Back to the Dark
Hello, and welcome to episode 261 of Effect, Back to the Dark. My name's Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. And as the title suggests, we have got a bit of Coriolis content to talk about later on, where I have been looking at the the core book for Coriolis of the Great Dark, and I've come up with a few, what should we say,
Matthew:fundamental Interesting observations.
Dave:Fundamental questions that I wanted to throw out there. So that's what we've got later on as our main feature, but obviously before that, we we don't have any new patrons to to shout out to today, but obviously, thank you to all of our patrons, past and present anyway, because we can't do what we do without your help. We've got the world of gaming. A few little things to talk about there, a couple of controversial things potentially. And then we've got a little bit about Old West News.
Dave:We've some updates to give you there, but I think we said a few weeks ago we weren't going to do Old West News as a feature anymore, but here it is anyway in the running order. So we'll
Matthew:Well, we won't do it as a regular feature.
Dave:But keep
Matthew:that got stuff to talk about.
Dave:I know. We'll keep that short and sweet. But yeah. So that's our that's that's that's what we've got lined up for you coming on today.
Matthew:Yeah. And shall we kick off with the world of gaming then?
Dave:Yes. Let's do that.
Matthew:So first of all, I want to talk about the punching a Republican affair.
Dave:Mhmm. Yes.
Matthew:So this is an article that I think appeared first of all well, to me, it appeared first of all all over blue sky, and it wasn't very clear what anybody was talking about. So it required a little bit of detective work. And it was an article from Rascal magazine wherein a publisher and a respected independent publisher, Level Nine Games, had had one of their products removed from drive thru RPG because in this overtly it was it's a kind of Star Wars with the file filing with the suit suit
Dave:numbers filed off.
Matthew:Yeah. Filed off. That's the word I'm trying to say. Yeah. And I I also wonder I haven't looked at it very closely, but I wonder whether it was released recently, because of the whole and or thing, which is the most, shall we say, reflective of current times version of Star Wars that there has ever been.
Matthew:You've not watched it yet, have you?
Dave:No. I haven't seen any of it yet. I need to because it's on Disney, isn't it? Yeah. I need I need to get Disney for a month.
Dave:And
Matthew:You need to get Disney for a month and watch Yeah. And probably not watch Ironheart.
Dave:I'm not gonna watch Ironheart. No. There's not a lot else that really appeals. Just watched just watched the second series of Squid Game, which is very good, with the exception of Oh, yes. The ridiculous, god awful, bloody foreshadowing of the the American version that's currently in the works, where at the end, you have Kate Blanchett doing the throwing the thing on the floor game with somebody right at the end.
Dave:Anyway, don't get me started. We're talking about something else, we? So But, yeah, that'll be shit Yeah. I I fully expect. But the second season of the Korean Squid Game is is excellent.
Matthew:And
Dave:considering Squid Game is really just like one idea, they they did pretty well to turn into two seasons, but it wouldn't make three, I don't think.
Matthew:Right. But then they could do it all over again, but with Americans, and then and then that would make a
Dave:Which I suspect is kind of what they're doing. And they've always got Clint Bartschip signed up for it. So they're spending money on on their acting talent anyway.
Matthew:Anyway, that's not what we're talking about.
Dave:That's not what we're talking about.
Matthew:About a a a game with some space Nazis called the republic as opposed to the empire. And in the forward to this game, the republic's spelled with a k. It's important. So it's obviously nothing to do with our current Republicans. Yeah.
Matthew:But it's in the forward they state that they call it Republicans so that players can enjoy saying, I punched the Republican in the face. And I imagine that that triggered a bunch of republican fans of of gaming, and complaints were made to drive through RPG about this being some form of hate speech. And Drive Thru RPG went to them and said, look. The game is fine. You you can punch as many Republicans as you want in the face in the game.
Matthew:Yeah. But you can't be so obvious as to say we're talking about publishing Republicans in the face in the forward. Yeah. Do you wanna remove the forward, and then we can sell the game? And and level nine thought, well, on balance of probabilities, we'll probably get more publicity if we if we don't remove the forward.
Dave:If we stand our ground. Yeah.
Matthew:And we probably sell these games on Itch anyway. So check it out on Itch. We'll I'll dig it. I'll I hate Itch because it's so hard to find anything, but I I I may well look for a link to put in the show notes. And so they said, no.
Matthew:We'll we'll we'll draw the game from sale. We're not letting you edit the game. And what do you think about that story, what I have just told Dave?
Dave:There's quite a lot of things, I think, actually. I regret when people use our gaming approach to make overtly political comments, one. I think we should try and keep it out of that. This is a you know, our our industry, our our hobby is a is a way of escaping all that kind of shit, and we shouldn't be God.
Matthew:Using Sound like a fucking Republican, Dave.
Dave:No. But no. Well, well, I think that
Matthew:All games, sir. All games are political.
Dave:Well, they are, but, I mean, you know, but you I I regret the the the increase in the use of entertainment media to to make a political point, because I think it it it devalues the the point of that, for me, anyway, the point of that media. If you wanna make these points, go ahead go ahead and do it, by all means. And I fully support people who want to make those make those protests and all the rest of it. Absolutely.
Matthew:Point you get you, Dostoyevsky, with your crime and punishment.
Dave:But but I I I I I kind of just regret that people feel they need to to put that into into media that should be an escape from all that shit rather than a platform for talking about it. I also think that you shouldn't really be advocating real world violence in any sense. Even if even if they just saying, oh, I get to say that I've done that, and I can fantasize that I've done that because I'd never really do that in real life. You know, there's a lot of fucking wingnuts out there who might go and do something stupid. So I think Mhmm.
Dave:Advocating that kind of thing, again, in this kind of medium is is a mistake. From also from what you from what you said there, it's interesting to think it hadn't really occurred to me that that possibly this is just a bit of a stunt by level nine. And and as you're saying there, they're going, well, we'll get more publicity and we'll get more sales if we still stand our ground rather than it actually being some kind of principled stand that they are, in my view, foolishly putting into their game. But, you know, it might be a principled stand that that they've got against against the current political situation in The US. Although, having said that, they shouldn't be advocating violence at any point, you know.
Dave:Peaceful protest, yes. Dissent, yes. Civil disobedience, Yes. Violence. No.
Dave:So I think that's kind of where I I I come from in that. I think it just it just saddens me that that that they they've chosen to use their game as a vehicle for for this kind of message.
Matthew:Yeah. I'm not sure I agree with you entirely, because there's a lot of games out there that, you know, that are just used as vehicles to get political points across and general media, and it has been ever since day one, both Tory and left wing points.
Dave:I'm not I'm not I'm not saying it isn't out there. I'm saying that that we shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't use entertainment media to do that. If you've got a serious point, get out there and seriously protest it.
Matthew:Yeah. You may not enjoy Andor then. But anyway, moving
Dave:See, see, I don't see, I don't I don't mind something that is reflecting something in a fantasy world. You know, if you're reflecting the state of because a lot of, you know, you know, all media is art and, you know, art holds up a mirror to reality and all the rest of it. That's face. You're reflecting it in an interesting story, but just don't turn it into a
Matthew:Well, I think this is my actual There's nothing wrong with having Republicans as the bad guys in a No. Science fiction world. I think I think it frankly is just a bit crass to say, oh, and do you get the point? When we're calling them Republicans, we actually kind of mean the Republicans in in our two party system, if we're American. Yeah.
Matthew:For a start, you know, they're they're only speaking actually to that part of their audience who are American and and suffering under Republican regime at the moment. They're not speaking to the rest of the world where, you know, Republican means all sorts of different things, as does Democrat and Liberal and all that sort of stuff.
Dave:Or who also may well be suffering under kind of almost exactly the kind of same kind of regime, but just not called Republican regime in that, you know
Matthew:Exactly. Exactly the point I was getting to. Yeah. Exactly. So so, you know, it it yes.
Matthew:It's a great joke within the game. I would very much enjoy saying I punched a Republican in the face. Were you GMing me and I was playing that game? However, to actually put it in the fore just felt me like, oh. Well, for a side, it's almost talking to Danley.
Matthew:Talk you know, not respecting your audience enough to get the joke without you saying really clearly, this is what we're talking about is my is is my thing. But I think also, I I have no problem with them removing their game and making a fuss about it. I slightly feel that the innocent victim in this party are neither level nine nor the Republicans, but poor old Joyful RPG that are kind of goated with having to make a various decision with, you know, somebody somebody complained about the content of the game. I don't imagine that it would have happened if a bunch of people hadn't complained. I can quite believe that a bunch of right wing snowflakes, because it does always seem to be the right wing who are the snowflakes despite the fact that they invented the term for us progressives, you know, got together and did a bit of a letter writing, well, email writing campaign.
Dave:Is that what it was? It was a it was a
Matthew:I'm pretty sure that there were, you know, one or more. Wasn't
Dave:some internal drive through thing that that that muted it. Found it. Yeah. Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. I I'm not I I couldn't swear to that on my limited reading, but there I I imagine some people complained. A bit of a storm in a teacup, I think, probably successfully sold a few more games to level nine. So, woo hoo for them, I guess.
Dave:As I say, I wonder I wonder if, you know, I mean, without like I say, without the controversy, most people would never have heard of that game.
Matthew:Yeah. And now now we've all heard of that game, haven't we? Yeah. We're talking about it now, so we are just victims of the media manipulation. Shall we move swiftly on to something where we can speak to other victims?
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Go on then. Yeah. Let's let's move on to something.
Matthew:So this is and here's an interesting thing. You know, we are we we've had a lot of people in in our US customer base going, oh, we'd love to have to go down and buy your game at the shop. Or, you know, we we backed it, but our friends wanna get a copy too. We will talk about our own retail and the fact you can order it from us later on in this very episode. But but we've we've been looking in at distribution.
Matthew:It's complex. It costs more in The US than it costs here in Blighty, which is to say when you pay for the book, we get a smaller proportion of the cover price in The US than we would in Blighty. And that seems to be pretty much the same for everybody. But while in the mind of, you know, looking at distributors, one of the distribution companies that I've been aware of for many years, because I'm a comics fan, is Diamond Distribution. Mhmm.
Matthew:Who not only distribute comics, but also games. And I hadn't actually particularly looked at them because I thought they'd probably just charge too much because they're a great big behemoth and
Dave:They're huge. I mean, their their list their list of clients is enormous. Yeah. It runs to dozens or if not if not, almost, you know, hundreds of of of clients. It's massive.
Matthew:Yeah. You know, they their sort of preorder list every month was so extensive. It was like a telephone directory magazine that they published.
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:And I think, you know, game shops had to, like, sub not game shop. Well, possibly game shops as well. But in the days before the Internet, comic shops used to have to buy copies of it to to their preorders and but would also buy extra copies to sell to their comic collecting customers as well. So Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:They were a big name. As I say, I I hadn't really considered them, but they've been going through some financial difficulties at the moment. They've declared, oh, I can't remember what it's, chapter 11 bankruptcy or proper full bankruptcy. But one of the things that's currently going through the courts at the moment is they now claim all the stock that had been sent to them on consignment by games companies, you know, who could have been us had we we come with them where we know we say, okay. We'll give you x 100 books, and then you'll sell them.
Matthew:And then when you sell them, we'll get, if we're lucky, a third of the cover price. A bit less than a third. And now they're, you know, now they're saying as part of their bankruptcy proceedings, well, that's technically our stock now. Not you don't own that. So, you know, we will sell that on, and you will not get a third of the covered price because we're bankrupt.
Matthew:So we're not giving you anything. And it will you know, any money we make out of it goes to our creditors in the order with which creditors are repaid, which means, obviously, generally the banks first. Yeah. And I think that's a bit of a shitty thing to do. And it also makes me think very carefully.
Matthew:We've gotta be really careful about this distribution thing. But it does feel a bit like theft.
Dave:It's it's a it's a it's a wheeze. What they've what what they've done is there are, I think, a 128 companies which they currently hold consignment stock. And they are saying for those companies, many of them, or perhaps all of them didn't file a particular financial statement that came with this consignment. A UCC one as it's called. Don't know what that means, but that's what it's called.
Dave:But in not filing that little bit of admin, that bit of red tape, it effectively gives Diamond Distribution the opportunity to make the claim that they have done, that this this this stock is effectively under the circumstances that we're in, this stock is effectively theirs, and they can sell it and keep all the money for themselves.
Matthew:And it's Yeah.
Dave:It's it's a it's a technicality. It's a it's a little loophole that they are exploiting. And even if technically, you know, by US law, they are in the right or at least somewhat in the right. Morally, it is a really shitty thing to do. You know?
Dave:It is it does feel like, like you say, it does feel like theft.
Matthew:So as I understand it, a UCC one is when somebody declares bankrupt. You go, well, I'm one of the creditors. If there's any money coming out of this, you know, they owe me x money. It's actually really difficult for somebody with unsold stock to say. You know, you could say it about you'd think about saying it if, you know, your distributor had sold 50 copies of your book or something, and you go, well, I'm expecting £20 for each of those copies of about $20, of course, it's big.
Matthew:Yeah. 50 times 20, I'm looking for, you know, a thousand dollars or whatever. Then you'd obviously go, well, they haven't paid me by a thousand dollars. I better fill in one of those statements for a thousand dollars. But you wouldn't necessarily think, but all the rest of my unsold stock in that warehouse well, that'll surely be coming back to me because they don't own that.
Matthew:That's mine. So, you know, we'll just arrange delivery at some point. But no. You should have said, and actually, and even then, there's, you know, there's a cheekiness there. You're you're you're kind of assuming that the all the stock you sent to the warehouse was gonna be sold, and you're gonna get thirty thirty pounds back on it or 20
Dave:Yeah. Whatever. Get get your cut. Yeah.
Matthew:And and and do that thing. So, yeah. I'm not sure it's the thing that most people who'd, you know, who are who are splitting their thing into the distribution channel would think they have to do. However, it's a warning for us if we do.
Dave:Yeah. It definitely is something to be aware of. And I think, know, maybe, yeah, obviously, a lot of other companies will be a lot more on top of this concern or this this risk in light of
Matthew:And actually, I'm gonna add this to to our Old West News section actually, because So
Dave:so we ought
Matthew:to having talked about this, we ought to explain it's not coming very soon.
Dave:Yeah. So in this situation, there are some some big tabletop publishers involved, you know, including Goodman Games, Green Ronin, and Paizo. And Paizo have already announced that upcoming releases aren't gonna be available, are gonna be delayed in their availability because of this situation. So it's having a real world effect on well, mean it's obviously having a real world effect on these companies because they're looking like they might lose tonnes of stock. But it's also Yeah.
Dave:A really world effect already on fans Of gamers. Of those companies and customers of those companies. So there's a court there's a court hearing scheduled, I think, for the July 21 because, obviously, these companies aren't taking this lying down. So we'll see what comes of that. See what Yeah.
Matthew:But you think about those companies like Paizo, you know, we we we would be talking about a few 100 books, I'm sure. Yeah. But Paizo, we're talking about thousands of books. And Yeah. Diamond would have been them one of their main distribution channels, you know.
Matthew:Yeah. Not just necessarily in The US even, because Diamond used to distribute to English shops as
Dave:well. Yeah.
Matthew:So Interesting. Interesting
Dave:thing to watch. Again, something that a as a new, you know, as a as a new company, it never really it wasn't anything that we've considered. So it's a good No. It's a time it's a timely timely warning for us.
Matthew:More on distribution in our Old West News slot a bit later on. First of all, the Emmys shortlist has been announced. That's all about something positive.
Dave:So so more fun. Yes.
Matthew:So the biggest news, obviously, for the people that went up to collect The UK Games Expo Awards for Moria, That is to say, me shouting as I went up, I am Gar Hanrahan. And then after having collected it, shouting, I am no longer Gar Hanrahan.
Dave:Is the Movier Movier
Matthew:is up for awards, isn't it?
Dave:It's up for a few. Yes. It's up for best supplement. It's up for best cartography. I think there might be another one it's up for, but I can't remember that the top of
Matthew:my head. Yes. Funny enough. I thought it was fee, but I can't remember what the third one is. Let me just see if I can do a quick find and
Dave:I'm having a quick look. No. Can't see. So other things that have been nominated, there's not much in there that I'm familiar with. It looks like No.
Dave:Exalted Funeral Press have done very well. They've got a lot of nominations for a variety of games, but none of which I'm familiar with. But good luck you know, congratulations to them.
Matthew:What else? Other other names that spring out are mythic oh, sorry. I've just found products of the year, Moria.
Dave:Right. Yeah. Yeah. I should put those up.
Matthew:Mythic Bastionland is is there. Now it's got a vague, really, connection in that Into the Odd is by the same creator as Mythic Bastion Land. Interesting. Another one that has no connection at all with Free League but with a connected company, Two Little Mice are up for Memento Mori, the deathless edition. Mhmm.
Matthew:And, of course, the big name here, maybe the crushing name of the whole thing, I wonder, is Monty Python's co curricular medieval reenactment program Yeah. From Exalted Funeral.
Dave:It's funny, isn't it? I haven't played that game.
Matthew:But And it's not funny. I mean, that that's the thing. We we know that role playing games that are meant to be funny never are funny.
Dave:Yeah. That's kind of what I was gonna say. I mean, it must be very good because, you know, here it is. It's up it's up there with, you know, with with more than one nomination. But again, yeah, it's only in in in role playing game sense, it's it's not something that I would really wanna play.
Dave:I mean, we had this conversation before, but yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. It's just it's not my bag, but maybe I should have a look at it just to see how how well it's been put together. Yes.
Dave:So we have a good
Matthew:luck to
Dave:good luck to them. And I guess I'll be interested to hear from people who've played it, how well it plays. I don't know anybody who's played it yet, but maybe one of our listeners does. If you're on the if you're on the Discord, ping us a message, let us know.
Matthew:Give us a shout. Tell us what it's like. Give us
Dave:a bit of a potted review of of the game. Because it yeah. It it just feels to me that you would be expected to be, you know, be funny, be humorous, and it might force you know, all our games, we are laughing most of the time. You know, it's Yeah. We know we are having a lot of fun.
Dave:We don't need the game to tell us to have a lot of fun. So and maybe actually, if we were playing a game like Monty Python where we felt like we had to have fun, that might actually reduce the amount of fun we had because we were so stressed trying to make it fun, if you see what I mean. So but anyway, I you know, this is all just my feeling based on never having even touched the book or looked at the book or read any of it. So as with most of my comments, they might be complete bullshit. So Yeah.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah Also, we've got a a best cover from Joann Nor, which is on A Farewell to Arms, which is a Morckborg First World War setting.
Dave:Oh, okay. Nice. Nice.
Matthew:So that's up there for best cover art. We will have to decide. Well, first of all, we have to investigate how we can enter our game for the NES. I don't know whether we have to be going to GenCon for it, but I don't think we do.
Dave:No? Okay.
Matthew:Unlike UK Games Expo where you've actually gotta be exhibiting at Expo. Yeah. But we would be we would have been too late for this year
Dave:Well, obviously. Yeah.
Matthew:When we publish, but we will qualify for next year. So we'll have to investigate that and try and it'll
Dave:be worth worth sticking it out there to see what happens. You never know. You never know.
Matthew:Well, I don't know whether it's worth it. Depends how many books we have to give them.
Dave:True. True.
Matthew:Well, we'll look
Dave:into that though. Yeah. But yes. So anyway, if, yeah, if you're if you're if you're interested, go and take a look and support your your favorite products for the for the for the NES.
Matthew:Cool. Right. Now, we are recording this on the July 6, which is two days after the July 4.
Dave:Well done.
Matthew:And this is the time when our cousins over the other Atlantic fought a very successful battle against authoritarianism and the vested interests of commercial companies wanting to get their profit out of the Americans. And obviously, you know, have had almost two hundred and fifty years of freedom, etcetera, since then. So I one thing that caught my eye, mainly because I was listening to Ken and Robin, is an historical RPG called Nations and Cannons, which looks at that war of independence. And I thought, you know, given that we've just written a historical RPG, we ought to take a look at that. Sadly well, maybe not sadly, maybe very popularly, adaptation of five e rules.
Matthew:Hence, you know, Dungeons and Dragons, Nations and Cannons. You see what they did
Dave:there? Yeah. It's very original, isn't it? Sorry. I sound really bitter there, but, know Yeah.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Anyway sounds they've they've been advertising it, so I I looked at it. They kick started it in 2023. Nothing has come out in print yet, interestingly. I thought, when I first looked at it, that they'd sell you know, they'd they'd sold out all their first printing and stuff, and part of this advertising campaign was about a preorder around, you you know, doing a
Dave:separate print or something.
Matthew:Yeah. But actually reading the comments on the on the Kickstarter, it turns out, I think nobody's actually got any print, any physical product yet.
Dave:No.
Matthew:So so that makes me feel quite good that we got our physical product out even if we are feeling now we might have to do a reprint, well, at some point soon.
Dave:Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's, you know, that's an element of of success cause it, you know, I mean, we we did we did quite a big run for us. And it's just showing that there is some some kind of popularity for the game, you know, that was enduring and ongoing, which is brilliant. So it's a nice it's a nice problem to have. You know, how big a reprint do we go for?
Dave:But yeah. So this game this this Nations and Cannons is is by a company called Flagbearer Games. I don't know what else they've done.
Matthew:I think this is their only thing.
Dave:Is it? Right. Okay.
Matthew:I think.
Dave:Yeah. But yeah. So it seems that yeah. Two years on, there is looking at the comments on the Facebook Facebook on the Kickstarter page, there is there is a little bit of increasing frustration in some backers that they haven't yet seen their products.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:Don't know why. I don't know if there's a if we had an update as to problems in delivery, but but yeah. So but yeah. But it's I mean, interesting again. It it it seems to be a game that, you know, doesn't have fantasy in it, doesn't have magic fantasy in it, doesn't have magic in it as far as No.
Matthew:It does have six new human roles with variant traits for a diverse party without fantastical races. Yeah. A detailed history of heritages covering the people and cultures of the colonial America, a new firebrand class, a rebel rouser whose penny is as mighty as a sword. Mhmm. Subclass options including marksman and turncoat.
Matthew:Well, obviously, they call it a duplicitous turncoat here, but what I think we probably mean is a loyal and patriotic servant of King George, don't we? I know what duplicitous about that.
Dave:Yeah. Again, the the the history is all based entirely upon your sense of perspective.
Matthew:So and yeah. I'm intrigued about origin of some of the art in here. The download I will link to the quick start maybe would be a good introduction for a game because that's free and exists on Kickstarter. Not Kickstarter. What do I mean?
Matthew:Drive thru RPG. And he's overtly political, Dave, because I I I don't think us Brits come out of this terribly well.
Dave:No. But the game isn't encouraging people to go and punch Brits in the face right now though, is it?
Matthew:So
Dave:I think that's the difference for me.
Matthew:Maybe. Maybe. So anyway, yeah. So that's there. I I just it has come to my attention.
Matthew:And we are talking about the world of gaming, and it's the fifth of well, it's the July 6 now. So Mhmm. I thought I'd I'd put it on the table. But we may be done with our world of gaming slot.
Dave:I think we probably are today.
Matthew:So shall we wind forward a hundred years from '17 '76 Indeed. And talk about Old West news.
Dave:Old West News. What have we got for Old West News this week, Danny?
Matthew:Well, given that we started a conversation about US distribution, maybe we should Continue. Manage expectations there. So I have been in touch with a couple of distributors. We've got one more that we want to talk to through you. I I you and I I said that you and I should write an email to our colleagues here in The UK about their partners, which we haven't yet done, so we need to do that.
Matthew:I think, though, we are looking we're not looking at any sort of immediate distributions. That's the point I wanna get across. Yeah. It looks to me like the American distributors, not only will they hold on to our stock and if they go bankrupt, they'll try and sneak it off us. No.
Matthew:But they will also expect to have about a four month pre order period before they commit to stock, which, to be honest, sounds really wise. So we would be looking at signing up with one or other of the companies, and then they'll put our game in their catalogs. And then they'll do a preorder period. And then they will suggest what stock we give them.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:So it is looking at four, five and given that we haven't signed off for them, let's not let's not even say four months away. Let's say we are looking at least six months away before it starts appearing in US shops. Yeah. So until then oh, this is a nice upgrade to the item. Until then, the the best place to buy our game is on our online store.
Dave:Indeed.
Matthew:And it's not only the best place because it's the pretty much the only place except for Paladins Games Castle in The US who were one of our backers and have a good healthy stock. But they don't do postal orders. So you can only
Dave:Get it in the shop.
Matthew:Get it in the shop there.
Dave:Yeah. But but
Matthew:if you want to order, order from us.
Dave:Yeah. So our shop is up and running. Good work, Matthew, for getting that fixed up. And yes. So that's the place to go and we can still get you products through that roof.
Matthew:And not not just that. There are some exclusive products. So you will only ever be able to get the deluxe linen cover from us. And that will only be as as stocks last. And Yeah.
Matthew:Talking of stocks lasting, we will be shortly out of dice. And I don't think I'm gonna reorder dice at least until we do another Kickstarter. So so if you want trouble dice, you've gotta get them from us.
Dave:And and get them soon. Yeah. Well stocked last.
Matthew:And get them soon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't hang about.
Matthew:So we've had a few people, as you all know, Dave, contacting us on the Kickstarter saying, oh, I've just realized I never filled the pledge manager in. And every one of those comes so far oh, no. I think we may have had one from Europe, but everybody else has come from The US. And in fact, they this is what's bringing to my attention. We either have one, two, or none packets of dice left without US forwarders.
Matthew:Yeah. So depending on their answer to that, I think there's every chance that the American backer who ordered two packets of dice may be having to wait until we send him a package direct with everything in it
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:From The UK.
Dave:Yes. Un unfortunately, but I mean, we we we did do our level best to to make sure everyone in The US got the message that they they need to do their pledge manager in good time. But unfortunately, for those who didn't, then it's it's a slightly more painful process.
Matthew:Yeah. Hopefully, it's not been much more painful than it would have been. So far, you know, they've paid their postage without the Exactly. Without a pledge back. I'll give them a link for their postage.
Matthew:Yeah. I'm just waiting on that one customer until we know where the stock is. Yeah. And then we'll sort that out for him. But also, apart from sorting out old stuff, we are also, of course, kicking on with some of the stretch goals.
Matthew:We have news, I think, on the virtual tabletop and on the solo rules.
Dave:Indeed. Well, you're writing the solo rules, mate. What what what what news do we have there?
Matthew:So I finally, words are appearing on well, I I started saying this beforehand. Not so much on paper, but on my computer screen. So this is going to be interesting. I have absorbed as many solo rules as I can see. Mhmm.
Matthew:And and there's some interesting things. Like, a lot of the solo rules kind of they they kind of imply, but they don't state categorically, unless they are very much a sort of journaling game. A lot of the solo rules I've seen don't really talk about what are the records you're keeping of this. What what is the product of, you know, of of the gameplay other than just thinking about a story and and rolling dice. And so I have written some, what I think is some interesting guidance for how you might want to do it without being at all prescriptive.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, at at the end of the day, I the only way I can see playing any of these Hello games is at least have a bit of a scratch pad with you and write, you know, some bullet points down when things happen that you might want to do when you come back to it or or whatever. But, you know, and there were some games that are very specifically some of the ones that our our friend and mate, Craig, mate, that are very specific about writing stuff down. In fact, actually, one of my favorite ones is then, you know, obliterating some of the letters as communication gets more and more weird. But but a lot of games kind of just, you know, assume you're gonna do something like that, but don't don't help you do that.
Dave:No. Leave it up to you to work out the best way to do it.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm still leaving it up to people, but I'm I, you know, I thought it's worth talking about, you know, this is different ways you might do it. And I think
Dave:Yeah. It doesn't hurt
Matthew:to give
Dave:us pointers, does it? No.
Matthew:Yeah. Exactly. You know, in in the in the in the nineteenth century in the West, we've got two great sources. You know, there's loads of pulp novels. So Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. A lot of the the history of the West is actually people writing their biography, fictionalized or otherwise Yeah. Or somebody writing one of their biographies. So I'd point to a few of those. And I've done a thing on, of course, the Ken Burns effect in in documentary filmmaking is when you pan slowly over a photograph while somebody reads generally from some letter they've written home Mhmm.
Matthew:About the, you know, what what what I did in the war, mom, sort of stuff. And so, of course, there's the idea of an epistolary sort of reporting back to your family the adventures you've had. So those are a couple of the ideas I'll throw in But at the end of the day, I've also said if you wanna just jot some stuff down on the back of an envelope, that's fine too.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. I love I'm looking forward to seeing them once you finish the first draft.
Matthew:Yeah. And I'm doing some interesting things as well about so our game is very much an open book. I don't wanna say a book. I mean, obviously, you have to open the book to play it, but you can do anything. You know?
Matthew:We we have two very different playtest campaigns running. Yep. It can be played in all sorts of ways. I feel the solo game, at least to begin with, needs to have a little bit more focus. So I've I've created a very specific sort of direction and objective for your first solo run through, which isn't so much about some of the stuff that we've talked about and we have rules in the game like building a business and stuff like that.
Matthew:But I think that once you've done this first one, what I've said is you can then, you know, once you've got the hang of doing it solo, then, you know, try some of the other ones and have your big dream about building a business and use these tools as well. So these are bits I've written so far, and I'm just, at the moment, toying with I can't just the how the cards help add story elements and using using a card deck to
Dave:Oh, yeah. Cool.
Matthew:To do the unpredictable stuff apart from dice rolls, of course. But how how to make them feel different to just rolling stuff up on dice. Because Yeah. We could just say, you know, do a d 66 and here are various story elements and have a whole bunch more tables. But I think I think, you know, there's an interesting card mechanic.
Matthew:And I picked up some stuff from those other ones as well. So that's what I'm doing there. Cool.
Dave:Cool. Be interesting to see it. Meanwhile,
Matthew:Paul is working very hard on
Dave:the Foundry VTT?
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:And he's just released a new version of the system to our testers, which is brilliant. The core module is is almost completed. It's very close to being being done.
Matthew:98%.
Dave:98%. So, yeah, it's it's really getting there. He's working really hard and, you know, I can't I I can't say how much I appreciate the effort that Paul has put into this for us. It's been it's been nothing short of heroic. So, yeah, thank you Paul for all of that, and it's it's it's really getting there.
Dave:So it's I I know we've said a couple of times it's a few weeks away. I don't know how many weeks away it is now, but is coming. It is getting there. It's taking a bit longer than than we perhaps thought, but that's that's just the nature of the beast.
Matthew:So I like I like I like his list of to do things. So obviously, he's got to add page links to the book for people that are using it alongside the book. But each other, this includes the ability to throw a knife or topple. Yeah. That's a good one.
Matthew:I also like the town sheet. Been dreading this as it's massive. I can imagine. Funny enough, I have been bulking at actually making a form fillable version of that on our Dandeln page as well. So I know exactly where it is coming from.
Matthew:And, Dave, I will never let you write another form like that ever again.
Dave:It works really well on paper. It works really
Matthew:well on
Dave:paper. But
Matthew:Yes. Sorry. I'm getting some icons for conditions. We should maybe have a chat with him and see if we can commission some from Yeah. Some of our artists.
Dave:Not a not a bad idea.
Matthew:Pick him up for that one. Absolutely.
Dave:Yes. It's coming along. It's coming along.
Matthew:It's coming along. Right. Is that us done on this? We got anything else to talk about in the Old West work on Stretch Girls, US distribution shop? We've done all of that.
Dave:Yeah. So yeah. All of that. I think, you know, just just just to say a couple other things. Play testing for Remnier Zero is still ongoing has been that, you know, has been going really well.
Dave:The players are absolutely loving the campaign. There are things that need to be so I need I probably need to pause the playtesting sometime soon and then go back through the rules and and make all the relevant amendments because amending stuff on the fly as I have been is is getting a bit messy. So I'll you know, the OCD part of me likes to clean things up once in a while. But very pleased with the way some of the some of the mechanics, particularly the sort of the push mechanic with the Felix dice is is working. So that's really pleased with that.
Dave:Also, in my spare time, I've been fiddling about with with another
Matthew:It's all in your spare time, Dave.
Dave:Well, know, I've kinda well, I've kind of, you know, been been a professional full time game designer stroke freelancer for a while. It will be in my spare time because that doesn't earn enough money having to get a But, yeah, it's a la vie. But, yeah, so also filling up with ideas for a couple of other things which which, you know, I I won't sort of talk about any detail yet because they're a long way off, but some some quite fun stuff that I've been been working on.
Matthew:I'm very excited about one of those things. Cool. So oh, the other thing, Justin, I need to do the layout on things, but I've got some busy weeks ahead of me, that's not going to happen for a few weeks yet. But it is coming. You've written the words.
Matthew:We just need to put them into layout.
Dave:It's a bit of work. Anyhow, I need I need to yeah. We need to do a little
Matthew:bit of work. And actually, I need to chase up the art for that. I've not had the art back from either of the two artists. Yeah. Let's do that.
Matthew:Yeah. Okay. Shall we listen to your article about Coriolis?
Dave:Yeah. Let's do that. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early copy of the core book, as we had a few copies sent for UK Games Expo for display. I've been reading my way through it since then. Now normally I'd pick an element and go into a deep dive on it, but I don't feel like I know the game well enough to do that yet.
Dave:And as I've been reading through a few fundamental questions have come to mind and I thought I'd talk about those today. First things first though, I'm really enjoying reading the core book and loving a lot of things about this game. Regular listeners will remember my initial skepticism when I first heard that the Great Dark was going to be a huge departure from the third horizon and be a very different gaming experience. But the more I've learned about the game, the more I've come to see it for what it is, an excellent descendant of the additions that have come before. Followers of Free League will already have seen what I'm going to call their creative courage in changing entire settings in one sweeping event of, look out, spoilers, of unbridled destruction, or events that change history for good in both Coriolis and Simba room.
Dave:And it's that creative courage that has led to the great dark, a new creative enterprise that was so much of a bigger risk than just edging the third horizon along a bit, but otherwise keeping things basically the same. So bravo to Nelson Costa for that. But here are my questions and a few thoughts about them. With the caveat that I've not read every word of the book, so an answer may be lying in wait for me to find it, and you may have found it already. My first question is this.
Dave:What is the purpose of life in the lost horizon? On page 243, you can find a quotation from master Mosca of the explorer's guild, which says, why do we go out into the dark? Why do we risk our lives in the depths of some forsaken ruin? Why do we seek out the horrors of the blight? We do it because we must.
Dave:We do it for the future. We do it for our children. Now that's all well and good. We explore because we have to. It's in our nature, and we need to explore in order to survive.
Dave:But that isn't really a purpose. Presumably, the people of the Lost Horizon are seeking a better life, a place to call home, to settle, to escape the degrading confines of Ship City before it's too late, and humanity in the Lost Horizon meets a freezing death at the chilling hands of the vacuum of the dark. Let's not forget that the game draws inspiration from the old explorers of antiquity crossing the poles, climbing the mountains, and sailing the seas. They were explorers as your characters are in the great dark, but they weren't exploring for their own survival or that of their children. They were privileged to dilettantes with the money and the courage to go where no one had been before, and their homes and lives were secure if they survived their adventure.
Dave:For them, the exploration was their purpose, but it feels to me that there must be more to it for your characters in the great dark. For me, I think the purpose of life in The Lost Horizon is primarily about survival and finding a better life than the one they are living. It's all about power and influence too, but making use of that clout is all about making that better life the version of the better life that you want rather than the version of the better life that your enemies or rivals want. On top of that, making discoveries about the builders, exploiting their dormant technology for the good of humanity, and learning more of the blight and how to defeat it are not ends in themselves. They are a means to an end, and that end is a good, secure, happy life that isn't vulnerable to the inevitable collapse of Ship City and the death of all its inhabitants.
Dave:My second question is this. What happened to the icons? And please beware there are spoilers over the next couple of minutes. The mercy of the icons campaign tells us that the emissary, the being that was believed to be a representation of one of the icons, was in fact nothing of the sort. They were a nasty infiltrator from the second horizon and didn't have a divine bone in their body.
Dave:But we do know that the icons were a thing. They existed. You said a prayer and something good happened, a plea for help and an answer given. They were real. So why are they not real anymore?
Dave:You'd have thought the choriollites would still pray to them, and as they were real, they should still answer those devout folk. But they don't. I think there are three potential reasons for this. First, they never existed at all. The benefits gained from a devout prayer were only ever gleaned through the internalization of the expected help, delivering a kind of spiritual placebo effect that triggered the push of the dice.
Dave:This is very much the approach I'm taking with the influence of the gods in Rome year zero, working title only, the role playing game we're creating set in ancient Rome. But I don't think it works here. And why not? Because darkness points. It's much harder to rationalize the broad impact of darkness points on the world of the third horizon as some internalized impact.
Dave:Secondly, perhaps the icons are small and weak creatures. Not deities at all, but some form of life that had powers that looked mystical to the religious people who believed in them, but they have no influence over the lost horizon at all. This idea doesn't work terribly well for me either as it begs way too many questions about what the icons were and how they could then be uncovered and perhaps understood. And third, they are powerful deities but capricious. What deities aren't really?
Dave:They've lost faith in those who fled the third horizon and have turned their faces away from them forever. I think this is the most satisfying of these three options but still leaves open the possibility that the icons could or should or might change their minds and start taking an interest in the lost horizon. It's a bit of a loose end that flaps about in the dark between the stars. But none of this speculation should necessarily have any impact on your game of the great dark. But for me, steeped in the third horizon, the question, and perhaps more importantly, the answer to the question, matters.
Dave:My third question is what has happened to the third horizon in the intervening two hundred years? Now this really interests me. I want to go back and see how the third horizon has changed. Has war ravaged the entire horizon, or has peace settled? Which factions remain?
Dave:Has any one faction become dominant over the entire horizon, perhaps now an evil empire with the other factions bickering under their boot heel? Or perhaps the shattering energies of war have damaged the portal network? Perhaps the network crashed for decades, leaving each system isolated and alone, to fall back upon its own resources and intuition to survive. Many would fall. Some would revert to barbarism.
Dave:Others would flourish in a fashion. Perhaps some throw themselves on the mercy of the icons and, through devout prayer and sacrifice, find a new route to their divine support, giving them more divine power and influence at the expense of allowing the darkness between the stars to infiltrate their lives. And then the portals are restored. The portal builders, ancient technologies slowly managing an unconscious but inevitable interdimensional self repair. But things are not the same as the portals are not only harder to navigate, the skills to do so have been lost in time, but the repairs have changed the network and portals no longer connect where they once did.
Dave:The possibilities are endless. My final question for today is this. What are the seven horizons? No, I don't know. I've never heard of the phrase before.
Dave:I checked with Matthew before I wrote this, and he's never heard of it either. But there it is on page three zero four of the Corebook where it says, while the path ahead may seem uncertain, the future of the seven horizons remains unwritten. For a moment, I thought it might be a typo, but that's one hell of a typo. No, I didn't think that's likely. Then I wrecked my memory of all the times we sat down with Nils, Costa and the others to talk about Coriolis.
Dave:I can't say for sure they never mentioned this concept, but if they did, I don't recall it. I mean, it would have been some time ago and during a conversation where much beer had been quaffed. So forgive me for my memory lapse if indeed there is one. I also thought about asking Nils, but then I thought, nah, let's leave it as a surprise. Perhaps maybe one of you can enlighten me.
Dave:And if not, I'm sure you'd all come up with exciting theories as to what it might mean. So I'll leave that question there for now hanging in the air. So that's it for today. You can probably see from my questions that despite my interest and excitement over getting the great dark to the table, my true love is still Coriolis, the third horizon. Despite the mercy of the Icons campaign and the impact that has had on the world of the third horizon, I still want to go back and explore it as there's so much left to discover.
Matthew:So the exciting thing is, obviously, we we've been looking at these hard copies that we got at UK Games Expo, lucky us. But hard copies have been distributed. I had my e e email notification of
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Dispatch on Friday. And so
Dave:Haven't had mine yet. But yeah. Cool.
Matthew:Oh, wow. Wow. Well, there you go. But you know what they're like. You'll probably get yours a day after the actual books arrived.
Matthew:I was half expecting to arrive home after our game yesterday and find it had been delivered last night yesterday, but it
Dave:But no.
Matthew:Because often. Anyway, so so yeah. It's on its way everybody. Coriole is a great talk. And I think you and I are both feeling in a happier mood about it than we were after that original discussion.
Matthew:And some of what you've pulled out here is the reason for why that is. But also, I think we've had word back from those who've seen preview PDFs of the campaign, which answers a lot of our questions. Or whether it answers your questions, I don't know.
Dave:No. I haven't seen the campaign. But, yeah. So I I just I am definitely liking The Great Dart more. I'm more excited about it.
Dave:And as I said in in in the piece, you know, as I look into it more, I I I move further away from the the the me that was disappointed that it was changing its emphasis in such a kind of sweeping way, and more to the me that is looking at the game that's in front of me. And actually, there's quite a lot of stuff in there that I really like. But I think, yeah. I mean, what I mean, normally, by now, you've said, I'm gonna take issue with you on such and such.
Matthew:Well, I I am gonna take issue with you on something. So let's go
Dave:through it I assume you agree agree with everything I say then, clearly.
Matthew:No. No. So I do well, I do agree. And I think if possibly at the heart of any any concern we have with The Third Horizon is your very first question about what is the purpose of life in The Lost Horizon. You know, it's often said of science fiction games in particular that they don't have a thing you do, that they're too broad.
Matthew:Yeah. So everybody ends up, you know, murdering people on one planet and then moving on to another planet just to get out of jurisdiction. Yeah. And and that was a criticism leveled by others, not by us, but by others against the third horizon. But I'm still stuck with why the hell are we here?
Matthew:Part of me part of me is wrapped up with with the thing that you say last that maybe we are only here to go through and survive the Mhmm. The lost horizon a little bit. We we know that they told us it was kind of partly inspired by the terror, which is about the search of the Northwest Passage and getting stuck in the in the North. And and maybe the only purpose that there is is to survive it, particularly because of the thing you say at the end, which I hadn't spotted. And I'm not sure how many other people have spotted because
Dave:Mhmm.
Matthew:I would have thought there'd be some chat about this. But as you say, in the afterward, on page 304, you say or you quote them saying, while the path ahead may seem uncertain, the future of the seven horizons remains unwritten.
Dave:Yeah. It's interesting because that kind of implies there are seven horizons now. There are so so there is a fifth, sixth, and seventh horizon out there somewhere, which just haven't been discovered yet, but are are currently existing. Because it's because, I mean, the Lost Horizon, would that have been called a horizon before they got there if somebody was, like, you know, or was it just another bit of space that they've they've
Matthew:been in game definition of a horizon, I don't know. Because the in game definition of horizon is well, actually, maybe That's a good question. Actually, my answer is yes. If the Ingem definition of horizon is
Dave:Horizon.
Matthew:Here's a bunch of planets that we communicate with and a bunch of people live on that is distant from everywhere else, which is effectively what it is.
Dave:Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. That's a fair point. So
Matthew:if we remember our history, the first horizon is good old Earth and relatively neighboring planets that we expanded to. Then we sent a dark ship or or a couple of dark ships out into the far future. But while they were still journeying, we found a gateway to what we then called the second horizon. And there, we found a portal to what we call the third horizon. And so that's how those names appeared.
Matthew:Yeah. This, although it has no portals to connect it to any of the other horizons, must therefore be an horizon because it's a group of systems Yeah.
Dave:We can Yeah. That's yep. That's fair enough. They're in essence, there are three more Yeah. Out there waiting to be discovered.
Dave:Presumably, because, I mean, the first horizon is the only one that doesn't have any portal portal builder or builder element to it. Obviously, the second horizon
Matthew:Obviously, at some point, it's got a portal to it because they discovered a portal there. Well,
Dave:they discover the portal in the second horizon?
Matthew:No. I think I think the
Dave:portal Was that okay?
Matthew:I'd have to don't quote on this, but I'm pretty sure that they discovered a portal within the first horizon at eleven to the second, but I
Dave:might be wrong. Right. Okay. Yeah. I'm not a 100% sure.
Dave:Okay. So then the the the implication is then that all Seven Horizons are in some way connected to the portal builders or the builders. Well,
Matthew:I don't know. Because
Dave:well, because the the first four are then, in that sense. If there was a
Matthew:Well, this fourth one isn't, is it? This one we're in now, isn't this?
Dave:Well, there is. Because the fourth one is full of builder relics, and it's got dead
Matthew:But are these builders the same as the portal builders?
Dave:Well, we we don't know. But maybe that's what
Matthew:because the technology of these relics is different from a lot of the technologies that we you know, what they do is different. There are no sugar globes here, for example.
Dave:Were sugar globes a portal builder thing?
Matthew:I think they were portal builder thing.
Dave:Were they? Maybe. Okay.
Matthew:Well, they're they're a relic thing.
Dave:But, again, maybe maybe you just haven't found them. So, anyway, my my my my assumption was that all of these portal builders or builders' relics were probably the same culture, the same civilization. But that assumption could could quite well be wrong.
Matthew:Yes. Yes. That's the assumption that the maybe that the the people of of the Coriologus community have made, but maybe they'll be discovered to be wrong. Who can tell?
Dave:Okay. Interesting.
Matthew:But yes So the point I take issue with a bit is Yes. Go on. Your explanation for where the where the icons have gone. Okay. I wonder whether they have existed at all after all, but
Dave:Well, I do I do I do note that I mean, I'm I'm listing options, but I do note that I I don't think that's a very good option.
Matthew:You If you to
Dave:my essay and, you know, properly
Matthew:Yeah. No. No. No. Well, on
Dave:on on the grounds that that they do, you know, that the icons
Matthew:Definitely help because you You praise the icon. Again.
Dave:And something happens. Now, you know, I said, you know, well, you could you could turn that into well, this is an internalized placebo effect and you gain a, like a, you know, an internal Confidence. Because Yeah, exactly. Which I think could just about work, but or just about explain it, if you wanted to, you know, if you wanted to go down that line. But the thing that it doesn't explain points.
Dave:So, you know, darkness points being the other side of that mystical coin, you can't you can't really explain what happens with darkness points to internalization and internal confidence or lack of confidence or that kind of internal spirit, personal human spirit doing something good rather than the spirit of something divine. So, yeah, I mean, it's an option. But again, I I mention it, but also mention that I think it's it's a pretty weak it's a weak suggestion. I think the most likely one is that they are, you know, they are gods, but they're just capricious ones. And so they've turned their turned their faces away from those who've left the third horizon.
Dave:But then it then that does beg the question, you know, where are they? Could they come back?
Matthew:Well, is I I that's that's the method. If they if they existed at all, that third option you book is the one I like most that that and I think is the one that my character in the great dark in Thomas's campaign probably believes. Yeah. That we have done a great wrong by coming to the Lost Horizon. Mhmm.
Matthew:And we are being punished by the icons.
Dave:By being ignored.
Matthew:So does ignored.
Dave:But does your character then have a have a a dream, even if it's an entirely fruitless one, of getting back to the third horizon?
Matthew:I think so. Potentially. Yes.
Dave:Because that then brings me to the other question I raised, which I find really interesting, you know, is what's happened to the third horizon in the last two hundred years? If you did fly back and get there, what would you find?
Matthew:Well, that that is the most interesting bit, I think, of your essay. Because the problem I have with settings of games like this, as you as you talk about, you know, the bravery of this is they've made great changes, whereas in a lot of these settings, thousands of years pass sometimes in in in in even in game time, and yet everything stays in the same level of
Dave:It's a tiny
Matthew:roughly fancy medieval technology that that we wanted. It's one of the things that pisses me off with a great long history of things like the the what's it called? The the books, the Song of Ice and Fire. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:There's no sense that five hundred years before the vaguely Wars of the Roses technology of Song of Ice and Fire that the people they talk about in the earlier books, and this is particularly true when you see House of the Dragon or something, where that happens hundreds of years beforehand, but have you know, they're still got vaguely Wars of the Roses technology. Haven't gone back to, like, thirteenth century technology. That really pisses me off. So the opportunity of saying, well, let's let's look seriously at what the third horizon would look like two hundred years on, I find actually quite interesting and quite exciting. And I I think that could be in, you know, now that now that they're handing out licenses of these things and people could do, you know, you you could do Coriolis cycle now, Third Horizon stuff, but you could also do Coriolis cycle two hundred years from now.
Dave:Two hundred years later. Yeah.
Matthew:You know, a more advanced or or more degraded. I'm not I'm not gonna say Yeah. What where the technology is, but it would feel a bit different after two hundred years, I'm sure. And that could be quite an exciting thing.
Dave:Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking. So the only other thing I was one question one other question I I thought of, but I didn't put into the into the essay. Cause again, there's probably a good answer to it. Although I've got a little little take on it, I'll just mention.
Dave:So the question was, what is the history of the Lost Horizon? Now, guess the point is, well, the history of the Lost Horizon is something for you to discover in play, something for you to learn about and understand as you you go through it. So I did that's why I didn't put the question into the into the essay because I think that answer is probably a bit obvious. But the thing that strikes me is so the one thing you don't get in Coriolis Third Horizon or this are well, you do a little bit, but kind of alien races. You know, you don't get your versions of the Klingons or the Romulans or that kind of, you know, you don't get that kind of that kind of thing.
Dave:Although there's obviously alien life out there. Yes. You know? Yeah. There's alien life on planets that you find and and all the rest of it, but it's not it's
Matthew:not It generally just eats you.
Dave:Yeah. It's not it's not it's not developed into another civilization, even if it, you know, the Necatra are semi intelligent, or the Akkilibri and all the rest of them. What made me think though, there is one, definitely one race of alien out there, possibly more based on our conversation a little while ago, and that is the builders. They might be dead now, but there was definitely a race out there. Unless the game arc is something that this is an early iteration of humanity that has come out half a million years ago or something.
Dave:But putting that aside, then there's definitely one civilized alien species out there that has been out there, even if they are now all dead and gone. So aliens can be a thing in the game, in that sense. And the influence of them, particularly in the great dark, is obviously is massive because, you know, the whole game is about exploring the stuff that they've left behind. But yeah, it was just an interesting little sort of observation that, know, they just said, there are no alien races. You you don't get that kind of thing.
Dave:But actually
Matthew:No.
Dave:There are. They're just they're just they're just not current. Or if they are current, they're hidden. But, yeah. So I just I just thought I'd throw that in as a as a as another consideration I had when I was thinking about this.
Matthew:Yeah. So what are we doing next week?
Dave:Well, next week
Matthew:Well, not You. Next week, I'm gonna it. The week after.
Dave:Two weeks
Matthew:time. What are we doing?
Dave:You were talking about doing a Oh, yes. Conversion of faith from tales of the Old West as a possible alternative to darkness points in Coriolis.
Matthew:Yeah. We had an interesting question from
Dave:We did.
Matthew:Jim. Jim of the Raspy Raven Discord server, and also of our server, because he's one of our patrons as well. Mhmm. He he's just gone through the first book of the campaign, and his players had some feedback, which I'm neither surprised by. But I I I I did rather poo poo in in my response.
Matthew:But one of the things he said, his final question was, would there be an alternative system? What year zero engine system for this setting? And my first answer is, no. Of course not. And then I wrote down, god, obviously, tales of the Old West, partly because the thing that you and I, in particular, love about the setting of Coriolis is the religiosity Yeah.
Matthew:Which I'm yeah. You know, there are many people who say that's the thing they don't like about it. But, sort of, there's a million games they can play.
Dave:Every everyone's entitled to their opinion. But, yeah, I I I was you know, I think I when I first saw choreography, had a little question mark in the back of my head about, is this something I'm really gonna enjoy? But, yeah, it's brilliant. I love it. It's it works beautifully well.
Matthew:And, you know, and we have talked about other systems before for pushing dice because we yes. We know that the darkness point system is a bit bit clunky. And then I thought, well, you know, we do have and, you know, we've kind of downplayed the religiosity of faith in in the Old West, but we can upplay it. So I have set myself the challenge of Yeah. Granting Jim's longest held wish, I'm sure, that that the faith system from Tazyar West might be ported in some way to
Dave:Coriolis.
Matthew:Coriolis. Cool. So in our little run of vaguely and adversarial celebratory, I don't know, Coriolis themed episodes.
Dave:Related related content. Yeah.
Matthew:We're we're gonna do another Coriolis themed episode next time and apply Old West faith to it.
Dave:That sounds great. I'm looking forward to that already, actually. That's that should be cool.
Matthew:Yes. I think there's all sorts of changes one could make to it to make it fit in better with the world. But you have to think about I
Dave:look forward to hearing what you got to say. But Cool.
Matthew:Until then Yep. It's goodbye for me.
Dave:And this is another classy close to the cod codpie.
Matthew:Classy close to the codpies.
Dave:Yeah. Sorry about that. That was me just falling apart right at the end. It's a classy clothes to the podcast, and it was it was goodbye from him. It's definitely now goodbye from me.
Matthew:Definitely. And may the icons, who still exist, bless your adventures.
Dave:You have been listening to the Effect podcast, presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of Free League Publishing.