This is it, folks: the last episode of Saving the Game. In this one, we explain why we're shutting down the podcast, answer our remaining Patreon questions, thank people who helped us along the way, and reminisce a bit. We wanted closure for all of our listeners - and ourselves - and hopefully this episode provides it.…

An Important Note: This is the second-to-last episode of Saving the Game. Our last episode will release in two weeks and will be a "goodbye" episode. More details in the episode itself and a full-breakdown in the next one. This is the second part of the Prep/Improv two-parter we brainstormed during a Patreon question. We start out with the news abo…

This week we have another installment in Grant's reading of the sermons of the Reverend Bob Lawrence. If you haven't heard the previous entries, this one, like the others, is an imagined slice of life from someone adjacent to the Christmas story. Rev. Lawrence was quite the storyteller, and there is a reason these sermons have become a tradition fo…

This episode marks the first of the two episodes we came up with based on a Patreon Question back in episode 189 - we're talking about GM Prep. We check in as usual and then - perhaps ironically, perhaps appropriately for an episode that we came up with while answering another Patreon question - we are completely blindsided by the question from Aar…

It's a thing that often happens in games but seldom gets much detailed thought put into it: the PCs decide to go off and find something mundane to do like shopping or fishing. We start the episode off with the usual check-in and then move on to our Patreon question where Alex Huggett asks: "How many games do you have on the go? How often do you pla…

We're back with our 4th-quarter episode selected by our Patreon backers and it's definitely kind of an "old-school" episode by our standards where we take a specifically-biblical theme and unpack and discuss it. This time, we're ruminating on the topic of Eden and all of the themes of paradise, fall, and "first-ness" that come with it. The episode …

This week's episode is something a little bit different: we did an online panel on spooky elements at the tail end of SAFe 2020, sort of a sum-up of our "spooky fall" series with some general advice. It turned out well enough that we have decided to pull the audio and provide that as our episode this week. This will be a bit less-produced than you'…

As October continues, so does our "Spooky Fall" lineup of horror and horror-adjacent topics. This time, we're talking about "creepy crawlies" - the vermin and pests from snakes to spiders to locusts that can cause problems far bigger than their apparent size. We start off as usual with a host check-in, but we really haven't had much going on lately…

Spooky fall continues with creative collaboration episode! We start with a check-in and some news - we can now be found on the Pray.com app and Faithcasts.com, should either of those strike your fancy. We all had fairly decent weeks leading up to recording, and kick off with a discussion that rapidly leads into "what have you been reading?" Our Pat…

Hello everyone and Happy Latinx Heritage Month! For our first podcast of the year, we decided to do a super special episode discussing Latinx representation in video games. We dive into what we think good representation looks like, what we would like to see more of and what we think needs to be left behind. *We also wanted to clarify that we believ…

We've decided that a fun way to carve some enjoyment out of this uncooperative year is to do a general spooky topics roundup and so we've got another one for you this week. We start off with some exciting news: Jenny has done a fashion walk and Peter is on the general design team for En Publishing's Level Up project. We start off with our impressio…

If you like our longer episodes, you're in for a treat with this one. We had a lot to say this time, and the fact that we recorded this one in two different sections due to some connection issues probably also contributed to the overall length. We start off as we usually do, checking in and introducing our guest, who in this case is one of our earl…

Though we've done an episode on undeath in general, we figured that ghosts deserved an episode of their own, since they occupy a somewhat unique role in fiction. We start the episode off with a check-in as usual and... last Monday and the days leading up to it were rough, folks. The equipment issues have been dealt with, but yeah. Not great. Unders…

With Grant out due to illness and a host of technical issues (that have thankfully since been mostly resolved) besetting us, we opted for a bonus episode this week. This episode is specifically focusing on adding some additional texture to the religious life of a Karkovian barony for a future game Peter would like to run. As this was a bonus episod…

This week's episode is the second-quarter Patreon topic (a little late). We've referenced cosmic horror a number of times throughout our run, but never in this kind of depth. As is usual, we spend a bit of time catching up and then move into our Patreon question, supplied this time by Paige Lowe who asks "If you had an unlimited budget to buy one t…

Not feeling well and not being able to get to the internet robbed us of Jenny this week. However, despite that lack, this was a great episode because we had an awesome guest host! Paranoia writer WJ MacGuffin joined us to talk about incorporating real-world faiths into our gaming. We started off the episode with a quick general check-in and let WJ …

Well folks, this is it - the last of the 3x3 grid of alignments, and arguably the worst of the worst. Note: Spoilers for the City on a Hill, Season 2 Finale from 9:12-11:35 We start off with an announcement that mirrors our recent blog post. TL;DR: we're going to be a little freer talking about politics. That does not mean partisanship or campaigni…

A quick note: our two-week lead time can sometimes mean that a lot happens between when we record an episode and when we release it. On may 25th, four officers of the Minneapolis, MN police department killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man. On May 28th, we recorded this episode as Mr. Floyd's death was just entering the zeitgeist. Since then, th…

In this episode we're joined by none other than Elizabeth Garn of Christ and Pop Culture. (Elizabeth has written some great articles about faith and gaming and she should be on your radar if she wasn't already!) We start off the episode with the usual check-in, which includes this time that Grant is running his seven-year-old daughter through Lost …

This week we have more unstructured, conversational episode for you. Grant and Peter realized back in episode 173 that we'd like to talk about when players know what the GM is planning, but as we talked about the upcoming episode, we all realized that what we had was more of a discussion and a collection of observations than a collection of structu…

Grant, Peter and Jenny are joined by Jason Brick, veteran freelance writer in the TTRPG industry (and several others besides!). We kick off with a little chatter and swiftly move into our Patreon question from Joseph Linardon who asks " What would be your dream job?" Answering that takes significantly less time than you'd expect, and after some qui…

The hosts are all here for this one, and we kick off with a discussion of our games, which are generally going quite well, and a bit about the homeschooling of Grant's kids during the pandemic lockdown. The Patreon question this episode comes from Paige Lowe, who asks " How have your games changed as you've matured as a DM/player?" That produces ab…

We're back to our usual release schedule and episode progression this week for True Neutral. The discussion kicks off with the obligatory nod to COVID-19 (wash your hands!) and a nod back to our "emergency bonus" episode and blog post about remote gaming. There's a bit of discussion about how that's proceeding and then we get to our Patreon questio…

As promised, this is our "emergency bonus episode" about remote gaming. It's edited much more roughly than normal but as we say in the episode, turnaround was our top priority for this one. In the episode, we referenced a blog post that I posted yesterday. That is here for easy cross-referencing. Scripture: Numbers 6:24-26 , Isaiah 40:30-31 (ESV), …

With Jenny out due to travel, Grant and Peter return temporarily to the days when it was just the two of them on the podcast and do something they haven't done on air before, or at least for quite a while: brainstorm about one specific game, namely the campaign Peter is running on Sundays. We kick off with a surprising amount of news. Kittens are g…

With Grant and Jenny back from their respective ordeals, it's time to continue our alignment series! We start off with a quick catch-up session (thanks again Ashley and Derek for filling in!) but there's not a lot of note in our lives since the last episode we were on together (or at least, not that's relevant to the podcast). The Patreon question …

This week's episode is a little different in multiple ways. With Grant out with illness and Jenny out with bureaucracy, Peter is joined by Ashley Mowers from Min/Max and Derek White from The Dungeon Pastors (this is the first episode of drawing on a larger hosting pool like was mentioned back in November). We went through the usual check-in and ran…

In this episode, we welcome back Kimi from Golden Lasso Games to talk about pre-game tools. We last spoke to Kimi in our mammoth two-parter on fitness back in episode 103 part 1 and part 2, and this time she's here alone rather than part of what was (at the time) the single largest number of people on one of our episodes. We start off with the usua…

With the first batch of three from our ongoing alignments series concluded, we're back to normal topics for at least a few episodes. And this week, we have one that was selected - in a landslide - by our Patreon backers: Old Age and Retirement. We start off with our usual check-in and discuss our ongoing games and Grant's newfound interest in knitt…

With the holidays over, we're back to our normal episode format, and in this one we wrap up the first batch of 3 from our alignment series with Lawful Evil. We start off with a brief holiday check-in and run down some interesting gifts we received and gave. (Guess which one of us unironically gave someone a rock for Christmas!) The Patreon question…

Oleh The Game Save

In keeping with tradition—sort of—Grant presents a very special Christmas bonus episode: A reading of a unique sermon given on Christmas Day, 1986, by Rev. Bob Lawrence of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Greenville, SC. You can find previous sermons in this series here! Merry Christmas, from all of us to all of you. Music: "Er Is Een Kindeke Geboren …

This is the corrected version of 167. The first version ran the main episode audio into the outro due to an editing mistake on my part. My apologies. -Peter We're back with episode 2 of our alignments series, this time talking about Lawful Neutral. We start off with the story of some adorable kittens in Grant's home, check in about Thanksgiving, an…

We've been promising it for a while and here it is, the first episode in our series on alignment. We last talked about alignments as a topic waaaaaayyyy back in episode 2 of the podcast (if you listen, we're so sorry about the audio quality), and we figured it was high time we updated things and also let Jenny weigh in! We start of with a shoutout …

#Every33! Mike Perna of Innroads Ministries, Game Store Prophets, and Bard and Bible joins us as he does every 33 episodes to talk about something he's been itching to talk on the mics about for ages - unlikely heroes with a strong emphasis on Mike Mignola's Hellboy. We also give a shout-out to The Dungeon Pastors, a new project from two other frie…

After several episodes with either more or less than the three main hosts, Grant, Peter, and Jenny finally get to sit down together and talk about monsters just in time for Halloween! First, though, there's a bit of catching up to do, and a delightful question from Patreon supporter Richard Lorenz who asks a simple, seasonally-appropriate question:…

With Grant out again for chaotic work-related reasons, Jenny and Peter are collaborating again—this time on setting material for Peter's new D&D game! First, though, we answer a Patreon question from Douglas Underhill, who asks us "If you statted yourself as a 5E character, how would you allocate the default starting array of ability scores?" Then,…

Professor, researcher, leading thinker in the psychology of RPGS both tabletop and LARP, and contributor to the first college textbook on RPGs Dr. Sarah Lynne Bowman joins us for a second time (we first spoke to Sarah back in episode 111) to discuss more of the psychology around RPGs. The episode starts with a quick discussion of the new game Peter…

Creative professional and storyteller Daniel Kwan joins us on this episode to talk about gaming in historical settings! Daniel is a former museum historian, a game designer at Dundas West Games, and co-host of the Asians Represent podcast. He works to support Level Up Gaming, a Toronto-based organization that "provides individuals on the autism spe…

Our Ten Commandments series finally wraps up this episode, and we end it on a high note! (Yes, even despite the episode going up a day late.) We've got a bit of a preview of an upcoming discussion to start with, as Grant's kicking off a game of Offworlders. Our Patreon question this week comes from David Hastings, who asks "What game do you love pe…

Grant's out on vacation in lovely Myrtle Beach, SC this week, so Jenny and Peter tackle a special project—working together to create a unique setting centerpiece for a game Jenny will be running at her library! First, we answer a question from Patreon supporter Tom Stephens, who asks, "What is your favorite item that you've created for use in a gam…

Guest—and possible honorary host—Krissi Woodward joins us this episode to break down her first time running a tabletop roleplaying game! Krissi ran a very successful arc of World of Darkness: Innocents for our gaming group and was willing to discuss that experience with us. First, a little bit about shiny new library cards and dirty library patrons…

We're nearing the end of our Ten Commandments series! This episode tackles lying—or as the Ten Commandments are commonly translated, "bearing false witness." First, though, Peter talks a bit about his entry in the World Anvil worldbuilding contest; we discuss Krissi's Innocents game and how it wrapped up, as well as Vampire and the various other ga…

This week's topic is a sort of follow-up to our latest episode in our Ten Commandments series, except it's also entirely City On A Hill Gaming's fault, we promise! We're talking about how to make treasure and wealth in your games exciting and unique without surrendering the player characters' moral high ground as they acquire it. We also talk brief…

Bryan and Mike from the Geek at Arms podcast join us this week to talk about the unwritten rules at our gaming tables (and elsewhere in our lives!) Geek at Arms is an excellent, thoughtful podcast in the geeky faith space and we're delighted to have two of its three hosts on this episode. Both shows' members have also been appearing on other podcas…

Oh, hey, guess who's back! That's right—Grant rejoins Peter and Jenny back on the mics. (And thank you, seriously, for everyone who reached out or who prayed for me. It's really appreciated. – G.) We pick up our Ten Commandments series with the Eight Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," and since our hobby kicked off with a thief class, you might g…

Jenny and Peter welcome Kyle Rudge of Geekdom House and Mythos & Ink back onto the mics, this time to talk about publishing! We've a bit of news first—Grant's out for a bit due to some health issues, and that's also shaken up our gaming schedule, which means there might be an Innocents game in the works. Also, Feng Shui 2! Our Patreon question come…

Peter and Jenny have the mics to themselves this episode, and they're talking about one of the funniest and most imaginative books of the Bible: Jonah! First, though, we take a moment to mention the unfortunate and early passing of Rachel Held Evans, a Christian writer and thinker we're all quite fond of taken from us too soon. We also have to put …

Ryan Felton, GM and producer of City On A Hill Gaming, joins Grant, Jenny, and Peter to discuss creating actual play content! We've mentioned City On A Hill plenty lately, since Ryan was kind enough to invite the three of us on his show as players (and performers, as we'll discuss in this episode.) You can find Ryan and City on a Hill Gaming on Twi…

It's our one hundred fiftieth episode, and we are excited! We've got a lot of people to thank, of course, and spend a couple minutes at the top of the show doing that. We've also got a touch of podcast business, and a mention of a recent episode of the Marengo Holy Happy Hour radio show that Peter appeared on to talk about gaming and Saving the Gam…