As Delvecast comes to a conclusion, we post here the first episodes of Total Pebble Knockdown with links. If you like what we did here, come join us over at totalpebbleknockdown.com and subscribe to the podcast feed at https://anchor.fm/total-pebble-knockdown. On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: * Shortly after we released an episode discuss…

As Delvecast comes to a conclusion, we post here the first episodes of Total Pebble Knockdown with links. If you like what we did here, come join us over at totalpebbleknockdown.com and subscribe to the podcast feed at https://anchor.fm/total-pebble-knockdown. On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: * Inspiration Points are one of those mechanic…

As Delvecast comes to a conclusion, we post here the first episodes of Total Pebble Knockdown with links. If you like what we did here, come join us over at totalpebbleknockdown.com and subscribe to the podcast feed at https://anchor.fm/total-pebble-knockdown. On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: * Myst got a full-on re-imagining recently. Al…

As Delvecast comes to a conclusion, we post here the first episodes of Total Pebble Knockdown with links. If you like what we did here, come join us over at totalpebbleknockdown.com and subscribe to the podcast feed at https://anchor.fm/total-pebble-knockdown. On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: * Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game recentl…

As Delvecast comes to a conclusion, we post here the first episodes of Total Pebble Knockdown with links. If you like what we did here, come join us over at totalpebbleknockdown.com and subscribe to the podcast feed at https://anchor.fm/total-pebble-knockdown. On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: * Something seems really sketchy about Roblox,…

And so we come to the end… This is our very last episode and we took the opportunity to basically explain how Delve works, if it ever did. This is sort of a peak behind the curtain of where we’ve been and where we go from here. We give some final thoughts, advice and shout outs to everyone who helped us get here. You can follow Alex and Nathan on T…

Back on episode 2 we took preconceptions about roleplaying and dispelled them, with an experienced player explaining the basics to a novice. Now, on this penultimate episode, we flip that around and have that same experienced player ask what the novice has learned in the last 6 years. However, if you’ve learned anything about that novice, you proba…

So your character is dead. Now what? In what will be the last of Nathan’s monologues, he talks about his recent revisiting of Spiritfarer and how it informs character development after the characters are already dead. With the new update adding Lily into the storyline, we get a better understanding of how characters still resonate in a narrative af…

As we near the end of Delve, we look at how you end a campaign, something that you may never have actually done. Why do campaigns end? And if you could end a campaign, what would you want to do for your characters and story? We do a few thought experiments of what the end of a campaign should be on this episode of Delve. You can follow Alex and Nat…

Yes, this is the last live episode. We are in the home stretch now. On this episode we discuss candidly the things we enjoyed and things we didn’t like so much in the last 6 years of Delve. We also give a preview of our new website, the content of Total Pebble Knockdown and some of our merchandise. We also go into what we have learned, if anything.…

As we come to a close in our Delve journey, we look at the Hero’s Journey laid out by Joseph Campbell. How does this apply to our show? More important, how does this apply to some of the prevalent fiction and mythology you have actually heard about? And what can it all mean in gaming? These questions and many more partially answered on this episode…

As we come to a close in our Delve journey, we look at the Hero’s Journey laid out by Joseph Campbell. How does this apply to our show? More important, how does this apply to some of the prevalent fiction and mythology you have actually heard about? And what can it all mean in gaming? These questions and many more partially answered on this episode…

As we come to a close in our Delve journey, we look at the Hero’s Journey laid out by Joseph Campbell. How does this apply to our show? More important, how does this apply to some of the prevalent fiction and mythology you have actually heard about? And what can it all mean in gaming? These questions and many more partially answered on this episode…

Some may think this is an April Fool’s episode, but we really have some big news regarding the show and our upcoming plans. Also: There are many games we are playing, DC is quite tired, James gasps at least three times, Alex crashes into a planet and Nathan can’t run a civilization. You can listen to the episode here or download it for later! https…

So your party decided to be the villains… Or did they just become “morally compromised”? Or are they the anti-heroes? Or did they just steal everything that wasn’t nailed down? Or did they (accidentally) set a town on fire? Or did they moonlight as murder hobos? Chances are some of these scenarios may be familiar to you! Nathan apologizes ahead of …

So your party decided they want to be heroes… What choices will they make? Is this a choice forced on the players? Do those choices make actually sense? And wait, are they ACTUALLY the good guys!? Also, can we get 50 Shades of Simon Whistler to start trending? You can follow Alex and Nathan on Twitter, as well as the show itself at DelvePodcast. Ma…

Jason Anarchy has plenty of drinking quests for you to go on and now he has them in a convenient six-pack. We discuss Jason and Nathan’s time working in newspapers, game bars and bladder busters. We brainstorm the next games in his library and ask if you can get dragons drunk. The Drinking Quest Six-Pack comes to Kickstarter March 1. You can follow…

The first half of the live show was mostly about Goat Simulator. So what you are going to hear now is what happens afterwards. We pay our final respects to Anthem and Stadia, discuss the nature of DLC and opine for good mech and pirate games. You can download here or listen below! https://ia801404.us.archive.org/0/items/delve-cast-live-march/Delve%…

There are many reactions you can have when playing RPGs. Some of them are actually in game. On this episode, we discuss reactions, what they are and how they can be used. Also, we get some insight into held actions and action economy. And what about reactions in terms of story? What about automatic reactions? Well, let’s discuss that. You can follo…

Remember when we talked about how you can’t copyright game mechanics? Well, turns out you can at least patent them. What happened with WB, Shadow of Mordor and the Nemesis system? What if this happened with tabletop gaming? Everything we know and probably stuff we don’t on this episode. Also, did you know someone tried to patent podcasting? Yup! Yo…

Well, that didn’t go the way we thought. So, the Delve Holiday Special 2077 could not seem to get through our focus groups or polishing methods, so Alex and Nathan explain what went wrong. You can follow Alex and Nathan on Twitter, as well as the show itself at DelvePodcast. Make sure you follow along to join in on all the topics! Stop by our Disco…

Somewhere in this episode we discuss puzzles in gaming. Where we discuss that is sort of a puzzle in itself. It was likely between discussing video game company acquisitions and Street Sharks. So, this is a pretty normal episode. ALSO: Groundhog flakes, stuff you can’t eat at IKEA, ghost sharks, Power Rangers eating at Krispie Kream, something abou…

It’s a Delve special as Nathan goes over his Best to Worst list for 2020. After having a recording that frankly did not work, he shall simply explain in words all 30+ games on the list and why they place where they do. You can follow Alex and Nathan on Twitter, as well as the show itself at DelvePodcast. Make sure you follow along to join in on all…

Since it’s the first episode of the new year, this episode is mostly Nathan and Alex catching up on some recent events in one of the least structured of our typically unstructured discussions. From virtual BFIG to Nathan’s new computer adventure to whatever Among Us is, we definitely had things to ramble about. You can follow Alex and Nathan on Twi…

It’s the very first Delve episode of the year and things are happening. Since Winter Sales are going on, we talk about games we’ve picked up. What will Nathan subject himself to now that he can stream games? Perhaps Alex will get a 14 point buck… in a video game. Perhaps Nathan will play a bird dating sim for Valentine’s Day. Who knows. Also: We su…

Welcome to a Deep Dive on the upcoming Delve Holiday Special 2077, now in development at Total Pebble Red. Learn all about the graphics, the sound design, the star power and the revolutionary technology we are bringing to your ear holes. This is a podcast experience like no other before it that will remain unrivaled as the single greatest accomplis…

In the midst of all the shiny new big budget games on the market, Psitanium wanted to take a moment to explain why he’s not playing them and is instead awash with indie titles. We’re experiencing a gaming Renaissance, but you might not know it. Moreover, you should be taking advantage of it. You can download the episode here or listen below! https:…

By popular demand, we are finally doing an episode on initiative. Turns out it took so long to do this episode because of our lack of initiative, so this makes narrative sense. Alright, so do we need initiative at all? Could it be used for more than starting combat? Can it be implemented in a different way than rolling? This and so much more on Del…

It’s our last live episode for the season! DC talks a little about streaming and what he thinks about Ubisoft games. We discuss things we want Santa to bring us and what Delve might do for a holiday special. Also, James is still working on his system and playtesting; Nathan looks at indie games that go a step above; and DC learns about the majestic…

As we continue down the Reddit game ideas forum, we get into some longer questions. First, we discuss the idea of having characters that need to continue the previous character’s story arc after they die. Second, we discuss what happens when the game world levels up instead of your character. You can follow Alex and Nathan on Twitter, as well as th…

It’s been a weird year, a weird month, a weird day, a weird minute. But right now, let’s see if it gets any weirder when we visit Reddit again. The last time we explored the subreddit “tabletopgamedesign” but this time we look at “gameideas”. Will this fuel our imagination or provide assorted nightmare fuel? Listen to find out! You can follow Alex …

It’s almost Thanksgiving and it’s almost time for Nathan to buy a gaming PC. In fact, that’s what he’s thankful for. On this episode, we discuss our Thanksgiving nicknames, build a PC (no seriously, we do that) and discuss some new games we are playing. ALSO: Nathan played a game called Spiritfarer; Craeve insists on using the full title; Paul does…

It’s almost time for Halloween, so Nathan and Alex are just gonna sit down and discuss a couple scary moments that happened to them playing tabletop RPGs. We find out how Rembrandt almost died and how Hephaestus did die, but got better. And we revisit the story that led Alex to place Nathan in a crypt of the undead. You can follow Alex and Nathan o…

Last year, Dustin DePenning came on the show to discuss Heroic Dark. Now, he returns to the show to discuss Death Divers, a setting for Heroic Dark. And this setting has demons in space. Why do I need to say more? Okay, I’ll say some more. A “Demons and Carbines” setting inspired by the Expanse and Doom, Death Divers is currently on Kickstarter alo…

Craig Campbell has made roughly a million games and has been on the show several times to discuss them. And we are always happy to have him on, as he and Nathan had a spirited conversation about his latest game Good Strong Hands, on Kickstarter right now. And if you needed more to pique your interest besides the obvious Neverending Story reference,…

Well it’s October and therefore we have to do a spoopy episode about ghosts and vampires and monsters and stuff. And I guess we kind of did that? We discuss why we might like the themes of horror but not horror games specifically. And what would happen if you tried to make Universal monsters into D&D monsters? And what if the Scooby Squad was a D&D…

Nathan was going to do a quick episode about the essential elements of game design. However, just minutes into looking at those elements he had three different lists of those elements. What do we prioritize? How many elements are there? Join Nathan as he goes down this rabbit hole. If you’d like to read Darran Jamieson’s article on the “C4” of game…

Stealth gameplay can often feel like an afterthought in gaming. After creating a rich combat system, actively trying to avoid or tactically approach that system can feel underwhelming. It can also feel slow or stilted in terms of gameplay. But what if we could let stealth stand toe to toe with other methods of gameplay? How can we make it feel more…

We can call it Delveloper Delvelopment if it helps. Following our most recent episodes, we dig a little further into sunk cost fallacy. Also, we get to hear more from James regarding his RPG system, including a renaming and future plans. We send a shout out to Chris Bissette and The Wretched, leading to a discussion about single player RPGs. DC sha…

Although it typically applies to economics, Sunk Cost Fallacy can apply to a wide range of endeavors. Really any time you find yourself unable to let go of something due to the time and money investment you have already made, you have become trapped in this phenomenon. So, what can you do about it? On this episode, Nathan discusses a few ways you c…

So, you wanted to do everything at the same time and somehow that didn’t work out. Perhaps you overloaded your synapses with far too much. Perhaps you put a tight time frame in place that you can’t accommodate. Perhaps you tried to be so efficient that you ended up being pretty inefficient. But still, you plodded along, doing whatever you could whe…

So, I have no idea what happened here. We covered a wide range of topics, I think. There might have been some bad words and questionable hot takes. I think we wrecked our credibility while talking about Star Wars and Twitter. Nathan rambled on about the history of Fable, because no one asked. Alex tried to explain how his GM-less system would work …

No, we’re not talking about fatigue as a game mechanic. This is an episode where Nathan talks about creative fatigue for the creators themselves. He feels your pain. You can follow Alex and Nathan on Twitter, as well as the show itself at DelvePodcast. Make sure you follow along to join in on all the topics! Stop by our Discord server and say hello…

For Delve 250, we did a special live episode and invited everyone to share bad RPG advice. They delivered. And after we ran out of bad advice, we may have accidentally given some good advice. And after that, Alex and Nathan discussed the journey that led to this point and plans for future projects. How long will Delve continue? We wonder that ourse…

Welcome to the Dead Delves Don’t Die… no, wait Delve Destroys Decency… oh no, the Delvectronic Dentertainment Dexpo. Perfect. Since there was no E3 this year, we kind of did our own, discussing game announcements and conferences that have already come to pass and games slated for released through 2020 and into 2021. What makes us happy? What makes …

Since we were talking about systems that don’t get used much, like cover, perhaps we should ask a question about what you do when that happens. If you have something in your game that you’re stepping away from, should you abandon it, reduce it’s importance or revitalize it with something new and unique. Rummage through some old boxes of game mechan…

We continue our interview with Chris Bissette and Matt Sanders. After talking about the Wretched and Alone Game Jam, we moved on to discuss Under the Floorboards, which is about The Borrowers. We imagine a new version of SplinterCell and recall that time Chris and Nathan auditioned for an Open Legend live play podcast. Wonder what ever happened wit…

Nathan sat down with Chris Bissette and Matt Sanders to discuss the current Wretched and Alone Game Jam going on until June 29th. We discuss Chris’s game The Wretched that started it all, The Sealed Library that Matt made using the same system and how a deck of cards and a tower of blocks can be so versatile to storytelling. #WretchedJam Make sure …

We took a look at Warhammer 40K Inquisitor Martyr to see how functional cover systems are in gaming today. Have we stepped away from cover as a mechanic? Is it still useful? Did you even know it was a thing? Can we make it more engaging? Should I wear a ring of logs around my waist? All these questions and more are explored on this episode of Delve…

Since Alex and Nathan were left to their own devices on this live show, Alex started up his stream of Minecraft Dungeons. But we’re truncating a good portion of this episode so it is much easier to digest. The big topic this week is experimenting with InspiroBot quotes to think up new one shot ideas. And if you don’t know what any of that means, li…