon backer Rich about play-by-post gaming. Then after quite a lot of Scripture (and really, it’s a small sampling of what could have been used for this particular topic) we start in on the difficult art of naming your character: Why it’s so difficult, what goes into a character’s name, and different ways to come up with the right name. Then, we discuss renaming character […]

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