Ben Riggs

And don’t sleep on Steve Winter — a living D&D legend. From sneaking into TSR through a second-story window to shaping 2e, 3e, and beyond, Steve has been part of D&D’s DNA for decades.

Tune in. Nerd out. 🎲🔥

He’s the mind behind Knave 2e and the force behind Questing Beast, your portal to the wild, weird wonders of old-school RPGs. If you like sharp rules, deadly dungeons, and freedom at the table, Ben’s your guy.

YouTube video by Reading D&D Aloud D&D Designer Meets the Questing Beast! Ep. 61

This one’s a banger: D&D designer Steve Winter meets Ben Milton of Questing Beast! Ben Milton is a game designer, YouTube sage, and sorceror-king of the OSR!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRyV...

Let’s recognize that, and arrange the government around counties and not around states.

What that looks like though, I have no clue.

And of course I could be wrong about all this, but I hope I’m not, because every other version of the future I look at is worse than this one.

I think the next constitution needs to keep money out of politics and probably have a looser federal union based on your county not your state, because the great divide in America today is rural-urban.

Right now, I only have two thoughts about a new American constitution. (I’m just a teacher and a writer after all.)

This is a road to authoritarianism, perhaps even a leftist one depending on 2028, and eventually civil violence.

Or we jump to the end of that road and make a new constitution.

You may think the Supreme Court will stop her, but courts do not have a strong track record of curbing kings (or queens).

This new presidency is much more like an elected king than a chief executive.

Now if you like Trump, you may love all this. But imagine these powers in the hands of President AOC. Imagine what she could do.

Congress could impeach and remove the president, but the past half century has proven that to be a hollow threat.

If the president breaks the law, but does so in the course of doing their job as president, the Supreme Court has ruled they cannot be prosecuted for it.

Look at the checks on the president.

Apparently, the president does not need to follow the instructions of Congress when it funds an agency the president doesn’t like, such as the Department of Education or USAID.

The American Constitution died in the past six months, so we are going to need a new one.

You may say that’s an exaggeration. I would ask then that you look at our constitutional system of checks and balances, ‘cause right now the checks don’t balance.

YouTube video by Reading D&D Aloud Mike Mearls + Kelsey Dionne = An Hour of Happy Ep. 50

Hey, if you can get messages on here, I'd love to have you on my podcast. Email me at riggsbl@gmail.com if you're interested, and here's a sample episode:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRPJ...

and he followed D&D from Wisconsin to Renton, Washington where he continued to produce work for D&D through 5th edition.

He was a vital voice on 2nd edition AD&D. He was one of the first people to work on 3rd edition D&D, even though that project then passed on to other hands,

He began working on D&D back at TSR in downtown Lake Geneva, and once even broke into the offices by climbing in a second storey window.

It is possible that Steve has the longest D&D career of anyone in the history of the game. (Fact check! He's probably #2.)

And Blades, which is itself an epochal piece of design, birthed an entire universe of games using its system.
Second, we have D&D icon Steve Winter.

Blades in the Dark creator John Harper said that the origin of Blades in the Dark was a Stars Without Number campaign.

Stars was what I ran during the pandemic, and Worlds I read, and since the birth of my son, I read about one RPG every six months, but I had to put Worlds in that rotation just to see what Kevin did in it. To give just a taste of Kevin’s influence,

and Worlds Without Number, both of which have been tremendously successful and influential as paragons of sleek game design and peerless GM tools.

YouTube video by Reading D&D Aloud Legendary RPG Designer Breaks Media Silence- Ep. 59

I can't believe I got these two on the show together!

First, Kevin Crawford is a TTRPG design legend.
My favorites from his work are Stars Without Number,

youtu.be/HLe3saMZYk4?...

Then, when D&D landed at Wizards, he found himself in charge of D&D, and had to figure out how to make the game make money again.

He seems to have been present at a number of important moments during the transplantation of D&D from TSR to Wizards of the Coast.

He went to Lake Geneva as part of a team to negotiate an initial purchase with TSR CEO Lorraine Williams.

But I believe I have one of those people who could credibly tell a story explaining how they saved D&D on the podcast with me today, because today I am speaking with Ryan Dancey. Ryan is like a Rhode Island private who just happened to be at every major battle of the Civil War.

YouTube video by Reading D&D Aloud Did this guy save Dungeons & Dragons? Ep 58

Who saved Dungeons & Dragons?
How many people could say that they saved Dungeons & Dragons? Off the top of my head, I would say that the list of people who could say they saved D&D at some point over the course of its 51-year history is less than 20.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OpW...

The voice of male Commander Shephard, Mark Meer, conversates with Ravenloft co-creator Bruce Nesmith and Ravenloft author James Lowder. Click here! youtu.be/sEGxpb4iMbA

YouTube video by Reading D&D Aloud Are Hexcrawls the Adventure's Final Form? with Jacob Hurst & WF Smith Ep. 56

Smith is the lead designer or Barkeep on the Borderlands, a pubcrawl pointcrawl that is equal parts 1st edition homage, wine-soaked bachelorette party, and Terry Pratchett.

youtu.be/aRodkObOz8Y

Jacob is one of the brilliant minds behind The Dark of Hot Springs Island, a hexcrawl of evil elves, interdimensional drug dealers, and beached whales.

Are hexcrawls the adventure's final form?
We discuss that very question with two of the premier purveyors of the hexcrawl format in the 21st century: Jacob Hurst & WF Smith, aka Prismatic Wasteland.