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A fan podcast celebrating (mostly Swedish) RPGs including, but not limited to: Coriolis; Forbidden Lands; Symbaroum; Tales from the Loop; and, Alien.
Hello and welcome to episode 226 of Effect Into the Great Dark. I'm Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. And on today's show, we've got, well, as always, we've got lots of things to talk about. Later on, we have a, a panel with 2 of our favorite people, Mohammed and Millie, talking about the new Coriolis edition, The Great Dark. Our thoughts, and our hopes, and our aspirations for the new game. And, Yeah.
Dave:So that's really cool. So we'd be talking to them a bit later on about The Great Dark Seeing. That game is coming out soon. We had intended to do our interview with Nils and Costa for this episode, but so many people watched it, and, it was already out there. We thought, no.
Dave:We'll be a bit fill it foolish just to recycle that. So we we got a couple of our friends in who know a lot about Coriolis, and we talked Coriolis. So hang around and listen to that later on.
Matthew:Yes. So many people watched it. So many. It's over 2,000 already.
Dave:That's very impressive. Very pleased with that. Yeah.
Matthew:Given that our previous video, which was actually I hardly recommend. So Thomas has been running Versen Adventures for us. Well, not Versen Adventures. He's been running actually called a Cthulhu Harlem Adventures for us from Chris Spivey's Harlem Unbound book, but using the Versum rule set. And we've been, streaming those in a kind of casual offhand way, but you know the last episode of that has had about 20 views.
Matthew:People ought to watch those, they're great fun on on YouTube. Check them out, and we're having great fun playing them. I don't actually particularly care what anybody watches them, but if you're into Versum or if you're into Harlem Unbound then have a look for those. Say, we've got someone on our channel. We've got someone Raudon Nash's channel.
Matthew:That's, Frank. He's one of our patrons Yeah. As well. But they're great fun. Great fun.
Dave:Yeah. Sorry.
Matthew:I've interrupted your flow.
Dave:That's quite a lot.
Matthew:What's happening?
Dave:Now I was delighted that so many people tuned in. So, you know, I I hope they were they're tuning in to talk, you know, listen to us a little bit at least. But obviously, Niels and Costa were the
Matthew:With a big draw.
Dave:With a with a big draw. With a main event. But yes. So, we have our little panel talking about Coriolis the Great Dark coming up. But before then, we've, we do have a new patron to to thank briefly.
Dave:Briefly. Yep. We are going to start a new, fortnightly Segment. Segment of of each episode. And that's because, as we said last time, we are now focused all our energies on Tales of the Old West Kickstarter later this year.
Dave:And we do have a little bit of more news. So we'll talk a little bit about that, before the world of gaming. And we've got a few things to talk about there as well. So that's our show for today. Yeah.
Dave:Listen in and enjoy.
Matthew:Yeah. And, let's kick off with the first item there. And that is saying thank you to our new and it has to be said ex patron, Joachim. Joachim Bushe or Bush Busheirt. Sorry.
Matthew:You know how we like to mangle names that are not in our native tongue. You joined for just one day or even less than a day. But you did join. And so thank you very much. You joined at a stationary level as well.
Matthew:So you may even have downloaded a copy of our Tales From the Old West rough version. What do we call it? Alpha version 6 or something like that?
Dave:Yeah. Something like that. I think we're on at the moment.
Matthew:So, you may have done that and and then decided, well, I've got what I want and, and, canceled your subscription. But for the brief time that we knew you, even though we didn't know you, you didn't join us in the friendliest place on the Internet, which is, of course, our Discord. It's been a pleasure to have you as a patron. Thank you very much for your support. Yes.
Dave:Indeed. But, yeah. Interestingly, if if Joe Kim did join us, out of interest for Tales of the Odd West, and wanted to see what we've got. Well, we've got quite a bit more news we can, we can tell. So we had a a board meeting, earlier this week, which was
Matthew:You mean we went to the pub, Dave?
Dave:It's still a board meeting. Okay. We're the only 2 people on the board, but it's still a board meeting.
Matthew:Given that we are the only 2 people on the board. Yes. It's a board meeting. And and it may actually be an official board shortly. More more or none.
Dave:Indeed. Indeed. But so we we we talked through the kickstarter having decided we were definitely going to do it. And we now have a a rough, target plan. So our intention is for what what I've been calling a soft launch at UK Games Expo.
Dave:Obviously, we're gonna be there working with Free League, running their stall. But in the margins of that, we are going to be promoting, Tales of the Old West and trying to get the message out a little bit. With the intention, if we can get all our ducks in a row of running a Kickstarter sometime shortly after gen con. So in August or September, we'll be our target for the for the campaign to go live. So, keep your eyes open.
Dave:Listen in. We're gonna have a little, update every every session now. Every every episode. So keep you all on, informed of what's going on. But that is the big news.
Dave:We are targeting a campaign in mid August or early September.
Matthew:That's our target. So don't be surprised if it actually gets into October. But we'll if that's our plan, it's mid August or September.
Dave:Well, at the moment, we've got there's no good well, as I say, there's no good reason. We're not aware of any good reason why that should slip because I think everything is doable. But there are a couple of things in the program, you know, in the project plan that we haven't nailed down. So that those things might cause the dates to change a little bit.
Matthew:But that's our target. It's it's also worth saying that up until now, this has been an exclusive for our silver level patrons, our stationary and privileged patrons. But we hope that before UK Games Expo we might even get a quick start up on drive thru RPG, which you can download and sample the rules for free with an adventure.
Dave:Indeed. That is in fact the intention. So, I mean, our our soft launch at UK Games Expo doesn't really go to everyone, unless we haven't got the quick start start with us.
Matthew:Exactly.
Dave:Yes. The the quick draw as we're calling it, the quick draw rules, to stay with the theme, which I'm working on at the moment. The draft first draft
Matthew:Even as we speak.
Dave:Almost. Even even as we speak. The the the first draft is pretty much done with the exception of the new scenario I'm gonna write. That will, that will try and, you know, showcase some of the some of the, you know, the best bits of the rules that we think to give people a really good experience for a what will be a short introductory story. Set in New Mexico, set in 18 73.
Dave:And it'll involve, it'll involve some some sort of big corporate, if that's the right word to use for the level it's gonna be. Some some people with company backing coming and trying to make life difficult for the player characters. So, hopefully, that would be fun. That
Matthew:is the bad guy in our old west game. Isn't it?
Dave:It is. Oh, certainly one of them. But, yeah, that is one of
Matthew:the bad
Dave:definitely one of the bad guys.
Matthew:And, we are, we have a new artist on board as well where who's done a couple of lovely roughs for us, and we'll be looking forward to seeing those in, in finished mode. And if they're in finished mode as well, we'll get a, hard at work creating new, illustrations for the quick start as well. A quick shot. Indeed. For quick fire.
Dave:Quick draw.
Dave:Quick draw. Quick draw. Blimey. And yes, we've also sort of got artwork. The, so the map artwork is coming along really well.
Dave:And, yeah, things are beginning to fall into place. So
Matthew:yeah. No. No. They're not falling into place. They're being carefully arranged in place by our careful planning over the last 6, 7 years.
Matthew:Anyway, as soon as we've been doing this, actually. It's not 7 years, actually.
Dave:It's not 7. But it's gonna be 5 probably. I think 2019, I've got some stuff. I think, yeah. So maybe 5 years in development.
Dave:So it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be perfectly honed. And I think actually it's really quite interesting because that that that journey of that 5 years of coming up with the original the game. I mean, the original game we'd intend we'd kind of come up with. The the game we've got now is nothing like it. It was almost nothing like it.
Matthew:I think that's fair to say, isn't it? Because
Dave:because it's evolved. We realized that the, the template we were using didn't really work for what we were trying to achieve. And so we've moved away from that.
Matthew:That was Forbidden Lands?
Dave:Which is Forbidden Lands. Yeah. And yeah, I think we've come up with a really good game. And, you know, everyone who plays it seems to love it. So I'm hoping that that feeling will be, yeah, kind of you know spread and be mutual amongst anybody and everybody who's interested.
Dave:So, so yeah. Right. Shall we be wanting to Well,
Matthew:I guess we should also add, now the secrets out as well, our privileged patrons have just got a bit of swag that is looking at our our future branding for Tales of the Old West as well. So Yeah. I hope they appreciate that. And our international patrons, it's in the post. I don't think anybody's got it yet internationally, but it is on its way to you.
Matthew:So so thank you for your support. All our patrons, but
Dave:particularly
Matthew:our privileged patrons. Right. Should we move on to the world of gaming?
Dave:Let's do that then. So what do we have here? So one was wasn't sure if you're gonna jump in there or not, which you normally do.
Matthew:No. I didn't know. Yeah. I was letting you know.
Dave:You kinda left me hanging. There was any way Giving you the pause for you to jump in because you always jump in. Even when I'm talking, you tend to jump in.
Matthew:Well, let me talk over you then, Dave.
Dave:Fuck you.
Matthew:Alright. You see, you have to carry on talking. I can't say anything until you're talking because I have to interrupt you. That's just the rules. We leave your space I'll leave you hanging.
Matthew:So I was ex I was kind of excited Star Trek Adventures 2nd edition, Modiphius have just announced, and I was kind of excited and slightly weirded out by this. But it's interesting that they say on their announcement that it's been 7 years since they announced Star Trek Adventures the first edition. And I thought, oh, wow. That is actually almost exactly the same as the difference between Coriolis and Coriolis Coriolis the Great Dark about which we'll be talking later in this program. Maybe it is time for a second edition and certain things I feel are it's absolutely right for a second edition because although I'm not playing Star Trek Adventures, if I was going to play a game now it would be not in original series era but in Strange New Worlds era which I am absolutely loving.
Matthew:And I've been slightly disappointed, of course, that Star Trek Adventures hasn't hasn't got anything from Strange new New World. You know, the illustrations don't feature the beautiful Strange New World version version of the Enterprise or the slightly different and frankly better uniforms. And, and and this right on the front cover or right on the announcement picture at least, front and center is a Strange New World's uniform. So that's got me a bit excited for second edition.
Dave:It's in Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I it when I heard the the announcement, I thought, well, that's that's early. Yeah. Not having not having realized.
Dave:I mean 7 years is 7 years obviously, but they've produced a lot of material and are continuing to produce a lot of material or had been continuing to produce a lot of material for Star Trek Adventures 1st edition. And so you know, I think there's a difference perhaps between the feeling of Star Trek Adventures and the feeling of Coriolis's you you you you brought that up. Mhmm. Because with Coriolis, you had just the 3 big I mean, after the original came out when Coriolis first came out, you you tried the the the 3 bigmas of the icon books. And there seemed to be a big dark between the stars between those coming out, where you had people waiting for them.
Dave:But for start up adventures, it feels like the the the the the pace of productivity has been producing stuff and releasing stuff at a very at a very fast rate. Yeah. So there's there's been a lot of stuff being produced, and it didn't feel like it was a, a what's the word I'm looking for? A moribund game. No.
Dave:But I you know, as you could possibly say that Coriolis felt a bit moribund after the last mercy of the icons came out.
Matthew:So it's
Dave:a different feel, different vibe. So with Yeah. You know, the the the great dark coming out, that felt right and timely. Star Trek Adventures Edition 2 didn't feel so right and timely to me. Because it just felt that Star Trek was still such a live active game with so much going on.
Dave:Now they've obviously decided to do that. It's gonna be backwards compatible with, 1st edition, which is great. That does kind of imply how much is gonna change in the new version. But they are, obviously, including things like strange new worlds and Prodigy to, you know, to expand the the realms of the universe that you can explore.
Matthew:I'm sure there's only one change that needs to happen to the rules, Dave.
Dave:Which is what?
Matthew:Locking phasers.
Dave:Yes. They do need to lock phasers. Yes. Very much so. I'm
Matthew:I I I think that's probably they've they've taken your worst start. It's taken 7 years apparently for them to work it out. But I'm pretty sure that's the only real change in the rules. And also, was it last, a fortnight ago that we we talked about their announcement of the Klingon war campaign, which, of course, is the Klingon war as mentioned in the Voyager bit. And I'm wondering whether they're going Voyager.
Dave:You mean Discovery?
Matthew:Discovery. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm wondering whether they're saying okay. Well, maybe that campaign is actually in a way gonna be the start of 2nd edition Star Trek Adventures.
Dave:Yeah. Possibly. Possibly. I mean, one thing they do say in their announcement is that some of the rules have been, overhauled a little bit. They call it they spent some time in dry dock.
Dave:And so that they are gonna be kind of refined, refreshed, and ready for your new explorations. Which is which is fine. I think, you know, the my experience of running starship combat in Star Trek Adventures, as a player has been really good. But I think that's because the GM, Tony, had, sort of, you know, managed, massaged the rules to make the experience more fun at the table. Where as I think the rules themselves were a bit clunky.
Dave:So, you know, streamlining and making making the Starship combat rules, for me anyway, feel more Star Trek y, like being able to lock phasers. You know, I I always have in I've probably said this before, but I always have the the the snippet I have in my mind is Wrath of Khan when they're in the standoff. They're just about to lower the reliance shields, and Kirk says to Sulu, you know, Sotto Voce, lock phasers on target. And he just looks down without really moving a muscle and says phasers locked. I love it.
Dave:I just love it. It just gets my gets me tingling. And that's the kind of thing you wanna be able to build on your on your bridge. That kind of moment. So, yeah.
Dave:Excited to see it. It should be good with a bit of luck. Yeah. Cool. I mean it's there is so much about Star Trek Adventures that I love.
Dave:The books themselves are just great. I as to have on the, have on the shelf. They look lovely. Some of that, like we said before, I think some of the, some of the the writing and the design is a bit loquacious. But, yeah, I've got a number of the books on my shelf just because they make my shelf look better for sure.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. And I've got the deluxe version of the book with the with the beautiful sort of relief picture of enterprise d on it.
Dave:Yeah. Nice.
Matthew:Which have you which version have you got?
Dave:Yeah. I've got that version as well.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Just get it down off the shelf. That is yeah. I mean, that is a that is a lovely book.
Matthew:I got some lovely bookmarks in that book as well, which I think, an interesting conversation Fuck off. To
Dave:have. Okay. This is this is Matt swinging us back to Tales of the Old West. And a comment I made on the Discord of, you know, the the the product extras, like
Matthew:Dave hates bookmarks.
Dave:That's what he said. Like book ribbons are just a bit boring. And, everybody else went, oh, no. I love bookmarks. I love book ribbons.
Dave:So, you know, as as usual, I'm in a I'm in a majority of 1. There you go.
Matthew:It's okay, Dave. We'll make bookmarks maybe one of the later stretch goals so there's every chance that we won't reach it. Anyway Yeah. Maybe. Yeah.
Matthew:Moving on. Moving on. Laundry files. I think we can skip over this one quite quickly. I was just intrigued to see that cubicle 7 have announced Laundry Files second edition.
Matthew:I'm not massively excited by this. I have tried reading one of the books before. Can't even remember. Charles Stross, I think is the author. And they don't quite do it for me.
Matthew:They're kind of comedy Call of Cthulhu. Mhmm. And I think Laundry Files first edition was actually a licensed Call of Cthulhu's product, and I'm kind of interested to see now that cubicle 7 don't have their relationship with Chaosium over Call of Cthulhu, what's the rule set gonna be in Lord G Files 2nd edition? That's kinda the only question I wanted to ask and I haven't even bothered to look look around and see if I can find an answer.
Dave:I I know nothing about laundry files.
Matthew:We can keep this segment short then.
Dave:We can. I guess the only I mean, my only my only quest my only comment, I guess, would be on the on the idea of sort of comedy role playing.
Matthew:And We're gonna come into that with our next
Dave:Well, that that's that's me setting up the segue, mate.
Matthew:Oh, segue. So, yeah. I just ruined your segue for you. Thank you.
Dave:In in the For me anyway, I'm sure I'm sure there Yeah. As I said again on the discord, other opinions are available. For me, it's very difficult to to draw that kind of humor, like, mechanically or deliberately out of a game like that. The humor that's you know, the really good humor is the stuff that is spontaneous and unexpected. And very much like our tales from the loop game, where you stumble stumble into a not an alcoholic news sketch that caused me and Tony to wet ourselves.
Dave:Yeah. Which is one of the funniest moments, possibly of my life, actually, but certainly in gaming. So so I I do Davis
Matthew:had a very sad life.
Dave:That was well, no. That was just so funny. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I have to go back and listen to that again after we've finished the show.
Dave:Because that just if I need perking up, I just listen to that and I'm happy when I finished. But but yeah. So so I I think there's there's definitely a thing about forcing humor by saying, oh, it's a humorous RPG. Yeah. I don't know.
Dave:Just that's just my take. I mean, as I said, said, other opinions are available.
Matthew:Yeah. So I I'm thinking about the history of humorous RPGs. And, for me, one of the earliest ones I got was Steve Jackson Games Toon.
Dave:Toon? That was that worked.
Matthew:Yeah. That worked.
Dave:Because you because you were basically a cartoon character. So it was all gonna be very daft. And that worked. Yeah. I liked that.
Dave:It's not something I'd run a camp I'd I'd wanna play a campaign in. But for a one shot here or there, that was fun.
Matthew:And I think I don't I I'm not gonna proclaim myself to be an expert in humorous games. But something I said on the Discord, and actually the more I thought about it, the more I believe in it. This is now remind me, this is a Modiphius game, isn't it? This Discworld?
Dave:Discworld. Yeah. It's Modiphius. Yep.
Matthew:And it's gonna be using the 2 d 20 system?
Dave:I assume. I haven't actually seen a press release or newsletter on it.
Matthew:Oh, I yeah. I think I've read somewhere it was gonna use a 2 d 20. And I've definitely read some comment which is I'm not sure that's the right system to use for Discworld.
Dave:Yeah. I'm not And Yeah. I'll be very surprised if it's not 2 d 20, obviously.
Matthew:Yeah. And that you know, it made me then think, well, what is the right system to use for a comedy game? I don't know. I'm gonna I'm gonna put my cars on the table and say probably 2 d twenty is as good as any other system because in a way the system should be getting out of the rules
Dave:out of the way. Yeah. Absolutely.
Matthew:You know, a a humorous setting. But actually, that made me think that maybe actually Dungeons and Dragons is the best system to use for for Discworld. In that, what Discworld does is take modern things and stick them into medieval fantasy tropes effectively or arguably, take medieval things and and put a modern attitude around them. And that idea of forcing modernity into into medieval fantasy is kind of what people do with D and D Mhmm. Yeah.
Matthew:All the time.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:That's true. And so, you know, when you think that Critical Role is funny when you watch Critical Role, it's funny kind of in the same way that Discworld is. So may maybe, actually, they're missing a trick there. What they should do, just do a 5th edition version. And you've never heard me say that before.
Matthew:But actually No. I have a sneaking suspicion that 5th edition Discworld would be the perfect Discworld.
Dave:And then and then strong-arm critical role into running it.
Matthew:Yeah. Well well, I don't know whether critical role can do the British bit of the humor that well. But, yeah. No. I I I I don't think the system matters all that much as I think is what I'm saying.
Matthew:And if I were gonna choose a system, I think I'd definitely do it in 5e. There was there was once upon a time a GURPS version of it. Yeah. And and GURPS is very, if you like, simulationist. I mean, you can it GURPS has got all sorts of knobs and dials you can adjust to make it more realistic or less realistic, but it always that always struck me as odd that you do that for Discworld.
Matthew:Yeah. And, yeah. I I'm I'm planting my flag in the hill that I'm gonna die on that a Discworld game should actually be 5e.
Dave:You're gonna die on that hill. It's that important.
Matthew:I will die on that hill.
Dave:Because what? Modiphius people will take you up there and beat you to death.
Matthew:Because Modiphius fans may well beat me to death. But I think what Modiphius ought to be doing is doing a 5e version. That's the flag I'm gonna that's the hill I'm gonna stand on with my flag waiting to die. Shall we move on?
Dave:Then I I would just say it's been a long time since I've read the Discworld books, and the idea of of role playing, you know, maybe, you know, a a mirth and mayhem style like dragonbane, in Ankh Morpork would be quite fun, I think, potentially.
Matthew:Yeah. But you're right. You don't need funny mechanics. No. Absolutely.
Matthew:Is a system and the beautiful setting that he created. And then Justice Suttler gave me if you like, that very first book, The Color of Magic, is about a D and D player taking a tour with a wizard. Mhmm. If you like, You know, the tourist.
Dave:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe there's something in it. And and again, I think maybe some of the some of the rules would need to be bit quirky to try and bring out that Discworld feel perhaps.
Matthew:No. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think the rules should be almost straight faced.
Dave:Yeah. Perhaps.
Matthew:And and, you know But
Dave:it's funny though, isn't it? I mean, this world isn't isn't, you know, depths of the gut gafaring funny. It's witty, and clever, and intelligent. Yeah. It's much more, you know, Douglas Adams style than Yeah.
Dave:I don't know. Trying to think of another comedy author who's just
Matthew:I mean, Terry Pratchett did start by writing a couple of very sub Douglas Adams books, science fiction books Yeah. Before he hit on Discworld.
Dave:So so that's an interesting thing. So how do you draw out that wittiness and that cleverness, to recreate the humor that you read in a in a good Discworld novel in a game.
Matthew:And I I think that comes out of a table. That's the tough one. Comes out of the table of players, not out of the system. That's my
Dave:argument, I think. No. Absolutely. I agree with you totally. But then that relies upon your players being as witty as Terry Pratchett, which might be a challenge.
Dave:Well,
Matthew:I don't know. I think it relies on your players thinking they're as witty as
Dave:Terry Pratchett. Yeah. Maybe maybe. And then it doesn't yeah. No.
Dave:No. That's cool. No. That's fine. I guess a game that is encouraging a humorous take, will generate more humor around the table if the people have got the right kind of mood and the attitude about it than a game that's a bit darker.
Dave:Because we do get humor around the table. You know, we're laughing our heads off half the time Playing games that are dark and dangerous and, you know, dealing with difficult issues. But we still, you know, the game doesn't encourage the humour. It's just us as a group have fun whilst we're playing. And that brings out lots of other stuff that we find funny.
Dave:Whereas a game that is then trying to generate humor that is directly relevant to the setting and to the game itself, that's a that's a different different kettle of fish.
Matthew:Yeah. But of course you and I are having said we're not experts in humorous games, we have actually developed the the first and in fact only game of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is available as an exclusive to our patrons.
Dave:A long long long time ago.
Matthew:A long long time ago. And I think I think I've said it before on here, so I don't wanna bore our listeners. But I think actually it's quite good. And it does some things like having only 2 stats, which it took about 20 years for the the rest of the gaming world to. That that fellow, Roan Wickham Deckard fellow with his Honey Heist game, he was so far behind the times.
Matthew:When when we had ego and something else, I don't know what my other stat was. See, I can do the segue too, and that one's gonna
Mohamed:be accidental.
Dave:I saw that coming. I saw that coming.
Matthew:We've got dagger in the heart, has been announced by Rowan, Rook, and Deckard which is a kind of campaign setting ish thing for, Heart and Spire. Heart or Spire? Or Heart.
Dave:I think it's for Heart, isn't
Dave:No. I don't think that I think the the the books themselves are standalone games. A bit like, you know, year zeroes stuff. So heart isn't an expansion on spire. It's taking the world of spire, which is obviously above ground down into the heart, which is all the stuff that's underground, underneath the spire.
Matthew:Oh, is it? Right. Yes.
Mohamed:Yeah.
Matthew:I haven't got I haven't got heart. I've only got Spire. And Yeah. To be honest, I haven't actually read Spire. I only bought Spire at our terrible UK Comic Con experience.
Dave:Yeah. I got I got both.
Matthew:Mainly out of sympathy for the other store holders who weren't selling it.
Dave:Yeah. Well, I got both at UK Games Expo probably year before last. And they are lovely books, and they are pleasure to read. I haven't had the the the big hand of role playing Fate grab me by the throat and say get this to the table. So I haven't played it.
Dave:So dagger in the heart, I it's not something I'm gonna get, because again, I'm not so I'm not playing heart or spire, at the moment. But it's it's written by Gareth Bryde Hanrahan. So it's got a good, a good pedigree behind it. Rowan, Rooke, and Deckard produce great material, with, with Grant, and, and Maz and the others there. So I suspect it's gonna be very good.
Dave:And I know there are a lot of people out there who are huge fans of Spire and Hart. And, I suspect this is gonna be wonderful news for them. But as I said for me And
Matthew:it will be a successful case, I'm sure.
Dave:I I suspect very much so. So does that has that started that Kickstarter? I think it has, hasn't it? I think it started on the 27th 27th February. I think it started off off, which was at the time of recording about 4 or 5 days ago.
Matthew:We will put a link in our show notes.
Dave:Yeah. Let me have a quick I'm going to find it. Look. The the the fabulous wonderful, podcasting joy of listening to somebody looking something up online.
Matthew:On using incredibly noisy keyboard.
Dave:No. No. I've got I'm not I'm using my quiet keyboard. So you shouldn't be able to hear that too much.
Matthew:Yeah. No. You are it's quite actually.
Dave:Oh, wow. Okay. So, they're on back a kit rather than Kickstarter. Alright. Yeah.
Dave:Funded in 43 minutes. So they had a target of 25,000. They've currently got just shy of 94,000 with nearly 1,500 backers and 28 days to go. So, yeah. A great success already Okay.
Matthew:Excellent.
Dave:For, for Roarin, Rick and Deckard and our friends there. So brilliant. I mean, that's great. So, yeah. Remarkable.
Matthew:Yeah. Well done them.
Dave:Great job.
Matthew:45 minutes and and not not a small amount. Not like No. Free league do a a small target. Interesting. We can learn a lot from them.
Dave:Yeah. And they've blown that target already by a long way. Yeah. I mean, I guess By a long way. This this this comes with, you know, a a track record of Spire and Heart
Millie:being,
Dave:you know, well loved games and highly thought of. It also comes with Gareth Hanrahan writing it.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:Which is again, you know, another Okay. I know I love your, Gareth Hanoverhan,
Matthew:Okay. I know I love your, Gareth Hanoverhan, segue, by the way.
Dave:That's another one, you see?
Matthew:Yeah. There's another one. Because we got the alpha version of Maria. Maria. Maria.
Dave:Maria. You've always had trouble with this one. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Matthew:I do. I don't know. I don't know why you put them. Maria is entirely out.
Dave:Moria. Those people are confused. It's the one ring. It's that kind of Moria, not Maria from I don't
Matthew:know Yeah. From we've got a problem. Moria Moria is out in alpha version for the Kickstarter backers. And I'm I haven't looked at it in any great depth because I'm playing a campaign of the one being at the moment with our lovely patron, John. And I have a sneaking suspicion John is gonna be taking us to Moria maybe now as soon as next week.
Matthew:Oh. So I didn't wanna spoil anything for myself. But I think the initial reports and people who have read it in more depth are good. Thomas has, our patron Thomas, this is, has put in a good, good paragraph of comment on the Discord.
Dave:Yes. Yeah. So I haven't looked at And
Matthew:that's one thing that he's a bit worried by, but I won't mention that.
Dave:Yeah. So interesting some of the comments. I mean, I haven't looked at it yet either. Not through the fact that I'm about to play it, but through just lack of time. And I think from what the comments we've we've heard so far is, it feels very much, I was gonna say Cthulhu esque, which is probably maybe the wrong way of putting it.
Dave:But, you know, the things you're gonna face in Moria are of such an order of beastly evilness and power that it's, it's gonna it's gonna make the game a lot more about kind of sneaking through Moria, I suspect, than marching through Moria with a band behind you. As as you'd expect, everyone knows Lord of the Rings. Everyone knows Durin's Bane. And, you know, it was what
Matthew:was Gandalf Okay.
Dave:I'm
Matthew:not sure everyone knows Durin's Bane. I'm not entirely sure I know Durin's Bane, and it has been referred to in a couple of remind me, what's Durin's Bane?
Dave:Oh, Durin's Bane is the Balrog.
Matthew:Oh, he's actually called Durin's Bane. Yeah. Yeah. I just called him the Balrog, but there we go. That's all I know.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, the the line in the film where where Gandalf says, you know, swords will not avail you here or something like that. Run. Just like, you know, good stuff.
Dave:Cool. So The land
Matthew:faster than your nearest wizard. That's a trick, is it?
Dave:Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Trip the wizard up and run like hell. Yeah.
Dave:So, yeah. I'm looking forward to having a read through it. It's it's, it's good. I suspect it's gonna be fabulous artwork and great, you know, wonderfully produced work. As I said, spoilers.
Dave:I'm not you know, there's a couple of comments people have made, which will be interesting to see how the, kind of, the structure and the approach of the supplement play out. Trying to, you know, not say too much and not say too little. But, yeah. Exciting. And I actually I should I should download it and have a look.
Matthew:Yeah. It looks gorgeous. I mean, it's only it's very much only half done. There's loads of illustrations missing and maps and stuff like that. But also what there are in terms of illustrations and maps are blooming gorgeous.
Matthew:So so, yeah, it's gonna be a corker, and I'm glad I ordered the deluxe version to go with my deluxe hub back.
Dave:Cool. Nice.
Matthew:The core book. Right. I think we might be done on World of Gaming. Shall we Yeah. Crack on with our panel?
Matthew:I don't suppose this needs any real instruction from us because we introduce ourselves in that panel, don't we?
Dave:Yeah. Let's just crack on with it, shall we?
Matthew:Our players in the Hamam today for this very special players in the Hamam are, the marvelous, Millie the GM who has, run a rival campaign, actually, but also a rival campaign in which I've, I I've participated in at least the the prologue of that. So how how can we how can we be rivals on that? So Millie the gym and also, Mohammed, who is known to those of us who can remember when we were doing our campaign as our loyal, if somewhat put upon
Dave:crew member.
Matthew:And when I say put upon, I mean, frequently thrown out of the ship by,
Mohamed:loyal to the ship.
Dave:Only once.
Millie:Once is enough. Yeah.
Matthew:Once is enough, guys.
Dave:That's true. That is true. He didn't die, I'm pleased to say.
Mohamed:Once is enough.
Dave:And I have felt very bad about it ever since.
Matthew:And we have gathered the 2 of you today to talk about the announcement that was well, by the time people are listening to this a couple of weeks ago about the new version of Coriolis. So I guess the first thing to ask is what were your first impressions on hearing that announcement?
Millie:I
Matthew:Millie, you go first.
Millie:I was sad it wasn't a second 2nd edition, a 3rd edition. Like, I was like, oh, I was I was gearing up for, like, a, you know, because of how the books and how the Mercy the Eye Con's campaign goes, I was ready for, like, 2nd generation fair horizon thing and it and it's it's somewhere else. It's not it's not what I thought it was, and I was a bit like, oh.
Matthew:So you're a bit disappointed that it's not 3rd horizon.
Millie:Yeah. I I think I think because we've kicked around so much in the 3rd horizon. I'm I'm genuinely like I I don't want I wanna go back to the bar room because we we did some stupid shit over there. We need to go and sort that out. And I wanna go back.
Millie:But now now everything for for folks is like, oh, well, let's go off over there. But no. No. There's still
Matthew:in sheet.
Millie:Yeah. But there's still Feel But there's
Dave:Feels to me there's a whole universe that almost hasn't been explored at all yet. Yeah. And it also feels to me that that mostly of the icons, even though I don't know what the third part does, I know what the second part does to the setting, in the background. It feels that should have been a campaign after a campaign or 2 to explore the 3rd horizon and then do what most of the icons have done with it rather than doing doing all that stuff to the Third Horizon in the first campaign that came out, albeit it's a very big campaign.
Millie:Yeah. So so, like, my initial reaction on it on Coriolis, The Great Dark was like, oh. Like, genuinely, like, oh. Mhmm. And I'm sure it's gonna be a great setting, and all the stuff that they've talked about which we'll get into sounds marvelous.
Millie:But that's my backyard. Come on up.
Mohamed:New settings maybe intriguing to to check. Maybe check what was the, you know, when the 2 ships went from, the the first earth to the first and second, horizon. We will do the same maybe the same setting to this to explore, New Horizon New Horizon, but as Millie said, there is a lot of on the background we have to do. It's a very open and wide wide galaxy. Suddenly, okay, We are done with it.
Mohamed:We are going through a a a new horizon. But, yeah, and I'm pretty excited to to to see what they had in plan. Always deliver good good stories. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited to to check it. Maybe some answered unanswered question questions will be, would be discovered.
Mohamed:Till now, we didn't finish the main the main campaign, Matt. I'm looking
Millie:at you.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's my fault. Meyer Culpa on that one, but I've been working.
Matthew:I've been working, Mohammed. And
Mohamed:Yeah. I understand. I understand. I'm just
Matthew:I was gonna say as soon as this job finishes in May, there's no Come on.
Dave:You ought to be getting on with it, really. Sorry. But As
Millie:soon as
Matthew:this job now finishes in June, I'll be ready to start in July. No. We we we must get back to that. Only we weren't just recording interviews every Monday when we used to play. But, here we are on a Monday when we could be playing the 3rd horizon, but instead, we're talking about the new horizon.
Dave:So, mate, what was what was your what was your first impression?
Matthew:So my first impression was excited. Could you not tell in the interview? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:I felt like I was a gushing fanboy lapping up everything they said. I'm not disappointed that we're leaving. I agree with you, Millie, that we have barely scratched the surface of the 3rd horizon in the play I know that we've done so far. And if if we've got that one campaign and we're working through that campaign and, yeah, things are happening in the 3rd horizon, and we've phoned about all over the place, but there's still so much left to explore or to do stuff with. But I'm not worried by that because that still exists.
Matthew:The 3rd horizon still exists. I have, some questions about the rule set, but we can come back to that in a bit. And, importantly, they're licensing out the 3rd horizon and the new horizon to us all. So Yeah. We can populate the 3rd horizon, and we don't even have to do it.
Matthew:I mean, we can do it. We always could through the free workshop, But now we can do it in you know, if we want to set up our 3rd horizon company and do a bunch of stuff in the 3rd horizon, we can.
Millie:How how much would that be? Right? How much would that be? Because, really, it comes from 1st edition and is named up. And then and then from that, like, what what would it be?
Millie:Like, I don't know. The
Matthew:Nazarene sacrifice.
Millie:Yes. Of course. That's the most well, obviously. But, yeah, how meta would that be?
Matthew:Because we are gonna screw up your horizon.
Millie:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Well, they certainly tried to screw up themselves in that sense. They certainly changed it. But I think I think my whilst I was I think I kind of like like empathize with both Mohammed and Millie because on the one hand, I was excited to hear about the new lost horizon and and, you know, your the opportunities that are coming there. But there was a bit of me that went, oh, oh, bye bye third horizon kind of thing. Even though as we've all just said that it's still there, if it exists.
Dave:But for Free League, it would have been nice to have had perhaps some more Free League love for it before they moved on to the next thing. But
Matthew:Yeah. But in a way, you have to think about as as you said, Billy, here is a company that is formed out of being fans of the first edition who named themselves after a faction. They have wanted to do what they loved about the 3rd horizon for years. And over the last 7 years, they've done that thing or 8 years or more, actually, if you count the Swedish edition. And and so now they're ready to move on, I think.
Matthew:And even if we don't feel ready to move on, the I mean, the thing that came across to me in the interview is this is so much a labor of love for Nils and for Costa and for Martin in particular. You know, Dave, you might feel Millie, you might also feel a bit chagrined that they didn't come and ask us to help out in the in the third horizon or in the new horizon. But, actually, this is their baby, and I think, you know, this is their playground, and they've let us play in it for 7 years. And now then they're not okay. They're not giving us new stuff to think about and talk about and then do the third horizon, but instead, they are giving us our playground, their playground, to do our own stuff.
Matthew:So Mhmm. I don't know. Am I coming across too much of a fanboy again? Maybe I should shut up.
Dave:No. I think I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to say, actually. You know, there there is a they've created a lovely playground. They've gone off to the the new playground, but they've left this playground for us to play in. So that's that's entirely reasonable, I think.
Dave:But yeah. So I mean, you know, one thing that did strike me struck me when I was thinking about about our conversation. So they've called it you know, because it's the the game is the great dark, but the place you're going to is the lost horizon. Does that mean it was found once before? Because it presumably hasn't been found by humans before.
Dave:It was the portal builder's place, but so why is it called the Lost Horizon?
Millie:This is where it
Dave:starts new horizon.
Millie:It starts feeling like, Stargate Universe to me when it this sort of stuff comes up. Mhmm. Is there any, like I know folks have made, like, reference to Battlestar and and that kind of stuff, But, like, the the Stargate Universe, which I absolutely loved a bit, I thought that was a great program, was all about, like, recharting, like, the course and finding what the, you know, the people who made the stargates and the the the lost civilizations have gone before and checking in and that kind of stuff. And you take your little spaceship down to the planet and you do your stuff and you find the things that might help you find the rest and all, you know, you piece together this clue. And then when you hear about, like, some of the setting things that they're talking about, and 1 year, you sort of home shit moving around or is it like I wanna call it blight, but it might not be blight or
Dave:No. It is blight.
Millie:Is it blight? Yeah. There's a blight or something that make made me think of, like, the machine cancer from things from the flood.
Dave:Yeah.
Millie:And that kind of stuff.
Matthew:It's all part of the same world.
Millie:It is. Yeah. It is. All part of the same. But, you know, but the there's that kind of stuff, in in those those programs, and there there may not be, like, the race or, you know, whatever the other bad guys and things are in the various star trip, Stargate things.
Millie:But it's definitely got that's where it that's where it starts sounding like a different sort of style of sci fi to me than, Firefly meets Babylon 5.
Dave:Alien great good night, treats, alien. Yeah.
Mohamed:The Nadir discovered the lost horizon, and then they build the portal that that made the people travel to the 1st and second and third horizon? They they were the border, portal builder?
Matthew:I'm not sure the Nadea were the portal builders, but that's an idea, isn't it? I don't know.
Dave:This is all circular. It all started there and we've all forgotten about it, which would make sense why it's in the lost horizon.
Mohamed:I don't know. But interesting, pronunciation, pronunciation from, Nicholas when they they called the the ship the Nadir, not Nadir. Because Nadir in, in Arabic is, someone who brings you, brings you some sort of warning of something that going to happen, like a harbinger or prophet's king. You just you just call it nadir with the emphasis on the
Dave:Other nadir.
Mohamed:I don't know if it's Okay. Other than nadir. Mhmm. Because nadir is it's it's a meaning word in in Arabic. It's mean harbinger or a or a prophet.
Mohamed:I don't know if this is a coincidence of of the proneness nation, but but Nadir, it means nothing. But Nadir, it means. So I I
Matthew:That is interesting. This is why this is why we've got an Arabic speaker on the panel. This is and maybe that brings us on to a a question that has been vexing some of the social media around around this. Some people seem to be a little that that that they seem to worry that that free league are playing down the Middle East and Arabian nights nature of, the 3rd horizon as we've known it. I didn't get that impression from our interview.
Matthew:I mean, they were talking very much about how the culture of the 3rd horizon is based on remnants of Earth culture. And now the culture that we'll be coming into in the lost horizon is based similarly on remnants of third horizon culture. The big thing I think that they're taking away is rare, but I don't think we can define the entire Middle East as being defined by the idea of prayer. That seems to be a bit reductionist. And it it still feels to me I mean, this might also be reductionist, but there are lots of images of people in in the Middle East hawking and, you know, and having birds of prey on their wrists in in popular culture, and that seems to be something I mean, not necessarily birds of prey, but the idea of these mysterious birds that they talked about in the interview, the imagery of people holding birds on their wrists or on their thing, that feels to me a reflection of some of the stereotypes I've at least that I've seen of, Middle Eastern culture.
Mohamed:And speaking of birds, the, the campaign the the book campaign name, the flower of the horob. The horob means crow in Arabic.
Matthew:Yeah. Right. So So it doesn't feel to
Mohamed:me but
Matthew:that they're watering down, but I don't know. What do other people think?
Dave:I think they did say in the then in our interview with them that the icons and that side of the, you know, the culture was gonna be there's less emphasis on that in the new game as there was in the 3rd horizon. But what that actually means, I guess we have to skip the book to find out. But
Mohamed:Yeah. And speaking of Middle Eastern culture, I don't know, but the icons are not probably a Middle East wasn't a Middle Eastern No. Culture. Our Arabic culture may maybe something pre Islamic Arabia with, but, what, intrigued me in was the culture said the clothing, the food, the the, the markets, the people sitting in the the tea shops, talking, and the the music. That was, what pulled me to the in first place.
Mohamed:So I don't know how they will go with with the with the theme going on for, with the new settings maybe based on a generational chip, not on on a planet anymore. Because what I understood that it would be on on a generational chip, There is no planet. They are discovering new planets. Yeah.
Dave:The city ship seems to be the the the focus, the the epicenter of of the culture there in the new one.
Matthew:Well, yeah. So so the city the the ship city, I think they called it
Millie:Or
Matthew:ship city. If you like, the the center of human culture in the lost horizon, And some people on the ship city wanting to call it Coriolis is the impression I got in in reflection of that. But, also, I think they kinda want to move away from the firefly nature of firefly beats Arabian Nights by not having the crew be so independent of a community in their little ship while they're adventuring. They've each got a home base, a great ship, not necessarily as big as the city, but still a great ship to which they return to and which has a community. And I'd like to think it has places where you can, socialize and have markets and stuff like that.
Matthew:I don't know. We'll we'll we'll we'll see whether that that holds true there.
Dave:Seems to me that the great ship is taking the muse New Zealand Arc concept and placing it into into the game, which was something when Coriolis originally came out. Because at that point, I'd only played Mutant Year 0. And then when Coriolis came out, like, wait, great, gotta get it. And, you know, here we are, long time later with, you know, the podcast and everything else. The thing that I was I was missing in that was that kind of great ship community place that is your epicenter for your characters.
Dave:Now this game is what exactly that.
Millie:It definitely seems to make it harder. Like, there is there's always like a a but if I if I make a couple of portal jumps and I hide out in this system for a year, will my Patreon know where to find me? They could have been do you know what I mean? Like, I can just I can just go on the run, and everybody I care about is on my ship. And and I Yes.
Millie:Yeah. Tying them to a, like, a base like that. Even if it's a small little community ship is is, like, okay. Well, now you've been on the run, but your ship is, like, left out to the flotilla or not allowed to port for repairs or you can't get any new c o two scrubbers or nobody you're not allowed to go to the market. You're not allowed to join.
Millie:You go to that that ship that has the hammam and the spa and the, you know, the open spaces you want. You gotta step. Because your little troop royally messed up, and until you release yeah. Until you, even until you return these culprits or make make proper, your whole community is punished. Yeah.
Millie:There's there are all vindictive people in the theater rising like So I assume some of them have made it up to the lost.
Matthew:So that excites me, honestly. I think I I quite like that idea of not being it's the thing that always you know, it's it's really hard to talk about this. But in our youth, Dave, when we used to play traveler, it was easy to cause chaos on the planet, then hop on our ship, make a few jumps, and the Lord was in the corner.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly.
Matthew:Yeah. And while while that was fun when we were 12, it It's ultimately slightly unsatisfying, and I I'm more about community. And well, you know, you you said you you missed the arc from from Corviolis and the the ship, the little 5 cruise ship, whatever that you design as part of character generation doesn't do that. One thing, though, I I I think I've specifically asked her about this in the interview was, or maybe after the interview. Would we as players get a chance to design our great ship to design the community?
Matthew:And they didn't necessarily say that we would. But, I'd like to hope I'd like to think we can because if it hasn't got a Hammam on it, it's gonna have a Hammam on our ship.
Millie:Yeah. But but if it doesn't have a Hammam on it, then as a GM, you can say there is there is this other place you need to be good with. There are these relationships you need to maintain for that level of luxury. Like Yeah. And and that's a a you know, that that's a hook that's greater than, oh, well, you're gonna have to smuggle yourself onto Coriolis or make 2 portal jumps and go to Yeah.
Millie:To Barra.
Dave:Oh, yeah.
Matthew:But if we haven't got a hamam on our great ship, then where are the capybaras gonna bathe? That's my question. Yeah.
Millie:Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:And it's it's it's interesting because I think there's 2 things from Mutant New Zero that that should should come through, I think. And I kind of got the I thought I got the sense in the interview that that was the case. 1 is the internal conflict and rivalry and stuff you can get within your own great ship. So there'll be elements of factions and there'll be different people, there'll be rivalries. And the other is the opportunity to maybe they didn't say this explicitly, but, yeah, in in meeting year 0, you you run projects to improve your arc.
Dave:So presumably, in this, there'll be something similar that allow you to upgrade or improve or enlarge your ship.
Matthew:Yeah. And that's happened We'd cover them. In Dessen as well, doesn't it, with the headquarters? So I like to think it's a thing that they do in in freely games in general, so that would be good.
Mohamed:Well, also The Walking Dead, the it has the same mechanic.
Matthew:Yeah. And alien colony stuff. Colony stuff. Yeah. So one of the things they said about factions in the 3rd horizon is that there were too many of them.
Matthew:And I think the evidence of the campaign and of our play is that's probably true. You know, we we we hardly touched the secrets of, Alarm's temple, for example, Dave, even though that was kinda central. Well, not at the first, but then became central to your character. Yeah. And, the draconites, you know, the mysterious draconites whose mystery was never uncovered except maybe they found a way to the lost horizon.
Matthew:So so they said they were gonna have fewer factions in this and those factions were going to have echoes or be part of have have constituents who are part of the old factions. They particularly mentioned one of them, the, Coriolites being very much the, the old grognobs of the, of the lost horizon. We always complaining about how good the third horizon was. So our spiritual home
Mohamed:The good old days.
Matthew:So we don't know much about the factions. What do you hope to see carried forward from third horizon factions into the new factions?
Millie:I hope they're not all just one dimensional. Like, because that's a that's a real like, that's been something, like, we've enjoyed when we've been playing. Like, we might make a deal with Alarm's Temple because they are do but, actually, they're pretty much as bad as the other ones when it comes to other things. We might, you know, we might take a a a mission with the draconites, but they're all pretty. Don't she getezers at the end of it all.
Millie:There are too many secrets for us to understand what we're really doing here and that kind
Mohamed:of stuff.
Millie:I hope they're not just like, you know, we are the good science people, and we are the people who work old ways, you know, that sort of we are the criminals. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. I agree.
Matthew:What I loved about the factions in the old book was they were all every well, just about almost everything contradicted itself. Just about everything they said, also, within what they where they described it, there was a contradiction to what it said it was. So, you know, you had the, the reaction to your bastards, what they called the religious sect. Samaritans? No.
Matthew:The
Dave:The the the Zalucians.
Matthew:The Zalucians. Yeah. The order
Dave:order of the prior.
Millie:Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The
Matthew:order of the prior, you you know, who who seemed to be the people that clamped down on knowledge, and there is only one true way, but actually had the big universities wherein they've been collecting and storing all the knowledge of the past. And and, yeah, the only really evil gang were the, obviously, the significant hegemony, who were just space Nazis. I don't think any of them had a redeeming factor, did they?
Dave:No. We didn't we didn't realize what we were joining when we joined.
Matthew:Oh, yeah. That is their redeeming capture. They paid well, Dave. They did. They did.
Matthew:They had
Dave:their money. Yeah. They were generous generous generous payers. Yeah. Which is fine.
Dave:And they kept paying us for a while even though we weren't working for them anymore.
Matthew:And I think possibly a good sign is that it feels to me that the Coriolites who are obviously the goodies, because they're the people most like us, they may well be taking the role of the Zenithian hegemony in the in this future version as well by being we we think our way is best. Everybody should do it. Everybody should do things our way. And,
Millie:the new way. There's there's 2 ways to do this, the wrong way and our way. Yeah.
Dave:And my way, honestly.
Millie:That that sounds like them. Like, we're not doing it.
Matthew:Yeah.
Millie:Yeah.
Matthew:Well, we can't wait
Mohamed:to see them. Long have so how long have this have they said that, they left the 3rd horizon? 200 years?
Dave:200 years.
Mohamed:200. Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. I got out of the impression, that it was only 70 years, but I think it took 70 years to to make the
Dave:The journey.
Matthew:Flat space journey. And we're we're joining some years after that, I think. So generations a couple of 100 years, I got the impression was what they were saying.
Dave:Yeah. So what do you feel then? What's your what's your sense about the kind of the new approach to the game where it's it's more sort of exploration and expeditions, you know, perhaps, you know, less horror maybe and more more sort of mystery and less mystical.
Mohamed:I don't know the the how they will differ it from from, alien colony because what I understood that reference of dead woods meet meeting the terror that you have an expedition to discover new areas or new galaxies or new planets and then set do, build a settlement inside this planet. This is what I understood from the reference of the dude that they were building a settlement or a sit or a or a town in this new discovered, inhabited area. I don't know if my understanding is correct.
Matthew:No. I
Dave:think you are. They didn't deny the fact that you could create a colony for want of a better word, but they didn't really go into it in great detail, I don't think. I didn't see all of the League lounge thing. I just caught the last 20 minutes of it or so, but so there might have been stuff there that I didn't see. But but it seems to give that impression that, you know, you explore, you have expeditions that go and do stuff, and then you can set up places to stay.
Dave:Like, say, Deadwood. But yeah.
Mohamed:I don't know.
Dave:It's a difficult one, I think. Because because because Deadwood implies lots of different people from lots of different places coming together and then competing over whatever it is, you know, that the town's been set up for, the mining rights or the alien farming rights or whatever. But if your expedition is landing, it's a bit more star tricky, isn't it? Where you might, you know, your great ship has now set great ship colony number 1 going, and we're gonna mine what we need to make the ship better, for example. Don't know.
Matthew:Yeah. I don't know how
Dave:to explain that.
Matthew:I'm kinda taking issue though with you saying it's less horror and more exploration because the terror well, depending on what iteration of the terror we're talking about when they say the terror meets Edward. But the TV show, the terror, was kind of hard.
Mohamed:The the Arctic exploration, from the terrorists, they said that's Yeah. Based on the Arctic Explorer.
Dave:So I guess I guess it depends on the kind of horror, doesn't it? So there's the horror of of being stranded somewhere cold and knowing you're gonna freeze to death in 3 weeks. Or there's the horror of something horrible and alien or evil coming out and trying to, you know, coming out from the dark between
Matthew:the sun and the sun to
Dave:come and get you.
Matthew:I think that was implicit in the definitely. So there's there's a history book or a popular history book called The Torah, which is about the actual expedition. But I think the TV show The Torah featured things like the Wendigo and stuff like that, which was Did it?
Dave:Okay. I never saw it.
Matthew:Yeah. No. I think we might have to see it before before the show begins.
Millie:Mhmm. I
Matthew:think it's on blibbing HBO, which means sky in this country, which Right. I'm not condoning piracy.
Millie:No. Never. Why? Never.
Dave:Pirates of the or otherwise. Yes.
Matthew:But, yeah, maybe we should find some way to see it. Yeah. So, I but I
Dave:think that was kind of supernatural. Yeah. But as as Mohammed was saying, they were talking about polar expeditions and wanting to get that. That was the kind of the inspiration. So I didn't get the sense that they were talking about Wendigos and Bigfeet and Yeti and that kind of stuff.
Dave:But they they might have been. I mean, there's obviously a lot of gaps in what they were talking about.
Mohamed:They said that, when you go fetch an artifacts, it's they have the blight and they need to face the blight in order to get this this some sort of artifact that you need to, for your mothership or something like that. I didn't catch the whole interview also.
Dave:Yeah. That rings a bell though. Yeah.
Mohamed:The the
Dave:plight is something there that you're gonna have to deal with if you want to get, you know, these fine artifacts.
Millie:Yeah. I it it feels like like, you know, the way you were talking about deadwood and stuff. Like, there is there is a an unobtanium style resource somewhere in this horizon. The blight is the ticker that sort of removes your access to it, and then the other ships in the area all competing for this artifact, the Unobtainium. Yeah.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Millie:So whether whether these ships I mean, they must be beyond portal jumps or whether they can create their whether there's this substance, these artifacts that indeed help function, and the the the the lost horizon is, you know, somewhere that doesn't have these elements, you know, that that rarity. Yeah. That sounds like, coming at it from that angle, that would give you the deadwood style. Everybody wants to be on here to get this, to mine this, to to acquire this thing, to keep their ships flying, and also have Yeah.
Dave:It's interesting because that I I get that competition and that sounds quite cool. Although you could you could argue, you know, with with great ships that are flying faster than light, but they're not flying through portals. So travel to another planet takes, you know, months or years. You know, the the race for 2 or 3 great ships to go and find somewhere would be a long and slow race. Now that might be quite fun to play a couple of scenarios doing it, but still it would be a long and slow race.
Dave:It doesn't feel to me like it's gonna set up a town like Deadwood. It feels to me you'd get, you know, setting up your own individual operations to extract that resource or get that, get that artifact. So it still doesn't really feel doesn't yeah.
Millie:Yeah.
Dave:Doesn't make me feel dead. Yeah.
Millie:I guess it's a bit like, I've been watching For All Mankind on Apple TV.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Millie:And there's that that season where they're on Mars all trying to find water. There's that sort of stuff. So, you know, the conflicts and interpersonal and the
Matthew:Mhmm.
Millie:The different factions trying to work together and hide it from others, and then everybody has to rescue each other style conflicts going on.
Matthew:Yeah. And we're we're presupposing that that is planetside, but maybe that is a sort of faction argument that's going on even on the great ships. Yeah. That that that Yeah. Deadwood isn't actually a a new colony on a planet.
Matthew:It's it's simply surviving on on the great ship itself.
Millie:I mean, yeah.
Matthew:Which I'm, yeah, I'm kind of excited by, but I I need to know more.
Millie:Yeah. It's definitely a thing where it's like, there's there's just been enough information here to make everybody uninterested. Gosh. Oh, really?
Matthew:Have we exhausted our conversation? Have we talked about everything we want to that that we can remember?
Millie:I think
Dave:I was gonna say oh, sorry. Go on. Go on, Millie.
Millie:I think I think I I won't wonder about the the mechanics Because there's, what, 2 dice pools that you're gonna have. Mhmm. We're not gonna be we're not gonna have prayer as a mechanic, but there will be what was it? Hope?
Dave:Hope. Hope. Instead of hope. Darkness points. Yeah.
Matthew:And
Millie:but hope will be in some way a resource because the less of it you've got, the worse things that happen or something. I remember this kind of
Matthew:That seemed to be the thing. And also that the the group have got to generate hope together.
Mohamed:Hope pool.
Matthew:I think that I saw picked up. Sorry. What's that, Mohammed?
Dave:Momentum.
Mohamed:You're building a hope pool, you mean? Like, some sort of hope pool?
Matthew:I'm not sure. I I wasn't quite sure, but they did mention the the the fact that the, you know, the group has gotta work together to, to build hope.
Dave:Yeah. I don't know. They're definitely making a a difference between this and Alien where they were emphasizing the fact that there were the the groups need to cooperate better.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:And it's less of a PVP thing that Alien is potentially.
Millie:Yeah. Because I think that in a way is gonna set it apart from, you know, just in the in the way you, like, people ask, like, why is how is Alien different than the 3rd horizon? And you're like, well, there are darkness points and the the prayer and the push and that kind of stuff is very important. There were there's weird shit in between the portals and that spills out. Yeah.
Millie:Alien is just every man for himself and where's the dollars? Oh, I don't know, but you've got no face left. So so what?
Matthew:Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna rant about one of the things I'm pleased to see disappear out of the 3rd
Millie:horizon, and that is the really disappointing
Matthew:weird shit between portals. You're the game is that being awake in a portal fucks you air sign. It screws you up, in in a terrible way. And Yeah. And you see people that are, you know, physically deformed by it, but the mechanics of it okay.
Matthew:There there's a chance of
Dave:Weak tea on there. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. The mechanics are a bit weak tea. And now I think, you know, what our by necessity bottle episode we did in in our first campaign, Dave, was Yeah. Was better than anything that they've described actually in the in the portals. And I'm kinda if they can't fix that, then it I'm pleased it's gone.
Matthew:Similarly, actually, prayer. I mean, I love prayer. You know I love prayer, but prayer plus darkness points was a bit clunky. Mhmm. We've said that frequently on the show.
Matthew:I would love to have fixed it and retained prayer, but I couldn't think of a way to do it. And if they've spent 7 years not be able to work out a way to do it, maybe hope is gonna be better.
Dave:I I like darkness points. I I I accept and and and like welcome their weaknesses, but I like darkness points.
Mohamed:And But
Matthew:you don't even use them, Dave.
Dave:It's well, I use too many of them. Or I generate too
Matthew:many of them. Use them to fuel supernatural creatures. You don't you don't spend them according to the way the magician is.
Dave:As a GM, I do use them to influence scenes, and I do use them to do weird shit. And well, that's where the I think that's where the real joy of darkness points comes. You need a DM who's happy to be a bit imaginative and and pick a moment and just narratively play a darkness point that really makes that scene even more, you know, powerful. Now that's hard to do, you know, and I've, you know, in my I've I've DM'd a lot of Coriolis, and I can probably only think of a a slack handful of times where I've had situations where I've thought that was a really good use with darkness point. I thought that was cool.
Dave:But they'll have
Matthew:you and darkness
Dave:point as
Matthew:another day.
Dave:And I'm sad to see them go.
Millie:I'm I'm self confessed. Like, I am naff with darkness points. I will I will admit it. I because because in our campaign now, I've got 2 mystics now, so we are generating them quite quickly, which then is just like I understand why I've got to use them. And in the greater, you know, point of the story, I understand why they happened.
Millie:But I am, like, oh, I was talking with somebody who, they're just starting Mercy the Icons and the series lost. And in there, there is a thing where it's like, and if they're crawling up this tunnel, spend 3 darkness points to have explosive decompression. And and he was just like, spend 3 darkness points to TPK.
Matthew:Yeah. And it's like Yeah.
Millie:Well, no. Yes. Because they get a big role and, you know, they put the odds are that they'll get extra successes, which you can say this, and they might have this talent. He's like, spend 3 down those points to TPK. I'm like, yeah.
Millie:Well yeah.
Dave:Yeah. I okay. I I will add an addendum to my comment a moment ago, which is that rules as written for darkness points doesn't work terribly well. But as a GM, I love the idea of darkness points and I can make it work.
Millie:You see, I think that's Yeah.
Matthew:And I think I think we've learned how to make it work.
Millie:But that's what I was that's that's why I was a bit like, when the dark, the the great dark came up. Because I was like, if it this is Coriolis 3rd edition for the 3rd horizon, that's gonna be like, they must have reworked that. They must have. And that and that's an element of, like Yeah. And
Dave:Yeah. And the element of excitement to see how they reworked it, and then they reworked it by dropping it.
Matthew:Yeah. Could we, though, take take the rules of the great dark and play with them in the 3rd horizon as though the great dark was a pure second or third however you count edition?
Millie:Probably.
Matthew:Yeah. There's nothing stopping us, isn't it?
Millie:There's already folks who are desperate to try and make the alien system work in Coriolis. I think it's been talked about even on the the effect discord. Like, I've looked at taking down those points out, and it boils down to why don't you just rewrite the system and play something else?
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things that I love about darkness points is that it makes you pray. It makes prayer and, you know
Millie:Preparatory prayer. Prayer.
Dave:Make the icons a real thing.
Matthew:A territory prayer is
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:We can't lose that.
Dave:The icons are I will I will pass. I will pass out. Because you pray and something good happens. You know? Yeah.
Dave:So it's It works.
Matthew:It does. The icons is true. Yeah. And there are moments like that time when you sat down to pray in the pray in the dirt before the cannibals came to catch you and Tony's character. And you prayed.
Matthew:You blessed your weapon. You gave it to Tony. He, of course, had prayed. And then he stabbed the blooming woman in the eye with a fabulous roll. Yeah.
Dave:That was a great moment. Yeah. That was. It worked. We had a combat that we planned, and it worked as planned.
Dave:Exactly. But the only time ever, I think.
Millie:That's because you prayed?
Dave:Who cares? Yeah.
Matthew:Because of prayer. Because of prayer. Because of the extra dose you got from the preparatory prayer. It was brilliant.
Dave:How about you, Mohammed? What's your what's your feeling on this point?
Mohamed:Yeah. As a player, because I never GM'd Coriolis, I hope I'm hoping to GM it, maybe in 2 months to my, weekly group. I will just spit them, pitch them the idea. If they interest, maybe with we'll go the with the whole campaign. But as a player, yeah, maybe, I know there is consequences for my prayer.
Mohamed:I know. Okay. I will succeed in this role, but some something will bite me in the end. Yeah. That yeah.
Mohamed:Yeah. That's I I love that. I don't, I love that. I don't know I don't know that when the danger will happen, when the consequences of my my prayers angered some something else other than the icon that I prayed for. May made another icon jealous for praying for this particular icon.
Mohamed:The the dark the darkness between the stars are getting the revenge. So I like like you said, it's it's it's more work for for the GM. The GM has to be more imaginative to use this darkness point to, to use it. So I'm I was blessed to have Matthew with me and watching also Millie, using, during history, her streams. So, yeah, I'm learning a lot, for my, when I GM it, hopefully.
Matthew:Yeah. I think that's I think that is the sorry, Steve.
Dave:No. Go on. Go on, Matt.
Matthew:I was gonna say, I think that's the problem of prayer and darkness points is we can all we've all made it work in our own ways, but somebody coming new into the game is actually going to struggle with the rules as written. And maybe that's why it, although I love my darkness points, they they they shouldn't survive unless they can make them work to a new GM, playing the game for the first time.
Dave:So there's something that Mohammed said there that I thought was a fabulous, fabulous idea. And maybe there's something in that that you could do some additional rules about how you manage new start this points. And it was the idea of the icons being jealous. You know, why not have, you know, the icons are just one big blob of icons. Okay.
Dave:You've got different, you know, you get different skills if you prepare if you do your, you know, go to to the chapel and pray to one over the other. But actually icons don't do anything. There's no you know, they they grant you a prayer by allowing you to reroll. But maybe, you know, other effects that happen because those icons are all competing and envious of one another. And that comes down in a in a in a mechanism for using darkness points.
Dave:I'll have to have a think. Yeah. I love the idea. I love the idea of jealous icons or icons jealous of each other. I think that's really cool.
Mohamed:That that's a good
Matthew:So yeah. You know, you're afraid to the judge, but the lady of tears is gonna wanna get her revenge
Dave:right pissed off at you.
Matthew:Yeah. Right there. Although one of the other unique the thing I one of the lovely things about prayer that I loved is that in most of the other games, when you push, you know the consequences are gonna come back on you. Mhmm. But what I loved about Coriolis is when I push, the consequences are gonna come back on all of us.
Matthew:Maybe not even me. Maybe they're gonna come back on you.
Millie:I mean, that sounds that sounds like the flip of what they've done. Like, when you when you put it like that, like, the the the darkness comes back on us all. But 200 years in the future, we've learned we need to build hope together to stop so that Yeah. There is a yeah. There we go.
Matthew:You've written the bloody narrative there, me. That that way to handle it.
Millie:Okay. But that yeah. That's that's the thing. I'm like, I'm I'm definitely interested in this. And the the they were specifically talking about 2 different dice pools, if I remember right.
Millie:It was diff like
Matthew:Yeah. So gear dice and
Dave:base and
Millie:they're eroding your kit comes from gear dice. That's, I guess.
Dave:Yep.
Millie:For the land style. Oh, crap. I've rolled
Dave:them 1. It's forbidden lands and, New Zero style, but with 2 dice spores instead of 3. Mhmm. Because in those Yeah.
Matthew:Which is interesting. Therefore, do you not erode yourself physically? So with forbidden lands and with, mutant year 0, you've got effectively 3 colors of dice. Yeah. Only your skills dice can be pushed without an effect.
Matthew:Your stats dice could damage you, and your gear dice could damage your gear on on a push. So I'm interested to see how they play that. Although I understand. I've not read Electric State yet, but I understand that that does away with stats and abilities, and you only have abilities in Electric State. Oh, I
Millie:don't know. I've got the I've got the alpha somewhere.
Matthew:I haven't read it.
Millie:Is it the alpha or this this Yeah.
Matthew:Well, we should be.
Millie:Oh, homework. Homework. Go read a bit of lipstick.
Matthew:You don't have to.
Millie:Well, no. It's Dave. We have to do homework. I Dave always have that.
Mohamed:Something also that I'm thinking about how they will, deal with exploration. Does anybody have a role for the exploration like the we did in the in the ship combat. For example, the gunner, the the pilot, the sensor. But they will have several, like the explorer that similar to the journey role in, in the wandering
Matthew:Yeah. They they explorer. Explored about it as an entity in its own right. They kept referring to it as the Delve. So maybe there is something like that where everybody has a job to do in the Delve to make it all work.
Millie:Like the like, with the scallops and rolls and and stuff. Yeah. Interesting. I don't know. A nice big hex map of a sector.
Millie:It sounds fun. I get to draw a bit and get it. We're a traveler, isn't it?
Dave:Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not go there. Let me get Andy all excited.
Millie:Of course, these are weird planets that won't conform to astronomical standards.
Dave:No. There is that. Yeah.
Millie:Just get that straight in there before anybody gets excited. Weird planets. Yeah. There's there's definitely a bunch of mechanics that, you know, I'm I'm interested in that I don't think have been touched on enough, which a lot of the conversation has just been, like, the the change in setting and the the things that have moved on. It was like but when you play with the the u zero engines, it's it's normally those tweaks that give you the heart of the game.
Millie:Like, when I saw the Yeah. The stress mechanic really, and I was like, man. That's perfect. That's exactly the film. And then when you, you know, you have the the, vest and then you take the conditions and that, yeah, that that fits with being
Dave:Yeah. Works. Yeah.
Millie:And that sort of stuff. So
Matthew:Works so well. So So we have 3 weeks before we get a glimpse of the mechanics Mhmm. Because that quick start will come out with with, I believe, the, the Kickstarter.
Dave:Quick start.
Mohamed:Yeah. They have the they said they have a quick start quick start adventure with the premade characters also.
Millie:Cool.
Matthew:Maybe we should do a book club on that quick start adventure when it comes out or the mechanics bit of it without wanting to spoil the adventure.
Dave:Definitely. That's good. Yeah. Out. Absolutely.
Matthew:Shall we make that a date Cool. For 3 or 4 weeks' time, couple of episodes away?
Dave:Yes.
Millie:Sure.
Dave:Sold to the, to the to to whoever, To us.
Millie:Sold to the to the 4 people in the hamam.
Matthew:Excellent. Well, I guess we're out of time now. I didn't wanna keep anybody, beyond 8 o'clock, and it's already a minute past.
Dave:Shocking.
Matthew:So thank you very much for joining us in the Hamam, me, Mohammed.
Dave:Thank you so much.
Matthew:And Dave, of course.
Mohamed:Yeah. It was my privilege. Thank you.
Matthew:Well, we'll invite you back into the MAM in about 4 weeks time, shall we?
Mohamed:Absolutely. Yeah. You you'll give me homework then.
Millie:Okay. Yeah.
Matthew:With homework.
Dave:You will have to have looked at the quick start and form some opinions. So, yes. Brilliant. Thank you very much, guys. Really appreciate it.
Dave:Great, great, great conversation. Yeah.
Matthew:Well, there's not much more to say about that. We've said pretty much in that discussion everything we can say about something that we actually know very little about.
Dave:Yes. The the one thing we did neglect though, we didn't get Mohammed and Millie to say, may the icons bless your adventures to sign off the show.
Matthew:So that means we've just got to carry on speaking on this episode forever until somebody comes and says, maybe I can't possibly imagine. Is that what you mean?
Dave:Something like that, I guess, ish.
Matthew:Also, I take issue with the fact that it was my job, Dave.
Dave:Well, if it's not your job, then whose job is it?
Matthew:Well, it could be your job. We're a partnership.
Dave:Well, we're a partnership now, Ari. It doesn't feel like it most of the time.
Matthew:But boy, even a partnership.
Dave:But when you screwed up, it's a partnership and it's my fault. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yes. We one of us could have remembered, but neither of us did.
Millie:Neither of
Matthew:us did. But no,
Dave:that was great. It was a real pleasure having, Millie and Mohammed on. And Yeah. As we said in the in the panel, we'll get them back on again in a few weeks time to talk about it when we, when the kick starts and running and we see a bit more.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:We really looking forward to that very much indeed. Okay. Well, so next time.
Matthew:Yeah. Now here's here's a thing. Next time, you're going to we're we're gonna have a little blast of Third Horizon. So this will be 3 Coriolis episodes in a row, effectively, if you get You will. Episode.
Matthew:So what have you got planned for to to keep the torches of the 3rd horizon, burning?
Dave:Burning strongly. Well, the the the the idea came to me at the end of the end of the panel there. And the idea of how we can improve darkness points. And maybe maybe the icons aren't as unified as we might think. Maybe the icons are jealous.
Dave:Jealous of one another, and praying to 1 and not praying to another might be a might be a dangerous thing to do if you if you if you tweak the nose of the wrong icon.
Matthew:If you overuse your judge and your dancer prayer and you don't give a look into the face of this one, you mean? Exactly. Loving it.
Dave:Exactly. So I I don't quite know how this will turn out, because obviously many people have looked at Dart and his points, and they're quite hard to fix if you don't like how to work in rules as written. But we'll see what happens. It'll be a fun journey that we can all go together and, and see and see Yeah. And see what see what comes out at the other end.
Dave:So Dave
Matthew:is going to attempt the impossible and fix up this place.
Dave:We need a we need a drum roll. It's a bit like I feel I feel like Harry Harry Houdini. Dave's gonna Dave was gonna sit in a sealed box full of water for the next 2 weeks. And come on.
Matthew:Now you're gonna dive from a high diving board into a small barrel entirely filled with darkness points.
Dave:Anyway anyway, I think that's probably enough for one day. So,
Matthew:just Yeah. We have though realized that we have a problem. Don't we Dave? That for years, we have ended our shows with a catchphrase, and and now maybe that catchphrase is gonna be less relevant come
Dave:Maybe.
Matthew:Come the great dark.
Dave:Maybe the icons won't be blessing any adventures in the lost horizon. Yeah. We'll have to have a think about what our new sign off line should be.
Matthew:Oh.
Dave:If that is we wanna change it at all. Maybe we should be dyed in the wool, Coriolites, or or choriolisters or whatever it was I tried to call them.
Matthew:No. Choriolites. You you you managed very well. And oh. Now the interesting thing about that bonus episode that I put out is that's coming with a transcript.
Matthew:So if you have difficulty understanding our words, which frankly both both Dave and I have a difficulty understanding our words sometimes. And, this has now got an AI generated transcript, which I was quite impressed. Because as you were stumbling over the word Coriolite in in that bonus episode, it it managed to get every single stumble and still make sense. I was very impressed by it.
Dave:It does remind me of a, was it a Coriolis YouTube panel you went on a few years ago? With I can't think it was Matt Kaye on it and a couple of others. I can't remember now. But the, the the the closed caption translation thing. YouTube is fast.
Dave:Yeah. It was not as good and at one point it translated something that you'd said into deuce cunts. I don't I still got the picture of that. I kept it. So apologies for the language anyone.
Dave:We'll beep that out maybe. Juice juice beeps. But I just thought okay. That's an interesting How did it ever think that that was a viable kind of translation of whatever it was you were saying? Right.
Dave:Anyway anyway, right.
Matthew:Family show, Dave. Family show.
Dave:Family show. Yes. Sorry about that.
Matthew:It's goodbye from me, Dave.
Dave:Yeah. And it's it's goodbye from him. And may the icons bless your adventures. At least for now. You have been listening to the effect podcast.
Dave:Presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG gods music stars on a black sea used with permission of freely publishing