Dice Exploder

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
My friend Tristan Zimmerman is currently crowdfunding Ballad Hunters, a GUMSHOE game, meaning it’s based on a core mechanic built for investigation games and gathering clues. That mechanic goes like this: “always give the players the clue.” Simple! And I think so astute as to what the actual fun part of investigation is in RPGs: it’s not “can we roll high enough to progress,” it’s “once we have all these clues, how do we put them together and what do we do with them?”
Further Reading
Ballad Hunters by Tristan Zimmerman, now on Kickstarter
GUMSHOE by Cat Tobin, a list of resources for and articles about GUMSHOE
The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola
Socials
Tristan on Bluesky.
Molten Sulfur Blog, Nations & Cannons, and Shanty Hunters from Tristan
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Credits
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
I bet you’ve heard of this game Triangle Agency. Big exciting Kickstarter, super flashy product design, a game with… spoilers in the back? It’s corporate horror, it’s packed gorgeous art, it’s a game I spent 20 sessions with in 2025. And I… had a pretty frustrating time with the game. There is so much I love and admire about Triangle Agency, but also so much I struggled with, and I wanted to break it all down on the show.
And I didn’t want to do that without bringing on someone who could unabashedly sing this game’s praises, because I think the game deserves that too. So today I’m joined by the general manager of my campaign, moderator of the Dice Exploder discord, my friend Seraphina Garcia Ramirez, to talk about the voice of Triangle Agency's game text and really the whole game at large.
It's the longest episode of Dice Exploder ever. Let's go.
Further Reading
Triangle Agency by Caleb Zane Huett and Sean Ireland
Socials
Seraphina on Bluesky and itch
Sam on Bluesky and itch
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Credits
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
If the thesis of last week’s episode was “hey the fiction of your game matters a lot and can even have mechanical effects,” how do you know how deeply to define that fiction? Maybe no one in indie games has recently faced that question on quite the scale of Tim Denee with Blades ‘68, an expansion to Blades in the Dark. I wanted to have him on to talk about when you completely reinvent the setting, how do you think about what parts of the fiction are important and need to be kept vs what parts should evolve and change?
And to do that, we picked an old mechanic from Dungeon World that cuts to the heart of it: draw maps, leave blanks. But how detailed of maps, and how big of blanks?
Further Reading
Blades 68 on Backerkit
Blades in the Dark by John Harper
Dungeon World
Tim’s maps of Doskvol
Socials
Tim on Bluesky and olddog.games
Sam on Bluesky and itch
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Credits
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
In Blades in the Dark, you play as criminals in Doskvol a haunted city where the ghosts are such a problem that they built giant lightning barriers around the whole city to keep them out. That sentence alone already makes me want to get the game to the table, and we haven’t even gotten to the rules of Blades in the Dark yet.
That’s the conversation I wanted to take a crack at today: rules are important, they can radically shape play, but the fiction a game brings is just as important. Doskvol’s lightning barriers mean you can’t just run away into the wilderness after you’ve committed some crimes, and that’s just as important for ratcheting up the tension and consequences of your campaign as the mechanic of devil’s bargains...
Further Reading
Blades in the Dark by John Harper
Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall
Apocalypse World 3e/Burned Over by Meguey & Vincent Baker
Wanderhome by Jay Dragon
Vincent Baker on How Apocalypse World Is Structured (like an onion)
In Praise of Legwork by Sam Sorensen
1d20 Diegetic Rules, 1d20 Hypo-Diegetic Rules by Sam Sorensen
The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola
Socials
Nova on Bluesky. Nova’s blog, Playful Void.
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Credits
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com
There's many ways to decide who has authority over what in an RPG. Traditional games have a bunch of players with one PC each and a GM responsible for everything else, while Dreams Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Ben Rosenbaum takes a very different approach: divide that "everything else" up into flavorful pieces, like "gossip & reputation" and "the wild forest" and give everyone a piece. That choice has become one of the backbones of Belonging Outside Belonging games (hacks of Dream Askew / Dream Apart), and today I'm joined by my good friend Kodi Gonzaga, a designer making just such a game, to break down exactly how it works at the table.
Kodi's game Extra Ordinary is on Kickstarter now. Check it out!
Further Reading
Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum
Socials
Extra Ordinary on Kickstarter!
Kodi on Bluesky.
Sam on Bluesky and itch.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
Dice Exploder on Patreon
Credits
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
This episode was edited by Em Acosta.