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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 293 of Effekt, Casino Paradiso. I'm Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. And we've got a a show full of goodies for you today. We've got a couple of new patrons to thank, which is fabulous. So we'll come to that in a moment. In the world of gaming, we've got quite a few little bits of bobs to talk about.
Dave:Some we've touched on before, some which will be new. And then the big part of the show we've got today is Matthew's take on playing poker in the alien universe in the role playing game. Seeing, you know, we've already done most of the hard work of that anyway for the gambling rules in Tears of the Odd West, not the toughest assignment Matthew's ever had, I don't think. But
Matthew:No. And also not the big part of the program either, because it's only... I I just recorded it, and that's...... It gets seven minutes long. So...
Dave:Well, that's true. But it's it's it's the feature. It's the banner feature, isn't it, of the program? Even if it's short...
Matthew:It's the banner feature. It's the headline. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:But... Yeah. So there's there's our show for the day. So how are you today, Matthew?
Matthew:I'm doing very well.
Dave:I understand you are rooting around in the garden naked at dawn trying to eat worms this morning.
Matthew:Well, that's what I said on the Discord as... Yeah. But...
Dave:So...
Matthew:But, you know, just put that image firmly in your mind, Dave.
Dave:Well, have you seen my...
Matthew:That doing the bar symbol that you...
Dave:Yeah. Exactly.
Matthew:That you Yeah. Tweeted my post with. Yeah. No. Not necessarily greeted.
Matthew:I am though a man. I'm currently being... Living the life of a a liberated bachelor. Is that the word? Because...
Dave:Is it? Is liberated the word you really want to use? I mean, I know Sue will never hear
Matthew:I don't know. I'm sure there's there's another phrase I'm looking for, but I can't... It's gone out of my head. What I'm saying is my wife's on holiday. She she and my daughter have gone into Eidig.
Matthew:So I have the house to myself, and I am living like a slob.
Dave:And are you enjoying are you enjoying being on your own?
Matthew:I'm quite enjoying that. So I am doing... I I was saying before the show that I was playing my guitar yesterday and my amp started making some sort of weird noise. Now, generally, when my wife is around, a a, actually, when my wife is around, don't play guitar. But also, you know, I...
Matthew:I've got chores to do other than getting into the back of the amp and opening the amp up and trying to work out why it's making strange noises.
Dave:Oh, it wasn't It wasn't just your playing. Was the strange noises. Look, because I have heard you
Matthew:play. And
Dave:actually, I'm being I'm being a bit harsh. You're not a bad... You know, I'm... I actually admire the the way you've, you know, you've taken up this interest and you've, you know, applied yourself to to learning, which is something...
Matthew:I'm still learning. Yeah.
Dave:Know. And I I can't do. So so I'm... Yeah. As is our way, I've got to give you a bit of a hard time over some of your playing a little bit.
Dave:But deep down and un... In an unadmitted fashion, I do kind of admire your efforts at at improving your playing.
Matthew:You're you're just doing this because you know what I've in the first bit of the article that we're gonna be listening to later. I know. Just...... Make me look like a bastard now.
Dave:Well, you are. But that's that's my first comment is is, I can I can unpack your comment there because it's utterly false? So, anyway,
Matthew:that's... So, anyway, we'll wait until after that bit. Yes. Yeah. I mean, if I chop that bit out, we'd be down to four minutes of the bloody articles.
Matthew:No. You can keep... I'm I'm well. Anyway, how are you, Dave? How are you?
Matthew:You went to see your father last night?
Dave:Yeah. He's... Yeah. I'm good. He's good.
Dave:Yeah. I've been busy, busy, busy writing Old West stuff and not just Old West stuff.
Matthew:Yeah. That's Old West news. We've got that further down the list. Shut up.
Dave:But you did ask, mate. I mean,
Matthew:come on. Yeah.
Dave:And hoping that sometime next week, my new dog should be born with a bit of luck.
Matthew:Sorry. What's this?
Dave:Well, as as you as you probably know, or you should know at least, a bit of...
Matthew:I should have just... But our listeners don't. A bit
Dave:of a saga about our new dog. So we were always on the list for a new German Shepherd puppy from a litter that should be should be born next week, I think, or the week after. There was a big thing in the summer about possibility of getting another dog, and then not getting another dog, and a possible third dog, so I won't bore anybody with all that. But anyway, Justice, who is the mother, is heavily pregnant and she should give birth to her litter And next of that litter, all things all things go well, fingers crossed. One of those will be will be our new dog.
Dave:So Cool. That's very exciting.
Matthew:That's exciting.
Dave:It is exceedingly exciting.
Matthew:But... It's a bit like surrogate surrogate motherhood, isn't it, actually, in a way? But with a dog.
Dave:I mean, it's not really surrogate, is it? I mean, because... I mean, Jenny was never gonna give birth to eight puppies. Well, no. So...
Matthew:That would be...
Dave:You calling are you calling my wife a dog or a bitch?
Matthew:No. No. I, of a show, would not do such a thing.
Dave:Anyway, should we get on with the show? I don't quite know why we did this whole have a you thing. It just came out.
Matthew:Yeah. We've never done it before. You called me out, mate. That's the buzzer.
Dave:Well, just because your because your piece is so small, and I thought we might need
Matthew:to fill in a bit more... We have to fill the hours, don't we? We're just we're just wasting time.... Small joke. That that that...
Matthew:That's what our listeners tune in for.
Dave:It's what they pay their hard cash for, isn't it? It's just like...
Matthew:Yeah. That is what Simon Cooper and Scotsman Seeden are actually paying for because we've got two new patrons. Count them. New patrons since our last episode.
Dave:That's marvelous.
Matthew:So, yeah. So, well, let's thank them each individually. I think I've written them down in the order in which they backed. So, first of all, thank you, Simon, Simon Cooper, for joining us the Patreon. I don't think either of these two have joined us on the Discord.
Matthew:So if you're listening Simon and Skortz, who we'll be thanking shortly, if you're listening, then put your Discord name in your profile on your Patreon and magically you will be inducted into our server. And then say hi. We will come and say hi to you and do stuff. You can be chat about games and join in games. We're running a Gold Country sort of playtest West Marches style campaign at the moment, and and other people run games as well.
Matthew:So it's a lovely... What is it, Dave?
Dave:It's the nicest place on the Internet, TM.
Matthew:It is. It is. Anyway, so, Simon, thank you for your
Dave:Thank you, Simon. Yeah.
Matthew:Scorks, I'm not sure, Scorks Mcseodon, whether that is a real name.
Dave:It's a bloody cool one, if it is, actually.
Matthew:But if it is, then it's a cool one. That is... That... You are quite right. But, Scorks, welcome to the
Dave:Thank you. Yes.
Matthew:Welcome to the Patreon. I noticed Scorch has already been rooting around in in our free pdfs that we offer.
Dave:Cool.
Matthew:Patrons. I know she quite liked Eliana Bay, for example.
Dave:Oh, cool. Good. Excellent.
Matthew:And... Yeah. I've enjoyed this video.
Dave:Oleana Bay. Oleana Bay.
Matthew:I can't remember. Yeah. Oleana Bay. But
Dave:cool. That's brilliant. That's excellent. Good. Thanks.
Dave:Thanks to both Simon and Scorks, and, welcome aboard. And as you said, get yourselves on the Discord. It'll be lovely to chat to you a bit more.
Matthew:And our privileged patrons have been acquiring in the mail, a little recognition of our thanks to them as well in this last week. And I don't know that everybody's got it yet. But those who've those who've received it have said some nice things to us on on the Discord about that little gift.
Dave:Cool. It does look
Matthew:quite nice. You see what John had done?
Dave:I did see what John had done, and I'm... Frankly, I'm, you know, I I... I'm disappointed, shall we say? You know? Disappointed.
Dave:I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. No. It's...
Matthew:What are saying? Are you saying to John, you've let yourself down, John, and you've let me down?
Dave:But mostly, you've let yourself down. Yes. No. So for anyone who hasn't... Doesn't realize what this is, our our new little gift was a a tales of the Old West mug with tales of the Old West on the side.
Dave:And John has gone and put...
Matthew:A tin mug? A tin mug like you might have around the campfire.
Dave:That's that's
Matthew:the point of it. Yeah.
Dave:And John replaced the Old West with one ring. So he's... Yeah. He's
Matthew:he's... Tails of the one ring.
Dave:Tails of the one ring. So it's personal non grata for the time being, John. You bastard. But I hope you enjoy
Matthew:the book. Yeah. I wanna say, you know, we we we don't just produce branded merch for, you know, without any thought for it. I've been looking for a tin mug that we can afford
Dave:For
Matthew:ages. To turn into a gift. For a couple of years, actually. Yeah. I got this in in...
Matthew:From from a company that does, of course, do this sort of stuff. I'm just gonna go off a little tangent here, given that we've got time.
Dave:I'm not I'm not sure we have actually, but anyway, go on.
Matthew:And and just totally by surprise, a couple of nights ago, the night before, indeed, this is important, before Sue went on her inter hour holiday, they sent me a box of gifts. A little a little box of, basically, samples of other stuff they produce, including quite nice little notebook that might be a fun gamers notebook. May... Maybe a thing that actually we might do next year for a gift. I'll I'll show you when you come around.
Matthew:Okay. And a little really crappy fidget thing, you know
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:Switches and stuff that it just feels cheap and tacky. So we're not gonna be making, in effect, one of those to be sending out to our privileged patrons. Yeah. But also a branded little LED torch, which immediately my wife said, I've just been looking for one of those. Okay.
Matthew:My torch is too heavy. You know, I've just put my torch to one side because it's too heavy to take on on my holiday. You know, she's effectively backpacking. Yeah. And like me, you know, she's old now, so I don't know whether she can backpack as much as she used to when she was a young woman.
Matthew:And so she... You know, I'm no sooner that I got this torch out of the box and turned it on. She said, I'll have that. Okay. And it's now in Germany or...
Matthew:Yeah. In Vienna, in Austria now with her. So... But, again, I don't think a branded torch is in our remit. But this this little notebook...
Matthew:Gamers like notebooks, don't they? They write you They
Dave:very much do, That isn't
Matthew:might be a thing for next time. I'll show you when you come around. Cool. Anyway, that's my diversion Cool. Shall we finish saying thank you to all our patrons Yes.
Matthew:And then go on
Dave:to So world of what do we have up first for world of gaming today then?
Matthew:Well, the first thing I put on the list, Dave, only because of you. Don't care jot about this, but I thought you might be interested to see that there are some pages from the shortly forthcoming D and D World of Warcraft supplement.
Dave:Yeah. I had a quick look. I mean, the artwork is is lovely, as you would expect. I think this is just a gameplay expansion, I think they're calling it, isn't it? So it's not a game in itself.
Dave:So you've got...
Matthew:You're gonna need that your
Dave:door box. Yeah. It looks lovely. I I had mentioned before because, yeah, I mean, as everyone knows, I am a huge fan of of Wow. I haven't played it in Donkey's years.
Dave:I might give it...
Matthew:I don't know. What has Wow ever done for you, Dave? That's the important thing.
Dave:Well, in order to avoid extending this podcast even more, we'll we'll skip past that one. But it has had some some definite benefits in my life.
Matthew:And
Dave:I might I might give the new Wow Forever a go when it comes out in November. I might... I often often occasionally buy myself a month or two over Christmas and just have a fiddle and then get bored again. But, anyway, I said, not that kind of show. Have a fiddle around with a game, you
Matthew:know. Okay. Right. So so you're saying World of Warcraft has never bought you any sex.
Dave:For the oblique references, I met my wife on World of Warcraft. She was in Sweden. I was in England. We met. We got together, and the, you know, and the rest is history.
Dave:Anyway Right.
Matthew:Moving on.
Dave:So I'm not gonna play D and D, even with a Wow kind of world to it, I don't think. When I, you know, at a convention, I will go and hunt the book out on someone's store just to have a flick through the pages and have a look. But I I don't suppose I'll be buying it. But I mean, I'm pleased actually. I mean, for a long time I thought that Azeroth is a great place to set a fantasy game.
Dave:And for for Wow fans, you know, it it... It's probably gonna bring a huge amount of of nostalgia and familiarity, and that'll be fun. But, yeah, I won't buy... I won't be buying it. Certainly not at the £100 for the book or whatever it is that they're charging.
Dave:Woah.
Matthew:So there's gonna be no analysis of these sample pages from us from a D and D perspective, but there is quite an in-depth article in End World. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes. If you're interested in D and D in Azeroth, that's where to go. The D and D news, I think, is kind of more interesting, given the conversations we've had over the last couple of episodes, in fact, is Wizards of the Coast staff are looking to organize and unionize, and there's been quite a lot of coverage of that.
Dave:So has it moved on since we last spoke about it particularly? How we had Should
Matthew:we speak about think we talked about Wizards Coast? Definitely mentioned it, I think. I'm sure we could I mean, we're looking at Roanoke and Record. Rec... And then and then your map We're talking about Roanoke.
Matthew:Versus the UK union. I don't know whether...
Dave:No. Maybe not Wizards of of the Coast then. Yeah. Mean, I haven't read any articles or anything on this. How are, you know, how are Wizards of the Coast reacting?
Dave:And we had a response.
Matthew:Well, so, again, what brought it to our attention, yours and mine, Dave, is stuff on social media Yeah. Are kind of looking to players of D and D and, I guess, other Wizards of the Coast games, kind of wanting us to sign petitions.
Dave:Yeah, what I've seen is a petition out there saying, you know, trying to get people to get extra signatures for, which all good. I haven't seen anything that has reflected a Wizards of the Coast response to this.
Matthew:No. I, foolishly, have read an article, and I can't remember anything about it.
Dave:Is where you come to the Effekt podcast, folks. Just the informed insider knowledge that you get from from me and Matthew is just...
Matthew:There we go. There we go. This is a close to tuning up. Let me just quickly... Oh, killed.
Matthew:The annoying thing about Rascal is... Yeah. So we're not gonna read that because although I'm subscribed to Rascal, every time you don't log in, you've gotta you've gotta give them your address, and then they'll send you a blooming code. So it's gonna take too long to do this. But there's some news.
Matthew:I'll link to the Rascal article, but you will need to be a subscriber to read it. And that's that's that's where I'm going on that one. No
Dave:other
Matthew:I news than mean, we haven't got much time, have we, after all? Because we've been talking about shit for the last fifteen minutes.
Dave:I mean, we we always talk shit, mate. I mean, come on. Yeah. Anyway, so...
Matthew:That is true.
Dave:So I mean, that... You know, so good luck to them is, you know, is I think is all we can probably say at this point. I hope I hope they get what they want from it, and I hope that Wizards of Coast don't do, you know, something stupid in corporate and try and stop it.
Matthew:Yeah. I'm sure... Given they're Hasbro, I'm convinced they will try and do something stupid
Dave:Yeah. In Well, indeed. But... Yeah. Interesting.
Matthew:But the... I guess the big news in a in a Free League fan cast sort of way is Free League are in the middle, almost coming to the end of their biggest crowdfunding campaign ever.
Dave:Indeed.
Matthew:Do you want me to tell you about it?
Dave:I do.
Matthew:I thought you might come back with something, but no. No.
Dave:Was was trying to look up for the latest details, but I can't find it.
Matthew:Right. Well, you you... Remember it's on back of kit, not Kickstarter this time.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:So, yeah. They announced earlier in the week that it's gone really well for them. And in fact, I remember... Now we're both looking stuff up on the Internet. This is what you love.
Matthew:I just thought it'd be easy for me to find and I can't find my To To page.
Dave:No. Not To To... We we are just the creme de creme de la creme of podcasts, aren't we?
Matthew:You say when we...
Dave:People listen to us looking stuff up on the Internet. I've found it now. So they've got over 10,000 backers, nearly 11,000. They have raised $2,700,000. Not sure why it's in pounds, but it's gonna be a couple of million quid.
Dave:Wow. That one, that is that is that is pretty impressive.
Matthew:That is not bad, is it? When they hit 2.5, it became their biggest one ever. And what fascinates me about this is this is for the second edition of a game. So, you know, it's not... We had...
Matthew:You know, it's not quite second edition. What's the word I'm looking for? A revised...
Dave:Update.
Matthew:Which is, broadly speaking, all the myriad of mistakes in in the first second edition have been corrected.
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:Not not any great changes to the rules. Just just doing that. And it's gone like wildfire. I have contributed to that because I'm not gonna get all the books again. I don't...
Matthew:You know, I love my deluxe version in red of the core rules even though it's for the mistakes. I'm not going to go for the reborn as the white wizard white version of the core rules but I do want the matching Gondor. So I have kind of just... I've I've done whatever deal I could. I can't remember which one.
Matthew:To... I think I think unlike with Kickstarter, I think you can have... You can add physical add ons even if you don't... So I think I've gone for PDFs, the basic PDF package and added a physical add on. I can't remember what I've done.
Matthew:Anyway, it seems it seems it got what I wanted.
Dave:It's quite a complex offering. There's a lot here to kind of pick through, depending on what you want.
Matthew:So broadly speaking, there's the new rules. There's... In both flavors, in the One Ring flavor and Lord of Rings flavors. So that's that's an important reason why it's more successful than last time in that they didn't do those simultaneously in the same crowd fund last time around. Lord of the Rings obviously is the 5E version.
Matthew:And a Monster Manual effectively, which I'm kind of less keen on the entire idea of a of a bestiary for one ring... For Tolkien's world, but don't mind my prejudices.
Dave:What's what's wrong
Matthew:with it? I I think, kind of like, don't stat out the Balrog, just make him unbeatable is my thing about monsters. As soon as you put numbers on a monster, people will work out how to kill it.
Dave:Although, I mean, the Balrog isn't undefeatable because Gandalf killed him. So...
Matthew:Yeah. But Gandalf's a fucking angel.
Dave:Well, still.
Matthew:You don't get to play Gandalf in this game. You get to play other less less powerful people.
Dave:Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. So
Matthew:anyway, that that... But that's my own prejudice. I know it's my fault. And and then there's a...
Dave:Does it...
Matthew:I mean,
Dave:does that...
Matthew:Which is the thing I really...
Dave:But does that then... I mean, the the bestiary isn't just gonna be the Balrog book, now is it? So presumably, there's gonna be a lot of stuff in there that is entirely killable by heroes like Aragorn
Matthew:and Emily. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's
Dave:true. So I think this is this is an example of just your your your your foolish, small minded prejudice coming out on the
Matthew:I've base already admitted that, Dave.
Dave:On the basis of the Balrog or other creatures similar. I mean, would you would you be opposed to Nazgul being in there?
Matthew:What... It...
Dave:Because they can be killed. Because because Eowyn kills the the the the the the... What's his name? The lord of Angmar.
Matthew:The Mouth of Sauron or whatever. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. So so they can be killed? You know? They're difficult.
Matthew:Does Eowyn kill kill kill him in the books or does she only do that in the film?
Dave:That's a good question. I'll... I've spent a long time since I've read the book.
Matthew:Yeah. I have a sneaking suspicion she only does that in the film because, you know, Tolkien was writing at a time when men did everything. Well, that is true.... Males, one should say.
Dave:I'm just gonna I'm just gonna see if I can find an answer to that.
Matthew:Right. You can do that. Anyway, it's been a really big hit. It's great news if you're a fan. It's great news if you're a fan of Free League.
Matthew:And go get those special editions because they are lovely. I really... I'm not a big special edition collector of role playing games, but the Lord of the Rings ones, they're they're they're just perfect for me. So so I've got it. I had to have that Gondor book.
Matthew:Don't care so much about the bestiary, not just don't care about their philosophy of the bestiary, but also really don't care about a special edition of the bestiary. Yeah.
Dave:So Eowyn does deliver the killing blow against the Witch King.
Matthew:In the books.
Dave:In the books. Although Mary, which he does in the film as well, Mary strikes first. Mary stabs the Witch King in the back first with his barrow blade.
Matthew:Well well done Eowyn. Champion champions all.
Dave:But anyway, yeah. So... Yeah. I mean, fine. You're you're entitled to your view as small minded and narrow and wrong as it might be.
Dave:But you don't have to... I mean, I'm I'm guessing that that your pledge level doesn't include the bestiary anyway. So...
Matthew:I think it may include it as a PDF.
Dave:Does it?
Matthew:I can't I can't quite remember what my pledge level is. I think it might be all of them as PDFs, and you can add add ons. So I I didn't...
Dave:Right. So you've got the hard copies as add ons. Okay. Cool.
Matthew:I think so.
Dave:I mean, it's it's all it's all lovely stuff. And it's coming with, yeah, other bits of Bob's dice and standees if you want them. Printed map of Minas Tirith looks pretty nice, I have to say.
Matthew:Yes. And they... I mean, I'm not... I... I'm really not a fan of the cloth maps.
Matthew:I just don't like how they feel in my fingers. But they are a big hit when we take overstock to conventions and stuff. They sell out really quickly. So lovely new
Dave:map of book.
Matthew:Minas Tirith or Minas Tirith? I... I've I've... I'm always worried about pronunciation because for years I've spelt Moriah wrong.
Dave:It's probably Minas Tirith, isn't it, I think, in the books. Yeah. If you're gonna be if you're gonna be, you know, particularly pedantic about it.
Matthew:Tolkien was, of course, particularly
Dave:pedantic this kind of stuff. Yeah. But he's not here to tell us off now, is he? So he can be whatever he wants. But, anyway, that looks lovely.
Dave:And I say the maps that they do, like, the map of from Mario is superb. I love that. And I very much understand why people want them as a cloth because then that... That's a lovely wall hanging. Not something...
Matthew:It's not
Dave:something I would wanna use for a game
Matthew:As a table.
Dave:On a table, but as a wall hanger, as a decorative thing, super. I mean, last few times...
Matthew:But also actually on
Dave:a table,
Matthew:to be fair, on a table,
Dave:given the...... Easier because you could roll up the machine
Matthew:then. Yeah. Cloth mat, you can stick over everybody's shit that's Yeah. On the table or indeed under everybody's shit that's on the table. Turn it into an actual table cloth.
Matthew:See what I did there? Without having to worry about, you know, the creases and your folded paper map and stuff. But not for me, generally, cloth maps. But I... Yeah.
Matthew:I can understand the pleasure that some people get from them.
Dave:Yeah. And I've, know, for a long... For a for a number of conventions, I've sort of thought, well, when when when we finish, we've got a a Moria cloth map over at the end. I'll swipe that. And then...
Dave:But it's never happened because it was always sold out.
Matthew:Yep. Yep. When you swipe it, you mean you'll you'll buy it at staff discount? Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:Of course. Not just Nicky. Yeah.
Dave:No. Not just Nicky. I I accept my my my choice of language might have implied theft, but that wasn't what I meant. Swipe it before any of the other
Matthew:staff. Just in case anybody would, you know, takes that to add it.
Dave:But it's a it's a general
Matthew:That's stealing your stock.
Dave:It's a generous staff discount, so so we don't need to steal it.
Matthew:Well, it is. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Reminded to, which we're not. So, anyway, cool. But that's done really well. There's a couple of days left even on that.
Dave:Four days at the at the time of recording, which is Sunday, October 11.
Matthew:So given that we'll have it out by tomorrow, there should be a couple of days left Yeah. When you're listening.
Dave:Go and join the 10,756 backers.
Matthew:10,000 backers. Puts our 600 into shame, doesn't it?
Dave:It does rather. I'm not I'm not jealous at all.
Matthew:No. No. Actually, I'm not. I'm not. You know, deserved success of...
Matthew:Oh, absolutely. And, of course, because they've they've only got that big of a company because of the brilliant podcast that spreads the word.
Dave:That's been shilling for them for the last ten years, nearly.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. So those 10,000 backers are all listeners to this podcast. If only. All they all crowd around the the 300 odd downloaded copies that we Yeah.
Dave:15 people listening to one one podcast outlet.
Matthew:Yeah. Okay. He rests... Moves swiftly on that to where we have had a positive effect. Yeah.
Matthew:So we think, Dave and I, and this may be unfair of us to say so, but we think we've got at least 10 extra backers for Gridshock after the interview that we did with Paul Vermaeran. Vermaeran. Yeah. Yeah. Remember last episode?
Matthew:In the last episode? It was the last episode?
Dave:Yeah. It was the last episode. Yep.
Matthew:I gotta say, I'm not convinced that that shit's gonna get Make... Target
Dave:The difference. Sadly. No. They're still struggling a little bit. So they've only...
Dave:Again, at the time of recording, they've got just under three days left in the campaign. They are a little bit over halfway there. They're 60% funded, so it's gonna be a bit of a struggle. But if there's anybody out there who's listening to this before Tuesday, who is is interested or was thinking about it, crack on and get yourself over there and maybe give them a last last minute boost that that might help them get over the line. But it's gonna be a struggle, I'm sad to say.
Dave:It looks by where they are at the moment.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it it looked like a really good game.
Dave:It does look good.
Matthew:Yeah. It's a it's a real pity if it's not gonna get back in. But I don't think we're... I think I don't think Paul's put off. I think if it doesn't do it this time, then he'll retrench, have a bit of a think, and maybe come back powerful and stronger than you could possibly imagine.
Matthew:Yeah. And we've definitely seen
Dave:that before with some games where they they fail to fund once, and then they try again, like you say, with a slightly different approach maybe, and then they have successfully funded. So it's... Yeah. It's not all over.
Matthew:I'm not sure it's gonna come back on on Gamefound though. No. Did... We talked in the last episode about GameFound putting up barriers to completion as you go through the process. Yeah.
Matthew:Particularly adding... Getting VAT wrong and doing it. Now, actually, it's worth... I've mentioned it on our socials, but maybe for listeners who don't follow us on socials, it's worth talking about that in that in the last episode, I talked about the fact that I was charged 20% VAT on both the book and the PDF, which obviously doesn't apply in this country. Now I thought it would be useful to kind of put a complaint into GameFound.
Matthew:I knew that complaint would actually get directed to Paul first, and he'd have to send it on the GameFound and get an answer back from them. And it was a good answer. Actually, they said, we will refund that or, you know, at the end... We can't do anything about it now because we're in the middle of a campaign, but when it's done, we'll apply the different VAT rates in different countries. So a lot of European countries do charge VAT on books, but not all of them charge the full rate of VAT.
Matthew:So there'll be there'll be some discounts in different countries, I think. Anyway, you you know, they said in in my case, they... I could either have it as a refund or as a contribution towards post unpacking. So I'm entirely happy with that The thing that I'm a little bit upset about was that Paul was talking about this being part of RPG Party, and RPG Party was about encouraging more RPG publishers rather than board game publishers Yeah. Which have kind of been their their mix, you know, the most, to get into doing this.
Matthew:They have been supporting Paul through the process, but they didn't say to him, oh, we can sort out the different VAT rates for you, but you have to ask us to do that. I wonder if it's
Dave:something they haven't really considered. Because I'm assuming that board games, they do they do attract VAT VAT.
Matthew:Yes. So most box games...
Dave:So in most games, you're going
Matthew:to get a full rate of VAT.
Dave:Yeah. So GameFound have come at it from the point of view of that part of their business perhaps and didn't occur to them to check that that VAT on books would be different in some in some locations.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, they kind of sorry, Paul sent me the text of their answer to him, and it's kind of, oh, you should have asked us to do that. And I'm thinking
Dave:But...
Matthew:He's an American. The poor chap is totally innocent of VAT.
Dave:How does he... But also also, I mean, as somebody who's, you know, doing this for the for the first time or even, you know, on two or three attempts, you know, they might not be, you know, international publishers who don't understand these sorts of things. So that's exactly why you go to a to a to a support organization like GameFound, like BakkerKit, like Kickstarter, so they can tell you about all this kind of stuff that you might not otherwise think of. And for them to turn around and say, oh, you should have asked us, is is a cop out, frankly. I also think, yeah, you this is...
Dave:This ought to be something that is really upfront if it's the way that I'm gonna manage it because... I mean, but it's also... It's very clunky. I mean, not only, as we've said before, might it put people off saying, I'm not paying bloody 20% extra on that, you know, and shouldn't be paying that anyway. I'm not gonna bother going back something else.
Dave:And also, there's the buggeration of having to do it all retrospectively anyway. So it's... It adds a load of admin burden onto presumably both GameFound and the publisher when, as we know, running a Kickstarter or a crowdfunding campaign is quite hard work. There's a lot to it, particularly if you've never done it before or you haven't done it very often. And adding that additional burden is where it's completely unnecessary is is is a big mistake, and then kind of blaming the publisher for not having the the clairvoyance to understand that this is one of the issues that they should have asked GameFound about to get GameFound, who then presumably know all about it in, you know, the implication of that response, to then tell them that information.
Dave:Just tell them upfront. You know, this should be part of their introductory package or something, you know, your initial instructions. So I'm a bit I'm a bit grumpy with Gamefound on Paul's behalf, and I think he's probably been badly badly served by them.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. That... To be fair, we don't know. Maybe they did tell him and he didn't understand what they were asking.
Matthew:Possibly.
Dave:Yeah. Mean, but it might have been in the depths of the swar print somewhere and he didn't...
Matthew:Yeah. Exactly. It. It's the kind
Dave:of thing that should get flagged quite clearly, I would argue.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, I still... I have a little bit of an issue. I'm just gonna cover cover this one. There is a law effectively in most countries that charge VAT that says the price you advertise the thing at should include VAT.
Matthew:You can't... Like, so in America, when you go to the till, if there are state sales taxes or whatever, when you go to the till, they go plus tax. Yeah. In lots of other countries, in Singapore, they do much the same. In fact, there's there's three taxes, I think, in Singapore.
Matthew:So you'll often see it says, you know, whatever the price is, if you're at some restaurant or whatever, it goes plus plus plus. Meaning, there's three taxes to add on to this. So that's fine in those countries. But in in most... In all, I think, European countries, the price you see should be the price you pay.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Now, I think GameFound are just about getting round this because what they do is you're not quite at the till when they say, Oh, and we need to add the 20% tax. But that... One of the reasons why we have that law is so that shops don't don't lose all those sales when they add the tax. And it would be better if they just said to everybody, you know, all their publishers, well, know, there will be tax charge on this. So why don't you sell it at this slightly higher price, and then we can take the tax off whatever the listed price is?
Matthew:Is really the way they should be doing it.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:I think, to be honest. And I think, you know, that might make the book more expensive. It might turn a £40 book into a £50 book or whatever. But I think, actually, if people see £50 on it, they'll go, oh, fine. Yeah.
Matthew:That's great. Prices are going up. Everything used to be £40 when I was a lad. Yeah. When they see £40 and they go, hooray.
Matthew:A book charge reasonably. Oh, fuck. I've got to add 20% extra. That pisses people
Dave:off more than... Yeah. Yeah. No. I think I think there's definitely something in that.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Anyway. Right. Let's move on to happier news. Another new zero edition of another game that has had a life historically. This is Titan Effect.
Matthew:It's starting on BakkerKit on Tuesday. We'll put a link in the show notes. It's from a French publisher. They've done it before in Savage Worlds but they're moving into the best game system ever. I'm not going to say much about this because actually I'm in the middle of getting an interview with them next week.
Matthew:So we will learn more about it from them. But is there anything... I know you've had a look at the back of kit. Is there anything you wanna say, Dave?
Dave:I think I think the only thing I would say is this... As it stands, just looking at the admittedly very limited information on on the back of kit page, this doesn't interest me very much at all in terms of the setting. James Bond meets x men in a tactical espionage sci fi game. It's like, okay. Which one which one are you?
Dave:A tactical or an
Matthew:espionage or You're a James Bond fan, so just ignore the x men bit, and you're you're fine.
Dave:Well, potentially. Potentially. But again, I mean, I wonder, because more than once, as happened actually with Gridshock, I wasn't interested in it... In the game as a purchaser by looking at what they'd put up on on their crowdfunding. But then when I actually talked to the creator, you kind of realize what's behind that and actually how interesting the game really is.
Dave:So I wonder again if this is this is gonna be another example where the game itself is... The the excitement and the, you know, the USP behind the game is hidden behind the text that they've put up. So if we get if we get an interview with them, then, yeah, again, that would be very interesting to hear more from the horse's mouth as it were. But at the moment, as it stands, doesn't interest me very much as a purchaser. I'm interested in it from a game perspective, but it's not gonna make me part with my money at the moment.
Matthew:No. Okay. Yeah. So we've got a hard sell in a couple of weeks time when we invite Christian to the to the hamam, and we'll... You know, he'll have to work pretty hard to get you interested.
Matthew:Let's see how well he does. Anyway, final bit of World Gaming news. There's a kind of new... I'm gonna call it an academic journal. I'm not sure, having come out of academic publishing while I've been doing my PhD, that it is actually an academic journal but it's kind of dressed in those clothes and it's called Playtest Material.
Matthew:We'll put a link to actually
Dave:I might be stretching it a little bit possibly.
Matthew:Well, what makes it academic, I think, would be peer reviewed peer reviewed by peers. And there are now, you know, actual real academics who've got PhDs in role playing games. Bloody hell, I could almost qualify as one, I think. So if it was a reviewed journal, it starts becoming a proper academic journal. But it is, shall we say, wearing academic trade dress.
Matthew:And it looks quite interesting. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's been a website for a time. It's all about mechanics and stuff like that. It's kind of articles from creators, and it's kind of targeted towards creators, I think.
Dave:Yeah. Interesting.
Matthew:TTRPG criticism in the academic sense as opposed to in the, well, I thought this game was shit sense.
Dave:Yeah. Critique rather than criticism.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Right.
Matthew:So that's the end of the world of gaming.
Dave:It's the end of the world of gaming. Okay.
Matthew:Now we have Old West news.
Dave:Old West news. What have we got there then? There's a couple of things going on. So I understand that we have some news on our shipping to the EU packaging problem that we'd learned of a little while ago. So what's the situation with that?
Matthew:So a few weeks ago, a new packaging regulation came into force.
Dave:It's a recycling regulation, isn't it, I think?
Matthew:Yeah. It's generally about, you know, it's it's generally quite a good thing in terms of what's behind it. But it was a bit of a pain in the arse for us even to understand and for GMS, our distributors to understand. So we paused selling to the EU for a time while we were trying to work out what does it mean for us, what do we got to do, what do GMS got to do. And it looks like, thankfully, this is the the good news, is that it is kind of GMS's responsibility.
Matthew:So they're they're the ones that have got to have the office in the EU that, you know, can be their representative office if anybody complains about packaging. Yeah. It's a little bit like their general product safety regulations.
Dave:DPSR stuff. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. So, anyway, they're handling all of that. I think I think their shipping rates have gone up a bit, but I have now reinstated European sales. So if you come to our website, we now will ship to your country. What that means in practical terms is I had to delete all the shipping rate cards for one of a better sense that we had built up over time for European countries so that that stopped you being able to order it.
Matthew:What I've now got to do, of course, is reinstate all of those. I've reinstated all the most popular ones. But if you're coming from a country where we've never had any custom before in the EU and it says we don't ship to your country, there is a note and there's a link to send us an email and say, hello. I'm in... Oh, I don't know where.
Dave:Estonia or something. Or... Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Estonia. I'm in Estonia, and you haven't got a shipping rate for me. Drop me a line via that link, and I will set up the shipping rate for Estonia. I gotta say, don't expect it to be cheap though.
Matthew:Bloody Sweden. Chuff. They cost so much to ship to now.
Dave:It's just... It is... I mean, it's bad enough when we did the did the Kickstarter, but I'm guessing it's got a lot worse since then.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that that's that's good news. You could also get it from some European or importantly, since we just spent some Sweden, some Swedish shops. It's on sale at SF Bockhandlen and the like.
Matthew:And one of the reasons why it's good, well timed is our other bit of Old West news, Dave.
Dave:Yes. Well, Blood Red Gulch. If you haven't heard of what that is, this is our friend and friend of the show, Elena Di Lorenzo, and her friend Sydney. Sorry Sydney, I can't remember your surname off top of my head.
Matthew:Sydney, Amuel... Emmanuel or something, think. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Running their Lost Mountain Saga podcast where they have just started Blood Red Gulch, which is their campaign of tales of the Old West. I haven't listened to it yet. I'm not sure how many episodes they've had. One or two maybe.
Matthew:They've done session zero, Yeah. Episode one and episode two is out tomorrow. And... Yes.
Dave:That's really exciting. Yeah.
Matthew:And the the... I I think it's gonna branch into a campaign of Sydney's own devising. But right now, they're actually starting off with patience is a virtue. Yeah. Least.
Matthew:So it seems from the setup so far, which is the adventure that you wrote for the core book. Yeah. So so it's great. And...
Dave:Which is which is a really good one for setting up the town and setting up a a bit of conflict at the end of that, entirely based on the decisions of the players. So things go a number of different ways depending on how the players decide to resolve the issues in that scenario. And then it sets the town up with either a nemesis bad guy or a bad guy who's actually a bit of an ally or... Yeah. It's...
Dave:Well,
Matthew:I think I think they're going to end up not staying in this town. So I expect the... There will be a nemesis bad guy and they and they
Dave:escape to move on.
Matthew:Yeah. Because they're going to go to Red Gulch because that's the title of the campaign. Yeah. And they were setting up Red Gulch as a town in the session zero. Cool.
Matthew:Now I'm trying really hard to stop myself saying, no. You don't do it like that. But I had to write Sydney an email saying... Or even two, I think, saying, no. You don't do it like that.
Dave:What what did she get what did she get confused with?
Matthew:So one of the things that they were doing in setting up the town, they were conflating tally points and ranks.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:So so I had to kind of Correct. Unpack that a bit for them. And then the other thing is they were slightly doing trouble wrong. They were using all their dice when they'd... At one point, somebody had rolled three trouble out of four dice and yet re rolled all their dice when they when they pushed it.
Matthew:Right. But it's minor stuff, actually. Yeah. And I think in the context, it worked. They still got trouble, and and and it's fine.
Matthew:And particularly, but what I... Was interesting about that character is that this is a player, Price, who's playing his character as somebody who's kind of generally incompetent. I was saying, look, play this right, push the dice without buying off trouble, and you you can have that incompetency come out without having to to kinda Yeah. Make it up. So I I I said, you know, it's entirely up to you guys how to...
Matthew:How you play the game. If you wanna... If you're simplifying it that way, you know, I can't stop you. But I thought that was useful. And they said, yeah.
Matthew:They'd picked up on the trouble actually by session six or something. Yeah. They realized they were doing it wrong. So these first few sessions, experienced Tales of the Old West players are gonna hear some
Dave:Slight errors.
Matthew:Things that aren't quite in the rules. But overall, it's brilliant, actually. I really enjoyed it. I will be a regular listener.
Dave:Yeah. We
Matthew:will put a link in the show
Dave:notes. Show notes. I will definitely start to have a listen. Yeah. I'll stick it on when I'm when I'm working.
Dave:And on that point, nothing specific to to say about The God Country other than I am chunking through the content. So I'm working pretty much full time on it, and we're we're making a lot of progress. So Yeah. We are. So that's so that's all really good.
Matthew:We're getting some lovely pictures as well. Yes. Just have one delivered that I think you will start seeing in advertising shortly because I I think it works just quite well for advertising in the way the composition works. Yeah, So, yeah. And we are looking at a Kickstarter in February, aren't we?
Dave:Or late January to kick kick off, I think, was was our target.
Matthew:Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we didn't we didn't want to do it before then because we know you you gotta save up your money for Christmas and the other winter festivities. So we'd wait till the New Year.
Dave:Yeah. And and as said before, we wanted to make sure we were on top of the content before we go to Kickstarter. We could possibly have run the Kickstarter a little bit earlier, but Christmas is basically giving us a two month area where we don't really wanna run it. That kind of pushes it back to to January, which is fine.
Matthew:So we will set up the the Kickstarter campaign shortly for people to sign up for, but it doesn't exist yet. But there'll be a preview page
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely.
Matthew:Sometime soon before... That will happen before Christmas. But don't worry. You don't have to commit any till well after Christmas. Cool.
Matthew:Right. Now shall we talk about taking something out of Tales of the Old West and putting it into another game? Yes. Actually, my idea for this, that we should do this, is because I saw somebody saying on the Alien RPG Facebook channel, has anybody got any good gambling rules? And I thought, yes.
Matthew:Of course, I have. I'll just come...
Dave:I thought, no. Me. Me. Sir. Over here.
Dave:Me.
Matthew:I didn't say that. I I didn't answer that at all because I thought, I'm about to type a bunch of stuff out, but I could type that out through a podcast.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Well, let's let's... That poor guy asking never got a reply from me, but maybe once once we put this out, I'll say, listen to this. But it's probably weeks ago that he needed the gambling rules, and and we're doing it. Anyway, let's let's listen to me.
Matthew:I think it's an open secret that Dave has been working on a trucker's source book to accompany the Colonial Marine Operations Manual and Building Better Worlds. He's done his part, and it is somewhere in the approval or production stage now. So I said to Dave, given that even with hope asleep, the crew will have many long hours of waiting around, you'll have written in some version of your gambling rules from tales of the Old West. Right? Right?
Matthew:Dave looked at me, aghast that he had missed such an obvious thing. He's still beating himself up over it. And, he's been useless the last couple of weeks, questioning whether he can even still call himself an award winning game designer. But don't worry, Dave. I will, as usual, step in to save your career.
Matthew:What we can do is offer these rules on This Here podcast. I may even write them down, and we can put them on the Patreon since neither of us are maintaining our old blogs anymore. What sort of gambling do they do in the future world that Alien presents? There is no evidence of any weird made up games in the films. No, for example, hexagonal card decks.
Matthew:So I think we can safely say that when they play cards, they use conventional decks and rules. Poker seems the most obvious choice for the kind of roughnecks that crew these interstellar tugs and the like. But if you want to say it's bridge or cribbage, go ahead. So we're going to use the card playing rules from Tales of the Old West here, slightly modified for alien RPG characters. These don't try to recreate a game hand by hand, but rather a session lasting between thirty minutes, three stretches in game terms, or even a couple of hours, some fraction of a shift.
Matthew:Let's say, if a character was going to spend a whole shift playing cards, the player would likely make an ability role three or four times. Each session requires six decisions. One, choose the dealer. Two, anti up. Three, check Lady Luck smile.
Matthew:Four, decide your tactics. Five, make your skill roll. And six, divide the pot. Let's look at those in closer detail. Number one.
Matthew:On board ship or in the marine's mess, PCs will likely take turns as dealer. One character remains dealer for the entire session, which remember is more than just one hand. When the dealer changes, it's the start of a new session. But if they are visiting a casino, the casino will always be the dealer. Two.
Matthew:When it's time to empty up, the players agree how much money they will wager. Keeping this simple, everyone wagers the same amount. The total, the wager multiplied by the number of players, not the casino, is the pot. The potential winnings for those who make successful skill rolls later. To find out if Lady Luck is smiling on you, everyone rolls a d six.
Matthew:If it's a five or six, the odds are in your favor. You should not need to cheat or bluff. You get a plus one bonus on your skill roll if you play it straight. If it's a three or four, then it's a run of middling hands, but you get a plus one bonus to bluffing your way to a win. If it's a one or a two, the deck is giving you nothing, But you do get a plus one bonus to your skill roll to cheat.
Matthew:With the previous role in mind, decide which skill to use to roll your results for the session. If you are cheating, roll on mobility for sleight of hand. Remember, you get a plus one bonus if your cards were poor, but you also get a plus one bonus if you are the dealer. To bluff, roll on manipulation, of course. You get a plus one bonus on that roll if your cards were middling.
Matthew:If you're playing straight, then roll on observation. If your cards are good, you get a plus one on the roll. But if you play the same tactic in two consecutive sessions, you must take a minus one penalty to your roll as the other players start to work you out. Five, make your skill roll. Mobility, observation, or manipulation, depending on your tactics.
Matthew:If you roll any ones on the stress dice, make a stress response roll. If you didn't, you can of course push. If you don't push, and you don't have to make a stress response, then you get to reduce your stress by three for this session of playing. Count your successes. If a casino is involved the GM makes an 8d6 roll for the house.
Matthew:Six. Add up the number of successes all the players the house if required attained and divide up the pot by that total. Distribute the winnings according to how many successes each player got. Who gained? Who lost?
Matthew:Has everyone got enough money for another session?
Dave:Cool. Well, that's that's very interesting. I do obviously have to put the record straight straight away. There was never a conversation where you said, Dave, given that even with hypersleep, the crew will have many long hours yada yada yada. So it was never something that was on my agenda for the trucker campaign because I wasn't in the position of writing new rules.
Dave:And frankly, I don't think Free League would have wanted them, even if I'd offered them. It's not the kind of thing I think they're that bothered about. But, certainly, I never had the opportunity to waste 500 of my very precious words in something like the campaign.
Matthew:No, the conversation was actually, Dave, just make sure, there's no gambling rules in the upcoming Truckers book, is there? And you said, no, I don't think so. And I said, right. Good. I wanted to slag you off about that.
Matthew:And... That's actually the real conversation we had.
Dave:Yeah. But obviously not reflected in your piece at all. It's just... No. Just lies.
Matthew:No. The slagging off is the bit that's reflected in the piece.
Dave:You can't trust a word you say these days. Anyway, no. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. And I I agree.
Dave:It's the kind of thing... You know, one of the things in the campaign that I had in my mind was the meeting of the crew around the breakfast table, dinner table, either before they go into hypersleep or when they get out of hypersleep, is quite an important moment in every story. So it's... You know, so I try and... I maybe...
Dave:Probably, maybe need to emphasise it a little bit more, but I try and encourage the GM to use that as a kind of quiet moment before or after the storm kind of thing. Yeah. So it's a kind of thing, like, the where, other than just smoking and drinking coffee and eating food that tastes horrible, you could be doing things like gambling and and all the rest of it. And it's the kind of thing that roughnecks would do, obviously, isn't it? So it's it's a good addition.
Matthew:Yeah. No. I mean, I seriously did say the the bit of me when I said, well, obviously, you've included this in in our fake conversation that we didn't have about it's obviously a thing that that you do, and I think it is. And I think it's interesting, just to touch on another mechanic that we have in Old West, which they don't have in Alien, is we do encourage that potentially, sitting around the table having breakfast thing, by the fact that that would earn you a point of faith in Old West. So there's a mechanical reason for players to say, right.
Matthew:Okay. We've all woken up. What's the adventure? Instead, say, oh, we've all woken up. Let's all have breakfast and earn ourselves a faith point.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, at this
Matthew:point, obviously, shit can happen.
Dave:Yeah. I guess in Alien, the the the mechanical benefit would be shifting stress. But if you've
Matthew:just... Yeah. But if it's at the beginning of
Dave:the game, you haven't gotten
Matthew:the stress, have they?
Dave:Well, that was the point I was just about to finish before you just, like, bulldozed over my comment.
Matthew:Yeah. I love to bulldoze over you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Shift stress.
Dave:Well, you fucking said it now. But... Yeah. So that that applies in one case, but not another. So it's good.
Dave:I mean, obviously, the the the gambling rules from from Tales of the Old West as a as a foundation for this is is, you know, is a good idea. I I I think the only thing that I would say, when you you talk about, obviously, you know, if you push your role, you might have to, you know, you might get stressed and take a stress response. I was just wondering whether there could be something in that about your poker face. Whether in the event that you take a stress response, everyone else gets a bonus die to roll with their with their with their... Well, it could
Matthew:be an interesting thing. I was... Because you're
Dave:not keeping your poker face because you're getting...
Matthew:The reason I specified that is because I looked at what they... Because, you know, we're old we're old hacks at this game, Alien, that is, and we don't really believe in the stress response world. Didn't exist in our day, young man. Didn't exist. There were just panic roles when we was alive.
Matthew:Yeah. And you you took your panic and it made you a man of you or a strong female character. And so the panic response role is, or sorry, the stress response as opposed to the panic role, is a slightly different thing. And it gives you jumpy tunnel vision, aggravated. And for example, aggravated gives you minus two on your dice if you've got that stress response roll.
Dave:On the empathy empathy rolls. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. On on your empathy rolls. So, you know, depending on... So if you're if you're looking at manipulating, there goes your poker face. So actually, I thought...
Dave:Yeah. That's a fair question. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:That, you know, it it... To be honest, at least when I'm writing these, I was going, well, I know there's this stress response role thing, but I've never actually looked at it. And so it made me look at it, and I looked at that table, and I thought, oh, you know, actually, that could fit in. Obviously, you're not gonna panic and start screaming in a poker game unless it goes really badly.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:But I thought, oh, no. These things kind of... They kind of fit that thing that might be, you know, an acceptable bit of storytelling within within that. Even, you know, tunnel vision. So all school worlds based on wits get...
Matthew:Oh, except we don't have any wits based skills. Ignore it. No. No. We do.
Matthew:We do. Actually, the observation one. Tunnel vision, again, gives you minus two if you're if you're trying to play straight. So, so actually I thought the stress thing works quite well for that.
Dave:So, well, guess my my thought was though that that stress response applies to the next session, if you have it. Doesn't apply to this session. So your your stress that is happening during that session only gives an advantage to your opponents in the following session. Doesn't give them an advantage in this session.
Matthew:Yes. Actually...
Dave:So that was why I was thinking maybe then just everyone then gets, oh, you get to roll one more die because they're suffering stress. And can you see that? And can you read their poker face? So that's kind of
Matthew:where I was coming
Dave:coming from on that on that
Matthew:point Let's of have a bit of a think about that. The other thing that I have thought of since writing and recording that is I wanted to... So in Tales of the Old West, there is a slightly more complex table of the bonuses and negative modifiers that you get depending on your play style and the the cards you draw as it were. And I wanted to simplify that for two reasons. One is that Alien is just a little bit simpler of game.
Matthew:And also because I'm saying it verbally, so I didn't want to describe a table verbally. But I think, importantly, when you've got low luck, you... Sorry. When you've got... If you're trying to play straight when you've got poor cards, you should have a negative modifier.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:So I think I need to add that in into the written up version of this.
Dave:Yep. Yeah. I agree with that. I think that makes sense.
Matthew:Yeah. And then maybe some other negatives. I'll look again at your table there There may be one or two. I'm not gonna go wild and do the, you know, the one to three negative or bonus that we that we do in our table because I wanna make it distinct and a bit simpler.
Dave:Yes. Yeah. I think that makes I think that makes sense. I agree with that. Yep.
Matthew:And the other thing actually I just wanted to ask your opinion of. So in in toto, when you... If nobody gets any successes, then the money gets distributed back to everybody evenly, unless you're playing in a house situation where there's a casino style, you know, where where there's a dealer as it were that isn't one of the players, in which case everybody loses all their money.
Dave:In which case the house wins. Yeah.
Matthew:Because the house wins. Now in this game, the house actually plays the GM rolls dice for the house. So I didn't include that rule. And part of me wanted to say, but I didn't say it, but I wanna ask you about it now, is do you think it would be good to say if nobody gets any successes, then the money in the pot for that session gets added to the pot that you gen... You create for the next session.
Matthew:You can't play in the next session on your old stakes, though. You've got to empty up, you know, more money, whatever everybody agrees. So if you're... If you haven't got enough money for the other players to say, we're all putting a $100 in or whatever, then you've you've lost the money in the pot. Does that make sense?
Matthew:Yeah. But as long as you can empty up, then there's a huge pot on the table, if nobody's won in the previous session.
Dave:Yeah. So I guess my initial thought is what's the narrative explanation of that? Because at the end of your session, if nobody's got any any successes, everyone's done equally badly, or everyone's done equally well, and there isn't a house that then swipes the lot, basically, it probably makes sense that everyone keeps their stake. So they haven't won anything, but they haven't lost anything because nobody's outplayed each other.
Matthew:Well, the reason I was thinking about... So, yeah, I take that point, exactly that point. That's the reason why I didn't include it in the Yeah. Recorded version. But part of me thinks there's that scene you get when everybody's got, you know, almost all their cash and watches and shit on the table, and it's this big pile of prize on the table for the for the last round as it were.
Matthew:And I wondered whether, you know, adding the pot, you don't get it back, but it gets added to the pot for the next session.
Dave:Okay. I think what I think what what should happen here is, in theory, it's not a new session. It's just an extension of the current session because no one's managed to win anything. All that money is piled up in the middle. If you wanna stay in, you've gotta take your watch off your wrist and drop it in there or put your gun down or whatever it is that you're gonna offer up.
Dave:But then that that means you've got... You are... If you leave at that point, you lose your stake because that stake stays in the pot.
Matthew:Yeah. So
Dave:rather rather than making it a new session, it's an extent... You know, nobody's got any successes.
Matthew:A new session means a new dealer.
Dave:Yeah. But I guess what I'm getting at is if you've got to the point in your session where everyone's got all their money in the middle, but you still haven't come to a resolution about somebody winning, that isn't a new session. You wouldn't change the dealer. You would continue on. So you're...
Dave:So I... So what I'm... I guess what I'm suggesting is if in a session nobody rolls any successes and you don't have a house to win the pot, So everyone... So the money, you know, is just still sitting there. That's the point when that session gets extended to a second roll, but you've got to anti up to stay in.
Dave:And if you don't anti up, you then lose your stake, and that stake sits in the pot for those players who are remaining.
Matthew:That's an interesting thing.
Dave:Let let me let me... Because that might reflect more...
Matthew:Let me virtually play play test that before we do a... An investigation. But that could be an interesting way of doing it.
Dave:I guess in my mind, that that mechanically better reflects the reality of what's probably happening at the table, rather than calling it a new session, having a new dealer, and and all the rest of it. That situation would only apply if nobody rolled any success.
Matthew:See, I don't actually play enough poker, to be honest
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:To to really understand. But, anyway, we'll we'll we'll have a bit of a think about that, and then we'll I thought we should put some other content in these articles up on our Patreon as well. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
Dave:No. Just just to finish off that point, because I think that actually brings a really nice moment where somebody might say to the group... Let's say you've got, you know, four players around the table. You've put up your last $100 to to be playing, but you don't wanna give it up. So then that gives your...
Dave:Gives the player the option of saying, okay. I'm gonna put my fancy gun as collateral. I'm gonna put my watch. I'm gonna put the keys to my spaceship or whatever it might be, depending on how big the game is. And then that brings a moment where, you know, it may...
Dave:Maybe makes it even a bit more exciting because, you know, because that player is now risking something other than just, you know, a one.
Matthew:Yeah. No.
Dave:One and a couple of zeros on their cash box, on their counter sheet. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Might might might make a nice moment.
Dave:And maybe that could be something we could we could could add for Tales of the Old West as well.
Matthew:Let's talk about that. We've got the rules. We've got the rules for Tales
Dave:of the Old West.
Matthew:I know.
Dave:But it's it's a nice touch though. I And think it gives a really nice role playing moment, role playing scene where, you know, Brody Anaheim is desperate to win this game, and he then antes up his favorite horse, his Appaloosa or something, which he wouldn't do. He would rather lose all his money than lose his horse. But it it could be, if he was important enough, it could bring a moment where actually there's real tension in what that character decides to put on the table to stay in the game. I like that.
Dave:I like that very much.
Matthew:Right. Well, let's, yeah, let's have a of a think. I'll run it past you before we put it online. It's now, though, well past the the the time that we
Dave:shall be recording.
Matthew:Yeah. Cool.
Dave:So that's fine....
Matthew:Arranging an interview with Christian from from the game that we mentioned before from Titan Titan
Dave:effect. Yeah.
Matthew:So that will be what we're planning on talking about in two weeks time.
Dave:Two weeks time.
Matthew:Cool. But in the meantime, it's goodbye from me.
Dave:And it's goodbye from him. And may the icons bless your adventures. You have been listening to the Effekt podcast, presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of Free League Publishing.