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Episode 9: My Little Pony, Gothic Horror, Vampires and Weightlifting with Steffie de Vaan
77 Plays1 year ago
Host Alan Bahr is joined by Steffie de Vaan, longtime writer, freelancer, line developer and weightlifter to discuss working on and differentiating writing horror, how to keep humanity in horror, how hobbies and day to day life impact RPGs and more!
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Transcript
Introduction to Radio Free RPG
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, Steffi Devon. I totally butchered that right after practicing. Well, I was very gracious. Thank you. Apparently, it's been a week of struggling with names. All of my podcasts this week, I have felt like I'm constantly apologizing for names.
Meet Steffi Devon
00:00:49
Speaker
So Steffi is an RPG writer, designer, developer and wearer of a myriad of hats inside the game industry. And I'm excited to be able to chat with her today. Hi, Steffi.
00:01:02
Speaker
Hey, Alan. How are you doing? I'm good. Busy, but good. Busy is good. How is the weather out in the Netherlands where you are? It is rainy and gray and bleak. So pretty typical for a spring day. Fair enough. It is full of snow here. We currently have about six feet of snow in my driveway. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's also an option. Yes.
Game Design Collaborations
00:01:32
Speaker
So, Steffi, you do a lot of different things inside the tabletop RPG industry. Why don't you kind of run us through how folks might know you? Yeah, so I design games, I develop them for others mostly, and I write. So the design games I used to, it's currently on pause,
00:01:54
Speaker
I've run a patron with Elizabeth Chai Pritikun, who's one of my all-time favorite designers, and we came up with a bunch of weird games. The last one was about a city built in the rotting womb of a dead colossus. And then people also hire me to develop games for them. I've done a bunch of work on games like Vampire The Masquerade. That's probably the most famous one.
00:02:23
Speaker
And then people also hire me to write for their games, like the many tiny additions that you'll bring out. Very happy to be a part of that. And Ravenloft and the Stargate RPG and My Little Ponies and stuff like that. I am usually very flexible on what people want to hire me for.
00:02:47
Speaker
That's quite the gamut from Vampire the Masquerade to My Little Pony. You've covered a wide swath of territory there. Yes, and they're not allowing me to write vampire ponies. They're not. I didn't even pitch it, to be honest, because I like the range. So if people go like, do you want to write something horrible and dark and dreary? I'm like, yes, awesome. And then they're like, do you want to write cartoon ponies? I'm like, yes, awesome.
00:03:18
Speaker
I can't argue with that. I look forward to the inevitable crossover, though. Yes, we'll we'll do a vampire pony spin off on the page on Sunday. Excellent.
Angry Hamster Publishing
00:03:29
Speaker
So you are part of the team at angry hamster publishing. Yes. Which is and I'm not sure of the structure there per se, but I know it was founded by Liz Chipratical and she brought you on as sort of the second person.
00:03:48
Speaker
kind of historically there. And did two of you work together for a long time? And now the team has grown again with some new additions. Yes. Yes. Liz tends to hire me for everything. I'm very happy with that. I tend to hire her for everything. But yeah, she let me develop the new second edition game, which is pretty much developed. She's doing the second pass simply because I
00:04:14
Speaker
also wrote on it and it's very hard to develop what you write because you catch some sort of blindness while you're writing and then you don't see the things that don't work anymore. But it's basically finished at its core. So now it needs art and editing and layout and everything like that. That's wonderful. We have a working game. That's great. The first edition of Witch is one of my favorite indie games from that
00:04:44
Speaker
era, I sort of view and it's tied to how Kickstarter is performed, but I view these kind of discrete little eras of indie game design as Kickstarter has shifted.
Kickstarter's Role in Indie Games
00:04:55
Speaker
You have these sort of trends that shift in the industry and which was kind of at the front of the Kickstarter still new and fresh trend. And we've moved into that Kickstarter is a little bit more mainstream and foundational and
00:05:10
Speaker
also being used for things like zines now. And so the tone of what you see on Kickstarter does change over time in which kind of came at an earlier era. And it's a really great game. Yeah, I love it. I wasn't part of the team back then, but it's so good. But Liz thought, and I do agree with her on that, that the mechanics were a little wonky. They could have been more unique and more streamlined. So we did a big overhaul. We updated the lore. We changed some of the lore.
00:05:41
Speaker
Ah, basically, well, you know, it's like any game. You design a first edition and you love it. And then a couple of years later, you read it and you've gotten better as a writer and a developer. And now you read your old work and you're like, it's good, but it could be a lot better. I have no idea what that feels like. Yes, never happens to you. All of my work is amazing right out of the gate or terrible, depending on who you ask. It doesn't change. It remains either amazing or terrible, but there are no shifts. No shifts. I can do one or the other.
00:06:10
Speaker
So you and well, this is not a significant portion. I would say it's a reoccurring theme in your work, and that is the presence of sort of modern occultism and horror between which and vampire and a lot of the little you did a year of postcard games with angry hamster. A lot of these games feature some sort of modern occultist horror elements to them.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah.
Passion for Occultism and History
00:06:39
Speaker
And I would say that's a very strong sub-theme in your work, if not the main theme for a lot of your work. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of gothic things in there too. Is there a reason that particular set of genre themes appeals to you?
00:06:55
Speaker
I mean, probably, yes, probably deep psychological reasons, but no, I love occultism. I'm utterly fascinated by the whole thing. Even when there are streams and theories that I do not ascribe to, I still, I'm utterly fascinated by how they work and how people think. I'm currently binging a podcast, it is called, Shwepp, The Secret History of Western Esotericism.
00:07:23
Speaker
And it's amazing you get all this stuff about Plato and Socrates and Pythagoras like Pythagoras was so weird, so weird. We know him as the math guy, but he was a weird cult freak. And I just did you know that Plato got abducted by pirates once and sold. And then he was bought by somebody who was a huge Beethoven and he was like, Oh my God, Plato, let me just buy you and set you free.
00:07:52
Speaker
And I just love that shit. I could read about that all day long. So that is what comes back in my games. I did not know that about Plato. That's fascinating. That is so amazing. He's like 20 times cooler now. That's quite the journey. Yes. I can only hope to be so famous one day that if I get abducted by pirates, somebody will lay out financial money to rescue me so I can keep making my games.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yes. So with this theme, you have been drawn into both large Gothic occult horror themed RPGs like Vampire, as well as, you know, you do the vampire from White Wolf slash Renegade right now. You've also done stuff with Onyx Path in the various 20th anniversary lines, as well as some of their fifth edition supplemental stuff.
00:08:42
Speaker
or vampire. But then you also do these smaller, more indie leading horror games, like I believe it was City of Flashes with the title of the undead or the city in the womb of a dead colossus and witch and all these postcard games. And they have a very varied theme. How do you keep them from feeling so too similar? Because it can be hard when you work in the same genre a lot to divorce various ideas.
00:09:11
Speaker
Oh, and assumptions. And what are some of your tips and tricks and ways you approach that? Yes. I mean, for the established game playing, it's like Vampire and Ravenloft. It's not that hard because they give you an outline and then you write to spec. But for my own stuff, to be honest, it depends on my latest type of fixation. But I will say that there are recurring themes, for example, to go back to City of Flesh,
00:09:41
Speaker
It has a theme of that birth and death at two sides of the same coin. That resonates a lot in it. There's also a theme of that which was never born, can never die, which I also do a lot. That actually does come back a lot in my work, but if you simply keep approaching it from a different angle,
Themes in Game Design
00:10:05
Speaker
then the game ends up different. It's kind of hard to explain
00:10:11
Speaker
I guess, I'm not doing a very good job on it. But yeah, so a theme of what is never born can never die applies to gods, technically, who are never born to titans. But it is very different to say there was a god who was slain by people. And because he can't die, his death opened the afterworld, which didn't exist before he died, because
00:10:39
Speaker
There was existence and there was non-existence, but since a god can't not exist, it dying triggered the creation of the afterlife. That is one theme, but you can also say they killed a god and then they built a city in its corpse. And the city can only exist at a unique point of time because the god's death is a unique point in time. So then you have the same theme, but two very different games.
00:11:05
Speaker
Sure, that's very interesting. I liken it to music. You might have a similar theme throughout musical composition, but if that theme is present in, you know, death metal versus ambient horror jazz, it's going to sound and feel very different, even though it shares an underlying foundation. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you can absolutely see the current existential angst of my entire existence in the games.
00:11:33
Speaker
But, you know, it changes a lot based on whether I'm currently freaking out about Jupiter or about the Fermi Paradox. They are both terrifying.
Impact of Vampire the Masquerade
00:11:42
Speaker
Fair enough. I suppose the unraveling of Steffi Psyche will eventually be traced one day through her history of game design. Yes. So I want to talk to you a little bit about Vampire the Masquerade. So that is
00:11:59
Speaker
In the terms of gaming space, a very large IP in terms of name recognition at the minimum. Very influential, especially the early days in the 90s, even through now. How long have you been a fan of and when did you sort of enter that space? I mean, I think my first game might have been the second edition. My very first game was Dragon Dance, which is one of my great loves still.
00:12:29
Speaker
And then the second game I ever played was vampire. Okay. So it was amazing to finally get hired on vampire. Like that was a dream come through too. Um, but yeah, so, so I started playing, I think it was second edition. Um, then there was third, which I don't think my storytellers at the time used much. And then we got through 20. Um, okay.
00:12:57
Speaker
is one of my favorites because it kind of combines. It goes back a bit to the second, which I do like better than the third. That, you know, adjusts a bit more to modern sensibilities. And I have V5. I worked on V5 for Onyx Path. I have not had the pleasure of working on the Renegade games yet. But maybe one day.
00:13:24
Speaker
I am currently in an actual play of V5 and it's been quite fun to kind of get to play through an experience and I really like a lot of what has happened mechanically inside that chassis with V5. I find it very engaging to play with. Yeah, they're going back to the, because for the people who don't geek about this stuff on a professional level, the first edition is very personal horror. The second is
00:13:54
Speaker
punk goth horror. The third is the Antediluvians who are waking up and killing us all. And then V20 was kind of a mix. And V5 is going back to the personal horror, very hard there, going on that. And first and second were my favorites. Yes, I really liked the personal horror with a strong element of that goth punk influence inside it.
00:14:21
Speaker
And with the second inquisition, you still get a strong dose of the we're being hunted, but it's just coming from a different angle, which I really like. It felt like a sort of the best of all worlds on with my favorite part of all those worlds is the foundational chassis. Yeah. So so I'm a I'm a large vampire fan. I came in with Vampire the Requiem.
00:14:45
Speaker
the first edition of the quote unquote new world of darkness now called Chronicles of Darkness back in the early 2000s. And for me, vampire has always been a story of redemption. It forms a redemption arc. Yes. And I really have always enjoyed that in vampire. And one of the things I really like about your work
00:15:09
Speaker
is when you present horror, you present it in a way that allows the players and the GMs and the readers to engage with it while still having an option to be good people and do the right thing, which is something that some horror can miss the mark on pretty easily. And why do you think that is so present in your work? Because I am against all appearances. I am a humanist.
00:15:40
Speaker
I believe very strongly that the arc of the universe trends towards the light. I also believe that sometimes you have to drag that arc, kicking and screaming, towards the light. You have to work for it. But I do believe that, in the end, people are good. I think, and that is not the saying that humanity is good. But I think most people are good. I think most people are kind. I think we suck.
00:16:09
Speaker
at long-term planning. Like you see that if there's like a dolphin or a whale beached, people will go out of their way to get that animal back into the water. Like they will do anything. And then you ask them, Hey, should we save the oceans so that the whales and dolphins can continue living there? And that's too complex. And
Humanism in Horror Writing
00:16:33
Speaker
I think it's a brain thing and a foresight thing and a planning thing.
00:16:38
Speaker
but not necessarily a kindness thing because how much we go out of our way to do save individual animals that need our help proves that we are empathetic beings. It's an interesting approach to that philosophy. One of the things a lot of people don't know about me is I extensively study and read philosophy.
00:17:02
Speaker
And I really like that sort of humanist approach to thinking about how human beings interact with the natural world around us. And I think that's an excellent sort of anchor to guide you as you are moving into telling horror stories inside the role playing space.
Non-violent Conflict in My Little Pony RPG
00:17:21
Speaker
So shifting away from horror, let's talk about My Little Pony. Yes. We're going to give our listeners whip last year.
00:17:30
Speaker
My Little Pony is arguably outside of gaming a much larger IP than Vampire the Masquerade, even. Yes. But inside gaming, I don't think you could level the same the same charge. I think it would be constituted as smaller in terms of reach and influence and impact. What what was it like working on My Little Pony? I I love it. It's amazing because the My Little Pony franchise
00:18:00
Speaker
resolves around non-violent conflict resolution, and also about the fact that very often your villains are not evil. They are misunderstood, they are flawed, they are hurt, but most of them are not evil. You can get through to them, you can befriend them, and you can make them good. And within the spectrum of modern games,
00:18:28
Speaker
writing for a game that says your villains are ultimately good people once you get through to them and also you cannot punch them in the face. That is novel and very, I don't know, I'm loving it. It's very optimistic. It's very light. Sure. It dovetails nicely with that humanist bent we were just talking about. Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:52
Speaker
And also because years ago, like 20 years ago, I was writing for a game, it was called Unit Creatures, it was an online game. And it had a similar approach. And I was a lead writer for that project. And back then it was very, back then people were like, oh, but you can't tell interesting adventures in a world where everyone at their core is good.
00:19:18
Speaker
how are you going to have conflict? And like, if you can't tell that story, then you're a shit writer. There are so many interesting angles where your villains don't have to be evil, and you can reach a common ground. And it's complete opposite of what I usually write. But that is why I enjoy it so much. Like it allows me to stretch a different part of my imagination.
00:19:45
Speaker
Sure, that does sound, I enjoy as a writer myself, the stretching. So I absolutely empathize and understand that. And I think that makes perfect sense. But the real million dollar question is which pony is your favorite and which one are you most like? I love Rainbow Dash. Because she is, that girl has no sense of perspective
00:20:15
Speaker
or inhibitions. She just goes. I think I am probably more a Fluttershy. Okay. That makes sense. I would love to be Twilight, but I lack her leadership capacities. Fair enough. Well, if it helps, Fluttershy is my favorite. So that's a good choice. I love her focus on animals and nature and
00:20:43
Speaker
doing the soft, gentle things. I think that's a wonderful attitude to have. Yes. Yes, it is. But if I am being honest, I am probably more like Rainbow Dash. Just go, go, go. No sense of inhibition. Don't stop to think about it. It's okay. Yes. Go punch that cloud in the face. Yes. Anyway, moving past that, now that we've exposed my secret love of my little pony to the world. Although it's not so secret.
00:21:12
Speaker
What are you excited to be working on that's upcoming? Now, obviously, I know you can't always tell us everything, but just in a general sense, are you having anything happen that you find engaging or is forcing you to consider and stretch and grow as a creator and writer?
00:21:29
Speaker
Let me see. It's so hard to keep track of projects because you write them and then you send them off into the void. And then half year later people are like, oh, the book is done. And you're like, was I on that? I am working on something for the new edition for Pugmire, which I'm very happy about. It's not a super new direction for me.
00:21:53
Speaker
Um, but I love Pacmyer and, uh, I consider Eddie to be like a friend and I've never been able to get him to hire me for Pacmyer. So this time finally is happening and I'm super excited because, um, I love the world that Eddie built on this. Uh, that's Eddie Webb. Um, and I love the idea of these dogs just living in a post-apocalyptic world where man has gone.
00:22:19
Speaker
So I'm very excited to be writing for that. It's not what I'm currently working on. It's still a couple of projects down the road. Sure. Yeah, I'm looking forward to starting to that, which should be in about a month. Right. That's very cool. Pugmire definitely was when it came out, sort of a I won't call it a trend setter. They're a game similar to it that sort of existed, but it definitely raised, I think, the level of awareness of those games in the markets.
00:22:48
Speaker
It's very well done game. I have a friend who paid to get their dog in as one of the iconic characters. That is so amazing. Yeah, I love that he presented that as an option for people. If I had had a dog at the time, I probably would have done it. Luckily, I didn't. And so my budget was safe. But so with all this work you do, what do you find to be the most challenging and hardest part of being a freelance designer and creator and industry worker?
Freelancing Challenges
00:23:18
Speaker
Well there's the practical aspect of you have to keep in touch with people. It's the kind of industry where if you don't keep in touch with people they will forget to hire you for their next project. There is a constant hustle of
00:23:34
Speaker
going to people and saying, Hey, do we have anything coming up? I'm available. Um, I will say that currently people have been approaching me and I've been telling them like, um, get back to me in July because I'm fully booked. So that is, but that is very, very rare. Usually you're the one chasing your next project. Um, I suppose that probably sort of runs counter to your, if you identify with Fluttershy, who is very shy, they probably runs counter to your,
00:24:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I always worry that I'm, I'm like, no, but I reminded that person that I exist a year ago. But that is not how the industry works. And also nowadays, it helps if you are a content creator, as well as a creator, like, it helps if you have a TikTok that does very well or something else. And I do not like that. I just want to write shit.
00:24:32
Speaker
Um, but I can, I can deeply relate to that. I, social media is the bane of my existence as a publisher marketing and the constant content posting. I struggle with it. I would rather write and produce and layout and art direct and get the book out. Yeah. And you're not just marketing the product. You're marketing yourself constantly to people. Um, and, uh, yeah, that's, that's hard. And then.
00:25:03
Speaker
and then saying no to project is hard because that's probably because the industry is largely based around GenCon. That's when people want their new games out. But that also means that everyone is taking a break at the same time and developing at the same time. So you will have like, there's a period that there are very few offers usually in the winter. And then there's a period in the spring and summer where there are a ton of offers.
00:25:29
Speaker
And it's very hard to balance that, so you have a steady stream of things to do. Yeah, I'm very fortunate that now people are finding me, but the day-to-day of the job is just hard. Well, and that's been a long road there. I mean, we started working together back in 2017. Yes, I know.
00:25:51
Speaker
And so, you know, if this is a new thing, that's theoretically at least a six year run up of doing all that work to a point where you can take your foot off the gas pedal a little bit. Yes. I mean, it's been, um, it's never happened this early, usually halfway through the year. I'm like, I can't take any more appointments. I'm booked, but we're in March and I'm like, Oh, that's like, I've got a lot of work up until the summer holiday. Well, that's good.
00:26:20
Speaker
And usually I reach that point later in the year. So, OK. So what is one sort of RPG genre you've always wanted to play in that you haven't really had the chance to? Ah, I've been a gamer for a long time. I think I've played every genre. So let me let me be more clear. I meant playing as a creator, like right for something, right for something. What's a sandbox you've always wanted to?
00:26:48
Speaker
I mean, I mean, I'm fortunate that you do a lot of things and you hire me on a lot of things. So I have a lot of range, but I would love to do all superhero stuff. And I don't have a chance for that soon. And more occasionally sci fi. I really enjoyed working on Stargate. OK, well, after we go off the record here, we'll talk about that because I might be able to help with both of those. So.
00:27:16
Speaker
What do you do for fun outside of making games to recharge? So for context, because I work for myself from home, I often people ask me how I get myself it's done. And my answer is, well, I'm either asleep with my wife or in front of my computer working. Those are the three things I do throughout the day.
00:27:37
Speaker
I eat lunch in front of my computer. It's probably not the healthiest to be so glued to my work. But if I'm at home and I don't have something to do, I probably end up working.
Life Beyond Game Design
00:27:47
Speaker
So what do you do to recharge and to kind of apply those those breaks? I love sleeping. I'm very bad at it. I'm an insomniac, but I it's what is my favorite hobby when I can achieve sleep.
00:28:03
Speaker
I also like weightlifting. I for years, I thought that I hated sports. Turns out I just hate anything that requires any sort of coordination, which is most sports. But what I do like is just lifting heavy shit. So I do that. And I like crocheting. Okay. That's quite the gamut. Do you do crochet cozies for your barbells?
00:28:33
Speaker
Oh, that would be amazing, but no, you'd probably lose your grip. Well, you could put them on the ends on the weight part. So they're just colorful. And people would love that because I always, uh, when you're deadlift for people who didn't notice, uh, deadlifting is the weight is on the floor. You pick it up and the lift is picking it up. No, nobody said anything about putting it down. You can say, we just drop it.
00:28:57
Speaker
And you would have still accomplished the lift. I don't quite do that. But you know, I don't fully set it down either. So the people at my gym are like, you know, working out and then I'm like, like, this thing is heavy. I cannot. The last, you know, couple of millimeters from the floor. I cannot do that. Like, I'm sorry. Well, that's where those cozies would come in handy. There's your new business idea. Yes.
00:29:28
Speaker
You'll make millions. I look forward to my cut. No doubt I will finally have a side hustle that will make me money. My my wife likes crocheting quite a bit, and so I'm very familiar with it. She's done everything from the lube knitting to the crocheting full blankets to scarves, hats, etc. And it's it's a it's an interesting hobby for her in that is something I don't fully grasp. I don't have
00:29:56
Speaker
I can I can write rules, I can do math, I can write words all day long. But the minute I have to stop and crochet, my brain shuts down and I don't know what to do. It's just so counter to how I think. I'm the same way with puzzles. I cannot do a puzzle like a physical jigsaw puzzle. I have no patience for it.
00:30:19
Speaker
And one thing I've really strived to do the last year and a half is push myself into hobbies that are outside of my comfort zone. Blacksmithing is something I've done. Cooking, I love cooking and I do that quite a bit.
00:30:36
Speaker
learning some new skills like candle making and soap making and trying to find things to force me to do new things. And one thing that I've learned is doing those things often gives me new ideas for my game related work. Do you find that to be the case when you pursue these new hobbies? No, less. I will.
00:30:59
Speaker
create, use it in my characters who suddenly are all weightlifters who crochet. That's the obvious, but I will say that Jason, I think it's Cordova, does a Brinwood B game, which is all about old grannies who knit and sold eldritch murders. And I'm so jealous that that is not my game.
00:31:26
Speaker
Well, I will tell you that my wife would love some sort of hex crawl map making game where you have to crochet the map as you explore it. Oh yeah. So there's an idea. I don't know enough to make that, but feel free to run with it. I have no idea what I'm approaching with that thought process. It's a pattern making game, but patterns are hard. Patterns require thought. Right.
00:31:51
Speaker
Um, and it's, it's interesting to me because I will read these games out there and some of them have been ones you've worked on like a city of flesh and some of the mechanical applications are so counter to how I intake and process games. And this is not a critique or a bad thing. It's just our brains work different ways. And for me, I have to stop and I have to slow down and I have to think and really make an effort to like, Hey, I have to kind of turn off everything I know.
00:32:20
Speaker
in order to fully get this without, you know, coloring it with my experiences. And City of Flesh was like that. And I really appreciated that it made me stretch just as a consumer of games. And that's one thing I love about consuming such a wide variety of games. Do you feel like working in so many different games with such a range has allowed you to switch those gears really easily?
00:32:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not necessarily as a player because that requires you to dive more into what you can do. But as a designer, it's very easy for me to read a system and go like, oh, this is how how challenges and tests work. And this is how the skills work. And so this is how you write an adventure. Yeah, that's that's super quick for me nowadays.
Experimentation and Community Support
00:33:08
Speaker
That's good. That's definitely something that I have been trying to get better with. I definitely find myself in a
00:33:15
Speaker
As designers, I think we sometimes get in ruts where we have these little rules or tips or tricks we like. And so we just kind of reuse them a lot.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, I also love playing with mechanics. That's with the original Patreon that Liz and I did. We did 12 games, six each in a year. We tried to come up with, I think I recycled two of my mechanics, but that is still four different mechanics across six games. I love experimenting with mechanics, and I wouldn't say that all of them are equally successful. I do love experimenting with them, and I also think
00:33:50
Speaker
for a $5 Patreon game, you can get away with that. Like if you're selling a big game for $40, your system has to work. Sure. But for $5 Patreon, you're like, this is the basic you might have to do some tinkering at the table. Sure. And there are some people who like that and they are drawn to those games. So I think that that makes sense. And it's good to be kind of experienced in both of them. Yes.
00:34:16
Speaker
So we are getting close to the end of our time here. There are generally two questions I always ask, and I try to prep people in advance. I sent you a message with them both so you knew. The first question is, what is one question you've never been asked in an interview that you would like to answer? I just realized that nobody's ever asked me what I like best about the industry. What do you like best about the industry?
00:34:42
Speaker
Because I realized when I came up with a question that my answer shifted because when I started, it was working on game lines that I used to absolutely geek out on. As a teenager and later as an adult, I often tell people this, but Vampire might have saved my life. It was a game that I attached a lot to in a very dark period of my life. It was wildly important for me. So to write on that is amazing.
00:35:12
Speaker
I think Ravenloft was one of the first D&D games I ever played, and I got to write an official Ravenloft Adventures. So if you'd asked me like even three years ago, I probably would have said working on all this amazing stuff, but it shifted.
00:35:33
Speaker
That might have been in the pandemic actually, but shifted to the thing I love most is the community and having all of these friends who are so talented and so creative and constantly making me so jealous of the games that they make that I go, why didn't I write that? But I love seeing what everybody makes and they're just going, that is my friend. Did you see my friend? My friend is so talented. You need to go buy their game.
00:36:01
Speaker
Um, and I just absolutely love that. And then to see those people boost my games and do the same, like, Oh, they love me too. Um, that's, that's been amazing. Um, and I don't know if that amplified during the pandemic or if I finally stopped long enough to notice during the pandemic could have been either. But, um, that is by far my favorite part nowadays.
00:36:27
Speaker
I mean, I think that's, I think that speaks a lot to the quality of both the people you've surrounded yourself with over the years, as well as something I've noticed about some segments of the industry, which is how supportive they are of everybody doing the cool new thing and being excited for them and cheering them on. Wonderful. Well, uh, Stephanie, as we close out, do you have any questions for me?
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, if there was one part of the game designing, so from inception to game, that you could outsource to a clone of yourself. What would it be? Whoa, a clone of myself. Eesh. Yeah. Oh, that's a hard one. Wow. It's the real world for you and your clone.
00:37:23
Speaker
I, it's hard to say because as a publisher, I get to outsource whatever I want anyway, as long as I'm willing to pay for it. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Right? And so I already don't have to do the things I dislike that much if I don't want to, I just have to be willing to pay. I will say the thing I enjoy least about game design is writing adventures.
00:37:46
Speaker
It is my specifically standalone adventures. I don't mind writing supporting material campaign settings, et cetera. But writing this isn't an adventure from start to finish for like self-contained release. I do not like it is I will go out of my way to avoid any job that might require that. So if you see my name on an adventure, it was probably done under duress. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they forced you. Or there was there was no contract without it. Yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
Um, but it's, and I, I obviously do them because I have several to my name, but it's definitely the thing I like the least. I am not an adventure running GM. I never have been. I am a bullet point GM. The way I think about adventure design is with bullet points. And so for me, my goal is to just present like, here's 10 bullet points. Now you know what to do. What do you need me for? Oh yeah. So.
00:38:41
Speaker
People say my adventures tend to have Buddha points, but actually I worked when I did the Ravenloft adventure. I have Buddha points because that's nice and neat. And they were like, that is forbidden. You can't have them. I was like, no. Really? Yes. I didn't do them.
00:38:59
Speaker
Okay, good to know. Well, I have to make sure in every contract I have for an adventure that I'm allowed to have bullet points now. Yes, I'm just glad that I sent in my first two pages to see if I got the tone right. So I was caught very early on and I just knew not to do it. I would have hated to have done that at the end of everything. Oh, that was a hard question. So there's your answer, I suppose. Alan does not like writing adventures. Nope.
00:39:27
Speaker
All right. Well, Steffi, if folks want to find you and support you online, what is the best way for them to do so? Right now, the best way to simply find me is on Twitter.
Connect with Steffi Devon
00:39:37
Speaker
I'm available as long as the site lasts as 100 things I love. Then in my bio, there's a link tree leading to the Patreon, which is currently paused, but also to my website, which has all of my indie games.
00:39:53
Speaker
and my itch.show page and stuff like that. The best way to support me is to buy the games that I designed, either indie or as community titles, because I get a part of the revenue. OK. Well, thank you very much for coming on, and I appreciate you making the time to have this chat. Yes, it's been my pleasure. All right, folks, I'm Alan Barr, and this has been Radio Free RPG.