Dave: 00:39

Hello, and welcome to episode 253 of Effect, Seeing Red. I'm Dave.

Matthew: 00:48

And I'm Matthew. And we have got, well, an interview that I said that was great, wasn't it? And you you you denied that it was great and said it was fucking great.

Dave: 01:01

It was absolutely brilliant interview. Yeah. That was such good fun. A real pleasure.

Matthew: 01:06

And this morning, over breakfast, I told my wife Sue. I said, oh, yeah. We've got the Kenai and Gaurahan interview to slot in. And she went, eyes wide, you spoke to Ken Hite?

Dave: 01:20

So even she's heard of Ken Hite?

Matthew: 01:22

Well, she I I sometimes, on long journeys, force her to listen to Ken and Robin talk about stuff.

Dave: 01:27

Oh, okay.

Matthew: 01:27

But she recognized that this was a massive coup.

Dave: 01:31

This is a good Yeah.

Matthew: 01:32

Yeah. We're talking to Ken Hai and Gul Hanrahan later on in the episode. That is gonna be the highlight of the episode. But before that, of course, we are gonna be talking about the world of gaming, and we are going to be giving you the very latest Old West news.

Dave: 01:48

You haven't said what we're talking to Ken and Gar about, which is kind of kind of relevant, seeing the title is Seeing Red. Now what's Red?

Matthew: 01:58

I think that's true. Mars might Cotinism. The Republicans.

Dave: 02:03

Your blood? But, yeah. So Terraforming Mars, the game that's the the RPG conversion of the well known board game. That's being worked on now. It's currently on back of kit, although I think by the time this goes out, it'll just about finished.

Dave: 02:20

So if you're listening to this and you're interested, look straight away if you're interested. But yeah, Ken and are well the lead writers are heavily involved in creating this game. So that's why we're talking to Ken and Gar. Much as, you know, I'd love just to have a chat with them anyway because they're they're a great company.

Matthew: 02:40

Yeah. Great. Yeah. Well, in fact, we effectively did ask them to just come back and chat, didn't we, at

Dave: 02:44

some Yeah.

Dave: 02:45

On on on the excuse of Dracula dossier. But then just get them back to talk anyway. So we'll see we'll see where we can we can make that happen. Yeah. Anyway.

Dave: 02:57

Absolutely.

Matthew: 02:57

We we have no new patrons to thank, but I do just want to thank all our patrons because some big things happened this month. Mhmm. We we paid for a year's worth of hosting, and that's money that backers, you you know, you directly contribute towards that.

Dave: 03:15

Absolutely.

Matthew: 03:16

And something else as well. I can't remember whether it was our domain or something else, but another big chunk of money came out of our account, and that's money that you guys put into our account. And and so thank you so much. Oh, yeah. It's it's our website, of course.

Matthew: 03:32

Our website fees.

Dave: 03:33

So I thought you were gonna suddenly blurt out that it's it's it's our it's our Caribbean cruise. I mean

Matthew: 03:39

Yeah. No. It's my cocaine. That's what I mean. No.

Matthew: 03:45

The yeah. Our website and our and our hosting fees all came out of that. So so thank you so much to all our patrons. That's couldn't do it without you.

Dave: 03:54

We couldn't do it without you. No. Thank you. Yes.

Matthew: 04:00

World gaming then.

Dave: 04:01

So, well, the first thing I was gonna mention, I haven't seen it, but the Electric State game has a movie. And that movie has just come out, and I haven't seen it. But I understand that you have. So so what's that?

Matthew: 04:16

I have seen it. Is it any good? Saw it in the premiere on the first day.

Dave: 04:21

Keen. Very keen.

Matthew: 04:22

How do I word this? Now, well, first start, let's let's get this straight. You said The Electric State Game has a movie. Well, remember, The Electric State Game was preceded by The Electric Sight book. So True.

Matthew: 04:33

Probably more that the the the the movie is based on the book rather than the game. But, actually, you know what? It's not very much based on the book either. I think it's based on the look of some of the art in the book. And it's not dreadful.

Dave: 04:54

Have you have you ever heard the phrase damning with faint praise, Matt? Because I think you Yeah. Yeah. I think you've just done that.

Matthew: 05:02

It's it didn't feel much. And you you may know, Dave, that I am actually currently reading through the game, and I'm gonna play a solo campaign to teach myself how to write solo rules, which I foolishly forced you to agree with me that

Dave: 05:18

we should we should have I'm glad you said that. I did warn you. I did warn you that

Dave: 05:24

that at

Dave: 05:24

some point, we're gonna have to write this bloody thing and know that there was no anything about solo games.

Matthew: 05:29

And I said, don't you want to do it just as an intellectual exercise? I do. And so here I am doing it. And the intellectual exercise is doing my research by playing solo games, of which the Electric State is one. So I'm reading that book at the moment.

Matthew: 05:42

You may have seen my sort of chapter summaries in long not x. What am I on? Blue Sky skeet chains, I think we call it. Threads. I don't know.

Matthew: 05:57

And the book I'm reading, Electric State, the Role Playing Game, is not the film I saw. I just wanna go back to the back of the book, and it says, The Electric State deals with dark and existential themes. The stories told in this game can be violent, distressing, and raise issues relating to personal morals. This is not a game for children. Whereas I think, actually, The Electric State movie is quite a fun adventure that had a little hint of The Goonies in it and is probably a movie that children would like.

Dave: 06:31

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool.

Dave: 06:35

I mean, I I'm it takes a lot for me to sit down and watch a movie, and I'm not sure

Matthew: 06:40

I wouldn't bother.

Dave: 06:41

I'm not sure I'm gonna bother with Electric State. I mean, there there are some movies that I really want to see that I still haven't sat down and bothered to watch. So it's I don't know why, what what the obstacle is to me going, I'm gonna watch Dune part two tonight and just doing it.

Matthew: 06:56

Yeah? Because

Dave: 06:56

I haven't watched Dune part two yet.

Matthew: 06:58

Well, let me say you should prioritize that over the electric stage.

Dave: 07:02

I was going to. Yeah. I was going to. I also one thing what the hell is it called? There's the new Kevin Costner Wild West movie.

Dave: 07:12

Is it Horizon?

Matthew: 07:16

Oh, god. No. Yes. Actually, I promised myself I'd watch that.

Dave: 07:18

So that's just come up on Sky movies. So I've recorded that, and again, that's something that I really, really wanna watch. Even though, I mean, some of the some of the reviews have been, you know, it's a bit ponderous, it's a bit slow, and it's doing trying to do too much. Because I think it's it's intended to be part one of a three or four part series of movies.

Matthew: 07:37

Yeah. I even heard that it was originally written and filmed as a TV show and then edited into

Dave: 07:46

Okay.

Matthew: 07:47

A movie, but it but it tells about three stories.

Dave: 07:50

Yeah.

Matthew: 07:51

And then leaves each of them hanging, I understand. So Yeah. Sorry. Yes. But

Dave: 07:56

yes. So so, yeah, I'm I'm again, I very much want to see that. But again, actually getting myself sat down on the on the sofa to watch watch movies, for some reason, a a a challenge. I don't know why. It just it just it just is.

Dave: 08:12

Maybe I'm just too busy. But I don't I'm sure I can make time to watch a good movie. I'm not that busy.

Matthew: 08:18

Yeah. Well, if you wanna make time to watch a good movie, don't watch The Electric Stone, which is

Dave: 08:24

heard it here first, folks.

Matthew: 08:26

If you yeah. I mean, if you if you want us you know, if you wanna see Simeon Stalin Hug's graphics come to light

Matthew: 08:34

World brought

Matthew: 08:34

to life. Then, you know, there's there's some good image imagery in there. Although, I think it doesn't capture the Stalin huggedness as well as the Amazon Prime TV show of Tales of Malupid.

Dave: 08:51

Yeah. I really enjoyed that. That was super.

Matthew: 08:54

And one of the things about that, what I really liked, and may not be for everybody, is the way it took time. And there's an element of Simon Sallanhug's artwork that is about stillness, and that was beautifully executed in the TV show. That is not what you get in a adventure movie by the Russo brothers. Any sense of stillness whatsoever.

Dave: 09:18

No. I guess, really, the other thing is I've I've I've got the electric state, the game, but I I don't feel the urge to play it. There's there's something about it. I think there's just something about the the the you know, the the the the cyber element, you know, the being on the net element is being important in the game, which just kind of puts me off a little bit. And now I haven't looked into any greater detail, so I don't know how that works.

Dave: 09:44

But just the sense of that makes me go, maybe I'll maybe I'll give this one a miss. And whilst I've got

Matthew: 09:50

so many

Dave: 09:51

so many other things to play, it's, you know, if I go, maybe I'll give it a miss, means it's unlikely to get to the table for me.

Matthew: 09:57

Yeah. I mean, given given given there isn't enough time to play all the games you want to play anyway Yeah. I can understand it. I will say that Cyber Element feels very different from cyberpunk. Yeah.

Matthew: 10:09

Okay. And it feels so far, I as I said, I've not actually sat down to do this solo. Okay? I'm still reading through it. But so far, what I've read suggests to me it's more like taking drugs.

Dave: 10:20

Right. Okay.

Matthew: 10:22

Yeah. Which I think is an innocent thing. And there's little

Dave: 10:25

bit of insight into that. Maybe there's an insight into Siemens Stalenhag's early life then in in

Matthew: 10:32

Yeah. There's a little bit inspiration for this. There's one single shot of somebody with a neurocaster on their head in the movie, slumped in a way like they're never gonna get up again

Dave: 10:43

Right.

Matthew: 10:44

And get out of the world, which is you know, there were mechanics for that in the game, but that is the own that's effectively the darkest shot of the movie.

Dave: 10:54

Right. Yeah. And

Matthew: 10:58

yeah. But it's fine. It's fine. And now I know how to end the game is well, no spoilers. Won't I won't spoil it for everybody.

Matthew: 11:07

But it yeah. I couldn't quite work out what the point of the game was, and the movie explains entirely what the point of the game is.

Dave: 11:14

Okay. Cool. Good stuff. Should we move

Matthew: 11:17

Actually, I wouldn't I wouldn't make that the point. Yeah. So the other thing I want to do I wanted to talk about this last last episode because I'd just seen a couple of things beforehand that hinted at it, and yet I couldn't find any actual proof. And you know what? I still can't find any actual proof, but a mate has told me it is indeed true, and that is that Chaosium are planning a new edition of their new edition of MoonQuest, which Oh, okay.

Matthew: 11:49

Feels surprisingly previous, a bit like a new edition of Alien did when that when that was announced. Right.

Dave: 12:00

Okay.

Matthew: 12:00

But actually, thinking about it, I think it's probably a good idea because I think Rune Quest Adventures in Glorantha, as the latest edition was called, consciously went back to second edition Rune Quest, which is like 1981 and, you know, the the first edition that we you and I would have come across. Yeah. And is quite old school basic role playing, loads of skills, all sorts of things that, in fact, I talked about in the last episode about not liking about that sort of thing and strike banks and stuff like that. And apparently, objective of this new edition is to simplify it and make it more in keeping with modern sensibilities. A bit like, and I don't know how true this is of Cthulhu seven, but a bit like seventh edition Cthulhu.

Dave: 12:54

Right.

Matthew: 12:57

You've been playing Rune Quest, haven't you, recently?

Dave: 12:59

Yeah. I've I've been in I've been in the campaign with, I'm not sure what you is it the mythic edition or mythras edition?

Matthew: 13:08

Mythras. Right. So effectively, if you like, sixth edition by

Dave: 13:11

Yeah.

Matthew: 13:12

The the the clockwork people whose name I can't remember.

Dave: 13:15

Right. Okay. So so I'm I'm I'm no great expert on different Rune Quest editions. I've obviously played it back in the day and then, like, say, in the earlier editions that were very BRP.

Matthew: 13:23

Mhmm.

Dave: 13:24

This is still quite BRP. A lot of skills, kind of various what feels like kind of artificial, strike, arbitrary ways of boosting your skill chance. And then I think the haven't enjoyed it. Let's put it this way. Or not I didn't it's not that I haven't enjoyed it.

Dave: 13:46

I haven't enjoyed it much. And but I think part of that is probably because the campaign that we've been playing is nothing but combat. And Oh, right. Yes. Me, combat is just so boring.

Dave: 13:57

I mean, it just lasts forever. And, you know, you you can hit somebody, you know, do a crit and you, you know, chip their fingernail or something stupid. It's just so anyway, even even at one point, the the GM apologized for the previous session being nothing but combat, and then the first thing that happened in the set that session was a two hour combat. It's like

Matthew: 14:22

Right. Okay. Yeah.

Dave: 14:23

I think

Matthew: 14:24

I think the GM might be at fault rather than the rules here.

Dave: 14:26

Quite possibly. But still I mean, still the combat is very long. It's very kind of well, it feels very long or certainly in the way that it's being played. So I've I've not I mean, I always enjoy gaming. I always enjoy gaming with the crowd.

Dave: 14:38

We always have a lot of fun. But for me, the game isn't isn't doing it. But as you say, that might be down to the fact that, you know, the the GM is a bit combat heavy.

Matthew: 14:49

And is this setting Glorantha or somewhere else? Because, of course, Mithras is relatively setting free.

Dave: 14:59

I I don't know. Don't know? Don't get I don't get the sense it's Glowantha. I mean Yeah. But yeah, we haven't we haven't had that much chance to really explore the world and do very much other than go to this place

Dave: 15:15

that's just

Dave: 15:16

over the border and fight things. Yeah.

Matthew: 15:19

Right. Okay. So least heard about that the better. I I very much enjoyed the Adventures in Glorantha version of Rune Quest in the campaign that I ran a couple of years back. But I've got a brilliant GM in in that regard.

Matthew: 15:36

That's Nick Brook who did the layout for that.

Dave: 15:38

Yep. Oh, cool. Nice. Nice. Nice.

Matthew: 15:40

And and, you know, he knows both RuneQuest and Gloranther like the back of his hand. And he skips, you know, he makes the

Dave: 15:48

And knows how to run a good game.

Matthew: 15:50

And knows how to run a good fight that doesn't take too long as well. So, you know, we have fights that are thrilling and exciting, and we get to do cool cool things in them. And yet we don't fill our time with fights. So that was good. I think that was in spite of the rules rather than because of the rules.

Matthew: 16:09

Although the character generation was great fun in that game, so I'd like to see that carry on.

Dave: 16:13

What does I

Matthew: 16:13

think What

Dave: 16:13

what version what version is Nick running?

Matthew: 16:16

So he's running what we now call Adventures in Glarantha, which, if you like, is kind of a seventh edition, but it's Right. As I say, closer. So it's the latest edition.

Dave: 16:26

Yes.

Matthew: 16:26

Okay. And the one that is now apparently Having a new edition. Renewed.

Dave: 16:31

Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Matthew: 16:33

So there's that. I will put a link in the show notes if I can find anything official on the interweb about it, but so far, I haven't managed to find anything official about that, except for tweets from Mike Moles, who is part of the crew developing it. And I say tweets. I mean blue skies. Oh, whatever.

Matthew: 16:52

Whatever. Social stuff. So next in the world of gaming, we have Wasteland Degenerates. Okay. Or I'm not sure whether it's Wasteland Degenerates or Wasteland Degenerates.

Dave: 17:04

Yeah. Hold on. I suspect it's the it's the former.

Matthew: 17:09

I think it's more likely to be the former.

Dave: 17:10

Would make

Matthew: 17:11

more sense. I bring I bring this to your attention simply because it has obvious overtones of Mad Max with obviously the numbers filed off.

Dave: 17:24

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But

Matthew: 17:26

it is interestingly compatible with both Morkborg and also with Cyborg. Okay. And I will put a link in the show notes. I haven't got very much to say about it. You know, Morkborg battle games are to a penny.

Dave: 17:41

There are quite a lot of

Dave: 17:43

them there and there. I do love I do love the Mad Max, the original Mad Max, you know, feel.

Matthew: 17:49

Yeah.

Dave: 17:50

We've had long and involved conversations about my views on the the later movies.

Matthew: 17:56

How long you are on Furiooser?

Dave: 17:57

How right I am about how shit Furiosa is. Anyway, let's move on before oh, it's beautifully done.

Matthew: 18:03

Furiosa isn't

Dave: 18:04

Not Furio, by the way, the, you know, the the

Matthew: 18:06

Furi Road.

Dave: 18:07

Fury Road. Classic. It's not. I mean, it's well done, and a lot of the, you know, the the chases are fun and all the rest of it, but the film is shit, and they it relegates Mad Max into being a bit part in his own movie. Anyway, let's move on.

Matthew: 18:20

No. Mad Max is a bit part in Furiosa's movie, let's be frank.

Dave: 18:25

I haven't seen that one. But

Matthew: 18:27

No. No. But Fury Fury Road is about Furiosa, not about

Dave: 18:30

Well, they shouldn't call it Mad Max then. They should call it Mad Furiosa, Fury Road. So I'll I'll be happy with That'll be fine. If if they hadn't called it a Mad Max one, because it's not about Mad Max. Anyway.

Dave: 18:44

I also think Mel Gibson was a better Mad Max than Tom Hardy. Although I'm a big, big fan of Tom Hardy's.

Matthew: 18:51

Right. Don't need to rehearse this argument again. Everybody knows you're wrong.

Dave: 18:55

Everybody knows that I'm right. And I anyway, anyway, let's move on. What's next?

Matthew: 19:02

Mark Miller is writing for Traveller.

Dave: 19:04

Cool.

Matthew: 19:05

Yeah. And this we ought to have this news segment, which is news for our mate Andy Brick. Although, of course, it won't be news to him. He will know about it already.

Dave: 19:14

I just He'll he'll claim he'll claim to know about it all already, and then he'll bluff for a while, and then he'll look

Dave: 19:18

it up.

Dave: 19:19

No. No. No. I can Pretend he knew about it.

Matthew: 19:20

Genuinely knows about it already. But, yeah, Mark Miller is writing a mongoose supplement for Traveller. I can't remember what it is.

Dave: 19:30

A mongoose supplement. A supplement about mongoose in Traveller.

Matthew: 19:33

No. It's mongoose publishing.

Dave: 19:36

I know they do. But just the way you said it sounded like it's a it's a mongoose supplement for Traveller.

Matthew: 19:42

Well, for all I know, it might be. I thought it was about pirates or something, but it might be about mongeese.

Dave: 19:47

Is mongoose

Matthew: 19:48

the right plural of mongoose?

Dave: 19:49

I don't know. I think I think it's actually mongooses. Yeah. I'm just to have to look at up whilst we

Matthew: 19:55

are talking.

Dave: 19:57

So carry on.

Matthew: 19:59

Yeah. So, you know, it is just great to see Mark Miller. And I think it's it's going to be a Little Black Book format as well, which is just fun. It's great. Yeah.

Matthew: 20:08

I love that. It's Mark Miller coming home to the game that he sold to Mongoose and he just says something about how he trusts them with the legacy of Traveller and yeah. And he's working for

Dave: 20:24

it. Just think

Matthew: 20:24

it's great Yeah. And I'm I'm not gonna buy it because

Dave: 20:28

Sorry. Go on.

Matthew: 20:29

I said I'm not gonna buy it, I'm sure Andy Brick is. So

Dave: 20:32

Yeah. Mean Check it on him. I I unlikely I'll buy it as well, but I do love, I really love the little the little black books of original Traveler. That was just so good. And if they're if they're reproducing it in that style, then, you know, I'll be tempted just to buy it for for its look and feel.

Dave: 20:49

But yeah, that's cool. It is mongooses by the way. Yeah. Mongooses. Not mongooses.

Matthew: 20:57

Not mongooses.

Dave: 20:58

It's not mongooses. It's mongooses. Anyway, let's move swiftly on. So the next bit of news is we just want to do a shout out to our friend and friend of the show and contributor to Tales of the Old West, Saul Morales who's recently got home after being hospital having some surgery. Delighted that you're back at home mate.

Dave: 21:27

All the best. All our love and hugs are sending your way and you know hoping for a very swift recovery. It seems like it's going quite well. But, yeah, love to

Dave: 21:39

you

Dave: 21:39

Saul, and get well soon, mate.

Matthew: 21:43

Yeah. And Saul, of course, not just a patron of the show and a fellow podcaster running gaming perspectives with Saul and Jolene, his wife. Yeah. Yeah. But, also, he's a backer of Tales of the Odd West, and he's been a sensitivity reader on all things Metsocat in that book, and he wrote one of our adventure seeds as well.

Matthew: 22:07

So a contributor to the book as well.

Dave: 22:09

So Absolutely.

Matthew: 22:11

Yeah. We're all thinking about you, Saul. Speak to recovery.

Dave: 22:13

Get well soon, mate. Yep. Get well soon.

Matthew: 22:17

Right. Well, that's a nice segue

Dave: 22:18

into terms of the Old West. It is. So the pledger manager went live earlier this week. So last Monday? Tuesday, I think it was, wasn't it?

Dave: 22:27

Tuesday. Mhmm. And that seems so that seems to be going really well. We obviously need people to be fulfilling their pledge managers by the March 28 is the deadline we have set, because at that point, we should be able to start sending products out to customers. So

Matthew: 22:49

Or I think early April. Yeah. I mean, let's not let's not promise let's not promise March. You know, we're still waiting for the

Dave: 22:55

March 28.

Matthew: 22:55

They should be there, March.

Dave: 22:57

Kind of the weekend, so it wouldn't go out anyway. Yeah. But if we get all the information in by then, we can start sending stuff out shortly after that. So that's that's that's great. It's particularly important for our US backers for for for various sort of practical reasons about how we're shipping stuff to The US.

Dave: 23:17

If you don't get your pledge completed by the March 28, there is a risk that your packet will become more expensive because we are sending a one big packet with all of our stuff which just attracts one load of costs, which means we can then make it cheaper for everybody in The US. If you miss that shipment, we'll have to send it direct, is gonna be a lot more expensive. So make sure, particularly if you're a US backer, get your pledge manager sorted out and completed before the March 28, please.

Matthew: 23:54

Yeah. And it is a a call to all of you who haven't even opened your email yet. A 61 entries have not clicked through even to pledge managers to think about it. So, obviously, some of those include people who backed at the digital level. You've already got your PDF.

Matthew: 24:13

You may not be interested in upgrading to anything else. Yep. That's cool if that's the case. But but those of you that have got physical products, get in get into your email, dig it out of your junk folder if you haven't seen it on your main folder. We'll be sending out reminders very shortly as well.

Dave: 24:34

Yeah. If you've got

Matthew: 24:36

If you don't wanna be hassled by our reminders, just get in there. Yeah. Complete your order. And the sooner you complete, the sooner everybody can get their books. And remember, this will be at least well, hopefully, a month earlier than we promised when you originally bought the Kickstarter.

Dave: 24:53

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. There are still one or two things that have got to come together just to, you know, like like you say, not promising for sure, but at the moment everything is looking very good. So, yeah, let's get there. Let's get into it.

Dave: 25:07

I mean, it's it's been an interesting experience. Setting up the pledge manager has been has been fun.

Matthew: 25:11

That proved

Dave: 25:13

to be

Matthew: 25:13

quite complex.

Dave: 25:14

Slightly more complex and and drawn out than we'd anticipated, but all done now which is great. So that's all it's a you know it's a great learning experience and we'll we'll we'll find it easier when we do it again next time. But yeah, it's exciting. It's very exciting. I mean the the books are now in our warehouse waiting to go.

Dave: 25:35

We're just waiting for some other bits to arrive, and then obviously the pledge of my ledger to complete, and then we can start packaging them up and getting them out. So yeah, all good. All good. Got a nice rosy glow at the moment.

Matthew: 25:47

Yeah. It feels very good. I have been in contact with three retail backers. So if you're in California, Paladin's Castle Paladin's Game Castle store in I can't remember which which suburb of Los Angeles. But, yeah, they're in California, they will be they will be stocking the book.

Matthew: 26:11

We've got a German backer, not actually a storefront, but they do all the German conventions. They're they're ordering a bunch, or you can mail order off them when they when they get stock. And also the game shop in order shot are gonna be stocking from from the outset. But also, after launch, we will let our distributors, GMS, sell it to other retail outlets as well. Most of those, I think, are gonna be in The UK, though.

Matthew: 26:36

So if you're a UK person who hasn't backed and doesn't wanna do mail order, doesn't wanna if you haven't backed and you want to join our pledge manager, get in quick now. Do it now. But if you want to wait for it to come into your book, support your local game store, tell your game store to get in touch with GMS and find out about ordering it. Yep. Cool.

Matthew: 26:54

I think that's about all we've got to say. That's a nice review. We'll put a link to that nice review in our show notes I've seen.

Dave: 27:01

Indeed. Yeah.

Matthew: 27:02

Came out in February, but it's the first time we saw it today.

Dave: 27:06

Yeah. Yeah. It's all going well.

Matthew: 27:10

It's all going well. Excellent. Right. Now for the main event.

Dave: 27:14

Yeah. Let's let's talk to Ken and Gart about Terraforming Mars.

Matthew: 27:20

In the hammam with us today, we have not one but two fabulous game authors of great repute. Our old friend, Gareth Hanrahan and Ken Hite. I should have had one of those buttons that does applause, but we don't have a live audience. But it would have been applause.

Ken Hite: 27:40

People at home are applauding right now. They have

Dave: 27:43

it. Absolutely.

Matthew: 27:45

So, Ken and Gareth, welcome.

Ken Hite: 27:48

Welcome. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.

Matthew: 27:50

Now Gareth, of course, is an old hand being interviewed by us. And so he's already passed the test. But Ken, we ask all our guests the first time they come on the show to tell us about their life in gaming.

Dave: 28:07

Now we've only got three or four hours.

Ken Hite: 28:09

Right. Yeah. That's that's what I understood is that we are time limited and there's only one server. So I'll address sort of the my origin story, which fundamentally comes down to being 12 in 1977. And when you were 12 in 1977, if you went to Montessori grade school, as I did, you were issued certain things.

Ken Hite: 28:35

You were issued UFO books. You were issued a copy of a Steve Martin comedy album, and you were issued Dungeons and Dragons. Those were things you did not get a choice on. You were allowed to accept or reject KISS. That was what you got to choose.

Ken Hite: 28:48

But D and D was sort of mandatory. So my, one of my grade school buddies, Steve, got the monster manual, the AD and D monster manual, which is the first book for AD and D. And he bought it, and he had no idea what it was. And so we sort of puzzled through it, and he loaned it to me for the summer. So I spent that summer sort of creating monsters, interpolating the rules as best I could.

Ken Hite: 29:11

And then the next year in, you know, first year of high school, we found the blue book, the Holmes blue book D and D. Someone had got that. And so we said, ah, the monster manual goes with this because it says Dungeons and Dragons on it. And that's when we started playing D and D. And then the, you know, Player's Handbook came out, and so we all upgraded to advanced D and D.

Ken Hite: 29:32

And that was, you know, that was our life for, you know, years of, you know, playing D and D during school, after school, rolling out characters while the nuns were not watching an algebra class, the whole nine

Dave: 29:43

yards. Excellent.

Ken Hite: 29:44

And, you know, at some point during that process, I became DM for life. My co DM, I'd gone down to the seven Eleven to get snacks, and I come back. And all the players have got Vorpal swords, and they're riding around on Pegasus. And my co DM David is like, I don't know what just happened. And I said, alright.

Ken Hite: 30:04

Alright. Alright. I'll sort this out.

Dave: 30:06

You go you know what? Is what happens.

Ken Hite: 30:07

Either either we rewind time to before I left for seven Eleven or I pick up the monster manual and I find what can fight a bunch of guys with vorpal swords and unicorns. And they said, oh, we should rewind time. That makes much more sense. So then at that point, I became DM for life. And from that moment, I have been a behind the screen guy, and that sort of wonderful being present at the beginning of the art form is, I guess, sort of impelled whatever I do through it because you always wanna get that that charge, that Jones back and to be doing something new and exciting and fun at the table that you've never done before.

Ken Hite: 30:49

And back in the day, fighting orcs was something we'd never done before. Now it's a different

Dave: 30:53

day. Yeah.

Matthew: 30:54

So what what was your first paid gig in the Merchant side of things?

Ken Hite: 31:00

My first paid gig was the one of my players in Call of because I bought Call of Cthulhu when it came out in 1981. I like to say because it cannot be contradicted that I was the first person in Oklahoma to own Call of Cthulhu, and, I ran it for a bunch of my friends in high school and college. One of those players got a job at Iron Crown Enterprises, and then from that job got access to the playtest manuscript of Nephilim, the Chaosium version of the French occult RPG. And he sent it to me because he said, who better to look at this game about black magic and occult conspiracies than my old buddy Ken? And I looked at it, I wrote about 11,000 words of playtest feedback and back sass, and I sent it in to Donald, and he sent it into Chaosium.

Ken Hite: 31:47

And they responded. And by they, I mean, Greg Stafford personally reached out of the gods plane and said, we're putting it in the book. We're paying you for what you wrote. What's the next book you're doing for us? And I said, I'm writing the secret societies book, of course, Greg, sir.

Ken Hite: 32:06

And then I did. And about that same time, we'd gotten the contract to do GERPS Alternate Earths from Steve Jackson. So myself and a couple of my by then grad school friends at University of Chicago put together the GERPS Alternate Earths one and two eventually. And so GERPS Alternate Earths and Secret Societies were sort of my my first, contracted gigs. But my first paid gig was being a jerk about Nephilim and saying, this game is woefully incomplete.

Ken Hite: 32:38

So from that beginning, I guess, the subtler effect of my whole career.

Matthew: 32:46

That's a great introduction. And it strikes me that Chaosium was such an open house as it were that, you know, you can join Chaosium and then you can go off and start LinkedIn or you can develop in whatever way. Greg seemed to welcome everybody in, everybody that showed an iota of talent.

Ken Hite: 33:07

I mean, Greg definitely was that sort of, you know, guru, messianic type figure. Right? I mean, if you were part of the body, if you're part of the gospel, Greg wanted you on side and helping out. That was always one of the very great things that but he was amazingly generous with his world and with his time and with his mentorship and friendship. I mean, was generous to me.

Ken Hite: 33:30

Maybe he was mean to everybody else, but I don't think so. My understanding is that I was nothing special. I was just one of the many people that he knew and sort of, like, lifted up onto the next stage.

Matthew: 33:42

I've heard other similar stories, so I think he's generous to most people.

Ken Hite: 33:47

Yeah. He was pretty great.

Matthew: 33:49

So one of your maxims, you talked about alternate earths. One of your maxims I've heard again and again, you're not pouring, but again and again on Ken and Robin talk about stuff is Start With Earth. And in the game that we're here to talk about, say, we're kind of starting with Earth. We're in at least the same solar system. It's terraforming Mars.

Matthew: 34:11

So how did this gig fall into your laps?

Ken Hite: 34:16

Well, Gareth and I collaborated on a game called Dracula Dossier, the mega campaign

Dave: 34:23

Yeah.

Ken Hite: 34:24

For Knights Black Agents, which was my game of spies versus vampires. And Gareth and I obviously were friends and colleagues from before that, but I think Dracula Dossier sort of annealed this perfect creative partnership. And Shadowlands, this Spanish game company, translated Dracula dossier into Spanish for the license. And my assumption is if you spend however god awful a long time that was reading and translating our writing, one of two reactions will happen. You're either Stockholm syndromeing yourself into loving us or you never want to have anything to do with us again.

Ken Hite: 35:01

And I think number one is what happened. And they thought, well, if we ever run across a great long project that requires a lot of attention to detail, a ton of great words, and, superior play experience design chops, maybe Ken and Garr could do that since we've literally just translated their efforts in that direction. And I feel like that's sort of how we get on their radar and got the nod to do this. And, of course, you know, when when they asked me to do it, I was I was sort of, sure. I'd love to do it.

Ken Hite: 35:36

And thinking in my head, oh god, I I hope I hope we can get Gar. I hope we can get Gar. And then during that call when they were offering me the job, they said, oh, and would you mind working with Gareth Hanrahan? And I said, well, technically, you

Dave: 35:51

literally I have think about it.

Ken Hite: 35:52

Every problem that I saw going forward with this project. So, no, I would not. In fact, it would be like living a dream, sort of. I don't know

Dave: 36:05

what God thought.

Matthew: 36:05

Did you get in touch with Gareth for us? Or

Ken Hite: 36:08

No. I think they they already knew Gareth. They had by

Gar Hanrahan: 36:10

the way. Yeah.

Ken Hite: 36:10

Yeah. They I think they were

Matthew: 36:12

on board already then, Gareth, were you? Before they They

Gar Hanrahan: 36:15

they went to Ken first and then then to me, I think.

Matthew: 36:18

Alright. Right. Okay. Of course, I I've got to do a bit of genuflecting and say I'm not worthy here. The Dracula Dossier is the best campaign I have ever run.

Matthew: 36:30

And I ran it for a group at Surrey University. And one of my group is like one of their high level professors of music. And actually, wasn't the Drekliodossian. We started with the Zielozny quartet to go into that. And when we reached the bit where the opera, the Fleidelberg opera was there, this guy just lit up because he didn't think anybody had ever heard of this.

Matthew: 37:01

And the beauty of this is, of course, I don't know how much he knew came from the book and how much I'd invented, but for that moment, I was a god in his eyes. I put it all down to the two of you for knowing this obscure opera and for bringing it up in this game. So

Ken Hite: 37:19

And that's why we start with Earth because you can't get that glow of recognition with anything else. Maybe you can with Batman or with Gondor, but very little else in the world gives you that glow of holy crap. It's all real. And obviously with Dracula dossier, we tripled and quadrupled down on, oh my god. It's all real as the experience that we wanted to inculcate in play, that frisson.

Ken Hite: 37:45

And again, that was what Stoker was doing when he was turning it into an epistolary novel and setting it in modern day London instead of in, you know, Transylvania or Styria or wherever, was he wanted that exact frisson. And that's what Gar and I were able to do. And whenever Gar would come back to me and say, hey, Ken, you know the Albemarle club that's just thrown off mention in the novel? It turns out they hosted a secretive science society that disintegrated circa 1893, the year of our Dracula setting. And I got to say, oh my god.

Ken Hite: 38:17

It's all real. And, you know, I I I like to say that if you're bored writing a book, people will be bored playing a book. And I think conversely, I, at least, was thrilled and excited and alive writing the book. And I I'm glad to hear that that sort of experience translates, at the table.

Dave: 38:37

Yeah. If you're not if you're not if you're not a, like, a a a follower of the podcast, Ken, which I'm I'm I'm sure you're not, Matthew goes on about Knight's Black Agents every single episode. Great.

Ken Hite: 38:47

Well done. Yeah.

Dave: 38:48

Absolutely loved you. And then introduce me to it, I'm very pleased to say, on his birthday when we were away and gave us a game one evening, which was absolutely fabulous. Yeah.

Matthew: 38:57

We played one of the top and file games. Actually, the one in Chancell Venue with the balloon. But that's that's, by the way, we're not here to talk. I did say at some point in your last interview, Gareth, that we should get the two of you on board to talk about Dracula Dossier, but

Dave: 39:13

We were having That's not what we're here to talk about today. So

Ken Hite: 39:16

Well, it's a podcast. That means there's more episodes to

Gar Hanrahan: 39:19

come. That

Ken Hite: 39:21

easily that can

Matthew: 39:22

be a future Jack Lia Dossier special. I'm very happy to talk about that. Right now, though, let's talk about what's currently on back a kit and will be for the next week or so,

Dave: 39:32

I think, as

Matthew: 39:34

this episode goes out. And this is Terraforming Mars. So we know how the two of you got on board. I'm really intrigued. So I've looked at the quick start.

Matthew: 39:48

Gareth, your name's there. Ken, you've not had anything to do particularly with the quick start.

Ken Hite: 39:53

Am I right? No. I did a very tiny little bit of in my sort of standard thing, which we like to call, I sprinkle my fairy dust on it and less this time than than most. Gar had done sort of the outline, and I sort of did a little bit of I don't wanna even say pushback, but sort of like, you know, critical feedback of, you know, the sort of maybe it might fit the vibe better effects type stuff. Yeah.

Ken Hite: 40:22

But 99% of that is is Gareth. Because if someone if if someone has said, oh god. We need a quick start adventure, and we're dropping in a week. The answer is don't give it to Ken with his patented one hour per paragraph research cycle. Give it to Gar, and you will get a superb adventure within the time and space constraints that you want.

Ken Hite: 40:49

You'll still get a superb adventure with me, but your constraints are as dross in my imagining.

Matthew: 40:56

So okay. So maybe we should pull back a moment and talk about the whole concept of terraforming bars for those who haven't played the board game. And what is immediately visible in the quick start is this is a generational game. In fact, I see they've even got a mechanic where you play as a generation between adventures and things like that. So does this adventure, Gar, in the quick start, start in the very early days of Mars Martian colonization?

Gar Hanrahan: 41:36

Yeah. Basically, we're sort of mirroring the game in that you start off with Mars being this uninhabitable wasteland, no life there, and over time you slowly build up two terraforming it, people arrive there, they build cities, the planet slowly greens, and should be terraformed, that's the plan. And that is a process that, even in the very, very generous sides of the game, takes centuries.

Matthew: 42:06

Yeah.

Gar Hanrahan: 42:08

Now, the Trevor Burrus is heavily inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson's books, which I absolutely adore. There, he makes characters of conveniently mortals. They can make you live through the centuries. What we're doing basically is you're playing a series of different characters over the generations, which was kind of inspired by Robin's Yellow King game, where basically you got like you,

Dave: 42:32

two other characters

Matthew: 42:34

who are In four different time periods.

Gar Hanrahan: 42:36

Yes. Yeah. So here, basically, there there always be some sort of connection between your current group of characters and the next one. But what that question will be is kind of players. It might be like you're you're playing their kids.

Gar Hanrahan: 42:48

It might be like, you know, you're playing people like you're living in the aftermath of things you previously did. You work at the same corporation, different corporation.

Dave: 42:56

That was gonna be my question because I'm a huge fan of generational games, and I I very much like to to create that kind of feel in the games that that that we create. So that was gonna be my question. Are you gonna be playing the descendants of your of your of your characters in the age of pioneers, or are you gonna be playing Yeah.

Gar Hanrahan: 43:16

I mean yeah. There will always be some connection, but not necessarily you're playing their kids. You could be how do you want, but it's the plan is again, we're we're very early days of development is that you play through a project that would create interesting ramifications, and then you basically pick the most interesting one of those and build the next phase of the campaign around that.

Dave: 43:40

And and it is the intention then the campaign would would last, I don't know, a campaign's length for a particular character, and then at the right moment or when you've developed enough, you'll then move to the next age and then create new characters. Is that the plan?

Gar Hanrahan: 43:56

I suspect you I suspect you would go through and then again, this is all provisional, but but my my my my my my plan is that you would, play the same characters for, like, one, two, three, four projects and then move on.

Dave: 44:14

Right.

Gar Hanrahan: 44:15

Well, I

Dave: 44:15

mean But quite a short campaign then. Yeah.

Ken Hite: 44:17

And Beowulf manages to do Beowulf in three adventures. So I feel like you could do three projects with the same character group, and then you've set up enough ramifications, enough possibilities that you can then move either within the same era, just, you know, fifty years down the road, or you can move into the next era when Mars is, you know, one level more, terraformed, and you have different patches of challenges. And things you did are now in the history books or in old engineering manuals that say, do not do this. And, I mean, you could be the people whose job is to unscrew what your first group

Dave: 44:56

screwed

Ken Hite: 44:56

up, for example.

Dave: 44:58

Yeah. And

Ken Hite: 44:58

trying to keep that sense of organic cause and effect consequence, that Mars is always changing. You're always building. You're always adding to that generational total is, I think, that's part of the the the scope and the wonder and the greatness of the board game, and we should be able to do that in, the role playing game. Obviously, Gar and I are both gigantic fans of Pendragon, so any excuse to try, to sort of emulate that game's great, advantages in terms of, story continuity, we're gonna take. But Yeah.

Ken Hite: 45:36

I don't think the notion is you play 15 adventures with the same guy unless you really, really love that guy. I mean, obviously, we're not here to boss your table around. But what we're trying to do is give game masters the ability and the freedom to say, okay. I think we've gotten all the fun we can out of the molehole. Let's move on and do the polar ice caps melting.

Ken Hite: 45:57

Let's move on and do genetically engineering, birds. Let's move on and do the next thing. And that's always going to be, you know, you sort of get to do the good parts version of a, you know, five hundred year history of a planet, and that's pretty great, I think.

Dave: 46:13

Yeah. It's the the game that got me into loving generational play was Pendragon. Yeah. So

Matthew: 46:21

yeah. Sadly because you ended up high king, Dave.

Dave: 46:23

I'm still high king. He's not dead.

Matthew: 46:27

You ended up high king?

Dave: 46:28

No. But it's not dead. But not only. But the whole It's just just great. Yeah.

Matthew: 46:36

Of course, that was about blood relations, particularly. I'm just wondering when you talk about the fact that the different connections you might have with generations, did you at any point consider bringing in the other Kim Stanley Robinson book, The Years of Rice and Salt, and have everybody actually be the reincarnated souls of the previous characters?

Ken Hite: 46:56

We are trying to do a hard science fiction I mean, think terraforming Mars. So we are not allowed to have the face in Cydonia. We're not allowed to have the vaults of Jovombus from Clark, Ashton Smith. No HG Wells, tentacle vampires, no magic, no reincarnation.

Dave: 47:15

Ray Ray Bradbury would be turning in his grave, wouldn't he?

Ken Hite: 47:18

No. I mean, as as much as we love Bradbury, this is proper Mars, not magic Mars. And Yeah. Again, magic Mars is great. I love magic Mars.

Ken Hite: 47:29

I've loved magic Mars since I was reading the John Carter books when I was 10. But we're trying you know, Gar and I have gotten fat and lazy doing vampires and magic in Cthulhu and ghosts and entwives and stuff like that. And maybe it's good for us to sort of slim down and straighten up and fly right with at least plausible astrophysics and plausible, bioengineering and stuff like that.

Dave: 47:55

So that was gonna be my next quest so that's gonna be my next question about you talk about the scientifically feasible approach to the game. How much how much scientific research are you having to do to to ensure that you maintain that kind of authenticity?

Gar Hanrahan: 48:13

Fortunately, Shadowlands have a wonderful fellow on board whose name I'm going to mangle if I try and pronounce it, who is a Mars expert. And Cool. He is I mean, I I went like, you know, we we we're going to a molehole, and I, like, googled and found out where the crust was thin. He went, yes. The crust is thin there.

Gar Hanrahan: 48:35

Here are the the NASA maps here with, the, like, you know, precise locations of where it should be. Here are, like, your interesting gable locations. It's wonderful to have someone on board who can both do the science y stuff and also understands the game requirements because all of play at the same time. Yep. At the same time, like, we can do enough research to bluff.

Gar Hanrahan: 48:57

I I I became an expert on garlic smuggling for Dracula. I can

Dave: 49:01

I was gonna say garlic smuggling for Mars? I mean, I'm not sure. I'm not seeing the connection there. Well, I mean,

Gar Hanrahan: 49:08

yeah, you want you'd want you want flavor. I suspect that, like,

Dave: 49:11

you would. I guess you would. Yeah.

Ken Hite: 49:12

And and spices actually are gonna make more sense as something that you'd smuggle up from Earth because they're small. They don't take up a lot of room. There's not gonna be laws against in the same way that there's gonna be against heroin or whatever. So and you can't synthesize them easily on Mars unlike alcohol. So I feel like, you know, garlic smuggling, we just make gar repurpose that research and do it again.

Dave: 49:35

Yeah. Cool. I mean, let let

Ken Hite: 49:37

The only the only honest job I've ever done that improves the world, I spent about a year as a copy editor for the astrophysical journal at the University of Chicago. So Right. I have, in you know, at some point, the this, eidetic memory, this ancestral memory of having cared about physics. And so between that and between just a really astonishing amount of research that's been done both for the general popular audience, but also for other physicists who are not terraforming experts because no one is, There's a lot of material available for Garanite of Master. We're not gonna maybe catch up with our, Shadowlands' Aerologist, but I think we're gonna be able to hold our own in terms of, you know, questions like, you know, what about the magnetosphere and things like that.

Ken Hite: 50:33

We're we're not just sort of wandering in here and saying, you know, we're it's not Star Trek is what I'm saying. We're not technobabbling it. We're gonna actually Yeah. Address it in a way where someone would say, well, that's wrong, but it's interestingly wrong. That's sort of, I think, our goal.

Dave: 50:48

Yeah. Interesting. Let's can I well, just on that point, you said that, Ken, about caring about physics? So I get that the whole approach to the terraforming of Mars is gonna be scientifically sensible, feasible, even if, like I said, you might, like, massage the time scales a bit for the game, perhaps. Yeah.

Dave: 51:07

Caring about the physics, are there gonna be, mechanics in the game around things like the effect of the low gravity on players and that kind of approach?

Matthew: 51:17

Or player characters,

Dave: 51:18

I think. Characters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave: 51:20

You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, we we So are you going that far in terms of your sort of scientific approach, or or is that something that actually is a bit less important to the game experience?

Gar Hanrahan: 51:30

The the system that we're using, the I get again, Estripe? Estripe? So it means not going to you you you like, you you'd have sort of a flavorful thing where, like, you know, if you are, like, you know, just off the, ship from Earth and you're still, like, you're not used to the one third g, you know, like, you know, a small pen to be first adventure, but I'd be like, you know

Dave: 52:05

Until you get acclimatized.

Gar Hanrahan: 52:07

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But in because the system needs to be able to sort of scale up and down a lot for projects, because, basically, you'll be, like, you do all sort of, like, high level stuff and then zooming down to, like, you know, individual scenes and then to combat, it's going to be mechanically relatively light or just relatively flexible.

Gar Hanrahan: 52:30

Yeah. So, like, I mean, we will we will be doing stuff like, you know, there you will need to track oxygen at times, but only when you're in the middle of a crisis. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Gar Hanrahan: 52:41

Like, you you you be not be used to the gravity on Mars isn't gonna be a huge factor most of the time, but if you're like, you're best of a rescued role and we're certainly jumping into a scene where you're mugged in the streets of of Noctis City by guys working for a rival corporation, then the fact that your dad wouldn't die will actually be a be a factor.

Dave: 53:03

Yes. Yeah. Right.

Ken Hite: 53:04

Or if you're in, you know, orbit, trying to, you know, put up a solar mirror or something, then there would be a degree of difficulty or a degree of stress. Same with, you know, radiation. If the sun is, you know, emitting a a a radiation plume, a coronal plume, then that's gonna cause a solar storm on Mars until you get the atmosphere thickened up. So that would add a degree of difficulty. But all those environmental threats are part of the core activity of play because the whole story is basically, you know, humankind versus implacable nature.

Ken Hite: 53:39

Mhmm. And so, you know, being able to make that exciting and make that tactical and make that cool is one of the challenges that Gar and I are facing. But, you know, tracking every rad that you receive or, you know, going, you know, minute by minute on, you know, bone, decay thanks to microgravity, that's not what we're gonna do because that's not what the game's about. And And it's not something are assumed the player characters are assumed to be people who've been on Mars for a while, people who are actually good at this. The, you know, the corporations don't just sort of reach a big claw down onto Earth and grab nine random people and throw them at Mars.

Ken Hite: 54:16

You've gone through training. You've gone through acclimation. You may have been born on Mars by the later, generations. So Yeah. It's not gonna have to be where we, you know, say, you know, alright.

Ken Hite: 54:27

You begin with, you know, a twelve percent calcium deficiency. That there's no point in playing that.

Dave: 54:33

It isn't as long as it No. Exactly. Yeah. Just to finish that point, I know Matthew's got a question, but I'm gonna keep stopping him because because I'm like that.

Matthew: 54:42

Because it's fun.

Dave: 54:43

So one of my other great sort of Martian loves is the film, The Martian and the book, which, again, it feels for having had a quick look at the the quick start. Some of the projects are potentially going to be sort of recreating that kind of feel where things are going wrong and you've got to problem solve to save save yourself. There any any kind of inspiration from from Andy Weir's work at all, from the movie, coming into this?

Gar Hanrahan: 55:13

For me, certainly, the bit more than the Martian is the, For All Mankind, the Apple series.

Dave: 55:20

Right. Yep.

Matthew: 55:21

Because Love that shit.

Gar Hanrahan: 55:23

Yeah. Because that does the whole thing of, like, slowly building up, like, projects over multiple episodes and then having these action scenes where everything goes wrong where, like, you know, you spend, like, you know, five episodes carefully planning your asteroid, capture or whatever. And then there's this, like, interpersonal drama that goes wrong at the same time things explode, and you've dropped down from our careful planning to roll dice, run around, dodge dodge the flying gables. You see, you you don't you don't want for for a sort of realistic game like this, you want the crisis to sort of happen organically and plausibly so you have to build up to them. Yeah.

Dave: 56:09

And they need to be, like like, tension peaks rather than constantly things going wrong by the time. Yeah.

Ken Hite: 56:16

I mean, you could imagine an adventure that is a series of things going wrong. That's the classic adventure structure. And The Martian is a classic of that genre. It's just that it's harder to translate one guy doing math for 400 pages into a tabletop game than True. True.

Ken Hite: 56:36

I mean, they're they're different art forms. Right? And so we are trying you know, you would be able to do a very early game. You're one of the first colonists on Mars, one of the first explorers. And, yeah, you're on the wrong side of Mars.

Ken Hite: 56:50

A dust storm kicks up. You've gotta survive for two hundred days. I can absolutely see that being an adventure that we would do, but it's not going to be the standard adventure of

Dave: 57:00

It's it's one adventure.

Ken Hite: 57:01

Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's one adventure. It's a beginning adventure, and it may be a heroic story that your descendants physically or spiritually recall, and they say, oh, my ancestor had the same problem, you know, back in the pioneer days, and maybe that's, you know, gonna have some sort of, you know, morale bonus or even you you remember this one weird trick with infinite potatoes that that's keeps you

Dave: 57:26

alive. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Matthew: 57:31

So now you've mentioned projects as obviously creating a thing on Mars, but also it feels to me a period of time or a narrative unit in the game structure. So is there, how does that fit in? You talked a bit earlier on about a generation maybe playing three different adventures. Is that three different projects or one project with three scenarios in it?

Gar Hanrahan: 57:57

No, that would basically be three different projects or like three linked projects like your part one, go capture an asteroid, Part two, crash the asteroid on this particular zone. Into the right place. Yeah. Deal deal deal with the massive flooding because you just broke up with aquifers. The plan is the projects are sort of the the adventure equivalent units.

Gar Hanrahan: 58:22

The players will either be assigned or pick the next thing they're doing. You'll each project will have various like, the quick start, you can see this. Each project has different challenges in us. As you play through those challenges, which could be like just playing skill tests or involve role playing or involve action scenes or any combination of that, that will basically create ramifications which will feed into the next project. And once you've gotten all the narrative juice out of that sort project and the characters you have, you do a time skip on.

Dave: 58:55

Can I just can I just ask a question about ramifications? So you've used that word quite a lot. So is that going to be a kind of specific mechanic in the game that, you know, the game offers? You know, this project has these five potential ramifications and each ramification has a, like guidance to the GM or it has like specific impacts that affect the mechanics somehow? Is that how that works?

Gar Hanrahan: 59:18

The plan is basically that you roll and you'll get the either successful roll can result in complications and we're planning to have lots and lots of sample complications in different situations depending on sort of what scale of play you're on, if you're you're rolling on a project or a major planning thing, then the project companies there could, like, you know, have stuff that could be resolved in, like, the next generation or the next project.

Dave: 59:49

Yeah. Right.

Gar Hanrahan: 59:51

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Go on.

Ken Hite: 59:53

Oh, no. For the most part, ramifications are things we tell the GM and advise the GM and and offer the GM.

Dave: 01:00:03

Kinda like story hooks for the next stage

Ken Hite: 01:00:05

in the And then Yeah. If the ramification is so severe that it's going to affect, you know, dice, then we would mention that. But Yeah. More more often, the ramification is really just the setup for the next problem. Like Gar says

Gar Hanrahan: 01:00:19

Yeah.

Ken Hite: 01:00:19

You've crashed the asteroid. Now the aquifer is broken open, and the water is all outgassing. Unscrew that dumbass, and that's the next thing. And that can be, great fun, and it can be exciting. And then that ramification is not just, oh, we have to capture all this water before it's gone.

Ken Hite: 01:00:39

It the ramification is also your corporation's political enemy was like, we should have got the asteroid contract. We wouldn't have ruined it like that. You guys are a church.

Dave: 01:00:48

And now Well, you've hit another corporation's aquifer, and they're claiming compensation.

Ken Hite: 01:00:52

They they exactly. You have you You you over you know, you crashed it in the wrong area and someone else's water use rights are being involved, however that is. And so ramifications aren't just on the individual or even the technical level. Ramifications could go social. They can go you have a, you've you've sworn to yourself you're never gonna crash another asteroid.

Ken Hite: 01:01:13

It can be, you know, you're being sued. It can be your corporation is in trouble, and now your budgets are all cut for the next adventure. Or it could be the ramifications you did great. Your genetically engineered fish are so good that everyone is licensing them, and your corporation has lots of money for the next adventure. And everyone you meet in the Northern Ocean area loves you because you're the guy that invented those cool fish that everyone loves and can eat.

Ken Hite: 01:01:39

Yeah. And so that's you know, ramifications are positive. They're negative. What they are is consequences of play and, ideally, consequences of either decisions that you made or at least dice that you rolled so that Screw

Dave: 01:01:51

us.

Ken Hite: 01:01:51

It feels like you did it, not the GM is unfairly making something happen. Because, again, we got dust storms. We got solar storms. We got every you know, we've got earth turmoil. Lots of things the GM can do unfairly to you.

Ken Hite: 01:02:05

We don't need the ramifications to also be that. We want the ramifications to be, I've earned this. This is a consequence of my action. I'm part of this story, not I'm just standing on the side watching this disaster unfold.

Dave: 01:02:18

Yeah. This is it's kind of this is such a good opportunity, but I screwed it up, and now I've gotta fix the screw up.

Ken Hite: 01:02:24

Right.

Dave: 01:02:24

Yeah. I like that very much.

Matthew: 01:02:26

It makes me think about scale, though. So on the board game, effectively, you're the board or the generational board of a corporation that's trying to get a bigger share of the Mars moola. We've talked about in Red Planet period, at least, then you're the astronauts, crew of All Mankind. Although of course, in the last series of that, we had, you know, the CEO of Helios being involved in that as well.

Dave: 01:03:00

Spoilers, I haven't watched it yet.

Matthew: 01:03:02

Well, I know. Yeah. Bloody hell. It's been out for bloody years, mate.

Dave: 01:03:08

I know. I know. I'm very bad at

Matthew: 01:03:09

getting my door watching. I thought you'd like it. And yet I told you you would. Anyway, do you see as the eras develop, do you think your connected group eventually end up as the high flying nobility of the Green Mars or I

Gar Hanrahan: 01:03:33

think you go where it's interesting. Because it won't dictate where the players go in the next generation. So, if you want to play, like, know, movers and shakers, there'll be scope for that. But if you want to sort of zoom in and like, you know, do a sort of like, you know, very low level sort of family drama of like, you know, homesteaders on Mars. Mhmm.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:03:59

Or you're playing, like, you know, underground criminals or something. Like, you you could, like, you okay. Last last session, our guys built this giant city. We're now going to zoom in on, like, the the, like, you know, under underworld of the city and play criminal gangs for a generation.

Matthew: 01:04:15

Right. Yeah.

Dave: 01:04:16

Okay. Cool. I quite like that idea. Yeah. That's a good one.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:04:19

Yeah. Basically, you you you pick the most interesting stuff that happened last time. Go, okay. We'll build the next bit of campaign around that. So I just the plan is actually

Dave: 01:04:29

So so actually each generation yeah. Sorry, guys. So so each generation isn't just another generation of project managers and engineers necessarily. It could be a generation of, like you say, anything that actually just seems interesting in the world that is now laid out before you because of what your last bunch of characters did.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:04:49

Yeah. I mean, it the game is was was be about Terraforming Mario, but the Terraforming really starts happening in the background, and you're just, like, reacting to it. The project system is planned to be flexible enough for GM because we're build easy to do adventures and you can do like, know, project this time is gaining control of the like, drug trade in Doctor City or aquatic The

Matthew: 01:05:14

ice trade.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:05:15

Exactly. The

Ken Hite: 01:05:17

garlic trade.

Dave: 01:05:17

The garlic trade. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Matthew: 01:05:21

So this this all sounds marvelous, but I'm thinking, you know, it feels very sandbox y. Does that mean you're contracted now to write millions of volumes of all the possibilities? I mean, what I loved about the director's handbook in the Dracula Dossier is that clever way that every single NPC had kind of three different aspects to them, depending on what you, the GM needed at the time. Are they a good guy, a bad guy or a neutral guy? It was cleverer than that.

Matthew: 01:05:56

But how are you going to encompass that really sandbox y it could go anywhere into a readable volume or volumes that are manageable by the GM.

Ken Hite: 01:06:13

Well, one of the advantages is that, you know, Greg Stafford, praise be upon him, has already done it with the great Pendragon campaign. That's the I mean, they and, Shadowlands knows this. That's why the next book that we're doing, the other book that we're doing is the great Mars campaign. We are doing the sort of I don't wanna say default, but, you know, what Gar and I have thought of as a really good generational cycle story, and you can tell that straight through. And each of those will have a bunch of projects.

Ken Hite: 01:06:47

Maybe you're on one. Maybe you're on another. Maybe you're on both who can say. And in the same way that when you play great Pendragon campaign, you don't have to go after the questing beast. You don't have to find the grail.

Ken Hite: 01:07:00

You don't have to, you know, do whatever, be involved in the Lancelot's, war. You can skip that. You can do something else. Same thing with, the Great Marks campaign. We're going to because of the notion of these projects being sort of, units that we can move around, you can shuffle them in as GM and say, I like that.

Ken Hite: 01:07:23

I like that. I'm putting that there. That will hook to that. And our challenge is to provide the GM with those hooks and that sort of ability to visualize the story geometry. And that's, you know, that's what we're gonna do.

Ken Hite: 01:07:37

Again, part of, you know, certainly my career has been who did what I want to do better, how close can I get to it in in in my own stuff? And, you know, when you say we're doing a generational campaign, if you're not trying to rip off the Pendragon campaign, the great Pendragon campaign, well, you're doing it wrong and you should be fired. So Yeah. That's basically the approach we're taking. It's not going to be, here's all of Mars.

Ken Hite: 01:08:05

Although I think that by now all the stretch goals may amount to that. But, what Gar and I are are doing is here's how to do terraforming Mars, the role playing game, and then here's how Gar and I would do Terraforming Mars, the role playing game. And then everybody else, you know, ideally, at the end of those two books, you have enough awareness of the game's possibilities that you say, well, that was a fine idea, Kennen Gar. You know, good enough for you, old man, but I have better cooler ideas that I wanna do, and we're playing the the cool garlic terrorist game, and we don't wanna play your stupid game idea. And that would be great.

Ken Hite: 01:08:42

That means we've succeeded.

Matthew: 01:08:43

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I did want to get into the weeds about how you and Gar actually work together, but we've run out of time for for this episode, I think. So we're gonna have to call you back again at some point, maybe using the, Dracula dossier as as that. For

Dave: 01:09:08

doing that. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. How

Ken Hite: 01:09:13

dare we how dare we face the very real risk of self promotion again.

Dave: 01:09:18

So we'll see see you next week then, guys.

Matthew: 01:09:20

Maybe. But, Dave, did you do have you got any more questions? Because there's more

Dave: 01:09:27

terrifying There's so many questions I could ask. I know we're over time, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So talking about corporations and the fact that your player characters are kind of working within that structure, Do is is there a mechanic that kind of sees the health or the power of those corporations and how your players can impact that by how well they do their projects or how badly? Is there or is that very much sort of narratively for the GM to, to sort of to flesh out as they wish?

Gar Hanrahan: 01:10:03

Again, we're we're we're we're we're so early days. The answer is more maybe than the else.

Dave: 01:10:09

Not sure yet.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:10:10

Yeah. I mean, certainly we want to do like, mechanized corporations at some point. How much that fits to the core? I'm not quite sure yet.

Dave: 01:10:22

Yeah.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:10:22

I mean, I I of the games that, like, sort influence this, I always go back to Ribbonnegr's Underground, which I basically had, like, all these mechanics for affecting, like, you know, the state of the city and so forth. And obviously, because he's drawing on the word game where you've got these trackers for oxygen and

Dave: 01:10:40

Yeah.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:10:41

Other thing. Temperature, that's the one.

Ken Hite: 01:10:44

Right. Yeah. That's the one.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:10:47

I I would love to I I suspect there would be some mechanics in there for, like, your your corporation gets better, your corporation gets, more resources for I part of me wants to do stuff where, like, you you can make a corporation more or less ethical. You can, like, you know, improve your

Dave: 01:11:06

reputation. Yeah.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:11:07

But I'm not sure if we'd have, like, you know, mechanical sliding scales or if it'll just be the equivalent of a sort aspect where, okay, because of the last venture, you know, like, you know, one of ramifications is you've got great PR for a while and everyone loves you.

Dave: 01:11:20

Right. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Ken Hite: 01:11:21

But we do we do want to make corporate level play a possibility where people are like, well, I don't know that I want to play out, you know, the mining the moons of Saturn for ice, but we should model it. Let's do that at the corporate level. And let's each of us plays one corporation and we fight player versus player over who gets the valuable ice contract. Mhmm.

Matthew: 01:11:46

And Mhmm.

Ken Hite: 01:11:47

That should be able to be a fun game that you play a mini game, if you will. And then that would inform, you know, what happens in the more sort of conventional role playing level. I I think that going up and down in scope is another one of the great things that terraforming Mars offers as a possibility. And as Gar says, it's so early days that we're like, gosh, we hope we can fit it in. We hope we have room.

Ken Hite: 01:12:09

Mhmm. And if we don't, then we don't. But Yeah. I feel like it's, it's low hanging fruit in terms of a thing that you don't get to do a lot in other games and, therefore, is maybe something we should be focusing on a bit. This is sort of a conversation that Jar and I normally have between ourselves and then present to United Front.

Ken Hite: 01:12:27

So congratulations for exposing our early process.

Gar Hanrahan: 01:12:32

Well, you you wanted to ask how how we worked. That's that's what Yes.

Ken Hite: 01:12:35

This is how we work.

Dave: 01:12:36

We've a bit of insight

Matthew: 01:12:38

and argue out in front of the the whole world. That's the perfect way of doing And, again, before we go, is there anything else we wanna talk about? I know, Ken, you've got Trailer Cthulhu second edition coming up. When when are we gonna see a a crowd fund for that?

Ken Hite: 01:12:54

Well, the crowd fund is done. I believe you can still do the back you can still go on the backer kit page for Trail of Cthulhu second and, you know, preorder functionally. And if you can't, you can certainly preorder through the Pell Grain Press web store. And, again, it's not me. It's me and Gar.

Ken Hite: 01:13:11

Gar is very much involved in cowriting and codesigning the second edition because why if you had Gar available, why wouldn't you?

Matthew: 01:13:20

Yeah.

Ken Hite: 01:13:21

So, yeah, that's what we're doing. And then our great hope is that once we sort of have that book launched, we get to start working on the Providence setting book for that game, which will also perhaps uncoincidentally, involve generational role play. The greatest novel of the Cthulhu mythos is Charles Dexter Ward, which is literally generational horror. And if we can't do that in the Providence set source book, then we have, perhaps But

Dave: 01:13:52

can you do it? Yeah.

Ken Hite: 01:13:52

We've we've let Howard down, and we can't do that, poor guy. He's sitting there dying of malnutrition, eating beans. That's not a good look.

Matthew: 01:14:03

It's been a real pleasure having you.

Dave: 01:14:05

It has been a delight,

Gar Hanrahan: 01:14:06

guys. With

Matthew: 01:14:07

us today. So thank you very much. So, well, that was brilliant, wasn't it?

Dave: 01:14:15

That was great. That was a real pleasure. Such fun to talk to the guys. I hadn't spoken to Ken before, so that was a a delight to to meet him and and have a chance to chat to him about stuff, which is really cool. And obviously Yeah.

Matthew: 01:14:27

I haven't spoken to you before, but

Dave: 01:14:28

It's always a pleasure to talk to Gar, which is

Matthew: 01:14:30

Yeah.

Dave: 01:14:31

Great.

Matthew: 01:14:32

Yeah. I've only ever been a kind of squealing fanboy.

Dave: 01:14:37

I think you were a squealing fanboy in the interview, mate. I think I think people received

Matthew: 01:14:41

Did that come across?

Dave: 01:14:42

It did rather. Yeah. Yeah. But that but but there's nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.

Matthew: 01:14:48

You know?

Dave: 01:14:49

So yeah. And that was great. So

Matthew: 01:14:52

So has it has it solidified your desire to back the game terraforming Mars?

Dave: 01:15:03

Yeah. Probably, actually. I I I still have, I guess, some some thoughts about the way the generational play is going to work. So I I think if I was running it, I would want each kind of generation to run for longer because I would it feels to me that if you are, as a player, you're having a player character and you're only using them for three or four scenarios and you know that they're only gonna do it for that long, it kind of potentially loses some of your investment in that character. So I would

Gar Hanrahan: 01:15:36

I would probably want to

Dave: 01:15:37

see that extended so you actually really build, you know, a a bond with your with your player character. But

Matthew: 01:15:46

Okay. But then this is this this is actually going to start a little conversation here, which we weren't planning on doing. But you talked about how much you enjoy generational gaming and how that was instilled in you by Pleasure after the integration Pleasure manager. Pleasure manager, the RPG.

Dave: 01:16:08

That's a game that I'd buy.

Matthew: 01:16:10

Yeah. Pendragon.

Dave: 01:16:12

Bakker Kit, the RPG. Yes. Get in. Pendragon, because Yeah.

Matthew: 01:16:19

I can see it. I can see that's just Zine Quest, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No.

Matthew: 01:16:27

I'm I'm going off in a different no. Stick to the subject. Jones. Focus. Yeah.

Matthew: 01:16:34

You you how how the love of generational gaming came through Pep Dragon wherein I said you've played one generation. It is I mean, I I I may be mistaken. Have you actually played two generations? I can't remember, but I've played about four or five in

Dave: 01:16:49

that campaign. I I played Gawthin, who was the original character, and then his son, Gawrite.

Matthew: 01:16:55

Gawrite. Yeah.

Dave: 01:16:56

After Gawrite died. Now but I think for me, generational play isn't all about having to play five characters in fifty years or a hundred years or something. It's about the feel of what you're trying to achieve, what your object what your objective is. It's kind of a bigger it's kind of a bigger context because, you know, your game, you know that you're what you're doing is going to have an effect or an influence, you know, literally generations down the line. And if I had

Matthew: 01:17:27

if I had lost more

Dave: 01:17:28

characters, I would have had, you know, I would have played more characters from that family. If if, you know, if the lion's been killed.

Matthew: 01:17:36

On a really big thing there. You talk about, you know, the the impact and the and and the feeling of the the scale of of the game. And can well, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna push back at you a bit and say, could not playing individuals within a larger epic story for only two or three adventures create a similar feel there that do you not do are you not meant to get as invested in your characters as you are meant to get invested in the grand project?

Dave: 01:18:13

No. I think that's a fair point. I I think, yes, I I agree with that. But I I guess my my counter to that would be that that doesn't stop you getting really you shouldn't trade off getting invested in your character for getting invested in the grand project. So you should be able to do both.

Dave: 01:18:34

And I just think it just feels to me a little bit like if you're if you're just if you've rolled up a character that you really like, but you know you're only gonna play them for three or four sessions, does that change the way you as a player think about that character? Or I mean, we have to play it and try and see how it plays out.

Matthew: 01:18:51

But my just say My my initial counter argument.

Dave: 01:18:54

My initial feeling there was that that it would be good to run each of those ages for more than three or four scenarios. You could run a much longer campaign and then move on to the next age.

Matthew: 01:19:06

My other counterargument to that would be, have you got time to do that? And, I mean, real physical gaming time.

Dave: 01:19:19

Well

Matthew: 01:19:20

Maybe you maybe you wanna do two or three adventures and go alright. Let's get to the end. Let's get to Green Mars.

Dave: 01:19:26

Well, I think

Matthew: 01:19:26

it's And then we'll start again at Red Mars and and spend a bit longer.

Dave: 01:19:29

Yeah. Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. I think that's it's a it's a good it's a good question because, obviously, in our in in in my weekly group, we have been running, like a cycle.

Dave: 01:19:39

So we've got, like, five different four or five different campaigns going, and we just, like, go around a cycle once, you know, weekly. So you only actually get to play any given game kind of once a month or even slightly slightly less often than that, which for me breaks up some of the momentum. So we've been I've been playtesting Rome year zero, and the guys have all agreed, yes, let's run that for a few weeks. So we were about five or six weeks into that. And it it works much better in that you build up the momentum and you know you remember what happened last week and all the rest of it.

Dave: 01:20:12

And I think the the campaign that I was running of The Walking Dead really suffered for not having that momentum particularly. I'm not sure why that game particularly. You could probably think about that some other time. But that game really suffered from not having that kind of weekly or at least fortnightly momentum behind it. So I think a game like this would also probably suffer for not having that kind of momentum behind it, it feels to me.

Dave: 01:20:41

But but yeah. So that's a fair point. It's a fair point. But yeah, I'd that was just my kind of initial sort of gut reaction when Ken and Gar were talking about it. But obviously we need to see how it looks in the book.

Dave: 01:20:59

We need to see how it plays at the table to really to really judge judge how that works.

Matthew: 01:21:05

Cool. Well, we did promise we weren't gonna talk too much because this is already quite a long episode. But we talked too So I'm gonna cut this conversation short Yep. And move on to what are we doing next week.

Dave: 01:21:15

So you were talking about potentially talking about Coriolis the Great Dark as a play experience. Having

Matthew: 01:21:23

So I have been played.

Dave: 01:21:24

A couple of couple of sessions there, haven't you?

Matthew: 01:21:26

Oh, three. Three. We're doing what a week at the moment. It's quite it's getting quite intense.

Dave: 01:21:31

Nice.

Matthew: 01:21:31

And I we we actually, was gonna say I definitely have thoughts, but actually, I kinda feel we have thoughts as a group. And you know what? I might cobble together my thoughts and everybody else's thoughts into a, shall we call it a think piece about

Dave: 01:21:49

Well, alternatively, here's an idea. If they're available, we could have a little group discussion in the Hammam.

Matthew: 01:21:56

Oh, maybe. Let's let's discuss that.

Dave: 01:21:59

That's a possibility. Yeah. And we'll see what's see what availabilities are like.

Matthew: 01:22:04

Yeah. Although, even as even as I've heard of this, I'm seeing messages from Thomas saying, say nice things about Coriolis, the Great Dark. Challenge the status quo. So I will say this, that it is confounding my expectations of the game and possibly exceeding them. I'd say in a good Yes.

Dave: 01:22:27

Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Matthew: 01:22:30

So but we'll leave that hanging and we'll talk about that in the next episode.

Dave: 01:22:34

My my

Matthew: 01:22:34

It'll feel a bit like coming home.

Dave: 01:22:36

My well, I was just thinking exactly that. I I I'm looking forward to getting the book for the for the Great Dark, so I can actually get into it and then start sort of, you know, diving into it in the way that it dived into the original Coriolis. I was just gonna posit one other question rhetorically for now, but you can think about it. Is is the game that you're playing of the Great Dark so good because of the game or because of the GM running it?

Matthew: 01:23:05

I would argue neither. It's good because of all the players involved. So shout out to everybody, including your friend Peter, Douglas from Canada. Who else have we got? Jed.

Matthew: 01:23:19

Other people, John from Sweden, and we're missing Jed from America. It wait. Hey. Wow. This is a really international game we're running here.

Dave: 01:23:28

Is Frank playing it

Matthew: 01:23:29

as We'll put a link in the show notes, by the way, to Douglas's YouTube channel where where it's going out there on. Cool. And you can have a look at it yourself. I'm I'm not quite sure about the quality of the sound all the way through. We're having Douglas is having difficulty with some sound stuff.

Matthew: 01:23:45

And for some reason, my mic, which seems to have worked perfectly for the entire duration of recording here, occasionally cuts out when we're playing that game on Thingamy Bob. On

Dave: 01:23:57

That's that's the icons telling you to shut up, That's what it is.

Matthew: 01:24:00

Yeah. Well, yeah. Obviously, they're not telling me to shut up now. I can carry on LaCalsa.

Dave: 01:24:04

No. No. No. I'm I'm trying to

Matthew: 01:24:05

play a very

Dave: 01:24:06

polo on a Sunday.

Matthew: 01:24:07

Character who takes a bit of a background thing. She's very polite. Okay. And doesn't want to make a fuss for herself. She's a masked However, yeah, I'm thoroughly enjoying the the hints in there for fans of choreographers of Third Horizon, which I won't spoil for you here or for anybody else.

Matthew: 01:24:27

But there's some nice Coriolis, Third Horizon stuff in it. Cool. So yeah. Yeah. It's yeah.

Matthew: 01:24:33

Let's talk about that next week. Either just me or a gang. We'll we'll discuss with you.

Dave: 01:24:39

We'll work work it out.

Matthew: 01:24:40

Yeah. Get a recording in.

Dave: 01:24:42

Cool. Oh, good stuff. Well, in that case, it's goodbye from me.

Matthew: 01:24:48

And it's goodbye from him.

Ken Hite: 01:24:49

May the icons bless your adventures.

Dave: 01:24:53

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.