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Episode 18: J.D. Kennedy - Writing and Rambling
79 Plays1 year ago
Host Alan Bahr is joined by J.D. Kennedy, RPG writer and freelancer to discuss a variety of topics, including Star Trek, writing for hire, and working on IPs.
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Transcript
Introduction to Radio Free RPG and guest J.D. Kennedy
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Alan Barr and this is Radio Free RPG. Hello, I'm Alan Barr and welcome to Radio Free RPG.
00:00:32
Speaker
Today I'm joined by my guest J.D. Kennedy. Hi Kennedy, how are you? I'm doing pretty good, how are you? Doing pretty good. He's finally cooling down here so he's able to do some outside work today which felt good. So Kennedy is a long time collaborator and friend of mine who has worked with Gallonite Games as well as a well versed and well traveled sort of scribe for hire in the RPG industry at large.
J.D. Kennedy's RPG industry experience
00:01:00
Speaker
Why don't you tell us a little bit about your history with gaming and what folks might know you from? I've worked in the industry for over 20 years. I've worked for, I've worked to pick which company to start with. Yeah. I work for Modiphius Entertainment and I work on the Star Trek Adventures line.
00:01:19
Speaker
I also worked for Renegade Game Studios, and I worked on My Little Pony, Transformers, but more recently on Werewolf, 5th Edition. And then I've also worked with Third Eye Games, and we did Ninja Crusade, 2nd Edition, and Pip Corebook, Core Rules. And then a lot with Gallant Knight Studios.
00:01:42
Speaker
And yeah, just a little, I joked with a friend of mine that could find my books almost anywhere at GenCon. But yeah, that's pretty much just how I would sum it up. Okay, so, you know, you've listed a few well-known IPs, you know, and I have to know you've worked on Star Trek, you've worked on a variety of White Wolf related IPs, which are well-known in the gaming industry.
Working with established IPs like Star Trek
00:02:10
Speaker
Is there a reason you enjoy working on intellectual IPs rather than maybe generating your own all the time, right? Now, obviously, I think as a creative, we all enjoy making our own IPs and settings and information, right? Like, let's not pretend otherwise. But some creatives enjoy working in other people's sandboxes more than others. So is there a reason you find this enjoyable?
00:02:35
Speaker
It's really hard to say. I mean, from a purely just selfish perspective, sometimes it's just really cool to work on the thing you grew up with. So just to give context, working on Star Trek, my mom introduced me to Star Trek. And I remember she'd get off work, she'd come home, and I would sneak out of bed, because I was four years old. And we would just sit down and watch the latest rerun of Star Trek, The Next Generation.
00:03:05
Speaker
which I still remember was on Fox 59 here in Indianapolis. And it's just.
00:03:13
Speaker
It's just great to get to add to, I guess, the whole, like, the lore and the canon in your own ways. And I know that when it comes to working on, like, the RPGs, you know, our stuff is not as official as, say, the actual TV show. But it's kind of rad to get to just, you know, to add your own little thing to the section of the Star Trek universe and to have old school, like, you know, Trekkies flip through the books and be like, that's so cool. I love how you expanded on this.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's really rewarding. It comes with its own constraints, because working on your own games, you definitely have a lot more freedom. But it's a ton of fun. Sure. So what are some of the Star
Creating My Little Pony RPG
00:03:58
Speaker
Trek? We mentioned the White Wolf. Now, if I recall, you've also done on the Stargate RPG. Yep. What are some of the other ones? Have you done My Little Pony? I did. Most recently, we just launched the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Core book.
00:04:14
Speaker
And that was really, like, it was a lot of fun to work on. To get context, my sister Tina, who will probably be listening to this, huge, huge fan of My Little Pony. And I remember, so this was like 10, 12 years ago, I'm going through our mom's attic, because I was trying to find my Transformers, because I had hoped that my Transformers might have survived.
00:04:40
Speaker
Sure. My mom was an elementary school teacher for over 31 years, so any toys that we didn't keep, if they got left at mom's house, became prizes for her kids if they did well. Sure. Yeah, there were some classes that got some really cool Beast Wars and Transformers Intergon figures.
00:05:03
Speaker
But I was trying to find them because I was really hoping, you know, because you want your old toys. Sadly, I didn't find mine, but I found Tina's old box of My Little Pony. And my sister, who is a rock star, by the way,
00:05:20
Speaker
seeing her like to actually pick each pony out of the box and she kind of like hugged each one and it was so sweet and charming to see like, you know, like the pure love and joy that you have for your old toys. And when I got the opportunity to work on My Little Pony, I tried to remember that where it's like,
00:05:41
Speaker
I was never one of those people that was going to just constantly like, you know, like crap on my little pony or things that weren't mine. You know, it's, it's one of those things where as you get older, Oh, you wouldn't get older. I know it gets easier to kind of be like, Oh, that's gross. Why would I like that? Give me more be cool. Now it's not. Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
Like there were a lot of people who, when I started working on My Little Pony, they messaged me and said, oh, my condolences. It's got to be really awful. And I'm like, what? No, it's kind of awful. It sounds like a delightful project to work on. I don't know why you would think that would be awful. It plays to my strengths. It's a lot of puns. It's a lot of humor. And then it's a lot of just weird nonsensical animals that you just kind of say, no, no, there's a griffon here now. Be cool with it. Here's a dog that, you know, eats rocks for a living. Just be chill with it.
00:06:28
Speaker
Right. But working on My Little Pony was really great. And I got to draw upon several of my skill sets as well. I've worked with kids. I used to work in the museum. And I've also worked on a lot of kids games. So it was really great being able to draw upon all of my strengths. And of course, we had a fantastic crew on this one. Andrew Peregrin, who is always amazing and always a lot of fun to work with.
00:06:55
Speaker
all of our play testers who helped us figure out where the flaws were in the game. It was a lot of fun. Good. What are some of the struggles you've had working on things like IPs?
Challenges with IP feedback and restrictions
00:07:12
Speaker
If you ever get a chance to work on an IP, and this could be something as big as Star Trek or My Little Pony, or something as small as recently I worked on Homeworld,
00:07:23
Speaker
You have to get used to hearing though. Like that is the biggest thing that you have to get used to hearing. And it can suck, like not to sugarcoat it. Like if you've worked all week on a draft, it's 10,000 words, you're pretty proud of it. But then they say, hey, we don't like the core concept behind this. I think we're, it goes against the brand. We need you to do it differently. And you just have to be able to say, okay, they want something else. That's, they are the client. That's the IP.
00:07:53
Speaker
That's how it works. Yeah. It's, it's, we always talk about how it's working in someone else's sandbox, but it really is. And you kind of have to follow the rules of the owner of the sandbox. Sure. So what is some of the, uh, what, what do you find it enjoyable about that sandbox though?
Pitching RPG products and brand understanding
00:08:11
Speaker
I mean, if the owner has rules, there must be a reason you, you kind of sort of keep coming back to this sort of job in game design, right?
00:08:20
Speaker
It can be limiting at times. There are books that I've pitched for Star Trek that will never see the light of day. And for a lot of reasons. It's never personal. And the people you work with, they're not going to wake up in the morning and be like, man, I really hate Alan today. I'm going to tell Alan no three times before lunch. You've clearly never been in my house.
00:08:47
Speaker
So with this idea of this, no, I guess we'd say, what do you find to be part of the reason that this happens? Like when you're pitching a product, right? And they say no, there's often a reason they're saying no. Is there some things you've learned that allow you to overcome that, to move,
00:09:16
Speaker
through that, things like that? That's a really good question. I think there's two things that really helped me. One is always being prepared to have a back and forth discussion about why they said no. But then the second thing is also trying to know your limits on what you can pitch anyways. To go with the second one first,
00:09:42
Speaker
Like, say I wanted to pitch a book for Star Trek, and I wanted the book to be, you know, like, I think the running gag I have with Jim Johnson is guns, gorn, and horn. And it's- Care to explain that running gag? The running gag is essentially, let's do a cool book about a bunch of reptilian gangsters who try to rip off morn. And it's more, it's a pout cleansing joke. It's one of those things where it's a funny idea, and I bet I could get
00:10:11
Speaker
a thousand Trekkies before the end of the day who would be like, yes, I want to see this book. This book will be great. But there's a lot of other things in the background too. One, those thousand Trekkies, they might be the only ones interested in the book. So I can't really justify making a whole book for just a thousand people.
00:10:33
Speaker
And the second, not a fiscally viable approach to making a product. Oh yeah, definitely. Like the, the people who are in like the developer's seat, they always are the ones who have to be like, that is a great idea. Let me see if I can make it work. But they often are the ones to have to say no. And again, it's not because they hate you or anything. It's, or that they think.
00:10:53
Speaker
They might even think the idea is really cool, but the problem is that the idea is just not, like you said, financially sound and, and you kind of want to, with like, with IP related products, you always want to pitch your A game. And as funny as I could make that concept, I don't know if I could guarantee that that would sell really well or would be worth us not making another book. Cause there's sort of a cost associated with product development and you need to make sure you can recoup that cost.
00:11:23
Speaker
Oh yeah. And we're not going to like suddenly release like, you know, cause the books that but if he has puts out, they're really nice quality. Um, but when if he is, it's not going to release like, you know, an old, you know, like tattered journal, cheap low quality paper version of, you know, guns, horns and more, because even if that saved the money, that doesn't also fit with how they make the rest of their books. Okay. So when you are thinking about this,
00:11:53
Speaker
what is sort of the approach you take with pitching a product?
Indie games vs. IP projects
00:11:58
Speaker
Like, you know, a serious product, perhaps we'll say. I would say that when you do want to pitch a book that you believe in, I'm going to go with my process. This might not be the process that everybody else does. You're the one on the podcast. Does that make sense?
00:12:16
Speaker
Well, I mean more like, I know I've already said be prepared for no, but internally you've got to be prepared for disappointment where, like I said, there's a dozen reasons why a book might not get off the ground.
00:12:31
Speaker
And they can be something as small as, oh, I don't think the market is right for this. Or, hey, we're not gonna release as many books this year due to a paper shortage. Or it could also be, hey, I just had this conversation with the vice president of marketing and he really says we're not gonna do this book. And you have to develop that kind of thick skin where you're able to just be like, hey, just because they told you no, it doesn't mean they don't like you.
00:12:56
Speaker
In this industry, I found that a lot of people that you work with will very quickly try to reassure you and be like, hey, your idea was great, just not this year, not this year. The second thing that you just kind of have to do when you're pitching a product like this is, I know I've already said it before, but you've really got to bring your A game when it comes to pitching it.
00:13:18
Speaker
Like I said, the guns, gorns and more, and was just, was a joke. And it's always going to be a joke. Cause at this point, I don't really know if I could actually make that joke into a solid enough pitch for them to take seriously. But just going back in time a little bit, um, like Shackleton expanse or lower decks, which, which I would just worked on, lower decks or some.
00:13:40
Speaker
I'd been pitching it for a while. And Jim was like, yeah, no, we're gonna get to it eventually. We'll see how the show does.
00:13:48
Speaker
But Lower Decks is just one of those things where it's like, what can we do with a book like that? Because the show is great, but it's built around satire. And comedy is a really difficult medium to write in because- Absolutely. Oh yeah, because by the time you get to like, you know, page 100 of, you know, just so many off the wall jokes, even the reader is gonna be like, oh yes, humorous. Hmm, very funny. You've made another joke, I understand.
00:14:14
Speaker
I used to do stand up and they always talk about how the last leg, which is usually like the last 10, 15 minutes of a set is always the hardest because that's when you lose people the most because even if you've had them laughing the whole time, something just happens internally where you could be laughing for an hour and a half straight and then you're just, you're laughed out. And that was concern with lower decks. But when I was talking to Jim about it and we were like, what would we cover?
00:14:44
Speaker
What would we like to see in the book? You need to be able to answer those questions. And you don't need an answer for everything, but you should really have thought about a lot of important things, which is, what's the market for it? Because it's not enough to say, hey, this is a Star Trek book, you should buy it. We live in an era where there's so many games to buy that, you know. I mean, how many games do you have, Alan? When I saw your booth at Gen Con, there was a lot of games.
00:15:14
Speaker
I don't want to talk about it. Well, there's so many games out there for people to buy and that can make it just so challenging. I want to spend your money on. Cause if there's five pies in front of you and you like pie, you're going to have a hard time picking which pie you want to eat. Unless you're, you know, a toddler that I suppose you just put a hand in each one. Or an adult with intelligence, emotional decision-making like me, who would just eat all the pie.
00:15:43
Speaker
That's the big takeaway I want people to get from this interview, is that pie is really good. But also, yeah, just be prepared for the big questions. Like, what's the market? What do you think the size of the book will be? What's the point of each chapter? Do you know what the chapters are going to be? And also, how do you get the pitch ready? Absolutely.
00:16:06
Speaker
So there is a, we'll say a dark side to working on IPs in that the popularity and fandom of the particular property might eclipse the talent of the people working on it. They become secondary to, you know, the IP, for example, if I'm being honest, as a large, as a big Star Trek fan.
00:16:28
Speaker
You put Star Trek on the RPG book, I'll buy it. It doesn't matter who's in the credits. Now, if I like it, will I look? Yes, because I work in the industry. But before that, did I look? No, not at all. Right. You know, and I think that's a problem in RPGs in general, but I think it's more pronounced with these RPGs that are based on intellectual property. Right.
00:16:52
Speaker
Do you ever feel like working on so many IPs has become a bit of a hindrance when it comes to promoting yourself? I realize this is a hard question, but this is what we're talking about, right? That's a really good point.
00:17:09
Speaker
It sometimes does cause a little bit of frustration where the book is more famous than the people who worked on it. And that's for everybody from artists, editors, layout people, and writers. It can sometimes be more frustrating where people are like, oh yeah, I just picked up Lower Decks. It's really, really good. And I'll be like, oh, I worked on it. Oh, you did? Oh, I wasn't aware of that. And that can be frustrating because, you know,
00:17:35
Speaker
I would say that the emotionally healthy thing is to not let your own self satisfaction get caught up on whether people know your work. But I will say like the dark underside to all of this is that sometimes it's really, really nice when people do recognize your name. Absolutely.
00:17:51
Speaker
And yeah, and it's, like I said, probably the smart answer would be, oh, just don't care about it. But I know at least speaking for me, sometimes it's like, oh man, that person said they really liked My Little Pony, and then they noticed my name was in it, and they said they liked it even more. And I'm like, oh my God, this is a great feeling. I wish I could bottle up this feeling just so I could savor it later on. Right.
00:18:14
Speaker
And I feel like with indie games, especially with a lot of people who go out of their way to get indie games, um, they definitely know more about the creators. Um, because it not just small scale book to a large scale book. It really is just more of a, they really liked the design. They're really like engaged in it. And then they see the names and they're like, Oh no, I want to follow this person's work. Right. It becomes, it becomes sort of a part of the.
00:18:44
Speaker
process as it were to follow that person's work because you like it and you want to support it, which can be a part that I think is lacking in IP driven material. If I like, we'll say Marvel, for example, as a Marvel fan, it can be harder to justify chasing down the latest Marvel RPG because it's a Marvel RPG and it's sort of the attitude of it's always going to be there in some form or another
00:19:13
Speaker
I don't want to say cheap in it, but it can cause you to treat it more cheaply, maybe, as a consumer. I think that's actually fair, where it's like... I played the brief playthrough of the Marvel RPG at GenCon. It's a wonderful game. I love it. Matt Forbeck did a great job on it. But I do agree with what you said, where it's kind of like...
00:19:36
Speaker
I'm saying this not to cheapen, you know, the Marvel RPG, right? It's more like, it's like the Outback Steakhouse of RPGs where it's good food. A lot of like your favorite dishes are there, but it's also kind of like, Hey, do you want to try Outback, which is kind of the same city to city? Or do you want to try like that corner bistro that you passed when you're- The cool local place has been talked about on the Food Network, right?
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah. And that's just kind of like, I think that's a good way to kind of sum it up where there's nothing wrong with, with, you know, working on big, these are the big books, but sometimes the best meals you can have are at these small hole in the walls. Like at Gen Con this year, we ate at a Thai restaurant, which had like mismatched plates,
00:20:21
Speaker
It looks like the seats came from like another restaurant. So the seats were all beat up and teeny tiny, you're all smooshed together in this tiny little restaurant that's on the circle in downtown Indianapolis. But it was like the best Thai food I've had in years. Just wonderful food. I appreciate the invite for Thai food. That would have been delicious. Well, next year for sure. No, I will reject your invite now next year. So we'll see if I'm
Heckin' Good Doggos: An indie RPG adventure
00:20:50
Speaker
even there.
00:20:50
Speaker
So, okay, so we talked a lot about IP, but you do other stuff than just big IP work. You do a lot of indie press work as well, including your game, Good Heckin' Doggos. Which- They're heckin' good doggos. Oh, did I, my apologies. Well, they can be good heckin' doggos and heckin' good doggos, and I won't say a bad word about them. So, heckin' good doggos. What is the imp-
00:21:19
Speaker
Now, a lot of games that feature you playing as anthropomorphized or personified animals tend to take the, we'll say the Teenage Mutant Ninja Trolls approach, where you are a little more humanoid in approach to find some justification, right? I'm thinking things like a Pugmire and its equivalent, I forget the name of the, the monarchies of Mao, right? Things like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Trolls RPG, stuff like that. But in Heck and Good Doggos, you're just a dog. Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
So what, what makes that role-playing experience interesting? Because that's not something I would have gone. There's a lot of interesting drama and narrative there to unpack. So heck of good doggos, which was a ton of fun to work on with wedding games.
00:22:08
Speaker
I would say that it's, okay, I know you know this about me, but for our audience at home, I always make up tall tales about my dog. He's a shelter named Dewey. The tallest tales about the shortest dog. Hey, he is Admiral of the Navy. He was a naval aviator and they based the character of Bart Mancuso from Hunt for Red October off of him and his naval record.
00:22:34
Speaker
For the people at home, Alan is looking at the camera like seriously, you told the stories about your dog's fake military record. Stolen Valor, folks.
00:22:49
Speaker
So yeah, the Monkeys of Mal and Pugmire are great, love those games. This is a game where you are more dog-like than the other ones, where in like Pugmire, you know, they've got hands and they can wear clothes and they can do all this. And a heck of a good dog goes, you have paws, you occasionally have a bandana, and you can occasionally have like a toy or something which might help you with like opening doors or distracting people with your ball.
00:23:17
Speaker
But that's kind of the fun of it, where the fun of it is, you're kind of like the video game stray, where you are an animal.
00:23:25
Speaker
I would say you have a lot more emotional awareness than, you know, like you're able to talk with your fellow dogs. So, and you could sneak in whatever vernacular you want as a dog, but you go on incredible adventures. And the base game for Heck and Good Doggos is you exploring mysteries, you're trying to protect your friend, which is, you know, in Heck and Good Doggos, most dogs have like their special friend or families that, you know, they keep an eye out for.
00:23:54
Speaker
And then we created a whole bunch of kind of like just like internal supplements to the game where one of them is a supernatural based one. Brandon and I are huge fans of now I'm blanking on the name of the graphic novel. It's a graphic novel from dark horse comics. It's about a bunch of dogs who are also paranormal investigators.
00:24:16
Speaker
I'm gonna look that up later. It's a great comic. Hopefully I've given you enough to find it. But we've also done things like, what if there were superheroes? What if it was, you know, in medieval times? It's, you know, it's going on these crazy adventures that are just so much more fun and trying to solve mysteries when you don't have thumbs, which I don't think a lot of people realize is like the game changer. A bunch of players in one of the games we ran at Gen Con got stuck in a room because none of them could open a door.
00:24:47
Speaker
That sounds like childishly frustrating, but actually from a role-playing scenario, like it was great. Cause at one point they built a human trapeze of dogs to try to get them through the door. And the players ended up, one of them failed their check and the whole pyramid fell over and knocked over the door. That's, that's quite the interesting story. So I, I wish I had sat down and played this at Gen Con. That sounds like it might've been quite the experience.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, and some indie games, you know, that's just, that's the appeal. Like one of my favorite games that you've done is your Baywatch style game, which actually was like a ton of fun. Like I wasn't a big fan of Baywatch, but playing the game was really great because
00:25:35
Speaker
I, it didn't make me want to go out and watch the show, but it's kind of like, Oh, so I'm like fighting street punks on a beach who might be smuggling in drugs for the mob. This is actually really cool considering all I have is that weird red floaty device as a weapon. Yes. The, uh, doing the job of the, of the police for no reason other than that's what we're doing here. It'd be in the hall.
00:26:03
Speaker
And, and being the half. Yes. I suppose that's a key component of this idea. I think that's one of the great things about indie games too. Like, so if I try to pitch a game of Stargate to someone and they're a fan of Stargate, they already know what to expect. It's a military team fighting aliens, protecting or saving the day.
00:26:31
Speaker
If I pitch a game to you, like heck I'm good doggos. Like, even if I give you just like the briefest, like, you know, overlay what's going to be, you don't really know what to expect in a positive way. Right. Absolutely. So do you find that to be freeing or do you find that to be hindering at times as somebody who works on a lot of these IPs?
Creative freedom in indie games vs. IPs
00:26:55
Speaker
Because I imagine that it can be a little bit of both. It is a bit of both. Like.
00:27:03
Speaker
After you've worked on a bunch of IP games for a while, you love what you do. But you sometimes do miss that freedom of being able to just say, hey, I want to see this in a game. And you know that would never fly in My Little Pony or something. But if you make your own indie game, then you create the world.
00:27:26
Speaker
It's basically, you know, playing in someone else's sandbox and then just opening up your own sandbox. Maybe it's smaller than the other one, but you get to be the one that's like, Hey, castles are going to look like this. You know, I want the sand to look like this. Um, anybody could sit on the play this, you know, in this sandbox, you know, stuff like that. So if we were to maybe take this metaphor a little bit farther here.
00:27:51
Speaker
Well, you could justify something like Hiking Godagos and Star Trek, you know, via the holodeck. You would say it's probably not the right place. Yes. I'm not sure I understood the question. Sorry. Oh, sure. So you would say that even if you can put this experience inside a licensed game, there's no guarantee that it's actually the place you should put that experience. Well, yeah, because now I get it.
00:28:18
Speaker
You could have your Star Trek guys go into the holodeck and be like, oh, you now look like dogs now. You're all going to play a game like dogs. Right. But that might not be that would be theoretically in theme with Star Trek. That is true. I was just thinking of the episode where Tom Paris and Captain Janeway get turned into giant salamanders. It's in Voyager. It's like season five. It's called Threshold.
00:28:44
Speaker
But as amusing as that would sound for like a session of Star Trek Adventures,
00:28:51
Speaker
It's also not what people sit down for. I mean, to go back to the food metaphor we used earlier, if you're sitting down at Pizza Hut, you want a Pizza Hut style pizza. You don't want the chef to be like, hey, I know you ordered pepperoni, but I brought you this specialty sausage I made at home on the specialty bread. And the sauce is also something that I've been messing with.
00:29:15
Speaker
And it could be like the best pizza you've ever had, or it could just be a good tasting pizza that does not scratch the itch that you were wanting. It's interesting you bring up that example because to me that would be exactly what I want out of that. As a hundred percent the experience I love in RPGs, not saying one's more valid than the other or anything, but just what you're describing to me sounds almost ideal, maybe.
00:29:41
Speaker
And yeah, that's so hard to predict. Like, you know, cause you're not just, you know, it's not just like, you know, a static game master and then the players as one monolithic entity, right? What the game master wants from the game. What player one wants from the game, player two, player three, player four. Exactly. You might be like, Oh, this is the best pizza I've ever had. I mean, we should eat this pizza all the time. Right. I might just be like, Oh, I was just really, really wanting that pizza hot pizza. I really hate mushrooms. Right. Like.
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah. There's a thousand reasons why it might not be the right fit or situation. Yeah. And it could be that maybe there's like a mushroom out there that you would secretly like, but that seems unlikely.
00:30:25
Speaker
Well, I know, but I mean, like, it's just like, you know, you don't like most mushrooms. And I said, hey, trust me on this mushroom dish and you've tried almost every mushroom in the world. It's kind of a hard risk for me to be like, no, Alan, you'll love this. And then, you know, you sit down and go, this was good. Still don't like mushrooms. Can I remove mine from my pizza? Kennedy and I have known each other for many years at this juncture. And I can assure you that if Kennedy said,
00:30:52
Speaker
Alan, you will like this. It will be good. I would promptly ignore that statement because there's a not 0% chance. I am just going to be trolled and fed something like black licorice. Oh, no, never, never that I hate that. But also, no, I'm nice. You know, I just never get to choose where we eat at major conventions anymore. There's a reason for that. And it's because all of those decisions have been bad.
00:31:18
Speaker
You give a bunch of game designers food poisoning once and. Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. And you are banned from restaurant choices. That is the rule. So, you know, we've been talking for a bit about this. What are some of the things you've got coming out that have you really excited?
Game excitement: Garbage and Glory
00:31:39
Speaker
I just got announced as a stretch goal on, oh man, so when it games, it is garbage and glory.
00:31:47
Speaker
What is that about? Wedding games. I really love how they just make these really nice tight games that just they go pedal to the floor for the concept they're doing. Garbage and Glory is a game where you play as raccoons, possums, pretty much night critters. And it's all about like little like late night animal heists from dumpsters outside of restaurants or
00:32:12
Speaker
exploring the local neighborhood and trying to evade animal control for another night. The artwork is just amazing. Some of the playable classes in the game, one of them is Sticky Fingers, which is a raccoon that's just really good at grabbing things and just always has a place to keep them on them.
00:32:40
Speaker
Uh, there's also like the, the, the dumpster diviner, which I guess is kind of similar to what we would imagine a, uh, cleric would be. And the picture is a raccoon wearing like a McDonald's fry thing on his head. And he's holding up a little, um, croquet mallet. It's really cool. And I'm honored to be on the project. Brandon and Matthew over at wedding games, um, just, I've known him for years and it's fun and.
00:33:09
Speaker
Other things I've got coming out, we just launched Star Trek Adventures Lower Decks and the Captain's Log. Lower Decks is based off the show. And that was so much fun getting to not just reference Star Trek, but make jokes about it. Like I'm extremely envious of the writers for the cartoon show because that would be a dream job for me. Right. And they did so well. Yeah. I have really enjoyed Lower Decks. I found it a very fun and exciting
00:33:39
Speaker
show to watch. And I really enjoyed sort of the gentle, loving, lapooning of something else I love. Right. Yeah. Did you see the crossover on Strange New Worlds? I did. Yes. So that was so good. That was perfect. And I immediately messaged Jim. We talked about in jokes and books that'll never get published, but I immediately messaged him and I'm like, can I write the 10,000 year Nausicaan empire book? Yeah.
00:34:09
Speaker
Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead, please. I was going to say, of all species to build time portals, it was the Nausicaans? That tracks. So here's a question I think you will find challenging on a lot of levels. If you could work on any one IP, what would it be? That I haven't worked on?
00:34:35
Speaker
No, you can pick one, if you can only work on one IP going forward, let's say, let's be more clear. Like if you had to limit yourself. So it can be one you worked on. That is hard. I'm thinking, I don't wanna give up Star Trek. Star Trek's just a lot of fun. I'll go with Star Trek. Oh man, that is really hard.
00:35:02
Speaker
It's not just that I've done the most work on Star Trek, it's just that, to me personally, growing up a big fan of Star Trek, it's, you know, if I could keep working on that forever, then I would. I'll see, you know, I'm sure Modiphius will have Star Trek for a long, long time, so I get to work on it for many, many years to come. But yeah, man, just choosing one, oof.
00:35:30
Speaker
You definitely take the hot seat questions. I know. I'm surprisingly insightful sometimes. It's my deep secret. Is there something you're working on that you can talk about that you're very excited for besides Trash Panda, the grave robbing RPG?
Pulsars: A sci-fi game with real-world themes
00:35:49
Speaker
I don't know if it's the grave robbing RPG, but that would be a lot of fun. I mean, trash is the grave of modern society's detritus, so I feel like it counts.
00:35:59
Speaker
That is true. I remember I took an anthropology class back in college and the professor even said, we mostly go through junkyards, like middle ages and classic era junkyards. Yeah. Uh, stuff that I can talk about that I'm working on that you're excited for.
00:36:17
Speaker
I recently got brought on to Werewolf, fifth edition. I'm really excited to work on that. I've been a huge Werewolf fan since I was a teenager, which was a not considerable amount of years ago. I'm old, but it's so cool. I love all the work that the previous teams have done. And I'm just excited to get to explore the, it's the same universe, but slightly different. Right.
00:36:47
Speaker
It's fun being able to approach something that, you know, that you've known for, for like 20 years. And at the same time, you get to see the new universe and what happens next. And then, um, something else that I'm working on that I've been working on for years. And Alan, you know, you've helped me with it a lot. Um, it's pulsars and it's kind of in my, my, my white whale project where, uh, right when I think I'm super close to it being done.
00:37:17
Speaker
something happens and then I just have I have to relook at it every couple of years but pulsars is that game where I think it's going to be incredible once it comes out and um I've already got the art for it I know you've seen the art for it I have yeah uh it's for the audience at home pulsars is kind of like my
00:37:43
Speaker
tribute to cosmic sci-fi and cosmic superheroes, huge fan of Green Lantern, huge fan of Guardians of the Galaxy, all incarnations of it. When Annihilation came out, I was in college, and I was reading that instead of Civil War, which came out at the same time.
00:38:03
Speaker
And also, so in pulsars, you play as a member of the pulsar core and the galaxy is at war. This great enemy is broken through in the northern part of the galaxy and has slowly been encroaching on other worlds. And you play a pulsar, which is a peacekeeper who's given a suit of essentially celestial advanced power armor. So you're given something that can essentially take on like starships and you'll win.
00:38:31
Speaker
But the game's much more than just, you know, hey, here's superpowers, go and be a little chaos goblin and fighting space analogues for Nazis. It's a game where, like, when I went to college, 9-11 happened. And a lot of my friends got, they either entered the service or they got called up. And I have a lot of friends who they went over to Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:38:56
Speaker
they came back and the experience really changed them and the number one thing that they talked about is how Like one friend of mine was a tank commander and they talked about how you're in a multi-million dollar war machine that is pretty much unbeatable on the battlefield and yet you come home and you're having to deal with all of like the PTSD from the war and pulsars is about
00:39:21
Speaker
not just acknowledging the stressful things that happened to you, it's not just about, hey, you went to war, you now have PTSD. It's more about trying to give the power back to the people who struggled, who like, they came back, they're trying to reintegrate back into the so-called normal life for those at home, air quotes around that. And it's all about trying to give your character
00:39:49
Speaker
not just a reason for them to keep fighting in this universe, but also for you to be like, hey, it's okay to sometimes feel completely powerless even though you are a one-man wrecking machine. And that was the big inspiration behind it. Okay. Well, that's really fascinating. I'm really excited to see what that comes out looking like, especially because you've been working on it so long. I think there's a lot of intent and passion there.
00:40:19
Speaker
Uh, so that's great. So we're getting near the end of our time. So I'm going to ask you some follow
Sustaining a career in game design
00:40:23
Speaker
up questions. I warned you about, but before I do that, do you have any questions for me? No. Um, other than just, you know, keep being awesome. Oh, did you, you have to phrase it like a question, like your question. Did you enjoy a Gen Con being on that, that show? Oh, Gen Con TV, which I was on. Yeah. Yes. It was, it was an interesting,
00:40:48
Speaker
It was interesting. I've never been on Gen Con's marketing platform before. So that was at least aside from, you know, the casual mention or something to my knowledge, we've never been featured. And so it was fun. It was interesting. And I really, I really enjoyed the long-term opportunity to give my friend Richard extensive amounts of grief about it. So I will continue to do so. So Richard, if you're listening, I was on Gen Con TV and you were not, which makes me a bigger deal than you this year.
00:41:15
Speaker
And I was in the audience cheering him on. So if you had to pick three RPGs that form sort of the core of your design element, what would that be?
00:41:30
Speaker
I think the one that was the biggest motivator for me to really want to create my own stuff was Werewolf the Apocalypse, because that was the first RPG I actually played in a campaign for, or a chronicle as it's known in that system. That was one of the things where I'm like, hey, what if there were werewolves, but there weren't guy in werewolves? What if there were werewolves who did this? Maybe I'll just write this up.
00:41:52
Speaker
And I found that file recently on my hard drive and it was terrible. But it was kind of cool to see how that motivated me to try to make my own stuff. Another one, which I really appreciate it because of just how out there the setting was, at least for me when I discovered it at the time, was Orc World by John Wick.
00:42:16
Speaker
It's not just one of those games that flips the script. It's a game you play as an orc. Your entire nation has been conquered by humans and you're trying to hold on to your cultural values and you're depicted in media as these savages who literally will stab babies. But you're actually a deeply spiritual people and you just want your freedom.
00:42:37
Speaker
It was one of the first games that I read where I'm like, hey, I don't just have to be like, you know, generic fantasy realm, orcs are bad, goblins are bad, elves are good and perfect. It was a game that showed me that it's not just things could be different, it's that things could be different and done well.
00:42:53
Speaker
you know it's not just hey it's the mere universe episode and orcs are the good guys and humans are the bad guys it was more of a here's some motivations behind everybody and there were good humans in the book and there were there were bad orcs but i just liked how it went deeper and it was like yeah there are bad orcs but definitely not all of them and i'd probably say the one game that really the third game that really inspired me to
00:43:22
Speaker
not just learn more about game design, but to do better in how I approach things is actually thanks to Loyla Santa and that was Mermaid Adventures.
00:43:31
Speaker
Aloy, when he pitched me this game when we were working together, I admit at the time, I was like, I don't know if there's a market for this. I mean, it's kind of like a little kids game, but are there a lot of little kids who game? And thanks to Aloy, I learned that, yes, there are. And even at age seven, they would like games that take them seriously. Like they want games that are fun, but they also want games that are not just, you're a mermaid, let's go on a splash-tastic adventure. And it was more like,
00:43:59
Speaker
hey you know we're not gonna have a game where you're murder hobos you know killing octopi on the ocean floor uh but no it's like hey they'd like a game that actually challenges them makes them think and makes them feel special and thanks to them that encouraged me now when i sit down to make a game
00:44:17
Speaker
It's not just enough like with My Little Pony. I mean, My Little Pony has that established IP, but you still want all fans of all ages to feel like, oh, they can have fun at this and not have it be, you know, condescending or patronizing or even if you have the most benevolent intentions, not just phoning it in and being like, here's Twilight Sparkle, here's Rainbow Dash. They're fighting, I don't know, the bugbear. Go have fun.
00:44:42
Speaker
And it's like, no, that's they want a game where they have mystery and excitement and humor and also just to be taken seriously. Sure. Interesting. Well, I think that's fantastic and I appreciate that insight. Uh, and then the final question, the one that always trips everyone up, what is one question that you've never been asked in an interview that you would like to be asked? I came up with like five really goofy answers, but you can give me a goofy one if you like.
00:45:09
Speaker
No, I guess it's not you answer though. So choose carefully. I guess the question though, that the serious question is what does it take to keep working in the gaming industry? Not just breaking in, but to keep working in it. Sure. I think that's something we don't talk about a lot. So let's talk about it. What does it take?
00:45:30
Speaker
One, recognizing the signs of burnout, which even as a 20 year veteran, there are times when I'm just mad and I kind of want to like just throw the laptop because the words aren't coming out. And my partner Kendra now has recognized the signs being like, I think you need to stop writing for the night.
00:45:48
Speaker
No i've got two thousand more words in me i can get this done it's like no you're fried you're just hurting yourself at this point and it won't be it won't meet your expectations you've gotta step back for a second. Which obviously once you're too deep in the burnout you really don't recognize it's going on.
00:46:09
Speaker
And Burnout hits every writer at some point. You could be someone where you only release small scale indie games, maybe one every couple of years, but you can get Burnout just as much as someone who does 20,000 words a week. Probably not the same level of Burnout, but similar types of Burnout. And I know you, you're a machine.
00:46:37
Speaker
Again, for the audience, Alan was like, yeah, I woke up early this morning and I wrote 6,000 words for a new RPG. And I'm like, I just got up and made coffee. Who are you? I would like to be clear that I did not write 6,000 words for an RPG. I thought that's what you said at GenCon. Oh, yes, at GenCon. I thought you meant today. Which, now that I think about it, might be proving your point. Well, I am right as always.
00:47:06
Speaker
Actually, I'm right at the time we were walking, and I was like, let me just pull my card out of my wallet. I somehow pulled out the whole wallet, dropped it simultaneously, kicked it for no reason. Because I am that level of disaster. But I guess the other thing about staying in the industry, recognizing burnout, but also, you're probably going to have more defeats than successes.
00:47:33
Speaker
Like, even for me, whenever I get a rejection email, even if it is the most politely phrased rejection email, it hurts. Like, and, you know, because you get your expectations up. And I even do my best to be like, now, Kennedy, you know, they're probably full on writers. They're probably not going to be able to have room for you.
00:47:51
Speaker
But I'll get that rejection and the rejection will be like, Hey, we're, we're, the cutoff was like a month ago. We have all the writers we need, but we'll keep you in mind in the future. And internally, I still am like, man, what did I do wrong? You know, so, so close yet something went wrong. Yeah. And it's, it's never personal. Right.
00:48:11
Speaker
And it's hard. And after a while, it really, it builds up because you want to look at like, you know, your successes, but you're always going to look back at like, you know, the defeats. You'll be like, Oh man, I really wish I could have been on this property or this game. And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Like I didn't know if I was ever going to get to work on werewolf and now I get to. Right.
00:48:38
Speaker
I think that's a great insight for folks who are trying to figure out if the game industry is right for them and how they want to participate in it. And the third and most important one.
00:48:51
Speaker
It's okay to take breaks. Like a lot of this is supposed to be fun. Like I know for some of us, we've made our careers around this, but a lot of times, you know, I've always felt that with game design, there should always be some element of like fun in making the game. And if after a certain point, you're just miserable and tired, you can always take like a year off.
00:49:17
Speaker
I mean, obviously not in the middle of a deadline, but you can always just take a break and come back in. Like, and that's super essential. Like if you know that like December is going to be a hard month for you, maybe you lost a loved one during that month or whatever. If you know that December is not going to be the month where you're going to be on your A game and you just wish you didn't have like a deadline at the back of your head, take it off, play a new game. You know, it's at least that's why I think helps.
00:49:47
Speaker
Sure. I mean, that's all, I think that's all great insight. And you know, like you said, you've been doing this for 20 years and it's important to know that what works for you might not work for everybody all the time, right? But there's at least something to be learned or tried from folks who have experienced that burnout and been down that road. So Kennedy, I want to thank you for coming on. It's been a real pleasure having you and I really appreciate you making the time to be here. If folks want to find you or support you online, what's the best way to do so? So you can find me over on Twitter.
00:50:18
Speaker
I know it's X now, but you can find me there at JKMyth. Although I've also migrated mostly over to Blue Sky where I'm Triceratops. Oh, I'm there too. I should find you. You know what? Somebody had already taken my screen name that I normally use and I was like, oh, I need one. Dinosaur, favorite dinosaur go. I think favorite dinosaur is always in a reasonable replacement for any sort of thing you might need.
00:50:44
Speaker
And then, um, you can usually find me just hopping around discord as JK myth. Um, or, um, yeah, and there's also, yeah, that's pretty much it. If you follow me on Facebook, I guarantee you it'll be less like game design and more random memes, but I do talk about game design from time to time. I can, I can vouch for that. Amazingly make your life better. That's a matter of opinion, like everything in the world.
00:51:12
Speaker
So, folks, I am grateful for my guest, Kennedy, today, who has come on and shared a lot of insightful wisdom. And I want to say thanks again. If you want to support Kennedy, I would recommend it. They do great work. And I know hearing about the work and hearing that people enjoy it is one of their great joys in the game industry. So, folks, my name is Alan Barr, and this has been Radio Free RPG.
00:51:45
Speaker
you