To skill or not to skill
Hello, and welcome to episode 252 of Effect. To skill or not to skill? I'm Matthew.
Dave:That is the question. And I'm Dave, and welcome to the show this week. As usual, we have a, a packed show for you. We've got, a few things to talk about in the world of gaming as as as ever. A couple of interesting things there coming up.
Dave:Old west news. Well, you know, this this section has been going for a little while now, and we still have some more information. Things are moving, which is great. Mhmm. And then the, the the key part of the, of the show today is your discussion on the year zero engine without skills.
Dave:What madness is this? This is this is not right. No. Come on. What do you what are you talking about?
Dave:So, Well,
Matthew:we shall see. We shall see.
Dave:We shall see. So yeah. So welcome to the show. It's a lovely, bright, sunny Sunday morning for a change. It's nice.
Dave:I was just I was walking the dog yesterday with my wife, and we were both in quite a good mood. And we just went, it's because there isn't a giant gray lid on the world at the moment, which it has been for about three months. So, yeah. It's it's lovely to see some blue sky.
Matthew:Yeah. No. My wife was saying something very similar. Sue was going on, well, on a bit of a, a paperwork sorting kit, their kick, and got a whole bunch of, you know, domestic paperwork sorted. And, we were both out in the garden yesterday pruning and scrubbing stuff down.
Matthew:And she was like, in in the winter, I just can't do anything. You're all grey. I'm just not motivated to do anything. As soon
Dave:as the
Matthew:sun comes out, stuff gets done.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. It is. So it's nice to see a blue sky at last Yes. Remind us Absolutely. We don't live in a box.
Dave:No. But yes. So I'm hoping everybody else listening to this is listening to this whilst there is a lovely blue sky, except for, obviously, poor Bruce in Edinburgh where it's just obviously permanently gray and and foggy.
Matthew:And raining. Obviously, we're
Dave:just And raining. As I said, I mean, when I when I went to Tabletop Scotland last year, as I approached the border, the fog came in.
Matthew:The rain came down.
Dave:The the fog came in. It didn't really rain, but there was lots of fog. The fog remained for the four days. And as I drove south and went over the border again, the fog lifted.
Matthew:It's okay.
Dave:So I was like, welcome to Scotland.
Matthew:Yeah. Right.
Dave:But, yes. Anyway anyway, enough enough loquacity. What, what
Matthew:So we don't have any new patrons, this week. But I do just wanna say thank you to all our patrons, partly because in checking for patrons, I also was on Patreon, and I realized it was time to move the money that, you know, comes in monthly. First of the month, I moved the money into account. Mhmm. And, actually, I'd forgotten to do that, last month.
Matthew:So it looked like we had a huge
Dave:amount of money this month.
Matthew:In fact, we had two months worth of money, which is very nice. And it is keeping us going and, you know, it has fed into the artwork for the game that we have. So we had some lovely artwork to show. And I just love our patrons. And we had a great game, which we will talk about later on.
Matthew:But we've had a couple of games, we had Deathmatch Island, earlier in the week that was, exclusively crewed by patrons, organized themselves. Not something we did, not on our channel. You can find it on Douglas' channel. And also, we we we rolled up characters of Coriolis the Great Dart last night. And again, that's on Douglas' channel.
Dave:Cool.
Matthew:We'll put a link in the show notes. And I just love our little community of patrons. So welcome everybody. And once more, if you are a patron and you're not on our little Discord, put your Discord name in into Patreon and you will be invited to our Discord, which
Dave:is The new place is placed on the Internet.
Matthew:Well done.
Dave:Absolutely. Indeed. I was just gonna a slight discussion talking about artwork. We met up last weekend and you, delivered to me the the artwork that Thomas had sent you, the the original artworks for for a couple of pieces. The the the picture of me as, you know, the western picture of me, which is fabulous.
Dave:The picture of Diggy that we did for the book, and the image, of one of our patrons and our one of our magnificent backers, Pete, for his character, Eddie Tyler and his cat, Emmy. Emmy? Ebby? Emmy, I think. So I, I I I stuck that into a into a frame and gave it to him when I saw him on Wednesday.
Dave:And, he was delighted to to get it. And I just wanted to say it's really cool to be able to actually give him the, the, you know, the the original
Matthew:The original work.
Dave:Work, which, hopefully, he will he will treasure because it is a lovely, lovely bit of artwork. But yeah.
Matthew:Just And I've got a couple of addresses as well to send to a couple of our patrons that specifically bought that magnificent, level backing for other people in their gaming groups.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:So Yeah. They were coming together. So they're they're the portraits are actually of, if you like, the recipient of the gift, not necessarily the purchaser. And I'm gonna send the portraits off to them so that they can have them in time for their various birthdays and stuff. I haven't done that.
Matthew:I spoke to you both about it weeks ago. You might think, well, where's it coming? I I I've just been thinking about the right sort of packaging to send it in, the right way to do it. I think I've got it now. So those will be coming to you shortly.
Matthew:And also to, well, I guess we'll give it to Bruce at some point. We're gonna see Bruce Yes. Maybe at UK Games Expo. So we'll save it until we see you, Bruce, and give it to you then. And I've got one more picture in America to send it to, but I haven't approached her yet for her address.
Matthew:So I'll
Dave:do that. No. That's cool. I always it it didn't occur to me when we were thinking about doing the magnificent level that people would sort of gang together to buy it as a gift for somebody else. And I think that's really lovely that a couple of people a couple of groups have done that for friends of theirs.
Dave:I just think so. Yeah. What a what a really nice thoughtful gift. I think it was
Matthew:Yeah. No. It's really good. I I only hope that one day you and the people we came with, you know, choose to put me in a role playing game.
Dave:Nah. Nah. It's not
Matthew:gonna happen
Dave:in that.
Matthew:But I also have a lovely portrait of me as a cowboy, which I, which I I I should get framed, I guess, and put on the wall. Because those are good those are good pictures.
Dave:They are. They are excellent pictures. They're lovely. Yeah.
Matthew:That's our lovely Thomas Thomas Elliott, who's one of our artists who who made those all all those portraits.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Excellent stuff. Cool. So what do we have in the world of gaming?
Matthew:World of gaming. Well, we've got big news from, Free League and surprising news. I didn't see this one coming. No need we need
Dave:to, actually. Yeah.
Matthew:A few weeks ago, we've been talking on the Discord about superhero games because, your man, Andy, who used to game with us as a kid and is one of our patrons, said, oh, Matthew, you always wanted to do a cowboy game and a superhero game. So now that, tells him that, Old West is in the bag, you can do a superhero game out of Year Zero. And I kind of went I I think I said, oh, sure that Year Zero is the right engine to do superheroes in.
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:And, Felix obviously heard me and said, Hold my beer.
Dave:He said, nah. Of course it is. Yeah.
Matthew:And they've got a license, and I'm I'm curious about this one. You can kinda see how they got it because of, The Walking Dead and this connection there.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:But they've got a license to the invincible, world. Now, invincible, you're not much of a comics reader, but you may have seen Invincible on prime television, whatever that's called.
Dave:I'd I'd heard of Invincible. I haven't read any of it. Like you say, I'm not I've never been a big comic reader particularly. Mhmm. So I was aware of it, but not not in any great detail.
Matthew:It looks lovely. It's, kind of clean, clean art, clean line art is what I'm trying to say.
Dave:It looks
Matthew:very single artist all the way through.
Dave:It looks very vigilant the villains in the vigilantes style art.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Which I like. I like that very much. I've still got my And
Matthew:sort of reminiscent of Steve Rude and and and and Belgium and and a little bit a little bit ending in the way of, my favorites thing that I'd like to do as a, an RPG. If I was gonna do superheroes, it would be based on Grant Morrison's Zenith. And there's, there's similarities between Zenith and and and Invincible, really. Spoilers. I'll try and keep this spoiler free.
Matthew:But, Invincible is about the son of the world's greatest superhero as he develops his own superpowers and, the shit that goes down afterwards. It is incredibly violent. So there's lots of kind of since Alan Moore, really, I think there's been lots of what if superheroes existed in the real world. And this one kind of states, what if superheroes actually, you know, given they're strong enough to rip the arms off people, what if they rip the arms off people? So Yeah.
Dave:It it it
Matthew:Blood splattered comic. Blood splattered TV show. It's not my favorite thing. So recently, I've been, watching the friendly neighborhood Spider Man TV show on, I guess, at OB Disney. And that, I'm loving.
Matthew:I'm really loving that. Every time I try and watch Invincible thinking I really should like this. Now, I don't
Dave:particularly. It's fine. Is it an animated or is it live action?
Matthew:No. It's animated. Animated. And it it and because of the sort of the scale of the superpowers and stuff like that, I think there's no way it it couldn't be. The comic never grabbed me either, actually, to be honest.
Matthew:So I have to say
Dave:I go for someone who doesn't really know it, the the artwork, that that Free League have put up doesn't the artwork itself, like, of the the of the heroes, presumably, honestly, they're all heroes, doesn't give you any hint of the of violence. It looks a little bit cartoony. It looks a little bit Yeah. You know, the one thing they have done is there was a blood splatter across the word invincible on it, which is perhaps their little link back to
Matthew:That's their little hint.
Dave:How violent it it it is. But otherwise, there's no I mean, there there's no no hint otherwise. And I wonder if that's a that's I don't know. Is that is is there something wrong with that slightly? That it's the artwork is kind of portraying it very much like a kid's cartoon, actually, when actually the content is anything but.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, I think that that is the stick of the whole concept of
Dave:invincible. Perhaps.
Matthew:I mean, particularly because he's called invincible, and yet he is very often
Dave:Not invincible.
Matthew:I guess.
Dave:He's invincible rather than invincible.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, he's still alive. So I guess he's partly invincible. But, you know, there there are times he loses. And when he loses, he's battered and bruised.
Matthew:Yeah. And he recovers very quickly. I don't know that he's lost an arm yet in the continuity, but many other people have lost various limbs. So so yeah. I don't wanna spoil it for our listeners if they haven't seen it, but there is, there's some quite shocking moments in Right.
Matthew:In the show.
Dave:Do we have any sense from what we've seen? I can't see anything here so far that gives us a hint of how they're going to run it in year zero.
Matthew:No. I don't know. And you say that's one of the things that that gets me. Now here's the thing about year zero. I've always I really like Forbidden Lands because of the very gritty combat in that, which does feel like, not so much you can get your arms ripped off because nobody's well, I guess there are monsters that could do it.
Matthew:But, you know, you you get really bad injuries in that.
Dave:Death is an ever present risk. Yeah. In in Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Exactly.
Dave:With a lion. And
Matthew:and and disability and stuff like that. Unless you're an elf where you can grow your limbs back, you know, you could retire your character because they've lost an arm and stuff like that. But in in the rest of year zero oh, you know, one also has to shout out for the deadliest year zero game, of course, is Blade Runner, as we know, having done an in-depth analysis of that.
Dave:Of the crits. But
Matthew:I'm not sure that the critical injuries system is gonna cope well with the ripping arms off people thing.
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:I'll be in I'm gonna be interested to see how they do that. Or they crushing people's skulls, which is another thing that happens quite a lot in Invincible.
Dave:Right. Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. Which is fine because actually, yeah, we know we we've seen crushed skull on a on a number of, lists. But that's kind of random, and this is more deliberate, you know. So it's more like doing cold shots when you want to crash.
Dave:I was going I was gonna say, I mean, maybe they need to take look at Tales of the Old West and see what we've done with critical injuries Yeah. And locations and called shots and called blows. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. So, yeah. So I don't know how they're gonna handle it. I don't this is one that I can imagine that you have no skills, you just have talents, actually. This this seems to fit perfectly.
Dave:Potentially. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, if you if you so I've I've often thought about, often thought it would be very nice to do a a superhero role playing game, you know, quite potentially in year zero. And it's something that, you know, I've often sort of come around to in my in my thinking, that it would be lovely to give that a go.
Dave:And then I never get around to even, you know, even starting it for whatever reason. But, I mean, in year zero, the obvious the obvious thing, if you wanted to just take year zero and make a make a easy superhero game out of it, would be Mutant Year Zero, where you replace the mutations with your superpowers, and then you you drive your superpowers through, I guess, power points rather than mutant points, or something similar. So I think I think in that sense, Mutant Ninja Zero would very easily translate into superhero game because it is a little bit of a superhero game. The mutations are That's
Matthew:a good point.
Dave:The mutations are a bit weird. It's certainly not any kind of realism involved, but I guess Yeah.
Matthew:They're a bit Grant Morrison's X Men and some of those mutations.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, and and when you gain a mutation, as you can in certain circumstances, you You just roll on the table and you get a new one. But it's it's a mutation that has suddenly manifested. In some cases, that means you sprout wings, which is a bit weird.
Dave:So it's it's it is very superhero like in that sense, which is great. I mean, I love the game. And, as long as you look at it in that sense and don't consider it to be a, you know, a realistic post apocalyptic kind of game, you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit, then it's great. And but that would work very, very well if you wanted to easily pour over a year zero system into a superhero game.
Matthew:Yeah. Absolutely. And in fact, you're right that that could be the the way that they'd go.
Dave:I mean, I wonder
Matthew:if there was a sort of in the different. In the narrative, you know, the the idea that maybe, you know, you start off a a fight getting punched quite a lot and, you know, not doing very well because you haven't powered up your your powers yet. You don't have enough hero points or whatever it is to to use your powers. But then then you, you know, when you've got enough hero points, you suddenly whack people through walls and whatever's required.
Dave:Could And also and also take taking the the point you made earlier about the sort of the narrative arc for the for the main character in Invincible is that he's developing or learning his powers as he goes. Having a game where you develop and gain powers as you go might meet that meet that vibe very well.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:I mean, I've always had a slight thing about games that say you can't use your really exciting and interesting abilities unless x. So I think, you know, there's always a thing about, well, I can't use my mutant powers without mutation points. I can't use some of my magic and that without willpower in Forbidden Lands.
Matthew:Yeah. A lot of people really hate that in Forbidden Lands. Yes.
Dave:I mean and it's interesting though. Having played quite a lot of Forbidden Lands now, it doesn't feel like that when you play.
Matthew:No. No. It doesn't.
Dave:And we've we've we've often found that we've got quite a good, reservoir of of of willpower when we go into a big fight. Not always, but quite often. And then often we'll spend it all. So we actually get to use our powers as we go. So it it hasn't been an issue.
Dave:But as a as a point of principle of game design, I can see how some people would would think, well, that's a bit shit. If I can't even use my special power because I've got no bloody points left, that's that's really boring as a player.
Matthew:Yeah. They should just play it though, because I think, you know, for me, I think that's a mechanic that kind of creates the right sort of narrative. But anyway anyway, we we will have to wait and see. Yeah.
Dave:So yeah. So this is up for it's up on, a Kickstarter pre launch page. I don't know a date when they're looking to launch it yet. Do you?
Matthew:No. They have said we will announce the date later. Yeah. It would be good I know I know the three d Lounge gets all the interviews now with the new creators, but there's a new creator here who actually was one of the founders of D and D Beyond, which is, you know, one of the sort of early, online resources for D and D, and I think would have been involved in all sorts of other stuff. So it'd be good if we're we'll try and get an interview with them when you know, newer newer when it's coming out.
Matthew:It would be interesting. Interesting person to talk to.
Dave:Yeah. We'll be interested to have a chat. On on the kind of on on the note of, Kickstarters and dates when they're going to launch, Alien Evolved is launching this month. I think it's the twenty fifth.
Matthew:I think The twenty fifth?
Dave:I think it's the twenty fifth.
Matthew:You're right. Actually, this month. So, what what the hell do they mean that they should have waited till April in Alien Day, shouldn't they?
Dave:I know. But I think maybe they've felt they've waited long enough seeing they were looking to try and kick start it at the back end of last year. So,
Matthew:maybe they're gonna finish it on Alien Day.
Dave:Maybe. That would yeah. That might that would work, wouldn't it? So, so I think it's I think it's May, March is the date for that. So it's only about three weeks away.
Dave:For those of you who are waiting with bated breath for Alien Evolved to to be backable. Yeah. You've only got three weeks to go. So they've got nearly 17,000 followers on Kickstarter at the moment.
Matthew:17,000. That's not very many, is it? I mean, compared to our 600 backers
Dave:Well, exactly. I mean, we had yeah. That it's only it's only significantly larger. Yeah. But yeah.
Dave:So that'll looking forward to that. That'll be interesting, to see that come out. And I don't know whether you'll get the PDF quite quickly if you back that. I don't No.
Matthew:You're asking that question before.
Dave:I haven't I haven't seen. I mean, a lot of the work was being done, and and a lot of the work was being done last year. And our our
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Our our mate Stefan, who was doing the, the layout, did the layout for us for Tales of the Old West, is working on some of this stuff. So Mhmm. It might not be a long way away from being ready. So we, you know, we don't know. We haven't spoken to Free League.
Dave:They haven't told us anything. But I wouldn't be surprised if, if a an alpha PDF was available relatively quickly after the after the launch, which would be cool. So I'd quite like to see that.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Especially, yeah. I'm I'm very keen to see what that's like. Yeah.
Matthew:Right. So that's, Alien News. That wasn't on a running order. So you start you've thrown me off. What what else are we talking about here?
Matthew:Yeah. Actually, that's that's almost the last bit of really important gaming news to you and I, that we've got. There are some other things of vague interest that I thought we ought to briefly mention. Yep. So, WhatC, for example, have got their very first virtual tabletop launched, And it's called Sigil.
Matthew:Obviously, it can be for D and D. I don't imagine it would be useless for any useful for anything else. But, Is this part
Dave:of the whole One D and D thing?
Matthew:When you get I don't know.
Dave:We we don't really know much about D and D, do we really?
Matthew:I know. But I I just happened to see them announce it. Let me see if I can find some stuff about it, and then I'll read it off their press release if if I can find anything. Give me a moment. Give me a moment, caller.
Dave:Yeah. Because, again, it's it's nothing that I, you know, that we get involved. We we don't play D and D anymore as everyone who's a regular listener will will know ad nauseum, potentially. But the one D and D thing, I I I was on the understanding it was it was it was gonna be the subscription model again where you subscribe and you get access to everything. I could be wrong.
Dave:I could be wrong. As I said, I don't really follow what's going on in the world of D and D.
Matthew:So D and D Beyond is the is the thing where you kind of subscribe to your
Dave:rules of
Matthew:D and D.
Dave:And One D and D is the new edition, 5.5.
Matthew:Well, it's now no longer called One D and D. I think they dropped that, and it's
Dave:now open.
Matthew:Yeah. I think it's kind of 5.5 or or D and D 95 or some something like that. You can download the single client from D and D Beyond. So, obviously, it plugged in that way. Yeah.
Matthew:And and in fact, they do mention it's been in development. So I'm reading here from n world. So all credit to n world for bringing me this news or bringing you, our listener, this news and me quoting it. Right. Using that content.
Dave:We are. We are we are shamelessly plagiarizing somebody else's content. Excellent.
Matthew:So Sigil has been in development since at least 2023 alongside the launch of the One D and D initiative. One major concern about the new system, which uses Unreal Engine five to create three d battle maps for D and D, was its pricing. At least in our pricing seems to be tied directly to D and D Beyond subscriptions instead of pushing an additional monetization scheme onto players. So that's cool. If you're a subscriber to a D and D Beyond, it looks like you get Sigal for free.
Matthew:It doesn't look like a bad v v VTT. Although, it's more appropriate for big set piece battles than for standard goblins attack the caravan type encounters.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. Read some more about it on on, end world. I guess, the very least I can do is, put a link to this article that I'm reading from in the show notes. Moving on. Now this one, we may be more vaguely interested in.
Matthew:Space 1999, backers have have are getting PDFs. Not all backers, I seem to remember. Bruce got his, but Andy Brick didn't get his. So I don't know quite what's going on there. Andy Brick will probably find out he's forgotten to back it.
Matthew:But, yeah. So that that PDF is out. And we all had a little laugh at the typography, didn't we, when that came out?
Dave:Yeah. So there's the the, the the the, you know, the the the Space ninety nine branded typography, which is very seventies and very spooky. Yeah. Which is which is great.
Matthew:OCD text.
Dave:It evokes the feel.
Matthew:Very well. Text dot ICT.
Dave:Yeah. Nobody cares, Matt. But, where you for example, the thing we know
Matthew:Typographers care.
Dave:Where yeah. So nobody cares. So, you've thrown me now. So so where where they said, you know, new to do two d 20? It looks like it says new to 2020 because the d and the zero are so similar that unless you look at it really carefully, your brain just looks at it as twenty twenty, which just looks a bit odd in my mind.
Dave:I mean, I'm Space nineteen ninety nine. I haven't backed it. It's the kind of thing that I've been very tempted to back. If nothing else, just for some of the artwork on, you know, on the front cover because it looks beautiful. Mhmm.
Dave:And I'm a big fan of Space nineteen ninety nine. I've loved watching it back in the day. I even went and found a couple of episodes that I watched more recently, and it's a bit cheesy and it's a bit Doctor Who. You know, the set wobbles kind of thing. But it's it was good.
Dave:The actual stories were were were good and fun to watch. But also, I think it it again, this is just from a very, very brief, vision into it. It looks a bit the style of it looks a bit Star Trek. And I think they would have done well to have made it look distinctly and obviously different from Star Trek in its style. And that topography is a bit weird.
Dave:But I have I don't have the PDF. This is comments based on very, very narrow
Matthew:And what Douce has shown us. Yeah.
Dave:Very narrow glances at it. And I've seen some some internal pictures from some of the pages and stuff as well, but by no means a a proper look. So I'll be interested interested to hear how how the fan base, when they start looking at it, feel about it. And also about how how the game plays. Because, again, if it if it's using two d 20 in a very similar way to Star Trek, you know, it feels like Star Trek in another skin, or it risks feeling like Star Trek in just another skin.
Matthew:Yeah. Some people may say that's exactly what Space 1999 felt like.
Dave:Oh, well, originally, as in the program. Yeah. Well, that's true. That is true. True.
Dave:But then, you know, the the one big advantage Space nineteen ninety nine has over just about everything else, including Star Trek, but only only a a kind of a nose ahead of Star Trek is the Eagle, which is the the best chip design in the world. Even though I absolutely love the enterprise, and I love Excelsior design, and I love, Klingon d sevens particularly. They're all fabulous. There's something about I think the thing with the with the Eagle is you can imagine yourself in it. It's not it's not so far fetched in design to make it feel like it's sci fi from hundreds of years in the future.
Dave:It feels quite present, and it feels the kind of thing that you, you you know, you could go down to your local space port and and see flying around. And it maybe take lessons in piloting or something. But yeah. Yeah. Fabulous design.
Dave:So, I can't I'm still whilst I'm talking, I'm holding and playing with the, the three d printed model of a science eagle. E eagle with a science pod that Andy created, made for me, and sent over. So many thanks for that, Andy. It's, I should actually get some paints and paint it because it's great. It's a lovely little model.
Dave:So, anyway, that that's me going on about space 1999. I could go on about eagles for a lot longer, but that might be Right.
Matthew:Yeah. At least not that's
Dave:than this has become.
Matthew:So so, just briefly mentioned, I think of no interest to you and I, but but maybe of interest to our listeners, the Fallen London RPG is doing very well on Kickstarter. We'll put a link in the show notes to it. It's got about 6,000 backers already, which is, 10 times what we got, I think.
Dave:Yeah. Not quite 10 times, but they're they're not far off.
Matthew:And, and it's based on a video game series, which I know nothing about. So, so that's me. I'm done. In which all of London falls into a great big pit, I think.
Dave:Yeah. I was just gonna say. Yeah. So London, Eighteen Ninety Nine. This is from the Kickstarter page.
Dave:Forty years ago, the city fell into a vast cavern beneath the earth. Now hell is close. Immortality is cheap, and the traitor, empress Victoria, still reigns. Devils and botanical people walk the streets. It's an opportunity for someone like you.
Dave:You crave something more than most think is possible. You want to destroy death itself or open the gates to the abode of the stars or restore London back to the surface. So it's a bit weird. But, obviously, it's popular. So I've never played the game.
Dave:I hadn't haven't come across it. I haven't played it. So yeah. I mean, good luck to them.
Matthew:Yeah. I'm I'm kind of intrigued. Does, you know, as as two natives as we are, I mean, I know you weren't born in Hertfordshire, but you grew up there, as did I. Does can we go to the edge and look down into the great big pit and see London at the bottom? Who can turn?
Dave:I don't know.
Matthew:Or is Hertfordshire kind of dragged into the pit with London? Is it a metaphorical pit? Is it like, actually, yes, London has gone to hell, and therefore, I don't know. These are questions that I don't think I'm gonna answer because I'm I'm personally not among the 6,000 people, tempted to back it. But, No.
Dave:Me me neither. But, but, yeah, so interesting, nonetheless.
Matthew:But I do know that younger people than us do play these computer games.
Dave:Young young folk.
Matthew:And so, fill your boots if you're into Forbidden London, and tell us what it's about, by all means. And finally, I guess we should send out sorry?
Dave:I was just gonna say one other thing that we hadn't put on the list there that then we so last time we mentioned Terraforming Mars. I don't think we mentioned them. I could be wrong, that actually, two fabulous folks are involved in working on their game. Our friend of the show, Gareth Hanrahan, and Ken Hite. So Yeah.
Dave:As soon as I saw their names on it, I I thought I went
Matthew:You went from non backer to backer.
Dave:Well, I haven't backed it. I don't think it's up for backing.
Matthew:It's not nobody's back
Dave:yet, is that? But I was I was tempted to back it for all the reasons we discussed last time. But actually, with, with with Ga being involved and, and Ken being involved, it it makes it much more likely I might give it a punt. It may be just at the basic level for the basic book, but, it might yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Like, there's a big start available now as well that you ought to check
Dave:out then. Yes.
Matthew:Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dave:We we ought to
Matthew:check out. We'll put a link to that in the show notes as well if I remember. Because, again, it's not in our running order. And we also, given that Gar was involved, we, I dropped him a line and said, do you wanna come into the show and talk about it? And he said, yes, but not yet.
Matthew:Yeah. So, maybe maybe in a couple of weeks' time, that'll be the content of our next episode. That will
Dave:be cool. Yeah.
Matthew:Or maybe, after then.
Dave:At some point. Next couple of episodes. Yeah. Cool.
Matthew:I guess, obviously, the best thing to do would be to talk about it when the actual thing is happening.
Dave:When it's launched. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah.
Matthew:So, yeah, look out for that interview, shortly. We'll put a link in the show notes to the page and maybe the downloadable PDF, wherever that is. Yeah. So lastly then, we just want to send out commiserations to the Gygax family
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:On the passing of Ernie Gygax, who is one of the first players of D and D ever.
Dave:Yeah. So, yeah. Many commiserations. And, hope everyone is doing as well as they can do under the sad circumstances.
Matthew:Right. Old west news.
Dave:Yeah. Right then. So, well, if we get the boring bit out of the way first, So you put you put pledge manager coming soon first in the running order, so we'll go there. Pledge manager is coming soon. There.
Dave:That's done. Excellent.
Matthew:Yeah. No. I I think it's very interesting actually the the workload in pledge manager. We're not we're not finished yet.
Dave:How much? But it's
Matthew:surprisingly high. And you've done the most of it, I think, in this particular way.
Dave:Yeah. So far.
Matthew:Do you want to explain about postage and
Dave:and I'm not sure how interesting that is.
Matthew:And import duties and
Dave:Other than to say it's a bit more complicated than than it might look on on the cover. Yeah. It's it's it's an area where we are it would be entirely full disclosure, where we as a a a tiny company are carrying a bit of risk over the amount of, the amount of money that we will charge to the pledge manager to our backers for their for their postage. As everyone knows, postage prices have been going up for, well, it seems forever now. And, you know, postage is quite expensive.
Dave:So trying to get that right to make sure that, we don't end up with a huge bill that we've got to cover because we've completely screwed up on our charges or something unexplained or unexpected happens, that then leaves us with a huge bill, whilst also making sure we are charging as little as we possibly can to our backers for the postage to their their various locations. It's it's a bit of a balancing act to try and get that right. And it's obviously complicated by the fact that we've got backers all over the world, and we've got, a variety of of prices depending on how heavy the package is. So we're working on this.
Matthew:And the value of the package as well. So one of the things that we're
Dave:looking at places. Yeah. That's an irritating irritating, yeah, irritating irritant, that we haven't really understood. Understood. Luckily, it's not going to affect many people, at the moment.
Dave:So so, thankfully, that's that's a good thing.
Matthew:Well, we're gonna average it out. So it's gonna affect everybody in Europe, but but only by
Dave:a tiny bit. But by about 10p or something. Yeah. Exactly.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:So, we're working on that. That's that's nearly there. After this recording, Matthew and I are having our next board meeting, which will make some final decisions on that. And then I think we'll need a quick meeting with pledge manager to just iron everything out. And then we're probably ready to go.
Dave:So we're not Yeah.
Matthew:I'm just putting some new pictures because we've got, obviously, now that we've got the dice in stock, we don't need my, Photoshop version of what
Dave:the dice should be.
Matthew:Right? So put
Dave:that up and It's a nice segue, Matt. Go on then. Tell us about the trouble, though. Because I haven't seen it yet. Because obviously they came to your they came to your house.
Matthew:Hold on. Hold on.
Dave:Because you've been living
Matthew:with me. Can do this.
Dave:On the dice.
Matthew:Give me this. You won't hear this, Dave, because
Dave:You're rolling some dice. Hold on.
Matthew:Hold on. I gotta roll some dice on the table here right and get the mic right down close to it.
Dave:How exciting. You don't you don't get this on any of the other podcasts, do you guys? No. Yeah. Come on.
Matthew:And, so I rolled five treble dice there. And I've got a six and no treble. So Oh. Good there. That'll do.
Dave:Excellent. So,
Matthew:yeah, they they feel really good in the hand, actually. Even my wife, who's not a gamer, picked them up and went, oh, these feel really nice. So, so that's good. I think people who have backed them or who may now want to back them seeing them, yeah. Be be assured they they look good.
Matthew:Now the challenge with these is we've got a bunch of these which were said and frankly meant to arrive months ago. I've now got to get these tested because these are made in China, and we need to have them tested for the European market so that we could comply with the general product safety regulations. Yeah. And that's gonna cost, a few hundred quid that we didn't at least a few hundred quid that we didn't realize Yeah. We were going to be, spending.
Matthew:So there
Dave:we go. Who knew who knew that scraping the paint off off the dice and and melting one of them would be so expensive?
Matthew:Yeah. Well, no. You want they wanna melt all five. They said they want the whole set. I reckon whoever runs this lab is actually just a, you know, a total dice goblin and like, oh, I've filled out
Dave:a dice. Yeah. So it hasn't hasn't hasn't got a full set of any dice, but it's got one or two of every dice set that's out there.
Matthew:Yeah. So, so yeah. So that that's all gonna happen, but that will be well well, the the full complement of order of dice, wending its merry way to us. But, yeah, they're good. I'm very pleased with them, actually.
Matthew:Excellent. Yeah. I'm a bit of a yeah. I'm no. I don't know.
Matthew:I I have mixed thoughts about custom dice. Part of me goes, oh, why do why do you make me have custom dice? And we don't, obviously. Get a six as Success, get a one inch trouble. That's all you need today.
Matthew:You have five of your own colored dice. Try and keep it one distinctive color for the rest of them and and you're sorted. But on the other half of me, particularly when it comes to Kickstarter and, for one like this where, you know, we're not gonna send these out to retail. They're not gonna package them in retail. You can only get these from Kickstarter.
Matthew:I do like getting custom dice, when when they're gonna be ones that only I can get. But, and on top of that, the fact that these feel really good is a win for me, actually.
Dave:Yeah. And I think I think it's it's it's proven to be a bigger faff than we thought. Yeah. There were lessons to be learned for next time if we have custom dice with any future, products. But I think also custom dice is just something that, I mean, people expect almost with, with the game, particularly where there is a a custom dice mechanic in the game.
Dave:And, you know, people like getting dice. I mean, you know, who doesn't what gamer doesn't have, you know, 50 times more dice than they'll ever need, and they still buy more. So it's, yeah. I think it's a particularly good thing to go go with a Kickstarter. Even though that's very easy for me to say because you've dealt with all the dice stuff.
Dave:So you've had all the ball ache of trying to get it all sorted. Whereas I've been insulated from that pain on on this occasion at least. So, Yeah.
Matthew:I so with a lot of stuff about this Kickstarter, we've learned a lot on the way. We have
Dave:learned absolutely nothing.
Matthew:Next time I submit print files to the printers, I'll probably get it right first time. Whereas Yeah. This time it took about four or five different versions to, to get it.
Dave:To get it. Yeah.
Matthew:So so I've learned a lot of that one. I don't feel I've particularly learned much about avoiding the pitfalls of dice production yet, except to charge more. Next time we do them, the dice are gonna be more expensive because there is more faff in getting them. And that's what I've learned.
Dave:And with things like GPSR, there are costs that we hadn't expected, which are Yeah. Are are wound up in them as well.
Matthew:But it makes me it makes me suddenly realize why, why why dice are quite expensive when you buy them at pizza.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. And we we've often gone, oh, that's expensive for dice when we've seen them for different games, for other games. Now, kinda now we know why. So Yeah.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And I think, you know, it's it's worse for TTRPG producers because although that feels really big to you, I think in the world of game dice where, you know, we are at the lower end of the numbers, and therefore, the, what do I mean? The the the the fuck. What's it called? The thing where things get cheaper the more you order of them.
Dave:Yeah. Your barfs.
Matthew:The economies of scale. Economies
Dave:of scale. Yeah.
Matthew:Don't really work for TTRPG producers. So, you know, you're you're paying premium prices for a lot of your dice.
Dave:That's that is true.
Matthew:And never again will I look at will I go oof at the cost of wear sundice, for example.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. No clue. So okay. I think that's all we've got to oh, yeah. And the other thing, actually, I'll put it out on the socials.
Matthew:I'll put a link in the show notes here. Although the pledge manager isn't up yet, we have got a holding page.
Dave:Yes.
Matthew:So if you and this is important. If you're a backer, you're gonna get invited to the Pledge Manager as soon as we go live.
Dave:Obviously, yeah. You're gonna
Matthew:get invited. A backer, if you want to be among the first to hear it because you want to preorder now, go to the holding page and and put your address in there, then pledge manager will will send you a reminder when, when we do open up.
Dave:When it opens. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. I think that's all we need to say about the world of gaming. About the,
Dave:the world of Just just to just to say one one final thing as conclusion. So, you know, the books are with the printers being printed. The GM screens being printed. Dice are on their way. Dice trays are on their way.
Matthew:No dice trays are here. I've got them.
Dave:Okay. Well, dice trays
Matthew:are more than on their way. They're on their way to the distribution center because they're still in my house. But,
Dave:but yeah. Yeah. We should be ready to go with the pledge manager in the next couple of weeks. We are looking like we are on schedule.
Matthew:We are on schedule.
Dave:So I'm I'm pleased to say that unless something else comes up, we we are very hopeful that we will meet our our target distribution, our distribution target of of May. So, hopefully, maybe even some of you, might get it earlier than that. So fingers crossed, but we are very pleased to see that it is coming together, along the time scale that we had we had we had envisioned back at the start.
Matthew:Yeah. My my only concern is the dice, particularly when we suddenly are trusting, are they gonna get turn out to be made of solid cyanide? Yeah. That will be a big delay. And also, we don't actually have our stock of dice yet.
Matthew:I'd much prefer to have the whole lot in a even if it's in a box in my house, like like the dice trays are. But but they're still somewhere between China and here.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:We know not where. So, Cool. Cool. Let's get on to my essay about whether you can run year zero with no skills.
Dave:It's madness.
Matthew:The Year Zero engine never stands still. Since its creation, it has morphed, changing shape according to the genre of the game it has been adapted to. So, for example, the d six based game introduced polyhedral dice for its fantasy iteration, Forbidden Lands, and then stepped dice for attributes and abilities in Twilight 2,000. And over the years, it has evolved, cut away some of the fat, worked out what are the most effective triggers, created a more concise experience. For example, we have seen a system that used a pool of three different colors of dice become one that generally uses only two or sometimes only one color.
Matthew:And in recent games, like The Electric State and Coriolis The Great Dark, the system has even dropped the concept of skills. What? This can't be a good thing. Surely, the slimming down has gone too far. Of course, back in the day, D and D didn't have any skills other than combat bonuses.
Matthew:But its competitors use that lack to distinguish themselves with skill based systems. Two of those, Runequest and Traveller, have systems, and importantly, skill systems, that are almost unchanged today, five decades later. One of the advantages of a skill based system is your character can progress by improving their skills, not the abstract levelling up of D and D. Another advantage is progression through skill development gets rid of another abstraction, character classes, enabling your character to be shaped by the player's wishes and the played experience, not by the designer's stereotypical ideas. But one disadvantage of skills is getting the balance between granularity and incompetence correct.
Matthew:Runequest, in its second edition, offered 60 skills, not including, if I recall correctly, a further 20 distinct weapon skills. Yes. Your attributes do give you a base chance in any skill, but that was likely to be a 10% chance or less of success. You had to spend points on training to actually be good at anything. And of course, you never had enough points to create the character you had in your mind, or even a character that was competent in enough skills.
Matthew:Would you choose to spend points on the skill of spotting hidden things? Well, just be aware that that didn't include spotting traps. So if you wanted to be good at both sorts of detection, well, then you're already only half as competent as you would have been. Of course, Call of Cthulhu makes that incompetence a strength. You're not meant to be a heroic fantasy figure.
Matthew:You are an ordinary librarian confronted with horrors no sane man should know. Over the years and the seven editions, the hard choices have been softened a little with mechanics like luck, of course, but you still have to make a choice if you're playing, for example, an Irish chancer between being persuasive or charming or being half as good at both persuasion and charming. Experience like that made me really appreciate the year zero system when I first read Coriolis. Here, there are just 16 skills. You got to spend fewer points on them, but having a couple of dice in a skill seemed, on top of whatever attribute dice you had, to improve your chance a lot.
Matthew:Half of the skills in Coriolis were advanced skills that you could not even roll for unless you had at least one point in the skill, but that thankfully was an experiment that did not carry over into other games. In most games, you can just roll on your attribute if you don't have the skill. That's something I really appreciate, even if some people might say it's not very realistic, if someone who is quite agile can actually fly a plane. Another common complainer from among those skill heads are the people that say, but flying a plane is nothing like driving a car nor sailing a boat. How come there's only one skill for all three?
Matthew:One band of particularly vocal complainants joined the year zero community when Free League took on the Twilight 2,000 franchise, an IP that was an indirect descendant of one of the first skill based games, Traveller. On reflection, dropping the concept of skills feels like the natural progression of the argument I've made on this very podcast when people say that the 12 or 16 skills that earlier year zero games have is simply not enough. Look to the talents, I said. That is how you represent the difference between driving a boat, plane, or car. Indeed, I insisted in the early days of the development of tales from the Old West that we didn't use the word skills for our 16 abilities.
Matthew:I wanted them to feel more general, more innate, though they can, of course, be developed, than skills per se, and to let talents take the place of specializations that can be learned. And it feels as though there is a similar philosophy behind Free League's decision. If you look at the talent list in the Electric State, for example, you can see that most of the talents simply add two dice to a roll in particular circumstances, which means that you no longer have an agility based driver skill that lets you fly a plane or sail a boat. Now you just roll your agility, but you can have talents like biker, which gives you plus two dice on any two wheeled vehicle. Boatman, which gives you plus two when piloting a boat.
Matthew:Driver, which does the same for cars and trucks, pilot for planes, and rider for horses. There's no balloonist talent, or is there? It says here on page 57, the list of talents is not exhaustive. You may create new talents for your campaign as long as they don't overlap existing talents. But hold on, are we being diddled out of dice in our pool?
Matthew:Let's say in old Coriolis, my PC has an agility of four, a pilot skill of two, and a talent like, oh, there's no piloting talent in Coriolis. So, no. Starting characters in that game would roll pretty much the same dice as in the electric state. Ah, starting characters don't stay starting characters, though, do they? They can develop their skills, but you can't develop talents in the electric state.
Matthew:You can't turn your drive talent into a plus three talent like you can improve your pilot skill. No. That's true. But in the electric state, you can develop your attributes, and you roll more for your attributes anyway. So you might be starting with an agility of six, actually rolling more dice than in the old game.
Matthew:But how many talents do you start with? In the third horizon, you start with at least eight skill points, which is the equivalent of four talents in the electric state. I just made a character in that new game, and you start with only one talent or maybe two talents. So I think across the board, you do roll fewer dice on average. But let's take a quick look at the Great Dart PDF.
Matthew:In this game, you start with, well, talents in this game were a bit different. They come in levels, and most only offer a one die bonus at first level, up to a three dice bonus. But you do get five talent levels as a starting character. So that's the equivalent of, two and a half electric state talents. Of course, you add those to your attributes for the role, and we know that in Coriolis, your attributes will be between two and what?
Matthew:What? What? There's six attributes in the great dark and 24 points to spend on them. Now the average 14 points in other games across four attributes is three and a half, and 24 points across six is well, it's four. So that's good.
Matthew:But six talents? What is this? Old school? What are we playing? D and D?
Matthew:This is evolution gone mad. Devolution more like? Who needs six attributes? Really? It's change for change's sake.
Dave:So so that's all all very interesting. And and I think, you know, having your your your very good little sort of summary of of the range of, of different approaches and philosophies is was was good. A couple of questions there. I think, I think where you where you have, as you describe, where you have one skill that can cover a bunch of stuff, particularly some driving skill or piloting skill, you know, you say, look to the talents, which is fine. Talents are good at refining your skill or your ability, but it still allows you, as a bloke, you can ride a bicycle to then fly an aircraft.
Dave:And I think, you know, you you cover that point. You mentioned that point. But I think it's it's a it's a reasonable, response from a from a player that, you know, not everyone is going to be able to fly a plane or pilot a submarine or something. I I like, actually, although I don't think all of the skills should be in it, but I like the idea of advanced skills that Coriolis has. I think having some like piloting a spaceship that you can only try if you've got a skill in it is absolutely fine.
Dave:And I think it's quite it's good because it does narrow down that that skill a little bit. But, I mean, you've always said, you know, you know, talents. You know, look to the talents. Look to the talents, which is absolutely fine. But I think you then maybe put maybe too much work on on the talents.
Dave:And I've got a point. I mean, I I heard you wanted to come in there, so that's fine. I will I have another point about the great dark, which I will mention after you've had an opportunity to
Matthew:To refute your point. To to to
Dave:comment to comment on my very
Matthew:well made and I think I think you're right. And I think, you know, there are it's all about genre at the end of the day, I think, actually. And I think in a wider in a wider sense, it's all about genre as well. So what you're talking about there is, I can drive a car should I be able to drive a plane. And maybe in those circumstances, no.
Matthew:You shouldn't. So if you like, where we're doing stuff like war stories, which is meant to be very based in realism, you know, those sorts of concerns about your skill, even if you're not very good at flying a plane, the fact that you've got a driving skill, say, in in war stories means that you could in theory fly a plane.
Dave:Yeah. Well, it's it's an interesting one though, because let's say for example, if I was I've never flown a plane in my life. I've been in a a couple of small planes and I've been in gliders. I said I did fly the glider for about thirty seconds, but I didn't do anything other than not crash. And the the the real pilot was behind me.
Dave:If if I was in a plane, like, let's say, like, you know, a little two seater plane or something, and my pilot was incapacitated, I would try landing it. Yeah. I would I would give it a go. And I would probably, particularly if I was being talked down, have a chance of succeeding. Not
Matthew:all all the the airplane disaster films tell us that that is perfectly possible.
Dave:Well, and I think there there are cases in real life where that has happened.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:It's but it's not going to be easy. Now, if I'm a great driver, let's say I've got, you know, agility of four and four in my driving skill, I don't get eight dice for piloting that plane down. So maybe the thing that should should be is that for something like that, unless you've got the talent, you get minus dice on on your role for doing that.
Matthew:Yeah. Or
Dave:or you just or you just can't try. But then I would I would I would try in that situation, and I would hope that I would have at least a better than zero, even if it's very close to zero chance of succeeding.
Matthew:Yeah. I think I think having modifiers on something you are inexperienced at may be the way to go for those very realistic games. Yeah. As you say, you'd give it a go. And, you know, if you think about it, the first pilots couldn't even blimmin' drive cars because there are hardly any cars around at the time.
Matthew:The first pilots, the auger brothers, were bicycle makers. It did it
Dave:did look quite dangerous, though. So now that's
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. So that's a that's a fair point. They were they were definitely learning on the job. I mean,
Matthew:you know I think in a way, so you brought up the fact that, you know, the pilot skill or or the expert skills, whatever they call in Coriolis. You just can't do them unless you've got the skill. Yeah. I think, actually, the better way of handling that is, oh, well, you could give it a go. You know, I can give I I don't have any MediKirge skill, but I can give first aid a go.
Matthew:I might kill you while I'm doing it. Yeah. I could give it a go.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And so I think I'm I I would be happier with saying, well, it's a minus three dice if you're gonna try that, Sort of rule.
Dave:Yeah. And and kind of extend that Unless
Matthew:you've got the talent or whatever that
Dave:Yeah. Actually
Matthew:gives you something specific.
Dave:Unless, yeah, you're naturally talented at it. I mean, to extend that
Matthew:But then again, I think there's other genres. So like, actually, choriolis, where, you know, being living in space effectively means, well, of course, everybody can fly a spaceship. It it is a way to think about it.
Dave:Possibly. Mhmm. Yeah.
Matthew:Luke Luke Skywalker can be an excellent, bomber pilot because, you know, whatever he said about firing bus shooting muskrats back home in the car Shooting.
Dave:Shooting. Yeah. Yeah. He could bullseye want rats from from a hundred meters in Beggars Canyon. Yeah.
Dave:And they're not much bigger
Matthew:than two. That's exactly what I meant.
Dave:Yeah. But then but then yeah. Oh, happily. But then Luke Skywalker is the greatest force user just about No. In the universe.
Dave:So there's a difference there because he's using the force to be that good. He's not using the innate skill.
Matthew:Yeah. But his mate, Wedge Antilles, is in the same squadron as well. And he's the Yeah.
Dave:But Yeah. But Wedge Antilles is a trained pilot.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:So
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Wed Gentiles is a fighter pilot. Luke Skywalker, when he first gets into an x wing, isn't. So there's a difference there. So I think I think your example
Matthew:But again, when we're playing role playing games, we all wanna be, you know, the the guys that can do everything.
Dave:The Luke the Luke Skywalker. Now that is fine. Yeah. And I think that that is a good point. There is there is a realism here.
Dave:Do we you know, if there's an exciting moment in a game where someone can try flying an aircraft, but but the GM says, well, no. Have you ever flown an aircraft before? I don't think so. Fuck off. You can't do that.
Dave:That might be a bit boring. But any on that point, so just extend the point that we started with. So you talk about, the electric state where, you know, the talents effectively are skill bonuses. Where you add Yeah. Plus two dice to driving, plus two dice dice to biking, or whatever it was.
Dave:Yeah. That that that's kind of fine. It doesn't escape the the the problem we've just been talking about that you could then fly a fighter jet with a with a dice roll on your agility potentially. And also it brings the other issue of isn't that really, really boring use of talents? I mean, the great the best talents in the games, I find, are ones that give you a bit of flavor, give you a bit of color, give you something a bit unusual.
Dave:And I think, you know, we've we've tried quite hard in in Tales of the Old West to have talents to give you an edge in a way that is different to just all have plus one to your shooting skill. Of course, you get those talents in Tales of the Old West, but there's quite a lot of other ones that don't do that. So isn't just saying, oh, have plus two to your skill role a really weight a waste of the potential that talents have?
Matthew:Yeah. I I tended to agree with you because let's face it.
Dave:Because I'm right.
Matthew:Preventive terms of the Old West with skills plus talents. Because that's that's that's the way we want to use skills plus talents. And even even as I said in the article, I feel that with a lot of our talents, we have gone down that way of, you know, finessing the skills a bit and creating specializations and stuff like that, which is all cool. But also, yeah, we've we've tried to do things. You know?
Matthew:And again, there are some, like, you can only do this thing if you have this talent as well, which
Dave:Absolutely. Yeah.
Matthew:I like. So a lot of our thought has gone into that. Yeah. And I guess Electric State is a bit boring if you like.
Dave:Because I'm I'm assuming because I haven't I haven't read it in great detail. I'm assuming there aren't another tranche of talents that do
Matthew:something like that. Any kind of electric state superpowers, generally. I mean, there's some shit that goes down with when you're in in in the, neuroscapes and stuff like that. But Right. But generally not.
Matthew:And inter we'll come on to Coriolis in a moment because I've now got some direct experience Coriolis. And I wanna say now that is a little bit different as well. So, where was going with that? So the electric state, yeah, I think the big difference for the electric state comes down to genre again. So the journey in electric state isn't procedural.
Matthew:It isn't about, well, it's partly about you going somewhere, meeting the bad guys, defeating them in whatever way you do that by rolling dice, and, and moving on. It's it's a more internal journey in that. In that, you know, a lot of the the important thing about electric state is, tension and hope and stuff like that. So you can regain hope by, I may be getting this wrong, but you've got to have arguments. The the the the the team of players has got to have tension between the different characters, and then they can recover some of their stats by having sometimes an argument with one of their fellow players or by coming to peace with that player having Yep.
Matthew:Having had tension between them and stuff like that. So, actually, the mechanics are really all about those internal group dynamics powering your ability to do stuff. And so the skills bit of those talents takes a kind of back seat
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:I think.
Dave:So it's just the game.
Matthew:Of the drama of the game.
Dave:Yeah. It's the game in narrative terms recreating something like, the road rather than something more, I don't know, frivolous.
Matthew:It's not quite as, godforsaken and, frankly depressing, and I wanna kill myself after finishing that book, as the road.
Dave:That's Cormac McCarthy for you.
Matthew:Yes. So I
Dave:was just thinking if if that was a
Matthew:But yes. Yes.
Dave:But it is
Matthew:more like that. More about those that sort of dynamic. Yeah.
Dave:So I was saying if that if that's the tone they're going for, then maybe having a slightly dower approach to your talents is a way of creating that feel around the table. You know, if you if you wanna create that kind of feel around the table, having talents that are actually really exciting and loads and loads of fun might break that immersion a bit was where I was going with that thought.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:So actually
Matthew:But this might bring
Dave:Maybe there was a a tech there there was a strategic decision perhaps to make the talents less interesting and exciting in order to generate that feel around the table?
Matthew:Well, I yeah. I think so. Right? So I think the point I'm getting at is they wanna make the procedural bits. So here, I'm using language from Robin Laws about what he calls that drama and procedure.
Matthew:And procedure is what is in many role playing games, the, the fun bit in that you roll dice to see whether you can do stuff. Yeah. And the drama bit is the interaction of the play the, you know, the the the role playing between characters that goes on. So this one, they wanna kind of slightly make the procedural bit less fun so that people concentrate more on the drama. And to a degree, I think that, you know, that is the magic behind Vaesen as well, actually, in that, the procedural bit there because you're rolling so few dice and you got so little chance of pushing, you turn more towards the drama bit of your character interactions with other players Mhmm.
Matthew:As you're playing naturally, which is why we think Vesen is surprisingly good.
Dave:Or Yeah.
Matthew:Sorry. I should why I think that Vesson is surprisingly good, but I think we
Dave:all agree
Matthew:Vesson is surprisingly good.
Dave:I think that's a good bit of analysis, actually, because I've always said that there's something about Vesson that I can't quite put my finger on that just really encourages good role playing. Something something between the lines. And you might be right. That might actually be it. The the your your your opportunity to do heroic stuff is is capped by the way that you can push or the number of times you can push.
Dave:And so when you do push, it's it's a it's a really important moment. You don't push you don't just push in a willy nilly way that you might do in Coriolis, say
Matthew:No. Coriolis, the third horizon, I think is almost a pulp game because you could just push willy nilly all the time. Yeah. And, you know, yes, you you build up darkness points, and and the GM can use them to be a git later on. But everybody shares that gittishness, whereas every time you push in person, you're taking a hit yourself.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:You know, it's effective. So, yeah, you wanna push less. You wanna you'd therefore talk more. And I think in a way, in a slightly different way, that's the same effect they're going for with
Dave:Electric state.
Matthew:With electric state.
Dave:Yeah. Okay.
Matthew:But I think it's different in Coriolis. So it's not just that they said, okay. Let's take the skills out of Coriolis as well for the same effect. I know in the in in the bit I recorded, I, you know, I talk about, oh, you've got generally, yeah, a lot of the skills there or a lot of the talents there are effectively skills where you've got one to three levels of the skill where
Dave:you can add one
Matthew:to three dice.
Dave:I was gonna say, is that is that basically it for the talents in The Great Dark?
Matthew:No.
Dave:No. There are more varied and interesting
Matthew:There are more there, actually. And in rolling up my character, I feel particularly, this was driven home to me only last night, which is why it's not in the recording. So I was expecting that. Actually, I've only got one talent. My character's only got one talent that does that.
Matthew:So, so that's interesting. Yeah. And I, you know, I need to go kinda go back and think, well, why did I why was that my impression when I was going through the walls? Did I not see all these other talents that I've actually now got?
Dave:You say, was that was that a choice, or was that a random talent?
Matthew:So that one talent was one I got because of my background. My background was actually a choice because I could have rolled it randomly.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:But one just leaped out of me, which is, you were brought up in the, alleyways and shanties of Aluminum Bay. And I just, I love that. Cool. Aluminum Bay. That's great.
Matthew:So so I said, oh, I wanna do that one. I wanna do that one. Whatever it is. But I could have rolled d 66 and ended up with
Dave:Something entirely different.
Matthew:A variety. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:So that was so effectively, that was a random talent. Then you get another one based on your chosen profession, I think. And then you get to choose three, which should come from your profession. Although, one of them can be one you choose. As long as the GM agrees, you can choose Yeah.
Matthew:Another one from anywhere. And, yeah, and so I I, you know, I chose those. Thomas had said, okay. Let's do it. Let's create everybody.
Matthew:Let's create the team first and work out what everybody's role is in the team, and then you can build your characters towards that role. And so the role that I gravitated to in the team is scout. Now I've gotta say, we none of us particularly built our characters towards that role. As scout, I would have chosen somebody who maybe, you know, has got high perception, could get a six in their perception stat. Don't get me started about six six stats.
Matthew:Feels so
Dave:good as I did. Maybe that's a conversation for next time.
Matthew:No. No. No. Maybe. So I've got so, you know, I should I should maybe have chosen one that's that whereas.
Matthew:But but the other thing we did with our team is we get a bird. Every team has a bird.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And our bird is a kind of Scottish bird. And because I chose the esoteric profession, partly because I I just so want to be a bloody corollary. So I'm gonna be mouthing off courier like truths to everybody.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:That would that was my my stated aim before Catch Generation. And indeed, I am afterwards. So I'm an esoteric person. Esoteric people generally have high empathy. I don't I've got five in empathy, which isn't six, but that's fine.
Matthew:So I I'm gonna be the person in, you know, who looks after the bird as it were. And the bird, the abilities that our bird has, again, chosen at random, are, is it's a scouting bird. So that fits in with my role in a way. Yep. So that's cool.
Matthew:But only one of my talents gives me extra dice. And that is the one I got from from my background, and that is the acting talent. So I get plus one when I'm trying to, you know, pretend to be somebody else, basically.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:And it could go up to plus three if I develop that talent. But the other talents I've chosen include, well, so I thought I gotta choose one that's a bit scouty. So I
Dave:Wouldn't make sense, wouldn't
Matthew:it? Yeah. Of, one that's, you know, gives you a bonus when you're trying to hide. And I think that might be one that would go one to three. A stealth a stealth talent.
Matthew:But, actually, the one I chose, I think you know, and I checked it with the team to say, yeah. Yes. I'll go with this one. But I think this one will be more useful and more in keeping my character. It's a sixth sense.
Matthew:So I can never be surprised by an ambush.
Dave:Okay. Cool.
Matthew:And so that, again, that feels more of the world rather than being a a a, you know, a skilled type talent. That feels a slightly magical ability that fits in with my slightly esoteric, weird seer sort of stuff. Another one of my talents is, one where I can ask I can't quite remember what it is. It's but it's effectively it's premonitions. So I can ask the GM to tell me something that's true.
Dave:Good.
Matthew:Having having done a ritual. So, you know, a lot of that, which is the more flowery, you know, superpowered nature of Coriolis, there are talents like that. So they haven't just been deadened down to just extra skill ranks. But the the corollary of that is because I've only got one of those and it's in acting, I feel for a lot of my procedural rolls, I will only be rolling my stats. And my stats are between three and five.
Matthew:So most of my dice rolls, unless I'm using gear in any interesting way that gives me a bonus, most of my dice rolls are going to
Dave:be quite weak. Yeah. Yeah. What's the push
Matthew:So we'll see how that plays. Sorry?
Dave:What's the push mechanic?
Matthew:The push mechanic is, a bit like electric state. It's hope. You have hope points. I have Okay. Seven of
Dave:hope
Matthew:points. And I think I've gotta check this out. But I think it's like my discarded option for,
Dave:Toto.
Matthew:For Toto. For faith. So you So what? You do have Rolling it. Two different types of dice.
Matthew:I think I think gears are treated separately, but you lose a number of points based on the number of ones you roll.
Dave:Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Matthew:And you don't unlike Toto, you don't have the option to buy those rolls, those points off. Yeah. Yeah. The the trap sorry. What I'm saying is you don't have the optionality to spend points instead of getting trouble.
Matthew:You just lose hope. Yeah. And when you've lost all hope, you're effectively broken.
Dave:Right. Okay. And the and this hope is an individual stat. So everyone has their hopes. So or is it a group?
Matthew:No. Hope is an individual stat, and it's based on a couple of I can't remember which, of two of my other stats.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:Yeah. So, so you've got your physical stats contribute towards your health. Health. Yep. And you lose you know, those are your hit points.
Matthew:And again, I've got seven of those. And you've got something else as well called heart, I think, which is my defence against blight. And because my my two highest stats contribute to that, I've got 10 of those. So I'm quite hardy when it comes to, the corruption of blight compared to everybody else. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Well, I'll be interested to hear how how it plays. Because, because it was interesting that, you know, that the the the guys that you tested that system out with for Tales of the Old West hated it.
Matthew:They really hated that. Yeah.
Dave:So it'll be interesting to see how it plays in in in the Great Dark.
Matthew:Well, I just I'm just gonna check on that because, I might also be confusing it with electric state, which I think also has that same mechanic.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:That you let me just go. Hope and despair. You can suffer despair by pushing attribute roles as what is that gonna tell me? No. I can't I can't spot it now, but I think I think it's something like that.
Dave:Because we have sites while somebody looks looks something up. Okay. Okay. Well, no. Well, interesting.
Dave:Yeah. In fact, good essay, pal. Well done. Yeah. I think we've reached
Matthew:the end of the show, haven't we?
Dave:I think the debate remains open, actually, as far as I'm concerned.
Matthew:Well, I don't think there is much of a debate. I think, horses are courses. You know?
Dave:Yeah. Possibly. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. It just shows the variety, you know. What are you trying to achieve in the game, is becomes an interesting thing. And then what helps best? Skills?
Matthew:12 skills, 16 skills, or no skills. Mhmm. Yeah. It can be a way to do it. And I'm yeah.
Matthew:And I'll wait and see, how well I do. I think none of us are particularly suited to our roles in the team, but but we'll we'll see how it plays. We'll actually, go on. I'm getting more into it. I gotta say, I love the Coriolite stuff.
Matthew:So Cool. By random apart from my choosing to be a courier like everybody else chose randomly, and I think everybody else or at least three other people are members of the Black Toad, which is the the kind of mafia, faction
Dave:of Right.
Matthew:Coriolis. And who are the Coriolites' best mates? The members of the Black Toad. So as a as a team, we've really gelled. And we've got this crazy idea that, that Pete's character is a bit incompetent.
Matthew:And he and he pulled together pulled together the team by how they look rather than whether they could actually do the job or not.
Dave:Excellent. Pete Pete's Pete's Lee's
Matthew:name is showing there. His character's name is Attila, and, we we decided our team are called Attila's Circus. Cool. Could you also you also randomly roll the color of your, your shuttle and your gear, and we're bright orange. So
Dave:Bright orange. Okay.
Matthew:I did suggest we might call ourselves Attila's clown car, but, Thomas said, well, maybe it's everybody else that calls you Attila's clown car. But you call yourself Attila Sure. But we shall see. We'll see how it goes.
Dave:Cool. Good stuff. Well, that's probably enough for this fortnight, don't you think?
Matthew:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So
Dave:when we do next time next time.
Matthew:We may have, a lovely chat with Gar. Or if he wants to hold off another couple of weeks, we'll think of something else.
Dave:We will. Quite what? I don't know. But, yeah. Suggestions on a
Matthew:post Yeah. I'm not going to do an essay on having sick stats.
Dave:Maybe you should.
Matthew:No. I'm not.
Dave:Okay. Cool.
Matthew:You wanted an essay on having six stats, you fucking have an essay on having six stats.
Dave:It might be quite short. But yeah. Yeah. Cool. Alright then.
Dave:Well, I think everyone have a great two weeks. And in the meantime, it's goodbye from me.
Matthew:And it's goodbye from him.
Dave:And may the icons bless your adventures.
Matthew:Still, even in the great dark, my character insists that you are blessed. I I've got my character has a keepsake, again, which I chose rather than roll randomly because I just saw it on the list. A medallion depicting the Coriolite traveler icon.
Dave:Oh, cool. Nice.
Matthew:Nice. So still the icons are in the great dark. You just Excellent. When you pray to them, nothing happens. Uh-huh.
Matthew:You just lose hope.
Dave:You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music, stars on a black sea, used used with permission of freely publishing.