#Every33!
Mike Perna of Innroads Ministries, Game Store Prophets, and Bard and Bible joins us as he does every 33 episodes to talk about something he’s been itching to talk on the mics about for ages – unlikely heroes with a strong emphasis on Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.

We also give a shout-out to The Dungeon Pastors, a new project from two other friends of the show, Derek “The Geekpreacher” White and Stephen Taylor of Games for All. That’s immediately followed by one of the strangest questions’s we’ve had from a Patreon backer in a long time when John and Ginny Swann ask us ” What is your favorite sandwich and how would you play it as a character?” The episode is almost worth it for that conversation alone, folks.

Once we wrap that surprisingly thoughtful and in-depth section up, name a favorite sandwich of Jenny’s “The Goblin Warlock” and read our scripture, we move into our main topic: unlikely heroes and why Hellboy is such a compelling example of one, and how you can use him and other characters like him in your games. As is always the case, having Mike on gives us a lot of both quality and quantity.

Scripture: Exodus 4: 10-12, 1 Samuel 16:1-12, Matthew 9:9

As foretold, once every thirty-three episodes Mike Perna of Innroads Ministries, Game Store Prophets, and Bard and Bible joins us—this time, to talk about board games! Mike takes a moment to plug TavernCon 2018 (June 9th in Warren, NJ.) We also give a bit of a shout-out (belated by the time this episode drops) to the Min/Max Podcast for hitting the one-year mark. Then we take on a question from Patreon backer “Retro Rewind Podcast” (another good podcast you should check out) about our favorite foods and the trouble we’d go to in order to eat them.

Once all that’s done, we read our Scripture and start talking about board games. We focus specifically on board games close to our roleplaying focus—games with heavy story elements, or games in which there’s a procedurally-generated story to enjoy—but we do roam around a bit and talk about a lot of games, so make sure to check the links below if you’re interested in any of those!

Board games mentioned in this episode: Overlight, Gloomhaven, Once Upon A Time (3rd Edition), T.I.M.E. Stories, Alien Artifact, Twilight Imperium, Through The Ages, Barker’s Row, Meeple Circus, Fog of Love, …and then we held hands, Star Crossed, The Grizzled, Freedom: The Underground Railroad, Arranged!, This War of Mine, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Above and Below, Near and Far, The Quiet Year, Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game, Android: Netrunner, Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn. (Phew!)

Scripture: Proverbs 11:1-3, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

(Fixed audio. Apologies!) This episode’s conversation about mass combat—a topic selected by our Patreon supporters—turned out to be so big, we’re following this one up with another episode on a related topic next time! Before that, though, we’ve got a lot of other things to discuss: The holidays, and especially all the games we played and picked up over the Christmas break. We talk a bit more about our Patreon and the need to change things somewhat as we move forward into 2018 (leave your comments on that below.) We also send our congratulations and prayers to Mike Perna and his family as they welcome their son into the world; and we send our condolences to the family and friends of Pat Roper, longtime Fear the Boot host, who passed away just after Christmas.

Our Patreon question this week comes from Paige, who asks “Is there a game/campaign/thing you wish you could run, but you don’t feel skilled enough to do it?” The answer: Oh my yes. All that having finally been taken care of, we do eventually get to our main topic: Making interesting mass combat scenarios as part of your ongoing roleplaying game campaign.

Scripture: Exodus 17:8-13, Joshua 6:1-5, Ephesians 6:10-17

Mike Perna of Innroads Ministries joins us at the appointed hour, to give our listeners some real, practical advice on running small gaming events for your church or community! First, though, we talk about a few other things, in no particular order: Our upcoming fundraiser for The Bodhana Group (keep an eye on our social media feeds for links to that!); the Game to Grow panel we hosted on spirituality in roleplaying games; players taking notes during games; the InSpectres game Grant just wrapped up; and Big Fandom Greenville (more on this next episode.)

We also tackle a great question from Patreon backer Doug, who asks “What, if anything, do you think is simply off-limits for a game? Is the answer different if we’re talking you personally, or for gaming in general?” (This turned out to be surprisingly relevant to our main topic!)

Also mentioned in this episode: A Game for Good Christians, STG 17, “Lines and Veils”.

Scripture: Proverbs 16:3, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Luke 14:28

Mike Perna of Innroads Ministries and Game Store Prophets joins us to talk about a complex problem in both faith communities and geek communities: Gatekeeping. Mike’s joined us before for Episode 33 (“Our Origin Stories”), and he was a perfect fit for this topic in many ways. He previously wrote an excellent article on gatekeeping, and has a lot of wisdom and experience to share with us.  We hit on a lot of small details—’controllers’ vs. ‘facilitators’; gatekeeping in church and in geek culture; comments on “pastoral customs” by Pope Francis; and others—but our focus is on solving the problem when you encounter it, not just documenting it. It’s a rather thoughtful episode, so enjoy, and tell us what you think in the comments!

Scripture: Ezekiel 16:49-50, 1 Corinthians 12:21-27, 1 Peter 3:8

We welcome guest host Mike Perna from Innroads Ministries and Game Store Prophets! Mike introduces our listeners to Innroads, and we talk a bit about “geek ministries” before settling in with our scripture and our topic: Our own origin stories. This episode ended up being a sequence of fairly personal discussions of our roads to both gaming and faith — about as close to testimony as we can probably get. A lot of things we haven’t mentioned before came out in this episode, and we hope you enjoy it!

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2, John 1:1-5, Matthew 13:3-9