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WARNING: The Independent Insurgency is an "explicit" podcast.

This episode is 18.4 MB big and 20:08 long.

In this Talk To Me Now episode I talk to Ron Edwards of Adept Press and The Forge about a recent trend in indie game design: two-player games and single protagonist games. The two are not necessarily synonymous. This came out of my observation/contention that most fiction is about single protagonists, but most RPGs are not. We mention a load of games, and you can find info on them here:

Ron's own Trollbabe, S/Lay w/ Me, Sorcerer & Sword, and Spione
Kevin Allen Jr.'s Sweet Agatha
Julia Bond Ellingboe's Tales of the Fisherman's Wife
Seth Ben Ezra's Showdown
Tim Koppang's Mars Colony
Emily Care Boss's Breaking the Ice
Ben Lehman's The Drifter's Escape and Clover
Matt Weber's Showdown

The outgoing song on this episode is The Arrivals Gate by Ani DiFranco from the album To the Teeth. I spent a lot of time in airports on my way back from Gen Con.

Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/

I can't wait to hear this. Two-player gaming is one of my favorite things, and if there's a trend supporting it, I want in.

The only clarification I ask for, are you talking about two players and a GM, or just two people (one on one)? I don't think you or Ron directly specify (and I have different feelings about each version).

The only games I've played off of the list are Breaking the Ice and Sorceror & Sword. If you're talking just two people then Beast Hunters should also fall into that list.

We were really talking about games with two people playing them, as well as games with single protagonists (regardless of how many players there were).

Ah, coolness. Never tried the latter. I recall an old game which featured all the players controlling a single person. I believe it was Psychosis: Ship of Fools by Chameleon Eclectic. I can see where it would require a lot of trust and cooperation between the players or it could go horribly wrong. I don't think I've picked up any more current games featuring a shared protagonist because I know that I lack the right players to do any such gaming with.

On the two player gaming, I both enjoy it as there's less of an entry requirement but then there's only one person to bounce ideas off of and if it's always the same person then you can fall into repeating patterns of play and the game can become too predictable.

Just throwing this out there.

i have the book Elfs that he wrote. its super cool

is that bert reynolds?

I don't get it, George.

It's Magnum PI, what isn't there to get?