Category: Saving The Game

Normally at this point, you’d get 700-1000 words of my musing about gaming, Christianity, introvertedness, or something else that touches on the podcast’s topic stable here. But it’s the holidays, and I work in retail, and therefore I’ve been reduced to a shambling Christmas zombie. So instead of a blog post, I offer the following holiday wishes.

To our Christian listeners: Merry Christmas! I hope the joy of the season and the love of both Christ and your loved ones are with you.

To our non-Christian listeners who celebrate another seasonal holiday: Happy Holidays! As you celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or whatever other winter holiday you choose, I hope the time is enjoyable and meaningful.

To everyone who uses the Gregorian calendar: Happy New Year! We’re planning another live episode for the 8th of January—our annual r […]

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It’s only Grant and Peter this episode, as we head into the final pair in our Virtues & Vices series! First, we talk about our ongoing (and quickly wrapping up) fundraiser for The Bodhana Group, and give Innroads Ministries some much-deserved plugs as well. Then we explore what C.S. Lewis called “the complete anti-God state of mind”—Pride. Some theological and practical definitions of pride get discussed before we explore pride as a character trait, and its manifestation at the gaming table.

Also mentioned in this episode: Episode 33 of Saving the Game, “Our Origin Stories (with Mike Perna)”;

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The meme of “murder hobos” has been a prevalent one in gaming discussion lately. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s exactly what it sounds like: PCs that wander around killing stuff, often seemingly for its own sake. Violence has been part of RPGs from the beginning; after all, Gygax and Arneson came out of the tabletop wargaming scene when they created D&D back in the 1970s.

Furthermore, even if Gygax and Arneson had come from more of a dramatic tradition rather than a tactical one, violence would be in there. Shakespeare and the Greek plays are full of bloodshed and mayhem. People have been fighting and killing each other, and for that matter, everything that moves, for ages.

I still can’t help but wonder if we’ve put just a little too much emphasis on participating in it in the RPG world. Our recent discussion about nonviolent conflict has been sharing an orbit in my mind with This War of Mine, a game about surviv […]

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Devon Kelley from the Shark Bone Podcast joins Grant, Peter and Branden in a discussion of one of Devon’s favorite RPG topics: Non-violent conflict resolution! Devon plugs a game of his own—Threshold: Tragic Superheroes, available through DriveThruRPG—and we plug our ongoing holiday fundraiser for The Bodhana Group. Then we dive (har har—you’re welcome, Devon) into our scripture and our topic. We discuss why non-combat conflict resolution is often overlooked in RPGs; why it’s important; how to encourage it, as a player and as a GM; and plenty of real-world examples of this sort of play.

Scripture:[…]

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“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:24-25

I’ve made no secret to anyone who knows me (or anyone who listens to the podcast) that I sit on the “introvert” side of the introvert-extrovert spectrum. It may come off as odd or even inaccurate to some, because my job is fairly asocial. I work in shipping and receiving, and for most of the year, I am a one-man department. Because of this, unlike a lot of introverts, I still have some social energy left in the evenings because my work doesn’t drain it away, so friends often see a fairly […]

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It’s Part Two of the special LIVE recording we did with listener questions to celebrate fifty episodes of STG! Thanks again to everyone who participated, and thanks to everyone who’s kept us going all this time! If you missed it, you can re-watch the whole, unedited show on YouTube or listen to Part One right here.

Scripture: Proverbs 17:17, Romans 8:35, James 1:2-4

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During our live episode, I asked Grant, mostly rhetorically, what kind of characters I play. My intention was to illustrate for the audience that I tend to play an archetype and then segue into noting that this is a fairly common practice. In so doing, I reminded myself of something I should have remembered, namely: “Don’t ask Grant a question unless you’re ready for an insightful answer.”

Because Grant gave me an answer that I really didn’t expect (though I probably should have): “You.” And then he went on to enumerate his supporting evidence for that statement, which was more plentiful than I consciously realized.

Still, there’s no denying that I put myself into my characters; up until recently, they almost all even shared my own eye and hair coloration (gray/brown). Player characters of mine are usually some member or former member of the “protector class” – military, espionage, or law enforcement. In a fan […]

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For our 50th episode, we wanted to do something a little special: A live episode recorded via Hangouts On-Air, with listener questions and responses! It turned out amazingly well, and we’re excited to do another one in the future. Thanks to everyone who participated, and thanks to everyone who’s kept us going for fifty episodes and more! If you missed it, you can re-watch the whole, unedited show on YouTube (and marvel at the amount of editing Branden does to make our episodes sound halfway decent.)

Show notes: Our fundraiser for The Bodhana Group has started, and you can help us support their excellent work here! Also, visit our store, and buy something for someone you thi […]

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Something you all may or may not know: I listen to every episode of Saving the Game after it releases. As the only regular host who has never done audio editing, if I don’t make a conscious effort to listen to the episodes after they’re released, I never get to hear them. Usually, that experience is just a nice refresher of an interesting conversation I had with some friends that happened to be recorded, but every now and then, I get hit with something like this: toward the end of our episode with Ken Hite, Ken asked a question in the segment about horror and Christianity that I didn’t actually answer. Fatigue took over and I wound up going on a rambling tangent, but the question was good enough that after listening to the final episode and facepalming for a few minutes, I decided that it still deserved an answer.

The question was: “Any times when you’ve been playing horror games and thinking ‘oh, that was a little close to the edge f […]

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Award-winning author and game designer Kenneth Hite joins Grant, Peter and Branden for a discussion of horror games and stories, just in time for Halloween! Check out Ken’s own podcast, Ken And Robin Talk About Stuff, and keep an eye out for The Dracula Dossier, a really neat project he’ll be Kickstarting soon. We also plug our upcoming charity drive for The Bodhana Group and our store.

After our Scripture readings, we talk with Ken about the fun of horror stories; running a good horror game; types of horror; creating the right amount of fear and horror in games; and writing and playing horror as a […]

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