317: Small Town Horror, with Eleanor Hingley

Release Date: 07/11/2025

326: We Are the Horror, with Ericka Skirpan

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re scaring ourselves. Main Topic: We Are the Horror Most tabletop horror games revolve around the struggle between the player characters and one or more external antagonists. The concept of a “Big Bad Evil Guy” is at the heart of most of our gaming experiences. But what happens when we take all that away? How might games work when the horror comes from the interactions between the PCs? And what are some of the possible pitfalls of this approach? Our Guest Host We are delighted to welcome Ericka Skirpan back as our guest host for this episode! Ericka is a LARP...

325: Using LARP Techniques at the Table, with Ericka Skirpan

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re acting out. Main Topic: Using LARP Techniques at the Table Live action and tabletop roleplaying share common roots and many similarities, but they are also quite separate hobbies. Each has evolved in its own ways, developing a unique variety of forms and tools. So what can the world of tabletop roleplaying, particularly Call of Cthulhu, learn from LARP? What are some of the different types of LARP? Which LARP techniques lend themselves best to tabletop play, and how can they be adapted? Our Guest Host We are delighted to welcome Ericka Skirpan as our guest host...

324: The White People, with Jared Logan

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re enjoying a night out under the hill. While the rest of you are clubbing, we’re trying a different kind of dancing. There’s even a singalong, plus some arts and crafts. Sure, some people might say this is all witchcraft, but we promise you it’s no more sinister than a children’s game. The white people have tried to offer their opinion, but our Aklo is a bit rusty. Maybe the nymphs can help translate, assuming we ever figure out what they actually are. Meanwhile, we’ll just enjoy another goblet of what may be the best wine we’ll ever taste. Main Topic: The...

323: The Joy of Gore, with Jared Logan

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re bloody. Honestly, that’s the least of it. Most of this gore is blood, but we’re sure there are strips of skin, shards of bone, and maybe the occasional kidney mixed in with all this mess. The plastic ponchos were supposed to help, but at this stage they’re more like stencils than protective clothing. No one ever warned us that podcasting could be this wet and sticky. Maybe we should just focus on getting some of these teeth out of our hair for now. Main Topic: The Joy of Gore While not all horror involves gore, it is an essential part of the genre. Whether...

322: 28 Days Later, with Maverick Hanze

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re raging. While this virus plays a part, we’re more angry about the sequels to 28 Days Later. The first follow-up, in particular, is enough to make you chew someone’s face off. Happily, the original film still has as much bite as ever. Now if only we could convince it to let go of our leg. Main Topic: 28 Days Later Following last episode’s look at , we’re delving into a classic of the genre. Sure, the folks behind 28 Days Later have said that it’s not a zombie film, but we’re ignoring that. This has all the hallmarks of a zombie...

321: Zombies, with Maverick Haenze

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re hungry for brains. Sure, that whole that whole thing about zombies eating brains was made up by Dan O’Bannon in 1985, but that doesn’t make them any less tasty. And just because we’re chowing down on some grey matter doesn’t mean that we’re keen on any of that other new-fangled nonsense. Zombies shouldn’t run around or hold conversations, and they definitely shouldn’t be love interests. Shambling and moaning was good enough for those who came before us, and it’s good enough for us. Main Topic: Zombies Given how prevalent zombies are in horror media and...

320: The Broadsword, with Andy Goodman

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re checking the vents. They’re long overdue a service, but that doesn’t mean they should be talking about eating people’s kidneys. Maybe we could dismiss it as a load of hot air, but they don’t even provide that most days. We would ask the building supervisor to sort them out, but he’s either been eaten by the vents or tumbled through the alien portal in the basement. That portal is a safety hazard, and if it did swallow him that’s his own fault for not slapping some Polyfilla in there sooner. The cosmic nightmares of living at the Broadsword Hotel are bad...

319: Roll Your Own Mythos, with Andy Goodman

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re hunting for the biggest cigarette paper known to man. Well, ideally known to the gods too. If we’re going to fit an entire pantheon inside, this thing needs to be truly cyclopean, and maybe even non-Euclidean. An extra dimension or two wouldn’t hurt either. And we haven’t even started working out how to light up the damn thing! Main Topic: Roll Your Own Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos didn’t really start out as a cohesive entity. It has become increasingly codified by generations of fans, starting with August Derleth, but this can be an impediment to creativity....

318: Metafiction and Horror, with Eleanor Hingley

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re discussing metafiction and horror. More importantly, we’re getting the title of the episode in the first paragraph for SEO purposes. Main Topic: Metafiction and Horror Metafiction turns up in every genre from literary fiction to SF, breaking fourth walls, playing with storytelling conventions, and embedding fictional narratives within fictional narratives. Our focus here, however, is on the connection between metafiction and horror, whether this is self-aware slasher films or horror novelists who write about horror novelists. We look at various definitions of...

317: Small Town Horror, with Eleanor Hingley

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and we’re keeping to ourselves. You really can’t be too careful. The outside world is full of dangerous ideas and strange people. Some of them don’t even play Call of Cthulhu. Sure, they might find our ways odd too, especially if they hear the singing in our early episodes. Still, the real small town horror is always other people. Main Topic: Small Town Horror This is a local episode for local people. We explore small town settings and why they work so well for horror. Isolated, insular communities are a mainstay of horror, usually populated by sinister locals who shun...

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We’re back and we’re keeping to ourselves. You really can’t be too careful. The outside world is full of dangerous ideas and strange people. Some of them don’t even play Call of Cthulhu. Sure, they might find our ways odd too, especially if they hear the singing in our early episodes. Still, the real small town horror is always other people.

Main Topic: Small Town Horror

This is a local episode for local people. We explore small town settings and why they work so well for horror. Isolated, insular communities are a mainstay of horror, usually populated by sinister locals who shun the outside world and treat strangers with suspicion, but there is much more to the subgenre than that. As well as digging into the major tropes of small town horror, we discuss ways to reinvent and subvert them, along with examples from media and our own gaming lives.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to welcome Eleanor Hingley to the Good Friends! Eleanor is a lifelong horror fan, obsessed with Gothic and horror art since childhood. She has written for a bunch of tabletop roleplaying games, including Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game, Hollows, Aegean, Broken Weave, The Laundry, Heart, and many other game lines. She also writes interactive fiction for Choice of Games, and has had IF published in sub-Q magazine. Eleanor has released her own independent TTRPG zines, which you can find on her itch.io page: Ex Libris, Talking Thunder and Seed of an Idea. You can follow Eleanor on Bluesky.

News

Glass Cannon Live at Gen Con

If you’re going to be at Gen Con this year, do check out the two live Call of Cthulhu games run by our good friends at the Glass Cannon Network. Both of this year’s scenarios were written for them by our own Scott Dorward, and will feature Good Friends guest host Ross Bryant.

Blasphemous Tome update

Unfortunately, issue 14 of The Blasphemous Tome has been delayed by ill health. We’re playing catch-up at the moment, however, and we hope to get it to backers before the end of August. Thank you for bearing with us!

Scott on Symphony Entertainment

Scott will be joining Bridget Jeffries and his regular gaming group, AKA The Blusterers, for a live game to celebrate the birthday of Symphony Entertainment. Our good friend Nate will be running us through a two-hour improvised game on the Symphony Twitch channel, starting at 6 PM UK time on the 19th of July. We hope to see you there!

Scott on Unconventional GMs

As if that weren’t enough, you can also see Scott on an episode of Unconventional GMs, running Dead of Night for hosts Gaz Bowerbank and Guy Milner, Tasha from the IdeaRoll YouTube channel, and Andrew Kenrick, author of Dead of Night. This largely improvised game was inspired by the discussion of metafiction in the next episode of the Good Friends. This episode of Unconventional GMs is due to go out on the 19th of July.

Main Topic: Small Town Horror

Our Guest Host

Links

News

Glass Cannon Live at Gen Con

Blasphemous Tome update

Scott on Symphony Entertainment

Scott on Unconventional GMs

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