Welcome to Ludology, an analytical discussion of the hows and whys of the world of board games. Rather than news and reviews, Ludology explores a variety of topics about games from a wider lens, as well as discuss game history, game design and game players.
We post a new Ludology episode every other week. In these episodes, hosts Emma Larkins and Gil Hova (sometimes with Professor Scott Rogers) deep-dive into a single topic within game design, often with a well-regarded guest from the game industry. We generally focus on tabletop game design (mainly board games and RPGs), but we often pull in experts from all forms of games, from video games to slot machines.
On weeks where there is no flagship Ludology episode, we will alternate between two smaller mini-sodes.
GameTek is a long-running feature from the Dice Tower podcast by Ludology co-founder Geoff Engelstein that explores the math and science behind games. GameTek Classic episodes were once broadcast on The Dice Tower podcast, while other GameTek episodes were recorded specially for Ludology.
Biography of a Board Game is a series hosted by Scott Rogers that explores the history behind classic and modern board games. It was once on The Dice Tower, but has since moved full-time to Ludology.
We aim for most Ludology episodes to be timeless, so you are welcome to explore our entire catalog. Most of it should age quite well. The podcast was started in 2011 by Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm, with Mike Fitzgerald taking over for Ryan in 2015. Gil joined the show in 2017 when Mike stepped aside, and Emma joined in 2019 when Geoff ended his tenure as host.
Have your own thoughts about our topics? We encourage you to visit us at our guild on Boardgamegeek to get involved in a continuing discussion.
You can also email us at gil@ludology.net or emma@ludology.net.
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Ludology is part of The Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network.
Oct 23, 2011
In this classic GameTek, Geoff discusses shuffling - A little of the math behind it, how online shuffling works, and a brief glimpse into the science of thermodynamics. Not bad for five minutes!
Oct 16, 2011
Ryan and Geoff interview Dr. Luke Rendell of the University of St. Andrews. Dr. Rendell's team conducts research on social learning and the spread of ideas and culture throughout society. To assist in their reserach they ran a tournament in 2009 where anyone could submit a strategy to play a game based on...
Oct 9, 2011
Back in 2009 Geoff interviewed Scott Nesin, builder of a Dice Tower capable of rolling 1.3 million dice per day. What inspired him to take on a project like that?
Check out the video before listening to the inteview:
Oct 2, 2011
In this episode, Ryan and Geoff are joined by special guest Norbert Brunhuber, who is very active in the Warmachine/Hordes community. The discussion centers around two topics:
'Monogamers' - those who play only a single game or game system (not gamers who have mono!). What is necessary in a game that will hold...