Third Horizon Players Handbook

Dave:

Hello, and welcome to episode 288 of Effekt, the Third Horizon Players Handbook. I'm Dave.

Matthew:

And I'm Matthew. And we have exciting news in the world of the Third Horizon, which we've kind of spoiled with the title there, but Go completely beat.

Dave:

Of spoiled. I mean, you know, what could Third Horizon Players Handbook mean? Let's think about that one. Yes.

Matthew:

And hold on. It's probably worth saying at this point that we are not releasing ourselves a Third Horizon Players Handbook.

Dave:

It's not us.

Matthew:

But Kevin Hassall, he friend of the show. He's been on the program before. We're interviewing him about that later. That is the main body of this one. But before then, we've got the world of gaming, and there is a world of news in the world of gaming because we are recording, Dave, on the last day of GenCon, the biggest gaming convention in the world, I And a whole bunch of news and announcements has been made, and we're going to pluck the very best fruit from all those announcements in a And we've also got some exciting, and this one is about something that we're building out, some exciting old world news to cover before we interview with Kevin Hassell.

Dave:

Indeed.

Matthew:

The one thing we don't have, Dave, is new patrons. So we're not gonna be saying thank you to any new patrons in this episode.

Dave:

Okay. No. That's fine. But obviously, thank you to everybody else who does support us and listen. So we can't do what we do without your support.

Matthew:

That's brilliant. So shall we just crack on with the world of gaming?

Dave:

Let's. I mean, this is this is efficiency. Efficiency in action, mate. Let's let's

Dave:

crack on.

Matthew:

We did just spend half an hour talking about all sorts of other shit that we should have been recording.

Dave:

Yeah. That wasn't so efficient. But, you know

Matthew:

Will, dear listener, this make the episode any shorter? Only you can find out.

Dave:

Well, only you can control it, because you can turn off anytime you like, obviously. Not that I'm And with

Matthew:

me making side statements like that and then you arguing with them, it's gonna take bloody hours.

Dave:

Not that I'm recommending turning off, obviously, but

Dave:

it is always an

Dave:

option. Yes.

Matthew:

Anyway It is always an option. Not listening is always an option.

Dave:

Stay with us, mate, please.

Matthew:

Shock and horror from the Ennies in that Free League are no longer fan favorite publishers.

Dave:

Well, that's them done and dusted, isn't it? Oh, well.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dave:

And they're

Matthew:

old hat.

Dave:

Fun while it lasted.

Matthew:

From now on, we're gonna be talking about hold on. Let me find my fan favorite publisher.

Dave:

Oh, it's Darrington Press.

Matthew:

Avantris Entertainment, whoever they are.

Dave:

Okay.

Matthew:

That that's that's what this podcast is gonna be about from next episode on once we've worked out who they are. So, yeah.

Dave:

Appreciate it.

Matthew:

Did win an award. Actually, it has to be said. They won best adventure long form for City of My Nightmares. Mhmm. For Versen.

Matthew:

For Versen. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave:

Excellent. Yeah. And and they're still getting a lot of nominations. It's not like they've fallen off fallen off the cliff entirely.

Matthew:

Yeah. They got nominated, which is more than we did because we didn't enter. Yeah. So But we would have been up against some really stiff competition, I think, actually, this year. So the big the big duopoly of the fight was, I think, between Legend of the Mist from Son of Oak Gaming Studio and this game from this company, Adventurous, which is called something like

Dave:

The Crooked The Crooked Moon.

Matthew:

Crooked Moon. Yeah. So The Crooked Moon is about playing Versen in D and D. It's fifth edition folk horror.

Dave:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to all 5e lovers.

Matthew:

What's going on? No. Well, this is this is actually Jenny's returning to form in that Yeah.

Dave:

And I'm sure it's a fabulous product, but still, I mean, come on.

Matthew:

Yeah. It it it's it's the biggest kickstarter for fifth edition ever, apparently.

Dave:

Okay.

Matthew:

According I'm looking at their website now because I thought if we're gonna be adventurous fanboys from now on, we better get a head start before Except for

Dave:

everybody else does. Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dave:

Well, they

Matthew:

So they have a very smart website, kind of slightly freely ish, the website, I feel.

Dave:

I'd I'd just like to point out the Crooked Moon Ultimate Bundle is kind of a half price at the moment, and that's £747.

Matthew:

Oh, yes.

Dave:

Down to £1,455. So you've got to be one hell of a fan to go for the the Ultimate Bundle. But I think you get quite a lot with it. But whether it's worth

Matthew:

But it is the ultimate bundle at one product of the year. So obviously, enough people actually bought it to be able to vote

Matthew:

for it carefully

Dave:

and honestly. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew:

It comes with a hell of a lot of plastic. It comes in a big black box, a bit like Ultimate what did it, Invisible Sun did.

Dave:

With a lot of plastic.

Matthew:

Invisible Sun is my yardstick of an expensive role playing game.

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Dave:

I think this this beats that, doesn't it, by something?

Matthew:

Yeah. By at least twice as much, if not four times as much if it was sold at full price. Half of me actually just wants to put it in my cart and see what shipping is, because there's a there's probably spend more on shipping than you would on the whole thing. But I'm not going do that. Anyway, yeah.

Dave:

If you accidentally pressed the wrong button, you suddenly spent £3,000.

Matthew:

It's fifth edition folk horror. Now one might argue that fifth edition is folk horror anyway. Know? Weird monsters. I think you'll find those in D and D.

Matthew:

Slightly Victorian theming in terms of the illustrations. So people with pistols and banjos and crossbows and axes, maybe fantasy Victorian, but generally in vaguely Victorian dress. I see werewolves wearing braces here, not around their teeth. That would be a thing for werewolves, wouldn't it? I mean, suspenders, as they say in America, you know, the elastic bits that go over your shoulders and hold your trousers up if you're fat.

Matthew:

I'm sure you wear them, Dave. I've

Dave:

never worn suspenders or braces or anyway, There

Matthew:

are three bundles you can get. Game Ready is the cheapest. Let's just see how much that is. Well, that's not cheap. That's £156.

Matthew:

But it does come with dice and cloth maps, I think, and stuff. And a dice bag. That's always important. Nice dice bag. Am I slacking it off too much?

Matthew:

I I should be. And there are races, obviously, or species. You can be a a threadborn, which is a doll like people from the mechanical car carnivals of Pico. Mhmm. You can be a harvest born scarecrow.

Matthew:

You can be a relic born.

Dave:

So this is this is this is D and D playing Wurzle Gummage, is that it?

Matthew:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Skeleton like people are the relic born. The plague born are rats that wear those fabulous plague masks that we often see in illustrations.

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It won best product.

Dave:

It also won best production value.

Matthew:

It won an awful lot of stuff. Best accessory for the tarot cards. I mean, they've gone big here. I'm interested in this company apparently out of nowhere. I've never heard of Adventures before.

Matthew:

It feels to me that, obviously, they were knew they were gonna be onto a winner with Kickstarter. I haven't even looked at the Kickstarter campaign to see how well they actually did. Mhmm. Can I do that quickly? You talk for a moment while I look at that.

Dave:

Yeah. So, I mean, the other one I thought that that you might mention was Dagger Heart from Darrington Press because they have done pretty well as well, and have won quite a lot of stuff. They they won the best game. They also won the silver for the product of the year. Now I haven't seen Dagger Heart, not in in physical form.

Dave:

I mean, you know, it's a really interesting example of something that I don't know, I might be being totally wrong on people. If you've seen Dagger Heart or played it, you will probably be able to correct me, I'm sure. It feels like something that come on. How do I say this politely? That that

Matthew:

You're struggling to say it politely. Maybe say it impolitely and then we'll make apologies later.

Dave:

Kind of the yeah. The the weight of the kind of celebrity behind it was gonna make it win rather than the quality of the product. Yeah. The quality of the product might be brilliant. So as I said, I haven't played it.

Dave:

I haven't seen it. It's obviously kind of coming out there as a bit of a D and D challenger, and I guess it's got a very long way to go to do that, but this is a very good start. But whether it's just a kind of, you know, D and D clone that actually doesn't make much difference. I don't know because I haven't played it. But that was kind of the impression I got when all the Ferrari about it came out.

Dave:

But as I said, I'm I'm this is entirely speculation. There was no evidence base to my last sixty seconds comments.

Matthew:

Yeah. I just want to go back to Eventbris. I want to read about the team here. Oh, let's first of all say, remember we were quite pleased that we we got funded within a day? Yep.

Matthew:

In fact, five hours, I think we said.

Dave:

Yeah. Five hours. I think.

Matthew:

They beat us. They had a target of $20,000, and they got funded within a minute. It seems And in the end, they raised 4,000,000 and 20,000 No

Dave:

wonder they can have all those goodies. Yeah. Actually, they have I mean, how I mean, how well known? They they must have been well known in five e circles then.

Matthew:

So I don't know. I'm reading about the team here.

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

The Crooked Moon is the first game published by Legends of Avantris. We're a group of seven best friends who goof off and play role play heavy D and D on stream every week. Right. On stream. There we go.

Matthew:

So they will have a following from there. Yeah. Even before we began our content creation journey six years ago, we always wanted to make games. This campaign is how we hope to achieve that dream. This passion project is truly a labor of love.

Matthew:

So, yeah. They're just like us. Just like you and me, Dave. Except there are seven of them.

Dave:

And they got four they

Matthew:

were 4,000,000 times as successful as we were. Not quite 4,000,000 times as successful.

Dave:

Where's my calculator? I want to work out how success how much more successful they were. Now I'm not gonna do that. It'll only upset me. I was very delighted with our level of success.

Matthew:

Yes.

Dave:

You know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna, you know, despoil that excitement by being envious of somebody else's even greater success. So well done to them. But I I mean

Matthew:

Well done well done to Adventures. My favourite publisher and everything.

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Bastards.

Dave:

Oh, and they must have quite a good streaming following then, I guess.

Matthew:

Yeah. They have. Yeah. I'm sure they have. You'll be pleased to know that Twitch is gonna steal all their content and train AI off it.

Dave:

I'm not sure I'm pleased to know that. I think that's slightly overstretching it a bit, but

Matthew:

Well, pleased only that we don't appear on Twitch. So Yeah. So our content is entirely safe. Nobody's gonna tool the web for our

Dave:

That says something Nobody's gonna bother

Matthew:

trading an AI off our bollocks.

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

So anyway, so that's that. I think we've covered the Nnies, have we? Can I talk about Wizards of the Coast taking over all of geek media?

Dave:

You may, yes.

Matthew:

Well, thought you might actually wanna start because I think you're quite excited, even though you're not a D and D player, by the World of Warcraft season that they're planning in a bit.

Dave:

Well, I think I mean, so it was I've I've I've long wondered why there wasn't why somebody didn't go and do a World of Warcraft game. And I'm not surprised for a moment that that's ended up being a 5e d and d game. But, you know, I've I love World of Warcraft. You know, I spent many years in that world, and had always loved to see that come out in print. We were chatting to Andrew on one of our lovely patrons on the Discord, who put it up there first.

Dave:

That was when I first saw it. Looks like it's coming out later this year, or it's available at retail later this year. And yeah, I my my huge nostalgia vibe for Wow immediately made me go, well you know it might be worth getting that simply for the Wow nostalgia vibe. I will I will wait. I will probably, you know, I'll look at it at a convention at some point to see.

Dave:

But yeah, I don't know, I'm a bit conflicted actually because would I would I want to play Wow as a tabletop role playing game? I always thought I'd like to create the game that played it, but whether I would wanna play a five e version of it, don't know. Probably not. I think one of the things that really binds you into Wow, I mean two or three things that really bind you into Wow. One is the the visuals of the world.

Dave:

Okay, it's not the best graphics in the world, but it's a beautiful world to walk around. Second is the music. You know, there are locations that you would detect simply because of the music that starts playing and the music is brilliant. So there's all that atmosphere which you're not going to get at the table.

Matthew:

Well, you could have the music playing in the background.

Dave:

Oh, could in theory. Yeah, absolutely. But not in the same way. So yeah. Yeah.

Dave:

I'm a bit conflicted. I might buy it as a as a kind of wow thing in due course, but I'm not going run out and buy it to play it, I don't think.

Matthew:

Right. I think that's fair.

Dave:

But I suspect it'll do very well. I suspect there'll be a lot of people who will run out to buy it to play it.

Matthew:

So this is what I think I'm picking up on here. So Wizards of the Coast, the the other half of Wizards of the Coast, of course, is Magic the Gathering. And Magic the Gathering has, in recent years, produced special seasons of Magic the Gathering that have got cards themed on other IPs, you know, in partnership with those other IPs. It's not like they're filing the serial numbers off and copying them. So we've had, I think well, most famously, of course, we had Lord of the Rings, The Gathering, where there was one one ring magic card and stuff like that.

Matthew:

So I think Hasbro, of course, own Wizards of the Coast, look at that sort of thing and go, well, D and D, why aren't you doing this? You've got the most popular role playing game in the world. You've got this massive audience. We've got the to go off to the IP holders of Star Wars and say, look, yeah, yeah. We have had an interesting conversation, have we not, about IP, you and I, Dave.

Matthew:

And about how much certain rights holders would want to even start talking with us about the IPs for certain things. And it's a lot. So now with Hasbro's spending money, can they go to just to Star Wars? Yeah, we know you've been with this leading edge stroke edge Asberdea. But Asberdea really is small for a compared to us.

Matthew:

We can bash out a Star Wars role playing game like that. Because that's the other news, of course, I should have said.

Dave:

You kind of you kind of yeah. You dropped the lead there, mate. So

Matthew:

Definitely. So apart from wow this year, next year, they're gonna be doing Star Wars five e, which has happened before, but in in a in a different shape, not 5e actually. Anyway, so yeah, you're gonna be able to use D and D to play Star Wars. And I think now, you know, this is what Hasbro realized is they've got a platform here where they could go off, you know, they'd go to LEGO maybe and say, I know, you know, we're an opposing toy company, but how do you how do you fancy LEGO themed D and D or something

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Next time? And, you know, we'll we'll we'll give you millions of pounds straight away, and we know we're gonna make that back of all the adult fans of Lego who will buy it just like you, Dave, with no intention necessarily of playing it just for the nostalgia value.

Dave:

Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, there are there are I mean, some of the storylines in in Wow, some of the lore is is brilliant stuff. But there's no reason you couldn't just do that yourself or storylines like that Yeah.

Dave:

In in standard D and D. I I And of course,

Matthew:

they are lovely art. I'm sure the books will be lovely.

Dave:

Yeah. I'm sure you should get lovely maps of some of the cities and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it'd be interesting to see where they draw the line, because obviously there's been a lot of expansions. So do they just go with kind of classic Azeroth, you know, and go that? Or do they go to any of the expansions?

Dave:

Pandaria? Well, yeah. Well, you've got, you know, you've got Outlands, you've got Pandaria, you've got the impact of Cataclysm, you've got oh, there's so many of it, you know?

Matthew:

Did you notice so? Said Pandaria like I knew what I was talking about.

Dave:

Yeah. I mean, you know, playing playing Giant Pandas as playable characters has never really stuck super well with me. Although, Mysterious Pandaria wasn't a bad expansion, but it was kind of the expansion where I stopped playing. Wrath of the Lich King was the best expansion, but that was the second one after burning. Burning Crusade was very good as well.

Dave:

But yeah, so I know you are an expert on all things World of Warcraft, mate. So so so I think, yeah, for for that kind of stuff and some lovely artwork and lovely maps, it might well be worth it for someone like me to get it to have on my shelf to just look at it and fondly remember all the all the many, many, many, many hours I spent in in that world. Yeah, again, I think it's All something about

Matthew:

that time wasted in that world, you've got nothing out of it except married.

Dave:

Except except my my life partner for the last twenty odd years.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, I've, you

Dave:

know, I've got so many fabulous memories of it. But do I want to play it around the table? There's a

Matthew:

bit

Dave:

of No. That says But There's a bit of me that says, oh, maybe. But most of me say, nah, not really.

Matthew:

Wizards of the coast, though, have realized that you will pay cold hard cash just to have a little endorphin boost around your own memories of the game.

Dave:

Potentially, yeah. Or if I don't, there will be lots of people who will.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yes.

Dave:

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, say I'm surprised it's taken this long for Wow to come out as a TTRPG. I'd kind of thought that would be something that you'd somebody would have snapped up years ago.

Matthew:

But Yeah. But I guess Blizzard might well have been one of those people holding out for stupid money.

Dave:

Well, almost certainly. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew:

And and nobody felt they could offer it. Yeah. Now, just talking about license while while we're on the talk of licenses, I did just want to say something about what did I spot a bit earlier on. And I didn't include it in the list, is why I'm now going back

Dave:

to And now you're not remembering it. Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna cut through to it here. Put it in our Discord's World of Gaming slot because I was just kind of intrigued by it. Brotherwise Games made the Cosmere RPG. Cosmere is based on Brandon Sanderson's books, I think.

Matthew:

I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong, dear listener. Anyway, it it's an IP based game, but they've now licensed the system underneath it, which they're calling Plotweaver, or rather, they've got some sort of well, that yeah. They're licensing with various people. And they're also launching a competition to create worlds that use the rule set.

Matthew:

What particularly caught my eye is that Keith Baker and Jen Ellis, who I like very much as creators, Keith Baker in D and D terms was behind oh god. The steampunky version of D and D, whatever that's called.

Dave:

Right.

Matthew:

Problem is, I don't play these games. Also, Keith and Jen are behind one of my favorite card games, which is Illimat.

Dave:

Oh, yeah.

Matthew:

And and they are gonna be producing a a a genre hopping game based on the system called Infinite. And looking at the picture, there's science fiction, there's cyberpunk, there's demons, there's Mario Kart, and there's, I don't know, Wizard of Oz type stuff all happening in there. But they're also gonna be judges on the competition they're gonna have for writer writer setting for this game. What they're calling the plot weaver setting search. Right.

Matthew:

Baker. Who created Eberron? That's the steampunk game or steampunk setting. Will sit on the panel for plot weaving settings plot weaver setting search. RPG designers can submit their setting ideas to get featured as official releases from otherwise games.

Matthew:

So anyway, I asked people who'd played the game about the system and people have said something. But I wasn't picking up any great love for it.

Dave:

People have said something. That's a great comment on a podcast. So this is insightful insightful content.

Matthew:

And the other bit of news actually that came up at the same time is that there's gonna be a sixth edition of Vampire the Masquerade.

Dave:

Oh, yes. I saw that and it kind of went straight past me.

Matthew:

Yeah. I I kind of side at that. Yeah. I don't wanna I don't wanna make it sound like like one of those people who say, oh, too soon? We don't need a revised core book too soon.

Matthew:

This is a little hint for something that's coming up soon. But I I really liked fifth edition. I have never got to play it. I'm not gonna invest in sixth edition. In fact, fifth edition was the first version of vampire that I actually liked.

Matthew:

That really I felt made vampires the bad guys rather than

Dave:

It was the

Matthew:

first superheroes and trench coats.

Dave:

Yeah. It was the first version I actually bought. I mean, we Yeah. Obviously played it, but it was the first version I ever bought, and I've just got it off the shelf now. Was just right behind me.

Dave:

But, again, it it never drew me into what to learn it well enough to play it or run it. I think maybe because we've done so much masquerade before with our old mate, Andy. Yeah. That, again, a bit like Cthulhu, you almost feel like all the stories have been told or, you know, how much how much else, you know, how much more is there to explore in the in the realm of being a vampire.

Matthew:

Well

Dave:

I'm there's lots, but nothing was immediately coming to mind, which, you know, which which then kind of led to led to the fact that this book has remained on the shelf for the last couple of years Yeah. Since I got it.

Matthew:

Absolutely. And, I think sixth edition is dead to me. Maybe one I have an idea for fifth edition, is I have to be careful. When we say fifth edition, we don't mean D and D in this case. Vampire V.

Matthew:

Let's call it vampire v. Oh. V for fun. Oh, yeah. Well, I think I don't I think I I think whoever owned the IP when they made fifth edition came up with that, not me.

Matthew:

And and my my thing is to do something a bit like and you may have heard me say that vampire players think they're playing Only Lovers Left Alive, but actually they're playing What We Do In The Shadows. And I think Vampire V is the first version of Vampire that gets close to Only Lovers Left Alive, which is a great film. Have you seen it?

Dave:

No. No.

Matthew:

Boy and his girlfriend his girlfriend haven't seen it, and she's a bit of a goth. So

Dave:

You I introduced them to it, did you?

Matthew:

I I thought well, I I think Tom had seen it already, but but Luca hadn't seen it, so I introduced them to it, and they liked it very much. Anyway, that's a little Those are things I've got to now write in the show notes to remember to put them in the actual show notes because they weren't on our our tracklisting. Let's get back to where we were.

Dave:

The other thing I was just going to mention, just as a bit of a a commenting congratulation, is Rowan, Rook and Deckard, Children of Time Kickstarter is still up and running. They are doing very well. So congratulations to to Maz and the crowd there. They've got over a 100,000 pledged now, their £40,000 goal, thousand backers. Not that I'm envious because they got the license and we didn't.

Dave:

And I mean, it wasn't like a competition because they'd got it before we even started speaking to Adrian about it. But, yeah, I was looking at some of the stuff that they sent. And, again, I I think we've vaguely commented before, but, you know, the the you kind of break down the game into into different epochs almost, and and you play a little bit as, I think it's the kind of the the people, and then you play a little bit as the ship and the ark going wherever you're going, and then you play a little bit as uplifted species, which, I mean, all sound fun, but I don't know. It's just something about that approach to to a role playing game that that, I don't know, it's a bit disjointed. It's a bit fragmentary.

Dave:

And I I I can't it's it's something that doesn't it looks lovely. And obviously, I love the book and I'm very interested in what they're doing with it. But I haven't backed it, so it's not it's not making me run to the shops to to want to buy it. I will definitely have a look at it when I see it, you know, at a convention or a shop sometime and I might well buy it in future. But, yeah.

Dave:

Just I mean,

Matthew:

both offer a counterpoint

Dave:

I mean

Matthew:

if only because I I I will. Is this because you're a fat old Grogdnard, Dave, who likes traditional campaigns?

Dave:

Can we split that comment into two? Fat old dog snard and likes traditional campaigns. So I think those two aren't connected necessarily.

Matthew:

Oh, they might. What I'm saying is, is there a generation of gamers out there who do a lot of one shots? And the way you should think about this almost

Dave:

Is a bunch

Matthew:

of one shots. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a bunch

Matthew:

of one shots, but legacy one shots. So what you the actions you take in the earlier era will have an impact on the situation in the

Dave:

later era. And that's that's very much that's very much the approach in Terraforming Mars as well, which our friends, Ken and Gareth, are working on. I think there's definitely something for me about the story being so much about the journey of a particular character, and it might be then about the those people immediately around that character. So, you know, a generational game, you could play the son of or the daughter of a character that you've played before. I think it's a lovely idea.

Dave:

Takes We should try

Matthew:

that one day.

Dave:

We should, shouldn't we? We take that generational thing to its extremes, I think, in these kind of cases. And you know, I can see why they've done it because again, Children of Time is a story that takes place over geological or cosmic periods of time. Know, terraforming Mars doesn't take place over those kind of times, but it does take place over centuries or even thousands of years, millennia. So maybe you have to do something like that if you want to bring out that whole story.

Dave:

But I think, yeah, maybe you're right. Mean, fat old Gognar decides, and you obviously would know for

Matthew:

And it's very difficult to push a fat old Grognaard to the side.

Dave:

Maybe there is something in there that this this isn't the kind of of campaign that that that that I'm gonna be immediately drawn to. And I think, yeah, maybe you're right. The the idea of, you know, your your your one shots where you're playing potentially different characters and different one shots, but they are hooked together with some kind of of thread. It's something that is a bit more common now maybe than certainly when we were younger. Yeah.

Dave:

I know it's it's a fair it's definitely a fair pushback.

Matthew:

You know, I I I am suddenly thinking actually in terms of books I love or IPs I love and something similar. One of my favorite books by Kim Stanley Robinson, this is talking terraforming Mars, which obviously heavily inspired by his Mars trilogy. But Yeah. That's not my favorite work he's done. My favorite work he's done is Years of Rice and Salt, which is an alternate history where effectively the Black Death wipes out Europe.

Matthew:

And so all the other civilizations around the world kind of get to carry on history.

Dave:

Yeah. Without that. Yeah.

Matthew:

And the way that the the framing of this big novel is reincarnation. So we meet a bunch of characters in the first bit, which is in in the, you know, post apocalyptic Europe effectively as as other countries come in to explore and pick apart the ruins. And then that those characters get reincarnated. There's a sequence of them in Bada or whatever waiting for reincarnation. And then the the same characters well, not the same characters, of course, but the if you like, the same souls, spirits, whatever, are create are invested in a new character some years further on, we go through all of human history since the Black Death and into the future, I think, a bit with reincarnated characters.

Matthew:

And there's a point where suddenly they don't meet up in Barda anymore. And why don't they meet up in Barda? Because everybody's become agnostic and nobody really believes in reincarnation. But they still do get reincarnated. Right.

Matthew:

So, actually, that would be a fun IP to do a game, even if we wanted to do something like this.

Dave:

Something a bit weird. Yeah.

Matthew:

So yeah. Okay. So

Dave:

Cool. Anyway I'm

Matthew:

just trying to look at the

Dave:

My first thing was really to call out congratulations to them. And they've got nine days to go. So if you're interested in Children of Time

Matthew:

And that will still be eight seven or eight days by the time you listen to this.

Dave:

Yeah. So slip on over to Kickstarter and and add your add your bit to the to the pledge.

Matthew:

And it is on Kickstarter. We will put a link in the show notes. Yeah. It's not £4,000,000 successful, though. It's only a 100,000 pounds successful.

Dave:

It's not bad, though, is it?

Matthew:

Not bad. Not bad. Over 40,000 pounds stretch goal.

Dave:

VAT it's VAT thresholdable. Going back to our conversation with the other day.

Matthew:

Earlier on, I mentioned, is it too soon for a revised core book?

Dave:

It depends on the core book and how soon it is, isn't it?

Matthew:

So we've covered a lot of announcements, but we haven't covered what League announced. And what Free League announced is a new version of the One Ring, a bestiary for the One Ring, and a big supplement on Gondor. Indeed. You don't care about this at all, do you?

Dave:

I do. I don't know much about it. So

Matthew:

Did you did you back the first, or I should say, effectively, second edition of the One Ring?

Dave:

Yeah. I think I did.

Matthew:

Did you get the lovely leather bound cover?

Dave:

I did. Yes. So I did back it. Yeah.

Matthew:

And that's a red cover?

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew:

One can only assume that that red covered book fell into the depths of, what's it called, Moria, with a balrog. And as soon to be reborn as Corebook the White, in that there is now already stretching

Dave:

your Tolkien kind of references Yeah. There, aren't

Matthew:

But there's a new there's a new core book coming out, and Free League are really keen to assure us that this isn't a second or third edition of the rules. It's merely an edition of the rules that has been proofread.

Dave:

Might wouldn't want to have done that before, possibly?

Matthew:

Well, there was a long list of errata. Yeah. One of the most important ones for my character being something that came out after we started the campaign I'm playing here. I'm playing an elf, and there is an elf power that basically you spend a point of hope. And as the walls are written in the red deluxe edition of the core book, the first, second edition core book, they say that an elf could basically just spend a hope point of hope and do anything, get a magic that's in it.

Matthew:

And then they said, ah, we didn't mean that. What we actually meant was can spend a point of hope and have a magical success in anything that they've already got at least one point of the skill in. Immediately, my my character

Dave:

got like power to something else. Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah. It it felt nerfed. But as as time has gone on, I've just made sure that I've got one point in all the skills.

Dave:

Which is great.

Matthew:

You're not you're

Dave:

not gaming the system, are you at all, mate?

Matthew:

I I I I'm I'm playing a game, Dave. The whole point of playing a game is gaming the system.

Dave:

No. No. It's not. The whole point of playing the game is to enjoy the game.

Matthew:

And I enjoy the game by making sure I've got a point in every skill so that I can be

Dave:

Well, yeah. No. That's fine. If that's your way of enjoying the game, that's fine. But I'd say, you know, some people might not be for everyone just to, you

Matthew:

know I'm sure I've used this example before. But there is that wonderful sequence, which I think is in the book and in the films, where Aragorn is trying to work out, you know, using all his, what they call, ranger ranger skills to work out how far away the enemy is. And, the elf comes along and says, oh, there's 20 of them, and they're and they're all blonde haired or something like that.

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew:

And, you know, and and you can sense that Aragorn is just a little pissed off. Yeah. Do. Yeah. That is what I call a magical success, and that is what I call these and and my players love the fact that I'm an arrogant fuck who?

Matthew:

Someone says, oh, well, I suppose I can do it.

Dave:

But what about your character, mate?

Matthew:

Anyway, anyway, I've enjoyed that system. This will have the correct rules for elf superpowers in it and and more, I'm sure.

Dave:

Yeah. But

Matthew:

but it comes there there will be a there's a new cover for the standard version, and there's a new cover for the deluxe version. And I'm now torn. Do I want to back it and get the new deluxe rules? I'm definitely gonna get the Gondor book in its deluxe version that will sit alongside Right. Yeah.

Matthew:

My core book and my Moria book. But, yes, I'm I'm I'm torn on whether I get a new core book and actually the best UE because I'm I can't see myself running. I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough in the world of stuff to run the game in a regular way. But I might I might get the bestiary as well. Anyway, any comment on that Dave?

Dave:

They are beautiful books. And to say, I've I've got no no expectation of running or playing in a, you know, one in a one ring campaign. But I've got I have to have all of them, but I've got quite a lot of them because they're just such lovely things to look at. Beautiful beautiful product. But, yeah, mean, again it's I don't know.

Dave:

It's As much as I love Lord of the Rings, it's a setting that doesn't grab me by throat and say come and play. I don't know why. It just doesn't grab me in that way really. I don't know why. Maybe it's because there is almost too much known about it already.

Dave:

There's too much lore and there's too much expectation maybe to to hit that mark in a game for that's playing in such a such a well known world. Whereas something like Forbidden Lands, you can kind of make it up as you go along a little bit. So it less pressure off it in that sense.

Matthew:

That's what I love about Forbidden Lands

Dave:

and

Matthew:

what somewhat intimidates me about running the one thing. But that the the very thing that holds me back off the One Ring can, I think, for different GMs and different players, really excite them? Yes. Playing in a in an interesting phase at the moment. We're we're playing the the white wizard campaign, shall we say, in the group that I'm in, which is made up of people on our lovely Discord, all patrons, run by one of our patrons, John, from Sweden with an international group of patrons from Egypt and America and elsewhere or and Canada as

Dave:

well Mhmm.

Matthew:

All all participating. And I think this is a really interesting thing because you have this kind of moment where you feel we're in danger of changing history because we're working for Saruman. Our player our characters think he's a lovely, lovely man. Our the players, of course, know that he's gonna turn evil.

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And, you know, there are some things we have done that we brought him the Palantir for a start. We didn't bring it to him. We brought it to our previous patron. She gave it to him and introduced us. And there are other things that he sent us out for, and we have purposely, not because we're spoiling the story as it were, but thought, oh, this is too evil.

Matthew:

Let's just throw it into the sea. Well, one big character. Pardon. And so we are, you know, partly in small ways changing history. Will we change it in a big or small way?

Matthew:

I don't know. And but I think we probably won't. So it's an interesting phase that we're playing in where, you know, the constraints of what actually happened in the books is something that we can change now. Normally, I'd avoid that. I've set the adventure somewhere else where we never meet Saruman, we just hear of what's going on.

Matthew:

That would be my GM safe way of running

Dave:

Good preference. Yeah.

Matthew:

But I'm enjoying actually being in that thing and effectively, I feel over this campaign, we're kind of watching him turn more evil. Without realising, we're not because the thing is, he thinks it's working for the best, you know. Yeah. And and that seems to be coming across. I'm really quite enjoying where we're at at the moment.

Dave:

Yeah. Cool. I'm gonna

Matthew:

keep playing on Tuesday. Anyway, so looking forward to getting back to that when we do that. And, yeah, I think I'll back this even though I know I probably shouldn't. Right. One other Free League announcement before we finally finish off this method, massive world of gaming.

Matthew:

We started on it early, and now we're three courses an hour in, we haven't finished yet. Free League have also launched Free League Unbound.

Dave:

Yes. So And Exact I've exactly what is it? I mean, I know it's got lots of digital stuff going on with it.

Matthew:

Let me explain to you in terms you'll understand.

Dave:

I've had a look

Dave:

at the website.

Matthew:

Just like D and D Beyond.

Dave:

Right. Okay. What's D and D Beyond?

Matthew:

It's a way for them to sell you the book. No. Yeah. Yeah. So I I'm sure that Unbound may become a subscription service at some point.

Matthew:

But at the moment, it's an online resource where you can keep all your PDFs and the content for all the books you own and be able to look them Yeah. And stuff. And create characters in Right.

Dave:

It's just yeah.

Matthew:

And use that. Now I've signed up for Invincible. Oh, sorry. I've signed up for for it. And the one thing it's got on it for free is the Invincible quick start.

Matthew:

At the moment, it's only got four games. We've got Alien, The One Ring, Coriolis, The Great Dark, and Invincible. More are on their way. And there's limited functionality at the moment. So Invincible is the only product that's on there.

Matthew:

The Quick Start is on there. So I guess there are character tools and things soon. But no, character tools, there aren't actually.

Dave:

They're coming. Yeah. But they're in planning, aren't they? They're in production.

Matthew:

Yesterday for RPG a day, I foolishly set myself the task of creating a character for Invincible, going to look properly at the book. Blue Sky did. I skeeted it, I think is the term for Blue Sky. Skeet, I think. I think a tweet is a skeet in blue sky.

Dave:

Right. Okay.

Matthew:

And so I did a long chain of of skeets where I went through my decision making process. I was inspired by the fact that the theme for the first day was discipline, and I immediately thought of a character called corporal discipline.

Dave:

Right. Okay.

Matthew:

Well, I thought it would fit in the world of quite well.

Dave:

Thought you were gonna say, like, misdiscipline or something.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yeah. With a whip. Well, no. I think corporal discipline carries a whip.

Matthew:

Yeah. Right. And in fact, I'm

Dave:

I'm obviously thinking of a different kind of discipline here, obviously.

Matthew:

No. I think you're thinking of exactly the sort of discipline that I'm thinking of,

Dave:

actually. Yes.

Matthew:

Corporal discipline is a sex worker who stands up for the downtrodden. And has got some slight mind control powers and can hit you really hard with a whip, which

Dave:

Cool.

Matthew:

Is out of Anyway, find my thread on Blue Sky if you want to know more about corporal discipline. Anyway, but what I can't do is I can't create you in here yet because the character creation tools aren't available. But at some point, they will be. It's a thing I'm there's a question now of you and I own a bunch of games. Are we gonna be able to get code so that we can say, well, already own this game.

Matthew:

Can I have it in Yeah? In this? And the scuttlebutt is yes. Yes. People have asked this of support.

Matthew:

Been told, yes, that will be coming. Give us time. Tell us give us evidence that you've got these games.

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And we will we will give you access. Your account or something. Okay. Yeah. But I wait to see on that.

Matthew:

I may try it because, you know, I've got quite a few of these games.

Dave:

It's a tough one, isn't it? As well, because there's lot a lot out there now. I mean, a lot of customers out there with a lot of games. Yeah. They'll be basically, on the whole, they'll be opening on the whole, they'll be opening these up for free.

Matthew:

They'd be doing a lot of manual work, I think. Yeah. I think they may regret that, oh, drop us a line with your with with evidence of the games you've owned. Yeah. There may be a battle.

Dave:

There'll be

Dave:

thousands of them. Yeah.

Matthew:

Anyway, that's I think that's all we can say about it. There's so I I signed on. I'm exploring it. There's not much to explore.

Dave:

Yeah. Okay. Cool. At the moment, sign up is free, is it? Or did you have to subscribe?

Matthew:

Sign up is absolutely free. Yeah. But you need to buy products in the library. And the shop is there to give you an idea of what's available in the shop. So a legendary bundle of the one ring, for example, since we were talking about that recently, is Oh, right.

Matthew:

Well, here here's the thing. Legendary bundle, unbound digital plus PDF, and this would include pretty much everything that's out for the one ring currently. Including Strider mode interestingly is a separate book. I should check on the pricing of that.

Dave:

Oh, okay.

Matthew:

There's some news that's coming up quite soon. So the core book, for example, of the One Ring costs generally £24 apparently but you can get it here for no no $24. You can get it here for $19.99 on this thing. But all the products that are currently available for the one ring, you can get that for a bundle price of a $143.12.

Dave:

Right.

Matthew:

Digital and PDF. If you've already got the PDF, Unpound Digital is a $108. So in fact, you don't even get it on so I I was thinking from what I'd heard earlier on that if I'd already got the game, I could get it for free on Yeah. On here. And I'm now going back over that.

Matthew:

Should have looked at this before I started the conversation. Paying you're paying for it again if you want to have it on unbound. Yeah. And so immediately, I'm less keen.

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

Dave:

I mean, it's not the kind of thing I'm gonna bother with, I don't think. But I guess, yeah, for some people it's it's really helpful.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Dave:

Alright. Shall we move on? Because we've been blathering for ages.

Matthew:

Yeah. So this brings us to an exciting bit of Old West news. Dave, what's the exciting Old West news we've got?

Dave:

The exciting Old West news is that we've finally finished the Lone Rider rules, and they are coming out. So they might even be out by the time you hear this. So

Matthew:

Yeah. I am hoping to send them to our backers as soon as we've done this recording, what we're doing And we're recording on the Sunday. So hopefully most of our backers will be able to download it. I'll put a note out on the Kickstarter as well. Because that will be the last of our kickstarter stretch goals.

Matthew:

So I will now be able to turn the or not now, but when I've done it, I'll be able to switch the switch on kickstarter that says all rewards have been sent out.

Dave:

Yeah. No. So, yeah, I mean, it's it's taken us a while to get this one. It's kind of in the last one. So apologies for if you've been waiting for this with bated breath for for a while.

Dave:

But we're there now. We've got it done, and we really hope you enjoy it.

Matthew:

Yeah. I'm not apologizing too much because we always said this is new to us.

Dave:

No. That is true.

Matthew:

And it's gonna take you some time.

Dave:

Yeah. And and we did get everything else out quicker than that. Yeah. But I I think in an ideal world, it would have been nice to have got out earlier, but we were both working. You know, we're a small boot with a small outfit, so I think that's fine.

Dave:

But, yeah, we said we'd get it all done, and we've got it all done. So I we really hope you enjoy it.

Matthew:

Yes. I mean, we you know, I so to do this, I looked at some other solo game rules. But I think I in the end, I went to I I I took a step back inside of the clean piece of paper and said, right. What are what are the reasons for wanting solo gaming? I think we did I did an article on this some time ago, which is when I was thinking about that.

Matthew:

And then I built something not based on other things like iron sworn or other solo games I looked at. But rather, started from the ground up, and created something that may feel a bit different. I'll be really interested to know how more experienced solo gamers play it. I we we play tested it with a couple and they said it was fine. Well, they made they made some change they suggested some changes which you now put in in into the final thing, but they enjoyed it.

Matthew:

But I'll be really interested to see what solo gamers think of the approach that we've taken.

Dave:

Yeah. I mean, as a as a non solo gamer, when I was playtesting this, I really liked the way the way and as I said, Matt did all the work on this pretty much. So it's all his it's all his his his creation, his creativity.

Matthew:

You did all the typos. I mean, no, didn't do. I did all the typos. You corrected all the typos.

Dave:

Mean, yeah. Obviously, I contributed, but, you know, this is this is this is pretty much your your work. And I very much like the way the system created a really wide range of stories that actually all of them felt right. They felt like they fit the genre, fit the system, they fit the place. So I'm I'm hopeful that people are gonna like, yeah, certainly like the stories that the the solo rules generate, because I think it works really well.

Dave:

I think you've done a good job, pal. Well done.

Matthew:

Cool. Thank you. Thank you. And, yeah, so as I say, you'll be going out to backers hopefully today. And by the time you're listening this, we'll put a link in the show notes to the drive thru.

Matthew:

It'll be available for sale on drive thru, hopefully, by the time you're listening to this. At what price? I don't know. I'm just interested to see what what things like the Strider Mode book in in Soulsborne Drive thru and maybe Yeah. Maybe match that.

Matthew:

Anyway, that is the end of our Old West news.

Dave:

Wow. That's quite a lot of news today. So, right, shall we move on to the main the main event even though we're nearly we're not far off an hour in already. This is gonna be a quick one as well. Jack.

Dave:

Kevin Hassell. We fabulous, fabulous guy. We had him back on the show. My excuse for being quieter than normal is that I'd drive home from a trip away at four in the morning that

Matthew:

hard, and I'm so, so tired. I

Dave:

mean, frankly, when I got home at four in the morning, I I woke up, and I I had to go to work that day as well.

Matthew:

Oh, yeah. You weren't even working. You were on holiday. That made you say that.

Dave:

Yeah. When I was on well, I was working on the Monday, and then when I when because I haven't checked my Facebook over the weekend because I don't when I'm away because it's shit on my telephone. You said, oh, are you up for this interview tonight? And I was just I like, oh, all I wanna do is sit on the sofa and die. But it was good.

Dave:

It was lovely. And Kevin is great. So let's hand it over to Kevin, and let's go to the Hammam.

Matthew:

So returning to the Hammam today is somebody that really feels like only days since last we spoke to you Kevin but we've got Kevin Hassell back in the Hammam.

Dave:

And actually Kevin is given his background is that he should be a paid up member of the Herman almost. He's here more and more than we are kind of thing.

Matthew:

May well have monogrammed towels I guess.

Kevin Hassall:

It is my absolute favorite Hammam. I love it. I'm really pleased to be here So

Matthew:

thank you. Last time you were in Hemaam, were talking about the serpent, which was your traveler scenario with some added Coriolis. Now, what's the latest news on that? Catch us up on how that Kickstarter went and what's been happening since.

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah, that was a slightly odd one because the guys at Mongoose were really keen for me to do a traveler version. But I couldn't officially do it as a Coriolis piece because the third party license wasn't available for Third Horizon at that point. So what we did was we did it as a traveler compatible adventure campaign pack setting and then said we will give away a conversion guide, which is a kind of very pretty 40 page PDF, four color PDF, that changes a few of the names and makes it clear how it works for Coriolis. And it's the cafe system. Right?

Kevin Hassall:

So it's an introduction of the cafe system, and it's a campaign there. Now, of course, since we made that decision, we've got the third party license now. Awesome. Hooray. So we're still going to stick with what we said we'd do.

Kevin Hassall:

The conversion guide as a PDF will still be free. But now people will also be able to buy a print copy of it on Drive through RPG, which is fantastic. It's one of the great things about this third party license. We can do print copies, which is fantastic. So, yeah, as a Kickstarter, it was great.

Kevin Hassall:

It raised over 300 percent of the target

Dave:

and

Kevin Hassall:

And, got a lot of enthusiasm from as we're recording this now, I'm looking at the final PDFs ready to go out. By the time this episode airs, everybody will have their PDFs and I'm waiting for the proof back from the printer and then we'll press the button on the printing. So we said it would fulfil in July and it sort of just has. It's been a bit close

Matthew:

to July.

Kevin Hassall:

Squeezing in. Yeah. We're squeezing in. But that's been a lot of fun. And it's a kind of rambling multithread campaign for Coriolis set in the cafe system with a hook that it works well for merchant crews as well as agents because that's a real problem with Coriolis.

Kevin Hassall:

Right? You find lots of stuff available online, which works great if you're an agent or a spy or a mercenary. But how do you get the merchant? So this has a merchant hook as well, but actually you end up chasing down auto builder artifacts and hopefully escaping with your lives. But yes, that's a good rambling campaign in the CAFE system and now we're looking forward to the next thing.

Matthew:

Okay now we're going to be brutally honest we've decided we're going to be brutally honest here we are recording this on Monday July 27 but you're only hearing it on a Monday in August and just January 1

Kevin Hassall:

that

Matthew:

would be the first,

Dave:

second, fifth, Third, third of August. Our command of calendars is just supreme isn't it yeah so August 3 that'll be

Matthew:

and so by then you will have made an announcement Kevin on the facebooks and your social medias but we want you to tell us in advance of making that top secret announcement exactly what it was that you will have announced.

Kevin Hassall:

Okay so the next Kickstarter is The Blood Tree which I can get very confused. A little

Matthew:

bit about last time anyway, didn't we?

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's me kind of taking the bit between my teeth creatively with some of the more challenging elements of the horizon and trying to build something that has that real Arabian Nights in Space vibe, but in places where you wouldn't expect to find it. And it's, you know, it's a good introductory start for a new GM.

Kevin Hassall:

It's got pregenerated characters and it's got a fairly detailed intro scenario, and then there's a lot of setting.

Dave:

All the

Kevin Hassall:

rest of it. The fact is great. Right? It's a campaign. But we are now turning it into a two book Kickstarter.

Kevin Hassall:

There will not just be that. There will also be a Players Guide, which is Across the Horizon, which gives choreographers players something they sorely need. And this came out of conversations with Eric Ulm, who wrote Veterans of the Horizon. And I've spent the last few years saying to people, if you only get one thing for Coriolis other than rule book, get Veterans of the Horizon. I'm really, really delighted to be working with him on this.

Kevin Hassall:

And the two of us are going to, Between Us, put together Across the Horizon, the Players book, which will include an overview of character generation for new players, basic introductions to the law so people understand where they are and what the factions are, everything you need as a new player. And then also everything from Quiet Victories, everything from Veterans of Horizon, everything from Combat Elite and a whole lot of new stuff that we're working on. That, you know, you come at it fresh as a new player, you've got the basic introduction, but then you've got dozens and dozens of talents and you've got the ability to design your own equipment and you've got information about celebrations, downtime activities, building your own settlements, all the stuff you're going to want as a player to play a long term campaign. So that's something that I'm personally super excited about because partly I'm really happy to be working with Eric on this. And partly, I just think it's going to be hugely useful for players.

Kevin Hassall:

Right. You know, if you're a GM, rather than saying to your players, oh, well, you can get a hold of a copy of the PDF version of the rules, then you can flick back and forth between these two pages here. You might work out what's going on. You just go right, this one book. That's it.

Kevin Hassall:

You can create your characters. You understand the horizon and there's everything you need to go for.

Matthew:

And the first bit is kind of a welcome to Coriolis type summary of things like how you go about creating characters. Yes. Obviously, any of the core rules from the core rule book.

Kevin Hassall:

Exactly. We can't reproduce text, belongs to freely. But we can say these are the steps you need to go through. Here's a summary of the steps. Here's the key numbers that you need, like how many points do you get to spend on attributes.

Kevin Hassall:

And here's the page reference so you can find it in the PDF if you want more information. So yeah, it just should be a single point of reference for players as they get into it. And also things like factions, because unfortunately, it's 2026 and nobody reads it. And I've lost track of the number of new players. I've said, well, look, just read these 20 pages on the factions.

Kevin Hassall:

And they're all really evocative. And they go, yeah, well, I'm not reading 20 pages. So I just want one page they can look at. And it says, you know, Zenithian Hegemony.

Matthew:

Aren't you space Nazis?

Kevin Hassall:

Well, I want to do it as a pros and a cons column. Yeah.

Dave:

Well, and

Matthew:

the cons are they're space Nazis and the pros is they're nice uniforms. Hear you're not.

Kevin Hassall:

I've heard this before. I don't think you really appreciate the way in which us Lithuan overlords are going to bring peace and prosperity to our horizon and elevate us from our current wretched state. I just don't think that you're buying into this completely.

Matthew:

Yeah, I'm not buying into it as an adventure called the Blood Tree, which will be, I think, a little bit about Anyway. And obviously, it will portray the Xelosians as the heroes and starfleet, as we've discussed previously.

Kevin Hassall:

A pros column and a cons column. It will give both

Dave:

Exactly. Pros column, they they they look like they're like charitable people with a sanatorium. Cons column, it's a complete cover, and they're all bastards.

Matthew:

And and pros column, it turns out they're not bastards. They're actually protecting humanity.

Dave:

Cons column that's what they say but actually they're really bastards.

Matthew:

They're superman.

Dave:

That's one of the things though that we love about Coriolis. You can have an argument about the same faction from two diametrically opposed positions which is one of the thrill beauties. Yeah.

Matthew:

It is beautiful actually. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's thrown me entirely because I just want to rant on about how everyone misunderstands the Zosians.

Matthew:

I mean you want to see bastards you want to look at those fuckers from zealots speed they're

Dave:

the real bastards. How do

Matthew:

you religious zealots they are?

Dave:

You know the zealots are quite religious anyway you could argue anyway yeah yeah sorry Kevin we'll wait to get you back into the conversation in a minute.

Matthew:

Kevin you've talked about a lot of stuff that has actually previously been available as community content on the Free League workshop. But of course that is only available as a PDF because apart from the special relationship that Chaosium has where they get their community content can be made in print demand. You generally can't print community content as print on demand, but your book will be a compilation of all these and it will be available in print. It's print on demand.

Kevin Hassall:

It include material previously in those. It will include all the materials previously in those, but updated. So there are a couple of areas where I think it's just really detailed stuff. So Eric was talking about the janissary talent in veterans not being strong enough. And I found a way of turning another one of his talents into something that's more broadly applicable, blah blah blah.

Kevin Hassall:

Right? It's like we can go through the whole thing and just kind of polish it, make it less specific. One of the things that very often happens with choreo, listen, I do it as much as everyone else, is you see a problem, you fix it with something very specific. And then you come back to three months later and go, no, that needs a broader application. That needs a talent that works across a broader range of situations.

Kevin Hassall:

So for example, there's one of Eric's talents is a kind of martial arts talent, but the way it's phrased, it only really works for the Alamites. So that's something we can make broader. So if you want a martial arts type character, that talent works for you. When I did Quiet Victories, I introduced the idea of temporary talents based on your social activities. Actually, can do more without adding much admin or crunch to the system, but just as a way of having characters more embedded in the world.

Kevin Hassall:

So that area will get developed. I mean, there's going to be loads of stuff that gets added onto it. And as you say, yes, it will be available in print.

Matthew:

But also new and improved then and not just a compilation of that previous stuff.

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah. I mean, so for example, I think Combat Elite introduces four new weapons and we'll probably have about 15 or 20. Yeah. So, yeah, there'll be loads of additional stuff.

Matthew:

Excellent. And tell me a bit about print on demand. How does it work first of all for Kickstarter backers? When I'm looking at your campaign and I say, well normally, because generally this is me normally, normally I get PDFs of a bunch of stuff, but this Players Guide is going to be pretty impressive. So I'm going to want to get a print on demand for this.

Matthew:

What are the options? How do I, how do I back it? And, and then what happens afterwards? You've just said earlier on that you're pressing the, or hopefully by the time people have heard this, you will have pressed the button for print on demand for the serpent. How does all of that work with backers and then with future customers?

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah. No, that's that's quite interesting because we're getting to the point of these Kickstarters where it's getting big enough that we're not necessarily thinking print on demand is a great idea. So for the Serpent, we weren't sure quite how much interest there would be. And, you know, we've now got to ship a 150 print books plus all the PDFs and stuff that was a reasonable amount of interest. So with that, we said we'll do print on demand.

Kevin Hassall:

We've somebody backed the serpent. That simply means that I, as soon as we got the proof back from the printer, will be uploading a whole load of information to DriveThruRPG. And whereas you might just click the buy button, I upload a CSV, and it's got 150 addresses and names. And I pay for it from Drive Thru RPG. Right?

Kevin Hassall:

And then it just gets sent out as just to the back as our standard. What we might do with the serpent is say, actually, we're gonna get it printed as standard, just normal printing rather than print on demand. Offset printing.

Matthew:

Yeah. In a real in a proper print.

Kevin Hassall:

Exactly. Just because this seems to be getting big enough now that, you know, we're not just talking about three copies or five copies or 10 copies. I did a Kickstarter with an optional add on for Mithras, and I'm gonna have to print 17 copies of it. Right? Fine print on demand for that.

Kevin Hassall:

But if you're doing 150 copies of something, I'm not sure that we're going to do that with a circuit. What would probably happen not so. The blood tree. What probably happens with blood tree is we'll say, well, as a stretch goal, if we get above a certain amount, it'll be offset printing and we'll handle that. But that doesn't stop us then also making it available print on demand.

Matthew:

Yes. Because the offset whatever you do for the offset will be a limited number. And they likely print only once

Dave:

because Eventually you'll be out of print

Matthew:

at some point from there. Yeah. It's going to encourage you to do more prints.

Kevin Hassall:

We're probably switching across from everything being print on demand to just doing print on demand for real short run stuff.

Matthew:

So if I order so if I back at whatever the print level is, to begin with, that will very likely be print on demand until some goal

Dave:

Until you get the financial goal goal, yeah.

Matthew:

Number of copies goal is reached. And then that will trigger the stretch goal that says we're going for offset, Clint. Yes, exactly.

Kevin Hassall:

Cool.

Matthew:

And then what does that mean? So will I have, will my initial Kickstarter pledge have paid for both of those versions do you think?

Kevin Hassall:

Well you would get a print copy. It's just a question of whether it's being shipped to me in a big box and I'm shoving them all in envelopes or whether I'm, you know, jiffy things or whether I'm telling, telling Dry food to

Matthew:

do it and they send you yeah.

Kevin Hassall:

Right. You're going to get a book either way. The quality should be either way.

Matthew:

And how does that work with, shipping?

Kevin Hassall:

If drive thru handle it, then I just give them a big spreadsheet and the printer doesn't send it to me. They send it direct to the individual.

Matthew:

Yeah. But sorry. Let me get precise. How do I handle paying for shipping? So lots of Kickstarters say, Oh, you know, this is going to come out X, but we don't know what it's going to cost to ship you the book at X.

Matthew:

We'll be doing a completion

Kevin Hassall:

And we'll calculate

Matthew:

nearer the time.

Kevin Hassall:

I'm not doing that again. I did that for House of the Crescent Sun, which was a medieval fantasy one. And it was just painful. Right? Because you've got people's money.

Kevin Hassall:

They're looking forward to getting it. Then you have to go back to them and say, oh, can you please send us some more money? It's like, no. No. Just no.

Kevin Hassall:

So with this, I'll do what I did with the serpent and just say, we're expecting shipping to cost this. If it's a bit more or a bit less, that's fine. We'll take that risk. Right? You know upfront what you're paying, and that's it.

Matthew:

Right. And that will be in the so in the pledge. The pledge effectively includes the shipping, or there'll be

Kevin Hassall:

an Yeah. So if you're in The UK or The US, it'll probably be something like $6 or £5 or something. Unfortunately, if you're in Australia, sorry, it's horrible. Yeah. You can work out what it's likely to be, and we'll just include that in the pledge.

Matthew:

Cool. Cool. So that's the nitty gritty stuff there. At the moment there is already in existence on Kickstarter holding page. We will put a link in the show notes to that, where you can sign up for further updates.

Matthew:

But when do you and I'm really hard to beat you on the spot here, Kevin. But when do you expect to go live with the actual Kickstarter?

Kevin Hassall:

Early August. I don't know if it's going be first or second week in August. But I want to make sure that everyone's got their PDFs for the serpent because I can't go to people who've just given us money for the serpent and say, we haven't got anything yet. Give us some money

Matthew:

for the blood tree. All except

Dave:

for that

Matthew:

last 5% who never completed and therefore you can't sell this stuff.

Dave:

Well,

Kevin Hassall:

yeah. But, yeah, I just want to make sure that the serpents are put to bed and then we'll launch it early August.

Matthew:

Brilliant. Brilliant. So coming soon. And then what are your what are the what's the prognosis? How long that will take to delivery?

Kevin Hassall:

I'm going to be really cagey on that and say six months. Mhmm. But the only reason I'm being cagey on it because it's mostly written. Right? I mean, it it's completely written if you include things in note four.

Matthew:

But a lot

Kevin Hassall:

of it's gonna be some pretty

Dave:

That doesn't count as written, though, does it really? Because getting from note to written is is quite a challenge sometimes. Yeah.

Kevin Hassall:

So, no, it's probably 80% completely written and 20% in note form. So how long is that going to take to finish off? Not long. It's been playtested multiple times in terms of the the Blood Tree adventuring campaign. It's pretty well written.

Kevin Hassall:

I could say, oh, we'll get it out in three months. But if we go offset printing, there's going to be a lot of lead time for it. Yeah. I just want to give myself a little bit of a bit of space so I don't let people down.

Matthew:

Yeah. And particularly if that three month deadline brings you into just before Christmas. Yeah. Because we did our reprint just before Christmas last year, and that took a lot longer than we were expecting. So yeah.

Dave:

Well I guess being, being novices still with our first, with our first product, you know, we hadn't quite estimated how long that would take. We kind of.

Matthew:

And also we've been blessed with our initial print run being really quick but surprisingly shorter than we'd estimated, but apparently people want to print books just before Christmas no idea why.

Dave:

Yeah yeah But, again, I mean, a six month target for a Kickstarter is pretty good. I mean, so seeing you are producing, you've got the rest of the work to do even though you've written most of the actual content. So, yeah, I think most people are are more than comfortable with a six month target. Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew:

Yeah. So, okay, that's the practicality's done. We'll wish you good luck at the appropriate time for the Kickstarter. It does get a little bit more into the meat of the campaign. Obviously spoiler free.

Dave:

I mean, you can spoil it as much as you like, Kevin, but it might not be the best thing. You know? So it'd be good for us, but not so good for you.

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah. Yeah. So it kinda started with a a creative challenge that I set myself rather than anything else. A couple of years ago when I did on Drive Thru RPG, The Diamond Sands, somebody on Reddit said, oh, this this hits the Arabian Nights in Space vibe better than anything else that's been printed. Any of the you know hyenas or the official stuff or anything.

Kevin Hassall:

And I thought oh that's a really nice thing to say and I felt really proud for about two seconds. And then I thought no I was cheating. Right? The Diamond Sands is a luxury resort full of people who swan around in silver and satin and lace and have their own fleets of spaceships and amazing technology. It's easy to get a sense of wonder when you can just have rich people throwing money at it.

Kevin Hassall:

What do we do to get that Arabian lurking space sense of wonder and sort of exotic exploration surprises around every corner? If we deal with the plebeians, if we deal with the people at the bottom? Right. And so I was thinking about the monolith and Kur with your good friends, the Zenithium sitting there, you know, looking out and surveying the soon to be glorious empire. But around the base of it, you've got the conglomerate, which is this massive informal set of slums and sprawling cities and all the rest of it, which all merge together.

Kevin Hassall:

It's just chaos. Well, Okay, let's look at that as a setting. We've got a huge city with all sorts of different cultures coming in, all living next to each other with their own customs and assumptions and bringing their own plots and conflicts into the city. We can do a lot with that. So the Blood Tree adventure, the title adventure, which is the introductory adventure, I wrote up in quite a lot of detail because I wanted to make it something that a new GM could work with.

Kevin Hassall:

You know, it doesn't leave you high and dry on the details. But that was something that came out of somewhere very different. That having got this idea I wanted to do this, that was just percolating the back of my head. I was reading the Book of the Idols, which obviously I was reading in English. I did not speak Archaic Arabic, but it's a 1,500 year old book about alleged beliefs and stories of people worshipping pre Islamic deities in Arabia.

Kevin Hassall:

So it was written by an author fifteen hundred years ago saying, oh, this is the sort of religious thing people used to do before they found a one true religion. Well, a Coriolis point of view, what pre Islamic people were doing in Arabia is really interesting. And there were a couple of things which were very surprising to me because it wasn't a view of religion that we are accustomed to as modern Western people. And it just sort of clicked into place that I could use a couple of these ideas as a basis for a revenge plot on Coeur. And so you've got the player characters are hired by a high ranking Sunnithian who's concerned that somebody's been keeping tabs on him, following him around, spying on him, and what's going on.

Kevin Hassall:

And of course, this introduces the players to exactly what we were talking about earlier. Are there Sythians the good guys or the bad guys? Are there Sythians just the bad guys or are there the bad guys and the good guys at the same time? I don't that other doing? Any things you're background, what this guy's been doing, what the person who is watching him wants to achieve.

Kevin Hassall:

And when I've played it, you know, at one point with one of the playtest groups, the players went totally off at the deep end and ended up murdering their own patron. Right, as an

Dave:

because he's obviously a complete monster. That was Matthew's group, obviously. He do that in the first scenario, like, after the introduction? You're a Zenithian. Blam.

Dave:

So yeah. So Great.

Matthew:

It's not all Zenithians. It's the Zenithian hegemony. There are some relatively non Nazi Zenithians out there.

Dave:

Again, again, I was giving us an introductory venture. Right?

Kevin Hassall:

So we want this sense of wonder, some weird ideas that I sort of developed out of the book of the idols. And we want people to understand the factions and start thinking about who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, how do they fit into Then this there's a load of information about the city, not necessarily describing it at high level, but loads of little communities. These are some people here and here are some plots that might come out of that so that GMs have just got things to run with in the city. And three plot arcs, which again was me kind of setting myself creative challenges. I deliberately done campaign arcs based on our three most problematic factions, which is obviously hegemony because it's too

Matthew:

Space Nazis.

Kevin Hassall:

They're punchable space Nazis. Exactly. So I wanted to do a plot up that looked at them from a different perspective. Alan's Temple, because I love Alan's Temple. But people do have a tendency to go, I don't really know what to do with these people.

Kevin Hassall:

I guess it's about brothels and sex, which is just kind of the

Matthew:

big And spies. Brothels, sex, and spies.

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah. Brothels, sex, and spies. Right? So, again, I think the true,

Dave:

like, goodness behind the Third Horizon, being the ones who are really trying to direct the horizon in the right way, but from behind.

Matthew:

No, Dave. There's a lot of things.

Dave:

I love I love I really agree.

Kevin Hassall:

Yeah. I I'm with Dave on this one. Sorry about it. But yes, I wanted to get into that. And then the other one is the syndicate, which is something that people have sometimes looked at and go, look, this just looks like something that's been dropped in from a 1970s Mafia movie.

Kevin Hassall:

How does this fit? Yeah. And it's like, actually, there's a load of potential. You just have to get beyond the 1970s happy movie. So we've got the three campaign articles which people can develop as they wish.

Kevin Hassall:

So yeah.

Matthew:

Okay, given that definition of problematic, why have you not also covered the Drakonites in this, dealing with problematic factions?

Kevin Hassall:

Okay, I don't regard the Drakonites as problematic. I think the Drakonites have so much potential and people all take them in different directions. I think possibly one of the least interesting directions they were taken in was Mercy of the Icons, where they just kind of became spies without any obvious motivation. But if you look at the way that people talk about them online, everyone's got a cool idea for what the Drakonites are doing. And I almost don't want to

Matthew:

Yeah. You don't want to force them into that dull thing that everybody goes, no,

Kevin Hassall:

they're not doing that.

Matthew:

My idea is better.

Kevin Hassall:

Exactly. You know, mean, on the ISANO Patreon, I've got a load of mystic talents that I did for the Drakknites. And that's how I run the Drakknites. But I don't think people are short of ideas of how to make the Drakknites good. I don't want to force my idea onto them.

Kevin Hassall:

Right.

Dave:

So Yeah.

Matthew:

Cool. So you said that the first adventure is really quite detailed and holds the GM's hand all the way through it. Does it then kind of get more sandbox y as it goes on?

Dave:

Yeah.

Kevin Hassall:

That adventure can lead into one of the campaign arcs. Or you could just run completely unrelated campaign arcs. Or you could just say, well, you know what we're doing? This is an intro adventure. I'm cool.

Kevin Hassall:

But I don't really want to use the rest of the setting because I want my players to jump on a spaceship and fly away from Correoneus to a different part of the horizon. Right? It's not necessarily expecting to be the start of a campaign, but it can become one.

Matthew:

This is a very firm beginning adventure. And then here's some setting stuff. Is that fair?

Kevin Hassall:

So from adventure, three possible campaign arcs that you could do, which you can fill in details yourself. But here's half a dozen kind of minor factions. So you've got a tribe that's come from a forest moon because they got into some feuding problems. They needed to go somewhere else. They've come here and they've kind of set up camp on top of the derelict building.

Kevin Hassall:

And you've got like a jungle camp on top of the derelict building. You've got a bunch of people who were rescued by Smithians. Rescued because they seem to be such lovely people who've kind of got their own agenda and there's something a bit weird going on with them mentally. And blah, blah, blah, Right. You've got half a dozen of these.

Kevin Hassall:

Each of those is a community that you can either get clocks out of and get the players involved in. Or you could use them as a basis for player characters and some of them have their own equipment or in one case, a mystic talent or whatever. But it's more inspiration. It's kind of like here's this cool city. We've had the introductory venture.

Kevin Hassall:

Where do you want to go next?

Matthew:

That sounds great. So I feel I've been asking a lot of the questions Dave. Know I talk over

Dave:

that That's all the time fine because I've had about four hours sleep and so I'm not really with it so that's been good. Now and it sounds great. And, again, every time I talk to you, Kevin, it completely reminds me of how much I love Coriolis, and I absolutely love your enthusiasm. Clear, clear, you know, love of the game. And so the ideas that we're talking about and the, you know, the the factions you've chosen to focus on are are the ones, you know, that I would have chosen.

Dave:

I absolutely love it. I think I think this should be brilliant, and I can't wait to see it.

Kevin Hassall:

Thank you.

Matthew:

Brilliant. And and so I guess it only remains for us to say good luck with the forthcoming Kickstarter campaign. Absolutely. Will put listeners a link in the show notes. It probably is not live when we're starting, but it will be live very soon so maybe already by the time you're listening.

Matthew:

Thanks very much for joining us in the hammam again Kevin.

Kevin Hassall:

No, we're always delighted having a great time here. Always do. Happy to come back anytime. And

Dave:

Well, it's always a great great pleasure to chat to Kevin. He's a lovely lovely guy. And, you know, I wish him every every success, every luck with with his his his projects.

Matthew:

And I'll definitely be backing it. Yeah. I'm backing it for print as well.

Dave:

Yeah. I think yeah. I mean, if I if if I'm gonna back it, I'll definitely back it for print for sure. And it does sound like I mean, I've I didn't I particularly didn't feel the the the need to change the combat system. I think, you know, as a GM, I can make that work really well.

Matthew:

Yeah. Hang on. I love the combat system from the first time I read it.

Dave:

Yeah. No. That all sounds great, and there's gonna be lots of content in there. And, yeah. Good luck.

Dave:

And I yeah. I think I'm very much gonna very much gonna back that. Cool.

Matthew:

Cool.

Dave:

Right.

Matthew:

Next We've time gone on long enough.

Dave:

We have. Next time, you're gonna be on holiday.

Matthew:

Yes. Yes. I'm gonna be in sunny Cornwall. No. I'm not gonna be.

Matthew:

Obviously, we have had weeks and fucking weeks of boiling hot sunshine for the last couple of months, it feels to me. Yeah. So, obviously, that is all gonna break on the fifteenth of this month, August 15, when it will be raining solidly for exactly seven days while I'm in Cornwall by the beach. So that's my prediction. But what I'm predicting for what our content will be, given that I'm away on on when we'd normally be recording on the sixteenth and Yep.

Matthew:

Publishing on the seventeenth. I don't know what will be coming out.

Kevin Hassall:

I think I

Dave:

think we could probably do something. But it's Yeah. It might be a prerecorded thing which would be a bit shorter or but Yeah. We won't we won't deny you the joy of of our content, folks, just because Matthew's going on holiday in some form or another.

Matthew:

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll yeah. We can make it work, Dave.

Kevin Hassall:

We'll make

Matthew:

some always make it work.

Dave:

Yeah. Brilliant. Okay. Well, I think then, thank you for listening, guys, for this bumper episode, and it's goodbye from me.

Matthew:

And it's goodbye from him.

Kevin Hassall:

May the icons bless your adventures.

Creators and Guests

person
Host
Dave Semark
Dave is co-host and writer on the podcast, and part of the writing team at Free League - he created the Xenos for Alien RPG and as been editor and writer on a number of further Alien and Vaesen books, as well as writing the majority the upcoming Better Worlds book. He has also been the Year Zero Engine consultant on War Stories and wrote the War Stories campaign, Rendezvous with Destiny.
person
Host
Matthew Tyler-Jones
Matthew is co host of the podcast, as well as writer, producer, senior editor, designer and all round top dog. He was also been involved a couple of project for Free League - writing credits include Alien RPG, Vaesen: Mythic Britain and Ireland, and Vaesen: Seasons of Mystery as well as a number of Free League Workshop products.
Previously known as The Coriolis Effect Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License