Seeing Red

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dave (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to episode 253 of Effect, Seeing
Red. I'm Dave.

Matthew (00:48):
And I'm Matthew. And we have got, well, an interview
that I said that was great,wasn't it? And you you you
denied that it was great andsaid it was fucking great.

Dave (01:01):
It was absolutely brilliant interview. Yeah. That
was such good fun. A realpleasure.

Matthew (01:06):
And this morning, over breakfast, I told my wife Sue. I
said, oh, yeah. We've got theKenai and Gaurahan interview to
slot in. And she went, eyeswide, you spoke to Ken Hite?

Dave (01:20):
So even she's heard of Ken Hite?

Matthew (01:22):
Well, she I I sometimes, on long journeys,
force her to listen to Ken andRobin talk about stuff.

Dave (01:27):
Oh, okay.

Matthew (01:27):
But she recognized that this was a massive coup.

Dave (01:31):
This is a good Yeah.

Matthew (01:32):
Yeah. We're talking to Ken Hai and Gul Hanrahan later
on in the episode. That is gonnabe the highlight of the episode.
But before that, of course, weare gonna be talking about the
world of gaming, and we aregoing to be giving you the very
latest Old West news.

Dave (01:48):
You haven't said what we're talking to Ken and Gar
about, which is kind of kind ofrelevant, seeing the title is
Seeing Red. Now what's Red?

Matthew (01:58):
I think that's true. Mars might Cotinism. The
Republicans.

Dave (02:03):
Your blood? But, yeah. So Terraforming Mars, the game
that's the the RPG conversion ofthe well known board game.
That's being worked on now. It'scurrently on back of kit,
although I think by the timethis goes out, it'll just about
finished.
So if you're listening to thisand you're interested, look
straight away if you'reinterested. But yeah, Ken and

(02:28):
are well the lead writers areheavily involved in creating
this game. So that's why we'retalking to Ken and Gar. Much as,
you know, I'd love just to havea chat with them anyway because
they're they're a great company.

Matthew (02:40):
Yeah. Great. Yeah. Well, in fact, we effectively
did ask them to just come backand chat, didn't we, at

Dave (02:44):
some Yeah.
On on on the excuse of Draculadossier. But then just get them
back to talk anyway. So we'llsee we'll see where we can we
can make that happen. Yeah.Anyway.
Absolutely.

Matthew (02:57):
We we have no new patrons to thank, but I do just
want to thank all our patronsbecause some big things happened
this month. Mhmm. We we paid fora year's worth of hosting, and
that's money that backers, youyou know, you directly
contribute towards that.

Dave (03:15):
Absolutely.

Matthew (03:16):
And something else as well. I can't remember whether
it was our domain or somethingelse, but another big chunk of
money came out of our account,and that's money that you guys
put into our account. And and sothank you so much. Oh, yeah.
It's it's our website, ofcourse.
Our website fees.

Dave (03:33):
So I thought you were gonna suddenly blurt out that
it's it's it's our it's ourCaribbean cruise. I mean

Matthew (03:39):
Yeah. No. It's my cocaine. That's what I mean. No.
The yeah. Our website and ourand our hosting fees all came
out of that. So so thank you somuch to all our patrons. That's
couldn't do it without you.

Dave (03:54):
We couldn't do it without you. No. Thank you. Yes.

Matthew (04:00):
World gaming then.

Dave (04:01):
So, well, the first thing I was gonna mention, I haven't
seen it, but the Electric Stategame has a movie. And that movie
has just come out, and I haven'tseen it. But I understand that
you have. So so what's that?

Matthew (04:16):
I have seen it. Is it any good? Saw it in the premiere
on the first day.

Dave (04:21):
Keen. Very keen.

Matthew (04:22):
How do I word this? Now, well, first start, let's
let's get this straight. Yousaid The Electric State Game has
a movie. Well, remember, TheElectric State Game was preceded
by The Electric Sight book. SoTrue.
Probably more that the the thethe movie is based on the book
rather than the game. But,actually, you know what? It's
not very much based on the bookeither. I think it's based on

(04:43):
the look of some of the art inthe book. And it's not dreadful.

Dave (04:54):
Have you have you ever heard the phrase damning with
faint praise, Matt? Because Ithink you Yeah. Yeah. I think
you've just done that.

Matthew (05:02):
It's it didn't feel much. And you you may know,
Dave, that I am actuallycurrently reading through the
game, and I'm gonna play a solocampaign to teach myself how to
write solo rules, which Ifoolishly forced you to agree
with me that

Dave (05:18):
we should we should have I'm glad you said that. I did
warn you. I did warn you that
that at
some point, we're gonna have towrite this bloody thing and know
that there was no anything aboutsolo games.

Matthew (05:29):
And I said, don't you want to do it just as an
intellectual exercise? I do. Andso here I am doing it. And the
intellectual exercise is doingmy research by playing solo
games, of which the ElectricState is one. So I'm reading
that book at the moment.
You may have seen my sort ofchapter summaries in long not x.
What am I on? Blue Sky skeetchains, I think we call it.

(05:54):
Threads. I don't know.
And the book I'm reading,Electric State, the Role Playing
Game, is not the film I saw. Ijust wanna go back to the back
of the book, and it says, TheElectric State deals with dark
and existential themes. Thestories told in this game can be
violent, distressing, and raiseissues relating to personal

(06:18):
morals. This is not a game forchildren. Whereas I think,
actually, The Electric Statemovie is quite a fun adventure
that had a little hint of TheGoonies in it and is probably a
movie that children would like.

Dave (06:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool.
I mean, I I'm it takes a lot forme to sit down and watch a
movie, and I'm not sure

Matthew (06:40):
I wouldn't bother.

Dave (06:41):
I'm not sure I'm gonna bother with Electric State. I
mean, there there are somemovies that I really want to see
that I still haven't sat downand bothered to watch. So it's I
don't know why, what what theobstacle is to me going, I'm
gonna watch Dune part twotonight and just doing it.

Matthew (06:56):
Yeah? Because

Dave (06:56):
I haven't watched Dune part two yet.

Matthew (06:58):
Well, let me say you should prioritize that over the
electric stage.

Dave (07:02):
I was going to. Yeah. I was going to. I also one thing
what the hell is it called?There's the new Kevin Costner
Wild West movie.
Is it Horizon?

Matthew (07:16):
Oh, god. No. Yes. Actually, I promised myself I'd
watch that.

Dave (07:18):
So that's just come up on Sky movies. So I've recorded
that, and again, that'ssomething that I really, really
wanna watch. Even though, Imean, some of the some of the
reviews have been, you know,it's a bit ponderous, it's a bit
slow, and it's doing trying todo too much. Because I think
it's it's intended to be partone of a three or four part
series of movies.

Matthew (07:37):
Yeah. I even heard that it was originally written and
filmed as a TV show and thenedited into

Dave (07:46):
Okay.

Matthew (07:47):
A movie, but it but it tells about three stories.

Dave (07:50):
Yeah.

Matthew (07:51):
And then leaves each of them hanging, I understand. So
Yeah. Sorry. Yes. But

Dave (07:56):
yes. So so, yeah, I'm I'm again, I very much want to see
that. But again, actuallygetting myself sat down on the
on the sofa to watch watchmovies, for some reason, a a a
challenge. I don't know why. Itjust it just it just is.
Maybe I'm just too busy. But Idon't I'm sure I can make time
to watch a good movie. I'm notthat busy.

Matthew (08:18):
Yeah. Well, if you wanna make time to watch a good
movie, don't watch The ElectricStone, which is

Dave (08:24):
heard it here first, folks.

Matthew (08:26):
If you yeah. I mean, if you if you want us you know, if
you wanna see Simeon StalinHug's graphics come to light
World brought
to life. Then, you know, there'sthere's some good image imagery
in there. Although, I think itdoesn't capture the Stalin
huggedness as well as the AmazonPrime TV show of Tales of

(08:50):
Malupid.

Dave (08:51):
Yeah. I really enjoyed that. That was super.

Matthew (08:54):
And one of the things about that, what I really liked,
and may not be for everybody, isthe way it took time. And
there's an element of SimonSallanhug's artwork that is
about stillness, and that wasbeautifully executed in the TV
show. That is not what you getin a adventure movie by the

(09:14):
Russo brothers. Any sense ofstillness whatsoever.

Dave (09:18):
No. I guess, really, the other thing is I've I've I've
got the electric state, thegame, but I I don't feel the
urge to play it. There's there'ssomething about it. I think
there's just something about thethe the you know, the the the
the cyber element, you know, thebeing on the net element is
being important in the game,which just kind of puts me off a

(09:41):
little bit. And now I haven'tlooked into any greater detail,
so I don't know how that works.
But just the sense of that makesme go, maybe I'll maybe I'll
give this one a miss. And whilstI've got

Matthew (09:50):
so many

Dave (09:51):
so many other things to play, it's, you know, if I go,
maybe I'll give it a miss, meansit's unlikely to get to the
table for me.

Matthew (09:57):
Yeah. I mean, given given given there isn't enough
time to play all the games youwant to play anyway Yeah. I can
understand it. I will say thatCyber Element feels very
different from cyberpunk. Yeah.
Okay. And it feels so far, I asI said, I've not actually sat
down to do this solo. Okay? I'mstill reading through it. But so
far, what I've read suggests tome it's more like taking drugs.

Dave (10:20):
Right. Okay.

Matthew (10:22):
Yeah. Which I think is an innocent thing. And there's
little

Dave (10:25):
bit of insight into that. Maybe there's an insight into
Siemens Stalenhag's early lifethen in in

Matthew (10:32):
Yeah. There's a little bit inspiration for this.
There's one single shot ofsomebody with a neurocaster on
their head in the movie, slumpedin a way like they're never
gonna get up again

Dave (10:43):
Right.

Matthew (10:44):
And get out of the world, which is you know, there
were mechanics for that in thegame, but that is the own that's
effectively the darkest shot ofthe movie.

Dave (10:54):
Right. Yeah. And

Matthew (10:58):
yeah. But it's fine. It's fine. And now I know how to
end the game is well, nospoilers. Won't I won't spoil it
for everybody.
But it yeah. I couldn't quitework out what the point of the
game was, and the movie explainsentirely what the point of the
game is.

Dave (11:14):
Okay. Cool. Good stuff. Should we move

Matthew (11:17):
Actually, I wouldn't I wouldn't make that the point.
Yeah. So the other thing I wantto do I wanted to talk about
this last last episode becauseI'd just seen a couple of things
beforehand that hinted at it,and yet I couldn't find any
actual proof. And you know what?I still can't find any actual
proof, but a mate has told me itis indeed true, and that is that

(11:40):
Chaosium are planning a newedition of their new edition of
MoonQuest, which Oh, okay.
Feels surprisingly previous, abit like a new edition of Alien
did when that when that wasannounced. Right.

Dave (12:00):
Okay.

Matthew (12:00):
But actually, thinking about it, I think it's probably
a good idea because I think RuneQuest Adventures in Glorantha,
as the latest edition wascalled, consciously went back to
second edition Rune Quest, whichis like 1981 and, you know, the

(12:20):
the first edition that we youand I would have come across.
Yeah. And is quite old schoolbasic role playing, loads of
skills, all sorts of thingsthat, in fact, I talked about in
the last episode about notliking about that sort of thing
and strike banks and stuff likethat. And apparently, objective

(12:40):
of this new edition is tosimplify it and make it more in
keeping with modernsensibilities. A bit like, and I
don't know how true this is ofCthulhu seven, but a bit like
seventh edition Cthulhu.

Dave (12:54):
Right.

Matthew (12:57):
You've been playing Rune Quest, haven't you,
recently?

Dave (12:59):
Yeah. I've I've been in I've been in the campaign with,
I'm not sure what you is it themythic edition or mythras
edition?

Matthew (13:08):
Mythras. Right. So effectively, if you like, sixth
edition by

Dave (13:11):
Yeah.

Matthew (13:12):
The the the clockwork people whose name I can't
remember.

Dave (13:15):
Right. Okay. So so I'm I'm I'm no great expert on different
Rune Quest editions. I'veobviously played it back in the
day and then, like, say, in theearlier editions that were very
BRP.

Matthew (13:23):
Mhmm.

Dave (13:24):
This is still quite BRP. A lot of skills, kind of various
what feels like kind ofartificial, strike, arbitrary
ways of boosting your skillchance. And then I think the
haven't enjoyed it. Let's put itthis way. Or not I didn't it's

(13:45):
not that I haven't enjoyed it.
I haven't enjoyed it much. Andbut I think part of that is
probably because the campaignthat we've been playing is
nothing but combat. And Oh,right. Yes. Me, combat is just
so boring.
I mean, it just lasts forever.And, you know, you you can hit
somebody, you know, do a critand you, you know, chip their

(14:05):
fingernail or something stupid.It's just so anyway, even even
at one point, the the GMapologized for the previous
session being nothing butcombat, and then the first thing
that happened in the set thatsession was a two hour combat.
It's like

Matthew (14:22):
Right. Okay. Yeah.

Dave (14:23):
I think

Matthew (14:24):
I think the GM might be at fault rather than the rules
here.

Dave (14:26):
Quite possibly. But still I mean, still the combat is very
long. It's very kind of well, itfeels very long or certainly in
the way that it's being played.So I've I've not I mean, I
always enjoy gaming. I alwaysenjoy gaming with the crowd.
We always have a lot of fun. Butfor me, the game isn't isn't
doing it. But as you say, thatmight be down to the fact that,
you know, the the GM is a bitcombat heavy.

Matthew (14:49):
And is this setting Glorantha or somewhere else?
Because, of course, Mithras isrelatively setting free.

Dave (14:59):
I I don't know. Don't know? Don't get I don't get the
sense it's Glowantha. I meanYeah. But yeah, we haven't we
haven't had that much chance toreally explore the world and do
very much other than go to thisplace
that's just
over the border and fightthings. Yeah.

Matthew (15:19):
Right. Okay. So least heard about that the better. I I
very much enjoyed the Adventuresin Glorantha version of Rune
Quest in the campaign that I rana couple of years back. But I've
got a brilliant GM in in thatregard.
That's Nick Brook who did thelayout for that.

Dave (15:38):
Yep. Oh, cool. Nice. Nice. Nice.

Matthew (15:40):
And and, you know, he knows both RuneQuest and
Gloranther like the back of hishand. And he skips, you know, he
makes the

Dave (15:48):
And knows how to run a good game.

Matthew (15:50):
And knows how to run a good fight that doesn't take too
long as well. So, you know, wehave fights that are thrilling
and exciting, and we get to docool cool things in them. And
yet we don't fill our time withfights. So that was good. I
think that was in spite of therules rather than because of the
rules.
Although the charactergeneration was great fun in that

(16:11):
game, so I'd like to see thatcarry on.

Dave (16:13):
What does I

Matthew (16:13):
think What

Dave (16:13):
what version what version is Nick running?

Matthew (16:16):
So he's running what we now call Adventures in
Glarantha, which, if you like,is kind of a seventh edition,
but it's Right. As I say,closer. So it's the latest
edition.

Dave (16:26):
Yes.

Matthew (16:26):
Okay. And the one that is now apparently Having a new
edition. Renewed.

Dave (16:31):
Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Matthew (16:33):
So there's that. I will put a link in the show notes if
I can find anything official onthe interweb about it, but so
far, I haven't managed to findanything official about that,
except for tweets from MikeMoles, who is part of the crew
developing it. And I say tweets.I mean blue skies. Oh, whatever.
Whatever. Social stuff. So nextin the world of gaming, we have

(16:56):
Wasteland Degenerates. Okay. OrI'm not sure whether it's
Wasteland Degenerates orWasteland Degenerates.

Dave (17:04):
Yeah. Hold on. I suspect it's the it's the former.

Matthew (17:09):
I think it's more likely to be the former.

Dave (17:10):
Would make

Matthew (17:11):
more sense. I bring I bring this to your attention
simply because it has obviousovertones of Mad Max with
obviously the numbers filed off.

Dave (17:24):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But

Matthew (17:26):
it is interestingly compatible with both Morkborg
and also with Cyborg. Okay. AndI will put a link in the show
notes. I haven't got very muchto say about it. You know,
Morkborg battle games are to apenny.

Dave (17:41):
There are quite a lot of
them there and there. I do loveI do love the Mad Max, the
original Mad Max, you know,feel.

Matthew (17:49):
Yeah.

Dave (17:50):
We've had long and involved conversations about my
views on the the later movies.

Matthew (17:56):
How long you are on Furiooser?

Dave (17:57):
How right I am about how shit Furiosa is. Anyway, let's
move on before oh, it'sbeautifully done.

Matthew (18:03):
Furiosa isn't

Dave (18:04):
Not Furio, by the way, the, you know, the the

Matthew (18:06):
Furi Road.

Dave (18:07):
Fury Road. Classic. It's not. I mean, it's well done, and
a lot of the, you know, the thechases are fun and all the rest
of it, but the film is shit, andthey it relegates Mad Max into
being a bit part in his ownmovie. Anyway, let's move on.

Matthew (18:20):
No. Mad Max is a bit part in Furiosa's movie, let's
be frank.

Dave (18:25):
I haven't seen that one. But

Matthew (18:27):
No. No. But Fury Fury Road is about Furiosa, not about

Dave (18:30):
Well, they shouldn't call it Mad Max then. They should
call it Mad Furiosa, Fury Road.So I'll I'll be happy with
That'll be fine. If if theyhadn't called it a Mad Max one,
because it's not about Mad Max.Anyway.
I also think Mel Gibson was abetter Mad Max than Tom Hardy.
Although I'm a big, big fan ofTom Hardy's.

Matthew (18:51):
Right. Don't need to rehearse this argument again.
Everybody knows you're wrong.

Dave (18:55):
Everybody knows that I'm right. And I anyway, anyway,
let's move on. What's next?

Matthew (19:02):
Mark Miller is writing for Traveller.

Dave (19:04):
Cool.

Matthew (19:05):
Yeah. And this we ought to have this news segment, which
is news for our mate Andy Brick.Although, of course, it won't be
news to him. He will know aboutit already.

Dave (19:14):
I just He'll he'll claim he'll claim to know about it all
already, and then he'll blufffor a while, and then he'll look
it up.
No. No. No. I can Pretend heknew about it.

Matthew (19:20):
Genuinely knows about it already. But, yeah, Mark
Miller is writing a mongoosesupplement for Traveller. I
can't remember what it is.

Dave (19:30):
A mongoose supplement. A supplement about mongoose in
Traveller.

Matthew (19:33):
No. It's mongoose publishing.

Dave (19:36):
I know they do. But just the way you said it sounded like
it's a it's a mongoosesupplement for Traveller.

Matthew (19:42):
Well, for all I know, it might be. I thought it was
about pirates or something, butit might be about mongeese.

Dave (19:47):
Is mongoose

Matthew (19:48):
the right plural of mongoose?

Dave (19:49):
I don't know. I think I think it's actually mongooses.
Yeah. I'm just to have to lookat up whilst we

Matthew (19:55):
are talking.

Dave (19:57):
So carry on.

Matthew (19:59):
Yeah. So, you know, it is just great to see Mark
Miller. And I think it's it'sgoing to be a Little Black Book
format as well, which is justfun. It's great. Yeah.
I love that. It's Mark Millercoming home to the game that he
sold to Mongoose and he justsays something about how he
trusts them with the legacy ofTraveller and yeah. And he's

(20:24):
working for

Dave (20:24):
it. Just think

Matthew (20:24):
it's great Yeah. And I'm I'm not gonna buy it because

Dave (20:28):
Sorry. Go on.

Matthew (20:29):
I said I'm not gonna buy it, I'm sure Andy Brick is.
So

Dave (20:32):
Yeah. Mean Check it on him. I I unlikely I'll buy it as
well, but I do love, I reallylove the little the little black
books of original Traveler. Thatwas just so good. And if they're
if they're reproducing it inthat style, then, you know, I'll
be tempted just to buy it forfor its look and feel.
But yeah, that's cool. It ismongooses by the way. Yeah.

(20:54):
Mongooses. Not mongooses.

Matthew (20:57):
Not mongooses.

Dave (20:58):
It's not mongooses. It's mongooses. Anyway, let's move
swiftly on. So the next bit ofnews is we just want to do a
shout out to our friend andfriend of the show and
contributor to Tales of the OldWest, Saul Morales who's

(21:20):
recently got home after beinghospital having some surgery.
Delighted that you're back athome mate.
All the best. All our love andhugs are sending your way and
you know hoping for a very swiftrecovery. It seems like it's
going quite well. But, yeah,love to
you
Saul, and get well soon, mate.

Matthew (21:43):
Yeah. And Saul, of course, not just a patron of the
show and a fellow podcasterrunning gaming perspectives with
Saul and Jolene, his wife. Yeah.Yeah. But, also, he's a backer
of Tales of the Odd West, andhe's been a sensitivity reader
on all things Metsocat in thatbook, and he wrote one of our

(22:06):
adventure seeds as well.
So a contributor to the book aswell.

Dave (22:09):
So Absolutely.

Matthew (22:11):
Yeah. We're all thinking about you, Saul. Speak
to recovery.

Dave (22:13):
Get well soon, mate. Yep. Get well soon.

Matthew (22:17):
Right. Well, that's a nice segue

Dave (22:18):
into terms of the Old West. It is. So the pledger
manager went live earlier thisweek. So last Monday? Tuesday, I
think it was, wasn't it?
Tuesday. Mhmm. And that seems sothat seems to be going really
well. We obviously need peopleto be fulfilling their pledge
managers by the March 28 is thedeadline we have set, because at

(22:43):
that point, we should be able tostart sending products out to
customers. So

Matthew (22:49):
Or I think early April. Yeah. I mean, let's not let's
not promise let's not promiseMarch. You know, we're still
waiting for the

Dave (22:55):
March 28.

Matthew (22:55):
They should be there, March.

Dave (22:57):
Kind of the weekend, so it wouldn't go out anyway. Yeah.
But if we get all theinformation in by then, we can
start sending stuff out shortlyafter that. So that's that's
that's great. It's particularlyimportant for our US backers for
for for various sort ofpractical reasons about how
we're shipping stuff to The US.

(23:17):
If you don't get your pledgecompleted by the March 28, there
is a risk that your packet willbecome more expensive because we
are sending a one big packetwith all of our stuff which just
attracts one load of costs,which means we can then make it
cheaper for everybody in The US.If you miss that shipment, we'll

(23:41):
have to send it direct, is gonnabe a lot more expensive. So make
sure, particularly if you're aUS backer, get your pledge
manager sorted out and completedbefore the March 28, please.

Matthew (23:54):
Yeah. And it is a a call to all of you who haven't
even opened your email yet. A 61entries have not clicked through
even to pledge managers to thinkabout it. So, obviously, some of
those include people who backedat the digital level. You've
already got your PDF.
You may not be interested inupgrading to anything else. Yep.

(24:16):
That's cool if that's the case.But but those of you that have
got physical products, get inget into your email, dig it out
of your junk folder if youhaven't seen it on your main
folder. We'll be sending outreminders very shortly as well.

Dave (24:34):
Yeah. If you've got

Matthew (24:36):
If you don't wanna be hassled by our reminders, just
get in there. Yeah. Completeyour order. And the sooner you
complete, the sooner everybodycan get their books. And
remember, this will be at leastwell, hopefully, a month earlier
than we promised when youoriginally bought the
Kickstarter.

Dave (24:53):
Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. There are still one or
two things that have got to cometogether just to, you know, like
like you say, not promising forsure, but at the moment
everything is looking very good.So, yeah, let's get there. Let's
get into it.
I mean, it's it's been aninteresting experience. Setting
up the pledge manager has beenhas been fun.

Matthew (25:11):
That proved

Dave (25:13):
to be

Matthew (25:13):
quite complex.

Dave (25:14):
Slightly more complex and and drawn out than we'd
anticipated, but all done nowwhich is great. So that's all
it's a you know it's a greatlearning experience and we'll
we'll we'll find it easier whenwe do it again next time. But
yeah, it's exciting. It's veryexciting. I mean the the books
are now in our warehouse waitingto go.

(25:35):
We're just waiting for someother bits to arrive, and then
obviously the pledge of myledger to complete, and then we
can start packaging them up andgetting them out. So yeah, all
good. All good. Got a nice rosyglow at the moment.

Matthew (25:47):
Yeah. It feels very good. I have been in contact
with three retail backers. So ifyou're in California, Paladin's
Castle Paladin's Game Castlestore in I can't remember which
which suburb of Los Angeles.But, yeah, they're in

(26:07):
California, they will be theywill be stocking the book.
We've got a German backer, notactually a storefront, but they
do all the German conventions.They're they're ordering a
bunch, or you can mail order offthem when they when they get
stock. And also the game shop inorder shot are gonna be stocking
from from the outset. But also,after launch, we will let our

(26:30):
distributors, GMS, sell it toother retail outlets as well.
Most of those, I think, aregonna be in The UK, though.
So if you're a UK person whohasn't backed and doesn't wanna
do mail order, doesn't wanna ifyou haven't backed and you want
to join our pledge manager, getin quick now. Do it now. But if
you want to wait for it to comeinto your book, support your
local game store, tell your gamestore to get in touch with GMS

(26:51):
and find out about ordering it.Yep. Cool.
I think that's about all we'vegot to say. That's a nice
review. We'll put a link to thatnice review in our show notes
I've seen.

Dave (27:01):
Indeed. Yeah.

Matthew (27:02):
Came out in February, but it's the first time we saw
it today.

Dave (27:06):
Yeah. Yeah. It's all going well.

Matthew (27:10):
It's all going well. Excellent. Right. Now for the
main event.

Dave (27:14):
Yeah. Let's let's talk to Ken and Gart about Terraforming
Mars.

Matthew (27:20):
In the hammam with us today, we have not one but two
fabulous game authors of greatrepute. Our old friend, Gareth
Hanrahan and Ken Hite. I shouldhave had one of those buttons
that does applause, but we don'thave a live audience. But it
would have been applause.

Ken Hite (27:40):
People at home are applauding right now. They have

Dave (27:43):
it. Absolutely.

Matthew (27:45):
So, Ken and Gareth, welcome.

Ken Hite (27:48):
Welcome. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.

Matthew (27:50):
Now Gareth, of course, is an old hand being interviewed
by us. And so he's alreadypassed the test. But Ken, we ask
all our guests the first timethey come on the show to tell us
about their life in gaming.

Dave (28:07):
Now we've only got three or four hours.

Ken Hite (28:09):
Right. Yeah. That's that's what I understood is that
we are time limited and there'sonly one server. So I'll address
sort of the my origin story,which fundamentally comes down
to being 12 in 1977. And whenyou were 12 in 1977, if you went
to Montessori grade school, as Idid, you were issued certain

(28:34):
things.
You were issued UFO books. Youwere issued a copy of a Steve
Martin comedy album, and youwere issued Dungeons and
Dragons. Those were things youdid not get a choice on. You
were allowed to accept or rejectKISS. That was what you got to
choose.
But D and D was sort ofmandatory. So my, one of my
grade school buddies, Steve, gotthe monster manual, the AD and D

(28:56):
monster manual, which is thefirst book for AD and D. And he
bought it, and he had no ideawhat it was. And so we sort of
puzzled through it, and heloaned it to me for the summer.
So I spent that summer sort ofcreating monsters, interpolating
the rules as best I could.
And then the next year in, youknow, first year of high school,

(29:16):
we found the blue book, theHolmes blue book D and D.
Someone had got that. And so wesaid, ah, the monster manual
goes with this because it saysDungeons and Dragons on it. And
that's when we started playing Dand D. And then the, you know,
Player's Handbook came out, andso we all upgraded to advanced D
and D.
And that was, you know, that wasour life for, you know, years

(29:36):
of, you know, playing D and Dduring school, after school,
rolling out characters while thenuns were not watching an
algebra class, the whole nine

Dave (29:43):
yards. Excellent.

Ken Hite (29:44):
And, you know, at some point during that process, I
became DM for life. My co DM,I'd gone down to the seven
Eleven to get snacks, and I comeback. And all the players have
got Vorpal swords, and they'reriding around on Pegasus. And my
co DM David is like, I don'tknow what just happened. And I
said, alright.
Alright. Alright. I'll sort thisout.

Dave (30:06):
You go you know what? Is what happens.

Ken Hite (30:07):
Either either we rewind time to before I left for
seven Eleven or I pick up themonster manual and I find what
can fight a bunch of guys withvorpal swords and unicorns. And
they said, oh, we should rewindtime. That makes much more
sense. So then at that point, Ibecame DM for life. And from
that moment, I have been abehind the screen guy, and that

(30:31):
sort of wonderful being presentat the beginning of the art form
is, I guess, sort of impelledwhatever I do through it because
you always wanna get that thatcharge, that Jones back and to
be doing something new andexciting and fun at the table
that you've never done before.
And back in the day, fightingorcs was something we'd never

(30:51):
done before. Now it's adifferent

Dave (30:53):
day. Yeah.

Matthew (30:54):
So what what was your first paid gig in the Merchant
side of things?

Ken Hite (31:00):
My first paid gig was the one of my players in Call of
because I bought Call of Cthulhuwhen it came out in 1981. I like
to say because it cannot becontradicted that I was the
first person in Oklahoma to ownCall of Cthulhu, and, I ran it
for a bunch of my friends inhigh school and college. One of
those players got a job at IronCrown Enterprises, and then from

(31:23):
that job got access to theplaytest manuscript of Nephilim,
the Chaosium version of theFrench occult RPG. And he sent
it to me because he said, whobetter to look at this game
about black magic and occultconspiracies than my old buddy
Ken? And I looked at it, I wroteabout 11,000 words of playtest
feedback and back sass, and Isent it in to Donald, and he

(31:44):
sent it into Chaosium.
And they responded. And by they,I mean, Greg Stafford personally
reached out of the gods planeand said, we're putting it in
the book. We're paying you forwhat you wrote. What's the next
book you're doing for us? And Isaid, I'm writing the secret
societies book, of course, Greg,sir.

(32:06):
And then I did. And about thatsame time, we'd gotten the
contract to do GERPS AlternateEarths from Steve Jackson. So
myself and a couple of my bythen grad school friends at
University of Chicago puttogether the GERPS Alternate
Earths one and two eventually.And so GERPS Alternate Earths
and Secret Societies were sortof my my first, contracted gigs.

(32:29):
But my first paid gig was beinga jerk about Nephilim and
saying, this game is woefullyincomplete.
So from that beginning, I guess,the subtler effect of my whole
career.

Matthew (32:46):
That's a great introduction. And it strikes me
that Chaosium was such an openhouse as it were that, you know,
you can join Chaosium and thenyou can go off and start
LinkedIn or you can develop inwhatever way. Greg seemed to
welcome everybody in, everybodythat showed an iota of talent.

Ken Hite (33:07):
I mean, Greg definitely was that sort of, you
know, guru, messianic typefigure. Right? I mean, if you
were part of the body, if you'repart of the gospel, Greg wanted
you on side and helping out.That was always one of the very
great things that but he wasamazingly generous with his
world and with his time and withhis mentorship and friendship. I

(33:29):
mean, was generous to me.
Maybe he was mean to everybodyelse, but I don't think so. My
understanding is that I wasnothing special. I was just one
of the many people that he knewand sort of, like, lifted up
onto the next stage.

Matthew (33:42):
I've heard other similar stories, so I think he's
generous to most people.

Ken Hite (33:47):
Yeah. He was pretty great.

Matthew (33:49):
So one of your maxims, you talked about alternate
earths. One of your maxims I'veheard again and again, you're
not pouring, but again and againon Ken and Robin talk about
stuff is Start With Earth. Andin the game that we're here to
talk about, say, we're kind ofstarting with Earth. We're in at
least the same solar system.It's terraforming Mars.

(34:11):
So how did this gig fall intoyour laps?

Ken Hite (34:16):
Well, Gareth and I collaborated on a game called
Dracula Dossier, the megacampaign

Dave (34:23):
Yeah.

Ken Hite (34:24):
For Knights Black Agents, which was my game of
spies versus vampires. AndGareth and I obviously were
friends and colleagues frombefore that, but I think Dracula
Dossier sort of annealed thisperfect creative partnership.
And Shadowlands, this Spanishgame company, translated Dracula

(34:44):
dossier into Spanish for thelicense. And my assumption is if
you spend however god awful along time that was reading and
translating our writing, one oftwo reactions will happen.
You're either Stockholmsyndromeing yourself into loving
us or you never want to haveanything to do with us again.
And I think number one is whathappened. And they thought,
well, if we ever run across agreat long project that requires

(35:09):
a lot of attention to detail, aton of great words, and,
superior play experience designchops, maybe Ken and Garr could
do that since we've literallyjust translated their efforts in
that direction. And I feel likethat's sort of how we get on
their radar and got the nod todo this. And, of course, you

(35:31):
know, when when they asked me todo it, I was I was sort of,
sure. I'd love to do it.
And thinking in my head, oh god,I I hope I hope we can get Gar.
I hope we can get Gar. And thenduring that call when they were
offering me the job, they said,oh, and would you mind working
with Gareth Hanrahan? And Isaid, well, technically, you

Dave (35:51):
literally I have think about it.

Ken Hite (35:52):
Every problem that I saw going forward with this
project. So, no, I would not. Infact, it would be like living a
dream, sort of. I don't know

Dave (36:05):
what God thought.

Matthew (36:05):
Did you get in touch with Gareth for us? Or

Ken Hite (36:08):
No. I think they they already knew Gareth. They had by

Gar Hanrahan (36:10):
the way. Yeah.

Ken Hite (36:10):
Yeah. They I think they were

Matthew (36:12):
on board already then, Gareth, were you? Before they
They

they went to Ken first and then then to me, I
think.

Matthew (36:18):
Alright. Right. Okay. Of course, I I've got to do a
bit of genuflecting and say I'mnot worthy here. The Dracula
Dossier is the best campaign Ihave ever run.
And I ran it for a group atSurrey University. And one of my
group is like one of their highlevel professors of music. And

(36:41):
actually, wasn't theDrekliodossian. We started with
the Zielozny quartet to go intothat. And when we reached the
bit where the opera, theFleidelberg opera was there,
this guy just lit up because hedidn't think anybody had ever
heard of this.
And the beauty of this is, ofcourse, I don't know how much he

(37:07):
knew came from the book and howmuch I'd invented, but for that
moment, I was a god in his eyes.I put it all down to the two of
you for knowing this obscureopera and for bringing it up in
this game. So

Ken Hite (37:19):
And that's why we start with Earth because you
can't get that glow ofrecognition with anything else.
Maybe you can with Batman orwith Gondor, but very little
else in the world gives you thatglow of holy crap. It's all
real. And obviously with Draculadossier, we tripled and
quadrupled down on, oh my god.It's all real as the experience

(37:41):
that we wanted to inculcate inplay, that frisson.
And again, that was what Stokerwas doing when he was turning it
into an epistolary novel andsetting it in modern day London
instead of in, you know,Transylvania or Styria or
wherever, was he wanted thatexact frisson. And that's what
Gar and I were able to do. Andwhenever Gar would come back to

(38:01):
me and say, hey, Ken, you knowthe Albemarle club that's just
thrown off mention in the novel?It turns out they hosted a
secretive science society thatdisintegrated circa 1893, the
year of our Dracula setting. AndI got to say, oh my god.
It's all real. And, you know, II I like to say that if you're

(38:22):
bored writing a book, peoplewill be bored playing a book.
And I think conversely, I, atleast, was thrilled and excited
and alive writing the book. AndI I'm glad to hear that that
sort of experience translates,at the table.

Dave (38:37):
Yeah. If you're not if you're not if you're not a,
like, a a a follower of thepodcast, Ken, which I'm I'm I'm
sure you're not, Matthew goes onabout Knight's Black Agents
every single episode. Great.

Ken Hite (38:47):
Well done. Yeah.

Dave (38:48):
Absolutely loved you. And then introduce me to it, I'm
very pleased to say, on hisbirthday when we were away and
gave us a game one evening,which was absolutely fabulous.
Yeah.

Matthew (38:57):
We played one of the top and file games. Actually,
the one in Chancell Venue withthe balloon. But that's that's,
by the way, we're not here totalk. I did say at some point in
your last interview, Gareth,that we should get the two of
you on board to talk aboutDracula Dossier, but

Dave (39:13):
We were having That's not what we're here to talk about
today. So

Ken Hite (39:16):
Well, it's a podcast. That means there's more episodes
to

come. That

Ken Hite (39:21):
easily that can

Matthew (39:22):
be a future Jack Lia Dossier special. I'm very happy
to talk about that. Right now,though, let's talk about what's
currently on back a kit and willbe for the next week or so,

Dave (39:32):
I think, as

Matthew (39:34):
this episode goes out. And this is Terraforming Mars.
So we know how the two of yougot on board. I'm really
intrigued. So I've looked at thequick start.
Gareth, your name's there. Ken,you've not had anything to do
particularly with the quickstart.

Ken Hite (39:53):
Am I right? No. I did a very tiny little bit of in my
sort of standard thing, which welike to call, I sprinkle my
fairy dust on it and less thistime than than most. Gar had
done sort of the outline, and Isort of did a little bit of I
don't wanna even say pushback,but sort of like, you know,

(40:15):
critical feedback of, you know,the sort of maybe it might fit
the vibe better effects typestuff. Yeah.
But 99% of that is is Gareth.Because if someone if if someone
has said, oh god. We need aquick start adventure, and we're
dropping in a week. The answeris don't give it to Ken with his

(40:37):
patented one hour per paragraphresearch cycle. Give it to Gar,
and you will get a superbadventure within the time and
space constraints that you want.
You'll still get a superbadventure with me, but your
constraints are as dross in myimagining.

Matthew (40:56):
So okay. So maybe we should pull back a moment and
talk about the whole concept ofterraforming bars for those who
haven't played the board game.And what is immediately visible
in the quick start is this is agenerational game. In fact, I

(41:16):
see they've even got a mechanicwhere you play as a generation
between adventures and thingslike that. So does this
adventure, Gar, in the quickstart, start in the very early
days of Mars Martiancolonization?

Yeah. Basically, we're sort of mirroring the game
in that you start off with Marsbeing this uninhabitable
wasteland, no life there, andover time you slowly build up
two terraforming it, peoplearrive there, they build cities,
the planet slowly greens, andshould be terraformed, that's

(41:57):
the plan. And that is a processthat, even in the very, very
generous sides of the game,takes centuries.

Matthew (42:06):
Yeah.

Now, the Trevor Burrus is heavily inspired by
Kim Stanley Robinson's books,which I absolutely adore. There,
he makes characters ofconveniently mortals. They can
make you live through thecenturies. What we're doing
basically is you're playing aseries of different characters
over the generations, which waskind of inspired by Robin's

(42:30):
Yellow King game, wherebasically you got like you,

Dave (42:32):
two other characters

Matthew (42:34):
who are In four different time periods.

Yes. Yeah. So here, basically, there there
always be some sort ofconnection between your current
group of characters and the nextone. But what that question will
be is kind of players. It mightbe like you're you're playing
their kids.
It might be like, you know,you're playing people like
you're living in the aftermathof things you previously did.
You work at the samecorporation, different
corporation.

Dave (42:56):
That was gonna be my question because I'm a huge fan
of generational games, and I Ivery much like to to create that
kind of feel in the games thatthat that we create. So that was
gonna be my question. Are yougonna be playing the descendants
of your of your of yourcharacters in the age of
pioneers, or are you gonna beplaying Yeah.

I mean yeah. There will always be some connection,
but not necessarily you'replaying their kids. You could be
how do you want, but it's theplan is again, we're we're very
early days of development isthat you play through a project
that would create interestingramifications, and then you
basically pick the mostinteresting one of those and

(43:36):
build the next phase of thecampaign around that.

Dave (43:40):
And and it is the intention then the campaign
would would last, I don't know,a campaign's length for a
particular character, and thenat the right moment or when
you've developed enough, you'llthen move to the next age and
then create new characters. Isthat the plan?

I suspect you I suspect you would go through and
then again, this is allprovisional, but but my my my my
my my plan is that you would,play the same characters for,
like, one, two, three, fourprojects and then move on.

Dave (44:14):
Right.

Well, I

Dave (44:15):
mean But quite a short campaign then. Yeah.

Ken Hite (44:17):
And Beowulf manages to do Beowulf in three adventures.
So I feel like you could dothree projects with the same
character group, and then you'veset up enough ramifications,
enough possibilities that youcan then move either within the
same era, just, you know, fiftyyears down the road, or you can
move into the next era when Marsis, you know, one level more,

(44:42):
terraformed, and you havedifferent patches of challenges.
And things you did are now inthe history books or in old
engineering manuals that say, donot do this. And, I mean, you
could be the people whose job isto unscrew what your first group

Dave (44:56):
screwed

Ken Hite (44:56):
up, for example.

Dave (44:58):
Yeah. And

Ken Hite (44:58):
trying to keep that sense of organic cause and
effect consequence, that Mars isalways changing. You're always
building. You're always addingto that generational total is, I
think, that's part of the thethe scope and the wonder and the
greatness of the board game, andwe should be able to do that in,

(45:21):
the role playing game.Obviously, Gar and I are both
gigantic fans of Pendragon, soany excuse to try, to sort of
emulate that game's great,advantages in terms of, story
continuity, we're gonna take.But Yeah.
I don't think the notion is youplay 15 adventures with the same
guy unless you really, reallylove that guy. I mean,

(45:42):
obviously, we're not here toboss your table around. But what
we're trying to do is give gamemasters the ability and the
freedom to say, okay. I thinkwe've gotten all the fun we can
out of the molehole. Let's moveon and do the polar ice caps
melting.
Let's move on and do geneticallyengineering, birds. Let's move
on and do the next thing. Andthat's always going to be, you

(46:06):
know, you sort of get to do thegood parts version of a, you
know, five hundred year historyof a planet, and that's pretty
great, I think.

Dave (46:13):
Yeah. It's the the game that got me into loving
generational play was Pendragon.Yeah. So

Matthew (46:21):
yeah. Sadly because you ended up high king, Dave.

Dave (46:23):
I'm still high king. He's not dead.

Matthew (46:27):
You ended up high king?

Dave (46:28):
No. But it's not dead. But not only. But the whole It's
just just great. Yeah.

Matthew (46:36):
Of course, that was about blood relations,
particularly. I'm just wonderingwhen you talk about the fact
that the different connectionsyou might have with generations,
did you at any point considerbringing in the other Kim
Stanley Robinson book, The Yearsof Rice and Salt, and have
everybody actually be thereincarnated souls of the
previous characters?

Ken Hite (46:56):
We are trying to do a hard science fiction I mean,
think terraforming Mars. So weare not allowed to have the face
in Cydonia. We're not allowed tohave the vaults of Jovombus from
Clark, Ashton Smith. No HGWells, tentacle vampires, no
magic, no reincarnation.

Dave (47:15):
Ray Ray Bradbury would be turning in his grave, wouldn't
he?

Ken Hite (47:18):
No. I mean, as as much as we love Bradbury, this is
proper Mars, not magic Mars. AndYeah. Again, magic Mars is
great. I love magic Mars.
I've loved magic Mars since Iwas reading the John Carter
books when I was 10. But we'retrying you know, Gar and I have
gotten fat and lazy doingvampires and magic in Cthulhu

(47:41):
and ghosts and entwives andstuff like that. And maybe it's
good for us to sort of slim downand straighten up and fly right
with at least plausibleastrophysics and plausible,
bioengineering and stuff likethat.

Dave (47:55):
So that was gonna be my next quest so that's gonna be my
next question about you talkabout the scientifically
feasible approach to the game.How much how much scientific
research are you having to do toto ensure that you maintain that
kind of authenticity?

Fortunately, Shadowlands have a wonderful
fellow on board whose name I'mgoing to mangle if I try and
pronounce it, who is a Marsexpert. And Cool. He is I mean,
I I went like, you know, we wewe're going to a molehole, and
I, like, googled and found outwhere the crust was thin. He
went, yes. The crust is thinthere.

(48:35):
Here are the the NASA maps herewith, the, like, you know,
precise locations of where itshould be. Here are, like, your
interesting gable locations.It's wonderful to have someone
on board who can both do thescience y stuff and also
understands the gamerequirements because all of play
at the same time. Yep. At thesame time, like, we can do

(48:56):
enough research to bluff.
I I I became an expert on garlicsmuggling for Dracula. I can

Dave (49:01):
I was gonna say garlic smuggling for Mars? I mean, I'm
not sure. I'm not seeing theconnection there. Well, I mean,

yeah, you want you'd want you want flavor. I
suspect that, like,

Dave (49:11):
you would. I guess you would. Yeah.

Ken Hite (49:12):
And and spices actually are gonna make more
sense as something that you'dsmuggle up from Earth because
they're small. They don't takeup a lot of room. There's not
gonna be laws against in thesame way that there's gonna be
against heroin or whatever. Soand you can't synthesize them
easily on Mars unlike alcohol.So I feel like, you know, garlic
smuggling, we just make garrepurpose that research and do

(49:35):
it again.

Dave (49:35):
Yeah. Cool. I mean, let let

Ken Hite (49:37):
The only the only honest job I've ever done that
improves the world, I spentabout a year as a copy editor
for the astrophysical journal atthe University of Chicago. So
Right. I have, in you know, atsome point, the this, eidetic
memory, this ancestral memory ofhaving cared about physics. And

(49:58):
so between that and between justa really astonishing amount of
research that's been done bothfor the general popular
audience, but also for otherphysicists who are not
terraforming experts because noone is, There's a lot of
material available for Garaniteof Master. We're not gonna maybe

(50:20):
catch up with our, Shadowlands'Aerologist, but I think we're
gonna be able to hold our own interms of, you know, questions
like, you know, what about themagnetosphere and things like
that.
We're we're not just sort ofwandering in here and saying,
you know, we're it's not StarTrek is what I'm saying. We're
not technobabbling it. We'regonna actually Yeah. Address it

(50:42):
in a way where someone wouldsay, well, that's wrong, but
it's interestingly wrong. That'ssort of, I think, our goal.

Dave (50:48):
Yeah. Interesting. Let's can I well, just on that point,
you said that, Ken, about caringabout physics? So I get that the
whole approach to theterraforming of Mars is gonna be
scientifically sensible,feasible, even if, like I said,
you might, like, massage thetime scales a bit for the game,
perhaps. Yeah.
Caring about the physics, arethere gonna be, mechanics in the

(51:10):
game around things like theeffect of the low gravity on
players and that kind ofapproach?

Matthew (51:17):
Or player characters,

Dave (51:18):
I think. Characters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah.Well, we we So are you going
that far in terms of your sortof scientific approach, or or is
that something that actually isa bit less important to the game
experience?

The the system that we're using, the I get
again, Estripe? Estripe? So itmeans not going to you you you

(51:51):
like, you you'd have sort of aflavorful thing where, like, you
know, if you are, like, youknow, just off the, ship from
Earth and you're still, like,you're not used to the one third
g, you know, like, you know, asmall pen to be first adventure,
but I'd be like, you know

Dave (52:05):
Until you get acclimatized.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But in because the
system needs to be able to sortof scale up and down a lot for
projects, because, basically,you'll be, like, you do all sort
of, like, high level stuff andthen zooming down to, like, you
know, individual scenes and thento combat, it's going to be
mechanically relatively light orjust relatively flexible.

(52:30):
Yeah. So, like, I mean, we willwe will be doing stuff like, you
know, there you will need totrack oxygen at times, but only
when you're in the middle of acrisis. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Like, you you you be not be usedto the gravity on Mars isn't
gonna be a huge factor most ofthe time, but if you're like,

(52:50):
you're best of a rescued roleand we're certainly jumping into
a scene where you're mugged inthe streets of of Noctis City by
guys working for a rivalcorporation, then the fact that
your dad wouldn't die willactually be a be a factor.

Dave (53:03):
Yes. Yeah. Right.

Ken Hite (53:04):
Or if you're in, you know, orbit, trying to, you
know, put up a solar mirror orsomething, then there would be a
degree of difficulty or a degreeof stress. Same with, you know,
radiation. If the sun is, youknow, emitting a a a radiation
plume, a coronal plume, thenthat's gonna cause a solar storm
on Mars until you get theatmosphere thickened up. So that
would add a degree ofdifficulty. But all those

(53:27):
environmental threats are partof the core activity of play
because the whole story isbasically, you know, humankind
versus implacable nature.
Mhmm. And so, you know, beingable to make that exciting and
make that tactical and make thatcool is one of the challenges
that Gar and I are facing. But,you know, tracking every rad

(53:50):
that you receive or, you know,going, you know, minute by
minute on, you know, bone, decaythanks to microgravity, that's
not what we're gonna do becausethat's not what the game's
about. And And it's notsomething are assumed the player
characters are assumed to bepeople who've been on Mars for a
while, people who are actuallygood at this. The, you know, the

(54:10):
corporations don't just sort ofreach a big claw down onto Earth
and grab nine random people andthrow them at Mars.
You've gone through training.You've gone through acclimation.
You may have been born on Marsby the later, generations. So
Yeah. It's not gonna have to bewhere we, you know, say, you
know, alright.
You begin with, you know, atwelve percent calcium

(54:30):
deficiency. That there's nopoint in playing that.

Dave (54:33):
It isn't as long as it No. Exactly. Yeah. Just to finish
that point, I know Matthew's gota question, but I'm gonna keep
stopping him because because I'mlike that.

Matthew (54:42):
Because it's fun.

Dave (54:43):
So one of my other great sort of Martian loves is the
film, The Martian and the book,which, again, it feels for
having had a quick look at thethe quick start. Some of the
projects are potentially goingto be sort of recreating that
kind of feel where things aregoing wrong and you've got to
problem solve to save saveyourself. There any any kind of

(55:06):
inspiration from from AndyWeir's work at all, from the
movie, coming into this?

For me, certainly, the bit more than the Martian is
the, For All Mankind, the Appleseries.

Dave (55:20):
Right. Yep.

Matthew (55:21):
Because Love that shit.

Yeah. Because that does the whole thing of, like,
slowly building up, like,projects over multiple episodes
and then having these actionscenes where everything goes
wrong where, like, you know, youspend, like, you know, five
episodes carefully planning yourasteroid, capture or whatever.
And then there's this, like,interpersonal drama that goes

(55:43):
wrong at the same time thingsexplode, and you've dropped down
from our careful planning toroll dice, run around, dodge
dodge the flying gables. Yousee, you you don't you don't
want for for a sort of realisticgame like this, you want the
crisis to sort of happenorganically and plausibly so you

(56:06):
have to build up to them. Yeah.

Dave (56:09):
And they need to be, like like, tension peaks rather than
constantly things going wrong bythe time. Yeah.

Ken Hite (56:16):
I mean, you could imagine an adventure that is a
series of things going wrong.That's the classic adventure
structure. And The Martian is aclassic of that genre. It's just
that it's harder to translateone guy doing math for 400 pages
into a tabletop game than True.True.
I mean, they're they'redifferent art forms. Right? And

(56:38):
so we are trying you know, youwould be able to do a very early
game. You're one of the firstcolonists on Mars, one of the
first explorers. And, yeah,you're on the wrong side of
Mars.
A dust storm kicks up. You'vegotta survive for two hundred
days. I can absolutely see thatbeing an adventure that we would
do, but it's not going to be thestandard adventure of

Dave (57:00):
It's it's one adventure.

Ken Hite (57:01):
Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's one adventure. It's a
beginning adventure, and it maybe a heroic story that your
descendants physically orspiritually recall, and they
say, oh, my ancestor had thesame problem, you know, back in
the pioneer days, and maybethat's, you know, gonna have
some sort of, you know, moralebonus or even you you remember

(57:23):
this one weird trick withinfinite potatoes that that's
keeps you

Dave (57:26):
alive. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Matthew (57:31):
So now you've mentioned projects as obviously creating a
thing on Mars, but also it feelsto me a period of time or a
narrative unit in the gamestructure. So is there, how does
that fit in? You talked a bitearlier on about a generation
maybe playing three differentadventures. Is that three

(57:53):
different projects or oneproject with three scenarios in
it?

No, that would basically be three different
projects or like three linkedprojects like your part one, go
capture an asteroid, Part two,crash the asteroid on this
particular zone. Into the rightplace. Yeah. Deal deal deal with
the massive flooding because youjust broke up with aquifers. The
plan is the projects are sort ofthe the adventure equivalent

(58:19):
units.
The players will either beassigned or pick the next thing
they're doing. You'll eachproject will have various like,
the quick start, you can seethis. Each project has different
challenges in us. As you playthrough those challenges, which
could be like just playing skilltests or involve role playing or
involve action scenes or anycombination of that, that will

(58:43):
basically create ramificationswhich will feed into the next
project. And once you've gottenall the narrative juice out of
that sort project and thecharacters you have, you do a
time skip on.

Dave (58:55):
Can I just can I just ask a question about ramifications?
So you've used that word quite alot. So is that going to be a
kind of specific mechanic in thegame that, you know, the game
offers? You know, this projecthas these five potential
ramifications and eachramification has a, like
guidance to the GM or it haslike specific impacts that
affect the mechanics somehow? Isthat how that works?

The plan is basically that you roll and
you'll get the either successfulroll can result in complications
and we're planning to have lotsand lots of sample complications
in different situationsdepending on sort of what scale
of play you're on, if you'reyou're rolling on a project or a

(59:40):
major planning thing, then theproject companies there could,
like, you know, have stuff thatcould be resolved in, like, the
next generation or the nextproject.

Dave (59:49):
Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Go on.

Ken Hite (59:53):
Oh, no. For the most part, ramifications are things
we tell the GM and advise the GMand and offer the GM.

Dave (01:00:03):
Kinda like story hooks for the next stage

Ken Hite (01:00:05):
in the And then Yeah. If the ramification is so severe
that it's going to affect, youknow, dice, then we would
mention that. But Yeah. Moremore often, the ramification is
really just the setup for thenext problem. Like Gar says

Gar Hanrahan (01:00:19):
Yeah.

Ken Hite (01:00:19):
You've crashed the asteroid. Now the aquifer is
broken open, and the water isall outgassing. Unscrew that
dumbass, and that's the nextthing. And that can be, great
fun, and it can be exciting. Andthen that ramification is not
just, oh, we have to capture allthis water before it's gone.
It the ramification is also yourcorporation's political enemy

(01:00:43):
was like, we should have got theasteroid contract. We wouldn't
have ruined it like that. Youguys are a church.

Dave (01:00:48):
And now Well, you've hit another corporation's aquifer,
and they're claimingcompensation.

Ken Hite (01:00:52):
They they exactly. You have you You you over you know,
you crashed it in the wrong areaand someone else's water use
rights are being involved,however that is. And so
ramifications aren't just on theindividual or even the technical
level. Ramifications could gosocial. They can go you have a,
you've you've sworn to yourselfyou're never gonna crash another
asteroid.

(01:01:13):
It can be, you know, you'rebeing sued. It can be your
corporation is in trouble, andnow your budgets are all cut for
the next adventure. Or it couldbe the ramifications you did
great. Your geneticallyengineered fish are so good that
everyone is licensing them, andyour corporation has lots of
money for the next adventure.And everyone you meet in the
Northern Ocean area loves youbecause you're the guy that

(01:01:36):
invented those cool fish thateveryone loves and can eat.
Yeah. And so that's you know,ramifications are positive.
They're negative. What they areis consequences of play and,
ideally, consequences of eitherdecisions that you made or at
least dice that you rolled sothat Screw

Dave (01:01:51):
us.

Ken Hite (01:01:51):
It feels like you did it, not the GM is unfairly
making something happen.Because, again, we got dust
storms. We got solar storms. Wegot every you know, we've got
earth turmoil. Lots of thingsthe GM can do unfairly to you.
We don't need the ramificationsto also be that. We want the
ramifications to be, I've earnedthis. This is a consequence of

(01:02:12):
my action. I'm part of thisstory, not I'm just standing on
the side watching this disasterunfold.

Dave (01:02:18):
Yeah. This is it's kind of this is such a good opportunity,
but I screwed it up, and nowI've gotta fix the screw up.

Ken Hite (01:02:24):
Right.

Dave (01:02:24):
Yeah. I like that very much.

Matthew (01:02:26):
It makes me think about scale, though. So on the board
game, effectively, you're theboard or the generational board
of a corporation that's tryingto get a bigger share of the
Mars moola. We've talked aboutin Red Planet period, at least,
then you're the astronauts, crewof All Mankind. Although of

(01:02:54):
course, in the last series ofthat, we had, you know, the CEO
of Helios being involved in thatas well.

Dave (01:03:00):
Spoilers, I haven't watched it yet.

Matthew (01:03:02):
Well, I know. Yeah. Bloody hell. It's been out for
bloody years, mate.

Dave (01:03:08):
I know. I know. I'm very bad at

Matthew (01:03:09):
getting my door watching. I thought you'd like
it. And yet I told you youwould. Anyway, do you see as the
eras develop, do you think yourconnected group eventually end
up as the high flying nobilityof the Green Mars or I

think you go where it's interesting. Because it
won't dictate where the playersgo in the next generation. So,
if you want to play, like, know,movers and shakers, there'll be
scope for that. But if you wantto sort of zoom in and like, you
know, do a sort of like, youknow, very low level sort of

(01:03:55):
family drama of like, you know,homesteaders on Mars. Mhmm.
Or you're playing, like, youknow, underground criminals or
something. Like, you you could,like, you okay. Last last
session, our guys built thisgiant city. We're now going to
zoom in on, like, the the, like,you know, under underworld of
the city and play criminal gangsfor a generation.

Matthew (01:04:15):
Right. Yeah.

Dave (01:04:16):
Okay. Cool. I quite like that idea. Yeah. That's a good
one.

Yeah. Basically, you you you pick the most
interesting stuff that happenedlast time. Go, okay. We'll build
the next bit of campaign aroundthat. So I just the plan is
actually

Dave (01:04:29):
So so actually each generation yeah. Sorry, guys. So
so each generation isn't justanother generation of project
managers and engineersnecessarily. It could be a
generation of, like you say,anything that actually just
seems interesting in the worldthat is now laid out before you
because of what your last bunchof characters did.

Yeah. I mean, it the game is was was be about
Terraforming Mario, but theTerraforming really starts
happening in the background, andyou're just, like, reacting to
it. The project system isplanned to be flexible enough
for GM because we're build easyto do adventures and you can do
like, know, project this time isgaining control of the like,

(01:05:11):
drug trade in Doctor City oraquatic The

Matthew (01:05:14):
ice trade.

Exactly. The

Ken Hite (01:05:17):
garlic trade.

Dave (01:05:17):
The garlic trade. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Matthew (01:05:21):
So this this all sounds marvelous, but I'm thinking, you
know, it feels very sandbox y.Does that mean you're contracted
now to write millions of volumesof all the possibilities? I
mean, what I loved about thedirector's handbook in the
Dracula Dossier is that cleverway that every single NPC had

(01:05:45):
kind of three different aspectsto them, depending on what you,
the GM needed at the time. Arethey a good guy, a bad guy or a
neutral guy? It was clevererthan that.
But how are you going toencompass that really sandbox y
it could go anywhere into areadable volume or volumes that

(01:06:09):
are manageable by the GM.

Ken Hite (01:06:13):
Well, one of the advantages is that, you know,
Greg Stafford, praise be uponhim, has already done it with
the great Pendragon campaign.That's the I mean, they and,
Shadowlands knows this. That'swhy the next book that we're
doing, the other book that we'redoing is the great Mars
campaign. We are doing the sortof I don't wanna say default,

(01:06:36):
but, you know, what Gar and Ihave thought of as a really good
generational cycle story, andyou can tell that straight
through. And each of those willhave a bunch of projects.
Maybe you're on one. Maybeyou're on another. Maybe you're
on both who can say. And in thesame way that when you play
great Pendragon campaign, youdon't have to go after the

(01:06:58):
questing beast. You don't haveto find the grail.
You don't have to, you know, dowhatever, be involved in the
Lancelot's, war. You can skipthat. You can do something else.
Same thing with, the Great Markscampaign. We're going to because
of the notion of these projectsbeing sort of, units that we can
move around, you can shufflethem in as GM and say, I like

(01:07:22):
that.
I like that. I'm putting thatthere. That will hook to that.
And our challenge is to providethe GM with those hooks and that
sort of ability to visualize thestory geometry. And that's, you
know, that's what we're gonnado.
Again, part of, you know,certainly my career has been who
did what I want to do better,how close can I get to it in in

(01:07:46):
in my own stuff? And, you know,when you say we're doing a
generational campaign, if you'renot trying to rip off the
Pendragon campaign, the greatPendragon campaign, well, you're
doing it wrong and you should befired. So Yeah. That's basically
the approach we're taking. It'snot going to be, here's all of
Mars.
Although I think that by now allthe stretch goals may amount to

(01:08:08):
that. But, what Gar and I areare doing is here's how to do
terraforming Mars, the roleplaying game, and then here's
how Gar and I would doTerraforming Mars, the role
playing game. And then everybodyelse, you know, ideally, at the
end of those two books, you haveenough awareness of the game's
possibilities that you say,well, that was a fine idea,

(01:08:30):
Kennen Gar. You know, goodenough for you, old man, but I
have better cooler ideas that Iwanna do, and we're playing the
the cool garlic terrorist game,and we don't wanna play your
stupid game idea. And that wouldbe great.
That means we've succeeded.

Matthew (01:08:43):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I did want to get into the weeds about
how you and Gar actually worktogether, but we've run out of
time for for this episode, Ithink. So we're gonna have to
call you back again at somepoint, maybe using the, Dracula

(01:09:04):
dossier as as that. For

Dave (01:09:08):
doing that. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. How

Ken Hite (01:09:13):
dare we how dare we face the very real risk of self
promotion again.

Dave (01:09:18):
So we'll see see you next week then, guys.

Matthew (01:09:20):
Maybe. But, Dave, did you do have you got any more
questions? Because there's more

Dave (01:09:27):
terrifying There's so many questions I could ask. I know
we're over time, but I'm goingto ask it anyway. So talking
about corporations and the factthat your player characters are
kind of working within thatstructure, Do is is there a
mechanic that kind of sees thehealth or the power of those

(01:09:47):
corporations and how yourplayers can impact that by how
well they do their projects orhow badly? Is there or is that
very much sort of narrativelyfor the GM to, to sort of to
flesh out as they wish?

Again, we're we're we're we're we're so early days.
The answer is more maybe thanthe else.

Dave (01:10:09):
Not sure yet.

Yeah. I mean, certainly we want to do like,
mechanized corporations at somepoint. How much that fits to the
core? I'm not quite sure yet.

Dave (01:10:22):
Yeah.

I mean, I I of the games that, like, sort influence
this, I always go back toRibbonnegr's Underground, which
I basically had, like, all thesemechanics for affecting, like,
you know, the state of the cityand so forth. And obviously,
because he's drawing on the wordgame where you've got these
trackers for oxygen and

Dave (01:10:40):
Yeah.

Other thing. Temperature, that's the one.

Ken Hite (01:10:44):
Right. Yeah. That's the one.

I I would love to I I suspect there would be some
mechanics in there for, like,your your corporation gets
better, your corporation gets,more resources for I part of me
wants to do stuff where, like,you you can make a corporation
more or less ethical. You can,like, you know, improve your

Dave (01:11:06):
reputation. Yeah.

But I'm not sure if we'd have, like, you know,
mechanical sliding scales or ifit'll just be the equivalent of
a sort aspect where, okay,because of the last venture, you
know, like, you know, one oframifications is you've got
great PR for a while andeveryone loves you.

Dave (01:11:20):
Right. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Ken Hite (01:11:21):
But we do we do want to make corporate level play a
possibility where people arelike, well, I don't know that I
want to play out, you know, themining the moons of Saturn for
ice, but we should model it.Let's do that at the corporate
level. And let's each of usplays one corporation and we

(01:11:42):
fight player versus player overwho gets the valuable ice
contract. Mhmm.

Matthew (01:11:46):
And Mhmm.

Ken Hite (01:11:47):
That should be able to be a fun game that you play a
mini game, if you will. And thenthat would inform, you know,
what happens in the more sort ofconventional role playing level.
I I think that going up and downin scope is another one of the
great things that terraformingMars offers as a possibility.
And as Gar says, it's so earlydays that we're like, gosh, we
hope we can fit it in. We hopewe have room.

(01:12:09):
Mhmm. And if we don't, then wedon't. But Yeah. I feel like
it's, it's low hanging fruit interms of a thing that you don't
get to do a lot in other gamesand, therefore, is maybe
something we should be focusingon a bit. This is sort of a
conversation that Jar and Inormally have between ourselves
and then present to UnitedFront.
So congratulations for exposingour early process.

Well, you you wanted to ask how how we worked.
That's that's what Yes.

Ken Hite (01:12:35):
This is how we work.

Dave (01:12:36):
We've a bit of insight

Matthew (01:12:38):
and argue out in front of the the whole world. That's
the perfect way of doing And,again, before we go, is there
anything else we wanna talkabout? I know, Ken, you've got
Trailer Cthulhu second editioncoming up. When when are we
gonna see a a crowd fund forthat?

Ken Hite (01:12:54):
Well, the crowd fund is done. I believe you can still
do the back you can still go onthe backer kit page for Trail of
Cthulhu second and, you know,preorder functionally. And if
you can't, you can certainlypreorder through the Pell Grain
Press web store. And, again,it's not me. It's me and Gar.
Gar is very much involved incowriting and codesigning the

(01:13:14):
second edition because why ifyou had Gar available, why
wouldn't you?

Matthew (01:13:20):
Yeah.

Ken Hite (01:13:21):
So, yeah, that's what we're doing. And then our great
hope is that once we sort ofhave that book launched, we get
to start working on theProvidence setting book for that
game, which will also perhapsuncoincidentally, involve
generational role play. Thegreatest novel of the Cthulhu

(01:13:42):
mythos is Charles Dexter Ward,which is literally generational
horror. And if we can't do thatin the Providence set source
book, then we have, perhaps But

Dave (01:13:52):
can you do it? Yeah.

Ken Hite (01:13:52):
We've we've let Howard down, and we can't do that, poor
guy. He's sitting there dying ofmalnutrition, eating beans.
That's not a good look.

Matthew (01:14:03):
It's been a real pleasure having you.

Dave (01:14:05):
It has been a delight,

guys. With

Matthew (01:14:07):
us today. So thank you very much. So, well, that was
brilliant, wasn't it?

Dave (01:14:15):
That was great. That was a real pleasure. Such fun to talk
to the guys. I hadn't spoken toKen before, so that was a a
delight to to meet him and andhave a chance to chat to him
about stuff, which is reallycool. And obviously Yeah.

Matthew (01:14:27):
I haven't spoken to you before, but

Dave (01:14:28):
It's always a pleasure to talk to Gar, which is

Matthew (01:14:30):
Yeah.

Dave (01:14:31):
Great.

Matthew (01:14:32):
Yeah. I've only ever been a kind of squealing fanboy.

Dave (01:14:37):
I think you were a squealing fanboy in the
interview, mate. I think I thinkpeople received

Matthew (01:14:41):
Did that come across?

Dave (01:14:42):
It did rather. Yeah. Yeah. But that but but there's nothing
wrong with that. Absolutelynothing wrong with that at all.

Matthew (01:14:48):
You know?

Dave (01:14:49):
So yeah. And that was great. So

Matthew (01:14:52):
So has it has it solidified your desire to back
the game terraforming Mars?

Dave (01:15:03):
Yeah. Probably, actually. I I I still have, I guess, some
some thoughts about the way thegenerational play is going to
work. So I I think if I wasrunning it, I would want each
kind of generation to run forlonger because I would it feels

(01:15:23):
to me that if you are, as aplayer, you're having a player
character and you're only usingthem for three or four scenarios
and you know that they're onlygonna do it for that long, it
kind of potentially loses someof your investment in that
character. So I would

I would probably want to

Dave (01:15:37):
see that extended so you actually really build, you know,
a a bond with your with yourplayer character. But

Matthew (01:15:46):
Okay. But then this is this this is actually going to
start a little conversationhere, which we weren't planning
on doing. But you talked abouthow much you enjoy generational
gaming and how that wasinstilled in you by Pleasure
after the integration Pleasuremanager. Pleasure manager, the
RPG.

Dave (01:16:08):
That's a game that I'd buy.

Matthew (01:16:10):
Yeah. Pendragon.

Dave (01:16:12):
Bakker Kit, the RPG. Yes. Get in. Pendragon, because Yeah.

Matthew (01:16:19):
I can see it. I can see that's just Zine Quest, I think.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. No.
I'm I'm going off in a differentno. Stick to the subject. Jones.
Focus. Yeah.
You you how how the love ofgenerational gaming came through
Pep Dragon wherein I said you'veplayed one generation. It is I

(01:16:42):
mean, I I I may be mistaken.Have you actually played two
generations? I can't remember,but I've played about four or
five in

Dave (01:16:49):
that campaign. I I played Gawthin, who was the original
character, and then his son,Gawrite.

Matthew (01:16:55):
Gawrite. Yeah.

Dave (01:16:56):
After Gawrite died. Now but I think for me, generational
play isn't all about having toplay five characters in fifty
years or a hundred years orsomething. It's about the feel
of what you're trying toachieve, what your object what
your objective is. It's kind ofa bigger it's kind of a bigger
context because, you know, yourgame, you know that you're what

(01:17:19):
you're doing is going to have aneffect or an influence, you
know, literally generations downthe line. And if I had

Matthew (01:17:27):
if I had lost more

Dave (01:17:28):
characters, I would have had, you know, I would have
played more characters from thatfamily. If if, you know, if the
lion's been killed.

Matthew (01:17:36):
On a really big thing there. You talk about, you know,
the the impact and the and andthe feeling of the the scale of
of the game. And can well, I'mI'm gonna I'm gonna push back at
you a bit and say, could notplaying individuals within a
larger epic story for only twoor three adventures create a

(01:18:00):
similar feel there that do younot do are you not meant to get
as invested in your charactersas you are meant to get invested
in the grand project?

Dave (01:18:13):
No. I think that's a fair point. I I think, yes, I I agree
with that. But I I guess my mycounter to that would be that
that doesn't stop you gettingreally you shouldn't trade off
getting invested in yourcharacter for getting invested
in the grand project. So youshould be able to do both.

(01:18:34):
And I just think it just feelsto me a little bit like if
you're if you're just if you'verolled up a character that you
really like, but you know you'reonly gonna play them for three
or four sessions, does thatchange the way you as a player
think about that character? Or Imean, we have to play it and try
and see how it plays out.

Matthew (01:18:51):
But my just say My my initial counter argument.

Dave (01:18:54):
My initial feeling there was that that it would be good
to run each of those ages formore than three or four
scenarios. You could run a muchlonger campaign and then move on
to the next age.

Matthew (01:19:06):
My other counterargument to that would
be, have you got time to dothat? And, I mean, real physical
gaming time.

Dave (01:19:19):
Well

Matthew (01:19:20):
Maybe you maybe you wanna do two or three adventures
and go alright. Let's get to theend. Let's get to Green Mars.

Dave (01:19:26):
Well, I think

Matthew (01:19:26):
it's And then we'll start again at Red Mars and and
spend a bit longer.

Dave (01:19:29):
Yeah. Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. I think that's it's
a it's a good it's a goodquestion because, obviously, in
our in in in my weekly group, wehave been running, like a cycle.
So we've got, like, fivedifferent four or five different
campaigns going, and we just,like, go around a cycle once,
you know, weekly. So you onlyactually get to play any given

(01:19:50):
game kind of once a month oreven slightly slightly less
often than that, which for mebreaks up some of the momentum.
So we've been I've beenplaytesting Rome year zero, and
the guys have all agreed, yes,let's run that for a few weeks.
So we were about five or sixweeks into that. And it it works
much better in that you build upthe momentum and you know you
remember what happened last weekand all the rest of it.

(01:20:12):
And I think the the campaignthat I was running of The
Walking Dead really suffered fornot having that momentum
particularly. I'm not sure whythat game particularly. You
could probably think about thatsome other time. But that game
really suffered from not havingthat kind of weekly or at least
fortnightly momentum behind it.So I think a game like this

(01:20:34):
would also probably suffer fornot having that kind of momentum
behind it, it feels to me.
But but yeah. So that's a fairpoint. It's a fair point. But
yeah, I'd that was just my kindof initial sort of gut reaction
when Ken and Gar were talkingabout it. But obviously we need

(01:20:57):
to see how it looks in the book.
We need to see how it plays atthe table to really to really
judge judge how that works.

Matthew (01:21:05):
Cool. Well, we did promise we weren't gonna talk
too much because this is alreadyquite a long episode. But we
talked too So I'm gonna cut thisconversation short Yep. And move
on to what are we doing nextweek.

Dave (01:21:15):
So you were talking about potentially talking about
Coriolis the Great Dark as aplay experience. Having

Matthew (01:21:23):
So I have been played.

Dave (01:21:24):
A couple of couple of sessions there, haven't you?

Matthew (01:21:26):
Oh, three. Three. We're doing what a week at the moment.
It's quite it's getting quiteintense.

Dave (01:21:31):
Nice.

Matthew (01:21:31):
And I we we actually, was gonna say I definitely have
thoughts, but actually, I kindafeel we have thoughts as a
group. And you know what? Imight cobble together my
thoughts and everybody else'sthoughts into a, shall we call
it a think piece about

Dave (01:21:49):
Well, alternatively, here's an idea. If they're
available, we could have alittle group discussion in the
Hammam.

Matthew (01:21:56):
Oh, maybe. Let's let's discuss that.

Dave (01:21:59):
That's a possibility. Yeah. And we'll see what's see
what availabilities are like.

Matthew (01:22:04):
Yeah. Although, even as even as I've heard of this, I'm
seeing messages from Thomassaying, say nice things about
Coriolis, the Great Dark.Challenge the status quo. So I
will say this, that it isconfounding my expectations of
the game and possibly exceedingthem. I'd say in a good Yes.

Dave (01:22:27):
Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Matthew (01:22:30):
So but we'll leave that hanging and we'll talk about
that in the next episode.

Dave (01:22:34):
My my

Matthew (01:22:34):
It'll feel a bit like coming home.

Dave (01:22:36):
My well, I was just thinking exactly that. I I I'm
looking forward to getting thebook for the for the Great Dark,
so I can actually get into itand then start sort of, you
know, diving into it in the waythat it dived into the original
Coriolis. I was just gonna positone other question rhetorically
for now, but you can think aboutit. Is is the game that you're

(01:22:58):
playing of the Great Dark sogood because of the game or
because of the GM running it?

Matthew (01:23:05):
I would argue neither. It's good because of all the
players involved. So shout outto everybody, including your
friend Peter, Douglas fromCanada. Who else have we got?
Jed.
Other people, John from Sweden,and we're missing Jed from
America. It wait. Hey. Wow. Thisis a really international game

(01:23:27):
we're running here.

Dave (01:23:28):
Is Frank playing it

Matthew (01:23:29):
as We'll put a link in the show notes, by the way, to
Douglas's YouTube channel wherewhere it's going out there on.
Cool. And you can have a look atit yourself. I'm I'm not quite
sure about the quality of thesound all the way through. We're
having Douglas is havingdifficulty with some sound
stuff.
And for some reason, my mic,which seems to have worked
perfectly for the entireduration of recording here,

(01:23:50):
occasionally cuts out when we'replaying that game on Thingamy
Bob. On

Dave (01:23:57):
That's that's the icons telling you to shut up, That's
what it is.

Matthew (01:24:00):
Yeah. Well, yeah. Obviously, they're not telling
me to shut up now. I can carryon LaCalsa.

Dave (01:24:04):
No. No. No. I'm I'm trying to

Matthew (01:24:05):
play a very

Dave (01:24:06):
polo on a Sunday.

Matthew (01:24:07):
Character who takes a bit of a background thing. She's
very polite. Okay. And doesn'twant to make a fuss for herself.
She's a masked However, yeah,I'm thoroughly enjoying the the
hints in there for fans ofchoreographers of Third Horizon,
which I won't spoil for you hereor for anybody else.

(01:24:27):
But there's some nice Coriolis,Third Horizon stuff in it. Cool.
So yeah. Yeah. It's yeah.
Let's talk about that next week.Either just me or a gang. We'll
we'll discuss with you.

Dave (01:24:39):
We'll work work it out.

Matthew (01:24:40):
Yeah. Get a recording in.

Dave (01:24:42):
Cool. Oh, good stuff. Well, in that case, it's goodbye
from me.

Matthew (01:24:48):
And it's goodbye from him.

Ken Hite (01:24:49):
May the icons bless your adventures.

Dave (01:24:53):
You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by
Fiction Suit and the RPG gods.Music stars on a black sea used
with permission of Free LeaguePublishing.

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