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Episode 12: Pendragon, Licenses, and Legacy with David Larkins of Chaosium
114 Plays1 year ago
Host Alan Bahr is joined by David Larkins, Pendragon Line Editor at Chaosium to discuss topics such as legacy, innovation, licenses, the new Pendragon starter set, and more!
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Transcript
Pendragon: Influential Yet Understated
00:00:01
Speaker
So in some ways, Pendragon has always been a role-playing game that has achieved success, but in the shadow of other games. It's certainly not as prevalent as D&D or Call of Cthulhu. And possibly not as prevalent as some of Greg's other work, including Glorantha, which is a very active and rabid fanbase.
00:00:22
Speaker
But it is a deeply influential game in that, to me, and having talked with Greg, and you've talked to him more than I have before he passed, so I'm sure you can touch on the light of this, I feel like Pendragon was the distillation of all of his ideas and theories about game design into one thesis, quite thoroughly. If Greg felt something about a mechanic or a game, it's in Pendragon. And I attribute that to his passionate fan base, is that the game does what it's supposed to do.
Unique Mechanics: Personality Traits in Gameplay
00:00:53
Speaker
And one of the biggest innovations to me is the personality traits mechanic, which I absolutely adore. I think it's an excellent teaching guide for new role players. So why don't you walk us through what you think about that and explain the personality trait mechanic as you view it and how it should be used. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, first of all, I completely agree with your thesis statement.
00:01:18
Speaker
You know, Greg called it his masterpiece, you know, and I obviously meant it, you know. Part of the brilliance of Pendragon, I think, but also maybe one of the reasons why. It's one of those games like until you play it, you don't understand how good it is, right?
00:01:43
Speaker
So part of the, you know, part of the brilliance of it, but also maybe one of the things that makes it a little harder to get people to give it a first look is the fact that the traits mechanic is so subtle in its application. You know, you hear about, you hear about this game. Oh, you all play nights. How boring, you know, like, like everyone plays the same character. You mean, I can't play a thief or a ninja or something, you know, like, what the heck? Where's my wizard?
00:02:10
Speaker
Where's my wizard? Exactly. And then you get into playing the game and suddenly the other thing about Pendragon, of course, is that it creates this game experience that's quite different from what you're used to with D&D or many other role-playing games, which is that you have to sort of
00:02:27
Speaker
relinquish a certain level of narrative control and be OK with that. You know, like your character becomes a character apart from you in a lot of ways. You know, you can't kind of force you can't force an experience onto this character. The character is going to tell you how they want to be, you know. Yes. And that's through the traits primarily and also the passions. So for listeners who aren't familiar with Pendragon. Yes. The system has a set of paired personality traits.
00:02:55
Speaker
For example, just and cruel would be opposite each other. And they equal a certain number. And if your traits are high enough, they become these overriding drives on your character that you have to test against to act in discord with. So if you have a high just, you have to work to act unjustly towards people.
00:03:20
Speaker
And it is a very difficult role, you know, less than 20% success chance most of the time.
The New Edition: Innovation and Adaptation
00:03:27
Speaker
Right. Right. And they can get to the point where they are all consuming personality traits where you were always this way. You have no other options. And that can be a very engaging experience in that one of the things I love about it is you can look at it on the character sheet.
00:03:44
Speaker
and you know how your character would react to a situation, it is sort of personality guide rails or guidelines for your character.
00:03:54
Speaker
that for new players or players who are uncomfortable with some of the more theatrical or immersive RPG experiences at times, it can be very rewarding to have, oh, this is high. I am this way. So this is what I would do. Even if it isn't something you're rolling against, they are just a nice benchmark to look at and make a decision quickly for as a player. And so as we know, a new edition of Pendragon is coming out.
00:04:24
Speaker
Um, that's been talked about some of the quick start has been previewed. It was at Jim Con this last year. And I believe the starter box is supposed to arrive later this year. Very sorry. Call correctly. Yeah. Very soon. Uh, quarter three, right? A couple of months. Uh, quarter two, actually. Oh, so any, any month now coming up. Yeah. Okay. They had a, they had a printer's proof preview at chaos and cons. So that tells you where it's at. Okay.
00:04:52
Speaker
How have you sort of translated, I understand you inherited Greg's sort of sixth edition manuscript, sort of his vision, and he had communicated what he intended to do with what he considered his definitive edition of the game. Yes. I believe you said that. How have you taken that and had to adjust this without his guidance into this final edition while making decisions? I'm curious to know what that process is.
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. So Greg was, you know, how to put this, when Greg passed away, one of the only sort of positive
00:05:37
Speaker
outcomes of that tragedy, right, was that he had gotten to a point where the draft was complete, you know, he'd been working on this thing for years. Okay, had he passed a year earlier, it would not have been anywhere near as complete as it was when he did. So, you know, at least we could say, good, you know, we've got this complete draft manuscript, you know,
00:06:02
Speaker
I think like the only thing that wasn't fully done was like the bestiary in terms of like stat blocks because everybody says that blocks for the end, right? And and so really, it's just been a matter more of taking that rough draft and polishing it up, making it as clear as possible. You know,
00:06:27
Speaker
playtesting a bit more. We did go in and rewrite a couple bits, but very sparingly. The only thing that got completely rewritten was the battle system.
00:06:39
Speaker
Um, mostly just because that was, that's been one of Pendragon's Achilles heels perennially. And, um, I think that was partly a reflection of the sort of inner tension in Greg where he was like a narrative gamer, but also a war gamer. And so it was very difficult for him to reconcile those two things, you know? That's, that's fair. Mass battle systems are a challenging, uh, a challenging subsystem to tackle. Yeah. So, and I, you know, we got it to a point I'm pretty happy with.
00:07:07
Speaker
So, you know, and and brought it more over into the narrative side of things, you know, it's like less about determining like what the generals are doing or the kings or whoever and more about the player knife field and what the experience is. So anyway, you know, mostly though, it was it's just been polishing, revising, making the language as clear as possible. That was I think really Greg's core goal anyway was to
00:07:37
Speaker
You know, like you said, it's his definitive edition. He wants this game to be he wants this edition to be a version of the game that anyone can pick up, get into. There's not going to be like a lot of rules, questions, setting questions. Things are very, you know, unambiguous. We made it as unambiguous as possible. And that was sort of the guiding philosophy in terms of developing his rough draft into like a finished product, basically.
Challenges and Modular Campaigns
00:08:05
Speaker
most of the words on the page are still his, you know, either literally or at least in spirit, you know, I mean, after things go through editing, they're never verbatim. But it's been an interesting experience, actually, because it is kind of like, every day I'm working, I have Greg's voice in my head because I'm working with his words, you know, and we're still at a point here where he left so much material that I'm like, you know, looking at this production pipeline ahead of me, and it's like,
00:08:34
Speaker
still like 80% his stuff. You know, it's like, very, you know, we've contracted a few other jobs here and there. But like, it's still mostly stuff. The starter set is mostly him. All the scenarios in the starter set were things he had written. I wrote the solo quest. That's the only thing that's not Greg in the starter set. You know, wonderful. So
00:08:56
Speaker
One of the great things about Pendragon is, and I have opinions on this and I think you know them because we've talked about it, but both one of its greatest achievements as well as one of its greatest weaknesses is the great Pendragon campaign. So I, first of all, I adore the great Pendragon campaign. Let me just say that up front. I have ran it over 25 times now to completion. It has to be a world record.
00:09:23
Speaker
And I hope not. I hope somebody else is as crazy as me out there, and I have not achieved a world record. I am currently running it as a Star Wars RPG for a home group. Wonderful. I've adapted the Pendragon game to Star Wars, and so are a bunch of Jedi doing our not grail quest, not Star Wars land. Love that.
00:09:45
Speaker
And, but the other drawback of the Pendragon campaign is it is presented and assumed to be the default way to play Pendragon. And the modern gaming space is less inclined to undertake a 90 session minimum campaign. That is two years of play, roughly, if you get everything done, one year done in a day.
00:10:08
Speaker
Every session of Pendragon is roughly a year in your character's life, listeners. So when I say 90 sessions, that is 90 years of game time, which might or might not happen in 90 sessions. Yeah. More like 120 maybe. If you're lucky. Yes. Yeah. And if your players are laser focused. Yes.
00:10:27
Speaker
So that how do you how are you approaching that perspective? Because for me, obviously, I love Pendragon. I don't think I would have ran it so much if I didn't. But it is a hurdle to convince people to one, play the great Pendragon campaign, but to realize that that's not the only way you can use Pendragon.
00:10:49
Speaker
And so as you go into this new edition, what is sort of your and Chaosium's approach to solving, addressing, overcoming that hurdle? Yeah. So that is definitely so kind of the reference back to your previous question. Like I feel like where I'm coming in isn't so much in terms of the words on the page, but it is sort of like envisioning what I want to do with with the line. And
00:11:15
Speaker
So for me, that's like one of those one of those places where I feel like I'm I'm wielding a certain amount of influence because Yeah, like Greg with fifth edition decided Okay, we're gonna we're gonna make this game like even more focused than it was before in terms like not only is everybody playing Knights but you're all playing nice from the County of Salisbury and you're all starting out in the year 45 and you're
00:11:39
Speaker
You know, basically like if you create characters with this core book and you buy the Great Pendragon campaign, you're just going to go right into that, right? Like it was almost like the core book was how to play the Great Pendragon campaign. They are functionally a paired set. They are. And so my little private joke is that like, you know, we, you know,
00:11:58
Speaker
For sixth edition, we've rebranded the game as just Pendragon, because that's what everybody calls it anyway. But up until this point, the game has formally been called King Arthur Pendragon. My little joke is fifth edition should have been called King Uther Pendragon, because most campaigns last about 20 sessions, regardless of the game you're playing, which means that most people would start playing the Pendragon campaign during the reign of King Uther and not even make it to Arthur drawing the sword from the stone. And to me, that's just like,
00:12:26
Speaker
you know, no, don't want that for the game, right? And when I got into Pendragon, I got into it in fourth edition, when it was a lot more to me, it was a lot more like Call of Cthulhu is where there's this rich library of scenarios, you make a character as the GM, I can pick whatever scenarios I want to run.
00:12:49
Speaker
I run these scenarios for however long we want to play until we're done playing. And the, the, the, the boy King campaign, which became the GPC is a great framework on which to hang your campaign. It's it, you know, it's like, it's a chronology. Oh, what else is going on this year? Let's check it out, you know, and that kind of thing. And sometimes that's going to preempt what I had planned for that year. And other times I'll just mention it as people are engaging in court or whatever.
00:13:16
Speaker
So I very much want the game to get back to that because I want the Great Pendering Campaign to be there all the time. I want it to be there as an option for people to run it if they want. Absolutely. I also just want it to be a resource for people to use because, hey, realistically, like you said, nowadays campaigns last 10, 15, 20 sessions and people will go on to the next thing. Or they, you know, even if they want to play more Pendragon, maybe they want to start with new characters or they want to
00:13:44
Speaker
do a time jump or whatever, you know, like, you know, so for instance, with the new revised great pandering campaign, instead of it being one big fat book that could stop a bullet, we're going to break it up into slimmer volumes so that it's like I want to play the boy King conquest arc, you know, start with Arthur drawing sword from stone and with him being crowned and prove the Romans about 20 game years. Perfect. You know, and then if we want to keep going on into romance or we want to jump ahead and play the Grail Quest,
00:14:13
Speaker
we can do that you know we'll try the relevant volume so you know i i'm always harping on this but like i guess my my watch word is modularity you know i want pentagon to be a modular game you know i i think that suits it well and i i definitely think that that's to compliment that that is the attitude i would take and approach the problem with i think and you know that gives me a lot of uh a lot of joy to hear that this game i love is getting that sort of vision and respect
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah. So moving on from Pendragon a little bit, you also work on other things and you also have a lot of other hobbies. One of the things on a personal level I notice you really love is silent era horror movies. So what? I mean, you weren't around in the silent era. As far as you know. What? I really hope not. You look very well for your age if you were. Thank you. Thank you.
00:15:10
Speaker
What inspires that love? That is, to me, a very interesting sort of passion area because it's not one you see a lot in people your age. And it's not one that's easily accessed in a lot of ways. A lot of that information is lost or missing or damaged beyond usability in some ways. So why? Why? Yeah.
00:15:39
Speaker
Well, it's not strictly silent era. It's sort of 20s and 30s, I would say. I suppose. Yeah, because I love a good classic universal horror picture as well. And I guess, I don't know, it's probably a variety of factors. When I was a kid, my school library had these little
00:16:04
Speaker
these little books that had these like orange spines and like each one was about like a different like universal horror monster. So like, yeah. Were they black and white with the pictures and the plot synopsis? Yes. My school had those two. I remember them now. Yeah. I wish I could, you know, I could probably hunt them up online and find out what they were called. But yeah, I think like a lot of school libraries had those and yeah, many a young mind was warped by them. So,
00:16:32
Speaker
you know, that's kind of how I got into like older, like kind of horror cinema, you know, famous monsters of film land, that kind of thing, you know, and then
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think also, I mean, obviously, like once I got into Call of Cthulhu, and it's kind of like, hey, this game is set in the 20s. Okay, let me like do some research on the 20s, because I'm just like a history guy, you know, regardless, right? You know, it's where my degree is. And, you know, I just I love doing research. I also love like liminal spaces, like so, you know, like that transition from
00:17:05
Speaker
like theater into cinema and like what directors were doing as they're experimenting with the forms like german expressionism of course yes just just watched a really great german horror movie that's on amazon prime do not no wait don't watch the version on amazon prime watch the version on youtube it's the golem from okay i want to say 27 i think 27 19 28
00:17:32
Speaker
amazing visual effects. Like there's this point where the rabbi calls up some kind of spirit to teach him how to do the golem ritual and the way they film that is just mind-blowing. I mean it's like they're using like mirrors, like literal smoke and mirrors and then you know like kind of visual tricks and you know it's just I was just sitting there like with my mouth hanging open like this is great you know and I think that's maybe just a part of what I love about it is like
00:17:59
Speaker
you know, people were very inventive. They weren't afraid to experiment with the form. And you just see things, you see like visuals and stuff that you just don't see anymore. You know, it's it's fun. It's just fun. Okay. So first, my friend David Annandale, who was on previously, teaches horror cinema at a college in Canada.
00:18:22
Speaker
and writes for a games workshop in
Balancing Innovation with Legacy at Chaosium
00:18:25
Speaker
Marvel. And you should talk to him because he teaches a lot about black and white pre-code horror movies. And I think he just watched this golem movie because he was posting about it. Oh, nice. So you're describing this to me and it's sounding familiar. Yeah. Yeah. A second. So you're you're talking about pushing the envelope and innovation. And and this question is going to be a little challenging, I think. But
00:18:50
Speaker
From your perspective, and obviously knowing you work for Chaosium and with the Pendragon line, a lot of what Chaosium is doing is based on a legacy and a history. And I'm interested to know in how you are adding innovation and expression to that legacy and that history without becoming either slavishly devoted and unchanging and also staying relevant. Because to me, that seems like a very difficult line to walk.
00:19:21
Speaker
And I'm curious what your thoughts and approach are to that. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of ways. First is visually and that is, you know, right. You know, like, I mean, I've always been a big proponent of art in RPGs. There are people out there who are like, oh, you don't need art, you know, blah, blah, blah.
00:19:43
Speaker
you know, I'm like, these are wrong, those people are wrong, because you have to have art to feed your imagination, because we're all picturing our mind, you know, so, and Pendragon, you know, has had a lot of really good parts, really good things about its its legacy, art is not necessarily one of them, you know, it has had some good art, but like, you know, Lisa free, in particular, but
00:20:10
Speaker
you know, not a huge legacy of great art, you know, for the game. And this is a game that really, you know, visuals can help distinguish it from being kind of more generic fantasy vibe, right? You know, you want to really communicate like this is medieval fantasy. This is not okay.
00:20:30
Speaker
you know, postmodern fantasy, right, which romantic fantasy as opposed to standard sort of hype fantasy or dark fantasy. Exactly. Right. High fantasy. Exactly. Yeah. So which is all good, you know, not not taking the shot at it. But like at the same time, it's kind of like, yeah, why wouldn't you just play D&D if it was just art? Is it immediate communication about why it's different? You can look at it and know, oh, this is different than this D&D book or exactly this room quest book even.
00:20:56
Speaker
Exactly. And so that's actually been a nice surprise for my, you know, my stint here so far is that I discovered I love art directing, like I love commissioning art, you know, because you kind of work with an artist, you go, I'm kind of picturing something like this, and they come back to you two months later, like, like this, you go, Oh, my God, as you were better, you know, like, or whatever. So that's, that that's been a big goal for myself, personally, and also for the company as a whole.
00:21:25
Speaker
And then, yeah, in terms of, you know, other ways. So, and this is an example of what I was talking about earlier in terms of like using what Greg wrote, right? So like the starter set, we've got three women knights out of the eight knights that we include, you know, in the set. We have women knights depicted in the art, which again, is something that's not been consistent or even
00:21:53
Speaker
you know, really happening at all for most of the game line history. However, if you go back all the way to first edition from the 80s, it says, you know, hey, lady nights are a thing, women nights are a thing. If you want to play a woman night, knock yourself out, go for it. And every edition since then has like paid more and more attention to that. That being said, you know, to speak to the power of art,
00:22:16
Speaker
as we started to like kind of put out some previews and quickstarts and stuff, you know, starting a couple years ago, people lost their minds on the forums, you know, there's like, oh, I see what you're doing, you're pushing this woke agenda or whatever. And it's kind of like, no, actually, that's always been in there. And in fact,
00:22:30
Speaker
in Greg's initial draft of sixth edition, he actually went into it in even more kind of detail. Like he had this whole like side rant about how stupid chain mail bikinis are and like, you know, how like women's armor should be realistic and all. And we kept some of that. We trimmed it down quite a bit because it's like a little bit of a rant, but like, you know, somebody in the soapbox for a moment. Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's like, that's what Greg wanted. He wanted to push the game forward. He wanted to like foreground things like,
00:22:58
Speaker
Yes, you can play women knights. Yes, you can play knights from Africa, from the Near East, from, you know, any number of other locales you care to name. That's the whole point of Arthur's Court is that it's cosmopolitan. It draws people from all over, you know. So, like, you know, if anything, we're just kind of foregrounding those elements a little bit more because, you know, one thing I ran into as a big Pendragon booster back in the day, like, I think I've probably run Pendragon for more women than men.
00:23:26
Speaker
You know, if I, if I ever think about it and women love playing Pendragon, they'll play male nights, they'll play female nights, whatever. But I was encountering like, it could be a little bit of a hard sell initially because they would just be like, well, what am I just supposed to play like a damsel in distress or something? Like, is that my only option? You know, and it's kind of like, no. And in fact, even if you do play a player lady, we're going to, you know, kind of present ways in which it's like,
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's not just about, you know, conking a dragon over the head, you can also like, get other get knights to go off and do that for you or, you know, kind of wield your power at court or whatever, you know, so it's like, we want to like, make that really obvious. Like, there's all these different approaches to playing the game in terms of who your character is, how you want to play them, how, you know,
00:24:16
Speaker
how much you want to adhere to modern value systems versus playing a more medieval romance because there's a lot of fun there too. I mean, most people opt for playing pagan knights these days. I'm always like, I want to play Christian knight because I want to get into this guy's head. I'm not a medieval Christian.
00:24:32
Speaker
But I want to kind of see what that experience is like. I have only ever been able to be a player in one Pan-Dragon campaign. And being me, I immediately played a Norse pagan knight. Of course. Because I'm me. Yes.
00:24:49
Speaker
And it was the first thing I did, and my backup character was going to be a Saracen Knight. So unfortunately, I have not experienced the Roman Christian, British Christian divide. But I would definitely, yeah, I definitely have seen more pagan knights than Christian knights. I had not considered that till just now. Yeah. And that's fine. You know, that's why Greg included it as an option, right? Because it's like, hey, I get it. Like not everyone wants, you know, people have different associations. Like Christianity is a world religion.
00:25:19
Speaker
very much active today that we're not talking about the Forgotten Realms here, you know, and so people are going to have real world associations with these religions.
00:25:28
Speaker
And for yourself, it's like maybe you want to embody a character who has a belief system that's closer to you, or maybe you just don't want to play Christian Knight. That's fine. Whatever. Something I definitely encountered writing errors to heresy. My template was the advent of Christianity in the Crusades, which is, I would be hard pressed to define it as a positive moment in the Christian history in the world.
00:25:52
Speaker
For real, yeah. So, interesting. That's a good answer. I have always kind of, as I've seen Chaosium create new things and their latest round of books have been just gorgeously visually stunning.
00:26:03
Speaker
I've always been interested in what those internal discussions on how do we avoid just becoming a company that's putting out re-arted versions of ourselves. Yeah. You know, for years to come and remain a company that was that was known for innovating and moving the bar and keep doing that because that's a hard tightrope to walk, especially since at this point, almost everybody at Chaosium is somebody who was not there in the original days, I think.
00:26:29
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. So there is no matter how talented somebody is, there is sort of a loss of vision or lineage when you lose that first wave of mind behind. Yeah. So that's that's interesting. I would I would really be thrilled to see chaos. You can do some blog posts on that article side note. I think that'd be of great interest to people. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, you know, just
00:26:56
Speaker
behind the scenes a little bit, you know, like there's, well, Rivers of London would be an example of like, where the company is also trying to. So it's like, you know, like you said, it's like walking this line where it's like, well, we have this legacy, we're gonna, we're gonna honor that legacy, we're gonna maintain that legacy. But it's like, we don't want to just rest on that. So what can we do? And like Rivers of London would be like one of the initial examples of a lot of stuff that's kind of been brewing behind the scenes in terms of like, original content, I guess you could say. Yeah. That's wonderful.
00:27:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I certainly don't expect Kyazim to quit making Call of Cthulhu. I imagine everybody would be out of a job if that happened. Right. Yeah, exactly. I'm always interested to see the mix between, you know, oh, we're releasing an updated version of Masks of Naruletha Tev, but we're also going to release this new adventure compendium. And sort of, you know, what those conversations are like. And with something like Pendragon, where there is both... I want to say a dearth, but there is a limited pool compared to something like
00:27:55
Speaker
Call of Cthulhu for reissues in a sense. Correct, yeah. You could reissue everything, but you would run out of stuff much faster than you would for Call of Cthulhu or Glorantha. Yeah, absolutely. And so that sort of...
Future Projects and Cultural Expansions
00:28:13
Speaker
that that need to innovate or move forward is going to come much quicker for the line you're managing. And I think that's an interesting dilemma to sort of be presented with in a company where you might be the only one who's going to see that dilemma coming first. Right. The train is much closer to you down the tracks. Yeah, because I mean, like with RoomQuest, if anything, it's the other way around. Everyone's like, can we get out of Dragon Pass, please? Like, can we can we boost? And it's like, no, we've still got a lot of Dragon Pass we need to talk about, you know, and like,
00:28:42
Speaker
But yeah, like, well, to that point, we are going to do a revised Gray Knight that's much expanded, like with extra stuff that's going to kind of dovetail with the starter set as well. Excellent. Yeah, but that's really the only like revised edition that is in the Hopper and, you know, what are we, let's see. Well, for example, this isn't going to see print anytime soon, but I'll talk about it anyway.
00:29:12
Speaker
Graham Davis, who is like one of, you know, another one of my heroes, right, emails me and he's like, can I write for Pendragon? I'm like, of course you can. You know, what do you want to do? You know? And, uh, who are you going to say no to? Right. Exactly. So, so, so he's like, well, what about Beastie area? I'm like,
00:29:29
Speaker
Cool. I like it. I mean, like we have, obviously, the theory chapter in the GM's handbook, but like, you know, like, let's do this. Let's like, you know, and speaking of the art, like, let's do this up. Like, let's do this almost like a coffee table book. Right. You know, where it's like every, every creature in the thing is a two page spread where you have the art on one side and then you have like the folklore and the stats. Nice. Well, that's going to be a wonderful resource. Yeah. So I'm really looking forward to getting that out, you know. So yeah, stuff like that, where it's like, let's do things that have never been done for the line before.
00:29:59
Speaker
You know. Yeah. So speaking of doing things, never been done for the line before. You mentioned earlier you wrote a alternative version of Pendragon that was samurai based. But it would be seen print eventually. Yes. And there was Paladin, which was Charlemagne based. All right. Can we expect further movement of the Pendragon rule set into other sort of genres? Yeah, I would love to see that, honestly.
00:30:26
Speaker
you know, Pendragon itself is represents, you know, an offshoot of the basic role playing system that is this kind of, you know, streamlined version of the mechanics. It's D20 based. Right. Obviously, you know, a lot of folks like to roll their D20. And, you know, streamlined skill list, like you said earlier, just kind of focused more on like, what is the game trying to accomplish? Right. Rather than being all things to all people. And so I think in that regard,
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you can you can do a lot with it. So of course, there's obviously the hey, let's do other like myth cycles of the world kind of thing. So like the the samurai spinoff is based around. You know, like late Han era Japan with the tale of the Haki and and, you know, the the sort of fall of the emperor's court and the rise of the samurai as a class and a ruling class, you know. And then we have a heroic Greek
00:31:25
Speaker
game that is based around the Trojan War cycle and the, you know, the generations leading up to that, Perseus and those those chaps. You know, we've talked about other myth cycles that we can adapt, you know, but our friend and colleague John Wick, he's pitched me on a just kind of like a more general like fantasy spin off of Pendragon. It's like a almost like a kind of Game of Thrones vibe, you know, where it's all about political maneuvering machinations.
00:31:56
Speaker
you know, there's a lot you can do with it. And yeah, I mean, for any listeners out there want to pitch me a game. Oh, I've got a list.
00:32:06
Speaker
I'm not qualified to write them, but if you would like to find an author who would do a romance of the three kingdoms era, Pendragon, for me, that would be great. Yeah, not a month goes by, it feels like. Somebody goes, hey, have you considered doing romance of the three kingdoms with Pendragon? I'm like, yes, I have, and I'm waiting for the right person to come along. Listeners from my meager audience, if one of you is the right person, reach out to David, please, so I can get that game on my shelf.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, and I just want to say like with the samurai game, for example, like I worked very closely, you know, a Japanese game designer, Nobuaki Takurube, who, you know, was a wonderful like cultural consultant, sensitivity reader, advisor, you know, I couldn't have written that game without him. And I wouldn't want it to write that game without him. Right.
00:32:52
Speaker
Same deal. It's like if somebody out there is like, hey, I know romance of the three kingdoms inside and out. I'm like the right person to advise on this game, but I can't write a role playing game. Get in touch with me anyway. We'll work something out, you know? Well, that's that's exciting. I hope to see some of those come to fruition. I think that there's it's a wonderful rule set that has a lot of strength to it. Yeah. So let's we've spent quite too long talking about Pendragon. I say that not really meaning it.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, right. Because you can never spend too long speaking about Pendragon. Let's talk about some of the other work you've done outside of Pendragon. So what else have you what do you have coming? What have you done that you might want to give us some insight into? Well, so I have a lot of things in the hopper. I guess I guess I think I'm the only person at Chaosium who's written for all of their lines. So not necessarily had to things published for all their lines, but like, yeah, I've written for Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Roomquest and 7th Sea.
00:33:50
Speaker
So I think the next thing that's due out is actually for 7th C. And that is the last book from their Kickstarter way back when, which now has a title, Land of a Thousand Nations. And it's kind of the source book on that game's equivalent of the North American
00:34:08
Speaker
continent. And, you know, speaking of facilitating, speaking of working, working with other folks, like, John and I both, you know, didn't want to be the ones to write that book. We wanted a native author. So when we were sort of looking around, Coyote and Crow had just had their Kickstarter. So I just dropped a line to the creators and said, Hey, is anyone from your team want to work for 7C? And so we found Derek Pounds,
00:34:37
Speaker
And he is the lead developer, lead creative on that project. I came in and I wrote one chapter for that, which was a lot of fun because it's based on the Wampanoag and kind of, you know, Salem era area, you know, sort of equivalence. They're the one colony, the one Thean colony that actually has gotten a foothold on the continent. And mostly they're just there because the local nations are just kind of like, hey, we really like
00:35:07
Speaker
some of the things you can offer us as trade goods. So we'll let you stay. Basically, you know, but we got to, you know, I got to really get into that kind of like. Well, that's fun. Yeah. Northeastern. I was able to write for Cities of Faith and Wonder. And I wrote a city that I pitched as it's Casablanca. And then I was told that's fine, but how are you going to make it piratey?
00:35:32
Speaker
And I was like, I don't have to, it's Casablanca. What do you mean? I'm going to put magic on it so everything's in black and white when you go to the island because I can do that. The color drains out as you sail in there. You can only see the blue and red. But it was a lot of fun to sort of stretch and create. If anybody reads it and you read my chapter, you will see the Casablanca.
00:36:01
Speaker
references pretty thoroughly. Yeah. Right down to a club, a nightclub owner who might have a heart of gold or might not. And soldiers in gray. Nice. It's a fun setting to explore and get to sink your teeth into. I will say that. Yeah, because it's like you say, it's like you can take the real world and say, oh, there's magic so I can do
00:36:23
Speaker
Whatever I want. You get you get to sort of twist it up and be like, it's familiar enough. It's easy to explain, but you can still make it feel very different. Exactly. Yeah. Nice. And you've written for RuneQuest. What did you write for RuneQuest? So I wrote a scenario that I think was originally going to make it into the starter set. And then I think they had to, you know, cut it for length or something like that. So I don't know. It'll it'll show up somewhere.
00:36:49
Speaker
But that one was a lot of fun because I got to tap into my previous life working in public libraries because it centers around a library and a mystery there. But I got to have an undead librarian show up. So, you know. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. Nice. Well, that's David, what can we be looking forward to from you in the future outside of Chaosium? Well, let's see. Yeah, there's some projects
00:37:16
Speaker
I'm looking to expand my scope now that the core material on Pendragon is kind of wrapping up. So I've had a long-standing dream of publishing this game that a friend and I worked up called Action International that's kind of an ode to our love of
00:37:46
Speaker
my other great cinematic love, which is 80s action and martial arts movies. And we're actually rejiggering it right now in the wake of, speaking of chaos, in the wake of basic role playing being released under the ORC license. So we're going to put it out as an ORC
00:38:04
Speaker
cool licensed product with BRP is the core panic. But you know, it's it. I mean, one of my earliest RPG obsessions was all things Palladium games. And so of course, we played rifts, but we also played ninjas and superspies. So this is kind of our love letter to ninjas and superspies in a way exciting. Yeah, that's great.
00:38:27
Speaker
Also, well, I look forward to seeing that. I have seen the cover listeners and it's fantastic. So be on the lookout for Action International whenever it starts to come out. Yes, hopefully this year, but we'll see. Yes. So David, first of all, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Oh, of course.
Personal Influences and Historical Research
00:38:50
Speaker
It's good to catch up with you. I only get to see David at GenCon occasionally, so it's nice to get a chance to chat with him.
00:38:55
Speaker
David, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions here. So real quick bullet point list. If a listener wanted to get a feel for what makes David the gamer and game designer you are, what three books would you send them to read? Oh, Lord. OK. Hmm. They can be games. They can be not games. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That is that is a great movies are acceptable. Yes. What are your three? What are your three biggest things that have influenced how you approach game design?
00:39:26
Speaker
So I would actually start them by sending them to read an old choose your own adventure game book series from the 80s called Lone Wolf. That is where I started with gaming. I would literally spend my lunch hours in elementary school reading these books out loud to a friend as if I was like GMing the game for him and letting him make the choices and then like, you know, whatnot.
00:39:52
Speaker
But it's also just a great example. Worldbuilding, a lot of the author, Joe Deaver's verbiage, still makes its way into my own, I'll all notice from time to time. And they're reprinting the series nowadays in these sort of deluxe hardbacks that are directly marketed to people like me in their 40s who remember these books fondly and have a little bit of disposable income.
00:40:21
Speaker
But yeah, I would start them with the Lone Wolf books. And then, gosh, let's see. I think as far as what influences me as a game writer, I feel like I would also just send them in the direction of, I'm trying to think of one of the many reference books or just kind of like,
00:40:51
Speaker
a good history book. You know what I mean? It's almost like I can't really give a specific title. I could just say, read a lot of really good, weird history books, reference books about the occult or mythology. Yeah, gosh. Just basically,
00:41:16
Speaker
dive in, dive in on like, you know, some good historical reference books. And then yeah, as far as like, I'm gonna throw in a movie as the third one. And that's a tough choice as well. But I would just say, you know, honestly, I would say, speaking of 80s fantasy, because that's really where a lot of me is grounded. Gotta watch Excalibur.
00:41:43
Speaker
Gotta check out Excalibur. Fair enough. I was half hoping for Lady Hawk. It was like Excalibur, Lady Hawk, or Willow. I'm not sure. Those are all fair choices, yes. Excellent. And then, what question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview that you've never been asked? I know. It's hard. I would say, because honestly, you know, I've had a fair amount of interviews at this point, and
00:42:12
Speaker
folks have been pretty good about asking me a whole variety of questions. So I'm just I'm thinking, like, is there any is there any itch that has not been scratched yet? And I think. Hmm. Oh, here's one. I'm a game designer. I'm a GM. So because of that, obviously, I very rarely get to play. What game and campaign would I most like to be a player in as opposed to running?
00:42:41
Speaker
I think that's a great question. So what's the answer, David? The answer is, you know, weirdly enough, I have never played, never been a player in, nor have I ever run Masks of Nyarlathotep. And I would love to just get into a long-term Call of Cthulhu campaign. Preferably Masks could be
00:43:06
Speaker
or in the Iron Express, whatever. But let me play an investigator for more than two or three sessions, please. And let's get into it. Let's play a really long-term Call of Cthulhu campaign. Interesting answer. All right. Good to know. David, do you have any questions for me? I'd ask you the same thing. What campaign would you most like to be a player in?
00:43:32
Speaker
Well, I would I would like to play the full Pendragon campaign as a player at some point. I've only ever been a player through the end of the Uther era. Yeah. So I would like to do the rest of it as a player. That would be my second answer as well. Yeah. But I think I just for the sake of having done it, I would like to play either
00:43:56
Speaker
sort of the the Pavis campaign for the Glorantha. Yeah. Big rebel. Yeah. Or I would love to play through Dracula Untold. Oh, yeah. I've never been able to play that either. I've ran Night's Black Agents, but I never played it.
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah. So I think those would be my two choices, mostly for the novelty of getting to experience them. I've read them. I've ran some versions of them, but I never played them. So those would be my answers. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Like Dracula and Riddaka would be. I do really want to do Kingmaker with Pathfinder second edition because I'm a big fan of second edition Pathfinder. I think it's a fantastically good game.
00:44:37
Speaker
And I played the first edition of Kingmaker and loved it. So I would love to do Kingmaker too. But I've already played one version of that. So I'm not sure I can. All right, David, if folks want to find you or support you, what is the best way to do so? Well, let's see. I am just kind of getting into the whole substack thing. So you can follow me there. I'm trying to write, you know, an article every week or two just to put something out there. And
00:45:07
Speaker
You know, I like Substack because you can subscribe to people and then it gets emailed to you. It's very easy. You don't have to like check in on somebody's website or, you know, follow them on social media or whatever. I'm sort of nominally on social media. You know, I'm at Sir Larkin's on Twitter. I have a Facebook.
00:45:25
Speaker
Certainly, you can follow me there. You'll mostly find that I'm retweeting things about games I'm already working on or friends of stuff or whatever. But I am there. I do have a presence. And otherwise, I have an actual play podcast called the Esoteric Order of Role Players, and we play a lot of very esoteric games, as our name indicates. And right now we are playing DC Heroes slash the Batman RPG as a two player game with Batman and Robin. Excellent.
00:45:55
Speaker
Wonderful.
Conclusion and Appreciation
00:45:56
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for coming on, David, and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. It's been wonderful, Alan. Thank you. Excellent. Folks, my name is Alan Barr, and this has been Radio Free RPG.