Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan and joining me once again after too long away
is Watt. How are you doing today, Watt?
Doing great. Glad to be here after a decent
absence. Yeah, it's been, it has been
just a lot. You know, what I should do is go
back and look at how long it's been.
I'm not going to, but at some point I will.
And then I'll message you and say how long it's been.
But you, you were saying before a stream, at one point you were
the most guested guest we had on the show.
And now we're going to 5 or 6 times or something like that.
Yeah, we're going to bring it back.
We're starting 2026 is the year of what we'll be on the show
more. But but yeah, so in in the in
the it's been a lot of stuff has happened in games in the world
since you've been on. But one thing that did happen
was was these beauties right here they arrive for those in
podcast land. You're missing out if you didn't
get the beautiful life and death boxes.
Plaid Empress. My gosh.
You know, as again, what? And I were talking before we
started and the foiling on the green box is stunning.
It's got the nice skull and the mushrooms coming out of it.
There's going to be a reprint of that.
I don't know how much retail, it's going to be pretty limited,
but just the extras from the Kickstarter campaign.
But I am going to be doing a reprint of that box because
folks have been pawing at it already for good reason.
But yeah, yeah. One why?
I mean, once you get them in here and there, there's, I mean,
boxes are boxes, right? These are nice though, but
let's. OK, so let's let's wind back a
little bit. So one of the last times you
were on, we did talk about this this coming out.
So what is what I just held up what exactly what are the boxes
that we're talking about for the uninitiated that might know not
know what's going on? Yeah.
So Cloud Empress Life and Death is the most recent release of
the Cloud Empress line of products.
It's a Panic Engine game, which is the name for the mothership
rule set in a setting that is not a sci-fi horror setting.
Cloud versus I think the second or one of the first Panic Engine
games. It was kick started I think in
April 2024. So after some delays that we
could talk about well-intentioned delays, it's
coming out now. And so folks are getting this
box set that comes with a hardcover version of the
previously seen format rule book and Land of Cicadas, which is a
hex crawl setting book. But then we also did 2 new
hardcover expansions that grow the hex map even further into a
desolate apocalypse called Land of the Dead and a vibrant sort
of fungal indigenous community in the north called Land of the
Living. Right?
I got to say I am an edge forward piece of shit.
So from day one, from the second I heard about it, I was like, I
cannot wait for death to come out.
This is the land I want to play in.
This is the world I want to be in.
All the skulls and mushrooms and everything.
It's absolutely stunning. But yeah, so.
So the the new expansion came out that came with the boxes.
As you said, there were some slight delays and all of that.
So tell me, I mean, one of the cool things that we've done on
this show that I really enjoyed having you on a guest for is
with some of the early stuff you did.
We talked like before it all happened.
And then we got to do like a breakdown of after it all
happened. And then we also did, I think we
did a writing seminar as well too, which we also.
But the post. Yeah, that probably was the year
for now. Yeah, it was probably February,
January, February for the The Cloud Empress Game Jam.
Yeah, I think that was actually might have been one of the very
first episodes of last year. So it might have literally been
in the beginning of the year because I was just looking at
this previously because we had David Hoskins on recently and he
was one of our, I think our first guest after I think the
special that we had. So you literally were our first
episode last year, the very first episode after the 2024
year interview. So it was one year ago as of
like the beginning of January. So less time actually than I
thought a year, a year goes by, but I was saying something and
then I and then I started looking at the podcast thing.
But oh, one of the one, honestly one of my favorite episodes that
I've done here on the show was talking with you and getting the
post Kickstarter stuff because you are so diligent and just
kind of stuff oriented with everything that you did.
I feel like you did such an amazing job of like talking
through the breakdowns and the good things and the bad things
and, and keeping it all together and still putting out such
incredible project. So after this most recent one,
how, how did it go? How, how did things, how did
things go with life and death? I think people are happy.
I mean, ultimately that's what's most important.
I did a survey. I tried to do surveys after the
campaign and something like, and it's like 8090% of people that
responded to the survey, even higher, 9598% kind of stuff.
And I'll, I'll be sharing some of that in the Kickstarter
updates and future campaigns. But people seem to be really
happy with the product. They seem like the delays felt
reasonable. And ultimately, I think one of
the components of crowdfunding that I pride myself on is really
high marks for the communication along the way and making sure
that people who are backing these projects and making these
a reality feel like they are taken care of and their money
and their time is rewarded for their support.
Yeah, I mean, so I've backed too many, I'll say the number, I
really do. I'm pushing 800 Kickstarters and
well over 800 total crowd funds. And I will say that's probably
the biggest thing is I don't care if a project is 4 years
late. If through the entire process,
if you say, hey, I'm going to update you every two months,
every three months, every four months.
And you actually do, I'm like, cool, I'll get it when I get it.
That's fine. Like it's the people that
basically go, OK, I'm going to update you every month and three
minutes and go, I'm not doing this anymore.
You'll get it when you get it. And then you don't hear anything
and then they get mad when you ask for an update or there's
like radio silence and then every comment on the Kickstarter
pages, is this dead yet? Is this dead now?
Because when I where's my
update? You said, you said you were
going to do this update in three weeks ago and it's not here.
And that's just human nature is like human beings can handle a
lot if they know what to expect. And it's the not knowing that I
think drives most people crazy. So if I think a lot more people
are are like me, they're happy to wait.
If you tell me why I'm waiting or what's going on versus
hearing just getting Absolute Radio silence and you're and you
are great about that. I would get emails constantly.
Like there was never a time where I was like, damn, what's
going on? Because I always kind of knew,
like I, I, I heard in the last one, what's going on.
So I think you're, you're really good about that.
I mean, I think honestly, like your, your Kickstarters are some
of the best I've backed in that regard, where I feel like the
products are incredible. Your communications are
incredible. The Kickstarters are run really,
really well. And then when you get it, you're
just happy to have it because the number of projects I get
where I'll get it and literally just be like, and like just
Chuck it in a drawer or something.
Because at this point, I don't care because the person like,
you know, I'm just, I don't care about the project you Mark, that
took too long or the person was like rude about something or
this or that or just turn me off in some way.
I have probably have two, three boxes full of projects that I
just got and don't care anymore because of the way it was run
afterwards. And that's just never been a
thing that, you know, I think anyone can really say about
yours. Yeah.
And, and I think I really try to think about that crowdfunding
experiences potentially really positive experience as a
creator. It's really important to think
what is the perception of crowdfunding at this point and
how can I alleviate some of those challenges?
I mean, I back a lot of projects on Kickstarter and backer Kit as
well. And so I've been in those
projects where people disappear or people creators aren't
seeming to hold themselves accountable to a communication
schedule that they've sort of set themselves to.
But we create as humans pretty, we attach those emotions from
the campaign to the products that we receive, like you're
talking about. And so even if, if you, if
you're a fan of a certain author or something and they treat you
like a, they're a jerk, when you see them in person, it's like
all of the media changes, right? Oh, I love this, but I had this
really horrible experience with this person.
And now I think about it a little differently.
And so thinking about all of those touch points, especially
too, as we're finishing up fulfillment, if somebody loses
their package or something slightly damaged, it's so
important to me to make those orders right?
Because this is going to be the forever impression of me if I,
if I do this incorrectly and it's maybe only a couple dollars
or, you know, $20 on my end to make something right.
Whereas this is going to create such a big impression for this
person. If they're not, they wait all
this time and their, their package is messed up.
And I, I sort of act cheap about it.
To answer your question earlier though, in more detail, the I
think the three big sort of delays were one around the, the
writing process. I, I, I thought having two
writers on one of the books was going to speed stuff up, but the
collaboration actually took a lot more time And, and I think
the book came out better for it, but it's two really large books.
I think the other piece was me thinking, Oh well, I did the
rule book and Land of Cicadas. I did 2 books last time.
I'm going to be essentially doing maybe a book and 1/2 on
this, but the setting books are a lot more complicated and and
complex. The other piece was I sort of, I
don't exactly remember where it started, but I spent a lot of
time working on Land of the Dead has a time heist in it or where
you go into the past, but it's a memory of the past.
And so getting that to be understandable and clear and
playable took a lot of time. And I'm not sure I was entirely
successful, but it was my it's this big sprawling kind of thing
that you can do in one part of the game and, and that was
difficult. The other piece was I ran into a
ton of problems with Affinity. Affinity is Adobe's major
competitor in the like layout area.
So files weren't exporting at the right DPI and images were
not showing up because of overlay on on multiple.
The images were just like not appearing when I would do these
exports. And it was this known issue that
was existed for like 6 to 8 months that no one was
addressing. And so the actual pre production
process with Panda, the game manufacturer took like 2 to
three times the length that I thought it would.
And then once you start to get into the fall, we had to push
some stuff back because of holiday shipping surcharges.
So if you start to ship out games in November, prices can
increase like 20 to 30%, if not more.
And so the decision was made to wait until January to to start
to do fulfillment because it would reduce those the shipping
charges which were already had increased because of the the
length of the campaign. But then also, I think there was
another 10% tariff that we got hit by what was unanticipated
could have been a lot worse. But so I think those are the the
primary delays with the project. And ultimately, like many
Kickstarter campaigns, biting off maybe more than I could
chew. But it's done.
It's here. Yeah, it exists.
It's in people's hands. The tariffs, though, I mean, so
the boxes were made in China, right?
And how, I mean, how was the kind of, I guess the anxiety
with everything because, you know, when Trump started talking
about the taxes, the tariffs, and then they were here, then
they weren't, then they're new ones and there's not.
And then someone would say something in some countries.
So there'd be 100% tariff and then there wasn't.
Like how did you just try to deal with it?
You know, when eventually you had to start, you know, putting
it out or, or is that something that was kind of a a shadow the
entire time? Well, there were, I think the
real challenge for publishers that is maybe talked about is
the uncertainty of at all, which you're mentioning.
But the uncertainty goes down to an individual customs agent can
declare your goods, you pick a harmonization code for your
items. And then the custom agent, I
believe if they inspect it or as it's coming in can agree or
disagree or and then apply tariffs based on that
harmonization code. So one of the big things I know
happened in the mothership fulfillment was board games and
games have a much higher tariff cost than books, which you see
across a lot of shipping areas and those things.
So one of the big concerns I had was whether we're in this sort
of ambiguous zone and that they are a box set and there is some
non book materials inside. It's like a pad of paper and a
map and some pamphlets and things.
So that was a big concern is, is even if I understand what's
going on with the tariff, which one would be applied to the
items was was uncertain at some points.
It was, I think like 145% tariffs from China.
I think one of the realizations I came to during the process was
this, this total acceptance that my company might not survive.
And I was posting that in Kickstarter updates is just,
hey, this might be the end of us.
And this detachment from the outcome that sort of had to
happen in that I could do my best, I could try my best and
something might happen that totally destroys the fulfilment
of this game, which is normally, I mean, you hear these horror
stories and I was holding my breath until people started
getting the games because sometimes you're, they open it
up and everyone's full of mold. Oh no.
So no, no horror stories. And, and we weren't the, the
tariffs were what we anticipated and shipping prices were what we
anticipated. But a lot of it is sort of
holding your breath and ultimately 1 making a decision
at a certain point. There was some tariff talks.
I mean, it seemed to be happening every three months or
so with China. And so eventually just be
shipped it and you just it's on the ocean for a month or two and
you're just like, well, what's I don't know what's going to
happen when it hits. I did hear about some options to
put materials into warehouses that weren't that that were pre
custom warehouses or something that you could maybe do.
So that was my sort of back pocket.
Like, if we're really in trouble, I heard about some
people on the news like keeping stuff in warehouses and then
importing it at a later date. So I just sort of thought, you
know, day at a time kind of thing.
And just, but it was a lot of stress and, and unnecessarily so
unnecessarily as in like in the end, it wasn't as bad as it
could have been. American businesses should not
be subjected to this type of uncertainty and chaos.
It doesn't particularly benefit anyone.
And, and now we're seeing that it was unconstitutional and that
people might be getting these refunds.
And it's such an odd situation. And that some people with their
bath mats or whatever product games may be coming in would get
these 145% charges that they did have to pay.
And maybe they went out of business, right?
And that was the outcome because they were importing their goods
at this one week before the negotiations had fully
solidified as my understanding. And so the cruelty and the, the
uncertainty and the, the chance of it all is just really you, I,
I, you can't plan for that, right.
And so one of the things that is, is also challenging is rest
rings, which we'll talk more about is also going to be
printed in China. And it's sort of like just
trusting that things will go the way they go.
And also like we mentioned with the crowdfunding process, really
communicating things early and saying, hey, if you know, if
tariffs happen, this is how we're going to deal with them.
And here's how much I think I'll be able to eat from the product,
but I may have to pass on or I will have to pass on this much
to consumers because it's shipping rated cost, those kinds
of things. Just communicating early and
often about them. We had a lot of sympathy though,
I think the the word had been gone out and people were pretty
outraged in our hobby spaces around it.
And so there was a lot of sympathy and and volunteering to
to pay or or not have me completely own that cost.
Yeah. And in the end, like how, I
mean, I'm not asking how much like you made or how much
whatever, but like, was it like as bad as you thought?
Was it about what it was or is everything like you're good?
Like it ended up being like, OK or I think for a variety of
factors. My coffers are really empty
right now. So we're going into Rust strings
and hoping the project does well.
I, I've been sort of thinking a lot about what it means to be in
this industry. I think last year I probably
made 20,000 from like as a personal salary for maybe an
hour to three hours of work every day.
So that the numbers on that, I don't think, I don't know how
those numbers sound, but it's not a very lucrative career
choice. And I have a full time job on
top of this that that helps. But my, my wife's going back to
work. And so that'll create some.
I was sort of the, the primary breadwinner of the family for my
my wife and my child. And so our financial situation
is going to be changing in the future.
And I think that will create some freedom for me to maybe
publish less frequently and less and rely on that less a little
bit, which which feels exciting. But I really empathize with
people that try to make this their livelihood.
It's it's it's very, very difficult to do.
Yeah. And you know, and it and I
understand that, you know, we there's one thing about this,
like the podcast we've done forever is we're monetized
forever, unmonetized forever because I didn't.
Ever want to bring money into it for that kind of reason?
Like, at what point do you then start to rely on it?
And if it, you know, falls off from underneath you, where are
you kind of thing? But also you can't really like I
can understand people want to not grind themselves to death in
an economy that is not designed for any of us to sustain, you
know, a living, you know, a lot of us are millennials and elder
millennials that were promised a lifestyle that we're we're never
really going to have. So, you know, being able to try
to remove yourself from the system and do the things you
want to do and being should be able to support yourself with.
But again, in the economy that we're currently in, in the in
the state of our current, you know, lazy's capitalism, it's
really difficult, but you can't begrudge people from wanting to
do it and trying to do it. You know, it's just got to
hopefully go in with some, some some wings on in the pool and,
and hopefully, you know, there's some soft place to land if it
doesn't work out. But you know, I guess you got at
least try, you know, and that's that's what's important.
And so much of it is the long game too, in terms of I think
most companies shoot for having an Evergreen title or something
that that continues to have interest for years and, and you
can do retail sales then and there.
A book that I really think about a lot is, is called Small
Giants, if I'm getting the title correctly, but it's talking
about really successful privately owned businesses in
the United States during this particular period and maybe the
2000s. But it talked about what made
these businesses successful. And they went back and looked at
the businesses and 30% of them had gone out of business since
they had written this book or something like that.
And one of the additions they added was cash streams.
So liquid cash coming into your business as a major factor in
terms of what storms you could weather and, and diversifying
that cash flow. And so one of the things I did
recently was I started a Patreon.
I was really Patreon averse because I really am challenged
by the world we live in and that there's so many asks for a
dollar or two everywhere we go. Every time you buy something at
A at a store or restaurant, there's a, there's a tip option.
Tips obviously at restaurants are different.
I'm not saying don't tip your server, but any kind of fast
cash place or anything, there's just this tip option everywhere.
Everyone has a Patreon. Everyone's has a, a small
crowdfunding campaign for, for this or that.
So it's an overwhelming environment for most people, and
I've always wanted to really limit the amount of financial
asks I have on fans of my work to a couple times a year for a
number of reasons. But I think I'm hoping to really
push into longer and longer and longer development cycles where
people can fund and support the work as it's happening.
I think there are benefits around that.
So the ideas maybe have a game on Patreon that I'm putting out
for a year or two years or three years that people can see play,
test and and start to enjoy. And then a crowdfunding campaign
that sort of solidifies that in a print product.
And that's, that's ideal if you, if you can, because not only do
you have the time to do that then and to be able to have at
the end, but the amount of feedback you can get through the
entire time, like not having to try to hit your friends up all
the time to, Hey, can we get a group together and play tests
and such that like, you know, people that are already fans of
your work that like want to put in that work for you is, is got
to be, you know, extremely helpful along the process like
you could be. So you can basically be done
when you get to the Kickstarter, which anyone that ever runs a
crowdfund like the number one advice that everyone always says
is just have it done before you start as much done as you can.
So this dress is off, you know, later in the process because
that's how you burn out super quick.
But you know, that sounds great. You know, would you ideally in
that world, would that be the bolt?
Would that be all of your output or would you have small stuff
kind of going through as well? I think the idea is big project,
little project kind of thing. So since we last talked, I also
did Stories from the Slip which was a small Zine bundle.
Written in. The world of Cloud Empress along
with a Almanac which is the collections for my newsletter
expansion. So I do a free newsletter
expansion for Cloud Empress and forthcoming games every month.
And so I bundle that together in a print scene as a stretch call
add on. We have volume 1 and Volume to,
which was very goofy that volume 2 came out before volume one
with the way that shipping happened and with.
Tariffs, I should say. Too.
That campaign. Was created to pad my expenses
for tariffs and and for shipping costs and surcharges and and was
very necessary. Would not have been able to I
think ultimately. I think I ate about 8 to 10,000
dollars. In shipping charges that I
didn't want to put back on backers.
Some of that was because I. Added this invisible.
Discount to shipping when the campaign started.
But it's hard. It's a.
Hard value proposition to. Sell a game with 30.
Dollars 35 forty $50.00 of shipping on it I I that just I
think that does not meet the expectations of the customer and
so. People were willing to pay more.
Maybe for shipping and I had people reach out about that, but
ultimately. I think.
Kickstarter and crowdfunding should be also a good value
proposition. There's the altruism and the
support for the work and those things.
But I've seen campaigns where if you can get everything for
retail 20 to $30 less, you're going to lose your your base
pretty quickly. And I'm pretty solid solidly in
the world where I think crowdfunding is my path forward.
So it's. Not all gloom and doom with.
Crowdfunding. But I think price is a key
component to value in the crowdfunding proposition.
And part of that too is just maybe letting stuffs.
I mean, Cloudypress has been sold out everywhere for four to
five months or so. And so I've had lots of people
reaching out. I just can't get these books
anywhere. Where are they?
And so the other thing is like just maybe being more
comfortable with stuff being sold out until I can do reprints
to the crowdfunding is unfortunate as that is where I
think the accessibility. But also.
Moving into rustlings, which we'll talk more about probably
in, you know, the near future, the plan is for all of the all
of the digital files to be free from the start or or after a
certain amount of time. And ideally I want to move to an
environment where all my digital releases are free.
I think that's, I don't know, exciting, cool and also
acknowledges the reality we live in with how easy it is to.
Send free. Copyrighted stuff around on the
Internet. Yeah, I mean, so a couple of.
Things I had to erase my board and start writing notes.
The shipping thing, I mean, I agree with you to a point.
I think that maybe when a year ago when your Kickstarter
happened was still after shipping prices have been crazy
and in the past year they've gotten so up and down and crazy
into that. It's I think people do have
maybe just me because I buy so much shit, but I think people
have a better understanding of that.
Shipping is just fucking expensive now.
I mean, the number of things that I buy where the shipping
cost more than the thing that I bought is crazy, But it's
becoming just a a reality, I think for a lot of people.
Like if you're not buying especially, you know, for
whatever reason in our hobby, we have a lot of people in Europe,
especially, you know, in England and stuff.
If I want to buy something from them, you know, I bought
something recently that cost $35 and it was $36 shipping.
So it cost a dollar more than it was something like that, right?
I think the challenge though is, is if you can get it retail
then, right? So if I, if you can buy Cloud of
Bris from Tuesday Night Games or Exalted Funeral or something,
their shipping is going to be like 10 to $15 probably, yeah.
But I mean, so yes, but you also have fans and supporters, right?
So Cairn, you know, is and this kind of goes to a later point
you have Karen is free. Karen has always been free,
Karen always be free. And even when the Karen
Kickstarter started, they said as soon as Kickstarter is over,
we're going to put it at print on demand pay, you know, at cost
from Lulu. So you can always just wait for
that. And the Kickstarter still made
$250,000. So I think, you know, a lot of
it is people that are willing to support you and pay that extra
now as opposed to waiting for retail because they're fans of
you and your work and and they want the support, you know,
which I think I mean, I would, I do.
I think Cloud Empress has a lot of fans.
I think Cloud Empress is probably the biggest like non
mothership panic engine thing out there and mothership is
always, you know, it's going to be big forever.
So cloud Empress is is is up there as well.
So and kind of transitioning in that last one you had with the
free digital releases. I make this argument all the
time. I think everyone should always
have a free PDF for everything because it's the way that you
grow a community and growing the community, especially if you can
go long term with a game that you have, is the way that you
become profitable, right? If you look at the top five, six
games in the, you know, small market RPG space, you're talking
mother shit, Merck Borg, Cairn, Mouse Ritter, like all these big
games. What all of them have in common
is the base game is completely free, like anyone can get into
it. So, you know, again, with Cairn
as a great example, it is free, it will always be free.
And yet it is still successful every time it goes to
Kickstarter. Or you know, I mean, Yohai was
even able to, to start a publishing company, you know,
and everything that with, with the Karen store and everything
all based off of free PDF. Like if you can, it's in my
opinion is way better to if you give the PDF for free to five
people and one of those people buys your game.
I think at the end you build more like buys a physical
product. You, you still those other
people are still going to spread that to other people.
And that you get this cascade effect of people coming back to
your game versus saying, instead, I'm going to charge
those five people 20 bucks, right?
And then maybe two of them are going to buy that and maybe one
of them will talk about it. You know, so it's, it's this
thing where it's definitely a balancing act.
But if you get into it to build community versus get into it to
make money right now, I think is a very is a choice that a lot of
people have to make. And I personally think that most
more people should lean towards having, you know, free core
products and then being able to build back to it.
And isn't isn't the core rules for a cloud of risk free and
also like the bean barge as well?
Yeah, and Landis cicadas was made free I think in November,
December. I think the plan is to to get
about a year of of recuperating costs on the digital for cloud
Ampers in particular, and then make those free as well.
The expansion IA lot of companies do the rule books for
free. I think I haven't seen a ton
that do a lot of the expansion content free, which again, maybe
is is not healthy for the ecosystem.
I don't know, but I'm really trying to drive people to like
you're talking about crowdfunding being that if you
support my work, here's the, here's the one or two
opportunities that you can do that versus making a lot of
smaller transactions. Yeah.
You know. You're, you're a, a good
businessman, a good business person and you, everything
you've put out has been fantastic.
So, you know, I think we've talked on the show, even after
you've been on about basically saying, if you want to know how
to run a Kickstarter and make good stuff, just follow anything
that wah does and they'll they'll lead you in the right
direction. So I think whatever you decide
to do, you know, you're going to make the best possible choices
that you can at the time. And, and so far it's worked out.
I mean, I love everything you've put out.
And I almost, here's the crazy thing is I almost wanted to
leave one of these sealed just so I could show it off because
not only is the product great, I mean even whoever you got to
package it is fantastic too. Not a single one of these
corners has bent in. There's not a scratch on
anything. The number of things that I've
gotten where it's like, here's a box set and we just threw it in
a box with one piece of brown paper and it comes beat to hell
and you e-mail someone about it and they're like, Oh well,
that's the thing. Everything start to finish with
all the stuff you do is so well thought out and well put
together and you get that satisfaction when it actually
shows up. So again, I mean, keep doing
what you're doing and like I said, whatever you decide, we'll
talk about it and you know, in the future and, and see how it
goes. But you know, I, I will support
any Kickstarter that you put out and speaking, Speaking of
Kickstarters, you're putting out Rust wings.
We, we've hinted at it a couple times.
So what, what is that? What is this?
So Rust wings is my next Ghibli inspired adventure tabletop
role-playing game. And it's we talked about mouse
trigger. It is compatible with mouse
trigger. It's a new take on the rule set,
and it's not. It doesn't start mice right, but
it uses the same systems as mouse Tritter.
And if you're familiar with mouse Ritter, you'll be able to
pick this up and play it quite easily.
But you play as teenage treasure hunters exploring a vast ocean.
The earth is flooded in the near future and there are these
islands that were stolen by the worker robots in the society and
they're starting to float back to human civilization.
And so as this teenage crew, you will fly out to one of those
particular islands in this campaign called Tower Island and
investigate your missing friends, but also look for
treasure. Cool stuff.
And I don't know, like Dick around have fun kind of thing on
the island. So buzzword.
Buzzword that you said that we have to talk about Ghibli
inspired that that so, but we have talked about this before
and I feel like of all the Ghibli inspired stuff I've seen,
this one makes more sense because a lot of people, I mean,
I'm a big I'm a big Ghibli fan, but what a lot of people I think
when they say Ghibli, what they mean is like whimsical and like
rolling green hills and shit, right Versus, you know, like the
I mean Princess Monoke, which is literally the story of like
nature versus industrialization or the first time I watch
spirited away and you you realize that that like gunk
monster thing in the bathhouse is actually just a polluted
river. Like there are there are deep
things in Ghibli and like some very sad shit that they put out
in like very deep and even even the more quote UN quote
whimsical things. There's always an extremely deep
undercurrent to everything that Ghibli puts out, which is what
makes it Ghibli. It's what makes it not Disney.
So it's not just like teens sticking around an island or
something, right? Like what?
What makes you call this Ghibli inspired and not have it be this
whimsy core bullshit? For me, Ghibli is a is a
combination of things. But one of the.
Elements that's most often lost in the Ghibli inspired marketing
frame that we see a lot in tabletop role-playing games in
particular, and I think there's a lot of reasons for it being so
popular. Is the.
Darkness. I wrote a recent Patreon post
about how I feel like darkness is underappreciated or under.
When we talk about Ghibli, we don't necessarily mention the
darkness in the films. And if you look across and when
we talk about Ghibli, we're usually talking about Miyazaki.
Although there are Takahata and others that that have done
films, but we're usually talking about Miyazaki's work.
But there's even Castle in the Sky, which is probably the
direct one of the jumping off points in terms of building the
world for this. It's sort of this the the the
main characters that grow up in this sort of like, you know, the
main boy grows up in this sort of like mind out area that
they've destroyed through industry.
And there's Miyazaki was inspired by I think he was in
Wales and saw this union activity.
And so Miyazaki socialism was like driving some of his
inspirations for castle in the sky.
And then we have them going up to Lapida, the, the flying city
and, and it's like a, a weapon, a super weapon that that sets
off an atomic bomb. So I think the, the piece around
that is 1. There's there's a a look at
humanity in its full spectrum, not just like comfort and
coziness, but also the darkness. The.
Destruction, the cruelty that is present in humans, in nature at
large. I also think that one thing I've
been really intentional about is trying to say something and also
go beyond my inspirations when I put these pieces together.
And so with Rust Wings, we. Have this sort of broader?
Sense of adventure and fun and play that is really important.
I wanted to do a lighter. I had, I have this really dark
project that I've been working on in this lighter project, Rust
Wings that I was like which one am I going to do?
And I feel with how dark the world.
Feels in. America, I felt, I felt like I
made the right choice to just sort of emphasize play and
exploration. But in the world of Rust Wings,
you all play as teenagers because when you get to be 18,
you were drafted into the military, this authoritarian
Royal Navy. And so anyone of adult age
either is a. Fascist Navy.
Person or they escape and run away to be sky pirates and so
your parents you don't have parents because they're either
serving in the military or they've run away to become sky
pirates and so the main characters are watched over by
their grandparents and they have a lot of free time in this sort
of industrial oil rig that they all live in and and also then
dealing a lot with this broader robot revolution that happened
where robot kind 50 years ago laid down their tools and
decided not to work and so trying.
To deal with some of those. Broader social and ecological
questions in the the sense of or in the the setting of a
role-playing game is something that's really important and
actually say something with the work that's put out, not just
sort of a a best of Miyazaki images kind of thing and that's
and. This is what we talked about
and. This is why I'm excited for it.
And and I've talked about this project to other people before,
like since we've talked about it, but since the preview page
has been up for that exact reason, you know, because there
had there was some, wasn't there some new like Obajima bullshit
that was recently and it's literate.
And then you hear the creators talking about like, oh, like
make sure everyone's like cartoony monsters so we can
murder. And I feel bad about it.
And it's like, what the does that have to do with Ghibli?
Like you just have some like roughly kind of anime looking
art and then you're just putting these buzzwords on it versus
exactly what you're talking about.
Like it's this dystopian world. Like literally you're, you're
like having these flood adventures in the background of
like your parents are in this like fascist Navy in this like
quasi post apocalypse world where there's like pirates and
all the stuff going on. And like, even as teenagers,
there's this like looming thing ahead of you, Like I could be 18
in a couple of years and what is the decision I'm going to make?
Am I going to go with the Navy or am I going to run away and do
this whole thing? So that that to me is what this
is one of the few games I've read that has used that that
that buzzword where it feels like it actually fits because of
the thought that you're putting into it.
And you can see how that correlates to a lot of the stuff
you've done in Cloud Empress too, though, like a lot of the
even the at first adventure you ran for us on the show where we
went down into this like broken down, kind of like archaeology.
And there was like things that were plugged in, but like life
coming from it too, that you've put a lot of thought into the
society and the issues that society can has in all of the
games you put out. So I'm really excited to see a
non collatopers thing, but that obviously still has the same
kind of like passion for. That kind of like aspects of
the. Games that you put out so I and
Mastrator is one of my favorite games of all time.
I think in a certain light, Mastrator might be the best
teacher PD ever written. I've said that more than once
and I'm going to stay by but why mastrator?
Why'd you pick Mastrator specifically for Rust wings?
So my my sort of concept as a publisher Worlds by Watt is to
make games in. Other people's rule.
Sets. So I've been looking at
different rule sets and I wanted.
To make a game that was a little bit more.
Accessible than cloud and bris one of the things.
Too, that I had heard a lot was. That and this isn't this is sort
of an all ages game, whatever that means.
I only played it with adults at this point, but I think you
could play it with younger. Folks too.
Is IA lot of people on the discord were saying, oh, mouse,
I put mouth shooters the first game that my kids played with I
brought, you know, my kids or younger folks or I use master to
sort of onboard people into tabletop role-playing games.
And I think the tactile pieces, the chips are really valuable.
The three attributes or stats or whatever is is so simple the
mice. Help but.
In this it's teenagers, so the simplicity.
Of the system was really. Attractive to me as well as
tapping into a new community. I wanted to do a roll under
system and so something different than Cloud Empress
mechanically and one of the things.
Was. The the tactility of the the
chips, I wanted to explore a little bit further.
And so one major component of Rust Wings is both the physical
product and as you play the game is these cards.
So it'll have a full deck of cards.
Many of these would be items, but I've, I've also done
something really neat with character creation where you
deal out three cards to each player and those are your
attributes. And so you assign those two
different slots. They can vary, you know, I think
it's like 8 to 14 or I forget what then the number spread is
exactly. But then when you take a wound,
you flip that card and there's a wounded side.
And so for some particularly low stats, the number increases
quite considerably. Whereas if you had a particular
high attribute, it might go down as you might expect.
But it's just sort of 1 balancing.
But also this narrative thing that we see in in films and
Castle in the sky work. Hey, maybe you get knocked down
and then you're really determined or you're really mad
and you throw like a big punch kind of thing.
So I'm trying to model that, but then also giving people like
keepsake cards and items and, and handing out cards is just
such a really easy way to create characters.
And I've played the set a number of conventions for the play
testing with new players. And it's, you can create
characters in about 5 minutes. It's, it's really phenomenal.
And then we have these fun portrait cards.
So you can get this you can. Draft the artwork.
For your character too. So all of this sort of goes to
accessibility in terms of how easy is it to get and play with
other people. How is it is easy as it to run
to create characters and that doesn't preclude more experience
role-playing game players from playing it, but something
different than Cloud Empress that that really leans and I
think mastrator strengths. The other big thing with the?
I wanted some space where I could.
Add up more rules on so one of. The the.
Big pieces and and one of the design sparks for the.
Game was thinking. About challenge that revolved
outside of violence. Climb process has a pretty
strong like anti violence stance on weapons and guns and stuff
and that's mechanically built in but with rust wings.
The thing I wanted to explore was exploration.
Thing I want to explore was exploration.
OK, but climbing, hiding, jumping, moving through a ruined
space. A lot of this comes from when I
was a kid, a teenager. We would go find, like under a
bridge, or we'd climb construction cement pieces.
And and things. And jump around on it and, and
have fun on it and kind of see what was going on in the, the
shadows of, of the, the town I lived in.
So for me to climbing is a really challenging thing to do
in role-playing games. And so I added some additional
rules on that. Worked pretty well in the system
without bogging it down too much to make that physical
exploration of space equally as interesting as combat, if not
more so. Yeah.
You know, we talked about, we talked.
About combat a lot with with Mothership and stuff because you
did, you did put in a thing about, you know, when you use
violence and things like that mechanically making a little bit
different. But in the in the end, you know,
Mothership is still kind of a game that's built a little bit
around like combat is the answer because we can get a whole thing
about like why there's not sneak and stuff.
But you know, Mastrator is really interesting built on into
the odd. Like you said, there's no attack
roll that's rolled under. There's so much more you can do
with a little bit less because it's more of like a framework
kind of than like a an extremely built out system.
So I can imagine, I mean, you can see the million things that
people have built for and added on to it because it really lets
you kind of be a little bit, what's the word I'm looking for
like modular kind of with this system.
And, and one thing you said really 6 like people on board.
If I, I have and do, and when I do intro people in RPGs, it's
mouse Ritter. No question.
There's like two or three games in my head that I, I reach for
depending on kind of like who they are in the ages and stuff.
But in those top three games, like #1 almost always is going
to be mouse shutter. And not just because it's cool
and the art is great, but like you said, the little, the pieces
you get that go in your backpack, but also like the ease
of the system is, is great. So branching into a new system
that can be an all ages game, you know, is, I mean, it's a
great choice. It's a great system to run with.
So, you know, I mean, you're gonna have to come back on the
show and run it for us, you know, at some point around.
Yeah, Yeah. When when's this coming out?
Like when when is your hope for the Kickstarter to drop or do
you have a set time already? March 3rd.
So we got about two weeks. We got about two weeks.
That's it. So we're gonna have to figure it
out. OK.
And it's gonna run for a month, That's correct.
Yeah. Until the 1st Thursday in April,
whatever that is. April 2nd, maybe sometime in
March. As soon as this is over, message
me and say, hey, let's set this up because I gotta get Hunter on
board. His schedule hasn't dropped from
March yet, but we gotta get this played.
Yeah, because this sounds, I mean, this sounds great.
And like I said, I want to play a Ghibbly inspired game that
feels ghibbly inspired and I love me some Outfitters.
So we got to get it on. When people pledge for the
project, the what, what all can they get?
We talked about the cards and stuff like that.
But what what all is going to come with this is, I know you
said some parts are going to be in China again and we're going
to need to worry about that stuff, but what's the
expectation of of what we're getting?
So it's a starter box set in the fashion that I do at where it'll
be a bunch of stuff in there. The the lower level pledge is a
box bundle, the game itself. At.
Comes with a rule book, which you know makes sense, but there
will be a guide book that goes over in detail 20 to 30
different locations within this Tower Island setting place.
They'll have the, I think it's 103 or 108 cards that it's a
combination of character creation components, the
portraits, you get to pick your own plane, so you'll get a cool
plane, you get a mask, a robotic mascot animal, but then a bunch
of items and also rumors that you can investigate while you're
on the island. The other big piece is this map
book. So it's a spiral bound map book
with a 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of punch board tokens.
And so there's two primary ways to play, I guess 3.
The first is you can use the map book that's included if you're
in person, and you can put your little pieces down and climb and
move across this isometric map with climbing and jumping and
and traversing space that the two big challenges that I ran
into as I've I've been play testing this for quite a bit of
time is 1 and and just playing role-playing games in general.
But is 1 having players all understand the space that
they're discussing? If you're saying, Hey, I need to
climb up here or people want to know how high is it and how
close is it to this other thing if I want to jump across?
And so there are these isometric maps that are in this map book.
So each location will have its own map that then you can put
these punch board tokens that match the portraits that you've
chosen for your characters on and move across and and
different NPC or or threat tokens as well.
The other way to play though that that was how I did a lot of
play testing is the system is based around using children's
blocks as terrain. And so you can dump a pile of
blocks out and and either build it in a pre configured map as
you'll see in in Tower Island, or there will be rules for
procedural generation maps and and making your own maps out of
these children's blocks. But it's been a really
eye-catching table presence to have, like this tower built out
of children's blocks that you can put together pretty quickly.
You then put these points of interest markers.
So we put these little question marks all over it.
And so those are things that weren't more investigation,
whether the players choose to or not.
If you choose to investigate, though, it's going to advance
the time track, which will create further consequences.
And so the nice thing about that, as I've been finding
players don't like flip over every token.
It's, you know, they look broadly at the map, they talk
about what's there, they ask the guide what's there.
And then they might go over to this particular spot to
investigate a little more deeply, time increases and then
they might go to a new location and then we'll have some.
I I think it's going to be Owl Rodeo, Albear Rodeo support for
online approach to playing, which I know is really important
and, and how I play a lot of games as well.
I mean, it's like the. Only way I get to play games
because. I don't live near anybody that
plays games. So, you know, the BTT support is
is always nice to have. But yeah, I mean, looks great.
You know, just like as I said before, all the stuff that you
do. So I'm really excited for it.
Except how many cards do you say it was?
It's it's like a full sheet. So it's going to be I think 108.
Damn, that's a lot of cards. Yeah.
So it's like a full deck poker sized cards, which is I feel
nice and are fun to to play attribute cards.
I'm trying to think if there's a bunch of gear.
I mean, a lot of it's going to be like the loot and treasures
that you find. Some of those are, I think the
other thing I wanted to so you, you play as treasure hunters.
But the other sort of Ghibli piece around it is sort of.
Questioning like what it means to loot.
A place so you might find something that like is really
cool, but like it has a bird's nest on it.
Or you find something that's really cool that isn't
necessarily like a a giant novelty check or like some kind
of weird sculpture, like stuff that doesn't necessarily have
monetary value. But you bring this back to your
clubhouse. Each each rustling crew has
their own clubhouse hidden in this like over over populated
oil Derrick. And so you go back to your
clubhouse and some stuff you might just bring back because it
looks cool. But those are also potentially
that have upgrades when you revisit the island at the, the
sort of gameplay loop is that you'll be going to this island
several times and then heading back and then going back again
and, and sort of pulling more stuff out and, and trying to
solve this broader mystery about why the islands appeared and why
two of your friends have gone missing.
Nice. Again, we're going to.
Have to get you on March of the short month so I'm going to have
to talk to hunter and we got to get this figured out but one
thing that intrigues me is you said you have a darker game
brewing. No pressure at all but do you
want to give any hints at all about because, you know that's
like my whole thing yeah it was like.
So I did just announce it. So I did announce this on the
Patreon stuff. You're you can read more about
it, see some of the art and stuff.
The the other game I'm working on there.
There's another Cloud Empress expansion that'll sort of be out
next, but called. I think it's land.
Of the clouds so we're we're going to go up to the clouds
next in cloud Empress. They're looking for a new cloud
Empress to replace the old one that went missing.
So that's sort of the next sort of trilogy of books will be sort
of exploring and playing through what that all means and seeing
who the emperor is and all that kind of stuff.
So that's that's where cloud Empress is going over the next
like three to five years. The other big project though is
called sky burial. Sky burial is a combination of
Princess Mononoke meets Howl's moving castle.
The primary focus around it is what if Dragons existed in the
real world? Dragons are very overdone in
tabletop role-playing games. So the Dragons of Sky Burial are
quite unique in that they're almost like giant eagles with
horns, so they look a bit different, but they're feathers
have a magical property to them. So there will be some gameplay
interactions that I haven't tested yet, but one player plays
as a dying dragon and the other players play as people cursed to
follow that dying dragon. So you'll be shepherding this
dying dragon to the the mountain of creation where it wants to
have a sky burial and die so that the curse can be broken.
And so the setting for that though is, is more Howls Moving
Castle, sort of 1910s to 1920s vibe, mid industrial late.
Industrial kind. Of period.
So that's the other project that that is sort of slow going, but
people will be doing the artwork for that.
Who does the the artwork on Cloud Empress?
And that's kind of my slow simmer project, I think might
take a. Couple years to come out but my
idea. Is to sort of slowly put out
content on the I don't know how slow be, but you know, put out a
lot of content on the Patreon before going live with a
crowdfunding campaign or. Something like that give.
It the time it needs to bake, Yeah, I mean, that's.
A That's a great project. To be slow simmer on that sounds
awesome. And I mean, you already said
that like, I mean, it's an easy thing going up into the clouds.
You know, you get a little bit of a hint of some of that in the
in the early cloud Empress stuff, especially when you
realize why it's called Cloud Empress and everything.
So it's going to be fun to go up in there.
And you said what's interesting is you said that's going to be 3
to five years, which is how does that feel as like a designer
knowing it's going to take you a year like a couple?
Years to get it done. Then you have art, which always
takes some time. Then you have production, which
always takes some time. Then you have the Kickstarter,
which always takes some time. Then you have a film with that
always takes some time. Like how does that like, how do
you settle in going all right, this is my project for five
years. Like how do you cope with that?
How do you feel about that? Like what is that like it's?
They're getting done right, I think the big.
Challenge that I came to and I told the story in a couple
places and maybe I'm one of our episodes, but I had this like
super epic legacy board game that I was trying to create with
a board game publisher and so I'd written about.
Like 60,000. Words of this choose your own
adventure in a small town where two people go missing and you
look for them and and the town is unraveling because of this.
Like you find out one of the main characters dads was
actually an alien the whole time and he's sort of like losing his
mind to dementia, but he's an alien.
So the whole anyway, this whole big thing and I was trying to do
this in this multi episodic board game because Pandemic
legacy, it just came out and I was a big pandemic legacy fan
and I was really excited about legacy games.
And so I somehow managed to get a contract signed with a company
that's now gone defunct for running too many Kickstarters
they couldn't fulfill. But I just spent like 3 to 4
years working on the same thing over and over again.
I never got to publish any of it.
It wasn't in a place where it was ready to be published
either. So I came to tabletop
role-playing games, one having a better sense of my strength as a
both a game designer and as a writer.
I knew people responded really well to a lot of the
storytelling that I was doing in that game system, but I was
finding that reiterating rules was really difficult.
And I would make changes that would send me backwards three
steps, and then I'd make another change that sent me backwards
another three steps. And so I found a lot more
comfort in using a solid, tried and true system like Mouse
Writer, like Mothership, and just tweaking a little bit for
theme. So in in Rust Wings I've added
this consequent system where you can take damage.
Delay or you can alert the enemies to your presence or
threats to your presence. And so it's this little twist on
the system that makes climbing interesting in particular.
And so it creates more varied consequences for climbing
something. So you might drop something out
of your bag and all of a sudden all of the Navy people are
running towards you right? As opposed to just oh, you fall
down, do you want to try climbing again kind of thing.
So all. That's to say.
Coming to tabletop role-playing games, I really wanted to get
stuff done and so from. The beginning I had this sort
of. Idea of Cloud Empress being
this, you know, we start on the land and we go up to the clouds
and there there's another trilogy of books after that.
The setting books really making it this expansive world, but
doing it in small parts so that I could actually get them done
and people could play them and I could get feedback on them and
that kind of stuff. I think I like challenging
myself though and and exploring new topics.
And so this sort of next phase of worlds by Watt as a publisher
is trying a couple new IPS intermixed with the cloud
Empress stuff. And so one of these is rust
rings sky barrel at some point I have got this goofy smaller game
that I want to do at some point. So that creates this sort of.
It it's a nice mix because sometimes the the now that.
I have sort of a formula for Cloud Empress.
It can feel restrictive and refreshing at different times.
It could be nice to come back and say, hey, I already know how
to write this book. Like I already know the tone
that I'm going for it and I know how I'm going to lay out on PCs
and that kind of thing. But then also.
Like oh, I might want to. Try something, you know,
different, like it, people say. Oh, well, you know, this, I
don't feel like this rule system totally matches the vibe or I
don't know, stuff like that. And it, and I just have to be
like, well, that's what we did at the time, you know, I don't
know, like I, I so the yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I think it, it's nice knowing where I'm going.
I think one of the, the, as an artist or creative, there has
been in my life this pervasive fear that like, that was the
last good idea I ever had. Like, Oh my God, like that's it,
or what am I going to do next? And so having some of that built
out a little bit in my head means that I can start
commissioning artwork too. And so like, I've bought.
Like. 35 pieces of world building art for sky burial,
rust wings. All of the rule book arts
complete. We have like a decent amount of
the cards complete. So that's the other piece with
timeline. I found that artwork is the big,
the, the critical path if you look in project management is,
is artwork. Because if you use a smaller
team, which I do, you know, if you think, oh, A-Team can get
maybe 4 pieces of art done, 5 pieces of art done a month,
maybe they can do more, but that's really busy.
Artists, you know, I don't know so.
That's the like, OK, well that's 50 pieces a year, but if you
have a game that needs 100 pieces, right, that's two years
of art. So that's been the.
The big thing for me is. Trying to get the art started,
maybe even before I fully, you know, know what's going on or or
write to the art sometimes now too has been interesting.
So I'm sort of there's like this clown pirate faction in the new
cloud Empress books where the emperor has sort of deemed these
people this one Cloud city like, oh, they're all fools and idiots
and and like, I don't take you seriously.
And so they sort of like. Taking that out as a badge of.
Honor and they all dress as like crazy clown pirates now but like
I don't have all of that fully explored yet but I'm like
commissioning cloud or cloud sky pirate clown artwork which is
looking cool but some of that I'm going to write to now which
is also kind of fun yeah I mean once you can get I mean.
How many books have have? Now come out for for Cloud
Empress, it's it's I. Would say 3.
Setting books and then there's 2.
Like in world? Scenes and then the two almanacs
and then two pamphlets. So a lot so a lot So like you're
you've you're deep in the world. You are not only that, but also
like, I assume in kind of a groove with the production, you
know, like you have a, you know, a lot of the stuff that you do,
like the covers are all roughly like they're, they're themed and
stuff. So you kind of are in this
groove. It's must feel kind of neat to
kind of get into that state where you do a thing that can
inspire the thing to do the thing that inspires the thing.
So like, because you're, you're kind of in, in in it, you know,
and the fact that you can say, like, I had this idea, so I make
some art. The art inspires me to do more
idea and it can all kind of stay within the the same direction.
Is is really neat. And it has to feel pretty cool
to to be able to do that. You're just kind of always
driving forward with it. Yeah.
And it's it's, I know. About how long it takes to make
a book. Now, and I know like I go to a
coffee. Shop at like 4.
AM and I write, you know, like there's certain things I've done
now several times to, to get the writing done and I have that
tone I can tap and do so yeah, it's it's it's, it's exciting,
but also wanting to explore like new rule sets and new, new
universes and, and it'll be. Interesting too I I know.
Like. What?
What does my current audience? Find appealing versus like can I
one of the things can I bring new people in right who might
not be interested in Cloud Empress?
Will another you know the IP attract them more right?
Is wrestling's going to bring in a new set of people who can
discover Cloudipress? One of the other things I think
about which maybe you have an opinion on.
I'm guessing you do, but the other thing is I I get worried
about. At what point does someone look
at their shelf and? Say, you know, I have enough
Cloudipress books. You know, I haven't I've I've I
still have two that I haven't played.
I guess I'm a fear motivated person, but I think the other
piece is just creating more pillars for this company and
building. And so if I read this Sling the
Dragon book on Dungeons and Dragons and it's like the rule
book sells. Well, and then everything.
Can have. At least in D&D history, it's
like some of these things have diminishing returns as you go
through the life cycle of a product and then you do a new
addition and it gets people excited and you improve it in
those kinds of things. But I think just diversifying my
like overall portfolio is something I'm interested in both
creatively as as enriching, because then I can come back to
Cloud Empress and be like, oh, thank God.
Like I'm so excited to write in this world because I you know,
there's this the cloud Empress or self cloud.
Like there's this whole thing that she's going through that
that people want to see the she's sort of a recurring
character that pops into these games.
And so she's got things to do in places to be in that kind of
stuff that I want to continue to explore.
But I think from the business side, it makes sense to have a
couple different IPS, although I don't.
Yeah, I'm that's just my suspicion.
I know Tuesday night games is is.
Going to be launching. Like Father Fog, we don't know a
lot about that yet. Mothership assumed it.
I'm really well do really well from Dungeons and Dragons.
I guess is they've sort of landed on that being a single
world as opposed to the 90s and 2000s where they had a bunch of
like splinter worlds, right. Yeah.
Well, I mean, Dungeons and Dragons is, I mean, 5E Dungeons
and Dragons is its own thing. I mean, it's not even part of
the TTRPG industry. It is.
It is an industry unto itself. And it's, but the thing about,
yes, I have thoughts on everything you've said and
opinions of course, because I have an opinion on everything.
But the thing about D&D is like most of their supplement books
are garbage. But you know what the supplement
books do? They make people buy the core.
Book which is the number. One selling book all the time no
matter what. So like, they don't really care
if they put out a good adventure if the return that they're going
to get from people buying the core books so they can play the
adventure is more than it cost to put the adventure out.
It doesn't matter if the adventure sucks, you know what I
mean? And you can tell in the quality
of everything they put out from like 2014 to 2024.
It very quickly plateaued off after the first couple.
But you know, I mean, there's there's a reason bands have side
projects, you know what I mean? There's a reason that a perfect
circle exists. You know, Tool is still Tool,
but you know, Maynard wanted to do something a little bit
different and it didn't take anything away from Tool.
And perfect circle is still cool too.
And there's people that are perfect circle fans and aren't
Tool fans and people that are Tool fans and aren't perfect
circle fans. So there's no there's nothing
that says you can't do other stuff that you're excited about
and being able to take a break and refresh and do something
different in another system can only benefit, you know, the
system that you're, you know, the your primary, you know, kind
of thing of worlds by Watt is bringing in new people, bringing
in new life, getting new inspirations, getting new ideas.
There's not. And and like you said, you know,
early on on our conversation, you got to diversify that liquid
cash, you know, because if if any one thing falls off and and
that's the only don't have a single point of failure.
You know, if one game suddenly, you know how many people
literally were like my life is over when the OGL what happened
with 5 E because they had just that one thing.
And if that one document that is still kind of gets gets taken
away their entire life, you know is down the drain.
So who I mean it's not going to happen.
But what if at one point they're like all right, Tuesday night
game says no more panic engine stuff you're done.
What happens to the company right.
So there's no reason not to jump into a bunch of different stuff,
not just from a business perspective, Because if, if
you're if, if everything you do with teach RPGs is first, you're
a capitalist lens, You're in my opinion, like already failing.
But if you know you're a creative and capitalism has
happening, that's completely different.
Like if you were doing something because it's fun and creative
and interesting and you want to do something different, but then
also need to make money for your company, That's in my opinion,
like the correct way to get to the capitalism, you know, so
there's no reason not to jump into into mouth shredder,
especially because you're like rush ring sounds cool as shit.
So you know, you're not just, you know, putting out, you know,
the the the thousands new hack of something right, like you're
doing your take on it, because this feels distinctly you.
Anyone that has read Cladiprous and then reads or hears a pitch
for wrestlings is going to go, Oh, that absolutely sounds like
what you know, that sounds like the themes that we've seen some
other things and it's cool to explore them in a different way.
What was the first thing that you said that I probably have an
opinion on? Diminishing returns of like.
Oh, yeah. No, no.
So the Cloudypress on your shelf.
On the shelf? Yeah.
Too many books. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
I've read. You may be an outlier on this
one, though. I've read most of everything on
my shelf. Have I played most of it?
No. Have I played a lot of it?
Yes. I have played dozens and dozens
of games. I've read hundreds and hundreds
of games. The thing about especially the
setting books and stuff you're putting out is it's great to get
it to the table. Have I been able to get
everything from Platypus to the table?
No. Will I ever be able to get
everything you put out? No.
Will I be able to read all of it and have fun stories in my head
and see the directions you're going?
Yes. I don't see really any
difference between that and like, who's going to like when
Joe Abercrombie? Puts that out of the book.
I'm like. I have enough novels on my I
don't need the next book in the series.
No one's ever going to say that, you know what I mean?
Like, it's really cool. And the way that you're putting
out the books as here's what's happening here, and then there's
a movement in time in the way that you put out the setting
books. Yeah.
It's not just like, yeah, here's the one snapshot and we're just
giving you all the different views.
There is a story even within the way the setting is progressing,
where even if not everyone's able to get everything to the
table, it's still exciting to read and see advancement of the
story and the adventures you could do.
And like, even just prepping stuff is fun.
So I don't think anyone's really going to be like, I have enough
cladipress. Like, you know, it's not just
like, here's another system, that and another system, another
system. It's like, it's more setting.
And even if you skip setting book 1, setting book 2, setting
book 3, and then dead stuff comes up and you're like, all
right, well, that's the one I'm going to happen.
Yeah, that's the one for me. Yeah.
That's The thing is I don't think people are going to get
tired of it because the way that you're writing it specifically.
So I wouldn't worry. I wouldn't worry about that at
all. Well, and that's a good point.
We did that. You know, I'd encourage folks to
go back and watch the the writing seminar we did a year
ago. But one of the approaches that I
take with Cloud Empress less so with Rest Wings just because it
really is built on like ease of play but for sky burial as.
Well, as I'm conceptualizing. Is this like literary component
to the adventures and the the worlds that I put together is?
I exist in that same. Framework that you're talking.
About where I have a pile of books on my shelf and I play
most of my, I have to play a lot of my own stuff just to like get
it to be at the quality that I want it to be.
And so I I do get to hop into some other games and some other
systems, but a lot of it is just me playing my own stuff.
But I love reading it. Right.
And so I think that's. The other piece too, is just
balancing the, you know, the UX piece of, of rules and books and
manuals with the fact that like we may not ever need it for that
function at the the imagination and the enjoyment of reading is,
is also integral to a lot of people how they how they play, I
guess. Experience role-playing.
Games, I mean, that's I mean, at the end of the day, like I've, I
will always have read, you know, exponentially more systems than
I'll ever get to play. But I I'm a systems guy.
I love reading systems. Like I'll buy a book just
because the system sounds cool and be like, all right, it was
pretty cool. But like that one rule, that's
the one that got me, you know, and that's the enjoyment.
I get a lot of it. You know, I read more than I'm
able to play. I mean, even with the show and
everything, I can't even I think the last time I got to play a
game was an AP on the show, and the time before that was
probably an AP on the show. You know, we've been to a lot
more skirmish in person. It takes less people.
It's just me and one other person that can usually play the
game. Getting four people to sit down
and play teach RBG is a lot different.
But like you said, like people enjoy games in a lot of
different ways and especially people in the community that
we're in. And you know, a lot of people
that I interact with are creators and stuff like that.
People like to read other people's stuff and people like
systems and people like games and people like reading
something that's teach RBG based because they enjoy this space,
you know, and seeing, you know, if they use bullet points or, or
the way that the layout works in the system and stuff like that.
So, you know, like you said, there's a a lot of ways people
couldn't enjoy it. And the only target, the target
audience isn't always just going to be the player or the GM for
the TTRBG stuff that people are putting out for the game, stuff
that people are putting out. Well, it's interesting too to
think about this like I want to say like introvert, extrovert,
but just like. Being alone versus being with
people. Right.
I mean, we think about, I think about tabletop role-playing
games is this. I mean, obviously there's solo
games, right? And I have a solo module for
cloud and person, that kind of stuff.
But the quintessential DND experience that we see is like 5
people around and we got the board and all this kind of stuff
and it's really playing tabletop role-playing games is really
tiring for me. I mean, I really love it, but it
is like a huge energy investment in and during and then out.
It's like, So I think just that's just a part of my.
Experience with role-playing. Games is that it takes a lot of
energy and so thinking about the the books thing as as a refresh
and a way to have AI don't know that's something that vitalize
revitalizes me and gives me energy.
Playing games does too. And normally I, you know, when I
especially I run a lot of sessions as other GMs I know say
it's like I'm like, Oh my God, why did I say I was going to do
this? And this is like this doom that
I feel and then I am like, I, I am having fun and then I come
home and I'm like, I had the best time.
I want to do it again. You know, all this kind of
thing. But just thinking about how we
we use our energy as it relates to the hobby is, is pretty
interesting too. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean like again, I will I.
Will read a lot more than Cloud Empress than I'll ever get to
play and I've been very much enjoying reading it.
So keep making it and I'll keep reading it and trying to play
it. I think that's where that's
where I'm going to fall on it. But what you're going to be
coming back on the show within the next month.
Let's do it ish so we can play some Rust wings.
I'm a hit hunter up. I already messaged him yesterday
because I got to schedule something else with him.
So I'm going to tell him to add it to the schedule, but until
then I'll make sure that the link to the pre pages, it's the
Internet, you know where things are so that people can back save
the the the Kickstarter for Rust wings.
But where else can people find your stuff?
Where can people find Cloud Empress?
Where can people find Worlds by Watt?
Where can people find you? Yeah.
So Cloud Empress, you can go to cloudempress.com.
That is a link to my newsletter. But my newsletter is right now
Worlds by Watt at Sub Stack and then I am Worlds by Watt at Blue
Sky and Worlds by Watt on Patreon now.
So the newsletter is probably the the best way to hear about
everything else that's going on. But encourage folks if they are
interested in the Rest Wings campaign to take a look.
I'm doing like an early bird thing so you get a free grumpy
frog portrait. It's like this mean looking frog
with a prosthetic arm holding a cup of tea.
So if you back in the first 48 hours, you get a free little
extra thank you because of how important that time period is
for the the crowdfunding process.
They. They look grumpy.
So. Yeah, so cool.
So what always a pleasure to have you on the show.
You're going to come back and this is not going to be the last
time, I think this year, even with rustling stuff coming on.
So thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
And like I said, always a pleasure.
Awesome. Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, that's it for today.
We will see all of you later and you will see Watts soon again.
Bye everybody.