I'm Dave and I'm Matthew and we have well we've got a great interview haven't we let's cut to the chase here we have with one of the nicest people in the world yeah we love Magna Theta can we just say we love Magna Theta And we had a great old chat.
It went on longer than we expected it to do, even though I said we really should finish off.
We had to cut it short, or I did anyway, because I had other stuff to do.But we could have gone on for ages, for much longer.But we'll just have to get him on again in the not-too-distant future to finish the conversation.
Yeah, absolutely.But before that, we've got some World of Gaming.We don't have any new patrons this week.At least we didn't when I last checked.I should maybe have checked this morning, but let's assume not, shall we?
If you've just joined as a patron, then you'll get a shout-out next time we do it.
Thank you and welcome, anyway.Get on the Discord.
Thank you and welcome, if you've just joined.And if you haven't just joined, and you think, well, I'd like to join, then now's the perfect time.Yeah. Although, I've got to say, Patreon is going through a few changes.
One of our patrons is going to start getting taxed on his and things like that.
Yeah, they're not good changes, are they, any of these changes?They're all give more money to somebody else changes for no good reason.
And I think eventually all our patrons will be forced onto what they call the subscription model, which isn't massively different except your money gets taken on a set day of the month.I think the first day of the month or something.
No, no, no, that's wrong.Currently, your money gets taken on the first day of the month.I think they want to move to a model where everybody's money gets taken on the day that they joined up in the month.
Which would be a big advance.What is that?Basically stopping people getting a free two weeks?
Kind of, but also it's mostly to do with Disney insisting they, not Disney, what am I saying Disney, Disney and Apple are synonymous obviously, Apple wanting to get a proper cut of everybody who signs up through the
right apple patreon app so if you want to sign up don't sign up through the apple patreon app come to the website and there's links to our to the our patreon website in our show notes and sign up there it's better value for everybody except for apple but if you do it through the apple app um it it it's a monthly you know it's a 30 goes to them and also
They have forced Patreon into this state where Patreon now have to, you know, move everybody under this bottle where it's a monthly subscription.I guess so that when people cancel they get... up to when they last paid.
I don't think it makes much odds, but it's just slightly irritating.Patrons work very well for the last few years, for us especially.
Thank you to all our patrons, just to say this again, because not only have you supported the podcast, but you've also supported us being able to get into a state when we could do a realistic Kickstarter for Tales of the Old West, with art to show and stuff like that.
So it's all good.It's all good.
Anyway... Massive thank yous all round.
That's a long time talking about Patreon for a week where we didn't actually have any new Patreons.
And we were going to keep this down to 20 minutes of us blathering on and the rest of the episode would be Magnus.But I don't think we're going to achieve that somehow.Anyway, let's crack on.
At four minutes in then, let's go to the world of gaming, shall we, Dave? Yeah, let's do that.So first thing on the list, Windheim from Our Friends at Nordic Scalds is arriving on Doormats now.
So this is their dragonbane, what was their homebrew dragonbane setting, lore and campaign.
which, with Dragonbane out there and being able to create your own material, they have turned into a fabulous couple of books, called Windheim, which, so, I mean, I was lucky enough, they sent me copies of the books in return for writing about 250 words for them.
It wasn't very much, so we both got invited to do a little... I paid for my copies. Did you?
I don't know why.Obviously I backed it, the project, because I wanted to support Andreas.But then I didn't realise I paid for the full set, you know, with the maps and the bling and the dice and stuff like that.
Because I don't think I intend to pay it.And then I forgot to even do the backer survey and pay my postage.And Andreas... Thank you.
I'm dressed because you effectively gave me free postage you send it to me anyway But it looks lovely it's very very much in the in the vein of of the Dragon Bane style It's really really beautifully produced I mean we were chatting about it before and I'm unlikely to get it to the table because I'm unlikely to run Dragon Bane at any time soon but I mean it looks lovely and so hopefully everyone who's backed it are gonna be very pleased with them with the products that come through the door and
anytime now if it hasn't arrived already.
Yeah.And also, and the beautiful thing about this is Andreas has waited till people are actually getting Dragonbane before launching the next Kickstarter from NordicSkulls.
But that will be, well that is now I think live and it's called My Father's Sword.Very different product, tighter, a whole new system.We're going to be talking with Andreas about it next week, so if you want to find out, or not next week.
for the next show we're gonna talk about it with him next week actually aren't we i think monday after next but um uh we'll put it in the next show uh but yeah that's out and other things are out so there's a week left on um the conan kickstarter
There is, there is.At the time of recording, which is Sunday the 27th of October, there's nine days to go.They're doing really well, they've got over 200,000 pledged, nearly 2,000 backers.
I think Shep was aiming for 3,000, that was what he was really keen to get.I think he might have, you know, that was the target, but I'm not sure they're gonna quite get there now.
I mean, nine days to go, they get the end of campaign bump, maybe they will, so fingers crossed. Yeah, that'll be cool.But that's doing really well.I guess I suspected it probably would.
I mean, Monolith have got so much material and resources for it already, thanks to the board game.They've got so much great artwork.It's just bursting with fabulous artwork. So, yeah, that'll be good.
That'll be very exciting.
It's done well already, but I suspect we might get to 3,000 with a bit of luck.So if you're interested in Conan, folks, and you haven't looked at it yet, go and have a look.It's got four scenarios in there written by me.
which I'm pretty pleased with.I like them.They're good scenarios.
I'm pretty sure I looked at the Kickstarter at some point where the actual next Dreadskull was a scenario written by you.
It was, yeah.The Priest of the Skull Lord.I won't give anything away.
It's got a Skull Lord in it.You can take that for certain because it's in the title.
Or has it?Or has it only got a priest in it?Or has it no priest?Who knows?You'll have to get the game and play it to find out.That was great fun.I'm not a massive aficionadio.
That's good.I'm an aficionado.I'm not a massive expert on Conan.Conan goes, you foul aficionado.That's quite all right.I haven't read all of the books.I've read a fair few back in the day.
But it was great because I was able to dip into some of the actual lore from some of the books for, well, not for all the scenarios, but for that one in particular, there was a lovely little bit of lore that I saw that I thought, aha, that's a nice little hook for a scenario.
So I used that.Yeah, I think they're pretty good.I'm very proud of them.I think they're going to be great fun to play.But yeah, go and back Conan and you'll get the opportunity.
Cool, and then we've got a couple of games that I know some of our patrons are keen on.Broken Empires RPG, which I understand as being a D100 RPG sort of, you know,
basic fantasy fare, but giving a lot of freedom for the GM to concentrate on creativity rather than rules.So the rules are going to be really simple to run.And I think patron Douglas has looked at it and decided, yes, it works for him.
It does look very nice.I have to say the artwork on the books, just on the first first page of the Kickstarter do look, it looks quite enticing.
I've never played Broken Empire, so I don't know very much about it other than what people like Douglas and others have told us.But it looks lovely.
It's just hooked my, hmm, I might back that just because it looks nice, like vibe, but I haven't got the money to, but it looks lovely.
I'm intrigued as well by the Salvage Union starter set.Does that count as a second edition?
Only a couple of years after the first one.Maybe.
But I'm kind of intrigued because box sets are more expensive than books.And Salvage Union made a lovely, lovely book.And I'd love to know their thoughts behind why they wanted to do a box set.
I mean, it's interesting.I mean, if it's a starter set, I think that's what it is, isn't it?It's a starter set.
That does seem to be a common trend these days in a lot of companies doing starter sets where, I mean, for me personally, I'm not a huge starter set fan.I'd rather get the full rules.If there's a game I want, I'd rather get the lot rather than get a
a sampled selection and like some of the other fripperies that come with a starter set.But I know, I mean, Modiphius have done some very, very well received starter sets for things like Dreams and Machines.
But they look like they must be super expensive to produce because there's so much stuff in them. Again, there must be a real benefit that they're seeing, and the likes of Free League, because they now do starter sets for most of their lines.
There must be a real business benefit in that, in that they see people buying up starter sets and then buying up the rest of the staff.
To justify the cost and the effort to create them, because there's enough complication in doing a small little Kickstarter like we're doing with Toto.The level of that, it's another level up on complication, I think.
I mean, I guess there is... The books get published in Lithuania and, you know, just like Windheim's getting published by the same printers that we're using in Lithuania.And that's got European pricing.
All the starter sets, I know for certain that all the box sets that Free League produces are actually produced in China.Is it so much cheaper in China that it makes sense?OK, yeah, it could be, couldn't it?
And when I go to shows on Free League's behalf, A lot of the time, I am taking cards and sample boxes from representatives of Chinese companies looking for work.
So if Chinese producers are competing against each other to offer the best value for manufacturers, then maybe there are some bargains to be had in the start-to-set band.Speel Congress happened.
Sorry, he said, quickly pivoting away from that subject.
I know, I'm sorry, at the moment I'm just utterly shocked with how well you're sticking to the plan of moving on and not just being loquacious about everything here.
Well, according to my clock here, we've got seven minutes of chat left.
I'm in the twilight zone.Because I was going to say something.It just occurred to me, looking again at the Kickstarters that we're looking at today, four of them if we include Windheim, are your standard, standard?
Are your traditional swords and sorcery fantasy setting, is there ever gonna be a day when fantasy, you know, there's too many fantasy games out there? Because they keep doing well.I mean, you know, Windheim did really well.
My Father's Sword is already funded.Conan is funded comfortably, way beyond its target.Broken Empires, I guess, I'll just close the page down, but I think that's, again, well-funded already.So, you know, is there just a permanent sump of
and I don't mean sump in a derogatory way, but a sump of people out there who will always just back something fantasy.
Soaking up all the fantasy games that people can throw at them.
Yeah, because it's never-ending.It just seems never-ending, the number of fantasy games coming out.Anyway, that was a slight digression.I don't know.
And for you and I, I feel... We're kind of picky about fantasy games.For decades we didn't play any fantasy games and we were meeting to play role-playing games.
But maybe we're just not part of that culture and there is a culture out there that loves everything that can be thrown at them.
You know, so looking at these books of Dragonbane I'm thinking maybe I can convert these to Forbidden Lands or something like that. Anyway, shall we pivot back to what I just pivoted to?
Spielkongress, where they talked a lot about Dragonbane and things like the Path of Glory, which is the first of the official Dragonbane campaigns starting.
They're also, of course, there's a Kickstarter for Versen that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, so they talked a lot about those products.We had our spies there.
We had brilliant reports from our Swedish patrons who gave the rest of us a little insight into what was going on at the Spielkongress, and it looked great.I'm a bit jealous that we weren't there.
And later on in the interview, I'll express my jealousy to Magnus.You mark my words.
Well, because we've already done it, because we've already interviewed him.But yeah, they also talked about the Great Dark, I think, at Spielkongress.So Spielkongress, for those who don't know, is a free league organised convention.
It's quite small, it's the second year they've run it, and I think they had something like 300 or 400 people coming along, and they had a number of other producers, and they had a lot of seminars and discussions, and then a big gala dinner at the end.
But yeah, so it's the opportunity for them to talk a bit more about, as you said, Dragonbane, Verson and... Coriolis.Coriolis, The Great Dark.But yeah, so it was great, so thank you Nils and... Ricard.
Ricard, yeah, who were there and giving us almost blow-by-blow accounts.It was excellent, it was really good to sit there following it.Yeah, it was brilliant, it was cool.
Right, and the final bit of news.You didn't mention this to me at all, but I saw that this thing had been published.I thought, hold on, didn't Dave have something to do with that?And it's a new Dreams and Machines setting book.
Tell me everything about it, Dave.
So this is, it's the Immerta Varlo setting book.Immerta Varlo is another region of Ivera Prime.Ivera Prime being the planet where the game is set.
this is to the north of the the region that you get in the core book and the um uh and the starter set and it basically gives you another region and there is a giant city there which is called emerta and the city is um It's abandoned.
It's not destroyed, although it is damaged from the war that happened 200 years previously.But yeah, it's a wide new region with new events, new encounters, new things to come across.
The book itself, about half of it is the setting, which is the work that I did.I designed the city.
and and the kind of the things that going on in it the rest is a couple of extra archetypes you get some more gear and You get a few other bits and bobs which are sort of Aids for the GM.
I think there's got travel rules or exploring rules At the end of the book.So it's a lovely lovely produced thing the you know, I'm pretty pleased with the murder I think the city is really quite exciting
When I was writing this we were doing a campaign book as well, which I haven't heard anything about where that's Where that's in the in the production process, but there's I'm gonna be set in a matter of Arlo.
Yes Well, it starts it starts in Regis Castile, which is the original where you start with the basics.Yeah.Yeah, but then the other story will take you into a motor Varlo and eventually to the city of a murder itself and
Yeah, so it's a really good campaign.I mean, I designed it, so it's up to others to decide.I think it's a really good campaign.It's got some lovely bits in it.There's some excellent set pieces.It explores the world nicely.
But I don't know what the production schedule is for that, so I haven't heard anything from Modiphius about when that's coming out. But if you want the new setting with Emoto Valo, get the little book.
It's quite a small book, but it's got lots of stuff packed in it.And that'll make you ready and waiting for when the campaign book comes out, which will take place in that setting. But yeah, but it was great fun working on it.
And I've just finished working on the next campaign book for Modiphius for Dreams and Machines.So that was fun.I wrote a few scenarios for that and did some of the setting material in a, what was that place?
Simio Surienta is the name of that region, which is somewhere else.It's not close by.The story gets taken a long way away from home.
So with your ear to the ground in Modiphius, the numbers for this game, Dreams of Machines, are doing well enough, then, that, you know, they're happy to carry on supporting it, huh?
Yeah, for sure.I mean, I don't get any insight into actually how well it's doing.I know that they got an awful lot of praise from various people for the Dreams of Machines starter box, which is great.It's packed full of stuff.It's really good.
But obviously, yeah, it's doing well enough for them to continue to support the line, which is great.I know Chris, Chris Birch, this is kind of his baby. So it was his idea that's been percolating for many years, a number of years.
So when I came into the team to work on it in the first place, what, a couple of years ago now, there was already a slew of artwork and already a lot of the background history was all pretty much written.
It needed a bit of fine tuning, which Chris got me to help with.Again, I did a lot of the setting and the law material for that with the rest of the team.It was quite a big team working on.
working on the game, some of whom ended up working on Tales of the Old West, I'm delighted to say, because they're a real pleasure to work with.
But yes, I think Chris has obviously got a lot of his heart invested in this game, and obviously it must be doing well enough for them to support doing more in the line, which is great, because it looks lovely.
I mean, I've never played it, but I think it's a game with a bit more hope in it, without hope being a mechanic in the game.
The game itself is quite hopeful even though there's a lot of death and there's a lot of danger and there's a lot of trauma and threat in the game.The game's tone is pretty hopeful.
Maybe we should try at some point in the future to get Chris on.That's a good idea actually.I'm really intrigued if this is like We know Modifia started with Acton Cthulhu ages ago.That was their big thing.
I'd like to know, was this a thing, a world that he was working on and playing in before that?You talked about there being lots of art.Has he spent, oh, we've got a spare thousand pounds from this Kickstarter for Cthulhu.
I'm going to spend some of that on some art for my dream project.
That would be a really interesting conversation actually.
I think we should definitely do that.Oh yeah, I'll ping him a message and see if we can encourage him to come on.That would be a really good idea.
Yeah, maybe coordinate it with the release of the campaign whenever that is coming out or whatever.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Cool.Okay, we like to do that.
Now, shall we talk about our own Kickstarter campaign?Yes, because we've failed in our target to stick to 20 minutes.Yeah.But we're not badly over.So, right, so what... What news have you got then, Matt?What do you want to update us with?
OK, so the Art Factory is working at full speed.You and I sat down last week, didn't we?And we had a board meeting.
And we worked out, we looked at the word count now, and you've gone slightly Gasco in writing some of these things.
Well actually, not so much.A little bit perhaps on the campaign.But a lot of the extra words was down to the success of the Kickstarter and the number of guest writers we had on board.So that is a big chunk of words.
But I do feel I have been a little bit loquacious perhaps on the campaign.But I think it's all gold.Every word is gaming gold.
It's not all gold.Some of it is just copper pyrite, mate.And luckily, we have the excellent Neil, who we've commissioned as our editor.And Neil will be going through that with his pan and sorting out the real gold from Paul's gold.
Well, he'll basically find the gold that's already been polished to the point where it can't be polished anymore.And he'll find the rest of the gold that just needs a little bit of work to polish it up and get the dust off it.
That's what he's going to do.I'm sure.
I'm pretty sure.And he's very good at it.
We're paying him a lot of money for this.I'd hope to think that he's going to have a... He massively improved the quick start.
He did a very good job on making that a better product.So I'm expecting the same.
Cool.Yes.I'm sure that will happen.So anyway, you're doing that.So that meant when we sat down, we thought, oh, we've got more pages in the book than we thought we were going to have.And we need more art than we thought we were going to need.
And actually, I don't quite understand why we need so much more art.Because obviously, yes, we've we've gone up like 20% more pages, roughly.We're not having 20%, we're almost doubling the amount of art we need.
Well, I think, actually, this is in the interest of full disclosure, I think we hadn't produced as much art as we thought we had. before the Kickstarter.
I think we thought we were a bit further on in terms of the quantity or the percentage of the artwork we needed to do.
So I think we miscalculated a little bit there, which is what has kind of led to the slight surprise on that Friday of, oh, we've got that much art left to do.
Yeah, I mean, to be fair, you know, we did have... Thomas wasn't able to be as productive as he wanted to be.So yeah, you're right, we would have had more done before the Kickstarter were it not for that.
But still, anyway, we've got a lot to do and we've set ourselves a target of having most of it, if not all of it, in place by the end of November. Luckily, we got three new artists who the Kickstarter brought to us.
All very different approaches we've had, but lovely art.I'm really enjoying it.In fact, I don't think you've... Did Mate Mate... Not quite sure how to pronounce his Bulgarian name.Sorry, Mate, if you're listening.
Did he copy you in on the last four sort of weapon drawings he's done for us?
Not, no, I only saw the first ones.
I might send them on, or they should be in the same folder, actually, if you click on that.What I'm loving about these is these could be technical drawings, and yet, with the way he draws them, they just, they feel great.
I just love them, I love them.Well, that's kind of what I wanted, really.I wanted it to look almost like, this is a picture out of a,
a catalogue of the time, because I did find a catalogue of the time online for Colt, and it had a picture of, I'm not sure which Colt gun it was, but it might have been the Colt .45, had a picture of that with all the stats and the cost and all the rest of it.
And this was something that was produced in 1870 or 1875.The quality of it wasn't quite right, because I was thinking we could otherwise potentially just take that image and use it, but the quality of the, The original wasn't very good.
But that was kind of the look I was hoping for, for these weapon things, because they're obviously going to go in the weapons chapter.
And I wanted it to have that feel that you're looking at an image from a journal of the time where you're flicking through and thinking, oh, I might go and buy that one.So I think that's great.The ones I've seen look really good as well.
So I shall go and have a look at those fresh ones.
Yeah, and we've also got Tazio from Italy, who's done one of our archetype pictures, which we tried him out on.I've now set him to do three others.
I'm hoping to, with his Italian heritage, to channel Sergio Leone through him for some of our more action-y pictures.
He did the lawman archetype for us, didn't he?Yeah, and that's really nice.Very, very good.Very good art.
And we've also got, I'm gonna again mispronounce your name, Cagdas, but Cagdas is a Turkish artist living in Poland and he's done our prospectors art and he's doing a whole bunch more for us.
Yeah, that looks really good as well.One of the things that is really good here is that all these new artists have really got on board with the style and the look we're going for.
And they've produced artwork that is, I guess, slightly different enough.It's their own interpretation.
So you can see it's a different artist, but also it's so familiar with what we're after that it just fits beautifully well with all the stuff we've got already.Yeah, very impressed with their work.
So yeah, we will feature some more of that. Now that we're in production, actually, I'm not wanting to share too much art with our backers.
I think we will share occasional bits, but I want to keep some of it as a surprise because... Yeah, absolutely.
I think you and I, Dave, we've just seen the sketch for the GM screen and... Yeah, and that's lovely.I mean, it's only a layout sketch.It's not coloured in or anything, but it's lovely.
It's going to be really good.It looks really good.
I don't want people to be surprised by that.I don't want to share that until people get it on their desk.
And in fact, just as an aside, I'm just wondering whether we could cut it up and use it as the endpapers as well for people that didn't get the GM screen.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea.
Yeah, that might be a possibility.We'll see whether that works. Anyway, so that's art.What else are we talking about?What else have we done?
So the text is very nearly there now.We are waiting for the response from our sensitivity readers, which we can say a little bit more about in a minute, but we're not expecting anything massively sweeping from that.
I do expect that they'll have comments that we'll need to roll in, but... Yes, I'm aware that the text we sent them has actually not got some of the changes that we realised were potentially insensitive after we sent them the text.
Yeah, but I think, yeah, so I think that's probably okay, because I think the one that you're, if I'm thinking of the one that you're thinking of, you know, I think we've, the changes we've made to that probably deal with that problem.
But in terms of the text, so the only bit, so we're actually having a little discussion about the structure of the book, which is fine, that's very easy to fix.And there is one guest writer, naming no names, Drew Gasker.
who hasn't come through with their thing yet, but I gave him an extension because he was away at a convention.So we're just waiting for one more of those to come in, which I expect any day now.Well, you know what the problem there is?
He's done his 20,000 words, but you've only commissioned 500, so he's got to get it down to 500.
Well, actually, in Drew's defence, he's never ever tried to get a text down to the word count before.
Oh God, this is an impossible nightmare for him.
So, now that's a bit harsh, but I mean certainly with Alien, he wrote so much good stuff that... that in the end Free League just went, oh, fuck it, we'll take the word hit and include it.But no, I mean, that's not a problem.
That'll come in in the next few days.And we've got a little bit of time there.We've got some of the text off to Neil already.So Neil is gonna be, if he hasn't started already, will be starting this week on the edit, which is great.
So yeah, the text is in a pretty good place.
Yeah, cool.And just a little bit.So this is an example of the sort of things that could go wrong.
That we'd never expect to go wrong.Yeah.
So we sent the text over to the sensitivity rider weeks ago.And in fact, the day after we were expecting it back, I sent them a message saying, has there been a problem?Do you need a bit more time or something?And they came back saying, oh,
We emailed you, as soon as you sent us a text, we can't open the files.Some weirdness with Google Docs, I don't know what it was.
But they're emails, and you know, she sent me copies of two emails that they sent us, and they said, you know, looks like they've been received from their end.No sign of them at all in our inbox.
I know, and I've gone through Google's junk folder and stuff like that.Oh, not Google's, actually.Because we've been working with them on the... First of all, initially, it was on the Effect podcast server. So no sign of them.
So I had no idea what happened to those emails.So they'd been sitting there waiting for us to respond with new docs for three weeks when they should have been reading them.So eventually, and then I tried again, and the same thing happened.
I don't know what Google Docs was doing.I copied all the text into a Word document and then sent that off to them.And that is at least readable. So that's what they're seeing.
But now they're starting three weeks late.So that's slightly thrown our sheds out.I think it's rescuable.Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
So I think this is an inconvenience rather than a huge problem.Because once that comes back, we then get it into Neil for editing.It might mean that...
that text is a little bit later getting to him than we would like, maybe by a week or two at the most.But I'd rather it hadn't happened, but it's not terrible.It does possibly start to test our target date of getting the PDF done by Christmas.
I think that's going to be a challenge. We will do our best to achieve that, but I think that that might be a problem.
But we will be open and honest with everyone, explain what's going on and let people know what the revised schedule will be if the schedule has to be revised.But I think on the whole, you know, this is an interesting kind of case in point for
people like us who are brand new at doing this kind of thing, of the issue out of left field that, you know, never in a million years did I think there would be a problem with opening files with the sensitivity readers.
Or them, their emails back complaining about it or telling us about it disappearing into the ether and us having no clue what's going on.Never in a million years did I think that would happen.It's happened.
you know, take it on the chin, we'll deal with it, it's not a biggie in this case.
But it's a good case in point of the kind of things that we ought to just keep our eyes and ears open for and maybe double check with things in future, you know, to try and keep us on track.
So for example, a lesson from this could be that, you know, three or four days after we sent them the material or something similar, just say, hi, did you get it?Are you reading it?Is it all okay?
Which is, of course, after I sent them this material, exactly what I did.
Yeah, but again, it's one of those things that you don't necessarily think you need to do because 99.99% of the time, everything works swimmingly and you don't hear anything and that's good news.
And once upon a time, email was a lot more flaky than this and we've just come to rely on it so much because it has been so good.
Because it's not so flaky anymore.
Yeah, yeah, so there we go But we are cracking on and the other thing to mention is the the maps are being produced They we've seen the first the first sort of spread of all the maps we need It's a bit of work that needs doing on them to get them in the right place, but they are they are being put together and are actually looking pretty good the the maps of the West and New Mexico, which I was
not worried about, but I was just, I was just, what's the word I'm looking for?I was interested to see how they would turn out from the drawings that I did are actually looking a lot better than I thought they might.
So I think we're, I think we're getting into a good place with those as well.
Cool, cool, cool.Right.Cool.Right then.
We are.Now, that was almost another 20 minutes, Dave.We're now 37 minutes in.Well, it's us.Shall we devote the rest of the episode to almost hour-long chat with Magnus?And frankly, that should do.Dave, do you want to introduce Eric?Eric?
Do you want to introduce Eric?
Yeah, I'll introduce Eric and you introduce Magnus.How about that?That sounds like a great idea.Okay.I think we're keeping that in the podcast now.
So here we are.We are in the Hamam and today we don't have Eric in the Hamam, who Matthew just encouraged me to introduce. We have the wonderful Magnus Sertau.Welcome, Magnus.It's great to have you on the show again.
I think this is the second time we've had you on the show, and you've also won a game of Dragonbane for us.Third time.
I think he was on our panel discussion about the history of Swedish games, actually, which is kind of pertinent.
Indeed, indeed.Makes it four of them, because we did two on Bitter Reach, and then we did the Swedish style, and then this is the fourth one. Wow.
Wow.So welcome again, as always.How are you?How are things?
Yeah, I'm fine.My voice is a bit shot after the gaming convention this last Saturday.Spelkongress, as we call it in Sweden, gaming convention, which is arranged by Free League.And it sort of drew in 350 visitors and about
100 people working there or being there selling books or game mastering and stuff like that.So about 400, 450 people gathered at one place for Saturday.
It looked brilliant, I have to say.Yeah, it was just the first time.Smart dinners.
Oh yes, they end the event by having a gala dinner for specially invited or for people who buy outrageously expensive tickets.
So it's sort of like a business come together with producers and the people who work in the industry and super fans, basically.
Was that the first time they've done it, the inaugural? Well, this is the second.
They did it last year and that was focused on Dragonbane.And this year they did Dragonbane, but they also did Coriolis at the Great Dark.Great Dark, yeah.They also did Vessen.
And they just recently released news about the Mythic Transylvania and of the Stockholm adventure module, I think.
Yes, yeah, the Carpathia.
Yeah.I'm most excited about the Stockholm thing, actually, because we have our office in Gamla Stan where the adventure takes place.So it's sort of like if you play it, when we play it, it will be adventuring where I go to work, basically.Excellent.
And What are you playing currently, just in your social life, as it were?
We're actually, at the moment, not playing a free league game.It was sort of... It's okay.It's legal.I heard Thomas and Neil screaming in the phone.Yeah.
No, the thing was that we ran a long, long campaign of Raven's Purge. And after that, we were sort of like, well, we're sort of like, well, maybe not a Free League game.So we picked up a game called Alien.
And after that, we were like, well, maybe not another Free League game.And then we played Wesen.
And we had such a difficult time just trying to wrestle ourselves free from all the fabulous games that Free League are doing, that we sort of, in the end, ended up now playing Mouseritter. Ah, yes.
And it's a fabulous change of pace, and it's also a fabulous change of perspective.Just the fact that you play a little mouse adventuring with swords and everything, it makes it feel different.
Although it could be dragons and paladins and fighters and stuff, but you are mice fighting rats and cats and roaches and stuff like that.And the change in perspective is very fresh.We're very much enjoying that.After that, I don't know what we're
we're going to do.After Raven's Purge, which took us three or four years to play, we decided to not do mega campaigns.We tried to do eight to ten sessions of one game and then switch to another game because
We're blessed with having four people in the group of five being game masters.So people are lining up to say, I want to run this, I want to run this, I want to run this.So we have to let people run their things, basically.
Yeah, it's a good way of doing it.
My weekly group, we've got five people who want a Game Master and we rotate around the games, but what it does mean is that each game kind of loses a bit of momentum between sessions because it's four or five weeks between sessions.
Oh, well, can you do it that way?
Yeah.So we're tinkering with the idea of doing it your way just to try and keep the momentum going, but still enjoy the games.It's still great fun.
But I think there's definitely something to be said for playing the same game every week for a couple of months.
You felt that definitely, didn't you, with Walking Dead, that the break in Walking Dead, in your Walking Dead campaign, did it no favours at all?
And I think in an Alien game, we play Chariot of the Gods.And I think that having, if you would have had weeks in between sessions, the stress levels would have sort of like not been the same.
You lose some of the energy of the stress, in Alien at least.But it's to its own.Gaming is gaming.So you do it differently.Everyone does it differently.
I was just going to say though, Magnus, there's a very, very good new game, you might have heard of it, it's just coming out, or it will be released next year, that you might want to get into, as your group might want to play it, you know, some Western Tales of the Old West thing.
Yeah, and it's not a 3D game, I mean... It's not a 3D game. kind of might as well be, but it's not.No, exactly.
And I congratulate you for the successful Kickstarter.And I just read an email that you said that the path to fulfillment has begun.Yes.
I'm looking forward to it and it might be fun for you to hear that when people ask about, so are there other Wild West games aside from Western, which is just a Swedish game, which is supposed to be printed at the end of this year.
But still, people will recommend your game.
I'm looking forward to that and we'll see where that ends up.The Western game that we have in Sweden is hyper-detailed, so I think that Tales of the Old West will fit me a little bit better, basically.
We backed the English translation of Western as well.
So it's coming along.Many years ago.
We have committed ourselves to not looking at the PDFs. Because, of course, we were developing our own game alongside and I didn't want to feel that we were nicking ideas out of Weston.So when it comes, it'll be a pleasant surprise.
And hopefully by then, ours will have gone to print so we can't change anything.
It'll be too late anyway, because we wouldn't be able to change stuff by then anyways.
You have to have room for a second edition as well, you know.
Yeah, we're thinking of doing that next year.It'll be time for a second edition next year.
Exactly, that's what gamers like, one year between editions.
They love that, don't they?They love that.The shorter the better, the shorter the better.
That's your hobby life.Have you been writing anything interesting?
Other than, of course, the book that we've got you on to talk about.
Yeah, he wrote that months ago.
I'm working on the Dragon Bay and Adaption of Lone Wolf.
Ah, excellent.And that's without I've forgotten the name again.Ask for Gilm.That's what I'm looking for.
Yes, the Thunderbird.Yeah, exactly.And it's being kickstarted in English at the moment, actually.That's going great.It's almost close to a million Swedish Kronas.
Which is great because the Swedish one didn't do as well as we hoped, but the English one is doing a lot better.
And since they are so close to each other, we can sort of pool together resources, which means that we can enhance the Swedish version now, which is great.
I guess there must be a bunch of English Magnum and fans from the old editions.
Oh yeah, absolutely.And the thing with that is that I'm only doing the rules adaptations.Of course, I'm doing some things that need to be done with the structure and the way the text is presented.But we have August Hahn. on the train as well.
And he's a Magnament expert, which I'm not.I'm just a Dragonbane expert of sports.So it's a good thing to have someone who knows Magnament. In and out, basically.
Apart from that, I'm just writing short articles for Dragonbane for Phoenix and trying to prepare for my next big thing next year.
Any hints about what your next big thing is?
It's a big thing and it comes next.It's a thing and it's big.And it comes next.And it might involve Free League.So that's nice.Intriguing.
Excellent.Right.We shall move on then to the meat of this interview, because you sent us, both of us, each of us, a copy of this lovely book, which I'm holding up for Magnus, but of course, we're a podcast, so nobody else can see it.
Let's all hold our books up.
And it's called Outside the Box, because Magnus isn't getting there to the title.
How Sweden Conquered the World of Roleplaying Games. Which, no lack of modesty there.
It's an assertive sub-type to listen to that one.
It is, it is.And it's funny because it's been some discussion about the premise of the book among Swedish role-playing gamers.
But one thing that I write in the book is that if I've learned something about role-playing gamers is that everything is up for debate.
I mentioned that part in the book, yeah.
The premise that we have conquered the role-playing world is sort of contested among some, and my take is that not many people would be interested in reading a book about how Swedish role-playing games are
sort of good and you might want to try them maybe if you like that's sort of like a much more boring assertion and since we are also aiming this book at the American market there's no denying that that's the biggest market maybe Germany is big and the UK of course but we are sort of aiming at the American market and it was written by me in English
to start with, so that we could appeal to people outside of Sweden.And we have to be assertive and just say, well, look at this.This is cool.Take a look at this.
Yeah.Even if D&D players want to take issue with that subtitle, they're going to have to buy the book to argue with it, aren't they?Exactly.Well done.
And the thing is that the... The basic premise, basically, is basic, basically, basic.
The basic premise is that in Sweden, Dragon Bay in Drakar och de Båne is Dungeons and Dragons, or occupies the space that Dungeons and Dragons occupies in the rest of the world.
And stops Dungeons and Dragons occupying that space in Sweden, because it got there first.
Yeah.And one of the basic ideas I have about role-playing games is the first-mover advantage is very powerful.
If you look at role-playing games and you say that Dungeons & Dragons is the best rule system because it's the biggest and that proves that it is the best type of role-playing system with levels and escalating hit points and the spell slots and everything like that.
I don't think that holds water because there are other places in the world where other rule systems have dominated. So it's basically a first-mover advantage, of course, and it has to be a good game.I play a lot of Dinosaur Dragons.
I really enjoy playing Dinosaur Dragons, but it's not the be-all and end-all of role-playing game design.And I wanted this book to lift that perspective a bit and say that it can be different, basically.
And I love that first chapter. Well, for various reasons, actually.Dave and I, we came to Sweden once, we interviewed a bunch of people.And I think we may foolishly have thought, oh, we know the history of Swedish role-playing games now.
But I've definitely learned a lot from what I've read so far in this book.But I do just, while we're talking about, you've written this specifically for the American market.
I love the little hint towards that one, which is your map of Sweden in the first book. He'd say, size, slightly larger than California.So you're giving a context for the world there.
But the other thing that I think I was really interested to spot, or to find out, I should say, in that first chapter, is how much time Frederick Malmberg spent in America, having kind of had the idea of
let's, you know, let's, well, first of all, I guess, let's become a distributor for these American games that we're enjoying.And then let's write our own and let's make sure that we've got that, as you say, that first mover advantage in there.
But he did a real kind of tour of the late seventies, early eighties American gaming scene, didn't he?
Yeah, and that's something that we have to also acknowledge in Sweden.Sure, we conquered the role-playing world, but it all originated in the States, and we brought it here and gave it our own spin.
And Fredrik Malmberg, who appears quite a lot in the book, because he wasn't only very important at the start, he has been important all the way through the development of the Swedish roleplaying industry and the hobby.
But he spent time working at different distributors and then moving to California, working at a game shop there and living with Steve Perrin and his wife. playing games with Chaosium.
He's credited in the Call of Cthulhu first edition as a playtester.And he sort of soaked up a lot of knowledge about distributing games, selling games.And he also saw that role-playing games were on the up in the States.
And that was sort of like when he decided that we have to do our own.We have to make our own in Swedish.
And since he was friends with Chaosium, he got the rough manuscript of Magic World, turned that into Dragonbane, or Draka och Månen as it was called then.Dragonbane is such a new name for us.
We never called it that, but it's sort of like natural now.
Does it feel natural to you?It does, it does.I mean, Odie in English, you surely still call it Dracar when you're with each other.
Yeah, exactly.If we speak about it, we call it, actually we call it dode. D-O-D.Yes, yes.Or Dodd.But it's sort of like Dragonbane felt strange because we wanted like the, where's the demons and stuff like that.
But it is a good name still and it's taken hold so that it doesn't feel strange.
I mean, I can see why they decided to use Dragonbane for the wider audience.But I still think that, you know, maybe I'm a bit closer to some of this than most people, but Dracarachdomona sounds great to me.Dragons and Demons sounds good.
So I think they could probably have got away with going with Dragons and Demons.
Could they have got away with it?
I don't know, I don't know.
I love that Fredrik was saying, we called it Drakar og Dímoda, so that we can take D&D's place before it's taken root in Sweden.
It would be quite a turn if Wizards of the Coast would, if they had gone that road and the Wizards of the Coast had said, well, this here book, it says here that they, they chose Dark of the Morning because they wanted to take our, our trademark.
So Magnus, you're the witness for Wizards of the Coast.
Don't worry, you've got plenty of time for that to happen.You haven't yet got distribution in America yet.So Wizards of the Coast probably haven't read it.So watch out. You may still be called Sir Fabulous or subpoenaed I guess.
The other thing that I thought, you know, the first thing you learn on the first paragraph of chapter one is how old GothCon, which we were talking about earlier on, how old GothCon is.I mean, although
It started off as Convent, and you talk about D&D arriving at Convent Convention 77 in 1977, and that being the beginning of role-playing in Sweden.But we haven't got, have we, a convention that's lasted so long in this country, have we, Steve?Dave?
So Steve and Eric, let's ask them what's going on.No, it would be like as if Games Day had remained all the way through to now, which obviously I don't remember what year it stopped, but we went in the 80s.
But yeah, nothing has been anywhere near as enduring as that now.
That's cool.It started out as Convent 77, Convent 78, Convent being the Swedish word for convention.
It's quite funny that when Mikael Börjesson, who is one of the founding fathers of the Swedish hobby, was calling to Games Workshop to place an ad for the convention in White Wharf. He spoke to Albie Fiore there and he's like, convents?
Is this something for nuns or something?
That might get you quite a lot of old blokes coming along anyway, but for totally different reasons.
Nuns with dice.So Börjesson had to make up a name for it on the spot, so he just called it GothCon.And it's not a GothCon, it's a con in Gothenburg, one of the major cities of Swedish role-playing game history.
So that's quite, at the drop of a hat, you have to sort of like, oh, I have to call something else.Well, let's call it GothCon.
Yeah.On a very expensive international phone call.
Yeah, exactly.And that can also be sort of like something that I think that Swedish roleplaying history can be summed up as well.Things happened.Sometimes they weren't planned.They just happened.And it's...
Probably that is the same for the states, but in Sweden there are many coincidences.Some have more luck than others.
Dungeons and Dragons was translated into Swedish by Mikael Börjesson, but due to an unfortunate event he never got it off the ground and it was stopped being published. Those dragons tried to make it in Sweden, but it couldn't topple the dragonbane.
But of course, history could have been so different.I also love the story about how a consignment of Drakkark Domino was being driven in an Alfa Romeo when the steering wheel came off.
Yeah, exactly.And so that could have killed two of the most important people in the Swedish opening history and things might have been very different.One thing that we're talking about now
is that why didn't the established board game producers that we had or the established role-playing no board game producer in Sweden that we had why didn't they try role-playing games and I don't think I don't have an answer and and I don't think anyone else has an answer
So I have a list of things that I want to add for the 2.0 edition of this book in about 10 years, 15 years.And that's one thing that I'll look into.Why didn't someone else from the board games section of the industry try role-playing games?
Yeah, it's really interesting reading the book and getting the sense of nostalgia of those days.
But also, I mean, you talk about things like the satanic panic about Dungeons and Dragons and role playing games and the effect that that may or may not have had.
I mean, I remember hearing about it in the, I guess, in the early 80s when I was 14 or 15.I don't ever remember it really having an impact in the UK.But what I do remember really clearly
is you'd never tell anybody else that you played Dungeons and Dragons.Not unless, you know, a couple of a couple of my very good friends who I kind of eventually came out to and said, Oh, have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons?
And they both said, Oh, yeah, we used to play that as kids, but I'd known them for years and had never even dared raise the fact that I played D&D.So I wonder if there's a thing in that.I haven't got that sense in your book yet.
I mean, you talk about the death of role-playing in Sweden before the resurgence.And I wonder if there was a little bit of that kind of feeling in that period.But I don't get that sense from your book in the same way that I felt it back in the 80s.
No, I mean, quite the opposite.In fact, actually, I wanted to unpack this a little bit more.
So again, later on in the book, or even in the first chapter, I can't remember, you talk about the club scene in Sweden, which seems to be a lot more organized.I mean,
Dave and I were members of a club, but you know that club was five of us who played games at my house and called ourselves the club, whereas there seemed to be more support for social clubs around all sorts of things in Sweden.
For big clubs with lots of many members.
I wanted to talk a little bit about that and now you've got an overarching organisation for role-playing and wargaming clubs.Does that still go, does it still live?
Oh yeah absolutely and that's one of the most difficult things about this book is that one of the
unique things about the Swedish gaming hobby is that we are sort of grounded in a Swedish political movement of educating the people, which is sort of like the state supplies
education to people so that people can raise their competence in different things, try different things and become more employable and maybe change.So that basically so that people wouldn't have to be farmers all their lives.
So sort of a state supplies that. And I sat down thinking, how can I explain this for an American audience?They won't understand what I'm talking about.The state... Smacks of socialism to me already!Communism, propaganda, everything.
But there is a tradition of the state offering support for broadening your horizons and learning new stuff. And we do that in study circles.We do that in, like people can go, they can read books and talk about them.They can learn to sculpt.
They can read about history.They can do a lot of things in their spare time.And then they will get, if they are young people, they can sort of form a club and they will get support money from the state.
Like, if you make sure that 10 young people gather into this club and do a wholesome activity, such as like playing rock music is a wholesome activity in Sweden.
So you could get money, not a lot, of course, but if you're a gaming group and you meet every week for a year, and you get like 10 crowns, a quid for every member for every session that you, every
time you meet, it adds up and you use that to buy more games and you stay off the streets and you contribute to people learning new stuff.That's one of the strongest aspects of the Swedish hobby.
So we also form these local clubs, like five people, ten people, but there also is a central organization which organizes these clubs. So we weren't isolated points of light in the country.
We were like, we knew that there were other gaming clubs and we could have events and meet together.And we had an organization that could help us communicate, exchange ideas, and just
arrange larger gaming meetings and conventions and stuff like that.And that also meant that there are a lot of us who
sort of interfaced with the adult world through these clubs, because you had to talk to the local politicians, you had to apply to get this money, and you had to sort of follow a special organizational... A set of rules and stuff.
A set of rules, exactly. someone who decided who decided to have offices in your club.Yeah, I had a secretary, I had this and this and this.So people learned how to organize and they learned how to put events together.
And that has helped the hobby to to sort of be cohesive and sort of like be a big hobby and not just people here and there playing role playing games.It's like this is a huge bunch of people and they are organized together.
So we have a voice in Sweden through this national organization.I don't always agree with what they say, but it's still, it's a central force, which sort of like when the moral panic, the satanic panic
came to Sweden, they had to step in and say, hey, this is outrageous.This is not what gaming is about.
So they had to become more political and take a stand saying, well, we stand for informing people about the hobby and also encouraging people to organize and show people that you exist and that you are just like any other hobby.So that means that
the visibility of role-playing games might have been much higher in Sweden than it had been in the UK.But still, there are people who have stayed sort of like anonymous about their gaming.
So it's, I think, in a way, I think that my bias shines through in the book about this because I've never been shy about telling everyone that I'm a gamer.So for me, it's like so much part of my identity and it has also helped me professionally.
And I have not experienced what other gamers have had.Some people I know had their games confiscated and pulped or burned and they had to play in secret.
A lot of people up until sort of like 10 years ago were sort of like, well, I used to play, but that's not something I do now.But now you can wear your nerd pin with pride.With pride, yeah, yeah.Oh, you play role-playing games.Can we try?
It's a more common thing than, oh, you play role-playing games.You're such a pathetic nerd.Weirdo.Exactly.So I think it's It never was, for me at least, as what you're describing Dave, but for some it was.
But I'm fascinated by this government support of gaming. Because I think it has paid dividends over time.
I mean, you look at the Swedish computer games industry, you know, most of the guys working for Free League actually are, you know, have got day jobs still in computer games and things like that. And I'm just trying to remember who runs Cabinet.
Is it not Fredrik Malmberg?
Yeah, exactly.And he was also instrumental in forming Paradox.A lot of gamers were instrumental in setting up several of the major computer game houses in Sweden.And as, like you say, a lot of the Free League people worked or still work.
Mattias Lilja, for example, who's involved in Free League, he's the co-CEO of Paradox now.Fredrik Wester, who is the CEO, he used to be a part of the Iron Ring, Järnringen, who was the precursor of Free League.
And we have Fredrik Malmberg and a lot of other people, Helmgast people, a lot of them work for Paradox as well.And that's a much larger industry than the Swedish role-playing industry, the computer games industry.But also, we sort of like supply
a lot of screenwriters and creatives for other fields of culture and media that have their roots in role-playing games.
And in Cabinet, Fredrik Mannberg has kept hold of some of the IP from, apart from Drakkar och Dymuna, those early games like Mutant, and also, of course, brought others in.
So Dave, you're writing for Conan RPG now, but the Conan brand and everything that is Conan as a character is effectively owned by Frederick Malmberg and the gang.
Yeah, it's sort of like they sold to, I forget, is it Come On?Let's see here. Well, he sold it to some bigger corporation, corporate entity, but he's still in control of the brands and the licensing deals and stuff like that.
So he got ahold of the Conan property, the brand, not the stories, because they're not included in the brand, but the brand, and in the end also Solomon Cain and stuff like that.So it's...
So grounding in business sense and stuff.
Yeah, exactly.And he's such an important entrepreneur as well.And I think that that's also one thing that we have discussed about, because when I wrote this book, I based it on a lot of other books.
Of course, there's nothing new here for Swedish gamers with an interest in the role playing history.But one thing that has sort of erupted after the book now is that now people have sort of like a
a source that I can say, I don't agree with this, I agree with this, I don't agree with this.So it's sort of like creating more discussion.
And one thing that we also discussed is that how is it possible for a game industry in socialist Sweden to be so dependent on entrepreneurs?
Because sort of like, we Swedes, we think that, well, being a business person in Sweden is frowned upon and everyone is a worker and we are a socialist country, blah, blah, blah.
But it's much more complicated than that, is that this organized part of gaming, which is non-profit, it's something you do in your spare time, it's nothing.Most conventions in Sweden are run by non-profit organizations.
They are not run by the companies.The Spelkongress that I went to last Saturday, that's run by Free League.But apart from that, there are clubs doing the conventions. But it also seems that we need to have the entrepreneurs trailblazers, basically.
And Fredrik Malmberg has been one of these trailblazers that he sort of like opened everything up together with a lot of other people, of course.But he's sort of like the one person that comes around again and again and again and again.
So it's important to also realize that luck and circumstance is also very important in this.And I think that, for example, Free League, they have Thomas Herrenstam, which is a shrewd business person.
And I think that's also one of the important things to acknowledge when it comes to the success of Swedish football, is that you have to have someone who knows how to turn it into a business.
Yeah, but there's also a sense of confidence and chutzpah and drive
And we've said this before on the podcast that, you know, here's Dave and I, you know, we might've had fantasies about publishing our own games when we were teenagers, but here we are in our fifties and we're doing our first one.
Whereas again, I don't want to make this a Frederick Mumberg worship thing, but you know, at 14 or whatever, he sets up his first distribution company
you know, not brilliantly professionally at 14, but, you know, he gets the idea, I can buy games from America cheap.And also I can buy more games from America cheap and sell them on to my friends.
And, you know, at 14 has the nerve to get in touch with Chaosium and talk to them about their games and stuff like that.
And it feels a lot like the favorite bloke whose name I've just forgotten, but, you know, the 12 year old who went to work as an editor for Chaosium,
Greg Stafford seems to be able to, you know, when precocious kids come to him saying, Oh, I'm doing this thing.He goes, Oh, that sounds great here.Do you want some games?
Yeah, exactly.And that's, that's the thing is that, that, The Swedish... Ken Rolston.Ken Rolston.Okay.Yeah.It's the Swedish, the forefathers of the Swedish role-playing game industry and hobby were very young.They were in the twenties.
So it's, that also, of course, shaped a lot of things that happened.And sometimes it's difficult to, Remember that Target Games started around 82, 81, 82, 83 and they went bankrupt in 1999 and we're like, oh, it's such a tragic story and everything.
But the average lifespan of a corporation, a company at least in Sweden, is measured in a couple of years.So it is difficult to keep a business going for a longer time.
And if you're 20 when you start, it's even more difficult, I think, to sort of like, OK, I will dedicate my life to this company for 20 years. Then do that strategically, and never do a misstep.
There were missteps, and there were things that could have gone very differently.But Fredrik, he stuck out with it, he stuck with it. never sort of left the hobby.
And that's something that also is really evident nowadays, is that he's very much involved and people can just message him on Facebook and ask, I want to have a go at this license.Is this free?
And he's like, I'll make a presentation and I'll talk to you.He's very available for us younger gamers.Me being 55, being a younger gamer.
So that's the business side, but also the creative side I wanted to talk about briefly.One thing again, out of what I've read so far, and I'm by no means even halfway through the book yet, but one of the things I thought was very interesting was
The Swedish approach to adventure writing that seemed to take place, which I'm going to put it to you, Magnus, it may be a symptom or not so much an exclusively Swedish thing, but a thing that was happening at the time that managed to ride a wave.
I remember a point in the early eighties, when in England, we were fed up with dungeons and looking at scrolls and things like that, you know, and trying to open out, get out of the dungeon and now fantasy gaming is all around the world.
And I think as well, as a group, we enjoyed Traveller a lot more than most fantasy games because Traveller allows you to do that faction factional intrigue and stuff in a way that wasn't just following a dungeon down to the big bad at the end.
But very much it seemed to me that from the earliest Swedish language adventures People were thinking in that way.We're thinking about, let's not have this as a dungeon.
Let's have this as a social adventure where you've got all these different factions.
Svalvwinter being, of course, probably the most famous, but actually the whole world back then of Drakkar Kdumona, the name of which I've just forgotten, being built on that sort of way rather than just a series of dungeons one after the other.
Yeah.The first official world for Drucker of the Mourner was Erev Altor.That's what I'm looking for.So that's what you think.
Yeah, but the Swedish game design philosophies are much more sandbox based, much more relationship based, and a lot more story based than the dungeon crawls of Dungeons and Dragons.
don't really, or I can't really say that it was a reaction, but the early writers were definitely reacting to Dennis Raikkonen saying that we want to do this differently, we want to do this more, what I say is a more intimate setting, in that you don't have huge sprawling empires and huge
Dark Lords and Level 20 Adventures.Everything is a lot more grounded and everything is much more closer to the adventure basically and it's much more based around
forging alliances and forging relationships with the NPCs surrounding you and the world surrounding you as well.
Especially since the basic role-playing base of Swedish role-playing games at the time, we sort of gravitated towards low hit points type, so you could die whenever. which sort of like fosters a different kind of adventuring strategy, basically.
It's sort of like gang up on people instead, or just try to talk yourself out of trouble.And that started already in 83, 84, 85.And Call of Cthulhu is very popular in Sweden, and that's one of those games.
Of course, that's also a basic role-playing game.
Also very much relationship based and player interaction and things like that.
And I think that although I might only touch on that briefly in the book, Games Workshop was really important for us because many of the games that we bought were the Games Workshop versions.
My first Call of Cthulhu box set was the Games Workshop box of the second edition. RuneQuest, many got the Games Workshop books.
And of course, White Dwarf was one of the role-playing games that we actually could get in Swedish magazine stores, tobacconists.They carried White Dwarf for some extremely strange reason.
I don't know why, but I've spoken to several hobby people who sort of like, yeah, White Dwarf was sort of like our window into the world outside.
And of course, White Dwarf, we're talking about when it was good, when it was good, when it was not just Warhammer.
Exactly.So I started with issue 68 and ended in issue 120 or something like that.But that also means that As Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay erupted, when Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay erupted on the scene, it became very popular in Sweden.
And that's also a kind of gameplay that we enjoy.Yeah, of course, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay also developed into something else and stuff, but I mean Shadows of Bergenhafen and and the power behind the throne, death on the Reich.
Adventures like that could easily have been written in Swedish for Drakar the Mourner.So we have a lot to thank GV for. That bridge, that stepping stone to the American way.Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, Graeme Davies has written for Wesson now, for example.Oh, yeah.So I think that that's a game that really sort of feels Warhammer fancy role play-y to me, with the aesthetics and the general mystery.I love Shadows of a Bogenhafen.
It's a hugely influential adventure for me.
Excellent.We should probably be wrapping up soon.Dave, you got any more questions you want to ask?You've read a bit further into the book than I have at the moment.
Yeah, I guess the one that I haven't really got to is kind of the modern day.I mean, I've reached the bit where we've talked about the so-called death of the role-playing game industry, and then obviously there's a resurgence.
I mean, you know, is it just, you know, this is going to sound really bad, is it just Free League? Is that what the resurgence is?Can you say a bit more about that?
Yeah.That's actually an interesting thing.When we planned out this book, we planned it to have 10 chapters of sort of equal length.But as I wrote it, I sort of realized that, well, I can't do that.So some chapters are longer and some are shorter.
And one of the central premises of this three act, no, it turned out to be four parts, but we wanted to have sort of like the start, the death, the resurgence, because that's a good dramatic development.
But when I came to the death of World Bang Games, I didn't have that much to say, basically.It sort of petered out.But as I looked into it, it turns out that
I say in the book is that it turns out that role-playing games didn't die, they just changed hands.We, the old guard, we sort of like left it for dead, but there were younger gamers who were
working on their games and building their own companies and building their own fan bases.And it's even started with a company called Neo Games in 1996, when they released Neotech and a game called Eon, which is a fantasy game.
The Eon game is a hugely detailed and comprehensive fancy role-playing game that was immensely popular in the southern parts of Sweden, especially in Gothenburg.And that sort of like wild target games that created Draco the Mourner was dying.
They were sort of like building up their business.So nothing really died.It's just sort of like a transition.Yeah, it's more of a transition.But of course, we like to talk about the death of role playing games because it sounds so dramatic.
And it was a thing that we thought in the 2000s that rope Indians were dead, but we forgot about new games.And then Riot Minds came to the scene with a new version of Dragonbane and Iron Ring in 2000s with Mutant.
And they had a couple of fans who later started something called Free League.
So it's a progression of four or five companies that sort of like, Neogames picked up in 96, Rightminds in 2000, Iron Ring in 2002, 2003, like that, and then Free League entered the scene.But there are also a lot of
small vanity press companies as well.So if you want to sort of like list the amount of role-playing games that have been published in Sweden since the death of role-playing, you would have like 30, 40, 50.I don't know how many.Yeah.
Not everyone is huge, of course, but most of them are really good.
Actually, I wanted to ask a little bit about that.So, you know, obviously, Free League publish sometimes they might be accused of publishing in English first rather than Swedish.
Now we know they've got some Swedish language games that we're never going to see but broadly is there a Swedish language game that you know about which you think really deserves a translation into English which hasn't happened yet.
I think Ian would be the one, because that's such a huge world-building thing.And the rules are very different from Draco the Mooner.And I know that they are talking about it, but it's sort of like never happened.It's never happened.
But Ian is one such thing.It's huge.It's like the equivalent of the Schwarzauge in Austria and Germany.It's a huge game. It was late to be published in English, but didn't really hit it off.
I remember, in fact, that when we recorded our Swedish style episode, A lot of comments after that were, how come you didn't mention that?How come you didn't mention that?
I sort of answered that in the book because it's such a silly thing, but there was a rivalry between Gothenburg and Stockholm.Who's the capital of role-playing games?And I'm in Stockholm.So I didn't really know anything about Neo Games at
And it's only lately that I've looked into them.I learned to know them.We're friends now, and I know them well now, but I've never played any of Neo Games' games.So for me, that was a blind spot.
And yes, that's one thing that we missed in the Swedish style discussion.Apart from that, of course, I think that most of the freely good games are translated, like Troubleshooters.I love Troubleshooters.Mutant, of course.
I think it would be a cool thing if the Iron Ring version of Mutant would be translated.It never will be, but it would be a great documentation of of things for the people outside of Sweden, because it's such a uniquely Swedish game.
It's grounded in our culture, in our history, in a lot of politics about Sweden and stuff like that.Industrialization of the countryside and things like that.But I think that
Ian is one and one that I know people are asking about as well is Call of Cthulhu Sweden.The Swedish localization of Call of Cthulhu is not a translation.
It is localization, which means that it is written with Swedish background, Swedish history, Swedish everything. Of course, it's the same rules, but it is very much a Swedish, it's like you would publish a Swedish campaign book.
And I know people are asking for that, and I'm hoping that someone will do that sometime.A strange thing there, though, is that I spoke to some people at the Spelkongress, I think BlackRock were there, the Polish people who work with Keosium.
And I think we talked, I don't, maybe no no wait wait sorry i'm rambling uh two people who are very influential for the swedish role-playing hobby and they write cthulhu material now in swedish and they said that they someone wanted to
Bring an adventure from Sweden over to the States, not translate it and have it set in Sweden, but set in Massachusetts or something like that.And I'm like, why?Why would you do that?There are plenty of American-based adventures already.
Just set it in Sweden. You know, there are also plenty of global adventures.Why not have one in Sweden?
Exactly.Yeah.I mean, most most often I thought that which I've game mastered four or five times is everyone dies in Egypt.And it's like New York, London, Egypt, Nairobi, Shanghai and Australia.So why not Sweden?
But I'd like to see the Swedish material and I'd like to see Sweden.It's like in Wesson as well.It's like people play in Sweden, play in Scandinavia.And I like that Sweden has become sort of like an established
setting that it's okay to write adventures set in Sweden, if you're a Swede.
When I was younger and I wrote adventures, I always set them, if it was cyberpunk adventure, it was always in the Neo Tokyo or Neo this or Neo that or something, never Sweden.
No, never, never, because that sounded boring.But now Sweden has been rehabilitated as a place where you could actually find a lot of interesting adventures.
I think there's definitely an interesting kind of element that
Certainly in the UK, and I don't know if it's the same in the US or elsewhere, but there's definitely a sense, and has been kind of all my life, that something that comes from Sweden is just that bit better than everything else.
Sweden is just that bit better, you know.Yeah, Volvo.Just generally, just that sense.It doesn't matter what it is, just culturally, Sweden is a place where everything is a bit better.Yes, it is, actually.
No, that's great.And I think I did listen to a lot of your podcasts when I wrote this book.I listened to that first visit you had to Stockholm, for example.So that helped me shape my thoughts and ideas about what to write about in the book.
And we are very happy about the reception of Swedish role-playing games outside of Sweden.Of course, we are very proud.
Most of us really think that it's such a cool thing that people outside of Sweden think that Swedish games are a little bit better, basically.
Yeah, actually, I haven't yet got to the chapter, Magnus, where you talk about how the EFFECT podcast is the thing that brought Swedish games to the rest of the world.
Yeah, exactly.I want to add for the 10-year next version 2.0, I think I will add a section about podcasting, because we have very good podcasts in Sweden as well.
Yeah, yeah, Sweden rolls and... Redmond role-playing.
Yeah. And we have a lot of very good Swedish language podcasts as well.And of course, we also are very happy that some people abroad dedicate their whole podcast to Swedish role-playing games.It's such a strange feeling, actually.It's really cool.
We don't exist in a bubble.Swedish opening games are a part of a global hobby.And with the internet, everything melts together.It was a lot easier to talk about Swedish games as being Swedish earlier on.
But now, if you look at Alien, a few of the authors are not from Sweden.Well, most of the authors are not from Sweden.
Some of them are from the UK.
And it's interesting, I never realised this, but the first artist on the first edition of Jack O' Domino was American.
Yeah, exactly.And that's also funny, that it's something that we never knew back then, because we sort of like, you didn't have access to people like we have today back then.
So we didn't know a lot about these things, but the story about the first, also that story about the first box art is also Fredrik Malmberg giving someone, a kid, a chance.
And that kid did something that he wasn't really that happy with, but which became really,
a big thing in Sweden and he didn't know about that because he sort of did the things and then Fredrik Malmö moved back to Sweden and he never knew about what happened to the game that he had illustrated.So it's
Yeah, but I also like that story of him overhearing a discussion in a game shop where somebody was saying, well, the interior art's not bad, but that cover is dreadful.And we had to open up to it.
And I always thought it was dreadful.It's on the inside of the cover.And I always thought it was dreadful.But knowing that as a teenage boy with no formal education who did that, formal art training or anything,
I sort of have a renewed appreciation of it.
And it's reminiscent of quite a lot of the artwork that you saw back in that time.In comparison to the other artwork, it actually compares well to a lot of it.
It does, it does.And that's something that's easy to forget because later versions had a cover by Michael Wellen, which is one of the greatest fantasy comics.The Elric thing.Yeah, the Elric thing.The Elric and Stormbringer thing.
And it's so easy to forget that much of the art that Target Games put on there Drug Corrupted Morning Books was repurposed from image banks, like you bought the rights to an existing cover somewhere.
But talking about covers, I think that one thing that really blows me away with working, for example, with Free League and with FanRec now is that you get
It's a gorgeous cover.It is superb, isn't it?
It's such a good cover.And Johan Eger-Kranz, who did the cover for Dragonbane, and also the interior for Dragonbane, did this one. If anyone doesn't like ducks in fantasy gaming, you can show them this picture and it's like, okay, this is okay.
I don't like ducks in fantasy.This is something that looks badass.
So where can we get hold of the book then?Where is it available?
It's available in PDF from fanbreak.com. And you can click your way through that.But we are working on international distribution for the print copies, print version.
And since I'm sort of like only a freelance writer, I don't know that much about distribution and the deals I've had.Matt, you sent me some things to look into, and Fandryk are looking into other stuff.
But it turns out that it's a lot easier to get a deal done if you have the book.Going to a publisher saying that we're planning on making a book, will you carry it?And then they will most likely say, well, get back to us when you've got the book.
Otherwise, it's like, yeah, I think a lot of people come there and say that, well, we want to make a book, yeah. Will you do it?And now that we have this huge tome, and it's a fantastic cover, at least I'm happy with the writing.
And I think it'll be a lot easier to have it being carried.And we're hoping for the trade channels in the States, of course.And that should mean that it shows up in the UK as well.Yeah, nice.
It is a great read.And I haven't finished it yet, but I am two thirds of the way through.And I'm really enjoying it. I do have one more question before we finish up.And Matthew, have you got anything else to ask before we wrap up?
No, no.I mean, we could talk to Magnus all day.
All day, yeah.But my wife will get angry when she's waiting for me to turn up for lunch.But my last question is, before we started recording, you were talking about a retirement plan to sell off your game collection in many years' time.
If you did do that, What one game would you not sell and keep from your collection?
I would keep the first edition of War on Fence roleplay.
Excellent.The next to last game would be the second edition of Call of Cthulhu.
At this rate, you go through them all and then you don't sell any of your collection.
That'll be the thing.Which is what would happen for me, probably.Exactly.But Forever Friends' roleplay has been really influential on me and also on a lot of the writers of Swedish roleplaying games.It's a monumental work.
And I have so many fond memories of the games we played when we played Power Behind the Throne, for example.So the influence of UK games on the Swedish gaming industry is understated in this book, at least.
And I might want to revisit that some time later.
So the final conclusion of your book, How Sweden Conquered the World of Role-Playing Games, it's because of UK gaming.That's the answer.
Well, I have to be honest with this, and I said that I wrote the Mutant Chronicles Role-Playing Game, and that's a rip-off of 40K.
It does feel like a rip-off of 40K.
It does, doesn't it?It's also a question of Swedish role-playing games have always copied other trends, other games, other people.Until Free League now, that they are more charting their own way.
And of course, Neo Games in the 90s, Riot Minds, and newer game companies in Sweden are charting their own ways.We all dance, we sort of like copy.
Quickly, we'd better shut Magnus up before he reveals... He's already inviting one lawsuit from Britain.
Thank you so much, Magnus, for coming on the show.It's always a delight to talk to you.I could talk to you for hours, but my wife will kill me if I don't go and ask her for lunch.
I'm happy to be here and I hope to make a guest appearance once we secure the rights so that I can remind your audience that the book secured rights of distribution.So I can remind your audience that now soon it will be in shops as well.
Yeah, so it's always a real pleasure to talk to Magnus.We ought to do it more often.He is such a lovely guy, and he's such a pleasure to talk to.
And next time I, we, you go to Stockholm, we must make a point of inviting him out for dinner, or at least a few beers, because he is a wonderful person.
No, the Swedish price is A beer.
True, true.Well, we'll have to put it on the company, you know, make it self-deductible.
Well, hold on.We've only got £30,000 for that book.
Well, that's true, that's true.God, dear.Yeah, that'll be one night out in Gamla Stan.Swedish prices!Yeah, that's true.No, I just wanted to say, I mean, it was lovely to get the book.It is actually a lovely book.I mean, it's a real...
It's got a real nice heft to a really good feel it looks beautiful And you know I wasn't just blowing smoke to be nice about how much I'm enjoying reading it because I am really enjoying reading it I've got about a quarter left now, and we recorded the interview Yesterday mm-hmm.
I think and I've you know I've read some more since then Yeah, and it's just a real pleasure, and it's it's fun.I'm looking forward to to reading all the bits about you and me and
Yeah, I think we've read the bits about you and me.We get mentioned in the acknowledgements and around page 270 as creators, or not creators of the Alien game, as the team of creators for the Alien game.I think that's it, right?
The impact of the Effect podcast on the global gaming scene, sadly, is waiting for the second edition.
sadly didn't get past the editing editing yeah it was the best chapter they just said magnus this is too good um yeah you're setting the standard too high with this chapter and the content is too interesting we can't give that to people because it'll affect them for the rest of their lives
anyway anyway we did say we'd keep this recording short it's already well over an hour for you guys listening so um shall we next time hopefully we will have anders uh andreas dunstrom andreas even yeah
Yeah, from Nordic Scalds and... Talking about my father's sword.Not my father's sword.My father never had a sword.I've got plenty, but... Who are?
Sounds a bit weird.Don't go there.The kid bit in my brain just kicked in there. I noticed that.Right, let's end quickly.
Yes, and it's goodbye from me!Yeah, 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.
Well if you're an international customer and you want to buy the book, at the moment we only sell the PDF and that is available at fanbreak.com where you can look for the cover and click and then order the PDF from there.
We're working on international distribution but it'll take some time.It's a lot easier now that there is a book that Fenric actually can show to people and say that, hey, this here is a book.So that's a good thing.
So we're hoping for physical copies being out in the channel as soon as possible, basically.
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