1 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:12,080 Hello, hello, hello, welcome. To the Yes Indeed Podcast 2 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:14,840 created by Mark Sheppard and now run by me, Thomas Manuel. 3 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:18,600 Today on the podcast, we are talking to Alan Barney, who is 4 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:22,800 the founder and operator of the Bundle of Holding. 5 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:28,320 Alan and the Mandal of Holding have been a sponsor of the India 6 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:35,400 RPG Newsletter for a couple of years now, and in return I link 7 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:37,280 to all the latest bundles in the newsletter. 8 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:40,040 You might have seen that. And I've been meaning to talk to 9 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:42,440 him on the podcast for a very long time. 10 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:47,640 He's had a very long career as a freelancer in the RPG industry 11 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:53,400 back in the wild, wild days of the 80s and 90s. 12 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:55,160 Straight, straight out of the gate. 13 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:58,320 The first question I have for him is a banger. 14 00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:00,200 It's a great question. It's a great answer. 15 00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:01,960 I mean, I knew what the answer is going to be. 16 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:04,599 That's why I asked her. And you'll know what I mean when 17 00:01:04,599 --> 00:01:08,720 you when you get to that. But despite it being a really 18 00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:16,440 great and fascinating conversation, my mic was set to 19 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:18,760 the wrong thing. It was picking up the mic from 20 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:22,200 my webcam and then the nice mic that you're listening to now. 21 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:26,960 So I will say that all of my questions in the conversation 22 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:33,320 are the audio for them are bad. So I apologise, please make do 23 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:35,400 with it. This has actually happened 24 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:39,800 before and I've very painfully like rerecorded them, which 25 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:41,680 makes a conversation sound very stilted. 26 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:45,320 But this time it was a nice conversation. 27 00:01:45,320 --> 00:01:47,920 It was free flowing. I was like and also I just I 28 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:50,400 didn't have the time. The part of it makes me want to 29 00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:53,800 cry, so I I've kept the original audio. 30 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:57,040 It's, it's not great, but you can. 31 00:01:57,120 --> 00:01:58,640 You can at least. Tell that there is a. 32 00:01:58,800 --> 00:02:01,840 Free flowing conversation with two people having a good time 33 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:05,880 chatting with each other. So yeah, please, please enjoy 34 00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:08,880 the episode. And once again, thanks to my 35 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:12,800 patrons over at patreon.com who sponsored this newsletter and 36 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,000 the podcast. I really appreciate your 37 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:19,400 support. But with that said, let's get to 38 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:28,080 the interview. All right, I'm sitting down with 39 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:31,280 Alan Varney, who runs the Bundle of Holding, which I think 40 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:34,160 probably everyone listening to this has already heard of, 41 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,720 probably already customer of. But before that, for decades, 42 00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:40,640 Alan has been a freelancer, writer, editor, game designer 43 00:02:40,640 --> 00:02:44,440 for companies like DSR, Steve Jackson Games, West End Games, 44 00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:49,440 FASA and more. He was the lead designer on 45 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:55,720 Paranoia XP, the 2004 edition of the classic sci-fi comedy game 46 00:02:55,720 --> 00:02:59,400 from Mongoose. He's written for magazines like 47 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:03,800 Dragon and Magics, Magic the Gatherings magazine, The 48 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:06,480 Duelist. He's worked in video games. 49 00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:10,320 And yeah, we're going to talk about his career in general and 50 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:15,680 some of the. But yeah, Alan, welcome to the 51 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:17,760 show. Thank you so much, Thomas. 52 00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:19,680 It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. 53 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:23,840 So the first thing I want to ask you about, which is something 54 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:26,560 I've actually been meaning to ask you about for a really long 55 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:29,560 time, which is there's a site called the Pen and Paper 56 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,200 Database. And your first credit on that is 57 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:37,880 that it says in 1985, Steve Jackson's released Steve Jackson 58 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:40,360 Games released a product called Steve Jackson's Man to Man 59 00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:44,840 Fantasy Combat from Gerbs and you are credited as reality 60 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:50,200 checking. We were debating how much each 61 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:54,800 point of health, I think our speed of health was supposed to 62 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:58,640 add to your speed. And I and Norman Bandu, the 63 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:01,760 shipping clerk at Steve Jackson Games at the time, what went out 64 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:05,160 to the parking lot of the SJ Games headquarters, which was a 65 00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:08,840 repurposed kennel in South Austin, TX. 66 00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:13,520 And they had a the whole company was there, and Steve had a 67 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,320 stopwatch, and they had me and Norman run at top speed across 68 00:04:17,320 --> 00:04:20,680 the parking lot. And from there, Steve apparently 69 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:25,200 gleaned some kind of information about how much speed to give 70 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:27,680 characters. I think I was considered to be 71 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:32,960 on the very low end of normal. So it was it was a good branding 72 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,440 exercise to show that Gerbs was so realistic. 73 00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:41,080 And I think it just showed me that really all you need is a 74 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:46,440 very slender thread of truth to hang a nice advertising claim 75 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:50,280 on. You are the man in the man to 76 00:04:50,280 --> 00:04:53,040 man fancy. That was the man and Norman man. 77 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:59,760 Who was the other man? Every part of that is is really 78 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:06,200 funny, but like, what was it like to get a job in table top 79 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:11,840 games in 1980, four, 1985? I had been buying a lot of SPI 80 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:15,400 war games and Strategy and Tactics magazine because I 81 00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:18,920 wanted, I thought I was going to be playing these games, but I 82 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:21,040 didn't have any friends who were interested in playing them. 83 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:24,920 And so I had this giant stack of games and I said, well, I need 84 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,080 to get the money back that I've spent on all of this somehow. 85 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:31,960 And so I designed one. I had already been a fan of the 86 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:34,920 Steve Jackson's work through his micro games for meta gaming. 87 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:40,120 And then he went independent and took Space Gamer magazine with 88 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:41,720 him. I wrote for Space Gamer. 89 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:45,680 I came up with this idea for a board game called Necromancer 90 00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:49,600 and pitched it to him and he bought it. 91 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:54,800 And then he he bought a a second game I did called Globo a a 92 00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,160 comedic game and published it in Space Gamer magazine. 93 00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:02,120 And then he offered me a job as an assistant editor. 94 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:07,640 So I relocated from California, Palo Alto to Austin, TX and I 95 00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:11,160 worked at Steve Jackson Games as an assistant editor under Warren 96 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:13,880 Spector. He was my boss at that time. 97 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,840 Warren later went on to become quite the famous producer of 98 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:21,960 computer games, including one of the several of the Ultima games 99 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:25,080 and then Deus Ex among many others. 100 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:30,520 And so after about 2 1/2 years, I went to freelance and did 101 00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:34,960 quite a lot of work for TSR, both for their various module 102 00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:37,680 lines. I wrote the first AD and D spell 103 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:41,760 jammer module Wild Space, and I also wrote quite a lot for 104 00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:46,920 Dragon Magazine as well. And then, you know, it just kind 105 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:51,440 of I, I kind of made my way fumbling along, bouncing from 106 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:54,680 assignment to assignment for a lot of different game companies 107 00:06:54,680 --> 00:07:00,800 that are all now defunct. And finally I kind of I managed 108 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:03,120 to get going with the the bundle of holding. 109 00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:08,120 I founded that in 2013 and since then that is pretty much 110 00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:12,520 occupied all of my waking hours. OK, so I love that you started 111 00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:16,320 out first of all as a game designer selling, selling a game 112 00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:18,960 idea to to the company. But then you worked as the 113 00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:22,680 editor on Space Gamer, which I do want to talk about at this 114 00:07:22,680 --> 00:07:24,360 point. How old were you roughly when 115 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:25,720 you made this move from California? 116 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:30,760 I would have been 25 years old. OK, so you make that move. 117 00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:33,400 And so Space Gamer is really interesting. 118 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:35,600 It's something that I've actually been wanting to write 119 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:38,080 about a lot. Go back and read those issues 120 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:41,080 and, and, and talk about that. Can you tell me like what was 121 00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:44,920 the process of making an issue of Space Gamer? 122 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:47,640 What kind of what kind of stuff went into it? 123 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:53,320 It was a much different time. It was a kind of a primordial 124 00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:57,280 technology that would be utterly foreign to people today. 125 00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:01,880 This was the days of a gigantic copy graphic typesetter machine, 126 00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:05,840 which was this thing about the size of a big desk, Big Blue 127 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:08,280 thing. And it would put it output these 128 00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:11,160 long thin strips of typeset copy. 129 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:14,880 And then you would take these and you would cut them out of 130 00:08:14,880 --> 00:08:19,120 the paper and then you would paste them to production boards 131 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,360 using hot wax. And you know, I describe this to 132 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:25,800 people now and it just seems like I'm talking about writing 133 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:30,600 on stone tablets with ox blood. Everything back then was 134 00:08:30,600 --> 00:08:33,039 different. We were doing, you know, we were 135 00:08:33,039 --> 00:08:36,840 writing typewritten copy that we submitted to the typesetter. 136 00:08:37,159 --> 00:08:41,799 And it was everything about it was so primitive. 137 00:08:42,159 --> 00:08:45,480 And it was always a kind of a high stress occupation, just 138 00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:49,760 putting out a 48 page magazine every month or two months with a 139 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:51,960 team of five or six or seven people. 140 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:54,600 We had three different production artists at one point 141 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:57,720 and there were editors. There's a typesetter, and then 142 00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:02,520 there was shipping. All of that has as dated now as 143 00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:06,360 some sort of Edwardian drama. People today can do the kind of 144 00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:09,120 thing that we did in a matter of hours. 145 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,240 I people sometimes wax nostalgic on the forums for the old days 146 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:17,200 of Dragon magazine and I want to tell him as a former Dragon 147 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:21,640 writer and as a former editor of Space Gamer, the Internet today 148 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:27,840 puts out an entire Dragon's worth of content every 18 hours 149 00:09:27,840 --> 00:09:31,600 tops. And I tell you there is so much 150 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:34,400 creativity now. All these people are doing a 151 00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:38,280 really just reminiscing about being 15 years old, which I 152 00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:42,320 think is a lot of the source of discontent with that you hear 153 00:09:42,320 --> 00:09:45,640 expressed in gaming. This is a point that I makeover 154 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:49,880 and over is that this right now is the golden age of 155 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,280 role-playing. Everything today is better than 156 00:09:53,280 --> 00:09:57,200 it was. Were you enrolled in the content 157 00:09:57,240 --> 00:10:00,320 of what went in the space game, or was that war inspectors? 158 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:03,560 No, I wish it was all mine. Warren was much more of a 159 00:10:03,560 --> 00:10:06,200 supervisory role. He would provide guidance or 160 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:11,280 input, but very every issue was very much me and my editorial 161 00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:14,760 sensibility. And I sometimes I would do the 162 00:10:14,760 --> 00:10:19,520 layouts as well and I had this stable of writers so that would 163 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:21,480 be listed as contributing editors. 164 00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:25,120 And then quite a lot would just come over the transom and he 165 00:10:25,120 --> 00:10:28,800 would just had to read everything and basically use 166 00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:31,880 everything. Everything had to be edited 167 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:36,320 closely and would not repro blue markers and and red pens. 168 00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:39,840 It was a very arduous process, but very educational. 169 00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:45,840 We never sold more than 5000 copies an issue and so it was 170 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:49,640 essentially a very hobby oriented kind of thing. 171 00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:51,840 It was. You might think of it as a fan 172 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:53,640 scene with better production values. 173 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:57,040 But even though it sold only 5000 copies, that was enough to 174 00:10:57,040 --> 00:11:00,800 have somebody like full time working on it, Multiple people. 175 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:04,480 OK, that's yeah, it's a completely different economics 176 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:05,960 almost. First of all, I don't think 177 00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:09,080 there are people selling 5000 copies of a magazine today 178 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:10,080 either. That's. 179 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:12,760 True, that's true. A lot of those. 180 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:16,240 But the the magazines themselves, I think we're not 181 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:19,560 necessarily profitable. They were like very modestly 182 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:22,000 profitable. They didn't lose a lot of money, 183 00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:26,160 but they were all subsidised because that was the golden era 184 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:31,840 of Car Wars and Steve Jackson's Pocket Box Line and Car Wars 185 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:35,560 just sold endlessly. Then there were other successes 186 00:11:35,560 --> 00:11:37,520 as well. Steve Jackson of course of Fate, 187 00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:40,840 Hall of Fame designer for works like Ogre and Illuminati. 188 00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:45,000 And so all of that backlist kept the operation afloat. 189 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:49,000 Steve just really loves publishing magazines and 190 00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:53,040 throughout his business is very long, decades long history. 191 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:57,000 He has published 1 magazine after another various editions 192 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:02,680 of Role Player, then Pyramid and Space Gamer was the first of 193 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:05,080 those. He just had this. 194 00:12:05,560 --> 00:12:09,920 I think he was very much into the kind of the crisis mode. 195 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:13,680 He every magazine represented a deadline and everybody had to 196 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:15,960 pitch in and get going on a deadline. 197 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:19,560 And after you've done the best job you possibly could when 198 00:12:19,560 --> 00:12:21,760 there was the next month's deadline. 199 00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:25,360 I don't know that I necessarily worked well under those 200 00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:28,400 circumstances, but now here I am at Bundle of Holding where I've 201 00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:30,320 got multiple deadlines every week. 202 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:32,560 So I've just made my own treadmill now. 203 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:37,000 So, OK, at some point you you decide to to leave Steve Jackson 204 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:39,600 Games and go full freelance, he said. 205 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:41,800 We started working for multiple companies. 206 00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:44,160 How did that go? Because they were not all in the 207 00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:46,520 same area where you were. These all people that you had 208 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:50,720 met at conventions and then sort of pitched work for? 209 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:52,880 Did they come to you and say we're working on a project? 210 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,320 How did all those freelancing jobs happen? 211 00:12:55,960 --> 00:12:59,600 Origins and Gen Con were key. I would attend those for a 212 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:03,120 couple of years as a Steve Jackson Games employee and it 213 00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:06,240 was there that I made connections with TSR. 214 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:09,960 That was pretty much the go to operation if you were trying to 215 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:12,000 make any kind of full time career. 216 00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:15,000 In particular, I became acquainted with Bruce Heard, the 217 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:19,120 acquisitions editor, very talented man and coordinated the 218 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:23,160 entire TSR production schedule of of dozens of products every 219 00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:25,640 month. He kept all those trains running 220 00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:27,800 on time. It was just a wonder to see. 221 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:33,360 And there would be one call from Bruce Heard sometime in around 222 00:13:33,360 --> 00:13:37,240 April of each year. One single phone call where he 223 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:41,160 would just list out, rattle out a bunch of different projects 224 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:43,960 and say you want to write this one, do you want to write that 225 00:13:43,960 --> 00:13:46,080 one? And you'd say yes or no or yes. 226 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,560 Usually yes. And that is that one phone call 227 00:13:49,560 --> 00:13:52,600 would leave me with an entire year's worth of work. 228 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:55,400 Otherwise, it was very much kind of a hustle. 229 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:58,480 If that particular phone call didn't work out well, then you'd 230 00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:01,560 be going around to all the other people that I'd met at Gen Con. 231 00:14:01,560 --> 00:14:05,120 It was, it was a hard Scrabble existence, very much a hand to 232 00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:08,360 mouth existence. I certainly had no, no 233 00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:10,520 insurance, no health insurance of any kind. 234 00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:13,120 So in that sense, it was always a tightrope walk. 235 00:14:13,560 --> 00:14:17,560 And I was very fortunate in that I never had anything severely 236 00:14:17,560 --> 00:14:19,960 bad happened to me or it just would have been totally 237 00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:22,880 untenable. It was, it was an independent 238 00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:25,840 life. It was a kind of a very freeing 239 00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:30,840 life in the sense that a freelancing philosophy of life 240 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:34,760 can serve you well. And it was certainly harmonious 241 00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:39,880 with my own nature and it suited me not to have a boss, but it 242 00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:42,960 was, it was a very tight kind of existence. 243 00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:47,160 It was a very tight cash flow. And I think working in that for 244 00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:51,000 I think most of 28 years, I ended up scarred from that. 245 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:53,960 It has its virtues. And in certain ways, I'm proud 246 00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:56,240 that I was able to make a go of it that long. 247 00:14:56,760 --> 00:15:01,240 But working for that long and always wondering every month 248 00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:03,920 where the rent was going to come from, that can scar you. 249 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:09,280 And even now where my cash flow is better, I still feel like 250 00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:12,680 I've been a battled freelancer. Sometimes I feel like my back is 251 00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:14,760 to the wall just through a force of habit. 252 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:21,000 As a career freelancer myself, there's this kind of feast or 253 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:22,400 famine thing that happens, right? 254 00:15:22,400 --> 00:15:25,240 Sometimes there's work and you're doing well, and sometimes 255 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,480 there's just no work and you are and you're just terrified, 256 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:30,360 right? Somehow, yeah. 257 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:34,240 So what are some projects that you worked on in the tabletop 258 00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:37,120 world and freelance way that you can remember particularly? 259 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:41,200 Warren Spectre and I and an artist named Kyle Miller were 260 00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:44,600 the great triumph for it of tune, the cartoon role-playing 261 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:49,200 game designed by Greg Kostikian and then very heavily redesigned 262 00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:53,480 by the three of us. And that was really my 263 00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:58,280 introduction and or liberation as a as a role-playing designer 264 00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:03,560 and game master or as we said in to the animator, it was a very 265 00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:08,560 high spirited, freewheeling kind of a game, very high energy, a 266 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:11,760 lot of improv. And as I was doing all these 267 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:15,240 play tests and demos at the conventions around the country, 268 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:18,000 it was a way to really strengthen the muscles. 269 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:21,040 It was a very much a breakthrough game at the time 270 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:25,760 when a lot of rule systems were very stayed and very tight and 271 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:30,320 Simulationist Tune and Paranoia, which was Greg's other big 272 00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:34,360 design at that time, were among the first that really tried to 273 00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:36,760 get her to get away from that way of thinking. 274 00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:40,680 I remember running a demo for at a convention and there were four 275 00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:44,640 or five players and there was young one young man who was new 276 00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:49,440 to the game and was very clearly very like anxious are before 277 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:53,400 play started about optimising his character and making sure he 278 00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:57,000 understood all the rules. And of course, in tune that 279 00:16:57,000 --> 00:16:59,840 quickly goes right out the window because everybody is 280 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:02,960 exploding each other and falling down and everything is just 281 00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:06,040 chaos. And it was 10 or 15 minutes into 282 00:17:06,040 --> 00:17:08,400 the game as all of this mayhem was proceeding. 283 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:11,720 Everybody was laughing and joking and he just, he looked at 284 00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:16,760 me with this sort of starry eye and this sort of weird kind of 285 00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:20,160 drug smile. And he just said, it's just. 286 00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:23,800 And I could tell that this young man was experiencing for the 287 00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:26,880 first time the very normal idea that a role-playing game could 288 00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:32,120 be fun. And I, I felt so happy to be the 289 00:17:32,120 --> 00:17:35,320 messenger there of that very important lesson. 290 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:39,040 That's so interesting. God. 291 00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:43,480 So what was the sense with two right, Because he said it's a it 292 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:45,280 was a really different game for this time. 293 00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:48,720 Greg Kostikian is now considered like one of the one of the 294 00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:52,040 greats. So the initial design of tune, 295 00:17:52,120 --> 00:17:54,440 what was the things that you had to change? 296 00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:55,880 What were you? Because it was still 1st 297 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:57,560 edition. Yes, this was the original 298 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:00,640 publication. Basically it was a complete 299 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:04,040 overhaul of tone. Greg, believe it or not, God 300 00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:07,040 help him. He provided the rules for TuneIn 301 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:12,200 SPI case format, and there was, you could see there was an 302 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:17,280 actual brilliant game design there, but it was very dry and 303 00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:20,160 it had a general traditional approach. 304 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,800 Or Inspector actually had written his master's thesis at 305 00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:27,360 the University of Texas Film School on the Warner Brothers 306 00:18:27,360 --> 00:18:31,320 cartoons. And Warren knows cartoons as 307 00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:35,320 very few others do. And Warren had this vision of 308 00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:41,080 how to implement a sense of cartoon fun in the rules 309 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:45,960 themselves. And so it was him and me and his 310 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:52,080 giant luggable K Pro 64 computer with the four inch screen. 311 00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:56,080 We had all of his, all of the original manuscript and just 312 00:18:56,080 --> 00:19:00,080 went through it paragraph by paragraph and line by line 313 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:04,800 trying to figure out how to make it rephrase everything that so 314 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:09,960 it's more fun. And we, we put a lot of labour 315 00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:12,200 into that. And Tune, I think along with 316 00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:16,400 Paranoia, which debuted at the same convention, Origins 1984 317 00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:21,560 got quite a lot of attention as a whole new way to, to present 318 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:25,000 these games. And I'm still very proud about 319 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:26,240 that. I did. 320 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:30,000 I wrote the first two or three supplements from Steve Jackson 321 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,840 Games. I wrote Tune, Silly Stuff and 322 00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:35,800 Son of Tune. Actually I wrote about 1/3 of 323 00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:37,840 silly stuff. Anyway, there was quite a lot of 324 00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:41,440 it because of the work on the Warren and I did on tune. 325 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:45,240 We got an assignment to do a paranoia module called Said then 326 00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:50,000 the clones for Paranoia first edition and the once again there 327 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,160 was Warren with his K Pro computer and we we just went 328 00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,000 through that together line by line as well. 329 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,760 And that was how I developed a connection to paranoia that 330 00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:03,680 actually served me quite well leaving decades later. 331 00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:06,840 Yeah. Paranoia is also such a 332 00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,800 fascinating game with a fascinating history. 333 00:20:10,080 --> 00:20:14,560 So you encountered Paranoia in its first edition, which I think 334 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:18,280 is generally considered not as good as second edition, Or at 335 00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:20,160 least the idea that second edition was funnier. 336 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:23,600 Got what the game really was in a potentially. 337 00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,440 Better way you will find fans of 1st edition, and I respect that. 338 00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:31,560 And 1st edition had some virtues, but it's true that it 339 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:34,640 had not really quite figured out what kind of game it was. 340 00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:38,320 And that came with the West End Games brilliant line editor Ken 341 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:44,000 Ralston, who was a manic force who was out for sheer anarchy. 342 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:49,040 And he had the greatest sense of tone that I had ever seen up to 343 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:51,440 that time. And he knew how to write these 344 00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:55,000 rules paragraphs so that you were just laughing aloud just to 345 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,680 read them. And so that Ken came to his full 346 00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,360 strength. And 2nd edition in 1987. 347 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:03,360 Yeah. And it's to an extent. 348 00:21:03,360 --> 00:21:08,720 And we were still in the 1st edition mode because we had, we 349 00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:11,800 were like the second or third published as published module. 350 00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:15,640 We had followed right after the famous yellow clearance Black 351 00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:22,720 Box Blues by John M Ford and at the end of of that, that John 352 00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,920 Ford adventure, Mike Ford Adventure Alpha Complex gets 353 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:29,040 blown up. And so here we were and we were 354 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,480 thinking in old ways. We too had not really quite 355 00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:35,280 understood what paranoia is and we were saying maybe we could 356 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,400 say that was a different alpha complex. 357 00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:42,600 And after after a while we could just realise nobody cares. 358 00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:46,040 It's not that alpha complex is a place. 359 00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:49,000 Alpha complex is a state of mind. 360 00:21:49,360 --> 00:21:53,160 Paranoia is not a role-playing continuity setting. 361 00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:59,720 It is a a way of experiencing paranoid fear right there at the 362 00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:02,720 table. And the details of it are 363 00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,040 strictly there as set dressing. And that was a liberating 364 00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:09,800 experience and that really came to the fore. 365 00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:14,400 And Ken, second edition. And I still wrote a little bits 366 00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:16,920 here and there through the whole for the second edition 367 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,680 supplements as well. Eventually, Ken and a lot of the 368 00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,320 original West End staff left West End Games. 369 00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:26,840 Now I should probably digress at some length here. 370 00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:32,080 West End Games, the publisher of Paranoia, was the kind of the 371 00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:36,360 hobby side project of a man named Daniel Scott Poulter, who 372 00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:39,680 had his main business as Bucci Imports Limited. 373 00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:44,040 It was a company that did imported ladies Italian shoes 374 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:48,600 and it was quite profitable because I think Rosalind Carter, 375 00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:53,360 Jimmy Carter's wife, had worn Bucci shoes to the inauguration 376 00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,600 and so everybody wanted Bucci shoes and that was quite the 377 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,160 profitable business. And so he started West End Games 378 00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:03,720 as a side project. I heard it described to Daniel 379 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:08,120 Scott Poulter that he knew three things better than anybody else. 380 00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:13,480 He knew the imported ladies, Italian shoe business, He knew 381 00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:17,400 the US tax code, and he knew the order of battle at Gettysburg. 382 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,400 And he started out publishing historical war games. 383 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,240 And then, as role-playing became popular and lucrative, he 384 00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:29,040 brought in Eric Goldberg and Greg Kastikian to put together 385 00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,800 their nascent role-playing line. Greg knew a fellow named Dan 386 00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:37,480 Gelber who had invented the Paranoia setting as his own home 387 00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,280 brew. And Greg recognised this is a 388 00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:43,680 game, this is a real game. And so they took it into West 389 00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:47,520 End Games and turned it into first edition, and that became a 390 00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:51,280 huge best seller. The thing is, though, eventually 391 00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:55,920 the shoe business kind of faded and West End Games had to cut 392 00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,360 expenses of Daniel Scott Poulter relocated from downtown from 393 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:04,200 Manhattan to East Armpit, Pennsylvania, which is this 394 00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,760 remote place that nowhere, nobody at West End Games wanted 395 00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,160 to go. And so everybody left. 396 00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,720 And so when he went to East Armpit, he had to hire new 397 00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,920 people. They were people who had, shall 398 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,840 we say, different ideas about how paranoia should work. 399 00:24:19,360 --> 00:24:24,320 And so the rumour I heard is that sales declined 90% over the 400 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,120 next few years. It was a long and sad, 401 00:24:27,120 --> 00:24:30,760 embarrassing decline at the latter days of West End, the 402 00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:36,760 last half of Paranoia's Run, there just brainless pop culture 403 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,040 parodies. I would receive each one and 404 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:40,640 look at it and say, this is the bottom. 405 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,840 There's no way it could get any worse than this. 406 00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,320 And yet the next one would come. And then I'd say, oh boy. 407 00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:53,200 And so that eventually just West End finally petered out and in 408 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,360 95, I think, and the game went dormant. 409 00:24:56,360 --> 00:24:59,440 But Greg Kosticken and Eric Goldberg sued to recover the 410 00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:04,680 rights and then took it to Mongoose Publishing around 2000 411 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,520 to 2003. And Mongoose got rights to do a 412 00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:10,880 new addition. Greg and Eric gave them a short 413 00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,120 list of designers that they would be willing to see in 414 00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:17,640 charge of the new addition. And Mongoose went down every 415 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,720 every name on a list, and everybody said no. 416 00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:23,680 And finally, in desperation, they turned to me. 417 00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:29,280 And so in 2004, I did what became known as Paranoia XP. 418 00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,280 And so that was quite the highlight of my career. 419 00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:37,080 I'd recruited a whole bunch of the old fans and true from a 420 00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,600 forum called paranoialive.net who were keeping the Flame alive 421 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:45,960 after all those decades, and together in those forums we 422 00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,240 generated tonnes and tonnes of really great material. 423 00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:53,200 It was an exciting, very collaborative time and I was so 424 00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,520 pleased to be able to to guide and mastermind that effort. 425 00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:01,480 I ended up packaging the support line for a couple of years as 426 00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,280 well. That ended up ultimately being 427 00:26:04,360 --> 00:26:07,800 written by a lot of the people that I recruited from Paranoia 428 00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:10,240 Live. It was a kind of a a group that 429 00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:16,080 I called the Traitor Recycling Studio and we did probably 7 or 430 00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:20,240 8 or 9 supplements and then the Mongoose took it all in house. 431 00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,560 So they assigned all the paranoia modules to their staff 432 00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:28,040 writer Gareth Hanrahan. The great Gareth Hanrahan who 433 00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,840 was at that point early in his career still still had his 434 00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,640 greatest triumphs ahead to care of later went out to do the 435 00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:38,920 Dracula Dossier with Ken Height and he wrote The Darkening of 436 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,440 Merkwood campaign for the One Ring. 437 00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:46,680 And he did The Eyes of the Stone Thief for 13th Age. 438 00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:52,640 And then later he did the read redesigned Traveller for 439 00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,640 Mongoose. And since then he has just moved 440 00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,960 from strength to strength and is now a very great novelist. 441 00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,840 So I was so pleased to be involved with his early career 442 00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,200 as well. He in fact wrote a Paranoia 443 00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,480 novel. I had tried an ill advised 444 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,840 adventure business venture doing para licenced Paranoia books, 445 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,520 licenced for American Greg Paranoia novels published under 446 00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,280 the imprint Ultraviolet Books and we couldn't, couldn't make 447 00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,800 that work. But I was very pleased that 448 00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:27,280 Gareth Hanrahan wrote the one of the very first Paranoia novels 449 00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:30,800 and what his very first novel. So And that says. 450 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,560 I was instrumental in bringing him into that new career. 451 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,320 At least I flatter myself that way. 452 00:27:37,360 --> 00:27:40,400 This thing strikes me a bit because things were in a way 453 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:45,240 hard to produce and information flowed slower and all of that 454 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,520 stuff, and generally because there's a certain kind of Wild 455 00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,160 West nature to the whole finances of that time. 456 00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,480 Yeah, like credits on these games feels like one of those 457 00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,200 things that is like sitting now we, we only have that, right? 458 00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,000 We can only go by the former credits and things like that. 459 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,880 But it feels like there's a lot more happening in the production 460 00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:06,760 of these games that is is hard to tell, right? 461 00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:11,240 Like, well, how to put the value of somebody like rewriting the 462 00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,720 rules like Ken Ralston, what was his credit on Paranoia Second 463 00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,200 Edition? Yeah, Ken Ralston was the 464 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,520 mastermind of Paranoia Second Edition, and he kept a certain 465 00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,560 nucleus of the Paranoia rules. But really the rules and 466 00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,760 paranoia are not a major issue because the players in Paranoia 467 00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,760 are not allowed to know the rules. 468 00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,440 I suppose everybody in your in your audience probably knows the 469 00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,960 premise of Paranoia. I had said in this in 470 00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,600 underground city of the future, ruled by an insane computer and 471 00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,040 everybody is a troubleshooter in service to the computer and 472 00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,440 looking to locate traders who include mutants and members of 473 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:52,040 secret societies. But unbeknownst all the to the 474 00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,480 others, every player is himself both a muted and a member of a 475 00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,440 secret society, and so is perforce A traitor. 476 00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:02,920 So it's a game of suspicion and of trying to get evidence on the 477 00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:04,880 other guy before they get evidence on you. 478 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,360 And so in that sense, when you're not allowed to show 479 00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:13,360 knowledge of the rules and but you're not really allowed to do 480 00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:18,080 a lot in the way of agency, the rules are not that big a deal. 481 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,840 So it becomes much more a game of tone. 482 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,960 And it was quite the the phenomenon of tone, if you look 483 00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,440 at most at the funniest role-playing writing in the 484 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:31,800 field in the entire history of the field, a good half of it or 485 00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,120 more. As for Paranoia, it's just it 486 00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:38,240 had drew in so many classic moments and people still 487 00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,840 remember those days fondly and they remember that 1987 second 488 00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:47,800 edition, which is very much Ken's role, Ken's work, the line 489 00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,360 developer role. I think your point is true that 490 00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:57,080 line developers as such are not often recognised as the power in 491 00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,600 the field that that they should be. 492 00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:02,480 It changed somewhat. It varies by company. 493 00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:06,400 In White Wolf for example, the line developer was supreme and 494 00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,080 every one of those early Storyteller games had a distinct 495 00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,240 feel and distinct approach. And it was specifically because 496 00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:16,320 there was one all powerful line developer. 497 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:21,720 But in other companies it would sometimes lead to disaster. 498 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:26,360 And Avalon Hill gained rights to Rune Quest at one point and for 499 00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:30,880 and they had so many dozens of Glorantha fans who would have 500 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,920 been happy to be in charge of the Rune Quest line. 501 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,880 They would have killed to be in charge of that line, and instead 502 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:43,880 the executive of Avalon Hill decided to give it over to a guy 503 00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,320 who worked behind the counter at the local game store. 504 00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:50,640 He was not really a Glorantha guy, and it really showed. 505 00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,680 That was another example of how things could go really bad. 506 00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:58,520 It's very much feast or famine for the game player as well as 507 00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,640 the game designer in the field, because if you've got a good 508 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:06,160 line editor, line developer, then you're going to be getting 509 00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,960 a long slate of really good books, and if you don't, you 510 00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,120 won't. On the subject of credit, 511 00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:17,960 sitting in your Wikipedia entry, it says that you worked on an 512 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,960 expansion for Magic in the early days. 513 00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,960 What's the story behind that? I happened to be at Origins 93 514 00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:29,280 and met and had already been friends with Peter Atkinson, who 515 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,200 owned Wizards of the Coast. He had done a book called The 516 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:36,400 Primal Order, which was a cap system supplement for D&D and a 517 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,960 bunch of other games about playing divine characters. 518 00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:43,520 He had seen my interview my reviews in Dragon, and he sent 519 00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,920 me a manuscript of The Primal Order before publication and I 520 00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,720 sent it back a bunch of feedback and he appreciated that. 521 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,000 So I had this sort of connection with Peter. 522 00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,240 So I was hanging out at the Wizards of the Coast booth while 523 00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,600 he was telling me about this new card game they were going to 524 00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,160 publish. And so actually some new 525 00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,600 production cars, the very first production cards out of Carta 526 00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,880 Mundi, came to the table while I was sitting behind the table 527 00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,080 with him. And I happened to hold in my 528 00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,000 hand the very first Herloon Minotaur card that had ever 529 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,200 gotten out of Into the World. And I just looked at and said, 530 00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,320 Oh yeah, that's very nice. Because I had no idea. 531 00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,200 I had no suspicion of what was going to happen. 532 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:28,960 So when I got home, I thought I could probably so an expansion 533 00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,400 to this guy because I was trying to make red. 534 00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,560 I came up with a notion that of spell casters. 535 00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,080 In the game, spell casters represented as cards, a kind of 536 00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:43,520 a cosmic encounter idea. I sent that in and then then Gen 537 00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,800 Con of 93 came out. Magic came out there and people 538 00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:52,040 were lined up 3 deep around the wizard's table for the entire 539 00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,880 convention, just trying to get to a look of it at this game. 540 00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,920 And everybody was playing it everywhere. 541 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:04,600 And it was very hard to get Peter on the phone after that 542 00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:07,400 after the convention because he was really busy. 543 00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:12,680 But they did a soldier on in as in a modest way, trying to get 544 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:17,440 my, my expansion going. And ultimately it didn't look 545 00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:21,320 like it was making any progress. And so when I, when I saw that 546 00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,800 there was nothing happening on their end, I, I just picked up 547 00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:29,600 and I moved from Austin, TX up to Renton, WA to go in and be 548 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,800 able to hang around the Renton offices and try to get my 549 00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:37,720 expansion shepherded along. And that's how I ended up 550 00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:41,640 writing for a lot for the Duelist, which was the Magic 551 00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,360 magazine that they published at the time. 552 00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,560 I was doing reviews and doing editing and so forth. 553 00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:52,840 My expansion did not connect with anything that the game had 554 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,800 become because I had decided in a in a much different frame of 555 00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:59,440 mind than what what Magic actually became. 556 00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,160 I had no sense of the phenomenon. 557 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,640 They paid me a kill fee and I had to watch that project wither 558 00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:06,960 away. It was too bad. 559 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,480 But they did adapt the idea ultimately for their arena 560 00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,080 combat. The arena expansion had some of 561 00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,960 my ideas, although I'm not sure how much my original draft had 562 00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,120 to do with what they finally came up with. 563 00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,880 It was an up and down period. It was certainly exciting to see 564 00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,600 Wizards of the Coast in its early, phenomenal years. 565 00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,960 They had this giant office complex that looked like a 566 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,239 Social Security office and everybody just, there was 567 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:41,000 hundreds of people there, all young, all very energetic and 568 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,880 optimistic. They had a theatre alchemy 569 00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:47,719 division that was just going to do video and so forth. 570 00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:49,719 There was a lot of extravagance there. 571 00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,600 There was a lot of, you know, you see that a lot in early 572 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,600 successful startups there. The money will never stop. 573 00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:58,840 And so there's just so much going. 574 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:00,600 They just ride off in all directions. 575 00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:04,920 I left there just before they released the Fallen Empire set 576 00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,320 where they had over printed by a factor of 5 or 10. 577 00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:12,600 And that one was a kind of a wake up call for Wizards of the 578 00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,200 Coast. And I think over the next year 579 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,280 or two, they gradually started to become much more managerial. 580 00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,720 They started to become much more of a corporate entity. 581 00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:27,480 So I don't know, it's very, it was, it was an exciting time and 582 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,440 I don't know that I appreciated it that much at the time because 583 00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,240 as I say, I was just trying to make rent all the time. 584 00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:39,840 You talked about TSL, you talked about Steve Jameson, you talked 585 00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:44,080 about This is the Coast. You also worked for White Wolf 586 00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,160 at that time. What was that like? 587 00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,200 I know you worked on Macy Ascension Second Edition, which 588 00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,200 is a which is a big big release and what good might work? 589 00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:57,400 I I worked to freelance through as a contributor to the Mage 590 00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,040 Wine. I I knew Phil Brucato. 591 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:05,640 I had reviewed Mage first edition for Dragon and I met him 592 00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,800 at several Gen cons. Very talented guy through Phil 593 00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:14,200 Brucato, the line editor of Mage the Ascension and that was found 594 00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,440 Mage to be just so exciting and in its vision. 595 00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:23,480 And so I, I believe he he brought me in for some small 596 00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:29,360 sections in the book of Shadows and I may have done some other 597 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,840 minor stuff. And then in for 2nd edition, I 598 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:38,080 did some of the the Roots and I then was also involved with the 599 00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,280 Order of Hermes first edition tradition book. 600 00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:47,000 And that had that was the work of a woman I had known from Gen 601 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,040 Con in past from 91 to 95, Beth Fiskey. 602 00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,280 She had written for the Book of Shadows as well. 603 00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,880 And she had gotten the Order of Hermes assignment. 604 00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:00,040 And so she was looking for help with that. 605 00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:05,120 I had met her at every Gen Con from 91 to 95. 606 00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,520 And we hit it off at his convention friends. 607 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,520 She was the sort of friendship where you could just pick it up 608 00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,520 for each new each year you would just pick up the conversation 609 00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,440 where you'd left off the previous year. 610 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:21,000 And overtime we kind of blossomed into something more 611 00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:27,240 and then we became a couple and then eventually married and we 612 00:37:27,240 --> 00:37:29,920 are still married. She brought me in for Order of 613 00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:35,320 Hermes and I think she was also doing Sandman for race and I 614 00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:40,120 helped a little bit there. I never had a close relationship 615 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:44,640 with the White Wolf Storyteller games in the way that I did with 616 00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,240 some of the other lines that I'd worked on. 617 00:37:47,720 --> 00:37:52,600 I remember I introduced a fellow in the Horizon, a book I rode 618 00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:57,640 with Beth about this stronghold of the traditions and introduced 619 00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:02,240 an NPC there, Mark Hallward Gillen, who I shamelessly ripped 620 00:38:02,240 --> 00:38:07,600 off John Constantine for and had him as a character in there. 621 00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:11,200 And then in the way the sort of thing happens in in role-playing 622 00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:15,520 games, Mark Hallward Gillen showed up later and in multiple 623 00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:19,320 other contexts. And by other hands, when you're 624 00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:23,240 writing for these shared universes, you just put things 625 00:38:23,240 --> 00:38:27,240 out there and sometimes they get seized on or sometimes they just 626 00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,400 get reworked by some later hand and you just have to say, OK, 627 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,120 that certainly was that. And ultimately, when they 628 00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,560 decided to close off the Ascension line with all those 629 00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,720 there, there was some sort of big climactic event where they 630 00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,040 decided to write world ending books for each of the five 631 00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,720 Storyteller games. And the one for Ascension had 632 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:50,520 multiple ways to end the campaign. 633 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,760 And I think it turned out somebody made Mark Hallward 634 00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,480 Gillen like the embodiment of the next incarnation of the 635 00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,920 universe. And I just said, oh, is that 636 00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:03,160 right? I did know when I asked that 637 00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:05,800 question that we'd get the story of how you and Beth met with. 638 00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,080 That was a nice cover that. Yeah. 639 00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:10,800 Do you both work on bundle of holding? 640 00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,480 How did that come about? That was 2013 when I founded the 641 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,440 Bundle of Holding that was in fact an outgrowth of my 642 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,480 ill-fated venture doing paranoia novels. 643 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:23,920 The Ultraviolet Books line had cratered. 644 00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,880 I had seen a new site called Story Bundle that was modelled 645 00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,200 on Humble Bundle that was collecting a bunch of novels and 646 00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:36,120 time limited offers by Hindi authors and I thought I'd love 647 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:39,320 to get in on that. And I inquired about that and 648 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,600 never got an answer. And so I thought I could 649 00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:45,040 probably do that with a bunch of my gamer game designer friends 650 00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,480 who have written novels. And so I went to Drive Through 651 00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:51,920 and tried to get them to add some functionality to the 652 00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:56,920 platform that would allow for the the sorts of design features 653 00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,280 that Humble Bundle clone would need. 654 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,480 And they had no time to do it. This was 2012. 655 00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:07,480 And they said, no, we don't have the resources to do that because 656 00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,400 we're busy with our own site redesign. 657 00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:16,120 That was 2012. Now, if you've seen Drive 658 00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:21,560 Through, they finally launched that redesign last year, so. 659 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:26,560 I, I don't know how much they expended on doing that, but in 660 00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:30,520 any case, I had to find some way to make it happen myself. 661 00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:35,840 And by by chance, I I knew a friend in my local juggling club 662 00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:39,320 in Austin who was a programmer and wanted to learn more PHP. 663 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:43,800 And so she agreed to code the rudimentary first version of the 664 00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:47,360 site. And so I pulled in half a dozen 665 00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,800 acquaintances and we pulled to pull together our first offer 666 00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:56,280 February 2013. And it was a nail biting 667 00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:59,400 experience because the site would crash at every turn. 668 00:40:59,720 --> 00:41:02,400 It did well enough that I thought maybe I could try doing 669 00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,280 something similar for that for games. 670 00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,680 And I was just bouncing from one idea to the next without any 671 00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,480 clear plan. We were building out the plane 672 00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,720 in mid flight. I did a second and offer then a 673 00:41:13,720 --> 00:41:18,800 more novels and it was a long around, I guess offer 5 or 6 674 00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,000 where I thought, well, you know, I think I'm going to go for 675 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,320 this, which is perhaps not the master plan that you want to 676 00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:27,000 project. You don't want to project. 677 00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,520 You want to project this error that Oh yes, I had it all 678 00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,120 planned from the start. But in fact, it was just so 679 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,800 wayward. It just haphazard. 680 00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:38,080 It just happened around me. But I will say what I do take 681 00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,880 credit in my own mind for is that as soon as I saw I could 682 00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:47,400 become an actual thing I threw myself into at 100% and we I 683 00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:52,400 would got eventually got into $12,000 in debt by September of 684 00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:57,200 2013 with the I think it was the 8th offer the Hindi treasure 685 00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:01,800 trove that discord really quite well and paid off all that debt 686 00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,840 in one month. And I thought OK so this is it. 687 00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,880 And I just kept pushing out new offers as fast as I could. 688 00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:13,560 And every, every offer was just a harrowing experience. 689 00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,400 It was I this is true. I was clenching my teeth so hard 690 00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,080 and so long that I cracked on molar. 691 00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,200 And But finally, after about a year and a half, the platform 692 00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,760 started to stabilise. And I think people eventually 693 00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,680 started to think of it as a fixture in their lives. 694 00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,720 There was time when, you know, whenever the site crashed, the. 695 00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:37,680 I expected it would be like a maximum of 90 seconds before 696 00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:40,160 somebody would get on Twitter and say did the bottle hold go 697 00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:43,240 out of business? Finally things stabilised and I 698 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:46,320 think people are after 13 years, people are saying OK, it's 699 00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,240 probably going to be sticking around for a while. 700 00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:53,720 So now at this point I've done almost exactly 1000 offers and I 701 00:42:53,720 --> 00:42:58,800 have 70 that I want to do next year and another 100 after that. 702 00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,920 So it's just crazy how many offers there are. 703 00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,880 I when I started this thing, the guy at Dr Thru asked me, how 704 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:08,480 long do you think you can keep this going? 705 00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,320 And I thought I said about a year and a half. 706 00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:15,160 It was just amazing how they're just, the field just kept 707 00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,840 growing and mushrooming. And right now there's just so 708 00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,200 much vigour and vitality in the field that it's just impossible 709 00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:24,880 to keep up. So this feed the site can 710 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,040 continue for as long as I've got energy. 711 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:32,080 Right now with the site, you're doing almost two bundles a week. 712 00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,720 I think that's the two, two launches a week. 713 00:43:35,720 --> 00:43:38,680 Rather let me put it like that. And I know some weeks that isn't 714 00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:42,000 the case, but like usually there's one and if not one, 715 00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,600 there's two. How far ahead are you thinking 716 00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:48,240 about these? Do you have a calendar? 717 00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:51,640 How do you think about what goes on this side? 718 00:43:52,240 --> 00:43:56,120 For quite a long time it was. It was definitely week to week. 719 00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,360 It was another hand to mouth situation where I was just 720 00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,440 scrambling all the time. You may remember, Thomas, when 721 00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:06,200 you contributed your own Spider and the city to the Indy 722 00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:10,480 treasure trove in 2022. That was very much a last minute 723 00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:13,160 deal and most of the offers were. 724 00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,760 And it was a matter of just trying to scrape together all 725 00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,600 the offers on Friday that I was going to want all the titles on 726 00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:21,320 Friday, that I was going to launch on Monday. 727 00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:27,120 But finally I got things clarified to the process was in 728 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,960 place that I it becomes much more practical to work further 729 00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:34,640 in advance. And it's still a very iffy 730 00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,480 proposition. Like in in 2023, it had this 731 00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:42,440 plan of I think 75 offers that I wanted to do, of which I think 732 00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,600 only about half actually happened that year. 733 00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:50,800 And then last year it was I had 112 offers that I wanted to do. 734 00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:55,080 And there were ultimately 113 offers, but only 47 of them 735 00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:57,520 were, fifty of them were the ones that I had in mind at the 736 00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:00,760 start of the year. So the bundle is always writ on 737 00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,120 water. The bundle of holding schedule 738 00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:05,600 is always just a castle in the air. 739 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:11,160 And so even though I've got this long agenda, I've got the next 740 00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:15,800 three months planned and the next year after that, in fact, I 741 00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,520 have not actually contacted people. 742 00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:24,120 So that's where the contact with reality is probably going to 743 00:45:24,240 --> 00:45:27,760 continue to make trouble. So it's still, it still 744 00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:29,840 definitely holds my interest, I will tell you that. 745 00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:32,880 And I know one of your regular problems is that sometimes you 746 00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:35,840 can't find ways to each other because people don't give you 747 00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,280 their e-mail. This is what I have come to in 748 00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,360 my old age in terms of the mission, the points that I want, 749 00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,120 the learnings that I want to convey. 750 00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,360 And the first one, I've already talked about how this is the 751 00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:48,960 golden age of role-playing. And the second learning that I 752 00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:52,280 want to convey is put your e-mail address somewhere on your 753 00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,400 website. You just you need to provide a 754 00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,280 public face. We need e-mail address so that 755 00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:03,560 customers can contact you for support or to raise issues. 756 00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,600 That is just best practise. I'm glad that we are not 757 00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,960 actually recording video so you can't see the froth and spittle 758 00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,240 coming out of my mouth. But I will say that I feel this 759 00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:17,600 down to my bones. So if there are any indie 760 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:21,400 publishers listening to this Yes Indeed podcast and take the way 761 00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,480 this learning put your e-mail address how? 762 00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,480 Is what the bundle of holding doing as a business that made 763 00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:32,800 the business model sort of works is most of the money goes to the 764 00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,840 publishers. A certain percentage goes to a 765 00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,200 charity that is specified and then some. 766 00:46:39,240 --> 00:46:41,440 There's a small token I think that goes to drive through for 767 00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,720 their permission so that customers can access the games 768 00:46:44,720 --> 00:46:47,880 they buy on on drive through and then a portion comes to you is 769 00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,400 that. That that has been the model for 770 00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,840 quite a long time. In fact, this past year I have 771 00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:57,680 relocated from my long time home in upstate New York where I 772 00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:00,840 started the bundle of holding back to my childhood home of 773 00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:05,080 Reno, NV. And there the charity laws are 774 00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,360 different and I am not quite clear even yet about the tax 775 00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:11,720 implications of that. So for this year, very few 776 00:47:11,720 --> 00:47:15,360 bundle offers have included a charity component until I get 777 00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,440 that straightened out. I expect that will come clear 778 00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:23,320 with the tax return in January. So right now it's the split is 779 00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:28,280 72% goes to the publisher or a split among the multiple 780 00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:35,280 publishers and 5% goes to drive through and 23% goes to me. 781 00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:42,640 Sales are down about 22% from the bundles best year, which was 782 00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,600 2022. The publishers I talked to 783 00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:49,240 report similar declines. I think the field as a whole is 784 00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:51,320 in a downturn now. There's a lot of different 785 00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:55,080 reasons for that. But basically I've I've managed 786 00:47:55,080 --> 00:48:00,400 to move to a much cheaper state. I've changed web hosts from from 787 00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:03,600 Leno to Hetzner and so that's much cheaper. 788 00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,920 So I would say everything is still a very sustainable. 789 00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:10,880 It's a good gig. And as I say, I for many years I 790 00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:13,760 continued to think of myself as an embattled freelancer, and 791 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,160 this was just one more gig. But no, finally, after about 792 00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:21,960 year 10 or 11, I finally said this is actually me now, So this 793 00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:26,600 is my career. You're an unlikely digital 794 00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,360 entrepreneur, but that's exactly what it is. 795 00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:31,760 Never figured myself to be a bookseller. 796 00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,200 All right, Ben, thank you so much, Alan. 797 00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:38,800 It's a real pleasure chatting with you. 798 00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:41,120 Thomas, it's been a great pleasure. 799 00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,240 I admire your work greatly on the Hindi RPG newsletter, which 800 00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:47,120 by the way, the bundle of holding sponsors and I've been 801 00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,880 very pleased to sponsor you for several years now and hope to 802 00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:54,080 continue to do that. And now I'm finally glad to to 803 00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:56,400 be a member, to be a guest on your podcast. 804 00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:07,840 Thanks for listening folks. We didn't do our usual end of 805 00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:11,560 podcast questions with Alan. It's a bit of a different kind 806 00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:17,280 of episode, but ad hoc. But I have a couple of episodes 807 00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,840 aligned up. I'll be talking to ASA Donald 808 00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:28,480 about their new solo RPG Spine. I will be talking to Adam Lim, a 809 00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:35,240 much awaited appearance by my friend Anne Lim on the podcast. 810 00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:37,120 Whatever we talk about, I'm sure it'll be great. 811 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,880 Look forward to those. Till then, does Indy need you? 812 00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,040 Yes indeed. And cadmium. 813 00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:45,840 And calcium. And chromium and curium. 814 00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,240 There's sulphur, californium and fermium, berkelium, and also 815 00:49:50,240 --> 00:49:53,720 mendelevium, einstanium, nobelium and Argentryptonian, 816 00:49:53,720 --> 00:49:55,920 rhodium And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten and 817 00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:56,520 sodium.