Posts Tagged ‘How To Write Good’
Episode 518: A Big Fan of Heliocentrism
October 14th, 2022 | Robin
Belle Époque wings flutter as the Gaming Hut brings the faery world into The Yellow King Roleplaying Game.
Ken issues a Travel Advisory for his recent visit to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
In How to Write Good we look at calibrating your characters’ complexity level to the story you are telling.
Finally at the request of beloved Patreon backer Louis Sylvester, the Consulting Occultist profiles Cotton Mather.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
The PDF of Atlas Games’ prehistoric, dinosaur-approved 5E setting, Planegea, is ready to hurtle to your download folder like a theropod toward an sauropod. Order it now for immediate download!
Track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt city, clamber through underground ruins and investigate the intrigues of your decadent rivals in Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE game of swords, sorcery and mystery, now available from Pelgrane Press.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
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Delta Green Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient, brings a team of Agents to a scene of horrors all too real: Mosul in 2016, held by the self-styled Islamic State in a reign of depraved brutality. From a small base at the Kirkuk airfield, the Agents must research the horrors to come and prepare for a harrowing infiltration. Terrors and new supplementary material await, now in PDF, hardback now in preorder.
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Episode 478: His Pursevant Had Dropsy
January 7th, 2022 | Robin
We open up the Gaming Hut for another year and find a strangely folded missive from beloved Patreon backer Stephen Dosman, who wants us to incorporate the practice of letter-locking into historical games.
A new series begins in the Mythos Hut, as we construct a Lovecraftian deity, starting with a look at the common qualities of the existing ones.
In How to Write Good we look at the process of deciding how smart your various fictional antagonists are.
Finally estimable backer Michael David Jr. enjoins the Consulting Occultist to profile English writer and Catholic decadent Montague Summers.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Human problems are out of hand, so thank goodness, and Atlas Games, for Magical Kitties Save the Day, a fresh, fun roleplaying game for players of all ages, and for GMs from age 6 and up!
Score a blood-drenched special bonus from Pelgrane Press when you order the print edition Night’s Black Agents Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook or any of its associated bundles. A new 50-page Cuttings PDF of deleted scenes and horrors that didn’t fit is now available for a limited time with the voucher code VAMP2021.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Delta Green: Black Sites collects terrifying Delta Green operations previously published only in PDF or in standalone paperback modules. They lock bystanders and Agents alike in unlit rooms with the cosmic terrors of the unnatural. A 208 page hardback by masters of top secret mythos horror Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Shane Ivey, and Caleb Stokes.
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Episode 460: The Price is Scarecrow
August 27th, 2021 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer V. R. Weather asks for a 101 on playtesting. Surprised that we have not directly tackled this basic topic before, we immediately comply.
The Tradecraft Hut profiles the peripatetic career of OSS and CIA operative Louise Page Morris.
In How to Write Good estimable Patreon backer Benjamin Rawls wants to know when it’s okay to lengthen your novel.
Finally the Conspiracy Corner maintains a six-foot distance from its latest subject matter, germ theory denialism.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Dig out your plastic T-Rexes and get them ready to stomp and chomp on your players’ character miniatures as our pals at Atlas Games announce the upcoming Kickstarter for Planegea, their dino-filled 5E setting of prehistoric fantasy adventure.
You’ve got the Pelgrane greatest hits, but from now, until Monday September 6th, you can gather up the Deep Cuts. Bundle together Skullduggery, Lorefinder, The Gaean Reach, The Gaean Reach Gazetteer, and Owl Hoot Trail together in PDF at the Pelgrane Press shop and get a whopping 25% off!
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Fear Is a Fractal …and your world is a lie. A horror freed from an antique book reverberates through reality. But don’t despair. There is hope. A King waits for us. And Impossible Landscapes, the first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game waits for you. In PDF now, hardback in May. Hailed as “one of the best RPG campaigns ever made” and “a masterpiece of surreal horror!”
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Episode 454: A Disreputable Trade
July 16th, 2021 | Robin
Make sure anyone else in the room is really them as the Gaming Hut looks at fox spirits, doppelgangers, and other foes who disguise themselves as human.
The Tradecraft Hut profiles CIA operative, author, and coup arranger Miles Axe Copeland, Jr.
How to Write Good serves up tips on the revision process, from break taking to change tracking.
Finally beloved Patreon backer Steve Dempsey engages Ken’s Time Machine for a peek at the timeline where Oliver Cromwell picks his competent son as successor.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Bears need hairstyles! Lumberjacks need beards! Be friends to both in Yukon Salon, a quick, humorous, family card game in a tin, from our snow-dappled pals at Atlas Games. Take Your Place at the Frontier of Style !
It distorts minds. It invades realities. Now it has invaded the Bundle of Holding. Grab the Yellow Bundle and get The Yellow King Roleplaying Game for a price normally available only in dread alternate dimensions. Level up to the threshold price and get Ken’s Annotated King in Yellow, plus Absinthe in Carcosa, The Missing and the Lost, and New Tales of the Yellow Sign. You have them all already but send your friends to the Bundle of Holding.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Fear Is a Fractal …and your world is a lie. A horror freed from an antique book reverberates through reality. But don’t despair. There is hope. A King waits for us. And Impossible Landscapes, the first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game waits for you. In PDF now, hardback in May. Hailed as “one of the best RPG campaigns ever made” and “a masterpiece of surreal horror!”
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Episode 417: Double Devil
October 16th, 2020 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut, beloved Patreon backer Ross Ireland asks about the possibility of victory in an ongoing game. Is it essential, or can certain doom become its own kind of win?
Regal backer Mikey Hamm beckons us into an especially resplendent version of the History Hut to hear about the Amber Room and the curses associated with it.
In How to Write Good, we show you how to spot the ominous signs of an unmotivated protagonist.
Finally the Eliptony Hut reveals the secrets of the Vatican’s time viewer.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
You know your dance crew is the hottest around… but now it’s time to prove it. Breakdancing Meeples is a real-time dexterity game of, you guessed it, breakdancing meeples, designed by Ben Moy and published by Atlas Games. Two to four people, ages six and up, compete for dancefloor glory, in five exciting minutes.
Send your 13th Age characters deep below the Dragon Empire, and even deeper into danger, with Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Book of the Underworld. Get all the subterranean exploration and menace your adventurers can handle at the Pelgrane Press store. For a limited time only, get 10% off print or PDF with the voucher code STUFFWORLD.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Suit up, agents of Delta Green. Your battle to save humanity from unnatural horrors is going beyond the Beltway. Delta Green: The Labyrinth is now shipping to a secure dead drop near you. Written by Delta Green co-creator John Scott Tynes, this all-new collection of organizations dives deep into the fissures of America in the new millennium.
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Episode 406: The Mystical Land of Hat
July 31st, 2020 | Robin
Beloved Patreon backer Manfred convenes us in a camouflage-covered Gaming Hut to ask how to run Fall of Delta Green agents through the Vietnam War. Complicating factor: his players are ex-military; Manfred is not.
Esteemed Patreon backer Dan O’Hanlon unfurls the Crime Blotter for a briefing on Toronto’s tow truck wars.
In How to Write Good, we wonder which words are too laden with earthbound cultural reference to use in texts concerning other worlds.
Finally astute Patreon backer Rolfe Bergstrom attaches a telescope to the Eliptony Hut so we can look at that most anomalous of asteroids, ‘Oumuamua.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
You know your dance crew is the hottest around… but now it’s time to prove it. Breakdancing Meeples is a real-time dexterity game of, you guessed it, breakdancing meeples, designed by Ben Moy and published by Atlas Games. Two to four people, ages six and up, compete for dancefloor glory, in five exciting minutes.
You’ve heard him talk about it. Now you can get it at retail or in the Pelgrane Press store: The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. Shatter your world with this eerie, physically imposing GUMSHOE game of decadent art and multiple existences. For a limited time only, enter the voucher code YELLOW at the Pelgrane shop to get 15% off all Yellow King items when you combine the core set with Absinthe in Carcosa and/or The Missing and the Lost.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Suit up, agents of Delta Green. Your battle to save humanity from unnatural horrors is going beyond the Beltway. Delta Green: The Labyrinth is now shipping to a secure dead drop near you. Written by Delta Green co-creator John Scott Tynes, this all-new collection of organizations dives deep into the fissures of America in the new millennium.
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Episode 401: Chorus Cubed
June 26th, 2020 | Robin
In the Gaming Hut, Ken introduces us to the meta-textual, meme-filled wonderland that is his Fall of Delta Green player group.
The Crime Blotter visits the wild mobbed-up years when Montreal Quebec was the Vegas of the north.
In How To Write Good a question from beloved Patreon backer Daniel Gill prompts a look at present tense and other contemporary literary devices in fantasy fiction.
Finally Ken’s Time Machine attempts a difficult bank shot. Time Inc. has always wanted to prevent the Robert Kennedy assassination. But how to do it without, as detailed in this Smithsonian piece by Kevin Sandler, erasing Scooby Doo from the timeline?
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
The place you only think you remember explodes with weird danger in Welcome to the Island, the first adventure anthology for Over the Edge from Atlas Games. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots that bring the weird to your gaming table.
You’ve heard him talk about it. Now you can get it at retail or in the Pelgrane Press store: The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. Shatter your world with this eerie, physically imposing GUMSHOE game of decadent art and multiple existences. For a limited time only, enter the voucher code YELLOW at the Pelgrane shop to get 15% off all Yellow King items when you combine the core set with Absinthe in Carcosa and/or The Missing and the Lost.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing’s Shane Ivey brings you Swords and Sorceries, fifth edition adventure in a sea-swept world inspired by ancient myth. Seek your fortunes, or find gruesome death in the tombs of forgotten gods and evils best left buried. Seize all three adventures, Sea Demon’s Gold, Song of the Sun Queens, and Tomb of Fire, today!
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Episode 399: Webster’s Defines a Shoggoth As
June 12th, 2020 | Robin
The Gaming Hut goes below the depths for beloved Patreon backer Hector Trelane, who seeks tips on adapting the feel of Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 classic Das Boot into a roleplaying setting.
How to Write Good revisits the issue of prose style in RPG books with more tips to strengthen and clarify your work.
Fun With Science follows a tip from esteemed Patreon backer Gabriel Rossman, who has discovered a peculiar case of a scientific paper published under the stolen identities of researchers who had nothing to do with it.
Finally theatrically appalled Patreon backer Brian Malcolm demands redress for recent aspersions cast on Davenport, Iowa, in the form of an Ask Ken and Robin segment devoted to the manifold historical and eliptonic wonders of that beatific municipality.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
If you believe that games should have dwarves, that dwarves should roll dice, and that true camaraderie is hollering “Cheers!” and sharing a beer, then Dice Miner is for you. Avoid dragons and cave-ins as you roll custom dice down a 3D mountain. Kickstarting as of May 26, from Atlas Games.
You’ve heard him talk about it. Now you can get it at retail or in the Pelgrane Press store: The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. Shatter your world with this eerie, physically imposing GUMSHOE game of decadent art and multiple existences. For a limited time only, enter the voucher code YELLOW at the Pelgrane shop to get 15% off all Yellow King items when you combine the core set with Absinthe in Carcosa and/or The Missing and the Lost.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing’s Shane Ivey brings you Swords and Sorceries, fifth edition adventure in a sea-swept world inspired by ancient myth. Seek your fortunes, or find gruesome death in the tombs of forgotten gods and evils best left buried. Seize all three adventures, Sea Demon’s Gold, Song of the Sun Queens, and Tomb of Fire, today!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 366: Ample Provender
October 18th, 2019 | Robin
We hunker down in the mud and fear of the Gaming Hut to answer beloved Patreon backer Bill Durfy’s request to combine WWI and ghouls.
Impeachment is in the news, the 1867 news that is, as the History Hut covers the attempt to remove Andrew Johnson from the White House.
In How to Write Good we provide tips on creating blocked desires for your dramatic characters.
Finally the Food Hut takes a journey on Ken’s Time Machine as we peer into the dire timeline prevented when our hero supplied the yeast strain necessary for the brewing of lager.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Welcome to the Island is the first adventure anthology for the third edition of the Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games. It features five original storylines by award-winning authors, each with hooks for different characters. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots to bend your players’ heads.
What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.
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Episode 361: Step Away From the Arras
September 13th, 2019 | Robin
We take a closer look at Ken’s new Pelgrane Press book Hideous Creatures by way of the Monster Hut, which seems to be full of our pals, the Deep Ones.
In How To Write Good we talk about foils and how to use them.
The Culture Hut hosts a discussion of a painting by none other than Robert W. Chambers, which peskily revealed itself too late to include in Ken’s annotated edition of The King in Yellow from our eldritch buds at Arc Dream.
Finally the Eliptony Hut goes CanCon as we meet the Ottawa Prophet, Ezekiel Stone Wiggins. Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Does your head buzz with game ideas? Then you need The White Box! This indispensable toolbox gives you not only the meeples, cubes, dice, tokens, and discs you need to prototype your design but the deep expertise of 25 essays ranging from the theoretical to the practical. Brought to you by Atlas Games and Gameplaywright. 
Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available in print or PDF or both from Pelgrane Press. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agency hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.
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