October 8, 2025 • 56 mins
Stakes make stories breathe. We sit down with Jon Cohen - writer, host, and designer behind Tale of the Manticore and One Shot in the Dark - to explore why consequence beats comfort, how a hybrid format turns solo play into gripping audio drama, and what it takes to build a one-shot that actually ends in one sitting. Jon walks us through the creative risks, the craft, and the quiet discipline that keeps a polished episode shipping every 10 days without losing the sting in its tail.
We also talk about One Shot in the Dark, John’s rules ultra-light dungeon crawl where cards prompt the map you draw, four hapless adventurers push forward through three levels, and a final boss waits at the end. It’s emergent narrative with real replay value and a surprisingly welcoming on-ramp for kids and new players.
If you're interested in checking out One Shot in the Dark it can be found here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/366526/one-shot-in-the-dark
Likewise, Tale of the Manticore is here: https://www.taleofthemanticore.com/
Contact us at:
EMAIL: roll.to.save.pod@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/rolltosavepod
WEBSITE: https://rolltosave.blog
HOSTS: Iain Wilson, Steve McGarrity, Jason Downey
BACKGROUND MUSIC: David Renada (Find him at: davidrendamusic@gmail.com or on his web page).
TITLE, BREAK & CLOSEOUT MUSIC: Xylo-Ziko (Find them on their web page).
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Iain (00:09):
Welcome to Roll2Save history podcast.
So hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Roll to Save.
(00:29):
Today we have the pleasure ofbeing joined by a longtime
friend of the podcast, JohnCohen, writer and host of the
wonderful Tale of the Manticorepodcast.
John, it has been a while.
How are you?
Jon (00:42):
I'm really good again, and it is very good to be back and
uh great to be hanging out withyou again.
It's been too long.
Iain (00:48):
It has been too long indeed.
Yeah, last time we spoke,actually, I was tormenting you
in the game of Paranoia.
You were one of our wonderfulvoice actors for our critically
acclaimed episodes of Paranoia.
That was a joy.
Jon (01:02):
Folks, if you haven't heard that, if you haven't heard
that, go and listen to that.
Not not for my performance, butsome of the players are
hysterical.
That was a that was a greatrun.
Iain (01:13):
Anyway, John, how are you?
What have you been up togaming-wise recently?
Because again, it's been awhile.
Jon (01:19):
Outside of the podcast, uh, which is a game that just is
always there.
Uh, I've got a couple of onlinegames.
We're just talking about that abit before we hit the red
button.
And one of them is a weeklyMithras game, which I didn't
mention before, and it's myfirst time with that system.
And I have mix I have mixedfeelings about Mithras.
(01:39):
It's clearly um it's made withlove, for sure, but because it's
so simulationist, it does tendto make for a very slow game.
So if you're okay with a veryslow-moving plot, combat that
takes uh excessive time, uhhours, um, then it then it might
(02:01):
be the system for you.
I know it's a lot of people'sfavorite system.
It's a bit of a shock becausewe pivoted from OSC to Mithras.
So we went from this very hightempo kind of thing to this very
slow slog.
But we're all kind of thinking,well, we need to learn the
system, and then once we learnthe system, maybe it'll it'll
(02:21):
kind of speed up a bit.
So that's interesting.
And then I'm in a secondcampaign, which is a it's such a
classic.
It's a uh OSC keep on theborderlands game.
It doesn't get more classicthan that.
Iain (02:34):
Yeah, I love keeping the borderlands.
That was one of my well, I seeI love I think the last time I
played Keeping the Borderlands,I was probably 11 years old, but
I have very, very fond memoriesof it.
It's got the nostalgia hit forsure.
It's super detailed.
Like I've got the Goodman Gamesremake of it, where it does a
it does a fifth ed version andthe classic version, and the
(02:55):
level of detail is obsessive inthe original because it was
obviously like we're gonna makethis town for you, right, and
it's gonna be your base ofoperations, and you're gonna go
forth and do stuff, and yeah,there's it's it's a lot of fun.
But I'm glad it holds up afterall these years.
It's curious what you say aboutMithras because last time we
spoke in like this setting,which was probably about four
(03:19):
years ago, you actuallymentioned Mithras as one of the
games that you wanted to getinto.
Jon (03:23):
Oh my gosh, did I?
You know, the last couple ofyears have really been about me
trying to at least once play allof these games that I missed
while I was in the deep freezebecause you know I I kind of
stepped away from for forliteral decades from the hobby,
and when I came back, there wasso much stuff, and so much stuff
(03:46):
that people loved in sort ofonline conversations and and
with all the cyber friends thatyou make.
People mention these things,and I had no experience with any
of them at all, including 5ewhen I came back, and so it it
takes a while to hook up all ofthese experiences because it's
(04:07):
not always easy to find a game.
Even online game is sometimesnot easy to find, but my my
preference, uh like a live tablegame, can be really, really
difficult to dis to discover,uh, and to find a uh a good one
where the the people gel in thecorrect way is that's
(04:27):
practically a unicorn.
Um my my hit rate is low.
Uh yeah, I'm not doing a greatjob at finding a live table game
which will stick.
Um I've had some success, butum but I've had some failures
too.
Iain (04:43):
It's hard to find a table game that will match your t your
taste, mainly because whenyou're doing an online game,
it's usually your core group orpeople that you know through
similar circles, and thereforeyour tastes are likely to be
aligned.
But when you're finding apickup game, it will literally
be Randos.
Yeah.
And you know, for everyone whowants to play a game like you,
(05:04):
there's one guy who would bemore at home playing Avalon Hill
War games, but he's decided totranslate that into DD, and
there's another kid who's youknow been watching YouTube
videos about how to optimise hischaracter build and gets very
upset that he's not actuallyplaying a video game.
I don't want to surprise you,but there are some strange
people out there.
We actually talked about thison our we did an episode about
(05:28):
Mindseye Theatre, which is aworld of darkness LARPing from
back in the day.
Uh.
And I have never in all myyears as somebody running games
found more of a magnet forgenuine oddballs than that.
And don't be wrong, I've hadsome of my best gaming
experiences through VampireLARPs.
(05:49):
Yeah.
But also it's been the onlyoccasion where as an adult I've
had to actually kick people outof games for just how they're
behaving.
Because one of the things withthese LARPs is you really, by
their very nature, need a largebody of players.
Yeah.
And while I had never quitesubscribed to the come one, come
(06:10):
all approach, I would be opento when people are like, Oh,
here, my friend from out of townwants to come in and join the
game, can they?
Like, sure, you know, have themcome along, and then like some
freak in a trench coat turns upwho's more interested in like
sexually harassing all thefemale players, and you're like,
Oh, great, we're gonna have theconversation again.
Jon (06:30):
There we go, it's the hobby, it's the hobby we love.
Iain (06:32):
It is that it's a nature of the beast, yes.
Yeah, so I mentioned before,obviously, long-time listeners
will know this, but you are thewriter and host of Tale of the
Manticord, and you're not whatyour like third season now, like
the 50 plus episode into yourthird season.
I also I'm so envious of thefact you reliably release an
episode every 10 days, which issomething I am incredibly
(06:56):
jealous of.
Your your output is prolific,and it's not just your prolific,
the quality is prolific aswell.
Like, every episode isincredibly polished, you write
it well, it's very wellproduced, and I'm like, how does
he do this every 10 days?
Whereas I spend my time gettingrid of the ums and ahs that me,
Jason, and Steve drop into ourconversations all the time, and
I'm like, editing is hell.
Jon (07:17):
There's parts of making uh shows like ours that are not
fun, right?
It's just work.
Iain (07:23):
But let them see behind the cotton joint.
Jon (07:27):
There's something about seeing the accumulation of the
story getting bigger over timeand attracting listeners and
just seeing the thing grow.
That's really satisfying.
And I'm just addicted to doingit, and so I've just made it all
of my hobbies are now this one.
They all funnel into the showin one way or another.
Iain (07:50):
So if you were to talk to a new listener, give us our
brief synopsis then of thedifference between seasons one,
two, and three of Manticore.
Like you talk about watching itgrow, you've obviously seen it
grow, and as listeners, we'veseen it grow over the three
seasons.
How would you describe that toa brand new listener if you were
pitching it to them?
Jon (08:08):
Right.
I I guess I should go back evenone step.
And if for people that aren'tfamiliar with the show, the
concept is basically it's it'sthe collision between an actual
play and an audio drama.
And so it kind of vacillatesbetween those two states.
You know, talk about the game,playing the game as an actual
play, as a solo actual play, uhjust to make things more
(08:29):
complicated, and then pivot intoa dramatized, you know,
third-person past tense versionof it with music, with sound
effects, and over time addingthings like voice actors.
And the and the reason that'smeaningful is because I can do
things in the audio dramaportion that are not available
(08:50):
in actual play games, likeflashbacks, uh, extreme point of
view shifts, things thatwouldn't work at a table game,
do work in this hybrid medium.
Okay, so now to get back toyour actual question.
This the seas season one, Ijust wanted it to be, um, as as
(09:11):
somebody who's returning to theto the hobby after a long time
away, I wanted it to be like alove letter to my early gaming
experiences.
And I was I had selected BX uhD D mostly because it works well
with the audio medium becauseit so rules light, and I
wouldn't have to spend much timein explanation, I wouldn't have
(09:31):
to put a a load on the listenerof things to keep track of,
which I think for the audiomedium is important.
And so with BX, I just did a adeep dive into all of those
classic tropes.
And so season one for me isit's about classic DD.
There's green slime, there's adragon at the end, you know,
(09:55):
it's it's all of the things.
Iain (09:57):
Sparless John, come on.
Jon (09:58):
Yeah, it's full of cliches, but but very deliberately so,
you know, in in love lettersstyle, in in homage style.
And and then also season one isa bit is about me learning how
to do podcasting, and it's aboutme learning how to do this uh
kind of new medium where it'swhere it's a hybrid, and uh I
(10:20):
just kind of feeling out theboundaries and trying to
innovate further and further andfurther.
Uh season two.
I thought, well, I'll do what Ididn't do in season one and try
and do a kind of uh urbanenvironment, and my intention
was to do a more complicatedplot.
I'm I succeeded in the urbanenvironment.
(10:42):
I'm not sure that I succeededin a more complicated plot in
the end, uh, but that was theoriginal idea to have sort of
different factions and how theywould influence each other.
Kinda Game of Thrones uhinspired idea there.
And then again, urban, muchlower fantasy, like human
(11:02):
characters, nothing but humancharacters, I think, and darker,
and and sort of explore almostfantasy slash horror.
And then season three, which ismy current season, about two th
I'm about halfway through interms of publishing and about
two-thirds of the way through interms of script writing.
That one again is a um just uhcontrast.
(11:27):
Uh, and I thought, well, I'll tI'm gonna take a risk here.
I'm gonna do higher fantasy,which is not even my preference,
but I thought I'm gonna try it.
I'm gonna try a femaleprotagonist, and instead of an
ensemble group, really actuallyhave a main character, which can
be dangerous because I promiseat the beginning of every
(11:48):
episode that characters aren'tsacred, they don't have plot
armor, they can die, and that istrue, and so I thought, oh, if
I do a main character, theycould die, and I will have to
deal deal with that.
I won't spoil and say whetherthat has happened or not, but
but yeah, season three has beendare I say lighter tone, higher
(12:10):
fantasy, moved away from horror.
It's still not for kids, it'sstill very much for adults, but
this one channels in season twoI was thinking like Martyrs.
Game of Thrones, you know,exploring like real dread, uh
trying to anyway.
And in this season, I'mthinking more like Dark Crystal,
(12:31):
Wizard of Oz.
It's it's a lighter, higherfantasy, but it's I still wanted
to feel ugly and gross underthe skin.
Because I always felt like as akid they're the best time
bandits, dark crystal, thesethings that sort of grabbed me
as a child, they were alwayskind of ugly under the surface,
(12:57):
and that's there's somethingthere that I loved, so I'm
constantly trying to capturethat idea of it's light, but
it's also really dark.
Iain (13:07):
Uh, at the same time, I think you've succeeded in
getting that contrast betweenthe seasons because like season
one, you're absolutely right,very much BX uh D D.
Yeah, that it it I think itconjured that vibe perfectly.
I would say with your seasontwo, it gave me much more
Warhammer fantasy roleplay thanDD in terms of the urban
(13:28):
environment, and like you say,the the underlying horror to it.
That that's one thing I alwayslike with Warhammer, I always
try to explain it to people.
It's much more, it's got morein common with Call of Cthulhu
than it has with Dungeons andDragons.
I get that because it's thislow fantasy with like horror
underneath.
I really enjoy your thirdseason.
(13:49):
I know you say it's like morehigh fantasy, but it's I think
it's because I've been along forthe really since the beginning
and seen like this change instyle, and I I like how you've
you you flipped that uh becauseit is the change from the
ensemble cast to the the soloprotagonist.
Um it's I think as a long timelistener, I I wasn't like, oh my
(14:13):
god, what's he done here?
It was like, oh, this isinteresting, let's see, let's
see where this goes.
And I'm sure that's the thefeedback you've had.
I think people enjoy the factthat it's not just this
never-ending saga, it's like youhave these defined start and
end points of we're gonna dosomething new now, yeah, and
that really works well.
I also loved what you you saidthere about uh people dying.
(14:35):
One of the things that'sbeautiful about your podcast is
there'll be characters thatpeople get dearly attached to,
yeah, and then they die inusually horrible circumstances.
Like I still remember the veryfirst time someone died in your
first season, uh-huh, and it wasa character I really liked.
I'm like, oh my god, he justkilled him.
(14:56):
I remember it too.
I remember that.
Killed them, yeah.
And what's that like as awriter when you've um created
those characters that presumablyyou've got attached to, and
then you're like, oh, I'm gonnahave to write this guy's death
scene.
Jon (15:10):
It's I think there's a couple of things that I could
talk about there.
One of them is that it's thesame feeling when you make a
character at a table game andyou bond with them, and if they
die, you you mourn them.
It's it's very real.
That feeling of loss and andthat feeling of worry when you
(15:30):
might lose them, and then youdo.
And then you almost kind ofyou're in denial for a moment.
You go through all the all theclassic sort of stages, right?
Oh, there's the bargaining.
Oh, maybe I maybe I can jukethe numbers, so that didn't
happen.
But if you want to be honestwith yourself, then you have to
accept it.
The second thing to say is, andagain, I'm gonna say this is
(15:52):
like game like a like a tablegame, because because my show is
in many ways, I don't knowabout most, in many ways, it is
like a table game.
The death of a character makesthe the larger picture so much
more effective because now it isunderstood there are stakes,
(16:12):
there are there are things thatcould be lost, and so now
there's real tension, there'sreal excitement.
It's something that I feel ismissing from some of the more
some of the games that I'vetried since coming back to the
hobby.
I I keep talking about 5e, andI don't mean to cast a lot of
shade on 5e, but for me it justfeels it's just not dangerous
(16:34):
enough.
For for me again.
Uh I want to feel those stakes.
Um, that's why I do gravitatetowards uh the OSC or you know
Cthulhu, which every time I'veplayed it, it's always been
like, you are going to die, butlet's try and make it so cool
and make it make the story abetter, richer thing.
Whenever it happens in inManticore, I feel that morning,
(16:59):
but I also know that it's goingto make the the show better.
Iain (17:05):
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that um aspect of
character death adding tostories.
Like I I enjoy DD fifth ed, butI feel it's very insulated
against death.
Like you have death saves.
Yeah.
Like you lose all your hitpoints and you have like three
chances to get out of jail.
Right, right.
And you know, if your partyhasn't come and rendered you
know first aid by that point.
(17:25):
So it's very, very hard to diein it.
But I've always I run gamesmore than play them, but when
I've played games, I almost takea perverse satisfaction in my
character dying in a way thatfacilitates narrative.
I remember a game of Legends ofthe Five Rings that I played
years ago, and my character andmy amigos were in the
(17:50):
Shadowlands, which is Legends ofthe Five Rings kind of kind of
hell realm that exists next tothe main setting, and we were
like desperately trying to getback to um the Empire to warn
them of this big threat, andwe're getting chased by this
whole big horde of nasties, andit was evident that the nasties
were gonna gain on us, and I wasthe only character with a
(18:11):
horse, and I think there was abit of well, maybe he could ride
ahead and get help.
And I turned around to the restof them and said, Right, go,
I've got this.
And I said, Okay, I turned myhorse around and I gun it
towards the you know the theenemies.
So the the GM took me aside andhe's like, Okay, what was your
plan here?
I'm like, I'm just gonna go outin a blaze of glory and buy
(18:33):
them time.
It's like your character willdie.
I'm like, I don't care, right?
It's just like a samurai dramathat's giving his life.
That's great, and it was one ofthe coolest sessions because
he's narrating what's happening,and the rest of the players are
like, they don't know that mycharacter's going to die.
So they're all like, yeah, he'sdoing all this stuff, and then
he dies.
(18:53):
Right.
And they're like, wait, what?
And suddenly hit them like he'sgiven his life that we can
escape with this message.
Jon (18:59):
That's story, man.
That's where story lives,right?
Iain (19:02):
Exactly, and that's what it is.
And I don't care that thischaracter was like a
two-year-old character withloads of experience points.
I get to play something elsenow, but it was silly.
A great part of the and it'swhen I used to see players
getting bent out of shape whenthey lost a character, saying a
vampire LARP that I ran, and Iget it because people are
invested, but at the same time,it's like your if your
(19:22):
character's demise contributesto the story.
Ultimately, this is pretendyfan time games, yeah, so you can
do something else, right?
So don't take it out on the youknow, don't try and get the
player who took out yourcharacter, he's still
acknowledged that they playedwell and then play something
else and move on.
(19:42):
But I could rant for hoursabout that.
I used to see that so often inthose games.
People, I'm gonna get him.
Like, why?
Why killed my character?
Your character your newcharacter doesn't know that.
Your new character is acompletely different person, be
an adult.
Absolutely.
Jon (19:56):
Yeah, I I think that the thing to fear is not a character
death, it is a characterignoble death.
You don't if you if you die byyou know from a giant rat,
that's that just sucks.
I think there's no way aroundit.
That just sucks.
Or if a kobold kills yourcharacter, that just sucks.
Iain (20:18):
Mind you, at the same time, I run more Hammer Fantasy
roleplay where you can literallydie of the cold.
You know, you're out in therain, your character starts
getting the snippels, and ohyeah, he's dead.
Sorry, because socializedhealthcare doesn't exist.
Jon (20:31):
That one's still on my list.
Iain (20:34):
That's good, yeah.
Well, I I I will have to run agame of it for you sometime.
It's it's a lot of fun.
If by fun really being in themud in this kind of low fantasy
vibe, is your thing.
That's where I thrive.
Anyway, speaking of low fantasyvibes, there's another thing
you do as well as Tail of theMantico, which is why I wanted
to get you on today.
Yeah, you've got a little gameof your own called One Shot in
(20:58):
the Dark.
Now, I've had a lot of fun withthis, but rather than have me
gush and fanboy all over it,tell our listeners what one shot
in the dark is and where theycan get it.
Jon (21:09):
One Shot in the Dark is a solo one-shot fantasy game.
Um, so it can be played with upto four players, but it's
really designed for one.
But but that's it, it does workfor up to four.
It's a fantasy game where youdraw cards which give you a
prompt, you draw a map, and youmove four classic trope
(21:35):
characters, fighter, cleric,mage, thief, through three
levels of a dungeon to fight thebig boss, which is also
randomly determined at the end.
The selling point is that it'sa one-shot, that's really a
one-shot.
It really takes about betweenan hour and an hour and a half
to play the game, and it hasreplay value because there are
(21:57):
so many random elements.
I'm always doing a terribleterrible job at explaining what
it is.
Uh the other feature of thegame, really, my elevator
pitches need work.
The other, I guess, feature ofthe game is that it takes an
idea from The Quiet Year, whichis a game where you also draw
cards with prompts on them anddevelop a map, uh, kind of
(22:18):
freeform.
And and this does the same kindof thing.
So you don't draw, you know,um, dungeon tiles which build a
map for you.
It'll just say something likelarge cavern, two exits.
You draw it, it's gonna lookdifferent for everybody.
And and even even some of theenemies are, you know, the thing
in the pit, uh, what is that?
(22:39):
And then it's up to you to comeup with these elements as as
you play.
Iain (22:44):
I'm gonna use a very pretentious term here, but the
thing that I loved about it wasthe emergent narrative aspect of
it.
Yeah.
Like this whole theory aboutRPGs that you know the story
isn't what you as the GM writes,it's what emerges through
gameplay.
Jon (23:02):
Yeah, the byproduct, yeah.
Iain (23:03):
Yeah, whenever players talk about like sessions I've
run, I'm always happy whenthey're not actually talking
necessarily about things I'vewritten, but I remember that
time where you know John didXYZ, that was really cool.
You get that with this, becauseas you said, the prompts are
not specific.
Yeah, they encourage yourimagination.
And one thing I love about soloRPGs, and it's probably the
(23:29):
frustrated writer in me, is thatcreation aspect of taking those
prompts and saying, Okay, whatdoes that actually look like?
Uh-huh.
Because what it looks like inyour head is way cooler than
anything that could be writtendown in a prompt, and it's
similar to again what you seewhen you run an RPG, that's how
players envisage something intheir head is usually far better
(23:50):
than you as a GM could couldever describe it.
It's like one of the reasons Ilike doing in games if people
are on their journey, like frompoint town A to town B, I'll
often say to my players,Describe to me what happens in
the 3D journey.
Tell me what happens, yeah, andwhat's in their head is far
better, and you get that withthis game.
Like I was I remember when youwere first making it and you
(24:12):
said, Hey, do you mind checkingthis out?
and I had a look at it.
I think I told you at the timeI get kind of obsessive about
the map making making aspect ofit, uh-huh.
Like drawing these maps thatthe came even my party died
horribly on like the firstlevel, it was just seeing this
map come to life for this blankpiece of paper, yeah, and
suddenly you've got this wholestory told out there that you
(24:33):
know they went from here tothere to there and then died to
the thing in the pit.
But it's it's very good for forprompting that.
And in terms of playing it, youjust need a deck of cards,
right?
Jon (24:45):
Deck of cards, set of dice, polyhedral dice, and a pencil
and paper for your map.
And that's that's it.
It's extremely rules light.
I think I call it like a rulesultra-light.
The instructions, I think, areabout a dozen pages, and then
there's an example of play.
I think the whole booklet iseight, seventeen or eighteen
(25:08):
pages.
It's been a while, but it'sreally brief, but but all by
design.
Like, I don't want someone tohave to study this thing in
order to play it.
It should be like look,understand, pick up and play,
and you're going.
You should be able to, withinfive or ten minutes, be able to
start and know exactly what'sgoing on.
And as you play, that sort oflike reference back should be
(25:32):
minimal, if if at all.
After you've played it a fewtimes, you don't have to
reference back at all.
Uh, but that's the idea, thatit should be like fast, light,
and also complete in a shortamount of time.
That was that was my that wassort of one of the raison d'etre
of the game, is that uh it's sorare to find a one-shot that is
(25:54):
one-shottable.
And so I thought, oh, there's aniche for this because that
doesn't exist as much as peoplethink it does.
Usually things get chopped oryou know, it the story doesn't
end, but this one is it verymuch can be done in an hour and
a half.
Iain (26:11):
One of my favorite games is the alien RPG.
I love the whole alienuniverse, the alien franchise.
In the start set, the posit theadventure there as a one-shot,
it's easily like five sessionsof play.
Yeah, I mean it happens all thetime.
Yeah, and you hear that ononline when people are like, oh,
this is a one-shot adventure,and I'm like, but why would you
(26:31):
be eight episodes out of the theone-shot?
I know that when we were doingparanoia, I specifically made
every adventure.
I mean, paranoia is very easyto make a one-shot because
everyone dies.
Yes.
But I lose interest in thenever-ending story.
These these things that go onforever.
(26:52):
It's it's why I think if youlook at episodic content, like
TV series, etc., they go overcertain several seasons, but
every season wraps something upand you start something new.
And I think it's why we've gonedown to like this 10-12 episode
format for seasons.
If you remember back in thethat the early 2000s, which was
(27:12):
the height really of like thebig box set type TV series,
uh-huh.
Each season was 24 episodes.
Jon (27:18):
That's like Sopranos and stuff, right?
Iain (27:20):
Yeah, yeah, right.
So much of it was filler.
Like I've started I do thisevery couple of years in a
slightly autistic way.
I rewatch the X-Files, but Ilove the X-Files.
Wow.
But you realise how much of theX-Files is padding, especially
like in the later seasons, wherethey're just like, oh man,
we've really got to get a wholeseason out of this.
(27:40):
Well, you know, I guess they'regonna go and find Nessie in
this episode.
Like, come on, guys.
Right.
That's what that's what happenswhen you have these huge
episodic formats where you youknow you just can't fit it all
in, and having something that isyou know, circling back to what
we're talking about there, thatis a genuine one-shot, that is
just a story you tell and that'sdone.
That is, I think, one of theappeals of this game.
(28:02):
And I remember when you werefirst positing it, and one of
the things you did ask me iswhat you said there is can you
sit down and get started withthis like quickly?
Yeah, and yeah, you you can,it's like super simple.
There's no it's not like youneed to have the player's
handbook next to you or you knowthe some other rule book.
It's as you say, incrediblyrules light, yeah, but also fun
(28:26):
with it.
Like a lot of rules doesn'tnecessarily make a game fun.
I'm a big fan of incrediblycomplicated war games.
Right.
Some of them on their own thatI've never actually played to
fruition because I'm like, I I'mnot really that interested in
tracking how oil moves acrossthe Pacific in 1942.
Jon (28:45):
And the buy-in.
You gotta not only you have tolearn the rules, you have to
convince other players to learnthese and let's just be honest,
when you're an adult, your yourtime is at a premium.
I don't know about you, but myinterest in reading a 300-page
rule book is low.
Well, when I was a child, yes.
Yes, please.
As an adult, I just kinda wantto get going.
(29:07):
It's what it's one of thebeauties of paranoia, is like,
boom, you don't have to read Inever read a book.
You just go.
You just go.
Iain (29:15):
You're not all you're not allowed to know the rules for
paranoia.
Jon (29:18):
That that game is a wonderful thing, by the way, and
I have to say thank you forintroducing me to that.
Iain (29:22):
Paranoia is a ton of fun.
One thing I love about paranoiais that when you write a
scenario for paranoia, so I I'vedone a lot of convention games
of Paranoia, and I write ascenario for it, and I play test
it with my like my group, andit always goes completely
differently from how the groupthat I run it for the convention
runs it, and then if I run itas an actual play, it goes
(29:44):
completely different again.
I'm like, I don't actually needto write an adventure, I just
need to write six dysfunctionalcharacters, put them in a box,
and talk to them for four hoursand watch them try to kill each
other in hilarious ways.
There was a game I ran.
Once where I've been running itwith my my group like on a sort
(30:05):
of weekly basis, and then I ranan adventure, and it's one of
actually the longest paranoiaadventures because it's not a
one-shot because it'sdeliberately designed that way.
It's in there's a paranoiaadventure book called WMD, and I
love this adventure.
One day I'm tempted to make itan actual play because it is
very, very dark, it's calledHunger, and it's basically about
(30:26):
failing upwards.
And in this, the players getrapidly promoted, basically
through incompetence.
It's almost like a comment incorporate America where
everyone's invested in their ownsuccess.
And if it means that lyingabout the success of a project
to promote themselves, well, sobe it.
(30:48):
So the players rapidly, rapidlyget promoted in clearance, and
they got to a point wherethey're in charge of this
project and they're assigned ateam of red troubleshooters, and
the true horror of the settinghits them when they realise that
they, as the higher-ups, haveno idea what they're doing, and
(31:10):
that them as the lower downshave no idea what they're doing,
but they're armed withhigh-tech energy weapons, so
they give them busy work to keepthem out of their hair.
And one of my players had theawful realisation of oh my god,
this is why every paranoiaadventure happens, isn't it?
Yes, that's the true horror ofthe setting.
What you say about the rules iscorrect.
(31:31):
I've found it before, andagain, it's not to bash in DD
Fifth Ed.
I genuinely enjoy DD Fifth Edand think it's done a ton in
terms of visibility for thehobby.
One of the criticisms somepeople have of DD Fifth Ed is
oh, it's fun time story games,but I've never really had that
experience with DD.
Like, World of Darkness gamesare very much what I call story
(31:52):
games, it's about who yourcharacter is, they're in a
struggle, blah blah blah.
DD, my experience of Fifth Ed,most of anything else, is a lot
of people treat it as a verysimulationist game where the
need to like maximize theefficiency of the like the t the
term that drives me wild iswhen people are like, Oh, the
(32:14):
action economy for my character,like it's not a video game,
right?
And you see that like there'sinteractions I have with players
where you get to combat andthey start coming out with all
this stuff.
I'm like, I don't even knowwhat half of this stuff is.
Yeah, and people start tellingme, Oh, your character could do
this and your character can dothat.
I'm like, can he?
(32:34):
I I didn't know we can't.
Oh well, if you do X, Y, and Z,that means you can then Okay,
um, I backstab him.
Jon (32:42):
Yeah, that's I think we're of yes, we're of the same mind
on that one.
Yeah, I think it comes down toin a world where everything is
special, nothing feels special.
And so when your first levelcharacter can fly or fling fire
bolts and do misty step orwhatever the other things are,
it I just don't I have a hardtime understanding like who
(33:04):
okay, who is this character?
How did they how did theyachieve this level of power?
Why will they have farmer upuntil 5e?
Right Yeah, but but I thinkmaybe maybe it comes down to
people enjoy the dopamine hit ofimagining their character doing
the heroic thing, and when theyput together 5e, they just sort
of listened to the public whosaid, This part is fun for me,
(33:28):
and then they did more of thatuntil it became what it is.
Uh again, no shade, it's it'sall taste, it's all taste.
Iain (33:36):
Some of that can be fun, like sometimes it is fun to be
you know Aragon from Lord of theRings who can just you know
take everything like a champ andbe super heroic.
But again, there's I don't knowif it's a masochistic part of
me, there has to be some elementof risk.
It's one of the reasons I hatedthe Hobbit movie adaptations
that they made.
(33:57):
There was never any moment inthose where I ever felt that the
main characters were in peril.
Uh-huh.
They were not going to die,nothing bad was ever gonna
happen to any of them.
And yes, if you've read thestory, you know that's the case.
So, however, if you're a newperson coming to the movie, you
might think that thesecharacters and situations, and
in fact, to take another level,it's something that put me off
(34:20):
House of the Dragon.
Like I love Game of Thrones,but there's an episode in the
first season of House of theDragon where one character
basically storms the beach onhis own.
Yeah.
And the only reason he succeedsis through the incompetence of
the bad guys and the fact theyattack him one at a time.
Jon (34:35):
Yeah.
Iain (34:35):
And I'm like, you're not making him heroic.
He just happens to be very goodat one-on-one fighting.
Right.
If he was actually rushed by anarmy, he'd be dead.
And it's why I fell out of lovewith the later series of Game
of Thrones.
There's that.
I think it's the sixth seasonwhere like Jon Snow faces down a
whole army on his own, and it'slike, yeah, he's obviously not
(34:57):
going to die.
Oh, look, another army rides into save him.
He just lot lost that appeal.
Um to circle that back to yourpodcast, you never get the
feeling your characters are safebecause there'll be characters
who it's not like they'rerunning around with one arm
hanging off, and you're like,Oh, poor old fella looks like
he's got to come in from there'scharacters who will be
completely healthy and will endup dying in ignoble ways, yeah.
(35:22):
Because the as you say, the thedice happened to go and up
today is your day to die, and Ithink that's very refreshing
because a lot of actual plays itis main character syndrome for
everyone who you're listeningto, yeah.
And you know, nobody can nobodycan possibly die.
And again, to go to paranoia,it's one of the reasons I think
(35:42):
people enjoy paranoia, and I'veseen it especially with people
who are longtime fifth-head DDplayers, they take almost glee
out of the fact that everythingis so fragile.
Uh-huh.
If you remember our very firstactual play we did, nobody died
for a while, but then when thefirst character died, it was
(36:03):
almost like someone had rippedthe bandage off.
Yeah.
Cool, it's open, and suddenlypeople are dying later.
Jon (36:09):
Now we're rushing like lemmings off a cliff.
Yeah.
Oh, this is how it's supposedto be done.
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, we're supposed to spend ourlives frivolously.
Iain (36:20):
Let's let's go, let's go.
So to take it back to your toyour one shot in the dark, where
can people get hold of thisdelightful game?
Jon (36:29):
It's available only on drive-thru rpg.
Uh, however, there'd been somedevelopments since um since
since you saw it last, maybe.
It grew some legs and and sortof found its audience.
Uh stran strangely, one of theways that it landed was people
would use it to teach their kidshow to play, like, as a as a
(36:50):
sort of bridge into role-playinggames.
And so it found an audiencewith kids, which is so strange
because my podcast is soabsolutely not for kids.
And One Shot in the Dark wasnot intended for kids despite
being simple, but it did find ahome there, and people would
constantly send me pictures ofthem playing with their kids, or
(37:14):
the map with the scary monsterson it that their kids made, and
genuinely very heartwarming forme and amazing experience.
Not the least because it was socompletely unexpected.
Besides that, the original gameand all of this stuff is on
Drive-Thru RPG, and I'm gonnaadd for extremely cheap, it's a
buck fifty for the core game,and all the other things are 99
(37:35):
cents, I think.
I decided if the game soldenough copies, I would make an
expansion.
And so there is an expansionnow.
It's called Return to Dwarivar,and it it sort of um taps into
a story thread from season one.
A kind of an unresolved storythread of season one.
Uh, you don't have to have everheard the podcast to play the
(37:56):
game, by the way.
Um so a bit of a bit of fanservice and fun for me to
explore that, but uh again, youcould play the game without
knowing a thing about that lore.
Uh again, the the load on theplayer or the listener is is
very, very light.
Uh, and then I also put out,because a lot of people had made
um expansions like one shot inthe dark but only goblins was
(38:20):
one, there's one shot in thesnow, there's one shot uh
cyberpunk, there's like fan-madeexpansions, and so I thought,
oh, I'm as long as I'm making anexpansion, I'll put out a uh
expansion maker kit for free,and it just basically has some
advice on how to do that andmaintain a balance for the best
(38:47):
chance for a satisfying game.
I'm saying it that way becausebecause there are so many random
elements involved, sometimesyou play the game and it's a
cakewalk.
Sometimes you play the game andit's impossible.
The goal is to have a gamewhere there's real danger and a
real chance of failure, but ifyou are a little bit lucky, you
(39:09):
could pull through in the end.
That's the ideal, but it's tooswingy for me to guarantee that
kind of experience.
There's a calculus kind of indesigning the uh number of
encounters and and how toughthey are.
Uh that might optimize thechance for that experience.
(39:30):
Yeah.
Uh so that's kind of what goesinto that maker kit.
Oh, and also there is veryrecently One Shot in the Dark
original, now in Portuguese,which is really fun for me.
Iain (39:41):
Wow.
Do you speak Portuguese or no?
I think Brazilian person do it.
Jon (39:47):
I had a Brazilian listener reach out and and offer to do
it, and I said, I said, oh yes,please.
Actually, there's a Danishversion and a German version in
the works.
But because this is allvolunteer stuff, I never sort of
nudge them and say, hey, how'sthat coming along?
It just feels uh inappropriate.
(40:08):
So hopefully uh there will oneday be a Danish version and a
German version.
Iain (40:14):
I love that there's this community around it.
And when you mentioned it beingpopular with people wanting to
use it as a vehicle to get kidsinto role-playing, I was
honestly not surprised.
I saw you posted some stuffabout that.
Yeah.
That didn't surprise me in theslightest because it actually.
(40:34):
You know, you've got thesearchetypes, yeah, they're going
off to just slay the bad guybecause he's bad.
(40:56):
You know, there's no morecomplex story motivations like
we're gonna go get a bunch oftreasure and kill the bad guy,
and that's sometimes all youneed to get people introduced to
the hobby.
And I know that when I've rungames before for my kids, like I
ran a bunch during COVID, and Ikept them super simple along
(41:17):
those lines.
Right.
It was you know, you're goingto get a bad guy in his lair,
and you know, that's it.
There's nothing more complexthan that, and there's things to
fight along the way, and myson's case, things to make
friends with on the way.
Right.
And um you don't need it anymore complex than that.
And I see it sometimes whereI've talked to people both in
(41:39):
like face-to-face but alsoonline about it, where they're
like, I want to get myeight-year-old into D D, and um,
you know, I'm thinking ofstarting with and they list some
module for fifth ed.
I'm like, it's way too complexfor them.
Yes, they will not understandit.
I mean, what you what you wantto do is almost have this like
little buddy system where yougive them a bit of paper and
(42:00):
like three numbers that theyroll on, yeah.
So you can have the adultsplaying and casting their spells
and doing this, and you givethem like a fighting number and
a magic number and a lucknumber, a bit like fighting
fantasy.
Exactly, right, right, and youyou roll those three things,
yeah, and they would have agreat time because they don't
(42:20):
need to look at this hugelycomplex web of numbers and know
what their their various skillsare, they just want to roll the
dice and participate, and that'show you get people um involved
in it rather than giving themsome huge 300-page rulebook.
Jon (42:37):
Yeah, something funny happened.
Uh, this last summer I ended upplaying One Shot in the Dark
with my nephew, who is 12, andhe he I think he came over to
use our pool, like three or fourtimes, but we we had some like
spare time that we needed tokill, and my wife said, Hey, why
(42:59):
don't we try one shot in thedark?
I've never I don't have kids ofmy own, and I've never played
one shot in the dark with any ofmy family or friends.
It's just not something that weall do together.
So I was a bit reluctant, but Ithought, okay, sure, why not?
We'll tr we'll try it.
And so we did, and it was ahit, and the next time he came
(43:19):
over, he wanted to play itagain, and that happened again
and again.
We I think we played it fourtimes over four weeks, which
blew my mind because I'd beentold that kids that this game
works with kids, but I hadn'tactually seen it and experienced
it, and when I did, it was kindof like, oh my god, this really
it really does.
Um, not that I doubted anyone,but it's different when you see
(43:43):
it.
What was interesting to me wasthat because of the effect of DD
and other role-playing games onvideo games over the decades,
kids are pre-packaged with aknowledge they know what hit
points are already.
You don't have to explain that.
They understand even like youknow what a hit die is in some
(44:04):
cases, and so the mechanics, andand of course the tropes, you
know, the fighter, the wizard,even a cleric, which I thought
might be esoteric for a12-year-old.
Nope, not a problem.
They got it, they understandwhat that is already.
They show up knowing what thesethings are, and so the game
which I'd heard was easy toexplain to kids, actually turned
out to be even easier than Ithought, because they already
(44:28):
know because of the ubiquity ofRPG tropes in culture.
Amazing.
Iain (44:34):
Yeah, it's it's insane how it's informed the mainstream.
I talked about that way back inthe Dungeons and Dragons
episode, but most of the thingsthat you see in modern video
games can be traced back to LDD.
Absolutely.
When you think about the HolmesRed Box edition that was
released back in 82, 83,whenever that was.
(44:57):
Is that Alina?
Yes, yes, right.
Yeah, I think it is, yeah,yeah.
And yeah, there's a wizard youhave to go and kill.
Burgle.
Blah blah blah.
Yes, all the old cobwebs arecoming off there.
(45:20):
But that has set the trend foryour levels, hit points, and a
tutorial level to get youintroduced to games.
That's where that all comesfrom, is that concept.
Because somebody in TSR waslike, What's the easiest way to
learn our game?
Well, play it.
Yeah, well, what what what ifsomeone's buying for the first
(45:43):
time?
Well, they the books, thegamesmaster for them, they just
play through it.
And I saw it recently in ourlast episode we talked about
Pendragon, yeah, and in thesixth edition Pendragon starter
set, which is one of the mostbeautiful RPG products you can
ever buy.
If you want character sheetsthat look like illuminated
(46:04):
manuscripts from the medievaltimes, that is of course I do
that.
That's your game to go to.
But it's Pendragon's a fairlynot complex, but it's a very
esoteric system in terms of howit runs, it's a very clever
system, but it comes with achoose your own adventure style
(46:25):
game that teaches you all of thebasic mechanics, yeah, and it's
such an interesting way ofyou're gonna run that game.
I hadn't looked at Pendragonprobably coming up for like two
decades when I got this umstarter set through, and as I
was running through this, I waslike, oh, I remember this, I
(46:47):
remember how to do this.
But I think as a new person,you'd also get it very, very
quickly because it's spelled outvery easily for you and it's it
just does all the mechanics.
Jon (46:58):
To bring it back kind of full circle, those examples of
play, even more than the sort ofsolo adventures that they would
that they included, but thoseexamples of play, uh, do you
remember like Black Dougal?
I think that's in A D 1E.
Uh like are we gonna kill thegobliners?
I forget exactly what thesituation was, but I do remember
(47:21):
as a kid really enjoyingreading those as a kind of
different style of fiction.
And those little actual plays,because really they were the
proto-actual plays, I think thatthey they're one of the things
that super informed the thepodcast that I do now.
(47:43):
It's it's I'm trying to regainthat feeling of vicarious play.
Iain (47:49):
Two of my favourite because I used to always like
those sections and books, eventhough I know how to play an
RPG, it was always interestingto see how people did it, and
there have been some fantasticways over the years.
So, for example, Werewolf theApocalypse, they did, and also
uh Wraith the Oblivion did thisas well because White Wolf were
(48:11):
very kind of creative in howthey did these things, uh-huh,
they did their actual plays as acomic strip in the book, but
one page had the comic strip,but the other page was almost
like showing the working ofthese things happen.
Like that's great to this, herose these dice, but then you've
got this story playing out.
But my two favourite ones wereone is more recent, it's
(48:33):
Mothership, uh-huh, and in theMothership RPG, the actual play
reads like an actual sessioncomplete with the players like
arguing with the GM over stuff,but there's also one in the
first edition Slay Industriesrule book where it reads like an
actual session, yeah, becausethere's even bits like the
players groaning at the GM'sattempt at an accent for one of
(48:56):
the characters, and those reallyhelp bring it to life because I
think one of the problems thatnewer players coming into the
hobby have is they're oftenintroduced by watching an actual
play online, and that doesn'toften give you the real
experience because you've got abunch of actors who are very
polished, yeah, who are in ahigh production studio, and
(49:19):
that's their job.
And it's a performance with anaudience in mind, which is a
different thing, which is verydifferent from a game, yes, and
there's not the sort of nonsenseand visceral reality of
actually sitting down playing itwhere somebody forgets the
rules or needs the GM to explainsomething, and I think a lot of
(49:40):
people come into it now withthat experience if it's all
gonna flow very seamlessly, andeveryone's gonna be incredibly
creative and know how to act,rather than it being a bunch of
people saying, So what do youdo?
or I roll my dice and do this,that, and the other.
And there was a discussion Iactually had online recently
with somebody on Threads, andthey were asking for advice, and
(50:00):
they said, How do I help shinea spotlight on a player who's
very resident to take part at mytable?
And all the other players do X,Y, and Z, but this player
doesn't.
And I'm like, Maybe they don'twant the spotlight.
Yeah, maybe they they'refighting.
I said, Are they enjoying thegame?
They're oh yeah, they'll theycontribute in combat, and like
when they're they're talk tothey talk back, but they don't
(50:22):
like essentially method act,sure, sure.
They're having fun.
Ask them if they're having fun,if they're having fun, you
don't need to change it.
I've had players before whohave been there and they like
being there to do the gamestuff, they like being there to
roll the dice and see thecharacter do awesome things, but
they don't necessarily want youto engage on a one-on-one.
(50:45):
Like some players areabsolutely 100% in it for the
character interaction and beingthat other person slipping into
their mind and yada yada yada.
Some people love that, and I Ilove that, you know.
I'm an extrovert, that's kindof my my thing.
But some people are content tobe there to be the strong,
silent character who comes intotheir own during combat, yeah,
(51:08):
and that's fine as well.
There's not this not everyonehas to be a prima donna when
they when they play, and the thegame is made up of both types
of players again.
You see this action thisinteraction online where some
people rage against people whoactually like to roleplay, and
they're like, this should be asimulation, this thing, and blah
blah blah.
It has its roots in war gaming.
You're like, can everyone justhave fun?
(51:30):
Yeah, yeah, but not everythingneeds to be one thing or the
other.
Jon (51:35):
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
Actually, you're making methink of my own games, my own
ongoing games right now, andyes, we have both types of
players, and and probably formyself, I'm probably somewhere
in the middle.
Sometimes I'm very methody inmy character play.
Other times I don't necessarilywant to have the full live
(51:58):
dialogue.
I would rather just hand wavethat and say, okay, we discuss
the blah blah blah, and youknow, tell me how does it turn
out.
Um, maybe I don't know if it'smy mood or the situation, but
yeah, you're right.
There's both kinds of play.
And and and it's a spectrum aswell.
Iain (52:14):
Yeah, and also that does happen.
I've had it before where go togames and for whatever reason
not been feeling myself or notfeeling up to it.
And that's when you're like,okay, I make a persuade roll.
Jon (52:26):
Yeah.
Iain (52:26):
The ref realizes, oh yeah, he's you know he's not in the
mood.
But we'll make it the persuaderoll and see if his character
can do it.
And it's I think the gist of itis you can do what you want in
the hobby and other peopleshouldn't yuck your yum.
If somebody wants to count howmany arrows they've got and
that's their thing, then morepower to the bowman guy, let him
have his moment in combat.
Likewise, if somebody wants tohave a full-blown conversation
(52:50):
with every NPC, let them do thatas well, but just not at the
expense of other people's fun.
Anyway, John, we are coming upto the one hour mark.
This has been an absolutepleasure.
Oh, you've said people canobviously find one shot in the
dark on drive-thru RPG.
If you've not done that, youabsolutely should give a chance.
If you don't listen to Tale ofthe Manticore, you should also
(53:12):
give that a listen to.
It's a wonderful podcast.
It's been going on for how manyyears is that now?
Is it five years?
Five years now, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Give that a listen to if youdon't.
But is there anything else youwant to pitch before we finish?
Jon (53:26):
There's nothing else I want to pitch, but I need to ask for
good luck because at the end ofthis month, October, for anyone
who's listening to this, not inthe time, it's released.
Exactly.
Um, so around Halloween of 2025,I'm attending a uh convention,
and I am running a game I'venever run before, and it's
(53:49):
called Clay O Rama.
I don't know if you ever heardof that, uh, but behind me
there's a wall of uh a shelfwith little tubs of play-doh on
it.
Uh, and the it's a game made byZeb Cook, one of the original
uh DD writers, and you make alittle monster out of Plasticine
and you have arena combat withthem.
(54:10):
And I'm nervous because I knowthis game is amazing.
I played it as a child, therules are fun.
I did kind of mini-game it oncein a in a DD session uh a year
ago, but I've never played it asits own thing, certainly not as
a convention with strangers whoare unfamiliar with the
concept.
So I just need your thoughtsand prayers as I uh tackle that.
(54:32):
And next time we speak, I'lllet you know how it goes.
Iain (54:35):
I am intrigued by this.
There better be video footageof this because anything
involving little clay figures issounds absolutely amazing.
Anyway, John, it's been anabsolute pleasure.
Yes, sir.
I will let you go.
We need to speak again soon, ifonly to have a Cleo Rama
update.
In fact, I'm gonna put that inthe calendar.
You're gonna give us aplay-by-play of how Cleorama
(54:56):
went.
Jon (54:56):
Yep, ma'am.
Iain (54:58):
Wish me luck.
See you later.
Yeah.
If you fancy giving one shot inthe dark ago, we'll include a
(55:31):
note in the show notes so youcan find it and give it a try.
Likewise, if you want to findthe Tale of the Manticore
podcast, it can be found on anypodcast directory of your
choice.
As you mentioned in theinterview, they're well into the
third season now, so there's alot of content there for you to
binge.
We're a semi-regular podcast onthe history of RPGs.
(55:55):
We've got over 70 episodes now,so if you're a new listener,
please feel free to take a lookat our back catalogue.
You'll find all sorts ofhistory episodes, interviews
like this one, product reviews,and roundtables, and even some
actual plays as well.
If that's your thing.
If you enjoyed us, please leaveus five stars on your podcast
directory of choice.
(56:16):
It really helps us withvisibility and it also assuages
our egos and makes us want tomake more of these.
Until next time, if you want toget in touch with us, you can
do so on email atroll.two.save.pod at gmail.com
or on Facebook or Instagram bysearching for roll to save.
(56:37):
Thanks again for listening.
Welcome to Roll2Save history podcast.
So hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Roll to Save.
(00:29):
Today we have the pleasure ofbeing joined by a longtime
friend of the podcast, JohnCohen, writer and host of the
wonderful Tale of the Manticorepodcast.
John, it has been a while.
How are you?
Jon (00:42):
I'm really good again, and it is very good to be back and
uh great to be hanging out withyou again.
It's been too long.
Iain (00:48):
It has been too long indeed.
Yeah, last time we spoke,actually, I was tormenting you
in the game of Paranoia.
You were one of our wonderfulvoice actors for our critically
acclaimed episodes of Paranoia.
That was a joy.
Jon (01:02):
Folks, if you haven't heard that, if you haven't heard
that, go and listen to that.
Not not for my performance, butsome of the players are
hysterical.
That was a that was a greatrun.
Iain (01:13):
Anyway, John, how are you?
What have you been up togaming-wise recently?
Because again, it's been awhile.
Jon (01:19):
Outside of the podcast, uh, which is a game that just is
always there.
Uh, I've got a couple of onlinegames.
We're just talking about that abit before we hit the red
button.
And one of them is a weeklyMithras game, which I didn't
mention before, and it's myfirst time with that system.
And I have mix I have mixedfeelings about Mithras.
(01:39):
It's clearly um it's made withlove, for sure, but because it's
so simulationist, it does tendto make for a very slow game.
So if you're okay with a veryslow-moving plot, combat that
takes uh excessive time, uhhours, um, then it then it might
(02:01):
be the system for you.
I know it's a lot of people'sfavorite system.
It's a bit of a shock becausewe pivoted from OSC to Mithras.
So we went from this very hightempo kind of thing to this very
slow slog.
But we're all kind of thinking,well, we need to learn the
system, and then once we learnthe system, maybe it'll it'll
(02:21):
kind of speed up a bit.
So that's interesting.
And then I'm in a secondcampaign, which is a it's such a
classic.
It's a uh OSC keep on theborderlands game.
It doesn't get more classicthan that.
Iain (02:34):
Yeah, I love keeping the borderlands.
That was one of my well, I seeI love I think the last time I
played Keeping the Borderlands,I was probably 11 years old, but
I have very, very fond memoriesof it.
It's got the nostalgia hit forsure.
It's super detailed.
Like I've got the Goodman Gamesremake of it, where it does a
it does a fifth ed version andthe classic version, and the
(02:55):
level of detail is obsessive inthe original because it was
obviously like we're gonna makethis town for you, right, and
it's gonna be your base ofoperations, and you're gonna go
forth and do stuff, and yeah,there's it's it's a lot of fun.
But I'm glad it holds up afterall these years.
It's curious what you say aboutMithras because last time we
spoke in like this setting,which was probably about four
(03:19):
years ago, you actuallymentioned Mithras as one of the
games that you wanted to getinto.
Jon (03:23):
Oh my gosh, did I?
You know, the last couple ofyears have really been about me
trying to at least once play allof these games that I missed
while I was in the deep freezebecause you know I I kind of
stepped away from for forliteral decades from the hobby,
and when I came back, there wasso much stuff, and so much stuff
(03:46):
that people loved in sort ofonline conversations and and
with all the cyber friends thatyou make.
People mention these things,and I had no experience with any
of them at all, including 5ewhen I came back, and so it it
takes a while to hook up all ofthese experiences because it's
(04:07):
not always easy to find a game.
Even online game is sometimesnot easy to find, but my my
preference, uh like a live tablegame, can be really, really
difficult to dis to discover,uh, and to find a uh a good one
where the the people gel in thecorrect way is that's
(04:27):
practically a unicorn.
Um my my hit rate is low.
Uh yeah, I'm not doing a greatjob at finding a live table game
which will stick.
Um I've had some success, butum but I've had some failures
too.
Iain (04:43):
It's hard to find a table game that will match your t your
taste, mainly because whenyou're doing an online game,
it's usually your core group orpeople that you know through
similar circles, and thereforeyour tastes are likely to be
aligned.
But when you're finding apickup game, it will literally
be Randos.
Yeah.
And you know, for everyone whowants to play a game like you,
(05:04):
there's one guy who would bemore at home playing Avalon Hill
War games, but he's decided totranslate that into DD, and
there's another kid who's youknow been watching YouTube
videos about how to optimise hischaracter build and gets very
upset that he's not actuallyplaying a video game.
I don't want to surprise you,but there are some strange
people out there.
We actually talked about thison our we did an episode about
(05:28):
Mindseye Theatre, which is aworld of darkness LARPing from
back in the day.
Uh.
And I have never in all myyears as somebody running games
found more of a magnet forgenuine oddballs than that.
And don't be wrong, I've hadsome of my best gaming
experiences through VampireLARPs.
(05:49):
Yeah.
But also it's been the onlyoccasion where as an adult I've
had to actually kick people outof games for just how they're
behaving.
Because one of the things withthese LARPs is you really, by
their very nature, need a largebody of players.
Yeah.
And while I had never quitesubscribed to the come one, come
(06:10):
all approach, I would be opento when people are like, Oh,
here, my friend from out of townwants to come in and join the
game, can they?
Like, sure, you know, have themcome along, and then like some
freak in a trench coat turns upwho's more interested in like
sexually harassing all thefemale players, and you're like,
Oh, great, we're gonna have theconversation again.
Jon (06:30):
There we go, it's the hobby, it's the hobby we love.
Iain (06:32):
It is that it's a nature of the beast, yes.
Yeah, so I mentioned before,obviously, long-time listeners
will know this, but you are thewriter and host of Tale of the
Manticord, and you're not whatyour like third season now, like
the 50 plus episode into yourthird season.
I also I'm so envious of thefact you reliably release an
episode every 10 days, which issomething I am incredibly
(06:56):
jealous of.
Your your output is prolific,and it's not just your prolific,
the quality is prolific aswell.
Like, every episode isincredibly polished, you write
it well, it's very wellproduced, and I'm like, how does
he do this every 10 days?
Whereas I spend my time gettingrid of the ums and ahs that me,
Jason, and Steve drop into ourconversations all the time, and
I'm like, editing is hell.
Jon (07:17):
There's parts of making uh shows like ours that are not
fun, right?
It's just work.
Iain (07:23):
But let them see behind the cotton joint.
Jon (07:27):
There's something about seeing the accumulation of the
story getting bigger over timeand attracting listeners and
just seeing the thing grow.
That's really satisfying.
And I'm just addicted to doingit, and so I've just made it all
of my hobbies are now this one.
They all funnel into the showin one way or another.
Iain (07:50):
So if you were to talk to a new listener, give us our
brief synopsis then of thedifference between seasons one,
two, and three of Manticore.
Like you talk about watching itgrow, you've obviously seen it
grow, and as listeners, we'veseen it grow over the three
seasons.
How would you describe that toa brand new listener if you were
pitching it to them?
Jon (08:08):
Right.
I I guess I should go back evenone step.
And if for people that aren'tfamiliar with the show, the
concept is basically it's it'sthe collision between an actual
play and an audio drama.
And so it kind of vacillatesbetween those two states.
You know, talk about the game,playing the game as an actual
play, as a solo actual play, uhjust to make things more
(08:29):
complicated, and then pivot intoa dramatized, you know,
third-person past tense versionof it with music, with sound
effects, and over time addingthings like voice actors.
And the and the reason that'smeaningful is because I can do
things in the audio dramaportion that are not available
(08:50):
in actual play games, likeflashbacks, uh, extreme point of
view shifts, things thatwouldn't work at a table game,
do work in this hybrid medium.
Okay, so now to get back toyour actual question.
This the seas season one, Ijust wanted it to be, um, as as
(09:11):
somebody who's returning to theto the hobby after a long time
away, I wanted it to be like alove letter to my early gaming
experiences.
And I was I had selected BX uhD D mostly because it works well
with the audio medium becauseit so rules light, and I
wouldn't have to spend much timein explanation, I wouldn't have
(09:31):
to put a a load on the listenerof things to keep track of,
which I think for the audiomedium is important.
And so with BX, I just did a adeep dive into all of those
classic tropes.
And so season one for me isit's about classic DD.
There's green slime, there's adragon at the end, you know,
(09:55):
it's it's all of the things.
Iain (09:57):
Sparless John, come on.
Jon (09:58):
Yeah, it's full of cliches, but but very deliberately so,
you know, in in love lettersstyle, in in homage style.
And and then also season one isa bit is about me learning how
to do podcasting, and it's aboutme learning how to do this uh
kind of new medium where it'swhere it's a hybrid, and uh I
(10:20):
just kind of feeling out theboundaries and trying to
innovate further and further andfurther.
Uh season two.
I thought, well, I'll do what Ididn't do in season one and try
and do a kind of uh urbanenvironment, and my intention
was to do a more complicatedplot.
I'm I succeeded in the urbanenvironment.
(10:42):
I'm not sure that I succeededin a more complicated plot in
the end, uh, but that was theoriginal idea to have sort of
different factions and how theywould influence each other.
Kinda Game of Thrones uhinspired idea there.
And then again, urban, muchlower fantasy, like human
(11:02):
characters, nothing but humancharacters, I think, and darker,
and and sort of explore almostfantasy slash horror.
And then season three, which ismy current season, about two th
I'm about halfway through interms of publishing and about
two-thirds of the way through interms of script writing.
That one again is a um just uhcontrast.
(11:27):
Uh, and I thought, well, I'll tI'm gonna take a risk here.
I'm gonna do higher fantasy,which is not even my preference,
but I thought I'm gonna try it.
I'm gonna try a femaleprotagonist, and instead of an
ensemble group, really actuallyhave a main character, which can
be dangerous because I promiseat the beginning of every
(11:48):
episode that characters aren'tsacred, they don't have plot
armor, they can die, and that istrue, and so I thought, oh, if
I do a main character, theycould die, and I will have to
deal deal with that.
I won't spoil and say whetherthat has happened or not, but
but yeah, season three has beendare I say lighter tone, higher
(12:10):
fantasy, moved away from horror.
It's still not for kids, it'sstill very much for adults, but
this one channels in season twoI was thinking like Martyrs.
Game of Thrones, you know,exploring like real dread, uh
trying to anyway.
And in this season, I'mthinking more like Dark Crystal,
(12:31):
Wizard of Oz.
It's it's a lighter, higherfantasy, but it's I still wanted
to feel ugly and gross underthe skin.
Because I always felt like as akid they're the best time
bandits, dark crystal, thesethings that sort of grabbed me
as a child, they were alwayskind of ugly under the surface,
(12:57):
and that's there's somethingthere that I loved, so I'm
constantly trying to capturethat idea of it's light, but
it's also really dark.
Iain (13:07):
Uh, at the same time, I think you've succeeded in
getting that contrast betweenthe seasons because like season
one, you're absolutely right,very much BX uh D D.
Yeah, that it it I think itconjured that vibe perfectly.
I would say with your seasontwo, it gave me much more
Warhammer fantasy roleplay thanDD in terms of the urban
(13:28):
environment, and like you say,the the underlying horror to it.
That that's one thing I alwayslike with Warhammer, I always
try to explain it to people.
It's much more, it's got morein common with Call of Cthulhu
than it has with Dungeons andDragons.
I get that because it's thislow fantasy with like horror
underneath.
I really enjoy your thirdseason.
(13:49):
I know you say it's like morehigh fantasy, but it's I think
it's because I've been along forthe really since the beginning
and seen like this change instyle, and I I like how you've
you you flipped that uh becauseit is the change from the
ensemble cast to the the soloprotagonist.
Um it's I think as a long timelistener, I I wasn't like, oh my
(14:13):
god, what's he done here?
It was like, oh, this isinteresting, let's see, let's
see where this goes.
And I'm sure that's the thefeedback you've had.
I think people enjoy the factthat it's not just this
never-ending saga, it's like youhave these defined start and
end points of we're gonna dosomething new now, yeah, and
that really works well.
I also loved what you you saidthere about uh people dying.
(14:35):
One of the things that'sbeautiful about your podcast is
there'll be characters thatpeople get dearly attached to,
yeah, and then they die inusually horrible circumstances.
Like I still remember the veryfirst time someone died in your
first season, uh-huh, and it wasa character I really liked.
I'm like, oh my god, he justkilled him.
(14:56):
I remember it too.
I remember that.
Killed them, yeah.
And what's that like as awriter when you've um created
those characters that presumablyyou've got attached to, and
then you're like, oh, I'm gonnahave to write this guy's death
scene.
Jon (15:10):
It's I think there's a couple of things that I could
talk about there.
One of them is that it's thesame feeling when you make a
character at a table game andyou bond with them, and if they
die, you you mourn them.
It's it's very real.
That feeling of loss and andthat feeling of worry when you
(15:30):
might lose them, and then youdo.
And then you almost kind ofyou're in denial for a moment.
You go through all the all theclassic sort of stages, right?
Oh, there's the bargaining.
Oh, maybe I maybe I can jukethe numbers, so that didn't
happen.
But if you want to be honestwith yourself, then you have to
accept it.
The second thing to say is, andagain, I'm gonna say this is
(15:52):
like game like a like a tablegame, because because my show is
in many ways, I don't knowabout most, in many ways, it is
like a table game.
The death of a character makesthe the larger picture so much
more effective because now it isunderstood there are stakes,
(16:12):
there are there are things thatcould be lost, and so now
there's real tension, there'sreal excitement.
It's something that I feel ismissing from some of the more
some of the games that I'vetried since coming back to the
hobby.
I I keep talking about 5e, andI don't mean to cast a lot of
shade on 5e, but for me it justfeels it's just not dangerous
(16:34):
enough.
For for me again.
Uh I want to feel those stakes.
Um, that's why I do gravitatetowards uh the OSC or you know
Cthulhu, which every time I'veplayed it, it's always been
like, you are going to die, butlet's try and make it so cool
and make it make the story abetter, richer thing.
Whenever it happens in inManticore, I feel that morning,
(16:59):
but I also know that it's goingto make the the show better.
Iain (17:05):
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that um aspect of
character death adding tostories.
Like I I enjoy DD fifth ed, butI feel it's very insulated
against death.
Like you have death saves.
Yeah.
Like you lose all your hitpoints and you have like three
chances to get out of jail.
Right, right.
And you know, if your partyhasn't come and rendered you
know first aid by that point.
(17:25):
So it's very, very hard to diein it.
But I've always I run gamesmore than play them, but when
I've played games, I almost takea perverse satisfaction in my
character dying in a way thatfacilitates narrative.
I remember a game of Legends ofthe Five Rings that I played
years ago, and my character andmy amigos were in the
(17:50):
Shadowlands, which is Legends ofthe Five Rings kind of kind of
hell realm that exists next tothe main setting, and we were
like desperately trying to getback to um the Empire to warn
them of this big threat, andwe're getting chased by this
whole big horde of nasties, andit was evident that the nasties
were gonna gain on us, and I wasthe only character with a
(18:11):
horse, and I think there was abit of well, maybe he could ride
ahead and get help.
And I turned around to the restof them and said, Right, go,
I've got this.
And I said, Okay, I turned myhorse around and I gun it
towards the you know the theenemies.
So the the GM took me aside andhe's like, Okay, what was your
plan here?
I'm like, I'm just gonna go outin a blaze of glory and buy
(18:33):
them time.
It's like your character willdie.
I'm like, I don't care, right?
It's just like a samurai dramathat's giving his life.
That's great, and it was one ofthe coolest sessions because
he's narrating what's happening,and the rest of the players are
like, they don't know that mycharacter's going to die.
So they're all like, yeah, he'sdoing all this stuff, and then
he dies.
(18:53):
Right.
And they're like, wait, what?
And suddenly hit them like he'sgiven his life that we can
escape with this message.
Jon (18:59):
That's story, man.
That's where story lives,right?
Iain (19:02):
Exactly, and that's what it is.
And I don't care that thischaracter was like a
two-year-old character withloads of experience points.
I get to play something elsenow, but it was silly.
A great part of the and it'swhen I used to see players
getting bent out of shape whenthey lost a character, saying a
vampire LARP that I ran, and Iget it because people are
invested, but at the same time,it's like your if your
(19:22):
character's demise contributesto the story.
Ultimately, this is pretendyfan time games, yeah, so you can
do something else, right?
So don't take it out on the youknow, don't try and get the
player who took out yourcharacter, he's still
acknowledged that they playedwell and then play something
else and move on.
(19:42):
But I could rant for hoursabout that.
I used to see that so often inthose games.
People, I'm gonna get him.
Like, why?
Why killed my character?
Your character your newcharacter doesn't know that.
Your new character is acompletely different person, be
an adult.
Absolutely.
Jon (19:56):
Yeah, I I think that the thing to fear is not a character
death, it is a characterignoble death.
You don't if you if you die byyou know from a giant rat,
that's that just sucks.
I think there's no way aroundit.
That just sucks.
Or if a kobold kills yourcharacter, that just sucks.
Iain (20:18):
Mind you, at the same time, I run more Hammer Fantasy
roleplay where you can literallydie of the cold.
You know, you're out in therain, your character starts
getting the snippels, and ohyeah, he's dead.
Sorry, because socializedhealthcare doesn't exist.
Jon (20:31):
That one's still on my list.
Iain (20:34):
That's good, yeah.
Well, I I I will have to run agame of it for you sometime.
It's it's a lot of fun.
If by fun really being in themud in this kind of low fantasy
vibe, is your thing.
That's where I thrive.
Anyway, speaking of low fantasyvibes, there's another thing
you do as well as Tail of theMantico, which is why I wanted
to get you on today.
Yeah, you've got a little gameof your own called One Shot in
(20:58):
the Dark.
Now, I've had a lot of fun withthis, but rather than have me
gush and fanboy all over it,tell our listeners what one shot
in the dark is and where theycan get it.
Jon (21:09):
One Shot in the Dark is a solo one-shot fantasy game.
Um, so it can be played with upto four players, but it's
really designed for one.
But but that's it, it does workfor up to four.
It's a fantasy game where youdraw cards which give you a
prompt, you draw a map, and youmove four classic trope
(21:35):
characters, fighter, cleric,mage, thief, through three
levels of a dungeon to fight thebig boss, which is also
randomly determined at the end.
The selling point is that it'sa one-shot, that's really a
one-shot.
It really takes about betweenan hour and an hour and a half
to play the game, and it hasreplay value because there are
(21:57):
so many random elements.
I'm always doing a terribleterrible job at explaining what
it is.
Uh the other feature of thegame, really, my elevator
pitches need work.
The other, I guess, feature ofthe game is that it takes an
idea from The Quiet Year, whichis a game where you also draw
cards with prompts on them anddevelop a map, uh, kind of
(22:18):
freeform.
And and this does the same kindof thing.
So you don't draw, you know,um, dungeon tiles which build a
map for you.
It'll just say something likelarge cavern, two exits.
You draw it, it's gonna lookdifferent for everybody.
And and even even some of theenemies are, you know, the thing
in the pit, uh, what is that?
(22:39):
And then it's up to you to comeup with these elements as as
you play.
Iain (22:44):
I'm gonna use a very pretentious term here, but the
thing that I loved about it wasthe emergent narrative aspect of
it.
Yeah.
Like this whole theory aboutRPGs that you know the story
isn't what you as the GM writes,it's what emerges through
gameplay.
Jon (23:02):
Yeah, the byproduct, yeah.
Iain (23:03):
Yeah, whenever players talk about like sessions I've
run, I'm always happy whenthey're not actually talking
necessarily about things I'vewritten, but I remember that
time where you know John didXYZ, that was really cool.
You get that with this, becauseas you said, the prompts are
not specific.
Yeah, they encourage yourimagination.
And one thing I love about soloRPGs, and it's probably the
(23:29):
frustrated writer in me, is thatcreation aspect of taking those
prompts and saying, Okay, whatdoes that actually look like?
Uh-huh.
Because what it looks like inyour head is way cooler than
anything that could be writtendown in a prompt, and it's
similar to again what you seewhen you run an RPG, that's how
players envisage something intheir head is usually far better
(23:50):
than you as a GM could couldever describe it.
It's like one of the reasons Ilike doing in games if people
are on their journey, like frompoint town A to town B, I'll
often say to my players,Describe to me what happens in
the 3D journey.
Tell me what happens, yeah, andwhat's in their head is far
better, and you get that withthis game.
Like I was I remember when youwere first making it and you
(24:12):
said, Hey, do you mind checkingthis out?
and I had a look at it.
I think I told you at the timeI get kind of obsessive about
the map making making aspect ofit, uh-huh.
Like drawing these maps thatthe came even my party died
horribly on like the firstlevel, it was just seeing this
map come to life for this blankpiece of paper, yeah, and
suddenly you've got this wholestory told out there that you
(24:33):
know they went from here tothere to there and then died to
the thing in the pit.
But it's it's very good for forprompting that.
And in terms of playing it, youjust need a deck of cards,
right?
Jon (24:45):
Deck of cards, set of dice, polyhedral dice, and a pencil
and paper for your map.
And that's that's it.
It's extremely rules light.
I think I call it like a rulesultra-light.
The instructions, I think, areabout a dozen pages, and then
there's an example of play.
I think the whole booklet iseight, seventeen or eighteen
(25:08):
pages.
It's been a while, but it'sreally brief, but but all by
design.
Like, I don't want someone tohave to study this thing in
order to play it.
It should be like look,understand, pick up and play,
and you're going.
You should be able to, withinfive or ten minutes, be able to
start and know exactly what'sgoing on.
And as you play, that sort oflike reference back should be
(25:32):
minimal, if if at all.
After you've played it a fewtimes, you don't have to
reference back at all.
Uh, but that's the idea, thatit should be like fast, light,
and also complete in a shortamount of time.
That was that was my that wassort of one of the raison d'etre
of the game, is that uh it's sorare to find a one-shot that is
(25:54):
one-shottable.
And so I thought, oh, there's aniche for this because that
doesn't exist as much as peoplethink it does.
Usually things get chopped oryou know, it the story doesn't
end, but this one is it verymuch can be done in an hour and
a half.
Iain (26:11):
One of my favorite games is the alien RPG.
I love the whole alienuniverse, the alien franchise.
In the start set, the posit theadventure there as a one-shot,
it's easily like five sessionsof play.
Yeah, I mean it happens all thetime.
Yeah, and you hear that ononline when people are like, oh,
this is a one-shot adventure,and I'm like, but why would you
(26:31):
be eight episodes out of the theone-shot?
I know that when we were doingparanoia, I specifically made
every adventure.
I mean, paranoia is very easyto make a one-shot because
everyone dies.
Yes.
But I lose interest in thenever-ending story.
These these things that go onforever.
(26:52):
It's it's why I think if youlook at episodic content, like
TV series, etc., they go overcertain several seasons, but
every season wraps something upand you start something new.
And I think it's why we've gonedown to like this 10-12 episode
format for seasons.
If you remember back in thethat the early 2000s, which was
(27:12):
the height really of like thebig box set type TV series,
uh-huh.
Each season was 24 episodes.
Jon (27:18):
That's like Sopranos and stuff, right?
Iain (27:20):
Yeah, yeah, right.
So much of it was filler.
Like I've started I do thisevery couple of years in a
slightly autistic way.
I rewatch the X-Files, but Ilove the X-Files.
Wow.
But you realise how much of theX-Files is padding, especially
like in the later seasons, wherethey're just like, oh man,
we've really got to get a wholeseason out of this.
(27:40):
Well, you know, I guess they'regonna go and find Nessie in
this episode.
Like, come on, guys.
Right.
That's what that's what happenswhen you have these huge
episodic formats where you youknow you just can't fit it all
in, and having something that isyou know, circling back to what
we're talking about there, thatis a genuine one-shot, that is
just a story you tell and that'sdone.
That is, I think, one of theappeals of this game.
(28:02):
And I remember when you werefirst positing it, and one of
the things you did ask me iswhat you said there is can you
sit down and get started withthis like quickly?
Yeah, and yeah, you you can,it's like super simple.
There's no it's not like youneed to have the player's
handbook next to you or you knowthe some other rule book.
It's as you say, incrediblyrules light, yeah, but also fun
(28:26):
with it.
Like a lot of rules doesn'tnecessarily make a game fun.
I'm a big fan of incrediblycomplicated war games.
Right.
Some of them on their own thatI've never actually played to
fruition because I'm like, I I'mnot really that interested in
tracking how oil moves acrossthe Pacific in 1942.
Jon (28:45):
And the buy-in.
You gotta not only you have tolearn the rules, you have to
convince other players to learnthese and let's just be honest,
when you're an adult, your yourtime is at a premium.
I don't know about you, but myinterest in reading a 300-page
rule book is low.
Well, when I was a child, yes.
Yes, please.
As an adult, I just kinda wantto get going.
(29:07):
It's what it's one of thebeauties of paranoia, is like,
boom, you don't have to read Inever read a book.
You just go.
You just go.
Iain (29:15):
You're not all you're not allowed to know the rules for
paranoia.
Jon (29:18):
That that game is a wonderful thing, by the way, and
I have to say thank you forintroducing me to that.
Iain (29:22):
Paranoia is a ton of fun.
One thing I love about paranoiais that when you write a
scenario for paranoia, so I I'vedone a lot of convention games
of Paranoia, and I write ascenario for it, and I play test
it with my like my group, andit always goes completely
differently from how the groupthat I run it for the convention
runs it, and then if I run itas an actual play, it goes
(29:44):
completely different again.
I'm like, I don't actually needto write an adventure, I just
need to write six dysfunctionalcharacters, put them in a box,
and talk to them for four hoursand watch them try to kill each
other in hilarious ways.
There was a game I ran.
Once where I've been running itwith my my group like on a sort
(30:05):
of weekly basis, and then I ranan adventure, and it's one of
actually the longest paranoiaadventures because it's not a
one-shot because it'sdeliberately designed that way.
It's in there's a paranoiaadventure book called WMD, and I
love this adventure.
One day I'm tempted to make itan actual play because it is
very, very dark, it's calledHunger, and it's basically about
(30:26):
failing upwards.
And in this, the players getrapidly promoted, basically
through incompetence.
It's almost like a comment incorporate America where
everyone's invested in their ownsuccess.
And if it means that lyingabout the success of a project
to promote themselves, well, sobe it.
(30:48):
So the players rapidly, rapidlyget promoted in clearance, and
they got to a point wherethey're in charge of this
project and they're assigned ateam of red troubleshooters, and
the true horror of the settinghits them when they realise that
they, as the higher-ups, haveno idea what they're doing, and
(31:10):
that them as the lower downshave no idea what they're doing,
but they're armed withhigh-tech energy weapons, so
they give them busy work to keepthem out of their hair.
And one of my players had theawful realisation of oh my god,
this is why every paranoiaadventure happens, isn't it?
Yes, that's the true horror ofthe setting.
What you say about the rules iscorrect.
(31:31):
I've found it before, andagain, it's not to bash in DD
Fifth Ed.
I genuinely enjoy DD Fifth Edand think it's done a ton in
terms of visibility for thehobby.
One of the criticisms somepeople have of DD Fifth Ed is
oh, it's fun time story games,but I've never really had that
experience with DD.
Like, World of Darkness gamesare very much what I call story
(31:52):
games, it's about who yourcharacter is, they're in a
struggle, blah blah blah.
DD, my experience of Fifth Ed,most of anything else, is a lot
of people treat it as a verysimulationist game where the
need to like maximize theefficiency of the like the t the
term that drives me wild iswhen people are like, Oh, the
(32:14):
action economy for my character,like it's not a video game,
right?
And you see that like there'sinteractions I have with players
where you get to combat andthey start coming out with all
this stuff.
I'm like, I don't even knowwhat half of this stuff is.
Yeah, and people start tellingme, Oh, your character could do
this and your character can dothat.
I'm like, can he?
(32:34):
I I didn't know we can't.
Oh well, if you do X, Y, and Z,that means you can then Okay,
um, I backstab him.
Jon (32:42):
Yeah, that's I think we're of yes, we're of the same mind
on that one.
Yeah, I think it comes down toin a world where everything is
special, nothing feels special.
And so when your first levelcharacter can fly or fling fire
bolts and do misty step orwhatever the other things are,
it I just don't I have a hardtime understanding like who
(33:04):
okay, who is this character?
How did they how did theyachieve this level of power?
Why will they have farmer upuntil 5e?
Right Yeah, but but I thinkmaybe maybe it comes down to
people enjoy the dopamine hit ofimagining their character doing
the heroic thing, and when theyput together 5e, they just sort
of listened to the public whosaid, This part is fun for me,
(33:28):
and then they did more of thatuntil it became what it is.
Uh again, no shade, it's it'sall taste, it's all taste.
Iain (33:36):
Some of that can be fun, like sometimes it is fun to be
you know Aragon from Lord of theRings who can just you know
take everything like a champ andbe super heroic.
But again, there's I don't knowif it's a masochistic part of
me, there has to be some elementof risk.
It's one of the reasons I hatedthe Hobbit movie adaptations
that they made.
(33:57):
There was never any moment inthose where I ever felt that the
main characters were in peril.
Uh-huh.
They were not going to die,nothing bad was ever gonna
happen to any of them.
And yes, if you've read thestory, you know that's the case.
So, however, if you're a newperson coming to the movie, you
might think that thesecharacters and situations, and
in fact, to take another level,it's something that put me off
(34:20):
House of the Dragon.
Like I love Game of Thrones,but there's an episode in the
first season of House of theDragon where one character
basically storms the beach onhis own.
Yeah.
And the only reason he succeedsis through the incompetence of
the bad guys and the fact theyattack him one at a time.
Jon (34:35):
Yeah.
Iain (34:35):
And I'm like, you're not making him heroic.
He just happens to be very goodat one-on-one fighting.
Right.
If he was actually rushed by anarmy, he'd be dead.
And it's why I fell out of lovewith the later series of Game
of Thrones.
There's that.
I think it's the sixth seasonwhere like Jon Snow faces down a
whole army on his own, and it'slike, yeah, he's obviously not
(34:57):
going to die.
Oh, look, another army rides into save him.
He just lot lost that appeal.
Um to circle that back to yourpodcast, you never get the
feeling your characters are safebecause there'll be characters
who it's not like they'rerunning around with one arm
hanging off, and you're like,Oh, poor old fella looks like
he's got to come in from there'scharacters who will be
completely healthy and will endup dying in ignoble ways, yeah.
(35:22):
Because the as you say, the thedice happened to go and up
today is your day to die, and Ithink that's very refreshing
because a lot of actual plays itis main character syndrome for
everyone who you're listeningto, yeah.
And you know, nobody can nobodycan possibly die.
And again, to go to paranoia,it's one of the reasons I think
(35:42):
people enjoy paranoia, and I'veseen it especially with people
who are longtime fifth-head DDplayers, they take almost glee
out of the fact that everythingis so fragile.
Uh-huh.
If you remember our very firstactual play we did, nobody died
for a while, but then when thefirst character died, it was
(36:03):
almost like someone had rippedthe bandage off.
Yeah.
Cool, it's open, and suddenlypeople are dying later.
Jon (36:09):
Now we're rushing like lemmings off a cliff.
Yeah.
Oh, this is how it's supposedto be done.
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, we're supposed to spend ourlives frivolously.
Iain (36:20):
Let's let's go, let's go.
So to take it back to your toyour one shot in the dark, where
can people get hold of thisdelightful game?
Jon (36:29):
It's available only on drive-thru rpg.
Uh, however, there'd been somedevelopments since um since
since you saw it last, maybe.
It grew some legs and and sortof found its audience.
Uh stran strangely, one of theways that it landed was people
would use it to teach their kidshow to play, like, as a as a
(36:50):
sort of bridge into role-playinggames.
And so it found an audiencewith kids, which is so strange
because my podcast is soabsolutely not for kids.
And One Shot in the Dark wasnot intended for kids despite
being simple, but it did find ahome there, and people would
constantly send me pictures ofthem playing with their kids, or
(37:14):
the map with the scary monsterson it that their kids made, and
genuinely very heartwarming forme and amazing experience.
Not the least because it was socompletely unexpected.
Besides that, the original gameand all of this stuff is on
Drive-Thru RPG, and I'm gonnaadd for extremely cheap, it's a
buck fifty for the core game,and all the other things are 99
(37:35):
cents, I think.
I decided if the game soldenough copies, I would make an
expansion.
And so there is an expansionnow.
It's called Return to Dwarivar,and it it sort of um taps into
a story thread from season one.
A kind of an unresolved storythread of season one.
Uh, you don't have to have everheard the podcast to play the
(37:56):
game, by the way.
Um so a bit of a bit of fanservice and fun for me to
explore that, but uh again, youcould play the game without
knowing a thing about that lore.
Uh again, the the load on theplayer or the listener is is
very, very light.
Uh, and then I also put out,because a lot of people had made
um expansions like one shot inthe dark but only goblins was
(38:20):
one, there's one shot in thesnow, there's one shot uh
cyberpunk, there's like fan-madeexpansions, and so I thought,
oh, I'm as long as I'm making anexpansion, I'll put out a uh
expansion maker kit for free,and it just basically has some
advice on how to do that andmaintain a balance for the best
(38:47):
chance for a satisfying game.
I'm saying it that way becausebecause there are so many random
elements involved, sometimesyou play the game and it's a
cakewalk.
Sometimes you play the game andit's impossible.
The goal is to have a gamewhere there's real danger and a
real chance of failure, but ifyou are a little bit lucky, you
(39:09):
could pull through in the end.
That's the ideal, but it's tooswingy for me to guarantee that
kind of experience.
There's a calculus kind of indesigning the uh number of
encounters and and how toughthey are.
Uh that might optimize thechance for that experience.
(39:30):
Yeah.
Uh so that's kind of what goesinto that maker kit.
Oh, and also there is veryrecently One Shot in the Dark
original, now in Portuguese,which is really fun for me.
Iain (39:41):
Wow.
Do you speak Portuguese or no?
I think Brazilian person do it.
Jon (39:47):
I had a Brazilian listener reach out and and offer to do
it, and I said, I said, oh yes,please.
Actually, there's a Danishversion and a German version in
the works.
But because this is allvolunteer stuff, I never sort of
nudge them and say, hey, how'sthat coming along?
It just feels uh inappropriate.
(40:08):
So hopefully uh there will oneday be a Danish version and a
German version.
Iain (40:14):
I love that there's this community around it.
And when you mentioned it beingpopular with people wanting to
use it as a vehicle to get kidsinto role-playing, I was
honestly not surprised.
I saw you posted some stuffabout that.
Yeah.
That didn't surprise me in theslightest because it actually.
(40:34):
You know, you've got thesearchetypes, yeah, they're going
off to just slay the bad guybecause he's bad.
(40:56):
You know, there's no morecomplex story motivations like
we're gonna go get a bunch oftreasure and kill the bad guy,
and that's sometimes all youneed to get people introduced to
the hobby.
And I know that when I've rungames before for my kids, like I
ran a bunch during COVID, and Ikept them super simple along
(41:17):
those lines.
Right.
It was you know, you're goingto get a bad guy in his lair,
and you know, that's it.
There's nothing more complexthan that, and there's things to
fight along the way, and myson's case, things to make
friends with on the way.
Right.
And um you don't need it anymore complex than that.
And I see it sometimes whereI've talked to people both in
(41:39):
like face-to-face but alsoonline about it, where they're
like, I want to get myeight-year-old into D D, and um,
you know, I'm thinking ofstarting with and they list some
module for fifth ed.
I'm like, it's way too complexfor them.
Yes, they will not understandit.
I mean, what you what you wantto do is almost have this like
little buddy system where yougive them a bit of paper and
(42:00):
like three numbers that theyroll on, yeah.
So you can have the adultsplaying and casting their spells
and doing this, and you givethem like a fighting number and
a magic number and a lucknumber, a bit like fighting
fantasy.
Exactly, right, right, and youyou roll those three things,
yeah, and they would have agreat time because they don't
(42:20):
need to look at this hugelycomplex web of numbers and know
what their their various skillsare, they just want to roll the
dice and participate, and that'show you get people um involved
in it rather than giving themsome huge 300-page rulebook.
Jon (42:37):
Yeah, something funny happened.
Uh, this last summer I ended upplaying One Shot in the Dark
with my nephew, who is 12, andhe he I think he came over to
use our pool, like three or fourtimes, but we we had some like
spare time that we needed tokill, and my wife said, Hey, why
(42:59):
don't we try one shot in thedark?
I've never I don't have kids ofmy own, and I've never played
one shot in the dark with any ofmy family or friends.
It's just not something that weall do together.
So I was a bit reluctant, but Ithought, okay, sure, why not?
We'll tr we'll try it.
And so we did, and it was ahit, and the next time he came
(43:19):
over, he wanted to play itagain, and that happened again
and again.
We I think we played it fourtimes over four weeks, which
blew my mind because I'd beentold that kids that this game
works with kids, but I hadn'tactually seen it and experienced
it, and when I did, it was kindof like, oh my god, this really
it really does.
Um, not that I doubted anyone,but it's different when you see
(43:43):
it.
What was interesting to me wasthat because of the effect of DD
and other role-playing games onvideo games over the decades,
kids are pre-packaged with aknowledge they know what hit
points are already.
You don't have to explain that.
They understand even like youknow what a hit die is in some
(44:04):
cases, and so the mechanics, andand of course the tropes, you
know, the fighter, the wizard,even a cleric, which I thought
might be esoteric for a12-year-old.
Nope, not a problem.
They got it, they understandwhat that is already.
They show up knowing what thesethings are, and so the game
which I'd heard was easy toexplain to kids, actually turned
out to be even easier than Ithought, because they already
(44:28):
know because of the ubiquity ofRPG tropes in culture.
Amazing.
Iain (44:34):
Yeah, it's it's insane how it's informed the mainstream.
I talked about that way back inthe Dungeons and Dragons
episode, but most of the thingsthat you see in modern video
games can be traced back to LDD.
Absolutely.
When you think about the HolmesRed Box edition that was
released back in 82, 83,whenever that was.
(44:57):
Is that Alina?
Yes, yes, right.
Yeah, I think it is, yeah,yeah.
And yeah, there's a wizard youhave to go and kill.
Burgle.
Blah blah blah.
Yes, all the old cobwebs arecoming off there.
(45:20):
But that has set the trend foryour levels, hit points, and a
tutorial level to get youintroduced to games.
That's where that all comesfrom, is that concept.
Because somebody in TSR waslike, What's the easiest way to
learn our game?
Well, play it.
Yeah, well, what what what ifsomeone's buying for the first
(45:43):
time?
Well, they the books, thegamesmaster for them, they just
play through it.
And I saw it recently in ourlast episode we talked about
Pendragon, yeah, and in thesixth edition Pendragon starter
set, which is one of the mostbeautiful RPG products you can
ever buy.
If you want character sheetsthat look like illuminated
(46:04):
manuscripts from the medievaltimes, that is of course I do
that.
That's your game to go to.
But it's Pendragon's a fairlynot complex, but it's a very
esoteric system in terms of howit runs, it's a very clever
system, but it comes with achoose your own adventure style
(46:25):
game that teaches you all of thebasic mechanics, yeah, and it's
such an interesting way ofyou're gonna run that game.
I hadn't looked at Pendragonprobably coming up for like two
decades when I got this umstarter set through, and as I
was running through this, I waslike, oh, I remember this, I
(46:47):
remember how to do this.
But I think as a new person,you'd also get it very, very
quickly because it's spelled outvery easily for you and it's it
just does all the mechanics.
Jon (46:58):
To bring it back kind of full circle, those examples of
play, even more than the sort ofsolo adventures that they would
that they included, but thoseexamples of play, uh, do you
remember like Black Dougal?
I think that's in A D 1E.
Uh like are we gonna kill thegobliners?
I forget exactly what thesituation was, but I do remember
(47:21):
as a kid really enjoyingreading those as a kind of
different style of fiction.
And those little actual plays,because really they were the
proto-actual plays, I think thatthey they're one of the things
that super informed the thepodcast that I do now.
(47:43):
It's it's I'm trying to regainthat feeling of vicarious play.
Iain (47:49):
Two of my favourite because I used to always like
those sections and books, eventhough I know how to play an
RPG, it was always interestingto see how people did it, and
there have been some fantasticways over the years.
So, for example, Werewolf theApocalypse, they did, and also
uh Wraith the Oblivion did thisas well because White Wolf were
(48:11):
very kind of creative in howthey did these things, uh-huh,
they did their actual plays as acomic strip in the book, but
one page had the comic strip,but the other page was almost
like showing the working ofthese things happen.
Like that's great to this, herose these dice, but then you've
got this story playing out.
But my two favourite ones wereone is more recent, it's
(48:33):
Mothership, uh-huh, and in theMothership RPG, the actual play
reads like an actual sessioncomplete with the players like
arguing with the GM over stuff,but there's also one in the
first edition Slay Industriesrule book where it reads like an
actual session, yeah, becausethere's even bits like the
players groaning at the GM'sattempt at an accent for one of
(48:56):
the characters, and those reallyhelp bring it to life because I
think one of the problems thatnewer players coming into the
hobby have is they're oftenintroduced by watching an actual
play online, and that doesn'toften give you the real
experience because you've got abunch of actors who are very
polished, yeah, who are in ahigh production studio, and
(49:19):
that's their job.
And it's a performance with anaudience in mind, which is a
different thing, which is verydifferent from a game, yes, and
there's not the sort of nonsenseand visceral reality of
actually sitting down playing itwhere somebody forgets the
rules or needs the GM to explainsomething, and I think a lot of
(49:40):
people come into it now withthat experience if it's all
gonna flow very seamlessly, andeveryone's gonna be incredibly
creative and know how to act,rather than it being a bunch of
people saying, So what do youdo?
or I roll my dice and do this,that, and the other.
And there was a discussion Iactually had online recently
with somebody on Threads, andthey were asking for advice, and
(50:00):
they said, How do I help shinea spotlight on a player who's
very resident to take part at mytable?
And all the other players do X,Y, and Z, but this player
doesn't.
And I'm like, Maybe they don'twant the spotlight.
Yeah, maybe they they'refighting.
I said, Are they enjoying thegame?
They're oh yeah, they'll theycontribute in combat, and like
when they're they're talk tothey talk back, but they don't
(50:22):
like essentially method act,sure, sure.
They're having fun.
Ask them if they're having fun,if they're having fun, you
don't need to change it.
I've had players before whohave been there and they like
being there to do the gamestuff, they like being there to
roll the dice and see thecharacter do awesome things, but
they don't necessarily want youto engage on a one-on-one.
(50:45):
Like some players areabsolutely 100% in it for the
character interaction and beingthat other person slipping into
their mind and yada yada yada.
Some people love that, and I Ilove that, you know.
I'm an extrovert, that's kindof my my thing.
But some people are content tobe there to be the strong,
silent character who comes intotheir own during combat, yeah,
(51:08):
and that's fine as well.
There's not this not everyonehas to be a prima donna when
they when they play, and the thegame is made up of both types
of players again.
You see this action thisinteraction online where some
people rage against people whoactually like to roleplay, and
they're like, this should be asimulation, this thing, and blah
blah blah.
It has its roots in war gaming.
You're like, can everyone justhave fun?
(51:30):
Yeah, yeah, but not everythingneeds to be one thing or the
other.
Jon (51:35):
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
Actually, you're making methink of my own games, my own
ongoing games right now, andyes, we have both types of
players, and and probably formyself, I'm probably somewhere
in the middle.
Sometimes I'm very methody inmy character play.
Other times I don't necessarilywant to have the full live
(51:58):
dialogue.
I would rather just hand wavethat and say, okay, we discuss
the blah blah blah, and youknow, tell me how does it turn
out.
Um, maybe I don't know if it'smy mood or the situation, but
yeah, you're right.
There's both kinds of play.
And and and it's a spectrum aswell.
Iain (52:14):
Yeah, and also that does happen.
I've had it before where go togames and for whatever reason
not been feeling myself or notfeeling up to it.
And that's when you're like,okay, I make a persuade roll.
Jon (52:26):
Yeah.
Iain (52:26):
The ref realizes, oh yeah, he's you know he's not in the
mood.
But we'll make it the persuaderoll and see if his character
can do it.
And it's I think the gist of itis you can do what you want in
the hobby and other peopleshouldn't yuck your yum.
If somebody wants to count howmany arrows they've got and
that's their thing, then morepower to the bowman guy, let him
have his moment in combat.
Likewise, if somebody wants tohave a full-blown conversation
(52:50):
with every NPC, let them do thatas well, but just not at the
expense of other people's fun.
Anyway, John, we are coming upto the one hour mark.
This has been an absolutepleasure.
Oh, you've said people canobviously find one shot in the
dark on drive-thru RPG.
If you've not done that, youabsolutely should give a chance.
If you don't listen to Tale ofthe Manticore, you should also
(53:12):
give that a listen to.
It's a wonderful podcast.
It's been going on for how manyyears is that now?
Is it five years?
Five years now, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Give that a listen to if youdon't.
But is there anything else youwant to pitch before we finish?
Jon (53:26):
There's nothing else I want to pitch, but I need to ask for
good luck because at the end ofthis month, October, for anyone
who's listening to this, not inthe time, it's released.
Exactly.
Um, so around Halloween of 2025,I'm attending a uh convention,
and I am running a game I'venever run before, and it's
(53:49):
called Clay O Rama.
I don't know if you ever heardof that, uh, but behind me
there's a wall of uh a shelfwith little tubs of play-doh on
it.
Uh, and the it's a game made byZeb Cook, one of the original
uh DD writers, and you make alittle monster out of Plasticine
and you have arena combat withthem.
(54:10):
And I'm nervous because I knowthis game is amazing.
I played it as a child, therules are fun.
I did kind of mini-game it oncein a in a DD session uh a year
ago, but I've never played it asits own thing, certainly not as
a convention with strangers whoare unfamiliar with the
concept.
So I just need your thoughtsand prayers as I uh tackle that.
(54:32):
And next time we speak, I'lllet you know how it goes.
Iain (54:35):
I am intrigued by this.
There better be video footageof this because anything
involving little clay figures issounds absolutely amazing.
Anyway, John, it's been anabsolute pleasure.
Yes, sir.
I will let you go.
We need to speak again soon, ifonly to have a Cleo Rama
update.
In fact, I'm gonna put that inthe calendar.
You're gonna give us aplay-by-play of how Cleorama
(54:56):
went.
Jon (54:56):
Yep, ma'am.
Iain (54:58):
Wish me luck.
See you later.
Yeah.
If you fancy giving one shot inthe dark ago, we'll include a
(55:31):
note in the show notes so youcan find it and give it a try.
Likewise, if you want to findthe Tale of the Manticore
podcast, it can be found on anypodcast directory of your
choice.
As you mentioned in theinterview, they're well into the
third season now, so there's alot of content there for you to
binge.
We're a semi-regular podcast onthe history of RPGs.
(55:55):
We've got over 70 episodes now,so if you're a new listener,
please feel free to take a lookat our back catalogue.
You'll find all sorts ofhistory episodes, interviews
like this one, product reviews,and roundtables, and even some
actual plays as well.
If that's your thing.
If you enjoyed us, please leaveus five stars on your podcast
directory of choice.
(56:16):
It really helps us withvisibility and it also assuages
our egos and makes us want tomake more of these.
Until next time, if you want toget in touch with us, you can
do so on email atroll.two.save.pod at gmail.com
or on Facebook or Instagram bysearching for roll to save.
(56:37):
Thanks again for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.