Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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 245 of Effect. Come into the garden, Maud. I'm Dave.
Matthew:And I'm Matthew. And would you believe it? Dave doesn't even know what that's a reference to.
Dave:No. No no idea whatsoever, and I'm not sure that I'm not sure that, you know, thousands of people will get their reference. So I reckon if anybody gets the reference, ping us a message on Discord or wherever, and, let's just let's do a straw poll. Am I am I actually an idiot? Because I don't know the reference.
Dave:Or is
Matthew:I don't know. You're not an idiot. I've never called you an idiot.
Dave:Or is Matthew an idiot? Because he thinks everybody should know that reference.
Matthew:You're just poorly served in the history of popular culture. Well, I
Dave:did point out when I was younger, I was far too busy playing football, rugby, cricket, and, you know.
Matthew:And I pointed out you shouldn't even be in this club. You should be going with the jocks instead.
Dave:No. I wasn't good enough in any of those to be a jock. I was alright at rugby, but, otherwise, I was a bit shit at most. I was alright at cricket.
Matthew:Yeah. And and to be honest, in British schools, we didn't have that strict delineation, did we? Where the jacket No. And the letterman jackets and,
Dave:and so on.
Matthew:No.
Dave:Exactly. But you did kind of have that a bit. I mean, you had those kids who were just fucking good at everything.
Matthew:Oh, they yeah. The bastards.
Dave:And they would swag and they would swagger about a bit like jocks, but not it's not Yeah.
Matthew:What was his name? Dave Begg. Is that who I'm thinking of?
Dave:Well, in my year, it was it was Mark Burton and oh, what was the other guy's name? There's 2 of them. I can't remember the other guy's name.
Matthew:Not yet. Dave Begg was captain of the rugby team, captain of the cricket team, head boy. Yeah. Yeah. Crashed his Mini on the roundabout outside the front of our school.
Matthew:And I I was the first person on the scene after he crashed his Mini pretty much writing it off. And I remember he came, oh, wow. Dave Banks crashed his Mini, and he came charging after me furiously angry.
Dave:Well, it wasn't the most sympathetic response. I mean, you know?
Matthew:Yeah. It wasn't the most sympathetic response. But I did it shortly after our parents' evening when my parents came back from the parents' evening saying, oh, we met your head boy, date but what a lovely boy. What a lovely, lovely, lovely boy.
Dave:What? And he was a complete complete shit.
Matthew:And not only that, he was about 6 foot anyway, he was quite tall. I was gonna say 6 foot tall, but, of course, I'm about 6 foot tall. He was considerably taller than me, blonde, squared, you're bastard. And and all of that. And he always used to get the leading man roles in all bloody school plays and shit we did.
Matthew:Bastard.
Dave:So he was talented, handsome, yeah, articulate, responsible
Matthew:Sportsman, and it's, you
Dave:know, I've already got
Matthew:his grades, but he's probably quite clever too.
Dave:Probably got all the girls, and and Well and we should be jealous of that guy?
Matthew:Yeah. Yes. We should.
Dave:I think so. Anyway, so it's Anyway,
Matthew:I I still haven't told you what we've got. We've got we've got a new patron to thank. We got a world gaming. World gaming, a big hodgepodge of different sorts of news with of which people have varying levels of interest in, but we also are an exciting game.
Dave:Really really build it up. I mean, yes. We we World of Gaming, some of it's really boring.
Matthew:We we have a good old west news update. And then we have an interview with Simone from Too Little Nice about their ongoing backer kit campaign for household.
Dave:Indeed. That was really
Matthew:You may remember this interview, should have happened weeks ago or at least I'd recorded 1 week ago.
Dave:It did happen weeks ago, but it was just such a shit recording that, And
Matthew:it was a really shit recording. So, so we we did it again online and, which
Dave:is good because it I
Matthew:asked you the same questions. Yeah.
Dave:It gave well, it gave me the opportunity to join in this time because you did it at Essen when I I wasn't there. So that was really cool. And it was actually, well, as you'll hear if you listen to it, it was, you know, it it it opened my eyes to household. So
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Well, I've been opening your eyes to a lot of games if we if we add in what we made yesterday.
Dave:Well, you didn't open my eyes, Simone did. So as people understand why when you if you listen to the interview. So
Matthew:I brought Symone to the table.
Dave:That is true.
Matthew:So That is true. So it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made that date.
Dave:That is true. So That is true.
Matthew:Well well well the claiming the credit for it.
Dave:Well done you, Matthew. Well done. Well done.
Matthew:Well, no because you gotta make an edit or something.
Dave:No. No. Well, yet. Possibly. Yeah.
Dave:Anyway. Right. New patron. Track him. New patron.
Matthew:With our new patron.
Dave:Yeah. Go on then. Who's our new patron?
Matthew:So we we've got a new patron. And, Ricard, you must have just well, no. Possibly didn't even miss the last recording because, of course, our last recording was done a little bit impromptu around our chatting to Andreas. So I didn't even check for Patrice. But a couple of weeks ago, Ricard, you joined the Patreon, as a stationery member.
Matthew:We don't normally talk about what rank people join up. But, anyway, thank you very much is what I'm saying.
Dave:Like confidential information, you know, con
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Anyway, welcome, Ricard.
Dave:Yes. Thank you, Ricard, for joining.
Matthew:And it does mean, Ricard, that as a at the level you're backed at, you can, of course, get all our downloads, including all our various works in progress of the, the Charles of the Odd West Kickstarter. And another veteran of ours, Lewin, who has backed the game, but was also running it at a convention, organized by an historical video gamer, interestingly. I mean, not a a video gamer from history. I mean, a video gamer who specializes in historical
Dave:Historical video games. Yeah.
Matthew:And so he went to a convention there, and he ran, he he, yeah, he ran the
Dave:The last and the triple arrow.
Matthew:Triple arrow. Yeah. But but with the full rule sets that he's downloaded. So there's there's lots of fun stuff there. Yeah.
Matthew:But anyway, yes. Thank you very much, Rick Ricard. Shall we move on to the world of gaming?
Dave:Yes. World of gaming, what should we wanna talk about there? So we
Matthew:Well, you said yesterday or, yeah. You said yesterday when I put this, put the show notes up, you said, oh, we should talk about no. I'd I'm gonna quote you here. I'd happily gush a bit about Spectaculars. So gush away, Dave.
Dave:Oh, well, it was great. I really enjoyed our session yesterday. And, so those of people though for those of you who don't know what Spectaculars is, it's a it's a superhero role playing game. I don't know the publisher off the top of my head.
Matthew:Yeah. I can probably I've got the box in front of me, so I should be able to work out and publish
Dave:this. That is, that kind of that kind of leads you through, a lot of the stages of creating your world, of creating your character. There are, there's like a effectively a campaign, and as you go through the campaign you kinda create the enemies, your nemeses, and your villains. And it was it was brilliant. I really enjoyed it.
Dave:It very much for me, even before we played it, having heard you describe it a little bit, gave me hints of the fate campaign or the feeling of the fate game that we ran when we were the alien hunters. And Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:And actually I was thinking about it, earlier this morning before before we started recording. And I was thinking of, you know, list of memorable campaigns, that campaign probably comes probably comes top.
Matthew:Quite high up and up. Top,
Dave:actually. Yeah. For for for loads of reasons, but but also I love just the way that we were involved in creating the campaign we were gonna play. And I thought that was great. And Spectaculars does that really really nicely.
Dave:So So you get a range of options of the kind of characters you want to play, and we went for, I can't remember the exact term, but basically street level, vigilante types. And my character is a it's called a street sentinel, so I'm all about protecting my neighborhood. The other guys, one's a vigilante and one's a a gun for hire effectively, but we're a we're a team. But, you know, we went through this process of creating the creating the world. We'd we'd thought about you'd given us some questions to prompt us, and we thought about it on the way to your house.
Dave:And decided that we were quite keen on doing, sort of 19 eighties perestroika Strat Glasnost Russia, Moscow. And, you know, against the rise of the oligarchs. So we're we'd be defending against the, against the power of organized crime and protecting the people.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:Then the the way the game prompted you to create that world, we ended up with, the kind of the mystical element of of our world is this with this rift, this dimensional rift to another world. And through the process, we came up with the idea that actually that's another Moscow from another time. And in that time, the nuclear war happened in the sixties. And so that Moscow is is blackened and it's got all dreadful stuff in it. And it was just great.
Dave:The nuclear winter. Yeah. Nuclear winter. It was just great. It worked really well.
Dave:And then when we got to the actual game itself, I think, you know, we it was a bit stuttering simply because we were learning the rules as we went along. I think once we get that stuff under our bell
Matthew:It's a very simple core system though.
Simone:It would it
Matthew:would it would be So I think we have to Yeah. Pick it up, we'll we'll pick it up really quickly. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. But it worked really well. We had we had a we had a little scene, we had a little adventure. We had to go and, deal with a bank heist.
Dave:And it was great. And the way the way so you randomly get some powers. You don't have to take them all. You take between 1 and 3. You get hero points for doing certain things, and they can power other stuff.
Dave:You also get a role in the team, and that role changes between every every addition of the comic, basically. Yeah. Every every issue of the comic. And that really encouraged different styles of play. So in this one, I was a support role, and that allowed me to restore health to my to my comrades under certain circumstances.
Dave:But that really drove the way I play, but next time I might be the leader, or I might be, the booster, or one of the other roles. So then that'll Or
Matthew:the artillery there is. And there's all sorts of roles.
Dave:Exactly. Based on, but I love but that was that was also really good as well. So there wasn't anything about the game that I didn't like or didn't feel a little bit. And, you know, we we put aside playing forbidden lands to play this, and that's, you know, that's again one of my favorite characters.
Matthew:That's her favorite.
Dave:Ten grail is one of my favorite characters. But I don't feel bad now about having done that, because I enjoyed yesterday's session so much, and I'm so looking forward to the next one. So a a massive endorsement, big thumbs up for Spectaculars. It was it was great.
Matthew:Yeah. So it it is worth explaining a little bit about, Spectaculars because it comes in a great big box like a board game. Mhmm. If if I've got one criticism of it, speaking as GM and the chap learning the rules and stuff, my criticism is that 2 of the books inside the box are printed like many board game instruction manuals.
Dave:Big square style.
Matthew:Big square
Dave:I don't know what
Matthew:the stapled.
Dave:I don't know what the official designation for that size of paper is.
Matthew:So I I have no idea. Board game size. I'm now officially designating it. Board
Dave:game size.
Matthew:So, you know, sometimes with that book where you kind of well, it depends how you want read rules. But when I read rules, I give a quick skip through. I often miss out the fluff. There's not much fluff, actually, to be fair. The rules are simply pages.
Matthew:It's not one of those hardback books with 300 pages in. It's oh, I don't know how many pages, and I'm not gonna get out of the box now. It's not a lot though, is it? I mean It's tens of pages. I'm not gonna get out of the box now.
Dave:It's not it's not a lot, though, is it? I mean
Matthew:It's tens of pages Yeah. Not not not even a 100 pages.
Dave:I think.
Matthew:So there's no fluff in it, and and you can see why because of the way it generates the fluff. And I wanna come back and talk about actually the campaign setting that you guys have created because I I think that is worth, worth dissecting a bit. Mhmm. They don't fluff in it, but sometimes I like to kind of, you know, give it give it a skim read effectively, and then sit back and and read bits in-depth when I you know, when I'm trying to understand some of the concepts and stuff like that. And this this is not one of those books you can kind of lie in bed reading because it is just, you know, it's like a broadsheet newspaper.
Dave:It's the wrong size. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. And or, you know, I like to read in the bath. I can't take this to the bath. It'd be ridiculous. So they're former.
Matthew:And when as well, when there is the American comic book size format, which would have been a perfect format for me.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. It would.
Matthew:And, you know, I can get I'm happy with softback books and stuff like that, particularly when the rules are scanned as this one. But, yeah, that big square format, I I probably vented on enough about that.
Dave:I think the one I think the one thing I would say that was a slight I mean, criticism's probably too strong a word actually, but was was something that we felt we needed to do a bit was there was a little bit of interpretation of the rules going on. Now that might be simply there's a rule in the big book that you haven't got to and read in detail. But there were things about some, you know, how we use, you know, because because your powers has your sort of generic ability. So so for example, to take one of my character's powers, sonic manipulation, that allows me to, you know, generate sound. And I can generate sound in such a way that I can damage people with it.
Dave:So there's a basic ability where I could, you know, make a noise happen and distract someone or, you know, that kind of thing. And that costs nothing to power that. Then then I have a couple of special abilities with it that allow me to
Matthew:Stance effectively.
Dave:Yeah. Allow me to damage somebody, or allow me to hit them so hard that they lose their turn in the initiative order, that kind of stuff. And that costs points. But we had a bit of debate over some of those skills as what can you do for nothing, and what can you do, you know, when do you have to power them up? And so I do wonder if there's, you know, as with a lot of board game rules, they're not very concise and don't always cover every every Well, not
Matthew:too concise, I think you mean.
Dave:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not very they're not very yeah.
Dave:Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. But so so so he did do a bit of that. Now that wasn't a big problem, actually.
Dave:It didn't support the Yeah. Funding in any way at all. But I do wonder whether this suffers from board game rule writing, where it leaves things hanging that, you know, you have to interpret yourself.
Matthew:Yeah. And, there's other things as well. So a lot of the rules effectively are on the cards that you draw.
Dave:Yeah. That's fine. I think that's that's that's cool.
Matthew:Except for I was thinking, you know, one of your other powers is, kinetic energy manipulation.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:And when you first read that, you and we all assumed that was kind of like telekinesis. And then suddenly when there was a moment where you were gonna do something very telekinetic, and I went, actually, no. I remember there's a telekinesis card as well. Yeah. So, you know, I dug that out.
Matthew:And, of course, effectively, you know, if we were seeing these all in a big list in a book, we would pick up very quickly that telekin that your kinetic energy thing is not That's quite telekinesis. Yeah. Because here's the telekinesis power. Whereas when you've got it in a bunch of cards that you know, and I haven't gone through and checked each of the cards, I'm now thinking as well, because I created a character because you guys have got a mysterious mentor. So I thought, well
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Let's see what their superpowers are. Let's create that character. And, we have done I I won't spoil it because we'll probably put this on the AP feed for people Yes.
Dave:We did record it. Yeah.
Matthew:Muddling through this.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:But when the power that they've got is a transformation one. Now immediately, my first thought about that is they they can change the shape of their face and become different people. So, yeah, I thought for a mysterious mentor, that might be great because you guys might have met him and have no idea that this old man or, you know, this little girl or whatever that you were meeting was actually the same person.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:But now I'm sleeping on it. I'm wondering whether it means transformation in the style of people who can change the material of their body, you know, become plastic or metal or sand or something
Dave:like that. I did I did read that card, and it it did seem to imply they could change your your your your first interpretation.
Matthew:Yeah. It was But I wonder if I go through the cards again, I'll find one that's like, shape changer which
Dave:Possibly. Yeah. Because I well, I I looked at it thinking that it transformation that it might be like, if you remember the old TV series Manimal, where the guy
Matthew:I do remember the man.
Dave:The guy could change into
Matthew:Really bad special effects on that.
Dave:Yeah. And I think it only had one season. But it, yeah. He could change into any animal. And he had some favorites, you know, like an eagle and a and a lynx or a panther or something.
Dave:But he could change into any animal. So I looked at the card thinking it was going to be like that, but actually I think it read very much like your first interpretation, which is they can change their their general form and their facial features and that kind of stuff. Which works. I think that works works perfectly for,
Matthew:So I wonder whether I have, a job ahead of me, which is to read all the cards.
Dave:Yeah. I do wonder actually whether there's enough of a distinction between on the cards and the rules between things like kinetic energy manipulation and telekinesis. Because actually because it seems to be that the the the power I've got simply allows me to either boost or reduce the kinetic energy in something that is already moving. So it worked perfectly when we had the runaway train
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:That I stood in front of and was stopping. That was that was great. I love that. That was really cool.
Matthew:Yeah. Nice for a team with that. You slowed it down with your kinetic energy and,
Dave:had help from the
Matthew:Andy with his armor probably was the one actually standing in front of it.
Dave:His super strength. Yeah. So that that that was great. That that that went really well. But, I did have a little moment of disappointment of thinking, oh, okay.
Dave:Because because I had in in my mind that, you know, he's doing the whole Darth Maul thing in in the the duel of the fates where he points at something and throws it, and that doesn't seem to be the case now. But yeah, that's fine. I'll I'll work around it. It just means I've gotta throw the thing first and then I can do that. You know, it seems a bit Yeah.
Dave:Weird, but fair enough. But I wonder if the telekinesis card makes that makes the distinction. Whereas the
Matthew:connection Exactly. I think, you know, I think one, you know, the Yeah. One might have to read all the cars to be able to go, oh, no. Actually, that's what this power means or
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Whatever. But just returning we we've probably talked too much about this for the world of gaming. This is becoming a half hour segment in its own right. But quickly returning to that campaign creation bit.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Yes. It's a lot like the beginning of a fate game. That is to say, not the beginning of a game powered by fate, but rather taking the principles of fate where you start off by sitting down and saying, what what's the game we're gonna play? Yep. But unlike fate, I well, not entirely unlike Fate.
Matthew:But here it's structured and it happens throughout the campaign. So at the end of this, not to spoil it, when you had defeated the villain, it said you are met by, the head of an agency. Now fill out the head of the agency.
Dave:Yeah. Now fill out the yeah. Exactly. You're she. Yeah.
Matthew:And, and that was great, and I'm I'm loving that. But, yeah, get back to that campaign. The thing I love you know, I as a GM, GMs like to be surprised
Dave:Mhmm. Yes.
Matthew:By what goes on,
Simone:or at
Matthew:least I do as a GM, which is why I hardly ever prep stuff. Yeah. I I imagine there are some GMs that, you know, have everything in order. When you when you do something that's slightly turned lefty, they go, oh, no. It's spoiling my story, but I'm not that sort of person.
Matthew:I like I like aim the thing thing I love about Forbidden Lands, for example, which is on hold, is is the fact that that surprises me every time through the random tables and and your actions and how that builds. But here, I would really really pleasantly surprised by character creation. Well, I'm the world creation bit, because I thought, interestingly, I had assumed you guys might want to go for the eighties. So that was one of my assumptions was, that you probably don't want to play in the now, and you might wanna play in the eighties. So that that bit I got right, but Moscow was not on my bingo card.
Matthew:Yeah. And then that process of, you know, and as soon as you said Moscow, I was thinking, oh, yeah. Street level nights. This is gonna be like daredevil, but instead of the kingpin, you've got their boy, Vince, the the Russian mobile.
Dave:The oligarch the oligarchs. Yeah.
Matthew:The oligarchs. And and sure, they will feature because we we created a bad part of town. That was another thing that it asked us to do. And we know we've said that pretty much run by the oligarchs, and and they're paid for private police force and stuff like that. But but then, you know, it gave you the option of, what's happened in Moscow that makes it different from the Moscow we know now, and you guys chose this dimensional rift.
Matthew:And then out of that came, you know, like a an avalanche, all these ideas about this sort of monochromic world where of, of a of another Moscow. You discovered that the Moscow's nickname is the Whitestone City, and so then we talked about Blackstone Moscow being the the the alternate Moscow that's there, and there's this rift that's happened. We haven't yet worked out why that rift has happened. That may feature in, you know, in this this campaign or another one, or whatever. But, you know, that that then created the opportunity for the villain in this introductory adventure to come from that realm, and therefore, you know, quick Google gave me a name out of, out of Russian folklore that, you know, kind of seemed to fit this this villain.
Matthew:And and it shaped that. So this is, you know, you've yes. There's there's there's 4 campaigns effectively in the box with adventures. The adventures are not much more than 2 sides of a sheet of paper. Closely closely typed paper, as it was.
Matthew:So there's quite a lot of information on there. But these are frameworks, and your bank heist, I can pretty much guarantee, was very different from every other spectacular bank heist that that's gone on because of the setting you created and the characters you met and the way they acted. So, we had this villain being a bit like a sort of Smaug and robbing banks, but only so that he can kind of sleep on a big bed of cash and eat gold. Yeah. So, so, you know, that's a little bit of his character now.
Matthew:His character will develop over time. I'm sure There'll be some point where it says, go back to the, the wrecking ball is what they call him generically that you created in this adventure, and and do this thing. So it it's great fun. And then we created a fabulous character. I don't wanna spoil the the agency.
Matthew:You'll you'll discover who he is if you listen to the AP.
Dave:To the AP. Yeah.
Matthew:But but already, I'm I'm loving this. And we've still got the, you know, the the oligarchs and the Russian mob to to unpack later on. And and you created a super prison at the end of it as well, which you now one of one of the bits of advice I say is don't think about your origin story till after you've played the first adventure. So we start very much mise en scene with with with the bank raid. Now you guys can go off and think about your characters a bit more and come back to me with origin stories, and you've already said, oh, maybe maybe my origin story is connected with this super prison.
Matthew:Yeah. So, so yeah. Great fun. It was great. Very enjoyable.
Matthew:I have no idea how it's gonna go in the future, But we will, I think, definitely play through the 4 campaigns are 4 very distinct comics, comic series. In fact, that's what they call them. So Yeah. Streetlight Nights is, as you say, street level heroes. Although it's already getting a bit fantastic with our alternate Moscow.
Matthew:It needn't have been that you could have played it straight down the line.
Dave:Yeah. But that was cool. I think in in the creation, we had a little conversation about, when we decided on the on the dimensional rift about whether we just go for a fairly straight organised crime kind of setting, and make it a bit more realistic for a better a word. But I really like the idea. I think we agreed that we really like the idea for something a little bit mystic, a little bit more fantastical to give the Yeah.
Dave:Give the world a bit more flavor and a bit more color. And I think that was absolutely the right decision, and I think I'm much more invested as a player in the world we've got now, which I think is is brilliant. I'm I'm really loving it Then if it had been just beating up Russian oligarchs in the eighties, that would have been a bit less exciting as a as a campaign setting.
Matthew:But it's also a bit like a legacy game, and that there are 4 other there's sort of 3 other campaigns. We might do one we we might do this campaign and then go on to the, you know, one of the other ones and explore it a bit more. Which And maybe we'll say But which which we
Dave:would probably roll new characters?
Matthew:Well, you'd roll well, potential yes. So you'd start off rolling new characters, but you might say at some point, actually, I'm a bit bored of my you know? Let let's say that because of our mystic dimensional rift, we choose Eldritch. Eld, Eldritch mysteries, I think, is the other one. So you all end up creating kind of magic using style characters or Yeah.
Matthew:There's quite a clever mechanism where there's some pretty standard superhero powers, and also there's some that are specific to whichever series you're in, and you draw those randomly. So you may actually still be quite a standard superhero or you might be doctor strange or whatever. And you might say, alright. I've created a doctor Strange type character, but I'm not really enjoying him. I like my old character, in which case, you know, would just
Dave:Bring him back.
Matthew:Your old character comes in as a cameo in in that one. Or, alternatively, you know, I'm running this with another group. So you guys are the street light nights. Some entirely different group are the Eldritch guys. And, what I say to them and what, you know, what I'll say to that other group is, okay.
Matthew:You don't get to create or you might get to create your own city or something like that, but this is already happening in the world. We already know that there's this dimensional rift in Moscow, and I will be, you know, and some of the some of the characters that this other group have created are going to appear in your comic. And then, you know, this with this other group, you come along to guest in that. So, you know, you bring your character as a kind of guest star or cameo in that group. So it builds up like a a natural publishing house effectively.
Matthew:The effect publishing series of comics. And, yeah, whether we do that sequentially or whether we say, let's stop street lights nights for a bit and do another campaign or whatever. You know, there's all sorts of ways you can you can mix it up. There's an interesting thing about it works very hard on this being about teams, so it's not a solo play. Yeah.
Matthew:And it also works very hard on everybody having their, I guess, you call it niche protection. So when you are guesting in somebody else's comic, if 2 of you have the same power and for a lot of the powers, only one character can have it.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:Then for the duration of your guest, who come and sit at the other table and somebody else has also got sonic manipulation, they, for the duration of your stay, have to draw another power that replaces their sonic manipulation at the time so that you as guests get to carry on with your character's powers as you know, which I I kinda like that. And it kind of feels right for the way comics work as well.
Dave:Yeah. Maybe. I I can I can see how the other player would be disappointed to have to draw another power? And how do you explain that narratively? Well Or does that does that not matter?
Matthew:Half of families. How, you know, how do we explain it narratively? I think
Dave:Yeah. Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. Beauty of it is it's possibly an effect of the the Moscow rift. Just
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:Screwing up his powers or whatever.
Dave:Or maybe the other person's sonic ability is more powerful than theirs, and it it kind of
Matthew:Yes. And it damage
Dave:that that one down and allows another power to come to the fore or something.
Matthew:Yeah. So, anyway, we we're very much enjoying it. We spoke about it for
Simone:for most
Dave:of our time now. Yeah.
Matthew:Let's carry on with the rest of the news in the world of gaming.
Dave:Indeed.
Matthew:Now you will be very keen to hear that among the many other, things that Elon Musk is currently thinking about, not only is he thinking about going to Mars, not only is he thinking about running America on behalf of Donald Trump, not only is he thinking about making cars and, and tunnels and stuff, he's also worried about the state of D and D.
Dave:Is he? Yeah. Okay. I haven't heard this story. Go on.
Matthew:Okay. Well, I'll tell you. So this is I don't wanna spend too much time on this story, but No.
Dave:Let's not
Simone:let's not let's not.
Matthew:50th anniversary of D and D, and Wizards of the Coast are, you know, they're bringing a new edition out. And they're also bringing out a history of the new edition. And some, shall we say, reactionary old farts are getting very worried that, D and D in this new edition and in the history isn't quite being as sexist and exclusionary as it used to be.
Dave:As as it should be.
Matthew:As as as in their eyes, it should be. And so, somebody quite wrongly actually made a big tweet thread about how pulling out quotes from the history and from the new rule book that says it's it's destroying Gary Gygax's legacy, calling him a terrible person, sexist. And Yeah. And, you know, and what it does, actually, if you look at these quotes, they do say, your first edition was made, you know, in in the seventies by a group of white male war gamers. So Yeah.
Matthew:You know, it was it was designed for the things they were interested in, and it has become over time. And I think I remember this. You know, I've I think of some of the people that we played with at school and I've played with subsequently who used D and D to experiment with their sexuality, actually. So from very early days, for me, it's always been a way that people have used as a tool of self discovery.
Simone:Mhmm.
Matthew:It's never you know, so so in that case, it's never, in my experience, ever been really properly exclusionary. Yes, we're all boys in our club because we went to an all boys school. That's not to say that we haven't played female characters and the like.
Dave:Nope. That is true.
Matthew:And, you know, and, you know, I I know that some people have transitioned after, you know, playing a lot of female characters and stuff like that. So for me, it's it's been a great tool, whatever its origins were. And in fact, that that's kind of what this history is really saying. So people playing D and D now may not know that it was really quite sexist and, shall we say, traditional in its early days.
Dave:Suffered from the from the zeitgeist of the time, I guess, isn't it?
Matthew:Yeah. But, you know, there are a group of people, I think, who still exist who think that women should have generally lower stats than men because on average, if you look at women's strength, you know, it may be lower on average, the bell curve than male, strength bell curve. It's it's all nonsense, but there are a bunch of reaction in people. And you must be talking
Dave:I mean I mean, yes. For you know, if if you wanted to do a a accurate recreation of the human physical form, then yes, on average, you know, women are weaker than men. But that doesn't mean that your female dwarf is gonna be weaker than a male dwarf, or your female orc is gonna be weaker than your male orc. You know, it's just start. Yeah.
Dave:And and
Matthew:Arguing about realistic in in a game that's got dragons.
Dave:Yeah. And indeed, isn't phoenix command for physical abilities, is it? You know, it's not. No. You know, it's not doing that.
Dave:So, yeah. It's it's it's a point that doesn't need arguing about, really. You know?
Matthew:No. And and Alright. You Elon got involved. Picked up on this, Twitter thread and said something along the lines of no one should ever criticize or or devalue. Let me let me see if I can grab his quote because I think it's it's it's worth wondering how come Elon Musk has even got time to write this tweet on, you know, in his busy life?
Matthew:He begins to think that billionaires don't actually work for a living. And and now, of course
Dave:How much money did Musk inherit?
Matthew:He he inherited a lot of money.
Dave:How much money did Trump inherit?
Matthew:He inherited less money than Musk, I think.
Dave:Yeah. Still still fuckload. Like a fuckload. Well, 6 times he was he was, declared bankrupt, I think. Trump?
Matthew:I wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, now my old Wi Fi is screwing up at the moment. However, he said something like Wizards of Kush should burn in hell for devaluing the, the the the legacy of
Dave:The contribution of Gygax.
Matthew:Of of Gygax.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:Which, you know, is, there there there we go. Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons and Dragons. What the in this version I've got here, censored, is wrong with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. May they burn in hell.
Dave:So but, I mean, yeah, a slight overreaction. I mean, you know, to the end of that, I would argue.
Matthew:Absolutely. And, you know, and and in in a 50th anniversary history, which is actually saying, if it wasn't for Gary Gygax and Dave Anderson, we wouldn't have this wonderful game that everybody plays. So so Yeah. They're not they're not actually doing the thing he's accusing them of. But I guess he is a busy man.
Matthew:He probably hasn't, you know, got the time to read nuance and do anything that he reads in one of his reaction. I am very glad we're not on Twitter anymore. And if you're listening to this and wondering where we are, I I I pulled out of Twitter for the effect thing, when Elon Musk suggested there should be a civil war here in the UK, which is fine for him to suggest that, but I didn't want to listen to it. So come and find us over on Blue Sky or on Facebook.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:Right. What? Again, too much time spent on that article as well.
Dave:Okay. I feel
Matthew:this won't be a long one.
Dave:We can speed up then. Right. Then what's what's next?
Matthew:Well, Hasbro and D and D.
Dave:More.
Matthew:So, did you did you ever get to see that? We talked about the D and D movie. Did you ever get to watch it? I did. Yeah.
Dave:And I I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, you know, much more than I expected to. You know, it's not a great film, but it's a decent film.
Matthew:And Yeah. In terms of D and D films, it's
Simone:the best
Matthew:D and D film there's ever been.
Dave:Yeah. So, yes. I mean, if the news is that Hasbro aren't planning on making another one, then that's a disappointment, because I would have enjoyed to watch another one. I mean, I didn't go to Yeah.
Matthew:I think I didn't
Dave:go to the cinema to see it. I just watched it on Sky. But, Yeah. I,
Matthew:yeah. I think it's a separate city. I think it's slightly more nuanced than that. I think they're so they, through a company they bought, which is E1 Entertainment or something, they actually partly financed that movie, and I think they're not going to invest in it. I think they'll probably license D and D out to anybody that wants to make a film.
Matthew:But but I do think that film benefited from people who actually like D and D and weren't just treating it as a license, and knew a bit about D and D, making a good film that actually felt a bit like D and D. Yeah. And I worry that a licensed film will just be shit like all the other ones, the previous ones were.
Dave:Yeah. So that's a side to this point. I mean, just to finish the point off, if, if it was a choice of another d and d movie or another Warcraft movie, I would definitely go for another Warcraft movie. So I really enjoyed the original Warcraft. I thought it was it hit all the right nostalgic notes, and actually the film and the plot was a lot better than I'd expected.
Dave:So I would very much like to see another Warcraft movie.
Matthew:Well, I'm gonna have to say on the other side of that, I watched like 5 or 10 minutes away. Maybe I don't play I definitely don't play Warcraft enough. I had no idea what was going on, and it didn't grip grip me one iota. So I Yeah.
Dave:I can understand. You know, the the nostalgia value is definitely very powerful. But as I said, the actual plot, if you stuck with it and the story line was was a lot better than I'd expected. I expected it to be just some shit story wrapped up in a a Warcraft skin. And it it was more than that.
Dave:So, anyway, I'm not sure we're getting any one of those anyway. So, you know,
Matthew:I just
Dave:have to enjoy watching the old one again.
Matthew:The Terror Beneath from Osprey has come out.
Dave:More folk horror. Yeah. Just just just what we need.
Matthew:Yeah. And I'm beginning to think, so one of our patrons gave a pretty dabbing review recently particularly feel the need. But, I'm a bit disappointed by it because, you know, that has come out of a role playing game pod I mean, a bunch of role playing game actual players, I think, got together to do a scripted drama, and that's the Magnus Archives. But, you know, so there's a real heritage there. Not strictly a role playing game IP, but it's connected.
Matthew:And, I'm a bit disappointed that it's a disappointing role playing game. But, The Terror Beneath, I thought, oh, how many do we need? How many do we need of these folk horror games? I mean, obviously, it feels to me from my very, 3 league centric point of view that 3 league had a big hit with Werson, and now everybody wants to get some of that sweet sweet Werson money.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, you know, Cthulhu. That's
Matthew:Well, it's not folklore. I I think that that's that's
Dave:mainly just culture. Yeah. But I mean, basically, if you if you look at I mean, just having a quick look at, yeah, tabletop gaming news website, it's terrible belief. You know, the only thing from how it's presented that tells you it's folk horror is the word folk in the title. So, you know, there's nothing in the artwork that implies folk horror.
Dave:It's very, you know, it describes itself as a blend of folklore, detective fiction, and occult science. Well, that's Cthulhu. You know? So I I mean, the artwork looks nice. I I won't I mean, and Osprey, who are the who are the publishers behind it, are are a good company.
Dave:They, you know, they they they publish, our friend John Hicks.
Matthew:Those dark places and pressure.
Dave:Places and pressure and and that kind of stuff. And, you know, they're so they're, you know, they're a good good publisher. I just you know, I mean, how many there there is a big bandwagon of folk horror rolling through town, and a lot of people are jumping on it. And I wonder if that bandwagon is now just overburdened and is beginning to creak at the axle, for the amount of stuff. I mean, I don't know the game.
Dave:I haven't looked at the game. I don't you know, so I don't it might be brilliant. You know, so when you I think you were saying it's it's powered by gumshoe, which is
Matthew:Yeah. So it uses the gumshoe system. I like to see other publishers using gumshoe apart from Golgraine. I am a big fan of Gumshoe. Lots of people aren't because particularly players, because they only get to all a d 6.
Matthew:But you've played you've played a great bit of, Dracula dossier with me, on my birthday, which I enjoyed that scenario very much. 7 years ago. Christ.
Dave:I know.
Matthew:8 almost.
Dave:Yeah. Wow. Anyway, put that to one side for now.
Matthew:Yeah. Put that to one side. We're at dragon meat next week.
Dave:We are.
Matthew:Changing the subject?
Dave:Changing the subject very rapidly. Very surprisingly. Yeah. Yeah. Dragon meat next week.
Dave:We are I don't know what our, do we have a a store a a stand number?
Matthew:We're on the main floor quite near Modiphius. I can't
Dave:remember the store number. Where we usually are. Yeah. Where we are every year. Yeah.
Dave:No. That's cool.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:It'll be good. I mean, I'm looking forward to it. I obviously missed last year because of my my poor dogs, misfortunes. But, yeah. Well, we'll be there this year and looking forward to it very much.
Matthew:Well, actually, I'll tell you what, you missed last year.
Dave:I did.
Matthew:You missed being on the stand when somebody from Dragon Meat took a lovely photo. Now if you go to the Dragon Meat website now and scroll down till you get to the venue section, there's a glorious photo of the free league stand with your replacement, my daughter Lily. It's obviously before before hours, and so she's just, like, pricing up or something. There's no, you know, there's no customers around, and there's somebody from the stand next door sort of in the picture. But it's a lovely photo of the feeder stand.
Matthew:And in fact, I might even take a snap of it
Dave:to teach you what it is going. There we go. Yeah.
Matthew:So that's what you miss out on.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I well, I I wanted to be there. Sadly, I had to be at the hospital with my dog, at the time. So, yeah.
Dave:And and and Lily is obviously a very, very capable replacement. She's, you know, she did a great job at UK Games Expo, and I'm sure she did a great job at at at Dragon Meat.
Matthew:Although
Dave:It looks nice.
Matthew:This year at Dragon Meat, we have an extra special guest. We've got Anna from Free League coming over
Dave:we do. We do.
Matthew:To work to work with Stan with us.
Dave:Absolutely.
Matthew:So, if you actually want to speak to a Swede, come and visit us on the Free League
Dave:Sound. Yeah.
Matthew:And what else? Oh, the other the other important news is we're making a return to the podcast soon as well.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:I'm gonna do slightly fewer hours on the stand so that I can spend at least the morning, on the podcast zone.
Dave:And talk about Tales of the Old West.
Matthew:And we will be talking about, obviously, the podcast, but also tales of the old west.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, come along to Dragon Me, and give us a shout. And, yeah, it'd be great to see everyone.
Dave:Haven't haven't seen anybody since well, actually, I I was gonna say UK Games Expo, but that's not quite right, because I did bump into a few people at, Tabletop Scotland. Which was very, very which was very, very cool indeed. But, yeah, if you're if you're about, come along. Come and say hello. It would be great to see you all.
Dave:Cool. Cool. Right. We're banging on today. Old West News.
Dave:Let's whip through that quickly, then we can get on to the actual, you know, most exciting part of the episode, which is, the the interview with Simone from, from 2 Little Mice.
Matthew:Yeah. So, we have got most of our I think I'm waiting for 6 pieces, 3 pieces each from 2 artists. Everybody else has delivered. So that's all going through. And I talking threes, I've just been, sort of looking at the, it's not even a flat plan yet, but it's a a spreadsheet upon which I you know, we've we've estimated how many pictures we need.
Matthew:I think we might need 3 more, which, we'll get our ordering. But
Dave:Yeah. I kinda I kinda suspected our our our target was probably on the low end, so we might have wanted to get some more anyway.
Matthew:So
Dave:I think I think that's that's absolutely fine. If we need to order a bit more, then let's let's crack on and do that.
Matthew:Yeah. So, but I thought I might read through, which I, because my computer's actually I'm gonna close one of my screens down. But, yeah, I think there's a couple of pictures again for the cam that campaign's chapter is a long one.
Dave:It is.
Matthew:So I was gonna read through that and just see if there are a couple of, examples that we might illustrate.
Dave:Yeah. Cool.
Matthew:And another one somewhere else. Oh, yeah. The other one, rolling the bones, which is the, you know, the I just I'd like I want to read through that one and see if there's another example of a thing. Right. A situation that we could maybe illustrate in the morning of the bones chapter.
Matthew:But then I think we're entirely done on art, and we might be entirely done now. I mean, you know, we're only a small company. We can't we can't spend all our money on art.
Dave:That is true. That is true.
Matthew:And, you know, as as I've been paying for this art, our total, you know, we we got, 31,000 out of the Kickstarter. And, you know, we're down to the low twenties now, having paid for this art and the editing and stuff like that. Yeah. Which we again, editing, you're you're pretty much on top of that with, with our lovely editor, Neil.
Dave:Neil, friend of the show.
Matthew:He's just doing a second pass.
Dave:Yeah. We're pretty much there, I think, with that. There's that will be done this week. What it was left is only a few little bits and bobs left to iron out. I think that's pretty much done.
Dave:The maps are pretty well done. There's a few little bits. Yeah.
Matthew:I've gotta go go to all of them, actually. You need
Dave:to you need to have a look at those. But I've got 2 or 3 more sort of basic tweaks to add for for, Dean, our our our graphic designer for the maps. But they'll be done this week, and layout is tending to start next week. So all all good. Good.
Dave:I mean, we're a little bit slower, a little bit behind schedule where we wanted to be, but not much. Well, we're not
Matthew:I mean, if we do start next week, actually, we would have caught up on our schedule.
Dave:Yeah. I'm I'm well, I'm not gonna debate that on the podcast. But, anyway, we're, yeah, we're we're we're
Matthew:in a pretty good place. Layout is going to take probably a bit longer than we originally
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Hoped for.
Matthew:So that's that's that's the thing. But we did imagine that layout would start in, the end of
Dave:Late late November. Yeah. It was about half. Yeah. Really took mid mid November was the original target for all these things, but everything's taking a little bit longer.
Dave:And we still need we still we do we still need, not that it actually matters, I think, but we still need, there's a final response from our sensitivity readers on a particular issue. But actually
Matthew:Yes.
Dave:We've made our decision on that anyway, and I think their response would just be confirming that the decision we've made is is one that they agree with. So, the the changes have been made, pretty much. There's a little bit of work to do, but not not a lot. But yeah. So that so that that's that'll be ironed out this week as well.
Matthew:Yeah. Hopefully. We'll get that all in the bag. Indeed. So, yeah.
Matthew:Shall we shall we move straight on to Let's another much more successful crowdfunding product? I mean, we were very successful, but this is much more successful crowdfunding product. Yeah. And that is, the the sequel. I was gonna call it the 2nd edition, but it's not.
Matthew:It's the sequel to household household 2. So in the Hammam today, we have Simone Formekola from 2 little mice, and, welcome, Simone.
Dave:Welcome. Welcome.
Simone:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Matthew:Now the 3 of us know, and some of our patrons know, that I interviewed you guys at Essen Yes. Weeks ago now, and that that the recording that turned out to be dreadful. So we're we're we're doing it again this time. But this time, Simone, I get to ask a couple of extra questions, and particularly because of the format that we use for our interviews here. The first question is kind of traditional.
Matthew:Tell us about your life in gaming.
Simone:Well, my life in gaming, I actually started with live action role playing game. It was my first Cool. My very way before I discovered the existence of role playing game. I was, like, 20 years old when I first played role playing game. But before that, when I was 15, 16 years old, I used to play live action role playing game back home.
Simone:I I lived back then, I was born and I lived in Rome on the seaside part of Rome. There's a huge, woods, pot pine woods. Very, very huge. So it was full of, you know, associations and groups, doing this this this kind of of of. It was it wasn't very refined, I must say.
Simone:It was more or less an excuse to, you know, to to
Matthew:To hit people with a head in the sword.
Dave:Hit people with sticks. Yeah.
Simone:And we it grew quite quite quite a bit. And then I discovered actually when I was at university already, I discovered the role playing game. I the very, very I think that my very first, session role playing game was with Pathfinder 1st edition. I'm pretty sure about it.
Dave:Okay.
Simone:I don't know why it was it was huge in my part of town. For whatever reason, everybody was playing, Pathfinder. And, and then I I was brought into, played a lot of, wall of darkness, which is very huge in Italy, especially in southern parts of Italy. Because I think we Italian likes, you know, that that kind of political intrigue kind of appropriate style. We're always, do we didn't trust each other when we play.
Simone:We're always trying to get the upper end against the the game master, things like that. So, was perfect. And then that and I I I discovered a vast variety of games
Matthew:Now there's a big crossover between, between, World of Darkness and LARPing. There's lots of live action World of Darkness.
Dave:That's correct.
Matthew:Did you get into that too?
Simone:No. Not not me, actually. While, I know Rico had some experiences with, role playing them. Also, my my actual wife that was an old friend of of Rico, my associates, was very into werewolf, world of darkness, literally, the different parts of Italy back then. But, yes, not exactly the 2 of you, but there was both very huge for for for the reason you say because both had a very huge part in life.
Matthew:And so, yeah, I interrupted you there. So after after World of Darkness, Yes.
Simone:I I discovered all the very interesting Italian, role playing scene.
Matthew:A
Simone:lot of games are are still not translated in English. Is probably one of the most famous, Italian role playing game, but that does slowly, the the rest of the world is beginning to to know. A lot of the of the products came from Italy, but even back then, there was a huge, scene because, you know, in Italy, it's, by any it was impossible. But even right now, it's not common, to to use, you know, English, not not translated games. Mhmm.
Simone:So there's a very, huge market from from from Italian only, games that that that's when we that's where we we we started, of course, ourselves with our Italian only game.
Matthew:Brilliant. Brilliant. And, of course, we're gonna be talking about how you brought Italian your Italian games to the English Anglophone market, in a little while. But first of all, you really surprised me when we spoke in Essen because you said, of course, we didn't start out to be a games company. First of all, we were a film production company.
Matthew:Yes.
Simone:2 Little Mice little bit
Matthew:about 2 Little Mice, please.
Simone:The start the very beginning, the secret origin of 2 little mice. I I was, an actor. I studied, performing at school in Milan, called Paul Grass Grassi. It's it's it's huge. While in the meantime, we didn't know each other back then, but Rico was studying as a director in Switzerland.
Simone:And through, a common friend, one of my classmates made, a short video with Rico, as director. And so he came to see our, you know, our last, play.
Matthew:Graduate show or whatever.
Simone:Yes. We we did our last play for closure of 3rd last year. And so we we met back then because our common, friend never actually played role playing game. So, he Rico wants to wanted to introduce her to to role playing game and, basically asked her, do you know someone who played? Because Justin Chu is not as fun.
Simone:And they are okay. Simone, it's very it's a nerd type, so probably. So they I, took my car, run to Switzerland, and we started actually playing together. And after a couple of session, we decided to, create, produce, write, and act in a small web series based on one of the, Italian, role playing games that we're talking about called anime sangue Italian, which is roughly translated as, souls and blood. And we made these these these, it was our our our first project together.
Simone:So we made this web series, and then our first it was our first, you know, meeting with the crowdfunding work because we we did a little very little, crowdfunding campaign to to produce more episodes. And then we we also managed to, subtitle it and and have it right now, it should be on on, you know, Amazon Prime in the UK as well.
Dave:Alright. Cool. Nice. I don't know.
Simone:It's still there somehow. They never took it down. And so, yes, we started that way. We we continue to work in video, also as the, a couple of theater production. And then in 2019, at 18, we began to work on it.
Simone:But in 2019, we, it came out the very first edition of. That was our very first game. Back then, it was like a a side gig. It was not our our main, our core business as you can see. And, basically, the story goes that 2020.
Simone:Right? The pandemic stuck and completely destroyed our job. The other closed sites were closed indefinitely. It was pretty bad. I also live, right now in Cremona, which is a city near Milan, very near to the, like, 20 kilometers from the very first red zone in Italy.
Simone:So basically for 3 months, the very 3 months, even the, you know, factory were closed. Everything was was sealed off. Nobody knows what was happening. And that was then we already published an an household. And the first expansion, we won, best of show at Luca Comics and Games in 2019 with the first edition of household.
Simone:And we were starting to work on our 2nd game that was, broken compass. And so in February 2020, we without anything to do and a lot of free time on our hand, we decided, let let's try to go all in. That's why we get a lot of time to this role playing word using crowdfunding. Let's see what happens. Hopefully, for us, it turns out pretty pretty good.
Simone:And was our first game that we translated, and then we came back to household in a new the in in the newest edition that everybody
Matthew:Yeah. And, of course, there's a lot of similar sorry. Dave here is an innocent, I think, for for all of these games, but I I backed outgunned, and I've played, household. And Rico, when we met last time, gave me a lovely copy of household, which so, you know, I'm reading that. I'm eager to actually run it at some point.
Matthew:But, obviously, I could see similarities in the game system there. Again, one of the things that you surprised me with, in essence, was the household was actually the first version of that system, which you've carried on the same system in broken compass and in
Simone:And outcome and outcome adventure.
Matthew:Yeah. Of course. So so how over time has the system developed?
Simone:A lot. I'm not saying. The first edition of was our first. It was full of mistakes, silly mistakes because it was our first game. So Mhmm.
Simone:Much thoughts, too much stuff. It was too too crunchy. But it has it already had back then the idea of this very fast paced system, highly cinematic. Because, of course, as you now know, we we came from that background, so we
Dave:had to Yeah.
Simone:Use our knowledge of how to structure, you know, a scene and a story, and to leave that kind of of things at the table. And, of course, it was the the core mechanic, meaning you roll a small pool of d sixes and looking for matches. So 2, 3, 4 of a kind, and so on. That was the core. Then was very much more complex for Stavo because each matches, it was translated in a number of successes that you have to spend, perform action.
Simone:In our idea was a way to encourage different way of thinking, but in the when when you acted, at the table was too much, unnecessary. Then with broken compass, we took that core mechanic and went in the complete opposite direction. It oversimplified everything. Probably too much simplified, but it was a second Just that
Dave:this is not the gold the Goldilocks approach to, to game design. Too crunchy, too simple, get it done by
Simone:I think without, in with the new addition of household and outgunned, that's a very, very similar nice mechanic at least. We, came out with the director Scott that is the result of these different approaches we try to have, and, I think we are very proud of it. We would keep working on it. Every interaction is a little bit different, of course, but the call is there, meaning it's very simple. But we try to go in a direction which, we gave we gave the the player and the directors, the the the master game masters, like, a lot of tools.
Simone:So if you want a scene to be more important and to, last more at the table, you have tools to make it a little bit more complex, like fights. If you are in an action movie, they probably are very important in your story for playing outgun. If you're playing outgun, probably not. Probably you're, interesting in different kind of things. So in outgun, it's very more simple, streamlined.
Simone:Why not? You can develop your own enemies with trades and special action to interrupt the plot, of the game. But the idea is the same. We try to give you the tools to, spend your time in the scene that are more impactful on your story. That's the idea of the director Scott.
Matthew:So, I just tried to capture this. Obviously, you're on an English speaking podcast. Well, just about English speaking, but with an international audience. Let me get this right. So household had been written and was being played and published in Italian.
Matthew:You then partnered with CoolMini's or not for
Simone:the We then we then did, broken compass on our own?
Matthew:Oh, in Italian. On your own?
Simone:Italian and a couple of, like, 4 months later, for an English. It wants our first product in, English, so for a for a wider audience. And then, we, had this collaboration with Simon. And, while we were working together with them, we took household, and we gave household a full restyle, of the system, mainly. And we had the, Kickstarter for the the actual edition of household with the the the director Scott system.
Simone:After that, we, came back to to working on our own. And we developed, Outgun first last year. Yes?
Matthew:Yes.
Simone:Last year, we developed Outgun, which was focused it was the the the the more the most, pure, system. It was all about the system, and it was, basically thought to to to enact action movies. And then this, this year a lot of things we did this year. This year, we expand we are expanding both. We expanded with the venture.
Simone:So it's a venture module for. And right now, we are in with household volume 2, which is a a supplement SQL expansion for household.
Matthew:Right. And, just let before we move on to household, let's, Outgunned is oh, sorry. Outgunned Adventures is kind of like the rebirth of broken compass. Am I right?
Simone:Yeah. You can say it's like the the the hair, the sum of broken compass. Because the the system, even if as the the same dice mechanic, but far from that, the system is is profoundly different. You have more tools in outcome adventure for the reason we spoke about earlier. It it kept part of the of the easygoing moods that you have with broken composite.
Simone:You cannot decide we you can, not have everything ready. You just roll by. See, see what's happened. You know, the heroes are always right. We decide together what's the treasure, what's the key.
Simone:But you have more tools, to, develop more interesting scene and also have a lot more re re replayability. I don't know what it's called. It's okay. You can play that longer because use of broken compass was very simple, so simple that okay. 2, 3, and and then you 2, 3 session union, you saw a lot of stuff.
Simone:Cool things is that back then when we while we were working on upcoming adventure, the the rights for Broken Compass were, with that acquired back then. But, later, a couple of months ago, we, brought back the the the
Matthew:Oh, yeah. That was just before us, and that was kind of the good news. And
Simone:Yeah. In September, we finally booked back. So, we we are basically merging the two lines. The idea in the future, is to, repurpose all the, you know, the the the adventures, for broken compass for adventure that it's our Mhmm. Now our our active and and and more, full fledged, line.
Matthew:Brilliant. Now so household, the version of household that we have in English is that refined version Yeah. With the updated rules. Yes. And do those rules go on into household 2, or have you done a bit more refinement with
Simone:Oh, yeah. Yes. Basically. Household 2, it's, it's not like adventure, which is a a different take on the same subject, but it it's it's a sequel. So it's more stuff for also, this it's a very unique game, meaning because in the household volume 1 and its expansion, the guide and the saga, you basically has everything you need to play.
Simone:It's a core book, but you can play, in a very specific it it has a it has a very deep lore. It's the focus the main focus of. It's it's lore, the story, how it's unfold. And you are playing during historical, period, 5 years, and which historical events. And so this volume 2 not only will add, you know, geographical places or the garden, basically, of the house, Mhmm.
Simone:But it will move the story forward so you will know what happened next. You will play you're able to play the sequel of the events you play in household volume 1. So it it's a it's a a strange kind of of project. Meaning, in the future, each volume will give you other years to play, and and to see the the the word and the story advance with you.
Matthew:Brilliant. But you need you do need household to play household 2. It's not self contained. Right?
Simone:Yes.
Matthew:Now here's a challenge. Dave doesn't know anything about household. I I You might have described it to him as the borrower's times Jane Jane Austin. But, how would you describe that?
Simone:Basically, now sold, it's it's in household, you play as a little link. Little link is someone from the little folks. So very tiny little person, that lives in this huge old abandoned house. So borrowers, RIT are useful way to visualize that, but there's a very huge difference, meaning that the house is completely abandoned because the master of the house disappeared, like, 100 years before, you start playing the game. So in this period of time, the actually conquered all the house.
Simone:They are the, you know, human like creatures inside the house, and every room has been turned into some sort of nation with this, city and its culture, different languages. There are 4 different legal folks, that has been at war for a very long time in what has been called the first household war. Mhmm. And you are playing right before sorry. Right after this big war in, a period we call the fragile peace that, of course, resembles, you know, the the the first after war, of our own, time.
Simone:Meaning, everybody knows this very huge, like, 25 years long conflict just ended. Now you are at peace. For the first time, you can travel, but it's a, it's a time of of a lot of unrest, a lot of, you know, nationalist groups that wants to reignite conflict because, you know, we were busy shooting at each other for 25 years. Now, our chiefs, our boss, our kings says we are in peace, but are we really you know? I met someone.
Simone:He shook my father. I probably shot his uncle. Who knows? So it's a very difficult time, and it's about the storming household. Spoke about this this this that you are playing that encounter a seemingly innocent problems that could turn into another conflict.
Simone:Every little, accident, every someone, you know, stole the favorites, several miles of a general. Oh, my. He he was saying he was someone from another folk, so the the things are the the the folks are under his house, so you have to solve this crime because we don't know what might happen. That's the the well, it's it's, you know, a little bit of the miserable, little bit of bridge. There's a lot of stuff in our zone, and you are very, very little.
Simone:That it's I think it adds a layer of, you know, wonderfulness because everything is is so much bigger than you, but you are, in some in a place that you find very well. So you are donations that, the the kitchen and the dining room are one nation, the realms of the fairies. You know, the capital of the fairies on the chandelier, and they use the crystal of the chandelier like like coins. You know? It's all it's magical.
Simone:But from your point of view, everything is very not magical at all. There's no magic going on from your perspective. I mean, you probably are a magical creature because you are one of those little folks. But to crop your eyes, it's it's all very natural or biological. I don't know.
Dave:Now that's a much better way of describing it than Matthew ever did. That sounds a lot more interesting than Matthew's description. And I love I'm just looking at the, the Kickstarter, the back of kit page, Just seeing some of the images around, of some of the rooms like the bathroom with all the ships on the on the on the bath. It just looks lovely. It really evokes and your description, I now really get it.
Dave:Whereas, I don't think I really got it before when Matthew described it. I mean Yeah.
Simone:I mean, art is very important because, you know, it's it's something very specific when you see. And, also, it's it's, every little thing, every focus, inspired by more like, you know, Napoleonic regency era. Mhmm. And that is also a a time, a period not very, we are not very used to it in role playing games. It's early 9th 19th century.
Simone:Not the late 19th century that it's more common to see around. But this, you know, do yes. Napoleonic kind of vibe, if you see that we are a tight on the first house with your uniform of various armies of the house, etcetera, and it's very, very interesting.
Matthew:And, of course, the art when I was in Essen, I met your wonderful artist, Daniela, and the art throughout the book has such a level of consistency and detail. And, really, if you're listening to this and you know nothing of of household, go and check out the back package just to see some of the the marvelous art therein. But you also have figures, which I I mistakenly called minis. Yes. They are And and you told me they're not minis.
Simone:Thanks to our collaboration with Simon, we produce 30 figures, plastic figures that are actually life-sized figures of the guy. You can actually play I
Dave:like that. Yeah. First volume.
Simone:We are not making new one because, you know, we made it when we are together with Simon. We are not the production strength, not the knowledge to produce new minis, right now. But, yes, they are very cool because it's one of the few example of life-sized figurines of your character.
Dave:Nice. I
Matthew:like that. Actually really interesting because, when I played it before, somebody else was being the GM. And, actually, I did have a real problem imagining scale. I couldn't quite I my my perception of my player character's own size changed through different descriptions and things. So we we were climbing up the stairs.
Matthew:I don't know. I think it's an introductory adventure. Climbing up the stairs. I think we met a spider or a centipede or something. It was all great fun, but I was struggling to think, how big am I?
Matthew:And now knowing that I'm as big as that many, gives you a
Dave:little that's a disadvantage in describing it as the borrowers, because I think the borrowers in in certainly in this in my mind, they're about 4 or 5,
Simone:6 years old. Yeah.
Dave:Which makes them much, much bigger than the littling. Yes.
Simone:There are 2 main difference with littlings. One is that they are actually smaller than, you know, even Ariati was the she was standing in the hand of the little boy. So they are taller and bigger. And, also, there's the, mystical lore of household because the the the one thing that makes everything much more interesting is that since the disappearance of the master, the house, which is the the word these little things live in, more or less became masterless. And so its dimension, the dimension of the house are not tied to anything.
Simone:It's no more, human sized house. It has a more deep meaning, meaning every single place, it can go grow bigger and bigger based on this its its importance.
Matthew:That's a
Dave:Okay.
Simone:Thing inside, a a really cool, little piece of of novel, you know, inside the book. And it speak about this this, called the domain contract. The house basically belong to herself. It's like like in the in the little folk folklore, the contracts are the only form of magic you will find in the game. That the chance for to, have some contract with, and and superior forces.
Simone:And, the greatest forces in household is the house because the house is there. It's the it's it's what they see as their word, and so they gave the house importance. So the house is the most important things there is. Mhmm. And, if this is, there are these these very cool, novel about the fact that some, you know, some scholar tried to measure the length of the table in the dining room.
Simone:On the on the upper surface of the table, there is the the capital city of the realm of the fairies right below the chandelier where there's the the imperial palace. And, when they tried to measure, the the leg of the table were much, much smaller than this the the the surface of the table. But looking at the table, it was perfectly, you know, squared. So they stopped. They they don't think about it, but, yes, they accept the fact that the house, especially during the war, there's a a lot of hint about it, can grow big.
Simone:If if a place is full of blittlings, it can will be you know, like when you see, like, some cartoons, some, and you don't need this little mouse or whatever goes into the the the trees, and they have this huge home or entire city
Dave:in the city. Yeah.
Simone:Yeah. That's the idea. We try to convey this inside the lore that Cool. You do in a in a media, like in a movie or whatever.
Matthew:Brilliant. And so, obviously, the big thing about volume 2 is they go beyond the house Yes. Into the garden.
Simone:Yes.
Matthew:Does this feel I mean, when I played this, this adventure, actually just going upstairs felt like a bit of a quest. But Yeah. Given the scale of the garden, I'm it feels to me like what I should be expecting to do, forgive me, is sort of meet the fairies at the bottom of the garden, go on a long quest all the way down the length of the garden. Is that the plan? Is that what their campaign's all about?
Matthew:Or I've got it in Tuggy World.
Simone:What you will find that the new historical period after the I'm it's spoiler because for one word, don't read the books. The the fragile piece ends at a certain point, hence the name of fragile piece. And it ends in a new period called the long winter. Basically, an outside forces of is keeping one of the, town inside near the the the window, on the siege. And that's stalemate in which the external threat tried to convince the the that now living inside to came outside for all the for a very complex situation, which Mhmm.
Simone:There was other and father and royal blood and, a lot of strange but in the meantime, there's this, like, cold war. So, in this very vast, environment, which is the garden, it's bigger than anything that's inside and, also, that's full of much, much bigger creature that that are a huge problem for a. I mean, inside, the biggest creature you can fight inside is a giant centipede. I mean, Right? Even for a human, like, 30 centimeter I don't know what.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Simone:Even in the house, but there is it's like 30 centimeters tall, but outside you have squirrels and and and creature that we, called colossal creatures, like the big howl and kind of that you cannot really fight. You can just try more or less to survive the encounter. Maybe, do do something to to scare them off, to to make them want to leave. But, yes, the the scale is very huge. That's that's why this this this long winter is last it's 2 years that the communication are hard.
Simone:Traveling is hard because there's also a a huge importance of the season in the game. Because unlike inside, we never talk about weather because we are inside the house with a roof. Yeah. Outside, there's different seasons. There's rain.
Simone:There's the winter. There's snow. That for a creature, you know, 3 centimeters tall, there are huge problem that they need to overcome each and every time. So you have you have no nations because the outside, it it belongs to no one, basically. Mhmm.
Simone:You have, like, faction living inside little, settlements in different parts of the garden. Then, yes, they reclaim some part, but there's not really I mean, when you have 3 centimeter stalls and there's a snake in the grass, you are not really the master of anything. You you cannot aim to be, in charge of your mouse.
Matthew:Okay.
Simone:Yes. So that's, yes, the the the there would be new, you know, rules from travel because traveling is a very huge part of what you do outside. Travel and try to survive, basically. The the.
Dave:Traveling and running away. Yeah.
Simone:Yes. Traveling and running away. That
Dave:Exactly. Running away. Yeah.
Simone:You do most of the time.
Matthew:But one of the things that I liked I mean, I mean, I haven't played much in in household, but one of the things that really attracted to me it it me to it, and I now understand a little bit about where it comes from given your history in playing as well, is that political intrigue, the different factions, the the the Jane Austen ness of it, I'm gonna call it, is there less of that in household 2, or have you got different factions outside?
Simone:More of that because you have all all the guys that were inside, all the nations inside. And then you have new players that are coming to play this game of power. You have the inside, you have the that is the empress regent of the house and the of the. Outside, they discovered that it's the beginning of volume 2 that the mother of the, called Titania, it's alive. It was presumed that it's alive, and it's guiding the external.
Simone:So that's a problem when you are on your bloodline. Now you and this is what's caused the stalemate. There are there is another part of the hold of the great plague that lives, in the backyard and has a chief called Yokai Yorubumo. And they are, you know, they should be part of the, the the the heart of the great play that that that lived in the basement. But, you know, they live far away.
Simone:They are very independent. Are they really part of the same nation? Let's see. Mhmm. Then you have the that did not come inside after the treaty.
Simone:Were the the ancient serpent of the master. But after the the first, the first time the the fair came into the house, there was a huge battle. They were, they they were defeated and, sent to live outside inside, the the the brambles, the this bush, of thorns, outside the house. Some of them came back home during the war because was losing the war and then they so they came out there for butts. Part of them remained outside.
Simone:So, yes, they should be part of the nation of the, but they resent the because they are. You take the knee, in front of the emperor of
Dave:the flag.
Simone:We are we are more pure. So you are and you have the sprites, the last folks, the the last, group of sprites, which are the nodes that just live outside because there are the sprites are the more or less like elemental sort of little folks. Inside, you have salamanders born from the spark, the undying born from the drain, and the silph born from the draft. And outside, you have domes born from the dirt of the salt. And, you know, it was there's a lot of political intrigue regarding you know, people who live outside see themselves as more free because they did not, you know, go inside where life is easier than once was faster that feeds the and so on.
Simone:They they they stayed there. They fought against the weather and the cost of beasts. So they think themselves as as better probably as the counterpart inside. So, yes, there's a lot of political things going on. And in the middle, we hope there's always your character, the character you are playing that somehow, becomes entangled in this, much larger plots, much larger things happening, and they we hope what what we write at least.
Simone:They try to keep the peace, keep things recently, and they are they probably will fight. We are, writing also there's a new saga. There's a lot of new adventure. About that about things, little things, fighting to keep the peace to to avoid an incident diplomatic incident that could lead to other war. That's always the Mhmm.
Simone:The plan there. And it's always and and it's harder and harder the more times it goes on.
Matthew:Well, this is just brilliant. We're taking up a lot of your time, but I do have one more question, which is, you you so at the moment of talking, you are so €10,000. You've got 263, almost €164,000. You've got 1600 backers, almost 1700 backers. You've still got 21 days left to run.
Matthew:I'm interested to know. Have you looked at what people are backing? Are you getting a bunch of new people that are not just getting household too, but going for the core book as well? Yes. We are.
Matthew:New to the game? Yes.
Simone:We are, of course, we are always looking at the numbers and try to what's happening. Of course, we have a lot that the majority of backers are, people who already have. We also thought in 1, so I hear for the just for the sequel, or maybe they have just the call book and want to expand the collection. But we have more than than, the one, I think several hundreds of people are just here for the first time. And they are a lot of them are going all in, so we are very happy and to to spread.
Simone:Of course of course, for us, also did first of all, it's lore, it's story, it's characters. And so we we would we like to to spread. It's the game as wide as possible to have more people interested in the story we're told, we're telling, and then the character we are creating, and to, make them part of this world, giving them the chance to, role play inside this world we are designing. You know? So, yes, we are very happy about the number of new people jumping in.
Matthew:Cool. Yeah. It's very impressive. You did a very clever thing as well, I noticed. You've also got a bundle of holding.
Matthew:So if people are
Simone:Yes.
Matthew:A little bit nervous about committing
Simone:Yes. Yes. The actually, I've been for for 5 days left.
Matthew:6 days and 13 hours left. I'm just thinking that now. So I That won't be by the time you hear this, though, dear listener. It'll be more like
Dave:2 or
Matthew:3 days when this will come out on Monday. K. So, in fact, maybe even only a couple of days.
Simone:Okay. So in a couple of days.
Matthew:To this, get on household. It's probably holding if you wanna get it
Simone:We we love the all all this chance to spread. You know, the the I love the digital books. I mean, I I I use the physical one to play, but digital, it's a very especially during this, you know, this, discounts stuff, it's a very good way to get to know the game. Yeah. To see what's inside, get to read the stories, the rules, get to see the heart.
Simone:Because I I agree that, having a role playing game is some sort of commitment. You know? Mhmm. You spend a lot of time reading, convincing your friends to try this game and not another, and during the session. So I I agree that you need to be sure of what you're doing.
Simone:And these are all that that that's also why we we love to, keep working on our game. You know? Keep, doing stuff because you want you you you spend a lot of your time and of your money, usually, to be a part of this, and we want to be there with you to say, okay. You want to play more? There's more.
Simone:There there's more options, more story, more stuff, more more hints, more hooks, whatever you need to, be happy with your, you know, your your your decision, with your commitment with our game.
Matthew:So is there gonna be a household 3 on the horizon at some point?
Simone:Mhmm. Yeah. I hope. I don't know. I mean, it's doing very well.
Simone:It's it's it's it's really doing great. Mhmm. Better than anticipated. So we are very happy about it. The only thing with the household, it's that it's Very hard, very long to Yeah.
Simone:I think it's worth, actually. Lots of things to write. So I hope so. Let's see. Yeah.
Simone:Let's see how many months of crazy work we will need in order to, bring the volume 2 to life.
Matthew:Brilliant. And I think it is worth just saying to people who who may be approaching this for the first time. You might be looking at your page on back and go, oh, that's quite expensive. It's worth every penny. These are big books.
Simone:Yes. Mhmm.
Matthew:Yeah. Lavishly illustrated. They're really lovely things to hold. Really lovely things to hold. But once more, if you wanna check them out on Bundle of Holding First, Check him out there, but they it is a gorgeous set of books.
Matthew:I know, of our patrons, Noble Paul is is one of your biggest fans. Mhmm. And he just loves them. Just loves them. Mhmm.
Matthew:So, yeah, we can hardly recommend them. Have you got any other questions, Dave, you want to ask before we say goodbye to Simone?
Dave:No. I don't think I've asked any questions today, which is unusual. But, I mean, I've just loved listening because as I said, I didn't know much about the game other than Matthew's very poor description of it. It's been fabulous having you on, Simone. Thank you for that.
Dave:Now I've got no questions other than, well, not not even a question. Just to say it sounds fabulous. And, I encourage people to to look into it in more detail because I certainly will.
Matthew:And thank you very much, Simone. Thank you for doing this interview a second time.
Simone:Thank you. Pleasure. It was a pleasure, Beknessen. It's a pleasure now. Thank you both of you very much for having me.
Dave:Yeah. That was great. I mean, I, you know, I the household hadn't really grabbed me as, you know, as as we said in the interview, hadn't really grabbed me on the basis of your description of it. But actually Thank you. Having having looked at it, and having having listened to Simone there, it I I really love the idea actually.
Dave:It's a really really nice idea. Now I don't have tons of money, and I don't have time to run it. So I'm not gonna go out and buy it. I'm not gonna back household 2. I don't have household itself.
Dave:But it's something that I might look for in the future. I might pick up if I can find it, you know, at a convention somewhere for a, an impulse buy. But, yeah. It sounds great. And, if you wanna go and, back it, crack on.
Dave:I think, there's probably a couple of weeks left on the on the back of kit campaign. So, yeah. Get out get on there and and, and back it. It does look lovely. It does look really nice.
Matthew:Yeah. And I and it's, after the first version, I remember seeing the first version and quite liking it, not back again. Then, our patron, Paul, who I think must have the most extensive games library of all of our patrons, because he seems to back pretty much everything. You know, he he showed us what he'd got in that package, and I was pretty impressed. Yeah.
Matthew:He should And it was then it's actually quite difficult to get a hold of was was what I noticed then. It didn't it didn't, for example, come to the game shop in order shop, things like that. Yeah. So I think if you if you if you're interested in print versions of it, there's no harm in backing it as part of this Kickstarter.
Dave:Can you, can you get a copy of household through this back a kit?
Matthew:And you can. Yes. Yeah. Yep. There there there's there's levels that
Dave:A re a reprint.
Matthew:Yeah. That have a reprint as well. Yeah.
Dave:Okay. Cool. Nice. Very nice.
Matthew:So, we will put a link to it in the show notes. What are we gonna talk about next week, Dave? Not next week. Next week, we'll be talking about dragon meat because that's where we are.
Dave:We'll have we'll have we'll have we'll have a dragon meat report to to to, to feedback on what happened there, and our and and all the fun that we had. I don't have anything other than that, but we can always think of something in the meantime. I think it's your turn to write an essay on something, but I don't have an essay title for you.
Matthew:It might be. We may end up doing an interview. I, do
Dave:we do we have one outstanding?
Matthew:We don't have one outstanding, but we might meet somebody interesting at Dragon Meat. I'll take a little recording.
Dave:That is true. That is true.
Matthew:Yeah. So that may be a surprise. Otherwise, we'll write some content about something. Probably about a free game since that's ostensibly what we're meant be talking about. Indeed.
Matthew:But, yes. Until then, it's goodbye from me.
Dave:And it's goodbye from him.
Simone:Take the items, bless your
Dave:adventure. 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.