Nordic Noir
Hello and welcome to episode 264 of Effect, Nordic Noir. I'm Dave.
Matthew:And I'm Matthew. And once more, we have a back program. We are
Dave:have we ever in our 264 episodes gone? We've got a bit of a bit of a pull
Matthew:I think I think we have said this is a bit of a slow program once before I do Yeah. Yeah. I think because I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm nothing if not honest with our listeners.
Dave:Are we are are we telling our
Matthew:How excited I am about
Dave:Every time we say this, I mean, I know our listeners are are busy people. They have got a lot of demands on their time. Could we save them, like, twenty seconds by not saying that anymore? Because we know it's gonna be a packed program. It's kind of a given, surely.
Matthew:Well, we yeah. This well and also, actually, of course, it is as long as it takes. That's what we ought to say. This episode will be roughly about an
Matthew:hour, hour
Matthew:and a half.
Dave:Yeah. Ish. Maybe. Ish. There ish.
Dave:Yeah. Thereabouts.
Matthew:Yeah. We're we are
Dave:Yes, sir.
Matthew:We've got some news from the world of gaming, some concerning news as well included in there. We have got a great interview with Paul Budowski of of Sanction fame. I seem to remember forgetting the game sanction while I'm talking to him, the desanction while talking to him. But and we've also got well, we haven't got any new patrons. But thank you everybody who are our patrons.
Matthew:We've had a little run of new patrons over the last few episodes. But all the support you give us enables us not just to make this podcast happen, but to make other things happen, like Tales of the Old West. About which, we don't have enough news to make it news, but we did have a a pleasant surprise, didn't we, David? We did. More on that later on.
Dave:We did. Yes. So thanks everybody for your support. As always, it is greatly greatly appreciated.
Matthew:And you can find links to the Patreon scheme. If you're not a Patreon, you can find links to our Patreon on our website page. Right. World of gaming, Dave.
Dave:Yep. Let well, should we start with the bad news?
Matthew:Yeah. Let's start with the bad news. Well, I don't know yet whether it's actually bad news. I have written
Dave:Well, I think it is bad news, but it might not be bad news for everybody all the time.
Matthew:Yeah. That's that's So that's worth saying. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And it's really I I think, actually, talking of of Paul Budowski, who is not, as he's keen to point out, that closely associated with his waste business all rolled up.
Dave:Think that's him trying to get out helping her at the next convention. That's what it is. He wants he wants a weekend off, I reckon.
Matthew:But, yeah. Yeah. I mean, what the timing of when we recorded our interview with him was based around him helping her at the next convention, actually. So so yeah. There there is some of that.
Matthew:Anyway, All Rolled Up made an announcement earlier on in or last week, as at the moment that you're listening to this, that with the cancellation of what's called the de minimis rule in import duties Yeah.
Dave:So this is all about US US customs. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. So basically, for years, people don't want to fiddle about with fiddly amounts of import tax. So there was a rule that any sort of parcels to individuals that were less than, I think, $800 in value, they didn't bother. They didn't bother doing those. They didn't bother looking at those.
Matthew:And that is changing under the new regime at the end of this month that we're in, which is August.
Dave:August. Yeah.
Matthew:That rule is no longer in play. However however valuable or not valuable your parcel is coming into The US, it there will it will be it will be assessed for tax and
Dave:It will be, yeah, subject to
Matthew:tariffs. And charged.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And what that means, of course, is that's generally too much work for all the people involved, both the both the the customs guys on the border, but also particularly the shipping guys on the border. So they're all gonna be kind of making it, you know, the responsibility of the person sending the parcel, essentially. So the shipping guys have told or rather, we should say this really clearly. The people that all rolled up use for shipping to The US has said, every parcel, we're gonna start off with a flat fee of $80.
Dave:Yeah. It's it seems that the because there's so many new tariffs and everything coming into place. The US customs have thrown their hands up in the air complicated it all is and that they can't manage it. And so in order to give them some breathing room, I guess, to give them six months or a year to work out their ass from their elbow, they've just said it's a flat $80, whatever the whatever the package is, whatever the tariff should have been. For now, it's a flat $80 until we work out our arse from our elbows.
Dave:So that's pretty damaging to those companies who are sending parcels individually to to customers in The USA.
Matthew:Yeah. So that's so but that's that's the particular shippers. So I think I think All World Up said that they they they have a deal with US Postal Service. So that's that, you know, that's the person they pay to take the parcel at this end over over there. Other shippers may have different prices.
Matthew:Think and in fact, I've just written to our distributors in The UK to say, what are they what are they expecting
Dave:to be Yeah.
Matthew:So there is every chance, I think, if they come back, I would say, $80, that we're gonna have to at least temporarily postpone, you know, not not ship to The US. Yeah. So that that that's the bad news from our point of view. And, of course, there's bad news from guys in in in The US too for All World Up as well. Although All World Up do have the saving grace that they do have a good stock of their products at I think it's with Tuesday night games.
Matthew:So US customers can order stock from them. And, of course, when US games order stock, they order a huge amount, and then the tariffs are calculated fairly, I guess. And I guess everything will all add up, mate.
Dave:But it's done on a on a company to company basis then, which is cheaper.
Matthew:Yeah. It's definitely gonna be cheaper.
Dave:So it makes it in the same way that when we sent our our Tales of the Old West palette over to The US, Doing it in that way made it cheaper and more viable for for us as a company to do that. So I think the I think this I think the idea here is that this is only a temporary measure, but it's gonna be temporary for a number of months by the look of it, possibly six or Yeah.
Matthew:We don't know how long it's
Dave:No. Well, I think they were talking I think all rolled up in their announcement said it was quarter one twenty twenty six where this would continue till that that does give us quite a wide range because it depends on what you consider to be quarter one. You know, for me, quarter '1 is April, May, June. For for for others, it might be January, February, March. So, yeah, who knows?
Dave:But it's it's gonna be Yeah.
Matthew:It's gonna be It's gonna be April, May, June.
Dave:Yeah. I think most of us in in The UK do, but not everyone does. So it's Okay. So there is that uncertainty as well, but it's definitely going to be into 2026. Yeah.
Dave:Now, I mean, you know, for for for say for for bigger orders for for packages that are going, you know, as a bulk freight package, then this shouldn't make any difference because they will be above the de minimis. And I mean, actually, they chose to do that just across the board, it might be cheaper for us than them charging the actual accurate tariff on on the on the product. So that might be a temporary bonus for some people. But yeah, so that's that's that's the situation as
Matthew:it is. But if you I think I think there's every chance if you, you know, just want to order, say the book at the GM screen or something from us, and we have to ship Or or book dice. Let let's let's say dice because dice can only get shipped from The UK currently because the small stock of dice we have left are here in The UK. I don't think we're gonna be able I think the costs are gonna be prohibitive and we're not gonna be able to send it to you.
Dave:Yeah. We certainly couldn't we certainly couldn't absorb the $80 ourselves because then we wouldn't make any money on the on the on the And I'm sure, you know, there aren't gonna be many customers who are gonna wanna pay almost twice the value of the book in a flat daylight robbery tax, which is basically what it is.
Matthew:Yeah. Now I'm gonna be really fair here and say there are reasons for getting rid of the de minimis shipping. There are a lot of companies now that say, oh, well, this is brilliant. We can have a little, you know, a website in The US where you order from, but actually the item gets shipped direct from China and we avoid a whole bunch of input charges because it's an individual order. We're we're not importing a big stock from China.
Matthew:So that has been a known kind of workaround for customs duties for some time, and that's been closed off. So that's that's kind of the reason why it's happening. But it is gonna have a chilling effect, I think, on the industry for the next six months, at least.
Dave:Yeah. Yep.
Matthew:Right. Happy news. New games coming out. How about that? Woo.
Dave:Go on then.
Matthew:When I say happy news, I'm not entirely sure about this first one. Diablo, the the much praised, I am told, computer game. He's having an RPG from from Joe LaFavey, who is who's worked with Free League on Alien and played around that and things like that. And also, not Free League this time, but The Glass Cannon, which is some sort of upstart podcast getting getting too big for its boots. I can't ever imagine a podcast producing their own game.
Matthew:Can you, Dave?
Dave:No. It'd be an outrageous
Matthew:Podcasts stay strictly in their lane, shouldn't they?
Dave:It'd be be never you know, it's it's the kind of it's the it's the kind of, you know, sacrilege that should be should be stopped immediately.
Matthew:Yes. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Should be stamped
Matthew:out. Blatnabbit. They should be busy making podcasts, not producing old West games.
Dave:No. Exactly. Or Diablo.
Matthew:Looking at the layout for our next supplement on on his screen even as he speaks.
Dave:Indeed.
Matthew:So yeah. Diablo, though, it's I I think, of note, it's not a a five e adaptation, which is, I think, to its credit, it's gonna have its own system. It's gonna be a dice pool system. We all love dice pool. Well, as we'll find out.
Matthew:We don't all love
Dave:dice Not everybody loves dice pools. Yes.
Matthew:But but, yeah, anything else we want to say about it, Dave?
Dave:So I I We'll put a
Matthew:link in the show notes.
Dave:I I you know, I it's not a game that I'm gonna be backing. I've played a little bit of Diablo a long time ago, and it's fine. It's not it's it's not the style of computer game that I particularly like. I don't particularly enjoy the the the kind of or like top down or angled top down view that you get in Diablo. That's not my preference.
Dave:So I I haven't really played it that much. I mean, it it looks beautiful. I mean, the the graphics look great in the game. I know there's a very big fan base out there who love the game and, you know, play can play through it an awful lot. It's it's a game that, you know, can give you many many many many hours of entertainment if if that's your if that's your bag.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, I I do wonder. I mean, was it's it's kind of touted as being mayhem and hack and slash through endless mobs, which frankly isn't the kind of role playing experience I role play for. It's it's kind of the opposite, frankly. I can't think of anything much more boring than just hacking and slashing through endless mobs.
Dave:I'm sure there's more to it than that, but obviously that's the kind of that's the that's the the vibe they are giving with it. Because I guess, you know, here it says hack and slash through endless mobs in a fast paced tactical combat where story stats and synergies holds away. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's fine. I'm sure I'm sure it'll do well.
Dave:I mean, it's it's not launched on on I think it's on back of kit, isn't it? This one? No. It's going
Matthew:to be on Kickstarter, I think. Not out yet. We will put a link to the show notes.
Dave:Yeah. 5,000
Matthew:It's one of those games
Dave:so far. So
Matthew:I you know, we've seen a little bit of this with even with Alien. People have realized that minis seem to do very well on Kickstarter.
Dave:Yep.
Matthew:So this is a game that comes with a set of minis. And, of course, there are very probably some great character designs from the computer game that are gonna be rendered in plastic.
Dave:I mean, those minis on the on their launch page look superb, actually. Yeah. They they look absolutely top top notch. I would say that.
Matthew:And I imagine a whole bunch of people may well be, you know, kicking into this. Not so much to get the rule book, but just to get the minis to add to their incredibly large pile of
Dave:unpainted Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Not my thing at all, but lots of people do like winning, Dave. Lots of people like to, you know, succeed with every dice roll.
Dave:They do.
Matthew:They do.
Matthew:And hack and slash their way through vast armies of undead or whatever the bad guys are in Diablo.
Dave:Yeah. And again, think that,
Matthew:you know You
Dave:know, I I you know, good luck to him. If if you're a Diablo fan and you want to role play in the in the world of Diablo and take your computer game experience to the table top, that's great, you know. And I I kind of thinking about what was it? Dark Dark Souls. The Dark Souls
Matthew:Oh, yeah.
Dave:Is a computer game that my sons have loved playing. I've never played it. Well, I've seen I've seen them play it. Again, it's a massive hack and slash kind of game that, you know, I I could pound the keyboard and do okay kind of thing, but it's, you know, it's not not really my style again. But I I got I got the five e version of that for Morgan for Christmas, and he's been playing it with with Dean and and the rest of our crowd on on on a weekend.
Dave:And they're absolutely loving it. They're saying it actually brings it's a five e version, but it actually brings the real feel of of of Dark Souls to the table for them. So that's great. It's not a game I'll ever play or I would ever buy for myself, but it's, you know, it's obviously scratching an itch for a a a part of the community who are really enjoying it. And I guess Diablo will will be the same.
Dave:And say, it's got five and a half thousand followers already. So it's going to do well. Yeah. And it looks lovely. I have to say so.
Matthew:You know, it's got some great industry people behind it.
Dave:It does.
Matthew:Yeah. We've got Cam Banks who for years was a I mean, one of my favorite game systems, as you all know, the Cortex game system. Mhmm. And Cam Banks, since being a fan of the original Firefly game, Serenity, and was quite a active member of the of the forums when we were a lad. And and then, you know, ended up writing great great swathes of year zero not year zero engine, so Cortex system stuff.
Matthew:Yeah. Owning the Cortex system for a while. I think he's sold it on now. John Harper, Blaze in the Dark. Mike Olson, who did Fate, which is one of our favorite all systems.
Matthew:Sean Tomkin, who's the guy
Dave:who's the Yeah.
Matthew:Francesco as well. Yeah. So, you know, some great names. Great names behind it as well. I am not going to back it, but good luck to him.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. If when it comes out and it's at a convention, I will pick it up and have a look at it and and flick through it. But, yeah, I I won't be backing it either. It's not it's not my bag.
Dave:But it is obviously a bag for a lot of people, so it will do very well.
Matthew:Cool. Next game in the new games list, talking of Mike Olsen and Fate, comes from Evil Hat, the the guys behind Fate. And that is Streets of Jade.
Dave:Okay. I don't know much about this one.
Matthew:Well, let me one of the reasons you know not so much about it is it's not an a licensed game. It is inspired by Wuxia, which is to say, you know, this one of the Hong Kong movie genres that inspired Feng Shui. So there'll be lots of extravagant martial arts, and I imagine Mhmm. Gun fu as well. Yeah.
Matthew:It will, I think, you know, be a very good feng shui after the rather disappointing second edition of feng shui. Importantly, it's got a lot of Chinese involvement in terms of Chinese cultural. Authors from within the Chinese culture.
Dave:Are you seeing this as basically the next edition of Feng Shui?
Matthew:I think
Dave:Feng Shui. You've even got me saying Feng Shui.
Matthew:You said it right the first I don't think so.
Dave:No. No. No. No. That can't be right.
Matthew:But it might be. I I'm kind of interested. I'm not sure that I'm gonna back it, but I'm kind of kind of intrigued to look at it. I will be following the campaign. It may be it may be the shall we say, not the next edition of, but the worthy successor to Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:That's And having said it's not licensed, I'm just reading at the bottom that it is actually licensed. So sorry for me saying it's the contrast is it's not a licensed game. It's based on The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee. So it's not a license I've heard of, but I guess if you're into wuxia fiction You will.
Matthew:I'm gonna have to know
Dave:Know it full well. Yeah.
Matthew:Look that up and find out what all that's about.
Dave:So is that up on Kickstarter or BakkerKit at the moment?
Matthew:It again, it's Is it wait. It's not yet up Not launched. On Right. Starting. But you can sign up to a play test.
Matthew:We will put a link in the show notes. You're interested in it, you can sign up to playtest. And talking of John Harper, I noticed that he is in the crowd of creators that are named here as well.
Dave:Yeah. He's getting a yeah. I mean, it's interesting. It's this this kind of like kung fu, gun fu as you called it genre, it's not really one that I've sort of massively been interested in, you know, as a as a moviegoer or or that kind of thing or reader. But I always really enjoyed the feng shui, feng shui games campaigns that you ran.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:And so, yeah, I'm quite I'm quite my my interest is piqued by this. I'd be interested to have a have a look. I may not be backing it when it comes up, but I'm certainly like you, I will certainly follow it with interest.
Matthew:I think one of the one of the actual actions I might take is I have an audible subscription. Well, not actually sign up for a play chess, but my first action might be to download the novel and have it read to me by somebody and see how that grabs. Yeah. The the novel I'm just reading is 700 pages long, so that's quite a big one.
Dave:Okay. And it's called The Green Bone Saga, is it?
Matthew:By Fonda Lee.
Dave:Fonda Lee. Yeah. Okay.
Matthew:Might put a link to that in the show notes as well. Why why
Dave:not? I'm we've you know, I'm looking for a a book to read because I've kind of run out of I I stopped I stopped reading that that that book I was telling you about by by Adrian. Yeah. The fantasy one. Because it it didn't grip me.
Matthew:Funny enough, I am struggling with the other one that I've got in in a similar way. And even even that one, I don't even have to read that one. That's another audiobook that I kind of stopped listening to.
Dave:Is that which So I haven't read Children of Memory yet, the third one in the series. Is that the one you're talking about?
Matthew:Or did you try No. I've read that. I've read all of those. So I'm all I'm all for that. And now this was called City of Something.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:Okay. What it is. Even. Okay.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:But it's not it's not grabbing me. Not in the way that children of time
Dave:grab
Dave:So
Matthew:Sorry, Adrian.
Dave:But no. Those those those ones are superb books. I absolutely love those. Yeah. But I think also, I'm not really I've read a lot of sort of generic fantasy stuff, and it it interests me a lot less than any interesting and thoughtful, insightful science fiction story.
Dave:Yeah. So I think that I think I think by by starting that book anyway, I was I was starting from a lower level of interest just because
Matthew:Well, there's I you know, and I don't want to accuse Adrian Tricosti of writing generic fantasy.
Dave:No. Not at all, because I haven't
Matthew:But what I'm saying is It's just the that fantasy setting for both of us, I think, is a hard one for us to get into because we have been battered around the gills by too much generic fantasy in our youth. Yeah. So it's immediately off putting to us. Yeah. A bit like, you know, the Zero system is to to certain RPG players.
Matthew:And we've gotta get over
Dave:that You are burning before we
Matthew:realize the quality of it.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. We well, we'll talk about it in a minute, maybe. But yeah. So Streets of Jade, watch keep your eyes open, folks, for that one.
Dave:And so I will certainly be watching it with interest.
Matthew:Yeah. And then okay. And then while we are going down the labyrinth of licensed game products, let let's find the true Aruba Ross. Arubarous? How do you say?
Dave:Arubarous, I think.
Matthew:Arubarous. The eating one's own tale of one's licensed product here. I wrote this down in our show notes as Die, the tabletop role playing game of the comic about tabletop role playing games, is now getting a comic quick start. So
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Die is published by our friends, Rowan, Rook and Deckard. I haven't played it.
Dave:But haven't played it. No.
Matthew:Our friend and patron of the show, Thomas, has and said it was great. Or he's run it as as opposed to playing it. But, yeah, his players loved it as well. The the the conceit of the original comic of Die was it's a bit like, if you like, the Dungeons and Dragons animated series from our youths in that a bunch of players get sucked into the world of that they're playing in their fantasy game and have to deal with that. And it's very much, I think, a more inward journey than it first appears.
Matthew:And quite horrific as well. I understand from the comic. I've I've not read it. Anyway, that became a TTRPG of being a TTRPG player sucked into the world that you create. Yeah.
Matthew:And now Black Horse, who are the publishers of the comic die, are getting in on the act, and they're producing a new comic, which is in itself a quick start for the RPG. Right. I tell I tell you what. Let's put a link in the show notes, and we can and then everybody can can eat their own tails. We've
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Reading about that.
Dave:Yep. No. That sounds cool.
Matthew:Yeah. That does sound cool. Actually, I I might get that. Right. Shall we get on to the next item in our list is we got a great review.
Dave:We did. Dungeons and dyslexia were were convinced actually by our friend and friend of the show, Pookie, to to review tales of the Old West. And we provided them with PDF to to have a read of. And then they did a about an hour and ten minute video of their, yeah, their review Yeah. Eight.
Dave:Of of of the game. Yeah.
Matthew:It's a nice format. They called it a live review. So they've got about four people, you know, each on their on their StreamYard chat talking about the books. Aiden runs a show.
Dave:Aiden or Adrian?
Matthew:Adrian. You're right. Not Adrian. Yep. Adrian.
Dave:Yeah. Yes. So so Adrian and Pookie and a couple of Adrian's muckers were reviewing it. It was interesting. I think they had a lot of they had a lot of interesting points.
Dave:The the the the problem they had, it seems, is that they all Well, for the exception of Pookie, hate the year zero engine. And it seems they hate it with a bit of a vengeance. So so but but bearing that in mind, they said an awful lot of very, very positive stuff about it. At the end, they give a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle. And we got two thumbs up and two thumbs in the middle, which I think is considering three of them hate the system that the game uses is is actually pretty damn positive.
Matthew:Pretty good. Pretty Pretty good. Yeah. As a result. And I remember Adrian Adrian, in fact, in an interview, talks about coming to our stand when I was manning it at
Dave:Oh, yeah. Yeah. UK Games Expo.
Matthew:UK Games Expo. And what I didn't know is I'd come to Alstad straight off a game of Electric State.
Dave:Electric State. Yeah.
Matthew:Which they'd all all their prejudices about the, yeah, Zero engine had been amplified by their experience as playing that that game. So Yeah. I can't talk about But they they were particularly down on Year Zero when they came there. And I remember now on on TV, I remember seeing their faces fall. And I said, it's Year Zero again.
Matthew:Yeah. So so they they didn't go away buying a copy then. But they did, Pookie's insistence, read the review PDF that we sent them. And they liked it. And there's lots of lots of positives they said about the content.
Matthew:Stuff that you know, a lot of it, I'm gonna admit, Dave, and this is a rare compliment. A lot of it was stuff that you wrote, including the the town rules. In fact, Adrian, although he won't play the year zero engine, would just take your town rules and make a mini game of that.
Dave:I did did say that, actually, the book was the town rules were worth the price of the book in themselves. So that was a pretty pretty powerful
Matthew:That's pretty good. Support.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, I'm very pleased with the town rules. And I'm really pleased that other people are seeing seeing what I saw in the town rules when I when I wrote them.
Matthew:Yeah. But given that I never did that, I thought. No.
Dave:You were always a skeptical, weren't you? And actually, I mean, mean, you know, again, let let's let's
Matthew:Good skepticism.
Dave:Let's let's stick with this aura of being friendly and complimenting one another. The your your feedback on the original versions of those, which is basically make it simpler, was was good feedback that contributed to to my brilliance
Matthew:To how good they are now.
Dave:To my brilliance in producing the the final product.
Matthew:So Yes.
Dave:So well done you. But then that
Matthew:Well done well done you for
Dave:Well done us.
Matthew:For taking my advice.
Dave:Rarely. Well, no. So I think that's but team effort team effort. As I said before, you know, I get nowhere unless the team wins, which is is a favorite line taken from the untouchables, which Al Capone says just before he bashes the head in of one of his men in a very brutal way, which is based on a real situation That really happened.
Matthew:And they were generally complimentary about the art, but their particular favorite art was our two portraits in the Yeah.
Dave:I know. That was a bit weird. But
Matthew:Which are great pictures, I've got to say.
Dave:Would just like to say, they did speculate momentarily about whether it was AI. There's nothing AI in our work whatsoever.
Matthew:Whatsoever.
Dave:None whatsoever. In the artwork, in the text, in anything. It's all done by people.
Matthew:All done by real people. Yes. And I was keen I I added a comment to the video to to stress that point.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:So Yeah. So don't Yeah. Anyway, it was
Dave:Yeah. Go on.
Matthew:I was gonna say, even while they were doing this live, because this is this is a live show, as you rightly pointed out, we got two orders. So while they were reviewing it Yeah. That was great.
Dave:That was.
Matthew:Viewers actually ordered it from us. So
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Even though you hate the the game system underlying it, Adrian, thank you very much.
Dave:Yes. Indeed. But but
Matthew:excellent hours of entertainment.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I think it's interesting because they they even say in the in their interview that the the big reason they don't like the year zero engine is because they like to succeed at their dice rolls, they feel you fail too often in year zero. I mean, in my experience, and I have played a buttload of year zero games, I've never felt that.
Dave:I've never felt that, oh, I'm gonna fail again. Oh, I'm gonna fail again. At all. But then, you know, when you do fail, failing is fun. We've had some great moments in some of the games that I've ran, which have all come about because of a failure, and they've made really powerful, exciting, fun moments.
Dave:So failing is fun. You don't have to succeed with every dice roll to have fun in a role playing game at all.
Matthew:Yeah. No. I I felt very much the three who didn't like the system felt that rolling the dice and succeeding was a big component of their fun. And I think Yeah. We look at it differently.
Matthew:I think, interestingly, one of them mentioned that Coriolis, and I assume this is the third horizon, was their favorite year zero engine. Yep. And actually, your dice pulls are quite a lot higher in Coriolis. The push cost is the cost of pushing, I should say, is, of course
Dave:Darkness point.
Matthew:Slightly put into long grasp by the darkness point system. Yeah. Yeah. So you you, you know, you you generally roll the dice more in Coriolis. You roll more dice and you succeed more often.
Matthew:And, you know, it's interesting. We love that game. It's why we have a podcast after all. Also, we love Versen, where it's almost diametrically opposite in terms of, you know, you've got about four chances to push your dice before you're broken, effectively. Yeah.
Matthew:The dice pool's all smaller. So consequently, I think there's more chance of failing in Versen. But then, we've, we've kind of realized we couldn't work out quite why we were enjoying role playing Versen so much until I I thought, well, I wonder whether it's because we don't wanna roll the dice.
Dave:Yeah. No. I think that's the point I was just gonna make. But actually, in Versen, you're you are really, really encouraged, pushed, driven to rolling the dice only and absolutely only when it really, really matters. Whereas I think in in some of the games that I run, you know, Tales of the Old West is a good one.
Dave:I probably, as a GM, get the players to roll the dice more often than
Matthew:You should. I think I think sometimes you
Dave:do Then you should, potentially. But that's fine.
Matthew:Think he's one of your players.
Dave:Because people like rolling dice. But I think Versen very much is a game where, you know, you you roll the dice in extremis and rarely. And therefore
Matthew:And in fact
Dave:four pushes per scenario is fine. Now, you know, it's probably less than that because you're
Matthew:more than looking actually. Yeah. It depends on how how
Dave:because you get you get four conditions. So you can't I think your fifth
Matthew:You get four mental conditions and four physical conditions. So you can actually okay. Pitches.
Dave:Alright. You can do it.
Matthew:Well, no. You can't do eight. You can do seven before breaking, I think.
Dave:Okay. I was gonna ask as I played Dyson, so I might be getting it wrong. But anyway, you are limited, whereas in other games, you're not. Or not not limited in the same way, anyway.
Matthew:Yeah. And I think, possibly and again, I think we should maybe invite these guys. You should run a game for these guys.
Dave:Yeah. I was thinking Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Because they haven't played it, actually. And I think a a Adrian, who I keep wanting to call Aiden, now I've got it in my head. Adrian would actually really enjoy running you know, playing in the game with you. And one of his concerns as a reader and not a player was it what he felt, I think, was our low limit on oh, you only get four faith points at the beginning of the game.
Matthew:So, that kind of implies you only get to push four times in a session. I could go into an argument about, yeah, but you're meant to do Western cliche things and Yeah. Earn more faith points.
Dave:Yeah. Mean, during when I was watching I didn't watch it live, but when I was watching the video, there was there was a number of times where I was kind of shouting at the screen, yes, but you don't understand. It's like this. And this is a really good example, where the whole point of the game or the whole the whole point of getting into the game, role playing in the game, is that you do stuff to generate more faith. And you've got a gunfight tomorrow, so you go and have a, you know, a romantic evening with your wife.
Dave:You go and clean your gun. You groom your horse. You do all these things.
Matthew:And as I say
Dave:because you're reflecting on the fact that this time tomorrow, you might be dead.
Matthew:And, yeah, one can make an argument that every Western you've ever seen is about the main protagonists gathering faith before the big gunfight at the Yeah.
Dave:Absolutely. Yeah. Completely.
Matthew:So so Anyway
Dave:There were there were were those kind of nuances that I don't think they understood from a a quick read of of the PDF.
Matthew:Yeah. Although, one thing they did pick up, which I'm very pleased, is on page 39, and this is a box I wrote. So, yeah, you might have written the town rules, but the the thing they liked best was this, which was my box out that said don't roll the dice too too often. It can be hard to succeed with ability rules, I'd say.
Dave:I don't think that was their favorite thing in the whole book.
Matthew:Well, Adrian particularly called it out, so I think that was
Dave:He did. Yeah. He did call that out. No. That's fair.
Dave:That's fair. So No. I think I
Matthew:think that's
Dave:a very good idea. I think we should we should hold their feet to the fire and say, come on then, have a game and then do another quick review afterwards. See what
Matthew:Or even don't even do another quick review. Because, you know, they've given us a positive review. We've made some sales out of it. We should just invite them to a game. I we
Dave:need as his as his account
Matthew:of me rolling dice at the table illustrates, I didn't manage to convince him that our systems work really well because I failed about three times.
Dave:Your dice rolls. Yeah. But then, I mean, yes, you do get that sometimes. I mean, we we had the there was the one notorious case of in or years ago, this was, but playing Coriolis, where Morgan rolled I think we worked it out. He rolled 64 dice without getting a success on one on one session.
Dave:Now, I mean, the chances of that are fantastic Infinitesimally small. But these things happen. Now I think on that occasion, because there was an awful lot, Morgan did get a little bit down in the mouth about it, which is fair enough, because it was a continuation of of that in a really extreme way. But I mean, I've never ever, I don't think, felt in any year zero game, oh, I'm gonna fail again. Oh, I failed again.
Dave:Oh, I failed again. Because you can push. You can do other stuff. You get your
Matthew:The only time you felt like that is when I scored a critical hit on you and shot you in the head.
Dave:Yeah. But that wasn't my that wasn't my dice roll, So I hadn't failed the roll.
Matthew:that was the dice rolling, lots of sixes. That
Dave:That was you. That was your fault.
Dave:That was
Matthew:yeah.
Matthew:Anyway But
Dave:no. But thanks to Adrian and and and the guys, and particularly thanks to Pookie for for getting the guys at
Matthew:Dungeons and the Fluxedo. For persuading them to
Dave:To look at it. Yeah.
Matthew:To even consider it a year zero game for their show.
Dave:But, yeah, I will I will extend an invite to to run a game for them. Absolutely.
Matthew:Cool. And also, somebody they did a draw
Dave:They did?
Matthew:For somebody to win a a copy of the PDF. And I'm still expecting waiting for them, if they're listening. I'm still expecting you to give us the email address of that person so that I can send them a confirmation.
Dave:I I I need to nudge Pookie on that. I haven't done that yet.
Matthew:Right. Okay. Cool. But Pookie I mean, Pookie nudged he did say, Adrian, you've got the contact details. You know to send it to them.
Dave:But Yeah. True. True.
Matthew:Live in the show. But they haven't. So really, we're needing to nudge Adrian. Okay. Cool.
Matthew:Moving on. Oh, we've spent quite a lot of time on this already on World of But we've gotta talk about Tabletop Scotland.
Dave:Tabletop Scotland in what? It's about a month now? Three weeks now?
Matthew:No. It's less than a month, isn't it?
Dave:The first
Matthew:weekend in September.
Dave:It is. It's the weekend it's the weekend of some very special person's birthday again.
Matthew:Alright. I'll shoot you in the head again.
Matthew:What a real Yeah.
Dave:So Tabletop Scotland, we will be there as Effect Publishing. We will also be there as Free League Publishing. And yeah. It's gonna be a good one. It's a three day show, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Dave:And yeah. We're hoping to sell lots of lots of lots of stuff for for both Free League and for for effect. So, yeah. I'm not sure
Matthew:any demo games or seminars or anything like that, are we?
Dave:No. No. We don't have we don't have the bandwidth for that this time. Yeah. It's just just you and I or you and me are gonna be there.
Dave:But, yes. So if you're going to Tabletop Scotland, come and look for us. We are on Stands D 104 and D 106. They're next to each other, so if you find one of us, you'll find both of us. Yeah.
Dave:Looking forward to it. It's it's a bit of an old long schlep to get there, but it's I had great fun there last year. It was a really good convention and it's a nice size, and I think hopefully it'll be a little bit bigger this year, but not not not by too much. But, yeah. Really looking forward to it.
Matthew:Cool. Okay. Yes. Come and see us at Tabletop Scotland. We will put a link in the show notes.
Matthew:Moving on then. And without any further ado, shall we go straight into our interview with Yes. With Paul
Dave:With our lovely his new Kickstarter. His new Kickstarter, Cheese Board. So here we are in the hamam today, and it feels like the hamam because it's bloody hot. It is hot.
Matthew:It's a very sweaty hamam, isn't it?
Dave:Hot, hot, and hot. But delighted to say that in the hamam, in this this, like, epicenter of hotness we've got the epitome of cool we have Paul Boldowski a friend of the show friend of ours great to have you back on the show Paul
Paul:it's marvelous marvelous to be here
Dave:Excellent. It's lovely to have you on. We have got a we've got you on because you are about to kick start a new game. Kirkboard or whatever our various pronunciations
Matthew:mentioned mister married to a Swede.
Dave:She's not she's not over there watching me, you know, making sure that I'm pronouncing things correctly.
Matthew:I am gonna call it cork board. Well, the
Dave:way the way you spelled it, the b o r d doesn't say bird in Swedish. It says board.
Paul:Because there there there is there is no there is no o with a slash in the Swedish language.
Dave:No. You've got or, a, and a, which are the three. Yeah. A with a dot, a with two dots, the o with two dots.
Paul:So o with o with yeah. The o with a slash comes from Danish and Finnish and Norwegian, I So
Matthew:yeah. So you're trying to capture the whole so yeah. Interacted This with game
Dave:is like Esperanto for Scandinavia, isn't it? It's like, you know, that's what you're doing. You're making Esperanto for that's a brilliant idea.
Matthew:Particularly for the Danes, of course. Anyway, well
Paul:So so the the the there are many reasons why it's written spelled the way it is. So just just to kick off on that note, and so Kirkbird Kirkbird is it's about it is bedded in Nordic noir the sort of or Scandi noir however you want to term it which is a an approach to procedural crime fiction which is largely based in fiction around Sweden, Norway, sort of then, you know, Danish, Finnish Well,
Dave:definitely the British.
Paul:It's in Sweden. Yeah but it's equally expanded to like Icelandic and so forth as well but basically yes Scandi Nor, Nordic Nor covers those those regions and so so some measure that's
Dave:Finland there?
Paul:No. Sorry. I think did I not say Finnish? I meant to say
Dave:I meant to say Finnish. Your country except Finland. So I'm feeling sorry.
Paul:My apologies. No. That was not that was not intentional. But, yeah, Finnish as well. And so first of all, we have a slight mix there.
Paul:So we have the o with a slash is included in some of the alphabets of those countries. But at the same time, cookbook bird has this because it's embedded in police procedural, I had this image of a literal corkboard where you have different pieces of evidence that are connected by pins and strings. And so within the within the within the the logo of the the game, you have pins and strings. And one of those pins and strings cuts across the oath. So, yeah, it was a there was a there's a mix of things going on here.
Paul:Very cool. And structurally, Kirkbird has two four letter words which mirror the kind of sound of Morck Bord. Now now Morck Bord, on the other hand, Morck bord, I I can't pronounce. Is is it like Merck Merck bird? Merck Merck?
Matthew:Merck Merck. Merck
Paul:literally and probably metaphorically. Yeah. Is that going to
Dave:be your tagline? Murdering the language and they put Nordic to the line? No.
Paul:There are so many levels upon which I might be accused of murdering all sorts
Matthew:of things. Yeah. But let us not interrogate Paul on what is murdered. What I'm really interested in Merk is Breuer is very much a hack and slash. The rules are very simple.
Matthew:There's all sorts of ways of dying. You've got very few hit points, but you're meant to, you know, head into a dungeon, kill some people and come out with some, well, I say people, well, people and other things and come out possibly with some treasure, which is normally in the spirit of Mirkborg quite crap and value less. And in the end, the world ends.
Dave:You wonder why I don't want to play it? It's so cheerful.
Matthew:Well it's fun that's why I want to play it. It's hilarious. It is possibly still our most popular actual play on the Free League, the Little Used effect channel. Where am I going with this? Yes, so this does not strike me as a detective mechanic.
Matthew:It doesn't have the nuance of all the Robin Williams?
Paul:Robin Williams, yes. Robin Lord
Matthew:The games.
Paul:The the
Dave:the well well renowned Nordic, like, procedural game designer, Robin Williams, when he wasn't being a film star, obviously.
Matthew:I I so
Paul:it's basically heat. It's the heat. I understand. It
Dave:is 06:30 on a Friday afternoon as well.
Paul:So you know, so so so the notion so to my mind, the Merck, I will call it the Merck, is is about a it's a it is a brutal and grim spiral towards the end of the world. You know, you you you you act with aspirations towards almost profiting from this slow march towards ultimately this, you know, seven of the Psalms coming through coming true within within the game. You wanna get as much as you can before the seventh hits, so to speak. And the words of Basilisk or whatever come come true and the the world ends.
Matthew:And you've the book.
Paul:Yeah and you've burned the book. The the notion here is that Nordic Noir in some respects, has a similar bleak and desolate decline that the that the fiction that these stories have in them characters who are seeking very much to have aspirations, they have a belief that they can live better lives, but ultimately those lives are constantly challenged by the brutality of the crimes, by the bleakness of the landscape, by the slow breakdown of society around them. And within this game, instead of the Psalms, you have the erga cult, which is a it's it it is not necessarily spelled out what whether it is a religion or a an an individual or even perhaps a I don't know. It's it is something that is infecting and tainting the backdrop and appears in the news, Pete, that that the these there are increasingly brutal crimes. There is evidence that connects to it.
Paul:Within the game itself you have a similar notion that you will roll a die with each day that passes and depending upon the outcome of that die there may be news reports which may indicate that there have there have been events beyond the sort of bounds of the game itself. But they point to an increasing influence of the Ugga cult. And ultimately, there will come a time when the game itself will also end in similar way to the Mirk. The Kirk has a similar endgame and in Nordic noir, there is certainly that same sense that your end will rarely be a happy one.
Matthew:So I guess that covers the being a drunkard bit of emotional fiction. Where do the cable knit sweaters come in? What's the mechanic for that?
Paul:It's just a necessary aspect of I I think if you are going to come to the gaming table, you should wear an appropriately patterned jumper. Possibly not at this time of year is what I'm gonna suggest.
Matthew:Not gonna get quite today then.
Paul:Unless unless you can find a t shirt similar to a Christmas jumper, which instead has an appropriate Nordic design on it.
Matthew:I don't know. But shirt. That could be a merch opportunity for you.
Paul:Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew:Right. Okay. So seriously,
Dave:do mean in Swedish?
Matthew:Do you say, Kirk?
Paul:What is Kirk? Is that not oh, Kirk? Or
Matthew:is this is
Paul:this just the Again again actually, no, Kirkburg means nothing in Swedish.
Dave:I was gonna say I I yeah.
Paul:No. No. You know how sometimes you you wish when somebody relaunches a new product that they'd run it through Google Translate just to find out whether or not it means something completely some something completely perverse or inappropriate. I have run this through translators. It does means nothing.
Dave:There are some good examples in Sweden of of large car manufacturers doing exactly the same and not realizing what they'd called their car until it was at the very last minute.
Paul:No. No. I I mean, from from the point of view of a name, it obviously has quite a it's it it also has an a punish aspect of being, you know Yeah. Something that you would use in a criminal investigation. But no, one of the earliest things I did was to run it through a Google Translate, and it doesn't mean anything in Sweden.
Paul:So no, anyway.
Matthew:I'm just reading some of the commentary on the Reddit that you've put up with your video. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. And a Norwegian guy is very impressed by the O with the line through it, saying it really, really enhanced the fact your game is Nordic Noir inspired. Essentially the same letter as the O with two dots above it. The O with the letter is used by Norway and Denmark while O with the dots is.
Paul:See, it works on so many levels. It works on so many levels and yet I can fully expect more Swedes to revile me for my misuse of their language.
Matthew:Well you got one Danish fan who tells us he doesn't particularly care about Holland, Greenland and the Faroe's Island but
Paul:I mean and that's the thing as well because the Nordic noir really started with Martin Beck, who is a Swedish investigator and also more commonly is connected with Kurt Wallander, both of whom have have found, you know, sort of transition to films and TV series but it has as a export it has expanded to cover more Scandinavian countries definitely.
Matthew:Yeah. Even Wales are making their own,
Dave:Well, isn't
Paul:yeah, I mean, most recently is Department Q, which is Scotland. Set Although the original book is a Danish one, I believe.
Matthew:Are you know, given that Merkborg has, you know, effectively the rules are on the end papers, they're that simple. Have you complexified Kirk Borg to deal with this? Well, so the complexification
Paul:would come, is definitely around the investigative side of things. And I think I didn't really answer it with your original question. No, you didn't. I will deal with it. So the complexity remains low.
Paul:So you still have difficulty ratings very similar to to to Merck. But here, instead of dealing with brutal sort of face to face encounters, you are dealing with the accumulation of evidence from your investigations. So when you go to a site within the game, you are seeking out evidence by effectively dealing with those locations as encounters. So you're not fighting a creature, You are basically dealing with the difficulties of extracting useful evidence from the locations that you
Dave:grappling with the crime scene.
Paul:Indeed. And so there will be there are difficulty ratings at those crime scenes, which allow you to either be able to extract evidence, or if you fail a role, effectively complicate your investigations by maybe uncovering a red herring or basically failing to find forensic evidence and leaving yourself with the possibility that you will pursue that evidence to to to in in a way that won't progress the investigation. And so notionally, you will each investigation within Kirkland has a has a pin rating, the number of pins that you need to actually achieve to actually to solve the crime. Within the book, while the rules will be the same in in in that you need to you you roll your d 20, you add your ability score to it, your modifier. You need to roll higher than the difficulty rating.
Matthew:There
Paul:will be rules in there around what impact that might have if you fail. It there are aspects. So effectively, a, there is a single key location in any given investigation, which is kind of referred to as like the nexus of the crime where you might potentially find more than one clue but that nexus leads to other areas where you can find other evidence, other items that can build your case. And it's not I'm not seeking out a it's not like like Brindlewood Bay or or something like that where the clues are almost created by the players. There there are clues that you you need to find, but there will be mechanisms that allow you allow you as a GM to either create a crime beforehand or potentially almost generate a crime as you go along.
Paul:In that there will be aspects to that crime like identifying perhaps the certain characteristics of the the murderer or the antagonist and building up a case to the point where you have, as I said, you've achieved enough pins to actually resolve the crime. But you need to get those pins before you have bogged your investigation down in too many failures. And if if the failures ever reach a point where they exceed the number of pins the crime will resolve in a effectively a cold case sort of thing a situation where the crime has not been resolved and it kind of presents an end game where the bad guy maybe you arrest somebody but maybe they get out maybe they get off on a technicality because you have not built up a strong enough case around the situation And to complicate matters and very much in the Nordic Noir sort of theme is the possibility that as you go along you will acquire baggage. And so this is a slow breakdown in your stability as an individual. This is your your alcoholism.
Paul:This is your troubled relationship with your wife. This is the child who doesn't speak to you anymore. The father who spends all his time in the garage painting the same picture time and time again who you've lost connection with. It is these personal aspects that will challenge you as you are completing your investigation. Baggage is not only something that gives you an opportunity as a role player to create some depth to your character and gives you your opportunity for sort of of wistful early mornings where you sit down to try and deal with the fact that you've not had enough sleep and you really mean to have made that phone call to talk to, as I said, your ex wife, your distant child, but it also impacts on your ability to complete your investigation.
Paul:So there will be modifiers related perhaps to your baggage that will make it harder for you to actually extract useful evidence from the locations that you're going to.
Dave:Is there is there some kind of is the idea of this that your character will play through Kirkboard once like in Murkboard or would you expect to have multiple you know, would this would this end up being a bit of a campaign or is there like a or is there a countdown that leads to the inevitable end whatever that might be?
Paul:So there so there is the countdown in the notionally, at the end of each day, the GM will will roll all of the polyhedral dice, and each of those die will actually determine something about the next day. So it might be something like the moods of the local population or the weather or things like that. But at the start of the adventure, one of those well, what the one of those dice will be the Yerga Cult die. It will be different in the it will be a different color to all the other dice. And not only will it determine maybe the weather, but if the result on that die is a one, that generates an agricultural event as well.
Paul:And when that event occurs next time, it will affect the next dialogue. So as as you go through perhaps a single story or a campaign, the chances that the ergocult's sort of sermons administrations will ultimately affect you and end the campaign increase but it also generates the aspects around the actual environment of the game. And the notion is you could run this as a one off. And actually your description Dave of Morkbog is almost a a one off thing. I think some people play it as a obviously play it as a campaign.
Paul:There will be people who lose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But equally, there
Dave:is wasn't it? Yeah. So
Paul:Yeah. There there's always that possibility that I I mean, the first game of that I ever ran of it was almost a total party kill in the first fight which is you know it's difficult I was at a convention running it and it was it's kind of like oh my god this is this is going so badly! The shortest of them would be another. Yes. And the thing is that they were just fighting against like three tiny, tiny light, really aggressive fairies.
Paul:They you know, who they had disrupted their mushroom. And as a result of which they've been attacked and, you know, one of the one of the players died. And it's kind of so the notion is definitely the nature of the game is less about player death and more about the disruption of their lives making it harder to investigate and the more they they experience that spiral of their personal issues and the sort of that sort of melancholic sort of dive into just the other day, and so I'm I am sort of drowning myself in in in Nordic Noir at the moment. So I'm reading a a Wallinta book, and I think I've got a Beck on on on the back burner. And it's kind of, like, halfway through the book.
Paul:It just there's this one of these days he wakes up and he has this he is tired. He is he has no idea where the case is going and he gets a case of really bad diarrhea basically because he he's eaten something the day before. That's just Nordic noir and that kind of this this fact that the the investigation for that day kind of screeches to a halt because he's feeling so ill and tired and that's I don't want every game of Kirk Byrd to end with like dysentery you know but you know there needs to be this notion. Yeah
Dave:I was gonna say so listeners if you ever had an urge to role play having diarrhea, this is the game for you.
Paul:It is. It is. It is. But but so notionally, I want to have the post the nature of the game should be that you can potentially play it solo. So so on in a solo game, that will be the day when nothing happens because you are at home.
Paul:Sort of shut shut it in because you're feeling so bad. But at the same time, it it will mean in a in a group game, there is the possibility that somebody might not turn up. They might dial it in literally from the toilet that they can still contribute but yeah there should be the possibility that you know people will have a bad day and it might not be, you know, something as bad as that, but it might be your kids playing up so much that you have to go to the school to pick them up because they've just been they've just been dumped out of school and sent home. Yeah. Because, yeah, that's the nature of the game.
Paul:Cool. Cool. Yeah. Di diarrhea is cool. Yeah.
Paul:Yeah. Anyway.
Matthew:I I you've mentioned the ergo cult a number of times. Yes. Explain to me the nature of the ergo cult.
Paul:I I can't. Right. Okay. Are we gonna move on?
Matthew:I can't mean the mechanical nature of the occult.
Paul:No. So it is it is almost intentionally a something in the background. In that it is there is perhaps a sense that it's a cult of personality. Perhaps they're almost like a religion. Perhaps it is simply a a like a societal movement.
Paul:Notionally, the game is set in the eighties. So we don't have we don't we don't have the joys of the Internet. But still still there is this this simmering sense of something that is influencing the youth, you know, the youth of the day, something that's whispered in clubs and in playgrounds, something that is impacting upon people everywhere that gives them a sense that there is hope to be found in potentially nihilistic sort of perhaps even unhealthy pursuits of a darker sort of more brutal nature. But that in turn is impacting things like society and crime. It's making the crimes that are investigated more brutal.
Paul:And there's but there is no there is no act there's no, like, magic in the game. There is a a sort of perhaps a touch upon the occult and there may be the sense of being people who claim to be able to communicate with the dead or be able to reach to something that lies beyond. But the whole point of the Oka Cult is it's almost a tool that the GM has to show the slow corruption of society in the background. And there's every sort of there is a there will be discussion of it within the book but in the same way as it's you know in in Merck the Psalms and the basilisk and so forth are sort of they're in the background. They're never they're not necessarily front and center but they are something that influences the world and the same applies with the yoga culture in Kirkland.
Matthew:Okay. So that also knocks out one of my other questions is, are there any weird monsters or that sort of thing in there? But your answer to that is no.
Paul:There may be weird, but there are no monsters. The game is not about combat that that brutal side comes in the almost in the in the way that you are dealing with the crimes you know the the brutalities in the crimes and what you have to deal with in finding a solution and uncovering those who are behind the crimes.
Matthew:Cool. And now I was also going to ask about how it differs from the D sanction, but actually I think you've pretty much unpacked that. And I can
Paul:Yeah, I mean, I guess the connection is purely that they're both about investigations, but there is no Yeah, Yes. I mean, notionally, the only other connection might be that in coming in writing the D sanction, I've always favored a quite loose and sort of investigative structure. The idea that the GM has a certain set of locations and people, but the actual there's no deeply detailed. You don't you don't get scenarios running to, you know hundreds of pages or whatever you can create campaigns from investigations which are relatively lightweight. Yeah.
Paul:So that might be the only way you can connect them but really there is no I've definitely tried to do something a little different by co opting the the the sort of tools that are provided by by Merck and and using them as a basis to create something a little bit more, I guess, brutally cerebral in Kirk. It's less about the sword and more about sort of the brutal despair. I I still think it'll be it it feel It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. Yeah.
Paul:No. But no. But it shouldn't be played for fun. I mean, I think if anything, it needs to be it is a it's a game that requires a sort of tone. Tonally it requires a certain seriousness to it that's not to say I think when I read Nordic Noir it's not the sort of stuff that sort of leaves you walking away depressed You are quite engaged in the investigations and so it's it should be entertaining to play but it's not meant to be fun if you get the idea.
Matthew:Okay now people accused us of having too much fun playing merc ball. Do you know we were laughing all the way through. People said you shouldn't be laughing it's horrific.
Paul:There you go.
Matthew:There you go.
Paul:You're playing it wrong. Yes. Yeah. The idea is that you can you shouldn't not be able to have a certain measure of humor, but I I think humor would spoil the atmosphere. I think the atmosphere needs to be kind of, bizarrely I was looking at something earlier that I'm gonna probably massacre another word, hygge, hygge, which is the Danish idea of like a coziness.
Paul:It's sort of an approach to the both society and decoration and the sort of way you want to live your life. The opposite is which is like a creepiness a sort of a sort of unsettling sense in in the environment. And that's what Kirkwood should embrace a sort of a creepy sort of, yeah, bleakness.
Dave:I think Mugbug from what I've seen of it, and I've read I've read it as well. And so I'm familiar with it. I think that work that that is so extreme in terms of the horror that you probably have to laugh at it. Otherwise, if you take it seriously, it's grim. Whereas something like this, where it's a bit more about, as you said, the cerebral approach to the investigation and all of that, having an absolute blast is probably less in that sense, is is is less appropriate or is is not the right way to play it.
Dave:So I I get that.
Paul:Yeah. And the idea is absolutely, as I said, there should be an entertainment in what you're achieving. And I think the game should definitely be played to explore the characters to a to a degree as well. That that sense of wanting to know more about the the characters and and not expecting them to die at any moment, but but to become sort of engaged in in in the character in their lives.
Dave:Yeah. So going back to your question, Matt. I mean, looks like I I'm not sure it's the kind of game I would ever play. So so but that's just me. You fail.
Matthew:You fail.
Dave:No. No. No. I mean, I'm I'm loving the sound of it. And it's it's I'm I'm working on my own kind of idea for police procedural game as well.
Dave:So it's actually really insightful for me to get some of your thoughts about how this this game works that I can then reflect on in terms of stuff that I'm working on.
Paul:I mean, just I'm sorry to cut you off. I mean, procedurals obviously have quite a range as well. Know, Nordic Goire is very is a very specific procedural. Whereas, you know, if you were to go to, like, CSI, or, you know, or or, you know, that's a very different procedural. And so I think there's a wide sort of wide spectrum of potential in that sort of gaming wise.
Dave:Yeah. So I think the other thing where I'm aiming is kind of somewhere in between the two. Mhmm. Based on on some of the the police stuff that I've really loved in the past.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. We're not here to talk about that. So but I think I think I think it looks lovely. I love some of the ideas. I love the idea of the pin board and and getting more pins, and you've got sort of setbacks or whatever.
Dave:I think that look, like, works really good. I'm particularly interested to see the follow ups, which would be cheese board and gas board. But you
Matthew:know I've been
Paul:I've already been warned by people. I can see there's a fatigue setting in in certain people And I I think it's I I need to grasp this now before people turn away in disgust.
Dave:Although I think maybe you're setting a new trend. Instead of, like, Mirk Borg, you now got bored. So there's there's a there's a Swedish program called Festen, which
Matthew:I think you might
Paul:have heard of.
Dave:It's a similar kind of Nordic kind of thing. It's about the festival. It's basically about family an extended family at Christmas.
Paul:And it it
Dave:go it all goes hard. It's it's a classic Swedish thing. It all goes horribly wrong.
Paul:Yes. It's all about
Dave:the relationships. So cheese board would be perfect for that, because they will come to a Christmas dinner and well, that might one have that one would have to be smorgasbord, wouldn't it, actually? I'm not sure what gas board, how that would work, but
Matthew:Let's hold that thought. I just want to touch one more thing. We're over Yes. Time Yeah. You're so interesting.
Matthew:It's it's great.
Dave:It's been a great chat.
Paul:Yeah. As always.
Matthew:I noticed that All Rolled Up, which you are adjacent to, given that All Rolled Up is run by your wife, just announced that they're no longer going to be doing fulfilling orders to The U S this is something, you know, I've got a shop that currently delivers, we, David, I've got a shop that currently delivers to The U S but we're thinking very hard over really this weekend whether we can have those orders anymore. What do you think that means for your games and particularly for things like this upcoming Kickstarter? Do you expect to see the Kickstarter hit by nervousness
Paul:In The US? In
Matthew:import fees?
Paul:I I mean, first of all, I mean, I think at this moment in time, I think it's coming as a surprise to some people that this is even happening because yeah. Phil Phil, my wife, who is the owner of All Rolled Up, has only just recently posted about it, and I think it's taken some people by surprise. I think we are in a world which is has been rendered somewhat fluid by President Trump's tariffs and his approach to somewhat ad hoc changes in the approach to them and obviously the tariffs that have come into play that have affected so many countries around the world to varying degrees. This change is very specifically around ability of the customs in America to handle those changes. And up
Matthew:to
Paul:now, small traders have to a certain aspect taken been able to take advantage of the de minimis, which was like an $800 sort of a threshold beneath which you were kind of okay depending on what you were trading or what you're selling but the nature of these changes means that there has been this additional blanket charge bought in per sort of consignment per purchase, effectively, package which is definitely going to impact those small traders and stores who are dealing with American customers. Will there be more pressure? Will there be pressure exerted to actually get these changes modified in any way. The idea is that because of the administrative overhead of dealing with and processing deliveries means that the customs teams and in turn then the carriers within The US are dealing with a lot with all these changes. And that's why this blanket $80 or whatever has come in.
Paul:And it's obviously too much for a small trader to deal with. You're gonna have to deal with these as upfront charges before they even kind of go anywhere. And that number is like a low it's the low ball because on top of that you're going to have additional administrative charges which may come from the carriers or you know that the 80 is just to deal with that customs.
Dave:Just slap it
Paul:on top. So it's unlikely to just be 80. So from the perspective of not just mine, but obviously, but everybody's transactions, We're gonna have to I think look at ensuring that we have digital options in place which people can access products by but also hopefully have our fingers crossed that this is a short term change that will you know once processes and systems have been brought into play that will simplify processing I would hope that we go back to a state where small you know these smaller transactions can be handled more efficiently and to remove this flat fee which is going to otherwise be massively impactful. In terms of this Kickstarter, you know, I'm not expecting it. It's not expected to actually deliver until sort of middle of next year.
Paul:But, yeah, who knows? Because obviously, these changes have just hit, this year, you know, in the process of President Trump's sort of time in office. And so we will have to see whether things are different in six months time or, you know, and hopefully they they will be because otherwise this could be very damaging to a lot of companies.
Matthew:No. We're gonna let you go off and get a glass of water. Now, Paul Thank
Paul:thank you.
Dave:Or somebody in Sifa maybe.
Matthew:Well, I've gone for soldiering on through there to get the point across.
Paul:Yeah.
Matthew:I don't know about Dave, but I am going to back corkboard. Don't worry.
Paul:Very kind of you. It it it kicks off on the August 19 at 2PM. It will run for just over three weeks. And as I said, it would aim to deliver by sort of middle of next year. But I have in front of me right now on the computer that I can see there is the text is a work in progress right now I kind of have both I've got desanction and Corkbork which are both we're both in progress at the moment and my actual mind works well with that I like it juggling is good otherwise if I hit a dead end in in in one you can progress it stops yeah I can move switch to the other So this is kind of ideal for me at the moment.
Paul:So yeah. Thank you for your your time and your support.
Dave:No. Thank you for coming on, and always great to have you on on the show, Paul. Always a fabulous chat. So and, yeah, best of luck with with Kirkboard. Kirk Kirkbird.
Dave:Kirkbird. Best of luck with Smurgersburg. Kirkbird. So it's lovely talking to Paul as always. Always have a great laugh chatting with him.
Dave:And he comes up with some excellent excellent stuff. His work and his imagination is is is second to none. Really good stuff. So great luck to him for Kirk board. Bird?
Dave:Kirk bird?
Matthew:Cork board.
Dave:Cork Board. But yeah. So that was great. Right. We've been
Matthew:Are you gonna buy a copy? Are you gonna back it? In your straight and circumstances, I know you got a very poorly done.
Dave:If if my if my financial circumstances were different, I would have backed it simply to support Paul. It's not a game I expect I'm gonna play, so I probably won't be able to
Matthew:I'm gonna have to run it for you. This might be the Morfork that I can persuade you to to actually Yes.
Dave:I should definitely play it at some point. I my my tune will probably change very quickly once I've played it or played any
Matthew:Oh my god. This is the best system ever.
Dave:Well, yeah.
Matthew:You just bought a g 20. Get over 12.
Dave:Yeah. So I should definitely play it. Again, you know but my I'm I'm about to start a a new job in the not too distant future, because sad to say freelancing
Matthew:Being a freelance writer hasn't hasn't
Dave:Hasn't panned out in the way that I'd I'd I'd I'd hoped or I dreamed. I think I'd always expected or accepted there was a chance I wouldn't make enough money out of freelancing. And in fact, publishing because we obviously don't make huge amount of money out of that at the moment. So no. It hasn't worked in the way that I'd hoped.
Dave:So but I'm looking forward to my new job. It'll be odd going back to full time five days a week working. That'll be a shock. As in, you know, working
Matthew:It has been for me. I I rather enjoyed. When I when I was made redundant by well, for a start, of course, for about ten years before I was made redundant, I was three days a week Yeah. At the National Trust because I was doing my PhD. But again, that gave me not just time to do my p h well, it took bloody years to do my PhD even though I had two days a week on.
Matthew:Yeah. But that that that's not but also partly it took bloody days because, obviously, we were doing this podcast and gaming around that and having that, you know, devoting some of that extra free time to this sort of stuff was brilliant. Yeah. Remembering, you know, that then then we had the pandemic, and we all shut out of our companies for time and furloughed everybody. And we had all the time off that we could possibly want.
Matthew:And then I got a major redundant from the trust and I worked a bit at the game shop, but that wasn't full time. And then coming into the full time job that I've got now, bloody hell, it's exhausting me, you know.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm stealing I'm stealing myself to be shagged out at the end of every week. But, yeah. Well, so what but I'm looking forward to it.
Dave:So the job the job should be fun, actually. So
Matthew:Is it a commute? Are you commuting into London on top of this new job?
Dave:It it is a bit of a commute. It's a drive. I've got a drive across the county, basically, and it's it's the drive that's going the wrong way. So I'm gonna have to go through some shitty, shitty congested roads to get to work. So But I will I will try I will try and where I can, I will get in early and try and beat the traffic as best I can and try and leave early?
Dave:Mhmm. But And there is some possibility of that. Yeah, it's the be drive is gonna be a complete step if I'm going in the worst bit of rush hour. Yeah. But, sort of, we'll see how it goes.
Dave:If I if I can't, you know, it's gonna be it's gonna be, I suspect, at least an hour each way. So it's gonna be a bit of a pain in the ass, but we'll see. We will see how it goes. But the job itself
Matthew:Fingers crossed should be a stressful time.
Dave:Should be quite fun. So
Matthew:And that you come home in the evenings ready to role play on Wednesdays in particular, which is your Yeah. Indeed. Role playing weekend. Maybe Mondays too, if I if ever I have enough brain space after work to to actually finish the Coriolis campaign that
Dave:we started
Matthew:in lockdown. I'd love
Dave:to do that. Yeah. It would be nice. Yeah. I'm sure we'll get there eventually.
Matthew:So there there's our employment opened up to all others. What are we gonna talk about gaming wise in two weeks' time? Oh, well, for a start, are we talking about having an episode in two weeks time? You had some doubt.
Dave:Yeah. It's possible I might be I'm trying to squeeze in a holiday before my job starts and squeeze it in amongst a bunch of other stuff. So it may or may not be that I am here that weekend. But I mean
Matthew:But we'll see something around it. Yes. Either a bit early or a bit late.
Dave:Yeah. So we were talking about with your current work, producing some of the campaign tail the campfire tails that we that were stretch goals as part of Kickstarter, And we're now producing the first one of those that will come out in a PDF in due course, not too long, hopefully. You were talking about well, as you call them, GMCs, game master characters or NPCs as everybody else calls them. And the the kind of the
Matthew:process Everybody else.
Dave:The process of creating them. Oh, a lot of people. I mean, I you know, anyway. And you were suggesting that seeing I've done a lot of that across the development of the game, maybe there's something something I could say about creating general general GMC, General Motor Company. Creating Just
Matthew:just say NPCs, if that's a
Dave:creating non player characters for Tales of the Old West. And I think there's, yeah, there's a there's a few things we could talk about there. So I'd be happy to do that for the next time.
Matthew:Cool. Cool. We'll we'll wait for that then. And oh, yeah. We may have then some more Old West news to share with everybody.
Matthew:But until then, it's goodbye from me.
Dave:And it's goodbye from him.
Matthew:And may the icons bless your adventures.
Dave:You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of Free League Publishing.