On July 2nd, 1776, the second continental congress voted to declare the independence of the American colonies from the kingdom of Great Britain. Two days later, the congress approved the declaration of independence. A few years after that, David, Joe, Luke, and Matt started the PodgeCast, an exercise in our liberties.

Happy Independence Day to all our American listeners.

Enjoy!

Hosts:

David – The Podge Cast
Scott – Story Shtrick
Rob – Bear Swarm
Rib – The Downuder Gamer Show

You can find the show here.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the tubes
Not a poster was posting, not even the noobs;

Subscriptions were made on iTunes with care,
In hopes that Uncle Jimbone soon would be there;

The listeners were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of beer nipples danced in their heads;
And Adam on stripper pole, Luke in wide stance
Had just settled down for a long bromance
When up on the intarwebs arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the laptop I flew like a flash,
Opened Firefox and went to the PodgeCast.
The glow of the screen on my angry eyebrows
Made me look happy, lord knows how
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a bottle of moonshine and a hoedown right here,
With a lively ol’ jig and a skip in his walk,
Uncle Jimbone arrived and began to talk.
More rapid than eagles the forum posters came,
He clambered and clattered and called them by name
“Now Havick! now Dunphy! now Mr. Keith Curtis!
On Becca! on Gaerma! on Tim White!” he blurted.
“To the top of the nets! To the Outhouse Wall!
Now Podge away! Podge away! Podge away all!”
Quicker than flamers trolling the forums,
The listeners gathered and began to swarm;
So off to a wing night the fans they flew,
With beer and weck and barbecue too.

And then, with a clacking, I heard through the haze
Dice shucking and rolling as Uncle Jimbone plays.
Burning Wheel in my hand, I knew it would be,
The Uncle would sit in on this week’s KTNG.
Dressed in overalls, from his feet to his skull,
Recording with Jimbone would never be dull;
A bottle of whiskey he had flung on his back,
So much to drink that we never would lack.
Velociraptor, David, and Table Saw too,
But Matt Cushman got lost when he went to the loo!
Luke wooed and he hollered and he talked with a lisp;
He smiled and said, “I’ve been Pocalapalypsed!”
With his bottle of hobowine, a modern McGyver,
He drank like a host of Accidental Survivors;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a jolly eyeballologist,
And I laughed at his impression by the Brilliant Gameologists;
With Walker and Meg and Dave along too
Adam still couldn’t segue, there’s nothing to do;
Uncle Jimbone spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the aggregators then turned with a jerk,
There were only so many of our jokes he could stand,
And after an hour it was too much to demand;

He sprang to the chat room and gave the listeners a wink,
Then he logged off and timed out and disappeared in a blink.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he shot out of sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

Musical solo by Jennifer J. Notch.

2.  Becca’s daughter gives us our best review ever.  Watch for yourself.

Today is a good day.

Just a head’s up, I guest hosted over on Spooky Outhouse’s own Iron Agenda.  Even if you don’t play Warmachine or Hordes you need to listen to at least the first 15 minutes.  BAM!

A PodgeCast Thanksgiving Feast

Adam
Turkey
Toferky
Dressing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Corn
Sweet Potatoes
Rolls
Zia’s Salad
Pecan Pie
Pumpkin Pie with whipped cream
Cranberry Sauce

Joe
Roasted Chicken with Apples and Leeks
Rye and Apple Stuffing
Roasted Parsnip and Carrot Casserole Topped with French Fried Onions
Strueseled Sweet Potato Casserole
Corn and Parsnip Fritters
Rustic Applesauce
Romaine and Red Leaf Salad
Pumpkin Pie

Luke
Turkey
Homemade Mashed Potatos
Homemade Turkey Gravy
Homemade Noodles
Sweet Potatos
Stuffing
Cranberry Fluff
Pumpkin Pie

Matt
Turkey
Stuffing
Green Beans with Bacon
Oven-Baked Rolls
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Broccoli/Cauliflower/Bacon/Ranch-esque dressing salad
Cheezeball
Locally-Made Chocolate Covered Pecans
Pumpkin Roll

Moving through mid November, I thought few things could top my experience with Fallout 3, which had solidly taken hold of my ‘game of the year’ spot.   I couldn’t have been more wrong, though.

Left4Dead isn’t a complicated game.  It pits 4 people against a horde of undead, populated by both normal zombies and special ‘boss’ zombies.  Besides the co-op, it has a Vs. mode in which actual people fill the rolls of the boss zombies.

Playing this tonight, in both Vs. mode and regular co-op, has been the most fun I’ve had playing video games in months, easily.

Whether you get it on Steam or on the 360, I consider this game the most fun since Portal.

Act accordingly.

Who is the worst character in sci fi/fantasy/horror? 16 enter; one leaves triumphant!

Show starts at 7:30 Central time (GMT-6). 

The performance is live so it may become explicit at times.

A Q&A will follow if participants are interested.

As a site and podcast that 98% managed and produced by men, it would be easy to say we are doing this to save boobies.  National Breast Cancer Awareness Month not just something to snicker about though.  Too many people are affected and afflicted by this disease.

Women are made aware of the disease and how to look for the signs from an early age.  While not all of them heed the doctor’s advice, they are at least aware of their risks.  Guys are at risk of this too.

Guys we need to be supportive of our women and we need to make sure that we are healthy too.  It’s not enough that encourage our partners to do regular exams, but we should be checking out ourselves too.

Seriously, if you get breast cancer you could die.  As in dead.  As in six feet under.  That is serious.  So what if you get embarrassed having to admit why you have to go to the doctor, or take time off work, or have the scar.  You are alive.   You are alive AND you get to wear one of the special survivor shirts and walk arm in arm with some of the coolest, toughest, most bad-ass women you’ll ever meet and be fortunate enough to call yourself equal to them.  Not a whole lot of men can do that.

We are going pink for the month of October.  For our mothers, our girlfriends, our wives, our daughters and also for ourselves.

Further information from people who really know what they are talking about can be found at the links below:

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month http://nbcam.org/

American Cancer Society Breast Cancer Resourceshttp://www.cancer.org/docroot/PAR/Content/PAR_2_3_Breast_Cancer_Resources.asp

National Cancer Institute http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/breast

Get Your Roleplay Free

Talisman Studios is celebrating the anniversary of Suzerain, our Origins Award Nominee RPG. And we’re celebrating in style, with a couple of great bits of news for roleplay fans everywhere:

Suzerain is now free from our online shop! That’s $0.00 for the Suzerain rule book. The economy’s getting tougher and none of us has much money to play with, but from now on you won’t need any money to play with Suzerain. Enjoy the game at www.suzerain.info by clicking on the ‘Treasure’ tab at the top of the page and browsing through all our free goodies.

We’re also launching a new web application on our site, specifically for Suzerain. Click on the ‘Vault’ tab to see our new feat database, fully searchable. Suzerain characters are all about their feats, and this is a great way to have a browse through all the options, helping you build your favorite characters. In fact, we’re even developing an update to the vault that allows you to create characters right on the web site at any power level, downloading them as PDFs for your game.

And that’ll be free too.

Happy birthday to Suzerain, and to all the fans of roleplaying. Drop us a ‘hello’ in the forums when you come for your free goodies!

Well, if today was any indication, yes. Things certainly started out on the right foot. We got through character creation much faster than expected and had about two hours to get the players acclimated to the Savage Worlds mechanics (wild dice always throw people the first time). We may or may not record game recaps like Kingdom: tNG, but I have taken Luke’s advice and started a campaign wiki on Obsidian Portal. You are welcome to follow along with our adventures. I am also including GM information for those people that would like to mine the campaign for ideas for your own home games.

Nibb High football rules!

This is only the beginning of the store. More content will become available in the future, including Kingdom: the Next Generation, Phil, and Kicking Boredom in the Nuts shirts. Check in often.

Well, John’s done something wild.  For an unspecified limited time, he’s selling HotB PDFs for $5. It’s 438 pages.  As I have yet to really dig into the book myself, I can’t tell you much about the game beyond what I learned by watching development, but I can tell you that it’s easily worth $5 for the GMing advice that it contains alone, never mind the game.

I like to share good deals and good games.  This seems to be both.  Go look into it.

His blog is a good read, too.  If you enjoy The Podge Cast you’ll find him waxing on topics you’ll likely enjoy.

Just never let the man take your picture.  Trust me on that.

I’ll be on late Friday night and sporadically throughout the weekend. I plan on coercing the other hosts to also join up. So come build some sentries, ignite some folks, and rocket jump with all of us this weekend!

Check this thread for participation.

Oh, did I mention it was free?

I’m off to my first Gen Con. Dave and I are leaving early Thursday morning.  If all goes well, I should be there just in time for my first panel with The Brilliant Gameologists.

Hope to see you there!

I actually met Tee at Archon last year. We spent a considerable amount of time hanging out and drinking. After the con, I started getting into some of Tee’s work pretty heavily. I’m listening through Morevi: Remastered now, which lead me to Pip’s stuff. I’m listening through her Chasing the Bard, as I write this.

On August 8, 2008 both Tee and Pip are releasing sequels to novels they’ve written. Tee is releasing Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Pitchers Pendant sequel to Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword. Pip is releasing Digital Magic sequel to Chasing the Bard.

They’re trying to blitz Amazon, so if you’re interested in going out there and supporting these guys, they’re looking to get the most purchases next Friday at 8AM Pacific time.

Attached to this posting are the free pdf’s of the books. If you love the material, then be sure and get out there to support these great authors!

Your assistance is appreciated.

Then enjoy it again before The Dark Knight.  Only enbiggenated.

A bunch of Podgies are joining the Pig and Whistle to play with Luke, and I will not be one of them. There are the regular reasons: better things to spend my money on, but they aren’t the reason I’m not going to play. I’m not playing because Massive Multi Online Role Playing Games lack one essential element that I need. Role playing. I have long criticized the moniker MMORPG because I don’t think there is any RP involved. You never are asked to make a choice based on character. You’re never given options at all. Every question involves you either taking something somewhere (incredibly irritating if you just came from there) or killing stuff, usually killing stuff. You have no response options to NPCs and cannot derive any outcome other than the linear quest-giving build they were designed for. The game is much more Diablo 2 than it ever was Warcraft, only using the Warcraft world–which may explain the “world of” in front, eh?

I have no interest in MMOs (I was going to play AoC because it was Conan, not because it was an MMO and now I wonder whether WAR will be worth my time since it will most certainly have the same failing) and will not until someone comes along and finally offers the RP in MMORPG. Until then, I hope you have fun, but you’ll find me elsewhere.

You may remember me talking about going home and installing WoW right away because I had an itch to scratch.  Despite better judgement, that’s exactly what I did.  I rolled up a warlock on Kirin Tor and dove in head first.

Since this was my first time playing with a computer that was actually decent, I was amazed at what WoW looked like with everything maxed.  I could finally see spell effects and all the litle details.  It’s gorgeous.  I actually like the visual far better than Age of Conan.  Sure, AoC is technically superior and there are some nice views with all the settings turned up, but I found AoC lacked a strong art design.  The enemies all lacked characters.  Everything was pretty much just a generic monster or generic humanoid.  It had the feel of the classic Conan stories spot on, but it lacked character.   WoW, despite an aging graphics engine, oozes character.  Plus I can run it without turning the settings down at all.

I also noticed a lot of little improvements that made questing a lot easier and money much easier to make.  I have to say my initial re-welcoming left me with a nice taste in my mouth.

I’m now past the two-week ceiling that haunts me with every MMO I play.  And the main reason isn’t the fact I like the graphics better or that there’s lots of good tweaks…it’s because I’m finally part of a good guild.

See, my buddy Shawn runs the Pig and Whistle Society on Kirin Tor (alliance side).  The guild started on rpg.net but has grown far beyond that.  Besides knowing a handful of folks on there in real life, there’s a bunch of folks I know from various internet fora.  So it feels familiar.   And here’s the kicker:  They actually talk.   Most guilds I’ve been a part of are nearly silent other than when there’s grouping.  The occasional “Hi!” or “Gratz on the level!” fill the channel, but that’s it.  Here the nightly conversation range from The Song of Ice and Fire, to Ducktales, to talking about the current tabletop rpgs we’re in, to actually talking about the game itself.  You don’t feel lonely in the Pig and Whistle and if you do, you’re doing it wrong.

(Note: Oddly, not much chat takes place on the guild channel itself.  99% of talk occurs in the rpgnet channel)

There’s almost always a ton of folks on, even in the late hours in which I play, and I’ve always had nearly immediate help when I’ve needed it.  Need help killing Hogger?  Someone’s right there.  Need some Gold Flecked Gloves from Deadmines?  Someone’s just a few minutes away.   I’m finally getting to experience the social aspect of this game and I see why people keep coming back. This is in stark contrast to my earlier forays with guilds in WoW and AoC where I might as well have been playing Oblivion there was so little communication.

It also doesn’t hurt that Shamus Young just started playing with P&W and brought a ton of other new people.  That means there’s a lot of other low-level folks to group with, in general.  They’re also starting a Lowbie Night where everyone plays low-level alts to help the new guys out.  It’s awesome.

Will I stick with it?  I can’t say for sure.  I can say that I’m having more fun now with an MMO than I have ever had.

So don’t be afraid to join up.  On Kirin Tor join channel rpgnet and you can get into the guild in a matter of minutes.  Join me and some other forum members in the fun and help keep me playing!

Now, some short notes on the future.

Theme Song Change: The one consistent bit of negative feedback we’ve recieved is about our theme song.  I may be biased, but I love it, even though it does go a bit long.  People don’t seem to be having the fun with it that we are so expect something different next episode.  The original theme will be able to be heard in full as the outro.  You should all note that I do this begrudgingly.

Forums: As we mentioned on the episode, forums are coming within a couple weeks.  Adam will be serving as forum admin so you can expect the forum utopia that he seems to be able to grow with ease.  So make use of the blogroll here until then, but have your avatars ready to upload.

I thought I had a third point, but I guess I don’t…

Thank you for your support, from Adam, Joe, Luke, and Matt.

People who like good music should email Joe and recommend him some more stuff that could actually be considered “music.”

—Luke

Movies, music, books, games, whatever is on our minds are all free game on the Podge. Discussions range from the release of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons to the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight” and the death of its star, Heath Ledger. The fellas bring their sophomoric exuberance to adult topics for the inner geek in all of us.

Please stop by every Monday and join us in our exploration of life, times, and culture. It promises to be an exciting ride.