Show producer Tori Brewster joins us, fresh from pitching her TV show to many hotshot bigdeal showbiz types in LA, to discuss her brief HOLLYWOOD encounter with reported Mac Justin Long (+ other anecdotes!). Also covered: Miles’s stint at Games on Demand at Emerald City Comicon, the joys of nitrous oxide, and Brendan Adkins’s brilliant Twitter toys.

Talk briefly strays to a gaming-related topic – what it means to be a skilled gamer, and how our definitions of what ‘good’ is limits our gaming experience.

But only briefly.

Hosts: Kaycee, River, Ken, Tori, Tobin, Miles

Notes + Links:

• Leonard Nimoy, In Search Of…
• Hypnopaedia
• HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast
• Starpilot
• Justin Long
• Go Play NW
• Fabricated Realities
• Brandon Bird’s Law & Order art
• The Games: Microscope, Dungeon World, D&D, Metrofinale, Fiasco, Durance, Danger Patrol

Also some bits this time about Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search Of…”, Brian Wood rehabilitating treasured dude-centric nerd properties, and “Knight & Squire” (not porn!).

Then River talks about David Bowie’s package.

Hosts: Tanya, River, Miles

Notes + Links:

• Game Night at The Highline
• Local story game luminaries we name drop (and even get to game with sometimes!): Jackson Tegu, Ross Cowman, Morgan Stinson, Ben Robbins
• Free D&D Club in Renton – Bring your kids, kill a monster!
• Dreamy Brian Wood’s Star Wars and X-men books
• Agents of Shield on TV; Days of Future Past in the movies (now with more Dinklage!)
• Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of…
• Art of Video Games exhibit at EMP
• Supernatural
• Russian Meteor
• Emerald City Comicon (come to the basement of the conference center and play the story games!)
• Personal Audio’s copyright trolling
• The Games: D&D, Cthulhu Dark, They Became Flesh, Apocalypse World, Fiasco, Marvel Legendary, Miskatonic School for Girls

We get right at it this week, joining our intrepid hosts in mid-conversation about the not-so-recent-yet-depressingly-ongoing fake geek girls crap. After Tanya drops some knowledge, the group continues on with a variety of brief updates and opinions on popular films and video games of the day, traveling to Mars, and teleportation.

The second half of today’s talk deals with problematic (nerd) media – media that, with greater or lesser severity, is injurious to folks. We discuss what one’s responsibility might be as a consumer and fan, and briefly examine the urge to be defensive of the art you love – even when it’s flawed. Then the snake bites its own tale and the universe ends.

Hosts: Ken, River, Tanya, Miles

Notes & Links:

• @Scalzi blog post with ‘being a geek’ money quote
• WTF with Marc Maron – interview with Elizabeth Banks (a serious and professional podcast)
• Some Movies: Antichrist (Yes!), Mama (Sorta!), Snowtown Murders (if you want to think bad things about humanity), Underworld (NoNoNoNo), Django Unchained (it’s complicated…)
• Dungeon Ghetto and Gizoogle
• D&D Classics – $4.99 for Keep on the Borderlands in PDF areyoufuckingkidding
• My ill-informed theory about D&DNext being D&DLast
• Farcry 3 – Ken loves to hate this game
• Teleportation article
• Mars Colony article
• Molecular Data Storage article
• The games: Not a damn thing! What happened!

A much younger and more naive Dean

In this episode we jump right into the topic of improvisation and creating fiction in games. We talk about why some players may be more disposed to proactively make story, how some games may scare players away from being creative by demanding it, and how other games may train players away from contributing description or story. Then we make some dirty jokes!

Also covered: Dean reports back on the Portland Retro Gaming Expo AND discusses his brief modeling career, James recommends a dark film of possibly foreign origin, Miles gushes about some damn kickstarter projects, and there is brief hand-wringing over how this little show can possibly weather the combined vulgarity of both Dean and Ken.

Hosts: James, David, Kaycee, Dean, Miles

Notes + Links:
A Tragedy in Five Acts on Kickstarter
The d20 Book of Erotic Fantasy
The Portland Retro Gaming Expo
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Looper
Moonlight Kingdom
New Conan
The Games: Temporally Excellent Adventures, Serpent’s Tooth, Orion Canning’s Games, Burning Wheel, D&D, Apocalypse World, Quiet Year, Fiasco, Vampire the Masquerade(!), Archipelago, Play with Intent

Also, James confronts the Tentacle Bento people and goes all militant on representatives of the Xbox monolith; Miles has a devastating fanboy moment with Luke Crane; and new host Dean hitches his wagon to this ridiculous show.

Notes + Links:

• The Wii U
• Classic Arcade cabinets by Ground Kontrol in Portland
• Indie Games on Demand are our heroes!
• Tentacle Bento – Shit I ain’t linking to of the week!
• MC Frontalot
• The Games: Temporally Excellent Adventures, The Serpent’s Tooth, Fingers on the Firmament, Go Puck Yourself, Apocalypse World, Cards Against Humanity, Yomi, Game of Thrones Board Game, Playstation All-Stars, Miskatonic School for Girls, Fix-It Felix

James is the one on the right.

We recorded this on the street corner.

An intimate little episode this time out. James and Miles talk about games that promote thought and discussion on important, but sometimes uncomfortable, topics. This boils down to (more) talk about Dog Eat Dog and Dogs in the Vineyard…and the hosts’ unconscious tendency to portray some rough stereotypes in both those games.

And! Miles talks about his experience at Geek Girl Con 12 with his increasingly large youngest child, James recommends some art film you may have heard of, and S-CH’s predictions for the Penny Arcade KS campaign come true!

• Fiasco Mobile – all the playsets, and fits in your vest pocket
• Matriarchy – awesome free online game that has taken the indie-game-design-twitterverse by storm
• Geek Girl Con in Seattle
• Unnecessary link of the week: The Artist
• Come and play games with us at PAX Indie Games on Demand!
• The Games: Dog Eat Dog, Dogs in the Vineyard, Farewell to Fear, Reality

This time on Self-Critical Hits we give some brief mini-reviews of The Dark Knight Rises (The Panther doth recommend) and Marvel RPG, with some talk of  how the latter stacks up to our one other experience with the Cortex system (the Battlestar RPG) and its flexibility, hackability, and Avatarability.

We also talk up the Raygun Lounge Kickstarter (which, seriously, why haven’t you backed it yet?!), and get into a little bit of what we’re excited for at PAX 2012. This includes David enthusiastically gushing over the Blackwater video game. Doesn’t he realize that’s exactly what The Man wants?!

Hosts: David, Kaycee, Miles

Notes & Links:

• Unnecessary link of the episode: The Dark Knight Rises
• Marvel Heroic Roleplaying(!)
• The Raygun Lounge – Kickstart this place, then drink in it!
• The PAX Pink Party!
• Indie/Story Games at PAX – Details to come!
• The Games: Skyrim: Dawnguard, Assassin’s Creed 3, Haunted (not free, I lied!), Steel Battalion, Blackwater (not linking to this one, lest they come for my librul ass!), Battlestar RPG

Well, Uncle Uli wasn’t entirely wrong. The new migrants aren’t particularly useful. We’re trying to carve out dormitories and stabilize our food stocks, and we get lyemakers and fish processors, like we need lye or have any fish to goddamn process. The boss, Avuz, has them hauling rocks and furniture around now. We did get an herbalist out of it, and she’s a good forager. The migrants brought food, also. Barrels of it, and livestock too! I had a blade to that water buffalo’s throat before he could even start grazing and it fed us for weeks. We had plenty of booze for everybody, and now we have something to put on our plates. I can finally enjoy my work again, and I don’t even care that I’m sleeping on my kitchen floor until they finish carving out my bedroom. I’m cooking, so I’m happy for now.

This was not our (read: the expedition’s) first choice, though I am not complaining. Cats, and all of their component parts, are delicious. Oddly, the farmers are the only ones who complain despite the fact that this outcome was largely of their design. Had they succeeded in their cave farm we would be in a different situation, but the fact of the matter is that we had no surplus beyond what we needed for booze. I can tell you unequivocally that each dwarf in this doomed expedition would rather have ale than bread. Each one of us. That’s why I’m friends with the brewer; cooks and brewers usually get along great. The farmers grumble, but when we put a grilled cat haunch and a mug of stout in front of them they grumble less.

I don’t know why we didn’t bring chickens. I could whip up an insane catmeat omelet that would completely cure the worst hangovers the miners could impose upon themselves, but we have no eggs and we’re running out of cats. The hunter brings meat back once in a while but it’s nothing we can count on, more like a bonus than a staple. I don’t know the first thing about hunting, so I don’t know if this region is sparse in the way of game or if he is just terrible at hunting. Ultimately I suppose that doesn’t matter. What matters most is that we have been relying on cats to eat for the last two seasons and now we don’t have many left. I shudder to think what will happen when we run out; I have heard rumors of cannibalism, but I don’t want to believe them. I can’t think about that right now. I’m going to see what’s brewing over in my buddy’s workshop and sample some of it. Well, a lot of it, at least until I can figure out some other way to feed these jerks. That or pass out. Whichever, really.

The Site of GPNW 2013?

SPOILERS for Legend of Korra in this episode – watch out!

We are all over the map in this surprisingly journalistic installment of Self-Critical Hits. David gives a lengthy and glowing review of the new-ish Walking Dead video games, Miles reports on his HARDCORE multi-story game experience at Go Play NW 2012, James tells the tale of his run in with a gang of Scientologist toughs downtown, and we do our best to jeopardize our PAX media credentials. Plus – surprise! – blue humor!

We also get all mushy and a little entitled about the finale of Legend of Korra, discuss our singular capacity for butchering game rules on actual play recordings (what up, Dog Eat Dog), and talk James through his fear of twitter (short version: he is worried it will turn him into a closeted, homophobic, southern politician).

Hosts: David, James, Kaycee, Ken, Miles

Notes & Links:

• The Walking Dead – for Steam and Xbox 3600 and maybe that Sony deal…
• Go Play Northwest – Be there next year!
• Legend of Korra – if this episode spoiled it we’re sorry…but you totally should have watched it already
• Scientology
• Jerry Seinfeld interview re: Scientology
• Migration from Asia to North America
• Penny Arcade Sells Out! (no, hey, they called it that) on Kickstarter
• Xena warrior princess on the battlefield of tomorrow?
• New CoD: Black Ops featuring Ollie North as spokesman and “the Messiah of the 99%”
• CGI Money Shots!
• Science! Homophobes!
• The Games: Dog Eat Dog, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, My Daughter Queen of France, Freemarket