Review - Open Design Podcast

Whether you're interested in the art of design and development of role-playing games as a gamemaster or professional, I think that the Open Design Podcast is going to be just the podcast that you're looking for. Our hosts are Wolfgang Baur, Ed Healy, and Rone Barton, with Monte Cook and Skip Williams slated as regular features verbalizing their Kobold Quarterly columns, respectively Game Theories and Ask the Kobold. Thus we have the vanguard of the patronage movement for the design and development of role-playing games, the hosts of Atomic Array and RPG Countdown, amongst other things, and two of the lead folks of 3rd Edition, one of whom is an OGL pioneer, himself.

How's that for potential and that's just the hosts and monthly featured folks.

Open Design 001: Kobold Ecologies, the initial offering from the Open Design Podcast comes out guns blazing with Jeff Grubb and his authoritative thoughts on design and development, as well as his experience with the patronage movement. The next offering is Brandon Hodge, senior patron and contributor to Halls of the Mountain King, an Open Design patronage, as well as the proprietor of Big Top Candy Shop and Monkey See, Monkey Do, both of Austin Texas. Hodge talks about his experience with Open Design and patronage. Last, but not least, we have Clinton J. Boomer, RPG Superstar finalist and all around interesting character who talks about his own path to monster design, as well as his current projects.

Of course, during all of this are have the feature contributors, Monte Cook and Skip Williams, respectively talking about contrasting differences between fiction and game writing and sage'd advice about the rules for occupying a five foot space in an OGL game.

Clocking in at just under an hour, Open Design 001 covers a lot of subjects in a pleasant format that imparts a fair amount of information in a modest amount of time, entertainingly so, with time passing by rather quickly. While it would be easy to associate the Open Design Podcast with d20 mechanics and the Open Game License movement, there is plenty of information that could easily be used, independent of system, by the listener.

Although this is only the first episode of this podcast, it's my opinion that anyone interesting in being better behind the screen, learning to design and develop their own works or works for others, could do a lot worse for themselves than listening to this podcast. Not only does the Open Design Podcast have over three-quarters of a century of role-playing industry experience in its core offering, but it has the potential of hitting the century mark with any given episode, simply based on the wide-ranging potential of guests.

Also, if you're more of an auditory learner, or someone whose always got an MP3 player plugged into your head, than this should definitely be in your rotation, as you're bound to learn something, each offering.

So do yourself a favor, however you wish to listen or subscribe to it, and give the Open Design Podcast a listen and see if it's for you; I think you'll be quite pleased with the results.

Open Design 001: Kobold Ecologies

Shared via AddThis