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Russ, Raef, and Craig can hardly contain their excitment as they get to chat with one of their favorite miniatures rules designers Alessio Cavatore! Learn how he got started in the industry, what he's worked on and what his latest projects are with Mantic and other companies.

After that, Total Fan Girl is very excited to sit down with singer and song writer Marian Call in an extended TFG segment.

And finally, Raef and Russ talk tech and update listeners on their tech lair set up. How does the new TV tech fit into their set ups? Do consoles still solve all their needs? And what the heck does the Kinect have to do with anything?

All that and our other not-too-horrible segments including:

- The Hollywood Minute

- What's in the News

- Do You Ever Notice

- Voicemail

- & More

Link to episode: http://www.thed6generation.com/d6g-ep-68-alessio-cavatore-interview-marian-call-interview-tech-talk

Please let us know what you think!

Awesome, start my vacation tomorrow and a D6G episode to kick it off! Life is good. Thanks Russ!

I need to find a copy of the Mantic rules. I already have an undead army (with Mantic ghouls no less) and my friend has a dwarf army so we could probably play Mantic's rules with GW models (oh the irony!).

great episode . loved the interveiw with alesio . i know it be hard for you guys to reveiw black powder , from warlord games , but its awesome . i love this set of rules i use it for napoleonics and im booting up for zulu wars with it . you should try to reveiw this set . also it would be great to hear more about the kings of war game . a reveiw must . great work on the show as always . these big interveiws are a big draw for new listeners . keep up the great work..... Rendar

Great Interviews! Both Alessio segment and TFG interview were very nice. Tech segment ran a bit long on non-game related stuff for my druthers . Good to hear Craig back in form, sounding well rested and full of vigor - he was sounding pretty haggard for a couple of shows! Hope y'all get some good rest after the Holidays. Cheers.

Listening to TFG as I type and I'm a little dissapointed. The Hollywood Minute just wrapped up and Raef made a point to address the language issue last episode and TFG starts with with some less than family friendly content.

bbb- What can I say? Sorry if the intro with Marian and I goofing around about NPR voices offended as none was intended.

nicolewakelin wrote:bbb- What can I say? Sorry if the intro with Marian and I goofing around about NPR voices offended as none was intended.

I know it's tame compaired to most things, but still felt really out of place on the D6G, but
really the most offensive thing she said was making the cherry popping comment...

Just finished listening to the latest episode today while running errands. Another entertaining episode.

I enjoyed the interview with Alessio and am curious about the Kings of War rules...though since I only just got into Warhammer over the past couple months I don't see me getting into the game. But, I'm curious to check out the rules. I find myself a tad disappointed that Mantic is going to stick with the 12-page rules folio in lieu of a shiny full-on rulebook. I'll admit that lessens my interest in the product. What can I say? I likes me some pretty rulebooks.

I enjoyed Nicole's interview with Marian Call. I will have to check out more of her music. Thanks for including The Nerd Anthem at the end of the episode. Dug it. Interesting discussion about the need for caution in relating to some fans.

I'm of two minds on the Tech segment. On the one hand, it was interesting and informative. As someone who is on the lookout for a way in which we can be free of cable companies I was very intrigued by some of the discussion regarding Apple TV, Google TV, Hulu, etc. I feel like we're maddeningly close to cutting off cable...but there's just a few missing components (i.e. sports). Some day. We're in the flux right now.

On the other hand...such discussion is not what I listen to D6 for. So, while entertained and interested as I was...at the same time I felt...disappointed? I don't know. That seems like too harsh a word. But, kept to a minimum (once a year...maybe every six months....I dunno) it's fine.

It's got to be difficult to come up with fresh content every two weeks. There's not always a new game or expansion to review (although Magic the Gathering is just sitting there...begging to be reviewed. Right, Craig? Heh..heh. I keed...I keed) and I know that presents a challenge. I appreciate all the hard work you guys (and gal!) put into the show. It shows. Thank you.

Jeff
The Rural Gamer
http://theruralgamer.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/TheRuralGamer

I think the Tech Segment typifies my "problem" with the show.
Every time I hear that you are about to do a slightly off topic segment I groan inwardly; I love my Wii and have no desire to expand into console systems (like the DS). Then you make comments comparing the DS to the iPhone or iPod touch and how it is a better value and I am "forced" to rethink my opions and look at things in a different light. How dare you gentlemen (and by assciation, lady)? I have had no choice (none!) but to refer back to that segment in several conversations regarding digital entertainments recently. Bending our minds with your wizard's tricks to look at things differently. Exposing us to forms of gaming we would never normally consider (I have you to thanks for last year's Run For Your Life Candyman gingerbread slaughter at my FLGS, Game Vault-their cruel and tasty blood,er, crumbs are on your hands-and my black T-shirt). Freaky singers using something other than an every other line rhyming scheme. Strange foreigners talking madness like 12-page fantasy rules without convoluted systems for turning large blocks of troops?!
I don't know how you all sleep at night.
Except Craig-he probably doesn't sleep very much these days.

Also
You are all most welcome by the way; The D6G has been very good to me; just wanted to return some of the love.

Hello guys,
I enjoyed the show. I think the interview with Alessio Cavatore went very well. I am going to check out the Kings of War rules. A fantasy game that is designed for tournaments really appeal to an ex GW Fantasy fan. He seemed to enjoy doing the interview as much as you guys seemed to enjoy doing it. I think the interview on TFG went well also. I have listened to and have bought some of Marian’s music due to it. Thanks again for a good show.

On the random book front, I am about halfway through "Crown of the Blood" Gav Thorpe's Angry Robot book. Pretty good so far. I hope the D6 review of Dan Abnett's Angry robot book comes along eventually.
I liked the Allesio interview. He seemed like he was really into it despite the late hour.

Great show, keep it up.

Great show, as always. I particulary enjoyed this month's Do You Ever Notice.

If the shoutout fellow who had recently moved to Norway lives in Oslo and is a miniatures player, look us up at www.2d6.no, under the OMSK subforum. If he is into boardgames, I advise looking in on the new Outland in Kirkegata 23. They have mini nights wednesdays and boardgame nights thursdays.

Great show guys- between Alessio/Mantic on one hand, and the Tech Talk and TFG's Marian Call interview on the other hand it was a nice mix of gaming and geek.

Just 4 quick points:
1- I loved tech talk. I really appreciated the assessment of the current phone, video content, and gaming technology environment (and their convergence). I bought the Kinect and I share Russ's enthusiasm for the future of this interface.

2- Our gaming group just started doing some single session "dungeon delving" in D&D 4e. I'm really loving it, and what is interesting is that I'm not sure I would have tried it without experiencing (and also loving) Castle Ravenloft. I'm of the mind that this was what was intended during the game's design. I know this was postulated on the show, but its actually worked out in exactly this way for me.
What is also interesting is that Ravenloft was hot with our group for about 2 months, but is now collecting dust as we go into D&D 4e & Descent more hard core.
Is anyone else following this progression? Any way we can get an update/review on D&D 4e and more on Russ' 4e experience (besides the online platform)? Raef, now that you're out of Warhammer Fantasy, is there interest to get into D&D 4e on your part?

3- I'm seeing a subtle pattern on the show, and a conspiracy theory is budding up as a result. Is the reason you guys always "forget" to name contibutors of email and forum posts is because you want to keep these mentions from cannibalizing your "shout out" contributions? I would discourage this if this is unwritten D6G policy. Part of creating a supportive community is making supportive fans feel like their contributions are noted and valued. I dont think writing down the names of fans who make meaningful points/contributions and mentioning them in the episodes is a threat to your fund raising.

4- I agree with the contest submission/rules discussion from last episode's forum posts and the current episode. Contest rules clarity is key, and while you guys win either way, the fans feel screwed when we submit something that we believe puts us in the running, and then find out that there is another set of requirements for consideration that we are all unaware of ("send in email prose or art submissions"="send us actual painted shields"). Its cool that people are going above and beyond, but finding out after the fact that email contest submissions arent really in the running and that we actually have to send in artwork to be eligible is very unequitable.

I hope this helps!
Cheers!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, starting up "The Name of the Wind" on Craig's recommendation.
Anyone else reading this? If so, are you having having trouble with the hero/narrator's pompous attitude? I'm reading along as he talks about how brilliant he is and his parents' troupe is. Its kind of off-putting and I'm hoping he gets his come-uppance...

Thanks for all the kind words, guys. We'll try to keep things not-so-horrible for as long as ya'll are interested in listening.

Sawtooth: No conspiracy at all, I assure you. We REALLY are that bad with names. For instance, Raef just gave a whole bunch of thanks on THM. The thing is, things pop into our heads during 2 weeks as a result of emails etc, and we remember the main points, but if we don't have the time to go back or the chance to jot things down, the person who first spurred the memory escapes us. It's rude at the worst, and forgetfulness at the core, but there is NO intention of making the shout outs 'worth more' or whatever, I assure you.

Thanks for writing!

~Craig

Thanks for clarifying, Craig.
Not trying to offend- just curious. Hope you all had a Happy "Tanks-Giving"!

Thanks for the great feedback everyone. I'm glad the segment variety we try to put into the show appeals to most. We do know that not everyone will like every segment, but hopefully there is always some kind of 'gem' in every 3-4 hour episode for each listener.

Adult Humor
Our goal has always been PG-13, or "Anything that you might see on US prime time TV." So swearing is right out, and I do apologize for those couple that slipped through my editing back when Raef used the "s" word. However the double entendre has been used quite a bit on the show, almost since the beginning. Comments such as Russ: "That game is long and hard" Raef: "That's what she said" happen in just about every episode.

I'm not sure the TFG segment crossed the PG-13 line and I also don't want to establish a double standard in which men can use a double entendre on the show but women can't.

Any hoo, I just wanted to give you all a feel for the kind of "profanity" filter we use while both speaking and editing.

Naming Names
What Craig said. I, personally, am GOD-AWFUL with names. So much so I usually try NOT to name names just to avoid making someone feel bad by getting the wrong name. And even when you do remember the names of some people, there is always someone I forget, and that forgotten person feels hurt. For example, I've found it's always better to say "Thanks to everyone I met at GenCon" than "It was great to meet to Tim, Rob, Frank, and Carol at GenCon" because right after the show I'll get an e-mail from Ethan asking why I didn't mention him.

So names are hard. And rest assured that the only reason we get them right in shout outs is because people write them down for us.

And one . . . some . . . of us don't even get them right then!

And no offense taken, Sawtooth. Just don't expect to be mentioned by name

Craig- as previously noted, you guys have been bad with names all along...
If we're still listening happily after 68 x 4 hrs of listening, we must not expect our names to get mentioned

If I want my name out there, I'll start a podcast about podcaster conspiracy theories (now there's an idea!)

Cheers and thanks again for a great podcast!

An excellent show again, with some genuine insight into games design from Alessio. You speak to a lot of board game designers, and maybe it would have been a good line of questioning to go into some of the differences between different sorts of game design. Perhaps next time!

I've been listening to and enjoying the podcast for a couple of years now, and I'm going to say something controversial. For me TFG works best when it's about gaming. It can be jarring when it's the only part of the show not about gaming. Maybe it's time to set TFG loose upon the Internet as a podcast of it's own. Please don't take this as a negative comment, as I believe that there's a big audience out the for the show, that probably don't want to listen to a show about gaming!

Anyway keep up the good work, I get the feeling that I'm probably in the minority of one. I'm looking forward to the next two years of podcasts, entertaining me on my fortnightly trips up to Scotland.

As far as the tech talk segment goes, we use our laptop with HDMI out to watch any thing we want from the web on our TV. It'd be nice if there was a good solution for a remote control, but we use a wireless mouse and it does the job good enough. Our laptop was $400 from Best Buy and has been a great investment. There are also ultra small desktop computers with HDMI out that run from $200 to $400 and are also a good solution. I've even seen people velcro them to the back of their TVs because they're so small and light. The game systems and set top boxes are nice, but I like being able to have full access to the web.

Just finished listening to this last night.

I must admit I really enjoy listening to these episode. There has never been an episode where everything has been relevant to me and my interests but it always manages to spark my curiosity in other games and thus expands my gaming horizons.

I really enjoyed both the interview with Alessio & with Marian and having never heard of Marian Call before she now has a starred playlist on my spotify.

Keep up the great work

Hey guys,

Great job on getting the Alessio interview, it was very fun to listen to!

Although I have to say I was a little disappointed (real disappointment here, not just re-branded hatred ) that you guys didn't ask him and go into a discussion about the actual rules for Kings of War at all. It sounded like only Raef had actually read the rules, but with only like 12 pages to 'em, you guys really had little reason not to check them out once you knew he was going to be on the show, right?

As much as I love the usual interview topics about his 'gamer cred' as well as other GW topics, but since you guys had an actual games designer on for a change who was essentially pimping a new set of rules, it would have been really nice if you had gone into a few questions about choices in mechanics, etc.

Just as an example, Kings of War has chosen to go with pure 'unit' design, where the actual models within the unit play absolutely no actual role in the game...you don't even remove them except when the entire unit gets removed. I would have loved to have heard some of his reasoning behind this and whether or not that design decision might alienate some people from wanting to paint tons of models that effectively don't 'do' anything in the game directly.

Another interesting change from normal wargaming that Kings of War has is that close combat is only resolved by the player whose turn it is, kind of like close ranged shooting, and then the two units are pushed back apart. So if the enemy wants to 'fight back' in close combat, they have to charge back in on their turn to inflict their attacks back. I'm sure this design decision was motivated by the 'chess clock' concept where everything on your turn is YOUR OWN actions, but again, I would have loved to have heard his thoughts on these types of interesting choices.

So while I did LOVE the interview it really left me wanting so much more! But still, let me say that it was a nice treat regardless.


Loved the tech talk as always. My Living room is incredibly narrow so I think I could *barely* get a Kinect 6 feet away from me, definitely not 8 feet and so far I have absolutely no interest in any of the games at all, but the motion/voice control of the system still makes it very, very tempting to me (although Netflix not utilizing it is a major disappointment). Do you think that for basic control of the system, that barely 6 feet clearance would be okay? I figure the 8 foot measure is really for when you have multiple people and/or are jumping around, but if you're just using your hands to navigate through the menus, 6 feet should be plenty, correct?

Definitely please make sure to keep us updated any time there are good games and/or feature updates for the Kinect as I will probably be waiting for some sort of reason to buy it and right now it still isn't there for me.


Oh, and Craig I wanted to jump back a few shows and make fun of your annoyance that your friends didn't email you when they had set up an event via facebook. Y'know, if *all* your friends are using some sort of communication tool that makes their lives easier and you decide to sit it out for whatever reason (however valid) you shouldn't be annoyed when those people aren't coming back to an old paradigm to include you. Basically you're like the guy in previous years whose friends are all talking via email but you only like to talk over the phone or even further back, the guy whose friends all talk via the phone but you refuse to get one because you like the personal contact of face-to-face conversation.

Nobody hates the pointless 'I'm eating breakfast now' facebook/twitter updates more than me, but I just want to let you know two things about Facebook:


1) You can organize all of your friends on Facebook into groups and then anytime you post something you can choose EXACTLY who gets to see it. So Facebook does *not* have to be about spamming everyone you know with every bit of information you want to put out. If you just want to tell your game group that you're heading over to the game store if anyone wants to stop by then you can do exactly that without informing your extended family or anyone else.


2) If your friends are setting up events on Facebook and you're getting left out, all you have to do is start a facebook account and add everyone who sends you a request (and everyone and their mom will request to be your 'friend' once you get on there) but you don't ever have to post anything AT ALL or check it EVER, except...you turn your settings on to send you an email in two cases: When someone on facebook sends you a direct message or invites you to an event. Now when that happens, you get an email telling you exactly what message someone has sent you and/or what even they've invited you to. At that point you can either just email those people normally or you can sign into facebook JUST to send them a reply, but either way you're still not using Facebook except to make sure you stay in the loop for the things you want to be a part of (and that is done through a medium you prefer: email).


So while I'm all about irrational hatred towards new technologies that change social behavior (I was so against cell phones for the longest time, but now I don't even have a land line), at some point you have to realize that you don't have to jump in full-bore to these things, you can just use them the way they work for you and ignore the part of it you hate.

Howdy Yak!

And it's good to see 'ol Sean with his Santa hat back on.

Alessio
We take turns taking lead on different segments and interviews, and it was Raef's lead for Alessio. He got to do his style interview, which is much more "get to know the person."

I definitely was chop'n at the bit to get more technical about the Kings of War rules... but that's not the angle we were doing this time. Hopefully we'll get another opportunity.

I am looking forward to trying the Kings of War rules. I have given them a good read and noticed the same things you've pointed out.

Kinect
You definitely need space for the games. We just put up our Christmas tree and now we can only play single player Kinect games. :(

The audio and video controls are cool, but still feel very v1.0. I'd wait until a few more updates until getting it if you only want it for that.

But if someone has the space and doesn't mind a little activity while gaming it is good fun.

I'll keep updating my Kinect adventures in Achievements. The first big "gamer game" everyone is looking forward to is the Star Wars game, but it's not due out until next year.

Facebook
I still don't grok the anti-Facebook thing. It does very much remind me of the anti-email stuff we used to see in the 80's and 90's, and the anti-phone stuff we used to see earlier. Good analogy.

Hmmm . . .

To Yak: good points, but I can still be bitter.

To the universe at large with no specific person in mind whatsoever: I still don't get how anyone can be really smart and successful and NOT know the correct forms of basic phrases in the English language such as 'CHOMPING' at the bit . . . as in an eagre horse biting on the bit in its mouth . . . not sure what the horse would be doing CHOPPING at the bit . . .

Cheap shot, I know, but when confronted with the ever-amusing "I still don't 'grok' the _______ thing" . . . you're more inclined to take the shots your given.

Master-Terraformer wrote:
To the universe at large with no specific person in mind whatsoever: I still don't get how anyone can be really smart and successful and NOT know the correct forms of basic phrases in the English language such as 'CHOMPING' at the bit . . . as in an eagre horse biting on the bit in its mouth . . . not sure what the horse would be doing CHOPPING at the bit . . .

And I find it amusing that an English teacher would presume ignorance of the proper phrase and not assume that perhaps the person made a typo. (Of course it is chomping)

For example... I don't presume that said English teacher is unfamiliar with the proper spelling of "eager".. I'm sure he just made a typo.

Ah yes, the typo argument. I'll just let the record (re: emails, show notes, and forum posts) speak for itself as to where the likely typos vs incorrect wordings might be most applicable.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
*mutter mutter mutter stupid no spell check mutter mutter mutter*

sawtooth wrote:
Also, starting up "The Name of the Wind" on Craig's recommendation.
Anyone else reading this? If so, are you having having trouble with the hero/narrator's pompous attitude? I'm reading along as he talks about how brilliant he is and his parents' troupe is. Its kind of off-putting and I'm hoping he gets his come-uppance...

Hmmm...I don't remember being annoyed by his "pompous attitude"...I think it may have been setting up the character as someone who thought a little too highly of himself when he was younger. Having said that...keep reading...


I'll dissent a little about the "foul language"...it didn't bother me one bit. Which isn't to say I want the D6G to degenerate into F-bombs and the such. But the phrase that Raef used, "Shoot the $&!#" is such a common everyday phrase, that it doesn't even strike me as profanity. I also didn't mind the "pop my cherry" comment in the TFG interview. I think you guys strike the right balance with "aiming to be PG-13". An occasional slip-up isn't going to stop me from listening in the car with my kids...alas, they've probably heard worse out of my mouth...

As for Facebook, the advent of telephones, cell phones and even email never had the serious privacy concerns that Facebook is bringing up. I would caution anyone to be very careful what types of things they put on Facebook.