I'm a man you don't meet every day
Hello, and welcome to episode 251 of Effect, a man you don't meet every day. I'm Dave.
Matthew:And I'm Matthew. And, we have got a we've got a lot to talk about today and not much time. So, we're gonna crack on. And one of the things actually I meant to check before, before starting this episode is did we have any new patrons?
Dave:But I
Matthew:haven't done that yet.
Dave:You've only just
Matthew:By the time You've
Dave:only just remembered that, haven't you? Yeah. Literally, this is this moment. Yeah.
Matthew:This very moment.
Dave:I can tell.
Matthew:But what we have got that we planned for is we've got, plenty to talk about in the world of gaming, including, new stuff that's out, an interesting new trend in year zero and a wider trend in sci fi. We've got some pretty exciting news in the Old West.
Dave:And we have Good news.
Matthew:Got a discussion. We're not having a prerecorded segment today. Partly because we haven't got time to, record it and well, write it and record it and edit it. And also partly because we had a request from one of our patrons. See, if you're one of our patrons, you get to request request stuff on the show.
Matthew:And this is from our, patron, Bruce, who asks about creating interesting player characters for and NPCs for one shots. So we thought we could talk about that for a bit. I think, you and I, Dave, both have some ideas. And, obviously, mine are right, and yours are wrong.
Dave:It's well, it's very early on a Sunday, so my mojo for fighting back at the moment isn't quite there. I haven't finished finished my first cup of tea yet. But just you wait. When I wake when I wake up, you won't be getting away with comments like that, Jones.
Matthew:Okay. And you did say that I should explain, what the title A Man You Don't Meet Everyday comes from. It comes from, a song by the Pogues, specifically sung by Kato Jordan, their, their first bassist. And, she would sing I think it's called, I think the actual song, it's called Amanda Don't Meet Every Day. Yeah.
Matthew:And
Dave:That would that would be apt seeing that's where you took the title.
Matthew:And and I was thinking, you know, one shot NPCs, you don't meet them every day. You meet them once, and then they're gone. So so that's why it's called that. Does is that explanation enough, Dave?
Dave:Well, I I thought you were gonna give the explanation that you gave me just before you started recording, but you
Matthew:Oh, you wanted me to sing it, did you?
Dave:No. No. No. No. But no.
Dave:No. That's fine. We don't need to inform you.
Matthew:Read the lyrics out.
Dave:If you if you want to.
Matthew:I can't remember the the whole lyrics,
Dave:but it
Matthew:goes something like This
Dave:is podcast gold.
Matthew:Listen. My name is Jock Stewart. I'm a canny gun man and a roving young fellow I've been, so be easy and free. When you're drinking with me, I'm a man you don't meet every day.
Dave:Well done.
Matthew:I'm sure there's some other lyrics in there
Dave:as well.
Matthew:I don't believe they are. Yeah. She that was one of my favorite song. I'm I'm a huge Pogues fan.
Dave:You are.
Matthew:So I try and sneak a Pogues reference into every episode. Now go back over 250 episodes and see if you can spot the one I have purposely left in every single episode.
Dave:I don't think you've left any in any episodes other than this one.
Matthew:I'm sure I've left a few in some, but not not
Dave:one in each of 250. I should be I should be dropping a Blackadder reference in every episode somehow as well. Shouldn't I be
Matthew:Oh, no. No. No. I mean, if I promise not
Dave:to do the pogue, you do.
Matthew:You drop bloody Blackadder references. Well, thank you. 09:00 news references.
Dave:That's true.
Matthew:Nine times out of 10.
Dave:Yeah. That is true. That is true. That's true. Back to the white then.
Dave:Good. The world the world's making sense this morning.
Matthew:So, quickly, you talk about that some more while I quickly look for patrons.
Dave:Talk about what some more. Okay. Well, shall I start talking about the world of gaming then?
Matthew:Good idea.
Dave:Let's do that. Okay. So a couple of things popped up in my inbox this week that I thought were worth mentioning. Although I I hasten to add, I probably don't know a great deal about them. So one is the announcement of the new Simbaroon campaign book, Agrella City of Eternal Euphoria.
Dave:Now this I knew this took me by surprise slightly, although it probably absolutely shouldn't because Matthias had been,
Matthew:Talking about it? I was about to say, mate. Foreshadowing. What do you mean you know nothing about it
Dave:when Foreshadowing this, for someone. But I I was kind of thinking that this was, I think this is a campaign book as as far as I can tell, rather than what I thought he was talking about, which is quite the, you know, a large sweeping reorganization or refocusing of Cymbrem in a in a different area.
Matthew:No. No. That comes later. Yeah. Now this was his we've said goodbye to the to the, Davakar Spoilers.
Matthew:Except we haven't quite because here's another city.
Dave:Spoilers. Yeah. But, yeah, this this seems to be about a city that is, is is, a festival city. Or at the very least, in the in the campaign, there is a festival season drawing quote. It takes place during the festival season.
Dave:And quite a few things seem to happen. They've given their they've they've got adventures entitled intrigue, assassination, and chaos. Interesting. I quite like the feel that that's giving. Yeah.
Dave:But I think this yeah. This creates Agrella as a location for you to play. It gives you lots of information about, who lives there, where you can go to get stuff or where you can stay, all that kind of thing. Plus, obviously, it brings you at least three adventures. So, we are part of a campaign, by the look of it, called the outrage of betrayed brethren.
Dave:Now one of our, good friends and other patrons, Frank, Raldanash on the, on the social media, I saw yesterday had done has done a little video talking all about it, but I didn't get the time to watch it. So, as as much as I don't wanna subcontract affect podcast content to somebody else who's already done it for their own purposes, if you wanted a more a deeper insight into that, you might wanna go and find Raldan Ash's, a video on it. Because I suspect it'll be good because all the ones I've seen before have been excellent. And And also,
Matthew:of course, go back to, episode, which is not numbered but is titled, it's beginning to feel a lot like Simba Room. So I'm guessing it was before Christmas, and that's when Matthias talked about it. Yeah. There was quite a lot of information, more than you've remembered, Dave. At least at this time in the morning.
Matthew:You might remember a bit more by me.
Dave:I think I've done quite well, actually, considering. But it looks lovely. Yeah. As as you'd expect, the artwork for Simba Room is always superb. The cover artwork is absolutely great.
Dave:So, yeah, it's, it's up for preorder. You will get a PDF shortly after purchase, they say, if, once you buy it. But, that's an alpha PDF. But, yeah. Looks good.
Dave:Go and go and buy it if you're interested in some more simper room.
Matthew:Cool. Excellent. And alien stuff you noticed as well?
Dave:Yes. So it was, just a bit of a shout out, actually. So, there's an artist called John Mulaney, who has done I'm not quite sure exactly what he's done, but
Matthew:Does he all do the the sort of tech drawings in his
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. So he he's, he's done a lot of the the the drawings for Alien Evolved based on, Romulus and the
Matthew:ships and
Dave:the and the weapons and stuff in Romulus. And so Free League were were sort of showcasing some of that. I mean, it looks lovely again. I mean, you know, it it's it's obviously a very different style of art to that of Martin Gripple or Gustav Eklund. But, it's, clean.
Dave:It looks cool. It goes really well with the vibe, I think, that they're going for for, for Alien involved in terms of their layout and, and graphic design. And, yeah, I did I I don't really have anything to say about it other than to say it looks lovely. And if you're interested, go and have a look, And there's some fabulous artwork there.
Matthew:And where where is it that people go to to have a look?
Dave:Well, I found there was there was an email that I got through Right. Right. Newsletter from them. I think if you go on to I just looked up alien evolved, John Mulaney, and that doesn't specifically bring you to a showcase of him, but some of his artwork is on that site when you come to it.
Matthew:I can tell you what. We'll put a link in the show notes to make it a bit easier for everybody. Yeah. Now it's interesting we're talking about Alien Evolved, because you told me in your little secret way you have, that there is a bit of a change to the zero system in Alien Evolved, which I'd actually you told it to me when I just noticed it was in Electric State, and it slightly blew my mind
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:In Electric State when I first saw it. Because for the first time ever in Electric State, in year zero, you rolled your stats. Mhmm. And you mentioned that you rolled your stats in Alien as well. How much do you know about that?
Dave:Well, I will do a caveat about Alien because, I haven't seen the finalized book, so it's not impossible that they would have changed their mind.
Matthew:Take that out again.
Dave:But but it was there, and I used it for the life path generator that I wrote for them, for Alien four.
Matthew:Well, there you go. You see, I guess I guess there's every chance.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:That it's gonna stay in there.
Dave:So the thinking behind it, I don't know it. I you know, I've had no insight into the thinking behind it. I'm I'm not I'm not surprised. And actually, I like it because Mhmm. I think the the obviously, the obvious risk with doing that is that you get someone who has four unlucky roles and is starts out significantly less powerful than somebody who gets four lucky roles when you are basically defining a number between two and four on the whole.
Matthew:Oh, two and four only in Alien, is it?
Dave:Well, so you well, in the life path, I can't I think I have to look maybe try and try and look it up.
Matthew:Well, I mean, maybe maybe you shouldn't be giving too much away about an unpublished thing. I'm happy to talk about Electric State and stuff.
Dave:It's fine. You definitely can get a score of five. And you can you can definitely get a score of five for more than one attribute.
Matthew:Stat. Yeah.
Dave:So I I think the base role was one d three plus one, but then I think you get modifiers to that. And certainly Oh,
Matthew:I see.
Dave:And certainly in the life path that I wrote, assuming they haven't changed it very much, and they they, you know, they seem to accept it, you know, without question, which is great. Mhmm. In there, you have your base scores and then the life path gives you, depending on your roles, some more points.
Matthew:Give may give you a point or two.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, I I a bit like you. When I first saw it, Trailing Evolved, I thought, oh, okay.
Dave:That's a bit of a departure. But I think largely because I've been conditioned over the years that stats don't change. And
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:They are, you know, you you have a level playing field for every character at the beginning of of your character's story. But then I thought about it a bit. And actually, I I I I like the idea of of random, stat generation. I think there's a lot to be said for it. And there's a lot to be said actually for playing a character who might be a, you know, a bit unlucky and have less than average scores because then that kinda adds to your character's backstory a little bit.
Dave:You know? You're a bit of a weakling and you're not very clever, but still you're gonna persist and come through. Because I mean, in the end of the day,
Matthew:Or in Alien, you're gonna die.
Dave:Yeah. But you might die. But you
Matthew:might be the first one to die.
Dave:Or or you might outlive the the tall, intelligent, you know, you know, jock or the, you know, the the the the prom queen kind of thing. And, actually, everyone enjoys it when that kind of person who's often a little bit up their own but backside gets killed early, and then the the plucky little, you know, short, ugly Wheatley who's not very clever comes through. Then, you know, it it it gives you options for different stories, which I which I like which I like.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. So in electric state, you roll a d six, not a d three plus one or anything. You roll a d six, you ignore or you reroll ones. So you can't have a stat of one, but you can have potentially four sixes if you roll really well.
Matthew:Yeah. Which, that was the other thing that caught me up. Because, again, as you say, generally, you know, you you end up with stats kind of between two and four, maybe a five here and there. In Forbidden Lands, you can often get a six. We're not talking about secret androids and alien there.
Matthew:They'll have different rules again.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Matthew:In fact, I I hope secret androids don't have randomly rolled generation, character stats because one sort of feels they should be manufactured. So they just have the best stats. Anyway,
Dave:I think it depends what they are manufactured for. Yeah. You know, if, you know, they if you you manufacture them for different purposes, so that way their stats might be different.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. That may be true. Where else I go with this? So, yeah, up to six.
Matthew:But that's kind of important for, electric state because there are no skills in electric state.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:So for many of your roles, you're only rolling your stat plus your gear unless you've got a talent, which talents are kind of taking the place of skills in that game. And it may be, want to go back. I haven't looked at it yet, but it may actually want to go back and have a look at the PDFs we've got of, The Great Dark, Coriolis The Great Dark, to see whether the same is true there. And if you have Yeah. If you have 15 or fewer points in total, you get a bonus talent
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:As a starting character. So there's a little bit of balancing up that goes on.
Dave:Yeah. I saw that. I I'm a bit torn, actually. Because What? Because I because
Matthew:that ruins your I like playing really crap characters.
Dave:Yeah. And and it it raises the question of just because you're a bit weaker or not quite so, you know, intellectually agile as somebody else, why should you why do you start your life with more talents? It doesn't narratively make a lot of sense to me. And, actually, it's really interesting point. So, on on kind of like like, you know, this this might come into our discussion a bit later on, but perhaps not so much.
Dave:But taking Tales of the Odd West for example, creating a character in the life path with multiple livings. So I I did that with, Brodie Anaheim. He's he had two live two extra livings, I think. Obviously, took a, you know, a consequential hit on his stats, on his attributes, because you lose one per extra living, for additional living. And over time, I look at him and he's got like his skills his his stats are three, four, three, three, I think.
Dave:Something like that. And I think, well, they're a bit shit. Now it doesn't really matter because he's got so many, you know, he's lived such a long time. He's had a lot of Mhmm. Experiences.
Dave:I've managed to increase his skills and he's got a lot of talents. But still it just makes makes me have a thing. Well, why actually, if I was sort of min maxing a little bit, you'd never create a character who is older than 20. Because why not keep your stats nice and high and then you over time
Matthew:And then learn your skills.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Because I you know, I basically denied myself a couple of dice throughout Anaheim's life, which is fine. I don't care in the slightest.
Dave:It's just an observation I had. Yeah.
Matthew:In that. But it all may also go that, you know, that's why he's a lily livid coward that kills people behind their backs and, doesn't stand up ever.
Dave:He's he's not he's not face
Matthew:his dad.
Dave:He's not Lily Livid at all.
Matthew:Yeah. I don't know. The way the way you go about killing some of the people in that
Dave:I've I've I've I've I've faced down people more than once. I've been shot in the guts and nearly killed for it. So I I do do a little bit of murdering in the background and quietly,
Matthew:I think. You know? But
Dave:I mean, who doesn't? It's the Wild West. But no. But anyway, I think I think it's an interesting point about attributes though. In that, in a game where your attribute range is quite limited, it can make quite a big difference to your character's mechanical ability to do stuff.
Dave:But still, I I'm not sure I would have gone down the line of Electric State and said, oh, go on, man. Give him a free talent just to make it happen. Alright. Personally.
Matthew:Yeah. I think we should look again at, Coriolis The Great Dark and see see what's going on there because that's another game that doesn't have skills in it and only has talents. So we should check that one out. Anyway, and that's it.
Dave:It's an interesting just to stay on that point for a moment. It's an interesting, design what's the word I'm gonna call it, tangent that they've gone down there. And maybe that's something
Matthew:that would
Dave:be worth a discussion in greater detail.
Matthew:Maybe a proper discussion with a bit of an essay on it.
Dave:You know, skill you know, skills or no skills. You know, you know, what is that that is the question.
Matthew:Yeah. Okay. That may be the question for our next episode, Dave. We should move on because we have plenty more science fiction to discuss. So the thing that caught our eye, earlier on this week was the announcement of a terraforming Mars crowdfunding.
Matthew:We'll put a link in the show notes. It's not yet going.
Dave:On back of it, isn't it? So,
Matthew:Yeah. It's on back of it. Yeah. And, you may be aware, dear listener, of a popular, although slightly divisive board game called Reforming Mars.
Dave:It's great. I'm in I'm in the camp that loves it. Are you in the camp that loves it?
Matthew:Are you in the camp that loves it? And I've got another mate who loves it as well. I have attempted to play it once, but tried to do so at the game cafe. And kind of in the time we had available, we set it up, and we played maybe two turns, and then it was time to go. So, it's one of the, you know, it's one of those long setups and and, you know, you you wanna devote some time to it Yeah.
Matthew:Basically. But, yeah, concept was lovely. We discussed, didn't we, on our Discord, which is a exclusive benefit for patrons. And while we're talking about patrons, I will just say we haven't had any new patrons. But if you were to become a patron, then a paying patron that is not one of those free free patrons that that just look and get to see our comments.
Matthew:But if you're one of those, paying patrons, you get exclusive access to our Discord, which is the nicest place on the Internet. Anyway, in that, we discussed, do we really need a, Terraforming Mars,
Dave:Role playing game.
Matthew:Role playing game. Yeah. And I dangled a thread. I have no idea whether this is the plan in the actual published game. But I dangled the thread that it might be a generational game, Dave.
Matthew:And I know you like generational games.
Dave:I do. And I think the game, description does describe itself as a generational game. Cool. So Cool.
Matthew:I hadn't read that far, obviously.
Dave:How how that works, I I don't know. Because yeah. Because I mean, I I love the board game. I I saw that and I thought, how how does that translate into a role playing game that's got kind of, you know, legs and durability? And and I guess if you look at it, I mean, the the the board game, you know, you play a particular corporation.
Dave:So there's a number of corporations you can obviously have. They're all competing to, you know, to terraform Mars and and, you know, develop technologies and all the rest of it. So I get there's your there I guess there is your core your your core kind of,
Matthew:Conflict.
Dave:Conflict. Thank you. Too early in on a Sunday for me still. But also, dealing with Mars itself and surviving. And so you've got that core conflict as well.
Dave:Yeah. So, I mean, it looks great. It's it's obviously, it comes with a a strong support base because of the because of the board game. I haven't backed it. Well, it hasn't started yet.
Dave:I'm I'm not probably not going to back it. It feels very much,
Matthew:I
Dave:don't know, it feels very much like it's it's kind of sitting on the, you know, sci fi corporate, you know, corporate shenanigans kind of line. And there's a lot of games that do that already. Yeah. There's, you know, where's the new angle to to make that more interesting other than the fact that it's gonna look lovely from the artwork from the board game and everyone goes, oh, I love the board game. So I do wonder, yeah, I do wonder what's gonna be in there that will make it worth worth buying.
Dave:The generational idea is a good one, but again, how and how how do you do that with player characters? Because presumably for a terraforming Mars game, the generational effect is going to be centuries to see differences and changes to Mhmm. To the planet. Does that mean you then fly through characters kind of very quickly, which, you know, potentially could be an option if you're deliberately playing a game that's I just had a thought here. This could be a way of doing foundation as well.
Dave:You you you could deliberately create a kind of family line. Yeah. And your your player characters so you'd play one player character for maybe, I don't know, four or five scenarios. And then you leap to their great granddaughter or their granddaughter or something and play them
Matthew:But you you don't you don't leap a single generation. You go three or four.
Dave:Only kids leap a single generation, but then you're but but then you're gonna progress very slowly.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Whereas if you're gonna try and tell the story of terraforming of Mars, you're gonna need probably a thousand years if you're trying to stay vaguely close to any kind of technology. And a thousand years is probably way too short as well, anyway.
Matthew:Well, there we go. I mean, I already proposed to you that it should be a Venus year zero, generational game of colonizing Venus. So, you add that into the mix there.
Dave:Yeah. So but so actually think
Matthew:about that. Next year, boys and girls.
Dave:I quite like that that generational idea, actually, where you are you are explicit at that front that each character is only gonna be played for four or five scenarios, but you are playing the thread of their ancestry, their family line, whilst you are carrying the thread of the terraforming Mars along. So
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, there's there's a lot of science fiction that does that, doesn't there? And it's, yeah, Dune for a start. You know, there's the Benny Gezeret putting Paul Muad'Dib's, well, not specifically him, but the plan of, the person that he becomes Yeah. And the plan thousands of years ago, screwing it up a bit.
Matthew:I mean, the the genetic manipulation could be part of your, you know, part of your goals as a player character is that, you know, obviously, you're you're you're gonna have a line, but you want your line to be better. Like like we all want to improve as we go through a game.
Dave:Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Matthew:Talk you witch, say, in electric state, you can improve your stats as well, which is another novelty for, in play, which is another novelty for year zero. But you could do it you could improve your stats by, you know, manipulating the gene pool as as you go on. All sorts of a world of fun there. So an interesting thing actually.
Dave:So maybe yeah. So maybe that that, terraforming Mars is perhaps a bit more interesting than I than I'd originally thought. Yes. Sorry. Go ahead.
Matthew:Well, I was gonna say, now when I first looked at it, and the illustration shows guys in spacesuits, and that made me think of a certain theme that we're gonna talk about in a moment of, working class sci fi. But I actually am now wondering, even as we're talking in a generational game, is the idea that you start off as one of the underlings, but end up maybe controlling one of the corporations or one of the big families in a future, Mars, which I'm not sure is totally realistic if that is the intent. I'm pretty sure when Elon Musk colonizes Mars, everybody else is gonna be his serfs effectively, because he will have effectively paid for them to go to Mars, and they'll be paying off that indenture for generations. I don't think anybody's gonna improve themselves generally, except by doing favors for Elon and his rich cronies. Yeah.
Dave:Well and I thought it was it was interesting because I I I was pretty sure there was an international treaty that said things like the moon and Mars are, are communal. You can no no one country can lay claim to any part of those those planetary bodies. And then you've got Trump talking about planting the stars and stripes on Mars. So
Matthew:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, you know, Trump thinks he can take care of so as well. So we're just gonna have it, as he said.
Dave:Well, yeah. Let's see. Let's see how that works.
Matthew:Let's see how that works. Very commune. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
Matthew:No. A little bit of politics there.
Dave:Sorry. Sorry. We don't we don't do don't do politics. No. But it was also on the Discord discussion.
Dave:One of one of our patrons, I think I think it was our my mate, Andy, mentioned the, Kim Stanley Robinson books. Oh, yeah. A red Mars.
Matthew:Green Mars, blue Mars,
Dave:all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. As as a as a basis for what, you know, what could be a campaign for terraforming Mars. And,
Matthew:and potentially For mankind as well, actually.
Dave:Okay. I haven't seen that yet. I keep seeing adverts for it. So I'm I'm gonna go and watch it because it looks good.
Matthew:You must watch for mankind.
Dave:Yeah. I love it. It looks very good. As an as an aside, I I I realized we've still got Paramount Plus at the moment because we got it free for six months with with Sky Sports or or Sky Movies or something.
Matthew:Oh, excellent. Yeah.
Dave:So we watched a couple of episodes of the second season of Frasier, of the new the new Frasier last night. And and actually, the second episode was probably the best one of the entire second run that I've seen as far.
Matthew:What happens in that one?
Dave:It's it's the one where, there's there's all confusion about, like, like a romance from Olivia, who's his boss at the university.
Matthew:Oh, yes.
Dave:And whether and whether it's, whether Alan is being sacked or not. And Yeah. I I just felt it really funny. I thought it was very good. Very well done.
Matthew:You'll know it's canceled now though, do you?
Dave:Yeah. I know. I'm not surprised because it's not that good really.
Matthew:K.
Dave:It's fine. You know, I enjoyed the first season. It was, it had it's it had some really good moments. But on the whole, it's it's it's not really it hasn't caught the same kind of vibe or the same feel as the original Frasier had. And I think if if any if anything it had to do, it had to feel like Frasier.
Matthew:Well, that brings us to the end of our Frasier fan cast.
Dave:Sorry. Anyway, but, but yes
Matthew:We can do one, Dave. We can do a Frasier fan guy.
Dave:But but also, I I noticed that on there, there are obviously a lot of other on Paramount plus, there's a lot of things I still wanna watch. So I still haven't seen Beyond about episode four of Strange New Worlds
Matthew:for this series. Hell.
Dave:I know. Put it in there before you're subscription. They've got eighteen eighty three is on there. You've got, Yellowstone is on there. So Well,
Matthew:Yellowstone is also on Netflix now, but nineteen twenty three is the sequel to eighteen eighty three Yeah. And also bridges the two. Stars Harrison Ford Yes.
Dave:I saw that. Yeah.
Matthew:And Helen Lewin, and is great. Right. Surprisingly great. Okay. Except for the really annoying thing that the season one finished not as season one should finish.
Matthew:It finished halfway through a full season, and they've just made us wait for season two.
Dave:It's shit, isn't it? So I I just really pissed me off. Yeah. I just watched the second season of the Squid Game.
Matthew:And Alright. Yeah.
Dave:It's great. Absolutely brilliant. Really enjoying it. I did wonder how they would do something a bit different from the first one. And it's got a little twist.
Dave:I mean, it's basically the same as the first one because they're going through games. But there is a twist in there, which is quite cool. And I'm really enjoying it. And it got me sort of okay. I'll get into the last episode.
Dave:This is gonna be great. And they did exactly that. Basically, the story is halfway through and they stopped. And that's not a season. Don't call it a fucking season if you're gonna do that.
Dave:Like, it really pisses me off. Like like 2020 1923 pisses you off. I
Matthew:I just
Dave:just don't bloody do it. If you're gonna do it, at least call it a mid season break, which is shit as well. I mean, just do the whole fucking story. Why don't you? But if you're going to do it that way, at least call it a mid season break, so everybody knows the story doesn't end there.
Dave:Anyway
Matthew:Well, watch eighteen eighty three, which I love. Yes. Definitely. And Star Trek Brave New Worlds. And then, I think the second season of nineteen twenty three is arriving in February, and therefore, you can watch it altogether then.
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:Cool. Then. Okay. But anyway Okay. That's our TV podcast finished.
Dave:That's our that's our our paid promotion for Paramount plus, out of the way.
Matthew:Yeah. Actually, I was I was thinking though, I I will watch, I'll I'll keep it going because I've got that. But actually, I'm going to last night, I was looking at it and thinking there's not much else I want to watch in it. Why am I paying every month? So, I will drop drop that after 2023, I think.
Matthew:Yeah. And then I'll, you know, when Spring New World starts up again, I'll pay for a month then. Anyway, moving on. Moving on. Where are where where the hell are we?
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Working class sci fi. That's where I'm
Matthew:heading to us. Sci fi. Yeah. Yeah. So another thing that we totally missed, but it's from somebody I I know on the Internet, Dave Kizzia.
Matthew:He's got a game out called Heavens Open Door, which looks a lot like things like Death in Space and, you mentioned it already. Jonathan Hickman say, what's it called? Well, got two games. Pressure
Dave:and oh, what's it
Matthew:called? Got it in my head too. That other game.
Dave:Those Dark Places.
Matthew:Those Dark Places. Yeah. And I'm just wondering whether what alien role playing games should be credited for is starting a whole new wave of working class sci fi.
Dave:Yes. Well, it it does seem to be everywhere now, doesn't it?
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Which which, you know, may or may not be a good thing. I guess, how many it is a bit of a niche within a niche, isn't it? But I mean, like like John John Hicks, you know, he calls his industrial sci fi, but again, they're all focused on, like, the little guy, you know, who's who's working against the oppression of everybody else and has got he's got, you know, got no prospects in life other than to keep working, really. And then it's about the stories that that that affect them, which is great. I mean, it's good.
Dave:It's I guess it it it riffs off Alien. And because Alien is such a beloved movie, it's no surprise that that kind of science fiction storytelling is something that people want to want to experience.
Matthew:And you mentioned Alien Romulus. And what I really like alien about Alien Romulus, over pretty much every other sequel to the original movie, is is there that working class aspect of the first third of that when, you know, they're all scum. Yeah. Who can't don't qualify to get off world yet because
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Even though they've worked their hours, they've now got a new new set of hours to work before they get an off world pass and stuff like that. I really like that. And the problem with a lot, you know, with the with the other sequels is because Ellen Ripley had become special by this time.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:You know, immediately, even though, technically, she's still working class at the at the beginning of Aliens. But, you know, she's a special person and they want her on the mission. So it starts to become about some sort of desire type character, which immediately isn't very working class. And it it I like starting with a bunch of newbies again, just just trying to make their way in the world. That that was my favorite aspect of Romulus, actually.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. No. I likewise, I agree. I thought the whole, recreation of colony life was was really good in Romulus.
Dave:And also, they, you know, they they the the the the producers of all of the alien movies or all the alien movies beyond the originals until maybe Romulus, have fallen into the trap of of kind of completely destroying the backstory of Ripley by, like you say, making her special. You know, because she then becomes, you know, an important character in loads of different stuff, which totally destroys the fact that, as you said, she's kind of just a a nobody doing a shitty job.
Matthew:In the wrong place at the wrong time.
Dave:Yeah. Who then who then, you know, manages to do some extraordinary stuff to survive in the face of terrible odds. And, you know, they were talking about something where they were gonna do, I don't know if it's Alien Earth thing or something else, but where they were saying, oh, yeah. We'll go back and tell Ripley's, like, backstory. Well, no.
Dave:Don't don't do that because if you adhere to the whole point of her character in Alien, her backstory is shit and boring.
Matthew:She's nobody special.
Dave:She's doing nothing. Exactly. She's not somebody special who's had lots of adventures already. Because, you know, otherwise, why is she then just acting as a, like a third officer on a shitty little deep space tug where she gets paid fuck all for, you know, risking your life for six months or however long the journey takes? So it's, yeah.
Dave:That that that that irritates me a bit, that kind of
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Trend to try and milk more money out of a character. But in the process, you basically destroy that character, the point of that character in the first place.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'd I'd I'd just think it's noticing noticing working class sci fi. It's been interesting. Should we talk about working class cowboys now?
Dave:Yeah. No. I was just gonna say I was just gonna say, is there is there a a plug we can do for Heaven's Open Door? I've just looked it up, but I can see that it's it's finished.
Matthew:I'll put a link in the show notes. I can't plug it all that much because I haven't heard much about it. Right. But it it yeah. Well, it it it it it was crowdfunded a while ago, and so I think it's coming out soon.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. It says May is its target fulfillment date. Yeah.
Matthew:Everybody wants to fulfill in May.
Dave:Talking of May
Matthew:I think we should try and go a bit earlier if we can. Yeah. Shall we talk about Tales of the Old West in Old West News?
Dave:Yes. Old West News. So we we've had a busy couple of weeks, haven't we? Very much so.
Matthew:Mhmm. You have been very busy.
Dave:You, I think, probably more than me in that we've been scrabbling to get the the PDFs finished, getting into the right place to get them off to the printers. And we last weekend, you you told me, yes. We've done it. We've got it. I've sent it to the printers.
Dave:We all got very excited only for the printers to come back and say, you gotta change lots of stuff. Yes. So I think
Matthew:And, this
Dave:turned out to
Matthew:be lovely Stefan is is off working elsewhere now. So he, thankfully took time to send me and and actually sending me the files because, of course, they are huge. So that took some time. He had to clear his his his whole Google Drive. I had to get him on so
Dave:I could call
Matthew:him off his Google Drive and stuff like that. Anyway, I got the files and then so then I made the alterations and then I sent them back again And no, they're still wrong. Partly because nothing I realized sorry?
Dave:Oh, I I just went, oh, no. I hadn't realized that your your your revised
Matthew:They're not still wrong there. So the last revision so I yeah. My my first revisions needed revising. My second revisions, I finished last night. No.
Matthew:Not last night. Sunday. Yeah. On on Friday night. And sent them off again.
Matthew:And I'm now waiting with bated breath to see whether I've got it all right. It's complicated preparing stuff for print.
Dave:You know how to show a lady a good time, don't you? You were you were doing your revisions for your pod for your for your PDF.
Matthew:For Valentine's Day. Yes. Well, I've got, Sue a lovely book to read, so she was sat there reading the book.
Dave:You got her a book and packed her in from the corner. Go read your book, love. I've got I've got work to do. Yeah. She's long suffering, your good wife.
Dave:I do feel sorry for her.
Matthew:So anyway, hopefully hopefully that's done. And hopefully, they can start, you know, Well, first of all, they'll create a digital proof of everything, and then they'll start printing. I think we're looking at printing towards the end of what did I say? To I I think we may get our proof copies towards the March, which
Dave:would be fabulous.
Matthew:So No.
Dave:That's cool. So what? Another four to six weeks to get a hold of that is when that's all working. That's cool.
Matthew:And that's partly because, oh, and then so that's partly because the paper isn't arriving until the March or until, actually the end of this month. But they they need to prep it and stuff like that. The other the other issue is they they haven't got the cloth color we chose with our patrons Mhmm. For the deluxe book. So we're gonna have to go with a slightly different color.
Matthew:But,
Dave:Still looks good. Still looks very good.
Matthew:Still looks good. Yeah.
Dave:It looks lovely. Cool. No. So that's good. So that that kind of feels like we're on reasonable, reasonable schedule because once
Matthew:We are definitely on target for May, assuming something dreadful doesn't happen with the shipping.
Dave:Yeah. Yes. Which obviously is is is is possible. But so, hand in hand with that, I've been we've both been working with pledge manager. We are getting that ready.
Dave:I've been working on, the, you know, kind of the the calculations for for postage and all of that, which which is just about done. The one the one area that we've got kind of a big question mark over it, of course, is The US. Sorry to all our US backers. This might be a little bit more complicated. Through no reason no no fault of ours or anybody involved in this, it's all down to the, the new US, government's decisions or or not around tariffs and that kind of thing.
Dave:So we're needing to check that into account, whilst we're doing this. I luckily, the way we ship to The US is is is is very good. It's very efficient. So it's actually cheaper than it might otherwise have been.
Matthew:But the
Dave:tariffs might bring an extra cost, which we have absolutely no control over, I'm afraid. So sorry about that, but we'll do what we can. So in terms of pledge manager, we've we could probably get that going in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. So we're getting there with that, which is all really good.
Dave:Yeah. Then once we get the books, we just have to get them shipped out to everybody. So,
Matthew:Yeah. In fact, I have got a link that I haven't shared yet, which would take a take people to a holding page on Pledge Manager. But I I didn't want to share it until I felt we were a bit closer to our actual go live bit. But I might actually share that quite soon just so many people.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, I've got a meeting with them on Tuesday that you've set up for me, which is cool, where we can thrash out some of this and, and and get a better sense of what date we might wanna go live with the Platoon Manager. Yeah. But it's not gonna be that that much longer now. So, watch your emails, but we'll obviously announce it, on all the socials and on here when we when we when we're gonna do that.
Matthew:Cool.
Dave:But yeah. So lots of progress. Lots of progress.
Matthew:Yes. Lots of progress on there. Now, we have almost only what what is the time? I was gonna say ten minutes. We might stretch it into quarter of an hour, twenty minutes to talk about our topic, NPCs for one offs and competitive play.
Dave:And player characters. Creating
Matthew:interesting player characters.
Dave:Creating interesting player characters and NPCs for one shots. So the, sorry. Go on there, mate.
Matthew:I was gonna say, thanks to Bruce for suggesting this topic on our Discord. I've talked enough about our Discord and how patrons can do that. Yeah. But but I'd started, and then then you interrupted me. And then you let me talk.
Matthew:So now you have to listen to me saying what you were gonna say.
Dave:That's fine. That that was fine. I was just saying that that was what I was gonna say.
Matthew:Excellent. Right. So should I say everything else you were gonna say as well about actually creating characters?
Dave:Go on then. You why don't you kick us off then, Matt? Go on.
Matthew:Okay. I'll tell you. I will kick you off. I'm gonna pass over to you because, actually, you've been doing this recently. I'm interested for your thoughts.
Matthew:So my first overriding thought for creating let's start off with NPCs, actually. Let's start with your non player characters, particularly for one offs. Don't waste too much time doing it is my big thought. Because these aren't characters that your players are going to get to know over time. And even then, actually, I often think that even in a campaign, you start off with a very slight MPC, and then the players will, through their interactions with that character, build the character into a fully fledged person.
Matthew:Yeah. You might have to make a few decisions on the fly, but but, you know, if you if you, you know, create somebody, oh, this is gonna be somebody that the NPCs really or the players really get on with this person and then he's gonna betray them. Blah de blah de blah. You can bet that they'll walk into the tavern, they'll ignore your, you know, fabulous MPC, and they'll go and talk to some barmaid that you haven't, you know, written any up at all. And you've gotta do some on the fly turning her into the into the person that you wanted them to interact with.
Matthew:So don't waste too much time is my first step. And what I like are things well, my favorite guideline for NPCs actually is in in published materials is death in space. I think people have heard me rave on about how efficient Death in Space is in its use of words, and that goes double for MPCs and stuff like that. They're really good. They talk about each character and they have that character's priorities and that character's wants.
Matthew:So that's it. You know, a sentence pretty much for each of those. And and Bob's your auntie's live in love. Now you did something interesting. And it's interesting that Preece had asked about this because in Tales of the Old West again, this isn't strictly for one shot.
Matthew:This is for our campaign section of Tales of the Old West. We offered, a magnificent seven backers. Actually, only a magnificent four or five took us out. But anyway, so some people paid to and we've got their portraits in in Tales of the Old West. And we've created well, with with them, we've created a character.
Matthew:And you did an interesting thing a bit like Death in Space for those, and and other non player characters. Do you want to say explain a bit more about that?
Dave:Yeah. So for for for each of the towns that we that we talk about, the the fictional towns, we've given a, a a kind of a a potted history of the people who live there. And so there's, I don't know, maybe ten, twelve NPCs, maybe even a couple more than that for one or two of the towns who we talk about. And we we give a couple of paragraphs about that character. But, actually, you know, it's inspired a little bit by Death in Space.
Dave:We focus those very much on their wants, their needs, their fears, and other things, maybe their hatreds, that kind of stuff. And so we flag up those words in the in their text. So if you want if you just wanna know what that character's needs are, you can see it straight away, and decide what it is. And I think so I'm gonna diverge from your comments slightly there because I think this kind of approach works brilliantly for campaign play, works brilliantly when a a GM has got the opportunity to to look at the character, take what is a very, very, simple framework in terms of those wants and needs and and and and the like, and then build that character themselves. I think for a one shot or for a, like, let's say, convention, adventure, you'd probably wanna give your your GM a little bit more information so they don't need to work it out for themselves on the day.
Dave:Or if you're running it for yourself, you get a pretty much good sense of what you want their character to do anyway. So some of that stuff you might not even need to write down.
Matthew:When I said that, I'd say right things and you'd be wrong. So that's fine. Carry on.
Dave:So, so I think it's it's interesting for I mean, you know, what what's what's the point of a one shot or, you know, a convention game? And it's it's to bring new people into the game. And in usually a very short space of time, give them an experience that's gonna excite them, gonna be gonna be really enjoyable, and leave them have them leaving the table going, but that was great. I'm really glad I spent two hours or four hours doing that game. And and I think there's there's in that, you don't have much time for for sort of developing your non player characters.
Dave:So they they, you know, they they need to be, I guess, quite quickly recognizable for whatever role you want them to fulfill. In, for for Tales of the Old West, we did the the Campfire Tales. Or as as I recall at the time, the actual play shorts where I wrote for three or four scenarios that we used at conventions, that we used online. And and in those, you know, the the the non player characters, you had a couple who were who were going to double cross some of the players potentially. Mhmm.
Matthew:Or, you
Dave:know, they they had other agendas that that would only become apparent if the players did certain things. But, those characters are still quite, well, briefly drawn. So you didn't need to go into too much detail. But you knew what their motivation was. You knew what they were going to do.
Dave:You knew what they, you know, what they wanted to achieve. And in knowing that, you could then quite easily run the scenario. I mean, if the players went off off the rails a bit, which is fine, you had a better idea of how to then take that character and have them have what they then want to do interact with the players further on down the plot. So I think, you know, for for convention play, you know, you don't need to go into too much detail. And and I think sometimes that, kind of keyword or or or key point approach perhaps doesn't work quite so well for convention play as it might do for campaign play.
Matthew:Well, I think I think you're right on one or two bits, particularly. I still think brevity is the source of a good campaign character, but I do think there are other things. We talked about wants and needs and stuff like that. But one of the things particularly in, in a one shot, which kind of happens naturally in the course of a campaign is you in a campaign, you build up a community, the world becomes real and three-dimensional around the player characters. You've got to in a in a one shot, they've got to fall into that world and it already feels real and three-dimensional.
Matthew:So some of the things I think you do need to add to an MPC character are connections with other characters.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And I'd say there's there's two types of connections. There's a connection, obviously, you might well say, well, you know, this character is going to be a clue that leads them to this character. That's a connection, isn't it? And that's fine. That's that's the sort of connection.
Matthew:But I think, particularly for what you've just said about when somebody goes a bit left field, as a player, and you want to encourage that open world feeling even in a one shot to a degree.
Dave:Absolutely. Yeah.
Matthew:It's good for characters to have, if you like, non story based connections like, so and so is in love with so and so, or so and so hates person c or whatever it is. So that you've got some, you know, it doesn't just feel like the thing is on rails. But it actually does feel that there's a deeper world here that if only the players had time, they could explore deeper or even when they haven't got time, they're bloody going to explore it deeper anyway in a way you didn't intend. So you're there's a difference between the fly. So you do have to build up that sort of I feel network of social relationships is really important with NPCs in a in a one shot.
Matthew:And I think it is worth spending time on that rather than, you know, I'm I'm more relaxed. My, you know, my big mantra ever since I read my first PBTA game is play to find out. So in a campaign, I like that network to kind of appear organically. And you you can't afford that because you've only got maximum four hours to present people that in the world. So I will agree with you on that point.
Dave:Yeah. I think there's a it's also brings me to another point which is slightly digressing. I love the way that the NPCs are handled in The Walking Dead because
Matthew:Tell me more.
Dave:Well, because, you know, you've The Walking Dead is another game, I think, where where community is really important. So obviously, the the people that you live with that you live with. My grandma, who I live with
Matthew:John, I live
Dave:with. With whom I live. The people with whom you live in in your haven are really important. And some of those are with player characters, but quite a lot of them will be n p c's. And there might be quite a lot of n p c's.
Dave:And it it can be very difficult to track. Yeah. If you if you create those n p c's as you would a normal player character, it can be very difficult for a g m to track, you know, what their skill is in one particular skill over another. What their talents are and all the rest of it, and how that plays out. And actually, at the table, it doesn't really matter because the the you know, it only matters if the players and that non player character interact in a way where that non player character has to do something.
Dave:Whether they, you know, if they, you know, if they become enemies or something. So in the in the Walking Dead I'm trying to work find the right page because they they they have a word for it. But, basically, you each, each each each non player character will have kind of a level of expertise in a certain area. And so, you know, your your combat might be they might be expert, in which case, you know, you they roll seven dice for anything to do with fighting. For, healing, they might be novice, in which case they roll three dice for it.
Dave:And and that takes away a lot of the, oh, you know, this character's gonna try and do something. Where where's the right page with that character? Where's the right skill? You can just, you know, you can just have it on a
Matthew:bit of paper.
Dave:Okay. They're an expert at that. Right. I know. It's seven dice.
Dave:Because actually
Matthew:I do. I love that. I Yeah. That's I did try and create that for Coriolis some time ago, but now I got bogged down in hit points and shit. So, game Yeah.
Matthew:And it
Dave:because it doesn't it doesn't actually matter for the player. It doesn't really matter because you as the GM are presenting that character anyway. And you don't it doesn't matter if you're presenting, you know, you you don't get into the detail of presenting x talent or x skill unless you actually use that skill against the characters. And so it's a really nice brief way of doing it. And I think, you know, it's something that that I would like to try and develop and and take advantage of, you know, in future games when we are, you know, designing stuff.
Dave:Because it, you know, yes, your your your big NPC who's the big bad that's gonna be a recurring enemy and, you know, they're gonna see him a lot. Yes. They should be started out in a bit more detail because they can have a more complex and, intricate interaction with that character. So that's great. But for everybody else, I think that general approach works more than sufficiently well.
Dave:And the players, if you're a half decent GM, will never know the difference.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I I do think that is a really important point about don't waste time on building stats, which may be perhaps, where we switch over, given the limited time we have, to talking about player characters. Yeah.
Matthew:Because, obviously, player characters have got to have the proper stats. Like, you know, because as you said, once you're often introduces the game to a bunch of people, they want to know they want to know they're playing real characters. Yeah. Not not some sort of simplified version. So Exactly.
Matthew:Yeah. So yeah. I I I maybe I should look more at at Walking Dead about how they how they do their stuff. I quite like that expert novice thing. But with player characters, obviously, what you want to do is use the marvelous life path that comes in every game nowadays, even Alien in its new evolved edition.
Matthew:Don't they, Dave?
Dave:Yes. Assuming it's still in. Because I you know, they may have decided not to include it. But, they they paid me to write one. So, yeah.
Dave:Well, I love I mean, we said it before. I love life paths. I think life path character generation is by far the most fun way of creating a character. And, you know, it creates characters that are a little bit unexpected. You know, you you might have in your in your in your mind an idea what you think your or the character you'd quite like to play perhaps.
Dave:But then the dice bring you out a character who's a bit different. And I I love that that that unpredictability of of life paths. But yes. So I mean, for for the you know, talking about the campfire tales as they are now, although, actually, as we're producing them now, they are being produced as scenarios that can be played for any group. So we haven't included pre generated characters Yeah.
Dave:With those. No. But when they were the actual play short scenarios, obviously, they did have, pre generated characters with them. Now I I I I rolled up all the characters that I did for those four stories, and that was we bought 24 characters in total, on the life path. Yeah.
Dave:I did a I did all of them.
Matthew:Final published version of life path, one before the final one.
Dave:Yeah. But it was pretty similar anyways. There wasn't that much to change.
Matthew:Yeah. But I think we should acknowledge that there was a sensitivity issue there that we discovered with one group of players. And so that doesn't exist anymore in the in the new life path.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. And then I did embellish them a little bit because, you know, a starting character, is is great, but then you might want your characters in a one shot to be a little bit better than a a basic starting character would be in certain skills. So the
Matthew:play that is a really good point as well. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree.
Dave:So the players get to feel that I'm a great horseman. I'm a great gunslinger. I'm a great doctor or whatever it might be. And then it gives them a role where they get, you know, a good chance of a of a really, really, you know, kind of epic outcome where they're gonna get a lot of successes. And that feels really good.
Dave:But for those, you know, the characters the base characters were were all rolled up in the life path. And then in creating the the the the short pen picture for each of those characters, which is, you know, something that's important I think for a, for a convention game. So when you sit down at the table, you get your character. You can see your stats. And then there's a little bit of a description about, you know, your character's background.
Dave:And you can then take that background and deal with it what you will as a player, of course. But in that background, I was able to link each character with at least one or two of the other characters that are playing in that group. So you've got immediate connections between different players, particularly if you've got a group of players in a convention who don't all know each other. Now often, you'll get one or two. You know, you get couples or something.
Dave:Sometimes you'll get a group of four or five folks who'll come along as a group. They all know each other. You know, they play together. But often, you get people who don't know each other. And it's a lovely way at the start of the game to get them to introduce themselves in their character and then go through their background a bit and say, well, yeah.
Dave:And my my, you know, my best friend is Bob. Oh, that's me. Hello. You know? And then, oh, but I'm a rival with somebody else.
Dave:And that it's a really good way of getting the group knowing each other a little bit if you've got a group of five strangers sitting around your table at a convention.
Matthew:I agree with all your points there, and particularly, you know, about, you know, creating connections between the characters. And I think creating connections between the characters and the world that you are playing in. So, you know, one of the great things that comes out of a life path is you start to learn about the world as well. But but keep it short still. You know, present those as bullet points, I think, for one shot play.
Matthew:I mean, you know, some characters might want a whole short story, you know. Loads of players, like, write two or three pages of background for their characters when they create them. But don't don't do that because not everybody does. You know, you you want to get a bullet point effectively for each of those connections, something people could read really quickly, I think.
Dave:So so in the way I did it for the for the for the actual play shorts was, it was a it was a paragraph about a 50 words for each character. So I didn't bullet point it, but it wasn't very long. But it was long enough just to give a sense of where that character was coming from, and and who they cared about or perhaps didn't care about in, in in the world that they were about to step into. But yeah. So that's the I think I think that's a key thing though for conventions, you know, for creating interesting player characters is make sure that, you know, like you said, they have connections with one another.
Dave:They might have connections with NPCs in the game as well, which is which is always a useful thing to do. And as you say, they've got a connection with the world. They're they're there for a reason. And that reason is easy to easy to understand.
Matthew:And it's a connection that opens up or explains a bit the world. So I mean, you know, in Tales of the Old West, pretty much everybody vaguely has got an idea what the Old West is. But if you've got some unusual fantasy world with, I don't know, dragon flower people, and nobody's ever heard of a dragon flower person, then make sure there are bits of backstory that, you know, that the group can learn from the individual bits of backstory everything they need to know about dragon flower people and how to play them or how to interact with them or whatever. Yeah. So there's some weird connections there.
Matthew:Right. Now, I'm we're over the hour, Dave. So,
Dave:You you need to rush off for your Valentine's Day, or post Valentine's Day soiree, don't you? So,
Matthew:Well, day out. Day out in Brighton.
Dave:That's what it is.
Matthew:So, next, we we had an idea in the middle of this episode for what we might do next time, didn't we? What was that? Oh, skills?
Dave:That was it.
Matthew:Skills or no skills? Skills to be or not to be. Yeah. Let's, let's do some investigation on that and have a bit of a discussion about that in our next episode.
Dave:So is it is it your turn to write? I think it's your turn to write an essay, isn't it? So because I did Oh, it
Matthew:might be.
Dave:Last time. So, yeah, why don't why don't you put a few thoughts together on that, and then, and then we'll have a chat about
Matthew:it. Cool.
Dave:That sound good.
Matthew:Until then, it's goodbye from me.
Dave:And it's goodbye from him. And may
Matthew:the icons bless your adventures.
Dave:You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music, stars on a black sea used with permission of Free League Publishing.