Everything you wanted to know about sex (in the Old West) but were too afraid to ask

Episode Transcript
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Dave (00:39):
Hello there, and welcome to episode 260 of Effect.
Everything you wanted to knowabout sex in the Old West, but
were too afraid to ask. I'mDave.

Matthew (00:54):
And I'm Matthew. And 260 episodes. I mean, I know I I
say this about every 10 episodesnow, but that's amazing, isn't
it?

Dave (01:01):
Well, next time we'll go, 261 episodes? Blimey. How do we
get there? But it is bonkers,isn't it, frankly? Yeah.
We've done this 260 times, plusa little bit more with our RPG a
day things that we did. Yes.

Matthew (01:15):
Yeah. But yeah.

Dave (01:16):
260. And people are still listening. So thank you, folks.
But anyway, what's on the showtoday, mate? Come on.
That's what that's

Matthew (01:22):
your Not only are they listening, but they're
supporting us via our Patreon.So we've got a new patron to
thank in a little while. So thatwill be the first item on our
agenda. Then we've got,obviously, news from the world
of gaming, and that is going toinclude hot off the presses, my
free RPG day report. Oh, yeah.

(01:42):
I went to my local game store,and I picked up some swag, which
I will tell everybody about.Then then we've got some Old
West news, which is really, Iimagine, quite a short update,
but who knows? It may extendinto a longer conversation. Who
can tell? Us, never.

Dave (02:03):
We are we are perfectly concise to the word and to the
syllable. We never go on withoutgood cause. Yeah.

Matthew (02:12):
And then I'm going to explain where babies come from.
In the Old West, that is. So beready for that one.

Dave (02:20):
I mean, you know, the the the principles are they they do
kind of come from the same sortof place regardless of where you
are. But yeah.

Matthew (02:29):
Well, yeah, I guess I guess so. Where do babies come
from in the nineteenth century?This this is a set of rules that
could work for Versen just aseasily as it were the old
Western. A mummy when

Dave (02:41):
a when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much.

Matthew (02:44):
We are system agnostic. They both roll their resilience
roles. Actually, that won't workfor Versum, will it? Because we
don't have resilience.

Dave (02:53):
Anyway No. I'm not you've I'm

Matthew (02:54):
getting off the subject.

Dave (02:55):
You've now just blown the whole point of the feature as
well. So

Matthew (02:59):
So It's not the whole point. I wrote words on this.
Thousands. A thousand words.

Dave (03:05):
Think you've you've led with the lead, I think. You
know, you certainly haven't seenit. That's true. Yes. Cool.
Yeah. So we've a good show, butlet's kick off. Yeah. I think we
have a a new patron to welcomeand to thank, don't we?

Matthew (03:19):
Yes. We do. And that is Sebastian Schmidt. Thank you
very much, Sebastian.

Dave (03:26):
Indeed. Absolutely. Thank you very much. And obviously, as
always, thank you to everyonewho who supports us. And
Sebastian, get yourself on theDiscord.
It is TM, the nicest place onthe Internet. And come and join
the conversation there. Come andjoin the crowd. That would be
really cool.

Matthew (03:45):
No. That was that was that was easy. We did that
almost professionally, Dave.

Dave (03:49):
I know. I know. Well, we have done it 260 times in one
way in one form or another.

Matthew (03:54):
So Yeah. I guess so.

Dave (03:56):
We should be

Matthew (03:57):
getting Well, we haven't had 260 patrons.

Dave (03:58):
No. I know. But we've had this we've had this section
about new patrons, even if we

Matthew (04:02):
haven't had

Dave (04:03):
a new patron. And so after 260 attempts, we ought to be
getting reasonably good at it.You'd have thought. Wouldn't we?

Matthew (04:10):
Yeah. That that is true. Can we can we move on to
the world of gaming nowsimilarly professionally?

Dave (04:15):
Let's please do that. Yes.

Matthew (04:18):
So, the biggest news, surely, in the world of gaming
is we've just had RPG sorry.Free RPG day at stores all
around the world.

Dave (04:29):
Nice.

Matthew (04:30):
And I went to our local store, the game shop in
Aldershot. Well, our not yourlocal store, mate. Your local
store's somewhere in Stevenage,I imagine. But

Dave (04:40):
Well Carry on. Well I've I've yeah. Anyway, carry on.
Finish. I'll I'll say something.

Matthew (04:45):
Intriguing. No. No. It's not that exciting.

Dave (04:47):
No. No. It's not that exciting. But go on.

Matthew (04:50):
So it suddenly dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that
maybe maybe I should be playinga game at Free RPG Day. Maybe I
should be running a game that isfor sale at the local game shop.
Mhmm. And that being Trails ofthe Old West. So so I I put my
well, I I said, is it too lateto put my name down?
And they replied saying, oh,actually, somebody's just

(05:10):
dropped out. So there's space

Dave (05:12):
available. Cool.

Matthew (05:13):
So that was great. And they they they put a nice little
thing on Facebook, andobviously, I announced it on our
socials. The most exciting thingabout this there were two very
exciting things about this. Oneis that the game was booked up
when I arrived at the shop.Nice.
Actually, one person then phonedup to drop out for reasons, I

(05:34):
guess. But it was nice.Sometimes when you do this sort
of event, unless it's D and D,particularly at the game shop in
Aldi Shop where D and D is a bigthing, you know, some games on
on free RPG day had to becanceled because there simply
weren't enough players taking upthe option. But it was nice that
we have players to do it. Butparticularly, and this is the
most exciting thing, we had aplayer called Jules, Julian, who

(05:59):
had driven all the way fromDorset, and he's a Kickstarter
backer, Dave.
Wow. And he'd come specificallyto get VRPG day at the game shop
to to play my game, to

Dave (06:11):
to wow. That's cool.

Matthew (06:12):
Have a game there. So that was very exciting. He
arrived a little bit late. Notnot massively late, but I gave
me time to explain the rules tothe other three players because
he'd never played any, freelygames before. And and yeah.
And then was great throughoutthe whole thing. He, we were
doing what I've decided to do istake one of the, the campfire

(06:34):
tales that we're puttingtogether, which are relatively
short scenarios, actually, butall but add on to that couch
generation, life path couchgeneration beforehand so that I
thought, you know, let let's seeonce again whether whether the
life path gives you charactersthat you could work with. And,

(06:55):
of course, it does 100% of thetime. And I thought I said, you
know, you kinda wanna be a youknow, gonna be bounty hunters in
this in this adventure becauseit was Las Vegas legacy. Yep.
So, yeah, you might wanna bearthat in mind in some of the
decisions you're making. And weended up with well, first of
all, the interesting thing is weended up with people from all

(07:18):
around the world. We hadsomebody from East Asia,
somebody from Canada, somebodyfrom South America, and the
nearest person to the Old Westwas somebody from the Pacific
Northwest Of America. So thatwas lovely. You know, the the
two d six Dice Oil is designedto average out really on kind of

(07:39):
East Coast and Europeanimmigrants, but it was really
nice to have lovely diverse mix.
And then they had great careers.So the guy from East Asia ended
up wandering with NativeAmericans for a bit, then
joining the army as a scout. Thethe guy from Mexico started off
as a train robber and thenbecame sheriff. And since he'd

(08:00):
become sheriff, I I quicklychanged the story and made him
sheriff of Los Angeles.

Dave (08:05):
Yeah. Las Vegas.

Matthew (08:07):
Las Vegas. Yes. And then we had another just down
and dirty cowardly outlaw whowho'd managed to win a a mine
off somebody and so got theminer 40 niner talent.

Dave (08:24):
Ah, cool.

Matthew (08:26):
And immediately went to the shops and bought some
dynamite.

Dave (08:28):
I was gonna say, did somebody

Matthew (08:29):
have some

Dave (08:29):
dynamite there? Excellent. Yeah.

Matthew (08:32):
And and then we had the guy from Canada was a French
Canadian who effectively becamea steakhouse salesman and used
his steakhouse to great effectthroughout the adventure as
well. So that was lovely to see.They all got well into it. Every

(08:54):
time we play you know, what Ilove about that particular
adventure is you give them thesituation and then say, what do
you do? Where do you go?
Yeah. And every group I run itwith makes different choices
there and handles things indifferent ways. And then the
dice oh, god. Trouble dice. Ilove Trouble Dice Day.

Dave (09:12):
That's music to my ears, that is. So So,

Matthew (09:16):
you know, they were they were very good at count you
know, I'd I'd told them, youknow, the best thing you can do
if you've got, trouble is canyou and you can afford it, is
probably actually just buy thetrouble off. But, know,
sometimes they couldn't or theychose not to. And there was a
lovely scene where the firstplace they approached and I I
love their technique here. Theywent to Isabella to spoilers

(09:39):
here, but their target's motheris in town, and they thought,
well, he might be visiting her.Let's go and see what she can
reveal.
She turned out to be a stubbornold lady that had already been
visited by bounty huntersbecause they totally failed
their role. But she did I I Ididn't want them walking away
with nothing. So I she did letout a clue or two about the

(10:01):
bounty hunters. So, they becameaware of the German bounty
hunters. And then, the sheriffsaid, well, surely, if any
bounty hunter comes and tell,they ought to be registering
with the law.
And I said, well, have they donethat? Why don't you make a
retrospective role on yourauthority to see whether they
came to, you know, identifythemselves to you? Yeah. And he

(10:22):
did and had to push his dice andgot a bit of trouble. I think he
got two bits of trouble in theend, but he succeeded.
He was able then to go, oh, yes.It's those two Germans, he knew
about them, and they had been tosee him. But then the trouble
they rolled of the secondtrouble column and really, I
wanna look at what the wordingis. I can't remember what the

(10:42):
wording was, but it's somethinga bit like they know something
about your past. So, obviously,he I said, these bounty hunters
recognized him as being thetrain robber even though he
changed his name.
Nice. And made it clear that hechanged his name. They you know,
he said, you know, you got aninkling that they they know who
you are and what you've done. Sothat was that was lovely. So

(11:04):
then, obviously, there was a bitof tension between him and
there.
It was just I I love this game.I love this game. If it was the
only game I could ever playforever, I'd be quite happy, I
think.

Dave (11:16):
Well, again, this does sound a little bit self
congratulatory. But at themoment, I mean, I'm I'm loving
you know, it it it's kind of myfavorite game at the moment.
Yeah. To run But I

Matthew (11:29):
did pick up some other games. I I I didn't go crazy,
but, of course, there's a tableof other free taster games and
things like that, whicheverybody could pick up. And I
picked up a couple, one of whichwas a little multiverse Marvel
multiverse role playing gamesort of expansion thing about
the Avengers sort of tastersession there.

Dave (11:51):
Mhmm. Okay. Cool.

Matthew (11:53):
And looking at it, I mean, you know, if you wanna
play in the Marvel universe,then then it looks great.
There's some nice illustrations.There's lots of characters I
know. There's a littleadventure. I don't know whether
there's any rules in here toactually be able to play this
just off this table.
Kind of

Dave (12:12):
More of a setting thing than anything else.

Matthew (12:15):
Yeah. 16 pages. It's in a kind of comic sized format,
American comic sized format. Andand it doesn't have much in it,
and I don't haven't yet read itenough to say, can I actually
play the game? Or is this reallyjust a preview for something
that owns the game that with alittle adventure that introduces
the Avengers in it?

(12:35):
The other one is moreinteresting. And first of all, I
met Will there, one of ourpatrons. Hi, Will.

Dave (12:41):
Nice.

Matthew (12:41):
And Will pointed me at a game called I can't remember
what it was called, but it waskinda cyberpunky. And it comes
from a company called Son of OakGame Studio. And he explained
it's got quite an interestingsystem in it that's a bit
powered by the apocalypse, bitblades in the darkish. It's

(13:05):
beautifully put together. But II said, I don't like
particularly.
It's it's always too cyber andnot enough punk. Mhmm. He said,
well, I've also got this one,and this is a more generic
fantasy setting, Legend in theMist. It's called the rustic
fantasy RPG. So I picked thatone up instead to look at the
rules, but I am intrigued bythat one.

(13:27):
Comes with some lovely pre gencharacters, just three. But I
thought I might have a go atrunning it. And like a like Days
of the Dark and and and thosesort of games, it's a matter of
you've got an archetype and youmake some choices, and then you
start playing, basically.

Dave (13:46):
Right. Okay.

Matthew (13:47):
So so, yeah, those are the thing I those are the things
I picked up. But then at the endof the day, as I was leaving,
they said, if you've played agame, you get one of these. And
there were just three of thesein their pack. And I don't know
how I feel about this. I Ithanks to the game shop.

(14:08):
I'm very pleased to have it. Butdo you remember the older D and
D, cartoon?

Dave (14:14):
Yes. I do.

Matthew (14:16):
Kids cartoon, which at the time, I hated because I was
a serious D and D player. I'mall playing game player. Hardly
played any D and D. And this wasjust making mock, really, I
felt, of everything that D and Dwas. You know, it was a bunch of
kids in a fantasy world, and,you know, they they didn't ever

(14:36):
kill anybody.
They always used their, youknow, their their weapons, know,
did were always more aboutdefense and blocking and and
making people, you know,imprisoning people rather than
killing orcs or anything likethat.

Dave (14:51):
It's it's not a bad philosophy though, frankly,
given that D and D is so muchabout slaughtering every orca
that you can find regardless oftheir or Yeah. I mean You know?

Matthew (15:01):
Well, as you've said it, it it, you know, it it's
great it's great lesson to teachkids about life in general.

Dave (15:07):
About restraint and about murder isn't the solution. No.
Exactly.

Matthew (15:12):
So Yeah. You know,

Dave (15:13):
I think you're on the wrong side of history there this

Matthew (15:15):
time around. Yeah. But also, it's not what D and D's
about where murder is definitelythe

Dave (15:21):
Well, is true.

Matthew (15:22):
Thing. So That is true. But, you know, now there is a
huge sort of retro love for thatgame. And I've got a lovely
enameled, huge pin badge. Youknow, one of those ones with the
you you poke the pointy bitthrough your

Dave (15:38):
thing and then Like a

Matthew (15:39):
put a clasp on the other side. There's two pointy
bits, it's so big, of Hank theranger with his flaming arrows.

Dave (15:46):
Oh, nice. Nice.

Matthew (15:48):
So that was lovely. And, yes, I and and and so the
other three players hadn't doneany, yeah, Zero Energy before.
They were very much d 20players, so I warned them they
might not like the dice ball.And I think there were some
roles where they went, yeah.I've yeah.
I this is why I don't like thisdice ball thing. But but they

(16:09):
all had a whale of a time. Idon't know whether I knew them
bought them, but I left beforethey'd finished their shopping
in the shop.

Dave (16:15):
Right. Yeah. You should

Matthew (16:18):
Anyway, you

Dave (16:19):
shouldn't tell them in advance that they're not gonna
like it. You should say, this isdifferent and it's great. And
you're gonna love it. It's muchbetter than rolling one d 20.
That's for sure.

Matthew (16:27):
Well, of course, I did word it like that, but between
you and I.

Dave (16:31):
Fair enough. Fair enough. Just wanna make sure you're
getting the right message outthere, mate.

Matthew (16:36):
Yeah. It it it I said, you know, you gotta get more
into the story. You gotta thethe you know, you can't
necessarily predict howsuccessful you're gonna be with
a dice So you you gotta take thepunches as they come and

Dave (16:51):
Yeah.

Matthew (16:51):
Trust in the dice to give you a good story. And and I
think they did. I think theydid. But also, I reckon there
were sometimes one of themrolled 11 dice, I remember, and
pushed it, and I think didn'tget a success. So you can feel
that moment of Yeah.
I should print some more ofthose stickers, maybe with an

(17:11):
old west

Dave (17:12):
Yes. That's cool. That's a good idea. Yeah.

Matthew (17:16):
That's That's the way

Dave (17:17):
that's the way it goes sometimes. You know? Failing is
fun. Failing is fun.

Matthew (17:22):
Yeah. And the beauty of trouble is, you know, you can
make choices about how much funit is as well. As long as you've
got one person lost their faith.One person the guy with the
dynamite had to spend his lasttrouble his last point of faith
on not playing himself up withdynamite.

Dave (17:40):
Excellent.

Matthew (17:41):
Which which felt good.

Dave (17:43):
Yeah. Nice. So Well

Matthew (17:46):
And they all got there. Even if you're

Dave (17:47):
trained in using them with dynamite, it's still dangerous
stuff.

Matthew (17:51):
Well, when you push it when you push it

Dave (17:53):
Yeah.

Matthew (17:53):
It's still dangerous, and he pushed it and failed. Or
and yeah. And would have got atrouble dice, but I

Dave (18:01):
But he's bought it off.

Matthew (18:03):
Bought it off with his last

Dave (18:04):
Last point. Now, that's nice. I like that. That works
really well. Cool.
That sounds like a great game.Sounds like a really good game.
I mean, the the the times thatI've run the the Las Vegas
legacy, it's always worked out.The ending has been different
every time, but it's always beenbrilliant. It's always been a
lot of fun.

Matthew (18:21):
Oh, yeah. The the these guys kind of accidentally found
Martinez Okay. Withoutnecessarily kind of believing he
was in the room. I think I Ithink they went up the stairs in
in a place that for futuregamers, I I won't mention Yeah.
And convinced occupant to letthem into the room.
I think kind of expecting it tobe another clue towards where

(18:44):
Martin is was.

Dave (18:44):
But there he was.

Matthew (18:45):
Martin is. And then he said, because they'd they'd kind
of made him believe that theywere friends of one of his
allies. He said, you know, areyou the guys that are gonna
bring the cart to get me and mymother out of there? And they
were obviously, they went, yes.Yes.
We are. Go and buy a cart. Yeah.And but then they they arranged

(19:11):
it so that one of them came withthe cart and blew him out of
there, but the others arewaiting in ambush.

Dave (19:17):
Yeah. And so

Matthew (19:18):
An ambush that involved dynamite, it has to be said. So
that was a yeah. Again, anending I've never I hadn't
experienced before.

Dave (19:24):
Yeah. I mean, this particular game, this particular
scenario is one where the playercharacters are or have the
opportunity to be kind of very,if evil is the wrong word, but
bad people. But they do there isa moral decision to be made. But
actually, in all the games I'verun, they've continued to

(19:45):
basically be the bounty hunterrather than see the moral issue
and then make a differentdecision. But in one of them, it
was really quite gruesome wherethey they they wanted to deal
with the two bounty hunters, thetwo German bounty hunters first.
Yeah. And so they basically setupon them by surprise, and one
of them set their dog had theirguard dog and set their guard

(20:07):
dog on them. And the guard doggot a critical hit and rolled 60
something and basically tore theguy's throat out and killed him.
And this was like, okay,suddenly, is getting a bit
gruesome. But, yeah, that fightdidn't last very long.
But, yeah, I mean, it's yeah.That was good because that was
one that we that we wrote as anactual play short for the

(20:28):
Kickstarter, which obviously aspart of the Kickstarter stretch
goals, we then are producing andputting out there as a PDF,
which all our backers should begetting. Not imminently, but we
are working on it. So it's it'scoming. So so

Matthew (20:44):
Hold on. You're you're segueing into old west news
here. So

Dave (20:47):
I know. I'm jumping ahead a little bit, aren't I? But
anyway. Okay. So that was a verylong chat about your tells the

Matthew (20:53):
obvious Yeah. Sorry. I was just No. That's cool. Just
was just enthusiastic about thestory.
You know? Yeah. It it does itmakes me makes me want to tell
you about my character. Otherthings have happened in the
world of gaming though. Possiblythe biggest news for those of us
who well, not you and I, really,Dave, because No.

(21:15):
I mean We are interested inneither d v D and D nor nor
Critical Role. Yeah. But the twosort of lead designers of the
last edition of D and D havejoined the Critical Role
publisher, Darrington Press.Yes. So that's quite big news, I

(21:36):
think.

Dave (21:38):
Yeah. I mean, I I saw this story. I think, like you said,
because because none of thatside of things really interests
me at the moment. It was one ofthose things that just washed
over me without really takingthe time or the interest to look
into the implications of it.Yeah.
So tell me, what are theimplications of it?

Matthew (22:01):
Well, for you, mate, the implications are pretty
massive because here you've gota new creative team at
Darrington Press, and they maybe looking for new writers, and
you should always be sellingyour services.

Dave (22:12):
Oh, that is true. I'm I'm very good at whoring myself out.
I'm very good. I'm very bad atwhoring myself out. Mhmm.

Matthew (22:20):
So so that may that may be worth some some some way of
getting in contact with them andMhmm. Offering your services.
And I think, you know, if one ofthe things you can say about the
last run of D and D is they diddo quite a lot of production of
supplements and stuff like thatunder them in in the fifth

(22:43):
edition. So Yeah. Maybe maybethere's some opportunities there
to to do, I think.
But for the rest of us, youknow, if you if you like Dagger
Heart, which is their theirtheir big game, which I haven't
even had a chance to play.

Dave (23:00):
No. Me neither.

Matthew (23:01):
So I can't comment on it, but I know some of our
patrons have supported it andstuff. And it'll be interesting
to see what they do goingforward. It suggests to me that
they're not just going to churnout stuff at Dagger Hart, but
they've got other things theywant to do in Tarrington Press.
You know, maybe new new rulesets and stuff like that because

(23:24):
well, we'll just wait and see.Yeah.

Dave (23:28):
Well, it looks like Dagger Hearts sold out from their first
print run very quickly. So itseems to be doing very well. I
mean, it looks nice from what Ican see. I've never I've never
had my hands on the book. Butyeah.
Okay. Cool. Interesting.

Matthew (23:47):
Tomb Raider. That was an interesting bit of news about
Tomb Raider. And I thoughtinteresting about licensed
properties. Evil Hat weredeveloping a Tomb Raider RPG and
couldn't come to an agreementwith the IP holders about
certain artistic decisionswithin that and have dropped it.

(24:10):
They'll they will do somethingwith the same mechanics because
they quite like the mechanicsthey were developing.
So, you know, kind of TombRaider with the numbers filed
off. But given that they haveworked so closely with the guy
behind the Justin files toproduce the Justin files while
playing game and some otherstuff, Atomic Robo and things

(24:31):
like that, you know, they'rethey're not newcomers to the
world of licensed products. AndNo. I just thought it was
interesting that both parties, Iimagine, said, okay. This isn't
working for us.
Let's let's let's quit asamicably as we can. I expect

(24:51):
those creative differences willbe to do with anti colonialism.
I expect. Because by default,the Tomb Raider thing of, you
know, white person goes intoancient civilizations and

Dave (25:07):
nicks Nicks all their stuff. Yeah. It's it's yeah.
It's a look that isn't isn'tisn't so hot these days, isn't

Matthew (25:16):
Yeah. And I may, you know, it's never been a thing
that, Evil Hat have wanted tokind of celebrate. So I'm sure
they had an an interesting twiston that, but maybe one that the
IP holders felt was too distantfrom everything else I do with
the IP, but interesting.

Dave (25:34):
Yeah. It's it's I mean, it's it's an interesting one,
isn't it? I mean, you know, Iguess there's a question here of
how seriously you take, youknow, a story like Tomb Raider.
You know, and, you know, it'sit's it's kind of light hearted

(25:55):
fun. But like you say, the thethe the context behind it, if
you wanted to stop and thinkabout it, is perhaps not, you
know, is is not is not thegreatest story to tell.
But yeah. I mean, does that meanthat you then can't do yeah.

(26:17):
Because Raiders of the Lost Arkwould fall into basically the
same the same category prettymuch. Although Yeah. Yes.

Matthew (26:22):
Could. You could put homes in the museum.

Dave (26:24):
Well, you you could argue that in Raiders of the Lost Ark,
if you wanted to, you couldargue that Indiana Jones is
saving those relics from evilpeople that were gonna nick them
and steal them and sell them forprofit. Whereas, he's saving
them because they're gonna bestolen anyway and putting them
somewhere where they are reveredand respected.

Matthew (26:43):
That has long been long been the argument used by the
British Museum over the ElginMarbles.

Dave (26:49):
Well, I know. Well, that's true. I mean, I mean, actually,
at the at the point that theytook the Elgin Marbles, there is
some truth to that because theTurks were using them for target
practice. But the Turks aren'tusing them for target practice
now. There is now we might wantto, you know, be offering them
back.

(27:09):
But no, but I think there's sothere is there is a line there
you could take. But, also, youcould just take the game and
say, you know, I'm I'm notrecreate I'm not reveling in
colonial theatre.

Matthew (27:25):
I mean,

Dave (27:25):
I'm not playing the East India Company, for example,
which would be a bad thing.Let's just have a bit of light
hearted fun. But, yeah, I can Ican I can totally get that that
that there would be some peoplewho would be like, yeah, do I
want to have light hearted funrecreating the rape and theft of

(27:46):
antiquities from, you know,ancient civilizations that have
living descendants still, youknow? Or even don't, I guess.
But yeah.
Yeah.

Matthew (28:03):
You know, I I don't know. I don't know the reasons
why. It's purely my conjecturethat there might be something to
do with anti colonialism inthere. But we won't see, I
guess, until whatever comes outthat was once upon a time being
developed as a Tomb Raider game.

Dave (28:19):
Yeah. It

Matthew (28:22):
interests me though. I just the whole concept of
turning a computer game,obviously quite a popular
computer game, into a roleplaying game, I'm not convinced
by it. It's almost like saying,well, I really like the World of

(28:45):
Warcraft universe, the eliteuniverse, the whatever universe,
but I wish this computer gavegave me more of an open world,
which

Dave (28:56):
I'm not

Matthew (28:57):
sure really. I think

Dave (29:01):
don't know. I think there are different things here. So I
think not knowing if there is adeeper back story to Tomb Raider
other than just going andraiding tombs and grabbing
stuff. It seems to me that TombRaider as a role playing game is
pretty narrow. It's basically adungeon delve.
Go in, nick the stuff, beat theevil guys, and get out with your

(29:22):
goodies. You could say something

Matthew (29:27):
With some cut scenes.

Dave (29:28):
With some, yeah, with some cut scenes maybe. But again, the
the the game process is very,very Yeah. Kind of narrow. The
game world is very narrow. Thatis what you do.
You're a Tomb Raider, you know,the clue is in the title.
Something like World ofWarcraft, I mean, you've got an
enormous world. Mean, if youwanted to do a fantasy role
playing game set in the World ofWarcraft, there's no better

(29:49):
place to do it because the it'sthe the world is there and it's
immensely deep and immensely,you know, not sure what the word
I'm looking for, but it's it'sit's alive with so much
backstory and so much history.And actually, it's it's a
massive world. So I thinkthey're they're different
things.
What you do in World of Warcraftwould be much more varied than

(30:10):
what you do in Tomb Raider,potentially. So I think maybe
it's a bit different. I thinkthe fact that there isn't a
World of Warcraft role playinggame, I I don't I don't know. I
mean, perhaps just the the thethe the scale of task to create
a World of Warcraft role playinggame and get all the the lore

(30:33):
and backstory right is perhapsjust so big that nobody actually
wants to try and take it on. Butyou would think it might

Matthew (30:42):
be quite well. It's interesting.

Dave (30:44):
Think it might be

Matthew (30:45):
going to a blizzard

Dave (30:46):
and Maybe.

Matthew (30:48):
Use your expertise to say, I can make you a World of
Warcraft role playing game.Yeah. Man.

Dave (30:54):
I mean, we would probably do very well.

Matthew (30:57):
And it would yeah. I'm sure somebody's already got
their license.

Dave (31:03):
Probably.

Matthew (31:03):
What are they doing with it?

Dave (31:04):
Yeah.

Matthew (31:06):
Yeah. Look. We we we are we're thirty minutes into
this episode already, and wehaven't even finished the world
of gaming. Not the World ofWarcraft, but the world of
gaming. A moment ago, you weretalking about Tomb Raider being
quite limited because all you dois go on a delve.
You've been reading a book,Dave. What book have you been

(31:27):
reading?

Dave (31:28):
Oh, I've been reading The Great Dark. So Ah. We were lucky
enough to get copies of that fordisplay at Yiga Games Expo, and
one of those copies happened toreturn home with me for
safekeeping before we take it tothe next one, which again might
not be for might not be for justthe show on that one. But, you

(31:51):
know, I I as I've said toeveryone, I've I I don't like
reading PDFs. I don't I don'tenjoy it particularly.
But now I've got the book in myhands, I've been sitting down
and been reading it. So I'veread about half of it so far.
And I just thought What are youthinking? I just wanted to
briefly reflect. So I So there'skind of two sides to the coin, I

(32:16):
think, for me here.
One, I'm I'm I'm loving the lookand feel of it. I'm actually
loving this idea as the the nextchapter in the story of the
third horizon. I think that'sit's very cool. I like what
they've done with that story.I've kind of I've just got my my
head around the slipstream ideabecause I looked at the map in

(32:39):
the at the front cover andthought, okay.
Well, that don't make muchsense. But now having read it
and understanding what theslipstream is, that makes a lot
more sense. So again, gives youa bit of a feel for

Matthew (32:50):
Yeah. And there's another map as well that weirdly
makes more sense.

Dave (32:54):
But Right.

Matthew (32:55):
Yeah.

Dave (32:57):
Yeah. But that's but that's cool. So I'm I'm I'm
liking I'm liking that. The onething that I would say is,
unless it comes up later in thebook, what they could have done
was produced a map of, like, theLost Horizon in the way they did
for the Third Horizon with, youknow because the Lost Horizon,

(33:18):
these places have been visitedeven if they haven't been
explored properly. Mhmm.
And give snippets of what'swhat's, you know, what what's
been seen or what's what mightbe found there, like they do for
the map for the third horizon,which I

Matthew (33:31):
Yeah. Yeah. That's a little

Dave (33:32):
I use those all the time as a as a hook for for a for a
scenario. But no, it's lookinglovely. I'm really enjoying
reading it. I I think the ideabehind the great ships is is a
really good one. I'm enjoying, Ithink, what would be excellent

(33:55):
intrigue and political play onthose ships.
Although, I wonder whether mostof my understanding of that is
not that I've got to that bit inthe book so far, but it's from
what I've heard from you andothers.

Matthew (34:06):
Yeah. Yeah. No. I think everything in the book is on,
like, page nine. It says,there's loads of intrigue on the
ships.

Dave (34:12):
Yeah.

Matthew (34:12):
That's how I think you've already read that bit.

Dave (34:14):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm loving the look and feel. I I guess I'm I'm
the I don't know. I think thereis there is very much a question
in my mind, and this this is aquestion that is potentially

(34:34):
pertinent to us as well, is howmany years zero engine games can
you do?
Because, I mean, naturally, Iguess this this feels very much
like Coriolis, which on one handis a good thing because it's
familiar and it's it's theevolution of of the third
horizon into the lost horizon.On the other hand, I felt like

(34:56):
I'd read about 50 of the pagesalready before I got to them
because, basically, it's thesame stuff as as the third
Coriolis, the third horizonpretty much. I don't know
whether that's You

Matthew (35:09):
haven't got to chapter 10 yet then, I'm just No.

Dave (35:11):
I'm I'm just on where do I got to? I've just got to I've
just read about heirlooms. SoI've just reached chapter seven.
Just started about the LostHorizon and the sort of the
background and the history, andthe timeline. So I haven't got
that far yet.
So I said, this is caveated bythe fact that I've only read
about half of it. But I'menjoying it very much, and I I

(35:33):
think it it makes me a bit moreexcited to to play it than I
perhaps was when it But firstcame yeah. So that's just kind
of my take. I think I think mycomment about it, like I've read
a lot of it before, is I mean,I'm not I'm not even sure that's
a it's a criticism. It's just anobservation that I don't don't
think you could get away fromthat really by, you know, doing

(35:57):
a doing a book that is, youknow, the sequel to Yeah.
The Third Horizon. You are thatis gonna happen. So it's just a
comment, think. An observationrather than actually criticism
or a concern.

Matthew (36:08):
Yeah. And I think, actually, what's very pertinent
is something I said at UK GamesExpo when we were being
interviewed by the lovely peopleon tabletop.

Dave (36:16):
Mhmm.

Matthew (36:18):
That it actually, I think, for many people, not
particularly for us when we readthe first the the third horizon,
but a lot of people, I think,were sort of weighed down by
loads of references to what hadgone before in the, you know,
second not the second of Isaac,I was gonna say, in the first

(36:41):
edition of Coriolis, which Yeah.The Free League guys are all
fans of and have, you know,built a bunch of their stuff
around that game. And that wasabsolutely crammed full of old
lore that may or may not berelevant. What I think this does
is although you say you've got50 things you feel you've heard
before, 50 pages, actually thatthat feels to me a lot more

(37:07):
refreshing and not quite soweighed down with all the lore,
but rather more of aspringboard, I think, for new
gamers. You've to remember thisis mostly not for the relatively
few of us in Free League termsthat bought the third Horizon

Dave (37:25):
Yeah.

Matthew (37:25):
When they were a small company, and nobody was even
doing any podcasts about YearZero games. But to the to the

Dave (37:33):
How how that has changed, How that has changed?

Matthew (37:38):
You know, there is a bigger market now, I think, and
they're hoping to reach out tomore of those people who will be
reading all of this for thefirst time.

Dave (37:46):
Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew (37:47):
And I think they've done quite a good job of giving
us us old hands some nicelittle, I guess you'd call them

Dave (37:56):
Easter eggs.

Matthew (37:57):
Easter eggs. Yeah. Without weighing it down in the
way that maybe the first editiondid with loads of lore that that
we as new readers didn'tnecessarily understand.

Dave (38:08):
Yeah.

Matthew (38:11):
Yeah.

Dave (38:12):
No. I just thought I'd I'd briefly mentioned that. But yep.
Cool.

Matthew (38:16):
So so maybe maybe next week, you'll be inspired to
write or next episode, I shouldsay, you'll be inspired to start
building on that law andcreating some more stuff. Is
that your thinking?

Dave (38:28):
Yeah. I'm I'm, you know, haven't got the book in my hand.
I There is a bit of me thatfeels like we should go back to
our roots a little bit for awhile. Well, at least for an
episode or two, or at leastoccasionally. So, yeah, I I I
don't quite know what I shouldlook at, but I shall I shall do
something based on the thirdhorizon.
The third horizon? The greatdark next time.

Matthew (38:49):
Yeah. Cool. Cool. Right. What else have we got?
Okay. Bit of Old west news we'vegot. Yep. I don't think we
mentioned this before in aprevious episode, but our shop
is now live

Dave (39:06):
Indeed. On our website. Our shop is live on the website.
Yes. No.
We haven't mentioned thatbefore. Yeah. That's great. I
mean, yeah, I I hate to say it,but well done you, pal, for
getting that sorted out. Ididn't have anything to do with
it.
So if it doesn't work, it'sMatt's fault. If it does work,
done, Matthew. So

Matthew (39:25):
Yeah. And I think it's it's worth saying that there's
two so you can find it on ourwebsite and it's sitting in a
little frame on our website. Youcan also go straight to it with
a link in the show notes, butthe actual shop is called
bytoto.site. Oh, forgotten whatit's called. Dotsquare.site.

(39:51):
Bytoto.square.site is if ifusing it on our site is a pain
in the ass, then you can, youknow, go straight to it. We
haven't put all the shippingprices all over the world in, so
I don't know what happens ifyou're from some part of the
world that I haven't putshipping prices in for. Shipping

(40:13):
might look quite expensive ifyou're in The US, but I think I
have got to say that if you area US listener and you wanna get
a copy, distribution is gonnatake some time to organize into
The US retail market. So if ifyou're excited about it, come to
our site and order it there andYeah. Try and keep shipping

(40:38):
prices low as possible.
But but I think that's the gonnabe the best way of getting it
for the time being.

Dave (40:44):
Yeah. Sadly, mean, sadly, US and other, what we would
class as rest of the world,shipping prices are are are are
kind of what they are at themoment. They're quite expensive.
Yeah. But, yeah, as you said, weare

Matthew (40:56):
always

Dave (40:56):
looking

Matthew (40:56):
at They're not as expensive in The US as they are
in Australia, for example.Australia is Australia really

Dave (41:01):
is is it's it's yeah. It's eye watering, I I hate to say.
But, yeah, we're always lookingat ways of doing the shipping
more cheaply, but certainly forthe moment, yeah, it is what it
is. But I hope that doesn't puttoo many people off who might be
excited about getting the game.Get in the game because it will
give you many many many hours ofof entertainment.

(41:25):
We always when it comes tocomputer games, I always look at
how much it cost and how manyhours of of play I've got I've
got out of it. And and my my myone good example is a game
called seven days to die, whichis basically, it's like
Minecraft with zombies. Verygood.

Matthew (41:42):
Where Minecraft has got zombies.

Dave (41:44):
Okay. Well, it's it's it's a build it's a it's a world
building game, but with lots ofzombies. It's And

Matthew (41:51):
more zombies than Minecraft.

Dave (41:52):
I I suspect so. There's a lot of zombies in Seven Days to
Die.

Matthew (41:56):
Yeah. Quite a lot of zombies in Minecraft.

Dave (41:58):
Anyway, I don't play Minecraft, so anyway. So I
bought I bought that game forabout £15 many years ago when it
was in well, it's stillallegedly in alpha, but when it
was in early alpha. And I'veplayed about four thousand hours
on that now. So so my my mypounds per hour, I haven't
worked it out, but it's veryvery low. So if you think about,

(42:19):
yes, it's gonna cost a bit toget the game, but if you're
gonna get a hundred hours ormore of entertainment out of it,
then actually that cost ofdelivering the cost of the book
per hour comes down veryquickly.
I often think about it where I'dgo out and have an expensive
dinner once in a while, whichmight cost me, you know, 50 or

(42:40):
£60 a head these days. Andactually, 50 or £60

Matthew (42:46):
for a game

Dave (42:47):
that gives you many many hours of entertainment is
actually not not a bad deal. Sothat's kind of the point I was
trying to make. So Yeah. I said,

Matthew (42:56):
I I hope the prices don't break good point. The
other exciting well, the otherthing to bear in mind, if you
live nearer where we candistribute into retail, say, you
know, there are shops now in TheUK that you can just go and buy
it, not least Game Shop, where Idelivered a couple of extra
copies to them yesterday. If youwant the exclusive stuff, and

(43:22):
the exclusive stuff includes ourcloth covered version of the
book, our dice tray, and untilthey run out, and they will run
out very soon, our trouble dice,you can only get them from us.
You can get the standard editionof the game and the GM screen
from the retail market. But ifyou want the exclusive stuff,

(43:42):
you gotta come to us.
And interestingly, our firstorder that we've had since I
started was from a Germancustomer. It obviously well, I
don't know whether they've gotthe Corebook, whether whether
they got it from a tobacco or orsomething else, And they were
coming back for the accessories.Nice. We were able to send them
those accessories earlier onthis week, which is great. Which

Dave (44:03):
is brilliant. Yeah. Cool. What else have we got to say?

Matthew (44:10):
Well, you know what? I was going to say that we'd talk
a little bit about the workwe're doing. Given given the
time we've spent talkingalready, I think we might talk
about most of that next week,but we could just reassure
people that we are working on

Dave (44:25):
That make that's not a bad idea. Yeah.

Matthew (44:28):
On Gold Country and on I'm doing the solo rules a
little bit. I've I've had someideas about that that we will
talk about that next week. Tellyou what, if you don't manage to
do the Corvio list thing, I'llput a piece together on my
thoughts on the solo rules inthe early version. Shall we say
that?

Dave (44:44):
Okay. Cool. Cool. That sounds good.

Matthew (44:47):
And what else? Oh, and I'm about to start layout on the
on the campfire tales

Dave (44:53):
and pictures. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. We've got we've we've got
some art coming as wellcommissioned for those.
So that's that that they arethey are in the pipe. They are
moving along. So that's allcool. But yes, we can talk a bit
more about that next timebecause we have because because
you spoke for about half an hourabout your game at the

Matthew (45:11):
game Yes. I just realized how excited I was.
Yeah. That's a chunk of thetime.

Dave (45:17):
Yeah. I mean I mean, know, playing those games, I mean,
every one of them has had somereally good moment. And then,
you know, kind of the one of theones that I really remember was
when we played with Fiona andher crowd from What Am I
Rolling?

Matthew (45:31):
Oh.

Dave (45:32):
When when at the end, one of them got shot, and it was
like, you kinda died to save theothers. And it was just it was
emotional. You know? It was

Matthew (45:40):
I've linked to that video on the front page of our
website.

Dave (45:43):
Excellent.

Matthew (45:44):
Most of the videos on the Internet are available from
our website, but that one's onthe front page because Yeah.
That was just so good.

Dave (45:51):
That ending was just pretty. And the players were
just great. So it was reallycool. But yeah. So

Matthew (45:59):
you So

Dave (46:00):
yeah. A result

Matthew (46:01):
of the

Dave (46:01):
game that we played a little while ago

Matthew (46:03):
Wanna talk about sex?

Dave (46:04):
Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.
Sex. Who's having it? How arethey having it? And who are they
having it with? No.
No. No. That's the wrong wrongwrong podcast. Sorry. That's the
podcast where we make lots ofmoney.
Not anyway, yeah, sorry. I'llshut up now. Go on.

Matthew (46:21):
Right. Well, we kind of I kind of explained the concept
in my essay, but we just came upwith we we wondered, you and I,
a few weeks ago when we wereplaying tales of the odd west,
whether we had missed somethingout of the rules, and and it's
about sex. Okay. We admit it. Weleft something out of the core

(46:47):
book.
Well, I'm not sure we did. But Ipointed out what seemed to be an
apparent omission of Dave's whenwe were playing our last
session. And I will say, if thisis an actual omission, then I'm
laying the blame at Dave's door.My reasoning is this. Dave

(47:16):
always wanted Tales of the OldWest to be a generational game
like Pendragon.
I'm not sure I ever agreed tothis. Well, I guess I did
because I let Dave say it stilland even commissioned a family
portrait image to back up theidea. But my argument has always

(47:36):
been that the West was only thewild West between the end of the
civil war and the turn of thecentury. So we are only looking
at forty years. Forty years is,I guess, long enough for three
generations to be involved at apinch.
The stories of the West don'tnecessarily reflect that.

(47:59):
Lonesome Dove has a father sonrelationship, which the father
refuses to acknowledge, andthere is the occasional grandpa
with he, but not many. But Daveinsisted. So it's generational,
and there was even a familyillustration to prove it. With

(48:22):
that said, I asked him in thelast session, how come it's so
goddamn hard to have a baby inthe Old West?
Some context here. My character,Marion Freeman, was married in a
previous adventure, and this wasthe first turn of the season
since that joyous occasion, andI suddenly realized there was no

(48:47):
real way to see if our unionbore fruit. Both Freeman and his
wife, Grunya, were ill actually,so it's unlikely we were
conceiving anything. My pointis, Pendragon has a role every
winter to see if any of yourdalliances or marriages have

(49:08):
resulted in a baby. In Tales ofthe Old West, you have four turn
of the season roles, whichshould result in four times as
many babies.
But in fact, rules as written,your chance of conception is
much, much lower. A roll of 74on this season table, which I

(49:32):
remind you is a d 66 table,means a child is born in your
family or that of a compadre. Sothis means a one in thirty six
chance of rolling 66, and thenanother d six to see if a stalk
brings a baby or something else,including a really, really fine

(49:56):
horse. It's actually a storyhook, not a way of determining
if efforts to procreate arerewarded. That's the omission.
Or is it? The simplest solutionis of course that I tell my GM,
my character and his wife,Gronje, are trying for a baby

(50:18):
and they make a note that inthree seasons, there will be an
adventure involving a newborn orchildbirth. And it's at this
point, it's time for a triggerwarning. The rest of this
discussion is going to bementioning, among other things,
miscarriages, complicated labor,and possible infant mortality.

(50:40):
If you don't want to listen tothat sort of stuff, skip to the
end.
The art photographer, NatalieLeonard, created a scene of
childbirth in the West as partof a wider series of pictures.
I'll put links in the shownotes. In the commentary, she
says something important. Theoverriding touted memory of the

(51:05):
Wild West is that childbirth wassimply dangerous and that many
mothers and babies died. What weoverlook is that many mothers
and babies survived.
One of those mothers wasCalamity Jane. If players and GM

(51:29):
want to create a degree ofuncertainty around pregnancy,
and from that possibly somestory too, we can create some
more complex rules. Let's startwith conceiving a child. This
would be a seasonal role, likeyour business role, and as such,

(51:51):
it can't be pushed. When wediscussed it during the session,
we quickly decided that the rolewould be on resilience.
All you need is one success toconceive a child. I have to say,
we might have been a bitpatriarchal in our on the fly
idea. I think we quite enjoyedthe idea that the man would make

(52:13):
a resilience role to conceivethe child, and the woman would
make a labor role to deliver it.Labor. Get it?
The clue's in the name. Butthinking about it, I later
decided to make some changes tothat original idea. The first
consideration is that it shouldbe a bit easier to actually get

(52:33):
pregnant than on a single roll,which you can't push, testing a
relatively undeveloped ability.Given that if you're trying for
a baby, that single unpushedroll represents the two of you
going at it hammer and tongs forthree months. And note well, it

(52:55):
takes two to tango.
Why should it only be the manwho rolls the dice? That led me
on to another thought. Marion'sassumption is that Gronje wants
a child. But is he correct inthat assumption? If both
partners roll on resilience, orin this case the GM roles for

(53:19):
Gronje, then there is thewonderful possibility that the
role could be cooperative oropposed.
In Gronje's case, if she doesn'twant to get pregnant, she might
be using Savin and Penny Royalto try and avoid pregnancy. So I
suggest both characters make aresilience role. If it's

(53:43):
cooperative, then there is amuch better chance of success
and extra successes counttowards bonus dice when the
labor role is made. But if it'sopposed, then the character that
wants a child might have to getmore successes than the
character who doesn't. And inthe case of Marion and Gragnier,

(54:06):
that might be secret.
So my role for Marion might havegot me a couple successes. I
might be sure that Gronje ispregnant, but when she isn't
showing by the next season, onlythen might I get an inkling that
she doesn't want children. Butlet's assume that she does and

(54:26):
skip forward three seasons andthink about the labor role.
Unlike conception, this is not aseasonal role and can be pushed.
There are, again, two thoughtsbehind this.
The first is that this is asingular event, not a, shall we
say, a regularly repeatedeffort. Secondly, and maybe

(54:53):
controversially, this is anopportunity for trouble rather
than a binary success orfailure. Though the woman is
going to be making the rolesorry. Though the woman is going
to be making the role, she can,of course, be helped. Not just
by people with the laborability, but also by people with

(55:15):
doctoring.
I'm not getting into the currentovermedicalization of
childbirth. Remember, thedoctoring ability in this game
might apply to, yes, topatriarchal university trained
doctors, but it also applies tomidwives and more traditional
childbirth techniques. Even withthis help and any bonus dice won

(55:40):
in the resilience rolls threeseasons before, the labor should
be prepared for. The mothershould try and build up a good
pool of faith to buy off whattrouble she can. I did think
about a specific childbirthtrouble table, but, actually, I
think trouble can be rolled onthe conflict stroke physical

(56:02):
table, and most of the resultsthere can be adapted to the
situation.
Critical injuries might mean thenewborn is left with a permanent
disability or potentially thedeath of the mother. But
preparing well for the delivery,finding everything the mother
needs to make the success asrisk free as possible, might

(56:26):
even turn out to be an adventurehook itself.

Dave (56:31):
So it's not so much about sex, actually, is it? It's more
about childbirth and aboutchildren. So yeah. I mean, I've
got I've got a kind of a coupleof things to say. I think, you
know, and you do do call thisout, like, kind of the content
warning.
Not everybody would want toplay, you know, the potential

(56:52):
horrors of pregnancy andchildbirth and the medical
concerns that come with it inthe game. So if you don't want
to do any of that, that's fine.You know, you can just you can
just play that you could justplay this way and have baby
arrives, the baby doesn't.Pregnant or not pregnant, you
know, which is basically whatPendragon did. You know, you

(57:14):
could you could have a child diein your winter roles in
Pendragon, but it was it, youknow, it wasn't something that
was, you know, leered over or oror or really delved into.
It was just, you know, fact oflife, I guess, back in the day.

Matthew (57:29):
Yeah. But also, you know, at that time in the
history of gaming, I don'timagine, frankly, that Craig
Stafford was thinking that manywomen would be playing this
game.

Dave (57:39):
There is that too. Yeah.

Matthew (57:40):
Pregnant women or, you know, women for whom this might
actually feel like a real closeand personal issue.

Dave (57:46):
Yeah. Yeah. So Well, and and I know, I mean, we we we
have some, you know, friends andpatrons who who issues around
children is a very, very strongred line for them, and it's not
something they wanna play, whichis absolutely fine, of course,
because it can you know, it's ina very it's a very emotive
thing. So that that that's fine.But yeah.

(58:07):
So but I think so, yeah. I Iecho your content warning.
Absolutely. I think that's cool.One thing I would say, I know I
know you blame me for this.

Matthew (58:16):
I blame you for everything, Dave, of course.

Dave (58:18):
That's that's true. So I mean, you know, that that that
kind of that kind of softens theimpact of the blame though,
doesn't it? Because everyonejust says, well, blames Dave
anyways whether it's his faultor not, so you so it probably
isn't Dave's fault. In thiscase, I accept, actually, this
was a bit of an oversight. So Ithink in Woah.

Matthew (58:36):
Shit. I wasn't expecting that.

Dave (58:38):
No. I think it was, Dave, because you're absolutely right.
I mean, the the chances of ofRowling having a child on the
turn of the season tables Yeah.I haven't worked them out, but
it's pretty but it's pretty low.And I think kind of that turn of
the season table is about havingan unwanted child or having an
accident in my head.

(58:58):
Yeah. Rather than the, you know,my wife and I, or my husband and
I, if you're playing a womanMhmm. Actively want to have a
baby. And we are going to behavein such a way that is going to
improve our chances of having ababy. Back to sex, obviously.
So so, yeah, I accept I acceptthe criticism. That was an

(59:20):
oversight. Actually, think, youknow, we kind of talked about
this a little bit in the in thesession where we had it. We kind
of came up with the answer,which you've you've talked about
in your essay. And I think it'squite easy easy to do that.
Yeah. And and I think the wayyou've described there is is is
fine. Absolutely. It's gotta bea joint endeavour. And in fact,

(59:43):
if anything, it should be thewoman having the greater impact
in terms of making dice rollsand stuff than the father,
really.
Because, you know, the father'sjob is done quite early

Matthew (59:55):
on. Yeah. But Dave, I know how you like to roll dice.

Dave (59:58):
So In terms of the biology I wanted to provide

Matthew (59:59):
you with the opportunity.

Dave (01:00:01):
No. No. No. That's absolutely fine. So I think
that's all that's all good.
And, you know, and that issomething I want players to or
at least, you know, if at leastif that's what they the way they
wanna play the game, I wantplayers to aspire to having a
family. I want players to aspireto building, you know, a new

(01:00:21):
place for them or, you know, oror, know, preserving their place
in the world for their familyand their and their friends,
which is which is great. On thepoint about generational play,
I've got two things to saythere. One, yes, whilst the

(01:00:42):
period of what would strictly becalled the Wild West probably
only lasts forty or fifty yearsat the most, I think, you know,
our heads have been broader thanthat in terms of okay. We landed
the game in 1873, but our headshave been a bit broader, or at
least mine has.
My perspective has been a bitbroader than that in terms of

(01:01:03):
the possibilities of this game.So, you know, immediately, with
our first supplement, we'regoing back to 1849.

Matthew (01:01:11):
I have a point to make on that, actually.

Dave (01:01:13):
No. Okay. No. Well, that's cool.

Matthew (01:01:15):
And my point is this Yep. Is that it's not an
omission at all. What wecunningly did, Dave, is we
cunningly thought, well, there'sa lot of information already.
There's 300 pages in the core,but we just can't fit room for
this. But when we go back intime in our next supplement,
which we will call, I don'tknow, Gold Country or something

(01:01:35):
like that, and that would putus, you know, a good generation
earlier, that's when we need tostart talking more more
explicitly about generationalplay.
You it's coming, actually. I I Isaid in the essay I blamed you,
but only afterwards did I think,well, actually, no. Is he
playing four dimensional chesshere?

Dave (01:01:56):
Oh, yes. Of course. No. But my other point about general
generational play was we alwayshad it as an idea. The whole
point of the tale of the seasonis generational play.

Matthew (01:02:06):
Which is why I was blaming you for not having how
to have kids in a game that yousaid was always a

Dave (01:02:10):
good choice. I'm but I'm now arguing against your cunning
plan, which if you told me aboutbefore we started recording, we
could have made this sound somuch better. But no.

Matthew (01:02:18):
Yeah. No. I'm sorry to spring that on you now. Having
written it down, I did in theverging of it, I thought, all
right. You don't make sense ofit in gold, don't you?
Anyway

Dave (01:02:28):
But, yes. So, yeah, accepting that it is a relative
compared to something like, youknow, Pendragon, it's
potentially quite short a shortperiod of generational thing.
And it might not be, you know,the the norm might not be that
your dead player character isthen succeeded by your child. It

(01:02:50):
might be that you're succeededby a sibling or a close friend
or a cousin or something.Because again, just the timings
might not work out.
You know, by the time yourplayer character dies, your
child might only be five. So itmight not might not work quite
so well in that sense. But itdoes, though, I think work
potentially well. Again, like,you know, the coming plan that

(01:03:10):
we always had about the GoldCountry being set twenty or
twenty five years before theKorberk obviously means you
could play characters in theGold Country who have a family,
and then you could play thosechildren in the eighteen
seventies in the Korberk. Welldone us.
We haven't just made this up.

Matthew (01:03:29):
Well done us for thinking about that. Yeah. And
not making a mistake at all.

Dave (01:03:32):
Insightful and intelligent game creators who look ahead and
see all the prospects andpossibilities. They weren't just
rushing to try and finish a bookand completely forgot that
something was missing at all.Never. No. No.
But that was cool. And I thinkit's interesting. I think it it
does and it obviously bringsanother thing for a player

(01:03:56):
character to care about. Mhmm.And it brings another thing for
a player character to defend orto potentially risk losing.
But also, like your point aboutwhether, you know, your partner
actually wants to have children.

Matthew (01:04:11):
Yeah.

Dave (01:04:11):
Who knows what Grainne wants? Maybe she doesn't want to
have kids.

Matthew (01:04:15):
Now I will say here, don't let me put ideas into your
head about what Grainne wants.

Dave (01:04:22):
You know, I love This is

Matthew (01:04:23):
a generational game, Dave. That's what you keep
telling me, Dave. So

Dave (01:04:27):
I love the fact that throwaway comments from you,
Andy, and Tony have all led tomultiple scenarios for me, which
is brilliant. Now Andy made themistake of reminding me he had a
sister, And that led to thewhole last scenario, which is
which is great fun and I reallyenjoyed it. But, you know, I

(01:04:47):
knew he had a sister, but I'dforgotten all about it until he
reminded me and said, oh, Iought to tell tell you a bit
about my sister and I'm gonnawrite her a letter, but I'm not
gonna tell her where I am. Buttell her that I'm alive. And
thought,

Matthew (01:05:00):
thanks Sandy.

Dave (01:05:03):
That was a that was tactical error on your part.
But, no, it was I love it.That's one of things I love

Matthew (01:05:09):
story hook, Dave. It was a story Absolutely

Dave (01:05:11):
a story hook. Yeah. As is most things in the game in one
way or another, Which is what wedid intend. So forget about all
this little stuff. We did intendsome of the good stuff that's
come out of the game.
So that's quite cool. But no,that was good. Nice essay. Well
done, mate. I enjoyed that.

Matthew (01:05:29):
Cool. Right. Okay. So we've ended up the show with not
one, but two. Two ideas aboutwhat we're gonna provide in two
weeks' time.
Yeah. So let's

Dave (01:05:41):
It'll be it'll

Matthew (01:05:42):
and see what we actually manage to do in

Dave (01:05:44):
the hard. It'll be a lucky dip for you listeners, dear
listeners. So

Matthew (01:05:49):
Yeah. I mean, I guess I guess, ideally, Dave, it would
be better, I think you're right,for us to go back to our roots
and do choreoes first Yes.Rather than do two vaguely Toto
related things.

Dave (01:06:01):
No. That's absolutely And that and that's the intention.
It'll only be if for whateverreason I can't get it done, but
I I be okay, I'm sure.

Matthew (01:06:11):
Cool.

Dave (01:06:12):
But quite what I'm gonna talk about yet, I don't know. I
need to finish reading the book.

Matthew (01:06:16):
Yeah. No. That's good. That's good. That's good.
That's good.

Dave (01:06:19):
One last thing before we sign off. I will say that the
one thing I do miss from thebook, the the great dark, is is
a ribbon. Really wish it had a Ireally wish it had a ribbon.

Matthew (01:06:37):
You, mister, we don't need ribbon, but I'll sit down.

Dave (01:06:40):
I know. I've I've got a 180 degree turn from where I was
before. And similarly, with dicetrays, a 180 degree turn. I'm,
you know, I'm I'm a growinghuman being. I am prepared to to
grow and learn and do thingsdifferently.
Unlike

Matthew (01:06:55):
actually, I took two gate two two copies of the book,
obviously, because I've got twocopies of the book, because I
wrote it. So I'm allowed to havea deluxe copy for me to play and
a standard copy for the table.But it was really handy before
the game to think, well, youknow, they're gonna want to look
at talent. So let's justbookmark the talent chapter

Dave (01:07:13):
Yep.

Matthew (01:07:13):
And leave that on the table for them. And obviously,
the life path chapter, Ibookmarked that one as well. So
that I was able to say, if yougo to the back bookmark, that's
what know, that's where you findthe life path and so on. And
it's really it is really handy.Ribbons are really useful.

Dave (01:07:27):
Yeah. I am a convert, and I thought you would appreciate
hearing that from my own lips.So after all, don't really like
ribbons. That's probablyribbons. They're a waste of
time.
But, no. I wish I had a ribbonfor the great dark. But, yes.
Cool. Right.
We've probably talked enough forone day, don't you think?

Matthew (01:07:47):
Yeah. I think so. It's been a real pleasure. We you you
said before when we when wefirst made contact to record the
show, you said, oh, we haven'tactually spoken together for two
weeks since we last recorded.And that is know what, Dave?
I'll have missed chatting withyou. It's always a laugh. It's
really good. We should recordthis, you know, like, regularly
every couple of weeks orsomething like that. Yeah.

(01:08:08):
Just to

Dave (01:08:08):
make

Matthew (01:08:08):
sure Yeah. We stay in

Dave (01:08:10):
That would be a good way of doing it. But it yeah. It was
weird because, I mean, over thelast, I don't know, probably
year, with everything going on,we've we've been all over each
other, if that's

Matthew (01:08:19):
what more often. Yeah.

Dave (01:08:21):
Yeah. All the time, one way or the other. But, yeah,
thought this last two weeks, nono messages on our on our, you
know, on our effect chat thing.No no emails. No no rude I
texts.
What's going on? Right.

Matthew (01:08:37):
Well Cool. Don't worry. I will be sending you not just
rude texts, but also threateningemails for the

Dave (01:08:45):
next couple

Matthew (01:08:45):
of weeks.

Dave (01:08:46):
That's what

Matthew (01:08:46):
I'm remind you that I'm here. Cool. Well In the
meantime, though, it's goodbyefrom me.

Dave (01:08:54):
And it's goodbye from him.

Matthew (01:08:56):
And may the icons bless your adventures.

Dave (01:09:02):
You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by
Fiction Suit and the RPG gods.Music stars on a black sea

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