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Episode 13: Licenses, Design Theory, and Freelancing with Jack Norris
88 Plays1 year ago
Host Alan Bahr is joined by Jack Norris, line developer for the John Carter of Mars RPG, prolific freelancer and industry veteran for a wide-ranging conversation about a variety of topics.
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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.
00:00:33
Speaker
Today I'm joined by my colleague, friend, and often co-worker, Jack Norris. Hi, Jack. Hey!
Jack Norris's RPG Portfolio
00:00:40
Speaker
Jack, if folks are familiar with your work, where might they know that work from? Oh, wow, that's a lot of stuff. Um, let's see, I'll try to, if I miss anything, I apologize, but let's see, I worked for Green Ronin for a while.
00:00:55
Speaker
as their Dragon Age developer and Fantasy Age developer, and during that time I also worked on several of the other lines, Meet and Masterminds, etc. Thinking of Meet and Masterminds, I worked on the DC Adventures RPG. I also worked on the Marvel Heroic RPG for Margot Wise Productions. I also worked on the Smallville RPG for Margot Wise Productions.
00:01:18
Speaker
I've, geez, I mean, it's, uh, I worked with John Carter for Modiphius. I worked on Dune for Modiphius. Um, I've worked on, I've worked on White Wolf back in the day. I did like Kindred the East and some, uh, exalted in a handful of other projects. Uh, my first RPG was a game called Noir in the nineties. Um, uh, if anybody follows like fake games, I have my own, uh, wuja kung fu action style game, uh, Tian Sha.
00:01:43
Speaker
I've done work for Gal at night. I've done a lot of stuff. And I've done a lot of license work, but I've also done a lot of unlicensed work.
Industry Reflections over 25 Years
00:01:53
Speaker
It's kind of a mixture, though. I would say, boy, I don't know. There's probably not too many people in the industry who've worked on more licensed products than I have. Zorro, even stuff that never ended up coming out, like Eve Online at one point was supposed to get an RPG. And I was working on that. And that just ended up happening, unfortunately.
00:02:12
Speaker
So, yeah, a lot of different companies and a lot of different games over twenty five ish years now, I think is about right. So that's quite the history in role playing games, considering Dungeons and Dragons is just about to turn 50. That's functionally half the life of this nascent industry. Well, it makes me feel old, but yes.
00:02:37
Speaker
It has
Role-Playing Games Evolution
00:02:38
Speaker
been. I mean, I mean, I started, you know, a lot of older designers and writers and gamers. I started, you know, D&D and such back in the day. Marvel, the original Marvel game, the original DC game, Star Frontiers, you know, just depending on what genre I was interested in. So. Well, that's that leads me to my first question, which is the birth of role playing games is in the grand scheme of timelines, still very much in its infancy.
00:03:07
Speaker
And we are still at the point where sadly we are sort of losing that first generation of creatives who helped launch this artistic space, which is an unusual place to be as a creative community. Most art forms people engage with are old and have a long lineage or history. And we are sitting in the forefront of sort of a generational shift in a new art form. Yes.
00:03:36
Speaker
Uh, we'll, we'll be pointed at, you know, not us maybe specifically, but in terms of timeframe, we'll be pointed at in the same sort of, uh, Advent as the original black and white silent films. We're in that brief starting era. Yeah. What is, I think we might've gone on to like early talkies by now, but like, we're definitely in that, we're definitely in that range somewhere though.
00:04:00
Speaker
We haven't seen what final form or the evolved forms this industry will take down the road. No, I think that's definitely fair.
Adapting Intellectual Properties
00:04:09
Speaker
And with that in mind, and as somebody who has worked on these licensed IPs, ones that already have this lineage of sort of old plus this lineage of new in a lot of ways,
00:04:22
Speaker
Do you ever find there's a push and pull between the marriage of those two things? Is there tension there that you have to resolve as a designer? I don't know if tension is exactly the word I would use, but I also don't have a better word for it. There is absolutely, when you're trying to adapt something to a different medium, there's always going to be issues. And then add to that,
00:04:46
Speaker
You know, like you said, the sometimes the fandoms don't, you know, the investment and the age and the interest of gaming and the fandom sometimes don't always, you know, the fans of a, for example, the fans who might gravitate towards the tabletop role playing game of
00:05:01
Speaker
an IP might be a different age group or a subsection of the fandom that might be very, very interested in the IP in other ways. I actually noticed this the most when I worked on John Carter of Mars for Modiphius because there is a relatively small but very passionate and very active community for pulp fandom, and specifically the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
00:05:27
Speaker
And most of those people were barely aware of what an RPG is. And yet there's a lot of gamers out there who are like, oh yeah, John Cardat school, there was a movie and there was, you know, this other stuff. And it was kind of fun.
00:05:40
Speaker
And maybe they've read one or two of the books but they weren't and and trying and it's and those Fandoms sort of intermingle in interesting ways and they also want different things out of games You know different and their entertainment in general. That's not that's not to say that there's no, you know 70 year old John Carter fan who loved RPGs they're absolutely are it's just that you know and just like to say that there's no 20 year old gamer who's like Red Burroughs and was like, oh my god, I
00:06:07
Speaker
This speaks to me on some level, and I want to play this in a game. And working on things like Zorro and things like that as well, there's a part where also sometimes people are really attached to a particular version of something. But it has a very, very long tale, a very long history. So for example, somebody might be like, oh, I grew up watching the Antonio Banderas Zorro.
00:06:31
Speaker
You know, it's like, which is, I actually think are fun films, like they're very entertaining. But if that's your, if that's your entry into Zora and maybe you've read like Isabella Allende's novel, which is also quite good. But again, these are relatively modern and sort of, you know, in some cases revisionist or reinvention elements of it. And, you know, there's, you know, somebody might look at that and then want to sit down and play a game. They have different, very different expectations than somebody who grew up on like, even the Disney series, not even going back to like the original novels or anything.
00:06:59
Speaker
So you have to, when you're designing things, you need to figure that out and see what the individual challenges are. And it does vary between projects. It's not hard to find people who like tabletop role-playing and, say, Dragon Age, which was a very tabletop-style video game, RPG.
Creating Superhero RPGs
00:07:21
Speaker
So there was, that was not, you know, it wasn't, it was just letting people know that that existed, that that was something they could do and see if that was something they were interested in. Whereas other things might be more difficult, you know, and then of course things like DC and Marvel, it's a mix because there are people who are really, really into the, you know, current Marvel comics don't necessarily know some of these other characters, history stories. And when you're doing things based off those stories, you have to figure out how you're going to put it all together.
00:07:49
Speaker
That's an interesting segue, I think. So you mentioned that this idea of people being attached to a particular era of an IP or media they like. They are nostalgic for, comfortable with, what have you. And it doesn't always have to be an era, it could be a subset. Right. But some part of it, not necessarily the entirety of it.
00:08:10
Speaker
And when you listed your brief bullet list of credits, both the DC RPG, the Smallville RPG, and the Marvel RPG came up, and you've also worked on other superhero RPGs. Yes, I've been a comic book fan longer than I've been a gamer, or by a good five or six years.
00:08:28
Speaker
Comic books are a very broad genre. Oh yeah. Even if we narrow it to superheroes, they're still within that you have things like the Lost Island, right? From Marvel where everything's prehistoric inside a Marvel superhero universe. The Savage Land. Savage Land, thank you. The Savage Land and they've got Dinosaur Island at DC and you've got, I mean, any number of those and that's just one example.
00:08:57
Speaker
Right, and that makes, and you know, spies and superheroes, Secret Avengers, Black Widow, right? Very much an espionage story rather than a standard superhero story. And then of course DC also has spies, like spy characters that they've eventually folded into, and to Marvel to an extent as well, that they folded into their superhero universes. So there's a lot of stuff out there.
00:09:20
Speaker
Right. And so with this broad umbrella of a genre, i.e. superhero comic books, and then these really focused internal genres inside the same sort of shared universe, people are often very attached to one thing or the other inside that. For example, for me, superheroes are almost exclusively sort of that four-color do-gooder.
00:09:45
Speaker
style story. That is what I like about reading superhero comic books. I like watching heroes be heroic. I don't enjoy the darker stories per se. And so when you are making a superhero RPG, how do you both present in a way to, I'm going to use the term combat, combat the broadness of the genre in a way that makes a game playable in a reasonable format?
00:10:10
Speaker
Well, I think there's like three different ways you can do it. The first way is you take one of the sub-genres or sections and you say, this is going to be my Super's game. My Super's game is going to be about four-color heroics. My Super Hero's game is going to be about street-level superheroes. My Super Hero game is going to be about, you know, you could be drilled down really specifically, you know, low-level powered superhumans on the run from an authoritarian government that wants to control or destroy them.
00:10:39
Speaker
Like, you know, that's on some level early X-Men, but it's also, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there, some various TV shows and things like that to follow. That's the first way. And I would argue the easiest way, but I also think that there's some unique challenges there. One, you've got to reach the market that's really going to like that superhero from sort of superhero thing from a business perspective, if you're trying to put that out. And then if you're trying to just do it for fun around your table, you need to get a group that's going to be engaged with it.
00:11:06
Speaker
And then I think the other thing that's difficult is if you're gonna drill down to that, you better really make sure your rules and your rule set and your world really benefit in the flavor and the rules and everything really make that feel right. So that's way one. Way two, you kind of go to the story elements of it where characters in DC and Marvel, particularly, though I think this is true in most Superheroes or universes,
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, Batman and Superman coexist. They have their skills, they have their strengths, they have their weaknesses. On paper, it seems ridiculous that a guy who has all Superman's powers and abilities and is also considered to be very intelligent and very capable needs Batman. But they create stories where, you know, experience, training, a certain philosophy, a certain outlook is vital to, you know, dealing with certain crisis. You need that, I think, both as a
00:12:02
Speaker
And again, I think mechanically and also world and character-wise, you gotta design that way. That can be very challenging, particularly if you do favor one type or another. But if you wanna do like a Marvel or DC-esque superhero universe, you do need to consider that. I mean, the people out there who wanna be like, oh, I wanna emulate a Marvel or DC universe in my own personal super universe or setting, well, then you're gonna have to have a Punisher.
00:12:29
Speaker
you know, or a vigilante or, you know, whatever, you're going to have to have a Superman, you know, or, you know, or, or a Thor or whatever, you know, a Captain America. Those archetypes are going to need to be there because people are going to expect them.
00:12:41
Speaker
those rules to make those characters not feel like they just don't matter. It's totally fine to carve out certain things. You might say, look, you know what? I'm never going to do allegories of prejudice and intolerance the way that the X-Men did because I just don't think I can or I don't think I want to. So I'm not going to have oppressed mutants and things like that. But then you probably are going to need something like the Doom Patrol.
00:13:04
Speaker
to round out the, you know, people who don't quite fit in hero genre. And then the third way I think is, you know, I think for me the least satisfying, but I think it does work because I can use like some sort of generic system or generic approach and you, you know, have your own setting and you say, look, no judgments. Here's what you're going to do. Go for it. Make your own. The, that can be great if somebody wants to toolkit and kind of design things themselves. I think the problem is, is that,
00:13:32
Speaker
if you don't at least bake in a little bit of the genre into things, you're gonna end up with sort of like, it's gonna not quite feel heroic. It might be a fun rule set, but it's gonna feel like, am I playing superheroes? I could be playing science fiction. I could be playing fantasy. It all kind of feels the same. And that's, I think, where the sort of design
Noir Genre and Projects
00:13:52
Speaker
divide with it comes through sometimes with people who are like, oh, I don't want all these rules that emulate comic book
00:13:59
Speaker
tropes and stories and things. And some people say, actually, without those, it doesn't feel like supergrogan. And so that's a balance you need to work out. And I think those are your, you know, those, I don't think there's necessarily anything inherently wrong with going one way or the other to it, where you can say, I really want to make something generic that anybody can just do what they want with it, if they want to house rule things to make things like
00:14:20
Speaker
Oh, my aunt got endangered and now I'm motivated. But also maybe I'm not thinking clearly. So I have these bonuses and these penalties or whatever. That's cool. That's great. But I also think it's absolutely fine to put that into a system where, as I've jokingly said, you can get punched in the girlfriend or boyfriend. Basically where the personal human struggles that we see in comic books that make superheroes more than just a pure power fantasy.
00:14:49
Speaker
And of course, you know, characters like Spider-Man and such would not be as famous without their struggles, Batman, et cetera. Baking those into the mechanics in the world is also, I think, a great way to go. That's my personal preferred way to do it. But again, you know, that's in part because even if I tried to do a generic thing, I would end up wanting to include all this stuff because I just like sitting around and creating superhero stuff. Sure. Superheroes are one of my favorite genres to work on as well. So I definitely relate to that.
00:15:19
Speaker
So you also have a love for a lot of other genres. So we've kind of touched on pulp a little bit. We've touched on superheroes, but you also have a pretty significant love of noir. Yes. Which is tangential to pulp in a lot of ways, but they are distinct. Yes and yes, basically. It's tangential, but it is definitely. I think I got into noir in part from
00:15:43
Speaker
I mean, I loved Demi and the Jones, all the other stuff as a kid. I loved the period, the aesthetic. And then, oh, hey, cool. But I got a little older, a little more, quote, mature, I guess, you know, if you want to call it that. Then all of a sudden, I started watching things like Casablanca, Multi Falcon, Big Sleep, reading Daschle Hammett and Raymond Chandler. And it's like, ooh, this is great. This stuff is so cool. I started studying film a bit and started to also see the technical aspects of it and sort of how they complemented the stories being told.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so and there is a difference, but it's also a lot of similarities. So like pulp and and, you know, especially, you know, the real more cinematic sort of pulp and more melodramatic stuff versus noir. There's similarities and differences. So, yeah, a big fan of those. So absolutely. So you said your first RPG was noir, which is a pretty succinct title for your game all said and done.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of want to grab that before people had used it at the time. And I've been borrowed a few other times now, which is fine. But yeah. So is that the only new our game you've done? No, actually, I also worked on a game called Mean Streets, which was a which was actually the first game RPG I really worked on much after that. I did a book for them.
00:17:08
Speaker
for them. The game's been knocked around. At the time, I was working with Mark Bruno and Todd Downey. And they had done Mean Streets, the main book. And then they wanted to do... Mark had done most of it. And then they wanted to do some supplements. I was available. They wanted to work with me. It was great. It was a lot of fun.
00:17:29
Speaker
I believe that game has gotten sold a few times now. I'm not sure exactly where it is. Some company somewhere puts it out. I honestly can't remember exactly who. And the version that's out has a lot of my work, but also a lot of other people's work because of adaptations and different editions and things like that.
00:17:48
Speaker
But I did that. I did a few around the edges, did a few film noir chapters or genre treatments from certain games as well. But those are the two main ones that I worked on in that genre. So both of those were pretty early in your career. And despite it being a genre you really like, you haven't gone back to it significantly. No, not really. Is there a reason for that decision?
00:18:17
Speaker
There's two, basically, maybe three. The first reason is that the original noir, the company I worked for, and not all, a couple of my, still to this day, my best friend, and I worked on that back in the day. That was one of the only games he did. But I stayed with the industry, though we're still best friends. And a few other people that I really have nice things to say about. But overall, the company experience was pretty negative.
00:18:44
Speaker
And I kind of on some level felt like I did a lot what I wanted to do with the film noir game. So as part of a not wanting to go back, but there's also an element of, you know, a little bit of negativity attached to it. Honestly, I'm really glad I got to work with the guys on Mean Streets because that was a very positive experience. But once I'd done, you know, a kind of a game, I think there was a lot to say that I liked some stuff I didn't like.
00:19:08
Speaker
And then another game where I think, you know, this is more what I wanted to do in terms of working environment and treatment and everything without sort of other forces that I would don't want to associate again involved. You know, I kind of did that. And then also there was a practical then sort of the other
00:19:26
Speaker
practical element for it, I think it's three ones, was sometimes you find yourself getting typecast if you do something too much, and I have a lot of interests. And so there was a time there when basically I would try to look out as a freelancer and say, hey, were you interested in something? And people would be like, well, we don't really have anything that's like modern day film bar or period piece stuff that we're working on. So no. And I'm like, well, I have all the, I know fantasy, I know sci-fi, I can do all this other stuff.
00:19:52
Speaker
So trying to sort of avoid that for a while with part of it. And I think also is, you know, the third part was just, you know, practicality is it's not a particularly big genre in the gaming industry. It is something people like, but it's not something people like, you know, there's not a lot of games out for it. And a lot of times the games that do exist, you know, it's more like there are noire elements in other games.
00:20:17
Speaker
And I guess for me, it's like I didn't want to be, I didn't want that to be my hill to die on. I didn't want that to be my crusade.
00:20:24
Speaker
You know, that wasn't, I didn't want to spend the next 25 years doing film noir games until, damn it, somebody really, really, I did one that was like a big hit or that really was the one that everybody points to. I was like, eh, it's like, I, I, again, still love it. Still love the genre, watch the movies or, you know, we can talk about it for a long time if folks are interested in it. Um, and wouldn't say no necessarily to doing something in the future about it. But.
00:20:53
Speaker
I've got a lot of interest that I wanted to do. I know there are people out there that have a handful of genres that they like or a handful of ideas that they want to deeply explore. I have a lot of respect for that. But for me, even the stuff I truly love, a lot of times I will reach an endpoint with it where I'll be like, I have done everything I can to do here for now. I might come back.
00:21:18
Speaker
What I really want to do now is go to this shop, or I want to go to this place, or I want to go to this experience, this style of game. And I've been doing that in cycles my whole career. OK. I think that's a good way to look at it.
00:21:36
Speaker
Do you feel like designers and writers have a struggle to avoid being typecast as particular skill sets?
Typecasting in the Industry
00:21:47
Speaker
I think the typecasting can kind of go. I think it does exist. I think it does happen. Sometimes it's not even just typecasting. It's like preconceived notions of you as a creator, whatever that may be.
00:21:59
Speaker
Um, I think it depends on the individual you're dealing with the project and what you're best known for. Um, I think you can get type, you know, I obviously use the phrase typecast. I think you get typecast as a guy who does, or a girl or, you know, non-binary person, whatever that does. Um, uh, I do this type of genre. I think you can also get typecast is I do this type of mechanics. I'm an old school Renaissance guy. I'm a story game guy. I'm a whatever.
00:22:28
Speaker
That's what I do. I think you can get typecast as somebody who has a particular style. It's like, oh, he's the guy that writes in second person at the reader advising them on how to do things, and he has this and that and whatever.
00:22:48
Speaker
And, you know, you can theoretically fight all of those things. I don't think they're inherently that awful in the industry if you're just trying to find a place. But I think that they can definitely be frustrating if they hit you at the wrong time. I have definitely seen and had experienced myself, but I've seen a lot of people who get frustrated when they're like, oh, I really want to work on this new Marvel game. I really want to work on this new DC game. I really want to work on this fantasy game. I really want to do Lord of the Rings. I really want to do Dune.
00:23:15
Speaker
and people, and then you talk to them, and then you find out they're a big fan, or they really like it, or there's something they really wanna do with it, and they find out that nobody thinks they are. Oh, but you did nothing but horror games, why would I hire you to do this kid's game?
00:23:29
Speaker
You know, I don't want you to put a bunch of horror in it. So no, you know, Oh, you did a bunch of OSR stuff. So all you can do is, you know, just, you know, take stuff from, you know, the early seventies and, you know, refine it from there. Why would I hire you to invent this new system subsystem for this game that we're doing?
00:23:46
Speaker
I think people get locked into that a lot. I try not to myself when I work with people and get to select who I'm working with or hire people. I think it's better now. I can't explain exactly why it's better now. I feel like I get fewer. Of course, part of this might just be my experience. And people see me do more stuff. But I do feel like sometime in the relatively recent past, people got a little less
00:24:17
Speaker
worried about someone's exact, you know, sort of like niche, and a little more willing to work with people on things, though I do think you'll still find it in, particularly among some of the smaller companies, because it's like one person, and if they have a particular, one or two people, and if they have a particular mindset about like, look, you know, in my experience, people who like this stuff don't like that stuff. So they may not hire you, or they may not look to hire you,
00:24:44
Speaker
Again, I can, I'm fortunate enough after, you know, after my overnight success in 25 years that I can, um, start to sort of tell people, Hey, I want to do this thing. And they might go, wow, I didn't know you were interested in that, but they also won't say, well, that's weird. Right. So it's a little, it's a little advantage, I guess. So it sounds like you might advise somebody who was interested in breaking in to the industry or.
00:25:09
Speaker
increasing their workload to actively pursue and showcase why they can do other things if they're feeling like that is a struggle for them. If, if, and yeah, I mean, uh, one, and I'll tell you right now, it's worse in, this is in current comics too. Uh, it's, it's worse for people who, you know, have some sort of marginalized status because there is definitely, I try to be like, Hey, you know, if you're interested in this, I want to do the work. That's cool. I think I know a lot of great folks in the industry who do, but I've also known people, even well-meaning people who are like,
00:25:38
Speaker
I don't have anything for this black writer because I'm not writing anything that's particularly in the, you know, I'm doing air quotes here, black. And that creates, uh, you know, attention where you might have a guy who, I mean this, and, and it's ridiculous. I mean, you know, I think that, uh, Christopher Priest is one of the greatest comic writers of all time. He's been known as for a while that he was known as Jim Owlsley.
00:25:59
Speaker
And, um, few years ago, he, uh, he took, he started writing the comic book deathstroke and people ask him why deathstroke of all things. And he said, because it's the first non first non-black character anybody's offered me in 10 years. And this was a guy who was like an award-winning guy who's written everybody from Spider-Man to Superman to the Hulk to whatever. And he reached a point when people are trying to, you know, on some, it was well-intentioned. We want more black, you know, we want more black people, you know, in comics, we want more.
00:26:27
Speaker
like writers and comics, we want them to write these characters. And he did, he wrote Black Panther, he wrote Latino, Luke Cage, he did all these wonderful stories, some of my favorites with those characters. But then at some point he found himself like the phone wasn't ringing unless it was to write one of those characters. And so as bad as it can be for any of the rest of us, I think it is definitely, and I'm saying this also in part, the many publishers are listening, check to make sure you're not doing that.
00:26:53
Speaker
Like you might think you're doing some, I'm hiring a black writer to write this black character or this African section, or I'm writing this, I'm hiring this Native American person to write this Native American section. It's like, that's great. That really is. But make sure you're not, you're still calling. If they're doing good work for you and they're doing good things, please call them for other things too.
00:27:15
Speaker
if they're interested in them. Obviously don't force, no, they're not forcing anybody to work on anything. But if, and I think that's true of all creators, but I think if you have some sort of marginalized status, you will find it is more difficult. People aren't going to want to hire you to write things outside of a certain area. And, you know, also sometimes if your experience or perspective is sort of hidden from the obvious, you know, I've definitely known people who, you know, it's like, well, I never mentioned that, you know,
00:27:46
Speaker
I know people who've been like, oh, I've never mentioned that I'm Native American, for example. And it's like, oh, so I got turned down to write something about the tribe that my ancestors are actually from because the person looked at my bio, whatever, and thought, oh, quick, white guy, don't want me to do it. So sometimes you do have to put yourself out there and sort of let people know who you are and what you want and what you're interested in. And most people will.
00:28:12
Speaker
you know, kind of keep you in mind for those things. But sometimes as a freelancer, you really do have to kind of remind folks, you know, you got these publishers have seen a lot of people and sometimes it is forget or they don't know and they don't want to offend or whatever. They've got their own mindset. And if you want to work on a lot of different things, sometimes you got to tell people, I'll work on a lot of different things. And it sounds silly because you think, hey, if people want work and money, but sometimes you do. You just have to say like, Hey, you know, I'm right here.
00:28:41
Speaker
I definitely have felt that myself at times. People assume I don't write horror related RPG material. And when in fact I write great horror related RPG material, sometimes accidentally even. And it can be anything from a character type to a genre to a style where people will be like, oh, you don't, you know, I mean, like looking at me, you would not, for example, think that like one of my favorite writers is Jane Austen.
00:29:08
Speaker
Um, who, who I actually credit as being a great writer because she made me care about the plight of a bunch of sort of like rich gentry in a period, in a period that I don't really care that much about, but I just think she writes so well. And so as a result, I like reading her work because she writes so well. And somebody looked at me and we're like working on a Jane Austen RPG or whatever. They wouldn't look at me and go, I gotta hire that guy.
00:29:32
Speaker
You know, he's wearing a comic book shirt and he's got a long hair and a beard and he likes pulp stuff and he likes like, you know, like, you know, violent action, all the stuff, which I do. I love all that stuff, but I also, you know, and be like, oh, I want somebody to write like a Regency romance or whatever. It's like, okay, sure. I could do that. I'll take a crack.
00:29:53
Speaker
Um, and that's just one example. And I think that's true. I think there's a lot of interest of people out there, you know, um, shock somebody recently by saying, I actually
Cinema's Influence on RPGs
00:30:01
Speaker
had a favorite rom-com movie and people like you watch rom-coms. I'm like, not that many, but I haven't, I've watched enough to have favorites. Who doesn't have a favorite rom-com movie? I feel like, you know, it's like, I mean, we go, if we're going a little more serious, guess who's coming to dinner. And if we're going like kind of wackier, it's probably somewhere between like and more modern. It's probably somewhere between like forgetting Sarah Marshall and, uh, the proposal. So, you know, it's just,
00:30:23
Speaker
My wife and I watched Ghosted last night. How was that? I have not seen that yet. It was fun. We had a good time. Good. That's half the time on All You Want. It was impressive to watch Chris Evans somehow not turn into an action hero the whole movie. He managed to restrain himself. I've seen him do that a couple times, but it is unusual. It seemed like it took him a supreme effort.
00:30:48
Speaker
It's like watching Find Me Guilty and finding Vin Diesel not turning into an action hero or sci-fi hero or whatever. It's like just playing kind of a fat hapless mobster, which was fun. So one of the things you and I talk about related to this quite a bit is the influence of cinema on our game design. Yes.
00:31:12
Speaker
I would I would credit and I said this in the intro to crescendo of violence that I think I would credit movies with influencing how I tell stories more than actual literary work. I think that I don't consume a lot of literary work, but I definitely think the style of storytelling I enjoy as a GM and a designer is reminiscent of cinema and movies. I mean, cinema is inherently collaborative and so is gaming.
00:31:38
Speaker
As much as I love literature, it is not inherently collaborative. It can be, but it is not inherently collaborative. Video games are also inherently collaborative. I mean, again, there are absolute games out there that one person makes, but most of the big games, the big events, especially as the games themselves get more cinematic. Same thing with TV shows. I mean, comic books, I mean, not to say there are not projects that are one-man shows or one-woman shows, but the vast majority of these
00:32:07
Speaker
non-written media are collaborative. And I think that there's a certain just, I think it just translates. While also, I think kind of a know your audience thing, everybody can kind of, you know, a woman and everybody, but a lot of people can imagine things in sort of a cinematic sense. You know, if you describe a scene, a lot of times there, you know, there's an imaginary movie playing in someone's head as you describe it.
00:32:29
Speaker
One of my long gestating side projects has been sort of casually writing on a GM help guide about action scenes. It's a topic I really enjoy talking about and discussing from a technical standpoint, having done stage combat and some film work in college. I really enjoy the construction of communicating through action. Yes.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I think that is something that a lot of RPGs can struggle with at times. I think so. It can be easy to and I'm going to use D&D as the example here. It can be easy to go. All right. I move 15 feet. That's three squares. I swing my sword. Ideal 2D6 damage, right? Without too much thought about what any of that really looks like.
00:33:21
Speaker
Right, and that's because to play a game playable to a large extent, you have to distill the things people do down to things that can be interpreted through rules. Agreed. Right, and because your foundation is sort of this technical rules approach in a lot of cases, it can remove the artistic flair that is the requirement of usually the player that GM to add. Right. Now,
00:33:49
Speaker
In your mind, what are some RPGs that do action really well with their mechanics? Well, I mean, with the caveat, and I think this is an important caveat, which is why I'm making it, that obviously not everybody's going to have the same reaction. And I think there's, you do got to kind of read the room. Absolutely. There are absolutely people out there that really want minimalist rules so they can imagine everything.
00:34:11
Speaker
And the people out there that really want, like, actually want the, you know, the more tactical structure because having that grounding on the table gives them, like, it gives them an anchor and then they feel like they can, oh, I can imagine more and enjoy more because I can look at something in front of me and understand it and be okay with it. Setting all that aside. Games, I think, do action scenes really well. I think...
00:34:36
Speaker
I really think Feng Shui, both one and two, did a wonderful job. In many ways, that game- I think that would be arguably the classic foundational text a lot of people would point to. I'm a huge fan of Robin Law's work anyway, but that was a paradigm shift in me as a designer. When I looked at it and I was like, oh boy.
00:34:59
Speaker
And for the genre, he was emulating. It's like, wow, this works so well. And I ran several successful campaigns with it where I found we got a lot of drama and we got a lot of character interaction and we had a lot of fun. And a lot of that was played out during battles or immediately after bloody encounters of heroic bloodshed and vengeance.
00:35:21
Speaker
you know, you know, end of the world scenarios, and you name it, and you know, tense martial arts tools. And I ultimately use that system, I actually didn't use the secret war element of it in the setting much, I used it a lot to just tell Hong Kong action style stories. And I did everything from, you know, big trouble in the little China style, you know, evil sorcerers gonna destroy the world to all the way to
00:35:43
Speaker
Um, you know, okay, nobody can play a magic character cause we're literally, cause we all just saw Kill Bill and we're just going to do a bloody revenge story. So everybody give me a, you know, an action guy who has a reason for getting revenge on somebody and I'll make it, I'll make sure you guys intersect in interesting ways. Um, one of the things that game does very well is.
00:36:06
Speaker
translating the tropes from an action movie into a mechanic that encourages you to use them. That kind of melds the two together. Right. I come to the shotgun example a lot when I talk about this with folks, which is there's a rule in the game where they have an initiative track and actions cost a certain number of initiatives.
00:36:24
Speaker
You take the shot and pump the shotgun. Yes, the pump the shotgun rule. So there is a rule where if you spend one of your little initiative points and you make as a player, you make the physical motion where you act like you're pumping a shotgun and you make a sound or something like that, you get a damage bonus on your next shot with that shotgun. Yeah. And what Robin did is really smart with this rule because he made it one. It doesn't really cost the player much to do. No, it's not that big a deal. One action clip in that game is really cheap. Yeah.
00:36:54
Speaker
It's arguably, I think it might be one of the cheapest actions you can take. It's that, unless you have like certain specific things that let you just like mow down minions, it is one of the cheapest actions. And it is very evocative. Everybody knows it if they know action movies.
00:37:08
Speaker
Right. And he has made it in such a way that and inserted it into the game rules as a way that it encourages the players to learn it, do it. And then there's the at the table sort of performance part of the mechanic. Yes. That is very non intrusive. All you have to do is go. I spend one action pimp. I'm going to up my shotgun. Damn it. Pump the shotgun. And we're done.
00:37:31
Speaker
Um, it really adds to the atmosphere as you play. I think that it absolutely does. Um, I would say that there's also some other games out there for certain sort of sub genres. Um, uh, I think honor and intrigue does a great job of having, uh, the dueling roles are very good and the swordsmanship roles are very good. Um, I, I think that, you know, they have like, um, for people out front of the game, um, it's a, it's a, it's a,
00:37:56
Speaker
It's really really easy to hack because it's actually its own game in its own right. But it uses the Barbarians of Lemuria system to basically do a Renaissance sort of swashbuckling adventure game. And one of the things that adds that Barbarians of Lemuria doesn't have is a system of advantages.
00:38:12
Speaker
where basically a character has, in addition to having health that you can lose, you have this sort of advantage that you can get ticked off of you by basically getting worn down in a fight or a handful of other circumstances. And what that really simulates is the style of, if you watch anything from the old Swashbuckling movies, all the way up to the new ones, where characters will get, the moons aren't too serious until somebody gets run through.
00:38:40
Speaker
You know, it's a lot of dropping your sword and picking it up. It's a lot of getting an arm wound that definitely hinders you, but not that badly. It's a lot of that. And the advantage losing advantage track, you know, simulates that. And then eventually when that's all gone, you have to make the decision if you're going to give up and say, you know, I please yield, you know, mercy, mercy, or you're going to fight to the death because at that point, you know, the next few injuries are going to get real serious real fast. And that's actually.
00:39:08
Speaker
I think people who don't even realize it when they're playing it sometimes and they'll go, wow, that felt really like a duel. I would also say that that would also work very well and I know there's been some supplements to pack for it for a lightsaber style Star Wars duel where things go. Again, I think it depends on the exact genre.
00:39:30
Speaker
I think Deadlands has some really interesting rules about gunfights, particularly the showdown style. The poker style mechanic is very. It's very evocative. Yeah. Poker cards on the table. You're basically sitting there and you feel like, hey, we're playing a Western game and I got these sort of props in front of me. So to me, it sounds like we were talking about a way where a rule emulates the tension from the genre onto the tabletop.
00:40:00
Speaker
And it seems like the most successful ones are focused more on saying how do we replicate that feeling here than saying how do we adhere to the rules we've written. For example, Deadlands moves to a totally different kind of mini game system for that shootout.
00:40:17
Speaker
because it was needed. And I mean, I think even Boot Hill back in the day had its own showdown rules that were slightly different. I mean, there was a recognition of that. And I think that that's, you know, in my own Wuzhou Gamtian Cha, I have a couple, I have a few rules that are, I have several rules that are genre emulation and sort of simulated action.
Cinematic RPG Mechanics
00:40:39
Speaker
But one of those, I think simplest ones I put in, which is if you have a role where nothing happens in a battle, then you get,
00:40:47
Speaker
you know, you get an invocation on one of your forums. Because basically, there's never anything that doesn't happen in a wuja game. Even if the characters run at each other and throw 100 blows at each other, and nobody gets hurt, and they all jump back to reevaluate, the stakes have at least been raised cinematically. And so, and I've seen this with other games where they have like escalation dice and things like that, where
00:41:13
Speaker
You know, okay, there are absolutely times where we can tie, there's absolutely times we can shoot at each other and nothing happens. But eventually something's going to happen because that's the cinematic element of like building up to the tension. So that having mechanics like that, that will do that as kind of a cool thing. You know, just like it's neat to have, I think it's hard to not have a swashbuckling game where you can't, where banter doesn't feature into it somehow.
00:41:37
Speaker
If you can't taunt somebody or insult somebody or say something to somebody that's going to throw them off guard, then you're really seriously limiting the amount of swashbuckling media you can emulate. I think that's true. The same thing with like, if you don't have a stare down or an intimidation in a gunfight, an old west gunfight, you know, if you don't have a mechanical way of representing that,
00:41:59
Speaker
you know, and also representing things that I think can get tricky, like, you know, it's not always the fastest, it's not always the technically fastest draw who wins, it's the guy who draws first and actually hits the guy. And, you know, that's, and that is, you know, you and you'll see move great movies where they talk about that. You know, I mean, one of the one of the, you know, the shootest has several scenes where John Wayne, John Wayne tells a Ron Howard's character, you know, basically when he's teaching him to shoot, he said, it's not always about his fastest, most accurate, but keep it a level head.
00:42:29
Speaker
Uh, you see that notion is repeated in a lot of more modern Westerns, but you see it at older ones too. And if you, you know, you want to be able to emulate that some way, it can't always be, Oh, I want an initiative. So you're going to die. Um, that's not gonna, that won't actually model what you think it's modeling. Right.
00:42:49
Speaker
OK, so we're getting near the end of our time here. OK. So let me ask you the three questions I always ask at the end or try to go first. Real quick, what would you say are the three most influential RPGs upon you as a designer?
Influential RPGs and Design Philosophy
00:43:05
Speaker
If folks wanted to kind of take a look.
00:43:08
Speaker
and infer for themselves how these have influenced you. Okay. Uh, yeah, I would say, uh, first one's Pendragon because it's my, one of my favorite RPGs of all time. It's done by the amazing Greg Stafford, uh, and it had at it in its day, some things that we didn't see become common in RPGs for quite some, for years later. And, uh, uh, it also, you know, it did so many things I love, uh, you know,
00:43:30
Speaker
the mechanics were you know they did what they needed to do and got on the way when they needed to uh you know a deep dive into a genre um that i you know with a lot of development but also a lot of character facing development um it was yeah it's it's one of my faves uh i mentioned feng shui before i think i gotta take that as one of them um you know not only because i have you know gone on to work with a lot of
00:43:54
Speaker
martial arts and kung fu style, you know, bougie on such games, and even some fiction, but also just because I just I love Robin Law's game design, I got to work with Robin on hill folk, and that was wonderful. I mean, I could work with I did a setting for him, but still, it was great. And, and so that I'd say that that's feng shui for sure.
00:44:16
Speaker
And then for the, you know, the third one, it's hard to say because I think it's got to be some form of superheroes game because I love them so much. If I have to pick one, I mean, I'm tempted to say DC here at the old DC made for DC Heroes because I do adore it. But I think I might have to shove early champion in there instead, not because I'm a huge fan of like the champions rules, though I use them for years and enjoyed them.
00:44:43
Speaker
But because champions also had Justice Incorporated, Danger International, they had a lot of really great rule sets and emulations for those.
00:44:55
Speaker
And a lot of options. And one thing I do love in RPGs is putting options in for players. So I think it'd have to be those three. I mean, if you ask me tomorrow, I might give you probably three different. I'd probably give you the same first two and then maybe a different third one. But that's just, you know, I mean, that could be, you know, I mean, you asked me in a week, it could be a game I just picked up, you know, who knows that I just realized like, Oh my God, this is, I've been waiting for years for someone to tell me this. So.
00:45:19
Speaker
Okay.
Interview Reflections and Aspirations
00:45:20
Speaker
And now the hard question. What is one question you've never been asked in an interview that you've always wanted to be asked? Uh, you know, I actually, people like to talk about what you've done. And I know it's going to be kind of fun to be asked sort of like, what would you like to see more of, uh, both mechanically and genre wise. Um, because I think that that's just not something you could ask a lot. Um, let's say it's never happened, but it doesn't happen very often. And then I, I've never been asked that directly. Let me ask you that. All right.
00:45:50
Speaker
Well, as I said, it was kind of a two-part question. What I said was for, because I thought kind of fast, I don't want anybody to... What would I like to see more of, both sort of genre-wise and also mechanically? Amadakshitaka was in reverse order. Mechanically, I would really like to see more what I call hybrid game design, which is where people take things that from different sort of camps of game design and sort of meet in the middle to create new stuff.
00:46:17
Speaker
I actually personally think that's where the best and most exciting game design I find is. When someone looks at, you know, somebody like Kevin Crawford looks at Godbound, and he says, I want to do something kind of crazy epicureally exalted. And he, you know, and he's an OSR guy. So he takes, oh. But he played off like the Oscars. But no, I also would like to,
00:46:44
Speaker
But, you know, Kevin Crawford did Godbound, where he took basically, you know, fun mechanics for, you know, a little more modern mechanics for dealing with characters of God-like powers and sort of more narrative control over the environment because they had like demigods where the characters were playing.
00:46:58
Speaker
Um, and now also on the flip side, I really love it when there's like a game that's, you know, a little more, uh, modern, you know, in the sense of like, Oh, it uses sort of story mechanics where it's more narrative, but they say, Hey, you know what? There's elements of old D and D or there's elements of this old game that you're not going to do it any better. So we're just going to do it. You know, we're just going to take it, use it.
00:47:18
Speaker
Um, so I'd like to see more of that. Um, I feel like there's a lot of design out there. It's very much like it's, it's my camp. It's this camp. It's that thing. You know, there's people out there that get, you know, pretty saucy about it too. Pretty salty about it. You know, this is, if it's not my way, it's crap. And I would actually like to see a lot more games that come in and kind of mill those things together. And also, I think also a little bit of less is more thrown in there too. Um, I think that there's absolutely some stuff that I think we could take a.
00:47:44
Speaker
you know, maybe not a hatch it to, but like a scalpel and kind of trim off some things like I loved working in Fate, for example, but with Ken Shaw and some other projects.
00:47:56
Speaker
I was really thrilled when Fate Core came out and distilled a lot of that, some of their ideas down to like four actions, five actions, you know, things like that. Because I was finding when I tried to work with Fate prior, I ran into what I call the Fate Phone Book Problem, which is like this huge book of stuff and advice and things and concepts. And I'm like, I don't see how this, you say this is a pickup game, you can just pick this up and play it. I mean, do I pick it up and smash a bug with it? Because this thing is huge.
00:48:25
Speaker
And so I'd like to see more of that. I'd like to see some hybrid design and sort of streamlining, I think. And I do think both those things would actually also appeal to the sort of growing gaming community.
00:48:39
Speaker
Absolutely. I definitely think, and I could be wrong, but that's what I think a lot of our big Kickstarter successes lately have been that sort of hybrid game design in many ways. And then for genre, or what I'd like to see is, you know, I, I've been thinking about this a lot. I think because of crowdfunding and, you know, places like digital marketplaces, like drive-through RPG, we actually have at least with smaller RPGs, niche RPGs, a lot of genres are covered. Like you want to even, even get genres that aren't really that big.
00:49:09
Speaker
gaming but if you want like a romance game there are some really good ones out there if you want a mystery game there are some really good ones out there are they what most people are playing well no they're not but if you want to find those out there what I would like to see is people to take a look at all these genres everything from the big genres everybody does like fantasy and sci-fi or all the way to the smaller ones and look at the sub genres that aren't being
00:49:33
Speaker
Obviously, I want you to do things you're interested in if you're out there listening and say, I want to do a game. But I also will say it's cool to see something when somebody takes something and goes, hey, this is a game about this sub-genre that just doesn't happen very often, that we don't see very often. And some great games come out of that.
00:49:54
Speaker
you know like there have been some really wonderful like horror games that someone has said I really just want to do a slasher on genre game I don't necessarily have to have cosmic horror or what have you or I really want to do
00:50:05
Speaker
a body horror game or a game of body horror themes or fantasy. Somebody says, I want to do pastoral kid friendly fantasy. Cool. Do that. Or I want to do really dark horror based fantasy. Cool. But I'd like to see more genre served. And this also goes, when I say genre, I also mean history.
00:50:28
Speaker
if you're going to be basing things off historical time periods or cultures, I would really love to see more of that. I mean, I don't get me wrong, I love, you know, a lot of stuff from, you know, Western from Western European history, you know, Japanese history and things like that. But there's a lot of that. And it would be really cool if somebody was like, hey, I'm doing a game based on a fantasy game based on medieval Java, I would be like, holy crap, just take my money.
00:50:53
Speaker
Right. Because it would be like, where would I see that otherwise? And I actually have a lot of stuff in my personal library, both PDF and print, that is stuff that I picked up because I'm like, this looks like a well done version of this thing I haven't seen before. I can remember there was just one example. There was a bundle holding a few weeks ago, probably not about a year ago. It was some like Brazilian fantasy game. It was, I remember Elephant was in the title. I'm blanking on the title. And there was a, I'd never heard of it.
00:51:22
Speaker
I'd never heard of it. I've been in the game industry for 25 years. I never heard of it. And I looked at it. I said, well, this looks cool. You know, it was like, it was like 10 bucks or whatever for like the core book and a couple of things. And I was like, I've never seen this before. And it caught my eye largely because I'd never seen it before. And more like we were talking recently about troubleshooters, which is in itself kind of a modern mystery pulp game, but it's also very much a game based on sort of the Belgian adventure comics.
00:51:51
Speaker
of like 10 10 and things like that with also a little bit of like loop in the third and some anime and some other things thrown in around the edges. But again, that's there's not a lot there's not many games for that. So when they when somebody made a really cool one, I was like, thank you. You know, that was and it's it's just for me, at least it's very easy. I mean, that even goes for that even goes to somebody to some extent for licenses, you know, one of my favorite license games recent years is the alien RPG. And I'll tell you, when it came out, I did not think
00:52:19
Speaker
that it was going to be a thing that I was going to be. I mean, and I love the alien franchise, but I was like, how are they going to do with this? And then they, what they did with it has made a really great game that not only lets you play, you know, alien style stuff, but also lets you play things in that style. I could pick that up and play everything from like the thing to predator if I want to with minimal adaptation. So those are my, you know, I think what I like to see more of, I think just more sort of embracing sort of,
00:52:47
Speaker
the positive holes in our design and genre out there. Like, like there's, hey, there's an, there's an empty space here and I think I can say something in that space. I want to see people do that more, um, as opposed to, and I'm not, you know, as opposed to like, I don't need another fantasy setting and it, it doesn't mean that like, I won't even necessarily make one tomorrow. It just means that if I do, I'm going to try to do some of the things I said, like look to different historical periods and look to different ways of doing it. Right.
00:53:16
Speaker
Okay, well I appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to us. It was fantastic. Do you have any questions for me?
00:53:26
Speaker
Really? Oh, actually, you know, I do have a question for you because I'm actually curious. I just said this. What do you think? Could you name, like, what are three genres? Because I know you work and you do a lot of really cool sub genre stuff at Gallant Knight and everything from like, you know, game based off Baywatch, just other, you know, other things like that. So what are three genres or historical periods or, you know, subsets that you would love to see in gaming that you can't either think have been unserved or severely underserved?
00:53:57
Speaker
Oh, that's difficult. So I think for me, the one that's on my brain right now is a crime drama RPG akin to the Godfather or kind of classic gangster movie, the rise up from the street to power with also maybe some dynastic elements because I'm a huge fan of those. Yeah, yeah, me too. But I want it to be where the GM is the Godfather and you have to overthrow the GM and take over the family.
00:54:25
Speaker
and then you become the GM. I like that, I like that. Some sort of like, I see it as like a three to six session kind of mini game where then you can switch GMs or whatever, you know. Or for families. Right. And I've been noodling on an idea for that for a long time. I think that's one, I think that would be a unique way for mechanics to model that story. Also might be a place to look to certain like more, the more sort of RPG style board game elements might be. Right, exactly. Bring those in.
00:54:54
Speaker
Yeah. And then I think for me, a lot of the genres I love have games. Yeah. And I mean, and if you know me, you know, I love a lot of genres. I'm very... Yeah. I mean, we both, that's one thing we share is it's like so many. We'll talk about a genre, we'll both go, oh my God, we both love this thing and not too many people do. Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
I would love, I really want, and this one's more of a visual thing, I want to see an entire RBG animated, or not animated, art laid out with like claymation art. That would be cool. Like somebody just sculpts all the scenes in actual 3D clay and takes photos as the art. That would actually be a really great way of also taking a genre, like you could take a genre that's actually pretty well served, but if you could give it that claymation out of the aesthetic, it would be something new.
00:55:47
Speaker
I have been, I went and bought a bunch of air dry clay to start working on this idea and I am not a clay sculptor, folks. It's going to be a long time before I get anything to completion. But I thought it sounded like a fun idea. Yeah, no, agreed. The physical, I did all the art, I did the layout, I did the writing because I sculpted it all out of the clay and then I, you know.
00:56:11
Speaker
And I think that, and it would be a fun way to do some sort of homages to classic Harryhausen special effects. Oh yeah, absolutely. Or whatnot. So I think- And I hate Gumby, so you know that too. Right. And I don't know if I'd call that a genre, but I feel like it would be a presentation style that would be unique. Yeah. And then for me, I think the big genre, I always feel is underserved.
00:56:41
Speaker
that I don't want to work on or write in. So I'm waiting for somebody else to do it for me. Only legit. Is I really love, I love comedy RPGs. Yeah. That like make the group laugh. But a lot of those RPGs always focus on intergroup conflict.
00:57:09
Speaker
Yeah. And in all cases, like, you know, some sort of comedic violence, too. Right. And they're funny, like paranoia, too, et cetera. Great. Yeah. But I would love like an almost non violent like. Telenovela comedy RPG, something like a comedic road trip RPG where like nobody's getting killed, but you're at least, you know, you're I want to play the Gilligan's Island RPG.
00:57:38
Speaker
That's what I want to play. I want some sort of punchy, one-shot friendly, non-violent RPG that I can use to onboard friends and family. What characters are quote, damaged by things like getting a really good zinger told on them.
00:57:56
Speaker
or over-attending themselves and finding themselves in a comedic situation. Narrative consequence, right? Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Which is, you know, I mean, you can apply the RPG model to a lot of nonviolent scenarios like comedy and romance and things. Exactly. Not done very often, but you can. And there's some great games. I'm thinking of Starcrossed, the two-player Jenga Tower game of romantic tension or the Tower of Halls you give in. I had an excellent example of that idea.
00:58:22
Speaker
You know but for me like i have a fiasco which is a great onboarding tool if people are familiar with the genre. Right if they are it's a little harder it is also to be you know also honestly like while you can not have this happen i have found in most games if you ask why i played several people ended up dead.
00:58:42
Speaker
usually comedically, but, you know, it's a feature, not a bug because of what it's the Cohen brothers, you know, Fargo style, you know, game. So it's about everything going, you know, burn after reading, et cetera.
00:58:59
Speaker
And so somebody at some point just gets, you know, killed and you're like, wow, that was so avoidable. And you're, you laughed the absurdity of it or whatever. Um, so no, it's absolutely the thing. So, but yeah, no, I, but, uh, yeah, I would, that's, that was interesting, but I wasn't expecting that that particular answer. Uh, but I, I do agree. I think it's actually, I think that last answer is due to sometimes the difficulty of onboarding somebody with something like D and D or other games.
00:59:25
Speaker
because it might not be a fit for what they enjoy. Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. Right. And so and I have a wide selection of RPGs, but
00:59:36
Speaker
It is difficult to, for example, I have the Good Society RPG, which is a fantastic Jane Austen style RPG. I have that as well. But it is a very unique mechanical system that if I pull it out to teach somebody, I'm only pulling it out once a year. I have to refresh myself on the rules. And we're probably not playing it in the downtime, which makes it a little harder.
00:59:57
Speaker
Uh, so those are the things I think about in some ways, I would like to find a way to improve the accessibility of onboarding people into RPGs without increasing the workload on the person doing the onboarding. And I think that's a, I think that's a hard scale to balance. Yeah. Cause I mean, a lot of times GMs are already being asked to like do a lot, you know, they're asked to basically organize the group, get everybody together, double check on everybody.
01:00:19
Speaker
put together an entertaining game, make all the characters seem engaged, and make all the players feel like they're being engaged. It's a lot. It is a lot. It can be very fun. I am a eternal GM, basically. Other than games I play with guys like you and stuff like that, I usually just make everything myself.
01:00:43
Speaker
And as a designer, there's a certain expectation. It's like, okay, well, if we're going to, you know, it's fun, but it's definitely okay. I'm running this game. There's no rules for accident and it's come up. Okay. I guess I got to make rules for X because no one's going to take the excuse that I can't, no one's going to look at me and go, what, you can't design the rules for this? I mean, my wife particularly will. So, you know, no comment. Yeah.
01:01:07
Speaker
All right, folks. Jack, if people want to find you or support you, what's the best way for them to do so? Well, the best way to do is just buy my stuff. I'm actually having a couple projects coming out soon that are going to be, you know, use a more royalty-based compensation model. And that's, you know, when those pop up, I'm going to be like, my newer stuff is definitely going to, you know, more. But I mean, honestly, you know, as someone who has a lot of freelance work, particular license games, where there's usually not royalties and things like that.
01:01:32
Speaker
The best thing you do is just buy my stuff, you know, if you buy my stuff and you know, you engage with me pleasantly online I will think nice things about you and I will be happy and also You will see more of me I know that is and I think that's true of a lot of freelancers and this you know in the industry and if you like their stuff
01:01:50
Speaker
buy their stuff. And if possible, tell the company. Tell the publisher. Tell the publisher about why you're doing it. Leave good reviews. Oh my God, please leave good reviews. If you liked it, if you don't like it, leave a bad review. Leave some sort of review. I mean, you don't have to leave a bad review. There are people out there to do that. But please, my point is, please engage.
01:02:12
Speaker
And, you know, basically, you know, say nice things, tell people, I mean, I've certainly had, I've absolutely had people offer me work because they're like, everybody really liked this thing you did. Whether it was something that I did internally and people liked it. I mean, I recently, I mean, I had a project that I really wanted to get on at one point. And I might've anyway, cause I had a good relationship with the publisher, but when the developer for that line looked at it and said,
01:02:40
Speaker
looked at the work I had done for a different line in the company and said, do you know who did this particular part of the game? I said, yeah, it was me. And he was like, wait, you did it? Who else did it? Nope, that was all me. That happened to be one of the things that was all me. And the next thing I knew, I was getting the contract.
01:02:59
Speaker
because they wanted me to do a very similar version of what I had done already in this other game line. And I was like, okay. But if people hadn't communicated with each other, how much they liked it, and the fans had not been so positive about it, and not been like, oh my God, our favorite part of this, I mean, and I'll tell people what it was, because this might be sort of inspiring or interesting too. It was a GM screen. It was like a storyteller's kit within a GM screen.
01:03:29
Speaker
GM screen insert, which to be honest, sometimes people look at and really like and sometimes people look at once and then put it away and you know, it's small and they lose it. And they're like, well, I also got my screen. That's what I got. The screen was what I really wanted. And so I did some work, you know, player GM facing content, you know, some adventure generator, NPC generous and other things. And the response was like just overwhelmingly positive, which I was thrilled about. And the publisher was getting this positive response.
01:03:58
Speaker
And it was getting good reviews and people like, man, you know what? A lot of times I don't use this stuff, but this stuff, it's like, it's almost worth it just to have this, even if you didn't have the screen. I'm like, wow, that's a great compliment. And so, you know, and because people communicated, that led to me getting more work. If people hadn't communicated, there might have been a bunch of people out there that loved it.
01:04:17
Speaker
and nobody would have thought to have me do it again. And that's true of anybody, not just me. So really just please, you know, get out there and tell people, especially since there is, you know, there's a lot of negativity in the world. There's a lot of people who will always, they'll always tell you what you're doing.
01:04:31
Speaker
they'll always tell you what you're doing wrong. They'll corny you at a convention and go on and on about how, you know, you ruined a character because you had like a stat that was one point off or whatever. And it's like, you know, or they'll, you know, tell you things like, you know, oh, people, you know, this just, I could give examples. It's really not important. The thing is there's a lot of people, there's a lot of negativity out there. If you can give some positivity to the creators you like,
01:04:54
Speaker
They'll love it. They'll appreciate you. And they'll, I think, I truly believe they will not only produce more work, but I also truly believe they will produce better work because they will be in a better place because people are appreciating what they're doing. Absolutely. Well, Jack, thank you so much for coming on. It's appreciated. Folks, I'm Alan Barr and this has been Radio Free RPG.