Hello, and welcome to Snyder’s return are you tabletop roleplay podcast my guest today has welcomed the Internet to their gaming table over 600 times in various ways. Not Want to shy away from an adventurer, they are often found taking deep dives into different worlds. A traveller one may say, But what of all this? Well, far from being a jack of all trades? He has proven his pen as mighty as any sword, it would surely be an unkindness not to mention his literary works to steal from well, not your average content creator. So here today to take the jump and avoid any intimate encounters. Is dungeon master games master streamer YouTuber TTRPG, content creator podcaster and writer, Seth ska kowski. Seth, welcome to the show.
Seth Skorkowsky:Wow, that was what elevate intro I have, like intimidated by myself right now. You make me make me sound?
Snyder’s Return:No, it's an absolute pleasure. And as I say, welcome. Before we go into some of the things I've alluded to there in the introduction, would you mind letting us know a little bit about yourself and how you got into tabletop role playing games, please?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, yeah, I had first heard about d&d through Of course, the Satanic Panic. And, you know, it was, it was the game that drove you insane and made you killed people. And, and I was actually in one of the deep in the kind of American Bible belt. So you know, I heard a lot of that fact, the wonderful, wonderful book, The Devil's web by Patricia pulling. I remember I got my copy and open it up. It was like published in Tyler, Texas, which is where I grew up. So I was like, oh, yeah, that fits. So I had actually believed it was illegal. Like they it was this game that was so bad, they outlawed it. And when I was 12, I remember a talk with my friend Aaron Bush. And we're gonna do that, like, really cool is like, try that d&d thing out. Because you know, you're 12 and you're like, I want to do immediately the thing that I'm told not to do. And I was at school, we had a little homeroom, or they gave these little magazines of whatever the hell it is. They think 12 year old kids had like, and there was a full page ad for the new d&d box set. It was the black box. It was like their last basic box set and had the big dragon. It's like it's back. And I remember rushing to my friend Aaron Bush, tell them it's like, do they make d&d legal again, so shortly after, that was my 30th birthday. And I got that for my 30th birthday. Then shortly after that, you know, we're all Boy Scouts. So is that a scout meeting talk with a buddy about like, man, we're gonna do this d&d thing. Yeah. But I played a little game in there. And I had mentioned something about else and this kid, you know, I'm 13. He was a kid like 11, like million years younger than you, right? He's like, you know, that's not how elves work. It, I found out that he played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. And his dad, who was one of the assistant scout masters have been playing since the 70s. And he, he offered to run us and that became our group for the next hour until we were all you know, 18 and moved away. So that was so is it. So played basically, basic d&d once, and then it was straight into a d&d and second edition had just released around that time, but our GMs I, I've already got all the books, I'm not buying new books. So go to use bookstores and buy the old ones because I'm not, I'm not changing my all this money's where the stuff. So we started with Ed in the first edition. And then with our own groups that we were playing on the side or after that, we kind of bled in last second issue, because there really wasn't too many changes between them. They were mostly compatible. And that's pretty much it. I went off to college, made a couple guys in a group, our official founding of that group and college was January, is whatever day in 99. And out of the seven players that I had, so it was eight of us in my tiny little apartment. Three of them. Still play with me. Wow. So we've been playing together a long time, or new guy, I think started in 2009. So
Snyder’s Return:that's still a long time from 2009 to present.
Seth Skorkowsky:Yeah, we've had some new guys in the middle. So whenever someone leaves and says like, a GA the new guy again, he's like doing it, then we'll we'll pull somebody else. And in fact, actually one of the players from the early days is actually the new guy. He he left years ago, and he just came back. But I still want to give my buddy George grief because technically, the other guy has actually played with B longer in your time.
Snyder’s Return:I love it. And so this gaming group, it gets mentioned in your YouTube video. So before I skip that, straight to that, how did you go from running games? You know, these long standing games? How did that go into the content community you are today on the various platforms?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, so it started with, you know, as I'm an author, and I got my, you know, I finally wrote my first publishable, publishable book, not counting the practice novels before that, which were terrible. And when you when your book comes out, all of a sudden, you're flooded with, like, how you have to have a social media presence, and you have to do all this, this, this, this, you have to market yourself, and which is really awkward, considering it's a demographic of people that usually like to hide out and not talk to people. And I was told by someone who's actually, like, really big marketing guy, how I need to have a YouTube channel, it's a second largest search engine, and I need to have a channel, and I was like, I don't want to make a channel about isn't gonna make it about your book. It's like, well, that would be a short live channel, because you're gonna make it about writing and say, I've written one book. That's not really qualifications me, Brandon Sanderson has like his own YouTube channel. He's written like 9 million novels. So it's not like, what I couldn't really add anything. So I sat on that idea for two and a half years. And then one day, I decided to make a YouTube channel. And basically, I wanted to post a video about the social contract. So I just kind of became tabletop RPGs. I know a lot about that. I enjoy talking about that. So it, it was a bug that was put my ear but it took two and a half years to actually like hatch into something. Wow.
Snyder’s Return:I mean, I'm glad it did. Because I love you. I love your stuff. And just some some stats to throw back at you of how much I sort of enjoyed it. I haven't watched all of these I will, but you've released. So on your YouTube channel 635 Videos, I counted them up from your window, you have over 99,000 subscribers, over 14 million views of your videos. Plus all the things you're associated with plus the stuff on say drive thru and things like that, that we'll get to shortly. So how has it been with CAD have
Seth Skorkowsky:600 videos? There's no way. Yeah. All that. Yeah, there's the sort of the blackout you might miss 100 was like, No way. Because I think I think of a 200 and something that's so maybe, maybe for your target playlists, like certain videos or multiple playlists,
Snyder’s Return:okay, well, across your playlists then people have Okay, in total, they can view 635 videos.
Seth Skorkowsky:Yeah, it's, it's, it's quite a bit.
Snyder’s Return:And you've covered such a variety of game systems with Where did the the idea to drop into separate game systems come from after the social contract?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, it started with you at the time that we were there sorry that I started doing the videos. We had been playing Call of Cthulhu and right I think I just purchased pulp Cthulhu and one of my earliest videos was like the box opening for pulp Cthulhu and I played cyberpunk 2020 and a couple other games actually was not I guess, as versed as I think a lot of people assumed I was and split the first game review I did was cyberpunk 2020 So I actually started with you know, non d&d or non mainstream material and then and that was a terrible review. I didn't even know how to edit yet it was all one take. I think I had a post it now that was like all my notes for it. So it's full of you. As I'm trying to articulate that camera was crap. The audio was just abysmally it should have been illegal It was that bad. And so I came back a while later and I read it that I've read done a couple of videos for my first six months because man they were they hurt if somebody comments on say, oh, cheese, somebody people are watching this, like, I can still be someone's first impression on me. Those are terrible. But so I started with cyberpunk. And then I started talking about scenario reviews and Call of Cthulhu actually ran a tonne of scenarios. Um, you know, d&d, I had ran some but that was mostly stuff I wrote myself for many years. So then it kind of sort of work in this scenario reviews and this and that. So it kind of just evolved. Like I think a lot more channels come in with more of a plan. I didn't come in with a plan.
Snyder’s Return:So as you grow in confidence and competency and and learn, where where did Jack, the MPC and these other creative choices, where were they sparked from?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, they're sparked out of necessity. So I had envisioned early into my channel, I wanted to do a video for the post apocalyptic Cthulhu setting. And, and, you know, I was like, you know, what we'll do is we'll have it and then it'll kind of like, change to this kind of blasted landscape. I'll do it, I need a green screen for that. So we're getting close to Christmas, which I'll start at the end of November. And we're getting close to Christmas with this is all in the first month of this thing. Either sale, so Mike, I'll go on and I'll buy a green screen. And, you know, it's one of those things we keep kind of slowly upgrading, it's like, you know, for another dollar, you can get 20 more square feet, okay? For another dollar, you can get 30 more square feet. Okay. So I ended up with this$18 green screen that is big enough to sail a ship with it is decided I have no idea what the hell I was thinking it is. So redonkulous like, I've never employed the whole thing. It's like half of its on the floor whenever I set it up. And at the time, you monetized your YouTube channel immediately, so told you how much you made. So I bust my butt putting out a video, it's like, wow, the video made three cents. Well, if this rate, it'll take me you know, 60 years to pay off this $18 green screen, I needed to come up with another use for this thing, versus one video. And I was doing a review for the Call of Cthulhu scenario, the haunting. And I wanted to talk about what I did to teach my players how to use how to play investigative games. And I did that through an NPC, who in our game was named Jack. So I grabbed a suit and a fedora that I had lying around the house, I gave myself this really gruff voice that was actually like referred in the beginning, because I didn't know it was committing to it for life. And I just did this little bit where I did this, check the NPC character. And that was supposed to be like, it wasn't supposed to go back to it. And I did like a couple more videos and stickman, you know, that was actually kind of fun to do. It also really worked because it could have a bit of a dynamic, or kind of cut the monotony of I'm talking for a long time on a subject so that I started pulling check in more and more and more until he kind of became a staple of reviews. And then the game, which is the kind of unimaginative name I gave my imaginary players came about because I was doing I guess it was it was one of my early RPG philosophy videos, my first list video, and it was over, like five bad player behaviours. And there was this kind of bit that we have done for years talking about what we refer to as a 13th. Warrior, and reference to the movie and the book about the guy that wants to play the Arab poet in the Viking campaign, and just how ridiculous that was. That was a back and forth that we have choked around the table with for years. So it was like, okay, so I actually want to do this in a video form. So at the time I had long hair, I just let my hair down, I put a baseball cap on backwards, add a talk to this kind of a silly voice. It was gonna say things like that was fine. I'll keep using this guy, and he didn't even have a name. And then a video came along, I needed him to talk to someone next to him. Like I needed two players to talk. So I kind of just, I found this bandido moustache, beard said, like, like a one time use for like a birthday party sort of thing. And I was like, Oh, by this and now I've got a moustache and this goatee. And I'll split them up. And I have to come up with two distinctly different characters. And so I did that. And at none of these points had I realised this was now like a thing I was committing to like, it was always like, Oh, I'll pull that thing back. I'll pull that thing back. But I'm not this isn't a thing that I do. That's just, it's just for this next video. Yeah. And so I think it took me a year before I even named them like they're older videos or calling Player One, two and three, like they didn't even have names. And then finally just had to admit there a thing that I do. But there was no there was no plan or anything. It was just kind of necessity or moments of inspiration. If had I known that they were going to be kind of long term commitments. I certainly would have wouldn't have given two evils that hair man I really hate doing that here. That's why somebody was like he might he might not even appear because it's really hate that out because it requires I have to do my hair the certain way with a tonne of gel and it's really gross. Had I known it would have been he would have been a totally different person.
Snyder’s Return:No, I love Jack in the gaming group and and the way that your presentation both your more straight down the line conveyance of information as yourself and then the spin as it were as either jack or the the interplay between the party really does actually help explain or expand on elements of of games that may have been more difficult to understand if it was just sort of a single person single perspective,
Seth Skorkowsky:it meant to inject a little bit of humour, but also can serve as like that example. I feel good or bad. Like I'm working on a video right now, which is about tabletop stuff. It's like, wow, there's not really a natural spot that I can work the gang in. Which I think I've had a couple of those people will viewers like him. I was like, where's the gang? It's like, they didn't actually add anything. Like, I'm not just gonna have a random skit for no reason. Like, I'm always looking for a reason. But if I got one using them. So it's, they're fun to illustrate a point, or just add a shot of humour because sometimes like, you know, I'll be talking about some thing and it might be dry, or it might be a very serious topic. And it's kind of that reminder of like, Guys, we're talking about sitting around with your friends doing imagination time, or rolling little pieces of plastic. It's silly, the gaming is silly. Just there's no way around it no matter how serious people want to take it. At the end of the day, it is a silly hobby.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, it's, it's fun, we enjoy those. So you know, it's just gonna living there in the moment, but you have reviewed a variety of systems. But just going through the channel and listen to you going through your Twitter, traveller and Call of Cthulhu seem to be the ones that sort of resonate with you the most, you're your favourite systems. Is that fair to say? Or have you got other ones that you just don't sort of partake in as often
Seth Skorkowsky:call Cthulhu and traveller are the top two, the Call of Cthulhu system the BRP system, especially with what they do with seventh edition is so intuitive for us. We love those types of stories, the investigative plots and that sort of thing. So mechanically, and just thematically, that's been an absolute perfect fit for us in especially the pope Cthulhu mod because that allows your characters to be a bit beefier because sometimes you really do just want to kick some ass and so it allows that while still being very fragile and and focusing more on investigation. And you know, all of my games have always at some point gone horror. So the fact that it's a horror game. Yeah. It's so much worse than you know, when we were doing other things. And and traveller really did hit the the tones that we wanted with a good sci fi game. A lot of the stuff that we got out of when we played cyberpunk for years and years, but then we had to house rule that hell out of it. Because a lot of the old cyberpunk was very broken. years, traveller fits almost every single one of those needs. And all the mechanical ones, the only ones are just some of the thematic ones. And, but we like it, we could add the themes to the game. Like, that's not a problem. We just don't play it that way. So those two players, we've said, like, if these are the only two games we ever play, be like going forward, we'd be perfectly happy with that. So those are really kind of the ones that sit the best.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, absolutely. So before I sort of carry on that train of thought so people can find you and support you and come and sort of get involved with everything that you do. Would you be able to tell us where we can find you, and everything you're associated with please?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, my YouTube channel is under the highly imaginative name square kowski everybody has like a cool name but me and then we reason was it was supposed to help marketing my writing originally. So wanted it to be linked to my name instead of some clever channel name. But now that the YouTube and tabletop RPG stuff has actually kind of crested past my writing. It's like, well, I still just have this channel name and that's, that's the way it is. You can so you can be assessed for kowski on YouTube, the only thing you have to do is figure out how to spell my name. But once you know how to spell my name or copy it from somewhere, you can find me everywhere. So I'm on Twitter as s Gore kowski. And that's the social media platform that I'm the most active on. You know, people that go on the Instagram or Facebook is like Twitter is kind of the one that I chose the most most comfortable with. Now, after that, I've got my website, score kowski.com, there's not much it's been going on there. Because that was more about my writing and the YouTubes really alert, but focusing. So that's pretty much it. Oh, and I have a podcast. There's the modern myth, this podcast that I do with John hook. And he's, he's the former experienced podcaster. But he's written for Call of Cthulhu and Dungeon Crawl classics, and all these games. So we do a monthly podcast about RPG is mostly Call of Cthulhu. But a lot of other stuff as well. Because I kind of assisted like, we need to talk about a lot of games because I like a lot of different stuff. So modern methods, podcast, Twitter, YouTube, those are the big three.
Snyder’s Return:All right, well, links to those places will be in the description below this podcast also touching on your writing and both the TTRPG side and your more general fantasy writing, shall we say, will be down in the description below and and going on that theme. On drive thru RPG for example, we can find a number of supplements that you have either written yourself or partaking in what's it been like to contribute to the the TTRPG community in that way and winning an Emmy Award as well.
Seth Skorkowsky:Oh, man, it's been weird. So the first one was Stygian Fox reached out to me to be part of the new tales in the Miskatonic valley. It absolutely will always be eternally grateful to Stephanie for that. And she asked me to do a store in Innsmouth. And I gladly did that. Then that book went on to win any award. But so technically, I'm a two time Emmy winner, I don't count that one as much because that was a huge group project because it was just for the books. It was like we get a lot of authors do the illustrators and editors and all this. So it's like, I was just doing a huge group project at my part, and it sucked so bad that it dragged everybody else down. It's kind of how that how I see it. So that was, that was cool. And then that led to you know them in the chaos CMM in the keeper tips book that they did for the 40th anniversary. And then when I started doing stuff with traveller, I was headed up to projects to take an old classic adventure, update it to the new edition, and I was given free rein to change anything I wanted. There's really nothing is sacred, just go for it. Because well I wouldn't have signed on these projects if I didn't think they were already close to perfect. So I'm not going to be changing too terribly much. But then I got to add my own scenario to the classic murder and Arcturus stations a prequel so that's kind of a double adventure book with mine and the my update to gender Keith's classic adventure so that's been that's been great. But I'm enjoying the hell out of it.
Snyder’s Return:I can imagine and for Call of Cthulhu use your modern mythos has mythos artefacts, which we failed to mention thus far, but has a Patreon if you want to support Seth, and
Seth Skorkowsky:that's with our the modern mythos. Patreon. We're backers. So John and I basically over the course of a year, were coming up with cool artefacts. And then we it was almost like those old Mad Libs games. I don't know if you had those when you're young, where it's like you put in just just a blank for names and stuff. And you asked, like, Can you name give me an adverb and you fill it all in. And so we did it with these kind of blanks. And we're going to name these after a Patriots. And then at the end of the year, we're going to put these in a book and we're going to send those to our patriots. So so all the names in there are either of our patrons or what our patrons asked for us to use it. But you know, it just drove me crazy. You have a silly idea, like, you know, it'd be really cool is like, what about this weird old whistle they found in the trenches of the first world war that was one of those kind of homemade ones the soldiers did, but it does this weird thing. So I'd kind of like jot down my notes and then John would add his little bit and look into the gear. We had a pretty big list. So that was cool. So it's a neat little book. We've gotten Miskatonic repository kind of where that came from.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, but sort of inspiring and inspirational for use for keepers. And I mean, you can take these artefacts and put them in in any game, I guess, but they are more Cthulhu sort of Eldridge based.
Seth Skorkowsky:Yeah, well actually wait, I think one of them are definitely stealing for a colt game I read coming up because it was like, Man, this is too good.
Snyder’s Return:I mean, you recently did a review And this is a time recording the exhibition, sorry, I trusted the exhibition, the atrocity exhibition. Loved it. And it sounds like the sort of thing that I would love to run, it's just thing we caught. And you mentioned it in your view of the system, it's finding the right group to play that with. So what's it like sort of balancing that against, see the other games that you enjoy?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, so so called is, if I was gonna list like my top favourite games right now, of course traveller called Cthulhu, pulp, pulp Cthulhu. And Calico lumped together cult is really, really, really close to that third spot, it might be the third spot. It's a game I'm still really trying to get myself comfortable with because the power by the apocalypse system is so different than all the ways we've played before. So we did have a case of a lot of old dogs new tricks, staying so it's a system that I would not really recommend to people that are not, as have absolute trust you if you've got like players, they're going to try to like, kind of work the system. Kind of your rules, layer types, powered by the apocalypse is not that because it is so loose, and it kind of records everybody's mature, not bored. Then you have a cult, and they're, they're swinging a bit. So then you've got the themes of cult, which is a very personal horror. And so between them, it is the most mature audiences only game I've ever played. And so out of our group, there's only three players that I would play that with. And because we've all got a great dynamic, we all we all have are, we know where each other's lines are. We're totally comfortable with each other. And we have absolute trust. And we also are eager to lean into the horrific and weird and dark subjects. So I'm not I don't have to worry about that. I don't have to worry about anybody getting upset, or anybody getting weird, honest, or any of that. It's like we're just a bunch of old friends if anybody wants to know about or that or if anybody's pushed it too far. We horrible voice up. There's no hesitation because, you know, we're like family. Then I've said I've loved it. It is a very serious game when we play we're dead serious. We're we've got these characters in our lives and it's like, drama, horror, drama, and then you got Pope Cthulhu where it's like we're rapid fire jokes and we're laughing our butts off. So total totally different experience altogether, so it's not even I guess technically Call of Cthulhu is a horror game. We treat it like a detective investigative game. Cool. We treat it like a horror game. So totally different fields around the table.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah. For anyone that's that's unaware helm does release a version of colt that you can buy as various game stores. That looks like a Bible. I have. I've got the fourth edition version that looks like a Bible. It's got the black case the gilded gold guild arts it's a beautiful book is it's a beautiful book.
Seth Skorkowsky:I don't know how useful that thing is in in game like me because it's there's there's no illustrations it's a little but it's very it looks it feels like a Bible. You know, I will say that with the horror rpg is they have really upped the quality of the books further than anyone I remember somebody was pitching some some d&d books now like it's got our ribbon like Oh, wow. Everybody else has had ribbons for like a decade man and but meanwhile that you keep going into like the horror section, and the most beautiful books I own are all in that genre. One game that I want to play very much want to play and I bought it because I've heard good things by sawed it up in a store. And it was one of those like it jumped out at me was like my god that that book is gorgeous is a Bluebeard's bride and if you have ever seen physical copies of that book it is it's got a gold foil accents on it like photos can't even capture it. It's one of those like, this book is amazingly alrighty. And everything about it is just super high quality. You pick it up and you're like, Oh, this is a forbidden game Wonderful, wonderful. You know, compared to like, you know, the, the, you know, the old days where it's like the cover was colour. And inside it was all black and white in the art was of widely varying quality. And now the Then we went to a few colour pictures now they're all colour. And then this was, Okay, now we're going to do metallic inks, or do you have the full size codebook?
Snyder’s Return:I don't just the I have the PDF, because they've, they're good enough to do the PDF. So I've got the PDF, so I can see all the images, but the
Seth Skorkowsky:TWC in the message that's actually along the side of the pages. I may have to. Yeah, so if you if you take the full book, and you do the thing, are you leaving the pages just a bit, a message appears that just says Death is only the beginning. Wow. Next, Next Level RPGs. It's like now there's hidden messages, you have to move the books in certain ways. It's great.
Snyder’s Return:Love it. So you've picked up a couple of books off your desk, so I can see more on the shelves behind you, the helmet and a few of the other props. Are you very much still using the sort of the pen and paper, more tactile approach? Or do you use sort of virtual tabletop from time to time whether you've managed your DMing style sort of land.
Seth Skorkowsky:Of course, during the pandemic we had to adapt to online. That was absolute necessity for that. And I have been doing online gaming with different different groups, you know, podcasts that have been with the carry role now, glass cannon, or various little games that just different people we've played online. And that's been fun. Yeah, that's cool. I get to play with people in other countries. And that's awesome. So I've loved that. But we prefer around the table, we prefer the full experience, online gaming, we'll never be able to compete with that. You know, whether the biggest things that we also just really loved about being in person is if I can have my attention, I can talk to somebody at the table either as characters to a solo, or it's just asking questions about what's in the shop, whatever, I can be talking to one player, and then two other players on the other side of the table, might be whispering back and forth kind of be like, okay, so what is it we're going to do when we get to this place? So hey, can you can you show me how this spell work? So we're just some sort of chit chat. When you're online, you're all sharing an audio channels, you have to like wait for each person to talk only once Well, in a game, there's actually a couple of conversations going on. And as the GM, even though I'm talking with one person, I still kind of have like an ear out. And I feel like Wait, hold on, you need to check the back of the book, if you want to get the price on that or something. And I can go back to it in. And that's just the difference between being on the phone with somebody versus you know, in a group call versus just everybody there. And then of course, there's just the energy and everything. So when we play in person, our games go twice as long as we're capable of online. So when a person we do once a month, and it's eight to 10 hours, it's like a full day event. It's got dinner, and a lunch and tonnes of snacks. And we all catch up. And it's a great time. When we did on line, it was like four hours, we are all about ready to punch out. It was really, really hollow. But and so once we all get vaccinated, we're so excited to get back in the room together and have our little toy cars on a table. Yeah, all the classic stuff.
Snyder’s Return:Absolutely not. No, that's, that's fair enough. And it's one thing I've missed due to work and other commitments is sort of getting on the table and having that that sort of more, dare I say personal experience that you get with sharing the room sharing the table than you do across sort of whichever your virtual tabletop of choices or platform should we say.
Seth Skorkowsky:Like I said, I I, I have had so much fun with the virtual tabletop. But man if I can do it in person that any day. It's better than nothing. And it's got a lot of cool features. But now around the table is our thing. So like when in my videos, you know where I'm sitting this is actually where my GMC is at the end of the table and when you watch the game stuff we're taught is is quite literally what the other end of the table looks like. That's my view from here is exactly that wall of curtains with other bookshelves and stuff like that. So, you know, we when we got this house, we had this room that was our game room as their kind of little shrine to gaming. And that's that's it so then we have two years it was like a junk room slash studio. So I had to like one half was always filthy so if you ever when I was filming on I like I had to move incredible piles of crap to the other side. And then once finally we had games in person again, it was like my wife and I like what the hell are we going to do with this shifting pile of crap that has like slowly acclimate this room. So I'm happy we're back together so I can have to purge a lot of stuff.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, that's, it's great that you've been able to get back around the table and and as the pandemic, depending on when you're listening to this may or may not still be affecting various people's lives, the fact we can get back around the table is, is brilliant, more of a insolence somewhat personal pursuit is your writing, that we can enjoy to ourselves, your books available on Amazon, there will be a link in the description below as well as other resources potentially. So what's it like going from TTRPG stuff to say, Tales of the black raven, and not the books, you really start through that series or one of your other series,
Seth Skorkowsky:as in as in writing or you're
Snyder’s Return:creating creative, both both story and setting in a creative process?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, for you know, for gaming, whenever I'm doing that, it's also one of the things actually working on a video on this exact subject right now is, so a Game Master builds situations, and then the players figure out the solutions. So a lot of what a GM does is I'm doing all the setup and doing all the backstory, I'm doing all this and go and just sees what happens. You're building your, your, your obstacle course. But the moment that you put whatever is going through the obstacle course, in their, their job is kind of done with the exception of I just have to keep them from like, setting it on fire. With with writing, it's this kind of as personal thing, you do it by yourself in you do it all, you know, you've got your plot, and this is what our characters do, and the conversations and all that stuff. And a lot of people really get to think they're a lot like like, oh, being a million dungeon masters, like being an author is like no, not not at all. But it's a very different experience. They actually scratch very different creative itches for me. And the YouTube videos actually kind of scratch the same itches as writing where I've got this kind of project that I'm doing for two or three o'clock in the morning sometimes, and it's kind of like my thing that I do. And I have total control over the whole thing if you don't like something you can go back and you can edit it and you know all the stuff that you didn't you don't really get to do in a tabletop game. Yeah, and and then you kind of release it out in the world. And then immediately have the first person had comments on it be like it's crap, and and then you get to that crushing self loathing. So it's, it's a lot like writing got darker there at the end.
Snyder’s Return:It did. Your themes are somewhat dark. So you have Ashes of vonix. You have the Vulcan books. You have the tails of the black raven Ahran Ahran the thief
Seth Skorkowsky:aren't so I started with the black raven, and those actually I would do in moments of writer's block. When I was working on the novel that was unpublishable is I did these just kind of very pulpy sword and sorcery, thief adventures, and I ended up selling those to a small magazine. B with fewer guns went through them, and then a couple others went through different venues. And finally, we just kind of compiled them together and released a miss these two collections. So they're kind of in an order. But they're really a lot of independent stories that follow this and it's very I don't know, I kind of ran down the list of like, tropes, where it's like, okay, there's gonna be the Femme Fatale, love interest, because there has to be the femme fatale of interest, she's going to have red hair, because she has to have red hair, you know, like, that's the type of stories they're they're just they're fun little yarns, kind of like my love letters to fruits, labour and link Mar and all that because Latemar was my favourite of all the adnd world settings. You know, everybody had their ones that they gravitated to mine was like Marcy interseting. And then the volley can series is modern day Monster Hunters, very action. And those are four kind of self contained novels. They're in so it's not like one book spread out across four volumes. It's each of them are separate. They each follow a different protagonist. And the books are actually named after their weapon because they have to have these kind of magic sentient weapons to do the hunts. And each of those and I because then we get bored. Each of them follows a very different theme. So the first one is kind of like this international action adventure. And then the second one is this New Orleans noir horror. Like the third is, it's got a huge romance subplot. And the fourth is this coming of age story. Because I want them to always feel very, very different, even though they're in a linear order, like so book three, we'll talk about, oh, yeah, when this stuff happened, and reference book one, too. But there's still also you could start with that book, and everything you need to know about the previous books, it will tell you in it. So those were, those were a lot of fun. And then ashes of onyx was the book that I really wrote. For me. And that is, it's such a weird book. But it's that is one where I actually have a lot of odes to some of my favourite novels. That inspired me, but it is technically a new weird is the genre. So it starts off urban fantasy, like modern day source versus in sorcerers living in the contemporary world, but then they end up like hopping into other planes, and other worlds. And then I pull in the king in yellow Carcosa mythology. And our hero begins as a drug addict, and it gets dark and it's that's the book that I wrote for me. But it's it's so weird. It was very difficult trying to pitch that one because like, so what's this again? Like? Well, you know, it's it's like a magical meets the Dark Tower, but kind of interpreted through Neuromancer. Like, you just said, three totally unrelated things. Yeah.
Snyder’s Return:It's gonna be great. And
Seth Skorkowsky:it's got Carcosa like car what? Like, ah,
Snyder’s Return:what? And then so so you've written so that book was for you? There's the short tails, the short pulpy tails and the tails of the black raven. And the for Dorkin books. What about the snafu books?
Seth Skorkowsky:Those are anthologies that are put out by collusion press, which is an Australian publisher. And so they like to like leave a snafu hunters and snafu Black Ops. And actually, some of those actually were purchased. And you can find them and love death and robots. Because Tim Miller is a huge fan of the snafu series. So I did two stories with them. And they're actually in the Vatican series. But they're kind of like these short stories in that world of these kinds of First Person field reports. So those are my contributions, that I'm actually in three snafu books. But the same story appears in two, because we did. One is a kind of a fundraiser book, because there's an author in the community who does cancer treatment. So but it's three books, but it's only two stories, but because one of them is in snafu. medivac, which was basically they they reached out to us, it's like, does anybody want to be involved? Like, absolutely. So, but that was just the you know, where you can find a couple side volgend stories.
Snyder’s Return:So that's where people can find things of yours to read. They've got a YouTube channel for things to watch. But watching you play, are you in any current life plays at the moment? You've recently relatively a time for recording, I'd like to caveat everything with that. You did intimate encounters, the Call of Cthulhu. With glass cannon, you've done voyages of the jump a traveller thing, also a glass cannon? Are you working on anything else at the moment that people could see see you in or potentially look out for you in the relatively sort of near future?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, you can you can hear me among the how we roll podcast. We've been doing flotsam and jetsam with them. And typical Veronica who has also got her own stuff. And then Scott Dorward is jamming. So it's called kung fu. podcast of us. And then with nice cannon, that is going to be somewhere between 10 and 12 episodes for voyageurs. The jump and we actually, at the time of recording have just done the first one. So it's going to release in a few weeks. And that was actually just travelling character creation. So that when we actually haven't even started it, we just know out now know who our characters are. And there are Jeeves writing it up as far as what we're going to do now that he knows what his cast of characters is going to be. So that will be also video. So those will show up on their YouTube channel on Twitch and their podcasts. And now we'll be recording those I think through September. So that'll, that'll be an ongoing series that says of now is still still coming.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah. So can you Tell us a little bit about your character and what it's like to be on on the play side of the screen as a traveller character.
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, I can't say much, except for I was I was. Jim said, Matt said, Look, I'd like I like at least one person to have a background to the Navy, and the Imperial space Navy. And myself and other player like, Sure, I'll do it. And it was like, Well, I'll try to get into the Navy. And so so my character, yes, I went to the Naval Academy. And then I never made it to the Navy. So I did a stint in jail. Everything after that, you're left to find out but it was this like, oh, yeah, everything's going great. This is this guy's gonna be great. I'm gonna be a mechanic. And now I'm not. Now I've got a completely different, of course, to my life. So I actually do not know how to work on a starship engine. But I do know a lot of other neat stuff.
Snyder’s Return:You go all this ready and waiting for us to enjoy an experience with glass cannon void as of the jump. We I mean, we have covered a lot of things. Is there anything we haven't covered that you want to sort of bring up just here towards the end?
Seth Skorkowsky:Yeah. Oh, no, no. I could I could talk forever, man. Oh, no, no, I think I think we kind of hit little that.
Snyder’s Return:All right. Well, would you like to remind us where we can find you and everything you're associated with please, Seth?
Seth Skorkowsky:Well, mostly, you could find me on my YouTube. Just score kowski on YouTube, and you'll find me on Twitter at s score kowski or the modern mythos podcast and those are the big three. If you want to just find me or you can find my books on Amazon audible. I'm an audiobook fans. I always like to promote like, I got audiobooks because I love audiobooks.
Snyder’s Return:All right, well, links to all of those things will be in the description below this podcast, including links to your Patreon or the mod mythos, Patreon and your books on Amazon. So please, and your stuff on Drive Thru RPG, because you're you're multi talented, multifaceted. And so there'll be links down below. So please scroll down support Seth, in any way you can, Seth. It has been an absolute pleasure and a real treat for me, because I absolutely adore your videos. And I'd love to get you back on the show in the future, for a follow up interview or a one shot or anything like that if you'd be interested. Absolutely. This is fun. All right. Well, thank you for taking time out of your day to speak with me today. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Seth Skorkowsky:Thank you for having me.
Snyder’s Return:Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to www dot Snyder’s return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At return Schneider, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to sports come and join us over on Patreon and we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content out for for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you