I stumbled upon Robert Bohl's The Inpependent Insurgency podcasts earlier this week on the Story Games forums . And yesterday I listened to podcast n:o 006 featuring Joshua A.C. Newman on Shock: Social Science Fiction . What an excellent show! It made me want to try Shock immediately. The way Joshua described the main idea behind the game (to allow people to create social science fiction stories together) and what features of the game make it achieve its goal were very inspiring. 

Podcasting is a difficult art, requiring the ability to produce interesting stuff that pleases the ear so that you can bear to listen to the 'casts. The latter part has been lacking in many of the more promising podcasts I've listened to in the past but II doesn't have that problem: For my ear it is really well produced (at least in the latter episodes) and Robert also has a good radio voice which always helps.

And the content: Who wouldn't want to hear an indie Rpg designer talking about his/her game for an hour? I mean (as Joshua A.C. Newman also noted) writing is the hardest part of making indie rpgs, so much of the writer's intent tends to not get communicated. So hearing about the game from the one that knows the most about it and is the most obvious champion of that game is very important. And also (at lest with Joshua A.C. Newman) it is always fun to listen two guys knowledgeable with the important genre movies (such as Blade Runner) talk and talk and talk...

So, now you have to go to Independent Insurgency and listen for yourselves.

This series of articles will document my online rpg campaign Kingdoms in Flames, a rpg set in the Hyborian Age as depicted by Robert E. Howard in his Conan short stories. It is a campaign, meaning that it is a series of stories, each spanning one or more play sessions. It's online, meaning that we will be playing over the 'net with tools such as Skype , TeamSpeak , OpenRpg and Vassal Engine . It uses the rules of Dust Devils rpg. The setting is the Hyborian Age from Conan stories, in particular the Kingdom(s) of Koth and nearby areas.

The article series will consist of two kinds of articles: Session reports and in-depth coverage of specific areas of the game. Session reports will be more narrative whereas the coverage articles will thrive to cover specific areas (such as the tools used in the game) from many viewpoints.

In this article I will kick off the series by providing a short introduction to the campaign.