Looking for a recommendation for podcasts to listen to.

Looking for a recommendation for podcasts to listen to.

Looking for a recommendation for podcasts to listen to.

This is due to the driveway conversation with the Sunday group last night. So I know Serial is on the list, and I already have Welcome to NightVale. What else do you all listen to?

34 thoughts on “Looking for a recommendation for podcasts to listen to.”

  3. I jump around from podcast to podcast a lot, but these are the ones that I’m currently listening to on at least a semi-regular basis

    Gaming Podcasts:

    ===

    Critical Success

    One-Shots

    The Twitching Curtain

    The Jank Cast

    General Podcasts:

    ===

    Common Sense – Dan Carlin

    Hardcore History – Dan Carlin

    GiantBombcast (Video Games)

    Global News – BBC

    My Brother, My Brother, and Me

    Radiolab

    Serial

    Serial Spoiler Special (Yes, this is a podcast about another podcast)

    Song Exploder

    The Bugle

    The Gist

    This American Life

    You Are Not So Smart

  4. I jump around from podcast to podcast a lot, but these are the ones that I’m currently listening to on at least a semi-regular basis

    Gaming Podcasts:

    ===

    Critical Success

    One-Shots

    The Twitching Curtain

    The Jank Cast

    General Podcasts:

    ===

    Common Sense – Dan Carlin

    Hardcore History – Dan Carlin

    GiantBombcast (Video Games)

    Global News – BBC

    My Brother, My Brother, and Me

    Radiolab

    Serial

    Serial Spoiler Special (Yes, this is a podcast about another podcast)

    Song Exploder

    The Bugle

    The Gist

    This American Life

    You Are Not So Smart

  7. NSFW but that’s why they made headphones

    Nerdy Show: Ghostbusters:Resurrection

    Nerdy Show: Dungeons & Doritos (yes that one guy is annoying but keep with it)

    The Bugle

    We’re Alive (complete)

    Fantasy Fiction (did I mention NSFW?  Amazingly immature stories)

    generally SFW

    The greatest movie ever! podcast (ignore the anime)

    Radio lab

    NPR:Wait Wait… Don’t tell Me

    Skeptoid

    Friday Night Comedy from BBC radio 4

  8. NSFW but that’s why they made headphones

    Nerdy Show: Ghostbusters:Resurrection

    Nerdy Show: Dungeons & Doritos (yes that one guy is annoying but keep with it)

    The Bugle

    We’re Alive (complete)

    Fantasy Fiction (did I mention NSFW?  Amazingly immature stories)

    generally SFW

    The greatest movie ever! podcast (ignore the anime)

    Radio lab

    NPR:Wait Wait… Don’t tell Me

    Skeptoid

    Friday Night Comedy from BBC radio 4

  11. These are the gaming podcasts I currently listen to:

    General Gaming:

    Happy Jacks RPG Podcast

    Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

    RoleplayDNA: Mapping the Genome of Gaming

    The Game’s the Thing

    plus a couple of Savage Worlds specific ones:

    Smiling Jack’s Bar and Grill

    Savage Worlds GM Hangout Podcast

  12. These are the gaming podcasts I currently listen to:

    General Gaming:

    Happy Jacks RPG Podcast

    Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

    RoleplayDNA: Mapping the Genome of Gaming

    The Game’s the Thing

    plus a couple of Savage Worlds specific ones:

    Smiling Jack’s Bar and Grill

    Savage Worlds GM Hangout Podcast

  13. Here is my current rotation:

    Serial

    Serial Spoiler

    Polygon’s Quality Control

    Vergecast

    Lexicon Valley

    The Gist

    The Twitching Curtain

    RuPaul’s What’s the Tee?

    Hardcore History

    Welcome to Nightvale

    Out There Radio

    Walking Eye (archive; they haven’t done new eps in awhile)

    Jank Cast

    Diane Rehm

    RadioLab

    The Golden Briefcase

    The Splendid Table

    Slate Political Gabfest

    This American Life

    Savage Lovecast

  14. Here is my current rotation:

    Serial

    Serial Spoiler

    Polygon’s Quality Control

    Vergecast

    Lexicon Valley

    The Gist

    The Twitching Curtain

    RuPaul’s What’s the Tee?

    Hardcore History

    Welcome to Nightvale

    Out There Radio

    Walking Eye (archive; they haven’t done new eps in awhile)

    Jank Cast

    Diane Rehm

    RadioLab

    The Golden Briefcase

    The Splendid Table

    Slate Political Gabfest

    This American Life

    Savage Lovecast

  17. I drive around all day for a living, so I listen to a lot.

    Gaming podcasts:

    – The Jank Cast is good.  For Krampus’ sake, don’t start at the beginning of their run, though.  Aim for the middle and work forward or backward if you need to.  They’re getting more and more sporadic in their release schedule; don’t expect them to last too much longer.

    – The Walking Eye.  They’re probably gone, or close enough to it, but they have/had a cool format, so I’ll mention them.  Typically, they’ll record actual play episodes of a game, then a review episode for that game, and then an interview with the game’s designer.  Pretty neat.

    – I’ll second One Shot.  It’s actual play, typically of one-shot games, though sometimes spread out over several episodes.  The host/usual GM and a lot of the guests come out of the Chicago improv scene, so it’s usually pretty funny.  The GM does indulge in one of my gaming pet peeves, but the show and audio quality are good enough to make up for it.  If nothing else, everyone should listen to their Scooby Doo Call of Cthulhu (http://peachesandhotsauce.com/podcasts/scooby-doo-pooch-doorstep) episode, which is by far the funniest AP I’ve ever listened to.

    – Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff is Ken Hite and Robin Laws talking about gaming and all sorts of other things that tie into, or can easily be tied into, gaming.  A frequent highlight of the show is Ken Hite, Consulting Occultist, wherein Hite will expound on some well-known and/or bizarre occult figure, why they’re interesting, and how they could be inserted into your game.  Also good is Ken Hite’s Time Machine, where he is challenged to go back in time to try and change some historical event using what he’s most skilled at, which usually ends up being his ridiculous amounts of historical knowledge combined with his ability to get somebody drunk.  I view Laws as a traditional old dog trying desperately to learn new tricks, and Hite thinks Call of Cthulhu is genuinely the best game ever made, somehow.  So there’s some nostalgia that tints their views, but they’re both really smart and interesting speakers.

    – Shut Up & Sit Down is primarily about board games, but they go into roleplaying games as well.  The podcast is mostly an adjunct to their website, but it’s worth listening to if you’re into board games and rpgs.

    – Honorable mention:  Actual People, Actual Play.  Now defunct, but I loved their format.  Every episode was recorded after playing a session of a specific game, and the episode discussion was centered on that session/game.  It worked very well, and served to keep things helpfully focused and moving along.

    – Also-rans:  Fear the Boot and THACO, which I listen to mostly for reasons of inertia and, in the case of FtB, to shake my fist at the stereo and call the hosts idiots.

    Comedy:

    – My Brother, My Brother, and Me is great.  They answer life advice questions sent in by listeners or culled from the dank pits of Yahoo! Answers.  All of this is an excuse to make jokes.

    – Judge John Hodgman is basically what it sounds like.  It’s John Hodgman doling out wise and always amusing internet justice.  It’s like Judge Judy if it were hosted by a dry comedian instead of a horrible harridan.

    – Mike and Tom Eat Snacks is hosted by Michael Ian Black and the surprisingly equally funny Tom Cavanaugh.  Each episode they present a snack, eat it, and talk about it, all of which takes about a third of the podcast.  The other two-thirds is, of course, jokes.  These guys have a great comedy rhythm going, and if anyone ever wants to see some breathless “yes and” improvising in action, here’s your first stop.

    – I can’t recommend The Thrilling Adventure Hour highly enough.  It’s a live monthly stage show in L.A that is basically comedy’s answer to old radio serials.  There are several different series (such as Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars, Captain Laserbeam, and The Cross-Time Adventures of Colonel Tick-Tock), and each podcast release is one twenty minute or so episode of one series.  Regulars include Paul F. Tompkins, Paget Brewster, John DiMaggio, Busy Philips, and plenty of others you’ve seen or heard here or there.  They have guests on pretty much every episode.  Basically, if you’re a comedian in L.A., you’ve been on this podcast.  But they also get folks like Nathan Fillion, John Lithgow, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dick Cavett, Keegan-Michael Key, and a bajillion more.  It’s well-written, well-acted, and if you don’t like it, that’s just proof you’re a doppelganger or a body-snatcher or something.

    – Welcome to Nightvale:  seconded.  It’s awesome.  Creepy, dryly funny.

  18. I drive around all day for a living, so I listen to a lot.

    Gaming podcasts:

    – The Jank Cast is good.  For Krampus’ sake, don’t start at the beginning of their run, though.  Aim for the middle and work forward or backward if you need to.  They’re getting more and more sporadic in their release schedule; don’t expect them to last too much longer.

    – The Walking Eye.  They’re probably gone, or close enough to it, but they have/had a cool format, so I’ll mention them.  Typically, they’ll record actual play episodes of a game, then a review episode for that game, and then an interview with the game’s designer.  Pretty neat.

    – I’ll second One Shot.  It’s actual play, typically of one-shot games, though sometimes spread out over several episodes.  The host/usual GM and a lot of the guests come out of the Chicago improv scene, so it’s usually pretty funny.  The GM does indulge in one of my gaming pet peeves, but the show and audio quality are good enough to make up for it.  If nothing else, everyone should listen to their Scooby Doo Call of Cthulhu (http://peachesandhotsauce.com/podcasts/scooby-doo-pooch-doorstep) episode, which is by far the funniest AP I’ve ever listened to.

    – Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff is Ken Hite and Robin Laws talking about gaming and all sorts of other things that tie into, or can easily be tied into, gaming.  A frequent highlight of the show is Ken Hite, Consulting Occultist, wherein Hite will expound on some well-known and/or bizarre occult figure, why they’re interesting, and how they could be inserted into your game.  Also good is Ken Hite’s Time Machine, where he is challenged to go back in time to try and change some historical event using what he’s most skilled at, which usually ends up being his ridiculous amounts of historical knowledge combined with his ability to get somebody drunk.  I view Laws as a traditional old dog trying desperately to learn new tricks, and Hite thinks Call of Cthulhu is genuinely the best game ever made, somehow.  So there’s some nostalgia that tints their views, but they’re both really smart and interesting speakers.

    – Shut Up & Sit Down is primarily about board games, but they go into roleplaying games as well.  The podcast is mostly an adjunct to their website, but it’s worth listening to if you’re into board games and rpgs.

    – Honorable mention:  Actual People, Actual Play.  Now defunct, but I loved their format.  Every episode was recorded after playing a session of a specific game, and the episode discussion was centered on that session/game.  It worked very well, and served to keep things helpfully focused and moving along.

    – Also-rans:  Fear the Boot and THACO, which I listen to mostly for reasons of inertia and, in the case of FtB, to shake my fist at the stereo and call the hosts idiots.

    Comedy:

    – My Brother, My Brother, and Me is great.  They answer life advice questions sent in by listeners or culled from the dank pits of Yahoo! Answers.  All of this is an excuse to make jokes.

    – Judge John Hodgman is basically what it sounds like.  It’s John Hodgman doling out wise and always amusing internet justice.  It’s like Judge Judy if it were hosted by a dry comedian instead of a horrible harridan.

    – Mike and Tom Eat Snacks is hosted by Michael Ian Black and the surprisingly equally funny Tom Cavanaugh.  Each episode they present a snack, eat it, and talk about it, all of which takes about a third of the podcast.  The other two-thirds is, of course, jokes.  These guys have a great comedy rhythm going, and if anyone ever wants to see some breathless “yes and” improvising in action, here’s your first stop.

    – I can’t recommend The Thrilling Adventure Hour highly enough.  It’s a live monthly stage show in L.A that is basically comedy’s answer to old radio serials.  There are several different series (such as Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars, Captain Laserbeam, and The Cross-Time Adventures of Colonel Tick-Tock), and each podcast release is one twenty minute or so episode of one series.  Regulars include Paul F. Tompkins, Paget Brewster, John DiMaggio, Busy Philips, and plenty of others you’ve seen or heard here or there.  They have guests on pretty much every episode.  Basically, if you’re a comedian in L.A., you’ve been on this podcast.  But they also get folks like Nathan Fillion, John Lithgow, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dick Cavett, Keegan-Michael Key, and a bajillion more.  It’s well-written, well-acted, and if you don’t like it, that’s just proof you’re a doppelganger or a body-snatcher or something.

    – Welcome to Nightvale:  seconded.  It’s awesome.  Creepy, dryly funny.

  19. Oh, and if anyone knows of a good Call/Trail of Cthulhu/Cthulhu Dark/Delta Green podcast, pleeeease let me know.  I’ve been trying to find one for a long time.  There’s no shortage of Cthulhu-related podcasts, mind, but good ones are exceedingly difficult to come by.  By good, I mean where the players take the fiction relatively seriously and don’t name their characters things like, to take an example from one I listened to earlier this week, “Busta Lovecraft.”  Also, it would help if none of the people involved were unbearably annoying.  At this point, I’d settle for that, but if the games were actually creepy that would be icing on the cake.

    I’ve heard one CoC (Delta Green) podcast episode that I’d consider genuinely creepy, and that’s after listening to… I don’t know, thirty?  Forty?  Fifty of them?  And it was involving people who are usually silly/annoying/incapable of horror or dramatic tension, so I don’t expect a repeat performance.

    Bitter?  Me?  Why, whatever are you talking about?

  20. Oh, and if anyone knows of a good Call/Trail of Cthulhu/Cthulhu Dark/Delta Green podcast, pleeeease let me know.  I’ve been trying to find one for a long time.  There’s no shortage of Cthulhu-related podcasts, mind, but good ones are exceedingly difficult to come by.  By good, I mean where the players take the fiction relatively seriously and don’t name their characters things like, to take an example from one I listened to earlier this week, “Busta Lovecraft.”  Also, it would help if none of the people involved were unbearably annoying.  At this point, I’d settle for that, but if the games were actually creepy that would be icing on the cake.

    I’ve heard one CoC (Delta Green) podcast episode that I’d consider genuinely creepy, and that’s after listening to… I don’t know, thirty?  Forty?  Fifty of them?  And it was involving people who are usually silly/annoying/incapable of horror or dramatic tension, so I don’t expect a repeat performance.

    Bitter?  Me?  Why, whatever are you talking about?

  21. Steve Mains Nice list!

    RPPR did a game of Fear Itself (which if we’re being honest is basically just Trail of Cthulhu) that I seem to recall having pretty good atmosphere, but bear in mind it’s been close to 2 years since I listened to it so no guarantees: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2012/10/genre/horror/fear-itself-invasive-procedures-episode-1/

    Started listening to the Scooby Doo Call of Cthulhu One-Shot last night.  So far, it is everything I hoped it would be.

  22. Steve Mains Nice list!

    RPPR did a game of Fear Itself (which if we’re being honest is basically just Trail of Cthulhu) that I seem to recall having pretty good atmosphere, but bear in mind it’s been close to 2 years since I listened to it so no guarantees: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2012/10/genre/horror/fear-itself-invasive-procedures-episode-1/

    Started listening to the Scooby Doo Call of Cthulhu One-Shot last night.  So far, it is everything I hoped it would be.

  25. Daniel Lewis RPPR is the podcast I mentioned that had the one effective Delta Green episode.  I’ll give the Fear Itself ep a listen, but there is one regular on that show that just makes me cringe every time he opens his mouth.

    Basically, listening to podcasts has taught me that if you make me listen to the same twenty people talk for long periods of time, I will grow to hate at least one or two of them.

    Oh, and here’s the DG scenario I liked, run by Caleb, whose games are usually my favorite of the RPPR crew:  http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/05/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-lover-in-the-ice/

  26. Daniel Lewis RPPR is the podcast I mentioned that had the one effective Delta Green episode.  I’ll give the Fear Itself ep a listen, but there is one regular on that show that just makes me cringe every time he opens his mouth.

    Basically, listening to podcasts has taught me that if you make me listen to the same twenty people talk for long periods of time, I will grow to hate at least one or two of them.

    Oh, and here’s the DG scenario I liked, run by Caleb, whose games are usually my favorite of the RPPR crew:  http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/05/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-lover-in-the-ice/

  27. So I’ve figured out why Serial is so popular.  It’s because it’s maddening.  I keep thinking the next uncovered bit of information will make things begin to coalesce into some sort of coherent narrative, and nope!  But maybe the next tidbit will do it…

  28. So I’ve figured out why Serial is so popular.  It’s because it’s maddening.  I keep thinking the next uncovered bit of information will make things begin to coalesce into some sort of coherent narrative, and nope!  But maybe the next tidbit will do it…

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