Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My name is Ryan and today we have a very special guest with
us that is Stuart Watkinson of Lark Shire Press.
How you doing today, Stuart? I'm pretty good.
Thanks Ryan. How are you?
Good. Not too bad, you know, tired.
I think we both are. But we're getting there, you
know, a little colder than you, but but today we have you.
Well, let's get to that in a second.
We we. So we've been following each
other for quite a while. Honestly.
I think you might have been one of our like first followers like
way, way back in the time. So got to say, we really
appreciate that and we've been following your stuff for quite a
while too. So it's nice to nice to have you
on. Yeah.
No, that's cool. Yeah.
I'm. I'm I'm pretty sure I was one of
one of the first it's I always was really searching for
podcasts that did things that weren't 5 E so I sort of try and
follow as many of those podcasts as I can and your podcast popped
up and it was doing I I think some of your first reviews were
games that I was playing at the time and stuff like that.
So it all just worked really well.
Yeah. Cool.
Yeah. Like I said, it's nice.
It's nice to to I never, I never believe someone when they're
like, oh, I'm a fan of your show.
It's just I never will. So it's nice to to have someone
on the screen for a while. So Vienna.
So for those that might not know who Stuart Watkinson is, who the
heck are you and what are what are some things that people
might might have from you or or seen from you?
Yeah no worries. I'm I'm Stuart.
I'm from Australia. I'm a high school teacher most
of the time and a writer and I say game designer, but I I
really like other people's SRDS as opposed to creating my own
mechanics. I like filling in the blanks
with creativity. Something that you might know of
mine is Wretched Wasteland which was the first thing that I did
that wasn't 5. AI have done a number of 5E
things through the Dungeon Masters Guild and then in 2020
moved into mostly doing things that are not 5E.
So Richard Wasteland was a Kickstarter last year or the
year before last year. No, the year before in the
middle of the year. And another one might be like,
yeah, there you, there you go, you've got both of them.
There you go. Yeah yeah.
So that that's so funny thing that that original one, I only
printed twenty of those at my local printer here in I live in
like a small country town. That book that's cost so much
money to print, they were like, I was like, how much for 20?
And they gave me some ridiculous number and I was like, oh okay,
well, how much for like 500? And they were like the same.
It was exactly the same price per unit.
Oh, you've got them too. Look at you go, dude.
Hey, actually I told you I've been following your stuff as
long as you've been following. Yeah.
Well, so. So I've got most, I've got most
things, so, so yeah. Yeah, there you go.
So that's Winterbrook. Winterbrook is an adventure
which you can get unexalted. You might know me from that.
Actually, forget about those things.
Isn't that funny? And then zombies.
You may know me from zombies, that's I've forgotten the name
of that system. It's called What's So Cool
About? But you're a zombie and you're
defending your ancient temple, and there's all sorts of random
generated characters and stuff you can do in there and try and
defend your temple, which is mainly not really about
defending the temple, it's more about being a weird zombie.
This is I think this has got to be the first thing I got from
you and like this as soon as I opened up this I was like all
right this is cool. It's just the giant you're dead
page. I loved it.
Yeah. It's the the what's so Cool
system from Jared Sinclair. It's just this is I have a lot
of what's so cool. I don't even there's so many
because these super light systems like this lasers and
feelings stuff like that. They're just so easy to make
really cool things. But I got to say, probably my
favorite. Like, I absolutely love this
one. So.
That was my that was my first. I'd been playing a lot of mock
book if you can't tell by the layout of that thing.
So I that was my first guard, really just playing around with
layout and and and whatnot. I think I wrote that into the
layout. I don't think I had like a a
document with. There is nothing wrong with that
and anyone that says there is is a God damn liar.
Exactly. So they're they're the things
you might know me from. I'm also, I've also recently
started doing a a a sub stack about game mastering called The
Minimalist GM which is just my thoughts about jamming and and
what I've been doing lately. So yeah, oh and oh maybe you
might know me from Committee Quest podcast, which was a A5, a
actual play podcast that finished in around 2021 maybe,
which we didn't actually get to finish because everyone had
babies so it was just too hard to schedule out.
There you go. Well, I keep my genes in my
genes, but I. Got to keep podcasting, you
know? Yeah.
So that's that's where you might know me from.
Gotcha. So one thing you said, you
talked about putting stuff on the GM's Guild, DM, DM, DM's
Guild, copyright, DM's Guild, but moved away from that to
start doing your own things. And a lot of your stuff.
I know you did the What's wrong about zombies?
Is another SRD and whatnot, but a lot of what you write.
I mean, I know that Wretched Wasteland is obviously wretched
and alone from Christmaset, but rot beneath Winterbrook.
It's a system agnostic adventure module.
I know there was Log Dryer Press, which is a or log Dryer
which was a system agnostic setting.
And then the project we're gonna talk about today, which is
Abbott Trilogy, which is like a system agnostic, like adventure
and setting and things like that for that too.
What I know you just said that you kind of like writing in
other people's stuff more than like making our own mechanics.
But what really pulls you towards doing something that's
more assistive, agnostic for adventures?
Is it so that there's more options in the OSR, or just in
general something that's just away from 5E?
So firstly, it started as something being away from 5E.
So the thing that I found really challenging and conflicting is
writing in the in the Wizards of oh, in the in the Dungeons and
Dragons lexicon, and having to use a very particular structure
and having to write things a certain way.
It it just really felt unnatural.
And when and then and then I can't remember what the
adventure was, might be one of Christmas sets.
Christmas sets had had a lot of impact on the things that I've
made which we'll talk about a bit today.
I can't remember where it was but anyway I ran this adventure
that had super minimal stuff and I was like this is heaps better.
I feel so much more comfortable at the table.
You know I've I've read I've read enough of this adventure to
know it but I I'm not every other encounter.
Returning back to my adventure module to to read through and
make sure I've got it right. You know like I I which I for a
bit of background I started D Ming only in 2016 I think
because a local group up here were doing Dungeons and Dragons
Anita DMS and I was like yeah sure I'll do that.
So we're doing adventurous league which for someone
learning were really good because they were really in
depth and gave you all the answers.
But once I sort of got the hang of things I found them really
constraining. So the idea of a system agnostic
adventure just fits better with me and how I like to run things
and hopefully how other people like to run things.
Yeah, I kind of came to a little bit late, too.
What's funny, when I was a kid I played a lot of Magic the
Gathering and I was reading. I feel like a douchebag when I
say this, but I was reading like higher level fiction to my grade
like pretty early. So my dad would just go to the
library and just pull home like in like 5th, 6th grade.
Just all these thick ass TSR books.
And then when I got old enough to kind of like get into that
again or start like I've read all this level of fantasy.
Let me go find these other level of fantasy or this other type of
fantasy. I was like, oh, I've read that
and that and that. And then I got D&D with
Forgotten Realms and I'm like, wait a minute, I've, I've read
all of this. I've read DRIST, I've read
Dragon Lance. I've read like every like like
Dragon Dungeon, the Dragon setting novels without ever
realizing it was a game. I guess I just never looked at
the ads in the back or something.
Well. I think that's really weird to
look at and if you don't know what that is, it's a hard thing
to decipher if you're a 10 year old or 12 year old kid.
Oh yeah, so then so when the five EI dropped in 2014, I I
became a a forever GM. So we've been going at it for
just a little bit and I felt the same way.
You know, I actually got to the point where I was I I started a
meet up because there was nothing in my in my area and it
got like 350 members. We were doing adventurously like
every weekend and everything. And then the pandemic hit, but I
was already kind of feeling exactly like how you were
feeling, where I was just like I I like gyming.
I love playing a game, but like why am I rewriting every
adventure and home brewing pretty much the entire system
before it? Kind of like, you know parse
into a different area. So it's it sounds it's kind of a
common, common occurrence with a lot of people, especially
heading into the pandemic being like I have time to do something
else. Yeah that's right.
And when you when you start exploring other other game
systems you're like oh OK this is this this this feels better
with me. This is these are these are
games that are made by people that have been doing D Ming and
and running Dun probably Dungeons and Dragons for a long
time and have and have have stripped those things away to a
bit more. Something a bit more that
includes the necessities, as opposed to all the stuff that 5E
has. Yeah, it's just like you said.
It's just a restrictive language.
I felt like, why is somebody why?
Why is everyone going to Twitter to ask these two dudes like the
insurance and outs of every single individual rule instead
of just being like do whatever you want, like, you know?
And that was kind of impetus. So it's good to hear that I was
not the only one in that. You also want the same way No?
You're. Not you're not alone.
So I know I mean you also said we're kind of switch gears a
little bit here. You know you started D Ming in
2016 and now you're doing a the sub stack for D Ming.
What was kind of the the impetus to want to not only be writing a
bunch of stuff but to do a sub stack for for G Ming?
I think I just wanted to write down my ideas.
I had AI had a really interesting experience in 2021
and 2022 where I ran a a W Marches style game and it was
like the best sort of game I've ever played.
It was so the players were so engaged.
The world just came to together really easily.
I did hardly any prep work. Most of the note keeping was
done by the players and it just felt like a much more balanced
type of gaming In in the past I've ran a lot of games where
I'm the the knowledge I I hold all the knowledge of of of the
of the table and it and it quite often would get to the point
where I would have to tell the players all the clues that they
have. You know, like these are all the
things that you've done and now you know, you know, like I just
it was really hard and very difficult to get.
So the idea of like building a world and then having characters
play in it and then them not caring about all this law you've
created. Whereas with this game that we
played, I gave them very minimal law and we only talked about
stuff that was interesting for them and they also had a big
share in in what came from that. Like for example they came
across this, it was a random table and they came across some
werewolves and wolves and their reaction was standoffish but not
aggressive basically. So through this discussion and
some dice rolls they discovered that the they just wanted
knowledge. What the wolves wanted was
knowledge and then they could pass through the forest.
So they gave them a map, which I'd never seen a map before.
And so then they had given cartography to the werewolves.
And the werewolves then became like these cartographers because
they knew the land so well and then had never really thought
about. So, like, it was just super
cool. Like there's no way I could have
prepped for that to happen. And I sort of just figured,
what's the point of prepping for that to happen?
Like, I've got a loose idea of what what, what, where you're
going and what's going to happen.
But all the the deep law comes out in other ways.
Yeah. So that that's kind of where
that came from. And also because I mentioned off
there that I've recently had a child and I'm probably not going
to play a lot of D&D this year or RPGs this year.
And so, yeah, it's just a sort of a therapeutic writing about
gaming for the next year or so. Yeah, that's where that came
from. So when you kinda did that pivot
from 5E into like different systems and whatnot, was there a
system you specifically like latched onto that you converted
into playing? Or was it just like your
variation of 5E? Or what?
No, no, we I I came across into the odd when this was before.
It is a yeah just listen to the previous last week's episode and
that was the discussion about into the odd was excellent.
So into the odd became the my go to I I run a a school D&D club
and so an after school club and I said to the kids look I'm
gonna I've taught like we had like 20 kids most of my rule
rules enough to play I said it when IDM when IGM I'm gonna run
into the odd you guys run 5E and so I just started running into
the odd and the kids loved it and I loved it and I really got
into it and from there I found can which I also really got into
and then I went back my brother picked well I sent a link to a
sale for dungeon crawl classics to my brother I've got a brother
who's about he's 12 years older than me so he like I think he
got the red box when he was 12 or whatever and so he's been a
big D&D guy his whole life and I'm like hey man I think you're
going to like this and he does and he's he's basically bought
up anything that was for sale in on land in Australia he's bought
and so that became the other one.
So mainly into the odd can and DCC those.
Are good ones to get into that I wish I would have found earlier.
Yeah same. Yeah.
Like into the ad's great. Like I I think it's just such a
a a simple fun system and you can and and that's probably also
where the system agnostic stuff came from because to do to do
the stuff in my adventures you don't need a lot of mechanics to
move through it. You just you know if if it's
dangerous or something tricky's gonna happen you just roll the
dice and see what happens. Yeah.
Yeah that is what's really nice about the kind of like not gonna
get the OSR or whatever whatever it currently is in the movement
now. But all of the kind of like post
2008 OSR stuff where outside of like pure OSC style retro clones
like everything just fits. Like Karen is a is a hack of
into the odds so it works really well.
But like you literally can do a quick conversion in like 4
lives. It's like if your HD is fours
instead of eights or if you're you know this one doesn't have
it to hit roll or whatever. You can play pretty much
anything across into the odd across Karen across nave across
pretty much all of the the pretty light system.
So it's really, it's really nice, system agnostic now is
really nice because exactly like you said, like if I know the
core dice rolls just go off, just do whatever rulings over
rules, et cetera, et cetera. So, mm hmm.
Yeah, yeah. It just works, man.
I just like it and it. Works.
So so the Abbot trilogy, the system agnostic Zine triple
feature you're writing right now for Zine Quest.
What was the why? What are we doing?
Like, what's going on? Just talk to me about the
average trilogy. What are we outside of the
gorgeous covers? Like what?
What do we got going on with this?
So these three adventures, two of which were written quite a
while ago, so I did. I wrote one which was originally
called Demon's Bane in The Bitter Peak for Adventure Jam by
Chris Pisette. And that's that was written as a
5A adventure and I just put it on a website and it was free on
a website and I forgot about it. And then the following year
there was another adventure jam by Chris and I did a another
adventure called. I can't remember what it was
called now. It was.
It had a abbotsmoor had a much more convoluted name.
It was like the troll priest in the stinky swamp city or
something. Like it was a very convoluted
name. I had taken his their, their
adventure name generator Generator.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where both of the names
came from. And I and I sort of tweaked them
and and whatnot. So those two adventures sat
there for two years. And then last year I was
chatting with Kirill the artist. But I'm like, hey, I got these
two adventures. I think I might do a Kickstarter
to turn them into something else.
And Kirill was like do a, don't do a double feature, do a
trilogy. I was like, oh, OK.
So then I started thinking about a third one, which is still
hollow. And so these three adventures
are going from three separate adventures into, well, two
separate adventures into three linked ones that can sort of run
as a as a campaign. And so essentially you you know,
it's it's all system agnostic they cover.
Abbottsmoor is a swamp setting. Bitter Peak is like a frozen
tundra and then still Hollow is desert.
And they all have science fiction and fantasy elements and
more fantasy with a few science fiction elements as opposed to
science fiction with fantasy. I know that doesn't sound like a
big difference, but. Oh, no, it is.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Cool. All right, good.
Yeah. I I realized while I was writing
this that I don't actually like science fiction with fantasy
elements, but I really like fantasy with science fiction on
it. So I don't know why that is for
me, but that's just where I'm at.
So the three adventures essentially it's and it all
centers around a the Abbot who is a a troll priest that lives
in Abbots Mall. Now this going forward, this is
going to be spoiler heavy. I'm just going to talk about
these adventures pretty in well as in depth as we want to go.
So if you are a player and you're like, I don't want to
know what happens in these adventures, you can skip forward
to when I talk about the Kickstarter so.
My memory is terrible so I won't remember anyway, so I'll I'll be
excited later. Good, good.
Yeah. So Abbott's more Abbott's more
starts in like in media res like you.
The the the idea being that so I I've ran RPGSA lot of times for
brand new people and whenever I start them in a town, it just
takes forever to get out of the town because they're excited
about going to see the the Candlestick maker or the magic
shop or the Tavern. And so I like starting starting
a new campaign sort of in the exploration location.
So this adventure starts in the swamp, and there are all these
ruins throughout the swamp. It's quite a large space.
It's a hex crew where dice are used to.
You roll the dice onto the map and it randomly generates where
these locations are. And then depending on the number
on the dice, that's how many explorers are in that space.
And explorers are just your generic explorer who are there
doing whatever. They have an impact on that
location. And it's not a very nice place.
You know, there's there's crocodiles and leeches and
mosquitoes, and there's something going as you meet more
explorers, you see that they're getting impacted by whatever's
happening here. And there's a few main MPC's
that are the the Abbott's followers who you encounter and
fight. Maybe befriend, perhaps, but
they're not very nice, so they're probably not going to
befriend them. I don't know.
Who knows what they're going to do, And it's so that adventure
uses. What was it called?
I wrote about it the other day. So for that adventure jam, it
was about including this list of stuff that was written into at
the start of one of the original D&D adventures.
So here we go, Sorry I'm reading from something.
Now for the rules outlined for dungeons in a classic Dean Dean
module. B1 Search for the Unknown by
Mike Carr. And so there are 120478910
things in there that and then these include one way secret
doors, illusions and magic mouths, a wind corridor, a room
of doors, a water pit trap, all these sorts of things.
And so it was kind of creating this was like I found these I'm
using Dyson Logos's collection of apps and they're they're then
they were originally like Lich crypt mounds, but they're now
spread out in this swamp and each one sort of aligns with
that. I don't think I get all of them,
but I think I get most of them. I'm sort of going through them
at the moment. And so there's some pretty harsh
stuff in there like you know, the magic mouth, which you know
is a thing that in in, you know, you disappear from.
I've got three of them instead of one, but those two of them
lead to the other two adventures.
So you might jump into a desert or you might jump into a a
frozen cave or something like that.
So yeah, Abbott's more as a hex crawl through a swamp and
culminating in the monastery where you find a group of rat
folk who worship and help the Abbot.
And then you meet the Abbot. And then Abbot is a powerful and
strange and sort of menacing troll that has found this
ancient God and is working on something that they're not
telling you about. And they want you and your your
party to go out into the world and find things because none of
his followers are brave enough to leave the swamp.
And the thing that's happening throughout this is you're
finding all this weird science fiction stuff.
Like there's there's some, there's a laser gun in there,
there's teleportation devices, there's all of this high tech
stuff in these ancient ruins that the the characters are
finding. And then and then there's the
Abbott who's got this other strange God that they worship.
So that's that's Abbottsmoor. Now Abbottsmoor could actually
be played on its own, It's just a one shot.
You go and you fight the fight, the Abbot.
That's the end of the show. However, if you choose to take
on the quest that he has, he leads you on then to Bitter
Peak. And Bitter Peak is originally
had started with A Town and it had like this whole storyline
about a a missing dwarf and it was written for 5E.
So like they had like this all this 5E stuff that you sort of a
standard in 5B adventures to have X amount of hooks and a
certain reason and a storyline that's happening.
And just today actually I have gone through that and pulled all
that out and have changed that completely.
Oh sorry, did you did you say you have like the the artwork
there? Is that a thing that you have
available? Is that does that play through?
Yeah, cool. I do.
Yeah. So there was one and then we
our, our one of our Co hosts, Hunter did not make it.
So this new one isn't. But I will.
I'll pull that up and we'll throw that up on stream here.
Real. Quick.
Yeah, cool. So while Abbot's more is like,
it's dangerous, but it's not really a survival thing, you
know? Like, each hex is only about
four hours to move through. It's it's just more dangerous
than exploring weird things. Bitter Peak changes into a bit
more of a survival, surviving in the in the in the cold wasteland
trying to get to the bitter peak which is a mountain.
Make that a little smaller. And there.
We go. I'm just gonna hide me and you
can talk about Abbots more. Cool.
The art on these, I do have to say, is absolutely astounding.
Yeah, yeah. So Bitter Peak was actually a
piece that was done along like two years ago when I wrote that
adventure by Kiril Chengov, who is an artist in Europe, in
Belgium, who also did the artwork for the interior artwork
for Wretched Wasteland. And they I was like, look, I
want simple colors, This is what is included.
And there's those 33 adventurers in the tundra and it was awesome
and I loved it. And I had this artwork just
sitting there doing nothing because I didn't actually do
anything with that adventure. So when we decided to put them
all together, Carol was like, well, what if the three
adventurers are on all three covers?
And And then I was like, yes, and what if those adventurers
are a rival party in your, you know, throughout these
adventures? So in Abbotsmoor, there's
there's like evidence of other adventuring parties, not just
like the explorers, but there's evidence of other adventurers
that had been there. And, you know, really, there's
not enough to really go on. You can just tell that hey,
someone's been through this really specifically, and then a
couple of the other NPCS drop hints about the other, the other
worthy group that came through. And then the Abbott says
something as well. So you get this idea that
there's there's these three, there's another adventuring
party in Bitter Peak, Bitter Peak.
There's a chance to do a random encounter with them, but you
don't necessarily meet them. And then in still hollow there
at the town when you get to the town.
So I decided to remove the town from Bitter Peak just because
that it sort of ended up having like still Hollow and bit of
paper, both town exploration and boss thing.
And so instead of that there's just like this.
I don't know if you've been hiking, but sometimes when you
go hiking on your way out you you there's like these huts that
are set up for for for like for hikers to stay in and you can go
and stay in them overnight and sometimes they're free.
There's a lot of them in New Zealand and I think I think in
Canada we did it as well. But you stay in them and they're
just sort of simple huts. And so now at the start of
Bitter Peak you're you're like it starts, you're in this Hut
and there's these other people that are also heading out into
into the waste to do exploring or passing through or whatever.
And then you go out into the frozen tundra and it's pretty
awful. There's you know, there's Yetis
and and frost giants and ice Dragons and not very nice stuff.
And eventually coming to the bitter Peak where the Demon's
Bane is and the Demon's Bane is. All these rumors talking about
Demon's Bane being a sword that is used to kill, kill demons and
and defend the realm. But when you get to the top of
the the Bitter peak, it's actually a person who's got a
job and they're like, hey you're here to replace me.
Cool. So who's staying.
And so that's kind of the ultimatum that's given to the to
the party and the yeah, there's a few things that are that are
connected to the quest as well. And then comes still hollow now
still hollow is the is the the desert adventure which rumors
say there is a a God that is trapped underneath the sand out
in the deep desert. And the God is the the reason
why the desert is strange and ever changing.
So the party start in a town called Maps Edge which is, as
the name suggests on the edge of the map.
And it has. This is where you finally meet
the the rival adventuring party who have exactly the same goal
as you. And there's there's the idea
with this adventure is that whilst the other two have been a
lot of doing and and moving through things and exploring and
and whatnot, this gives a bit of time in town to meet, hang out
in a Tavern to to meet other MPCS more more MPCS to have a
bit of respite before heading out into the desert to try and
find the God. And I I watched a lot of June
when I was growing up, the movie June Dune.
And so there's a lot of that influence in this adventure.
There's there's sand worms and there's there's giants,
dragonfly things that you can fly on and other sand density
related things. However coming to the end where
where you you come to this half covered ruin when opening the
door you enter essentially an elevator like a a modern day
elevator and there is a very long period as you're descending
into the into the earth and the it's sort of a because it's just
a room and I didn't really want that to be like hey you're
sitting in a room and now and now you're at the end that's got
a heap of like social interaction questions and
reflection questions for GMs and players to ask each other about
where they're at and what they've been doing.
Because throughout these three adventure adventures they've
seen some pretty unusual stuff. Now some of them will be
carrying science fiction weapons some of them will have magic
items well what I think are magic items but actually pieces
of technology. So it's just a bit of a a bit of
downtime after some desert exploring before they they go
into to meet the the God the God who is trapped at the end and
the God is essentially a computer an AI from an ancient
science fiction civilization and that's where the the I'm I'm
sort of I'm actually still writing this bit so I'm not too
sure whether that's going to be a a full on social encounter or
if that's going to have a a combat element or if there's
going to be like a a bit of a puzzle there I don't really know
but it's an AI and you know this a lot of this came out of my
just my thoughts on on AI at the moment and how it's sort of
becoming a everyone's marketing everything as being AI.
And I'm like, well, two years ago you wouldn't have said it
was AI, you would have said you had new technology.
But now AI is this buzzword. It's just.
Buzzwords cuz it's not AI, it's just a slightly better like yes
no like algorithm which cracks me.
Up. Yeah, yeah.
And there's a lot of discussion online about AI and writing and
art and how. No, it's just how, like, I'll be
honest and sorry for anyone that loves AI, but how awful it is
that that instead of using a, you know, instead of using
technology to assist us in our mundane things, people are using
it to take away our soul. You know, like the thing that
makes us human. Like people don't do art because
they just want to make money. They do art because they want to
express themselves. But it's why people write words
like that's anyway. No, I think that.
I think. That's it real quick and say I'm
not sorry. If you love AI, you can go fuck
yourself. OK, cool.
Yeah. Good.
Yeah, it's really in my work, like, as a teacher, the idea of
AI comes up all the time. And I'm just like, why are we?
Yeah. Anyway, it's I think until.
Yeah, I'm not gonna get into that.
That's where I'm at and that's where I'm at mentally with what
are we going to do with this AI machine that they find at the
underneath the desert. And that's essentially the the,
the, the story parts that that come up in in those three
adventures. However, there's a lot there
that's random and there's a lot of encounters that are random.
There's a lot of interactions that'll be random depending on
on what carry, what the party are carrying, what what items
they have, what people they've interacted with.
Yeah, you know, that's one thing that I really loved from the old
Fallout games is that if you rolled into a town wearing a
certain thing, or if you had a certain item or if you had a
certain person with you, that would impact the reactions that
happen when you get there. So that's that's stuff that at
the moment and today and and this week especially is the fun
thing I get to do is I'm taking these three adventures that were
essentially on their own and weaving them all together and
finding all the connective tissue that puts them together
and and and like it's actually today was pretty cool.
I had like three Word documents open and as I was going through
one and writing something else then adding a bit to the third
one and so it's been a fun writing day today.
Yeah. So that's the adventure sounds.
Awesome. I love this.
I, I, I know there's a word for it.
I mean if it's science, fantasy or whatever, but I my personal
vernacular, I always call it Future Past.
Where like we're so far in the future but we keep in like keep
in like running into these objects of the past.
But we're in this like less technologically advanced feature
and keep running into more technologically advanced pieces
of the past. And then people, like, people
can read that, right? You can read Gene Wolf and be
like, oh, clearly that is this like advanced piece of like
science fantasy. But somehow our our brains right
now can't go man. Maybe people were good at math
and could build the pyramids. You know, like, you know, sort.
Of Yeah. Exactly right.
But I, I, I love those elements. There are, there are some really
great more spoilers, just some really great fantasy books that
I really enjoy like that. Like the Broken Empire series
from Mark Lawrence does it. Like I said, Gene Wolf does a
lot of that. You're like, you know, hundreds
of pages and you're like, oh wait a minute, maybe that's like
maybe that's us like way in the future and our technology is
these giant things they keep running into.
So I really, really enjoy that style of fiction.
So it sounds great, like this. This sounds really neat.
I'm excited for the computer at the end of what you decide to
do. Maybe it's just yes, no
generators in combat or or social encounter puzzles, all
determined by the way that you interact with the the interface.
But. Yeah, it sounds really tracking
you the whole time. Like the end of an RPG where you
get the story spat out you based on what all your choices were.
When Neo meets the Architect, you get to be that I have seen
all the screens, you know. Yeah.
That's super neat. Super excited for that.
So that was a question that's like one of the two questions I
wrote down as we were going. I also wrote Gene Wolf, which
got to talk about him enough. How much is written and you just
kind of answer that it sounds like one was written a while
ago, the bulk of one is done and you're just kind of getting
towards the ending of the other and then just kind of making
through lines or? So two of them are completely
written and I am just doing an editing phase and that's like
adding bits and pieces that make them fit.
And then the last one is almost finished.
Actually I've done everything except for the AI machine, which
and basically just because I'm at a bit of a roadblock there.
And my thinking was that if I go back to the other two adventures
and see all the little bits that I've already added, that might
spark something there. And I think, I think I do know
what I'm going to do already, but I just haven't put it down
yet. So the writing, the writing's
basically done, except for the last major encounter and some
connective stuff, which though, the connective stuff, I'll
actually finish this week. I've got a couple of days up my
sleeve, which is good. And then yeah, it's just artwork
and layout, which is, which is essentially what the Kickstarter
is for. So the Kickstarter is about get,
you know, paying, paying Carol to do art, and then me putting
the layout together. That's great.
I mean, that's where. So as someone who's backed quite
a few Kickstarters, one or two or three or four or 500, it's
really great when people have at least most of the writing done.
Like the number of people I've seen get burnt out and basically
just be like, I can't do this anymore because they wrote a
premise or maybe it's a beginning part and then life
happens and it puts them behind and all this other stuff.
Like if if everything that you can do is done, which is most of
the writing, and you can just be like, I'm just waiting for
layout and art, that's a Kickstarter that I'm much more
likely to back. So it's really great that that's
where you're at because once you give it to professionals who do
the layout and the art and that's what they do, then
they'll get it done and give it to you and then you get the
project, so. Exactly right.
And I've been in the same, the same spot, and I I personally
probably wouldn't unless there was something huge.
I probably wouldn't go to Kickstarter if I hadn't had most
of the writing done. I don't I I've said before that
Kickstarter, when you Kickstart something, you're sort of paying
for a promise. And you know, the promise is
that there'll be 3 adventures with art and I will have my my
side that I need to do is the writing.
And that'll be done before the Kickstarter launches.
But I've, you know I've worked with Kira before and and they're
just excellent. So we've got, we've given
ourselves enough time to sort of work through that.
So yeah, that'll be, that'll be cool.
So good, good segue into the Kickstarter.
So what's what's, what's the deal with the Kickstarter?
So first of all, what what are the dates of the Kickstarter?
When is this actually going to be going through?
And it's for Zenquest. It is for Zenquest, so it's
gonna go 1st of February and for 21 days, so three weeks flat,
which is I think that Thursday to Thursday pretty much and
well, Thursday, yeah, I think it's Thursday to Thursday, so
three weeks. We're looking for two and a half
$1000 which is Australian dollars to cover artwork, layout
and printing. Shipping will be on top of that
and shipping at the moment is either gonna go through come out
of Australia cuz that what I've noticed is that Australian
shipping's better than like cheaper, sorry not better
cheaper. However if this is really
successful I've spoken to a few other parties to be like hey if
you're in America would you be able to do the the the
distribution in America and could you be able to do the
distribution in in Europe? Based on my last Kickstarters
those two spaces were the were the largest.
So we'll see where that where that lands and I yeah so that's
when that's starting. We've got a few tiers we're not
going crazy with the with the with the reward tiers there so
you'll be able to buy just one. Now all these prices are, I'll
give you both actually cuz I'm I've done everything in
Australian. But so if you wanted to get just
one PDF of one of these, it's $8 Australian which is about $5.30
US. And then that's just one
adventure in the probably use back a kit or something and
you'll be able to pick which one you want to do then.
And then if you wanted to get all three adventures in
digitally that's $15 which is about 12 dollars, $10 US.
That's a steal right there. Yeah, yeah.
Well, my my thinking is that if you support at the Kickstarter,
you are your ground level. You're making this thing happen
and then and and and because of the people who back this, it
becomes something that other people can buy.
So these prices don't stay the same when they when they leave
Kickstarter. They got not a lot, but they go
up a little bit and then we have Oh no, sorry, I've got that
wrong. Learn adventure.
That's one that is one print for 15 AU.
All three PDFs is $21.00 Australian, which is $14.00 US
for all three adventures. So still, pretty good still.
Pretty good. Yeah.
And then we're going to have an early bird price called the
scoundrel, which is $36. This is for this is $36 for the
three printed zines and PDFs, which works out to about $24.00
US. So it's very, very cheap for
that early bird. OK, but there's only seventy of
those. And then the full price is
$42.00 for all three, which is just under $30.00 US for all
three. Printed and digital, but not
including shipping. And that's so and then we'll
also have a we have also set up a gaming store retail tier where
you can get 4 copies of each for about 120.
So yeah, keeping it simple, we do have a couple of, we do have
a couple of stretch goals. We're not going too crazy.
I have seen a number of kick starters get inundated with you
know they they they get you know like some people have their
experience they've got their stuff sorted they're all ready
to go. Whereas others have been like,
Oh yeah, we've got this stretch core now.
Now we're, you know, we're floundering and I I really wanna
sort of have this out printed, delivered before the end of the
year. So the first stretch goal is for
an overland travel pamphlet. So this is using some of my own
sort of simple rules and random encounters traveling between
these locations and it's just like an A5 folding pamphlet that
has all the transportation stuff there.
And then the next one is a a world map that Carol's gonna
make that includes those three locations.
It also includes Larkshire and Winterbrook from my other
adventures on that map. And then some unnamed places
that you you know as you're playing can can name them with
your with your table. And then from there it's just a
revenue split. So once we've we've paid for
everything the revenue split will go between myself and and
Carol. And most of my revenue from this
will be going into Live Shire Press which is you know creating
more stuff over the next year. With the idea being that you
know, over this year all my writing will be going to some a
a new project and the the layout and distribution stuff will
finish off this Kickstarter. That's such a great layout for a
Kickstarter right there. Cuz I know you've Kickstarter
projects before, cuz I do. I do have this guy right here.
The the the wretched wasteland with the bookmark and But to
have something that is, I mean incredibly, reasonably priced
like that's crazy, and I have read your writing before it is
fantastic. So I highly, highly recommend
grabbing pretty much anything that large our press puts out
from now on. Not pretty much all of it.
It's great, but that's extremely reasonable price.
I mean, if it does ship out of Australia it will be slightly
pricey. I have bought stuff from
Australia before, but even then it's going to be a lot less than
you would think for a lot of stuff.
So not only is it reasonably priced, like the stretch goals
are incredibly you're not having to do another scene, which means
you don't have to talk to printers as much.
Again, like doing a pamphlets. Not too bad.
The world map sounds fantastic. So reasonable stretch goals,
reasonable funding goal, pretty straightforward.
Possible distribution. I mean that it's like you said,
so many people can get bogged down and like having 10 stretch
goals. Now they have to get two more
writers. They have, they basically have
to write as much as they wrote the first time or they had dice
or they had this or that. Like it's really, it's really
good to hear that you have an incredibly reasonably, like
fundable, attainable, deliverable goal that's almost
completely written with fantastic art already.
So this is, these are the Kickstarter's where I'm like,
yes, I'm going to actually get this and it's not going to be 3
years and it's going to be good, you know?
Yeah well that's I mean and I I totally understand how it
happens even even Rich Wasteland was was probably two or three
months later than than what I had anticipated but that's just
how how the cookie crumbles and and you know on the shipping
like that's going to be we'll see how that goes it it's sort
of at the moment it's like at at current prices and that's the
other thing like if if something horrible happens with Australian
shipping and and we the prices get out of control I'm obviously
not going to continue with that but at the moment it's about 13
to $18.00 US depending on on weights of things.
So you know, that's just the world we live in unfortunately
at the moment is that shipping costs money and far more than
than it ever did before, which it's just really, it's really,
really disappointing that that's we're still in this space where
shipping around the world is so expensive.
Yeah it's just it's getting worse and worse.
You know. I mean yeah it's getting from I
was talking with who was I talking with Alex T from
Blackout just about how crazy And and you know cuz they do a
lot of Kickstarter stuff but end up putting a lot of stuff on
print on demand because it's cheaper to just get print on
demand using the Europe store or the American store then
sometimes to ship a whole pallet across and and the shipping
thing is just a concern for out of Europe when England you know
kind of did their whole Brexit thing and and whatnot like just
things got crazy. What boat crashes and things are
ruined forever, you know? I know, isn't it wild?
Yeah, it just it just shows how fragile everything is.
But look, that's so. Reasonable I mean $13 plus the
the total cost of the zines in general is still a great price
you know comparatively to you know because I would pay easily
that much for for three like tied together adventures and you
can be playing that for months and months and months you know
so that's that's really realistically, I mean even with
13-8 dollars shipping or if it's more than that incredibly
reasonably priced. So you know.
Well what what I found was that the the the cost of the cost of
printing in Australia it's is cheaper than because with
Richard Weiseland I had initially thought that I would
get it all printed in England and then sent because that was
distributed through Soul Muppet and then sent there but it was
at it was like and some of it I did do like I I suddenly did a
split on that and I I printed some here but the printing that
I did here was was was cheaper than the the the printing in in
in England so like it's and and it's still it's still pretty
much at the same price So when I did all the costing for this I
was like Oh no this is still pretty good and you know we'll
but you know we'll see we'll see how we go.
I'm pretty I'm pretty happy with this with this collection of
adventures. I'm really happy with Carol's
artwork. Like those three pieces are just
they they're like because they're they're different colors
they they're clearly different but they are they're just they
just linked together so well and and that being and just those
images being the catalyst for having this idea of a of a rival
adventuring party was really cool.
It's really cool. Yeah, it's they're gorgeous
pieces. I mean, they're all over your
Twitter page as well. They're all over Kirill's page
as well. There's they're fantastic.
And yeah, the the, the three different color things in one of
the promo images, I haven't put it up, but one of the ones you
sent me, there's like the the fetid, the frozen and the
Fickle. Those are that's great tag lines
for like the fetid swamp, the frozen tundra and like the
fickle desert. That's fantastic.
I mean, there's really great tie insurance.
And realistically, I mean as far as like Adventure Locations,
those are such fantastic vibey places to be when you have the
the swamp, the Frozen Peak and then the desert.
There's really great takes across all of that.
So I mean, again, the project sounds great.
Now that I got spoiled for the story, it sounds even better.
So really sorry for this one. Excited to get it.
Yeah. Cool, cool, cool, cool.
Yeah. Thank you.
I'm really excited. And the story that I've talked
about is only what is only part of the elements that are in
there. There's so much more that that
could happen and your story might not play out that way
because that's. How that's.
Not 5E. That's how gaming goes.
That's exactly right. That's exactly right, Yeah.
Yeah, cool. So, so yeah, I mean for Large
Cherry Press going forward from here, I know you said that a lot
of what's gonna come from the Avat Trilogy.
Anything extra is gonna be funding towards putting out
other stuff. Do you have things on the
horizon past Avat Trilogy, or are you kind of focusing mostly
on that right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm always tinkering at something.
Last year I spent a lot of the year coming up with my own game
that uses Mark of the Odd into the odd game which is post a
science fiction or a science fantasy post apocalyptic game.
And then we played a lot of that and it and it really turned more
into a skirmish game as we played with like a bit of
role-playing. So I'm I'm, I don't know where
that's gonna go. I don't know if that's gonna get
stripped down and become a bit of a little mini skirmish game.
We we played a lot of The Lord of the Rings battle companies
last year and that that had a clearly had an impact on my
writing cuz I was like Oh yeah look I'm just making Lord of the
Rings rules here for my game but and then so that's that's a
thing I think that's probably gonna get stripped down and
become like an into the odds skirmish game and then and then
the other bits in there that are taken from that are gonna go
into a solo or Co-op game using a different system in the same
world I think. But we'll just see where that
goes. I sort of haven't.
I've let that sit for a bit through the last three months
I've been focusing on on this project and and yeah so that's
that's probably what's gonna come in and and and I'm also
doing fiction writing so there'll be there'll be some
fiction coming out this year from like shy press as well
nice. And then more more blog posts
about GMA games and. Yeah, yeah, blog posts will be
coming weekly or fortnightly depending on my week and my
fortnight and and then I think the there'll be a game design
like regular game design posts as well.
I usually whenever I do a big thing with a with a a game or a
system that I've been working on I'll I'll usually do a blog post
as well which get on the website.
Yeah. So like Sharp Press is is it
actually And you like shot just for those.
Anyone that's been following me may have noticed that I've
changed from Stuart Watkinson on everything to like sharp press
and that was like a that's a really weird relieving thing.
I was like, Oh yeah, no, look I really wanna.
I think I wanna put things under something else that isn't my
name. And then I I did all of that and
I was like, it's not me anymore. It's this, it's this, it's this
thing. And then it was really quite a a
good feeling to to take myself out of the limelight.
So whilst the website isstillstewartwalkinson.com that
will change to like Shire dot press soon but everything will
be linked so that it all goes to the same spot.
Well, and Speaking of stewartwalkinson.com log, try
press all of that, your sub stack, everything.
Where can people find all of what you currently have now and
where they'll be able to find it in the future?
Yeah so the best spot is the website cuz that links to
everything. But if you search for the large
Shire press on each you'll find me there.
If you search for me on threads or Instagram or Twitter or
Facebook you'll find large Shire press stuff.
If you search my name on the Dungeon Masters Guild you'll be
able to find all the other DM 5 E stuff that I've written as
well. Yeah, so they're the main
places. Instagram, threads and Twitter
are my main spots. And then also sub stack which
you'll find at those places. Gotcha.
All right. Listen, Stuart, again, really
appreciate you being here, appreciate you being a fan for
as long as you have. And and again, we're we're a fan
of yours as well. So it's been really great to
talk to you finally have you here on the show and I can't
wait for the Abbott trilogy to come out.
So thank you so much for being here.
No thanks. Thanks for letting thanks for
having me. It's been awesome.
Cheers. Yeah, absolutely.
So, so that is us for today. Make sure you on February 1st,
what every everyone we talked to you throughout the month and
throughout all of Z Inquest 2. We're going to make sure we keep
dropping links, keep dropping all of that throughout the time.
So this won't be the last time you hear about the Abbott
Trilogy, but definitely want to go to the Kickstarter right now.
We'll make sure that's in the links below and save that page
so that you can back that on February 1st when it drops.
So, yeah. So you will be hearing from Lara
Shire Press again here on the show.
I am sure. Again Stuart, thank you so much
for being here and everybody out there.
Have a wonderful day. Bye see.
You later.