Episode 138 – We Stand With Wundergeek

In a stunning turn of events, we actually have all three of your hosts on for this episode of the podcast. There was neither technical nor biological hazard getting in the way as we talk about various fantasy sportsball games (Blood Bowl and Guild Ball), talk about an interesting experiment in doing church differently, and then have some things to say about an issue that came across our twitter feeds that made us get eighteen kinds of furious.

It’s one thing to push a boundary and encouraging people to ‘get over themselves’ – but when there are people being actively harassed and pushed out of the gaming community just for saying that their representation in the hobby is pigeonholed and even slightly sexist, there’s something horribly wrong with that. You may have seen your hosts put it out on twitter already, but in case you didn’t – GSP stands with Wundergeek and everyone out there trying to make our games better and more available to everybody.

Your link round up for this episode:
Where There’s a Whip There’s a Way song from The Hobbit.
-8-bit Theater doing The Dead Alewives’ infamous D&D skit
-Be sure to watch the Ladies of the Round Table Twitch channel this Friday to see Jeff play a special Halloween episode of D&D with them.
-Be sure to join/support the InnRoads Regulars Extra Life team as we play for the kids on Nov. 5th. This year’s team goal is $2000, so stop by the team page and help us reach that goal!

Bonus Content – Katie Shotyk & Extra Life

EL2015 shirt copyThis episode of Bonus Content give us a chance to take a call from Katie Shotyk, one of our InnRoads Regulars Team for this year’s Extra Life event. Katie got a chance to go and visit the folks at Children’s Specialized Hospital – which has been our sponsored hospital for the past three years.

This year’s event will be happening November 7th at 8am through November 8th at 8am. If you have any questions or would like more info, please email me at Mike@innroadsministries.com.

At the time of this recording, there are 10 members of the InnRoads Regulars team, and we have raised just about 55% of our total fund raising goal of $1500. If you would like to join the team, there is still plenty of time to sign up, but even if you can’t play along with us here in NJ or wherever you are, you can help us by going to our TEAM PAGE , click on the “Roster” tab, and donate to one or more of our team members as they attempt to reach both their individual fund raising goals as well as pushing on to that $1500. We want to give a family a week’s worth of care cost free, and you can help by donating to any member of our team.

 

Episode 111 – Introspection

In this episode we talk about some tabletop games that have gone digital – namely Shadowrun Returns and Blood Bowl 2. We also talk about games of Blood Rage and Spyfall being played for Extra Life Tabletop Appreciation Weekend and learning to play Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn over Tabletop Simulator.

As the discussion leads to determining top 10 favorites videos, the topic turns to thoughts of how our gaming tastes and our faith have grown – causing some things to become more prominent, while others retreat. It’s when we really think about where we’ve been and where we hope to go that we see God working in us.

Episode 109 – The Tenuous Balance of Cooperation

1901516_695034160571985_2086804880_nInnRoads Ministries has added its first volunteers staff member. His name is Daniel Fisher, and we are very excited to have him team up with us and be about the business of playing games as ministry as we bring people together to build relationships. Daniel jumpst on this episode with us to talk about his time at Dragon*Con this year as one of the leaders at the GameChurch booth and share a bit of his dice obsession with us.

We also talk InnRoads Plays: Victoriana, Gloomhaven, and how easy it is to take some games and mechanisms designed to bring people together and turn them into divisive wedges between them.

 

EL2015 shirt copyRemember to sign up for this year’s Extra Life Team! We’re looking to raise $1500 for Children’s Specialized Hospital. We will only be able to do this if we have a bunch of people playing with us either at our local event here in New Jersey or with gamers near you. Check out our team page and sign up to join the team and start gathering donations as we support this great hospital for the 3rd year!

Whether you are going to be playing on the team or not – you can support us by ordering an InnRoads Regulars Extra Life 2015 Team shirt! 100% of the money we receive for this campaign goes to helps us meet our fund raising goal. The LAST DAY TO ORDER is September 14th. After that, you MIGHT be able to request a new print run of shirts to be made, but there’s no promise – so be sure to order yours today!

You also only have a couple days left from this episode going live to enter for our InnRoads Hates Zombies contest and win a copy of I Hate Zombies – a party game of survival. Details in the episode and on our site

Episode 108 – Another Brick in the Temple

We tried to cram a bunch of info and game discussion into this episode – so don’t mind me if I just break this down point-by-point

  • InnRoads Plays: Victoriana is coming! Having wrapped up our D&D 5e demonstration series, we’re moving on to show you Cubicle 7’s Victoriana. We just recorded session 0 where we talk about characters and start world building – so look forward to seeing those!
  • In “games we played” news – Jeff talks about Kingdom Builder and ALMOST getting into a game of Go, while I talk about my wife’s new favorite game – Viceroy.
  • Looking to the future, Jeff mentioned a game whose kickstarter only has HOURS remaining as I post this called Lobotomy ( as well as point out Christ & Pop Culture’s article about how a Christian can read the Cthulhu mythos here) and I talk about the news that Plaid Hat has opened pre-orders for their new miniatures combat game set int he Mice & Mystics universe called Tail Feathers.
  • HERE COMES THE NEWS!
    • InnRoads has officially been recognized as an “affiliated ministry” of my home church in Warren, NJ – Stonecrest Community Church! Looking forward to partnering with more churches and seeing this relationship grow!
    • Extra Life is coming NOVEMBER 7th! This will be InnRoads Ministries’ third year supporting Children’s Specialized Hospital. We are looking for team members and supporters to help us reach our $1500 team goal. For info about the event, as well as sign up information on our Extra Life team page and a link to get your very own InnRoads Regulars Team Shirt (campaign runs through September 15th, all proceeds from campaign go directly to support our Extra Life team), you can go to our news section
    • We have not one, but TWO contests running!
      • Listen to Gamerstable’s Shadowrun Actual Play when it goes live and email me at contact@innroadsministries.com – subject line should read “I heard you on Gamerstable” and the body should list the name of the character I played, as well as where the characters ran into him.
      • InnRoads Hates Zombies! Do any of the following to enter for your chance to win a copy of I Hate Zombies. Each of the following counts as 1 entry – we’ll select the winner after September 15th
        • Leave a comment on episode 1 of the MacGuffin Factory with a MacGuffin you’d love to see us talk about or how you plan to use one of our suggested ones in a game or story you’re creating
        • Leave a comment / review of Game Store Prophets on iTunes or Stitcher
        • Follow us on Twitter (@innroads) and tweet us with the hashtag #zombiehate
        • Email us with your favorite moment from our InnRoads Plays D&D 5e series
      • Please consider donating to InnRoads Ministries. Your donations mean I can dedicate my time to create content and training volunteers, help us create new events, and allow us to be at more conventions. Even just $1 a month will make a huge difference.

Episode 86 – I Will be Bread Queen – a report on Extra Life 2014

This post starts out with Luke and myself bantering about Star Realms and Five Tribes, but before long you get to have a listen into what happened during our fund raiser for Extra Life on October the 25th. As of this posting, we have raised just shy of $1000 for the event, but donations are STILL BEING ACCEPTEDPlease consider following THIS LINK to our team’s donation page and giving to help Children’s Specialized Hospital here in New Jersey.

extra life 2014 copyIf you are a part of the Tavern or Game Church City, you saw a post from me sharing that my wife went into the hospital due to an intense bipolar episode. This is a rare but painful reality among those struggling with this diagnosis, and it was hard – but it could have been much worse. Suze was actually out of the hospital and on the road to full recovery enough that she was in attendance at the event (though in another part of the building). We would both like to thank everyone who made the event happen and hope that you will donate to help these kids.

Whether you donate or not, I hope that you’ll enjoy the recordings of this event as they start off filled with excitement and possibility before ending with exhaustion and slurred speech.