Matthew: 00:39

Hello, and welcome to effect episode 250. Wow. 250. That's not the title, by the way. The title is once more unto the breach, dear friends.

Matthew: 00:53

I'm Matthew.

Dave: 00:54

And I'm Dave. And that was a good recovery on a screwed up start, wasn't it, Matthew? Because normally, we say, welcome to episode whatever. And you were I could tell in your voice when you went, effect. No.

Dave: 01:06

I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have said something else. But, yes. Anyway, welcome to our 250th show. Who would have thought it?

Matthew: 01:14

Yeah. I certainly wouldn't, except a couple of weeks ago, I thought it, because I noticed we did 249.

Dave: 01:23

Who would have thought it back in the day?

Matthew: 01:26

Back in the day. When we

Dave: 01:27

were starting.

Matthew: 01:27

Back in the day when we were we weren't sure you're gonna do any more than one episode.

Dave: 01:32

Well, to all those people who listened to the first episode, how many of those people thought we'd be doing 250? Not many, I suggest. No. Yeah. It wasn't.

Dave: 01:41

Yeah. Anyway, welcome to the 250th show. On the show today, we've got, a few of the usual things. We've got the world of gaming, a few bits and bobs to talk around in that, some announcements, and some stuff going on.

Matthew: 01:55

And before then, we've got a new patron to thank. Remember that? I know it's not on the running order, but we do.

Dave: 02:00

No. We do. Absolutely. We have a new patron to thank. Obviously, we have some old west news, and most of you probably know this news already.

Dave: 02:09

But we've got some, excellent bit of breaking not breaking news. An excellent bit of news on that. And then, last time I said that, I would do a little bit of thinking about battles in role playing games, because I've been doing some thinking around Rome year 0, and battles will feature in that. And, I've done a bit of a piece talking all about that. Giving some thoughts and some comments, and that's to come later on.

Dave: 02:36

That is our show. So moving swiftly on then, we have a new patron. Which is the first time in a few shows we've had a new patron, which is remarkable and wonderful. Thank you. Who was it, Matt?

Matthew: 02:46

Yes. It's Peter Thomas. Welcome, Peter. Thank you very much, Peter. Welcome welcome to the crew.

Matthew: 02:54

I will obviously, send you a message on Patreon. But if you haven't joined our Discord, and I don't think you have, then plug your Discord handle into your Patreon account, and you will automatically be welcomed to the nicest place on the Internet. And there's a bunch of stuff to download as well on the Patreon as well. Things that we have made. Indeed.

Matthew: 03:18

And exclusive things as well, like, like our original, Hopes Last Day, Adventures. Last Hopes

Dave: 03:28

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 03:30

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, and welcome. Welcome welcome aboard, happy little band.

Dave: 03:37

Yes. And, obviously, thanks for everyone who supports us. But, lovely to have somebody new. And, yeah, get on the Discord as soon as you can, Peter. If you wanna join the chat, that would be great to see you there.

Dave: 03:48

So you you almost did a really good

Matthew: 03:49

segue there. I almost did. Yeah. I just realized how badly you could have just screwed this segue up.

Dave: 03:55

You you were missed you missed that boat by a fraction. I thought, oh, good segue. But, oh, no. He's he's missed it. But yes.

Dave: 04:01

So if you if you, if you if you join the Patreon, you can download some of our original alien, Hope's Last Day, forerunner.

Matthew: 04:11

We called it Last Hopes back in

Dave: 04:13

the day. The Last Hope we did, which is 3 scenarios all based on, Huddly's hope. But talking alien, well, everyone have heard by now, alien evolved, the the kick start of that has now been announced by free league, and that's going to go live on March 25th, I believe. And so that's about 6 well, nearly 2 months from from this episode. But yeah.

Dave: 04:37

So after all the excitement last year when it was sort of teased and didn't quite happen, here we go. Now we have, alien evolved being launched on March 25th. I I haven't I haven't seen I haven't read the, the announcement in great detail. Are they going to be delivering a almost complete PDF when people back? Do we know?

Matthew: 05:03

Because I haven't really seen mention of that.

Dave: 05:06

Let me just I haven't either, but but I I suspect the PDF, you know, the work for it must be pretty well complete. I mean, Johan Nord has been doing the layout this time, and they've gone for a very different look and feel.

Matthew: 05:19

Gone And I have to say an excellent look and feel. I I much prefer it to 1st edition.

Dave: 05:27

So I yeah. I've got a comment on it. I I do like it very much. And I and and Johan is is obviously very very talented, graphic artist who's doing a fabulous job. I I I think there's a thing about the lovely sort of white with, what was it?

Dave: 05:45

Pale blue kind of a lot of pale blue in it. And then you've got all the very dark images, particularly kind of the ones that they've used in in the original books, which is quite a contrast. So I think there's I don't know. I've only I've only glanced at a couple of the things that they've put up and and on the kickstarter page. But, that kind of thing jars slightly, but I wonder if they're gonna do something different, for the finalized version.

Dave: 06:13

I'm sure it'll look good, you know, when it when when it's there.

Matthew: 06:18

Yeah. So there's so on the on on what they've shared, there is, there are some obvious, we'll have this from the last the last one we made.

Dave: 06:29

Yeah.

Matthew: 06:30

Which which is only fair because it's gorgeous Martin grip art for the most part.

Dave: 06:34

Yep.

Matthew: 06:37

But there's also some new stuff. So there's a there's a double page spread with a whipping tail of an alien, which I think is a new new bit of work, possibly actually by Johan Orr himself, given the amount of blood. Yeah. And, you know, that is a monochrome bit of art, but I can see what you mean. Then on the next spread, there is something that came out of I can't remember which, probably the core book.

Dave: 07:05

I think the core book, if it's the one I'm thinking of.

Matthew: 07:07

Yeah. And what you're saying is when the core book was white print on black or green print on black sometimes, then the the those sort of shadowy alien pictures sort of loomed out of the page in the way that an alien might, and they look a little bit stark on these white patches.

Dave: 07:28

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it'd be interesting to see what they do.

Dave: 07:32

As I said, I'm sure it's gonna look fabulous when they're finished. But, but yeah. And in terms of the text, I mean, I've I've not got any great insight. I did do a couple of things for it. And if the book comes into about 80,000 words, I'd have done about 15% of the book, which is cool.

Dave: 07:49

Mhmm. And maybe not quite that much, a bit less. So I had a couple of good good bits today. One's a life path generator, which is great fun.

Matthew: 07:56

Excellent. Took a bit Did you like our life path generation?

Dave: 07:58

We do. We do. I I hope I mean, I've I've had no feedback on it. So I'm assuming they liked it.

Matthew: 08:05

I gave you feedback on it.

Dave: 08:06

No. No. But I mean, from Freelee. Freelee. Freelee.

Dave: 08:08

Well, I

Matthew: 08:09

That's because my feedback was so brilliant. They don't need to give you

Dave: 08:11

any feedback. Well, I had a massive, a massive crisis of confidence in doing it, and I thought, is this any good? Or is this just really shit? And because I because the word limits, as usual, were very strict. And trying to get what I wanted into the word limits was really quite difficult.

Dave: 08:26

Mhmm. But I tested it with you.

Matthew: 08:28

So is that when you gave it to me to to tell you whether it was good or shit?

Dave: 08:33

Kind of. Yeah. Exactly.

Matthew: 08:34

Yeah. That that was a stupid idea, wasn't it?

Dave: 08:37

Well, I knew I'd get a, you know, a a a biased on the, you know, the the the bad side rather than the good side.

Matthew: 08:43

On the negative side.

Dave: 08:44

I could then balance it balance it out. But then I ran it with some of the guys, at my game club, and they all seemed to really enjoy it. And then I ran it with you guys, didn't I, on our weekend away, back end of last year, and you all seem to really like the characters it produced. So, I'm quite pleased with that. And then the other thing I did was a bit of campaign material, to support campaign.

Matthew: 09:05

Did we record that?

Dave: 09:08

I suspect we probably did.

Matthew: 09:11

Yeah. I'm suddenly thinking, I've I've actually totally forgotten that we've done that thing. But now you've reminded me of it. I'm thinking, tada, recorder. So,

Dave: 09:21

we should

Matthew: 09:21

dig it out.

Dave: 09:22

We should definitely dig it out. I think I'm I I might be reminded to wait until the PDF comes out

Matthew: 09:27

before we proceed with that.

Dave: 09:29

We could

Matthew: 09:29

if we edit it, we could, stick it out as a bonus podcast

Dave: 09:33

Absolutely.

Matthew: 09:33

At the appropriate time. Indeed.

Dave: 09:35

Because it's not it's not impossible that they looked at mine, thought it was shit, and then did something else completely different.

Matthew: 09:40

And did something entirely different.

Dave: 09:41

Which is not impossible. I mean, it hasn't happened in the past, but it's not impossible. So, obviously, we need to make sure what's actually in the book before we, before we talk about it. But I mean, all that was finished before well, I write it at new year, basically. So they've had some time, and I suspect that the text must be pretty much pretty much done by now.

Dave: 10:04

So I would expect Mhmm. There to be a PDF coming in the not too distant future after the, after the Kickstarter. I I would imagine because it's mostly I I don't know because I'm not involved. I'm just going on the little bits of, you know, evidence that I've seen. But I suspect that it's it's pretty well developed now, I would imagine.

Matthew: 10:25

Yeah. Yeah. And, obviously, one exciting thing, although maybe not quite as exciting I'm I'm excited for it, nonetheless, is the, is the box set starter set of the, and I quote, fan favourite, Hope's Last Days Lothario. Yeah. Which, has been expanded, not by you and I.

Matthew: 10:49

Unless you're keeping a terrible secret from me.

Dave: 10:51

No. I wish I wish I was, but no.

Matthew: 10:56

And, yeah, I'm I'm I'm hoping we still get our name in the credits for that, because I'd love to have my name on that box set. Just by the the look of the photograph of it. Yeah. Yeah. So, Yeah.

Dave: 11:08

No idea. Which I

Matthew: 11:09

can wait and see.

Dave: 11:10

Yeah. No idea. Yeah. I don't know whether they've taken Hadley's Hope and done something different with it in terms of a scenario or whether they've taken Hope's last day, you know, and then developed expanded upon that, which then I would hope to get a, you know, based on the original Hope's Last Day by Dave Seamark and Matt Jones, Matt Tyler Jones. You would hope.

Matthew: 11:32

Yeah. But, you know I'd hope.

Dave: 11:34

We will see.

Matthew: 11:35

Yes. We'll we'll wait and see. Yeah. And it's got a gorgeous cover that I feel, in in in this, you know, 250 episodes since we were inspired by the game Coriolis to make this podcast, I think the cover of Hope's Last Day looks a bit like the cover of Coriolis the 3rd horizon.

Dave: 11:56

There are definitely vibes, aren't there? Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 12:00

And, also, the other thing, you know, where we we the image I used for our alien podcast adventures was the Horsehead Nebula. And the alien in the background looks a bit like that Horsehead Nebula there. So I'm kind of feeling, you know, I I feel part of this game even though we've not had it.

Dave: 12:19

Yeah. And I I I do very much like the, the artwork for the, for the core rules. The, the face the face hugger line.

Matthew: 12:28

The face hugger. Yeah.

Dave: 12:29

Yeah. That looks lovely. But, yeah. The, definitely the the the Hope's Last Day box does look very Coriolis. Doesn't it?

Matthew: 12:37

Yes.

Dave: 12:37

So it looks great. I mean, you've got the alien in the background. You've got the team in the front, and then I've got what what looks like a a die hard tire tractor, which would make absolute sense, because that's what they had. Hope's Hadley's Hope. But it's definitely called Hope's Last Day.

Dave: 12:51

So it's,

Matthew: 12:52

Yeah. But it says so on the front of It does. Of the box. Yeah.

Dave: 12:55

Yeah. It would be nice to get But if you get it, it would be nice to

Matthew: 12:59

get credit. Fan favorite Hope's Last Day. You still would have called it Hope's Last Day. Yeah. Unless you wanted to call it Last Hopes, of course.

Dave: 13:07

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they could have had the Anyway They could have had the other two scenarios. That was with

Matthew: 13:12

Yeah. They have because

Dave: 13:13

all they had to do was

Matthew: 13:14

That thing that I made for them, I made for them just before they decided to put it into the core book originally. So they have actually got the thing that we we share now with our

Dave: 13:28

patrons. Right.

Matthew: 13:29

They've got that document, because they'd asked for it, for GenCon or something. They were gonna hand it off to Gen Con. So I'll put that document together for that. Anyway, so, you know, if they've nicked those ideas, I'm happy with that.

Dave: 13:45

Yeah. Absolutely. Me too. Me too.

Matthew: 13:48

If they've made it shit, I'll be disappointed. But,

Dave: 13:51

well, it's I think I think it's gonna be interesting because it's going to be, expanded to allow the, you know, the bigger maps, the the the the battle map style of map.

Matthew: 14:02

Yeah.

Dave: 14:03

To allow, minis to be used. And that's that'll be interesting to see what they've, you know, how that works, and and, you know, what they've done with it to do that. Yeah. I mean, I've I I I won't ever be running an alien game with minis.

Matthew: 14:23

No. No. No. You you and I, we're both be.

Dave: 14:25

You know, it's not

Matthew: 14:26

the mind, aren't we?

Dave: 14:27

Yeah. Yeah. It's not it's it's not the way I do things. And yeah. So I mean, it's not gonna be the thing that that's gonna make me get me all excited, I suspect.

Dave: 14:40

But it'll be really interesting to see how they've done it. Because there's quite a, you know, unless they've made Hadley's Hope a little bit smaller, there's quite a lot of grounds cover on Hadley's Hope. And doing it all on battle maps is gonna be quite a lot of maps and quite a lot of Yeah. Floor space.

Matthew: 14:56

So it looks to me from the illustration here, it looks like they've got a great big map, possibly 2 sided, and it's one half on each side. I don't think there's many more than that that one big map. But, yeah. Or maybe Yeah. I don't know.

Matthew: 15:21

I don't know. And the other thing I'm trying to see here, and I can't, of course, possibly see here is what the character names are because we, you know, again, I I feel that's a little bit of our mark on the adventure was to quote, Conrad

Dave: 15:36

Yes. With

Matthew: 15:37

all those character names. Yeah. So anyway

Dave: 15:40

Will be interesting to see. Anyway, March 25th, that is due to March.

Matthew: 15:44

25th. Yeah. Yeah. And, we recommend that you back it even well, now you have been involved as well. So so we definitely recommend you back it.

Matthew: 15:56

The miniatures, as you say, I'm not massively interested in those. But looking at some of these characters, I'm wondering, are any of these characters the guys from Hope's Last Day? Anyway Yeah. We shall see. We shall see.

Matthew: 16:12

The one important thing we did with Hope's Last Day is we didn't assign a sex to any of our characters.

Dave: 16:17

No. No.

Matthew: 16:18

So, by illustrating them and giving them portraits and stuff like that, they will although I do remember, we didn't assign sex to any of our characters, but we did say one of them had a very impressive moustache.

Dave: 16:34

You could be female and have an impressive mustache.

Matthew: 16:36

You can. You can. And that that's the thing. But You might might not be remember

Dave: 16:40

Super confident.

Matthew: 16:41

One of the players pointing it out. Yeah. I think having chosen to be female because I said, you can choose whatever you want to be, and then read, oh, I've got an impressive

Dave: 16:48

this time.

Matthew: 16:51

Anyway right. Well, there's some other news in the world of gaming. It's not all alien, is it?

Dave: 16:55

No. It's not all alien.

Matthew: 16:58

Oh, gold. Yes. So it's it's time for one of those weird new segments almost in anniversary mode, I feel, or Mhmm. Ages ages ago. I noticed, the article on Enworld about how it seemed.

Matthew: 17:17

This was just before Christmas last year. Right. Not last year, the year before last now, of course. The evil genius was in some financial trouble and general unhappiness, and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, we mentioned it, they didn't collapse, which I think I might have predicted that they were about to collapse, after Christmas, but they didn't.

Matthew: 17:41

They're still going strong. But just now, after somebody posted a link to that article in Reddit, they've started throwing cease and desist orders around. So I'm expecting we're gonna get one at some point when they when they realize that, we mentioned it in our podcast of some years ago, because it's doing irreconcilable damage to the brand of evil genius.

Dave: 18:09

Yeah. I mean, I I don't really have enough vision on all of this to to have, you know, a a broad perspective on on what's really happening and, you know, the impact it might have on the company. I mean, all all I've seen is the stuff that's been been been put up, which is obviously, you know, one one person or one one side's point of view. Yeah. Is is it I it's a difficult one to comment, because if what they're saying is true, then, you know, they've got every right, I think, to to speak up about it.

Dave: 18:52

But, yeah, I don't know enough about it to be able to make any real solid comment that would be anything other than kind of wild speculation, really.

Matthew: 19:02

It it just says first of all, they went after this Reddit post saying, will you take this post down?

Dave: 19:07

Yeah.

Matthew: 19:08

And I think a blokey boy who had did that post had said, well, it's not even my content. All I did was link to it. Yeah. And then, Morris from Enworld

Dave: 19:19

That was got

Matthew: 19:20

a a rather dodgy looking letter that could have looked like some sort of scam letter or email from from somebody saying, this is a cease and desist. Take the content down. But, you know, it's he, of course, said this is the Strysohn effect. You just let it lie there. It was gone.

Matthew: 19:42

I mean, we haven't spoken about it since 2 years ago, whenever we whenever we talked about it. No. It was entirely not a story

Dave: 19:50

anymore. You're completely forgotten, frankly. Yeah.

Matthew: 19:53

And and now and now it's back to being a story again, all because, they've suddenly noticed it. Anyway, I don't know. We haven't got much time to talk about it, so let's not No. You're you're off on holiday, but we've done recording. If though you want to punch a fascist, this is where you can.

Matthew: 20:13

Not evil genius game. Right? I mean, I'm sure you

Dave: 20:15

can punch

Matthew: 20:16

fascists and evil genius games as well. But don't go to evil genius games and punch people, because I'm not accusing them of being fascist. No. Now I really will get a cease and desist order.

Dave: 20:25

Yeah. Or worse. Yeah. We've got we've got we've we've yeah. There is yeah.

Dave: 20:30

So anyway, this

Matthew: 20:32

is something entirely of holding.

Dave: 20:34

Yes. Go on.

Matthew: 20:35

So You want It's it's the punch Nazi's bundle of holding, which was just it was brought to our attention by John, but I'd already actually seen it, and was gonna bid it on the, on the running order anyway because, Eat the Reich is part of the bonus collection. You know how, with with bundle of holding, you can get a basic set of whatever for a certain amount of money. And then, more for an amount of money that raise rises throughout the throughout the campaign depending on how many people get it. But, so so I don't know most of these games, but I do know Eat the Reich. And I would say this is probably a very good way of getting Eat the Reich.

Matthew: 21:31

Eat the Reich comes from our lovely friends at Roanoke and Deckard.

Dave: 21:35

Yep. And we've played it.

Matthew: 21:36

Our convention pals. I've not played it yet. No. No. Neither.

Matthew: 21:41

I think Noble offered to run a game, or did I play it with Noble, actually? Just a a short taster session. But the interesting thing about it is it is very much a kind of one and done game.

Dave: 21:52

Yeah.

Matthew: 21:52

It's not a campaign game. I think it's immensely replayable probably, but it's it's it's almost an adventure on its own. And so you might feel, you know, if you were to splurge it in print, you might feel, oh, I'm not actually getting much play value. It looks lovely. Mhmm.

Matthew: 22:12

But you don't get to generate your own characters. You know, you get some pre generated characters, and you run them through an adventure, which is a great adventure because your vampires sent into Germany to eat Hitler, Which, you know, that Sebastian's vampires.

Dave: 22:30

I mean, yeah. I mean, he he I mean, that's just a story that's been begging to be told probably ever since vampires, you know, well well, not since vampires have been around, but since since Hitler was Since

Matthew: 22:40

Hitler was invented. Yes.

Dave: 22:43

How was how was this one not got picked up before? You know, it's like,

Matthew: 22:47

Well, I pointed out at the time it has been picked up before, because it's kind of a subplot in, Knights of Black Ages.

Dave: 22:52

Right. Yeah. But,

Matthew: 22:57

but but, no, this is done in all its glory and over the top glory, I think, actually. You got some great characters there, all sorts of different vampires who are reflections and exaggerations of all of the vampire tropes, each of them. So Yeah. It's a great I think I enjoyed reading it. So that, you know, that's always a good start.

Matthew: 23:20

Even though I haven't paid it yet, I would recommend that. And if you wanna get it in a value for money way, use the punch Nazis one. And your money after gateway fees goes to, the Center For Constitutional Rights, which may be getting quite a lot of work given the current situations in in in places that maybe we won't mention.

Dave: 23:48

What is the Centre of Constitutional Rights?

Matthew: 23:51

The Centre for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Dave: 24:01

Okay.

Matthew: 24:01

The CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. And, yeah.

Dave: 24:12

Don't worry about the

Matthew: 24:14

Yeah. You can find a link. We will put a link, of course, to bundle of holding in our show notes, and then you can click through bundle of holding to check out the Centre For Constitutional Rights. So you know though that you whatever you money you spend will be used to metaphorically punch a Nazi.

Dave: 24:33

Or at least try and stop a Nazi punching you.

Matthew: 24:38

Yes. Yes. To stop Nazis. They they don't punch generally. They use their jack boots to, kick or their gas chambers, of course.

Matthew: 24:48

But,

Dave: 24:49

Yeah. Anyway. Okay.

Matthew: 24:50

Let's move on. Old west news.

Dave: 24:54

Yeah. So, Old West News. So the bit of news that probably everyone has already heard is that last weekend, we, put out the PDF for Woah. To our to all our backers, which was a bit of a bit of a moment. Took a bit of, hard work to get there.

Dave: 25:13

Apologies for it being a bit late, but as we've said before, I think we were, you know, kind of wildly optimistic they would get out by Christmas. Frankly, it's a lesson for us. But having got it out by by the end of, our second, undertaking, our second commitment of by the end of January, you know, I'm pleased we did that. It's it's looking lovely. I'm I'm really pleased with it.

Dave: 25:36

It's, it's longer than we thought. So it's coming

Matthew: 25:41

at 3 It's almost half as long again as we thought.

Dave: 25:43

Not not quite, but nearly. Yeah. Which again We

Matthew: 25:46

thought it was gonna be 200 quid, 200 quid. We thought it was gonna be 200 pages.

Dave: 25:51

I I think my my estimate was 220, I think, when we actually finished the text.

Matthew: 25:57

Right. Yes. But I think when in the kick start, it says 200.

Dave: 26:00

Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. We have we have an account yeah. We haven't accounted for certain things.

Dave: 26:07

We hadn't by the time we started the Kickstarter, we didn't have all the guest writers' contributions and some of that stuff.

Matthew: 26:13

Yeah.

Dave: 26:14

However though, again, it's another good lesson for us about estimating the size of, the size of books from the number of words, involved. Yes. But, yes. But there we go. So it's out now.

Dave: 26:27

We've got a couple of weeks hiatus before we get to put together the the PDF for print. In that period we are, open to people giving us feedback, and particularly typos and those kind of problems. Please let us know. We've had a few already, but we did work pretty hard on proofing. So I'm kinda hoping there aren't gonna be 100 out there.

Dave: 26:51

I always hate it if you get a book and there's 100 of kind of, you know, careless errors in it. And we've we've worked really hard to try and expunge all of those. So, there was Although,

Matthew: 27:02

some of the, we've had about 6 people come back to us. And and a couple of those are real face palms.

Dave: 27:09

Yeah. That's true.

Matthew: 27:09

Travel. Now, that does look if we were looking if we didn't know how much work we'd invested in this book, we'd think, ah, nobody's proofread that.

Dave: 27:18

Well, I think I think, you know, I mean, yes. There's things like that. But it it's 300 pages. I mean, it took me a week to do the the first proofread just going through. My eyes were flapping about on stalks by the end of it.

Dave: 27:33

So, yeah. I think we're we're inevitable. I remember I said to you, you know, I've I've done a really thorough job. So I I think I've done a good job, but I'm I'm readying myself to be disappointed that I haven't done as good a job as I think I have. And if we end up with only a dozen or so amendments, then I'll be pretty pleased with that proofread, frankly.

Matthew: 27:53

Yeah. But, we've had some lovely comments. Overall, a wonderful product. Congratulations to everyone involved says blue toe. Blue toe oxen.

Matthew: 28:03

And there's one really great one. Where where is that one? And this one, I am very impressed. Aces and Eights used to be my pick for best Western RPG, as it provided the best play anything options and offered the best real old west feel. This game now officially takes the top spot for me, offers a great play anything feel with quick easy archetypes for those who I think we're missing a word out here.

Matthew: 28:29

Who are more comfortable working from scratch or who are less comfortable, I mean, working from scratch, does a fantastic job of holding on to a more realistic idea of that time and place in a respectful manner while definitely offering up an engaging game. So, yeah. That those were our aims.

Dave: 28:48

Yes. Absolutely. I mean, it's lovely to hear that kind of feedback because as you say, that is exactly what our intention was with this game. And if it's, you know, if some people are getting that vibe from it, then brilliant. Hopefully, most people would get that vibe from it.

Dave: 29:03

But no. Superb. It's been great. It's lovely getting feedback like that because it's it's a real, what's the word I'm looking for? A real sort of affirmation of all the effort we've put in to try and make the game as good as possible, and get the game out.

Dave: 29:18

And you know, we we have had some, you know, less positive feedback, which is great. You know, we wanna hear that. Everyone has an opinion. You'll obviously the way we've done things won't please everybody. But I hope there's enough in the game for those who who do have some, you know, less positive or negative feedback to give us, I hope there's still enough in the game that keeps them happy and gets them wanting to play it.

Dave: 29:41

Even if,

Matthew: 29:41

even

Dave: 29:42

if they're not there are bits about it they would prefer that we'd done differently. Yeah. But, all that all that feedback is welcome. You know, we we are open, you know, we are we are entirely open to feedback.

Matthew: 29:55

And we And of course, you know, it's gotta be said, even though I'm a great, advocate of rules as written, as opposed to the sort of wussy. Oh, these are just guidelines. Do whatever you want with the game. At the end of the day, you can do whatever you want with the game because we're we're not controlling your table.

Dave: 30:13

Exactly. Yeah. And it and it's interesting. We have had a couple of comments about sort of taking taking other rules to like another level or or take adding adding another element onto onto a particular rule already, which yeah. Which is great.

Dave: 30:30

I mean, I love that people are thinking about it and putting that effort and thought into, you know, you know, into the game. Yeah. It's great. I love it. It's it's always

Matthew: 30:42

But there's no time for basking in the glory of getting the PDF out. We've we've got to get the print out, haven't we?

Dave: 30:48

Oh, yeah. There's still there's still plenty there's still plenty of work to do.

Matthew: 30:53

We're working with our layout artists even as we speak on the GM screen. Yep. Which is looking lovely from from the outside, at least. And it's got a wealth of information on the inside.

Dave: 31:08

Yeah. I

Matthew: 31:09

think I think players will feel maybe or GMs, actually, won't won't see the inside. Players will, will they? But GMs will see the insides, and they may feel we're being a bit old school in the sheer number of tables in there. But we want you to make it useful, and it will be useful as long as you've got reasonably good eyesight.

Dave: 31:30

Yeah. I mean, it's not that bad. If I can see the stuff on it, then anybody can who isn't really, you know, like a got a real, sight disability. It is quite small, but it's readable. And, you know, we we we've kind of decided to stick with that because we wanted to get as much useful information on that screen as possible.

Dave: 31:53

You know, there's you know, we could have had more information on there. You know, we've we've

Matthew: 31:58

Yeah.

Dave: 32:00

There are there are you know, one thing we have noted is there are quite a lot of tables in this game. And, you know Yes. That's I don't I don't think that's a bad thing, because, you know, we haven't got any extreme extraneous tables in there. We haven't put in tables for no reason. There's always a good reason for them.

Dave: 32:16

But again, there are lessons we can learn of how we've designed the tables. What we've done with them. You know, how many we've got. You know, are there things we could do differently. So that's all great.

Dave: 32:26

But in terms of the GM screen, the picture is lovely. I'm I'm loving that. That is really nice. And the the amount of information we're offering is hopefully people will see it and think, okay. They've made a real effort to put as much useful stuff on here as possible.

Dave: 32:41

Because I think, you know, a lot of GM screens you get, you kinda wonder, well, I never look at it. Or even even with alien, I had to make my own one back in the day because there was stuff on that I wanted to have at hand.

Matthew: 32:53

The stuff you wanted, which wasn't on the screen.

Dave: 32:55

Yeah. And it was fairly basic stuff. You know, some really really useful stuff. So, it's it's always a bit of a challenge, I think, getting that right. And hopefully, people will recognize that we've gone for the give you as much reference material as we can whilst making it still still readable.

Dave: 33:13

Yeah. But yeah.

Matthew: 33:15

So there's that. What else are we doing? There

Dave: 33:19

there there are some new things that we'd kind of been aware of, but hadn't really looked into in any great detail, which is really boring admin stuff about distribution of products.

Matthew: 33:29

Oh, yes.

Dave: 33:30

Through the EU border. There's a thing called g GPSR, which is the general product safety regulations, which is a new set of regulations that came into force on the 14th December last year. Which talks all about, what we need to do as publishers when we want to export stuff from the UK into the EU. It's it's it's not a biggie. It's just a bit of a pain in the arse.

Dave: 33:57

We've got to learn what we need to learn about it, which we're doing. We need to engage a company to help us, which we're doing. And then we'll have some paperwork to fill out, which we can do. So it's it's not a problem. It just adds adds another little bit of, effort onto the onto the pile.

Matthew: 34:15

Yes. And so it's it's specifically it doesn't it doesn't affect sales going into the American continent or anywhere else around the world. No. Purely about EU regulations. There there are some annoying things, like, I am now desperate to get our prototype dice, because I need to send them off to a testing lab to make sure they're not gonna kill you

Dave: 34:39

Yeah.

Matthew: 34:39

As as soon as as soon as we get the prototypes in. So that's that's the one thing I'm worried about that might delay the whole thing is delivery on the dice and then the testing process. Because, obviously, there's a whole bunch of people now suddenly having to get stuff retested.

Dave: 34:55

Yeah.

Matthew: 34:55

Because they're exporting into Europe. And we've gotta get, all our words in this. Well, we've gotta put an extra paragraph in the

Dave: 35:03

book, actually. There there is something you've got to do to be compliant. That and that includes text in the book.

Matthew: 35:12

And and in in some places, it's gotta be in, various languages of the countries to which we are exporting and stuff like that. So we've gotta work out how

Dave: 35:22

Although there are there are there are sort of yeah. There are there are things you can do around that, or can do. There there are some suggestions of of how that might be handled at this early stage of these new regulations. Yeah. But, yeah.

Matthew: 35:36

It's all new. Of course, everybody's feeling their way. In theory, the PDFs are also covered by this, but since they're coming to you from drive through, I think I'm gonna leave that up to them.

Dave: 35:47

I think g g GPSI is probably not the most exciting thing we spoke about on the podcast. So sorry, folks.

Matthew: 35:55

You've And the other thing

Dave: 35:56

you've just had a spy into 10 minutes of, an, you know, an effect publishing board meeting. So a board, b o r e d is what I mean. So, yeah.

Matthew: 36:08

The other the other thing we've done is we've put an order in for dice trays as well. I guess I'm gonna have to get those tested too. Bloody hell. And, and so they're all done. So GM screen, dice trays, dice.

Matthew: 36:24

Those are all the extras. Yep. And, of course, at the same time, we are, waiting to hit we'll put a link in the show notes for the form that we put on our website where you can report, typos to us. But,

Dave: 36:37

Yes. Yeah.

Matthew: 36:38

Hopefully, we won't see too many of those. And then in a couple of weeks' time, we'll, get the book off to the printers.

Dave: 36:45

Yeah. Whoop. Yeah. And then the pleasure And then and then the

Matthew: 36:50

other exciting thing, actually, for people who are, our magnificent backers, We've got the original artwork.

Dave: 36:59

Mhmm. Yeah.

Matthew: 37:00

So, I've already promised to, a couple of the magnificent backers who who had expressly said that they were getting this as a gift for somebody else. I've already, said that I'll send them the artwork somehow. But,

Dave: 37:16

Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew: 37:17

Thought that was lovely.

Dave: 37:18

Yeah. That would be really cool.

Matthew: 37:19

Yeah. Well over the moon.

Dave: 37:21

Yeah. Good. Good. That's really nice.

Matthew: 37:25

Right. That's all the news I think from the old west.

Dave: 37:28

Yep. That'll do. Okay. Well, battles. Did you wanna talk about battles in role playing games?

Matthew: 37:37

I didn't. But I'm hoping you do.

Dave: 37:41

Battles in RPGs are at the forefront of my mind at the moment because I'm back working on my Roman historical RPG going under the working title of Rome Year 0. Battles in the field will by no means be the be all and end all of this game, but they will be an important aspect of it, and I want to get them right. For many years, battles in role playing games have been an important part of my gaming experience. My earliest memories are of Pendragon Games run by our pal Andy, where we stood tall against political rivals, the lords of other realms, and most importantly, the Saxon dogs coming from the East. They were great.

Dave: 38:23

And the battles seemed to work seamlessly, interweaving the perspective of the player characters within the context of the wider battle. I really felt like I was there, fighting my way through the enemy to their standard, taking it down, and killing their commander. Since then I've played a number of other games where battles have been important, including A Song of Ice and Fire and Legend of the 5 Rings, and I've written Battle Rules for War Stories. I've had a lot of fun running battles as a GM and participating in them as a player, but rarely do RPG battle rules hit the sweet spot for me. For me, as a bit of an RPG purist, by which I mean I want my role playing games to be more about characters, stories, grappling with tough issues and moral dilemmas rather than hours and hours of tactical combat.

Dave: 39:18

Battles can be an issue. I wonder why is that? What should a battle in an RPG feel like in terms of mechanics and the lived experience during the battle? How do you give the players the feeling they can contribute to the battle's outcome without making them superheroes or feeling like they are pointlessly along for the ride? And what elements make up a good battle?

Dave: 39:44

Before I comment on those questions any further, I'm just going to say a bit about the components of a good RPG battle. 1st, the player characters must be the focus of attention even if other critically important things are going on elsewhere on the battlefield. 2nd, the player characters have to be able to influence something in the battle, for better or worse. It may be the outcome of the battle itself, or the achievement of some lesser objective, or the survival of a critical PC or NPC, but they must be able to achieve something. 3rd, the players must feel they're in the battle, rather than a narrow scene with some other big conflicty thing going on around them that otherwise doesn't really affect them at all.

Dave: 40:30

And 4th, the actions that are taking place in that wider battle must impact the player character's experience of the battle. Okay. Now I've said that, I'm gonna go back to those questions I posed. I'm gonna start by answering the last one, and hope that comments on the others will come out as part of that discussion. What elements make up a good battle and good battle rules in an RPG?

Dave: 40:54

There are several elements, or perhaps more accurately Spectra, that make up battle rules. And it's natural that different GMs and players will have their own preferences. Let's say those Spectra went from 1 at the far left of the scale to 10 at the far right. The first of these elements is detail versus abstraction. Naturally, there has to be some means by which the action of the wider battle is determined.

Dave: 41:21

On the far left end of the spectrum, you have the maximum level of detail, where individual units have their stats, act individually, and are controlled by the players and GM. While this gives the players full control and influence over the outcome of the battle, it doesn't, for me, work for an RPG. The game becomes a tabletop war game. A different mini game in the middle of your story. They can take hours to play out and completely disrupt the momentum of the story you're trying to focus on, that of the player characters.

Dave: 41:55

A Song of Ice and Fire falls foul of this. The battle rules in this game are probably a 2 or 3 on the scale. And while they actually work for skirmishes with just 1 or 2 units they are easily overwhelmed when armies get any bigger than that. The process clogs up and slows down and the battle becomes a slog. I've GM'd a lot of A Song of Ice and Fire over the years and loved it.

Dave: 42:22

But devised a number of my own different battle systems for the game as the rules as written just don't work well enough. Full disclosure here, back in the day, I never hit upon a rule system that I was a 100% happy with that solved the conundrum of giving the players enough agency to influence the battle without bogging the game down in hours of pointless slog. At the other end of this spectrum is the full abstract, where the GM hand waves the battle and narrates exactly what they want to happen. This can work well if your playing group is blessed with 2 things. Firstly, a GM that is happy, winning the battle, and making up the action to best fit their game.

Dave: 43:03

And secondly, players who are happy to let the GM dictate the outcomes without the intervention of dice. If not done well, this can feel either like the GM was always going to let you win, so your victory and achievement is devalued and feels less like you earned it as a player. Or the GM was always going to have you lose, and you risk your players shrugging their shoulders and wondering what the point was if the outcome was predetermined. For me, what I'd see as the perfect rule sits somewhere about 7 or 8 on the scale. You rely upon the GM to flesh out the battle and narrate the action, But guided by a few simple battle roles that give the GM the essence of how the battle develops.

Dave: 43:44

And leave it up to them to mold that information into a tense and thrilling scene. The next element is reality versus gamification, for want of a better word. How realistic should a battle be? Again, you have a spectrum with uber realistic at 1 on the scale and with forgetting any sense of realism to enhance the gaming feel at 10. Where this lands for each game probably depends on the game itself.

Dave: 44:12

For example, War Stories, a historical game aimed at recreating the experience of fighting in World War 2 needs to feel realistic. But even there there is a limit. A sad truth about the deaths of many soldiers in modern warfare is that they never knew where the killing blow came from. A random bit of shrapnel, a sniper's bullet, a mortar or artillery shell can all deliver arbitrary death on the battlefield. And the same applies to less modern warfare with a stray arrow, a blister shot, or rock from a catapult.

Dave: 44:47

But that's no fun in an RPG. Rolling a dice and saying oh dear, you're dead I'm afraid. Just isn't going to cut it. So a one on that scale just does not work. War stories ended up being a 2 or a 3.

Dave: 45:02

Other games try for this feel but don't quite get it right. Legend of the 5 rings is a good battle system but takes their sense of realism too far. Where every participant in the battle suffers a number of wounds every round. Just from the cut and thrust, jostling, and battering of the melee itself. That's fine, but the PCs have no way of mitigating some of that damage.

Dave: 45:27

Eventually, they would just die from simply being present in the battle with no good way of stopping it. Now that may well be a realistic recreation of the deadly danger of being in a medieval battle. A bit like the Arbitrary Death I mentioned a moment ago. But for a player in an RPG that ain't so much fun. For me, creating a historical RPG such as Rome Year 0, I'm going to want a level of authenticity to the feel of the battles, but not necessarily actual realism.

Dave: 45:58

Somewhere like 4 on the scale, I'd guess. A third and very important element is player agency. What's the point of running a battle in a role playing game if the player characters can't influence the outcome, at least in some small way? Yes. You could simply turn it into an exercise in survival, getting through the battle alive.

Dave: 46:20

And that might be fun once in a very specific situation that makes the scene all about survival. But that's not so much fun for every battle you face. One of the things I always loved about the battles I've experienced in the long running Pendragon campaign was the opportunity as a player to use my imagination to uncover some tactic or strategy to help turn the battle in my favour. The reason so many of those old battles have proved so memorable, many of them played 20 or 30 years ago, was precisely because the GM allowed us as players to do exactly that. Rather than just rolling our battle skill and seeing how the dice treated us.

Dave: 46:59

And there are many examples of this from history itself. At its simplest, this can be the ambush. Hiding a portion of your army to spring from the forest and attack your enemy in the rear. Now you have to hide them successfully or run the risk that they're all slaughtered before the battle even begins should they be discovered. Another tactic is the feint, a false route that sees the enemy abandon all sense and perhaps the great defensive position they were holding to chase and slaughter what they think is a defeated enemy.

Dave: 47:30

Just as William the Conqueror did to King Harold at Hastings. Or the use of a new weapon, like the Scots innovation of using huge spears against the English cavalry at Bannockburn. Or stampeding a herd of animals through your enemies lines before you attack to disrupt them. This element is less about a scale, rather than having rules that allow your player characters this opportunity. It's important to have your players feel they can influence the battle, and maybe do something exceptional.

Dave: 48:00

They are player characters after all. The headline stars of your story. My philosophy here is summed up by a short section from the war stories RPG, which states combat action is zoomed in on the characters. The battle rules are not intended to run complete combat engagements in detail, but instead recreate the feel of that wider combat for the players. To immerse players in the bigger engagement developing around them that can have a big impact on them.

Dave: 48:31

The rules give the GM tools to see how the sweep of the battle is going, narrate the evolution as it progresses, and provide options for enhancing the player experience as we follow them through the fight. So for Rome year 0, I'm working on a system a system that's not too dissimilar to that I created for Battles in War stories. A system that abstracts much of the opposing army's actions, but determines them with a few dice rolls. Rolls that can be influenced by the activities of the player characters. The focus will be zoomed in on them, but during the battle there will be moments to roll some dice to see how the wider battle is playing out.

Dave: 49:09

The results of that will impact what the PCs face in the next phase of battle, and what decisions they might want to make.

Matthew: 49:18

Right. That is very interesting. The things I have 2 questions that are burning in my mind. You talk about Pendragon a lot. But what I want to know is how much of the battles that we fought in Pendragon came from the rule system of Pendragon, and how much came from the way Andy wanted to run battles?

Dave: 49:42

Well, it's interesting. That's a very good point because, I've I've got the old 4th edition, I think it is, Pendragon rule set on PDF. And I had a quick look through that in in preparing

Matthew: 49:57

for this. Research for this. Yes.

Dave: 50:00

Because I think that was the version that Andy was using, but I could be wrong. And then Well,

Matthew: 50:05

he he was using first edition originally. Yeah.

Dave: 50:08

So there

Matthew: 50:09

I yeah.

Dave: 50:09

So there are no battle rules in

Matthew: 50:11

it? No.

Dave: 50:12

So, so yeah. I think a lot of I think a lot of that was down to Andy's excellent GM ing of those scenes. So I don't I don't know if first edition has got battle rules. I kind of sad thought they had, but

Matthew: 50:29

I'm I'm sure there are battle in in the in the plethora of works that have come out for Pendragon. I'm sure there are some Pendragon battles anyway somewhere. Yeah. But I don't know whether Andy has got them and if he's got them. Because I know I bought him Pendragon new editions.

Matthew: 50:48

I think I bought him 5th edition, which is why I'm not sure he's got 4th. It's it's interesting. But I don't know, you know, I I don't know how much he uses them. We we shall we shall have to quiz him next time we see Yeah. About that.

Dave: 51:01

I mean, my my my my feeling is that he probably doesn't use them very much. Or if he does, he just he uses them as simply a like a scaffolding or or or a framework to work around. Yeah. But but the battles were great. And similarly, actually, I'll say it's not really battles, but when we've had, ship to ship fighting in Solomon Kane, I know Andy's created those rules himself.

Dave: 51:30

That works really well as well. And you know, it gives you a real feel for being in the middle of that kind of fight. And they're quite it's quite simple, but the the way Andy's done it, it it it it it plays out beautifully. So I wonder if Andy's just got a knack for doing this kind of slightly bigger scale scene in a in a role playing game and just just plays it out really well.

Matthew: 51:53

Yeah. Maybe. You you know, we just have to find out whether he has used any rules or whatever. And Yeah. Maybe he hasn't.

Matthew: 52:00

And we have learned at his knee. Of course, there'll be one Andy spitting blood at this thinking, no. You're meant to learn at my knee. I'm meant to have taught you everything that's good about role playing. But sorry, Andy b.

Matthew: 52:13

Andy g has been our guru.

Dave: 52:17

Andy's gonna hate this, isn't he? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, mate.

Matthew: 52:25

But our guru in this in this regard may well we we shall have to tie Andy g down and, ask him where his ideas come from. Yeah. Probably a big warehouse in, in Bournemouth. But, and so that's my first question. My next question, because I know you're you're you're running short of time and need to go on holiday.

Matthew: 52:47

And so I'll keep this one quite short.

Dave: 52:48

That's cool.

Matthew: 52:49

I have also enjoyed the battles in war stories, which you also reference. Now some of those Good. I'm pretty sure we were scripted to win sort of thing. But I wanna know how much how much might the entire in in a lot of those battle scenarios that are in the campaign, and we're talking about rendezvous with destiny.

Dave: 53:14

Yep.

Matthew: 53:16

How how how badly could those battles have gone for us?

Dave: 53:21

I I think well, in in my in my intention in writing it, the battles could go up any way that they went. You know, any way that the dice took them or your your character's actions took them. So you could lose every battle. What what that would then do would then, you know, change history a little bit.

Matthew: 53:43

So I don't wanna I don't wanna give too many spoilers away. But Yeah. In the last encounter Yeah. There is, shall we say, a little bit of infighting Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 53:53

Yeah. Within our unit, which you have scripted as it were or you haven't scripted. But you set up a situation where it might happen. Meanwhile, there is a battle going on in a town. Again, I'm being a bit vague here.

Matthew: 54:05

So we might have, for example, won our fight in in our little unit, and then come out and found us all surrounded by Germans. Could we?

Dave: 54:15

Yes. Yeah. Mhmm. So so I I think, I mean, there's probably an unconscious bias towards the battles playing out in the way that they played out in history. So I think

Matthew: 54:28

That's kinda where I was getting to. Yeah. So

Dave: 54:30

but but certainly no written bias. But I think in my mind, there's an unconscious bias. But I I I might be able to find it. Give me a minute. So I I definitely, call out the art of failure and Mhmm.

Dave: 54:45

And and make the point that, you know, if a battle doesn't go the way you want it to, that's great. It doesn't matter. You know, that that will result in something else. You know, your players will have to fall back from, from that position, or, you know, they could even become captives and have to have to escape before before they get sent behind the lines. So the the game is is designed, is intended to be played, so that yeah.

Dave: 55:16

Here we go. So that the outcomes can, can play out as the dice or as the as the, you know, as the action dictates. So Yeah. It's just Yeah. It's entirely possible that the players may fail or look like they're going to fail a mission.

Dave: 55:29

This is fine. They should not be encouraged or expected to fight to the death against insurmountable odds. Your players need to know it's okay to fall back and regroup, leaving the objective in the hands of the enemy. This allows a number of options to enter the game. The players get to lick their wounds and plan their next attempt.

Dave: 55:45

They might feel they need armor to help them, leading to a mini mission to find nearby allied tanks and convince them to join their attack. They may decide stealth is required so they can pick off enemy snipers. Alternatively, as the players retreat, the Germans could mount a counter attack, and suddenly the players find themselves fighting a desperate defensive action. And there's a couple of other options in there as well. So complete you know, so absolutely, there, you know, there is there is almost it would be better for for the players to to to lose the odd encounter, because it it it it becomes unpredictable.

Dave: 56:20

Who knows how how the rest of the, how the rest of the campaign will play out. So Yeah. So absolutely. There's nothing in the book whatsoever,

Matthew: 56:32

dictating

Dave: 56:32

that the battles have to turn out

Matthew: 56:33

in a different way. Not.

Dave: 56:35

No. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Matthew: 56:38

Right. Well, that's a good bit of work though. You should go on a holiday to reward yourself. Cool. What are we gonna do next time?

Matthew: 56:47

I don't know.

Dave: 56:49

I don't know.

Matthew: 56:52

I We'll think of something. Yeah.

Dave: 56:54

I think we'll just never think of something. Yep.

Matthew: 56:56

In the end though, it's, it's goodbye from me.

Dave: 57:00

And it's goodbye from him.

Matthew: 57:02

And may the icons bless your adventures.

Dave: 57:10

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.