Interview - Chris Handley - Darker Days Radio Podcast - TTRPG Content Creator

Today I talk with TTRPG  Game Designer, Content Creator, Podcaster and YouTuber - Chris Handley.

We discuss TTRPG Game Design, COVID Lockdown Activities, Podcasting and much more.

You can find Chris and all of the Darker Days Radio associated content via the links below.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DarkerDaysRadio
https://twitter.com/DrEtherium

Website:
http://podcast.darker-days.org/
https://www.christopher-handley.com/
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=chris+handley&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=&affiliate_id=1643000

Other:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DarkerDaysRadio
https://www.instagram.com/darkerdaysradio/
https://www.instagram.com/doc_ether/

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Chris Handley

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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Website:
https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?query=Roscoe%27s%20Chimkin&ref=search_box

Buy us a TTRPG Source Book: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SnydersReturn

Are you on DISCORD? Come hang out in our server! https://discord.gg/QgU5UNf Join us in the Snyder’s Return Facebook Group!

Visit https://www.patreon.com/snyders_return?fan_landing=true

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Social Media:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReturnSnyder

Instagram -  Snyder's Return (@snyders_return)

Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com

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Transcript

Snyder’s Return: 0:27

Hello and welcome to Snyder’s return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today has been on the rise from less favourable times, and ascension to be more precise, from the horrific through the wrathful. And onto the glorious from now until one may suggest deep into the 41st Millennium, not want to hold secrets too tightly as they broadcast the message across many mediums from the inside of a particularly special vault. My guest is no warmonger, more of a strategic artist with an eye and steady hand to bring us glimpses of wha come and take a ticket and sit in the waiting room of a doctor and storyteller as we welcome podcaster TTRPG content creator YouTuber and wargame enthusiast Chris handy Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Handley: 1:15

Thanks, Adam. Yeah, I think I covered everything. Yeah, that's there's a lot of stuff there to unpack.

Snyder’s Return: 1:24

While there is and before we go into some of the stuff and try and unpack some of the stuff that was mentioned in the intro, Chris, how how did you yourself get into tabletop role playing games, please.

Chris Handley: 1:33

Um, so I originally so I got into Wargaming first because a friend picked up got for Christmas like Warhammer 40,002nd edition, the the classic bloody angels on the cover of that box with the cot. How many 20 Space Marines and how many damned Gretchen and Orcs and a card card? Walked Dreadnought in there. Yeah, so that I think it was like 99 E. Christmas 1984. And then through Wargaming. And obviously, various games workshop products then I think was about two years later, my parents came back from going into the going to the local city, living out in the middle of nowhere. takes a bit of time to get to civilization. A bit more civilization anyway, when you're in deepest, darkest Herefordshire. And they came back with a box and they were like, Oh, we thought you might like this and I was like okay, what is it? And it was like I don't even they knew quite what it was I think they thought it was a board game. But no, it was the the red dragon on a black box classic d&d with you know, can't remember the name of the villain and you get the red plastic pieces for your characters and, you know, the collection of dice. And and yeah, you know, obviously, there's just character classes, there's nothing else you know, you're either a elf, or you are a dwarf there is no, you know, variation in it. So we played, I played that and my friends played that because, you know, they were like, Okay, well try this roleplay thing out. And then from there, you know, it was like, Arcane magazine was randomly being sold at the local supermarket. Pick that up, learn about other RPGs that we're about and so asked for Star Wars Western game Star Wars second edition revised, which is still a bloody classic. And then I think it was in the issue of arcane that had like the 50 greatest RPGs ever, and I think that was like Christmas night. 96. When that came out that issue. Oh, it was around that anyway. And it listed. Of course listed Vampire the Masquerade. Like literally, like, I think third, I think first was Call of Cthulhu. Second was d&d, third was vampire. And I was like, vampire, this sounds pretty cool. And bought that when it was mostly aged 16 So that was like 1998 Something like that. So yeah, I think that's, that's that's basically how I got into it. Yeah. And, you know, on the Wargaming side, obviously things that kind of made role playing quite a natural thing was like, obviously Necromunda back in the day, classic Necromunda was just had such a, you know, such has such heavy RPG influences, even though it's a skirmish war game.

Snyder’s Return: 4:48

Well, I mean, there's there's a lot of things to unpack out of what you've just said, like loan wise before. Anyway, so deviating so that was how you you sort of found your way into talking tabletop role playing games. Before I sort of delve into some of that too much, where can we find you and everything you're associated with?

Chris Handley: 5:06

Okay, so you can find everything to do with the podcast, the best place to go is to www dot darker dash days.org. That's the podcast website, you're going to find their 200 Plus episodes, we've been running for 13 years. That means some of the older episodes are really bloody long, because attention spans have changed and we have shortened episodes to accommodate that. And yeah, we cover a lot of stuff. I mean, predominantly, we start off with your world of darkness and chronicles of darkness content, but you know, we've diversified over the years because you have to, to keep things fresh. So yeah, there's there's that obviously, we're on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, we do stream every so often not as recently because we all have busy lives. And then if you go to www dot, Christopher dash handley.com. That's my professional, just web page that has just me in general, like, because I don't just podcast and I don't just write games. Yeah.

Snyder’s Return: 6:21

All right. Well, I will make sure that the links are down in the description below this podcast. So please scroll down support Chris. You can find them on Twitter, join over the 1400 followers they got there. So over 700 on Instagram and over 500 on YouTube. So really back, the dark days radio podcast, the website and everything you guys are doing there. So where did picking this up taking an interest in Vampire the Masquerade? Then sort of how did the podcast start? And how did your content creation for the game systems? Where did those two things sort of stemmed from?

Chris Handley: 6:59

Right? Okay, so I guess. So the podcast was started by Mark Haute, and Vincent Florio back in Cardiff, I said 13 years ago. So that's like 2009 Does that feel right? I just want to finish my PhD. So yes, that's right. And that was going for about they carried it on for a good year. And then Vincent left and then Mike, Mike, current co hosts joined. And then I joined after that. And really the way we we we were involved in was because back in the day, podcasts had their own forums we didn't need you know, because now everyone has a discord. We have forums and obviously, we were chatting there. Most of the people who were you who were listeners of the podcast, though, on also members of a very old, like forum for Worlds, the darkness of Chronicles of darkness stuff called Shadow, in essence, which I think is still up, still runs. And we so we've known each other in some respects, via that route for a long time. And basically, I submitted a overview of and I submitted an idea of like a secret frequency. So that means what we do on the podcast is we, we when we say secret frequency, we take like a real world myth, legend, urban legend, or something just weird scientific and like, how, how can you could use that in your horror games? Like how would you build the rules around it? Which games fit the best? So I suggested the Devil Dogs and the legend of platform because that's a local bludgeoned to where I grew up, because it's the basis of Hound of the Baskervilles. So and then from that, it was like, Oh, do you want to come on and talk about goals in Vampire the Requiem, and then it was just basically like, you know, because of what was going on. Mike took more control of the podcast, and then it was essentially myself and then we've just gone from there and it's been 12 years of me and Mike, effectively running the podcast and maintaining it pretty much how it's always been. So that's how we we got into into the podcasting content creation, you know, actual game content creation, I think, you always do it to a certain extent. When you've got forums, you put some ideas out for free, it's well received. So we've kind of done that before. We tried to do a small zine back in the day for dark days radio, which was okay, it was a lot of work. Trying to do a word is a lot of work. Like where does Microsoft Word not like doing documents, and it certainly doesn't like doing huge documents. So one of my storytellers vault product The villas on mass that originally was a Word doc that was all one word and laid out in Word. And it was a work of love to get it to write that out originally, and then a fervour worker love to, to rebuild it in Adobe, to turn it into a storyteller vault product. So, yeah, we've done various things. And we've done free scenarios. So we were lucky enough to be the first podcast to put out an actual play for Vampire the Requiem as a vampire, the masquerade, fifth edition. And so the scenario that I designed for that live play, we then put out for free. And then obviously, storytelling was a thing. And it was like, Okay, do we actually put it out there in a more official, in as official as you can get, obviously, but in a format for people to get hold off? And then we've just gone from there. And obviously, that leads to you doing freelance work, which gets in the way of doing your own storytellers vault work, but, you know, that's just how it is. Okay,

Snyder’s Return: 11:07

so yeah, you mentioned the storytellers, a great enterprise. And I know, various systems have their own sort of community content. repositories, I think it's a fair way of saying it. So. Ascension, like you mentioned, you've got yourself the first one. Yes. So I noticed there were there were three others that have been released since then the latest one being project black light. Again, link will be in the description below, scroll down, check out this content, it's, it's been been used and loaded and heavily reviewed. So go and check that out. So with a project for something like the storytellers, Vault, or one of the other repositories, like one of the other game systems, where does a lot of your inspiration come from?

Chris Handley: 11:57

So, I would say with World of Darkness, and chronicles of darkness, the main source of inspiration is in the one aspect, it's, it's choosing the location, and you know, it's always I think it's always choosing somewhere, you know, with a great deal of intimacy, so you feel like you can do it justice. And so Manchester, I lived in Manchester for like, God, like, eight, eight years, nine years, 10 degree PhD. So it was lived in Manchester for a good, a good while. And I ran a vampire, the requiem chronicle based in Manchester. And so really, with fifth edition of Vampire the Masquerade, and if you aren't going to be, I'll be brutally honest. But if you if you've just squint, and you think about it, you can see some of the DNA of Requiem in that in this new version of Masquerade. And that's a good thing, because it's, it shows that it's open up, you can do a lot more things with it, and it just, so I ported over ideas that I had, and, and so went from there. Obviously, we change the loss with Venice, I've been to Venice, three times for Carnival, I got married in Venice. So again, Venice is very close to my heart. And I've done a lot of a lot of reading and research on that region, about the myths of it. And so that was kind of a labour of love to write that book. So I think we've welded darkness and chronicles of darkness, I think it's often places you know, intimately and, and certain themes you want to explore. And that drives me to want to create things often it's the other thing you're doing is taking ideas you've done on the tabletop and going Well, that'll be actually really good or, more often these days. It's taking a scenario that I've designed for a demo game at an event where you get to test it. And then obviously the great thing with the podcast, because we have Mike is based in the US on the East Coast. P is based in Australia. Jake is based in Texas. Yeah, there's, there's a good few of us. So we'll have we others have podcasts where they go to events will go well, actually, I'll take that scenario, and I'll use it there. And we can collate that feedback and learn from it and therefore finely tune the scenario. And I think beyond that, and I think with the Vampire, the masquerade scenarios, it's trying to show what more you can do with vampire than I think what a lot of people think vampire is about. I'm not, I mean, one of the reasons I was drawn to Requiem a lot was because when it first came out, it just felt very fresh and It's quite gritty, and not hung up so much on its metaplot. And with fifth edition, there's an opportunity to explore the holes in the setting a lot more easily because they've reinforced that there's a lot of untrustworthy narrators out there, within the books. And I detest, to a certain extent, to test the idea that, that of what people think Vampire the Masquerade kind of looks like or how it should be played like, preening vault, you know, vampires at Elysium. All the time, and, and, and so forth. I really kind of lean into the more like Vampire for me should be. It's kind of like Trainspotting. Like, yeah, the vampires lives aren't great, unless they're really like, doing something pretty spectacular to live it Live the high life, like, life is one of the undead is crap to a certain extent. And, and brutal. And also like dressing up in crushed velvet, and a two, I would say to out into too much of an average God way, is a quick road to getting a stake through the heart from a hunter. So I lean into that kind of gritty, the UK series, the original series of being human is a good point of reference. As I said, like Trainspotting and those kind of like, that type of media as an inspiration rather than the, you know, fluffy kinda type things? And was it what's the other stuff you would get like, weather a bit too boring? Like, I'm not really one for tree blood. That's, that gets a little bit, you know, a bit silly in my my box. But that's just because I'm picky.

Snyder’s Return: 16:47

Enough. Obviously, people listening can't see it, but I can see the the fifth edition, fifth edition book over your shoulder. Yeah, so clearly something that that you have to hand to reference to go into it. And you've collaborated recently on a project. Our graves are empties, what's it been like collaborating to someone else's project.

Chris Handley: 17:10

That's been really fun because it, it lifts off your shoulders, the need to develop the the final product yourself, you can just be given the brief and write for it. I've worked on another project that's still in development that is similar. Again, it's another storyteller vault product. For vampire fifth edition. I've also worked on another one, which was for Requiem, which is the second edition, David Planbook. So in all those cases, it's it's you can you, you giving up the giving up the freedom and control so that you can just focus on the very thing you need to write is a is good in some respects. Because I'm, you know, you, you don't need to juggle so much stuff, and figuring out how the product as a total will fit together, you just need to do what you've been told. Now, obviously, as part of that, there is obviously a conversation that always happens about, well, you've been told you should write this, but you come with your own ideas. And so those, those things will change, and you get to inject how you would do things into it. And the important thing I think with our gross or empty is that coding killed, who is behind who is developing that and, you know, has done the plays votes about if it's called play, it's got it's about there's a lot of home, you know, a lot of st vault takes on playable subject books. So he's done his own take on it, because he worked on the subject book for the official line. Yeah. And so he, though, when he came to me, like do you want to work on this is because he was inspired by what we had done for the Manchester kind of setting that we're doing with ascension night and the other three scenarios. So he was like, actually, what you've done with make blood boil is kind of the feel I want, but for a Sebat centric scenario. So that's kind of where we went with it. The difference is, is that this scenario is not embedded into one particular location. So we thought a lot more about well, what if anymore, what if you want to use this in your own chronicle wet? How would you go and alter some of the scenes to fit what you require? So in some respects, it's a scenario Yes, but there are elements of where it's a bit more, a bit more of a toolbox to go. We're going to take the scene but here are the tools to make it just right for your needs.

Snyder’s Return: 19:49

No, I love that kind of resource for storytellers. GMs, DMS, whatever the system whatever the the platform have been used to deal with the ability to So you can adapt and make it your own but have the almost the permission from the the writers and the publishers to say, have at it, make it yours. I love the flexibility that's now coming into that style of release for the games

Chris Handley: 20:13

we love. And I think I think I think that's an important point to note that I think vampire masquerade, fifth edition is more like that, because because of the way that RPG publishing has gone, White Wolf, the original White Wolf, you know, got locked into what you what it's known as the supplement treadmill, like they had to produce another book, they had to produce another book to keep it going to keep the distributors happy to buy their stuff to keep the lights on. Whereas now you see, we're making the books that we want to make that feel right for the product line. But we're not rushing them out. We're doing them when it's right. And we have the right ideas. And that that means that I think the books to do the supplement treadmill that was I think part of the reason why you had such a metaplot because obviously people were buying the books, sometimes predominantly just to read the Metapod and nothing else, they didn't actually they weren't actively playing the game, they just wanted to know where the story went. So that you had that. And then you have the change to with Requiem, which was they got rid of the mess plot and you just go, this is what's true. Up till now, these are optional books. But what is true now in the core game, it's this, everything past it, have a do what you need, there's no other truths that you need to think about. And I think masquerade now is sitting in between those two, two philosophies as it were, because on the one hand, they want people to have more freedom to do what they want to make the to have their game. On the other hand, they do still have to develop a story because of their requirements for transmedia, which means, you know, for developing the IP for computer games and, and TV media, etc.

Snyder’s Return: 22:07

See, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than potentially some people give give everybody credit for. So we mentioned there are some people reading some of the supplements or even some of the newer books for for law, and then some of the background story behind the things do you get to play much at the moment with with sort of the writing and your own sort of personal life and things like play much?

Chris Handley: 22:34

I think it's I do try to the problem is I think it's the last few years have been difficult, right? And so I think there's still a I've personally had, still, obviously, due to personal related issues. A slight hesitancy to gather too many people at home, I prefer ultimately playing in person rather than online. I like doing stream games. But I think there's when you do games in person, I find it a bit easier to relax into what I'm doing and there's a lot less like shit assaulting your eyes for for your attention, kind of when you've got screens and everything and so forth. So and also with the pandemic it's been it's kind of been an opportunity for me to catch up on Payton toy soldiers a lot. So I've actually, I freely admit, I've maybe been playing a bit more Wargaming and that type of thing, then roleplay games, but I don't really see the two things. It's kind of mutually exclusive, I think. I think maybe the break from one thing for a bit helps you kind of digest ideas and prepare for something for your next new thing you can run also started a new job in like the last six months and it's people like a hell of a learning curve on stuff. So that plus learning to drive and my brain is just Swiss Swiss fucking cheese with

Snyder’s Return: 24:07

information overload a little bit. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Have you passed your driving test yet? Or is that

Chris Handley: 24:14

luck trying to get a test anytime soon? I passed every fine that was like full marks on the mock just like I just needed I just want to stand I would like to drive somewhere. Yeah.

Snyder’s Return: 24:29

Good luck with that for the future. Anyway. So you mentioned sort of going leaning back into the Wargaming and sort of move on to linked products but we'll stick with it stick with this for a second. Do you see that as as another side passion or do you use it as more of a like a downtime activity how how do your various passions sort of play out in your in your recreational time?

Chris Handley: 24:55

Is Wargaming aside passion? No, I think it is Vice for my attention a lot. So, so obviously, I've been walking longer in some respects Wargaming longer than I've been doing roleplay games, but in other respects, I've been role playing longer than war games because I, when I finished my degree, I pretty much went no to Wargaming for good, like, five years, I worked part time in a Games Workshop store during my degree. So like, it was some pretty pretty, pretty insane weekends, teaching people to WarGames painting far too many models in time for games day for huge demonstration games, things like that. So I had to have a bit of a break from it. And then that allowed me to do a lot more role playing and obviously do my PhD. And then it was when I was in Germany, I got back into Wargaming. And, and that was through getting back into war machine and hordes by Privateer Press. Because I had I think they had a relatively new addition out at the time and I was like, Okay, I'll get back into this. It's a nice system, I like setting and that was actually partly because they just before I got back into that they'd brought out the their second edition of the RPG are in kingdoms that was based upon the and that edition. So to explain warmachine hordes is like about 20 years is going to be 20 years old. And it had its first product out back in 2003 for D 20, which was the witch fire trilogy. From that, from that game setting, they created the war game that is now just just announced its fourth edition is coming up. And they had a second edition of the RPG but that RPG user system based on the war game, so I got into I basically picked up that roleplay game and I was like Okay, I'm back in. I'm by the miniatures because I need it because because the thing is the miniatures were really good to crack out when the gate when the RPG use exactly the same system as a war game. You were like, actually, miniatures on the board were a distraction. And that's that's an interesting conversation too. I find miniatures a distraction to when you're playing roleplay games? And the answer is yes, unless it's for a really complicated combat scene, in which case crack them out because for some people, it's the best way for them to engage in what could be quite overwhelming in the theatre of the mind. And of course it's even better when it's the miniatures are exactly designed for that setting. So then you're kind of like you're really immersed into it. So yeah, basically Wargaming competes for my attentions all the time. And you know, it's I don't have time to paint huge armies anymore. I have done it. And as I've had more freelance work by time for to paint large armies has diminished instead, it's like, I'm going to pay another gang for next Monday because it's just like 20 models. Yeah, they look interesting. And then that means I've just got even more weirdos for wrath and glory when I run it because then I can go oh, I need some I need some crazy Imperial cultists. Here's my redemption skank that will do. So, yeah, it but there is a I think there is a symbiotic relationship somewhere in there because being actively engaged in definitely in the Warhammer war games in whatever avenue into them you go in there are many avenues to enjoy games workshop products. And the same with Iron Kingdoms and War Machine. Keeps me infused to go like, this is really cool. Has this been explored fully in the RPG and then when you get to write stuff for the RPG to like, Oh, right. Okay, so we can we can, you know, we can paint in the region that has been only really sketched out in the war game. It's the classic question of, of if you look at ages Sigmar and the soulbound RPG which I've only done a tiny bit of work on that. But it's the classic question of like when that first starts up, and people complained and complained about that setting when it first came out. Because it was just so weird, weird and different. We had this this question like, who does the farming in the setting the sale is is because age of Sigmar is a post apocalyptic fantasy setting I don't think many people get that it's a post apocalyptic fantasy setting. And where you know, the forces of order are reclaiming the realms and and and humanity there. Be who's doing that who's doing that? Who's doing the cooking who's doing the farming who As he's building the buildings here, we only ever see these crazy combatants. And that's the same for any of the settings because war games are such a specific slice of those settings and that slice is really the the the outer skin of the onion because it's the extremity when the the rival factions meet, but they don't meet every day, all the time every year. You know, it's flashpoints that you're exploring the wargames. Whereas in the roleplay games, you're you're dealing with the the drudgery of living in a hive city or I know, travelling to bloody outdoors in the rain yet again, because it's Warhammer world, stuff like that. Yeah.

Snyder’s Return: 30:50

You mentioned it. This sort of picked up a few references wrath and glory so and sort of spinning off of what you were saying about exploring deeper into a system away from flashpoints, as it were, so in wrath and glory get to explore Gilead, the Gilead system what has what was it like writing and bringing wrath and glory to life within the Warhammer 40,000

Chris Handley: 31:18

world? So my so the thing we've which is a bit is a bit more nuanced with wrath and glory, because wrath and glory was originally developed by by the team at, you'll see spill, North America. And cubicle seven had the licence for the Warhammer Fantasy RPG. And so I don't know the ins and outs of what happened. So I'm not gonna say anything like that. Oh, you know, because the core game system of wrath and glory is, Is Good was solid. But that was that licence transferred to cubicle seven. And so I was, I think I basically just chatted the year off of my developer at cubicle seven, Zach when I met him at cube at UK games Expo, and then it was like, Okay, do you want to work on this? I was like, oh, god, yes. And so, essentially, it was putting out a revised version of the wrath and glory core book. And the I think the goal there was keyboards everyone wanted to deliver it in a format that was comparable to what they wanted in style, in the way they do with the Warhammer Fantasy RPG. With if you compare the two books you'd go there made by the same company, and to address some of the criticisms that people had of the, of the, of the game book, the original incarnation of the game book and the setting, well, not the setting, really, but the mechanics may be and so my, my kind of work on that was to a go through some of the archetypes, some like yo the orc boys and rogue traders and so forth, and rewrite them to inject enough flavour into that limited amount of text. So you know, when you write about walks, you really need to make it feel make it feel orky without it being that you're writing in New York speak, if that makes sense, you know, you need to kind of make it sound like you're writing about people that are brutal and cutting or cutting and brutal. And the other bit that I was mainly working on was the games master section in wrath and glory. And so that was an opportunity for me to really highlights that wrath and glory is not a Superfriends game. And also to reinstate the fact that it's a hot it can be a horror game, and there's lots of tunable dials to to set the expectations for your players because people interact with the setting to a greater or lesser degree with the horror and war and so forth and the type of stories you can tell him that so that was really what I was going for. We I don't think we really touch what the Gilead system is that we didn't change that up. It was really more about the presentation of the of the original material in a way that cubicle seven was satisfied as as a product they would be happy to put out and as I said like part of wrath and glory is and cards you get this all the time. Right and I've ranted about this on the rebel fire podcast is. So there are there are previous Warhammer 40,000 RPGs out there, such as dark heresy and only war and Rogue Trader. And these use a percentile system much like Warhammer Fantasy roleplay Much like Call of Cthulhu, which Warhammer Fantasy roleplay was essentially derived from and people go ah wrath and glory. It's not it's not horrific enough. Oh, you can it doesn't make sense you can play like a spaceman and aeldari and and you know pickle and an orc all in the same party you're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa it's like this book provides you the tools and all the tools are there. How you put your party together how you what you allow your players to play as a party is a different question because you can go in the book there are rules for playable orcs playable Eldar, playable space means playable guard, whatever right? Now, isn't that doesn't mean you're going to play parties that mix all of that up all the time. It just means you've got the tools to construct the framework for your your agents that are doing things if you want to build your Space Marines do it if you want to just be all a rogue trader and some Astra Militarum and so forth, do that. If you want to play just boys do that they don't. But also equally because it does happen in novels there are times when the 40k universe is such that A Eldar aeldari and a spaceman go. Okay, we hate to hate each other so much. But we hate Necrons more, or we hate Turner's more. So we'll deal with this later.

Snyder’s Return: 36:26

An enemy of my enemy kind of Yeah.

Chris Handley: 36:28

And that's, but that's exciting, because those things can happen. And I think, and so it was really looking at that. And also looking at the fact that you can play wrath and glory where you look at an event from different angles. So you go, okay, and this has happened in published material where you go, story, one where just tear one guardsmen, life is hard death comes quick. And then you look at the same story. But at TSA three, where you're the spacing centre, and later to do to deal with the really bad stuff that you're saying. Same thing. So I think that's really interesting for wrath and glory in that presentation. The other my other argument, and this is something I've said before is people go, whoa, whoa, the system of, of, of, of the, of the old 40k RPGs is what makes them horrific. I was just like, wait a minute, they're not more or less, they didn't say it was it wasn't the system more. They said the older ones were more horrific than the new one. I was like, wait a minute, the only thing if you if you scrub away the IP of dark heresy and rogue trader, all you're left with is Call of Cthulhu. The mechanics of Qualicoat that is what that inherently the system there is what is providing the framework for horror. So don't tell me that that game is more horrific just because of the way it's written. It's the mechanics, it's the mechanics support the method of play. And likewise, wrath and glory can support a wide a wide, diverse type of story play. I mean, hell if you really want to, you can tune wrath and glory quite happily for high school kids or younger to play and just just dial back a lot of stuff because that's, that's the joy of it. It's the toolbox.

Snyder’s Return: 38:19

A lot of stuff has been because I pick up I think I've got most if not all of the PDFs and things that come out on Drive Thru or through cubicle seven, church still litany of lost forsaken ham systems guide Yeah, thank you. So I've sort of picked them up and read through them and it was the most one of the most recent was the null sisters, I

Chris Handley: 38:42

think. Yeah, that's a that's been a smaller one so you can play pariahs and that's really interesting. I think there's another one that's been announced that I've worked on which is basically it's the bistro he booked for wrath and glory. And that's all I'm gonna say there's a lot in there. There's a lot in there it's it's been hotly anticipated by fans of the system for a while to have all the classic antagonists started up ready to maim and kill. And it was very fun to explore certain stuff for it. Because I have my favourite factions. I'm not gonna say round because it's gonna I think it's gonna be a spoiler I'll wait until it's out. But it's there's a lot of great work on it. It was a fun team to work work with because because everyone has their you get your section but also, you know, like, you have your you have your favourite things like, because you just like a certain faction, like, Oh, he's writing that. It's like, can I just have a look? Because I just want to see what's going in. Like go oh, crap, that's gonna be terrifying to us. And again, I think that's going to be really great. And there's some other really cool products coming up for for wrath and glory. There's at least Oh God, actually there's this there's three books over No which which river coming up soon or a bit later because of scheduling they've changed when things and it's like it's it's really it's been pretty exciting for wrath and glory recently so I'm I obviously I'm always going to I'm always going to like people that are you're going to show it but I'm I'm proud of what I put out for it and from the team on it.

Snyder’s Return: 40:23

I don't want you to proxy

Chris Handley: 40:27

and Warhammer Fantasy roleplay is always by boat. Same it has always been hilarious to work on because tonally can get a little bit more dark humour into it. I will say also with wrath and glory. If you play it straight, you do have hilarious black comedy moments occur in it because satire. If you play playfully K too seriously, it's just it's just tiresome. If you play it just with a little eye for those Blackadder elements of satire, then you're doing it right because it then the setting is just like, I can't believe this is this is bonkers. This is just like, it's horrific. But it's also funny. And the same thing with Warhammer Fantasy roleplay. That's always been fun to write on. I've written on like, two products for that. I think. Yeah. So one of those is Hal writes, which was a scenario I designed, as well. And, and the horned rat, which is like the fourth part of the enemy within campaign and replaces something rotten and Kislev is basically just all about Skaven. It's just like it Skaven Skaven are not funny, like they can be funny, but they can be completely not funny and scary. And that was why the pricing on that book was a lot of fun as well, because Skaven just grim when you want to get into it.

Snyder’s Return: 41:55

Yeah, so you've mentioned games like wrath and glory and, and more universal. The experiences can be calibrated can be sort of gauged and tailored to, shall we say to the group and the players and player expectations and things like that. So with respect to safety tools and calibration tools, do you have any favourites to use at your tables? Or would recommend out to?

Chris Handley: 42:23

I think, Okay, I think a read, it is always going to depend on your player group. When you've got your group of players and they're brand new. I like using the the Okay, kind of checking system which is, which is really comes out of lockup, which is just the, you know, a nod of the head like, yeah, it's alright. And you just, it's just a subtle nod like, yeah, or, you know, it's not, it's not great, and you're okay, because if someone goes, I'm okay. And they just, they, they're waving that they've got the hand almost flat, but like you're going to see a rocket back and forth that kind of way. That's actually that's actually to say, No, it's not. But it could be better if you if we just check in and change things dynamically. And then there's the, if so, or if it's the whole kind of like, cut it out kind of thing, or hands over the eye, like no, you know, a stop sign hand to say, No, we've gone too far on that topic. Let's just leave it and move on. I think those work for me quite well. Other people like yourself, the tools like the x card system, and so forth. And those will you can use all flavour of things, you know, traffic light system, whatever you think works at your table, it that ultimately tools and I think sometimes, and again, I find it so weird, like, you're ultimately there to enjoy a game, you're going to enjoy the game if your players enjoy game, players are going to enjoy the game if other players are enjoying it. So I don't understand people's aversion to using safety tools. I mean, it sounds safety tools or political correctness gone wrong, blah, blah, blah. No, it's just like, yeah, it's just insane. Like, look, it can be as simple as you sitting down and doing your session zero go like, what kind of theme so we want is this okay? And checking in. And it's because sometimes you do need to check in even with people you've played with for a long time because you may not know even with your best friends, what their current life circumstance is, and so they may go like that topics a bit on the nose for me right now you're like, Oh, right. Okay. Let's move on. And that's not a bad thing. It's just I don't see these things as I don't see them as in as kind of intruding upon my skills as a glorious GamesMaster. Delivering a gritty deep horror narrative. It's just like love. If that's too much, we're not going to run this scenario. I know there are scenarios I like running. Terrible tale James Magnus is, is wonderful, horrible, but is not for everyone. There is stuffing cult, I would not run for other people because it's cold. And that's just I think that's just, I think it's just, it's not political correctness. It's not, it's not anything like that. It's just, it's just kind of consideration, like, you're just like, Yeah, okay, you're not going to enjoy that. So let's, let's not included right now. And we'll, we'll, we'll see how it affects the rest of the protocol or something. I might have to redesign some things or, or sometimes, you know, it can go both ways, like players can do things where you're just like, as the GM like, God, no, don't back off on things I've had to do that or, or even more interesting. And this is really fun when you've got when you've got people who are women, you know, female identifying in your, in your player group proven non binary, female to you know, whichever is anything like that is where, because they're most likely the type of players that you can sometimes be surprised on which topics they will actually go, yes, let's have that in the game, and more of it, and you're like, oh, there's an empowerment thing here that you are having some real joy in exploring within the safety of this roleplay game. And that's, that's really cool. When that happens. Like when that happens. you're witnessing a very interesting conversation occurring. And that's, that's really always really enlightening. So yeah, I think that's that's basically my thoughts. Yeah,

Snyder’s Return: 46:52

yeah. Something that we have to give a healthy respect to, I think is what we're getting. Yeah. It's It's funny you should mention Colt I've come up in other interviews in conversation has had as a game that has to have a healthy adult respect to a very carefully selected group, or shall we say, so not? Or a group that understands what what they're getting into with with a game like colour? Yeah,

Chris Handley: 47:22

put it this way. I I've had movie nights where we watch Hellraiser quite happily and joke about it. So I know who my player base is. More. It's very easy. We're gonna play code. They're like, alright, salaries again. Not that it should always descend into Hellraiser. I think there's lots of interesting interesting things that could be done with cult. Cult is kind of like my, my, is the game which I'm, I'm trying to work out chronicle to run. And it's, it's hard because I don't want it to descend just into HellRaisers shenanigans, if that makes sense. I'm trying really hard to make it, though. It's not just to put it to put it crassly and bluntly tits and golf because it's more than that. And I think it can be more than that. So yeah, that's that's something that's always in the back boiler for me. So I can work out I would love to work on it. But I think as a in a professional capacity, but I think I wouldn't be happy doing that until I am satisfied. I can design a a scenario for it. To my liking that delivers what I feel is is the type of horror that I want to explore through cult.

Snyder’s Return: 48:30

Yeah, absolutely. So between running these these sorts of scenarios, through your mind, planning, games, podcasting, YouTubing, working, learning to drive and all these other commitments, do you get much downtime away from an Wargaming and things to get much downtime for you? A chance to hear? That seems to be a general response. But do you get some I gotta finish the question. Did you get any downtime in that respect?

Chris Handley: 48:55

I do try to make time, some time and more of it recently. You know, it's, I think, the thing is, I think the thing is, is that I currently know that I am never going to make a living from roleplay games, to the extent that we'll pay my mortgage. Right? And that's, let's let's be honest, there's a there's a bottom line to all this. It's like, I've got a mortgage to pay. Like I've just paid for, I just put the deposit on a bloody kitchen. The roleplay isn't going to cover that anytime soon. So but that's why then I even though it's still something I approach in a professional way, is my downtime away from my job is writing. And, and that's that's good because like my day job is, is is programming. So before I was working in academia as a scientific programmer My day job now is programming still. So it's in front of screens so. So writing engages completely different, a different set of skills, paint toy soldiers, engages a different set of skills and also gets my eyes off the screens and looking at something right in front of my eyes. And also means my hands are going to die from RSI using a keyboard all the time. So that's why I think that's why I don't play too many computer games really, like I think there's computer games I like I don't like play loads. Because again, it's like, I could just be paying some toy soldiers and playing playing some Necromunda with my mates or something like that, rather than playing whatever computer game now that like Elden ring and all these things that look great, but ha No, seem quite long by today. I think the longest game I've played recently a cyberpunk 2077. And that was partly that also partly felt like research. I also felt beholden to play it because I interviewed Mike Pon Smith for cyber magazine, which I'm the senior writer for. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna play this because it's just, we've not seen anything like this in computer games through ever really? So yeah. Yeah. So for me roleplay writing is, is a hobby that pays, but I treat it in a professional manner. And I think that's important to say is that if you do get into it, you do have to treat it in professional manner, like having right writers flake out on you partway through a project is, yeah, it's, it's horrible to developers. Like I've seen this happen to developers who I consider friends. And it's just like, you're just doing the dirty if you can't be professional, if you're like, I can't, I can't deliver this, like, Be upfront really bloody early about it. Rather than like being a week before deadline, I can't do it. It's like, great, thanks. Yeah. And that's just because I think that that professionalism of this obviously stems from a bit from academia as well. Because, you know, you, you need to deliver an end product. And if you don't do it, you're it's not going to be great for your career. And flake II can't flake out on people with that. It's, it's, it's just, it's just not right. And I've had that happen. To the extent it's meant. I've had a paper delay, a delayed by like, four bloody years because of another writer on it. And it's just like, it's now being submitted. And it's important to me, because it's a huge piece of software and an algorithm I designed, which apparently reveals stuff we didn't, we weren't originally able to extract from simulations of crystals. So I'm quite happy with how it looks what my day job previously was like, and still kind of is. Yeah. Yeah, so it's Yeah, writing is great. And I would say to people that want to get into it, obviously. You know, we've mentioned storyteller vault, we do things like DMS Guild and the equivalents, like, just give it a, give it a shot, like the the resources are out there. It doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to have Adobe InDesign to do layout, like there's actually cheaper ways of doing it. And they're still professional pieces of software to do it. So and that's the that's right now, I think one of the best ways of getting your name out there and recognised is is right in products like that, again, don't expect it to pay for your mortgage. Not when 50% of your 50% of your royalties will disappear. To to like you will have companies that run drive thru RPG and the licence holder. But that's that's the price you pay for playing in their playground. But if that means that leads to paid gigs writing, then as a sunk kind of cost, it's good because you have a portfolio.

Snyder’s Return: 54:18

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you for that prompt into getting into and supporting yourself sort of as a TTRPG content creator or any kind of writing I guess it kind of sort of stands up for Christmas talked about a lot. Is there anything we haven't spoken about yet that you might want to bring up here at the end of the interview?

Chris Handley: 54:38

Oh, God, let's say. I'm trying to think we've covered a lot of different things. I think you got on the list. How do podcasts games differ from home games? And I guess this is about really if people want to get into streaming games. They don't have to be different home games I would say is more point, I think, you know, I don't want let's be honest, I don't watch critical role. I rarely watch la by night or whatever streaming game. I rarely watch other streamed games. Because if I was watching it, if I wasn't watching it, I'd be writing or doing some other hobby. And that's all because I think those things are bad. I'm just not the target audience. And that's fine. Now do does your stream game have to be like those? Or with, you know, full studios and costumes? And the answer is also, no. I think it can be like, your home game. And I think one of the things you'll note about when we run games, we've run stream games, you know, under the dark days radio banner, is that while we try to be in character, for what we're delivering, we know breaking of character naturally occurs. And also, we're quite happy to go Hold on a minute, here's actually a good point, too, let's step back out and actually explain this real system to people that are watching go, this is what we're doing. And then jump back in. I think that's because I think that's partly because stuff goes wrong. It's always been like, we want to be informative to people so they can play so they can play rather than going, rather than just turning to like, I don't know, some what we can do is acting. And it brings up the question of like, how much of these stream games how much is pre planned, how much is not and, and so forth? And how much money do you need to put into your gear to do it like, it ain't cheap. It is not cheap. Like, I've got a good camera these days, and, and, and a microphone after like 13 years of podcasting and stuff. And that's simply because also these things serve other purposes outside of streaming, because I make training material for programming, or at least I will be soon I've done it before for programming anyway. But I've done it for that type of thing. So again, I try to maximise my my expenditure. So that serves my hobby, and it serves my day job and it serves my partner's interests as well with like photography, and so forth. So I think the take home there is it doesn't have to be different to your home games. It doesn't have to be cost an arm and a leg. And I would say also, depending upon what you're doing, it can help you learn how to pace games. And this is something which then feeds back into designing scenarios, and then selling them on whatever, you know, Vault guild, whatever platform because running a stream game makes you think about I really want to hit these plot points in this three hours. Or if you're running a demo game event, you've got three hours you want to get through that event. So it makes you think quite hard about that. And also about how to motivate your players through things. Because let's be honest, the most boring bit of roleplay games where the Player Start dilly dallying, because there are market and there's so many items and they go, Oh, I'd like to buy something what's available. This is not the point. This is not the point. We hear shopping is not the point of what we're doing right now. So I think that's something that can be learned from it. Yeah. Helpful. If it's not, and people disagree, then they can go in on their full, you know, dress up and makeup and so forth. But there's so many different ways to do it.

Snyder’s Return: 58:58

Yeah, absolutely. It's accessible to everybody and you can set your own bar and try and exceed it, reach it match it. You can play about with what you have available, I guess. Chris, just as we come to the end, would you like to remind everybody where they can find you and everything you're associated with please?

Chris Handley: 59:17

Yeah, so you can find everything. So www dot darker dash days or or for the podcast, dark days radio on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, we do have a twitch where we do some streaming when we have time or when we have time. The team has recently grown so we might be able to better organise that as as the team is kind of diversified into more locations. And then obviously, you can find a lot of stuff on the storytellers vaults that we've put out onto the dark days, banner and And obviously in following stuff my me about me on www dot Christopher dash handily.com I think that is right. It's not right it'll be in the show notes anyway

Snyder’s Return: 1:00:14

yeah all those links will be in the description below this podcast please scroll down support dark days podcast dark days radio podcast and Chris and all the content you have produced and I'd love to get you back on when more is produced maybe some sort of system because this sounds like there's there's a lot coming up. I'd like to

Chris Handley: 1:00:35

there's a lot of things come out I mean, obviously we've had out we had the kickstart for Iron Kingdoms with nightmare empire. I don't know yet about if there's going to be a late backers a method to back it after hopefully there will be as soon as new suffer wrath and glory coming up imminently. It's going through editing and development. There's obvious stuff I've done we've called doom. There's another thing, which is also vampire masquerade stuff. And then I think that is about me done for a while. I think basically I'd like to have Yeah, cuz it's gonna get mental. I'm gonna have my kitchen. Bathroom done law. I have my bathroom over a year ago. And that was like, again during the pandemic. And in November it was cold. So yeah, it's just like, when work is done in your house. It's like the last it's not the right time to be wanting to write books, because there's just like, you can't do anything. Yeah, and also I will say like, I'm hoping Fingers crossed. I am keeping a weather eye to dragging me down in London. This is I mean, again, because of like COVID and things and and just feeling satisfied that the right things are being done for these events. I know. I will also also jump on I'm going to promote the recording right now. Because when's this episode coming out? Like for Gen Con? Yes, there are there abouts. Yep. Okay. Well then fight for Gen Con. My one of our CO hosts crystal Mazur, who has written a lot for vampire masquerade and various other wonderful products like the pips PIP system. She is hosting with our other co hosts CIG, they're doing a dark place radio q&a at Gen Con. Crystal is also running a panel on horror gaming. And she is also running another panel on freelance roleplay gaming, and essentially looking at like mentoring people wanting to get into, into writing. So there's wonderful events like that going on. And I think on the horror panel, I think codeine will actually be there talking about mostly talking about software where it's on. And obviously, cubicle seven will be at Gen Con. So you can pick up horned rat there in print, and say hello to the team there. And Privateer Press will definitely be there because I showed off for machine 4.0. So you can also bump into them and look at Borderlands and beyond. And which should be definitely in print. It should be in print or it will be there to get hold off. So there's a lot of cool stuff. I'm just sad that I'm not I've never been to Gen Con yet. It's on my things to do. So hopefully maybe next year,

Snyder’s Return: 1:03:41

hopefully. Well. Whether that happens or not. I'd love to get you back on the show for sure up interviewer one shot or whatever, whatever. Yeah, one

Chris Handley: 1:03:48

shot be great. I mean, there's tonnes of fun things.

Snyder’s Return: 1:03:52

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's a topic for another interview. Yeah, I'm sure. Chris has been such a pleasure. And it's been a real treat to get you on the show. Thank you. Thank you. 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