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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 231 of Effect. A Games Expo minisode. I'm Matthew. And Dave can't make it today so it's just me I'm afraid. Which is gonna be a bit weird.
Matthew:I think this is the first time we've ever done a a one person. Well, it's not just me actually because you'll hear Dave later on when we get to interview Millie from UK Games Expo about the, well, all sorts of things, UK Games Expo. Hence, the title. But it's gonna be a bit weird because, you know, normally, I'm back and forth with Dave, and this is just me. So I'll tell you what we're gonna do.
Matthew:We're gonna make, I think, probably a relatively short episode, which is why I think it's gonna be a minisode. But we're still going to have an old west update. We're gonna look at the world of gaming. You and I, that is you, the audience, and me on my own. And then Dave is going to appear, and I'm going to disappear because we were very keen to talk to Millie about UK's expo, ambled it out this week so that people had had time to, well, make any decisions based on what, Millie talks about before, UK Games Expo actually comes and then goes.
Matthew:So we wanna get it out this week. And to that end, we realized we haven't got much time to interview Millie. And, Dave and I were seeing each other last week, on last week, yesterday, in fact, I mean. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, we'll we'll we'll we'll interview Millie online, when we're together. And then I set off in the morning to be there in time early in time to do the interview, and traffic was well, traffic.
Matthew:So I was there about 45 minutes late. So, most of the interview is with Dave, and then I come in at the end to say, have we talked about this yet? And we hadn't, which is good. So we talked about that too. You'll find out what that was, when we when we put Millie's interview in the end of this program.
Matthew:There are no new patrons to thank today, And that's just as well because it would be a bit weird just me thanking the patrons. But all of you lovely patrons who have been supporting our efforts, all this time, thank you very much. You've not just been helping us get the the the episodes out, running 2 streams. Both, both this magazine stream and, actual play episode. But you've also, as patrons, been helping us get together the artwork for our tales of the old west.
Matthew:Quick draw, which is going to be the first publicly available version of Tales of the Old West. And you see, I've segued neatly into our Old West news. So let's carry on about that. And I just thought, I'd say a couple of things that we've been doing. Dave and I, a week or so ago now, recorded a short video, a sort of announcement video to introduce people who don't know us via this podcast to Tales of the Old West.
Matthew:And, we just went out into the woods and filmed ourselves talking about it. Rather cat handed script, I have to admit. Not a cat handed script. The script was great but we were rather cat cat handed at, at staying to the script. So, it's a little bit stilted, but I'm editing it into something hopefully not bad.
Matthew:We'll see. We'll do I think we might do future videos in a more more podcast y style, but we're gonna have to work that out. But the other thing that I'm looking at, and I thought I might just talk you through it as I'm looking at it, is the PDF itself, which is in an almost finished state. Thank you to Nick Brook, who's been putting it together. Nick Brook, you may have heard of a, well, one of the one of the old gods, almost, of the UK RuneQuest scene, and somebody who helps people put together their PDFs for the Johnstown compendium.
Matthew:And, he offered very very kindly to do, first do this because I was meant to be giving up work by this time, and be able to spend all my time on the layout. But that is so not happening. Anyway, so I'm looking through the lovely cover by you can't see this. So this is going to be a kind of weird view, but I'm going to describe what I'm looking at. And first of all, I am looking at a lovely color by Malin Sandberg, who is, our artist for this for every illustration in this episode, or the in the in in the quick draw.
Matthew:It's beautiful. Really fits the theme and the total. So you'll you'll like it when you see it. And then I'm, looking in, Dave's done a great layout job. But interestingly, yeah, maybe one one too many key lines on page 1.
Matthew:What I've also got to do is add in a credits page, And I'll be crediting all of the patrons at our stationary level, and at our, privileged level. Both of whom have been, contributing to the the artwork in here in terms of getting it getting it produced by Mellon. Because we haven't run a Kickstarter yet. And artwork is expensive. So we've got some lovely portraits here.
Matthew:So 5 of the illustrations are the 5 pre generated characters. And they adorn the pages of the, the quick start rules. Quick draw rules, I should say. We've got a pretty complete set of those rules in here as well. So there's plenty to get on with.
Matthew:I don't know how many pages we're looking at, actually in this laid out version. Let me just go to the end and see if I can count them. Yes. 60 60 pages, I think. Maybe probably 64 by the time we're finished.
Matthew:We've got the cat sheets as well. Maybe even more than that. Obviously, it's got to be a number divisible by 4 because you know me even though it's a PDF. And frankly, I'd like to see a few copies of this in print. And if we can print a couple, we may bring them to, to UK Games Expo for everybody to have a look at.
Matthew:So some great illustrate character illustrations in here. We've got of the 5 main characters. Bridget Lovelace here, a gunfighter. She's she's got a cheeky smile on. And, she looks quite deadly.
Matthew:I'm not sure I trust her. We've got a little bit of white space to deal with in setting out the text here. But, I'm sure we'll solve that. Oh, yeah. I'm just loving these character portraits.
Matthew:Melon's done a brilliant job of this. And, yeah, lots of rules in here. Everything you need to start playing. Even now duelling rules, we talked we thought about leaving, you know, that sort of archetypal Old West gunfight for the core book. Partly because it didn't really happen much in the in the actual old west, the historical old west.
Matthew:But, but now we've decided we've we've added it in anyway. More illustrations, tables, great tables. Your man, Nick has done a great job with these tables putting it all together. So, yeah, it's looking pretty good. Maps, Maps by Dave Sun, actually.
Matthew:Looking very nice indeed. And landscape drawings again by Melon as well. Yeah. Chef's kiss, I think. It should be a nice little package for anybody who's interested in the game, and it gives you the ability to play the game.
Matthew:And hopefully, it'll be out within a couple of weeks, maybe before the next episode. Maybe we'll try and launch it in relation to the in in in co publication with the next episode. I've got a put a damn website together before we do that, though, so people can then sign up for more information. And and our Kickstarter announcement when that comes. Yeah.
Matthew:You may be aware that Dave and I have an argument over character sheets as well. And, Nick has done a very nice job of pulling together Dave's dodgy word character sheets into something that, is consistent and vaguely professional looking. So well done, Nick. And that's the end of that. What happens next?
Matthew:Oh, yeah. I've got a few items about, the world of gaming, which I think we ought to share now. Partly because some of them are, time limited, as it were. The most exciting thing, I think, just in time for us is that, Free League pulled their finger out and obviously shamed by our episode in a couple of weeks ago, Dragonbane episode. They've they've now produced a Dragonbane, or or I think recreated a classic dragon black Dragonbane adventure, almost campaign, which they're gonna publish.
Matthew:They've just put it out for preorder. We'll put a link in the show notes. And there are some other things that I wrote down that I didn't actually save the notes as well. But, I think other things to look out for include the, the the mask which is of forgotten Doggerland. Now if you remember a couple of years ago, we talked about this.
Matthew:It's from the brilliant artist, John Hodgson. It came out in 2022, just at the beginning of that beginning to be a controversy about, AI art. And John had produced this using entirely AI art and was quite a defender of of using AI art saying, look, I'm I'm an artist. If I use AI, it's like like using a pencil. You know, you can't take all my tools away.
Matthew:But I think on consideration and with what's happened and what we've discovered about AI art over the last couple of years, he withdrew all of the published versions of that. So if you didn't manage to buy a copy, then you can't get the AI art copy of that anymore. But he has been kick starting, and we should have talked about this a couple of weeks ago. It's quite exciting. He's kick started a new version with all human art.
Matthew:And what he's done, it's it's brilliant. I'll put a link in the show notes, of course, to the Kickstarter. But he has kind of recreated the feel and maybe even some of the some of the creations of AI in real three d, a lot of them, using lots of model work and photography and things like that to to produce a new version entirely human made. Well, I say entirely human made. It does use Photoshop a bit in it as well.
Matthew:But that's that's only hours hours left to go on that one. So, if you're going to grab that, grab it quickly if you wanna be in on the Kickstarter. What else? Oh, yeah. Mothership is landing in people's, on people's doormats.
Matthew:They are kind of alien light, I like to think of it. But, came out around the same time or was being produced around the same time. And they in a sort of version 0. And now the proper first edition of that is arriving. So people who've been back there around the time, I think, that, John Hodson was, was producing the first version of Witches of Doggerland.
Matthew:It's now arriving on your doorsteps. And everybody who's got it seems to be very pleased with it. Talking of first editions, there's a second edition of, what many people say is the best d 20 style d and d that you can get, and that's 13th age. So 13th age second edition is kick starting now. We'll put a link in the show notes.
Matthew:And, yeah. And it's it's it's one that's tempted me. I've never played it, but it has tempted me. Lots lots of people I I love and respect, like Nick Brooke, for example, had said, 13th ages is the best version of D and D that ever was. So, I'll be linking the show notes to that.
Matthew:And I think that's probably all we've got to talk about in the world of gaming today. I'm I'm sure in a couple of weeks time, Dave will say to me, why didn't you talk about this other thing? But he wasn't here. So there we go. This is weird, isn't it?
Matthew:Just listening to me drone on. Terrible. We won't do this again. I'll get Taeff back or somebody else. Anybody else, frankly, next time.
Matthew:Yeah. So I think that's the world of gaming. Let me have a look at my show notes and see if there's anything else I'm missing. No. Can't see anything else.
Matthew:So, now, we have this weirdness where Dave returns to talk to Millie, who is one of the organizers of UK Games Expo. And not just that, of course, also a patron of our, fabulous podcast. And we've been organizing a number of events with Millie and both on our behalf and, on Friedrich's behalf. So I'm running a big Dragonbane tournament. We've also we've got a pub quiz.
Matthew:I've got to write the questions for that in the next 3 weeks. And Dave's doing a seminar on on that. So all of that we've been channeling through Millie, and we thought it'd be worth talking a little bit about Millie's job and also some exciting news that she has.
Dave:Today, in the Hammam, we we do have a a player, but also a creator and also a I don't know what I call you for UK Games Expo, a an expert organizer. But we have, Millie. Millie, the GM, as she's known online. Millie Lovell, welcome to the show. Great to see you.
Milly:Thank you. It's lovely to be back in the Hammam. I am enjoying the capybara bath over in the corner.
Dave:And today at least does feel a bit warmer. So it might
Milly:I know. It's definitely it's still it's warmer up here. So I'm in the northwest UK. So it's nice and sunny and warm up here.
Dave:It's not raining in the hammam for once, which is great. For
Milly:once. Yeah. Yeah. Long may it continue.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, we wanted to get you on to talk a bit about UK Games Expo. I mean, a lot of us go a lot of us go as participants.
Dave:A lot of us go just to play and buy stuff. But as an organizer, we kind of think you've you must have a, you know, a special insight that some of us don't have, about UK Games Expo. It'd be nice to look behind the behind the veil a little bit. And then we could behind
Milly:the screen, that kind
Dave:of look at time again. Yeah. And then we could talk a little bit about what's going on for this year's UK Games Expo in, I think, as you said earlier, 18 days from time of recording. So, a bit a bit less than that by the time this goes out on the podcast.
Milly:Yeah. So, yeah, I, this September, I started working for the UK Games Expo, full time. Before that, for 9 years, I'd been either a volunteer, a bit of freelance stuff. But now I have made it onto the payroll, which is quite exciting. Great.
Milly:Excellent. I'm the community manager. So fun story about being called the community manager. Expo. Right?
Milly:So expo is only 6 people out of the out of the year. Like, the
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:People have this this impression that expo is this massive, churning, London based,
Dave:corporate Behemoth. Thing. Yeah.
Milly:Yeah. And it's not. It it's 6 people, But it was 5 before September. So the like, it is just this there's just these 6 folks, and we're just So
Dave:they've had a 20% increase by bringing you on board. I mean, that's
Milly:quite a big increase. Big increase in in in staffing. Yeah. But, yeah, there's just the there's the success. It's Richard and Tony, who are the directors, who are at heart blokes who love to play games.
Milly:Like, you know, let's you know, this is not some sort of, like, you know, apprentice twirling mustache kind of. Let's let's make a board game expo. This is so Richard and Tony, and they're like, oh, I really love playing RPGs. Really love making board games. Really love Nice.
Milly:At the at the heart, they are big bunch of nerds. And then there's, Tessa and James. Tessa does, a lot of the administration. James is the marketing manager. Again, folks who like to play games.
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:James James is quite new to playing games, so he's he's experienced in a lot of the same sort of, like, oh, wow. That's amazing. We we Cool. Bring out Ticket to Ride Legacy, that kind of stuff. And then there's Paul, who does production, and does all the printing.
Milly:Again, he's like, Oh, I love love all this nerd stuff, love all these things, that, oh, wow. This is amazing. So we are all at heart, like, the people who would attend Expo, and also the people who are making it. And there are moments where, so this week, a sword arrived. One of the events we're running this year,
Matthew:you can win a sword. Right.
Milly:So obviously
Dave:As in a real sword with a sharp edge and
Milly:As it but it doesn't have 2 it does have a a pointy edge. It's it doesn't have a sharp edge. So you couldn't, like, take it into a fight. But it is a little bit dangerous. Yeah.
Milly:But the sword arrived, and then there was 2 movers around the box. Like, going, oh my gosh. Look at this. And, you know
Dave:You weren't going, by the power of grayskull or something.
Milly:Oh, we were actually shocked. Like, there can be only 1. It's the the Highlander sword. Cullen, Mac MacLeod's sword arrived. Cool.
Milly:So there was there was a massive amount of nerdery going on.
Dave:That's quite a prize.
Milly:It is. It is.
Dave:It's it's It's a lot better than the, you know, extra copy that we've got of Forbidden Lands for for a fake podcast. But, hey, you know. Yeah.
Milly:So, you know, different budgets. Everything is it's all to the phone. But, yes, that's so so working for expo is a little bit like, at one hand, you're working with some folks who who are, friends and understand when I you know, our Christmas party, we had a conversation about, holiday, traditions on the enterprise, because I had a a Star Trek jumper on. So with some, they're talking about, oh, I wonder what would it be completely secular? Well, no.
Milly:Because of endurance. You know, that that kind of conversation.
Dave:And then the
Milly:other Excellent. The other end of the the thing were like, oh, how many rooms, how many, you know, miles of cloth, how many thousands of chairs? So there's, like, this weird kind of, like, stuff going on. Absolutely. But it's brilliant.
Milly:It's brilliant. Yeah. But there is just the 6 of us, which I think folks often are, are confused. Like, I'll go talk to you. So so if I were to come and meet you and say, like, Aircon Northwest, Dragon Me, Aircon, you know, old Tabletop Scotland.
Milly:And I talk to people. I'm like, hey. I I do this for expert blah blah blah. And they're like, oh, there's I'll email you. And they I get an email back that's like, hello.
Milly:Please could you forward my email to Millie? It's like, oh,
Dave:it's me. It's me. Yeah. I don't I don't want to send it
Milly:to the wrong department.
Dave:Yeah. Department. Because what I I would have I would have said, you know, having been going to Gexpo now since 2019, as a as a contributor, I would have said there were more than 5 or 6 people behind it. I know you got all the volunteers and that, of course. But still, I would have I would have assumed there was a bigger machine behind organizing something as big and complicated as that.
Milly:No. So there's just 6 6 folks well, 5, 4, you know, left beforehand. There is a small team of of, like, team leaders. Some of them, have been involved in the in the organization, but you have to be very mindful. Those are those are volunteers.
Milly:Yeah. And as well as as well as taking part in in organising it, they also have a life, a day job, hobbies, family, you know, that kind of stuff. So the it's very mindful of
Dave:fun as well, I guess, is what I'm
Milly:gonna say.
Dave:So yeah.
Milly:Like, it the the prepping for them shouldn't be another job. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Of course.
Milly:That's okay. So very mindful of that, especially now we've like you as you said, now we've increased 20% in the web plus, at expo. And then at the weekend of expo, we just do there's over 200 volunteers who take part, who will be there for for the weekend. And this year, a 120 ish GMs. I need that last little bit of running.
Milly:This is this is so I think there's over 500 tape 500, sessions going on.
Dave:Wow.
Milly:But the interesting thing about counting that is, the dragon events like the Dragonbane tournament, such as
Dave:the zoo. In a moment. Yeah.
Milly:Those have that's one game. Right? But there's 12 tables in it.
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:So how do I count that in the the how many games we're running this year numbers?
Dave:I think you count that's 12. I would.
Milly:Yeah. So Yeah. So there's stuff like that. You know, there's the casino masters, which is 5 tables with 1 game. There's, the highlight game.
Dave:I think I think you can massage the stats there, Millie, however you please. If you want the number to be huge, I think you're well within your rights to do that.
Milly:I I think I think what we've done previously is we've we've undersold how many folks come together to play RPGs. Like, we've been very humble about it. Mhmm. Very chill. Very like, and we have RPGs.
Milly:No. We take over the Birmingham Metropole Hotel for 3 days at work.
Dave:Full play.
Milly:Yeah. Several Yeah. 1,000 seats. Several 1,000 players come and experience. I was trying to do the count of the different systems.
Milly:There's well over a 100 different, like, systems, especially if you go into the variations of, like, 1st edition D and D. Yeah. This traveler, that traveler, this, version of the of Star Trek, that version of Star Trek, this home that kind of stuff. So 100, 100 of systems, 100 and 100 of games, thousands of players.
Dave:Cool.
Milly:And we're just like, oh, yeah. Just in the it's some RPGs in the Hilton.
Dave:Yeah. Exact yeah. Underselling it a bit, perhaps. Yeah.
Milly:Yeah. So so yeah. I I I am of, the camp that might also put the Dragonbane event as 12 players here.
Dave:Yeah. I think I think I would. I think that's fair. I mean, you know, so as a as a fabulous segue, well done, Millie. You're better than Matthew with segues.
Dave:So the dragon so we've we've got a bunch of things organized. You've alluded to a few of them. Let's start with the dragonbane competition, the tournament. So do you wanna tell us a little bit, about that? I know Matthew was involved in kind of running it on the day.
Dave:I've been I've been given you know, I've been blessed with not being burdened with having to worry about any of that.
Milly:So Have you been scheduled on the stand while everybody else runs into Tootsuite?
Dave:Yeah. I guess so. But that's fine. That's fine. That's I'm happy being on the stand.
Milly:So the the Dragonbane tournament came out of like, if we have, rooms that holds you know, we've got 20 plus tables in a room. We've got these big spaces that we can put on big screens and that kind of stuff. We can do big cool events. Like, where are you gonna get 12, 15, 20 GMs together? At many other times of the year, and also the space to do it.
Milly:Like, we we Yeah. You know, we're laughing about taking over the Hilton and the the NEC, but that that's a big amount of space. So we were talking with, RPG companies and folks. Free League this year are the sponsors of the RPG scheduler at UK Games Expo, which is amazing. And so we were talking with Anna about doing some cool events.
Milly:They mentioned the sinking tower, which was something they've run at their convention, back home.
Dave:Was that in Goscon, I think, wasn't it?
Milly:I think so. Yeah. Like in April. Yeah. And it and it's like a race against the clock to to get through the tower, before it sinks back into the ocean.
Milly:And it for Dragonbone. And so we were like, that sounds awesome. When we were talking about it, like, we normally run it in 2 sessions. We normally have, like, 5 GMs, 10 GMs run it then, and then 10 and so like, well, we've got this massive room. Why don't we just get 20 GMs together and run it?
Milly:And in one go. And then we were like, could we do that? I'm like, yeah. We can absolutely do that. Let's do that.
Milly:Let's have a massive room of Dragonbane. Let's get everybody together. Folks who who are like old convention for scenes, there used to be stuff that was like an open, where it is a very competitive, D and D. They're all trying to score the best. And I really liked when we were talking about Dragonbane.
Milly:It's like, it's no. We're not serious. We are just, you know, we're just having a laugh. One of our characters is a duck person.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You can't take it seriously then, can you? You?
Dave:Yeah. No.
Milly:And the duck person, not great at swimming as well, I think, in the
Dave:I don't know. If you're British.
Milly:Is it
Dave:is it Macanda? Makanda?
Milly:I think so. Yeah. So so the
Dave:dragon flames Funny thing though, when we ran when we ran that, conventions last year, everybody wanted to play the duck, which is just really funny. Right? We have a just to say Matthew has made it. Yeah. So we're just talking about, the dragonbane tournament.
Dave:Yeah. Listeners, Matthew was late. Good on him. Well done. He's just arrived in the man.
Dave:Just getting his,
Matthew:An accident on the m 25. Another accident just before joining the a one.
Dave:You had a shit morning. Well, I didn't have the accident.
Matthew:So since the invite, I've just had the traffic jams and the diversion.
Dave:Yeah. Anyway, welcome. Is my is Jenny making you a cup of tea?
Matthew:No. No. No. I I got a coffee when I
Dave:when I
Matthew:stopped for petrol, which again, I wouldn't have needed to do if
Dave:I hadn't gone for the diversion. Fair enough. Anyway, sorry, Minnie. We we don't we're digressing somewhat. Yes.
Dave:So back to Dragonbone. Yeah. And
Milly:the duck. We were talking about the the duck who I don't think can swim that well. But, yeah, it was about getting all these folks together. Like, so we wanna do things that you won't get chance to do anywhere else. Like, where else are we gonna get everybody in one big room to play the same game at the same time and have a laugh in that kind of way?
Milly:And that that's kind of, like, what we wanted to do with it it's what Expo wants to do with a lot of things. Like, where are you all gonna get to play a a mega game in the morning, and then go and watch a comedy show in the afternoon and then go and play in a tournament in the evening? You know, that kind of thing. Where are we gonna get that sort of stuff? So, yeah, the Dragon Bay and the Sinking Tower, it's it's a 2 hour run through this tower, and every table is trying to compete against the other table for the most amount of treasure, points, problem solvings, least amount of deaths, that kind of thing.
Milly:How are
Dave:you gonna how are you gonna make sure the GMs are all equally harsh or equally generous?
Milly:I think Matthew just asked to do a pep talk at the top of the Yeah.
Matthew:I'm gonna do a team talk. And 3 of the GMs are our patrons. So Mohammed is flying over from Egypt.
Dave:It's great to see him again.
Matthew:And Bruce and, Frank or Raul Dhanas, if you follow him on his channel, are all going to be GMing. We've all playtested the scenario. And, so I think we've we've come across the main talking points just to Cool. To tell people about and to maybe look for some level of consistency in rulings on. Yeah.
Dave:So Trying to avoid the, one one GM is far too kind and another is, like, I'm
Matthew:gonna kill them all. But at the end of the day, it's just a bit of fun. Yeah. You know, you're not joining if you're competing this, you're not joining, like, their competitive, professional role playing games fraternity that because there isn't one. It's not like esports.
Dave:No. No.
Matthew:No. So I think everybody will have fun, and there will be winners, and there will be prizes.
Dave:If it goes really well this year, what we should do next year is the esports idea has just given me this idea, is have it filmed and then have a commentator and have it being put onto a big screen somewhere, maybe for the final or something. Do do you have a does it go to a final? Or is it
Matthew:just No. No. No. Actually
Milly:No. Everybody everybody completes at the same
Dave:time. Right. Right. Okay.
Matthew:I do plan to be running around the room totting up scores and updating scores live
Dave:Right.
Matthew:On a projector so everyone can see how they're doing.
Dave:Oh, I'd be disappointed I'm not involved now. That sounds fun.
Matthew:Yeah. But you turned it down.
Dave:You turned
Matthew:it down. Somebody's gonna run the 3 league store.
Dave:Well, I know. I know. Never mind.
Milly:That's fine. Hush.
Dave:But, yeah.
Milly:My own fault. That that's Dragon Bay. That's Saturday Saturday afternoon. It's gonna be pretty pretty awesome, pretty way good way to kick off.
Dave:So if people are interested in that and haven't signed up or anything for it now, what do they do?
Milly:So there's 2 ways you could you can be interested for for it. You could play it, which case you need to just head over to the expo website, and, in the events section, in the search bar for the little events bit, type sinking tower, and that'll find it, or scroll through the several hundred events. I recommend using the search engine the search
Dave:bar. Cool.
Milly:I can get you a link to put in the the show notes
Dave:as well. Yeah. That would be great. Yeah.
Milly:If you are a Dragonbane GM, and you you fancy free entry to the UK Games Expo on Saturday, we might be able to get you a a table if you wanted to run it. Just need to email me, RPGs@ukgamesexpo.co.uk. I know it's short notice, so I would say you need to know how to play Dragonbane at this stage. Like, a couple of months ago, you we might have been able to get, you know, get you some, Dragonbane stuff. But, if you know how to run Dragonbane and you fancy GM in it, you're very welcome to.
Milly:Just drop me an email. And we and and if you do GM it, we will give you free entry for the day. We don't expect you to to buy your ticket to
Dave:come in. I was gonna say, what do they get for for for GMing? Then, cool. They get
Milly:a little perk. Yeah. Free free entry. There are also we've had, Tony. So Tony is, like, my RPG boss.
Milly:He's sort of, like, that side of things. Richard is my tournament and, an entertainment boss. This is 2 directors. But Tony is, very excited. He's had some very special commemorative badges made for GMs this year.
Milly:So if you GM a game Oh. You get an exclusive badge, that won't be printed again, won't be sold to anybody. So the 2024 GM badge, you can get one of them as well.
Matthew:Nice. Are you still accepting, offers to run games in the wider role playing thing? If there are other GMs listing this and have suddenly got a weekend free in a couple of weeks? Can they,
Milly:do
Matthew:they need to run other games?
Milly:Yeah. We, we do so some of the busier sessions of the so there are 8 sessions across the weekend. 3 on Friday, 3 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. The middle one on Saturday, I've got, like, 2 tables free. Like, so if you could run it Saturday morning or, you know, Saturday evening, that'd be great.
Milly:But Saturday, afternoon, 2 PM Saturday, I've it's probably, by the time this is published, full.
Dave:Right. Right.
Milly:But, yeah, you kinda yeah. Like, it's the only thing we're still accepting GMs for, because we do have some tables, like I said. If you wanna run a game on Friday, we can find you some space. If you wanna run a game on Saturday, Sunday afternoon, Sunday morning is full as well. I get the impression that a lot of GMs are coming on Saturday, staying over Saturday night, and running again Sunday morning.
Milly:But, yeah, you can. And, I did not entirely sure when, but we do have a small library of RPGs. Like I said, sponsors, free leagues, have been really supportive. So we have, some of the I mean, I expect your listeners will be the League of Free Agents, kind of folks. But some of those games, we've also got access to.
Milly:So if you're not sure what you want to run, we can share those with you and be like, why don't you run an alien session because everybody wants to play alien?
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:And some other companies. So so folks like, cubicle 7, Aron, Rookinde card, Shiva Parable Games. A couple of other folks have donated, games to this this RPG library, and they are all, PDF versions of their games that are designed to be run at conventions. So they're they're written for you to be able to go, okay, this is this is what's gonna happen here. This is what's gonna happen here.
Milly:The the packet is quite well produced, so you're not gonna be like, oh, I need 6 books. You know? I've
Dave:gotta post this. Yeah.
Milly:Which is a frustration. Like, are you bringing your stuff if you especially if you're coming on one day to the show. I wanna bring my core book, maybe an extra book, or I just wanna bring my tablet with a couple of PDFs on, rather than, I'm gonna run the scenario, but I also need the spells from that book, the equipment from that book
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:The maps that are in this book, and then the information about the town that's in that book. So now you've got a trolley just to run 4 hours of games.
Dave:And then and then you need space in your bag for all the stuff you wanna buy and take home. Yeah.
Milly:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely so but, yeah, we we have a small library of these RPGs that we could help if you're not sure what you wanna run, or you're just flexible on what you wanna run, we can help you out there.
Milly:You just need to drop us an email, rpgs@ukgamesexpo.co.uk. If you know what you wanna run, head over to events on the page, submit an event, go through all the details, fill in your stuff, and just give me just give me a moment or 2 to, like, get to you. I I oversee the RPGs, live events, seminars, and tournaments. So my inbox my email inbox is very full.
Matthew:Pretty full.
Dave:I'm
Milly:not ignoring anybody. I really am not. There's a lot of stuff going on right now, and we are we are getting very close. And everybody everybody is anxious, and I understand that. It's like, oh, I haven't heard about this.
Milly:But when 5 people email me, I haven't heard about this. I I either have to reply to them all or ignore them further, and that makes your anxiety a little bit more. Trust me. Yeah. With Monet, I've not forgotten you.
Milly:You definitely qualified for a hotel room, got one. You will get entry tickets, that I will be sending out information shortly if you are a GM on where to collect your things and how to get into the show and all this kind of stuff. I promise. I promise. Just
Dave:Have faith that really is on.
Matthew:But, of course, most of the people who don't have their plans set in stone already for the weekend are more likely to be players than GMs. So what else is there? I mean, there are some I think there are some other big event games like the Dragon Vein tournament. Is there one Yeah.
Milly:Highlander? There's a Highlander one we were mentioning.
Dave:This is the Spider Man. Highlander, which is a real source.
Milly:A real sword.
Dave:There'll be only one.
Milly:Quite literally, at the end of this event, there will be only one person who leaves with a sword. We are asking that person to keep the sword wrapped up because it is quite a realistic looking sword, and we don't want any interactions with the NEC or the police. Oh. To keep it nice and take safely. But, yeah, there's the Highlander event.
Milly:That's the everyday hero system, which is just a variation on, Dungeons and Dragons.
Dave:So he played
Matthew:years ago when he was
Milly:Yeah.
Matthew:Doing that.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:What what any other ones apart from Highlander?
Milly:And then there's the Cthulhu Masters. Mhmm. Because Hulu Masters, I think, is on Saturday afternoon. You all complete multiple tables compete in a story. The survivors so I think it's spread amongst the tables.
Milly:Like, if your character survives, there is an evening event where those survivors will get to play an advanced in advance of it being published with the writer, Lynne, is coming. And the winner of that gets the Cthulhu Masters trophy, which is this, like, cute cute well, it's not cute, but, you know, it's like this Cthulhu y statue. That's true.
Matthew:And who's the writer in that one? Is that Lyn Vardy or somebody?
Milly:Yes. Lyn. Yes. She's coming to to run it, that that end session. So you get to play it in advance of publication and play it with the person who wrote it, which is pretty darn cool.
Dave:Cool. Really good.
Milly:And then there's a bunch of stuff going on. Like, there's the Gloomhaven RPG you can play, you know, have a look at for the first time because as it it's about in fulfillment now or it's being printed right now. So
Dave:Right.
Milly:Expo will be one of the first places you can try it, and I think that's run by by some of the folks who wrote wrote it. Cubicle 7 is is shipping over. Josh, one of their writers, you know, in a shipping crate from Ireland, He's gonna be running he's not in a shipping crate. He's coming on a plane. He's got a hotel room.
Dave:That's a cheap boy of saving you a bit of money on the budget. Yes.
Milly:No. Josh is coming over nicely. But what yeah. One of their writers is coming over. They're gonna be running their broken weave, which is like this hope punk dystopian, setting and they've got going on.
Milly:So you can play a game with him. Darrington Press have come over. They're bringing some. They've got some GMs who are gonna be running Candela Obscura. Mhmm.
Milly:Modiphius have arranged for some of the first ever games of Star Trek Adventures
Dave:2. Edition. Yeah.
Milly:Yeah. So that was pretty cool. We had to we had some GMs who had to sign NDAs so they could read the rules beforehand, just so they could be ready. That was that was really cool of them. And that yeah.
Milly:There's there's, at time of recording, not quite 500 games. By the time of publication, I'm pretty darn certain we'll have 500 games on the
Dave:pretty good. Yeah.
Milly:Which is amazing. Yes. A 100 and I yeah. I'll pull up spreadsheet ups with all the everybody's names in.
Matthew:I
Milly:won't tell you everybody's names because that's really cool.
Dave:Yeah. Everybody got 5 minutes left, Melissa.
Milly:Thank everybody individually. Yeah. A 128 GMs, are currently signed up to run between, 6 or just one game. And if you do wanna run a game, we will make sure you get free entry. Depending on how many games you run, depends on what level of support we can.
Milly:Unfortunately, at this point, 18 days from the schedule, I can't give anybody else a hotel room. I don't have any left. Uh-huh. Hilton is only finite, non Euclidean geometry does not apply. And Hilton is sold out.
Milly:So I don't have any hotel rooms, but if you think about 2025, if you run 5 games or more, we'll put you up in the Hilton for the Friday Saturday night, and you'll get your breakfast there. And then we'll also give you some we'll also give you some me, meal vouchers. So we'll, you know, put you up in a hotel, feed you, and you just have to run 5 games.
Dave:Just go and play games for the weekend. It's I
Milly:know. It's
Dave:We win tonight, isn't it? Yeah.
Milly:Yeah. Yeah. And you can do cool things like the Dragonbane tournament that you get to do nowhere else. And and it's yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah.
Milly:Cool. So this other stuff is happening. But like I was saying today, at the start, we're, like, we undersell the RPG schedule so much.
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:Just like we were so James is the marketing manager for the UK Games Expo, and we were looking at other countries', RPG schedules. The bit the only the only schedule we think in Europe that's bigger is Luca Comic Con.
Dave:Mhmm.
Milly:However, they don't publish how many they don't publish their games. It's It's all down to individual publishers to to be like, we're running 10 games. So we think Luka is a bigger a bigger RPG schedule. But that makes Expo the biggest in the UK and very likely the biggest in Europe, the biggest organized one in Europe, which Yeah.
Matthew:Because gaming game, even though SN is a pretty big convention, it doesn't particularly do RPGs, and there's no organised RPG play, is there, that I'm aware of? No. No. Because
Milly:they they don't they don't schedule anything. But yeah.
Dave:Yeah. So what else have we got going on? Which is me a slightly leading question.
Milly:There are other things. We're running seminars.
Matthew:And there's some seminars for
Milly:Oh, yeah. There's some there's some sort of pub quiz on Sunday afternoon, ain't
Matthew:there. There might be if we get to
Dave:write it. We will rewrite it. Yeah. Matt has asked me to do all the really boring questions Yeah. I I know the fact that
Matthew:Matt has asked me
Dave:to do all the really boring
Milly:questions for it, and he's gonna do all the early No.
Matthew:All I've said is, can you do a round on
Dave:the cimberoon? And he is the
Matthew:only one I know nothing about.
Milly:Oh, brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's the, a whole host of seminars again this year. Obviously, you folks are taking part on Sunday afternoon.
Milly:There's also some sort of how to freelance writing tip workshop or something, isn't there?
Dave:Saturday sometime, isn't it? I I did try
Matthew:I did
Dave:try and find it again before before we started talking, but I couldn't. So but I'll remind myself. It's Saturday afternoon ish, I think, isn't it?
Milly:Yeah.
Dave:Something about
Milly:that. The top top ten tips for freelance writing.
Matthew:And it's not the same top ten tips as last time?
Dave:No, it'll have to be different top 10 tips unless of course I run out of tips. In which case I might have to steal some of last year's tips. But it was a really good chat last year and the audience, the guys, the folks who came along were brilliant and we it was it was a chat. It wasn't me talking to people. It was us having a conversation, which was great fun.
Dave:So, yeah, if you're interested, people come along because it's, it would be really cool.
Milly:There's that. There's there's a couple of, like, watch people play RPGs if you're into that, kind of thing. There's quite a few how to make board games if you're you wanna do that. There's a lot of we've had so much interest in the live shows this year. So the entertainment.
Milly:So things like the darkroom and and the comedy shows that we've moved to a bigger venue, in the Hilton for them. So we've gone from 300 to 400 seats.
Dave:Some of
Milly:those events have already sold out. So there's there's there's such a a hungry demand for stuff. In hall 3, there are mega games I mentioned. So if you're you are, like, a really into your role play stuff, I recommend you try some of the mega games, because they are a cross between board games, LARP, and RPGs. Okay.
Milly:In which in which case, you might be like there's Den of Wolves, which is like, Battlestar Galactica with the the serial numbers filed off. You all play as your own ship in the the flotilla, trying to get yourselves, you know, survive and manage o 2 and food and that kind of stuff, but there are some some wolves among the sheep. And you have to manage that. And you get player packs, and there's I think there's a secret code word. That's how you identify the other wolves.
Milly:Like, you say to each other, like, oh, it's very ubiquitous to find you here. You know, that kind of stuff.
Matthew:And I mean,
Milly:you know, they they
Dave:need subtle. That does.
Milly:But I assume it's much more subtle than my,
Dave:my head. Yeah. It's super to find you. Yeah. I'm having a super time.
Milly:Nice. And and that, generalistomo's dead where it, like, you're all minor political factions after a coup who's gonna be in charge.
Dave:Yeah.
Milly:So it's it's real time and and, you know, resource. But the mega games are great. 100 of tournaments going on if you were you're into a bit of competitive situations, both friendly and, like, there's some Arkham Horror card game tournaments that, just sort of, like, we're just playing for the fun. And then there are, like, the 1 piece, Lo'Connor, and the, you know, Star Wars Unlimited tournament, which are, like Nice. Competitive meta busting decks going on, which so there's a bit of everything.
Milly:And then there's there's hauls and hauls of, traders. Come and find Dave. I think I saw Stockholm cartel have got their own stand as well.
Dave:They have. Not
Matthew:far from us. Really? Not far from us.
Milly:I think I
Matthew:can't remember whether we're running their stock for them or not. I have to clarify.
Dave:Well, I guess if they've got their own stand, then Yeah. We might have some of those. But
Matthew:I I I've I've inquired with, yeah.
Dave:Well, last year when last year, Johan came along and just basically took a corner of our stand and was super busy, which is great because, obviously, great to see the Stockholm Cartel stuff doing so well. And it made us look good when it wasn't so busy on our stand because there was always somebody around.
Milly:Always someone around looking for on Warkaburg. Yeah. There's loads of loads of folks like that and, cosplay and all kinds of stuff. Like, it it is the whole sort of schedule is, like, there's too much to do here in a weekend. Let's come back in 2025.
Dave:That's the
Milly:way you go. That's the game there. That's the game there.
Dave:Leave everyone wanting a bit more.
Milly:Absolutely. Absolutely. Brilliant.
Dave:Well, thanks so much, Millie. We've, we've
Matthew:we've Oh, no. I have another question
Dave:for me.
Milly:Yeah. Well, if you'd
Dave:if you'd arrived at the start, then, you know, we could have planned that in.
Milly:But Well,
Dave:it answers the question for the end.
Matthew:And if you remember, on the running order for the interview that I gave you by text from the car, I included this one. Millie. I I don't just wanna talk about Not
Dave:that Matthew was texting whilst driving. I'd like
Milly:to know.
Matthew:I I was dictating to Siri. She's great at doing this sort of stuff. And I was even impressed when I said, read my email. Forward that email to Dave. That was pretty impressive.
Dave:Sorry. Go on. Anyway,
Matthew:We'll
Dave:get there in the
Matthew:Where am I? Yeah. So, you're not just organizing huge chunks of UK Games Expo this year. You've also got a trip planned to another famous and large year remembering how remember your textiles said you had a
Milly:30 year calendar. Yeah. I'm I'm going to GenCon.
Dave:Cool. Is
Milly:that what we're talking about? It's what we're talking about.
Matthew:I wanna know how and why. Are you going on your own account, or are you going with the UK Games Expo team, or what what's the deal here?
Milly:It's it's a little bit of column a and a little bit of column b. So, me and my husband, Graham, wanted to go to Gen Con for a while. So we are we are going over ourselves. But while we're there, obviously, because I will be doing a bit of work and a bit of, meetings, expo has covered, my my entry and and helped a bit with the the hotel rooms and stuff. Cool.
Milly:So I've I've submitted my RPG. I'm gonna try and hope hope fingers crossed it'll get approved, but there's there's so many. I should get lost
Dave:in this thing already. Are you gonna run?
Milly:I'm gonna run Tales from the Loop. Cool. I love, I love my baby. Okay. I'm I'm gonna run a king of cats, which is the another one I've wrote wrote.
Milly:But she's got all sorts of Lancastrian references in it, but
Dave:But no one's needed to clue about. You think
Milly:Yeah. I know. But it'd be cool. You could have an English GM and
Dave:Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Excellent.
Milly:But, yeah, gonna go over to Gen Con. Gonna see what that whole thing is about and run a game. Hopefully play some games. I've put my wish list in. I did have a moment.
Milly:I did have a moment worth $80 for one of these, one of the D and D games.
Dave:I was
Milly:a bit like
Matthew:What? Oh, what? You
Dave:$80 for one game. That's gonna be a damn good game, isn't it?
Milly:I'm not taking part in that game.
Dave:No.
Milly:But I it was $80 for 4 hours of D and D, and I was a little bit like, old woman sheltered cloud, kind of moment. This is like £15 an hour. Because when you translate it down, I'm like
Dave:For each for each player?
Milly:Yeah. For
Dave:80 dozen player. That's pretty good hourly rate for the GM. Blimey.
Milly:Yeah. So I was a bit shocked, but I haven't seen it. So I I guess going over, I'll see what what that $80 is is for.
Dave:Okay. Thank
Milly:you. Yeah. I'm going to GenCon. I'm going to GenCon. I'm going to go and see, what is the biggest convention in the world, because no.
Milly:The second.
Matthew:It's the 2nd. It's
Milly:the 2nd. Essence is the biggest. Then it's Gen Con, then it's the UK Games Expo. So I'll head over and and have a look and see what it's about. And, and then come back and tell everybody.
Matthew:We might have to we might have to get you on the show again to talk about your Gen Con adventures, Millie.
Milly:Yeah. Absolutely. I'm I'm quite happy to chat about Gen Con. I'll have done all the big three then. I'll have done Essendon, Gen Con, and Expo.
Milly:So I'll have I've a completely unbiased
Dave:I've done
Milly:a a a a a a a
Dave:a a
Matthew:a a congratulate to say that. Right. I think now I'm done.
Dave:Well well done. Okay. Well, Millie, thank you so much for coming on the show. That was fabulous. Always great to chat with you, and, look forward to seeing you in 18 days.
Matthew:Yay. Cool. 18 days? I've
Milly:got my breath
Dave:to write. I've got 10 tips to write, and everything else. But yeah. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Millie.
Dave:And, yeah. See you soon.
Matthew:So that's it. That's our short episode of this edition of effect. Episode 231. Maybe the shortest one we've ever done. Definitely.
Matthew:Definitely, the most monotonous in terms of my voice. Our normal service will be resumed in 2 weeks time with episode 232. What are we gonna talk about then? Well, I'd ask Dave, but he's not here. So, it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from me and may the icons bless your adventures.
Dave:You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of freely publishing.