Roll For Initiative podcast is up now, you go listen.

Check this shit out: Roll For Initiative is a brandy-new first-edition-centric podcast by two guys from the DF forums. It's pretty cool so far - they're 2 episodes in (each is something like an hour+), and they're already starting to get their dynamic going. The guys are pretty decent on the mic, the lack of which skill is the downfall of most well-intentioned 'casts I've heard (admittedly not many), they seem well-prepared, and they know how to discuss a subject without just sounding like two dudes having a conversation at the game store. (The smell is better as well, which is nice.)

The show is, regardless, painfully nerdy at times (expect a lot of rolled eyes from your girlfriend if she's walking around the apartment while you listen would be my advice), but that's as much of a feature as it is a bug in my department. LOL It's far worse when folks try to turn D&D into something Xtreem like BMX or MMA or cat juggling or whatever. This is honest. This is pure. I want to bask in the nerdliness when they're talking about the Deck of Many Things (and the inevitable campaign-nuking that ensues when you drop one as a DM).

They're focusing on 1e, and what I really like is that there's back-and-forth about how the hosts (and others) interpret BTB rules, and discussion of house rules from different campaigns as well. These guys get 1e - there's a lot of talk about all the different ways you can run your campaign, and about the flexibility and "open-sourced-ness" of OAD&D. I'm totally on board with the idea that the game just plain works better when you take Gygax's "make it your own damn game and stop asking me how initiative works already" mandate to heart.

(Presumably recurring) features include a monster spotlight (they're working from the Dragon "Creature Catalog" beasties now, I believe), a magic item spotlight, and a "Stickler's Corner" where they discuss obscure and fiddly rules. (Yay!) In the second episode they talk to the guy who wrote that Dragonfire DM program back in the day. There was some other stuff, I don't remember, I've been smoking resin this morning.

They also have a website with links and extra stuff from the show; you can get the shows in m4u or mp3 format direct from the site, or by RSS feed. You go there now.

-DYA