Hello, and welcome to episode 242 of Effect, a moment of reflection.I'm Dave.
And I'm Matthew.And yeah, I think that title works a lot better than anticlimax, don't you, Dave?
Yeah.Anticlimax might encourage people not even to bother listening.And you know, OK, great.You know, like, yes.So yeah, good thinking at the last minute, Matthew.Well done.
It's a weird pause if you're here waiting for Kickstarter news.
We've got some Kickstarter news, obviously, but the Kickstarter has finished and we've got this like two weeks while Kickstarter go out and, you know, actually get the money off people before they give it to us.
Well, Kickstarter sit on the money and keep the interest before they give it to us.Did you notice that?
And it started earning well, plenty from their commission.
I don't think they're that worried about the interest, but they do want, you know, I mean, I happen to know somebody, somebody communicated with us because their card failed and they were very worried that they weren't going to get in on that and the thing.
And I can't remember quite how they solved it, but they did solve it in the end.And that's what this two weeks is about is for dealing with all those issues.Anyway.Yeah.I'm Matthew.That's what I, I did say that, didn't I?
Yeah, you did.Yeah.Well done.
And this episode is a moment of reflection, not least because it's only going to be a moment because Dave has to dash off to Leicester to watch an incredibly important national sporting event, apparently.
So we have got... It's the darts.Me and my old mate Dave from university used to play darts when we were at uni.
He was the captain of the darts team.I was in the team.I wasn't.I was good enough just to be in the team. But we always wanted to go to one of the big darts events.
They used to hold it down at Alexander Palace, which would have been ideal because that's just down the rail line from here, but they've removed it.It's now in Leicester.And he said a little while ago, oh, let's just bloody go.
Come on, let's just do it.And so this is us going and doing it.So we shall eat and shout at people, throwing small little arrows at a small board.
Tiny, tiny ball.I'm sure it's grown up on big screens.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.I'm expecting it's going to be a lot of fun, actually.It's going to be quite rowdy.
And when somebody scores 180, what does the audience do?I think they clap and cheer and maybe go... Oh, they don't all shout in unison, 180!They might.
I'll tell you next time.I'll find out later.
Right, okay. Cool.So, darts.Dave is getting into that incredibly athletic sport.That's good.
For the weekend.That does remind me of the Not The Long Cut News sketch, which is about darts, but it was all about drinks on the table.He's gone for the pint.He's gone for the pint early.Oh, that's a risk.That's a risk.Doesn't scotch.
I do remember that sketch.I don't remember the With Whom I Live sketch, but I do remember. who I live with. Anyway, sorry.So we've got a reasonably concise world of gaming.There is a lot of world of gaming news, so we'll talk through that.
And we thought in this sort of, we've also got, you know, we're going to keep you updated now every fortnight with what's going on in our development of Tales of the Old West.So we've got some more Old West news.
But we thought, given that this is a moment of reflection, We would just look back on where we started, and Dave has done a little essay reflecting upon Coriolis.
And so, and I think, you know, it's inspired some thoughts in me, so I will argue with him at the end of it as well.
As is traditional, of course.
As is traditional, yes.So, Oh, the one thing I didn't check.Dave, carry on talking for a bit.I don't think we've got any new patrons, but I should just check.
Yes.So, OK, this is an unscheduled thing.So anyway, World of Gaming, I won't start talking about it.We've got a lot of stuff here.So one interesting thing that came up was the Pendragon game, which came out.
Chaosium have now announced they are launching what's called the Companions of Arthur, which I haven't looked into it deeply, but I saw it, but it's a community content platform, is that the right way of putting it?
For fans to create their own stuff for the new Pendragon, which is cool.I haven't got my new Pendragon book yet.I don't know when that's due to arrive.Oh, have you not?I've got a starter set, but I ordered the book, I think.Or did I?
Yeah, I would have thought you should have had it by now.It was on sale at Essen.
Yeah, so maybe I was going to audit, but I haven't got round to doing it.But yeah, so I need to get that.So that'll be good.Although, I don't know, I'm a bit conflicted because I've loved our campaign of Pendragon over the decades.
I'm not sure I'm ever gonna start my own. It's an interesting one because I'm not sure how that would work out really.
I don't frankly have time for new campaigns at the minute and as we'll discuss later I am at the start of a new Coriolis campaign which I haven't had time to do justice to yet but I certainly will and looking forward to getting into.
Yeah, I don't feel the need to run a new Pendragon campaign.Having played in Andy's, this is Andy Gibbs, our old school friend, for almost 40 years.He's been our friend for all of that time.
But we've been playing that single Pendragon campaign for almost 40 years.I feel You know, that's Pendragon done.
We don't owe that game any more play.It might be difficult to top that experience, wouldn't it?Absolutely.
Yes, and the thing about you can't step in the same river twice.Yeah, I think we might be disappointed.I mean, I'm sure new Pendragon is lovely.It's probably, you know, I mean,
Andy's been playing with effectively first edition rules, plus a little bit mixed in from other stuff, plus some house rules and stuff like that.
So I expect the new version is much tighter and has all the best bits of what we loved about Ped Dragon and none of the crappy bits.So I urge people to get it and I urge people to write for it as well.
I don't think actually I'd urge Andy to write for it because I don't think our campaign was quite in the spirit of what Pendragon was meant to be.
I think your man Greg Stafford definitely didn't imagine it as the Dark Ages post-Roman sort of setting that we did.I think he did see it as the 15th century knights in shining armour,
also set in the Dark Ages, weirdly, so I'm not sure that any of our adventures would necessarily work being written up.
Yeah, that's interesting because if you watch Excalibur, a classic movie, which I think quite a lot of people might take inspiration from for a Pendragon game.
That is very much 15th century knights in very, very shiny armour, but dumped back into the Dark Ages.
One of my favourite films, that.
It is a classic.The scene where Arthur and Urien where he finally knights him, that's just making my spine shiver just thinking about it.That's absolutely superb, superb scene.And Merlin saying, what?I didn't see this.And it's just fantastic.
It's brilliant stuff.Love it.
But I think that's very much a lot of people's inspiration or expectation maybe of what a Pendragon game would be like.And I think you're right.I think that's probably what Greg Stafford was aiming, driving towards more than a sort of
I used the word, maybe it's not the best word, more of a gritty kind of dark ages, as you say, post-Roman world that we did.
Yeah, I'm not really sure what Andy would have done differently if he was trying to set it more in that Excalibur style than... a Dark Ages history style.
I don't think he would have wanted to.I don't think he'd have played it at all if he'd felt forced to do it.
But I'm not sure what he'd have done differently, because the game certainly had that Knights in Shining Armor kind of vibe, but set in that post-Vortigern world of Vortigern being a historical figure at the end of the Roman occupation of Britain.
Yeah, I don't know what you would have done differently, but it definitely had that kind of feel.It had that messier, dirtier, muddier feel, you know, than the cleaner feel, maybe, of sort of the Excalibur style.
Yeah.So, one of my... I ought to say, we ought to add on, maybe to the end of this section, a bit of an essence report, because I've just realised... Yes, absolutely.I haven't mentioned that at all.
And one of my colleagues on the stand went over and talked to somebody we know at Chaosium.It's the first time Chaosium have had a proper stand there.So they were all there.There was lots of exchange of chats and stuff like that.
It was nice to see them.Of course, with a show as big as that, you don't get to spend as much time as you want with anybody.No. Oh god, his name's on the tip of my tongue, the person he spoke to.Did some work for Modiphius on Conan.Dowell?Oh shit.
Anyway, somebody went to buy something else and came away with Pendragon because Yaman said it's the best thing we've got for sale actually on the stand today.So yeah, I urge people to get Pandragon.
Yaman Thomas, one of our patrons, is running a campaign now and I think everybody's thoroughly enjoying it.And I do believe, in fact, that in Australia Thomas was invited to write for the Companions of Arthur.Yeah, he said that to me.
That's cool.That's really good.
So, yeah, we should see something from him there.If he does anything half as good as his Japan face in the summer, we're going well.But yeah, and I think it's just like all the other community content programs on DriveThru.
So it's kind of a 50-50 split. Right.Cool.And I urge people who do write for it that they should.
I just wonder whether some of my old friend Chris, who is actually writing for Chaosium, their novels, and their Arthurian novels, might throw some stuff in there as well.OK.
The other thing that we were selling at, and was selling quite well at Essen, was Electric State, which should be hitting people's doormats now. Yeah.And I quite like it.I didn't back it.But I've got a review copy.Yeah.I didn't back it.
Because I got notified about it while I was selling it in Essen.So it didn't tempt me, obviously, to sell myself a copy.I didn't even look at the PDF, but I'm liking the lovely clean layout.It looks like it's an even simpler version of
the uh yes zero engine than we've seen anywhere before so i'm gonna read through the rules and have a look at it and the other thing i'm going to be reading through the rules is it does have a lone traveler chapter chapter eight yeah which is a set of solo rules
You and I have a new found interest in Zeno Walls, don't we?
Well, we do need one, seeing we've committed to doing them.Now, I got that as well.I got a review copy.I hadn't backed it.It wasn't something that I was expecting I would play.As you say, the usual pre-league standard, it looks lovely.
There's a great map in it of the West Coast, California, which looks absolutely great. It kind of felt a bit between a mixture of Tales of the Loop and Walking Dead, almost, in its kind of look and feel.I haven't read it through in great detail yet.
But again, it looks lovely.And as I said, if I've had a copy come through, then those who backed it should be getting it very, very soon if they haven't got it already.
Yeah. Yeah.And the other thing that I think we both got a review copy of is Path of Glory from Dragonbane.
Which according to our patrons that have actually backed it, I think we might have beaten them to that one.So I think that's coming to your test quite soon.
Yeah.I mean, again, I bought the Dragonbane box set. and then I bought The Beastery largely because they were lovely, lovely books and lovely products and not really thinking I'm ever going to run a or play in a Dragonbane campaign.
I enjoyed playing it at Comic Con last year, where we ran lots of demos, and I enjoyed that.That was a lot of fun.The single D20 is still a bit of an issue for me these days, frankly.But if I wasn't playing or going... Let's start again.
With a fantasy setting or a fantasy game, if Ridden Lands wasn't there, I would very much go to Dragonbane, I think.
yeah i think that might be fair i too much prefer forbidden lands just because of the year zero engine because you know obviously we're year zero podcast we can't talk about any other engine um but but uh jug and bane is definitely fun i so we were running demos again uh at um essen essen
and it was great fun running those.One of the things that I hadn't used before but we did an encounter, it was a simple encounter with bandits in an inn.
Well it was an encounter with the inn, whether or not it was with bandits or not was kind of up to the players. But it was great to get out of the pack of cards the improvised weapons brackets in cards and have a little stick of those.
So when somebody says, oh, I grab a bottle, I say, well, you don't grab a bottle.Actually, pick one of these random cards and see what's to hand.And at one point, somebody picked up a squealing pig. Okay.
Which is a hilarious moment.I hadn't noticed that before.But again, it's the mirth and mayhem approach, isn't it?And I like that very much indeed.
We definitely sold a few copies, but I'll tell you what, we also sold out of Forbidden Lands.
I mean, we didn't have as much Forbidden Lands as we had Dragonbane.
I mean, I've said it before, Dragonbane is such a beautifully produced product. And the artwork is just great.It really has a lovely feel to it.
Again, it's another one of those books, you know, I've said before, you know, I don't play Verson very much these days.And, you know, until you get around to running the next one with my butler character Ferguson, I probably won't.
But every now and then I just like to take the book off the shelf and be ridiculous.
It's like, it's like, you know, this should be a, you know, a way of gaining a point of faith in Tales of the Old West, taking down your favorite book and flicking through it. It feels like it.It feels like it because it's such a lovely book.
And I think Dragonbane has a similar sort of feel to it as well.It just feels good to flick through it.The quality of it is remarkable actually.
It's one of those games where they've kind of sprinkled it with that Free League pixie dust which just adds something which is a little bit intangible.
yes yeah it is it is marvellous actually um now uh i noticed so interestingly somebody who shall remain nameless said something to me at um the essen edison which was uh Yeah, I think we learned our lesson about announcing second editions.
And sure enough, I noticed we don't have a second edition of Alien coming anymore.Instead, we've got an evolved edition.
Yes, the evolved edition, which is an interesting thing, because it's still Alien E2, but it's E2 as in it's two E's.It's the evolved edition E2 rather than Edition 2.Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
the backlash, is that the right way of putting it?Or at least the response from the community about it being a second edition, as in, do we need one?This is too early, has obviously landed with them.
And they've realized that actually that was a slight misstep.And yeah, I mean, calling it an evolved edition is great, because I mean, at least it makes a bit more sense.And it's clearer that,
they've been very clear about the fact that all the previous first edition or unevolved Alien is all going to be backward compatible with the new stuff, which is good.So yeah, I saw that.I had a little sort of wry smile.
Interesting that, you know, even though you're not saying who said it, we could probably work it out by who was it.So who was it?
There was a wide team. Who was it, Essendon from Pre-League?I'm not going to tell you now.You're going to use detective work.
I am actually genuinely interested at who was there from Pre-League, not just as a sneaky way of working out who told you that.But it's, yeah, I think that's a good move.I think that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.And also, the announcement that the evolved edition was coming also said that would be including stuff, or they would be including stuff from Romulus.
Yes, yes, I saw that.Yeah, that's interesting.
Which makes me ask, you're now working on this to some degree.Did they ask you to do anything from Romulus, or...?No, no.Are you going to still keep mum about what you're doing?
No, the stuff that I'm working on is, yeah, it's a fairly discreet sort of campaign related bit of work.So interesting, it's good stuff.
It's quite a small bit of work, which is fine, but it's, yeah, hopefully it's, you know, they are keen to expand or what's the, or cement maybe the, the campaign game in Alien.And I think that's a good idea.
Many people have spoken about Alien being great for a cinematic, but struggling perhaps a little bit to land the campaign.I don't entirely agree, having played in a couple of Alien campaigns, either that I've run or as a player.
But I do accept the comment where you say that, well, actually, quite a lot of that campaign could be run in another system, and it doesn't have to be Alien. But, I mean, you could say that about pretty much any sci-fi game, really, I guess.
You could run it in another system if you wanted to.
Yeah.I think, so I had somebody come to me saying, when are they going to make any campaign material for Alien?To which I directed him to your book, sir.
Thank you.To the award-winning, the multiple award-winning, Building Better Worlds campaign book for Alien.
And I said, look, these box sets, these are cinematic.These books, these are campaign books.And I think it had totally passed him by.But again, actually... Did he buy it?I believe he did, yes.Excellent.
But actually, if we look at those two campaign books, if we count Building Better Worlds and the Colonial Marines Operations Manual, as two campaign books.I play tested some of Colonial Marines Operations Manual with you.
And it still doesn't work as a campaign, does it?Because that one feels to me like a series of cinematics.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.No, I agree with that, yeah.
The only body that gets through all seven adventures is the body of the Marine Corps, not any individual Marine.
I think I was very keen with Building Better Worlds to create it as a, not just a campaign that you play, you know, there is a campaign in there, but as a set of rules and tools that will help you run your own campaign completely.
So that's which is obviously what I pointed out, especially to this person.Yeah.This was the better campaign.And also I pointed him to. a YouTube campaign as well.
So yeah, so anyway, so evolving into better supporting campaigns, I think that's an evolution that we can all agree would be a good thing for Alien.
Rushing on, because we're 23 minutes into this, Dave, you've got to be gone in another 50 or so, another whatever, another 20. Ars Magica.
Now, Ars Magica is not a game that either you or I have played, but it's always been on the edge of my peripheral vision.And they've got one better than Chaosium in that they have just given an open license to that.So it's not a 50-50 split.
You can pretty much create any Ars Magica stuff you want. And actually, there's a few similarities with Pendragon.It's set in a kind of medieval Europe, but it's a mythical medieval Europe where you've got all these great houses of magicians.
So I feel there's an enormous opportunity for localization.
there for people to be talking about bits of their country, you know, their bit of Europe, expanding that, you know, away from the one paragraph that appeared in the core book about what, I don't know, Lithuania was like at the time, and building it into something interesting and novel and based and seeped in local legend.
So do you own Ars Magica?Do you own a copy?
I do not own Ars Magica, no.
Because I've never played it, I haven't seen it, I haven't read it or anything.
It's crowdfunding a fifth edition, or a complete edition, I think, which is almost like meant to be a final edition.It pulls together everything that's been really good, edits out some of the crappy bits.And that's going through crowdfunding now.
It's by Atlas Games, so I know the post is going to be horrendously expensive.So I'm not going to back it.But maybe when it comes into retail, I'll pick it up then. Yeah, and have a look at it then.Cool.
And talking of crowdfunding, The Expanse is doing a second edition.
I never saw the first edition, really.
Oh, you didn't see the first edition?I did play the first edition.I'm not a huge fan of Green Ronin's age system, which underlies it.
It feels like that was quite recent as well, the Kickstarter for that.
Probably only five years ago.I can't remember when it was.How come they're not getting stick?Now the interesting thing about that is the first edition was set firmly in the period of the TV show.This edition
is set actually in the interregnum between effectively where the TV show ended and where the subsequent novels begin.There's quite a big gap of space there.
So this feels to be slightly more sandboxy in that you can do interesting stuff if you're into that experience world.
You don't feel like you've got to follow the canon too closely.
Yeah.So I think that's a good idea.And it's coming a little like Alien.It's coming with miniatures and stuff like that.So I think miniature figures and miniature ships.
It's interesting, isn't it?Have all these companies suddenly tweaked that actually doing a bunch of miniatures is an easy moneymaker? Because I certainly remember talking with Nils when they did... What's it called?I've got it up here somewhere.
Yeah, Crusader Kings board game.Oh, yes.And he was decrying the fact that it came with loads and loads of miniatures and it was a right bloody faff and didn't want to do things with miniatures ever again.
Now, they obviously have, even with things like Tales from the Loop board game and other things.
But I wonder if now maybe the production costs for miniatures of a high quality have come right down, so it makes it worth the faff doing miniatures to get out there.
And I guess people, particularly for Alien, and I don't know what the miniatures for Expanse would be like, particularly how bespoke or how... unique they would be, if you know the Expanse setting.
Figures for Xenomorphs are going to do well, aren't they?But figures for just some bloke in a spacesuit might not be quite so exciting.
Yeah.I mean, I think the ships will sell well.I don't know.I think there is possibly a thing about when you're doing a Kickstarter,
miniatures as stretch goals and add-ons seem to do extraordinarily well so if we look at for example sanderson uh peter peter sand what am i saying sandy peterson's uh uh god's war or whatever it's called the sort of cthulhu wars i think it's called yeah which is um
I'm gonna say a massive massive board game and so it is but it's only a massive massive board game because the Kickstarter campaign was designed that way and you know I've got a friend who's got like a cupboard full of just Cthulhu Wars boxes and expansions all with massive plastic miniatures in and you know when you've got a big table and you put them on that big table those figures look
pretty impressive.So is there a thing about the psychology of a Kickstarter or a crowdfunding campaign that just encourages people to go, oh, oh, I've got to get the set.I've got to get the full set.
I'll put back more and more and more as more figures become available.And it does work.Whereas I do think it's a faff.
Immediately now we're beholden to probably Chinese manufacturers getting the miniatures out on time and then shipping them to this country on time. Yeah, bit of a nightmare, bit of a nightmare.Right, but we're well into crowdfunding things.
I'm going to skip over the fact that Pirate Borg, I will mention briefly, Pirate Borg is kick-starting a couple of new campaigns and of course more Pirate Borg if you didn't get in the first, but it's one of my favourite Borgs.
So do look into that if you're at all interested in jumping across the Borg train.Across the Borg train?Anyway.You've got some news, Dave, about a crowdfunding campaign for the new Conan.
Yes, so that's coming out starting on the 15th of October, which is Wednesday, I believe.
Coming Tuesday.I said Wednesday because we're normally recording on a Sunday, but this is Saturday.15th of October, Conan the Hyborian Age, the new Conan role-playing game by Monolith, which I have had the pleasure of working a little bit on.
I've written a few scenarios for that.So that's coming out on Kickstarter in three days' time.
And that's got figures in the campaign as well, hasn't it, if I remember rightly?
While I'm not sure, I was just having a quick look at their pre-launch page, and I can't see on there whether it is or it isn't.No, actually.
Of course, it is going to have miniatures, I'm sure of it, because Monolith are basing this on the board games that they've done.Which has got miniatures.Yeah.
The stuff that comes with the board games, they want that to be compatible with the role-playing games.So there are battle maps in the board game. that they want to be able to use for the role-playing game as well.
So yes, there'll definitely be figures involved.But yeah, they've got 4,500 followers at the moment.
It's 10 times more than we have, nearly.We can aspire.We can aspire.And I'm not complaining about the numbers that we have.
No, no, we did very well.
A well-known AP building on the success of the board game.
yeah and and where is it is it kick-starting or is it backer kitting or is it game branding or no kick kickstarter oh kickstarter interesting yeah so so yeah so if you're interested in that going back that there are
There are at least four superb scenarios coming out with it.Because I wrote four.
Because you wrote those four.
And they seem to be quite pleased with them.I've seen some of the artwork to go with them, and it's really good.I mean, they've got some fabulous art with this game.
So it's very nice seeing the things that I imagined coming out in a piece of art that somebody else has added their own creativity to. And they look they look brilliant.
There's this one in particular where no spoilers, but there's two kind of demon things and they Yeah, it's a fabulous fabulous picture So yeah, Conan the Hyborian age 15th of October you can click on the let the the pre-launch page so you get notified if that's what you want and Yeah going back it I think it might be quite good
Cool, cool.And that's really brought our world of gaming news to an end, except I just want to briefly say I had a fabulous time at Essen.Worked very, very hard.I think I've only just recovered now, a week later.
It's a long con, isn't it, that one?I mean, it's a four-day convention, isn't it?
Four days, so... Plus travelling and everything. all day Wednesday, getting straight into setting up after a hellish journey on the trains.But then everybody comes in and it was sold out every day.
So we're looking at hundreds of thousands of punters coming through.It's a big old hall.I have to say, I find it really hard to walk around the halls without just
sort of despairing at capitalism and thinking do we even need so much stuff i mean it's really hard to think oh i want to buy this game because
To begin with, there's more than you want to buy, and then there's just too much, and you don't want to buy anything.It's my problem with it.
I've been, what, my third Essen, I think, now, and, yeah, I think that feeling gets cemented every time I go.
Yeah, I mean, I haven't been to Essen, and I think it's of a scale bigger than anything I've been to before.So, you know, the biggest thing I've been to is GK Games Expo. And I think the scale of Essen is significantly greater than that.
And that's, you know, that's, you know, that's, yeah, you can kind of get lost in the, you know, like you say, the opportunity to spend money.
And like you say, just the massive, you know, the tsunami of stuff that is there to spend your money on if you wanted to.
We did see some fans though.So Llyrlyn came and we had lunch.He came for one of my lunch breaks and we had lunch and we talked about Tales of the Old West of course.That was a Saturday so the campaign had finished by then.
And he pointed out, and this is an interesting thing that I now want to find some of these books and read.In the late 19th century there were
a number of Western novels published by a German writer, which obviously have a very German slant on the West.And he said he imagined that's how he'd be playing his campaign.
But he said, oh, I want to read those contemporaneous novels based on that German experience.I don't know how realistic or pulpy they are, but it'd be interesting to see if we can find out.
Or whether you can find them in English.Yeah.
yeah or whether you can even find them in english good point yeah um and then also i want a special shout out to alex bueno who i mentioned on a little video we recorded when we were um out there for the ending the campaign but um the alex is from brazil
and is not only a backer, but had come to Essen and then come to the stand to say hi.
So, Alex, you've worked very hard coming to say hello, and we haven't got any patrons, actually, just touching back on an earlier topic, we haven't got any new patrons to thank, but Alex, thanks for coming halfway around the world to say hi to me in Essen.
I'm sure that's not the only reason you came around the world, but that's lovely to meet a Brazilian backer.
And if it was, he'd have been sorely disappointed as well.
Yeah, we didn't get a chance.He didn't come when it was a break time for me.You know, you work pretty hard from nine till seven.
It is all consuming, these things, aren't they?Even when you get a little bit of time off, it's like you're still kind of... Yeah, it's difficult to stop.
And we were round the back of, or rather round the back of our stand, because our stand was massive, Dave, and our stand at UK Games Expo is likely to be equally massive.
But round the back of our stand was Two Little Mice, and so I recorded a lovely, lovely interview with them.But... Sadly, even though I'd taken my expensive mics and I spent time setting them all up, I didn't actually record through those mics.
So the only sound that I've got is what my phone recorded.Don't ask me where I screwed up.I, to be honest, don't quite know, but I definitely screwed up on that one.So that is now a Kickstarter, not a Kickstarter exclusive, sorry.
That is now a Patreon exclusive, that interview, but we must get them, back online to interview them before their new Backerkit campaign starts.We've got a month to do it, Dave, but they were lovely people to talk to.
Really interesting, very insightful.If you like white noise, come and listen to our interview.I've made it just about audible.If you're a patron, come and listen to the interview.It's free to all patrons.But we will get a better recording done
in time for the show in the next month, yeah.Which I think probably brings us to our moment of reflection.Oh no, it doesn't.Old West News, crikey.
Well, it is a bit of a moment of reflection because it's now, how long since the Kickstarter finished?Just over a week.Nine or 10 days.And it's weird, you know,
Part of our thinking about possibly calling this episode Anti-Climax is that, you know, that six weeks of the run-in to the Kickstarter and then the Kickstarter itself was an all-consuming situation of being online all the time and checking how it was doing.
And then as soon as it finished, didn't need to do that anymore.And so suddenly it's like, you know, we've got to wait a couple of weeks until kickstart the processes, go through their motions and get the money to us.
So yeah, it was suddenly, it was all on and then suddenly there was nothing.So it was a bit weird, a bit unusual, but as you say, a good moment for reflection.
You know, we've said it before, but we're blown away by how well we did and how much support we had.So again, another huge thank you to anybody and everybody who's who supported us, either backed us or had a look and might buy in future.
So thank you all so much for that.But there's, yeah, there's still plenty to do.So we haven't been sitting on our laurels.I've been working through the text one last time to get it in the right place to go off to the editors.
I've got one chapter left to do, which needs a little bit of modification now to include our magnificent five. But that's easy enough, that'll be done over the next few days.
The Magnificent Five, we need to speak to them, so we might have to roll their details in a bit later on, but I think we can persuade Neil that adding a few little bits will be fine.The campaign tales are coming together.
All our fabulous authors, one or two of them have begged for a slight extension on the deadline, which I've said yes, which is just another week.
Right, so come May, when we haven't delivered, we'll look back at this moment and say, see, extension on your deadline, you screwed through, it's all out of whack.
No, I think as long as they come through on that, I've only given them an extra week, that's all they asked for, so that's fine because they've got a convention they're preparing for right now.But we've got 10 of them back I think now.
So there's a couple more came in yesterday.We've approved all the ones that we've read so far.They're looking really good.It's great to have all these different voices and different ideas.So that's going really well.
So you mentioned a couple of things there that I thought I might chip in on.So we have got, obviously, the Magnificent Five.I think I'm going to communicate with them this day.Actually, I'll send them a message via Kickstarter.
So if you're one of the Magnificent Five, you'll see our opening questions, basically, about the sort of character you
um thinking of well not necessarily you you or your loved one with their permission of course but thinking of portraying so we'll send out those questions we're not looking for portraits yet um or not looking for photos from you yet for for the portraits to be made from just just the idea of which characters so we can
match you up, possibly with some of the characters, Dave, that you've already got an idea of who they are in the campaign.Or, you know, we might have to make some new ones to fit into the campaign.So that's where the work is there.
The other thing, oh yes, our sensitivity reader is hard at work on quite a few chapters that we were waiting until the end of the Kickstarter before sending them off.
So, you know, again, they may come back with feedback and, you know, that might require a bit of change to one or more of the chapters.But we can definitely be sending our editor some of the chapters straight away, the mechanics chapters, after all.
Yeah, we should be getting the report back from them within the next week or so, shouldn't we?
Yeah, so as long as there's nothing too... You know, too big that we need to do a massive rewrite on.
And I'm sincerely hoping... Yeah, if Overport was liked the last lot... I fully expect we'll get some tweaks, and there might be a few different bugs we want to change.
But hopefully, because of all the effort and the time we put into this content, I would very much hope that those changes will be minor.So that would be quite easy to amend, I'm hoping.But obviously, we'll wait to see what they have to say.
It'll be interesting to see their report when it comes.
Cool, cool, cool.Also, well, actually, I'm waiting for a finalized design document from the DICE manufacturer.Sadly, the end of our Kickstarter has joined in with the beginning of their Kickstarter.
They're otherwise distracted with their own dice designs at the moment.But hopefully we'll get back to that one.Now one thing I have previously said before that I think I need to apologize and I've misled people on the dice.
I went with this particular company because I thought they were manufacturing in the UK.They're not, actually.They come from China.I mean, the Dice are not the people.So that's a little extra wrinkle.
OK, so they're a UK-based company, but they then source their products from overseas.
Yeah, a little bit like our patron Neil does at Paladin Gaming.So I'm feeling a bit bad actually about not approaching him.
I mean, I was looking for a locally sourced, but now I'm ending up, you know, I think that's very similar business model to what Paladin does. Anyway, so there's that happening.We're steaming ahead with the art.
I was going to say our favorite artists, but that's not fair to say.We've tried out a couple of artists who approached us during the Kickstarter campaign and they've produced some lovely bits of work.
But our original artist, Thomas, is also back from his video game contract.You will be seeing his art adorning the the front of a video game shortly.Not that he can tell us which game it is yet, but it's a AAA game, so it's a big one.
It's nice that we've got a cover from the same artist now.
Yeah, that is excellent.And you know, our cover is really good.There was one thing I wanted to say.So I spoke to Andrew from, oh I'm not going to remember the name now, at Tabletop Scotland.
He runs a little newspaper magazine that comes out monthly and he did a lovely interview.We had a great chat and we gave him some artwork to go with his publication.
And he put the cover art on the front cover of the... Oh, yes, on Never Mind the Dice Rolls.
Never Mind the Dice Rolls, thank you.
You should put a link to that in the show notes.And it looked... I have to say, our cover artwork on his magazine looks lovely.It looks really, really cool.
So I think we've done very well, and Thomas has done a great job with us for that cover artwork, which I think is... Yeah, I'm very, very pleased with that.
yeah of course he's only got the front cover um yes our hardback cover will be wrapped around so you're not getting the whole artwork there you can't buy never mind the dice rolls and think well i've got the best artwork now you've only got half of it uh well not even that because there's obviously all the artwork that comes in the book as well so
Oh, and of course, there's loads and loads of artwork that comes in the book.We've still got a lot to do.I've still got to rejig the art now based on our stretch goals and stuff like that.But we've got at least five archetype pictures to do.
We've got still five chapter spreads to do.And five magnificent seven portraits to do.A lot of fives in here.
yeah plus maybe some incidental artwork but those are those are my biggest priorities are getting done yeah yeah but we are getting more back we got some lovely prospectus back didn't we from a yeah they look really good yeah and it's really helpful having you know the extra couple of artists because we can obviously spread them you know we've got more firepower in our artwork department now so
Hopefully, this will allow us to get it all done by the deadline we've set ourselves.
So, yeah, that's it.Anything else we're meant to be mentioning about that?I don't think so, necessarily.Watch this space.Also, we ought to say, join our Facebook group.
And some people have asked about a Discord. I'm not sure whether we should set up a new Discord, especially for fans of the group, or whether we should join Year Zero Worlds and maybe talk to them about having a channel.
But, you know, so if you want a Discord, contact us on our socials and demand one, and we'll think about it.Otherwise, though, join our Facebook group. Right, now time to reflect once more.Time to reflect this time on Coriolis, Dave.
Yeah, we've talked so much about things like Tales of the Old West and other things in recent months and I was thinking back to where we all started and actually how much Coriolis content we used to do.
And I think it's quite nice in due course perhaps to try and find another vein of Coriolis stuff we could possibly do and talk about.But in the meantime, it just got me thinking a little bit about what Coriolis has meant to me and to us.
And so I just thought I'd splurge out some thoughts and let you have a listen to them.
Anyone who's been listening to us, with even half an ear over the years, will know how much Coriolis The Third Horizon has meant to both me and Matthew, and the enormous influence that game has had on our lives.We have a lot to thank it for.
So with it being a few years on, and with Coriolis The Great Dark arriving on people's doorsteps soon, I thought I'd take a self-indulgent look at Coriolis and what it has meant to me, and make an assessment of how it stands up to games that have come out more recently.
Coriolis came out in 2016, kickstarting with 481 backers and making £32,240 against a target of £3,678.
It presents a unique science fiction setting that I certainly hadn't seen before, and was different from the standard Traveller, 2300, Star Wars and Star Trek games I'd played.
even different to the Firefly and Serenity RPGs, although the feel and theme was in many ways the same.
It was also Free League's first venture into horror gaming, and I wonder if their experience with Coriolis helped them in their pitch for, and their development of, Alien.
The use of darkness points can definitely help the GM create a powerful horror vibe.
The episode I played when we were awoken in portal space and my use of darkness points to drive the actions of the cursed ship in the Spectral Corsair campaign are two examples that leap to mind the ability of darkness points to deliver that kind of game.
Now I'm not saying they work as well as stress in Alien does, not for a minute, but as an early attempt for a horror vibe it was a good try.
And of course, Darkness points were not just about horror, but about karma and the impact of inconvenience in the gods once too often.But I wonder if, without Coriolis, we might not have got Alien and Stress either.
But Coriolis is definitely unique in its setting, in its use of black ink, in what it was trying to achieve.The setting created opportunities for roleplaying that are usually missed by other games.
making religious observance an important, but more important, fun aspect of the game.Bringing a Firefly vibe that really worked, and worked better than the games specifically designed to bring out that vibe.
Bringing out the horror of the darkness between the stars, without going over the top in it.And offering a cultural setting that was fresh and engaging.One of Coriolis' strengths is the depth of the setting and the actors within it.
Nils from Free League said that Coriolis was too big, had too much content.I think he said this not just from a creative perspective, but from a production point of view too.I get the production concerns, but from a creative viewpoint I disagree.
The depth and breadth of the game is what makes Coriolis so great. Making everything a little uncertain.Making enemies on the surface actually be potential allies, and vice versa.
Giving the GM such a breadth of opportunity to make the game what they want.I know some people cite this as a weakness.There's too much stuff to choose from, they don't know where to start, and so on.Valid comments, but only to a point.
If you don't know where to start, just start at the beginning. If the breadth seems too much, focus on something you like and go from there.If you're worried you'll get something wrong, don't be.It's your campaign, your game.
You can't get anything wrong in your game.What you say goes.It's a tough ask to compare it to other games, as there's a risk of comparing apples and pears.What's good and right for one game might not apply in the same way as another.
But I think some recent offerings have suffered from being a little too concise. The Walking Dead, as much as I love it and have really enjoyed playing it, could have benefited from a little more depth, in my opinion.
Others have struggled from being pigeonholed into one mode of play.This assumption applies to Alien in some circles, I think, although I obviously disagree.
Others struggle under the weight of expectation of being deep and complex storylines with many twists and turns, for example Dune RPG.
Coriolis can do all these things in one game and I think this is its crowning achievement and what makes it an enduring game that I hope will be out in the shops and opened up on people's tables for many years to come.
There are a couple of things that have disappointed me a little bit.I had hoped that your spaceship in Coriolis would effectively be like the Ark in Mutant Year Zero and be a really intrinsic part of your character's life and experience.
It didn't really work out that way.
And while I still love the way the ships work, and how you can design the ship you want, it was still just an inert background, rather than a living, evolving thing that would drive your stories, rather than just being the backdrop to them.
It seems Free League has taken this on board with The Great Dark and created vessels and locations in that game that will do what the ships in Coriolis didn't.I wonder if I might be able to simply port those new rules into a Coriolis campaign.
The other thing was the campaign. While there are many great aspects to it, and I've had a lot of fun playing it, there were three things I didn't like.It is very railroad-y.
Now this can be an occupational hazard for a big campaign, but I'm sure there's more that could have been done to give the players greater agency, or at least the illusion of greater agency.
strategic choices over the design effort for the Coriolis line.A big campaign sucks up a lot of time and resources and needs to be really really good to make it worthwhile.So I just wonder what wonderful opportunities we missed by that choice.
And third, and spoilers, the core of the story being war with the first and second horizons seems so obvious and frankly a bit boring when there is so much you can do with the third horizon alone.
For me, Coriolis is still one of the best games I've ever had my hands on, for the breadth of what it offers a playing group, and the skill in which it achieves what it's set out to do.
I've just started another campaign, and even though I've been too busy, with what, I'll never know.To really dive into it, I can't wait to explore more of the Third Horizon.And obviously, without Coriolis, I wouldn't be here now, talking to you.
I wouldn't have been offered the chance to work on Alien and been given the opportunities that came after that, that have culminated in our Kickstarter for Tales of the Old West, doing better than Coriolis did back in the day.
I can truly say that the icons have blessed my adventures.
So, you've touched a rather sore nerve there, mate, because
When, you know, if you remember, back in the days of the very beginning of the pandemic and lockdown, I said, oh, maybe we should play that new Coriolis campaign we've got and ditch the old campaign I was running and new characters and do it all online.
And we did that.And that first bit of the campaign was very, very kind of Noirish, I always thought.And so, you know, I said, I think we could just have you and Tony, because Andy didn't want to join in on an online campaign.
You and Tony could be like a couple of detectives and we'd play it that way.And sure enough, that's how we played it. Until the end, when I realized that a couple of detectives were going to get slaughtered in the climactic scene.
So then we recruited a bunch of our patrons who'd been listening and said, you know, do you want to join in as kind of guest stars and come in for the final climactic thing?And that was great. And then we did the second book much the same way.
In fact, I thought, you know, interestingly, that second book can feel a bit railroad-y.I think, in fact, you said it was a bit railroad-y at one point.But... Where am I going with this?The second book also...
I think feels a bit more railroaded that you're going back and forth across the horizon following clues.
And one of the things I did, kind of, you know, for convenience of everybody, is I actually sent different characters to different parts of the adventure.
So you weren't all... hopefully you didn't feel quite as railroaded as you would have done, you know, if I'd said, oh, now you've got to go to Daburan and do this. this adventure.And that finished in a, shall we say, cataclysmic way.No spoilers.
But then we were stuck waiting for the third book.And so there was a bit of a pause.Plus, I was no longer unemployed.So I had a busy job to do.I still do have that busy job.And by God, it's busy.I've been wearing three hats this last week in my job.
But still, it's paying me quite well.So I can't complain. But one thing that hasn't happened is that third book has come out, and I said, right, we'll start doing that at some point.
And two years later on, probably, almost two years at least, we haven't started.And part of me, I think, has slightly lost enthusiasm because of what you talk about with your spoiler there, which you shouldn't know. because you're a player, mate.
Yeah, I shouldn't have worked that out by yet, but my character doesn't know that necessarily. I've expressed my disappointment in the campaign, but I do say, I did say, and I stand by the fact that I have had a great time playing it.
It's been a lot of fun.It's been great having the guest players coming in and some of the best moments have been with our guest players.It's been absolutely great.
And as a kind of principle for going forward for stuff that we might do online ourselves and having a rotating cast, I think that's a great, really great way of doing it.
And of course the beauty of guest players is they're expendable, or Nicholas is very expendable and we can kill him as often as we like and he keeps coming back for more.That was just the dice talking, not me.
So I wanted to express kind of warts and all because Otherwise, I could just gush about Coriolis for 10 minutes and everyone would say, oh, yeah, we get it, Dave.You like Coriolis.Shut up.
So I think there were, as I said, there were things in the campaign which I felt were slightly disappointing for me personally, but that hadn't stopped me having great fun playing it.
So it comes back to the question then of do we, you know, is it something that you want to finish as a GM at some point in the future where we come back to it and go through the third book?I mean, I kind of feel that I would like to.
Even with my comments there, I've enjoyed the campaign so much and I've enjoyed playing with everybody that it would be nice to see it through to the end.But again, obviously you're the GM and, you know, that's
It's a commitment, particularly when you've got a busy day job.
It is, it is.And my busy day job was meant to go down to four days a week, but that didn't happen because of the state we're in.But maybe it will at some point in the new year, and then we can do that again.
You know, if we're not busy with our second job of putting out our Kickstarter.
Well, there is that, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, I'm kind of wearing about three or four hats at the moment with all the different bits of work I've got, but my work doesn't pay me very well.But it's fine, it's fine.
It's the work you wanted to do, Dave.
It's your ambition.I'm just reminding you of that.
I just need to make it pay a bit better, frankly.But, you know, so be it.
Said every writer in the world.Well, yes.Maybe three or four superstars.
Yeah, that's very true.That's very true.Yeah.So.Coriolis.Yeah.I mean, I still love it and I'm so looking forward to getting into my new campaign when I've got a bit more time.
And of course, one of the things actually we could consider doing is, you know, Coriolis now has a free license to it.Yes, definitely.
Even if we don't want to play in the great dark, even if we think there's more of the horizon to explore, we can make that happen because Dave, you and I have got a publishing company now with a successful Kickstarter under our belts.We do.
It would be interesting to test the water. Yeah.To see how much demand is out there.
Yeah.Might be worth having a look at.
Right.Let's get this Western game out the way first, shall we?
Yeah.Yeah.One thing at a time.
Yeah.Okay.I think we might be done here for this episode.
Yes, I think so.Perfectly timed, unlike us.
So you've got to get off to your darts tournament, I've got to do a bunch of chores and stuff, and it's goodbye from me.
And it's goodbye from him.And may the icons bless your adventures.You have been listening to The Effect podcast, presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods.Music stars on a black sea, used with permission of Free League Publishing.
Sign in
