Dice in Mind

Than Gibson is the co-creator of DarkSpace RPG, along with Derek White, and Head Writer and Founder at DMing the World Press. He is an Illustrator, writer, and world creator.  He is a renaissance geek, dabbling in many areas of interest and then fusing those knowledge sets into his work.  Above all, he loves to create, to breathe life into something, and set it in motion. DarkSpace RPG DMing the World Press #cyberpunkadjacent Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/diceinmind

Keith Ammann is the creator of the award-winning blog and book The Monsters Know What They're Doing and author of a series of books by the same name, including the recent Making Enemies: Monster Design Inspiration for Tabletop Roleplaying Games and How to Defend Your Lair. He's been a roleplaying gamer and game master for more than thirty-five years. He likes to play outwardly abrasive helpers, out-of-their-element helpers, and genuinely nice, helpful helpers. Mostly, though, he plays non-player characters. And monsters. Remonstered! The Monsters Know What They're Doing Spy & Owl (Keith's website) Ennie Award Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/diceinmind

Jamie Perez is a co-founder of STATIONS. Robert Silverberg was his first scifi love and these days he’ll take a day off work when Ann Leckie puts out a new book. He lives and believes in Baltimore. Adam Good is a co-founder of STATIONS. Douglas Adams was his first sci-fi love, with a close second being the book (and movie) Contact; “they should have sent a poet.” He is probably just a collection of language fragments. He lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina.  Infinity of Ships and Instant Star Ships      (Use the code "adastra" at check-out to get a free Ad Astra Per Ludar sticker!) Ad Astra Per Ludar Sticker James Bond 007 Q Manual The Disinformation Phase by Chris Toll Star Trek Adventures: Second Edition 60th Anniversary Box Set Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/diceinmind

Keith R. A. DeCandido is an author of around sixty novels, more than a hundred short stories, a mess of comic books, and a ton of nonfiction. The fiction is in both more than thirty different licensed universes, as well as his own original stuff, genre fiction that takes place in the fictional cities of Super City and Cliff’s End as well as the mostly real cities of New York and Key West. Please check out these relevant links: DeCandido.net Facebook Fan Page Bluesky Twitter Disclosure Day Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social

Raised in the mild climate of Northern California, Christopher Griffen's steady diet of Marvel comic books, Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and all the sci-fi he could read turned him into the man-child that he is today. Now a writer of both role-playing games – Traveller, from Mongoose Publishing is his game of choice – and comics from Markosia Publishing, he is living the dream, collaborating with some of the best in the business to create narratives for all to enjoy. Please check out these relevant links: Pioneer RPG Christopher Griffen on DriveThruRPG Christopher Griffen on Amazon Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio.   Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social

Ben Robbins has spent most of his life elbow-deep in role-playing games. He created Microscope, Kingdom, and In This World, writes the ars ludi blog, and spent years running Story Games Seattle to bring total strangers together at the table. He's working on his new game, This Means War, as soon as he finishes writing this bio. Please check out these relevant links: This Means War Microscope 2 Kickstarter Ars Ludi (blog) Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social

Dr. José P. Zagal is a game scholar and Director of the School of Interactive Games and Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology and avid game player as well. He teaches courses on game design, ethics in video games, and experimental games. Professor Zagal taught his first university-level class in 2000, has since supervised multiple award-winning student projects, and many of his former students work at leading game studios worldwide. Dr. Zagal has edited and authored numerous books and articles on game ethics, games education, game design, role-playing games, and more. He most recently co-authored Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy (MIT Press 2024) and co-edited Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons (MIT Press 2024) and The Routledge Handbook of Role-Playing Game Studies (Routledge 2024). He was honored as a Distinguished Scholar by the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and named a Fellow of the Higher-Education Videogame Alliance (HEVGA) for his contributions to games research. He also serves as the Editor-In-Chief of DiGRA’s flagship journal Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDiGRA). Please check out these relevant links: RIT School of Interactive Games and Media The Quiet Year Prof. Zagal's Google Scholar Profile Tabletop Role-Playing Games in Chile: Early History, Context, and Adoption Cyberpunk 2020 Ghost Busters (West End Games) Phoenix Dawn Command Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social

Due to our respective family and travel plans, this week we are bringing back one of our favorite guests. The topic is especially relevant as Brad recently moved and Jason is about to become an empty nester. Enjoy! Shelly Mazzanoble is an award-winning author of essays, books, two unfinished novels, some short stories, and one-act plays that have actually been produced. Most surprising, she is someone’s a mother. She loves writing about reality TV almost as much as parenting. Then there’s all the Dungeons & Dragons stuff. Shelly has written three books about D&D: Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons: One Woman's Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf Help, and Welcome to Dragon Talk: Inspiring Conversations About Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Love to Play It (co-authored by Greg Tito.) Most recently, Shelly has written How to Dungeon Master Parenting: A Guidebook for Gamifying the Child Rearing Quest, Leveling Up Your Skills, and Raising Future Adventurers. Please check out these links from the episode: Tertulia Amazon Bookshop.org Barnes & Noble University of Iowa Press Middle-Aged Lady Mom (on Substack) Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason A. Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, and creativity through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio.

Ari Bowie is an editor and proofreader with Fox and Boar Games, now lending a hand in outreach and managing the company Discord. She has worked on a number of projects, including TrashSexy, 100 Ways, and ShadowWest. Despite being easily spooked, she has found herself working on several horror themed projects. Fox and Boar Games is the tabletop publication company run by John R Harford – writer, artist and game content developer of over 30 years. Above all of his other pursuits – creating worlds for players has been John’s  lifelong passion. He’s been running games from an early age in 1983. He immediately began drawing on the existing worlds for emerging games like DragonQuest, Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, MERP and Gamma World to create his own scenarios and settings. His most current works leans into horror and dark fantasy in quasi-historical settings. Even when working in high fantasy or adjacent settings, John draws deeply on real world research to make his settings come alive. John is also a tenured professor who teaches (among other things) game narrative and tabletop system design at Raritan Valley Community College. His GMing style is narrative, fluid and employs immersive audio, visuals and narrative prose. Find out where Fox and Boar Games is going to be exhibiting or attending to get in on one of his games! Please check out these relevant links: Fox and Boar Games Fox and Boar Games on DriveThruRPG Game Art, Raritan Valley Community College Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, creativity, and literature through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio. Please follow us: Twitter/X: https://x.com/diceinmind Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/diceinmind.bsky.social

Magnus Seter is an award-winning educational writer and game designer and a founder of The Yellow Hand creative collective. He is a well known figure in the Swedish RPG industry, both as an avid gamer and as an accomplished creator. Magnus started playing roleplaying games in 1982 with the very first version of  Drakar och Demoner. Because of this, he began tapping away at the family typewriter, writing extra rules and adventures for his own gaming group and shamelessly copying the style of the trailblazers of the day. Immersing himself in the hobby, Magnus soon discovered other RPGs, such as Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Cyberpunk. Please check out these relevant links: Outside the Box (book) The Yellow Hand Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, and creativity through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio.