Come into the Garden Maud

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dave (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to episode 245 of Effect. Come into
the garden, Maud. I'm Dave.

Matthew (00:49):
And I'm Matthew. And would you believe it? Dave
doesn't even know what that's areference to.

Dave (00:54):
No. No no idea whatsoever, and I'm not sure that I'm not
sure that, you know, thousandsof people will get their
reference. So I reckon ifanybody gets the reference, ping
us a message on Discord orwherever, and, let's just let's
do a straw poll. Am I am Iactually an idiot? Because I
don't know the reference.
Or is

Matthew (01:14):
I don't know. You're not an idiot. I've never called
you an idiot.

Dave (01:17):
Or is Matthew an idiot? Because he thinks everybody
should know that reference.

Matthew (01:21):
You're just poorly served in the history of popular
culture. Well, I

Dave (01:24):
did point out when I was younger, I was far too busy
playing football, rugby,cricket, and, you know.

Matthew (01:30):
And I pointed out you shouldn't even be in this club.
You should be going with thejocks instead.

Dave (01:34):
No. I wasn't good enough in any of those to be a jock. I
was alright at rugby, but,otherwise, I was a bit shit at
most. I was alright at cricket.

Matthew (01:42):
Yeah. And and to be honest, in British schools, we
didn't have that strictdelineation, did we? Where the
jacket No. And the lettermanjackets and,

Dave (01:51):
and so on.

Matthew (01:51):
No.

Dave (01:51):
Exactly. But you did kind of have that a bit. I mean, you
had those kids who were justfucking good at everything.

Matthew (01:58):
Oh, they yeah. The bastards.

Dave (01:59):
And they would swag and they would swagger about a bit
like jocks, but not it's notYeah.

Matthew (02:03):
What was his name? Dave Begg. Is that who I'm thinking
of?

Dave (02:08):
Well, in my year, it was it was Mark Burton and oh, what
was the other guy's name?There's 2 of them. I can't
remember the other guy's name.

Matthew (02:16):
Not yet. Dave Begg was captain of the rugby team,
captain of the cricket team,head boy. Yeah. Yeah. Crashed
his Mini on the roundaboutoutside the front of our school.
And I I was the first person onthe scene after he crashed his
Mini pretty much writing it off.And I remember he came, oh, wow.
Dave Banks crashed his Mini, andhe came charging after me

(02:37):
furiously angry.

Dave (02:39):
Well, it wasn't the most sympathetic response. I mean,
you know?

Matthew (02:42):
Yeah. It wasn't the most sympathetic response. But I
did it shortly after ourparents' evening when my parents
came back from the parents'evening saying, oh, we met your
head boy, date but what a lovelyboy. What a lovely, lovely,
lovely boy.

Dave (02:54):
What? And he was a complete complete shit.

Matthew (02:56):
And not only that, he was about 6 foot anyway, he was
quite tall. I was gonna say 6foot tall, but, of course, I'm
about 6 foot tall. He wasconsiderably taller than me,
blonde, squared, you're bastard.And and all of that. And he
always used to get the leadingman roles in all bloody school
plays and shit we did.
Bastard.

Dave (03:15):
So he was talented, handsome, yeah, articulate,
responsible

Matthew (03:21):
Sportsman, and it's, you

Dave (03:23):
know, I've already got

Matthew (03:24):
his grades, but he's probably quite clever too.

Dave (03:26):
Probably got all the girls, and and Well and we
should be jealous of that guy?

Matthew (03:33):
Yeah. Yes. We should.

Dave (03:34):
I think so. Anyway, so it's Anyway,

Matthew (03:38):
I I still haven't told you what we've got. We've got
we've got a new patron to thank.We got a world gaming. World
gaming, a big hodgepodge ofdifferent sorts of news with of
which people have varying levelsof interest in, but we also are
an exciting game.

Dave (03:54):
Really really build it up. I mean, yes. We we World of
Gaming, some of it's reallyboring.

Matthew (04:02):
We we have a good old west news update. And then we
have an interview with Simonefrom Too Little Nice about their
ongoing backer kit campaign forhousehold.

Dave (04:16):
Indeed. That was really

Matthew (04:18):
You may remember this interview, should have happened
weeks ago or at least I'drecorded 1 week ago.

Dave (04:24):
It did happen weeks ago, but it was just such a shit
recording that, And

Matthew (04:27):
it was a really shit recording. So, so we we did it
again online and, which

Dave (04:33):
is good because it I

Matthew (04:34):
asked you the same questions. Yeah.

Dave (04:35):
It gave well, it gave me the opportunity to join in this
time because you did it at Essenwhen I I wasn't there. So that
was really cool. And it wasactually, well, as you'll hear
if you listen to it, it was, youknow, it it it opened my eyes to
household. So

Matthew (04:48):
Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Well, I've been opening
your eyes to a lot of games ifwe if we add in what we made
yesterday.

Dave (04:54):
Well, you didn't open my eyes, Simone did. So as people
understand why when you if youlisten to the interview. So

Matthew (05:00):
I brought Symone to the table.

Dave (05:02):
That is true.

Matthew (05:03):
So That is true. So it wouldn't have happened if I
hadn't made that date.

Dave (05:07):
That is true. So That is true.

Matthew (05:09):
Well well well the claiming the credit for it.

Dave (05:12):
Well done you, Matthew. Well done. Well done.

Matthew (05:15):
Well, no because you gotta make an edit or something.

Dave (05:18):
No. No. Well, yet. Possibly. Yeah.
Anyway. Right. New patron. Trackhim. New patron.

Matthew (05:25):
With our new patron.

Dave (05:26):
Yeah. Go on then. Who's our new patron?

Matthew (05:29):
So we we've got a new patron. And, Ricard, you must
have just well, no. Possiblydidn't even miss the last
recording because, of course,our last recording was done a
little bit impromptu around ourchatting to Andreas. So I didn't
even check for Patrice. But acouple of weeks ago, Ricard, you
joined the Patreon, as astationery member.

(05:51):
We don't normally talk aboutwhat rank people join up. But,
anyway, thank you very much iswhat I'm saying.

Dave (05:55):
Like confidential information, you know, con

Matthew (05:58):
Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Anyway, welcome, Ricard.

Dave (06:01):
Yes. Thank you, Ricard, for joining.

Matthew (06:03):
And it does mean, Ricard, that as a at the level
you're backed at, you can, ofcourse, get all our downloads,
including all our various worksin progress of the, the Charles
of the Odd West Kickstarter. Andanother veteran of ours, Lewin,
who has backed the game, but wasalso running it at a convention,

(06:24):
organized by an historical videogamer, interestingly. I mean,
not a a video gamer fromhistory. I mean, a video gamer
who specializes in historical

Dave (06:35):
Historical video games. Yeah.

Matthew (06:36):
And so he went to a convention there, and he ran, he
he, yeah, he ran the

Dave (06:42):
The last and the triple arrow.

Matthew (06:43):
Triple arrow. Yeah. But but with the full rule sets that
he's downloaded. So there'sthere's lots of fun stuff there.
Yeah.
But anyway, yes. Thank you verymuch, Rick Ricard. Shall we move
on to the world of gaming?

Dave (06:57):
Yes. World of gaming, what should we wanna talk about
there? So we

Matthew (07:01):
Well, you said yesterday or, yeah. You said
yesterday when I put this, putthe show notes up, you said, oh,
we should talk about no. I'd I'mgonna quote you here. I'd
happily gush a bit aboutSpectaculars. So gush away,
Dave.

Dave (07:19):
Oh, well, it was great. I really enjoyed our session
yesterday. And, so those ofpeople though for those of you
who don't know what Spectacularsis, it's a it's a superhero role
playing game. I don't know thepublisher off the top of my
head.

Matthew (07:31):
Yeah. I can probably I've got the box in front of me,
so I should be able to work outand publish

Dave (07:35):
this. That is, that kind of that kind of leads you
through, a lot of the stages ofcreating your world, of creating
your character. There are,there's like a effectively a
campaign, and as you go throughthe campaign you kinda create
the enemies, your nemeses, andyour villains. And it was it was

(07:55):
brilliant. I really enjoyed it.
It very much for me, even beforewe played it, having heard you
describe it a little bit, gaveme hints of the fate campaign or
the feeling of the fate gamethat we ran when we were the
alien hunters. And Yeah.

Matthew (08:11):
Yeah.

Dave (08:12):
And actually I was thinking about it, earlier this
morning before before we startedrecording. And I was thinking
of, you know, list of memorablecampaigns, that campaign
probably comes probably comestop.

Matthew (08:25):
Quite high up and up. Top,

Dave (08:26):
actually. Yeah. For for for loads of reasons, but but
also I love just the way that wewere involved in creating the
campaign we were gonna play. AndI thought that was great. And
Spectaculars does that reallyreally nicely.
So So you get a range of optionsof the kind of characters you
want to play, and we went for, Ican't remember the exact term,
but basically street level,vigilante types. And my

(08:49):
character is a it's called astreet sentinel, so I'm all
about protecting myneighborhood. The other guys,
one's a vigilante and one's a agun for hire effectively, but
we're a we're a team. But, youknow, we went through this
process of creating the creatingthe world. We'd we'd thought
about you'd given us somequestions to prompt us, and we
thought about it on the way toyour house.
And decided that we were quitekeen on doing, sort of 19

(09:11):
eighties perestroika StratGlasnost Russia, Moscow. And,
you know, against the rise ofthe oligarchs. So we're we'd be
defending against the, againstthe power of organized crime and
protecting the people.

Matthew (09:25):
Mhmm.

Dave (09:25):
Then the the way the game prompted you to create that
world, we ended up with, thekind of the mystical element of
of our world is this with thisrift, this dimensional rift to
another world. And through theprocess, we came up with the
idea that actually that'sanother Moscow from another
time. And in that time, thenuclear war happened in the
sixties. And so that Moscow isis blackened and it's got all

(09:49):
dreadful stuff in it. And it wasjust great.
The nuclear winter. Yeah.Nuclear winter. It was just
great. It worked really well.
And then when we got to theactual game itself, I think, you
know, we it was a bit stutteringsimply because we were learning
the rules as we went along. Ithink once we get that stuff
under our bell

Matthew (10:06):
It's a very simple core system though.

Simone (10:08):
It would it

Matthew (10:08):
would it would be So I think we have to Yeah. Pick it
up, we'll we'll pick it upreally quickly. Yeah.

Dave (10:12):
Yeah. Absolutely. But it worked really well. We had we
had a we had a little scene, wehad a little adventure. We had
to go and, deal with a bankheist.
And it was great. And the waythe way so you randomly get some
powers. You don't have to takethem all. You take between 1 and
3. You get hero points for doingcertain things, and they can
power other stuff.

(10:32):
You also get a role in the team,and that role changes between
every every addition of thecomic, basically. Yeah. Every
every issue of the comic. Andthat really encouraged different
styles of play. So in this one,I was a support role, and that
allowed me to restore health tomy to my comrades under certain
circumstances.
But that really drove the way Iplay, but next time I might be

(10:55):
the leader, or I might be, thebooster, or one of the other
roles. So then that'll Or

Matthew (10:59):
the artillery there is. And there's all sorts of roles.

Dave (11:01):
Exactly. Based on, but I love but that was that was also
really good as well. So therewasn't anything about the game
that I didn't like or didn'tfeel a little bit. And, you
know, we we put aside playingforbidden lands to play this,
and that's, you know, that'sagain one of my favorite
characters.

Matthew (11:18):
That's her favorite.

Dave (11:19):
Ten grail is one of my favorite characters. But I don't
feel bad now about having donethat, because I enjoyed
yesterday's session so much, andI'm so looking forward to the
next one. So a a massiveendorsement, big thumbs up for
Spectaculars. It was it wasgreat.

Matthew (11:35):
Yeah. So it it is worth explaining a little bit about,
Spectaculars because it comes ina great big box like a board
game. Mhmm. If if I've got onecriticism of it, speaking as GM
and the chap learning the rulesand stuff, my criticism is that
2 of the books inside the boxare printed like many board game

(12:00):
instruction manuals.

Dave (12:01):
Big square style.

Matthew (12:02):
Big square

Dave (12:04):
I don't know what

Matthew (12:04):
the stapled.

Dave (12:05):
I don't know what the official designation for that
size of paper is.

Matthew (12:08):
So I I have no idea. Board game size. I'm now
officially designating it. Board

Dave (12:12):
game size.

Matthew (12:13):
So, you know, sometimes with that book where you kind of
well, it depends how you wantread rules. But when I read
rules, I give a quick skipthrough. I often miss out the
fluff. There's not much fluff,actually, to be fair. The rules
are simply pages.
It's not one of those hardbackbooks with 300 pages in. It's
oh, I don't know how many pages,and I'm not gonna get out of the
box now. It's not a lot though,is it? I mean It's tens of
pages. I'm not gonna get out ofthe box now.

Dave (12:37):
It's not it's not a lot, though, is it? I mean

Matthew (12:38):
It's tens of pages Yeah. Not not not even a 100
pages.

Dave (12:42):
I think.

Matthew (12:43):
So there's no fluff in it, and and you can see why
because of the way it generatesthe fluff. And I wanna come back
and talk about actually thecampaign setting that you guys
have created because I I thinkthat is worth, worth dissecting
a bit. Mhmm. They don't fluff init, but sometimes I like to kind
of, you know, give it give it askim read effectively, and then

(13:06):
sit back and and read bitsin-depth when I you know, when
I'm trying to understand some ofthe concepts and stuff like
that. And this this is not oneof those books you can kind of
lie in bed reading because it isjust, you know, it's like a
broadsheet newspaper.

Dave (13:20):
It's the wrong size. Yeah.

Matthew (13:22):
Yeah. And or, you know, I like to read in the bath. I
can't take this to the bath.It'd be ridiculous. So they're
former.
And when as well, when there isthe American comic book size
format, which would have been aperfect format for me.

Dave (13:38):
Yeah. Yeah. It would.

Matthew (13:39):
And, you know, I can get I'm happy with softback
books and stuff like that,particularly when the rules are
scanned as this one. But, yeah,that big square format, I I
probably vented on enough aboutthat.

Dave (13:50):
I think the one I think the one thing I would say that
was a slight I mean, criticism'sprobably too strong a word
actually, but was was somethingthat we felt we needed to do a
bit was there was a little bitof interpretation of the rules
going on. Now that might besimply there's a rule in the big
book that you haven't got to andread in detail. But there were
things about some, you know, howwe use, you know, because
because your powers has yoursort of generic ability. So so

(14:13):
for example, to take one of mycharacter's powers, sonic
manipulation, that allows me to,you know, generate sound. And I
can generate sound in such a waythat I can damage people with
it.
So there's a basic ability whereI could, you know, make a noise
happen and distract someone or,you know, that kind of thing.
And that costs nothing to powerthat. Then then I have a couple

(14:34):
of special abilities with itthat allow me to

Matthew (14:36):
Stance effectively.

Dave (14:37):
Yeah. Allow me to damage somebody, or allow me to hit
them so hard that they losetheir turn in the initiative
order, that kind of stuff. Andthat costs points. But we had a
bit of debate over some of thoseskills as what can you do for
nothing, and what can you do,you know, when do you have to
power them up? And so I dowonder if there's, you know, as
with a lot of board game rules,they're not very concise and

(15:01):
don't always cover every everyWell, not

Matthew (15:04):
too concise, I think you mean.

Dave (15:05):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not very they're
not very yeah.
Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. Butso so so he did do a bit of
that. Now that wasn't a bigproblem, actually.
It didn't support the Yeah.Funding in any way at all. But I
do wonder whether this suffersfrom board game rule writing,
where it leaves things hangingthat, you know, you have to
interpret yourself.

Matthew (15:27):
Yeah. And, there's other things as well. So a lot
of the rules effectively are onthe cards that you draw.

Dave (15:34):
Yeah. That's fine. I think that's that's that's cool.

Matthew (15:37):
Except for I was thinking, you know, one of your
other powers is, kinetic energymanipulation.

Dave (15:44):
Yes.

Matthew (15:45):
And when you first read that, you and we all assumed
that was kind of liketelekinesis. And then suddenly
when there was a moment whereyou were gonna do something very
telekinetic, and I went,actually, no. I remember there's
a telekinesis card as well.Yeah. So, you know, I dug that
out.
And, of course, effectively, youknow, if we were seeing these

(16:05):
all in a big list in a book, wewould pick up very quickly that
telekin that your kinetic energything is not That's quite
telekinesis. Yeah. Becausehere's the telekinesis power.
Whereas when you've got it in abunch of cards that you know,
and I haven't gone through andchecked each of the cards, I'm
now thinking as well, because Icreated a character because you
guys have got a mysteriousmentor. So I thought, well

Dave (16:26):
Yeah.

Matthew (16:26):
Let's see what their superpowers are. Let's create
that character. And, we havedone I I won't spoil it because
we'll probably put this on theAP feed for people Yes.

Dave (16:37):
We did record it. Yeah.

Matthew (16:38):
Muddling through this.

Dave (16:39):
Yeah.

Matthew (16:40):
But when the power that they've got is a transformation
one. Now immediately, my firstthought about that is they they
can change the shape of theirface and become different
people. So, yeah, I thought fora mysterious mentor, that might
be great because you guys mighthave met him and have no idea
that this old man or, you know,this little girl or whatever

(17:00):
that you were meeting wasactually the same person.

Dave (17:03):
Yeah.

Matthew (17:05):
But now I'm sleeping on it. I'm wondering whether it
means transformation in thestyle of people who can change
the material of their body, youknow, become plastic or metal or
sand or something

Dave (17:20):
like that. I did I did read that card, and it it did
seem to imply they could changeyour your your your first
interpretation.

Matthew (17:29):
Yeah. It was But I wonder if I go through the cards
again, I'll find one that'slike, shape changer which

Dave (17:34):
Possibly. Yeah. Because I well, I I looked at it thinking
that it transformation that itmight be like, if you remember
the old TV series Manimal, wherethe guy

Matthew (17:42):
I do remember the man.

Dave (17:42):
The guy could change into

Matthew (17:44):
Really bad special effects on that.

Dave (17:46):
Yeah. And I think it only had one season. But it, yeah. He
could change into any animal.And he had some favorites, you
know, like an eagle and a and alynx or a panther or something.
But he could change into anyanimal. So I looked at the card
thinking it was going to be likethat, but actually I think it
read very much like your firstinterpretation, which is they
can change their their generalform and their facial features

(18:06):
and that kind of stuff. Whichworks. I think that works works
perfectly for,

Matthew (18:12):
So I wonder whether I have, a job ahead of me, which
is to read all the cards.

Dave (18:19):
Yeah. I do wonder actually whether there's enough of a
distinction between on the cardsand the rules between things
like kinetic energy manipulationand telekinesis. Because
actually because it seems to bethat the the the power I've got
simply allows me to either boostor reduce the kinetic energy in
something that is alreadymoving. So it worked perfectly

(18:40):
when we had the runaway train

Matthew (18:42):
Yeah.

Dave (18:43):
That I stood in front of and was stopping. That was that
was great. I love that. That wasreally cool.

Matthew (18:48):
Yeah. Nice for a team with that. You slowed it down
with your kinetic energy and,

Dave (18:52):
had help from the

Matthew (18:53):
Andy with his armor probably was the one actually
standing in front of it.

Dave (18:56):
His super strength. Yeah. So that that that was great.
That that that went really well.But, I did have a little moment
of disappointment of thinking,oh, okay.
Because because I had in in mymind that, you know, he's doing
the whole Darth Maul thing in inthe the duel of the fates where
he points at something andthrows it, and that doesn't seem
to be the case now. But yeah,that's fine. I'll I'll work

(19:18):
around it. It just means I'vegotta throw the thing first and
then I can do that. You know, itseems a bit Yeah.
Weird, but fair enough. But Iwonder if the telekinesis card
makes that makes thedistinction. Whereas the

Matthew (19:32):
connection Exactly. I think, you know, I think one,
you know, the Yeah. One mighthave to read all the cars to be
able to go, oh, no. Actually,that's what this power means or

Dave (19:40):
Yeah.

Matthew (19:40):
Whatever. But just returning we we've probably
talked too much about this forthe world of gaming. This is
becoming a half hour segment inits own right. But quickly
returning to that campaigncreation bit.

Dave (19:53):
Yeah.

Matthew (19:54):
Yes. It's a lot like the beginning of a fate game.
That is to say, not thebeginning of a game powered by
fate, but rather taking theprinciples of fate where you
start off by sitting down andsaying, what what's the game
we're gonna play? Yep. Butunlike fate, I well, not

(20:15):
entirely unlike Fate.
But here it's structured and ithappens throughout the campaign.
So at the end of this, not tospoil it, when you had defeated
the villain, it said you are metby, the head of an agency. Now
fill out the head of the agency.

Dave (20:35):
Yeah. Now fill out the yeah. Exactly. You're she. Yeah.

Matthew (20:38):
And, and that was great, and I'm I'm loving that.
But, yeah, get back to thatcampaign. The thing I love you
know, I as a GM, GMs like to besurprised

Dave (20:49):
Mhmm. Yes.

Matthew (20:49):
By what goes on,

Simone (20:51):
or at

Matthew (20:51):
least I do as a GM, which is why I hardly ever prep
stuff. Yeah. I I imagine thereare some GMs that, you know,
have everything in order. Whenyou when you do something that's
slightly turned lefty, they go,oh, no. It's spoiling my story,
but I'm not that sort of person.
I like I like aim the thingthing I love about Forbidden
Lands, for example, which is onhold, is is the fact that that

(21:14):
surprises me every time throughthe random tables and and your
actions and how that builds. Buthere, I would really really
pleasantly surprised bycharacter creation. Well, I'm
the world creation bit, becauseI thought, interestingly, I had
assumed you guys might want togo for the eighties. So that was

(21:35):
one of my assumptions was, thatyou probably don't want to play
in the now, and you might wannaplay in the eighties. So that
that bit I got right, but Moscowwas not on my bingo card.
Yeah. And then that process of,you know, and as soon as you
said Moscow, I was thinking, oh,yeah. Street level nights. This
is gonna be like daredevil, butinstead of the kingpin, you've

(21:58):
got their boy, Vince, the theRussian mobile.

Dave (22:02):
The oligarch the oligarchs. Yeah.

Matthew (22:04):
The oligarchs. And and sure, they will feature because
we we created a bad part oftown. That was another thing
that it asked us to do. And weknow we've said that pretty much
run by the oligarchs, and andthey're paid for private police
force and stuff like that. Butbut then, you know, it gave you

(22:25):
the option of, what's happenedin Moscow that makes it
different from the Moscow weknow now, and you guys chose
this dimensional rift.
And then out of that came, youknow, like a an avalanche, all
these ideas about this sort ofmonochromic world where of, of a
of another Moscow. Youdiscovered that the Moscow's

(22:50):
nickname is the Whitestone City,and so then we talked about
Blackstone Moscow being the thethe alternate Moscow that's
there, and there's this riftthat's happened. We haven't yet
worked out why that rift hashappened. That may feature in,
you know, in this this campaignor another one, or whatever.
But, you know, that that thencreated the opportunity for the

(23:13):
villain in this introductoryadventure to come from that
realm, and therefore, you know,quick Google gave me a name out
of, out of Russian folklorethat, you know, kind of seemed
to fit this this villain.
And and it shaped that. So thisis, you know, you've yes.
There's there's there's 4campaigns effectively in the box

(23:36):
with adventures. The adventuresare not much more than 2 sides
of a sheet of paper. Closelyclosely typed paper, as it was.
So there's quite a lot ofinformation on there. But these
are frameworks, and your bankheist, I can pretty much
guarantee, was very differentfrom every other spectacular

(23:57):
bank heist that that's gone onbecause of the setting you
created and the characters youmet and the way they acted. So,
we had this villain being a bitlike a sort of Smaug and robbing
banks, but only so that he cankind of sleep on a big bed of
cash and eat gold. Yeah. So, so,you know, that's a little bit of

(24:20):
his character now.
His character will develop overtime. I'm sure There'll be some
point where it says, go back tothe, the wrecking ball is what
they call him generically thatyou created in this adventure,
and and do this thing. So itit's great fun. And then we
created a fabulous character. Idon't wanna spoil the the
agency.
You'll you'll discover who he isif you listen to the AP.

Dave (24:43):
To the AP. Yeah.

Matthew (24:44):
But but already, I'm I'm loving this. And we've still
got the, you know, the theoligarchs and the Russian mob to
to unpack later on. And and youcreated a super prison at the
end of it as well, which you nowone of one of the bits of advice
I say is don't think about yourorigin story till after you've
played the first adventure. Sowe start very much mise en scene
with with with the bank raid.Now you guys can go off and

(25:06):
think about your characters abit more and come back to me
with origin stories, and you'vealready said, oh, maybe maybe my
origin story is connected withthis super prison.
Yeah. So, so yeah. Great fun. Itwas great. Very enjoyable.
I have no idea how it's gonna goin the future, But we will, I
think, definitely play throughthe 4 campaigns are 4 very

(25:27):
distinct comics, comic series.In fact, that's what they call
them. So Yeah. StreetlightNights is, as you say, street
level heroes. Although it'salready getting a bit fantastic
with our alternate Moscow.
It needn't have been that youcould have played it straight
down the line.

Dave (25:43):
Yeah. But that was cool. I think in in the creation, we had
a little conversation about,when we decided on the on the
dimensional rift about whetherwe just go for a fairly straight
organised crime kind of setting,and make it a bit more realistic
for a better a word. But Ireally like the idea. I think we
agreed that we really like theidea for something a little bit

(26:03):
mystic, a little bit morefantastical to give the Yeah.
Give the world a bit more flavorand a bit more color. And I
think that was absolutely theright decision, and I think I'm
much more invested as a playerin the world we've got now,
which I think is is brilliant.I'm I'm really loving it Then if
it had been just beating upRussian oligarchs in the
eighties, that would have been abit less exciting as a as a

(26:24):
campaign setting.

Matthew (26:25):
But it's also a bit like a legacy game, and that
there are 4 other there's sortof 3 other campaigns. We might
do one we we might do thiscampaign and then go on to the,
you know, one of the other onesand explore it a bit more. Which
And maybe we'll say But whichwhich we

Dave (26:40):
would probably roll new characters?

Matthew (26:43):
Well, you'd roll well, potential yes. So you'd start
off rolling new characters, butyou might say at some point,
actually, I'm a bit bored of myyou know? Let let's say that
because of our mysticdimensional rift, we choose
Eldritch. Eld, Eldritchmysteries, I think, is the other

(27:03):
one. So you all end up creatingkind of magic using style
characters or Yeah.
There's quite a clever mechanismwhere there's some pretty
standard superhero powers, andalso there's some that are
specific to whichever seriesyou're in, and you draw those
randomly. So you may actuallystill be quite a standard
superhero or you might be doctorstrange or whatever. And you

(27:25):
might say, alright. I've createda doctor Strange type character,
but I'm not really enjoying him.I like my old character, in
which case, you know, would just

Dave (27:33):
Bring him back.

Matthew (27:34):
Your old character comes in as a cameo in in that
one. Or, alternatively, youknow, I'm running this with
another group. So you guys arethe street light nights. Some
entirely different group are theEldritch guys. And, what I say
to them and what, you know, whatI'll say to that other group is,

(27:55):
okay.
You don't get to create or youmight get to create your own
city or something like that, butthis is already happening in the
world. We already know thatthere's this dimensional rift in
Moscow, and I will be, you know,and some of the some of the
characters that this other grouphave created are going to appear
in your comic. And then, youknow, this with this other

(28:16):
group, you come along to guestin that. So, you know, you bring
your character as a kind ofguest star or cameo in that
group. So it builds up like a anatural publishing house
effectively.
The effect publishing series ofcomics. And, yeah, whether we do
that sequentially or whether wesay, let's stop street lights

(28:40):
nights for a bit and do anothercampaign or whatever. You know,
there's all sorts of ways youcan you can mix it up. There's
an interesting thing about itworks very hard on this being
about teams, so it's not a soloplay. Yeah.
And it also works very hard oneverybody having their, I guess,
you call it niche protection. Sowhen you are guesting in

(29:01):
somebody else's comic, if 2 ofyou have the same power and for
a lot of the powers, only onecharacter can have it.

Dave (29:10):
Yes.

Matthew (29:10):
Then for the duration of your guest, who come and sit
at the other table and somebodyelse has also got sonic
manipulation, they, for theduration of your stay, have to
draw another power that replacestheir sonic manipulation at the
time so that you as guests getto carry on with your
character's powers as you know,which I I kinda like that. And

(29:30):
it kind of feels right for theway comics work as well.

Dave (29:33):
Yeah. Maybe. I I can I can see how the other player would
be disappointed to have to drawanother power? And how do you
explain that narratively? WellOr does that does that not
matter?

Matthew (29:43):
Half of families. How, you know, how do we explain it
narratively? I think

Dave (29:46):
Yeah. Okay.

Matthew (29:47):
Yeah. Beauty of it is it's possibly an effect of the
the Moscow rift. Just

Dave (29:51):
Yes.

Matthew (29:52):
Screwing up his powers or whatever.

Dave (29:54):
Or maybe the other person's sonic ability is more
powerful than theirs, and it itkind of

Matthew (29:58):
Yes. And it damage

Dave (29:59):
that that one down and allows another power to come to
the fore or something.

Matthew (30:03):
Yeah. So, anyway, we we're very much enjoying it. We
spoke about it for

Simone (30:08):
for most

Dave (30:08):
of our time now. Yeah.

Matthew (30:10):
Let's carry on with the rest of the news in the world of
gaming.

Dave (30:13):
Indeed.

Matthew (30:15):
Now you will be very keen to hear that among the many
other, things that Elon Musk iscurrently thinking about, not
only is he thinking about goingto Mars, not only is he thinking
about running America on behalfof Donald Trump, not only is he
thinking about making cars and,and tunnels and stuff, he's also

(30:38):
worried about the state of D andD.

Dave (30:41):
Is he? Yeah. Okay. I haven't heard this story. Go on.

Matthew (30:44):
Okay. Well, I'll tell you. So this is I don't wanna
spend too much time on thisstory, but No.

Dave (30:48):
Let's not

Simone (30:48):
let's not let's not.

Matthew (30:49):
50th anniversary of D and D, and Wizards of the Coast
are, you know, they're bringinga new edition out. And they're
also bringing out a history ofthe new edition. And some, shall
we say, reactionary old fartsare getting very worried that, D
and D in this new edition and inthe history isn't quite being as

(31:13):
sexist and exclusionary as itused to be.

Dave (31:17):
As as it should be.

Matthew (31:19):
As as as in their eyes, it should be. And so, somebody
quite wrongly actually made abig tweet thread about how
pulling out quotes from thehistory and from the new rule
book that says it's it'sdestroying Gary Gygax's legacy,
calling him a terrible person,sexist. And Yeah. And, you know,

(31:41):
and what it does, actually, ifyou look at these quotes, they
do say, your first edition wasmade, you know, in in the
seventies by a group of whitemale war gamers. So Yeah.
You know, it was it was designedfor the things they were
interested in, and it has becomeover time. And I think I
remember this. You know, I've Ithink of some of the people that

(32:02):
we played with at school andI've played with subsequently
who used D and D to experimentwith their sexuality, actually.
So from very early days, for me,it's always been a way that
people have used as a tool ofself discovery.

Simone (32:17):
Mhmm.

Matthew (32:18):
It's never you know, so so in that case, it's never, in
my experience, ever been reallyproperly exclusionary. Yes,
we're all boys in our clubbecause we went to an all boys
school. That's not to say thatwe haven't played female
characters and the like.

Dave (32:31):
Nope. That is true.

Matthew (32:33):
And, you know, and, you know, I I know that some people
have transitioned after, youknow, playing a lot of female
characters and stuff like that.So for me, it's it's been a
great tool, whatever its originswere. And in fact, that that's
kind of what this history isreally saying. So people playing
D and D now may not know that itwas really quite sexist and,

(32:54):
shall we say, traditional in itsearly days.

Dave (32:57):
Suffered from the from the zeitgeist of the time, I guess,
isn't it?

Matthew (33:01):
Yeah. But, you know, there are a group of people, I
think, who still exist who thinkthat women should have generally
lower stats than men because onaverage, if you look at women's
strength, you know, it may belower on average, the bell curve
than male, strength bell curve.It's it's all nonsense, but

(33:23):
there are a bunch of reaction inpeople. And you must be talking

Dave (33:26):
I mean I mean, yes. For you know, if if you wanted to do
a a accurate recreation of thehuman physical form, then yes,
on average, you know, women areweaker than men. But that
doesn't mean that your femaledwarf is gonna be weaker than a
male dwarf, or your female orcis gonna be weaker than your
male orc. You know, it's juststart. Yeah.

(33:46):
And and

Matthew (33:47):
Arguing about realistic in in a game that's got dragons.

Dave (33:51):
Yeah. And indeed, isn't phoenix command for physical
abilities, is it? You know, it'snot. No. You know, it's not
doing that.
So, yeah. It's it's it's a pointthat doesn't need arguing about,
really. You know?

Matthew (34:05):
No. And and Alright. You Elon got involved. Picked up
on this, Twitter thread and saidsomething along the lines of no
one should ever criticize or ordevalue. Let me let me see if I
can grab his quote because Ithink it's it's it's worth
wondering how come Elon Musk haseven got time to write this

(34:27):
tweet on, you know, in his busylife?
He begins to think thatbillionaires don't actually work
for a living. And and now, ofcourse

Dave (34:42):
How much money did Musk inherit?

Matthew (34:45):
He he inherited a lot of money.

Dave (34:47):
How much money did Trump inherit?

Matthew (34:50):
He inherited less money than Musk, I think.

Dave (34:53):
Yeah. Still still fuckload. Like a fuckload. Well,
6 times he was he was, declaredbankrupt, I think. Trump?

Matthew (35:04):
I wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, now my old Wi Fi is
screwing up at the moment.However, he said something like
Wizards of Kush should burn inhell for devaluing the, the the
the legacy of

Dave (35:19):
The contribution of Gygax.

Matthew (35:21):
Of of Gygax.

Dave (35:22):
Right.

Matthew (35:23):
Which, you know, is, there there there we go. Nobody,
and I mean nobody, gets to trashE. Gary Gygax and the geniuses
who created Dungeons andDragons. What the in this
version I've got here, censored,is wrong with Hasbro and Wizards
of the Coast. May they burn inhell.

Dave (35:42):
So but, I mean, yeah, a slight overreaction. I mean, you
know, to the end of that, Iwould argue.

Matthew (35:48):
Absolutely. And, you know, and and in in a 50th
anniversary history, which isactually saying, if it wasn't
for Gary Gygax and DaveAnderson, we wouldn't have this
wonderful game that everybodyplays. So so Yeah. They're not
they're not actually doing thething he's accusing them of. But
I guess he is a busy man.
He probably hasn't, you know,got the time to read nuance and

(36:10):
do anything that he reads in oneof his reaction. I am very glad
we're not on Twitter anymore.And if you're listening to this
and wondering where we are, I II pulled out of Twitter for the
effect thing, when Elon Musksuggested there should be a
civil war here in the UK, whichis fine for him to suggest that,

(36:31):
but I didn't want to listen toit. So come and find us over on
Blue Sky or on Facebook.

Dave (36:35):
Yes.

Matthew (36:37):
Right. What? Again, too much time spent on that article
as well.

Dave (36:42):
Okay. I feel

Matthew (36:43):
this won't be a long one.

Dave (36:44):
We can speed up then. Right. Then what's what's next?

Matthew (36:47):
Well, Hasbro and D and D.

Dave (36:51):
More.

Matthew (36:53):
So, did you did you ever get to see that? We talked
about the D and D movie. Did youever get to watch it? I did.
Yeah.

Dave (36:59):
And I I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it. I
enjoyed it, you know, much morethan I expected to. You know,
it's not a great film, but it'sa decent film.

Matthew (37:08):
And Yeah. In terms of D and D films, it's

Simone (37:11):
the best

Matthew (37:11):
D and D film there's ever been.

Dave (37:13):
Yeah. So, yes. I mean, if the news is that Hasbro aren't
planning on making another one,then that's a disappointment,
because I would have enjoyed towatch another one. I mean, I
didn't go to Yeah.

Matthew (37:25):
I think I didn't

Dave (37:26):
go to the cinema to see it. I just watched it on Sky.
But, Yeah. I,

Matthew (37:33):
yeah. I think it's a separate city. I think it's
slightly more nuanced than that.I think they're so they, through
a company they bought, which isE1 Entertainment or something,
they actually partly financedthat movie, and I think they're
not going to invest in it. Ithink they'll probably license D
and D out to anybody that wantsto make a film.

(37:54):
But but I do think that filmbenefited from people who
actually like D and D andweren't just treating it as a
license, and knew a bit about Dand D, making a good film that
actually felt a bit like D andD. Yeah. And I worry that a
licensed film will just be shitlike all the other ones, the
previous ones were.

Dave (38:16):
Yeah. So that's a side to this point. I mean, just to
finish the point off, if, if itwas a choice of another d and d
movie or another Warcraft movie,I would definitely go for
another Warcraft movie. So Ireally enjoyed the original
Warcraft. I thought it was ithit all the right nostalgic
notes, and actually the film andthe plot was a lot better than
I'd expected.
So I would very much like to seeanother Warcraft movie.

Matthew (38:39):
Well, I'm gonna have to say on the other side of that, I
watched like 5 or 10 minutesaway. Maybe I don't play I
definitely don't play Warcraftenough. I had no idea what was
going on, and it didn't gripgrip me one iota. So I Yeah.

Dave (38:54):
I can understand. You know, the the nostalgia value is
definitely very powerful. But asI said, the actual plot, if you
stuck with it and the story linewas was a lot better than I'd
expected. I expected it to bejust some shit story wrapped up
in a a Warcraft skin. And it itwas more than that.
So, anyway, I'm not sure we'regetting any one of those anyway.

(39:15):
So, you know,

Matthew (39:16):
I just

Dave (39:16):
have to enjoy watching the old one again.

Matthew (39:23):
The Terror Beneath from Osprey has come out.

Dave (39:27):
More folk horror. Yeah. Just just just what we need.

Matthew (39:32):
Yeah. And I'm beginning to think, so one of our patrons
gave a pretty dabbing reviewrecently particularly feel the
need. But, I'm a bitdisappointed by it because, you
know, that has come out of arole playing game pod I mean, a

(39:52):
bunch of role playing gameactual players, I think, got
together to do a scripted drama,and that's the Magnus Archives.
But, you know, so there's a realheritage there. Not strictly a
role playing game IP, but it'sconnected.
And, I'm a bit disappointed thatit's a disappointing role
playing game. But, The TerrorBeneath, I thought, oh, how many
do we need? How many do we needof these folk horror games? I

(40:16):
mean, obviously, it feels to mefrom my very, 3 league centric
point of view that 3 league hada big hit with Werson, and now
everybody wants to get some ofthat sweet sweet Werson money.

Dave (40:32):
Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, you know, Cthulhu. That's

Matthew (40:37):
Well, it's not folklore. I I think that that's
that's

Dave (40:40):
mainly just culture. Yeah. But I mean, basically, if you if
you look at I mean, just havinga quick look at, yeah, tabletop
gaming news website, it'sterrible belief. You know, the
only thing from how it'spresented that tells you it's
folk horror is the word folk inthe title. So, you know, there's
nothing in the artwork thatimplies folk horror.

(41:02):
It's very, you know, itdescribes itself as a blend of
folklore, detective fiction, andoccult science. Well, that's
Cthulhu. You know? So I I mean,the artwork looks nice. I I
won't I mean, and Osprey, whoare the who are the publishers
behind it, are are a goodcompany.
They, you know, they they theypublish, our friend John Hicks.

Matthew (41:27):
Those dark places and pressure.

Dave (41:28):
Places and pressure and and that kind of stuff. And, you
know, they're so they're, youknow, they're a good good
publisher. I just you know, Imean, how many there there is a
big bandwagon of folk horrorrolling through town, and a lot
of people are jumping on it. AndI wonder if that bandwagon is
now just overburdened and isbeginning to creak at the axle,

(41:51):
for the amount of stuff. I mean,I don't know the game.
I haven't looked at the game. Idon't you know, so I don't it
might be brilliant. You know, sowhen you I think you were saying
it's it's powered by gumshoe,which is

Matthew (42:02):
Yeah. So it uses the gumshoe system. I like to see
other publishers using gumshoeapart from Golgraine. I am a big
fan of Gumshoe. Lots of peoplearen't because particularly
players, because they only getto all a d 6.
But you've played you've playeda great bit of, Dracula dossier
with me, on my birthday, which Ienjoyed that scenario very much.

(42:22):
7 years ago. Christ.

Dave (42:24):
I know.

Matthew (42:26):
8 almost.

Dave (42:28):
Yeah. Wow. Anyway, put that to one side for now.

Matthew (42:31):
Yeah. Put that to one side. We're at dragon meat next
week.

Dave (42:35):
We are.

Matthew (42:36):
Changing the subject?

Dave (42:38):
Changing the subject very rapidly. Very surprisingly.
Yeah. Yeah. Dragon meat nextweek.
We are I don't know what our, dowe have a a store a a stand
number?

Matthew (42:49):
We're on the main floor quite near Modiphius. I can't

Dave (42:52):
remember the store number. Where we usually are. Yeah.
Where we are every year. Yeah.
No. That's cool.

Matthew (42:57):
Yeah.

Dave (42:57):
It'll be good. I mean, I'm looking forward to it. I
obviously missed last yearbecause of my my poor dogs,
misfortunes. But, yeah. Well,we'll be there this year and
looking forward to it very much.

Matthew (43:09):
Well, actually, I'll tell you what, you missed last
year.

Dave (43:12):
I did.

Matthew (43:13):
You missed being on the stand when somebody from Dragon
Meat took a lovely photo. Now ifyou go to the Dragon Meat
website now and scroll down tillyou get to the venue section,
there's a glorious photo of thefree league stand with your
replacement, my daughter Lily.It's obviously before before

(43:35):
hours, and so she's just, like,pricing up or something. There's
no, you know, there's nocustomers around, and there's
somebody from the stand nextdoor sort of in the picture. But
it's a lovely photo of thefeeder stand.
And in fact, I might even take asnap of it

Dave (43:51):
to teach you what it is going. There we go. Yeah.

Matthew (43:55):
So that's what you miss out on.

Dave (43:57):
Yeah. Yeah. I well, I I wanted to be there. Sadly, I had
to be at the hospital with mydog, at the time. So, yeah.
And and and Lily is obviously avery, very capable replacement.
She's, you know, she did a greatjob at UK Games Expo, and I'm
sure she did a great job at atat Dragon Meat.

Matthew (44:17):
Although

Dave (44:17):
It looks nice.

Matthew (44:18):
This year at Dragon Meat, we have an extra special
guest. We've got Anna from FreeLeague coming over

Dave (44:24):
we do. We do.

Matthew (44:25):
To work to work with Stan with us.

Dave (44:28):
Absolutely.

Matthew (44:28):
So, if you actually want to speak to a Swede, come
and visit us on the Free League

Dave (44:33):
Sound. Yeah.

Matthew (44:36):
And what else? Oh, the other the other important news
is we're making a return to thepodcast soon as well.

Dave (44:43):
Yes.

Matthew (44:43):
I'm gonna do slightly fewer hours on the stand so that
I can spend at least themorning, on the podcast zone.

Dave (44:52):
And talk about Tales of the Old West.

Matthew (44:55):
And we will be talking about, obviously, the podcast,
but also tales of the old west.

Dave (44:59):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, come along to Dragon Me,
and give us a shout. And, yeah,it'd be great to see everyone.
Haven't haven't seen anybodysince well, actually, I I was
gonna say UK Games Expo, butthat's not quite right, because
I did bump into a few people at,Tabletop Scotland. Which was
very, very which was very, verycool indeed. But, yeah, if

(45:20):
you're if you're about, comealong. Come and say hello. It
would be great to see you all.
Cool. Cool. Right. We're bangingon today. Old West News.
Let's whip through that quickly,then we can get on to the
actual, you know, most excitingpart of the episode, which is,
the the interview with Simonefrom, from 2 Little Mice.

Matthew (45:40):
Yeah. So, we have got most of our I think I'm waiting
for 6 pieces, 3 pieces each from2 artists. Everybody else has
delivered. So that's all goingthrough. And I talking threes,
I've just been, sort of lookingat the, it's not even a flat

(46:01):
plan yet, but it's a aspreadsheet upon which I you
know, we've we've estimated howmany pictures we need.
I think we might need 3 more,which, we'll get our ordering.
But

Dave (46:14):
Yeah. I kinda I kinda suspected our our our target was
probably on the low end, so wemight have wanted to get some
more anyway.

Matthew (46:22):
So

Dave (46:22):
I think I think that's that's absolutely fine. If we
need to order a bit more, thenlet's let's crack on and do
that.

Matthew (46:28):
Yeah. So, but I thought I might read through, which I,
because my computer's actuallyI'm gonna close one of my
screens down. But, yeah, I thinkthere's a couple of pictures
again for the cam thatcampaign's chapter is a long
one.

Dave (46:42):
It is.

Matthew (46:43):
So I was gonna read through that and just see if
there are a couple of, examplesthat we might illustrate.

Dave (46:50):
Yeah. Cool.

Matthew (46:51):
And another one somewhere else. Oh, yeah. The
other one, rolling the bones,which is the, you know, the I
just I'd like I want to readthrough that one and see if
there's another example of athing. Right. A situation that
we could maybe illustrate in themorning of the bones chapter.
But then I think we're entirelydone on art, and we might be
entirely done now. I mean, youknow, we're only a small

(47:13):
company. We can't we can't spendall our money on art.

Dave (47:15):
That is true. That is true.

Matthew (47:17):
And, you know, as as I've been paying for this art,
our total, you know, we we got,31,000 out of the Kickstarter.
And, you know, we're down to thelow twenties now, having paid
for this art and the editing andstuff like that. Yeah. Which we
again, editing, you're you'repretty much on top of that with,

(47:38):
with our lovely editor, Neil.

Dave (47:41):
Neil, friend of the show.

Matthew (47:42):
He's just doing a second pass.

Dave (47:44):
Yeah. We're pretty much there, I think, with that.
There's that will be done thisweek. What it was left is only a
few little bits and bobs left toiron out. I think that's pretty
much done.
The maps are pretty well done.There's a few little bits. Yeah.

Matthew (47:55):
I've gotta go go to all of them, actually. You need

Dave (47:57):
to you need to have a look at those. But I've got 2 or 3
more sort of basic tweaks to addfor for, Dean, our our our
graphic designer for the maps.But they'll be done this week,
and layout is tending to startnext week. So all all good.
Good.
I mean, we're a little bitslower, a little bit behind
schedule where we wanted to be,but not much. Well, we're not

Matthew (48:20):
I mean, if we do start next week, actually, we would
have caught up on our schedule.

Dave (48:28):
Yeah. I'm I'm well, I'm not gonna debate that on the
podcast. But, anyway, we're,yeah, we're we're we're

Matthew (48:36):
in a pretty good place. Layout is going to take probably
a bit longer than we originally

Dave (48:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Hoped for.

Matthew (48:42):
So that's that's that's the thing. But we did imagine
that layout would start in, theend of

Dave (48:48):
Late late November. Yeah. It was about half. Yeah. Really
took mid mid November was theoriginal target for all these
things, but everything's takinga little bit longer.
And we still need we still we dowe still need, not that it
actually matters, I think, butwe still need, there's a final
response from our sensitivityreaders on a particular issue.

(49:09):
But actually

Matthew (49:10):
Yes.

Dave (49:10):
We've made our decision on that anyway, and I think their
response would just beconfirming that the decision
we've made is is one that theyagree with. So, the the changes
have been made, pretty much.There's a little bit of work to
do, but not not a lot. But yeah.So that so that that's that'll
be ironed out this week as well.

Matthew (49:29):
Yeah. Hopefully. We'll get that all in the bag. Indeed.
So, yeah.
Shall we shall we move straighton to Let's another much more
successful crowdfunding product?I mean, we were very successful,
but this is much more successfulcrowdfunding product. Yeah. And
that is, the the sequel. I wasgonna call it the 2nd edition,

(49:50):
but it's not.
It's the sequel to householdhousehold 2. So in the Hammam
today, we have Simone Formekolafrom 2 little mice, and,
welcome, Simone.

Dave (50:05):
Welcome. Welcome.

Simone (50:07):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Matthew (50:09):
Now the 3 of us know, and some of our patrons know,
that I interviewed you guys atEssen Yes. Weeks ago now, and
that that the recording thatturned out to be dreadful. So
we're we're we're doing it againthis time. But this time,
Simone, I get to ask a couple ofextra questions, and
particularly because of theformat that we use for our

(50:31):
interviews here. The firstquestion is kind of traditional.
Tell us about your life ingaming.

Simone (50:41):
Well, my life in gaming, I actually started with live
action role playing game. It wasmy first Cool. My very way
before I discovered theexistence of role playing game.
I was, like, 20 years old when Ifirst played role playing game.
But before that, when I was 15,16 years old, I used to play

(51:06):
live action role playing gameback home.
I I lived back then, I was bornand I lived in Rome on the
seaside part of Rome. There's ahuge, woods, pot pine woods.
Very, very huge. So it was fullof, you know, associations and
groups, doing this this thiskind of of of. It was it wasn't

(51:29):
very refined, I must say.
It was more or less an excuseto, you know, to to

Matthew (51:34):
To hit people with a head in the sword.

Dave (51:36):
Hit people with sticks. Yeah.

Simone (51:38):
And we it grew quite quite quite a bit. And then I
discovered actually when I wasat university already, I
discovered the role playinggame. I the very, very I think
that my very first, session roleplaying game was with Pathfinder
1st edition. I'm pretty sureabout it.

Dave (51:59):
Okay.

Simone (52:00):
I don't know why it was it was huge in my part of town.
For whatever reason, everybodywas playing, Pathfinder. And,
and then I I was brought into,played a lot of, wall of
darkness, which is very huge inItaly, especially in southern
parts of Italy. Because I thinkwe Italian likes, you know, that

(52:24):
that kind of political intriguekind of appropriate style. We're
always, do we didn't trust eachother when we play.
We're always trying to get theupper end against the the game
master, things like that. So,was perfect. And then that and I
I I discovered a vast variety ofgames

Matthew (52:43):
Now there's a big crossover between, between,
World of Darkness and LARPing.There's lots of live action
World of Darkness.

Dave (52:52):
That's correct.

Matthew (52:53):
Did you get into that too?

Simone (52:55):
No. Not not me, actually. While, I know Rico had
some experiences with, roleplaying them. Also, my my actual
wife that was an old friend ofof Rico, my associates, was very
into werewolf, world ofdarkness, literally, the

(53:15):
different parts of Italy backthen. But, yes, not exactly the
2 of you, but there was bothvery huge for for for the reason
you say because both had a veryhuge part in life.

Matthew (53:30):
And so, yeah, I interrupted you there. So after
after World of Darkness, Yes.

Simone (53:35):
I I discovered all the very interesting Italian, role
playing scene.

Matthew (53:40):
A

Simone (53:40):
lot of games are are still not translated in English.
Is probably one of the mostfamous, Italian role playing
game, but that does slowly, thethe rest of the world is
beginning to to know. A lot ofthe of the products came from
Italy, but even back then, therewas a huge, scene because, you

(54:04):
know, in Italy, it's, by any itwas impossible. But even right
now, it's not common, to to use,you know, English, not not
translated games. Mhmm.
So there's a very, huge marketfrom from from Italian only,
games that that that's when wethat's where we we we started,

(54:24):
of course, ourselves with ourItalian only game.

Matthew (54:29):
Brilliant. Brilliant. And, of course, we're gonna be
talking about how you broughtItalian your Italian games to
the English Anglophone market,in a little while. But first of
all, you really surprised mewhen we spoke in Essen because
you said, of course, we didn'tstart out to be a games company.

(54:49):
First of all, we were a filmproduction company.
Yes.

Simone (54:53):
2 Little Mice little bit

Matthew (54:54):
about 2 Little Mice, please.

Simone (54:57):
The start the very beginning, the secret origin of
2 little mice. I I was, anactor. I studied, performing at
school in Milan, called PaulGrass Grassi. It's it's it's
huge. While in the meantime, wedidn't know each other back
then, but Rico was studying as adirector in Switzerland.

(55:18):
And through, a common friend,one of my classmates made, a
short video with Rico, asdirector. And so he came to see
our, you know, our last, play.

Matthew (55:33):
Graduate show or whatever.

Simone (55:34):
Yes. We we did our last play for closure of 3rd last
year. And so we we met back thenbecause our common, friend never
actually played role playinggame. So, he Rico wants to
wanted to introduce her to torole playing game and, basically
asked her, do you know someonewho played? Because Justin Chu

(55:55):
is not as fun.
And they are okay. Simone, it'svery it's a nerd type, so
probably. So they I, took mycar, run to Switzerland, and we
started actually playingtogether. And after a couple of
session, we decided to, create,produce, write, and act in a

(56:15):
small web series based on one ofthe, Italian, role playing games
that we're talking about calledanime sangue Italian, which is
roughly translated as, souls andblood. And we made these these
these, it was our our our firstproject together.

(56:35):
So we made this web series, andthen our first it was our first,
you know, meeting with thecrowdfunding work because we we
did a little very little,crowdfunding campaign to to
produce more episodes. And thenwe we also managed to, subtitle
it and and have it right now, itshould be on on, you know,

(56:56):
Amazon Prime in the UK as well.

Dave (56:59):
Alright. Cool. Nice. I don't know.

Simone (57:00):
It's still there somehow. They never took it
down. And so, yes, we startedthat way. We we continue to work
in video, also as the, a coupleof theater production. And then
in 2019, at 18, we began to workon it.
But in 2019, we, it came out thevery first edition of. That was

(57:26):
our very first game. Back then,it was like a a side gig. It was
not our our main, our corebusiness as you can see. And,
basically, the story goes that2020.
Right? The pandemic stuck andcompletely destroyed our job.
The other closed sites wereclosed indefinitely. It was

(57:47):
pretty bad. I also live, rightnow in Cremona, which is a city
near Milan, very near to the,like, 20 kilometers from the
very first red zone in Italy.
So basically for 3 months, thevery 3 months, even the, you
know, factory were closed.Everything was was sealed off.
Nobody knows what was happening.And that was then we already

(58:09):
published an an household. Andthe first expansion, we won,
best of show at Luca Comics andGames in 2019 with the first
edition of household.
And we were starting to work onour 2nd game that was, broken
compass. And so in February2020, we without anything to do

(58:30):
and a lot of free time on ourhand, we decided, let let's try
to go all in. That's why we geta lot of time to this role
playing word using crowdfunding.Let's see what happens.
Hopefully, for us, it turns outpretty pretty good.
And was our first game that wetranslated, and then we came
back to household in a new thein in the newest edition that

(58:52):
everybody

Matthew (58:54):
Yeah. And, of course, there's a lot of similar sorry.
Dave here is an innocent, Ithink, for for all of these
games, but I I backed outgunned,and I've played, household. And
Rico, when we met last time,gave me a lovely copy of
household, which so, you know,I'm reading that. I'm eager to
actually run it at some point.

(59:14):
But, obviously, I could seesimilarities in the game system
there. Again, one of the thingsthat you surprised me with, in
essence, was the household wasactually the first version of
that system, which you'vecarried on the same system in
broken compass and in

Simone (59:31):
And outcome and outcome adventure.

Matthew (59:33):
Yeah. Of course. So so how over time has the system
developed?

Simone (59:40):
A lot. I'm not saying. The first edition of was our
first. It was full of mistakes,silly mistakes because it was
our first game. So Mhmm.
Much thoughts, too much stuff.It was too too crunchy. But it
has it already had back then theidea of this very fast paced

(01:00:03):
system, highly cinematic.Because, of course, as you now
know, we we came from thatbackground, so we

Dave (01:00:09):
had to Yeah.

Simone (01:00:09):
Use our knowledge of how to structure, you know, a scene
and a story, and to leave thatkind of of things at the table.
And, of course, it was the thecore mechanic, meaning you roll
a small pool of d sixes andlooking for matches. So 2, 3, 4

(01:00:30):
of a kind, and so on. That wasthe core. Then was very much
more complex for Stavo becauseeach matches, it was translated
in a number of successes thatyou have to spend, perform
action.
In our idea was a way toencourage different way of
thinking, but in the when whenyou acted, at the table was too

(01:00:55):
much, unnecessary. Then withbroken compass, we took that
core mechanic and went in thecomplete opposite direction. It
oversimplified everything.Probably too much simplified,
but it was a second Just that

Dave (01:01:12):
this is not the gold the Goldilocks approach to, to game
design. Too crunchy, too simple,get it done by

Simone (01:01:20):
I think without, in with the new addition of household
and outgunned, that's a very,very similar nice mechanic at
least. We, came out with thedirector Scott that is the
result of these differentapproaches we try to have, and,
I think we are very proud of it.We would keep working on it.

(01:01:41):
Every interaction is a littlebit different, of course, but
the call is there, meaning it'svery simple. But we try to go in
a direction which, we gave wegave the the player and the
directors, the the the mastergame masters, like, a lot of
tools.
So if you want a scene to bemore important and to, last more

(01:02:05):
at the table, you have tools tomake it a little bit more
complex, like fights. If you arein an action movie, they
probably are very important inyour story for playing outgun.
If you're playing outgun,probably not. Probably you're,
interesting in different kind ofthings. So in outgun, it's very
more simple, streamlined.

(01:02:26):
Why not? You can develop yourown enemies with trades and
special action to interrupt theplot, of the game. But the idea
is the same. We try to give youthe tools to, spend your time in
the scene that are moreimpactful on your story. That's

(01:02:47):
the idea of the director Scott.

Matthew (01:02:51):
So, I just tried to capture this. Obviously, you're
on an English speaking podcast.Well, just about English
speaking, but with aninternational audience. Let me
get this right. So household hadbeen written and was being
played and published in Italian.
You then partnered withCoolMini's or not for

Simone (01:03:13):
the We then we then did, broken compass on our own?

Matthew (01:03:17):
Oh, in Italian. On your own?

Simone (01:03:19):
Italian and a couple of, like, 4 months later, for an
English. It wants our firstproduct in, English, so for a
for a wider audience. And then,we, had this collaboration with
Simon. And, while we wereworking together with them, we

(01:03:40):
took household, and we gavehousehold a full restyle, of the
system, mainly. And we had the,Kickstarter for the the actual
edition of household with thethe the director Scott system.
After that, we, came back to toworking on our own. And we

(01:04:01):
developed, Outgun first lastyear. Yes?

Matthew (01:04:06):
Yes.

Simone (01:04:07):
Last year, we developed Outgun, which was focused it was
the the the the more the most,pure, system. It was all about
the system, and it was,basically thought to to to enact
action movies. And then this,this year a lot of things we did

(01:04:28):
this year. This year, we expandwe are expanding both. We
expanded with the venture.
So it's a venture module for.And right now, we are in with
household volume 2, which is a asupplement SQL expansion for
household.

Matthew (01:04:49):
Right. And, just let before we move on to household,
let's, Outgunned is oh, sorry.Outgunned Adventures is kind of
like the rebirth of brokencompass. Am I right?

Simone (01:05:03):
Yeah. You can say it's like the the the hair, the sum
of broken compass. Because thethe system, even if as the the
same dice mechanic, but far fromthat, the system is is
profoundly different. You havemore tools in outcome adventure
for the reason we spoke aboutearlier. It it kept part of the

(01:05:26):
of the easygoing moods that youhave with broken composite.
You cannot decide we you can,not have everything ready. You
just roll by. See, see what'shappened. You know, the heroes
are always right. We decidetogether what's the treasure,
what's the key.
But you have more tools, to,develop more interesting scene

(01:05:50):
and also have a lot more re rereplayability. I don't know what
it's called. It's okay. You canplay that longer because use of
broken compass was very simple,so simple that okay. 2, 3, and
and then you 2, 3 session union,you saw a lot of stuff.
Cool things is that back thenwhen we while we were working on

(01:06:12):
upcoming adventure, the therights for Broken Compass were,
with that acquired back then.But, later, a couple of months
ago, we, brought back the thethe

Matthew (01:06:27):
Oh, yeah. That was just before us, and that was kind of
the good news. And

Simone (01:06:31):
Yeah. In September, we finally booked back. So, we we
are basically merging the twolines. The idea in the future,
is to, repurpose all the, youknow, the the the adventures,
for broken compass for adventurethat it's our Mhmm. Now our our
active and and and more, fullfledged, line.

Matthew (01:06:55):
Brilliant. Now so household, the version of
household that we have inEnglish is that refined version
Yeah. With the updated rules.Yes. And do those rules go on
into household 2, or have youdone a bit more refinement with

Simone (01:07:13):
Oh, yeah. Yes. Basically. Household 2, it's,
it's not like adventure, whichis a a different take on the
same subject, but it it's it's asequel. So it's more stuff for
also, this it's a very uniquegame, meaning because in the
household volume 1 and itsexpansion, the guide and the

(01:07:34):
saga, you basically haseverything you need to play.
It's a core book, but you canplay, in a very specific it it
has a it has a very deep lore.It's the focus the main focus
of. It's it's lore, the story,how it's unfold. And you are
playing during historical,period, 5 years, and which

(01:07:54):
historical events. And so thisvolume 2 not only will add, you
know, geographical places or thegarden, basically, of the house,
Mhmm.
But it will move the storyforward so you will know what
happened next. You will playyou're able to play the sequel
of the events you play inhousehold volume 1. So it it's a

(01:08:16):
it's a a strange kind of ofproject. Meaning, in the future,
each volume will give you otheryears to play, and and to see
the the the word and the storyadvance with you.

Matthew (01:08:30):
Brilliant. But you need you do need household to play
household 2. It's not selfcontained. Right?

Simone (01:08:36):
Yes.

Matthew (01:08:38):
Now here's a challenge. Dave doesn't know anything about
household. I I You might havedescribed it to him as the
borrower's times Jane JaneAustin. But, how would you
describe that?

Simone (01:08:55):
Basically, now sold, it's it's in household, you play
as a little link. Little link issomeone from the little folks.
So very tiny little person, thatlives in this huge old abandoned
house. So borrowers, RIT areuseful way to visualize that,
but there's a very hugedifference, meaning that the

(01:09:17):
house is completely abandonedbecause the master of the house
disappeared, like, 100 yearsbefore, you start playing the
game. So in this period of time,the actually conquered all the
house.
They are the, you know, humanlike creatures inside the house,
and every room has been turnedinto some sort of nation with

(01:09:40):
this, city and its culture,different languages. There are 4
different legal folks, that hasbeen at war for a very long time
in what has been called thefirst household war. Mhmm. And
you are playing right beforesorry. Right after this big war
in, a period we call the fragilepeace that, of course,

(01:10:03):
resembles, you know, the the thefirst after war, of our own,
time.
Meaning, everybody knows thisvery huge, like, 25 years long
conflict just ended. Now you areat peace. For the first time,
you can travel, but it's a, it'sa time of of a lot of unrest, a
lot of, you know, nationalistgroups that wants to reignite

(01:10:25):
conflict because, you know, wewere busy shooting at each other
for 25 years. Now, our chiefs,our boss, our kings says we are
in peace, but are we really youknow? I met someone.
He shook my father. I probablyshot his uncle. Who knows? So
it's a very difficult time, andit's about the storming
household. Spoke about this thisthis that you are playing that

(01:10:51):
encounter a seemingly innocentproblems that could turn into
another conflict.
Every little, accident, everysomeone, you know, stole the
favorites, several miles of ageneral. Oh, my. He he was
saying he was someone fromanother folk, so the the things

(01:11:12):
are the the the folks are underhis house, so you have to solve
this crime because we don't knowwhat might happen. That's the
the well, it's it's, you know, alittle bit of the miserable,
little bit of bridge. There's alot of stuff in our zone, and
you are very, very little.
That it's I think it adds alayer of, you know,

(01:11:35):
wonderfulness because everythingis is so much bigger than you,
but you are, in some in a placethat you find very well. So you
are donations that, the thekitchen and the dining room are
one nation, the realms of thefairies. You know, the capital
of the fairies on thechandelier, and they use the

(01:11:57):
crystal of the chandelier likelike coins. You know? It's all
it's magical.
But from your point of view,everything is very not magical
at all. There's no magic goingon from your perspective. I
mean, you probably are a magicalcreature because you are one of
those little folks. But to cropyour eyes, it's it's all very
natural or biological. I don'tknow.

Dave (01:12:20):
Now that's a much better way of describing it than
Matthew ever did. That sounds alot more interesting than
Matthew's description. And Ilove I'm just looking at the,
the Kickstarter, the back of kitpage, Just seeing some of the
images around, of some of therooms like the bathroom with all
the ships on the on the on thebath. It just looks lovely. It
really evokes and yourdescription, I now really get

(01:12:41):
it.
Whereas, I don't think I reallygot it before when Matthew
described it. I mean Yeah.

Simone (01:12:46):
I mean, art is very important because, you know,
it's it's something veryspecific when you see. And,
also, it's it's, every littlething, every focus, inspired by
more like, you know, Napoleonicregency era. Mhmm. And that is
also a a time, a period notvery, we are not very used to it

(01:13:06):
in role playing games. It'searly 9th 19th century.
Not the late 19th century thatit's more common to see around.
But this, you know, do yes.Napoleonic kind of vibe, if you
see that we are a tight on thefirst house with your uniform of
various armies of the house,etcetera, and it's very, very

(01:13:28):
interesting.

Matthew (01:13:32):
And, of course, the art when I was in Essen, I met your
wonderful artist, Daniela, andthe art throughout the book has
such a level of consistency anddetail. And, really, if you're
listening to this and you knownothing of of household, go and
check out the back package justto see some of the the marvelous

(01:13:55):
art therein. But you also havefigures, which I I mistakenly
called minis. Yes. They are Andand you told me they're not
minis.

Simone (01:14:05):
Thanks to our collaboration with Simon, we
produce 30 figures, plasticfigures that are actually
life-sized figures of the guy.You can actually play I

Dave (01:14:16):
like that. Yeah. First volume.

Simone (01:14:19):
We are not making new one because, you know, we made
it when we are together withSimon. We are not the production
strength, not the knowledge toproduce new minis, right now.
But, yes, they are very coolbecause it's one of the few
example of life-sized figurinesof your character.

Dave (01:14:37):
Nice. I

Matthew (01:14:38):
like that. Actually really interesting because, when
I played it before, somebodyelse was being the GM. And,
actually, I did have a realproblem imagining scale. I
couldn't quite I my myperception of my player
character's own size changedthrough different descriptions
and things. So we we wereclimbing up the stairs.

(01:14:58):
I don't know. I think it's anintroductory adventure. Climbing
up the stairs. I think we met aspider or a centipede or
something. It was all great fun,but I was struggling to think,
how big am I?
And now knowing that I'm as bigas that many, gives you a

Dave (01:15:14):
little that's a disadvantage in describing it as
the borrowers, because I thinkthe borrowers in in certainly in
this in my mind, they're about 4or 5,

Simone (01:15:21):
6 years old. Yeah.

Dave (01:15:22):
Which makes them much, much bigger than the littling.
Yes.

Simone (01:15:26):
There are 2 main difference with littlings. One
is that they are actuallysmaller than, you know, even
Ariati was the she was standingin the hand of the little boy.
So they are taller and bigger.And, also, there's the, mystical
lore of household because thethe the one thing that makes

(01:15:47):
everything much more interestingis that since the disappearance
of the master, the house, whichis the the word these little
things live in, more or lessbecame masterless. And so its
dimension, the dimension of thehouse are not tied to anything.
It's no more, human sized house.It has a more deep meaning,

(01:16:12):
meaning every single place, itcan go grow bigger and bigger
based on this its itsimportance.

Matthew (01:16:20):
That's a

Dave (01:16:22):
Okay.

Simone (01:16:22):
Thing inside, a a really cool, little piece of of novel,
you know, inside the book. Andit speak about this this, called
the domain contract. The housebasically belong to herself.
It's like like in the in thelittle folk folklore, the
contracts are the only form ofmagic you will find in the game.

(01:16:44):
That the chance for to, havesome contract with, and and
superior forces.
And, the greatest forces inhousehold is the house because
the house is there. It's theit's it's what they see as their
word, and so they gave the houseimportance. So the house is the
most important things there is.Mhmm. And, if this is, there are

(01:17:09):
these these very cool, novelabout the fact that some, you
know, some scholar tried tomeasure the length of the table
in the dining room.
On the on the upper surface ofthe table, there is the the
capital city of the realm of thefairies right below the
chandelier where there's the theimperial palace. And, when they

(01:17:31):
tried to measure, the the leg ofthe table were much, much
smaller than this the the thesurface of the table. But
looking at the table, it wasperfectly, you know, squared. So
they stopped. They they don'tthink about it, but, yes, they
accept the fact that the house,especially during the war,

(01:17:53):
there's a a lot of hint aboutit, can grow big.
If if a place is full ofblittlings, it can will be you
know, like when you see, like,some cartoons, some, and you
don't need this little mouse orwhatever goes into the the the
trees, and they have this hugehome or entire city

Dave (01:18:15):
in the city. Yeah.

Simone (01:18:16):
Yeah. That's the idea. We try to convey this inside the
lore that Cool. You do in a in amedia, like in a movie or
whatever.

Matthew (01:18:29):
Brilliant. And so, obviously, the big thing about
volume 2 is they go beyond thehouse Yes. Into the garden.

Simone (01:18:38):
Yes.

Matthew (01:18:42):
Does this feel I mean, when I played this, this
adventure, actually just goingupstairs felt like a bit of a
quest. But Yeah. Given the scaleof the garden, I'm it feels to
me like what I should beexpecting to do, forgive me, is
sort of meet the fairies at thebottom of the garden, go on a

(01:19:03):
long quest all the way down thelength of the garden. Is that
the plan? Is that what theircampaign's all about?
Or I've got it in Tuggy World.

Simone (01:19:13):
What you will find that the new historical period after
the I'm it's spoiler because forone word, don't read the books.
The the fragile piece ends at acertain point, hence the name of
fragile piece. And it ends in anew period called the long
winter. Basically, an outsideforces of is keeping one of the,

(01:19:41):
town inside near the the thewindow, on the siege. And that's
stalemate in which the externalthreat tried to convince the the
that now living inside to cameoutside for all the for a very
complex situation, which Mhmm.

(01:20:01):
There was other and father androyal blood and, a lot of
strange but in the meantime,there's this, like, cold war.
So, in this very vast,environment, which is the
garden, it's bigger thananything that's inside and,
also, that's full of much, muchbigger creature that that are a

(01:20:24):
huge problem for a. I mean,inside, the biggest creature you
can fight inside is a giantcentipede. I mean, Right? Even
for a human, like, 30 centimeterI don't know what.

Dave (01:20:37):
Yeah. Yeah.

Simone (01:20:37):
Even in the house, but there is it's like 30
centimeters tall, but outsideyou have squirrels and and and
creature that we, calledcolossal creatures, like the big
howl and kind of that you cannotreally fight. You can just try
more or less to survive theencounter. Maybe, do do

(01:20:59):
something to to scare them off,to to make them want to leave.
But, yes, the the scale is veryhuge. That's that's why this
this this long winter is lastit's 2 years that the
communication are hard.
Traveling is hard becausethere's also a a huge importance
of the season in the game.Because unlike inside, we never

(01:21:22):
talk about weather because weare inside the house with a
roof. Yeah. Outside, there'sdifferent seasons. There's rain.
There's the winter. There'ssnow. That for a creature, you
know, 3 centimeters tall, thereare huge problem that they need
to overcome each and every time.So you have you have no nations
because the outside, it itbelongs to no one, basically.

(01:21:45):
Mhmm.
You have, like, faction livinginside little, settlements in
different parts of the garden.Then, yes, they reclaim some
part, but there's not really Imean, when you have 3 centimeter
stalls and there's a snake inthe grass, you are not really
the master of anything. You youcannot aim to be, in charge of

(01:22:10):
your mouse.

Matthew (01:22:11):
Okay.

Simone (01:22:11):
Yes. So that's, yes, the the the there would be new, you
know, rules from travel becausetraveling is a very huge part of
what you do outside. Travel andtry to survive, basically. The
the.

Dave (01:22:26):
Traveling and running away. Yeah.

Simone (01:22:28):
Yes. Traveling and running away. That

Dave (01:22:30):
Exactly. Running away. Yeah.

Simone (01:22:31):
You do most of the time.

Matthew (01:22:33):
But one of the things that I liked I mean, I mean, I
haven't played much in inhousehold, but one of the things
that really attracted to me itit me to it, and I now
understand a little bit aboutwhere it comes from given your
history in playing as well, isthat political intrigue, the
different factions, the the theJane Austen ness of it, I'm

(01:22:56):
gonna call it, is there less ofthat in household 2, or have you
got different factions outside?

Simone (01:23:02):
More of that because you have all all the guys that were
inside, all the nations inside.And then you have new players
that are coming to play thisgame of power. You have the
inside, you have the that is theempress regent of the house and
the of the. Outside, theydiscovered that it's the

(01:23:26):
beginning of volume 2 that themother of the, called Titania,
it's alive. It was presumed thatit's alive, and it's guiding the
external.
So that's a problem when you areon your bloodline. Now you and
this is what's caused thestalemate. There are there is
another part of the hold of thegreat plague that lives, in the

(01:23:49):
backyard and has a chief calledYokai Yorubumo. And they are,
you know, they should be part ofthe, the the the heart of the
great play that that that livedin the basement. But, you know,
they live far away.
They are very independent. Arethey really part of the same

(01:24:10):
nation? Let's see. Mhmm. Thenyou have the that did not come
inside after the treaty.
Were the the ancient serpent ofthe master. But after the the
first, the first time the thefair came into the house, there
was a huge battle. They were,they they were defeated and,

(01:24:31):
sent to live outside inside, thethe the brambles, the this bush,
of thorns, outside the house.Some of them came back home
during the war because waslosing the war and then they so
they came out there for butts.Part of them remained outside.
So, yes, they should be part ofthe nation of the, but they

(01:24:53):
resent the because they are. Youtake the knee, in front of the
emperor of

Dave (01:24:59):
the flag.

Simone (01:24:59):
We are we are more pure. So you are and you have the
sprites, the last folks, the thelast, group of sprites, which
are the nodes that just liveoutside because there are the
sprites are the more or lesslike elemental sort of little
folks. Inside, you havesalamanders born from the spark,
the undying born from the drain,and the silph born from the

(01:25:23):
draft. And outside, you havedomes born from the dirt of the
salt. And, you know, it wasthere's a lot of political
intrigue regarding you know,people who live outside see
themselves as more free becausethey did not, you know, go
inside where life is easier thanonce was faster that feeds the

(01:25:48):
and so on.
They they they stayed there.They fought against the weather
and the cost of beasts. So theythink themselves as as better
probably as the counterpartinside. So, yes, there's a lot
of political things going on.And in the middle, we hope
there's always your character,the character you are playing

(01:26:08):
that somehow, becomes entangledin this, much larger plots, much
larger things happening, andthey we hope what what we write
at least.
They try to keep the peace, keepthings recently, and they are
they probably will fight. Weare, writing also there's a new

(01:26:30):
saga. There's a lot of newadventure. About that about
things, little things, fightingto keep the peace to to avoid an
incident diplomatic incidentthat could lead to other war.
That's always the Mhmm.
The plan there. And it's alwaysand and it's harder and harder

(01:26:52):
the more times it goes on.

Matthew (01:26:56):
Well, this is just brilliant. We're taking up a lot
of your time, but I do have onemore question, which is, you you
so at the moment of talking, youare so €10,000. You've got 263,
almost €164,000. You've got 1600backers, almost 1700 backers.

(01:27:21):
You've still got 21 days left torun.
I'm interested to know. Have youlooked at what people are
backing? Are you getting a bunchof new people that are not just
getting household too, but goingfor the core book as well? Yes.
We are.
New to the game? Yes.

Simone (01:27:37):
We are, of course, we are always looking at the
numbers and try to what'shappening. Of course, we have a
lot that the majority of backersare, people who already have. We
also thought in 1, so I hear forthe just for the sequel, or
maybe they have just the callbook and want to expand the
collection. But we have morethan than, the one, I think

(01:28:00):
several hundreds of people arejust here for the first time.
And they are a lot of them aregoing all in, so we are very
happy and to to spread.
Of course of course, for us,also did first of all, it's
lore, it's story, it'scharacters. And so we we would
we like to to spread. It's thegame as wide as possible to have

(01:28:23):
more people interested in thestory we're told, we're telling,
and then the character we arecreating, and to, make them part
of this world, giving them thechance to, role play inside this
world we are designing. Youknow? So, yes, we are very happy
about the number of new peoplejumping in.

Matthew (01:28:43):
Cool. Yeah. It's very impressive. You did a very
clever thing as well, I noticed.You've also got a bundle of
holding.
So if people are

Simone (01:28:50):
Yes.

Matthew (01:28:51):
A little bit nervous about committing

Simone (01:28:54):
Yes. Yes. The actually, I've been for for 5 days left.

Matthew (01:29:00):
6 days and 13 hours left. I'm just thinking that
now. So I That won't be by thetime you hear this, though, dear
listener. It'll be more like

Dave (01:29:10):
2 or

Matthew (01:29:10):
3 days when this will come out on Monday. K. So, in
fact, maybe even only a coupleof days.

Simone (01:29:16):
Okay. So in a couple of days.

Matthew (01:29:17):
To this, get on household. It's probably holding
if you wanna get it

Simone (01:29:21):
We we love the all all this chance to spread. You know,
the the I love the digitalbooks. I mean, I I I use the
physical one to play, butdigital, it's a very especially
during this, you know, this,discounts stuff, it's a very
good way to get to know thegame. Yeah. To see what's

(01:29:44):
inside, get to read the stories,the rules, get to see the heart.
Because I I agree that, having arole playing game is some sort
of commitment. You know? Mhmm.You spend a lot of time reading,
convincing your friends to trythis game and not another, and
during the session. So I I agreethat you need to be sure of what

(01:30:07):
you're doing.
And these are all that thatthat's also why we we love to,
keep working on our game. Youknow? Keep, doing stuff because
you want you you you spend a lotof your time and of your money,
usually, to be a part of this,and we want to be there with you
to say, okay. You want to playmore? There's more.

(01:30:30):
There there's more options, morestory, more stuff, more more
hints, more hooks, whatever youneed to, be happy with your, you
know, your your your decision,with your commitment with our
game.

Matthew (01:30:45):
So is there gonna be a household 3 on the horizon at
some point?

Simone (01:30:49):
Mhmm. Yeah. I hope. I don't know. I mean, it's doing
very well.
It's it's it's it's really doinggreat. Mhmm. Better than
anticipated. So we are veryhappy about it. The only thing
with the household, it's thatit's Very hard, very long to
Yeah.
I think it's worth, actually.Lots of things to write. So I

(01:31:12):
hope so. Let's see. Yeah.
Let's see how many months ofcrazy work we will need in order
to, bring the volume 2 to life.

Matthew (01:31:25):
Brilliant. And I think it is worth just saying to
people who who may beapproaching this for the first
time. You might be looking atyour page on back and go, oh,
that's quite expensive. It'sworth every penny. These are big
books.

Simone (01:31:37):
Yes. Mhmm.

Matthew (01:31:38):
Yeah. Lavishly illustrated. They're really
lovely things to hold. Reallylovely things to hold. But once
more, if you wanna check themout on Bundle of Holding First,
Check him out there, but they itis a gorgeous set of books.
I know, of our patrons, NoblePaul is is one of your biggest

(01:31:59):
fans. Mhmm. And he just lovesthem. Just loves them. Mhmm.
So, yeah, we can hardlyrecommend them. Have you got any
other questions, Dave, you wantto ask before we say goodbye to
Simone?

Dave (01:32:15):
No. I don't think I've asked any questions today, which
is unusual. But, I mean, I'vejust loved listening because as
I said, I didn't know much aboutthe game other than Matthew's
very poor description of it.It's been fabulous having you
on, Simone. Thank you for that.
Now I've got no questions otherthan, well, not not even a
question. Just to say it soundsfabulous. And, I encourage
people to to look into it inmore detail because I certainly

(01:32:37):
will.

Matthew (01:32:38):
And thank you very much, Simone. Thank you for
doing this interview a secondtime.

Simone (01:32:43):
Thank you. Pleasure. It was a pleasure, Beknessen. It's
a pleasure now. Thank you bothof you very much for having me.

Dave (01:32:51):
Yeah. That was great. I mean, I, you know, I the
household hadn't really grabbedme as, you know, as as we said
in the interview, hadn't reallygrabbed me on the basis of your
description of it. But actuallyThank you. Having having looked
at it, and having havinglistened to Simone there, it I I
really love the idea actually.
It's a really really nice idea.Now I don't have tons of money,

(01:33:14):
and I don't have time to run it.So I'm not gonna go out and buy
it. I'm not gonna back household2. I don't have household
itself.
But it's something that I mightlook for in the future. I might
pick up if I can find it, youknow, at a convention somewhere
for a, an impulse buy. But,yeah. It sounds great. And, if
you wanna go and, back it, crackon.

(01:33:35):
I think, there's probably acouple of weeks left on the on
the back of kit campaign. So,yeah. Get out get on there and
and, and back it. It does looklovely. It does look really
nice.

Matthew (01:33:48):
Yeah. And I and it's, after the first version, I
remember seeing the firstversion and quite liking it, not
back again. Then, our patron,Paul, who I think must have the
most extensive games library ofall of our patrons, because he
seems to back pretty mucheverything. You know, he he

(01:34:12):
showed us what he'd got in thatpackage, and I was pretty
impressed. Yeah.
He should And it was then it'sactually quite difficult to get
a hold of was was what I noticedthen. It didn't it didn't, for
example, come to the game shopin order shop, things like that.
Yeah. So I think if you if youif you're interested in print
versions of it, there's no harmin backing it as part of this

(01:34:38):
Kickstarter.

Dave (01:34:39):
Can you, can you get a copy of household through this
back a kit?

Matthew (01:34:44):
And you can. Yes. Yeah. Yep. There there there's there's
levels that

Dave (01:34:48):
A re a reprint.

Matthew (01:34:49):
Yeah. That have a reprint as well. Yeah.

Dave (01:34:52):
Okay. Cool. Nice. Very nice.

Matthew (01:34:55):
So, we will put a link to it in the show notes. What
are we gonna talk about nextweek, Dave? Not next week. Next
week, we'll be talking aboutdragon meat because that's where
we are.

Dave (01:35:03):
We'll have we'll have we'll have we'll have a dragon
meat report to to to, tofeedback on what happened there,
and our and and all the fun thatwe had. I don't have anything
other than that, but we canalways think of something in the
meantime. I think it's your turnto write an essay on something,
but I don't have an essay titlefor you.

Matthew (01:35:21):
It might be. We may end up doing an interview. I, do

Dave (01:35:27):
we do we have one outstanding?

Matthew (01:35:30):
We don't have one outstanding, but we might meet
somebody interesting at DragonMeat. I'll take a little
recording.

Dave (01:35:34):
That is true. That is true.

Matthew (01:35:36):
Yeah. So that may be a surprise. Otherwise, we'll write
some content about something.Probably about a free game since
that's ostensibly what we'remeant be talking about. Indeed.
But, yes. Until then, it'sgoodbye from me.

Dave (01:35:53):
And it's goodbye from him.

Simone (01:35:56):
Take the items, bless your

Dave (01:36:00):
adventure. You have been listening to the effect podcast
presented by Fiction Suit andthe RPG Gods. Music stars on a
black sea used with permissionof freely publishing.

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