Matthew: 00:39

Hello, and welcome to episode 276 of Effect, On the Agenda. Mhmm. My name's Matthew.

Dave: 00:49

And I'm Dave. And today in the show, we've got a lot of the usual things you might expect. We've got some world of gaming to talk about, a few bits and bobs of interesting news there. We have a little bit to talk about on Old West news, about tales of the Old West, and an exciting new campaign that is gonna be starting in about a week. And the essay today, well, I've been doing quite a lot of work on Alien lately for a unspecified project.

Dave: 01:16

And we talked last time about personal agendas in Alien. So I've put a few thoughts together on that. See, I've desperately tried not to say we have a packed program for

Matthew: 01:28

you today. Well done. Well done. Your brother Tony will be very

Dave: 01:32

happy But by in my head, my my my brain is saying

Dave: 01:36

packed program, packed program, packed program.

Dave: 01:39

But I'm desperately trying not to. So

Matthew: 01:42

You've never said it a number of times.

Dave: 01:44

You should congratulate me for not having said that phrase on the show today. Well done, me. Anyway, yes. I think I think I think we don't have any new patrons this month, do we?

Matthew: 01:56

No. But we love all our patrons.

Dave: 01:58

We do love every single one, past and present.

Matthew: 02:02

And it's also worth pointing out that you mentioned that we're gonna talk a little bit about the campaign that's starting in a couple of weeks' time on the YouTube. We'll tell you more about that later. But, of course, that is in entirely staffed staffed, played. What what do you call players on a

Dave: 02:18

It's entirely played.

Matthew: 02:20

Played. It's entirely Anyway, they're all blimping patrons is what I'm trying to say. They're all patrons.

Dave: 02:25

The cast list and the g and the gems, with the exception of you and I who are these for GM ing, are all patrons. Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew: 02:32

Yeah. So Yeah.

Dave: 02:35

We'll we'll talk about that a bit more in a minute, won't we? Yeah.

Matthew: 02:38

And, you know, and that and that's not that's not, you know, there's not a particular level of patronage that gets you to play games. All our three patron levels give you access to our Discord, and access to our Discord gives you access to us organizing games. So or not just us. Other other patrons organize games for each other as well. Because you know what, Dave?

Dave: 02:59

It's the nicest place on the Internet.

Matthew: 03:01

It is. And despite Andy saying that another place was nicer now that he is becoming a moderator. Two things about that. One is, no. That's impossible.

Matthew: 03:12

And the second one, no. It's impossible with him as a moderator.

Dave: 03:19

It was the nicest place on the Internet, but now Andy's a moderator. It's not anymore. I mean, not saying I mean, there might be a paper thin difference, you know, because it might Yeah. They're almost

Matthew: 03:29

It might be almost the nicest place.

Dave: 03:32

Yeah, we're just you know, we were there first, you know, trademark and all the rest. You know, we are the nicest place on the Internet because of the lovely people who are there.

Matthew: 03:42

Right. So I'm just wondering if we should crack straight on with the world of gaming?

Dave: 03:46

Yes. We might as well, mightn't we?

Matthew: 03:51

Gallows Corner. Gallows Corner is a game that's produced by the evil corporation that stole the Gold Dragonmeat Award from us by winning it with their innovative game with innovative blooming mechanics and stuff like that.

Dave: 04:09

I don't think we Cutting

Matthew: 04:10

us forever into second place.

Dave: 04:12

I don't think we should even say the name. It's Anathema.

Matthew: 04:15

We shouldn't. Three Three Sales Publishing No. What are they called?

Dave: 04:18

Three Sales Studios. Bastards. Three

Matthew: 04:20

Sales Studios. We'll never we'll never darken our doors again. We're not gonna mention them at all. At all. Never.

Matthew: 04:26

You won't hear anything from this department about Three Sails Studios, even though they do lovely art and innovative gaming mechanics. Quite nice

Dave: 04:37

idea for games. Yeah. Exactly.

Matthew: 04:40

Yeah. And this is one. Actually, we did see this. Oh, I did. I don't know whether you did.

Dave: 04:44

I did. But I

Matthew: 04:45

went over and had a look. Dragon meat, and it looks very nice. It's it's a it's a peasant's revolt game. The peasants are revolting, and I know they are. Broadly doing.

Matthew: 05:00

No. Sorry. I just had to get that choke in before you did. Yes. I

Dave: 05:03

know. I know. Yeah.

Matthew: 05:08

Some interesting stuff actually about their Kickstarter, which we will put a link to in the show notes because it's already started. It's tempting me, I have to say, which is unusual for Kickstarters of late. But some of the things they're doing are basically, they've made a lovely book, so there's no stretch goals that get to make the lovely book.

Dave: 05:31

It looks lovely. And and It

Matthew: 05:33

does look lovely. And

Dave: 05:34

they follow they follow a a principle that we follow, but they followed it even further, I think, if this is the one I was thinking.

Matthew: 05:39

Yeah. They've gone further than we have.

Dave: 05:41

In the they said they are 99% done. So their aspiration is to actually fulfill their Kickstarter, which I think they successfully did on their previous one within two or three months of the campaign finishing, which is a very laudable and excellent aspiration.

Matthew: 05:59

Yeah. And they partly do that by not having any stretch goals that are about content.

Dave: 06:03

Yeah.

Matthew: 06:04

So the book is pretty much done. It's pretty much written. The stretch goals are all about, well, donating money to charity and stuff like that. So they're they're they're running in a very laudable campaign. I I'm just trying to think whether we could do something similar with that with our next one.

Matthew: 06:26

I think we would struggle because it looks to me that they knew they were not guaranteed, you could never be guaranteed on these things, but they were pretty confident of a certain level of sales. Whereas with our first game we would definitely not think we might whatsoever.

Dave: 06:43

No. Exactly. Risk

Matthew: 06:45

that. But the interesting thing I think as well is, if you like, there's only the deluxe edition available. You know, we offered two and the editions was not so much a stretch goal but it was definitely a thing. All the books are going to be cloth bound. You can get packages that put that cloth bound book in a box with other books and stuff like that.

Matthew: 07:10

But, yeah, I'm intrigued by it and I may be tempted by it.

Dave: 07:15

I mean, it looks lovely. The kind of the initial premise where you're, you know, you're playing, like you say, revolting peasants feels a a smidge, you know, perhaps limiting to me, but the actual books look great. If they if they are as nice in the hand as they look on the screen, then it might be one of those that's worth having just to have on your shelf even if you don't wanna play it. The artwork looks really nicely done. It looks it's very kind of, sort of matte finish to the artwork, which which looks really nice.

Dave: 07:52

But, yeah, I'm I'm getting I'm I'm limiting my my Kickstarters at the moment, obviously, because I'm not rolling in money. So I probably won't, but it's one that I could well have been tempted with if I was a bit more flush.

Matthew: 08:06

Yeah. And although you might think the premise is limiting, one of the things they've for a start, they've said, you know, anybody can make any games. There's an unlimited license. It's a bit like our Made in the Odd West game. Yep.

Matthew: 08:23

And there's a sort of mechanic that I think they're suggesting you could do other stuff. I mean, as long as it's as long as it's about revolution and getting crowds of people to support you. So one of the mechanics is the retinue. So you don't level up as it were, but you get more followers. And Yeah.

Matthew: 08:43

And you can satisfy you can, you know, sometimes either sacrifice yourself or and and move on to one of your followers and play that character, or maybe sacrifice a follower when when death is on the line, for which there is a cost, which is not not made explicit in the game. It looks lovely, all the art is done in house Yeah. Yeah. I'm quite and excited It's

Dave: 09:17

got a very nice look and feel to it, I have to say, for sure.

Matthew: 09:21

Gallows Corner might be something that you, in your neck of the woods, hear about on traffic reports quite a lot because I know it best as a flyover that has been rotting for the last ten years or so. And in in sort of like somewhere like the A 12 or the A 11, that that end of London, and causing all sorts of traffic problems. Anyway, I don't think it's a game about traffic jams. I'm pretty

Dave: 09:47

sure. No. It doesn't it doesn't look like it. Early medieval traffic jams, maybe.

Matthew: 09:53

Yeah. But they didn't have flyovers then. No. Oh, no. The road is quite muddy.

Matthew: 09:59

I think that's about as far as they got. I mean, you know, it's mud that could kill you. You could drown in it and stuff. But, anyway, that's enough history lesson.

Dave: 10:08

We're kinda rambling now. Yeah. Yeah. As if we yeah. Where are we at?

Dave: 10:14

So yeah. So that's that Kickstarter is currently running. It's still got at the time of recording, it's still got over three weeks to go. They've they've gone past their target quite nicely. Target of 10,000.

Dave: 10:24

They've got nearly 50,000, so they did really well. But, yeah, you've got over three weeks. If that interests you, swing across to Kickstarter and and back Gallows Corner by through Sales Studio.

Matthew: 10:37

Or or you may wanna wait a couple of weeks and spend your Kickstarter money on Troudvang well, I don't know what the the Dragonbane Troudvang? Anyway, the Dragonbane version of the Troudvang Chronicles.

Dave: 10:53

The Troudvang version of the Dragonbane.

Matthew: 10:56

Anyway Indeed. The Troudvang version of the Dragonbane rules. So we spoke about this in a previous episode, but they're kick starting on the November 17. Trudvang was, if you like,

Dave: 11:09

the Hang last on. Hang on. Matt's November 17.

Matthew: 11:13

I did write that in the show notes.

Dave: 11:14

Matt's attention to detail is flooding back again. February 17 this year. Not November 17, which is, like, nine months away. Yeah. February in about a week from time of recording.

Dave: 11:28

Yeah.

Matthew: 11:31

I guess so. I guess so. Bit more than a week, really. A week and nine days.

Dave: 11:39

Yeah.

Matthew: 11:39

Anyway. It's

Dave: 11:41

I'm I'm I'm closer than your November 17, mate. So, I mean, you can't.

Matthew: 11:46

So it's seventeenth, but that's what it says in the show notes. And who wrote the show notes?

Dave: 11:49

Well, you did.

Matthew: 11:50

I did. Yeah. So Troudvang was the last version of Dragonbane before Free League got the license. So it's got a lot of fans out there in Sweden. And also, there was an English translation done that was distributed a little bit weirdly.

Matthew: 12:10

So it's got it's got some international love as well.

Dave: 12:15

As we said last time, it actually looks quite nice. And I'm I'm again, if I was if I had a bit more cash laid about, I'd be quite tempted to to give it a punt. But it looks very different from the from the style of of of Dragonbane. So, you know, an interesting possible sort of what's the word I'm looking for? Sort of community group.

Dave: 12:40

I can't find the right words. But it's it's playing to another community rather than those who might be interested in Dragon Bank. So

Matthew: 12:47

Yeah. I think so. Yeah. And that's why we think that, you know, they're doing it as a stand alone, not as an expansion to Dragon Ball. Yeah.

Matthew: 12:57

If you want something from Free League that's new now, then let me recommend The Flowers of Albuquerque. No. No. I didn't write that in the show notes.

Dave: 13:05

You didn't? Well, we do

Matthew: 13:07

have I did did miss out a letter.

Dave: 13:08

We'll we'll come to Albuquerque in a minute, mate. Don't worry.

Matthew: 13:13

The flowers of Algarab is at the campaign box, and I think probably the essential second half of the core rule book effectively. Because when you and I reviewed, the great dark rules for choreoliths, we were a little bit disappointed by what wasn't included in the rule book. Yeah. Yeah. And according to patrons who backed and got the flowers of Algarab in preview PDF and stuff, A lot of what we were missing for the call book can be found in the campaign of Flowers of Algarab.

Dave: 13:51

Yeah.

Matthew: 13:52

So I think when we get an opportunity, you and I, to purchase it, then at our special staff discount that we get when we're doing festivals, Not before. I'm not paying full price. But, yeah, I I think we might need to buy that.

Dave: 14:09

It does look good.

Matthew: 14:10

Whether you can afford it or not, Dave.

Dave: 14:11

Yeah. I mean, I'm not on the poverty line, but yeah. It looks lovely. Again, just looking at the the website, the it's got some lovely maps. It's got some lovely pictures of some spaces.

Dave: 14:24

I'm I do like the way they're doing their spaceship designs in in in Koryos, the great

Matthew: 14:30

In the great dark.

Dave: 14:31

Yeah. Look. It's got a very nice, kind of slightly retro, but also, you know, modern feel to them. So that that's really cool. So that looks really nice.

Dave: 14:40

So I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point. Like I said, maybe I'll maybe I'll get it on our staff discount. That would be nice.

Matthew: 14:48

Yeah. That so that's out now. That's what we should be saying. You can order that from from Free League or from your friendly local gaming store, I'm told.

Dave: 15:00

Or Here's a segway, mate. Or you could buy it from Matthew next weekend.

Matthew: 15:08

No. You can't buy it from me next weekend. I'm not done any bloody Free League stand. I've not even a Fete publishing stand.

Dave: 15:14

Oh, right. Yeah. Of course. Oh, yeah. So you can't oh, yeah.

Dave: 15:17

True. That was that was a shit segue, wasn't it? That really was.

Matthew: 15:20

That was the shitty segue we have ever done, mate.

Dave: 15:23

It wasn't even a segue because the two things weren't actually linked. So okay. If you if you feel like it, feel like editing that bit out, mate.

Matthew: 15:32

No. I'm gonna keep that in. To shame you, Dave. To shame you.

Dave: 15:37

Oh, well, there's so much shame. I think it's

Matthew: 15:39

Here's me working on Valentine's weekend for our company, Dave. The one that you and I own. You pass it off as simply doing work for hire, pouring myself out to freely. God. Never live this time.

Dave: 15:56

I I I hate it when I give you the opportunity to really go for it, pal. Yeah. And I I entirely admit. Yeah. Well, it's Sunday morning.

Dave: 16:05

It's early. I've been busy at work. And oh, yeah. I've got tail end of a cold.

Matthew: 16:11

Oh, yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Excuses. Anyway.

Matthew: 16:13

Yes. So I am going to be at Tabletop Gaming live in Doncaster next week, And I am gonna be selling Tales of the Old West

Dave: 16:22

the Old West.

Matthew: 16:23

And mostly Tales of the Old West. I'm not gonna be selling any Free League products.

Dave: 16:29

No. No. Just Free League.

Matthew: 16:33

No. No. There will be a lovely Tales of the Old West banner behind me. I've got a new Tales of the Old West banner with that lovely quote from Tabletop Gaming Magazine.

Dave: 16:42

Absolutely.

Matthew: 16:44

Which I thought we should have

Dave: 16:46

Well, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We

Matthew: 16:48

For the We need to

Dave: 16:49

make the most of of, you know, these really, really lovely comments that we've got from particularly from them and others as well. Yeah. Good testimonials for us.

Matthew: 17:00

So so, yeah, come and see me. And also also Frank or Raldanash of the Raldanash YouTube and Twitch channels will be manning the store with me from about 11:00 on a Saturday.

Dave: 17:12

No. That's great. Thank you, Frank, for doing that. I can't be there because my brother's gone and had a sixtieth birthday. Selfish bastard.

Dave: 17:21

And, I'm I'm out with him that day celebrating his, yeah, his his his, his sixtieth birthday. So, yeah, happy birthday, Tony.

Matthew: 17:31

Happy birthday, Tony.

Dave: 17:32

And thanks for getting me out to go to Doncaster. Whoo.

Matthew: 17:37

And here's a segue for you. Tony is also in our West Marches, Old West campaign. He is. Or as we're calling it we're not calling it this. We're calling it Gold Country because we're setting it in the period of the next supplement for Tales of the Old West.

Matthew: 17:56

But I keep calling it Old Western marches.

Dave: 17:59

It's a cunning little cunning little play on words, isn't it?

Matthew: 18:04

Yeah. So what can you tell me about the Old Western Marches campaign, Dave?

Dave: 18:10

Well, for those of you who haven't been keeping an eye on our YouTube, we have already done a two part session zero. So we've created all the characters. We've got 12 people in total, but I think probably limit each session to five five players. And we've also established our town, San Miguel in California in 1850, a a growing and mining town, which was formerly a Mexican settlement, which has now been flooded with, well, not just American miners, but miners from all over the world coming for a sniff of gold. So we've created the town, done the map, got the characters together.

Dave: 18:53

There's some really cool characters in there. I very much like mine. He's

Matthew: 18:58

Tell me about your character, Dave.

Dave: 19:01

He's a he's a slave. He was brought to California with his his

Matthew: 19:07

He was a slave. He's a free man now.

Dave: 19:09

He's a free man now. He was brought to California by his so called master, and they were attacked by a bear. He was almost killed. His master was killed. But at that time in California, California was a non slave state.

Dave: 19:26

However, in order to placate, you know, the slave holding half of The US as it was then, they they they had this strange rule where if you owned a slave and you came to California with your slave, that slave remained your property. But then it led to lots of lots of sort of interesting cases where, naturally, in California, that African American was a free man or a free woman. But according to his slave master, he wasn't. So there's some really interesting stories in history about how that played out. So my character is in that kind of position.

Dave: 19:59

But he's a he's a preacher, so he's he's using the the the ratty little church in town as his base. And, yeah, he's a really interesting character. I'm very pleased with it. And we've got a lot of other very interesting characters. So it should be, hopefully, a very good show.

Matthew: 20:16

Yeah. I I wanna say that mine is not the most interesting character. I think I'm gonna call him John Johnson. He is the most straight down the line, what I call an uncarved block. He should call him story.

Dave: 20:29

Call him John Doe, maybe. Maybe that's his real name.

Matthew: 20:34

He does have a sister. He's got a sister, so that she might be Jane Doe. She the the original John Doe. Anyway, we so he probably won't appear in the first adventure because I I'm gonna handle the technical side, but he'll be he'll be an young innocent, ready to be shaped by the people around him when he joins the game.

Dave: 20:59

We had a very good session of creating the town, and the town ended up with quite a lot of amenities for a starting town. I think we had something like 12.

Matthew: 21:08

Yeah. We got we rolled a six on the size of the town, which gives you the biggest town you can get

Dave: 21:14

in Yeah.

Matthew: 21:15

To start with.

Dave: 21:17

Which worked which worked really well, which is what kind of brought up the idea that this is actually an existing Mexican settlement. Because the Mexican war was only just finished a couple of years ago, so this land is only only recently become American territory. So it obviously was Mexican territory for, well, not for that long, actually, before that. Only about only about thirty years, because before that, it was Spanish before Mexico got its independence from Spain. But it created that idea for the story.

Dave: 21:43

It created a so, obviously, there's a Mexican community there who are, on the one hand, trying to get the gold themselves, but on the other hand, really pissed off that suddenly all these outsiders

Matthew: 21:53

Everybody's here.

Dave: 21:53

Marched into their town and caused caused a lot of trouble. But I went through the turn yesterday, I went through all the all the amenities and worked out all the aspects and the tally scores. And whilst the town is doing very well in mercantile and natural riches, law is as low as it can be. It cannot go any lower without the town falling apart into lawlessness and no longer

Matthew: 22:16

Even with the sheriff's office. I thought that might improve the law.

Dave: 22:20

Well, there was trouble is there were negatives for some of the other amenities to the law aspect.

Matthew: 22:24

Like the gold rush and the prospect to get all of that sort of stuff.

Dave: 22:27

Exactly. So, actually, the law score should be zero, which means the town doesn't exist. But when you're creating the town, every aspect will have at least one tally point. So you've got one tally point in law, but only only thanks to the fact that this is a brand new town that we've just created. So we've gotta get some law going in town.

Dave: 22:46

The sheriff and his deputy, we have a player character who's the sheriff, we have a player character who is a deputy. They've got their work cut out, I think, to to turn the town into something that isn't isn't just a lawless miasma of trouble.

Matthew: 23:00

And, yeah, I love the way you put that on just two characters out of the I don't know how many we've got. 12 or something

Dave: 23:05

like that.

Matthew: 23:05

Yeah. 12. And, you know, and so the preacher that you've just mentioned, obviously, doesn't need to worry about making the town a lawful town at all. He he can go around murdering people like father Komodi did in Normandy.

Dave: 23:21

In your

Matthew: 23:21

in your other game. Normandy. That's

Dave: 23:23

it. So so, obviously, father father divine, father Caleb divine, my character, is going to want peace and prosperity. And his his big dream is to have a big church on the hill full of saved souls. So he's gonna be very much supporting the law enforcement efforts as far as he can. Also, you may not have looked at the list of non player characters that I've chucked up so far.

Matthew: 23:46

Yet there.

Dave: 23:48

We have Sullivan Anaheim, who's gonna be is he gonna be Brady Anaheim's dad or uncle maybe? And then we've got child and we've got Charles Carmody, who might be father Brayton Carmody's father or or uncle. Just as a nice little bit of

Matthew: 24:04

You do like your generational gaming, don't you?

Dave: 24:06

I do love my generational gaming. Yeah. The idea with that is because because I'm not gonna GM all of it. I'm gonna GM the first adventure, which may be one session, maybe two sessions, depending how it goes. And then I'll hand over the GM ing chores to other other people.

Dave: 24:21

So you're gonna do some. Some of the other players are going to do some. So I'll then get to play a bit as well, which is great. But the idea with that sheet that I've created is a GM can see all the faiths and all the big dreams. So they can like plan their scenario.

Dave: 24:36

But also there's a there's just a list of names for non player characters, and it's up to the GM if they wanna pick one of them and make them their own and and create that non player character, you know, the depth behind it, then crack on. That's all good. And if they wanna create new played non player characters, absolutely fine, of course. So this is gonna be very much a collaborative effort in both GMing and playing. So it should be really, really interesting.

Dave: 24:58

I'm I'm I'm very excited to give it a try.

Matthew: 25:01

Excellent. Excellent. Now the other bit of old West news that we've got is, as of recording, 600 odd people around the world have just had an email land in their inbox giving them access to a free copy of biting the dust in Albuquerque, which is the second one of our campfire tales.

Dave: 25:28

Indeed. Yeah. Biting them. We did Matt's done a lot of good work on this. He's worked very hard to get this finished.

Dave: 25:35

And very wisely put it out for

Matthew: 25:40

for proofreading.

Dave: 25:43

Proofreading. My brain is not working.

Matthew: 25:44

That's word you're looking for.

Dave: 25:45

Proofreading. And it there was very little in it that needed changing. I don't there weren't there were very few typos, that was all cool. But there was a key typo, which is on the on the on the front cover.

Matthew: 25:55

Cover.

Dave: 25:55

But where you completely spelled Albuquerque wrong. I was lucky I I almost I almost Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Yeah. I almost went completely past it.

Dave: 26:06

And I've got well, there's just something in my brain went, that didn't look quite right. So but, no, there was very little to be done. That was all very good. And, yeah, delighted that that's come out now. We've got that's gonna be available on drive through as well as the Las Vegas legacy, which was the first Campfire tale.

Dave: 26:23

And we have one more left to go, The Gift Horse. Did we change

Matthew: 26:28

the Yeah. It's gonna be a bit delayed because our artist that we've commissioned to cover that from has unfortunately not been able to deliver it. So Right. I'm just in the process of commissioning another a new artist. Do you remember we met her at Dragonmeat?

Matthew: 26:45

She had whiskers as a tail at the time. Yes. Yes. And horses are her thing. So Cool.

Matthew: 26:53

So I'm just having a chat with her about that, and I'll be commissioning the art for her.

Dave: 26:57

Yeah, look forward to seeing that. But yeah, so that one's the last one to come and then the only thing we've got left after that is to finish off the Lone Rider rules.

Matthew: 27:09

Yes, Yes. Thank you for reminding me.

Dave: 27:14

And then obviously get on with the supplement, which is on my list of things to do. So get on with the gold country.

Matthew: 27:22

Yeah. So it's plenty

Dave: 27:24

to do. Lots of work.

Matthew: 27:26

Plenty to do. And one of the things I'm doing, Dave, and this this is how you craft a proper segue. One of the things I'm doing that is distracting me, actually, from the Lone Rider rules, is writing an adventure for an event at UK Games Expo, all hands on deck. It will be an alien adventure. And there are gonna be at least 60 players in this Alien Adventure.

Matthew: 27:55

So I've been putting my mind to what am I gonna do with personal agendas? And if only some trusted and experienced creator of Alien Adventures was able to offer me advice, I'd find that really useful. Sadly though, Dave, I've only got you.

Dave: 28:15

So I knew that was coming. I knew that. I just know you too well, mate. I just I could hear that sentence coming a fucking mile off. So,

Matthew: 28:26

Dave, to your credit, though, you have written a number of adventures, both both for publication by Free League and adventures that we've played and I've been in and all sorts of things. So you are the man to talk to about personal agendas. Let's hear you speak.

Dave: 28:47

I've been lucky enough to write quite a few cinematic scenarios, both for Free League with Hope's Last Day, Destroyer of Worlds, and Heart of Darkness, as well as for my own gratification with District 11, Endex, the original home sweet home, heroes of the 10 suns, and Olenya Bay. So I've had a bit of experience putting together character agendas. Now the idea with player characters having an agenda or backstory that drives their behavior isn't new in role playing. Of course it isn't. That's the whole big thing point about role playing.

Dave: 29:24

Following your PC's motivations to their natural and hopefully entertaining end. In an alien cinematic adventure this concept is fleshed out and used to bring the feel of an alien movie to the table. That cinematic story is going to be dangerous and fraught with peril and most PCs are not expected to survive to the very end. In Alien RPG, the secret agendas fulfill four main roles. First, individual agendas offer the player an insight into the player character and if they are written well a powerful motivating force that builds during a three act scenario.

Dave: 30:05

It should leave the player with the latitude to decide how they will achieve that agenda. Second, the suite of agendas in any given cinematic will equally engage all the player characters in the story. Third, that suite of agendas is designed to collectively build the tension throughout the three acts to ensure a thrilling climactic end to act three for all the players without bringing that climax too early in the story. And fourth, agendas are a means by which the players can be rewarded for good role playing and playing the adventure in a situation where they won't be rewarded through character progression. They won't get any fancy new equipment or other opportunities nor will they get XP.

Dave: 30:52

I'll deal with that last point first as it's interesting but not really relevant to the further discussion we're going to have. Players can be rewarded with story points for the way they play their character and how they try to progress their agenda. They don't have to succeed with their agenda to earn story points, at least in my book they don't. Earned story points can then be used to buy an immediate role of one success at any time, including in future cinematic adventures when they will very likely be playing a different PC. It's a nice way to give players a sense of achievement and progression even if their player characters all die horribly at the end of every adventure.

Dave: 31:34

That said, I never really used them back in the day when I was running a lot of cinematics and no one seemed to mind. Okay. That done, let's move back to the agendas themselves. As I said a moment ago, an individual agenda should tell the player a bit about their PC's backstory and motivations and any important connections with the other PCs. Give them something to achieve in the adventure, but leave the way of achieving that open to interpretation giving the player lots of agency about how they go about it.

Dave: 32:07

Individual agendas need to be simple and easy to grasp at a glance. They should say what they need to say in no more than two or three sentences. Anything over 40 or 50 words maximum, and the agenda is too long. And the suite of agendas should collectively build the story through the three acts. They should ensure they don't escalate too quickly and risk that dramatic climax arriving too soon in the story, and they should involve all the PCs in exciting stories to ensure every player gets a great cinematic experience.

Dave: 32:42

So how do I go about creating a suite of agendas? There are several things I do when I'm creating that suite. First, I lay out the plan for the PCs on a large piece of paper jotted down draft agenda ideas based on the story. Second each PC should have a buddy and a rival but these don't have to be the love of their lives or blood vendettas. Draw green arrows to show the buddy links and red arrows to show the rivals.

Dave: 33:12

Three. Some PCs may have others that they love, care for or need to protect. Either player characters or non player characters. Jot down any important NPCs in the margins of the page and draw extra green arrows to denote those relationships. Then fourth I start drafting the individual agendas themselves.

Dave: 33:33

Agendas can be based on anything you like, but there are some traditional themes and ideas you might want to consider to get the ball rolling. Love. The PCs love someone, a group of people, or something else, maybe a beloved pet or a musical instrument. Hate. The PC's hatred for someone or something drives them on.

Dave: 33:56

They might have murder at heart. The PC might want to kill another player character, but they can't get caught and must make it look like an accident. A personal quest. The PC must find or do something before the end. This could be getting justice for a perceived wrong.

Dave: 34:14

And is there a twist where that injustice is found to be nothing of the sort at the end? Could be uncovering the truth of something, reclaiming a family heirloom, or doing something to honor the memory of a deceased loved one. Jealousy. Someone else has something, whether by rights or through nefarious means, and you want it. To start a new life.

Dave: 34:37

The PC just wants out and to start a new life with a loved one or maybe a beloved fellow player character. Has that love been declared or maybe it's a secret crush, and how will the other PC react? Dislike or pity of another PC. Perhaps the player character who is the subject of this love doesn't share that feeling, and in the third act they reject the other player character's advances. How does that play out in the end?

Dave: 35:05

Personal greed. The player character wants something for themselves and must get it. Often in an alien cinematic this might be finding xenomorph samples for the company so the PC can live in wealth and comfort forevermore. This is a great motivation, but it's used rather a lot. So maybe something a little more original might be better.

Dave: 35:26

Personal redemption. For a wrong done in the past, the PC needs to redeem themselves and save the world. Whatever evil is lurking in the adventure must be destroyed, whatever the cost. Once you have your ideas, you need to create the agendas for each of act one, two, and three, scaling them and building the tension. I usually start with the climax.

Dave: 35:52

What do I want to happen is the thrilling finale and how will the agendas encourage that? Then I'd work backwards making sure that the act one and act two agendas hint towards that final conclusion but don't risk an outbreak of deadly player versus player conflict before the third act. As an aside you'll know that cinematics allow for PC death at inopportune moments and they should all come with the backup player characters so a player whose character dies can still participate in the rest of the adventure, and that's fine. But in my experience it's better for a player to carry through the same PC to the final act as they usually have built up a connection and a little emotional investment in that character. Back to agendas.

Dave: 36:38

So here's an example in an adventure where there's been sabotage on a base. Act one agenda. You're here to support your family back on Earth. The accident threatens your livelihood and your family's welfare. Those behind it must be discovered so you can get back to work.

Dave: 36:56

But if there's a chance to make something on the side, then why wouldn't you? This agenda sets up the player character's backstory and their call to action is to investigate the sabotage and get back to work for the good of their family. Act Who? Things aren't right at the base and many people could die if things get worse. The commander must know something.

Dave: 37:19

You must force them through threats if necessary to come clean and keep everyone safe. This steps up the PCs drive to investigate and encourages them to use violence or the threats of violence to get information from the base's non player character commander who would be their boss. Act three. Things are going badly wrong and the infection these aliens bring cannot be allowed to spread. Otherwise no one, not even your family on earth, will be safe.

Dave: 37:48

They must be contained or destroyed at all costs. Finally, assuming the PC now knows what's going on their call to action is to stop the Xenomorphs from escaping to save their family back on Earth. This would conflict with the agendas of other player characters who will want to capture Xenomorph research or keep them alive for some other reason. Whilst we're on the subject of cinematic scenarios I'd just like to make a couple of other observations. Don't make cinematics too long.

Dave: 38:20

If they get too long you run a much greater risk of player character death early in the story. That can be fine but sometimes it can be a bit crap for the player too. The agendas should be all about timing the tension to deliver the climax at the right point. And don't make the scenarios over complicated. Cinematic scenarios are all about emulating the films and the best of those, Alien and Aliens, are at heart really simple stories.

Dave: 38:50

The last thing I'll say before I go is about agendas in campaign play. I want the player characters in a campaign to have an agenda but obviously it can't be framed like a third act agenda in a cinematic. They are more like a combination of faith and big dreams in tales of the Old West. A pointer to that character's personality and motivations that will encourage great role playing but not encourage an immediate fight between the player characters. I could go on and on and I'm sure some of you are thinking just that But I hope I've offered you a sense of what an agenda is about and how I go about writing them.

Dave: 39:27

I haven't written a cinematic in years and thinking about this essay has really got me back in the mood. As soon as I find the eighth day of the week I'll crack right on with writing one.

Matthew: 39:37

Well, unusually, Dave, there's nothing I can disagree with there. But you are the expert, the acknowledged expert, so it's not surprising I can't disagree with you.

Dave: 39:49

Can you say say that again? I'm the acknowledged expert,

Matthew: 39:53

and you can't disagree with me. Just rewind the podcast and and listen to it again. You're not getting it out of me twice.

Dave: 40:01

Things I never never tire of hearing. Yeah. You agreed with me on the pod on the on the Discord as well the other day. In twice in a week. I mean, what's wrong with you?

Matthew: 40:10

Yeah. That's a very rare occurrence.

Dave: 40:12

You're going a bit senile or something here. Right?

Matthew: 40:15

Well, maybe maybe that is my excuse for agreeing with you. Yeah.

Dave: 40:20

You've gone out of your mind. So now you can agree with me.

Matthew: 40:24

Yeah. So the so there's there's lots of good advice there. I think people would find very useful in creating

Dave: 40:32

Yep. I hope so.

Matthew: 40:33

Creating adventures. It's I feel it's worth sticking on a blog or something so that people can see it.

Dave: 40:39

Yes. That's a good idea.

Matthew: 40:40

With that. That's interesting. I have got okay. There is but I have got a very unique challenge, which we mentioned just before listening to the recording, but it is still weighing on my mind. So Yeah.

Matthew: 40:57

I've got a game with 60 players coming.

Dave: 40:59

Yep.

Matthew: 41:05

You know, that's gonna be like twelve Twelve tables of five

Dave: 41:09

groups.

Matthew: 41:09

Yeah.

Dave: 41:10

Yeah.

Matthew: 41:10

Yeah. And I'm I'm just weighing up. Can I do effectively I think we'll probably only do two acts? Two acts in this.

Dave: 41:22

Not gonna have time for more than two acts really, But don't

Matthew: 41:26

you do wanna I think one of the key things that you make in here is it's important for these agendas to develop over time. So I love the idea of, you know, learning half the story when you when you read your first adventure card and then, oh, right. Okay. This this is why or this is what I'm aiming to on the second. That's that's part of what I really like about Alien.

Matthew: 41:48

So that would be a 120 individual adventures or

Dave: 41:55

Agendas. Yeah.

Matthew: 41:56

Agendas. Or 10 repeated 12 tie yeah. Repeated 12 times, one for each table. That's assuming that they don't find more GMs and add more players to the mix because it sold out at the UK Games Expo website

Dave: 42:11

Yeah. Pretty

Matthew: 42:11

quickly within a day or two. That's pretty good. Very Very good. Good. And and indeed, Millie, who's one of our patrons, but also organizes that side of things at UK Games Expo, said, you know, she's already got, like, angry emails.

Matthew: 42:25

So why can't I get any tickets for the game?

Dave: 42:28

Because they were too slow off the mark, unfortunately. Yeah.

Matthew: 42:31

Yeah. But I wouldn't be surprised if it goes up. So what's your so let's ask let's put that first of all, this is a very selfish question because most people aren't organizing or writing adventures for 60 players. But for me, what's your advice? Which of those two should I do?

Dave: 42:48

Well, I think there's I think there's probably advice that would apply yeah. It could be applied to smaller games. So I think the trying to create a 120 or or as I say, you know, the number of, like, 12 suites of agendas that are all different from one another is gonna be an epic task. I would so what you could do is work out the the kind of principle behind it. So, you know, I talk about the the themes that you might want to apply to your genders, you know, love, hate, murder at heart, personal quest, all those kind of things.

Dave: 43:32

And maybe you want to decide for a a group of five players what themes you're going to apply. And then for every group, do something based on those themes. So you could have, you know, player character one could love player character two in every group, just say. But you could change you could change a little bit the the window dressing around that as to why they love them or what, you know, what that is. Or, you know, you could you could do something similar for, you know, personal redemption.

Dave: 44:05

You know, player character three wants to take revenge against player character four for some slight or wants to, you know, maybe redeem themselves by making sure player character four gets off the ship because they did something wrong to them. They, you know, they they treated them unfairly or something. So you could just do a kind of group agnostic plan based on the kind of themes, and then that might make it easier to then come up with 10 or 12 variations on that theme. And they're gonna be quite similar, I guess, or maybe even the same in many cases because you've got so many groups to play with. But that might be an easier way of getting your head around what your agendas need to cover.

Dave: 44:48

You could even do two of those, make them separate, and do one of those plans for half the groups and the other plan for the other half of the group to vary it up a little bit. Yeah. I guess the other thing you've got, the other challenge you've got, going into the second act when you're going to be bringing I don't know. Am I gonna be making spoilers if I tell a tell a little bit about how it's gonna work?

Matthew: 45:13

I think it mentions this. Well Yeah. What it mentions on the on the description is that you will be changing around. Yeah. You'll be mixing groups up.

Dave: 45:24

So Because a bunch

Matthew: 45:26

of you are gonna die in act one, and so act two is gonna be about the survivors.

Dave: 45:31

So actually, this might change this might change the way you do it then because your act quite often, your agendas well, your agenda is gonna focus on one particular storyline you you really should do. Yeah. Because I as you said, your your act two and act three agendas are development of your act one agenda, and it and it gets, you know, it gets worse. Now if you have agendas where another player character is the focus of your agenda, when you come to act two for that player, the focus of their agenda might not be there anymore.

Matthew: 46:06

No. If you've got the love theme, for example.

Dave: 46:09

Exactly. That creates Yeah. So either you either create the second agenda in a way that it works if this topic if the subject of the agenda is dead or alive. Mhmm. Or you or you cut and, yeah, it's kind of kind of feeling like you do almost slightly two different agendas almost in that the first one applies to act one, and the second one would apply more generally to act two.

Dave: 46:42

So it might be the act two agendas are more about the bigger picture of what's happening rather than a specific agenda about another person. Yeah. Or could I mean, you could. This might be quite difficult, though. You could include one that, you know, if if the the subject of your affections is dead, you've got to take their body and give it a proper burial or something.

Matthew: 47:07

Yes. You could put some optionality in there, couldn't you?

Dave: 47:10

Yeah.

Matthew: 47:10

So here's let me tell you about my idea. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm supporting this. I'm thinking well, here's a question I've got for you in a little while. But right now, I'm I gotta say that the the in terms of delivery of these agendas, what I was gonna do is plan to give all the GMs an envelope for each player. On the outside of their envelope is act one agenda, and then act two, they'll open up re because it's gonna be really difficult as characters move around in tables and stuff.

Dave: 47:45

Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 47:46

So the piece the player has got to keep that envelope with them, play according to what's on the outside of the envelope in the first act, and then open their envelope and see what the second agenda tells them in the second act.

Dave: 47:58

That sounds cool.

Matthew: 47:59

That was the way I was dealing with the mechanics of actually

Dave: 48:03

I like that. That's good.

Matthew: 48:04

Doing it. The the the un unyet resolved question is, could I do it in a way that I could say, okay, you've got five players, you've got five agendas, the player characters are all gonna be a mix of, you know, each table is gonna have effectively a couple of technicians, a couple of marines, and an officer or something like that. I haven't quite exactly worked out the mix. But the tables will generally be as the same. So they're sent as squads to different tasks around the ship.

Matthew: 48:43

Yep. We don't know who's gonna survive out of those. But one of the things I thought of is, if you like, my plan is to create, stat wise, five distinct characters for each table, but you may end up with, you know, two or three of the same characters.

Dave: 49:03

Similar. Similar PCs. Yeah.

Matthew: 49:05

Yeah. In the second half of the agenda, we'll work each other, which I feel is fine because that that's what happens. You know? People survive, some people don't. You gotta make the best of it.

Matthew: 49:19

But I was wondering about, could I get away with not tying necessarily the agenda to a specific character type? So you don't necessarily have an agenda that says, you are an engineer. You know, your your your agenda is based on engineering y type things. Yep. But I could do a thing that says, okay.

Matthew: 49:41

Here are five characters which you can hand out at random to your players or they can choose or whatever at the table. And then here are five agendas, which, again, you hand out at random. And I haven't quite worked out whether I can get away with that or whether I need to tie the agendas more specifically to the character types.

Dave: 49:58

So I

Matthew: 49:59

think The advantage of doing it at random is that you'll end up with, oh, you know, in the second act, I'm playing this character and apart from the name which I've chosen for myself, I notice we're exactly the same character sheet. Oh, and that means we've got exactly the same agenda. If you do it randomly, then then there's chances happening.

Dave: 50:20

You deal with that problem. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Matthew: 50:23

But but if we if we do it not randomly, if the agenda is attached to the player, then it makes the, you know, it makes the agenda fit the PC better than just a randomly assigned one. So

Dave: 50:37

Yeah.

Matthew: 50:37

That's that's that's the thing I'm talking to at the moment in my head.

Dave: 50:41

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So couple of things come to mind there. One, the idea of having a a personal an agenda that is fixed on another character isn't just a problem if that character dies.

Dave: 50:54

It's also a problem if that character survives and moves to a different table. So that's gonna be that's gonna be an issue.

Matthew: 51:02

Well, except except I kind of like the idea that you may be wanting to escape the team you're in and go to the other table. I kind of like the further there may be that tension. But but carry on.

Dave: 51:14

I guess yeah. Then I guess the the practicalities of making that work on the day might make it really difficult. Yeah. My my other my other thought was I very much like the idea of your sort of random random agendas. The disadvantage you'll face in doing that, though, is you'll need to make the gen the agendas much more general.

Dave: 51:39

Or

Matthew: 51:39

Exactly.

Dave: 51:40

Or agnostic, which means it it takes away quite a lot of potential agenda options for you that it could be more specific for an engineer or a or a marine or something. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it by any means. It just makes the challenge of writing those agendas that little bit harder. But then if you mean, because in yeah. So, yeah, I'm kind of thinking aloud here a little bit, but you could you could make the second act agendas random and have first act agendas that are specific to the characters.

Dave: 52:21

Would work probably better in that sense of that character having something specialist that they've got, you know, a focus on potentially. The dis the disadvantage would be that you then draw a random agenda in act two that doesn't make an awful lot of sense with your agenda from

Matthew: 52:35

act one. No. I think, you know, based on all your advice, you really want the either the personal arc or the story arc to be developed by the agendas. So I think they've got to be paired together, I think.

Dave: 52:52

Yeah. Probably. Yeah. To make the best effect of it, I think. Yeah.

Dave: 52:56

But I guess in in the finale, in the second act, which is going to be kind of short and sharp and straight to the point, Some of those agendas might just be get out alive, make sure that, you know

Matthew: 53:12

Yes.

Dave: 53:12

Whatever's whatever's happening doesn't spread from the shit. Make sure you save everybody. It doesn't matter if you die. You know? So there's gonna be things like that which are gonna be quite easy to write.

Dave: 53:22

Yeah. Which which, again, depending yeah. So you could, in theory, have those as random ones. But, actually, I mean, if you in some ways, if you get to the second table and you find there's another guy there with exactly the same second act agenda as you, you've got an immediate teammate. Well, you do.

Dave: 53:41

Yeah. And that's a good that's a good thing, I think, because if you are then going into a table for the second act of people you don't know and people you haven't been playing with in the first act that might be quite a good hook to get people working together much more quickly.

Matthew: 53:55

Yeah.

Dave: 53:55

So that so that might be a positive rather than a negative I guess is the point I'm trying to make.

Matthew: 53:59

No. It's a good point. Good point. Right. Yeah.

Matthew: 54:04

Any other points on agenda writing that you want to highlight?

Dave: 54:10

I think the key the key thing is I mean, I was for for for doing this, I had a quick look over the some of the agendas that I wrote for some of my my my own personal scenarios. And I also looked over the agendas for destroyer of worlds and heart of darkness. I kinda hate to say it. Some of them actually aren't really good. Some of them have got a nice some nice aspects to them.

Dave: 54:39

But, I mean, they they many of them work pretty well as individual agendas. They don't really come together as a suite that is playing towards creating a final act where some interesting subtle nuances might come out to make the game that much better. And in in Heart of Darkness, the agendas are just too long. There's too much information being imparted on them, I think, on most

Matthew: 55:07

of the Heart of Darkness, that's

Dave: 55:09

That's that's the one where you go to the this the the facility that's orbiting black hole, and it's a prison site, and it's a mining site, and it's a science site. And yeah.

Matthew: 55:23

Yeah. I haven't even playtested that. I wasn't involved in any of those.

Dave: 55:28

Or Yeah.

Matthew: 55:28

Maybe I did one one session with you during the playtest, but

Dave: 55:33

Possibly. Yeah.

Matthew: 55:34

Yeah. I didn't particularly get into that as it were.

Dave: 55:36

I didn't I didn't playtest the whole thing. We ran out of time, but we playtested quite a lot of it. I had some great moments actually in it. But I again, I think, you know, if you're writing a cinematic scenario, take the time to think about the personal agendas because they really do drive the drama and the tension in the last act. And it's I can certainly remember when I first started writing cinematics, I think I think the first one I wrote was probably Home Sweet Home, which was originally know, it became a story in Building Better Worlds, but originally, it was a cinematic scenario that I'd I'd done.

Dave: 56:17

Mhmm. And I think by accident, I focused on the agendas much more than the story in that one because it was very much it was two families coming together.

Matthew: 56:27

It was Hatfields and McCoys effectively being

Dave: 56:29

able to

Matthew: 56:30

work together.

Dave: 56:31

Yeah. Absolutely. And so that that you know, I I'm pretty pleased with the agendas I did on that, and they really did drive the story. Because in the story, there wasn't much else that was going on actually other than trying to survive the situation and work out how you get to keep the stash for yourself. So my advice would be focus very much on the agendas.

Dave: 56:49

Don't just do them as a last minute thing and think, you know, oh, yeah. I'll just rattle those off because they do make a really big difference to to the outcome of your game. I think the other thing I would say about cinematics, which I did say in the piece, is don't make them too long. So I I think I you know, I'm I'm very proud of the work I did on on destroyer of worlds, but it's it's way too long, I think. It's as a cinematic, it's more it's more like a mini campaign, really, rather than a cinematic scenario.

Dave: 57:20

And you end up relying upon all the extra characters you've got because your player characters die all the way through it, which is fine. But, again, as I said in the piece, swapping out one of your players to have a second character, you know, a third or half the way through the story runs the risk that that player loses a bit of investment because they like the character they had, and they're a bit disappointed that they're dead, they've now got this new one that they're not so interested in. So it's you know, a cinematic is aiming to emulate the movie. So all the big exciting stuff for the main characters happens in the last act of a movie. So shove it all there.

Dave: 57:57

You know? Yeah.

Matthew: 58:00

To be fair, structurally speaking, it doesn't happen in the last act.

Dave: 58:07

Because but

Matthew: 58:08

in the in the in the last two acts, generally.

Dave: 58:12

Yeah. But, mean, your yeah. Yeah. I mean, your your main characters survive to the to the denouement of the story in one way or another. And the denouement being, you know, like you say, it might be a longer period of time, but they don't all get killed in the opening sequence.

Matthew: 58:27

No. That's they're playing a game of D and D, I did, in a tournament format back in nineteen eighty something at at GenCon in Reading.

Dave: 58:40

Right. Okay. Back then.

Matthew: 58:42

Anyway, that's that's a whole other story.

Dave: 58:44

Or unless you're playing Hicks or Newt in Alien three, of course.

Matthew: 58:50

Yeah. Yeah.

Dave: 58:51

In which case you kill

Matthew: 58:52

to make it to the first

Dave: 58:53

the no. Exactly. So but

Matthew: 58:57

yeah.

Dave: 58:57

But no.

Matthew: 58:58

That would be a very mean chick to play in this tournament. Okay. Hicks, you, you're dead.

Dave: 59:04

You're both dead. Thanks for coming. I hope you enjoyed it.

Matthew: 59:08

Yeah. The rest of you. Enjoy. Yeah.

Dave: 59:11

Like like like, again, like I said in the essay, actually, going through all this has has has got me reminded me how much fun writing and playing a a cinematic scenario can be. So I as I said, when I find the eighth day in the week, I will definitely do start doing some more of that because it is such a lot of fun.

Matthew: 59:30

Cool. Okay. So talking about next day in the week, what are we doing next episode? I I guess we'll be doing some form of

Dave: 59:43

Table top.

Matthew: 59:44

Gaming Gaming report. Report. Yeah.

Dave: 59:48

Otherwise, I don't really know off the top of head.

Matthew: 59:52

Just while we were chatting, actually, there is a little bit of news that I didn't mention in World Gaming because I haven't heard it officially yet. But word on the street is that there will also because partly because of the disappointment with the Alien game being sold out, but also other disappointment where people are, say, oh, I was hoping to be another Dragon Bean tournament. I think Anna might have agreed that Free League will host a Dragonbane tournament at UK Games Expo.

Dave: 01:00:23

Right. Now Yes.

Matthew: 01:00:24

I just see you opinion that I am not wanting to be doing two tournaments myself.

Dave: 01:00:29

It's hard enough doing one, isn't it? I mean Yeah. It's it's a lot of work.

Matthew: 01:00:34

So well, I mean, it's less work. This Alien is a lot more work than Dragonbane has ever been. Dragonbane generally, I've kind of turned up on the day and emceed because somebody else has written the adventure and stuff. I don't know whether this is true. I wondered whether we could confirm it's true and maybe have so if it's not true I'm sorry.

Matthew: 01:01:02

If it's true and neither of you nor I have been contacted for it, my assumption is Anna's gonna run it because she's coming to UK Games Exped. I I was just wondering if we can find out whether it's true or not, we could get Anna or Millie Millie on to the program to talk a little bit and gem up

Dave: 01:01:20

That's not about

Matthew: 01:01:21

it. A bit of excitement for I

Dave: 01:01:22

think, yeah.

Matthew: 01:01:23

Dragonbane next week or next time.

Dave: 01:01:26

Think that sounds like a great idea. Mean, we've never had anyone on the show, have we? So actually, that would be a really cool idea.

Matthew: 01:01:32

Yeah. Let's see if we can let's see if we can make that happen then.

Dave: 01:01:35

Why not? Yeah. We've done so much work with her and we've, you know Yeah. That that that that's a very good idea.

Matthew: 01:01:41

Thank you. I do occasionally have very good ideas.

Dave: 01:01:44

You do occasionally.

Matthew: 01:01:45

Despite what you say.

Dave: 01:01:47

Hey. Look. I'm being even handed and and nice. I'm being fair.

Matthew: 01:01:51

Yeah. Yeah. I'd say it doesn't suit you, Dave. It does not suit.

Dave: 01:01:56

Well, it doesn't suit you either, mate. So We have

Matthew: 01:01:58

characters to keep up here.

Dave: 01:02:00

Next next time, everyone, we'll be back to normal. Don't worry. We'll stop being nice to each other.

Matthew: 01:02:05

Yes. So okay then. That may be what we do in a couple of weeks time. Who can tell? We've got to find out whether it's actually going to happen, this whole Dragon Bane Tournament Yes.

Dave: 01:02:16

Yeah. Let's let's do that and yeah. Cool. But yeah. So next weekend, everyone, don't forget don't forget.

Dave: 01:02:24

Go and see Matthew at Doncaster and buy lots of our stuff. But yeah. Otherwise, it's goodbye for me.

Matthew: 01:02:33

And it's goodbye from him.

Dave: 01:02:36

And may the icons bless your adventures.

Matthew: 01:02:40

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.