August 29, 2022 • 40 mins
Wythe Marschall, creator of Stillfleet, shares a monster born in the frozen ammonia crystals of Yuggoth at the far reaches of our solar system 100 billion years in the future.
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Meet my guests:
Wythe Marschall: https://twitter.com/hollowearths
Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Wythe Marshall (00:02):
The portal between, the
module you're in and the next module,
swishes open, and through the circular
portal you see into the hydroponic farm
module, uh, and something is moving there.
It's a little lower than
a human, but larger.
And it's bumping into the plastic
shelves, which in half G are
creating floating blobs of water
that are slowly moving toward the
floor due to the pseudo gravity.
(00:23):
And then as it turns, you can smell
it before you see it, actually it
reeks of ammonia and you instantly
all click your helmets back in and the
clean air is begins to scrub it out.
And the thing that's looking at, you
looks a bit like a Dungeness crab if it
was also sort of a harvestman, spider,
uh, and also at a rave and also had
some computer equipment strapped to it.
(00:44):
It's sort of almost like hard to decipher.
It doesn't have a clear head.
Um, it has multiple branching legs.
It turns to you, and then one of those
little technical bits, it looks like
almost like a little Bluetooth speaker,
but made out of like gray exo crust.
It's like a living it's a grown and
displaced on its sort of shoulder, in
quotation marks, it blares at you in
(01:04):
perfect Spin, it's the language you speak.
And it says in this very neutral
kind of robotic tone, "Hello, we are
looking for help acquiring an item."
Lucas (01:15):
Welcome to Making a Monster.
This is a Migo, and it's just
one of the super weird, super
future encounters in Stillfleet,
the sci-fi RPG by Wythe Marshall.
It's the system that helped this show
explain the pyramid of Villa during
the GM edition episode on Float City
with Mike Rugnetta and Taylor Moore.
At the time, Stillfleet was still
in play testing, but now the game is
(01:37):
a full core rule book in the final
hours of its Kickstarter campaign to
become a full color, hard back reality.
I'm pleased and honored to introduce
you to a game that will throw
you head first into the depths of
cosmic thought and to its creator,
Wythe Marshall (01:52):
Hi, I'm Wythe Marshall,
I'm a writer and game designer.
I'm creating a game called Stillfleet.
It's a sci-fi tabletop role
playing game set in the far future.
It's about the politics of work.
So your characters are void miners.
They work for a company that goes
out in space and takes stuff from
dead civilizations and from aliens
and from current other civilizations.
And you get to choose whether you
(02:13):
wanna do that or you wanna push back.
And then my day job, I'm a social
scientist, I'm an anthropologist of
food and agriculture, but focused
again on tech and the future.
And big political economic questions.
So I think there is there's some through
line between far future game stuff
and the present of the food system.
Lucas (02:30):
Wythe, I wanna tell you that
Stillfleet is perhaps responsible
for one of the most fulfilling
listening experiences I have ever had
in the person of the Float City arc
from, Mike and the team at Fun City.
Wythe Marshall (02:48):
I agree.
I, I think they just really knocked outta
the park and, um, I can only take very
small credit for, you know, that's the
game system I created, but they really
did such an amazing job with that story.
You know, I think endings are really hard
and I think they just nailed the ending
and that really makes such a difference.
The level of thought and like
emotion put into, you know,
kind of year long sci-fi arc.
Lucas (03:10):
And you have a
podcast called Fields, right?
The latest episode that I saw was from
April is that project still running?
Wythe Marshall (03:16):
Yes.
Um, thanks for, for shouting that.
Yeah, my friend, Melissa Metrick,
who is the farmer at NYU.
I work at NYU as a researcher in the
business school about the future of
farming and public private, partnerships.
She, and I have a podcast called
fields, the unfinished story of,
uh, urban agriculture on heritage
radio network, because we both
focus on urban agriculture.
So she as a farmer, herself and
(03:38):
myself as a social scientist, as a,
as a researcher, uh, and we interview
people who are engaged in all kinds
of aspects of, um, urban agriculture.
We finish the second season, at
the start of the summer and we're
taping the third season now.
So sometime in the fall, that will start.
So there, there definitely will be a third
season of fields we're working on it.
Lucas (03:55):
I also wanted to bring it up
because it reflects this long history
that you have of working in this space
and thinking about sort of the core
ideas that went into building Stillfleet.
I understand this is a project you've
been working on for about 15 years.
Is that true?
Wythe Marshall (04:10):
I looked, and found
the oldest record of this kind of
setting as like a home brew game for
like an OSR campaign, uh, was like 2011.
But certainly before that I was
running games and thinking about game
design, um, but a lot less seriously
in terms of kind of one stake in
the ground, you know, setting.
Um, and even then in, in 2011,
(04:31):
it certainly wasn't like, oh,
I'm gonna write a book per se.
It was like, no, I wanna make a big
capacious campaign setting for my friends.
And I have lots of ideas
about the future and climate.
So let me sort of foreground those
and make it more sort of political
and about climate disruption and tech,
you know, the politics of technology
is, is tech good or bad, or sort of
have a lot of wacky, uh, you know,
AI and, and just kind of go, go fun.
(04:52):
And then 2017 is when it got much more
serious as like, okay, I'm writing a book.
I know, you know, I sort of have all
of the, the elements in place by then.
Lucas (04:59):
Stillfleet has been described
to me as a super future setting.
Because you are not concerned
with small questions and you've
created this game that is capable
of taking very, very big swings.
Is that an accurate descriptor?
And what does super future mean in
the context of Stillfleet's world?
Wythe Marshall (05:19):
That is I think
an apt term because, uh, it's
set, not in the near future.
It's set in the very far future on
purpose, just picking kind of an
arbitrary number where, continents
would be different, but you know,
the solar system would still be here.
So if you wanted to sort of visit earth,
not that it's even set on earth for se,
but you know, that you could sort of
find, um, ways back to some ancient past,
(05:39):
but it would be so buried and changed
that that most people would have no
relation to anything in, in 2022, right.
The idea of the super future in some ways
is to provide, um, a fictional, a sort
of safe, fun, fictional place where I
can then model things that are happening
today, but they can be so different.
And, and I can always say, oh, it's a
hundred million years in the future.
And so it's not one to one.
It's not making fun of any specific
(06:00):
thing or forcing people to engage
in any specific kind of political
discussion about 2022, it's providing
a fun, you know, RPG environment for
games, but you can simulate, "Okay,
you work for a company, the company
does things you don't agree with.
What are you gonna do about it?
you're working for money, but it's like
the values of things are very arbitrary."
And actually in the world of
(06:20):
the game, you, um, you don't
have to pay for food or lodging.
So it actually is a weird sort of
like, wait, is this post scarcity?
What is the vibe?
Um, and I think it, it sort of gets
to like, why would you go adventure?
And the politics of that.
So for the company they're saying, go
steal this ancient tech from aliens
or whatever, we're, we're trying to.
Kind of a mass.
There have been many civilizations
that have come and gone.
That's the big trope, right?
Is over a hundred million years, many
(06:42):
advanced civilizations rise and fall.
It's implied that if you get faster and
light travel, generally you flame out
in a civil war and or other advanced
species destroy you for reasons.
And there may also be time travel,
because again, if you could move
fashion and light, you could time trap.
So, you know, that's not a huge part of
the game, but it's sort of, again, implied
maybe events are being sort of sculpted by
actors in the future to achieve a certain
(07:03):
outcome or change a certain outcome.
And you're swept along in
this, this, uh, environment.
And really, again, that is just
a, um, it's like an engine,
you know, it's a way to model.
It's more to me, more interesting specific
interactions where it's like, what do
you do when you go to a world that is,
um, facing kind of environmental crisis?
What do you do when you're asked
to do something you don't agree
with morally, uh, what do you
(07:23):
do when you encounter others?
You know, aliens, but, um, even
though they look different, they
might, they might not be like,
quote unquote evil or like, what
would it mean for them to be evil?
You know, they might just have a
very different way of thinking.
And so the game, um, you know, it
has crunchy, like you can fight
them, but you also have lots of
powers where you can get out fights.
And so I think that ties in with
this idea of exploring all the
(07:45):
stuff that might have happened over
millions of years, um, come and gone.
So there's advanced tech, there's,
uh, all kinds of, of organisms and
even humans being still around.
I mean that, again, it's implied that they
are, uh, have been recreated, you know,
they've been modeled on ancient humans,
but they're not like direct descendants.
Um, and, and I think that, again, it
allows people to both like, do things
(08:06):
that feel familiar and explore sort of
the things I find interesting about, um,
the near future, but by making it so far
future super future, um, I think they
have a little more creative license.
I feel like that anyway, when I'm
playing the game or running the game.
Um, and I, I think other people do too.
It's so far in the future that
you don't have to feel like
you're sort of stuck responding.
Things happening right now in
(08:27):
our lived experience that we, you
know, have anxieties about, um, or
maybe are excited about either way.
And, um, and those games
can be fun too, for sure.
Like near future settings, you
know, more cyber punk settings.
Um, this one is trying to do something
a little different on purpose.
Um, and maybe we'll do a different
game, you know, set a hundred years
from now or whatever, uh, instead
of a hundred million, um, next,
but you know what I mean for now?
(08:48):
It's, we're firmly in the super.
Lucas (08:51):
In the same way that we talk about
board games as engine building or deck
building, or push your luck or so on.
There are a couple of like standard
descriptors that apply to TT RPG systems
as in dice pools or a D 20 system.
How do you generally talk about the
mechanics of Stillfleet and then,
um, what would the experience be like
(09:11):
as a player, if we were, uh, putting
this together and getting started?
Wythe Marshall (09:15):
Yeah.
Um, it's meant to be very simple.
So it's meant to be in a way rules light.
It came out of, um, my interest in the
sort of old school Renaissance, um, and
trying to forge my own system that was
very different from D 20 systems, which I
had run my whole life and was just really
dissatisfied with, by about say 2015.
I was really looking for other
mechanics and I'd played a
lot of D 10 systems, um, d100.
(09:37):
And certainly now 2d six has become,
you know, the Vogue, but I, I
really, none of it was doing what
I wanted in terms of, um, ranges.
And so it was very simple.
You know, in conversations with
my, my friend, Paul Gray, who's
really amazing mathematician and
you know, I had this thought, well,
what if the scores just were dice?
Like we keep talking about these
secondary mechanics, you know, if you
have a, a score from whatever three
to team, you get a plus or minus.
(09:59):
If you have, uh, you know, you are
adding plus one or, you know, plus
three or whatever in a, uh, apocalypse
game, what if you just simplified it
and you had different dice and you're
just trying to beat the other person.
If you initiate the action,
then you win the tie.
And so usually there's a contest and a
being you're rolling against whether
it's another PC, you're more likely, you
know, the GM has some die determined by
(10:20):
how good the thing is that you're, you're
fighting against, um, at, at that task.
And you have your die.
Um, and we have a small number of scores.
We have five scores, so combat
movement, reason will and charm.
They're different die types.
You assign them when you make your
character, doesn't take very long.
Uh, and then you might have
pluses, you know, you might have
a there's sort of species bonuses.
So if you were some robot
that's very fast, you might have
(10:41):
like a plus one to movement.
So you roll your die and add one.
I mean, it's not a huge deal.
And that felt really fun.
And we also set a neutral value.
. A lot of times it became simpler
to not roll against the GM.
The GM's number is just six.
You're trying to get a six
or higher, then you succeed.
So for example, I say, oh, I look
around, okay, will you roll will to
perceive, perceive falls under will.
And if you get a six or higher,
(11:01):
um, you find something interesting.
The GM has to kind of
reveal a clue, a secret.
If you don't, then the GM can give you
general description, but doesn't really
tell you sort of deeper what's going on.
And, uh, and your will
die might be a D six.
If you're a, you know, regular Joe, a
D eight, if you're sort of trained in
like sleuthing, uh, you know, a D 10,
if you're really quite good and a D 12
would be like superhuman and everyone
(11:22):
starts off with, you know, one D 12 stat,
one D 10, one D eight and two D six S so
you assign those, um, different classes.
You'd probably wanna be more fighty
if you were the Stillrider, the sort
of space Marine class, you'd probably
wanna higher combat score, cuz your job
is to hurt things, um, for the company.
Right?
So that's, that would make sense
that you would be trained in that.
You'd be super good at that.
Uh, and then your health is
(11:42):
determined by adding the maximum
value of your combat and movement.
So that's just a number
from 12 to whatever 22.
Um, and that goes up or down, you
know, if you get hurt, goes down, if
it goes to zero, your prone, and if
you get attacked by your prone, you
die prone, meaning like you can't act.
Um, so that's very basic.
The other thing we added over
time, we added this, meta mechanic,
you have a pool of grit and
(12:03):
your powers generally cost grit.
So the class powers all cost grit.
Your grit's determined by class.
It's two scores added
together your max values.
So again, probably like from 14 to 22 to
start and it goes down and use powers.
Well, that's all pretty simple.
Other games have that, you know, you spend
your effort points, whatever to do magic
or whatever you're doing in this game.
You can also burn.
Lucas (12:20):
a, a rough, uh, equivalent
from, from the D and D world.
Wythe Marshall (12:24):
Oh, sure.
But, you know, grit is not that in that
it's not, not everyone's casting spells,
but you have powers that cost, points.
And um, the core thing is that you can
boost so you can burn three grit or
six grit or nine grit, which could be
a lot nine grit is like probably half
your starting grit for many people.
Um, ju just under half, um,
to get a plus three, a plus
six or plus nine on any role.
So anytime you're rolling to do anything
(12:45):
other than recover grit, obviously,
uh, you can burn grit and increase
your chances, but you still fail.
If you roll a one, you always fail.
If you roll a one.
So it adds this.
Kind of crazy gambling mechanic
where you're like, I burn
nine grit, like screw it.
Um, but it's really fun.
It in practice, it just
makes those big moments.
I think what it does for me is it, it
added something that was a little bit
(13:05):
missing, which was like the Nat 20 moment
in D and D where you're like, I got a
natural 20, I, I totally killed a monster.
So this is the same thing.
You're like, "I burn nine grit."
Like that's so much of my effort and
it's supposed to represent like, you
know, your energy, your attention,
your ability to like succeed.
You know, I don't know about you,
but like when I start the day,
I can only write so many really
good emails or pages or whatever.
(13:26):
And then by like the afternoon,
I'm like, hi, I need a break.
You know?
Um, so it's just meant to represent
that very abstractly and it's, it's
fast again, it's simple to learn.
Um, it's not like a huge headache cuz
you're again, adding a small number.
So it's, it's not like you
have to do a lot of math.
Um, so I'll shut up about it,
but that those are the two core
component.
Lucas (13:43):
you that, like that yin and
yang, that you've produced that push
and pull of, of, uh, randomness in the
person of the die and then choice in the
form of the grit pool are so central.
Like that is the heart and soul
of what makes a TT RPG, a TT RPG.
And you're right when you burn grit
and move it from a, a random outcome
(14:06):
to one over, which I have decided to
invest my maximum effort and cause
a certain outcome that slaps, to
be honest, like, that feels good.
And it's something that, uh, I
don't see in a lot of systems.
So I, I really appreciated
that about the game.
Let's talk about some of
the, specific antagonists in.
(14:27):
Stillfleet.
In particular, I wanna talk
about what you have called Cates.
I've not heard the name of
Lovecraft mythos used in that
particular way before, as, as an
adjective with that construction.
Uh, and it feels at once familiar
and different, which sounds to me
and looks to me like what you are
doing, um, with the, uh, Kalu mythos.
(14:50):
So Stillfleet being a super future
game and accessing all of the
rich history of science fiction.
How does that compare in
your mind to cosmic horror?
And why did you make the choice to, um,
make them so integral with each other?
Wythe Marshall (15:08):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's a fair question.
And I think some people push back
just because obviously of the,
the legacy of Lovecraft himself.
Um, but if you look at, to me, the
legacy of science fiction and the
impact Lovecraft had on science
fiction, um, and really more the,
the, the tradition of what I, I call
science, horror people call cosmic core.
Um, I think it's it it's, um, under
(15:29):
studied in science fiction studies.
So it's almost like people think
that, you know, science fiction takes
off from Jules Verne or whatever,
and this hard sci-fi standpoint.
And I think the pulp influence the weird
cosmic influence that taps into the things
Americans really like, you know, go big
or go home spiritual sort of, you know,
cosm this sort of religious, uh, religios.
Um, that, that Lovecraft really nails in
(15:52):
the, the classic stories, um, where at
some point, if you did encounter an alien
who was the size of a planet, I mean,
that would effectively be God, right?
And you could imagine cold
springing up and all these things.
Um, if you, if you, there beings that can
move in and out of our, our dimensions.
I mean, I think some of the horror,
the awe, the terror, the horror, all
being intermixed in those moments of
encounter, um, feel a lot truer than
(16:13):
a lot of the classic classic sci-fi
that is taught in sort of intro, uh,
or, you know, would be collected in
anthology of like the greatest 25 science
fiction stories up to a certain point.
I think now it's changing cuz now again,
Lucas (16:24):
I think.
Wythe Marshall (16:24):
yeah.
There's more people reading and writing.
So now those are getting much better.
You'd see, you know,
you'd see amazing stories.
You can imagine like a Ted Chan story
that's totally mind blowing that would
now be in an anthology that wouldn't
have been when I was a little kid right.
In the eighties, nineties.
So all I'm saying is, um, I think, you
know, putting Lovecraft's, um, personal
life aside in a sense, um, which I don't,
you know, I know you can't do entirely,
(16:46):
but I think he was onto something as
all I'm saying he had some good ideas
about, okay, there's a kind of scale at
which we can imagine from a hard science
fictional standpoint, he, you know, was
an obsessive reader of science news.
If you just extrapolate, okay, there's
some being that's evolved that can
live thousands of years and it's
the size of a mountain or whatever.
That would have a very different, reality
for people kind of encountering it,
(17:06):
uh, interacting with it in some way.
And it, and it does kind of push
science fiction into this, um, realm
of the spiritual, uh, or, you know,
the cosmic for, for sense of scale.
And I think that a game set so far in
the future that's meant to, um, really
play with scale and have the ability for.
Players to go down rabbit
holes with clank technology.
So it's low tech enough where like having
(17:27):
a pistol that works is kind of a big deal.
Um, but also right,
there's advanced aliens.
There's advanced immortal God like aliens.
So it's like, you know, that, that scale
is just this powers of 10 thing where
you can zoom in and you have a whole
scramble on a desert planet where you
need to find bullets for one pistol,
or you need a canteen full of water.
You could also have a game about,
you know, a kit and not to again,
(17:49):
you know, but just to reference fun
city cuz it's, you know, it exists.
Um, I think that's something, uh,
the float city arc of fun city did
really well is they introduced, you
know, one very powerful entity and
then kind of, you didn't realize it
at first necessarily how much of the,
the sort of story was about this.
Entity's just vast power and
knowledge and what it wanted
and how alien its once were.
(18:10):
Um, and, and it leads to a
really epic ending obviously.
Um, which so not to spoil too much,
but that's like, that's kind of,
I think, um, getting it, some of
these ideas that are incipient in.
Um, certainly not, not only Lovecraft,
but I think because some of those
stories nail it so well, it's just easy.
It's a reference point where many
people reading them growing up could
say, aha, there's something here.
That's quite different from this sort of,
(18:32):
um, some of the other themes explored and,
and sort of other, other sub genres of SF.
So, um, that was just a starting
place that has influenced me.
And I think the response to it.
So I'll just add you, then you
have writers like Victor Leval.
Um, you could also look at like Lovecraft
country, um, you know, PI, which is
playing around with, um, Poe, but,
but you know, Matt Johnson's work.
Um, you, you have these writers
where, uh, they're taking the
(18:53):
mythos and they're intentionally
kind of playing with elements of
it, um, because of their, their own
interest in today and in sort of.
You know, modern cultural values
as opposed to like Lovecraft
as a traditionalist, right?
Not like he was like, anti-modern
so what do you do if you are a
modern person, but you're still
interested in those moments of cosmic
awe cosmic scale, terror, and awe.
And what would it really be like to
(19:14):
encounter in a mortal being that exists
in more physical dimensions than three?
So I think that's those kind of
what ifs were interesting to me.
And I think similar to some of these other
writers of the new, weird, uh, China,
you know, I wanted to like pull some of
those elements out and, um, remove them
from, you know, Lovecraft per song and
this idea of like, oh, you're in the
1920s and you're an investigator which
you see in the call of Kalu kind of games.
(19:35):
And instead it's like, no, no, no,
it's a hundred millions of future.
It's a game about space
capitalism, but, you know, yeah.
There might be out there in the depths
of space hundred billion year old,
uh, you know, or not, not say that's
older than the universe, but you know,
billion year old, um, star sized beings.
And like, what would
you do if you met one?
You know what I mean?
And I think that is something,
um, really interesting.
It it's creates a different
(19:56):
kind of encounter from you meet
sort of the humanoid like alien.
Or you meet the evil robot,
you know what I mean?
So these are sort of sub
genres that one can play with.
Lucas (20:04):
I wanna drill down more
specifically and talk about the,
uh, Migo astrobiologists, um, cuz
these are a ULA kit monster in the
quick start in the quick start guide.
Can you thumbnail for
me what these guys are?
Wythe Marshall (20:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I should, I should clarify.
And this is not at all to be
pedantic about my own game,
Lucas (20:23):
No, no, please be
pedantic about your game.
one
Wythe Marshall (20:26):
UL
Lucas (20:26):
will
Wythe Marshall (20:27):
we use as a specific
term to mean like so powerful.
So alien that they live in quote
unquote, another dimension or
whatever, they, they kind of don't
interact with time space normally.
So the Migo are just aliens,
but you're absolutely right.
They're coming from the mythos
of, you know, which sort of
comes from the Lovecraft circle.
And many of those terms originated
with earlier writers and we're
explored by later writers.
(20:48):
So they're sort of passing through the
filter of one kind of random racist
asshole who happened to write sort of
the, again, a few stories that were
so good that they've sort of lived on
and, and been useful touchstones, even
as people have debated the value of
sort of his overall ouevre, and, and,
you know, done other things with it.
So Migo is one of those concepts.
Um, and the idea is just that they're
aliens from, uh, you know, according
(21:08):
to the original mythos, as I recall,
they're from the planet Pluto, which
they call Yuggoth and they're crab
shaped fungi, and they can fly.
And that's kind of, I think all
that we know, and they, they sort
of, um, they experiment on humans.
they kind of pretend to
be a human at one point.
And it's very, it's very spooky and weird.
Um, and you just, it's very different.
They're not like out there
stabbing people in the face they're
like scientists or something.
(21:29):
And I like that idea for this game.
So they've been a kind of recurring
villain in my campaigns, in
a, um, my co-designers games.
Um, you know, the Migo
are, they evolved on Pluto?
So what is Pluto?
I mean, Pluto's a rock with domes
made of solid ammonia or something.
I mean, it's just this terrifyingly
cold, um, sort of ice planet.
(21:50):
That's very, very, very small.
And, uh, you know, if life evolved
there, it'd be very different.
So fungi, even in this
sense is like a metaphor.
It's like they evolve from some
sort of, uh, you know, thing that is
very microscopic and can reproduce
very differently than humans.
And, um, now they're vaguely
crab shaped, but a lot of that
might be technology like biotech.
So who knows what part is the original
Migo and what part is sort of engineered?
(22:12):
Um, but we represent them
are artist, Ethan gold.
Who's an amazing artist, um, has
done some drawings and they look
just terrifying, uh, you know, sort
of hard to tell what's in Oregon
again, and what's maybe technical.
Um, but yeah, we liked this idea
of they're sort of scientists and
they're competitors with the company.
So we wanted some aliens, some of them,
yeah, you just they're space bad guys.
Uh, they're evil robots basically.
Um, Some of them are not at all sort
(22:35):
of quote unquote evil they're they're,
you know, really, um, interesting other
civilizations you could encounter.
And the Migo are occupying in
between position because they're
not inherently, um, evil, per se.
They just have a very different, you
know, they, they're interested in
humans and, um, all the other sapien,
you know, non-humans, you can play
in the game, uh, but they have their
own, they've evolved, uh, you know,
sapiens in a totally different way.
(22:55):
And they have their own
sort of code or ethics.
And we actually explored that in
a, in a little side, um, source
book that we did as a Z for a jam
on itch called UGA confidential,
where Ethan and I were really deep
into like, what if you play a Migo?
Okay.
Well to play a Migo, they have
so many systems running at once.
They're so advanced and it's, it's like
a, a slime mold, you know, it's all
these pieces that kind of flow together.
(23:17):
What if every player is just
one part of the same Migo?
So you're always playing one single Migo
scientist who has many routines operating.
And that would be very different
than playing five PCs, right.
Five human or non-human characters
in a space, fantasy setting.
So that's, that's kind of to give
you a sense of how we think of it is
like, yeah, that, I mean, it would be
like having, you know, five people,
(23:38):
um, in this kind of weird crab body.
Um, and yeah, so that's, that,
that was kind of at the core of the
design and it's just one of the,
sort of, to us iconic, , aliens.
But really even those terms,
monster alien, we try to avoid.
So we just call all the, the stat
blocks in the book encounter.
So there there's something you could
encounter and they have their own,
you know, dogmas, they have their own,
(23:59):
codes basically by which they live.
Lucas (24:01):
Among the powers and gear and story
notes and attacks, in this stat block,
are there any that you feel specifically
represent what you were going for,
or are a good example of that or ones
that you just thought were really fun?
Wythe Marshall (24:14):
Uh, yeah, I
mean, we, from the beginning
knew that we needed stat blocks.
And so Eric Lazar, the, the designer
of the book played a big role in,
um, helping us think through and
definitely playing with, uh, with Ethan
and, and many others, all our, you
know, play testers and, and patrons.
We have a pretty active discord server.
So if you wanna play, please hop on there.
We wanna schedule more and more games.
So they, they helped us think like
(24:35):
where, how could we lay out basically,
you know, combat movement reason
will charm for, uh, encounters.
And, uh, I was always writing
them with these little notes,
like gear, story notes.
So sort of like, what would they have on
them that might be of interest and then
story notes, just being a catchall, like
in a way, what do they look like when you
first see them just kinda write out and
pros a couple sentences to give the GM a
(24:55):
little more evocative language to go with,
maybe something they could read out loud.
Right.
Um, and then sometimes variants
so sometimes I'd write, you know,
basically one or two bullets of
like, uh, some of them have this stat
instead of this, or they have this
weapon instead of that, whatever.
Um, so that, that was kinda the basics.
And what we found is that we felt
it was lacking that sense for new
GMs approaching really weird ideas.
(25:15):
Like what is the motivation and to really
make it an encounter and not a monster.
And I, I like, um, what you said,
because yeah, I mean, you, there's
nothing wrong necessarily with playing
a game that is about heroes slaying
monsters, all in quotation marks.
Um, but that's not this game.
This game is about, you know, Picaresque
anti-heroes trying to figure out their
lives within a political economy they
find to be, you know, somewhat unjust.
(25:37):
The Picaresque is a literary tradition
in early modern Europe, essentially
tied with the birth of the novel.
And remember that in the early modernist
transition from the medieval world with
essentially swords to the early modern
world of guns and being shot in the face.
But also the transition from
feudal nobility aristocracy to,
um, the, the bourgeoisie, to
capitalists owning everything.
So D and D is kind of built on the
(25:58):
Picaresque, but it's, it's an inversion
because in D&D, it's trying to make
the Picaro into a hero, whereas in
the actual Picaresque stories, like
Don Quixote, if you're familiar at
all with that trope, this old man who
wants to be a Knight in the heroic
era of like the resadora or whatever,
but he's living in the early modern.
So everyone's like,
dude, there's no knights.
And Spain is already unified
as his colonial power.
Like, what do you want, man?
(26:18):
Like, he's trying to save like
maidens from monsters, but there's
no monsters, no one wants his help.
And his sidekick is this kind of idiot
who, you know, so they they're sort
of just like getting into trouble
while doing quote unquote adventures.
But basically they're getting
kicked out of inns and, um,
fighting non, like getting into
fights for, for like bad reasons.
That to me is very much like actually
when you play D and D like the GM has
(26:40):
some epic plot, but the, the Picaros,
the heroes are just like, "No, man,
we're just gonna murder these goblins.
Like, yeah, they're not even bad
goblins, I just want their gold."
And you're just like, "Ah,
why, why do you do that?"
So, uh, yes, in, in our game, we're very
much acknowledging, like you're probably
gonna play in the Picaresque tradition.
But, you know, in this case you
subverting the, the adventure,
(27:00):
your Syon is a good thing.
It's a feature, not a flaw.
So we it's, again, we, we thought of that.
I, I think it works up to you.
I was actually really motivated
there by, um, looking around
at other games that I like.
So there's a cool OSR game called
Troika, I don't know if you've played.
The book I'm thinking of is athe
death fan acid, death fantasy by
Luke Gehring, which is a great book
(27:22):
that has cool monsters in a sort of
dune like, um, psychedelic setting.
And that was one where specifically
Eric and I were reading it and thinking,
oh, these encounters are really cool.
We're not doing the same exact
thing, but like, we need to up
our game encounter block wise.
Right.
That was when we decided, okay.
We need to like really
think about our encounters.
And one of the things I like is
their stop blocks they have mean.
(27:42):
So they, they just have sort of
a list of like, what are these,
um, beings generally doing?
Um, and so that's, that's
that and the idea of
an
Lucas (27:51):
of mean as in, uh, you
know, attitude or, or general,
uh, posture and behavior,
Wythe Marshall (27:58):
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
So we, we sort of were, were thinking
about that, Eric and I were like,
you know, what if we just basically
had our version of, of that, like,
what is this thing usually doing?
And then the other piece dogma was, was
coming out of thinking about alignment
and just, you know, I definitely don't
want an alignment system, but I thought,
okay, I could say what's the motivation.
If I bullet pointed one major motivation
for this specific encounter and maybe,
(28:19):
you know, I could say in the story notes,
well, there's many, many factions that
have different, you know, ideologies,
but this person cares about this.
So it became a really fun game
of kind of in a way, speculative
kind of like political fiction.
So like each dogma tends to be these like
weird terms where we're mashing up and
we've had a lot of fun thinking through
like, what, what are the motivations
that aliens would have and how to
(28:40):
represent that in English language that
anyone could ever understand at all.
So even if it's weird, yeah.
It has to like give you a hook somehow.
So.
Um, you know, for the Migo, for the, for
this Migo group in the Quickstart, we
went with either obsessive and empiricism.
So they're just kind of aliens
who might wanna dissect you, just
cuz they're really curious, um,
or data driven, real politics.
(29:01):
So they have some sort of you goti
political conundrum and the data says,
you know, they need to interact with
you in some way, steal your tech, uh,
harm you, maybe they need your help.
Right.
And, and, and so we're not saying
GMs, here's exactly how to use it.
We're saying here's different
things that this very different
than human, um, being might care.
And we're trying to give it sort of
(29:21):
language that would, um, be evocative.
Yeah.
Just help a GM run an encounter.
Um, and then the habits part is, you
know, similar to me and it's, it's
saying, okay, what are ways that
you might come across this being?
Um, and again, just giving
the GM stuff to work with.
So is it taking notes, which is
gonna look very, very different
because it's evolved and uses this
biotechnology and lives in hard vacuum.
So, you know, what was I say?
(29:43):
Um, it looks like surgery on a
squealing blinking lion's main mushroom.
So, you know what I mean?
It's like holding a thing
and doing a thing to it.
And what it's doing in its mind is
taking notes on this biocomputer to you.
You're like, oh my God, are you
killing a dog made of mushroom?
Like, what is that?
Um, versus like maybe it's 3d
printing a Scally tool that will grow
into a whole bubble shaped house.
(30:03):
So it's like building something
and, and again, these are just
evocative, like just moments.
The GM could completely discard, but
they might help the GM say, oh, I know
I'm just gonna describe it as doing X.
And, and we've found that pretty, I found
that useful in running games and I feel
like I've seen other GMs kind of pick up.
This idea of like these little
images, like what this thing might
be doing when you meet it and,
and, you know, the run of it.
Lucas (30:27):
When a party of players have
finished the encounter with, uh, a
Migo astrobiologist, um, what do you
want them to be thinking about or
remembering a couple of weeks later?
Wythe Marshall (30:39):
Oh, that's
such a good question.
Um, I'm trying to think back to
times I've used this kind of trope
of monster, this specific alien.
Um, see, I just said monster, uh,
the, this specific encounter and
when, uh, my, my friend, Ethan,
who's also the artist and also helps
design the game has used, um, these,
he had a whole campaign with Migo.
I think one of the things I remember
from playing in Ethan's campaign about
(31:00):
the Migo was, um, actually a lot of
the encounters where we, there was one
on you, goth, where we took the stiff
works, the time space gates in the game
that allow for, you know, instantaneous
travel between worlds to you goth.
And the whole time we
didn't see a single Migo.
We saw these sort of conservatory,
these like humans who'd been, um,
experimented on in the complex.
(31:21):
We were in this scientific complex.
And every time the Migo would be
around the corner, kind of, they
would be coming on their way.
Like we would trip up the AI
somehow and then the Migo would,
would come and we would leave.
And that made this kind of
constant cat and mouse feeling.
That was very much like
a great sci-fi movie.
And it allowed.
Ethan's very funny.
And so there were a lot of moments of
humor, but then that would happen when
(31:41):
we would realize, oh shit, like the Migo
is coming, the scientists are coming.
It was really kind of terrifying cuz
you're like, I don't think we're like
first level or second level at that point.
Like there's no way we're
gonna sort of defeat even one.
We're probably, definitely not gonna
defeat like a small party of them.
So, um, it was almost their absence and
the fact that we knew they had intention,
like they weren't random, right.
(32:01):
They weren't like coming
to kill us for blood sport.
You know, they were coming to experiment
on us and turn us into essentially these
fungal zombies we kept running into.
Um, or, or there were just people sort
of spaced out on like essentially drugs.
And so it had this kind of
vibe of like, almost like we're
gonna become a main candidate.
And that was scarier than just
fighting a random quote monster.
And I really liked how Ethan played it,
(32:22):
where there were very few actual Mego.
And so at the end, when you
finally like encountered them, it
was like, it was such a big deal.
And to know that it wasn't gonna be
a typical combat encounter, right.
That they were actually trying to
subvert the company, they were doing
this whole sort of candidate, um,
You know, CIA kind of, kind of SIOP.
Um, and that was so much more
fulfilling than like a big fight.
(32:43):
So I would want people to take that away
in general from the game that yes, you
can always do combat in these games.
Um, but there's so many other ways
to have fun and to be true to the
Picaresque tradition, which Ethan
Arabic fans of which kind of gave
rise to D and D in a way, the best
parts are running away from fights.
The best parts are losing
fights, losing duals.
I mean, that's what makes
like donkey whatever great.
It's, it's not an action
movie, you know what I mean?
It's, it's about a guy screwing up.
(33:04):
So I think I would, I would say, you
know, running away from Migo, um, is
perfectly valid and, um, you know, uh,
may make you think about like, ah, do we
wanna sort of seek an Alliance with them?
Do we, you know, how do we sort
of prove what they're up to?
Um, and that's what I would want players
to sort of talk about between sessions.
Lucas (33:22):
Is there anything that we
haven't talked about that you wanna make
sure is a part of this conversation?
Wythe Marshall (33:29):
um, I think it's
just stuff you, you probably cover
in your other episodes more, which
I I've listened to some of, and I, I
wanna list go back and listen to the
whole catalog, cuz I like the show.
Um, but I think the idea of
ity and the role that design.
Others plays both at the level of like
playable species or DD speak races.
Um, and how different can they be and
(33:49):
what are the, the sort of bonuses or
drawbacks and how does that essentialism,
um, get mechanicalized in a game
that is something that obviously,
um, many designers think a lot about,
I thought a lot about Stillfleet.
The other piece is designing then, um,
antagonists or possible antagonists.
So again, we call them encounters because
you don't necessarily have to fight them
per se, but we wanna make, you know,
(34:10):
if we, if we bother to stat block, um,
an encounter it's because that being
might resist you in some way, right?
You might not be rolling to hit them
in combat, but you might be trying to
charm them and they're rolling will
to resist your charms or whatever.
Right.
They're lying to you and you
need to suss out the truth.
So your rolling will et cetera.
Um, and I think, uh, in both cases,
obviously all game designers think
(34:31):
about these things, um, to, to
various degrees and, and with various
kind of ideologies of game design.
Um, and with us, I think we've tried to
make species that are interesting and D.
And so there's a lot of interesting
non-humans and you have that
element of science fictional.
Um, but, uh, they all have something in
common and then the aliens, the encounters
we've allowed to push and make these much,
(34:54):
much, much, much, much sort of weirder.
So you have like say these ULA
kits who have D 20 S for stats.
So in Stillfleet, you don't
generally have a D 20.
So to fight something with a D 20
is like a big deal, um, ancient
war machines, you know, what about
like, uh, AI that is essentially,
you know, basically insane, right?
It's logic boards no longer operate
correctly, and it is wandering around,
(35:14):
um, just still fighting some war that
has been over for 5,000 years, you
know, that civilization has gone.
Um, and I think those kinds of
questions about how one would
interact with them, what do they
want, how could they be convinced?
Um, I, I think those are all ways
of getting at essentially like
really at the end of the day human
difference, and they're creating,
um, you know, safe, fun ways to,
with your friends explore questions.
(35:37):
We might all have about AI and about.
How do we resolve all
kinds of differences?
Um, and at the end of the day, yeah,
I think it's just more interesting
to have them stack up to some
kind of political discussion.
Where do we want the company to go?
Where do we want our jobs to be, as
opposed to merely repeating over and over
again, the kind of, uh, murder hobo, you
know, algorithm of kill a thing, take
(35:57):
its gold, kill a thing, take its gold.
You know what I mean?
And just kill bigger and bigger things.
I think in a way all most games tend
to stack in, in some direction, right?
So D and D stacks in that, that
direction, the murder hobo, um, algorithm.
And we're trying to create a stack where
over time the encounters add up, um, and
whatever campaign you, you know, however
you run Stillfleet towards some sort
of deeper idea about your, your role
(36:19):
in a broader society that is inhabited
by not just humans, but all kinds of
beings in at this point in, in, in time.
So, um, yeah, I, I hope we've succeeded.
I hope people give it a chance.
And, um, we'd love to hear, you know,
obviously we like talking to people
on discord and, and elsewhere about.
What they think and how they've used this.
And, and again, I'll credit.
Like so many of our players GMs
have come up with so many great
(36:41):
ideas and really fun campaigns.
Um, so it's no longer, it's
no longer just my baby.
And I think that's a good
thing personally, but
Lucas (36:48):
I really want this to see, I
know it already has, um, but I really
want this to succeed in, in every
way that it is possible for it to do,
which, uh, I will abandon the pretense
of journalistic impartiality here
because, uh, this thing is incredible.
Thanks for listening to Making a Monster.
Here's how to get
(37:08):
Stillfleet at your table.
Wythe Marshall (37:10):
So if you're interested in
Stillfleet, uh, this is the perfect time.
There's two days left.
So you really should act like today.
If you're thinking about it, check
out on Kickstarter, uh, Stillfleet.
You can go it's it's under, you
know, games, projects we love.
Um, you can just look up Stillfleet one.
Uh, and you'll find it on a
Kickstarter and that is the
campaign for the core rule book.
So that's all the rules.
(37:30):
Um, it's the book we've been
working on for forever and
there's tons of other material.
Some of it is out a little bit was out.
Most of it is gonna come out
after the core rule book.
And actually we decided to go ahead and
do two books at once because we're just
huge masochist that way as creators.
So you can buy the coral
book as a PDF for print.
You can also, uh, pledge and, and,
and, you know, basically pre-order,
um, as physical or digital.
(37:52):
A venture.
So a playable scenario,
that's also a source book.
It has lots of information on one world,
uh, and that is, uh, setting, um, called
the rain thieves, um, by our friend and
web developer, Aaron H um, and, uh, co
game designer and, and great person.
Uh, and the rain thieves, uh, not only
is this, this venture, this, this epic
kind of ecological, uh, political story,
(38:14):
uh, is also just a great source book.
If you want a really rich, um, desert
sci-fi planet, if you're interested
in sort of themes from dune, but, uh,
you know, totally different, right.
And in the, in the stilly universe,
um, uh, you know, check it out.
It's got an intelligent, uh, spider,
like Xeno fauna, um, of different kinds
and a lot of weird, uh, architects.
So ancient technology is buried
in the sands, um, and, uh,
(38:35):
just, you know, some mysteries.
Uh, so those are, those are two
books you can pledge for now.
We also have tons of other, um,
items, you know, it's, we have sort
of merch stuff, you know, t-shirts
and pins, which are really great.
Eric Lazar is an amazing designer
and we're showing off the art
of Ethan gold and the shirts.
But, you know, in addition to that,
uh, we have a deck of reference cards.
(38:56):
So 52 cards for GMs that have,
um, basically architect and
encounters, um, summarized.
So for the encounters, it's not gonna
be every single word in a full cuz.
Usually encounter blocks are
about half a page or a full page.
These are just gonna be the summaries
with the stats and some quick thoughts.
Um, and those are gonna be fun things with
images that we would hope jams could show
players, as they're playing the game, they
(39:16):
could hand out architect, they could show
you the, the thing you're encountering.
And if people like that,
we can do more of it.
But this is, you know, for us,
we're kind of new to a lot of this.
We've all printed stuff in the past.
Um, we're all, we've, it's
the model of like swift trust.
We're all good at like the one
thing we do, but this we're
a new company as Stillfleet.
So, um, you know, we hope you like it.
And we we're really
excited about the book.
Um, most of all, just cuz it's been in
(39:37):
development for a long time and we do
hope people give the game a, a, a try.
So again, you hit the PDF and
just, you know, um, check it out.
The PDF will be out way
before the physical book, just
due to, you know, printing.
So that'll be much sooner.
Lucas (39:48):
Wythe, thank you so much for
being a part of the show, uh, and
bringing this collection of the weird
and the wonderful to the conversation.
You've added quite a bit.
I'm really excited for this
to be a part of the cannon.
Wythe Marshall (39:59):
Um, thank you so much.
, I love the show.
I love the idea and I think it's
important to, um, in some ways I
think a little deeper as a community.
but it's cool to think philosophically,
like what makes a game fun or, or
what makes it do certain things?
What makes it have certain effects?
So I love this idea of like, let's just
drill down on one monster at a time.
I think it's brilliant.
Lucas (40:15):
Thank you.
We'll be back next week and every
week, this fall with new episodes
from creators I met at GenCon, new
stories from the Book of Extinction,
and a few wild cards like Stillfleet.
Hope to see you there!
The portal between, the
module you're in and the next module,
swishes open, and through the circular
portal you see into the hydroponic farm
module, uh, and something is moving there.
It's a little lower than
a human, but larger.
And it's bumping into the plastic
shelves, which in half G are
creating floating blobs of water
that are slowly moving toward the
floor due to the pseudo gravity.
(00:23):
And then as it turns, you can smell
it before you see it, actually it
reeks of ammonia and you instantly
all click your helmets back in and the
clean air is begins to scrub it out.
And the thing that's looking at, you
looks a bit like a Dungeness crab if it
was also sort of a harvestman, spider,
uh, and also at a rave and also had
some computer equipment strapped to it.
(00:44):
It's sort of almost like hard to decipher.
It doesn't have a clear head.
Um, it has multiple branching legs.
It turns to you, and then one of those
little technical bits, it looks like
almost like a little Bluetooth speaker,
but made out of like gray exo crust.
It's like a living it's a grown and
displaced on its sort of shoulder, in
quotation marks, it blares at you in
(01:04):
perfect Spin, it's the language you speak.
And it says in this very neutral
kind of robotic tone, "Hello, we are
looking for help acquiring an item."
Lucas (01:15):
Welcome to Making a Monster.
This is a Migo, and it's just
one of the super weird, super
future encounters in Stillfleet,
the sci-fi RPG by Wythe Marshall.
It's the system that helped this show
explain the pyramid of Villa during
the GM edition episode on Float City
with Mike Rugnetta and Taylor Moore.
At the time, Stillfleet was still
in play testing, but now the game is
(01:37):
a full core rule book in the final
hours of its Kickstarter campaign to
become a full color, hard back reality.
I'm pleased and honored to introduce
you to a game that will throw
you head first into the depths of
cosmic thought and to its creator,
Wythe Marshall (01:52):
Hi, I'm Wythe Marshall,
I'm a writer and game designer.
I'm creating a game called Stillfleet.
It's a sci-fi tabletop role
playing game set in the far future.
It's about the politics of work.
So your characters are void miners.
They work for a company that goes
out in space and takes stuff from
dead civilizations and from aliens
and from current other civilizations.
And you get to choose whether you
(02:13):
wanna do that or you wanna push back.
And then my day job, I'm a social
scientist, I'm an anthropologist of
food and agriculture, but focused
again on tech and the future.
And big political economic questions.
So I think there is there's some through
line between far future game stuff
and the present of the food system.
Lucas (02:30):
Wythe, I wanna tell you that
Stillfleet is perhaps responsible
for one of the most fulfilling
listening experiences I have ever had
in the person of the Float City arc
from, Mike and the team at Fun City.
Wythe Marshall (02:48):
I agree.
I, I think they just really knocked outta
the park and, um, I can only take very
small credit for, you know, that's the
game system I created, but they really
did such an amazing job with that story.
You know, I think endings are really hard
and I think they just nailed the ending
and that really makes such a difference.
The level of thought and like
emotion put into, you know,
kind of year long sci-fi arc.
Lucas (03:10):
And you have a
podcast called Fields, right?
The latest episode that I saw was from
April is that project still running?
Wythe Marshall (03:16):
Yes.
Um, thanks for, for shouting that.
Yeah, my friend, Melissa Metrick,
who is the farmer at NYU.
I work at NYU as a researcher in the
business school about the future of
farming and public private, partnerships.
She, and I have a podcast called
fields, the unfinished story of,
uh, urban agriculture on heritage
radio network, because we both
focus on urban agriculture.
So she as a farmer, herself and
(03:38):
myself as a social scientist, as a,
as a researcher, uh, and we interview
people who are engaged in all kinds
of aspects of, um, urban agriculture.
We finish the second season, at
the start of the summer and we're
taping the third season now.
So sometime in the fall, that will start.
So there, there definitely will be a third
season of fields we're working on it.
Lucas (03:55):
I also wanted to bring it up
because it reflects this long history
that you have of working in this space
and thinking about sort of the core
ideas that went into building Stillfleet.
I understand this is a project you've
been working on for about 15 years.
Is that true?
Wythe Marshall (04:10):
I looked, and found
the oldest record of this kind of
setting as like a home brew game for
like an OSR campaign, uh, was like 2011.
But certainly before that I was
running games and thinking about game
design, um, but a lot less seriously
in terms of kind of one stake in
the ground, you know, setting.
Um, and even then in, in 2011,
(04:31):
it certainly wasn't like, oh,
I'm gonna write a book per se.
It was like, no, I wanna make a big
capacious campaign setting for my friends.
And I have lots of ideas
about the future and climate.
So let me sort of foreground those
and make it more sort of political
and about climate disruption and tech,
you know, the politics of technology
is, is tech good or bad, or sort of
have a lot of wacky, uh, you know,
AI and, and just kind of go, go fun.
(04:52):
And then 2017 is when it got much more
serious as like, okay, I'm writing a book.
I know, you know, I sort of have all
of the, the elements in place by then.
Lucas (04:59):
Stillfleet has been described
to me as a super future setting.
Because you are not concerned
with small questions and you've
created this game that is capable
of taking very, very big swings.
Is that an accurate descriptor?
And what does super future mean in
the context of Stillfleet's world?
Wythe Marshall (05:19):
That is I think
an apt term because, uh, it's
set, not in the near future.
It's set in the very far future on
purpose, just picking kind of an
arbitrary number where, continents
would be different, but you know,
the solar system would still be here.
So if you wanted to sort of visit earth,
not that it's even set on earth for se,
but you know, that you could sort of
find, um, ways back to some ancient past,
(05:39):
but it would be so buried and changed
that that most people would have no
relation to anything in, in 2022, right.
The idea of the super future in some ways
is to provide, um, a fictional, a sort
of safe, fun, fictional place where I
can then model things that are happening
today, but they can be so different.
And, and I can always say, oh, it's a
hundred million years in the future.
And so it's not one to one.
It's not making fun of any specific
(06:00):
thing or forcing people to engage
in any specific kind of political
discussion about 2022, it's providing
a fun, you know, RPG environment for
games, but you can simulate, "Okay,
you work for a company, the company
does things you don't agree with.
What are you gonna do about it?
you're working for money, but it's like
the values of things are very arbitrary."
And actually in the world of
(06:20):
the game, you, um, you don't
have to pay for food or lodging.
So it actually is a weird sort of
like, wait, is this post scarcity?
What is the vibe?
Um, and I think it, it sort of gets
to like, why would you go adventure?
And the politics of that.
So for the company they're saying, go
steal this ancient tech from aliens
or whatever, we're, we're trying to.
Kind of a mass.
There have been many civilizations
that have come and gone.
That's the big trope, right?
Is over a hundred million years, many
(06:42):
advanced civilizations rise and fall.
It's implied that if you get faster and
light travel, generally you flame out
in a civil war and or other advanced
species destroy you for reasons.
And there may also be time travel,
because again, if you could move
fashion and light, you could time trap.
So, you know, that's not a huge part of
the game, but it's sort of, again, implied
maybe events are being sort of sculpted by
actors in the future to achieve a certain
(07:03):
outcome or change a certain outcome.
And you're swept along in
this, this, uh, environment.
And really, again, that is just
a, um, it's like an engine,
you know, it's a way to model.
It's more to me, more interesting specific
interactions where it's like, what do
you do when you go to a world that is,
um, facing kind of environmental crisis?
What do you do when you're asked
to do something you don't agree
with morally, uh, what do you
(07:23):
do when you encounter others?
You know, aliens, but, um, even
though they look different, they
might, they might not be like,
quote unquote evil or like, what
would it mean for them to be evil?
You know, they might just have a
very different way of thinking.
And so the game, um, you know, it
has crunchy, like you can fight
them, but you also have lots of
powers where you can get out fights.
And so I think that ties in with
this idea of exploring all the
(07:45):
stuff that might have happened over
millions of years, um, come and gone.
So there's advanced tech, there's,
uh, all kinds of, of organisms and
even humans being still around.
I mean that, again, it's implied that they
are, uh, have been recreated, you know,
they've been modeled on ancient humans,
but they're not like direct descendants.
Um, and, and I think that, again, it
allows people to both like, do things
(08:06):
that feel familiar and explore sort of
the things I find interesting about, um,
the near future, but by making it so far
future super future, um, I think they
have a little more creative license.
I feel like that anyway, when I'm
playing the game or running the game.
Um, and I, I think other people do too.
It's so far in the future that
you don't have to feel like
you're sort of stuck responding.
Things happening right now in
(08:27):
our lived experience that we, you
know, have anxieties about, um, or
maybe are excited about either way.
And, um, and those games
can be fun too, for sure.
Like near future settings, you
know, more cyber punk settings.
Um, this one is trying to do something
a little different on purpose.
Um, and maybe we'll do a different
game, you know, set a hundred years
from now or whatever, uh, instead
of a hundred million, um, next,
but you know what I mean for now?
(08:48):
It's, we're firmly in the super.
Lucas (08:51):
In the same way that we talk about
board games as engine building or deck
building, or push your luck or so on.
There are a couple of like standard
descriptors that apply to TT RPG systems
as in dice pools or a D 20 system.
How do you generally talk about the
mechanics of Stillfleet and then,
um, what would the experience be like
(09:11):
as a player, if we were, uh, putting
this together and getting started?
Wythe Marshall (09:15):
Yeah.
Um, it's meant to be very simple.
So it's meant to be in a way rules light.
It came out of, um, my interest in the
sort of old school Renaissance, um, and
trying to forge my own system that was
very different from D 20 systems, which I
had run my whole life and was just really
dissatisfied with, by about say 2015.
I was really looking for other
mechanics and I'd played a
lot of D 10 systems, um, d100.
(09:37):
And certainly now 2d six has become,
you know, the Vogue, but I, I
really, none of it was doing what
I wanted in terms of, um, ranges.
And so it was very simple.
You know, in conversations with
my, my friend, Paul Gray, who's
really amazing mathematician and
you know, I had this thought, well,
what if the scores just were dice?
Like we keep talking about these
secondary mechanics, you know, if you
have a, a score from whatever three
to team, you get a plus or minus.
(09:59):
If you have, uh, you know, you are
adding plus one or, you know, plus
three or whatever in a, uh, apocalypse
game, what if you just simplified it
and you had different dice and you're
just trying to beat the other person.
If you initiate the action,
then you win the tie.
And so usually there's a contest and a
being you're rolling against whether
it's another PC, you're more likely, you
know, the GM has some die determined by
(10:20):
how good the thing is that you're, you're
fighting against, um, at, at that task.
And you have your die.
Um, and we have a small number of scores.
We have five scores, so combat
movement, reason will and charm.
They're different die types.
You assign them when you make your
character, doesn't take very long.
Uh, and then you might have
pluses, you know, you might have
a there's sort of species bonuses.
So if you were some robot
that's very fast, you might have
(10:41):
like a plus one to movement.
So you roll your die and add one.
I mean, it's not a huge deal.
And that felt really fun.
And we also set a neutral value.
. A lot of times it became simpler
to not roll against the GM.
The GM's number is just six.
You're trying to get a six
or higher, then you succeed.
So for example, I say, oh, I look
around, okay, will you roll will to
perceive, perceive falls under will.
And if you get a six or higher,
(11:01):
um, you find something interesting.
The GM has to kind of
reveal a clue, a secret.
If you don't, then the GM can give you
general description, but doesn't really
tell you sort of deeper what's going on.
And, uh, and your will
die might be a D six.
If you're a, you know, regular Joe, a
D eight, if you're sort of trained in
like sleuthing, uh, you know, a D 10,
if you're really quite good and a D 12
would be like superhuman and everyone
(11:22):
starts off with, you know, one D 12 stat,
one D 10, one D eight and two D six S so
you assign those, um, different classes.
You'd probably wanna be more fighty
if you were the Stillrider, the sort
of space Marine class, you'd probably
wanna higher combat score, cuz your job
is to hurt things, um, for the company.
Right?
So that's, that would make sense
that you would be trained in that.
You'd be super good at that.
Uh, and then your health is
(11:42):
determined by adding the maximum
value of your combat and movement.
So that's just a number
from 12 to whatever 22.
Um, and that goes up or down, you
know, if you get hurt, goes down, if
it goes to zero, your prone, and if
you get attacked by your prone, you
die prone, meaning like you can't act.
Um, so that's very basic.
The other thing we added over
time, we added this, meta mechanic,
you have a pool of grit and
(12:03):
your powers generally cost grit.
So the class powers all cost grit.
Your grit's determined by class.
It's two scores added
together your max values.
So again, probably like from 14 to 22 to
start and it goes down and use powers.
Well, that's all pretty simple.
Other games have that, you know, you spend
your effort points, whatever to do magic
or whatever you're doing in this game.
You can also burn.
Lucas (12:20):
a, a rough, uh, equivalent
from, from the D and D world.
Wythe Marshall (12:24):
Oh, sure.
But, you know, grit is not that in that
it's not, not everyone's casting spells,
but you have powers that cost, points.
And um, the core thing is that you can
boost so you can burn three grit or
six grit or nine grit, which could be
a lot nine grit is like probably half
your starting grit for many people.
Um, ju just under half, um,
to get a plus three, a plus
six or plus nine on any role.
So anytime you're rolling to do anything
(12:45):
other than recover grit, obviously,
uh, you can burn grit and increase
your chances, but you still fail.
If you roll a one, you always fail.
If you roll a one.
So it adds this.
Kind of crazy gambling mechanic
where you're like, I burn
nine grit, like screw it.
Um, but it's really fun.
It in practice, it just
makes those big moments.
I think what it does for me is it, it
added something that was a little bit
(13:05):
missing, which was like the Nat 20 moment
in D and D where you're like, I got a
natural 20, I, I totally killed a monster.
So this is the same thing.
You're like, "I burn nine grit."
Like that's so much of my effort and
it's supposed to represent like, you
know, your energy, your attention,
your ability to like succeed.
You know, I don't know about you,
but like when I start the day,
I can only write so many really
good emails or pages or whatever.
(13:26):
And then by like the afternoon,
I'm like, hi, I need a break.
You know?
Um, so it's just meant to represent
that very abstractly and it's, it's
fast again, it's simple to learn.
Um, it's not like a huge headache cuz
you're again, adding a small number.
So it's, it's not like you
have to do a lot of math.
Um, so I'll shut up about it,
but that those are the two core
component.
Lucas (13:43):
you that, like that yin and
yang, that you've produced that push
and pull of, of, uh, randomness in the
person of the die and then choice in the
form of the grit pool are so central.
Like that is the heart and soul
of what makes a TT RPG, a TT RPG.
And you're right when you burn grit
and move it from a, a random outcome
(14:06):
to one over, which I have decided to
invest my maximum effort and cause
a certain outcome that slaps, to
be honest, like, that feels good.
And it's something that, uh, I
don't see in a lot of systems.
So I, I really appreciated
that about the game.
Let's talk about some of
the, specific antagonists in.
(14:27):
Stillfleet.
In particular, I wanna talk
about what you have called Cates.
I've not heard the name of
Lovecraft mythos used in that
particular way before, as, as an
adjective with that construction.
Uh, and it feels at once familiar
and different, which sounds to me
and looks to me like what you are
doing, um, with the, uh, Kalu mythos.
(14:50):
So Stillfleet being a super future
game and accessing all of the
rich history of science fiction.
How does that compare in
your mind to cosmic horror?
And why did you make the choice to, um,
make them so integral with each other?
Wythe Marshall (15:08):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's a fair question.
And I think some people push back
just because obviously of the,
the legacy of Lovecraft himself.
Um, but if you look at, to me, the
legacy of science fiction and the
impact Lovecraft had on science
fiction, um, and really more the,
the, the tradition of what I, I call
science, horror people call cosmic core.
Um, I think it's it it's, um, under
(15:29):
studied in science fiction studies.
So it's almost like people think
that, you know, science fiction takes
off from Jules Verne or whatever,
and this hard sci-fi standpoint.
And I think the pulp influence the weird
cosmic influence that taps into the things
Americans really like, you know, go big
or go home spiritual sort of, you know,
cosm this sort of religious, uh, religios.
Um, that, that Lovecraft really nails in
(15:52):
the, the classic stories, um, where at
some point, if you did encounter an alien
who was the size of a planet, I mean,
that would effectively be God, right?
And you could imagine cold
springing up and all these things.
Um, if you, if you, there beings that can
move in and out of our, our dimensions.
I mean, I think some of the horror,
the awe, the terror, the horror, all
being intermixed in those moments of
encounter, um, feel a lot truer than
(16:13):
a lot of the classic classic sci-fi
that is taught in sort of intro, uh,
or, you know, would be collected in
anthology of like the greatest 25 science
fiction stories up to a certain point.
I think now it's changing cuz now again,
Lucas (16:24):
I think.
Wythe Marshall (16:24):
yeah.
There's more people reading and writing.
So now those are getting much better.
You'd see, you know,
you'd see amazing stories.
You can imagine like a Ted Chan story
that's totally mind blowing that would
now be in an anthology that wouldn't
have been when I was a little kid right.
In the eighties, nineties.
So all I'm saying is, um, I think, you
know, putting Lovecraft's, um, personal
life aside in a sense, um, which I don't,
you know, I know you can't do entirely,
(16:46):
but I think he was onto something as
all I'm saying he had some good ideas
about, okay, there's a kind of scale at
which we can imagine from a hard science
fictional standpoint, he, you know, was
an obsessive reader of science news.
If you just extrapolate, okay, there's
some being that's evolved that can
live thousands of years and it's
the size of a mountain or whatever.
That would have a very different, reality
for people kind of encountering it,
(17:06):
uh, interacting with it in some way.
And it, and it does kind of push
science fiction into this, um, realm
of the spiritual, uh, or, you know,
the cosmic for, for sense of scale.
And I think that a game set so far in
the future that's meant to, um, really
play with scale and have the ability for.
Players to go down rabbit
holes with clank technology.
So it's low tech enough where like having
(17:27):
a pistol that works is kind of a big deal.
Um, but also right,
there's advanced aliens.
There's advanced immortal God like aliens.
So it's like, you know, that, that scale
is just this powers of 10 thing where
you can zoom in and you have a whole
scramble on a desert planet where you
need to find bullets for one pistol,
or you need a canteen full of water.
You could also have a game about,
you know, a kit and not to again,
(17:49):
you know, but just to reference fun
city cuz it's, you know, it exists.
Um, I think that's something, uh,
the float city arc of fun city did
really well is they introduced, you
know, one very powerful entity and
then kind of, you didn't realize it
at first necessarily how much of the,
the sort of story was about this.
Entity's just vast power and
knowledge and what it wanted
and how alien its once were.
(18:10):
Um, and, and it leads to a
really epic ending obviously.
Um, which so not to spoil too much,
but that's like, that's kind of,
I think, um, getting it, some of
these ideas that are incipient in.
Um, certainly not, not only Lovecraft,
but I think because some of those
stories nail it so well, it's just easy.
It's a reference point where many
people reading them growing up could
say, aha, there's something here.
That's quite different from this sort of,
(18:32):
um, some of the other themes explored and,
and sort of other, other sub genres of SF.
So, um, that was just a starting
place that has influenced me.
And I think the response to it.
So I'll just add you, then you
have writers like Victor Leval.
Um, you could also look at like Lovecraft
country, um, you know, PI, which is
playing around with, um, Poe, but,
but you know, Matt Johnson's work.
Um, you, you have these writers
where, uh, they're taking the
(18:53):
mythos and they're intentionally
kind of playing with elements of
it, um, because of their, their own
interest in today and in sort of.
You know, modern cultural values
as opposed to like Lovecraft
as a traditionalist, right?
Not like he was like, anti-modern
so what do you do if you are a
modern person, but you're still
interested in those moments of cosmic
awe cosmic scale, terror, and awe.
And what would it really be like to
(19:14):
encounter in a mortal being that exists
in more physical dimensions than three?
So I think that's those kind of
what ifs were interesting to me.
And I think similar to some of these other
writers of the new, weird, uh, China,
you know, I wanted to like pull some of
those elements out and, um, remove them
from, you know, Lovecraft per song and
this idea of like, oh, you're in the
1920s and you're an investigator which
you see in the call of Kalu kind of games.
(19:35):
And instead it's like, no, no, no,
it's a hundred millions of future.
It's a game about space
capitalism, but, you know, yeah.
There might be out there in the depths
of space hundred billion year old,
uh, you know, or not, not say that's
older than the universe, but you know,
billion year old, um, star sized beings.
And like, what would
you do if you met one?
You know what I mean?
And I think that is something,
um, really interesting.
It it's creates a different
(19:56):
kind of encounter from you meet
sort of the humanoid like alien.
Or you meet the evil robot,
you know what I mean?
So these are sort of sub
genres that one can play with.
Lucas (20:04):
I wanna drill down more
specifically and talk about the,
uh, Migo astrobiologists, um, cuz
these are a ULA kit monster in the
quick start in the quick start guide.
Can you thumbnail for
me what these guys are?
Wythe Marshall (20:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I should, I should clarify.
And this is not at all to be
pedantic about my own game,
Lucas (20:23):
No, no, please be
pedantic about your game.
one
Wythe Marshall (20:26):
UL
Lucas (20:26):
will
Wythe Marshall (20:27):
we use as a specific
term to mean like so powerful.
So alien that they live in quote
unquote, another dimension or
whatever, they, they kind of don't
interact with time space normally.
So the Migo are just aliens,
but you're absolutely right.
They're coming from the mythos
of, you know, which sort of
comes from the Lovecraft circle.
And many of those terms originated
with earlier writers and we're
explored by later writers.
(20:48):
So they're sort of passing through the
filter of one kind of random racist
asshole who happened to write sort of
the, again, a few stories that were
so good that they've sort of lived on
and, and been useful touchstones, even
as people have debated the value of
sort of his overall ouevre, and, and,
you know, done other things with it.
So Migo is one of those concepts.
Um, and the idea is just that they're
aliens from, uh, you know, according
(21:08):
to the original mythos, as I recall,
they're from the planet Pluto, which
they call Yuggoth and they're crab
shaped fungi, and they can fly.
And that's kind of, I think all
that we know, and they, they sort
of, um, they experiment on humans.
they kind of pretend to
be a human at one point.
And it's very, it's very spooky and weird.
Um, and you just, it's very different.
They're not like out there
stabbing people in the face they're
like scientists or something.
(21:29):
And I like that idea for this game.
So they've been a kind of recurring
villain in my campaigns, in
a, um, my co-designers games.
Um, you know, the Migo
are, they evolved on Pluto?
So what is Pluto?
I mean, Pluto's a rock with domes
made of solid ammonia or something.
I mean, it's just this terrifyingly
cold, um, sort of ice planet.
(21:50):
That's very, very, very small.
And, uh, you know, if life evolved
there, it'd be very different.
So fungi, even in this
sense is like a metaphor.
It's like they evolve from some
sort of, uh, you know, thing that is
very microscopic and can reproduce
very differently than humans.
And, um, now they're vaguely
crab shaped, but a lot of that
might be technology like biotech.
So who knows what part is the original
Migo and what part is sort of engineered?
(22:12):
Um, but we represent them
are artist, Ethan gold.
Who's an amazing artist, um, has
done some drawings and they look
just terrifying, uh, you know, sort
of hard to tell what's in Oregon
again, and what's maybe technical.
Um, but yeah, we liked this idea
of they're sort of scientists and
they're competitors with the company.
So we wanted some aliens, some of them,
yeah, you just they're space bad guys.
Uh, they're evil robots basically.
Um, Some of them are not at all sort
(22:35):
of quote unquote evil they're they're,
you know, really, um, interesting other
civilizations you could encounter.
And the Migo are occupying in
between position because they're
not inherently, um, evil, per se.
They just have a very different, you
know, they, they're interested in
humans and, um, all the other sapien,
you know, non-humans, you can play
in the game, uh, but they have their
own, they've evolved, uh, you know,
sapiens in a totally different way.
(22:55):
And they have their own
sort of code or ethics.
And we actually explored that in
a, in a little side, um, source
book that we did as a Z for a jam
on itch called UGA confidential,
where Ethan and I were really deep
into like, what if you play a Migo?
Okay.
Well to play a Migo, they have
so many systems running at once.
They're so advanced and it's, it's like
a, a slime mold, you know, it's all
these pieces that kind of flow together.
(23:17):
What if every player is just
one part of the same Migo?
So you're always playing one single Migo
scientist who has many routines operating.
And that would be very different
than playing five PCs, right.
Five human or non-human characters
in a space, fantasy setting.
So that's, that's kind of to give
you a sense of how we think of it is
like, yeah, that, I mean, it would be
like having, you know, five people,
(23:38):
um, in this kind of weird crab body.
Um, and yeah, so that's, that,
that was kind of at the core of the
design and it's just one of the,
sort of, to us iconic, , aliens.
But really even those terms,
monster alien, we try to avoid.
So we just call all the, the stat
blocks in the book encounter.
So there there's something you could
encounter and they have their own,
you know, dogmas, they have their own,
(23:59):
codes basically by which they live.
Lucas (24:01):
Among the powers and gear and story
notes and attacks, in this stat block,
are there any that you feel specifically
represent what you were going for,
or are a good example of that or ones
that you just thought were really fun?
Wythe Marshall (24:14):
Uh, yeah, I
mean, we, from the beginning
knew that we needed stat blocks.
And so Eric Lazar, the, the designer
of the book played a big role in,
um, helping us think through and
definitely playing with, uh, with Ethan
and, and many others, all our, you
know, play testers and, and patrons.
We have a pretty active discord server.
So if you wanna play, please hop on there.
We wanna schedule more and more games.
So they, they helped us think like
(24:35):
where, how could we lay out basically,
you know, combat movement reason
will charm for, uh, encounters.
And, uh, I was always writing
them with these little notes,
like gear, story notes.
So sort of like, what would they have on
them that might be of interest and then
story notes, just being a catchall, like
in a way, what do they look like when you
first see them just kinda write out and
pros a couple sentences to give the GM a
(24:55):
little more evocative language to go with,
maybe something they could read out loud.
Right.
Um, and then sometimes variants
so sometimes I'd write, you know,
basically one or two bullets of
like, uh, some of them have this stat
instead of this, or they have this
weapon instead of that, whatever.
Um, so that, that was kinda the basics.
And what we found is that we felt
it was lacking that sense for new
GMs approaching really weird ideas.
(25:15):
Like what is the motivation and to really
make it an encounter and not a monster.
And I, I like, um, what you said,
because yeah, I mean, you, there's
nothing wrong necessarily with playing
a game that is about heroes slaying
monsters, all in quotation marks.
Um, but that's not this game.
This game is about, you know, Picaresque
anti-heroes trying to figure out their
lives within a political economy they
find to be, you know, somewhat unjust.
(25:37):
The Picaresque is a literary tradition
in early modern Europe, essentially
tied with the birth of the novel.
And remember that in the early modernist
transition from the medieval world with
essentially swords to the early modern
world of guns and being shot in the face.
But also the transition from
feudal nobility aristocracy to,
um, the, the bourgeoisie, to
capitalists owning everything.
So D and D is kind of built on the
(25:58):
Picaresque, but it's, it's an inversion
because in D&D, it's trying to make
the Picaro into a hero, whereas in
the actual Picaresque stories, like
Don Quixote, if you're familiar at
all with that trope, this old man who
wants to be a Knight in the heroic
era of like the resadora or whatever,
but he's living in the early modern.
So everyone's like,
dude, there's no knights.
And Spain is already unified
as his colonial power.
Like, what do you want, man?
(26:18):
Like, he's trying to save like
maidens from monsters, but there's
no monsters, no one wants his help.
And his sidekick is this kind of idiot
who, you know, so they they're sort
of just like getting into trouble
while doing quote unquote adventures.
But basically they're getting
kicked out of inns and, um,
fighting non, like getting into
fights for, for like bad reasons.
That to me is very much like actually
when you play D and D like the GM has
(26:40):
some epic plot, but the, the Picaros,
the heroes are just like, "No, man,
we're just gonna murder these goblins.
Like, yeah, they're not even bad
goblins, I just want their gold."
And you're just like, "Ah,
why, why do you do that?"
So, uh, yes, in, in our game, we're very
much acknowledging, like you're probably
gonna play in the Picaresque tradition.
But, you know, in this case you
subverting the, the adventure,
(27:00):
your Syon is a good thing.
It's a feature, not a flaw.
So we it's, again, we, we thought of that.
I, I think it works up to you.
I was actually really motivated
there by, um, looking around
at other games that I like.
So there's a cool OSR game called
Troika, I don't know if you've played.
The book I'm thinking of is athe
death fan acid, death fantasy by
Luke Gehring, which is a great book
(27:22):
that has cool monsters in a sort of
dune like, um, psychedelic setting.
And that was one where specifically
Eric and I were reading it and thinking,
oh, these encounters are really cool.
We're not doing the same exact
thing, but like, we need to up
our game encounter block wise.
Right.
That was when we decided, okay.
We need to like really
think about our encounters.
And one of the things I like is
their stop blocks they have mean.
(27:42):
So they, they just have sort of
a list of like, what are these,
um, beings generally doing?
Um, and so that's, that's
that and the idea of
an
Lucas (27:51):
of mean as in, uh, you
know, attitude or, or general,
uh, posture and behavior,
Wythe Marshall (27:58):
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
So we, we sort of were, were thinking
about that, Eric and I were like,
you know, what if we just basically
had our version of, of that, like,
what is this thing usually doing?
And then the other piece dogma was, was
coming out of thinking about alignment
and just, you know, I definitely don't
want an alignment system, but I thought,
okay, I could say what's the motivation.
If I bullet pointed one major motivation
for this specific encounter and maybe,
(28:19):
you know, I could say in the story notes,
well, there's many, many factions that
have different, you know, ideologies,
but this person cares about this.
So it became a really fun game
of kind of in a way, speculative
kind of like political fiction.
So like each dogma tends to be these like
weird terms where we're mashing up and
we've had a lot of fun thinking through
like, what, what are the motivations
that aliens would have and how to
(28:40):
represent that in English language that
anyone could ever understand at all.
So even if it's weird, yeah.
It has to like give you a hook somehow.
So.
Um, you know, for the Migo, for the, for
this Migo group in the Quickstart, we
went with either obsessive and empiricism.
So they're just kind of aliens
who might wanna dissect you, just
cuz they're really curious, um,
or data driven, real politics.
(29:01):
So they have some sort of you goti
political conundrum and the data says,
you know, they need to interact with
you in some way, steal your tech, uh,
harm you, maybe they need your help.
Right.
And, and, and so we're not saying
GMs, here's exactly how to use it.
We're saying here's different
things that this very different
than human, um, being might care.
And we're trying to give it sort of
(29:21):
language that would, um, be evocative.
Yeah.
Just help a GM run an encounter.
Um, and then the habits part is, you
know, similar to me and it's, it's
saying, okay, what are ways that
you might come across this being?
Um, and again, just giving
the GM stuff to work with.
So is it taking notes, which is
gonna look very, very different
because it's evolved and uses this
biotechnology and lives in hard vacuum.
So, you know, what was I say?
(29:43):
Um, it looks like surgery on a
squealing blinking lion's main mushroom.
So, you know what I mean?
It's like holding a thing
and doing a thing to it.
And what it's doing in its mind is
taking notes on this biocomputer to you.
You're like, oh my God, are you
killing a dog made of mushroom?
Like, what is that?
Um, versus like maybe it's 3d
printing a Scally tool that will grow
into a whole bubble shaped house.
(30:03):
So it's like building something
and, and again, these are just
evocative, like just moments.
The GM could completely discard, but
they might help the GM say, oh, I know
I'm just gonna describe it as doing X.
And, and we've found that pretty, I found
that useful in running games and I feel
like I've seen other GMs kind of pick up.
This idea of like these little
images, like what this thing might
be doing when you meet it and,
and, you know, the run of it.
Lucas (30:27):
When a party of players have
finished the encounter with, uh, a
Migo astrobiologist, um, what do you
want them to be thinking about or
remembering a couple of weeks later?
Wythe Marshall (30:39):
Oh, that's
such a good question.
Um, I'm trying to think back to
times I've used this kind of trope
of monster, this specific alien.
Um, see, I just said monster, uh,
the, this specific encounter and
when, uh, my, my friend, Ethan,
who's also the artist and also helps
design the game has used, um, these,
he had a whole campaign with Migo.
I think one of the things I remember
from playing in Ethan's campaign about
(31:00):
the Migo was, um, actually a lot of
the encounters where we, there was one
on you, goth, where we took the stiff
works, the time space gates in the game
that allow for, you know, instantaneous
travel between worlds to you goth.
And the whole time we
didn't see a single Migo.
We saw these sort of conservatory,
these like humans who'd been, um,
experimented on in the complex.
(31:21):
We were in this scientific complex.
And every time the Migo would be
around the corner, kind of, they
would be coming on their way.
Like we would trip up the AI
somehow and then the Migo would,
would come and we would leave.
And that made this kind of
constant cat and mouse feeling.
That was very much like
a great sci-fi movie.
And it allowed.
Ethan's very funny.
And so there were a lot of moments of
humor, but then that would happen when
(31:41):
we would realize, oh shit, like the Migo
is coming, the scientists are coming.
It was really kind of terrifying cuz
you're like, I don't think we're like
first level or second level at that point.
Like there's no way we're
gonna sort of defeat even one.
We're probably, definitely not gonna
defeat like a small party of them.
So, um, it was almost their absence and
the fact that we knew they had intention,
like they weren't random, right.
(32:01):
They weren't like coming
to kill us for blood sport.
You know, they were coming to experiment
on us and turn us into essentially these
fungal zombies we kept running into.
Um, or, or there were just people sort
of spaced out on like essentially drugs.
And so it had this kind of
vibe of like, almost like we're
gonna become a main candidate.
And that was scarier than just
fighting a random quote monster.
And I really liked how Ethan played it,
(32:22):
where there were very few actual Mego.
And so at the end, when you
finally like encountered them, it
was like, it was such a big deal.
And to know that it wasn't gonna be
a typical combat encounter, right.
That they were actually trying to
subvert the company, they were doing
this whole sort of candidate, um,
You know, CIA kind of, kind of SIOP.
Um, and that was so much more
fulfilling than like a big fight.
(32:43):
So I would want people to take that away
in general from the game that yes, you
can always do combat in these games.
Um, but there's so many other ways
to have fun and to be true to the
Picaresque tradition, which Ethan
Arabic fans of which kind of gave
rise to D and D in a way, the best
parts are running away from fights.
The best parts are losing
fights, losing duals.
I mean, that's what makes
like donkey whatever great.
It's, it's not an action
movie, you know what I mean?
It's, it's about a guy screwing up.
(33:04):
So I think I would, I would say, you
know, running away from Migo, um, is
perfectly valid and, um, you know, uh,
may make you think about like, ah, do we
wanna sort of seek an Alliance with them?
Do we, you know, how do we sort
of prove what they're up to?
Um, and that's what I would want players
to sort of talk about between sessions.
Lucas (33:22):
Is there anything that we
haven't talked about that you wanna make
sure is a part of this conversation?
Wythe Marshall (33:29):
um, I think it's
just stuff you, you probably cover
in your other episodes more, which
I I've listened to some of, and I, I
wanna list go back and listen to the
whole catalog, cuz I like the show.
Um, but I think the idea of
ity and the role that design.
Others plays both at the level of like
playable species or DD speak races.
Um, and how different can they be and
(33:49):
what are the, the sort of bonuses or
drawbacks and how does that essentialism,
um, get mechanicalized in a game
that is something that obviously,
um, many designers think a lot about,
I thought a lot about Stillfleet.
The other piece is designing then, um,
antagonists or possible antagonists.
So again, we call them encounters because
you don't necessarily have to fight them
per se, but we wanna make, you know,
(34:10):
if we, if we bother to stat block, um,
an encounter it's because that being
might resist you in some way, right?
You might not be rolling to hit them
in combat, but you might be trying to
charm them and they're rolling will
to resist your charms or whatever.
Right.
They're lying to you and you
need to suss out the truth.
So your rolling will et cetera.
Um, and I think, uh, in both cases,
obviously all game designers think
(34:31):
about these things, um, to, to
various degrees and, and with various
kind of ideologies of game design.
Um, and with us, I think we've tried to
make species that are interesting and D.
And so there's a lot of interesting
non-humans and you have that
element of science fictional.
Um, but, uh, they all have something in
common and then the aliens, the encounters
we've allowed to push and make these much,
(34:54):
much, much, much, much sort of weirder.
So you have like say these ULA
kits who have D 20 S for stats.
So in Stillfleet, you don't
generally have a D 20.
So to fight something with a D 20
is like a big deal, um, ancient
war machines, you know, what about
like, uh, AI that is essentially,
you know, basically insane, right?
It's logic boards no longer operate
correctly, and it is wandering around,
(35:14):
um, just still fighting some war that
has been over for 5,000 years, you
know, that civilization has gone.
Um, and I think those kinds of
questions about how one would
interact with them, what do they
want, how could they be convinced?
Um, I, I think those are all ways
of getting at essentially like
really at the end of the day human
difference, and they're creating,
um, you know, safe, fun ways to,
with your friends explore questions.
(35:37):
We might all have about AI and about.
How do we resolve all
kinds of differences?
Um, and at the end of the day, yeah,
I think it's just more interesting
to have them stack up to some
kind of political discussion.
Where do we want the company to go?
Where do we want our jobs to be, as
opposed to merely repeating over and over
again, the kind of, uh, murder hobo, you
know, algorithm of kill a thing, take
(35:57):
its gold, kill a thing, take its gold.
You know what I mean?
And just kill bigger and bigger things.
I think in a way all most games tend
to stack in, in some direction, right?
So D and D stacks in that, that
direction, the murder hobo, um, algorithm.
And we're trying to create a stack where
over time the encounters add up, um, and
whatever campaign you, you know, however
you run Stillfleet towards some sort
of deeper idea about your, your role
(36:19):
in a broader society that is inhabited
by not just humans, but all kinds of
beings in at this point in, in, in time.
So, um, yeah, I, I hope we've succeeded.
I hope people give it a chance.
And, um, we'd love to hear, you know,
obviously we like talking to people
on discord and, and elsewhere about.
What they think and how they've used this.
And, and again, I'll credit.
Like so many of our players GMs
have come up with so many great
(36:41):
ideas and really fun campaigns.
Um, so it's no longer, it's
no longer just my baby.
And I think that's a good
thing personally, but
Lucas (36:48):
I really want this to see, I
know it already has, um, but I really
want this to succeed in, in every
way that it is possible for it to do,
which, uh, I will abandon the pretense
of journalistic impartiality here
because, uh, this thing is incredible.
Thanks for listening to Making a Monster.
Here's how to get
(37:08):
Stillfleet at your table.
Wythe Marshall (37:10):
So if you're interested in
Stillfleet, uh, this is the perfect time.
There's two days left.
So you really should act like today.
If you're thinking about it, check
out on Kickstarter, uh, Stillfleet.
You can go it's it's under, you
know, games, projects we love.
Um, you can just look up Stillfleet one.
Uh, and you'll find it on a
Kickstarter and that is the
campaign for the core rule book.
So that's all the rules.
(37:30):
Um, it's the book we've been
working on for forever and
there's tons of other material.
Some of it is out a little bit was out.
Most of it is gonna come out
after the core rule book.
And actually we decided to go ahead and
do two books at once because we're just
huge masochist that way as creators.
So you can buy the coral
book as a PDF for print.
You can also, uh, pledge and, and,
and, you know, basically pre-order,
um, as physical or digital.
(37:52):
A venture.
So a playable scenario,
that's also a source book.
It has lots of information on one world,
uh, and that is, uh, setting, um, called
the rain thieves, um, by our friend and
web developer, Aaron H um, and, uh, co
game designer and, and great person.
Uh, and the rain thieves, uh, not only
is this, this venture, this, this epic
kind of ecological, uh, political story,
(38:14):
uh, is also just a great source book.
If you want a really rich, um, desert
sci-fi planet, if you're interested
in sort of themes from dune, but, uh,
you know, totally different, right.
And in the, in the stilly universe,
um, uh, you know, check it out.
It's got an intelligent, uh, spider,
like Xeno fauna, um, of different kinds
and a lot of weird, uh, architects.
So ancient technology is buried
in the sands, um, and, uh,
(38:35):
just, you know, some mysteries.
Uh, so those are, those are two
books you can pledge for now.
We also have tons of other, um,
items, you know, it's, we have sort
of merch stuff, you know, t-shirts
and pins, which are really great.
Eric Lazar is an amazing designer
and we're showing off the art
of Ethan gold and the shirts.
But, you know, in addition to that,
uh, we have a deck of reference cards.
(38:56):
So 52 cards for GMs that have,
um, basically architect and
encounters, um, summarized.
So for the encounters, it's not gonna
be every single word in a full cuz.
Usually encounter blocks are
about half a page or a full page.
These are just gonna be the summaries
with the stats and some quick thoughts.
Um, and those are gonna be fun things with
images that we would hope jams could show
players, as they're playing the game, they
(39:16):
could hand out architect, they could show
you the, the thing you're encountering.
And if people like that,
we can do more of it.
But this is, you know, for us,
we're kind of new to a lot of this.
We've all printed stuff in the past.
Um, we're all, we've, it's
the model of like swift trust.
We're all good at like the one
thing we do, but this we're
a new company as Stillfleet.
So, um, you know, we hope you like it.
And we we're really
excited about the book.
Um, most of all, just cuz it's been in
(39:37):
development for a long time and we do
hope people give the game a, a, a try.
So again, you hit the PDF and
just, you know, um, check it out.
The PDF will be out way
before the physical book, just
due to, you know, printing.
So that'll be much sooner.
Lucas (39:48):
Wythe, thank you so much for
being a part of the show, uh, and
bringing this collection of the weird
and the wonderful to the conversation.
You've added quite a bit.
I'm really excited for this
to be a part of the cannon.
Wythe Marshall (39:59):
Um, thank you so much.
, I love the show.
I love the idea and I think it's
important to, um, in some ways I
think a little deeper as a community.
but it's cool to think philosophically,
like what makes a game fun or, or
what makes it do certain things?
What makes it have certain effects?
So I love this idea of like, let's just
drill down on one monster at a time.
I think it's brilliant.
Lucas (40:15):
Thank you.
We'll be back next week and every
week, this fall with new episodes
from creators I met at GenCon, new
stories from the Book of Extinction,
and a few wild cards like Stillfleet.
Hope to see you there!
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