In this nominally spooky episode, we’re talking about DEATH. Who decides when a hero falls - is it the whims of the dice, the demands of the narrative, or a knife-edge entente between the two?

Violet calculates the exact value of her friends’ lives. Freya uses a stake to take a break.

Violet brings a gun to a dice fight. Freya gets knocked down, but gets back up again.

Our thanks to the listeners who mailed in with comments on last week’s topic, Initiative - if you have a question, idea, or interesting game you’d like to share with us, email systemshoppodcast@gmail.com!

Games discussed in this episode:

Call of Cthulhu

Wanderhome

OD&D

Traveller

Vampire: the Masquerade

Dogs in the Vineyard

Apocalypse World / Powered by the Apocalypse

Monsterhearts

Vaesen

Dread

Ten Candles*

Mothership

Delta Green

Paranoia

Phoenix: Dawn Command

Blades in the Dark

Pathfinder (1e)

Edge of the Empire / Genesys

Cosmere RPG

Armour Astir

Daggerheart

Wildsea

Old School Essentials

Heart

Legacy: Life Among the Ruins

Pendragon

Mummy: the Curse

Rogue Trader

Arkham Horror

Aeon’s End

Star Wars Armada

Grandia

Battletech**

Forbidden Stars

Game of Thrones (the board game)

Gears of War

Control

Wildermyth

Rogue***

Magic: the Gathering

Notes:

* less spooky, but perhaps more manageable, than thirteen candles.

** the videogame by Harebrained Schemes, not the tabletop wargame, for once!

*** and its roguelike descendants.

1. Violet’s Bag Jam can be found at https://itch.io/jam/token-bag , running from Friday 1st to Saturday 23rd November 2024.

2. Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds, by Gary Alan Fine, was first published in 1983.

3. A helpful chart: https://xkcd.com/1890/

A disclaimer:

Freya is a volunteer playtester for both the Cosmere RPG and Daggerheart. She is not being paid in any way, and draws examples from their open beta material when relevant because they’re fresh in her mind!

Additional credits:

Our intro music is

"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Spooky halloween music by Divider Line (dividerline.bandcamp.com)

Sound effects by the BBC © copyright 2024 BBC (https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/search?q=07043402)

Editing, musical stings, and other sound effects by Violet Henderson