Archive
Interview: James D’Amato – Dungeon Dome
James D’Amato, creator of the One Shot group of tabletop gaming podcasts, stopped by to talk about his newest project, Dungeon Dome! Dungeon Dome will be presented to audiences as a series of matches between larger-than-life characters played out on the tabletop. It’s a delicious mashup of D&D and professional wrestling.
If you haven’t heard any of James’ podcasts, they are outrageously entertaining! I strongly suggest giving them a listen:
http://oneshotpodcast.com/
The Kickstarter for the first season of Dungeon Dome is live and will be running through August 10th, 2017.
Go and check it out! http://kck.st/2ueX6hM
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
Interview: John Wick & Rob Justice – 7th Sea, Second Edition
My friend Michael Carlucci (of the Chaotic Neutral podcast) and I sit down and interview the developers of the second edition of the glorious fantasy Restoration-era tabletop RPG 7th Sea! We talk about the game’s origins, the ongoing Kickstarter for the new edition and the nature of the changes we can expect to see. We even take some time out to get a 7th Sea location pronunciation guide on record and take a few quick side trips down various geeky memory lanes.
The Kickstarter runs through March 13th, 2016 and can be found HERE.
You can find more info at johnwickpresents.com and sailthe7thsea.com.
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Music by Tim Beek
Interview: Stephen Hood – Storium
For this blogcast’s 50th episode, I interview Stephen Hood, one of the creators of Storium, a new online storytelling game. It looks to be a project that will tickle the fancies of writers and gamers alike! It came to my attention when I saw huge numbers of writerfolk and gamerfolk from all over my social media talking about it. The game has a Kickstarter running as of this post, but there are only a few days left to pledge so go check it out now!
LINKS!
The Storium Website
The Storium Kickstarter
Storium on Twitter
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
Interview: Charles White – A High School Floor Plan For RPGs
Fabled Environments is in the midst of a new Kickstarter campaign! This time their objective is to create a complete floor plan of a high school for use with tabletop RPGs. I talked to Charles White about the Kickstarter, the creation process and possible future projects.
Check out the Kickstarter HERE.
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
Interview: Valentine Wolfe – Once Upon a Midnight
Victorian Chamber Metal band Valentine Wolfe are working on a collaborative project called “Once Upon a Midnight.” The project includes both an album and a graphic novel, each of which takes a look at the afterlife of Edgar Allen Poe, as interpreted through his stories and poems.
The Kickstarter for this project can be found HERE. It ends soon, so check it out ASAP!
Valentine Wolfe: http://valentinewolfe.com/
The artist, Jacob Wenzka’s site is HERE, and his Facebook page is HERE.
Click below to hear the interview.
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And Now an Interview with Charles White
(The audio of this interview is available at the bottom of this post!)
JR: Today I am talking to Charles White of Fabled Environments. Hello, sir!
CW: How are you?
JR: Good! How’s it going?
CW: Not too bad, not too bad at all.
JR: So first off, tell us a little bit about Fabled Environments, for folks who might not be familiar.
CW: Well, Fabled Environments is a modern cartography company. We create modern floor plans for role-playing games. We use the term “modern” a little bit loosely than most people would. We have plans – everything from airships to modern Arctic research stations. So really, the gamut is huge – usually anything from the 1900s forward is what we would consider modern. And we’re actually potentially pushing backwards even further, too.
JR: And you are doing your first Kickstarter.
CW: We are and we are super-excited! This is going to be for a 100-store, two-story mall and it’s a little over 750,000 square feet. To give you an idea of what that compares to our other maps, I believe the Victorian Manor, which is two 36″ x 48″ sheets, was only about 20,000 square feet. So when this map is completed it’s going to be absolutely massive. The Kickstarter, at the base level – and if you don’t know much about Kickstarter, Kickstarter usually has a base: this is what we’d like to do, and then if we exceed our funding these are all the nice little things we either give or we add to the project. But our base is going to be – we’re going to detail one of three anchor stores and we’re also going to include a sheet of AutoCAD icons that you can use to flesh out the anchor stores. OR we’ll also have four repeating floor plans that are four different floor plans of shops throughout the mall. And the ones that are blank can be used in that repeating floor plan or you can use the icons. It should be interesting. We’re also going to have a food court. We’re also obviously going to do center court and then the add-ons where we’re going to add more detail and things like that. It’s a huge project, but we’re really excited about it.
JR: That’s awesome. What was it that made you choose a mall for your first really big project like this?
CW: A couple things. We’d heard a lot about people wanting a mall for zombie, terrorist – somebody wanted one for a teen setting type of game…
JR: Oh, nice.
CW: And we do a lot of research on our plans before we do them and the mall, quite frankly, was one of the easier ones to research because most malls – they have their layouts. Because if you’re going to buy retail space, you see the layout. So it really helps us to get a handle on what that space should look like. So when we go to draw it, we can pull the inspiration. Obviously we’re not going to copy anybody’s mall…
JR: Yeah.
CW: But that’s pretty much why. And again, like I said, there’s nothing out there like this and there’s been some draw for it so I thought it would be a really great project. And as a player and as a GM I thought of about fifteen things off the top of my head I could do with a mall.
JR: It is true, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone put out, for RPGs, floor plans for a mall like this, even though it’s such a basic thing that you’d think would be out there.
CW: It’s so massive, and that’s part of the problem – it’s that you’ll see smaller structures done in various ways, but you don’t see anything of this magnitude because I think quite frankly it’s too large. And a lot of them are publishing in 8.5” x 11” so if you put a project this scope into that small of a space, it’s going to get lost.
JR: Yeah.
CW: So it may be in part just logistically challenged.
JR: I seem to remember seeing part of a mall as part of an adventure that they released with the Basic Marvel RPG from back in the TSR days, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any actual stabs at the whole thing.
CW: Yeah, I think you’re right, I think I remember that too, and I think that’s just generally been the reason why – it’s because of just the scope of the project. And that’s something we’ve taken into account when we’ve done this, because once the Kickstarter ends we’ve probably got about four months of drafting to do to get it where we want it to be. Because our projects have a lot of detail and a lot of options and we want to make sure that whatever we release is going to be a good quality product that can be used over and over again.
JR: 
So I take it you’re going to have a system where people – they’re not going to have to put the whole thing on the table at once?
CW: No, the great thing about it – we’re going to play with a different way of doing things this time. This is thanks to a good friend of mine that was talking about this. Typically there’s no one that’s going to print out 8-10 sheets, 36” x 48”, throw them somewhere and use them. The good thing about the way this will be designed is it uses Adobe X, so you can tile large format and print out chunks of it. Again, we’re going to have the store repeating floor plans, but what we’re probably going to do as well is do venues. And what I mean by venues is that we’ll detail that corridor area – you know, when you walk down the middle of a mall, you’ve got shops on one side, shops on another and that walkway area with gondolas and things like that. We’ll detail things like that as well so they’ll be easy to throw on the table because that’s usually where a lot of fights are going to happen anyway.
JR: Yeah.
CW: So we’re going to try and provide some of that as well. And then obviously the flexibility’s there – if you want to print out an entire section of the mall and just use that, you can. We’ll detail center court, because that’s going to get a lot of traction and a lot of use. So we’re trying to pick and choose venues like that. But again, because of the way this project’s going to be designed, if you want to, you can print out anything you want to on the map. So you’re not going to lose anything by using venues.
JR: So, as of this interview, you’ve actually surpassed your initial goal. I’m looking at it right now and you’re over $2000.
CW: Yes.
JR: So at this point, what sort of stretch goals do you have that we’re looking at, here?
CW: Well, we’ve got a lot of them. There’s a couple of them that I’m really excited about. The first one would be at $3450 – typically all of our maps have been put together in 1 inch = 5 feet grids. What we’re looking at now at $3450 would be a 6 foot to 1 inch hex and 6 foot to 1 inch grid because there’s a lot of other systems. But the two we’ve already hit would be a children’s indoor play area and a parking lot around the mall, so you know, if you want to take it outside, if you will, you can. The one that I would really love to see – and it’s not a monetary thing for us, but it’s the last stretch goal. Because I think it would be really cool to have this large mall and then have the outdoor expansion. Because the great thing about the outdoor expansion is it could be taken and used separately, too, if you wanted to have a little piazza or if you wanted to have just a little shops area. And that’s what we’re all about – it’s trying to make these versatile enough that you can pull it out of our map and use it somewhere else. So, a lot of cool stuff like that, but plans to really detail some additional shops, add another anchor store to the floor plan, things like that that’ll really expand this project. And on that same line, I mean, there’s a lot of pledge points left. We try to make this as creative as we can. If you don’t have all of our maps and want some, there’s a pledge that you can get our retail stores or our entire catalog. Or if you want something that’s very interesting you can actually name either one of the stores that won’t be fleshed out or one of the ones that will, part of the food court, the entire mall. A lot of people have found that’s been pretty fun – just being able to name something, too, especially if they’ve got a lot of the maps.
JR: Now again, as of this interview, there are only a few days left on the Kickstarter, so I urge everybody to go and check it out. If this does well for you, what next? Are you thinking about doing another one some time?
CW: Oh, absolutely. This was really to put our toes in the water to see if it works, but we really want to do a school next. Pretty much an elementary/high school. We’ll probably do an elementary school and then – I don’t know how we’re going to work it. We may do the stretch goals to add things to it to make it also a high school, or vice versa, I’m not sure which. We also want to do a hospital and probably an airport. And those are just the things we have off the top of our head.
JR: Very cool, very cool.
CW: And Jim, one thing I do want to add, and people may not know this, is that at the $10 pledge, you get a copy of the map – I will to tell you that when it’s released on Drivethru and RPGNow, we’re going to have a 2-month delay out of respect to the people who have donated, but it will be more expensive than the pledge level. So if you like our products, jump in and get it at a cheaper price and you’re actually helping us with the project.
JR: Excellent, okay. So, get it now if you want to get it at the lower price!
CW: Exactly.
JR: So do you have anything else you’d like to mention or that you’ve got going on right now?
CW: Yeah!
We’re going to be releasing some maps here fairly soon in concert with Silver Gryphon Games. They’re redoing two of their modules and so there are going to be some bar-type floor plans as well as like a pool hall. So we’ll release those as well. I think we’re probably going to do those as one big conglomeration because they’re small maps. I know there are some plans in the works to redo a couple more of the Silver Gryphon Games modules and then Silver Gryphon is using some of our stuff in a few others. So we’ve got a lot of products that our maps are going to be in soon. And so just kind of keep an eye out for that. And once they’re released through Silver Gryphon, we always let fans know we’ll bundle that together so that folks can get a little bit of a break on the cost and things like that. We’re also going to be at MACE this year. We’re going to be a vendor again, so we’ll have print product on hand. I don’t have all of my maps in print, but we have a bunch of them. And I’ll be on some panels and running at least one game, so it should be a lot of fun.
JR: Awesome. And I’ve got to say, as far as your other upcoming projects go, you had me at “pool hall.”
CW: (chuckles) Yes, they’re really cool, I mean I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of fun with them.
JR: Yeah, that’s like the most fun place you can possibly have something strange happen. (chuckles)
CW: Exactly.
JR: Okay, well if folks want to find you online, where should they go?
CW: They can go to fabledenvironments.com and if you want to find us on Kickstarter, go to Kickstarter – you can search for us, we’re under the Games tab and the project name is Fabled Environments: A Two-Story Mall for Tabletop RPGs.
JR: Excellent! Thanks very much for talking to us.
CW: Absolutely, I appreciate the time!
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
And Now an Interview with Jenn from the Jennisodes
(The audio of this interview is available at the bottom of this post!)
JR: I am talking to Jenn from the Jennisodes. Hello!
J: Hi!
JR: So I see that you are in the midst of a Kickstarter.
J: I am. The grueling part of a Kickstarter – right in the middle.
JR: And this is for a game called Project Ninja Panda Taco.
J: Yep.
JR: Tell us a little bit about it.
J: Well, this is a storytelling role playing game where you get to play a Mastermind trying to take over the world and you also get to play a Minion character who loves to help the Mastermind. It is lots of fun, it’s zany, it’s great for kids and families alike. And adults. (laughs)
JR: Or those of us who are both adults and kids at the same time.
J: Yes. The target audience is the adults who want to act like children.
JR: Awesome.
J: It’s your inner mastermind trying to come out and like, take over.
JR: Excellent. Mine tends to try to come out way too often I think (chuckles) but it’s always good to encourage it from time to time.
J: Well with this game you can hone it all down into this and then you’ll feel much better.
JR: Ah, a channel! A channel for it!
J: Channel your mastermind into this game.
JR: (laughs) Cool, awesome. Maybe that means that I can get rid of this nuclear reactor I’ve been building in my basement.
J: Yes, you don’t have to build a real one. You can build it in the game.
JR: Awesome, okay. (chuckles) Oh, I’ve got to figure out what to do with the carbon rods… Er, I’ll do that after the interview.
J: Okay.
JR: Anyway, tell us a little bit about how this game works. What do you do in it?
J: Okay. Well, during character creation you create a Mastermind character. There’s some special traits and Qualities. There’s also a collaborative part that I wanted to add in where other people at the table are going to help build your character too. So they’re going to give some insight and make a Quality for your Mastermind.
JR: What kind of input do the other players have?
J: Well, what you’re actually going to do is you’re going to pass your character sheet around the table and they’re going to write something down on it.
JR: Nice, so they write down like qualities that your character has?
J: Yeah, they’re going to write down one Quality. So like either an item or something about them like, you know, if you have one of those Whipley mustaches or a crazy hat or a secret power, I don’t know. It’s very creative – whatever you want, whatever you can come up with. You put it down.
JR: Very nice.
J: And then you also get to make a Minion character. Minions all belong to a union – Union 1521.
JR: (laughs)
J: And you also get a tool belt, so it’s kind of like Despicable Me, where they’re always pulling something out and they’re like, “I can help you!” (chuckles) So, you get a tool belt item. Then during the game, it’s turn-based, so the first player will start by playing that Mastermind character. And every Mastermind always has a Nemesis, because you wouldn’t be a Mastermind if there weren’t anybody to stop you.
JR: Well, of course.
J: Right? You’d just be like the ruler or whatever. That’s not very much fun. Masterminds have plans, and to take over the world there’s always a three-step plan. Because that’s how Pinky and the Brain did it. It’s just the rulebook of Masterminds. So you have to come up with your three-step plan and try to complete it while your Nemesis tries to stop you. And then the other players at the table will play their Minions. You and the Nemesis are trying to get the Minions to help you and offer them shiny things. You’re like, “Come help me, Minions! I will give you… a gigantic RAY GUN if you help me!” And then the Minions are going to get to vote, because you know they’re part of a union – they can make their own choices. And there’s a quick mechanic and then you see who succeeds – the Mastermind or the Nemesis. And then if the Mastermind succeeds, you get to complete the first step of your plan! And if not… aww, sorry. You can try again on your next turn. It’s quick play. It’s fun. You’re making up crazy ideas on the spot, so you’re trying to pull in all that cartoon watching, all those video games, all those movies that you’ve seen. (chuckles)
JR: I don’t tend to see that level of collaboration – especially with creation of characters – in a lot of games.
J: Mmm-hmm?
JR: Was any of that inspired by any other RPGs that you’ve been playing?
J: I think so. It came from somewhere. I play a lot of like quick, fun RPGs at conventions and stuff…
JR: Uh-huh?
J: And there’s something that… I wanted it to be collaborative. I wanted people to have input. It’s kind of like Fiasco, where you’re picking the different things off the lists and you’re putting it on someone else’s Relationships.
JR: Yeah.
J: So like you’re impacting what’s happening at the table. It’s a lot easier, when you’re trying to come up with ideas, if you get to put it on someone else’s, or there’s always a constant, new group of ideas to look on. Because you get to read what the other people wrote and be like, “Oh, this character! This would be so cool if he had THIS!” Instead of trying to come up with six things for yourself. That’s a lot harder, I think.
JR: Yeah, brainstorming is always easier if you’ve got other folks to sort of bounce ideas off of.
J: Yeah, so you’re all talking and doing silly things and being like, “Aw man, this guy would be so cool if such-and-such…” (chuckles)
JR: Yeah. As a side note, I have made it one of my missions in life to play as much Fiasco as possible…
J: (chuckles) That was definitely an influence on the game.
JR: Yeah, I think that’s very cool. I like the direction that these short-form RPGs are going these days and I think it’s very cool that you’re contributing to that. What is it that sparked your interest, do you think, in evil masterminds, mad scientists, things of that nature?
J: Well, I’ve always loved those movies like Despicable Me, Megamind – they’re probably like my go-to movies – the Incredibles. Anything cartoony, if it’s on TV, like I’ll watch it. So I’m sitting there one day and I’m like, “I wish I had a minion to like do my work, or like do this other stuff. I mean like I REALLY need a minion.” So it’s always just been like a joke, I’ve always been like, “Where’s my minion?! Where is it?!!” And someone’s like, “You should make a game about that.” And I’m like, “I CAN!” You think I’m fun and silly, but really I have this evil, underlying theme to take over the world somehow.
JR: Excellent.
J: And I will start with the gaming community and move on from there. Muahahahahaaa!
JR: (laughing) It’s always the ones you don’t suspect.
J: Exactly. Who would expect me? I like pandas and tacos.
JR: Of course. And actually that very neatly folds into another thing that I wanted to ask about. And that is that the title of the game is Project Ninja Panda Taco. I take it you have a deep interest in these three things in particular?
J: Well it turns out that I needed a code name. I didn’t know what I wanted to name the game. And I was like, “Project X! Okay, I like ninjas. Let’s look up Project Ninja on the Internet.” And I was like, “Aaah, there’s already one of those.” I was like, “I like Pandas! Project Panda.” And of course the Internet already has that. And then I was like, “Project Taco! No one has to have this!” And apparently there’s like ten sites that have it.
JR: CURSE YOU, INTERNET!!
J: I’m like, “Damn it! Damn you, SEO!!” So I was like, “Yeah, well if I put them ALL together what does the Internet say?” And there’s nothing on the Internet that has all three of them together. (chuckles) So that was the name. And then actually it turns out the more I played around with the development of the game- If you do complete your three-step plan, it’s going to be called Project Blank Blank Blank. So you’re filling in the blanks during your turn. So you might only complete one step of your plan – so you might only have Project Ninja. But these are going to be different words during YOUR game. So it kind of makes sense. And it also evokes a funny, zany feel like when you say it you’re like, “What’s that? That sounds like a lot of fun!” And that’s the feeling that I want to bring out when you play the game, when you think about it.
JR: I actually like the aspect where you can combine these three disparate things…
J: Mm-hmm.
JR: …to go forth with your evil plan. So something else that’s very interesting about this project – or something that I find interesting at any rate – is that you are Kickstarting it. How did you first get into Kickstarter?
J: I’ve backed a lot of projects that other people have done. I knew that if I wanted to publish this I wanted it to look a certain way. I wanted it to be full-color, hardcover, gorgeous. And art isn’t cheap. Editing isn’t cheap. Layout isn’t cheap. I mean, you CAN do it, but this was what I wanted to do. So this is my personal goal. And the more I looked into it – and like what would be the best way to publish it, to print it, who to get – I needed the capital somewhere and I don’t have that. (chuckles) My dogs eat everything. (chuckles)
JR: D’oh!
J: I need to raise the funds somehow and so Kickstarter seemed like the best way. It’s not just the game design of it, it’s the business aspect of everything. You have to plan everything out – what pledge items are you going to get? What about taxes? Creating your own business? There’s a whole bunch of stuff. I’ve learned a whole myriad of things going through this whole process, but Kickstarter was the way I wanted to go. I kind of knew that from the beginning, as I was like, “Oh what if I did this and this? And then I could do THIS!!” Which is really BAD.
JR: (laughs)
J: And I love to shop, so the whole shopping thing comes into it. I’m like, “Oh! Oh! And I can have… oh!!” (laughs)
JR: I know, Kickstarter is kind of addictive, actually. I’ve thrown… usually it’s like a dollar or two to quite a few projects. It’s a very cool phenomenon. The thing that I really like about it is you do get a kind of almost a community feeling when you’re contributing to these things.
J: Yeah, because you want to see things succeed. I would like mine to succeed. Hint hint.
JR: (chuckles)
J: But seriously, I like seeing other people’s projects out there and finding out about them through Twitter. I’ll see somebody retweet something, I’ll be like, “Oh! What is that?” and I’ll go check it out. And it might not be part of the indie gaming community. It might be something completely different. And seeing what else is going on in Kickstarter, I like clicking around now and it’s dangerous but… there’s a lot of awesome projects out there.
JR: It is dangerous, but the rewards are good as well.
J: I know. I just backed a project for Magic: the Gathering. They’re doing the card sleeves, and so you get custom card sleeves. So I’m like, “Aaugh! I can have Jennisodes Magic card sleeves.”
JR: Good lord.
J: (laughs)Like my own little set. I’m like, “I need these!”
JR: I don’t know if one person should have that much power. (laughs)
J: And you get a mat and like, the box… Oh, yeah. When you give me accessories, game over!
JR: I think that, yeah, accessories might be part of the means by which you take over this planet. And speaking of accessories, what kinds of stuff will people be able to get if they go in and pledge?
J: Yeah, well we added a couple new pledge levels so that people can get all the cool stuff. Of course there’s going to be the PDF and the full-color hardcover book – it’ll look GORGEOUS. All this art with Brian Patterson from d20monkey. He’s done a lot of stuff so far within the video and the pictures on the Kickstarter, so it’s gorgeous.
JR: I really liked the art up there. It was really good.
J: Yeah. I saw his artwork and I’m like, “That. That’s what I want. I want THAT. In my book. Now.”
JR: Very cool, very cool. (chuckles)
J: So you’ll also be getting… We just put up a thing for a custom bumper sticker, so he’s already done some art for that. So you can stick it anywhere – on your car… on your butt… on a book… y’know, things that start with B…
JR: Ah yeah, so that’s where you start and you work your way through the alphabet, presumably.
J: Yeah! And then you also… they’re also going to have like T-shirts and then a custom dice bag with custom FUDGE dice and tokens.
JR: Nice.
J: So you get the voting tokens and some Mastermind pins and Minion name tags. And you can name a Mastermind and Minion in the text. And then if people pledge for the highest level, I’m going to host a party for you at GenCon and run the game for you.
JR: Very cool.
J: There’s like a special edition T-shirt, and… Yeah, and then there’s a League of Masterminds where you get a custom Mastermind portrait done by Brian Patterson.
JR: Nice. I know there’s got to be someone out there who would see that and go, “I must have it!” (laughs)
J: Some people have, which is amazing. So I can’t wait to talk to them and see what Brian comes up with.
JR: Well now, this is not the only thing that you have on your plate at the moment…
J: (chuckles) I know! Why would I do one thing when I can do three?
JR: (chuckles) Exactly. So, tell us a little bit about this Lamentations of the Flame Princess project you’re working on.
J: Yeah, right now there’s a big crowdfunding campaign going on on Indiegogo with 19 adventures. So each one is a separate Indiegogo campaign, which is crazy. The creator of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Jim Raggi, came up with this idea. He wanted to get more adventures out for this game, so he got in a WHOLE bunch of writers like Monte Cook, Vincent Baker, myself, the lead person from Gwar…
JR: Wow.
J: …a whole bunch of guys from Finland and overseas. It’s crazy awesome and everybody has these amazing ideas – a lot of people that you might have never heard of, too. So it’s a great way to find out more about the gaming community around the world. And not only am I writing one of them if it gets funded, but I’m doing interviews with each of the writers. That’s going to come out during the month of July on the Jennisodes podcast.
JR: Very cool, excellent.
J: Good people – that’s 16 special episodes, just for you!!
JR: (laughs) I have to say it has been a pleasure talking about all this.
J: Yes!
JR: And I am looking forward to seeing where things go. Now, for the Lamentations project, if people wanted to go online and look for that, where would they go?
J: They would go to the Indiegogo web site.
JR: Okay, so they just go to Indiegogo and they just do a search for Lamentations of the Flame Princess?
J: Yep, or my name. And you can also find it on the Lamentations of the Flame Princess blog, which I’ll give you the link to.
JR: Okay, excellent. That link will appear embedded in this interview, for anyone who’s looking at this on the blog rather than just listening to it. If you’re listening to it, then you must go to the blog – jimyesthatjim.com – and go and seek out the link. It’s like a treasure hunt!
J: Yes!
(Jenn’s LotFP project can be found HERE and links to all 19 of those projects can be found HERE.)
JR: And then if folks want to find your Kickstarter project, what’s the best place to go for that?
J: You can search for it through kickstarter.com or you can check out the web site projectnpt.com and that’ll give you the link and direct you right there. And then later on when the game gets published – fingers crossed! – all the downloadable stuff, like the character sheets and any more information will be based at that web site.
JR: Awesome! And of course you have your podcast, the Jennisodes.
J: Yep.
JR: And if folks want to check that out, where do they go?
J: Jennisodes.com.
JR: Excellent. I urge everybody to check that out. Jenn, thank you very much for talking to us. It’s been a pleasure.
J: Thank you so much for having me on.
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Music by Kevin MacLeod
And Now an Interview with Matt Forbeck
(The audio of this interview is available at the bottom of this post!)
JR: I am talking to author and game designer Matt Forbeck. Hello, sir!
MF: How are you doing, Jim?
JR: Good, good! Good to have you on here.
MF: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it!
JR: Of your many projects that you’ve got going on, something that I find particularly interesting as a writer is this 12 for 12 project that you’ve got going. For anyone who’s not familiar, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that is?
MF: Sure. It’s this crazy idea I had last summer. I thought, “Hey, I write pretty quickly. I bet you I could write a novel a month.” (chuckles) Which is like this insane bar bet. And you know, it may have come up at Gen Con, actually last year – the gaming convention.
JR: Oh yeah?
MF: And I looked at it and I thought, you know, I’d love to do that, actually. I think it’d be a lot of fun. I think I could certainly do it. The trouble is that I also have a lot of other gigs that I do as a freelance writer. Like I write the Magic: the Gathering comic book for IDW. And I have a few other things: computer games, toy work, a novel – Carpathia – coming out at the end of the month here from Angry Robot. So I didn’t think I could give all that up and I didn’t want to give all that up, right?
JR: Yeah.
MF: So, I thought, “Let me trim this down a little bit and instead of writing like 80,000 word novels, which is what I usually go for, I’ll try writing 50,000 word novels, which will give me a little bit more breathing room.” And I decided to launch that program back in last November as a Kickstarter and said, “Look, hey guys, I really want to do this but I need to be able to eat so I’d like to basically take preorders for these books. And we’ll do some special editions. There’ll be autographed and hard covers and soft covers and things like that for people who are interested, and you can sign up for a high pledge and get your name in the book or create a character or something like that.” And it did pretty well. It started in November and ended on December 4th and we ended up racking up something over $13,000 for the first three novels. And I’m currently – just about a week and a half ago, launched the second Kickstarter for the second trilogy of novels. And that’s already up just shy of $5000 at the moment, I believe.
JR: That is awesome. As someone who has tried NaNoWriMo and just sitting there – and I’m still at like 30,000 words from last November…
MF: (chuckles)
JR: …when I saw this project I was like, “Is he insane?!” (chuckles)
MF: Well you know, I’m a full time writer, right? This is my day job. I look at my daily word count and I know I can do this, right? Back before I had a whole bunch of kids as a full-time freelance role-playing game designer I would write regularly 5000 words a day. Since the kids came along they cut into my writing time a little bit so I’m down to about 3000 words a day. But on good days I get to the 5-6,000 words.
JR: That is very cool, and I think anyone who’s aspiring towards being a writer full time is definitely going to try to hit that goal.
MF: Well, now if you’re getting paid by the word, generating more words helps. They all have to be quality words, mind you.
JR: (laughs) That’s true.
MF: They have to be publishable words. But being able to generate them quickly – and after you’ve been doing it for some 10-20 years you do get quite a little bit quicker at it.
JR: Very cool, very cool. So the first trilogy you already mentioned is already funded.
MF: Yes.
JR: And that was for your Brave New World novels.
MF: Yes.
JR: And why don’t you tell us a little bit about those?
MF: Yeah, that’s based on a role-playing game – not the Aldous Huxley novel. The original quote for Brave New World comes from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” actually, where Miranda, who’s the daughter of the wizard Prospero, sees a man washed up on the shore of their private island – for the first time in her life she’s ever seen anybody but her father. And she looks up at this handsome guy who’s about to become her love interest and she says, “Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.” And I thought that was perfect for a superhero role-playing game. So, back in 1999 I came out with a superhero role-playing game called Brave New World through Pinnacle Entertainment Group and it was later published by Alderac Entertainment Group, or AEG. And it’s been basically lying fallow for the last ten years or so. We did about eight or nine different books in the line and then cut it off. But we’ve had some people over at Reactor 88 Studios working on doing an independent film based on it. And I said, “Geez, you know, we’ve got this good fan base of game players out there and we’ve got a lot of people who are interested in my writing. Let’s see what happens if we cross the streams and combine them for this first set of trilogies.” And so far it seems to be going pretty well. For me it’s a lot of fun because I get to return to this world that I spent a lot of time and effort creating a dozen years ago.
JR: Yeah.
MF: And the fans seem to really be enjoying it so far, too.
JR: Can you actually tell us anything about how the movie’s going?
MF: Yeah. It’s currently on hiatus. We got a proof of concept video made which is about five to eight minutes long – I forget. It depends on which edit you look at. And basically the first eight pages of the role playing game are a comic book, and we took those and filmed those. And then we have a screenplay that follows it off after that and tells you what’s going to happen in the world. But we filmed the proof of concept hoping to go out and find funding for the rest of the movie. The problem is that being an over-the-top, high-action role-playing game with superheroes in it, this is not a cheap movie to make, right? (chuckles)
JR: (chuckles) Yeah, I can imagine.
MF: So, you know, we went back to the – well I mean we actually are now working on a couple of different movies, one of which is InSpectres, which is based on the role-playing game by Jared Sorensen.
JR: That is such an awesome game.
MF: Yeah!
JR: I really enjoy it.
MF: Oh, we got a kick out of it. We love that stuff. I love Jared’s stuff from way back, actually. And so we have a screenplay that I and a guy named Jeff Dohm worked on that actually was shot last year and is currently in post-production, so that’ll be out some time later this year. And the idea there again is to prove to people with money that we have a team of people who can make these kind of movies and make them do well. And then hopefully use that as a means of leveraging funding out of people so we can make a bigger movie later on.
JR: Excellent. I wish you the best of luck with that because I really want to see these movies! (chuckles)
MF: The InSpectres one is a boatload of fun and I honestly think this kind of slacker ghostbuster thing is a lot easier to shoot on a shoestring budget than you would expect.
JR: Let’s move on to your second trilogy, which is – as of this recording – still being funded.
MF: Yes.
JR: So the Kickstarter is still open for it. That’s the Shotguns & Sorcery novels. And why don’t you tell us a little bit about those?
MF: Yeah, people have until March 11th to get in on this Kickstarter. And just go to kickstarter.com or go to my web site at forbeck.com and you can find out about it. But it’s based on a setting called Shotguns & Sorcery that I originally developed as, again, a role-playing game setting for Mongoose Publishing back in about 2001. But then my wife got pregnant with quadruplets and that kind of shattered everything to hell as far as getting that done. (chuckles) So I never actually got very far beyond the notes and selling it to Mongoose. And the rights reverted back to me. I said, “Geez, I’ve had this idea sitting around for a long time. I’d love to get back to this! It’s a lot of fun.” It’s kind of this noir-ish fantasy setting in this city called the Dragon City which is on the coast of this continent that’s basically overtaken by undead and other types of zombies. The city basically has a dragon emperor who controls the entire place and protects the people from the dead. But it’s striated – as you go up the mountain you get more and more powerful people. Like the orcs live at the bottom and the humans and the halflings live about a quarter of the way up, then you have the dwarves, then you have the elves, and then you have the dragon, who sits up top. So it’s got this great Chandler-esque, Hammett-esque kind of noir going on, but in a fantasy setting, right?
JR: Yeah, that is very cool. I really love that mashup. I was actually just last night – I was looking at Goblintown Justice, the short story that you’ve put out.
MF: Yes, that’s available for free for anybody who wants to read it, of course.
JR: As soon as I got to the part where you’re using flying carpets as taxis, I was totally sold on it.
MF: Yeah, I think that’s such a great image, you know.
JR: Yeah!
MF: It’s like I can flag down a flying carpet, you know. “Oh! Yeah, okay!” Suddenly you know exactly where you are – even if you’ve never seen this before.
JR: I love both genres and just the whole mixing of them – the sweet and sour effect – is very cool there, I really like that.
MF: Thank you.
JR: So folks again have until March 11th if they want to get in on that.
MF: The way it works is – what I did was I set a very low goal for the first book in the trilogy and then we try to see if we can hit stretch goals where we can unlock the second and third books in the trilogy. So right now we shattered the first one very quickly, I think in 32 hours. And now we’re stretching out to see if we can get the second book unlocked and then the third book unlocked. And usually this has me chewing my nails right until the last second. (laughs)
JR: (laughs)
MF: But it’s good fun and you know, usually what happens is you have this big spike at the beginning, and then it kind of levels out in the middle. And then in the last week everybody says, “Oh! Oh! Oh! I’ve got to do that or I’m going to forget it!” And then it spikes up again. And you know, the trouble of course is during that middle period you’re always sitting there going, “I hope the spike comes! I hope the spike comes!”
JR: (laughs) Yeah, totally! Totally. Well, let us hope that that happens! Can you tell us anything about the remaining two trilogies you have planned?
MF: Well, I can tell you a little bit. The fourth one I’m not quite sure about yet. I’m actually contemplating a set of thrillers for the next one that are more modern-day stuff. And for the fourth one I’m thinking either science fiction or maybe some combination of three individual one-shot books. So I’m going back and forth between them. Those are still a little bit off for me. Actually I have a really good idea for the thrillers that’s going to set them apart from everything else but I’m not quite ready to announce it yet.
JR: Cool, well we’re looking forward to that, then. And just looking over your Coming Soon list on your web site here, you’ve got – to put it mildly – quite a few plates in the air.
MF: Yeah.
JR: But I noticed that you have here – and you also mentioned that at the end of the month you’ve got a novel called Carpathia coming out. What’s that about?
MF: The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is coming up on April 15th and the ship that picks up the survivors of the Titanic was called the Carpathia. And the Carpathia, of course, is also named after a set of mountains that ring part of Transylvania and is actually the mountain range in which Castle Dracula sits. So the connection here is: what happens if the ship that picks up the Titanic survivors is actually full of vampires on their way back to Europe?
JR: (laughs) That’s awesome.
MF: What kind of hell comes out of that? (chuckles)
JR: (laughs) I think that qualifies as irony.
MF: (laughs) Yeah, I mean my publisher is like, “The lucky ones went down with the ship.”
JR: (laughs) Yeah.
MF: You want to be respectful because this is a real disaster, right? I mean, it’s been 100 years, so that means we can play with it a little bit. But I mean there were a lot of people who died in this, but I’m taking care to be very respectful of the actual real-life individuals. And I concoct a lot of – obviously – fabricated vampires and such to battle it out with each other. So it’s good fun.
JR: That’s excellent. Is there anything else you’d like to mention before we go?
MF: Well, I do also have the Magic: the Gathering comic book I’m doing for IDW, and that’s coming out. The next issue will be on February 29th.
JR: Is that based in like their core world or is there a separate world?
MF: It kind of jumps around. It starts out in Ravnica. They don’t have really one core world, but the first issue starts out in Ravnica and from there it goes to Innistrad, which is where the current block is. It’s a kind of horror-themed block. And from there – I shouldn’t probably reveal where it’s going to go from there quite yet.
JR: Okay.
MF: But it’s a four-issue miniseries for that. And then they just announced that we’re going to be doing a second four-issue miniseries starting in the month after that.
JR: That sounds like a lot of fun.
MF: Yeah, let’s hope we can keep rolling on with them.
JR: Well, now if folks want to find you online – you and your various projects – where should they go?
MF: Go to forbeck.com. That’s F-O-R-B-E-C-K dot com. And I try to keep it updated fairly regularly.
JR: I’ve been there. There is a lot of stuff on there and it is all very awesome. Thanks very much for talking to us!
MF: Thanks for talking to me, Jim. I really appreciate it!
JR: Thank you, take care.
MF: You too.
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And Now an Interview with Eloy Lasanta
(The audio of this interview is available at the bottom of this post!)
JR: I am t
alking to Eloy Lasanta of Third Eye Games and we’re going to be talking about his game Part-Time Gods. Welcome, sir!
EL: Hello everyone!
JR: First off, for anyone who might not be familiar, tell us a little bit about the game Part-Time Gods.
EL: The game Part-Time Gods is where you play characters who are just regular people who have been imbued with the powers of gods. And you are given this huge amount of divine responsibility that you then must go and enact. And there’s a certain amount of juggling that has to be done – as in, you have to juggle your real life versus your divine responsibilities, and going and trying to obtain power is actually the same thing as leaving your mortal life behind. And it’s a fun kind of balancing game that Part-Time Gods has become.
JR: Let’s talk a little bit about the Source. What’s that?
EL: The Source – oh, the Source is the entity within the setting that has released the energy that then produces what a god actually is. Way back in the day the gods actually sealed it away and found a way to kind of siphon its power and it has now recently erupted again and it’s trying to escape. And that’s why now, in the game, there’s a big surge of a lot more gods popping up in the modern day – very suddenly, and it’s because the Source is trying to come back. So you might just be walking down the street – all of a sudden, you get hit with this immense power and you find out that you’re the God of Sidewalks or whatever. And then all of a sudden you have this giant Cyclops coming after you at that point and it’s like, “Wait! What’s going on here?!” And it’s very much about that. It’s very much about a regular person – what if a regular person was put in these types of situations?
JR: So I guess the primary conflict… well, it’s that you have two different layers of conflict, which – let’s talk about that a second. I find that very interesting that you’ve got both the supernatural conflicts and then the mundane conflicts that you have to deal with. I’m curious how you weave that together in the game.
EL: Well, very… very awesomely, I’d like to think.
JR: It sounds it!
EL: (chuckles) The divine conflicts are mostly between the gods, themselves. So a lot of it is god-on-god. You and your other people in your group – they are the pantheon that rules that area. And a lot of the game is contingent upon the pantheon getting along, maybe doing things to countermand each other – kind of like how gods used to be back in the day. Also other gods coming in to try and take your territory or even if you and your group want to go and try and expand into other gods’ territory, you can do that as well. But the way that the game works and how it kind of interweaves the mundane and the divine is you create what are called Bonds during character creation for your character. And these are the things in their life that link them to their humanity, which link them to being a regular person. And as these things come under fire or get damaged, they then start to take on some of the worst aspects of humanity, basically. And then they start to kind of drift away from being a regular person and more into becoming a god. The reason for this is because it’s more to reflect kind of what the gods of myth all kind of represent. You know, and it was Hera – at one time – was a very motherly deity.
JR: Yeah.
EL: And then she was consumed with jealousy and hatred and all of these things, and these are very real things that can happen to your character – where, you know, it’s no longer the love of your wife that starts to motivate you, it’s the hatred for this thing. And it starts to become a balance of you becoming less caring about the things that a human would care about.
JR: How do you set up the mechanics in a game like this? What are the mechanics like?
EL: The mechanics for this game actually follow the DGS Lite, which is a slightly lighter version than the classic DGS – Dynamic Gaming System – which I created for my other two games, Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. and Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade. And this one is broken down a little bit more, but just like the classic DGS it only uses a single d20 and it uses difficulties from 10, 20, 30 and up to 40. And you can go higher as you get more and more powerful but 40 is usually about the max that a starting character can actually get to. It’s a simple – roll a d20, add your attributes plus skills plus applicable modifiers and see what you roll and then see what happens. It works really nicely and the playtests for Part-Time Gods have come back and everybody’s very happy with the results so far.
JR: Okay, that’s very cool. And part of what I guess I was wondering when you were talking about that was if there was any sort of mechanic that had been put in there specifically to represent that whole balancing act.
EL: You know, when you get your Bonds, you have to have actually built them and they get numbers to represent the strength of the Bond. And these numbers are counterbalanced with the strength of your divine Spark. And the more powerful that your Spark becomes, you’ll eventually have to start giving up some of your Bonds or weakening the ones that you have.
JR: That is very cool. I really like that idea because it’s just so often that you see in RPGs where people seem to have superpowers of some kind with absolutely no consequences for wielding them.
EL: Exactly.
JR: That is very good. So where did you get the idea for this game?
EL: It came from me watching a TV show called Dead Like Me, and I was watching the show I mean, like, “You know, that would be really interesting. What if it wasn’t just grim reapers? What if they were just a collection of gods? What if they were a pantheon who sat in a coffee shop just talking about baseball? It kind of became the idea of these very mundane things where basically being a god isn’t what it’s really cracked up to be.
JR: Yeah.
EL: Being a god is actually more of a hassle than, you know, “I’m a divine person and I ought to go on mythic quests!” No, sometimes it’s like, “You know what, I really would just like to go home and eat dinner with my wife but I can’t do that because I have to go get this goblet from the Fire.”
JR: (laugs) “Sorry, I’m going to be late for dinner, honey. I’m fighting Titans this evening.”
EL: Exactly. That’s kind of where the humor of the game also comes out. Anything that I write has to have at least a little bit of humor. I don’t have it in me to write a completely serious thing. So yeah, it has to have a little bit of humor and that’s kind of the tone that Part-Time Gods is taking.
JR: There have been one or two other games that try to do something similar – I believe Scion is one of the bigger ones – and so the question would be what really separates Part-Time Gods from something like that?
EL: When you play Scion, first of all the power levels get ridiculously wonky as soon as you are not like a starting character. And so, I mean, there’s that. 
The whole thing about Scion was you aren’t really a regular person. You’re the child of a god and you have to go and you fight things that are just destroying everything and you are super-powerful and you eventually become a god yourself and travel and will join the pantheon and stuff. And Part-Time Gods actually leaves a lot of what you would expect from a quote-unquote “god game” behind and I’m trying to really kind of take a new angle at it. The other game that tried this was Nobilis, but then Nobilis is more of a – like you are a concept. Like you’re not a God of Death, you ARE Death. You’re not a God of Enlightenment, you ARE Enlightenment. And that’s why there’s no dice and whatever.
JR: More sort of anthropomorphic personifications rather than gods.
EL: Yeah, yeah. Like it gets kind of weird. And what I tried to do is I read up on both of the games and I’m trying to hit a nice balance between the two. When I say that you can be the god of fill-in-the-blank, you really can.
JR: Whenever I actually get around to playing this game I now have a terrible urge to play the God of Fill-In-the-Blank.
EL: “I am the God of Mad Libs!”
JR: Yes! “I can take any concept and replace it with another concept!”
EL: You know, if I was actually going to be the God of Mad Libs I would just make it sound like you’re saying ridiculous things.
JR: Yes, exactly!
EL: And you have no clue you’re saying it, but everyone else is hearing you saying ridiculous things.
JR: That would be so cool.
EL: It would be hilarious. I try and gear people away from that sort of thing when in the character creation (chuckles).
JR: (chuckles)
EL: You know, there really should not be a Goddess of Cheese or Jeff, the God of Tacos. There really shouldn’t be these types of things. Gods should be like big, mythic, flashy things. You know, like you really don’t need a God of Sidewalks.
JR: Well, the sidewalks aren’t going to go on existing by themselves, are they?!
EL: I mean it’s gonna happen, but I’m just saying… (chuckles)
JR: (laughs)
EL: I try to give people a way…
JR: Doing what tiny amount of damage control you can get in at this point?
EL: Exactly. I also give tons of examples so I try to cover all my bases and – giving lots and lots of examples of different things that you can do with the power sets and stuff like that. So, I’m hoping it goes off well.
JR: One of the interesting things about this project is the way that you’re funding it. You actually have set up a Kickstarter campaign for it. So what led you to decide you wanted to do that?
EL: You know, I actually hadn’t heard about Kickstarter until a friend of mine actually mentioned it and they said, “I saw this kickstarter for Do.” And I’m like, “What’s a kickstarter?” So, they sent me a link to this game called Do and it’s pretty cool, and I went ahead and contributed to that and I started thinking about what I could do. And I like the setup. It reminds me of back in the day when the kings would become a patron to an artist and would take an artist under their wing and pay their room and board and make sure that they had all the materials they had and everything. Then like the king gets to say, “I found this artist and look at all of the wonderful things that I have allowed him to do!” It kind of reminds me of that, only instead of a nobleman, it’s all of the fans. All of the fans get to let me make a game for them. It’s a really fun concept and a fun way of approaching it versus the, “I’m going to release a game and I hope people like it.” You know, it’s more of a, “Hey, here’s what I’m doing! If you are interested in this type of thing, preorder.” Because basically I’m using it as a preorder but I’m also giving lots of incentives, T-shirts, stuff like that. Trying to make sure that anybody who does give to the kickstarter is gonna get their money’s worth for helping up front.
JR: It’s an interesting thing because you feel kind of like you’re a part of the project…
EL: Yeah!
JR: …when you contribute to it.
EL: And I’ve even gone through and I’ve started taking some chances on a couple of smaller projects to see if they go through. You know, and that’s kind of the thing, is – Kickstarter isn’t guaranteed. If you don’t make enough money then…
JR: Yeah.
EL: …it all kind of falls through and then whatever. But if you hit your goal, then it’s awesome!
JR: As of this recording, you’ve still got a bit over a month left if anyone wants to go on and contribute to this project. I think it’s really cool and I’m looking forward to playing it – I really want to play this game. So I really encourage folks to do that. Before we sign off here and we give information for people who want to go and check that out, is there anything else that you’ve got going on you want to give any quick little plugs for?
EL: Yeah, most definitely! The newest sourcebook for Wu Xing: the Ninja Crusade, my second game line of warring clans of ninja, just dropped its first sourcebook and it already has a 10 out of 10 review. So if you guys are waiting for a review, it’s got a perfect review on RPGnet so yay! Just got that today – so happy about that. And the newest sourcebook for Apocalypse Prevention, Inc., which is Demon Codex: Spectrals just dropped a couple of months ago. And it’s getting also very good reviews, so if you’re a fan of Apocalypse Prevention, Inc., don’t forget to go get that thing.
JR: Cool, awesome. I actually have some friends in a gaming group that I think are wanting to try out API sometime soon, so there may be more of that happening.
EL: (chuckles) Well, and we’r
e also working on an API: Savage Worlds Edition.
JR: Oh, cool!
EL: …which I’m really, really hoping that I can get out by GenCon. I’m REALLY, really hoping that we can. (chuckles) It’s hitting all of its playtest marks so it’s looking like there should be no issue, however it COULD not make it, but I’m really, really hoping it does.
JR: Nice! Me too, that sounds great. Savage Worlds obviously being a system I’m a lot more familiar with, so… (chuckles) That always makes me happy.
EL: Savage Worlds is a setting that I kind of fell in love with from the first time that I played it. And you know it has a different flavor from the Dynamic Gaming System that I designed, but both are really fun ways to play. So, API: Savage Worlds Edition – we’ve been working really hard to make sure that it keeps the feel that the DGS has, but reflecting in Savage Worlds rules and it’s coming along VERY nicely.
JR: Yeah, Savage Worlds is moldable enough that you can do a lot of different things with it.
EL: Most definitely.
JR: So that’s always very cool that that’s working out. So if anyone wanted to go online to find you or your site or the Part-Time Gods project, where would they go?
EL: Well, the Part-Time Gods project is primarily on Kickstarter. If you just go to search and hit “part time” it’s gonna come up, it’s gonna be the first one. Our web site is thirdeyegames.net. I also have a blog and that’s eloythesaint.com.
JR: Excellent. Well, I urge everyone out there to go and check it out. And thanks very much for coming and talking to me. I appreciate it!
EL: Thanks, Jim.
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