Episode 163: Toy Wizards, Pop Lurkers, and Running Mysteries.

Episode 163 is filled with reviews and interviews and comes in at one hour and 52 minutes!

Segments 1 and 2: Something Old/Something New

The "something new" for episode 163 are the Young Adventurer's Guides from Ten Speed Press. Weapons & Warriors and Monsters & Creatures are written by Jim Zub, Stacy King, and Andrew Wheeler as introductions to D&D fantasy tropes for younger readers who are interested in playing Dungeons & Dragons.

The books are described as "all the information you need to start building your own characters and putting together your adventuring party," but are they? Listen and find out.

The Supercrew by Tobias Radesäter is a rules light roleplaying game of superheroic action. Like the old Masters of the Universe Role Playing Game, the rules for the game are presented in a comic book format. Supercrew's central conceit is that the players are playing super heroic versions of themselves, which provides game masters with an interesting opportunity that I discuss in my review.

Does The Supercrew work as a role playing game, or is it a mere novelty item?

Segment 3: An Interview with the Toy Wizards 

Toy-Wizards is one of the go to websites for toy collecting news and we had the honor of interview to of the Toy Wizard crew, Loryn Stone and Scott Zillner, in this episode.

Image Source -- Toy Wizards

Loryn Stone is the Editor in Chief of Toy Wizards and has dedicated her life to the Word of the Nerd. She is most excited by collecting toys, writing about them, and infiltrating the convention scene. Loryn is also the writer of SyFy Wire’s ‘Important Toy News’ column, as well as the site owner and Executive Editor of Toy Wizard’s sister site, PopLurker.com.

Her writing has been published on other pop culture websites such as Cracked, LoadScreen, Nerdbot, That Hashtag Show, and Temple of Geek. Her toy collection is comprised of Megazords, Gundam, miscellaneous robots and trinkets, Sailor Moon, Snoopy, Otaku Garbage, and Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Image Source -- Toy Wizards

Scott Zillner is a world-renowned toy collector and the owner and founder of Toy Wizards. He grew up in the 1980s, the undisputed greatest decade ever. He truly believes in collecting, and his once hobby is now his lifestyle. A new world Renaissance man, he is a professional Artist, Toy Expert, and Convention promoter. He collects massive amounts of toys, games, and art. He also runs several pop culture conventions.

As a Professional Artist, he worked on Disney’s 2010 Tron Legacy film, painting the light bikes and toys in young Flynn’s room. The same year, his Tron Stich collectible vinyl sculpture from Disney was released.

Segment 4: Dungeons & Dilemmas -- Running Mysteries

In our second Dungeons and Dilemmas segment, writer/director David Nett and I discuss the challenges Dungeon Masters face when running mystery themed adventures in role playing games.  David came to the discussion with three key recommendations, but the conversation ended with five. Along the way, we make a number of pop culture adventures and give insight into our own personal game campaigns.

Episode Segments Featured Discussion of the Events and Products Listed Below:

• Toon Con (November 10, 2019) - A new convention that celebrates all genres and eras of animated entertainment.
• Powermorphicon - The largest convention dedicated to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
• Japan World Heroes (August 16-18, 2019) - A convention dedicated to Kaiju, tokusatsu, Giant Robots and more. 
• D&D Basic Set - This is the Tom Moldvay Basic Set that inspired a Generation of young kids.
• The Veiled Society - One of the first D&D modules to break out of the dungeon and into the city.
• The Tomb of Horrors - The dungeon Gary Gygax wrote to put power gamers in their place.
• Players Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands - While the early 4th edition books didn't capture the imagination the way some hoped, the Essentials series was fantastic.
• The Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit - This game set is exclusive to Target. Hunt it down. It's worth it.
• The Dungeons & Dragons Starter Kit - All you need to start playing D&D.
• Monster Slayers: Heroes of Hesiod - An adventure for young players written by Susan J. Morris.
• Monster Slayers: Champions of the Elements - Another Susan J. Morris adventure for younger players.
• Warriors & Weapons -- by Jim Zub, Stacy King, and Andrew Wheeler.
• Monsters & Creatures -- by Jim Zub, Stacy King, and Andrew Wheeler.
• The Supercrew -- by  Tobias Radesäter
• A Study in Scarlet -- by Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Dune -- by Frank Herbert

We hope you enjoy your listening experience. We've got a lot of great interviews lined up in the future and you can leave us voice messages on our Anchor.fm page if you have any topics you'd like us to discuss.

Episode 162: Not So Tiny Conversations About Tiny d6

It's time for Episode 162 of Geekerati and this one is a doozy, coming in at approximately 2 1/2 hours of content.

Segment 1:

The first segment of episode 162 is a 30 minute interview with Alan Bahr of Gallant Knight Games who joins us to discuss GKG's wonderful catalog of role playing games. During the interview we go into a detailed discussion of Tiny Supers, Tiny Dungeon, and GKG's other Tiny d6 role playing games. We also discuss how Alan's company runs the gamut of the indie rpg world from OSR style games like For Coin and Blood to one shot pick up and play narrative games like Beach Patrol. It was a great conversation and our experience with the Tiny Supers role playing game inspired us to write up quick statistics for The Human Torch and The Invisible Woman using the Tiny Supers rules set. You can find those characters down below and we'd love to hear your thoughts on how you would adapt the characters to the Tiny Supers system.

Segment 2:

Since we were highlighting Tiny d6 games in our main interview, we thought it would be a great opportunity to expose listeners to a delightful Kickstarter project launched to support Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition. The Micronomicon Kickstarter features new spells, new archetypes, and more importantly new "micro-settings." John D Payne and Gregory Israel stopped by to chat about this wonderful project and to share their love of the Tiny d6 system in general. It's a wonderful discussion.

John D Payne is the editor of The Micronomicon and he has a Patreon account which supports his game design efforts. The Patreon has a large number of backer supported extras that you might want to check out.

Gregory Israel's designs have been featured in the Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition rulebook and in issues of Tinyzine, an official online magazine that supports the Tiny d6 line of games. Gregory is also the author of Between Sun and Shadow, a setting for the Tiny Dungeon system.

Segments 3 and 4:

Segments 3 and 4 contained our regular Something Old and Something New segment. This week, I  highlighted the Beach Patrol game from Gallant Knight Games as the Something New and Tales from the Floating Vagabond by Lee Garvin as the Something Old. Both of these games are humorous in nature and can be used to emulate the action of 80s and 90s shows. I had intended to include a review of Extreme Vengeance by Archangel Studios as well, but that will have to wait for a future episode. Hopefully an episode where we interview Philip Reed or Tony Lee who were involved with that particular project.

Segment 5:

We were finally able to reveal one of the exciting changes to the Geekerati podcast in Episode 162 with the addition of the Dungeons and Dilemmas segment with writer and director David Nett. Nett was on the vanguard of gaming related webseries and his Gold series set a high standard, particularly its second season Night of the Zombie King. We are honored to have him as our regular game mastering expert Dungeons and Dilemmas.

Segments of this episode discussed the products and blogs below.

Products Discussed/Featured in this Episode

• Tiny Supers by Alan Bahr from Gallant Knight Games.
• Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition by Alan Bahr from Gallant Knight Games.
• Beach Patrol by Alan Bahr from Gallant Knight Games.
• Tales from the Floating Vagabond by Lee Garvin.
  
• Gingerbread Kaiju by Stan! from Rogue Genius Games.
• Tiny Zine Issue 10 featuring Swords Against Deviltry from Gallant Knight Games.
• The Micronomicon Kickstarter by John D Payne.
• Between Sun and Shadow by Gregory Israel from Blue Oxrat Games.
• Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher (Book 1 of the Codex Alera)
• The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher (Book 1 of The Cinder Spires)
• The Dresden Files book series by Jim Butcher.
• Jason Statham's Big Vacation a Free Indie RPG by Grant Howitt.
• John D Payne's Patreon for Exploding Seed Games.
• Gallant Knight Games' Patreon.
• Geek & Sundry's Starter Kit Show.
• Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition by Modiphius.
• My First D&D Experience (Pants Issues) by Christian Lindke

A Glimpse at Two Quick Tiny Supers Characters

No post should be without gaming content if we can help it, so here's this post's weekly does of gaming goodness.

While the Fantastic Four has never quite been able to translate successfully to the big screen, they are among Marvel Comics' most iconic characters. The brother and sister team of Johnny Storm and Sue Storm-Richards are particular favorites of the Geekerati crew, so we jumped at the chance to convert them to the Tiny Supers role playing game system as a way to test it out. It's a pretty good fit, but maybe your take would be a little bit different. Feel free to give us your ideas for how you would adapt these or other characters to this quick and easy to play super hero role playing game. Is Johnny a "Striker"? Is Susan Richards best defined as a "Defender"? Would you use a different mix of powers?

From the Archives (09/17/2007) -- The Geek Quiz

In 2007, GEEK MONTHLY magazine published their Geek Quiz article which readers could use to measure how deep their geek goes. We used that quiz as a way to launch a conversation and then proceeded to stump one another with a series of trivia questions. We all thought we would do well with each others' questions, but alas and alack we were wrong. In the overtime, we continue our discussion of the Friday Night Death Slot and the future of streaming programming.

Join us for this glance into the early days of Geekerati.

Episode 161: Geekerati Returns with a New Format and an Interview with Dom Zook of Saving Throw Show

The Geekerati Podcast was founded in 2007 and streamed 160 episodes before going on hiatus in 2014. It was meant to be a brief hiatus as the Geekerati panelists coordinated their busy schedules, but it ended up lasting almost five years. With this episode Geekerati returns with new Bi-Weekly prerecorded episodes with new guests and new segments. We are proud to relaunch with an interview with our friend Dom Zook. Dom is the Executive Producer of Saving Throw Show a Role Playing Game Live Play streaming channel on Twitch. If you're a fan of Critical Role, or any other live play show, you should give Saving Throw Show a look.They are currently running a number of gaames online, but their Savage Worlds show launches its new season during the channel's Fundraising Marathon on June 21st!
 

This episode also sees the introduction of our first new segment, Something Old/Something New. This segment will be a regular review segment and will be joined by other segments including our Dungeon Master advice segment Dungeons & Dilemmas in the near future. Our current segment reviews the old Conan Roleplaying Game by TSR and Attack of the Necron, the first entry in Warped Galaxies the new YA Warhammer Adventures book series from Games Workshop. 

 If the discussion in Something Old/Something new piqued your interest in the system used by the TSR Conan Roleplaying Game, you will want to take a look at its Open Content successor ZeFRS and download the pdf rulebook.


This episode featured the following sound effects from Plate Mail Games: 1950s Space, Inside the Internet, and Space Battle. 

From the Archives (09/03/2007): The Pulps and Their Modern Legacy -- An Interview with Win Scott Eckert Discussing Barsoom, Hyboria, and Urban Mean Streets.

Listen to this blast from the past as the Geekerati panel discusses Win Scott Eckert's book Myths for the Modern Age and the long lasting legacy of pulp fiction. It's a conversation about John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, French Pulps, and Dashiell Hammett. Who could ask for more?

Win Scott Eckert is one of the leading experts in pulp fiction and one of his major contributions to the continuation of pulp fandom has been his work on the Wold Newton Family and its universe of tales. The Wold Newton Universe was a creation of Science Fiction Grand Master Philip Jose Farmer who asked an interesting question, "What if many classic tales of fiction, literary and pulp, all happened in a shared universe?" Farmer uses the real world occurrence of a radioactive meteor landing in Wold Newton England as the cornerstone event of his shared universe, a universe in which Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, Elizabeth Bennet, John Carter of Mars, Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and many more reside. Our conversation with Win begins with a discussion of his book on the topic, but expand into a conversation about what made the pulps successful and why they continue to inspire creators today.

During the Overtime segment, Shawna Benson discusses an unaired pilot for a new Phillip Marlowe show. It is currently available on YouTube if you are interested in seeing whether you think the networks should have picked it up.

In this archive episode, I've re-edited the episode into segments using Anchor.fm's functionality. All future episodes will be edited into segments and new episodes (our first one is coming next week) will have distinct segments with unique and consistent introductions.

From the Archives (August 27, 2007) -- Interviewing James Lowder About HOBBY GAMES: THE 100 BEST

In 2007, Green Ronin Publishing released one of the best books on hobby gaming ever written. Their book, Hobby Games: The 100 Best, featured thoughtful articles highlighting some of the best games in the history of the gaming hobby written by some of the best game designers in the industry. Some of the games were well known and are played by thousands of gamers on a regular basis, others were rare games that influenced the creation of the games people play today. One thing is certain, the game became a Christmas Wish List for many gamers and started an internet meme where game hobbyists listed the games they own/play.

Your average consumer isn't a collector of games and doesn't have room in their house for 1000+ board/card/roleplaying/family games and resources like these two books allow for those consumers to purchase games based on the opinions of individuals who have a great deal of experience in designing and playing games.

In August of that year, I and my fellow Geekerati panelists had the honor of chatting with editor James Lowder about the book and added some of our own recommendations. You can listen to the episode here:

The list of games in this edition a wonderful selection of the popular and the rare and consumers cannot go wrong with any of the games on the list.

In case you are wondering, I have provided a copy of the games included in the new volume below. Those games that are in bold are games that I own and those games that are italicized are games that I have merely played. Some of the games I now own, like Apocalypse (aka The Warlord) and War & Peace, were purchased because of this book.

1. Bruce C. Shelley -- Acquire
2. Nicole Lindroos -- Amber Diceless
3. Ian Livingstone -- Amun-Re
4. Stewart Wieck -- Ars Magica
5. Thomas M. Reid -- Axis & Allies
6. Tracy Hickman  -- Battle Cry
7. Philip Reed -- BattleTech
8. Justin Achilli -- Blood Bowl
9. Mike Selinker -- Bohnanza
10. Tom Dalgliesh -- Britannia
11. Greg Stolze -- Button Men
12. Monte Cook -- Call of Cthulhu
13. Steven E. Schend -- Carcassonne
14. Jeff Tidball -- Car Wars
15. Bill Bridges -- Champions
16. Stan! -- Circus Maximus
17. Tom Jolly -- Citadels
18. Steven Savile -- Civilization
19. Bruno Faidutti -- Cosmic Encounter
20. Andrew Looney -- Cosmic Wimpout
21. Skip Williams -- Dawn Patrol
22. Alan R. Moon -- Descent
23. Larry Harris -- Diplomacy
24. Richard Garfield -- Dungeons & Dragons
25. William W. Connors -- Dynasty League Baseball
26. Christian T. Petersen -- El Grande
27. Alessio Cavatore -- Empires in Arms
28. Timothy Brown -- Empires of the Middle Ages
29. Allen Varney -- The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
30. Phil Yates -- Fire and Fury
31. William Jones -- Flames of War
32. Rick Loomis -- Fluxx
33. John Kovalic -- Formula Dé
34. Anthony J. Gallela -- The Fury of Dracula
35. Jesse Scoble -- A Game of Thrones
36. Lou Zocchi -- Gettysburg
37. James Wallis -- Ghostbusters
38. James M. Ward -- The Great Khan Game
39. Gav Thorpe  -- Hammer of the Scots
40. Uli Blennemann -- Here I Stand
41. S. Craig Taylor, Jr. -- A House Divided
42. Scott Haring -- Illuminati
43. Dana Lombardy -- Johnny Reb
44. Darren Watts -- Junta
45. Greg Stafford -- Kingmaker
46. Lester Smith -- Kremlin
47. Wolfgang Baur -- Legend of the Five Rings
48. Marc W. Miller -- Lensman
49. Ted S. Raicer -- London’s Burning
50. Teeuwynn Woodruff -- Lord of the Rings
51. Mike Breault -- Machiavelli
52. Jordan Weisman -- Magic: The Gathering
53. Steve Kenson -- Marvel Super Heroes
54. Gary Gygax -- Metamorphosis Alpha
55. Greg Costikyan -- My Life with Master
56. John D. Rateliff -- Mythos
57. Chris “Gerry” Klug -- Napoleon’s Last Battles
58. John Scott Tynes -- Naval War
59. Erick Wujcik -- Ogre
60. Marc Gascoigne -- Once Upon a Time
61. Mike Bennighof -- PanzerBlitz
62. Steve Jackson -- Paranoia
63. Shannon Appelcline -- Pendragon
64. JD Wiker -- Pirate’s Cove
65. Richard H. Berg -- Plague!
66. Martin Wallace -- Power Grid
67. Tom Wham -- Puerto Rico
68. Joseph Miranda -- Renaissance of Infantry
69. James Ernest -- RoboRally
70. Jennell Jaquays -- RuneQuest
71. Richard Dansky -- The Settlers of Catan
72. Ken St. Andre -- Shadowfist
73. Steven S. Long -- Shadowrun
74. Peter Corless -- Shadows over Camelot
75. Dale Donovan -- Silent Death: The Next Millennium
76. Matt Forbeck -- Space Hulk
77. Ray Winninger -- Squad Leader
78. Lewis Pulsipher -- Stalingrad
79. Bruce Nesmith -- Star Fleet Battles
80. Steve Winter -- The Sword and the Flame
81. Jeff Grubb -- Tales of the Arabian Nights
82. Shane Lacy Hensley -- Talisman
83. Douglas Niles -- Terrible Swift Sword
84. Ed Greenwood -- Thurn and Taxis
85. Mike Fitzgerald -- Ticket to Ride
86. Thomas Lehmann -- Tigris & Euphrates
87. Warren Spector -- Tikal
88. David “Zeb” Cook -- Toon
89. Mike Pondsmith -- Traveller
90. Zev Shlasinger -- Twilight Struggle
91. Kenneth Hite -- Unknown Armies
92. Sandy Petersen -- Up Front
93. R. Hyrum Savage -- Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
94. George Vasilakos  -- Vampire: The Masquerade
95. Kevin Wilson -- Vinci
96. R.A. Salvatore -- War and Peace
97. Jack Emmert -- Warhammer 40,000
98. Chris Pramas -- The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
99. Steve Jackson -- The Warlord
100. John Wick -- Wiz-War

Which of these games do you own or have you played? Which games from the past decade should be added to the list?

Blast from the Past: The Geekerati Crew Discuss Alien Invasions in Film, TV, and Games

It will have been 12 years this August since the Geekerati Team live streamed our Alien Invasions episode. Give it a listen and let me know your thoughts.

How well does it hold up?

Do I need to do an updated one that discusses upcoming Alien Invasion films like Rim of the World?

#RPGaDay2015: [Day 1] Exciting Forthcoming Game

Last year, Dave Chapman aka +Autocratik created a blog prompt called #RPGaDAY wherein Dave did all of us amateur bloggers a favor by giving us 31 ideas for blog posts. The intention is that bloggers would write 31 posts over the course of a month and it was very successful last year. I was one of the participants, but I did not manage to post all 31 days. In fact, I think I only managed half a dozen or so. Even with that disappointment, I'm trying again this year even though I'm starting 5 days after the fact.

Let's move past the prologue and get to today's#RPGaDAY2015 answer:

 

Since I'm already a couple of days behind, and I'll be trying to catch up over the next few days, I'll keep this short.

The forthcoming game I am most looking forward to is...

 

I've been a big fan of Modiphius, the publisher of the upcoming Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter role playing game, since I backed their Achtung! Cthulhu role playing game on Kickstarter a couple of years ago. That role playing game setting was compatible with both the Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu role playing games at publication and it seemed like a nice counterpart to Weird War II. The new John Carter game, which should be out by Christmas of this year, uses Modiphius Entertainment's own game system entitled the 2d20 LITE system. It's a streamlined version of the system they had designed for their new Mutant Chronicles role playing game. The design lead on the 2d20 system was Jay Little, who is one of my favorite game designers, and the mechanics are sound.

To quote Modiphius' Press Release:

John Carter —The Roleplaying Game: Due for release: Christmas 2015
Explore the wonders of Barsoom from the vast deserts to the ancient cities. Discover the forgotten secrets of a world that was old when life first spawned in the oceans of Earth. Play as pilots, warriors, scientists, or one of the terrifying green Tharks.  Create you own Barsoom adventures or take on the great journeys as John Carter himself along side Dejah Thoris, Kantos Kan, Xodar, Tars Tarkas, Thuvia of Ptarth, Carthoris of Helium or any of the other major heroes and heroines of Barsoom.

The John Carter roleplaying game uses 2d20 LITE—a streamlined version of the 2d20 system featured in the Mutant Chronicles, INFINITY and Conan roleplaying games. Designed for fast flowing action accentuating the exuberant adventures of the original books, 2d20 LITE let’s you dive into the game immediately with a sleek, pulse-pounding system. Major industry artists will help bring Barsoom to life. 

 Edgar Rice Burroughs and Michael Moorcock were the two figures who most shaped my early fiction tastes and I am more than excited to see a Planetary Romance game based on Burroughs' influential series make it to print.

I interviewed Chris Birch of Modiphius last year on Geekrati about Achtung! Cthulhu and Mutant Chronicles last year and it looks like the company continues to grow.

Chatting with The Big Bang Theory Screenwriters on Geekerati

Sometimes I forget how blessed my life is, living as I do in beautiful southern California. There are times when I need to take a break from grumbling that not enough people listen to the Geekerati podcast I do with Shawna Benson, or wondering why no one has spontaneously noticed that I would be perfect as a voice on their latest animated series. Today is one of those times when I remind myself that no matter how challenging and intimidating my life might be I pretty much live in "Pops Town" as depicted in one of the Hallmark puzzles by Robert Blair Martin. A heavily populated version of Pops Town, to be sure, but one none the less. The Los Angeles area can be a scary place if you don't know anyone, but it also happens to be filled with wonderful people who can make this megalopolis feel like it's just the right size.

Let me walk you on a brief tangent about this aspect of L.A. before we get back to the main point of this post...getting you to listen to the Big Bang Theory interviews Shawna and I did on Geekerati.

My wife Jody and I moved down here so that she could attend film school at USC and I could begin pursuing graduate education. We moved to Los Angeles from Reno and we immediately experienced culture shock. Let me tell you, unless you are from a big city it is quite shocking to be surrounded by so many people. The Reno/Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of roughly 425,000... or roughly 3 Comic-Cons. The Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area - or as someone who lives in Glendale and commutes to Riverside for my Ph.D. classes calls "L.A." - has roughly 18 million. That's roughly 120 Comic-Cons. That is a lot of people and when Jody and I first moved down here it was mind-boggling. We lived in Crenshaw at the time, and finding any place that wasn't crowded was a quest suitable for 16th level Rangers and not wide eyed newbs from the Sierras. Though we did discover that the "vacant lot" where Elizabeth Short' body was found is a 9 minute walk from the Crenshaw Krispy Kreme.

How crowded is Los Angeles you ask?

There is so much light pollution in the area that Jody and I describe the Los Angeles day as having two parts, "Day and Dim." There is no night, only dim. There are so few stars visible that we wondered why they bothered to maintain the Griffith Observatory, though at the time the Observatory was closed for renovation.

Our first Christmas in Los Angeles, we made the mistake of heading over to Universal City Walk to get a feel of L.A. at Christmas-time. For Jody, who grew up in Nevada City where they have Cornish Christmas/Victorian Christmas every year, venturing into a pseudo-mall that has a Santa hat wearing King Kong as its only acknowledgement of the season was horrifying. It was anti-Christmas for her. There was no snow. There were no Christmas carols. It was 70 degrees. We later learned that the Southland celebrates Christmas - and so many other wonderful celebrations - magnificently, it's only Universal City Walk that is terrible...except at Halloween when it is appropriately horrifying.

For our first year, we were very lonely in a very large place. Then something magical happened. We wandered from our cave and managed to meet some Angelinos. Some where natives, but most - like us - were transplants. Some of them were semi-famous, but most were normal people getting by. I'd like to take a moment to highlight a couple of lynch pin people who have made our day to day lives in L.A. wonderful: Bill Cunningham, Shawna Benson, Wes Kobernick, Joel Allan, Eric Lytle, Luke Y. Thompson, David N. Scott, Julie Scott, Kate Coe, Dale Launer, Scott Kaufer, Caryn Mamrack, Kevin Burke and Nicholas Santillan. These names only scratch the surface of people who have been more than generous with their time and energy to both Jody and me...and are people I can name without feeling like I am "name dropping." I would mention some of the people in my gaming group, but it is my hope that I have been able to do for them what the above people have done for me and Jody.

These people make Los Angeles feel like a very small town. Small in the cozy way and not in the gossipy loss of privacy way.

It is through these people, and some of un-named individuals, that I have had the ability to get some great guests on the Geekerati podcast that Shawna Benson, Bill Cunningham, Wes Kobernick, Eric Lytle, and I started in 2007. Of the many great guests, the "gets" that most surprised me in that I was able to get them at all were writers from the biggest comedy on television...The Big Bang Theory. There are really only three "gets" that I would geek out more over, William Shatner, Bruce Campbell, and Nathan Fillion. I'll add them to my bucket list.

We had Executive Producer David Goetsch on our show in early 2008. In that episode we discussed a number of topics, but I remember one thing fairly distinctly. It was Goetsch's kind tolerance of me telling him that TBBT had better not commit a BOSTON COMMON. For those who don't know, BOSTON COMMON was a sit com starring Anthony Clark who played a geeky hick who is madly in love with much cooler Traylor Howard. Needless to say, they get together in Romantic Comedy fashion at the end of the short - due to it being a mid-season pick up - season. The show was picked up for another season, which apparently made the writers panic because they broke the couple up in order to "recapture the magic." As an aside, Traylor Howard went on to star in TWO GUYS, A GIRL, AND A PIZZA JOINT which starred two geek favorites (Nathan Fillion and Julius Carry), someone geeks love to hate (Ryan Reynolds), and a highly under appreciated comic actor (Richard Ruccolo).

Since its launch, TBBT has been Jody and my favorite modern sit com, it falls somewhere behind FRAZIER and THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW on the all-time list. Jody has even written a spec screenplay for it, which is a double edged sword for a struggling screenwriter. You've written for what you love, but you don't tend to have people read specs for their own show. This isn't for "IP" reasons. It's more due to the fact that if you don't get the characterization perfect - in the minds of the shows creators - they might be very resistant to your interpretation. This is true even if your screenplay is funny. That's one of the reasons writers submit screenplays for similar shows, or other popular shows. You want to demonstrate you can write in the genre, but you don't want to claim you understand the characters better than the show's creators.

Anyway, enough of the build up. You will find the two episodes we interview TBBT writers embedded below. If you need any proof of the show's geek cred, just think about the fact that they were willing to spend time with a fellow geek to chat for over an hour...twice...and hopefully again.

Interview with David Goetsch

Find Additional Blogcritics Podcasts with Geekerati Radio on BlogTalkRadio

Interview with Maria Ferrari

Online Entertainment Radio at Blog Talk Radio with Geekerati Radio on BlogTalkRadio

Geekerati Radio Flashback Friday -- Susan Palwick Discusses SHELTER

Susan Palwick is an award winning Science Fiction and Fantasy author who currently teaches English at the University of Nevada Reno. Many of her novels and stories deal with emotional trauma or questions of identity, and that includes her novel SHELTER. Susan kindly discussed her book with me and the other Geekerati hosts back in 2007.

It was a special moment in the Geekerati history as it was one of our first author interviews. We've done many more over the past six years, but this one was quite special. It isn't special solely for its place as an early episode, it is also special because Susan was one of my mentoring professors as an undergraduate. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to complete my degree if it hadn't been for her compassion - and the compassion of a couple of other wonderful academics.

Listen to internet radio with Geekerati Radio on BlogTalkRadio

All Too Rare Geekerati Podcast Update

I post surprisingly few updates about the Geekerati podcast that Shawna Benson and I do on a fairly regular basis. I think that it is time for a change on that front. Shawna and I have been doing the podcast, along with a couple of other co-hosts like Bill Cunningham, since 2007 and will be live streaming our 126th episode this evening. We average 2,400 downloads an episode with most falling between 1,000 and 5,000 depending on who we have as a guest in a given week. We have had one or two episodes with over 40,000 downloads, but those were with guests who had very large followings and who heavily promoted their appearance on our humble show.

We live stream the show on Wednesdays at 8:30pm Pacific, although this has changed over the years to match our busy lives, and episodes are available for download on the website or on iTunes immediately after the show finishes airing. We recommend listening to the show on the website and putting up with the advertisement at the beginning of the show, as this helps us recoup some of the costs of hosting the show with Blog Talk Radio. The live streaming format has certain advantages for time crushed people like Shawna and me, but it does come with the requisite risks of technical glitches. We have certainly had our share of those. If you want to hear how throttled bandwidth affects Skype audio, check out our conversation with Stephanie Thorpe about the Elfquest Anniversary.

Over the years Shawna and I have had some fantastic guests, including:
 

1. Matt Forbeck (Game Designer) -- Matt's actually been our most frequent guest, with Shelly Mazzanoble coming in at second. This makes them our favorite guests.
2. John Rogers (Leverage, The Core)
3. James Lowder (Game Designer and Editor)
4. Marc Bernardin (Alphas)
5. Susan Palwick (SF Author)
6. Tim Minear (Firefly)
7. David Goetsch (Big Bang Theory)-- Back in 2008 even.
8. Aaron Ginsburg (Thrilling Adventure Hour)
9. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

This is far from an extensive list. Shawna and I are quite proud of what we've been able to do with the show. So why don't you join us tonight as we chat with Clark Perry to discuss the upcoming show DEFIANCE.