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Ludonarrative Dissidents

Ludonarrative Dissidents

Overview

"Ludonarrative dissonance" is a term from game-design commentary, describing a moment when the game mechanics pull in one direction but the game story pulls in another, creating dissonance. The ‘Ludonarrative Dissidents’ are three game designers, reviewers and commentators, veterans in the field of ludic narrative, who have come together to discuss the art, science and craft of RPG design by vivisecting game systems and seeing what makes them run.  Your hosts are Ross Payton, Greg Stolze and James Wallis.

Ethos

Every episode of Ludonarrative Dissidents is built around four pillars: What does this game do? How does it do that? How do people play it? Why do they play it that way? (and how well does it succeed?) We examine games from all angles: mechanical, ludic, narrativist, historical, cultural, structural, whether or not it’s fun, and Greg complains about its use of the future-conditional tense. We look at its influences and pedigree, its narrative engine, its world-building, its book-design, and James reveals that he dated the designer’s sister, or something like that. In season 2 we have added episodes that look at specific aspects of RPGs, such as initiative systems, metacurrencies and diceless games.

Origins

The idea behind Ludonarrative Dissidents came from a Twitter discussion in early 2021. Someone was looking for RPG designers to work on a project, someone else suggested Greg and James, and after the two of them politely declined, a third person opined that a podcast with the two talking about games and game design would be quite a thing. Greg and James exchanged a virtual glance across the Atlantic, Greg mentioned the idea to Ross, the three of them filled a Google document with ideas, and the project was born.

Latest episodes

  • 2h 41m

    Vincent and Meg Baker and Season 4 Kickstarter Launch!

    We hosted a live episode to talk about the launch of our Season 4 Kickstarter. Join me, Greg Stolze, James Wallis and special guests Meg and Vincent Baker (Apocalypse World, Dogs in the Vineyard and many more) as we disc...

  • 2h 48m

    The Quiet Year: An Actual Play featuring creator Avery Alder and Dr. Emily Friedman

    The Season 4 LND Kickstarter pre-launch page is live! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rosspayton/ludonarrative-dissidents-podcast-season-4The Quiet Year is a map game. You define the struggles of a post-apocalyptic...

  • 1h 12m

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Season 4 Pre-Launch Live Episode 0 and Mothership: Wages of Sin Review

    We recently completed season 3 and are going to launch a Kickstarter on October 13 to fund a fourth season! Follow the Kickstarter campaign to be notified when the campaign goes live!This live episode discusses what will...

  • 3h 25m

    Swords of the Serpentine Actual Play

    IN OUR TRADITIONAL style, as we reach the end of the season we’re bringing you a couple of Actual Play sessions of games that we’ve covered in earlier episodes, putting some actual ludo-ing into the customary narrative.T...

  • 55m

    Dialect

    DIALECT: A Game About Language And How It Dies is a 2018 single-session RPG by Hakan Seyalioglu and Kathryn Hymes, published by Thorny Games. It’s a game about a small community, isolated from larger groups, that first c...

  • 1h 05m

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Livestream for August 2026

    Our livestream discussion for August!Watch the episode on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 09m

    Swords of the Serpentine

    SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE is a game of fantasy shenanigans in a labyrinthine sinking city populated by rogues, schemers, cultists, swashbucklers and your player characters, written by Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner, and pub...

  • 1h 02m

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Livestream for June 2026

    Our livestream discussion for June!Watch the episode on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 57m

    Chicago by Night: Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition

    CHICAGO BY NIGHT is a 2018 city sourcebook for Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition, written by Matthew Dawkins and a host of others, and published by Renegade Game Studios, who have the rights to do all this stuff these d...

  • 1h 04m

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Livestream for May

    Our livestream discussion for May, featuring special guest Jerry Grayson of Khepera Publishing. Check out the Godsend Agenda today.Watch the episode on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 04m

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Livestream for April 2026

    Our April livestream!Watch the livestream on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 11m

    Call of Cthulhu: In Medias Res

    IN MEDIAS RES is a short modern-horror scenario (‘adventure’ is the wrong word for it) by John Scott Tynes, originally designed for Cthulhu Now and first printed in The Unspeakable Oath issue 10 in 1993. It was reprinted...

  • 1h 04m

    Ludonarrative Dissidents Livestream for March 2026

    Our March livestream!Watch the livestream on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 09m

    Maelstrom

    MAELSTROM is a paperback-format RPG written by Alex Scott and published in 1984 by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books in the UK. It contains rules for roleplaying in Europe, mostly England, at the time of the Tudo...

  • 1h 15m

    Livestream for February 2026

    We have a special guest, Adam Scott Glancy, one of the Delta Green co-authors! He clarifies a few points about Delta Green Countdown.Watch the livestream on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 14m

    Delta Green: Countdown

    Sponsor: Technical Difficulties Podcast - check out an excellent actual play RPG podcast, featuring Delta Green, Eclipse Phase, and many other fine systems featured on LND.Delta Green Countdown is a massive sourcebook fo...

  • 1h 05m

    Livestream for January 2026

    Our first livestream of the year! We talk about new games we played and a grabag of topics. Watch the livestream on Youtube⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 09m

    Alice is Missing

    ALICE IS MISSING is a self-contained one-session RPG for 3–5 players, designed by Spenser Stark and released in 2020 by Hunters Entertainment with Renegade Game Studios, after a Kickstarter that raised $138,000. It’s bee...

  • 1h 01m

    LND Livestream for December

    Our monthly livestream for December! Watch the livestream here.⁠⁠⁠Discuss this episode on our Discord.

  • 1h 12m

    Mothership: Gradient Descent

    Gradient Descent is a module/campaign setting/megadungeon for the SF-horror RPG Mothership, released in 2020. It is written by Luke Gearing, with art by Nick Tofani and layout by Sean McCoy, and was published by Tuesday...

Social

Bluesky @ludonarrativediss.bsky.social
Ludonarrative Dissidents @ludonarrativediss.bsky.social

If you haven't had a chance to listen to the livestream we did on Tuesday with Meg and Vincent Baker, here's an excerpt about the secret history of RPGs that should explain what you're missing. We're streaming again tonight, with @mytholder.bsky.social and @lamemage.com, at 22:0...

Ludonarrative Dissidents @ludonarrativediss.bsky.social

Season 4 Kickstarter is live! www.kickstarter.com/projects/ros...

Episodes

Episode
Alice is Missing
Episode
Mothership: Gradient Descent
Episode
Cyberpunk RED

Reviews

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