Theory From the Closet

A punk perspective on tabletop RPG’s, their theory, and design.

Show053: Interview with Fred Hicks

This is a great episode that is marred because of me not being prepared. I thought I had a program to record Skype, but I bought it over two years ago, and have since wiped my windoze box so it was no longer installed. Fred had his recorder, so I recorded myself locally with my portable recorder, but it ran out of batteries about an hour into the recording. That left us with Fred recording both our voices and that doesn’t always work well as you hear later in the episode.

Fred and I were talking about having this discussion a year ago, but my back injury prevented me from having a chance to meet him in person this year. The one con I can get to this year, other than Forge Midwest, Fred couldn’t get to… so we Skyped it.

Links:
The post we refer to is here.
Don’t Rest Your Head is here in PDF, dead tree, and dead tree + PDF bundle, just in case you don’t already own the game.

4 Comments

  1. Fred Hicks
    11:52 pm on August 11th, 2009

    The post we keep referencing in the episode is this one: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=26386.msg252501#msg252501

  2. Great episode. You two covered a lot in just breaking down the mechanics of Don’t Rest Your Head.

    I think about a game’s mechanics the same way when I am reading through a new set of rules. It all comes to me as a set of Legos. They are pieces that fit a certain way but could also be rearranged to get something completely different.

    Good stuff!

  3. Good ep, guys! The stuff about the static/slow/fast//sticky/ephemeral mechanics in DRYH are useful for something else I’m working on.

    Hey, Clyde, missed you somehow at GC… so what’s the quote on the shirt?

  4. Hey Dave,

    Someone took a picture, but I couldn’t find it. I’l try to grab a pic of the shirt soon. Glad the mechanics discussion was helpful.