Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan and joining me today is Alan Hall.
How you doing this morning, Alan?
I'm doing great. How are you?
Just wonderful. Not like we've been talking for
like half an hour or anything, but now we're on stream and
getting going. We got to start over.
That's fine. We got to do everything all over
again. This is what we do every time.
But welcome back. I wrote down last time you were
on the show was episode 132, and now you're going to be episode
like 320 something. So that's almost two years ago
was the last time you were on the show?
Yeah, it's, it has been a minute for sure.
Yeah, last time when I came on the first time was to talk about
my first Kickstarter, which is Godspark.
And now we're here to talk about Out of the Iron Labyrinth, which
is my 8th crowdfunding campaign. It's been a good year, a couple
of years. That's crazy that in a two year
span, so this is your 8th. So between that one and this
one, you've had six Kickstarters on top of the one before and the
one after in two years. So this is 8 Kickstarters in two
years? Yeah, that's what we're looking
at. And that's on top of like other
stuff that you've also been putting out in the interim.
You have literally bundles of like Merk Borg, like a bundles
for luminal horror. You still have your Oh gosh,
it's a sprinkles the. The kid game.
Yeah, the Unicorn Sprinkles is missing.
That's right. Yeah, that's still up there.
It's still available. Yeah, how?
How do you have the time to put out all of this stuff?
I don't have a satisfying answer for you, but I spend a lot of
time thinking about this. I have a commute to the day job
and I'm all, I've got nothing to think about, but hey, think
about a new game. I love doing small stuff.
So like last year there were a bunch of new projects, but a lot
of them were like one page or pamphlets or those kind of
things. But I mean, yeah, it's just
moving from one thing to the next.
I try not to get bogged down too much, try not to let things
balloon too much in in the development, in the writing,
which can definitely happen. Yeah, I mean the, the number of
Kickstarter updates you get that are like, hey, sorry guys, like
another delay or like it's got bigger than I thought or now
we're behind. Yeah, not you, which is great.
But but that is that is a pitfall that is common.
But I guess rewinding it back a little bit because again, last
time you were on was Godspark, that was two years ago, was your
first crowdfunding. We probably talked about this
then, but again, two years ago, I don't remember 2 weeks ago,
what got you into tabletop gaming and then at that point
what got you into actually wanting to start writing and
publishing adventures? So I guess I would, I would say
I started with tabletop gaming as a kid in middle school
playing Warhammer 40K and playing Magic Gathering.
Like talking like the I don't even did they call them
additions of magic. It was like 4th like the they
had just a little 4 on the little Roman numeral.
So they were a while ago. And so we did that for a while
and and through high school a little bit and then sort of fell
off on it. And then I actually in 2019,
some people at work wanted to start a Dungeons and Dragons
game and I had never played, but I knew about it and I'm like,
this seems fun. So we played a few games and
that ended with the pandemic and I'm like, Oh, that was a lot of
fun. I want to keep doing that kind
of thing. And then from there I started
writing, which pandemic caused lots of people to start writing
and so writing this and that, and then eventually found the
sort of self-publishing tabletop scene.
Yeah, and what was the first thing you actually put out in
the scene? So I would, so the first thing I
published were actually some novels I published a a sort of
A5 book epic fantasy series that's all set in like a game of
DND. And so I did that and then in
the process of trying to market that, which didn't go anywhere,
that's when I started finding people that were publishing but
other stuff. And so then the first like game
product that I put out was actually a Mark Borg adventure.
It's like I actually took one of the dungeons that I had written
for the novels and I started out with Mark Borg and I put it on
the Mark Board Discord. I'm like, hey, I did this thing
and people were like, oh, this is so cool.
And like the next day somebody's like, Oh yeah, we played that
last night. It was great.
And that was that just why I was hooked after that.
It's like, oh, I just made this and people just did it.
Like that's incredible. Whereas with the novels, it's
like, you know, I'm begging people to like, look at my book.
Unless you know me, then you can't look at it.
But like it's just trying to like get strangers to get
involved, invested in your the thing you made is impossible.
And, and Merkborg especially like, you know, right after the
pandemic, because I think if I remember correctly, the Merkborg
Kickstarter dropped like mid 2020.
That early Merkborg community, especially when it was still
doing the like the Merkborg cult and stuff was rabid for Merkborg
stuff. I remember like finding it later
and seeing all the jams that people were dropping, like the
folk jam and all sorts of stuff. It's crazy.
Yeah, so this was like mid 2021 when I did that.
So I missed Kickstart. I had still, I still had not
back to Kickstarter at that point.
Like I didn't, I wasn't into that yet.
But yeah, I found, I don't even know how I ended up at Mark
Board. I think people were talking
about it on Twitter back then and I'm like, this seems cool.
This looks easier than trying to write it for 5th edition, which
is something I toyed with because the of the novels and
being that being where my introduction to tabletop, like
role-playing and I'm like writing for 5th edition's super
hard. Like every stat box, the whole
page, I'm like, it's terrible. And then I was like, oh, there's
other things. And Merckberg would just happen
to be the thing that I grabbed first and I loved it.
And so yeah, that didn't From there, just started working my
way into making my own games and writing for other systems and
things. Yeah, and when you so I said
like the things that I kind of know you, well, I know all of
your stuff. I have all of your stuff.
But like the things that it feels like you've written the
most for are Merkborg and Liminal Horror.
We just, you found out, you know, we just found out that you
kind of not stumbled upon, but you know, Merkborg was kind of
was was there what got you into Liminal horror?
Because I feel like at that point you would have been
digging more into the indie scene and kind of known more
about like the rest of what was going on.
What? What kind of pulled you towards
Liminal Horror? That was actually like, Oh no,
it was a jam. That was what it was one of the
the jams that they had, which was the, it wasn't the twisted
classics, it was the one from before that, I think.
But whatever. Yeah, they, they had some jams
and I was really into doing game jams at that point because I
didn't really have like a, a direction.
And, you know, I hadn't started doing crowdfunding all that much
yet. And I didn't have like, oh, this
is the type of stuff that I make.
And so it's jams are awesome because it's like, oh, here's
somebody would tell you you're going to write for this system
and it's going to have this theme.
And I'm like, OK, cool. I can, I can work with those
that, you know, the whole restrictions breed creativity.
And so it's like that I really started with doing jams all the
time. And I guess they, so the Mahor
hosted a few jams and I got in on that.
And so that helped. And I was also at that time
writing a lot for a game called The Lost Bay, which is still in
Kickstarter hell. But at the end, it's changed
significantly over the over the last few years.
But at that time I met Eco online and started writing for
Lost Bay. And in my mind there was a lot
of crossover between those two settings.
Nowadays, I'd say it's not as much.
There's less horror in The Lost Bay now, it's more fantastical.
But at the time I was like, oh, I can do things for both of
these. And that really worked for me.
Yeah, so we got the Artifacts of Horror jam, the Tales from the
Void jam, then the Twisted Classics jam.
Yeah, I definitely did Twisted Classics because that was what
like my, I took horror on the Hill, which was TSRB 5 and I
read the and and I'm like, it's got horror in the name.
This is perfect. And then I read it and it wasn't
horror at all. But I took that and that was my
jumping off point for when I wrote On the Hill.
It's just a it's a little horror adventure.
Gotcha. So what?
So you say you kind of like Merkborg kind of fell into your
lap and then you started to do them in a horror.
But if you look at that from like an outside perspective, it
leans you into like the very much like the darker kind of
aspects of teach RBGS. Do you feel like that's where
you're actually at? Or did it happen to be you found
Merkborg and enjoyed it as a system and then you found them
in a horror? Or do you feel like you have?
No, I, I, I wouldn't say that's like my vibe is like the, the
dark and grimy and horror. And I mean grim dark versus
horror. I wouldn't really say that's my
vibe as a person even it was sort of those systems were
accessible. And one thing I really like
about writing for small indie systems is that I can just know
the creators, like right, like I can just I can just, I mean,
I've got I can just talk to Yo and nor I can just talk to Pele.
I can just talk to Gob and archives and Josh Domansky.
And like, you know, you look at these big systems, 5th edition
Pathfinder, whatever called Cthulhu, like either there's not
one person or you can't talk to that one that you can't just
like get in discord and like talk to them.
So that was awesome because then I felt like I'm doing something
that's I'm enjoying creatively, that's fun.
And this other person appreciates that, right?
Like when I was talking with Eco and writing for the Las Bay,
like he appreciates because he's got a system that needs support
and I'm over here writing adventures to support the
system. So it's like, and I love being
able to just have those conversations with the creators
of the game while I'm writing the adventures.
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's one of the best things about the
indie scene in general is how close you are.
Well, small market scene, but how close you are to the
creators. But also the community is such a
big part of the of that scene in that like if you really want a
game to kind of take off, you kind of need a lot of people
around you like pushing it, doing that kind of thing.
Like you said, ego in the like GM specifically, you know, if
you put out a system and really encourage a lot of people to
make things for it, that's what's going to push it farther
and farther. That's what happened with
Merkborg. That's what happened with
mothership. That's it up in this mouse
reader. So the community is such an
intrinsic part of the like this small teach RBG space and
actually getting games bigger and more popular.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if you're just one
person and you write a game system, cool, you ready 1
adventure for it? Awesome.
You people have a one shot. Your game has one as a one
session game now. Like unless you are going to be
writing adventures every week, every month forever, like your
game is only going to have the allure of oh, let's try this
thing, see if it's cool and you'll be like, oh, it's cool,
but that was it. That's the whole game.
So pewing for smaller companies that can't just pay people to
write adventures all day and all night, it's a it's a great
relationship to have and be like, hey, I write adventures,
I'll write adventures and people like, oh, I have a system that
needs adventures. So it works really well.
Yeah, it's very, what's a nice way to say symbiotic?
I was sorry. I was like, what's what's what's
the word that's like parasitic but good.
It's symbiotic in that light. Creators make a cool system that
people really enjoy. So people will write stuff for
that system, which, like when you look at it from a monetary
perspective, encourages people to buy the system, but then the
system then encourages people to buy the things that the
community is writing. So like it kind of builds itself
up and up and up and up all the way around.
Absolutely. And I have found, you know, I've
written some of my own games, I've published stand alone games
that border on systems, but they're usually just like
self-contained things where you play this one maybe 2 times and
like that's it, you got the whole experience.
But what I've found is that like system design isn't interesting
to me. Like, I feel like there are
enough systems out there that people can play whatever story
they want to play. That may or may not be true.
I'm sure lots of people have opinions about that.
But in from my from what I want to do, it's like I'm really
interested in the story itself. And that's where the adventure
let's me get into it. Right.
I started with writing novels and it's like, yeah, a lot of
people say, like adventure writers, you should read about
adventure. Like, they should just written a
novel. And it's like, yeah, that's
that's fine. And but that's what I'm into.
I want to give you half a novel and let you figure out what
happens to the other half. And that's fun for me.
And sure, not everybody plays adventures.
Not everybody's going to use that every adventure the same
way. But but in it's in that setting
up a story that I enjoy. So that's what I do.
Yeah, that was actually my next question that you hit is like
why adventures instead of systems?
So you coming from like the as like you said, the first thing
you published being a novel makes perfect sense that you
like the story part. And when you when you look to
write adventures, do does the system, do you find your
something like OK, I would like to write for liminal horror, for
example, so I'm going to write this adventure.
Or do you find yourself coming up with an idea for an adventure
and then try to find a system that would best fit it?
Usually it's been the former where I'm like, oh, I want to do
something for liminal horror. Let me think of something that's
going to work for liminal horror.
Or like we got OSC month right now.
It's like, oh, we've got OSC month, there's demons.
Let me think of something that can go with demons.
I have stories in my head that don't have systems yet, stories
that I want to be able to present to you to interact with.
But like I haven't figured out exactly the right system to do
it in. A lot of those are going to
become journaling games, probably, which is in the same
being, which is taking the adventure and removing the the
most of the mechanics from it and being like here's like
you're you're the prompts, right.
So in the solo journaling game that you can play these in react
to these and write. And so a lot of the stories that
are just rolling around in my head are probably going to end
up going that way because they're more formed than you
would want for an adventure, you know, adventure you need to
leave enough open for the players to have agency about
what how they interact with it. But so I would I sort of have a
little bit of both going on, but in general it's I pick a system
like this is what I'm right for next, and it's like, what can I
write in that system? Got.
You so when you find yourself the the journaling thing is
really interesting to me or like the way that you think about
writing journaling adventures versus like adventure adventure.
So we talked about reviewing adventures on the show, reviewed
1 adventure and then I ranted for 30 minutes about my opinion
on adventures that we never reviewed another one.
So I. I listen to, I listen to that
episode. I know.
I clearly have strong opinions about adventures, but I guess it
would be very different in a journaling game because I for
me, I generally gear more towards solo adventure games and
solo journaling games, which I think also kind of like why I
gear more towards like systems and like you can see like why,
right? Like the splits, when you look
at it totally makes sense that if you're like a story person
leaning into solo journaling, do you find that you're able to
engage more with the way you want the story to flow when
you're writing an adventure for journaling games than with
writing for systems? I know you said a little bit
like you have to leave it more open for the players, but do you
feel like you're able to actually put in like the story
beats and kind of conclusions and and things a little bit more
in journaling versus adventure, I would actually say?
No, mainly because of the so far the types of journaling games
that I've done, they're not usually like you get this type
of a event 1st and then you get this type of it's more like
here's 36 for the D66 table or 52.
So deck of cards, things that could happen and you're going to
do things that'll decide what you'll you'll draw end up
drawing from a deck or rolling the dice.
But those things can happen in any order.
And so these are just I try to encapsulate tiny moments that
could be interesting and could build on other ones, but they're
not all. But there's no, I don't think in
my head this is going to happen before that because they could
all happen at any order For most of the games that I, that I've
written in for the way that they, most of these, I see them
working as far as with the adventures, especially in ones
where I'm putting in like a doom clock or something like I can
very much build, Oh, this thing is going to happen 1st and then
this thing is going to happen and the players are going to be
doing other things and they're going to have to react to these
things in this order. So you sort of you can prescribe
that in that way, but not every adventure gets a doom clock.
So it's like like the we were talking about out of the Iron
Labyrinth is much more open than what I've written before.
It's just like, here's a space. I don't know what you're going
to do there, but there's a lot to do, yeah.
And that was going to be my next part with with adventure
writing. Have you prior to out of the
island labyrinth? Because obviously we're going to
talk about it. It's over here today.
We talked about a little bit before stream started, but do
you feel like you when you write adventures?
I don't say a railroad because you know like, but have you felt
found yourself in the way you write adventures evolving to in
in any way? Like, do you feel like the first
adventures you wrote versus 1 now have like changed the way
that you think about adventures? Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, I'm growing and learning as I do this for the early ones,
even just, you know, like by that first dungeon that I wrote
is very, it's a 5 room dungeon. It's just like the the, the
either the cliche or the classic.
However you want to look at that five room dungeon, it's a one.
There's a, it's one way in, one way out, and sure you can still
play in that, we can still have fun in that.
But I've definitely learned a lot about presenting just
choices and allowing for things to happen.
So the Baron script was my master month book and that is
very much like, here is a whole forest totally open.
There are 6 different dungeons. Some have bigger monsters than
other, but I'm not going to tell you about what's it, what's
where, and you're just going to go out and find stuff.
And so which I think is much better.
I think that is a better and more playable and more usable
thing. But that five room dungeon
doesn't mean you can't play that.
That's still you can still use that for something.
But I feel like the the bigger, more open stuff is definitely
going to have be more useful to people that are trying to play
the game. Now, what do you think is the
impetus for like changing towards that?
Like is it been critique from people?
Has it been playing more of your own adventures, just playing
more systems and adventures in general?
Like, what do you think has spurred like the changes you've
made in the in the way you'd write adventures?
It it's probably a lot of seeing how other people do it and
seeing what other people seeing, you know, adventures they have
talked about all the time going and looking at those like, what
did they do that I'm not doing? And you know, I don't, I haven't
actually, I don't get all that much critique.
I never really hear much from people about my own stuff.
So it's I'm going out and seeing what are people saying watching
review show, like listening to between two Karens.
Now that's a very specific type of gameplay that they're aiming
for, but it's still useful to hear what they say about stuff.
I really enjoyed your, your take on that one adventure, but like
reading reviews and things and reading adventures and seeing
what other people are doing and then trying to incorporate
seeing what I like and what I don't like from how other people
are doing it versus that first one, which was like completely
in a vacuum. It was just like, I didn't even
know what a fire room dungeon was.
And then it wasn't till after I put it out, I'm like, Oh yeah,
that's pretty much what I did there.
And it was so, you know, learning.
Yeah, but it's so nice to go back and look at that.
I remember when I first got into D&D and I started gyming and I
mean, it became like a forever gym.
I wrote an adventure and this would have been in like 2014 and
I found it like 6 months ago. And I was so proud.
Actually, I was like, this is not terrible.
Like I like what I did here. I it's it's like in its way like
completely trophy, but I was like go you at like, you know,
14 years ago or some shit. It was it's crazy, but but this
is like only like like a couple of years ago for you at this
point. Like do you look back at that in
that SIM kind of like this was the start of it kind of way, or
do you like beat yourself up about it?
I mean, I don't beat myself up about it, but I'm certainly not.
It's not like it's not long enough ago for me to be like,
oh, I was so young and dumb. It's like, no, that was it
wasn't that long ago. Like I probably should have done
some research before I just jumped into this, but hey, yeah,
you know, now I did. And so a lot of those early
things, like I, I printed them and like you said, like I got
them as add-ons on my Kickstarters, mainly because I
need to get rid of them. Otherwise I don't can't, can't
move them. But it's like, hey, you know,
he's get all this stuff from work for.
It's like there's some good stuff in here, but like I'm
letting that stuff go out of print slowly and just sort of
trying to focus on the the nicer, bigger, better written
and better produced things that I've been doing more recently
kind of in general. And, and, and again, you've been
producing a lot. This is your 8th Kickstarter.
So like, so I know that I probably have, I scratched the
word probably, I know that I have a ton of Kickstarters that
started before your first one that I still have not received.
So how has it been fulfilling? I guess Baron Script's not quite
in everyone's hands yet. Like six of seven Kickstarters.
Wait, do I have Baron script? Did I get that the other day?
Did you mail that already? Yeah, I mean, you should have
it. The EU and the UK are the people
that should be waiting on it. I I was just like, wait, no, I
think I got two things in a did. Did Space Penguin send yours
out? No, I just send it myself.
And there was, OK, then I definitely got yours.
So 7 Kickstarters are fulfilled from you in like 2 years or two
to three years. How like, like not only have you
written the Adventures, which is crazy produced and they look
great, but you've actually ran and fulfilled 7 Kickstarters and
are currently running an eighth? I, I, I, I.
It's like, I don't really know and it's just I, I don't know, I
don't have an answer for you. It's like, you know, the things
are always happening, but it's, it's sort of like I, I'm OK with
having overlapping work flows. So when I sit down to write
something, I'll write it and then I'll say, I'll send it to
an editor. And now while I'm waiting for
the editor to do it, I'm going to go write another adventure
and, or write another game or be working on something else.
And then when they get back to me, it's OK, I'll shelve that
and I'll work on this again and I'll do layout and then I'll be
like, OK, now I'll send brief to the artist about what I need
from for this one. And then I'll go back and send
get that other one ready to go to a different editor.
So it's like I've got things in motion all the time, like
overlapping different stages of the way.
So like right now I've got out of the iron Labyrinth is it's a,
it's a full, it's a, it is text complete, right?
Like it needs editing, it needs attention, it needs some stuff
to be punched up, but it's with my artist slash editor right now
for developmental edit. And so in the meantime, I have
another adventure that I wrote that's got, I just got the art
back from that I'm cleaning up and getting ready for release
this summer called The Green Who's King.
So like that's just a band of a little adventure.
Not going to be crowdfunding, but I'm going to print it and
I'll just sell it to my store. And I've also got a little
skirmish game in my head that's like, I'm just like laying out
the foundation for so you know, it's always have a little bit of
something. So every day you've got
something to work on, even if I'm waiting on the things.
Are you one of like the 10 people in this space that
doesn't have ADHD? Because I'm the kind of person
where I'm like, I would like to hobby tonight.
Oh no, there's like one too many things on my desk.
Yes, I'm not hobbing tonight and it's just gone.
So when I was writing my game, it was like one day of work from
being finished. So I just didn't work on it for
five months and then did it in one day and released it.
Like that's just how my brain works.
So I guess I'm. Working on multiple.
Things at Once is is a dream that I will not ever get to
accomplish. Yeah, I that that must be part
of it. I don't seem to suffer from that
sort of issue of attention focus.
It's just, you know, I do a thing and I do it and then I
move on to the next thing. Seems to work pretty well for
me. Must be nice, man.
Even it's, it's definitely one of those things where I'm like,
I should brush my teeth. All right, I'm going to yell at
myself in my head for 10 minutes about how I should go brush my
teeth now, you know, But no, it's it's great, you know, and
and one of the things you said, I don't remember this was pre
stream or or not, but not letting projects balloon you.
You're very obviously hyper focused in like the things that
you want to get done and then actually getting them done for
the people listening that are fulfilling kickstarters and
stuff like that. Like what?
Like specifically in actually getting the project fulfilled
and stuff like how do you make it where you're able to, once
it's written and art is everything, get it produced and
sent out in then the expedient way that you do.
I think so. I've found finding the people to
actually make the stuff is it was a big step.
So you know for my first up is printing with Nick Sam, right?
Easy peasy. You put it in, you wait six
weeks, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, who knows?
You keep getting emails pushing back your date and so eventually
it shows up and you're done. So you know that works great at
bigger scales. It doesn't.
You know the numbers aren't as good when you're trying to print
a 500 or 1000 of something. You can get better numbers if
you go somewhere else. So it was finding those other
places I could go to print things was a big step.
So like for in ruins was my was a dungeon building game that I
did last year in that for Z month and I got that printed at
this place in Poland and they had it on my doorstep within two
weeks, like faster than mix them.
Ever had 1000 copies? Perfect parent.
And it's just like, OK, now it's time to ship these.
And so like we had those out the door by May, you know, I ended
up I spend most of my time waiting on backer, the backer
kit survey thing to like do wait the two day holding period for
each step. And so that was the big thing.
And also I've always I've tried to focus on just making the
book, you know, with with Baron's grip.
I was able because the printer I was working with wasn't China,
but they were able to like add in those asset packs.
So there's like packs of maps and things in there and the big
map poster. So he was able to get all in one
place. It's like I put in the order
with them, they shipped to me, it's done.
A lot of you know, I see people assembling bundles by hand of
things that are printed from different places and it's like
there's every different place you're bringing coming from,
there's a delays that could pop up there.
So I think those are the big things is really limiting the
number of physical things you're putting you're producing and
then trying to reduce the number of touch points for them.
Have you ever? I'd like that temptation to be
like, but, you know, a box that would be nice and some dice
would be nice and some cards would be nice and like.
So absolutely, that was Liminal Grimoire.
So that was my box set thing from last year, which I actually
had that print. So getting finding some place to
make that was a huge pain because I started by wanting to
do what cyber plus punk augmented, right?
Like the whole fold out thing which you've talked about.
I know you your black, your background's blurred, but yeah,
I see some yellow up there. It could be.
But yeah, you guys have talked about that a lot.
And I saw that and I'm like, I want to make this and making
that is not easy. Like that's a bunch of custom
die cutting and that can get really expensive.
So then I was like, I'll just put it in a box because I just,
I want to make a bunch of pamphlets.
I like writing. I was into writing pamphlets at
that time and I'm like, we'll just put it in a box and just
finding something to make like a board game style box.
Not easy printing it in America, they would have been like
literally an empty box was going to cost me like 9 to $10 to
create. And I'm like, well, that doesn't
work. So I ended up getting it printed
by a a company that specializes in tarot cards.
So they make like custom, custom sized card boxes.
So that's why that box is not like the thin stuff that you
expect from a board game. It's like really thick cardboard
because it's supposed to be. It's a deck box that just
happens to have a bunch of pamphlets in it.
So that was like, and but that was when I'm like, all right,
I've got a box already. Let's just throw some, let's
throw some dice in there. And the thing that stopped me is
because when I was producing, that was right when tariffs
became a thing. And all of a sudden it's like I
go for my box of printed pamphlets, which is usually
going to be 0% just because it's just printed material.
That's usually 0% tariff. Even with when tariffs were
crazy, it was still 0 rated. If I put dice in there, all of a
sudden I've got a board game and that's I'm not doing that.
So that that was what scared me away from getting a little bit
more physical on that particular product.
We will say it's a nice fucking box, I pointed.
Because I can see it right there.
I'm not going to stand up. It's a.
It's a great pamphlet box though, like it is very.
It is thick as fuck. Like it's a nice box.
Yeah, like you could throw that in your backpack and you don't
have to worry about it at all. It's like it's bulletproof.
So yeah, it's a it is a thick box for sure.
It is more than I needed, but that's fine.
That was like, they were like, yeah, we can make this and the
price was right and I'm like done do it and they could print
it and put it. As someone who's backed damn
near 800, probably more than 800 crowdfunds at this point, please
for the love of God, if for everyone out there, this is not
just you don't put dice in anything.
There's no one in this space that doesn't own a million dice.
And the cost and time of getting and putting dice into something
is way more than someone just being like, oh I'll use the
other thousand dice that I have, but what if I?
Want the D6 is, but what if I wanted my logo on the six of the
D6? You know what that's for?
You know, what that's for is your shop after the crowdfund so
that you can just send one at a time and not have to like mass
produce 1000 of them. Hope it all goes out.
But crowdfunding months is going to be our segue into what we're
actually talking about today. I mean, just getting right in.
How do you feel about them? What are your thoughts on
months? So as we have already covered, I
like writing adventures and I have and I've done some
crowdfunding. And when I crowdfund for an
adventure, I need to find the people that play that game and
that is not always easy to do. If I, I mean honestly, if I was
just doing this for money, I'd be writing for 5th edition or
maybe Shadow Dark if I wanted to stay indie, but I'm never going
to do that. I have no interest in Shadow
Dark. But anyway, if I'm not using one
of the buzzwords like finding the people that play the game to
then go back, the crowdfunding is hard.
I mean, I found out I just did a liminal horror one in February
for UHF Contact and like it did, it did fine.
It certainly funded no problem. That book is getting printed
great, but it's not like doing it.
It wasn't like bonkers money, right?
The months the I've got Gavin Norman of OSE bringing his
audience back back in November for Master Month.
We've got Games Omnivorous bringing their audience with
their product that obviously everybody is there for.
But then they're like, hey, we've got all these cool people
making cool stuff, maybe you should check them out too.
And that makes crowdfunding an adventure work.
Crowdfunding an adventure out without that support from the
game developer is really hard. I found out when I did a Morc
Borg 1-2 years ago Foul, which again did great.
It funded. I've sold a bunch of it since
then in distro and stuff. But like the actual crowdfunding
had like 120 backers, which is enough to print the book.
But it's not like, you know, it's not all.
It's not like crazy. It's not like nobody's like
writing A blog post about my Kickstarter, right?
So anyway, so I do like the months and I probably since the
the way this last year's gone, I'm probably not going to be
crowdfunding adventures outside of months going forward.
I feel like in full standalone games can still do well in
crowdfunding, but doing this for these sort of narrow audiences
already probably not going to be doing too much of that anymore,
which is why this green news king that I'm doing, I'm saying
I'm just going to, I'm going to do a pre-order on my web shop
and be like, Hey, if you preorder this, everything else
you buy is 25% off or something. You're still better than I get
if my distributor sells it. So that's probably how I'll go
with the adventures moving forward.
It's very reasonable for adventure riding because I know
that you know what, prior to two months, part of backer kit
really being like we need to compete with Kickstarter.
It was really just Zen month, Zenquest specifically that
people would save up like all year to be like, this is when
I'm going to drop this thing because there's going to be for
the exact same reason that people look at the months people
would do Zenquest for. This is when I know eyes will be
in this space. So for for major, it does make a
lot of sense. I think my concern slash
critique, I guess with months is 1 one of the first big ones was
mothership month. I think that might have been you
know, outside of like Pocket Topia and Xenotopia and stuff.
The first like themed month was mothership month.
Mothership month 1 still hasn't fulfilled fulfilled and we've
already had mothership month two.
I will say we've already got your master in a project and
there are a couple other on are on the board.
So those are getting kind of quicker through through that
month. But I think the issue with like
yearly months, especially for not necessarily everyone under
the primary person, right, not mouse writer, not Mothership,
not OSE can probably distribute like pretty quickly because
their projects are generally for the most part going to be a
little bit smaller. But having a yearly month from
big, you know, people like OSE, Mothership, stuff like that,
they put a lot bigger, like they have just more going on a year
turn around for big projects isn't really that big on
Kickstarter, I'm sorry. And crowdfunding in general.
Yeah, sure. No, yeah, I while I have not had
to produce like already, you know the demonic grimoire,
right, the OSC flagship products for this for OSC month like
they've already got whatever it is over 1000, right backers
Yeah, it's like over. $40 million already, yeah.
Yeah, I can tell. You right now it is. 3000
backers, yeah, they just hit $250,000, Three thousand
backers, so I've never had to produce something for 3000
backers. So presumably they're going to
be printing 5 to 10,000 copies like I've never had to make.
I have no idea what that takes. But even if that book is done,
which I know it's very close, we've got we as creators for the
month have been getting the drafts of the Demonic Grimoire
as part of, Hey, let's make sure all of our stuff is sort of
working from the same starting point.
So we all get access to the Beastie area in there.
We all get access to the spells in there to the demon Lords and
stuff. So that when I write something
about the Iron Labyrinth and somebody else writes, which is
one of these Hells connected to one of these new, not new demon
Lords, one of the demon Lords in the book and somebody else
writes something about the iron Labyrinth.
We're we're not going to be directly disagreeing with what
we with this, they've established some more.
But so I know that book is almost done, but if you got to
make 10,000 of them, that's going to take time.
And I, I have no idea how much time, but I mean, they're
planning for, they're planning to fulfill.
I don't know if I'm supposed to say it's not.
It's not that bad as far as time goes.
But yeah, it's, it's still a lot.
It's also yeah, yeah, they came in with it almost done, which
helps. Like which everyone should do
with all of their crowdfunding, all the.
Time. Please for the love of God like
have 90 plus percent done before you get to crowdfunding and
don't do too many stretch goals. My only other like little
concern too is just if every month becomes a month for
something, it's going to make it hard for the things not in that
month to get eyes just in the same way it is when it's not
right. So anyone dropping stuff right
now for like Merkborg during OSE month, unless it's also demon
themed is going to like people are already spending their money
on the month. So like, I think it's really, I
think it's interesting, I think it's good.
I think it has some drawbacks. I hope it doesn't marvelize the
space a little bit. You know what I mean?
I hope it doesn't like burn people out so much on the thing
like having like, Oh no, we have another month.
I already spent all my money in OSC month, but next month is
master month and the next month is well, how am I going to buy
all this stuff? They that that I'm hoping it
doesn't burn people out on months and that they just like,
chill out. At least we have one that
doesn't start with M Like that's what's important is we got one
that is an O and that's that's great.
But again, Speaking of the month, Speaking of OSC month,
we're talking about Out of the Iron Labyrinth finally.
That is the adventure you're writing for today.
I have got to read a draft of it.
I really like it. And you know how I feel about
adventures I do. So yeah.
So tell us, tell us a little bit about Out of the Iron Labyrinth.
I want to show that this nice cover art to start.
So what what? What is Out of the Iron
Labyrinth? So it is a hell escape
adventure. So the Iron Labyrinth is one of
the lower planes of well, Carceras is the name of the
plane and the Iron Labyrinth is the nickname for it, ruled by
the demon Lord Beth Gore. And so this is like the prison
hell, which is very much with, you know, sort of like one
classical view of hell is people are there being tortured all the
time. That's what's what this hell is
versus there's a lot of other Hells in the demonic room war,
but this is really the one that's it's called a prison
hell. And what I like about that is
because it's, it's an indoor space, which is much easier to
draw as far as a map goes. I can draw a dungeon and it
makes sense because we're in an inside sort of, you know, rooms,
cells, prison cells, torture chambers, all that kind of
stuff. And so the idea from the
adventure is you are one character.
So it is a adventure for one player character and they end up
getting sent to hell. Now this is not a a post mortem
like oh you wake up, you died and you wake up in hell.
This is like you got kidnapped by a cult and thrown into a
portal to hell as a sacrifice. Or you got you were doing some
magic and the spell went wrong. There's one spell in particular
through the looking glass where if you fail to save at the end
of it, you get sent to a random place in like a different plane.
Like Bam, now you're in hell and the idea is your one player
character now has to figure out how they're going to get.
Back to the material playing. That is the, the, the purpose it
can be played. I'm writing it mainly for
one-on-one play, so one player, one GM.
And the idea being you've got game night and only one player
can show up. And it's like, all right, your
character got kidnapped while you were gone and now you're
here. We'll, we'll play in hell
tonight. So that kind of a thing.
And so it all can also be played solo.
So I'm putting some basic solo tools, a gameplay loop to help
us all play in some Oracle tables.
Very similar to what I've done for other systems before, but it
should be enough to get somebody started to try playing this
solo, no? Keep going.
Go ahead, I. Was going I was going to keep
talking about. No, please keep talking about
the thing. Keep going.
OK, and so the so prison hell it hell infinite essentially,
right? Like it's a big space, it goes
on forever. There's an unlimited number of
souls in hell. And part of the what the demonic
grimoire says about this place is you can't die here.
That's part of the torture is this people are essentially
killed over and over and then they're in her for 24 hours and
they wake back up. And so it actually worked really
well because for A1 player character adventure, like you
could, you could have a bad encounter in your first room and
you're dead. It's like, oh, we're just, we're
done. It's like, well, no, we're not
done. You've got, you're going to wake
up in 24 hours. And so I part of the game design
challenge of that as well. If death isn't scary, what's our
motivation? Like how do we keep, how do we
keep some stress on the player? How, how do we make them care?
And So what we right now what it is, is we've got sort of just AD
20 roll. And so for the UTS, keep a tally
of every time that you're reduced TO0HP.
And so, and every time you wake up, you roll AD 20.
And if that number is below the number of times you've died, you
are now a damned soul. So I sort of, I make a
distinction there that the damned souls are people that
have died and brought to hell versus free souls, which are
people that have not died but haven't found themselves on this
plane anyway. And so you go in as a free soul.
And if you ever become a damned soul, then that's the end.
That's where you end. But you can hopefully die
several times before that. A bad that bad D20 role dams you
for eternity. I when I read that, I fucking
loved it. I almost messaged you when I was
reading it and was just like, dude, this is so good because
it's so simple, but it's so clever because like AD 20 roll
is, I mean, there's a 5% chance to roll anything, right.
But your odds of rolling under 2 under 3, like letting you die a
couple of times, the fact that again, you, you can't die, but
now there is. But you, you can, there's a
small chance. So you, like, it's not enough
that you might not do something risky early on, like your life's
become resource management, which innately gives you a sense
of like stress and, and it's something to work against,
right? Or, or work with.
And that is such a clever, simple, easy way to make death
important in a place where you can't die because you can die.
But like, it, it, it was, it's so smart.
It's so clever. I really, really like that a
lot. Yeah, I'm glad.
Yeah, it was, that was like it was a, you know what we were
talking earlier about designing games and systems versus
designing adventures. And that sort of gives you an
idea of that every adventure is also has systems.
Like it's very infrequent that I or probably anybody writes an
adventure that relies 100% on systems presented in the rule
book for that game. You know, you always are adding,
you know, adding a certain type of clock that works in because
that's the way your dungeon works.
Or you add a rule for this type of potion because you've got a
dungeon that's got this weird potion.
So as you're always adding little rules.
And so this was one that felt like, what's the challenge of
being in a place where you can't die?
How do we make it interest? How do we make that still
interesting? And so we sort of, that's what
we went with. And I think, I think it works.
I think, you know, because the first step is free because you
can't roll under A1. So you die once and you got to
roll under. And so it's just going to sort
of slowly and also works with the, the save mechanic in OSC
because you want to meet or beat your, your, your save.
So yours is called a death save, although it's not a, you're not
saving versus death, but it's a, it's a different kind of thing.
But so I think it works and I think it'll like you said, you
know, you can be, you can be a little risky and you can
actually dying is a way to get into a different get it, get
some places because you die in one place.
And then when you by the time you wake up, you've been taken
somewhere else and like, maybe you just need to get out of the
place. Like I'll just die and then
they'll take me away. And now I'm not in this room
anymore. So that's all things that people
can start playing with. Yeah, and it's, it feels very
much, at least from what I've read, what you said is, is
pretty, pretty text far down. It's it's it is how I like
adventures, which clearly my opinion is the one that matters
to everyone, right. Like, but it is it feels very
much like I don't give too much away.
So tell me to shut up if I'm giving too much away, but it
feels very much like here's a place, here's some like cool
spots, Here's some interesting like creatures and PCs bad guys,
whatever. Now go Like there's no there's
it's definitely not railroadie. There's no real through line
necessarily for how it feels like the GM is being told for
the players to do. It doesn't feel like there's
this conclusion that you're suddenly going to be like, this
is how it will end and stuff like that.
Like it, It feels very much more like an adventure location with
some cool stuff and cool moments in it, which which I find again,
how I how I want to run adventures because the players
are always going to tell a better story than you know, for
your table than anyone can write.
So like I, I really enjoyed that, that it definitely feels
like you are in cursares, not being told how to be in
cursares. Yeah.
And so the again, because it's an infinite space, I had to
limit because I don't want to, I can't draw an infinite space,
right. So I wanted to be like, hey, I
want to make 30 rooms. And this is where we're talking
about ballooning. In my initial, my initial plan
was there was a blog post about, Oh, I don't even know what they
called it a flux crawl or something recently where is an
idea of exploring a same, a space that's just infinitely
samey. So it was like for a way to run
mazes or labyrinths or whatever, which would have actually worked
really well here. And I was like, all right, so
we'll do a this like flux crawl where you have to like explore
and map the space. And then you need like 6 points
of interest. And then, and then you need like
these four other more important points of interest.
And I'm like, and we're going to do that on every level of the
five levels of Carcera. So you're going to come in at
the bottom of and you got to work your way up.
And I'm like, and all of a sudden I'm running 60 points of
interest and I'm like, each of these is going to get a spread
like, wait, this is a big book. I don't want to do a big, I
don't want to do a big book like this right now.
And So what we did was we're like, all right, let's just make
a dungeon and we'll stick it in Carceras.
And this is where we get the court of Ilfracs.
So I'm like, all right, so we'll say that there's this that's a
it's a dragon because I like Dragons in my dungeons and
Dragons as much as I can get them in there.
So like we got a dragon and he rules this tiny little corner of
the infinite labyrinth. Like this is his place and these
souls are his and that's where he gets its power.
And he's all underneath Beth Gore, the demon Lord, but he's
like a little Lieutenant guy and it's like, all right, he's got
his own Lieutenant. And so that's where we got an
Aaron, yes, Nya Laura, and she wants to get rid of the dragon
because he's not a demon. And so we've got so just setting
up tension between the these NPCS and then for the way the
adventure starts, because we said, oh, it doesn't matter how
your character gets there. Like maybe they got kidnapped,
maybe they happened to fall through a portal, maybe they an
errant spell. And you can roll.
There's I give suggestions for literally which room to start in
or you can roll AD 30 and literally drop into any room of
this dungeon. And now you have to go and the,
the NPC you happen to meet first might end up being the one that
you ally with and are trying to help achieve their ends.
Because that's one way to get out.
Like, and who knows, maybe the first person you meet kills you
and then you wake up somewhere else.
And then now you have to try to find somebody else that's going
to help you towards your, your, your goal of escaping.
Or maybe you don't want to escape.
Maybe you just want to. Maybe you're going to kill the
dragon and become the new demon Lord.
Like, whatever, whatever you want to do.
Yeah, I, I really like that. And I like that there's also the
distinction you have between like the free souls and the
damsels and then the fact that they're, you might not be the
only free soul down there, which is interesting because they're
going to be kind of working under the same like rules you
are compared to the damsels. But also if you do happen to
like accidentally die, like there's other free souls in
there that you could just be like, well, I'm not quite done
here yet. Like I'm just going to now, I'm
going to be this other guy. Yeah, especially if you've like
allied with them already and then you end up being dead.
It's like, well, I already know that person's goals.
I know why they're here. I know what they're trying to
get towards, so I'll just be them now.
And so you and you can obviously do that.
There's step blocks that you can grab.
You know this for those other, there's a two or three of them
there. You could be like, oh, I'll just
be them now. And that's certainly an option
for you. And as far as the actual the
book, the pledge, like what can people get from you for this?
All right, so I did for this what I've done for I think every
crowdfunder, which is I've got 3 tiers.
You get APDF, which is you get everything that we end up making
in digital form. And if you want to go and print
the the big poster map, go and print the big poster map.
It's all it's on you. Then the middle tier is you get
just the book and you still get access to all the digital stuff.
So everything that we make Jamie Douglas by artist who's amazing
and editor because he also knows the stuff, he's everything that
we put together for this. You get it all digitally and you
get the book and you can go with that where how you like or the
top tier is everything printed. So that's sort of the idea of I
print out everything that I I would want at the table to play
this. I get it professionally printed
and then you get that. So that's like the bundle.
So the bundle for this we're going to do because we really
liked the A3 size map that we did for the Baron's Grip, like
full poster size. And then it comes folded down to
A5 so it all fits in one package.
We're going to do an A3 map with all three levels of the dungeon
because it is solo a bowl. So, you know, seeing the map of
the dungeon doesn't ruin it because you just have to think
about how you're playing the game and separating character
knowledge from player knowledge. That's a little, leave a little
bit of that on the player to manage.
And I think there's one like room that's kind of secret that
we'll probably just have on the map and you, you just have to
realize, oh, I don't know where that is.
But anyway, so we'll do a, we're going to do a full A3 print with
all three levels of the dungeon and then some tables on it.
And then also a couple A5 prints of like the, the Oracle tables
for the solo rules. And we're talking about
potentially Jamie might drop some little paper fold minis.
So you can have those on your poster if you want, which I've
not done before, but I see lots of people doing those.
So those aren't too hard to put together and print out.
You just have to cut them out and fold them at home.
And it's all extremely reasonably priced.
I mean, PDF $8, Zine $18.00 and then physical bundle only
$25.00. So like it kind of makes sense
to just go for the physical bundle.
Did you do you? Is this like the medium coke
kind of thing at McDonald's where you're like if you're
already doing 18 you might as well just get like the large
coke or or? What's that?
It was? It wasn't that.
So honestly, the bundle was added yesterday morning about an
hour before we started. I started.
I only had the PDF in the book and it's just, you know, it's
just, it's just one adventure, right?
Like I, I'm trying and it's, you know, I'm not doing anything
crazy with the printing. This isn't Rhizograph.
So it's like, I don't want to charge you $30.00 for a venture
that you're going to play for two or three sessions, right?
So it's like, OK, 18 bucks makes sense.
We're going to get printed as a Zine.
Get it printed as a Zine. 18 dollars could be the venture.
That's fine. And then I was thinking about
what could go into the bundle and it's like, all right, we'll
do a big poster. I can get that printed for, you
know, this much and a couple other things like, all right, so
just a few bucks more. 25 is a nice round Number.
I like that. Yeah, I mean, the, the maps and
the posters and things aren't things they won't go into retail
later. So I don't need to really worry
about being like efficiently pricing those first of how we
think about pricing books for retail when I'm going to be
selling wholesale and yadda, yadda.
But but yeah, I like 25 is a nice round Number like that and
yeah, majority of backers have been going with that one, so I'm
glad I added it. Yeah.
But so asset pack is not just a map.
So what are the other things inside that Besides you said
maybe the things because I see see some other stuff on this
picture. Oh yeah, the it's going to be
the Oracle tables from the from the solo section.
Oh, in an art print like an A5? Nice print of the cover art
without the words, without my name on it.
I liked it some, I know people like art prints, so I tend to
throw those in because I got the art, I love the art.
So I want to put that out there so people can see it.
And then that's, and I showed the Oracle tables.
And then the other one will be potentially the paper full of
minis. So we'll, we're probably going
to end up do that, but it's like one of those sort of like a, a
post hoc stretch goal at the end.
I'll be like, Oh yeah, we also did this.
So I don't like doing stretch goals anymore for the whole
bloat thing. It's like this is the thing.
I've already written the thing. Maybe we'll throw in some
stickers too. But just because we're again,
we're going to have cool art. So it's fun that I some people
like stickers. I like stickers sometimes, but I
don't think it's enough that anybody, it's not going to make
somebody pledge or not. So it's not like a, the idea of
a stretch goal like convincing people to pledge.
Nobody cares that much about stickers.
So we'll just, we'll just make them anyway.
Yeah, I get, I get big projects wanting to do like super big
stretch goals and stuff to get that like, oh, just get us to
the next tier thing. But for small projects, man,
like if it's literally just like my favorite stretch goals are
people get paid more and the book looks prettier.
Like that's what I want. Like we'll get to do spot
coding, we'll get to do a second bookmark.
We'll get to do those are my favorite.
Like you've already done everything.
We're just making it prettier. That's what I want.
Which is what Demonic Grimoire is doing.
They their stretch goals. They were the two bookmarks.
They're going to do paint the edge black, which is great for
the demon book. And then I can't remember what
the other one. And then there's an adventure
that they'll add in, which is great, perfect.
But yeah, not like, oh, we're going to add vehicle rules and
that's going to take us an extra 6 months to develop.
You know, the worst part about all that too, is like, if you
already have that idea, just fucking do it.
Like what are we talking about? You know, 'cause people are
like, oh, I'm so sad I didn't get to do that.
You fucking you probably already did.
It's probably there. What the fuck are we doing?
Like, come on, come on. It's to me that feels like
asking for a perception check for something.
The character needs to have the knowledge of you to continue.
You're just like fucking yourself.
Like it doesn't make sense. Don't ask for the role, just
give it. Yeah.
So don't make it a stretch goal. If you've done it, just get it
anyway. I think, I think Demonic Remor,
they're doing it very well for the stretch goals.
I think they've got a good set of things there that are like
just quality of life little things.
It's and it's not going to be, there's no develop, there's no,
that's like nothing. Nothing that they are adding is
going to delay anything. It's just they just check
another box when they place the order with the printer.
So I think that's awesome. And but yeah, for my little
thing, this is, this is, this is what you, this is what we've
got. Yeah, it's have they hit all of
their stretch? No, they have up to up to
350,000 is, is the final stretch goal, but they've hit everything
else to it. So I I feel like.
They had stickers too. That's right, they did do
stickers. But you, so you funded day one
$900 funding goal and that made me giggle a little bit.
I was like, you're going to hit $900.
Like that's kind of a but you're, you're at almost $5000
on day 2, which is very nice. Pretty good.
I'm happy with that. Yeah, 900.
So when I set the number, it's literally like, how much did I
pay for the cover art? How much have is have I agreed
to pay Jamie for the interior art Sometimes.
So it's like I think about that, but that's not, you know, I've
already paid them. So it's like that.
I don't need you to I don't need that from the funding to
coverage. So I usually look at like if I
want to print a hundred of these, how much is that going to
cost? It's like, OK, that I know I'm
going to spend some money on meta ads because I don't know
why I do it, but I, I've got the account there, I know how to do
it. So I turn those on.
I don't know if they actually help.
I don't have the, the brain to figure out pixel tracking and
stuff. And then I, it's like I end up
with some number. I don't like having over $1000
because that it takes a long time to get to.
So it's like I'm going to print, I'm going to be printing this.
This is, I want to get this. I want people to see this.
So yeah, $900, I have no idea where I came with that, but that
number, but I mean, I could have printed the book for 900.
So if we hit 900 and only 900, I would have made the book so it
counts. There we go.
And then so over 200 backers, what you the 8th Kickstarter?
What's the highest number of backer account you ever had on a
Kickstarter? Oh, that or.
A crowdfund. I hate that Kickstarter is my
default for crowdfund. Yeah, no, I, I know.
I think it was probably the Baron's grip, the mouse rear one
that had 560. That was, yeah, that was almost
certainly the biggest. Before that it would have been
in Ruins, which was my the dungeon building game, which did
really well last year here. I've got stats here, backers.
No, in Ruins at 595. So that was more so yeah.
So we're, you know, we're doing great. 200 is awesome.
Almost halfway there on literally day 2, like you, you
hit 200 basically on the first day.
You got 29 days to go? Yeah, but but.
Like it's only like the first two days and the last two days
are like 70 percent, 80% of what everything in between is just
like, like I'll like, I mean, this comes from having done a
bunch of these. It's like they'll be days.
I don't even look. I don't even check because it's
like, I don't know, I don't need to see that we went down today
because that happens. It's like a negative day just
like ruins it. So it's just like, you know,
I'll check and I'll check next weekend and try to not look at
it. So in a 30 day crowd fund, when
you fund on day one, like do you still find yourself like staring
at the numbers the entire time or you just go who?
I'm going to ignore it now. I try to, I try to do that.
That's actually, this is usually when I start writing my next
thing. It's like, yeah, we funded this.
Like I'm waiting on, I'm waiting on art, I'm waiting on editing
on whatever I'm doing. I got to wait till the fund or
maybe it's done, but still I have to wait till we finish and
then get the money. So I can't order it yet.
So yeah, I just start writing something else.
I can't imagine working on a thing until The thing is done.
Like I just your brain. It's it's good.
You got a good brain and I'm proud of you and I'm happy for
you. I'm glad that.
We. Did like 2-3 projects a year is
what it seems like. If you've done 8 kickstarters in
in just over 2 years, that's literally like no that's like 3
to 4 kickstarters a year. That's.
Crazy. It was 3 in 2024 and 3 in 2025,
and this is number 2 for 2026. And so I got to think, I don't
know what I've got 2 potentials for later this year, both of
which are still early in the writing, but I think and are
very different. So one's a skirmish game, which
I'd love to touch out with you about, and the other one is a is
a journaling game. Yeah, but part of that you said
you've finished a couple times in adventure, you're dropping in
the summer. Any any little preview of what's
coming with that? Yeah, so that is the green who's
king. So this was actually again,
inspired by an itch jam called the Lean green Zine Jam run by
Junk food games in two months ago, a month ago, something like
that. And I read that and literally
the prompt was green and I'm like, I got this.
And so here I will. I'm going to send you the the
cover art cuz it's by Straggand. I love scraggin stuff, dude.
Like that's a dream. Like I have a list of like four
or five people I would love to just have stuff by, and they
were damn near the top of the list.
Their stuff is crazy. Look.
At this cover. Do you want me to drop this in
stream too? Yeah, hold on, I can't.
It's too big, but I'll just screenshot.
So it's going to be like a little less quality, but still
pretty good. Bear with us for a moment
podcast. It's pretty give me one second
and I will throw this up there for for those in in podcast
land. So the Green News King is a it's
an adventure. And so it's literally the prompt
is green. So it started with, it starts
with there's a, it's not a hex crawl, but there's a hex map and
there's an island. And so on this island, there
used to be a wizard tower. And it, when you arrive at the
coast, that seat looks out into the island.
The, there's a town on the coast and the wizard has not been seen
in a long time. And so the townspeople, the
mayor who hates the wizard has been like, we're going to tear
down his tower and build a lighthouse instead.
Because since the wizard left, the wizard magic used to like
protect the island for ships, but the wizard left ships are
crashing into the island now. So he's like, we can't have
that. We need a lighthouse.
And so even though so tearing down a wizard's tower is not an
EA straightforward proposition. The tower doesn't really like
that. But the players show up and this
is just happening. And So what the players are
going to get convinced that they need to go to the island because
there's some things happening on the island.
And the idea is the wizard was studying oozes and created an
ooze. And that the green ooze, that
green ooze stole a magic item that the wizard happened to have
in his, in his little dungeon thing.
And that gave the ooze sentience.
And then the ooze ate the wizard.
And so that either now the green ooze came because they've got
the magic items, a crown, and he's doing now ooze evil stuff
in the dungeon. But there is another faction of
Pixies who used to own the crown and they want it back.
And so they show up and they're trying to get into the tower and
the townspeople are trying to tear the tower down.
And then once you get in the tower, there are oozes all over
the place that are that want to kill you.
And it's just, yeah, you want it.
You're going to go there. You'll probably end up in the
dungeon because that's what you do.
But but otherwise it's pretty open that for there's a like a
few different people reasons why you might end up in the dungeon.
You maybe you're helping the Pixies, maybe you're just
exploring, maybe you're trying to rescue somebody that's
disappeared. So there's a bunch of options,
but that's sort of the the idea for this adventure.
That sounds awesome. And again, I love what you're
doing with adventures. It's very much, I don't know,
like in the in the review that we did talk about, we talked
about silent paranormal and I feel like they're so peak with
just giving you cool location, cool things and a lot of the
stuff that you're writing, especially once I read Iron
labyrinth is so much in that vein.
And you say you're not you like it's not all about dark stuff,
but I love the dark stuff and the dark stuff you do write is
so good. Green news King it like it feels
so from what you just described, it feels so.
I want to say so D&D, you know what I mean?
Like a goose eats a wizard and like it is.
Like, yeah, it's exactly what? You would want, yeah.
It is, it is D&D. There's no the probably not a
dragon in there, but yeah, it's like it's, it's a, it's AD and D
adventure. So I wrote it for Karen.
But then actually after everything I've been doing for
out of the Iron Labyrinth, I I just yesterday I was finalizing
an OSC bestiary for it. So there's going to be some
handful of pages at the back. So it just with the conversions
for OSC. So it'll work for both.
So however, you so it was just essentially BX stats, right?
So it can it's, it's, it's one of these things like it's, it is
written for Karen. But I'm also throwing in like,
hey, if you want to do it in OSC, change these few things.
This is what those stats are and that kind of stuff.
So a little, I love that. I love when you can because you
can just do that. Like people can do that, but
it's so much nicer when the creator kind of does it because
they might go like looking at the creature and making it.
The stats that you want it to have is always going to be
better when you know how it feels for you versus, you know,
especially with. Karen is so limited, you know,
you know, the its stat locks are bare bones.
Like it's the so few things versus an OSE statlock which has
got a lot. It's like, you know, I don't
have in my head what this creature is and you know, Karen,
this is what I need to present to you for Karen.
But if I'm, if I have more, more things to present, like I have
an OSC, like I'm going to give you some more stuff.
Like there's going to be some more things for you to work with
here because the system supports that.
So yeah. So it's going to be a little bit
of both. And hopefully people like my OC
stuff so I can say, hey, I've got another OC thing and we'll
see. We'll see how that goes.
It's also, you know, it's, it's super smart to do that.
I know that Stella just did that with Von Hein Manor.
She put out I think 8 different step blocks with that, which is
I loved. I think that's so clever for so
many reasons. One, because there's no such
thing as as true system neutral. Someone always has this system
in mind when they're writing something.
So I might as well start it up, but being able to set it up for
a bunch of different things, 1 is going to give you a better
audience of people to pull through. 2 is going to
communicate your vision a lot more.
And I think it's just those two. It's great.
It's it's great for everybody. It's nice to have just label,
just label which ones which but I'm, I'm excited for this and
that cover art, man Scrag and just like that is gorgeous.
Yeah. Podcast Land.
Watch the episode. Yeah, so I so Scragen also did
some of the the few interior spots for me.
So it's not like, you know, I I'm not an artist, I'm getting
into the actual drawing of the dungeons by, you know, watching
some dice and logos videos so I can do my own dungeon drawing
up. But like the actual illustration
never did my thing. And so there are illustrations.
It's not art heavy. It's not like big splashy,
splashy spreads of art. But you know, there's some
scragging stuff in there. It all looks good.
It, it has it, it conveys my vision.
He did a great job of capturing the brief on those pieces.
So, so I'm excited for this one. And it's all green.
It's like that was the that was the literally all.
So Chris at Junk Food Games, I know from Discord, he's just
like, yeah, I'm doing a jam. It's just green.
I'm like, I've got an adventure already.
Everything's green. Perfect.
Did it also blow your mind when you found out it was Dyson
logos, not Dyson logos? And it's it's just his name and
it's nothing to do with like a logo.
So I actually, I, I never knew it was actually.
So I knew it wasn't. I think I gathered that it
wasn't the the word logo with an S on it, but I didn't know that
was that his real name? That's his.
Name. His name is just Dyson Logos.
Yeah, I thought it was Dyson logos forever.
And I was like, maybe he just started by making logos and then
just I was like, damn. Nope.
That's his name. You mentioned Skirmish.
That will be for a future episode for sure.
We are going to talk between now and then about Skirmish.
I would love to have you come on.
I know you you. You've teased some stuff in our
Discord about what's What's coming from that?
I was, I was painting some battle tech minis for it.
So it's Max, It's no, it's diceless is it's big thing
because I don't like, you know, where it's the year 12,000 or
whatever. You don't miss, you're in a
you're in a walking robot. Like they don't miss.
So no, we're not rolling to hit like everything hits.
So it's going to, you have, it's going to be other things that
you need to manage to, to work that out.
So yeah, so I'm excited for that one.
And I've got, I've got a, I've got a rule set that we're going
to start playing at home and start working on, but it'll be
good. Yeah, I'm very excited.
I we, we are definitely going to have a skirmish episode in the
future. We got to hop into TTS too and
and play some skirmish games as well.
I'm always. Down for that.
So the thing it literally told me back because I don't I don't
even know how you get TTS where Tabletop simulator?
What is that in? Is that in Steam?
Steam. Is that just?
Steam. I don't have Steam.
I don't play video games. Do you have a computer that
works? I don't know.
I've got a. Yeah, I'm on a computer right
now. I guess I could figure that.
Out get steam and download. You can just get it.
You can just download it. It's just you can just get it.
Steam is just a it's just like a marketplace and then you just
buy games through through the OK and then you just load them up
and just like a computer game. Wow, it's literally that easy.
I'm still, I'm still on. Like I was buying CD keys for
Diablo 2 for multiplayer online. That was the last time I was
playing video games on a computer.
So this is a thing. We'll, we'll get you in and for,
for play testing and stuff, it is so nice because you can do
anything like you can. It's just all digital.
So you don't need to worry about like obviously it's always
better to DIY and paint your stuff up.
But especially for like us on the show, doing reviews like
every two weeks is what we're trying to do.
Being able to just like build a board in TTS that has all the
effects and 3D stuff that we want and, and move stuff around
with having to build full armies to test stuff.
It's great for play testing. All right, I'll add it to the
list. It'll get and I'll take the
list. So people are going to go back
out of the iron Labyrinth and then they can get add-ons for
all of the rest of your stuff. But it's all there.
After they do that, where can people find you?
Elsewhere on the Internet, Find your shop, everything.
That's what. That's what all the boxes are.
This is all. Your stuff, this is this is the
warehouse. So yeah, so you get stuff that's
in these boxes if you get add-ons, my stuff.
So M Allen Hall just straight through lowercase, no
punctuation.com that is that I on itch, it's M hyphen Allen
hyphen Hall dot H dot IO. But the link to Itch is right at
the top of the website. So that's probably the easiest
way to go. Yeah, and and we're, we're going
to before 2 years is up, I feel like you should come back on the
show. If you drop a skirmish game
before then, we'll definitely bring you back on.
We have been very skirmish pilled on the weekly girl for a
little while. So I feel like that's what I
was. Actually thinking, I was
actually thinking, actually listening to you guys earlier,
when's under the Dice Fest? October.
That's a skirmish thing, right? It is, it is in fact a
scrimmaging. It is the hive scum podcasts
like a festival that they have like Han kind of that they've
started on the on the East Coast, yeah.
So he's so yes, maybe I'll bring it there because you're going to
be there, right? Yeah, for sure that they, they
announced the like vendors and and stuff like that are out, but
the tickets are not out yet. But it is the like last week of
September, it's the weekend of the 1st weekend of October.
So you can just find them on on the trust discord, yeah.
Maybe I'll show up there, we'll play some play.
Some are. You going to between two cons.
No Goblin Archive has asked me that this morning.
No, it the, it's the that's like my kids are right out of school
when that happens. So we had already had some stuff
planned. So it's not going to work this
year. Everything was already done
before they even announced dates.
But I'm going to keep it, keep it in mind next year that maybe
something will work, but you definitely.
Want to pax? I, I pax is in my backyard, so I
can't not go and especially with it's like it sounds like it's
tough to get in. So it's like I can't give it up.
I can't like. Yeah.
That's right here. So yeah.
So I'm not like I'm never, I'm not going to give up the spot
ever. Even when I'm not making stuff
anymore, I'm just going to have my booth and I'll just roll up
there and like set up a table and like just me and my buds
hang out and play games. But like not, I can't give up
the booth. You got to because it could be
years before you get back in. That's the reason that I'm like
working now because when like world champ, obviously we're a
huge world champ fans. There was a year where he wasn't
going to be able to go. So he reached out to me and
Hunter were like, hey, you guys know my games.
Do you want to run the booth for me so I don't lose it?
And then I've just run it with him ever since.
So yeah, if you if you if you lose your booth, it could be a
couple years before you get back in.
So keep it. Yeah.
So I can't, can't risk that. So I'm I'm definitely gonna keep
going there. Well.
Then I will I for sure I will see you at packs, but I'm sure
we'll run into each other before then and we're going to
definitely talk skirmish and I'll get I'll, I'll teach you
video games, I guess in TTS before.
Then Oh my God, video games crazy, all right.
But Allen, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Really appreciate it. Everyone please make sure you go
back out of the Iron Labyrinth and go check out all the rest of
the stuff. M allenhall.com.
We will see you all later. And once again, Allen, thank you
for being here. Thanks for having me all.
Right, Bye everybody.