Hello and welcome to Snyder’s return a table top roleplay podcast. My guest today is stepped out of the shadow where she harboured her creative genius and shown herself to be a Titan, a new giant of the community. She has taken on dangerous encounters with all manner of faux worm and cryptids included levelling up accordingly, but maybe it is us who should be afraid with hideous leftovers and weird artefacts being found across the 10 towns. Is it the ice queer who stalks the frozen north lead in victims once bitten, asking for morgue with an industrious workamper. I asked if it is blood or diesel that flows through her veins. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome TTRPG content creator, game designer, editor and undisputed queen of skulls. Cassandra MacDonald, Cassandra, welcome to the show.
Cassandra MacDonald:Good evening, Adam. That was the most dramatic introduction I've ever had. Much appreciated.
Snyder’s Return:Well, thank you. So a lot of things there. I've alluded to in the in the introduction we'll get to later in the interview. But Cassandra, how, how did you get yourself getting to tabletop role playing games, please.
Cassandra MacDonald:So I was inducted into the cult of RPG is at an age most people would consider too young. I think my dad was having friends over to play d&d When I was something like, six or seven. And at the time, he was like, No, we don't want this kid playing playing games like these are games for adults for big, strong adults. But by like the age of eight or nine, I had finally worn him down. And you let me make my first character, he let me make a human fighter, because he figured that would be easy enough for me to play. And I got pasted by a troll immediately. And I fell in love with the game and never looked back. I took my first character death early. And I feel like that's really defined my style ever since.
Snyder’s Return:So you feel like you've been trolled by d&d. Yet, sorry. Moving on from such an early experience, and potentially one that would have maybe been traumatic for someone else. But you too, appear to have taken in your stride. Where Where did that leave where did the path and sort of take you from that early exposure and experience with Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop role playing games.
Cassandra MacDonald:I like to think I was always a bit of a I was I was kind of a bit of a tinkerer. As a child, I love to take things apart and put them back together in weird ways. And I feel like that was sort of what pulled me to RPGs in general. Because it wasn't long after I started playing that I wanted to run games. And when I ran games, I didn't just want to pull the monsters out of the monster manual and put them on the board, I wanted to take them and make them my own. So I think I was maybe 14 or 15 When I started really just dismantling the game systems and reassembling them for myself. And I basically just never stopped. Um, honestly, even to this day, most of what I do is just, hey, wouldn't it be cool if followed by six months of struggling with that idea? So,
Snyder’s Return:so when did the tinkering in your teams then turn into sort of a, I was gonna say profitable output. But that's, that's, that's another discussion for another time, when did it turn into a an income stream, and something you sort of really delved into and then started producing content, professionally or published material should be sent,
Cassandra MacDonald:right so that I actually have my old dungeon of the Mad mage group to thank for that. I was I'd run dungeon, the Mad mage for them. And they, they wanted to play a pirate crew and I want to run dungeon of the Mad mage. And I had to make these two ideas sort of work together. And I was like, Oh, well, there's this pirate port down in Undermountain called sculpt or I'll just make that their plot. But if you've seen the chapter on skull port and dungeon of the Mad mage, it's, it's short. It's fairly liens. And there wasn't a lot of story there. So I started digging, I got into the ad and D skull port book, and found all the cool stuff in there and I pulled it forward. And I started looking through old dragon magazines, articles and everything like that. And I wrote them a whole campaign that culminated in a dramatic political scene, in sculptured And by the time I had finished that I had no less than 50 pages of notes down on sculpt board. And I looked back at it and I was like, I had this huge heavy dossier that I had printed out and put in a binder for my for use of my table. And I was like, you know, this is basically a book already. If I edit this is sort of like add some reader facing content to it and put it in layout. This could actually be like a really neat little niche Diems guild product, like, maybe a couple people will find it helpful. Like it might get a dozen or so sales. And then 500 hours of work later, wow. 500 hours of work later, I have this book in my hands. And I throw it on the DMS guild sometime in early April 2020. Because I was locked at home, I had all this free time. I throw it on the DMS guild. I watched the sales go up. And I'm like, oh, oh, people are interested in this. I go to bed with that thought. And I wake up and it's a copper seller. And I'm like, Oh, I could do this. I can keep doing this like people want to hear this. And that unfounded confidence has carried me ever since
Snyder’s Return:on the go. And just for clarification for people that are like oh scope, or you mentioned the fifth edition refers to it and dungeon, the Mad mage. It's a great little setting, I think, without your book, sculpt short, shadows of Waterdeep is very under, under utilised in the book. To be fair. It's it to me, it's a bit like Shawn, it's a whole environment just tucked away, ready to be used for so many different stuff. I love urban stories and urban storytelling with respect to games and things and your book is such a such a good reference. So you started that with effectively this 50 pages of notes, but you've gone on to do so much more, have your notes been as extensive or, or how has each project sort of changed your creative process and how you've gone through the different things.
Cassandra MacDonald:I think after sculpture art, I realised I had to if I wanted to really do this develop a creative process. Because much of the work on sculpture art was just, I have two hours before bed, I'm going to write a bit on sculpt or or I have an evening to myself, I'm gonna have to sculpt board or work on the layout. And then by the end when I was in like the final stretch, I was doing like 16 hour work days, because I was so excited to get it done. But if you've worked in any creative field, you know, you can't count on that kind of enthusiasm to always come when you need it. So I started getting into more projects with other people like I started getting on board for more group Diems guild projects. Isaac May was one of the first people to pull me on for his weird stuff series, which was a series of magic item books. And that sort of formed, he sort of mentored me and did a lot to teach me like how to stay in this industry without losing your mind, like, plan out your work day. Even if all you're doing is to hours, like plan that into your day. And then when you put it down like don't answer work, emails, just plan, don't let this take over your life. Plan specific discipline times to work on this and it worked, I was able to slowly accumulate more of a background of work by doing a little bit on a whole bunch of projects. I don't generally take on solo projects as much anymore. Because I find I just I don't have the time or the obsessive energy I had when I was taking on Skeletor because that was easily a 500 hour project. Wow. Yeah, that was that was probably a good six months of my life. So yeah, you can't do that kind of thing forever. As much as it worked out for me that one time. You can't make that a stable way to produce anything.
Snyder’s Return:And so having sort of produced that and been picked up for other projects, you've you've worked across a whole gamut of an array of sort of different settings and genres effectively. I alluded to once bitten and more of the rhyme blessed vampire so there's some horror there. There's worms of the worms of the realms, which is tricky. So what is it like to sort of spread your creativity into different areas and sort of what was like working on those projects?
Cassandra MacDonald:I find that I have the easiest time when I get to spread my creativity across like into different very, very disparate projects. I remember at one point, I was working on worms of the realms. And I was writing dragons for level up. And I was writing dragons for another friends project. So I was writing epic level dragons for three different projects. And it was just so mentally exhausting, because I was like, oh, not more dragons. So I was really at my best when I could jump between. Like, at one point, I was working on diesel, and I was working on cryptids. And I was working on level up classes. So I could jump between, let's write Mad Max, and then let's write an urban cryptid investigation story. And then let's write the sorcerer. Hmm. So yeah, I found it really helped to be diversified in my project. They were all an absolute joy to work with, particularly diesel, the team on diesel was a star squad that just made magic. And I don't think I don't think I've ever been as satisfied with the team as the team I worked on diesel with. Well, I
Snyder’s Return:picked up diesel a little earlier today to have a good look through it. And I'd sort of noticed it before and not really, really understood what I was looking at until I sort of took the time to read through it. And it's it's such an amazing system. But before I get into the game itself, which you were part of, was your transition from content creator to Game Designer, was that a intuitive process? Was that pretty smooth for you? Because of your tinkering before? Or did you find it hard to adjust from tweaking a set style to now creating something new with a whole team,
Cassandra MacDonald:I would say the transition was very smooth. Because creating mechanics, designing games and building systems was always the part of this that came easiest to me. I often tell people, like lots of people try to hire me on for adventure writing gigs, because they've seen my work and they like it. And I've told them like, I will do this. But I'm not an adventure writer, I'm a game designer, like I'm, I'm better on the crunchy mechanical side of things than on the narrative side, I can make the narrative side work. But if you really want to see me at my best, give me a system to design. So honestly, the transition to doing stuff like diesel, like building systems from the ground up was really easy. It was a very natural direction for me. And honestly, I wish I could do it more.
Snyder’s Return:Well, for those who are maybe haven't heard of diesel before, so you know, just before we were talking about A D 20 system, would you mind sort of giving us a bit of a an intro into it since as a game designer, you know, you helped create and bring this this game to life? Would you mind give us an insight into what diesel is and the the the basic mechanics behind the game as to why others like myself should go out and and pick up a copy today?
Cassandra MacDonald:Yeah, totally. So diesel is a cinematic narrative game, about cybernetically enhanced cowboys battling mega corporations on the edge of the universe. And if that doesn't sell you, I don't know what will. The mechanics are all designed to be a very streamlined, simple to learn system. I think the whole book I can actually I think the whole book together comes up to about 50 pages.
Snyder’s Return:Now. Yeah, 90 In total, as I say I've got it open in front of me so I can. Yeah, I think some of that is front cover back cover and Character. Character sheets and things but 90 pages in total. Yeah.
Cassandra MacDonald:So yeah, the whole thing is pretty small. And it's about half mechanics, half narrative, all things considered. The system is very much designed to provide a cinematic experience so it's less concerned with the nitty gritty of the dice math and of getting specific stats out of your character is more about empowering the player and the GM to work together to create dramatic narrative ly satisfying moments. And sometimes it's just about doing really cool things. There is not a lot that is much cooler than leaping off of a junk rider onto a tanker truck and setting it on fire. It's just if you want to do sweet Mad Max stuff modify your body with bits of metal on have a gun for an arm. It's the system for you.
Snyder’s Return:It sounds sort of having a look at some of the artwork and started definitely has definitely sales on the Mad Max from Brave star if familiar with the martial brave star Cartoon and toy line it definitely seems that to me, that's sort of cyberpunk style. Wild West, which is what the game portrays. The the game itself uses D six dice pool system. Yeah. Do you find that that opens out a lot more freedom narratively mechanically for for GMs. And players.
Cassandra MacDonald:Yes. So I actually, the D six dice pool system was something I was very fond of, for a couple reasons. One, because a festival of the sexes is something that basically anyone can find around their house. So it lowers the barrier barrier of entry to play. I'm very fond of the six dice pool because it's, anyone can look around their house, anyone who's an RPG into RPGs can probably look around their house and find a mitt full of D sixes, which lowers the barrier to entry for getting into the game. Beyond that, it allowed us to do a lot of really creative stuff with the system. Most notably, we were able to do the malfunction dice system, which was kind of my pet project, I wanted the diesels, diesels being like the player characters who are modified with these clunky metallic parts. I wanted the diesels to feel heroic and bad and like cool. But I also wanted their machine parts to feel a little junky and unreliable at times. So when your machine parts get damaged, or you or you take a crash, or you get a bad hit, you suffer malfunction dice, and they replace some of the dice in your pool. And when you throw ones on these dice, not only is that roll considered, like not only is that one not a success. On top of that something goes wrong with your mechanical parts. And I've had all kinds of stuff I've had players like their prosthetics locking up and, and not working. One player had his arm catch fire. We've had all kinds of interesting situations come out of the malfunction dice system. And that's just something you can't really get outside of a dice pool system. And it was the one of the things I really wanted to hit just right. Because I feel like the malfunction pool, hitting a malfunction doesn't necessarily mean that your role failed because the other dice in your pool can still succeed. But it means that no matter what happens, some bad thing is coming your way. And that makes for a lot of really interesting drama. There's a lot of success at a cost in diesel. And I love that about it. Yeah, no,
Snyder’s Return:I totally agree he's had sort of having a look through. I've got the character sheet up and the sort of the base stats. Very well very clearly laid out out a sheet which I love, I love single pain you're very into character sheets, it's a it's a sad thing, but I just love I like to be able to look at the sheet and understand what looking but one thing I do like, really like and it's in the book and it's on the character sheet is for the DR statue, you have your guard and you have your metal and then you have your meat and how you can sort of break down first you have to break through the guard and then you can choose how the damage is dealt to your meat or your metal. I think that's such a brilliant sort of spin on on any kind of health system, as it were. So what's it like? What, what was it like sort of coming up with that side of the game? Certain systems are known to have characters where you just sort of fall over and stand back up again and and sort of repeat ad infinitum and kind of thing was allows a bit more nuanced play, shall we say?
Cassandra MacDonald:Yeah. So before on that note, I just like to put it out there. We actually agonised for quite some time over what to call the metal and meat stats. We came up with metal and meat immediately as working names for your organic health and you're like cybernetic hell. We started calling the metal and meat in as like a work in progress sort of thing that we were like, oh, we'll come up with new names for these later. And we found it. We found it so funny and so blase to just call the metal and meet that it just made it into the final book. So that was that was kind of something that we just stuck by. But it was always our goal for characters in diesel to be dramatic, heroic, but fallible. So we never wanted anyone to feel invincible. We always wanted you to feel like once your guard stat was down you were very much vulnerable. We didn't want people like with a couple of night mods you can you can rush rush like lines of armed gun Man, but there's gonna be consequences. And taking damage on either your metal or meat, neither one of them is easy to fix. Because meat meat will repair slowly with proper night's rest. If your metal stack gets damaged, you're taking malfunctions, and you're gonna need to get to a garage to fix that. So the, the guard stat really encourages a bit of like, cinematic dramatic play because it's very much a buffer between you and danger. But the metal and meat stats remind you that we are mortal. And I liked that balance in the design because we really didn't want players to feel like they could do whatever they want. You mentioned the problem of some systems just letting you get knocked down and get back up over and over. And that's something I really wanted to avoid because that is my PII and a lot of systems.
Snyder’s Return:So hopefully, like I was taken in an inspired to pick this up. Before we do the where we can find diesel. Where can we find you Cassandra and everything you're associated with the police.
Cassandra MacDonald:So I can be found on Twitter, I am at the ice queer, all one word. That's the primary place you'll see my work. You can get to my portfolio and a whole bunch of samples from there.
Snyder’s Return:Well, you also have stuff on the DMS Guild and drive thru RPG, as we've mentioned, diesel being one of them. I will put a link to diesel down the description below. But it is available through links through your website. So there'll be a link to that as well.
Cassandra MacDonald:I think currently, we are actually selling diesel through metal weave games.
Snyder’s Return:So they assure Yes.
Cassandra MacDonald:So they have the paperback and I think the hardcover copies. I'm a big fan of the paperbacks though because it's a small book is really nice to just flip through and paperback.
Snyder’s Return:I will make a note to check that out. I knew it was metal weave. We'll go and check out that website after this interview. Will you games who do other great games as well but that's a different conversation for another time. So not only do you have stuff or work for stuff released through metal weave and drive through the diesel and stuff on the dungeon master's guild your you've worked for MC Diem as part of the sort of Kickstarter package the flee mortal set what it's been like contributing to such a well known production house such as MC Diem.
Cassandra MacDonald:It has been so I need to preface this with I have been a big fan of MCM since the early days of running the game like I was a big fan of his channel. So it has been difficult because sometimes I am in a meeting to discuss like next steps or to theory craft or to plan out like the Giants, for example, we had a whole meeting to discuss what we wanted to do with the Giants and every now and then Matt Colville is like well, Cassandra, what do you want to do? And I have to have that internal moment of like, What do you mean, what do I think I I learned like a huge amount of my like DMing and game design philosophy from you. At this point, I don't know what I think. So that's been an interesting experience, but the team has been fantastic. Definitely one of the best experiences I've had working with any company, they are so great for contractors and freelancers. They give me a tonne of creative freedom, which I really appreciated, and they let me get unreasonably deadly with the monsters which is something I have a hard time finding these days. Because I like to make monsters very scary. And it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is my cup of tea. I like the really deadly terrifying photos and M CDM is all for that
Snyder’s Return:amazing and prospective the Giants then you mentioned that was one of the monsters you worked on for free modules. Packet packet Yeah, that's what they call it. What is it about the giants that that you spawn on? What is the standard d&d Giant for example, how how are your giants deadly for someone that maybe hasn't gone across the MC Diems website and looked into sort of backing or collecting the free mortals packet.
Cassandra MacDonald:So one of the things I really wanted to get right with the Giants was that I wanted to emphasise that they are so much more than a big bag of hit points that hit you with a club. I wanted to get to I wanted to get across the distinct styles of the different giants taking the fight Austrians for example, one of the things I really liked was the idea that they are this very like elemental force. They are an oncoming storm that must be weathered or avoided. So I built this trade into them, literally called the oncoming storm, which is that they just have a constant light Blizzard around them. And if you try to concentrate on spells while you're near them, you have to your checks are all harder. I think you have to make the concentration say check the beginning of each of your turns if you're near the. And a lot of the time I tried to move their damage out of just their main attack because the bass monster manual giants, their main attack hurts a lot. But it's also their only action. So I tried to move some of their damage away from their main attack and mix it into some reactions on some special abilities. The wind sprinter for example, one of the Frost Giants, can essentially sprint in a straight line, trample everyone along the way, and stick them all with an axe attack as he goes by which terrifies people it is horrible. In practice, the damage output isn't that much more severe than the bass monster manual giant like it is a little it is a little worse. Get is a little more dangerous. But the visual of this 18 foot tall Frost Giant sprinting through your lines, toppling everyone they pass through and swinging their axe as they go by is just so terrifying. But I think it catches people by surprise. I think that's just it as I wanted them to have things that they could do. That was more than just they swing their axe and do 38 damage.
Snyder’s Return:So I mean that does sound terrifying. Reminds me of one of the Fire Giants in the welding it's in the monster manual that has the sort of the jewel shields that uses them like a like a plough kind of thing. A giants you're your favourite? Do you have a favourite monster? Or do you just like tweaking and changing the ones that are sort of catch your imagination at the time you obviously done a lot of work with dragons are denoted knew the scale of the projects you were taking on with that. Thank you very much. But do you have a favourite monster type that you would always like to go back to and use in maybe Hunger Games?
Cassandra MacDonald:Um, truth be told, Well, I did do the Giants for MCM and have and I'm still working on more content related to the Giants from CDM. I have also written a lot of dragons and I do love dragons. I think there's so much fun when you really lean into building them in an interesting way. But the place I always end up is back at undead. I have written as you mentioned there was once bitten, which was my whole homage to vampires because I just I really love vampires and I feel like they were so I always found myself sold short by the monster manual vampire and I was like, I want to give people something different. And following that I've also worked on vectors library of Liches. I think undead just stick out to me because they are so they're just very like quintessential d&d monster. They almost always they're almost always like a natural foe of divine characters, which gives this feeling of a sort of cosmic clash whenever they brought out. Like you can't put a veteran of the lich on the board without feeling like you're like you're fighting a cosmic force. I feel like undead fill the space of being this elemental, unstoppable power in the world while still having a face to them. Yeah,
Snyder’s Return:I do like one of the ones you brought up Thomas morgue, the Ryan blessed vampire stalking, so Icewind Dale and the 10 towns that it's mentioned that can be used in The Rime of the frost maiden but can be used in any sort of Arctic set up cold weather setting but I just love that spin that there is somewhere hidden amongst the snow, this powerful vampire that can find and track down adventures. It certainly adds a different element to the potential horror in in games if people want to add that sort of element to their d&d games.
Cassandra MacDonald:Yeah, morgue was largely the brainchild of Brian Holmes. I've edited for that project, but I didn't directly write him. But oh, boy, Brian, just absolutely hit it out of the park on the horror with that one. There's something just innately terrifying about taking a vampire and making it, you know, 16 feet tall, like, what does that do to the surrounding environment? What does that do as a boss monster? So I really love that project.
Snyder’s Return:And you also so going from sort of 16 vampires to sort of 1012 foot moth people and other cryptids What was it like sort of bringing in those sort of an either mythological in that sense with a crypt? What was it like bringing cryptids into a fivey? Setting?
Cassandra MacDonald:Honestly, it was really one of the more challenging projects, because I feel like the five year is difficult to pour into things that aren't solved by hitting them with a sword. And cryptozoological investigation was something I was actually quite sceptical of making in five. I actually talked with the project manager, Alexis was like, Hey, are we sure we want to do this and FFIV? Like, is this something you want to do? And she's like, Yeah, like she stood her ground on it. She was like, Yes, I think we can make this work on 5g. And her monster design, absolutely carried the day on that because she is a absolute talent when it comes to monster design. And as a result, she really did a lot to bring the cryptids to life in a very compelling way without losing their modern feel like the result didn't feel like Dungeons and Dragons. In another setting. It felt like cryptozoological investigation with five e like without having to learn a new rule set. It was definitely one of the more difficult projects I've worked on, simply because yeah, it was just a very, it was a difficult transition, because you're trying to take a system that's not really not really designed for problems that can't be killed, and use it to do this very urban investigation style. But I was rather happy with how we ended up
Snyder’s Return:just fine off again, available on the DMS go to answer your website. And links will be in the description. Below. I want to do the doobly doo thing that's up my call reference. So you've worked with FFIV just use that as a as a general term and decent sized pool systems. Are there any there any game systems that you You've haven't played yet that you would love to sort of give a give a try to and maybe sort of design for or create content for that you haven't done so already?
Cassandra MacDonald:Oh, man, you don't even have to ask me all I have to do is look at my shelf and I would love to play Pathfinder to E sets high on that list. I've had the books for it for probably a good two years now. And I just haven't been able to get a group together to sit for it. I've loved Pathfinder, like I picked up the original Pathfinder when it first came out and played it for years. So Pathfinder, two E is on my list and has been since it launched, but it's a hard sell for a lot of people because it is a much crunchier system when compared to five E. I would love to start writing for Pathfinder. Honestly, I just want to have some experience with running it first. I can't imagine trying to build for a system you've never run. Also on my list, vampire i i was actually really excited when the storyteller has evolved, opened up vampire fifth edition for fan creations. Because I would love to start writing for vampire. It's one of those things that it's been difficult to justify because the storyteller is vault is very niche. And I'm like can I really justify like setting aside a whole bunch of time and budget for a personal project that is probably not going to sell well and might just end up being a big money pit. But I love World of Darkness. I love vampire and I love the newest addition. So that is definitely on my list of things I want to write for
Snyder’s Return:my using I hope I hope because I'm yet to storytel for it. or playing myself, but I also have the books and have sort of fallen for the for the game in that respect. So I'd love to see your your content, should you get round to to making it that would certainly be something I'd like to pick up myself.
Cassandra MacDonald:Very charming system in a terrific way.
Snyder’s Return:Yes, definitely. So you mentioned the sort of dedicating time to creation. You mentioned 500 hours spent sort of creating shadows of Waterdeep, the sculpture book and other demands on your time, do you get much downtime? I know you mentioned about scheduling time, but to get much downtime away from the hobby, do you do things? Or is the hobby? Both your work and your distraction?
Cassandra MacDonald:Oh, that's a difficult one. Yeah, I actually I did. I had a I had a problem with this when I first started making things like in my first year of making things for RPGs. Because running d&d, on the weekends was like, my primary thing I did like that was my primary social time, d&d and other games, I would, I would run a game on Friday, go home, run a game on Saturday, go home, run a game on Sunday, go home go to work. Like that was my whole weekend, I would just run games all weekend. And when I started making RPGs, on the side, I kind of lost that in that inclination, it became a lot harder because it was like, I spend all week looking at RPG stuff and working on RPG stuff. And making this essentially like a part time job. Well, when the weekend comes around, I am no longer like I want I no longer want to think about it. So it actually did a lot of my like long ongoing games sort of took a hiatus in my first year of building RPG stuff. Because it was difficult to split my creative energy between making RPG content professionally and telling stories for my friends. Yeah, it's still something I very much struggle with. But I'm getting a lot better at finding that balance. I've had, I've leaned into a lot of other hobbies like I've even I've picked up LARPing as a way to sort of try and find different forms of role playing, just to keep that inspiration fresh. Because it's hard. It's hard to write in a medium if you're not also taking in that medium on the regular. Because you need to you need to take in that creative energy just as much as you give it out.
Snyder’s Return:Of course. So with your you're sort of time being pulled in several different directions for both work content creation, and just just relaxing. Are you working on anything that that we can expect to see from you in the future? You mentioned still working on some giant stuff with him CDM Is there anything that you're specifically working on? Moving on from from now, a time of recording.
Cassandra MacDonald:So in terms of my own projects, I've been on quite a few Kickstarters now, but I've never, I've never managed one myself. And that's something I'm really hoping to change in the coming year. What I'm working on right now, I feel that a lot of people have sort of shied away from very high lethality, high difficulty RPGs. And for good reason we build these characters and we write elaborate backstories. And we spend a lot of time we invest a lot of effort into them. And I think very rightfully, people don't want their characters to die. I want to write a book aimed at fivey with monsters, spells, traps, mechanics, all oriented around giving people an on ramp into more lethal play. I think people underestimate just how dramatic it can be. And just how how much fun you can have when not necessarily a horror feel is on the table. But when you do feel that your character is in danger. I want to play with more permanent effects more consequences in combat. Without players feeling like they're being cheated or like they're being unfairly treated. I want to build a supplement focus on brutal but fair working title is rule of death but we'll see what happens when it comes but I think a lot of people could have a lot of fun with high lethality play. And I want to be an on ramp into that I want to introduce people to how much fun it is when your character just sometimes gets absolutely gutted.
Snyder’s Return:sound of it. So, barring this this on ramp to mortality I guess or fatality, I can we expect to see more with the diesel engine or one of the other, say powered by the apocalypse or forced in the dark. Would you like to use other systems for your creative outputs as well? Or are you sort of more focused on the Fiery side of things at the moment,
Cassandra MacDonald:I would love to do a fully original force in the dark system. Actually, I have, I actually flipped a coin for this. I decided to do rule of death first. But the other thing I am looking at as a potential future project is Forge is a fortune, The Dark Project. I've always believed the blades in the dark would make a really great pirate game. Nice working title on that one is blades on the deck. But I do not think that evil hat was let me call it that. But ya know, blades in the dark has a rather robust SR D. And I have basically, I started workshopping with it quite a while back, because I grabbed blades in the dark right off the Kickstarter. I've played it for a couple of years with friends. And it's it's a beautiful system. unbelievably well made, like they hit it out of the park on that one. And I would love to work in fortunate the dark. It's just also a little niche. And also, an entire system book is probably a higher goal to reach for a first Kickstarter than a supplementary book. So I'd like to start with something a little bit smaller, but you know,
Snyder’s Return:yeah, of course. Yeah. I'm excited to see what your working title becomes. In the future, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that. Because you say that the fortune in the dark system blades in the dark, such a wonderful game,
Cassandra MacDonald:have you played much of it yourself.
Snyder’s Return:I haven't had the chance to play much of it. I own it. I've read it front to back and inside and out and looked at the different classes, the different playbooks. And as you mentioned before about Pathfinder, it's just finding people at the right time and the books to hand and the dice of air and just making it all come together. So it's certainly a game I'd love to run, or at least play at at some stage more than just sort of getting in behind it and reading through the mechanics and the lore of dodgeball.
Cassandra MacDonald:No, it can it's it's always tricky to get a group together to play RPGs outside of d&d, but if you ever get a chance, absolutely game I would recommend.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah. 100%. So we've spoken about different game systems, different projects are working on with respect to the wider TTRPG community, and sort of making sure mentioned they're getting the group together. what's your what's your view on the inclusivity? Of TT? RPGs? Where we are at the moment in the end of 2022? Do you think we've made progress? Is there still progress to be made? What are your feelings?
Cassandra MacDonald:That is a broad question is a broad question. I think that we are making a lot more progress than people often imagine. I believe that a lot of the best progress that's being made is happening outside Wizards of the Coast, and no, no shade on them. Like they're a huge company. Change takes time when you are that big. But we're seeing even from a company like piezo. And from smaller companies that are moving around, we're seeing some really big changes in terms of not only like how games are made, and who they're being made for, but even who's being hired, who's being brought on to projects, we're seeing an influx of sensitivity reading. That was something we really had to lay thick on with diesel. Because not only were we working in the Western setting, which is historically rather racist, but we were working with cyberpunk, which is historically rather ableist. So I think the push toward using sensitivity readers more proactively has been a really great move for the RPG industry in general, even if that push isn't necessarily reflected in the highest budget RPG is coming to the scene right now. And of course, this is all helped by the fact that the bar for entry for getting into RPGs is lower than it's ever been Before you had to basically be able to like, lay out your entire RPG, print out a bunch of copies, get yourself a ticket to like Gen Con or Gary Cohn. Get yourself a booth and start handing out copies of your RPG or selling copies of your RPG. It was an expensive, exhausting, and often heartbreaking process. Because then as ever, it was hard to introduce people to new RPGs. But at this point, it is easier than ever to make something that you are passionate about. put a price tag on it and stick it on itch io or drive thru RPG and join the circle of indie RPG designers who are passing around the same $5. Yeah. Yeah, I know that may sound bleak. I'm not I'm not trying to discourage anyone with that comment. It genuinely is like really, it's really endearing to be a part of this community. This is it's really lovely to see how welcoming people can be in this community. However, like people shouldn't be warned. It could be a while before you make money off of doing this. So you know, get into it, because you love it.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, that's fine. I will keep supporting different games and indie creators where I can. But everybody's budget only goes so far, I suppose. So bits is which is fair enough. But it's thanks to people like yourself that we have games like like diesel. And some of the other examples we've spoken about that aren't sort of the big, high production, high level sort of games that we are potentially more familiar with. So thank you, Cassandra basement. So, you know, we've spoken about how you got into tabletop role playing games, we've spoken about your creation process, downtime, to a certain extent, different things you've worked on. Is there anything that we haven't spoken about in this interview that you would like to bring up at this point in time? I,
Cassandra MacDonald:I've been doing hiring lately for Baldwin games, for the dreams of the red wizards campaign. And let me tell you, I just want to as a piece of advice, I just want to say pull together a portfolio as soon as possible. Like if for people who want to get into this. I promise it is not. It is not that hard to I'm trying to find a way to say this without sounding elitist. I, I have had so many people come to me just like really helpful designers who really want to work in this industry. Who just seemed to like clam up when I asked for a portfolio. It doesn't have to be in depth. I will take a couple of mechanics you've written a couple of magic items you did for d&d, a monster you home brewed. Like your campaign knows something is so much better than nothing. And very often I am looking for any excuse to hire a person. So seriously, I just want to emphasise, I want to emphasise how welcomed people are in this space. I want to see so many more people thrive in this space. Which is why I'm trying to find a way to say write a portfolio without it feeling like I'm gatekeeping because I've not I really am trying my best to be like no like anyone can be here. But sometimes you need a little something to show just to get people on board. So it's
Snyder’s Return:a sort of shoot your shot but as back back it up kind of thing.
Cassandra MacDonald:Exactly. Okay. People think
Snyder’s Return:yeah, we can happily support that message. And you know, this is just one of the many mediums that we can share the community with each other and opportunities like the ones you presented there because I'm just absolutely yeah. If there's an email address, or if it's just through your contacts, on Twitter, again, I'll put a link in the description below for those that have something have something to prove and and present it, I think is the message.
Cassandra MacDonald:And on that note, as I said, I am doing hiring for Baldwin games for the dreams the red wizard series if you want to write for adventurers League, send me a message on Twitter I can even give my email for you to put in the description. I am looking for anyone who wants to write for adventurers League and has a bit of experience with adventure. Writing. If you can pull together a portfolio pass along to me, I will keep you in consideration. I really do want to hear from more people who are not who are not the standbys of the industry.
Snyder’s Return:All right. Well, I will see what I've got put together in places, I'm working on many different fronts, as well as as well as working. So you may very well received something from my good self.
Cassandra MacDonald:Absolutely.
Snyder’s Return:Gotta go for it. So, Cassandra, we've mentioned there about sort of getting contact with you. Would you like to remind everybody where they can find you and everything you're associated with? Please?
Cassandra MacDonald:Yes, primarily, if you want to reach out to me or see anything that I've made, or challenged me to pistols at dawn, I don't know what you prefer. You can find me on Twitter at the ice queer, all one word. All my work can be found through DMS guild drive thru RPG and a wide variety of other places. But ideally, you want to reach it through my Twitter, because from there, you can find all of this.
Snyder’s Return:Well, I will make sure the links are in the description below. In cluding, Twitter, website and various other places we mentioned during the course of this interview, Cassandra has been a real pleasure to to get some of your time and have the ability to find out more about yourself, your work and all the sort of the projects and things that you've been working on. I'd love to get you back on the show in the future if you'd be willing to join me.
Cassandra MacDonald:Absolutely. Thank you for having me out. It was a great time. Thank you. So glad to have come on.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, no, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. 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 Schneider. We 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