Fear The Boot
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Fear the Boot is a roundtable discussion podcast concerning tabletop roleplaying games and a little bit more.
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[edit] History
In February 2006, Daniel Repperger was asked to help a friend's father create a podcast for his human resources business. While Dan had no practical experience in podcasting, he had been approached because of his experience with internet technology. After working on the podcast for a short while, he took a liking to the hobby and elected to start his own show.
The original cast was assembled in April 2006 and included himself, Kevin Dickens, Tim Toolen, and Chad Wattler. Other individuals were invited to join the show but declined for various reasons. The name, Fear the Boot, was derived from a long-running, inside joke surrounding Chad's boots, as well as the pointed delivery that would be employed during the show. The first episode was released on May 15th, 2006.
After only a few episodes, Tim and Kevin resigned because of personal obligations that made it difficult for them to keep up with the show's demands. They were replaced by Adam Pinilla and John Grana who had been on Fear the Boot previously as stand-ins.
Throughout the show's run a number of friends and family have made appearances on the show, including Aram "Axe" Hamper, Phil Hicks, Karla Lester-Repperger, Teresa Toolen, Dawn Wattler, Tony Mast, Paul Lyons, and Chris Hussey. The longest of these appearances was by Dawn, Chad's wife, who took John Grana's hosting slot during the fall 2006 school semester which John spent in Rome, Italy.
October 5th - 8th, 2006, several Fear the Boot hosts were at Archon where they provided general press coverage and conducted five panels on podcasting.
In February 2007, Mike Kalinowski was added to the list of hosts. Shortly afterwards, Adam returned as a full time host.
In June 2007, hosts Chad and Mike both resigned from the show citing personal reasons. They have been replaced by Michael "Tex" Repperger and Lucias "Luke" Meyer, who still presently host the show.
In January 2008, Adam was removed/resigned as a host due to a falling out between him and Dan. He has been replaced by Chris Hussey.
[edit] Episodes
Episodes are released once a week and cover a number of topics, usually decided beforehand. The show itself is a roundtable discussion where one host presents a topic and the other hosts discuss it. Average length of an episode is approximately an hour, although earlier episodes are shorter.
The hosts roughly divide the sub-topics of these shows into two categories: advice and banter. The advice portions offer analysis of the roleplaying games hobby and tips for improving game sessions. The banter portions are bits of humor or anecdote that may only be loosely related to the primary subject matter, added to give flavor to the show and build affinity with the listeners.
Each show's content is largely driven by outlines scrawled on a 6'x4' dry erase board. This board is referred to as the "big board" during the show, an allusion to the movie, Dr. Strangelove. Errors on this board have become points of humor on the show. Examples include a poorly written phrase, "wives of dorks", being rendered as "wives of donuts" for many episodes thereafter.
[edit] Bonus Episodes
Fear the Boot occasionally has bonus episodes, which are generally unrelated to the main episodes. These shows have their profanities removed but are otherwise unedited. They consist of raw conversations between the hosts on topics of personal interest, including travel, dining, video games, and playful retorts to comments made during the regular episodes.
[edit] Interview Episodes
Fear the Boot has interviewed several people with varying ties to tabletop roleplaying, ranging from Ryan Dancey, an ex employee of Wizards of the Coast and, to Shamus Young, author of DM of the Rings among other works[1], to Mike West, the lead script developer for Fable 2[2].
[edit] Additional Notes
- In episode three, the hosts discuss an in-house created game in which the player only has one number called the goodness number. All rolls are made from this single number. The name coinciding with the effect of the rule premise is called: MonoStat.
- For Archon 2006, the wives of hosts Adam and Phil organized HAFU (Human Advocates For Undead), a tongue-in-cheek organization styled after human rights and hippie movements of the 1960s, meant to protest Zombie Squad's treatment of the undead.
- Dan presented the 2007 Gold ENnie award for "Best Podcast" to the "Have Games, Will Travel" podcast.
