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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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 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 enough, but it’s the slipshod maintenance that really gets to us.
Main Topic: The Broadsword, Laird Barron, and Old Leech
We’re following up our discussion about how to roll your own Mythos with an exploration of Laird Barron’s Old Leech cycle and how it relates to Lovecraft. In particular, we’re focusing on Barron’s story “The Broadsword”, using it as a springboard to discuss the broader themes of his work. We bring in elements from some connected stories, including “The Jaws of Saturn”, “Hand of Glory”, “The Men From Porlock”, and Barron’s novel The Croning.
Our Guest Host
We are delighted to welcome Andy Goodman back to the Good Friends! Andy is the mastermind behind Grizzly Peaks Radio, an actual play podcast focusing on Call of Cthulhu. It’s impressive enough when a podcast manages to play Masks of Nyarlathotep to completion, but Andy has balanced running that alongside The Two-Headed Serpent, Berlin – the Wicked City, and a pulped-up version of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, not to mention numerous one-shots and an ad-hoc campaign made up of scenarios from the early days of White Dwarf. Our own Scott Dorward is a regular player in many of these games, as well as the two crossover campaigns with The Apocalypse Players, dubbed The Apocalypse Grizzlies.
Links
Things we mention in this episode include:
- Laird Barron
- Old Leech
- The Laird Barron Mapping Project
- Laird Barron subreddit
- Obsidian
- “The Men From Porlock” by Laird Barron
- The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron
- Swift to Chase by Laird Barron
- Not a Speck of Light: Stories by Laird Barron
- Jerry Cornelius cycle by Michael Moorcock
- The Croning by Laird Barron
- Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron
- The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
- “Procession of the Black Sloth” by Laird Barron
- “Bulldozer” by Laird Barron
- “Hand of Glory” by Laird Barron
- “Jaws of Saturn” by Laird Barron
- “Wild Acre” by Nathan Ballingrud
- The Osterman Weekend by Robert Ludlum
- American Horror Story: Hotel
- Broadalbin Trilogy by John Tynes
- “The Rats in the Walls” by HP Lovecraft
- “The Outsider” by HP Lovecraft
- The Shining by Stephen King
- Lord of Illusions (1995)
- Hellraiser (1987)
- Kult: Divinity Lost
- Alien (1979)
- “Blackwater Creek” from the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper Screen Pack
- Dark Forest hypothesis
- The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
- “American Gothic” arc from Swamp Thing
- John Constantine
- Comedy Horror episode
- Dreams in the Witch House rock opera
News
Push the Roll, With Ross Bryant
There is a new podcast coming soon from Ain’t Slayed Nobody, called Push the Roll. This is a series of completely improvised Call of Cthulhu sessions, with Ross Bryant as Keeper, and featuring a number of special guests from the worlds of comedy, improv, and gaming, and especially from Dropout TV.
Confirmed guests include Abu Salim, Ashly Burch, Becca Scott, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Josephine McAdam, Paula Deming, Chris Grace, Colton Dunn, Ify Nwadiwe, Matt Young, Matthew Lillard, Mark Meer, Mary Lou, Noura Ibrahim, Rashawn Scott, Rekha Shankar, Rob Kerkovich, Vic Michaelis, and Zach Reino. You will also hear a number of Good Friends guest hosts, including Jared Logan, Mav Haenze, Seth Skorkowsky, and our own Scott Dorward.
The first episodes are due out on the 10th of September. Check out the podcast website for more details.
Dark FM
Our good friend Hilmar Firestarter has launched his own actual podcast. Dark FM stands out as being a German-language podcast, as well as a nicely produced one. The main focus is Call of Cthulhu, but Hilmar has run other games including Hot War and Jaws of the Six Serpents. A number of the scenarios have been plucked from the pages of The Blasphemous Tome, so you may hear some familiar games there. Well worth checking out if you speak German!
Scott on the Innsmouth Book Club
Scott recently talked to Rob and Tim from the Innsmouth Book Club podcast, chatting about everything from Lovecraft and Call of Cthulhu to the history of Milton Keynes and how Nigel Kneale shaped modern horror. This was such a fun discussion, and it’s now available to be inserted into your ears.
Remembering William “Bud” Baird
Unfortunately, we had some awful news to wrap up this episode. Our good friend William “Bud” Baird, the voice and hands behind the Bud’s RPG YouTube channel, died just over two weeks ago. His passing was sudden and unexpected, and has left a hole in the British gaming and online RPG communities that no one else could ever fill.
Bud was simply a lovely person — insightful, funny, and generous. He had a gift for building communities, bringing together gamers from across the world and kindling new friendships. A great many people will miss him, including us. Our thoughts go out to his other friends and especially to his family. We shall not see his like again.
