BACKSTORY

Game designer, writer, and consultant Whitney "Strix" Beltràn talks designing with fairy tales, role-playing with archetypes, and keeping mythologies alive.

Strixwerks
Bluebeard's Bride
The Golden Cobra Challenge
Weekly Affirmations on Hyper RPG
Whitney's esearch on Academia.edu
Mulaka, by Lienzo Studios
Twine
Strix on Twitter

Professional organizer Ben "Books" Schwartz talks larping with kids, larping with different traditions, and larping when it's your actual job.

Event Horizon
Ben on Twitter
Trackers Bay
The Wayfinder Experience
College of Wizardry
Living Games
New World Magischola
Magischola's Houses
Brute Force Design in Larp
The Monitor Celestra
Planetfall

What happens when you publish your own game from scratch? How do we welcome new players to the table? Game designer Hakan Seyalioglu on game publishing, community building, and the beautiful collision of the obvious and the unexpected.

Thorny Games
Big Bad Con
Old Friends
Juggernaut
Games within Games
Morgan Stinson and Joe Greathead's Fedora Noir will be available soon!
Roses and Thorns
Mouse Guard
Dread
The Prisoner GURPS
Kathryn Hymes on Backstory
Games on Demand
CAT
The Quiet Year

Do maps make statements, the way games do? Game designer and cartographer Mark Richardson joins Alex to talk publishing games, being sober, and running Vampire larps in the '90s.

Mark on Twitter
Green Hat Designs
Inuktitut Syllabics
7th Sea
Urban Shadows
Project: Dark
King Wen's Tower
Fastaval
Headspace
Apocalypse World
Fiasco
Mind's Eye Theatre
Inheritance
Metatopia/Dreamation
F.A.T.E.

What do digital and tabletop roleplaying have in common? Can worldbuilding in a game help us change the real world? And just what is the "real world" anyway? Scholar and critic Katherine Cross is here to talk digital citizenship, identity plurality, and more.

Katherine on Twitter
On Patreon
On Gamasutra
World of Warcraft: Night Elves
The New Laboratory of Dreams: Roleplaying as Resistance
and Ethics for Cyborgs: On Real Harassment in an "Unreal" Place
Knights of the Old Republic II
Big Bad Con
Gen Con
Epyllion
Cartel
Fall of Magic

How do you teach analog game design? What makes a game "for kids?" How does the context in which we encounter games influence how we play? Designer and community organizer Ross Cowman talks design, play, music, and more.

Heart of the Deernicorn
Fall of Magic
Arbutus Folk School
Fabricated Realities
Monsterhearts
Living Games

What role can Larp play in education across the lifespan? Can it help us develop responsible, reciprocal relationships with our land, waters, and communities? Gabriel de los Angeles joins us to discuss his work integrating role-playing into STEAM education.

NDN Players Research Group
Red Eagle Soaring
Storyteller Roger Fernandes
Sakura Con
Northwest Nerdcast
Dr. Sarah Lynne-Bowman
Gabriel's Living Games Keynote
Gabriel's research presentation at the Education and Simulation Pre-Conference
Dr. Megan Bang
United Indians for All Tribes Foundation
Native Girls Code
Analog Game Studies
SPITE
Klaus Raasted's interview with Gabriel
Evan Torner on Backstory

Is Pokemon Go a larp? What's the difference between torturing your characters and torturing your players? Can game design help you conquer your fears - or just spread them around a little? Larpwright Jacqueline Bryk is here to pose all these questions and many more. We may answer a few of them, too.

Jay Sylvano
MagFest
Double Exposure Conventions
Games on Demand
The Queer Gaymes Anthology
K. N. Granger
David Schirudan's 200-Word RPG Contest
Julia Ellingboe
Brie Sheldon
Kat Jones on Backstory
Damocles Thread
Monsterhearts
Graham Walmsley
Stacey Dellorfano, founder of ConTessa
Sugar Coated: a great documentary on Lolita fashion in America

Larpwright and theorist Katherine Castiello Jones talks sexuality, intimacy, feminism and other hot topics in game design. Can a game about painting your nails make a point about intersecting axes of oppression? We certainly think so.

Kat's Living Games Keynote
Julia Ellingboe
Cady Stanton's Candyland
What is "Parlour Sandbox?"
Swords Without Master
Evan Torner
Intercon
Slash: The Card Game
There's a Fan Fic For That
The #Feminism Anthology
Millian Kang's "The Managed Hand"
A "Revived" Play Report
The Queer Gaymes Anthology
Mo Turkington
Just a Little Lovin'

Experience designer, broadcaster and author Johnna Koljonen joins us to talk about the difference between role-play and character play, between feeling safe and being safe, and between design and tradition.

Johanna's Blog: Participation Safety
Introduction to Nordic Larp
The "Everyman's Right" or "Right of Public Access"
SCA: The Society for Creative Anachronism
Burning Man
Alibis for Interaction
Cut and Break
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Johanna's Living Games Keynote: Opt-in/Opt-out Design
Inside Hamlet
Knutepunkt/Solmukohta
Halat Hisar, a Finnish-Palestinian Larp
College of Wizardry
Odysse Participation Design Agency