Finally revenge for Lindesfarne! We interview Andreas Lundstrom about the viking apocalypse.
00.00.40: Introductions 00.03.26: World of Gaming: Mongoose gets the rights to Dark Conspiracy; War Stories KS starts on the 16th; tariffs in the news; Free League were at Salute; we will be at UKGames Expo Old West News: 00.26.20: Old News West(?): Fulfillment has started, people posting pics and lovely comments, dice have arrived, we are bagging up and labelling, delivering to the distributor on Tuesday 00.35.06: Interview: Andreas on Yggdrasil Burns 01.16.08: Next time (The Great Dark) and Goodbye
Effekt is brought to you by Effekt Publishing. Music is by Stars in a Black Sea, used with kind permission of Free League Publishing.
Finally revenge for Lindesfarne! We interview Andreas Lundstrom about the viking apocalypse.
00.00.40: Introductions 00.03.26: World of Gaming: Mongoose gets the rights to Dark Conspiracy; War Stories KS starts on the 16th; tariffs in the news; Free League were at Salute; we will be at UKGames Expo Old West News: 00.26.20: Old News West(?): Fulfillment has started, people posting pics and lovely comments, dice have arrived, we are bagging up and labelling, delivering to the distributor on Tuesday 00.35.06: Interview: Andreas on Yggdrasil Burns 01.16.08: Next time (The Great Dark) and Goodbye
Effekt is brought to you by Effekt Publishing. Music is by Stars in a Black Sea, used with kind permission of Free League Publishing.
Dave is co-host and writer on the podcast, and part of the writing team at Free League - he created the Xenos for Alien RPG and as been editor and writer on a number of further Alien and Vaesen books, as well as writing the majority the upcoming Better Worlds book. He has also been the Year Zero Engine consultant on War Stories and wrote the War Stories campaign, Rendezvous with Destiny.
MT
Host
Matthew Tyler-Jones
Matthew is co host of the podcast, as well as writer, producer, senior editor, designer and all round top dog. He was also been involved a couple of project for Free League - writing credits include Alien RPG, Vaesen: Mythic Britain and Ireland, and Vaesen: Seasons of Mystery as well as a number of Free League Workshop products.
What is Effekt?
A fan podcast celebrating (mostly Swedish) RPGs including, but not limited to: Coriolis; Forbidden Lands; Symbaroum; Tales from the Loop; and, Alien.
Matthew:
Hello, and welcome to episode 255 of Effect Ragnarok. My name is Matthew.
Dave:
That was a very, very dramatic pause before the title there, Matthew, because I I thought for a moment that you'd completely forgotten what the hell you were doing, which possibly wouldn't have been the first time. Anyway, I'm Dave, and welcome to the show. We have, as usual, a packed program for you today. We've got a few things in the world of gaming to talk about, including some new Kickstarters coming up, really more news on bloody tariffs, and some convention stuff. We then also have a an exciting very exciting for us and hopefully exciting for you, update on the old news West.
Dave:
And then The old news West. The old news West.
Matthew:
Well, I was thinking about doing old West news,
Dave:
but go ahead. Do the old news West. Sorry. So it's Sunday morning. I've only had one and a half cups of tea.
Dave:
I had a very tiring day yesterday at Salute, so excuse me for being completely brain dead this morning. So yeah, in the old West news. I was even reading it off the screen. How the hell did I get that one? Anyway, and then yes, so we have and the main part of the show is a fabulous interview that we had with Andreas Lindstrom of Nordic Schools talking all about his current Kickstarter, Yggdrasil Burns, which is great.
Dave:
It's always great to have Andreas on the show. He's a lovely guy, And that was a really good conversation. So stay around for that a bit later on.
Matthew:
Yeah. Let's say before we move on to The World of Gaming, we have no new patrons this month, but thank you to all our patrons.
Dave:
As always, yes. Thank you very much. We
Matthew:
couldn't do what we do without you. And, you know, we have had, you know, an amazing amount of support, but mainly directed towards the Kick Starter and the pledge manager. And we'll talk about that again when we get to Old West
Dave:
News, Dave. Old News West. I think that sounds better, frankly.
Matthew:
It reminds me of do you remember the old sort of local local news programmes that used to appear after the news? Yes. Yeah. The BBC. One of which
Dave:
The regional news.
Matthew:
Occasionally, we'd be tuned into would be Look East. Yes. For Anglia.
Dave:
Yeah. Yeah. Not not old news east.
Matthew:
So well, next week, maybe we'll do old news east. But no. So we're into the world of gaming and actual real news. Not so much of it, I feel, this particular episode. But the first item, I think, is interesting that we Moggoose, who got the rights to the the whole, not just the rights to, but actually took over, own entirely the rights to, Traveler, have now done the same thing with another GDW game, which is Dark Conspiracy.
Dave:
Interesting. So Dark Conspiracy is one of those games that I don't ever remember playing. But when I when I see the books, when I saw the books on online, I thought, I've played that, but I don't remember playing it.
Matthew:
If we played it, I don't think we played it for very long. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that our friend and patron, Andy Brick, would have bought it. But it was in that period where As far as I remember this, I may be wrong, and I'm sure Andy will correct me. But there was a
Dave:
bit But that is his favorite thing in life, correcting us.
Matthew:
Well, it is.
Dave:
Hope He
Dave:
does try and do that at every opportunity. So, yeah.
Matthew:
Anyway GTW had a great system in in Traveller, which has stood the test of times, roll a couple of d six, you know, add a bonus, get you know, basically roll, get over eight or something to succeed. And they started bucking about with all sorts of other systems, very keen on the d 10 based systems and stuff like that. And it it made Traveler less good. Those versions of Traveler had these new systems in. It, frankly, made made things like two three hundred.
Matthew:
Although we loved 2,300, the system was a bit clunky. And I fear that this was one of those new system type things
Dave:
That didn't really
Matthew:
take That we didn't particularly enjoy the system if we played it at all. It was meant to be kind of X Files y, wasn't it? I think, in a way. But, no, I don't it didn't sit well in our memory. But also it was again around that time that, if you like the first dark age of our group where people were off to university and stuff like that, we weren't playing
Dave:
very much.
Dave:
Yeah.
Dave:
Yeah. So are they going to be doing a new edition then? Do we do we expect now they've got the rights to it?
Matthew:
I imagine so. So February, they, you know, they've made that effectively a traveler expansion. And I'd like to think they'll do the same thing with Dark Conspiracy because that,
Dave:
Yeah.
Matthew:
The, you know, that filtered and distilled and iterated and actually really playable version of Traveller, I think, is a very solid rule set, and they'd be foolish to try anything else. Yeah. I think. But, you know, it's not like I'm a, you know, games publisher or anything. Oh, I am.
Dave:
We know everything about games publishing now. We never make any mistakes. Yes. Anything we say is now correct because we are the authority.
Matthew:
Absolute gold dust. Exactly.
Dave:
We have almost finished one product that that qualifies us to to spout off and pontificate about everybody else's decisions, no matter how experienced they may be.
Matthew:
Yeah. Exactly it.
Dave:
Or maybe
Dave:
or maybe not.
Matthew:
Or maybe not. Talking of another product that you've had some involvement in, we talked about this in the last episode, but we actually have a date now for the War Stories Kickstarter.
Dave:
Yeah. So April 15 is the date I think the Kickstarter's gonna go live. So that is next oh, next Tuesday after after this goes out. Yeah. So that's the Pacific, as we said before.
Dave:
But not only the Pacific expansion for War Stories, it's also the part two of the Rendezvous with Destiny campaign, the moving on to Operation Market Garden, where the 100 support what was Monty's great plan to try and get across the Rhine and into Germany in in the late summer of nineteen forty four. So, yeah, go there.
Matthew:
That massively successful campaign, you mean?
Dave:
Well, I mean, they were close. I mean, it's
Matthew:
In the long run, massively successful. It's At the time.
Dave:
Oh, it's a really interesting thing, because obviously, I knew a bit about Market Garden anyway, just out of general interest. But I did I did a lot of re I did a lot more research into it for the game. And, you you know, you could argue that it was it was doomed to fail from the very start. But actually, it it got pretty close. I mean, made some some really, frankly, foolish errors that I think one of the main ones or two two main ones.
Dave:
One being, the coup de main operations that paratroopers are are brilliant for, which is, you know, surprise, landing on the target you're going to take and being there to take it straight away. They didn't do that properly. They landed the troops too far away from all their all their objectives. So they had to travel several miles. So by the time they got there, the alarm had been raised, and the Germans were in a much better position to resist.
Dave:
The other one was, you know, having a 10 kilometers of single point of failure supply chain on land that is very difficult for armor to operate on because it's wet and marshy mostly, was always going to be a challenge, because the Germans could attack it anywhere and then break the supply chain. But, I mean, there was a lot of success in operation Market Garden, but ultimately the whole operation was a failure, as we all know. But and a very costly failure that. But it was a gamble that obviously, you know, Eisenhower thought was worth taking. It was really interesting.
Dave:
Just one of the things I learned in reading this was Monty was so determined and kind of so blindly focused on this plan. One of his faults was he could be very far too self confident in his own judgment. So he was basically steamrolling everyone into following the the Market Garden plan, even Eisenhower. To one point where Eisenhower said to him, calm down Monty. You can't talk to me like that.
Dave:
I'm your boss. So it was really interesting thing to look at. But hopefully it should be a lot of fun to play, and yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing that one out in, you know, out in out in the world.
Matthew:
Excellent. And this date you've got, is this something that Al has told you, or is it actually public knowledge?
Dave:
I think I saw it on Facebook somewhere. So I think it's public knowledge.
Matthew:
Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Okay.
Dave:
I hope I'm I hope I'm right now. But but if not, I mean, there there is a landing page on on on Kickstarter. So if you're interested, go on there and and click the notify me on launch button. And so if I've made
Matthew:
get notified on launch. And we will put a link to that in the show notes.
Dave:
If I've made a mistake, then that will that will mitigate the mistake for you.
Matthew:
Right. We've relegated it to the third item, but our headline grabber here was the big news is tariffs. What do we wanna say about tariffs, Dave?
Dave:
I'm not really sure. So, I mean No.
Matthew:
No. And thus speaks the the entire gaming community.
Dave:
Well, exactly. Yeah. Now this is one time where I do feel, with some authority, I that comment was relevant to the to the whole community. So if Yeah. Trump makes no more changes, and if he sticks to his ninety day pause from where we are now, we are good.
Dave:
We are good to go, and we're about to stray into old west news. Sorry, old news west, in a moment. But we are very close to, being able to ship The US package. So if Trump doesn't do anything else with tariffs in the meantime, we're good to go, and that can that can go next week. Yeah.
Dave:
The the the risk is then that Trump gets out of bed one morning with a bee buzzing around in his head and goes, alright. 300% tariffs on China, Fifty Percent tariffs on the EU. Don't care. But I'm pooping all the shenanigans of last week when it all got blown up so big and then, you know, he was forced to back down by, basically, you know, a lot of his billionaire buddies in The US probably going to him saying, hey, Don. This is a really fucking stupid idea, mate.
Dave:
You're making us all poor. Except for those who are involved in the insider dealing, of course.
Matthew:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:
Okay. I want to be a bit careful. And let my my suspicion that there might be some
Dave:
How do I how do I how
Dave:
do I invalidate myself against being sued for saying that? Well,
Matthew:
you you can quote, I think, a number of elected representatives in The US who suspect there may have been some. All we're doing is reporting that.
Dave:
Not actually Exactly.
Matthew:
Have no evidence of it.
Dave:
No. Absolutely. I am simply reporting what others have said, especially those in the US Congress. So so anyway, if now he's got this bee in his bonnet, you know, he's fed that little beast in him and he's okay to leave Harris alone for a while, we, as in Effect Publishing, will be good. It doesn't fix the problem obviously for the industry and particularly for those poor companies, particularly I guess board game, but also role playing game companies that rely upon China for producing all their widgets and all their minis and everything, but also rely upon their US customer base for their sales.
Dave:
Now those companies I have such sympathy for, because they're in a really difficult position. And, you know, let's just hope common sense prevails and Trump finds a way to back down whilst looking like he's won, of course, and reduce the tariffs on China. Yeah. So Yeah. But at the moment, seems relatively calm in the political world about tariffs.
Dave:
I haven't heard anything the last couple of days. I think the tariffs on China did go up again to a 40
Matthew:
They did. I think they're up at
Dave:
40 five Which again is not great for us, but it's probably bearable.
Matthew:
Yeah. Well, it's gonna have to be bearable because we said we'd bear it. So
Dave:
Yeah. I mean, the thing is though, that was we said I mean, what what I would say is, at the point we said that, we we were we were basing that on the circumstances at the time. If the Chinese tariffs or the EU tariffs as well, you know, go up again, or go up to beyond where they were before, we might have to rethink that. That's why we might you know, options would include pausing The US shipment possibly for weeks or couple of months even whilst the whole tariff thing settles down. Don't wanna do that for for many reasons, including we want the game to be out there in, you know, in your hands so you can play it.
Dave:
Another one, depending on how how ridiculous it got, was we could in theory say, alright, with with the whole thing with China, we're we're going to not send the dice. So we'll we'll reimburse you for the dice and keep them ourselves and not send them, because the price gets too too silly. Or we come back to to to US backers say, really sorry guys, we're gonna need a fiver off each of you to cover these extra costs. Which will then delay fulfilment again. So none of those are good options.
Dave:
The best option is we get the package out the door next week, and it's in The US the week after, and then it's flying out to everyone's homes shortly after that.
Matthew:
Yep.
Dave:
But it is a very unpredictable landscape at the moment, unfortunately.
Matthew:
Fingers crossed, everybody. And if you are in The US, write to your congressman and stress the importance of keeping the tariffs as low as possible for the next couple of weeks. Yes. Yeah. Right.
Matthew:
Now next item is oh, yeah. Yesterday, you went and did a gaming convention without me, Dave.
Dave:
I did. It was great. It was really it was really nice doing it on my own without you badgering me the whole time and pretending you're in charge. It was really nice. It was a pleasure.
Matthew:
Oh, so my text pointing out what the sales were at various parts of the day didn't go down well. Is that what you're saying?
Dave:
Well, exactly. Because you were stalking me from your home when you should have been doing something more interesting than stalking me at the at the at the convention. So, yeah, it was one that I I had a little bit of trepidation about. I,
Matthew:
you know So we should say it was salute?
Dave:
It was salute down the the the Excel Centre. Traditionally, a wargame heavy convention. Still obviously very wargame heavy, but having spoken to some of the other role player retailers and that who were there, they've all said they've had good good returns the last couple of years. So we went with a very small team. It was just me and then Lily and George who were who were George was running the demos of Zone Malls.
Dave:
Lily was helping out both me and George depending on on where the the need was. And and we didn't take very much stock. So we took quite a small level of stock. And it was good. I mean, we it was really busy.
Dave:
A bit like, Comic Con, it was really busy with a lot of people who were interested, but we're gonna go and buy something else first and then come back to us. I mean, that said, it wasn't it was nowhere near as dry as as Comic Con for us. We did we did pretty good sales, overall, possibly a bit less than I'd hoped, but still, you know, enough to make the I think to make to make the event a profitable one. And we didn't say we didn't take that much stock with this, so we didn't have to return there wasn't much stock left at the end. So we probably sold most of what we could.
Dave:
And people were interested. It was cool. It was good. So whether Free League want to go again next year, it will be up to them and, you know, the board of Free League to decide if it was worth it. But I think, you know, definitely made a profit on the on the event.
Dave:
So hopefully, you know, they will want to go again next year. And they were very keen to go. So I think when we'd first talked about it, I'd I'd I'm not sure what you said, but I'd certainly said, well, it's a it's a wargaming thing, so it might not be the best place for us to go.
Matthew:
Yeah. I think I'd said we could sell Zone Wars and Twilight 2,000. And I noticed Twilight 2,000 wasn't a bad seller actually, so I'm not on that score.
Dave:
Twilight did well, actually. Yeah. So, yeah, the things we thought would sell well did sell well. And I guess that the the more traditional role playing things that we would sell very well elsewhere, like Verson and Dragonbane didn't sell as well.
Matthew:
No. But interestingly, I noticed the One Ring sold quite well.
Dave:
Yeah. Yeah. I think we sold out of the One Ring core book. We only had a couple of starter sets left, I think. We sold out of Alien starter sets.
Dave:
They all went. And a fair few core books went as well. So, I mean, it was a good event, and it was fun, and it was a it was a I mean, not having been to Salute before, having a little walk around and seeing some of these, you know you know you know those sort of games of Warhammer we used to play back in the day where you've got your, 25 Green
Matthew:
felt bays over some books to make sure.
Dave:
Exactly. Your 25 millimetre or whatever, you know, size minis on your table. Imagine that, but your minis are scaled up to about two and a half foot. And there was one of these, which was a floor space about 30 foot square, which basically had these Huge minis. Battle mech minis, which are basically the size basically basically the size of about a seven year old child.
Dave:
You know, they're enormous. No. It's great. It was with some fabulous stuff there. Some fabulous you know, the landscapes have moved on a lot since our days of, as you said, that green beige, which I've still got somewhere, you know, resting over some books.
Dave:
I think some of those, like, the landscapes are absolutely fabulous, what they've what they've done with them.
Matthew:
One one photo which I saw, which made me laugh, is somebody had done a minis version of the Atari tank game. Yes. That was Yeah. With, you know, it was just key lines. And the it was all black with, every every edge painted green.
Matthew:
It was very effective.
Dave:
Yeah. And I love I love that game back in the day on the on the in the arcades. That that looked really cool. There was also a really good Tron one that they had as well, which is very similar in out in look to them. But that was really there was a Tron, light they're light bikes?
Dave:
Is that what you call them?
Dave:
Yeah. There was
Dave:
a light bike racing game. Yeah. That looked really cool.
Dave:
And so it was great.
Dave:
It was really good. Lots of great stuff. And we did quite well in terms of selling the the the stock we took with us. So, you know, if Free League are are, well, as they seem to be, getting more into that sort of skirmish stroke mini market with Zone Wars, and now obviously with Alien Evolved, with all the minis that they're gonna produce for that, then maybe they're thinking this is this is a market they want to get into, and this is a place where they can get into that market. So maybe next year, we'll be going with Alien Evolved and lots and lots of packs of of Xenomorph minis.
Dave:
So Let's
Matthew:
wait and see.
Dave:
Yeah.
Matthew:
Yeah. And then we might do Alien demos as well, which might make me more interested in going.
Dave:
That would be that would be quite fun, actually. Yeah.
Matthew:
Particularly with a starter set. That Edian starter set. I've heard there's a very good story hidden in that.
Dave:
Yeah. It's it's it's been watered down a bit by being expanded, but the original, the core story was just fucking brilliant, wasn't it? Anyway, yes.
Matthew:
And there's other convention news as well, which is that we are going to be in two places at UK Games Expo.
Dave:
Yeah. We are gonna be cutting ourselves down the Are
Matthew:
going to be at the at the Fiendig Stand with the help of a marvelous team, including Lily and George and Tom and Neil. But we are also, or at least one of us at all times, will also be at the Effect Publishing Stand.
Dave:
Woo. Yes. That that's gonna be cool. So yeah. Let's let's let's sell lots of stuff.
Dave:
Yeah. Hopefully.
Matthew:
And the Effect Publishing stand is going to be in Hall 3, which is an honor for a new publisher like you and I, Dave.
Dave:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.
Matthew:
We're in we're in with the big boys there. We're we're next to Leyland Leyland Press and stuff
Dave:
like I noticed that. That that was cool. Yeah.
Matthew:
And we are gonna be Stand 601. It's a corner stand, Dave, on a main thoroughfare.
Dave:
We're in a really good spot. Think we've been very lucky to get that. That's been super.
Matthew:
Yeah. And there's a bit of a story around that. We didn't pay for that, exhorted position. We paid for a far more inferior position. But due to a slight cock up, at the UK Games Expo end, we didn't get the stand we paid for because they'd already sold it to somebody else.
Matthew:
And so now we've got a slightly better stand where somebody couldn't make it. So that's great news.
Dave:
So that's worked out really well for us. Yeah. So Yeah. Can't wait. That you know, that's gonna be exciting.
Matthew:
Yes.
Dave:
It's gonna be good. Obviously, we're gonna be we're gonna be fully focused on making sure the Free League stand is doing everything as it always should do. But as as you say, Matthew, one of us will be on the effect publishing stand. Yeah. To bang the drum for tales of the Old West and stuff
Matthew:
that we
Dave:
have coming in
Matthew:
for you. Sign copies as well?
Dave:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I did If you
Matthew:
buy Sorry?
Dave:
I bought some
Dave:
I bought some new Sharpies the other day.
Matthew:
Some new some new silver and gold Sharpies?
Dave:
Yeah.
Matthew:
Excellent. Yeah. We'll we'll be there. I will be selling excess stock of books and of dice and of GM screens. You wanted a GM screen, now is the time
Dave:
to Yes. And come and get them. Come and get them quickly before they run out.
Matthew:
We A once in a lifetime opportunity. We have many left.
Dave:
Anyway, so okay. Okay. Listeners, there's the joke here, or is it a joke, was that we we we made an assessment of the number of GM screens we needed, and we were short by about 15. So we've had to go and give another run. So the minimum run isn't 15, as you can guess.
Dave:
So we've gotta have quite a lot of GM screens to for for our fabulous supporters and backers and people who want to play Tales of the Old West to come and come and purchase.
Matthew:
I think
Dave:
They are very they are very good screens. They are they
Matthew:
are good screens. I've got to say, this isn't bad estimating on our part. Rule of thumb is you sell roughly 10% more of whatever people backed on the Kickstarter in the pledge manager, and we almost doubled our GM screen sales. So I think what that shows is that in the pledge manager where we had pictures of the finished thing, people liked what they saw. Yeah, man.
Matthew:
And people actually wanted a GM screen who weren't sure about it at the Kickstarter level, which is, I think, a great success.
Dave:
That's true. That is true. So
Matthew:
it's good good news for us even though it has cost us another thousand pounds to get 200 made. But but there we Anyway,
Dave:
that Yeah. There we go.
Matthew:
That is the world of things.
Dave:
Yeah. But that's that
Dave:
but that's fine. And they're they're gonna arrive next week, hopefully. So that's that's not too bad.
Matthew:
Cool. Yes. So that's and I guess the other bit of
Dave:
That segued us into old news west, doesn't it? So
Matthew:
Yeah. That that segues us nicely into old news west. So old news west, Dave.
Dave:
Yes. Fulfillment has started. People have got the book in their hands now. Certainly those in The UK and Europe who in the in The UK, who've ordered just a book and a GM screens in Europe who just got the books. So we we've started a staggered fulfillment.
Dave:
So those who whose packages could be sent have been sent whilst we're still getting the rest of the stock together. So we'll be going up to, the distributors next week, hopefully on Tuesday, where all the stock will come together. There's a little bit of admin we need
Dave:
to do, which will take
Dave:
us an hour or two whilst we're there. But then once all that's done, everything is ready to be sent. So, yeah, if you're a UK backer and you've ordered dice and dice trays, your package can go out later this week. If you're EU backer in the same boat, that can go out later this week as well. And as we mentioned earlier, The US shipment will go out as soon as we as soon as we can, and hopefully that'll be next week, Trump willing, basically.
Matthew:
Yes.
Dave:
Yeah. No. It's great. So one of the things I didn't mention about Salute was it was great, as always, to to meet and have a quick chat with with friends and patrons who I don't otherwise get to see. So I bumped into Sol, which is great to see him.
Dave:
And he was saying, they were saying that they got their book and and and it takes me back to UK Games Expo last year when when Sol and I were chatting about it, and the Kickstarters was just coming. And, know, he was really, you know, really excited about it all. And this kind of squared off that circle, cause then here we were now talking after Saul had the book. That was really Saw Jerry. Lovely to see Jerry as always.
Dave:
A real pleasure. Sadly, we didn't get to chat for very long because because I was busy and then Jerry wandered off and didn't catch up with him again later. And then obviously bumped into Pete and Paul, which is really good. And I'm sure there's others that I spoke to, but I can't remember right now. But it's always a great pleasure in in doing that.
Dave:
But a few people, Sol included, came up to say thanks. I've got the book. And they were all waxing lyrical about how much they liked it, which was fabulous. So thank you all so much for supporting us. I'm really delighted that you like it.
Dave:
I think, you know, we're you know, I was I was saying to them all that, you know, I'm not I'm not I'm not frightened. You know? Yeah. I don't mind admitting that, you know, when I got the book in my hands first time, I had a little tear of, oh, we've actually got there kind of thing. So it's all brilliant.
Dave:
It's all lovely, and I'm delighted that people are loving what they are receiving in the post. So if you haven't got it yet, watch out. It's coming very soon.
Matthew:
I just wanted to say, David Chapman, he he the brains behind UK RPG a day and the doctor who role playing games, and I think still works for Modiphius. No. Cubicle seven in in another respect. He said, to kick start a delivery today of the epic and huge tales of the Old West from the lovely folk over at Effect podcast. I know this has been a labor of love for years, and to finally see this in rather glorious print is fantastic.
Matthew:
Well done, guys.
Dave:
No. That's a lovely comment. That was really nice. Yeah. I mean,
Matthew:
we So, of course
Dave:
Yeah. Go. Sorry. Go.
Matthew:
I want to say we never get bored of seeing your pictures on social media of the book cover that we have been staring at for the last year or so. Please bomb social media with your pictures if you so desire, because it's great to see them in other people's hands. Lorimer. I don't know who Lorimer is, but they may work at a pub. I only say that because the books are sitting on a couple of drip trays.
Matthew:
One for Jack Daniels and Okay. One for something else. Or not a couple of books. He he got the the deluxe edition and the GM screen.
Dave:
Nice.
Matthew:
And they look gorgeous sitting there on those drip trays. Yeah. We'll we'll see them any old way. And, also, I wanna give a shout out while in the social media side to Neil Hopkins, who has been diligently running Adventures since he got the PDF. Since he got the Quick Start, I think.
Matthew:
And there's a lovely shot of the group that he ran for at Seven Hills, which is a smaller games convention in Sheffield, of his group who all look to be thoroughly enjoying themselves playing in Patience Is A Virtue. And he says, the players all lent into the brutality of the Wild West with shootouts, a hanging, and a showdown at high noon. So, yeah. All good stuff.
Dave:
Yeah. No. That's great. Yeah. And so so for those of you who haven't got got it yet, they will be on their way very soon, and we will update The US backers as soon as we know exactly what's happening with that shipping.
Dave:
Yeah.
Matthew:
So yeah. And the other thing, actually, we ought to say is the dice have finally arrived. I sit here absolutely surrounded by dice, some of which are in little packets, some of which are in great big packets of a hundred. You're not getting a packet of a hundred. I'm splitting those packets of a hundred into packets of five and labeling them.
Matthew:
And that is my job for the day, basically, around editing this very podcast. Mhmm. And then we'll be taking those dice to to the distributors on Tuesday and doing a little bit of work there on the screens, which for Europe, particularly, have got to be labeled for GPSR reasons. And then the bulk of the mailing can happen.
Dave:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I I saw the dice for the first time last week. I popped down to Matthews. I say popped.
Dave:
It's about hour and a bit drive and took me two and a half hours to get home, thanks to some bloody crash on the M 25. But anyway, so I got to see the dice for the first time then, even though I didn't get a whole set for myself because there was only, you know, Matthew Matthew only had seven dice, so I only got two. But I'm gonna I'm
Matthew:
gonna get mine.
Dave:
I'm gonna get three more. I have them here. But they they do look lovely. I'm really pleased with them. And seeing for the first time seeing them in the flesh as it were.
Dave:
Yeah. They've come out really well despite all the shenanigans and the
Matthew:
Yes.
Dave:
Yeah. And the irritations we've had around getting them in our hands, they do actually look very good. I'm very pleased.
Matthew:
These are the first thing we ordered when the Kickstarter closed, and they're the last things to arrive.
Dave:
Yeah. It's taken four and a half months. I mean, it's
Matthew:
like Yeah.
Dave:
Yeah. It shouldn't have taken that long. Lessons learned. Lessons from a first time Kickstarter. But yeah.
Dave:
But they're there now. And, you know, on on time is good enough, isn't it? So even though we didn't get them a long time ago, you know, May was
Matthew:
our target was all happening, Dave, a month before we said it would happen. Actually, they came perfectly on time for
Dave:
our May
Dave:
was our target delivery date.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Dave:
You know, even with The US situation and having to ship stuff out, which will obviously slow things down a little bit for our US backers, everyone should still get their their rewards long before the May. Yeah. So, yeah. I'm I'm very pleased with that. That was kind of one of our top things that we needed to do was was prove that we could do this and prove that we were reliable when we said, you know, this is the day we're gonna go keep
Matthew:
our promises.
Dave:
Yes. And we can we can keep those promises. Yeah. So I'm very pleased. At this stage, you know, US Trump crap withstanding.
Dave:
We're pretty much there. But yeah. Yeah. Cool. Right.
Dave:
Well, that's enough of us two blathering on, I think. So we had a fabulous interview with Andreas Lundstrom, as I said, of Nordic Skalds, talking about his new game, which is currently on Kickstarter, Yggdrasil Burns. Let's let's hand over to Andreas, shall we?
Dave:
Okay. So here we are in the Hammam again. And once again, I'm delighted to say we have the wonderful Andreas Lundstrom with us from Nordic Skalds. Welcome, Andreas.
Dave:
Thank you. Thank you, Gary. Thank you for having me back.
Dave:
It's always a pleasure. It is always a pleasure.
Andreas:
It's a delight. And we've got you here today to talk to us a
Dave:
little bit about your current and ongoing kickstart campaign of a game called Yggdrasil Burns.
Dave:
Indeed. Yes.
Andreas:
A a mirkbog inspired. Is that right? A compatible game?
Dave:
Yeah. It's we we we've dabbled with different, you know, ways of calling it. I think a merc boy hack would be the best one because it's like, you could call it a setting for merc boy, but you could also call it, it is also a standalone game. You don't need merc boy to play you just advance.
Andreas:
Right. Okay. So well, let's get straight into that and tell us a little bit about Yggdrasil obviously comes from Norse mythology.
Dave:
Is that the world tree that holds all the other realms together? But yeah, tell us a little bit about about the game.
Dave:
Yeah, let me start with the setting because I think the setting is what has excited the most people about it. It's, you know, Lidnisfarnere, the the great raid on the Christian monastery in in Britain, in Northumbria. So we're
Matthew:
still mad at you. I
Dave:
know. So the Christian God is equally rough with the Vikings. So the Christian God actually took vengeance upon the Scandinavians and burnt and raised all of Scandinavia, you know, twelve hundred years ago. And so all the He
Andreas:
is a vengeful God after all.
Dave:
Is a vengeful God. He is, he is. So all these pagan Scandinavians, they have no land, there's no food. There's no, like the water's poisonous. It's a world that is dead.
Dave:
It's a post apocalyptic Viking game basically.
Matthew:
Right. So of course, Morkpog is always about, well, should always be about apocalyptic worlds. It is the very nature of the spirit of Mork Borg. Now, just take me back a little bit. Obviously the raid on Lindisfarne did happen.
Matthew:
God's vengeance, is that a
Dave:
thing you've made up? Or is that a bit of a
Matthew:
retelling of history? Or was there an historical incident that felt a bit like God's vengeance?
Dave:
No, no. Like in our setting, the Aesir and Vanir, like the Norse gods and goddesses, they're real, as is the Christian God. But the Christian God was stronger. So he fettered the Norse deities in hell with, you know, unbreakable chains and all that. And he just razed the entire Scandinavia.
Dave:
It's just burning or in ashes. Nice. So, are moving somewhere like between history and mythology.
Matthew:
Yeah. That's good.
Dave:
Basically, kind of like the show Vikings. It's also like, yeah, history ish, but it's also a lot of mythology mixed in. Yeah. We also thought that do we want to do a, oh, you're supposed to find Mjolnir and use it against the Fenrir wolf or, you know, Jormungandr, the Midgard snake. But we felt that there is another game that kind of does that.
Dave:
And also, that doesn't feel merc borg for me. You know?
Andreas:
That's how much
Dave:
Merc borg isn't epic. It's about, you know, you're a worm and you're trying to survive. That's the game.
Matthew:
Until the rock wheel crashes you. Sorry, Dave.
Andreas:
Three times I've tried to say this
Dave:
question, but, you know, it's not that interesting I
Matthew:
see. I feel you look a bit like you're burning to ask a question of Andreas. Go ahead.
Dave:
Let's just say, so the game isn't getting heavily into the rest of the Nordic mythology.
Dave:
What the game is, is that the player characters are all Skalds. First of all, because our publishing company is called Nordic Skalds. Skald is like a Scandinavian Viking bard, basically. Yeah. That tells all these stories.
Dave:
And so we wanted to weave that into the game somehow. So all the characters are, that's what they make their living doing. They travel from place to place, telling these old myths, these sagas and stories in exchange for scraps of food to survive. And what they are doing is that they are traversing the land in search of these rumors about these old sagas, about the old myths. So it's not a Call of Cthulhu investigation game, but the scenarios are supposed to be, you hear about a rumor, you go to that place to check out the rumor.
Dave:
Is it true? What's the truth behind it? So that you get another story to tell the next time you go to a homestead that is actually, you know, managed somehow to survive.
Dave:
Right. So you're not borrowing them with the same old story and getting nothing, getting crumbs to eat. You're actually, you're looking for the new stories to turn into
Dave:
your performances. And if you want to put in like a meta plot, if you want to put in a little bit more epicness, if you want to have the possibility of something a little cooler happening, we have kind of an optional meta plot where each time you investigate a rumor and learn more about the truths of the old sagas and myths, the chains that hold that fetters the Norse gods weakens.
Dave:
Right. Okay. So you're working to release the gods to put the Christian god back in his box, basically.
Dave:
If you want to take Yggdrasilbern's in a slightly more epic way. Yeah. But that's an optional thing because I think it would be nice to lead that up to the game master and to the players like what kind of game would you want to be? Because all the other rules and everything else with the setting lends itself well to both these ways of play, except the super epic one. And of course, the main antagonist is Ansgar, the German Bishop who is the historical figure who Christians is responsible for Christianing Sweden, basically.
Dave:
So him and his priests, they're also traversing the land because they're looking for pagans who haven't yet abandoned the Norse gods. Missionaries. They're missionaries. So they're the antagonists. If you meet them, there's going to be trouble.
Matthew:
Right. Okay. Let's just focus on that trouble for a moment. Is it story versus story? Are we talking about the good book versus the saga?
Dave:
Yeah, exactly. You are pagans. And actually there's a, you know, this, what's it called, calendar of Nehrubel in Murkwar, you know, the doomsday countdown clock or whatever you want to call it.
Matthew:
Seven prophecies and then you have to burn the book.
Dave:
Yeah, exactly. So we wanted to do something similar to that. So in this game, you roll similar dice to see when this is gonna happen. What happens in this game is that Scandinavia is finally like, Christian and an arch angel comes down from the heavens to the player characters and you get a choice. Do you want to be baptized or do you want to burn forever in hell?
Dave:
And it's implied that you're supposed to choose the latter.
Matthew:
Right, and so then you're
Dave:
meant to throw the book you're the
Dave:
first one, lose the
Dave:
game. Yeah.
Matthew:
And throw the book in the river.
Dave:
Yeah, exactly.
Matthew:
Because every more poor would have a distraction of the book at some point. Yeah. This may be right. This may be an opportunity because I can see Dave looking at me somewhat skeptically here. Is not a convert to the true religion of the dark tower.
Matthew:
He has not yet fallen for any more Borgian goodness. Convince him, if you can, that this setting, as you say, standalone game, is the way to bring the goodness of Mork Borg in, what, the darkness of Mork Borg into his heart?
Dave:
I think Mork Borg does a lot of things very well. What it does that I'm not a super fan of is that it's a very dungeon heavy game. For me, I prefer more story to my games. And so that's, I would say like, that's a big difference apart from the setting is completely different, but it's still some kind of post apocalyptic, you're a worm game. So that's similar, but it's another type of setting.
Dave:
But the big difference I would say is that this game is more story focused, whilst Murkborg is much more focused on go to this dungeon, try to survive, go to that dungeon, try to survive, go to this dungeon, try to survive.
Dave:
Right. That's interesting. Because again, I think I prefer the the the story driven element. Know, don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good dungeon delve and beating up and everything in it and stealing all their stuff.
Dave:
But Yeah. We all do, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't.
Andreas:
That's that's how that's how most of us well, that's how most of us got into,
Dave:
into role playing in the first place, guess,
Andreas:
with D and D. Yeah. And, you know,
Dave:
and that's what the Vikings actually did for real. Okay. Yeah. Many dungeons, but there are
Andreas:
a lot of, you
Dave:
know, places that went and beat up and sold everyone's stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
Andreas:
I like that idea very much. I said, I mean, I've I've I've read more book.
Dave:
I've never played it. I love the idea
Andreas:
of it, but I don't know. Think me, I like a game that has a bit more longevity, a
Dave:
bit more campaigniness to it.
Dave:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andreas:
And it feels that maybe
Dave:
Nordic School, Yggdrasil Burning, has got, from what you're saying there, Andreas, has got a bit more of that longer playability to it, perhaps,
Andreas:
where your characters are supposed to go through this story rather than die in the first chapter.
Dave:
Another thing we added is talents aren't in the original game. In the original game, just have your abilities, which are four. We've added two. So there's six of them, we've changed them somewhat. So there's six abilities that you roll for, but there are also talents.
Dave:
So I said, all the player characters are skulls. That's just a narrative thing, because instead of an archetype or a profession or class or whatever you want to call it, this game has backgrounds. Who were you before the world ended? So you could have been a berserker, you could have been an explorer, you could have been a Jarl, an Earl, you could have been a vulva, which is a, like a seeress, basically, or a thief or a thrall. So that's who you were before you met these other Skalds and decided we're gonna try and survive in this world together by telling stories together.
Dave:
So, and another one thing you get from your background is you get an iconic item. There's no big list of equipment because everything's gone, you know. There aren't a bunch of shovels left around. They've all been burnt. So you basically own one thing.
Dave:
You own a weapon. You'll have an iconic item, which are different. You get that from your background. Right. And that's also, you know, very heavily inspired by games like Vassen.
Dave:
And, you know, where you have these kind of things. And talents, of course, are also very inspired by by Free League games, except that you don't, you don't spend anything to use them, you can use them as much as you want.
Dave:
Yeah. And I was going to ask what what drove you? What was it about Nagoya that that you felt needed to change that made you go down the line of extra abilities? And then obviously the talents?
Dave:
Well, those basically came actually from choosing not to have classes or archetypes doing background, because that meant that you still had to differentiate them somewhat. You also get a top ability from your background.
Dave:
Right. So
Dave:
I'm a big fan of allocating abilities, especially in a game like this, where you're so vulnerable. So in the original game, you roll for your abilities. Here you allocate minus three, minus two, minus one, plus one, plus two, and then you start with a plus four in your top ability.
Dave:
Right. Okay.
Matthew:
This sounds like woke DI in the world of Mortal Borg this does. Is
Andreas:
there anything wrong with that, Matthew?
Matthew:
Well, feels to get the spirit of Mortal Bull, but I'm gonna let it pass. That's this one.
Dave:
We've kept the omens, and they basically work the same as they do in the original game, which is a resource that you have to, you know, cancel a crit or cancel Yeah, you can use them on a lot of things like do a reroll and stuff like that.
Matthew:
Excellent. Excellent. And is it so we've seen what would you call it an early beta?
Dave:
Yeah, alpha. An Yeah.
Matthew:
An early alpha. That's the right way. Actually, was just trying to get my letters in the right order.
Dave:
Because there's a bit too much missing to call it a beta.
Matthew:
But one of the things that this is a little bit sparse on is illustration. Who's illustrating what your illustration is going to be like, given the Ward of Morgborg and the various illustrators that have worked on that?
Dave:
Yeah. I mean, have Johan Orr along, who is the original. So we have Johan Orr, he has done the cover cover art, both for the standard book, and we also have a limited book, which will only be printed for this Kickstarter. We'll do us a couple of extra copies to bring to conventions. But basically that's going to be the only way to get the limited Yeah.
Dave:
He has done a few inlay illustrations as well, but he's also an art director. So he's worked closely with Christian Lindquist, who is our resident graphic designer. So they work together to create like the graphic design and art direction for this game.
Dave:
It does look very good, have to say, looking at the Kickstarter. There's a particular picture there with a skeleton looking like he's like sort of, you know, almost kind of like praying to the
Dave:
Oh, yeah. That's Sigurd, Fafner's bane. Odin used his ribs to write magical spells for the Fudarkrunes. So in the original game, have scrolls, which are the way you do magic. Here you have runic spells.
Dave:
They're all carved into the ribs of Sigurd's skeleton.
Andreas:
Okay, cool.
Dave:
Yeah. So that's you, Anor. That's going to be the cover for the limited edition book.
Dave:
Nice. That looks
Dave:
really And then we have a bunch of public domain art, just like they had in the original game. Some public domain that's very old. And some, there's a Norwegian illustrator called Kim Dias Holm, who's very, very generous with his art. And so we've like, we've used a lot of his illustrations as well. And then Christian Linklisz has done some, yeah, yeah, wherever something's missing, he's done something and try and fix it up.
Dave:
Yeah, basically. So that's, that's the art and graphic design. Speaking of Johan Nour, we also have Pelin Ilison, the, yeah, the writer of Mirk Bore. He is writing the introduction scenario.
Andreas:
Yeah, I was just looking at that, that the first
Dave:
stretch goal that you unlocked.
Dave:
Yeah, exactly.
Dave:
Yeah. Nice.
Dave:
Yeah. So we are very happy to have both the original creators of the original game with us in this project. It's very, very nice.
Dave:
We've been
Dave:
friends for a few years now, me, both me and Pella and me and Johan. So I, as soon as we started thinking about this project, I was like, I really want them in on it in some way. Because for one, it will keep us on track. Like if we start deviating too much, if we start doing something that doesn't feel more boring, they will, you know, pull the reins and get us to Yeah, Yeah. And also, of course, I can't deny the fact that them being so recognizable in the community is a huge plus as well.
Dave:
Yeah, absolutely. Great to work with. They're amazing people, both as people, but also as like creators. They're so amazing to work with. And how's the game starts?
Matthew:
I'm sorry.
Andreas:
I was
Dave:
just gonna a little dubbed at UK Games Expo last year, year before when Johan was over and it was
Andreas:
about 10:00, and we were
Dave:
all coming back for having had dinner. And he
Andreas:
was like, anyone up for one more drink? And nobody
Dave:
was up for one more drink. And I thought, oh, go on, man. I'll have one. And, like, four hours later Yeah.
Dave:
Oh my god. Yeah.
Dave:
Matthew. Yeah, go on.
Matthew:
No, I going say how is the Kickstarter doing? How's the campaign going?
Dave:
Well, I mean, we fulfilled our funded goal in two days, I think.
Dave:
Nice.
Dave:
So we're funded and we reached the first stretch goal, which was the important one. But I can't lie, I had expectations and hopes for a bit more. So we're at 112,000 Swedish now, that's a little under 10 ks UK pounds. Right. So it's yeah, we were hoping for more at this stage.
Dave:
Things will happen, but I mean, you guys know that there are curves to kickstarters, how they usually like after two, three days, you can usually calculate approximately where you're gonna end up. And we had hoped for more, but we're very happy with the ones who are backing us and showing us support. And we are very confident that once this game is printed, because we'll obviously do a quite a huge print run. So all the money will go into like, doing as big of a print run as we can. And then we're gonna get the games out in stores and, in conventions and stuff like that.
Dave:
And hopefully, it'll catch on.
Dave:
And you've still got about three weeks to go at the point of where of the recording this, haven't you? So you've still got you've got the got the doldrums
Andreas:
to go through, but then
Dave:
you hopefully got the, you know, the nice bump at the end of the
Dave:
yeah. I mean, have
Matthew:
the I've been on this podcast.
Dave:
Loads, thousands,
Andreas:
millions of people.
Dave:
Because the listeners of this podcast, they know quality.
Matthew:
They do. They do.
Dave:
They do.
Andreas:
They look past the hosts of the podcast and see quality somewhere. Yeah.
Dave:
We have very exciting stretch goals coming along as well, because at 150, that's about 12,000, I think. We have a custom die set that will be made for us by Lindor Dice, the ones who made the Windham die sets, which was nice,
Dave:
nice,
Dave:
hugely popular. We've already run out of them those and hopefully we will also reach the GM screen, which will be you have a picture of it on it on the Kickstarter site there, it's going to look beautiful.
Dave:
It looks very good actually. I was just looking at
Andreas:
it just now. Looks I was thinking, have you so have you done it? Because the picture looks like the two side panels are angled. Is that or is it just the perception of the picture?
Dave:
Oh, I will have to get back to you on that.
Andreas:
It's actually, if they're angled, it looks really cool.
Dave:
Oh, you mean that? No, I just think that they're supposed to be, you know, standing like in a
Dave:
It's the perception of the image.
Dave:
I think so. Yeah, I think they're going to be like the standard free league ones.
Dave:
Right. Exactly.
Dave:
It does look very good. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you guys will agree with me on this one, I'm sure. But a lot of GM screen, the information you get on the GM side is not always the best priorities.
Dave:
Are you with me on this one?
Matthew:
Well, having just made a GM screen, I've got to say it's really hard working out what people are going to want. We did pack
Dave:
as much information as we
Andreas:
possibly could on the Tales of
Dave:
the Midwest GM screen. It is
Matthew:
We've gone a bit old school with our GM screen.
Dave:
We've got
Matthew:
lots of tables on there. No faffing about with any design or any shit like that.
Dave:
Because what you want in a GM screen is stuff you're gonna need at the table without
Andreas:
getting through the Like
Dave:
GM tables who have information on character creation, that just pisses me off so much because you'll use that once and never more. It's just it's idiotic.
Dave:
Yeah. We didn't we didn't do that with Toto, did we? No, we didn't.
Matthew:
No, we didn't. But the interesting, I mean, here's the interesting little thing. We've sold almost twice. Well, we've sold as many GM screens in the pledge manager as we sold in the original Kickstarter campaign. Yeah.
Matthew:
So many more we've had to ask for a reprint. Obviously our GM screens people like. Yeah, screens, you want them to be useful. Get back to your
Andreas:
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.
Dave:
You want the side facing the player to be, players to be, you know, it's supposed to show something, either excite the players, or in our case, we want like, this is the landscape you see before you, as you are playing this game. The sky is red. There's never any sun. The ground is dark and burning or just ash.
Andreas:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:
This is what the Christian God has done. It looks great, I must say.
Andreas:
If I'm a bit distracted because
Dave:
I am actually backing it as we speak. Oh, well done.
Matthew:
Well done, Dave.
Andreas:
Yeah, you've given it to me. Love I love the storytelling idea and the look and the feeling. Yeah. And also,
Dave:
I mean, I love the whole Nordic, Norse mythology stuff. I just worked on, a game called Mythic Battles,
Andreas:
which was the Ragnarok setting. So I knew a
Dave:
little bit I knew a little bit about Norse mythology anyway, but it gave me the real opportunity to learn loads. Yeah, I'm loving the idea. So, yeah, sorry. That's why I was a bit distracted.
Dave:
Thank you. Distract away, dear friend. There's a
Matthew:
nice bit of a segue there. You're saying, okay, we're going to get as many books as we can printed and we're going to distribute them around the world. Actually, one of the things I thought you've come to us, you've spoken to us now about three projects, which you've kickstarted in the time it's taken us to do one. Dave is looking to make a living out of this game, you know, I pointed out to him that if we take six years between Kickstarters
Dave:
Well, we're working on the next two already. I'm working on the next two already.
Matthew:
But yeah, what, what has been your, so, you know, there's all the fire and glory over the Kickstarter itself and then the pledge manager and stuff like that. Then you get the books out. What have you done to keep the pace up for each of those games that have gone out now into the distribution network? How have you worked to try and maximize the publicity when the thrill of the Kickstarter has disappeared?
Dave:
Yeah, yeah, obviously, you know, being a guest on other podcasts is a great, great way to get the word out and get a few more curious people interested in it. But also, you know, having a network of game stores and we're actually in these upcoming weeks talking to distributors, both for The US and for The EU. So possibly UK as well. I'm not sure about the EU distributor, if they do UK as well, But I think, you know, getting a good distributor is key, because in Sweden, we know all the game stores we have, we don't need a distributor here. Can, we have contact, direct contact with them.
Dave:
And a good relationship. And also we've chosen not to have a website. We've chosen not to have a web store of our own because we want to support the game stores. So every time someone says, oh, these Wyndham books, miss a Kickstarter, where could I get them? And we just send them a list of game stores that sell them to support the local game stores, because they're important for the business.
Dave:
They're important for the community. And we want to support that. So we would rather do the only direct sales we do is through Kickstarters. As soon as that is over, we want to support the game stores. Think that's
Andreas:
a
Dave:
good thing because also if a game store like Alfas Beer, one of the two big ones in Sweden, or one of the three, four big ones, They've asked, like they needed to restock the Windham book three times now.
Dave:
Oh, wow.
Dave:
Because there's so many people buying it from them because, of course, partially because their ordinary customers have gotten them, but also because we recommended people to them. Yeah.
Dave:
Nice. So
Dave:
that's what think those are conventions are important. We haven't done that. We need to be better at that. All the Swedish publishers, big and small, always go for, you know, like GovCon, LinkCon, a bunch of other conventions. Get GMs who will get paid in products to GM their game for them to spread the word.
Dave:
I think that's very important. That's one area where we are lacking where we are not doing that well.
Matthew:
Yeah, that's an interesting thing. Mean, we're going to have a stand at two or three conventions. Why say two or three? Three conventions. We're to go to UK Games Expo.
Matthew:
We're going to go to Dragonmeat, which is our local London One, and we're going go to tabletop Scotland. So we're coming from the whole country. The
Dave:
first ones are pretty big though, aren't they? UK, Gain, Mexico and Dragonmeat, they're quite huge, right?
Matthew:
Yeah. Dragonmeat's got a bigger reputation than Well, actually this may change, of course, this year because it's going to be an XL. A bigger reputation than the amount of space or footfall up until now, but we'll see how that goes. But yeah, UK Games Expo is, is the biggest in the country. And we're lucky to get a table there.
Matthew:
Thank you, Paul. I'll just say that now in case you're listening, Thank you, Paul. So we're doing that and obviously we'll be selling direct, particularly the deluxe versions of our book, which like you, you know, we've had an overprint over what we've got. Once they're gone, they're gone. Do you then go to conventions more as Sweden rolls rather than as the Nordic Skalds?
Dave:
I think Gothcon is quite equal. Previous years, obviously Nordic Skalds haven't had any books to sell. So I've gone as a Sweden rolls person to Gothcon. This year, I'm splitting my time sixtyforty, 40% Nordic Skull, 60% Sweden rolls. But we are playing Nordic Skull games and adventures.
Dave:
So it's, you can count that whichever way you like.
Dave:
A bit of self promotion as it were.
Dave:
Yeah. But when it comes to other conventions, because in GovCon there's like every podcast is there. So there there's so many podcasts, cooperations. Yeah. Going on at GovCon.
Dave:
So I'm gonna be, be a player for once
Dave:
for the first time in a long
Dave:
time, last GovCon actually. And so that's gonna be fun. And, but the other conventions we will basically go as Nordic skulls, but it, you know, GovCon, they do you know how much they charge £11 for a table
Dave:
at GovCon. Just for a gaming table?
Dave:
No, for a table to sell you
Dave:
a Oh, I see. Okay.
Dave:
Don't think
Matthew:
that's Why would doing GovCon?
Dave:
Think
Dave:
that's quite I think next year you need to come guys because people know about you over here and I think it's well worth it.
Andreas:
Good idea. Yeah. Cause it's,
Matthew:
it's Easter, isn't it? Dave, what are you doing? It's Easter.
Dave:
Yeah. It's any time now, isn't it? Yeah. It's Easter. It's always Easter.
Dave:
So that might be one might be difficult for you to get away.
Matthew:
You got a week or two to organize
Dave:
it this year. Then you
Matthew:
live there, isn't it cheap? Yeah.
Dave:
But you know, event depends on how much they are charging for a table, because, I mean, if we are, because we've only been to the Spiel Congress, where they have the national championship of Dragonbane. We've been to that last year and we sold for almost a thousand UK pounds almost, which is of course great for us. But I mean, if we, because I was talking to a guy who was going to help us get into Essen Spiel. And he was like, yeah, the table is basically 2,000 British pounds. And I'm like, we're not going to sell that much, are
Matthew:
we? I
Dave:
don't think so. And like, okay, is that really worth it just for networking? If I'm there for networking, then I don't need a table. But if I don't have a table, it's hard for people to find me. It's I don't know what the prices are at Dragon Meat and UK Game Expo, but it's
Dave:
Not that bad.
Matthew:
UK game expo do a lovely thing where they have a starter pack, which is a relatively small source space, two by two meters in a relatively out of the way place. But you know, at a good sort of starter price that I don't know that we'll qualify for next year, Dave, might have to pay more next year than, than we, I've got to say, We're worried about
Dave:
that next year.
Matthew:
Yeah, we're worried about that next year. But yeah, that's a lot of money to spend at Essen. And I'm not sure that Essen is the right place for role playing games either.
Dave:
Exactly. So many board games. So I'm not sure either of us if it's the place to be. But I think if you want to meet distributors, they're all there. So that could be an investment, you know, if really want to get the best distributors interested in your games, it might be worth it going there for that reason.
Dave:
Yeah.
Matthew:
Yeah. Pretty one feels, I don't know. Maybe next year, Andreas, we should think about, could we all come together? And there could be something like the indie games exhibition or something where we get lots of smaller companies, almost just
Andreas:
so many Yeah.
Matthew:
Because one of the issues is, Anna from Feeling Gust, if we were going to go to Western this year, And of course, what with blooming Brexit, we'd have to pay import duties or whatever we brought across, we'd have to get work permits and all sorts of crap like that. And I don't think that on top of the cost of a table, which I didn't even know was that expensive.
Andreas:
And accommodation and transport.
Dave:
Yeah, all of that sort
Matthew:
of stuff. It's quite difficult, but maybe if we sent representatives, know, people clubbed together, smaller companies clubbed together and did a little exhibition stand or something. Anyway, that's something to think about next year, which our podcast
Dave:
is just a situation where you send us a box of your stuff and we send you a box of our stuff.
Matthew:
Oh, I'm sure we could do that.
Dave:
Yeah.
Matthew:
I'm sure we could do that.
Dave:
Because I think it's just good if each stand has like, if you have two books there, it's going to be hard to attract interest. But if you have six, seven books, that attracts more interests. And make people stay by your table better, you know? Yeah. We can talk about that later, maybe if you're interested.
Matthew:
Yeah, let's have a bit of a discussion.
Andreas:
Do it
Dave:
a chat. Yeah, sure.
Matthew:
So where are we going? Well, we've kind of run out of time actually. But Dave, do you have any final questions?
Andreas:
I think not a question. I just want to congratulate you Andreas on the Fenics Awards nominations that Windheim has got.
Dave:
Thank you.
Dave:
Thank you.
Andreas:
To all our listeners
Dave:
there's a lot of them
Andreas:
so I don't know what all the categories are but there is there are many brilliantly well done. Congratulations on that. And fingers crossed that you win your fair share of those awards.
Matthew:
So, Andreas, what are the categories that you most want to win? If our Swedish listening public are listening now,
Dave:
which are
Matthew:
the ones that we say, okay, don't waste your votes on all the categories, focus on these ones. Which are the ones they should focus on?
Dave:
Well, I mean, if you go, if you just follow the link that I could send you and you can put in a show.
Andreas:
By all means, it's
Dave:
just a Google doc. It's just you just scroll down and the categories, it's not very hard. And we've named everything Windham. So it's easy for people to, even if it's Traces of Darkness, Sport of Murkir in Swedish, it's still called Windheim First, so it's easier for people to find. But I would say there's one called Best RPG Product of the Year, which is of course prestigious.
Dave:
Also best RPG game. That's My Father's Sword. That we released very recently. That would be a huge win for me as well. And yeah, can I be a bit selfish?
Dave:
Because there's also one for best writer in Phoenix Magazine, where I'm personally nominated.
Andreas:
Congratulations on that. That would be
Dave:
nice as well, of course.
Matthew:
But you get the pay raise if you're voted best writer.
Dave:
I'll have to do that, right?
Matthew:
Yeah, you got to ask.
Dave:
I mean, you know, your per word rate or whatever has got
Matthew:
to go up. Your best writer by popular demand. Yeah, exactly.
Dave:
Yeah, exactly. Excellent.
Andreas:
So, yeah, congratulations. I had a question for
Dave:
you guys that I think might interest you two especially because as of today, I actually finished the soundtrack for Coriolis, The Great Dark.
Matthew:
That's a nice segue into our next episode because after the episode in which this interview is, we're going to be discussing Coriolis: Great Dark. We've just been playing the start well, an expanded version of the starter adventure.
Dave:
Cool. Maybe you'd like a small sample to play your listeners.
Matthew:
Drop us a line. We're very happy to get a bit of that in. Always looking for content. You know us.
Dave:
Yep. Yep.
Dave:
That would be cool. Yeah, please.
Dave:
Just make sure to remind me because I am the most forgetful person in this world.
Matthew:
Yeah. Like this interview.
Dave:
Yeah, for example.
Dave:
Yeah. Oh,
Matthew:
cool. It's brilliant talking to you again, Andreas.
Dave:
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew:
It's been a real pleasure having you. Everybody should go and get look, if Dave, who doesn't even like Wort Borg,
Dave:
I'm sure you'll put a link on it to it.
Matthew:
We will of course link in the show notes.
Dave:
Search for Skalds, Nordic Skalds.
Matthew:
But we wish you every success with them.
Dave:
Indeed. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Matthew:
Well, you so Pleasure. So you were very impressed by that, Dave. What was it, do you think, that makes Yggdrasil burns more popular than espadrille burns? No, than Mork Mork. What do you think makes it more enticing to you than Mork Borg itself?
Dave:
Oh, Esperdrill Burns could be like a Miami Vice version of Mork Borg, isn't it?
Matthew:
Yeah. Right. We've done it.
Andreas:
Get in there, Craig.
Matthew:
Think the How nice Kickstarter, boys and girls.
Dave:
I think the idea that there's a bit more to it. As I said in the interview, I I, you know, I I do enjoy one shots for sure, but I very much, I I get a lot of my satisfaction from role playing from from longer stories and and campaigns. So I think, know, this this
Andreas:
kind
Dave:
of scratches that itch a little bit. I say I've never played Mobborg. And I don't know why really, actually. But, but I think if if it is just that, like, one shot, it's all a bit manic and and the experience is kind of frantic, and then it's finished, I think that kind of experience appeals appeals to me in role playing terms a bit less than something that will tell a bit more of a story. So I think that's the thing for Yggdrasil Bones that sort of, you know, attracted me to it.
Dave:
And, yeah, as I said in in the the interview, I I backed it as we were talking. Now in the cold light of day, knowing how much money I don't have, it's possibly one that I might cancel. And knowing obviously that that that Andreas has got well past his goal, so so that won't won't hamper his objectives. But but yeah, I mean, I genuinely backed it because it does look lovely, and the, you know, the idea of that more campaigning style, you know, of on the back of a Merc Buyer style actually really appeals to me.
Matthew:
Excellent.
Dave:
You never know. I mean, I I didn't back that much, so I might just leave it. It'll be fine. But it's it's always a pleasure talking to Andreas, and we should definitely take his take his offer of of snippets of the the the score from Alien Evolved that he's been working on.
Matthew:
We should remind no. It's not Alien Evolved. It's The Great Dark. He was offering us the score.
Dave:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:
Yeah. Sorry It's a lovely segue into what's happening next next time. Yes. So this is our now long promised discussion of The Great Dark, Coriolis The Great Dark
Dave:
Yep.
Matthew:
Which I recorded, in fact, last night. So it's all ready to go, but you're gonna have to wait
Dave:
two weeks for it. Okay. So did did you did you get everyone involved there? Was it a nice round table discussion?
Matthew:
Yeah. Everybody everybody who played was there, which was And we've got a variety of viewpoints. And we have we have conclusions, which I won't reveal. I won't spoil for you.
Dave:
No. No. Don't. Don't.
Matthew:
But there's some interesting things, and I think it's worth possibly talking about them in our next episode as well. But I'll say this in relation to Tales of the Old West is we put front and center in the faith mechanic and also in experience. We have rewarded what we expect your characters to do in Tales of the Old West. And something similar has happened in The Great Dark, but interestingly, is it in the right place?
Dave:
Here we go.
Matthew:
That is the question that you're gonna have to wait two weeks to wait for.
Dave:
Okay. Well, that sounds that sounds really interesting. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing that. That sounds cool. And just before we sign off, I have just confirmed that, the date for the War Stories Kickstarter that I gave you was wrong, but only just.
Dave:
So if you're still listening at this point, it's Wednesday, April, not Tuesday, April. So sorry, Al. I didn't mean to get that wrong earlier, but there we go. I've got it right now at least. So
Matthew:
Wednesday We can change it in the show notes too. Nobody will notice. I mean, it'll it'll go past like that time that you said old news west and nobody noticed.
Dave:
Exactly. Nobody would notice unless someone would go, oh, what did you just say? So right. I think that's probably enough for now, didn't you?
Matthew:
Yeah. I just want to say, though, that I have new glasses
Dave:
Well done.
Matthew:
Which is pertinent to what we're about to say. I have new glasses that some people say makes me look a bit like Ronnie Barker. So
Dave:
I'll have to see.
Matthew:
It's goodbye from me.
Dave:
And it's goodbye from him.
Dave:
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