Once more into the breach, my friends

Episode Transcript
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Matthew (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to effect episode 250. Wow. 250.
That's not the title, by theway. The title is once more unto
the breach, dear friends.
I'm Matthew.

Dave (00:54):
And I'm Dave. And that was a good recovery on a screwed up
start, wasn't it, Matthew?Because normally, we say,
welcome to episode whatever. Andyou were I could tell in your
voice when you went, effect. No.
I shouldn't have said that. Ishouldn't have said something
else. But, yes. Anyway, welcometo our 250th show. Who would
have thought it?

Matthew (01:14):
Yeah. I certainly wouldn't, except a couple of
weeks ago, I thought it, becauseI noticed we did 249.

Dave (01:23):
Who would have thought it back in the day?

Matthew (01:26):
Back in the day. When we

Dave (01:27):
were starting.

Matthew (01:27):
Back in the day when we were we weren't sure you're
gonna do any more than oneepisode.

Dave (01:32):
Well, to all those people who listened to the first
episode, how many of thosepeople thought we'd be doing
250? Not many, I suggest. No.Yeah. It wasn't.
Yeah. Anyway, welcome to the250th show. On the show today,
we've got, a few of the usualthings. We've got the world of
gaming, a few bits and bobs totalk around in that, some

(01:52):
announcements, and some stuffgoing on.

Matthew (01:55):
And before then, we've got a new patron to thank.
Remember that? I know it's noton the running order, but we do.

Dave (02:00):
No. We do. Absolutely. We have a new patron to thank.
Obviously, we have some old westnews, and most of you probably
know this news already.
But we've got some, excellentbit of breaking not breaking
news. An excellent bit of newson that. And then, last time I
said that, I would do a littlebit of thinking about battles in

(02:22):
role playing games, because I'vebeen doing some thinking around
Rome year 0, and battles willfeature in that. And, I've done
a bit of a piece talking allabout that. Giving some thoughts
and some comments, and that's tocome later on.
That is our show. So movingswiftly on then, we have a new
patron. Which is the first timein a few shows we've had a new

(02:42):
patron, which is remarkable andwonderful. Thank you. Who was
it, Matt?

Matthew (02:46):
Yes. It's Peter Thomas. Welcome, Peter. Thank you very
much, Peter. Welcome welcome tothe crew.
I will obviously, send you amessage on Patreon. But if you
haven't joined our Discord, andI don't think you have, then
plug your Discord handle intoyour Patreon account, and you

(03:06):
will automatically be welcomedto the nicest place on the
Internet. And there's a bunch ofstuff to download as well on the
Patreon as well. Things that wehave made. Indeed.
And exclusive things as well,like, like our original, Hopes
Last Day, Adventures. Last Hopes

Dave (03:28):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew (03:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, and welcome. Welcome welcome aboard,
happy little band.

Dave (03:37):
Yes. And, obviously, thanks for everyone who supports
us. But, lovely to have somebodynew. And, yeah, get on the
Discord as soon as you can,Peter. If you wanna join the
chat, that would be great to seeyou there.
So you you almost did a reallygood

Matthew (03:49):
segue there. I almost did. Yeah. I just realized how
badly you could have justscrewed this segue up.

Dave (03:55):
You you were missed you missed that boat by a fraction.
I thought, oh, good segue. But,oh, no. He's he's missed it. But
yes.
So if you if you, if you if youjoin the Patreon, you can
download some of our originalalien, Hope's Last Day,
forerunner.

Matthew (04:11):
We called it Last Hopes back in

Dave (04:13):
the day. The Last Hope we did, which is 3 scenarios all
based on, Huddly's hope. Buttalking alien, well, everyone
have heard by now, alienevolved, the the kick start of
that has now been announced byfree league, and that's going to
go live on March 25th, Ibelieve. And so that's about 6

(04:33):
well, nearly 2 months from fromthis episode. But yeah.
So after all the excitement lastyear when it was sort of teased
and didn't quite happen, here wego. Now we have, alien evolved
being launched on March 25th. II haven't I haven't seen I
haven't read the, theannouncement in great detail.
Are they going to be deliveringa almost complete PDF when

(05:00):
people back? Do we know?

Matthew (05:03):
Because I haven't really seen mention of that.

Dave (05:06):
Let me just I haven't either, but but I I suspect the
PDF, you know, the work for itmust be pretty well complete. I
mean, Johan Nord has been doingthe layout this time, and
they've gone for a verydifferent look and feel.

Matthew (05:19):
Gone And I have to say an excellent look and feel. I I
much prefer it to 1st edition.

Dave (05:27):
So I yeah. I've got a comment on it. I I do like it
very much. And I and and Johanis is obviously very very
talented, graphic artist who'sdoing a fabulous job. I I I
think there's a thing about thelovely sort of white with, what
was it?
Pale blue kind of a lot of paleblue in it. And then you've got

(05:49):
all the very dark images,particularly kind of the ones
that they've used in in theoriginal books, which is quite a
contrast. So I think there's Idon't know. I've only I've only
glanced at a couple of thethings that they've put up and
and on the kickstarter page.But, that kind of thing jars
slightly, but I wonder ifthey're gonna do something

(06:11):
different, for the finalizedversion.
I'm sure it'll look good, youknow, when it when when it's
there.

Matthew (06:18):
Yeah. So there's so on the on on what they've shared,
there is, there are someobvious, we'll have this from
the last the last one we made.

Dave (06:29):
Yeah.

Matthew (06:30):
Which which is only fair because it's gorgeous
Martin grip art for the mostpart.

Dave (06:34):
Yep.

Matthew (06:37):
But there's also some new stuff. So there's a there's
a double page spread with awhipping tail of an alien, which
I think is a new new bit ofwork, possibly actually by Johan
Orr himself, given the amount ofblood. Yeah. And, you know, that
is a monochrome bit of art, butI can see what you mean. Then on

(06:59):
the next spread, there issomething that came out of I
can't remember which, probablythe core book.

Dave (07:05):
I think the core book, if it's the one I'm thinking of.

Matthew (07:07):
Yeah. And what you're saying is when the core book was
white print on black or greenprint on black sometimes, then
the the those sort of shadowyalien pictures sort of loomed
out of the page in the way thatan alien might, and they look a
little bit stark on these whitepatches.

Dave (07:28):
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it'd be interesting to
see what they do.
As I said, I'm sure it's gonnalook fabulous when they're
finished. But, but yeah. And interms of the text, I mean, I've
I've not got any great insight.I did do a couple of things for
it. And if the book comes intoabout 80,000 words, I'd have
done about 15% of the book,which is cool.

(07:49):
Mhmm. And maybe not quite thatmuch, a bit less. So I had a
couple of good good bits today.One's a life path generator,
which is great fun.

Matthew (07:56):
Excellent. Took a bit Did you like our life path
generation?

Dave (07:58):
We do. We do. I I hope I mean, I've I've had no feedback
on it. So I'm assuming theyliked it.

Matthew (08:05):
I gave you feedback on it.

Dave (08:06):
No. No. But I mean, from Freelee. Freelee. Freelee.
Well, I

Matthew (08:09):
That's because my feedback was so brilliant. They
don't need to give you

Dave (08:11):
any feedback. Well, I had a massive, a massive crisis of
confidence in doing it, and Ithought, is this any good? Or is
this just really shit? Andbecause I because the word
limits, as usual, were verystrict. And trying to get what I
wanted into the word limits wasreally quite difficult.
Mhmm. But I tested it with you.

Matthew (08:28):
So is that when you gave it to me to to tell you
whether it was good or shit?

Dave (08:33):
Kind of. Yeah. Exactly.

Matthew (08:34):
Yeah. That that was a stupid idea, wasn't it?

Dave (08:37):
Well, I knew I'd get a, you know, a a a biased on the,
you know, the the the bad siderather than the good side.

Matthew (08:43):
On the negative side.

Dave (08:44):
I could then balance it balance it out. But then I ran
it with some of the guys, at mygame club, and they all seemed
to really enjoy it. And then Iran it with you guys, didn't I,
on our weekend away, back end oflast year, and you all seem to
really like the characters itproduced. So, I'm quite pleased
with that. And then the otherthing I did was a bit of
campaign material, to supportcampaign.

Matthew (09:05):
Did we record that?

Dave (09:08):
I suspect we probably did.

Matthew (09:11):
Yeah. I'm suddenly thinking, I've I've actually
totally forgotten that we'vedone that thing. But now you've
reminded me of it. I'm thinking,tada, recorder. So,

Dave (09:21):
we should

Matthew (09:21):
dig it out.

Dave (09:22):
We should definitely dig it out. I think I'm I I might be
reminded to wait until the PDFcomes out

Matthew (09:27):
before we proceed with that.

Dave (09:29):
We could

Matthew (09:29):
if we edit it, we could, stick it out as a bonus
podcast

Dave (09:33):
Absolutely.

Matthew (09:33):
At the appropriate time. Indeed.

Dave (09:35):
Because it's not it's not impossible that they looked at
mine, thought it was shit, andthen did something else
completely different.

Matthew (09:40):
And did something entirely different.

Dave (09:41):
Which is not impossible. I mean, it hasn't happened in the
past, but it's not impossible.So, obviously, we need to make
sure what's actually in the bookbefore we, before we talk about
it. But I mean, all that wasfinished before well, I write it
at new year, basically. Sothey've had some time, and I
suspect that the text must bepretty much pretty much done by

(10:03):
now.
So I would expect Mhmm. There tobe a PDF coming in the not too
distant future after the, afterthe Kickstarter. I I would
imagine because it's mostly I Idon't know because I'm not
involved. I'm just going on thelittle bits of, you know,
evidence that I've seen. But Isuspect that it's it's pretty
well developed now, I wouldimagine.

Matthew (10:25):
Yeah. Yeah. And, obviously, one exciting thing,
although maybe not quite asexciting I'm I'm excited for it,
nonetheless, is the, is the boxset starter set of the, and I
quote, fan favourite, Hope'sLast Days Lothario. Yeah. Which,

(10:46):
has been expanded, not by youand I.
Unless you're keeping a terriblesecret from me.

Dave (10:51):
No. I wish I wish I was, but no.

Matthew (10:56):
And, yeah, I'm I'm I'm hoping we still get our name in
the credits for that, becauseI'd love to have my name on that
box set. Just by the the look ofthe photograph of it. Yeah.
Yeah. So, Yeah.

Dave (11:08):
No idea. Which I

Matthew (11:09):
can wait and see.

Dave (11:10):
Yeah. No idea. Yeah. I don't know whether they've taken
Hadley's Hope and done somethingdifferent with it in terms of a
scenario or whether they'vetaken Hope's last day, you know,
and then developed expanded uponthat, which then I would hope to
get a, you know, based on theoriginal Hope's Last Day by Dave
Seamark and Matt Jones, MattTyler Jones. You would hope.

Matthew (11:32):
Yeah. But, you know I'd hope.

Dave (11:34):
We will see.

Matthew (11:35):
Yes. We'll we'll wait and see. Yeah. And it's got a
gorgeous cover that I feel, inin in this, you know, 250
episodes since we were inspiredby the game Coriolis to make
this podcast, I think the coverof Hope's Last Day looks a bit
like the cover of Coriolis the3rd horizon.

Dave (11:56):
There are definitely vibes, aren't there? Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew (12:00):
And, also, the other thing, you know, where we we the
image I used for our alienpodcast adventures was the
Horsehead Nebula. And the alienin the background looks a bit
like that Horsehead Nebulathere. So I'm kind of feeling,
you know, I I feel part of thisgame even though we've not had
it.

Dave (12:19):
Yeah. And I I I do very much like the, the artwork for
the, for the core rules. The,the face the face hugger line.

Matthew (12:28):
The face hugger. Yeah.

Dave (12:29):
Yeah. That looks lovely. But, yeah. The, definitely the
the the Hope's Last Day box doeslook very Coriolis. Doesn't it?

Matthew (12:37):
Yes.

Dave (12:37):
So it looks great. I mean, you've got the alien in the
background. You've got the teamin the front, and then I've got
what what looks like a a diehard tire tractor, which would
make absolute sense, becausethat's what they had. Hope's
Hadley's Hope. But it'sdefinitely called Hope's Last
Day.
So it's,

Matthew (12:52):
Yeah. But it says so on the front of It does. Of the
box. Yeah.

Dave (12:55):
Yeah. It would be nice to get But if you get it, it would
be nice to

Matthew (12:59):
get credit. Fan favorite Hope's Last Day. You
still would have called itHope's Last Day. Yeah. Unless
you wanted to call it LastHopes, of course.

Dave (13:07):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they could have had the Anyway
They could have had the othertwo scenarios. That was with

Matthew (13:12):
Yeah. They have because

Dave (13:13):
all they had to do was

Matthew (13:14):
That thing that I made for them, I made for them just
before they decided to put itinto the core book originally.
So they have actually got thething that we we share now with
our

Dave (13:28):
patrons. Right.

Matthew (13:29):
They've got that document, because they'd asked
for it, for GenCon or something.They were gonna hand it off to
Gen Con. So I'll put thatdocument together for that.
Anyway, so, you know, if they'venicked those ideas, I'm happy
with that.

Dave (13:45):
Yeah. Absolutely. Me too. Me too.

Matthew (13:48):
If they've made it shit, I'll be disappointed. But,

Dave (13:51):
well, it's I think I think it's gonna be interesting
because it's going to be,expanded to allow the, you know,
the bigger maps, the the the thebattle map style of map.

Matthew (14:02):
Yeah.

Dave (14:03):
To allow, minis to be used. And that's that'll be
interesting to see what they've,you know, how that works, and
and, you know, what they've donewith it to do that. Yeah. I
mean, I've I I I won't ever berunning an alien game with
minis.

Matthew (14:23):
No. No. No. You you and I, we're both be.

Dave (14:25):
You know, it's not

Matthew (14:26):
the mind, aren't we?

Dave (14:27):
Yeah. Yeah. It's not it's it's not the way I do things.
And yeah. So I mean, it's notgonna be the thing that that's
gonna make me get me allexcited, I suspect.
But it'll be really interestingto see how they've done it.
Because there's quite a, youknow, unless they've made
Hadley's Hope a little bitsmaller, there's quite a lot of
grounds cover on Hadley's Hope.And doing it all on battle maps

(14:51):
is gonna be quite a lot of mapsand quite a lot of Yeah. Floor
space.

Matthew (14:56):
So it looks to me from the illustration here, it looks
like they've got a great bigmap, possibly 2 sided, and it's
one half on each side. I don'tthink there's many more than
that that one big map. But,yeah. Or maybe Yeah. I don't

(15:21):
know.
I don't know. And the otherthing I'm trying to see here,
and I can't, of course, possiblysee here is what the character
names are because we, you know,again, I I feel that's a little
bit of our mark on the adventurewas to quote, Conrad

Dave (15:36):
Yes. With

Matthew (15:37):
all those character names. Yeah. So anyway

Dave (15:40):
Will be interesting to see. Anyway, March 25th, that is
due to March.

Matthew (15:44):
25th. Yeah. Yeah. And, we recommend that you back it
even well, now you have beeninvolved as well. So so we
definitely recommend you backit.
The miniatures, as you say, I'mnot massively interested in
those. But looking at some ofthese characters, I'm wondering,
are any of these characters theguys from Hope's Last Day?

(16:09):
Anyway Yeah. We shall see. Weshall see.
The one important thing we didwith Hope's Last Day is we
didn't assign a sex to any ofour characters.

Dave (16:17):
No. No.

Matthew (16:18):
So, by illustrating them and giving them portraits
and stuff like that, they willalthough I do remember, we
didn't assign sex to any of ourcharacters, but we did say one
of them had a very impressivemoustache.

Dave (16:34):
You could be female and have an impressive mustache.

Matthew (16:36):
You can. You can. And that that's the thing. But You
might might not be remember

Dave (16:40):
Super confident.

Matthew (16:41):
One of the players pointing it out. Yeah. I think
having chosen to be femalebecause I said, you can choose
whatever you want to be, andthen read, oh, I've got an
impressive

Dave (16:48):
this time.

Matthew (16:51):
Anyway right. Well, there's some other news in the
world of gaming. It's not allalien, is it?

Dave (16:55):
No. It's not all alien.

Matthew (16:58):
Oh, gold. Yes. So it's it's time for one of those weird
new segments almost inanniversary mode, I feel, or
Mhmm. Ages ages ago. I noticed,the article on Enworld about how
it seemed.
This was just before Christmaslast year. Right. Not last year,

(17:21):
the year before last now, ofcourse. The evil genius was in
some financial trouble andgeneral unhappiness, and all
sorts of stuff. Anyway, wementioned it, they didn't
collapse, which I think I mighthave predicted that they were
about to collapse, afterChristmas, but they didn't.
They're still going strong. Butjust now, after somebody posted

(17:46):
a link to that article inReddit, they've started throwing
cease and desist orders around.So I'm expecting we're gonna get
one at some point when they whenthey realize that, we mentioned
it in our podcast of some yearsago, because it's doing
irreconcilable damage to thebrand of evil genius.

Dave (18:09):
Yeah. I mean, I I don't really have enough vision on all
of this to to have, you know, aa broad perspective on on what's
really happening and, you know,the impact it might have on the
company. I mean, all all I'veseen is the stuff that's been

(18:29):
been been put up, which isobviously, you know, one one
person or one one side's pointof view. Yeah. Is is it I it's a
difficult one to comment,because if what they're saying
is true, then, you know, they'vegot every right, I think, to to
speak up about it.

(18:52):
But, yeah, I don't know enoughabout it to be able to make any
real solid comment that would beanything other than kind of wild
speculation, really.

Matthew (19:02):
It it just says first of all, they went after this
Reddit post saying, will youtake this post down?

Dave (19:07):
Yeah.

Matthew (19:08):
And I think a blokey boy who had did that post had
said, well, it's not even mycontent. All I did was link to
it. Yeah. And then, Morris fromEnworld

Dave (19:19):
That was got

Matthew (19:20):
a a rather dodgy looking letter that could have
looked like some sort of scamletter or email from from
somebody saying, this is a ceaseand desist. Take the content
down. But, you know, it's he, ofcourse, said this is the
Strysohn effect. You just let itlie there. It was gone.

(19:42):
I mean, we haven't spoken aboutit since 2 years ago, whenever
we whenever we talked about it.No. It was entirely not a story

Dave (19:50):
anymore. You're completely forgotten, frankly. Yeah.

Matthew (19:53):
And and now and now it's back to being a story
again, all because, they'vesuddenly noticed it. Anyway, I
don't know. We haven't got muchtime to talk about it, so let's
not No. You're you're off onholiday, but we've done
recording. If though you want topunch a fascist, this is where
you can.
Not evil genius game. Right? Imean, I'm sure you

Dave (20:15):
can punch

Matthew (20:16):
fascists and evil genius games as well. But don't
go to evil genius games andpunch people, because I'm not
accusing them of being fascist.No. Now I really will get a
cease and desist order.

Dave (20:25):
Yeah. Or worse. Yeah. We've got we've got we've we've
yeah. There is yeah.
So anyway, this

Matthew (20:32):
is something entirely of holding.

Dave (20:34):
Yes. Go on.

Matthew (20:35):
So You want It's it's the punch Nazi's bundle of
holding, which was just it wasbrought to our attention by
John, but I'd already actuallyseen it, and was gonna bid it on
the, on the running order anywaybecause, Eat the Reich is part
of the bonus collection. Youknow how, with with bundle of

(21:02):
holding, you can get a basic setof whatever for a certain amount
of money. And then, more for anamount of money that raise rises
throughout the throughout thecampaign depending on how many
people get it. But, so so Idon't know most of these games,
but I do know Eat the Reich. AndI would say this is probably a

(21:28):
very good way of getting Eat theReich.
Eat the Reich comes from ourlovely friends at Roanoke and
Deckard.

Dave (21:35):
Yep. And we've played it.

Matthew (21:36):
Our convention pals. I've not played it yet. No. No.
Neither.
I think Noble offered to run agame, or did I play it with
Noble, actually? Just a a shorttaster session. But the
interesting thing about it is itis very much a kind of one and
done game.

Dave (21:52):
Yeah.

Matthew (21:52):
It's not a campaign game. I think it's immensely
replayable probably, but it'sit's it's almost an adventure on
its own. And so you might feel,you know, if you were to splurge
it in print, you might feel, oh,I'm not actually getting much
play value. It looks lovely.Mhmm.

(22:12):
But you don't get to generateyour own characters. You know,
you get some pre generatedcharacters, and you run them
through an adventure, which is agreat adventure because your
vampires sent into Germany toeat Hitler, Which, you know,
that Sebastian's vampires.

Dave (22:30):
I mean, yeah. I mean, he he I mean, that's just a story
that's been begging to be toldprobably ever since vampires,
you know, well well, not sincevampires have been around, but
since since Hitler was Since

Matthew (22:40):
Hitler was invented. Yes.

Dave (22:43):
How was how was this one not got picked up before? You
know, it's like,

Matthew (22:47):
Well, I pointed out at the time it has been picked up
before, because it's kind of asubplot in, Knights of Black
Ages.

Dave (22:52):
Right. Yeah. But,

Matthew (22:57):
but but, no, this is done in all its glory and over
the top glory, I think,actually. You got some great
characters there, all sorts ofdifferent vampires who are
reflections and exaggerations ofall of the vampire tropes, each
of them. So Yeah. It's a great Ithink I enjoyed reading it. So

(23:17):
that, you know, that's always agood start.
Even though I haven't paid ityet, I would recommend that. And
if you wanna get it in a valuefor money way, use the punch
Nazis one. And your money aftergateway fees goes to, the Center
For Constitutional Rights, whichmay be getting quite a lot of

(23:39):
work given the currentsituations in in in places that
maybe we won't mention.

Dave (23:48):
What is the Centre of Constitutional Rights?

Matthew (23:51):
The Centre for Constitutional Rights is
dedicated to advancing andprotecting the rights guaranteed
by the United StatesConstitution and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.

Dave (24:01):
Okay.

Matthew (24:01):
The CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a
positive force for socialchange. And, yeah.

Dave (24:12):
Don't worry about the

Matthew (24:14):
Yeah. You can find a link. We will put a link, of
course, to bundle of holding inour show notes, and then you can
click through bundle of holdingto check out the Centre For
Constitutional Rights. So youknow though that you whatever
you money you spend will be usedto metaphorically punch a Nazi.

Dave (24:33):
Or at least try and stop a Nazi punching you.

Matthew (24:38):
Yes. Yes. To stop Nazis. They they don't punch
generally. They use their jackboots to, kick or their gas
chambers, of course.
But,

Dave (24:49):
Yeah. Anyway. Okay.

Matthew (24:50):
Let's move on. Old west news.

Dave (24:54):
Yeah. So, Old West News. So the bit of news that probably
everyone has already heard isthat last weekend, we, put out
the PDF for Woah. To our to allour backers, which was a bit of
a bit of a moment. Took a bitof, hard work to get there.
Apologies for it being a bitlate, but as we've said before,

(25:15):
I think we were, you know, kindof wildly optimistic they would
get out by Christmas. Frankly,it's a lesson for us. But having
got it out by by the end of, oursecond, undertaking, our second
commitment of by the end ofJanuary, you know, I'm pleased
we did that. It's it's lookinglovely. I'm I'm really pleased

(25:36):
with it.
It's, it's longer than wethought. So it's coming

Matthew (25:41):
at 3 It's almost half as long again as we thought.

Dave (25:43):
Not not quite, but nearly. Yeah. Which again We

Matthew (25:46):
thought it was gonna be 200 quid, 200 quid. We thought
it was gonna be 200 pages.

Dave (25:51):
I I think my my estimate was 220, I think, when we
actually finished the text.

Matthew (25:57):
Right. Yes. But I think when in the kick start, it says
200.

Dave (26:00):
Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. We have we have an account yeah. We
haven't accounted for certainthings.
We hadn't by the time we startedthe Kickstarter, we didn't have
all the guest writers'contributions and some of that
stuff.

Matthew (26:13):
Yeah.

Dave (26:14):
However though, again, it's another good lesson for us
about estimating the size of,the size of books from the
number of words, involved. Yes.But, yes. But there we go. So
it's out now.
We've got a couple of weekshiatus before we get to put
together the the PDF for print.In that period we are, open to

(26:37):
people giving us feedback, andparticularly typos and those
kind of problems. Please let usknow. We've had a few already,
but we did work pretty hard onproofing. So I'm kinda hoping
there aren't gonna be 100 outthere.
I always hate it if you get abook and there's 100 of kind of,
you know, careless errors in it.And we've we've worked really

(26:57):
hard to try and expunge all ofthose. So, there was Although,

Matthew (27:02):
some of the, we've had about 6 people come back to us.
And and a couple of those arereal face palms.

Dave (27:09):
Yeah. That's true.

Matthew (27:09):
Travel. Now, that does look if we were looking if we
didn't know how much work we'dinvested in this book, we'd
think, ah, nobody's proofreadthat.

Dave (27:18):
Well, I think I think, you know, I mean, yes. There's
things like that. But it it's300 pages. I mean, it took me a
week to do the the firstproofread just going through. My
eyes were flapping about onstalks by the end of it.
So, yeah. I think we're we'reinevitable. I remember I said to
you, you know, I've I've done areally thorough job. So I I

(27:39):
think I've done a good job, butI'm I'm readying myself to be
disappointed that I haven't doneas good a job as I think I have.
And if we end up with only adozen or so amendments, then
I'll be pretty pleased with thatproofread, frankly.

Matthew (27:53):
Yeah. But, we've had some lovely comments. Overall, a
wonderful product.Congratulations to everyone
involved says blue toe. Blue toeoxen.
And there's one really greatone. Where where is that one?
And this one, I am veryimpressed. Aces and Eights used
to be my pick for best WesternRPG, as it provided the best

(28:14):
play anything options andoffered the best real old west
feel. This game now officiallytakes the top spot for me,
offers a great play anythingfeel with quick easy archetypes
for those who I think we'remissing a word out here.
Who are more comfortable workingfrom scratch or who are less
comfortable, I mean, workingfrom scratch, does a fantastic

(28:36):
job of holding on to a morerealistic idea of that time and
place in a respectful mannerwhile definitely offering up an
engaging game. So, yeah. Thatthose were our aims.

Dave (28:48):
Yes. Absolutely. I mean, it's lovely to hear that kind of
feedback because as you say,that is exactly what our
intention was with this game.And if it's, you know, if some
people are getting that vibefrom it, then brilliant.
Hopefully, most people would getthat vibe from it.
But no. Superb. It's been great.It's lovely getting feedback
like that because it's it's areal, what's the word I'm

(29:10):
looking for? A real sort ofaffirmation of all the effort
we've put in to try and make thegame as good as possible, and
get the game out.
And you know, we we have hadsome, you know, less positive
feedback, which is great. Youknow, we wanna hear that.
Everyone has an opinion. You'llobviously the way we've done
things won't please everybody.But I hope there's enough in the

(29:31):
game for those who who do havesome, you know, less positive or
negative feedback to give us, Ihope there's still enough in the
game that keeps them happy andgets them wanting to play it.
Even if,

Matthew (29:41):
even

Dave (29:42):
if they're not there are bits about it they would prefer
that we'd done differently.Yeah. But, all that all that
feedback is welcome. You know,we we are open, you know, we are
we are entirely open tofeedback.

Matthew (29:55):
And we And of course, you know, it's gotta be said,
even though I'm a great,advocate of rules as written, as
opposed to the sort of wussy.Oh, these are just guidelines.
Do whatever you want with thegame. At the end of the day, you
can do whatever you want withthe game because we're we're not
controlling your table.

Dave (30:13):
Exactly. Yeah. And it and it's interesting. We have had a
couple of comments about sort oftaking taking other rules to
like another level or or takeadding adding another element
onto onto a particular rulealready, which yeah. Which is
great.
I mean, I love that people arethinking about it and putting
that effort and thought into,you know, you know, into the

(30:37):
game. Yeah. It's great. I loveit. It's it's always

Matthew (30:42):
But there's no time for basking in the glory of getting
the PDF out. We've we've got toget the print out, haven't we?

Dave (30:48):
Oh, yeah. There's still there's still plenty there's
still plenty of work to do.

Matthew (30:53):
We're working with our layout artists even as we speak
on the GM screen. Yep. Which islooking lovely from from the
outside, at least. And it's gota wealth of information on the
inside.

Dave (31:08):
Yeah. I

Matthew (31:09):
think I think players will feel maybe or GMs,
actually, won't won't see theinside. Players will, will they?
But GMs will see the insides,and they may feel we're being a
bit old school in the sheernumber of tables in there. But
we want you to make it useful,and it will be useful as long as
you've got reasonably goodeyesight.

Dave (31:30):
Yeah. I mean, it's not that bad. If I can see the stuff
on it, then anybody can whoisn't really, you know, like a
got a real, sight disability. Itis quite small, but it's
readable. And, you know, we wewe've kind of decided to stick
with that because we wanted toget as much useful information

(31:50):
on that screen as possible.
You know, there's you know, wecould have had more information
on there. You know, we've we've

Matthew (31:58):
Yeah.

Dave (32:00):
There are there are you know, one thing we have noted is
there are quite a lot of tablesin this game. And, you know Yes.
That's I don't I don't thinkthat's a bad thing, because, you
know, we haven't got any extremeextraneous tables in there. We
haven't put in tables for noreason. There's always a good
reason for them.
But again, there are lessons wecan learn of how we've designed
the tables. What we've done withthem. You know, how many we've

(32:22):
got. You know, are there thingswe could do differently. So
that's all great.
But in terms of the GM screen,the picture is lovely. I'm I'm
loving that. That is reallynice. And the the amount of
information we're offering ishopefully people will see it and
think, okay. They've made a realeffort to put as much useful
stuff on here as possible.
Because I think, you know, a lotof GM screens you get, you kinda

(32:44):
wonder, well, I never look atit. Or even even with alien, I
had to make my own one back inthe day because there was stuff
on that I wanted to have athand.

Matthew (32:53):
The stuff you wanted, which wasn't on the screen.

Dave (32:55):
Yeah. And it was fairly basic stuff. You know, some
really really useful stuff. So,it's it's always a bit of a
challenge, I think, getting thatright. And hopefully, people
will recognize that we've gonefor the give you as much
reference material as we canwhilst making it still still
readable.
Yeah. But yeah.

Matthew (33:15):
So there's that. What else are we doing? There

Dave (33:19):
there there are some new things that we'd kind of been
aware of, but hadn't reallylooked into in any great detail,
which is really boring adminstuff about distribution of
products.

Matthew (33:29):
Oh, yes.

Dave (33:30):
Through the EU border. There's a thing called g GPSR,
which is the general productsafety regulations, which is a
new set of regulations that cameinto force on the 14th December
last year. Which talks allabout, what we need to do as
publishers when we want toexport stuff from the UK into

(33:52):
the EU. It's it's it's not abiggie. It's just a bit of a
pain in the arse.
We've got to learn what we needto learn about it, which we're
doing. We need to engage acompany to help us, which we're
doing. And then we'll have somepaperwork to fill out, which we
can do. So it's it's not aproblem. It just adds adds
another little bit of, effortonto the onto the pile.

Matthew (34:15):
Yes. And so it's it's specifically it doesn't it
doesn't affect sales going intothe American continent or
anywhere else around the world.No. Purely about EU regulations.
There there are some annoyingthings, like, I am now desperate
to get our prototype dice,because I need to send them off
to a testing lab to make surethey're not gonna kill you

Dave (34:39):
Yeah.

Matthew (34:39):
As as soon as as soon as we get the prototypes in. So
that's that's the one thing I'mworried about that might delay
the whole thing is delivery onthe dice and then the testing
process. Because, obviously,there's a whole bunch of people
now suddenly having to get stuffretested.

Dave (34:55):
Yeah.

Matthew (34:55):
Because they're exporting into Europe. And we've
gotta get, all our words inthis. Well, we've gotta put an
extra paragraph in the

Dave (35:03):
book, actually. There there is something you've got to
do to be compliant. That andthat includes text in the book.

Matthew (35:12):
And and in in some places, it's gotta be in,
various languages of thecountries to which we are
exporting and stuff like that.So we've gotta work out how

Dave (35:22):
Although there are there are there are sort of yeah.
There are there are things youcan do around that, or can do.
There there are some suggestionsof of how that might be handled
at this early stage of these newregulations. Yeah. But, yeah.

Matthew (35:36):
It's all new. Of course, everybody's feeling
their way. In theory, the PDFsare also covered by this, but
since they're coming to you fromdrive through, I think I'm gonna
leave that up to them.

Dave (35:47):
I think g g GPSI is probably not the most exciting
thing we spoke about on thepodcast. So sorry, folks.

Matthew (35:55):
You've And the other thing

Dave (35:56):
you've just had a spy into 10 minutes of, an, you know, an
effect publishing board meeting.So a board, b o r e d is what I
mean. So, yeah.

Matthew (36:08):
The other the other thing we've done is we've put an
order in for dice trays as well.I guess I'm gonna have to get
those tested too. Bloody hell.And, and so they're all done. So
GM screen, dice trays, dice.
Those are all the extras. Yep.And, of course, at the same
time, we are, waiting to hitwe'll put a link in the show

(36:31):
notes for the form that we puton our website where you can
report, typos to us. But,

Dave (36:37):
Yes. Yeah.

Matthew (36:38):
Hopefully, we won't see too many of those. And then in a
couple of weeks' time, we'll,get the book off to the
printers.

Dave (36:45):
Yeah. Whoop. Yeah. And then the pleasure And then and
then the

Matthew (36:50):
other exciting thing, actually, for people who are,
our magnificent backers, We'vegot the original artwork.

Dave (36:59):
Mhmm. Yeah.

Matthew (37:00):
So, I've already promised to, a couple of the
magnificent backers who who hadexpressly said that they were
getting this as a gift forsomebody else. I've already,
said that I'll send them theartwork somehow. But,

Dave (37:16):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew (37:17):
Thought that was lovely.

Dave (37:18):
Yeah. That would be really cool.

Matthew (37:19):
Yeah. Well over the moon.

Dave (37:21):
Yeah. Good. Good. That's really nice.

Matthew (37:25):
Right. That's all the news I think from the old west.

Dave (37:28):
Yep. That'll do. Okay. Well, battles. Did you wanna
talk about battles in roleplaying games?

Matthew (37:37):
I didn't. But I'm hoping you do.

Dave (37:41):
Battles in RPGs are at the forefront of my mind at the
moment because I'm back workingon my Roman historical RPG going
under the working title of RomeYear 0. Battles in the field
will by no means be the be alland end all of this game, but
they will be an important aspectof it, and I want to get them

(38:01):
right. For many years, battlesin role playing games have been
an important part of my gamingexperience. My earliest memories
are of Pendragon Games run byour pal Andy, where we stood
tall against political rivals,the lords of other realms, and
most importantly, the Saxon dogscoming from the East. They were

(38:22):
great.
And the battles seemed to workseamlessly, interweaving the
perspective of the playercharacters within the context of
the wider battle. I really feltlike I was there, fighting my
way through the enemy to theirstandard, taking it down, and
killing their commander. Sincethen I've played a number of
other games where battles havebeen important, including A Song

(38:46):
of Ice and Fire and Legend ofthe 5 Rings, and I've written
Battle Rules for War Stories.I've had a lot of fun running
battles as a GM andparticipating in them as a
player, but rarely do RPG battlerules hit the sweet spot for me.
For me, as a bit of an RPGpurist, by which I mean I want

(39:09):
my role playing games to be moreabout characters, stories,
grappling with tough issues andmoral dilemmas rather than hours
and hours of tactical combat.
Battles can be an issue. Iwonder why is that? What should
a battle in an RPG feel like interms of mechanics and the lived
experience during the battle?How do you give the players the

(39:32):
feeling they can contribute tothe battle's outcome without
making them superheroes orfeeling like they are
pointlessly along for the ride?And what elements make up a good
battle?
Before I comment on thosequestions any further, I'm just
going to say a bit about thecomponents of a good RPG battle.
1st, the player characters mustbe the focus of attention even

(39:56):
if other critically importantthings are going on elsewhere on
the battlefield. 2nd, the playercharacters have to be able to
influence something in thebattle, for better or worse. It
may be the outcome of the battleitself, or the achievement of
some lesser objective, or thesurvival of a critical PC or
NPC, but they must be able toachieve something. 3rd, the

(40:20):
players must feel they're in thebattle, rather than a narrow
scene with some other bigconflicty thing going on around
them that otherwise doesn'treally affect them at all.
And 4th, the actions that aretaking place in that wider
battle must impact the playercharacter's experience of the
battle. Okay. Now I've saidthat, I'm gonna go back to those
questions I posed. I'm gonnastart by answering the last one,

(40:43):
and hope that comments on theothers will come out as part of
that discussion. What elementsmake up a good battle and good
battle rules in an RPG?
There are several elements, orperhaps more accurately Spectra,
that make up battle rules. Andit's natural that different GMs
and players will have their ownpreferences. Let's say those

(41:04):
Spectra went from 1 at the farleft of the scale to 10 at the
far right. The first of theseelements is detail versus
abstraction. Naturally, therehas to be some means by which
the action of the wider battleis determined.
On the far left end of thespectrum, you have the maximum
level of detail, whereindividual units have their

(41:26):
stats, act individually, and arecontrolled by the players and
GM. While this gives the playersfull control and influence over
the outcome of the battle, itdoesn't, for me, work for an
RPG. The game becomes a tabletopwar game. A different mini game
in the middle of your story.They can take hours to play out

(41:48):
and completely disrupt themomentum of the story you're
trying to focus on, that of theplayer characters.
A Song of Ice and Fire fallsfoul of this. The battle rules
in this game are probably a 2 or3 on the scale. And while they
actually work for skirmisheswith just 1 or 2 units they are
easily overwhelmed when armiesget any bigger than that. The

(42:12):
process clogs up and slows downand the battle becomes a slog.
I've GM'd a lot of A Song of Iceand Fire over the years and
loved it.
But devised a number of my owndifferent battle systems for the
game as the rules as writtenjust don't work well enough.
Full disclosure here, back inthe day, I never hit upon a rule

(42:32):
system that I was a 100% happywith that solved the conundrum
of giving the players enoughagency to influence the battle
without bogging the game down inhours of pointless slog. At the
other end of this spectrum isthe full abstract, where the GM
hand waves the battle andnarrates exactly what they want
to happen. This can work well ifyour playing group is blessed

(42:55):
with 2 things. Firstly, a GMthat is happy, winning the
battle, and making up the actionto best fit their game.
And secondly, players who arehappy to let the GM dictate the
outcomes without theintervention of dice. If not
done well, this can feel eitherlike the GM was always going to
let you win, so your victory andachievement is devalued and

(43:18):
feels less like you earned it asa player. Or the GM was always
going to have you lose, and yourisk your players shrugging
their shoulders and wonderingwhat the point was if the
outcome was predetermined. Forme, what I'd see as the perfect
rule sits somewhere about 7 or 8on the scale. You rely upon the
GM to flesh out the battle andnarrate the action, But guided

(43:40):
by a few simple battle rolesthat give the GM the essence of
how the battle develops.
And leave it up to them to moldthat information into a tense
and thrilling scene. The nextelement is reality versus
gamification, for want of abetter word. How realistic
should a battle be? Again, youhave a spectrum with uber

(44:01):
realistic at 1 on the scale andwith forgetting any sense of
realism to enhance the gamingfeel at 10. Where this lands for
each game probably depends onthe game itself.
For example, War Stories, ahistorical game aimed at
recreating the experience offighting in World War 2 needs to
feel realistic. But even therethere is a limit. A sad truth

(44:26):
about the deaths of manysoldiers in modern warfare is
that they never knew where thekilling blow came from. A random
bit of shrapnel, a sniper'sbullet, a mortar or artillery
shell can all deliver arbitrarydeath on the battlefield. And
the same applies to less modernwarfare with a stray arrow, a
blister shot, or rock from acatapult.

(44:47):
But that's no fun in an RPG.Rolling a dice and saying oh
dear, you're dead I'm afraid.Just isn't going to cut it. So a
one on that scale just does notwork. War stories ended up being
a 2 or a 3.
Other games try for this feelbut don't quite get it right.
Legend of the 5 rings is a goodbattle system but takes their

(45:10):
sense of realism too far. Whereevery participant in the battle
suffers a number of wounds everyround. Just from the cut and
thrust, jostling, and batteringof the melee itself. That's
fine, but the PCs have no way ofmitigating some of that damage.
Eventually, they would just diefrom simply being present in the

(45:31):
battle with no good way ofstopping it. Now that may well
be a realistic recreation of thedeadly danger of being in a
medieval battle. A bit like theArbitrary Death I mentioned a
moment ago. But for a player inan RPG that ain't so much fun.
For me, creating a historicalRPG such as Rome Year 0, I'm

(45:51):
going to want a level ofauthenticity to the feel of the
battles, but not necessarilyactual realism.
Somewhere like 4 on the scale,I'd guess. A third and very
important element is playeragency. What's the point of
running a battle in a roleplaying game if the player
characters can't influence theoutcome, at least in some small

(46:13):
way? Yes. You could simply turnit into an exercise in survival,
getting through the battlealive.
And that might be fun once in avery specific situation that
makes the scene all aboutsurvival. But that's not so much
fun for every battle you face.One of the things I always loved
about the battles I'veexperienced in the long running

(46:34):
Pendragon campaign was theopportunity as a player to use
my imagination to uncover sometactic or strategy to help turn
the battle in my favour. Thereason so many of those old
battles have proved somemorable, many of them played
20 or 30 years ago, wasprecisely because the GM allowed
us as players to do exactlythat. Rather than just rolling

(46:55):
our battle skill and seeing howthe dice treated us.
And there are many examples ofthis from history itself. At its
simplest, this can be theambush. Hiding a portion of your
army to spring from the forestand attack your enemy in the
rear. Now you have to hide themsuccessfully or run the risk
that they're all slaughteredbefore the battle even begins

(47:15):
should they be discovered.Another tactic is the feint, a
false route that sees the enemyabandon all sense and perhaps
the great defensive positionthey were holding to chase and
slaughter what they think is adefeated enemy.
Just as William the Conquerordid to King Harold at Hastings.
Or the use of a new weapon, likethe Scots innovation of using

(47:37):
huge spears against the Englishcavalry at Bannockburn. Or
stampeding a herd of animalsthrough your enemies lines
before you attack to disruptthem. This element is less about
a scale, rather than havingrules that allow your player
characters this opportunity.It's important to have your
players feel they can influencethe battle, and maybe do

(47:59):
something exceptional.
They are player characters afterall. The headline stars of your
story. My philosophy here issummed up by a short section
from the war stories RPG, whichstates combat action is zoomed
in on the characters. The battlerules are not intended to run
complete combat engagements indetail, but instead recreate the

(48:23):
feel of that wider combat forthe players. To immerse players
in the bigger engagementdeveloping around them that can
have a big impact on them.
The rules give the GM tools tosee how the sweep of the battle
is going, narrate the evolutionas it progresses, and provide
options for enhancing the playerexperience as we follow them
through the fight. So for Romeyear 0, I'm working on a system

(48:48):
a system that's not toodissimilar to that I created for
Battles in War stories. A systemthat abstracts much of the
opposing army's actions, butdetermines them with a few dice
rolls. Rolls that can beinfluenced by the activities of
the player characters. The focuswill be zoomed in on them, but
during the battle there will bemoments to roll some dice to see
how the wider battle is playingout.

(49:09):
The results of that will impactwhat the PCs face in the next
phase of battle, and whatdecisions they might want to
make.

Matthew (49:18):
Right. That is very interesting. The things I have 2
questions that are burning in mymind. You talk about Pendragon a
lot. But what I want to know ishow much of the battles that we
fought in Pendragon came fromthe rule system of Pendragon,
and how much came from the wayAndy wanted to run battles?

Dave (49:42):
Well, it's interesting. That's a very good point
because, I've I've got the old4th edition, I think it is,
Pendragon rule set on PDF. And Ihad a quick look through that in
in preparing

Matthew (49:57):
for this. Research for this. Yes.

Dave (50:00):
Because I think that was the version that Andy was using,
but I could be wrong. And thenWell,

Matthew (50:05):
he he was using first edition originally. Yeah.

Dave (50:08):
So there

Matthew (50:09):
I yeah.

Dave (50:09):
So there are no battle rules in

Matthew (50:11):
it? No.

Dave (50:12):
So, so yeah. I think a lot of I think a lot of that was
down to Andy's excellent GM ingof those scenes. So I don't I
don't know if first edition hasgot battle rules. I kind of sad
thought they had, but

Matthew (50:29):
I'm I'm sure there are battle in in the in the plethora
of works that have come out forPendragon. I'm sure there are
some Pendragon battles anywaysomewhere. Yeah. But I don't
know whether Andy has got themand if he's got them. Because I
know I bought him Pendragon neweditions.
I think I bought him 5thedition, which is why I'm not

(50:50):
sure he's got 4th. It's it'sinteresting. But I don't know,
you know, I I don't know howmuch he uses them. We we shall
we shall have to quiz him nexttime we see Yeah. About that.

Dave (51:01):
I mean, my my my my feeling is that he probably
doesn't use them very much. Orif he does, he just he uses them
as simply a like a scaffoldingor or or a framework to work
around. Yeah. But but thebattles were great. And
similarly, actually, I'll sayit's not really battles, but

(51:21):
when we've had, ship to shipfighting in Solomon Kane, I know
Andy's created those ruleshimself.
That works really well as well.And you know, it gives you a
real feel for being in themiddle of that kind of fight.
And they're quite it's quitesimple, but the the way Andy's
done it, it it it it it playsout beautifully. So I wonder if

(51:43):
Andy's just got a knack fordoing this kind of slightly
bigger scale scene in a in arole playing game and just just
plays it out really well.

Matthew (51:53):
Yeah. Maybe. You you know, we just have to find out
whether he has used any rules orwhatever. And Yeah. Maybe he
hasn't.
And we have learned at his knee.Of course, there'll be one Andy
spitting blood at this thinking,no. You're meant to learn at my
knee. I'm meant to have taughtyou everything that's good about
role playing. But sorry, Andy b.

(52:13):
Andy g has been our guru.

Dave (52:17):
Andy's gonna hate this, isn't he? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,
mate.

Matthew (52:25):
But our guru in this in this regard may well we we shall
have to tie Andy g down and, askhim where his ideas come from.
Yeah. Probably a big warehousein, in Bournemouth. But, and so
that's my first question. Mynext question, because I know
you're you're you're runningshort of time and need to go on

(52:46):
holiday.
And so I'll keep this one quiteshort.

Dave (52:48):
That's cool.

Matthew (52:49):
I have also enjoyed the battles in war stories, which
you also reference. Now some ofthose Good. I'm pretty sure we
were scripted to win sort ofthing. But I wanna know how much
how much might the entire in ina lot of those battle scenarios

(53:09):
that are in the campaign, andwe're talking about rendezvous
with destiny.

Dave (53:14):
Yep.

Matthew (53:16):
How how how badly could those battles have gone for us?

Dave (53:21):
I I think well, in in my in my intention in writing it,
the battles could go up any waythat they went. You know, any
way that the dice took them oryour your character's actions
took them. So you could loseevery battle. What what that
would then do would then, youknow, change history a little

(53:41):
bit.

Matthew (53:43):
So I don't wanna I don't wanna give too many
spoilers away. But Yeah. In thelast encounter Yeah. There is,
shall we say, a little bit ofinfighting Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Within our unit, which youhave scripted as it were or you
haven't scripted. But you set upa situation where it might
happen. Meanwhile, there is abattle going on in a town.

(54:03):
Again, I'm being a bit vaguehere.
So we might have, for example,won our fight in in our little
unit, and then come out andfound us all surrounded by
Germans. Could we?

Dave (54:15):
Yes. Yeah. Mhmm. So so I I think, I mean, there's probably
an unconscious bias towards thebattles playing out in the way
that they played out in history.So I think

Matthew (54:28):
That's kinda where I was getting to. Yeah. So

Dave (54:30):
but but certainly no written bias. But I think in my
mind, there's an unconsciousbias. But I I I might be able to
find it. Give me a minute. So II definitely, call out the art
of failure and Mhmm.
And and make the point that, youknow, if a battle doesn't go the
way you want it to, that'sgreat. It doesn't matter. You

(54:53):
know, that that will result insomething else. You know, your
players will have to fall backfrom, from that position, or,
you know, they could even becomecaptives and have to have to
escape before before they getsent behind the lines. So the
the game is is designed, isintended to be played, so that

(55:16):
yeah.
Here we go. So that the outcomescan, can play out as the dice or
as the as the, you know, as theaction dictates. So Yeah. It's
just Yeah. It's entirelypossible that the players may
fail or look like they're goingto fail a mission.
This is fine. They should not beencouraged or expected to fight
to the death againstinsurmountable odds. Your
players need to know it's okayto fall back and regroup,

(55:37):
leaving the objective in thehands of the enemy. This allows
a number of options to enter thegame. The players get to lick
their wounds and plan their nextattempt.
They might feel they need armorto help them, leading to a mini
mission to find nearby alliedtanks and convince them to join
their attack. They may decidestealth is required so they can
pick off enemy snipers.Alternatively, as the players
retreat, the Germans could mounta counter attack, and suddenly

(55:59):
the players find themselvesfighting a desperate defensive
action. And there's a couple ofother options in there as well.
So complete you know, soabsolutely, there, you know,
there is there is almost itwould be better for for the
players to to to lose the oddencounter, because it it it it

(56:19):
becomes unpredictable.
Who knows how how the rest ofthe, how the rest of the
campaign will play out. So Yeah.So absolutely. There's nothing
in the book whatsoever,

Matthew (56:32):
dictating

Dave (56:32):
that the battles have to turn out

Matthew (56:33):
in a different way. Not.

Dave (56:35):
No. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Matthew (56:38):
Right. Well, that's a good bit of work though. You
should go on a holiday to rewardyourself. Cool. What are we
gonna do next time?
I don't know.

Dave (56:49):
I don't know.

Matthew (56:52):
I We'll think of something. Yeah.

Dave (56:54):
I think we'll just never think of something. Yep.

Matthew (56:56):
In the end though, it's, it's goodbye from me.

Dave (57:00):
And it's goodbye from him.

Matthew (57:02):
And may the icons bless your adventures.

Dave (57:10):
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 freelypublishing.

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