Episode 280: Problem Solving Gases
February 16th, 2018 | Robin
February loses its rep as the cruelest month when we confront it with an all-hut, all-request episode, in tribute to our fabulous Patreon backers.
In the Gaming Hut, Tom Bagatelle seeks guidance on a sandbox time travel campaign.
Peter Williamson adds reclining couches to the Food Hut as we consider the Roman cookbook attributed to Apicius.
Zachary Joyner meets us in the Cartography Hut for the 101 on telling stories with places.
Finally David Sowa makes an urgent topical request in the Eliptony Hut. Dare we crack the mystery of Taco Bell’s Belluminati ads?
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In Atlas Games’ wickedly different cooperative deck-building game Witches of the Revolution, you and your doughty coven fight the American Revolution the way it was really fought: with spells aplenty! Resurrect Ben Franklin, cure Paul Revere of lycanthropy and keep those red-coated witch hunters at bay.
It wasn’t on the maps. No one talked about it. But now you live there. Cthulhu City. Where the mayor goes everywhere with twin sacred jaguars, and the chief of police blinks at your with fishy eyes. Where the cultists run city hall and the investigators are hunted criminals. Cthulhu City, the new Trail of Cthulhu sourcebook from Pelgrane Press, by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.
It’s tiny, it fits on your keychain, it’s complete and flexible, and it’s already almost gone. Askfageln presents the Kickstarter for the Keychain RPG, now in English, not Swedish.
With your Handlers Guide already at your side, it’s time to assemble some operations to spiral your Delta Green operatives into paranoia and Mythos horror. Delta Green: A Night at the Opera features six terrifying adventures from the conspiratorial minds of Dennis Detwiller, Shane Ivey, and Greg Stolze. Preorder before it’s desperately too late! 
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I think the obvious classical example of telling a story with locations is The Odyssey, but many episodic TV shows (Star Trek: TOS or Have Gun, Will Travel, for instance) have essentially that same sort of structure.
In RPGs, classical Traveller was, I think, mostly run that way as well: This week, our heroes will take their tramp freighter to the Jungle Planet™, next week to the Desert Planet™, and the week after to The Planet of the Rocks®.
There might be a B or C plot that gets occasional passing mention, but the A plot is extremely vignetted and has a story arc that lasts 24 or 48 minutes (barring the rare two-episode story, of course).
We’ve had Worcestershire Sauce since 1837, and that was pretty much garum. Although English cooking didn’t discover garlic until Elizabeth David in 1950.
Thank you for another fun party! Hope you’re having a great week!
I haven’t boiled an ostrich, but I have tried a few of Apicius’s recipes. Specifically: his sausage recipe is pretty good (pork and spelt; I used cracked wheat from the hippie co-op store). His recipe for a “Lucullan Dish” is also good: green onions cooked in broth with salt pork and honey.
There’s also something called the “Apician Dish” which at first glance seems like a horrid mix of pork, fish, chicken, eggs, and whatnot — until you realize it’s basically lasagne.
The Dover edition was translated by Joseph Vehling, a restaurateur, in the 1920s. Some of Vehling’s equivalencies and interpretations are a little dodgy in my opinion, but overall it’s a good book, and I keep it with the other cookbooks.
There are, of course, already numerous *actual* conspiracy theorist videos about the Belluminati ads, mostly following Ken and Robin’s recommendations for fictional usage — the ads are either “blown cover as cover” or subtle conditioning to accept the real Illuminati.