PODCAST

No Plot, Only Lore

Josh Varty and Kristoffer Hansen

Two old men talking about the art and craft of collaborative storytelling games.

leisure games

All Episodes

31:12

The Ecology of Goblins: Deconstructing 'Goblin Mode'...

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/11/14

What is the difference between Goblin Mode and Goblin Core? Dive into the ecology of the internet's most feral archetype. We explore why embracing your inner "cozy swamp creature" is a coping mechanism for millennial burnout and the pressure of perfect adulting.

31:07

The Problem With Progress: OPR's Sentient Bugs and...

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/11/07

One Page Rules (OPR) started as a quick, simple alternative to Warhammer 40,000, but now it’s charting its own path with unique lore. The results? A minefield of mixed audience reactions.In this episode, we dive into the difficulties OPR faces transitioning from a '40k knock-off' to an original game system, and how the inherent differences in audience expectations—especially those conditioned by the constant feedback loop of the internet—make that transition so volatile

38:49

Anime Powers for TTRPGs: Can Groundhog Day Death &...

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/10/31

Welcome back to No Plot Only Lore! This week, your hosts Josh and Chris dive deep into the most chaotic and complex anime powers to figure out how to import them into your favorite TTRPG (like Dungeons & Dragons). If you love D&D mechanics, worldbuilding, and outlandish character concepts, this episode is for you.We break down the rules and roleplaying challenges of:The Social Credit Hero: A power set based entirely on a character's popularity and public trust. What happens to a superhero's

37:03

Cringe: Why Sincerity Still Matters at the Gaming Table

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/10/24

Why does sincerity make us squirm? This episode of No Plot, Only Lore dives into the strange magic of cringe—how vulnerability, irony, and emotional safety shape our play. From dice rolls to deep feelings, we explore why pretending like you mean it might be the bravest move at the table.

19:27

Archeogaming: How Archeology and Tabletop Games...

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/10/17

In this episode we go over some rough concepts for how archeology and tabletop gaming interact, and how this new area of study (which currently focuses on video games) might be brought more fully into the tabletop world.

41:21

Bring out the Clowns: Humor at the Table

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/10/10

Probably the least funny discussion about comedy ever had by two relatively witty people. Also, we have a patreon now! www.patreon.com/noplotonlylore

40:49

Ludonarrative Dissonance

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/10/03

Time to get real pretentious with it again! Buckle up! Talking about the friction that takes place between a game's mechanics and that game's story, and how that impacts the art of gaming in general.

37:37

Campaign Aftercare

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/09/26

How do you make sure your players are ready to re-enter reality after the campaign is over?

32:46

Playing With Yourself

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/09/19

This week we talk about board games you can play all by your lonesome!

37:41

Dungeon Parenting

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/09/12

Raising kids is hard. It would be harder with cockatrices and manticores and shit.

39:24

Expanding Your Horizons

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/09/05

Board game expansions - a fun way to spice up your favorite board game, or just a cult of commercial cardboard?

37:13

Lost Empires

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/08/15

In which we probably get cancelled by both the right and the left for the first five minutes.

30:14

The Slipperiest Game pt. 2

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/08/08

Wherein we get to the meat of our problems with Squid Game seasons 2 and 3. And they're pretty meaty.

35:21

The Slipperiest Game, Pt 1

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/08/01

Josh and Kris finally talk about Squid Game, and talked about it so much they had to split it into two episodes.

37:01

The Crossover

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/07/11

In which we put characters from beloved children's stories into stories that uh... Aren't so child-friendly...

42:04

The Gritty Reboot pt 2

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/07/04

Wherein we talk about gritty reboots more and better!

34:54

The Gritty Reboot pt 1

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/06/20

We talk about rebooting and adapting some of our favorite intellectual properties as gritty HBO series.

40:53

The Chosen One

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/06/13

Josh thinks Buffy is bad. This starts us down a rabbit hole about the Chosen One trope and how that applies to both media and RPGs.

32:28

Folklore with X Dialed Up to 11

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/06/06

We take some traditional folklore and randomize a descriptor to see what ideas we can come up with. Gross selkies, Baba Yaga but queer-coded, cutesy chupacabras and the like.

30:52

The End?

No Plot, Only Lore ·

2025/05/30

Sometimes this shit gets away from us, man. I don't know what to tell you. We had an idea for what to talk about and then we barely talked about it for a half hour.

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No Plot, Only Lore

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