Dice Exploder

New Episodes Next Week + An Announcement

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Deckbuilding (Signs of the Sojourner) with Lady Tabletop

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Signs of the Sojourner by Echo Dog Games Band-Aids & Bullet Holes by Sam, on Kickstarter now Slay the Spire 2 by Mega Crit Socials Lady Tabletop on itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Minigames (Firebrands) with Viditya Voleti

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands by Meguey & Vincent Baker The King Is Dead by Meguey & Vincent Baker Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern by Takuma Okada Socials Viditya on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

John Wick (2014) and Genre Emulation with Sam Roberts

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My new game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes is still on Kickstarter! Check it out today. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it. In keeping with this show's increasingly loose definition of "mechanic," today I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to tackle one of this game's greatest influences: the 2014 Keanu Reeves movie John Wick. The first half of this ep is basically a movie podcast. We go deep on what makes John Wick tick (in brief: the first 30 minutes). But the back half we get into the extremely popular concept within indie rpgs of genre emulation: making games that evoke another piece of media or genre of media. What makes genre emulation work? What do we think most people get wrong when they attempt to do it? And is it even a worthy goal? Further Reading Back Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter now! John Wick (2014) Escape from Dino Island by Sam Roberts and Sam Tung Socials Sam Roberts on Bluesky Sam Dunnewold on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

Character Nonmonogamy (Space Post) with Sidney Icarus

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Today is the launch of Band-Aids & Bullet Holes, my melodramatic action game of bloody revenge. It's a one shot, capsule game, box set, deckbuilder rpg. Check it out. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it, starting today with the idea of character nonmonogamy. Traditionally in rpgs each player gets one main character. This is often true regardless of whether or not there's a GM: certain characters "belong" to each player. Not so in Band-Aids & Bullet Holes. But what does that look like? And what does it do to play? There's a lot of games that have played with other models, but to kick things off today we're digging into how it works in Jason Morningstar's Space Post, a game about delivering the mail in space, where main postman and space ship characters are passed around between players. And to do that I'm joined by Sidney Icarus, game design smarty, designer of Decaying Orbit, and former host of The Hard Move aka the podcast whose format I stole for Dice Exploder. Come on, let's get into it... Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Space Post by Jason Morningstar Bluebeard's Bride Band of Blades Everyone Is John Ars Magica Socials Sidney’s website, YouTube channel, and Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

Calling Cards (Band-Aids & Bullet Holes) with Lady Tabletop and Seraphina

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My first stand-alone print game, Band-Aids & Bullet Holes, goes live on Kickstarter next week on May 5th. I have a lot to say about it, and I'm gonna say a lot of it: May's going to be all episodes about mechanics from other people's games that inspired me in this design. Today I wanted to talk about Band-Aids & Bullet Holes straight up, but I didn't want you to just take it from me all the stuff I love about it, so I'm handing the show over once again to Lady Tabletop and Seraphina Garcia Ramirez. They're gonna tell you about Band-Aids & Bullet Holes through its core mechanic: take a marker, sharpie your character's core traits onto playing cards, then shuffle those up and flip them at each other, high card wins. As Sera says, somehow adding flavor to the classic card game War makes it so much better... Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Socials Seraphina on Bluesky and itch Lady Tabletop on Tumblr and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

Keys (Lady Blackbird) with Whitney Delaglio

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I love pregens! But why do I love pregens? I dug into this a bunch on an episode last year with Aaron Lim about the characters in Last Train to Bremen: I love being given a clear goal and baseline temperament when I sit down to play so I can get into drama as fast as possible. But the game Lady Blackbird goes a step further. Each character has "Keys" which lay out not just character traits and goals, but the central dramatic questions and stakes each character's arc is likely to concern itself with. And that, more than anything else, is probably what I want from my pregens. Whitney Delaglio joins me to talk about Lady Blackbird's Keys (originally from The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon). She's got her own game coming to Backerkit next month - The Old, The Cold, The Bold - which iterates on Keys. So today we get into not just how they work but how you can make them work for you. Further Reading Lady Blackbird by John Harper The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon The Old, The Cold, The Bold by Whitney Delaglio - second edition on Backerkit soon! Socials Whitney on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

• Transcript

Weak, Strong, and Regular Moves (Dream Askew / Dream Apart) with Austin Walker

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Austin Walker's new game Realis is on Kickstarter now, and it's been making splashes in the indie rpg scene since last year when the ashcan came out. The game's core mechanic, Sentences, feels like the exact kind of mechanic I love covering on this show. But where did it come from? I asked Austin to come talk to me about it and bring one of his influences, and he came back with another diceless, GM-less resolution mechanic: the token economy of weak, strong, and regular moves from Dream Askew / Dream Apart. So today we're completing Dice Exploder's accidental Dream Askew / Dream Apart trilogy (paired with the episodes on lures and setting elements from the past couple months) and then digging into what makes this system work and what Realis learned from it. Further Reading Realis is on Kickstarter now! Follow Sam’s game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter! Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Austin on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

The Awards 2024 with Nico MacDougall

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Follow Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter! The Awards are back! The rpg awards show with a bent towards indie games and the guaranteed worst SEO of all time is back for another around, and the current steward of The Awards - Nico MacDougall - is back on the show this week to talk through some of our favorite mechanics from the last batch of winners. If you want to get involved in The Awards, you can apply to be a judge through the end of April and you can submit your games during the month of May! This year's Awards will cover games published between June 1, 2024 and May 31, 2025. Further Reading The Awards 2026 - apply to be a judge today! Cloud Empress by Watt Border Riding by Stout Stoat Press This Maze Will Be Big Enough To Call Home Someday by Anna Anne Anthropy Stirring the Hornet's Nest at Het Thamsya by Munkao Socials Nico on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

• Transcript

Lures (Heaven in the Dust) with Barclay Travis and Bee Alexander

Transcripts are available at diceexploder.com Bee and Barclay are the hosts of Tabletop Book Club, a podcast that is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a show with such fun energy, and of course good design talk. Because Barclay has a new belonging outside belonging game that's just come out - Begin Again, check the link below - today I'm talking with them about lures, maybe my favorite part of the belonging outside belonging engine, and specifically how they're implemented in Heave in the Dust... Further Reading Heaven in the Dust by Luke Jordan Begin Again by Barclay Travis Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Tabletop Book Club, Bee, and Barclay on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Always Give Them The Clue (GUMSHOE) with Tristan Zimmerman

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My friend Tristan Zimmerman is currently crowdfunding Ballad Hunters, a GUMSHOE game, meaning it’s based on a core mechanic built for investigation games and gathering clues. That mechanic goes like this: “always give the players the clue.” Simple! And I think so astute as to what the actual fun part of investigation is in RPGs: it’s not “can we roll high enough to progress,” it’s “once we have all these clues, how do we put them together and what do we do with them?” Further Reading Ballad Hunters by Tristan Zimmerman, now on Kickstarter GUMSHOE by Cat Tobin, a list of resources for and articles about GUMSHOE The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola Socials Tristan on Bluesky. Molten Sulfur Blog, Nations & Cannons, and Shanty Hunters from Tristan Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

The Voice of the Text (Triangle Agency) with Seraphina Garcia Ramirez

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I bet you’ve heard of this game Triangle Agency. Big exciting Kickstarter, super flashy product design, a game with… spoilers in the back? It’s corporate horror, it’s packed gorgeous art, it’s a game I spent 20 sessions with in 2025. And I… had a pretty frustrating time with the game. There is so much I love and admire about Triangle Agency, but also so much I struggled with, and I wanted to break it all down on the show. And I didn’t want to do that without bringing on someone who could unabashedly sing this game’s praises, because I think the game deserves that too. So today I’m joined by the general manager of my campaign, moderator of the Dice Exploder discord, my friend Seraphina Garcia Ramirez, to talk about the voice of Triangle Agency's game text and really the whole game at large. It's the longest episode of Dice Exploder ever. Let's go. Further Reading Triangle Agency by Caleb Zane Huett and Sean Ireland Socials Seraphina on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

• Transcript

Draw Maps, Leave Blanks (Dungeon World) with Tim Denee

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com If the thesis of last week’s episode was “hey the fiction of your game matters a lot and can even have mechanical effects,” how do you know how deeply to define that fiction? Maybe no one in indie games has recently faced that question on quite the scale of Tim Denee with Blades ‘68, an expansion to Blades in the Dark. I wanted to have him on to talk about when you completely reinvent the setting, how do you think about what parts of the fiction are important and need to be kept vs what parts should evolve and change? And to do that, we picked an old mechanic from Dungeon World that cuts to the heart of it: draw maps, leave blanks. But how detailed of maps, and how big of blanks? Further Reading Blades 68 on Backerkit Blades in the Dark by John Harper Dungeon World Tim’s maps of Doskvol Socials Tim on Bluesky and olddog.games Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Doskvol's Lightning Barriers (Blades in the Dark) with Nova

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com In Blades in the Dark, you play as criminals in Doskvol a haunted city where the ghosts are such a problem that they built giant lightning barriers around the whole city to keep them out. That sentence alone already makes me want to get the game to the table, and we haven’t even gotten to the rules of Blades in the Dark yet. That’s the conversation I wanted to take a crack at today: rules are important, they can radically shape play, but the fiction a game brings is just as important. Doskvol’s lightning barriers mean you can’t just run away into the wilderness after you’ve committed some crimes, and that’s just as important for ratcheting up the tension and consequences of your campaign as the mechanic of devil’s bargains... Further Reading Blades in the Dark by John Harper Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall Apocalypse World 3e/Burned Over by Meguey & Vincent Baker Wanderhome by Jay Dragon Vincent Baker on How Apocalypse World Is Structured (like an onion) In Praise of Legwork by Sam Sorensen 1d20 Diegetic Rules, 1d20 Hypo-Diegetic Rules by Sam Sorensen The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola Socials Nova on Bluesky. Nova’s blog, Playful Void. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Setting Elements (Dream Askew / Dream Apart) with Kodi Gonzaga

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com There's many ways to decide who has authority over what in an RPG. Traditional games have a bunch of players with one PC each and a GM responsible for everything else, while Dreams Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Ben Rosenbaum takes a very different approach: divide that "everything else" up into flavorful pieces, like "gossip & reputation" and "the wild forest" and give everyone a piece. That choice has become one of the backbones of Belonging Outside Belonging games (hacks of Dream Askew / Dream Apart), and today I'm joined by my good friend Kodi Gonzaga, a designer making just such a game, to break down exactly how it works at the table. Kodi's game Extra Ordinary is on Kickstarter now. Check it out! Further Reading Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Extra Ordinary on Kickstarter! Kodi on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Afterimage: The Experimental Role-Playing Laboratory

Dice Exploder: Afterimage is alternative show format, a cross between play report and personal memoir. The Experimental Role-Playing Laboratory, or ERPL, was a thrice a year mini convention put on by students at my college back in the 00s and 10s and onward to this day. It's how I got into indie games. I still think about it, and the people I met there, to this day. They still mean something to me. What might I still mean to them? Written, edited, and performed by Sam Dunnewold Tristan Zimmerman at the Molten Sulfur blog Steven’s newsletter and novels. Try Black Velvet to start. Transcript available at www.diceexploder.com Music by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/ My games: sdunnewold.itch.io Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceexploder.com

2025 Year End Bonanza

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com It's the Dice Exploder 2025 year end bonanza! This year I'm joined by Lin Codega and Diogo Nogueira to go over a whole bunch of game mechanics that we think represent where rpgs were at in 2025 and where they might be going in the future. Further Reading Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall Praise the Hawkmoth King by Sage the Anagogue I want to fight my friends in the back of a moving truck by Seraphina Garcia Ramirez Traffic Lights Are Communication Tools by Meguey Baker Daggerheart Draw Steel The One Ring starter set Sam Sorensen’s overview of Over/Under and one of Lin’s pieces on the aftermath Apocalypse World 3e Kickstarter (now finished) Socials Rascal.news Weird Games and Weirder People Lin and Diogo on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon

Inventory Tetris (Mausritter) with Quinns

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Mausritter is an old school dungeon crawling game where instead of playing as elves fighting dragons, you play as mice fleeing from owls. It’s not unlike any number of other old school games like Cairn or Into the Odd, but its inventory system is the only inventory system I’ve ever actually liked. Does it work differently than other games? At a raw numbers level, not really! But instead of a bunch of paper bookkeeping, Mausritter turns items into little cardboard squares like board game pieces that you put in a grid on your character sheet. That physicality makes all the difference. Further Reading Mausritter by Isaac Williams The Lonely Oak by Victor Lane Cairn by Yochai Gal Blades in the Dark by John Harper Quinns Quest on youtube and patreon. Socials Quinns on Bluesky. Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon

The Brainer VS The Brain-Picker (Apocalypse World 2e/3e) with the Bakers

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Apocalypse World 3rd edition is on Kickstarter right now. In many ways, it hasn’t changed much. In many ways, it's a whole new apocalypse. So I thought it'd be fun to have on the Bakers and go through a playbook - the Brainer in 2e vs its equivalent the Brain-Picker in 3e - and ask them about every single change on the sheet, from updating the basic moves all the way down to a single name on a single picklist. Further Reading Apocalypse World: Burned Over 3e on Kickstarter and a preview of The Brain-Picker Apocalypse World 2e handouts, including the Brainer Designing a seduce or manipulate replacement on the Dice Exploder Patreon Preview the Bakers’ seduce or manipulate replacement on their Patreon Socials Meguey and Vincent on Bluesky. The Baker House Blog Sam on Bluesky and itch. The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon

Actual Play: Void 1680 AM Community Broadcasts with Ken Lowery

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com To close out this miniseries on actual play, I wanted to feature a game that I think uses actual play as a game mechanic. Hear me out. Void 1680 AM is a solo playlist-building game in which you create a fictional radio broadcast. Except when you're done, you can send it to the game's creator (this week's cohost Ken Lowery), and he'll broadcast it out onto the real radio via the AM antenna in his garage (and on YouTube). Obviously it feels different to play the game knowing it's going to go out on air. But I think it feels different even just knowing that it could go out on air. And while most actual play feels first and foremost like an act of performance, Ken's broadcasts feel more like an extension of gameplay and an act of community building. How's it feel to be inside all that? Come take a listen. Further Reading Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery Void 1680 AM Community Broadcasts archives on YouTube Sam’s Void Community Broadcast Chinese larp of Void on Instagram Characters Without Stories featuring Sam Socials Ken on Bluesky and itch. You can purchase physical copies from his imprint Bannerless Games. Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon