We kick off our new season by brainstorming bad ideas for games! Unwieldy mechanics, onerous requirements, obtuse premises; we cover a bunch of bad ideas because we know that inside every bad idea is a good idea waiting to be freed.

Show Notes:

• Minimalist TTRPG Jam 5
• Electric Football

Games Mentioned:

• MonkeyDome
• Microscope (Second Edition now funding!)
• How to Host a Dungeon
• Still Life LARP
• Psi-Run
• Apollo 47
• Diplomacy
• The Skeletons
• Plasmodics

And there's more:

• Unwritten Earths Symposium
• Our Patreon
• Join the Discord
• Nathan's games
• Eppy's games
• Music by Will Jobst

Nathan and Eppy discuss transitioning out of the second season of the show. This is a meta episode where we talk about the show, and why it feels right to divide what we're doing in it into seasons. We toss around some ideas for homework for the next season, discuss how it'll line up with our game projects in progress, and go into the concept for the next Unwritten Earths title - the Adventure & Hobbyist Annual 2026! Thanks for listening, Scholars!

And there's more:

• Unwritten Earths Symposium
• Our Patreon
• Join the Discord
• Nathan's games
• Eppy's games
• Music by Will Jobst

We welcome friend and fellow Tracy Barnett (the Other Tracy) to the show! We discuss his games (Iron Edda, School Daze, and more), his trajectory as a game designer, changing practices for getting games out into the world, the many benefits of zines and low-fi creation, writing directly into layout, and more. Turns out, making things is good for the soul!

Find Tracy's games at theothertracy.itch.io and on rpgtrader. He's also on Bluesky.

Show Notes:

• Long Tail
• Shoutout to John Harper
• MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo)
• CZF (Chicago Zine Fest)
• MagCloud

Games Mentioned

• School Daze
• Iron Edda
• You are the Dungeon
• Fate Core, Fate Accelerated and Dresdan Files Accelerated (Evil Hat)
• Dread
• RPG Design Zines
• ndp Poster Games
• Wolfspell

And there's more:

• Unwritten Earths Symposium
• Our Patreon
• Join the Discord
• Nathan's games
• Eppy's games
• Music by Will Jobst