Episode 5 - The House Rule Strikes Back

Hello, human subjects!

This week's episode comes in response to an email we received a while back.

Just how do you play your games? Are you a by-the-book kind of person, or do you try to be flexible like the proverbial willow? House rules can breathe a special, unique life into a game that might have grown stale. Think about playing Monopoly: do you put $500 in the middle of the board so Free Parking helps your bottom line? Or do you read the instructions and follow everything it says?

This week, Matt and Jeff discuss their views on running games, and we've even sweetened the pot: but I don't want to give it away. Let's just say that We want everyone within the sound of our voice to choose a side, and leave comments.



In this episode, we're even more organized than we've been in the past--meaning, we included all the segments we'd hoped to: S.D.C. News, M.D.C. News, Discussion, Creature Feature and the Palladium Travel Agency (not a comment on the local PTA, though).

We also wanted to give a few shout-outs to some folks specifically. First, Pioneer Book is a local bookstore that both of us love. Although it doesn't directly deal with gaming, it's an amazing store. If you can find a recent picture of their store, you're in for a treat. Second, Blue Table Painting, which produces some of the best painted miniatures...well, anywhere. Finally, we'd like to mention Dragon's Keep. We both get a lot of our gaming material from there, and it's gotten to the point where the shelves are starting to make things a little crowded!

As always, please let us know what you think about the show. We're always eager to make the show better, but we can't do anything if we don't hear from you! You know how to get in touch with us.

Carry on, citizens.

Episode 4 - A New Hope for Published Scenarios

Greetings, citizens!

Here is the second part of our discussion covering sandbox and published campaigns. You don't have to have listened to the first part, but it helps if you have. This episode builds on those ideas, and hopefully gives you a better idea on how to build better stories in your games.

Also, since we recorded this at the same time as the first part, we didn't have a chance to discuss any M.D.C. news. However, I hope all the Kickstarter backers have gotten their Robotech Tactics boxes by now and are enjoying the figures. And you can be sure I'm looking into getting a copy of the Northern Gun 2 print that Palladium is putting out.

Anyway, that's all for now. Next time, we're going to try including a Creature Feature, a segment focusing on O.C.C.s and the news. It'll be good to be back to normal.



Thanks for listening!
Carry on, citizens.

Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sandbox

Greetings, human subjects!

Here we are again with episode 3 of the Coalition Deadboys Podcast. We hope everyone has been having a good summer, but as it starts to wind down, it just gives everyone more of a chance to play games, right?

In this episode, Jeff and Matt discuss "sandbox" campaigns--that is, games where there is little to no structure insofar as having a concrete story arc. During the recording, we did move on to discuss other things, but the conversation went so long that we're going to put the rest of the discussion out next time. So there's something to look forward to.

Aside from that, we don't have much in terms of M.D.C. News, but we do have a little S.D.C. News for everyone.

Here's the synopsis of this episode:
0:00 - Intro
0:39 - What news we have
9:35 - Discussion segment starts

Again, keep in mind that we recorded this and the next episode all at once, so we don't have a Creature Feature or any other segments for a bit. Naturally, we won't have the news next week because of the situation.

Carry on, citizens.

Episode 2 - Attack of the Martial-Artist Walrus Girl

Hello, everybody!

Once again, it's time for Matt and Jeff to discuss stuff, and the stuff this time is something for every gamer--literally.



And before you ask, no. We did not record this in a wind tunnel. Our normal recording area was being painted, and apparently they didn't want us recording in there while they were doing it. And they didn't want us recording in the main part of the library either, so we moved over to the secondary recording studio (a.k.a. the room in Jeff's house he and his wife haven't organized from when they moved in). Utah summers are pretty hot, so we had to use a fan, so it gets kinda noisy from time to time. Also, Jeff's kids tried to contribute their thoughts from the other room at various points.

But anyway, here's the basic outline of this episode:

0:00: Introduction
0:40: S.D.C. News - A report about Matt's character creation party
13:00: M.D.C. News - Miniatures, books and GenCon, oh my!
29:20: Discussion - Imagine someone isn't familiar with anything Palladium. What are three things you'd have them try to get them into it? Here are ours:

Matt:
1. Random roll tables! Especially insanities, mutations and other...stuff.
2. Contested combat rolls and the common sense rule
3. "Chromatic" alignment, or alignment that isn't like others
Bonus 1: The fact that Palladium actually puts a disclaimer for parents into books...
Bonus 2: Splugorth!!

Jeff:
1. Chromatic alignment, but with a slightly different twist
2. Creativity and cross-pollination between games
3. M.D.C. makes pretty much all non-supernatural critters explode

Hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!

Until next time...carry on, citizens.

Episode 1 - The Phantom Chronology

Hello, everybody!

As promised in Episode 0, here is the continuation of the Coalition Deadboys Podcast! Sorry it's late. Today's discussion focuses on the publication history of Palladium Books, but also includes several segments we're going to be featuring every two weeks. Here is what this episode looks like:

0:00 - Introduction. Kinda need that.

0:44 - S.D.C. News, where your hosts let you know what's going on for them in games, life and all that stuff.

4:58 - M.D.C. News, where we discuss the Palladium Books update from July 17. Yeah, it would have been nice to have the update from July 26, but it came out the day after we recorded. Figures.

14:53 - Discussion. This episode's topic, as mentioned, is the publication history of Palladium Books. There's a lot of it, and there's a lot we didn't really have enough information to cover. Regardless, even Matt said he learned something new. Hopefully, you will too. And hopefully you'll enjoy our...somewhat rambling discussion.

44:51 - Creature Feature. We were running a little shorter than we'd thought, so we decided to talk about our favorite Megaversal critters of the week. Matt's choice was a Melek (sorry if I misspelled it), whereas Jeff's choice was the race of Vampires from Rifts.

57:44 - Feedback and Q&A. Matt got a few questions from Facebook since Episode 0, and we try to answer them. Also, we got some feedback about the volume of the audio, so we cranked it up for this one. Again, let us know if it's better.

Remember, we're now on iTunes, so feel free to subscribe to us there or through a podcatcher of your choice. Please remember to leave us ratings and feedback so we know how we're doing and how we can improve.

By the way, Jeff said that we'd be releasing these podcasts every other Thursday. He lied. It's probably going to be every other Friday. And Jeff says he thinks he's got the uploading thing figured out, so there won't be any delays in the future. Probably.

Carry on, citizens.

Episode 0 - Introductions and Why We're Here

After much ado (and more than a few glitches on the back-end, here it is! The Coalition Deadboys Podcast Episode 0!



This episode is mainly for the benefit of our listeners in that we want everyone to know basically what we're all about and what we want to get from the podcast. Jeff and Matt discuss why Palladium, their individual histories with the games of the Megaverse, and even go a little into character creation.

Toward the end of the episode, we discussed a little about a couple ideas for things that might end up coming down the pipeline, so stick around. Things are only going to get better from here.

Carry on, citizens.