Sanctioned

Episode Transcript
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Dave (00:40):
Hello and welcome to episode 254 of Effect,
Sanctioned. I'm Dave with arather nasty cold.

Matthew (00:50):
Indeed, a very nasty cold, and I'm Matthew. I'm glad
we record remotely.

Dave (00:56):
Well

Matthew (00:57):
We may have just ruined the illusion for a whole bunch
of alasdors. We do not sitacross from each other at some
table with a couple of fancymics. We're in two different
places.

Dave (01:06):
Sit on each other's laps. That's what we do.

Matthew (01:10):
What that's

Dave (01:11):
it really is. Anyway, yes.

Matthew (01:12):
No. No. We don't. We don't. No.
Take that take that image out ofeverybody's head. Take that in
my head.

Dave (01:18):
Sorry. Yes. Okay.

Matthew (01:21):
Will try not to make you laugh, Dave, as I tell you

Dave (01:24):
what we've

Matthew (01:25):
got coming up. So it's it's a very exciting thing. Now
we did promise in the lastepisode that we would bring a
sort of play report of Coriolis,The Great Dark. And I've got to
say, in discussion with myfellow players, we decided now
is not the time to do that.Because in our adventure, we

(01:48):
have only just started doing thedelve.
And so we thought we ought toplay through the delve in its
entirety before coming back. Sothat's gonna be in probably,
actually now, four weeks' timefrom when you're listening to
this.

Dave (02:03):
Oh,

Matthew (02:04):
okay. So so that's that's the first thing. No
choreo list of great darkinformation for a couple of
episodes. But we've got plentymore to talk about. We have,
excitedly, we've got someexciting Year Zero news of all
sorts in, the world of gaming,and we've got an interview with

(02:27):
well, sorry.
I should say, we've got someexciting Old West news as well.
And we've got an interview withPaul Baldowski of the D sanction
about his current Kickstarterfor the deluxe version of the D
sanction.

Dave (02:45):
Indeed, we do. Pack show as as always. So I think we have

Matthew (02:51):
Let's start off by saying we don't have any new
patrons. So we're not gonnathank any of our new patrons,
but we are gonna thank all ourexisting patrons.

Dave (02:59):
Indeed. As we always do. And, yes, massive massive thank
you for for everyone's supportas always.

Matthew (03:07):
I just want to say a thing actually about patronage,
because I haven't actually putit up on the Patreon site, but
you've distributed via ourDiscord your first draft, or I
don't know if it's actually afirst draft, of your year zero
version Rome rules. We haven'tgot a title for it yet, have we?

Dave (03:28):
Well, Rome year zero is the is the working title, though
it does.

Matthew (03:32):
It's our working title.

Dave (03:33):
It doesn't entirely.

Matthew (03:33):
But it's very specifically not year zero, is
it?

Dave (03:37):
Well, no. It's it's year a 10. Although, the Romans didn't
really count them like that. Soit's the year in the consulship
of I can't remember which twoconsuls it was in, a hundred and
ten BCE. Right.
But yeah. Yes.

Matthew (03:52):
Rome One Hundred And Ten BCE is our second working
title that isn't going to lastvery long, and we will have
another title scene. And so wehave promised all our patrons,
of course, work in progresscopies of Tales of the Old West,
but it seems to me that that'skind of lost its value as people
will soon have in their handsthe finished version of Tales of

(04:15):
the Old West. So, I think RomeYear Zero will take its place
for our $5 patrons, silver levelpatrons, shall we say, and gold
level patrons. I just wanted tosay that about our passage
because I suddenly rememberedthat I haven't actually uploaded
it for the patrons, but I willdo that shortly.

Dave (04:35):
That is that is cool. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know at
what point we wanna talk a bitmore about Romeo Zero, but the
the rules we've got out there atthe moment are well, it's not
really a it's kind of a version0.1, but based on a variety of
drafts over the last few yearsthat I've kind of been tinkering
with. But yeah. I mean, theheadline is I've been

(04:58):
playtesting it with my Wednesdaygroup, and there are things
coming out of that which arewhich are which are good
learning points and things thatwe need to think about. But
actually, they're loving it.
They're real they're really goodinto it. I had though in the
last in the last adventurearguing for an hour about
whether they should open andread a a sealed letter they'd

(05:19):
been given to deliver tosomebody. It was great. It was
brilliant. And so I'm I'm veryheartened by how much the
players are enjoying it.
Once they've got over thatinitial entry level obstacle of
kind of working out in their ownheads what the game how the game
should play. And I think we cando stuff to make that a lot
easier than than we've done inthe playtests. So I'm I'm quite

(05:44):
heartened by by all of that sofar.

Matthew (05:47):
Cool. That that that sounds to me a little bit like
almost world of gaming newsthere, Dave. Shall we move into
the world of gaming?

Dave (05:54):
Let's do that. Yeah. So first first and foremost maybe
not first maybe not foremost.But first, Free League launched
their Alien Evolved EditionKickstarter, well, about four
days ago now at the time ofrecording. And they've done

(06:15):
rather well.

Matthew (06:15):
It's doing very well indeed, isn't it?

Dave (06:19):
It is. Oh, yes. With one point one point two five million
pounds so far.

Matthew (06:26):
And this is on day, as you say, day five or something
that we're looking at this. Dayfive. Yeah. They've got another
twenty days to run or somethinglike that.

Dave (06:34):
Nineteen days to go. They currently have seven eight 7,858
backers. They've unlocked alltheir stretch goals, including I
hadn't realized that the coupleof bits of work I'd done for
them were both gonna be stretchgoals, but they've both been
unlocked, which is great. Sothat's the Life Path character
generation and Tartarus sextreas a campaign Now

Matthew (06:57):
I know and knew about the Life Path character
generation thing because I Iread I read your almost final
version and made some commentson it. Tartarus, though, I'm
confused by. Did you not write aTartarus section for Building
Better Worlds, or is thissomething new?

Dave (07:17):
No. This is new. So Tartarus sector is in a
different part of space than the

Matthew (07:23):
Farthpinwood Right.

Dave (07:24):
The Farthpinwood colonies, which is Building Better Worlds.
Yeah. So basically, Thomaswanted to create a, I don't
know, a like, a campaign spacein Alien. And, you know, we both
we settled on Tartarus' sectorfor for a variety of reasons.
And then I basically worked upthat sector, and, yeah.

(07:46):
That was great fun. I think didI did I not ask you to proofread
or read over some of that? I didask somebody.

Matthew (07:54):
No. No. Maybe maybe you did, actually.

Dave (07:57):
I I had loads of ideas. My original word count was kind of
inevitably bigger than the finalword count I was given, so I had
to condense it significantly.But I'm kind of getting used to
that now with with Free League.And, yeah, I'm I'm really
pleased with that. I thinkthere's a lot in there.
And, you know, I'm I'm quitepleased that they are putting

(08:17):
that in because it, you know,demonstrates a bit more of a
focus on on really trying tohelp campaign play. Whereas in
Build A Better Worlds and andColonial Marines operations
manual, you had a campaign givento you, you know, a seven
scenario campaign, which wasgreat. Think and that was really

(08:38):
good. One thing that we've sortof found with Tales of the Old
West, or certainly I have, isfor the kind of sandbox games I
wanna create, having a kind ofset campaign like that can
potentially be a bit limiting.So it's nice to have in Alien, I
think, Tata sector laid out withlots and lots of story ideas,

(08:59):
lots of hints and prompts, lotsof stuff going on for a GM to
pick the bit that they like andstart to to craft their own
campaign around it.
So I'm pleased that they've donethat because I think, hopefully,
it shows that they are focusingat least, you know

Matthew (09:13):
Yes.

Dave (09:13):
More attention on the campaign game side of of of
Alien than just the cinematics,which is obviously gonna be a
very big part of this thisKickstarter with with all the
minis and the battle maps thatyou you are getting with the
Kickstarter if you want them.

Matthew (09:29):
One of the criticisms that can be raised of the first
edition, and indeed was raisedat the first edition, was
although it talked aboutcampaign play and cinematic
mode, it didn't really offermuch support for campaign play.
So this feels like some of themissing support that should have

(09:50):
been or that people were wantingthen. It intrigues me, though. I
was kind of under the impressionthey'd go for a slimmer rule
book than before because that'sthe way all their other rule
books have been going. Mhmm.
But with all this extra content,is it not gonna be even bigger?

Dave (10:10):
Oh, quite possibly. But I I I guess perhaps they think
with something like Alien wherethey are going to make possibly
multiples of millions of poundsto produce it. Having a having a
bigger book doesn't matter somuch because they know they're

Matthew (10:28):
I guess not.

Dave (10:28):
They know they're going to do very well. They're obviously
gonna get more than enough moneyto produce what they want. So so
perhaps that's less of a less ofa worry for them for for any I
mean, that said I mean, thatsaid, again, my so the the
initial conversation I had withThomas for both the Life Path
and and the Tartarus sector gaveme many, many more words. You

(10:54):
know, officially, you know, Iwas allowed to use more words
than what I was then This

Matthew (10:59):
is x thousand words, and then it became Yeah. Half of
x thousand words.

Dave (11:02):
Yeah. Then what what I was told after I delivered x
thousand words, and then it waslike, oh, no. We need it down to
x minus quite a big y. You know?In other words.
Which, I mean, which is fine. Imean, maybe that's, you know,
that that's it's it's a verygood way of of making sure as a
writer you expunge every lastunnecessary syllable because

(11:26):
every syllable is is importantwhen you get it down to so few
words.

Matthew (11:31):
Yes. And by having made you write more in the first
place, they've managed to youhaven't padded out a very few
ideas to make it y thousandwords, say. You wrote x thousand
words, and then you have to editit down. Yeah. So it's it's
real, you know, it's it'scondensed.
It's it it every word isefficient.

Dave (11:51):
It's distilled. A Down to the Distilled.

Matthew (11:54):
That's a better word.

Dave (11:55):
Yes. Down to the down to the, you know, the really
important bits. And, I mean,give them their give them give
them their due. I mean, I theythey stood by their original,
you know, commitment for, youknow, rewarding me for my work.
So that was great.
Yeah. And they are very, verygood at at at looking after, you

(12:17):
know, their their freelancers

Matthew (12:19):
They're righteous.

Dave (12:20):
In in that way. Cool. Excellent. Better than better
than

Matthew (12:24):
Better than some. Mention no names.

Dave (12:27):
Better than most. Dave. Yeah.

Matthew (12:29):
Well, you may find you're not working for those.
I'm just looking out for you,Dave. I'm just looking

Dave (12:34):
out for No. That's cool. That's cool.

Matthew (12:37):
Yeah. And if you want to

Dave (12:40):
That's great.

Matthew (12:40):
If you want to find out who, get Dave drunk at UK Games
Expo coming up in at the May.Right. So that is a very
successful edition. Or, sorry,Kickstarter for a successful
Year Zero game.

Dave (12:57):
I mean, it's interesting.

Matthew (12:58):
Are there any other Year Zero games on the horizon?

Dave (13:02):
There there there there might be. So Firelock Games have
now announced although theyhaven't launched the Kickstarter
yet, they have announced thatWar Stories, the Pacific
expansion, is coming soon. I'dheard April. I think you've said
you may have heard late March.

Matthew (13:24):
Here, I'm looking at a post which is at the March that
says late March. Kickstarterwill launch late March. And I
just suddenly thought, have theygot a maybe a holding page
already? So I'm just quicklychecking

Dave (13:39):
out War

Matthew (13:40):
Stories on Kickstarter to see what it comes up with.
War Stories in tabletop games.Let's have a quick look. Yes.
There is a placeholder.
We will put a link in the shownotes.

Dave (13:50):
Excellent. Good stuff.

Matthew (13:51):
And it says launching soon. Can't see how many backers
it's got. Does it not tell youhow many backers? I thought it
told you how many people havealready signed on for it, but
you can notify me on launch.I'll do that.
And I'll be the first to receiveProject Launch But

Dave (14:11):
yeah. So that's that's looking good. So that's taking
the war stories away from thefrom the European theatre,
obviously, to the PacificTheatre, which is something that
I know Gabe and and Al werealways keen to do. But also, not
only do you get that in thisKickstarter, that we are also
kick starting part two of theYou Wonder if It With Destiny

(14:32):
campaign. So the the campaignthat I've been writing for them
based on the exploits and theexperiences of the hundred and
first airborne, you know, like,famously recounted in Band of
Brothers.
But the second part of that,operation Market Garden, which
is, you know, was written,finished over a year ago. That

(14:57):
is that is gonna be part of theKickstarter as well. So if you
enjoyed part one, Normandy, thenyou can carry on that story with
your your playing group intointo Holland. Excellent. Yeah.
And, also, I mean, the the thecampaign is designed so that if
you haven't done Normandy andyou don't want to go back and do

(15:18):
that, you can just launch with aa new platoon straight into

Matthew (15:22):
Well, obviously, I mean, I guess there were some
people whose first experience offrontline combat was the second
stage of Operation Overlord.

Dave (15:31):
So there so there were there were a lot of
replacements, obviously, becauseso many men were killed or
wounded during the Normandycampaign.

Matthew (15:40):
I would rather like for our friend Thomas to run that
second bit, because my characterin that game is Dutch.

Dave (15:50):
Okay. Cool.

Matthew (15:51):
And so I would love to get him home. He almost didn't
make the final climactic battleof the the last campaign. A
grenade exploded very near tome, and I was quite badly
injured, but not not enough tobe invalided. Well, possibly
enough to go back home tohospital, but not enough to be

(16:13):
invalided right out of the army.

Dave (16:15):
Sent back home properly, yeah. Yeah. No, cool. And that
was great fun. It was great funwriting that.
I mean, as with Normandy, I needquite a lot of the history
anyway, but but it it itobviously allowed me to
investigate and research thathistory in much greater detail
than I might otherwise havefound the time to do. And, yeah,
it's fascinating stuff. Yeah.So, again, you play the hundred

(16:37):
and first Airborne doing whatthey did to try and try and help
Market Garden succeed. So Ithink it's

Matthew (16:46):
I think it's a good

Dave (16:47):
one again. Think it's a good one.

Matthew (16:48):
Excellent. We will put a link in the show notes, as
I've said. Cool. Then oh, thisis this is an interesting story.
So one of our illustrators forTales of the Old West sent us
his book, which you can now geton DriveThru RPG.
It's a solo game, and it'scalled A Practical Guide for the

(17:12):
Amateur Exonaturalist. When Isay one of our artists, I should
actually mention his name. Hisname is Mate Zinner, and he has
put this beautiful booktogether. Did you get a chance
to have a look at the PDF I sentyou, Dave?

Dave (17:30):
I did have a quick look through. No. Actually actually,
Mate sent me a link to it aswell, which is great. But

Matthew (17:36):
Oh, cool.

Dave (17:38):
But, yeah, I did it's it's really nice. It's, you know,
it's a journaling game, sologame. You know, I I don't really
well, I haven't played any sologames, and I don't really get
it, which is why you're doingthe solo rules for Tales of the
Old West. But it looks it lookslovely, and some of the things

(17:59):
he's done so so the the idea ofit's about you exploring and you
find a planet and you land onthe planet and you are you are
you're basically, you know,Charles Darwin doing doing his
stuff before he became famouskind of thing, but in a voyage
of the space beagle kind of way.And it's really nicely done.

(18:21):
It's it's a really good littlebook. When you get to sort of
the the tables to to find outwhat what you are discovering,
discovering. They're, I mean,they're they're simply done, but
they're very nicely done. Ithink it's it's got quite a lot
of charm about it.

Matthew (18:38):
Yeah. We will, of course, put a link in the show
notes to it, But it is an a fivebook, about a 10 pages long,
nicely illustrated. So Mate dida few of the spot illustrations
and all of our weapons. Weaponsand objects mostly were his his
thing for us. I'd like to

Dave (19:00):
commission him Those best pictures are really good. I I
Yeah. Every time I look them, Ilove them a little bit more.
They are

Matthew (19:07):
really, really good. Me too. And I think we we underused
him, actually, in in the greatscheme of things, and maybe
maybe we should use him somemore in our next version. But
we'll we'll talk about thatmaybe later.

Dave (19:22):
Yeah. We'll talk about Tales of the Old West second
edition, which we're working onnow. No. Not really. Not really.

Matthew (19:30):
And and in fact, talking of second editions
though, the last item we shouldmention in World of Gaming is,
in fact, what we're going to bespending most of the rest of the
episode on, which is theDesunction Monad Edition, which
is currently live on Kickstarteras you listen to this, as long

(19:51):
as you're listening to it in thenext couple of weeks after we
put it out. So we won't say muchabout that now except to say
it's doing pretty well. They've,you know, it's funded. They're
about halfway through theirstretch goals that they've
announced. And we will talk withPaul about it later in this
episode.

(20:11):
Yeah. Are we done with Old WestNews? Sorry. Are we done with
the world again? Are we ready tomove on?

Dave (20:19):
We haven't started the Old West News. Yes. I think that's
probably everything for this forthis week. Yeah. So Old West
News, what do we have to sayabout that today?

Matthew (20:31):
Oh, well, we might have been announcing that we'd just
closed the pledge managerbecause our plan originally was
to close it yesterday as werecord this on the March 28. Two
things have stopped us closingit. One is there are still a
number of you with physicalrewards out there who have not

(20:52):
finished your Kickstarter. SoI'm not going to name and shame.
We're getting down to the sortof numbers where I could name
and shame, where we're notcovered by data protection laws,
isn't it like?
But but there are a number ofyou out there. We've sent you
personal reminders onKickstarter. We've put a
reminder yesterday out on onPledge Manager. No. No.

(21:16):
On Kickstarter

Dave (21:17):
as Kickstarter. Yeah.

Matthew (21:19):
And I think I did actually send a a reminder email
on Pledge Manager to all thosewho haven't finished. So a a
good chunk of you who haven'tdone anything, you're only back
to PDF level, and you've gotyour PDF. So I can understand
why you don't wanna close thepledge manager. But there are a
bunch of you with physicalrewards. And it's particularly
important for those of you inAmerica, because what we want to

(21:41):
do, if you're in The US, NorthAmerica, and anywhere else in,
on the Continent Of America,you're gonna get it sent
straight from Englandindividually to your house.
But US patrons, because there'sso many of you, we can parcel
those up, put them on a pallet,send the pallet to a a partner

(22:03):
company of our distributors inAmerica, and they will then
distribute it on, which reducesyour postage. If you don't

Dave (22:10):
potentially by quite a lot, depending on the package
that you've ordered. So

Matthew (22:14):
Yes. Important

Dave (22:16):
to get get on that shipment.

Matthew (22:18):
So do that. You've got a few more a few more days to do
that, Partly, not because of ourgenerosity, because we are mean
spirited people, but mostlybecause the dice haven't quite
arrived yet. I've had thenotification from Royal Mail
that they're on their way, but Idon't think they've got through
customs yet and into RoyalMail's hands. So you have until

(22:40):
the dice arrive, everybody. Andthen we will put a final warning
out and close the pledgemanager.
And if you come back to us afterthen, the postage rates may be a
lot higher, particularly if youlive in North America.

Dave (22:56):
In The US. Yeah.

Matthew (22:57):
In The US, I should say. Yes.

Dave (22:59):
Yeah. I mean, part of the part of the part of the reason
why we're not kind of hanging ona bit longer is because we wanna
get this US shipment for all
of those backers who havealready finished completed their
pledge back their their pledgemanager into The US as quickly
as we can in the hope of slidingit in ahead of any US government

(23:19):
tariffs that might be might beimposed. We depending on
depending on, you know, thecurrent news is that there's
there's going to be anannouncement by Donald Trump on
April, and then apparentlyanother one on April. Hopefully,
he sees sense and doesn't imposeunnecessary tariffs.

Matthew (23:41):
There's already a tariff on the dice, but we've
we've priced that in Yes.Because the dice is coming from
China.

Dave (23:47):
That's already taken care of. But, yeah, the book's coming
from the EU and the dice trade'scoming from The UK. So if there
are any European or UK sanctionsimposed, that will have an
effect. And we would love to getall the stuff into The US before
that happens because then nobodyhas to pay anything extra. So
that would be good.
Yeah.

Matthew (24:07):
Right. So that that's that's that.

Dave (24:10):
I am hoping that by

Matthew (24:12):
the April, most people will have the book in their
hands.

Dave (24:17):
That's exactly what I was just gonna say. Yeah.

Matthew (24:20):
Beat you to it.

Dave (24:21):
Yep. No. Well, that's fine. I I decided not to shout
over you this time. So I knowthat makes a change.
Yeah. This time. But yes. Soyeah. Exactly.
Yeah. So we we targeted May, endof May for completion of all of
this. And I would hope, allthings being equal, that
everyone will have their theirproducts by the May. But as Matt
said, April for quite a lot ofpeople looks looks like a

(24:45):
reasonable expectation at themoment. Fingers crossed.

Matthew (24:49):
Yes. Right. But that's not all the old West news, is it
Dave?

Dave (24:56):
No. Well, we've been doing quite a lot of of, like, head
scratching and thinking andplanning. And and not only do we
have to to finish the the coupleof stretch goals that we'd we
put into the into the campaign,so the the campfire tales as as
as we called them, and the solorules. Well, we've also been

(25:18):
thinking ahead as to what'snext. Because, you know, this
isn't a one trick pony for us.
This is something that this is aline that we want to nurture and
expand and continue to producefor some time. So I put together
a number of suggestions based onI mean, on discussions that

(25:39):
Matthew and I had had and someothers ideas that I'd had. And
we've we've pretty much decidedthat we are gonna look at the
gold country for the next talesof the old west book. So
California and the gold rush andwhat would become Nevada and the

(25:59):
silver boom is gonna be thefocus of the first Tales of the
Old West supplement.

Matthew (26:06):
And as we intonated, inferred, implied in earlier
announcements, yeah, that wordthere. What we're going to do is
not only expand the geographicalarea that we're looking at, but
also expand the time periodwe're looking at as well.

Dave (26:26):
Exactly. Yeah. So the so the so the gold rush, as
everyone would know, so kind ofstarted in 1848, went through
till about 1855 in California,at which point it was kind of
overtaken by the silver boomjust on the other side of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, in whatwas at that time Utah territory,

(26:48):
but then shortly afterwardsbecame Nevada. And that runs
until at the end of the sixties,at the end of the end of the
fifties, early '18 sixties.

Matthew (26:57):
Yeah. The '18.

Dave (26:59):
Eighteen. Eighteen. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yeah. Did I say did I say '19?

Matthew (27:03):
No. No. You did just say the sixties. And when I
think of the sixties, I think ofhippies.

Dave (27:08):
Okay. Fair enough. So yes. So we're taking the game back in
time twenty years. But also, Ithink what we will do is is is
put stuff into that supplementwhich will allow a GM to take
their 1873, '18 seventiescampaign into those locations
and play them as they would havebeen in the eighteen seventies.

(27:29):
So we'll cover that as well. Sobut we're focus on the eighteen
fifties. But if you want to goto San Francisco in 1873, we
will give you what you need tobe able to do that as well.

Matthew (27:41):
But if you were one of those people who was a bit
disappointed to see that therewere no rules for cap and ball
pistols in in in the firstedition, shall we say, of Tears
of the Old West, And we we said,well, you know, there's very
little gaming fun to be hadthere for a lot more complex

(28:03):
reloading process, apart fromthe fact you can make your own
ammo. Cap and ball guns willappear in Gold Country. I
promise.

Dave (28:13):
It might be You

Matthew (28:13):
won't want them, but No. They will appear.

Dave (28:15):
And it might be a very short bit of rule about it as
well, and it might simply be ittakes longer to load. But we
will see. But you

Matthew (28:22):
can make your own ammo.

Dave (28:23):
But actually, I mean, what would tend to happen anyway,
yeah, I think even in latertimes, is you you you don't have
time to reload your revolver inthe middle of a gunfight. So you
would just drop the gun when youfinished it and draw a different
one Yeah. And hope that the 12bullets you've got stacked up in
your two pistols is enough towin the fight, which I think
more often than not, itcertainly was.

Matthew (28:45):
Well, it seems to work that way. I I can't remember in
any of the games we've beenrunning playtesting. I can't
particularly remember everhaving to reload by pistol.

Dave (28:55):
No. I don't think we've ever had an occasion where you
had to reload your pistol in themiddle of a gunfight.

Matthew (29:00):
No. Which is just as well.

Dave (29:02):
Yeah. Which is just as well. But also, again, it shows
that gunfights tend to be short,sharp and dangerous.

Matthew (29:09):
Yeah. When the guns come out, everybody loses.

Dave (29:12):
Yeah. Exactly. But yeah. So that's what we're looking at.
We've kind of worked out the thecontent, actually.
I've done a bit of research onon San Francisco and a couple of
other places already. That'ssomething we'll now crack on
with quite when, you know, we'llbe ready to to to put it out is
another question, but we willkeep you informed as development

(29:36):
moves on.

Matthew (29:37):
Yeah. I think it's worth saying that we will take
from it the many, many lessonswe learned from doing the first
edition.

Dave (29:46):
Absolutely.

Matthew (29:46):
So we are going to properly flat plan this from
almost day one as opposed totrying to squeeze the flat
planning in at the end and havea far better idea of what
illustrations we need and getget even more of a head start on
those than we did in Yep.

Dave (30:06):
We'll be a bit stricter on word counts.

Matthew (30:09):
And we'll be stricter on word count. Which is think
this will be. I think we canboth say this will be a slimmer
volume than the Corebook.

Dave (30:17):
Yes. Yes. This supplement will be slimmer. I mean, other
supplements that we're lookingat doing, we've already I think
we've talked before on previousshows about wanting to do one
for the Oregon Trail, whichwould then take us another
fifteen years, ten, fifteenyears earlier than 1850. There
are what was the other like alonesome dove style cattle

(30:40):
driving focusing on ranch handsand cowboys expansion.
Robber Barons, your
question Robber

Matthew (30:47):
Barons. Yeah.

Dave (30:48):
To explore the Robber Barons and see what we can do
with with advanced capitalrules. So, yeah, we've got lots
of ideas. And I think there'salso, you know, thoughts about I
mean, I would you know, we wouldlove to do something set in
Deadwood or set in Tombstone orSilverton or one of those you
know, Dodge City, One of thosereally notorious well known

(31:10):
towns. Do something do somethingthere. But maybe that could be a
smaller supplement, which wouldbe, you know, this is the town.
This is the stuff around it.Here are some adventures. Maybe.
But

Matthew (31:21):
Have at it. Yeah.

Dave (31:22):
To to be to be decided. To be decided.

Matthew (31:26):
Yeah. So I hope that excites everybody who's
listening to this. Spread theword. We will, of course, will
be spreading the word ourselves.But I think we're done on the
Old West news.

Dave (31:35):
I think so. Yeah.

Matthew (31:36):
Let's kick on with, Paul Budowski's interview on the
D Sanction. Today in the Hamabwe have our old friend Paul
Budowski. Welcome!

Paul (31:47):
Good
to be here. Thank you very muchfor inviting

Dave (31:52):
Hi Paul.

Paul (31:52):
Hi Dave.

Matthew (31:54):
It's the first time you've met Dave, but last time
you were on

Dave (31:58):
Well it's not the first time we've met. We've met many
times over recent years.Obviously we've met at
convention.

Paul (32:03):
I'd like

Matthew (32:04):
to point out.

Paul (32:04):
It's weird. It may be the first time we've met virtually,
but we've met you know in personmany times.

Dave (32:11):
Exactly, we've done the untraditional thing of actually
meeting face to face. Yes. Andnow we're doing the proper thing
of meeting online. Yeah.

Matthew (32:20):
And of course, we will be muting again quite soon at
DragonBeat too, won't we?

Paul (32:26):
Indeed, indeed we will. What a strange feather that will
be, returning to town We're

Matthew (32:33):
taking the smallest amount of Free League stock ever
to that

Paul (32:39):
Shopping bag?

Matthew (32:41):
No, they're more than a shopping bag. The boot of my car
though.

Dave (32:44):
Not a lot more though. Yeah, exactly.

Paul (32:46):
Yeah, that has occurred to me. This could easily be the
first time we almost went, youknow, in a car for like a ten a
decade. Know, we used to allrolled up used to travel in the
back of my car, a a Golf. But,you know, for the last whatever
six, seven years, we've upgradedto a transit and then onwards to

(33:08):
a loot and it's only a matter oftime before she wants an open
panel

Matthew (33:15):
and a forklift truck on the back to lift the pallets in.

Paul (33:18):
Wouldn't that be glorious?

Matthew (33:20):
So, but we're not here to talk about games and
conventions although we will bedoing a lot of conventions this
year. We're here to talk aboutthe D sanction. Now I'm gonna
bring up the elephant in theroom very early on because you
are competing in the Kickstarterstates with Alien but I'm not

(33:41):
gonna

Dave (33:41):
go I thought you said you weren't gonna mention Alien.

Matthew (33:44):
Yeah you were gonna mention Alien.

Dave (33:46):
Oh, my All I gonna

Matthew (33:47):
say is that when Alien says they were doing a second
edition, a lot of people threwtheir hands up in the air and
said, no, it's too soon for asecond edition. Really, you're
just grabbing extra money. AndBlow me down, but surely my
first question is isn't it toosoon for a second edition of the

(34:08):
Deshunctions? Surely you're justgrabbing extra money with this?

Paul (34:13):
And I absolutely agree with you. Yeah.

Dave (34:16):
And what's wrong with that? Guess.

Paul (34:19):
Because most importantly, this isn't the second edition.

Matthew (34:24):
Tell me what it is then.

Paul (34:25):
So we have had some interesting discussions with
distributors for overseas sortof Americans so forth who find
the form factor of my games,tend to be slim to be a
challenge to consider for easeof distribution to a wider

(34:48):
audience. There's definitelythis sense of something a bit
chunkier with more material init as well as the core rules,
you know, and inventions.Something that is, you know, a
bit more substantial for somereason is perceived as an easier
sell into distribution.

Dave (35:07):
Going large, that's what it is. You've got to go large
for the American And

Paul (35:12):
so that was what was on my mind. So this is not this is, it
is a it's not effectively asecond edition, it is a new
print of the game where I willtake the opportunity to do some
cleanup in terms of a bit of alittle bit of streamlining, a

(35:33):
little bit of, you know, aroundthe actual presentation of the
existing rule set.

Dave (35:39):
It's not evolved rule set, is it, Paul? Sorry. Sorry. I
couldn't No.

Matthew (35:49):
No. No.

Paul (35:52):
Although there will be a predator stretch goal where John
D goes up against the predator.It was only a matter of time.
People have been asking for it.

Matthew (36:05):
And if you are the license holder of Predator, you
may not have heard about thisyet, but if the Dutch Golden's
reached, I'm sure Paul will begetting in touch.

Paul (36:14):
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it was the
idea here is that to improve thepotential for those distributors
who might be concerned about theslim form factor to have a more
robust book. It is also anopportunity to expand the

(36:38):
content, include new adventures.

Dave (36:41):
So presumably, is based on your experience from last time
or previous things you've donewhere it hasn't landed as well
in the American market as you'dhoped? And this is kind of the
feedback you got?

Paul (36:51):
So the American market is definitely there, though. I
mean, as with other games where,you know, with Kthuli Hack and
and and sanction last sanctionlast year, about half of the
backers in our Kickstarters areAmerican. Mhmm. So the the
audience is there. But whenwe've had the opportunity to

(37:14):
talk to distributors there'sjust been a bit of reticence
about what comes across.
It's not quite a pamphlet, butit's a 60 page book.

Dave (37:27):
They go we need a bigger book.

Paul (37:29):
Yeah, I mean there's not a lot of zines, you know, and it's
not a zine by any mean but it'sin that kind of category flying
around in distribution. Youwouldn't go in The UK to a
company like Asmedi and orderzines. You know, it's not quite
the right market. While, forexample, Cthulhuac has been

(37:54):
through AsthmaD, did actually gothrough some distribution in The
UK, that was in its box setform. So that's where you had
multiple books within a box Sothe notion here though is not to
go that necessary direction butto just to get a chunkier book.

Matthew (38:14):
Okay, that in itself raises an interesting question.
So what we're kind of sayingit's about how it looks on the
shelf in terms of when a retailoutlet is organising, is
ordering their stuff, they'rethinking this is going to sit on
my shelf and be a thing asopposed to if I ordered even
three copies of this, they're tobe squished between all my other

(38:36):
books or whatever. And a boxobviously deals with that. Why
didn't you go, though, with abox set for this? Because you
could have essentially ordered abunch of boxes, stuffed your pre
existing books into those,including the site by the
marvellous death writer AndyBrick that is a patron of this
show.
So I have to

Dave (38:56):
I'm obviously We're contractually obliged to mention
him at least once an episode.Usually, it's an insult, but
today, we'll let him off with it

Paul (39:05):
being a positive thing.

Matthew (39:06):
You could put all those in a box, maybe some snazzy dice
as well, and and package thatup. Why didn't you go that
route?

Paul (39:17):
I think I would have to say at this point in time and
for a good while, I mean I amthe I don't know whether there's
different there are probablydifferent classifications of
indie publisher and I'm at theend of the spectrum that is
still doing most of what I doout of my own pocket slash

(39:42):
backyard type, you know,whatever. So, you know, I know
there are If I was to take, forexample, pull a game out of the
air, Mothership, right? Which isin and of itself, you know, of a
zenish game. That's what it was.Obviously, they went the route
of going for a box set.
There was, you know, that boxset wasn't made in, you know,

(40:06):
their backyard. It wasn't madein their house. And it would,
you know, would have come fromone of the big manufacturing,
you know, probably, I imaginepossibly China or somewhere,
where they've had to have it allshipped. I'm not quite at that
stage yet and I don't think Ihave the logistical mind
actually even to get to thatstage.

Matthew (40:27):
But you did manage that with Cathedral Hack, didn't you?

Paul (40:31):
Yeah, I mean, the campaigns where I have run, you
know, I've run up towards athousand backers, but I'm not
looking at, you know, thethousands of backers that, you
know, other concerns are gettingto. So as of yet, everything I
do is driven out of The UK. Mypublisher, so to speak, my

(40:52):
distributor all rolled up ishere. My printer is here in
Essex. You know, I haven't eventransitioned to printers
elsewhere where you

Matthew (41:03):
The marvellous stand out in Lithuania.

Dave (41:06):
Indeed. It seems to be doing everyone's business.

Paul (41:08):
Yeah. But at this point, yeah, I have not quite hit that
level so you know I understandabsolutely what you're saying
but I think I felt that the formfactor of a chunkier book

Matthew (41:20):
was the way I

Dave (41:20):
wanted
to

Matthew (41:19):
And in terms of chunkier book it looks like a
lovely chunkier book. You've gotnew illustrations in it, you've
also got a lovely cloth coverand I have to say, you know,
covers are where it is at themoment.

Dave (41:35):
Are a fan of cloth covers. Deluxe Editions

Matthew (41:37):
of our game are available via our Punch Manager
as long as the Pledge Managerlasts.

Paul (41:46):
Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew (41:48):
Yeah.

Dave (41:48):
You know, we have a whole show, Matthew, to promote
ourselves. It's very good

Matthew (41:52):
with Paul.

Dave (41:53):
And you have to do it in the interview with Paul. I mean,

Matthew (41:55):
that's

Dave (41:55):
just

Matthew (41:56):
a big part This is going out probably at the
beginning of the last week ofthe pledge of allegiance. So
I've got to get it in there.

Dave (42:01):
Yeah. But we have the rest of the show to do that. You
know, anyway. Sorry. Yeah.
I apologize for Matthew.

Matthew (42:06):
Paul's audience might be listening to this and they
might never have heard of talesof the old way. And we do do
chapters now so they might skipover our bit and then go
straight to the pulpit becausethat's all they really want to
listen to. Not two fat old whitemen talking about life.

Paul (42:22):
It's certainly what I will recommend, yes.

Matthew (42:27):
We get the plug in here as well. Anyway, yes,

Paul (42:32):
it will be a cloth cover. I mean, so there is a cloth
cover of Cthulhu Hack, there isa cloth, a previous cloth cover
of desanction, there is one ofsanction. It just seems to be,
yes, an appearance of sort of aform factor that people like.
And it's fairly straightforward.Again, not quite reached the

(42:55):
fancy business of, you know, UVspot whatever thing on,

Matthew (43:01):
know, on

Paul (43:02):
fly jackets and what

Matthew (43:03):
yeah. But,

Paul (43:05):
yeah. So that yeah. So the book will be, I believe, ruby
red fabric cover with a blacksigil of the hieroglyphic monad,
was part of John Dee's businesswhen he was looking into his
communication with angels and soforth. Was on the cover of one

(43:28):
of his final books, one of hislater works. It will be 180
pages.

Matthew (43:38):
Wow, so that's quite a lot bigger than the first
version.

Paul (43:42):
Yeah, but so in the original version there was Core
Rules and One Adventure, andthen I released six adventures
as a separate book. Sonotionally, it's not
substantially bigger than thecombination of those two.
Although in this new in thisMonad edition, all of the

(44:02):
adventures are brand newbecause, yeah, what I wanted to
do is have, shall we saybackwards compatibility. More
specifically, I didn't want anyoverlap beyond the essentials of
having the rules.

Matthew (44:18):
The ruleset.

Paul (44:19):
But even the rules will have been not quite be written
from scratch, but I will go backto the bare bones and work them
up to allow me to give, have theopportunity to perhaps
streamline explanations, providealternate examples, and just
take an approach to it. Youknow, if I, if I was writing it

(44:42):
today, which I will be ratherthan rather than five years ago,
Yeah. How how would I havewritten or structured it
differently? But the game willbe the same. And how I want to
sell it effectively is it's notquite a GM's book, but it kind
of means that the GM could havethe Mono edition and you could

(45:03):
have a soft cover edition on thetable and there would be no, you
know, no friction between thetwo.
So there'd be something for theplayers to look at and something
for the GM to work with, forexample. And at the same time,
Andy will be relieved to hearthat the site remains its own
thing. And, you know, isentirely usable because nothing

(45:24):
in it is being dragged into theMonet edition. It remains a
supplement to the game and theadventures as well. So there's
an adventure in the existingcore book that won't be copied.
So that will remain its ownthing. As I said, it's kind of
like there have been somequestions from backers along
those lines. I currently ownthis. Do I need this? What am I

(45:49):
paying for here?
And I've been quite clear to saythere's probably 45, 50 pages
worth of core rule material,which I will, as I said, revisit
and then the rest of the, youknow, 130 plus pages will be
brand new material. Will be newstuff.

Matthew (46:08):
Yeah. Excellent. And talking of revisit, we'll come
on to the new stuff in a moment,don't want to forget that,
you've got some great writersguessing on this as well.
Sticking with the rule set, arethere changes or let's not say
changes because they're notchanges but are there new ways

(46:28):
of explaining things or smootherways of doing things that you've
discovered when you wrotesanction, which is the, if you
like, generic version of the Dsanction?

Paul (46:40):
Yes, yeah, I think there are, for example, elements of
explaining the use of thechallenge system in the game,
which is just about when you aredealing with a situation like
opening a locked door, how thatapplies if you are fighting
somebody. I don't think thefighting part is as as well

(47:03):
explained in the desanction asit is in the sanction version of
it. And other another elementwould be tradecraft has been a
bugbear since I I I put it intothe desanction. I had a very
clear idea of what it is, andTradecraft is effectively a way

(47:28):
it's a way of offering somethingto the players which is dressed
up as espionage based, but isreally a representation of, for
one, additional resources thatyou can kind of draw upon just
long enough to get through anadventure. But the other key
part of it is to render certainadversaries and enemies and

(47:52):
villains as almost like a TVseries rather than where you've
got a serial in ARC where thevillain is involved where you
can't get to the end of theadventure and just destroy the
enemy.

Matthew (48:10):
Yeah. You

Paul (48:10):
don't have ammunition, so to speak, to be able to do that.
And the notion of tradecraft wasto have the more tradecraft that
was required to defeat an enemy,the more adventures that
effectively needed to be chainedtogether over a period of time.
And in a way, it was both anidea of making a, creating a

(48:34):
structure, an actual mechanicalstructure whereby you could have
these more substantial villains,but also provides kind of a
framework that a GM mightconsider for a short series of
ventures or a campaign to sayThe notion of a lot of series
that you'll watch will havelittle bottle episodes, you
know, which are not connected tothe arc of the plot. They will

(48:56):
have little side quests sort ofthing that don't necessarily
exactly tie in. And I wanted toget that sort of feel as a a way
for you to be able to puttogether a desanction campaign
and have a big bad behind it whoyou couldn't just, you know, pop
on the knock on the knock yeah.
Pop on

Dave (49:14):
the knocking at the end of

Paul (49:15):
the first adventure and say, well, let's move on now.
So, yeah. So I think that needs,it needs more explanation and a
little bit more, meat around itbecause I think that has been
something where I've certainlyhad lots of questions from
people.

Matthew (49:32):
Brilliant. Okay, so then the new stuff. Let's come
on to your guest writers in amoment. What are you doing
that's new? What are youbringing to the table So apart
revising the odd rules

Paul (49:49):
and maybe correcting a few small oversights, are bits and
pieces of errata. The key partof it is developing and
expanding the backgroundmaterial on like personalities
and factions and the elementsthat give you the tools to be

(50:10):
able to create these thesestories. So especially where
they diverge from actualhistory, because the notion of
desanction is you canpotentially just pick up a
history book that covers theperiod of time and you've kind
of got your source material. Butso there are elements which take
history as the sort of catalyst,but take it in a different

(50:34):
direction. So, for example,Emperor Rudolf, who was
fascinated with the esotericoccult.
In the desanction, he kind ofgoes further than this. In
actual history, he traveled toEurope with like a caravan of
stuff, you know, surveying histerritories. In desanction, he
kind of takes it to anotherlevel. He has like a almost like

(50:56):
a clockwork army of creatureswhich aren't quite undead and
aren't quite robots. But it'sthere's this weird sort of, yes,
sideline he's got in quitegrotesque occult stuff, which
isn't really thoroughly there'sa picture of him in the original

(51:19):
core book surrounded by likezombies, And he gets a very
vague reference, but not muchmore than that.
There are things likeorganizations that said like, so
there's the school of knights,which at the very end of
Elizabeth's reign, there are agroup of people that kind of
that again kind of existed. It'sreferenced here and there.

(51:41):
There's a notion of variousmembers of like the court being
involved in this little thisoccult group. And within the Dee
sanction because Dee goes onsome travels in Europe in
pursuit of more informationeffectively in his efforts to
speak with angels. While he'saway, the mice literally did the

(52:04):
sort of play and someone elsefound a sort of wedge to be able
to get in while he was away sothat the desanction falls out of
favor by the end of the 1580sand the school's knight becomes
Queen Elizabeth's go to peoplefor dealing with occult matters.
Some really really weird littlespin off in true history Dee is

(52:30):
famous for having at universityperformed or organised the
performance of a play, whichincluded somebody flying on
stage and he used the mechanicalmeans to do this, but he did it
so well that people weregenuinely convinced at that
point in time that he was awizard. Used magic.

Matthew (52:53):
This

Paul (52:55):
connection with the theatrical and also the fact
that the court had its owntheatre and entertainers, there
is a an actual office departmentof the government around the
Queen called the Office ofRevels who were responsible for
these entertainments And I wantto connect that with Dee's

(53:17):
history in coming up with thesealmost magical approaches to
presenting things to provide youwith the de sanctioned
equivalent of Q Divisioneffectively as a way to
introduce some unusual devicesinto the game which have come
out of the Office of Rebels. Sothere are things that have been

(53:41):
bubbling away. They've beenmentioned certainly in games
that I've run at conventions,even if I've not sort of written
them up and actually presentedthem. Things have developed over
the last five years and I'mreally quite excited and keen to
sort of roll them out asofficial parts of desanctioned
canon.

Matthew (53:59):
Those are all brilliant ideas, so I thoroughly
understand your glee at lookingforward to doing that. So tell
us though about if you're notwriting the adventures, who's
writing the adventures?

Paul (54:13):
So when I was thinking about doing this, I was quite
clear in my mind about the sortof content I wanted to add. I
wanted to have adventures. Iwanted to have no overlap. So I
had this idea in mind, 180pages. I needed to have about
six adventures would take up athird to a half of the book as a
result.
The idea was within theKickstarter that if if I'd only

(54:38):
reached funded, I would have towrite All Those Adventures. It
was it feels like a feels like athreat to both the world and me
that that would be unwise. But,so but the notion was that, by,
reaching the first five stretchgoals, five of the six
adventures will be written byguest writers. So, part of

(55:01):
what's happened over the lastfew years is that I have
stumbled across people, forexample, who are running games
at the D sanction, which isalways a delight when you create
a game and you by chance go to aconvention and you see
somebody's running it. Or you goon to drive through and actually

(55:22):
with this one I have to be cleargiven permission to be able to
use the desanctioned sort ofengine and providing you put a
little logo at the bottom.
Going on to drive through andseeing other people publishing,
you know, is just it's reallyquite, you know, warm, fuzzy
moments. So for example, StephenDosman, who was the first

(55:44):
stretch goal, wrote a trio ofinventions called the Witches of
When Locked Liberty, which I hadhell of a time running at a
convention in three separateslots. I managed to squeeze what
really needed to be run overmore than three slots of

(56:05):
anything. It probably needs tobe about a fifteen to twenty
hour sort of set of adventures.I run it in whatever, nine hours
total across the convention andI really enjoyed running it.
So I invited him. RichardAugust, who is a famous games

(56:26):
designer in his own right, whohas done many things, but most
importantly wrote The Harrowingof Harrowing Harrow Hall in the
Desanctioned Adventures. A goodfriend of mine and used he's in
my gaming group. But yes, he's avery enthusiastic sort of

(56:46):
supporter and I was really happyto bring him on board. He had a
great idea.
Jason Durell. Yeah. He, I wentto an event, well, the Kraken in
Germany and he was runningdesanction with his own
adventure.

Matthew (57:06):
Now I've got to say we too have experienced somebody we
don't know running our game andthat there's a special thrill
but then somebody we do know andadmire like Jason Derrell
running our game without ushaving given it to them.

Dave (57:19):
Yeah, yeah,

Paul (57:21):
yeah. So he ran that he's run it more than once, I think.
My wife, Phil of all rolled upfame, played the game. She was
really enthusiastic about it.Never enthusiastic when I run
the games, but apparently ifJason's running it, oh, it's So

(57:44):
Jason ran that and I justapproached him because I knew
him from the Kraken and said,you know, have you know, could
you write it up and, know, taketake part?
And oddly enough, I think he wasthe first person I asked and
actually it was quite a whileago when I might have had a
glimmer of a thought of writingthis. And actually he sent it to

(58:04):
me like in 2023. He'd already hehad written it. It's written up
proper and everything. And so,yeah, his his is already in
hand.
It's it's one of the lateststretch goals. So please,
please, please, everybody keep,keep funding. And then we've got

(58:25):
Steve Dempsey. Now Steve isjust, I mean, he's got a lot of
interest in Dee to begin with. Imean, if you've met him
recently, he's beginning toprobably look increasingly like
a wild and woolly John Dee who'sbeen found wandering the streets
of Old London town.

(58:46):
Yeah, I approached him, havingknown him for a while and had
some communications around Deebefore, and he was more than
happy to do that. And then atthe tail end of the stretch
goals is Shana Germain, who youmay also have heard of.

Dave (59:07):
Yeah. She worked on Tales of Old West Forest. Yep.

Paul (59:12):
Yeah. That's great. So I I think I originally had met Shana
when she she was at UK GamesExpo a very long time ago.
02/1617, something like that. Idon't know.
It was it was almost ten yearsago we originally met. And for a
while, example, Puzzol World Updid some Monty Cook games

(59:36):
accessories, licensedaccessories. But then at
DragonMeet, I knew that Shynawas going to be there. Yeah. And
I I was actually more thananything, going along to get my
copy of old Gods of Appalachiasigned.

(59:58):
Because I'd run it recently andI was really, really enjoyed
running it and I just, you know,thought I'd take it along and
get it signed. And I was wearingmy desanctioned t shirt and as I
was approaching, Shana hadlooked was dealing with another
customer, looked up as thatcustomer walked away and made an
immediate comment how she lovedthe design on the shirt and
wanted to know what the storywas behind it. So we had so it

(01:00:22):
was my Dee's Angels basicallywith Dee Walsingham and the
Queen in their youthful guys inthe very early years of the D
Sanction almost as a trio ofsupernatural hunters. And yeah,
so we we'd had a chat verybriefly, busy event Dragon meet

(01:00:45):
last year. But when I got back,I knew she was kind of on
holiday.
So I dropped a note and thenfollowed it up. And she was just
really keen on the idea ofgetting involved. Yeah, added to
the roster of guest writers.

Matthew (01:01:04):
So of the guest writers she's the only one who hasn't
played The System before?

Paul (01:01:11):
Yeah, I assume so. Yeah, I mean unless she's just secret
desanctioned player. Maybethat'll be revealed.

Matthew (01:01:19):
Sign

Paul (01:01:21):
it, sign it. No. Yeah, but I mean I've had, I think with
the original adventures andactually with sort of talking
since, actually with othergames, I quite often will get an
adventure which has a minimalamount of system driven stuff in

(01:01:44):
it anyway because I will havepushed the notion of what the
game's about and I think it'sfairly obvious, you know. So,
yeah, I I am really interestedin seeing what Shanna come comes
up with. Yeah.
Are you giving

Dave (01:02:01):
them any guidance to, you know, to for what they're gonna
write? Any

Paul (01:02:05):
I did. I I well, I I so all of the writers have been
given some broad guidance on thebackground of posit history of
what the D sanction is abouteven where I know that you know
they may have read it oractually run it. Yeah. But more
importantly what I wanted to dowas focus on the Fae and the
supernatural sort of folkloricside of the game because I think

(01:02:31):
with adventures that I've did inthe Desanctioned Adventures,
there was, I think at least halfof them were a little bit culty,
I think would be the first. Asin so the human minions sort of
seeking to do nefarious things,potentially using magic.

(01:02:53):
And it was it wasn't in therewas a split then. It wasn't
entirely London centric. Therewas some half the adventures
were outside of London, but itdid feel like I wasn't
necessarily looking at the moresupernatural side of things. And
I was quite keen to push thatnotion. So there is the idea in
the game that part of what hasliterally sort of pushed through

(01:03:16):
into our reality, due to thenotion that King Henry the
eighth has sort of of weakenedand breached the walls by
dissolving all the monasteriesfifty years ago.
What's begun to push through isthe great basically the great
wood, the great green wood thatspans the whole of Europe and

(01:03:40):
the supernatural equivalent ofit is sort of just appearing all
over the place and is serving asa gateway for the supernatural
to enter our world. I wanted toget into that because there's
really a lot of interestingstuff about, you know, the green
man and, the sort of the Fae.And, yeah, I want to explore

(01:04:03):
that more than I may have donebecause actually they they
actually feature quite heavilyin the bestiary of the original
core book and then I proceededto have no adventures about
them. So that's another thing Iwant to do actually is within
the bestiary section but also inthese adventures is to have more
hooks and ideas about how youcan use these these entries in

(01:04:27):
the bestiary to fill out yourgame and provide you with ideas
for how adventures might spinout from them. Cool.
Brilliant.

Matthew (01:04:36):
Brilliant. Well, you've convinced me and I have to say,
I was pretty firmly in the campof I've got the D sanction do I
need another one on my shelvesand I'm gonna have to back it
now. I was tempted by the clothcover but you've sold me on the
rest so how far are we're abouttwenty days when we go to

(01:05:04):
broadcast which will be Monday.There'll be a good well, maybe
not a good twenty days in thehigh teens though still on
Monday.

Paul (01:05:15):
So at the moment, at the moment, we are right at this
very moment in time while we arespeaking, we are halfway through
the stretch goal to get RichardAugust on board.

Dave (01:05:25):
Cool.

Paul (01:05:26):
And this very evening I kicked Mr. Dempsey to get him to
provide me with his own handtools blurb for what he wants
his adventure. I have a pitchbut I'm leaving it to each
writer to actually write theirsort of back of the novel blurb
for what the adventures areabout. So I have poked poked Mr
Dempsey with a sharp stick. Soat this point, yes, we are at

(01:05:51):
that point at 14,005 The goalwas 10 for the base book.
Because part of that as well isthe writing is artists. There's
going to be Evelyn Moreau whodid the art for the original is
already working on some prettyimpressive, very impressive
stuff for Yeah,

Matthew (01:06:11):
I've seen her share some on some social media,
haven't I?

Paul (01:06:14):
Yeah, I mean, on the actual Kickstarter itself, I've
included a stunning picture shedid of Dee looking into the the
Obsidian mirror while angelswhisper in his ears. And I have
to say when I got that throughin the email, I nearly I
genuinely nearly wept because itwas just so perfect. So she will

(01:06:39):
be doing more of that. Basicallyshe's quite keen on updating
some of the art which you know,five years ago there are bits
and pieces that she wanted toupdate, while clearly working on
lots of new stuff. But on top ofthat, we have got other artists
involved.
So I have got Melissa Spandry,who is a Italian artist who has,

(01:07:07):
as it happens, worked with FreeLeague and Fantasy Flight Games
and other game companies. Shewill be doing a revision of the
front cover of the originalbook. So taking the court
experiment picture andeffectively redoing it. The
original picture, because it's aportrait, is portrait shaped. So

(01:07:34):
I want a landscape picture.
So the notion is both to widenthe image, but also to add in
features that emphasize thetheme. There will be
supernatural creatures lurkingamongst the crowd. Will be the
original skulls around Dee,which appeared in the X-ray they
took of the picture, theoriginal picture. So those bits

(01:07:58):
will be added back in. And ontop of that, I have Simon Leach
from Bramble Down Designs, whodoes a lot of great lino cut
work and I am a big fan of his.
And there will be a scatteringof JE Shields stuff as well,
which I've used quite heavily insanction. I back him on Patreon

(01:08:18):
and he's a really reliable stockart artist who I thoroughly
recommend any small gamedesigners who just want to liven
up their product. He does andmonthly he does tons and tons of
illustrations. And being part ofhis Patreon, I can actually

(01:08:38):
pitch him stuff. So, you know,it's been a rather nice little
relationship there as well.
There will be more out.

Matthew (01:08:48):
And it is worth saying that in Evelyn's art there's a
certain sort of woodcutty,linocutty quality to that
already, isn't Yes,

Paul (01:09:02):
I mean, so when I was originally writing it, I wanted,
I had it in my mind that Iwanted woodcut art, that sort
of, that appearance.

Matthew (01:09:12):
Chaplin style.

Paul (01:09:13):
Yeah. And so I had looked, I had looked at examples of it
that kind of like in publicdomain, realized that

Matthew (01:09:20):
I wasn't,

Paul (01:09:22):
yeah. But I wasn't going to be able to get exactly what I
wanted that way. And I know whenyou look at the likes of like
Mark Borg and stuff where thereare amazing things have been
done with what is effectivelypublic domain pieces, you know,
of art.

Matthew (01:09:36):
Art by dead people, as they say.

Paul (01:09:41):
I wasn't certain that I was going to be up to the task
of producing that kind of thingmyself. And again, it's back to
me being kind of like a oneperson sort of indie company
trying to do everything bymyself if possible. So I
stumbled across Evelyn's art,probably on Google plus
originally, and I reached outand yeah, I'm really happy that

(01:10:06):
as I said the relationship thereis very has been very good in
terms of while she'd be thefirst to admit that she knows
nothing about the Tudor period,it has been a fantastic
experience working with her. Andin the same way actually of the
experience I had with CthulhuHack where I was, you know, sort
of working with Paul Tomes whowas this sort of art artist who

(01:10:30):
was doing things, you know, apicture a day before he opened
the hardware shop sort of thing.Yeah.
It is interesting these theexperience of finding, you know,
artists who just kind of fit thevision of the moment, something
that's in your head. It worksfor me especially because I'm
really I sometimes struggle atthe whole art commissioning side
of things, you know, pinningdown an exact, you know, the

(01:10:53):
exact appearance of an image.I'd much rather have somebody
who I can work with who kind ofgets what I'm asking for and has
that creative spark to actuallyjust run alongside me rather
than, you know, leading me topinpoint exactly what it is that
I want.

Matthew (01:11:11):
It's going reasonably well. You're halfway to your
next stretch goals, is it? Yes.Two or three more writers you've
got to fund before the campaignis over.

Paul (01:11:26):
I hope it's not over at that point. I hope there's more
to come, to be clear. So if wehit the 25,000 marks at just
over double what well, no, justless than double what we're on
right now. That will be Shana.So that's all the guest writers.
Then the fun starts.

Matthew (01:11:46):
Oh.

Paul (01:11:47):
Well, so when I produced the original, I did something
called the Oselstone Hundred,which was a map of London. Now
the map of London that I've doneso far is only East London. So
the stretch goal beyond Shaunais West London, which was a
really interesting experience. Ireally enjoyed creating that

(01:12:09):
map. And so, yeah, a map of WestLondon comes after that.
And then a couple of digitaladventures because I'm a
masochist and I'm still quitekeen on writing. But you never
know. Extra digital adventuremight be an opportunity to call
on the talents of a certain Mr.Brick. You never can tell.
But I'm

Matthew (01:12:27):
You heard it here first.

Paul (01:12:31):
And then if we if it does really well, a map of Manchester
because Dee spent time as thewarden of Manchester and that
would be lovely as well becauseI live in Manchester and it
would be a marvelous opportunityto have a good old delve into
what Manchester was like when hewas around. So

Dave (01:12:50):
Yeah. I was gonna ask because I I I love the map
creation side of of game design.And we've done a lot of that
with tales of the Old Westtrying to get maps of Las Vegas
in New Mexico in 1870 is quitedifficult. How how are you

(01:13:10):
finding that? Do you find thatvery I mean, I I love it, but
it's a very onerous and timeconsuming task.
I mean, how how do you find itin doing this research for for
for for Dee?

Paul (01:13:21):
I think the actual map drawing, which I do, I find
incredibly therapeutic. There isjust something delightful about
the sort of hash work ofbasically just working up from a
bit of a pencil sketch to dothat. There are actually a lot
of maps around. It wasdefinitely a period, you know,

(01:13:42):
that given it's London, thereare lots which cover the whole
of the sixteenth century fromend to end. But it was
definitely it was for me, it wasan opportunity.
I've been drawing my own mapsrather haphazardly, but better
better and better over time forthe last forty years as a gamer.

(01:14:05):
And this was an opportunity toactually say, okay, I'm gonna
really buckle down and dosomething to be proud of and
which which I am the theoriginal Austin One Hundred map.
I'm really happy with it. Andall rolled up sell it as a
separate artifact printed onfabric. As you should

(01:14:27):
absolutely.
Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm I wouldreally love to be able to get to
that. And as I said, the map ofManchester as well. And if we
went really crazy, you know, Iknow not many Kickstarters reach
50,000.
Only the more evolvedKickstarters passed on the first

(01:14:49):
day.

Dave (01:14:50):
They they chip over 50,000 as they start the bloody
campaign is what happens.

Paul (01:14:55):
Yes. In the first eight minutes. If I was to get that
far, I'm then going to go crazyand add an extra 20 pages to the
book. If probably so I caninclude the adventures that have
just been, funded digitally andadd them to the book as

Dave (01:15:09):
well. Right.

Paul (01:15:10):
And if it went beyond that, I would be the first
person lying on the ground. So Iwouldn't be able to reach the
keyboard to add any more stretchWell,

Matthew (01:15:24):
this is brilliant. I've got to say it sounds great. I'm

Paul (01:15:27):
definitely going

Matthew (01:15:28):
to fund you now and I'll yeah we'll aim to get you
lying on the ground.

Dave (01:15:37):
That just sounds a bit strange Matthew you say like I'm
gonna lock all the doors we'renot that crazy though are we?

Matthew (01:15:46):
I'm blue sky I said we were gonna drag you into the
torture chamber again yes

Dave (01:15:53):
anyway on that note it's been fabulous having you in the
hamam, Paul. Always great tochat to you. Best of luck with
the rest of the Kickstarter. Imean, you've done brilliantly
already, so onwards and upwards.And, yeah, great to see you soon
in the flesh again.

Paul (01:16:12):
Indeed. Yep. Thank you very much for having me on, and
I hope you get better soon,Dave.

Dave (01:16:17):
So that was a real pleasure chatting to Paul. So
it's it was nice to e meet himfor the first time as opposed to
meet him in the flesh. But, Imean, Desanction is something
that I haven't really looked atbefore. And it you know, it's
it's it's an era. Actually,there was something I I was
gonna ask him about, you know, abit more a bit more detail about

(01:16:39):
his creating a historical gameand and the the the problems,
the hassles, and and issues thatarise that we're finding out.

Matthew (01:16:46):
We can always invite him back. Yeah. We we we have
already done an episode a bitlike that with Thomas, but maybe
it's worth having another groupchat at some time. Or maybe we
should Sort of pee. See what theseminar program is like at one
of our one of the cons we'll begoing to

Dave (01:17:03):
That's

Paul (01:17:04):
good and

Matthew (01:17:04):
invite him onto that.

Dave (01:17:05):
Yeah. That's a good idea. But, yes, so what was what was
my point? So that that period ofhistory is one that, you know, I
know a little bit about. I'm noexpert on on on, you know,
Elizabethan history.
And it was it was something thatI've I've it's never really
grabbed me as a as a roleplaying setting. Now we've but

(01:17:26):
I've really enjoyed our our gameof Savage Worlds of of Solomon
Kane set in exactly that time.Basically doing the same stuff
because Master Dee is our is our

Matthew (01:17:38):
Yes. He's our patron in that, isn't he?

Dave (01:17:40):
Yeah. So so basically, there's there's a very clear
parallel there. So I'm reallyenjoying that. But actually,
having listened to to Paul andand and heard heard a bit more
insight into the game, I mean,it's actually interests me a lot
more than I than I thought itwould. Not not enough.
I'm not gonna back it, butthat's only because I don't have

(01:18:00):
much in the way of cash at themoment. So I have to be very
careful on what I choose toback. But but actually, yeah, it
it it's it's made me much moreinterested in the game. And
maybe I'll pick it up at retailat some point, maybe at a
convention.

Matthew (01:18:13):
But no. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you my
first edition copy.

Dave (01:18:20):
Okay.

Matthew (01:18:22):
Because if I'm gonna buy myself a new you know, the
Monad edition, you can at leasthave a look at the first
edition.

Dave (01:18:28):
Oh, yeah. Cool.

Matthew (01:18:28):
It is it is not without flaws. And, you know, Paul
talked about how he wassmoothing over some of the rules
in this one. But it is a verysimple game to play. As you
know, Andy Rick, our patron isand friend, is a huge fan of it.
So Yes.

(01:18:50):
He you know, you should join oneof his games maybe at some point
when he does another one. But,yeah, but I'll lend you just out
of interest, I'll lend you thatwell, no, I'll give you that
first edition.

Dave (01:19:01):
Okay. Cool.

Paul (01:19:02):
Thank you.

Matthew (01:19:02):
And you can have a look at that. Yeah. It it is very
interesting. We're doing anotherinterview next week. Hey.
Woah. You know what? We'realready on next time and
goodbye. How did

Dave (01:19:14):
that happen? I know.

Matthew (01:19:17):
So Andreas came to us this week. We couldn't fit him
in this week because, look,we've got a whole episode here
already. But his Kickstarter isgoing to start oh, that's what
we should have said, actually,in quick quick wind back to
World of Gaming News. IskadrillBurns is a very Nordic Morkborg

(01:19:38):
variant that is kick startingprobably this week as you hear
it, as you hear this episode. Itopening now?

Dave (01:19:46):
What do you think? Or is it not?

Matthew (01:19:47):
No. I think it's opening on the April, I think.

Paul (01:19:51):
Okay.

Matthew (01:19:54):
And we will be talking with Andreas about Iskadrill
burns next week. Es andYggdrasil. Next week. Next
episode. It's not Yggdrasil.
Yeah.

Dave (01:20:05):
Sorry. It's not Yggdrasil burns. That's like something
from the eighties. It'sYggdrasil Burns.

Matthew (01:20:11):
Yes. Yggdrasil Burns. Yeah.

Dave (01:20:14):
It hasn't got a launch date, but yeah.

Matthew (01:20:17):
Yeah. Think I think soon.

Dave (01:20:19):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:20:20):
I think by the time you guys are listening to this, our
dear lister, it will havelaunched or be just about to
launch, and we should haveincluded it in the world of
gaming. But we didn't. But we'retalking about it now, and we
will talk with Andreas about itin our next episode in two
weeks' time.

Dave (01:20:34):
We will. Excellent. Cool. Good stuff. Right then.
Well, if if if that's enough ofme sniffing and coughing, yeah,
it's goodbye for me.

Matthew (01:20:47):
And it's goodbye from him.

Paul (01:20:50):
May the icons bless your adventures. You have been
listening to the effect podcast,presented by Fiction Suit and
the RPG Gods. Music stars on ablack sea used with permission
of Free League Publishing.

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