I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately and thought I’d share the good ones. I’ll be honest, I didn’t use to listen to podcasts. I read faster than I listen so considered it simply lazy production. But with my new job I have a commute pushing an hour so it’s a great thing to fill the gap with. (Video podcasts are still out for this reason…)
Dirty secret, I only listen to podcasts I can get on iTunes. Why? I’m a single dad with a challenging job and most of my RPG hobby time I spend doing something actually useful like playing or GMing or writing content. Fiddling around with people’s Web sites and manually downloading crap is right out.
Game publishers – you want to support podcasts. Hearing people talk in depth about products is better than any marketing. I was very cool towards the Pathfinder MMO and I had picked up Night’s Dark Agents (Ken Hite) in the game store and put it down again. But then Chronicles’ GenCon recording about the MMO and RPPR’s discussion of Night’s Dark Agents (I didn’t know it used the Blowback pyramid and had decent combat rules!) sold me on those products.
Without further ado, here’s my favorites.
Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast – it’s irregular and when they do come out it’s these 3-7 hour long monster episodes (hint: audio editing software allows you to release that as 7 1 hour episodes!) but it’s got great Pathfinder coverage, they go over AP chapters in depth, get the authors on, detail fixing the problems with it, etc. As a Pathfinder GM I get the most direct use out of this podcast.
Role Playing Public Radio – they have both a discussion podcast and an Actual Play podcast. I prefer the discussion – most Actual Plays are very hard to listen to without headphones and using a lot of mental CPU to overcome the audio problems endemic to the format. But the great thing about them is that they do a wide variety of games. CoC, Eclipse Phase, Wild Talents, and more. Loads of shout outs to RPGs and other genre stuff they come across and like. And they come out weekly!
Geek In Review – Geek talk from RPGs to movies to TV to politics. Comes out religiously every week. Very knowledgeable commentators. Has become my first weekly go-to podcast.
Others Worth Mentioning
Podcasts I’ve run across and listened to some of.
- Beer and Battle! – mainly actual play, but fun
- Brilliant Gameologists – like it but highly irregular
- Critical Hits – Idle since March
- Flagons & Dragons – reviewing games and beer, canceled as of August
- The Gamers’ Guide to Pathfinder – more Pathfinder goodness
- 3.5 Private Sanctuary – very regular, very 3.5 obsessed
- Know Direction – more Pathfinder
So in honor of my newfound love of gaming podcasts, I’ve added a new Podcasts section to my links, check them all out!
Geek Related 
You ought to give the following a listen:
Roll For Initiative
THACO’s Hammer
Save or Die
Order 66
These are among my favorite RPG podcasts and all are very well done. Of course, all are available on iTunes.
Check out Dnd Academy’s Dungeon Talk. Also available on iTunes
Thanks for the ttips, I’ll check them out (as soon as I’m not overflowing my poor iPhone 3GS’ memory with the ones I already am trying to load)!
If any of these are on iTunes, give them a shot:
Atomic Array – Each episode discusses a different game.
Dice of Doom – Ditto, but with Q&A and talking about RPG related topics.
The Walking Eye – Actual Play podcast.