LUDO
NARRATIVE
DISSIDENTS
a podcast about RPGs, how they’RE MADE AND HOW THEY’RE PLAYED
ABOUT
Ludonarrative Dissidents is about roleplaying games, their culture, design and play. Each episode deep-dives on one tabletop RPG, book, mechanic or style of game, taking it apart to see how it works, and putting it back together to understand how people play it.
It’s playful, insightful, informed, and thoroughly entertaining. New episodes drop every 2–3 weeks, and we also do a livestream once a month: check the Discord for dates.
Your hosts are Ross Payton, Greg Stolze and James Wallis.
SUPPORTING US
Ludonarrative Dissidents is funded by our generous Kickstarter backers, sales of merchandise, and affiliate fees.
If you’ve only just discovered the podcast and you’d like to support us – and get access to new episodes a month before they go public – then you can by clicking here to go to our Ko-Fi page.
SEASON 1
Our first season kicked off in August 2021. Across 16 episodes we cover:
- Apocalypse World
- Blades in the Dark
- Outlaws of the Water Margin
- Lancer
- Nights Black Agents
- Delta Green
- Continuum
- Bluebeard’s Bride
- Ars Magica
- The Quiet Year
- Thousand Year Old Vampire
- 13th Age
- Unknown Armies
- The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
- Base Raiders
- Dueling Fops of Vindamere (actual play)
Click below for links to the episodes and our notes on them.
SEASON 2
The second season of the podcast began in November 2022, with 18 episodes. This time we also look at specific RPG mechanics and design tropes.
- Card mechanics in RPGs
- Coyote and Crow
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition
- Red Markets
- Metacurrencies in RPGs
- The Laundry RPG
- MÖRK BORG
- Eclipse Phase 2nd edition
- Initiative systems
- Call of Cthulhu 7th edition
- Planet Mercenary
- Dread
- Tales from the Loop
- Diceless RPGs
- Fiasco
- Experience points
- Mongoose Traveller
- Pendragon 6e
- Hole In The Sky for DCC (actual play)
Click below for links to the episodes, and notes on each one.
SEASON 3
Season 3 began in June 2024, and will ultimately be 27 episodes long. Each episode now has its own page with extensive show notes:
Episode 0: Hole in the Sky by Brendan LaSalle. This is the level-zero peasant-funnel adventure that we actually actual-played at the end of Season 2. Now hear what we thought of it.
Episode 1: Heart The City Beneath by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor
An original and very organic take on dungeon-delving, this sibling game to Spire has become an indie darling. Hear the crew dissect it to see what makes it beat.
Episode 2: Delta Green Convergence by John Scott Tynes
The very first Delta Green adventure may be short but still packs a considerable punch. Not so much Men In Black, more like agents in over their heads.
Episode 3: Savage Worlds Adventure Edition by Shane Lacy Hensley
‘Fast, furious and fun’, it says on the cover. Does this cinematic generic rules system live up to the billing? Strap in and find out what makes its motor run.
Episode 4: Night’s Black Agents: Double Tap by Ken Hite and others
We examine this gear book for Ken Hite’s RPG of modern tactical espionage against vampires. High-stakes adventure, you might call it.
Episode 5: James Bond 007 RPG (1983) by Gerard Christopher Klug
One of the RPG world’s great licences, this was the sine qua non of tech espionage in the 1980s. Like Bond, has it kept up with the times?
THE AUDIO FOR THIS EPISODE IS CURRENTLY ONLY AVAILABLE TO OUR BACKERS. CHECK BACK SOON!
Click here to go to all Season 3 episodes and livestreams