Intensity
Hello, and welcome to episode 289 of Effect Intensity. I'm Matthew.
Dave:And I'm Dave. And today, we've got a slightly truncated episode for you folks. So apologies up front if we don't talk on for as long as we normally do. This time is
Matthew:This is because I'm actually on a beach in Cornwall.
Dave:This time, it's Matthew's fault, not mine. I'll I'll hasten to add because
Matthew:So it's such a rare occasion that it's my fault,
Dave:wasn't it? But I've Yeah, yes, I hate I hate to not to be able to deny that fact, frankly. So yes, you're forgiven, Matthew. It's okay. You're forgiven this time.
Dave:But yes, so we'll we're doing this episode a little early. So if there's any enormous news that comes out in the next seven days, then it won't be in the show. So we'll catch up on that the time after. But still, we've got a few bits and bobs to talk about today. So, we have some new patrons, which is delightful.
Dave:So we'll, run down run down who they are and thank them, for their help and support. World of gaming, we've got a few little bits to talk about there. And you may have guessed, or you may not have, but you may have guessed, being the intelligent listeners that you are because you listen to this podcast. The title Intensity is relevant to, your friend and ours, Dave Chapman's and Autocratic's RPD a day. So intensity is the subject for the day that this podcast will be going out, all things being equal.
Dave:And I think you've got a little you've got
Matthew:a bit celebrate that by making this a really intense and compact podcast.
Dave:Really intense podcast. I think we have to talk like we're about to die the whole
Matthew:time. Yes.
Dave:Or maybe that just sounds like we're both sat on the toilet. Not sure which one or the other. Maybe we won't do that. But, yeah, you've been doing a little bit of of stuff for RPG today to honor that, haven't you? So you're
Matthew:gonna Yeah. We can talk about that a little bit later, maybe after the world of gaming.
Dave:Yeah. That sounds fun. And then we unusually for us, we already have a topic of conversation for next time. So we will tell you about that at the end of the show.
Matthew:Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. So let's kick off with the first thing. Three, count them, three new patrons to thank.
Matthew:Now, I think all of these have already found their way to the Discord, but they may not be under the names that we're giving here.
Dave:Yes. That's one of the things I always find with Discord across the board, is that someone will message me and go, hey, Dave. Hey. How are doing? Lovely to see you a while ago.
Dave:And I've got no fucking clue who it is. Because it's their Discord name. Because it's their Discord name, and I've got no way of connecting that Discord name to their real name. Yeah. But, yeah.
Dave:I'm I'm I'm friendly anyway. It's gonna be somebody that is a friend, so
Matthew:Cool. It's always good to have a friend say hey. Absolutely. Is.
Dave:Oh, oh, God, yes. Absolutely.
Matthew:So let let's let's talk about them. I I think this is an order of joining. So this first one is somebody who just meet missed last week's show. I'm getting a shout out there. I remember Mhmm.
Matthew:They came in, I think, just as I was editing it, and I was going, oh, maybe I could just record a bit that says, thank you to Jonathan. But I thought, no. And that's Jonathan Brandenburg. So, thank you.
Dave:Thank you. Thank you.
Matthew:I think I have sent him a welcome message on the Patreon, but I haven't to the next two. The next one to join was Inc Chronicles.
Dave:Welcome.
Matthew:Who I think obviously, that's not their given name, but assuming it It is their given name could be mister thank you very much, Inc.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, it's a cool name if it is. It is. That would
Matthew:be a really cool name.
Dave:Mister and missus Chronicles. I mean, you the your children have to be called epic and Yes. Mega, that kind of thing. And then and then the one you don't like would be called slightly disappointing.
Matthew:Yeah. And maybe old grandpa chronicles is called ancient.
Dave:Someone's gotta be called chronicles now. This has just gotta
Matthew:be fun.
Dave:But, no, thank you so much for your support, and thank you for joining joining our little crowd.
Matthew:And finally, third, but by no means least, is Steve Scott. So I think joined oh, I have their joining dates up and I've Yeah, Steve joined a couple of
Dave:days ago.
Matthew:Quite recently, anyway, a couple of days ago, yeah.
Dave:Already got involved and started saying hello and yeah, to have you on board Steve, thanks. Thanks for your thanks for your patronage. And thanks to you all. And as always, thanks to everyone who currently supports us, has supported us in the past, and may support us in the future.
Matthew:We can't do this without you. We can't do this without you. And any extra money, apart from their their cost of running their the show and hosting it and all sort of that, that goes into the art for our books.
Dave:It does. Absolutely.
Matthew:In fact, with with the last month's income, I paid a deposit on one of the pieces of artwork we've already seen. Generally, share the artwork and work in progress on the Discord as as it goes on. I've got another piece actually a bit on the Discord later, so you can see, you know, effectively what you're supporting as as we produce art, which currently, we are building up the art what's word I'm looking for? Assets. Art assets for for Gold Country.
Dave:We are.
Matthew:But more on that in some later episode. Now other movement on Gold Country at the moment to report on in Old West News this week.
Dave:Yeah. And the situation with that is as it was that as people will now know, I am leaving my day job. I will be finishing that at the end of this month, and then I am full time working on effect publishing products. Number one product on that list is The Gold Country. So that's we will be progressing that very soon and focusing all our efforts on getting that right.
Matthew:I am, of course, already progressing The Gold Country. I'm writing reams of stuff that Dave is gonna just disagree with when he finally gets out of reading it.
Dave:But Yeah. Exactly.
Matthew:There we go. So where are we? I think it must be time now
Dave:for Of gaming.
Matthew:World of gaming. Woo.
Dave:I just just made me think. Should we have, like, sound effects? Should there be a jingle that we play when world of gaming comes on? You know?
Matthew:Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I've got here I I record on the the device that we were recording yesterday's session on. Yeah. And that's you may have noticed it's got, like, nine blue buttons on it.
Matthew:And you may have wondered, what are those big blue buttons for? They are for sound effects. So we could do that that thing. I mean, I don't know. Let's just press one now and see what happens.
Matthew:Oh, no. Hold on.
Dave:You're gonna
Matthew:That's more complicated. Alright.
Dave:Yeah. No. Hold on. Don't spoil the recording by pressing buttons that you don't know what they do, mate.
Matthew:I'm gonna try it. Not hearing anything there.
Dave:Turn that one off. Maybe we experiment when we're not in the middle of recording an episode.
Matthew:Oh, I just thought it'd be fun. But anyway, we'll we'll we'll press some buttons and find out what they do at some later stage. And maybe
Dave:It's just just be all It was just the way you presented the line there. It just sounded like there should be a or something, you know. Some kind of Yeah. Some kind of jingle. But that's the first And
Matthew:we could have, like, a crowd clapping every patron as we thank them as We could.
Dave:We absolutely could. Yeah. I mean, it's only
Matthew:But then
Dave:it's only taken us 289 episodes to go, oh, how about side effects?
Matthew:Well, that's what I was gonna say is we've built an audience over 289 episodes of not doing that. And so if we suddenly start doing it, maybe
Dave:we'll lose
Matthew:that audience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Yeah. Maybe we should do like
Matthew:a We'll treat it with caution.
Dave:Yeah. Do a little a little survey. Everyone, if you would like sound effects, let us know. If you would rather not have sound effects, let us know that too.
Matthew:I But yeah. I did I did at some point want to get a little stings of gunshots and things like that that we could put in our old West games as we were playing them, but I never did that. Okay. But I think somewhere on my computer, I've downloaded a few gunshot effects.
Dave:There must be thousands of different effects out there. We could we could
Matthew:do Well, surprisingly surprisingly few I felt that seemed, shall we say, very similitudinous to the eighteen seventies. Quite a lot of modern guns and things like that, but I think they sound very different. Anyway, that is an entirely different topic. Maybe.
Dave:Many years ago though, and interestingly, this is just this conversation just reminded me of something. Many years ago, when I was but a wee young
Matthew:Remember, this was gonna be a short.
Dave:I know, but it's fine. We've
Matthew:got Episode.
Dave:We've got, you know, we've got we've got content to fill, pal. Let let me let me let me let me go.
Matthew:Carry on. Carry on, Dave. Tell me your anecdote of many years ago.
Dave:I had a a an LP record of I'm not sure what. It was something like like a doctor who episode or something on it. But on the other side, it was sound effects from the the the BBC's what do they call it? The Radiophonic workshop. Radiophonic workshop.
Dave:Yeah. And that had all sorts of, like, laser blasts and explosions and stuff.
Matthew:I had a whole a whole album, both sides of which were those special effects. I don't know whether I've still got it somewhere. Yeah. I might have to.
Dave:I certainly don't have a I don't I didn't I haven't kept any of my what was a very small collection of vinyl vinyl from back in the day. But, yeah. No. It was it's interesting. I mean,
Matthew:it was all mostly TARDIS takes off, TARDIS lands.
Dave:That kind of yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. All those Yeah. Sorts of
Dave:But it was cool, though. It was good.
Matthew:It was It was good. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Right.
Matthew:Is the anecdote finished now, Dave?
Dave:Yes. It's over.
Matthew:Okay. Good boy.
Dave:Good good boy. Throw me a treat.
Matthew:Get off my get off my calf.
Dave:The calf isn't that good looking, mate.
Matthew:Oh, it is, though. No. It is. It is. Is.
Matthew:Best feature.
Dave:Anyway, let's move on to the world of gaming quickly.
Matthew:Right. So in the last episode, we talked about we highlighted some of the Gencom winners, the the Ennis Awards winners. But I think it's worth just saying that GenCon had its largest ever gaming convention this year, 74,000 attendees.
Dave:Individual attendees?
Matthew:Individual attendees. Yeah. About 200 turnstile, which is to say, of those 74,000, a bunch of them turned up every day, Yeah. As it So, count it three times. Now, we still think it's only the second largest gaming convention after Essence Spiel, because Spiel it doesn't actually ever say what its individual attendees are.
Matthew:Yeah. But it had 22, 220,000 Yeah. And a lot more exhibitors. But an interesting thing I spotted was that UK Games Expo has actually got about a 100 more exhibitors than
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Than GenCon. Yeah. We've got 900 exhibitors, I think, in UK Games Expo. Yeah. And they have 800 at GenCon.
Dave:Okay. That's really interesting. Because, yeah, I can't I can't always think, never having been to GenCon, that GenCon is this massive thing that is so much bigger than anything we do over here. And actually, even on those figures, the well, again, it's firstly, it's interesting, and it's good news, really good news, that it has been the biggest year for GenCon because it was also the biggest year for UK Games Expo this year as well, which is great. So that just shows that the entire community and the hobby is is expanding really nicely, which is which is brilliant.
Dave:Yeah. But UK Games Expo wasn't that far behind, at least in No. Unique attendees. They had nearly, you know, a little bit over 51,000 individual arrivals, which is only 20,000 below Gencom, which is closer than I kind of thought. I'd have I'd have assumed Gencom was bigger than that.
Matthew:Although Twice the size or something.
Dave:Although the
Matthew:That would be the natural assumption.
Dave:Yeah. The turnstile, though, is quite a bit low. It's about 90,000. So not so many of those came for every single day. So that led there's
Matthew:And I think there's a Yeah. You know, I think a lot of a lot of people will come for a day. Birmingham's a relatively central location where people can come for a day. Yes. And frankly, the hotel fees in Birmingham
Dave:Are extortionable.
Matthew:I'm convinced.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Book people off. But I don't imagine it's much cheaper to get accommodation at Gencon.
Dave:Oh, What I've what I've heard is it's awful. You know, probably worse for Gencon than it is for us. But like you say, people coming to Gencon probably come from further away. So they so they kind of have to commit to coming for the weekends.
Matthew:Yeah. And if they're going to pay for the accommodation, they might as well turn up all three days of the of the Yeah.
Dave:But I was but I was interested just to see that UK Games Expo, at least on the unique, individual attendees, isn't that far behind Gencon, which
Matthew:is which is
Dave:again, it's all great. It's all good stuff. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. So, yeah, that's and, you know, and again, GenCon might well have suffered this year because, you know, from from The UK community, a bunch of exhibitors had said I'm not going to go this year because of immigration
Dave:issues So and the
Matthew:the fact that they were still the biggest surely does show the industry in robust
Dave:Yes, which again is brilliant for all of us, isn't it?
Matthew:Yeah. I haven't got much other news. Oh, we've mentioned it before when it was first announced And of course, it has some relevance to people who may have, for example, have, I don't know, written the Space Truckers supplement for Alien. But Cluster Truck, the amusingly named
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:Traveler supplement is now out in print, and I thought we should mention that again.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I've I've not not seen any of it, so I mean, I haven't bought it. I'm not going to buy it.
Matthew:We'll have to rely on Andy to actually read it for us.
Dave:So I think it's I I have a I have a I have an issue with the title. Because as as as much as the title is is funny
Matthew:Amuses us.
Dave:And it's an amusing title. The, you know, the the, you know, the title is the the billboard, the banner for your book, and about what your book is about. So is it saying that basically this isn't this is this isn't a serious role playing game? This is a role playing game where you're, you know, the vibe is going to be convoy, where you're going when you spend your time just going, hey, good good fellow, a rubber duck coming down the road to squeaky mouse or something.
Matthew:Yeah. Except for the American accent.
Dave:Well, that's that that's fine. That's fine. Or, you know, or is this intended to be a game where you can have some have some serious and actually interesting insights into what it would be like to be a space trucker? So I I suspect it's a very good product. If I was in editorial control, I wouldn't have called it ClusterTruck, personally.
Matthew:Oh, yes. So I I can tell you what's going on in here. You will have the chance to steal potatoes, get covered in frozen beer in deep space, possibly uncover corporate skullduggery. I think that's a given for any science fiction game, isn't it? Decide whether to join in with a history making riot, and see an opportunity to smash a blockade while outflying law enforcement.
Dave:Yeah. It it does say here, inspired by late seventies and nineteen eighties trucker movies. So maybe that is the vibe they're going for. Yeah. Which is fine.
Dave:If that's what they wanna do, that's their that's their choice. Personally, you know, I don't see Traveller as a game where you are in it for the humor. You're in it for the, you know, the excitement, the wonder, the sci fi, all the rest
Matthew:of it. You're such a humorless fucker, I'm
Dave:not. You know I'm not. But for a role playing game, I think I think I take my role playing seriously, and I want to make the character a serious not a serious character, but you know, create my character with kind of the respect that it's more than just a comic, avatar for something else.
Matthew:Yes. Just like Father Bellows from
Dave:Hey. I didn't say I wasn't a hypocrite, mate. No. You don't. But actually, I do I father Bellows so the history of father Bellows is I didn't really I've never played Solomon Kane, didn't really get what it was gonna be.
Dave:So when we first started playing that, I was a bit meh about the whole thing. I wasn't sure I was gonna even really want to And it wasn't something that I would have chosen. So made this character, you know, corrupt priest, all the rest of it. Gave his him the name from Friar Bellows from from the Blackadder, and we've had a lot of fun with that, obviously.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Dave:But actually, now I really care about the character. And, yes, there's a lot of humor that doesn't make a podcast.
Matthew:And, yes, doesn't make the podcast because we expressly said we weren't gonna record that one because
Dave:For for reasons.
Matthew:It's a problematic
Dave:It's it's an adult. It's a it's a very adult program, that one. And it's Yeah.
Matthew:It's a very problematic history. And, you know, I think I I agree. They've recently done a second edition from a French publisher of License Test and translated it. But have done an English version as well. And they haven't changed.
Matthew:They haven't fixed some of the stuff that we've always pointed out is problematic about the storyline. Yeah. Like Jingoistic. Yes. For example.
Matthew:Yeah, yeah. And I think there was an opportunity to fix it and they didn't fix it. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't say we're not enjoying the game.
Matthew:We're gonna be playing it next time we get together.
Dave:My my point is though, now that character, I actually care about that character. And the backstory, even though it started out as a bit frivolous because I didn't really know what we were getting into, the backstory is actually a really interesting one of a corrupt preacher who's got a lot of bad shit going on with him. He's a bad man.
Matthew:Bad bad man.
Dave:But there are things that he's trying to do well, like saving Ravenna, who is one of the sort of enemy women that we've been fighting. Trying to redeem her.
Matthew:Oh, redeem her. I thought you were just, you know Yeah. Saving a bad character to do carry on doing that.
Dave:No. No. No. You know the story. The whole thing has been up before Yeah.
Matthew:I know the story. Yeah.
Dave:To get her to come to our side. And that's been great. So so, yes, that character started out a bit frivolously. But actually, the story behind Father Bellows is actually now a really serious is the wrong word. A really it's it's a story I take seriously, I think, is the way I'd describe it.
Dave:Cool. And I will be you know, his his eventual death, which is probably gonna happen, you know, at some point, will be a a a sad moment for me in the in that character because I because I really care about the character now. It's not just Yeah. A fat priest from a nineteen seventies sitcom leering over women in short skirts. You know?
Matthew:It mostly is, but it isn't just that. I have to say, your death will be not a sad moment for me.
Dave:Well, your death won't be a sad moment for me either, because our characters don't really get on, do they, terribly well? But no, I think I think I think my point is, it kind of started out as a as a Benny Hill pastiche kind of silly little fat preacher running after women. But it's moved on to actually a much more serious kind of story behind that. So, again, a story I take seriously rather than one I look at as as comic comic distraction, whatever the word it's not the right word I'm looking for, but
Matthew:Shall we move on?
Dave:That was quite a long
Matthew:Yeah. Pass me up that shovel, and then you can climb out of the hole.
Dave:Well, it was a long defense of you saying,
Matthew:oh,
Dave:hang on. But what about father bullows? But yeah.
Matthew:I think that might be the end of the world of gaming. Only a couple of items in in today's world. But we seem to have talked about it for, you know, good part of twenty odd minutes. So well done, us.
Dave:Never yeah. Never knowingly under loquacious. I think I've said something like that before.
Matthew:Yeah. Your talk of creating a character for a game you didn't think was gonna enjoy is actually quite a nice segue into what I've been doing for RPG a day, which you will find on our Blue Sky channel. We're not putting it anywhere else. I'm not copying it across to to Facebook, for example. Because frankly, I can't be bothered.
Matthew:It's hard enough work trying to do something every day. So it's only on Blue Sky, and it is as temporary as that. I mean, I think it hangs around on Blue Sky for years. So but what I thought, I was inspired actually by a creator and, if you like, cohost with with, Runeslinger, of the annual, RPG a day thing. And if you've not heard of RPG a day, it exists in social media.
Matthew:It's a hashtag RPG a day. And the idea is that to celebrate and also to commiserate that we're not at Shencon Mhmm. For the month of August, we talk positively about RPGs in some way. There are prompts given out, which used to, the early days, used to be first RPG bought, you know, last RPG bought and stuff like that. But those answers might turn out to get a bit samey every year.
Matthew:Yeah. So now it's a one word prompt. Hence, our title today, Intensity. And but also, you don't particularly need to use it. I I wasn't gonna bother.
Matthew:But, Free League sent us, Invincible in the post as a sort of sample copy for us to have a look at. And Dave Chapman, the creator, just getting back to the sentence I started, well, five minutes ago. Clay Chapman inspired me by saying he was gonna create a character in his first episode. I thought actually I could I've got a bunch of games that either I have bought or we've been sent that we haven't played. I haven't played specifically.
Matthew:So I might well have looked at them, reviewed them, but not done anything with them. I ought to maybe try and create a character every day for each one of these games. And the first one which would be oh, and this this this is the real inspiration on Dave Chapman's part. In that his first prompt was discipline, and I thought, I could create a superhero who would fit in the invisibles sorry, invincible world, but also fit a little bit in martial law, the comic from Kevin O'Neil and Pat Mills some years ago, called Corporal Discipline. Funny pun there, particularly if you're an English schoolboy from the eighties.
Matthew:So, anyway. So, corporal discipline would be it. And I I sat down with the Invisibles rule book and started creating character. Now, one of the things that really interested me this is a key point about Invisibles and Year Zero games, because we are a Year Zero podcast. I think this is probably the longest character creation process Mhmm.
Matthew:That I've ever gone through in any Year Zero game. Okay. Yeah.
Dave:I haven't looked at it in any detail yet, but it did it did look like there was a hell of a lot of stuff to look through, particularly with things like powers and and some So some I didn't I I was glancing through it, and I I I I got turned off reading through the powers, because it looked like a lot of text.
Matthew:Yeah. Now, we will return to this topic of getting turned off by a lot of text in a few moments, because another game definitely did that. And I think, you know well, we'll wait. But, yeah, I think that's one of the things. When you when you then get into the move of you know, I've we've got talents and powers in this game.
Matthew:And I I kind of wonder whether one, you know, one thing should have been called the other or something. So you've got your powers, you've got your talents, you've gotta choose those. There is a method of kind of archetype character creation that would limit those choices. So you only have to look at a few. A little bit like one does by default really.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:With the alien, until you created the life path generation system. I would love to see a kind of life path generation system for superheroes. The last one that came a tool close to that was, of course, Golden Heroes, which was our favourite game from the eighties in superheroic mode.
Dave:Yeah. Yep.
Matthew:But, yeah, it took it took time. It took longer than I was expecting. And that kind of interest me. But in the end, I came up with a character. I really want to play Invincible now so that I can use corporal She so first of all, when I first imagined corporal
Dave:discipline, That's a new thought she, didn't it?
Matthew:Well, maybe. Maybe. I don't know.
Dave:But Are you imagining her dressed like a dominatrix?
Matthew:Well, obviously, yes.
Dave:I think this says a lot more about you than about anything else, Matt.
Matthew:Yeah. Well, no. This is fine. But but, you know, but I did first of all, I was imagining them being a, you know, sort of sub Captain America. So very much in a military stance.
Matthew:Yeah. And and then and there's an option, you know, there's a kind of what are your superheroic origins thing. I I can't remember exactly what it's called, but look at it on the on the blue sky if you wanna know the details. Uh-huh. And there there is one that's a kind of, you know, military experiment or something.
Matthew:But then I thought, no. Actually, I don't well, no. Actually, the first thing was what level is this superhero game at? So a little bit like in the Spectacular where we're playing Streetlight Knights right now as opposed to Cosmic Heroes, the group gets together and says this campaign is gonna be, you know, low level or, you know, intergalactic. And so then I realized that Street Light Nights so if I'd gone for the military one, I'd have chosen the global guardians level, I think they call it.
Matthew:Right. But actually, suddenly dawned on me that, no, this should be a super powered sex worker defending the downtrodden of, you know, the part of town where all the sex workers hang out.
Dave:Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna take a I'm gonna take a punt here. She's she's armed with a whip, isn't she?
Matthew:Not a very big punt, is it? No. I I I so
Dave:So that'll be yes.
Matthew:You don't necessarily need to be specific, but there is a power I think I've got called strike, which is, you know, does extra damage from a weapon of some sort. Right. Yeah. And probably, yes, it is a whip. But, actually, I thought, no.
Matthew:Maybe it could be any variety of sex toys. And and and, in fact, I think the thing is her uniform she probably doesn't have a uniform that she wears every day. I think she probably dresses differently every day, but there is gonna be a lot of leather and straps and stuff like that. And so anyway but I really enjoyed creating the character, and I really wanna play it now. And that is true for a number of the characters I created.
Matthew:And I'm just gonna quickly whiz through I created a walk sorry. Pirate ball character.
Dave:Quick question on the Invincible though. So you you said it it took a long time. Did that kind of spoil the the the, you know, the the enjoyment of creating the character? Did it end up feeling like a slog?
Matthew:Well, here we here we come to, no, not quite, but it was on the verge of being a slog. But
Dave:it was
Matthew:a thoroughly enjoyable slog.
Dave:Right. Okay. Cool.
Matthew:I'm gonna cut forward a couple of days actually to then when I did the same for the laundry files.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. So the laundry files starts off with a big question. Choose your assignment. Now here, I don't know how many powers we've got, but it didn't it didn't it didn't feel an effort reading through enough powers to get an idea of what I wanted to be. And I don't, you know, I kind of already built up the sort of character I was, so I knew what I was looking for.
Matthew:But this is the first thing. Choose your assignment. And your assignment is kind of like a character class. It it does a lot of the work for you. So once you've got your assignment, you've got stats and all sorts of things and make choices.
Matthew:So after you've done that, relatively easy to to figure out. But there are 27 assignments spread across nine departments. And this is a civil service thing. And Dave, you know what the civil service is like, how bureaucratic it is. And the whole point of the novel so The Laundry Files are a set of novels by Charles Strauss, is you're you're kind of fighting Cthulhu, but within the confines of a hidebound bureaucratic red tape ridden civil service.
Matthew:Yeah. And, you know, sometimes the enemy is the red tape or or or even, shall we say, weaponized web tape by by various factions within there. I am gonna posit, Dave, that you would not enjoy playing this game because it would feel too much like your previous life. And I know that because this is the one game that I I kind of noped out of by the time I, you know, I I I didn't even quite finish character creation because once you've read all this stuff about all these mildly different assignments, which Yeah. May be kind of hilarious to read if you've been if you knew what the novels were or, you know, you might have gone, oh, I want to play a character like Bert out of x novel.
Matthew:I think, you know, he was a little,
Dave:you know Yeah. And these are the assignments I can recognize from the books kind
Matthew:of thing. There's a lot of I'm sure there's a lot there that you'll know what's going on well. But coming to coming at it new, without having read any of the novels, there was a lot of homework there. I had to take a break. So I didn't with with with Invisible Invincible, I, you know, I I didn't stop.
Matthew:I started sitting on the deck chair in the in the the shade of the evening sun, and I finished. With with this one, I went, ooink. I've gotta go away and read this. And then, you know, an hour or two later
Dave:Is there also an an element of just your interest? Would is would would your interest be slightly higher in an Invincible game than it would be in a Laundry Files game anyway? So is there a thing there that actually you were more excited to to create an Invincible character than you were to create a Laundry Files character? That and that might have influenced your experience.
Matthew:I'm gonna say no.
Dave:Okay. Cool.
Matthew:I'm I'm going to say because I'd already kind of noped out of Invincibles, and actually, the character creations made me want to go back and play it. Yeah. But I'd already we'd we'd we'd done I played in I think it was rather than Ash's game, and I it was fine. I I haven't got much against the game system. It's, you know, year zero after all, and we're year zero shill.
Matthew:So Mhmm. But I much prefer Spectaculars, which we played yesterday. And in fact, here's an interesting topic, still about character creation, that we'll come onto in a moment. Remind me to mention Spectaculars and team roles. Yes.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. That's
Dave:that's that's cool.
Matthew:So I'd already noped out of Invincible's no intention of playing it until I made that character and thought I'd like now to play this in a world.
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:And I would argue that the the setup of The Laundry Files is not too dissimilar from Rivers of London, which is another game that I've not played. But I've actually already created a character, you won't see a rivers of rivers of London character. I think I even blogged it somewhere.
Dave:Yeah. Because you're you're a river rivers of London fan, aren't you? So Yeah. From the book.
Matthew:So you but those two those two genres are pretty familiar. One feels one, you know, one could say, oh, I'm boycotting Chaosium for some reason, so I'll play the laundry files instead. Right. But I'm gonna do a Rivers of London style story with it. Yeah.
Matthew:But no. No. Definitely not. And and there's a point towards the end where and actually, I couldn't really do this anyway, because it's then having created your character, you and the other players get together and decide what your team is and your team's KPIs. But that that's
Dave:It it actually it actually has KPIs.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. And
Dave:Yeah. You're absolutely right. I'm not sure I'd enjoy that game. Be be like PTSD flashbacks.
Matthew:Exactly. Exactly. That is the point where I go, I I've just come out of a four year contract with KPIs. And, you know, even though that that was a contract where luckily I was in the position of building the software that was going to measure the KPIs that other people were doing, but still. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. I don't want to talk about fucking KPIs.
Dave:Exactly. Yeah.
Matthew:So, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I really totally nept out of that. Now, Dave Chapman, I have to apologize here because you set up this thing to be positive about RPGs. And I think I failed on this one.
Matthew:And the worst thing, Dave, is this is an RPG you wrote.
Dave:I'm known.
Matthew:Please forgive me. Not you, Dave. Dave Semark.
Dave:I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Oh, dear.
Matthew:So but it is it it may be for a whole bunch of people. I'm sure it'll be really popular with fans of the novels, but it it I noped out on it. And I think, Dave Semark, you you would nop out on it too. Yeah.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:Yeah. Okay. So there's that. Let let's cut back to actually Invincibles and Spectaculars. One of the things you have to decide in the early stages is what your team role is going to be.
Matthew:And, obviously, that then is a bit of a discussion with everybody in your team. I hypothesized that I might actually be a street level kind of leader just just for the sake of it. Doesn't have much mechanical effect, but it's a thing that is decided at the beginning of campaign. And as far as I can see, I haven't read all the rules, that's it. Right.
Matthew:Your that's your team role forever. Now one of the things I really love, and I think it shone through in yesterday's game in particular, is the fact that at the beginning of every session, you each draw a random team role.
Dave:We're now talking about spectaculars, just to be clear. Yes. Yeah. And this is something I particularly like about it as well. Yeah.
Dave:So go on.
Matthew:Yeah. So you you draw you you draw a team role, and that is not so much about I mean, you know, the team role could well be leader or whatever, but it's how you're portrayed in this particular issue of the comic. Yeah. So, you know, the if you like an analogy with the Avengers, very often they're they will elect a new leader. It'll be Iron Man Captain America or the Wasp or something like that.
Matthew:And that, that goes in for a few issues. But this isn't really about the leader of the team when you get the leader team role, but rather within this story, who takes that leadership team role? Or in this particular case, none of you were leaders, were boosters and things like that. And it kind of gives you extra abilities, extra mechanical effects that you then have to work out how to use for the best in the adventure. And it really shapes, you know, at the end of the day, superhero role playing games are often about big fights.
Matthew:And it shapes that fight and makes every fight different. And, and yesterday's scenario is kind of interesting because it was shaping a fight that wasn't really a fight at all. It was a chase. But it it did a very good job of that. I've got to I think we all enjoyed it.
Matthew:Could have been, I feel, in under many rule system, that could have been a dreadfully boring thing. But this was, you know, the scenario was set up around this station and worked really well. Yeah. It was And I
Dave:loved It was kind of very much a mobile fight, wasn't it? So it was
Matthew:a Yeah.
Dave:The objective was to capture one of the people who was trying to escape us. But, you know, in that process, all their minions and the the, you know, the minor villains who are helping him were there trying to stop us and fight us and divert us. Coming back to the roles, I I on on the one I I love them. First thing I'll say is I I absolutely I think they work really well in Spectaculars. You could criticize them by saying, you know, it's random, and therefore it forces you into a certain way of playing.
Dave:But, actually, I haven't felt that at all. It's always been it's been really interesting to take the role and see how my character's powers and abilities can be shaped through that role. So yesterday was a really good example. So one of my one of my abilities is or from my background, if I save an innocent person or stop damage happening to, like, the local environment, Rather than gaining one hero point for that, I gained two because that's that's my my background is protecting my
Matthew:And we should say hero points are a bit of the currency for activating powers and stunts and
Dave:Yeah. And giving you bonus giving you bonuses to succeed, that kind of stuff. But my power yesterday was controller, and the only thing that powered my my role yesterday was controller. The only thing that allowed me to do no. Actually, no.
Dave:That's gonna hang on. It wasn't it wasn't the power. I'm getting confused. What did controller let me do?
Matthew:Oh, now you're gonna make me open up the box with the controller card out. So I was using
Dave:I was using this as an example of how the ball
Matthew:was really gone. Not Did allow you to give hero points to other team members if you're within if you're able to communicate?
Dave:No. That's my inspiring presence.
Matthew:Oh, that's inspiring.
Dave:Yeah. So that's so I'm getting so I'm getting myself confused. So another
Matthew:going away from the mic now.
Dave:Yeah. No. That's fine. I'll finish off this point while you're finding the box. But no.
Dave:So I'm getting confused. But this is another really good thing about Spectaculars, is that I have another ability called Inspiring Presence that I earned through effectively through experience. And that allows me to give my hero points to other players. So I was using those two abilities to generate hero points when I was rescuing people who were in danger, and then using my inspiring process to pass those hero points, because I earn them more quickly than the other players do, to them, to then use and and manage. And that little combination of abilities was really, really cool.
Dave:Yeah. I can't remember. What was what was a controller?
Matthew:It's a controller is not a hold on. I'm coming back to the table now. A controller is not a talent a a thing you use at all. In that when you hit somebody, you can spend a hit
Dave:at point
Matthew:to have two challenge days. Which, actually, there wasn't there wasn't anybody clobbable enough generally No. To apply that to. No. Cause it was mostly minions and one minor villain.
Matthew:Yeah. So as You know, it wasn't a slugfest.
Dave:So as an example of how good the roles are, this entire last five minutes was completely irrelevant. But but the control the roles are really good because I get, you know, you get different ones and then you can look at them and see how you can how you can apply that. So like I said yesterday, if we'd been up against a big main villain and we were having a big slugfest to defeat him, that that that role for me would have been really useful because I could stand off and attack him from distance and then use that use that controller ability to really enhance the party's opportunities. So, yeah, but it's great. I mean, I I I've said before, I've I've had moments where I've criticised Spectaculars because we talked a bit about it yesterday, where where the game sort of demands you do things in a certain way to complete the complications, where there are other ways of doing that, and it would kind of make general sense if doing the other action, if you chose to, which is something that I was doing in one game, would help you progress that complication.
Dave:You were ruling that it didn't. It just felt a bit odd, bit it felt a bit off. But actually, yesterday's session was super. It was so good. It really felt like I was in the middle of a superhero comic or a superhero movie as we were, you know, Tony was, like, chasing them along the ground.
Dave:I was flying one side to try and get ahead of them. Andy was leaping from building to building on the other side to try and get ahead of them whilst we were being shot at and whilst people were needing rescuing. And it was brilliant. And the the final ending of it was just great. Yeah.
Dave:It was it was super. I I yeah. I really, really enjoyed yesterday's session.
Matthew:And what I liked about that, you know, the the it it is kind of very board game y, I think it's fair to say, and so It sometimes it
Dave:can be a little bit, but I think I'll defend it against that charge, because yesterday absolutely didn't feel board game y at all.
Matthew:No. So that was this is that's what I was about to say is, here, the board game yness worked so well. So this is meant to be a chase. It could have climaxed in a in in the villain getting to the airport and getting on the plane and flying off and you having to, you know, maybe fly after the plane and Yeah. Have a fight there.
Matthew:It could have gone that far, but it didn't force it it didn't make the chase require, you know, require the villain to escape at every stage so that you could have that scene. It had enough action at every every one of, if you like, three or four stages of this chase to make a climactic scene
Dave:Yeah.
Matthew:That worked Yeah. Very well.
Dave:A We bit about that yesterday, and I'm sure everybody listening has been in a game where you've been chasing down the big bad or, you know, an important NPC that the GM has decided has got to escape. And they then it becomes apparent during the chase that there's no way of capturing the guy that you're after. So your agency is gone, and it spoils that moment. Now I thought initially with this, when we so we had the guy on foot to begin with, because we're basically we're raiding his house to capture him. He he got out just before we arrived.
Dave:He was running away on foot, and then was running away in a car. And so when he got to the point we were just about to catch him, and he got in the car and started driving off, and he kind of reset the chase clock. And for a moment, it I kind of thought, oh, will we will we never get to catch him? You know, did the game did the game say you cannot catch him? But it turned out we didn't get enough successes in that in that stretch
Matthew:of You got two the piece of the chase today.
Dave:So we had the opportunity to catch him. If we'd done things slightly differently, or have been more successful, we would have caught him in that session. And that's absolutely fine. As soon as I realised that that was how the chase was working, that Oh, God. We can't catch him till he gets to the important, like, final scene where it's really spectacular.
Dave:But actually, we could because we caught him before just before he got to the airport. And it was great. Yeah. And then and it felt like the outcome of that chase was in our hands and in the hands of the dice, which is exactly how it should be, and it was brilliant.
Matthew:And the other thing, I'm just gonna say, there's a thing so superhero role playing, often the rules are around a fight, and they don't do the social bit of the of the, you know, there's a lot of drama in comics that kinda gets missed out on in the games because everybody's, you know, you can put numbers on a fight and gamers have historically been reluctant to put numbers and dice rolls on the drama. It's not impossible. I think we do it very well in Tales of the West. Yeah. And there's games like Masks, which is a PBTA game, and therefore, PBGA games are all about the drama.
Matthew:I'm not sure how well Invisible's sorry. Invincible. Invisible. Does it? Yeah.
Matthew:This is me wanting to do an Invisible's licensed RPG, actually.
Dave:Can Invincible.
Matthew:No. In I want to do an Invisible's licensed RPG. That's a whole different thing.
Dave:Right.
Matthew:I think what me having trouble with the word is because I think in my heart of hearts, that that's the thing I'm I'm thinking about. Anyway, Invincible, I'm not sure how well that does the social stuff. I know it makes an attempt at it. But historically, Felix Yazira games haven't haven't really done that well enough for my liking. Mhmm.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. But one one of the thing the way they do it in Spectacular is they have interludes. And I think you as players have really struggled around the concept of interludes. But you did a cork of an interlude yesterday, which was Oh, good.
Matthew:The adventure yesterday was set in Monaco in the nineteen eighties. For reasons, they had to get a boat into Monaco because Monaco is a crime ridden, well protected, sort of.
Dave:Like, yeah, organized crime haven haven, pretty much, this Yeah. In this
Matthew:Yeah. So they were going in by boat, and we we slightly retrofitted this because it felt so good. Your character is a Russian superhero who has based himself on the Jedi from Star Wars.
Dave:He's called he's called the Skywalker.
Matthew:Yeah. And we realized he's a he's a Star Wars fan, you know. So that's why he calls himself the Skywalker. We realized that this at the time that this this issue was happening, they were possibly filming Return of the Jedi in Tunisia. And so, given that one of the other characters, Dave's Tony's character is a stuntman, You thought, wouldn't it be a great opportunity for my character to go and and kinda gatecrash the filming and maybe even get a bit part in the background role in it?
Matthew:And particularly get photos, which then they use as a way into one of the criminals that they wanted to get information from. Yeah. So it all fitted. It was all part of the story, but it was a great scene, you know, building on your character, giving Tony's stuntman ability, his his background, something that he can work with. It was hilarious.
Matthew:It was it
Dave:was great. Was the most important roles of that entire day. This is quite early on in the day as well. Were the ones that allowed Tony to blank his way in as as a stuntman. And bring you with him, of course.
Dave:Having known like, knowing the stunt coordinator who's there or something. And then me making it all to be able to blag getting on as an extra and getting a photo with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.
Matthew:Yeah. And then using that photo, that signed photo not signed photo, but
Dave:But yeah.
Matthew:Because but wait. Because you had to get it then a one hour print.
Dave:In Monaco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:In Monaco. But having those photos to then getting it in with with one of the minor
Dave:Criminal. Wealthy people. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:To to find the guy we were looking for. It all it all worked very well. I loved it. It's great. Whole thing, from that scene, I can see being drawn by Denny O'Neil or something in in a comic in the actual eighties.
Matthew:And and the and then the chase scene at the end. It was all yeah. Great. Yeah. So
Dave:It was brilliant. Yeah.
Matthew:So that's a set of where I think the rule set works really well at recreating the genre. Where are we at? We've talked now
Dave:A lot longer than
Matthew:we were
Dave:going to. Yeah. I know.
Matthew:Which is great.
Dave:Yeah. Well, I think, you know, we're probably we're probably at the end of our end of our menu
Matthew:for No. I've got two more characters I need to tell you about.
Dave:Have you? Okay then. Come on. Let's get on with it.
Matthew:Come on. Other characters I've created are so again, this is so in Invincible, I created a character and I really want to play the game and do the character. That has also happened one more time at least with Dragonbane.
Dave:Okay.
Matthew:I've never played in Dragonbane. I've never created a character for Dragon. Oh, no. Have played. You did.
Matthew:Yeah. You played
Dave:the yeah. Paul did a game for us, didn't he?
Matthew:Yeah. And also Magnus did a game for us, but with pre gens. I've never created a character in Dragonbane. So I created a character in Dragonbane. I used the expanded bestiary characters.
Matthew:So I the the title of that one was something about stature on that day. And so I thought, either I can be a halfling of small stature Uh-huh. Yeah. Or I can use one of the the ogre kin from the bestiary and play that as a playable character. So I created an ogre.
Matthew:I thought, this might feel a bit too much like Cup Boy Pop Boy, I mean, from Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:That was a that was a good character. I
Matthew:I loved I loved Pop Boy. One
Dave:of Yeah.
Matthew:Absolutely the best for an audio only podcast as well.
Dave:Yeah. So he didn't talk very much.
Matthew:Didn't talk at all. Didn't talk at all.
Dave:Yeah. It was brilliant. Me, Tony, and Andy, they fucking loved it. You know? Like, shut you up for two hours.
Dave:It was brilliant. Yeah.
Matthew:Well, you pleaded with me to just say things sometimes.
Dave:I know. I know. I know. It was it was very good though. Yeah.
Matthew:And he was an Edgar whose main attack was a hard stare as well, I quite like. Yeah. Yeah. How flexible the rules in Symbrium. But I was worried that this might be the same.
Matthew:But no. I created a and I've gotta say, get this in the right order. I created a character called, I think, Borg or Bug, b o r g. That was just one of the random name offer things you had. And then I realized I I I started off rolling randomly what my thing were gonna be, and it became it was gonna be a magic user of some sort.
Matthew:And so we've got the new book of magic. So obviously, you gotta choose one of the new schools. I chose one the schools and then bit way through the process, realized that actually that school's technically not available to magic users. If you're a starting character with it, you have to be a bard. So I thought, sorry, I'll be a bard.
Matthew:Then I realized I was gonna be called Board the Barg.
Dave:That sealed it then.
Matthew:Yeah, that sealed it. Absolutely. And, you know, there's enough scope there. They talk about so you've got various bardic music powers, but the instrument you play doesn't need to be a fiddle or anything. So I realized he's probably a throat singer, like a throat Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Cool. So I wanna I wanna I really wanna play him in the game now. I I loved him. Another character that I loved but didn't I don't particularly I mean, I I really do actually wanna play Pirate Borg, but I already wanted to do that.
Matthew:So it didn't change my mind on Yeah. Whether I wanted to play the game. But Pirate Borg, I created a character who is a priest of and you've got and who who do you serve? There's a d six in in, you know, and and with a one, you get the one true god. But with the six, sadly, you get the great old one.
Matthew:So I'm a Cthulhu esque healing
Dave:Ah, okay.
Matthew:Healer. But I loved him as well. Can't oh, his character, I I picked a name off a gravestone in Brighton, Ninian masters, captain Ninian masters.
Dave:Uh-huh. Nice.
Matthew:Somebody I I remember. And there's one more. What other oh, I also created a character for Ronin, the Borgian Japanese, you know, themed samurai game.
Dave:Okay. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. I can't quite remember the details, but that's another one now that I really want to play Ronin and and play that Yeah. Also but they won't live very long because that's terrible.
Dave:I often I often find, yeah, that if you create a character in a game, even if you're not particularly interested in it, you as soon as you start to build that character and start to bond with that character a little bit, you suddenly okay. Well, actually, wanna see where their story goes. Yeah. Yeah. I often find that.
Dave:Yeah. Oh, cool. That sounds really good. If I'd had time, I'd love to have done something similar. But but what I've I've so I I've discussed this with you before.
Dave:I'm just saying that while I'm working and still finishing off my notice period while I'm still full time, I of an evening or of a weekend, I don't get time to sit down and write material that I would be content to publish. I'm not I'm not getting the space, the headspace to write in that kind of way. But what I have done is kind of rediscovered, which I've lost for a little while for various reasons, but rediscovered the fun in just mucking about with stuff and putting stuff together, rules and things. So I've used it as an opportunity not only to create some stuff for the sci fi idea that we've had, which I'm not sure we've Mhmm. Mentioned on the podcast before.
Matthew:No. I don't yeah. Let's let's mention that in some later episodes.
Dave:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But also, it's it's allowed me to come back to Rome year zero, and I'd wanted so also, I'm finishing the playtests for the alien stuff with my weekly group. We've probably got one, at the most, two sessions left.
Dave:And I would quite like then, if none of them want to run something for a while, which is obviously, you know, entirely because I've I've hogged GM ing for three months. But if they want to, I'm I'm I'm quite keen to start playtesting Rome U Zero again, having taken the lessons from last time and tried to amend it a bit. So I've been doing a bit of that, and that's been really fun. So I've I've redone the life path for the characters, which I think works so much better than the old one. I'm working on revamping things like the critical injuries, because I tried to do something new with it, but I don't think it works super well.
Dave:But, yeah, so that's been a lot of fun. And
Matthew:yeah. And that brings us on, I have to say, a nice segue to what are we going to talk about in the next episode, Dave?
Dave:Well, one of the things, obviously, that you got to deal with with a historical game or a game set in a historical setting is the history itself. And Roman ancient Roman history is not necessarily dominated, but a massive part of life in those days was slavery. Now we've obviously challenged and, dealt with the idea of slavery in the Old West, but I think the challenge of slavery in an ancient Rome or an ancient history game is is a different one. So I've been looking at that and thinking about that. So I'm I'm proposing next time to do a little bit of a a conversation about tackling or embracing the history of the time in in in a role playing game, but for ancient Rome.
Matthew:And for a modern audience?
Dave:Well, of course, for a modern audience. Yeah. Because, I mean, the audience is modern. But
Matthew:Yes.
Dave:But, yeah, it's it's an interesting one. I think it's it's it's likely to be a a trickier issue to deal with than slavery in the Old West is my sense from what
Matthew:I've you know what? I I don't I did did we we we made some choices early on in this in in the Old West game, which means we haven't yet really tackled that head on. So I don't know whether we can say it's definitely trickier. We managed to find ways of avoiding the subject a lot.
Dave:So I think yes, so in the core game comparing Tolls of Old West to what the core game of Romeo Zero might be looked like, I think there is a different issue and we have to tackle it. Right,
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure.
Dave:In the ancient Rome one.
Matthew:And what what I'm kind of saying is it's it's not necessarily easier. We we took an easier way out in in the core game for tells of the odd west, which doesn't exist in Rome, I guess.
Dave:That is that is yeah. That is true. Yeah. But, yeah. Right.
Dave:Anyway, it's
Matthew:a little interesting. Hearing that.
Dave:Yeah. Cool. And we've managed to go on for nearly an hour today.
Matthew:Look at us.
Dave:I know. Cool. Well, I hope you're having a good holiday, Matt, while this is going out. You bet.
Matthew:Oh, yeah. I'm just lying on the beach, shaking up the sun as you order things to this.
Dave:But, yeah, with with with with that in mind, it's goodbye from me.
Matthew:And it's goodbye from him.
Dave:And I think it's your turn.
Matthew:I don't do turns on this one. Whoever says goodbye from me does, and may the icons bless your adventures. But in this particular case, let it be said, may the icons bless your adventures.
Dave:You have been listening to the Effekt podcast presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of Free League Publishing.