Call of Cthulhu and Urban Fantasy, with Seth Skorkowsky

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Call of Cthulhu and Urban Fantasy

Main Topic: Call of Cthulhu and Urban Fantasy

Since the early nineties, urban fantasy has blended elements of horror and crime fiction with the fantastic to create something new. But how exactly does the genre work? What are some of our favourite examples of it? And how might all this shape our games of Call of Cthulhu?

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to have YouTuber, podcaster and author Seth Skorkowsky join us for this episode. Most of our listeners will know Seth from his ENnie-Award winning YouTube channel, as well as the Modern Mythos podcast, which he hosts with Jon Hook.

Seth is also the author of many fine books, spanning fantasy, sword and sorcery, and horror. Most pertinently to this discussion, he has written a number of books that drawn upon urban fantasy, including the Valducan series and Ashes of Onyx.

You can hear Seth’s previous appearances with the Good Friends here:

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

A Weekend With Good Friends returns!

A Weekend With Good Friends will be returning this summer! This, of course, is the online convention organised by our lovely listeners, hosted on The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord server. The convention will take place between the 12th-14th of June this year, so keep your calendars clear. We shall share more details as they become available.

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New War Story Video From Seth Skorkowsky

With perfect timing, Seth has just released a new RPG War Stories video, recounting an incident from a game he and Scott played together, GMed by our good friend, the dearly missed Bud Baird. This incident may be a mess, but Scott maintains that it made sense at the time. And although we might have handled things less chaotically, would it have been as much fun? The journey is always more enjoyable than the destination, even when that journey is in a flaming clown car, screaming at 100 MPH the wrong way down a one-way street.

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Comedy Horror, with Evan Dorkin

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We’re back and we’re and we’re putting on our plastic ponchos. Sure, they look a bit silly, but we can work with that. Hell, it might even help. The important thing, however, is keeping some of the gore off our clothes. Comedy horror can be a messy business, especially once you break out the gardening equipment. We’re not sure whether to laugh or cry, so we’ll probably just scream.

Main Topic: Comedy Horror

This episode sees us delve into the bloody world of comedy horror, trying to pin down what makes the two genres work so well together, looking at some examples from media, and trying to work out how to perform such alchemy ourselves. We also take some serious digressions into why so many comedians turn to horror, what fun can be found in terrible films, and whether horror parodies are actually horror movies themselves. As you might imagine from such a wide-ranging discussion, our chat went long. Patreon backers listening to the uncut version will find over an hour of extra material waiting for their ears.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to welcome back Evan Dorkin! Evan is a multi-award-winning comics writer and artist, known for creations like Beasts of Burden, Blackwood, Milk and Cheese, Dork, Calla Cthulhu, and The Eltingville Club. With his wife, Sarah Dyer, Evan has also worked on TV programmes such as Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and Yo Gabba Gabba!

Along with Paul Yellovich, Evan is co-host of the wonderful horror movie podcast, Tear Them Apart. And if you have any interest in the history of comics or learning how they are made, you should definitely check out Evan’s Patreon, where he posts regular tales from the industry alongside all manner of cool artwork.

You can also hear Evan in our earlier discussion about the relationship between RPGs and fiction.

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

A Weekend With Good Friends

GM signups for A Weekend With Good Friends will close very soon! This, of course, is the online convention organised by our lovely listeners, taking place on the Good Friends Discord server.

Key dates are:

  • GM signups: 23rd of April – 7th of May
  • Player signups: 22nd of May – 5th of June
  • A Weekend With Good Friends: 13th – 15th of June

Games and panels will run throughout the weekend.

We shall share more details are they become available.

a weekend with good friends logo small

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RPGs and Fiction, with Evan Dorkin

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We’re back and we’re making stuff up. But so much of the stuff we make up is inspired by stuff other people made up. And sometimes, it turns out, they’re inspired by some of the stuff we made up. Where does it all end? Ah, stuff it.

Main Topic: RPGs and Fiction

This episode is an exploration of how the worlds of RPGs and fiction inform each other. The obvious fantasy fiction influences on D&D and the sheer number of licensed RPGs make it clear just how much games have drawn from the literary world, but there is almost as strong a flow in the other direction. We dig into some of the ways the two worlds have bled into each other, and what happens when they merge, creating hybrids like actual plays, isekai, or litRPG.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to welcome Evan Dorkin to the Good Friends of Jackson Elias! Evan is a multi-award-winning comics writer and artist, known for creations like Beasts of Burden, Blackwood, Milk and Cheese, Dork, and The Eltingville Club. With his wife, Sarah Dyer, Evan has also worked on TV programmes such as Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and Yo Gabba Gabba!

Along with Paul Yellovich, Evan is co-host of the excellent horror movie podcast, Tear Them Apart. And if you have any interest in the history of comics or how they are made, you should definitely check out Evan’s Patreon, where he posts regular tales from the industry alongside all manner of cool pieces of work.

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

Matt at Chaosium Con

Matt will be attending Chaosium Con UK in Bedfordshire, between the 23rd and 25th of May. Please say hi if you spot him stalking the dealers’ room or running scenarios from The Blasphemous Tome!

A Weekend With Good Friends

GM signups for A Weekend With Good Friends will begin shortly! This, of course, is the online convention organised by our lovely listeners, taking place on the Good Friends Discord server.

Key dates are:

  • GM signups: 23rd of April – 7th of May
  • Player signups: 22nd of May – 5th of June
  • A Weekend With Good Friends: 13th – 15th of June

Games and panels will run throughout the weekend.

We shall share more details are they become available.

a weekend with good friends logo small

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Cover art for The Blasphemous Tome issue 4

We have some very exciting news. The cover for the next issue of The Blasphemous Tome comes courtesy of many-time Eisner Award-winning comic artist and good friend of the Good Friends, Evan Dorkin!

Evan has also generously sent us a multitude of Lovecraftian spot art, which will be found dotted throughout the issue. Having seen the rough versions, I can tell you that they are ghoulishly delightful.

If you want more details about what to expect, check out our recent post announcing issue 4. And if you need more information about what The Blasphemous Tome is, we have you covered as well.

Social Conflicts in RPGs

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Episode 114: social conflicts in RPGs

Main Topic

We’re back and we’re intimidating goons, charming cult leaders and fast-talking the slow-witted. This is our look at the use of social conflicts in RPGs. By this, we don’t mean arguments over whose turn it was to bring the snacks or whether that roll of 00 was really cocked. Instead, we’re talking about the use of social skills in games to resolve conflicts. That said, we do mention a little bit about what to do when out-of-game conflicts bleed into play.

Fisticuffs, of course. Fisticuffs resolve everything.

We talk a little about the kinds of things we expect social mechanics to resolve in our games, how we implement them and how we’ve seen them go wrong. Especially in a game like Call of Cthulhu, social conflicts are a vital tool for the players, but not everyone can agree on what they do. Are they a form of subtle influence, a way of cutting through ambiguity or a means to control other characters?

“OK, I rolled 01 on my Persuade roll. Dance for me!”

News

Illness prevented us from meeting in person this week to record last-minute inserts. We have tried to use the wonders of modern technology to work around this, so we at least have a news segment. The first thing to report is that we are starting work on issue 3 of The Blasphemous Tome. This is the fanzine we produce for those generous people who back us via Patreon. It only exists in a physical form (unlike its creators, who have transcended and exist on many planes). Our aim this year is to send it out with our Christmas cards. Of course, events may prevent this, but we hope to give you something blasphemous to put under your tree this year.

The Blasphemous Tome issue 1 cover

We even taught this issue to sing carols. Well, “sing” “carols”. It’s the thought that counts.

The other news item takes the form of some thanks and a mini-review. While we were in the US last month, we were delighted to meet Evan Dorkin at our signing at The Compleat Strategist in New York City. As I’ve mentioned before, Evan has been one of my favourite comic creators since I encountered Milk and Cheese in the early 1990s. He brought us copies of the first collection of Calla Cthulhu, the new Lovecraftian comic he is writing with his wife, Sarah Dyer. It is an action-packed, young-adult take on the Mythos, which still has plenty to appeal to old farts like me. This collection is published by Dark Horse Comics, and you can read Calla’s ongoing adventures via the Stela Comics app.

Calla Cthulhu cover

Other Stuff

Our inability to meet this week also means that we were unable to record our usual Patreon thanks. We have a couple of people to sing to, but you have been spared for this episode. On the other hand, this should only add to the sense of mounting dread. There is no escape.

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