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Have you seen me Dice Bag the Grognard Files? Hello, my name is Dirk the Dice and this is the Grognard Files podcast where we talk bobbins about tabletop RPGs from back in the day and today I'm coming live from my den here in the heart of the north west of England. I'm completely and utterly surrounded by my stuff. I don't have a collection, I have an accumulation of RPGs that I store here on my right in a great library of RPGs. Alongside my grognard Files on my left is a ridiculous homemade shrine to the actor Caroline Munro. But we'll ignore that for now. The Grognard Files have been expanding and I know that it's often difficult to know where to start, which file to pluck from the shelves, and there's a lot of podcasts out there about RPGs, so this is a handy guide to the Grognard Files podcast to help you make your mind up. If this is something for you, there are a lot of reasons why some podcasts stick in your listen queue and some don't. You'll already have made your mind up if you can put up with my stupid voice for a prolonged period, but don't go yet. Stick around. You might get used to it. I've heard that it's a better cure for insomnia than popping a couple of Nitol. So what is the Grognard Files? Well, episodes come out monthly, usually on or around the 18th of the month, and they're a deep dive into a game, looking in depth at the rules, the history, the setting and our attitudes towards it. They're often in two parts, which why the numbering is whacked out. We've done over 60 podcasts, but it looks like there's fewer. A Grognardian Time Paradox it was originally conceived as a memoir of our experiences of playing role playing games in the 80s. Then we stopped playing and we entered a deep freeze until we started to play again 20 odd years later. We were interested in looking at the old games and rediscovering them. And if you listen to those early episodes about RuneQuest, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Dungeons and Dragons and Stormbringer for example, you'll understand some of our early experiences of being involved in a hobby and that no one else around seemed remotely interested in. But it's not all about old farts remembering stuff as time has gone on as well. As a memoir, we've been curious about what happened during the deep freeze when we weren't playing how has the growth of indie games and narrative games in the 90s and 2000s changed how we play today? We looked at Numenera Night's Black Agents and Fate, for example. We like to imagine the podcast as an aural fanzine, a patchwork quilt of different voices and ideas with misplaced enthusiasms and laboured jokes. It's organized into different regular sections too, like a photocopied hand stapled effort from the 80s landing on your doormat with a reassuring thud. They're about 90 minutes long, but don't let that put you off. Take your time, have a brew and a hobnob and you'll get through it. I'm the host, but I've roped in others too. I'll rephrase that. I've roped in willing participants to contribute to the podcast. Judge Blythey is our resident rules lawyer and self appointed sidekick for the Grogpod and he provides an illuminating insight on the finer points points of how games work for us and why they sometimes don't, while at the same time pouring buckets of scorn on my enthusiasms. We've been friends for over 40 years and formed the Armchair Adventurers together. Aileydwarf from Twitter picks out pieces from the halcyon days of White Dwarf magazine from issues from about 1 to 100 when it covered a RPG's. He writes funny, detailed commentary of the scenarios, articles, features and reviews from the magazine as an essay that I read. Ed in the Shed joined the amateur adventurers following a rather desperate small lad in White Dwarf. He's our resident bargain hunter, trying to seek out the old and rare treasures he's known for calling a spade a spade a spade that he got from about a tenner. Still not sure where to start. Well ramblers, let's get rambling. Open box. This is part of the podcast where we look backwards to look forwards, virtually reconstructing our teenage selves to go back in a time machine to examine how we played a game under discussion. We then think about how our attitudes have changed. We never talk about a game that we haven't actually played, because play is the thing, right? If we play a game now, we reflect on what we think of it now. And has our opinion of a game changed now that the rose tinted glasses are resting on our forehead? We've also invited luminaries from the RPG scene to participate. People like Ken St. Andre, episode 28, Liz Danforth, episode 35, Mike Mason, episode 16, and many others. They share the formative experiences of role playing and their role in shaping the history of role playing gaming Just Blithy Rules Just Blythe, our resident rules lawyer, dons his ermine and fingers his gavel as he looks in detail at the rules of the game under discussion. Three mechanical highlights and one fumbly dud. Some have more fumble duds than others. Occasionally we'll get the experts in, such as Cthulhu hacks, Paul Badowski for paranoia, episode 19, Big Jack Brass for tunnels and trolls, episode 7 Bas Stevens from what Would the Smart Party do podcast episode 24 Warhammer but Blythe knows his onions. In fact, he's great on onions. Unfortunately, we we don't cover onions gains Master Screen in this section we enter the room of role playing, rambling a voluminous and echoey space, and I erect the games master screen to hide a secret table that I roll on, apparently at random, to pick out relevant topics, supplements and anecdotes. If you're interested in the memoir, then start with the early ones and check out episode 14 about fanzines, which tells the story of a PBM that I ran that got a bit out of hand, and episode 33 about our misadventures in live action role playing with a bucket on my head. White Dwarf Everything comes back to White Dwarf. It was the cornerstone of our experience back in the day. It's where we found our inspiration. It introduced new games and supplements that we could go all misty eyed imagining how we could raise enough money to buy them. Each issue we would read from COVID to cover. We did a White dwarf Special, episode 29, but most grog pods feature a section by Aileydwarf, who has provided in depth insight into the magazine during the period. You think you've been on a deep dive? Hold your breath, he's taking you further. And if you're suffering from the bends, why not gasp for some air as we talk to the magazine's editorial team? Jamie Thompson, episode 33, Ian Marsh, episode 14 Mark Gascoigne, episode 18 and the late Mike Brunton, episode 29. Or if white Dwarf didn't float your boat, then we have a podcast about TSI UK's Imagine magazine with the editor Paul Coburn, episode nine and see how a popular magazine was sunk by TSR politics. Grogglebox Role playing games have never existed in a vacuum. The cultural context is very important. What we were watching and reading and thinking about back in the day influenced the role playing games that we played and how we played them in the groggle box section and the rarer Starburst Memory segment one we look in depth at a television program or film or book that influenced us. What do we think of it now and how can we use it for gaming? If you like the sound of that, why not start with Robin of Sherwood, one of our more popular episodes, number 27 or Blake 7, episode 31 of the One of the amazing things that happened since starting the podcast five years ago is that we've inadvertently awoken a sleeper cell of fellow Grognards, the Grog squad, who've reached into their attic to the sound of their clacking knees to recover the games that they enjoyed. Many of them have started to play again. Fantastic. In this section we give them chance to talk about the first game they played, the people that they played with, the last game they played, and the game that means absolutely everything to them. It's great to hear the stories of people who've rediscovered the hobby, and of course, stories from people who never went away. We used the term Grognard, but we thought it was an old gamer. We had no idea that it was a pejorative term. We are in no way gatekeeper. Y sure we have a clubhouse feel, but you're very welcome to join. Review of the Year. We also indulge in a lot of rambling, usually in the pub with a very noisy jukebox. It's just like you're there trying to work out what the heck I'm saying. The December episode is a review of our gaming year where we look at the lowlights and the highlights. Perhaps start there. If you want to know what we've been playing since the podcast began. We award the coveted Groggies awards such as the Sharon Osborne Award for the game that looks new but it is actually old or the new kid on the top the table top or we'll set the wheel a spinning on our quick fire thunder phase. There isn't another bit so that's the Grogno Files. I should mention that we've got a blog too where you'll find the podcast at the grognard files.com you'll find play reports from conventions as well as other thoughts and ideas that tickle our fancy. We have a Patreon which supports the podcast and some of the other projects. Each November there's a Grog Meet held in Manchester and in April there's a virtual Grog Meet, an online convention. We produce an old school zine every year with specially commissioned piece of art from Russ Nicholson no less on the COVID We also provide the collected Daily Dwarf so you can read as well as listen to his illuminating essays. Chip in a few Coins in the Beret to become an honorary member of the Armchair Adventures Club, and you'll have access to a monthly webzine with news of online games that you can participate in with the odd actual play episode too. But don't feel obliged. We're just glad that you're considering listening. I hope that this introduction has whetted your appetite for the Grognard Files, and if it hasn't, well, bugger off. Adios, amigos. It.