Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I'm as happy as a lich with
Berry's. And joining us today is a very
special guest that is John Saha. How you doing today?
I'm good. It's nice to be here.
Yeah. Thanks for coming.
On the We've only been actually talking for almost 45 minutes
before this started, but we actually hit the go live button,
so here we are. So for those who might not know
know you who? Who the heck are you and what
might people know you in the TJRG space for?
Yeah, probably. Most people know me for Goblins
and Gardens, which is kind of the over the umbrella name for
most of what I've been working on, but primarily the tarot deck
that I made. This was a COVID project started
in 2020. Yeah, there it is.
And launched A Kickstarter for it in I think 2022 if I remember
right. And that is a tarot deck like a,
it's structured like a classic tarot deck and 78 cards, but a
lot of the symbols have been changed.
It's all collage. So it's all stuff has been
collage from old D&D books, specifically stuff from AD and D
It's got, yeah, nice gold foil on the on the edges there.
And then the other half of what I was pulling from there for the
source material was collage stuff for gardening
encyclopedias. And that started because I found
one on the side of the road when I was walking home from work.
And it ended up sitting next to a Monster Manual from AD and D
for a little while on my desk. And then I was bored because
COVID and I started cutting them up and people started liking it.
They reacted to it online really positively.
Back when I feel like Instagram still had like some level of
organic growth. Do it in connection, you know.
And so when it started to catch a little bit of attention, I
just rolled it and made a whole deck.
And then, yeah, watching the Kickstarter, it wasn't it
didn't, it wasn't a great Kickstarter.
It funded just barely. It was a lot of anxiety in it.
It was my first one. And then after that I made a
game called Taro Goons, which is like not as popular as some
people know about it though. And that's a hack from Nate's
Treme, right? I think I saw recently.
Treme I was corrected. Treme Yeah, both ways you were.
Right, the whole. Time.
Yeah, I. Was right.
The whole time. And then someone told me this
dream and then I immediately got a message.
So it's like actually when they were on another podcast, they
said Treme. So I was like.
Dang it. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, Total Goons is great. I mean, that kind of stuff is
that's my jam. Like stuff that is simple and
weird, you know, that's got like these great little prompts like
you did the the episode with what was the module that you did
the Lich or not the Lich Barrow. Oh yeah, the Barrow of the Elf.
King. Elf King.
OK, yeah, that's great. The perfect example of the kind
of stuff I like to make him play.
You know where you leave all these different good spaces?
There's Lich right there. You leave all these good spaces
for, you know, characters and players and, and dungeon masters
or whatever to, to insert stuff. And then you got good prompts
around it. You got a good trellis for, for
the vines to grow. And yeah, that's mostly what I'm
known for. I, I, I'm not, I don't, I don't
think as like fully immersed in the in the role-playing game
scene as a lot of other creators you probably have had on the
show. Like a lot of my stuff ends up
being like this a bit more of on the periphery.
It intersects in a much different circles though, right?
Cuz like witchcraft, people will kind of get into it, Tarot
people will get into it, people are just like gardening will get
into it. And then obviously people that
like DND and other role-playing games will get into it as well.
Yeah, yeah. I will say I think I discovered
you 100% from Instagram. I think with like the videos of
you actually doing the exactly on my cutouts.
Oh yeah, yeah, all. The stuff and I I know that the
first thing that I was like, all right, this is this is it is the
the card that I held up the devil card with the the the lich
for the. Lich and yeah, and the
strawberries. Because that's my favorite piece
of D&D art ever. The Trampier lich is it's.
Good Trampier is so good. Yeah, So, yeah.
Good. So that.
Yeah. So I think this piece, I was
like, Yep, I like this guy. This is it.
And then Yep, I got like the pin I got.
Then I saw tarot goons. It was like, yeah, there we go.
Yeah. And it kind of it's kind of gone
from there because then you did, I mean, well, this is an old
thing, then we'll get into the current thing.
But you have the the Dungeon Wilds hand hand put together
version. Yeah, yeah.
Those videos that you how you found me, the cut them up
videos, the like time lapse videos, those were great because
like for the most part, people didn't really care too much
about them until I actually like showed the book, like the cover
being peeled off and the people lost their fucking minds.
People got real upset, which was is great for content, you know,
because then all of a sudden it's getting shared and people
are like, have you never heard of a photocopier?
Like how dare you? You know, it's like, yeah, no,
explain a photocopier to me. Also, this is my book.
I'm not coming into your house and grabbing your shit, right?
I'm not going to, I'm not going to cut up your book.
Listen, ADD is sacred. There's not a million.
Houses that exist in the world. Love how precious people are
about shit like that's so funny. And like most of the books I
have are in shit condition and I purposely buy those ones because
like, they're not getting used. They're like water damaged and
colored on and drawn on and stuff and torn up and like, you
know, they're all aged. And it's like, yeah, give me
that stuff. Like let let me be the the sort
of like zookeeper for all those things.
It's crazy. There's those people that do
like the they take pennies and carve different faces into it
and people freak the fuck out. I'm like, it's a penny, it's
useless. There's a million of them and
it's completely legal. Yeah.
They don't even make them anymore.
Yeah, so. All right, Peter Penny.
Yeah, yeah, let's, let's pour one out.
For a fallen soldier, you know. It's so great when I lived in
Ireland, which was so much better than living here.
It really. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I'm pretty sure they have one penny and a 2 penny.
But at almost every store you went to, if it was within one or
two above or below, it just auto rounded.
So like if you had like if it was like 98 cents or whatever,
it was just a euro and there's no like sales tax or anything.
So you would literally just go there's a euro.
And because it was all calculated in and they just
rounded it off. So it was like the easiest thing
ever. Yeah, someday we'll be there.
Not. No.
Absolutely. But progress y'all time moving
forward means progress is always happening, right?
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyways, Dungeon Wild. Yeah, we can talk about Dungeon
Wild. That's the current project,
right? Well, well, well, before we get
to the current, I guess iteration of Dungeon wild, why
don't we talk about the the old version?
Because what I'm holding my hands is version one point O So
what was the when did this come about?
I know the tarot deck you said was a COVID project.
I COVID was an awful thing. Still is an awful thing still
exists. I literally just got vaccinated
like yesterday. But I will say the one very
small silver lining from all of it is the indie game boom post
COVID. A lot.
What a lot of people made during COVID and then put out like
20/21/20 and 22 is a lot of great, great, great stuff.
You know, one of which being your tarot deck.
But yeah, when it when it done a while ago.
Dungeon Wilds came out so it started about two years ago.
So that would have been the summer of 2023.
And that one that you have in your hands, the the version one
point O the self-made, the self bound copy I think came out
November of that year. It was like right before the
winter, early winter for sure. And that came out of sort of two
things at once. I was working.
So I'm a groundskeeper now, I'm a gardener and which is wasn't
the original plan when I, when I started all this stuff, but
that's where I am now. It's just a coincidental in its
own way. But at that time I was working
as I was working in the kitchen at the university.
And because the, because the facility's maintenance is part
of the same union at the university, I was able to
transfer to my job now. But for that summer gig, we were
hauling out a bunch a ton, like probably hundreds and hundreds
of $1000 worth of kitchen equipment out of this old
building. It's going to be torn down on
campus. It's kind of a shit job,
honestly. My friend and I were doing it,
my best friend that I work with, and it was interesting though,
because we got to see a bunch of old parts of these buildings
that we weren't really Privy to otherwise.
And so it really felt like exploring dungeons.
We had a lot of downtime down there and some weird dank
subfloors. And we ended up playing a lot of
rummy. And I kind of got to a point
where I was like, OK, this is great.
What I kind of want to do something else to this, like,
what's let's make up a game, let's come up with something
else. We've got so much time done
here. And then I could be playing a
week till later. I take Paul.
She walked away. And so I'm sitting there like, I
was like, I can't play this by myself.
And I was like, wait, can I play this by myself?
And then I started like laying down cards to see like, oh, what
if I had to do something to reveal these like face down
cards? What if that was my goal?
And so I started tinkering with that.
And that's kind of how Dungeon Wild started.
And then I was like, OK, well, what if I have health?
What if I have hit points? Like how can I lose health?
And it just kind of grew from there, honestly.
And so I started playing it with my wife and my other friend
Kyle, and it grew real naturally.
Like we would just kind of come up with like, oh, are there
other monsters down here, right? Or can you buy items?
Right? What happens when you die?
Like what are what's, what differentiates one floor from
the other? So it was really conversational,
honestly, is how it started. Yeah.
And it's a it's a thing that the nice part about this project is
that I'm kind of just one person working on it.
And the nice part about it is that like occasionally I can
leave that behind because I haven't really done a lot of
game writing, especially stuff that's not role-playing games,
like still just more of a board game, like tabletop game.
I can leave that behind and go and illustrate, which is a
really nice part of it because like I'll burn out sometimes on
like the writing or the design or the layout or whatever it is.
And I can kind of just shut that down and put it away and keep
working on the project while like very much shutting off a
different part of my brain. I'm like, I'm exhausted.
I can't look at text any longer. Like I can't see the forest of
the trees on this. I can just go and draw for the
project. That's kind of the other half of
Dungeon Wilds is the illustrations.
Yeah, I was going to say because we haven't talked about that at
all because the Tarot deck is all colleges, but your
illustrations, like you are, are incredible.
What? Where?
No, thank you. I guess when and where did the
illustrating start, You know, come in?
I mean, so I've all that's I've always drawn right, like from a
very young age was encouraged by my parents and I, I, I have been
in and out of art school, do do have a bachelor's in Fine Arts
and, and the debt to show it. But like, I think, and I've
worked on like sculpture, I've worked on like graphic design,
I've worked in, you know, like some ceramic stuff and like
metals and jewelry. But like, I think drawing has
been a constant. It's been a thing that I've
always kind of come back to and it's it's a thing that kind of
just sprang up naturally in regards to dungeon Wilds because
we were starting to talk about we were starting to populate
this world as we were playing it, right?
It was very quickly becoming more than just a card game.
We're like, OK, so there's some role-playing element to this, or
at least there's some storytelling element to this.
And so the drawing kind of came about naturally.
So it's like, oh, some of these characters kind of neat faces or
I kind of wonder like what this world looks like if it is a
dungeon that's gone, that's grown wild, right?
So like, you know, what kind of fruits would be there?
What kind of trees would be there, this kind of stuff.
The very first card that I drew though was my cat, because I
drew a picture of her sitting on our our our dining or living
room floor looking like a total menace.
And under the lamp and the. Yeah, yeah, she's a shopkeeper.
I love that. Thanks.
Yeah, that that, that card, it was kind of what kicked it off
as far as like moving into illustrating the courts like the
Jacks, the Queens and the Kings. Because I came back later and
drew a separate, I drew a bookcase and then the lamp after
that. And I did a thing that I
actually have not really done in illustrating, which is where I
scanned them all in to my computer and digitized it.
And then like brought those three things together to make
like her sitting underneath the lamp with the bookcase behind
her, which is like a natural thing for an illustrator to do.
I've just never really done it before, honestly.
Like so, so much of my design work has been like working in
the physical, right? Like with the collage stuff.
Like none of the collage stuff was edited after I scanned it
all in. I mean, I had changed some of
the colors on it, but like none of it was moved around.
So like this was the first time that I had kind of stepped, I
don't know, stepped up like my game as far as illustrating
goes. Definitely like tried something
new. I was like, dude, because I felt
like I was just going to cheap in the thing.
I'm so used to not doing it like this, but like illustrating and
then digitizing it and then like finalizing it actually became a
thing that really helped my brain in this project.
So I was like able to kind of stretch my legs and make
mistakes and try new character designs that I hadn't drawn
before. And once that kind of clicked, I
was like, oh, this whole new world is opened up where I can
like kind of just wing it on some of these, like character
creation illustrations. Yeah, that's a lot, a lot of a
lot of that came to life like very, very organically.
That's very cool. I love the illustrations in
this. I love the very odd ones at the
very front end of Dungeon. Wild swell.
I like the the eye looking up with just two legs connected to
it. Yeah, yeah, the the the monsters
that kind of greet you at the beginning of the game.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of this stuff is definitely inspired by like,
yeah, I mean, because how do I say this?
Oh, I like when the narrative doesn't have to be there before
the art is right. Like I'll just kind of
illustrate the thing and and the narrative will follow after the
fact. It's probably a better way to
say that, but it's a. Great way to say that.
I think that I think that worked well.
Yeah. And then for so so so there is a
version of Dungeon Wilds that exists and there's currently a
version that is crowdfunding that they are different.
It's version one, version 2, maybe eventually version 3.
But before we hop into that, what so for for So what is
Dungeon Wilds like if someone's hopping into it like, you know,
it's card game, you know, you're talking about TTRBG writing.
We're talking about role-playing and the.
Art pitches. Your game, yeah, for sure.
I think first and foremost it's a card game.
It's a card game, It's an adventure game.
You know, it's one that is. So when I wrote version 1.0, it
was meant to be specifically cooperatively played between two
people. Version 2.0 changes a few
things, and one of them is that it kind of centralizes it as
like a solo playing game at first that very easily can have
another player added to it. But yeah, it's it's slow.
You're kind of like piercing things together as you go and
it's a bit rogue light and that like you're going to die a lot
because there's a lot of ways to lose health and there's really
only one way to gain health and kind of the, the, it's kind of
rogue light in an analogue way. At least that's the the attempt,
right? Because I want you to sort of
like play it again and again and realize like, Oh, I keep doing
this one thing where I kind of lock myself into this corner.
Like, can I play this differently next time where I
don't risk like shutting myself down?
So I can't get past this next part or I've used this item
again and again and it only gets me so far.
Is there a better item? Or you can come back and be
like, I didn't think this item was useful the first couple
times I saw it. Now I get it because I got
myself into a situation. So I I definitely wanted it to
be something that was modular and that it can be very quickly
picked up. If you've played Rummy, you'll
recognize like the base mechanics of this game.
But I also wanted it to be something that if people care
to, they can dig in and play it for an extended period of time.
So it can just be like a 1015 minute thing, like while you're
waiting for something to happen or if you're in between sessions
or people are taking bathroom breaks at the role-playing game
table or whatever. But I also wanted it to have
enough enough depth to it where if you wanted to have this be
the sort of the game that we're going to play tonight, it can
also be that where you can sit and play it for an hour or two.
Yeah, I think that's my pitch on it.
It's fun, I played it a lot and then So what?
So version 1 exists. It's in my hands or or next to
me. What was the what was the
impetus for version 2 like? What?
What made you want to do on a new edition?
For sure. I think initially I felt like it
was a lot of words on the page when I was looking at version
1.0. I feel like sometimes I would
hand it to people and I could kind of see their eyes go wide.
I'm like, ah, Dang, this feels like this could be a little more
succinct. So that was kind of the initial
impetus between like, I want to make this even more accessible.
And then so as I started writing about that, I was playing it a
lot too. I was playing it by myself and I
was playing it with my wife and a couple of my other friends as
well too. And so I was kind of at the same
time being like, oh, well, there's like there could be more
to this, right? Like in in version one point O
it's kind of arcady and like you just, you just kind of die and
that's it. You know, it feels a little bit
like Legend of Zelda where it's like you're not really there's
not much to death other than the fact that it's like I failed
this time. I have to start over, right.
And so that's something I wanted to do differently with two point
O is to to make death a more central part of the game isn't
something that Ryan actually helped me with quite a bit later
on. We ended up talking about this
game together and initially I kind of was modeling it
unintentionally almost after like more like Souls games or
like Hollow Night where I was like when you would die in
version 2 point O, you would drop all of the seeds of all the
points you would collected that we get dropped there and you
have to make it back to that floor to get those seeds back.
And then you get a gift. The dungeon gives you a gift
because the seeds have now proliferated and grown and
there's like narratively speaking, the dungeons giving
you something there and kind of through talking about it,
especially with Ryan, but with a couple other people as well too.
We're like, well, you should get the gift right away.
Like if you are being reincarnated as a monster when
you start, when after you die and you start over again, the
dungeon should be or the wild should be giving you a gift
right away when you start over. And the game became less like
punishing then and more about like the act of like death being
this like second stage of the game.
And then each one of those gifts that you get has a piece of lore
attached to it. So like the first time you die,
you'll you'll receive a gift to have some lore that's going to
explain why the dungeon or I'm sorry the first one is what was
this land like before a dungeon was built?
The second one is why was the dungeon built?
So like what, what purposes the dungeon serve?
Is it is it a prison? Is it like some sort of factory?
Whatever it is. The third one is how are the
monsters doing that live here now.
And the 4th 1 is what will this place look like after the
dungeon has been destroyed? And so every time you play,
you're kind of like slut. You're receiving different gifts
depending on how far you've made it, how many gifts you've
received. And so you kind of craft this
little story. It's it's a it's a little choose
your own story and far the in so far as you can effectuate like
what things you're going to get by being like, well, I don't
want to die with 70 seeds again. I already got that gift.
I'm going to see if I can make it a little bit further this
time. Yeah.
So you get a little bit of a a rogue like adventure card game.
And then you get a bit of world building as well too, with these
sort of the narrative hooks that are attached to each gift.
Yeah, and and the format is completely different for version
2 than version one as well. How do you mean exactly?
I don't disagree, but. In that it looks more like this.
Well, yeah, so it actually has a deck of cards with it now.
Yeah, version one point O it did not have a deck of cards.
Yeah. So that's like, again, like
that's the second-half of it was like illustrating it.
So like in starting to write 2.0, I felt like I was hitting a
lot of walls initially and I backed off of it for a while
honestly, and just illustrated. I was like, well, I know what
some of these cards look like. I've sketched them.
Why not just throw myself into that first?
I'll come back to writing the actual game content later.
So I there was a long period there, probably most of 2024 was
spent like illustrating the deck, which is all hand
illustrated. There's no, no, yeah.
The card illustrations are fucking fantastic.
Thanks, I had a really good time.
I spent a lot of time drawing a pencil, which I don't ordinarily
do Usually I go straight to ink and I have a friend, a very
talented artist who lives here in Kalamazoo, MI.
Their website is Flat Mountains if you if anybody wants to to
try to find out. Their work is incredible.
They work more specifically in lino cut and wood cut stuff, but
they do a lot of drawing too and they're very keen on using
pencil and they they, they didn't try to convince me at
all, but kind of been watching them.
I was like, maybe there's something to this.
So there are a couple different like new areas that I dip my
toes into with this project because I'm not really designed
a a game either, right. Even, you know, Terra goons is a
hack of tunnel goons, which is, is a game for sure.
It has a system to it, but it's it's pretty open-ended, you
know, and you can, you can read it and 5-10 minutes.
A big source of inspiration for this game was, was it Escape the
Dark Dungeon? Is that what it's called?
Yes. Sorry.
Yeah, that game is great. That was a really good example
of a card game that or a game in general that knows what it is
and doesn't try to be something it doesn't, doesn't have too
many pieces on the table. I know a lot of people like the
heavy games, they like Sleeping Gods and like Gloom Haven, they
like the heavy boxes with the stuff.
And if that's your jam, go for it.
It is not my jam. Like I get that stuff bounces
right off me. So when you have a good game
that's simple with like some like signature dice that come
with it and like a 10 page rule booklet and a deck of cards, I'm
sold. Like Escape the Dark Hassle.
It's just it's such a good game. It's such an example of a game
that knows what it is. I still haven't played that.
Ryan's talked about several times, and it's still.
Fucking good. They have escaped the Dark
sector, which is like the the sci-fi.
Yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, I would fucking
love to. And honestly, it's not really
even really that expensive, but. No, they got a bunch of good
expansions for it and one of my favorite expansions they have
for it, which is something that I will probably RIP off for
Dungeon Wild, as they have a death book where like it's keyed
to like depending on where you die in the game, each card has
like a code on it and you can go and look it up in the death book
and you can have a a different descriptor for each time you
die, like based on how you died, like how far you got.
It's so good. It's, it's that kind of stuff.
Yeah, that's what I'm after. Very cool.
I love that. I think Ryan has the has the art
cards on the screen right now. Oh.
Yeah, the illustrations. Love the king of clubs.
Oh, the the cosmic crab Cosmic. Crab's great.
So that card, that was the last card I drew, I actually almost
didn't make it into that deck, honestly.
Oh, nice. I had a different illustration
of my dog who has since passed, but like, I and it just didn't
fit the drawing that I did, didn't look like the rest of the
deck. And I, yeah, I fought with it
for so long. So I was like, damn, I love this
dog. I want her to be in the deck.
And I just, I took a step back from it.
I was like, it just doesn't fit. It doesn't look like the rest of
what I'm drawing. And I, I found an old drawing
that I'd done of a crab actually from the days of being down in
those dungeons working for the university, moving all that
kitchen equipment. And I was like, oh, I like this.
And I redrew it honestly in like 10-15 minutes.
And I was like, whoa. And I added that texture to it
and I was like, Dang, this card almost didn't make it into the
deck. That's crazy.
Funny though, that's the one I called out was like, I really
like that card so. Yeah, I I like that card a lot
too, with throwing the dice in there.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's incredible.
And I know when you so I I have, like I said, I have the the
graphics up. I hope that's OK.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
By all means, sure, yeah. But one thing that you told me
when we were talking about it is the kind of themes artistically
that you did through through each kind of set.
Oh yeah, yeah. Through each court card yeah
yeah so like all the jacks have arches or doorways in them in
some capacity like the the Jack of hearts, which is like the sad
guitar goblin has the has the the rainbow and then like the
Jack of spades has the his little archway into his Mountain
Home. All the Queens have a cone of
light of some capacity. And then all of the kings are
like full bodied cards with a texture on the body, which is
like a a theme that is not so concise is the first two.
But yeah, this is this is the themes like throughout.
I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff too.
Like, I think that's why initially I was drawn to tarot
cards like the the sort of like patterns, the symbology that
runs through it and like the different ways that people can
kind of tweak it and leave little clues to like, oh, like
why is the page of Cups similar to the page of Swords?
And you could find little things in there.
That kind of stuff is great. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
And and so, so you so you send I, we, we, I have a prototype
version of the the deck in my hands here.
And the other kind of difference with this too, is that the game
itself is is just going to be like tucked in with the box,
right? Yep, Yep, Yep.
I wanted it to be pretty accessible.
I wanted it to be something where like the game is right
there for you. And honestly, like, who knows
how many people will play that game when they get it because
it's also a deck of playing cards that can be used for any
kind of classical play. But I wanted to be something
where it's like, you don't have to lug anything around with it.
There's like in the future, I don't know how much we want to
talk about this now, so we'll probably talk a little more
about it later. But I would love to have like a
double decked size 1 where it's like, effectively you get a deck
of cards in one compartment and then the other one, it's like a
golf pencil with some dice and then the book sits across the
top of it. So the book is slightly larger,
but it's still only like this size.
I love being able to throw stuff like that in my backpack if I'm
going to go over to a friend's house for whatever or if we're,
you know, on a road trip or what's going on camping.
Yeah yeah, a minimalist when it comes to games for sure.
Like I love when stuff is shrunken down for sure.
I. Couldn't agree more, I was going
to reach back and grab my my collection of small zines I keep
up here but if you can tell my I started to my moving process and
my bookshelf's empty I. Was going to say they're so
small I can't see them. Yeah, I know.
Yeah. I could reach back and grab some
of them, but no, I mean Tomo goons.
I think we all have a similar brain.
Like Tomo goons broke my brain when I read it because I was
very 5E pilled and I went, this is like 8 pages and it's way
better, yeah. I will.
I will take 100, I'll take a one page book before I'll take 100
page book. Yeah, a one page game versus 100
page game any day of the week and two versus 200, etcetera,
etcetera. I, I, you know, I can appreciate
the kind of crunchier aspects to games, but it's just not where
my brain's at. My my brain is too broken and
I'm too old and I. Don't have any of me anymore,
yeah. Yeah, I don't.
I don't have it. Yeah.
It really works for some people, It really benefits for some
people. My brother is that way and like
he really wants the crunch. She needs it.
Yeah, I, I talked to a guy I work at the coffee shop and he
heard me mention that I was running a mothership campaign
right now. And we got in the conversation,
he loves Pbta. And I was like, yeah, there's
just like so much scaffolding around, like doing stuff in that
game. And it's like, it's just not for
me. But it's cool that you like the
direction that it gives you, you know?
Yeah, honestly, I love Pbta too. It's it's probably the system
that I had the most experience with, truthfully.
And yeah, I don't know how much you want to get into like the
the spiraling world of how much systems matter and stuff like
that when people start hacking stuff and home brewing things.
But like for me in the the table that I usually play with, like a
game like Monster of the Week has the right amount of
guardrails for us, where it's like there's enough narrative
driven action and enough character centered gameplay that
like it clicks for us in a way where like there's definitely
some things on last of the week that I just like.
I mean, honestly, I probably only spend time with like 10% of
that book, you know, like I don't really go into a lot of
the pre written adventures or stuff.
So they have like that or, or like you're supposed to have
like sunset or what's the like the countdown for the monster,
you know, like that's all great. But I mean, like, I'm pretty
quick to just be like, I like the moves.
I like how these how weird these characters are.
Yeah, I mean, with all things, it's just, it's the way a thing
clicks in your brain and that's why there's no like, wrong way
to play and there's no like, bad.
Well, I was gonna say there's no bad games.
There's no like, you know what I'm saying to say when there's
no like bad games like it's just people.
You know, if someone's like this game sucks because I, I, you
know, why doesn't it have a move or why is it only BR 12 or
whatever it's. Because for.
For a big group of people, that's what clicks in their
head. You know, I'm not a Pbta guy.
And through the course of the show, it crystallized more and
more why I'm not. But I'd also crystallize more
and more why people are. And I completely understand and
appreciate, you know, Pbta for what it does and why it just
clicks in people's brains. It just doesn't click in my
brain the same way, and I like a different style, but it totally
makes sense why it does. And it, yeah, it just comes out
to the kind of structure that you want and the amount of
structure that you want within the game, you know, And it's
interesting, you're saying you don't like Pbta, but again, you
tweak it, you make it fit, you chop off the pieces you don't
want and just use the parts that you do, which is great.
We did kind of spiral there. Where did that come?
From I mean, we're just talking about like what we like to play
in general. And like, I mean, like I, I do
that Full disclosure, I don't have a whole lot of experience
playing a lot of different games.
Like I've, I've played the dragon game, I've played monster
of the week quite a bit. I've played Troika, which I also
thought was fun, but like, honestly, the system for me and
Troika was just kind of there. Like what I loved about Troika
was all the flavour, like especially the illustration.
And I mean beyond that I haven't played much, you know, like
definitely a plenty of 1 offs. There's some really cool like
one page games out there. Like I mean everybody knows
Honey Heist. Another really great one is
Harrowing. Harrowing is a really fun one.
It's not very popular. Yeah.
I think stuff like for me personally, games that have good
scaffolding go a long way. And I know what I know.
I hear you when you say that sometimes that feels like that
kind of crushes the gameplay for you.
But like from and for me personally, like stuff that is
like really hyper specific, like people, there's plenty of good
creators out there that make games that are really hyper
specific. Like you had Maul move on
recently to talk about what was the Kitchen Nightmares game.
Yeah, like that game sounds great.
And I'm so glad that that Kickstarter went well for them.
I would probably never play a game like that.
It just like, well, one, because I worked in the you guys were
talking about it. You're like, well, we worked in
kitchens for so long, so it's fun to play it and like blow off
steam And like, for me, it would not be like, well, it's.
Fun because I don't work in the kitchen now.
Sure, yeah. But like a game like Overcooked,
like I've tried to play that game.
I'm going to be so anxious, right, But that that's that's
tangental. But like stuff like things that
are really hyper specific for people.
People love that sometimes where they want the game that like
very much is like I'm a I'm a werewolf that's also detective.
It is this time period in London and I have a robotic sidekick
and like that is the game that I've made for you today and
people are like, great, I want that.
I'm going to back this project. But I see stuff like that and
I'm like, Ah, man, I just, it's so it's, it's so specific to me
that like I kind of just, it's just not for me effectively, I
think. What I want is, I guess the
extremes in either way, where I want literally just a framework
that I can build a game on, and that's something like tunnel
goons, for example. For me, it's so light.
You can kind of do whatever you want with it.
Pick a Cape color and run or I want something like you just
said that like in the what the game wants to do is a very hyper
specific thing. It's that middle ground where
people are just like it's this generic thing, but it has a lot
of crunch to its genericness where I'm like, that's that's
where you can miss me with it. You know what I mean?
Like I don't want a thing where like the system makes me do all
of this stuff to really not do anything and I can do whatever I
want if I do it only in this like kind of way, which is
exactly where things like 5 E land, right?
It's it's it's a it's a it's a medium crunch game with a
generic fantasy setting. And for me, like give me one or
the other. Let me play the game that I want
or give me the game that you want.
But giving me this like middle ground wishy washy bullshit is
where like I just I don't want it.
Yeah. That is funny because I feel
very similarly and I was talking to that guy at the coffee shop
the other day about how much I enjoy like plane skate, which is
like a like very focused, like odd, but like has like, you
know, you're playing in second. There's a, there's an amount of
crunch to it, but I kind of like it for that thing because it's
so focused on the thing. Yeah, I think when it's like,
yeah, a bunch of crunch for a generic thing, it does very
little for me as well. Yeah, yeah.
Give me one, Give me one. Monty Cook though, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have the I have that giant
black cube still sitting in the box right here, and I'll
probably never touch it, but hey, I have it, right?
And that's why with Dungeon Wilds I've tried to do something
different. Obviously getting back on track
than we. Are.
Yeah, I'll bring it back. Yeah, I mean.
It's bedtime for me in like 45 minutes but.
Fair, fair. So my brain is my brain is
cooked, but dungeon wild. So yes, let's get back to it
because it is currently on the the second edition, the the one
that I have a prototype card version.
It's currently on Kickstarter right now.
It still has some days that I'll I'll. 12.
Days. Yes, 12 days left and that's it.
That's. Right.
Yep. And you've, you're more than
double funded when people go back this project.
And obviously the links are where links are what, what can
people get with it and what you know, what are you?
Are there stretch goals? Like what?
What? What's the project I guess at
this point? For sure, capitalism.
Part of this. Yeah, yeah, let's talk about
capitalism. Let's talk about how we're all
surviving capitalism or trying to the the core of it.
I, I wanted to try to keep this Kickstarter simple while still
providing options to people. The core of it is the deck which
Ryan has held up and has the game with it.
And that's $25. And then you can, you can like
get the digital PDF for five. You can get a resa graph printed
Zine of the rules which will be slightly larger, probably about
twice the size of this for $10. I'm really fortunate to have
been played punk music for a long time, especially in
Kalamazoo. We toured a lot, but Kalamazoo
had a really good punk music scene for a long time.
Still does, it's just changed. But like some of my friends own
and run like a print collective in town, not like it is a print
collective in town that does recent graph stuff.
And so I'm really excited to do more with that.
I've done some work with it, but mostly it's like posters.
And so I'm really excited to like put some booklets out for
that. Oh, rumored lands, that's
another great. That's not that's system
agnostic. That's a really cool set of
Reese Graf scenes. I definitely took some
inspiration from where I'm like, this is such good scaffolding
anyways. And so you get like double decks
for a discount. There was an early bird special,
which is not something I've done before, and I kind of did it
last minute for Kickstarter and people really liked it, so I'm
glad people enjoyed that. There was a limited edition knit
bag that my mom made, which is beautiful.
She's so talented. She knits, She's a mad woman
when it comes to knitting. She's been doing it for like 20
years now. She's really good at it.
The adventure bag can will come with the deck of cards and the
guidebook, of course, that's inside that.
And then it'll come with this really nice golf pencil with an
eraser, some dice and some score sheets to track your progress
and you play. And then beyond that there's
like there's add-ons, which is also a thing I hadn't tried and
Kickstarter before. So you can get the tarot deck
that I did. You can get some sticker packs,
some recent graph posters that I did.
Yeah, I think that that's that covers it for the most part.
The stretch goals were pretty simple.
They were mostly like kind of quality of life improvements.
You know, they were like the the embossed design in the tuck box,
the card quality upgrade. And then beyond that there is
the deeper dungeon Zine, which is a product kind of like me
only having it's it's coming from me only having so much room
in this. So like I had, and Ryan and I
have talked about this, I had more content for this that just
didn't fit in here, specifically in regards to like the gifts
that you can get when you die and then also the maps that you
can explore. So that'll be what that is
that'll come with not that's funded.
So that'll come with everybody's deck if they back it.
And then beyond that, the last goal was funded recently, the
last stretch goal. And that is our first adventure
module, which is like a little scary because I don't have that
done. But everything else about the
project is done and ready to go to print.
So I can just send everything to print.
It'll take a while. So I'll have plenty of time to
to do the Zine because it'll be printed here locally so I don't
have to wait on that at all. And that is something that while
it's not finished, it's something that I've kind of had
in the wings for a while now. And that would be that would
have you exploring maps in a new way, where like the cards that
you're revealing on the tabletop are keyed to like blockages on a
map that will actually allow you to get to new areas as opposed
to just kind of being these like symbolic things that you're
revealing. You know, they become actual
things that allow you to progress in areas.
I have an idea for a combat system that's pretty simple too.
And then you would have like a narrative arc to it as well.
Like you would have what would what would be like akin to like
a choose your own adventure thing where you would have some,
some some choices you can make, but also some choices that are
made for you. When you when you fail at
something, when you die a certain amount of times, you
know that kind of stuff. One of the things that I love
about Caves of Cud, if we can talk about that game for a
second, is how the game kind of like ticks when you move in the
game, like anytime, like it's got this kind of world clock
that happens. And that I would love to bring
that into an analog game where it's like as you as you make
decisions in the game, there's like a kind of clock that you
have to check, like a table that you would have to check to be
like, OK, well, this I can no longer access this part of the
dungeons that was so many turns ago, or I already cleared that
floor or whatever it is. So that's what's out ahead of us
for like version 3.0 is to like add another layer of depth to
the game. And again, I want to leave it
modular because like sometimes I just enjoy playing this game for
the sake of like clearing a board and like not really
looking up like items that I can use.
It's more of like a puzzle thing at that point.
But I want to give people the option to dive in deeper and
like, oh, OK, I can actually explore a map.
I can fight this hero that showed up, or I can collect this
item, or I can clear this dungeon before I die the fourth
time, or whatever it is. That sounds pretty cool.
Have you like read like 12 Years by Maxwell?
No, I've not. Oh, I feel like that would be
just it. Not that it's like so deeply
related to your current project, but I feel like there is a
little bit of like shared like modular, like randomly generated
DNA that you might appreciate from that game.
Yeah, I'll check it out there. You know, and like there's
there's plenty of stuff that I oh, I've played we talked about
some games I played. I've also played mouse Raider as
well too. But like the, the list of stuff
I've played is not long. And so like, and, and I try not
to be chronically online like I am right now during this
Kickstarter campaign. So there's a handful of times
where like when Ryan and I talked for the first time where
he was like mentioning like, wow, your game really reminds me
of it's trying to do something kind of like this.
And I was like, I have never even heard of this game where
this creator at all. But I, I think that's some of
what this kind of like the meta part of doing these projects is
that like, you get to like crack into other people's brains.
Yeah, through conversation and community.
You know, when it does happen, which does community happen
online? I don't know.
I don't know, illusion of community definitely happens
online. It it, it can, I think through
social media, it has this, this fail that it has to operate
through. That can really hinder it
sometimes, unfortunately, Yeah. As far as like back to the
Kickstarter, though, something that I did differently this
time, I don't know why Kickstarter gives you the option
to roll the cost of shipping into your funding goal.
If you've never done a Kickstarter before and you're
listening to this now, don't do that.
There's. So many reasons for you to not
do that. I did that the first time I did
a Kickstarter and it screwed me over so bad.
One, because shipping prices change, right?
And two, because it inflates the goal that you need to hit, and
the longer it takes you to hit your goal, the less likely it is
that you're going to hit that goal.
So yeah, pay, pay for backer kit or whatever you need to to
collect that information after the fact that that was a huge
lesson I learned from that first campaign.
This one went much much more smoothly the first time.
I think I find it in the last like 3 or 4 days.
I was like biting my nails the whole time.
I mean, it seems like you've done everything Well, I mean
like the the process of like doing a small Kickstarter, you
know, like working on your own project, doing like a hack of a
project that you like and then like expanding on your own
thing. It it feels like a very like
wise and natural. Progression.
I think now people kind of skip over to their first like $30,000
project, you know? Yeah, I think that's also a
product of people being like, I don't want to work my day job
anymore. I have found a little corner of
the Internet where my stuff has gained some traction and I want
to throw my full weight into this, which is like, I can't
blame them. That will never.
That will never be me though. Like, this will always be a side
gig for me. Well, not always.
I can't predict the future. This will likely always be a
side gig for me, which means stuff will come out slowly.
But it also means that, like, my health insurance is not
contingent on if I am able to clear my next $30,000
Kickstarter goal, which is just like, it would make me so
anxious. I couldn't do that.
Yeah. That's very that's valid.
Crazy. There's Chris McDowell, end of
the odd mythic Bachelorland, electric bachelor and all this
stuff just dropped a blog I think last night or something
that talked about basically that like the track of their, how
they went from doing something that and it's like 15 years of
being like I just dicked around for like 7 years before I even
sold anything. And then I sold like one thing a
year for like 5 years. And it's like if, if, if Chris
McDowell, who everyone knows and into the odd and the doomed and
all this stuff is saying, hey, it's really hard and it sucks.
And I've been doing this for like 15 years.
Maybe keep doing it the way you're doing it.
You know where, again your health insurance is in
contention on Kickstarters. Right.
And, and I, and I, I talk about all this stuff to be transparent
about it, because I feel like him being transparent about that
is critical. Like I, I found a couple of
blogs like that when I first started doing all this and I,
I've met a couple of people that were pretty upfront with me
about things too. Like I had the opportunity to
talk with Stu Horvath who does vintage RPG.
He was like very upfront with me about a lot of stuff.
Very honest person hadn't had me on, had me on their show once.
And then I met a couple other people actually met someone who
ended up working or who was working at Kickstarter.
She walked me through a lot of things too, just kind of like
avoiding some pitfalls here and there.
And like that stuff is so critical.
Like when you have when you're when you're stepping foot into a
new scene, whatever it is, music or role-playing games or
whatever you're doing, like to have people that are like
willing to like for for no cost to you and for no like clout or
fame of their own. Like just kind of be like, Hey,
this is what worked and what didn't work for me.
And this is like the the 7 to 15 years of me fucking it up.
Like that stuff goes a long way. I feel like Jarrett Crater was a
person that wrote a really good blogspot about Kickstarter's
early on that I read through and it like helped me really
conceptualize what it was going to be like before I did it.
Because before you do it, it's like, it feels like a labyrinth.
It feels like this feels very like, I don't know, it felt
daunting to me anyways, you know, So when people go out of
their way to share those kinds of things, I think it goes a
long ways. Yeah, we have, yeah.
It's what we have Jert on every month to talk about basically
almost basically since they started the company like talking
about the growth and the progress of Space Pane and Ink,
which has been hopefully beneficial to to people that
listen to that. But you know, it's great to
obviously hear that like. I think they.
Started doing bigger international distribution and,
and moving up in like the levels of publishing that I didn't know
existed and things like that. It's it's really cool to hear.
So yeah, I mean that's that's how, but that's how so you can
progress a space in a kind of like non capitalist way, right?
Like you helped the people that came after you so that they can
be in a better spot. That's kind of how society is
supposed to work and, you know, yeah.
Now, But Thomas, staunch capitalist, I'm looking to step
on everyone around me to make sure I get my dollar, you know?
When I was trying to print the first tarot deck, I didn't know
who to print with. And there were a handful of
people that I reached out to and they were like kind of coy about
it. Like they didn't want to share
who their their printer, their publisher was.
Which is like, fine, I'm not going to come at you sideways
about it, but it's like, I mean, for what?
Like what good does that do you? So there were a handful of
people that also kind of like, let me see behind the scenes in
regards to that too. Like that go.
That went a long way as well, too.
It's like, I don't know how to print 500 Tera decks.
I don't know where to start looking for this kind of stuff.
I just Google it. I'm going to end up getting
scammed, you know? Yeah.
You'll get the most expensive option you possibly could get on
Google, yeah. Right.
Yeah. And so like, yeah, no, it's,
it's a, it's, it's a huge part of like actually building a
community, you know, and it's like, and you can write blogs
about it, right? That does help sometimes.
But sometimes you just kind of have to have conversations like
this or, you know, e-mail back and forth or whatever it is.
Yeah, and that also lets you meet cool fucking people, you
know, like, you know, we we've, you know, we talked about the
fact that we talked and it literally was just like you
posting on Blue Sky. Hey, anyone, can someone like
just check out my game? And I'm like, I have the first
one. I'll fucking check it out.
And now, like, you know, we had a long conversation about the
game, like you're here talking with us on the show friend of
the show now. And, and that's great.
You know, that's how you develop a community, that's how you
develop friends. That's how you can get into
those spaces. So it's, it's really, it's great
to to help others and in turn, you will eventually get help as
well. I mean, it's not like a, you
know, transactional, it's just if you are going to help people
exactly like, you know, that's the energy you're putting out
there and whatever. Yeah, yeah.
When you first messaged me about it, you were like, are you going
to keep 1.0 around? And I was like, no, I don't
know. I guess I could why?
And you were like, I kind of hate 2.0.
I was like, oh, OK. You were like you, you were
like, you didn't say that exactly.
I really have, I have a ton of notes on it.
And I was like, give it to me. And you're like, Are you sure?
And I was like, yeah, trust me, you're not going to hurt my
feelings. And then you like laid it out.
And honestly, I can't even tell you how excited I was when I got
that first, like PDF from you, those 2 pages, like, yeah.
So I was like, I need, I need someone to like really dig into
this and cut it up. I literally said like 3 times I
was like Are you sure you want me to like tell you what exactly
what I. Think I was.
Like never gave it to me. I promised and I'm like all
right, listen, I took notes and yeah, it's literally like this
like 2 page like giant thing. And then it got to the point
where it's like, hey, do you want to just hop on a discord?
Yeah. And then it was a call that
lasted like what, like 3-4 hours or whatever, but.
It was great. It was honestly great, yeah.
It was awesome. It was so much fun too, to to be
able to sit down and really just be like basically kind of what
we do on the show. Like you just pick piece by
piece and be like, why, why, why, why, why?
But you know, it was awesome and and you're awesome and it's been
great having you here. Hopefully you'll come back for
three-point O for those that are looking for your tarot deck for
one point O for right now, for for for tarot goons, all the
rest of it. Where can people find you and
all of your stuff? For sure.
Yeah. I did myself a favor early on
and got just like a straight website off Squarespace.
So if you want to just look for Goblins and Gardens, you just do
goblinsandgardens.com and that's a pretty good central hub.
There are some third party people who are like carrying my
products. But for the most part, if you
just want, I have, I have my own store there.
You can check that out. I'm on Blue Sky somewhat
regularly and Instagram somewhat regularly.
Both of those are just at Goblins and Gardens.
Each dot IO is the same, except there's dashes in between
Goblins and Gardens. And then the Kickstarter is just
Dungeon Wilds. You can search for Dungeon Wilds
on Kickstarter and it should come up.
I think that the, the, the SEO, the SEO's have been kind enough
to me. Yeah.
So that's most of it. I think that, like, fair
warning, probably for the month after the Kickstarter is done, I
will not be on social media because I'm so sick of it right
now. Good.
Good for you. Yeah.
And then I do have a newsletter which some people have signed up
for. It is not going to be something
that you're getting like every month.
It's going to be something that's like quarterly where it's
like, hey, this is the next leg of this project or this is, you
know, I have, I guess I should say have a Patreon as well too,
but that's just like a, a free one.
Or you can give a dollar. Like I don't have tears on
there. I'm not giving a bunch of
content. I don't have the capacity, I
don't have the bandwidth to do a full on Patreon like some people
do. So it's like if you want to
contribute a dollar to help me out, I think what that looks
like moving forward is that as Dungeon Wilds gets off the
ground, I will have probably like adventure module packets
that will be for it that you can get for a discounted rate.
I think I will just give codes like as those things pop up in
the shop and then people who can get them for cheaper.
Yeah. So that's that's where you can
find me. It's goblins and gardens
everywhere pretty much. I think on Twitter it was
different, but Twitter's dead to me so.
As it should be to everyone, but alas, it's still destroying
everything. Yeah, seriously, it's been a
pleasure having you on. Would love to have you on again.
Maybe come on and play play some of the the other games.
I would love to yeah. I can be the the guy that comes
down from the mountain that has like no context for most of most
of role-playing games you'd like here.
Just throw some dice at me and and I'll play.
That's great. Yeah, yeah.
We'll take that all over. It's a.
Good perspective to have. Yeah, yeah.
I wish. I sometimes I wish I had more of
that perspective. Yeah.
But yeah, again, thank you so much for being here.
We really appreciate it and we will see everyone out there.
Later. Bye everybody.
Bye.