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One part tabletop criticism and one part creative writing exercise, Do Not Steal is a podcast about exploring tabletop characters and the systems in which we create them. Every month, your hosts Olivia and Hannah will read through a tabletop RPG’s rulebook. We’ll first discuss the RPG from a critical perspective: the highs, the lows, and what intrigued us the most. Afterwards, we describe to each other the characters we’ve created using this system, and improvise an arc for the two of them. ...
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After a full year of Do Not Steal, we take stock of what we've done and think a little bit about what comes next. Join us on our first retrospective episode for recaps, tier lists, and brainstorming what we want to do in 2022!By Olivia Joseph and Hannah Yoleau
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For December's episode of Do Not Steal we did not get what we wanted for Christmas. Sometimes a tabletop game is just not what you hoped for, and for us, that game is Night's Black Agents. Luckily we have a special guest Slyvi (@sylvibullet on Twitter) to shoot the breeze with us and talk about dog girls, tabletop dads, and all the coolest spy voca…
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For November's episode of Do Not Steal, we decided to tackle a classic nerd genre we hadn't touched before! Join our discussion of the teen superhero PBTA Masks: A New Generation to hear us talk about how much Spider-Man is too much Spider-Man, teen influencers, and Irish-Americans(derogatory).By Olivia Joseph and Hannah Youleau
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October's episode of Do Not Steal is a seasonally spooky delve into Heart: The City Beneath! Join Olivia and Hannah for a discussion of death in TTRPGs, an compelling marriage of narrative and mechanical progression, and how if you think about it... being haunted is kinda romantic.By Olivia Joseph and Hannah Yoleau
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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... DO NOT STEAL Episode IX STAR WARS: FORCE AND DESTINY It is a period of pulpy space adventure. This month your hosts OLIVIA and HANNAH dive into Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars TTRPG. Aided by special guest NORA BLAKE, they attempt to explain the game's dice pool, understand its talent trees, and make up…
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For August’s episode of Do Not Steal, we decided we’ve been too nice lately. Thus, we turn to Vampire: The Requiem to indulge our desires for chaos and toxicity. In what Hannah has been calling “our meanest and most sexual episode yet” we talk about portraying vampires, gothic worldbuilding, and the positives and negatives of point-buy character cr…
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July’s episode of Do Not Steal is Shadow of the Demon Lord, by Robert J. Schwalb!. We said we’d never do Dungeons & Dragons, but we find a lot to talk about in this D&D-inspired dark fantasy game. Tune in for discussions about modular character building, game balance, and our classic move where we read about an RPG setting and hold our heads in fat…
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This month on Do Not Steal, it’s a classic tournament arc! We have our friend Ben on to discuss Fate/Ignite Array, a game he co-wrote that allows you to run your very own Holy Grail War in the style of the Fate/ franchise! We talk amoral humanist themes, shitty wizards, the structure of tournament arcs, and an impromptu debrief of the playtest game…
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This month on Do Not Steal, we go to space! In discussing the second edition of Eclipse Phase by Rob Boyle and Brian Cross, we talk about our differences in what we want in a tabletop game, our similarities in how we think games often handle having an explicit political bent, and our philosophies about the creation and engagement of art. If we're c…
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This month on Do Not Steal, it's the end of the world! Our game for Episode 4 is Fellowship by Vel Mini, a Powered By The Apocalypse take on fantasy storytelling about companionship and saving the world. We talk about how the game tries to modify the classic but problematic fantasy race archetypes, its attempts to offer serious nonviolent playstyle…
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This month on Do Not Steal, we have our first guest, as well as our first designer on the podcast! Our friend Molly (@YerFriendMolly) joins us to discuss EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self, a Persona and Jojo's Bizzare Adventure-inspired game she co-wrote about summoning your soul to do cool super power stuff! We talk widely about adapting genres and s…
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This month on Do Not Steal, we never said we had to like the games we covered. We have a lot of strong words for Lancer: about its slapdash use of leftist concepts and theory, about its uncritical acceptance of imperial and liberal frameworks, and about the confused storytelling of the world it creates. Afterwards, we take what we like and sit down…
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One part tabletop criticism and one part creative writing exercise, Do Not Steal is a podcast about exploring tabletop characters and the systems in which we create them. In this inaugural episode, we discuss the industrial fantasy RPG Blades in the Dark, by John Harper. You may have heard of this one, and we talk about why we think it’s become so …
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