Andreas blows his horn, again
Hello and welcome to episode 266 of Effect. Andreas blows his horn again. I'm Dave.
Matthew:And I'm Matthew. And we really don't have a packed program for you this episode. There's not much news in the world of gaming, but we have dug in there and found some choice morsels. I think the world of gaming will also include our tabletop Scotland report. Indeed.
Matthew:We are back from there.
Dave:We are.
Matthew:Then we've got an interview with our friend of the show and host of Sweden Rolls podcast. And also, of course, CEO, I guess, of Nordic Skolds about his latest Kickstarter, is which going now. Maybe we should have added to the world of gaming, but we didn't. Maybe we talked about it last week. I can't remember.
Matthew:Anyway, his
Dave:think we did talk about it last week. We did. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Cool. Cool. We're covered then. We're gonna find out more details from him later in the day.
Matthew:Yep. And then we're gonna say, what are we talking about next time? And it won't be talking about wind time, as it says on my show notes. No. I've actually done that this time.
Dave:You see, you fall into a habit with the show notes of putting the next time thing from the previous show on the new show.
Andreas:Yeah. It is
Matthew:the second time I've done that.
Andreas:It is.
Matthew:In about as many as many episodes.
Dave:In as many episodes. Yes. So, yeah, we won't be talking about that next time. But yeah. Cool.
Dave:Right then.
Matthew:Thank you very much. And thank you, of course, to all our patrons who has who who without whom we couldn't do what we do. Not just not just this here podcast, paying for all the hosting and stuff like that, and for the StreamYard that we'll be using to record the interview with Anders Andreas. But also helping us, you know, create the wonderful book books, I should say, but so far, the wonderful single book that we have created for Tales of the Odd West.
Dave:Indeed.
Matthew:What are gaming then?
Dave:Do do we wanna do tabletop Scotland first or last?
Matthew:Let's There's a question. I put it first in the list, but you're you're suggesting it goes last. Shall we talk about the Melsonian Arts Council then?
Dave:Yes. Go on. So I I I know I know very little about this. Tell me about the Melsonian Arts Council.
Matthew:So Melsonian Arts Council is it well, it it has become Melsonia now. I always thought Melsonian Arts Council is quite a mouthful if you're a publishing company that's putting out well paying games. They are famous for the game Troika.
Dave:Troika. Yeah.
Matthew:And and other games,
Dave:of Have you ever played Troika? I haven't. No.
Matthew:There's only so many blooming blooming RPGs we can play as you yourself worked out one time.
Dave:That is true. Yes.
Matthew:And and Troika was successfully kick started some years ago. I can't remember how many years ago. And since then, Melsonia, as they are now known, have have made other games. But they have decided to spurn Kickstarter and the other crowdfunding platforms. They are putting out, they've got currently two pre order programmes but they are going to run a bit like a bit like Kickstarter in that, you know, they're looking to fund their initial production.
Matthew:But if you if they go over that with a number of orders and things like that, there then will be bonuses like stretch Okay.
Dave:So I mean, it's it it doesn't cover the risk in the same way, does it? With a with a with a a pledge with manager pledge manager, with a preorder? Because I guess, in in many senses, if you get a number of customers who who who do preorder your your product, you are potentially obliged to fulfill that? Yeah. Well, I think what Obviously, on on Kickstarter, if you don't hit your hit your mark, you're not obliged, and people will get their money back.
Dave:But
Matthew:Yes. So I think that is a big one. You know, they have said we can cover the cost of these without the preorders, but
Dave:it's a
Matthew:preorder and guarantee it for us. Then our reward to you is extra stuff, as it were. There is a blog post on this that I did have linked to and I can't find it now. Let me just check, see if I can find it again.
Dave:Do they
Matthew:I'm not getting it.
Dave:Do they in that blog post, you read it?
Matthew:Skim read it.
Dave:Right. Okay.
Matthew:But, yeah. I was expecting to have it in front of me, and I I now can't find it. So
Dave:I'm just seeing if I can find it.
Matthew:It's not in the blog page on their site. I'll say that straight away, because that's what I thought it was. It must be the personal blog of their boss man. Damn it. This is entertaining.
Dave:This is and I I I think I found it. So the headline, TLDR, we're hosting our own crowdfunding campaigns here and also here now. Down with the old order, long live the new flash. It's it's quite a lot there, so I'm not gonna read it all whilst we're on the air. But I I'm I'm speculating.
Matthew:Cornelia, read it out word for word. It'll fill up the episode. I sent my Well,
Andreas:I could
Dave:do that. It's not it is quite it is quite long. So I'm just wondering, I'm speculating whether they are identifying any benefits of doing that other than obviously not having to pay the kickstarter fee for for going or back a kit or, you know, other crowdfunding sites are available.
Matthew:Yes. I I I think when when I admittedly skimmed it, so I haven't gone quite into all their details for not doing it, But it was making me think about what are the advantages Yeah. That they no longer think are worth the cost to Kickstarter. So there's a thing about Kickstarter being a marketplace, being a way you know, it's not just about the preorder element. It's about the publicity network.
Matthew:Yeah. A bunch of people, a bunch of fans like you and I come to Kickstarter to look for new and interesting games.
Dave:Or we get Or we get a message from Kickstarter that there's something coming up without, you know, without being prompted.
Matthew:Exactly. We
Dave:don't find it ourselves. Yeah.
Matthew:So it's a marketing network, and it's a marketing network of people who buy role playing games and are willing to buy them on spec. Now obviously one of the things that Melsonian Arts Council who I noticed although everybody's been referred to as Melsonia and that is their web address, actually they're still branded Melsonian Arts Council which is a thing I love, even though I think it's a mouthful. They obviously feel that they've got an, broadly speaking, a wide enough customer base now. They've built it up over years. They are speaking directly to their customers.
Matthew:And, yeah, I'm sure they're hoping to get some more on the way, but then they obviously don't think it's worth giving Kickstarter the cut to broaden that audience out beyond what their order base currently is.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Also saying early on in this piece, and I will read this sentence out, it says, I can't honestly say the experience of running a Kickstarter, backer kit, etc, has ever been anything other than stressful, excessively time consuming, and broadly demoralizing. Interesting. I mean, I I mean, we've only done the one.
Dave:It was quite stressed. It was quite stressful. It was a bit frightening at the beginning. It it was it was it was reasonably time consuming, but I wouldn't have said excessively so. And I didn't find
Matthew:Maybe we didn't do it right.
Dave:I mean, wasn't demoralising. Now maybe it's demoralising, you know, obviously it'd be demoralising if you don't do as well as you'd hoped, or you you might fail or something. I don't know how how the Miltonian Arts Council have done, whether they've had a few failed Kickstarters. But, yeah, I mean, I guess if you're doing a lot of them, it would it would become a bit onerous.
Matthew:Yeah. I so I think there's a thing isn't there about the fact that you and I how's your new job, Dave?
Dave:It's it's good so far. Yeah. It's working in a lovely location in a park where I I see the herd of deer every day, working with some lovely people, and it's it's I've had three days of it so far, so I should still be enthusiastic, I guess.
Matthew:Cool. Because I well, I'm gonna say that you and I kind of have a day job to fall back on. If people are relying on crowdfunding as their main source of
Dave:For their living. Yeah.
Matthew:They've got to be churning out games on a regular basis. They've got to be fulfilling those games and at the same time doing the new Kickstarter for the new one, because obviously, you'll get a wad of money. A chunk of that has to be spent on actual production of the thing. So, you know, we've not taken you and I have not taken any money out ourselves
Dave:No. No.
Matthew:For for salary. But if if if, you know, if we were doing this for a living, we would have to be factoring that into the Kickstarter. And of course, when a Kickstarter does really well, that's great. We can go, oh, more money for you and me. But if it does not so well, we're kinda going, where am I?
Matthew:Where's my actual food coming from? Yeah. And you've gotta do it again and again and again, you know, and we've already said I mean, you you came to me saying, well, let's get the next Kickstarter ready. I well, frankly, I can't do it this year.
Andreas:Yeah.
Matthew:So so, you know, it's I think it probably when it when it becomes a chore for your living expenses, broadly speaking, then I'm sure it's it's not as pleasant as you and I found it, where we were just Yeah. Excited to see that anybody, frankly, even wanted the bloody game that you and I had made. And then, you know, and once we hit our target, which, you know, we did PDQ. Did we do it the same day of launch or did we did it take two days? I can't remember.
Dave:I don't remember.
Matthew:I should
Dave:I
Matthew:think we said funded within five hours. So, yeah, you know, day of launch, we were funded. We could have produced something with that first day money. Everything everything after that was exciting just watching it climb.
Dave:Yes.
Andreas:Yeah. If you're
Matthew:in a situation where you really need more than we did for that first bit, and it takes bloody weeks of your Kickstarter. So, I'm looking I'm looking at their preorder here. They've sold 407 copies already on preorder.
Dave:That's not bad, is it?
Matthew:Which is great. They kind of want a thousand, so they're only 40% funded. Now they said, you know
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:We'll we'll produce it anyway, whatever we get. But, you know, they've got twenty three days to do it. And now, if you're really slogging towards the twenty three days and it's not going up as fast as you want it to well, I don't know. I don't know.
Dave:It would be interesting
Matthew:Maybe to it isn't fun doing Kickstarter.
Dave:No. It'll be interesting to see if the kind of the the rhythm of a Kickstarter in terms of gaining backers is replicated in a pre order. Whether you you have an early rush, you have a quiet middle doldrums, then you have a rush at the end. Or whether it being a pre order actually changes that dynamic a little bit. I'm not sure how we'd find that out, but could ask the folks at Free League and see what they say.
Dave:Yeah. Have
Matthew:a chat with them.
Dave:Yeah. It's interesting. So at the end of his vlog, and I'm not even sure who is writing this because the name
Matthew:I think it might be a chap called Dan, who I think is the man in charge of Kickstarter.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:But I might be wrong. Oh, not Kickstarter, man in charge of Melsonia.
Dave:Yes. He's got a few points that he's put down kind of as their argument for not using crowdfunding, saying so platforms take far too much money. There's a vague notion that they bring customers to you with their technology and trustworthiness, but I'm not sold. And then he says, and this goes to your point about the audience. We we see the same names come up time and again on our campaign, so it's a bit silly to be paying back a kit for the pleasure.
Dave:So So if you've got your audios already and you know that they are listening to your own communications, you don't need a crowdfunding site to communicate for you. It was this crowdfunding subtly, and not so subtly in some cases, pushes you to zhuzh up your campaign, spend more, do more, add bells, add whistles until the original idea looks like a pig in lipstick. Don't give in. The world is noisy enough already. I think I I I definitely agree in some campaigns where you go mad on on
Matthew:Stretch goals.
Dave:On stretch goals and some of the things that you get. I think we were we did it I think we did it right for for Toto.
Matthew:I I think we were very disciplined By being restrained.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They do say, to their credit, Bakuki do make record keeping a lot easier.
Matthew:Well, yeah, there is that. Actually, there's things like GDPR and stuff like that, where we can absolve the responsibility for GDPR to the kit. As long as, as long as we're very strict, and I am very strict about downloading spreadsheets of people's personal details. Yeah. Actually that lives on Kickstarter's site.
Matthew:The responsibility for preserving that is Kickstarter's. Yeah. So I don't have to worry about
Andreas:Yeah.
Matthew:You know, I can I can quite happily download a sheet to do something practical, like, you know, working out fulfillment and stuff like that? But then I'll just delete the sheet and it's gone. No more responsibility for me.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:So Yeah. They make some interesting yeah.
Dave:They make some interesting points there. But Yeah. I mean, other than kind of why pay them if you don't have to. Although, I mean, the audience thing, I guess,
Andreas:if you're if you're a
Dave:small producer, a small publisher, and you want to go beyond the audience that you already have, then Yeah.
Andreas:There is there
Dave:is a marketing element to that. Does is it better to let Kickstarter or Bakkick sort of be the platform for that marketing? Or because they're, I mean, they're familiar. Everyone knows what they are and I guess most people are signed up to some form of, you know, newsletter or something.
Matthew:Yeah. I'm I'm not convinced when people
Dave:Or do you go your own way? Yeah. Just just to finish the thought. Or do you go your own way and do your own marketing, but then you might just you might spend the same amount of money, but would that would that marketing be be more efficient, more effective, perhaps?
Matthew:Yeah. So I I have thoughts about this. We didn't spend very much money on direct marketing. A lot of people said, oh, you need to market your Kickstarter and gave us told us budgets that were way beyond our spending.
Andreas:Yeah.
Matthew:You know, our capability just for marketing the Kickstarter. So I do wonder whether some people fall into a trap of, you know, double spending. I don't actually think kicks we can only speak of Kickstarter. I don't actually think their cut is excessive compared to the cut, and I'll be I I don't mean anything. I don't mean to denigrate our retail partners and our distributors GSM.
Matthew:But the cut that our retailers and distributors take is much more than what KS, Kickstarter ever took. And so we are getting, I think, really good value to reach a worldwide audience from Kickstarter. We did spend a bit on Facebook marketing. Not much. Nowhere near what people were suggesting should be the budget for marketing.
Matthew:I think it helped a bit, but I don't think it added much to the visibility that Kickstarter gave us. So right now, for a company size, I think there's a lot to be gained still from Kickstarter especially. I can't speak to the other crowdfunding sites yet because we haven't tried them, and we didn't choose to try them.
Dave:It's interesting. I think the the best the best marketing element we had was Free League support, I think. Yeah. Outside Yeah. Okay.
Dave:Outside outside of just the platform of being on Kickstarter. You know, having for a small company like us, first timers, having the endorsement of a company like Free League behind us was a was a massive boost. And that was, you know, the day that they first sort of retweeted and republished our our campaign on social media was the biggest bump other than the very first day. Yeah. So it was it was exceedingly powerful for us.
Matthew:And I think, you know, the Kickstarter probably netted us twice. If we look at the most realistic, still on the optimistic side of what our audience as podcasters is, I think Kickstarter doubled our audience in terms of sales. And given that not all the people who listen to us would necessarily be interested in the game we were selling, I think Kickstarter was worth it for us. That the company took. You know, not just for the marketing, but also for the the organization they did.
Matthew:I'm I'm still with them. I'm I don't think we would be ready to go straight to pre orders.
Dave:No. I agree. No. I agree with that. Absolutely.
Dave:Yeah. And the other the other side of that coin, was also obviously the pledge manager as well. So kind of against some advice that we'd had, we decided to go for pledge manager to help us with just the the back end logistics. And, yeah, I I again, I felt the money we spent on the pledge manager was money well spent because Yeah. I mean, on it took a bit of, you know, finagling, and there was a bit of back and forth thing about how things worked and how the systems worked and how to get it all set up properly, which was a bit of a noise.
Dave:Slightly more of a noise than I expected it to be, frankly, under the circumstances. But it, you know, it it did help. It we did have somebody else to help us do that.
Matthew:Yeah. And, of course, the interesting thing, actually, with Pledge Manager, and I want to signal you you know, it was a pain in the ass a little bit, but we had actual people on the other end of numerous email conversations and phone calls helping us through that process. And one of the things that Kickstarter did, possibly they don't need to do that because their operation is now so slick through experience. But we didn't get any sort of personal feedback from Kickstarter at all. No.
Matthew:No content. We just filled in web forms and it happened. Yeah. I kind of liked that personal support we got from pledge manager, particularly given it was our first time.
Dave:Yeah. And I think we needed it because there were there were wrinkles Yeah. That would have been very, very difficult to iron out either through emailing or through some, you know, chat room or, you know, online online forum or something. Would have been very difficult. Would have been very easy to make a mistake.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:And having having And actually, I mean, for the amount of time they did devote to us, I thought, well, actually, they're not getting paid very much, kind of, per hour here on what we're So, paying yeah, the support was was good. The I mean, there is always the option because Kickstarter now, you know, has the facility to allow us to do all of that ourselves, which is kind of the advice that, you know, that we were given was, well, you know, why pay x amount of money to Pledge Manager when you can actually do it yourself? I think definitely on this first occasion, and we both sort of thought this, I think that we don't really know what we're doing so let's do it through Pledge Manager first. It's worth spending that money to help us do our, you know, our our virginal Kickstarter. And I kind of think we'd probably wanna go down that road again for the next one, probably.
Matthew:I I think so. Yes. Said, having not thought it through fully yet, but I've enjoyed the experience. I think we'd be slicker at it now. So some of the pain in the ass moments we we had we wouldn't have again.
Matthew:We should avoid that. Still like that bit of assurance. You know, stuff like blooming tax and shipping rates and stuff like that. It was a pain in the ass, but
Dave:It was all very complicated.
Matthew:I think I think I'd do it again. That one, I'm not you know, and I love the Kickstarter sorry. I love the pledge manager team. I think I wouldn't necessarily do it through well, I don't know. I don't know.
Matthew:We'll have to talk about this nearer the time Yeah. When we're actually doing it. I may be slightly less inclined or I don't mean less inclined. What do I mean? Whereas I'd definitely go back to Kickstarter for our second part to build our audience, build on the audience we already got, and build, I think, a bigger audience with our next Kickstarter.
Matthew:Because I think, you know, interestingly, I think we did a good book, mate. And we were an unknown quantity before. When we go back to Kickstarter and people are already out there saying, this is a good book. I think we'll sell some more copies. Yeah.
Matthew:So so I'll definitely definitely do that. I'm slightly less inclined, but not in a negative way, just could we do it ourselves, having had that first experience, is a slightly bigger proportion of of the pledge manager argument. But if we went with a pledge manager, I'd go back to pledge manager for a start to build on what we've learned about working with pledge manager. Also because of their excellent service.
Dave:Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew:Yep, indeed. That's enough and talk about a big advert for them. I will make sure their check's in the post. Where are we on the running order now? Oh, yeah.
Matthew:So this is a big one, because some of your words are arriving on some of our patrons' doorsteps.
Dave:They are. Planet of the Apes role playing game is is now fulfilling and is arriving on people's doorsteps. I I I did work on this. I had a very small role in this, so not wishing to overblow my my contribution. But I did a bit of work on the Answer Files book, and I did some campaign and scenario seeds for a variety of the eras that the game is covering.
Dave:So the game is covering the eras of the of the original movies, and so I did a bit of work on a on a range of those. So that was that was interesting. That was fun. I have I haven't backed it. I am, again, very very they just came back to me literally last week to say, oh, we need your we need your phone number for customs to be able to send you your copy.
Dave:Cool. So Cool. That's very that's very cool. So I'm gonna get a copy from from Magnetic
Matthew:Press, Magnetic, is from yeah.
Dave:Yeah. But yeah, so it seems to be seems to be arriving as far as I can tell. People seem to be reasonably happy with it. I mean, was a lot to the Kickstarter. They ended this is one of those that had all the bells and whistles and could end up looking like a pig on the lipstick, because there was just so much stuff being being delivered.
Dave:And I did kind of and they did very well as well. I don't remember how much they they got, but it was it was a an impressive amount of money. But I did think, wow, there's a lot to deliver. Having had having had our experience of just delivering the few bits for for Tales of the Old West.
Matthew:Yeah. A very disciplined stretch goal.
Dave:Yeah. I thought, woah. This is this is this is some logistics challenge to get all this stuff together and get it out. But they they seem to have done a good job. I'm not sure how the delivery how this delivery date stacked up against their original promised delivery date, But I'm certainly not getting any sense from people who are getting it that they're complaining that it's late or was been been a challenge getting it out of them.
Matthew:No. Bruce, for example, Bruce has complained less about this. In fact, I haven't seen him complain about Planet of the Apes as much as I've seen him complain about the Blade Runner revolution.
Dave:Yes. Yeah.
Matthew:Okay. That's what he feels is taking too much time.
Dave:A long time. Yeah.
Matthew:But so, yeah, he seemed to be very pleased with what arrived on his doorstep though. So I don't know how much of it, as you say, you didn't write very much of it. You wrote some of the stuff on the Answer book, did you?
Dave:Yes. Yep. I did a bit background on Answer.
Matthew:Oh, yeah. And in fact, he did recount a bit of the background on on our Discord, the friendliest place of the Internet, an exclusive benefit of our patrons. He did he did talk a little bit about it in a what strike to be as quite a glowing report. Any of those ideas that he mentioned there yours or is that
Dave:I'm I'm not sure I've seen that.
Matthew:From the background, Gasker seems to manage to extend the Gasker, you know, seems to manage to extend the law back to the Korean War.
Dave:He did do most of the writing again, or certainly the the law writing, because that was, again, he brought into it a lot of the stuff from the books that he wrote some while ago Right. On Planet of the Apes. So there's quite a lot of extended law from that source. And I think
Matthew:It falls into a sort of, for all mankind, alternate history where ANSA gets formed and there are missions to Mars and Jupiter against the Russians. Yeah. So anyway lot of
Dave:this so
Andreas:a lot
Dave:of a lot of this and the and the texts that's separating from The US, I think, all comes from the books Right. If I remember right. Right. The books that that that Drew wrote. Yeah.
Matthew:Cool. Okay. Shall we move on?
Dave:Not that I've read them. But yeah. Yeah. Cool. Let's what do we have next?
Matthew:So the other one is this interesting game that just caught our eye. It's available for purchase. It's not a Kickstarter. It's available from Modiphius. Now, we've done the smallest amount of research before this episode started.
Matthew:So we can now speak with a little bit more confidence and also say that our assumptions that we initially made weren't correct. And this is Rip Crypt from Modiphius.
Dave:Indeed. I mean yeah. I mean, like you said, we've done some research. We yeah. I I looked up the Modiphius site and it's on it's on their webshop.
Matthew:Yeah. But I we we did more than that. We looked them up on Kickstarter as well, didn't we? And Oh, you did. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Because I was saying, I don't remember this being a Modiphius Kickstarter. And Dave, you haven't been involved in it, and you were working for Modiphius. Surely, they have got you to write bits of this. And it turns out, actually, it was a Kickstarter backer by Kainan Antos from Seattle.
Matthew:And, obviously, I think Modiphius have picked it up in terms of distribution and things after the initial Kickstarter.
Dave:Yeah. It's interesting actually because this this might just be a marketing image, but the image of the front of the book doesn't have the Modiphius logo on it anywhere. Which is unusual. It might
Matthew:be Yeah. Just
Andreas:So it
Matthew:may well be that thing it may be on the back of the book, like when Modiphius were helping Free League
Andreas:Yeah.
Matthew:With their early games that it was on there. Now when we first looked at this, we thought, oh, this is Modiphius trying to get in on some of that lucrative Morc Borg money. And there's a certain Morc Borg about it. They talk about it being easy to learn, run delve and combats in minutes, minimal prep, pick up and play, very low hit points. So and there's a little bit in the illustrative style that feels a little bit
Dave:more boggy. It's it's
Matthew:it's Not very more boggy.
Dave:It's nothing like the mad bonkers graphic design that that Johann's did for for Mogg Borg. But it does have a a little vibe towards that. The front cover looks lovely, actually. I like that very much. And in some ways, I think, you know, the the the totally out there bonkers style of Johann is possibly a bit too much for me sometimes.
Matthew:Obviously, because you've never played the game, Dave. No. And what did I say to you before we started recording? You'll probably play this game and say how brilliant it is and how much better than Mortbork is without ever having played Mortbork.
Dave:I'm not sure I'm gonna play either of them very very soon. Although, possibly segueing into our tabletop Scotland thing, the lovely Chris Lowry from Beyond Cataclysm did offer to run Pirate Borg for us. Oh. Which which I think we should we should take that offer.
Matthew:You take him up on. I think this might be as good enough a segue. So Yeah. We will leave a link in the show notes to Rick Crit, but let's get on to talk about Table Top Scotland.
Andreas:Yes. Indeed.
Dave:So we're we had a really good time, actually. I was I was I was I was a bit Concerned is the wrong word, but thinking, oh, it's gonna be five days. We've got the long journey up. We've the long journey back. You know, longer for you even, because obviously you are collecting pre league stock for us.
Andreas:Mhmm.
Dave:And you live an hour and a half further south than I do. And then we've got three long days in in the convention. But it was I had a I had a really good time. I don't always enjoy every minute of a convention, but this time I think I did. It was it was really good.
Dave:I really enjoyed it. So we were there well, I was there principally for Free League, running the Free League stand. Matthew was there to support me on that, but also we took the opportunity to have an effect publishing stand as well. And with the I have to call out shout out, the lovely Paul. I think your surname is Sullivan.
Matthew:I think the the
Dave:lovely Paul helped us out. He was he was wonderful. He came and covered both of us on the stands when we needed a little bit of a break and was super lovely. And so I've known him, I don't know, for a number of years now. We keep we just, you know, we obviously meet up at conventions.
Dave:But, yeah, he's super. He's such a lovely guy. And it was so good of a
Matthew:And I don't just want to sing the praises of Paul though. I want to shout out now to Ricard and Nils and Bruce
Andreas:Yes. Yes.
Matthew:Absolutely. Came to support us, who all brought you birthday presents.
Dave:They all brought me I mean, was so I I suddenly felt like my commenting on the previous podcast that it was my birthday that weekend might have come across as a less than subtle hint that it's my birthday. Give me some presents, which it wasn't at all. It wasn't in the slightest. And so when Bruce
Matthew:Although Dave, the bit where I said, bring bring bring Dave presents or we won't sell you anything, that that might have been that was and suddenly. Yeah.
Dave:So when Bruce turned up with an NFL franchise building game board game for me. I was like, bloody hell, Bruce. I mean, hell, you didn't need to do that. How kind was that? And then then he also bought us lots of goodies.
Dave:I mean, he brought stuff from the bakery for us, which again was super
Matthew:Oh, yeah.
Dave:So so good of them.
Matthew:Smuggling them in because you're not allowed to take food in because the the site wants to preserve the rights of its
Andreas:Its vent its food
Matthew:License to sell stuff. Sell the food there. So smuggled in in other board games. And let me just say, if you if you're on the gates, you know, you should be checking the contents of all those boxes of board games. I'm sure everybody's doing it.
Dave:Don't tell them that. Because, you know and then, Nils and Ricard, who'd come over with their wives from Stockholm for a long weekend in Edinburgh, but was obviously spending I think it was a Saturday, wasn't it, with with us at the They brought over I mean, Ricard brought me a gift of a a Swedish, like a classic Swedish sci fi book called Alice Alice. So I really now have to learn Swedish so I can read it because it's in Swedish. It's a beautiful little book. And Ricard and and Nils brought me some Swedish beer, of which I've so far drunk one one of them, and it was delicious.
Dave:The others are in my fridge waiting for me to drink them. I might have one this evening, in fact.
Matthew:Again, mean And just to say,
Andreas:just thank
Matthew:you to to Nilsson, Also, not wanting me to feel left out, bought me a bottle of beer, which was very nice indeed.
Dave:And done with the they've done with little notes and I had a handwritten note from Richard about the book, and then a printed up note about the three different beers, and when they were supposed to be drunk, you know, to help me through like writer's block or that kind of thing. Absolutely wonderful. It almost, you know, almost moved me to tears frankly. I hadn't expected any of it, and I'm so delighted. And again, it just proves that this crowd, this group of people is the nicest people in the world.
Dave:They're just fabulous. So thank you so much to everyone who came and wished me birthday wishes, or just said hi, or and you know, and particularly those who brought me presents. That was fabulous. And I do have to say, and I will I've got a little comment on this a bit later. Somebody else brought me present at the weekend.
Dave:Again, entirely unexpectedly. So we were chatting to Mark from GMS, who who runs GMS for us, but he's also part of Nightfall Games. Lovely guy. Really, really cool guy. And we'd obviously learned, or you'd learned and told me that the Nightfall's license for Terminator was expiring at the end of the month, and therefore Nightfall had until the end of the month to ship to ship their stock.
Dave:They were basically selling all the Terminator stuff at £10 a book. And and I was like, well, the s five s system is a bit crap, but I love Terminator as a franchise. The the look of the books is really nice, and I and I and I just said, oh, well, actually I ought to go and get those. And you went, wait here, and marched off with Mark, and came back ten minutes later with 50 worth of books, all the books.
Matthew:Yeah. That
Dave:was that was And,
Matthew:you know, most role playing games, 50 worth of books would be a book, but this was five books.
Dave:Five books. Exactly. So
Andreas:that was You can't
Matthew:you can't can't stop when you pick up one and it's only a tenner, you and go, but there's four more.
Dave:So yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much, mate, for that. Again, another utterly unexpected birthday present. But
Matthew:And just to tell tell our listeners, we do not buy each other birthday presents.
Dave:No. We haven't bought each other birthday presents probably ever. Alright. I must did I did I buy you one for your fiftieth? I must have got you
Andreas:something for your fiftieth.
Matthew:Oh, yes. You did. I think you bought me a Little Star Wars game.
Dave:Ah, okay.
Matthew:Little Star Wars kind of card game. Yeah. I think I played it once. It wasn't great, to be honest.
Dave:And then you bought me Cthulhu as a wedding present back in the back then. Yeah. Which is great. Absolutely superb. But, yeah.
Dave:So we don't tend to do that. So it was a it was a great surprise. And I'll have to buy you a bloody present next year now, I guess. Outrageous.
Matthew:No. You can wait a couple of years. I'll be 60. You can buy me one from the sixtieth.
Dave:Well, okay then.
Matthew:I'll Not spoil each other.
Dave:I'll buy you another crap Star Wars card game.
Matthew:Maybe something better than that.
Dave:No. But it
Matthew:was but it
Dave:was So, gonna be yeah. I mean, just just on the Terminator thing. So I've obviously been reading the books, and the s five s system is is very clunky. I had a quite a long chat to Ben Greybeaten, who works for Nightfall and has done a lot of work on on Terminator. And he's saying with their their it wasn't Terminator.
Dave:There's a new game they're working on. Or It might it might be the the new expansions for s for Slay. And he was saying he was reviewing the s five s system, and while it wasn't gonna be changed, they were gonna add quite a lot into the description as guidance and advice about how to make it run a bit more smoothly. So he was he was he was recognising it could be a bit clunky, and GMs and players might need a bit of extra advice. But I had a really nice chat with him.
Dave:I hadn't really I I kind of known known him as a distant acquaintance for for quite some time, but this is the first time we really had a had a had a chat, and we chatted for ages. Almost too long actually, because I was quite busy. But it was it was really nice chatting with him. But, yeah, lovely meeting up with lots of people. The hotel was nice.
Dave:The hotel was good. Nice and close.
Matthew:Yeah. So, I have to say my experience was not necessarily as positive as yours. Uh-huh. Well, all our friends coming to the stand, and many customers as well coming to the stand was great. It wasn't quite as busy as the other conventions that we generally
Dave:go No.
Matthew:My feet were feeling it a lot more than most conventions. Normally Yeah. My feet only get tired by kind of the day three of a of a three day convention. The asphalt floor didn't help because this this is a a show at an agricultural fair site. So they've basically put a shed on top of a runway and and and that's it.
Matthew:So I for the first time ever, I felt that my DMs weren't quite soft enough.
Dave:It's quite hard on your feet, yeah, and your legs.
Matthew:We, you know, and we we work very hard to sell not as many games as we would have liked. Yeah. So it's quite hard work.
Dave:We we had a lot of hard sells or long sells that ended up in a, yeah, I'm really interested, but I'm gonna go and look around first and I'll I'll come back. And we did have a few comebacks.
Matthew:And I will say that actually we probably had a higher portion of returners in in from people that say, oh, I'll come back, than than we generally get. When somebody says, I'll come back, it means I'm gonna go and buy something else, generally. Yeah. This this was this was a good proportion of returners. But, yeah, it felt like hard work.
Matthew:I was so so all our friends, as you've already mentioned, were lovely, even though they didn't buy me any well, even though everyone except well, no. Actually, Bruce and Dils bought me presents. So, you I've done quite well on the present account, given that it's not my birthday. But actually the hotel being 50 yards from the venue was a blessing. I quite enjoyed And you know, hotel bars, hotel food, you know, never never particularly great, but actually much appreciated after those long days.
Matthew:Yeah. The food wasn't terrible,
Dave:was it? The food in the restaurants. Right?
Matthew:Yeah. It wasn't great. It was fine.
Dave:But it wasn't terrible. The breakfast was quite nice.
Matthew:Yeah.
Dave:Quite often, breakfast can be a bit crap in these places. Yeah, perfectly comfortable. I slept pretty well.
Matthew:Coffee was a bit shit, but yeah. Slept very well each night. So, yeah, comfortable, comfortable bedroom, nice, yeah, good hotel, not very far away. It was quite a relief to go in there and take my boots off and
Dave:And sit down for a few minutes. Yeah.
Matthew:And, of course, when they came, Nils and Bruce and Ricard Ricard. Came back with us to the hotel, and we all sat in the bar for the evening and
Dave:That was really cool. That was a that was a lovely evening. That was I really enjoyed that. Yeah. It was really good.
Dave:And then, yeah, ended up being quite late, didn't it? Well, I
Matthew:think Yeah. And like the night before, Yeah. Where I went to bed at half
Dave:And I and I watched the football, and then the news, and then news night, and then went to bed.
Matthew:Yeah. But yeah. No.
Andreas:It was
Dave:it it was good. So I mean It
Matthew:was good though.
Dave:Terms of the sales, you're right. It was it was quite quiet. We'll have to see whether Free League think it was worth worth it for next year.
Matthew:Yes. I think it's only on the edge of worth it for them, but we'll we'll we'll see what they say. You've certainly nice report.
Dave:I think we would have made a small profit, but a small profit, not much Yeah. On over the whole weekend. And, you know, the the first day, the Friday, was probably the worst day I've ever experienced in terms of sales working for free.
Matthew:Yeah. We had a good old moan about Comic Con a couple of years back where we had a really dreadful day. But actually, the Friday was worse in sales than the Comic Con where we weren't even you know, we felt Comic Con were at fault for the poor sales we got that year because we were kind of stuck up a blind alley with all the other role playing gamers that hardly anybody came past. Here, we were right in the thoroughfare and, you know, loads of people came to see us, but actually our sales were worse than that day. So I think that's interesting.
Dave:I mean, the Saturday picked up, but still it wasn't it wasn't and, you know, we wouldn't expect it to be like anything like a a day at UK Games Expo, but you might expect it to be similar to a day at Dragon Meet possibly, and it was Mhmm. Wasn't wasn't as lucrative as that. But we'll see. Yeah. It's it's obviously Free Leagues board will make their decisions, I guess, probably early next year as to what conventions they want for next year.
Dave:Yeah. And we will see what they what their call is. But
Matthew:And of course, part of the value of going to these conventions is just to be there, to spread the brand as well. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, Chaosium were a couple of aisles down from us with nothing to sell. They were just running little demo games like you did last year when we were
Dave:For could
Matthew:be a the Total Kickstarter. Yeah. So, you know, there's some value there.
Dave:But I would like to do a shout out to David, the organizer, and his whole team and all the people who are there because the organization was excellent as as it was last year. So Yeah.
Matthew:And general friendliness. So when we were unpacking, one of their volunteers just came and helped us unpack my car and bring the stock into the stand, you know. Yeah. Which is just lovely. Just lovely.
Dave:Yeah. So it's very good. Very good
Matthew:indeed. Okay. Well, that's bloody hell. We've been forty five minutes already. We haven't even done an interview yet.
Dave:Cool. Well, let's let's get on to it.
Matthew:Let's have a chat with Andreas. So as it turns out, listeners of the podcast, Dave couldn't make the interview. So it's just me and Andreas. But welcome Andreas Lundstrom.
Andreas:Thank you so much, Matthew. Thank you. Thank you.
Matthew:Yeah. I don't leave you
Andreas:in the
Matthew:lurch on a date. I'm always here. Andreas, it's some time since we spoke. Last time we spoke, we were talking about My Father's Sword.
Andreas:I think it might have been, yeah, about a year ago, something like that.
Matthew:And we're going to talk in a little while about the Kickstarter that is currently going on for Windheim Fallen. But you were at that time a bit disappointed in the progress of the My Father's Sword Kickstarter. How do you think it fared in the end?
Andreas:I mean, did okay. We obviously had hoped for more because we'd like we did a PDF only Kickstarter just a few months later, and it outperformed the My Father's Sword Kickstarter by far, just by selling PDFs, basically. And a few, like, books of winning that we'd already printed. So yeah. We think we need to we need to up our game when it comes to doing advertising for My Father's Sword for sure, because everyone who's played it, including Foxcasts, are like absolutely thrilled with it.
Andreas:It's just that nobody knows that it exists. So we need to do a bit more PR on that game, I think.
Matthew:Very interesting.
Andreas:It did win RPG of the year the
Matthew:Phoenix Yeah,
Andreas:exactly.
Matthew:Sorry. Phoenix Awards, I should say. Phoenix, I'm pronouncing it in a very anglicized spelling. Cool. Right.
Matthew:So let's turn our attention, to Draka Oktyumina, Dragonbane. Now, as many of our listeners know, this is a Swedish game from your childhood. In 1981, I think it was started and was taken on a few years ago by Free League. And one of the things I, you know, part of their, I kind of feel that they feel like they're guardians of the game. Initially when we wanted to interview them about it, they said they didn't want to interview us because it wasn't ever going to appear in English.
Matthew:They changed their mind in time for the Kickstarter. So we've got Dragonbane now. And it seems to be being a bit of a hit. I just want to get your impressions as if you like a cultural owner of, of Draca Octomina. How well do you think Frieliga looking after the legacy of Draka Ogdumina?
Andreas:I think they're doing a great job, actually. Of course, you can't please everyone. Some people want just the same old, same old. And some people think that they've kept too much, so you can never, you know, can never please everyone. But I think they've done a great job with creating a game that's, it's both very easy to learn.
Andreas:I use it a lot when I GM at libraries for kids and youths all over Stockholm and outside as well. And, you know, 10 year olds, they get it instantly. It takes, you know, it takes an hour and then they know the system. But it still has enough depth for you to, you know, progress your character in fun ways and to do combat in tactical and fun ways as well. So I really think they really hit a sweet spot there with it.
Andreas:It's as easy to learn as a beginning game without being a beginning game only.
Matthew:Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, I whenever I I see a family approach the free league stand at a convention
Andreas:Mhmm.
Matthew:I'm kind of there at the the pile of Draca Octomina, and I'm determined to foist this into the hands of some young gamer rather than say a D and D starter set. Mean, a start, you know, the box set isn't a starter set. It's the whole game. It's more of the game than roleplayers Or about the
Andreas:rule book, yeah. Could
Matthew:reasonably expect. But I wanted to ask particularly about what you've been thinking of things like The Bestiary and the subsequent publications that Friedleigh could put out. Of course, they've announced a couple that haven't hit Kickstarter yet. Or have they? I can't remember.
Andreas:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a mix. They've so far released, you know, the core rule book and the the the boxed set and the bestiary and path of glory, which is a remake of an old campaign. So they've released some new stuff and, you know, reworked some old stuff.
Andreas:That's what they've done so far. And for they did a Kickstarter a while back, and it's about that they've entered some kind of pledge manager state for a city supplement.
Matthew:Oh,
Andreas:Yeah, the city. And also a book of magic, which is expanding on the Because the amount of spells, you know, if you're a D and D player, you will be disappointed the, you know, the list of magic spells you can use. So it's, I think it's great that they're coming out with a book of magic, expanding the existing magic schools and adding to them as well. So it's, you know, it's a good mix of old and new. And they have announced that they're going to do Erik Randstrom's Sulfur Winter, Swavel Winter, which is by people who play the old stuff is regarded as campaign for Dracke So, Rocke and they're doing that together with Erik, so he'll keep his hand over it to make sure it keeps the grandstro magic, while I'm sure they will try and modernize some parts of it.
Andreas:But it is a great supplement. It is a great scenario. It's part one of a four part campaign. So we'll see if they'll pick up, you know, part two, three and four as well.
Matthew:And did two, three and four appear in the original run back in the eighties or nineties?
Andreas:Yeah. Back in the nineties. Yeah. So yeah. But I mean, part one is the one that's really, really good in my opinion.
Andreas:The other ones are, they're okay, you know, they're not bad. It's erratic, so it's good stuff. But, you know, part one is the one that people really, really have memories about. When you go to conventions and hear people, you know, reminisce about old memories and stuff like that, that's the one people are mentioning.
Matthew:Now, I've got a couple more questions about that, that you've triggered, but we will come on to multipart campaigns in a moment, because of course that's one of the reasons why you're here, but let's just sticking on Sveral Winter. Obviously, when we were looking into the history of this fabulous new games company that we'd just discovered with Coriolis a few years ago, we found that they'd actually produced a kind of a free PDF swaddle into role playing game. And we took that campaign and turned it into a series of novels in Swedish. I remember asking, I think, Erik himself about it at some point when we interviewed him. Will we ever see those translated into English?
Matthew:And he said, Oh, that would be very difficult to do because
Andreas:Yeah, he uses a lot of
Dave:puns and he uses a
Andreas:lot of things that can't be translated, you know, the way he uses the language, it's very difficult to do that.
Matthew:And indeed, know, even in, of course, wrote, he's been writing background and campaigns for forbidden lands. And I've had to have Swedes explain to me quite why the Rusch brothers are actually quite a funny name because it's a bit of a pun there that doesn't translate particularly. So do you think they'll even produce this travelinter campaign in English or will they reserve that for Swedes?
Andreas:Oh, no, they'll do it in English for sure. You mean Free League when they're remaking it? Yeah, no, they'll do it in English for sure. I would personally love to see the old games translated as well, because it is a very good game. I have it back here in shelf right behind me here.
Andreas:I really like it. It's a great, like, indie game. It has some cool mechanics to it, for sure.
Matthew:From the old days, when they were an indie well, they're still an indie company,
Andreas:to You know, that's a whole line
Matthew:to go Enormous indie company.
Andreas:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:Right. Okay then. So let's get into campaigns. I've not played the first part of Windhime and Horn of Dawn. We talked about it before.
Matthew:Obviously you weren't giving us spoilers there, but there is a challenge isn't there in multi part campaigns. How do you keep it up? Lots of campaigns have really good starts and generally quite disappointing final books. So for a start, my first question about Windtime Fallin', is this the final book of the Windtime campaign Or is there another one to come?
Andreas:No, this is a trilogy. This is a trilogy. So there will become a third yet unnamed part as well, which will finish off this campaign. And then we'll stay either stay on Windham and do other campaigns, or we will go to the mainland, which is, I mean, Windham is just Windham is like Australia in the 1700s, you know, from a colonial point of view, if you will. It's on the other side of the world.
Andreas:It has no like political meaning. But of course, with this campaign, Windham will be, you know, the focus for everyone's eye, basically. But we will see what happens in the future. We're not sure. But this is part two of three.
Andreas:And in regards of, you know, of course, I hope that part two is gonna be as interesting. The scope turns much bigger in part two, where part one is very clearly the opening chapters of a classical hero's journey, if you will. Part two takes it and, you know, it increases the scope of everything. Like the political ramifications of the actions of the party is enormous. And the party has the opportunity to, you know, be a part of shaping history.
Andreas:Whereas in the first part, they start off as caravan guards, you know, to a mere caravan and, you know, things lead on and things happen. And it's rather railroaded, whereas this one we promised after the first one that the second one will be less railroaded. I hope that we're about to succeed. I mean, when I say more sandbox y, I don't mean super sandbox y, because I still think that when you're writing this kind of hero's journey, classical epic fantasy story, the author has some intention of where the story is going, you know?
Matthew:Yeah. And particularly if there's a third part coming, know, you can't do a third part that has to begin somewhere and let a totally sandbox y story put our player characters somewhere entirely different, can you? There's got to be a way of
Andreas:everyone I've talked to who've played the first part, Traces of Darkness, have been very happy with it. And they haven't felt actually, you know, strong armed into doing this or that. They've thoroughly enjoyed it. And they all have felt that they've, you know, had a lot of agency, that they could shape the story, though, you know, the events take place in a very intended order, if you will. So it is rather railroaded, but it's not definitely not without important choices for the characters.
Andreas:The choice that the characters make shape what kind of story it is. And I'm about a third through writing part two, Wind and Falling. That's on Kickstarter right now. And I don't I've lost count on how many times I've written, depending on what your party did in part one, you know, in the scene with NPC X, this scene could play out in a different different ways, depending on the choices that the characters made in part one.
Matthew:Right. Yes. So that's one of the tactics you can use for a more sandbox y campaign. I guess in comparison to the first part where you've got various things happening in a certain order, one of the first things you might consider in this game is things don't necessarily happen in the order that they happen in the first book. How do you kind of track time and how are you dealing with that challenge of, well, if the players choose not to do this, then that choice may have other consequences that they can't see because they're not involved in that adventure?
Andreas:Yeah, there's a lot of If the player character spoke to NPC X in Village Y, then they should have gotten the information that blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of I almost see part two as being a conversation between myself and the reader, the GM, where I talk to the GM almost like in a dialogue, know, like I assume questions that GMs will have, and then I try to answer them. So it's, I have, that's my, that's also my style of writing. Like to write very personally, you know, in a very personal manner. So that's good, because I need that for part two, because I need to really talk to the GM from writer to GM and say, listen, if your party wants this, then this could happen or this could happen.
Andreas:If they go there, this could happen or this could happen, you know. So, the layout of the second book is basically, you know, five, six locations where one location could be a village and another location could be a whole peninsula or the big city of Windheim called Fondsvale. So when the player characters come to one of these locations, we list a bunch of places to visit that are likely that the party will go to, a bunch of NPCs and their agendas. And then we list a number of likely scenes that will happen. Like if your party comes here and they've been through all of that, they'll probably want to talk to this person.
Andreas:And this is probably how it could play out. More or less. I mean, I'm a low prep GM. I could I always try and I want to try and GM with very few preps. I want the players to feel like they have a lot of agency in controlling the story.
Andreas:So for me, it's very challenging writing a scenario because generally GMs want a lot more information that I want when I DM someone else's work. So I'm not so, you know, that's a balance. And it's also a lot of learning by doing, writing the adventures and then having spell testing GMs getting back to me with, you know, you never mentioned why this person would act in this way or you failed to mention this or this over here is very confusing. I don't get it. So I can rewrite it.
Matthew:Right. Yeah. So that brings me on to another question. Have you, so when you talked about Wind Time, well, was it a couple of years ago now? You talked about this, this is your, your own campaign from years and years of playing Djakaaram Demona, you know, from, I don't know, couple of teens or childhood, but still for some considerable time.
Matthew:So the things that are happening here, or that could happen here, depending on if your players have done this and want to do that or whatever. Have you actually played all of these things or is there new stuff that you're inventing just for this?
Andreas:Mean, Windham is a world, a setting I've been working on for twenty years, approximately. Horn of the Dawn, the actual campaign is not that old. It's Horn of the Dawn, I started writing for a group that wanted me to play D and D actually, fifth edition. And they wanted a Matt Mercer ish GM. I said, well, I have a podcast
Matthew:with two roles.
Andreas:I could give it a shot. And then I felt like, okay, I need to write something really cool. And I wrote Hornet of Dawn and they played through the first part, Trace of Darkness, which wasn't called Trace of Darkness then, of course.
Matthew:Until then.
Andreas:Was just one name for the whole campaign. And they played through, I would say, half of the second part. And then that group dissolved, many RPG groups did. And I played the entire first part as a GM with actually Christian who makes the maps and graphic design and layout for all Nordic Skulls things.
Matthew:And I've got to say, that is lovely, as usual, both the maps and the general graphic design.
Andreas:Yeah, he's amazing. I mean, Perpar wanted him to do the map for the Drokborian, the modular, you know, the yeah, another third party dragonbane
Matthew:Yeah.
Andreas:And I know also Jorgen from Dundee Dog, I wanted him to do a map as well. It's people are pulling him, pulling on him.
Matthew:Busy and map work, you get.
Andreas:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, but actually he and two other guys, three or two other guys wanted to play Drokker Oktemone, the '91 version, which was the one I played when I started working on Windham. I was I was I made Windham for Drakker Oktemone, the '91 version.
Andreas:And then I wrote Holder Dawn, but for Dungeons and Dragons, and I felt that's that's my best work. I should just use that. Like, if people are paying me to be a game master, I should just use my best stuff. Yeah. So, played through the first part.
Andreas:And then I also play tested all three parts with my students. I had three students that I taught in a school. I taught them basically full time and we often had sessions after they finished the last After four full lessons, yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we, yeah, but they use Dungeons and Dragons as well.
Andreas:So
Matthew:Right.
Andreas:Yeah. But when the third party license came for Dragonbane, I just felt I need to, I need to go back to Dragonbane to Drocker the Monarch because this should be this this world fits much better with Rock of the Monarch than than Dungeons and Dragons.
Matthew:That's brilliant. And loyal as well. I I've got to ask on the side, would there be do you think you'd ever do a fifth edition version of it for the big money?
Andreas:We are talking about it. Of course, there's It's a bigger pond, but there are also a lot of other big fish in that pond. It's hard to break through noise. We're talking about it. We want to finish part three in for Dragonbane first.
Andreas:And then we'll see. Because, I mean, by then, we have all the stuff, we have all the illustrations, we have the graphic design, have everything. Everything we would have to do is convert it. It's no small task. I'm not saying that, but it's a lot smaller task than writing, you know, a campaign from scratch.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. But back to Drekka Oktemuner and Windtime Falling. Now this campaign, the Kickstarter campaign, I should say, is actually for two books. You've got Windtime Falling, the campaign book.
Matthew:You've also got Windtime Adventures.
Andreas:Yes, exactly. It's a collection of six scenarios, four of which we've published already, but only as PDFs. That's two of the PDFs kickstarters I mentioned that we did quite early this year. Yeah. So those four have been one of those was got one the gold Phoenix Award for best Phoenix Adventure.
Andreas:Was published as a Phoenix Adventure for
Matthew:Published in the magazine, you mean?
Andreas:In the magazine, yeah. So they a category for the best, like, scenario in the magazine. So it won the Gold Phoenix for that one. And, yeah, so four old ones and four two new ones that actually I'm not writing. Christian and Robert, Robert Almis, the illustrator.
Andreas:Are actually writing the two new scenarios, because I said after our first WinM Kickstarter, I'm never writing two books in two languages ever again. I'm never
Matthew:having some concern about that at the time we spoke, or maybe, maybe when we were talking about, my father's sword, you said, not doing that again.
Andreas:So when we said that we needed to do, we want to release the adventures, I was just like, okay, fine. But you know, the four scenarios that are finished in both languages, fine. But if we if we're gonna, you know, publish and some new ones as well, I'm not gonna do those. You're gonna have to do those because I'm not doing that again. I'm sticking to writing this one book and then translating it into Swedish.
Matthew:Right. And there's some interesting stretch goals here, and I'm just trying to see where you are with these. So you're well into them. Now, of course, I've got to translate these from pounds. So we're at $4.02 4 krona.
Matthew:Let me just look at the one I particularly wanted to put out. Oh, crikey. Yeah, you've done them all except for the last one on your list, which is Windtime Adventures as a Foundry module.
Andreas:Yeah. I think we're a bit late with the graphic there. Actually, it should be that one is for 400 Swedish, which would be, I mean, I don't know 35.
Matthew:Yeah. Well, better stop this interview quite soon and let you get back to updating your, your. The one that really interested me though, was, the, Anders Blixt's mass combat system, which is a revival and an update of what he'd done before.
Andreas:Yeah, back in eighty six, seven, or something like that, old publishers, the ones who created Rock of the Monarch, they released a supplement called Gigant. And in that one they had, I mean, I don't know Gigant, that's probably a word in English as well. Oh,
Matthew:God, the word I can see in my mind, but I can't pronounce it at the moment.
Andreas:But you have the word gigantic, at least.
Matthew:Gigantic, Softly, that's how.
Andreas:Yeah. So, this supplement had rules for, you know, the upkeep of a castle, you know, big stuff. And amongst it, it has some rules for pitched combat, you know, big battles. And we are, yeah, we're gonna rework those And then under Anders supervision, of course, and with his blessing, we will release some pitched battle rules for Dragonbane, because that does not exist as for now.
Matthew:No. Yeah. That might make this a vital supplement for dragonblade, dragonblade nobles around the world.
Andreas:We hope so. We didn't know that those rules were, you know, kind of like the Mallards, the ducks. They have a considerable amount of people who do not like them. And so we've had like some comments being like, yeah, I heard you're gonna rework those. I have a tip.
Andreas:The first thing you do, throw the old stuff in the trash.
Matthew:Throw them away.
Andreas:Yeah. Throw them away and make your own. It's going be much better. So we'll see how much we'll keep of the old stuff and how much better. I mean, for me, I kind of like them, but
Matthew:it's interesting. I don't think anybody, I don't think there can ever be any consensus on mass combat rules of role playing games actually, because one of my favorite systems comes from the fourth edition of Legend of the Five Rings. And my players hate that because it's a kind of meat mincer for them, but it feels to me very authentic for the experience. If they learn tactically, they'd do quite well, but they never do.
Andreas:It's not much of mirth and mayhem in it, which is the, you know, under title for Bragy Bane. So we need to mirth and mayhem.
Matthew:We need to add some mirth and mayhem in.
Andreas:Yeah, for sure.
Matthew:Yeah. Now, given that you've got to update your Kickstarter screen, we ought to draw this to a close. How is the Kickstarter campaign doing right now? Are you happy with progress on this one?
Andreas:Oh, couldn't be happier. It's even outperforming our first Kickstarter, which like set a new Swedish record for new RPG creators on Kickstarter. And this one is outperforming the first one. And, you know, that's one thing, but also having a sequel outperforming part one, that must be
Matthew:very, well.
Andreas:Yeah, that bodes very well. So it
Matthew:surely says that part one was well received.
Andreas:Yeah, yeah, And
Matthew:the audience.
Andreas:Yeah, because we were worried when we launched it, we were like, what if, you know, very few people want part two, and then part three, even fewer will want that, like, should we even do part three? And I was very, very strongly in favor of like, we have to release it. It might not sell much, we might, you know, lose a little money on it. But we do have like if we say release a trilogy, we have to fulfill We
Matthew:have to
Andreas:that. But as it seems now, people are super happy with it. So it doesn't seem like we're going to, you know, take any risks with doing a part three.
Matthew:Right then. So I just got one more question for you, Anders. And you said, you said before we started recording, I've got a bit of news that we want to drop here on the Effect podcast. This is the most appropriate place for it. So any other projects in the pipeline, Andreas?
Andreas:Yes, we have some. Have two that are coming up very soon. One which I've already talked about in another podcast, which is where we have a writer called Mia Gibson, who is writing basically a choose your own adventure in the Cthulhu mythos for us.
Matthew:Right. Excellent. Yeah.
Andreas:That's gonna be awesome. But then we also have Do you want to take a guess? You said that you thought you might be able to guess it.
Matthew:Well, when you said it was just for us, was thinking it's got to be Coriodis, hasn't it?
Andreas:Yeah. So there's a third party license for Coriolis. Well, there's one for the great dark in place. There is one coming for the third horizon.
Matthew:Good. We speculated on that a couple of weeks ago because we noticed that the first press release didn't mention it at all.
Andreas:Exactly.
Matthew:But then by the time the second, the public press release came out, was saying not yet. So that's on its way. This is great news. We're all ears. Tell us everything you know.
Andreas:Yes, so we felt that, you know, since our third party stuff for Dragonbane has been super well received and has done very well for us, we should definitely get into some Coriolis third party creation. And who better to work with than Rick Caran Troia, official writer for the official trilogy Mercy of the Icons.
Matthew:Excellent. So he's coming back and he's coming back to the third horizon, not the great dark.
Andreas:Exactly. I am so in love with the third horizon. I think the great dark is a great game as well. But the third horizon was what really made me fall in love with Coriolis. I do not want to let the third horizon go.
Andreas:I do feel that there's a part of the community that's with me on this. So I really feel that the third horizon needs more stuff written by Richard, because after all, he wrote the official main trilogy, Mercy of the Icons. So, and he's a good friend of mine. We've known each other for years and years. Yeah, so when this news came out, I was like, I think I might have talked to him even before the news got out, because I had a feeling since the third party license for Dragonbane was doing so well.
Andreas:I was like, it should just be a matter of time before we have get stuff for this, for Coriolis or Vaasen or Forbidden Lands, you know, it's at least the stuff where Free League holds the IP. Yeah, I know that you were not going to see a third party license for the one ring or alien. That's just
Matthew:like Or arguably, you know, Vesen, don't own the IP for that one.
Andreas:No, exactly. It's just with Johan. But I mean, want it's different talking to Johan Egertranz than talking to, you know, the Tolkien estate.
Matthew:Yeah, yeah. It's very different, I'm sure.
Andreas:It's a very different thing. And so I'm not keeping my hopes up for Vasen, because we've done some Vasen in podcasts, I think Matija, our GM for those would love to write some Vasen stuff. But Coriolis, of course, is their own IP altogether, Forbidden Lands as well. So we were basically just waiting for this. I think I might have talked to Riccard even before that news broke out, actually.
Matthew:Excellent. So what is your timescale for this? Obviously we'll invite you and Riccard back. When, when it's announced, do tell us, give us advanced notice because we want to be right on the, on the, on the, on the front end of that Kickstarter campaign. Do you think it's going to be?
Andreas:We think we're going to have to push the launch. Initially thought we were going to do it this autumn, But we're not gonna be able to squeeze that in because we had to postpone our Windham Kickstarter. That one was supposed to be for June, but then Free League launched their big Kickstarter, Dragon Bay Kickstarter then. Yeah. For the city and the book of magic.
Andreas:So we had to postpone to August. And then we heard that there were four other third party publishers who were gonna have a Kickstarter for third party Dragon based stuff in August. We were like, okay, so September then. And so, you know, we had originally thought of doing the Cthulhu Mythos Choose Your Own Adventure maybe in, I don't know, late September to mid October or something, and then do the Coriolis one in November. Now we're gonna have to push that forward.
Andreas:And since you can't do a Kickstarter in Christmas and early January, it looks like we're going to have to wait until late January, which is not what we want, but it's
Matthew:Oh, that is interesting, though. I mean, that's, you know, New Year resolution time. But do you think we're actually going to see that third party license come out? Or are you doing it in anticipation of a third party license coming out?
Andreas:I don't think we can do it before it's coming. I've heard from from from sources that I think it's going to come out at least this autumn.
Matthew:Okay. That's
Andreas:news. This year, at least. It's not going to be 2026 for that. Feel pretty confident with that.
Matthew:Brilliant. That's really exciting news.
Andreas:Thank you. We are super excited too. And Enrique is as well.
Matthew:So we're we're looking I for want to say, and we're going to put our Kickstarter out in January year knowing that news, but maybe I'll wait till you've done yours. No, that that's brilliant. I, well, we will get you back on the show. Let us, let's make that a date, as soon as you've firmed up your plans and we will, we'll march together into the third horizon and Amazing. Fly its
Andreas:I had a feeling you guys were gonna do something with that as well, actually.
Matthew:Well, I feel we've got to. I mean, we've Yeah. So many notes on the bloody thing and so many ideas about what Ricard left us with at the end of the third. I actually have to say that I've read the third book. Dave hasn't read the third book yet.
Matthew:He's going to play it. Better finish that campaign before January. There we go. There's a deadline for us. Better get back on the streaming, but now that's very exciting news that Dave will be really crossed to miss.
Matthew:He and I have already recorded a bit of chat that we normally do after we've finished an interview with a number of options and none of them quite fit that news. Might just bring them all in. But that is, that's great news. Okay. Well, as ever Andreas, it's been a real pleasure talking with you yeah, let's to you again in a couple of months, maybe.
Andreas:Yeah. In a couple of
Matthew:months, maybe. Yeah. That sounds amazing. Yeah. So we ought to explain that we normally record these interviews before we do the recording that you and I are now doing.
Matthew:Yes. And therefore, we can talk about what we discovered in the interview. But this time, timing issues mean that we're actually gonna be recording it this afternoon, and we have no idea what was said. So if we fell out with Andreas and we're never speaking to him again, you're gonna be hearing that live and we don't know it. And if if the interview went well, then then maybe you'll hear that as well.
Matthew:But I don't think we can comment really.
Dave:No. I suspect could record. Because he's lovely So
Matthew:Let's do two different things. We could say both. Well, Andreas is always a lovely guest, isn't he?
Dave:He is.
Matthew:He's a
Andreas:real pleasure.
Matthew:That Andreas is a shit, isn't he?
Dave:How dare he come on our show and say those things? It's an outrage.
Matthew:And one of those two will be correct.
Dave:Yeah. One or the other. Well, there could be a middle ground where, oh, that's just a bit boring, wasn't it?
Matthew:It was okay. Heard it all before, though. Yeah.
Dave:No. Cool. Cool. Right.
Matthew:So what are we gonna talk about next week?
Dave:Well, you've already mentioned earlier in the show about my new job.
Matthew:Which I've been
Dave:doing for three which means I'm no longer doing the freelancer gig full time. So I I I I very much want to reflect on the last couple of years. So perhaps I could do something along the lines of, yeah, the rise and fall of a freelancer. My
Matthew:thought Has it really been two years that you've been Two
Dave:and a half.
Matthew:Trying to make a living? Yeah. Yeah. Two and a half. Bloody hell then.
Dave:Was 2023 when I left when I resigned from the civil service. And So it's been two and a half years. So, obviously, got effect in the middle of that as well, of course, and Tales of the Old West. But otherwise, yeah, that time, yeah, I was officially a professional freelancer. Which obviously didn't go as well as I hoped because I had to get another job.
Dave:But I think there are there are definitely some I'd I'd very much like to record my reflections on on that attempt, and I'm glad I tried it. But it it it didn't it didn't work out in the way that I
Matthew:Okay.
Andreas:So
Matthew:So that that I think that's a really good reflective piece for our next episode, and there will be learnings for anybody looking to get into the industry and Yeah.
Dave:I think I think I can make some suggestions and advice for people who want to give it a try that perhaps I I perhaps I didn't do well enough or didn't do enough of or Yeah. Just some reflections that might help others, perhaps, make the leap.
Matthew:Cool. And then at some point, we've always promised to get Gar hand to hand back. Yes. After our lovely interview with him, maybe we should follow-up that bit with a and here's somebody who made it successfully.
Dave:Here's here's somebody who's better than Dave. Here's somebody successful, unlike Dave. Yeah. No. No.
Dave:Well, I mean
Andreas:Well, actually,
Matthew:was only joking there, actually that makes does make kind of a sense, doesn't it?
Dave:I think one of the reflections would be I can I can I have been and can be very successful without making a living out of it? That's what
Matthew:I'm saying. Yeah. Yes. I think that is a very important thing to say, it isn't like you've been sitting around waiting for work, is it?
Dave:No. Well, a
Matthew:lit yeah.
Dave:A lit a lit
Matthew:lit a let's not let's not write your thing for you. No. Please. Go away and think about it for a couple of weeks, and then we will talk about it again
Dave:Next time.
Matthew:In two weeks time.
Dave:Lovely. Cool. Good stuff.
Matthew:In the meantime 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.