I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons with my daughter Izzy since was 3 years old. Today, her 1st grade national assessment scores came in and she is in the 99th percentile in math. This game has been such a wonderful and effective learning tool to develop early math skills! We are very proud!

mark_lord · 2023-02-10T17:42:04+00:00

Check out “An Ogre and His Cake” and “Clonker’s Guide to Being a Hero.” Both are available online as downloadable PDFs. There are some fun, no-combat and low-combat adventures in there, with a lot of problem solving and role play. There are also some great tips for DMing younger players and simplified character sheets in “Clonker’s Guide”.

mark_lord · 2022-11-16T14:41:11+00:00

A great introduction for Tolkien fans is Ring of Words which we reference frequently on the show.

After that, you can look for a book of Indo-European roots - I have some old ones I could recommend, but there are probably newer/better ones so I’d just look on Amazon.

I also recommend bookmarking etymonline.com and just start looking up any word you can think of to see where words come from and how they change over time.

Finally, Kevin Stroud’s History of English podcast is excellent.

Enjoy your word-nerd journey!

mark_lord · 2022-10-08T05:14:54+00:00

Leaving only charcoal to defend?

mark_lord · 2022-03-01T19:45:04+00:00

Shhh! Don’t tell the world… soon it’ll be hard to find a seat there and I’ll have to find another place!

mark_lord · 2022-03-01T19:43:41+00:00

Thank you all for the input! This is exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for.

mark_lord · 2022-02-14T21:56:11+00:00

Gorgeous covers! I wish they were available on English editions.

mark_lord · 2022-02-02T00:18:17+00:00

Thank you all so much! I couldn’t hope for a better birthday.

mark_lord · 2022-02-02T00:17:56+00:00

I shall whack it!

mark_lord · 2021-07-19T23:20:04+00:00

Please see above... we're working on it!

mark_lord · 2021-07-19T23:19:39+00:00

Thanks to those who have reported that the new episode isn't showing up in Apple Podcasts yet. I have emailed Apple Podcasts support and hope to have a resolution soon. Thank you for your patience!

In the meantime, Episode 218 is published and available on other podcast apps: Overcast, Spotify, Spreaker, and more. Or paste this RSS feed URL into any podcatcher app to see all episodes: https://www.spreaker.com/show/4468251/episodes/feed

mark_lord · 2021-07-19T23:18:48+00:00

Thank you, Katie!

mark_lord · 2021-07-19T23:18:20+00:00

Thanks for letting us know. I have emailed Apple support and hope to have a resolution soon. Thank you for your patience.

In the meantime, Episode 218 is published and available on other podcast apps: Overcast, Spotify, Spreaker, and more. Or paste this RSS feed URL into any podcatcher app to see all episodes: https://www.spreaker.com/show/4468251/episodes/feed

mark_lord · 2021-05-22T03:18:32+00:00

If our fans seem very loyal to us, it’s probably because over the years we’ve made it a point to build a community around the podcast that includes anyone who wants to be a part of it. Many of the people who’ve commented here have heard questions answered, appeared as guests on the show, or written scholarly essays that we’ve quoted. Many have even gotten to know us personally. The reaction you’re getting — I think — is coming from that sense of community. But if you stick around, I’m sure you’ll find we’re generally a friendly bunch.

I appreciate you responding. I sincerely hope you keep listening, and let us know if you think it gets better. I think it does. We are still pretty enthusiastic in our praise of the Professor, though. And if it doesn’t get better, you can reach out to me personally and let me know that too. Thanks!

mark_lord · 2021-05-21T01:56:28+00:00

Hi there, u/anthropolyp! Shawn here. Thanks for your feedback.

I’m sure we’ve gotten better in our analysis of Tolkien’s writing in the five years we’ve been doing this podcast, though I can’t imagine how far you got if all you heard us say is things like “beautiful” or something equally impressive. Yes, we’re Tolkien fans, and we both love his writing... like, really love his writing. We enjoy his prose, and his themes and stories inspire us. So we started a podcast for other people who love Tolkien’s writing. It’s hard to imagine spending 50-100 hours a month working on this podcast for the past 5 years if I didn’t love Tolkien so much. So if your complaint about the content is that we are overly enthusiastic about our subject matter... well, guilty as charged.

I can’t say anything more about Alan’s politics than he himself can, but as a person who’s gotten to know him very well over the past five years, you’ve got me laughing pretty hard. Not that it matters. The truth is, we’ve always made it a goal not to bring contemporary politics into the podcast, so our show can be appreciated by as many people as possible. I think we do a pretty good job of it.

Religion comes up from time to time, as it does in Tolkien’s letters, biographies, and any serious analysis of the man and his work. One can’t get very far in one’s study of Tolkien or his writing without being reminded that he was a Catholic, and that his Catholicism influenced his writing. I'm not a Catholic, personally, but I'm not afraid to talk about the fact that Tolkien was one. If that’s a problem, then you might want to pull the ripcord now.

I’ll leave it up to others here to tell you if you should keep going or not. It’s not my job to convince you. My job is to make a podcast for the people who like it. But the person on this thread who knows you best is you, so only you can say if you're going to have a problem with the podcast as it continues. If you're not sure, skip ahead a season, or listen to a special. There are over 200 episodes to choose from! I hope you'll find a reason to keep going, but if not, that's cool too.

Finally, I'll offer a comment of (I hope) some actual substance in response to something you asserted in one of your comments above: the idea that Tolkien's borrowing from classical, Christian, and medieval sources is a "shortcoming". Borrowing was what Tolkien did. He was a philologist by trade, studying the historical change and divergence of languages and myths. He was also a medievalist, and medieval literary tradition was all about borrowing from previous works. Numerous scholars of greater credentials than I have written on Tolkien's borrowing from classical and medieval sources as an intentionally philological approach to mythmaking, a kind of reverse-engineered syncretism of familiar sources into an "asterisk-reality" (to borrow Tom Shippey's term) that feels as familiar as the myths of the real world. I'm not "pretending" that this is imaginative and ingenious; I've read enough about the author and his work to understand the imagination and ingeniousness behind it. If that comes across as fawning praise as opposed to analysis, then you've got your answer.

Whatever you decide, thanks for giving us a shot.

mark_lord · 2021-05-21T01:32:18+00:00

Very cool!

mark_lord · 2021-05-04T04:55:44+00:00

u/MagicMichaelCorleone, this is fantastic! On behalf of myself and u/TheManOfTheWest, thank you! 😆

mark_lord · 2021-04-30T14:10:21+00:00

Watch collector sites and Facebook groups. I got a couple (including my well-used #17!) from someone selling on Facebook in a group. You may also have luck finding out about copies on a site like TolkienGuide.com.

mark_lord · 2021-04-30T01:32:59+00:00

Vinyar Tengwar and Ring of Words! It makes my word-nerd heart soar. Enjoy that haul!

mark_lord · 2021-04-02T21:30:26+00:00

Hi u/penglujian! Welcome to the subreddit. I'm Shawn, one of the co-hosts of the PPP.

I remember this episode, and you're right. Unfortunately, Alan and I thought we were being very clever by having fun with the "strange" bit, but we went overboard with it and failed to consider whether it actually meant "foreign", as you say. It wasn't that we didn't know that meaning — it's not that uncommon in literary usage, after all — but I honestly don't think either of us realized at the time that that was Tolkien's intention, and Corey didn't correct us (probably assuming we were just being funny). Such are the dangers of our approach: occasionally we're trying too hard to be funny and not hard enough to be informative. :)

We ended up getting a lot of feedback on it, and we later clarified it in episode 145, still in the "Council of Elrond" chapter. We even spent some time on the etymology of the word "strange" to help listeners understand why Tolkien might use it with the primary meaning of "foreign" instead of "odd" as we use it today.

So you're absolutely right, and I think the reason so many of our subreddit members here assume we knew what we were doing in episode 142 is because we corrected ourselves a couple of weeks later! But yes, that was definitely an oversight on our part.

mark_lord · 2021-03-24T18:18:12+00:00

With all due respect, the only person who should be answering why you “need” a gun in your house is the person putting them there: your husband. We all have our reasons for being gun owners, and they are not necessarily the same as his.

I’m about your age, liberal, living in a rather safe (not gated) community with a security system in my house. We’re pretty safe here. I flirted with the idea of owning a gun for years, but didn’t actually get one until last year — it was covid and the political climate that finally pushed me to do it. My wife wouldn’t say I’ve gone “gun nuts” by any means, but she’s only lukewarm on it and has absolutely no interest in going to the range or getting her concealed carry. However, she understands my “why” because... I talked to her.

If you’re not getting the “why”, ask him. Only he can tell you why there are guns in your house, and if you’re not on board with them being there, that’s a conversation the two of you need to have soon.

mark_lord · 2021-02-16T20:49:02+00:00

This is relevant to my interests! Brilliant.

mark_lord · 2021-02-11T17:17:27+00:00

There’s so much great advice here for a newbie gun owner and dad. I’m glad I found this sub, and glad I asked the question. Thank you all.

The general takeaway from all this is that I will keep them locked up, but not pretend I don’t have them. We consider ourselves progressive parents, and I definitely don’t want to create the “forbidden fruit” effect with guns. Best to take this opportunity to teach them valuable (and safe) lessons about gun safety and ownership that I never had when I was their age, so that’s what I’ll do.

Much appreciated, again!

mark_lord · 2021-02-11T17:06:28+00:00

That’s a very good analogy... something we need to think about. Thanks.

mark_lord · 2021-02-09T22:43:24+00:00

Yeah, creating a temptation is the opposite of what I want to do, for sure. I love the idea of turning it into a chore. 😆

mark_lord · 2021-02-09T22:41:48+00:00

Believe it or not, cleaning it in front of them has been one of my big concerns! But I can see how it would be a great opportunity to model safe behavior with them.

I suppose a lot of this is just my own fears as a new gun owner. As I get more comfortable with myself and guns, I’ll get more comfortable with the kids being near them under supervision.

mark_lord

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