GSV: General Systems Vehicle

Episode Transcript
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Dave (00:39):
Hi all and welcome to episode two fifty eight of
Effect. GSV, General SystemsVehicle. I'm Dave.

Matthew (00:51):
And I'm Matthew. And we have once more a somewhat packed
program for you in this episode.But before we start that, I just
wanna say a great big thank youto all our patrons. You're all
marvelous. You keep thisrunning.
And if you're not a patron yet,join the patronage and and come

(01:13):
to the our Discord, which is aPatreon exclusive benefit.

Dave (01:16):
And is The nicest place on the Internet.

Matthew (01:19):
Place on the Internet. Well done. See, the training
does work in the end.

Dave (01:27):
Does it?

Matthew (01:27):
Oh, hell. I'm just we we are we are gonna be talking
about the world of gaming andshortly. And I've got a new
western RPG to talk about,Macworld of gaming, that we've
just been told about. So thisis, like, hot off the presses. I
haven't even read the

Dave (01:47):
you sure we want to talk about a competitor?

Matthew (01:50):
Yeah. We do, because we want to show that ours is so
much better. This is cheaper,however. I'll give you that.

Dave (01:56):
I had a quick look at it. It does it does look I was gonna
say it does look quite cheap.But it's it's it's I think it's
aimed at a different level thanours. Let's put it that way.

Matthew (02:05):
Right. Okay. Let's not do Well, you can tell me about
it in a bit. I will. I'll letThe world of gaming coming up.
Then we are going to delvedeeper into the great dark. Do
you see what I did there?

Dave (02:18):
Delve. Well done.

Matthew (02:20):
Yeah. Well done. Well done. And that will be my
content.

Dave (02:25):
You are a podcasting genius, mate. Every every time I
do a podcast with you, I just Ijust I just get blown away by
your genius. Again and again.

Matthew (02:36):
You kneel at my experience, don't you?

Dave (02:38):
I I my well, my my legs go weak and I feel a bit sick. Yes.

Matthew (02:46):
Anyway I'm so restraining myself. Dave, what
is happening in the world ofgaming? We are a week away from
UK Games Expo. So in fact, I'mgonna change my question and
say, what is happening in theworld of UK Games Expo next
weekend?

Dave (03:05):
Oh, what isn't happening? There's a lot this this is gonna
be a particularly busy weekendfor us. Mhmm. It's normally very
busy. But this time, I mean, Ithink everybody who's a regular
listener will know that we aregoing to be running two stands
this time.
We're going to be running thefree league stand which you
could be on you could find at inHall 3 at Stand 1038. It's gonna

(03:30):
be a big Well, it's not thebiggest one we've ever had.
Think we worked out, but it's

Matthew (03:33):
No. We thought it was the biggest one.

Dave (03:35):
We only realized that

Matthew (03:36):
last year we were a bit bigger.

Dave (03:37):
Only by a couple of square meters. And that's that's by
dint of of kind of where we are.But, yeah, there's a full team
going. We've got your your kids,Tom and Lily are coming and Yep.
Lily's friend George.
Fabulous to have them along aswell. And then we've got my boy
Dean. He's gonna come as he hasdone the last two or three

(03:58):
years. And Boxboy. Can't forgetBoxboy.
Our very good friend, Neil

Matthew (04:04):
From Paladin Gaming. I wasn't gonna call him Boxboy.

Dave (04:07):
Well, you know, I didn't call Dean the name that we
called him at Comic Con, so thatI'm not gonna do that on air.
That's not fair.

Matthew (04:15):
You'll be peached though, listener, that obviously
we are excellent employers ofour of our team.

Dave (04:20):
We don't bully our team at all. We don't belittle people or
make their lives difficult oranything. But anyway, it's a
great team. Fabulous bunch offolks, and it's always an
absolute blast. But at the sametime, we are gonna be running
the effect podcast effectpublishing.
Let's get it right. Effectpublishing stand, which you will
be able to find also in Hall 3at Stand 601601. So come along

(04:46):
and and see us. Matthew's gonnabe spending most of his time
running that, but I'll be onthere for a big chunk of time on
Saturday. And we're obviouslygonna be

Matthew (04:54):
And Sunday. And Sunday you'll be there.

Dave (04:56):
Am I only on Sunday? Anyway.

Matthew (04:58):
I think so. Anyway. Certainly. I've got a voucher
here. I can work it out.

Dave (05:02):
Oh, well, doesn't matter. Don't mind. You'd be able come
and find us at one of those twoor both of those stands over the
weekend. But that isn't just itbecause there's loads of other
stuff that's going on.

Matthew (05:12):
Yeah. You're definitely there on the Sunday. You are
there on the Sunday from 10:30for an hour and then from 01:30
for an hour.

Dave (05:20):
Okay. Cool. That's all good. Yeah. So on the I mean, I
know most people aren't gonna bethere on the Thursday because
obviously that's the the setupday for the for the likes of us
who are going.
But Thursday is the awardsceremony for the judges awards,
05:00 where one of us will goalong and very gladly accept the

(05:42):
award for Free League for theMoria expansion for the One
Ring. Excellent work.Congratulations guys. Absolutely
fabulous bit of work on that.Then there's a press thing in
the evening.
Now I don't know. Are we goingto that in any sense?

Matthew (05:56):
Yes. We've got we've got our table at the press
table.

Dave (05:58):
As effect

Matthew (05:59):
rather than free. I I asked you yeah. Yeah. It's just
for us.

Dave (06:04):
I remember we had a conversation about Yeah. And and
this thing, it sounds verygrand, you know, the press
event. But it's basically it'sjust like a mini convention
where everyone sits around andpeople come along and say hello.

Matthew (06:15):
Yeah. We did it once for Free League

Dave (06:18):
Don't it? And we

Matthew (06:18):
told them it wasn't worth them paying for our time,
actually, because

Dave (06:24):
Not that much actually happened. No.

Matthew (06:26):
Much actually happening. You know, some people
with with press credentials gotearly access. Now given that you
and I are working for free forfor Effet Publishing, and and
we've got a brand new game tosay.

Dave (06:45):
We are Effet Publishing. Yeah.

Matthew (06:46):
We are Effet Publishing, but we're also, you
know, we're if we are alsounpaid by Effet Publishing. That
is true. So far so far, atleast.

Dave (06:56):
When Effect Publishing, bastard employer. I mean, don't
doesn't doesn't pay us a penny.Works us to the bone.

Matthew (07:02):
We don't even get free games. Or discount off their
store. Nothing. Nothing.

Dave (07:10):
No. I I I did offer you a a 10%, you know, staff discount.

Matthew (07:16):
Oh, a discount. Yeah. Yeah. To replace the broken
book, I assume.

Dave (07:19):
Yeah. Think yourself lucky.

Matthew (07:23):
So, anyway yeah. So because because our time is free
to us, we thought it might beworth going to push our book
there on the off chance thatsomebody might be more
interested in it than at thattime and have maybe a longer
chat with us. But, yeah, it mayturn out to be a total flop,

(07:45):
which case we'll never do itagain.

Dave (07:48):
But in my I mean, it's got I mean, we've we've done it.
I've probably done it threetimes over the years for for
Free League, and it's good. Itgets it's bigger each time, so
there's more people coming. Soit's we'll see how it is. But, I
mean, for someone like us, it'sit might well be worth doing it.
For Free League, a lot less so.But anyway

Matthew (08:07):
Of course, that coincides with the award of the
judges award for

Dave (08:13):
No. I've already said that. The judges award is at
05:00, which is ahead of it.

Matthew (08:17):
Oh oh, just before the press

Dave (08:19):
Yeah.

Matthew (08:19):
Press thing. Yeah. But I think I think they're in the
same space as it were. So oneleads into the other, I think.
Yeah.
What else have you got on the onon on the calendar? So Given
that you obviously have a bettergrasp of the calendar than I do.

Dave (08:32):
I do. I've I've written it down, which I think is probably
more than you've done. Oh. Iknow. Who knew who knew writing
something down would be a goodthing?
Yes. So getting on to the dayswhen people might be around. So
on the Friday, at 02:00, Matthewand I will be representing Free
League at the on the main stagewhere we would be talking to On

(08:53):
Tabletop who are the what wouldyou call them? Not a lot of the

Matthew (08:57):
The media partners. The official media partners of Games
Expo.

Dave (09:00):
That's the wrong word. Yeah. The media partner for UK
Games Expo. Lovely guys. Wetalked to them quite a lot last
year about Tales of the OldWest, which is great, and it was
a real pleasure.

Matthew (09:09):
And and about Free League. I mean Yeah. They were
meant to be talking to us aboutFree League, but we managed to
get an interview about Tales ofthe Old West as We did.

Dave (09:15):
We did, which was very good. Yeah. So yeah. So that's a
twenty minute slot where we getto talk about all things Free
League on behalf of Free League.And I hope

Matthew (09:24):
And also, though, Thomas has given us permission
to talk about Tales of the OldWest as part of the the Free
League open license via zeroengine. So Which is that's
that's cool.

Dave (09:38):
So that's eighteen minutes of the twenty.

Matthew (09:41):
And then a couple of minutes on some games that Free
League's made. Yeah.

Dave (09:44):
Yeah. Yeah. You know, old hat now. And then on the
Saturday, so we I I've got athing going on on Saturday. But
before that starts, you aregonna be the master of
ceremonies for the second annualDragonbane competition.
You can tell us about that.Absolutely.

Matthew (10:03):
So you may have seen the new starter scenario that
came out last year, which wascalled the sinking tower. You
may not be aware of the factthat that was the adventure that
we had teams of role playersgoing through on in in in a

(10:26):
timed experience, sort of Ithink it was simply two hours of
role playing, but obviously withpauses in between. But we had
actual egg timers. I've got themhere. I'm gonna take them back.
I've got to reread I I read thewe've got a new adventure this
year, and I read it when when itfirst came out in draft, which
was blooming ages ago. It'sdifferent format to The Sinking

(10:49):
Tower. I've gotta reread it,though, because I can't quite
remember exactly what's going onand whether we're going to need
the same egg timers, the timing,and things like that. We also,
though the egg timers last yearproved to be not massively
reliable, so there will be a bigclock on the screen as well.
Mhmm.
And I will be emceeing that, andthat will take pretty much all

(11:12):
of Saturday afternoon accordingto what we have available to us,
what with the, you know, prepand and and then the prize
giving at the end.

Dave (11:23):
So does that

Matthew (11:24):
start with for prizes yet. Okay. Last year, we had
some marvelous medals sponsoredby another company, whose name I
can't remember, until theypromised to sponsor us again for
this one. But if if they if ifthey don't come up with the
medals, Trump, we will be givingaway freely products as prices.
And

Dave (11:43):
does that start at 01:00? Or is it 12:00?

Matthew (11:50):
Let me remind myself. Let me have a look at my own
voter. I should have writtenthis down.

Dave (11:55):
See, it's really helpful to write things down. I I think
is it a 02:00?

Matthew (12:00):
Think no. I think it starts at 02:00.

Dave (12:02):
Yeah.

Matthew (12:03):
And I think I'm going off to prep at 01:30 according
to my voter.

Dave (12:07):
Yep. Cool. And are there spaces left if people still want
to

Matthew (12:11):
see Well, last I looked, which isn't, I must
admit, this morning, but a dayor two ago, was looking, there
were six spaces left. Now

Dave (12:21):
Cool. Out of out of a total of what? About 50 or
something?

Matthew (12:25):
40 or something, I Yeah. Or okay. I can't quite
remember. So so there's probablyenough there. If you've got a
bunch of mates you play withregularly and you'd like to go
and join as a team, you can dothat.
Or if you just want to go onyour own and get assigned to a
team, you can do that too. Wehad a mix of both in in last

(12:48):
year's. We had the Band ofBadgers came and they played as
a team.

Dave (12:51):
Oh, yeah. Cool. Cool.

Matthew (12:52):
We had a another team from Liverpool. Liverpool War
Gamers came as a team and ledthroughout the every time every
time I stopped to to check thescore, the the Liverpool
WarGamers were in the lead. Butin the last half hour or last
hour of the the game, a a a teammade up of people who'd just

(13:17):
come together and had beenassigned, which I think included
one family and a couple of otherpeople who'd who'd just joined
in the on the event, theyactually turned out to be the
winners. Cool. Congratulationsto them.

Dave (13:29):
Dark Horse coming up on the rails. Excellent.

Matthew (13:31):
Yeah. Lovely. Was a it was a good good old match. It
was fun fun to watch. I reallyenjoyed emceeing even though it
was also quite hard work.
But and and, obviously, I haveto say this can't happen without
all the generous support of thevolunteer GMs who come in. We
had quite a few from our circlelast year. I think this year,

(13:53):
only Bruce can do it again.Mohammed's not coming over from
Egypt to play Games this year.

Dave (13:59):
Oh, that's bitty.

Matthew (14:00):
And I think, somebody else who was that? Frank. Frank,
joined us last year, but I don'tthink he can do Games Expo this
year either. So but Bruce willbe there and a lot of other
brilliant GMs, because everybodywas fabulous. So so if you if
you're looking for a game, comeand play Dragonbane.

Dave (14:20):
Cool. Okay. So that's that's what you're doing on
Saturday afternoon. So Saturdayafternoon for me, at 02:30, I am
holding my what seems to beannual seminar now. And the
seminar is going to be talkingabout role playing game design
to to create a good playerexperience.
But I want to open it up andmake it a very informal

(14:43):
discussion, which you which weusually do, and get lots of lots
of audience questions anddiscussion going on. Great thing
is I invited Steve Jackson tojoin me again. So last year, UK
Games Expo said, Steve Jacksonof Steve Jackson Games. It's Oh,

Matthew (15:01):
damn it. I was happy to say, which Steve Jackson? And
then you could have replied, theone in from the role playing
games industry. And then I couldsay, no. But which of

Dave (15:10):
the And

Matthew (15:11):
you could say, the one that's written Fighting Fantasy
Adventures. And I can say, butwhich of the two?

Dave (15:17):
Anyway, Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games. So, yeah.
So he he he he sort of asked ifhe could join last year, which
was a pleasure. Was great.Absolutely.
But this year, I I I popped inan email to see if he wanted to
join me again, and heimmediately came back and said,
yes. That would be great. It wasgreat fun last time. So
brilliant to have Steve alongagain as my guest on that

(15:38):
seminar. So that's 02:30.
It's in the Piazza Suite, PiazzaSuite Room Number 3, the
boardroom. So come along jointhe join the chat. Last time it
was standing room only which wasfabulous. So yeah that would be
good. So that's 02:30 on theSaturday And then I think on
Sunday, we get the day off otherthan working on

Matthew (16:00):
get the day off other than running stands

Dave (16:02):
on Sunday. Working on if you let me fucking finish, mate.
My lovely line was butchered byyou stomping all over it.
Anyway, we get the day offexcept for working on the stands
because

Matthew (16:16):
Yeah.

Dave (16:16):
We haven't got any special thing arranged for the Sunday.
Yeah. So it's gonna be a lot offun. Great crowd of people
who'll be working with us. It'salways an absolute delight
running into all the people thatwe always run into at at UK
Games Expo.
And there's a couple of groupsthat I see every year, but I
don't see them any other time.I've got no idea what their
names are, but it's always areal pleasure to catch up with

(16:39):
them again and and have a quickchat.

Matthew (16:41):
Of course, they do tell you their name every time. You
just can't be bothered by

Dave (16:44):
sure they do, actually. There's definitely one group
that I've that I still haven'trun Alien for, because they keep
saying, you're you're gonna doan Alien demo. And I did I did
the I did The Walking Dead forthem, and I did Dragonbane for
them, I think, over the years.Lovely, lovely bunch of guys
from down Southwest. I thinkthey're Cornwall, Devon or
Cornwall, or possibly both.
Lovely bunch of guys, so I lookforward to seeing them again. I

(17:06):
have no clue what their namesare. I don't think they've ever
told me, but yeah, it's a greatfun thing, and it's always, it's
always hard work, and afterwardsI can't speak for a week, which
is possibly a good thing for mywife. But, yeah, looking forward
to it. Can't wait.

Matthew (17:22):
You should look after your voice like a voice
professional like I am.

Dave (17:26):
I do need to, because, yeah, my throat does give me a
bit of bother.

Matthew (17:29):
I'll give you some tips.

Dave (17:30):
All these people who I would never otherwise see, I see
once every UK Games Expo, andit's always a delight to see
them all. So I

Matthew (17:38):
really It does make going to conventions fun,
doesn't it? Really does.Convention crowd.

Dave (17:42):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew (17:44):
So drop us a line if you're going to UK Games Expo.
Oh, well, one thing we ought tosay, actually, particularly when
we talk about the fact thatwe're not doing anything on
Sunday, is we're not doing apodcast recording this year at
UK Games Expo. Because frankly,we're too blooming busy.

Dave (18:03):
Yeah. Yes.

Matthew (18:05):
So you won't be able to come and see our podcast show
and

Dave (18:08):
contribute to That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a pity. I
mean, that was a lot of fun.
I remember last year, there wasthere was one guy because
obviously a lot of our friendsand patrons come along, which is
brilliant. Lots of lovelyfriendly faces. But there was
one guy sitting at the back thatwe hadn't hadn't seen before,
and about ten minutes in, he gotsort of said, I think I'm in the

(18:28):
wrong I think I'm in the wrongseminar. But then he stayed and
enjoyed it because that was wedid the quiz, didn't we?

Matthew (18:34):
We did the quiz.

Dave (18:35):
Yeah. He said, no. This wasn't the seminar Really?

Matthew (18:37):
Pump quiz.

Dave (18:38):
But okay. I'll stay anyway. But yeah. So that was
quite cool. That was funny.

Matthew (18:42):
Yeah. Yeah. That was a fun quiz. I enjoyed doing that.
Yeah.
Yeah. Makes me think that maybewe should find some way of
recording something therebecause well, we'll we'll think
of it. Well, bring Maybe weshould

Dave (18:55):
Bring the equipment along, and let's see what we can work
out. Yeah.

Matthew (18:58):
Yeah. Okay. So that is everything going on at UK Games.
Well, it's not everything goingon at UK Games. So there are
gonna be some other companiesthere selling their games as
well.
I I advise you only to rememberStand 3601 where we're gonna be
and the other stand, which Ican't remember, where freely

(19:20):
you're gonna be.

Dave (19:21):
3103

Matthew (19:23):
Very memorable. 31038 or 3601. 6 0 1. Fix that in your
memory. Easier to remember.

Dave (19:33):
Come along and buy everything.

Matthew (19:36):
What other news is there from the world of gaming,
Dave?

Dave (19:39):
There's some new Dragonbane stuff coming out,
which I don't know a ton about.A couple of books, isn't there,
I think? So there's a Yes.There's an expansion called the
the City Of Arkhand, I think itis.

Matthew (19:54):
Which looks like a piratical coastal city. So that
looks fun.

Dave (19:59):
And and a book of a book of new magic.

Matthew (20:03):
Yes. Now the front cover of the city of Arkand has
got a duck on it, obviously. Butthis duck has got an eye patch,
I think, and a silver beak. Doyou know why people had silver
noses in the eighteenth centuryand seventeenth and eighteenth

(20:25):
centuries?

Dave (20:26):
I guess they were replacements after their noses
fell off from some horribledisease.

Matthew (20:32):
Generally from syphilis. Yes. You're right.
Yeah. So we have evidence herethat in the world of dragon
veins Dragon

Dave (20:40):
veins, syphilis is a thing.

Matthew (20:43):
And and ducks suffer from it as well.

Dave (20:45):
That's for real. I wonder if you're the only person that
leapt to that kind of logicalconclusion from

Matthew (20:56):
the beginning. It was the first the very first thought
I had on seeing that cover.

Dave (21:01):
Thought, oh,

Matthew (21:01):
dear. That that duck suffered from syphilis. Anyway
It

Dave (21:08):
looks lovely as always. It's coming up on Kickstarter,
so it's not out yet, butKickstarter on the June 3.

Matthew (21:15):
Third of June.

Dave (21:16):
That's when it will open, so it's not so far away. It's a
week or so. Yeah. The City ofWaves and Flames, it's called.
Arkand.
So, yeah, it looks looks verycool. Looks very good.

Matthew (21:29):
Now seeing all this lovely stuff come out for
Dragonbane is great, but itkinda makes me wish that
something like that would comeout for for Forbidden Lands.
Yeah. I just like my ForbiddenLands system better, but

Dave (21:44):
Yeah. I don't I haven't heard anything about what's up
for Forbidden Lands in in thefuture. I wonder if it's just
taking a bit of a backseat forthe time being.

Matthew (21:56):
Well, I I think if you're a Swedish company and
you've got Dragonbane, I thinkyou are morally required well,
obviously, one should say inSwedish, You're Okay. You and
your Swedish pronunciation. Youknow, I think you're morally a

Dave (22:15):
bit right, though, isn't it? I mean

Matthew (22:17):
You're morally obliged, though, to put that first,
generally. Because

Dave (22:24):
Possibly. Possibly.

Matthew (22:26):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean Anyway I mean, it

Dave (22:28):
would I mean, I don't know. It would be quite
interesting to see what thecomparative, like, sales success
of the two games

Matthew (22:37):
Oh, I think

Dave (22:38):
And I I don't I know. Dracot Okemora is is their baby.
It's their, you know, the thingthat they grew up with, and
therefore it's gonna get anawful lot of love and attention.
Particularly, you know,obviously now they've got the
license, which they obviouslydidn't have when when Forbidden
Lands was was created. But youhad hoped that Forbidden Lands
would still get a bit of love.

Matthew (22:57):
Yeah. I'm I'm they're they're kind of hoping for love,
but I can be patient onForbidden Lands. I mean, it's
not like we've finished any oneof the three campaigns that
they've put out for ForbiddenLands yet. No. But then I can't
even steer you in the rightdirection to finish one

Dave (23:13):
of the first That is that is true. But, I mean, you know,
we we play it so rarely. AndYeah. Now you're running
spectacular.

Matthew (23:21):
In fact, we're on pause for for Yeah.

Dave (23:24):
For superheroes. And then there's always the the
possibility we might wanna goback to Coriolis at some point
with, you know, Ayafet, Otho,and that group potentially,
because that's a story thathasn't finished. So there's a
lot of competing games thatdeserve airtime as well. And I
said, I'm loving Spectaculars,but I I I I would love to still

(23:47):
love to play more of Windlands.But yeah.

Matthew (23:51):
Yeah.

Dave (23:52):
Cool.

Matthew (23:54):
Right. So what's next in our list of games to talk
about? No. So do you remember,Dave, the conversation we had
years ago now about the new gamethat was coming out of Monte
Cook games, and that was theInvisible Sun Black Cube? Yes.

(24:17):
You only remember that because Ihad to remind you

Dave (24:20):
before we started recording this. Well, that was
that was my my very elaborateyes, which actually means no. I
can't remember it at all. Ihaving had a quick chat before
we started recording, therethere is inklings of memory in
there somewhere. Yes.
So but go on.

Matthew (24:35):
The Invisible Sun, it used to be the most expensive
role playing game you could buy.A number of our patrons bought
one, I seem to remember,including Phil and some other
people. And it famously came ina big black cube costing
something north of $300. And, ofcourse

Dave (24:59):
That is if

Matthew (24:59):
bought it

Dave (25:00):
oofs, Phil, for money, isn't it? That is

Matthew (25:02):
Yeah. And, of course, if you bought it from The US in
a Kickstarter or something,you'd be paying some enormous
amount of postage too. Although,possibly not as much as the
postage nowadays is. But it wasa great big box full of stuff,
and it was meant to be a roleplaying game for grown ups. It's
a very surreal role playing gamewhere the world we live in is

(25:23):
the gray world.
It all feels very normal. Butunlike a matrix underneath it
all, there's a world of surrealmagic and imagination underneath
it. In fact, there's a bunch ofworlds you can visit, and you
are somebody who can flitbetween these different worlds
and do magic at each other and,you know, generally have weird

(25:46):
surreal adventures. It was meantto a game for grown ups, and I
remember them saying a couple ofthings. The you know, the grown
ups are time poor, so it's agame that, you know, you could
work out that way.
And I remember my previousthesis being it didn't feel a

(26:07):
game for time. Being an actualTime Paul grown up, it didn't
feel like it was gonna beefficient in its use of my time
like some other games. Forexample, Spectacular. It's a
superhero game that we'replaying, as mentioned, which is
a real no prep

Dave (26:24):
Yeah.

Matthew (26:25):
Yeah. Or very low prep game and some other stuff there.

Dave (26:27):
Well, kind of prep as you go, isn't it? And that's that's
actually part of the shtick ofthe game, which

Matthew (26:32):
actually Exactly. Everybody joins in the prep.
Yeah. So so, yeah, that's thesort of thing I might have
imagined for a game like this.And I wasn't seeing it there.
I did wonder whether it waswhether it was a game for grown
ups who weren't actually propergrown ups like you and I that

(26:52):
have had kids and acquired abunch of stuff and including our
kids stuff, which then, youknow, this then fills attics and
cupboards all over the place,and, really, we need to get rid
of it. I thought it was a gameperhaps for people who'd only
just turned into being grown upand got their first house or
something, but nothing to put init. Because this big black cube

(27:12):
came with a bunch of plasticshit that you could put on your
mantelpiece or your shelves, aswell as ostensibly use them in
the game. Well, the new editionthat they're about or they are
kick starting or not kickstarting, they're on Bakuket, is
called Indigo, Invisible SunIndigo. And it is, I think, a

(27:37):
relatively shit light version.
So if you've already got theblack cube, there are no new
rules in there. There may be abit of tightening up of the
rules or some something likethat. But you you don't need to
get it as a new addition. But ifyou didn't get the black cube
because, like me, you had ahouse full of shit already, then
this one might be the one foryou. It's about a third of the

(27:59):
price.
And what did you say it was? Ahundred and $8 or something on
the on the back of your kit?

Dave (28:04):
I saw I saw I'm on there now. Let me okay. I'm trying to
see what the what the levelsare. I I saw something that said
a hundred and $80, but that wasjust that might not be

Matthew (28:15):
Oh, so more like half the price then.

Dave (28:17):
That might not be right. So I don't wanna Okay.

Matthew (28:20):
Anyway, hopefully cheaper to post as well,
although with modern postage,may be more expensive. Less
Okay.

Dave (28:28):
So you've got a bunch of levels. So yeah. Invisible so
actually, yes. Invisible SunIndigo, print and PDF, is a
hundred and $79.

Matthew (28:40):
Right. More like half the price.

Dave (28:41):
Electric Sun on its own, which is another addition
expansion, is 54.

Matthew (28:47):
Yeah. That's a new magic expansion.

Dave (28:49):
Yeah. But But then if you get the lots together, then it's
200. So you can get the ElectricSun for $20 instead of $54 if
you get that along with Indigo.But so that's yeah. You're
looking at a hundred and 80 to$200 at the kind of entry level,
really.

Matthew (29:08):
Cool. And and the other thing is it's coming this time
with a virtual tabletop. Sosuddenly, it starts steering
itself more towards real timepoor adults who may not be able
to gather together for the gamesand stuff like that. I'm being
unfair. There there were modesof play where two people could
get together and do a sidequest.

(29:28):
But I didn't particularly seethat as a novelty. Anyway,
there's that. Do we want to talkabout betting bullets?

Dave (29:37):
So just so was just so there's crowdfunding at the
moment. So if you're interested,it's running until June, which
is about ten days from the pointwhere we're recording. They've
they've they've smashed theirgoal. Their goal was a hundred
thousand dollars. They're nearlyat 200.
We have thirteen days to go. Soif you're interested, crack on
and go and have a look. I mean,Monte Cook, good bunch of

(29:58):
people. I won't be backing it. Idon't have that kind of money to
splash at the moment, and Idon't have space for a big box
of stuff.
But yeah. Yeah. So what were youtalking about there? The Betting
Bullets.

Matthew (30:12):
Betting Bullets.

Dave (30:13):
Yeah. So

Matthew (30:16):
this is a Western RPG that I just thought we should
mention because one of oursponsors told us about it. I
can't remember who that was.Bruce told us about it.

Dave (30:27):
Probably. Yeah.

Matthew (30:30):
It comes from composed composed dream games. It's
cheaper than our game, but ithas fewer pages. How many pages
does it have? Anyway, it's aWestern game. It includes
gunslinging and horse wrangling,which is a bit like our game.

(30:52):
It includes something that wehaven't considered, which are
lonesome campfire songs.

Dave (30:56):
Well, think I mean, lonesome campfire songs, we
haven't included it, but youcould say that that would earn
you a point of faith.

Matthew (31:02):
Earn you a point of faith. Yeah.

Dave (31:03):
If you're sat around your campfire singing a lonesome
song. Or maybe maybe if it'sjust making you more lonely, it
it takes away a point of faith.

Matthew (31:13):
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (31:16):
This game does seem to focus on one of the things that
we are very keen on as wellthough, which is your town.
Mhmm. It it I think it seems toveer away from the idea of you
are cowboys riding through theWest, basically murder hobos,
dungeon delving as they call it,or mind delving to to to to a

(31:39):
game style where you are focusedaround a location. Yeah. I mean,
all I've done is look at thepage, so I can't really say
anything else about it.
I think it's probably I thinkthe rules are some of the
conflict are diceless. So quitehow they how they do they say,
you know, say you you use yourbullets. So I wonder if you have

(32:02):
a a limited number of bulletsand you then bet a number of
bullets and whoever bets themost bullets wins or something.
I don't know. I'm speculatingbecause I haven't read it.
But it's you don't use dice todeal with conflict resolution.
But, yeah, I mean, I I thinkit's a game that's on a
different scale to ours.

Matthew (32:22):
Yes.

Dave (32:22):
So I think by the

Matthew (32:23):
way, with it I prefer the illustration in ours, I
gotta say.

Dave (32:27):
I agree.

Matthew (32:28):
But it's not actually from Composed Dream Games. I see
that they say that it's fromRadio James Games.

Dave (32:38):
K.

Matthew (32:38):
Whoever they are. So anyway, check it out if you
seriously want to. We'll put alink in the show notes. But
obviously, there's also a linkin the show notes to our game,
which is called, remind me,Dave?

Dave (32:52):
Tales of the Old West.

Matthew (32:53):
Tales of the Old West. And I think it's time for some
Old West news.

Dave (32:57):
Oh, nicely done. Oh, that was a segue. Well done, mate. I
I

Matthew (33:03):
Kneel. Kneel at my feet. Podcasting Padawan.

Dave (33:08):
It's it's not a it's not a kneeling worth one that. I mean,
it's it was a bit it was a bitblunt. You know? It wasn't
subtle, but it was it was wellworked.

Matthew (33:17):
You know? Cute. But, Anyway. Anyway. Tell us the Old
West.
What is the latest news from theOld West, Dave?

Dave (33:25):
Well, you spoke to Jamie most recently, but US
fulfillment is happening.Shipment arrived in The US.
Whoo. Didn't sink or didn'tcrash in the aircraft, which is
cool.

Matthew (33:37):
It's always good when the plane doesn't crash.

Dave (33:39):
It is always good when a plane doesn't crash, but oh, I
was about to slide intopolitical Don't don't. No. But
yeah. So by now, which is SundayMay, every US backers package
should be on the way in in theinternal US post. So if you
haven't received it already,it's gonna be on your doorstep

(33:59):
pretty soon.
I do know some have received it.I do know some have had email
notifications that it's coming.So that is great. So thank you
for being patient all our USbackers. But, you know, we we
are still in May.
We said target delivery date wasMay. I'm pleased that we're
getting it out to the vastmajority of people by the time
that we said we would. So great.Enjoy it when it arrives.

Matthew (34:25):
Yes. Yeah. And it's very exciting to hear that. I
want to see the thing I lovemost about this game is seeing
it in your settings. So when youget the parcel, take a photo of
it.
I am not tired of seeing thatcover. No. Put it on your table
or in whatever setting you like.Maybe we should say there's a
prize for the most unusualsetting for it. Put it on your

(34:50):
socials and

Dave (34:51):
No. Let's not encourage people to do some stupid selfie
in somewhere dangerous to to wina what would be a pretty minor
prize.

Matthew (34:58):
It would be a minor prize. But if you want to do
something stupid somewheredangerous, go ahead. No. Don't
listen to Dave.

Dave (35:05):
Absolutely. Don't do it. Do something stupid, but
somewhere safe. That would

Matthew (35:11):
be cool.

Dave (35:11):
That would be cool.

Matthew (35:14):
Alright. But remember, the dangerous places are the the
best looking places.

Dave (35:18):
No. No. No. No. No.
Don't encourage it. Enoughpeople who kill themselves
taking selfies in stupid placesthat

Matthew (35:24):
the last one legally required to tell you not to do
it anywhere dangerous.

Dave (35:28):
And you are morally required by me to do that as
well. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway. What

Matthew (35:36):
else? What else is there from the news? I'm sure I
wrote something down in our shownotes.

Dave (35:43):
Well, you're working very hard on getting our online
retail system working.

Matthew (35:47):
Oh, Yes. That's a good point. Yes. So We

Dave (35:49):
we are very keen to get our our website up and running.
Hoping to get that before UKGames Expo. That would be great.
But you're the man doing all thework. So how's it coming along?

Matthew (35:59):
Well, we'll see how this bank holiday Monday goes,
which will give me a realopportunity to do it. I for some
reason, the the website isdeciding to show as featured the
dice tray as opposed to the corebook. So I've gotta work out why
that's happening. Right. I can'tseem to simply change it to the
core books, which may be asymptom of me cataloging the

(36:23):
core books as two versions ofthe same thing, which they are.
One has got one cover, one hasgot the other cover. But for
some reason, that may make itinvisible to the featured
element. Anyway, I'm gonna sortit. I'm gonna sort it. Cool.
And then the other thing I'vegotta do, of course, is put in a
table for shipping. I've gottawork out how to do that under
this system.

Dave (36:44):
Right. Yep.

Matthew (36:45):
So that people get charged the right amount for
whatever they buy. But hopefullyso there's quite a lot of work
still to do on it, to be honest.But hopefully, you will go to it
there. We're doing itcheapskate, I've gotta say. So
we're using a free shop from Ican't remember with it.

(37:05):
Square or Stripe, one of thepayment providers. And it will
be linked to from our website,but it won't come with a, you
know, fancy effect URL. It'll,you know, it'll have whatever
the the URL of the free shop is.

Dave (37:22):
Right. Yep.

Matthew (37:23):
But, you know, it'll be safe and there'll be, you know,
decent data protection for yourdetails and your card details
because it's coming from a Yeah.You know, a proper provider of
payment details and stuff likethat. And they'll take a bigger
cut off each sale becausethey're giving us a shot for
free. But until we see volume,that's the

Dave (37:44):
way to

Matthew (37:44):
do it.

Dave (37:45):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we I mean, again, we've got no
idea how much traffic we'll getonline. So, yeah, it's the right
way to go about it. And then ifwe if we become more successful
and it it requires it, we canthen do something more bespoke
perhaps.

Matthew (37:59):
Yeah. We could even pay a web developer to do it and who
who won't struggle with thefeature thing being the dice
tray. The one thing that we'vegot the lowest stock of. I I
even wonder whether it's doingthat because stock's low.

Dave (38:11):
Right. Okay.

Matthew (38:13):
Maybe. Lowest lowest currently. We're getting some
hopefully, in time for UK GamesExpo. So if you're burning for a
dice tray, do come and see us atUK Games Expo.

Dave (38:22):
Fingers crossed. Cool.

Matthew (38:25):
People are asking about our own virtual tabletop.
They've seen that Invisible Sunis finally doing one, and
they're saying, well, where'sthe sales of the Old West 1?

Dave (38:38):
It's coming. It's been worked on for some time now. Our
developer is testing it, andhe's got some testers to to help
out with that. Quite what thatmeans about how far we are from
delivery and getting out in theworld for people to use, I I
don't know. Do you have a bettersense?

Matthew (38:56):
I think Paul was kinda going something like next month,
but that seems awfully close.But I guess well, I guess it
depends a bit on, you know, it'sout with five testers now. It
it'll you know, hopefully,they'll discover whether it's
got problems or not. And if ithasn't got problems, maybe it

(39:17):
will be as out as soon as nextmonth. Who can tell?
But yeah. But it's coming soon.I think that's what we can And
it'll be coming via the Forge.I've signed a contract with
Foundry. So you'll get if you ifyou're a backer, you'll get a
free license where you'll get alink from us.

(39:38):
Yep. I'm gonna say this. Ifyou're a backer and you get a
link from us, if you aregenuinely interested in using
it, it's free to you. We made itfree to everybody, but it does
cost us money. So don't just usethe link and, you know, and rob
us

Dave (39:55):
of of

Matthew (39:57):
of of the money we have to pay to Foundry, unless you
intend to use it. I'm gonna justsay that because Yeah. That is a
cost. When when we promised it,we didn't realize that that was
a cost that was gonna be there.But but, yeah.
Yeah. Sorry. I don't I don'twanna be a Danny Downer on this,
but that's

Dave (40:15):
Yeah. But, again, I think it's it's a fair point. So if if
you if you wanna use it,obviously, crack on and get on
and use it. If you're notinterested in it, then then
please don't don't takeadvantage of that when you get
it.

Matthew (40:25):
And if you're not a backer, there will be a a
obviously, the the the way thatFoundry stuff works is the core
system is free, so you can havea muck around in that. And in
fact, we've added some stuff inthe core system which we feel is
really integral to playing thegame, but which other publishers
might expect you to pay for.

Dave (40:45):
Mhmm.

Matthew (40:46):
But we didn't think that was fair.

Dave (40:47):
Anyway, so the other thing for Old West news I just wanna
throw in is I've been working onthe Gold Country. Our next our
next expansion. So the what I'vebeen doing at the moment is
actually my kind of my the mostfun thing, but actually it
becomes quite tiresome after awhile, which is basically

(41:08):
putting together all the mapsthat I think we're gonna need
for the book. But also, that'sgreat because it helps me when
when we get to writing stuff,that really helps me visualize
and focus on on the writingstuff.

Matthew (41:20):
You know, I was thinking about this actually,
because you've shared a coupleof these maps with me. And I was
just just about to say that thisis obviously your process. These
these maps, while geographicallycorrect, are also kind of mind
maps for you, aren't they? Couldthey They're part of your
meditative process aboutthinking how, you know, how are

(41:42):
we gonna fit a story together inthis landscape?

Dave (41:45):
Absolutely. I I I I get a lot of ideas just by drawing
maps. And and I enjoy doing it.I think the the the thing that
makes it difficult in thissituation is making it authentic
enough so somebody, let's say,who lives in California, doesn't
go, that's bloody stupid. Whatthe fuck are you doing there?
What the hell have you donethere? Yeah. That's particularly

(42:10):
acute where it comes to cities.So I'm I've been I've done loads
of work on trying to get a a mapof San Francisco in 1850. And
I've had two two or threeiterations that were
subsequently proven to be wrongwhen I did some more research.
I now think I've got a goodthing for for for San Francisco.

(42:30):
So that's cool. That's gonnalook really good. I'm enjoying
doing that. But it is it's it'sa fun process, but it's actually
a really long and drawn outprocess as well when when you're
doing it.
I did find a really interestingso there's San Francisco you've
got the San Francisco HistoricalSociety which I found, and I
haven't approached them yet butI probably will. But on their

(42:52):
website, they've got a resourceof about, I don't know, 40 or
50, maybe a few more, historyvideos. So I watched one of
those, which is entitled the thetopography of early San
Francisco, which is a fiftyminute video about San Francisco
in 1850. And it was, I mean, itwas pretty dry, and I think most

(43:15):
people would probably find itreally boring. But for me it was
just absolutely fascinating, andthere were so many things in it
that I was pulling out, one tohelp with getting the map right,
which is again really important,but also there was things where
every few every few minutes Iwas going, okay, that's an
interesting thing for a player.
That's an interesting bit ofcolor to make the place more
authentic. That, you know so itwas really good. I really

(43:36):
enjoyed watching it and learnedloads. So, yeah. So that process
is ongoing at the moment.
I'm trying to decide at themoment which other cities or
towns we want to recreate in theworld so players can go there.
Some I discard because finding amap is really difficult, or
actually some of them are reallyboring. Because in seems that

(44:02):
for the main towns, things likeplaces like San Francisco,
Sacramento, Stockton, in inCalifornia in the '18 early
eighteen fifties, the people whocreated them were really really,
what's the right word, strict onhow they set the towns up. So
they set them up in a in a grid.

Matthew (44:24):
Grid. Yeah.

Dave (44:24):
As a lot of US cities are set up in a grid pattern because
they were made from nothing.There was not there was not much
there beforehand. But actually,for a gaming location and a map
that you look at, it's reallyquite boring. So I've I've
dropped a couple. There was aninteresting one about
Sacramento, which I think we'llprobably include in the book,

(44:46):
where I found a map.
And on the map, you've gotSacramento. And then just over
the river, you've got a placecalled Boston. And and I I
thought, okay. I never heard ofthat. Nobody ever talks about
it.
And I looked on Google Earth andor Google Maps, and there was no
place called Boston, anywherenear Sacramento. And I looked
into it, and it turned out thatthat was what was called the
paper city. And it was added tothe maps to fool investors in

(45:11):
the East into thinking there wasmore going on there than there
was. Oh. So they would investthinking that the city was
bigger and there was more thanone city.
So that was a really cool littlelittle bit of information. So
anyway, at the moment we've gotthe the book planned out in in
rough, so we've got a prettygood idea what we're gonna
create for the book. I'm plowingthrough the maps which is great

(45:32):
fun, but they're coming alongand then yeah, once we've got
those, we can really dive intothe the actual text.

Matthew (45:40):
I can see an adventure there where there's some some
highfalutin investors comingover from the East Coast. And
the the the player charactersare charged with making a fake
city. Making Boston real.

Dave (45:55):
Or fooling them into thinking that this they haven't
been fooled. Yeah.

Matthew (46:00):
No. It's

Dave (46:01):
it's it's great fun. Yep.

Matthew (46:03):
Cool. So, yeah, that's that's that's that's going going
well. I haven't I I I'm I'mstruggling to get a picture
together. We we all wanna wewant to do a picture. I Yeah.
Haven't Yeah. Managed to I Iapproached one of our artists,
he said it was beyond him, whichI think is probably right. But

(46:24):
and, also, I've just been toobusy. I think I'll approach
Tazio next and see whether hecan do something. Yeah.
And I've got some pictures tosend him as reference, but I
don't think we're gonna get itin time for UK Games Expo.

Dave (46:38):
Yeah. No. That seems unlikely now, doesn't it? Yeah.

Matthew (46:40):
Yeah. And I've got other stuff to do. I'm building
a living shop for god's sake.Anyway, is that the is that all
our Old West news?

Dave (46:50):
I think the only other thing I would say is yesterday,
we had

Matthew (46:55):
Oh god. Yeah. That's

Dave (46:56):
the thing. Thought we had the first game of Tales of the
Old West with the books and withthe trouble dice and with the
the official, dice trays and theGM screen. And, it was just
great to to, you know, play thegame with the game, actually,
because we played it loads butwithout the game. But now we've

(47:17):
had it. And, you know, we had areally good time, a really good
session.
But, yeah, it was nice just tobe able to, you know, have the

Matthew (47:24):
Yes. It was fun. You know, obviously, a lot of people
say, well, you know, if you haveto refer to the rule books
during play, actually, you'remaking a break in play. But I
thought we made an extra specialattention to it. Now what is the
rule here?
Let us look at the rule book.

Dave (47:38):
Yeah. Exactly. Let me check this this handy dandy,
really nicely done contentindex. And, oh, yes. I can did
did find there's a couple ofthings that I could have put in
the index that we didn't.

Matthew (47:50):
Yeah. But more difficult to find the new
expensive to be. Yeah.

Dave (47:53):
Yeah. And then and then Tony, having said very, very
nicely, and I'm I'm sure hewon't mind us saying this, that
he thought the book was a thingof beauty, and he really, you
know, gave us a lot of praise,which is lovely for him to say
that. He did say that when thefirst time he opened it, he
instantly found a typo. Bastard.No.

(48:14):
But he hasn't found another onesince. So Yeah. So I think I I
seeing seeing I I had the theweek long task of proofreading
it, I'm feeling pretty pleasedif there's only one typo left in
it. So yeah. But it was greatfun.
Had a really good session. And

Matthew (48:33):
We're gonna carry on in a couple of weeks' actually, the
week after UK Games Expo aswell.

Dave (48:37):
Yeah. You guys are far too slow, so we got nowhere near the
end of the scenario.

Matthew (48:42):
Yeah. Well, you it's because we kept looking things
up in the book.

Dave (48:47):
And going, oh, what a lovely book and having a big
sniff.

Matthew (48:51):
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. We did. It's lovely.
It's lovely. And we we gave acopy of the book to our friend,
Andy Gibbs, who has been astalwart player, but

Dave (49:01):
Yes.

Matthew (49:01):
Couldn't back us. Although he's just offered us
some money for it, and I gottaturn him down and say, no. It's
a gift, Andy.

Dave (49:08):
Yeah. Happy birthday.

Matthew (49:10):
But the fun thing was I thought, oh, I drove up. I
thought, oh, damn. Should I havepicked up a packet of dice to
give him just to round it out?Hell, yeah. And I'm glad I
didn't because he had gone toone of our current stockists.
We haven't got much in retailthe moment, but one of our
stockists is Athena Games inKnowledge. He'd seen the display
there, and I told him not to buythe book. So he didn't buy the

(49:34):
book, but he did buy a pack ofdice.

Dave (49:37):
A set of trouble dice. Yeah. A

Matthew (49:39):
set of trouble dice, which

Dave (49:40):
was

Matthew (49:40):
a fantasy.

Dave (49:41):
So And it was very cool using the trouble dice in anger
for the first time. That wasYeah. That was very cool.
Although, I obviously didn't getto actually roll any trouble of
us being the GM, so I've got towait until till my campaign gets
going again with Tony running itto actually use them properly.
But, yeah, that was great.
It was really nice. I mean, amoment, like, where everything
basically of the last six yearsbasically all came to that

(50:05):
moment.

Matthew (50:06):
Came to go?

Dave (50:06):
Really. Yeah.

Matthew (50:07):
Yeah.

Dave (50:07):
It was it was lovely.

Matthew (50:09):
It it felt very special occasion, actually. We tried to
take a photograph of it. It'snot great, but we might share it
in our socials.

Dave (50:16):
I'll chuck it on the on on the socials anyway. But, yeah,
it's anyway, cool. It's probablyenough old news. Okay.

Matthew (50:26):
Us talk about building great ships in the great dark.

Dave (50:30):
General systems vehicles, as you call them.

Matthew (50:33):
Right. Yes. I ought to explain this. So Do

Dave (50:36):
you wanna do you wanna explain afterwards?

Matthew (50:38):
No. I'm gonna explain it beforehand. Now you brought
it

Dave (50:40):
up. Okay.

Matthew (50:42):
So in the book, the great ships are called the GSV,
this, that, or the other. And itreminds me about general systems
vehicles from the culture novelsby Ian m Banks. And yes. And you
will see in this that maybe thatis an unfair comparison. I

(51:05):
really, really, really want tolove Coriolis, the great dark.
But it confounds me again andagain. A couple of months back,
we got the pretty good betaversion. The illustrations by

(51:26):
Martin Grip is lovely. Theendpapers feature geometric maps
of this new lost horizon, andthere is a more readable map
among the pages. The graphicdesign is great.
But when I backed Choriodis thethird horizon, I read through

(51:53):
the PDF eagerly from beginningto end. I loved every paragraph,
every word. In my mind, I wasalready expanding the world.
Hell, it even inspired me tocall my mate Dave and suggest we
start a podcast about it. Thegreat dark has not inspired me

(52:16):
in the same way.
I have read the PDF like I readmost other games, using the
contents page to direct me tothe bits I'm most interested in,
at the best skim reading, at theworst ignoring the rest. But as

(52:38):
I reported a few weeks ago, someof our patrons enjoyed a great
version of the starter adventurerun by our friend and patron,
Thomas. Check back on episode256 to hear us all discussing
it. But one of the things thatinspired me the most was the

(52:59):
great ship. Thomas had realizedthere was a great opportunity
for intrigue, one of the keythemes of the game, according to
page nine, and there was.
Thomas painted scenes of tryingto gain favor at a massive
captain's dinner, a creepingelectrical failure that might

(53:20):
have been sabotage, a cult ofcourier light worshipers who had
created a communal space in thebowels of the vessel, and
rivalry between factions thatspilled out into an incident
that might have destroyed theship. I was impressed that the
adventure contained such detail,So many story hooks that seemed

(53:46):
tailor made for the diversebackgrounds of the player
characters. It turned out,though, that the hooks seemed
tailor made because they were byThomas. None of the great ship
detail came from the adventure.Thomas explained that he had

(54:06):
expanded the adventure usingmaterial from some of the
background lore plus hisknowledge of our characters.
I was thrilled by what he haddone. I was inspired to give
building a great ship a go. Butwhat I thought I would be doing
is using the great ship buildingtables in the relevant chapter

(54:30):
towards the end of the book. Andhere was my next disappointment.
There were no such tables.
In fact, there isn't even awhole chapter on great ships.
There are just four pages inchapter 11, space travel and
expeditions dedicated to greatships. Two of those pages are a

(54:53):
labeled illustration of a greatship. And I'm going to say it.
Even that illustration isdisappointing.
I blame Thomas for that. He haspainted a picture in our minds
that was big, not as big as thehigh liners in the dune movie,

(55:17):
but similar to those instructure. A huge cylinder with
the hollow space in the middlebeing where shuttles and maybe
even slipstream cruisers dock toprotect them from the hazards of
the slipstream. What we get inthe book, however, is more

(55:38):
modest. The shape is lessexciting too, an oversized
submarine.
Now I get the reason for this.The game is inspired by tall
ships of the nineteenth century,and in particular, the
fascinating novel, The Terror.To make the great ships too out

(55:59):
of this world, too big even,might that might make them feel
too safe, less like a tool ship,and more like an ocean liner.
Labels point to various parts ofyour standard great ship, the
graviton projector, the bridge,the infirmary, the crew

(56:24):
compartments and galley,etcetera, etcetera. Talking of
which, that infirmary and crewcompartments are indicated in
the drawing by a row ofportholes.
They add to the previous centuryfeel of the vessel, but they
also make it seem much smallerthan it should. I have a

(56:47):
sneaking suspicion that therover and human figures at the
bottom of the picture were addedlater to try and restore some
scale to the ship. But I shouldbe more positive. The labels are
not just labels. Well, actually,most of them are, but a couple

(57:09):
are almost almost a table too.
Listing upgrades that some greatship might have to distinguish
them from the others. Not everybridge has a ship intelligence,
an orbital scanning suite, orescape pods. And not all crew

(57:30):
compartments feature comfortablecabins, a shrine, an arboretum,
a library, a laboratory, orhydroponic farms. Some of these
items even come with gearbonuses for certain tasks. But,
generally, there is not enoughmaterial to truly distinguish

(57:51):
between the great ships.
I was hoping for a few pages oftables to help a GM create a
vivid picture of the quirks andidiosyncrasies of each vessel.
What is the one feature eachgreat ship has that none of the
others share? What is thepersonality of the ship
intelligence? What are the weirdtraditions of the crew? What

(58:14):
strange cargo does the captainAlbae insist is replenished
before every voyage?
What are the intriguesparticular to each vessel? Which
function has the most authorityamong the command crew. None of
that exists. Yeah. That leavesplenty of scope for great ships

(58:36):
to be fleshed out in futuresupplements, but I am
disappointed that each of only11 great ships in existence does
not warrant a short paragraphfull of story hooks like even
the minor systems of the thirdhorizon got.
Let's end this essay then withmy own thoughts about one of the

(58:59):
great ships, the GSV Zalos. Thisgreat ship is firmly in control
of the Navigators Guild, andthat is reflected in the crew of
the Zalos. The under captain,Ubon Din Jamil, has no truck
with courier lights, and this ismost evident in the absence of

(59:21):
the Herat role on the commandcrew. There is no shrine to the
nine icons on the vessel. And ifanyone is foolish enough to
question Din Jamil on thematter, they will be on the
receiving end of a rant abouthow icon worship is a made up
religion that brought about theend of the third horizon.

(59:44):
That said, there is a strangequasi religious tradition that
passengers of the ship find hardto get used to. Occasionally, at
strange times that no oneoutside the crew can reliably
predict, the crew down tools toopen up all the communicators

(01:00:05):
and sing in polyphonic harmony aprayer of safe passage to the
end of the journey. The captainAl Bey's voice joins in the
chorus, but he is seldom seen.He keeps modest quarters it is
said at the very heart of theship.

Dave (01:00:28):
So it's really interesting hearing your your piece there
Matt and I'm coming from thisfrom a point of view of somebody
who hasn't looked in the bookyet or hasn't read any

Matthew (01:00:39):
You do like to have a proper book to

Dave (01:00:40):
look at. I love to have the real book to sit down and
read. I'm I'm not a big fan

Matthew (01:00:43):
of that you ever, you know, read the rules of the game
you we wrote given that it's allbeen electronic. Oh, no. You
actually, you did have a papercopy, didn't you? You'd printed
it all out.

Dave (01:00:55):
Yes. Yes. So whenever I was running anything, I printed
off the relevant chapters andstuff. Yeah. I much prefer to
have paper.
So I haven't read that. So, youknow, I've got no none of that
context. But, I think the onething that that really jumps out
from what you were saying is, issomething that bugs me. A bug is
that the right word? Somethingthat's It

Matthew (01:01:15):
might bug you. It bugged me, I think.

Dave (01:01:18):
Slightly disappointed me about spaceships in Coriolis as
a whole, which was, they neverquite seemed to make of it what
I wanted them to make of it. Itnever quite took the front and
center position in themechanics, in the way the rules

(01:01:38):
work, in the way I kind ofwanted it. So spaceships in the
the third horizon are great.That's fun. They they are almost
a character of in in their ownselves.
And as a player, I invest a lotof my love in the ship that my
my characters own or crew orpilot or whatever. But they were

(01:01:58):
still just a ship. There wasn'tany anything about them that
made them greater than that. AndI was thinking from certainly
from our early conversationswith with Nilsson and Costa,
that the great ships in thegreat dark would fill that gap.
And, again, it feels to me fromwhat you're saying that it still
doesn't quite doesn't quite hitthat mark.

Matthew (01:02:19):
I remember you being disappointed about Coriolis,
third horizon, that the ship theshipbuilding and development
rules were not like the arcbuilding stroke development
rules that you had in MutantYear Zero.

Dave (01:02:36):
Exactly. Yeah.

Matthew (01:02:37):
A say in it. And it feels to me that that feels like
a burning absence from this ruleset as well. Yeah. I mean,
obviously, you know, the story,narratively, at least in in
Third Horizon, you have afinancial interest in your ship
generally. So the players cannarratively make a decision

(01:02:59):
about we are going to build thisnew module to it or, you know,
make this modification to it.
Whereas, I don't think there's anarrative reason why the players
would be making any decisionsabout a great ship because they
are not running the great ship.They are merely passengers
effectively on the great ship inin the way the narrative flows.
But you could still you know, weare merely townsfolk in tales of

(01:03:22):
the Old West, and yet we get tomake a decision to spend our
development points.

Dave (01:03:30):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:03:32):
Settlement points.

Dave (01:03:33):
Settlement points. Yeah.

Matthew (01:03:35):
Settlement points to influence the development of the
town we are in and maybe take adirect influence if, you know,
you you kill the mayor and getvoted in in his place, Dave. My

Dave (01:03:49):
character doesn't want to be mayor. He's he's he's a good
guy. He's running his business.Not hurting anyone.

Matthew (01:03:59):
And yeah. So that feels like a noticeable absence here.
And there are a couple of otherthings where I felt there may
have been some stuff like thatin an earlier draft, and it got
stripped out and made smaller tofit it into a page count.

Dave (01:04:17):
I mean, you say you say that there's only, like, four
pages of of references writtenabout great ships. Yeah.

Matthew (01:04:25):
Yeah. And I just wanna point, in fact, to one of those
because it's really pissing meoff actually, I think.

Dave (01:04:31):
If

Matthew (01:04:33):
I can find it. I did have it up. What have I done
with it?

Dave (01:04:38):
Yeah. I mean, while you're searching for that, I'll just
say one of the things. You talkabout, you know, hoping to find
a few pages of tables to helpthe GM create their their create
a a, you know, a bespoke feelfor the for the ship and and
what life is like on it. And itsurprises me that they haven't
done that, because that's onething that they're very, very
good at. Forbidden Lands does itreally well.

(01:05:01):
The little stuff in there aboutrandomly generating stuff is
brilliant. And so, you know, Ikind of thought that that would
be an easy win for them, youknow, just to just to put that
talent for doing that intosomething that relates to a
great ship. So I'm just

Matthew (01:05:17):
pointing Absolutely. That that's what I was
expecting. I thought I couldroll on a bunch of tables and
create, you know, a a great shipthat, you know, that was
procedurally interesting for ourplayers, which is what I thought
that Thomas had done in the gamethat we played, but I I can't
see those rules. And there's onetable I really wanna point out,

(01:05:38):
which is called great shipattributes. Yep.
It has, apart from the headerline, three lines. One of those
lines this is on page 192 forthose of you following through
at home. One of those linesrefers to great chips.

Dave (01:05:58):
Right.

Matthew (01:05:59):
So the title of the table is great ship attributes.
One line on that says that greatships have a hull of 12 to 30
and the speed of two to four. Ortwo yeah. Four in the
slipstream, two maneuvering,whatever. And, yeah, that's that

(01:06:23):
that is all the great shipattributes you get.

Dave (01:06:28):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:06:29):
I feel cheated. I feel cheated. I mean, as I talked
about, you know, a couple of thelabels in the diagram of a plate
chip kind of hint towards onceupon a time having been a table
and maybe once upon a timehaving been the opportunity for
you as players to say, okay, howare we gonna spend our great
ship development points? Let'slet's lobby for a shrine or

(01:06:51):
whatever. But but, no, I'm I'mI'm disappointed.
Can you sense my disappointment?

Dave (01:07:01):
I can. Yeah. I can. Very much so.

Matthew (01:07:04):
Yeah.

Dave (01:07:07):
Likewise, I think, you know, I'm I'm I'm a little
disappointed too, even though Ihaven't read it yet. But

Matthew (01:07:13):
You can upgrade your shuttle. So, you know, there's a
couple of pages on on well,there's more than a couple of
pages in fact. There's no.Actually, there are four pages
just as they are on great ships.But in a way, that kind of
points even more.
So that gives us three basicshuttles to choose and then
three decently table y tables ofthings that you can do to your

(01:07:38):
shuttle to make it your own.And, obviously, that is
narratively the only thing thatplayers have stuff over. But but
I just feel that we could havewritten you've used the same
space and created some tableslike that in the same space on
great ships to be able to kindof cover this is how your great

(01:07:59):
chip may be different.

Dave (01:08:01):
Yep. However Okay. Well, maybe that leaves

Matthew (01:08:04):
a lot is.

Dave (01:08:05):
Maybe that leaves

Matthew (01:08:06):
an opportunity. Scope for that. An opportunity for

Dave (01:08:10):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:08:10):
For the three d workshop or whatever.

Dave (01:08:12):
Yeah. That's just what I was gonna say. Yeah. An
opportunity for someone to tocreate, fill that gap and and
and put that up on the workshop.Yeah.

Matthew (01:08:23):
Yeah. And and also another disappointment, and this
is this is less of a problem, Ithink, but another
disappointment for me is itmakes ships apart from the weird
sizing issues, think there isabout the illustration. It also
makes great ships slightly moreboring than the one that Thomas
made for us.

Dave (01:08:44):
Right.

Matthew (01:08:45):
You know, if if they're all vaguely the same shape and
it's like a great big submarine,then that's a bit dull. And I'm
thinking about the diversity ofthe ships in in the third
horizon where one felt thatthere was real difference there.
The fact that all the ships inthe Xelosian fleet had, like,

(01:09:07):
pictures of martyrdom and greatbattles won and stuff painted
across the side of them. I'dlike to see something like that
here.

Dave (01:09:16):
Is there is there anything in the game that that tells of
the origin story of the greatships? Do they all come

Matthew (01:09:22):
from the There there is.

Dave (01:09:23):
Do they all come from the same place effectively, which
would explain why No.

Matthew (01:09:27):
I don't think so. So, you know, a great ship is
invented. There's a personalitybehind that great ship. Think
then some other people builtsome other great ships. That
sounds really I'moversimplifying.
But, again, that is aninteresting thing in itself.
Inspired by them saying, Oh, themost elegant great ships come

(01:09:48):
from this shipyard. I mean,actually there is only the one
shipyard because we're all stuckon Ship City. Let's rebuild
these great ships. So they allcome from Aluminum Bay.
But yeah, I just feel there wasmore they could have done with
the story there. Which is why Isort of show, I mean I'm not
claiming to be a great writerbut that's why I did that final

(01:10:08):
paragraph there, to say how youmight relatively efficiently, in
terms of word count, have put insome flavour text. One of those
paragraphs that the thirdhorizon was full of, where every
paragraph doesn't necessarilygive you the answers, but hints

(01:10:30):
of the story that you as a GMmight want to expand Yeah.

Dave (01:10:35):
So so in effect, are the great ships basically just a a
mechanism to get you from onesystem to another without much
of

Matthew (01:10:43):
going on? Worries me is they could be played like that.
Yeah. And

Dave (01:10:47):
because because I kind of assumed you would have the whole
sort of, you know, political andsocietal, cultural, like,
melting pot that you get in inthe ark in Mutant Ninja Zero,
but on a ship traveling aroundsomewhere.

Matthew (01:11:02):
And so we did in Thomas's Yes. Game that he ran
for.

Dave (01:11:06):
But that was down to Thomas's effort. But that was

Matthew (01:11:09):
mostly down to Thomas.

Dave (01:11:10):
What the book was giving him. Yeah.

Matthew (01:11:12):
Yeah. And, you know, the important thing is, of
course, I'm not saying thatThomas is the best GM in the
world. Mean, obviously, he

Dave (01:11:18):
is, but I'm not gonna say He's very good GM. Yeah. He is a
very good GM.

Matthew (01:11:22):
What worries me is there's not really much that
encourages you to go down thatroute as a GM. You know, there's
if you compare the four pages onGreat Ships to the well, I don't
know how many pages there is ondelving. But, you know, there
are mechanical rules aboutdelving. Some say maybe too
mechanical, too board game yrules about delving. But it

(01:11:44):
makes the delve the focus of thegame despite the fact that on
page nine, it says that intrigueis the focus of the game.
This is my problem. This is myproblem.

Dave (01:11:55):
It's a mixed message. I

Matthew (01:11:57):
There is a brilliant experience in this game, but I
feel it's kind of hidden in thisgame.

Dave (01:12:02):
Right.

Matthew (01:12:03):
And it isn't laid out for you in the way that it
should be. And this is a greatexample. The Great Ships is a
great example of the problem. Socan I ask you oh, actually, this
probably won't work for you? Doyou do you do you see an

(01:12:25):
underlying story in in mydescription of the GSV Xalos?

Dave (01:12:33):
I have to have a quick reread of that last paragraph.
Okay.

Matthew (01:12:37):
You just skimmed at it, didn't you, Lane?

Dave (01:12:40):
No. I did read it, but I read it yesterday. You know?

Matthew (01:12:43):
So you've had all night to congregate it on going, and
you should have woken up at02:00 in the morning. Oh, I see.
That's what he's doing.

Dave (01:12:50):
Yeah. I know. I like I it it sets it sets a cultural tone,
I think.

Matthew (01:12:56):
It does. Yes.

Dave (01:12:57):
Which is which is good. And then, you know, that
cultural tone then raises thequestion of why? So why do they
down tools to sing their hymns?And, you know, why does the
captain not particularly approveof that, but joins in because he
feels he has to? So yeah.
Yeah. So I think definitely,there's definitely options there

(01:13:17):
in in what you've written. Butagain, did that that that that
wasn't generated was generatedout of your head rather

Matthew (01:13:27):
than That that came

Dave (01:13:28):
yeah. From The supporting material in the book.

Matthew (01:13:31):
And you see, there's there's other stuff. So
character generation has gottables like this that, you know,
hint at weird shit going on thatit doesn't fully explain. And
and that never mattered in No.In the Third

Dave (01:13:43):
You fill in the gaps yourself. Exactly.

Matthew (01:13:45):
Your mind fills in the gaps. And and actually, there is
in this one, this is so truth betold, it's the GSV Salos. You
know I'm a big fan of theZorocians. I think they've been
mistreated in in Third Horizon.They were ultimately right.
The icons were a massive con,and only they saw it. They knew

(01:14:09):
what was, know, what was aboutto go down. And also, you know,
I have, in the previous episodesof this fine podcast, expressed
that they are the closestfactory to actual Starfleet from
Star Trek. So my argument is,who are the navigator's guild?
The navigator's guild areactually the Xossians.

(01:14:31):
Cool. And and they had a there'sa thing that featured in the
call, but that we never reallyfocused on. But there used to be
I can't remember what they callthem. Call centers or something,
which were they used to besatellites that would just float
around in space singing praiseto the end times. And the end of
the journey may not be thesimply the end of the journey.

(01:14:55):
It may be the end of humanity'sjourney that they're they're
going

Dave (01:14:58):
to get on. Possibly. Yeah. No. I I used those in the in the
Spectre of Corsair campaignbecause there

Matthew (01:15:03):
was a Yes. Yes.

Dave (01:15:04):
There there was quite a big Xolosian focus on that. They
got stuck in Xalos for formonths, you know, trying to get
out. But yeah.

Matthew (01:15:12):
So that's so that's it. So that's why they're all, you
know, they they are they arekind of carrying on that
Xalosian ritual to the Xalosiantime thing, which is why I said
nobody could work out quite whatwhat the pattern was of their of
their daily chanting. Yeah. It'scool. I

Dave (01:15:28):
like it. Yeah.

Matthew (01:15:29):
Which is fun. And there are other things in the book
that you go, oh, I know wherethat's from in the third
horizon. Oh, yeah. Very clever.

Dave (01:15:37):
Yeah. Nice.

Matthew (01:15:38):
So that feels like that. But yeah. Cool. We'll beat
this game into submission andmake it something fun.

Dave (01:15:48):
Well, it sounds like you had a lot of fun playing it
anyway. So as as

Matthew (01:15:51):
Oh, absolutely.

Dave (01:15:52):
Yeah. So I think there's an opposite there's a lot
there's a lot to be to beoffered by, you know, a lot
being offered by this game. ButI think, you know, just by by
the standards that we've come toexpect from from Free League,
there are when there's a kind ofan obvious omission that could
have been rectified withrelatively few additional words
in the word count, then it'slike you say, it's a little bit

(01:16:15):
frustrating and disappointingthat they didn't do that.

Matthew (01:16:19):
Yeah. And, you know, so if they'd put like so there are
11 great ships. They didn't evenneed to describe all of the 11.
They maybe shouldn't. Like, theyonly described a few of the of
the systems in in The ThirdHorizon.
But but two or threedescriptions like that could
then inspire GMs to say, okay.I'm gonna take Yeah. This great

(01:16:42):
ship, and I'm gonna make itsomething like that. But instead
of this, I'm gonna have this,this, and this.

Dave (01:16:49):
Yeah. And that's about a hundred words you've used to, a
50 at most. Yeah. So it's notit's not a lot.

Matthew (01:16:55):
And I do

Dave (01:16:55):
worry because because they can't get a big bang for their
buck, aren't they? Like in inCoriolis, original, you know,
Third Horizon, you know, thebang for your word buck is is is
very high. Massive.

Matthew (01:17:06):
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not even saying I've written that
terribly efficiently. You know,that's effectively the first
draft. We could run it partthrough the editorial process
and and skim it down a few moreand get tighter words.

Dave (01:17:17):
Absolutely.

Matthew (01:17:18):
Yeah. They they could have done that. They could have
done that. And it just worriesme a bit that maybe maybe this
is a symptom of now, I mean,know, previously they have let
page counts grow. We've done thesame with our with our game.
Yeah. And, you know, maybe thatthis is a symptom of the
discipline of saying, no. Cutall that out. You can't afford

(01:17:41):
it. Yeah.
And and that's a pity if that isthe process.

Dave (01:17:49):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:17:51):
Right. Cool. Okay. Well, this feels like I'm being
a bit of a downer on this oneagain.

Dave (01:17:55):
Well, that was why I was trying to round off this section
by saying there's gonna be a lotof great stuff in this game.
But, yeah, yep. But then youwent, yeah. But still, this is
shit and this is shit. So I wastrying to I was trying to end on
an upload, but you didn't getthe hint as usual.
Anyway, we we we have banged onenough for one day, I believe.

Matthew (01:18:13):
We have. Yeah.

Dave (01:18:14):
So next time, I don't think we've got anything
particular planned, but we willobviously be reporting back from
UK Games Expo.

Matthew (01:18:22):
And we might try and make a recording of something at
UK Games Expo as well.

Dave (01:18:26):
It's probably worth trying to do something, isn't Yeah.
Let's have

Matthew (01:18:30):
bit of a think about that.

Dave (01:18:32):
Alright then. Well, in which case?

Matthew (01:18:35):
It's goodbye from me.

Dave (01:18:37):
And it's goodbye from him.

Matthew (01:18:40):
And may the icons bless your adventures, even though
they're a massive con.

Dave (01:18:53):
You have been listening to the effect podcast, presented by
Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods.Music stars on a black sea used
with permission of Free LeaguePublishing.

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