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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 274 of Effect, Lone Rider. I'm Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. And we've got an exciting show today. We have all our usual bits to talk about. We have a a new patron to thank, which is lovely. We have got a little bit of news in the world of gaming, although
Matthew:Yeah. Not much news in the world gaming.
Dave:Christmas and New Year, it's we're a bit we're a bit thin, I guess, on that. Or maybe we're just missing all the exciting stuff that's going on that everyone else is talking about, but we are we are we are just missing that. But then we have a fabulous feature. So, as you know, Matthew, for a long time, has been grappling
Matthew:You had to say for a long time, didn't you?
Dave:Hey, well, you said something in your piece that, you know, you know, has been has been wrangling. Rang you see what I'm doing there? Has been wrangling.
Matthew:Wrangling. That's good. Yeah. Well done.
Dave:The solo rules stretch goal that we that we had on our Kickstarter for Tales of the Old West. And he's done a fabulous little piece about that, about writing solo rules. So I'll be really excited to understand and hear everything that you've got to say about that today. So unusually, we're gonna
Matthew:have
Dave:a thin, lean, muscular show that will come in exactly on, you know, about an hour, and everyone won't have to listen to us blathering on unnecessarily in our usual, what's the word, pit of loquacity.
Matthew:If I can stop your blathering on there, I just want to point out that exactly about an hour is a bit of a tautology.
Dave:It's as close as you're going to get with me, mate. You should know that by now.
Matthew:Right. Tell you what, though.
Dave:Shall we move swiftly
Matthew:on to our new patron?
Dave:Yes. Let's.
Matthew:I like the story of this patron, actually. So welcome, Shaky Tea, as he is known on Patreon, or Simon, as he is known on the nicest place
Dave:in the Internet,
Matthew:our Discord. Cool. Thank you very much, Simon. Simon has joined the Discord, because he started listening to the podcast after, get this, after I sold him a copy of Tales of the Old West at Dragonmeat, I believe.
Dave:Cool. Yeah. It's a great story, that is. And apparently Yeah. He he he went away and then he came back to buy.
Dave:Yes. Which is even So so we get we get so many times when we're working on the stands, we have a lovely conversation with somebody, talk to them about a game, they're really excited, and then they and then they go, well, it's early, I'm gonna do the rest of my walk around and I'll be back later. And you've been you might be surprised that not everybody comes back later. No. Which is a bit disappointing for those of us who are going, oh, I can sell this game to them and they can have a great fun with it.
Dave:Particularly when it's our own game, of course. But lovely. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Shaky Tea, for for coming back. And thank you for for for backing us.
Dave:It's brilliant. Lovely to see you at the Discord as well.
Matthew:No. It's brilliant. Thank you. Thank you, Simon, for joining us. And
Dave:Thank you. Thank you to all our patrons again, as always. Yes. Again, without you all our patrons. Without you, we wouldn't be doing any of this.
Dave:So
Matthew:And I was just just thinking, we maybe should have I should have warned you about this conversation that I'm about to have, which isn't on the running order, or I didn't warn you beforehand. But at the end of the last live show, we talked about doing a West March's alien campaign.
Dave:We did.
Matthew:Didn't we?
Dave:We did.
Matthew:And you're still up for that, Dave? Yes. Before I go on
Dave:to talk Absolutely.
Matthew:So, obviously, our patrons get to join us in that game if they are so inclined. So that's another reason, maybe, to join the Patreon if you are interested in that. And we I I now you know you know, I got rid of Streamyard Streamyard last year because a, we weren't using it enough and b, it was too expensive.
Dave:They hiked the prices, the bastards. Yeah.
Matthew:Well, they hiked the prices a year before last, but when I played them, they gave me 50
Dave:We got a deal, didn't we? Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Or or more than 50%, I think, actually. Anyway, so they weren't gonna do that again this year. Although, I have since heard that some people have been offered a lower price. But anyway, I tried it with them and they didn't budge.
Matthew:But I've I've now found another streamer which we may use and I'm paying monthly on this one. So if it doesn't work out, we we, you know, we won't We're
Dave:not we're not stuck into a contract. Yeah. And that's
Matthew:that's That's
Dave:about $15
Matthew:a month, I think you
Dave:would Right.
Matthew:Okay. There was a there was a Cool. There was a, you know, a a new year sale or something, so I grabbed it while it was cheap.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:So we'll be streaming that properly when we do that.
Dave:Yeah. So we'll I was thinking Yeah. We'll be doing that on YouTube. Yeah. I guess, that get
Matthew:I was
Dave:Will that get streamed on some other platforms as well? Or is it just
Matthew:No. I think we'll just stick on YouTube. We did we did try streaming on Itch or whatever it's called. No. Not Itch.
Matthew:I can't remember. You know, I'm an old man, Dave. I'm an old man. Twitch. Twitch.
Matthew:That's the one. Itch. Itch Twitch. I don't like Twitch. I never liked Twitch.
Matthew:I don't like watching Twitch. I don't like streaming on Twitch.
Dave:I don't think I've ever used Twitch ever. So That's
Matthew:a young man's game.
Dave:What are you saying? You're older than I am, pal.
Matthew:Yeah. I'd say we'll stick with YouTube, that's where you'll find us. But we will be starting that. We've got to actually organize it, within a few weeks, think, maybe. So look out for us on the YouTubes.
Dave:I'm I'm thinking so we're gonna do a session zero, which is gonna be probably quite a long session.
Matthew:I think we might need to do two session zeros, by the way. Just thinking about
Dave:Depending how
Matthew:many the logistics of
Dave:Yeah. I'm just trying to have a quick look about how many people have
Matthew:So I think 10 people at least have signed up for it.
Dave:10. So I know yeah. So we've got 10 signed up and plus me, so that's 11. So that is that's cool. We did do a session zero for Alien the Colony that was, I think, 10 people.
Dave:So we could possibly do it in a Yeah. Big
Matthew:But we've also got to create the town, haven't we? We've got, therefore, 10 people creating characters, including you.
Dave:Well, I get I might I guess my thought was it would be quite nice for all those involved to be involved in creating the town.
Matthew:Yeah. Exactly. So I just I just wonder whether there might be one character creation session zero and one town creation
Dave:session zero. That's not a terrible idea. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was my my plan was to get this the ball rolling for this by the January.
Dave:So
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Looking to probably do it on a Monday evening.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:So, not whether the nineteenth is too early, because that's only a week tomorrow.
Matthew:It's only a week away.
Dave:So maybe target the twenty sixth as our first session zero and see Cool. See how it goes. Because I think we could we could potentially see how it's gonna go, and then look to do it all in in one. Or alternatively then, if not, the following week we'll do the the second session zero and create the town, as you as you said, depending we how don't want to rush it, do we? We don't want to sit there for six hours doing it all either, so
Matthew:No. No. Exactly.
Dave:No. Cool. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, looking forward to that.
Dave:But this is so the difference between so for those of you who who who remember Alien the Colony, the mistake that I made with that one was taking on the, like, initially a 100% of the of the DM ing jaws.
Matthew:Well, not quite a 100% in the end, but
Dave:Initially, no. But Thomas, I think, did one and Andy did one, but that was just too much. So this one is gonna Did
Matthew:Andy actually do it in the end? Did he do his? I
Dave:can't remember. I think he did. I think he did. I didn't I wasn't I wasn't playing in it, but I think he did. But anyway, this one is specifically going to be West Marches for the players and the GM.
Dave:So I'm I'm happy to GM the first one, which is great, and I'm happy to GM. But also, it'll mean that I won't be getting worn out and finding that I don't have the time to do it, because others will be coming in and Yeah. Taking taking on the DM job, which would be great.
Matthew:Cool. I'll definitely be doing that. Bruce has volunteered too. Yeah. And Jed has, I think as well.
Dave:That's gonna be great.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:But yes, the other to briefly mention on that is, as regular listeners will know, we are working on the new supplement, the first supplement, Paterals of the Old West, the Gold Country. We are going to set this in the eighteen fifties
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:In the era and the location of the Gold Country. And so we'll get to playtest some of the locations and perhaps some of the rules as we create them for that as well. So this will be a little insight into what's coming later this year for Tales of the Old West.
Matthew:Yeah. Brilliant. Cool. Brilliant. So shall we crack on?
Matthew:Shall we crack on? Because that was a bit of Old West news before Old West news might have been scheduled, although we are scheduled in the Old West news. So so now there's of the news, the world of gaming.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:And yeah. As you mentioned, it's it's pretty news light at the moment. There's some people being, you know, sacked and then recruited. Other people being recruited from D and D, but we're not in that bag. The one thing that has caught my attention comes from Evil Hat, and that is Blades 68.
Matthew:So this is Blaze in the Dark, which you've never played, have you?
Dave:No. I have played Blade Blade in the Dark, but only a only a few times.
Matthew:Alright. Yeah.
Dave:One of one of the guys down the down the pub, Paul, was into it.
Matthew:Ran in for a bit.
Dave:Ran it for a bit, and did a brilliant thing, because he's got a big company, and in his company, he's got this sort of industrial printer. So, he printed the map of
Matthew:the Oh, yeah.
Dave:And it was like six foot by six foot the map, and he just covered the whole table, and it was superb way of playing the game. But no, I really enjoyed it but didn't play it a lot. No.
Matthew:No. I I so actually, you may have played it more than me then because I played one brilliant well, not a couple of sessions, but one brilliant adventure which we loved. We loved it. Mhmm. I didn't buy it then.
Matthew:It was quite early on in its history because, frankly, we got too many games anyway. Yeah. I loved a lot about it. But, you know you know you and me, we kind of like modern settings rather than fantasy settings. And so the idea of a Blades in the Duck, but set in 1968 thrills me.
Matthew:It thrilled me to begin with until I realized that it's still in Duskvoll. It's just Duskvoll's 1968, whatever that is. May not even be '90.
Dave:Right. Right.
Matthew:So a sixties style swing of culture, but still in a fantasy city.
Dave:Right. Okay. Does that does that put you off a little bit then?
Matthew:It puts me off a little bit. Well, for a start, for two reasons. One is it's not standalone. You'll need Blades in the Dark to play.
Dave:Right. Okay.
Matthew:It's it's a setting effectively. A setting a setting book that just moves Duskvoll on by a hundred years. There's some interesting stuff about that because I always felt Duskvoll was quite Victorian and it's nice to kind of have that confirmed if if now a hundred years after after Blades in the Dark, we're now in, you know, the swinging sixties. Yeah. I quite like that.
Matthew:And I like the I didn't I didn't really hate Dusk Vole, but I was hoping it would be a kind of non magical, non weird weird sci fi. Not science is the word I'm looking
Dave:for. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. And that, you know, that was all magic and weird science are definitely part of Dust Bowl, so that will still be in there. So I'm slightly less excited by it than I was when I first saw it.
Dave:Yeah. I wonder if I mean, I don't obviously, you haven't seen it, but I wonder if there's anything in there that would allow you to just take the setting that they've done there, take some material from it and just port that into 1968, you know, London or Newcastle or, you know, Glasgow or something, You know?
Matthew:I mean, with a bit of work, you could because, you know, people have done that already with the what do they call it? The Forged in the Dark system.
Dave:Forged in the Dark. Yeah.
Matthew:But that might be a bit too much work for me. And in actually, I have got another game somewhere that I bought ages ago which I still really want to do which is in Central America, in a kind of Central America in in in Cartel, I think the game might be called from
Dave:Right. Okay. Yeah.
Matthew:So may maybe I should just pull that one out and use that.
Dave:Anyway Escape from Venezuela. Don't don't wanna get political. We will put
Matthew:a link to the nascent yeah. Bit bit political there.
Dave:Yeah. Sorry. My my my bad.
Matthew:No. Go ahead. We're we don't we don't shy from being critical of politics here on this podcast, do we?
Dave:No. It's not what we're here for though, really.
Matthew:No. It's not what we're here for. Let's move on then. So Blades in the Dark. Blades in Dark is what I'm trying to tell you, is going to be on BakkerKit, and I think there's a holding page.
Matthew:The campaign, I think, is still a few weeks or months away, but you can definitely sign up to be notified for it on BakkerKit. We will put a link in the show notes.
Dave:Cool.
Matthew:Now the next thing is not on BakkerKit or anywhere yet. This came out of a conversation that we were having on the Discord with our friend and patron, Mohammed. Mohammed is in the very early stages of getting involved with a group who are creating a game called Tiny Defenders. Indeed. And Tiny Defenders is role playing as therapy for children suffering from trauma in Lebanon.
Dave:Palestine.
Matthew:And Palestine. Yeah. Sorry. Not Lebanon. And I had a bit of a chat with the man whose name I promised myself I wouldn't forget and have consequently forgotten it.
Matthew:Give me a moment. Let me just go back to my Facebook conversation with him. This is embarrassing.
Dave:It's the the usual standard of of preparation and planning that people expect from the effect podcast, mate. So it's fine.
Matthew:Absolutely. I I I made a note of it before the episode, and then in the last ten minutes, or however long we've been going, fifteen. There we go. You see, I could have retained the information for ten minutes, but fifteen
Dave:is Fifteen minutes. Beyond
Matthew:my capability. Exactly. So I spoke to Ramzi Taweel, who we we we spoke a lot about being in the last stages of your PhD, which is something I sympathize with him for. But he is creating this game. He's a bit of a quite a nice graphic artist on the side.
Matthew:And apart from doing his PhD, he also designs board games. And they're putting together a role playing game for kids in Palestine. And it showed me a character sheet. It's really interesting. It doesn't require one.
Matthew:I mean it doesn't it's a very pictorial character sheet. So, you know, you can play. They're they're really kind of targeting under thirteens here. There's some really interesting stuff about making a character up, which includes replacement limbs because a lot of the you know, a lot of the people they'll be the kids they'll be working with will have lost limbs and stuff like that in in the adventure. And it it just made me feel really good and hopeful, actually, about the efforts behind this.
Matthew:It's very early stages yet. I don't think they've really got anything to share. They showed me the lovely character sheet. But when they do have something more solid to share, I'm going to invite Ramzi onto the show and we'll have a chat with him about it. But I just wanted to flag it up and tell people about it.
Matthew:And there's not even a website I can send people to, so there won't be a link in the show notes yet. At some point, there will be.
Dave:Yeah. No. It's it's a really good it's a really it's a really good idea to to do that. And it's obviously a very worthy worthy thing to do as well. Yeah.
Dave:I look forward to hearing more about it when when when the time is right.
Matthew:Yeah. And finally, a news I show I'm really only including because of the name. Although, obviously, our listener, Andy, will be very interested in it, because he is a traveler maven. And this is the new traveler supplement or the proposed I don't know whether it's out yet or is it out in PDF or not in print. Yes.
Matthew:Cluster Truck.
Dave:I think it is available for pre order, I think is what it is at the moment.
Matthew:We will put a link in the show notes to that pre order page.
Dave:Cluster truck. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting, isn't it?
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:I have to say, it's not a pun or anything. There genuinely is a cluster and the adventurers are space truckers in that cluster of stars doing tracking. I mean So
Dave:I mean, it is it is a is a joke as well. Isn't it? I mean, come on. You know, let's let's not.
Matthew:But everything goes everything goes smooth. You see, in this game, everything goes smooth. Nothing is ever a cluster track.
Dave:Yeah. So that'll be that's interesting, ain't it? Yeah.
Matthew:So they're gonna get their it looks like they're getting their space tracking campaign out before the much vaunted space space tracking campaign from from Free League.
Dave:Yes. Oh, are you not even gonna say,
Matthew:watch this space, young man? Watch this space.
Dave:Well, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say, frankly. Okay. What I can say is I'm I'm I'm I'm delighted that the Free League have commissioned me to do some more work on on a on a future alien product, which I'm doing at the moment. I've got I've got the green light for my plan for that. So I'm cracking on me writing that.
Dave:But I I I don't know. I haven't seen anywhere where there's been any official announcement. So Right.
Matthew:Okay.
Dave:And
Matthew:So we can be really sure. The only official announcement here is from Mongoose Publishing, and it's about pre orders for Cluster Truck.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:Whether or not there is a Free League alien RPG supplement about space truckers, we're gonna have to leave entirely up in the air. Mean, obviously Everybody knows that. Obviously, Free
Dave:League have discussed before about wanting to do a space tracker supplement in the same way that they did Building Better Worlds in the Colonial Marines operations manual, but I haven't seen any official announcement yet.
Matthew:So we have no idea whether work
Dave:on that
Matthew:has started.
Dave:And that's entirely up to Free League, obviously, to make that announcement. But
Matthew:Jolly good. Jolly good. Well, I have to say, yeah, I can't say any more than that, can I? Because you'll you'll hit I'll get
Dave:you to edit it out. But, yes. But looking but looking at on looking on the cluster truck page, it does feel very old, very very old traveler. The the the design for the ship floor plans is very old traveler, but with a bit of extra color put into it, which is quite nice and quite nostalgic. But yeah.
Matthew:I was a little bit disappointed given the the traveler universe that we did not see any nonhuman. Well, I say nonhuman, of course, obviously, you've zodani and all that sort of crap. We didn't see any Varga or or or what are the lying people called?
Dave:Don't remember.
Matthew:Anyway, we didn't see any aliens. Well, what we're saying here, I I didn't see many aliens on the front cover, which disappointed me a little bit with Cluster Track.
Dave:Lot lots of bee lots of bearded men.
Matthew:Yeah. Lots of bearded men. There were an overabundance of beards. There was, I think, at least one femme presenting person.
Dave:There's there's one female looking character on there. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:And and three three beardy men.
Matthew:Yeah. And I think a preponderance of cowboy hats as well.
Dave:There's there's quite a lot of cowboy hats. Yeah. But I I guess that's the vibe they're going for. It's a very much yeah. That kind of that kind of thing.
Dave:Con boy. Exactly.
Matthew:Ten four, Rubber Duck.
Dave:Rubber Duck.
Matthew:Or whatever they said. Yeah.
Dave:So it it's interesting because there there are I think there are certain challenges in in creating a space trucking campaign, because you spend 90% No.
Matthew:You've been thinking about this. Have you?
Dave:Maybe. Tell me more. Maybe. A little bit, possibly.
Matthew:What are the challenges, Dave?
Dave:Do you think? You just spend a lot of time asleep. Yes. Because you're travelling, you know. And if you are if you are trying to create a multi adventure space trucking campaign, it's it could be very easy to fall into the old trope too often of you've been woken up in the middle of space because there's a distress signal or, you know
Matthew:Mother wants you to investigate.
Dave:And and these I mean, that should be part of it, to a point, but, you know, most most alien movies that are that are sort of space trucking movies, you know, you get woken up because there's a signal to to check, or you wake up and find a signal, or So it's it's a bit of a it's a of a tired old trope. It's easy, it's convenient, it's a very good way of of starting that particular that particular adventure, but, you know, if you do it if you do a space trucking campaign or a cluster truck campaign, and you spend your time constantly being woken up and having to go and do something, which is a bit more of a normal adventure, then I think you lose some of that feel. I think, you know, a trucking campaign needs to keep on trucking, you know. It needs to be
Matthew:Nice nicely done.
Dave:That needs to be part of it.
Matthew:Yeah. And also, make trucking not the insanely boring job that trucking actually is.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. And have a and have a purpose to it. So it's not just not just that you are trying to deliver your next your next cargo and get a pat on the back and a bonus. There's some greater purpose, even if you you as characters might not care very much about it, but there is some greater purpose driving you on to
Matthew:You are part of bigger things.
Dave:To deliver quicker and faster and more effectively, and therefore you might cut corners in order to get ahead of your competition, in which case you
Matthew:might
Dave:then have more failures or catastrophes or problems or, you know, maybe the the quarantine people Office
Matthew:yeah. It feels feels very very similar to a document I reviewed for you recently, Dave. But I can see you put a lot of thought into this for no reason at all when you should be working on the Gold Country, which is our fortune I
Dave:am working on that as well. We were just discussing before we started recording how
Matthew:how How are gonna divide your time between
Dave:Well, no. No.
Matthew:But the just unnamed project for Free League
Dave:and And Gold Country. Yeah. But also, how how how empty and vacuous my head has been over Christmas, because, you know, I had a couple of weeks, you know, obviously, to do stuff and could do could could motivate myself to do nothing other than kill zombies in a computer game or watch television.
Matthew:Which is interesting, because I I too so I set myself over Christmas that I was gonna do three things every day. One of which was play video games, because I bought myself a new PS five and I've got Cool. Ghost of Yotai. Nice. And also, for Christmas, my son bought me this brilliant snuffkin game, which is just beautiful and truly
Dave:captures Snuffkin. That sounds
Matthew:Snuffkin out of the Moomins.
Dave:But okay. So this isn't a Moomin snuff movie? No. Snuff. I mean, just
Matthew:like You're a Philistine, aren't you?
Dave:No. No. No. Just just I'm I'm I'm I'm not a an authority on Moomins in the slightest. I didn't know there was one called Snuffkin.
Dave:But when he started telling me, I'm playing a game called Snuff something, it it does it does imply that it might be an adult only kind of product. But anyway, yeah.
Matthew:Anyway, over Christmas, I spent an hour at least an hour gaming every day.
Dave:Cool.
Matthew:At least an hour doing tax admin for well, for for our company, by the way, Dave.
Dave:And for
Matthew:myself and for my other my own company. So lots of end of year stuff going on there. And and Lee Liesenhauer writing solo rules for Well done. Tales of the Old West. Do you see what I did there?
Matthew:I did a segue, Dave.
Dave:You did. Are we ready for a segue? We're ready for a segue.
Matthew:Look at look at the running order, mate.
Dave:Alright, mate. Well done. I I hadn't quite finished having conversation about all of that, but that's fine. That's fine. We can we can segue on
Matthew:Well, I can't say anything. You were saying quite a lot.
Dave:True. True. I'm not making any announcements though.
Matthew:Definitely not any announcements.
Dave:No announcements. That's that's nothing to do with me. But, yes. So yeah. So, yeah.
Dave:Talking about discipline and actually having the now the new year's started, we were both again, before the show started, we were both joking that we'd put in our invoices for Dragonmeat yesterday. Yeah. Which is like two months after the event, which was kind of the first time that I felt I had any kind of mental, you know, energy and bandwidth to actually do some stuff that I really needed to do. I said I tried to do my tax return yesterday. The computer beat me so I've gotta wait and try that again in a week.
Dave:Yeah. So yeah. But but but I'm getting into that spot where I'm motivated again. I've got over that Christmas so I needed that break. Having been doing a full time job again for a few months has taken a bit of getting used to.
Dave:And I'm but I'm getting used to it. So am gonna crack on with everything and be super efficient from here on in. Yeah. Right. But I will will try.
Dave:Well, you know
Matthew:you have I I just wanna point out, Dave, that you've had two years of sitting, you know, with your feet on the desk eating chocolate. I mean, sorry, writing, you know, freelance writing, and now you're back in a nine to five job that you have to commute to. You need to have a break.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I mean Yeah.
Matthew:So Absolutely. Don't feel bad about
Dave:No. No. I don't I I no. I I didn't feel bad about it. Did I?
Matthew:Oh, right. Okay. Can I make you feel very bad about it?
Dave:No. I did feel a bit bad about it. Because again, before the holidays, I thought I've got all this stuff to do. The very least I can do is, you know, work out Track. The plan for the commission that Free League had asked me to work on.
Dave:What was
Matthew:that, Dave?
Dave:And get myself in a position yeah. Maybe do some writing for for some of the other stuff or draw some maps. And yeah, I found it yeah. It took me a long time to get that commission done, in my plan for the commission. So but yeah.
Dave:So I was nowhere near as efficient or did as much with the time as I'd wanted to. But, like you said, I just needed to empty my brain into the vacuum of space and and let it recharge a little bit.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. But, yes. So your segue. Yeah.
Matthew:So Coming back to my segue.
Dave:What was your segue again? Oh, Lighting glow. Yeah. So as you said at the start, as everyone knows, part of the kick start of one of the stretch goals was Solo Rules. I reckon we just listen to you talk about it, mate.
Matthew:When we ran the kickstarter for Tales of the Old West, it quickly became apparent that there was a demand from backers and potential backers for solo rules. I have to say that Dave and I were skeptical about this. We both agree that for us, a driver of our enjoyment of RPGs has been the social element, making up stories with friends, talking to them across the table, both in character and out of character, and surprising each other, and sometimes sharing the surprise when the dice changed the story in a way we were not expecting. And that point about across the table is important too. Back before we started the podcast, I tried to get our group to play online because I was very excited about the new Firefly RPG.
Matthew:One friend wasn't having it at all. He still only likes to play face to face. The others tried a few sessions, but in the end decided that they didn't enjoy the online experience. It was only COVID and lockdown and the coincidental launch of the effect Patreon. It was only COVID and lockdown and the coincidental launch of the effect Patreon that gave us the impetus to play online again.
Matthew:But we were still playing with other people. At no point during the enforced isolation of lockdown was I tempted to attempt a solo RPG. But the demand was there from others, and I'm not gonna piss on anyone's pizza. And, of course, support for the Kickstarter was even better than we had hoped for, eventually looking very likely to burn through all our planned stretch goals. So we addressed two expressed asks from the backers.
Matthew:We added in the Foundry virtual tabletop as a goal, then the last of our planned stretch goals, but the support was still growing. So Dave and I had to have the solo rules discussion. I hope Dave doesn't mind me telling you that he didn't want to do it. And he made a good argument. We'd made the game that we wanted to make with love.
Matthew:We didn't know about solo games. We don't enjoy solo games. We might not be any good at making solo rules. Also, he didn't want to risk late delivery of the book. On this second point, I agreed entirely.
Matthew:Like the campfire tales, my plan was that the solo rules would only be a PDF supplement released after the main book was published. But on his first point, my counterargument was this. Did he not even have an academic interest in creating solo rules? I knew I wanted to understand what drives solo RPG players and what makes solo rules tick. I was excited to just give them a go.
Matthew:So we added the final stretch goal. And if you back the game, then you helped push us over the edge. And true to his word, Dave gave me the academic opportunity to write those rules. And it's hard. But I think I broke the back of it over Christmas, and I want to share a little bit about my process.
Matthew:Up until the Christmas break, I was struggling. I'd written a bunch, but that was little stuff around the edges. The central mechanic was eluding me. I spent a lot of time thinking about what drives solo play. And I came up with this list.
Matthew:Learning the rules. I love the solo adventures that Chaosium writes and includes in their starter sets. These have the express intention of introducing new concepts and taking a character through a scripted experience that introduce the character sheet and the dice mechanics. I love them, but they can only be played once. They're like choose your own adventure books.
Matthew:Which brings me on to my second driver, creating your own stories. I say I've never played a solo game before, but actually thinking about this, I remember doing something very similar in my youth. Back then, I lived for RPG. There was schoolwork, as little of it as I could possibly get away with, and there were role playing games. In fact, there were not enough role playing games in my life.
Matthew:We might meet once a week or even twice after school, but there were long afternoons and evenings when I wasn't playing games with my friends. There were only three channels back then, and a fourth a bit later. And there was no Internet, no YouTube, there was plenty of time to think about role playing even if you weren't actually role playing. I would roll up new characters. There was no point by or standard array in D and D back then.
Matthew:Then I would immerse them in stories of my own creation. Do you remember other players bringing three pages of backstory for their character to the table? That is a player who has been solo role playing even if they didn't call it that back then. Passing time. The previous point brings me on to the third, a more contentious one as far as I'm concerned as it's not a driver for me right now.
Matthew:But as I mentioned, in those days, when I had free time, I was never bored if I had a character sheet and a pencil in front of me. Now, I feel time poor. And indeed, I had a to do list over the Christmas break, which remains uncompleted, even though I made good progress on all of them. But while I have the, luxury of too many things to do and not enough time, I concede that many people might have time to themselves where they can't get their friends round. Friend of the show Thomas, for example, has been flying halfway around the world recently and used the time to play solo games.
Matthew:And as I thought about it some more, I realized that actually, we might be better off using spare time to play a solo game rather than, doom scrolling. So that was my list. And I was pretty pleased with it too, until I realized I had been trumped by the soloist. Let me explain. I saw on Blue Sky an appeal from friend of the show, Beyond Cataclysm, for a German speaker.
Matthew:I tagged friend of the show Frank or Raoul Den Asch, as he is known on the socials, and he was able to offer some German speaking advice. But then Chris, from Beyond Cataclysm, tagged the soloist. Oh, ho, I thought. I am about to write an article about solo games. Let's see what this fellow has to say.
Matthew:And blow me down if his most recent post was six reasons to play solo games. I'll link all this in the show notes. The first three reasons are pretty much the same as what I came up with. Skills, learning a system, creativity, building your own stories, and flexibility, not just soaking time, but the soloist points out that you can play for as long or as little as you like. But then he offers three more, which I'll paraphrase here.
Matthew:Focus on a single character, which I kick myself for missing. We even call the solo rules, lone rider. Immersion, his point here being that you might bring experiences, emotions, and questions into a solo game that you might not be comfortable sharing in a group. And community, sharing the stories you create. Might be worth getting him on the show when we're ready to release the PDF.
Matthew:Anyhow, let's look at how I have applied these drivers to a solo game. First of all, I am encouraged by what they said on the Dungeons and Dyslexia YouTube channel about feeling they could have a whale of a time just playing with the town rules. And I agree. One of the first sections I wrote points out the parts of the core rules that you can use to kick off a solo session, like the turn of the seasons roles. But one thing that is missing from settlement creation in the core book, from the point of view of the solo player, is the creation of what I call factions in the town.
Matthew:So my solo rules help you create those in a number that depends on the size of your town by drawing cards. A small town might only have one faction in it, which does not mean that everybody in the town belongs to that faction, but rather that the faction is the only dominant political power. For each faction, you draw cards into a hand until you have one of each suit. Clubs shows you what the faction controls. And the other three suits show their motivations.
Matthew:Their wants, needs, and fears, the same way that we define non player characters in the game. But here is one of the problems I have been struggling with. When you define a town and factions this way, you are both the player and the GM. You get the omnipresent view of the GM, but you don't get the surprise of finding out something. And one of the things I've most enjoyed in recent years is the now powered by the apocalypse trope, play to find out.
Matthew:The Christmas break, let me crack that. If you use a skill roll to try and reveal a non player character's motivation and you succeed, then, of course, it is revealed. But if you fail but if you fail, then a card is still revealed, but it is overlaid with a face down card that you will only turn over at the moment of truth. The second card reveals if you were right or if you were wrong and the truth is revealed, or if you were wrong and you still don't know what they need or fear. This pleases me.
Matthew:The cards become a way of you knowing something about the people in the town that you might not have thought of on your own and may also reveal issues that you had not considered or other factions that you didn't draw when you first came into town. A story may already be apparent from all this, but what if one isn't? Or what if none of the opportunities offered by the town, the factions, and the turn of the seasons inspire the solo player? Our lone rider could take one look at all this and turn their horse the other way. And I guess that's always an option.
Matthew:I needed to build more tools, more draws from a card deck to challenge and drive the player character and inspire the player's creativity. And I wanted to use the stories to try and emulate the structure of a Western. Luckily, I did study narrative for my PhD. And so I have a huge pile of books on the subject. I don't want to trap the player in too tighter story structure.
Matthew:One of my books, save the cat, literally says x should happen on page 12 and so on. But a few narrative triggers might get the story moving or steer it in a satisfying direction. So I have detailed further draws that you can make for an inciting incident for those times when the season rolls don't reveal one. A local driver, somebody who actually asks the PC for help if they have not already decided to get involved and who might turn out to be a valuable ally. A central threat in case the player can't already see how one faction or another might push back against the PC's involvement.
Matthew:And a climactic location, shifting the final conflict to a scene the player might not have considered before. Right now, I'm working on the final twist. I want the player and the PC to be surprised by something they didn't foresee, but I want to consider these twists carefully. I don't want the whole story to be thrown into the trash by a sudden change of direction. Overall, though, I am a lot happier with the solo rules than I was before Christmas.
Matthew:There's still a deal of work to do. I need to tidy everything up and pull it into one cohesive document. Then I need to share it with Dave, then show it with our patrons and play test it. But I'm beginning to feel that we're building something that will be a solid addition to the tales of the old west wolf set.
Dave:Well, that's that was really interesting. And I have to say that was real a pleasure to listen to, actually. That was, you know, one of your one of your better essays. Well done, mate. Cool.
Matthew:Cool. Thank you very much.
Dave:I I do I do forgive you. I I think it was it was an interesting debate. So I think putting putting ourselves back in the back in that moment when we were deciding or considering solo rules, I think, you know, you yeah. You you accused me of not having, you know, a a academic interest in doing it. And I I I do stroke did have an academic interest in doing it.
Dave:But at that time, my head was just so done with writing that the thought the thought of having to do another big thing, you know, quite soon afterwards was was just a bit much. So that was partly partly my reason. And then, you you go on to explain also that, you know, we'd never we don't play solo games. We'd never written one before, so it was gonna be a big challenge.
Matthew:But Yeah. Actually, that thing about being done with writing is a very good point, because we did promise ourselves, and I think it's a good discipline to have if you're kick starting, that we weren't going to do anything extra for our stretch goals. You know, there there were things that we might not have included in the book if we hadn't got the stretch goals. There were things that you'd already created for the playtest sessions we did online that, you know, that might never have seen the light of day were it not for stretch goals.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:There was other people writing stuff that was for the stretch goals, but we weren't gonna commit to producing any more stuff, particularly for the core book, than we had already mostly done.
Dave:That that that is true. Although, actually, I think there was there was a crossed wire there, because I think in our initial discussions, I was I was under the impression that we were gonna put the solo rules into the book as an appendix or something. And obviously, in your mind,
Matthew:was always So be a
Dave:again, think that was another thing that made me reticent about it, because I thought, fuck, we're gonna have to write this thing and write it quickly in order to put it into into the book, whereas actually, it was quite a while, quite a way into the conversation before we actually had that conversation about PDF or in the book. And you were like, no no no no, of course, this could be PDF, it's not gonna be in the book. And that obviously made it all a bit easier. Yeah. But, yeah.
Dave:So no, that was that was that was fair. And a lot of the stuff that we we kind of put down as stretch goals were things that I kind of already written, but we just had too much of it.
Matthew:Like Yeah.
Dave:Like some of the horses and some of the weapons and stuff. So that was a that was an easy stretch goal for us because we already had the the content pretty much written.
Matthew:Yes. So so, yeah. All the stretch goals, I feel, apart from the the the virtual tabletop and this, we had the at least in some form. It may require new illustrations and stuff, but most of the work were other people doing it, like Yeah.
Dave:Other it was
Matthew:artists and stuff like that.
Dave:Yeah. And the Campfire Tales needed a bit of a, you know, a rewriting.
Matthew:Only from because raw notes.
Dave:Exactly. Yeah. But that was easy enough to do. And then they're quite short as well, so that wasn't a big problem. But, yeah, so that was kind of the background to this.
Dave:Now, obviously, it was a good thing for us to offer, because there was it wasn't as it wasn't as big a boost as the the Foundry VTT.
Matthew:No.
Dave:But we still got a nice boost of backers who were who were backing us because they saw that there was a solo Rules coming, which which was good, which is great. But then also, I'm I'm quite what's the word I'm looking for? Smug is the wrong word, but I'm I'm When you said, oh, and it's hard. Yeah. I know.
Dave:I knew it gonna it was gonna be hard, so I didn't want to do it. But, yeah. So so anyway but, yeah, having having having heard what you've said then because Matthew's given me very little insight into the way he's doing this or been doing it up to now.
Matthew:Yeah. You haven't actually seen any of this.
Dave:No. I haven't seen any of it, which is fine. You know, let you crack on with it and get it in the state that you want it before you share it with me is absolutely fine. And having heard some of the stuff that you've said there about using the cards, you know, the the the sort of the insight to use cards to have kind of hidden things that then become a surprise for the player if that card is then activated or they fail the role and that card becomes becomes live. It sounds really good.
Dave:Now, it it's it it sounds a bit like a card game, but that doesn't matter, I guess, in this sense. So I think, yeah, actually, you know, it it makes me not that I've got a lot of time, but it makes me quite excited to give it a go when you finally get the text to me and then give it a play test.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, the the the real challenge actually is I've still got to play test it myself. So you're not seeing this until a, I have put the so at the moment, these all because I work in Scrivener, which is useless at showing things. So I've gotta put it all in one document and stick that on Google so Yeah. You can see
Dave:Yeah. Use Google. I'm I'm trying to move away from Microsoft Word completely, if I can.
Matthew:Yeah. No. I think I think that's why
Dave:of them.
Matthew:It will be a Google Doc eventually. But in the process of doing that Google Doc, I've actually got to have the time so I can sit down. And as I put these rules in the Google Doc, I've actually got to start playing them. Mhmm. Yeah.
Matthew:You know, and go, oh, does this actually work? And I've, you know, each I've I've had a deck of cards by my desk, and I'm going now, say, you know, does this if I draw a set of cards, does it does this happen in a reasonable number of cards? And it all seems to work in in in what we call in the world of business analysis, in functional testing Mhmm. It all seems to work. But in end to end, does does the customer journey work?
Matthew:Just haven't actually done the customer journey.
Dave:Just you wait for the user acceptance testing, mate. That's not the you know?
Matthew:Precisely. And then and then, of course, I give it to you, and we'll give it to the other patrons, and we'll do some proper UAT.
Dave:But, yeah. No. So that it sounds really you know, I'm encouraged that you're sounding so enthusiastic about it. I'm encouraged with kind of the approach you've taken. I mean, one question.
Dave:I mean, we we sat down before we started doing Tales of the Old West properly and and, like, agreed on our philosophy of the game. And you've obviously done the same here in terms of looking at why people play solo games. How, I mean, how did you find did you because sometimes philosophies can be very kind of nebulous and floating about and look good on paper, but actually don't apply very much to the final product when you see it. How do you how did you find that your sort of design decisions came out of that, came out of your sort of philosophical approach to to doing the solo rules?
Matthew:Well, I I think very differently to to our our original when we sat down, and we we wrote a bunch of sentences down, bullet points, a remarkable number of which actually appear in the text, be they of the blurb at the back or or in, you know, in introductory bits of settings or or box outs or stuff like that. There's a remarkable number of those words. And that's the thing of which I am very proud, by the way. So well done us on that. And this has not been the same.
Matthew:So actually, just listening back there, I was thinking, yeah. I talk about these, you know, these are the reasons why people play it. But it's not particularly apparent from what I then said about the mechanics, how that applies. So but I think the key one here is I want I don't want these to replace the rules. I don't want this solo supplement to be a standalone game.
Matthew:I was looking at some. I've got some solo games, and I've tried to play some. And one that stands out is Star Trek Adventures, which is effectively a standalone book. You don't need Star Trek Adventures to play Star Trek Adventures brackets captain's log. Right.
Matthew:You've got everything there. And for reasons we may come into, I will say that probably wasn't the right approach for them.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:And I was. When, you know, when when I thought about the choose your own adventure style thing that Chaosium do, I, you know, realized that there's a lot of people there that have got this book that we've made in their hands. Now either they don't have the ability to get a group together for whatever reason, or they don't have the time to sit down with a group, and yet they still want to grok the game. That for me is our first audience.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:So I really wanted everything. All the I would call it the procedural stuff should go back to the core book and go, okay, we're having a gunfight now. I'm gonna use the gunfight rules. Yeah. Yes.
Matthew:I mean, one of
Dave:the things that you you were very very you know, you emphasized when we were having our discussion about whether to do it or not, is that actually a lot of the legwork should have been done because we have a lot of tables to randomise stuff in the game anyway.
Matthew:Exactly. And we
Dave:should be leaning on those for the solo game rather than, like you say, doing something different.
Matthew:Yes. So now, interesting. I think they've come up again, and this this is in fact since I wrote that and since I started pulling stuff together. There's a gap there I think we might still need to address, but I'll come on to that in a moment. But, yeah.
Matthew:Things like the turn of the season rolls and the fortune rolls. They're yep. Town fortune and personal fortune is what I mean there. Yep. They they are they're almost tailor made for social for solo gaming, not social gaming.
Matthew:Mhmm. In that you go, oh oh, here's a thing that happens to my character. How am I how's my character going to address that? You know. Yeah.
Matthew:So that's brilliant. What I feel the solo rules might need to do is enhance that. So the last bit I was working on are these things about story structure where you say okay, now, you know, if you don't know what's kicking off the adventure, draw a card and have a look at see what the inciting incident is. You know, it may well be that, you know, the town rules say famine and the the personal fortune rule says, you know, a and a child, which we've addressed with in the previous episode, but there is a personal fortune that you know. Now I've got a kid and and there's not enough food in the world.
Matthew:What are we gonna do about that? So that hopefully would be enough of a thing to think about. Oh, how am I gonna solve that issue? Yep. But if not, then, you know, draw draw a draw an insight against us and oh my god, bandits attack Or whatever.
Matthew:You know? So there's Yeah. There's ways to get that started. So that idea and then thinking about story construction. So if you if you use I'm using this to learn the rules.
Matthew:That's fine. But the thing that's a problem with those calcium products is they are designed very specifically to only teach you the rules and take you through a very railroaded adventure that brings you to the point where you have to use this skill so they can teach you about rolling the dice for that skill as opposed to being really quite free form. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things I keep banging on about this, but I just love that moment in our campaign when you'd set up a villain, you'd set up the villain in town that we knew, and we now are visiting a villain elsewhere. And just by accident of timing, you gave me the idea that maybe the villain's daughter with whom I was having an affair may not be his daughter at all, but this other villain that we just met.
Matthew:And I went, hold on. This all happened, like, twenty one years ago. Yeah. And you haven't set you haven't planned for that, but you picked up on me actually having that that thought in conversation with villain number two. Yeah.
Matthew:And you ran with it.
Dave:And There was there was a great example of the player having a fucking great idea that I hadn't had, and then me pretending it was my idea all along.
Matthew:And this is what I love about social gaming Yeah. Is that can happen. You you you were gracious enough not to pretend it was your idea all along.
Dave:No. That is true.
Matthew:But, you know, that surprise that everybody round the table had is a thing that I think comes missing from well, if we move one step beyond the the railroaded adventures thing, the the choose your adventure, now turn to paragraph 25 or whatever.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Obviously, that doesn't happen there. But when you're solo gaming and you go, okay, here are the cards I've laid out, or this is the story that I've laid out. Here's my fortune. These are the factions. You know, if you have that thought about, oh, and this person could be this person's daughter or whatever, then that's fine.
Matthew:But you've thought of that in a GM mode and your the player side of you doesn't get the surprise of that happening. Or in this particular case, the GM side of you doesn't go, my players really surprised me with that crazy thought that I hadn't thought of. And so this idea of these hidden motivations, I think, is what I might actually I haven't got that as a title, but I think I think that might be growing in my head that we might use it. Yeah. Hidden motivations could be a thing where you go, okay.
Matthew:I think this person wants this. And then at the point where you test that by bringing him x, say, and he goes and then you turn the card over, no. That's not what he wanted at all. Yeah. Then then that that hopefully will create some of those really surprising moments.
Matthew:And Yeah. The other thing that I haven't really addressed at all, so the despite all that thinking about what principles are, I've done nothing about the time issue. And in fact
Dave:Right. Okay.
Matthew:It worries me a bit
Dave:that because I've said this has got to rely on the core rule book, it feels
Matthew:to me you've got to have, you know, your core rule book in front
Dave:of you. You've got have a pack of cards in front of you.
Matthew:You've to have your carrot sheet in front of you. You've got to have whatever device you're reading this PDF on, you can put it out, but that's another thing you've got in front of you. It's not the sort of thing you can do what Thomas did and get out and put on the seat back tray of his plane when you're flying around the world. Yeah. And so I don't have an answer for that.
Matthew:So no, I don't think I've been as good as we were in saying these are our principles and then following through on that.
Dave:Right. I mean, it's a tough one though, isn't it? Because, inevitably with a game like this, you you you need to have some space to, you know, write down your journal, fill out your character sheet, roll your dice, draw your cards, whatever it whatever it might be. And, you know, you could have the you know, you could have that one device and you've got both PDFs on it. Yeah.
Dave:So, I mean, it's it's it's not something you can get around unless, like you said, we took the elements of the core book and put them into what would then be a standalone book for the solo rules, which
Matthew:Yeah. Which is never gonna happen.
Dave:We're not gonna do. No. Exactly.
Matthew:I mean, it's interesting to talk If if we get a stretch goal on the new campaign for Gold Country, we might stick the Soda Rules in an appendix to that book. But that's Yeah. The closest I ever gonna get to see print, I think.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. That makes that makes some sense. I mean, it's interesting there though. So we're about sort of the difference between a supplement and a standalone.
Dave:I think, you know, we are saying that we're, you know, for Tales of Old West, we're not gonna doing a standalone thing. But then there are obviously a lot of standalone games out there that work, you know, seem to work really well. Is
Matthew:that Yeah. And in fact, the games that I think Thomas was playing on the, you know, on the seat back tray in the years I were playing were a little, you know, a five standalone, almost zine style.
Dave:Zine style. Yeah.
Matthew:So I think those are as I've been working through this, I've been kind of going, oh, but but this is an elegant system. Tale and Charlie, for example, which I backed, is a great little storytelling solo game where you imagine your life as a rear gunner on a Lancaster bomber. Yeah. That is really self contained, and all the mechanics are around that. It's card based again.
Matthew:So I think probably that's the thing that's most inspired me in terms of putting these rules together. But it is a standalone game. It doesn't rely on the other core book, because there is no core book
Dave:for it.
Matthew:No. No. And I think those are two different ways of playing social games. And what I've leaned into here is the cards are kind of taking the place of they're they're not just I was gonna say they're they're not success finding cards, but they are the mind of the GM. The or the GM's imagination.
Matthew:Yeah. Just separating that out. Because, of course, you as a player, you're being both GM and player, but this is a way of just sort of putting a little bit of a what do they call it? Chinese wall, is it? In stock market trading or something?
Dave:Where you're
Matthew:Yeah. I know this thing, but I'm not I'm not going to know it. Yeah. And I was very keen on trying to do a way that actually physically, no, you don't know. You might think you know, but you don't know.
Matthew:Yeah. What's motivating this?
Dave:No. It's good because it it you know, the cards then then generate the uncertainty of what's gonna happen next, which is cool. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
Dave:I like that. Yeah. Because I think, you know, the I'm gonna make a comment about solo games here and I haven't well, since the Fighting Fantasy books, I haven't played a solo game.
Matthew:Which is the core of our problem.
Dave:Well, yeah.
Matthew:Which are fine.
Dave:But but it but it but it me that, you know, in that kind of game, it it can it could just be an exercise in in writing down this event happened and that event happened. It almost becomes like fiction writing rather than actually playing a game. Yes. Which is fine, because a lot of people might well enjoy that sort of journaling approach to to a game. But for me, it would probably be a bit boring.
Dave:Because you need that unexpected, You need that uncertainty. You need that surprise. You need or I I need that that element of the game, I think, to to make it
Matthew:Yeah. And so in my cursory look at solo games, and I, you know, I'm gonna say cursory because I have never managed to pull one through effectively to the end. Yeah. I I run out of time or I just get bored, frankly. Yeah.
Matthew:But I do find that yeah. Actually, it's most successful when you're thinking about it, as you say, as a journaling game. And I don't often see myself you know, you kinda see, okay. This is the situation. This is how we're dealing with it.
Matthew:I'm rolling some dice down for my character or drawing a card or whatever. Alright. Okay. Situation's changed a little bit, but but I kinda knew how it was gonna end in the first place. Whereas I've tried to make this a bit more this this what you thought you knew might knock you for six.
Dave:Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting because because, again, as a GM, you might try and set up a a story that's got a twist or two in it. And and creating a And those are some of the best games. That that moment where, you know, the scales fall away from the player's eyes and they finally realise what's always been going on, and actually it makes absolute sense, and it's that's the most satisfying kind of story.
Dave:Trying to recreate that in a random process is actually gonna be really hard.
Matthew:Yes. Because So I wanna have a twist at the end, twist in the tail Yeah. And kind of draw. And so far, I haven't quite cracked it. So this is what I'm working on at the moment.
Matthew:Because can't throw the whole adventure in the trash, which, you know, it could do. So I've got to do a thing and I think I think I might be making it a little bit more I'm gonna say generic in that it'll say, oh, this assumption you had about this character is incorrect. And and leave it then as it's incorrect. It doesn't actually say
Dave:Why? Yeah.
Matthew:Why? You know. So you have to think why. But I don't know. I'm still that's the last thing to crack before It's not necessarily gonna be the last thing to crack before showing it to you because I'm now in a state where I think I can show this to you and you can play it and then we can both work together on the final twist.
Matthew:But I just wanna give it another go before I show it to you. Yeah. Cool. No. Mean think,
Dave:you know, you know, my this conversation and and other conversations we've had about about Solo Rules, whilst you've been sort of thinking about them, has has actually made me a bit more enthusiastic about Solo Rules generally. And I'm I'm keen to give this a go. I'm looking forward to it.
Matthew:Cool. Oh, just one other thing. I'm gonna ask this live on air, which is probably not where I should be doing it. So my other most recent realization and here's here's a key point. Our town creation rules are a group activity.
Matthew:Yeah. We're that's how they're planned. The the Yeah. The GM and the players get together and they design their town. I'm not sure.
Matthew:I thought it'd be relatively easy to randomize it. And there are things that you can randomize, but I just wonder whether I might need to add a functionality for just randomizing some more stuff about the town to take the you know, to try and recreate that little bit of here's a group of people with different desires coming in and designing the town. It may be that I just need to switch things around a bit and do the faction thing first.
Dave:I was gonna say, are you thinking more about the population of the town, the NPCs? Or So the town
Matthew:Well, yeah. So the actual and I'm talking about aspects of amenities, basically Yeah. To use the terminology from the book. So, you know, they're very handily, the size of the town is a d six. So it's great.
Matthew:No. You can say, coming out to a new town. How big is it? Oh, it's x. One, two, three, or four, five.
Matthew:Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But of course, when it comes to aspects of and amenities, they're not necessarily a d 66 or something like that.
Dave:No.
Matthew:And, of course, there's a complexity there, particularly with some of the immunities that you can only have certain immunities if you're of a certain size. Civic
Dave:level. Yeah. Exactly.
Matthew:Civic level. So there may be a little bit of work we need to do on that one. But I thought I might Yeah.
Dave:It's it's a really interesting point.
Matthew:Send it to you for that question.
Dave:Yeah. It's a really interesting point that if we'd thought about if we'd planned to do solo rules the point that we were writing all of these rules, we could have baked in
Matthew:We could have done it differently.
Dave:Easier easier randomization for the amenities, for example. Yeah. As part of it, as which would have made that solo rule creation a lot easier in that sense.
Matthew:This is your main reason why we didn't want to do solo rules.
Dave:I I hadn't really
Matthew:that we hadn't baked that in.
Dave:If only if only I'd been that that foresightful. No. But, yeah, I I take your point, because, again, we have we have different you know, there are different numbers of most most of most things have got the same number of amenities, but Civic has got a couple of extras. So it's not even they've got all exactly the same number.
Matthew:No.
Dave:No. And as you say, you've got to have certain Civic level for certain amenities to be accessible or available. Yeah.
Matthew:So, anyway, so either we we move that to version two of the game, which we'll be bringing out in five years' time. No. I'm joking. Part of me wonders whether we need to possibly add something to the solo rules that say, here's here's a random town generator that does some of this work for you. But I don't know.
Matthew:Yeah. Possibly. Yeah. We'll see whether that's a gap in play, I think. Yeah.
Matthew:And I think we've been talking much Yeah. Too much.
Dave:I think, again, we've been we've been too loquacious and we have gone over over our our limits. Sorry, everybody. We've mucked it up again. But, yeah. No.
Dave:But I'd just like to say, well done, Matthew. I think that's a really good bit of work, and I very much look forward to seeing those solo rules on my desk Monday morning.
Matthew:Awesome. On your desk on Monday morning, but coming soon.
Dave:Coming soon. Cool.
Matthew:Now, talking of coming soon, in two weeks time, I'm gonna try and get an interview slotted with Duncan Rhodes.
Dave:That name rings a bell, but
Matthew:Duncan Rhodes is bringing out a book. In fact, this week, on my birthday, I suddenly note, called The Creative Game Master's Guide to Extraordinary Locations.
Dave:That was it. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. That's a great idea.
Dave:Something very close to my heart, because I've done a lot of that in the last few years. That's I thought.
Matthew:Interesting. It feels to me a lot like Friedrich's way of doing stuff. So that's why we Cool. We we decided to drop him a line. And, yeah, now his book's actually coming out.
Matthew:He contacted us some time ago. But now his book's actually we thought we might have a chat with him. So I'm in the process of finding a date where we can record that. Excellent. Hopefully, as long as I can find that, that will be our content next week.
Matthew:Cool. Two weeks later.
Dave:Next time. Lovely. Cool. Well, good show. Well done.
Dave:In that case, I think it's goodbye from me.
Matthew:And it's goodbye from him.
Dave:And may the icons bless your your adventures. 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.