Active Topical Banter Show

Mar 11 2021 43 ep. 79 mins 15

Active Topical Banter Show Podcast artwork

An editorial Roundtable podcast about game design and game business from the perspective of RPGamers

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RPG Backtrack 228: Hedgehog Age

Mar 11 2021 74 mins

BioWare was on top of the world in the late 2000s. Then it got the bright idea to make a portable game with a certain blue hedgehog, and the internet rejoiced... or did it?

The Active Topical Banter Show: Episode 41 – Mature Subject Matter

Feb 01 2019 96 mins

Our hiatus ends by airing the last recording we have with Michael Cunningham. The panel goes over how games confront difficult topics including, loss, mental illness, and so much murder.

Episode 40: Answers and Questions

Feb 12 2018 86 mins

We get back into the action with a slew of listener-submitted questions, learn about our gameplay habits, soundtrack preferences, kickstarter regrets, and some other secrets.

Episode 39: Nostalgia and Cloning

Scott is supremely suspicious of nostalgia, Mac is losing his voice, Sam and Trent had it easy as kids all come up in on retrospective on retrospection. And also clones, pirates and clone pirates in this episode.

Episode 38: Hard Mode

Game difficulty is a lot like whiskey, in that most people are going about them wrong. Our panel examines what and how RPGs are hard where the critical value in difficulty.

Episode 37: Meaningless Dialogue and Role Play

Dialogue in games is a bit like the Jazz music in a few ways, mostly in that Scott is way more interested in it than the kids these days, but also in that improvisation is key but also doesn't matter.

Episode 36: Retrospective on Final Fantasy

We examine our personal experiences with the Final Fantasy franchise, how a major anniversary is half gone without publisher support and some E3 stuff.

Episode 35: Transparency in Game Critique

The panel goes behind the curtain to explain the RPGamer review process in detail, from solicitation through to comment section. Inside baseball and anecdotes abound.

Episode 34: Nonlinearity

Our discussion this month is entirely self directed. Scott tries to throw down a glowing trail for questors to follow but it gets off tangents more than normal.

Episode 33: Nintendo Has Always Been Doomed

Nintendo has always done it's own thing, and for that we've always seen that less than successful. Apple Computers analogies, Swiitch predictions, and yelling at Scott ensue.