Interview - Ryan Costello - Renegade Games GI Joe/My Little Pony TTRPG

Today I talk with TTRPG Game Designer, Podcaster and Animator - Ryan Costello.

We discuss the Renegade Games, Essence20 system GI Joe TTRPG, Fandom, My Little Pony, Podcasting and much more.

You can find Ryan, Know Direction and all of their associated content via the links below.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KDRyanCostello
https://twitter.com/knowdirection
https://twitter.com/PlayRenegade

Website:
https://renegadegamestudios.com/

Other:
http://knowdirectionpodcast.com/
https://laughingdragon.studio/
https://www.instagram.com/renegade_game_studios/
https://www.instagram.com/knowdirectionpodcast/

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: Ryan Costello

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIoZ8iiYCp919UHXUYGghbw
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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Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com

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Transcript

Snyder’s Return: 0:28

Hello and welcome to Snyder’s return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today is become a stable member of the TTRPG design community with an edge over so many others is mind is capable of retaining large volumes of data. Like an encyclopaedia Cobra Commander, This is no laughing matter, however, well, unless dragons are involved, I guess, as his mind hisses and rattles with a creative essence, like a cobra ready to strike. By strike. I actually mean while the iron is hot with a desire to adventure, we need only pony up a little cash to up shift our gaming experience to see if the horse shoe fits. And yo yo Joe, because knowing is half the battle. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome TTRPG content creator, game designer animation creative lead, and GI Joe superfan from I can see behind you, Ryan Costello. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Costello: 1:25

Thank you, Adam. Wow, that was very detailed. I am impressed already with your pre show research.

Snyder’s Return: 1:31

Thank you very much. Well, before we get into some of the things I alluded to there in the introduction, Ryan, why don't you tell us how you got into tabletop role playing games, please.

Ryan Costello: 1:39

Sure. Well, in high school, I was on a whale watching trip. It was a field trip that some of the students went on. And there was a lot of downtime, because it was like a three day trip. But only one day would be on the boat looking for the whales. And so in that downtime, one of my classmates brought up Dungeons and Dragons, which I knew the name from the the 80s cartoon, and was vaguely aware that it was a game because of advertisements in comics that I had. But I had never played a role playing game. And I really didn't know what a role playing game was. So most of that trip was spent with him explaining how role playing games work. And then him running me through a very bare bones version of the game. Because we didn't have dice, we didn't have rules. But we could roleplay we could create scenarios and engage with them, I could create a character in theory. And that really hooked me in and so shortly thereafter, when we got home, he shared books with me, I started coming up with ideas for my first adventure because I really had the GM bug was already bid, or already bid me. And so from there, I started running regular Dungeons Dragons sessions at my my high school lunch during our lunch break, and really role playing games have been part of my life in some way since then,

Snyder’s Return: 2:55

wow. To get bitten by the GM bug so early on, I both admire and and feel kind of sorry for you in that respect. Does that mean you spent all your time behind the screen? No, I

Ryan Costello: 3:07

actually did a fair amount of alternating because I had joined a group that already had a couple of established gyms. And they'd already established a formula for their campaign where it was just someone would run for a couple of weeks, and then their idea would run out and somebody would take over. And most players had more than one character. So it really was just kind of like swapping between this giant roster of characters and gems. So that worked out well because it meant I could do my first adventure and then recover from my first adventure and figure out where to go from there.

Snyder’s Return: 3:36

Well, where did you go from there? Where did d&d lead next within a hobbyist slash, sort of TTRPG sort of through line for your for your life.

Ryan Costello: 3:46

Now for most of my life, I've only been a single game player doozy so basically, it was dungeon dragons second edition at the time. And then when that kind of wore on, I picked up the Marvel what's known now as face rip, but the 80s 90s Marvel role playing game with the like percentage chart on the back, played a lot of Marvel role playing games. And then that evolved to my first game design, where I it was clearly designed because I just took the chart Marvel had done, and then adapted it to a pro wrestling role playing game, which was based on the WWE. But in real time, so if a storyline happened on the weekly show, that would affect our roleplaying game and so it was very chaotic campaign, we were constantly adjusting to things that were happening, but it also was really easy to engage with because we were all fans of the product. And it meant that we were always up to date.

Snyder’s Return: 4:37

Sorry, no, I was I was just that's an amazing way of tying in sort of two different mediums and sort of keeping things fresh, I suppose which did just say I was impressed with that to be honest.

Ryan Costello: 4:49

I even got my brother into the game who was not as role playing games or wrestling.

Snyder’s Return: 4:53

Wow, wow. Good effort. Sorry. Please continue. Where did so after crafting creating, manipulating This game from the WWE. Where did that lead to?

Ryan Costello: 5:03

So after that, for a couple of years, my interest in role playing games dropped off. And I got more into collecting action figures as a hobby and into more into comics, which I'd already been in, but like just kind of levelled up as a comic collector. But then Dungeons Dragons third edition came out. And funnily enough, the friend that introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition, I bumped into him on the bus, and he brought up, hey, this third edition is coming out. And here's all the ways it's different. And here's all the ways it's better, we should start a campaign. And I didn't end up starting a campaign with him, but rather with a lot of other people that we played in high school with. And so we got all into third edition dungeon dragons a couple of years into its publishing life. And then three 3.5 was announced. And we were like, we just got these books. And at the time, we were all students and three hardcover books was the most our gaming budget could could afford. But slowly over time, as new 3.5 books were coming out, we would buy into the new ones. And then we replaced some of the core rule books for a while we were playing a hybrid of three and 3.5. And then we got all into 3.5. At one point, we just said, Let's put the third edition stuff aside and just play one version of this game. And we got all into that. And that's around when I discovered podcasting. And I was like, I want to get into podcasting. This is really an interesting hobby of its own. And something I'm passionate about Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition, I'm going to create a podcast completely dedicated to this really, you know, free advertisement for Wizards of the Coast, but whatever. I really like this. And then fourth edition was announced. And so there's this podcast that was almost ready to go almost ready to record the first episode, one of my friends who's more tech savvy, was going to be the co host and handle the production as he taught me to do production so that I can eventually take it over. So yeah, everything was ready except for recording. And now suddenly, our concept had to change. And so we went from a dungeon dragons fancast to specifically a dungeon dragons 3.5 We are the people that are keeping this dead edition alive, which it ended up being we weren't the only people keeping that dead edition alive, pi. So I assume that your listeners know the story of how piezo came to be and how they converted from a magazine publisher and a licence to produce dungeons dragon magazine, then they became their own publisher of their own original game Pathfinder. And so I got hooked into Pathfinder in the same way that the transition from 3.0 to a 3.5 was pretty seamless. 3.5 To Pathfinder was just a seamless, I was really engaged with the product. And I was really engaged with the company. And because they were just kind of making a name for themselves. And I was like, Hey, we've got a podcast, here's what a podcast is, we want to dedicate a podcast to this brand new game you have put out. And so it was very easy to get interviews with the creators, and we established a very good relationship. And then over the x, or the last 15 years, we have had this incredible relationship with piezo, where the no direction network is like the go to place for Pathfinder news reviews and interviews.

Snyder’s Return: 7:59

Nice. Well, saying that and sort of spinning it back to you. Where can we find you and all the things you're associated with please, Ryan, the main,

Ryan Costello: 8:10

my main thing that I will plug is the stuff related to my podcast network. So if you go to no direction podcast.com That is even though the name says podcast, it's actually for the full no direction network, which includes at any given time, about 10 different podcasts, all of them related to gaming, most of them related to Pathfinder. But we've also got a star finder podcast, which is the Sci Fi fantasy version of Pathfinder. We've got game design and box with Danielle Reynolds, which is a tabletop board game podcast. And we've just recently relaunched up shift, which is in essence, 20 specific podcasts that I co host. And we've also got about a dozen blogs, basically any given day, you will find either a blog or podcast, or both on the no direction podcast.com.

Snyder’s Return: 8:53

I will make sure that there are links to that down in description below this podcast, we can also find you on a few other sort of locations on social media. One of them we will get to very shortly in fact, so you mentioned they're going through the DND additions going into Pathfinder and having that strong relationship with piezo. Going back to something you mentioned in amongst all of that was getting into collecting action figures in comics. I can see behind you and I feel sorry for those that are listening to this and don't have the view I do that the actual the plethora of action figure collections behind you models and things. When did that really sort of kick off and when did you sort of zero down your focus on one specific brand should we say?

Ryan Costello: 9:44

So? zeroing in on one specific brand being geojo have had a good relationship my entire life. Because I was born in 1980 The real American hero version of GI Joe came out 1982 So I had my first GI Joe earlier than I have my first memory. So GI Joe has always been In a part of my life, and Jojo, an unusual for the time went 12 Years went from 1982 to 1994. And so in high school, I was still buying and playing with the original GI Joe line when everyone else in my life had long passed, and in fact, one of the last figures that came out was called the monster Viper. And it was just this giant look more like a ninja turtle than a GI Joe. But he was actually the villain of my first dungeon dragons campaign. I used him as the miniature because he towered over everyone else, he would have been like, you know, 40 feet tall. So there was a fun crossover right there as as GI Joe was ending. And as I was getting to Dungeons and Dragons, that monster Viper will always mean a lot to me. And so it ended in 1992. No, sorry, it ended in 1994. And within a couple of years, the internet became a much more prevalent thing. And one of the first things I looked up was GI Joe, because even though it had only been a couple of years, since the toy line ended, the difference between being a 14 year old and a 16 year old, those two years were gigantic. And it had been much longer since the cartoon had gone offline. So I just was curious what was out there on this internet thing about GI Joe. And it's up quite a lot, because some of the early adopters to the internet were apparently very big GI Joe fans. And so yojo.com was already this go to resource for what the the GI Joe, like the go to resource for the GI Joe hobbyist. And from there, I found a site cultural customs.com, which was just people who would take judges part rebuild them, paint them create new backstories. Basically, they were role playing without a role playing game, they were creating new characters for the judge or universe. And that ended up being my, the main forum that I interacted with. So that's where I built most of my friendships in JoJo community. And then a couple years later, eBay became a thing. And around that same time, I was getting my first part time job. So I had some disposable income, and access to toys that were not on shelves anymore. And so I was like, Well, I know what I'm gonna get. And so I spent hundreds of dollars so that I should not have on GI Joes. But it means that I got things like my complete territory went up there, which right now costs 1000s of dollars to get in that condition. And I managed to get it for I think about $500, which was a lot of money then. But, you know, it was an investment, which was surprising. Most of the time when I was buying Joe's it was like, I just love the feel of getting these shows again. But as it turns out, they've actually become quite expensive collector's items over the last five years. And so I could theoretically sell my collection and make a profit, which was never something I expected. Jojo was so common and prolific of a toy that you could get secondhand one super cheap. And it just never struck me that these will eventually increase in value. Yeah.

Snyder’s Return: 12:46

Going around sort of booth fairs and, and sort of small markets, you could always see sort of kids who would finish playing with action figures and GI Joes and things like that and pick them off, I should have should have been picking them up and put them in a box and selling them to you by the sounds of it. But how, how did your love for TT RPGs and your love for GI Joe? When did that synergize into where we can find your work now.

Ryan Costello: 13:14

So that really happened quite recently, like I had theories about what a judge or role playing game might look like. And I'd even kitbashed a couple and even ran a one shot at a Jeju Canadian judge or convention one year, but never with any long term plan of what I would do with it. I did not know the first thing about licencing. So I really did not believe I would make an official judge or role playing game. But I guess in theory, I could have seen it as after I finished making the game that I file off the serial numbers and just released a not GI Joe but it's judged a role playing game, which and there are several games like that that are out there. But for some reason I never actually engaged with any of them. I don't know why I knew they were there. But they didn't interest me. But then a couple years ago, it was announced on all of the the RPG news sites that renegade had the licence for GI Joe. And it wasn't even clear that they had the RPG licence it said that they definitely had the Power Rangers RPG licence. And they also had licence to produce games based on GI Joe transformers and my little pony. And like, this is not the first time we've heard this kind of thing. A few years before that Wizards of the Coast announced that they had the rights to make miniatures based on GI Joe transformers My Little Pony, and they made transformers and they made my little pony. They never got around to GI Joe. It's even though at one point it was probably the most popular toy line in the world. It never had a second wind like Transformers and My Little Pony did so in the JoJo community we were kind of used to it being the I don't know the on the unloved third child of a Hasbro Family. And Power Rangers only came in after that because they bought into that. So yeah, but so this announcement came up and then a couple of days later, there was a similar announcement saying that renegade had hired Lisa Teague as like to head their new RPG division And so that's when I got to work. I was like, alright, so I have a lot of connections in the RPG industry through my podcast at this point. So how many steps Am I removed from Elisa? I found that that I was only technically I was zero steps away because she and I had played in celebrity game together at one point and I forgotten. Anyway, and so I found out we were two steps away, she worked for Mike selling her for a long time, Mike Seliger produced the Pathfinder adventure card game. And we have Mike on the podcast several times and like really enjoyed us. So I asked him if he could put in a good word for me. unconnected, I actually have a friend who works at Hasbro named Tom Sargent, which is like the perfect name for a guy that works at Hasbro. And I said, like, do you mind if I could I put you as a reference on my resume that I send them because saying, like, I'd like to work your free role playing game. And here's a guy who works at Hasbro who could vouch for me, that felt like a flex that not many other people could could do. And he said sure and ends up they never even called them. But I don't know if just having him on there really impressed. But in any case, I put together his resume saying like, here's everything I've done in the RPG industry, here's everything I do relate to the GI Joe. And it wasn't just I like GI Joe. And I've got these credits in the RPG industry, it's like, and I've also got this podcast. So if you want further like social media engagement, I could potentially do this whole package that I've done for Pathfinder, I can repeat that, for essence 20, and I'm the JoJo side, it's like, I like GI Joe, I have helped run these Canadian JoJo conventions, I used to write for the Canadian GI Joe convention newsletter. And I've even written this, these articles about GI Joe for various news sites, including one that was all talking about the diversity of GI Joe, which I knew was a priority for renegades. So just saying that, like philosophically, we line up, my interests line up with what you're doing right now. And there's potential for even more like, I really do think I am the person for this job. And renegade agreed, and they got in touch with me, they brought me on to the team. And the only hitch was that originally they were going to be based on Fifth Edition Dungeons Dragons, which I had zero experience with, which I know sounds weird. But like I said, I'm like a single game system at a time type of guy. And I've been all in on pathfinder for the last 15 years. I recently switched over the Pathfinder second edition, which I was not as invested in as I was in Pathfinder first edition. But still, it was what was occupying my time and not dungeon dragons fifth edition. So that was the only hitch on my resume that it's like, I've worked on a lot of role playing games, just not this specific system, which turned out to be just fine when it ended up changing weeks. Yeah, they changed course. And we weren't basing essence 20 on done dragons fifth edition anymore.

Snyder’s Return: 17:35

Yeah, it's a decision that I'm glad was made to be honest. But that's a personal preference. So you're put down as one of the sort of the game designers for the essence 20 system. So seeing the property, the IPs that you'd love, especially GI Joe, and this new system being created, what was it like, sort of very much hand in glove as the system complemented what you were hoping to see from the TTRPG that you've helped create. So

Ryan Costello: 18:05

it was very different from the one that I had originally conceived, like the judge RPG, I thought up in my spare time, that one was more about like, here's your, like, here's a statistic, you either are all the way right all the way left and in a situation where it's like stubbornness. So like, if you are very stubborn, and in certain situations that will be to your benefit. But in those situations, like when you're supposed to be listening to the chain of command that can be against you. And it was gonna be this like swinging statistic system that was more about the storytelling of like how who you are affects how you interact with the world. Whereas the essence 20 is much more combat simulator very much in line with dungeons, dragons, Pathfinder, and more of the games I have experienced with so I'm actually better at that kind of thing. I just liked the concept of the other one that I've come up with more for the, you know, as the creative expression of an idea for a role playing game. So where was I going with that? Oh, yeah. So then we were building the SS 20 system together. And because we knew right away, it had to serve at least three masters with those big power rangers, GI Joe and transformers. With my little pony on the horizon, it was pretty much decided My Little Pony would also be asked in Swanee. And then just in theory, any other licence we could get ideally would also be asked, and so on. And so at one point in the redrafting of this new system, at least and basically set up like we need to make sure that if we make a superhero game, it's compatible with superheroes if we made this genre, this genres this genre, and so I kind of took everything we'd had put together at that point, and just kind of like rearranged it laid it out as like, Alright, so this is how it will work for Power Rangers, and we need to make sure that origins whatever that means, mechanically it has different meaning for every different system that fits the setting. So for Power Rangers, that's how we ended up that Origins is your attitude because Power Rangers are teenagers with attitude. GI Joe was super simple. It was the military service. And then transformers was the one that was a little bit stranger because it's like, we probably need that to be your robot chassis, even though that means it has more significant more weights than in the other systems. But ultimately, we decided that doesn't, that's not a bad thing, if different games have different weights for the different mechanical choices you're making along the way. And so then it was also like, Alright, so this is a, if this was a superhero role playing game, then your origin would be your origin it is are you a mutant? Are you a millionaire? Are you an alien? Are you a robot, and so on, so forth, going down all the different licences, we could theoretically half. And that was really fun and fascinating, because it's, I just assumed that if these games ever got role playing games based on them, they each have their own system that is specific to their needs, and said, We found this really strong core that addresses everything that they have in common, and then found a way to adjust that core to make it to represent what each setting has unique to it.

Snyder’s Return: 21:00

Yeah, so the focusing on the JoJo role playing game specifically, just for a moment that the I have it open on the PDF on my screen in front of me and a few of the other bits and pieces that have been released. The artwork first and foremost is is amazing. Looking through the book, I was told by Brian that you have hence white, the reference in the introduction of an encyclopaedic knowledge about who you who could be used and what characters were accessible. And, and, and sort of, did you just pour your heart and soul into into this into these pages? So, you know, we could enjoy them ourselves? Because there was so much so much fantastic content in just this core rulebook on its own. And there's so much more coming.

Ryan Costello: 21:52

So I mean, obviously, I didn't work alone. Me, Ben. Ben's last name. Then Heisler and Paige Lightman. We were the three person GI Joe team. And it was when it was going to be a fifth edition book, they were a really strong, get for the book, because they were both experienced dungeons, dragons designers, and I was just going to be the lore guy. And so I really did put a lot of time working on the lore for the game. And then when it was reset, and we had to redo everything mechanically that we'd done, most of what I've done for lore still applied. And so then I was able to like re engage with the book, but on another level on a mechanical level. So I ended up getting my fingerprints in more parts of this game than I expected, which is why there is so much GI Joe references and some deep cuts some things that most fans should recognise some things that you might have forgotten, but like, I've brought them back up as like, memorable once you remember them. And then there's other elements that are really just, if you are me, you really enjoy this, these these jokes that are peppered in there. Like I can throw in an example, if you go to Destro is on page 254. And you read his bio, it's talking about how in the past the God of War was known as Aries, Horus, Maru, but today Destro is his name. Now, that should probably be now today, his name is Destro, or its name is desperate or something. But the original Destro toy had a featured advertisement. And the featured advertisements would have original theme songs. And the Destro theme song is like Destro is his name. Destro is his name. And so it's like Alright, so I've got to take that line. Destro is his name. And I have to work this sentence over and over again until it doesn't sound too awkward so that I am pleased with the fact that I've made this reference to this Destro cartoon, this Destro commercial. And honestly, every any given line you can look at and there's probably at least two layers of like, this is what it means for the game. This is what it means to me as a GI Joe fan,

Snyder’s Return: 23:51

but is amazing. To be to be perfectly like that is amazing. I was just so on page one. I'm on page eight, general hawks debriefing, it gives a brief introduction to help. The more casual GI Joe fan or new people coming into the property just understand who the threat the threats, that's something we can get on to in a bit. And then there's like, I think it's over 100 Joe's just snapshot introduction. Who they are, I believe

Ryan Costello: 24:22

it's 81 of them. But like it says that a sidebar later that was cut down from like 500 original characters in this property. And even some of the ones that I really wanted in there didn't get the cut didn't make the cut. Because there's just there's some that actually absolutely had to there's the a list, but then the B List of geojo characters is very long. And I like people on the C D E list. And so like every now and then I would pepper in an E list character but for the most part I was just putting in the characters that everyone would either recognise or that they served a very specific purpose being on the roster of characters

Snyder’s Return: 24:58

and Uh, further through the content, there's an example of like there is in the other essence 20 books, there's an example of intro at the back to really help GMs sort of step new players and and themselves into running the system. What was like structuring these adventures for new players and new GMs.

Ryan Costello: 25:20

So as luck would have it, I actually wrote that adventure, I was not supposed to originally it was going to be page that wrote the adventure, which makes sense she was, she's won awards for the adventures, she's written for dungeon dragons fifth edition. But then when we shifted from the original plan to an original system, we also extended the deadline for our turnovers. And the extended deadline, she was no longer available for so she was able to do her original commitment. But then after that, me and Ben had to do more of the heavy lifting. And so this is something that I had an idea for. And so I pitched it to Lisa just saying, like, what if it starts with just like your brand new droves, and you're given full run of the pit. The rest of the JoJo team is off somewhere in my head, they were off to the Statue of Liberty, because Cobra Commander was trying to blow it up. So the opening scene from JoJo movie, that is where everyone else is. And that's why it's the player characters and one named Joe. That is their liaison. And yeah, so yeah, so this gave us an opportunity to lay out the entire pit, which is an area that it's the general headquarters. And so in theory, a lot of your adventures or a lot of your time between Adventures is going to take place here. So having this all laid out every single room that's in there, and multiple things you can do in each room, that doesn't just serve this adventure that serves everyone's campaigns at all levels of the campaign. So that was a priority. And so once I knew that, we absolutely had to have a fully decked out pit. It's an it had to only be a short adventure. Because it's an introductory adventure at the back of a core rulebook, I knew that the pit wasn't just where we were starting the adventure with the pit would be the location of the entire adventure. And so I had to come up with like, Alright, cool, we're getting into the pit is a big deal. Like this has happened a couple of times in the comics. And it's like, alright, well, now we have to scrap this headquarters, we have to move somewhere else, which obviously was not what we wanted, since I just explained that I want this to be the pitch for every campaign. That's like, Alright, so we need Cobra characters to be infiltrating the pit. But we need some reason that this isn't then the end of that pit. And so it became the scenario of like, these rejected Cobra officer was trying to get back in the good graces of Cobra Commander. So he, he has come across this intel instead of just handing it over, he really wants to prove himself by going into the pit and like sabotaging himself and really like hitting it off in a big way, like marking is returned to Cobra in a big way. And so then it was just really a matter of finding some interesting characters that I could include in there, spread it out across multiple rooms and try and pace it to be a fairly easy adventure because it is first level and it's it's the only first level but it's the GM and the players are in theory learning system for the first time. So I didn't want it to actually be challenging, and I really didn't want any characters getting defeated. And I absolutely did not want this to be a total party kill scenario. So yeah, so it's just some low level threats spread out, I added a lot of personality to make up for the fact that they aren't especially threatening threats. And yeah, and I, I don't tend to write adventures like I have very few published adventures, and I don't even write my own adventures when I run them I just kind of ad hoc all adventures so the fact that I had to write in a whole adventure was outside of my wheelhouse, and it's gotten specifically called out as one of the strengths of this rulebook which makes me feel pretty good about myself because it was not something I expected even be doing let alone doing well.

Snyder’s Return: 28:44

Well, no, that's one of the really good things and you mentioned it the you rather undersold yourself in that respect when you mentioned it's it's the group and a a Joe a named Joe the Transformers SS 20 Coral book, Jas is your point of contact in the Power Rangers book alpha five is your point of contact in this in the snake pit the interview get the GM gets to choose the NPC he gets to choose which Joe and that flake can flavour this whole thing to the and I think that is brilliant that you can either have the GM pick his own favourite, or you can tailor this more to a style based on which MPC which name to Joe's, as you mentioned, you use to support the group. I think that's like, perfect, perfect in introductory adventure territory. And I'm amazed nowhere else does it to be honest. And that's not just that's not just essence 20 I mean across other adventures and systems and things like that, that gives you an option on how you want to tailor the adventure through a guided MPC. I think that's yeah, I can't give you any more plot. It's because this drags on forever. But yeah, no, I think that's that is brilliant. Cool.

Ryan Costello: 30:06

I can't really it wasn't some like, brainstorm moment or like it wasn't something epiphany moment that I was like, oh, I should do it this way it was just we will need an NPC will let the gym decide the MPC, I did not really think it would be a revolutionary thing that I've added to the vector there.

Snyder’s Return: 30:21

Well, I think it is. That's a personal smarmy. So at the moment with respect to the game, and we'll sort of dip in and out of various parts. We've got the core rulebook, the GM screen is coming out, there's an adventure with that frees up. Oh, is it physically out?

Ryan Costello: 30:40

Physically, I have a copy. It's not too buried. Let me grab it. Oh, here's emerald, who blew up the adventure that

Snyder’s Return: 30:46

comes with I was about to say it comes with its own adventure. But

Ryan Costello: 30:49

there we go. Thanks to Jeff screen, uses a lot of the geojo classified art, which is the name of the current toy line.

Snyder’s Return: 30:57

Very nice. original layout. Yeah. So there's this. So that's what is currently available. The call book, The GM screen with an adventure. There's a combat flow diagram, you can pick up from the renegade website to help you sort of structure your way through combat, if you need help with that, and there's also character sheets available. What else is coming for this particular line in the essence, 20. System?

Ryan Costello: 31:30

Sure, well, if we stick to digital content, there's a couple of other things that are out there, there are pre generated characters for Snake Eyes, Duke, Scarlet and roadblock. So the main four are cover heroes, you can go to renegade website, you can get pre generated characters of them. So if you want to run snake pit, and you want to just kick it off, you don't even want to do a character creation session, you can download those for pregenerated characters. It's not the most balanced party because there are two commandos and officer and Vanguard and Vanguard is kind of like combo officer and infantry. So it's not a whole lot of variety. And there's no dedicated healer in the group. But it's snake guy, Scarlet Duke and roadblock like that's the buy in not what their build is, but who these characters are. And one of the thing that's not technically a GI Joe product, but the the Power Rangers role playing game has the threat creation guide, online, it is a about a 10 page PDF that I wrote, and Renegade released it, so that you could create your own threats for the power of roleplay game. But really, you're creating any threats for any essence to any role playing game. This is specifically geared towards Power Rangers in the examples it uses. And it would probably go into a little more detail in a few different areas for GI Joe, and specifically transformers, Transformers would get a little more information about how to do Alt modes and whatnot. But for the most part, you could create essence 20 threats using that guide, not just Power Rangers threats. So if you look at the threat section, in the back end, you're just like, my favourite is not there or just not enough, or I need like a cool level three boss type character and the book doesn't have that you can use that threat guy to create those threats. Yeah,

Snyder’s Return: 33:03

well, another great resource that that I highly recommend is the renegade Discord server, which you and a few of the and the other. Team members of the team, that's the word I'm going for. Also frequent those threads for threat creation and sort of hints and tips and just a great support network, I guess, is the best way to phrase it on that Discord server.

Ryan Costello: 33:34

So me and Brian do a lot of answering rules, questions, clarifying some things. And if somebody asks this question, we're like, that doesn't make sense. You're right, then it gets flagged for a Rada and will usually have like, here's how to run it for now while we address this in official capacity, and the the members of the discord like not people who work for Renegades just fans are great about like pinning anytime me and Brian have a rules pertinent comment on there. And so if you have a question, you can just go to the board related to the game that you want to know the answer to check the pins and it goes through a whole like, it's like a second FAQ. There's the FAQ on the website. But this one is much more active and alive. And it's a little more casual. So like if you're looking for really hard rules, go to the one on the website. But if you're just looking for like someone to even acknowledge that the rule that you have a question about has been asked before it's pinned somewhere in one of those message boards.

Snyder’s Return: 34:28

Yeah, I think one of them that that's come up the most I've noticed is using things like transferring the Joe Joe's machine gun rules across into like Transformers and things like that that seems to be just shows how flexible and how malleable the system is and how seamless the transition between the various IPs and releases is that you can take property from one and easily to shift it into the other to support the gaming style you want in that particular IP. Which

Ryan Costello: 34:59

I just want to address. The machine gun thinks that is entirely my fault. After the power, sorry, after the Transformers book had been turned over at that point, it wasn't ready for publication. And so I was, I offered to go in and do another pass. Like, as as paid freelance work. I was basically I wasn't on the Transformers team. I knew there were some problems with the rulebook. And so I offered to be the one to fix it. And so I did a lot of rewriting of the origins and the roles. And one of the things I did was add a rule that if you are as it's the Rainmaker, right, I believe it's the Rainmaker that you automatically start with a machine gun, and then later, you upgraded to a heavy machine gun, because I knew that they had ported over the equipment list from GI Joe. What I didn't know is that they had taken out some things from the Jesuit list, including both heavy machine gun and the machine gun. So two specific items that I flagged as being a core part of this origin. Were not in the core rulebook. And so that was easy to just say, Alright, sorry, that's on me. Here's those rules. They're even formatted in the Transformers format, because judge has just used one giant two page table for us. Transformers did everything like it has its own tiny statblock, which I actually I think is a cleaner look. And in retrospect, kind of wish GI Joe had done that. But anyway, so I did a transformer style stat block for the JoJo have machine gun and heavy machine gun. And unfortunately, it didn't make it into print. But there it's everywhere. We could post it on social media saying, Oh, by the way, we know about this, here's the answer to that problem.

Snyder’s Return: 36:29

So if you are looking for that, come and join the discord and you can find it there. Ryan is there Brian? Is there. When I'm not at work? I'm sort of hidden, lurking normally. We mentioned everything that has come before and is out now. What is next in the line? What can we what are we sort of looking towards months down the line from where we are now with respect to GI Joe releases.

Ryan Costello: 36:57

So I cannot say when we can expect these down the line because even as we've seen with the core books that are out like the Transformers roleplaying game, the physical book hasn't even gotten to customers hands yet, even though we've given people the PDF for over a month at this point. So like we these books exist, but they are at a printer or they are on a ship or they are on a dock or they're on a warehouse. It's just the shipping situation right now. And so we cannot I cannot promise when these books will get into your hand. But we do have running it has announced two books for the judge or role playing game that are still to come. There is operation cold iron, which is a four part mission book, I believe it's 128 pages, it's for 32 Page missions that are thematically linked, but can each be run individually. And they bring in a lot of classic vehicles like as cold iron suggests there is an Arctic scene. And so it brings in the snow cat, which was one of my favourite vehicles as a kid. And it brings in the polar battle bear which is like, you know, armoured snowmobile and the precursor to the snowcat. And as the artwork has been previewed for the cover, and right there front centre is the snake armour, which, depending on if you watch the cartoon or the comic in the cartoon, it was trying to present it as just a robot. But the toy itself says that it's something that you in case around a cobra soldier and like make him a cobra super soldier. It's almost like a tiny Mexican. And then the comic introduced the idea that oh, no, this is a prison that you capture somebody you try from inside, and then the robotic parts drag somebody into the battle. And while the robots fighting, you don't want to fight back because your friends inside there. And so I got set up three different versions of the snake armour as either a robot and while prison or a super armour. And all three versions are going to be an operation called Iron at different points throughout the different adventures.

Snyder’s Return: 38:44

That's amazing later, but while whenever they are available, I will be picking those up because I can't help myself with these things, unfortunately.

Ryan Costello: 38:54

Yeah, that's one of the two releases that has been announced. The other one is the Cobra Codex. So this is a cobra dedicated source book. If you are making or if you're interested in playing a cobra character, or a whole Cobra campaign, that's what the Cobra Codex is for, but also if you are a GM, and you're looking for more information on COBRA, Cobra Codex is for that. And if you want statblocks For even more threats than we have in the core rulebook, we have both JoJo threats and Cobra threats including new Cobra vehicles that are in the Cobra Codex. So it is one part a campaign setting book because it can work as backstory for a Jinjo campaign or the entire campaign book for a covert Senator centric campaign. And plus, it's got all kinds of new options. And just like if you're making a cobra character, you can use options from the judge or role playing game core rulebook for your character. In fact, you have to because there's no roles in the cover Codex. It's just new focuses focus options for the roles that are in JoJo book. And it's also reverse compatible. If you see an option in the Cobra codex that fits your GI Joe character. You can take it you can move back, just ignore any mentions of evil in the description but you can use the rules and the concept overall for characters going both ways.

Snyder’s Return: 40:06

No, that's amazing. So I guess before we move on to the other IP we've mentioned and your involvement with that and and interesting crossovers that I might inquire about why while we're on the topic of Gi Joe's favourite Joe favour vehicle and favourite Cobra operative, please.

Ryan Costello: 40:27

So I narrowed down my favourite Joe to like a top 10 list. And each rank on the top 10 lists has about three different Joe's. So like I could say my absolute favourite Joe is Flint because he's the guy he was my guy growing up as a kid, he's cooler than do collect his action figure more. I liked Bill Ratner's voice better than Michael bells on the original cartoon. But really like, objectively looking back, and it's like, he's just one of those 80s The main character types, he doesn't have a whole lot of depth to him. He's got some fun scenes, he's got some fun lines, but he's not particularly interesting. So a character like Snake Eyes is much more interesting. He's got a lot more depth to his backstory, or Storm Shadow was one of my favourite characters, because that's when I first saw that you could tell a story through action figures because the original Storm Shadow is a cobra character. And then second Storm Shadow is a Joe. And this was not explored on the cartoon, which is the only GI Joe media that I was exposed to at the time I didn't read the comic. And so the comic flushes this whole thing out. This is like a a four year storyline where Storm Shadow leaves Cobra comes kind of his own man and then eventually becomes a judge or operative. But I didn't know that's all I knew was used to be a bad guy. Now he's a good guy. What's all the stuff like read Numbers file cards as much as possible. And just like filling the blanks bridging the connection between two characters that are two actual figures that came out four years apart, just tell the story of this one character. Like it, it got me so much more invested in the GI Joe lore than I had been before that. So those are like three of my top 10. That's really like a top 50 I also throw Sergeant slaughter is just amazing novelty. The idea that he was like the celebrity that they brought onto the team. But it's not like Jackie Chan adventures where it's a whole TV show dedicated this one guy No, it's like, one guy on the team is based on a real celebrity. But he's not real because he's a wrestler and it's a fake persona that's been important over like, it's just a bizarre rabbit hole that the more you go down at the more interesting it becomes. And Sergeant slaughter is so into it. And when you watch the GI Joe movie again, like Sergeant slaughter, deliver some of the best lines he has. He's one of the best actors in that movie. And it's just like it's a delight. Listening to Sergeant slaughter play that character. I prefer him as a Joe than I do as a wrestler as a real person. Yeah, and then one last shout out to backstop the only reason that backstop ranks really high on my list is that he is the first Canadian member of the JoJo team. He's the first international Joe he's Canadian. He's from Montreal, which is where I'm from. And so I latched on to him as like a mascot character of mine and so the reason he made it onto the active roster instead of plenty more valid candidates is because he was the one that I was like no matter what

Snyder’s Return: 43:12

backstop is making the cut here nice vehicle

Ryan Costello: 43:16

vehicle Okay, the his tank hands down. Like I know, when it comes to characters, I've got a million but as far as just like the one most iconic vehicle and all GI Joe the his tank really has this cool design and yet it's so simple, but like it's iconic, you immediately when you look at it, you think back to GI Joe there's no other vehicle in the line that does that like most of the draw vehicles were either like that's just a tank like that's something we've seen in the real life. Or that's really weird like the busbar or the Rolling Thunder things that it's like they put a lot of fantasy into the military but the his tank is the perfect overlap of like unique design but also functionally military stick enough that it works.

Snyder’s Return: 43:58

I couldn't agree more to be honest. So moving from military through to equestrian and equestrian and small horses with Friendship is Magic and magic is power and and what what was it like shifting from one property to often Joe's and reading over transformers and then working on my little pony and bringing that side of the essence 20 system to life.

Ryan Costello: 44:30

So when we were done with the development of the first three books, and at least it was like, you know, you're all part of the renegade family. Now anytime any of you want more work, let me know we've got all of these other plans. And it's like here are these other books for the GI Joe line we'd like people to be working on here's the Transformers line. Here's the Power Rangers line. And you know, some people were crossing teams some people were really staying in their lane and just doing like a lot of transformers team just wanted to transformer stuff. And then here I was like, so nobody's working on the My Little Pony role playing game. ain't like I could, I could totally be the essence 20 guy for the My Little Pony line. And Lisa was like, Are you sure you don't want to do all these geojo products that we also need you on? It's like, I'd really like to, but like, I don't want to miss the opportunity to do my little pony. So they made an exception for me where everyone else was only allowed to work on one product at a time. Because you know, if something happens, somebody burns out, whatever, then you only have to replace one person on one book. And they let me work on two books at the same time, Cobra, and then my little pony core rulebook. And so yeah, there were certain days where I was like, what do you find in a bakery? Okay, great. How do you make a bomb?

Snyder’s Return: 45:40

And just select just go wild?

Ryan Costello: 45:42

Yeah, I know, you know that. There's somebody just watching my Google searches. Like, what is he up to? Combine that with the fact that I have a couple of kids, they'll ask me weird questions. And I'll be like, I don't know what you call an octopus beak. So let's also Google neighbourhood octopus speak. And just my guy reading my Google searches like what's what's what's going on? What is this? How does it all connect? It's got a whole board with like, string time the different things.

Snyder’s Return: 46:08

But staying with my little pony clothes, what what can we expect from the My Little Pony core rulebook within the essence 20 system.

Ryan Costello: 46:16

So the big selling point, if you're interested in the crossover elements of the essence, 20 system is that we have a magic system in my little pony. And we haven't gotten into details of how it works. So we can't talk about it yet. But I can't say that this was one of the first things that I tackled, just to make sure that everything else made sense. Because my little pony there's like, a lower familiarity with the role playing game expectation for the average player, which means that we didn't want to go as complex with some of the options. So like, Jojo and transformers, you have your role, and then you have your focus option. And that's just to give more and more options within any given option. A by Little Pony, we didn't want to do that we didn't want to do depth of options we just wanted to do, here's really interesting thing. And here's the best way to play it out. There are some options within it, but nothing as big as now pick a second role within your one role. So a lot of the mechanics will be simplified. And in that way, we wanted a magic system that could be universally applied through magic come in to any of the other games, like magic is an element in Power Rangers, for example. So theoretically, the magic system could show up in Power Rangers, and we wanted it to be the same magic system. And yet, it had to be something that worked within the elements that we already added. We couldn't just say I now there's a new magic skill, and just pretend that there's a magic skill that no other game has. And so there was some clever, I'm saying clever. I'm the one who came up with it. So I was very clever in how I created a workaround that allowed you to invest into your magical abilities, learn new spells, and still stay within the framework of essence, 20 and that is as much as I'm comfortable talking about there. Beyond that, it has been announced that the origins will just focus on your creature type. And this when this comes out, Transformers won't be as weird as the one where the origin is like a bigger a different part of your character. Because that was always supposed to be the plan that you know if this was some kind of like if we did like a ninja turtle type role playing game this would be a creature type like so it should be Daria for even just in a fantasy role playing game, this would be your creature type. Rather than just a an aspect of your human personality like in Power Rangers and GI Joe. Yeah, so origin will be tied to your creature type. In what I turned over, it was focused on ponies. But I believe that's because I didn't I didn't work on the whole book. And I didn't work with the team. In that case, I just did the rules chunk. And that out over a few months later, they actually brought me back into another rules chunk, but it hasn't been as collaborative as the JoJo and just essence 20 system in general. So I don't know. There. I've heard rumours that they're going to be expanding beyond just a unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi pick aside. But then, so one of the things that Milo pony is gonna focus on is that your influence will be tied to your cutie mark, which is a very important part of My Little Pony lore. It's not just, you know, a picture on there, but it actually ties into their personality and implies that this is their destiny. And so your influences will be one of the ways that you can develop your acuity mark. And that will allow you to do things related to your influences and related to your cutie mark more easily than other things in the game. So there will be some restrictions because you don't have fingers and so that you're less the way you interact with the rest of the world is more challenging than for human characters. But if it's related to your to your cutie mark and your talents, then you're a little bit better at that and it kind of puts you on par with human characters on there. pesky opposable thumbs

Snyder’s Return: 49:48

down them with the four essences, the strength speed smarts, and social that works across all four IPS now that we use We touched on on each of them. The system has such flexibility that I know the renegade discord has the crossover chat and there's pictures of, I think, I think one of them was Optimus Prime and a couple of of the My Little Pony characters and there's so much going on. So it's

Ryan Costello: 50:24

what's wild is that of the four properties GI Joe transformers crossover regularly like they have since the 80s. And in the cartoon, there were crossovers, there were some comics that were dedicated the crossovers. What's the end of the original line, it was firmly established that they are in the same continuity. And since then, even as different publishers have had the licence, they regularly crossover. And then the only other one, the only other combination of these four properties that's officially crossed over is transformers in my little pony, like you'd think power rangers would have crossed over with transformers by now, but it's never officially happened. But My Little Pony transformers is that two mini series dedicated to it. And they're on my to buy list. I have not picked them up yet. I can kind of feel ashamed of that. Because they, from everything that I hear, they are really fun. And they do both properties really well.

Snyder’s Return: 51:11

That's amazing. Steering, off essence, away from Renegade is going going rogue or away from mitigate. going rogue?

Ryan Costello: 51:21

Well, if we're going away from Renegade, we're like, going with the system. We're like,

Snyder’s Return: 51:26

conforming, so they're falling into line. So what was that a military Anyway, moving on? Your work with life in Dragon studios, you are the creatively what's it like to so you? You're a freelance creator, you're a podcaster Podcast Network person creatively for laughing dragon studios? How do you find time for all of this? And what's it like working with with an animation force and animation company?

Ryan Costello: 51:55

Two very different questions of how

Snyder’s Return: 51:58

sorry, yes. So choose either,

Ryan Costello: 52:02

please choose either Alright, well stuck with how do I find time just because that allows, that's the transition point from the renegade stuff. So Redgate is where I'm doing the majority of my freelancing right now. And I'm doing much more freelancing now than I ever have before. And so this all started while I was working from home. So that was really handy because that meant that I saved an hour of my life, not having to worry about commuting. And just, it was easier to transition from like, alright, it was my work hour, and now it's my lunch hour. So I can do a little work on on, you know, freelance stuff, or I can just go upstairs. And while I'm eating lunch, I can just watch some episodes of GI Joe, just get me back in the mood. So that that helped a lot. And that's when I was working on the core rulebook. So that was, you know, the majority of when we needed to be doing meetings during the day, which I clicked with my boss, because those are actually technically during my work time. So there was a little bit of flexibility and allowance for my my day job boss. But for the most part, it was just cramming in, like, here's an hour that I can do some freelance, here's an hour that I can do some more freelance, and I would do some work on computer. And then I have I do a lot of just handwritten notes. Nice. So that's when like, I'm upstairs with my family, because like I said, I've got to, I've got two young daughters. Now they're five and seven. So when the whole thing, both the pandemic and all this freelance work started, they were three and five. And a lot of times, they just want me in the same room with them. And so that's when the handwriting notes can, can start. Yeah, so it was really just a matter of, when can I find the time when can I cram it in. And my wife kind of had the opposite situation as me when the pandemic started, she was a scientist, and she was actually working on testing COVID tests. So just to make sure of the accuracy of COVID tests, so she was putting in 15 hour days, six days a week, and like, I was watching the girls getting my freelancing and whenever I could sleeping, you know, as much as possible, because I do believe sleep is really important for the creative process and just being healthy and all. So once she got over that, she was totally okay with me taking a lot more time than usual, away from the family because we kind of I let her do it. So she's letting me do it now. And as it's kind of evening out, I'm going to take a bit of a like a couple week break from from renegade assignments because I just turned over one. Yes, no, actually, I guess I turned over the last part of it this morning. So I've got a week off with no freelance stuff. So that's just gonna be totally dedicated to some family things. But yeah, it's a matter of having a very supportive family having just I don't know creative cramming. And yeah, that's That's it. Looking back, I'm not sure how I managed to do it all actually, no, you know, so one of the things that did get sacrificed was my engagement with the network. So I am the Director of Logistics at the no direction network. I was the host of no direction podcast, which is the flagship of the show, as my essence 20 commitments came up, I did what I feel is the responsible thing. And I said, I have to step back from some of my responsibilities. So I gave up the hosting duty of the podcast, even though, like, I've been doing it for 15 years, like, a lot of reason. The reason I got this renegade job was because of what I was doing the podcast. But there was no way that I could fit everything in. And so I gave up my chair of the main podcast, I took a step back so that mainly what I'm doing now is just promoting everybody else in their work on the network, because we've got a staff of about 20 people. So I make sure that I'm still sharing to social media whenever they post their content, and handling any logistics behind the scenes. But otherwise, that's the main chunk of my life that I took, that I put aside so that I had room for what was just like an absolute dream opportunity. So I couldn't say no to it. Yeah, I

Snyder’s Return: 55:49

totally understand that. We have covered a lot. And then there was still probably hours worth of more questions, but I think we will have to save that for another time. But we have covered a lot. And is there anything we haven't covered in this period of time

Ryan Costello: 56:07

asked me about laughing dragon. I have not touched on that at all. So just if people could go to tick tock.com/laughing Dragon studios, they can check out what our mascot Isaac and his roommates, unicorn, a kraken and a Gryphon are up to those are like 1015 Second shorts, their, you know their tick tock videos, but we use those as samples for what we're able to do as an animation company. So even though it's free animation that people can walk online, it benefits us to put the most into them, and to put our best foot forward in those and just get experimental and whatnot. So there's hours and hours of 15 minute second or 15 second videos that people can check out just to get an idea of what my day job is at this point.

Snyder’s Return: 56:47

Yeah, well, I will make sure there's a link to that down in the description below. I will also put a link to the life and Dragon studio website which has a just under two, I think it's just under two minute video. And shows who you're working with your partners are. And I mean, there's Netflix and Nintendo and square. So amazing animation studios and production companies. So

Ryan Costello: 57:11

there's a couple of names that we've worked with that you did not mention that if we had posted them up on the website, you would have absolutely mentioned first so I guess we are not at liberty to discuss them yet. But basically, if it's a big name in the entertainment industry, there's a very good chance we have done some animation work for them.

Snyder’s Return: 57:26

Well, there's I'm scrolling across now at Activision Blizzard Apple television. So radio Canada,

Ryan Costello: 57:35

radio Canada, there is a bigger name than that picture, the biggest name you can imagine, you might be right. Like that's, that's how big some of our clients have been. And I I've said enough, if it's not on the website, then we have a reason that it's not up there yet.

Snyder’s Return: 57:49

Fair enough. Well, the link to the website will be down in the description below this podcast, along with links to your own podcast network. The GI Joe, stuff on the renegade website, and anywhere and anything else I can find to link people to you and your your content. Ryan, it's it has been a real pleasure to just be immersed in ducted, almost into into the GI Joe fandom by proxy, through essence, 20 and just somehow being involved in your, your shrine behind you. It's it's been a real pleasure to have you on the show. And I'd love to get you back in the future. If you'd be willing to come back, of course.

Ryan Costello: 58:34

Sure. When my opponent comes out, I can come back and talk about that a little more detail.

Snyder’s Return: 58:39

Yeah, I'd love to hear how that's that sort of comes to fruition. Those are the right words. I just wasn't sure if the context was correct, right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So until we get that released PDF, or go into the hard copies later this year. Yeah, I would certainly love to get you back on the show. If you'd be willing, I'd be willing. This was a lot of fun. Thank you, Ryan, so much for joining me today. Thank you, Adam. Thank you 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 Snyder, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, 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