RPPR Episode 84: Murphy Rules

News: The Know Evil Fan Creation contest is well underway and the deadline for entries has been extended. Tom has started a Pathfinder campaign, which will be recorded. I have a short story in The Unspeakable Oath 22 – read “Message in a Bottle.” Also, I want to thank every RPPR donor who helps keep this site up and going! Synopsis: Murphy’s Rules were a long standing comic in Pyramid magazine that pointed out the quirks of various RPG systems. Recently, I found a hilarious thread on the SA forums carrying on that tradition by explaining how jumping really high in D&D 3.5E can make you really popular or how a priest wouldn’t be able to recognize his own god in the flesh. This episode deals with this disconnection between reality, game rules, and genre conventions and how to deal with them in games. Is this even a problem? What do you do when a player finds a way to break the game or its genre? After the main discussion, Tom has a letter for us and shout outs and anecdotes. Shout outs * The Quiet Year: Post apocalyptic map making and story telling game. Great stuff! * Crackerjack: a Die Hard ripoff that is the most 1990s of movies. * Cam Scanner: Scan documents with your smartphone! Great for keeping track of character sheets. * Cool as Ice Rifftrax: Oh yeah. We went there. Deal with it. * Nexus 7 Tablet: It’s neat! Please don’t start a iOS/Droid flame war. * Reel Physics: Web series about physics in movies. * Knights of Pen and Paper: Fun RPG for iOS and droid with pixel art and a tabletop RPG theme. * Army of Darkness Defense: Free game for iOS/droid based on the movie. * Zombie Run! Jogging app that uses zombies to motivate you to keep moving. * How Did This Get Made? Funny podcast about bad movies. Entertaining guest stars like Patton Oswalt and Kevin Smith pop in on occasion. * Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land – WW1 turn based strategy game – fight the Mythos during the Great War Song: I am the night by Perturbator