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Ludonarrative Dissidents

Ross Payton

Ludonarrative Dissidents is a podcast from Greg Stolze, James Wallis, and Ross Payton to explore and analyze tabletop RPGs. What does each game do, how does it work, and why do people play it? We are currently in season 3, and we've expanded to include sourcebooks and adventures. Visit our website at https://www.ludonarrativedissidents.com/ to get detailed show notes. Join our Discord at https://discord.gg/CQt5DbFZCD

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  • 24 episodes
  • Avg 1 hr 16 min
  • English

Episodes 24

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  • S3 · E27
    October 5 · 2 hr 48 min

    The Quiet Year: An Actual Play featuring creator Avery Alder and Dr. Emily Friedman

    The Season 4 LND Kickstarter pre-launch page is live! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rosspayton/ludonarrative-dissidents-podcast-season-4The Quiet Year is a map game. You define the struggles of a post-apocalyptic community, and attempt to build something good within their quiet year. Every decision and every action is set against a backdrop of dwindling time and rising concern.We were fortunate enough to have two very special guests for this episode.Avery Alder is the Quiet Year's creator and an award winning game designer. You can find her website at https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/ and she's on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/lackingceremony.bsky.socialOrder the Quiet Year https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-yearor from DrivethruRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/110152/the-quiet-year?affiliate_id=465273Dr. Emily Friedman studies actual play and storytelling. She has an upcoming book on the history of Actual Play. You can find her on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/ecfriedman.comand on https://patreon.com/ecfriedman

  • September 28 · 1 hr 12 min

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Season 4 Pre-Launch Live Episode 0 and Mothership: Wages of Sin Review

    We recently completed season 3 and are going to launch a Kickstarter on October 13 to fund a fourth season! Follow the Kickstarter campaign to be notified when the campaign goes live! This live episode discusses what will be new for the fourth season. We plan to have shorter book reviews in our live episodes, along with special segments. To that end, I review the new Mothership bounty hunting supplement, Wages of Sin. We're also hosting a book club on game design, where each host reads and discusses multiple books with backers. Watch the video version of this episode.

  • S3 · E26
    September 15 · 3 hr 25 min

    Swords of the Serpentine Actual Play

    IN OUR TRADITIONAL style, as we reach the end of the season we’re bringing you a couple of Actual Play sessions of games that we’ve covered in earlier episodes, putting some actual ludo-ing into the customary narrative. This episode is the first part of the Ludonarrative Dissidents Season 3 finale and we are delighted that Kevin Kulp, co-designer of Swords of the Serpentine, volunteered to administer a one-off adventure for Greg, Ross and James. It was a splendid evening of entertainment, running the system through its paces as we hurtled through several of the setting’s notable locations, and finding every possible opportunity to fall in the water. SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE is a game of fantasy shenanigans in a labyrinthine sinking city populated by rogues, schemers, cultists, swashbucklers and your player characters, written by Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner, and published by Pelgrane Press in 2022. It uses a variation of the Gumshoe system originally created by Robin D. Laws in 2007. The book has 396 pages. Swords of the Serpentine at Pelgrane Press Swords of the Serpentine at DriveThruRPG No conventional show-notes this time, except to express our thanks to Kevin for giving up an evening to escort us through his co-creation, and to you for giving up your time to listen to it. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Thank you for listening! The hosts of this episode were Ross Payton, Greg Stolze and James Wallis, with audio editing by Ross and show notes by James. We hope you enjoyed it. If anything in this podcast or these notes has spurred your interest then we invite you to come and chat about it on our friendly Discord. If you click on any of the above links to DriveThruRPG and buy something, Ludonarrative Dissidents will receive a small affiliate fee. You will not be charged more, and the game’s publisher will not receive less, it’s a win-win-win. Thank you for supporting the podcast this way.

  • S3 · E25
    August 24 · 55 min

    Dialect

    DIALECT: A Game About Language And How It Dies is a 2018 single-session RPG by Hakan Seyalioglu and Kathryn Hymes, published by Thorny Games. It’s a game about a small community, isolated from larger groups, that first creates its own verbal forms to describe its situation, and then must adapt or lose them as the community reacts to external threats. It is critically acclaimed and a winner of multiple awards. Dialect at Thorny Games Dialect at Wikipedia Preview sample of the Dialect rulebook Read the full show notes here. ⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E24
    July 2 · 1 hr 9 min

    Swords of the Serpentine

    SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE is a game of fantasy shenanigans in a labyrinthine sinking city populated by rogues, schemers, cultists, swashbucklers and your player characters, written by Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner, and published by Pelgrane Press in 2022. It uses a variation of the Gumshoe system originally created by Robin D. Laws in 2007. Swords of the Serpentine at Pelgrane Press Swords of the Serpentine at DriveThruRPG Full show notes are here Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E23
    May 29 · 57 min

    Chicago by Night: Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition

    CHICAGO BY NIGHT is a 2018 city sourcebook for Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition, written by Matthew Dawkins and a host of others, and published by Renegade Game Studios, who have the rights to do all this stuff these days. The most recent iteration of a sourcebook that first appeared in 1991, this edition is by far the longest at 357 pages. It describes the vampire culture, clans, people, locations, backstory and subterfuges of the eponymous city. (‘Eponymous’, because I always have to check, means ‘lending its name to’ a thing, not ‘taking its name from’). We talked about the latest edition of Vampire the Masquerade earlier this season and concluded that it did what it needs to in a suitable style, if you like that sort of thing. How does that fit with huge chunks of crunchy campaign-world detail like this? Don’t click that dial! Chicago by Night at DriveThruRPG (there’s more information here than at the publishers’ website) Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition at DriveThruRPG The original Chicago by Night from 1991 at DriveThruRPG Chicago by Night second edition (1993) at DriveThruRPG Read the full show notes here. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • May 25 · 1 hr 4 min

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Livestream for May

    Our livestream discussion for May, featuring special guest Jerry Grayson of Khepera Publishing. Check out the Godsend Agenda today. Watch the episode on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E22
    April 22 · 1 hr 11 min

    Call of Cthulhu: In Medias Res

    IN MEDIAS RES is a short modern-horror scenario (‘adventure’ is the wrong word for it) by John Scott Tynes, originally designed for Cthulhu Now and first printed in The Unspeakable Oath issue 10 in 1993. It was reprinted in The Resurrected #3 – Out of the Vault in 2003. Thirty years after its publication, it still lives up to its reputation as an unflinching piece of modern horror RPG design that’s genuinely horrific. Read the full show notes here. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E22
    March 20 · 1 hr 9 min

    Maelstrom

    MAELSTROM is a paperback-format RPG written by Alex Scott and published in 1984 by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books in the UK. It contains rules for roleplaying in Europe, mostly England, at the time of the Tudors (the 1500s), with a solo adventure, a sample adventure and a herbiary. It is an interesting comparison to the other 1980s British RPG set in a faux-Europe of the early Renaissance, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which was published two years later. The game was re-released by Arion Games in 2008, and the company has also released an expanded version and several supplements, as well as standalone titles Maelstrom Domesday (set after the Norman invasion), Maelstrom Rome and Maelstrom Gothic. Maelstrom at Wikipedia Maelstrom at DriveThruRPG Read the full show notes here. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • February 23 · 1 hr 15 min

    Livestream for February 2026

    We have a special guest, Adam Scott Glancy, one of the Delta Green co-authors! He clarifies a few points about Delta Green Countdown. Watch the livestream on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E21
    February 2 · 1 hr 14 min

    Delta Green: Countdown

    Sponsor: Technical Difficulties Podcast - check out an excellent actual play RPG podcast, featuring Delta Green, Eclipse Phase, and many other fine systems featured on LND. Delta Green Countdown is a massive sourcebook for the original edition of Delta Green. It blows the doors off the world of Delta Green, reaching wider and digging deeper to map the terrain of the twisted pulp apocalypse we call the dawning of the 21st century. How has it aged since then? Read the full show notes here. Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • January 19 · 1 hr 5 min

    Livestream for January 2026

    Our first livestream of the year! We talk about new games we played and a grabag of topics. Watch the livestream on Youtube ⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E19
    January 9 · 1 hr 9 min

    Alice is Missing

    ALICE IS MISSING is a self-contained one-session RPG for 3–5 players, designed by Spenser Stark and released in 2020 by Hunters Entertainment with Renegade Game Studios, after a Kickstarter that raised $138,000. It’s been described as ‘unique’, ‘sublime’ and ‘a little masterpiece’, and has won a bagful of awards including three 2021 Gold ENNIEs and the Indiecade award for tabletop design. Read the full show notes here Alice is Missing homepage Alice is Missing online game Alice is Missing at DriveThruRPG Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • Dec 22, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min

    LND Livestream for December

    Our monthly livestream for December! Watch the livestream here. ⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • S3 · E18
    Dec 8, 2025 · 1 hr 12 min

    Mothership: Gradient Descent

    Gradient Descent is a module/campaign setting/megadungeon for the SF-horror RPG Mothership, released in 2020. It is written by Luke Gearing, with art by Nick Tofani and layout by Sean McCoy, and was published by Tuesday Night Games. Dimensionally it is a tightly packed 64-page digest-sized booklet, and the PDF sells for $20, or as part of the Mothership deluxe boxed set. Mothership homepage The Mothership book range at at DriveThruRPG Gradient Descent at DriveThruRPG Read the show notes here. ⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • Nov 26, 2025 · 1 hr 3 min

    Livestream for November 2025

    Our monthly livestream for November 2025. We talk about larping, new games in development and Dragonmeet! Watch the Livestream here. ⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

Showing 1–20 of 24 episodes