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Shop Talk Show

646: Hard Code & Soft Skills

71 min episode · 2 min read
·
Miriam Suzanne,Chris Coyier,Alex Fimeon

Episode

71 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Career Growth, Investing, Startups

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Game mechanics design: Hard Code & Soft Skills uses a single stat (2-5) determining technical versus interpersonal skills, where rolling under your number succeeds for technical actions and rolling over succeeds for soft skills, creating tension between specializations.
  • Collaborative storytelling structure: Players build company strengths (stealth mode, engineering excellence) and weaknesses (single napping pod, burn rate) before gameplay, establishing shared narrative constraints that drive conflict and decision-making throughout the session.
  • Critical success rewards: Rolling exactly your stat number triggers 10x mode, granting players ability to ask the game master any question about the scenario, providing strategic information like security vulnerabilities or character motivations that advance the plot.
  • Dice pool expansion tactics: Players earn additional dice through three methods: claiming expert knowledge in relevant skills, demonstrating prior preparation for situations, or assisting teammates with successful support rolls that transfer dice to the primary actor.
  • Workplace satire framework: The game parodies startup culture through absurdist scenarios (trolley problems with coworkers, cyber ducks, Bitcoin moon schemes) while maintaining recognizable tech industry tropes like password sharing, AB testing obsession, and perpetual bug reporting.

What It Covers

Shop Talk Show hosts play Hard Code & Soft Skills, a tabletop RPG about startup employees defending their company Raptor from AI clown robots and investor takeover while CEO Chad recovers in a napping pod.

Key Questions Answered

  • Game mechanics design: Hard Code & Soft Skills uses a single stat (2-5) determining technical versus interpersonal skills, where rolling under your number succeeds for technical actions and rolling over succeeds for soft skills, creating tension between specializations.
  • Collaborative storytelling structure: Players build company strengths (stealth mode, engineering excellence) and weaknesses (single napping pod, burn rate) before gameplay, establishing shared narrative constraints that drive conflict and decision-making throughout the session.
  • Critical success rewards: Rolling exactly your stat number triggers 10x mode, granting players ability to ask the game master any question about the scenario, providing strategic information like security vulnerabilities or character motivations that advance the plot.
  • Dice pool expansion tactics: Players earn additional dice through three methods: claiming expert knowledge in relevant skills, demonstrating prior preparation for situations, or assisting teammates with successful support rolls that transfer dice to the primary actor.
  • Workplace satire framework: The game parodies startup culture through absurdist scenarios (trolley problems with coworkers, cyber ducks, Bitcoin moon schemes) while maintaining recognizable tech industry tropes like password sharing, AB testing obsession, and perpetual bug reporting.

Notable Moment

The team defeats the final boss by combining Google Analytics user tracking data to discover the Stargate vulnerability, triggering fire sprinklers to short-circuit the cyber duck, then shooting it with a captured laser cannon causing the villain to tumble out a window.

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Episode Transcript

I feel like that is an accurate retelling of of what happened to Twitter though. So, like, it's I that's exactly how I remember it. Loosely inspired by actual events. Hey there, Shop of Maniacs. You are listening to a special episode of the Shop Talk Show, a show within a show. Welcome to hard code and soft skills, a tabletop role playing game created by me, Dave Rupert, based on lasers and feelings by John Harper. You can find the game at hardcodesoftskills.daverupert.com, and I'll be the GM for the evening. But with me, as always, is Chris Coyier. Hey, Chris. Well, I'm just excited. I'm excited to be here, Dave. This is not a normal episode. We're, you know, we're sitting around a virtual table ready to roll some dice. We this is gonna be a a actual play podcast. We're we're converting the whole show into an actual play podcast. And then we also have Alex Fimeon, Reverie. Alex, how are you? I am great. I am super stoked to be here. And we have Ben Myers. Hey, Ben. Howdy, howdy. Happy to be here. And then we have, Miriam Suzanne, and I'm most excited about your character. I I will, no spoilers, though. Okay. Yeah. I'm here. I'm ready to tank my career, doing my role play. Yeah. What could go wrong? It's just an hour of potential disaster or, as Ben pointed out, five hours in over multiple seasons. So we'll see how it goes. That's the only way that a one shot goes, Dave. I know. I should have planned this out a little bit better and blocked a whole five days worth of time. But, I'll give like, I'm gonna set up the story, the game, just for audio listeners so you're not lost throughout the next hour or whatever. And then we'll have y'all introduce yourselves, and then we'll get into the game. Does that sound okay to everybody? Sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. With me are the employees of the start up Raptor. Your job is to scale the company, interface with customers both friendly and deadly, and defend fellow employees against workplace dangers. Your CEO, Chad, has just come back from Burning Man and is overcome by a strange psychedelic energy, leaving you to fend for yourselves while he recovers in a napping pod. So how it's gonna work is you each have a character. You've created a character, generated a character, but each character has one stat, and it's a number between two and five. So it's either two, three, four, or five. And that determines whether you are hard code or soft skills. Hard code means like science and reason, right, technology, and soft skills is rapport, passion, diplomacy, you know, love. That that is those are your skill sets. And what you're gonna do is you're going to whenever you take an action, you're going to roll dice against the, roll roll against, like, the the challenge. …

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  • by Google

    The team defeats the final boss by combining Google Analytics user tracking data to discover the Stargate vulnerability, triggering fire sprinklers to short-circuit the cyber duck
  • by Bluehost

    SPONSORS: ["name": "Bluehost", "url": "bluehost.com/shoptalk"]

Products

  • Shop Talk Show hosts play Hard Code & Soft Skills, a tabletop RPG about startup employees defending their company Raptor from AI clown robots and investor takeover while CEO Chad recovers in a napping pod.

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