Displaying Episode 1 - 10 of 11 in total of Unwritten Earths Symposium with the tag “arcane gems”.
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The TBR Pile Episode
September 17th, 2025 | Season 1 | 1 hr 3 mins
arcane gems, homework
In this episode we tackle our to-be-read piles of recent game acquisitions for our homework, highlighting more recent work that we've both been digging and finding some common themes across different genres and types of game. We then talk about "instructional" and "non-instructional" text in games, what that divide even means, and pursue some questions that that brings up for our own work.
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The Ludography Episode
August 13th, 2025 | Season 1 | 54 mins 51 secs
arcane gems, game discovery
In this episode we do our game design homework of looking through game ludographies to chase down a chain of influence. It's a fun journey and we end up in very different places for our arcane gems! We also give an update on the Adventurer & Hobbyist Annual 2025, coming out soon!
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The Spiralbound Episode
July 16th, 2025 | Season 1 | 1 hr 3 mins
arcane gems, game discovery
In this episode we go to the copyshop to dig up spiralbound games for our game discovery homework, and get deep into the weeds on both format and substance of our picks.
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The Nat Barmore Episode
June 11th, 2025 | Season 1 | 1 hr 21 mins
arcane gems, game discovery, visiting scholar
In this episode, we welcome Dread co-creator Nat Barmore to the show, try to surprise each other with Arcane Gems from deep cuts in our collections, and talk about Nat's current projects. We talk about Dread, keeping horror campaigns going in long-term play, and approaching real-world cultural conflicts in game design. Thanks for joining us, Nat!
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The Hidden Information Episode
May 14th, 2025 | Season 1 | 1 hr 5 mins
arcane gems, game discovery
In this episode we give a production update on the Annual 2025 before measuring our shelves for game discovery. Our homework happened to have a shared theme of hidden information, and we end up discussing the idea of "sleight of hand" to create moments of magic in play.
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The Trends Episode
April 30th, 2025 | Season 1 | 1 hr 1 min
arcane gems, game discovery
In this episode we come back from game discovery sabbatical to talk about some esoteric picks from our itch.io libraries, and then discuss how we approach and interact with trends in the larger ttrpg industry, in game design, and in how those intersect for us.
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The Eras Episode
March 19th, 2025 | Season 0 | 1 hr 20 mins
arcane gems
Oops, all Game Discovery! In this episode we do a brief overview of the history of TTRPGS (truly-true roleplaying games), each picking a game to highlight from our birth years in each decade from the 1970s to the 2020s. We delve into some 2010s highlights for Arcane Gems, but this is a good framework for us to talk about our personal game histories as well as chart high-level changes in game design since the beginning.
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The Convention Slot Episode
March 5th, 2025 | Season 0 | 1 hr 7 mins
arcane gems, conventions
No, it's not a 4-hour episode! After talking about our game discovery homework guided by games we'd be excited to play at a convention (or elsewhere), we dive into how our experiences going to conventions and playing games in specific time slots has shaped our game design.
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The Constraints Episode
February 19th, 2025 | Season 0 | 1 hr 14 mins
arcane gems, listener questions
In this episode we discuss the arcane gems found within games we would play with our moms, give some updates on what's happening in the discord, and field a great question about productive constraints in design and play.
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The Purple and Yellow Episode
January 22nd, 2025 | Season 0 | 1 hr 8 mins
arcane gems
In this episode we do our color-guided homework, explore the realm of rpg fiction written by people who haven't played rpgs (?), and talk about Epidiah "The Night Writer" Ravachol's handwriting strategy.