Happy happy joy joy
Hello, and welcome to episode 259 of Effect, Happy Happy Joy Joy. I'm Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. And what what's all that title about? Happy Happy Joy Joy?
Matthew:You never saw Ren and Stimpy when you were a young man?
Dave:No. I never saw Ren and Stimpy.
Matthew:That is literally the best cartoon there has ever been.
Dave:Oh, yeah. Even better than Scooby Doo. Original Scooby Doo. Even better than
Matthew:original Scooby Oh, wow.
Dave:Was Must be good.
Matthew:It it was it's a it is the platonic ideal of of Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo.
Dave:Right. Okay.
Matthew:Now you're making me now you're making me talk about it. I just have to say my favorite episode is the one where I can't remember whether it's Ren or Stimpy gets pregnant, which, you know, given they're two broadly speaking male characters, I'm not sure whether it's defined or not.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:And there are whole question marks on, you know, how this creature got pregnant. I think he's a chihuahua. I mean, you
Dave:can I was gonna say, they are they are they chipmunks or whatever? Or they're they're little they're little dogs?
Matthew:I think they're dogs of a sort. Yeah. I never questioned it too deeply.
Dave:Okay. Keep talking because I'm you're gonna have to look this up.
Matthew:Yeah. You should. You should. And then and then Stimpy gave birth, it turned out not to be a baby at all, but an enormous fart, which they christened Stinky, and he became a reoccurring character.
Dave:Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So they they look like a nice pair of characters, don't they?
Matthew:They are lovely. Yeah. There we go. Ren and Stinky for you.
Dave:So so which one is the it a chihuahua or the little doggy thing? Is that
Matthew:Ren or The thin one that looks more like a chihuahua than the big fat one that looks more like a bulldog. I would guess.
Dave:Oh, do you know which is which?
Matthew:I think that's Stimpy. I think Ren is the big boy. It's a long time since I've watched
Dave:them. Okay.
Matthew:And they used to have a song, which was happy happy joy joy.
Dave:Right. Okay. To get back to the original point of what you okay. Anyway And
Matthew:just to say that, that's because you're gonna do an essay on keeping your players happy.
Dave:That is that is very true. That is very true. Which brings us very, very what a neat little segue that was. Our listeners are just going, oh, these guys are getting really professional now. To yeah.
Dave:To what we have in the show for you today. So we have a couple of new patrons to welcome, which is always fabulous. Love love doing that. World of gaming, as always, there's a few things there. A little bit of very good news for us, which we'll come to, which is cool.
Dave:Exciting. And then you've already mentioned it. You've already foreshadowed the main part of the show. We've had our last weekend, a fabulous weekend at UK Games Expo, where I was lucky enough, as I have been for the last few years, to be invited to run a seminar. This time it was about RPG writing and design, how to make your players happy.
Dave:So we thought I could just put my notes from that seminar and some of the comments that came up into an essay just to share my thoughts on that topic. And that's the essay we've for you later on.
Matthew:So we've got two new patrons to talk about. So thank you and welcome to. Now here's the thing, actually. I'm gonna I'm gonna defer to you on the first one because of your Swedish wife. Now this is a title, isn't it?
Matthew:This was a a rank Husqal. Yeah. Husqal.
Dave:Oh, like the house house yard.
Matthew:Yeah. Houseqal, isn't It's like a within, you know, high ranking servant of the local lord sort of thing. Right. So Husqal, welcome and and thank you to Yes. Yep.
Matthew:Thank you. To you. And also, get on the Discord, the nicest place on the Internet. And we're gonna say the same thing to Tobias Valston.
Dave:Yeah. Excellent. Welcome, Tobias. And again, as you said, get on the Discord, nicest place on the Internet. Lovely group of folks there doing lots of lovely things and being friendly and and lovely.
Matthew:And thank you for your support and for the support of all our patrons. We couldn't do this without you.
Dave:No. Indeed.
Matthew:By this, I mean the podcast.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. There's not something weird going on. We couldn't do this. We're not showing to you what we're doing, but we couldn't do it if no.
Dave:That's creepy and weird, that is.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Stop stop that.
Dave:Right. Let's let's crack on with the world of gaming then. So the big thing that happened in the last two weeks, UK Games Expo. How was it for you?
Matthew:Oh, well, yeah. We we didn't see much of each other actually during the UK Games Expo. So you you said earlier on that you obviously did this this essay later on in the episode comes from the seminar you did. Yes. And we did have an idea about recording that seminar.
Matthew:I took a little recording equipment, but there was no way that I was going to be able to spend enough time with you to, you know, teach you how to use it and and then record the seminar. That was that was nowhere near the agenda.
Dave:Yeah. It it never even became a thing over the weekend. No. We were far too busy. Yeah.
Matthew:Absolutely. It was a busy it was a busy time. And part of the reason why it was a busy time is we were running two stalls.
Dave:We were.
Matthew:You did very ably managing the Freeling Freeling stand. I'm I I I think, young Padawan, that you're possibly ready to Fuck off, you twat.
Dave:So the store did. So the so the free
Matthew:league like £200 short on cash or something.
Dave:100. 1 hundred. So the the the free league stall ran perfectly well without Matthew. The only problem is everyone trying to make sense of the roster that Matthew had done, which, you know, was all a bit bonkers at times. But we had a record breaking weekend for free league.
Dave:So we had the the best Friday, the best Saturday, and the best Sunday we've had at UK Games Exhibits. That was brilliant. Really good. Really good fun. The team was superb.
Dave:Lots of nepotism because it's made up almost entirely of your family and my family. Yeah.
Matthew:And Neil.
Dave:With the exception of box boy Neil, who did a fabulous job joining the group. We had a great time. It was really good. It was really busy, and and we sold lots of stuff. I mean, it was we had a lot of people come up asking, where's Alien?
Dave:Because Mhmm. Free Leak stock of Alien first edition is no more at the moment. Certainly not in The UK and The US. So we didn't weren't able to take any, but we could have sold loads actually if we'd still had it, despite the fact that the Alien Evolved edition is, you know, in production, is in the process of fulfilment as we speak. But yeah, we'd had a great weekend.
Dave:It was it was good. So I I split my time well, spent most of my sort of working time on the Free League stand, but I spent a little bit of time on this news stand that was previewing at UK Games Expo for the first time. And what might that have been?
Matthew:That stand was the effect publishing stand where I spent most of my time. And it was great. Can I just say it was great? We had people coming up to long term listeners of the of the podcast to just say, you know, they're fans of the podcast, and we were able to give, you know, free stuff to them. We also had people who, of course, had backed the game.
Matthew:But we had loads of people who hadn't backed the game, but wanted to buy the game. So
Dave:Which was cool.
Matthew:We had no idea what success was going to be because, you know, a single product line well, we've got, you know, we've got two versions of the book and we got dice trays
Dave:and dice Three or four bits of peripheral stuff.
Matthew:Yeah. But it's all it's all one line, effectively. And we literally, I mean, we we each plucked a figure out of the air. I think I said, oh, if I sell 50 books, I'll be happy. And you said if we sell 60 books, I'll be happy.
Matthew:And and sadly, we were both wrong because we sold 67 books.
Dave:Well, not sadly we were both wrong. I mean, delighted. Like you said, I had
Matthew:I always like to actually beat I I prefer it if we were closer to 50 so that I could be right and you could be wrong, Dave.
Dave:Well, I I prefer that we were both wrong and we massively oversold on what our were. So because then because then we because then we make more money and the game gets out into more people's hands, which is brilliant. I had a really interesting point I was gonna mention then till you cut me off, but I forgot what it was now.
Matthew:Well, it kinda been that interesting, otherwise you'd remember. So the other the other thing I've just got to say is so as you've already said, we employed my two children at your stall. I mean, they're they're not children. We're we're not into child labor here. They they're
Dave:very Yeah.
Matthew:Osprey. And my wife was on her way to Wales. So on Friday, she came up, joined us, which is useful for the stall because some of the things that I'd ordered for the stall hadn't actually been delivered
Dave:Yes. At home Yeah.
Matthew:Before I needed to leave. So she bought those up and
Dave:That was cool. Yeah.
Matthew:She spent the day with with me mostly on on on our stalls. So I never, in a million years, in my whole life, even thought there might be a probability that my whole family would be working at US UK Yeah. And and there there we all were working in UK Games Expo. And Sue's not a gamer. You know?
Matthew:I mean, not like us anyway. And I wasn't sure how she'd enjoy it, but I think she enjoyed it. She she's even said
Dave:She seemed to have a good really good time in the end, didn't she, I think?
Matthew:Nervously. She said, might do that again. Oh, cool. Cool. I don't know whether she but three days.
Matthew:I gotta say, you know, we set up on on a Thursday, and then there's three days of hard sell, and then there's disbandling. I was knackered on
Dave:that day. It's a it's a challenging weekend, isn't it? For even for, you know, for for youngsters who've got lots of energy. But for old old lags like us, it becomes yeah. It's something that you need a few days to recover from.
Dave:But no, so I mean, just going back to the to the to the point of of kinda how well we did. We we had no yardstick by which to judge what would be a good con convention or not. But by whatever measure you want, we did brilliantly. I mean, I'm delighted with with how well we did. And one of the other things you you're absolutely right.
Dave:We yeah. One of the other things I love about UK Games Expo and other conventions is all of our lovely friends and listeners and and others all come up, and we get to see them all, and it's a real joy. It's a real pleasure. It's the it's the highlight of the whole thing. But there was one guy who came up, who's an American, and he didn't buy anything, but I think he backed the book on the Kickstarter.
Dave:And he came over just to say thank you to us for clearly putting in a huge amount of effort into research, into getting the history right, into reflecting things in the right kind of way. And it was lovely. He just came over to say thank you for the effort that we'd put into the book. That he could recognise how much effort we put into the book through looking, you know, through reading it. And that was really nice, and that was all cut in like a heartwarming moment, because we did put a lot of effort into that book, it's lovely to see it being recognised by other people.
Dave:I did have one person, who was also an American, say to me, have you been to any of these places? So I had to admit, no. I've been to Texas, but that's as far west as I've gone in The US. So, yeah. But it was great.
Dave:It was fabulous. I had a really good time.
Matthew:Yeah. It was good. And, you know, just calling out some of some of the people that came up. Remi Fayumi, who Yes. We interviewed
Dave:At Dragon League.
Matthew:Right in the early days of Yeah. Yeah. The Coriolis effect Yeah. Came up. He he not only he'd he'd obviously already backed the book.
Matthew:So so he came up just to say hi and well done. But then he came back come on, or twice. But he bought it you know, he sold the book effectively to other friends, and he came back to buy it on their behalf. That was that was really good. Who else did we have?
Matthew:We had Big Daddy Fat, of course, to give him his
Dave:his scores there
Matthew:who came to see us.
Dave:Soul came along. Yeah. Oh, was too many to mention. Phil. We saw Phil and Erin, which was cool.
Dave:I mean, could spend all day listing people's names, but it was, yeah, it was delight to see everybody.
Matthew:Yeah. Just thank you everybody for making us feel so welcome. Yeah. So
Dave:it wasn't just For making the book. Yes, absolutely. I mean, so it wasn't just us working on the stalls. So I had my seminar, which is great. Mhmm.
Dave:Had Steve Jackson from Steve Jackson Games join me again, which is awesome. But, obviously, you'll hear more about that later, so I won't I won't bang on about that. You, for the second year running, emceed the the Dragonbane tournament, didn't you? How did that go?
Matthew:Yeah. That went very well. I've gotta say, we we we were moved from the Tootsuite because we didn't have quite as many tables this time to to one of the rooms, function rooms in the Hilton. And that meant because Millie is queen of the toot suite that we didn't get Millie helping us out with the thing. And, oh, Millie, I miss you so much.
Matthew:Working with you last year was brilliant.
Dave:She does she does know how to organize stuff, doesn't she? Yeah. That one thing we could say about Millie for sure.
Matthew:Yeah. I I was running around a lot more in in in this version. I did because Billy wasn't there, but we had a whale of a time. We the the adventure is coming out on free RPG day. It'll be available for everybody It's a fun adventure.
Matthew:It's a bit old school. What's it called?
Dave:This one?
Matthew:Oh, then now you've got me just out of my head. Let me talk about it some more while
Dave:I Yeah. Yeah. No worries.
Matthew:Look it up. So it is do you remember back in the day when we used to play quite a lot of D and D and and fantasy games at school, the DMs would set us fiendish puzzles Yeah. To solve in various ways. Not necessarily traps, you know, here's a challenge for you. Here's a code.
Matthew:Here's something you gotta work out. Yeah. Now part of me thinks as a role player, those we all enjoy doing those puzzles. But within the context of role playing, it's a bit of a thing that you know, if I'm playing an idiot barbarian that couldn't solve a puzzle, you know, to save his life, and yet me, Matthew, I like
Dave:doing Yeah.
Matthew:I'm not really role playing, am I?
Dave:No.
Matthew:And ideally, part of me goes, well, really, when there's a puzzle there, you should be rolling against your intelligence or whatever to see if you can work out how to do it. But it's just fun
Dave:and And the other way as well, obviously, if you're playing a character that should be solving these puzzles in their sleep, but like me, you know, it it depends totally whether
Matthew:You lack the sort of spatial awareness or whatever
Dave:in the mood to bother. Because it's like, yeah, I I can solve puzzles, but I've really got to be in the mood to do them. And if I'm not in the mood, there's no way I'm gonna get my brain thinking about it. But yeah.
Matthew:So it it was that sort of thing, basically, is Yeah. Is is is the adventure. But everybody had a well of a time. And I remember Bruce. So a shout out to Bruce, one of our patrons.
Matthew:Of his table of four or five players, The vast majority had never actually sat down to play a role playing game at all.
Dave:Okay. One of them had That was their first experience. Oh, that's cool.
Matthew:Yeah. That was cool. But they had a whale of a time. They didn't win. Mhmm.
Matthew:But they had a whale of a time. We had the second place team from last year came back. So, you know, they Yep. They enjoyed it so much last year, they came back
Dave:so much again
Matthew:this time. They didn't win either, actually. They didn't do as well as they did last year. We had one team, though. So it it was it's still time based.
Matthew:You still gotta compete it in two hours. There's unlike the Sinking Tower, there's oh god. What am I saying? There's a there is there is a time challenge, but there's there's nothing like the the tower actually disappearing after two hours. Right.
Matthew:Oh god. I'm trying to remember the name of this game. Gone out of my head entirely. I can't find it.
Dave:Never mind. Never mind.
Matthew:We'll put it in the show notes, boys and
Dave:girls, afterwards. Find it eventually. Yeah.
Matthew:Something like the Magus the Magus Anyway, they they had to swap various bits and pieces in to make sure that their their patron won a game that was then played at the end of the two hours. Right. And so but also had to try and do it without anybody noticing. So you had points for doing the things, the various things that had to be swapped out so that so that your your client could cheat at the game effectively.
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:Yep. But you also had points deducted for how much noise you made and how,
Dave:you know, how much attention
Matthew:you got from onion Yeah. People. And so it ended up with people scoring quite well in the first half, but then by the end of it, they'd made so much noise that they were down they were down to four points. I think it was the lowest
Dave:score.
Matthew:But there was one team that did everything and didn't make any noise. It got maximum points.
Dave:Okay. Cool.
Matthew:And they, of course, they won.
Dave:Won won the day. Nice.
Matthew:Yeah. And then there's a lovely little thing at the end. So after you've scored it up and people have won their prizes, depending on the amount of points they got, that was the chance of their patron winning the game. So you rolled a d 20, and I think the best chance you get was 16 if you'd done everything perfectly. And it was fun seeing which table actually did achieve their objective after
Dave:I like that. That's nice. Yeah. That's cool.
Matthew:So that's fun. And as I say, whatever game it is, it's coming out on free RPG day. And there'll be a link in the show notes as to what it is. I can't find I can't find the title of it now. And it was great fun.
Matthew:Yeah. Nice. Oh, the other thing we did on the Friday, we stood in for Free League, didn't we? Oh, yes.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:On the on tabletop sort of livestream that goes on throughout the day.
Dave:Yeah. At the main stage. Yep.
Matthew:I'll try and put a timed link in the show notes if you want to watch this on YouTube. But, yeah, we did a sort of half hour interview with them just talking about Corviollus, the great dark, which we had. What else did we talk about? Oh, the upcoming alien.
Dave:Alien, Dragonbane, and
Matthew:The Dragonbane Kickstarter, of course, was starting the week after.
Dave:And And and with Thomas's express permission Yeah. We talked about the the Free League license Tales of the Old
Matthew:Free tabletop license.
Dave:As a product of that license. So that was great. It gave us the opportunity to to pitch Tales of the Old West as well. So that was really cool.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So, yeah, we had a whale of a time. We had a lovely meal.
Matthew:On the Saturday night, we went back to the hotel pretty shattered, the whole team
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And had a a great meal, actually.
Dave:Very relaxed.
Matthew:Very relaxed. Yeah. The other two meals we'd had were in the resort. And
Dave:it's This
Matthew:year, more than any other year, I felt that the noise of the hall was still going on in the restaurants. And I really wanted to have a quiet meal. But we got Yeah.
Dave:I always feel that there. I mean, it's it's it's, you know, can't really relax till you get back to the hotel and so because obviously driving and stuff. The first meal was better. The one at the Japanese restaurant was was nice. Didn't enjoy the meal at the Laguna's place so much.
Matthew:Las Iguanas.
Dave:Yeah, Las Iguanas. That's it. Yeah. But yeah. Anyway, that's probably enough on UK Games Expo.
Dave:We've talked about that for about fifteen minutes now. There are other things going on in the world of gaming, not just us blathering on about conventions we've been to.
Matthew:Yeah. Or I'm going to go to. Spoiler.
Dave:But
Matthew:So what else?
Dave:Blade Runner. Blade Runner Replicant rebellion. Free League issued an update earlier this week on that, which I think is is has disappointed some people. So that update is effectively calling out that they are that their delays production are continuing. They are trying to be open about that as far as they can, but they couldn't go into too much detail.
Dave:Some people have been, I guess, understandably disappointed because I think it's it's a couple of months late anyway already now, and what they would hope on the you know, on their aspirational delivery date. But, you know, but these things happen. I mean, there's there's speculation about it could be something I mean, we've got no inside knowledge here, so this is speculation. We don't know. Know.
Dave:But it could be, you know, possibly something to do about the IP and the license and and getting that cleared. And obviously Yeah. Free League aren't going to give a running commentary on discussions they might be having with their license holders. That's inappropriate, obviously. But if that is somewhere where there's a holdup, and I think often there can be, they might not be able to come out and say it's the licensor's fault.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, and would would they want to? You know?
Dave:No. Exactly. Even if
Matthew:it is the licensor's fault, you know, they've got a very delicate relationship with somebody that could just snatch the license away. And I am always reminded, and I like to remind gamers of what happened when Disney took over Marvel Comics Comics and Margaret Weiss Productions for no fault or anything. It's just that Disney decided they weren't interested in Margaret Weiss having their Marvel heroic role playing game. And they just had to they had a fire sale of everything that was in stock and that was it. They didn't have it anymore.
Matthew:And market wise productions didn't survive. Know, licensors have got a great deal of power and it must also be remembered, role playing games aren't top of the licensor's
Dave:agenda. Priorities. No. Exactly.
Matthew:Yeah. So so there in terms of income, compared to, I, you know, I don't know, maybe a Blade Runner lunchbox that they're gonna sell millions of in America. There's a lot more work and craft that goes into a role playing game than a Blade Runner lunchbox, but probably the whoever does the checking the artwork and all that sort of stuff and approvals can you know, they will focus on the lunchbox way before they get to the the role playing game.
Dave:Yeah. And and and and we're speculating. It might not even be anything to do with the license. There might be other things going on. Yeah.
Dave:I think I think, you know, some some of the responses I've read from from backers who are disappointed, I think are a little bit unfair and a little bit dramatic, perhaps. I mean, people need to remember that Kickstarter isn't a shop.
Matthew:Yeah. That's I think a lot a preorder.
Dave:And I think people have a lot of people perhaps now that Kickstarter is so well established, maybe have forgotten that. So I mean, for us, I whenever I kick, whenever I back something on Kickstarter, you know, I then put that in, you know, the back of my mind and think, well, it'll arrive when it arrives. Some things still haven't arrived. You know, Weston as a good good example for for for the reasons that we've discussed before. But I'm not upset with Oscar Galen or Anders or or any of the people involved in that because of the circumstances.
Dave:And actually a couple of years ago, I'd written it off entirely and thought, okay, well that's not coming. And the fact that it is now gonna arrive one day is great. But there's there's there's no there's no value in me going online and giving them a hard time over it. No. When actually, as I said, it's not a shock.
Dave:It's not like you buy something and you've got a contract and it's gonna arrive, or you get it the next day or whatever. So you have to be a little bit, I think, what's the word? Not apologetic's the wrong word, but it's it's a little bit sympathetic towards the towards the challenges that that, you know, we are now more aware of having done a Kickstarter once. Yeah. The challenges that come
Matthew:in trying
Dave:to trying to deliver
Matthew:We have let the side down somewhat in that key. By delivering on time or even some people might say early, you know, we're raising expectations for
Dave:Well, yeah.
Matthew:For everybody for all the other products out there. Well, if if Fett can do it on time, then why can't you? Well, it yeah.
Dave:Ours was quite a small one.
Matthew:Yeah. You
Dave:Blade Runner and and
Matthew:And there were some lucky things. I mean, obviously, we planned it incredibly well, didn't we, Dave? But also,
Dave:you know I think did plan it quite well, actually.
Matthew:The book got printed remarkably quickly.
Dave:Well, much more
Matthew:That was brilliant.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, actually, of the key things that I helped to deliver quickly was we'd done an awful lot of the work in advance. Even though there was a lot of work left to do, we've done a lot of the heavy lifting. Secondly, Mayor Culper, I made a decision in the middle of the fulfilment which basically delayed us by a month. So we won't make that decision again in future and then so actually we could have delivered it even earlier if if I'd if I hadn't made that decision.
Dave:So Yeah. That's fine.
Matthew:But That's okay. That's okay. I will draw you over the coals over that decision for many years to come. I will go, well, you know, you have a good opinion there, Dave. But do you remember that time you got it wrong over that first Kickstarter?
Dave:Well, all I wanted to do is make sure we delivered in May. I didn't wanna deliver in April, you know, come on. But yes. So so anyway, so so Blade Runner Replicant Rebellion is is still coming. It's not being canceled or anything.
Dave:It's obviously suffering some some some problems and difficulties that that they're working through. But yes, so so you know, please be patient if you've backed it. It'll it'll be on your doorstep, and it'll probably be better for having taken a little bit more time to get there.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And we've got some actual games that not related to well, only only tangentially related to Free League. I suddenly remember you were selling this on the stool.
Dave:We we were.
Matthew:And I kind of wish I yeah. So one of the things I wanted to say is Outgunned Action Flicks two is out. It comes from two little mice, the lovely company in Italy, but obviously they're doing a co publishing on outcome material with Free League. So you can get it from Free League too. It'll be distributed via Free League's channels.
Matthew:So this is a whole bunch of different settings and things that you can play Outgunned or Outgunned Adventures in. And it caught my eye, and I kinda wish I picked a copy up actually when I was at UK Games Expo, particularly because I could've gotten staff discount with with Free League. But Mhmm. It's got a Western setting in it, and I just that that just caught my eye. So you don't like our western setting, and how dare you if you don't like our Western setting?
Matthew:There is an alternative. And I I I have no idea whether it's a slightly weird West 1 or whether it's a straight West 1, but I wanted to take a check on it when I read about it, sadly, after UK Gamesets played.
Dave:Yeah. I didn't look at it in any detail. I've a feeling it's a bit weird, West. There's something about it, but
Matthew:I wouldn't be surprised.
Dave:I didn't I didn't look at it in in great detail. Yeah.
Matthew:But I'm Because as you sorry.
Dave:I was just gonna say, I mean, Outgunned looks like a lovely game. Haven't played it played it. The dice mechanic is is is, you know, d six dice ball. It's a familiar it's a familiar dice mechanic. Yeah.
Dave:I mean, I when I first saw it, I was like, well, this is the game I'm probably not gonna play. But but having having looked at it in a bit more detail, then yeah. I mean, it's it's a lovely little product as well.
Matthew:Yeah. It's the new Feng Shui for me. I was disappointed by Feng Shui two. And this would be if I were doing Yeah. That sort of game again, that's what I'd be playing.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Sorry. You were gonna say something.
Matthew:I was gonna say, talking of Western and weird West, High Noon At Midnight is out from Monte Cook Games. Yep. And that's a very weird weird West. So I just wanted to say that. It uses the Cypher system.
Dave:Cypher. Yeah.
Matthew:I haven't got much more to say about it. But if you don't if you really don't like our straight west, our non weird West, then then check out High Noon at Midnight. Because it will look lovely, I'm sure.
Dave:It it does look really nice. It's yeah. High Noon at Midnight is a sci fi game set in an uncanny world of six shooters wanted posted card games in smoke shrouded saloons and showdowns at high noon, and this is where it goes wrong for me, all tainted by magic, horror, and even advanced tech.
Matthew:So Tainted is the word.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So stick with good old tales of the Old West, and you'll you won't go far wrong, would be my advice.
Matthew:You won't be tainted.
Dave:Would be my advice.
Matthew:There is no
Dave:change in tales of unbiased, nonpartisan advice.
Matthew:Right. Shall we come on to our exciting news?
Dave:Yeah. Let's do that. Go on then.
Matthew:You want me to say? We are going. We've we've we've been invited, nonetheless, to spell Congress twenty five in Stockholm. So we are coming Swedish fans of the Effet podcast, we are coming to you in Sweden, and we're very excited.
Dave:We are very excited. So that's October 17.
Matthew:The eighteenth.
Dave:Eighteenth. Nineteenth is the weekend.
Matthew:I think it's only a one day event.
Dave:It is only a one
Matthew:day But
Dave:On my calendar, it's the three days because obviously we've got to get there and get back.
Matthew:Yes.
Dave:But but, yeah, so that was fabulous. So we got the invite earlier this week. We'd we'd sort of jokingly mentioned last year, and we did sort of
Matthew:jokingly say We have dropped about a million hints. Yes. I
Dave:know. But we're kind of joking, really. That, oh, woah. Where was our invite? Come on.
Dave:UK end and all that. But not no. I hope they didn't take it as being a bit itchy because that wasn't the intention at all.
Matthew:It was it was a good natured. Every every single Swede we spoke to even rudimentally connected with with with Fruity. Kept saying, you know?
Dave:Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. That is true.
Dave:We yeah. It was a bit of a campaign of yeah.
Matthew:We brought them down eventually, though.
Dave:So yeah. They they've they've invited us along, which is really nice of them. So really looking forward to that. That's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, that was was cool.
Dave:Wasn't wasn't expecting it, frankly. Yeah. But, yeah, brilliant. Can't wait.
Matthew:I had put it in my diary just in case it might have happened though. So I when I got the invite, could say with confidence, yeah. I'm free that weekend. And in fact, we did Dave, you and I had a table game with our local group planned for that weekend. Yeah.
Matthew:But even from from the first day we suggested that day, said to a little message to you saying, remember that spell congress?
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, well, yeah, that's nice. Nice to nice to note, but won't actually have any bearing on us.
Dave:So but yeah. So that's brilliant. It'd be fabulous to go and see everyone, and obviously, everybody else who should be coming to Spar Congress, it's gonna be it's gonna be a great day, I think. Really looking forward to it.
Matthew:We will link to the Spar Congress website. It's it's part of the Free League website because they run it, obviously. It's in Swedish. So it says that tickets are coming soon Yes. In my limited Swedish.
Dave:It does.
Matthew:But there'll be a link in the show notes. And if you're Swedish and you can make it to Spell Congress, we'd love to see you there.
Dave:We would. Cool.
Matthew:Right. What are we gonna talk about next, Dave?
Dave:So did I'm I'm assuming that this is is there anything we wanted to say about Tales of the Old West?
Matthew:No. No. You'll notice for the the first time in months I know. There is
Dave:I know.
Matthew:There is no news about Tales of the Old West. No. Didn't say last time.
Dave:No. True. It's interesting though, actually, because it's still very much front of century in my head because I'm I'm busy beavering away preparing the next supplement. So I've done a lot of work on maps and things. But yeah.
Dave:Okay. We haven't got it as a listed item, so I will leave it there.
Matthew:I will say now now you brought it up though, I will say that yesterday, we finished off the adventure that we started a couple of weeks ago at this table. And I said to you, the problem with any other game right now is I'd rather be playing Turf of the Unblessed.
Dave:Yeah. I know. It's it's yeah. And that and and, you know, I've it's it it could sound big headed and, like, oh, it's the best game out there. It's mine kind of thing.
Dave:But, genuinely, not in that in that tone at all. No. But, again, I I said to you, I mean, I'm just loving playing it. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Both as a GM and as a player.
Matthew:One might imagine being immersed in it for six years that now it's out of the door would breathe a sigh of relief and think, oh, we don't have to think about it again. But but No.
Dave:No. Not at all. It was funny yesterday, and this happened the week the the time before as well. Now everyone's got the book. As soon as there's a kind of question mark over a rule, the books get whipped out, and everyone's right.
Dave:Let's check
Matthew:the rule. Check the rule, which
Dave:is very irritating as a GM. But everyone's now got the rule book. But yeah. No. Great fun.
Dave:Great fun. And I'm really enjoying putting together the the material for for the gold country, the next the next installment. Yeah. Coming soon.
Matthew:Coming soon. Now it's time for your seminar or rather your essay based on your seminar, Dave.
Dave:Yep. Cool. For the fifth year running, I was delighted to have the opportunity to host a seminar at UK Games Expo. And for the second year running, I was delighted to have Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games join me. As always, the session was made by the folks who came along and got involved, offered their perspectives, comments, and questions.
Dave:So thank you to all who joined me. The title of this year's seminar was RPG Writing and Design, How to Make Your Players Happy. I always go into the seminar with speaking notes, but let the conversation on the day dictate what we cover. On this occasion, we didn't cover most of the notes I'd made as time flew as it always does when you're having fun. So let's take a look at what I was going to say.
Dave:What is a happy player? Who knows? Players are all different and want different things. If you're a GM, you'd know or usually know your players better than anyone unless you're at a convention game. So often you will know what makes your players happy.
Dave:But in general a happy player is one who is excited, tense and thrilled during a game, Satisfied and fulfilled at the end of a session? Relieved they survived perhaps or achieved the objective? Someone who genuinely cares about their player character? Someone who cares about their buddies. One who sheds a tear when their PC dies.
Dave:Maybe one who sheds a tear when a buddy dies. Those who care about the world or something in that world. And those who come back for more. That's all well and good, but you'll have a better chance of having happy players if you run the kind of games they're interested in playing. Pretty obvious.
Dave:I get that. As an aside, some of the things we'll cover later on are generalisms. Things that you can do or apply to any game that will maximize your chances of keeping your players happy regardless of whether the game style is one that player would generally favor. But more on that are none. So it's pretty obvious that the type of game you plan to run, write or create will dictate the philosophy and the approach of that game, and your players preferences will strongly influence whether your players will enjoy that kind of game.
Dave:So horror from light hearted horror to cosmic horror all the way up to body horror. Action from pulp action to action and adventure all the way to simulationist. Investigations from light investigative to general to police or spy procedural. Science fiction One end you've got space opera through light science fiction to the hard science sci fi. Fantasy from high fantasy to specific fantasy to historical fantasy.
Dave:And historical from very similitudinous to hand waving history to fantastical history. There are four areas I'm going to mention and I've called them the following. Player first, the strength of the story, the strength of the game, and you as the writer, designer, and or GM. Player first. The first thing I'd say here is give your players the freedom of choice in a variety of ways.
Dave:In the story, give them the latitude to make choices that change the direction of that story and choices that have consequences. There's always a question of sandbox versus railroading. My preference is to offer a sandbox to my players, but this requires a greater degree of improvisation than some GMs may be comfortable with. But if you have to railroad your story for a convention game for example, try to offer various options to go from a to b to c so your players have the illusion of choice even if they will all end up at the same place anyway. Offer them choice in how to tackle an obstacle or objective.
Dave:Present it and maybe have some solutions in mind but let the players get imaginative. Offer them choice in how to defeat a nemesis. And also if you are designing mechanics, offer choice in how to use those mechanics. The push mechanic for example. Next it's important for your player to be invested in their player character.
Dave:Make sure your players have characters they care about. Ones with hopes and aspirations and something to work towards and fight for. This might include ownership of an important location, an item, a reputation they'd die to protect, or a person they care about more than themselves. This then becomes a character that they would be upset to lose and enables you as GM to play out stories that carry a genuine threat of them losing something important or even their lives. This also allows you to craft stories that play directly into those aspirations and dreams, the things the player character holds dear, things that will be invested in chasing down and exploring.
Dave:And always remember, a good player character death is never forgotten and forever retold. But beyond their player character, player investment in and ownership of aspects of the world is really important. You can help gain this investment through good descriptions and maps, as well as little details that reflect the culture, society, and lived experience of that world. Another great way to get players involved and invested is to give them moral or ethical conundrums to grapple with. They foster lively and memorable debate amongst the players, and often leave them pondering if they made the right choice after all.
Dave:Finally in this section, you should also foster player character bonds to build a cohesive group with common goals and a common history. A great way to do this is to use group concepts that are used as part of your session zero and bake that cohesive backstory right into the campaign from the start. This doesn't mean you can't have rivalries and conflicts within the group and sometimes they may turn violent. But there is still one common goal that should usually draw the players together. Another important thing is the strength of the story itself.
Dave:Create imaginative stories. Read books, history and politics magazines, newspapers, and watch the news for inspiration. A story doesn't have to be complicated to be powerful. Too complicated and the players may lose the thread. And sometimes the simplest tales are the most memorable.
Dave:Make the story varied and either target the action to what your players most enjoy or mix it up, merging investigations, subterfuge, conflict, persuasion, and so on, all into one story. Also, it's important to offer different ways to succeed. Some players may enjoy succeeding through fighting through all the enemies while others would like to use their cunning and their intelligence to get to the same outcome. Maintain narrative consistency. This is my biggest bugbear as a player and something I'm very particular about as a writer.
Dave:Adventures can be ruined by plot or world inconsistency, so make sure your work makes sense. Throw in plot twists or flip your player's expectations. Examples The relative needing rescuing who turns out to be a killer rather than a victim. The weak character who has a special ace up their sleeve. Or the nemesis whose motivations have some moral validity and isn't just the evil boss waiting to be killed.
Dave:Throw in recurring non player characters to build familiarity with the world, The friend who can help once again, or perhaps is in dire danger and now needs your help. The nemesis who keeps coming back for more. Or the nemesis who through circumstances becomes an ally. Finally, make your non player characters real and make them behave as if they are player characters, for in their story they are player characters. They have their own objectives and motivations and should react according to those things.
Dave:They don't have to fight to the death at every opportunity. The strength of the game. If you are designing mechanics, to bring out the world in the mechanics of the game. If it's a dark and bitter world make the mechanics reflect that. Maybe success is harder to come by but more richly celebrated.
Dave:If it's a light pulpy setting then a mechanic that favors success might be favorable. But be wary of complex dice mechanics. They can work and Star Wars Edge of the Empire is an example where once you get the hang of it it does work, but sometimes I find they can just get in the way of the game for no good reason. And bring out the world in the culture of the game, particularly if you can have mechanics that reward role playing that culture. The particular example which you all know is coming is the prayer mechanic in Coriolis.
Dave:And then you as the writer, designer, and the GM. The key thing for me here is don't forget you're a player too. So make stories you would love to play. Make games or settings that you would love to play in, and set up scenes for your players that would excite you. If you do that, and make a world that you'd be happy to play, then your players are likely to be happy too.
Dave:The last thing I'll mention before I wrap up is player character failure. It's great! Many games now recognize the value of a good screw up, where the player characters fail to achieve their objective in some spectacular way. But it feels to me that many games, and perhaps many players, still look a bit askance at failure. As if you can't enjoy the game if you ultimately fail at the last.
Dave:How wrong can they be? Failure is a brilliant driver for future stories, bringing genuinely unpredictable outcomes, leaving open a variety of ways for the player characters to make good. Failure will often result in a big challenge that ups the ante. And if it doesn't, well, you remember me talking about a good death, don't you?
Matthew:Well I'm sorry no I'm not sorry I missed the essay because I was at the seminar because I was at dragon meat
Dave:Hang on hang let's say that again.
Matthew:You
Dave:said you said, I'm not sorry I missed the essay because I was at Dragonmeat. Now none of that sentence makes any sense.
Matthew:No. No. Let me start that again. I
Dave:am McFly.
Matthew:I was about to say I was sorry. I missed the seminar, then I realized it wasn't true because I was having great fun running the Dragonbane tournament. However, the question I would have asked at that seminar had I been in your audience is, but Dave, we came here because you're a professional writer. You've written a bunch of adventures to all sorts of publishers now. What I wanna know is, how do you make it player led and yet give the GM a book with some answers in?
Matthew:So that's my challenge.
Dave:It's a good question. It's a good question, and and there is a good answer to that question. So next question.
Matthew:Now this is a good answer. The good answer is you ask Ken Hite how to do it.
Dave:It's it's okay. So this did come up in the in the seminar. So the great things about these seminars is people chip in, and we we try and run it, specifically say to people, let's make this a conversation and get your questions in as you go and we'll just do it. That's one of the great things about doing these seminars because they're just so much fun and other people do a lot of talking rather than just me, which is cool. But this question came up and I think it's a really good one And there's it kind of it it sort of depends on on what you're writing for.
Dave:Now, if you're writing for a convention game, then you are gonna have to be, by necessity, quite railroaded. And again, you could say the same with with with quite a lot of of of published scenarios because again, usually, you get or or in my experience, get no you know at least 5,000 words. And a lot of the scenarios I'm commissioned to write are 5,000 words. And that's not a lot actually when it comes to it. Some of them are seven and a half and I did have one that was 15 which is cool because I could really lean into it.
Dave:But when you've got fewer words, then you have to be a bit more like directed towards the towards the plot. But the thing that the thing that I I do quite a lot is even if the you know the story the plot has to go in a certain direction, you can give a variety of options for getting from A to B. And if you you you know you to lay those out for your for your GM actually, because normally I would very much like to create a I think as I said in the essay, create a setting and let the players get into it and do what they like. As you said before, some players may not be, you know, so comfortable in doing that and might feel, no, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do, and need to be given a little bit of a pointer.
Dave:So in that sense, you can then create three or four options for the GM about how to achieve this particular objective or get to this particular location. And the GM can then drop into or in terms of the writing, you can drop in guidance to the GM saying, describe the situation and let's say somebody needs to break into a castle, say. You can then, as part of your description, you can say, you know, there's a drawbridge with open portcullis and there's one guard. Round the back, there's a there's like a servant's entrance, which doesn't seem to be guarded very often. On the side, there's the wall is a bit broken, and, oh, that might be easier to climb.
Dave:Or there's oh, there's lots of carts going in and out with barrels of food and and and things. So you point some ideas to your players about, okay, I've got to get in there. How do I how do I do that? Oh, here are some obvious options for me to consider. So that's certainly one way in in terms of creating a written scenario for publication that you would give little pointers to the GM about about how how they can describe a certain situation or describe a location in order to give their players some some clues and some cues about how they might go about achieving the objective.
Matthew:Yeah. So there is there is a thing about different groups what I have played in. So with our with our group, we are always ready to just show us a situation, and we will fuck it up in an amusing way. Mhmm. So you you don't need to do any of that.
Matthew:You know, we will be asking, okay. Is the does the Port Colors happen to be open? Is the drawbridge down? We'll go on the side. Should we check that out?
Matthew:You know? But then there there's a group. And I remember doing this, having spent loads of time with our group playing like that. I played with a a new group, and I I thought I was giving them a world of opportunity. I was giving them Vienna under siege.
Matthew:They were trapped in Vienna in the sixteen hundreds and something. I can't remember. Broadly speaking, I was thinking of basing it on Tim Powers' book, The Drawing of the Dark, which is a fabulous book, which I recommend to all sorts of people. However, I'd I'd sort of created this wonderful setting. And I said, you know, it's all yours.
Matthew:And they were kind of going, but what do we do? Yeah. What do we do? So I quickly then, you know, had to go, ah, and and you get a letter from Isaac Newton or or something like that to ask you to to go off and steal this machine off this other person and because it might summon up demons. Leibniz, I think, was was involved.
Matthew:It was great fun. In the end, because I thought, oh, I've this world of opportunity. I've the Russians over here. I've got these over there. And hardly anything happened for for half a session while they were kinda going, well, yeah, but, yeah, give us give us the plot, please.
Matthew:Take us on the story. Yeah. So I I
Dave:think there's an interesting thing there which comes back to the point I was making about player investment in the world. And the more invested your players are in the world, the more the more those kind of situations are are open to them. Because Yeah. Being invested in the world, they're more interested, they're more likely to think about what's going on, they're more likely to have an opinion about who the Russians are and what they're doing and and whether they're good people or bad people, who the other factions are, you know, what the city is like. And it's not always easy to get that investment, but if you are able to do it, then then your players it makes it easier for them to take that imaginative leap and make a make a make a connection for themselves rather than having to be spoon fed, you know, the plot, as you I think the other thing for me is a lot of players and I think, know, in the past, we when we were younger, young whippersnappers, I'm sure we were, you know, equally guilty of this.
Dave:Guilty is the right word. We'd always look to violence as the solution to every problem. Yes. Yes. And, yeah, I think yeah.
Dave:Again, it comes back to one of the other points about the player's actions having consequences or their decisions having consequences. So in the example that we've just been talking about, the castle, they might say, ah, there's only one guard. Well, let's go and kill him and we're in. But then, you know, they do that, but then they suddenly realize that in the I can't remember. There's a special name for the passage that runs under the guardhouse with the portcullis.
Dave:I can't remember the name of it now. Gosh. I used to
Matthew:be destroyed. I used to look after castles and interpret them to the public. Can't remember it. Never heard.
Dave:But at but at the end of that, you realize there's a guardhouse with 10 men in it. So as soon as you kill the guy at the front door, you know, either you come in and they shut the porcullises on you or you get attacked in there. So I think trying to encourage players to to think of different ways around it rather than just, you know, or going around the back. Okay. The back door's unguarded.
Dave:Let's kick it in and kill the servants so they don't tell anyone that we're coming. Might be fine in some games and some game styles, but actually, in in most situations, if you look at it logically, that's unlikely to be a successful way of achieving that objective.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. And I think just a little callback to Freely. So one of the things I love about the the way Freely does adventures sometimes is what they call the adventure sites, where they just they set it out there and you know they they they tell the GM about the factions and the objectives of the various people you might meet in location or the monsters or whatever you might meet in location. And then it's up to the players what they do.
Matthew:But I do wonder, even though I love that, particularly for our style of play, I do wonder and, you know, for example, The Magician's Gambit, which is the new scenario that's coming out on free league day on on free RPG.
Dave:For Dragon for Dragon Boat.
Matthew:For Dragon Boat. Yeah. Which just just comes to mind easily because I've just spent the time, while not listening to your reply, looking you up. Well, that is a lot more. Again, that's a con game.
Matthew:It's designed to be over two hours. So actually, it is a lot more, Not necessarily railroady, but the objectives are clearly defined. You've gotta do this thing. We know who we're helping cheat. There isn't particularly an option in this one to go to his opponent and say, hey.
Matthew:Hey. Hey. You know, Blanky Boy's about to cheat with this. He's asked to do all these things. No.
Matthew:You do those things. You score the points so you get out. And and so sometimes I think that is a good way of doing it. Particularly, you've already mentioned for con games. But where that time is constrained, don't give them time to think about the object.
Matthew:Yeah. When You've got a Sorry. Carry on.
Dave:No. Just saying, and in your con game, you're you're trying to make maximum bang for your every minute you've got. Yeah. So giving the players half an hour to and not really know what they're doing and then come to a decision isn't something you've got the luxury to do for a convention game usually.
Matthew:Yeah. So that's the Magistrate's Gambit available for free and free RPG day. Okay. I'm short
Dave:Is that okay. Magistrate or magicians? Because you said magicians the first time.
Matthew:Oh, did I? Sorry. No. That's me that's me forgetting. Yeah.
Matthew:Magistrate's Gambit. Just as well, I said it a second time. So if you want me to off looking for the rugged
Dave:Everyone's going, I can find this Magistrate's Gambit, but I can't find the Magistrate's Gambit anywhere.
Matthew:Yeah. The Magistrate's Gambit is what's available for free. And like other quick starts of Dragonbane, it comes with the rules as well, the characters. It's all you need to play an adventure. Well, apart from a few dice and your imagination, as it says
Dave:And some players.
Matthew:And some players. Yes.
Dave:Yeah. Cool.
Matthew:And it's got the scoring rules. You don't need to do it as a com you know, as a tournament game. But if you would do, then the scoring rules gonna be in there as well. So you can see you can experience the same thing. Right.
Matthew:Is that the end of this episode? I
Dave:think it might be. Are we doing for next time?
Matthew:Yeah. Well, we noticed not so much a gap in the rules of of this brilliant new game, Tales of the Odd West, because we didn't leave any gaps. But we noticed I suddenly thought, as as my character is now a married man, and you you always go on about how it's being a generational game, I suddenly thought, hold on. In the turn well, in the equivalent of turn of the seasons in Pendragon, there is a and how many babies do you have? And so I couldn't remember what we'd said about that, and you looked it up.
Matthew:And there's only actually a very small chance that a turn of the seasons role will bring a new baby onto the horizon. Yep. Which is, you know, could be fun for a surprise if that's not what you were planning. Yeah. But if if if I'm planning to start a family, what do I do in Are
Dave:we sure this is the right podcast to be telling you about that, mate? If you haven't worked that out by now, then there's something that's a bit wrong.
Matthew:If my player if my player is playing with studs in your family.
Dave:So so when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much
Matthew:And these are the rules that I think it may be worth just as a little addendum for those, not necessarily every player who's gonna be saying, I want rules for pregnancy. But we we had a brief chat about it yesterday, and I think I can expand upon those and do a nice little concise paragraph of rules in time for next time, which we can discuss and maybe expand on in the next episode. So having babies in the Old West.
Dave:There we go. Excellent. That's what we're
Matthew:talking about next
Dave:time. Cool. Right. Well, I think we're done for today then, aren't we?
Matthew:I think we probably are.
Dave:So it's goodbye for me.
Matthew:And it's goodbye from him.
Dave:And may the icons bless your adventures. 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.