Podcast Time Crunch: The Best Hour (or longer) Podcasts

I've been listening to podcasts for decades. It started with Astronomy Cast and exploded from there. 

I have a couple categories of podcasts I enjoy. Many are about gaming, but the rest cover science, history, travel and entertainment. 

Current thinking on podcasts is that 15 to 30 minutes is best. I'm inclined to agree, but my habits are not rational. Many of my favorites are all at or over an hour in length. 

Let's start with the shortest, The Dis Unplugged hovers at about an hour. This one is a weekly round table show on all things Walt Disney World. Hosted by Dreams Unlimited Travel, this podcast is definitely an ensemble performance. I love hearing all the different perspectives. It's been going on for years and they have a back catalog of over 1000 episodes. 

The Dreams Unlimited gang has many shows in different travel locations. They cover Universal, Disneyland, Disney World and tangentially, many other places. I tune in for the main show plus The Best and Worst of Walt Disney World and Si, Disney, their Spanish language show. 

SI, Disney isn't a translation of other shows, it has completely different hosts and guests and offers a more global look at the House of Mouse. Most Si, Disney episodes are under an hour but a few make the hour mark. They speak nice and slow which is great for me. My Spanish comprehension skills are years out of date. Unfortunately, it's a Youtube only experience, so I have to plan ahead if I want to listen offline. 

Moving on, The History of English podcast tells the epic story of the English language. It started off at about 45 minutes but now tops out at around an hour and 10 minutes. Kevin Stroud is an excellent host for this history-focused romp through the English language. Mr. Stroud starts off way back in prehistory with a multi-episode arc on Proto-Indo-European languages. Being a history of English, he rapidly blows through Latin, proto-Germanic, and other languages on the way to French, which is how many Latin terms came to the English language. He touches on linguistics, but this commentary runs alongside the history of the people who made English what it is. 

Additionally, he has an audiobook, The History of the Alphabet. You can get it on Youtube Music for free with your monthly subscription or purchase it at retailers like Amazon. 

Froth's Thought Eater podcast was an excellent blogroll of the OSR and D&D world. Sadly, he has his last show in the can. However, he has 200+ episodes in his catalog, so start listening now before he starts recording again. No promises here, but he has the blog at the link above and I wouldn't be surprised if we got a 5-minute update from time to time. 

Jeremy "Froth" Smith's format is around the blogosphere run down on everything happening in the OSR and gaming. It's quite the show. 

(I have to say thank you to Jeremy for all of the times he mentioned my website, These Old Games. Every time made my week... or more. Thank you, again.) 

I've written about Safco Cast, the Traveller game themed show. This baby tops out at 90 minutes and it is excellent. Hosted Jeff Koenig and Bob Loftin, the back and forth chat reminds me of Astronomy Cast's Pamela and Fraser. But that's not all, they do interviews and game recaps. It's awesome!. 

I have to be honest, I suck at Traveller. I don't play it unless I'm a part of group of longtime players. I don't understand one bit of it, but Jeff and Bob make me want to grok it. I sort of get it when listening and incorporating some of the ideas and methods used for the game always seems to improve my D&D campaigns. 

Finally, the big one. 

Mike Rowe's The Way I Heard It started as a short 15 minute, Paul Harvey-style podcast that morphed into so much more. Hovering around the 90-minute mark, the show includes great stories and writing plus interviews on a great number of subjects. In addition to the regular stories and guests, Mike has been reading his autobiography chapter by chapter. 

Tune and engage, it's a lot of fun. 

Soon, I'll be looking at some other, shorter podcasts. 

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury - Review

Title: The Veldt
Author: Ray Bradbury
Year: 1950
Pages: 17 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here I am in the Wayback Machine. I love golden-age sci-fi. Ray Bradbury was and still is one of the defining authors of this time period. 

I wouldn't usually review just one short story, but this short has appeared in dozens of collections. I first encountered it in audiotape form. One reader doing multiple voices. It was fascinating. 

This version is from the book, The Illustrated Man which is chocked full of golden age sci-fi, which is both amusing and terrifying.

The Veldt is a precursor to all those Star Trek stories about the holodeck. A husband and wife buy "the Happylife Home", a product that does everything for the inhabitants. The most important part was the nursery which displayed images on the walls for children's amusement. The parents, George and Lydia soon discover how this can go awry when the children permanently set it for the African Veldt. Roars of lions flood the home. 

All 17 pages are predicated on self-sufficiency versus automation. When George and Lydia attempt to turn off the house to act for themselves and the betterment of their children, the outcome is tragic. 

You can view this one on youtube. This performance is totally low-fi and is my favorite.  

The Tek - May 2021

In May, my DriveThruRPG downloads in line with April. Not bad. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 4
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 2
Kobold's Folly: 2
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 4
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 3
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 7

Webstats were also up. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,222
Google Analytics Sessions - 720
Pageviews per Session - 1.69 

As a part of rethinking my series for this year, the run of models has fallen off my radar. I'm basically not going to do it as a series. I would like to get some images of figures and models, but that will come slowly. 

My reviews have slacked off, but at this point, I am still 3 weeks ahead. Good thing I built in that padding earlier this year. 

In July, I am probably going to end The Tek series, with a solid 3 years of data. 

Let's Run That Railroad Through the Sandbox...

I had an interesting conversation with my kids about DMing games. 

Here was the scenario: The party gets in a fight. The winner of that fight gets jumped and their cash and prizes are stolen. Then the party chases down the second group of people and gets their stuff back. 

"You planned all of that in advance. You were railroading us!" they whined. 

"No. I wasn't." I pulled out my notes and showed them. 

The Party and Group A get in a fight. Only 4 things can happen: either the Party or Group A can win. Or they reach a stalemate and no one wins, either by flight or not starting or finishing the fight without winning. 

Next. The first group out of the area gets jumped. Those 4 options happen again. 

And finally, when the loser or second people out of the first situation one catch up, you basically have the same 4 options. Win, lose, or two different draws. 

That's not a railroad. The players have a choice at each event they are present for and the dice can change that outcome. When the party isn't present, I pick the most viable option because I'm not stopping play to fight combat against two NPC groups against each. When the party comes back, they get another set of choices and outcomes. 

A railroad would be if I decided what was going to happen TO THE PARTY before they were granted a choice. I know where the branches are and what should happen next, but I have 4-5 different possible choices to account for in every scenario. If the party has an obvious choice of 4 items, and they come up with the fifth, sixth, and seventh option, I have no plan and need to fly by the seat of my pants. 

I gave the kids a good example. 

I had a party meet at a tavern. They were supposed to stop the evil lord's men from shaking down the peasants for money. The party chose not to do that. So, the peasants got shaken down. Then the party gave the peasants money to replace what was stolen. I didn't expect that outcome. 

In the next session, I decided to just re-run the whole thing. Again the party didn't bite. This went on for a bit with the peasants getting shaken down and the party replacing their lost funds. 

Now the party was responsive to everything else I did in each session, but I was baffled by their lack of activity on this one point of defending the peasants. It almost rose to the level of a joke. After a few months of play, they checked back in on the peasants in the tavern. 

Since they asked, I provided. This time the lord was there to get in on the fun. And the party sat there as the peasants got beat down and robbed again. It wasn't until the lord threaten everyone and turned to exit that the whole party opened fire with crossbows. In the dark, in the back. 

The explanation for this behavior was, everyone in the party and a few of the players are lawful evil. It was just their nature to use the peasants for bait to draw the evil lord out. 

Again, this was not railroading because the players themselves asked to check on the situation and determined the outcome they personally desired.  

So when planning an adventure, you should plan for the obvious. What if the party wins? What if they lose? What if they run? What if they won't or don't fight? If you have those few things down, then the adventure probably won't go off the track, but if it does, the DM is only scrambling for a few seconds and not moment to moment. Which reduces the possibility of railroading the players. 

Simutronics Gemstone IV F2P Review Part 1

Gemstone IV by Simutronics is an ancient MMO. I've tried to review it a couple of times, but each time out, I failed to capture the essence or appeal of the game. At age 23, the game has changed both a lot and very little in its life. 

This time, I'm taking a different tact. I will be reviewing this from the perspective of a new player in 2021 as a Free to Play player. It it a value investment in time? We'll see shortly. 

I have also decided to break this review up into many pieces, between 3-5. This is part one for character creation and first experiences. 

Title: Gemstone IV (GSIV)
Publisher: Simutonics
Platform: Windows, Mac, Others
Year: 1988

Gemstone IV is a text based open sandbox high fantasy gamed based in the world of Elanthia. It is heavy on the role play as much as the rolling of dice. In fact, there is a criterial that you not break character in game. In recent years, this standard has slacked off a bit but it is there. 

At first glance, it appears to be a clone of D&D, but that's not a fair assessment. It was based off of Rolemaster by Iron Crown Enterprises, the Shadow World campaign setting in particular. Although the contract lapsed decades ago, if you've played Rolemaster, you'll feel it's impact in the current game. 

Step one of the Mangler

Characters are generated in a system called "the Character Manager" or "The Mangler" by players. It's a points buy system. First you select a gender and move on to a class. There are 10 classes. 

Ten is a lot, so let's break them down to function. Melee based characters are the Monk, the Rogue and the Warrior. Spellslingers are Clerics, Empaths, Sorcerers and Wizards. Then there is a hybrid of the two in the form of Bards, Paladins and Rangers. Whole books have probably been written on these 10 types, so I am going to skip it until the next post. 

Once you have a class, you pick a culture and race. Just like D&D, you have elves, humans and dwarves plus 10 others. There is a mechanical advantage to picking a race as giantkin are strong, dwarves hardy, elves dexterous and so on. Other races are a little more complicated.  

Virtually all characters races have a selection of cultures to choose from. Unfortunately, a new player does not know any of this background, therefore can't sanely pick a culture.

Mechanically speaking, culture doesn't really matter at all. But it does matter when you interact with others. 

Up until recently, there was an imposed system of racial tolerances build right in. That, for the most part has been kick to the dust bin post 2020. 

Next up is a textual description of you character. You looks, for a text based game. Mechanically, this does nothing, but remember anyone who types "LOOK at" you will see this text. 

Next up are attributes. Again, there are 10 attributes ranked 1-100. You can't have an attribute under 20 and only one over 90. Race adds or subtracts from these limits. Note that two of the stats below are in red. That is your class's prime requisites, which general receive a bonus of 5-10. As you progress through the game, your stats go up. 

You could do a lot of research on what your scores should be, or you can hit the Auto button to have the game assign them for you. New characters get 5 chances to reset their skills in the first 30 days or 20th level. Yes, some people get hooked and can get a fifth of a way through the game in 30 days. 

Next are your skills. There are dozens of them. 

And like your attributes, there is an auto-generate button. The autogenerate button does build a playable character but after level 20, you'll see problems with these builds. 

Finally. It's time to name your character. Remember what I mentioned about staying in character, this is your first chance to blow it. They won't let you in with a name like "Ford Prefect" or "Yo Mamma" or "Dethsl4y3r". Deathslayer might have gotten a pass in the 1990s, so you've missed your chance. Don't do it now. 

And we're in! 

GSIV has many towns and nations. As a F2P account, you can random land in one of 3: Icemule Trace, Ta'Vaalor and Wehnimer's Landing. As a historical note, Wehnimer's Landing was the first city in the game and is the most populous in terms of players running around. Icemule Trace has an arctic theme, Ta'Vaalor is elven and the Landing is a human centric colonial boomtown.  

As you can see from the image above, you start of in a place. Each location in the game has a description and is generally called "a room" by players even though they might represent open spaces like a courtyard or a path by a stream. 

Also, each new character has a chance to experience an automated quest based on their class. These are called Sprite Quests and there are 5 of them. You can only do one and it will raise you from level 0 to 1 or 2 by the end. 

Loot and Prizes! In your first moments in the game, you will realize that you have some equipment. Clothes, weapons or a runestaff, armor, backpack, etc. You will also owe about 1000 silver to the town you are in. Typically, by the end of the Sprite Quest, this will be paid off. 

During your adventures with the Sprite, you will notice there are lot of key places in your town to explore and make use of. As a F2P character, you can keep a modest bank account in one town and one town only. Consider this choice carefully because if you move towns, you won't have the bank at your disposal. 

Next time we'll look at the various character choices and different play areas available.