Running a Successful TTRPG Kickstarter with HomieAndTheDude

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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Welcome students to Session Zero University.
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(00:23):
here at the university.
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(00:44):
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(01:05):
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Awesome.

(01:25):
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Sessions
Zero University.
Of course, my name is Skyler.
But you guys have heard from me plenty.
I'm super, super stoked to have two very special guests with me
today.
Odie and Tom.
Am I saying that right, Odie?
Yeah, dude, you nailed it.
That pronunciation was perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
We've heard "Bod High."

(01:45):
We've had old manner of stuff.
Old manner of stuff.
That's a wild "Bod High."
That's an interesting point.
From the Homey and Dude podcast, as well as the Kickstarter
campaigns, which we're going to dive into, we've got Sky's
Efforts, we've got the Wandering Tavern,
and soon we're going to have the Scorching Basin, which
I'm super stoked for.
So guys, welcome to the show.

(02:06):
Super glad to have you.
Thank you.
Thank you for having us.
We're super stoked to be here.
And we've been following your stuff for a very long time.
I'm typically the one running our Instagram bits here and there.
And so I've been keeping up with your guys' stuff through all
of that and enjoying your content from afar for a while.
So it's a pleasure to be on and to be chatting to yourself

(02:26):
as well, Skyler.
Absolutely.
Well, that's awesome.
I really appreciate that.
That's super sick.
So it's the beauty of the TTRPG really coming together
and supporting each other and just making some really awesome
stuff, for sure.
Oh, yeah.
It seems like we've been in each other's orbit
for a couple of years now.
Absolutely.
Reaching out to each other for various things.

(02:48):
And it's really cool to meet each other today.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yes.
I was super stoked to be able to see you guys face to face
finally outside of just watching the podcast and everything.
So it's super cool to be together.
For today's topic, Session Zero University,
we're trying to help teach people things and share
information amongst TTRPG content creators.

(03:10):
And today we're talking about running a successful Kickstarter
campaign.
You guys have done so far two and a third one coming in, right?
The Wandering Tavern, which I mentioned before.
And that one--
and I think it's important to note that to top it off,
the Wandering Tavern was like 1,500% funded.
Sky Zephyrs, over 500% funded.

(03:32):
So it wasn't just like, we did it.
We got funded.
It was like way beyond.
Five times, 15 times funded.
I think that's insane.
That is so cool.
And within the TTRPG space, there's
a lot of people putting content out there.
And you don't want to get lost in the oversaturation.
So the fact that you guys were able to shoot so far ahead

(03:53):
of your goal is incredible.
It's mind blowing.
Super cool.
So with that being said--
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, well, so I got to ask, both of these projects,
what was the inspiration that sparked you guys to create them?
What made you guys want to do--
Wandering Tavern's got a studio ghibli toned to it.

(04:15):
Wara Sky Zephyrs.
It's very really cool mechanics for--
and the funny thing is, I've actually
had multiple people come to me and say, hey,
how can I run ship combat?
Or how can I run some Skycraft combat?
And I was like, dude, I got exactly the thing that you need.
And I just sent a straight over to your guys' website
and over to the content there.
And they're like, yo, this is going

(04:36):
to save me so much time and effort.
And I said, exactly.
But what was it that really inspired you guys
to want to make this content specifically
and put it out there through Kickstarter?
Before you go, both.
We need to send Skyler some commission checks
for all those referrals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Exactly.
We'll get you hooked up after this.

(04:57):
Oh, you guys have already done so much for us.
You're good.
So on our end, basically Tom and I, during lockdown,
decided to start making the podcast together
and start doing a couple of things
that we would do, which was our live streams
and then we would do our podcast.
And we were loving doing that.
And it was a good time.

(05:17):
But then, basically, Tom discovered
acquisitions incorporated.
But the old crew, where it was Chris Perkins running it
along with Michael Hulick and all of those--
what's his name?
Jerry Holkins, Patrick Ruthfuss, again,
legendary person who now is revered.

(05:38):
And we were just stunned by the level of creativity,
the sets that they were doing during their live shows
at PAX and things like that.
And just like, we were watching it in the reception
from the crowd.
They shout, green flame.
And everyone's like, green flame.
And that just was-- it transfixed us.
We were just obsessed with that for a little bit.

(05:59):
And we loved it.
And so I became a GM for us.
And we started running things.
And we were like, holy sugar.
D&D is incredible.
We were like, it's an amazing way to tell stories
and to be immersed with your friends and your family
in something really, really fun.
We also are big movie fans.

(06:19):
Like, we're big consumers of video and TV content as a family.
And we have been since I was a young kid.
And so for us to be able to tell some stories that we've
been wanting to tell, that we've been talking about
and speculating about, and all this stuff for ages,
meant a lot to us.
So then we were so lucky back when--

(06:41):
this is an interesting thing.
So back when Twitter was not bought by Elon Musk,
it was this stunning, safe space for TTRPG creators
specifically.
And the community was thriving massively.
Like, we knew so many people who were doing like incredible
with Twitter followers.
And we're getting loads of their content kind of viewed

(07:04):
and things like that, all before the Elon Musk
kind of situation happened.
And some people brought us into the community.
They introduced us in while we were doing our podcast.
And we started interviewing TTRPG people.
And we started kind of just establishing ourselves
in the space a little bit.
And we had some very early help from some incredible creators,
people like Underground Oracle, who

(07:26):
make some of the best supplements out there.
People like Dungeon Glitch, who's been here there
and everywhere in the early days of the D&D space
and is an absolute legend.
David Tilstra, who is freaking everywhere now as well.
You can see him on so many incredible shows.
These people were super kind to us
and brought us into the space.

(07:48):
And we just fell in love with it.
And we were like, we want to create something here.
We want to give back to the community
because all these amazing people have been so gracious to us.
And so I had a world at the time that was called the Sky Realm.
That was all based with Floating Island.
So imagine like an avatar, the Blue People avatar,

(08:08):
not the last airbender.
Yeah, you know the floating mountains up in there.
I think they call them the Hallelujah Mountains or something
like that in the movie.
Very heavily inspired off of that.
So each of these mountains had cities on them,
people living there, and just kind of existing up in this layer.
And we ran awesome campaigns there.

(08:30):
We had an amazing time.
But one thing that was impossible for me was the fact
that I have this beautiful airspace.
It's so like we've got so much expandable,
like explorable territory,
and there's no freaking good rules to run any air travel
or anything in that space.
And you know, there's things like people online had made Wild Jammer

(08:52):
and there was old versions of Spell Jammer that existed.
There were Star Wars 5E.
You know, there was all these different mechanic systems.
You know, there's a little bit in Descent to Avernus,
little bits there that you could kind of pull together
to make kind of a Frankenstein system for vehicle travel.
And we just got fed up of that basically.

(09:13):
And we're like, we want to make something.
So I started developing Sky's Effors
and the vehicle mechanic system there.
And got to a point where I don't know what happened.
The guy who helped us write it, Tony, who was a good friend of ours,
we were all just hanging out.
And I think one day we were just like, should we like...

(09:35):
People are going to want this.
Like, this is awesome.
Should we try and make it into a book
and get it out to the community kind of thing?
And when we have that conversation, Spell Jammer came out like
maybe a week or two later.
And it was just terrible and it was so bad.
And so we were like, OK, I guess that's the sign.

(09:57):
Like, you know, if what's here going to burn it, then we've got to give people something.
And so Sky's Effors told us to place like that.
We had no idea what we were doing.
Like there was...
And Tom and I are people who learn as we go.
We're the fail type.
I'm a skateboarder.
So my whole life and we're both martial artists and things like that.

(10:19):
You know, we've been learning through failure our entire lives.
And so for us to come to this space, we just kind of just winged it and just went for it
and tried to learn as we went.
And we had huge help from people like Nord Games, Chris at Nord Games.
Shout out to him.
And other amazing folks like Sly Flourish, Mike Shea, who's just an absolute legend

(10:41):
and believed in us at the beginning as well.
People like Rune Smith, an incredible creator who again, gave us a chance to promote with us
and help us start understanding the marketing machine going on here
and how to kind of position ourselves and all this kind of stuff.
So people were just, again, so kind to us, offered us so much advice.

(11:03):
And we went to Sky's Effors with very low expectations.
And we came out, you know, stunned with the support that we got and were blown away.
And it was enough for us to bring on some more people to come and work with us.
And then from there, basically during Sky's Effors,
the Wandering Tavern actually is a airship in Sky's Effors that originally existed in Sky's Effors.

(11:27):
Right.
People loved it so much that we were like, oh, we'll build you an STL.
We'll make you like a printable version of the Wandering Tavern, which was awesome.
And then from there, we were like, man, everyone really loved it.
So we just turned it into something.
And the beautiful thing we did is technically the Wandering Tavern could be used perfectly
in conjunction with Sky's Effors because there's characters in Sky's Effors who are

(11:52):
older in the timeline, I guess, of it.
But then in Wandering Tavern, you have like young Don Leon or as he's known in the Wandering Tavern,
Leon Klaw, you know, same character, both books, younger version, older version.
And there's this synergy between the two books that we started seeing.
And we started the first one was written by, you know, two fake writers called

(12:15):
Gellmer and Saffa who were making a Sky Travel Guide.
The second one is written by Amelia, who's a traveling journalist who's exploring the
Wandering Tavern because she became fascinated with it as a child and wanted to go and explore
and find it.
And so I don't know, it just made sense.
The Wandering Tavern kind of fell in our laps.

(12:37):
And thankfully my writing partner, Emily, who is a straight up badass, like a straight up
killer when it comes to writing lore and writing extensive worlds that are packed with juicy
little crumbs that, you know, and this is the thing.
I'm the mechanics guy and I'm also the continuity guy.

(12:59):
I make sure that everything works within the laws of the world that we built and, you know,
come up with the bigger overarching kind of things where she's like, you know, in the
Wandering Tavern, she designed the Spider Quest that we've had so many people message
us about and be like, the Spider plot hooks is incredible.
I love shrinking my characters down and letting them explore.
And we're like, that was a throwaway idea that we just that Emily was like, I want to include

(13:24):
it.
And we did.
And it's one of the most amazing things there.
So Emily elevated our book level and our quality and just the amazing work that we do
tenfold.
And so that was it.
We got to the Wandering Tavern and we had changed our marketing strategy pretty heavily
into we were no longer going to be running any sort of Facebook or corporate advertising

(13:48):
during the campaign.
We remember that.
Yeah.
Slowly promoted through creators and things like that.
And so that began developing our marketing strategy a little bit more and changed how
we now position it going into this next one and how we want to help the community with
this project simultaneously.
And so, yeah, dude, that's been the journey.

(14:10):
It's been it's been a wild journey and it's it's been hella fun and Tom and I have been
lucky as hell to work with each other and to do this together as father and son and with
our friends and our artists who we've been working with for four years, our layout artists
who we've been working with for four years, our editor who's been with us for two years,
our team, some of which have been with us for five years.
And it's all those things of like, we love these people.

(14:32):
They're family now.
And this is very much a family affair for us.
So, you know, this journey has been filled with opportunities that we've been lucky enough
to be able to grasp in the moment and then also a sprinkle of luck outside of that as well.
Realistic.
I think that's always got to be in there just at least at least a sprinkle, right?
Get a little bit of room.
So that's awesome.

(14:54):
Wow.
That's incredible.
And like you said, you know, having that perfect opportunity pop up to publish it when Sky Jammer
is really, really failed and being able to kind of jump in with something that works so much
better.
I mean, that's perfect, right?
You're creating or the demand was there and then you provided what people wanted.

(15:14):
That's awesome.
So, you would mention, you know, both of you kind of have this sort of we're going to figure it
out as we go, we're going to fail and then we're going to pick ourselves back up and we're going
to keep on going and we're going to adjust throughout the process of those first two
campaigns.
What would you say was one of the biggest things that you had to learn or you had to

(15:34):
even readjust between the two of them and then hopefully even take into the scorched base and
stuff, you know, coming up?
You go first, Tom.
Yeah, I think, sure.
So, I think with Sky's efforts, we just didn't know, I guess we didn't know what we didn't
know, right?

(15:54):
So, what we were doing is just grasping for how people do things or kick starters.
Right.
So, we brought in Nord Games who Bodhi mentioned as almost like a consultant for us and as part
of that, they advised us on how to do Facebook ads and really helped us with that and they put
us in their newsletter and they gave us more advice on, you know, kind of reaching out to

(16:19):
different people and so we followed the instructions basically because that's all we knew.
And it definitely took us to a certain place but along that first campaign, I guess I just
started feeling uncomfortable with, I guess, first straight away just giving money to Facebook.

(16:39):
It didn't feel great initially and also the conversions were a little bit
like uncertain.
We didn't really know how much we were converting from Facebook so both of those things started
getting us to think like how much do we need these guys and the answer was, well, I guess a lot

(17:01):
because everyone uses them.
Like if you go to Facebook right now and you are, you know, you've ticked TTRPGs as your
interest, well, you know what's coming up on your feed.
It is new books from big players continuously, right?
And the reason they do that is because it works.
It just does, it works.
But, you know, we kept having conversations about men.

(17:25):
It is, seems to be the only way to do this and no one else is doing it a different way.
But is there something else we can do and that just started getting us to think about, okay,
we know a couple creators, could we possibly extend our network and build out a different model?

(17:47):
And that's what we started exploring.
And it wasn't because we failed with Facebook.
Facebook did what it does.
Like it returns.
There's some marketing formulas that say you should get, you know, about, I don't know,
between two and three times what your investment is on ads.

(18:08):
And we got that.
We definitely got that.
But we just wanted to try something else.
And so with the Wandering Tavern, we reached out to our network a little bit more.
So again, some of the OG friends that we had were there, but we also then built out
a larger network of people.

(18:29):
So, you know, continued shout outs to people like D&D Shorts took a risk on us.
Cinderblock Sally took a risk on us.
And on and on, like Deficient Master was there.
Zack the Bold was there early days.
And this was before he was like Zack the Bold, but he was a rocket ship even back then.

(18:51):
And so we then built out our network to, I don't know, maybe about 15 creators.
And we thought, okay, well, we might have something here.
So we have really, really invested a lot of time.
You can't do this by, you know, with one email or something like that.

(19:14):
You have to just build relationships.
So we've been to GenCon the last two years.
We've gotten to meet people over the course of a long, long time, months and months and months.
And, you know, we have countless calls just like this.
It seems like weekly and have become friends with a lot of people in the community.
And it has served us really well.
And so we are looking to support them and they're looking to support us.

(19:39):
And it seems it just feels a lot better than giving money to Zuckerberg.
So whether it works or not, honestly, Skyler, we don't know if we don't know if this next one's
going to work.
We feel good about whatever happens because we like the direction we went in.
So we're okay with what the outcome is going to be on this one.
Yeah.
And I think what I would say is with kick starters in general, if we just take a step

(20:01):
back and look at kick starters in general, what I would say to the audience is,
I'm thinking back to before Sky's efforts.
And I think there's a feeling, because we certainly had it of like, if you just run a
kick starter, like maybe magic will happen.
You know, maybe like something, you know, you're on kick starter, you're on the platform,

(20:22):
people are going to see it, people are going to like, you know, this could, this could blow up.
It could, and the message I would give to everyone is, unless it's some sort of fluke
product that does, I've never heard of one in our sphere, but you're going to get out of your
kick starter pretty much what you put into it. And that's, that's a pretty consistent formula

(20:46):
that we've seen over the last two. And the other thing I would say is, as much as you put into
the creation of your product, you have to put at least that much into marketing that product.
Agreed.
So those are two things that people might overlook in the audience.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah.

(21:06):
Because a lot of people think, oh, we've got something really cool here.
And you might, I'm not saying you don't. But yeah, if you're not, if you're not sharing it,
right? And there's a little bit of a differentiation when it comes to things with like an IP, right?
Like a popular, like we saw Avatar Legends really kind of blew things out of the water
from the TTRBG space because they were, they had the name recognition of Avatar the Last Airbender.

(21:27):
And not to say they didn't do marketing, of course, and they made an awesome product. But
that definitely helps skyrocket you forward at least a little bit when it comes to marketing.
But yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that. It's not that easy for just everybody.
You've got to really put a lot of work and a lot of effort into it.
So 100%.
I think as well, I'll add to a couple things Tom said.
You know, we feel like Tom said, this is a gamble for us. We feel really comfortable,

(21:53):
though, morally with what we have decided in terms of working with the community.
And, you know, giving, you know, for people who don't understand, you know, we're offering
creators, you know, that they could get a chance to promote and put loads of effort in in the same
way that we've put loads of effort into the product and things like that. And then we just
want to split whatever that person brings in with them. We want to be able to continue keeping

(22:14):
creators who are getting, you know, for lack of better terms shafted by YouTube at the moment
because of how bad the algorithm is and how little they're willing to pay creators. And,
you know, whether it's Instagram or TikTok or YouTube or, you know, even just other sponsors
and things like that. So we want to really just try and help creators. And, you know,
we're not sure if everyone's going to get the bang for the buck, but we're going to try and at

(22:36):
least help as many people as we can and just try and spread the love to people as one.
Tom's exactly right. Like I'll give you an example straight off for it.
Everyone, I'm sure everyone here has heard of the ridiculous online store called Timu or Temu
or whatever the hell it's whatever. Yeah. Their products and them as a whole are just trash.

(23:00):
We had like it's it's it's it's awful, right? But their marketing hits so wide and so far.
And it's so like a lot of it is like catchy song stuff that like, you know, for people who
stim regularly or like, you know, just locked in, you know, and so there that's the thing. Marketing,

(23:23):
if your marketing is incredible and your product is wack, you can still sell a whack product with
incredible marketing. But that's the thing that is is then the the job of us as the third party
creators is to make sure that you market your ass off. You get it as far as you can. And then
you deliver a product that is at minimum, at minimum what you promised, a freaking minimum.

(23:47):
Then you have to like, in my opinion, and that's what, you know, we try and do is like,
you know, we've so on the Kickstarter page, we've mentioned a bunch of things within this book,
we've mentioned, you know, all the stuff that you're going to find in here. But even then,
you can't see the true depth that we've gone to here. You know, each faction chapter is like
30 to 40 pages of that you can use within in your world, you know, whether it's stuff that you

(24:14):
want to use for that faction or Pete, like modularize it and use it for other things.
We've given you so much depth in this that no one will get to see from the Kickstarter page
that we've got or from the, you know, advertising that people are doing, you know, it comes down to
that's the secondary thing of once we deliver the products, the reception coming back of people
being like, wow, I'm stoked about this or like, oh, I ran this and it was really fun or, you know,

(24:38):
we've had we have channels in our Discord server where people can come and share stories from their
sessions and their campaigns, you know, and epic moments and discuss whether they think the BVG
is actually a bad guy or whether he's justified, you know, all this kind of stuff. And so, yeah,
for us, it is that combination that marrying the two things together. But it and for us,

(25:00):
we chose, we chose to just make friends with the people in the space and try and help those people.
That was that was our choice is we we love so many of these creators like, you know,
ArlendTrick who helped us write a huge chunk of the Scorch basin. He's now an incredibly good friend
of mine. Me and him send each other voice notes almost daily. We call each other at least once a
week. We play Magic the Gathering online. Like he's he's my homie. We are like close friends now

(25:26):
because of this, you know, and that's that's what we are appreciating about this space and trying
to just help our our friends and what we call because ever since I was a little kid, my close
circle of friends and Tom and Tracy, we've always known as the Familia. And and so for us now,
the creators that we've expanded to all the people in our Discord server, those who follow our

(25:48):
newsletter or, you know, watch our YouTube videos, whatever, it's all just Familia, dude, we're just
it's family. That's all it is, you know. And that's so awesome. That's where we're at at this point
with with that. Yeah. Tom, a great a great mention of what we had to shift between the two because
God, it was and it really took us as well through the OGL stuff and all of this to gamble on some

(26:12):
of this stuff and to trust that, you know, we could also help the community back and trust
ourselves, trust them. And it was a big trust process it felt like for everybody. And I think
that's just what we're trying to do is is prove that also other companies like the big names that
are out there, you know, the the I mean, probably not the Hasper as let's be real. But you know,

(26:35):
the Paisos, the Mage and presses, the Cobalt presses, the, you know, the chaos, you know,
people like that, if we can prove that this model works and we can keep the community alive by working
with content creators, then actually, there's no need to give Mark Zuckerberg money or Google
money or, you know, YouTube ad money, you know, like, we can keep it in the family. That's the

(26:58):
whole point, you know, is keep it in the family. I love that I'm what I'm hearing is almost kind of
a story in and of itself, right? We love our fantasy stories. We love sort of the hero's journey
kind of stuff. I'm hearing from you guys this this overarching theme of bringing together the
community, right? You guys are all these scattered warriors from across the lands coming together

(27:20):
and then standing up against these sort of big corporate companies trying to sort of dictate
how everything works and and sort of become dictators in and of themselves, right? This is
my system and you're going to follow my system and you guys are the warriors standing up against
this system and saying, no, this doesn't have to be how it is. We're going to find another way

(27:41):
and we're going to come together to do it. And I love that. That's really cool. That's so awesome.
We found we found a couple fun ways to do that. So one of the ways with and I think
Bodes, maybe it might be good for you to just introduce the the headlines of Scorch Basin and
then we can talk about how we have done a couple, what I guess what I would call alternative

(28:03):
collaborations across a couple different areas of creators. But maybe we'll give
we'll give the audience a little bit of just a kind of a headline of what Scorch Basin is and
then we'll dip into some of the behind the scenes stuff. Yeah. So I mean, we've tried to innovate
with this book. We've tried to, like Tom said, allow collaboration in a multitude of different

(28:26):
ways and bring as many people on to work on this as possible. So we have over 100 creators who are
some of your favorites from around the the TTRPD sphere doing voiceovers for NPCs in the book.
So you will find throughout the book QR codes that will allow you to scan quickly, take you to a

(28:48):
YouTube video and you can quickly listen to what that character might sound like. You get a little
flavor of who they are and what they're kind of like from these incredible videos from, you know,
some of the most amazing people in the space. Not to mention then we've worked specifically with
four incredible creators who are also really close friends of ours that we absolutely love.

(29:09):
I mean, they've written what we're calling like DLC expansions for the for the book. Basically,
these are things that you can add to the Scorch Basin to make it even more fleshed out full,
give you more options. So we've got two adventures, one that's like a war boys mad max mixed with
eldritch horror kind of vibe. We we have a moral spiritual quest for protecting a sacred land that's

(29:37):
very heavily like Dune inspired and Fremen kind of inspired from Dune being done by another one
of these. So we've got Zach the Bold making that first adventure. We've got Skyler ADHDM
doing the second one. We've got Cinderblock Sally making a bunch of myriad of creatures. I think
it's like 30 creatures or something to add to the setting as well to continue to flesh it out

(29:59):
further. And then we have the amazing deck of DM things, Cole, who has written out an incredible
roster of items that are super lore based on the stuff that we've written and things that will
expand to give your players even more loot to kind of like find. So, you know, we've got these
voiceovers, we've got these collaborations. I at one point during the creative process, I get I get

(30:23):
these weird hyper fixations when I'm writing stuff that like I fall into little wormholes for a
little bit. And one of them was like, I wanted to make some languages for the scorch basin.
And I was like, I just got a little bit obsessed with it for a little bit of time. So we came up
with a brand new like font and writing style for what we call sand common, which is your native

(30:45):
speaking tongue at your D&D table. That's whatever sand common is for you basically. And then I
invented two other languages, one that is uses more Morse code, but instead of doing dots and
beeps, it's like a rhythm based language that you do by like striking your chest, clicking your
fingers and humming certain notes basically. And finally with that, the big one, and by the way,

(31:08):
I chose Morse code, because it's internationally like understood by many, many people. And also,
it's starting to become used for accessibility for people who have had things like strokes and
heart failure and things like that. So it's a big accessibility thing. And, you know,
teaching folks about that is something that we're passionate about. And then the other one that I

(31:28):
did was it's called Imana. And it's based on American sign language. And so basically using
the language we've taught, we're trying to teach people what is called like basic signing, the
basic like alphabetizing of sign language. We chose American sign language, because it's a
one handed sign language so that it can be done, you know, almost predominantly with one hand.

(31:52):
And we were super thankful because there's an amazing company here in the UK called Apame
Limited, who are one of the premier, you know, deaf and hard of hearing, like accessibility groups
that support people and offer, you know, translators and people who can teach the language, things
like that. And they graciously provided us with someone who helped us actually make a video

(32:17):
of all the signs and to teach people. So not only will you be able to see them in the book,
but you'll actually be able to learn it online with someone who has done an instructional tutorial
and all this kind of stuff. So we really have tried to go bigger and better. I mean, we've also
got an add on. This is not been spoken about anywhere else. So this is a beautiful little teaser

(32:40):
for your listeners. We have an add on where you can get yourself a one shot playing the
Scorch Basin, a PDF with it with the legendary B. Dave Walters running the session for you
and six other people. So, you know, we're trying to just collaborate with incredible people and

(33:02):
we're, you know, we've got a soundtrack in the book. We're just trying to work with a lot of
different people to make the book just crazy, basically. And yeah, that would be further
into the collaboration of how we're trying to bring creators into this process with us.
And such diverse elements of creators too. That is so cool. I mean, everything from
earlier you would mention, you know, the STLs and things like those lines for the ships and

(33:25):
things like that from the previous projects. And then now we're all the way to the whole QR code
to have voice actors and sort of a portion for their characters. That is a cool concept. I
personally have never even thought of before, but it makes so much sense. Give me, let my players
sort of visualize this character. Here's some character art. Here's what they sound like.

(33:48):
That's insane. That is such a clever idea. And then all the accessibility stuff that you're adding
in to kind of give them even more of a feel of the world. But then there's sort of a double
side to that where you're also learning something in the meantime. That's crazy. That is so cool.
I love that so much. That's awesome. Dude, you're hype about this is hyping me up, dude. I appreciate

(34:10):
you a lot. Dude, dude, I feel very seen. I feel very seen. Thank you. As you should. Well, and
again, you guys have put in so much work on this. So it's really cool to see and the creativity of
this. I mean, it really speaks to the collaboration. It speaks to the teamwork that you guys have
developed both between other creators and your team at Homey and the Dude is bringing all these

(34:30):
ideas in and these concepts. You mentioned that spider side quest that was really popular. I mean,
something like that that came from one of your team and ended up blowing up. It's so cool to be
able to collaborate with people like that and to see returns on that. You know, man, that is,
I'm stoked. I'm super stoked. I know I'm kind of getting a little bit off here, but no, that's

(34:52):
fantastic. I actually had on here, obviously, talking about Scorch Basin and kind of getting
an idea that what was it about? Because obviously, this kind of has like a Dune Mad Max thing. Is
it the popularity of Dune that's kind of been rising up with the movies coming out that really
sparked that idea? Because you had mentioned earlier, you know, with Sky's Efforts and stuff,

(35:14):
that you kind of hit a point where you were like, nobody else is doing this well. And that kind of
helped push a lot of the inspiration. What would you say for Scorch Basin really sparked that?
Let's do this. I want to jump into this kind of like desert terrain, Mad Max kind of a feel.
Dude, fantastic question. Honestly, so a couple things. First of all, we didn't choose the setting.

(35:34):
Our community chose the setting. Our Discord and our Last Kickstarter people and everyone on our
social media, everyone voted and it was an amazing vote between a bunch of really good options that
we were hyped for every single one of those. I remember that vote. Yes, absolutely. And everyone
chose the Scorch Basin and I'll tell you this. So for me, I've loved things like, you know,

(35:58):
Princes of Egypt, you know, the old animated movie, you know, I love, you know, what's called Prince
of Persia, the game, you know, what's the movie where Brad Pitt plays a pirate dude? And it's an
animated one. It's like, I want to say, oh, Sinbad, Sinbad, you know, like, there's all these like

(36:19):
incredible things that I used to love as a kid. And then growing up, you know, I've obviously
then read Dune. I've watched all the Mad Max movies. I've also watched the old David Fincher
Dune. I've watched the new Dunes, you know. And so when we chose the desert setting, first of all,
we were already kind of hyped on that one already. We'd already come up with the name and we're a

(36:41):
little bit further down the line. And, you know, I'm also a big fan of like the desert settings
in Star Wars like Tatooine and Jakku and these various gorgeous like desert settings that are
so interesting and so full of depth, but also so barren at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Awesome.
First of all, Dune and Mad Max are just the giantist of wells of inspirational material

(37:08):
that you can pull from. And there's so so much in there. And me personally, I love a saying from
Brennan Lee Morgan, which is a GM is only as good as the obscure references they make.
Okay. Yeah. One of my favorite sayings ever and it really resonated with me. And so my whole
technique with things is I just I pull on my vast knowledge of content and I mishmash tropes

(37:31):
together. I mash things that I loved about things and I take little pieces. So for example,
the Scarra in the Scorch Basin, they're this warrior group of predominantly women based off
of the Amazonian women of Themyscara from DC Universe. However, I mixed in a lot of the Spartan

(37:52):
and Roman kind of ways that they fight. They use spear and shield. They use shield walls and things
like that when they're in combat. Their way that their political system is taken from a strength
based situation that I heard about from somewhere else. And so I pull all these pieces together
and we create this beautiful tribe of warrior badass women that have like actual learnable

(38:16):
fighting styles that you can pick up as a player and this deep rich lore of how they actually
convert things into water. If you really want to like learn about it, they're super interesting
people with this history that stems back to the first surface dwellers. You know, it's
it's a it's a deep, deep level of stuff. So for me, it was the opportunity to build things out

(38:36):
like that and to explore a world where I love Dune. I love how Dune is so fantasy and so science
all at the same time. I'm such a fan of that. Also, I'm a metalhead. I love metal music. I love
getting angry. I love skateboarding and getting mad at my skateboard and throwing it on the ground.
So Mad Max made a lot of sense, you know, driving fast, getting crazy, shouting about

(39:00):
shit and just being a wild, you know, a wild being who's out in the ether. So I just loved it.
Now, I will be a thousand percent honest with your listeners. Of course, we factored in the fact that
Dune 2 was coming out and, you know, we also knew Mad Max, not Fury Road, what's Furiosa was

(39:21):
coming out as well. We knew that these IPs were going to be somewhat in the in the popular eye,
especially considering how well Dune 2 did and everyone falling in love with, you know,
that that styling and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, of course, that was something we considered.
And it's something that we consider, you know, when we talked about Studio Ghibli, you know,
wandering tavern really could have gone any way. It could have been super grimdark. It could have

(39:46):
been super like high fantasy and weird and wonderful. And it could have been, you know,
any spectrum of fantasy that we wanted to. But we chose Studio Ghibli because we resonate with it.
We love like, dude, Spirit It Away was my first ever introduction to anime ever. And it blew my
socks off when I was like six years old and just shaped a lot of my like also loving that hero,

(40:12):
like the heroine of Chahiro being so badass and being able to do everything and she was just
awesome. And so I just fell in love with Studio Ghibli. And yeah, when Boy in the Harrow was coming
out, we're like, it just makes sense. Like the timing makes sense. And so yeah, definitely a
combination of the two of just like, I love those IPs. I love exploring that space. I love bringing

(40:35):
in new things from other IPs to just mutant make it all up. Yeah, mix it all up into a melting pot
of random stuff. And yeah. And of course, there was also a marketing conversation with Tom and I
of what would make sense in terms of being like, if we're if if saying Studio Ghibli worked for us,
a discovery that we found, then maybe saying Dune and Mad Max might also work for us and things

(40:59):
like that 100. Well, it puts people in the mind space, right? And I don't think there's anything
wrong with that by any means, right? If I go see Dune and I think to myself, man, it'd be really
cool to run this and a TTRPG space, what's out there? And then boom, all of a sudden,
scorched space and pops up in front of me. I mean, Bada Bing, Bada Boom, that's perfect. We're there.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's spot on what I'm looking for. So

(41:21):
keywords, keywords, keywords, keywords, and yeah, all the marketing stuff that kind of ties in with
it. I'm already inspired by it. I want to jump in more. That's fantastic. So so with that being said,
with scorched basin, one thing that I noticed was for the previous two campaigns you guys had run,
they were very focused on 5e and scorched basin going into that one. That one's going to be very

(41:47):
system agnostic, right? It can kind of work for a lot of different systems.
Was there a particular reason why you guys wanted to kind of lean into that? I know I could
probably guess a few of the factors that might have come into play for sure, but I'm just curious
like what your guys is thinking directly was. Yeah, dude, I think so hilariously, when you

(42:07):
asked earlier what was the one thing that we changed throughout, my thing was going to be
going from doing 5th edition stuff to doing system agnostic stuff. And it came down to the OGL.
Tom and I were D&D people. We had played one module and then I had homebrewed everything that

(42:30):
I'd ever done in D&D. The OGL happened and we were about two-thirds of the way through writing
Sky's Effors. So I've written a whole mechanics book in 5e, hoping that this OGL is going to
allow us to get our book to the public. And here we are being told that we might not ever get to

(42:56):
release something that I've spent at that point probably hundreds of hours investing time into.
And so we were annoyed and angry just like everyone else was. And we at that point hilariously

(43:17):
branched out. We started trying other systems. So Avatar Legends is something we tried. We have an
awesome actual play called Avatar The Last Breath that tells a lot of history that's missing from
the Hundred Year War. So if you're interested in that, you can check that out. But we also found
systems like Orbital Blues that is one of our favorites. We found Pirate Borg. We found Tales

(43:39):
from the Loop. We found Slug Blasters. We found all these other incredible systems that exist out
there in our, in my opinion, we only play D&D now when other people ask us to play D&D. We
haven't played D&D at a home table. And I don't think we ever will again if I'm a thousand percent
honest. But we just found all these other systems and they suited how we like playing,

(44:03):
especially something like Orbital Blues that is Super Lu rules light, but really encourages
like big story moments like swan songing where you like commit to dying at the end of the scene.
But you get like double health and amazing things and you get all this stuff to make your your big
send off incredible and your music that you chose in character creation plays. And it's this big

(44:26):
moment, you know, that kind of stuff. And so we fell in love with other systems. And for wondering
Tavern, I was like, we were afraid. The truth is this, and Tom and I are proud of this. So I will
100 percent say we were afraid that we wouldn't be able to market the product well enough without
5e being connected to it without Dungeons and Dragons being connected to it. We hadn't seen

(44:52):
things like Avatar Legends yet really blow up to the extent that it did. You know, we hadn't seen
the Stormlight RPG that came out last year that just like destroyed Kickstarter's like records
of all time in TTRPG space and things like that. So we just weren't confident enough. So I combined

(45:14):
the two I started writing what I what I call our system agnostic language and we included 5e stats.
It was awful. I had to do double the workload for the entire book. You know, I had to write
everything is in one style of stats. And then I had to rewrite it in another style of stats to,
you know, create this semblance of us still giving you D&D while also providing you with the thing

(45:37):
that we actually believed in, which is our system agnostic language. Coming out of that,
there was debates because because we wrote Skye's efforts in 5e and our vehicle builders
application is in 5e. There were some debates about whether we continued 5e, whether we don't,
how are we going to kind of do this. And so I said, I was like, cool, I want to go full system

(46:01):
agnostic. I want to get away from it. I want us to make this so that anyone can play this with
any system that they love. That's that's the important thing to me is the community gets to,
you know, if you're a Cthulhu person, cool, come play Cthulhu. If you are, you know, an
orbital blues person like us, come play orbital blues. You know, we wanted people to feel comfortable

(46:21):
while still getting to play this setting and not feel like they're limited because it's D&D.
So for this one, I developed my system agnostic language further. Now, I'm going to be honest,
it's it's way better and it is easily convertible and it makes sense. The language is super,
super great. Do I think I'm going to improve it for the next one? 100%. I'm going to continue

(46:45):
refining it and I'm going to continue making it better and more streamlined and easier and
all this kind of stuff because, you know, I can and I know I will. And I'll give you another
little teaser as well that we've not told anyone about. We plan to post Kickstarter release
our system agnostic language with an OGL for people so that people can have it completely free.

(47:07):
And if they want to write their books in a language that then allows them to market their
book to everybody, we want to be able to provide people with that ability to do that. So I'm going
to refine the language further. I'm going to get it a little bit cleaner and I'm going to hopefully
we'll release version one, which I imagine again, we'll get refined in the future because
a big thing, as I said, innovation, we constantly strive to be better. Thanks to Tom as a as a

(47:34):
father pushing me as a young man. You know, Tom and I both strive to be better the whole time. And so
we'll just keep making it better and hopefully that will push it there. But this one is all based
around a rangeband system that basically allows you to pretty much interpret almost any mechanic
from our book into another system. And we've also made all of our vehicle mechanics. So we took

(47:59):
everything we did for Sky's efforts, literally all all the main mechanics from that. And we made
them system agnostic for land vehicles for this book as well. So we'll also be including system
agnostic vehicles on our hat, the builder post Kickstarter as well and things like that. So
we're just trying to get away from from from that D&D bug while also being like, if you want to play

(48:19):
D&D with us, then with our stuff, please go ahead. It's your system and we support that you got to
you got to run your table system. And you got to do it in the right way. So we support that.
Absolutely. It's it's definitely goes back to what I was saying before, right? You're you're the
TTRPG content creators trying to stand up against the big guy in this case, you know, Hasbro and

(48:43):
some of the crazy weird stuff and unfortunately kind of stepping on some of the community trying to
push different rules and kind of again be sort of a bit money grabby and stuff with all of their
changes, which is really unfortunate, right? Because it has been such a big piece of the TTRPG
community and really, I mean, the beginning of a lot of the TTRPG community. And so yeah, it's

(49:05):
frustrating. But I would say it has opened up a lot of really cool doors for creators to be able
to put their own systems out there or some of the other companies like Piso and so on and so forth
to be able to really push their stuff and say, Hey, we're still here for the community. We're not
trying to screw you guys over. So and then of course, open up these kind of systems that are able to

(49:28):
kind of move between anything that anybody wants to play. And I think the community has been really
creative in how they've handled that. And I think that's really cool to be able to see the
stuff that comes out of that. So yeah, awesome. Yeah, no, it's it's super I'm super stoked to be
able to see that system because I definitely have also really pushed. I mean, one of the things that
we like to do at Sessions Zero Heroes podcast is explore different systems. And so yeah, I'll be

(49:54):
super stoked to be able to kind of step out a D&D a little bit. I know we're going through that
right now with our criminals violinist series. And yeah, it'll be nice to kind of step away and
do something different once once we're done with a couple of things. So that's awesome. What
system are you playing in that news series? Yeah, so the next series that we do also will be

(50:14):
D&D 5e just because we've already started it. And one guy who's going to be running it instead of me,
which will be exciting, really wanted to use it. But once that's done, I'm super stoked to run a
Marvel Multiverse campaign. So superheroes and it's going to be kind of like a and this is a
big announcement because I haven't told anybody this either. Superheroes and kind of like my hero

(50:35):
academia style, like everybody's at school and they're learning their superpowers. And then
there's some crazy stuff that'll kind of come into play and they'll have to fight again. So
yeah, that's what we got. And then a bunch of one shots, bunch of one shots as well along the way.
On the spectrum of superheroes, are we talking like on like right from invincible slash the boys

(50:56):
all the way down to like, you know, like Batman, but with Adam West, what are we talking like
what's what we're on the spectrum of goof to like super serious realistic like that's a good
question. So I honestly, the more I jump into it, maybe it's because I've been rewatching through
it. My hero academia has really come up pretty often. I love the goofy vibes of sky high.

(51:21):
How all the superhero stuff out there, that would be sort of to a certain extent my dream.
I think when it comes to some of the more like villainous stuff of dealing with villains fighting
villains on and so forth, I would like a little bit more serious tone to that. I know sky high,
you know, turning kid turn and turn in the superheroes into babies. And there's kind of
a whole goofy revenge plot there. I'd like to go a little bit more serious like some of the stuff

(51:46):
that we see. But yeah, I think from just the school tone of it, very sky high, very goofy,
campy stuff like that. So that sounds that sounds freaking awesome. It's giving it's giving like
fantasy high, but with yes, but with superheroes instead of superheroes. Yeah. That's super cool.
Really always loved the idea. My hero academia does a fantastic job of sort of adding a weakness

(52:11):
or some kind of requirement or something to superpowers. So that it's not just these invincible
characters. I'm super strong. I can just punch through anything yada, yada, yada. You know,
you got to do that has to eat sugar in order to be super strong or, you know, obviously you got
Deku who he punches something and it explodes. But so does his arm. And so yeah, it's just kind of
like I love the idea that there's a little bit of a cost there so that people aren't just these,

(52:36):
you know, mega superpowered beings. And I feel like it kind of gets boring when you hit that.
So but yeah, so I couldn't agree with that more and do that sounds freaking great. Sounds like
your crew are going to absolutely love that. That's that's yeah. And it's a first take. I like the
ideas. I mean, the superhero high has been tried, but it's not been done super well in many places.

(53:00):
So, you know, my hero is one of one of the one of the few. So I do I'm curious and I think
did you got you got to lean into it massively and enjoy enjoy the weird but also, you know,
like you said, those limitations and stuff will make it super grounded. You can you can ground
stuff and and and make it all super interesting with those. So I love that do great take really

(53:23):
great. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. Yeah, no, I'm excited to kind of jump into it. So so
one I know we're kind of coming close to time and stuff like that really quick want to jump
into so obviously Scorch Basin's coming up right it's gonna what is it how many days left three,
four, five three days, 17 hours, 44 minutes. I love it. 37, 36, 35, 35. And we're counting it down.

(53:54):
It launches on Tuesday, September 2nd, 12 o'clock p.m. So lunchtime EST so Eastern Standard Time.
Wow, awesome. It's coming up. It's coming up quick. So I guess from from the outside perspective
because I have yet to run a Kickstarter campaign. I've got some ideas floating around. I'm getting

(54:16):
there but I digress. What does it look like? What is that kind of like last couple of days down to
the last few hours before things launch? Like what's the crazy hecticness of behind the scenes
look like for you guys? Or is it not that hectic? I don't know. No, no, no it is. You got it right.
Yeah dude we have we have yeah go Tom you you say some funny stuff. Again there's I want to just

(54:41):
kind of like burst some perceptions as well of I guess people different people run it differently
but certainly for us leading up to the to the launch where there's a few different areas of
the business that are doing things. So we have one person on the team Ben who is looking at

(55:03):
building basically a fulfillment system on the back end to be similar to a backer kid experience.
Again we as as much as we can step away from giving our money to bigger companies and give more of it
to smaller creators we want to do. So one of the ways to do that is to just fulfill ourselves. We

(55:27):
don't we're stepping away from backer kid. I wouldn't advise that to everyone because it is a huge
resource sink. You have to you have to like actually code out a back end. So Ben is working
furiously to make sure that that is going to be ready for you know hundreds and hopefully thousands
of backers that want their stuff at the end of the campaign. And you know we we we try to deliver

(55:51):
things in a way that is different from the rest of the Kickstarter experience. So most people will
back something let's say today and kind of set a reminder in their calendar a year from now or
maybe a year and a half from now just to see where the hell the thing is. And with Sky's Efforts

(56:12):
we delivered within nine months with the Wandering Tavern we delivered within six months and we're
going to try to do better with Scorch Basin. So Ben is furiously working on that. Emily and Bode
are you know working on a multitude of things. One is just kind of making sure that the finer

(56:32):
elements of the editing of the book there's some stills a bit of layout that needs to be known
in the book some project management on some of the artwork that needs to come in in the book. So
they're really trying to finish the book as much as we can to coincide with as close to the end of
the Kickstarter as possible so that we can deliver. We want to be able to deliver as quickly as

(56:53):
possible. So that's happening behind the scenes furiously right now. And then the marketing as
well is you know we're still looking at reaching out to creators and finding if anyone is interested
in that has you know a semblance of it's maybe more than a hobby for them it's something that

(57:13):
they're trying to do they're trying to build a community trying to build an audience. If they're
trying to do that then we want to we want to support them and so still looking to find creators
that are interested in and coming on board to voice an NPC or to promote Scorch Basin.
And then you know the other thing Bodhi was doing for the last two months is building the
Kickstarter page. So for for the audience out there don't underestimate it's it's your storefront

(57:42):
and you know it's competing against hundreds of other storefronts on Kickstarter. So what you put
into it is again what you're going to get out of it. And if you you know if you feel like you want
to have a little bit of a budget on artwork you might want to think about how that looks on your
Kickstarter page or you might want to actually build out some artwork that would feature nicely

(58:04):
on your Kickstarter page. And you know make sure the page is edited and reads well make sure you've
really thought out about the tiers. Have I have I budgeted the delivery of this product
equally with how much we presume the backing could make. If we don't hit our number or if we

(58:25):
barely hit our number is that actually going to put us in more trouble than if we you know really
you know go over a lot over what our number is. So there's a lot of maths behind just making sure
that you're delivering the product in a way that is actually beneficial for the business in the end
as well. So to answer your question yeah four days out we're we're full tilt. Everyone is just kind

(58:52):
of everyone's hair is on fire right now. But in an excited way we're not we're not like crazily
worried. We're you know Bodhi has said at the last maybe week and a half two weeks we've put the
hard work in like we have worked we've worked really really hard for the last year and a half
and we're just putting you know the final flair on you know we're putting the signature on the

(59:16):
painting so to speak right now. The painting has been you know has been the textures have been put
in the frame has been built and we're just kind of putting those final little bits into it. So
and then the other thing I would say Skyler is is during the campaign so some people think you
know you just kind of hit the button and then you cross your fingers and your toes and you're

(59:37):
just like waiting. And I think some people may do that but we don't we are continually just making
sure that we're thinking of different ways to get our product out to people who haven't seen it yet
just get new eyes on it. So there's an element of us just kind of you know metaphorically cold
calling whether it's on different platforms like Reddit or Facebook or Instagram or you know just

(01:00:03):
reaching out to people that may have some sort of interest in this case in Dune, Mad Max,
Azure Settings you know anything like that will reach out to them and you know sometimes people
don't want to be reached out to so that's fair but other times people appreciate it you know they're
like yeah that's cool let me let me check it out that type of thing so yeah. Yeah I think I think as

(01:00:27):
well I'll throw another side in. Tom's exactly right everybody goes full tilt during the Kickstarter
and you know people like myself and Emily who are the writing team and the creative leads basically
on this project we you know and this is that this is what people again don't realize about small
business you have to wear at sometimes every freaking hat dude like for the Kickstarter page

(01:00:48):
I'm the lead writer I meant to be I meant to be coming up with lore about freaking weird creatures
and I'm learning and I've learned Photoshop over the last you know couple of months so that I can
make sure that our images on our page look great I've been learning you know all these all these
different things and Ben's the same Ben's been learning how to code a website so that we can do

(01:01:10):
fulfillment and not have to involve backer kit and things like that and so you know everybody is
full tilt but all of us will be taking time out of our work days to chip into marketing as well
because it the grind doesn't stop when you press live on the Kickstarter but also I'll give you a
funny little insight as well everybody we have conversations because we all work around a single

(01:01:32):
dining table in my apartment that's where homie and the dude happens very cool it is not a it is
not a freaking like office with a bullpen and freaking like like it's literally at a s*** IKEA
table and chairs in my freaking dining group where we all hang out and and work and we have
conversations about how much we're how people are feeling I know leading up to Emily is nervous

(01:01:58):
I know Ben who is just the most placid person ever is is also you know feeling feeling excited
but nervous as well you know we as a group you know we we also have things in in the office that
are funny little things that we like to do during Kickstarter so we have like a Deadpool guess of
what the final amount's gonna be um and winner gets like rounds of drinks from everybody else

(01:02:24):
you know we have we all also each of us gets a referral link and yeah if if we are able to as
individuals like within homie and the dude bring in any cash we also have whoever brings in the most
cash on their own personal link gets a little like round of drinks on everybody like that kind of
stuff basically so we have some we have some fun little things that we do um in the office for

(01:02:48):
for goofs um because realistically when it comes to us bringing money in it's like I'm like grandma
I'm like grandma help me it's it's it's you know it's it's all a bit of banter we we have a really
good time with that stuff and I think you know we also joke about the fact of you know when it
comes down to it we are you know constantly making sure we're keeping up with any comments that people

(01:03:12):
are leaving on updates or things like that we're trying to answer questions trying to make sure
someone is kind of available at all times so dude most of us don't sleep a lot during those 30 days
most of us are like you know just dialed in and and also I think we're like I know Emily will
message me at like two in the morning and be like yo we just crossed this amount like look like we've

(01:03:36):
unlocked a stretch goal guys yeah and she's like awesome congratulations now you need to go put the
new graphic up and I'm like oh let me just get out of bed and we get out of bed yeah exactly and so
you know we we it is one of those things of like it's scrambly chaos but I think like Tom said
and the best way I can describe this is for anyone who's played sports um or has you know trained

(01:03:58):
for something like a specific like event or or something like that whether it's you know and it
could be something like a hema event at a ren fair I'm not just talking about like your standard
American football baseball basketball sports I'm talking about you know whatever it might be or
if you're competing in anything that you've trained in a hot dog eating contest a hot dog eating
contest might might even be it um if you've put hours of your life into something for us it's been

(01:04:21):
a year and a half day in day out weekends you know evenings you know week day like all of it we've
all been you know putting stuff aside to make this happen if we hadn't have put in those hours I would
be more worried and nervous but I'm at a point where I'm like and I think a few of us are starting
to be like you know it's gonna be whatever it's gonna be we tried our hardest that's all we could

(01:04:46):
ever do was just try our freaking hardest and and try and give people something and you know everyone
on our team has put blood sweat tears you know emotions time effort everything that you can imagine
skin in the game it's all there and so I think at this point we're just proud of the product we're

(01:05:07):
super proud of this book we're super proud of every individual faction of all of the NPCs of every
plant that we've included all the new innovative things like magic systems and alchemy systems
and new player options that are ridiculous and fun to do with driving fast to level up and you know
all this crazy stuff that we've put in this book we're so excited to share with the world

(01:05:33):
and we're so excited to see our friends talking about it on their channels people running actual
plays and dude it's surreal like you know Tom and I did a panel at Gen Con about a month ago
and it's our first ever panel we had about a hundred people there and dude we just we Tom and I
cried you know it's beautiful like how like it's crazy that anyone cares about what a jabroni family

(01:05:59):
is doing in Bristol UK like what what what what does it matter and I think that's what it is we
put the work in we're proud of it we're excited and and we're thankful for every person yourself
every other creator all of the audiences who you know whether and whether you hate us or you love
us we love you because if you hate us then we've evoked an emotion and as creators you're

(01:06:22):
you're you're still feeling you're taking the box for me that's enough you know and um and so you
know whatever it is we just appreciate every single person who's been along this journey with us who's
given us advice supported us you know we wouldn't be here without those first people that I mentioned
in the days the David Tilsters the Mark Arcuchus the Jess and Keith's you know the the Sam Comifers

(01:06:45):
the Ambers you know they were the people that got us here and we wouldn't be here without the
amazing incredible folks that allowed us to to get here and dude we're ready to give you guys
the best darn desert setting that you've ever seen with five of the most diverse factions that have
the sickest player options the most incredibly daring and wonderful environmental things to

(01:07:10):
explore lands to discover creatures to encounter uh it's all there it's all there and hey if you
want to be mochadib and you want to ride a giant sand worm you do your thing you do yeah and we're
ready for it oh that's amazing that's so cool and and just like you know both of you guys have
mentioned Tom you mentioned earlier these are these are relationships right these aren't just

(01:07:34):
you know people that you shot and add to and said hey can you guys repost us or whatever the case
we've talked um you guys have talked to so many other creators and and built those relationships
it wasn't just you know 100 people that said well I don't have anything to do right now so
because I'm at GenCon I might as well go to this panel it was 100 people that said this is cool and
I want to learn more about this and people that you guys had talked to beforehand and developed a

(01:07:58):
relationship with and I kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier right you guys have have built
this really cool community that's standing up against those villains out there the those you
know companies that want to kind of just step on us and tell us how TTRPGs should be and yada yada yada
you guys are standing up to those and creating your own thing and the community is coming together
to kind of support that and I think that's that's really freaking cool dude that's really not it's

(01:08:23):
not us standing up to it it has never been us it's always been we are standing up to it it's
never once been Tom and I who have been standing up to it it's been we from the absolute star and it
will always be the we um and the familiar that are that are doing it is it has never once been just
Tom and I because there's been people the whole way and uh and so it's always been we awesome

(01:08:46):
familiar is like the keyword for today I think I think that's perfect so awesome I love that so
much well those are all the questions I had um again for those of you that are listening out
there please please go check out Scorch Basin go if you're hearing this go over to the page on
Kickstarter hit that notify me on launch save that project because the second it comes out

(01:09:07):
you're not gonna want to miss it you're gonna want to go over there you're gonna want to back
it and just see all the cool stuff just the little previews that we'll get to see before
the campaigns over and you're not gonna want to not have Scorch Basin once it is over right this
is gonna be freaking amazing whether you're into Mad Max whether you're into Dune or not I think
there's gonna be something in here that anyone can find and and really use in their campaigns

(01:09:28):
author a final thing out there and guys if you're not already subscribed to Sessions Zero Heroes
because look at these in what what an incredible channel you stumbled upon here today and we appreciate
you taking the time to listen to this amazing person who gives these awesome interviews and
does all this incredible stuff giving you ttrpg campaigns to consume aren't you guys lucky so

(01:09:52):
subscribe follow support reach out and comment help the algorithm copying and copying the link
in the little share thing helps massively and it takes you 30 seconds to do so continue helping
out this incredible channel and we wouldn't be here without them so keep doing them justice
you're so kind ah i appreciate that so much thank you so much all right we'll jump over to our

(01:10:16):
intramural game that we do at the end of each one of these episodes we'll see you guys on the other
side of this little transition here

(01:10:37):
and so this one that i came up with i try to go somewhat geared towards whatever it is that
we're talking about in the given episode and since this one was a lot about Kickstarter and a lot
about kind of creating your own content i came up with a game uh originally it was called book

(01:10:58):
movie game which i thought was kind of a boring thing um oh and instead changed it to fish tank
which is kind of based off of shark tank shark crank nice so and i'm glad okay good i'm always
worried that maybe somebody's not familiar with it but we know it yeah we have we have an equally

(01:11:19):
ridiculously named show here in the uk called dragons den um so yeah okay yes okay let's see
i've heard of it uh i actually i think i for some reason came across an episode when i was like
hardcore binging through shark tank um you know like oh there's there's a whole another version of
it and so i think i watched a couple of episodes because it's just like how do they do things over
there so yeah again we're just trying to create um encourage storytelling encourage uh sort of

(01:11:45):
improvisational thing that i'm sure a lot of us gms and oftentimes players are really familiar with
so um today we're playing a game that i have titled fish tank it's based off the classic
shark tank concept where we're each going to be trying to pitch some kind of a media whether it
is a video game or a book or a movie or a tv show whatever it is it's totally up to each of us to

(01:12:11):
decide and i'm going to have a whole bunch of prompts that you guys can choose from that kind
of help leave things that way we're not just coming up with something totally random not that
there's anything wrong with that of course um but just to kind of help since you know we're all jumping
in here so um i just sent forth the first set so the way this will work is you've got four categories

(01:12:33):
of prompts you got a location you've got a time period you've got a character or a couple of
character ideas and then you've got a random prompt something that's like totally out of left
field and the goal is you choose one from each of these categories i've given a handful of different
options and from there you create kind of just a pitch some some kind of quick pitch for again

(01:12:57):
movie a tv show a book whatever it is it could be even a ttrpg concept right and then uh yeah pitch
it and i'll slap some like cool music and stuff behind it and things along those lines so um we'll
uh we'll have some fun with it sorry i know i'm like filling the chat right now with so many so

(01:13:18):
many prompts so i apologize for that feel free to take a quick look through those and once you feel
like you've got some idea uh just let me know and feel free to kind of take that concept and you
can tweak it obviously it's just sort of more of a source of inspiration more than anything else um
and yeah yeah feel free to create whatever it is yeah this is gonna be funny this is hilarious i

(01:13:41):
like this i love it this is this is great you did you did good with these thank you yeah
did really some of them you might look at it and be like hold on a second here scott I know
where you stole that from i think like one of the ones that i got for a time period is a timeless
post apocalyptic future where the ocean is reclaimed the entire world yes i recently watched

(01:14:01):
rewatched waterworld incredible so obviously that one was gonna was definitely gonna come up cool
beautiful i'm uh i am i'm i'm good to go whenever you're good to go okay yeah i think i think i'm
good to go i think i'm all set so okay i think i'm good as well got it awesome okay uh boating
kick things off yeah my pitch uh welcome welcome sharks i'm delighted to be in front of you today

(01:14:28):
you know uh mark you know i i appreciate you and your your ownership of the dallas cowboys
thank you for ruining that franchise for everyone um and uh and the rest of you who are unnamed
to people because no one actually cares uh why you're here or who you are um so um my pitch today
is for a cinematic masterpiece this is going to storm the world and take over theaters everywhere

(01:14:56):
here we go buckle your seatbelts because it is the year 1999 where computers and emerging tech
are a new form of magic but that's not the only magic going on here because some of the old magic
still lingers and seeps through the cracks of those derelict abandoned places that have been

(01:15:19):
forgotten to time now our story in particular is going to be taking place in an overgrown
forgotten amusement park amusement park where rides still work but are powered by these power
normal entities that we're not really sure of because as you legendary sharks know the most

(01:15:39):
scary thing is the thing that we imagine so we never tell the audience what the paranormal thing
is is it ghosts is it a fart in the wind we don't know but you're gonna find out as the story goes
and our story follows a protagonist or so we think throughout this whole thing so this person is

(01:16:00):
an investigator who goes around uh investigating paranormal things and and trying to deduce what's
happened in places how this old magic exists and why it permeates the cracks in the derelict so
he is a very interesting person i think the audiences will resonate with him because he
writes slam poetry in his little notebook that is absolutely terrible and we've all tried to

(01:16:26):
write poetry at various different points i know you have boldy you've definitely tried to write
some stuff for sure um and uh and so you know we all can resonate with that but here is the twist
he believes that he has unlocked some sort of power where he can briefly become a living breathing

(01:16:49):
shadow um and that's what his belief is so he feels akin to some of these things that he's
investigating and stuff like that however as the story unfolds and as we learn more and more about
this place he's not an investigator at all he's one of the spirits trapped here at the amusement
park who died during a great disaster where the ferris wheel came loose and crushed a couple hundred

(01:17:15):
people and he was an investigator then but now as a ghost he doesn't realize that he's not a real
person and boom plot twist everybody loves it bloody credits roll names of famous people in
the credits chucka de caprio in there chucka you know a jack Nicholson in there chucka you know
a couple of you know i don't know a john travolta i don't know we can put some musical elements i

(01:17:38):
don't know we'll see what happens but guys all i'm asking for is 29 000 million bajillion dollars
and i will give you exactly 1.2 equity in my company what do you think it's so good that was
amazing not bad i'm hoping to crop these up and and put these in like uh and make a real out of

(01:18:05):
each one and if you would invest in this project i want you to comment underneath and say how might
and what portion of that 1.2 percent you're willing to accept yeah yeah exactly what's your
counter offer oh yeah yeah or we could pull it like the producers where we oversell it
and just say yeah 50 percent to you 100 percent to you exactly awesome i love that that was sick

(01:18:32):
in the in the plot twist very uh ama shaman oh shaman yes classic shaman twist he was dead the
whole time i'm not in the house yeah the greatest insult i've ever heard in my life is you saying
that what i just pitched was amni-staffelon that is hilarious dude i'm good dude that's so funny

(01:18:55):
dude i honestly that is the funniest ever dude i i love that and you are so right you are what i
just pitched sounds exactly like an m9 shaman movie and i did not realize until you said it you
couldn't have nailed that more dude that's so funny bro i love that he's got some good ones he said
some good ones a long way he's had some really bad ones but yeah yeah yeah yeah awesome awesome

(01:19:17):
all right ton do you want to jump in or do you want me to jump in whoever if you're ready i'll go next
i'll go no for it welcome sharks i am here to propose a solution to a problem that we all feel
so we are all very aware aware of the ecological disaster that's happening right now

(01:19:42):
both on lands and in the sea and what i'm proposing is look us as humans we are kind of interested
in cleaning it up but when it really comes down to it we somehow keep failing on that so
what i'd like to propose is let's recruit some animals to clean the s*** up and the way we do that

(01:20:12):
is we put science onto this is what i'm proposing let's alter the dna the polymers let's turn it
from a a double helix to a triple helix dna solution for the fish world out there so they're not
eating pellet and they're not eating yummy you know different elements of seaweed and things like that

(01:20:39):
they're eating trash and so what i'm proposing is this chemical compound i'm calling it crab
crack and basically what you do is you just get those crabs hooked on it right inside of them

(01:21:00):
the chemical conversion is happening and they are not just scavenging on you know little bits and
pieces but they're into the plastic they're into the cardboard they're eating metal and pretty soon
blink your eyes and our oceans are crystal clear again so all i'm asking like any dealer of crack

(01:21:23):
is a little bit of an advance that i promise to pay back i'll get you i promise you i'll hook you up
i just need some time to get this all together but look just hit me with a little mill here
and i'll come back to you you know give me give me a few weeks i'll get my boy to come in and to

(01:21:45):
you know move some things around and you will see an incredible return on your money so if you're
up for it i would really really be grateful to get your investment today thank you sharks
oh dude i'm in dude amazing i also important context for that that whole bit that tom just

(01:22:09):
did is both my mother my fiance myself and tom are all predominantly vegetarians and
that is so funny dude that is hilarious use it dude so funny that is that is brilliant that is so
funny another big like twist on the on the ecological concept but i love it that was so cool

(01:22:34):
yep let's get the animals hooked on it let's get them to be part of the solution and not the problem
absolutely help them clean up our problem yeah that's amazing classic classic oh man outs outsourcing
the solution is classic humans dude that's such classic humans i love it all right you guys have

(01:22:56):
set me up for failure because those were phenomenal and i gotta i gotta bring us all together we got
this all right bring us home
hello sharks thank you so much for meeting me here at your show studio i'm pitching a six episode

(01:23:16):
series because as we know from all of the disney plus stuff for some reason that works less production
more profit imagine this an individual swashbuckler by trade forced into family debt and forced to
smuggle spices to pay for it walking down at nightcore throbbing music in the background

(01:23:41):
neon reflecting off of the various puddles as his foot steps in causing ripples in the water
as he makes his way down a brand new planet that he has just landed on a dormant cosmic
titan that floats amidst the space he's never been here before he has a job he has to accomplish
unfortunately he's not aware that there's a law on this planet no one is allowed to speak a word

(01:24:09):
louder than a whisper and of course he screws that up almost immediately turning this into a
goofy ridiculous sci-fi comedy as he gets immediately arrested by the locals thrown into prison
where they find out that he had spice and of course that's a big no-no as well so he's
got to get himself out and of course furious hilarious endeavors pursue and that's my pitch

(01:24:36):
again six episode series is pretty much guaranteed to make a profit whether people love it or not
we'll just cancel it after the first season if they don't and hey you know what if we learned
anything from netflix we might cancel it after the first season anyways so i need you guys to
invest all the money in this because i'm a poor man uh with an idea and personally i'd like to

(01:24:57):
keep all the profit for it so if that appeals to you guys i can get your name in the credits
i have one question for you one important question that will decide whether i am in
or whether i am out i'll ask away investor rhodi uh please tell me what is the who is your ideal

(01:25:20):
star actor for the lead protagonist is part of this um this goof sci-fi space escape uh prison break
spectacular that that we're going to be witnessing and uh furthermore who is the director you have
pinned for this um i i'm i'm i'm envisioning a gun a a snyder possibly uh what are your thoughts

(01:25:44):
james gun is certainly tentative uh we've we've actually been in talks with him already uh he
would be ideal for this if we want to see it as successful if we do want to tank it and try to
maximize profits uh we'll go all the other other places but yeah james gun would be a good one
if we plan for success as for the main actor um you know who hasn't been used enough is is probably

(01:26:07):
chris prat chris prat could use more more face time for sure in the media that's a nice way of
saying that his career has been on the skids recently that's true that is true we need to get
him more abs he didn't quite have enough abs we need more abs for chris prat he's got eight we need

(01:26:29):
twelve yes yes a solid secondary again someone who hasn't had enough fly might uh is is dwayne
johnson obviously uh would be a solid secondary and you have either jack black or or kevin heart as
the likable sidekick yes absolutely absolutely yeah okay i'm seeing it i'm seeing it coming together
now i'm in i'm in get chris prat back on the calories bat them up again and he can be dwayne

(01:26:55):
johnson sidekick get them both oh you know i'm saying yeah we'll pull up parts and wreck chris
prat in with the dwayne johnson oh that's a good idea parks and wreck chris prat is uh is do people
would love to see that nostalgia flip of parks and wreck uh chris prat yeah we would we would all love
to see that that version of him back instead of you know the polished greek god style statue that

(01:27:20):
we that we have to now look at on screen when he comes on all the you know we uh we joke within
some of the cast at sessions your heroes uh we all really enjoyed the the five nights at freddy's
live action and so jokingly we always say josh hutterson is the greatest actor of all time uh
with that being said we're not gonna partner him with dwayne johnson because after uh what was that
journey to the center of the earth too was such a oh i can't watch it ever again i never want to

(01:27:45):
even think about it so i can't i can't partner those two but i would love to have josh hutterson
in there dude he is uh dude josh he's pure banter dude he's he is just pure comedy without knowing
that he's comedy it's also it's things like when you name him pita and you spell it in the dumbest
way ever and you're making every character sound like there's some like old new jersey who's like

(01:28:09):
pita and you're like what is happening there right yeah poor guy poor guy's getting done dirty
he's getting done dirty yeah that's true and then maybe just uh just to kind of continue in with that
sort of our our groups weird obsessions we'll throw in nicklas cage maybe it'll be uh josh
hutterson as the sidekick to nicklas cage being just absolutely nuts dude uh there might i think

(01:28:31):
that's one of those where it's like it's such a bad idea it might work it might just work
one of my favorite one of my favorite bits that i play with like new people when i meet them is
like we're like i'll often ask them you know like who's who do you think the best actor of all time
is or something like that and i will then play the bit of like it's nicklas cage he does like

(01:28:52):
nine to ten projects a year he's the most expensive he's covered every genre poor me he's the most
versatile actor in all history he's done everything so dude that bit always lands terribly and makes
me laugh as they get more uncomfortable thinking that i love nicklas cage that much right i'm like

(01:29:14):
i'm like national treasure greatest movie ever oh dude oh good dude only way to solve problems no
lawyers no no media outlet no pr team let's go steal the decoration of independent oh steal the
decoration yeah yeah yeah i'm right there what could be better that's awesome really throws me back
to my favorite show of all time is community and the whole episode they did with uh abed taking the

(01:29:35):
class of nicklas cage good actor bad actor and then he tries to figure out the answer which the
professor told him there isn't one and he ends up going like absolutely insane and just becomes
nicklas cage it's so good it's i yeah it's probably you you can hate nicklas cage but the like the
stuff that comes from him and the lore or even just the movie what is an incredible weight of

(01:29:57):
amazing talent just that movie in and of itself and the way that it's basically just a big meme
on nicklas cage it's just it's too great it's too great dude i dude he's a gift that just keeps
giving dude because he really is you do and and i think that's the thing that's best about him is
he probably knows at this point um and he's like i don't know he's also one of those people that i'm

(01:30:17):
like he might also just think he's superman and just really doesn't have any idea of of the public
perception of him i like to think that's more the truth that he is actually working around with a
katana and a bathrobe in his house um that's kind of that's that's kind of my my real real hope for
nick cage but dude i think uh i think dude he's uh he's he's a master he's he's the go he's the go

(01:30:39):
he really is he really is that's awesome that's awesome i love that uh somebody apparently this
is like some nick cage lore is that somebody like broke in and stole something from or like his
entire stock inside of a storage unit and he put out a statement he's like hey guys um
if you did it i i really just want my super superman comic bag that's all i really want it that's

(01:31:01):
like ah you know what i feel so bad because like if you only ask for the one thing that you know
that's a boat but it's just really speaks to just kind of his his weirdness his his temperament dude
that's that's the other great thing about hollywood is so much of hollywood is baked into the nerd
stuff like dude if you look at Henry Cavill or dude my favorite one is vindiesel playing dnd

(01:31:23):
oh i know i would never want him at my table but yeah i'm like i'm like bro you to to witness that
is yes i know i know there's little clips i think he did something with i want to say he did something
with matt mercer one point yes a long time i think you're right well i have i haven't watched all the
way through but dude like if he's not gripping a corona by the neck and saying family every 20 minutes

(01:31:48):
why are you here then why are you freaking here god damn it i was just gonna say i think they did
an interview with michelle rodriguez that she had talked about she's like yeah is that his house
one time and he's like hey do you want to see my dnd stuff she's like what are you talking about
and he like showed her this closet just full like minis and terrain pieces and she's like
dude you're such a nerd and i was like yeah that's so cool dude that's so cool so our our thing of

(01:32:12):
familia is um so so we actually lived in spain and i i grew up as a kid in spain basically so
familia is literally spanish for family but yeah um but also we we started calling our like
inner circle of family and friends the familia as a joke on fast and furious because he's always like
uh salute me familia you know and you're like uh okay viddie you know we're gonna drive cars

(01:32:38):
we're family yeah yeah exactly exactly exactly we're gonna steal this safe for family yeah
yeah that's so good awesome well we'll uh we'll definitely have to talk about a movie and tv show
podcast in the future guys how yeah because that'll be really fun but um again for those that are

(01:32:59):
listening seriously go head over to kickstarter find the scorch basin page um go check out homie and
the dude podcast uh all the crazy cool awesome campaigns that they're doing over there and all
the other work be sure to follow them because you're not gonna wait like scorch basin that's a third
kickstarter they've run who knows what else you guys have cooked up and uh plan for the future but

(01:33:20):
it's gonna be something freaking awesome obviously bowdo you mentioned you know working on that that
sort of uh system agnostic rule set and everything like that that's gonna be sick so you guys don't
want to miss out on the stuff that's coming out at homie and the dude uh you you guys want to be
there for that so definitely head over there and check them out and guys thank you so much i know
you guys have a lot going on right now you're getting ready for scorch basin to come out i really

(01:33:41):
appreciate you guys taking the time out of your day to sit down and chat with me and hang out and
talk about it equally dude dude of course and uh and everyone out there this is just the beginning
baby we are we are here this is just the beginning um and and dude we appreciate you taking the time
out of your life you know this this is a weekend for all of us so we appreciate you taking your

(01:34:02):
time to talk to us as well dude thank you for being an awesome person yeah thanks go it's kicking
out it's been awesome it's been awesome absolutely so fantastic we will see you guys next time on
another episode of sessions for your university thank you so much for joining us for today's class
we hope you gained some new knowledge and ideas from our incredibly knowledgeable professors
which you can take with you to your table and implement into your games and sessions if you

(01:34:26):
enjoy what we're developing here at session zero university then be sure to check out our lessons
in practice by checking out various actual play episodes we have tested and recorded a variety
of games systems stories and themes for your enjoyment from Dungeons and Dragons to powered
by the apocalypse to kids on bikes and more be sure to follow and subscribe to the session zero

(01:34:49):
heroes podcast so you don't miss out on any of our future ttrpg content our show is available
everywhere podcasts can be found from Spotify to Apple podcasts to YouTube so there are plenty
of places that you can follow and listen from we encourage you to check us out on social media
as well whether you're prevalent on facebook x instagram blue sky or discord we're there and

(01:35:12):
we'd love for you to join our community and if you're willing we would truly appreciate you
dropping review on whatever platform you're listening to if it allows you to do so your
feedback means a lot and helps others to discover our show thank you so much and we'll see you for
your next class at session zero university run by the session zero heroes podcast

(01:35:34):
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