0:00

Do you want to start having some conversations about death

0:04

and explore it and think about it in a different way than

0:07

you may already and you want to do it with your friends or in a

0:11

fun way like playing A TTRPG? This is great if you're into this really

0:14

hyperspecific topic, because in today's episode of The RPG Goblin,

0:18

we are going to be talking about a game anthology series

0:22

called Afterwards the Guide to Death. This is A

0:25

TTRPG that is on Kickstarter actually right this moment. So if you want to get

0:29

the game, please check the description of this episode to find it and get it

0:33

yourself because it is really, really cool because Afterwards the Guide

0:36

to Death is actually a combination of four small games plus an

0:40

essay, talking all about death and kind of discovering that topic.

0:44

If death is an uncomfortable topic for you, please don't listen to this

0:47

episode. We have more new episodes coming out very soon that won't be

0:51

on this topic. So you can just skip this one and come back later when

0:54

we're not talking about something that makes you uncomfortable. Now, if you're sticking around, I

0:58

think it's time for me to stop talking and let's get into it.

1:02

Welcome everyone to The RPG Goblin, a

1:05

TTRPG podcast that makes learning and exploring these

1:08

games easy and fun for you. I am your host,

1:12

Willow, and I am the resident goblin and the one who asks all the questions

1:16

because I'm obsessed with these games. In today's episode,

1:20

we are going to be talking about a project and an

1:23

anthology of games called Afterwards the Far Horizons

1:27

Guide to Death. And I am really, really excited to hear all about

1:31

this game and learn everything. And for our guest, for today's

1:34

episode, we have on Mark's Shepherd. Marks, would you

1:38

like to introduce yourself and who you are and what you

1:42

do? Absolutely. Thank you for inviting me onto the podcast.

1:46

Absolutely, yes. My name is Mark Shepard.

1:49

Congratulations on correctly pronouncing

1:52

the difficult X Sh crossover there.

1:57

I am a tabletop role playing games designer and editor, and

2:01

I'm community manager, I think that's the right word for the

2:05

Far Horizons Corp sort of international collective of

2:08

TTRPG, creators of various

2:12

disciplines, colors, stripes, all sorts, really.

2:16

People might know me from yes, indeed. Pod, which I used to host

2:20

and produce, and various other things such as being the

2:24

community manager for the Indiesine, which is

2:27

now finished, and various games under my own

2:31

imprint. Marks of high water such as Ghost Box

2:35

and a Loud Noise in a quiet place. Those are the two kind of big

2:38

ones we did a couple of years back. But today, yes, I'm here

2:42

to represent the Far Horizons co op and to talk about afterwards

2:46

our forthcoming anthology of games and essays

2:49

about death in various forms, which

2:53

I guess might sound rather morbid,

2:56

which I guess that's sort of true, but also we want to kind of take

3:00

the morbidity out of it. And

3:04

it kind of comes about because I

3:07

think everybody in the world has a kind of strange

3:11

relationship to death related to role playing games. Because

3:15

on the one hand, a lot of our favorite role playing games wouldn't really be

3:19

that fun without the threat of death to our characters and

3:22

without other characters, usually non

3:26

player characters being killed or

3:29

otherwise disposed of.

3:34

But at the same time we're really fearful about the death of our own

3:38

characters. And I think that's kind of because

3:42

we sort of do this embodiment of characters, this kind of

3:45

internalized personification of characters when we're role

3:49

playing, we do become them and we impose our own fear of

3:53

morbidity, I think, on characters. And I thought

3:57

that's kind of an interesting subject to explore, but maybe a bit too

4:00

niche. So I sort of thought, well,

4:04

what could we do instead? What's broader? What's like a really bold statement.

4:08

And I said, well, let's make a guide to death

4:12

itself. Let's make a collection of games and

4:15

essays exploring what death

4:19

could mean to different people. What kind of

4:22

exploration of, I don't know, rituals of

4:26

death, talking about

4:30

grief and mourning, talking about what death might

4:33

mean in a digital age or in a future epoch

4:37

and maybe kind of attaching a little bit of whimsy

4:41

to some of it as well. To maybe take the sting

4:45

out of a subject that people do find difficult to talk about

4:49

and do struggle to come to terms with throughout

4:52

their lives in many cases. I mean, I am certainly

4:56

projecting there. Yeah, for sure not,

5:00

but no, I think that's actually

5:03

wonderful. That is such an interesting project

5:07

and I was trying to look into more on this

5:11

project before we did this episode. But I'm glad that

5:14

you gave kind of an explanation of the inspiration behind

5:18

this idea because that is actually

5:21

very interesting and that's a

5:25

fun kind of experiment to even do of these types of

5:29

games. Yeah, sorry, I'll let you go on. Yeah.

5:37

I was curious of how you have found the experience so

5:40

far, getting essays. I know it hasn't just been you

5:44

writing them, but getting the essays and doing the games

5:48

and all that so far. Yeah, that's right. So this project is going to

5:51

kickstarter in September. If this episode is out in

5:55

September, it will be finishing on Friday the 29th. And

5:59

actually we don't have much of the writing done yet. What we've

6:02

done is we have accepted pitchers from all across the

6:06

tabletop role playing games scene and we've basically

6:10

said to loads of people, oh, send us

6:14

your pitch. What kind of game do you want to make? What kind of essay

6:16

do you want to write on this subject? And we

6:20

received 81 pitches.

6:23

Oh, wow. Yeah, this is

6:27

really good because what we wanted to do was publish four games and one

6:31

essay initially in the anthology and we got

6:35

almost exactly four to one ratio of essays to games of games to

6:38

essays. That's crazy. Fabulous. So the first thing that we

6:42

did was all the staffers then took away a massive chunk

6:46

of those pictures and filtered through

6:50

them and said which ones they were really excited about. And then we went for

6:53

a second round where we found all the ones we were really excited about and

6:56

tried to put them together into a couple of different potential

6:59

books and voted on that and we finally got the one out. Now all of

7:03

this work that sounds like it's quite difficult. I mean, it would be quite

7:07

difficult if it was just like funding applications, which I also did earlier in the

7:10

year, where it was like trying to decide which project sounded cool and which one

7:14

was worthwhile. But then also at the same time, you exposed to all these

7:18

potentially unknown content warnings,

7:21

which is just like, oh, this is a game

7:25

about I probably shouldn't go into any of the pictures in

7:28

particular detail, but all of them were there was stuff

7:32

about execution, which was a really fascinating

7:36

game, but. I. Don'T think I

7:39

can publish this game. It's too scary.

7:43

All of these things are just fabulous, fantastic

7:47

ideas. Really interesting. Some of them were just

7:50

like very difficult subjects. So

7:54

we tried to spend a lot of time, was what I'm trying to say, being

7:57

fair and allowing our

8:01

assessors to kind of take as many breaks as they wanted

8:04

to for their own well being.

8:09

I can't remember what the question was. But the

8:13

experience so far with all. Of the games and ideas

8:16

so sort of the experience so far has been really wonderful and a

8:20

little bit harrowing. I also find it quite stressful,

8:24

like accepting pitches because I just watch the number go up and up and up

8:28

and thinking, oh my God, that's a lot of workload for us. But also feeling

8:31

really responsible for people's ideas. And

8:37

what I wanted to say to all of these people was if

8:41

you have the wherewithal go out and publish this yourself because it sounds super

8:44

cool. We can't publish it at this time.

8:48

We do want to publish it, but we can't because we're limited by space.

8:53

But all of these things sound really interesting and to the right audience, absolutely

8:57

an amazing experience. Yeah, for sure. But

9:01

feeling responsible for people's creative input is quite

9:04

scary, I bet. I couldn't even imagine. And I feel

9:08

like as well, I'd like to talk a little bit about even the

9:12

tone of the I'm just going to

9:16

call it the Guide to Death. Sure. As kind of a little bit of

9:19

a nickname. I'd love to hear about kind of the

9:23

tone and the intent of the type of

9:26

games and stories that are going to be in this book. Since death

9:30

is a tricky subject and you've already mentioned kind of skipping

9:34

over, not skipping over, but not accepting some ideas that were a bit

9:37

more intense and gruesome. Well,

9:44

would you like me to list the games? Because, I mean, it's all been announced.

9:47

Oh, yeah, sure. Absolutely. I

9:51

think what we tried to do is because we've only got one

9:54

essay in the initial anthology, we've tried to

9:58

build the games and tie them all into this kind

10:02

of central essay, which is an exploration of

10:06

how we might make links

10:10

between neurotypical and neurodiverse people through

10:13

this shared understanding of death and morbidity.

10:18

I think that's a really interesting theme and this is being done

10:22

as kind of a sociological interview.

10:26

So the author,

10:29

Bastien, is going to interview several people, neurotypical,

10:33

neurodiverse people on subjects around death like

10:36

rituals. And whether it means more or less when people are

10:40

close or distant to you and mourning and grief,

10:44

that is fascinating, like loads of different subjects. And in a kind of

10:48

rigorous scientific way, I think he's an academic. He

10:52

works in communication theory. Really

10:56

interesting stuff. So I took the themes that he was talking about in

10:59

his pitch and kind of tried to bring in a game that tied into that

11:03

theme and pull that into the rest of the

11:07

anthology. So we've got, for example, to do with grief and mourning. We've got a

11:11

game from Jessica Markrum unsealy Jess

11:14

on Twitter or wherever else you can find her

11:18

now. And that's a game about a

11:22

terminally ill person already. You can tell this is going to be

11:26

super sad and their

11:29

carer. And these two people have been friends for a long time and

11:33

they're trying to express their feelings of romantic love for

11:37

each other in these final moments of

11:40

this person's life in the final weeks, final months.

11:45

And I think it sounds like an absolutely incredible

11:49

game. And knowing Jess's work, I think it's going to be

11:52

really fantastic. Yeah, that's obviously that one also is

11:56

heartbreaking. Then we have Porna M, who

12:03

is she's done a lot of work

12:06

on just like a few games that sound really cool.

12:10

I can't think of what she's done off the top of my head, but she's

12:13

a cool person and she's writing a

12:16

game about a myth from the Balkans where if

12:23

somebody's shadow is buried in the foundations of your house, then

12:27

that's said to bring good luck to you, but bad luck to them.

12:31

And we're exploring a kind

12:35

of gloomy economy and she says the tone

12:39

of her game is gloomy. I love that word.

12:43

And kind of looking at she says it's kind of

12:47

like the Trolley Problem but made into something

12:51

a bit more tangible and it just sounds really cool. Yeah, it sounds like a

12:54

really interesting game. So at the start of the game, you're kind of

12:58

doing this weird bidding to a third character, like

13:02

a shadow mage who's going to actually do this spell. And the house owner says,

13:06

I've had terrible luck in my life. All of these awful things have happened

13:10

to me and I just like a little bit of extra

13:13

look and it would be really nice if you could bury your shadow in my

13:16

house and the person selling their shadow is saying,

13:19

like, I really need the money. Yeah,

13:27

basically. And then you come back to both of their stories later and find out

13:31

whether or not it's brought them good luck and whether or not it's brought them

13:34

it's brought the shadow seller bad luck and like, what what's that

13:37

what's that meant to their life? And have they passed away

13:41

yet? Yeah. That's interesting, I think.

13:45

Sounds an interesting game and I'm really keen on

13:49

exploring this kind of weird, gloomy myth.

13:54

I should note that we will be hiring some

13:57

consultants for all of the games, I think

14:01

that deal with specific subjects like grief or mourning,

14:04

but also, in this particular example, to make sure that we do speak to somebody

14:08

from that part of the world to kind of

14:11

correctly capture the feeling of this myth and not misrepresent it.

14:15

Yeah, I love that extra work and care put into it to make

14:18

it accurate and essential

14:22

because these types of tones can hit people pretty

14:26

hard. And so being careful on kind of the sensitivity of it

14:30

is also really. Nice to number three. So we've done the essay. Game number

16:17

three is I can't remember what all of them are called. That

16:21

one is called Shadow Market and Jess

16:25

Markrum's game is called Farewell My Heart, which is such like

16:28

a cheery title. Yeah, that

16:32

one sounds devastating. Like out of all of them. So, I mean, it's only been

16:36

the two games in the essay, but that just sounds like devastating and I

16:40

would probably just cry at the end. I think I would cry

16:44

throughout. I'm really

16:47

keen to have this game out in the world, not just because I

16:51

think the creator is amazing, but also because I think it's a really important

16:55

story to consider. A really important story to tell. Because I

16:58

think sometimes some of that stuff gets a bit hidden and left behind

17:02

and it's just very human. Very human, yeah,

17:05

exactly. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah.

17:11

Game three is called caron

17:14

rails. And this is a much more whimsical take on this. So this

17:18

is kind of looking at the myth of the

17:21

fairy man, but through a kind of anti

17:25

capitalist lens. I should probably preface that by saying the Far Horizons co op is kind of

17:32

explicitly leftist and a kind of very

17:35

diverse space and we've always kind of aimed for these

17:41

anti capitalist, anti establishment, pro

17:44

socialism, absolutely things in what we do. And I

17:48

think car on rails is going to be going to be really good. So it's

17:50

kind of the idea that there was just one ferryman, but there are so many

17:54

people dying nowadays that they need a whole company

17:57

of people of train drivers, basically. And

18:01

these psychopomps are kind of going to deal with all sorts of things. But

18:05

the idea is that they still have to get these people gently

18:09

from the land of the living to the land of the dead. And

18:13

the problems that they deal with and the way that they deal with them might

18:16

be kind of magical and whimsical in nature, but you're still dealing with a human

18:20

soul and you kind of have to treat that with respect and dignity.

18:23

And I think that is going to be quite an interesting

18:27

game. It's written by Keith ASADA, who

18:30

is a game designer, who is actually a

18:34

member of the Cop. The other people who have produced games in essays for us

18:38

are not members of the Cop and we've

18:42

worked with them before and their work is

18:45

just cool. It's just good. I know this is going to be a good

18:49

game and I'm really pleased to be able to kind of give it the justice

18:53

that it deserves. Yeah. And the concepts is really interesting too.

18:56

Yeah. So far we've had one devastating game. One game which

19:00

is quite gloomy, an essay which is

19:03

fairly academic in tone, I think that's fair to

19:07

say. And the final game is called upon the digital sea. And this

19:10

is the one I'm personally most excited about because this is a game

19:14

where there are

19:19

it's weird to explain it basically it's a game

19:23

about an online community of people who have known each other

19:26

for a long time, like a forum or

19:30

something or a discord server, and one of the members has died.

19:34

And so for the first time, some of the other community

19:37

members are going to their funeral and they're going to meet in person for the

19:40

first time. And then you are telling the

19:44

story of not only how that person who has

19:47

died lived and died, but also how the community comes together

19:51

and then disintegrates afterwards. So it's kind of a story

19:55

about not only memorializing people, but it's about how

20:01

communities come together and fall apart,

20:05

like maybe how they hinge on one person. I'm not sure

20:08

totally where some of the stories are going to go with that, but

20:11

also what does memorializing people look like in

20:15

the digital age? I think that's really interesting because it's something that

20:19

as a society, perhaps we've not quite come to terms with yet. I'm

20:23

thinking of things like Facebook memorial pages. That was

20:27

kind of a big thing a while ago. I don't know how much it

20:30

happens nowadays, but Facebook were taking down people's memorial pages because

20:34

they knew they were dead. Is that respectful or is that disrespectful?

20:38

I don't know. And I just think it's an interesting subject

20:42

that is maybe not thought about.

20:46

And I had a conversation with this game about with the

20:49

Darkest Dogs podcast a while ago and I suddenly

20:53

thought, if I touch wood, if I were to

20:57

die, tomorrow? What would happen to the Far Horizons co op and

21:00

what would happen to the other online spaces that I'm involved with?

21:07

Well, I'm sure they would remember and notice that I was gone because the

21:11

project lead suddenly have disappeared for several projects. But

21:15

maybe in other communities would people recognize that

21:18

you were no longer consistently there

21:23

when you've lost touch with somebody on Twitter or

21:27

even going back Google Plus, something like that and

21:31

you've lost contact with somebody and occasionally think well, what happened to that person?

21:34

Are they still kicking around on the internet or they just given up with this

21:38

or have they passed away? And sometimes we just never know these things

21:42

and I don't know. That's weird. It is

21:46

weird. You're making me think about it and I'm just like

21:50

no, this is like such an

21:54

insanely interesting project just in the

21:58

ideas that it brings forward, in the thought

22:01

experiments that you kind of have people go on

22:05

with playing some of these games and really thinking

22:10

what could happen? What does happen when we play these

22:14

games and explore these stories?

22:18

This is fascinating. I love this so much.

22:23

So I'm really hoping is that it doesn't sound too

22:25

eclectic because that's not what we want.

22:29

I think what I've tried to do is to

22:32

build together a cohesive mixtape of stuff

22:36

that will feel like it belongs together and I

22:40

think part of that is going to be around theme

22:43

and we'll have an editorial team working on

22:47

that who I think are going to have to try and bring things

22:51

together in certain places. But I think part of it as well is to do

22:54

with how things are illustrated, how things are laid

22:58

out and the actual graphics and the physicality of the

23:02

book itself, which is something I'd like to talk about later. Because

23:06

all of these things, I think, are really important. Because I don't know

23:09

how much you personally know about the Far Horizons Court, but your listeners may or

23:13

may not know that. We used to produce digests of

23:17

short games sort of like this every

23:21

three months and we did that for two years and

23:24

we didn't theme them. So you went from one game

23:28

to the next game and there was no cohesion between them

23:32

and that's not the reason that they didn't sell well. But

23:36

I think it contributed to it because in a way it's

23:39

difficult to sell an anthology

23:42

of very mixed music,

23:46

very mixed anything coming onto the idea of like now that's what

23:50

I call music CDs because you don't go out and buy them

23:54

for their cohesion, right? You go out and buy them because you feel like you

23:57

ought to or whatever. It's a harder sell.

24:02

I think it's a difficult sell unless you have some absolute

24:06

spell binding musicians or in our case game

24:09

designers in there, which we do, but I'm not sure

24:13

that they are headliners which could necessarily sell a game

24:17

entirely on their own merit. I don't know if that's really unfair

24:21

because I would 100% go out and buy any of these books. But anyway.

24:26

Yeah, no, I totally get it. It's also not

24:30

a common idea either to just do kind of these

24:34

short anthology games together and actually, the first time that

24:38

I ever saw a book like that was

24:41

actually Last

24:47

of the I visited a game shop. Up in Ohio and I got

24:51

some stuff from their free, like stuff from the free RPG day.

24:55

And one of it was I think it's called, like, Level Up or something,

24:59

where it's this little booklet that's filled with a bunch

25:03

of short games and it's just like an anthology of a bunch of different

25:06

games. Fabulous. I think

25:11

as someone who plays these types of games, normally

25:16

I didn't know what that was. I didn't know if it was

25:20

actually like a bunch of games or if it was just like if it was

25:23

days. And I actually wasn't even going to take the book at first until the

25:27

person just gave it to me. It's like, oh, you should check this out. I'm

25:29

like, okay. And I was then surprised when it had a bunch of short games

25:33

that were easy to start up and play with a bunch of people

25:36

that as well.

25:40

They all had tones

25:43

and how many people were meant to play them, and

25:47

a bunch of different things like that that made it actually a really interesting

25:51

read. And so to see I don't know

25:55

too much about the Far Horizon Corp,

25:58

but the little bit that I looked into before

26:02

doing this, I saw your anthology. I

26:05

think they were like revised versions of your anthology games that you did

26:09

before, and those looked really good and kind of reminded me of that

26:16

idea of just putting a bunch of games in one thing. But it

26:20

is a really hard sell because it's not just one idea, it's not a straight

26:23

idea, like a normal not saying that those aren't

26:27

normal games, but most people are used to a

26:31

rulebook that this is a game about playing monster hunters

26:34

and that's what the game is, 100%. So the

26:38

difficulty that I think we've had with selling anthologies before is we would just

26:41

accept any number of games that pitch to

26:45

us. So we'd be trying to sell a

26:49

game book of eight to ten

26:52

short games and you get very muddled

26:56

messages there because you're trying to make each game sound really, really

26:59

cool, but you're not buying one

27:03

game, you're buying ten games. So

27:07

I think ambition was our enemy there and

27:11

what we've tried to do a little bit since then is scale it back.

27:15

So we've had, for example, the Far Horizons Guide

27:19

to Cults, which was a book of basically

27:22

system generic cults that you can just drop into your games.

27:26

Yes, that and the Heist one look really good. The heist. Yeah.

27:30

Heist is really good as well. That's the Role Player's Guide to Heists

27:34

which is an absolutely fabulous book

27:38

and I think that was the first project we kick started as a

27:42

co op cults was a couple of years

27:46

ago. Now it's almost ready, I

27:49

think. I hope so because I've got a cult in that.

27:54

So our next one is the Guide to Death which is a little bit different

27:56

because we've not done an anthology of games in a Kickstarted

28:00

format before. We've not crowdfunded for an

28:04

anthology of games before, but we have aimed to

28:08

lower our ambitions and we said

28:12

what we want to do is we want to make a book of four

28:15

games, one essay for starters.

28:19

If we get a lot of extra funding, maybe we'll extend that a

28:23

bit. But that's what we want to do. And we want to make

28:26

a product that looks the business, that looks nice,

28:30

that feels good to read, feels

28:35

maybe not good to play, because some will be dealing with difficult

28:38

subjects. But in general is just like

28:42

a nice product. Yeah, no, for sure

28:46

that does the part. Yeah. I think going full into one

28:53

theme, one central theme is a fantastic

28:57

way to do these anthology games. Yes. Have you found

29:01

that when you did the Heist and the Cults game, what was the

29:04

reception on those versus the more general anthology

29:08

ones that you did before? Heists did fantastically well and I'm really proud of how

29:12

that did. And we funded Cults as well and that did as we

29:16

expected it to. And overall we're really

29:19

pleased with how those games have gone and ongoing sales

29:23

on Heists has been a pretty strong source of income

29:27

for a lot of our co op members. I think the

29:30

anthologies, I think in a way

29:34

because they're a harder sell. We've not been so

29:38

successful with those and that's fine because some

29:41

people have bought them and have really enjoyed what's therein. There are a lot of

29:45

very cool games in there that could and have been republished

29:49

elsewhere and that's cool. Yeah, no, that's really

29:52

cool. I've got a lot of games in there that I'm really proud to have

29:55

made, I'm really pleased are out in the world and that I would just like

29:59

for people to play maybe and if not then I'll just republish

30:03

them sometime. Exactly. But

30:07

again, I think that it is then

30:10

reflective that strong idea. Like this is a whole thing of Heist,

30:14

this is a whole thing of cults, this is a whole thing on A Guide

30:17

to Death. I think those are fantastic

30:21

and a great approach to these style games because I actually find the idea to

30:25

be really cool and especially for people

30:28

who may not have always the time to

30:32

learn a new game or they only really want to do

30:36

one shots. These types of anthology type

30:40

games are really cool because you can pick them up pretty

30:43

easily and I'd actually like to talk a little bit

30:47

about the games that are going to be in this

30:50

book. I'm guessing are all going to be

30:53

roleplay type games. Are they meant for specific

30:57

amount of people? Are there Gmless games? What's

31:01

the structure of the games that are going to be in here?

31:04

Great question. Let's rely on my memory

31:08

for most of it. So, Jess Malcolm's

31:12

game Farewell My Heart is specifically a duet game

31:16

like Starcrossed and Dread. It's played with a tumbling

31:20

block tower. Oh, that's fun.

31:24

I think I'm correct in that it is not based on Starcrossed, it is

31:28

based on the I can't remember the name of the system, but it's Jess's

31:32

system. WLW can't remember the full name of it. It does

31:36

not stand for women loving women. It is a good game, it's a good system, and it's a

31:44

slight twist on the original version in that the game doesn't end when

31:48

the tower falls. That's just the moment that they confess their

31:51

feelings for each other and the game ends

31:55

sometime later. Something to do with cards as well. I do

31:59

know vaguely how this game works and there will be more detail in

32:03

the Kickstarter campaign about this, of course, but

32:07

personally I have memory issues anyway,

32:10

so that's fine. Shadow

32:14

Market, the game about shadows and foundations of

32:17

houses, I think can be played with

32:21

two, three or more

32:24

players. So two players is the standard version and I think that's for the

32:28

person buying the shadow and the person selling the shadow. In

32:32

the three player version, one of the players is also the shadow mage. And then

32:35

when there are more players, I think they just exchange roles from

32:39

time to time. So that's sort of Gmless, but

32:43

structured very cool. Let's go on. Car on

32:47

Rails, fairly sure, is a kind of more traditional

32:50

game of a game master

32:54

and a party of players. Not 100% on

32:58

that and I don't think it was in the original pitch, so it's not

33:02

all on me. And the last one is

33:05

upon the digital Sea, which is definitely

33:09

a Gmless non facilitated

33:13

game, but with a kind of act

33:16

structure that makes it a bit less free form.

33:20

Yeah, that game has been described to me as

33:24

being a 55 word game. It'll be written in more

33:28

words than that, but I think it kind of assumes that you're

33:32

starting with a ten or eleven word sentence that you then add

33:35

to or change words from throughout the game.

33:39

I'm very interested to see where that goes because it's kind of a fascinating

33:42

concept to me. I really like games that

33:46

play with form. In a weird way.

33:50

It reminds me of Paul Sager's game. The

33:54

World, the Flesh and the Devil. Possibly not in that order.

33:58

Yes, it is in that order, where you write like a

34:02

paragraph about your character to begin with and then you underline certain words and make

34:05

annotations on that. I think it's kind of that game of playing with text and

34:09

playing with descriptions of things to make really cool more exciting.

34:13

I think that sounds really cool. Yeah, no, all of those to know where that

34:16

goes, all of those sound really cool. And I love

34:20

the different ways that they are also played feel

34:24

fitting as well to the types of stories that they're

34:27

yeah. Yes, I think so.

34:31

And have you played

34:34

Starcrossed? Have I played

34:38

I i don't believe I've even heard of it, actually.

34:41

Starcrossed is Alex Roberts game of

34:48

a relationship that shouldn't happen for whatever

34:51

reason, but it's going to happen.

34:55

And it's played with a tumbling block tower. So when the tower

34:59

falls, that's when they kiss or their

35:02

relationship starts, even though it's not supposed to. It's kind of star crossed

35:06

lovers, that sort of thing. And the reason

35:10

I'm talking about that is because that

35:14

kind of build up of tension and that kind of build up

35:17

of sort of little bit of anxiety about your

35:21

character is how

35:24

Farewell My Heart is going to feel. And that is absolutely

35:28

perfect for the subject matter. Yeah, for

35:31

sure. It's going to be really good and I'm

35:35

very excited to see how that pans out. And

35:39

the thing I like most about it is that it has that kind of

35:43

structural twist in that the game doesn't

35:47

end when the tower falls and that the

35:50

relationship continues for a little bit after that. And

35:54

I think that may be even more heartbreaking than anything

35:58

else. Yeah. Because you get a glimpse of it and it's good and you get

36:02

to. Know what could have happened. Yeah. Oh man, I'm sad about

36:06

it. I haven't even played it yet.

36:09

I think that's a great way, though. That's how you know you have

36:14

a winner of a game when someone can already

36:17

tell how they're going to feel.

36:21

I know this is going to break my heart. I know this is going to make me really sad and actually I kind of

36:27

really want that. Yeah, exactly. And making it so that a

36:31

person does still want to play it and wants to

36:35

explore that story is also insanely important

36:39

because the amazing thing of this

36:42

anthology that you're doing so far, even though

36:46

I definitely know myself, I have a pretty weird

36:50

relationship with Death and how I view it. And it's something that makes me

36:54

uncomfortable, but it makes me also

36:57

excited to have an

37:01

opportunity to explore these types of stories through this

37:04

game and to think about it.

37:08

Yeah, absolutely. Because it feels like

37:11

almost a if. I can sort of put a

37:15

thought into your mind, I feel like it's a sort of invitation to have a

37:19

conversation about Death in a kind of

37:22

veiled but also safe way.

37:26

Exactly. And to me, I think that's

37:29

what not saying that only young people play role playing games, but

37:33

I think that's what young people don't have. They don't have

37:37

this opportunity. A lot of young people, I mean obviously there are people who experience

37:41

tragedy in their lives but don't have this opportunity to kind of go

37:44

out there and say, well, what does it feel like to go through

37:48

grief? What does it feel like to go through a mourning process

37:53

before it happens and then it's happening to you. And some people

37:56

will be fine with that and some people will find that really difficult to not

38:01

know how they are going to be able to process their feelings in that. So

38:04

I think without sounding too high minded, I think that this

38:07

work is quite important as well as being

38:11

hopefully fun and entertaining.

38:15

Fingers crossed, hopefully. No, I think that I would like

38:18

that. And that's where I think that you do

38:22

have a good mix of games too, because there are a

38:26

few that sound devastating. But

38:30

the chiron one specifically, even though there

38:34

is still care and thought and is still

38:38

a heavier topic, that one sounds like it can be

38:41

played while having that conversation and not having to, I guess, take it

38:45

as it doesn't have to be as consuming.

38:49

It doesn't have to be entirely about death because it can also be about how

38:53

capitalism sucks. Yeah, exactly. That's

38:56

fun, right? Yeah, we love that. Who doesn't want to role play having a

39:00

terrible boss and like getting your own back on them? I think that sounds really

39:04

fun. It really

39:07

does. I feel like that's why Dimension 20 has gotten so popular

39:11

because we love. What I'm trying to do

39:19

as well. I mean, I can see that this anthology is not for

39:23

everybody, but I'm trying to make it broad

39:26

enough so that maybe 80%

39:30

of people who look at it say, oh, do you know what? There's a game

39:33

in there that sounds really cool. And hopefully they back it based on that game

39:36

that sounds cool and then find out that the others are also really cool.

39:40

Yeah. And then what we do is we

39:44

get four authors names out there just a little bit more and

39:47

say to the world, hey, these people are cool, you should watch these people because

39:51

they're going to make more cool stuff and I guess the cop

39:55

as well. No, I think that's the coolest part is

39:58

getting more of those voices out there, more

40:02

of the creativity from people who might not always

40:05

have the chance to do that themselves. That's what I actually love about

40:10

that's. A big thing I love about quite a few

40:12

TTRPG publishing companies is that they work with smaller

40:16

creators and get their ideas out there and then

40:20

they can have a game that might have been amazing and

40:24

wonderful as it was when they didn't have a company

40:28

behind their back. But it wouldn't have done well, and people wouldn't have seen it

40:31

then if they had a company that could actually get it out to the

40:35

world. I think we have done that to some extent in the past.

40:39

So one of the games that we've published before is

40:41

Kamala Kara Arayo's Friendship Effort

40:45

Victory, which is like a shounen battle manga. Oh,

40:49

that's so fun. It's so much fun. And

40:53

Kamala is a wonderful creator,

40:56

absolutely fantastic. But by herself,

41:00

she didn't have access to

41:03

Illustrators, she didn't have access to editors, she didn't

41:06

have access to proofreaders without paying out. So

41:10

as a co op, what we do is we take all of the profits from

41:13

the books and we split them according to how much work

41:17

somebody put into that project. I love that. So

41:21

what that means is that any creator who brings a project

41:24

to us has access to our pretty

41:28

experienced team of Illustrators, layout designers, editors, et cetera,

41:32

and also has the name for Horizons Corp. Behind them so

41:36

that you can put that out in the world and

41:39

sell in the case of Friendship Effort Victory, really

41:43

well, sell loads and loads of copies of this book and make people

41:47

quite excited about it. And that's fantastic because I think by

41:50

herself, Kamala probably wouldn't have gotten quite

41:54

the traction that we managed to get with Fev because

41:58

it has a super cool cover, and getting access to that cover would have

42:05

been a lot more challenging for a solo creator.

42:09

So, yeah, that's a big part of our mission, is taking

42:13

small creators and being able to put them out there and also,

42:16

like, bigging up the editors who work with us,

42:20

like myself, bigging up the layout designers, bigging

42:24

up the Illustrators, saying, hey, you know what? It

42:28

takes a team of about 20 people to

42:32

make this anthology, and here are all their names and

42:35

go out and buy their stuff as well, because. They'Re cool people,

42:39

for sure. Always amazing to just see

42:43

creators, uplifting creators, getting those names out there.

42:46

That's wonderful. So I love that. Along with

42:50

creating awesome projects that create really interesting

42:53

thought experiments and things like that, you

42:57

also get to do awesome things of working with cool creators

43:01

and getting their voices out there. Love it. Yeah. And taking

43:04

risks doing stuff that traditional publishing companies might

43:08

feel is not

43:11

ideal. Even companies.

43:15

I mean, evil hat aside, I think most companies would probably take this

43:19

idea and say, that sounds cool, but I don't think we can get away with

43:23

publishing it. And fine,

43:26

whatever. Let's have collectives of creators

43:29

working together to produce stuff and displaying profits evenly,

43:33

and maybe that's a good thing. Exactly. I

43:37

mean, someone has to at least start, and then you can see if it's

43:41

something that is actually like, yeah, no, this is a good idea,

43:44

and this is something. So I love

43:48

taking those risks, even though they are terrifying.

43:52

It's less terrifying when you've been through it before. And

43:57

I've run my own kickstarter. I have

44:00

been editor on another

44:03

Kickstarter, and I've worked on various

44:07

projects that have at some point had crowdfunding attached to them and the more you

44:11

do it, yeah, it's always a little bit anxiety inducing but I think that

44:14

gets that reduces with time. So when you've got a level

44:18

head behind it and I kind of balking at the fact that

44:22

I've just described myself as a level head,

44:26

I think it makes it feel a lot more comfortable for everybody

44:29

else. And yeah, this isn't going to be

44:34

Avatar. The last airbender. RPG. This is

44:38

going to be a much smaller scale project with a much smaller budget.

44:41

But I still think we're going to smash

44:45

it. Yeah. No, I believe it. I think the

44:49

idea is so freaking strong and I can't wait for it to

44:52

come out. And actually I'm curious. Hey everyone. We are

44:56

at the midway point through the episode now, which is when I'm going to be

45:00

running a promo for a really cool show called Arthadian

45:03

Anthologies and also tell you about some things. First off, if you are

45:07

enjoying this episode of the RPG Goblin so far, please make sure to give it

45:11

a follow wherever you listen to your podcast and also give it a rating if

45:14

you're enjoying it. Every little bit of support really helps keep it going because I

45:17

know that you guys are liking it. And also, I know I mentioned somewhere in

45:20

this episode, I can't remember if it's this first part or the second part. RPG

45:24

Goblin has an official discord now. Yay. If you do want to

45:28

join the discord and come hang out with me and all my really, really

45:31

cool guests. The link for the discord is in my link tree, which is

45:35

Linktreethrpgoblin. You can also find it

45:39

on Twitter if you look at some of my most recent posts. I'm really, really

45:43

excited about this discord and to finally start talking to some of you guys.

45:47

And basically it's the perfect place if you want to nerd out. And I'm going

45:50

to have a whole section where you can find the guests and actually buy the

45:54

games that we talk about on this show so that it's easier for you to

45:57

get them. So I'm really, really excited about that. And yeah, please come join the

46:01

community. I'm very excited. The next episode of The RPG

46:04

Goblin, which is coming out Friday

46:08

22nd, is going to be about a really, really cool game called

46:12

Castles and Crusades, which is kind of an old school game

46:15

that replicates the same vibe as early DND

46:19

and Pathfinder and such. So if you really like old school

46:23

fantasy and that vibe in a TTRPG, you would really like to hear

46:27

about Castles and Crusades where I bring on Meliora to talk all

46:30

about it. Meliora is a freelance artist that actually works for

46:34

Trolls Games, who produces Castles and Crusades and she has

46:38

some amazing things to say about this game as it's one of her all time

46:41

favorites and is actually working on Redoing the character sheets. It's really, really

46:45

awesome and super cool to just experience a kind

46:49

of old school fantasy game that is lower on magic. So if

46:52

that sounds really cool, please make sure to listen to the next episode, which again,

46:56

will be coming out September 22. And

47:00

yeah, I think we are at the end of this midpoint here today. We

47:04

have a promo that's going to be playing in a few moments here

47:07

for the awesome Show arthadian anthologies, which,

47:11

if you don't know who arthadian is already, we actually did an episode

47:15

talking all about his game and passion project Reborn in Power.

47:19

And he runs a show that basically talks about the lore of this world. And

47:23

that is what we're going to be listening to here. So let's roll it.

47:35

Greetings fellow travelers and storytellers. You

47:39

are invited to explore a new expanding universe where life does not

47:43

end at death. Experience a science

47:47

fantasy epic like no other with an anthology based

47:51

podcast that spans across the core realms,

47:54

incorporating multiple audio fiction sagas, mixed with an

47:58

actual play of a highly customizable modular

48:01

tabletop RPG titled Reborn in

48:05

Power. You can explore it all

48:09

at your world's head codex, Archive

48:12

artheianthologies.com.

48:23

And I can't wait for it to come out. And actually, I'm

48:26

curious. So you mentioned at least at one

48:30

point that the Guide to Death

48:33

could be more than the four games and

48:37

the one essay, is that something that's connected to

48:41

the crowdfunding with potentially reaching over your goal?

48:45

Yes, and I think our

48:48

goal is kind of up in the air slightly at the moment, but we're

48:52

looking to make about 13,000

48:56

pounds, which is I think about $17,000

48:59

if we can get another 2000. On top of that, we'll get some additional

49:03

games. The one I've been looking at is

49:07

Reload by Seamus Cannibal

49:10

halfling games. Yeah. So that game is called Reload and it's kind of

49:14

like the film Edge of Tomorrow. I think that's

49:18

the film I'm thinking of where basically it's a war

49:22

and the character dies every day and

49:26

yeah, it's kind of like a bit like a more bleak version of Groundhog Day,

49:30

I guess. So you just kind of die repeatedly,

49:35

but none of it is high

49:38

stakes until the final loop of the game,

49:42

in which case if you die in the final loop, you die

49:46

for real. Wow. Yeah. Which I think is kind of an

49:49

interesting take on.

49:55

Are you familiar with DCC? Do you know about Funnels in

49:58

DCC, where everybody starts with lots of

50:02

zero level characters and you just kind of churn through

50:06

them and at the end of the dungeon, whoever has got a character

50:09

left that becomes their character for the rest of the campaign, which is kind of

50:13

a cool idea in Prince. Yeah, it's a little bit weird and it's quite

50:16

glib. It's quite glib and quite gory. And

50:20

I'm not a massive fan of it because it's the kind of game that doesn't

50:23

interest me anyway. But I think it's kind of reload is going to be a

50:26

kind of interesting approach to kind of that

50:30

funnel time loop, Groundhog Day, Edge of

50:33

Tomorrow kind of feel that sort of makes you think about

50:42

how we treat violence and fatality in

50:46

role playing games and consequently what we mean

50:49

when we do that creatively. How do we feel about

50:53

that? Yeah, no, that's actually really interesting. Yeah, no,

50:57

I like that thought a lot because I think it's very easy to look at

51:01

these games as a game and look at

51:04

it through the eyes of these are just enemies, we kill them and we take

51:08

their loot, stuff like that. And to actually have a

51:12

game that makes you think about that a bit more exactly. And makes you

51:16

think of what else is there. That's actually

51:19

a big reason I always tend to put a little bit of backstory

51:30

or things behind monsters or enemies

51:34

that my players encounter and I'll always make it a

51:37

harder choice and a harder thing to deal with in my games

51:41

every time that they want to solve something through just straight violence and

51:45

murder. Because it's not just like no, these aren't

51:49

just mindless monsters or mindless people or anything like

51:52

that. These are real things. Yeah. And I think

51:56

that kind of as a culture, like a role playing game

52:00

culture, we kind of have a weird connection to

52:04

murder and theft. Right,

52:09

fine. That is a fantasy that we're

52:13

dealing with and we know that we're

52:17

trying to I know

52:21

we have this weird relationship between we go and kill things

52:25

and take their loot and we gain personal experience that

52:28

allows us to grow as individuals when we kill things.

52:33

What a weird message to give to people.

52:38

I have a problem with games that do that.

52:42

I don't want to proselytize about it

52:46

because that's my personal taste, but I think that in general

52:49

there is a feeling in the co op that that kind of approach to things

52:53

is weird and we want to tell different stories. Yeah. And

52:57

that's kind of why we got sort of excited about reload because I think it

53:00

just sounds like a fun take on things.

53:04

No, I absolutely agree. That would be awesome to see get added.

53:08

Yeah. So that would be if we can come a

53:12

little bit later and get a little bit more funding,

53:17

I'm sure we have some other yes. So that's going to be

53:21

from Seamus Connelly and that's based on the

53:25

Breathless system, which is six if we get even more money, is from Austin

53:32

home. And that game is called

53:37

you'll like this one? That game is called before I'm gone

53:41

completely. And the pitch of that is you are dying piece by piece,

53:45

memory by memory. Escape the hospice seniors home to fulfill your bucket list

53:48

before you forget who you are. Fantastic. Oh, wow.

53:55

I think this is cool. And I'm not even sure I can

53:59

express entirely why I think it's cool. Have you seen the film Cloud Atlas, or

54:02

have you read the book? There's a kind of cloud, one

54:06

of these stories in that is about a person who escapes from a

54:10

senior's home, and it's basically

54:13

that story of escapade and adventure and

54:18

trying to deal with memories and difficult subjects,

54:22

like why am I here

54:25

and all that. I think that'll be a really interesting word,

54:29

a really interesting game as well. And I know

54:33

a little bit less about this one because we're not working directly with Austin at

54:36

the moment, but I think it's going to be fun. Yeah, no,

54:40

that sounds really cool and really fun. I really hope

54:44

that you go over the funding goal,

54:47

because just these two games, I don't know if you're adding more. These extra

54:51

ones, I think they'll all

54:55

be on the Kickstarter page, so I can

54:58

definitely say the other two, which the third one is

55:02

Crater, which the pitch for that is man, it would have been so useful

55:06

to have this before. An astronaut sits on the moon, their helmet

55:10

is cracked and they are lost. They are utterly, completely alone,

55:13

which is a solo role playing game. Oh, man.

55:17

Yes. So that is

55:23

I'm not sure we even need any more words. Yeah, no,

55:28

I think it's going to. Be really interesting, and it reminds me of

55:32

this game, our Radios Are Dying by

55:35

Caitlin Bell. I'm going to say Caitlin Bell it may not be, which is

55:39

basically the same thing, but with two players

55:43

and our radios are dying is it stands out to me because

55:47

Jeff Stormmer once played it on Party of One and I couldn't listen to the

55:50

end of the episode because I was so sad about it. And I think that's

55:54

probably the only time where I had to skip forward on an actual

55:57

play. So I think this game will do

56:01

that again. Yeah, no, that sounds as a solo

56:05

game, obviously, we're going to have to have quite a lot of heavy

56:09

safety talk in this game, but I think it's

56:12

a very good subject. Yeah, that's going to be very amazing

56:16

subject. And actually what a pitch. Yeah,

56:20

I know. That sentence. Just that sentence is absolutely

56:24

amazing. And for someone, as one of my

56:27

favorite, but also most horrifying episodes that I

56:31

love in the Magnus archives, being the one of being trapped alone

56:34

in a spaceship with all the stars blinked out

56:39

yeah, that one gets me on a personal level. That

56:43

gets me on a personal level. I thought you were going to

56:47

talk about the one in the caves, because I listened to that recently. Oh, my

56:50

God. Yeah, that was scary. I love that episode, too. Absolutely

56:54

terrifying. My sister is a

56:57

caver. When I heard that episode, I was like, well, I hope she doesn't start

57:01

doing that again. I

57:05

couldn't imagine knowing someone who does that

57:12

I went to a cave workshop one time where they basically just

57:15

talked about their experiences of going cave diving and

57:19

whatever and having that and then listening to that episode, I'm

57:22

like, I know what I'm never doing.

57:27

Yeah, being trapped underground. No, not my cup of tea.

57:32

Last thing I'd like. And that's from that game is by Thomas

57:39

Thorderbrugen. I do not know how to properly pronounce that. That's as

57:43

good as I'm going to get. Also known as bogus cheesecake. Bogus

57:47

cheesecake, I love that. That's cool.

57:51

The final one that we would definitely be adding if we get the funding

57:54

is another essay from Beck Andrew

57:58

Evans, which is called Death

58:01

the Everyday Reality of Impoverished Life

58:05

which kind of goes back into that capitalism sucks theme.

58:09

And I am really keen to talk about this

58:18

subject or for our book to talk about this subject because I think it

58:21

sounds very much up as street, which is

58:25

a kind of exploration of

58:29

the I have to

58:33

personally be careful of what I say because I've not been in poverty in the

58:36

past. But the kind of casualizing of

58:39

death and the kind of proximity that people who are

58:43

in poverty are to

58:48

not having enough money to survive effectively and what that

58:52

would do to your psyche and what that would do to your personality

58:56

and the way that you see things and being able to talk about

59:00

that, I think, is an important thing. I think it does tie into the themes

59:03

of the other of the other games as well. Obviously has this linking

59:07

theme which is it's all about death and dying, but

59:11

it ties into Reload, for example,

59:14

because it's about experiencing near

59:18

death experiences over and over again. It's

59:22

about what you might do in order to get

59:25

money like Shadow Market. It's about

59:30

ways that you wonder whether you will be

59:33

remembered. And I'm very keen

59:37

to get this in. That sounds

59:41

heavy, but like a really good conversation to

59:45

have out there. Yeah, and maybe

59:48

there's a time and a place for that conversation that might be in a book

59:52

that otherwise contains stuff about a whimsical train

59:55

company. I

59:59

think about trashy magazines

1:00:03

that you can buy that have both completely pointless and useless stories

1:00:07

like Psychic Ache, My Hedgehog and then also

1:00:11

using those same stories to kind of springboard people into conversations with each

1:00:15

other about serious topics. I think about like soap operas and telenovelas which basically do the same

1:00:22

thing but from a melodramatic point of view. And actually

1:00:26

I think there's a way that you can combine serious with non

1:00:30

serious subjects that is not just smashing two things together

1:00:34

and getting people to laugh at them. Yeah. No, I agree. Actually

1:00:37

also completely valid way of doing things. But

1:00:41

I think being able to combine the sublime with the ridiculous

1:00:45

is definitely a thing that an anthology with a theme is

1:00:49

capable of doing and hopefully it will get people

1:00:53

thinking. Yeah. Again, being high minded about these

1:00:57

things. I mean, I would hope so as well because I can't

1:01:00

see a way that it wouldn't spawn those types of conversations

1:01:06

well. Yeah. So that's everything that we've got

1:01:09

planned. And I definitely also love, if you would like

1:01:13

to, after we're done recording this, give me all of the information for all

1:01:17

of the writers. I'd love to put them in the description for this episode

1:01:20

as well so that people can check them out individually

1:01:24

because all of these people sound amazing. And

1:01:28

just these ideas and the ideas that they

1:01:31

have and the conversations that they can start, I

1:01:35

am for sure amazed by. So I'd love for more people to check them

1:01:38

out. I will send their details to you. Yeah, absolutely.

1:01:42

Because they're all really cool designers. Some

1:01:46

of them are people I've worked with before. Some of them are people I've wanted

1:01:48

to work with for a long time. Some of them I've never heard of. And

1:01:52

that's cool because that means that this pitch

1:01:56

request went way beyond my social network.

1:02:00

I'm really pleased about that. Absolutely. I'll get those

1:02:03

names to you. Perfect. I love how you talk

1:02:07

about that as well. You get to outside of

1:02:11

the social circle that you're in, and you get to work with these people

1:02:15

that you've been wanting to work with or never heard of. Just so many different

1:02:18

opportunities coming from this one idea to

1:02:22

explore death. Yeah, I love

1:02:26

it. And it was because we apart from

1:02:30

me, because we

1:02:33

reviewed these pictures without having any names

1:02:37

attached to them. We had no idea

1:02:40

whose game was whose. I didn't even know.

1:02:44

I knew that a couple of people from the co op had submitted pictures,

1:02:48

and I knew that some people I was friends with,

1:02:51

both online and offline,

1:02:55

had submitted pictures. And

1:02:59

it was both great that I had all of these

1:03:02

new and interesting contacts. And it was fantastic that we got somebody from

1:03:06

the corp in as well. It was also kind of sad that I didn't get

1:03:10

some of these pictures. And I'm not saying that they were worse

1:03:13

than the others because the competition was just so stiff.

1:03:17

It was very difficult to make decisions about it. So,

1:03:20

yeah, sorry to all those people who submitted and didn't

1:03:24

get through. Well, maybe. Sorry. See, the thing is, at least

1:03:28

with that, there's always opportunities for the future too.

1:03:32

What if there's a second volume of the Guide to Death, stuff

1:03:35

like that? We do have

1:03:39

a secret stretch goal, which is not that secret,

1:03:42

actually. It's a social stretch goal. If you're saying it out

1:03:46

loud here, it's definitely not going to be secret. No. If we get

1:03:50

enough social media interactions of

1:03:54

some kind during the campaign, we will later

1:03:57

in the year kick start a second volume, which I

1:04:01

think will be called Besides as kind of a pun on

1:04:04

Besides. And that will be a digital only volume

1:04:08

of the stuff that didn't make it into the first

1:04:12

volume. And I think

1:04:16

I've forgotten who I've said is going to be leading that. It's not going to

1:04:18

be me. I think that will

1:04:22

feel more of an eclectic volume, and I think that's fine

1:04:26

because I think that's going to be cute. I think it's going to

1:04:30

be an interesting juxtaposition against this kind

1:04:33

of tome and

1:04:37

instead might feel a bit more like a zine or might feel like a collection

1:04:40

of zines or something like that. And I think that's cool as

1:04:44

well. If you go out there and if you can't back our project,

1:04:48

if you just share it and like what we do and

1:04:52

repost stuff, whatever the parlance is nowadays. Yeah,

1:04:56

things like that, you can contribute to

1:05:00

potentially getting something out in the future as well. Absolutely. I love that,

1:05:03

too. Having ways for people to support outside of

1:05:07

backing the project is always fantastic. So where can people

1:05:11

find where would you like people to

1:05:15

go to start helping with that if they can? Like, we're on, I

1:05:18

guess social media. What accounts? Yes.

1:05:22

Okay, let's see if I can remember the good ones.

1:05:26

So we are on Twitter. We are at Far Horizons co op

1:05:30

on Twitter. I refuse to call it by its

1:05:33

new silly name. Yeah, I haven't either. Every

1:05:37

time my friends keep joking, I. Hear on the radio and I'm like, you're being

1:05:40

silly, don't do that. I know I say Twitter in front of my friends and

1:05:44

they're like, you mean X? And I'm like, no, that's not what I mean.

1:05:48

I mean Twitter. We are

1:05:52

on mastodon at dicecamp. So that's

1:05:55

farizonsco. Op Dice.com. I don't remember how that works. I don't

1:05:58

remember how mastodon works. We also

1:06:02

have an account now at Bluesky

1:06:06

Bluesky, or however it's supposed to be pronounced. And that's just

1:06:09

Far Horizonscorp Bluesky

1:06:13

social. Is that how that one works?

1:06:16

It's like b sky, I guess. B sky? Yeah. I

1:06:20

don't know. I'm sure you'll be able to find it. It's just the main. Blue

1:06:23

sky. Blue Sky Server. We've not done very much

1:06:27

with that yet. I only got an invite code today. Exciting.

1:06:30

So that's there as well. We also have a discord server,

1:06:36

which you can get to through our regular newsletter, which I think is

1:06:39

Farizonscorp substack.com

1:06:44

because it's me writing that. And I have a lot of other hats to wear.

1:06:47

It doesn't get out more than about once every six weeks, but I'll do

1:06:50

one next week. Yeah. So it

1:06:54

could definitely be something. You can get a lot of information out

1:06:58

of the newsletter, and we'll be pushing the afterwards

1:07:01

anthology pretty heavily in that in the next few weeks. Perfect.

1:07:06

Can I think of anywhere else you can find our stuff at Far

1:07:09

Horizons Card card

1:07:13

Co. And I think that's probably everywhere

1:07:17

apart from Itch and DTRPG, but you can get to those through the card.

1:07:21

Yeah, perfect. Absolutely. And I'll make sure to also

1:07:25

put the information in the description below for everyone.

1:07:29

And like Mark said, just

1:07:32

support them, interact on the stuff around

1:07:36

the Guide to Death and

1:07:39

hopefully the Volume

1:07:43

Two will come out and you get to see all of the other projects

1:07:46

that had an opportunity to make it into

1:07:50

this. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no,

1:07:54

that sounds amazing. I am very excited about this.

1:08:01

I'm trying to think if there's any

1:08:05

big things that I wanted to cover on the Guide

1:08:08

to Death or if there's anything specific that you were wanting to

1:08:12

cover, since I think we are getting closer to the

1:08:16

end here. Sure. I think the

1:08:20

only thing that I don't know, you might want to splice this back in further,

1:08:24

is that there will be a

1:08:27

digital edition, but we're mainly trying to get

1:08:31

a printed edition and

1:08:35

that's going to be a really cool book. I just want to tell

1:08:39

people about this because I've been chasing print specs and printers to

1:08:43

give me quotations for months and I'm really excited about what we've got planned,

1:08:47

which is a hardback book, which is

1:08:51

cloth bound with a foil

1:08:54

printed cover of sorts. Oh, so this is going to

1:08:58

be like when you said tome, oh, yeah.

1:09:01

It'S going to look really nice. It's going to be a five. So

1:09:05

half letter size, a little bit stubby, other than half letter.

1:09:10

And the covers that we're putting together is I

1:09:13

wanted it to be super simple and I'm astonished

1:09:17

by what our cover designers are doing with this. So it's going to

1:09:21

look cool, it's going to have skulls, it's going to

1:09:24

look nice. So excited. Then the rest of the book

1:09:28

will have a bookmark ribbon, things like that, but just

1:09:32

also be a nice, crisp, well made made,

1:09:36

well put together, well produced book.

1:09:40

That's one of the bits I'm most excited about is just to be able to

1:09:43

hold 350 books in my hand, put them through the postal

1:09:47

system. Yes, I'm pretty stoked

1:09:50

about that. So it's not going to be the cheapest

1:09:54

book, but I think you're going to want to have it.

1:09:59

And that's where the digital options are. Always nice and actually

1:10:02

digital options will be available. How many pages is

1:10:06

this going to be? I think we budget maybe 150 pages

1:10:15

since not huge, not like a real not a heck in

1:10:19

chunkosaurus, but it is chunkosaurus.

1:10:22

It is a book which I think will feel nice. I think what it

1:10:26

will feel like is the kind of thickness

1:10:30

of a nice

1:10:33

journal, like 100 and 5200 page

1:10:37

journal with a lovely cover

1:10:41

that you can put in your bag and take with you on a summer's day

1:10:44

to read in the field somewhere. Oh, sounds lovely.

1:10:49

I love it. No, this sounds absolutely

1:10:52

amazing. I am so excited about this,

1:10:56

actually. I can't wait for it to come out and to just

1:10:59

see, also see everything written

1:11:03

out and be able to see the art of the book

1:11:07

and see the book itself and just like all of the little things. I

1:11:10

can't wait. Oh man, it's so exciting.

1:11:15

Fantastic. Well, as I said before,

1:11:19

it will be kick starting in September. We'll be finishing

1:11:23

September 29, I say Friday definitely

1:11:27

because I don't want it to go into October. Yes,

1:11:31

done before this last opportunity. Yeah, because otherwise everything's going to be all spooky

1:11:38

saturated. Exactly. I need to pull ahead of

1:11:42

the game a little bit. Be ahead of the game. That's our intention.

1:11:46

Because this isn't spooky and this isn't horror. This is just

1:11:49

death. Yeah, it's death and it's thinking about death

1:11:53

and having those conversations which I love and I can't

1:11:56

wait for it to come out. And this episode is going to be out

1:12:01

around the time either before or after. We will see where it lies

1:12:05

in the schedule for sure. But when I do the

1:12:08

intro and stuff, everyone who listened, you'll probably

1:12:12

already hear if it's out or not and where to find it, which will be

1:12:15

on Kickstarter for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

1:12:19

I will send you a link when we have one. Perfect. I

1:12:23

will definitely be sharing that around then. Yeah. I am so excited

1:12:26

about this and I think that it's about time

1:12:30

to wrap up and I want to say this has been amazing

1:12:34

to hear all about this anthology game. I am so

1:12:38

very excited to actually see it and to hopefully explore the

1:12:42

games myself and maybe get some of the people that I know to play

1:12:45

them with me. But this has been

1:12:49

fantastic and I think I'm going to

1:12:53

do one last question

1:12:56

before we wrap up here and that's

1:13:00

going to be what you are the most

1:13:03

excited about with this project.

1:13:07

Oh, heavens. I am most

1:13:11

excited about getting to work with

1:13:15

not only some of my favorite people from the co op,

1:13:18

such as Ninfael, our layout

1:13:22

designer, art, lead illustrator,

1:13:25

just a fabulous person all around and people

1:13:29

like John Boyle, resident bard,

1:13:33

one of our editors, and just cool

1:13:36

people. Like, the team is massive. I'm very excited about working with all

1:13:40

of them, but I'm also really excited about bringing new people,

1:13:43

new perspectives into our co op workflows and to find out what

1:13:47

other people think of them and to learn from what

1:13:51

ways that they like working as well. And I know that Pornet M and

1:13:55

Jess Markrum are really good at leading projects,

1:13:59

so hopefully I get to learn a little bit about how to do it

1:14:02

properly. Absolutely. I'm just

1:14:06

excited to be working with people again and to be bringing a cool

1:14:09

project to bear based on that. Absolutely. I think

1:14:13

that is so fair. Working with people is amazing.

1:14:17

That's been one of my biggest things with the podcast that I've enjoyed

1:14:21

so much is getting the opportunity to work with so many cool people. It's like,

1:14:24

oh, I love you guys. Yeah, it's always so good. When I used to run a podcast, it'd be,

1:14:33

you know, I don't think this person would want to talk to such a tiny

1:14:36

podcast me. Don't be ridiculous. And then I was like,

1:14:40

Just tried it. Why not? And then, not to name

1:14:44

drop, really, but, like, James Demarto was like, yeah, sure, I'll talk to you, whatever.

1:14:48

Or like, Jess Storm was like, yeah, sure, Marks, whatever. Let's chat. And

1:14:52

now we kind of interact quite regularly. Or, like,

1:14:55

Vincent Baker is very happy to come on the podcast and talk to me. I

1:14:58

was like, this is a big deal. Why so

1:15:02

casually about this? But I think it's fantastic. I'd actually

1:15:06

like these big designers because they want to talk to people. They want to sell

1:15:09

this stuff, but also they want to talk about this stuff, and that's amazing. Yeah.

1:15:13

And everyone's just so nice, too, and it's just absolutely

1:15:17

lovely. Yeah, I mean, mostly. Yeah, that's true. There have been some

1:15:20

bad apples in certain people,

1:15:24

but for the most part, everyone is

1:15:27

usually fantastic. You have

1:15:31

been absolutely lovely, and thank you so much for coming

1:15:35

on and talking about the Guide to Death with me, because

1:15:38

this has been fantastic and I just absolutely love learning about

1:15:42

it. Yeah, thank you for having us. I suppose you're

1:15:46

hosting the co op as well as me. Thank

1:15:50

you very much. Yeah, thank you. And thank

1:15:54

you, everyone, for listening and I hope that you have enjoyed and please

1:15:58

make sure to check out Mark's Shepherd.

1:16:03

Where can they find you specifically on social media.

1:16:06

Right. So on most social media, I'm phofos that's

1:16:09

P-H-O-P-H-O-S

1:16:13

on Twitter. Somebody had already taken that one. So I

1:16:17

am phofos on Twitter, but I got to say, I'm not

1:16:20

there very much anymore. I'm mostly on blue sky now.

1:16:24

And Discord. You can always find me on Discord because I'm just, like,

1:16:28

splurging conversations with people all the time. Perfect.

1:16:32

Yeah. Discord is almost certainly the best place to find me.

1:16:37

Perfect. All right. Absolutely fantastic. So go check out

1:16:41

Mark's on those social medias if you're on Blue Sky and things

1:16:44

like that. And also, hopefully by this point, I also will have my

1:16:48

own Discord server up and open to the public for people

1:16:52

to join. And you can talk to Mark's possibly even here,

1:16:56

potentially. But, yeah,

1:17:00

this has been absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on. And

1:17:03

thank you, everyone, for listening. We will end it here.

1:17:08

Bye.