Hello, and welcome to the weekly.
Scroll podcast brought to you by the adventure.
Archive, my name is Ryan and I'm Hunter.
And today we have a very special guest with us in your.
Actual normal name is more disruptive than some fuckers.
We have a very special guest with us today.
It is. John Davis also known as Seventh
Sanctum. How's it going, John?
Whoo. Hey going great.
Thanks for having me. I've been a fan for a while now.
So it's pretty surreal experience for me to be on.
That's weird, pretty soon. So, it's a pretty surreal
experience to have fans, so we appreciate it.
So today we're mostly going to be talking about Helm which is
your new kind of Dark Fantasy sword and sorcery game.
I had a quick question though, civets sanctum.
Am I saying it right? First of all and where did that
come from? Yes, and it is my name.
My last name backwards. You know what?
I should have put that together because I can see him right
there, and right there. That makes sense.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
It's just that old tradition going back like, since the
beginning of the hobby, we're dudes would just be like, I need
a wizard as put my name backwards.
Start my name. There you go.
Yeah. That will that make sense?
I actually never heard of that and mine would be very boring.
So I'm that's not under the wizard.
In the in I am reading in the courageous you know.
So you go. I think you're actually retina.
Yeah so I said oh I did not. I did.
Oh yeah I was lost in Lodi know. My name is backwards.
Yeah that's how closely I listen to people.
He's the wizard alive so um so he'll know Helm is great.
We're going to be talking about Bob the both of these.
The first two volumes with more and more coming out.
I mean, we'll talk about that a little bit, but tell me first,
like just if no one's read through the each page on Helm.
What would you say is like a, just an intro into Helm and then
what made you what inspired you to make it?
Yeah. So Helm for anyone out there who
might be interested, like, doesn't know what it is.
It's basically like this Imagine, so you have your
adventures, right? Your normal Dean, the party, you
have the wizard, The Fighter cleric, all those guys, you
know, they're busting heads breaking into tombs and stuff.
But what about the guys who have to, like, clean up after the
party? What about the guys who have to
like, go into these towns and like, clean up the messes that
the party leaves behind? Hind like the the rampant
Undead, the bandits are looking refer Revenge.
Those guys that's who you play as in Helm and as far as
Inspirations go, like things like like Conan.
The black company like this mercenary wandering like
masterless Warrior fiction, you know?
Yeah. The black company, for sure, it
gives me. Vibes a ton for that, you know,
playing as men and arms and mercenaries and like, a
crumbling Empire. That's, I think that's a really,
really good one that at least. Like I said, that's the one that
popped into my head. But then, when I was reading
through it and I just drop the H Link in chat so you can check it
out as well. And then, as I said just a
second ago, you have, there are three like main volumes for home
right now, right? There's minute arms.
There's quartermaster. And then what is the adventure?
One called the Halo campaign. That's right.
Yeah but you have supplements now a bestiary and then Siege
Warfare. Zoe said yeah.
Bestiary Siege Warfare and then I have six more planned.
I could. Holy shit.
Have I have up to the fourth one written.
So it's so, yeah. So so far, we have a bestiary
Siege Warfare. The next one is mercenaries.
So, dude. You can hire to fill out your
warband and then your favorite Ryan.
Gunpowder loves technique on technology.
Gunpowder steam, listen, if it moves time forward past the
Middle Ages, Ryan loves it. Now, to be fair, they had
gunpowder in the middle of will not come.
It was called black powder, and this is stuff like hand cannons.
Like actual miniature cannons that you held in your hands,
like that is what I mean by guns.
Like you're not going to have men at Arms out there with
six-shooters or anything like that.
No. Hey, just do good.
And then we're getting it. Right.
Those break-ins so late. No, I like we've read through
some games lately. They did guns.
Okay, you know medieval guns. I think so.
We'll see how it goes. I don't know if I would play it
in mind. Hey that's why their
supplements. You can dig now.
There you go. No but but yeah, I mean it's a
super enjoyable, like super like lean game.
Which I mean, it's exactly what I like in games right now.
You know to D6 which is my favorite way to roll dice.
I think I've talked enough about how I don't like just a D20.
So I probably don't need to say that again, but but yeah.
So We as I said, we're gonna be going through both today.
And we talked about this before the shooting started minute arms
is a book that's primarily for the player gives you the combat
rules and things like that and then what separates men and arms
from quartermaster. If you have both volumes Well,
we'll see. So there's a lot of elements of
I guess the quartermaster is not expected to roll dice and that's
something that you see a lot in these newer games.
You know. So things like the black hack
for instance was one of the first ones that I can think of
that really like push that for was that the to free up some
effort on the part of the game master, my they are not expected
to advise all dice rolling is on the part of the players and
that's something that that's one big.
Difference that you'll see between players and
Quartermasters is the lack of dice rolling.
We love that. Yeah, huge fan.
Yeah, obviously, huge. Huge fan of the first time ever,
play the game. Where it was only player facing
daschle's. I was like, oh, I can just focus
on, like, like the story and everything else and like a diff
layer frees up. A lot of bandwidth is super, I
do. Yeah, I don't, I don't know
about you guys, but when I'm playing games, it's really any
game. Like, if I get to a point where
I am required to roll dice, say for like a random encounter or
damaged, or And I'll just turn to the closest player and be
like, hey, why don't you roll a d8 for me?
Yeah, absolutely. All the time.
Well, it gets people involved because I don't, I don't have a
ton of dice rolling in my games. Begin with, I don't go into
combat a lot. Like my players are pretty good
and use problem solving a lot rather than combat.
So, it's a good way to involve players when it's a pretty dice
light game, especially, Yeah, it is a very I mean I think we
already said it is very light game.
Like it's really like your interior like cool man like
player facing stuff. It's like I'm done.
Like it took me no time. Have a good understanding of it
seems very straightforward. I love that I'm trying to get,
I'm slowly converting everyone over to games that are not you
know, million things going on. So what so how was hum kind of
born was just kind of like you know you and I talked about that
you know in a couple days I'm playing my own like to Of game
with my buddies. Like did you just cook up a game
that you wanted to play or want to see your?
How was it born. Yeah, my bit my big impetus for
Helm was. I was like, man, I want a game
where you could play Conan and be this like really physically
capable Warrior who is very distrustful of magic.
Doesn't doesn't touch it at all where you could play that or you
could play Elroy. Work of Melanie Binet, who is
not very physically powerful but is a very crafty swordsman and
has the benefit of being able to use magic and I want to both of
those characters to be viable and like I set out to do that
and I like really focused like heavy on like the magic system
especially I want the magic system to be.
Like not super in depth but really like, you know, flavorful
and everything. And I just I just wrote Pages
upon Pages upon Pages for this magic system.
And finally, I had this like 10-page document Vernon me and
realized this isn't Fun. No One's Gonna like this guy.
I scrapped it all in. Was like, What if I just made
like, what if I disappoint hard on like the grittiness, the
combat, all that stuff? Like what if I made the
character like creation, like this little mini game, you know,
and that was born out of. So, I don't know if you guys are
similar in this way, but I will have someone describe a mechanic
to me how a game works. And I'll be like Well that
sounds fun I'll just do that but I won't look up that game.
I won't research it or anything I'll just go off of that
description that someone gave me and was like yeah that makes a
lot of sense. So I think it was someone
talking about the old, Steve Jackson game melee and was like
yeah you had these like body zones and then there's like, hit
locations and your guy is made up of all these like different
Dice. And I'm like, that sounds like a
ton of fun. I want to hear something like
that. At yeah.
So know. Now that was the big impetus for
for Helm really. I do really like like that
aspects of how much we'll get into as we're going through it.
But I do like the individual body parts, stats and abilities,
just like randomly attack, a body part, and yeah, II was
reading. I was like, okay, cool.
This is also, and not to speak for Ryan, but I know that I am
very much, the type person who Ryan will describe a like a
mechanic to me like, oh, that's really cool.
I'm trying to figure out how to make it myself.
And I was thinking, yeah, no. And was like, the I listen to a
lot of people talk about these like, super old games that are
really hard to come by. So like I can't always find a
copy, yeah, of stuff to like research.
So I'm just like, I'll just go through this, like, half-baked
to description that someone on a podcast like speaking into their
like anchor app, like talked about, you know, When will we
go? Let's go.
Yeah, so sometimes, I'll actually like, if I know of,
like just to just, I love to D6. It's like, my favorite system
ever, I've never read apocalypse world and part of the reason for
that is like, I like in trying to make my own stuff, I don't
want to subconsciously steal stuff from other people in, on a
meeting. So I'm like, if I come up with
this really, Idea of what I hate is like, I'll be like, yeah, I
really like this is a cool idea. I came up with this was like,
oh, it's just like this other game.
I'm like, damn it shit like it's already, of course, it already
exists but now it sounds like I ripped off this other one.
So there's one or two games that I've been actively.
Trying not to read that will eventually get to probably on
the show here. For that reason, is to just be
like I want my ideas to seem like my ideas and not to
accidentally, just be like, oh yeah.
Like I don't remember where I where this came from but here's
here's This thing. So actually, any time I read
anything, I write it down just in case so I can reference it
or, you know, put it in the thing Ledo's like inspired by
this. But but yeah, you know, the
thing that drove that really pulled me to helm a lot and, you
know, I don't really, this isn't usually my thing, but like the
Dark Fantasy, really gritty aspect of it.
You know, I think makes no sense, although why you would be
into that? Yes, 90% of what I own and back
and stuff like that, but it's just it's just a really cool
setting. It's really enjoyable, like just
going off the page here, you know, it is like Middle Ages 5th
to 15th century and you are taking on the role of these
characters that are carving out an existence in the shadow of a
crumbling Empire. After this war known as the
ruination, and one of my favorite Parts is, I don't think
it's on that. The page is just actually in the
volume. We're basically says, like you
can't save the Empire. Like, you can't wait to hit
that, like, you know, that's Like it's those are the parts of
games. Like, you know, probably the
thing about Mark Borg. I like the most or it's just
like the world ends, like you're not the hero here, you know,
it's almost more like an antihero story where it's just
like you're just trying to live and fuck around and like you're
not you're not going to save the day and I really really really
like that aspect of it and and what kind of pulled you towards
not just we talked about the mechanics and the game itself
like that. But towards that style of
setting where it's Like super dark, super Gertie.
You're not gonna win. Like you're just kind of
existing in this thing. You know, in this kind of like
bloody post Empire. I find it a super interesting
point in history personally, we like to think of that point in
time as this super violent, super dirty, super bloody period
in history and in some aspects, it was the, you know, this is a
point in history, that gave rise to robber nights.
These dudes, that their entire livelihoods were based upon
feuding with other noble families.
That's how they made money, but it's also a super complex
politically point in history like even more.
So then today, you know, I don't know about you guys, but, like,
with a game like, say Warhammer, for instance, like, What draws
me to that game. is not necessarily the setting, but the
idea of the setting it's like, yeah, you're playing say the The
famous Warhammer campaign power behind the throne, it was say,
you're playing that and it's like, yeah.
You've got this like, super like dark and politically like
fueled, like, intrigued happening behind the scenes, but
you're also having to deal with taxes in these towns as you're
traveling around. It's like, yeah, the sword that
you're carrying it was cool in the The city that you're walking
in but what about the University campus that you could easily
just wander onto by accident with your sword?
Suddenly that sword is illegal and you can go to jail for that.
Like that is super interesting to me and gives rise to a lot of
like really interesting role play and Adventure opportunity
that I think a lot of settings have but not as front forward.
And as prevalent as this Setting like has.
Does that make any sense? Absolutely.
Yeah. And like you said, it's a great
way to create conflict and Adventure, you know, because a
lot of, you know, back in the day when I was trying to be like
5e settings and stuff like that, my whole idea was always like,
well, I want to make sure that this group of people in this
group of people are next to each other because they don't like
each other because you just create conflict just by existing
on the map and things like that. So in the kind of in how much
Her. Or at least what you're talking
about in this kind of Adventure is, you know, you can create
there's just like, boundless conflict, you know, between the
classes and the situation in the Empire and the minute arms on
the kind of stuff. And it just basically at any
point, any situation can turn into an entire Adventure seed.
Like just from that, which is just fantastic.
And then going through campaigns again, we're not going to talk
about. We don't talk about Adventures
on the show, if you guys know this, but campaigns is a great
supplement and it's always really, really nice to get
adventures in Camp. Written by the creators because
you get like a sense of their intent and the way that they are
doing their setting and their game.
So it's a really, really fun one to read because we kind of get
that look behind if you looking at it from like not just like
reading the adventure as someone that ingesting it, but reading
The Adventurous, someone who is like reading how somebody wrote
an adventure, it's a really cool way to get the concepts behind,
you know, exactly what you're talking about.
So it's a It's definitely a good one of the three volumes to snag
which everyone should give all three though.
Honestly, if you're gonna get one might as well just go off.
So do you have any plans in the future?
Like when you I mean you have several more volumes.
Are you going to like do you do want to try to release some
Superbook that has everything in one or do you think it will
always be individualized? You know, there's like this part
of my brain, like this, like, it's that gets scratched when I
see those like three. Klitz, you know?
But that is the intention. Yes I would at some point in the
future really love to put out, I don't know like some sort of
like Helm Advanced, you know, air quotes Advanced or
something. They Advanced Helm helmet
Vantage or something. I don't know, something like
that where it says combines everything into one hardback
book, that that to me is the dream.
I like the pipe dream that I had was that Helm was going to be a
box set. And if you guys know anything
about printing that is like, horrible to try and imput like
get done if you're a single Creator.
This is I instead said, okay well what about a hardback book?
That's a little bit more feasible.
So yeah, that is that is the intention at some point in time
is to combine everything. Yeah, just for the record.
If Wars and put out. I mean, actually either one I
will buy but if you had put a box set yeah I'm fucking box
set. So I'm usually we'll see how
well the heart has, you know? I Diva David Blaine D, has a
great looking like lost eons box said and that that's just like
one Creator. I mean, it can happen, it can be
done. I really, really loved it.
So I really, really love though. That you are putting it out in
these volumes and And instead of being like, I need to put out
this, 400-page that's tell book and like, no one can see it
until then, it's really, really nice.
It it's been coming out in these steps and stages, you can have
it and then just keep adding to it as opposed to doing it later.
Was that the intent was to just get out the pieces, as you
wanted to get them done as opposed to, you know, waiting
forever and ever to try to drop this like, massive Tome.
I do not have a super great attention span when it comes to
Writing. So I think of a 400-page book
and and think to myself, oh, that's really cool.
I'm never going to finish that. So I sat down and said, myself.
Okay. Well, what about what about
maybe a 40-page booklet and that's feasible for me I did
that with in the light of the Setting Sun, my Wild West game
that's 4044 page book. It and I said to my eyes and
then what was it? Kannada buh-bye, monkey's.
Paw games is a badass system that really influenced Helm and
that's put out in three. Booklets are three pretty like
slim booklets. And I said to myself, well that
I love that game and I love that it's in free booklets.
Why don't I do something similar to that?
So that, that was the real like push was attention span and
wanting to get that aesthetic of the three little booklets.
You know, that that classic like going all the way back to
original D&D in the three little brown booklets, you know.
Yeah. Yeah.
And yeah. I was gonna make a joke that
when you said Advanced, he'll most likely I'm so stoked for
home 3.5, you know. Oh man, a Helm 3.5.
And it has those like Photoshop, like Buckle covers like 3.5
goodbye God. Yeah, that's his books are ugly.
They were, I never got to play 35i.
My I got late to the scene and started with 5th edition.
You know, I've gone back and read 3.5 and for and all the
original ones but never got to play the same.
I think you and me Ryan, have a pretty similar like introduction
into the hobby. I mean I started with four But
when I say started before I made, I played it for about
three months and then fifth edition came out and went on
from there. You know, 3.5 was great and had
too many rules. But if like, dude, I'm always
the caster and it was like, it was, you know, if you're a
fucking wizard was Wizards, Dreamland?
You know, they had the, you can dude, so Bonkers, but yeah, you
know, II really played it for, you know, a little bit under a
year before we started playing Five.
So, you know this point, you know, if IV came out in 2014 and
when I say that I'm like, that feels like last year, but it's
2022 going on 2023. We're going on, you know, close
to 10 years of it. So that's crazy to me, please,
please, stop, please stop saying that you're here because this is
not by any stretch to the the first thing that you've done.
Actually, the very first thing, I'm very excited for this.
Very first thing that I knew for me.
You was at our Darkly for the bastard system, by Micah
Anderson, this is gorgeous like really great adventure that I
actually was just able to snag in print.
Then I think I've been adding those probably one of the first
things when I talk to you is like so visit our doctor like
imprint and that's available, I snag that off of Neva cups.
I don't know if that's going to be on any other shops, but
that's it's just such a great little venture.
But on top of that, I mean, you have wildly launder, your honor,
you have in the light of the Setting Sun.
What, what else? Say about some of your heroic
crime wave for the one-page jam, which is fantastic.
So what what I guess, what was your impetus to, like, just
starting to write adventures and do you have anything else
besides Helm kind of in the works right now?
That are any plans for well, just like any game designer, I
have like a half dozen half-baked things in the works,
you know? Just name a genre and I probably
have something in that vein. That's You know, in the works.
But for me, personally, it was just, I don't know II guess
dissatisfaction with what I was seeing coming out from like, say
Wizards, you know, like I who Yeah, I don't know, this little
Little Indie company. You know, they're getting their
sweeping the awards. It's crazy his alien any
award-winning company. But like I said, it was just
dissatisfaction with that. And I think I stumbled across it
was either DCC or the larger 0s are seen at that point in time.
I'm and I was at I just slowly realized, oh, I could feasibly
do this myself. And it was a long process, a
couple years, at least, but it did.
Finally, you know, come to fruition that I was able to
actually write Adventures for my home group and them have fun
with it. Yeah.
And that that always feels like so like fantastic when your home
group because that's that's who you write for.
That's, I don't care who out there who you ride for.
If your home group has fun with it, then you're doing something
right, you know? Yeah, definitely.
Yeah absolutely. I mean you know, as a long time
GM. You know, that's really what you
strive for and, and to be able to actually take the things that
you do in game and put them down on paper.
So other people outside of the group can enjoy, is it is a, it
would be a cool feeling. So I can only imagine, I can
only imagine what that feels like expect.
Like I said, with the number of things that you put out across
like a bunch of different genres, like you just said, I
mean a lot of people I don't know if they're as if they hit
as many different things, you know.
I mean if I I'm going to be straight up.
If I put out games, most all of them are going to be like,
grimdark bullshit. But you have Western you have
any like, Marv? Yeah.
Like you have, I mean, even with at our dark like, I mean, that's
the kind of standard medieval fantasy stuff, but it doesn't,
but for bastard to hold a whole nother system on top of that
and, and just a ton of different stuff here.
So your portfolio is definitely varied.
Which is, which is really awesome to see in each one is
done in such a good way. I think we were chatting about
this a little bit because there's a number of different
printings of in the light of the Setting Sun and I've found I
hope is it just is it just the the two?
Because I'll try to find a third one.
If there's nothing out there. So there's the original pamphlet
version which you can just print at home.
There is the version that I printed for the original
Kickstarter, which Was the, you know, the orange copy with the
orange cardstock cover that I printed myself.
Then there is a white version of that that I printed at a later
date and then there's finally Bonanza Edition which is my like
big. Like I don't know magnum opus,
if you will, of Setting Sun, you know, with like the halftone
artwork and all that throughout. Not you.
That's the one that we might need to dig through here on the
future as well. After after home, we'll just
bring up I'll just place that all the different editions.
I have we can dig through that as well.
So yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely go down to a bunch
of Western, a bunch of Western stuff for a couple of weeks, and
just, just bring that one out. So, West month.
Well, Western month, Cowboy month.
Cowboy, and let's there's got to be a cowboy month out there,
right? There's a month for everything.
This is my, like, peanut, enjoy yours.
You know what I mean? So peanuts dollars in funds.
Yeah. National Cowboy day.
Let's find out. National Cowboy, yeah.
How did to insult you guys? Really need to know from the
weekly. Scroll is National Cowboy day.
It exists a lie 23rd, you missed of July 23rd.
We barely missed it to just in the last month.
Some But the calendar, you know so Helm Helm is just it's a
great game, it's incredibly enjoyable.
I can't wait to dig through it like I said on the show we're
going to be digging through both of those and I just saw that
with that seeds drop in the supplement section your each
page. So if you're listening
definitely go to SIDS sanctum which is David's backwards which
we learned today on the itch page and check out that and
maybe one day we'll see it. In print what?
Awesome to have me, buddy, be a box set, that'll be fantastic,
but Helm is a great Dark Fantasy game and something that I
definitely want to play sooner than later.
And we're about to dig through both of the first two volumes
like I said, so stick around for that if you're listening but
John I know we've been chatting for a while, trying to get this
set up and I can't say how much we appreciate you coming on the
show. Thanks man, thanks for coming
on. Hey, I appreciate it, just so
you know, it is. Civets hyphen sanctum Dot, Each
dot IO. So if you cannot get in Shadow,
you're not looking at us. It's David's hyphen sanctum dot
pitch to i0 by everything. Yeah, I just want to thank you
guys for doing this on a Sunday. You know, to accommodate for me
that's, that's really sweet of you guys.
Yeah, we miss him. Yeah.
We love doing our show Sunday nights.
You know, for the show, whenever we can get it, whenever you can
get, you know, these great craters on and it's just giant
page on The screen that I'm in to talk about and I'm bringing
it up here right at the end. There's going to be a Helm Jam
going on. So talk about a second.
Yes, so Helm jam it is running through the month of August.
I think it was last episode. Diogo mentioned that he was
wanting to do a primal Jam, like every year.
And I'm like, oh yeah, I could do that every year for help.
So this might be the first, the inaugural Helm jams.
Anyone out there if you're interested, And you know, want
to like, write something for Helm.
There is an SRD. There's a third party license.
Please please, please get out there and write something.
If it's the first thing you've ever written or if it's the
hundred thing they're written, please just get out there and
create no, just just be creative.
Oh yeah and don't don't be a dick.
Don't like you know I say in the third party license this system
kills fascists Please don't, don't be a dick out there.
Yeah. If you go to the gym page, all
the way at the bottom, you see some people broken on a wheel
and then says this game, kills fascists.
So that's, you know, it's a great thing to see, right in the
beginning of the game is that, you know, if you, if you, if you
suck, fuck off kind of, I mean, it's in the second paragraph of
the introduction on the first volume 1, you know.
Yeah. It arms so.
So, yeah. But like you said, Add the helm
Jam, super excited to see what comes out of that super excited
to see to just watch him grow. And and she was going to come
out, because we know of at least, four more supplements for
that are coming out. And hopefully sooner than later,
if I actually get up and running with my planned stream on our
actual play side will be probably be running this on, on
streams, will have to touch base with you about that and get that
going. But again, thank you so much for
being on super appreciate it, you know anyone that's the
question. Really final questions is there?
Is there any chance of you know, Helm coming to print any point
in time? I gotta go get so you so much
for coming on. John great talking to you of
course any time. Yeah so I want to stick around
we'll be back in just a minute. We're just going to say goodbye
to John here. Then we'll hop back in and go
over minute arms and Cormac sir. So see you in a second.
Thank you for tuning into the weekly.
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a.m. Pacific 10 a.m.
Central. And now we get back to our
episode Hello and welcome back to the weekly.
Scroll odd cast. We are going to be going through
kick, do the podcast real quick at the segment.
We talked about crowdfunding projects and for those in the
know, Zine quest for is happening right now.
Sounds like I want a little bit more nuts than you anjing quest
for, I think you have. Yeah, I've needed to to reel it
back in a little bit. There are I backed a lot
projects and then On back some and reduce pledges.
See that's how I normally do Kickstarter though is like all
like put my dream of what I want from a project and then I will
as my budget gets less throughout the week back a
little bit, you know, and what I'm really trying to turn
creators like hey, why'd you cancel your right?
And then what I really what I really want to start.
Doing with Kickstarter is will still go over awesome projects
but unless there's like a Kickstarter exclusive cover
something I just need to wait, sometimes wait for exalted
funeral or something else and then just grab it then.
So there's a couple that I do that for still backed about like
20 projects. So we're going to talk about a
couple of them and let's hop into that screen right now.
Transition, boom. I learned.
And I think I said this comes out.
I do remember the transition. Mutes, the You and I need to
figure out why. That's okay.
Everyone's on my hand wave as it transition in all I'd say I
think that if anything that's the most important part.
So who's actually more like transition and then you were
like transition like, right? Absolutely.
Watch the stream. Hey, looks like a magic
mushroom. I know you.
Oh well, maybe anyway, so the first one I want to talk about
is fungible or fun guy. Able depending on how you want
to read it. I read it is fungible.
This is from Tom Owen, also known as dice Maven across a
bunch of the internet. Tom is actually someone I got to
meet recently. We played we deal in lead
together at EF con the exalted funeral online convention.
That was a great time and I really hope they do it again.
You can find that over on plus 1 E XP is YouTube channel with
Columbus or the right of the game.
But this is a great, retinol own We've talked about a couple
other wretched and alone projects here on the show, like
the dark from disaster tourism. And, and what not?
Now this one's a little different though.
This is fungible a solo tabletop RPG.
Journaling game about exploring the horrors of cryptocurrency in
FTS and Tech culture. So you see a message from an old
college friend intrigued you decide to check it out.
After a little catching up. They ask if you've heard of
Spore coin, SPO are The next big cryptocurrency according to
them, you've heard the rags-to-riches tale.
So what could possibly go wrong with cryptocurrency and in FTS
crazy? Fungible is a game that takes on
the scourge of cryptocurrency and ft and Tech, bro, culture in
a heroic and a horrific satirical.
Dystopian approach, how far will someone go to get rich?
Despite the crushing odds stacked against them is game
about dealing with the terrifying circumstances, and
repercussions of surrendering, oneself to Greed.
And the subsequent down fault, it brings man.
Right. On the Miley's merger.
Um yeah. I mean a little bit for sure
like I'm just I don't know. I'm curious to know when we get
it. If the bad guy is if entities
are you know Elder beings? Or if it's just like it's word
for word or like, but like thematically, like it's a
fucking another horror game that's like about the horrors of
like modern culture. Essentially very true.
Really, super interesting. I'm back.
I'm bouncing back this. Yeah, no it's great.
It looks super cool. They've already funded and then
dropped this very kind of anachronistic graphic here.
Talking about the options for stretch goals and they are
creeping up towards the first one.
But the game itself, as I said, is a solo journaling game for
The Wretched and alone ruleset originated by Crispus set.
But this one has this exploding at dice mechanic and Tom sent me
a little blurb. This one also does not use a
diced. Our so it's a little bit
different which is great to see. People, tweak the rule sets that
are out there. So you use just by using a deck
of playing cards, and you will probably have a bad outcome.
But this is The Wretched and alone system, it's more about
that. It's about You know, the horror
you meet along the way, you know, more than trying to win
the game and it is a journaling game and for those that aren't
aware our Christmas that actually put out a series of
retinol, own notebooks that you can write right along games.
And she goes, check those out on leave the room but this just, it
looks fantastic. The cover art is wonderful.
If you just these bright greens, I love the the the graphic title
across the top of it. And the computer in the
background with the like plummeting stocks on it.
Oh yeah, tumbling block tower. Not a dice towers are about
that, but one of the other really, really cool things about
it. Well, there's a couple first.
There is Sam Lee, also known as Goblin mixtape.
So there is an official soundtrack for this on Spotify.
You can check out directly from the kickstarter page.
Family does some really, really cool projects where she'll
create Sparks Modify playlists for whatever you need for, but
often for tabletop role-playing games.
But in addition to that, one of my favorite things about it is,
why can't I find on the page down?
There is a pledge level for the LFO Sr like deluxe Limited
Edition version and, you know, here on the show, we can't not
get anything that I love always our version, but we're huge
fans. And not only that, there is a
challenge coin that comes with it as well.
So this is a stacked project that you guys should all for
sure. Check out.
There's just a lot going on here.
As I said I know it is currently funded, but with 23 days to go,
it can reach a lot more funding and unlock a lot.
Lot more stretch goals. So hitting those stretch goals
were talking about to do. I thought there was a list of
what all the stretch goals were while I do the thing too fast.
Yeah I think your it's higher up.
It's like almost at the beginning.
Um, really good. Keep it going, buddy, here we
go. Oh, you know, I'm just, I'm just
reading it. It's so like, I'm just, yeah,
so, yeah. So, yeah, I literally even
talked about this. So there's gonna be more
illustrations throughout at the 2000 structure called there's
going to be a full color interior, you're going to get
more roll tables and the new game + Rules book.
I have a little info on that in just a second.
And then, if it doubles where it's currently at, it can max
out the print options for examine, which means better
quality paper, premium cover, all sorts of stuff.
And then after that, the crew gets paid more which you know,
they deserve pay your creditors. So as I said, Thompson a little
blurb and there's one thing in there that I definitely wanted
to talk about that he brought up.
It's that outside of the system. And you know, obviously by this
graphic there being a little bit of anachronistic Culture in it.
You know, there are still Terminals and things like that
out there, but there's major corporations that run social
media platforms and all that kind of stuff and that'll keep
going. Keep getting updated as a
Kickstarter page gets updated. But there is the section here
about new game that I really wanted to talk about the game
does use a block tower. Unlike most of the Russian long
games, they intend this to be portable and playable wherever
you'd like is convenient to have space to rules.
They, so this came up when dealing with the exploding day
system, that is implemented in the game to portray game, trade,
gaming, and high-risk choices. So the exploding Dye System is
specific to the game because of the way in which the the
adventure itself is written. So it's just like I said, it
sounds really cool. I love the concept you know that
we hear on the show are you have a big fuck you to nft is in
cryptocurrency surgery room key. Eat that shit out of here.
So this project looks fantastic. And like I said, an LFO was our
tier with a challenge coin as well.
Absolutely, cannot wait for this super excited to see where it
goes. Definitely go check out fungible
Fu NG I a ble on Kickstarter back this, I can't believe there
are still LFO Asar. Tear available, they still 18
that can't be right. Because I backed at that level.
Do I need to fix my pledge? Did I not back that level?
I'll fix it. Um, but but yeah, keep your
tokens. They are fungible.
So yeah. So that is fungible on under
book starter. Yeah, check it out.
The next one we're going to talk about is that switch to this
one. It's called a torch in the dark.
This is from Michael Elliott who we have talked about on the
show. Actually what you just mentioned
merger. Yeah.
He Isn't dangerous. Yeah.
Merger we we talk about on kick start the podcast and then
actually talked about on the show so a torch in the dark is a
single-player dungeon delving role-playing game.
That looks really interesting, the dead Lords.
Have Arisen, the people's Revolution is overthrown the
Nobles of the realm and sees the imperial capital of kind Berg.
The emperor Titan kind died, cursing the land and all who
despised him are deposed him. Same thing.
Now the only coin that is Left lies buried with the undead Lord
24g Empire. Down to the dungeon kill twice,
kill the dead boards. And secure the city, for the
people's Revolution. So so what dungeon-crawling
forged in the dark. So this is a little bit
different. I know that merger actually uses
some forwards in the dark aspects of it too.
So this is another kind of solo forged in the dark for from
Michael Elliot here. A torch in the dark.
First of all, which is a fantastic name.
I really, really getting a lot. It kind of gives me the same
Vibes is like ice beyond the Torchlight.
I'd say it is AE hooks you in with exactly what you're talking
about. Well, I was thinking about that
one PC game. I'll think of it but you're a
dungeon so yeah you're in a dungeon I think a torch in the
dark definitely goes. I'm in a dungeon which is
absolutely does. Yeah it's a single-player
dungeon crawling tabletop role-playing game using a
variation of blades in the dark where players can quickly
generate unique characters with unique skills and items and as
you delve you use your creativity and limited resources
to overcome over. 100 counters randomly generated from nine.
Unique dungeon locations. When your pack is full of broken
crowns. And a your coins, you return
above Grounded a capital bill for down time where your
character can recover and resupply for the next delve.
So sounds great. Yeah, I'm excited to see where
this goes. I think it looks beautiful with
even when you just look at the cover, it's like very simple.
But like even just the font used which might be the.
I am fell font that I really really love and enjoy a glut.
Yeah, there's a lot of customization.
I just want to get to the tears. Oh, and the nine devious
dungeons. Feature in the Vault of Viscount
Allard. Handful of Undead peasants and
traps rigged with rusting farm tools.
There's also the cat the catacombs of count Ed wig,
Turnbull. A set of open Warfare between
revolutionaries and royalists, so there's a lot of different
things to do within the game itself including downtime rules
as well. A lot of games just go.
Okay, do down time now. So it's cool to actually have
downtime rules as far as, as far as applied just go, there's a
three dollar pledge for a financial hardship.
There's a ten-dollar PDF pledge which is about normal, $25,
physical Zine, which looks great says, as of right now, it's 48
pages. Making shipped anyone the world
outside of? I assumed, like Syria and
Russia. North Korea.
There is a Yeah. Um and but there is a hero of
the Revolution tear at $100 where you actually get to and I
don't even know if they're not, they're all gone so it doesn't
matter what? You got to name a character in
in the game. So I don't think I think that
that level of, on be honest, you should probably stop back and
kick starters. When you forget which pledges
you backed at the great thing about Michael though, I don't
know if you saw the currency, that is it?
I did see a d baby weenies. I'll pay less, you know, the
whole physical on this Michael Elliot But we love those
Canadian dollars, being worth less than the American dollar.
I'll tell you what and Australians to.
Let's, let's bump up. Let's get some more tea, tea
RPGs outside of Canada and Australia.
Yeah, come on. So, yeah, it just saved us dirty
Americans, a little bit of Moolah and which we appreciate.
So yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just call it.
Therefore kick start the podcast this week will Talk about some
more Zine Quest off a lot. At least I'll have money like,
most of the month ago. So that is kick.
Start the podcast for today. So we are going to hop directly
into volume 1. Oh, hell no.
Volume 1. You're ridiculous.
Oh no, I have no idea what's going on.
I don't know where I am right now.
I guess that's the end. I mean, clearly, I don't either
so, Start with volume 1, men at Arms.
You know, my favorite thing for men to have arms arms.
Absolutely. And to be at them.
Yeah, so immediately obviously cover page has this fantastic
black and gray art, and we're going to see that pretty
consistently through both volumes and we get, right?
Into some tables. So we have an armor table, a
Shields table and missile table missile weapon, sorry table and
it just says the type, the cost, the damage reduction the weight,
and then for our the pace and then miss weapons have
properties. I don't know how much we're
going to Deep. Dive each table where we're
going to go through all the rules here in a second and I'll
make everything make a lot more sense.
So, maybe we can read France, it here in a second.
Yeah, I just like, you know, straight off the bat, you get a
sense for the rules in that, you know, at the very least is this
is all damage soaked. Not actually a different types
of armor and I like how simple it is, you know, it's one, two,
three, four, five types of armor and it goes 0, 1 2 3 4, I'm
Shield, same thing, 1 2 3 4, the reduction and one of the things
we'll get into later is the range.
Everything is in Paces isn't pay sucks.
Yeah. So that when I first read this,
Like 6, 12, 18, 10, 20, 30, 24 36, I'm like this is a lot like
how what and then I was like ah, Paces away, this makes this make
sense. So yeah, yeah.
So um, yeah. And it's I mean this game is
really straightforward. We're gonna go through this all,
I'll 16 pages right now and it's, you know, there's there's
just enough to make it fun and it makes total sense and you're
like cool. I can make a gritty because like
it's only when we were talking about Sort of sorcery and stuff.
I was thinking of Berserk so my hey you could easily, you know,
Griffith did nothing wrong dude but the introduction.
So I'm not going to read this word before but maybe I'll read
most of it. You know, when we talked about
it, just now with John, like, Helm is a dart at a dark swords
and sorcery role-playing game. Were you that takes Is it like
the Middle Ages to between like, the fifth and the 15th century?
You know, you were bloody men-at-arms your soldiers.
You are I'm not nobody's figured guy.
Gonna do you? Do you know what actually, you
know what you are. You're bastards.
But yeah, but yeah, you are. You are the, the the mercenary
non Heroes and it's like that. That what we talk about
beginning of this next paragraph characters and home cannot save
Of the Empire but they might be able to save their own skin
which is very much a I do really enjoy that aspect.
I don't like like yeah you're the fucking chosen fucking hero.
My guy you're here to see your the Dragonborn man you know or
whatever. Like I want to be a dude
scraping scraping by and like making my dollar and like I
don't know why it's my but I want you but it'll do.
Yeah. I mean I just think we're I just
I don't like exactly we just talked about the hero game like
we're your for random fucks that were just like chosen to save
the entire World. Nah, like the world doesn't get
saved. Yeah /.
It is person worse. I'd rather just be just some
dude, in the world then some like chosen, you know, because
if any of the shit ever happened in the Middle Ages, guess what?
There's no one would have saved it, you know, honestly, doesn't
it feel so much more gratifying when you're playing a game to
like, move up as somebody who like really has to fucking claw
their way up rather than like you know, you're the Son of God
and just like whatever like Yeah.
No I'm fucking I'm Dave from nowheresville and I have been
fucking claw my way up one gold piece of the time or whatever.
But yeah, your man you have arms and then yeah the best idea was
it? I took going back to actually
reading it. This game is, I will read this
part because it's a cool part. This game is based on swords and
sorcery fantasy fiction and makes no attempt to portray an
accurate representation of the Middle Ages as such gender
roles. Directions based on social
strata are thrown right out the window in favor of inclusivity
and representation. If the presence of strong women,
gender marginalized people persons, sorry and lgbtqia+.
People rocking chain mail and kicking ass.
Confuses, you the author recommends, you take a long walk
off a short Bridge, which is fantastic.
Yeah, I have a, you know, I have a little game hack that I wrote
and it tells you to pick your pronouns, a certain point and it
says in there even though my And look people to read it if you
have a problem, picking pronouns go fuck yourself.
But yeah, very much love it. We love the inclusivity and like
in actually mean talking about like the Middle Ages and swords
and sorcery, might Conan the Barbarian, it gets pretty not
Progressive. So it's good to have this like,
hey, like if that's a thing that you're into, if you loved Conan
the Barbarian, you don't get to be a racist sexist in this like
combing, the fucking Barbarian actually is enough stands for
bikini arm right here. I don't let me You if they need
dude, bikini armor and video games.
Every character I ever played as would have bikini armor on
period. Well, damn Conan.
Technically have totally any armor.
I mean, he literally has like, just like a leather banana
hammock. Yeah, I kind of sometimes, it
depends what you're reading but or where he is.
Okay. Yeah, and next, it goes over
lines and fails as tools. Create boundaries, talk to your
people, talk to your table, establish, where everyone is
comfortable with none country with no Know what you guys are
getting into when you sit down at the table together, be
respectful of everyone space both emotionally and mentally,
don't fucking suck, be a person's.
God damn it. Cool!
Men-at-arms generation. So this character sheet in the
back of the book and it is amazingly simple character.
Sheets beautifully, its greatest world's weren't real quick.
Yeah. Oh, it's so far down the how
you'll ever get there. So it's literally the last
Paige. I described the Endive it was a
joke because it's like a 16 page book.
So but yeah. All right.
So there are like zones for HP for individual body parts and
they also dictate your stats. Essentially are not HP, but
stats, cool. So you will roll.
You know why Ryan, let's create a character.
Have you got die for me? Already got the dice roller Up.
You're Gonna Roll 1dc. 66 times assigned.
Those six numbers to different zones of your man-at-arms or one
man-at-arms. All right, let me get sticky.
No. Do I need to open up a new pack
of sticky notes? I think it hell, yeah, on stream
dude. Damn, you should answer for
that. I got y'all a little sleepy and
we're just we're both weirdos and we're tired, you know?
Actually I'm a weirdo all the time.
So I'm perfectly normal constantly.
So yeah, so let me crack open. These sticky like a baby, you
know, I hate when I when I find them places that are Staples and
acquire them in ways is the sticky notes that aren't just
like 1pl at a time. Or they go like this.
I'm talking about the whole design is so fucking stupid.
Just have it. Go one.
Fucking Direction. Where We on topic tonight?
Y'all. I wonder which one of the host
has ADHD. Is it is the answer?
Both, let's see. One Direction we're good.
All right, all right man-at-arms.
Again, od6 for me, six times and let's just go, just go ahead the
leg. No left arm right arm left leg
right leg. So I rolled d66 times.
So I got to For then Palmer, I got four for my trunk, I got to
for my left arm, I got three from my right arm, I got one for
my left leg and 64. My right leg.
I am averages out, you know. Wow to 2316.
Great. Yeah, you guys kind of dumbass
okay, now you're going to generate saves based on the
scores assigned. To to each individual body
parts. So your intelligence is
equivalent to your head score. So you have an intellect of to
Constitution is equivalent to your trunk score, which was four
or so it's a bad that's pretty good.
One, I'm strength is equivalent to some of both arms which is
togethers five, not okay. And then the speed is equivalent
to some of both legs but which is 7.
So I'm pretty. I'm pretty Hardy I'm kind of
quick I'm not super strong but I Dumb as a rock.
You are fucking Thomas shit. Okay.
Generating Billy's based on saves as determined by your man,
that arms World E6 equal to intelligence to determine
starting luck score. So I think so that means my
score is 2. So I rolled 2D security security
Italian. So I got a six and a four.
So that's 10. So at least my luck is 10.
So I'm Time. Lucky.
Yeah. So you're gonna double your
Constitution to determine your injury maximum.
So that's eight. And then reference strength on
the table opposite to determine your damage bonus.
Your strength was, what was the one time I was really?
My my arm strength is a 5. So you have a boss is zero.
Yeah, and then your pace is just as your speed, so it's so seven,
so I can go seven Paces or seven blocks.
Yep. Absolutely.
So they're gonna roll 1 D6, determine your starting coin,
and purchase equip age from the inner covers of this book, which
we are some tables above and some tables below.
To to my fucking brother. Really, just starting out.
I mean, with two coin I could buy armored Shields missile
weapons. Do you just start with like a
sword? Because I'm sorry, that's at the
bottom. So the inner both inner covers.
So the front undercover has like armor a shield and missile up.
Pins in the back. Undercover has already low oven
because there are so yeah I got I got no coinage bro.
Yeah you don't have your broken stupid.
I can't even do the short sword. I could literally just get a
short sword. So I'm going to start with like
a Dicker, you know, no also were the dagger and some some, some
padded Armor, man. I'm really just getting started
out and I apologize to anyone watching as I Just whip through
this super fast Flash warning just so you're aware, but yeah.
So basically, I start with padded armor and a dagger, and
that's all I got man. These rules just a manager, like
you've made a character, which main character it was.
He did so easy and also it did step by step, which we always
are like, oh, isn't it so great? When it's just like steps?
You know, step by step, I know all those artists by dead
people, but I love this piece on the back of the string bonus
with this big guy. It's like, she's like stabbed in
the heart. Yeah, yeah, here's a packable,
it really helps and it's one of those things.
We talked about the art really sets the tone for the game.
Like this feels gritty you know suppose dark feels like a my
characters, probably gonna die. You know.
I'm have a couple of characters that died.
Wow. Yeah, I really do like to though
because this is all I assume public domain art, but it feels
like it was chosen very specifically to have like a
consistent style throughout like, it doesn't.
Yeah. Feel like all Together from a
hundred different things like it still feels like it's got some
consistency to it which is fantastic.
Absolutely, I feel it feels like one thing.
Yeah it's great. So moving on to how to play.
So, we are not going to Deep dive the first paragraph,
because it's a tabletop game. There's there's players, and
there's the quartermaster which is the game runner in this case
and you should get the book and you should read this part for
Best Practices though. What I think, I think it's very
consistent with kind of like the NS R os are like the game is a
conversation between, you know, the minute arms and the world
around them. Please find out what happens and
how it happens, ask questions, take notes.
Draw diagrams right in pain which is I think it's a good one
is makes it permanent, you know? Very cool, the dicer not your
friend if you don't have to roll don't which I think is a
fantastic rule. Like I love that real very much
because just the only role for everything you know you really
don't I think it takes some fun that way when you have joy, when
you have the role for everything Munson, I'm strive for victory
lived, I rolled him in arms, get back in and say the thick of
things strive for inclusion of a realism your /.
If your character dies. I think it touches on this a
little later on if your character dies Get your new
character out you know don't worry about the Lord of The
Narrative. We can worry about that later.
We can wreak on. Doesn't matter your guy, de came
from place you know. Goal, moving forward onto saves.
Also, more great art, more great art, that really sticks with
Fame saves trivial actions succeed, automatically.
Really, there's not really a risk of failure.
You don't need to worry about saying, when you describe your
man, and I was doing something dangerous there or that incurs
the risk of failure, you are going to roll to D6 to either
classified under or over the It's a by believe.
It's a yeah. If you succeed without
complication it says rolled through T6 equal to wear under.
So it's a Judy sexual under system for your sake under.
Yes. Okay.
Yeah. My intellect save is not great.
Yeah. You're fucked big dumb.
Yeah, absolutely. So, to D6, roll or under the
purple team if you succeed without conflict, or if you do.
So, you succeed without complication, if you roll over,
you still succeed but something's gonna go wrong.
Wrong. There is still a success in
Failure but also incurs the risk of something else going wrong.
If you have the upper hand in a given situation at +1 to your
target number. So raise the target it's easy to
roll under. If you're if there was a
drawback, you know, if you you're fucked lower that Target
number and that's that's the thing.
So you know it's an extra hard, brain problem Ryan, you know,
what's actually you gotta get a roll under even on - want
another one. I like it.
It's super it's super clean. I like the you know, there's no
as if not unless I'm completely making this up.
There's not really like a advantage and disadvantage
system which I really enjoy. Just the plus one minus one
because we know that the math and to D6 system even just a
plus one makes a huge difference in definitely difference between
success and failure but again this is one of the things that I
really really really love about to D6 systems is the million
different ways you can do to D6 and they're being just Got to be
six roll under say, versus like a mixed success.
System is just a really fun way to do it.
No, I see. We agree.
It's a good time, you know. Yeah, saves and Helm are
intentionally left open-ended to apply in most situations.
The quartermaster has final say, you know, we had there are stats
there saves that make sense for it, right?
But the end of the day we you can discuss through table book
or Masters going to make the phone call.
There's intelligence concentration, resisting magic
more brain stuff, you know, Constitution resisting poison
disease called Climbing lifting grappling being strong breaking
shit, speed dodging, sneaking picking Pockets.
Yeah, very straightforward. And now we get to the only
paragraph 5 redness and I don't know why.
But do this twice, I love even Tory.
If you have like you have a number of inventory slots equal
to your strength, safe most items, take of one slot with the
exception of armored Shields and weapons.
Small items such as coins. That mission can be bundled
together. Take a point slide, that's it.
Very simple, very climate. Yeah, great time al, man.
Yeah, we love a simple inventory system.
I just like the existence of an inventory system.
No, endless backpack for you sir.
No, no, no, fuck that more. Fantastic art.
You know, favorite piece on this page.
Two, is the guy's eyes all the way to the, to the right on my
screen. He's got like a slug really
Stout. Yeah, the blank.
I looking guy like this. Yeah, these eyes right here,
just get me. Oh that guy.
Yeah. He's just I don't know what he's
thinking. Yeah he's like fuck I should
have stayed home today. Yep.
That's exactly what it is. But yeah.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, so living on board on to combat when you roll to hurt.
Somebody else, you deal damage equal to the first die of your
to D6. Roll.
Apply your damage bonus, Ryan's damage, bonus is a 0.
So right if you just roll right on Yo, Brooklyn role to D6.
Let's just see how much damage you do right now.
I roll a six and a five so actually so you did six damage
and five designates the zone that you hit of the body, which
I believe five is left leg. Yes, his left leg.
Yeah, I was love likes. You him and hit him in the left
leg, you damaged their left leg, are you?
Oh I love that funny. That's just know that shit of
everything in this book. Like I like this.
Auntie, but that shit right there is fucking great.
It's like, do damage and location, I fucking love.
The fact there are multiple, like, you can hit multiple
locations. I really, really like that.
Very cool part. Yeah, yeah, so again with the
with the to D6 system and the various different ways to do it,
we've chatted about this a bunch of times, like, between
something like Maize rats and tunnel goons where it's like
however much you Roll over the armor.
That's how much damage you do. I don't, I can't think of one
that does it this way. I know we do used one.
I feel like we even did one recently where the 2D six like
one was 11 while the other, but I can't remember one where its
location its location and that gives you so much storytelling
because it's still like you can mark off where your wounds are
on the body, like when you get wounded, To.
But you have an overall wound score, right?
You can take a certain number of injuries, does it really matter
where? But the RP is associated with
being like, all right, I fucking 6 damage to their left leg, I
chop them off at the knee. This guy's like hopping around
wanted foot it. Like, from now on, I'm really,
really enjoy this. I think, the, the locations for
the Stat system, where you actually roll for each different
like spot and then also, tying in the location of the damage
like reinforce that is just such.
It's clever, its super Never Lie.
He is, it's clever. It's not a like, once again like
This is another really good example and we see them here and
they're overweight. That's something that's
incredibly clever. But not like, but not so in
depth. It's hard to understand.
Like if Justice is clever and obvious, you're just like, oh,
fuck. Yeah.
Okay, perfect, that's awesome. That's the light.
Like what's great about this real system to is like it's
rules light in that the there are a ton of rules but it's also
rules light and that the rules themselves.
Feel light. Which I think we've talked about
that little bit with flow or flow is much bigger book.
Like, it's a straight-up, fuck. Totally.
But the rules themselves felt really light were just like, I
don't need to remember 15 things to roll this dice.
Like I can just do this really simple thing and just being
like, I would definitely pick like, like a red dye in a black
guy or something, and just be like red diets damage black dye
is is location, and that's it. And that's so fucking easy to do
and yeah, yeah, yeah, shouts, shouts lucky.
And, you know, whoever fucking made this game, this guy, this
guy. Yeah.
So moving On, you're going to suffer damage, equal to your
opponent's pain, ability on their turn.
So that's fucking damage. You take, I'm, you're gonna
mark, it injuries The Zone your body.
If you really Mark injuries as the zones of your body are
reduced to zero, you can sustain injuries up to your maximum
Inge, was your injuries or pain, what you succumb to your wounds,
and fucking die Rome and arms, the quartermaster should
introduce the combatant as soon as possible.
Yeah, which is great. I think it's great.
What was your injury threshold for you guys?
Um I think I wrote down like everything but my which one is
my Constitution is on my entry threshold, right?
Or is that? Yeah, I believe it is.
Let's go goddamn, it is eight or it's it refers to it.
Double your Constitution double-click on it is a because
it Con mic on is my trunk score. So I roll for trunk which is
Form icon is then for and Mike and my injury threshold is 8
because it's double that so I can take eight injuries before I
die. Somebody, that's that's
respectable, you know, I think it's a respectable.
Yeah, I mean it also depends on when you're who you're fighting.
If the damage you take is, is equal to their, what is it?
Their pain number? Yeah, yeah I really I hope I
don't, I don't get hit by something too big.
Especially on my head because a rock.
I don't even get that little brain boy.
Yeah, I'm just uh I'm just dumb guys just dumb.
Um I'm right was one page up because I swelled up, so
survival Marcus segment of your of also fuck.
Yes, I love the clock mechanic just for use in stuff.
We keep serious here and there but not / consistently and every
time I'm seeing like fuck yeah, I love the clock mechanic, very
easy to understand. Yeah, survival market.
Segments of your survive o'clock when you survive a combat
encounter, erases segment of his 5:00 to make an additional
attack. Prevent one point of damage
overcome an injury survive past your last injury.
Yeah, love that. You just like a little bit of
grit, you know, you getting a little grid every time you use
past combat and then forward moving you can use the Call upon
that integrate to push yourself a little bit further.
Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean like you just said it it
rewards you for surviving in a way that kind of makes sense in
you know like when you you know think about combat and how many
people like if two armies are running into each other so many
people are going to die if you can actually make your way out
of that and learn a little tips and tricks.
Yeah, those encounters. I really love that there's a
clock that like gives you those opportunities to learn from it,
which is great. Yeah, yeah.
John Dee said surviving that when dividing.
Yeah, surviving. Yeah.
Obviously fucking. It's it's a, it's a fucking it's
16 pages and it's fucking good little game.
Yeah, I mean, it's great. So peace.
Much, saying that is John here John.
Let me I'll let you know right now this did I'll say whatever
the fuck I think and I just it's kind of good, you know.
Peace weapon, ranges and movement speed are measured.
Pace has Pace a pretty Pace is a square right on the grid.
So Ryan you have what 7 is your so yeah my pace is heaven.
Yeah, so in turn you can move 7 squares.
And now this pace if you're long bow on this thing gives example,
if your Longbow has a range of 28, you can't attack enemy 28
squares away which big, I mean, that sounds very far, which is
awesome because a longbow can shoot a lot further than the
person can move like, within the same.
Amount of time actually, you know, kind of crunching into a
little bit, I always feel like range weapons, don't feel as
long as they should for movement, but this one kind of
does, like, you're a fat, you're pretty fast guy, you can move
seven Paces, but you need to move, you know, four times that
much to reach the Longbow range. Which I'm like that sounds kind
of, right? You know, it sounds fairly
appropriate. So if we say that there are 5
foot squares, we're saying that I could run 35 feet and this
boat could shoot 140 feet. Yeah, that's a that's a distant
like in combat. Like that's a distant.
Yeah, you're far your lawyer. If you're a long way away, you
know, it's a long bar. It's quite the Longbow.
Yeah. And then cool.
Yeah. And then luck luck.
Ever since your man-at-arms fortune and intuition, as you
play, your luck will fluctuate with each passing day.
You may spend as many points of luck as you need to pass saves,
outside of combat, not in combat outside of combat.
Each day you recover one D3 upon reaching zero, you know you're
you suffer a fucking grave, unlucky, circumstance, or
Misfortune the just you know that is up to your quartermaster
which I'm just thinking what Ryan would do and oh yeah you
know what, you're fucking horse. Kicked you in the head this
morning you know, kicked you in the chest.
Yeah, so moving forward for time.
So time is measured in rounds terms and watches rounds about
10 seconds. The time for everyone to move a
turn. While exploring is about 10
minutes and have time to explore a room or search for like traps
pitfalls. Every turn, roll 1 D6 on the
one, the men-at-arms have encountered someone or something
as determined by the quartermaster.
So mechanic that is kind of like now I had no with you know it's
kind of like insead actually. They have a when you're in a
room every time you enter a room it's like you roll one T6 what
it's just a it's a great thing to do the whole turns watches
rounds thing, with the 1 D6. I mean, it's not why I haven't
gotten to watch as yet, bro. Don't ruin it.
Watches. It's in into the odd.
It's in Mouse Ritter. It Cinder always meets the
vanilla game. It's in it's just a great it's a
great way to do time. It's really enjoyable like super
clean Super consistent. I really like a lot.
Yeah it also will push encounters, you know just like
got all the one he says he might not have an account you might
just make it through this room, you know, the other thing too is
that you can you can increase that if you want like I'm
playing around the system like this and mine is actually on one
or 2. So you're like a one-in-three
chance. Yeah, so like I want more
encounter staff and so it's just it's a super, just fun clean,
easy way to do it that a lot of games successfully used in this
one does at the same section, play mean.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then the watch, I watch measures time while traveling to
us. Six hours, you can explore one
hex. Also shout-out external you can
travel to one hex or Explorer 1 hex or make chanting rest.
There are four watches in the day make sense to how time works
but yeah, travel you travel. We travel 1 hex per day
difficult terrain might make it. I'm sorry 1 hex per watch that
day difficult terrain, my make it to where you can.
All it takes to watches /, hex epochs of products.
To watch his perhaps and said, oh, you said 11 hex per day.
It's two watches / hex. So half a day's travel is is 1
hex your men-at-arms May travel 1 hex per watch difficult lines
to periods in that and and I got scared of them.
Yeah, yeah. So what one watch will get you
across a hex if it's difficult terrains going to take two.
But yeah, that's fucking, that's that, you know, healing, I love
this because all this is fucking real simple.
You know, I explain this to you, the guy gets it down.
Table. I can explain this to people
right now and they like got it. You know, that's a see healing a
short rest takes one. Turn draw from your pipe.
Shout out that one just because I've never seen it anywhere like
a member first smoking something for pipe very very medieval, you
know, taking a sip from a jug of fucking gruel or whatever you
fucking got with. You you know, you're fucking
cheap grain alcohol or water. Yeah, you can overcome.
One injury, a long rest takes one.
Watch a long night sweating through your sheets recover, one
point in each zone of your body. So recovery is pretty fucking
brutal. You know, like you might be down
several points and he's like, yeah, you can take a little
short rest to get one back. You remember one injury.
And then, if you sleep, you get one per Zone, which would like,
yeah, perfect, because you should not be able to heal
overnight. That's not how things work.
Probably and let maybe for some people advancement erase eight
segments of your survival clock to apply one point to any zone
of your body to a Max of 60. Adjust saves and abilities
accordingly. So let me just you have to
survive. Eight combat, encounters with
this incredibly squishy little piece of shit, dude.
With our to intelligence guy. This is survive, which is like
that's that take some fucking doing.
And I think it's, I think it's cool.
I mean, you know hell yeah, hiring mercenaries in any town,
you can spend a day. So for watches seeking, you
know, mercenaries essentially egg and it kind of varies,
right? If you're in like a small little
shitty Backwoods, you're gonna get some shitty fucking Farm Boy
mercenaries. But if you're in a big city, you
know, you might get some better ones.
But the only set off set that is that the better ones probably
will. So you more money.
So you maybe want the farmers and if it's just there's just
father, you know? I mean who really cares?
They're good. Right.
Exactly. Exactly.
Then we have two more pages of art to more.
Fantastic ages of art. So realistic keeping with
medieval gritty Dark theme. There's no color and it works
very well. And then we are to the Malay
weapons, you know, which I think we cruised.
I do like all the properties that these weapons have a man.
I think it's very interesting, I think is there's very
interesting implications for weapon use because it's like
very specifically calls out mounted kit, mounted combat,
really like receiving a charge dismounting a writer.
And I like the classical use of like I'm thinking with the
halberd right now. Classically used to hybrid 2D
horse a person or to like receive somebody charging at you
like it's cool to see that like yeah man, like that's how this
fucking weapon stuff in this game to it's like you.
This is your little medieval mercenary game.
It works the same way. If someone's charging at you and
you fuckin halberd, you're gonna fucking, you're a fuck them up,
that's what the hell, it was needful.
Yeah you know exactly it just showed it shows a very informed
view on these weapons and and it doesn't feel super granular.
While adding some like grit to the weapon rules, it is that
makes sense. Now, absolutely.
And one of the things I really love is and it's such a small
thing but I really, really love it.
The properties are just lettered ABCDEFG.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's just the letters in a
column as opposed to like having to feel like a ton of space with
like two handed and like all the rest of that stuff, that's just
smart way to do properties, to keep the page super clean.
Yes, I think when we talked about, I think there's maybe
like eyes beyond the Torchlight. We're like, oh you were there
for that one. But um, we talked about a lot of
stuff. We're like this could have been
a table, like this is what I, imagine, a lot of, a lot of that
kind of stuff to be where man, this so easy to turn this into
such a clean crisp table for a lot of stuff.
And there's also a clever way to do it.
And this is, I mean, like this is such a quality like, like
little in Sr game, like man, video you can fuck in its 16
Pages. You could print out a couple of
These are your on your home fucking printer.
And you can sit down tomorrow with minimal planning and
minimal introduction with your people.
And you guys could make characters in 20 minutes and
start playing, you know, like I mean, I don't always like to
dump come 5e, that's joke. I do do.
But, you know, I mean, how long does it take to take new players
to make a character? You know, God, I mean, when I
used to run. So I ran.
And I talked to us before I started and ran a Meetup that
had like, 350 people on it. We were doing a ton of stuff
every other week. I Running an intro to D&D like
session campaign, everything teaching, people, how to do.
So I've taught like, dozens and dozens of dozen people how to
play, just to teach a group of, like, for people how like, the
basic rules, and how to fill up the character sheet, it least an
hour and a half, and that's it. Everybody is like, quick with
it. So, to add weight to really
expand, I remember having whole night sessions, we're just
drank, and we just built characters.
You know, not this one. We can't really not like sitting
around. And having fun like, you know,
like coming up with character Concepts.
I mean, just rolling down like, and writing down and doing the
math for like all of the different proficiencies and
stuff like that. They like this is exactly.
This is the epitome of the kind of game that I want to play
right now, which is, it's fun. It's gritty, it's clever.
And like, you just said it takes like 30 seconds to make a
character, like not even you literally just roll.
Like, I went to a roller and is hit roll 186 times and you,
Write it down in order and go, boom, there's a guy.
Yeah, you can just hand this off to a newbie and be like, hey,
like we're going to make character a D6 and six-sided
die. There you go.
Read it as you go along. I mean, fucking yeah.
Yeah, I think it's very much in the vein.
You and I are just, I think we're over big games, you know,
I really like slow and I think it's a great rules medium game
and makes a lot of sense to me, but even that was just like,
yeah, that's too many rules for me.
Yes, it's a lot. Like, I just - executive
dysfunction where I'm just like, man, like even Running the game,
the amount of prep and stuff like that, I would need to know
just to be able to pass on of the players is too much.
But this is, this is perfect. Like, as far as the amount of
rules that I like to see in like a really like game because
realistically, you could put all of this on a size, 10 Fawn and
easily fit it on like one page of an eight and a half by 11.
Yeah, perfect, perfect. The only thing is that I thought
as I read it and I might even put into the game if it's a
little bit grittier and I don't know if John still here.
But so there are the locations and like your your role for that
and you can actually take hit locations as well, right?
Because you can heal one per location.
Oh gotcha. What if you're if you took an
injury in that area, your save went down by one.
Mmm. Oh I see I see like live, like I
mean like yeah I got ya, I mean that sounds cool, you know?
It depends how gritty you want to be, you know?
Yeah. Because that I mean if I took
two shots to the head, I'm basically do your I basically
that point just like drooling and Swinging her sword.
Yeah, kids be playing read, but that could be a fun, even
distills, like a One-Shot kind of thing.
Just to see, you know how, I'll rub those Would be but, but
yeah, and I think that's the, that's it.
That's quartermaster, or that's minute arms.
So again, there's three volumes currently, like, full volumes in
a couple of supplements for home.
The first one is this, it's minute arms.
This is what the players would have and then yeah, great
funnel, perfect. John great, father would really
is and like, dude, there's like so much potential for running a
fucking amazing funnel adventure with this game or Josh rule your
in some fucking Think like a castle trying to escape the
dungeon, You're fucking dying. You know, it's not when Dick and
this system is also so incredibly hackable.
Like I really think that I mean so there's a lot of parts of
this that are that you see a lot in other games because they work
in there really good like the time system and things like
that. Like turns watches rounds, like
it works here because it works in a lot of games like this
really do that. But I'm, I really think the
thing that shines here in the core of the rules.
Is the whole damage and location system and and the location with
your stats. It's so clever.
It's so smart. I really, really loved it.
And I can see this just running with people easily using that
system for a million other things because something is easy
as that you could turn this into instead of helmet could be like
space Helm. You don't even like only like
instantaneously. And this would work for for
sci-fi horror just as well, because it's so good.
Pretty and you could easily turn, you know, like if you have
like a higher left-handed or right-handed score, that could
be your right hand where you put your blaster and stuff like
that. So it's just really clever
really great. So I'm going to jump into Volume
2 here which is as we said this is quartermaster the first
political Master just a quartermaster you know just part
the first book as we said is player book.
The second one is Mostly for the the quartermaster /gm for the
system and its the rules but kind of told from the
perspective of the person that's running the game.
So we'll cruise through this as well.
So the very first page I love I love and this gives me a heavy.
What does this page remind you of Or at least that are on, hey,
it rises a fucking no weapon page on my board, its web based
on work board which is just fantastic.
I really love this. So just so those listening know,
it starts off with a page of hit location just like in the other
one, the front and back kind of covers - a character sheet are
like reference Pages, which are great.
So there's hit location. It gives enemy size from 1 to 6
and it gives small medium large and giant and then you can roll.
For those. And to determine where the head
locations are from head arm trunk, like all of those kind of
things which is great and then there is an injuries page which
is great, there's really good. Yeah, head injuries arm
injuries, torso injuries and leg injuries, and it's to D6, which
is, which is cool. I remember, one of the first
things I talked to John about was being, like, I know how this
works, but I want to touch base and and, and About it since it's
a 2d six. One of the things I love about
it to D6 and we both know is there's a bell curve to it.
So you're more likely going to get injuries in the middle.
So gouged. I is to but decapitation is 12.
So you can just be done your man and I'm could this be done which
I really like that 11 is like a snack.
Why don't you roll me a couple of to d6s and I would second.
What about you? I rolled the level, I'm gonna
pierce the clothes. Yeah, Pierce neckroll, Miro me
two more sets of to D6. I mean, he was some arm injuries
and to torso and reasons. Well, you know, I 64 the first
one, okay, so your arm injury is a sliced bicep and then a 9 for
the second one, which is a smashed hit.
Yeah, that's not going to feel good.
And then what about that leg injury leg injury.
Yeah, we got an 80 lacerated ass time to crack in that ass baby.
Oh my God. Yeah there's just buy stuff on
here. The 12 surpr like amputation.
Amputation decapitation. I think the only one I kind of
No bruised kidneys. Cracked ribs.
Yes, a pectoral. Yeah, this great stuff.
I love that page. Yeah.
So very, very good page. Yeah.
It's it's done in such a clever way.
So the introduction. It's the same.
It's the exact same pages. In the first one thing.
The only part that you kind of breezed over that I do enjoy
that. We talked about John is just a
setting a little bit more like in this day.
Craven Nobles play it conquest and Face.
Countless soldiers to the war machine fueling what can't what
has come to be known as The ruination masterless Warriors
seeking to profit from the night from the night unless Discord
Fallen with armies a shock troops and supplementary forces
and that you. So the ruination even just that
like two to three lines of like setting gives you everything you
need to know without having like a lime or book attached to it.
So I just love the whole idea is like you just know it is the
ruination and that's Great fun page here of a dude hanging
which is which is good times. Great art the book.
Again, if you're just listening, I highly recommend you check out
the even just H page. You can get a feel for how the
game goes. But absolutely, it's a great
it's a great set of scenes to get so running the game.
It's a whole point of the quartermaster book.
So you invent the world around the minute arms of people within
the places in between it's your the GM.
You are everything, that's not the players for your rolls.
It is a player facing system, which we both very much loved.
Only the players were all dice. I think the only time that
you're really going to roll it as maybe, like, do you roll hit?
Look at it. I'll roll always influence the
situation, no matter how innocuous.
So you should really only role when you have to roll.
Which again, we really love. Yeah.
In the event, a roles outcome is unclear consult the lower die
result of the That the player rolled a six, has an arrow
success while a one is an overwhelming Victory, really
like that, that just in the game already.
Like if you're not sure, just look at the dice, it was already
rolled and there's a scale of how that can affect the game
Super clever. Yeah, absolutely consequences.
Always discussed potential complications with your players.
Be sure the stakes are clear and the tried-and-true example,
picking a lock, if a Arms has a correct tools for the job.
Then there is no real need for them to roll is there.
But if they plan on busting the like using for sort of jamming,
a dagger there, and hoping for the best, then a role must be,
made tell it to them straight, the lock will be bypassed but
you run the risk of alerting the guards in the Next Room or
worse. Yet ruining a perfectly good
blade. I love how clear that is.
It's just if you're kind of Fifi.
Yeah. And you have a Lockpick Set.
Why even fucking roll for it? Who cares?
Sure. Yeah, well idea.
Yes, you do for drug, do it. They got, they got the fucking
lock pick set, you know, they got it like oh no, sorry fucking
failure. I know you got a lock pick set.
You sent them money on you fail, you break your lock, pick you
saw again? That's that's what that's what,
that's what kills me about the D20 and I'm never gonna not rag
on just the content of a D20 because you could be a thief
with a plus 10 to your role with a Lockpick Set, they give you
advantage on the role and still fail and then you could be a
dumbass piece of shit. That just goes, huh?
Let me take that. Lock pick for a second and just
like jams in and wiggle it around, most 20 gets it, like,
why? Like that's just, it's just bad
narrative. And then people being like, Oh,
that's luck of the fate and but, no, no.
Like, one of the things I love about to D6, has a bell curve,
because if you're good at something, then you should be
relatively good at something. If you're an adventurer, you're
probably gonna like at least know, the basic idea of how to
do the thing that you're doing, you know?
So, So so yeah, I love that. So it is setting up encounters
when your minute arms meet someone new.
It's important that you roll on the table below.
Role should be modified by your own reputations and alliances
for instance if for instance if you are employed by an invading
Army that requires you flaunt their heraldry and wear their
uniforms encountering a local militia on the road would modify
your action role by -4. If it turns ugly and combat is a
likely outcome minute arms and enemy combatants will consult
their speed scores and Order their terms from highest score.
Lowest on their turn, they may move up to their pace and
perform one actions. Actions may include a treating,
an item attacking or moving a second time.
So this is a relatively standard reaction table to as hostile 325
IS unfriendly 682 some sure 9 to 11 as talkative and 12 is
helpful which again it's it exists in a lot of similar games
to this. And it's, it works and that's
why it's here. If there's any uncertainty and
the distance at which Kitchen counters and kerr.
It may be determined randomly if you're within Capital castle
walls world to D6 + 10. If you're without Castle Rawls
or waterborne roll 46 times 10 that's time Stone.
The first one to see how far you are away from people.
So if your 2D six by ten, I mean if I just roll a quick to D6
here inside the castle, you are potentially at 70 Paces away.
So I what I like about that is The ability to.
Have range be important right at the start.
Like, if you start 70 Paces away and you can only run like seven
bases for you, seven bases, you got a long way to go.
Is you as you come into each other?
So combat, the player Will Roll 26.
When attacking the result on the first die, we are to stop to
this represents the damage that they blow that the blow has
behind it, and the second is the location and consult the chart.
At the end for that, the player Will Roll 1 D6 when defending
The result of this die represents where the enemies
blow landed on the players, men-at-arms, so again you don't,
you don't roll for that either. The player will, and once they
defend roll a 1 D6 and that'll determine where they get hit.
And then the frenzied, I, which is fun at the start of combat,
the quartermaster will set aside a D6, showing a result of one,
this represents a plus-one, the damage bonus afforded to
everyone on the battlefield. Enemies included.
As rounds of combat, go by the quartermaster show, roll the
die. Take the result as the damage
bonus for the current round. This provides a much-needed
swinging a combat especially for men-at-arms decked out in full
plate and kite Shields. I love that.
Like I do like image bonus changes constantly, as yeah, it
is. And we're not even talking
about, you know, so good System Shock.
Reducing the zones of the body 20 deals injuries to minute arms
as they are already injured further attacks to these zones.
Do not incur further injuries. And stead if damage is dealt to
zone of the body, that is already injured the man-at-arms.
And question must make a save for con or experience System
Shock. In this state minute, arms are
out for the remainder of the combat.
Totally at the mercy of their attackers and open to
amputations or a coup de gras at that same Zone were to be
attacked. Oh no, I don't know what's
funny. Is he even told me, hey, I've
made some changes. Yeah, and can ignore them those.
He always think who aren't in our twitch chat.
Our close personal friend. John is just host.
We have an old version of volume.
In that System, Shock has been changed.
Boom. We are going to Quick, download
that and bring up the new version, Augie.
How just put that whole being to god, dude.
Dude, dude, dude, there we go. There we go.
I was sure I had downloaded. It said had been changed as of
July 26th at my Dropbox, so I was wrong.
So here we go. So System, Shock reducing is
owns the Buddy. At, let's just start on the top
producing zones of the body. 20 deals in.
Committed arms as they are already injured further attacks
to these zones and Care System. Shock if a blow lands on his own
of your body that is already injured world to D6 and subtract
the lowest result from the highest, you know, I love me a
good Louis from the highest World table.
I love it. Reference the table below so
that gives you a zero to 50 is dead.
You are dead destroy character to the the thing is, when you
look At the math for let me just go through all them then I'll
talk about the fun math at one. You are unconscious and you lose
one body Point permanently at to you are shocked and take another
injury and skip this round at 3:00.
There's flight you drop your weapons and leave this
encounter. You just run at for.
There's a second wind. You were emboldened and overcome
the injury. I'm sorry fight, take the blow,
plus 1 damage, bonus this around and 5 is second, wind emboldened
overcome injury. The interesting thing about to
D6. It is instead of a bell curve.
It gives you this like exponentially increasing chance
at 0 is actually the most, the most likely outcome in a 2d six
system because your odds of rolling doubles into D 6 or
higher than any other rule. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So if you get System Shock, you
will most likely die. Yeah.
There's a really good chance you're gonna fucking die.
Yeah, because the odds of specifically rolling.
Both a six, and a one are infinite, is the it's like 5%.
I have actually have The mass somewhere actually talked about
it with Thiago when we were, we were chatting about it.
But yeah, I think it's something like a tool like a almost a
30-ish percent chance when he rolled like a 0-0 of just
freaking dying. So it's kind of crazy that you
just better not get some System Shock, are you?
Yeah we did. And you have any role that to D6
earlier. I rolled doubles twice just in
those like five or six rolls. Oh, We go.
So a 0 on a 2d 6 subtract the loss from the highest is a 29
percent chance. A one is a 24 percent chance of
to is a 19 percent chance of three is a 14% chance, a for is
a 10% chance, and a five is a five percent chance.
That's why I love to D6, man. And, and then the subtract the
Louis from the highest. It's just a great.
So yeah, don't get to some shocked.
So if I get a double shots to the Head, my guys, just dead.
Yeah, that's it. It's just that um great piece of
art here and then we get into enemies, all enemies have a
size, a number of injuries damage, reduction of pain stat,
speed Pace mean, and a special ability, quite a stack there.
When a player Attacks An Enemy consult, the enemy size and
utilize a chart on the inside front cover this booklet for hit
location. So you just crossed for us,
right size and and and that this will help narrate.
And interment location of injury is just like minute arms when an
enemy suffers damage, mark off the amount from their injuries.
For instance, if an enemy has an intercept of 3 or 2, then they
must suffer six points of damage.
Total to receive three injuries. Also, enemies also to enemies
also make use of armors and shields Just damage.
My brain is breaking on the sentence to doing great enemies.
Also make use of armors and shields Adjust damage, according
it's an em-dash immediately, followed by an a/d Dash, two
separate ad. And just I'm like, why is there
an em dash and dash adjustments, accordingly.
When their last injury is marked off, they die.
Most intelligent and Amy's will Retreat.
If more than half of their injuries have been marked off
one sentence. Why is it so hard things?
Don't find enough become a bike, the fucking death.
Why would you find that? When defending minute arm
suffered Image equal to an enemy's pain stack crate,
interesting. Complication of the players are
Overcomers a result of damage received enemies have a speed
stat and a paste at this determines their place in a
combat order and their movement speed with in combat
respectively, special abilities trigger.
When a player's defense role matches, their attackers pain
stat. Love that.
This is referred to as doubles on the rules and all his enemies
to perform preternatural feet or Force minute arms to overcome or
avoid horrible consequences. So, I love that since you're
rolling against a stat, if you roll the exact same as a pain
stat, they get a special ability on you like so good.
So clean. And we've talked about to D6,
the odds are if you if they're well, I guess they're not
rolling a D6 but that doesn't matter.
So then there's a bunch of different baddies here.
There's a whole list in here. So let's just hit one or two.
I'm going to go with this. So, So I'm just shocked that,
that's what you picked. I'm going to pick.
I'm gonna go with Raiders, okay? Just because it's different than
the. It's got a large size injury,
which is 66 for now. Why is my brain breaking on?
What what is, what is it in parentheses for injuries?
6 is the pain stat, right? And for is what Damage reduction
a debate. If any has an injury stat, it's
injury, right? Interests of like 33 parentheses
to and they must suffer six points of damage.
Told to receive three injuries. Go use the multiple injuries.
Yeah. Okay.
So for damage is needed to trigger an injury.
Wait a minute. Okay, well now you just broke my
brain again. It has say gets has six injuries
takes for damage to get one cause an injury.
Got it, got it! Got it!
Got it!
Got it.
So listen, we're together. We're smart.
Maybe. Sometimes.
Hey, so, it's basically, they need to take 24 points of damage
before they would go down because you multiply it, right?
Because it takes for injury for for damage to get an injury.
So if you take away 4 damage, boom, look at an injury.
Make sense. Yeah.
Okay, cool, Dr. 3, so this is a Raiders, so it's size large.
It's what we just talked about six and four.
It's got three damage reduction, five pains who take 500 points
of damage if they speed of 11 speed, K9, pay something on this
fucker moves. Yeah.
But so with with the bad guys, a speed and pace so we talked
about is this determines our place in the combat order and
their movement speed respectively.
So, yeah, speed is 11 with Pace 9, which means they can move
nine squares. But when determining initiative
you use a speed, 411 that is slightly confusing.
I would almost like one speed to instead be changed to just like
initiative or something like that.
You can just determine their order.
But but yeah, I mean, I was thinking, maybe reflexive, how
is it different from speed? I guess.
But that's very true. That's very true.
But they do. Yeah.
I mean it just depends it like one, Once you've read it and it
settles in, it's fine. But just on first read its speed
and Pace can be a little bit confusing together.
So they have a Min, which is a 186 roll.
Every bad guy has one of these so it's a 1 D6 role to determine
their General Miss, right. I rolled a 3.
So these dudes are repugnant and then below that is a list of
things here. So they are revered, Horseman
and Warriors from the steppe lands never seen.
Out of the saddle. They use their steeds to their
full advantage. Often forming charges and
attacking with mounted archers and on doubles as an action
writers can drive their horse into their opponents, knocking
them to the ground and opening them up for attack.
That is a whole bad guy and it's only the bad guy.
I like it. So since Raiders is large, this
feels more. Like are these dudes large or is
this a They're on the Steed, you know.
Yeah, that's what my thought was.
Yeah, so they're sensor, always mounted, it's considered one
large. Maybe they just big dudes
honesty. You know, why not put a little
bit of both. Maybe it's a big out a little
Steed. Ooh, I like that again.
What's that one guy from Elgin ring you wanted to hit sorcerer
I do want to hit source for you know always me the always cast a
magic spell. She's of like this where like
personally man like I love It's and sorcery magic.
Because always way darker, it's way more evil like you if you
read, the comes Barbarian stories.
Like every time someone sees magic, it's like fucking gnarly
and evil and do. I fucking love it.
So, so sorry, medium, right? It's got three injuries.
It takes two points of damage to hit one injury, so we noticed
which is a little squishy, right?
No damage reduction. Pains three speeds eight Paces
eight, right? I rolled its mean and I
Sinister. So he's just staring at me
menacingly, I guess not. But yeah, Sinister.
You know, same. Let's see wielder of Unholy
magic, sand binder of unearthly forces, strange and terrible
individuals. Honing, their craft from the
confines of abandoned Towers or isolated Crips.
Avoid all cost Above All Else, Sorcerers are only interested in
saving your own skin, they will do everything in their power to
flee rather than Risk dying to some no-name assailant on
doubles. So if you roll a three, the
player rolls of three on, they're receiving roller,
whatever. I can't roll is called when they
roll, 1 D6 when you're attacking them.
It's called. But what you mean?
Yeah, that was talked about the role that the by I, the role has
a name at the care that the player character makes
defensible on player care defense role on doubles.
So for pain as they roll a 3, on their defense, rule the sorcerer
as an action. So sure can cast a random spell
in an effort to send their attackers running roll on the
opposite table. So, let's roll.
We Roll. Me to D6.
Twice Ryan those Analyze it. So that was going somewhere that
and I lost it. I got a 6 & A 9.
So six levitate blood. Yeah.
Raise all the blood.
You know? I'm, I'm I'd leave.
I would run. Yeah, that's a cool sorcerer.
I like the random because if you roll two and three, you know
you're getting disintegrate flesh.
More three and four become water.
You just fucking Washes away fucking goddamn it.
That's pretty good if you roll 1212 you liquify yourself.
It's okay. Yeah.
Or even liquefy armor, like, that's crazy.
Like if you if you if you double up at the source or add, some
layer armored as terms of water and washes off of you like I
would suck and I think like, the only reduce sorry will repeat
one more reduce bones just like become a flashback.
That's awesome. Yeah, there's a lot of little
terrible hijinks in that, so exploding.
Yeah. Explode person.
I think the only other beefy one really that has like a big, not
the only other. I'm saying one of the one of the
Beatty wants, it has another big table.
It's really fun is just the devil's, which is cool.
Bringing that up in the context of this is really, really
interesting because Sorcerers all that kind of stuff, but a
devil in this especially looking at the picture just comes off.
Really interesting when you look at the me into so they're large
or even five, pain, six, you know, cetera et cetera but them
In Petty polite peevish, pragmatic pompous, or prophetic.
So these, you know, reading the very first one, it says unclean
spirits called forth from the Charnel cities of the pit
filardi humans traffic with doubles for well power and love.
So this isn't, it doesn't feel like a 5e devil in like a
massive blow, like, like flame Phil, like Titan that's going to
come out and destroy everything. It feels more like the whole
like, like Faustus. To make a deal with the devil.
Yeah absolutely. Which I love and feel like in B
the setting a lot more than just being some like insanely
powerful, like I said like flying creature that comes out
and fucked everything up devils are not tacticians but they do
know the human heart, if they sent fiscal Peril, they will
broker nearly any bargain to survive.
I mean, I'll doubles as an action Devil's going to secure
the veil Between Worlds and banished, and individual to a
demon infested hellscape Far. Far Away role in the opposite
table. Yeah.
Okay, I got you first. Seven.
Second is 5. So you got a stormy desert?
Fuck. Yeah.
I rolled a three and a six. So I got a fleshy tunnel hole.
Oh my God. Fucking horrifying.
Yeah. Yeah.
What about a fleshy fog? God, they're really fucking
irradiated ocean. Just like Good Times.
Yeah. And Anything literally bloody
anything. A bloody maze, have fun in there
and then yeah, there's cultist. There's mutants, there was a war
dogs in the beginning, there's another great piece of art and
I'll get my glasses. These are lots of fun you know.
Therefore it's really easy to understand.
Like there's some cool options there.
I mean I think I'd be throwing a lot of magic.
Is my people just have some of those fucking weird spell
hijinks the, which fuck. Yeah.
You know, there's just a but that mean again with this system
it is so easy to make Make more stuff which and supplement one
the bestiary, you can find more check that out on civet sanctum
each page, the last page before the character sheet again is
conversions, which is cool. If Quartermasters wish to use
Adventures, written for old school systems, they may wish to
use these guidelines. So I love that.
This is here. They basically, if you want
anything in here, it's right here.
So there's a list of like, hit dice.
The size because a lot of musicians you said ice instead,
there's armor to just turn it to the reduction and the Shields,
and the sentence introduction to, but you use your best
judgment. When deciding enemy sighs
injuries, are equivalent to hit dice.
The number in parentheses equaling, save HD unarmed,
unarmored enemies have a damage reduction.
Value of zero lightly armored we talk about that pain is
equivalent to average damage. Speed is equivalent to base
movement rate divided by 10. And pace is equivalent to
encounter movement rate divided by 10.
For example, here's a comparison between Cave Bears, one, old
school, and one use for Helm. So in the old school, K Bears, a
C5 hd7 attacked two times claw for 1D. 81 times B, 426 they go
13. MV 120 which is 40 feet.
SV is D12 not going to keep going through, but then it's got
large injury, Dr. Pain speed pace and boom.
It's right there. Super easy.
It's really, really easy. It's great.
Now the fucking a lot of old-school Adventures out there
that you can fucking just be like, yeah we're going to
fucking around. Well I wonder I don't fucking
run and you know ad&d. I want to run this, you know.
Well and that's I mean I had some point I really would like
to run a D&D. I mean we're gonna run, ose
we're gonna run a lot of these like like Nyan Nyan Lords and
stuff like that. We're going to run a lot of the
Retro clones like the OS ours but like we both said I mean
with executive dysfunction a game.
Like this is so much so much easier.
Run this place is not even just easier but also like it's just
the, it also like as a quartermaster as a GM, what's
fun? For me is the Improv and the
coming up with the consequences. And like it's not sitting down
and like prepping every map for an adventure.
That's just a novel that I need to run you through.
You know what I mean? Like this allowed is a
quartermaster with a simple to system that so incredibly simple
but so clean and clever. I feel like he's clever Guess
what? I got at this one's got a word
you know it really is so and it's just it's well done.
It's formatted. Well these are this is a really
short game. It's basically more like to
ziens. Are we gonna do a score on this?
Or are we just going to do it? Like ziens?
I think we should do is for my exams.
I don't know with the appropriate to score it like we
do the big games I mean it would give.
Yeah I think we should just do like we do the same post.
I think it's Is he in game, essentially, you know, it's a
pickup and play? I think it does.
I think it does a lot of stuff really well, you know, the, I
think it's, I think this is worthy of the zine post.
What we like, you know, you know what, I think.
I think in the future win, this becomes like a full-on hardback
combined thing as like a something.
Yeah, absolutely 3.55. You know?
Yeah, I think that we at that point maybe we could read like
readdress it like talk to you again because I'm sure there's
gonna be some changes and maybe, you know, score it more like
like a book because I feel like I think we talked with, I talk
about Jehovah the same way with Primal Quest is it's just like
the rules in. It are less than eight small
pages on a like an F5 Zine. It's hard to put that up against
something that's like like a Merc Borg or something like
that. Where it's like you know 50
pages pretty dense. Its got like a lot of Lauren it
to and things like that will not allow, you know what I mean?
Helm Essentials. Yeah.
So yeah, so will will not give this that.
So just to wrap up real quick, what and man, we had good times,
right o'clock? What what's your favorite part
actually? I seriously might alter stop.
My favorite part is my dog barking.
My favorite part is the like location specific attacks.
I fucking love that shit. That shit is fucking like.
I like is such a grim to game that, you know, some funny shit
is gonna come out of that, you know, like gouging out
somebody's eyes or some shit like that.
Like I think that is, I think it's whatever my runs.
Like I want to aim for this in the game but I really like it.
Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I think same and I think
that's, I really, really think that that's kind of like the
core of of the system, really what's going to separate it from
other games that use some similar mechanics and stuff is
that the side you'll choose 36 and the First ones like that's
the amount of damage. And the second one is like cool.
That's the fucking that's where you hid.
So it means just so easy. But like we talked about before.
That's not the only time location can like comes up in
the game, which is great because your stats are all rolled on
location. The shock value rolls location
like like it all really ties back in.
And now that one things, it's not just a, it's not just a set
of of clever rules. Like it's really well-rounded.
At the rules reinforce themselves, and continue to give
you the sense of the game like over and over here, like it all
feels very, very cohesive for being so simple, and it just
done in a way that is just really smart.
It's not the number of times that you can see a 2d six system
in it. Feel totally.
Different is just great. And this is one of those times
where he's like this feels different, and it feels great.
So yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
That that is. That's how Ow everybody.
That's fucking Helm. Yeah.
That was a great. That's a great game.
I'm really excited to play this one.
And again, John I know you've been a chat with us.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
I'm super appreciate it. Definitely go to civets sanctum.
Check out all the rest of John stuff.
Like I said, he'll miss fantastic, but a lot of the
other stuff on the rich page is really, really great.
Like I said, the very first thing that I found was at our
Darkly, which is an awesome adventure for bastards.
Formica Anderson quick, shout out to Michael Anderson who just
dropped their pearlescent. New updated version of bastards,
which is fantastic. So go check that out, too.
But absolutely everybody. Hey guys, just if you're not
reading this, it is sieve. Admitted is Si vads hyphen,
sanctum, Google that I don't care.
Itch.io, we are the motherfucking weekly.
Scroll, you can find us at on Instagram at at the weekly,
scroll with underscores, I'm sorry with periods and says
faces find us on YouTube at the adventure archive.
Twitter, weekly underscore scroll and twitch here at the
backslash, the engine to Archive and anywhere that you fucking
listen to podcasts. Ryan.
Great episode, dude, good to see you.
And I hope you like how my new apartment looks.
You know? It's beautiful.
Yeah, it's cool. It's a bit violent.
Yeah. So and we will catch you all
next week. Yeah, probably not.
Is that not that we're not. Not down in episode next week.
Sure, we're not having episode this week so they could.
Yeah, I think you're out of town will be announcing what's going
on in the next two weeks will eventually catch up on the
socials. So you guys have a wonderful day
Hunter. I will talk to you soon.
The later have a good one. Hugs and kisses.