Matthew: 00:39

Hello, and welcome to episode 267 of Effect Reflections. I'm Matthew.

Dave: 00:47

And I'm Dave. And today, as usual, we've got an action packed program. And I seem to remember saying a little while ago, we stopped saying that because we've said that 266 times. But we do have a full show for you today. We will kick off as usual with a thank you to a new patron, which is lovely news.

Dave: 01:04

Lovely to have somebody else on board. World of gaming, there's a few bits and bobs to announce there. And then we have got some old world old world old West news. A couple of bits on that as well because we've been scurrying around some of our stretch goals lately, and we've we've we've come to come to a conclusion on a couple of them, which is great. And then as

Matthew: 01:29

Not quite a conclusion, but but almost there.

Dave: 01:32

Well, not almost. It's good as. Just about. Certainly on one. And the other is very leer, isn't it?

Dave: 01:37

So Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, and that was the old West News. And then as the title of the show suggests, Reflections. So last week, I said last time, I said I would spend a little bit of time looking at and considering my thoughts on having been a professional full time freelancer for a couple of years.

Dave: 02:03

And you can hear all about that later on in the show.

Matthew: 02:09

Yeah. That sounds great. As usual, old hands will know that Dave prerecords that segment. So I've read it. I haven't yet listened to the recording.

Matthew: 02:23

And I think there's some insight there for for all sorts of people in this industry. Right. Let's kick off, though, with a big thank you to our new patron who has come on board, and that is Philip d Massey.

Dave: 02:41

Thank you, Philip. Welcome aboard. Lovely to have you on board. Super happy of support. Thank you so much.

Dave: 02:48

If you're not already tiptoeing onto the Discord, get on there.

Matthew: 02:53

He has not. I I'm sure we would have seen him on the Discord.

Dave: 02:56

Sure we would have.

Matthew: 02:56

Yes. It's hard to tiptoe onto the Discord.

Dave: 02:59

That's true, isn't it? Because it gives you a big announcement, isn't it? Saying, you've arrived. And then everyone goes, hello. Yeah.

Dave: 03:05

So no. Tiptoe onto the Discord if you are into that kind of forum, Philip. And it'll be lovely to have you there because it is what is it, Matthew?

Matthew: 03:14

It's the nicest place on the Internet. And I think it's also worth pointing out that even if you're not into Discord as a forum, our Discord server is one that you'd be into, actually.

Dave: 03:26

It's certainly worth

Matthew: 03:26

think there's a lot of chatter in Discord, and people have, like, you know, a bit of an overflow of all sorts of people. But our little Discord is a perfectly crafted little community of of like minded souls who get together for mutual support and encouragement and all sorts of things. We've been talking about football and rugby even.

Dave: 03:49

We have.

Matthew: 03:49

We have. Which may put some people off, but no. No.

Dave: 03:51

No. But we're we're we're That's

Matthew: 03:52

all confined to a single channel.

Dave: 03:54

We have a sports ball channel, so you you don't have to be bothered with it if you're not into it. I've been lately bemoaning West Ham's inability to to, well, even work out what a football is, I think, lately, and and Graham Potter's departure from the club. But I don't really mind that much. I'm much more personally interested in American football. And where I'm bemoaning where I'm bemoaning how badly the Cincinnati Bengals have been playing, and now they've lost their their star quarterback for the well, not for the season, but for most of the season.

Dave: 04:23

And even though we've won two games, we should have lost both of them, and we got absolutely completely stunked last week. So yeah. So, yeah, it'd be nice if one of my sports teams did something well so I could go onto the sports ball channel and say something positive about them, but no.

Matthew: 04:41

But, yeah, very rarely. I thought we were going to lose against Chelsea, but we we came back and somewhat hammered them in the second half, which is lovely. So

Dave: 04:50

I know this isn't a sports this isn't a sports podcast, of course. But it's interesting. This season, you know, you even with Liverpool now, they lost the game this weekend. You you can't you you know, there is no one team basically bossing the league like Man City had done for five years, which is really, really good for the game, which I think is excellent. It's nice to see.

Dave: 05:10

Sorry. Sorry, Mohamed. It's nice to see Man United losing a lot. But that's nothing to do with Mohamed or or other supporters of Man U like him. It's because I grew up, and my entire time as a kid

Matthew: 05:21

It was Man United winning everything.

Dave: 05:23

With Man United winning everything, and all those people who'd never even heard of Manchester other than Man United supporting them giving me a hard time about it. So yeah. So, yeah, apologies to Man United fans, but, yeah, it's just the way it is. I am bitter and twisted. It's not my fault.

Dave: 05:39

Was the way I was brought up.

Matthew: 05:42

So how do we get from Philip on the sport? Oh, yeah. Via the Via the discord. But let us not forget that we're actually here to thank Philip Massey. Thank you for joining our Patreon.

Matthew: 05:51

Absolutely. I will send you a personal thank you message via Patreon shortly, but probably not today.

Dave: 05:59

And, yeah, and obviously, thanks to all our supporters, all our patrons, everyone who listens. I said we couldn't do this without all your fabulous support and and and help. So thank you all.

Matthew: 06:12

And then on to the world of gaming. Right. Let's let's crack on. Invincible Invincible. Is kick starting and doing reasonably well.

Dave: 06:21

It's doing pretty well, isn't it? It's

Matthew: 06:23

Yeah. This this little company, Free League, you know, I'm I'm I'm proud of them. They, you know, they've they've made their target. They may get a few stretch goals. No.

Matthew: 06:34

They're they're it's doing very well. I have thoughts about Invincible, and I'm not sure whether I should be showing them in this generally sycophantic shilling for free league podcast.

Dave: 06:45

Well, no. We don't always just shill. We I think I think the great thing about it is while we do do an awful lot of shilling for free league, and we spend a lot of time doing that, We do actually criticize them where we where we think there's justified criticism. So I think I think it would be boring if you didn't make your comments on Invincible. So my basically, my I I don't really know much about Invincible.

Dave: 07:09

I never watched, Was it a cartoon or something or comic?

Matthew: 07:13

There is. Well, there is a comic and a cartoon.

Dave: 07:16

Yeah. So so I've never watched or read any of that. So other than it being a generic superhero thing, which looks lovely, the the artwork looks good, Very reminiscent of Villains of Vigilantes, I would say, in terms of its art style, which is great because I loved Villains of Vigilantes back in the day. But other than that, I know very little about this game. So over to you.

Dave: 07:35

Well, very little about Invictus.

Matthew: 07:36

Have you have you downloaded the the Quickstart?

Dave: 07:40

I haven't. No.

Matthew: 07:41

You should. That's the first thing you should do, and then you would know more about the game. For a start, it is available for free. You know? Don't even have to kick in on the Kickstarter to to get sent a link or anything.

Matthew: 07:54

Just download it and have a look at it. It is mechanically closer to choreo list of great dark than older year zero games in terms of a single stat for your dice pool as it were, and in fact, about six single stats for your dice pool. The interesting thing though is because it's superheroes, the dice pools are generally larger. So, you know, you're looking up to 12 dice you could have for a single stat, I think.

Dave: 08:26

Right. Okay.

Matthew: 08:27

So you're rolling quite large dice balls, which seems to fit since Super Heroes is a game about success rather than a game about failure. But I actually I wanna actually take a step back and look at the Invincible, let's call it, franchise IP. Mhmm. I don't think it's great, to be really honest. No.

Matthew: 08:50

Okay. Speaking as a comics fan, and you know, I've I've been reading comics.

Dave: 08:56

You do know your comics a lot better than I know comics. Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew: 08:59

And there was a time which happily coincided with me growing up where comics kind of grew up with with us as it were. Mhmm. And famously got dark and novel like and stuff like watchmen Yep. Is still up there as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century on various lists and things like that, even though it's just a bloody comic, which is great.

Dave: 09:25

It is. It was

Matthew: 09:26

a very grown up comic.

Dave: 09:27

It is superb. Yeah. It it is one of the few dark

Matthew: 09:30

things. And then there was Dark Knight as well, which took Batman, which totally transformed. You know, he still, at the time that Dark Knight came out, had a bit of a legacy of the Batman sixties TV show, which was in its own way great, but had kind of tainted the character Mhmm. Of this vigilante. And then, Frank Miller bought that back with, with a dark knight.

Matthew: 09:52

And there's other ones I

Dave: 09:53

could mention that

Matthew: 09:53

are grown up comics. And then there's you know, then that, of course, there's a whole bunch of other grown up adult themed comics not for young readers appeared, which for a start, I think, actually, that's a bad thing. I think superhero comics, especially, should be a relatively juvenile medium, and they shouldn't be just for Adults. Adults who haven't grown up like me. And, also, the thing I really so there are lots of things to to love about Invincible.

Matthew: 10:27

Let me get that straight. The comic. There there is a really diverse range of characters there. There is, as you've mentioned, a beautiful clean art style that I really, really like. Yep.

Matthew: 10:39

However, in its appealing to the adult market, I don't think there's any great moral complexity there. There are good guys and bad guys. Right. The bad guy there there there are some reoccurring bad guys. There there are some fun.

Matthew: 11:01

There's some fun in there. There's some fun dialogue between a couple of kind of twins who are actually clones of each other, and they're always arguing about which one's the clone of who and which one is there for the original and stuff like that. And, you know, there's there's some fun dialogue, typical Marvel dialogue from from from the sixties and seventies. But because it's a grown up comic and not for kids, there's also lots of blood. So there's skulls getting crushed.

Matthew: 11:26

There's limbs getting torn off, all that sort of stuff. And, frankly, in terms of the adult content, there's that, and there's a bit of sex as well. Not massively graphic sex, but, you know, we know people are having sex and snogging and ripping their clothes off and stuff like that. And that pounders to the least interesting part of what being an adult comic is. And, actually, I'm gonna say is very difficult to do in a role playing game.

Matthew: 11:55

And the quick start, in fact, even does does a nod to that. I I I I was thinking here's a really interesting option to do something different with criticals even though we know from playing, yeah, zero games that that criticals are pretty deadly in in lots of games. I see a previous episode where I work out how deadly every game is. Mhmm. But I was thinking, oh, you know, we could get you know, there could be some fun stuff with real graphic violence here.

Matthew: 12:32

May maybe more options on your critical hit table to do all the different, you know, limbs getting ripped off and heads and stuff like that. Yeah. But no. Actually, it's the same sort of crit in fact, it's it's a smaller crit table in terms of probability than other ones we've had. You roll a d six, you add something to it, and and 12 is, you know, your your

Dave: 12:59

Is dead.

Matthew: 13:00

Skull gets crashed and you're dead. But then it does this other thing. Say, well, obviously, we know that people aren't necessarily gonna like So you can just, you know, depending on your audience, limit the table at nine.

Dave: 13:12

Right.

Matthew: 13:13

And so there, we've got an issue where the only thing and it's a pretty crap thing that Invincible makes Invincible grown up. The only thing that makes Invincible grown up is the bloody violence and then it's saying, but if you don't want the bloody violence, just don't have the bloody violence bit. Mhmm. So so then

Dave: 13:32

what is Invincible? Does that then turn Invincible into a game like Villains of Vigilantes, which is for, you know, for your your younger audience potentially?

Matthew: 13:40

I I I guess in a way it does.

Dave: 13:43

So it

Matthew: 13:43

But then it doesn't give us a very interesting universe.

Dave: 13:47

For now? No. Alright. Interesting. So in in the in the comic, I guess the comic was the original source and then the cartoon that came later.

Dave: 13:55

In the comic, do the characters do the do the do the main characters tend to get killed off fairly regularly?

Matthew: 14:00

Yeah. There there there's quite a lot. So spoilers here for anybody who hasn't seen it. Turn off for two minutes, but Dave is never gonna watch it or or read the comic.

Dave: 14:09

That's right.

Matthew: 14:10

So it's about effectively the son of Superman. Superman is called Omni Man in this world. And Invincible is his son who, as he grows into puberty, starts getting his powers and stuff like that, and his dad train is training him to be a superhero. But within within months of the comic and within the first season of the TV show, we actually find out that this omniman is here to to actually invade the world on behalf of the vitrubite empire and to take over the world and rule like a god.

Dave: 14:45

Right.

Matthew: 14:46

Which, you know, we've seen that in some other comics. Brilliantly, Alan Moore's Marvel man stroke miracle man does that in a slightly different way, but it really explores that with Neil Gaiman's help after Alan Moore gives up. And and there's nothing original here. He kind of I've been as an experienced comic reader, I was kind of picking up on whatever subtle hints they did on that very early on before before he did it. Even the fact that his dad has got a mustache kinda made me think, well, he's obviously the villain then.

Matthew: 15:23

So so, yeah, I it didn't the comic didn't impress me. The TV show is popular, but doesn't impress me. I find it slightly tiresome and boring to watch. Okay. Made it through the first season.

Matthew: 15:38

I don't think I've I've seen I've started each season and got bored.

Dave: 15:42

Is that relatively recent then that one?

Matthew: 15:45

Only a few years old. Yeah.

Dave: 15:47

Yeah.

Matthew: 15:47

Okay. Yeah. So I don't think in fact, I was on Blue Sky talking about it. And I think there were more interesting if less lucrative properties that might have been licensed. So back in the day, Grant Morrison did a comic for February called Zenith, which is actually, I feel, Invincible the guy the creators of Invincible had read Zenith when they were kids.

Matthew: 16:20

But there it's not half as much fun or as chaos magic y as Zenith is. But there's that. What else did I think of? I mentioned another franchise that I thought might be better, but it's got out of my head entirely now. Yeah.

Matthew: 16:34

It it it's, I think, me, Invincible is the most boring comic franchise.

Dave: 16:41

Right. Okay.

Matthew: 16:42

And and so I'm trying to I'm trying to find something original in the game that makes me excited about the game. I think somebody said, oh, actually, mentioning that makes me think it'd be really good to take the invincible rules and play Zenith with it, which, good on them. That might that might be there. Before the campaign is over, I may succumb, but I'm not succumbing to it right now.

Dave: 17:06

Yeah. I I hadn't been interested by it. I'm not necessarily in the mood at the moment or in the phase of my gaming to to be hankering after a superhero game.

Matthew: 17:17

Well, of course, we've we've got a superhero game going at the moment with Spectaculars.

Dave: 17:22

No. I know. I'm really enjoying Spectaculars. I I I I have to say the last episode, I think the last game we had, I think I enjoyed it a little bit less because it felt like the end of the episode was predetermined at the start. So that felt Yeah.

Matthew: 17:39

It was.

Dave: 17:40

So that felt a little bit

Matthew: 17:42

It's a two parter.

Dave: 17:43

Yeah. No. No. That's absolutely fine. I'm looking for and we're gonna be playing the other part in a in a couple of weeks, aren't we?

Dave: 17:48

So that's really looking forward to it. But that has definitely scratched my my quite small, actually. I didn't realize I had a superhero itch at all until you suggested doing that. And then this is our our third session, maybe fourth. And I've really enjoyed it.

Dave: 18:03

It's been a lot of fun because it's really quirky. It's different. And the world we've set up, thanks to the way Spectaculars encourages you to set the world up, is really interesting. And I I like it very much. It's the kind of thing that, you know, if it was a a comic, I might even read that story because I I think it's a really good one.

Dave: 18:23

So I didn't come to Invinci when I when I heard about Invincible, it wasn't something I came to and explored. And when you were on the Discord talking about having looked at the quick start, I thought, no, I'm not gonna bother downloading it because I'm not gonna back it. May like you say, maybe I should have a look at it just out of kind of professional interest. Yes. And I do love the artwork.

Dave: 18:43

Having having having seen the artwork, like, just looking at it this morning, it has given me a very strong villains of vigilantes nostalgia kick. And I really I really loved that. Alright. This is this is forty years ago, definitely, if not longer, when we played villains of vigilantes. But I really enjoyed I really enjoyed it.

Dave: 19:06

That was a good a good it was a really good game for its time. I looked at it again the other day, a bit like I looked at the old Judge Dread because, again, that was a really great game for its time, and I loved playing that and running with ran more of it than anything else. But, again, looking at the rules now, they do feel very dated. And I would probably enjoy them again if I really got into it and tried it. But I tried that with cyberpunk, and it didn't work.

Dave: 19:33

Because the cyberpunk red was very similar in basic rules to the original 2020, and I didn't enjoy it very much.

Matthew: 19:42

No. No.

Dave: 19:43

Because the rules got in the way yeah.

Matthew: 19:46

Sorry. The interesting thing about Spectacular is this is a very different rule system that actually is it's relatively simple. It kind of abstracts fighting in a way that you were getting a bit frustrated with in the last run. The combats are kind of abstracted.

Dave: 20:02

Does take

Matthew: 20:02

a bit of

Dave: 20:02

getting used to actually. But once you get used to it, I think it does work really nicely. But you'd have to think of it in terms of writing a page of a comic strip rather than a

Matthew: 20:11

Exactly. A

Dave: 20:12

a scene Exactly. Scene of game.

Matthew: 20:15

Yeah. That was, you know, was a thing I thought Golden Heroes did quite well, dividing times into frames and stuff like that. Yes. Yeah. Golden Heroes does that thing, you know, where it tries to make it, again, for its time, and I think it doesn't do it as well as Spectaculars does.

Matthew: 20:37

Spectaculars does everything to make it feel like you are reading stroke writing an an issue of a comic Mhmm. And making stuff happen. And what what we particularly like about it is the procedural way in which the world is created. Yeah. Which, of course, this doesn't do that because it's got a world that's already been created for it.

Matthew: 20:56

It's just a boring world. In your opinion.

Dave: 20:59

Well, there are there are

Matthew: 21:00

In my opinion.

Dave: 21:01

There are 2,771 backers who disagree with you.

Matthew: 21:05

Yes.

Dave: 21:06

So, you know, you're still doing very well. It's it's got nearly 250,000 of its 40,000 target. Eighteen days to go at the point of recording, which is Sunday September 28. But, actually, I mean, you know, just there there's a little bit of me that's going, oh, we'd like to slice. Maybe I will back it, but I probably won't.

Dave: 21:24

So for the reasons I've just I've just discussed, and I've got more than enough other games to play at the minute anyway.

Matthew: 21:32

Yeah. Yeah. So I I I do wonder whether we should try and get somebody from the team, the creative team behind it, to come and talk to us in the next episode and maybe convince us to

Dave: 21:44

Why not, Yeah. That's a good idea.

Matthew: 21:46

See if we can.

Dave: 21:46

Because I'd be interested to hear a bit more about it from, like you say, from the people behind it.

Matthew: 21:51

Yeah. Okay. Wesson. Wesson, the last Kickstarter is being delivered and people seem to be very happy with what's produced.

Dave: 22:01

Excellent. Yep. I I Actually,

Matthew: 22:05

I haven't got any news other than that. I've seen some photos on the interwebs and in our Discord. Yeah. I didn't.

Dave: 22:13

No. I didn't.

Matthew: 22:14

Oh, did I pack? I can't remember.

Dave: 22:17

No. I didn't.

Matthew: 22:17

Maybe I need to I don't remember backing it. Or do I do I back one thing? I don't know. Anyway, I'll have to check that out.

Dave: 22:27

No. I I didn't. I mean, I I, you know, I mean, almost I mean, just from the artwork, it's almost worth just backing it anyway because the artwork is I mean, the Verson artwork is brilliant, but actually some of the artwork, I think, for for this particular expansion is particularly good. It's really, really good. But no, I didn't I didn't back it.

Dave: 22:51

I'm I I will pick it up at some point, I'm sure.

Matthew: 22:57

Yeah.

Dave: 22:58

But I think if I was if I was building to if I was building momentum to to to run a Versa in the campaign, I would definitely get it. Yeah. I'm not building momentum to run a Versa in campaign at the moment. I I would very much like

Matthew: 23:12

too many other games to

Dave: 23:13

play. There is, but I'd very much like to play it. And I I I feel with Besson, I wouldn't I would enjoy playing it more than running it. I'm not quite I'm not quite sure why I think that. Possibly only because I've played it, and I've absolutely loved the games that I've played.

Dave: 23:28

Yeah. And I would love to play more, actually, particularly Ferguson, my character in your campaign. That would I'd love to play him some more. But, yeah, it looks lovely. And I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point because it will be worth it for my just for my collection, if nothing else.

Matthew: 23:47

Something else that's arriving on people's doorsteps is Conan, which you've had something to do with.

Dave: 23:52

I did. Yeah. I did. I I wrote four adventures for this is this is monoliths Mhmm. Version of Conan the Hyborian age.

Dave: 24:03

And Yeah. Yeah. I I absolutely loved writing those stories. I think I remember telling you at the time

Matthew: 24:10

How much you were enjoying writing them.

Dave: 24:12

Yeah. Also, actually, is good. So I don't know if how the how this is gonna sound, but don't take it the wrong way. How easy it is to write fantasy. It's Yeah.

Dave: 24:21

It's piss easy compared to everything else I've written. I I don't know why, particularly. Maybe it's just that, you know, I can let my let my, you know, cast my shackles aside and let my imagination do whatever it pleases, pretty much. Whereas with things like Alien and and Dreams of Machines and and Cohock of Thelu say, you are you are quite closely bound by by the the limits of the game that's that's set for you. But I love writing those.

Dave: 24:51

And then I I was I will be getting a writer's copy, so I can't wait to see it. I went I went back through some of my Discord chats with with Shep Shep Shep Sheperson, who was the project manager for Monolith behind it. And he brought me on to write write those those adventures. And in in our Discord, he kept popping in artwork for my adventures as it came up. And some of that artwork is absolutely superb.

Dave: 25:18

I mean, I don't know who the artist is, but there's there's a particular one where I won't give any spoilers away, but there's a picture of like a fiery creature and a watery creature. And they're kind of they're not they're not fighting each other, but they're not far from each other. And it looks absolutely superb. So I'm really pleased that that's coming out and getting on people's getting on to people's tables. I I never played it.

Dave: 25:44

Our our friend and friend of the show, Pete, one of my Wednesday gaming crew, got involved in the playtests. Mhmm. And I think there's there there was a there was a nice so I never played it, so I don't know. I might be getting some of this wrong. But the the the the dice mechanic, you you get the opportunity to modify your dice rolls in a in a slightly innovative way.

Dave: 26:06

And I don't remember exactly how it was, but having when I read it, I I thought, well, that that sounds a little bit clunky. But actually, I think when at the table when he got used to it, it's probably really good because it gives you as a player, you know, a bit more agency over how your dice roll comes out. And Pete said something similar. It took a little while to get used to, but, actually, he really enjoyed it once once he got going. So I hope I hope it's good.

Dave: 26:27

I hope everybody really enjoys it. And yeah, I can't wait to it's one of those I'll I'll say this in my in my piece in a little bit, but it's one of those moments where I'm really looking forward to sitting back and basking in the glory of what I hope is a job well done.

Matthew: 26:44

Cool. Do you know so as far as I can see from people's photos, there's the chorus and there's two books of adventures. Do you know which volume your yours are in, or are they scattered across both of them?

Dave: 26:56

I have no idea. No.

Matthew: 26:59

Have to wait and see. Or ask John. We can ask John to Yes. Because he's already said he's read your name in the credits.

Dave: 27:05

I can tell him the names of the stories that I so the stories okay. What are they called? One was called the Temple Of The Basilisk Tooth. One was called the priest of the skull lord. One was called oh, it's the royal hunt of something.

Dave: 27:23

Can't remember what it was. And one was called in the in the deep of the Dry Black Sea. Those are the four I did. I don't think I did any others. I mean, I did just those four.

Dave: 27:37

I'm assuming they haven't changed the names. It's not impossible.

Matthew: 27:40

They may have changed the names.

Dave: 27:41

Yeah. It's not impossible. But if they did, they haven't told me. So

Matthew: 27:45

Right.

Dave: 27:46

Yeah. Cool.

Matthew: 27:48

Cool. And that brings us to the end of our world of gaming. That's a relatively short world of gaming.

Dave: 27:54

Well, it's been nearly half an hour.

Matthew: 27:56

We will put a link to the show notes in Invincible. Don't let what I said about the Invincible comic put you off by Invincible.

Dave: 28:04

No. Indeed. Go and make your own Make your

Matthew: 28:07

own judgment. Make your judgment. The quick start. Download the quick start.

Dave: 28:10

Oh, yeah. I might do that. Let go and have a look this afternoon, actually. I'd be interested to see what they've done with with the the year zero engine.

Matthew: 28:18

Professional interest, Dave. That's what you need.

Dave: 28:21

Well well, I'm I'm not a full time professional anymore.

Matthew: 28:25

Yeah. But you still need to stay interested in it.

Dave: 28:27

Oh, yeah. I

Matthew: 28:27

I I am. Yeah. Shall we move on to Old West news?

Dave: 28:32

Yes. Old West news. So we are finally finally, that's the wrong way of putting it. The all the effort that we've been putting in over recent months, and not just us, but others on the stretch goals, is finally beginning to bear fruit. So this week, we issued we published the Las Vegas Legacy, which is the first of the campfire tales that we were well, we were we were supported well enough to unlock as a stretch goal.

Dave: 29:02

Yeah. And this one has come out this week in PDF form, so all our backers should have access to that.

Matthew: 29:08

Do you know the weird coincidence about this one?

Dave: 29:11

Go on.

Matthew: 29:11

The particular stretch ball think I do actually. Was was smashed on the August 25.

Dave: 29:19

September. September.

Matthew: 29:21

September. Yeah. Thank you. And and by pure chance this was because you have to submit it to it it doesn't go as soon as you upload it to drive through RPG. So I'd actually when when I've uploaded it, we can send links to our backers, but it doesn't go on the shop as it were until

Dave: 29:50

Until it's been approved.

Matthew: 29:51

Approved. And it was approved and went public on the 09/25/2025, exactly a year afterwards. Excellent. And actually, it's the last one of the three that was a stretch goal simply because I got the artwork for that one in before Yeah. The

Dave: 30:10

Yeah. And some lovely artwork again. Really, really pleased with that cover. It's just great. I love it.

Matthew: 30:16

Yeah. And,

Dave: 30:17

yeah, and hopefully, people can be enjoying it. And, it's a good little story. I ran it a number of times as part of the Kickstarter campaign and at Tabletop Scotland last year as as demo games, and people all seem to enjoy it. And it's, you know, it's it's interesting to see how how different groups kind of resolve the dilemma at the end or the dilemma or or the, you know, the thing that they've got to grapple with. And as you can imagine, some were just, like, sort of get their guns out and shoot everyone until

Matthew: 30:53

somebody can shoot anyone. It's an interesting thing. Obviously, when we were doing it as an AP and showing it as an AP, we gave people characters for it, which we've

Dave: 31:04

Yeah.

Matthew: 31:04

Made the conscious decision not to do this time. Yeah. But rather you've given each of them a little rewrite that means it could fit into your campaign Yes. With your characters. Or the last time I ran it for a demo at on free RPG day actually, I thought, well, we've got time.

Matthew: 31:22

We've got a four hour slot. This these are designed to be about two hours long. Although this one could have gone on longer, actually, in just

Dave: 31:29

Yes. I think this there's plenty of of of space in them to stretch it out a bit longer without feeling like you're stretching it out. There's plenty of story there, but it is designed to run quickly if you want to do a demo at a convention. Yeah.

Matthew: 31:42

But I've got people to, you know, to create their own characters Yeah. For it. I mean, I think I did say you're gonna be bounty hunters, you know, that it's a it's a bounty hunting thing, so keep that in mind. But they came up with some great characters, absolutely great characters, including somebody who ended up as sheriff of of Las Vegas. So we had to or mayor.

Matthew: 32:03

I can't anyway, so we had one of the you know, I had to kind of write out one of the non player characters and replace another player character. But it went really

Dave: 32:11

well. Yeah.

Matthew: 32:12

Great fun. Really adaptable. And as you say, it can end in all sorts of ways. In this particular case, with badly used dynamite. The

Dave: 32:24

the dynamite bandits live on. We in our campaign, we've done some bad things with dynamite and blamed it on the dynamite bandits. And then we and then we captured a guy and accused him of being a dynamite bandit, and he he was hanged. But a dynamite bandit is still a threat out there, but nobody nobody knows it's us. Was actually like No.

Dave: 32:45

But but

Matthew: 32:45

Who it is?

Dave: 32:46

All all the stuff we did with the dynamite was before we amended the rules about dynamite. So now we have to be only one of us has got the minor 49 talent, so we have to be a little bit careful. And that happens to be the doctor. I'm not quite sure why the doctor has to handle dynamite. But

Matthew: 33:01

because he knows about safe operation with Danish cynical.

Dave: 33:04

That's Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew: 33:07

Indeed, so the the only reason that that that this adventure ended with dynamite was because somebody had had chosen the minor 49 a talent. Right. And I yeah. I have to say, given given we were exactly right to write that one.

Dave: 33:22

Yes. Yeah. I agree. That is a very good rule. Yeah.

Dave: 33:26

Because it adds not only does it take dynamite out of being just like carrying a bag of grenades, it's it adds that little frisson of of self inflicted harm that is likely to happen if you fuck about with dynamite. Yeah. Yeah. Which is good. Very good.

Matthew: 33:45

The other exciting thing, of course, is that rule is in our new foundry implementation of Tales of the Old West, which is now available for public download. Now let's be really specific here. The system is available for public download, which includes effectively all the behind the scenes mechanics and the character sheet and just the crit and Trouble. Trouble tables because they because they are integral to the mechanics. Now our developer, Paul.

Matthew: 34:24

Thank you, Paul. You're a hero.

Dave: 34:26

Oh, yes. He's well he's he's more than a hero. He is, you know yeah. Has

Matthew: 34:30

not just done the system. He's also done the module. So that will be coming very soon. The module is, the paid for supplement, which is effectively everything else that's in the call book. So all the stats, all the talents, all the equipment, all the gear, and all the other tables, life path, couch generation, and stuff like that.

Matthew: 34:51

I've just gotta get my head over well, I I don't know whether we'll we'll check with Paul whether he's got anything more to do with that, but I don't think he has. Because that's gonna be a paid for thing, though, it goes into a slightly different place. It goes into the Foundry marketplace. Now I've signed a Foundry marketplace agreement and stuff like that, given my banking details, but I just gotta get head my get my head around then how we submit it to the marketplace. And and so that'll be coming as soon as I've got some time.

Dave: 35:24

But that's that's that's gonna be soon. So I'm pretty sure, Paul, there isn't anything left for Paul to do.

Matthew: 35:30

I don't think so.

Dave: 35:30

There were there were there were a few tweaks, and we had to test a couple of bits that that needed testing, which we did last weekend pretty much. So I've got I I don't think there's more to do. So I think we are, like you say, just got to work out the process with Foundry about about getting it on the marketplace. So, yeah, it shouldn't be long. It's going to be it's not going to be months.

Dave: 35:49

It's going to be a week or two probably. Yeah. So but, yes, that'll be good. And it is lovely. I mean, I'm not a VTT person, but it is it just looks brilliant and it works so well.

Dave: 36:02

And some of the just little things that Paul has done to deal with, to to to, you know, to cope with some of the rules that we've written. And he's cursed our names quite a few times, I think, because of some of the way we've done some of the rules and how difficult they've been to implement in Foundry. But he's found a really good intuitive, clever way of doing it, and it works brilliantly. And I've said, you know, VTT is so good that it makes me want to use VTT and place and place and tells the Old West. And I I hate VTTs.

Dave: 36:34

I'm not a VTT player. I I feel that they usually get in the way of the game rather than enhance the game. But this is just lovely. I'm I'm so impressed. And thank you so much, Paul.

Dave: 36:45

If you're listening, we owe you a big one, pal. We really do. Yeah. Yep.

Matthew: 36:51

Next time we see him, we'll have to give him a drink as well.

Dave: 36:54

We'll have to

Matthew: 36:55

He did. Having having submitted it to Foundry, he said, I'm sitting back with a bottle of whiskey.

Dave: 37:01

Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like it's been quite traumatic for him. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave: 37:08

We can we can do whatever we can to help him help him through that. But no, it's brilliant. So delighted. It's it's taken a little while to get it get there, but it's been complicated and it's been, I think, difficult to implement. But Paul has done a superb job.

Matthew: 37:22

Yeah. Well done. Well done, Paul.

Dave: 37:25

Well done, Paul. Thank you.

Matthew: 37:26

And, yes, and as we say, it'll soon the rest will soon be out. I've had a couple of queries going, but have we got a have we got a type of thing in? And I'm saying, well, if you want to, you can. Or type what you need to in. So I noticed Jim, for example, one of our patrons and, of the Raspy Raven Discord has already actually, you know, just put a bunch of stuff in.

Matthew: 37:46

Whether he's gonna put everything in, I don't think so. But he just wanted to get a bunch of his characters, his campaign that he's just starting in and stuff like that. So I think he's put their talents in too. Nice. But the the rest will be coming very shortly.

Matthew: 38:01

Hold on.

Dave: 38:02

Yeah. We're very nearly there.

Matthew: 38:05

Okay. Cool. And then the next thing that will be out at some point is the gift horse. I'm just waiting for the

Dave: 38:12

art for

Matthew: 38:12

that, and I'm doing the Excellent. Layout now. Just started that yesterday. Cool. So things are coming.

Dave: 38:20

Things are coming.

Matthew: 38:21

Right. So time, I think, Dave, for your reflections.

Dave: 38:29

Yeah. Just just a warning to begin with. This is this is a little bit longer than our usual essays. It's not hours long. It's about fifteen minutes, but it's a little bit longer than the normal.

Dave: 38:41

But, yeah, have a listen and see what you think. A little over two years ago, I got the chance to try something that I suspect many folks only dream about. To gift myself the space and time to become a full time professional freelancer in game design and writing. It was an exciting time, although it took me over a year and some anxiety to convince myself to quit my safe, secure, and well paid day job and go for it. As most of you will know and others will guess from the title of this piece, it didn't work out quite how I'd hoped and I'm now back in the workplace doing a really fun job in a beautiful location supporting young people for Harbordshire County Council.

Dave: 39:28

But that two years was not a waste or a blowout, and I wanted to reflect on my experiences. But before I get into the detail, I just want to say that although I'm no longer a full time freelancer, I don't want my failure, if that's the right word, to put others off from giving it a try. I don't want to bury the lead here. If you find yourself tempted by the prospect of freelancing for a living and see an opportunity, I encourage you to take the leap. Even though it didn't work out for me, I wouldn't go back and change those two years.

Dave: 40:04

Okay let's get started. Right off the bat I'm going to say that I'm not going to talk about how you might break into freelancing in the first place. I've done a lot of that in the past. I I think it's probably very different for each freelancer but I can't refrain from repeating the advice I've always given and what worked for me. Build relationships and contacts and put yourself in the way so that when luck swings by it hits you in the face.

Dave: 40:33

It worked for me. I'm going to go through my experience through three questions. How do you find work? What is the process and what should you expect from clients? And what pitfalls did I dodge or fail to dodge?

Dave: 40:52

Finding work is all about getting attention and that can be really hard. It sounds like a broken record but you cannot underestimate the value of networking in the gaming industry. But don't just drop your card on stands at conventions. Talk to creators. Show your interest, knowledge and above all, enthusiasm for their works and your excitement at the thought of being able to contribute to it in future.

Dave: 41:19

For me, I already had the attention of Free League and coming off the success of Alien in general and Building Better Worlds in particular, I suspect I had more powerful Springboard than most. I got the attention of Modiphius through a little networking and getting Chris Birch as a Facebook friend and then following up one of Chris's posts with a gentle and respectful Facebook message about that post. It was about their new James Bond Spectre board game, but I'd mistakenly thought it was about the RPG. In any case, it ended in a bit of a conversation in which my love of Roman history and desire to create a Roman RPG came up. That led me to Cohall Cthulhu and some free consultation work at first, a lost leader as some might call it, but then an invite to work on the game.

Dave: 42:10

Undoubtedly, my history with Free League must have helped me here, but it would never have happened if I hadn't done a little bit of networking in the first place. This brings me to an interesting point. How much does your history as a freelancer or as a self published creator for that matter play into these decisions? Well naturally enough the answer is a hell of a lot certainly for the former category. There have been a number of jobs I've looked at only to find the likes of Gareth Hanrahan or Ken Hite there already, so there's little chance of competing in that company.

Dave: 42:46

But there aren't that many creators in that league, so there's always room for new ones. On the self publishing point, it can't hurt to have a track record of products behind you, but whether this can really help you depends on two things. One, if it's any good. There's a lot of self published material out there that is good as far as it goes, but isn't of a professional standard. And I'm talking about writing, game design, and creative quality rather than slick graphic design or layout.

Dave: 43:17

If you want others to give you work, you need to demonstrate the quality of your work. That said, I've seen a lot of material from so called professional writers that has been very substandard too. And two, getting it in front of the people you need to see it. Now this can be really hard. Commissioning officers in any company, be it a small indie publisher or a big outfit like Modiphius, are busy.

Dave: 43:42

Never forget this point. They are really busy. So cold calling is rarely going to work. My advice would be to find a way to generate a bit of buzz, a way to get people talking about your work. Maybe go on podcasts or create social media groups to build up some heat about the great work that you do, and talk to others in the industry about it whenever you can.

Dave: 44:06

That way, when you do approach a company with a pitch or an offer of your services, there's a better chance they will have heard of you or at least heard something positive about your previous work. Once you have your first commission, make the most of that opportunity to network like crazy. Following my start with Free League and Modiphius, I got my work from Monolith a lot and Magnetic Press not so much through the connections I'd made in those companies. And don't overlook the opportunities at home in those companies. By just asking the question, I've got more work on Modiphius's other lines, including Dreams and Machines, where I've been a leading writer and creative influence.

Dave: 44:48

My last comment here is connected to the self publishing material point. And as with that one it's all about making yourself a more attractive proposition to a prospective client and that's training. It might be creative writing courses or something similar but if you can show a dedication to your craft then this would be another point of difference and interest that might make you stand out from the crowd. The best example I have here is my pal Neil of Paladin Role Playing who decided to become a professional editor, took some accredited courses and now has worked on some big name titles, not least Tales of the Old West. He's a superb editor by the way.

Dave: 45:30

With a little honest self reflection I can see that I wasn't very good at putting myself forward in looking for work. There was a lot more I could have done and that may have made my experience turn out very differently. So now the process and what to expect from clients. I'm not going to say too much about the process other than this. You must get a contract before you start any work.

Dave: 45:55

Read it. Check it doesn't say anything daft. Sign it. But be ready for it to talk about four things. Your word rate.

Dave: 46:04

Check if it's in dollars, sterling or euros. That's an important point. The word count you have to work with. That you will be paid after your work has been approved. And I'll talk more about approvals when I come to pitfalls in a minute.

Dave: 46:19

And that you will have no ownership of your work once it's been approved and paid for and that's fine. Once that's all done you should crack on with your work. Often you'll need to give a one page synopsis of what you plan to write to ensure your client is happy with the direction you're taking. If you're unsure, do one anyway and let them know you want their feedback on it. Do the first draft and get it to your client for approval.

Dave: 46:46

In this part of the process, you should look to stick to the approved word count. If you find you need extra words, go back and ask and get any extra approved in writing, at least in an email. Then keep that email for the day you get paid to prove the agreed increase. For many companies, if you can't prove it, you won't get paid for it. They will almost always come back with some suggested changes.

Dave: 47:12

Rarely have I submitted a first draft that has been approved there and then. Make the changes, but feel free to push back if you think the changes are wrong or bad. Be ready to make a case to your client about it, but most are reasonable and are open to your opinions. The work will then go to an editor and you will be expected to make amendments based on the editor's comments. This may happen months after you submitted the work and got it approved, but you're still expected to fulfill this task.

Dave: 47:42

Then see it published and bask in the glory of a job well done. One thing you should not expect from your clients is regular contact and engagement. They are busy people and you should only expect the bare minimum of contact to get the job done. And that's fine, but it can feel a bit like being dropped like a hot potato once you've done your work. Now pitfalls.

Dave: 48:06

There's quite a few of these to watch out for but here are a few that I came across. As a freelancer you are at the bottom end of the food chain. Starting out you will be offered low rates of pay. The least I ever accepted was 6¢ per word but I've seen companies offering much less than that. It can be very tempting, especially when starting out, to think it's better to get shitty paid work than no work at all and the next job will pay you more.

Dave: 48:36

But the more that terrible pay is accepted in the industry the longer it will persist and as freelancers we should be confident in our talents and the creative excellence we can bring to a product. Be ready to work for less than minimum wage. Even a decent word rate will probably see you work for less than minimum wage when you factor in the original drafting, your own edits and amendments, then responding to an editor's comments. This can be fine depending on how much you need or want to earn but bear it in mind. Check your word rate in the contract.

Dave: 49:11

It is surprising how often you'll get a verbal agreement for xpence per word but when the contract appears it's xcents I. E. You get paid less. Always call this out if it happens and get the contract corrected. Otherwise you're signing off on a discount on what you originally charged for your work.

Dave: 49:30

Approvals. Contracts will say you'll get paid once the work has been approved. Now most companies are fine doing this, although some take forever to confirm their approval. In this case, don't be reluctant to prod them with reminders. However, the big issue, and one that burned my fingers once, is working on a big IP.

Dave: 49:53

In these cases, the work will only be approved by the client once the IP holder has approved the work for publication. If the IP holder does not give that approval, the client won't approve the work so you don't get paid. It's shit. But that's the way it works. In cases like this you should have a conversation with your client about the IP holder's approval process and what the situation will be if you've done the work in good faith to deadline and to an agreed standard but the circumstances outside your control with the IP holder means the work doesn't get approved.

Dave: 50:29

As it stands you get fuck all. But a reasonable company should be willing to share the risk with you and offer you perhaps half the money even if the IP holder kills the product. Don't rely on one or two companies for your work even if they give you quite a lot. Always look for more to diversify your client base. I could have been more out there trying to build relationships beyond those I ended up relying upon for work, principally freely again Modiphius.

Dave: 51:00

Looking back, I can now see a couple of guilt edged opportunities I didn't take. And from where I am today I don't really know why I didn't chase them down but I didn't and so those opportunities slipped away. Don't make the same mistake. Getting enough work to pay you a decent wage is difficult. I found that I needed to be delivering paid work of some sort or another every week to make enough money for freelancing to be viable.

Dave: 51:30

Hence my point about always scouting for more work. If you end up with too much at any given time that's a good problem to have as a freelancer. Finally getting paid. In my experience some companies and especially independent publishers are super hot on paying you as soon as possible once the work is approved. However others can be less reliable.

Dave: 51:55

Now it's not, in my experience anyway, any suggestion of those companies not wanting to pay but just being slow and bureaucratic so the process doesn't seem to be a priority for them. Don't be frightened to tap your clients regularly on the shoulder if your payment seems a long time coming. There are probably more pitfalls if I thought really hard about it, but those are the main ones that come to mind. Even though it didn't work out for me, I wouldn't change those two years. The thrill of seeing my work in print of winning awards and getting the experience and support to have the confidence to kick start my own games, of seeing a piece of gorgeous artwork based on one of my adventures were all things I might never have experienced had I not given it a go.

Dave: 52:42

And beyond that freelancing gave me the impetus to escape a career that while it had been brilliant and I'd got to do things that very few people would get to experience had definitely run its course for me. The sensible thing would have been to stay in that career continue commuting into London taking my good salary but that course might also have done me in psychologically if not physically. Full time freelancing was a critically important step in my life. It was an exciting, rewarding, frustrating at times and wonderful period that helped me embark on a new journey and onto new opportunities. I will continue to freelance in my spare time, but will be more selective over which jobs I accept, if indeed I keep being offered them, and effective publishing will definitely live on.

Dave: 53:33

To round off, I'm going to sum up my thoughts on ending my full time freelancing career by paraphrasing a line from the TV show Frasier. You're mourning the loss of what you thought your life was going to be. Let it go. Things don't always work out how you planned. That's not necessarily bad.

Matthew: 53:59

Very insightful. A degree of self awareness that I wouldn't normally put down to you. Fuck off.

Dave: 54:09

And and you can edit out the the other word I just called you as well.

Matthew: 54:18

I know. No. No. So if you could sit down with yourself from two years ago and say this is the most important thing I learned, what would it be?

Dave: 54:38

Contacts and networking. Kinda never stop talking to people. Yeah. Take every op take even the slimmest opportunity to talk to somebody and and see where it goes. I mean, there were there were two things well, one really that I I kind of missed out on.

Dave: 54:59

And I actually, I might not

Matthew: 55:00

I'm kind of really intrigued about what that was, and obviously, you probably can't say because

Dave: 55:05

Well, okay. I won't I say that what it was, but it was it was an up it was an opportunity with a relative well, a big player in the industry, which I just didn't follow-up for various reasons. Partly partly unfamiliarity with some of their stuff, partly just, I think, being kind of deflected from that opportunity, but other things that were going on. But that I mean, it might still you know, if I if I I might be able to warm that contact up again. So Mhmm.

Dave: 55:42

You know, if I wanted to, I might be able to go back there and and see if I could resurrect that opportunity. So it might not be gone entirely, but I should have taken advantage of it at the time. And that was that was eighteen months ago, nearly fifteen months ago or something. So, yeah, my number one advice is talk to people, get to know people. You don't have to be, you know, stalking them or anything.

Dave: 56:09

But, know, at conventions, people want to talk. And then you can, you know, just take that opportunity. And a lot of it might come to nothing, but and it'll take time. So if you have a nice conversation with somebody at one convention, see them at Dragon Meet then and go, oh, hello. How are you doing?

Dave: 56:26

I really really enjoyed our chat at UK Games Expo. And just build a relationship like that, and who and who knows where it'll go. So that's that's my number one thing. I mean, I'm I'm not I'm not the most outgoing person in the world. I'm quite shy actually when it comes to most things.

Dave: 56:44

You know, some people might not believe that, but I, you know, I am I'm not a I'm not a social butterfly in the way that I think you are much more than I am. You're much more comfortable just going and talking to people.

Matthew: 56:54

Well, think I'm actually also a bit of an introvert and shy, but I compensate for it by just going and talking to people

Dave: 57:01

sometimes successfully. By being a bit flamboyant.

Matthew: 57:05

Flamboyant. I don't don't think so. But, yeah, I there were times I think I picked you up on saying, look. I'm giving you time off, you know, when we were at conferences at con conventions. I said, look.

Matthew: 57:16

I I will give you fewer hours in the on the stall so that you can go off and network. And he said, oh, no. No. Yeah. Put me on the stall.

Matthew: 57:24

Put me on the stall. And I I, you know, I think maybe you could have been braver.

Dave: 57:29

Yes. Absolutely. I agree. I agree. I mean, he's definitely outside my comfort zone just going up to somebody who I've never really met before and and starting a conversation.

Dave: 57:37

I I can do it. You know, it's not something that gives me anxiety or, you know, is a is a is a is a real problem. But I do find it a bit a bit uncomfortable. But, you know, when when I did do it, because I did do quite a lot of that over the last couple of years, it was good. It was fine.

Dave: 57:54

You know, people aren't monsters. They're not going to you know, the worst thing that will happen is they'll say, I'm sorry. I haven't got time to chat now. I'm really busy. Mhmm.

Dave: 58:02

And, you know, and you'll move off. And that's fine. So yeah. So that'd be my number one bit of advice. Make the most of of that.

Dave: 58:10

And again, it's a bit like the kind of the advice that I always said about getting into freelancing in the first place. The more you do that kind of thing, the more you put yourself in the way of luck. And the more likely Yeah. An opportunity is gonna slap you in the face. And Yeah.

Dave: 58:24

So that's that's really important. I know, I guess a lot of people might not want to hear that because I guess a lot of people are probably a bit like you and me, not super comfortable going up to strangers and having a chat. But if you can get over that, particularly if you're talking about a game or or if, you know, let's say as a as a budding freelancer, you really want to work on, you know, a free league game, say, or a Modiphius game. Go and find I mean, particularly for Modiphius because they often have a lot of their creators at the conventions, whereas for Free League, you know, certainly in The UK they they don't come over very often. But but find the right person and just say how much you love the game and talk a bit about it.

Dave: 59:05

Show your show your knowledge of the game, your interest and your excitement about the game. And then say, yeah. But I've done this, that and the other. And if you've done some self published stuff, you know, I see, it's a really tough one because I wouldn't advise taking copies of your self published stuff and giving them to people because I think it's you know, in that kind of environment, it's not really welcome because you're busy, you've got other stuff to do. But just even just being able to have a chat with them and share names and then go away and become friends on Facebook.

Dave: 59:37

Because it's a really good thing having chat to somebody at, you know, UK Games Expo. It's really good then to, you know, quickly follow-up by being friends on Facebook. It's entirely reasonable, and they're going to accept that friend request. And then now you've got someone that, you know, later on, you could send them a quick, you know, like I did with Chris Birch, a little polite message about something that might then lead into something bigger. So it's, yeah, it's it's doing as much of that as you can, but doing it in the right way.

Dave: 01:00:05

And as I said in the thing, cold calling is is really unlikely. It does sometimes get you a bit of work, but it's really unlikely to. If you cold call, you need to cold call with a with a pitch. It needs to be a well presented pitch. It needs to grab grab them.

Dave: 01:00:21

So there's a lot of work that goes into that as well. And still, your chances of succeeding are really quite slim. And if you do succeed, it's probably gonna be two years later when they come back to you. So you'll, you know, you'll there's a lot of stuff going out there that if you if you take that approach, you'll it is definitely a long term approach, that one. And it might not it might struggle to succeed.

Dave: 01:00:46

But, yeah, talking to people, getting get getting to know people is the most important thing, I think.

Matthew: 01:00:53

So one other question, actually, that was raised when we announced this a couple of weeks ago by Craig. Yeah. And it says, for your discussion on freelancing, I'd be interested to know whether you think having some more self published work would have been useful in addition to the freelance jobs. Obviously, you're working a lot on Tell Us of the Old West, and that will bring in money long term. But I'm thinking smaller stuff, maybe free league workshop adventures.

Matthew: 01:01:21

Yeah. And I this ties together with what you said earlier in this very podcast about how easy it is to write fantasy. And I think I'd said to you, you know, should you be having a Patreon where you just churn

Dave: 01:01:34

Yeah. Out Absolutely. Yeah.

Matthew: 01:01:35

Fancy adventures, or should you be churning out Forbidden Lands Adventures on on the Free League Workshop or stuff like that, which could which could not only obviously bring in a little money. I mean, it's not big money at the end of the day, is it? But but also, would that be a thing where with weird and wacky fantasy stuff as as it is fantasy that drives most of this market rather than the distinctly nonfantasy stuff that you and I are generally in.

Dave: 01:02:12

Yeah. You

Matthew: 01:02:12

know, if you'd if you'd got a big corpus of work behind you of that, whether you'd be getting calls from here, there, and everywhere to to write Fantasy Adventures, not just Conan.

Dave: 01:02:23

So it's interesting. So I I obviously do mention that in the essay, But there's but actually, you're you're the way you framed it there has brought up a third a third thought. But, yeah, in the essay, you know, I said there's two things that are key about that. If you want to to to to lean on your self published material to help you get paid work. One, it needs to be good.

Dave: 01:02:46

And and by that, I mean, needs to be good in terms of the writing and the creative excellence of it. I think people would overlook, you know, janky graphics and janky layout. But if the actual content was good, that would you know, so that's the important thing. And second is is getting it in front of the people who who you'd need to see it. And that's that's that's very difficult.

Dave: 01:03:07

Like like I just talked about, you know, dropping it on people's stalls conventions in the hope they'll look at it when they go home. It'll probably go straight in the bin, sadly, because they're far too busy. So so that's a real challenge. The third thing, though, actually could possibly play into some of that in that if I'd taken your advice and had made the time to do do that and was churning out, let's say, Forbidden Lands or Dragonbane Adventures on the workshop and they were they were being popular because they were, you know, if they were good enough, then over time again, that might be a really good thing because not only would you then be making a little bit of passive income through it, like I like you say, not much, but the more you do, the more you'll get. Yeah.

Dave: 01:03:56

But also then, yeah, you are, you know, you're then building up a body of stuff that that that Free League might stumble across or somebody might talk to them about, or they might see a Facebook or social media message about playing this scenario and how great it was. So building up that kind of heat behind your your self published work, you know, could be really useful. Now, I I I never found the time. I think this is another mistake, actually. Another thing I could have done, which I probably should have done was taking your advice and done exactly that because, you know, I I could probably churn out, at least in terms of the writing, maybe not the graphic design and the and the actual layouts for for sale, but the I could probably churn out a a fantasy scenario for Dragonbane or Forbidden Lands once a month in terms of content.

Dave: 01:04:49

And if I'd done that, I'd have had maybe 10 products up there now. If I'd done that from the start, let's say, that then might have attracted Free League Xi, and they might have said, Oh, that was really good. Did you want to write some Dragon Vein for us? Possibly. So, yeah, so I think that is another that is another good point.

Dave: 01:05:08

But it comes back again to, you know, the point of it being any good. You know, if it's rubbish, then it's it'll be hindrance rather than a help. Rubbish. If it's, you know, if again, you know, as I said in the essay, there's a lot of self published stuff out there which is which is absolutely fine. It's good.

Dave: 01:05:27

It's nicely done, but it's not quite professional standard. You know, but it's good games. It's it's, you know, it's people who will buy it will really enjoy it. But it wouldn't be the stuff that someone like Free League or Modipious would look at and go, right, that's a person I need to to get on board because they're really good. I think that said and again, as I said in the essay, I've seen quite a lot of stuff from professional writers, which is fucking awful.

Matthew: 01:05:50

Isn't that great?

Dave: 01:05:51

I mean, God, I mean, how yeah. I mean, God blimey, some of it. You know, you know, and I'm sure people have some people have looked at my early drafts and stuff and gone, oh my God, that shit. But no. Oh, yeah.

Dave: 01:06:03

Just some of it was just god awful in occasion. So, you know, I think that that point is all about reassuring those who aren't professional freelancers or writers that actually you're probably not very far off or not, you know, no no different at all to the people who are actually out there writing the stuff professionally. So, you know, it's you shouldn't think that this is a standard you can't attain because it absolutely will be a standard you can attain. And you probably are attaining that standard in a lot of the stuff you're doing anyway. So, you know, don't don't don't have a lack of confidence in yourself and thinking, oh, well, you know, but they've been doing that for ten years.

Dave: 01:06:41

They must be great. Not necessarily. Some of the stuff that people have been doing it for years, they some of the stuff they churn out is utter garbage. But yeah. So yes.

Dave: 01:06:52

So I think that would have been another thing. If I'd done that differently, taken your advice and gone for the No.

Matthew: 01:06:56

I don't wanna say that that, you know, you didn't take my advice and therefore you failed. Although, you know, bear that in mind in future discussions.

Dave: 01:07:03

I I didn't I didn't take that advice. And I and I think that might that might

Matthew: 01:07:08

I importantly, I didn't give you that advice the beginning of the two years. It was only, you know, it was Yeah. It was months. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 01:07:19

So so, you know, don't, you know, don't blame your your idiocy in not taking my advice. Blame you you I I will take a bit of that blame by not giving that advice before.

Dave: 01:07:33

If this is a pep talk, can we get to the peppy part, please, pal? No. But that's fine.

Matthew: 01:07:39

I think we both learned from your Yeah. From your experiences, I think what I'm saying here. Wasn't these were ideas I was having only by seeing, you know, what you had, not ideas I'd had beforehand.

Dave: 01:07:55

But I mean, I'm entirely happy with how it how it panned out, actually, from where I am now. Yes. I might have done things differently if I could, like you said, if I could go back to the me of two years ago and have a chat with me, I would I would probably have done things a bit differently. But actually, it's been a great experience. I've done lots of stuff, seen my name in print, I've won some awards.

Dave: 01:08:18

It couldn't you know, in that sense, in in every sense except the financial sense, it's been a huge success. Yeah. You know? And I've loved it, and it it it got us to do Tales of the Old West, which is is my my pride and joy, actually. I am the more I play it, the more I just pick up the book and look at it, the prouder I am.

Dave: 01:08:41

You know, I am so so, you know, so very pleased of that. And we might not have done that if I hadn't gone down this journey and I haven't had perhaps some of the time because because now I'm now I'm full yeah. Now I'm working full time again. I'm finding it really okay. I've only been doing it a couple of weeks, so give me a chance.

Dave: 01:08:57

But I'm finding it really hard to find any time in the evening to do anything other than sit on the sofa like a zombie.

Matthew: 01:09:05

Yeah. No. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.

Dave: 01:09:07

And, you know, and again, it it it's made me I'm gonna say something else nice about you. It's made me really it's it's made me really appreciate all the effort that you've put in over the last couple of years because you've been holding your

Matthew: 01:09:21

Working full time and keeping a podcast going.

Dave: 01:09:23

A busy full time job. Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, I need I need to to to pick up on your fine example in order to to organise my non working life more effectively and more efficiently and try and sleep some more. So I've got the I've got the energy to do all the stuff I need to do.

Dave: 01:09:48

Yes, I I'm not unhappy at all. I'm not I'm not sensitive at all about how it did or didn't work out over the last couple of years. So I'm I'm more than happy to really look into the reality of things I could have done better or things I should have done. And I don't feel any sense of, I don't know, unhappiness or guilt about that. It's just the way it was.

Dave: 01:10:13

Yeah. But if somebody can learn I

Matthew: 01:10:14

think there's an interesting

Dave: 01:10:15

thing that's really good.

Matthew: 01:10:18

I think there are a lot of people out there who have a portfolio career as it were. You know, I'm thinking Andrew Peregrine.

Dave: 01:10:25

Yes.

Matthew: 01:10:26

Who was, you know, line manager for, I'm sure, for one of the one of the other the jobs you were doing. But, you know, he has a job. Yeah. Yaman Gar Hamnahan writes novels as well as adventures and stuff like that.

Dave: 01:10:43

Yeah. Gets all the jobs that I wanted. Thanks Gar.

Matthew: 01:10:50

Yeah. So you know, I think a lot of people a lot of people don't have the luxury of being able to focus it on it for two years that you've had actually.

Dave: 01:11:00

No. Exactly. Yeah.

Matthew: 01:11:01

They've all we're all part timers in this industry, it seems, in a in a way. Anyway, I've got to crack on because I've got a game of Call of Cthulhu. So shall we draw this episode to a close?

Dave: 01:11:14

Let's do. What are we gonna do next time?

Matthew: 01:11:16

Well, we did mention earlier on that we might see if we can get somebody from the Invincible team to come and chat to us.

Dave: 01:11:22

That sounds like So an excellent plan. Yes.

Matthew: 01:11:25

And if we can't do that, we'll do something else.

Dave: 01:11:30

Inevitably. Indubitably. Yes. Cool.

Matthew: 01:11:34

So who's it goodbye from?

Dave: 01:11:36

Well, it's goodbye from you.

Matthew: 01:11:38

And it's goodbye from him?

Dave: 01:11:41

And it's goodbye from me. And may the icons bless your rather confused adventures.