Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast project by The
Adventure Archive. My name is Ryan.
And I'm a lost cannibal. And with us, we have a couple of
very special guests today. We have David Blandy and Daniel
Locke talking about Eco Mofos today.
How are you guys doing? You're going good.
Thanks very much for having this on.
Thanks. For going on.
Really good. The weather is good here.
It is not great. It is not great here, I assume.
I assume that means warm versus like boiling over here, Yeah.
It's been it's been windy and rainy recently, and today it was
sunny, so it's nice, you know? I'm in Texas.
I'm in Dallas, TX, which has been currently hotter than I
think 99% of the world, and it has been over 100, a lot.
So wow, that's Yeah, that's too hot.
That's too much. Yeah, yeah, I I sleep all day
and just ignore all of that. That's what I do.
So. So.
David. Daniel.
David who? So who?
Who the heck are you guys? What are you?
What are you doing here, David,
Tell us about Tell us about yourself and and what brings you
to a tabletop RPG podcast? Well yeah.
I'm a tabletop role-playing game designer and fine artist, and
I've been making games for the last 5-6 years, starting with
more kind of. I came from 5E, I guess coming
back into the hobby after kind of loving the red box when I was
little and stuff. And then actually through
playing with Dan we we had some sessions formed a little crew in
in Brighton which is where we both live and then yeah, first
of all started a home brew campaign and then.
Started getting slightly frustrated with the rules.
They kind of looked for different ways to to have fun at
the table with people and yeah, found the whole indie scene.
Started getting into FKR and yeah, looked at things like 2400
by Jason Tocci, which is what Lost Eons one of my previous
games is based on. And yeah, really interested in
solo gaming like, yeah, Low Neons, which is the solo version
or? People which is based on crisp
assets. The Wretched.
So yeah just kind of went through all that.
And then yeah, recently I've wanted to move more into sort of
yeah, I guess the OSR in some ways looking at Chris Mcdowell's
into the yard and your high gals Ken and seeing yeah, what the
possibilities are there with with that for telling the sorts
of stories that I want to with with with games.
Yeah, that's that's my, that's my table top story.
What about you, Dan? So I'm yeah, like David said I
live in Brighton in the UK as well and David and I basically I
sort of tag along where David goes and.
We it's not true. That is true.
I I think weirdly, like we've known each other for about 20
odd years, went to college together, so got a lot of shared
interests. And I think weirdly, we both
started looking back at the stuff we liked.
When we were little like you know for me it was Games
Workshop and and Miniatures and the Red Box and stuff like that.
And we would sort of start having these conversations about
how picked up this, you know, Doug, the Red Box out the attic
or whatever and just sort of rediscovering it again.
And for me that was about five years ago and the IT was really
the pandemic that sort of consolidated.
Consolidated my my current, like obsession with that, I should
say like my day job is, is being a cartoonist and a graphic
novelist. So it's only really like a
sidestep. So I generally work with
scientists and help them communicate their research.
But yeah, like in that in that role I'm introduced to loads of
really bonkers ideas and I'm a scifi obsessive and fancy fan
and all of that. So it doesn't take much for my
brain to start wanting to draw. Humanoid rats.
And. Enormous mistakes.
No, you fit right in then, yeah. There we go.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's gotta be great having a team where
David's making these amazing games.
You have a fantastic artist together.
Do you guys do a lot of? Like back and forth with that
like you know you come up with something and then David you
like you know stat it up or or vice versa like how, how does
that kind of relationship play out in in the design?
Yeah, it's really organic. I mean, I came to, I came to Dan
with this project and yeah, he, he, he really, really loved it.
And but it's not like I'm saying right here's, I don't know,
here's a tentacle. He'll illustrate this.
It was more like here's a book. What kind of vibes does it give
you? And yeah, draw some stuff, Let's
see what we can do with it and then done.
How did how did you take that on?
Yeah, it's like as you say, it's really organic and like you
know, as I said, David and I have known each other for so
long. So I think it's really rooted in
our friendship and just trying to.
The first stop for me is just trying to make something that
will entertain David and something maybe that'll add a
bit of value, something you know, with daily contact on,
especially on Discord. So there's a lot of sharing or
some pictures that we found or like weird sci-fi front covers
and a lot of, yeah. That's my job.
Yeah, I love. We've got some really good we've
got. There are some pretty good
second hand shops in in Brighton, a really good stall
actually in the open market which which has a nice stash of
of 60s seventies sci-fi. And then yeah, I kind of treat
myself for a couple every every now and then and I've got like
you know, too many paperbacks now, both of them just bought,
just bought for the front cover. Yeah, but.
The colors are gorgeous. I wish that style would come
back. I mean, it sounds like you guys
have a nice kind of like what Robert Plant and Jimmy Page kind
of thing going on where one can inspire the other.
So, but. True, actually, because I'm
wearing a tshirt now, but normally I'm bare chested with a
waistcoat, so. Yeah.
Just. Just don't steal as much from
them and you'll be you'll be as successful, you know, but you
guys are here. We're talking about eco Mofos
fantastic game that's currently funding right now on
Kickstarter. Just what what is eco mofos and
what was the impetus to kind of I know you said you know from 5E
to into the odd and Karen was kind of the path but but why
specifically eco mofos and and yeah.
Yeah, I've been working on Lost ions for a long time.
Like that was that was kind of the big project.
It's it's 3 zines together kind of.
It's a big kind of design project.
I was working in collaboration with a with a group in in
Cambridge. We came up with lots of law to
do with the area and I liked it and it's sort of like kind of
quite solar punky quite kind of hopeful future but.
I thought it'd be fun to do something with a little bit more
edge, and in a way I was frustrated with the fact that I
don't know that it was so kind of stand alone.
It didn't. It didn't kind of connect to the
rest of this, this, the kind of wider.
Kind of gaming universe that that I was seeing happening
with, with all the the things like Michael Anderson's bastards
or like DCC or like, you know, just this this whole kind of
family of different types of games that could kind of just
about be compatible with each other.
But I felt like like lost deals didn't quite fit into that, Like
I couldn't drop a dungeon into there and it makes sense
somehow. So I wanted to.
It kind of started as a shit post to be honest.
It was like, what would happen if I mashed together Ken and the
character creation system from Bastards.
The original Bastards, which was just the six types.
So you roll your HP. And then it's, it's and then
it's one of six different classes that you would that you
would have and and I thought you know six, I can do six, why
don't I do 36 because that's you know D66.
It's just six times harder, you know, It's not a good yeah.
Exactly. It's just a little bit more work
and then and then of course that kind of.
Because I was hacking it into Ken and kind of, you know,
thinking about into the yard and kind of all the failed careers
and things. Each, each of those, each of
those characters, each of those, those different options had a
set of items that would come with them.
And that those items were, you know, I kind of, I guess I'd get
more and more into the idea of the.
The game bringing you into the vibe and the law through just
your interaction with it. So you don't actually have to
read the game. It's like it's all it's all like
built into the tables or the items that you're given or you
know it's not a new idea it's it's it's very much inside you
know the whole philosophy that Chris McDowell and that that
kind of whole lineage of games has has been thinking about, but
it's just you know it it it kind of felt right to me to to do
that for the for the. For these these characters.
And then once I once I had that, then I wanted to create very
much a because I'm a lazy GM. Basically I like to turn up at
the table and just like okay, let's play.
I don't want to be I don't want to be prepping too much so.
So how do I, how do I kind of create a space and a game that
you can just like literally? Come into and start playing
within 5 minutes. Like as long as you kind of
understand the system a little bit.
And it was to create basically a procedural adventure system.
So you as you travel along, you can kind of roll for what the
next section is. And then that section has like
these these series of D20 tables that that create little
encounters for you, to you, to you to meet up with on your
journey to that next thing. If you then roll up and all the
time you're rolling on this D66. Loop table.
Well, actually it's a D666 loop table, yeah.
And kind of more and more things are coming out.
And sometimes it's like an incredibly rare thing.
It's a bit like, I don't know, like like grinding in Final
Fantasy 5 or six or something where you're going into a forest
and you know that like one in every 200 will be this like,
deadly dragon that has amazing, amazing loot.
So you're just going back and forth in the forest and
eventually, like, here it is. So it's like that with the leak,
it's like these these key items which are the things that let
you adapt, which are like how you level up essentially their
their things in the world like implants and orbs, the kind of
spells or maybe some weird mushrooms like that you ingest
and you kind of bring into your body and that kind of and your
body adapts and you have these this kind of extra ability of
some sort like it's kind of like.
It's like Arkana from from into the yard, but it's actually
becomes part of your body. So it's like it's not like a
thing that you can put away. It's like there it is.
It's there and like, so you could conceivably get all 36
kind of adaptations together and be this kind of.
Uber character like in Final Fantasy Tactics where you're
just kind of collecting jobs all the time and like kind of, you
know, you make these ultimate characters, but at the same
time, it's just cool with just the one thing and you know,
they're just different tools to try and solve problems really.
So that was that was the kind of start of it was yeah, that.
Mixture between kind of rules like game play but also no prep
adventures and kind of mashing them together.
And and of course that creates a system that is ideal for solo
play because it's like here's a system where you can actually
just just kind of follow the adventure as it goes and and
discover it basically. And the the the dice rolls tell
you what's next and it's yeah, straightforward.
I love that that is exactly the type of game that I I live for.
Like I want to not put up almost at all.
I want to know what the setting feels like more or less.
And I really enjoyed that whole like implied by the items, like
the items and stuff implying the setting without it being like a
four to 10 page manual. I think that's something that
David's done so incredibly well though with this is that each of
the tables, there's not like one wasted entry that it's actually
really rich in law. It's just that it's it's
embedded within those tables, you know, and each time you sort
of like use those tables or roll it, roll with those tables,
you're sort of reinventing this law.
It's all vibe and flavor. It's it's awesome.
Well done, David. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, that's, you know, if you're going to have a rules
like game, it's you don't. I guess you also don't need like
a 50 page lore book to go with your world.
It's really nice. We talk about this on the show a
lot of times where like the way that you write a game will
really just innately. Influence the way that people
play your game and the way that people read it.
You know if if all of the tables are little orbits and like every
little part gives you a little bit more it also encourages
people to find all those little parts and read the entire thing.
And I just like skim like an SRD or anything like that.
So it's really you know like you said you know Chris McDowell
with went crazy with that with all the in the odd stuff and
it's really nice to see that spread to.
Spread to the ITO or the the mark of the odd, I was going to
say into that hack like mark of the odd stuff.
So when the projects, when you when you started making
designing this project, did you talk to like Dan right away and
were you drawing stuff right off the bat for it or was it pretty
far along before you guys kind of actually came together to to
do this? Yeah, I was.
I was talking to Dan about it the whole time because we just
talk all the time. But it was really, and in the
kind of early days I was putting out, I I put out the PDF when it
was like super raw, like those, you know, It was just like the
basic rules. It was how to create a
character. It was some of the adventure
stuff. And yeah, I started getting
approached by people like Aaron Catoire and Brandon Ye and they
they were just really into the project already and kind of just
drawing stuff die off the bat, like kind of just inspired by
the by the law to to make stuff. And I started showing the
project to Dan and kind of like, you know, I kind of.
You know I I just made this as a as a crazy project but actually
I I think I kind of like it like it's got a really stupid name
but maybe maybe that's good maybe it's like that makes that
makes sense for trying to because it's it's you know along
with all the the kind of game play stuff there's also the kind
of the subtext of the game which is that you're in the future
world a weird future where. The mega rich have escaped to
Mars and they've left everyone else to rot or kind of be kind
of basically entombed in massive underground bunkers because the
the surface is kind of so scary. And you know, what would what
would life be like on that on that surface and what what would
everyone be be up to and kind of give?
It like 30 years and you're going to know, don't worry.
It's not really science fiction. It's just kind of.
Extrapolating what's you know, what's next, so.
Spaceships are like submarines. We'll definitely find out.
So it's yeah we're heading into a quite quite dark times.
I mean we're already in dark times but this is this is you
know it's it's it's kind of that that Rome is but I wanted to
create a space that. Allowed for some hope like you
know yeah things are getting bad but there's gonna be some
there's gonna be something after and we're gonna you know people
are going to survive and people are going to have have lives and
and love each other and and see incredible vistas and like you
know these these things will happen.
So it was trying to trying to turn it from like yeah that
possible like just descent into green dark into something
something else but acknowledging the.
In that kind of movement, like we're going to have to accept a
lot of change, and a lot of change is weird, which is where
the weird comes from. So it's like, you know, things,
things mutate and we're going to have to accept that things
aren't going to be exactly the same.
So yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's where that came from.
And. I like that a lot.
Very hopeful, very positive. Fantastic.
Yeah, it's kind of. I guess it's bringing together a
lot of our different influences like for for both of us.
We grew up on the this comic called 2008 D It's like I don't
know how, whether you have it much in America.
Judge Dredd. You know Judge Dredd?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. He comes from a comic called
2008 D, which was like this crazy response to Thatcher's
Britain. Judge Redd was a bad guy.
He's like the fascist and it was like that that that's where it
was coming from. And they made this, this comic
full of like incredible, incredible, like satirical, Hard
as Nails characters and sold it to 10 year olds.
Your money is just as green as anybody else's, you know.
So, so yeah. So it's like it's that kind of
thing. And then then but then also kind
of thinking about like Miyazaki and and all these other
influences coming in and writers like us, Liguin or Octavia
Butler. So yeah, kind of bringing in all
these different things into into one big pot and stirring it
around. Yeah, that's literally.
Literally, Yeah. I think I did do some drawings
from the very first. It's race.
You did. You did some crazy punks.
Yeah, they were like really, really cartoony, weren't they?
I I do. You know what?
What really got me into it, though I don't actually know how
we've ended up with a Kickstarter.
It's all a bit of a weird blur. But I I I was really, really ill
and as I was trying to get better, I I picked up, you know,
the the beta version of ecomophage and I just started
making these couple of pamphlets.
Which I put out on itch and that that was for me that that was
like the beginning where I was like I'm not just drawing crazy
punks. I could actually Draw Something
cool for this is David's done nothing really cool here and I
really want to engage with it and and that's what.
I remember, I do remember that that message on Discord, it was
like, maybe this is actually really good.
It was that thing. It was good.
Hey, yeah, yeah, Yeah. Like guys, go on.
But there was that thing where, where, you know, you know, like
we're friends, like like he's see, I've shown him the thing.
But this is the moment when I knew that Dan had actually read
it. And it was like kind of ah,
yeah, yeah, like you take it in and it's like.
Yeah, it's like weird, isn't it? It's weird when like cultural
artifacts, like books, movies, whatever.
Sometimes you can. You can, sort of.
Be with them and you recognize them as decent and good and
stuff but they don't really spark alive.
And then there is a moment where where where something will just
like come alive in your head. And this moment when I was like
in my sick bed playing the game on my own and just like reading
it and rereading it and then rereading it again and I was
like actually I really want to do something with this.
This is really really cool. And I the world just felt really
real and really 3 dimensional and.
You know that whole thing of it. I'm I'm a big law person.
I know law isn't very isn't very like trendy or popular.
Actually I like a lot of law. I like the fluff.
Come on. It's like the good stuff
especially if it's crazy and really badly written then I can
get. But yeah no that that was when I
started realizing that these tables David put together and
I've seen them sort of remember on on our chats.
I've seen them sort of become more and more refined and and.
I've seen various different edits and stuff like that.
I was like, yeah, he's done something really good here.
This is brilliant and I need to get on board and I just got a
friendship and like, you don't have a choice.
So you said. This kind of you said this kind
of came about to a Kickstarter, and I really wanted to talk
about the Kickstarter first of all.
I mean the the art Daniel is absolutely fantastic.
I mean. The I don't know if you know
that we like pink here on the show, but it is kind of like our
primary color. So that's really, yeah, that's
really throughout the entire kind of color scheme a lot.
But the Kickstarter. Talk about the Kickstarter.
You guys are already funded. I mean it's there was A at least
in U.S. dollars because I know you guys use pounds.
Still, it was like a $2500 goal and you guys are at like
$15,000. I mean, you guys blew past your
goal. Almost 300 backers.
You still have 20 days to go. But as I said, talk about the
Kickstarter. If people are going to back
Ecomofos, what actually are they going to get from you?
When they actually get the game in hand so they can play it.
Yeah, it's sure. So our main focus is what we
call the art book, which is the kind of hardback 150 odd page
book. Which is yeah, full of Dan's
art. Like literally it will be full
of art and then the whole whole document is going to be
redesigned into using Clayton Notes Theme's adventures
template. I don't know if you've you've
had a look at that but it's it's really amazing kind of template
for creating. Amazing games basically because
it has has this this really nice use of the sidebar.
So you kind of have this mixture between the actual text which is
kind of really clearly laid out. But then the sidebar which kind
of allows you to have either meta text or or little bits of
lore or kind of just give give a bit more flavor a bit more
clarity to what what you're what you're writing.
So the the. Document as it is right now in
the on on the Itch page is is like it's really super
compressed. Like it's like every page is
like high density, which is kind of cool, but it's it also makes
it a little bit hard to pass I think.
So it's it's going to have a little bit more space it's going
to be nicely laid out and then yeah be kind of covered in Dan's
doodles. And the art is like the goal for
the art is, I've been looking at a lot of this.
A manga car called Masumoto, who did this amazing graphic novel
called Tekonkin St. and all sorts of other stuff.
But one of the things I really love about him is that he draws
a lot of influence from like French artists and mashes it up
with like his Japanese heritage. And what comes out is this like
really graphomanic drawings. They're just full of ideas, like
visual ideas. There's very few words in his
comics and. And it's all there in the
imagery and I was like, God, this is great for like TTRPG's
because the images stop being if we get this part this route.
The images stop being like illustrations and they start
being like another resource like a place where you can put like
further ideas and suggestions for adventures or or just like
world beer building. Like alongside all the stuff
that they've and I've been sharing I've been looking at
loads of photographs from the. Spanish Civil War and that's why
all these characters have all these like little pouches all
over them because there's this wild.
It's like if you should have a look at these these incredible
photographs of these like communists from, you know,
Barcelona, they're they're they're dressed in like boiler
suits and a whole like mishmash of different gear.
And it's just, I mean it's terrible thing to say about war,
which is not a resource for like an artist, but it's like a.
It's like it's just full of like flavor and character.
And you know, you can just dive into these images and just stand
alongside those those militia men and women and and just be,
you know, they're not faceless. They're not, they're they're not
anonymous is what I'm saying. And I want the images, well, I'm
making the images to be like that so that each image is
containing this like. This world of, you know, a life
or a moment, and it's got depth and it will have all of that
stuff going in there. But that was really rambling,
wasn't that? No.
That's fantastic. That's fantastic.
Awesome to hear where all of this comes from, cuz like I
said, the art is absolutely stunning and to know where the
inspiration comes from that is really, really fantastic.
So the it's funny because when we were talking before, David
and I talked about a little bit of this in Twitter if I didn't
know. You guys were on Discord as much
we were in there and they were doing a lot easier, but you they
kept saying the art book and I was like, but what about the
regular book in my head? And it's just like, no, it's the
regular book full of more art. And that is why it is the art
book. So that is the the the standard
primary thing is the the art book.
But what else can people get from from all of this,
especially the. The Deluxe Art book bundle backs
with that one backer. I wonder who that is.
I'm back at the owner. It's a mystery that's fucking
yeah. Like, yeah.
It's just OK so so as well as the the art book we have the
spiral bound kind of yeah kind of basically less art version
but it's it's spiral bound so it'll it'll lie flat on the
table. It's kind of more possible in a
way it's it's more just. Yeah, straight for play.
It's got it means all these lovely tables will be just like,
you know flat on the table and you'll be able to use them and
then yeah, the the kind of then we have like this.
Incredible, but it's become absolutely incredible because
all the the the all the stretch goals bundle of adventures,
they're they're they're going to be pamphlet adventures plus the
adventure that we're going to be playing today which is a hole in
the ground, which is an A6 kind of 16 page adventure plus a
couple of pamphlets that that Dan's done about cool little
settings. But then.
These Adventures by Sam Lee, Goblin mixtape Logan Dean did
the Company and Demon Facts in Cleveland.
Iko did the Everything. Yeah.
Everything. It's all sky, yeah.
Last bake, last bake, yeah. Yeah, and then?
Exactly. And some guy called Zed Xu is is
producing the next one which is like literally getting in
contact with Zed X was just like wow, like you agreed to be part
of this thing and that just blew my mind.
It was it was an excuse to talk to him really.
And and now he's going to be he's going to be making making a
pamphlet Adventure for us about a kind of.
A an old mech, basically. It's like a yeah, what do we do
with nuclear warheads? It's pretty much his, his
adventure. That's the only one that's not
funded yet. So we're we're looking to to get
get up to. It's only another.
We're getting there, we're getting there.
Yeah, because I was looking at it in Merck.
And so for me, the numbers will look different.
Yeah. So you guys are, it looks like
you're sitting at just over 12 K.
And Zedek is about 13 1/2, so I mean I think with 20 days left.
20 days left it's like. 20 days left If you're going to some of
you guys out there listen I want to bump up to that you know that
that deluxe art book pack you'll get we'll get some zedek too.
I I just got my reach of the road guide Roach guide and it's
just out of hand right bring that up.
But it's interesting that when I.
I think your project and I think that is that Xue and that's the
first thing that pops in my mind.
It just kind of makes sense to have on this project.
That's great. Yeah, no, I mean, I've.
I've loved that. It's worked for years.
It was, it was. I mean, seeing 1000 Thousand
Islands was one of the things that just basically blew my head
off. It was just like what you can do
with such sparse pros and just create like whole worlds and
such. Though few words often and that,
yeah it's just it's incredible like just pure flavor And yeah
I'd say that's it's like one of the biggest influences besides
like the kind of more mechanical influences on on on my writing
and on on this work. Yeah, so, so we've got all these
different bundles that that that handle these things together.
So you can get the spiral and the art book and this bundle all
together for in the nice bundle because it's nice, it's £69 and
then and then. Yeah.
And then we we we decided yeah to to make an absolute like just
the most gorgeous Riso print possible like 4 different layers
of the the classic punk with his, with his back to you.
And it's kind of it's it's the patch that's weird hope and it's
like it's like one of it's going to be one of the main covers
from the game and that's going to be this Riso print.
It's going to be really limited edition and.
It's it's gonna be gorgeous. We're gonna be working with a a
printer here in in Brighton to make sure that it's absolutely
perfect. Yeah.
Doppel Press. They're they're so good.
Like, I've worked with them before.
And it's gonna be amazing. I love that content like.
It's so cool looking, such a great character.
All the. Well David was saying all the
artwork. The reason it's got this funny
like texture and looks a little bit dated in that way is because
that I I make all the artwork like on pen and paper then scan
it in digitally color it and then I do this process called
full color separations where I where I reduce all of the
colorways down to their constituent ratios of cyan,
yellow, magenta and black. That.
Was that? And then then you recombine them
like a screen print and you get a full color image.
That's one of the reasons that everything's got this like
slightly warm pink tint tint to it.
I like the original artwork before they get separated.
They don't necessarily have that that that pink well, though, I
was looking at my Instagram the other day and I was like, shit,
I really like purple and red. Yeah.
Well, that's fantastic. Was that now, did that come
about because of of print or was that just always just like the
color? There's.
A story there, there's a story there.
So basically I was making like the artwork, like my drawings.
And David said there's something like I just, there's something
missing like can we make the art like flatter or something?
And we were just like chatting about it.
And that's where 2000 AD came in, comes in. 2000 AD was like
primarily black and white, the inside, but the outside was full
of these like insane, psychedelically brightly colored
covers. And they all were made using
this process. It's like the it's like the way
that printed material is still printed, but but was we were
surrounded by it And you know back then in the 80s and and
90s, it was pretty pretty. On pretty like crude paper and
and it's pretty raw process, you know.
And so I was like struggling to work out what David was meaning
by asking for the colors to be flat.
I was like flat what do you mean?
And with them, with them then we were talking about 2000 AD.
So I was like, all right these are, these are, these are four
color separations. I'll just try that.
You know you can do it with Photoshop.
I I did a bunch of them. And I I sent this Flamer
character to David and he was like, nailed it.
And I was like, yes, I have motherfucker.
I've nailed it. I just knew it was right.
And I was like, that's how it's going to be.
And so there you go, there's the story.
No, it's there. It's the art is absolutely
stunning. And I know I.
So how did we get to 3 covers? Was it just like, wow, that
one's really good. Wow, I have another one that's
really good. I have another one that's really
good. I guess we're doing all three,
like. Pretty much that's just a
drawing machine. What can I say?
It was actually Discord, and it was Echo, I think.
I like I did the bug cover with the with the punks that are like
falling and tumbling. That was the cover I made, like
the punk with the Weird Hope background.
And then I made like the Snarling girl.
And I think David showed a couple of people on Discord.
Echo was one of them, or Iko was one of them.
And then I got this message from David.
Later that day saying, yeah, it looks like we're doing all
three, so yeah, yeah. Probably probably foolish in
terms of like printing resources and stuff, but like, I think, I
think, I think it's a fun thing like.
Hey, listen, at least one person wants all three covers.
Yeah, that's the, that's the other great thing about that
particular bundle is you get all three covers, that's.
Probably why that person backed it because they have a problem
and they can't not buy every variant of a thing then when it
comes out because they don't have a problem at all.
So, so yeah, gosh, I'm trying to.
Think of what else we got on the Kickstarter.
I mean everyone, I mean back all of it obviously.
And you just recently. I think the last thing is you
are deciding to put out loan eons in print for the first
time, right? That's right.
Yeah, we. Basically got some you know how
these things go like you start getting questions from backers
it's like is there any way that we could add on Los Neons onto
this and like and then someone else was like you know I've been
looking for low neons. Does that exist anywhere And
it's like well actually why don't we just get it done now
we've got a bit of we've got some funding to get the more
stuff printed so. Like, let's just let's just get
that out into the world too. So yeah, you can you can add on
the The Lost Eon's 3 books, You can add on Dan's book The Helms
of the Multiverse, which is really cool.
And then you can add on Babel, which is, yeah, my registered
and alone hack where you're inside the the, the.
Kind of Crumbling Tower of Babel and Yeah and Low Neons, which is
the solo version of Lost Eons. Yeah, kind of kind of classic
card based solo RPG kind of mixing together bits of I guess
kind of like a free form wretched and alone hack
basically but with with kind of more, yeah, far more journaling
like you're you're exploring this space.
And discovering it for the first time.
That's the first time. That's the first time that's
gonna be in print, isn't that? Oh yeah, yeah.
No, it's never been printed before.
It's one of those games I wanted to print it.
And I've always kind of been thinking, yeah, I'll do it next
month or I'll do it like, and it's always just been put back
and back and it's just like, let's just just do it.
Just so stupid not to have printed it.
So yeah, it's going on. Hey, listen, I mean.
I might have added that on too. So the the tier I, I mean if you
guys keep keep adding more in, I'm going to keep getting it but
don't because it's already kind of expensive.
But yeah, so listen the the the other thing we wanted to do
today, not only are we talking about eco, OK, last question,
why eco mofos ECO but like where like.
It, like I said, it came from a shit post.
It started out solar bastards. Yeah, exactly.
It was solar bastards. And it was so it was me.
Yeah, literally that hack of Mika Anderson's Bastards along
with like the Lost ion setting kind of, but kind of more
recent. So Lost Ions is based 8000 years
in the future. This is based like kind of 200
years in the future. And yeah, Solar, because it was
like kind of I was thinking about solar punk and things like
this and then. I realized, well, if I put it
out as solar bastards, people are gonna think it's a bastard
hack. And really it's not.
That's kind of misconstruing it. It's like it's really quite a
it's much closer to into the odd and much closer to Ken.
So I've gotta change the name And it became like, yeah, eco.
Yeah, it was eco motherfuckers. And then the game and then I
really liked what happened, like eco mofo.
It kind of like that repeating of the O and this kind of really
it kind of and it it kind of seemed like, especially with the
exclamation marks it seemed really stupid and I thought yeah
that's perfect. Like it's just really dumb.
These are going to do really dumb things in this game and
it's kind of about just just going with your gut and.
Getting on with things you know and that that it it felt, it
felt right. Yeah, I listen.
I dig it. I'm a big fan.
I do think it flows really, really well.
I think it flows better than eco motherfuckers.
So you can as it is and I'm really excited to get it and
also really excited to play because that's the other thing
that we are doing today. We are going to step away for a
couple minutes just to get that set up.
But if you're here watching, you definitely want to stick around
because we are going to be playing A1 shot David, running
myself, Daniel and Hunter. Through an adventure for Eco
Mofos. So stick around for just a
couple of minutes and we'll be right back.
For that. Hello and welcome back to the
Weekly Scroll podcast where we are here with David Blandy and
Daniel Locke and Hunter to play. Eco Mofos, the project that is
currently very successfully funding on Kickstarter, so we're
actually going to go through an adventure run by David for us
and give you guys kind of a preview of what you can expect
when you back and play Eco Mofos.
So David, what do we got going on?
Yeah. So, yeah, I'm.
David Blandy I'm the designer of the game and we're gonna roll up
some characters and then we're gonna go through an adventure
called A Hole in the Ground, which is a adventure I made for
Little jam that I did for the Eco Mofos.
It's kind of loosely based on A Tower Darkly by John Davis and
adapted for the Eco mofos setting.
So we have. Yeah, first character creation.
So Dan, I think you've got a character, haven't you?
Yeah, I have. I wrote one earlier on.
I'm happy to roll another one, but I actually did like a
drawing of her as well. She's there.
He's cute. Oh yeah.
Wow. Oh, I love the cuts out.
That's amazing. Yeah, that's.
Cool. That's great.
I'm just gonna like be like a yeah, and she's like a hacker.
And she's also got a burden. And I did the whole life path
thing, you know, and the whole thing was produced using the
tables. Normally with stuff I just like
make it up and then just make it fit the game.
But this time I was like, I'm going to really engage with all
the cool tables and then processes that David's put in
place. I mean, it's produced this
really, really interesting character.
You know, she's got this, she's got this burden, which is
sadness. It's got deep secret.
And yeah, she's pretty kick ass. She's got a blaster and a
scalpel and night vision goggles.
I always wanted a pair of night vision goggles when I was 12,
and I still do. I still want one right now.
But you still do now, yeah? What?
What's her name again?
River. Actually, her name is hilarious
because I use. Hilarious.
The name is generally no, no, no.
So her name is River Minx. But she doesn't like to use the
surname because she doesn't like She doesn't want to sound like
she's featured in some sort of aquatic pornography.
There you go. It's something against aquatic
pornography, but yeah. Yeah, so I got River for you.
All right, So character creation, what are we doing?
Yeah, so first of all, I'm going to talk you through it.
So this is the the character creation that is in the edited
book, not the version that's on the PDF.
So it's slightly adapted. And the first thing you've got
to remember is to keep track of your ones, because every one
that you roll, we're going to add an extra item from the D66
table of loot. So first of all, you roll a D6
for your starting hurt protection, so that's your HP.
And in this game, HP is not just, it's not like HP and
Dungeons and Dragons, it's more of a measure of how able you are
to avoid getting hurt, basically.
So until your HP is gone, you're kind of untouched as soon as you
get to a safe space or your HP comes back.
But once it's gone. Then your strength starts
depleting, and that's when you're getting your wounds,
basically. And once your strength gets to
zero, you're dead. So, but quite often you'll be
incapacitated before that point, because each time that that
strength gets hurt, you're going to roll a save.
And if you fail that save, then you're kind of you're down,
you're not dead, you're down. And you have to rely on your
compatriots to help you out of that mess.
So yeah, if you both want to roll your D6, your hurt
protection, then we get started. Done.
I got a four. 4:00 nice. I got a three.
OK, so we've got a four and a three.
Now this. Now you're going to roll another
D6 for your adaptation. So the four means you're a rogue
type. Let's see what what exact
adaptation it is after that. So.
I rolled another 4. Another four.
So you're a drifter and a drifter.
D4 drifter is OK. So whenever you go foraging, you
roll for two items rather than one, and you always have
advantage on combat initiatives. So you always go kind of pretty
much go first. You start with a six shooter.
Antique A locator device, a padded trench coat, a wide
brimmed hat, dusty clothes and a flag.
And of moonshine. Just like real life I am in
Texas. So, and and how about you, Ryan?
I ruled A5. A5A5 and a three that you're a
shape changer and you're a fungalist.
So let's let's have a look what the fungalist does.
Fungalist can turn into a being of fungus, able to shear scale,
shear as fast as they can run. So you can kind of go straight
up risk a burden to return to your usual form.
So yeah, you can kind of stay as a fungus being for a while, but
if you want to turn back to kind of.
A general humanoid. Then you have to risk a burden,
which means, yeah, rolling against your your will and
seeing if you can pass you. Your starting items are a staff
with a fungal core, a vial of slime, a padded cloak, a
widebrimmed hat, some sunglasses and some mushrooms.
And now we're going to roll few ribbons.
These scores. So you've got Strength,
Dexterity and Willpower, and each of those you need to roll
3D fix for, and remember to keep track of your ones.
All right, so we are just oh shit.
I'm. No way.
No, I did. That's what my old shit was.
I was like, no way we both did it.
No, I was lying. What did you get 18 in?
Was that in the strength or Decks?
Decks. Okay.
Nice. Yeah.
So yeah. So you've got strength, which is
how much body you have to lose and bruise.
You have dexterity how well you can dodge and sneak and
willpower, How well you can focus under emotional and
psychic distress. So that's your 3 abilities and
now you get your luck which is 1D6 and then we'll add 6 to it
Do. We keep track of these ones too.
Yep. I only rolled 11, so yeah, I
think I rolled the highest that I've ever rolled on a.
Mark of the odd 3D6D20 roll under game ever.
I rolled A16 for Will. I'm like, that's crazy.
Nice. Amazing.
I also rolled the highest ever. I literally rolled an 18, which
is the highest you can possibly get.
So I am. I did.
I did that the other day. I just rolled dice once and got
360 and it was just like what, but 666 big?
Yeah, exactly. It was a sign, right?
And now we're gonna roll for your age, so just roll the D6 on
A1. You're kind of a teenager to
your 20s, three, your 30s, blah, blah, blah.
But my character is the exact same age as me.
And now you roll for. You roll for a burden that you
picked up along the way, so that's the D62O K You're
enraged. You need to unleash your anger
on the world, or refuse to engage in violence when you
could. And if you do either of those
things, you will be released of that burden and it will
disappear from your inventory because you only have 10
inventory slots. Ah.
So at the moment, it's taking up one of those.
And how about you, Ryan? I got a 5.
Five. You're sad, so you need to
either share a just. Typical.
Either share a deep secret with someone or indulge in a shameful
vice. One of those will get rid of
your sadness. Okay.
Yeah, that's something you can do in play.
Like real life? Yeah.
Oh, dear. All right.
So how many? How many ones did you have?
And should we roll up some extra items?
2 ones. 2 ones. So if you wanna roll, yeah,
let's roll your first D6 on that sheet. 1st D6 I get it for the.
I get it 2. Two.
So that's on the weapons table. Roll again two more.
Two more times. A1 and A5.
One and a five. You have a wrist crossbow, which
does D6 damage. Yeah, no, yeah, it's just kind
of kind of derego and Max. Of Mad Max world.
And if you want to roll another thing if you roll the first dice
again first. A6.
A6 Here we go. Now we're going into the cool
stuff. Roll two more 3333.
Okay. You've got an ingredient.
Interesting. What ingredient do you have?
You need to roll two more 2/3. 2-3 You've got a shiny beetle.
Nice, So yeah. Delicious.
Exactly. You can combine ingredients in
this. Once you have three different
ingredients, you can combine them and they produce.
Something you you roll for a kind of random effect and that
becomes what that particular combination does in your game.
So it could be the. Game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fungalist is definitely out
there. Just fucking harvesting all the
time just like you look infringing and.
Perfect. Absolutely.
I have 1/1. OK, you have one one.
So yeah, let's let's roll up this item.
I got 3 for my first D6. Three.
Okay. Three.
So it's some stuff, Yeah. Let's see what stuff you got.
Two more D sixes. 5 and A5. 5 and A5 you've got a grappling
hook. Nice.
Yeah, fantastic. Right now.
What's your inventory size? Is it your strength?
It's. 10 No, it's 10. It's 10 slots.
So it may be that you have too many items, including your
burdens, that you have to choose which which things you discard.
Do you want? Do you want me?
Do you want kind of suggested names, or do you want to?
I've got some names that you can roll on.
Or you. Can I'll take a suggested name
for my drifter? OK.
Yeah. OK.
So let's just go. Right.
Your nickname is 12. OK.
Your nickname is Minx, And then your family is Dean Ali.
Minx Ali is you. So.
And do you want, do you want anything else?
You can have a demeanor if you want.
Yeah. Can be a demeanor.
Oh dear, you're depressed. Oh, Minks is sad.
Wow, we're. Really.
We're a really sad crew, Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Oh, dear. Yeah, yeah, I can roll up a a or
get a character name too. So we got River Minks and and
me, Who is me? OK, so you are, you're honey.
Damn right. Honey Wang.
All right. Well, I'm definitely putting
that whole name on there. I guess everybody, let's just do
it. Let's Ali.
Ali for for. For minks.
Ali. Yeah, that's right.
And then river, do you want me to not put minks because you
don't like it? Maybe.
Maybe you don't like it.
So River I. Have it all I have it.
All all right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a
little, give you a little bit of that.
You'll see what that looks like. OK.
So I'll throw those names up as we get going.
And that's that's all that's that's character creation.
That is it, yeah. Your your character's ready to
go. You've got your what was my.
Demeanor. What was my demeanor for For
Honey Honey Wang? Yeah.
Honey Wang is. Let's see, we've just got rolls
D20. Here, you got a nine.
You are. Dry maybe have a dry sense of
humor. Well, I mean.
You're sad and you have a dry sense of humor, so just go ahead
and just play yourself. I.
Mean. That's that's what I do.
All right, cool. OK.
So yeah, so you 3 have been stumbling around in in in the
mountains through the malevolent hills.
And you found an overgrown entrance to a cave to shelter
for the night and minx. You've come across 1/2 sealed
opening into a fabulous pitch black tunnel, and there's a hint
of warm pictured air sweeping from within.
Fathomous and Peach and pitch black, just like my sorrow.
Hey I don't know if y'all care about this, but it seems like I
found an opening. I'm going to go.
We're literally just a bunch of depressed people and it's just
like, sure, I guess we'll go, there's nothing else to do.
What do we have for us up here? You know, like, let's might as
well check it out. Yeah, my computer is knowing as
well, so I'm going to knowing into this whole really sad.
And I'm DRY, so yeah. That sounds great.
OK. You start, you start to stumble
down into the darkness and there's kind of, you notice a
kind of residual light here, like there's this sort of
glowing around around floor level and you start to see that
there's this sort of grand entryway opening up and it looks
kind of. They're like columns.
There's like a marble floor and then these these strange logos
on the on the walls and yeah, your, your it looks like the
columns look. I mean you understand, you know,
some things from from the olden times and they're what you would
call like neoclassical. They're sort of like like like
Greek style columns. Yeah.
And the the, the floor is kind of covered in kind of a strange
pattern, kind of alternating different colors and all the way
through, yeah, you kind of look around the room and you can see
the the far, the far door. Has been barricaded by a huge,
huge kind of pile of primary colored office furniture, all
kind of pushed up against that door.
Y'all think that stuff's there for a reason?
Or did they just do that? No.
Couldn't be there for any reason at all, could it?
I might take some of those pieces of furniture and get
comfortable down here in this petrid dark hole.
As you look around, you see some things are moving.
There's a bunch of robots. Let's see, there's a couple of
robots. And as you watch them, one of
them is shouting be lucky, be lucky, be lucky.
And the other one is shouting. World difference.
Execute and they're they're kind of moving around the space and.
They're shouting at each other or less.
They seem to be shouting at at you.
They seem disturbed by the fact that you're there and they they,
they, but they seem to be following a very particular path
across the room to you. They're not kind of coming
straight at you, They're kind of going particular kind of zigzag
pattern. It looks like they're kind of
following some of the the tiling that's on the floor.
Huh. Is it like, are they following
like a single color of tile across the floor?
Yes, yes, they're following the white tile.
I'm gonna stand on whatever color they're not going on, so
and then I'm gonna start walking on those tiles towards them.
OK, so I think. They're, they're they're large.
They're kind of like, yeah, a couple of feet wide each one.
Yeah, like large pavement slabs and.
Yeah, and as you step on one of those tiles, it just opens up
beneath you and you fall through into the into a space below.
What are the what are the other two of you?
How far? Like, yeah, I think I'm just
going to jump in the hole. That's like, that's like
philosophy. For this game, I'm just gonna
stink in the hole. That's my stock on.
OK. OK.
You both go down kind of. Yeah.
I'm just gonna. OK.
But you, Honey Wang. Oh no, I just go to the edge of
the hole and I'm like perfect and exactly what you wanted to
do. Right job guys, where to be?
Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't too far, but you did
take. You both take two damage to your
strength because of that. Fall Where are we now?
Like, what are the surroundings? You're down, you're in a very
dark space and there's lots of kind of strange little lights
moving all around in the wall. I can't see what's causing the
lights. Is organic or like machine?
Are. They fireflies.
Or you can tell they're definitely machine.
There's lots of LEDs, and you see that the room's circular
with a series of shallow alcoves.
And actually kind of your eyes adjust to the darkness, you can
see that they're. In each alcove is a strange
piece of Chrome plated technology.
Or this next one holds this kind of weird thing that doesn't look
like it's from this planet in fact.
And then the third one's A vial with some sort of alien beast
inside. I think I wanna try to pull the
Chrome little artifact out of the wall and handle it and take
a look at it. OK.
Yeah, you. You.
Pull it out. It's.
It just seems to be kind of an Oval piece of metal.
It has a strange weight to it, like it's much lighter than it
should be. Yeah.
Is it too big for me to eat? Yeah, it's kind of.
It's kind of. It wouldn't fit down your
throat, no okay. Is it Is it like obviously
mechanical? Like can I can I intervene with
it and take it apart? Because like I could, I wanna
try and override. It's like electronic security
business. Yeah, it's pretty much.
It's pretty much just a solid, solid shape.
So like, it's. Yeah, So what?
What? Tell me about the lights again.
I wanna use my abilities. I'm I'm gonna start taking shit
apart and putting it back together in an 18 OK file.
Fashion, OK. OK.
So you you're having a look around and you kind of see that
there's a switch on a panel there.
Yeah, you can see that it's kind of it's wired up to do
something. What would you like to do?
I'm gonna try and wire it in a useful fashion.
Like have. Them open something.
Yeah, as you kind of fiddle with it.
This array opens and a kind of panel the size of a hand opens
up. Okay.
Cool, yeah. And it's.
I don't know. Yeah, What are you up to?
How are? You doing doing security
drawings. So how?
Yeah. How?
What? What?
How far down did they? Can I see them or they even the?
Well it's it's yeah, it's much, much too dark to see them per
se, but you can kind of you can hear them and you can tell that
they're safe. You heard the thud, so you know
that it's it's not too far. It's like kind of probably
probably like like 12 feet drop or something.
Okay. And then what's happening with
the security droids up? Yeah, so the droids are coming.
The droids are coming up to you, and they're kind of, like
hassling you. They're kind of right next to
you. But they they seem to be kind of
generally, like, bustling against you.
But they're not hurting you, per se.
They're just, like, being annoying.
Can I? Can I just, like, smack one into
the hole? Yeah.
Actually. Just like just like.
Like a, like a, like a when you. Talk to my.
Church, you know. Let's let's let's yeah I think I
think that would be the Droid would have to make a check for
that let's it'll does it manage to get out of the way.
No it doesn't So yeah it's just I I I rolled Z20 tried to roll
under 10 which would be its decks and it failed So it's it's
falling into the tunnel and it lands on its back and kind of.
Kind of falls apart of the of the base.
It's quite kind of a broken thing already.
So it's it's just it's it's now kind of leading in the darkness
and actually it's there, there's kind of some some lights on it
that they're kind of lighting up the place a little bit so you
can kind of see. Eat down there I I look at the
broken thing falling apart and envy it a bit that it is into.
The three worst people you know go on an adventure, right?
How many security joins are up here?
Because I don't. Know there's just one more.
There's just one more next to you, so.
I, I I I think, I think if I get the taste for it I want more
Droid murder. So I would love to kind of like
back in back in this one in there.
You know get the yeah. Okay, this one fails too.
So you just yeah, you just kind of shove it down and yeah, it
lands lands straight on its head and kind of crumples into a heap
down there. Right.
So and then with the, with the added light from the droids down
there now, am I able to kind of see it all of of what's going
down there or or see people, Yeah, so.
You can, you can see, you can see both your compatriots and
you can see them wandering around.
You can see you can even just about make out that this this
little panel has opened up and. They're having a look at the
these these kind of strange artifacts.
Minx is down there pondering the orb you know.
You got it, but yeah. Yeah, so I've got this weird
panel that's opened. Now you've got these like 2
droids. So can I just like use one of
the droids to to like help me with the panel?
The panel's still a bit of a mystery to me.
Okay. So yeah, you're looking at this
panel. What could it be?
You're kind of okay. You're digging into the wiring,
yes, of the thing. What your what is your abilities
as your character? So I've got like a mini keyboard
implant that can repurpose any electronic item and override
electronic security. Kind of process.
OK. OK.
So you're you're kind of having a look at this.
Thing I've also because my extra items I've also got I've got
some absolutely useless shit. But amongst that like a I've got
like a a sourcepum lid. I think it.
Could be used for the shield though, but among that I have
actually got some electric circuits.
So I've got like a handful of electric circuits.
Okay. Now this is really interesting.
Okay. So you're actively taking apart
this mechanism and you're you're kind of starting to understand
what this is doing that this is actually like a control
mechanism and it's like a like a starter control for something
and it's like and you realize that if.
Under the right circumstances, this thing will start whatever
is down here. And yeah, OK, why don't we?
I'm gonna Why don't you roll for luck or wisdom?
Your choice. Done.
They're gonna do luck. I think so.
Played an absolute blinder. I got 12 for luck.
Oh, OK, so you need to roll 12 or less on luck to be lucky.
OK, yes, A roll an 8. OK, OK, right.
So you realize that this this panel, it needs a particular
hand to activate it. It needs like a particular
input, but you're able to override that.
Like you've managed to through good luck and good engineering
and the fact that your character has this adaptation that it
does. You can actually, yeah, you
could actually just start the ignition on this thing if you
wanted, just with the Press of an enter key on your special
keyboard. Amazing.
Should I do it? Like, Oh yeah, sorry.
I look up in the orb and I'm like, Oh yeah, absolutely, you
should do it. Go back to pondering the orb.
So do I do I risk a burden for doing all this, David?
I'm like, am I? No.
No, no, you're not under pressure.
So this isn't like during combat.
It's not like it's just this is the thing you can do.
So yeah, it's it's it's fine. It's just like part of part of
how you've you've adapted so. You you press the you press
enter and suddenly everything starts to shake the the door
door closes, the the where you came down feels off and
everything starts rumbling and you feel yourself start to move
up. You hear crunching and and just
everything just. It's integrating around you at
this particular room starts to lift up into the ground and
you're flying you can you start to see the landscape in front of
you. You're in you're in some an
interplanetary where's. Honey weighing at.
I'm hoping that you fell down at that time as as as it was
starting to steal. What do you do?
Honey Wang yeah, I I think. I think after I knocked the the
the bot in, my plan was to go down there anyway and I was
going to like. Try to hold.
I was going to try to hold onto the edge.
Instead of like jumping in, hold on the edge and then like
hanging down. So it's not like 12 feet, it's
more like dropping like. You know, like 7 feet, I think.
I think. Right as.
I was like, right, right. I mean, you know, climbed rocks
before. I think right as I was like
grabbing the edge and like getting ready to kind of like
let myself down, the whole thing just started rocking and I
definitely went like right, right onto the robot pile.
And that is the end of the adventure because you discovered
like the the secret. Like it's it's like a it's
basically the Easter egg in the in the adventure.
Like it's not supposed to be like you're yeah, there's a
whole thing that the whole adventure goes through and
you're supposed to get the hand of this this asshole billionaire
and put it on the thing if if you kind of manage to find this
secret space anyway. But hey.
I said it was a one shot. That's so funny.
That is so absolutely hilarious. I don't know if you'll know
this. But we have a we have a tendency
for ending episodes early because I blow everything up,
so. Eventually, like I, I I never
expected anyone. So what are we flying, let alone
discover the thing, huh? Is it a ship or what?
The thing that's flying, it's like a.
Yeah, it's like a it's craft. Nice.
Yeah. So, yeah.
So, so suddenly the the party will have a spacecraft and be
able to kind of move around the planet or kind of go off to Mars
or whatever, like, yeah. Awesome.
It kind of opens up the campaign, it opens up the world,
but it's like, yeah, it was, it's sort of just there, It's
just just waiting to be discovered.
But if it's not, it's kind of a fun little kind of dungeon dove,
basically. But yeah, you you got there
straight away. Oh, that's so cool.
So is this adventure included with this Is included in the
this? Is in the bundle.
Yeah, this is in the bundle. There's a hole in the ground.
It's one of the who's one. It wasn't even the stretch goal.
I just kind of bunked it in the, I think.
It's a great way to open up like a bigger campaign to get like,
yeah, here's a here's a vehicle, here's a big vehicle.
Yeah, exactly. It kind of, it opens
possibilities. It's like it's like that moment
in in all the Final Fantasy games where it's like, yeah,
I've got suddenly we've got like an airship and it's like like
the world opens up to you. It's like, yeah, you've.
Referenced Final Fantasy so many times in this show.
No, no, it's. Not at all a bad thing.
It's just like very interesting to see, like, that's a big.
Inspiration for? I just, I've just spent so many
hours in those worlds, you know 45678 and all the tactics games
and stuff. Like, yeah, it's just just like
that's that's all, it's all kind of part of the the DNA of this
thing, but, but yeah. I mean that's a good, that's a
good place to get, you know, DNA from.
I played four quite a bit and then I played seven and eight
quite a bit. And 10 a lot and 10 to more than
I wanted to. So very.
Cool. I no I absolutely 7 is one of
the top three. Greatest games I've ever played,
ever, but we'll see where that goes.
I I can't believe character creation took long in the the
adventure because we somehow literally be lined.
In the only possible way it. Is in like 30 minutes.
So. So for those listening hey,
first of all spoiler alert and 2nd, we didn't quite give you as
much of the game, but this is. How it works and it was super
fun yeah it's hysterical. I I really really love the
combination of Emmy the Odd and and Bastards here because it's
one of the things that I loved about Bastards and and and
Hunter you've run a lot more Bastards than I have is is that
like role for HP mechanic and you've done an incredible job of
of using that role table and nesting these other other things
into it was that always the the. From the very beginning, was the
plan always bastards, or did that, especially the kind of
like surge of bastard stuff recently kind of make you go a
little into the odds of bastards?
It was literally that was the impetus I'd seen Micah
Anderson's bastards thought it was really cool, really nice
system, but I kind of. Yeah, that I I had some small
things that I I wasn't so happy with like the resolution system
and things. Nothing against the game.
It's just it just didn't deal with me and I just thought that
it could be a fun thing to kind of just mash them together.
And yeah, like I said it was before per listen edition or
anything. It's like, yeah, almost a couple
of years ago or something, whenever that was.
But yeah and it just it just sort of flowed from there and.
You know first of all it was basically just a character
creation game like as in like you know it's into the odd but
with these with these this kind of creation system and then it
just kind of enlarged from there.
And you know, but always with with with like the lore and the
vibe kind of kind of stuck in the beginning like like some of
the intro text like you know the world's gone to shit type stuff
was just like it was right there at the at the beginning it was
just like this is. This is the energy that this
game needs is like kind of, yeah, screw the world, we've
gotta make this a better place. So it's like, yeah.
One of the things we didn't do today, which one of my favorite
things is the life part. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, it's so much fun. I love that.
I know it's not unique to this game, but the whole thing, the
fact that the character can die before you've even played it,
it's so awesome. Yeah, I've refined it.
Refined it a bit for the. For the actual, like, yeah, the
version that we're going to put out and it's it's like Russian
roulette. So if you roll A1, the character
dies and it's on a D6. So it's like it's each each
decade that you add to their life.
It's like kind of you can get good things, you can get bad
things, but yeah, they could die.
So it's like, don't, don't push your luck too much.
So yeah. Now since since we did kind of
only scratch the surface, was there any other part of
ecomofos? Because because people can get
the this beta version that's out right now, right?
And what you've done really is most of what in the beta
version, what's in the final game is it's just been refined
and relaid out. No, exactly.
It's been, it's been. It's.
Is being edited by Eco and we're kind of refining it and making
it tighter. And yeah, just just making sure
everything fits, fits into the world correctly and gives it the
right vibe and is kind of legible and understandable
without kind of me standing over someone saying, no, you're not
not supposed to do it that way, but it's like, you know, making,
making everything kind of sing really and that that's all going
to go into. Into every version.
So you know whether you from, whether you back for as a PDF or
as a spiral as the art book, it's like it's just all the text
is going to be the same. It's just going to be laid out
in kind of slightly different ways, kind of more compact for
the spiral version and kind of just a bit more generous for the
art book as we call it. Gotcha.
And since we only, like I said, really kind of got to scratch
the surface of ecomopos. Were there any other like
specific mechanics or other parts that you really wanted to
make sure that people looked at in the beta version, something
that like really stuck out or shined or any other part of the
game or the stuff that comes with it?
I guess, I guess there's obviously the burden system that
was taken, it was kind of adapting something from Mystic
Bastion Land, which is the game that Chris McDowell is currently
working on. I think he's discarded burdens
now, but I think they're really great they're they're like it's
a system whereby if something difficult happens or like you
like risk a burden. Lots of the abilities mean that
you have to kind of roll against your luck in order to not take a
burden. It kind of fills up your
inventory swap. It means that, yeah, you have
this, you're kind of slightly curtailed for a while.
Unless you do a certain things and that it's always like 2
opposite things. So like like like we had for
sad, it was like kind of either in tell a secret or you indulge
in a secret vice. It's like kind of there's
there's these different pathways that you can take to in order to
resolve it so. Yeah, I like the enraged one.
It was like, yeah. It's it's it's really like.
Trying to bring in some of that kind of the ideas from kind of
story gaming and kind of thinking about how to inject
different different impetuses, different kind of motivations.
And it's also a way of trying to stop because it's quite possible
to play like into the yard and can in a very hyper cautious way
and always like be very level headed and kind of think through
things rationally. What you you can do, you can do,
but this encourages you to kind of.
To act in maybe slightly, slightly disadvantageous ways in
order to relieve yourself of your burden.
So it's like it just kind of adds a little complication into
that, but yeah. Cool, gotcha.
Yeah. What was the Chrome orb?
I just want to know now, what was the.
It's just a weird alien thing. It's like it's just just a
thing. Make up what it is there you.
Go. I'm going to spend the rest of
your time pondering. Yeah, always.
Just like. Just like real life, frankly so.
Yeah, exactly. Now I'm afraid.
I'm afraid. Guys, I've gotta go.
I'm being called by my family. It's perfect that works out that
we are flying away in the alien spaceship and you get to go,
yeah. We really.
Seriously. Yeah.
No, we appreciate you so much
for being here. I mean Hunter and I have talked
about Lost the Ends for a really long time.
Definitely still planning to talk about this on the show at
some point, both box sets and and it's super excited for you.
Kamopos, if you guys are listening, definitely go check
on the beta version, definitely go back to the Kickstarter.
The art is fantastic from Daniel.
It's absolutely stunning. The game is super, super fun.
It's just it's a really great time.
It's a really great vibe from some really fantastic people.
So this is definitely something you don't want to miss.
So again, really appreciate both of you guys coming on.
It's been an absolute blast and. Having us.
Yeah, it's been awesome. Thanks so much.
Thanks for coming on. Yeah.
Wanted to come on for so long, so it's awesome.
Thank you. Thanks, guys.
And you guys know what all our socials are?
It's listed on everywhere. I'm not gonna go over it.
Everyone have a wonderful day. We'll see you guys all later.
Bye. Later.