Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I was born of the maiden of
Wisdom, blessed be her name. And I'm Josh.
I just had a book come out called His Majesty the Worm.
And hello, I'm really pleased to be here to talk about it.
We're pleased to have you here, so.
Thanks for having me. What what we should have done,
which I absolutely didn't do, is go back and remember what
episode you were on last time 'cause you've been here before.
So I'm just gonna look that up real quick.
That's usually my job. Hey, don't forget that.
Yeah. So, so Josh, yeah, you've been
here before. You were on, gosh, the end of
last year leading up to prior to this release coming out and
then, like, you know, eight months later, the book finally
came out. So when Hunter lets us know what
number that was? 117. 117 that's crazy 'cause
this is like episode well like 160 something so it was like 50
episodes ago, that's crazy and now the book is out it's here
it's in my hands it's a it's a beefy boy it's a nice shiny
beefy boy here I. Didn't get physical 1 yet.
Not yet, because it's sold out twice already, which is got a
feeling. I had to pay his ticket as well
guys so. Don't speed or don't get cut.
So let's just I mean, so that's so so when you were on before,
we kind of talked about like the game leading up to the game,
what the game is going to be like everything the game is out
and at some point, you know, we're going to review it.
I believe that's going to be the it's it's not this Friday, but
next Friday we're going to be talking about it.
So today, though, what I really want to talk about is everything
kind of leading up to it coming out and how it's felt since and
the first question since I just said something about it.
Gosh, how does it feel to spend this much time on a book and
it's sell out not once but twice?
Like the day it drops. Yeah, I mean, it feels I, I,
people have been so kind to me about it and I'm so grateful for
everyone's, you know, the, the, the generosity of spirit.
It feels weird like to, to put it simply, I've been a guy that
has had a book coming out for so long.
I don't, I'm still learning what it's like to be a guy who has a
book out. You know, I, I, I'm much more
familiar with the sensation of saying it's coming out soon.
And I have been saying soon for three years because this is my
first printed book. You know, in, in my first
project of the size I have, I had I, I'm completely ignorant
and, and you know, maintain most, most, most way.
Ignorance is not cured, but like how long it takes to make
something and like physically print it on paper and the people
that are involved and the steps that it takes to get it out of
Lithuania and into your hands in whatever state it arrived.
Like, you know, that is all new information to me so soon.
It's been a long time and recently published has been a
short time. So it I'm still I'm still
figuring that part out. Yeah, yeah, I I got it and
listen, it took a long time to get, but it's beautiful.
I think you made some really fantastic choices with with with
just talking about as a product. First and foremost, the printing
is gorgeous. For those that are not watching
that are on listening on podcast, go to YouTube, watch
this one. But we we're never not going to
love a nice foil foil giant logo on the front honestly.
And the the the like village dungeon like landscape, you
know, kind of very like opaque is transparent like background
is such a nice touch. The ribbon inside the heft of
the entire book as far as like all of those things, how much
because I know so you worked with Exalted Funeral in getting
this book out. How much of those design choices
for the actual like book itself were you being like, this is
exactly what I want versus, you know, since it is your first
book and Exalted does this as their whole thing was them being
like, we think this is like, oh, good way to go.
Yeah. So let me credit Pete Orliss,
who is my graphic designer. Pete's great to work with and
anybody that is, you know, has a bunch of words right now in a
Google Doc and it's like, wow, I wish I had somebody to talk me
through some like graphic design choices.
He's just wonderful to work with.
And he was a long time collaborator and long-suffering
collaborator because I do not have a graphic design
background. And I could tell as I was like
laying the book out, you know, I could see him like, oh boy.
And like, just like really breakdown some, some of the
essentials because I, I did the, the layout myself with his, with
his help. I mean, he designed it and then
I practically did the page by page.
So the things that you just like highlighted and praised were
all, all his insights. He also, I mean, you know, he
has a, he has a, a lengthy bibliography.
I think I first noticed his work in the labyrinth adventure game
from River Horse, then Milton and Caesar last name.
Sorry, apologies to Caesar, but that that's what like got me
turned on to him. And so those are all him.
When I came to the result, the funeral who have been, you know,
very helpful. But like I came to that with
that with a finished book, which was maybe not the right way to
do that. Maybe I wouldn't do that twice,
but it is the journey that I took to get here.
I had AI had a book in hand and I was just trying to find
somebody to help me like print it and they and they help with
that. Yeah, and it looks like that.
I mean that partnership's working out great.
You got you're selling out multiple times on EF.
The the book looks amazing. How did how did it feel when you
found out you sold out the first time and the second time?
Like it was a whirlwind of, of like it, it happened so shortly.
I, I didn't know how to like quite process it.
There is a lot of, and I don't know how interesting this is to
people that aren't like involved in indie publishing, but like
there's a whirlwind of like physical steps to talk to, like
self market the thing that you're doing.
And like, if you don't like, you know who's who's going to write?
So like sending out an e-mail and updating the itch page and
updating the drive through RPG page and posting on socials and
asking your indulgent friends to to, you know, reblog you making
update on your blog, you know, so like, there's like, like I
was consumed in a whirlwind of activity, being a social Media
Group of team of one. And then they were like, hey, we
sold out Now. I was, I was flabbergasted.
There's so many, like, buttons I hadn't pushed yet of, like, news
releases that I was coined to activate to like, try and get
some coverage. And I, I just ended up not
pushing them because, like, what could I say?
Like, hey, you can't buy it. You, you know, Yeah, 'cause it
was. Only three to six hours.
Yeah, Yeah, the first one, yeah. Yeah, like I so I got it.
And by the time Hunter even like woke up and like got my tech
message, she's like, bro, it's gone.
So, yeah, so one thing you said you had a finished book when you
got to EF and part of that, and I know we talked about this in
the previous episode, but I'm to be honest, I don't remember half
of what we said. So we'll touch on some stuff.
Again, part of that is because you itch funded like the entire
progress, right? That's right.
Yeah. So I, I, I, I might like the odd
man out here. And again, I, I apologize to
people who's like whose main interest is in indie publishing.
I have unfortunately dwell in this like dark corner by myself
the last little bit. So like it's really where my
head is at. But I, you know, I've worked on
his mattresses the worm for eight years.
I did it on Sundays, just kind of like methodically working
every Sunday. You know, today is a Sunday.
It's a working day for me as this like side gig and I, I
think a lot of contemporaries use Kickstarter both as a way to
crowdfund, but also to market their work and more power to
them. And it, it seems to work well.
I, I think the, the main thing that you sacrifice for a
Kickstarter is like sanity and like you're, you're like love
and respect of your fellow man. And like I, I, I don't know that
I wanted to give those things up necessarily.
And I Kickstarter almost feels like it should be made for
people like me, you know, somebody without a publishing
background or any experience. A, a nice way to say like, hey,
if you, if this sounds interesting, would you, would
you throw me a couple bucks? And I can like get art and
editing and stuff, but the practical realities is, is that
like, you know, the biggest RPG companies on the planet, which
is, you know, certainly not a large amount of anything.
But like in my space, you know, the very biggest people that
have RPG companies use Kickstarter to do their
fulfillment. And so when I'm a project on
Kickstarter and I'm a nobody who doesn't have art, who doesn't
have editing, who doesn't have anything, you know, that project
is not going to do well because the the projects that are being
funded are projects that are essentially laid out, have all
their art are complete. And they're doing this to to
grab names for fulfillment, right engage how many copies
they need to print. So Kickstarter is actually not a
really good model for I have nothing.
What what should I what should I do about that long funding
either through it or something else seems to be a good fit for
somebody in my shoes. So what I did was I put out
chapters of the book about four chapters of the book.
They had really rough, really rough graphic design, you know,
like kind of slapped into a layout.
And as I mentioned before, like I, I don't have a background in
that. So Pete had to do, you know, a
lot of teaching and lifting to, to get the book into the, the
space that it is, because I, I think he did a really good job
of it and I think it looks really good and I'm very proud
of the work that he did. But so like absent his help, I
just got to slap it into a PDFI put some, some free public
domain art in there. And I, I put most of the
chapters up for, for free or for pay what you will.
There's like a, a couple of them had a couple bucks, but like you
could get it for free to set up for a newsletter, blah, blah,
blah. And people would buy them over
the course of months. It was a slow burn.
And whenever I got a, a chunk of money, I would buy one thing.
So if I got $300.00, I would Commission one art.
I would be like Zoidberg one art, please.
And somebody would give me one commissioned piece of art and
then I would like save up enough money.
And then in a two months and three months, I get one of the
thing, whether it was an editor, you know, enough money to get
another piece of art or some graphic design or whatever.
And like I made the book piece meal like really slowly using
that methodology. And I don't, I'm not advocating
that people take eight years to make projects, but I, I do think
that like that sort of that sort of long tail your, it doesn't
publish until it funds is actually a probably a good model
for somebody in a similar situation where Kickstarter, if
Kickstarter is not a good fit for you.
Yeah, I it's really interesting. You know, you, you've been you
again. You.
It's funded for a really long time.
I know that after, I mean, Hunter.
Hunter still obsessed with Luke Gearing's Game Goes Upon the
Coast. Wattsy.
Yeah. Wattsy.
Yeah, the real Wattsy. The real Wattsy.
Especially after that. I think that the slow fighting
on itch, a lot of people realized how successful it can
be. I know that, like, like Civic
Sanctum is, you know, John Davis is doing that.
Kristen swells. Doing their building.
Yeah, get up on it. And then even like Charlie
Laskowski is doing, doing some stuff too, Like there's a bunch
of people that are realizing that this is a, a thing that can
happen. And the good thing about itch
funding is like if you have $1000 goal to get to $700.00,
you still got $700.00. So that's still, you know, on
your way to the goal. So it's a great way to do it.
And like you said, the I've been, I've been, I've been, I've
backed a lot of Kickstarters for a long time, way too many.
And it's it's. It's.
Yeah, I think I'm at like 600. Something holy crap I'm at like
50 brother. Yeah, listen, I have a problem.
It's interesting even in the even just in the time that I've
been back in Kickstarter, how it kind of went from what you're
talking about, what it could have been and should have been
from like I have this idea like give me money, I'll get it.
Happened to what amounts to a pre-order marketplace for a lot
of the bigger companies, you know, even the smaller, bigger
companies like Free League. Free League is not Wattsy, but
they can still drop a half million dollar Kickstarter in
with a done project with it's just basically it's pre-order
fulfillment, which I think Kickstarter even still says
that's not what you're supposed to do, but we make money off it.
So like we're going to let it happen obviously.
So it's a great model to kind of go with this, especially when
you're in the position that you are in.
Eight years is a long time though, you know, and those
those things you did put out like the the kind of I think
they're basically like the appendices now.
I they were fantastic. I love them.
The complex version of like the name this all chemical book is
like, I didn't get it the first time.
I think the first time I got it was when you were on the show
last time you were like, oh, did you click that Bing?
And I was like, holy shit, now I got to do this all over again.
So fantastic stuff is still coming out as you were making
the book. Yeah, thanks.
And it, it was a way to like also, and I, I mean, this is,
this is a really unique journey and the book's too big, but
like, it is as big as I needed it to be to like try and clearly
communicate over explain the, the sort of way that I play.
But it was, it was also a way to like connect with people, you
know, the, the essential goal of marketing and marketing is such
a, a dirty word, such a cringe thing to have to do for
yourself. But like, the, the ultimate goal
is like, you know, I know, I, I suspect, I hope there's somebody
out there that would like to read some things that I've
written and I'd like to find them.
And I, I, I want to find writers that I want to read.
So like, I, I need them to like tell me that they exist because
if they're writing on their blogs in secret, they don't have
a, a web thing. They never post on Twitter.
They're never in like a, a community of like RPG nerds that
like, and they're never telling me that they are writing these
cool things. I don't know.
And I'm, I'm trying to find them.
They're trying to find me. So like, if we can reach through
the void and like connect with each other, I'd be really
excited because, you know, there's so much work that I
admire. There's so much work that I'm
inspired by. There's so many like writers
whose games I love, whose blogs I love, whose article I love,
and I'm, I'm, I'm really trying to connect with them.
So like the, the putting out things kind of slowly was also a
way to like, I mean, in, in a maybe a sheet of way to put it
is like to build the audience. But like a, a more honest way to
put it is to like connect with people who wanted to connect and
like, you know, give them a chance to be like, yeah, this is
for me or, or not. And, you know, no hard feelings.
There's a ton of things that like, yeah, aren't for me.
My God, I'm a I'm a known hater, but hey.
Guys in the room, man, you can't be worse than.
That. Hey, I'm a known hey, I'm not a
known hater. Listen, I do not shit post on
the weekly scroll Twitter. I do it in private discord
conversations. But you know, the interesting
thing you say like it, it's, it's, it's funny when I mean, I
started following you after like the 10th time someone like
retweeted that. Like you have this cool game
coming out. I'm like, it looks cool.
Just give it to me already. And this like two years ago.
But at what point when that was kind of like a constant thing,
did you kind of feel like it went like how much is marketing?
How much is like reaching out? Like when did it feel that like
it was one way or another? Because clearly it worked.
Here's the thing. It clearly fucking worked.
People again, 3 1/2 hours for the first time it dropped.
People followed you for a long time.
We're very excited for this project to come out and I don't
think many people are going to be disappointed with with what
came after waiting this long. But like what?
What was kind of that feeling in difference?
I know you said it's kind of a dirty word to do marketing or
difference, but how did it kind of feel over the course of years
being like it's coming soon and then it's still not not coming,
but you're still like moving forward at the same time?
It it took as long as it took. I, I, I am hard pressed to
actually think of like a, a specific example of something
that was in my power to like make it come faster.
And Lord, you know, grant me the wisdom to know the difference,
right? But like I when I, when I think
about like what was genuine, you know, it's all genuine and it's
like, you know, the genuine things are, are maybe like a
little cheesy. Maybe I'm like making a a Jack
chick tracked edit of some stupid opinion about DND and
it's just like a stupid joke that makes me laugh.
But like if I'm posting it, it's because I'm laughing And thank
God I think I'm funny because like for an audience of, of me,
like I'm hilarious. So like, you know, I'm just, I'm
just, I'm just riffing and I'm glad I'm not.
I, it has been enormously satisfying to know that I'm not
speaking into the void that there are people that are
excited and like have been connected with me and been very
kind and I'm, I'm excited to like, I'm excited for them to
like, I, I want to like see what they make with it.
I want to see the stuff that they do because I, I know that
like this is just like the groundwork and the, the stuff
that will be built out of the game is the, is the real
important stuff, their campaigns, their, their
dungeons, the stuff that they publish or just show their table
and the stories that they build for themselves.
Like that's, that's the fun part.
The words on the paper are just the foundation to get them to
that. And I, I can't wait to
participate in other people's games and see the stuff that
they make for it because that's the stuff that I'm, I'm really
looking forward. To one thing you said so beyond
social media, beyond like even like quote UN quote marketing
the book or whatnot, you blog you blog quite frequently on
rise of Comus. What the with your blog
specifically, Like how much is talking about His Majesty of the
Worm? How much is talking about
TTRPGS? And like, were you blogging
prior to starting His Majesty of the Worm or did it kind of like,
did one, you know, be the impetus for the other or vice
versa? Yeah, good question.
If if I'm anything, I, I think the, the, the, you know, the
title that that best applies to me is I'm, I'm just a Blogger,
right? And like one of my blogs got big
enough that it became a book that you could buy.
I'm also the editor in chief of Knock magazine, magazine of old
school gaining Bric a brac And you know, I, I, yeah, nice
minor. Ryan pointed to his.
I was like, I got to point to mine.
He's not going to go on. The shelf so and you know, that
community of blogs like made the old school scene which like
lived and died and like, you know, it's carried on in, in in
all of our hearts, you know, and I, I, I very much believe in
blogs as a way to get ideas out there and then pass them around
like a memetic plague. I am so interested in ideas that
I've seen on blogs that like somebody threw out as just like,
you know, a midnight idea, it's 300 words and they, they didn't
do anything with it. They just had to get it out.
And that's one of the things that blogs are good about
thought exorcism. This idea is bothering you.
And like, if you, if you're not careful and if you're unlucky,
you're going to start writing something about it and you're
going to waste 24 hours of writing time into an idea that
like you're never going to really take to fruition, but you
got, So you have to get it out, just write A blog about it, get
it out of there and it will leave you alone.
And but then it can like go around and start infecting other
people. And like I've seen these ideas
on on blogs, like come out of somebody's head, somebody says,
wow, that's really cool. They build the concept out.
Somebody hates it, but and like and like writes a an inspired
treatise against it, but that inspires like kind of more like
nuanced, better takes about it and like it improves the the the
resource. It improves the discourse and
improves the theory. It makes better games.
And then like I see them published, like I then later
either the original poster or somebody very disconnected from
them, like comes out with the game.
So like mouse Ritter, right? Mouse Ritter is an incredible
game, great community around it, very inspiring.
And I'm a big fan. You know, I, I, I have the, the
box set, love it, love playing it.
You know, some of some of those ideas, the, the, you know, the,
the character sheet with the little like gluable items, like
makes you feel so mouse like, because like, yeah, my guy is
only he's just a little guy. His sword is a needle and his
shield is a a button and like I can only carry 6 items because
I'm just like a little guy and like you know that I, I saw that
blog post get blogged for the first time on Last Gasp Grimoire
15 years ago at least. And then it like found its way
into like the printed word and like get evolved from there.
And I'm so interested in that. I love the like the exchange of
ideas that happened there. So to actually stop gushing
about blogs and answer your question, I was, I was inspired
to blog because at the end of the G+ era, people were doing it
so much. You know, I, I don't think I
blog even like a tenth, not 100th of what they do because,
you know, we were went back and looked at some of the like some
of me and my friends, like at the classic era, like Midden
Merck, like per year, like there are 600 posts on that blog.
That's like two blog posts a day.
And I'm, you know, maybe I'm like just vomiting out my brain
ideas like onto Twitter in a different way.
But like they, there were so much exciting ideas happening at
the time and I was like, I want to get in on this.
Then G+ died and like I was, I was kind of still blogging.
It was a good way to like get out some of my ideas that I was
like working on. And it's like I, I get the ball
clay out onto the table and I mold it around and I've always
made games just for me and my friends and His Majesty the
wormers, an attempt to like let it jump the table and like
actually let somebody else play the way that we play on our on
our weekly games. So it was just my attempt to
like get some of the blog posts that I was already doing into a
format that could be shared more easily.
Because G+ died in when the OSR died.
So 20. Was it 6 or was it?
Did it finally die like 19? Was it all the way back in 16?
I don't this is Google bull. I don't.
I don't have that. This is Google bull because
eight years ago is like. 2019 you're right, you're right.
You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that means, like, prior, that's like three years before
G+ died. You were already working on His
Majesty the Worm. I mean, I guess you can see it,
I guess you can see its origins there.
I don't know when the 1st post was that I made it, but it
wasn't, it wasn't the first thing that I was doing.
You know, like the very first things that I were doing were
kind of just like making like OSR hacks, which is like a
coming of age, right? That everybody that has a blog
does, you know, they take the. Axe and they.
Put the house rules they like in it and like at some point I it
it it, you know it, it morphed. It diverted wildly.
Yeah, wildly diverted it. Diverted wildly into a much more
interesting and unique decision making system.
Right. Thank you.
I would the. Last, not the last thing.
If we happen to tangent back to blogs, then I'm definitely down
to keep talking blogs. But one thing you said is like,
you know, reaching out, finding other blogs, finding bloggers
and stuff like that. So I'm not asking like your
three favorite or the best blogs ever, but for for because we had
prismatic on recently too. Like if if people want to kind
of like, you know, get into your brain a little bit and like read
the kind of things that you're reading as far.
And at one point you said like, you know your favorite game
stuff too, like if you had like three or four blogs and like
three or four games, that kind of goes.
If you want to know Josh a little bit, like these are the
kind of things just check out. What would you say?
Yeah, great question. It would be really hard to like
rank them and it would be really hard to like narrow the list
down to a very short amount. Prismatic Wastelands, a
phenomenal Blogger, big fan. Like there's a there's a such a
joy in his post that I really like Mindstorm.
Another like great Blogger. Some like really interesting
ideas coming out of there. I like his games too.
My favorite OSR blog might be Goblin Punch.
The wealth of ideas that he has like made my brain have new
types of wrinkles. Like just fundamentally like
incredible ideas in terms of like game designers.
I think that Chris McDowell of Bastion Land, I mean, I remember
was following his blog back when it was like Suga game.
Is that right? What was it?
Because before he like had his like www.bastionland.com, it was
like it was a blogspot address and I was I was following it at
that point and like, I mean that guy again, like takes ideas down
to their sort of like essential elements.
He he finds a vein of ore in the ground and makes mithril out of
it just like super smart. And I by by even like starting
that list, like I have omitted so many people that were equally
fundamental to my, to the way that I, I wish I could approach
games And like there's so much stuff that I didn't write in his
match to the forum that like people ask me about.
I was like, where's magic weapons?
Where's this stuff? And I'm like, man, I, I don't
have a new idea about that. Like you're going to, if you
just go to the blogs that I have in my like sidebar and read
their, their posts. That's what that's what I use.
Like I'm going to steal their content and put into my game.
That's what you should do. I'm not going to have anything
new to say there. So please don't look to me as
like any sort of authority. Like, I just like, get stuff and
put it in your games because that's what I'm doing in mind.
I wish more people would just spread that kind of stuff
around. One thing you said kind of early
on, I don't remember what it was about, but like, not everything
has to be for everyone. And just know if you're reading
a book or if a book comes out, you're not necessarily the
target audience and it's not for you.
You're allowed to just put it down and shut up about it.
So how would I? I can't go online and complain
about it then, right? I shut the shut up and just put
it down. How would I want?
Well, people like us get to talk about it, but no.
But that's such a good thing to say because like, we read a lot
of books, we read a lot of games and stuff like that.
And if more people were just like, I don't need to write a
chapter on this, just go find the 50 other BX games that do
the exact same fucking thing, I would be so much happier to just
be like, OK, I'll just do this one my way because I'm going to
do it anyway. Was wasting paper.
That would be it's it. It feels like that's such a good
way to do it, but I feel like, like you said, like.
Wisdom of omission. Everyone in their mom is has a
coming of age. This is my version of BX.
It has to come out and you know, you're it's, it's it.
I feel like everyone just constantly hits that point where
they have to, they reinvent the wheel over and over again.
So to each their own. But with, with time and wisdom,
or with time comes wisdom. And I, I would love to be able
to just be like, just just do it however you want.
Like DND has been out forever. Just do it that way.
It's such a, it's a good way to think about it.
And the book is big enough. We didn't need, we didn't need
50 more pages on magic weapons. Big enough.
Yeah. This is what what did we clock
in here at the end? It's 392 pages.
Not 400. Though 8 1/2 by 11, you know,
it's a it's, it's beefy, it's a beef boy.
You you're neglecting of course the initial pages, which have a
different numberings of. The Roman numeral ones.
Yes. So it's including the end pages
that are like into the the covers of the book that you
know, it's four hundred 412 pages.
Where you at a point where you're like it's only 398.
I must add 10 more pages if you can hit 400.
Well, books have to be a thing that I learned.
Books have to be having a number of pages divisible by 4:00
because of the way that the pages like lay in the books.
So you have to like wherever you are, if you're not in a number
divisible by 4, you got to, you got to get there unless you
that. And that's why you see those
like, you know, you've, you've had a book before and it's just
like white paper on the back of like, that's, that's what, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, just filling those pages in.
I love getting those books where I'm like, oh, you want it in
there, but you put this extra page in here because you
couldn't start a new chapter without that extra page right
there. So those are always fun.
Yeah. Exactly I.
Love that each one of these. Books is like a ream of paper,
you know it's just like 400 and something 8 and 8 1/2 by 11
sheets of paper. Like that's just the the block
of paper I just bought. Office Depot, man.
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Hot tip, if you have an office and the PDF you can just make
this at home guys. There you go.
I mean it is pretty for the most part it's very printer friendly
aside from some of the darker art pages.
It it's extremely printer friendly as far as the layout
and stuff goes. So yeah.
But make sure you use your company's ink so you're not
spending the money. But yeah, so, so Exalted
Funeral, you, you had this book, you spent eight years making it.
You, you have it all done. And then you're looking for a
way to get it printed. How did that kind of come about?
Did you reach out to them? Did they reach out to you?
What was what was it like to kind of get that partnership up?
And. Going it, it was good fortune on
my part, and it was also some of what I was talking about before
where I had like been talking about the book for a long time
and like had said it was coming soon.
I had reached out to a couple printers publishers previous and
I'd gotten a couple rejection letters, which I think is just
part of the, you know, that's just part of the experience.
And I, I remember, you know, get having gotten five or six and I
like just tweeted like help and somebody that was connected with
EF like reached out to me and said, like, if you're actually
looking for a publisher, like we'll do it.
So it was, it was because I was shouting into kind of community
spaces for so long that I had enough interest that they, that
they reached out, which I was very lucky about.
I was, you know, that there's nothing to say about that except
that's my good fortune. I.
Wish I was really for you and. For them, you know, I'm sure
they didn't make nothing, you know?
Well, I think it's good for both of us that like we came into the
to the product and the, the, the major costs were the printing
costs instead of other development costs because those
were covered by the the long funding.
One thing you said early on a while ago, I have to make, I
have to actually take a quick pause.
So I have the PDF up and for those that didn't notice this,
I'm going to scroll through it real fast and look at the page
numbers. This is like what?
I love this so much. It's such a good feature, but
the little guy spins around. For those in podcast land, you
can't see this so by the book so that you can see the little guy
that surrounds the page numbers spinning around.
Good. Nice fucking touch, dude.
Like the little things, you know?
Eight years in, you expect little touches like that.
And you did a damn good job. Thank.
You. Yeah, I did that by hand.
Every page had a guy. Every single one just twisted
every. Single one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't remember what I was
saying. Oh, you said that you wouldn't
necessarily go into the process with like a done book.
Like, why what? Why was that not necessarily
ideal? Well, we, I think I should start
earlier in getting the advice of a publisher.
There were, there was some pieces of feedback because they
did an editing round and I was constrained in my ability to
take kind of the largest pieces of feedback because the book was
already laid out and I wasn't going to make major changes that
would affect large parts of the layout at that stage.
The book would have been probably improved if I had been
able to benefit from their expertise earlier.
But we were, you know, it, it'd become less plastic as things
like layout and art were added to it.
So I, I would start earlier. Maybe it is, you know, it's kind
of a chicken egg situation. Like if I had had less book,
would they have reached out to me when I said help on Twitter?
I I don't know, but you know, that was that was the situation
where I was in where I was an unpublished, you know, mostly
unknown. Not that I'm not that I'm known
by any stretch of the imagination now, but like.
You're you're known in the niche man.
Like as far as as far as everyone we knows, they know
you. So that's what.
The people that matter, Ryan and Hunter are are are.
Hey, you're more. Popular than we are, you know.
Way more. Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, no, it's all, it's all Twitter bots.
You know, it's just all like Elon Musk's hoarding on.
His several million personalities that he uses to
beef up his public image. Exactly.
So I think it's interesting that you would like to have started
working with them earlier, like, you know, ideally in like an
earlier stage of this process to affect it.
Because this feels like it's more singularly your vision
because you didn't have anyone else's hands in it really until
later on. And kind of not related to the
statement I just said, but it looking back at this process, is
there anything else that you feel that you would do
differently next time? Well, yes and no.
So, you know, when I came to them, I did have the editing.
You know, the benefits of editing from Melody Watson,
another person I, I really recommend.
She was great. I think she also edited Lancer,
you know, so it's I, I got I, I, I knew that I couldn't do it
just by myself. So, you know, again, it was just
with slow funding. I, I, I tried as, as best I
could to, to get somebody that wasn't just me looking at it and
helping me think about it, the book and, you know, taking the,
the texts that I had as a, as a new reader, fresh eyes and, and
helping me understand how it read.
And I think I could, would have also benefited from that, just
having more, having it happening earlier.
And I, I know that Exalt funeral, you know, that like I
said, they did in that in the past, I took as much as I could
because I, I, my, my stance on the subject is if I'm going to
ask for feedback, I need to be committed to getting it.
I can't say, please give me the feedback and then ignore it
because even if some of the feedback is difficult or painful
or complicated, I, I, I've committed to it.
And you know, the, your editors are invaluable and, and you need
to treat them like that. So if I had been less committed
with every round of feedback and less committed to, to the page,
it would have probably benefited, you know, it just
would have benefited and, and, and that is what it is.
You know hindsight, you know 2020 and all that.
You know it is what it is. It's a learning experience for
me for sure. Yeah, I mean, I don't feel like
it's it's hard also to critique yourself on if I was you, it'd
be hard to critique myself on this process because it just
ended up going so well and I so you sold out multiple times and
the books really great so. Yeah.
Thanks so much. But, you know, at the same time,
yeah, I mean, how many people can say that, like something
like this is the first thing that they ever put out you?
Know what I mean? Like, I think there's a lot of
people that would be very happy regardless of like Evie, I think
it's it's, it's always going to be one of those things like the
artist, the writer, everyone is going to see like the million
flaws that no one else sees and the thing they put out
themselves. But again, I think, you know,
for this is a dream for a lot of people.
I hope it feels that way to have this thing that you spent so
much time on turn out this well and be in your hand, Not only in
your hands, but in like many, many, many other people's hands.
That I so, God, the, I've been right.
Like I said, I've been writing RPGs, you know, just in, like
just in Google Docs, just in Word docs.
I mean, like I, I was writing RPGs when I was a kid.
I, I, I think it's such a, such a medium that is, that invites
everybody's writing participation, whether you're
writing your characters and writing their back stories or
like coming up with like, you know, new powers or abilities
for, for classes or you're, you're writing games or
campaigns or world building. You know, it invites you in to,
to write with the book. And I that's, you know, the 100%
of my appeal about RP GS. I love, I love that fact that I
don't know that anything else has.
That kind of like low level of entry for creative
collaboration. So I've been writing forever.
It is. And that is my goal, right?
Like, I think that I would become very sad as a person if I
mean, I just, I don't think I would enjoy it if my goals were
based on, you know, number of copies sold.
I'm enormously flattered that people like the game.
I, I hope they have fun with it. I can't wait to see what they're
they're making with it because I'm very, very eager and excited
to see it. But like my, my goals are like
I, I love writing games. I, I had tried to make something
that allowed like my ideas, like jump from my table to yours.
I, I hope that there's something there that, that you can take
and use and, and put into your games practice.
And I, I can't wait until you send it back to me, kind of like
I was talking about with vlogs, Like I want to see that resonate
and, and come back to me. But I'm also enormously pleased
to be at a table with my friends and have a book that I can open
and flip through and like get the answers and like, I, I want
fewer barriers between them and me.
And when I am, I'm, I'm a pretty analog kind of guy.
And I've been obliged to use a computer to like read the rules
and like look up stuff during the games.
And now that I can close my laptop and act, just have the
book between me and the, the six people at my table, I'm
thrilled. I'm thrilled to have that
feature that it's very exciting. My table's SO my table so the
opposite. I have my big screen TV on a
rolling stand so I can put it behind me and I like will send
the map to that and I'll zoom in on part so they can't see the
whole map. And I have a laptop up and I
have a tablet for taking notes so.
I, I do like doing that stuff too, but like I, I also kind of
hate like things between like I, I, I want to, I get up and I
talk my hands as if you were on the stream.
You can see I'm gesticulating right now, not to make a point,
but just like I'm, I, I have a, a lot of physical actions that I
like, like to do when I'm jamming and I, I want to be able
to do them kind of like without smashing, you know, expensive
machinery. Knocks the laptop over.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I for a long time I
had, I had built, I'd use like the mounting holes in the back
of ATV and actually like built like feet for it to stay on so I
could lay it flat. And then had like put like
correct a size like gridded maps on the TV so they could be like
live and shit. That was fun for.
That's so cool. That's so cool.
Yeah, it was a bitch to carry when you were playing in your
apartment, though. I'll tell you what couple things
so we're not going to talk about about the game like content a
ton, but I did have a couple questions about like the I don't
know why I don't feel I don't know what I'm going to call it.
So like I don't want to ask like why tarot?
Because guess what, on page this one on the introduction page,
there's the thing that says why tarot and it explains it.
My question is not why tarot, but when tarot like at what
point in His Majesty the worm did you go?
You know what? Fuck dice, we're going tarot.
It's. A great question.
I feel in like an earlier in an earlier game just for be My
friend, I had used tarot cards for like a magic system.
It was kind of like, you know, the Deadlands magic system uses
poker hands and I thought that was so cool.
And it was kind of like it was kind of the same thing.
It was, you know, the year 2005 and so steampunk was big and
tarot and like 1800s and stuff. I, I liked it a lot.
I thought they were cool looking and there there's an air of
mystique, you know, which I say in the, in the introduction, I
think they're more interesting to look at than other types of
cards. I think the, the time that I
like kind of latched onto it as a, as a resolution mechanic
instead of dice. I was sitting around the table,
I was playing, I think we're paying Pathfinder, but we could
have switched to 5th edition at the time with my college
buddies. You know what, we graduated
college and like still we got together for like monthly DND
games and we would, there's like a lot of us and we were, it was
a blast. You know, we'd make chicken
wings and drink beer and play DND and you know, it's just real
beer and pretzels kind of fun. But you know, there was like six
or seven of us and sometimes, like as we like got kids,
sometimes our kids joined. And God, like I would I would
sit there waiting for like an hour between like my turns in
combat, right? And there's nothing there's
there's no cure that I know of for that.
We could be the most disciplined people in the world.
And just physically speaking out loud, I cast a spell.
Here is the role, here is the defense.
This is what happens. Like takes a long time when you
have that many people sitting around the table like chugging
beer and eating, eating wings. And like, I was sitting there
just thinking like, you know, if we could all make actions at the
same time, this would be more fun because I'd have to wait
less. Well, how could I do that?
It's like, well, I guess if we had cards that determine what we
could do, there could be different like stages of combat.
And like, I just sat there like musing about like rules because
I had so fucking long to like wait.
And that was when I think I like grabbed onto cards and I just
think tarot cards more interesting than than playing
cards. So that's, I think that's when
it was born, yeah. That's pretty cool.
I will agree that those those combat turns in five East and
stuff can take an insane amount of time.
And I, I, I think the tarot cards really add like a weird
esoteric, like arcane feel to playing the game that I really
appreciate. Yeah.
I mean, I mean, if you imagine in the 70s and like you're
starting to play DND and you're like, yeah, let's take out our
dice. This dice has twenty sides.
You're like like, and now it's very, it's very rote like we're
we're very used to the normal like platonic sided dice.
And Tara still feels kind of weird, like it gives it kind of
like a weird feeling. And it, you know, there's
nothing about the the iconography of the tarot in it.
It's not like you have to be in this Clio to do it.
It's just in the brand of another generator.
But they still look kind of weird and are pretty to to look
at and like fun to play with. They're just like fun.
They're gameable. They're toyatic.
When you do a good job too, again, we're not going to dig
too deep in the mechanics, but like you even have a thing where
it's like you don't have tarot. Here's how you use regular
cards. Like if you need things that
aren't 20 sided dice, like here's are different ways to
like do all the things. So it's not like you necessarily
have to, but it's definitely one of those things where like,
like, thanks for not just doing like AD 20 rollover.
You know what I mean? Like, I'm so glad that I don't
have to read another like 400 page D20 rollover.
So like it's, it's, it's a wonderful mechanic.
I'm excited to to talk about and diggle blood into it.
But like you said, you know, there's a lot of stuff there at
the book that is it's different and not just for the sake of
different. It's different because it's like
interesting and it fits the game, which is always really
nice to see. It's not just like here's here's
my version of the redundancy, you know, and again, we'll talk
about that a little bit more in two weeks.
I've actually started writing on questions.
This is how the this, so for those that don't know this, this
is how the episodes go. We start with nothing and then
this is how it looks as we go. So as we said, and eventually,
you know, it doesn't matter that it took as long as it did for it
to come out, but eight years, when was it actually like when
did you feel that you were pretty much done though?
Because I know it's taken probably it sounds like nine
months to a year to actually get it into print.
So when were when were you like besides a couple small tweaks
here and there, when was it done?
I, I, there, there were probably a couple times just again, based
on my like ignorance of the process, how long it would take
and kind of how much more work needed to be done, where like I
thought like, I'm done. And like, you know, the, the,
the text, you know, the maybe the first time that like, I
thought the text was really, really finalized and we started
layout and layout took six months.
I had no idea it was going to take that long, but it, that's
how long it took me. And I'm not in a race with
anybody else, right? It's just like, this is how long
it takes me. Joshua Crawl at the time that
like the, the, the Indesign book was ready was the end of last
year. So it it took, I mean, and I, I,
I didn't touch it for that long, but that's how long it
physically took. Took seven, almost eight months
of like dear exalted funeral. Here is the book Love Josh.
That's how long it takes to like physically print something and
and ship it from the printers and put it into warehouses, you
know, and mail it out to people. That's just, that is something I
didn't know. And now, now I know.
And the last, not the last. There's plenty more questions,
but the last one that fits on this post it note is it it's so
it's a it's a book. It's a big book.
Was there ever in your mind? Because clearly, like you said,
you, you did layout, you did all of this stuff, obviously is one
big book. Was there every time.
You're like, man, maybe this should be three books.
Yeah. Well, so the thing that I always
had hoped my vision for the project, you know, until until
the until I started talking about talking to Exaltive
funeral, which is like at a time that I had a pretty finished
book. I want to do a box set.
And the reason that the appendices are called the
appendices is because they were going to be separate books that
you can sit out on the table. The, the practical, again, the
practical realities of printing that many books, putting them,
which takes, you know, human labor to put into boxes, seal
the box and cellophane. The, the, the cost of that as an
MSRB was like $200.00. And some people might be excited
about the book, but like they're not $200.00 excited about that.
And so like the cost of that was just, was just prohibitive.
Now, I did spend $200.00 on the Dolman wood box set and I'm very
excited about it. But I, it's a, it's a, it's a
big book, but I, it, it is one book for, for cost saving
measures, trying to get it kind of as affordable as, as
practical realities allow. If I could have, you know, at
some point, maybe I could have like split this up into three
books, kind of like dungeons and Dragons.
That does it, you know, like so in, in the, in the book, you
know, you have the jams guide, you have a tutorial dungeon, you
have the player facing rules, you have magic and alchemy, you
have a bestiary, you have rules to make new kinds of creatures.
You have a, you know, a dungeon creation procedure, you have a
city creation procedure. There's it's a complete game.
And I, I remember when I was a teenager and I bought, I
mentioned deadlines earlier. I bought the deadlines player
guide and as a teenager, my discretionary income was, was,
was very small. I'd saved up for it.
I was really excited about it and I still couldn't play the
damn game because I didn't have the G Ms. guide.
I remember being so upset about that, like, this isn't a
complete game. I thought, I've, I've been, I've
been tricked, I've been swindled.
I, I, I, I've been duped and I, I wanted to, I wanted to give
people a complete experience. So at some point maybe I could
have split it up, had AG Ms. guide, had a Monster Manual, had
a player's guide. I, you know, maybe those that
like PDF costs would have been closer to like what people had
expected, You know, each of those PDFs could have been 20
bucks or something. But like, I, I wanted to give
like a more complete experience. And so I I opted to keep the
books together. I mean it, capitalism sucks and
if we could all just have like our ideal projects, It's
interesting the number of times that we've seen we we've gotten
that answer or they're like, I wanted to do this differently,
but it would be too much money for anyone to actually pay for
because they might think it's great.
But yeah, like you said, it's not.
They might not think the first thing I ever did is like 2 to
$300.00 great. You know, Dolman would.
I mean, how long is, you know, that's something that's been,
you know, a thing forever and and people can in their minds at
least justify, you know, spending that much money on a
book because again, I didn't too.
I'm very excited for it. Very excited for it.
But but yeah, it it it's, you know, it, it sucks when you go
like I would have loved to put color in this book, but you
know, money, you know, it, it sucks.
So I will say for a book, it's for a book this big, it did a
good I'm I'm excited to talk about it.
We're we're we're we're, I can't wait till we get to the review
and go over it. But what does the future look
like for first, let's say His Majesty the worm.
So I know you said that you're excited to have other people
making stuff for it. Are you planning any type of
jams or anything like that? Or like, obviously there's a
very permissive like license in the front.
I think you pretty much just say like just don't steal the art, I
guess. But like, please make stuff is
what like the beginning page pretty much says what what does
that look like to you? Like what are you hoping for?
Yeah, I mean I great question. I am excited to see what people
can make with this. I am hosting a jam in September
to start working on some dungeons together.
So as you get the book and digest it, I would love to like
work with others to create content that you can use to
start making your mega dungeons. So you know, the my, my, my
dirty little secret about making mega dungeons is the reason I
say that it's easy is because there are so many people already
that have like made really, really cool dungeons.
And your work is curation, not creation.
So take stuff that exists and like, you know, I, I'm not going
to use almost any RPG product without any tweaking.
So like, take stuff that exists, put it together in a way that
makes sense to you, change the bits that are like interesting
for you to change and and start running the game.
So I'd like to, you know, hold a jam and make some dungeons
together as my is my hope. And we can, as everybody
contributes to like one dungeon and we have enough
contributions. Like you can also take that
stuff from the jam and like start curating your mega dungeon
and and running the game for your friends.
I also have a dungeon coming out.
I soon TM I'm in play destiny right now.
I'm playing destiny right now. It's called the castle
automatic. When it is done, I will publish
that as like an official. You know, His Majesty, the worm
license product. But as you said, you know, the
the the license is permissive. I I hope that there's something
here that tickles somebody's brain and they would also like
to make it. I'd love to see what you guys
make. And are you so say, say this,
this exists, right? It does not say that.
We we say because it does. It's in our hands years down the
road, right. And you like you see this, you
see that people make a thing. You realize, oh, maybe I could
have tweaked it this way a little bit.
Are you the kind of person who is like, this is this is a
thing, this is His Majesty the worm?
Or are you the kind of person that's going to go, I'm already
got 2 E on the mind? Like where, where, where is, is
that in the mind at all? Is that or is that a seed you're
trying to like push away and let the game exist as it is for now?
And I know it's it's fresh. I mean, the game is just out
now, but I mean this, I'm sure you've thought about things.
So what are the thoughts like? You know, I have a lot of ideas
for, for projects and things that are interesting to me.
I, I am lucky to have the, the space to like have a creative
projects. And I also know that, you know,
given the long tail that it takes any creative project like,
you know, the things that I'm interested in today might not be
the things that I'm interested in in two years.
I feel pretty committed about getting this extra, this dungeon
out to try and support the, the game and, and help people, you
know, get it to the table and, and get it in front of their
friends. After that.
I, I, I, I'm really just, I guess we'll see it will we, we
will have to see there. What like we're interested in.
We have a couple knocks also in the wings.
So that's also taking like a lot of time and like creative brain
power. So I'm I'm also excited about
those coming out. I totally, yeah.
I I, I know that you do knock and even said you do knock.
And I don't know how I forgot to write down knock.
Like, what the heck? Like knock like how how the heck
did that come about? And obviously we'll, you know,
we'll, we'll keep waiting for, for all those each time they
come out. They're always gorgeous.
They're always beautiful. But yeah, I guess how like you
do knock. Tell us about how the heck that
happened. I mean, again, there's just good
luck. You know, the, the Mary Mushman
are doing a lot of things right now.
They have a lot of cool projects.
You know, the Black Sword hack has been a big success.
They just, they're continuing to put out some really cool old
school adventures. That was their most recent
Kickstarter. They have a new game coming out,
Dungeon Ink. There's a, there's a free to
play sample on the website. And so like, like, like many RPG
outfits, it's also, these are all labours of love.
These are all passion projects and it's a very small team,
right? So the, the Mary Mushroot men,
Olivia and Eric, you know, are expanding their focus and doing
a lot of different things. So they brought me on board to
help with Knock because I have some experience in the space and
some experience as an editor. So I, I'm, I'm lucky enough to
get to like do my favorite thing, which is play with logs
and play in the old school space.
So to free them up to to do kind of like an expanded lens, a
widened lens of old school stuff.
Yeah, very, very excited. You know, the mirror Mushman are
they're there's like three or five.
Again, we're not going to list, we're not going to like I'm
going to list, but we're not going to like rank or do
whatever. People like the Mary Mushman
people like games omnivorous, the people that like really lean
into the the kind of like, I don't want to say art housey.
It sounds pretentious, but like fuck it, I am those the people
that are like pushing those envelopes and such good,
creative, almost unassuming ways like this is it.
This is what it is and it just feels so good whenever it comes
out. Are are got some of the
highlights, at least for me in the space.
And like as soon as I heard that you were now going to be doing
that, I'm like, this is like such a good match.
And my next question was going to be like, what's the future
look like for Josh? And like we already entered it
like you're you're you're doing knock and everything now.
So super excited to see how that's coming out and what's
going to happen with with the Mary Mushman and and with that
beyond knock, though, like what in this space is that?
Is that your focus right now as the game's out?
Breathe for a little bit and then and work on knock.
So I have a couple issues of, you know, we're always putting
together a couple issues at a time.
It's kind of like putting together like a puzzle piece.
Maybe something is a good fit for one issue that might not be
a good fit for for the current issue.
And you, you have to kind of like see where things are going
to go. So yeah, I mean, like I again,
I'm only working on Sundays, but really focused on getting
Knockout next and then after that the dungeon.
I'm going to be hosting the game jam in September and at at that
point I've, I don't have enough spice to see the future that far
away. So we'll, we'll have to see,
right? Yeah.
Listen, I got a if we I could talk to you all day, which means
you're I hope, I hope you will come back again in the future.
But we got a we have to stop because we don't stop.
We're going to go all day. Like I said, if I start a second
post it note I'm going to make you be here for another hour.
But the game is out, it exists in the world, it is sold out
completely. There's going to be more,
though. Yeah, we we have a second print
run in, in, in, in motion. And prior to that, like if if
you weren't physically able to get the book, where can people
find information about you, information about the game, the
PDF for the game right now so they can still play it since it
does exist in the world work and they find all those things.
Yeah, the games website is his magic to the worm dot games.
It has links to all the places that you can buy it all the kind
of usual suspects. It has link to my blog.
It has you know, it has my e-mail if you want to get in
touch. I'm rise rise up Comus on most
social media. So if you want to chat about
anything, I would love to chat and I would love to come back
Brian and chat some more here. Always.
That's like those. Completely.
Come, come play a very small part of a mega dungeon with us.
We'll, we'll chat a little bit more, especially after we review
the game and stuff like that. Always super welcome.
It's always very nice to have you here on the show as, as Josh
said, check out all those websites.
We'll make sure that everything is listed below so you can find
that a little bit easier. Definitely go to exalted and hit
the the you can always do that, like notify me e-mail from them
and it, it's, it works really well.
I've definitely randomly they had like night yeast at like
2:00 in the morning pop up, but I snagged a second one with that
notification system. So definitely grab hit that so
you can get this book if you were unable to get it the first
two times that it sold out. Once again, Josh, thank you so
much for being here. Really appreciate it and you'll
definitely see him in the future.
So thank you so much. Thank you, guys.
Thank you everyone. Out there.
Thank you so much. We will see you all later.
Bye.