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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 237 of Effect. All about Simba. Bloody hell, alien? I'm Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. As you can tell from the title, or the sudden during broadcast change of the title, we've got a couple of things to talk about today. So we've got a we have we do have a new patron to welcome, which is fabulous news. Our world of gaming, we've got a couple of bits on there, but then that expanded somewhat with news. Mhmm.
Matthew:With news 2 days ago.
Dave:Alien second edition. So I suspect we might talk about that a little bit. We've got a little bit of old west news to to update you on. And then the, you know, the original content of the show, we have, had we've interviewed our friend of the show and friend of ours, Neil Kingham, who, runs Paladin role playing, DICE produces. But also, has now got a sideline in professional editing, which he did for tales of the odd west.
Dave:Very very well indeed. But also he's written a cimberoon fighting fantasy style book and we were delighted to chat to him about all of that. So we've got a fabulous interview with Neil all about cimber room, solo cimber room, and his, his his fabulous book. So we've got a pretty packed packed lineup today. So, yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. We better get on with it.
Dave:We better get on with it.
Matthew:So, before before we get into the world of gaming though, and the big news coming out of, well, generally, it's lots of big news coming out of, Gen Con.
Dave:There is. Yes.
Matthew:We've got, a patron to thank, a new patron who joined us a week ago. Actually, I haven't I haven't sent him a little thank you note on Patreon, which I should do. But, James Ramage, welcome to our little family. Welcome. I don't think we've seen you on the Discord yet, so plug your Discord name into Patreon and let it take you to the nicest place on the Internet, our Discord
Dave:TM. Which
Matthew:over the last couple of days have been a buzz with comment and opinion. Some of which we may refer to later on in this episode.
Dave:Indeed. Now welcome, James. Great to have you on board. Come on to the Discord. As you said, it is and is regularly repeated as the nicest place on the Internet.
Dave:Yeah. So world of gaming. So let's get the, yeah, the boring stuff out of the way first.
Matthew:It's not boring. It's not boring. Actually, I quite like this.
Dave:Go on. Go on. No. It's it's not boring at all. Otherwise, we wouldn't
Matthew:our our friend and patron, Paul or Noble, on the on the Discord brought this to my attention, and I just I love it. In fact, I may even back it. It's a forthcoming Kickstarter. It's not live yet, but we'll put a link to the holding page in the show notes. And it's for Sleborg.
Matthew:Which is to say, Sleigh Industries, s l a Industries, but with the Mork Boy F rule set, which sounds bloody fabulous. I mean, I think we can agree, you and I, and with no offense to the lovely Paul who ran us through an introductory scenario, we didn't think much of the, SLA system. I can't even think what they call it. S 5 s. 66?
Matthew:S 5 s. S 5 s. That's it. Yes. No.
Matthew:We didn't like it.
Dave:It it worked well when you had someone like Paul who is an expert and fully fully understands it to help you through it because that game was great and the the the rules didn't didn't slow it down, but they would have done if we hadn't had Paul say, oh, no. You rolled this and you rolled that and that that's your results. But yes. Yes. I haven't I haven't I I've read the the s five f system a couple of times.
Dave:It hasn't it hasn't given me a big loving hug and pulled me to itself and made me all warm and and and and fluffy.
Matthew:Not in the way the year zero engine did for us.
Dave:No. No. So yeah. But Yeah. The game itself was great.
Dave:I think the system works if you know it really well. But, yeah, Slayborg. I mean, we've had the conversation before about how many more bogs can we get. Clearly, there are more.
Matthew:I I think this this borg is worthy of the borgness, actually. I'll be really interested to see, because as you might have gathered from our discussion, s l s 5 s, whatever it is Yep. Is quite complex. And mock boyer is really simple. Basically, you roll a d 20 and get over 12 for pretty much everything.
Matthew:There's some more nuance to it than that, but there's not much. And so I I am really keen to see how the the world, the setting of Sleigh Industries, gets mapped onto the ultra simple, fast and furious, and importantly, hilarious rule set of Wartburg. Because some people think that Wartburg is dark and not meant to be funny, but every time I've played it, it's been bloody hilarious.
Dave:I've still never played it. I do have to have a go, actually. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. I think we should try you on on pure, unadulterated Original.
Dave:Before introducing
Matthew:you to any of the other symptoms.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I've definitely checked for Merc Boya first. Yeah.
Matthew:Well, maybe we'll we'll do a stream of that.
Dave:That sounds quite fun.
Matthew:At some point or a podcast episode or something. We did or I did, and but it's on our YouTube channel, I think. The very first stream of Mort Borg ever. In that we we were planning on playing Mort Borg, and then the, then the, the lockdown happened, the pandemic happened, and we decided we weren't meeting up at the shop, so we did it online, and I said, should I stream it while we're here? As informally as that, and and so we did.
Matthew:And then I went and realized that that was the first time anybody had seen Warped Tour. It's one of our most successful things on YouTube.
Dave:Yeah. It's it's always nice to be one step ahead of a trend, isn't it? You know?
Matthew:It is. Yeah. Yeah. We were there first.
Dave:We were there.
Matthew:Anyway, that's enough about that. The really important news from, Gen Con is on the first night of Gen Con, the Diana Jones award is announced. And interestingly, given our discussions about the fees that writers get, and things like that, And, and AI art and all sorts of stuff like that. The winner of the Diana Jones award this year is the United Peso Workers Union. The very first union organized around employees of a role playing games publishers.
Matthew:So I don't know how it's fair. I don't know whether the union model in a world of mostly freelancers is is gonna work or how it's gonna work, I should say. But, I'm all for it happening.
Dave:It's yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know I know nothing about the the the the kind of the incorporation or the structure of what they've done. But, I mean, obviously, if it's Pezo, then it's gonna be, I guess, non freelancers only. I I I I guess it's gonna be pretty difficult to have a have a union that would roll in the freelancers as well without doing some kind of very wide, very national international kind of union to do that because otherwise
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, it's not like, say, the Screen Actors Guild or No.
Dave:Exactly. Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking.
Matthew:Or things like that where where effectively everybody's a freelancer, but they're also members of a union. Of
Dave:this big union that covers all of them if they wanna be in it all. Yeah. Or what's it in them? Equity. Equity?
Matthew:Equity in the UK. In the
Dave:UK. It's equivalent to Screen
Matthew:Actors Guild. Yeah. And, and of course, famously, because they all went on strike a couple of years ago, there's a screenwriters union, but I can't remember what that's called. SAGAF SAG. Yeah.
Matthew:No. That's no. That's Screen Actors Guild. No. I can't remember what the word is.
Dave:I think
Matthew:it's the
Dave:because it's the Afra bit is the association Maybe
Matthew:it's Afra bit. Yeah.
Dave:I'm not sure. But, yeah, I think I think the Afra bit was the writers and the SAG bit was the It was the screen of skill. Yeah.
Matthew:Come to us for really on point, accurate, and informed news about industrial relations in the United States
Dave:of America. Jeez. Anyway, no. That so that's great.
Matthew:Anyway,
Dave:it's very good that that has been recognized and, and flagged and awarded. So it's a good step.
Matthew:Yeah. It's
Dave:a step in the right direction.
Matthew:Absolutely. Of course, there were some other awards handed out last night.
Dave:Were there?
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:I'm trying I'm trying to go forward and sound surprised, but I do know what we're gonna talk about. Well, that's I'll let
Matthew:you know. Although, actually, you go forward and sound a surprise, and I was online because you actually heard this bit of news from a friend of the show, oh, hold on. Shep, wasn't it?
Dave:Shep. Yeah. Who Chris Shep sent Shep.
Matthew:Messaged you on Discord as we were setting up the recording for this one saying, congratulations, Dave.
Dave:Exactly. And I went, oh, okay. That's that's good to know. Yeah. It is good to know.
Dave:Well, you you announce it, mate. Go on.
Matthew:Okay. Oh, well, I see you just wanna bathe in the glory. Yes. Absolutely. Any awards have been announced.
Matthew:I have half of the Eddie Twitter stream here. Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it's been acting up online, and so I'm not getting the earlier posts, and I'm still not. It's just telling me, oh, please retry. But luckily, I think I've got the most important half because among them, gold award for best supplement goes to Alien RPG, Building Better Worlds. Yeah.
Matthew:So congratulations, Dave. And although I can't see it here, I understand you became you also came first among the losers for cartography.
Dave:Yes. So, yeah, building better worlds also got the silver for best cartography, which, it was great that it was included. I with the exception of the star maps, I I designed all the maps in that. Although,
Matthew:Somebody else actually then made them look good.
Dave:Yeah. He's a friend of mine and I can't remember his name. Stefan bear with me. Stefan Isberg, I'm pretty sure. Let me just check I've got that right.
Dave:Stefan Isberg. Yeah. So he he did the actual graphic design, on the basis of my designed maps. So fabulous. Great for great for both of us.
Dave:As you know, I do like to draw a nice map. I've had quite a lot of very positive comments about it from Modiphius and others on how good my map work is. And, yeah, this is just I'm delighted to get the silver any for for for cartography. That's brilliant. So if anybody needs any maps designing, I'm
Matthew:You've got plenty to do for Tales of the Old West, mate.
Dave:I've got lots to do, but I can always do more. So, yeah. But yeah. So, I mean, that's oh, you know, blind me. That's superb, isn't it?
Dave:I'm just so, you know, grateful for, you know, for everyone who who was involved and everyone who voted for it. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. I I I won I won the Eddies. Whoo.
Matthew:So only silver for best car photography, but you were beaten into 2nd place by
Dave:Oh, yes.
Matthew:Another free league product, which is Dragonbane. So
Dave:Yeah. And that I mean, that again was super. I mean, the, the work that Magnus Sitter and others, did on on the Dragonbane core set, I I was very surprised actually that Building Better Worlds pipped them at UK Games Expo, for the best supplement because I thought Dragonbane was was
Matthew:was obviously God, the best theory?
Dave:Exceed yeah. Exactly. Exceedingly strong competition because that book is absolutely fabulous, the best read. It is really cool.
Matthew:So,
Dave:yeah, delighted for them that they've got the gold any for the for the cartography there. That's really, really good. The other thing, which is not about me, but it's still about free league is that free league won the fan favorite publisher award. Now I don't know
Matthew:Oh, did they? I don't
Dave:know if they've won that before, but, yeah. So
Matthew:I think they have. Yes.
Dave:So so there they go again, fan favorite publisher. Yeah. Free league publishing. But I mean, other people who've done well, friends of the show, Rowan, Rick and Deckard with Eat the Reich, won Mhmm. I think possibly 3 awards for that.
Dave:I'll try find them now. 1 was
Matthew:Oh, they were in some interesting classes. 1 was like best short form
Dave:Yeah. 1 was best cover artwork. 1 was best adventure, which they got gold for. So cover art. I think they got gold for cover art.
Dave:Bear with me. Yep. Gold for the best art cover goes to eat the right as well. I'm pretty sure there's another one. I've just got a list here off Reddit so it's just one big splurge of text.
Dave:So bear with me. But, yeah, fabulous for for for Maz and Grant and all the folks at Rowan, Rick and Deckard. Really good job.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Well done. Well done to them.
Matthew:Well done to you. Very well deserved to them as well. Very well deserved. And another game that I've, enjoyed and have and did quite well, although it pips the post twice, for for both, best game and for product of the year was outgunned by 2 Little Mice. Yeah.
Matthew:Which has, I think, taken my, taken the place of Fung Shui in my, in my own personal list of favorite games.
Dave:Okay. Yeah. They got silver for the best game for outgoing for 2 little nicest. Yeah. So, yeah, many congratulations to them.
Dave:The winner went to the shadow dark role playing game by arcane library. Gold for the best game. I don't know that one. They also actually
Matthew:I do know
Dave:They also got product of the year, silver.
Matthew:Yeah. I did just say this, Dave. Just
Dave:say that then. Did you okay. I wasn't listening to
Matthew:you. Sorry. You never do.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Anyway, but,
Dave:yeah, congratulations to everyone who was nominated, and super congratulations to everyone who won a silver or gold award. Oh, Ennis this year. Well done. Well done, everyone.
Matthew:And congratulations to you, I suppose, Dave, for
Dave:Begrudgingly dragged out of you.
Matthew:But of course, that great win for Alien was somewhat overshadowed by an announcement, which I think must have been made at Gen Con. But it definitely arrived on the Thursday or with us on the Thursday afternoon. I think I was the 1st to break it on the Discord having just seen it on Facebook.
Dave:I think I think I just like to say, I think overshadowed is a bit of a pejorative word. Let's let's not use overshadowed. But was because obviously, we should talk about it.
Matthew:Blown out of the water? Well, it's unfair to say either because, you know, this has just happened. The award has just happened. So let's see how much coverage that gets on Facebook and, the social media and our very own Discord. And then we can work out which has had the largest reaction.
Matthew:I'm not saying the best reaction. I'm sure It
Dave:certainly had a reaction. Absolutely sure. Over my my comment with overshadowed implies a negative thing. And whilst there's been a
Matthew:lot of
Dave:a lot of comment about the announcement, have we even said what the announcement is yet?
Matthew:We haven't said anything about the announcement. Some some some tiny 5% of our listeners are going, what are they talking about?
Dave:Alien second edition was announced Yesterday? Day before yesterday?
Matthew:Day before yesterday.
Dave:And and
Matthew:as kids As at time of recording, about 4 days ago when you actually get to hear it.
Dave:Yeah. And has obviously kicked off a huge amount of comment. I think the first thing I just wanna say is congratulations to friend of ours and friend of the show, John Hicks, who, has done the sort of the the science fiction game, Those Dark Places and Their ilk, because there's a number of games related
Matthew:to that show. And Pressure as well. Pressure. Yeah.
Dave:He had the opportunity to write the cinematic with Thomas for, which I alright. I don't think when he wrote it, it was he he was thinking it was gonna be for 2nd edition.
Matthew:He no.
Dave:That is he's as fast
Matthew:as you and I was that it's part of 2nd edition. Edition.
Dave:It is now part of second edition. Rapture Protocol is the name of it. So many congratulations to John for, getting the chance to do that. I'm sure it's gonna be an excellent scenario. Whatever you think about the, you know, the the creation of a second edition at this point.
Matthew:And I think it is fair to say that the reaction on in the social media has been mixed Yeah. To this announcement.
Dave:I think that's the word I would have used.
Matthew:I mean, let's focus on the negative no. Let's let's focus on the positive, first of all. It's about 5 years since, the first edition came out, And that time is is significant in 2 ways. A lot of people are saying, why a second edition after only 5 years? But remember, there's every chance and in fact, I think Andrew confirmed it to me, Andrew Gaskier did confirmed it to me on Facebook when I hypothesized this.
Matthew:They had Free League had a probably a 5 year licence from Fox when they when when when they got the licence to make the role playing game. And it could have expired, of course, Fox is now owned by Disney, or that part of Fox is now owned by Disney. Disney have just published their own Marvel game. And I remember a few years ago when Disney took over Marvel, Marketwise Productions had to bin their entire stock of Mighty World of Marvel or whatever they called their role playing game. Yeah.
Matthew:Just, you know, just fire sale and get rid of it entirely. They weren't allowed to sell it anymore. So, and that was like instantaneous. And I remember even because, of course, Fox got taken over by Disney after we'd become involved in the alien game, and I remember us thinking, you and I being a bit nervous that the same fate might happen to the alien game. And it didn't.
Matthew:And now, the positive is, Free League have been given obviously another license to produce, carry on producing the role playing game. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's a very positive thing that I think we ought to think about. But a lot of people online are concerned that why do we need a second edition now?
Matthew:A lot of people have invested a lot of money in first edition, and it's working really well. I mean, out of out of all the year zero engine games, it's the one that I could, I think, say is the closest to a perfect organism. See what I did there? In the It
Dave:was it was very clever.
Matthew:Push mechanic and everything works so well for evoking for, you know, for doing what they're trying to do with an opening game, particularly in cinematics. In our experience of campaigns, I think you and I would both agree that it lacks a little bit possibly of finesse in campaigning mode. But in the cinematic mode, it's perfect.
Dave:I agree. I think things like building better worlds is the is the way into campaign gaming in Alien. And it it enables that. It enables that. So so I think I think it's unfair to say Alien can't be done in campaign mode.
Dave:You can't run
Matthew:I didn't say I didn't say it can't be done. I said No.
Dave:That's true.
Matthew:It lacks a little.
Dave:I I think
Matthew:I think You know, and and in fact, when we were actually
Dave:lacked a little. But I think that yeah.
Matthew:Go I'm still gonna say it lacked a little. So for example, in the campaign that we ran, which incidentally will be hitting our actual play podcasts relatively soon. You know, your prototype version of the building better worlds, colony generation and campaign system, not prototype of the actual campaign in the book, but but a campaign generated out of those rules in the appendix. You know, I I my character is trying to run a police procedural and rolling observation every single time I wanted to do any detective work. Got a little bit boring.
Matthew:So that's kinda what I mean by lacking a little in campaign mode. I mean, it probably works very well if you're doing a marines campaign or or many other things, but those are the sort of lacks I'm looking at. But anyway, what I'm getting to the point is it's almost the most perfect system out of all the year, 0 engine systems. The way the push mechanic works is divine. I love panic.
Matthew:I love stress. How can we possibly make it better? I think is a question that we need to ask ourselves. Do we need to make it better? Is a question that a lot of people on the socials are asking.
Dave:Yeah. It's yeah. It's it's a very interesting one because I think, you know, I've I've obviously been immersed in Alien for many years now, you know, as have you. But I think I've I've I've done more with it. I've played it probably more than you have.
Matthew:And I mean
Dave:And apart from tweaks here and there, a few things that I I thought I would like to just change a little bit. Some of which I changed in Building Better Worlds. There's there's there's not any kind of sweeping, really really sweeping element that that is is crying out for a change. I know one thing that you mentioned could be something a bit more nuanced in panic tables. And maybe maybe panic tables for different circumstances or contexts might be might be a good idea.
Dave:But apart from that, I think, you know, there isn't anything calling out for for a big change. I mean, the one thing I would I would comment, which I think is possibly unnecessary, which I've never used, are spaceship combat rules.
Matthew:Funny enough, I was gonna say exactly the same.
Dave:I don't even really know how they work. I've read them once when I first got the game, but I thought it's alien. I'm never gonna do spaceship combat in alien. And so I think that feels, I mean you know you could probably just lose that completely. I know why they've kept it.
Dave:I know why it was in and and I'm sure the colonial marines operations manual, the campaign in that, the the main campaign didn't give you the opportunity to do space combat, but there were side missions which were suggested as fillers between the main campaign missions where space combat was an option. So it may well be that people who've played colonial marines operations manual, the campaign in there, are going, yeah. We've done loads of space combat. It was great. Or loads of space combat.
Dave:It was rubbish. But for me, and it being alien and trying to stick with the theme of alien, flying around in spaceships, shooting other spaceships isn't what alien is all about.
Matthew:No. Absolutely. You know, I've never even done the space combat in Coriolis. Mhmm. And, yeah, I like you, I've read the Space Combat Rules once.
Matthew:I wasn't overly impressed with them at the time, and I've never played them. They could not they could be not part of the book that could have been, I think, maybe maybe added into Colonial Marines supplement.
Dave:Yeah. That's a fair point.
Matthew:You know, around around that little those those side missions if you wanted. And I think for me, again, there's a real challenge with what we're emulating here. As you say, you don't do you don't see space combat in, in Alien films. Do we see even a little in Alien 4? I don't think so.
Matthew:Alien resurrection, that is.
Dave:Don't think so. No. No. I don't think there's any space combat.
Matthew:I don't think so. And that's the the in a way, the closest we might have got to some space combat. I don't know about the books or the comics. There may be some there, but for me, I don't count them as canon anyway. Absolutely no need for space combat.
Matthew:And and for me, the space combat should be in keeping with the genre, in keeping with the atmosphere, the the sort of rules of Alien, space combat should be horrific. So the sort of space combat I think I'd like to see is probably not the sort that people would like to play it again. And that's more like, in fact, what we saw in The Expanse. Mhmm. You know, that Yeah.
Matthew:Everybody gets into pressure suits when combat starts. And in a moment, something might come through the hole, through your chair, through you, and out the other sides of the hole, and you're dead. And that's that's it. That is Yeah. That merciless.
Matthew:Yeah. And I'm not entirely sure that people wanna play that. No. But that's if if I if you if I had to play a space combat game in Alien, that's the thought of thing I'd want to do. And so that's what I'd want rules to do.
Matthew:I'd like better rules for detective work, actually. Well, I think Honestly, I think that is in keeping with A. Yeah.
Dave:I think one of the weaknesses or or yeah. I can actually yeah. Yeah. I said so there's nothing I would change. I think the one thing I would I would possibly change would be to, add 4 skills To make this no.
Dave:Make the skills slightly more
Matthew:To bring the skill to it up to 16.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly. And make them slightly more nuanced. Because again, observation, as you say, is used so often because it's used for, you know, observation. You know, the name is on the tin.
Dave:But also it's used for science based stuff. It's used for that kind of detective work, that kind of analysis. So you end up using observation, you know, for loads and loads of things. So I I I think the 12 skills for me personally is just slightly too few. So I think maybe a new mission, a new a new addition could expand it to 16, and I think that would that would Yeah.
Dave:That would probably fix that issue
Matthew:to me.
Dave:But it's it's a relatively minor one, but it's a good point. As you say, in the, in the campaign game, we we do find certainly in the scenarios that I was running in alien the colony, because trying to make them a bit mysterious and a bit of investigative, a bit of exploration, you you do have to fall back on observation a hell of a lot.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, I I I I think it's one of those things where that only happens in a campaign, I think. I think you get away with it in cinematics with different characters every time, but as you're building up your detective character. I mean, I don't know.
Matthew:Maybe that could be solved with more, nuanced talents around detective work. It doesn't necessarily need to be 16 skills. So but, again, I think we also need to address some of the fears I've seen online. Now, we also ought to say, despite the fact that it says, that Hadley's Hope that, Hope's last day is gonna be expanded and gonna become the core of a starter set, which is great news because we love that thing. We've not yet been told anything about that.
Matthew:We've not been approached about whether we're gonna be the ones that are doing it or anything like that. So we know just as little as everybody else out here listening. Yep. But I think some people's fears are unhanded. So there were a lot of people say, oh, they'll be going to the step dice system, like we use in Blade Runner.
Matthew:And I don't think they will. Well,
Dave:so I mean, the one thing they have said is that everything from the first edition is going to be translatable into second edition and vice versa. And Yeah. If they were thinking of changing to step dice, that would make that conversion significantly more complicated. So I suspect that comment means they're gonna stick with the dice pool system, which I hope they do, because, I mean, I prefer that to the step dice system myself. We don't know yet.
Matthew:And we've done we've done an article about why we prefer it as well.
Dave:Yeah. So so I suspect that comment means they're gonna stick with the dice pool system because, as I said, that conversion might be might be a bit more complicated than than it otherwise feels.
Matthew:Yeah. I don't think there's gonna be a radical change. A lot of people have been comparing this with the difference between 3rd Horizon and The Great Dark, and I don't think it's gonna be as significant change as that. Of course, in that system, we get rid of skills. No.
Matthew:We get rid of attributes entirely and we just have skills, and I don't think that's gonna happen in this one.
Dave:I think we I
Matthew:mean, I don't know as we say.
Dave:No. You know, again, everything they're saying is about reassuring people that don't worry, nothing is gonna change. Because there have been comments online people saying, oh, blimey. I just bought everything for 1st edition, like, last week. And now you're bringing out 2nd edition.
Dave:Have I just wasted all my money? So they've been very very
Matthew:Even a friend of the show, Magnus, has just said, oh, I just bought all that secondhand. But Yeah. To be fair, he was still excited about the idea of a second
Dave:edition. Absolutely. And But but but they've they've they've they've gone a long way to, to reassure people. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a good idea.
Dave:Read out if you're gonna read out Thomas's response then
Matthew:Yeah. So this comes from the free league forums. I posted it on the main article on this on the Alien, Facebook group. And Thomas says, Hi, all existing expansions will be compatible with this new edition, and you'll even be able to play the new edition expansions with the first edition rules. The first edition will be 6 years old when the new edition comes out.
Matthew:Of course, that's an important thing to remember. They've announced a Kickstarter in the fall. Yeah. So this isn't gonna be coming out next week or anything. It's gonna be next year.
Matthew:And having learned a lot and got a lot of great feedback during those years, we feel the time is right for a new addition to update and streamline the rules and to add new features. I won't break the existing game. Yeah. Yeah. That's him saying that.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. So there'd be the the the bending of it back was to reassure people that this isn't this isn't, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This isn't changing very much. And I think that's fine.
Dave:And, you know, as as we talked about, you know, the the the the license was was being renegotiated. You know, clearly, they've come up with a plan for the next 5 years or however long the license might be. It might not be as long as that. We don't know. It's speculation.
Dave:Then this is the launching point for the next period of the license for them. So, yeah. I mean, good luck to them. Absolutely. It's it's Alien.
Dave:It's great. I, you know, I've been involved, you know, we've both been involved in Alien since the very start. It's it's before the start, in fact, because we were involved before it was even announced. So, Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, I'm a little bit disappointed they didn't tell us anything in advance of making this announcement, because I like that little moment of knowing about it when nobody else knew about it. And I feel a bit more like I'm just a normal fan now, but maybe that's all we deserve. I don't know though. You've just won a blooming any award for, building better worlds.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So it's obviously, I would very much like to continue working on the alien line if that's what pre league would like. They haven't they haven't spoken to me yet, so that's fine.
Dave:It's entirely up to them if they want new voices on the game. That is that is obviously their entirely their decision to make, and they're entitled completely entitled to do that. Obviously, for me personally, it would be a great disappointment if I didn't get to work on Alien anymore, Particularly considering the success that we've had with it, over recent years with with with my and, Drew Gasker's input, but it's, yeah. We'll see. It's up to them, obviously.
Dave:It's their game.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:I'm a freelancer. It's they're entirely free free to choose what they
Matthew:want. And I do like that they refer to, Hope's Last Day as a fan favorite Hope's Last Day, because there aren't many Mhmm. In the book intro scenarios that get to be fan favorites. And we've seen people playing it again and again and again on Yeah. You know, on various media.
Matthew:And, you know, different outcomes every time, and and people really enjoying it. So I'm pleased that it's a acknowledged fan favorite. I'm gonna say that. Yeah. That's legacy.
Matthew:If we never work on it again, we've got a decent legacy.
Dave:Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And, you know, we were very lucky, and, you know, very honored to be invited to work on it in the first place. So yeah.
Dave:Yeah. It'd be interesting to see what what comes. I suspect I'll back it when it comes out. Or I might wait and just pick it up later on perhaps. Yeah.
Dave:But the other thing that's interesting is they are bringing out miniatures with this kickstarter as well.
Matthew:This intrigues me.
Dave:Yeah. So so they they said on their their their press release that, yeah, the the miniatures are designed to bring the events of rapture protocol to life, but can obviously be be used for other things as well. But, I mean, alien isn't a tactical combat game. The way the rules are designed, they're quite loose. You know, it's it's you use zones.
Dave:Your position in the zone is kind of irrelevant other than in the theater of theater of the mind, approach to your to to your visual visualization of what's happening. But they're bringing out miniatures, which is great. I mean, miniatures. People love miniature. But, yeah, wonder whether does this does this mean is this kind of the first step in something else?
Dave:Like a skirmish game perhaps seeing considering the success of the Soul
Matthew:of Wars. But then, you know, that's interesting because I think we also seen that, Gale Force 9 bought out a new edition, of I can't remember what it's called. Another Day in the Verse.
Dave:Another Day in the Core.
Matthew:Another Day in the Core. Yeah. Which is their aliens skirmish game. Yeah. So, you know, and I know a lot of a lot of role players use the figures from that game and some others made previously by Prodas in their role playing game.
Matthew:So I think there is a bit of a demand for figures in the role playing game from a certain section of society. I've seen some brilliant brilliant, you know, sets, map. What do you call them? I wanna call them playsets, but that sounds a bit like Lego. Battle yeah.
Matthew:But, you know, 3 d battle mats, 3 d printing.
Dave:Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:For moving your fingers around with. So there's been some brilliant stuff that people have created for their Aliens game, Alien games. But, yeah. Is there enough of a demand? I mean, I don't feel that I will be rushing into playing with figures.
Matthew:We don't generally No. Role playing games. No. Use figures, and I'm not sure that AUM will encourage me to.
Dave:But no. No. I agree.
Matthew:But I
Dave:think there are an awful lot of people out there who do like a good good set of miniatures. And if they do it Yeah. You know, a good job with these miniatures, then frankly, that might really please an awful lot of alien fans. In in of itself, it might just be a nice accessory, without meaning that there's something else coming down the line, you know, a wider, a wider, like, stable of miniatures that they're planning to produce. Who knows?
Dave:But, yeah, interesting. I thought I'd I thought I'd flag that up.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, we did sell a lot of copies of Zone Wars when we were selling it
Dave:at, We did.
Matthew:UK Games Expo. I'm sure we'll sell a bunch more at at Dragon Meat. Little little hint there for for next December. So, you know, maybe maybe I don't know how successful that's being globally, but, you know, maybe maybe they're moving towards something like that, Frelian. But then how that sits alongside Gale Force Thome's game, I don't know.
Matthew:I don't know. Wait and see.
Dave:Because, yeah, you you would assume, actually, if if their new license negotiations had allowed them to create a skirmish game, they would probably have said so. But this Yeah. Unless there was some other unless I don't know. Unless the girl, oh, yeah. I'm not gonna speculate.
Dave:Who knows? We'll have to wait and see. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:I think we're all gonna have to wait and see. But overall, the news is good. They haven't lost the license. Disney aren't making their own dumbed down version of a an alien game. And you don't need to get 2nd edition if you don't want to.
Matthew:I think it's the big word. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Okay.
Matthew:Now, we're onto, old west news, Dave.
Dave:So I'm not sure there's a ton of fresh news for for this this edition. A couple of things that I would just mention. We have got some more artwork coming in. It's all, as before, looking really nice. I say Thomas and Marlon are excellent artists, very, very talented, and, that's all looking very good.
Dave:We do
Matthew:have So
Dave:a another oh, I will mention, we, we we did an interview with, the lovely Chris Lowry of Beyond Cataclysm, Thursday, which was, we joined his, his podcast to talk about
Matthew:What is role playing?
Dave:What is role playing. To talk about social conflict. And obviously, in that, we talked a bit about tales of the old west and how we are handling social conflict in that. Don't know when that's gonna be be broadcast yet. It's probably be a little while, maybe a few weeks, But that was really cool.
Dave:And then next week, we are, we're gonna be interviewed by Fiona Howard of oh, I always forget what it's called.
Matthew:What am I rolling? What am
Dave:I rolling? Yeah. Again, about Tales of the Old West, and we've got that coming up as well. I suspect we should release another one of our videos quite soon.
Matthew:We should. Yeah. Whenever I get around to editing it. That we
Dave:that we did, down at, in Eversley, the I larp thing. And we are kind of at the point where we are gonna have, sort of some final discussions and hopefully come to some decisions about, exactly when we are gonna launch the Kickstarter. So
Matthew:but I'm panicking a bit about that. I think we've got lots of things undone. So in fact, after this recording, Dave and I are gonna have a a a board meeting We are. About what still needs to be done before we can finalize the date of, well, before we can finalise the Kickstarter page, and then decide the date that it gets open and live to everybody. Yeah.
Matthew:Are things we need to do. Yeah. I just wanted to briefly say on the art, we have, I think had the last of our pure pencil sketches from Thomas, which are gonna be, which are relatively flexible things that will fill up a white space in the, in the in the book as they become apparent. The sort of extra extra images, not ones that we plan to have. And now we've got to get they're also quite cheap because they're only pencil sketches.
Matthew:So we're moving on to doing more of the, if you like, the actual illustrations, which are more expensive. And, actual illustrations, which are more expensive. And we've got to plan those carefully to make sure that we've got the ones we need at least for what I want to do is end up with most of what we've got before, the Kickstarter happens. Most of assuming it's minimally successful, and we get out to put just the basic book that we can do that relatively quickly, because we've already got the art and the art won't delay things. Because very often it's the art that does delay things in these creations.
Matthew:So yes. So if you want to see more of that art, join our Facebook group, and sign on at our newsletter sign on for our newsletter on website. And in fact, just look at our website because I'll put so I'll change some of the pictures on there for some of the new ones that we've got now, I think. Yeah. Cool.
Matthew:Yeah. That's me done, actually, on all my old west news. Shall we move on to the,
Dave:Yes. The reason
Matthew:The feature of the day.
Dave:This episode. Yeah. Exactly. So, Simbaroon and, fighting fantasy style game books by Neil Kingham, our friend and friend of the show. Yeah.
Dave:Let's just launch into the interview, shall we?
Matthew:It's a hot hot day, and we are in the hamam, the hot hot hamam with Neil Kingham. Neil, welcome to the, effect hamam.
Neil:Thank you. It's lovely to be here in this hot sweaty hamam with you.
Dave:Welcome to the steam. Feel the steam. The steam rising from I don't know what I'm talking about. It's been a it's been a long couple of days.
Matthew:It is pretty hot and steamy. Let let
Dave:It is quite hot and steamy.
Matthew:And and move swiftly on. Let's let's. Now, Neil, we are here specifically to talk about a free league workshop publication, which, is, doing quite well, I see, as I look it up on the free league workshop to see how many it's sold. But, also, you've been doing a bit of work for us, and I'd like to talk a bit about that. And we also thought we might have a bit of a discussion about, solo play adventure books and the state of Subaru since you are our official Subaru correspondent now that Dave's don't have the money to campaign.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:I think Neil is, head and shoulders if that isn't a under, exaggeration of how far ahead in he is than I am. Exactly.
Matthew:Yeah. I I really think of.
Dave:I'm basically Baldrick the dungatherer.
Matthew:So, Neil, you've been on the show before, so we're not gonna start with our customer. Really, how did you get into gaming questions? What have you been doing, Neil, more recently?
Neil:Well, I haven't been gaming quite as much as I'd like, to be quite honest. You know, it's how it is adult life, getting people together to all at the same time to play is has been increasingly difficult. I'm not quite sure why. But I've been filling that what would otherwise be a a void in my gaming life with, increasingly more and more work in the field. So as well as, like, obviously, I need plug Paladin roleplaying here.
Neil:If you need, quality dice for your roleplaying game, check out paladinroleplaying.com. So far from running Paladin, I've been really, really enjoying doing more and more editing and proofreading work in in the field Nice. Which has been a lot
Matthew:of stuff. Course not least, of course, for us on our quick tour. Thank you very much for the excellent work you've been in there.
Dave:It was excellent.
Neil:Thank you.
Matthew:But, Dave was proudly, you know, sort of gloating over his, any nomination for Building Better Worlds when he noticed your name.
Dave:My 2 my 2 nominations. Sorry. Oh, my
Matthew:gosh. Yeah.
Neil:Had to get it in, didn't you? Had to get it in.
Matthew:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I did
Dave:notice. Yes.
Matthew:So Neil, what have you been nominated for? Just the once, I assume. But, just the only one.
Neil:And and in all honesty, I don't think I I'm not sure I can call it a nomination for me, really, because it's it's best writing, for, a game called Corico, a magical year. It's by a wonderful guy called Jack Harrison. Mousehole Press is his, like, publishing company, whatever. And I've done a few bits and pieces for him. And so I did some editing on Coraco.
Neil:It's a fabulous game. It's a solo journaling game using tarot cards, if where you play a witch moving to a new city. If if anyone likes that style of kind of solo game, then I'd highly recommend checking it out. But I give Jack absolutely all the credit. Like I say, it's the best writing nomination, and it's it's his writing.
Neil:You know? I just I just polished it up a little bit here and there.
Matthew:The best writing wouldn't be the best writing if it was full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar now, would it, Neil? And if it had
Dave:a bad editor with it. Yeah. Exactly. So
Neil:Well, you're too kind.
Dave:No. I mean, it's great to see that your your name as editor was on there. I had seen some stuff on online not so long before that about people who are editors decrying the fact that editors didn't tend to get added on to the nomination or you didn't get nominations for best editing, that kind of thing.
Matthew:But it
Dave:was nice to see there on on that list that you were credited as the editor on that. Because I mean, editing, a good editor is worth their weight in gold. You know, they are
Matthew:Don't tell him that. We can't afford his weight
Dave:in gold. Gold, you say? Worth worth worth your weight in shekels. We can probably run to at least 2 or 3 eggs as well possibly.
Neil:Well, I I hope But yeah. I have when I'm when I'm when I'm working on a text, I hope to just kind of yeah. Polish is a good word. Bring out the the genius that's already there. For instance, I just have finished working a little bit daunting, actually, because I've just finished working on the new heart supplement, Dagger in the Heart.
Neil:That's exciting. Yeah. Written by none none other than Gareth Rider Hanrahan, industry legend. Cool. So working
Matthew:on friend of the show.
Neil:On yeah. And working on his words was, was was a little bit scary, actually, but fun. And so but, you know, Gareth's such a such a skilled and experienced writer. Yeah. Of course, I hope to spot any kind of glitches or errors and and tidy things up and make it as nice as possible.
Neil:But, Yeah. I I don't mind. I I enjoy having that somewhat, I guess, sort of backstage role. And it's nice to be it's nice to be credited, of course, and recognized, but it's it's the writers who do the the heavy lifting.
Matthew:So I'm I'm just thinking, Dave. I've got another episode's content all lined up from this. I remember Gareth enjoyed his interview with us so much. He said, I'd love to come back and talk again about anything we're talking about. Maybe we should get him to talk about, what's it called, Dagger in the Heart?
Neil:Dagger in the Heart.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Dagger in the Heart. But get him as a with Neil, and we can say ask him, you know, what was the experience like from your your point of view?
Dave:In general, I hate them, but, you know I'd be interested to to
Neil:hear that as well, in fact, because I've actually had no communication with Gareth. Because in Okay. It's all good. True. Bigger yeah.
Neil:Exactly. In a slightly bigger company like that, not that they're massive, it all goes through the the person at Roanbrook and Descartes. So all my stuff goes to them, and then I can only assume that some of the queries or suggestions go back to Gareth and some don't. So, yeah, I've actually had no direct communication with him at all. Sadly, it's been nice to nice to meet and and chat.
Dave:Well, like, yeah.
Matthew:I know you have to get you both on the show together, as I said.
Neil:And then we can we can do already?
Dave:Do exactly that. Yeah.
Matthew:So if anybody else wants to look at your excellent editing work, which, of course, through its sheer excellence won't at all be visible. It will just be, as you say, the sort of writing that wins best writing. What other books have you worked on, or what are the things that in the in the gaming sphere can people look out for to see your name in the credit page?
Neil:So I guess things that people might know I've done a few kinda smaller bits and pieces, but, I've also literally, just a few days ago, finished also for Roan, Rick, and Deckard the second scenario pack for Die, Another absolutely great
Dave:game. Cool.
Neil:And that's quite fun because it's all scenarios themed around war gaming. One of them
Dave:is a
Matthew:Oh, okay.
Neil:One of them is a blatant but legally distinct, copy of 40 k. It's kind of a 40 k
Dave:sort of spoof
Neil:in a way. It's a
Dave:lot of fun. Is is that how it's described? Blakes in the
Matthew:I think actually
Neil:it in a distinctly distinct, grimdark sci fi setting. Yeah. Yes. That's that that's been a lot of fun. What else?
Neil:I'm waiting for my copy of, Astro Inferno, the big Kickstarter from a couple of years ago that I did a lot of like, really a lot of editing work on. And that was cool because I'd already backed it, as I just thought it would be better. And then ended up being an editor on it. And but it's one of those, you know, as so many Kickstarters are massively delayed, it's one of those. But it should be turning up quite soon.
Neil:It's been printed, and it's in the warehouses. So I'm waiting for that to turn up. And then, yeah, just bear with us the bits and pea bits and pieces. I've done a couple of board games for Mantic. I did the Halo, Halo Flashpoint, and then completely different vein, Worms, the board game.
Matthew:And, so that's the editing side. You've also been writing, which is the beat of this interview that we're gonna come on to in a moment. You have been writing, of course, in your favorite game, Simba Room, which you're always on us to feature more on this here podcast. Hence, you know
Dave:we are.
Matthew:Here we are featuring you more. This is the last time we had somebody say, could we have some more of this? It was somebody who just published something on the free league workshop, was it? Marcus or somebody? I think.
Matthew:Yeah. So it's just a way to get on the show.
Dave:Do I feel like we're being used here?
Matthew:No. No. We need the concert. We need the content just as much as, the old days, the published.
Dave:That that's true. Just give us some of Sunday morning off. That'll do.
Matthew:Now we haven't in all honesty, we haven't been looking very much at Symbloom because there's so much else in the world of pre league that's coming out that's new and exciting that we have focused on. But what what what is the Subaru news? What is the state of Subaru at the moment?
Neil:Well, I'm not sure I have any, you know, great secrets to share. As you know, the the big epic campaign, Throne of Thorns, is fully out and has been for a while. And, in fact, with my home group, we are right at the very end. I reckon we've got 3 or 4 sessions left. Oh, wow.
Neil:Until the big picture now.
Dave:And how long how long have you been running that?
Neil:We've been playing for about probably about 4 years, fortnightly.
Dave:Wow. How
Matthew:is it?
Dave:Fortnightly. That's a lot of sessions.
Neil:Yeah. It's a lot of sessions. But it's been a
Dave:And has it has it has it maintained the in impetus and the sort of momentum and interest all the way through? Has it has it been anywhere where it's kind of, you know, the motivation has dipped a bit, or has it been consistently good all
Neil:the way through? I think I think like any massive campaign, there are some not issues, but there there's just there's something about big campaigns that there there's certain things they're all gonna suffer from. Like, the you know, if you read online all the the criticisms, something like the enemy within. And a lot of that is just to do with the the sort of balance between sandbox and railroad that a a big campaign has to you you just have to assume that certain things have happened and are going to happen or the campaign doesn't work. You can't go through a series of books.
Neil:But and I think on the whole, Throne of Thorns does that pretty well. The the the cost of doing it quite well is that the GM is required to do more and more as the game goes on. So by the last book, there's an awful lot of something like this might happen depending on what's happened in your group. So far. You wouldn't like to say more,
Dave:which
Neil:which is good. So they've left it more sandbox y, but at at the cost of much less guidance. And so the GM has to work harder, which I don't mind. Might be challenging, maybe for, like, a new GM potentially. But, yeah, there's been peaks and troughs.
Neil:There's been a few bits that I haven't enjoyed as much. But on the whole, me and my group have have thoroughly enjoyed it. There's a couple of Mhmm. Yeah. There's a couple of little bits.
Neil:The the first time I can't remember which book it is. Oh, it will be Simba, I guess. Book 4. The first time you properly get to go deep into the dark forest of Davakar, I I don't at all like the the new exploratory mechanic that was bought in. It's basically like a, hex crawling kind of hex exploring type thing.
Neil:It doesn't really work. If you do it wrong, you have to roll hundreds of times just constantly rolling dice to see what you're looking for. And that and you're gonna encounter, like, rubbish, stupid little, if you like, 1st level, beasts that you it's not even worth running a combat for. And it's yeah. The whole thing felt badly thought out and not very simple.
Matthew:So that
Neil:was a bit weird. So I just ditched that and and kinda did my own thing.
Dave:Right.
Neil:But, you know, those are minor quibbles, really. On the whole, the the campaign is absolutely superb. I for me, it's easily a contender for best role playing campaign ever written or certainly that I've ever experienced. Wow. Absolutely love it.
Neil:And, yeah, I'm so looking forward to seeing how it ends because they really leave it open. It's the the, the ending is really, really left open. And my group are planning something a bit crazy that will almost certainly not work, but we'll see.
Dave:So is it building up to a sufficient kind of crescendo for such a long campaign? Does it feel
Neil:Yeah. Oh, it feels it feels monumentally
Dave:tense and yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Nice.
Neil:And it's Yeah. What what they've done though, and this leads into where Syndrome maybe goes next, is they the ending, however it ends, will dramatically change the entire world.
Dave:The world.
Neil:Change the entire setting. Which means they cannot possibly release any new books now that take place after because there's just no way of telling what the world what your world
Dave:Will look like. Would look like. Yeah. Yeah.
Neil:Yeah. Hence, the plans, and like I said, I don't have any great, kind of secret insight into what Free League are planning for Cymbryn. But, as I understand it, they they've certainly they've committed to continuing the line, bringing out new books. And there's been talk about where and and in all honesty, I don't from my read of the situation, I don't think it's actually decided yet. But there was talk about just bringing out the new book books in a completely different part of the world.
Neil:Mhmm. Somewhere that's not Ambria and Davikar. Just, you know Yeah. Over to the east or over to the west or just a totally new bit of the world, and then they can just bring in a whole new set of lore. And whilst that's appealing, at the same time, I wonder, will it still be Cymbri?
Dave:Is it still is is it still Symbrum? Yeah.
Neil:If you're if you're getting rid of Amber and Davikar and and everything that that makes Symbrum Symbrum, and then all you're really keeping maybe is the mechanic, and that's Yeah. Not all that exciting. So I don't know. Yeah. It remains to be seen.
Dave:Yeah. I do. I mean, I do I do have some aberration. Is that the right word? For free league for doing things that irrevocably change their
Neil:Yeah.
Dave:Their games. Now even though I didn't I didn't approve of Coriolis being destroyed spoilers. Sorry. No.
Matthew:Spoilers. Daily spoilers.
Dave:I I I applaud them for doing it and being brave enough to do it. Although I, you know, I I I'm not sure it was a good thing, but I applaud them for having the courage to do it. And similarly with this, I applaud them for having the courage of changing the world because yeah. It's yeah.
Neil:It feels good.
Dave:Even if it's a player, you might not you might not approve when it comes to your table. I I think with Coriolis, the thing I'd like least was that the monolith turned out to be a big gun. I think that's what I didn't like the most. Coriolis going down is fine, but the monolith's shooting it down. So Yeah.
Dave:Spoilers. It's just it's just a bit fucking silly, frankly. But yeah. Anyway, so, Matthew, we we we interrupted you about 3 times now. Sorry.
Matthew:Yeah. A 1000000 times, frankly, just so you can blurt out spoilers that now we're gonna have to put warnings around them when we do the program. Yeah. So I was gonna say, I have this problem with a lot of sort of the fantasy genre in particular that but you can see it. You know, it spreads right across Star Wars and stuff like that where, oh, we've got a successful IP.
Matthew:Oh, we've told a story and even let's take Star Wars for a moment. You know, it's about a war, and then the goodies win the war, but now we don't have a story about a war anymore. So let's kind of have another war that's a bit different so so we could carry it on.
Dave:Yeah. Well,
Matthew:let's let's put it a 1000 years in the past, but the technology is exactly the same. And And you can see that again in game of, I don't know, Game of Thrones. Yeah. Game of Thrones has the dragon. So here we've got, you know, some stuff that was happening, essentially, if you like, in broadly speaking, 15th century England in, Game of Thrones.
Matthew:And then we go back a few 100 years, and it still looks pretty much like 15th century England. You know? Whereas we know from the real world that technology moves on even even in medieval times and Roman times that, you know, the Romans at the beginning of the empire nothing like the Romans at the end of the empire. And yet in an IP, oh, let's not change all that sort of stuff. That's what people really like.
Matthew:So I you know, that that lends then to 1,000 of years with the same technology, which possibly works in 40 k where you've got an emperor that's been alive for for 1000 of years, but I find it tiresome, frankly, just to get people more of the same. Anyway, that's a little side question rant.
Dave:Not not not so tiresome that you haven't just given us a 5 minute monologue of what you don't like about it. But, anyway, moving on.
Matthew:Moving on. Yeah. K. So, what you've done is create another way of experiencing the right time period, a symbol of whom you're really in the heart of Davika and, well, I think, actually, you may not be in the heart of Davika because I haven't read this book very much. But the first choice is, do we go through Davika, or do we go the other way?
Matthew:So Tell
Dave:us about it, Neil. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. So, yeah, you've got this book, and it's a game book.
Dave:It is. The Tower of the Lich Lord.
Neil:Tower of the Lich Lord. Yes. Yeah. So it's a it's a solo game book in the style of, fighting fantasy, a choose your own adventure style book. I guess, in a very unlikely event that anyone listening doesn't know what that is, it's a the broad term is interactive fiction.
Neil:And you you read it's set into numbered sections. And you read the first one. And at the end of the first section, you're presented with a choice. If you want to do this, turn to section, whatever, 37. If you want to do that, turn to section 92.
Neil:And then you go through the book that way, making choices and, probably dying, but hopefully making it to the end.
Dave:And I've I've always loved
Matthew:And it's not just making those choices, though. There's mechanics involved as well.
Neil:As well.
Matthew:You've you've got a character. You roll dice, and sometimes the dice dictate which section you head towards, I guess.
Neil:Yes. And and that was an early design choice. I I mean, I knew from the from the outset this was gonna be a Symbroomb book because I love Symbroomb and I wanted to do something in the Symbroomb world. There was never any question for me of doing a a this kind of book in a different world. But I thought back to the the existing books, and the books that so before I started role playing, my sort of gateway drug was interact interactive fiction.
Neil:It was Fighting Fancy, Choose Your Own Adventure, Lone Wolf, and the various others, that were knocking around in the eighties when they were all super popular. And Choose Your Own Adventure is basically mechanic less, and aimed at a much younger audience. It's really just you make the choices, but there's no real mechanic there. Fighting fantasy books have a bit of mechanic, but frankly, not much. You just have a couple of stats Yeah.
Neil:And and roll a d6 occasionally. The lone wolf books were my favorite of the the Mhmm. Ones because they were more they were more they were closer to what we'd recognize as a role playing game. The the mechanic was still quite simple. It was well, I I was gonna say d 10 based.
Neil:Actually, there was a random number table that you were supposed to close your eyes and stab a pencil at to get a number between 0 and 9, but effectively a d 10. But you also got to pick from a list of skills at the beginning. And then at various points, if you had certain skills, you could use them. And and so there was a bit more mechanic there and and I really enjoyed that you know, you'd still call them very, very light crunch, but I think it really added a lot to it. And so then when I was looking at Symbrum, I was kind of thinking about that.
Neil:And the Symbrum system is not complicated for a role playing game, but it's certainly too complicated to use as is for this style of game book. So, yeah, that was my first decision really is what to do about the system. And I I I very much wanted the book to be 2 things. I wanted it to be a way to explore the world of Sym Broom as a solo player for people who already know Sym Broom, so an alternative way of, interacting with the world. But also, I really wanted it to act as an introduction to Syndrome, both the world and the system, for people who didn't know anything about it.
Neil:So I wanted to stay true to the world, but I also wanted to stay true to the system in as much as I could. So I settled on the standard Symbrume system, and, of course, I'm talking about the the original OG, Symbrume, not the 5 gs edition, but just simplifying it, basically. So it's it's a cut down version. It still plays pretty much the same broadly, but, but simplified.
Matthew:Excellent. And, I noticed as well that it's available, and we'll be a link in the show notes, obviously Thank you. Through the free league workshop on drive through. But you've got a great quote from Matthias Harker, who is a friend of the show and, of course, the, man in charge of the world of Cymbalume now over at Free League. And he says, I've been fantasizing about a solo game book for Cymbalume ever since we started designing a tabletop roleplaying game, and here it is.
Matthew:Dark, deep, and deadly with elegant mechanics, great replayability, and a story and setting that feels very, very Simba. High praise indeed. But it does then beg your question. There's a lot of solo play versions of, well, free league games, particularly on on the free league workshop. There there there are people who say, this is how you play Coriolis solo.
Matthew:I guess there's probably one for SimbaRoom. Free league themselves now are often adding it as a stretch goal. So there's a there's solo roles for tail not tails. The old
Dave:words. That's how
Matthew:dead. The Walking Dead. Yeah. For tour, the one ring, and, and for as well that have been created as stretch goals and things. Why didn't well, I don't wanna say why didn't you do that instead.
Matthew:What what excited you about recreating that lone wolf style, choose your own adventure way of doing things over the the solo approach that other people are taking, with allow people to use the full game set?
Neil:Yeah. I can answer that one really easy, actually. And and in fact, it's easier to answer the the first version of that question, why didn't you? Okay. I as I mentioned, I have always loved this, this style of solo play, this solo game book kind of style of of things.
Neil:And I've never much enjoyed the various sort of iterations of solo role playing. For me, they're 2 separate things. I think for for me, when I play a role playing game, the whole point is I'm sitting down, whether physically or virtually, with my friends, and it's about bouncing ideas off of each other. It's about the interaction. And that's and and I realize I don't speak for everyone there, and I know solo gaming has has really taken off.
Neil:And I don't have anything against it at all, but I personally don't enjoy it. I I don't enjoy coming up with ideas on my own to make my own game in that way that solo RPGs run. And the game books are are are for me the perfect sort of combination. In a sense, it's it's like reading a good book.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Neil:And but it has a game element. So it's it's reading that's been gamified, I guess, rather than a a more pure solo role playing experience, if that makes sense. And I and I I think there's something about that that, you know, allows you to kind of switch off and read what is hopefully, an interesting, fun book. And the book acts as the GM. You don't also have to be your own GM.
Neil:Mhmm.
Matthew:And
Neil:you can just, you know, you can just enjoy reading the book, but you can also make those important decisions. You get to roll some dice and you get the game aspect and you, you know, you try and make it to the end. And and so it's does that make sense? It's kind of like a it's a different experience, I think.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, I've never I've never had the urge to sit down and play a solo role playing game. I've never even kinda looked at many of the rules for the games that I own that have got solo rules. But like, I guess, both of you and many of our listeners, I played loads and loads of fighting fantasy books played, read back in the day and loved them. And I think, you know, I'm I'm I'm much more attracted to reading a book like Tower of the Literald, because it is reading with a bit of game thrown in, it feels to me, rather than making up your own games you go along kind of rather boring you on your own.
Dave:Again, I'm I'm same as you now. I I I don't wanna stop anybody else doing it who enjoys it, but it's not it's not my bag. It's not my bag.
Matthew:I I have to admit it. It's so not attracted me, that other style of solo gaming, that I don't even really know how it works. I imagine it's a bunch of random generation tables and then a kind of journaling element without being a full on journaling game. You probably write some stuff down from those tables, think of a story, and, you know, work your way through that way. But what this reminds me of, what your book reminds me of within TTRPG as opposed to fighting fantasy is the sort of beginner scenarios that that Chaosium often include to teach people the rule set in some of the game their their game systems.
Matthew:So if you get the Cthulhu starter kit, there's a solo choose your own adventure style game there that then, you know, that says, okay. In this situation, do this with the with the actual rules. You know, you're rolling this dice, and it and, you know, again, it's not It's a
Dave:tutorial rather than a game anyway.
Matthew:It's a tutorial. Yes. I guess. Yeah. And you said you wanted to to have a little bit of that feeling in this game.
Matthew:That's why you wanted to use the original rule set. How successfully do you think it works as a great way? I've I've got I've bought myself a fancy game books for for Simba Room. Would this be a good tutorial for me to start with, to get into the system itself?
Neil:I I think it probably would. That wasn't my main aim, but but it definitely would. What I've essentially done is kept the core mechanics at d 20 roll under, rolling against 8 different stats exactly the same as Core Symbroomm. And what I've simplified mainly is the abilities. So in Core Symbroomm, you have, normally, a bunch of different abilities and they come in 3 different levels.
Neil:Novice, adept, and master. And they get better, obviously, as they go along. And then you also have something called boons, which are sort of like lower level abilities that cost less less XP to buy and aren't as powerful. And all of that is quite complicated. And in fact, that's where the crunch lies in Symbrune.
Neil:As you get more advanced characters and you get a bunch of abilities, it can get quite complex. So what I've done is limited the amount of abilities that are available in this game and in this book, and I've flattened them all to one level. So there's no novice adept and master.
Matthew:Right. Yeah.
Neil:And I've actually combined boons and abilities because there were some boons I wanted to include and some abilities. And so they're all effectively of the same level. Right. And so you don't there's no there's no XP spend. So so you can create your own character in my book.
Neil:There's 5 pre gens as well, but you can create your own. And the creation process is as simple as you allocate points to your 8 stats, within a certain range. And then you just pick, honestly, I can't remember how many. You pick a certain number of abilities from the list, and you don't have to worry about what level they're at. You just literally say, right, I want poison resilient and I want tracker and I want, I don't know, whatever you want.
Neil:But that simplifies it quite a lot. But the and then, of course, the combat mechanic is it took me a little while to get my head around because Symb room is a player facing system. So the player rolls all the dice. Yeah. So so it didn't need all that much adaptation.
Neil:But it is a bit weird if there's no GM, and it's just you going roll to attack, roll damage, roll defense, kind of in a loop. And Yeah. I actually found even that as a very, very experienced by now, Sym Broom GM, I actually kept getting confused when I was playtesting my book on the fight. So because I kept losing track of where I was and was am I rolling for me now? Am I rolling attack?
Neil:Am I rolling defense?
Dave:Oh, okay. Yeah.
Neil:And I ended up solving that by coming up with a quite a detailed little, combat tracker sheet. So you at the start of the fight, you just fill in a few of the stats on the combat tracker, and then it literally takes you through 1, 2, 3, 4 numbered little kind of points on the sheet. And you and so you can follow the sheet, and then you can fill in, you know, how many what damage you've done or whatever you need to do. And I found that was a really effective way of making fights run well Right. Be more fun.
Neil:And then I got those, actually, I do wanna give a shout out to, the guy who designed the because there's custom character sheet and a custom combat tracker. And they were designed by a guy called Matt Adams, who goes by Mythbound. Mythbound.co.uk. If anyone needs any Cool. Any custom character sheets or anything, look him up because he did a glorious job on these.
Neil:Nice. Yeah. So so that's that's kind of the system, really. And, yeah. Also needed a custom
Dave:It's interesting one question I've got there. Yeah. Sorry. Go on. I'll finish off.
Neil:No. I was just gonna say, also, I needed a custom character sheet because, one of the other things and this is not in any way my creation, so I don't wanna create take credit for it. But you also you need, you need somewhere to record what I call event trackers. So as you go through the adventure, through the book, at various points, you're told to mark event tracker b or n or whatever. And then that, of course, allows me to know where you've been.
Neil:So later on in the book, I can say, if you have event tracker b marked, turn to this section. If not, turn to that section.
Dave:Oh, okay.
Neil:And and there are some points where that logic gets quite complex. So it's I think there's one second point. There's a combination of 3 tracking
Dave:Yeah.
Neil:Yeah. If you have event tracker b and c but not f, turn to this page and that kind of,
Dave:Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Neil:Which was a headache to write. But but allow gives me a lot more flexibility because it it allows me to know what the player has encountered in the past and then adapt the the game suitably.
Dave:Yeah.
Neil:And like I say, that that sort of mechanic crops up in in a number of modern, interactive fiction books. So I I didn't create it, but I I certainly use it.
Dave:So I've got a couple of questions. 1, so you say you've got 5 pregenerated characters. Does that imply you can play more than 1 character at a time as you're reading through the book? Or is it are you supposed to just play it with 1 character? Yeah.
Neil:You just play as 1. You just play as 1. Right. But you, yeah, you choose. There's there's 4 kind of pretty standard characters.
Neil:And then just for fun, I threw in the 5th one is the academic. And the academic comes with a warning that you're very unlikely to complete the game by playing the academic. And I call it the hard one. So I think Fair enough. Yeah.
Matthew:One of
Neil:the things I really, really, really wanted for this book was replayability. So there are
Dave:Yeah.
Neil:Completely separate paths. You you you could play it 2 or 3 times and not hardly encounter any of the same sections at all, which is one of the reasons it's so, so long. So even if you've completed it, you can replay it, and try a completely different tactic. There's lots of different paths and there's 4 there's also 4 different well, 4 different successful endings. There's a lot more than that if you include all the Nasty Ways to Die.
Neil:But there's 4 success endings with different levels of success. So you can also get you can finish the book successfully at one of the lower levels of success where maybe you achieve your mission, but someone's died along the way, for instance. And then and then you can replay to try and get the the top level of
Matthew:a system. Better. Nice. Good.
Neil:So you only you only play 1 character, but you choose which character you want.
Dave:Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So was it a complete mind bending, like, psychedelic experience trying to plan out this the story in the book?
Matthew:And I
Dave:was just thinking now, hey. How's I if I would do it, how would I do it? And I was thinking, well, you've got, what, 450 sections or something. Mhmm. And, obviously, they're gonna cross refer to other sections, and they're gonna cross refer to events that you've just talked about, and they're gonna cross refer how on earth did you make sense of all of that?
Neil:I I struggled with it at first until I got a system. The yeah. So I I used a spreadsheet not for every all of the 450 sections because that would have been crazy. Sorry. Not spreadsheet.
Neil:I mean that. Do I mean a flowchart had a flowchart for the
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Neil:Story beats. And then I gradually made that more and more granular as I went along to kind of keep track of roughly what they'd wear. And then Yeah. I just I settled on a a simple I I wrote it, just just in Word, like, really I did there are some kind of specialist, kind of bits of software that it looks at, but I didn't particularly like any of them, so I just used Word. And I just settled on a really simple system where I would write a section and then I'd write the options at the end, you know, to open the door, turn to, whatever.
Neil:And and for sections I hadn't written yet, I'd just write turn to xxx. And then I could fill in the section number, but then that also doubled as a reminder to me that I hadn't written it. So then I could just do a search for xxx in my document to find all the bits I haven't written yet, and that made sure that I didn't leave any options hanging. And that I mean, it was still it was still pretty it did melt my brain a few times.
Matthew:How long do you think it took you from beginning to end to put this together?
Neil:Well, I was I was working on it for about two and a half years, But I've I I'd love I I wish actually I'd kept track of how many hours I've spent on it because I've absolutely no clue because there were points in that two and a half years where I was quite intensely working on it. And there were points, particularly towards the end when it was mainly written and it was the rather more boring kind of checking and fine tuning to do that I that I wasn't working on it so actively. So I don't know. I mean, it was it was a lot of hours. Yeah.
Neil:A hell of a lot.
Dave:And are you planning another one? Is there is there more in the works? Are there more in the works?
Neil:Well, I wanted to see if this one because I had no idea. No idea how this would land at all.
Dave:Yeah. So I kind
Neil:of wanted to see, first of all, but it it has been selling, which is nice. And the feedback I've had has been very positive so far. In fact, someone contacted me contacted me who read it and said, I absolutely love this simplified system. And and I think I'd like to use it for, one shots, like, conventions and things. I think it would be an easier Yeah.
Neil:Than the full system. And and did I mind if they kind of put out a, like, a a kind of a simplified Symb room system document using my rules? And so we've been kind of chatting about how that might work and what that might look like. I mean, personally, I think that the Symbrium system is is simple enough. But if people, you know, want the system, then that's fine.
Neil:So so yeah. So it
Matthew:has has some wonderful alliteration to it. So I'm sure that Yeah. Allow it on on that basis.
Neil:Yeah. So but so so I think it it has met the the sort of, threshold. So it it's it's gone copper already on, drive through. And annoyingly, it would probably be more, except there was a bit of a something went wrong. It was either user error on my part, frankly, probably, that's what it was, or it was maybe a glitch on drive through.
Neil:But after a few weeks, for some reason, the price on drive through got reset to 0.
Matthew:Oh, no.
Neil:So it's not out.
Matthew:This was in this was in the
Dave:this was
Neil:in the time when I was promoting it as well.
Dave:Oh, that's that's shit.
Matthew:Oh my god.
Neil:So I sold
Dave:Any idea how many downloads you lost for nothing?
Neil:Well, yeah, I do. Because once you tick the little box on the report that says include free copies, then you can see exactly how many it is. So I sold annoyingly, I'd sold 49, which is one under the amount you need for the first badge.
Matthew:For the first badge. You
Neil:can't buy it. Just stuck on copper for ages. I thought, oh, this is weird. It's it was selling quite well, and now it's completely stopped selling. And I thought, well, I've been promoting it.
Neil:Maybe maybe that's it. You know, it had an initial spur and it's it's not really gonna sell much anymore. Never mind. You know, like that. Yeah.
Neil:Someone saw a comment on a Facebook post saying, oh, this looks great and even better, it's free.
Matthew:It's free. Oh my god. Oh, man. And you're
Dave:like, no. It's not it's not free at all.
Neil:Exactly. So I'm just sure enough, it was free. And so I'd sold at that point, 40 I'd sold probably sold 49 copies and something like 350 for free.
Matthew:Free damage. Oh, fuck.
Neil:And, obviously, not all those people would have paid for it, of course.
Dave:No. But still, I mean, could you figure out get some get some compensation out of drive through for that?
Neil:Well, I it could have been my mistake. It probably was. I mean,
Matthew:it's likely more likely to be user error than drive through, to be honest. Oh. I don't know. I'm not I'm not saying, Neil, I know how you managed to do it, but
Neil:but I have no idea. But I did go in to update it. I I wanted to update the description. So maybe I clicked on the wrong thing. It's really annoying.
Neil:But it's mainly annoying. I've lost a little bit of money, but that's fine. That's not a huge issue. It's mainly annoying just because it screws up the stats. Really?
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Be further away from
Matthew:Well, the badge is in particular. Yeah. Exactly.
Dave:As you're saying Exactly.
Matthew:You can see the free copies yourself, but they don't count towards a blimping badge. Very annoying.
Neil:But yeah. Sorry. So that all of which was a long winded way, Dave, of saying that it I think it has been, you know, I think it's been successful by at least by the standards that I'm judging it. So I have been thinking about part 2, although the idea of spending now another couple of years is, slightly daunting. Maybe it's been quicker, but, I am definitely thinking about whether I wanna do another one.
Neil:Yeah.
Dave:Maybe the second one, you could convince Matthias and Freeleak to, publish it for you.
Neil:Well, I must admit that thought had crossed my mind if they can see that this one sells well.
Matthew:And so you know starter set have a starter adventure in that sort of
Neil:No. Not of that style. I I think Chaosium is
Matthew:So there's a little gap in the market there. You can convince to let you do maybe a, you know, maybe a relatively short one, but with with the with that sort of training in mind.
Dave:Well, also, chaos I don't know if you've
Neil:seen them, but chaos and also do a whole range of Cthulhu Call of Cthulhu, solo game books in in this style, not as part of the starter set, but they just publish them. They're they're shorter. Some of them are quite good. But the and that's another thing I was considering when I wrote this. But there's a massive, they're they're missing a huge trick because you need the core book to play them.
Neil:I mean, you don't really. You can work it out. But, technically, you need
Matthew:the
Neil:core Call of Cthulhu book to play the solo game books, which is something I absolutely wanted to avoid for this one. It just seems ridiculous when you can explain the rules in a couple of pages and have everything you need in one book. That's kind of weird, Ira.
Matthew:Yeah. And indeed, the reviewer you've had a you've had a very nice 5 star review here where it says, I had never played Cymbalume before. I hadn't even heard of it, to be truthful, and I really enjoyed it. Nice. That's a lovely review there from somebody who is.
Neil:Yeah. Yeah. And even better, if that first thing goes on and and explores the world of Symbrune even more, then my work is done.
Matthew:Well, they're they're looking out for more books like this, though. So, a new one, isn't it?
Dave:Your work has only just started. Yeah. Exactly. Nice. Well, it's been a
Matthew:real pleasure talking to you, Neil.
Dave:As always. Yes. Absolutely.
Matthew:So we'll look forward to actually, now we've talked about it, going through this and and and playing the game, and we will, of course, put a link in the show notes to everybody else so that they can get it too.
Neil:Thank you.
Matthew:And not for free.
Neil:And not for the free.
Dave:Price of anybody is listening to this who got the book for free when really it should have been bought, just go and buy it.
Matthew:Why don't you go back and buy it? Go and
Dave:buy it. Go on. Go and do that. That would be that would be very kind. Reward great thing that.
Dave:Reward Neil for all his hard work and his talent in creating a great book.
Matthew:Two and a half years of work there. Go on. You know you wanna buy a
Dave:copy. Exactly. Cool. Well, yeah, fabulous having you on, Neil, as always. Real pleasure to see you.
Matthew:That was a pretty all encompassing interview wasn't it?
Dave:Oh yeah, it's great.
Matthew:You covered a lot of ground there. I love I love Neil.
Dave:Neil's fabulous. It's always a real pleasure chatting to Neil and yeah I think this sounds like, you know it's it's it's gonna be an excellent excellent book And I thoroughly encourage, heartily endorse people to go, to drive through and pick it up.
Matthew:Yes. And I I think at this point, I wanna talk a bit about pricing because you'd look at it initially compared to other community content prices. You might go, oh, that's a bit expensive. But there's loads of content in there, loads of playability. As we said in the interview, you can replay it a number of times.
Matthew:You've got different characters you can try repaying it with.
Dave:I mean, it's it's it's not really that expensive because I think the the the full price that I saw the other day was $16 or something. Yeah. Which comes down to what about 11 or 12 quid.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:For a book that's nearly 400 pages long for you know a like a like a novel with massive replayability with rules that you can use. Rules that as we heard in the interview some people would like to use at conventions anyway instead of the full Simba Room rules. How much do you expect to pay for a book that has required that much time, that much investment, that much effort to bring bring to the to the market? So $16. 10 or 12 quid frankly is nothing.
Matthew:Best money you've spent.
Dave:So, so yeah, I think, yeah if it was a a 20 page pamphlet then I might suck my teeth at 12 quid. But it's not. It's a 4 it's a nearly 400 page novel style book. So get out there
Matthew:and get it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here. Right.
Matthew:We've gone on for long enough now, Dave. I think, we're gonna have to change our schedules and our plans, and try and get an interview for the next episode with somebody from Free League or at the very least friend of the show, Jonathan Hicks, to talk about Rapture Protocol, if it's Jonathan, or this whole second edition Yeah. Stuff. If it's somebody feeling it may turn out to be both of them, or, it may.
Dave:Turn out to be neither
Matthew:of them. We need them,
Dave:and we'll
Matthew:do something else.
Dave:Yeah. But there, that's our plan that's our plan for next time. Hopefully, we can bring you a, in-depth interview about Alien second edition.
Matthew:Yeah. Cool. Until then though, it's goodbye from me.
Dave:And it's goodbye from him.
Neil:And may the icons bless your adventures.
Dave:You have been listening to the effect podcast. Presented by fiction suit and the RPG gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of freely publishing.