Things are a bit hectic in Pratchat land this month, so to fill a gap in our schedule while Liz was unavailable, Ben has joined forces with guest academic and professional board game nerd Dr Melissa Rogerson to play and discuss Thud, the game that inspired the novel of the same name!

Have you played Thud? Have you ever won as the dwarfs? Is it true that the trolls have an advantage? Are you a Thudmaster with insight to share about standard openings and endgames? We'd love to hear your Thud stories! (Ben really is keen to play some more, so there may be a follow up on this in future!)

Be sure to check the episode notes for some pictures of the game, and use the hashtag #PratchatPlaysThud on social media to answer join the conversation.

Dr Melissa Rogerson is a Lecturer and Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne. Her PhD thesis was titled "Between Cardboard and Computer: The hobbyist experience of modern boardgames". Melissa's currently studying the use of digital tools in hybrid games - which included the "Biometric D&D" project, where they used a facial recognition algorithm to assign you a Dungeons & Dragons character! You can find out more about her research at her website, melissarogerson.com, or find her on Twitter (or Mastodon - aus.social) at @melissainau, and on BoardGameGeek as melissa. (Ben is on there too, as beejay.)

Our "Thud trilogy" continues in our next two episodes! #Pratchat61 will be a discussion of the 34th Discworld novel, 2005's Thud!, with guest Matt Roden, scheduled for release in late November. Then, bumped to December 8, we're teaming up with Jo and Francine from The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret to read a discuss the very meta book-from-the-book, Where's My Cow? You still have time to ask questions for this one! Use the hashtags #Pratchat62 and/or #MakeYeChat.

You'll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.