Happy happy joy joy

Episode Transcript
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Matthew (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to episode 259 of Effect, Happy
Happy Joy Joy. I'm Matthew.

Dave (00:49):
And I'm Dave. And what what's all that title about?
Happy Happy Joy Joy?

Matthew (00:54):
You never saw Ren and Stimpy when you were a young
man?

Dave (00:58):
No. I never saw Ren and Stimpy.

Matthew (01:00):
That is literally the best cartoon there has ever
been.

Dave (01:04):
Oh, yeah. Even better than Scooby Doo. Original Scooby Doo.
Even better than

Matthew (01:08):
original Scooby Oh, wow.

Dave (01:11):
Was Must be good.

Matthew (01:12):
It it was it's a it is the platonic ideal of of Tom and
Jerry and Scooby Doo.

Dave (01:23):
Right. Okay.

Matthew (01:25):
Now you're making me now you're making me talk about
it. I just have to say myfavorite episode is the one
where I can't remember whetherit's Ren or Stimpy gets
pregnant, which, you know, giventhey're two broadly speaking
male characters, I'm not surewhether it's defined or not.

Dave (01:40):
Okay.

Matthew (01:41):
And there are whole question marks on, you know, how
this creature got pregnant. Ithink he's a chihuahua. I mean,
you

Dave (01:48):
can I was gonna say, they are they are they chipmunks or
whatever? Or they're they'relittle they're little dogs?

Matthew (01:54):
I think they're dogs of a sort. Yeah. I never questioned
it too deeply.

Dave (01:59):
Okay. Keep talking because I'm you're gonna have to look
this up.

Matthew (02:02):
Yeah. You should. You should. And then and then Stimpy
gave birth, it turned out not tobe a baby at all, but an
enormous fart, which theychristened Stinky, and he became
a reoccurring character.

Dave (02:15):
Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So they they look like a nice
pair of characters, don't they?

Matthew (02:21):
They are lovely. Yeah. There we go. Ren and Stinky for
you.

Dave (02:24):
So so which one is the it a chihuahua or the little doggy
thing? Is that

Matthew (02:27):
Ren or The thin one that looks more like a chihuahua
than the big fat one that looksmore like a bulldog. I would
guess.

Dave (02:34):
Oh, do you know which is which?

Matthew (02:37):
I think that's Stimpy. I think Ren is the big boy. It's
a long time since I've watched

Dave (02:41):
them. Okay.

Matthew (02:41):
And they used to have a song, which was happy happy joy
joy.

Dave (02:44):
Right. Okay. To get back to the original point of what
you okay. Anyway And

Matthew (02:49):
just to say that, that's because you're gonna do
an essay on keeping your playershappy.

Dave (02:55):
That is that is very true. That is very true. Which brings
us very, very what a neat littlesegue that was. Our listeners
are just going, oh, these guysare getting really professional
now. To yeah.
To what we have in the show foryou today. So we have a couple
of new patrons to welcome, whichis always fabulous. Love love
doing that. World of gaming, asalways, there's a few things

(03:17):
there. A little bit of very goodnews for us, which we'll come
to, which is cool.
Exciting. And then you'vealready mentioned it. You've
already foreshadowed the mainpart of the show. We've had our
last weekend, a fabulous weekendat UK Games Expo, where I was
lucky enough, as I have been forthe last few years, to be

(03:39):
invited to run a seminar. Thistime it was about RPG writing
and design, how to make yourplayers happy.
So we thought I could just putmy notes from that seminar and
some of the comments that cameup into an essay just to share
my thoughts on that topic. Andthat's the essay we've for you
later on.

Matthew (03:58):
So we've got two new patrons to talk about. So thank
you and welcome to. Now here'sthe thing, actually. I'm gonna
I'm gonna defer to you on thefirst one because of your
Swedish wife. Now this is atitle, isn't it?
This was a a rank Husqal. Yeah.Husqal.

Dave (04:18):
Oh, like the house house yard.

Matthew (04:20):
Yeah. Houseqal, isn't It's like a within, you know,
high ranking servant of thelocal lord sort of thing. Right.
So Husqal, welcome and and thankyou to Yes. Yep.
Thank you. To you. And also, geton the Discord, the nicest place

(04:41):
on the Internet. And we're gonnasay the same thing to Tobias
Valston.

Dave (04:48):
Yeah. Excellent. Welcome, Tobias. And again, as you said,
get on the Discord, nicest placeon the Internet. Lovely group of
folks there doing lots of lovelythings and being friendly and
and lovely.

Matthew (05:00):
And thank you for your support and for the support of
all our patrons. We couldn't dothis without you.

Dave (05:05):
No. Indeed.

Matthew (05:06):
By this, I mean the podcast.

Dave (05:08):
Yeah. Yeah. There's not something weird going on. We
couldn't do this. We're notshowing to you what we're doing,
but we couldn't do it if no.
That's creepy and weird, thatis.

Matthew (05:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Stop stop that.

Dave (05:21):
Right. Let's let's crack on with the world of gaming
then. So the big thing thathappened in the last two weeks,
UK Games Expo. How was it foryou?

Matthew (05:30):
Oh, well, yeah. We we didn't see much of each other
actually during the UK GamesExpo. So you you said earlier on
that you obviously did this thisessay later on in the episode
comes from the seminar you did.Yes. And we did have an idea
about recording that seminar.
I took a little recordingequipment, but there was no way

(05:54):
that I was going to be able tospend enough time with you to,
you know, teach you how to useit and and then record the
seminar. That was that wasnowhere near the agenda.

Dave (06:04):
Yeah. It it never even became a thing over the weekend.
No. We were far too busy. Yeah.

Matthew (06:09):
Absolutely. It was a busy it was a busy time. And
part of the reason why it was abusy time is we were running two
stalls.

Dave (06:14):
We were.

Matthew (06:16):
You did very ably managing the Freeling Freeling
stand. I'm I I I think, youngPadawan, that you're possibly
ready to Fuck off, you twat.

Dave (06:30):
So the store did. So the so the free

Matthew (06:32):
league like £200 short on cash or something.

Dave (06:34):
100. 1 hundred. So the the the free league stall ran
perfectly well without Matthew.The only problem is everyone
trying to make sense of theroster that Matthew had done,
which, you know, was all a bitbonkers at times. But we had a
record breaking weekend for freeleague.
So we had the the best Friday,the best Saturday, and the best
Sunday we've had at UK GamesExhibits. That was brilliant.

(06:56):
Really good. Really good fun.The team was superb.
Lots of nepotism because it'smade up almost entirely of your
family and my family. Yeah.

Matthew (07:04):
And Neil.

Dave (07:05):
With the exception of box boy Neil, who did a fabulous job
joining the group. We had agreat time. It was really good.
It was really busy, and and wesold lots of stuff. I mean, it
was we had a lot of people comeup asking, where's Alien?
Because Mhmm. Free Leak stock ofAlien first edition is no more

(07:27):
at the moment. Certainly not inThe UK and The US. So we didn't
weren't able to take any, but wecould have sold loads actually
if we'd still had it, despitethe fact that the Alien Evolved
edition is, you know, inproduction, is in the process of
fulfilment as we speak. Butyeah, we'd had a great weekend.
It was it was good. So I I splitmy time well, spent most of my

(07:51):
sort of working time on the FreeLeague stand, but I spent a
little bit of time on this newsstand that was previewing at UK
Games Expo for the first time.And what might that have been?

Matthew (08:04):
That stand was the effect publishing stand where I
spent most of my time. And itwas great. Can I just say it was
great? We had people coming upto long term listeners of the of
the podcast to just say, youknow, they're fans of the
podcast, and we were able togive, you know, free stuff to

(08:26):
them. We also had people who, ofcourse, had backed the game.
But we had loads of people whohadn't backed the game, but
wanted to buy the game. So

Dave (08:35):
Which was cool.

Matthew (08:36):
We had no idea what success was going to be because,
you know, a single product linewell, we've got, you know, we've
got two versions of the book andwe got dice trays

Dave (08:46):
and dice Three or four bits of peripheral stuff.

Matthew (08:48):
Yeah. But it's all it's all one line, effectively. And
we literally, I mean, we we eachplucked a figure out of the air.
I think I said, oh, if I sell 50books, I'll be happy. And you
said if we sell 60 books, I'llbe happy.
And and sadly, we were bothwrong because we sold 67 books.

Dave (09:08):
Well, not sadly we were both wrong. I mean, delighted.
Like you said, I had

Matthew (09:14):
I always like to actually beat I I prefer it if
we were closer to 50 so that Icould be right and you could be
wrong, Dave.

Dave (09:19):
Well, I I prefer that we were both wrong and we massively
oversold on what our were. Sobecause then because then we
because then we make more moneyand the game gets out into more
people's hands, which isbrilliant. I had a really
interesting point I was gonnamention then till you cut me
off, but I forgot what it wasnow.

Matthew (09:35):
Well, it kinda been that interesting, otherwise
you'd remember. So the other theother thing I've just got to say
is so as you've already said, weemployed my two children at your
stall. I mean, they're they'renot children. We're we're not
into child labor here. Theythey're

Dave (09:50):
very Yeah.

Matthew (09:51):
Osprey. And my wife was on her way to Wales. So on
Friday, she came up, joined us,which is useful for the stall
because some of the things thatI'd ordered for the stall hadn't
actually been delivered

Dave (10:07):
Yes. At home Yeah.

Matthew (10:08):
Before I needed to leave. So she bought those up
and

Dave (10:10):
That was cool. Yeah.

Matthew (10:11):
She spent the day with with me mostly on on on our
stalls. So I never, in a millionyears, in my whole life, even
thought there might be aprobability that my whole family
would be working at US UK Yeah.And and there there we all were
working in UK Games Expo. AndSue's not a gamer. You know?

(10:35):
I mean, not like us anyway. AndI wasn't sure how she'd enjoy
it, but I think she enjoyed it.She she's even said

Dave (10:43):
She seemed to have a good really good time in the end,
didn't she, I think?

Matthew (10:46):
Nervously. She said, might do that again. Oh, cool.
Cool. I don't know whether shebut three days.
I gotta say, you know, we set upon on a Thursday, and then
there's three days of hard sell,and then there's disbandling. I
was knackered on

Dave (11:01):
that day. It's a it's a challenging weekend, isn't it?
For even for, you know, for foryoungsters who've got lots of
energy. But for old old lagslike us, it becomes yeah. It's
something that you need a fewdays to recover from.
But no, so I mean, just goingback to the to the to the point
of of kinda how well we did. Wewe had no yardstick by which to

(11:23):
judge what would be a good conconvention or not. But by
whatever measure you want, wedid brilliantly. I mean, I'm
delighted with with how well wedid. And one of the other things
you you're absolutely right.
We yeah. One of the other thingsI love about UK Games Expo and
other conventions is all of ourlovely friends and listeners and
and others all come up, and weget to see them all, and it's a

(11:45):
real joy. It's a real pleasure.It's the it's the highlight of
the whole thing. But there wasone guy who came up, who's an
American, and he didn't buyanything, but I think he backed
the book on the Kickstarter.
And he came over just to saythank you to us for clearly

(12:05):
putting in a huge amount ofeffort into research, into
getting the history right, intoreflecting things in the right
kind of way. And it was lovely.He just came over to say thank
you for the effort that we'd putinto the book. That he could
recognise how much effort we putinto the book through looking,
you know, through reading it.And that was really nice, and

(12:27):
that was all cut in like aheartwarming moment, because we
did put a lot of effort intothat book, it's lovely to see it
being recognised by otherpeople.
I did have one person, who wasalso an American, say to me,
have you been to any of theseplaces? So I had to admit, no.

(12:48):
I've been to Texas, but that'sas far west as I've gone in The
US. So, yeah. But it was great.
It was fabulous. I had a reallygood time.

Matthew (12:57):
Yeah. It was good. And, you know, just calling out some
of some of the people that cameup. Remi Fayumi, who Yes. We
interviewed

Dave (13:09):
At Dragon League.

Matthew (13:09):
Right in the early days of Yeah. Yeah. The Coriolis
effect Yeah. Came up. He he notonly he'd he'd obviously already
backed the book.
So so he came up just to say hiand well done. But then he came
back come on, or twice. But hebought it you know, he sold the
book effectively to otherfriends, and he came back to buy

(13:30):
it on their behalf. That wasthat was really good. Who else
did we have?
We had Big Daddy Fat, of course,to give him his

Dave (13:43):
his scores there

Matthew (13:44):
who came to see us.

Dave (13:46):
Soul came along. Yeah. Oh, was too many to mention. Phil.
We saw Phil and Erin, which wascool.
I mean, could spend all daylisting people's names, but it
was, yeah, it was delight to seeeverybody.

Matthew (14:01):
Yeah. Just thank you everybody for making us feel so
welcome. Yeah. So

Dave (14:07):
it wasn't just For making the book. Yes, absolutely. I
mean, so it wasn't just usworking on the stalls. So I had
my seminar, which is great.Mhmm.
Had Steve Jackson from SteveJackson Games join me again,
which is awesome. But,obviously, you'll hear more
about that later, so I won't Iwon't bang on about that. You,
for the second year running,emceed the the Dragonbane

(14:30):
tournament, didn't you? How didthat go?

Matthew (14:32):
Yeah. That went very well. I've gotta say, we we we
were moved from the Tootsuitebecause we didn't have quite as
many tables this time to to oneof the rooms, function rooms in
the Hilton. And that meantbecause Millie is queen of the
toot suite that we didn't getMillie helping us out with the

(14:53):
thing. And, oh, Millie, I missyou so much.
Working with you last year wasbrilliant.

Dave (14:58):
She does she does know how to organize stuff, doesn't she?
Yeah. That one thing we couldsay about Millie for sure.

Matthew (15:02):
Yeah. I I was running around a lot more in in in this
version. I did because Billywasn't there, but we had a whale
of a time. We the the adventureis coming out on free RPG day.
It'll be available for everybodyIt's a fun adventure.

(15:24):
It's a bit old school. What's itcalled?

Dave (15:26):
This one?

Matthew (15:28):
Oh, then now you've got me just out of my head. Let me
talk about it some more while

Dave (15:39):
I Yeah. Yeah. No worries.

Matthew (15:40):
Look it up. So it is do you remember back in the day
when we used to play quite a lotof D and D and and fantasy games
at school, the DMs would set usfiendish puzzles Yeah. To solve
in various ways. Not necessarilytraps, you know, here's a
challenge for you. Here's acode.

(16:01):
Here's something you gotta workout. Yeah. Now part of me thinks
as a role player, those we allenjoy doing those puzzles. But
within the context of roleplaying, it's a bit of a thing
that you know, if I'm playing anidiot barbarian that couldn't
solve a puzzle, you know, tosave his life, and yet me,

(16:22):
Matthew, I like

Dave (16:24):
doing Yeah.

Matthew (16:25):
I'm not really role playing, am I?

Dave (16:27):
No.

Matthew (16:28):
And ideally, part of me goes, well, really, when there's
a puzzle there, you should berolling against your
intelligence or whatever to seeif you can work out how to do
it. But it's just fun

Dave (16:37):
and And the other way as well, obviously, if you're
playing a character that shouldbe solving these puzzles in
their sleep, but like me, youknow, it it depends totally
whether

Matthew (16:46):
You lack the sort of spatial awareness or whatever

Dave (16:48):
in the mood to bother. Because it's like, yeah, I I can
solve puzzles, but I've reallygot to be in the mood to do
them. And if I'm not in themood, there's no way I'm gonna
get my brain thinking about it.But yeah.

Matthew (16:59):
So it it was that sort of thing, basically, is Yeah. Is
is is the adventure. Buteverybody had a well of a time.
And I remember Bruce. So a shoutout to Bruce, one of our
patrons.
Of his table of four or fiveplayers, The vast majority had

(17:22):
never actually sat down to playa role playing game at all.

Dave (17:25):
Okay. One of them had That was their first experience. Oh,
that's cool.

Matthew (17:29):
Yeah. That was cool. But they had a whale of a time.
They didn't win. Mhmm.
But they had a whale of a time.We had the second place team
from last year came back. So,you know, they Yep. They enjoyed
it so much last year, they cameback

Dave (17:44):
so much again

Matthew (17:44):
this time. They didn't win either, actually. They
didn't do as well as they didlast year. We had one team,
though. So it it was it's stilltime based.
You still gotta compete it intwo hours. There's unlike the
Sinking Tower, there's oh god.What am I saying? There's a

(18:09):
there is there is a timechallenge, but there's there's
nothing like the the toweractually disappearing after two
hours. Right.
Oh god. I'm trying to rememberthe name of this game. Gone out
of my head entirely. I can'tfind it.

Dave (18:23):
Never mind. Never mind.

Matthew (18:25):
We'll put it in the show notes, boys and

Dave (18:27):
girls, afterwards. Find it eventually. Yeah.

Matthew (18:30):
Something like the Magus the Magus Anyway, they
they had to swap various bitsand pieces in to make sure that
their their patron won a gamethat was then played at the end
of the two hours. Right. And sobut also had to try and do it

(18:50):
without anybody noticing. So youhad points for doing the things,
the various things that had tobe swapped out so that so that
your your client could cheat atthe game effectively.

Dave (19:02):
Mhmm.

Matthew (19:03):
Yep. But you also had points deducted for how much
noise you made and how,

Dave (19:12):
you know, how much attention

Matthew (19:13):
you got from onion Yeah. People. And so it ended up
with people scoring quite wellin the first half, but then by
the end of it, they'd made somuch noise that they were down
they were down to four points. Ithink it was the lowest

Dave (19:25):
score.

Matthew (19:25):
But there was one team that did everything and didn't
make any noise. It got maximumpoints.

Dave (19:31):
Okay. Cool.

Matthew (19:32):
And they, of course, they won.

Dave (19:35):
Won won the day. Nice.

Matthew (19:36):
Yeah. And then there's a lovely little thing at the
end. So after you've scored itup and people have won their
prizes, depending on the amountof points they got, that was the
chance of their patron winningthe game. So you rolled a d 20,
and I think the best chance youget was 16 if you'd done
everything perfectly. And it wasfun seeing which table actually

(19:57):
did achieve their objectiveafter

Dave (20:00):
I like that. That's nice. Yeah. That's cool.

Matthew (20:04):
So that's fun. And as I say, whatever game it is, it's
coming out on free RPG day. Andthere'll be a link in the show
notes as to what it is. I can'tfind I can't find the title of
it now. And it was great fun.
Yeah. Nice. Oh, the other thingwe did on the Friday, we stood
in for Free League, didn't we?Oh, yes.

Dave (20:23):
Yeah.

Matthew (20:23):
On the on tabletop sort of livestream that goes on
throughout the day.

Dave (20:29):
Yeah. At the main stage. Yep.

Matthew (20:31):
I'll try and put a timed link in the show notes if
you want to watch this onYouTube. But, yeah, we did a
sort of half hour interview withthem just talking about
Corviollus, the great dark,which we had. What else did we
talk about? Oh, the upcomingalien.

Dave (20:46):
Alien, Dragonbane, and

Matthew (20:49):
The Dragonbane Kickstarter, of course, was
starting the week after.

Dave (20:52):
And And and with Thomas's express permission Yeah. We
talked about the the Free Leaguelicense Tales of the Old

Matthew (21:00):
Free tabletop license.

Dave (21:01):
As a product of that license. So that was great. It
gave us the opportunity to topitch Tales of the Old West as
well. So that was really cool.

Matthew (21:10):
Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So, yeah, we had a whale of a time.
We had a lovely meal.
On the Saturday night, we wentback to the hotel pretty
shattered, the whole team

Dave (21:20):
Yeah.

Matthew (21:21):
And had a a great meal, actually.

Dave (21:24):
Very relaxed.

Matthew (21:25):
Very relaxed. Yeah. The other two meals we'd had were in
the resort. And

Dave (21:30):
it's This

Matthew (21:31):
year, more than any other year, I felt that the
noise of the hall was stillgoing on in the restaurants. And
I really wanted to have a quietmeal. But we got Yeah.

Dave (21:40):
I always feel that there. I mean, it's it's it's, you
know, can't really relax tillyou get back to the hotel and so
because obviously driving andstuff. The first meal was
better. The one at the Japaneserestaurant was was nice. Didn't
enjoy the meal at the Laguna'splace so much.

Matthew (21:57):
Las Iguanas.

Dave (21:59):
Yeah, Las Iguanas. That's it. Yeah. But yeah. Anyway,
that's probably enough on UKGames Expo.
We've talked about that forabout fifteen minutes now. There
are other things going on in theworld of gaming, not just us
blathering on about conventionswe've been to.

Matthew (22:15):
Yeah. Or I'm going to go to. Spoiler.

Dave (22:18):
But

Matthew (22:20):
So what else?

Dave (22:21):
Blade Runner. Blade Runner Replicant rebellion. Free League
issued an update earlier thisweek on that, which I think is
is has disappointed some people.So that update is effectively
calling out that they are thattheir delays production are
continuing. They are trying tobe open about that as far as

(22:43):
they can, but they couldn't gointo too much detail.
Some people have been, I guess,understandably disappointed
because I think it's it's acouple of months late anyway
already now, and what they wouldhope on the you know, on their
aspirational delivery date. But,you know, but these things
happen. I mean, there's there'sspeculation about it could be

(23:03):
something I mean, we've got noinside knowledge here, so this
is speculation. We don't know.Know.
But it could be, you know,possibly something to do about
the IP and the license and andgetting that cleared. And
obviously Yeah. Free Leaguearen't going to give a running
commentary on discussions theymight be having with their
license holders. That'sinappropriate, obviously. But if

(23:25):
that is somewhere where there'sa holdup, and I think often
there can be, they might not beable to come out and say it's
the licensor's fault.

Matthew (23:32):
Yeah. I mean, and would would they want to? You know?

Dave (23:35):
No. Exactly. Even if

Matthew (23:36):
it is the licensor's fault, you know, they've got a
very delicate relationship withsomebody that could just snatch
the license away. And I amalways reminded, and I like to
remind gamers of what happenedwhen Disney took over Marvel
Comics Comics and Margaret WeissProductions for no fault or
anything. It's just that Disneydecided they weren't interested
in Margaret Weiss having theirMarvel heroic role playing game.

(23:59):
And they just had to they had afire sale of everything that was
in stock and that was it. Theydidn't have it anymore.
And market wise productionsdidn't survive. Know, licensors
have got a great deal of powerand it must also be remembered,
role playing games aren't top ofthe licensor's

Dave (24:20):
agenda. Priorities. No. Exactly.

Matthew (24:22):
Yeah. So so there in terms of income, compared to, I,
you know, I don't know, maybe aBlade Runner lunchbox that
they're gonna sell millions ofin America. There's a lot more
work and craft that goes into arole playing game than a Blade
Runner lunchbox, but probablythe whoever does the checking
the artwork and all that sort ofstuff and approvals can you

(24:44):
know, they will focus on thelunchbox way before they get to
the the role playing game.

Dave (24:50):
Yeah. And and and and we're speculating. It might not
even be anything to do with thelicense. There might be other
things going on. Yeah.
I think I think, you know, somesome of the responses I've read
from from backers who aredisappointed, I think are a
little bit unfair and a littlebit dramatic, perhaps. I mean,
people need to remember thatKickstarter isn't a shop.

Matthew (25:09):
Yeah. That's I think a lot a preorder.

Dave (25:11):
And I think people have a lot of people perhaps now that
Kickstarter is so wellestablished, maybe have
forgotten that. So I mean, forus, I whenever I kick, whenever
I back something on Kickstarter,you know, I then put that in,
you know, the back of my mindand think, well, it'll arrive
when it arrives. Some thingsstill haven't arrived. You know,
Weston as a good good examplefor for for the reasons that

(25:33):
we've discussed before. But I'mnot upset with Oscar Galen or
Anders or or any of the peopleinvolved in that because of the
circumstances.
And actually a couple of yearsago, I'd written it off entirely
and thought, okay, well that'snot coming. And the fact that it
is now gonna arrive one day isgreat. But there's there's
there's no there's no value inme going online and giving them

(25:54):
a hard time over it. No. Whenactually, as I said, it's not a
shock.
It's not like you buy somethingand you've got a contract and
it's gonna arrive, or you get itthe next day or whatever. So you
have to be a little bit, Ithink, what's the word? Not
apologetic's the wrong word, butit's it's a little bit
sympathetic towards the towardsthe challenges that that, you

(26:18):
know, we are now more aware ofhaving done a Kickstarter once.
Yeah. The challenges that come

Matthew (26:23):
in trying

Dave (26:23):
to trying to deliver

Matthew (26:24):
We have let the side down somewhat in that key. By
delivering on time or even somepeople might say early, you
know, we're raising expectationsfor

Dave (26:33):
Well, yeah.

Matthew (26:33):
For everybody for all the other products out there.
Well, if if Fett can do it ontime, then why can't you? Well,
it yeah.

Dave (26:42):
Ours was quite a small one.

Matthew (26:43):
Yeah. You

Dave (26:44):
Blade Runner and and

Matthew (26:45):
And there were some lucky things. I mean, obviously,
we planned it incredibly well,didn't we, Dave? But also,

Dave (26:51):
you know I think did plan it quite well, actually.

Matthew (26:54):
The book got printed remarkably quickly.

Dave (26:57):
Well, much more

Matthew (26:57):
That was brilliant.

Dave (26:58):
Yeah. I mean, actually, of the key things that I helped to
deliver quickly was we'd done anawful lot of the work in
advance. Even though there was alot of work left to do, we've
done a lot of the heavy lifting.Secondly, Mayor Culper, I made a
decision in the middle of thefulfilment which basically

(27:18):
delayed us by a month. So wewon't make that decision again
in future and then so actuallywe could have delivered it even
earlier if if I'd if I hadn'tmade that decision.
So Yeah. That's fine.

Matthew (27:33):
But That's okay. That's okay. I will draw you over the
coals over that decision formany years to come. I will go,
well, you know, you have a goodopinion there, Dave. But do you
remember that time you got itwrong over that first
Kickstarter?

Dave (27:45):
Well, all I wanted to do is make sure we delivered in
May. I didn't wanna deliver inApril, you know, come on. But
yes. So so anyway, so so BladeRunner Replicant Rebellion is is
still coming. It's not beingcanceled or anything.
It's obviously suffering somesome some problems and
difficulties that that they'reworking through. But yes, so so

(28:05):
you know, please be patient ifyou've backed it. It'll it'll be
on your doorstep, and it'llprobably be better for having
taken a little bit more time toget there.

Matthew (28:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And we've got some actual games
that not related to well, onlyonly tangentially related to
Free League. I suddenly rememberyou were selling this on the
stool.

Dave (28:30):
We we were.

Matthew (28:31):
And I kind of wish I yeah. So one of the things I
wanted to say is OutgunnedAction Flicks two is out. It
comes from two little mice, thelovely company in Italy, but
obviously they're doing a copublishing on outcome material
with Free League. So you can getit from Free League too. It'll
be distributed via Free League'schannels.

(28:52):
So this is a whole bunch ofdifferent settings and things
that you can play Outgunned orOutgunned Adventures in. And it
caught my eye, and I kinda wishI picked a copy up actually when
I was at UK Games Expo,particularly because I could've
gotten staff discount with withFree League. But Mhmm. It's got
a Western setting in it, and Ijust that that just caught my

(29:16):
eye. So you don't like ourwestern setting, and how dare
you if you don't like ourWestern setting?
There is an alternative. And I II have no idea whether it's a
slightly weird West 1 or whetherit's a straight West 1, but I
wanted to take a check on itwhen I read about it, sadly,
after UK Gamesets played.

Dave (29:34):
Yeah. I didn't look at it in any detail. I've a feeling
it's a bit weird, West. There'ssomething about it, but

Matthew (29:40):
I wouldn't be surprised.

Dave (29:42):
I didn't I didn't look at it in in great detail. Yeah.

Matthew (29:45):
But I'm Because as you sorry.

Dave (29:47):
I was just gonna say, I mean, Outgunned looks like a
lovely game. Haven't played itplayed it. The dice mechanic is
is is, you know, d six diceball. It's a familiar it's a
familiar dice mechanic. Yeah.
I mean, I when I first saw it, Iwas like, well, this is the game
I'm probably not gonna play. Butbut having having looked at it

(30:07):
in a bit more detail, then yeah.I mean, it's it's a lovely
little product as well.

Matthew (30:13):
Yeah. It's the new Feng Shui for me. I was disappointed
by Feng Shui two. And this wouldbe if I were doing Yeah. That
sort of game again, that's whatI'd be playing.
Yeah.

Dave (30:25):
Sorry. You were gonna say something.

Matthew (30:27):
I was gonna say, talking of Western and weird
West, High Noon At Midnight isout from Monte Cook Games. Yep.
And that's a very weird weirdWest. So I just wanted to say
that. It uses the Cypher system.

Dave (30:45):
Cypher. Yeah.

Matthew (30:47):
I haven't got much more to say about it. But if you
don't if you really don't likeour straight west, our non weird
West, then then check out HighNoon at Midnight. Because it
will look lovely, I'm sure.

Dave (30:59):
It it does look really nice. It's yeah. High Noon at
Midnight is a sci fi game set inan uncanny world of six shooters
wanted posted card games insmoke shrouded saloons and
showdowns at high noon, and thisis where it goes wrong for me,
all tainted by magic, horror,and even advanced tech.

Matthew (31:21):
So Tainted is the word.

Dave (31:23):
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So stick with good old tales of the
Old West, and you'll you won'tgo far wrong, would be my
advice.

Matthew (31:33):
You won't be tainted.

Dave (31:34):
Would be my advice.

Matthew (31:36):
There is no

Dave (31:36):
change in tales of unbiased, nonpartisan advice.

Matthew (31:43):
Right. Shall we come on to our exciting news?

Dave (31:46):
Yeah. Let's do that. Go on then.

Matthew (31:50):
You want me to say? We are going. We've we've we've
been invited, nonetheless, tospell Congress twenty five in
Stockholm. So we are comingSwedish fans of the Effet
podcast, we are coming to you inSweden, and we're very excited.

Dave (32:07):
We are very excited. So that's October 17.

Matthew (32:11):
The eighteenth.

Dave (32:12):
Eighteenth. Nineteenth is the weekend.

Matthew (32:15):
I think it's only a one day event.

Dave (32:17):
It is only a one

Matthew (32:17):
day But

Dave (32:19):
On my calendar, it's the three days because obviously
we've got to get there and getback.

Matthew (32:22):
Yes.

Dave (32:23):
But but, yeah, so that was fabulous. So we got the invite
earlier this week. We'd we'dsort of jokingly mentioned last
year, and we did sort of

Matthew (32:31):
jokingly say We have dropped about a million hints.
Yes. I

Dave (32:33):
know. But we're kind of joking, really. That, oh, woah.
Where was our invite? Come on.
UK end and all that. But not no.I hope they didn't take it as
being a bit itchy because thatwasn't the intention at all.

Matthew (32:47):
It was it was a good natured. Every every single
Swede we spoke to evenrudimentally connected with with
with Fruity. Kept saying, youknow?

Dave (32:56):
Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. That is true.
We yeah. It was a bit of acampaign of yeah.

Matthew (33:03):
We brought them down eventually, though.

Dave (33:05):
So yeah. They they've they've invited us along, which
is really nice of them. Soreally looking forward to that.
That's gonna be a lot of fun.Yeah, that was was cool.
Wasn't wasn't expecting it,frankly. Yeah. But, yeah,
brilliant. Can't wait.

Matthew (33:19):
I had put it in my diary just in case it might have
happened though. So I when I gotthe invite, could say with
confidence, yeah. I'm free thatweekend. And in fact, we did
Dave, you and I had a table gamewith our local group planned for
that weekend. Yeah.
But even from from the first daywe suggested that day, said to a
little message to you saying,remember that spell congress?

Dave (33:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, well, yeah, that's
nice. Nice to nice to note, butwon't actually have any bearing
on us.
So but yeah. So that'sbrilliant. It'd be fabulous to
go and see everyone, andobviously, everybody else who
should be coming to SparCongress, it's gonna be it's
gonna be a great day, I think.Really looking forward to it.

Matthew (33:58):
We will link to the Spar Congress website. It's it's
part of the Free League websitebecause they run it, obviously.
It's in Swedish. So it says thattickets are coming soon Yes. In
my limited Swedish.

Dave (34:14):
It does.

Matthew (34:15):
But there'll be a link in the show notes. And if you're
Swedish and you can make it toSpell Congress, we'd love to see
you there.

Dave (34:22):
We would. Cool.

Matthew (34:24):
Right. What are we gonna talk about next, Dave?

Dave (34:29):
So did I'm I'm assuming that this is is there anything
we wanted to say about Tales ofthe Old West?

Matthew (34:35):
No. No. You'll notice for the the first time in months
I know. There is

Dave (34:39):
I know.

Matthew (34:40):
There is no news about Tales of the Old West. No.
Didn't say last time.

Dave (34:43):
No. True. It's interesting though, actually, because it's
still very much front of centuryin my head because I'm I'm busy
beavering away preparing thenext supplement. So I've done a
lot of work on maps and things.But yeah.
Okay. We haven't got it as alisted item, so I will leave it
there.

Matthew (35:01):
I will say now now you brought it up though, I will say
that yesterday, we finished offthe adventure that we started a
couple of weeks ago at thistable. And I said to you, the
problem with any other gameright now is I'd rather be
playing Turf of the Unblessed.

Dave (35:20):
Yeah. I know. It's it's yeah. And that and and, you
know, I've it's it it couldsound big headed and, like, oh,
it's the best game out there.It's mine kind of thing.
But, genuinely, not in that inthat tone at all. No. But,
again, I I said to you, I mean,I'm just loving playing it.

(35:40):
Yeah. Yeah.
Both as a GM and as a player.

Matthew (35:44):
One might imagine being immersed in it for six years
that now it's out of the doorwould breathe a sigh of relief
and think, oh, we don't have tothink about it again. But but
No.

Dave (35:53):
No. Not at all. It was funny yesterday, and this
happened the week the the timebefore as well. Now everyone's
got the book. As soon as there'sa kind of question mark over a
rule, the books get whipped out,and everyone's right.
Let's check

Matthew (36:06):
the rule. Check the rule, which

Dave (36:07):
is very irritating as a GM. But everyone's now got the
rule book. But yeah. No. Greatfun.
Great fun. And I'm reallyenjoying putting together the
the material for for the goldcountry, the next the next
installment. Yeah. Coming soon.

Matthew (36:26):
Coming soon. Now it's time for your seminar or rather
your essay based on yourseminar, Dave.

Dave (36:34):
Yep. Cool. For the fifth year running, I was delighted to
have the opportunity to host aseminar at UK Games Expo. And
for the second year running, Iwas delighted to have Steve
Jackson of Steve Jackson Gamesjoin me. As always, the session
was made by the folks who camealong and got involved, offered

(36:56):
their perspectives, comments,and questions.
So thank you to all who joinedme. The title of this year's
seminar was RPG Writing andDesign, How to Make Your Players
Happy. I always go into theseminar with speaking notes, but
let the conversation on the daydictate what we cover. On this
occasion, we didn't cover mostof the notes I'd made as time

(37:20):
flew as it always does whenyou're having fun. So let's take
a look at what I was going tosay.
What is a happy player? Whoknows? Players are all different
and want different things. Ifyou're a GM, you'd know or
usually know your players betterthan anyone unless you're at a

(37:41):
convention game. So often youwill know what makes your
players happy.
But in general a happy player isone who is excited, tense and
thrilled during a game,Satisfied and fulfilled at the
end of a session? Relieved theysurvived perhaps or achieved the
objective? Someone who genuinelycares about their player

(38:05):
character? Someone who caresabout their buddies. One who
sheds a tear when their PC dies.
Maybe one who sheds a tear whena buddy dies. Those who care
about the world or something inthat world. And those who come
back for more. That's all welland good, but you'll have a

(38:27):
better chance of having happyplayers if you run the kind of
games they're interested inplaying. Pretty obvious.
I get that. As an aside, some ofthe things we'll cover later on
are generalisms. Things that youcan do or apply to any game that
will maximize your chances ofkeeping your players happy
regardless of whether the gamestyle is one that player would

(38:50):
generally favor. But more onthat are none. So it's pretty
obvious that the type of gameyou plan to run, write or create
will dictate the philosophy andthe approach of that game, and
your players preferences willstrongly influence whether your
players will enjoy that kind ofgame.
So horror from light heartedhorror to cosmic horror all the

(39:13):
way up to body horror. Actionfrom pulp action to action and
adventure all the way tosimulationist. Investigations
from light investigative togeneral to police or spy
procedural. Science fiction Oneend you've got space opera
through light science fiction tothe hard science sci fi. Fantasy

(39:38):
from high fantasy to specificfantasy to historical fantasy.
And historical from verysimilitudinous to hand waving
history to fantastical history.There are four areas I'm going
to mention and I've called themthe following. Player first, the

(39:59):
strength of the story, thestrength of the game, and you as
the writer, designer, and or GM.Player first. The first thing
I'd say here is give yourplayers the freedom of choice in
a variety of ways.
In the story, give them thelatitude to make choices that

(40:20):
change the direction of thatstory and choices that have
consequences. There's always aquestion of sandbox versus
railroading. My preference is tooffer a sandbox to my players,
but this requires a greaterdegree of improvisation than
some GMs may be comfortablewith. But if you have to
railroad your story for aconvention game for example, try

(40:44):
to offer various options to gofrom a to b to c so your players
have the illusion of choice evenif they will all end up at the
same place anyway. Offer themchoice in how to tackle an
obstacle or objective.
Present it and maybe have somesolutions in mind but let the

(41:05):
players get imaginative. Offerthem choice in how to defeat a
nemesis. And also if you aredesigning mechanics, offer
choice in how to use thosemechanics. The push mechanic for
example. Next it's important foryour player to be invested in
their player character.
Make sure your players havecharacters they care about. Ones

(41:28):
with hopes and aspirations andsomething to work towards and
fight for. This might includeownership of an important
location, an item, a reputationthey'd die to protect, or a
person they care about more thanthemselves. This then becomes a
character that they would beupset to lose and enables you as
GM to play out stories thatcarry a genuine threat of them

(41:52):
losing something important oreven their lives. This also
allows you to craft stories thatplay directly into those
aspirations and dreams, thethings the player character
holds dear, things that will beinvested in chasing down and
exploring.
And always remember, a goodplayer character death is never

(42:13):
forgotten and forever retold.But beyond their player
character, player investment inand ownership of aspects of the
world is really important. Youcan help gain this investment
through good descriptions andmaps, as well as little details
that reflect the culture,society, and lived experience of
that world. Another great way toget players involved and

(42:37):
invested is to give them moralor ethical conundrums to grapple
with. They foster lively andmemorable debate amongst the
players, and often leave thempondering if they made the right
choice after all.
Finally in this section, youshould also foster player
character bonds to build acohesive group with common goals

(42:58):
and a common history. A greatway to do this is to use group
concepts that are used as partof your session zero and bake
that cohesive backstory rightinto the campaign from the
start. This doesn't mean youcan't have rivalries and
conflicts within the group andsometimes they may turn violent.
But there is still one commongoal that should usually draw

(43:20):
the players together. Anotherimportant thing is the strength
of the story itself.
Create imaginative stories. Readbooks, history and politics
magazines, newspapers, and watchthe news for inspiration. A
story doesn't have to becomplicated to be powerful. Too

(43:43):
complicated and the players maylose the thread. And sometimes
the simplest tales are the mostmemorable.
Make the story varied and eithertarget the action to what your
players most enjoy or mix it up,merging investigations,
subterfuge, conflict,persuasion, and so on, all into
one story. Also, it's importantto offer different ways to

(44:07):
succeed. Some players may enjoysucceeding through fighting
through all the enemies whileothers would like to use their
cunning and their intelligenceto get to the same outcome.
Maintain narrative consistency.This is my biggest bugbear as a
player and something I'm veryparticular about as a writer.

(44:28):
Adventures can be ruined by plotor world inconsistency, so make
sure your work makes sense.Throw in plot twists or flip
your player's expectations.Examples The relative needing
rescuing who turns out to be akiller rather than a victim. The
weak character who has a specialace up their sleeve. Or the

(44:50):
nemesis whose motivations havesome moral validity and isn't
just the evil boss waiting to bekilled.
Throw in recurring non playercharacters to build familiarity
with the world, The friend whocan help once again, or perhaps
is in dire danger and now needsyour help. The nemesis who keeps
coming back for more. Or thenemesis who through

(45:14):
circumstances becomes an ally.Finally, make your non player
characters real and make thembehave as if they are player
characters, for in their storythey are player characters. They
have their own objectives andmotivations and should react
according to those things.
They don't have to fight to thedeath at every opportunity. The

(45:38):
strength of the game. If you aredesigning mechanics, to bring
out the world in the mechanicsof the game. If it's a dark and
bitter world make the mechanicsreflect that. Maybe success is
harder to come by but morerichly celebrated.
If it's a light pulpy settingthen a mechanic that favors
success might be favorable. Butbe wary of complex dice

(46:02):
mechanics. They can work andStar Wars Edge of the Empire is
an example where once you getthe hang of it it does work, but
sometimes I find they can justget in the way of the game for
no good reason. And bring outthe world in the culture of the
game, particularly if you canhave mechanics that reward role
playing that culture. Theparticular example which you all

(46:23):
know is coming is the prayermechanic in Coriolis.
And then you as the writer,designer, and the GM. The key
thing for me here is don'tforget you're a player too. So
make stories you would love toplay. Make games or settings
that you would love to play in,and set up scenes for your

(46:44):
players that would excite you.If you do that, and make a world
that you'd be happy to play,then your players are likely to
be happy too.
The last thing I'll mentionbefore I wrap up is player
character failure. It's great!Many games now recognize the
value of a good screw up, wherethe player characters fail to

(47:06):
achieve their objective in somespectacular way. But it feels to
me that many games, and perhapsmany players, still look a bit
askance at failure. As if youcan't enjoy the game if you
ultimately fail at the last.
How wrong can they be? Failureis a brilliant driver for future
stories, bringing genuinelyunpredictable outcomes, leaving

(47:29):
open a variety of ways for theplayer characters to make good.
Failure will often result in abig challenge that ups the ante.
And if it doesn't, well, youremember me talking about a good
death, don't you?

Matthew (47:47):
Well I'm sorry no I'm not sorry I missed the essay
because I was at the seminarbecause I was at dragon meat

Dave (47:55):
Hang on hang let's say that again.

Matthew (47:57):
You

Dave (47:57):
said you said, I'm not sorry I missed the essay because
I was at Dragonmeat. Now none ofthat sentence makes any sense.

Matthew (48:04):
No. No. Let me start that again. I

Dave (48:06):
am McFly.

Matthew (48:07):
I was about to say I was sorry. I missed the seminar,
then I realized it wasn't truebecause I was having great fun
running the Dragonbanetournament. However, the
question I would have asked atthat seminar had I been in your
audience is, but Dave, we camehere because you're a

(48:27):
professional writer. You'vewritten a bunch of adventures to
all sorts of publishers now.What I wanna know is, how do you
make it player led and yet givethe GM a book with some answers
in?
So that's my challenge.

Dave (48:40):
It's a good question. It's a good question, and and there
is a good answer to thatquestion. So next question.

Matthew (48:49):
Now this is a good answer. The good answer is you
ask Ken Hite how to do it.

Dave (48:55):
It's it's okay. So this did come up in the in the
seminar. So the great thingsabout these seminars is people
chip in, and we we try and runit, specifically say to people,
let's make this a conversationand get your questions in as you
go and we'll just do it. That'sone of the great things about
doing these seminars becausethey're just so much fun and

(49:17):
other people do a lot of talkingrather than just me, which is
cool. But this question came upand I think it's a really good
one And there's it kind of it itsort of depends on on what
you're writing for.
Now, if you're writing for aconvention game, then you are
gonna have to be, by necessity,quite railroaded. And again, you

(49:42):
could say the same with withwith quite a lot of of of
published scenarios becauseagain, usually, you get or or in
my experience, get no you knowat least 5,000 words. And a lot
of the scenarios I'mcommissioned to write are 5,000
words. And that's not a lotactually when it comes to it.
Some of them are seven and ahalf and I did have one that was

(50:04):
15 which is cool because I couldreally lean into it.
But when you've got fewer words,then you have to be a bit more
like directed towards thetowards the plot. But the thing
that the thing that I I do quitea lot is even if the you know
the story the plot has to go ina certain direction, you can

(50:26):
give a variety of options forgetting from A to B. And if you
you you know you to lay thoseout for your for your GM
actually, because normally Iwould very much like to create a
I think as I said in the essay,create a setting and let the
players get into it and do whatthey like. As you said before,

(50:48):
some players may not be, youknow, so comfortable in doing
that and might feel, no, I don'tknow what to do. I don't know
what I can do, and need to begiven a little bit of a pointer.
So in that sense, you can thencreate three or four options for
the GM about how to achieve thisparticular objective or get to
this particular location. Andthe GM can then drop into or in

(51:10):
terms of the writing, you candrop in guidance to the GM
saying, describe the situationand let's say somebody needs to
break into a castle, say. Youcan then, as part of your
description, you can say, youknow, there's a drawbridge with
open portcullis and there's oneguard. Round the back, there's a
there's like a servant'sentrance, which doesn't seem to

(51:33):
be guarded very often. On theside, there's the wall is a bit
broken, and, oh, that might beeasier to climb.
Or there's oh, there's lots ofcarts going in and out with
barrels of food and and andthings. So you point some ideas
to your players about, okay,I've got to get in there. How do
I how do I do that? Oh, here aresome obvious options for me to
consider. So that's certainlyone way in in terms of creating

(51:56):
a written scenario forpublication that you would give
little pointers to the GM aboutabout how how they can describe
a certain situation or describea location in order to give
their players some some cluesand some cues about how they
might go about achieving theobjective.

Matthew (52:17):
Yeah. So there is there is a thing about different
groups what I have played in. Sowith our with our group, we are
always ready to just show us asituation, and we will fuck it
up in an amusing way. Mhmm. Soyou you don't need to do any of

(52:37):
that.
You know, we will be asking,okay. Is the does the Port
Colors happen to be open? Is thedrawbridge down? We'll go on the
side. Should we check that out?
You know? But then there there'sa group. And I remember doing
this, having spent loads of timewith our group playing like
that. I played with a a newgroup, and I I thought I was
giving them a world ofopportunity. I was giving them

(53:00):
Vienna under siege.
They were trapped in Vienna inthe sixteen hundreds and
something. I can't remember.Broadly speaking, I was thinking
of basing it on Tim Powers'book, The Drawing of the Dark,
which is a fabulous book, whichI recommend to all sorts of
people. However, I'd I'd sort ofcreated this wonderful setting.

(53:30):
And I said, you know, it's allyours.
And they were kind of going, butwhat do we do? Yeah. What do we
do? So I quickly then, you know,had to go, ah, and and you get a
letter from Isaac Newton or orsomething like that to ask you
to to go off and steal thismachine off this other person

(53:51):
and because it might summon updemons. Leibniz, I think, was
was involved.
It was great fun. In the end,because I thought, oh, I've this
world of opportunity. I've theRussians over here. I've got
these over there. And hardlyanything happened for for half a
session while they were kindagoing, well, yeah, but, yeah,

(54:11):
give us give us the plot,please.
Take us on the story. Yeah. So II

Dave (54:16):
think there's an interesting thing there which
comes back to the point I wasmaking about player investment
in the world. And the moreinvested your players are in the
world, the more the more thosekind of situations are are open
to them. Because Yeah. Beinginvested in the world, they're
more interested, they're morelikely to think about what's
going on, they're more likely tohave an opinion about who the

(54:39):
Russians are and what they'redoing and and whether they're
good people or bad people, whothe other factions are, you
know, what the city is like. Andit's not always easy to get that
investment, but if you are ableto do it, then then your players
it makes it easier for them totake that imaginative leap and
make a make a make a connectionfor themselves rather than

(55:01):
having to be spoon fed, youknow, the plot, as you I think
the other thing for me is a lotof players and I think, know, in
the past, we when we wereyounger, young whippersnappers,
I'm sure we were, you know,equally guilty of this.
Guilty is the right word. We'dalways look to violence as the

(55:23):
solution to every problem. Yes.Yes. And, yeah, I think yeah.
Again, it comes back to one ofthe other points about the
player's actions havingconsequences or their decisions
having consequences. So in theexample that we've just been
talking about, the castle, theymight say, ah, there's only one
guard. Well, let's go and killhim and we're in. But then, you

(55:46):
know, they do that, but thenthey suddenly realize that in
the I can't remember. There's aspecial name for the passage
that runs under the guardhousewith the portcullis.
I can't remember the name of itnow. Gosh. I used to

Matthew (55:56):
be destroyed. I used to look after castles and interpret
them to the public. Can'tremember it. Never heard.

Dave (56:01):
But at but at the end of that, you realize there's a
guardhouse with 10 men in it. Soas soon as you kill the guy at
the front door, you know, eitheryou come in and they shut the
porcullises on you or you getattacked in there. So I think
trying to encourage players toto think of different ways
around it rather than just, youknow, or going around the back.
Okay. The back door's unguarded.
Let's kick it in and kill theservants so they don't tell

(56:24):
anyone that we're coming. Mightbe fine in some games and some
game styles, but actually, in inmost situations, if you look at
it logically, that's unlikely tobe a successful way of achieving
that objective.

Matthew (56:39):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think just a little callback to
Freely. So one of the things Ilove about the the way Freely
does adventures sometimes iswhat they call the adventure
sites, where they just they setit out there and you know they

(57:01):
they they tell the GM about thefactions and the objectives of
the various people you mightmeet in location or the monsters
or whatever you might meet inlocation. And then it's up to
the players what they do.
But I do wonder, even though Ilove that, particularly for our
style of play, I do wonder and,you know, for example, The

(57:24):
Magician's Gambit, which is thenew scenario that's coming out
on free league day on on freeRPG.

Dave (57:30):
For Dragon for Dragon Boat.

Matthew (57:31):
For Dragon Boat. Yeah. Which just just comes to mind
easily because I've just spentthe time, while not listening to
your reply, looking you up.Well, that is a lot more. Again,
that's a con game.
It's designed to be over twohours. So actually, it is a lot
more, Not necessarily railroady,but the objectives are clearly

(57:55):
defined. You've gotta do thisthing. We know who we're helping
cheat. There isn't particularlyan option in this one to go to
his opponent and say, hey.
Hey. Hey. You know, Blanky Boy'sabout to cheat with this. He's
asked to do all these things.No.
You do those things. You scorethe points so you get out. And
and so sometimes I think that isa good way of doing it.
Particularly, you've alreadymentioned for con games. But

(58:17):
where that time is constrained,don't give them time to think
about the object.
Yeah. When You've got a Sorry.Carry on.

Dave (58:27):
No. Just saying, and in your con game, you're you're
trying to make maximum bang foryour every minute you've got.
Yeah. So giving the players halfan hour to and not really know
what they're doing and then cometo a decision isn't something
you've got the luxury to do fora convention game usually.

Matthew (58:43):
Yeah. So that's the Magistrate's Gambit available
for free and free RPG day. Okay.I'm short

Dave (58:52):
Is that okay. Magistrate or magicians? Because you said
magicians the first time.

Matthew (58:56):
Oh, did I? Sorry. No. That's me that's me forgetting.
Yeah.
Magistrate's Gambit. Just aswell, I said it a second time.
So if you want me to off lookingfor the rugged

Dave (59:03):
Everyone's going, I can find this Magistrate's Gambit,
but I can't find theMagistrate's Gambit anywhere.

Matthew (59:09):
Yeah. The Magistrate's Gambit is what's available for
free. And like other quickstarts of Dragonbane, it comes
with the rules as well, thecharacters. It's all you need to
play an adventure. Well, apartfrom a few dice and your
imagination, as it says

Dave (59:23):
And some players.

Matthew (59:25):
And some players. Yes.

Dave (59:27):
Yeah. Cool.

Matthew (59:27):
And it's got the scoring rules. You don't need to
do it as a com you know, as atournament game. But if you
would do, then the scoring rulesgonna be in there as well. So
you can see you can experiencethe same thing. Right.
Is that the end of this episode?I

Dave (59:41):
think it might be. Are we doing for next time?

Matthew (59:45):
Yeah. Well, we noticed not so much a gap in the rules
of of this brilliant new game,Tales of the Odd West, because
we didn't leave any gaps. But wenoticed I suddenly thought, as
as my character is now a marriedman, and you you always go on

(01:00:07):
about how it's being agenerational game, I suddenly
thought, hold on. In the turnwell, in the equivalent of turn
of the seasons in Pendragon,there is a and how many babies
do you have? And so I couldn'tremember what we'd said about
that, and you looked it up.
And there's only actually a verysmall chance that a turn of the

(01:00:27):
seasons role will bring a newbaby onto the horizon. Yep.
Which is, you know, could be funfor a surprise if that's not
what you were planning. Yeah.But if if if I'm planning to
start a family, what do I do inAre

Dave (01:00:48):
we sure this is the right podcast to be telling you about
that, mate? If you haven'tworked that out by now, then
there's something that's a bitwrong.

Matthew (01:00:55):
If my player if my player is playing with studs in
your family.

Dave (01:00:58):
So so when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much

Matthew (01:01:03):
And these are the rules that I think it may be worth
just as a little addendum forthose, not necessarily every
player who's gonna be saying, Iwant rules for pregnancy. But we
we had a brief chat about ityesterday, and I think I can
expand upon those and do a nicelittle concise paragraph of
rules in time for next time,which we can discuss and maybe

(01:01:27):
expand on in the next episode.So having babies in the Old
West.

Dave (01:01:33):
There we go. Excellent. That's what we're

Matthew (01:01:35):
talking about next

Dave (01:01:35):
time. Cool. Right. Well, I think we're done for today then,
aren't we?

Matthew (01:01:41):
I think we probably are.

Dave (01:01:44):
So it's goodbye for me.

Matthew (01:01:46):
And it's goodbye from him.

Dave (01:01:48):
And may the icons bless your adventures. You have been
listening to the effect podcastpresented by Fiction Suit and
the RPG Gods. Music stars on ablack sea used with permission
of Free League Publishing.

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