Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I'm getting drunk in
someone's apartment. And I'm WF Smith, author of The
Party Upon the Borderlands, among other things.
Barkeep on the Borderlands. For those in podcast land, you
can't see me waving this around. Barkeep on the Borderlands.
Wow, this was absolutely fantastic.
I know last time we had you on was probably to talk about this
right? Amongst other things, but.
For sure, I can't remember if it was like during the the promo
stage or during the any campaign.
I had a few kind of times where like just messaging every
podcast and stuff I can get on and be like, hey, get me on I I
need the airwaves. But how?
How did how did those inies last year work out for you?
We we got the gold and and best supplement, which strange
category because it's an adventure, but you know, the
Inies are doing their best to categorize things.
We're just happy to get the gold medal.
Congrats. Yeah, or rather like 30 gold
medals. They they let me order as many
as I want. So I got them all for my
everybody who did any writing or art or anything on it.
Son of a nice. Yeah.
Well, I mean, because if you, if you look at the dedication page
here for for it's literally just filled with people, the number
of people like this is just a who's who in this space that was
associated with this product, so or this project.
So it was, it was cool to see, you know, all the way through.
You know, I think one of the obviously it's a fantastic
adventure, but the fact of that it's so cohesive for how many
people are on it, including the number of different artists and
stuff for it was phenomenal, which I assume you are the you
were the director of all of that happening.
So that was a fantastic. Job to her, yeah.
So I mean, that's the other part.
How do you get that many people on a project on time question
mark? It wasn't quite on time, but
that was mostly due to printing and not due to any of the
contributors. It's printing and shipping is
kind of a mess and, and probably still is, but it was especially
a year or so ago. But yeah, I mean, it's all
really great. Everybody worked well together.
I think because most things were pretty constrained.
Like for the guest writers, they wrote a bar and the bars were
pretty similarly formatted. It wasn't just like, hey, write
something, go hog wild with it. It was like, here's kind of the
format you're going for. And they just kind of blasted
creativity all over the page. And then we just kind of
integrated it. And also it was very
collaborative because I'm friends with pretty much all the
writers. So like, ask somebody have like
a good idea. I was like, oh, that could that
could come in over here as well. And kind of things started kind
of linking together. So yeah, it became very cohesive
really quickly. It's.
Really impressive. I mean it's a great project.
I mean everything about it was great.
Like reading, it's amazing. It is a high quality like large
Zine, all of like the peripherals that came with.
They're all like really enjoyable.
Like I have the coasters somewhere.
I love the I. Did the same thing.
I was like, I know exactly where this is, but like most of my
TRPG's are on the ground right now.
It's always like reorganized for six months somewhere.
But yeah, the coasters. Were great.
Very impressive and so why? Oh, real quick, no, let's keep
going over bar key because we're we're transitioning, but also
the Indies is happening. So why do you think the Indies
put you guys in supplement last year?
I mean, here's The thing is you can run it as is, but you could
also just strip any one of these bars out and use it in games.
So maybe. But did they ever explain kind
of like why you were in supplement or?
No, the Indies I don't think really have any sort of
communications on like why things get in various
categories. But I can, I can kind of see
because especially if you read the first like 10 pages, it's
mostly like rules and guidelines for running like a pub crawl
adventure, which is, you know, a different type of adventure.
And like, as you say, you don't need to run, run it as an
adventure. You can just easily just be
like, this is a, you know, a catalogue of pubs you can use
for any campaign. And that's totally intentional.
I wanted to have kind of the two uses of run the whole thing
whole hog as an adventure or just take what you like and
steal it and pluck things. So from that angle, it
definitely is also a supplement. So I wasn't like to, to, you
know, you can't be too angry if it's a nomination for an award,
right? But I was just like, oh, I feel
like it's more of an adventure, but supplement works.
And so we we took that category and and ran for it.
I'm blanking is. There an adventure category.
Yes, now there's now there's two ones.
Last year was just adventure and now they have short form and
long form. Oh.
Right. Yeah, I like that actually.
In long form, yeah, because I mean, there's a huge difference
between A1 page adventure and a sixty page adventure.
And both are completely valid, you know, you know, go vote for
the bloom. But the innies, you know,
they're adapting. They're changing again.
Last year you got you, you, you all won the gold, Did you?
So you said when someone submits you, did you submit yourself to
the innies or did someone submit you for the innies?
I think you have to submit yourself because you have to
send in like you have to send five physical copies to five
different addresses. It's not even like you sent it
to 1 central place. You have to individually mail it
to every judge, which is a a really weird way to do it.
And you know, it's kind of like expensive, like if you don't get
any sort of nominations, like, all right, I guess I just sent
some free copies, but. Yeah, that is that's.
Just how the these are run a little strangely.
I definitely not like any defender.
Oh no, we are definitely a not huge fans unless you're voting
for our friends, which I feel like the vast majority of the
community feels like especially after the digital disaster.
But so I, I kind of want to dig a little bit more into the
innies and the process that came around with that.
So like we, you nominate yourself, you send five out, you
get the things like when do you guys find out at all prior to or
do you find out when everyone else finds out when they're just
pitching it? I find out whenever everybody
else finds out. So I, you know, get the I get, I
get no like e-mail alert or anything.
I think a friend just like tagged me in the discourse like
yo, any sort of albums, like immediately follow up, like, Oh
my God, we got it. So that's how I found out.
Same as everyone else. Yeah, the, the process is kind
of a little slap shot. Like even there's like award
videos if you don't go to the Gen.
Con to like physically accept your award and you have like 2
days to film like an acceptance speech, which people had super
high quality ones. Me, I kind of forgot that there
was the deadline was so like short and so like really, oh,
should we have like one day we like went to the store and made
stuff to make like green slime like Nickelodeon and and tried
to slime myself. We only had enough for one take
and it didn't quite because you know, it's it's such a kids
Choice Awards type of awards. The innings are since you have
for him. So that was just kind of my my
subtle critique, but I didn't I the slime like hit my ear.
It was it was like a historical event recently happened.
Yeah, I won't. It's so it's this close.
It was more awards are popping up.
You know, I really think that, you know, the 80s being the 80s
and I think people having experiences like you had where
it's, it's really great Twin gold.
The medal looks very nice. But like you said, you sent 5
copies off. Maybe you'll hear back.
Maybe you'll have two days to print a thing that's great.
But like the crit awards and like all these other things are
popping up now as someone who has won an INNY, has someone
who's making adventures, as someone who's been blogging for
quite a long time, what's your general feeling about like all
these awards that are popping up for our space and and the innies
as well specifically too, because it is any voting season
right now for 2024. Yeah.
I mean, my views always kind of been the more the merrier in
terms of awards. My, my personal favorites are
like the more idiosyncratic ones.
Like I know that the, the save versus all the party kill blog
has the the Rammys that that he does like kind of right after
the innings every year. I believe Throne of Salt has his
own awards that he does every year and like very
idiosyncratic. I love those.
I started some awards myself, like I guess two years at this
point. They're called the Bloggies,
which are basically blogging awards and it's kind of very ad
hoc that it was based on like some like tweet that was like
the worst tweets of the year. And I was like, oh, I can do
that for the best blogs of the year.
So yeah, I'm, I'm I'm all for kind of more, more awards de
emphasizing the innies. And they're not the like Academy
Awards of, of RPGs that I think that they would like to be, but
also the, the industry's not we're, we're still kind of
fledgling and kind of, you know, pretty punks.
I'm, I'm cool with lots of different awards.
It's great to win an any, especially, you know, if you're
trying to sell your stuff. It's a great marketing
opportunity basically. But beyond the marketing
opportunity, I don't think it makes people like respect you as
an artist because you, you know, have an any medal.
Yeah, you're just gonna write award-winning in your in your
thing, and then nothing really changes a whole lot.
Yeah, you gotta. You gotta add to the bio.
You gotta add to. The bio gotta add to the bio.
No, the bloggies. Though I will say the bloggies
are great. I of all the awards specifically
in the TRPG kind of plethora, I would I would say the bloggies
are by far my favorite because every round I'm just like just
reading everything that comes through from all sides of it.
And like it was etic that ran the bloggies this year, right,
and the little cuts that they were doing with with the with
the stuff for that were were fantastic.
I don't know Marshall Wan a bunch of those, but every every
one of those is really great. It's really interesting to see
how the votes go. And and I'm really glad that
they're also kind of like split into different styles so that so
many different styles of blogs weren't going through, but those
are those were absolutely fantastic.
So, you know, good, good, good job getting those up and
running. Yeah, I like the tournament
style. I just, you know, it's like a
anime kind of tournament, as I say, you know.
We're doing a shonen tournament arc here with Dark.
Tournament, you know? Yeah, perfect.
Yeah, so you were saying Hunter today?
Today we have a couple things to talk about, but I think the the
one that I'd like to start with, if it's OK with you, is the
barkeep jam that you've going on.
Please illuminate us on this subject.
Yeah, so it's been going on for about a month and it has a month
to go. So we're kind of right at the
halfway point as as people are listening to this and the idea
behind it is basically the barkeep on the Borderlands
adventure we're talking about. I, you know, kind of opening up.
I made a third party license, which is pretty robust for
people to use any of like the game terms or any of the format
and stuff. If you want to make their own
bars for kind of barkeep or even want to make their own point
crawl. One person made a dungeon
quality could kind of plug into barkeep, just basically kind of
make your own solvent for our supplement kind of jam.
And that's that's pretty much the the bulk of it at this
point. It's just on itch because that
seems to be where most people post their their jams.
But some people are kind of just posting their entries to their
blogs. But you know, as a month and
people can just kind of put out whatever they want.
Yeah. Love that any it's a favorite
project so far. Favorite submissions so far?
I so I've seen more so I, I've like my discover, I've seen some
people kind of like putting theirs together.
So there's a lot that I know are in the works right now.
I think there's only been like 3 or so that have been put out and
two are actual kind of pubs, one kind of like a, a marine one and
then the other one. So and, and one is also a like
a, a dungeon crawl kind of like I said, it's like in the IT can
be used for any bar and it's basically kind of like the wine
cellar of any bar. You can, if you're, you know,
having the social adventure and you kind of miss the classic,
you know, the classic dungeon crawl element, you can kind of
throw this in in the middle of bar keep.
So it's supplement in that way. Another one is sort of more like
a Lovecraftian kind of religious kind of, you know, haunted bar.
Yeah. I'm just looking forward to
seeing kind of what more about people to get put together for
it. Sounds great.
I have a new table. I have a new table that I'm
running and we're fishing for supplements run.
So it'd be really cool to run a barkeep with some little extra
dimensional dungeon crawl slotted in there 'cause I think
they enjoy that, yeah. One of one of the things about
this oh, sorry, oh, sorry to interrupt you there, but no
barkeep, you know, like you blah blah blah blah, you go.
You first. No, I was just going to say,
yeah, the bark Bark keeps a good one just to have you if you're
running something and you don't want to use the full thing, but
you just want to toss one bar into, you know, because
everybody needs a pub every now and then.
You don't want to prep that pub. You got to, you know, 20 that
are pre pepped and then after, after this jam, hopefully you'll
have a lot more than 20 that you can just kind of throw.
Yeah. Yeah, like you said, there are,
there are three fully submitted right now, but in your Discord
like how, how many, how many of you seen kind of get tossed
around a little bit? I think that there are like
maybe 6:00 or so that I've seen kind of actively being worked
on. But I'm, you know, I'm sure that
most things get kind of worked on outside the the auspices of
my eyes. And, you know, definitely people
who are not my discorder also obviously welcome to do it.
That's why I'm, you know, going on the airwaves, you know, tell
people about it. But like, for instance, one
person is doing like a Fight Club, but it's like based on
like Waffle House, which is a classic of any bar crawling, you
know, experience usually towards the end.
So I'm looking forward to, to that being coming out.
Yeah, there's a few that are are kind of people plugging away
because you know, they have two months and people are kind of
often times wait until you know the last, not the last second,
but they want to use all the time they can.
I mean Bargee Death certainly was took longer than two months
to make so. Yeah, I get it.
You want to put out something like especially if you like
really enjoy, like the the space that you're working in with
people around you and you're like, yeah, I'm really into
this. Like you want to put out the
thing that's the best quality thing you can put out.
So I'm sure there'll be the like the last week here is going to
get buried in submissions for that, but that'll be really
cool. I'm I'm really excited to see
what comes out. I I love James.
I love watching other people like expand upon like great
ideas. And I think the way you said
bars and barkeep is so easy to replicate and make it your own
and fit to format. Yeah, you did a really good job
with that. Yeah, exactly.
Well, I'd I'd heard the reason kind of the, the thought process
behind doing this, James. I had multiple people who were
kind of like, Hey, I'd like to make my own, you know, bar for
this. Could I do that?
And of course the answer is always yes.
Like you didn't need to wait for me to put out a license like
I'm, I don't have even if I wanted to, you know, go after
you for, for making a supplement which come out with me, which
why would I that's that's great. I'm not able to do that.
So like you've always been able to, but I feel like some people
just want that extra permission structure that a jam represents
and I'm happy to kind of give as much permission structure as
possible. So I was like, here's a jam, do
it during this. Here's a license that's going to
be, you know, ongoing. So you can even if you have the
jams over, you have an idea for a bar or, you know, even the
entire points crawl structure. I have all like the, the point
crawl and the the drinking rules text.
All of that is added into the license.
So somebody comes along and they're like, I have an idea for
like my own kind of pub crawl, point crawl adventure.
I it doesn't, I don't want to be set where like barkeep is set.
I want it to be like its own thing.
You can still steal a framework and just, you know, make this a
new type of, you know, adventure type because there's, you know,
lots of hex crawl adventures, lots of dungeon crawl
adventures. Obviously the pub crawl is a bit
more new. So this just kind of gives
people that permission structure to steal the framework use of
whatever they're working on. That's really cool and I really
appreciate the fact that this is like a it's really a social
adventure, which I you see less of those than you do.
Go to the dungeon, kill the thing and get the thing.
Do do you see yourself making more like socially based
adventures like as you continue forward?
Definitely. But also I kind of think of all
adventures need to have that social component.
It's not just kind of like factions and the dungeon.
But to me, what's really fun about RPGs is not so much to
like combat and things like that.
I'm just less interested in that as kind of an adventure writer
and as a designer, you know, sometimes I do kind of like to,
to meddle in like mechanics and stuff.
Whenever I'm writing an adventure, what's interesting to
me is the personalities, the conflicts, and even even playing
the game, half the time I'll have a session where there's no
combat going on. But I don't think I've ever had
a session where there's been no, you know, flirting or
investigating or threatening or like there's, there's always
something social going on, right?
That's like kind of the bread and butter, at least from the
games that I run. And if there's combat, if people
solve their problems with violence, that sometimes
happens, but they're always solving with words or or making
the problems worth worse with words just as often.
Very funny. Yeah, I so I had something.
Oh, so when you were writing, one of the things that you that
when I was saying that you had talked about too, was that the
format of the bars, First of all, you said those it made it
easier for writers to just be able to write what they wanted
to write as opposed to like having to come up with on their
own. But when that original kind of
format was happening, had you thought about after the game was
out, like was, was letting people hack, not letting people,
but like the thought that people might want to, was that also a
thought when you were doing the format for it?
Or was it mostly just for the book and for the writers and
things like that? I would that format initially
just because that's I'm such a fan of like random encounters as
a tool. I'm such a fan of kind of
procedures. And so even if I was putting it
together initially, I didn't know that I would have guest
writers. That was kind of a stretch goal
for the campaign. Like if the campaign had only
raised like, you know, $2000, which may very well make could
have not have been, I would have felt like success to me.
It would have just been things that I had written and it would
still have been the same format. It was just because the campaign
did well that I, you know, brought on 10 friends to write
their own bars and they used the same format.
But it definitely, it wasn't, if it was a consideration, it
wasn't one that I was like, you know, my, my waking brain was
aware of that. It was like an easy to kind of
replicate format any more than it was like more of a format for
as easy As for me to make something kind of because I, I
knew for sure I had to make at least 10 bars myself.
And so I wanted some kind of format that it's like it needs
to be two page spread and I, I hate page flipping whenever I'm
at the table. So I, I wanted to kind of be
contained within that. At the same time, I want lots of
nuance. I want it to be a kind of a
full, you know, a, a bar you could visit for seven days in a
row and different things happen. And that's tough to get all down
in that limited space. And so that format was just
something where I was able to do that and also fit it with a
larger procedure. Love that.
We love not having flip pages by the way.
Thank you for that. Love it.
Love a useful thing for the table, really great.
A book designed to be used effectively as a book when
you're at the table. That's crazy.
If only more people would do that and just remind people it
did raise more than $30,000 and well, well deserved for that.
Again, the project is fantastic. The number of people in it are
fantastic. And then obviously you want the
coveted, as we've talked about already, gold Amy for it.
So really the. Legendary.
Right. Are there thoughts of more for
this beyond the GM? So real quick before you answer
that question, 'cause I would say the GM is fantastic.
I love, I fucking love game jams.
I think a lot of people really, I know people that have started
making more things in this space because they for the first time
they did a project, they did a little jam thing and they
realized it could take it further.
So that's fantastic. But what's in it for me section
at the bottom of me, it's really fantastic too, where it says if
there are enough participants, potentially it could be put
together as a compilation and published and put out.
So first of all, that's cool. So I wanted to ask you about
that. And then second the try and
transition to. Is there going to be more beyond
potentially this compilation? So the compilation I do want, as
long as you have, as long as there's enough entries and I can
kind of reach out people and like, hey, would you be willing
for me to pay you money and me publish the thing yard written,
which I feel like most people, the answer is, yeah, go ahead
and do it. So as long as I can get a couple
of those and put them together. Yeah, I'd like to kind of print
a few of those because I think that there's definitely people
would like to have extra bars because Barkeeper has done
fairly well. So and even having, you know,
six extra bars or 10 extra bars, I think would really kind of
make the adventure sing even more than it already does.
So that's definitely something I don't know if I want to like
expand on it directly myself later on.
I kind of want to move on to kind of my next adventures.
Some might be setting the same, you know, fantasy milieu, kind
of maybe the same setting, maybe some like kind of hidden
connections or like subtle connections.
But I think that's like a. Reference.
Yeah, that that's, that's probably as close as I'll get.
I'm probably going to keep moving on to, to bigger stuff.
Is the aim bigger And I guess smaller stuff, I mean, and
occasionally smaller stuff. But you know, I always have the
the mountain I'm climbing and I keep getting as distracted as I
climb. Yeah, you working on your
fantasy heartbreaker system right now?
I'm I'm always working on my fantasy heartbreaker that kind
of started it all during the pandemic.
And that's probably going to be, it's going to be like Break,
which is that's one that is nominated for the Indies and
it's definitely a deserved one for people who are looking for
something to vote for. That one I think took like 10
years or like 11 years in development.
Took a took a little bit, a little while.
That's so prismatic Wasteland is kind of my like post apocalyptic
science fantasy game that's probably going to take like a
similar amount of time just because, you know, I'm doing
this kind of part time and I also I'm constantly distracted
and constantly working on other things.
But also I want that to be a large, I mean, it's going to be
a large project kind of box set. And so I want to, you know, kind
of slow steps. Like, my first thing ever was
like a little pamphlet adventure, and then I did a Zine
hoping my next one will be maybe like a hardback book.
And so kind of slowly biting off slightly larger pieces of the
elephant until I can swallow the whole thing.
That's the goal. Big Rock Candy Mountain?
Is that the your? Big Rock candy hex crawl.
Yeah, big rock candy hex crawl. Sorry I would mountain, but very
great go so great. Love some leftist folky jams.
So yeah. I mean, that's a great way to do
it too. You know, we've seen people,
obviously we back a lot of Kickstarters here on the show
and we've talked about Kickstarters a lot.
And when someone just. Yeah, not as much as they used
to. Actually, I used to spend 45
minutes an episode. But we try to spend less money
now. But one thing that we've noticed
is projects that come out of left field and people that have
never done anything trying to do like a $60,000 box at and it
does not work. So being able to put stuff out,
get your name out there, build a following, build, you know, even
beyond like your blogs, which are fantastic, like having
things like Bar Key, being an any award-winning writer and
everything like that as you slowly like get through through
all the processes. Such a fantastic way to do it.
So when you finally do get to the big project, people know you
and you know how to print and mail a hardback book and all
that. That's a really, really
fantastic way to do it. I wish, I wish more people would
do it that way if they could. But that's that.
That just gives me confidence that when it drops that I know
that it'll be done and I'll actually get it, you know, which
is nice, yeah. Hopefully it's a little better
for the backers because they can have that kind of sense of of
confidence, but also it's just also better for the creators.
So like if anybody's listening and it's kind of, you know,
maybe thinking about becoming, you know, writing their own
tabletop RPG stuff. I think something small, I mean
like like a game jam is kind of an ideal first step.
Like don't even think about like something that is a printing
product. Be like, what can I make that's
like APDF that I can like put on it or drive through RPG and just
like see if people like like it. And, you know, maybe 100 people
will download it and that's actually really good.
And then kind of go on from there.
And and that was on your next project and be like, Oh yeah,
I've done stuff before. I do this like little project
and you can link to it and you know, you're like the little
snowball kind of rolling down the hill and eventually you'll
be a snowman. We're all we're all getting
there. But start small is kind of my
advice for any nay center or wannabe creator.
You heard it here first, y'all. Prismac waistline is the next
the Wattsy you know it's. Coming, it's coming.
So beyond Barkeep, I know we're talking about a couple other
things today. We have so I have two tabs here.
You tell me which one that I'm going to click on, and we have
The Trouble in Paradisa and Willy Wonka's Authentic.
Interactive extravaganza. There you.
Go my tab is too short. Let's talk about Trouble and
Paradisa first, just 'cause it kind of connects to our our, our
conversation about jam. So this is actually for a jam
that finished today called the the 2024 Summer Lego RPG Setting
Jam, which my friend Ann Hunter at the DIY and Dragon's blog who
also wrote on Barkeep, hosted this last month.
And it got like a number of really good missions.
Basically the idea behind this jam was take some Lego set or
Lego sets and make some gameable RPG thing out of it.
Like for instance, Josh Mccrawell, the Rise of Comus
blog, who also did His Majesty the worm.
He did like a full like hex crawl, like a giant hex cross
setting with all the various like medieval castle Lego sets.
I went a little loud of Lafitte like most people kind of going
to do like space or castle or pirates or kind of one of those
like very classic kind of genres that Lego and RP GS kind of well
trod. I chose Paradisa, which is like
a a a small theme from the 90s that was aimed at like girls
mostly themed around like the beach and riding horses.
I had a set as a kid. They're all like kind of like
these pink pastel sets and I turned it into like.
Kind of city builder kind of thing, or like, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. They're like a subcategory of
city. And it was like all beaches, all
like resorts and stuff like that.
And I took those and I made it a murder mystery, kind of like
White Lotus, the TV show. Sick.
Oh I wanted to love White Lotus so bad.
I don't know why I just hated every second of it, but they
just gave me such like a like a Zing.
Oh, I tried to hide it and I didn't do well so I just had to
say what it was. This is giving me Lisa Frank a
bit too. Yeah, the the sets definitely
have like very Lisa Frank. I mean, it's that error, right?
Like I think like, yeah, early 90s, that's kind of that was a
big era for, for Lisa Frank kind of binders and stuff That that
was who their target demo is. It's less a target demo for me
because it is. I added the murder component.
Those were not original to the sets to my knowledge.
I don't think they had any murder.
But I, yeah, I've, I've not playing as usually not, I mean,
the way I played with them personally, lots of murder, but
I don't think that that was officially in the set.
So, yeah, I took a few sets, kind of made a murder mystery
out of it. It's it's very much kind of
another social adventure. It's system neutral.
You know, the idea is that you're a detective trying to
solve the murder. And it's this interconnected
kind of web of relationships between the staff and the people
at the resort and they all kind of their their own relationships
and issues with each other. And you're kind of untangling
this web as you start, like investigating the the evidence
and interrogating people. That's awesome.
I love that you like, I love that there's like other people
doing like, yeah, they're doing the castle hex crawl and like
the space stuff. And you like really drew from
like your childhood personal experience and like, oh, these
sets, like I very much have memory of them.
And you innovate on them to be like, yeah, to beyond the
actual, like, visual of the set. It's not like this great murder
mystery. Yeah, I I definitely like I
didn't play with these sets of time.
I did have them, but like the way that I played with sets was
like so like IP focused, like a Star Wars had like the Legos
just came out and rose a kid. So a lot of that.
But there's one Blogger, Ian at the Benign Ground Beast, the way
he did his jam entry was more someone how I actually played as
a kid. It was like basically just a
mish mash of like, you know, IP stuff.
And not because he's like, I saw Star Wars as a kid, but like I
wasn't super familiar with it. So like, I wasn't sure what
Darth Vader was. I, you know, just put a skull
hat on him and it was like, it's Darth skull.
And it's like, yeah, that's basically how I did it as a kid.
It's hard to get back in that creative mindset, though.
As an adult. You're just like, I don't know,
it's, it's, it's tough to get out of this.
The binders that that you get in over the course of adulthood as
a mix of genres. It's, it's crazy.
I, you know, it's weird how I was randomly thinking about that
the other day and I was just like, when you're a kid, you're
just a goofball. And then if you're like an adult
doing like kids stuff, like people like what is wrong with
that guy? And it's just like, I feel like
a lot of it could just comes under the social pressure of
just not being seen as weird and that sucks.
Yeah, there's, there's definitely a lot of things that
everybody kind of is like, man, I wish I could tap into that
childlike innocent, but at the same time children are like,
man, I wish I could be an adult and pay taxes and you wouldn't
do jobs. Like, no, you don't.
But like, it's always both both ways.
It's just like, man, you don't know how good you have it on
both sides, which I, I think is great.
Nobody's happy. Nobody's happy.
It's fantastic. That's awesome.
That is life. You're never happy You were a
Lego kid. Yeah, absolutely.
I'm actually on like while we're talking about this, I have
legos.com pulled up 'cause I'm like, man, I bet I could give me
an Abigail set and we could play some Legos.
Man, that sounds awesome. I'd love to find like I like the
I like the prettier, like pastel color, like the sets for girls
stuff. I, I visually really love stuff
like that And find me one, you know, how about you, Ryan?
No, I never touched a single Lego as a kid.
Not a single one. Yeah.
And like all this whole conversation, like I had a ton
of toys and action figures from different like IPS that I mixed
together and like, I was a weird kid.
I'm weird now. I played with those kids, those
toys until I was probably too old to be doing so.
So I I love it. Yeah, I feel.
Like, most people probably played with them longer than
they were supposed to, which means that like we, nobody did.
Everybody was playing with. The Yeah, we're all doing.
It again so not not doing Legos though.
Your parents must have saved so much money.
I bet, Yeah. I mean, I can only, I can only
assume they just didn't want to like, spend money and, and and
give me nice things. But like, I, you know, I was, I
was a reader as a kid. Like I read like I got in
trouble like almost every day because they'd committed 2:00 in
the morning and it's like a, a flashlight under the blanket and
I'd get yelled at school falling asleep because I just read all
night long. So like my parents like would
literally like it got to a point where I was like going to
farmers markets and they knew me.
So while they would just like hand me a box of books and say
bring it back in two weeks and I would just like bring it back to
them. So like, I think that's where a
lot of the time I, I did went for that because I didn't even
really have like a ton of action figures or anything like that
either. I also have like blocked out
like 90% of my childhood. So maybe I didn't, I don't know.
I had, I had Thundercats underwear.
I'll always remember that, you know?
But that's, yeah, I just was never a Lego person.
You know, it's interesting too, because like, you know, all of
us millennials, I feel like we're just reliving the
childhood we didn't get from our Gen.
X parents, who for some reason Gen.
X doesn't get beat up as much as they should.
But we're just like adults reliving our childhood to all
the people are just like, let me find the Lego sets that I had
when I was a kid so I can just do them as an adult, which is
completely valid point to have. I just wish I had things to
enjoy as an adopt I guess. I If you look behind you on your
bookshelves, you will see the things you have used to fill in
that space. Your adult.
There we go. This is.
I think that this this jam idea
is incredibly creative. Shante and Hunter that was it's
a great idea. I it's cool seeing everyone's
submissions. I'm excited to go through them
in in deeper measure later, but moving on to our our next thing
I really want to ask about because it looks absolutely
ridiculous and I love insanity, especially on the end of the
Willy Wonka Authentic Interactive Extravaganza.
Please, I'm dying to know more about this project.
So you guys, y'all are on Twitter so you probably already
or maybe remember this, but for the benefit of your audience who
might be less online. Like early, early in the year,
there was this thing in like Glasgow, Scotland where there
was like this horrific AI generated like Willy Wonka
knockoff thing for children that they had done where they're
like, you know, they sold it as like a Willy Wonka experience.
But it was like a just a bear like warehouse with like
underpaid actors with like, you know, each child got a Jelly
Bean or something like that. And it was like for some reason
went viral. I think like TikTok was
involved, but it was just like this disastrous thing brought on
by AI. And whenever that happened, I
was kind of joking with some friends about how like that
warehouse could actually make like a pretty cool adventure.
And we're like, they're like, well, I think one, I can't
remember who is one person like just like wrote a little room
that they would like put in a Willy Wonka AI adventure.
And then we all did it. And then we just put it all
together and turned into a dungeon crawl.
It's actually pretty playable. I actually ran this for a couple
people and it was a weird adventure, but like it is a
fully functional dungeon crawl and it's it's very much like a
mocking, like the concept of AI, kind of like a lot of people are
doing their best parody of like what AI would would create.
But obviously no AI is used because like we're very this
group is, as are I think most kind of writers and artists in
in our space are pretty against the use of artificial
intelligence, or at least these uses.
I mean, there's uses that are fine, like reading an article so
people with, you know, with disabilities can more easily
access news. That's fine making art and stuff
and just basically slawk and filling drive through with it
less fine. So this that's what this is, is
kind of making fun of that. But also it's just a a crazy
candy adventure. It's very dark actually.
Just. Like an event, actually, because
it was a little horrifying. Yeah, I know you guys can't see
it if you don't have the thing up, but I I brought up ABBC
article and and scrolled through some of the pictures and yeah,
it's great. It's exactly what you think it
is. And I mean from a mile away, you
can tell that's Hodag art right there.
So I mean, the people that you have on this like art from Hodag
photography from Nova playful void, another fantastic blog,
Marsha B from the Traverse blog, who is now leaving the TTRBT
space to move on to, to other things after dominating the
bloggies and and then editing from you.
Great, great list of people here for for kind of a joke project.
But I like I love that it's like a joke you take seriously
because it's really cool. So that's really neat.
Yeah, One note about the the cartography that that Nova did.
So it is kind of a playable map, but she also she inserted a
bunch of like, so instead of just like the numbers that show
you kind of what key room it is, some are just like things that
look like numbers but aren't. There are like doors that are
actually walls. It's like very much kind of like
a map generated by AI. She was like being like, what
kind of weird flaws and quirks could I add into this map?
And so like when running it, I was like, oh man.
So I guess they're now in this room, but like this room's not
even a room. It's just kind of the space in
between the walls, which was was perfect for for what it was When
I ran this, the the children were like total monsters and
there's lots of bloodshed. It's honestly, you know, I spoke
earlier about with you guys, I can't remember if it was on
streamer beforehand, about how so often my adventures are like
largely social and combat does not come into it at all.
This adventure where they're actually, they're playing as
children. So everybody plays as children.
You have like an adult, you have kind of a flaw and you're given
like a Jelly Bean. But this is probably one of the
bloodiest adventures I've ran in a while just because they were
absolute monsters. They they kill people left and
right. Really.
Yeah. That's so funny.
That's so absurd. I love it.
I love how ridiculous this is. Yeah, I mean, I that sounds fun
to me. I know we I feel like we're
polar opposites in the things we like.
A social is great but I just want to murder shit like all the
time. But there's lots of stuff to
murder in here, that's that's for sure.
Yeah, any of this AI tainted rubbish for sure could get
murdered. I mean, yeah, clearly, I mean
clearly we're we're we're anti I I think that most of the people
in the space that actually have any respect left at all are
pretty anti AII mean, you know, because a first of all, we also
know that it's not AI. It's just a a slightly more
advanced yes, no tool. But but as you said, I mean that
this is the thing that is going to, you know, drive a wedge is
the people that see AI, quote UN quote is a way that will take
the work we don't want to do from us, which is great, not
take the work we want to do from us so that we we can't do it,
which is good creative side and things like that.
So I really like like, you know, like you said that this like
joke, but not a joke like, you know, bringing that kind of the
the attention, the focus will still have a good time with it
is really fantastic. Yeah, it was just also just a
fun project. And I'd, I'd like to do more of
a, where it's just like kind of like a nail soup.
I'm not sure if you guys know that story where everybody
throws in like an ingredient. So you look at me funny.
So it's like a children's story. I heard one time basically a big
pot of water. Somebody's like, oh, I'm making
nail soup. There's just like a piece of
nail, like a nail in the, in the bottle or the pot of water.
Everyone toss in an ingredient eventually becomes soup.
But that's kind of how I thought of the process of making this
adventure because like everybody just super low effort.
Like they're like, if you want to write like one room, you
could write that. If you want to write 2 rooms,
just like plug in the Google doc.
And then I just kind of ordered it in a certain order, kind of
made some minor adjustments for cohesion, but it was like super
low effort. It kind of got stuck in like
layout hell for a little bit, but it could have come together
easily like in a weekend just because of like the way that it
was done. And I think I'd like to do more
of that, especially just because I have a lot of friends who, you
know, want to make something kind of low effort and it's an
easy way to do it. It's like such an impressive
list of people on this, you know, like, yeah, it's low
effort stuff and you go Oh my God.
But all these people are so good at what they do.
Very funny though. I actually didn't realize that
the original event that this is referring to was an AI generated
bike. Like that was the driving force
behind this event. Like the original class Gal
thing. I think the script was AI is is
what my understanding was that's.
How I assumed, yeah. That's how they got like the the
freaky dude, the unknown and the mask, which is also like fully a
character in this adventure as well, like a a primary
antagonist is, is the unknown. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, that was that was I think what was like so
compelling at first. We were just like, this is
clearly like a dungeon monster. This is like frightening shit,
honestly. So yeah, that that's a big part
of the adventure as well, is the unknown.
His his his war with the the Willy Wonka figure.
Yeah, so I brought, I brought it up again.
I remember reading about this because, I mean, because so many
people were like ripping on this.
It was fantastic on the tweeters for a little bit there.
But yeah, I mean, like all the posters were done up, all the
stuff was done up. And then they have like, you
know, pictures next to like what it's supposed to be because they
had pictures and it's like, I have it up on the thing right
now. There's this crazy AI Jelly Bean
situation that I'm like, who? The other problem is also the
parrots where it's like, you see this and this is what you expect
to be in some like random warehouse for like 20 bucks.
Like, I don't know, like what they thought was going to happen
from this grift. But like it's literally just a
couple prop pieces and then, yeah, some like fold out tables
and like a rainbow and stuff. This is, I can't imagine the
horrifyingness. But I did hear, you know, one
thing that I thought was really neat.
I know there's no picture of this on the blog, but there was
that like very sad looking like girl.
That was part of it too. At least the one picture was
apparently she was fantastic and she was like corralling all the
kids and trying to make the best of it.
So that was cool from that part of it.
But yeah, the, the AI grift was just the perfect thing at the
perfect time for, for showing how ridiculous all this was at
the beginning of the year. So it was, it's definitely
horrifying, especially, Yeah, that that, that, that thing, the
the unknown. What?
What, what Vienna? Like who, who, who, who thought
that that people were going to come to that with the little
kids? And I think that was OK, yeah.
But I mean, that's that's the problem with machines.
They have no contacts. But at least they gave us good
fodder for this adventure. And even like you mentioned the
the actors who portrayed one of the Oompa Loompas, I believe,
you know, that's also kind of fully a part of this adventure.
It's like very much like all of the Oompa Loompas and and their
multi multiple Willy Wonkas in the adventure are all like
underpaid actors who are also, just as much as the kids are
being bamboozled into the adventure, all of like the staff
are also being bamboozled. Yeah.
That's, that's amazing. I, I, I love this.
I can't wait to check it out. Everyone should check it out.
But yeah, very cool idea. So, so forward-looking on the
horizon. What is next for Prismatic
Wasteland? So I want to start doing some
publishing stuff and I, I have a friend who's writing something
that I might kind of start taking the lead on on publishing
it for him. So I'm not taking kind of the
role of writer, but maybe just more editor and publishing and
kind of doing the logistics stuff.
In terms of stuff that I'm writing.
I'm writing kind of a large adventure.
It is set in the same kind of universes Barkeep on the
Borderlands, but it's more of a spiritual sequel to my first
adventure, which is Big Rock Candy Hex Crawl and it's called
Candy Country and it's going to be this kind of sprawling hex
crawl adventure. I'm, I'm hoping it's going to be
a pretty large one, but it's also taking a while just because
it's, you know, very much kind of doing it as I have time.
At the same time, I'm, I'm always working on a kind of
fantasy science fantasy heartbreak or prismatic
wasteland and, you know, trying to get some blogs out as well.
So there's a lot of things. I'm very kind of ADHD in terms
of my production. I like to have lots of pots on
lots of burners. And then just like the way that
I kind of keep get doing hobby stuff.
If I force myself to do anything, I would, I'll hate it
and I will not be able to do it. I have to basically work on the
thing I don't want to or I should not be working on.
So as long as I have a thing I should be working on and able to
get to all the other things, which does sometimes lead to me
doing the project like a, you know, a small jam or like a
silly Willy Wonka thing, which we're definitely not like my
intended thing for those like weeks that I was working on
those. But that's just kind of the way
that I think that my mentality is and to stay a hobbyist, which
is my goal is to always kind of take it.
You know, even if stuff is raising money and I'm printing
lots of copies, the goal is still just kind of put this out
as a hobby. It's kind of a labor of love.
The only reason in my mind to like to make money from it and
is just because that actually sells more copy and gets in
front of more people's eyeballs. Like I could give away the
exacts. I could, you know, give away
barkeep for free. And the only thing that would
just be people like, oh, so it's kind of like garbage.
Then it's like, no, you haven't. The way that I guess human
psychology works, it's like, you have to be like, here's the
price and pricing it what you think it's worth.
So you actually think it's worth something, which is screwy, But
that's, that's the goal. I just want to get my my
terrible ideas in front of as many people as possible.
I'm like a a virus that way. Yeah, Yeah, we do.
And it's interesting because it's such a, you know, the, the
space that we're in, space, community, industry, hobby,
whatever. It's such a weird one,
especially in a lot of creative spaces, 'cause I feel like TRPGS
people like it's a new thing. It's been around for like 50
fucking years at this point. Like it ain't that new, you
know? And it's, it's a weird space to
be in though, because like you don't really see, there's not
really a space like this for like hobbyist plumbers, you know
what I mean? Like you're either a plumber or
you're just doing your own plumbing.
So it's a weird space where people are making money, but
kind of not making money, but they're like trying to make
money. And, you know, the capitalism is
a very weird spectrum across the TTRPGI.
I'm just going to call it space. And, you know, I think we're,
we're, we're much closer to, to your kind of side of it where
like we, we don't really monetize anything.
We don't take free copies of stuff and and stuff like that
because we want to keep it as much hobby as possible so we can
try to keep capitalism out of the thing that we enjoy as much
as possible. But umm, you know, it's, it's,
it's an interesting chronicle industry and I don't see it ever
not feeling like that all the time.
Like I don't feel like there's ever gonna be a coalescing of
like what the industry is and what the hobby is like.
What are your thoughts on on kind of that as someone who is
an award-winning adventure writer who does sell stuff, but
does want to kind of like learn more into the hobby side?
Yeah, Well, I think of it, you know, in terms of why it's not
like plumbing. I think it's more like any type
of art form. So it's like painting or
writing. And there's there's always
people who do that stuff for free.
And there's at the same time, you know, there's totally like a
commercialized art world, you know, commercialized publishing
space. I think the main difference
between tabletop RP GS and maybe kind of like the like novel
publishing industry or like the, you know, the art industry world
is that for such a long time, one company dominated tabletop
RP GS. And so the gatekeepers were much
stronger. And so because the gatekeepers
are such strong, but there's always going to be a demand to
make art. I think in every art form, as
soon as the art form emerges, there's just a demand irrelevant
of like the market forces to create to a drive to create in a
way that there's not just a, you know, a non market based desire
to like, you know, fix somebody's window, You know,
except for like an interpersonally.
And because the gatekeepers were so strong, I think it just has a
much larger hobbyist element than maybe other art firms do.
Maybe as kind of Wizards of the coast weakens and like, you
know, other large firms kind of increase and gets more similar
to other art publishing. So like, you know, it'll, it'll
never be like movies, but maybe closer to like novels and and
art. It might get more commercialized
and less hobbies, but I think there's always going to be a
large hobby space. And I definitely think that the
further you are from kind of systematized stuff, so like, you
know, the big brand names, the Pathfinders, the the Dungeons
and Dragons, and the more you are into things that are like,
honestly, the things that are like post OS are like this.
The OS are precepts of like, do it yourself, you know, rulings
over rules, Those things just lend themselves to hobbyist
mindset. Even among the people who are
not creating and just people who are players and just kind of
like interested in the games, those are people who, you know,
are hobbyist. It's very much do it yourself.
And I would say that, yeah, there's probably even more of a
hobby spent in tabletop RPGs than other art firms because so
much is actually reliant not on anything that you publish.
Like I'm not publishing an adventure and somebody's
bringing barkeep to the Borderlands to their table.
The real like kind of mover is the players and the GM.
What I'm giving them is just kind of like some like prepped
ingredients, but they are the cook and they're the ones eating
the food. There's so little that I can do
compared to like a movie where, you know, you, you put a, a
Blu-ray into your Blu-ray player.
If you're from 10 years ago and you're going to see the same
movie, there's no kind of like difference of like what who you
sit down to watch it with. I mean, there is, but like, not
nearly to the degree with tabletop RPGs.
Yeah, if I ramble on that. No, I mean.
Like the rambles? Great.
Yeah, the rambles, great. We appreciate the ramble
actually. But yeah, I think there's a lot
of truth to that. It is interesting how your own
personal experience and perception and like taste really
change how any module or game hits your table versus another
person's table. Which is great.
I I, I really dislike adventures or or anything that really kind
of assumes what I'm going to get out of it.
I was I'm reading this like old some some of my old TSR
adventure called Dekna lives mostly to to do it kind of a
maybe scathing review of it because I I ran it.
It's not great, but like it wants you to think of it as a
movie like it that has a whole like large bloated section about
how this is like a horror movie and you should be like running
like this. And it's like you can't have
like these preset reactions. Like the best you can do is kind
of set up a scenario and like, you know, have at it.
The more that a module kind of like stranglehold you and your
players into a certain path or into a certain like feeling, I
think the more it's going to fail the way it's just it's
setting itself up for failure. And the more that a modules like
I am merely like a where this is a stage in a set of costumes,
but you are going to be writing the script and you're me doing
whatever you want with it. Like this is a even adventures,
even like the most kind of like linear adventure.
It needs to be kind of a toolbox and just kind of something to
facilitate your own creativity because the author cannot put
their creativity onto your table.
It's just it's an impossible thing to to want to do, and it's
not even what you should want to do.
Yeah, it's interesting too. Yeah, because there's between
books, movies, you know, even like board games and things like
that, TTRPG has carved out this kind of separate but but very
like parallel path because, you know, TRPGS, you're really
creating an experience for people to have and that's going
to be different for everybody. And books, movies, like you get
the experience of watching the movie and there can be different
interpretations. But as you said, the movie is
always the movie. The novel is always the novel.
The painting is always a painting.
People might see it differently, but at the end of the day,
objectively it is the same series of actions happening over
the same set period of time. But when you bring an adventure
to your table, 100% of the time, you will never have the exact
same experience. One different player at the
table will change it. The GM being in a better mood
that day could change it. Everything could change it all
the time. So you really are just creating
this thing in a bubble and then handing it to someone else and
saying like, have fun with this bubble however you want as
opposed to interpret it however you want.
So it's definitely a very, very specific type of focus.
And I mean, I think we all agree we prefer the style where it's
not someone trying to tell us a story and we are merely
occasionally making choices that don't matter as we go through
it. And, and for, for the side that
leads into that, it is, you know, as you said, you, you can
only put as much creative as you can in the writing and let the
people experience it the way they want to experience.
So that's a, that's a great insight.
So talked about Barkeep, we talked about parodies, so we
talked about Willy Wonka's, we talked about what's next for
Prismatic Wasteland. For all of these things that you
have done that you're talking about, for the plethora of
Prismatic Wasteland stuff that's going to be coming at us, where
can people find them? So the best place to find
anything that I'm doing is my my blog prismaticwasteland.com.
Obviously there you can mostly see my blog post, but I'll I
posed about pretty much everything that that comes out.
There's links to kind of mailing list on there.
I think that you can probably find like my itch page or drive
through page from there. And if not from from Google, I'm
prismatic waste laying pretty much everywhere, unless like the
character limit like took Twitter.
I'm prismatic wastes and but again, I think there's a link to
my Twitter on my my blog. So that's kind of the the
central hub if people are trying to get in touch with me as well.
That's that's where to find me. Awesome.
And we will make sure that that is linked down below so everyone
can find that. And we'll individually link all
of these adventures too, to make it even easier or if y'all, to
find that. So last word, Barkeep Jam.
Why are people doing it and why are they?
Why are they, why should they, and will they be giving more
entries into the Barkeep Jam? Why are they doing it?
Because they want to make something, you know, the the
same reason why anybody writes anything, but especially if you
want to write your, you know, if you already have like a the best
pub or something Tavern that you've put together in your
game, you're like, yeah, actually I had a pretty good
premise for a Tavern. This is an opportunity to like
kind of put it in a a digestible format for anybody kind of use,
even if you just read barkeep and you never run it and you're
like, you know, I want to be like Zedek.
I want to be like all these like Ben L writers who made their own
bar. I want to make my own.
That's like a reason to do it. Also, if you're just like
looking to make your first thing, this is a good jumping
off point. Make a two page spread pretty
limited. I think it, I think each bar is
like around maybe 300 words, which is like really, really
short in terms of word count. It's doable.
So it's, it's kind of a, a good first step.
And at the same time, you know, people should be kind of looking
at, at the entries because I'm potentially looking to get the
best ones, maybe put them in a published, you know, printed
product because that's the way I like to consume stuff is usually
printed. So it's, it's totally selfish
just for me, I want to print more things so I can read more
things. Yeah.
Yeah, so definitely. So go submit to the Barkeep Jam.
And if for some reason you haven't read or seen Barkeep on
the Borderlands, we very much highly recommend it here in the
show. And as we said before, we'll
make sure that all the links to that are easily available for
you. WF, Prismatic, Warren, all of
the above, thank you so much for being here.
Really appreciate you coming on again and I can only imagine
this is not the last time you will be here on the show with
us. Certainly not.
Next time I have something big I'll I'll be sure to let you
guys know. We'll be waiting all.
Right, so. Everyone listen and thank you so
much for being here. And that is it for today.
Bye. Bye.