051: Pantsless Chaos

SPOILERS FOR P. T.

In this episode:

• Ian's friend Kenny joins us for our discussion of Horror in tabletop RPGs! (NOTE: We do our best to limit or explain jargon for non-players.)
• Before that, though, Ian talks about his experience playing P. T., the PS4-exclusive playable teaser for the upcoming Silent Hill game "Silent Hills" helmed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. In short: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.
• If you want to skip the P. T. discussion, our short discussion of the two cons Fio and I attended/would be attending begins at 18:00, and our Horror in RPGs discussion begins shortly after.
• Ian, Fio, and Kenny retell their experiences running horror-themed Dungeons & Dragons adventures and the difficulties and successes they ran into.
• We also talk a little bit about non-D&D tabletop RPGs, including an old Starcraft tabletop game, Call of Cthulhu, CthulhuTech, and the Buffy tabletop RPG.
• We wrap things up with some unsolicited advice on running adventures.
• Kenny joins us from Lag Time Podcast, a podcast dedicated to gaming discussion and local brews. Subscribe on iTunes here, and follow them on Facebook here!
• Also, here's a link to the original Kickstarter for Toe Tag Riot, the comic Fio mentions early on, and how to pre-order the comic.

THERE'S ALWAYS AN ADDENDUM:

• I mention on the podcast how I was going to be at Scare-a-Con "this weekend," but it was the weekend after we recorded, and we recorded last Tuesday, so...yeah. Apologies for issuing the invite to talk to me there, after it's already happened. Rest assured, I will be talking about it next episode.
• I still have not played Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, so I could not nerd out about it with Fio and Kenny. *hangs head in shame*

Music:

• Intro: "This is My Design" - original song, music by Ian. More on this as it develops.
• Outro:"In the Garage" - Weezer | YouTube | iTunes |

(Header image taken from http://shapescapes.blogspot.com/2013/04/human-slaves-of-insect-nation-part-11.html)

http://archive.org/download/AMOT051/AMOT051.mp3

050: PREPARE TO REMINISCE!

I don't care who you are; that's fucking terrifying.

SPOILERS FOR GRAVITY FALLS 2x02 "INTO THE BUNKER" & 2x03 "GOLF WAR," VARIOUS COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG EPISODES, VARIOUS ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? EPISODES, STEPHEN KING'S IT, THE NEW BATMAN ADVENTURES 1x12 "OVER THE EDGE," and probably various other things that I'll have to edit into here as I listen back tomorrow.

In this episode:

• It's our 50th episode! We...didn't plan anything particularly special.
• Join us as we venture into the realm of children's horror and a discussion of its importance.
• ...which lasts a few minutes or so, and then we just start listing off our favorite Courage the Cowardly Dog and Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes.
• We take a quick detour into the land of Tim Burton--specifically, his use of a lot of horror aesthetics without actually making "horror movies," per se.
• Children's horror covered in this episode:
• The Beetlejuice cartoon
• Gravity Falls
• Courage the Cowardly Dog
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters
• Nickelodeon's Halloween specials
• Batman: The Animated Series
• Neil Gaiman's Coraline
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• The Goosebumps books and TV series
• Hocus Pocus
• They got away with so much shit in the 90s. Like, seriously.
• I couldn't find a particular quote with Neil Gaiman talking about the importance of children's horror, but here's the comment on his journal about whether or not Coraline is appropriate for young children, and how children and adults receive the story.
• Here's the Gammell illustration for Scary Stories that I always think of.
• We hit Twitter at the end of the episode to see what others recalled from their childhoods. Thanks for the responses!

THERE'S ALWAYS AN ADDENDUM:

• I couldn't find a clip to link to for where I got the title of this episode from, so here's a screenshot of the moment. (In all honesty, when is there going to be a better time for me to make this reference?)
• Fio pointed out that when I said "Tia and Tamara Madly," I meant "Tia and Tamara Mowry." The brain does funny things with memory.
• From Fio: If any of our listeners could explain exactly what the fuck was going on in Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, that would just be splendid.
• Also from Fio: Okay, so the JtHM comic comment was a bit of an exaggeration, I think they might have decided to give him the cartoon in the middle of Squee!, so after JtHM.
• More from Fio's timemarks:
• 7:12 - You pronounce “neither” like “naayther” here. So. ‘Sup with that?
• 1:03:00 - Part of the AMoT Drinking Game should be “Take a drink every time Fio goes out of his way to mention Mia Kirshner, Neve Campbell, or Winona Ryder”
• 1:24:10 - I wasn’t quite sure about the timeline here, but there’s definitely a big gap where I wasn’t really reading any horror between Goosebumps and King. I’m pretty sure all of fourth and fifth grade for me were just nothing but Harry Potter.
• OH MY GOD IM PRETTY SURE THE SEAN CONNERY SNOWMAN’S BACKSTORY INVOLVED HIS LOVE INTEREST GETTING FRIDGED
• Comparing Twilight Zone to Are You Afraid of the Dark I’m stumbling around a lot, I think when it comes down to it my point is that one of these shows has Rod Serling and the other one doesn’t.
• Hocus Pocus. That is all.

Music:

• Intro: "This is My Design" - original song, music by Ian. More on this as it develops.
• Outro: "Dreaming" - Bruno Coulais, Coraline Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | YouTube | iTunes |

(Header image from http://courage.wikia.com/wiki/File:Vlcsnap-2013-03-25-11h55m54s206.png)

http://archive.org/download/AMOT050/AMOT050.mp3