Hello, and welcome to Snyder’s return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guests today have been creating TTRPG content on so many platforms that the whole world is there stage games to be played in small villages under Broadway lights and online. So mission accomplished. Well, no, this is not a curtain call, but a chance to shine the limelight on their past current and future achievements. The question asked by my guess is to be or not to be a villain. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome game designers content creators podcasters and thespians. James Introcaso. And Rudy basso welcome both of you to the show.
Rudy Basso:Thank you so many theatre references that intro Yes, I'm we're applauding for the list.
James Introcaso:Absolutely. So good, so good.
Snyder’s Return:But it's only because you're so good that I'm able to sort of reward your work back to you in such a way. And for those that aren't maybe familiar with each of you, which is astonishing, considering you're sort of each of your respective portfolios within the TTRPG community. But you won't give us a brief introduction about yourselves, please.
James Introcaso:Sure, yeah. I'm James Introcaso. I'm the Lead Game Designer at MCDM. And I've written a couple of books, worked with Wizards of the Coast and cobalt press, roll 20 and a couple other places, but now full time over there working with Matt Colville on some fun stuff, and I've worked with this guy who is also here several times.
Rudy Basso:Yeah, my name is Rudy basso, I've done my best to grab James's coattails as he's skyrocketed into the sky, to the moon, to the galaxies. I've done a few things around here and there. I've done some audiobooks I've written for him. CDM. I've written for a few other publishers, but you know, just just trying to catch a break. Well,
Snyder’s Return:I'm glad that you you both caught a breaking and carried on. I think my first exposure to you was the punching kicker. Torian from the demon plague.
Rudy Basso:Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've done a few podcasts in our day to James, we used to run a podcast network even be sure to tabletop RPGs. And yeah, we did a full 40 session. campaign right, based on what we did.
James Introcaso:We did the demon play. Yes. Yeah.
Rudy Basso:Don't steal a podcast you could listen to you want to hear some silly.
James Introcaso:All episodes available on YouTube as well. If you want to see our faces while we do it, it's true. I leave it on for my dog. When when I go out, if like there's going to be thunder or lightning or something, because I know that my voice will be going for a while. And also my dog is a big fan of Rudy. And so it's another familiar voice that she can hear.
Snyder’s Return:Well, Rudy, you got your own dog as well, I believe
Rudy Basso:I do. Yes, I have a dog too. Nice. Name is Jewel. And I'm Uncle to James's. So that's very nice, too.
Snyder’s Return:So your respective back catalogues have sort of covered a whole different range of systems, and a few will sort of get into but the reason I really wanted to get you back on the show, and thank you so much for joining me again, James. And really, it's always nice to sort of get in contact and be in contact with you is your latest release, which is sort of dual system and yet stands apart to be on not to be a villain. Would you mind give us a bit of a bit of background about this release? And how it all came together, please?
Rudy Basso:Sure. So I in college, where James and I met was in a production of the Bards finest work, Hamlet. Oh, and then James and I postgraduation were both involved in a summer community theatre that did a Shakespeare show every summer. So the both of us are pretty familiar with Shakespeare's back catalogue. And James runs a convention every year. It used to be every year we've had to halt it because of COVID. But it's like a little friend convention we call an intro con. So after after the founder, who's James, and one year he ran a game called of drought origin right, James? That's what it's called. Correct, yes. And of drought origin is for nine player characters or something like that. And one dungeon master. It's actually ironically kind of a play on Romeo and Juliet, where there's a Drow man in love with a human woman. And it's about their respective families coming together for a wedding and the high jinks that will ensue. It was a really cool, so I was in another game during that time, but I went downstairs in the basement and watched this game being played. And it was a really, really cool premise and concept. But it was kind of messy, it was kind of hard to follow. Like I said, a really cool concept, not the best execution, so that I had that kind of brewing in my mind for a while and I'm like, I want another game. That's like nine player characters. That's just so fun. To me that concept of having a big game with a bunch of people. And I'm very familiar. You know, it was kind of Romeo Juliet giulietti. I know Hamlet, Hamlet has a tonne of characters. And then well, one day, when James was running it by himself, there was just so much going on at once, it was hard for him to single handedly Dungeon Master, even a professional dungeon master like James intercom. So I think you were kind of just were like, Alright, you go your way. It was just like you go in order. And it was just really difficult. So I thought, well, let's add a second game master to it as well. And so that's kind of where it began. Sorry, I'm talking Yeah, no,
James Introcaso:I do want to so that that module of Drow origin is actually still exists. And it's from distracted mind games, a guy named Randy Aiken put it together. And it also I think it's probably a thing where if I were, it was my first time ever running it. And if I had been more prepared, or if I had had more support, I think it probably would have gone better. So I don't want to it's not on the module, right? It's on the person. But I do want to, I think like that's where the genesis for this came from? Because it was like, Well, what if you did have more support? What if you did have someone because essentially, when you have nine players in a group, right, the focus of that game was was a lot of like backstabbing and intrigue. They're not fighting anybody other than each other. Right, which is how you you're able to manage things like combat and stuff like that, because it's not nine PCs against Nine Dragons. It's nine PCs against each other. But that's really hard to do when it's like, there's these two separate factions. But then within the faction, there's infighting, and these people want to get together and have a conversation and this person's passing you a note, and this right, so like, how do you manage that? And Rudy came up with the idea of to GMs, which I think was brilliant.
Rudy Basso:Yeah, so we started out writing the d&d version of the game. And it went great. We had like a finished kind of build manuscript. And James had just finished writing a Zvi hander campaign, like full campaign called a turtle night of Longwood, check it out, Amazon now, or wherever books or books are sold. And so he had a relationship with Andrews McMeel, which is a publisher here in America that had an RPG division that I think just closed, but we pitched it to them, and they were like, this is cool. Can you also make it like us by hand or version? Because that's our in house RPG. So we said, yeah, we can do that. But it was an amazing opportunity, actually, because we wrote sort of an alternate universe version of the hamlet, the d&d game. So whereas for I mean, I'll just give us pretty easy Rosencrantz is a man in the DND version, we decided why not gender swap. So Rosencrantz is a woman in the in the swineherd diversion characters that might be more head is hesitant or reticent to act might be way more aggressive. And the other book we did a lot of changing. So it really is two different experiences. I mean, even the time period like the hamlet game is more or the d&d game is more traditional fantasy, whereas these why inner game is more steampunk and has a lot of like more limited magic opportunities. So yeah, in the way the game do you have a copy of the book James? I do though. Okay, just to show Adam here. Sorry listeners at home. But the way the book is presented, is you upside down. You noticed, yeah, there we go. There we go. You can play it one side and it's the DND then you flip the book vertically, and it's these by hand are version. So halfway through Read the book, the text flips upside down. And it's got perfect like we're so pumped with the amount of support they gave us. There's perforations for character sheets, there's even a deck of cards that you punch out. And that's the rumour. There's a lot of like funky mechanics that we added to it as well, to make it more streamlined, you're not gonna get a full character sheet, you're gonna get something a lot more truncated with less spells. I, it's hard. I could go on for like, 40 minutes talking about it, because it is really unique in this space, I think. And way, way different than a lot of other modules. I guess. James agreed.
James Introcaso:Yeah, I do. I you know, one of the things that is very cool about it to me, is that the, you know, you take on the persona of Hamlet's cast, right, and so you're Claudius and Gertrude and Hamlet and those people. And as you investigate these mysteries, of like, why is the king dead and that sort of thing, you're also vying for the throne, while at the same time, a the King of Norway Fortin process coming. But if you don't know Hamlet at all, it's a really great experience, because we changed a lot of the stuff. For instance, if if you've seen Hamlet, you know that Claudius murdered the king at the beginning of Hamlet. In this one, we don't know who that is, it's determined by a random dice die roll that the GM makes at the beginning. Right. So it could be anybody.
Rudy Basso:It could be also up to four people. Yeah. One person? Yes,
James Introcaso:yeah. So we've got a lot of different things like that to make it unexpected. And then, for whatever reason, when we made this by hand or version, we were like, We're gonna make this totally different so that the book is replayable. So it's not just a conversion. It really is. And we know this through play testing, because we play tested the d&d version. And then we got the same people to play test those by hand or version for the most part. And they were like, yep, feels like a different game feels like a totally different experience. And we did not know what to expect. And that was pretty great. So you know, the, the all the events changed all of the character backstories. And their positions and stuff changed, even like, the attitude of foreign bras in the two is very different. So that was fun. Yeah. Yeah,
Rudy Basso:sorting process of vampires.
Snyder’s Return:All right, fantasy spins in common, this is great. So with this, and for for the benefit of the listener that is really describing your turn the book vertically, it's not two separate books, it is a combined volume tome article, great source of content with the fact that you have sort of moved, used both D and D ends by hand, and you've changed my handle, which is traditionally grim dark to the steampunk, what was it like sort of tweaking these systems to sort of suit this larger group size, and yet sort of flowing playstyle that you have described.
Rudy Basso:So we did add some unique mechanics that are on both versions of the game, we added something called Story tokens, which you earn through good role playing because everyone loves mechanics like that. And the way that works is you play one. And then the reason we have to GMS is Yeah, at times, it can be hectic, and sometimes switching off, who's taking the reigns is a good idea. But again, this is a game about backstabbing, and diplomacy. So with these story tokens, you can be like, hey, I want to take Adam and go off on my own for a moment. And then the second game master will go with you listen in adjudicate any, you know, checks that need to be made or anything like that. And kind of just be there so people can scheme against each other and connive when the opportunity arises. So I think adding that helped kind of keep the game similar even though there's such different systems. And we did try to keep kind of the high fantasy elements of the d&d game. Spoilers there might be a dragon involved and while we did make it more steampunk, it is still dark. I remember one of the notes James and I would give each other when we were writing it was like make it more as vai hander. So that means Okay, someone has to die here or something has to be a fight to the death here. It needs to be more metal. That was kind of a thing we would try and do often.
James Introcaso:Yeah, yeah. And the sort of the the aspects of one of the reasons that so I hander was good to take it into like this little more steampunky places. You know, I sort of think of there too. Whoo. Two varieties of steampunk in my mind and steampunk enthusiast will tell you there are probably many more than that. So don't ask me. But but you know, there is there's sort of like, machines and Derek jables. And like look at all this cool stuff. But then there's like the Gaslight I'm gonna get stabbed in the middle of the night. Because you know, the gas lights are few and far between as I'm making my way between them and, and things aren't as nice. And I would say ours is steampunk by night, right and like our version of his vai hander, which is what makes it still appropriate to be with those rules, you know, so I Hendra has rules for injury and infection, and things like that. And so it really fits that aesthetic kind of well of like, well, you might go to a surgeon if you get hurt, as opposed to d&d where which feels more fantasy, and it's like, well, you might go to a cleric if you get hurt, right. So those aesthetics are definitely still part of the game, which was part of the fun then and in in making the conversion and saying like, alright, well, it's my hander. So for instance, you get handed a pre Gen when you sit down and your pre Gen has different motivations things that they're trying to find out different attitudes towards all the other characters, I would say on the whole this by hand, or characters are a little edgier. Which is interesting, because it also means they're a little more honest. The d&d characters are also backstabbing and hate each other in many ways. Some of them love each other. Some of them hate each other. But there's more of like a Downton Abbey. Oh, we're all in court. And we were putting up a facade. Whereas vai hander, I think that falls away a little bit quicker. And it's more like, I don't trust you. And I'm going to tell you, I don't trust you.
Rudy Basso:Yeah, all of our prisons have written relationships with every other character in the game. And we say, you know, this is a jumping off point. Play with this, if you want to lean deep into it fine. If you want to change things around and do your own thing. That's fine to work. We're excited. We're just excited. You're playing? Yeah. Oh, and goals. Everyone has a goal at the start of the game, too. That's also important. Does
Snyder’s Return:it change, but that is just systems to the goals. The goals in the d&d side? Do they differ to the spider site because of the play styles? small difference?
Rudy Basso:I'm trying to good question. I think some of them Yeah, cuz some characters are. So as Jim said, you're all the characters are members of and this is not loyal to the play. They're all members of the Danish Council. And there is no in the play like, Claudius is king. And Hamlet is upset because he thinks he should be king, because he's next in line, we throw that out. Claudius is not King, no one's king, they will elect a new monarch at the end of the game. So some people are way more interested in becoming monarch. And some people are more interested in like, marrying Ophelia. That's one specific person that might cheat. Yes, because the characters are so different between the systems, their motivations might I mean, Hamlet, is just like way angrier in this way. And different. His goal is to get revenge on others, whereas the other one, he's just more like, reticent and trying to figure out who he is. Yeah, yeah. And it's also a chance, you know, we
James Introcaso:tell everybody at the beginning of the game, hey, this is where your character starts. But if over the course of this, you decide this person I hate I actually now trust or this, like, we want those things to happen. So every time you play or run the game, it really can be very, very different. I don't know that we ever had the same experience twice. Or even close to it. And and I think part of the things part of the thing that was really interesting about that was that some people who maybe it was in their backstory that like yeah, you're ambitious and you want the throne, they would become instead of, you know, the the monarch, they'd become the kingmaker, right? And say, like, oh, I can see, nobody likes me, except for this person who does like me, and everybody likes them. So if I can set them up to become the monarch, then I have control and stake in the game, right? Like that kind of thing was really cool to watch happen and evolve. So giving people these opening, attitudes and motivations helped set up everything. But it was great to see when people would the direction that people took it in was really cool.
Rudy Basso:Yeah, and everyone has friends. That's yeah, we got some feedback. That's like everyone hates me and I don't have any friends and I don't know what to do. So playtesting is very important, but everyone has like at least two built in The Allies maybe they're allied, because they're fim. They're their blood relatives, maybe their allies because you were betrayed to them as a child, or they're your best friend since you were children. But it's not like everyone is going to be on their own at any given point. You're going in with pals, whether there are still your pals by the end of the game, that's well, we'll say, but no one should ever feel like, oh, geez, this game isn't fun. Everyone hates me, because the game says that everyone hates me, because that's what my character sheet says.
James Introcaso:Yeah, totally. Absolutely. 100% We, you know, we end and play testing was so valuable because of this, because we, you know, there were a few points, especially at the beginning, where everybody was like, wow, nobody trusts Claudius and Gertrude because they read the play. And it was like, Oh, all right. Well, how can we fix that? Right? How do we make that better? And set people set the expectation that like, no, no, they might actually be good. So yeah, that was a it was very fun to work on. And to see that.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned there about having friends and not being alone. So we can sort of increase friends and make connections, where can we find each of you and all the things you're associated with on social media, please?
Rudy Basso:Yes, I am on Twitter, at Rudy basso, very original.
James Introcaso:And I, shockingly am on Twitter at James inter Casso, also very original.
Snyder’s Return:Hey, if it works for you, and it has done and will continue to do so I will make sure our links are down in the description below for each of you. And all the things we discussed during the course of this interview. Moving from sort of, To be or not to be a villain into the systems themselves, each of you have worked on a variety of projects. So we can fall down the DND sort of side of things, or we can start on this by hand side of things. I will let you guys.
James Introcaso:Yeah, I think I mean, I think it's probably good to start on the DND side, because that's probably the side that your audience knows the best and is the you know, the popular one. And then we can draw the distinction with Spy Hunter, which would probably be good.
Snyder’s Return:Absolutely. So each of you have worked on releases in various ways. James, your your work is prolific, to say the least. And as you mentioned, you are working with him. CDM so what's that experience been like with Arcadia? And all the releases coming out of their free mortals? For example, Rudy, get a shout out to us there as well. So what has that experience been like?
James Introcaso:Yeah, so Rudy is worked on Arcadian flee mortals with us, too. So he's definitely familiar with the pipeline, and everything. It's been really interesting. Coming in MCGM. You know, what we sort of do is we try to make your game better. And we try to give you an opportunity to, we want to fill in the gaps of d&d, right. And so the idea behind flee mortals is that we're making a Monster Book. And we're trying to create more tactical, more interesting monsters that are more than just a bag of hit points. And that's not to say all wizards the coast monsters are bags of hit points. But we wanted to create monsters, you know, that that were fun to fight and fun to run, and didn't make combat as much of a grind. And they would surprise you and delight you and do things to you that were interesting, but also weren't frustrating. Which, again, that's been a lot of playtesting, right? So we don't really have any monsters in the book that stun or paralyse you, for instance, because you miss your turn, which means that we do have monsters that do weird things like cut off your head and then replace their head with it. So that they look like you and you're still alive. But wandering around without your head on, right, like stuff like that. That's really fun and whimsical. Not everything is that out there. But that's just one of my favourite creatures from the book. That's really good. Yeah, it's really, really good. I wish I had written it too. But it's another author named Paul Hughes. Who puts that out there. Right. And I think Rudy can tell you a little bit about the stuff that he's doing for that book. But so that's part of it. And then the other Arcadia, our mission with Arcadia, which is our FFIV monthly magazine is that we ask authors to pitch and then the authors tell us what they want to write. And it's sort of an open field in terms of like, pitch us anything as long as it is something someone could drop into their game it can be and it's not huge, right? Like we're not going to do a campaign length adventure. But we might do a couple new subclasses or spells or magic items or new set of rules that you can drop into your game or that kind of thing. And those authors often are like, this is the thing I've always wanted to make. I've never seen it in the game, or I've never seen it done the way I want to do it. And so let's do it right. And sometimes it's just a couple of unique spells. Sometimes it's a whole new sub system of rules for something. And it's really fun. So that's sort of our our mission, initially, at MCDM was to fill in the gaps of Dungeons and Dragons. Now we're making our own RPG. And so we're excited to, to move on to that. But sort of outside the scope of what we're talking about here right now.
Snyder’s Return:Well, yeah, before we move on to that, to be fair, Rudy, as mentioned, you have contributed to the free modules, I believe it's packet five, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know
James Introcaso:if I could tell you that actually, your packet is not out yet.
Snyder’s Return:So can you tell us about your contribution to
James Introcaso:feel free to say whatever you like.
Rudy Basso:Okay, so one of the parts of Lean mortals towards the end of the book, I believe, is a bunch of drop in evil parties. A group of a group of foes that complement each other that work off of each other that have a shared history that you can drop in to fight your your player characters. And mine was a group of monsters called the abomination that an evil arcane geneticist, and a druid, got married and decided to create the perfect race of monstrosity, monstrosities that are a combination of like humanoid torsos, and like the head of a lion and the legs of an ostrich just a bunch of creatures is like, that's a bad example. But right it would be it would be really fast and really fierce. That's just an example. But yeah, it's like a bunch of weird monsters. And they fought back and ate their masters. And in doing so, they now have a taste for flesh. So they kind of run around and just eat beef. So, gotta watch out for them or they'll eat Yeah, so that's I fifth level or something. And so they're good. Like I said, they, they, they have abilities that complement each other already. So that's not like when you're trying to build a party to or build an encounter. So in a lot of creatures in fleet mortals do this already. They have categories, and it's very easy to encounter builds. But a lot of times, you're like, Well, what do I guess I'll add this guy and this guy and this guy, this guy cast a spell, but they don't have a history or a background. I love the idea of these, these evil monster parties are evil parties is that they do have that they have goals, they have motivations, they have a shared history, they have interrelationships between themselves, so it's a really cool thing. And then I wrote a subsystem on how to eat monsters in in Arcadia, too.
James Introcaso:It's almost like your Villain party is Yeah, Revenge of you writing that article.
Rudy Basso:Something about me is something's getting deep.
Snyder’s Return:It sounds a little bit. Make sure we have the right movie reference Island of Dr. Morrow.
James Introcaso:Yes, yeah. Yeah, but even
Snyder’s Return:even creaky, which is definitely something I'll be looking out for. For sure. Because that just fires the imagination is brilliant. I'll definitely looking forward to that. So moving on from there, and James, you mentioned to me MCDM now, looking playtesting and sort of bringing together your own RPG, your own rule set. What we've seen some of it come up on Twitter and other social medias. But what's that been like, from Genesis to current iteration that
Rudy Basso:James has already designed a full system
Snyder’s Return:he has done?
James Introcaso:Oh, that's true. burn bright. Yeah. Yeah, I think we talked about that one. Many moons ago.
Rudy Basso:Adam still available.
Snyder’s Return:And he's still a fantastic system.
James Introcaso:Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we. So yeah, we're, we're still in very much in the preliminary stages. To make a long story short, we started talking about our own RPG when I was hired at MCDM. Because Matt asked me, What do you want to do in the future? And I said, Well, I know I don't want to work on FFIV forever. And he was like, Cool. Neither do I. I was like, awesome. That sounds great.
Rudy Basso:So we're and a half ago, just to clarify to write when did you start it? I'm saying yeah, so
James Introcaso:I started it over two years ago now.
Rudy Basso:Yeah, just just to give time. Yes.
James Introcaso:Yeah. Yeah. And and so and so we've had been kicking around and sharing ideas. And then we got a little more serious when Wizards of the Coast bought d&d beyond. And the reason we did that is because we already get a lot of questions about like, Well, why isn't your stuff on d&d beyond? I can't use it in my game if it's Not d&d, right? And it's like, well, we're not allowed to sell there, we can't use that marketplace. There isn't a marketplace really, for anybody other than Wizards of the Coast. And so we can't put our stuff up there. And so we thought, like, oh, the more people they get locked into that ecology, the the less, they're gonna want to buy MCM d&d stuff. So we should start on that. And then this whole thing with the OTL happened, and that sort of so the the metaphor we've been saying is that we've been building a rocket in the backyard. And every once in awhile, we go out there and tinker with it. And then Wizards of the Coast lit the rocket for us. And now we're hanging on for dear life. So yeah, so we've really just just started development of that we're still full speed ahead on Fli. mortals. We have a commitment to that. And we want to make it the best book we can we have a couple other fivey projects that still need to come out. And then we'll be full steam ahead on this. So right now, we're just trying to nail down really the core of the system and like how do we, you know, it's going to be a high fantasy game. It does not use a D 20. Right now, at this moment in time, it uses dice with special symbols on them. And right now we're trying to master like, how do we make battle fun, right, that's gonna that's our number one priority. How do we make combat fun? How do we make a core that we can spin out into things outside of combat, that will also be fun? And how can we make the other pillars of the game matter as much as combat? So that's where that's where our minds are right now. But we're in the very preliminary stages.
Snyder’s Return:So bit of a trick question as such, but it's with respect to the experience each of you has with a variety of systems. Where do you find combat, which seems to be a challenge at times in systems like d&d? Which systems do you feel do combat better? Or differently, and therefore more engaging?
James Introcaso:It's a good question.
Rudy Basso:Well, I'm always gonna go back to like knights back Asians. Watch. I like a game where combat is really deadly. Okay. I'm generally a person who doesn't want to fight all the time that like, Let's talk this out, sir. Let us parlay instead of battling. And a game like Dungeons and Dragons, kind of supposed to fight a lot. Usually, like the game is belt, the when you level up, you get new ways to fight better. So a game more like gum shoe, or knights by cadence specifically, like fighting, and especially when you fight like vampires knights back agents is super spies versus vampires, just for context. It's like Jason Bourne versus Dracula. When you fight vampires, they're super strong, and they kill you fast. So you want to use other ways to defeat them. And that's just really appealing to me is that like combat is the last resort. As far as just games that I love, which I just played this game with James last weekend, and I know that they're taking a lot of inspiration for the MCGM game, edge of empire. Really, really fun with just successes or failures, no math, just the guys say you did it, or did I say you don't do it, and then you cancelled eaten out and whatever you have left determines whether you did it. And then there's a second ability that gives our second symbol that gives kind of narrative control to you, which is also really, really fun if you roll out of them. And shadow the demon lord also has really, really cool combat if you've ever played that. I like that game a lot. Wow. Okay, James, go, Jim. Sorry.
James Introcaso:No, don't be sorry. I think that's a great answers. Honestly. You know, I like the combat and all those systems I like, I do enjoy d&d combat for the first usually three rounds. And the problem with d&d combat for me is that you start a battle with all of your cool stuff. And then through, you know, a couple rounds into it, you're like, Well, I did all my cool stuff. And now I can't do now I'm just swinging a sword, or I'm just casting a cantrip, or that kind of thing. And, and so I think that turns battled into a slog, especially when it's like, those three rounds happened at the beginning of the adventure day, and now we're on the third battle. And in the first round, all I can do is swing a sword or that kind of thing, right? Or I'm saving it for what I know to be the villain battle, because I don't want to run out of stuff. And so that can be hard. And I think there's a lot of assumptions baked baked into d&d that make that hard, but I do think d&d Does do combat pretty well. Just not long combat. Well, right. We played fourth edition the other day, and I think fourth edition stands up a little bit longer in combat, but still has that same problem of like, I've used all my encounter powers I've used on my butt really do like fourth edition d&d combat quite a bit. Rudy mentioned shadow the demon lord already I'm a fan of that. Star Wars is top of mind for me because we really and I just played it. As well as my hander has some interesting combat in it, it is certainly more deadly. And you can do things like parry an incoming blow, or, you know, you have this action point system that that you can use that I think is really good. And it's also you know, in Warhammer Fantasy roleplay
Rudy Basso:fantasy H is a game I've been playing lately, which was Dragon Age RPG, then the licence was lost. So it became fantasy age. But that has a lot of unique there's this a mechanic called stunt points. Yes, you use that gives you like a lot of cool abilities that you can do. But it doesn't always you don't always get some points on your turn. So when you do get them, it's very exciting. And it makes combat a lot more unique and dynamic versus okay. I can do the same thing on every turn. It's like, Well, you never know, you might get a bunch of STEM points. And then you can do a bunch of different things. So
James Introcaso:yeah, I that's I played the expanse RPG. And that is the same system. Yeah. And I really liked that I really liked the stunt points that you can get in there. I also really enjoyed mutant masterminds. It's been years since I've played it. But the combat in that is interesting, because of the ways people use their powers and devices and things like that.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, great answers and a few systems that I'll be definitely looking into. I can see over your shoulder James, there's a Star Wars. Oh, yeah. ship on the shelf.
James Introcaso:Yes, yeah, there's a star destroyer over my right shoulder there.
Snyder’s Return:So there's a whole raft of other things. But that was the one that sort of caught caught the eye the most. So you mentioned the swine hand, which could be five deadly with the action point system. You've James have written the adventure for the starter set. And as mentioned earlier, the eternal night of Lockwood so what's it been like producing for a grim dark system, which is sort by hand as opposed to the high fantasy that is Dungeons and Dragons?
James Introcaso:Yeah, I've really enjoyed it and sort of the missive that I was given. When I started working with Sianna was like, How can we get people who play d&d to play more, so I had to write. And so a lot of what we've been doing is playing in this space of like, somewhere between the grimmest grim dark, and the high fantasy of d&d, right, what I've been calling grey fantasy, where like, a lot of grim dark things, you're just trying to survive, you're just trying to make some coin killing monsters or whatever. And so in eternal Knight of Lockwood, and in the starter set, you're still saving people. You're still doing things. In fact, Rudy, played through
Rudy Basso:the Starter Set did both of these. Yeah, yeah,
James Introcaso:that's right. Russo really played tested Lockwood, with me and the original campaign, and then on stream to promote the starter set, we have a stream session that Rudy was part of the cast. And that was really fun. And, you know, so we that idea, we wanted to bring the idea of like, you're still heroic, you're not totally selfish, but that you can be selfish in your pursuits, and you can leave people behind. And so there's this mechanic called corruption in vai hander that's very sort of important where it's like, every time you do something selfish or something greedy, or don't reach out a helping hand to someone who needs it, you can take corruption, there's a lot of things you can do to take corruption. And then at the end of the session, if you've taken a lot of corruption, your alignment, which exists on a law chaos scale, not a good or evil scale, just law chaos can shift more towards chaos or more towards law. Depending on where it is more towards law, you get these things called fate points, eventually, which faint points you can spend during combat to turn a blow that would kill you into a blow that wouldn't kill you.
Rudy Basso:Pretty strong
James Introcaso:fade points are strong. They're very strong and you want to because combat can be very deadly. And at the end of our big Lockwood play test that people were spending fate points like candy. It was It was wild.
Rudy Basso:Rudy racked up that corruption.
James Introcaso:That's right. That's right. And if you rack up your corruption, you can develop, you know, basically things that make your character worse at adventuring. If you rack up too much chaos and corruption and
Rudy Basso:adventuring better at killing.
James Introcaso:That's true. That's true. And it also the magic system can be pretty fun because you can essentially embrace chaos, too. to really pump up your spellcasting. But if you do that can lead to some weird Wild Magic effects, including like, there's like a chart you roll on. And you know, the where something weird might happen, you're, you know, and then it's like or rolling the next chart. And then there's a result on that that's like, or rolling the next chart. And the third chart, everything is really bad. Like, I can swallow you into hell, and your character just dies. Right, but you need to roll on a bunch of different charts to get there and that kind of thing. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So that's why that's what a fate point is good for stopping you from being sucked into hell. So yeah, it but it is, it's, it was very fun to work on a system that isn't as forgiving to the players, and also a system that has fewer magical ways to solve problems. Yes. So it meant that it was like, Okay, well, I don't need to worry about what if they can't speak with dead or I, you know, what, if they have dimension door, or that kind of thing, it means that I could set up obstacles that were a little bit more straightforward, without having to think around them. Which was great, because, you know, often in d&d, even at first level, it's like, oh, they speak a different language. No worries, I cast comprehend languages. And this puzzle no longer matters, right,
Rudy Basso:that kind of thing. Just to bring it back to the villain. One of the play tests we had, there was no limit on the amount of zone of truths. It could be cast. Wow. So it was literally like, I cast zone of truth on the person casting zone. It was, yes. Why was one of those play tests where it's like, okay, this spell is out of the gay Brierley. Because when you're building a game, it's about subterfuge, an entry zone of truth kind of breaks everything
James Introcaso:up for real for real. Yeah.
Snyder’s Return:So that is, well, that is quite something. And I can't wait to sort of get myself a copy and have a read through and for those that are definitely intrigued by it. And I'm sure there, there are many other who are to go and get a copy from Amazon and we're all good books are published, as you mentioned earlier, really?
Rudy Basso:Yes. March 14, is the official release date, I believe, yes. Which is the week before or after the Dungeons and Dragons movie. I think the Dungeons
James Introcaso:Dragons movies moved to the last day of the month now. Yeah,
Rudy Basso:it's the 31st. Okay, so buy our book to get ready for that d&d movie. Similar to our book, yes.
James Introcaso:There you go. You heard it here. First, everybody we have we have written the official adventure. Yep. For the d&d movie.
Rudy Basso:Official time adventure. That's right.
Snyder’s Return:Audio which surely can't be edited out. of audio, and things along those lines are? Are you both still involved with podcasts at all? I know, really, you were producing podcasts for a long time and obviously James yourself a podcast for many years? Nope.
James Introcaso:Oh,
Rudy Basso:I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Rudy. Yeah, I was gonna say I thought I don't work for the podcast that I used to work for. anymore. No further comment there. But I'm Web DM. If you're familiar with that YouTube channel, they have a Patreon podcast. They put it every week that I edit. And there's another podcast called speculate that I edit and speculate school because they're always playing games that I'm not familiar with. They just finished playing a game called Girl by moonlight, which is very similar to if you know, the Christopher Nolan film Inception. It's like you go into the dream world as a different person. I think they even call themselves Dream Warriors, which kind of gives you context for the kind of game they're running. But yeah, they do a lot of like, powered by the apocalypse or more narrative focus games, no DND there. So if you're interested in they're all Oh, they're all science fiction writers. Like they're all published sci fi and fantasy writers, which is also a special treat because they bring a lot of really unique and cool like, stuff to their characters into into what they do. So yeah, speculate, speculate. sf.com And I'll talk about it enough.
Snyder’s Return:Yeah, I'll put a link in the description. What about yourself James beyond Twitch streaming and then CDM and all those things. Are you audio No,
James Introcaso:I'm I'm totally out of the podcasting game now. So yeah, there There is not any any podcasting that I do at the moment. Although look forward to Metal Gear, is it solid coming coming at some point where
Rudy Basso:we we went to Gen Con a few years ago and drove there, which from where we were was like a 14 hour drive or something like Yeah. Yeah. But James and our good friend Vegas Lancaster, when we went drove back home. They were talking about it, and then I fell asleep for seven hours. And when I woke up, they were still talking about this podcast that they're gonna make about Metal Gear Solid. So yeah, look forward to that. Coming soon. Yeah,
James Introcaso:so we're gonna, we're gonna go through Metal Gear Solid scene by scene, and we're going to rate each scene. So that'll that'll, that'll happen eventually. So look forward to that. Rudy, so excited for it. He loves Metal Gear Solid.
Rudy Basso:What is the rating scale you're using? Also James?
James Introcaso:For Adam. Yeah, the rating scale we're using is a rating from Raiden. The worst to solid the best obviously. So that's, that's the rating scale for our game ride and ride into solid with of course, liquid and solidus in between. So and so I won't capitulate it too much. But maybe you can come on Adam. And when the podcast happens and give us your rating for a scene in Metal Gear Solid,
Snyder’s Return:I will be happy to do so because that is one a great concept and to a fantastic game. So I'm all over.
James Introcaso:Maybe maybe next year, we'll see if it happens.
Snyder’s Return:So between I mean, Rudy, I talk through your Twitter, because I'm a bit of a stalker before I do interviews and just sort of checking back and you also put helped put the Blade Runner TTRPG on to roll 20?
Rudy Basso:Oh yes. I freelanced with a company called sigil entertainments, and they do a lot of conversion work to take your tabletop RPG and convert it into role 20. And I did I worked on the Blade Runner RPG. I'm currently working on the alien RPG and some stuff for Gus Fire games, which is a very cool d&d third party publisher. Holy crap, the blade runner game is really really great on rule 20. And the alien game is going to be even cooler. So big, big ups to those. If you're a fan of either of those franchises, both of these games do an incredible job meeting the atmosphere and tone of the movies. And they look so great on roll 20 like really cool animations and effects and Blade Runner. I played some of it with James, we didn't finish but Blade Runner has a mechanic where you look at a picture and then like Where's Wally style? Look for the clues in the picture. And it works perfectly on on roll 20. So maybe even better than in person.
Snyder’s Return:It's awesome. Yeah, it's the free League have put out two really good games, and I'm so glad that you're taking while you're being paid for it, but you are putting them on all 20 for us to enjoy, which is is fantastic. So between all of these projects, do you get much each of you get much sort of downtime time to relax and enjoy away from the hobby? Or is the hobby your downtime? Or how does it work for each of you?
Rudy Basso:Yeah, I nap a lot. So I have a lot of free time.
James Introcaso:i One of the reasons that I don't really podcast anymore is because I needed some downtime to be able to do stuff and taking the full time job at MCDM has also allowed me to I'm not taking on as many freelance projects anymore, right. And so, so yeah, I do I probably have more downtime, since taking the job but MCDM and everything that I have had in the you know, the five years before that. And so that's uh, it's great. I feel very good and and rested. And and we do play a fair amount of games in our downtime, but I think we try not to I don't know if Rudy does this. I don't want to speak for him. But I know when we play games together, we try not to like turn it into a stream or a podcast or something like that, so that we can just enjoy the time with our friends and play. Yeah,
Rudy Basso:I mean, we could set up a microphone and make a podcast so never never really popular. I'm sure.
James Introcaso:Bite your tongue, sir. Bite your tongue.
Rudy Basso:Yeah, just playing for funsies is always not a waste of time. Definitely not. It's yeah.
James Introcaso:It's good for me. It's restorative. I love playing games with friends. And it's like, oh yeah, this is why all this is It's awesome. Because we get to do this stuff. Yeah.
Snyder’s Return:And we have covered a number of topics, ranging from releases projects, and sort of personal pursuits and and all those sorts of good things. Is there anything at this stage of the interview that we haven't mentioned that you want to bring up just before we close out?
Rudy Basso:Vote blue
James Introcaso:Yeah, I, you know, I just thank you for having us on again. Like, this is a great podcast. And it's a it's a pleasure to be on and to and to talk with you always. And, and so thank you for making the community a great place and highlighting creators.
Snyder’s Return:I think you meet creators and and, and the pair of you have made Well, it's because of the pair of you that I am where I am today. So thank you, if we come full circle, does that make sense? Oh, my God, thank you, to you for thanking me for thanking you.
James Introcaso:Because you were like, I could do what those guys do. Seems pretty easy.
Rudy Basso:Yeah.
Snyder’s Return:It wasn't quite the train of thought it was like, I want to do what those guys do. I'm just not sure how and it's taken, taking time. But I think I'm somewhere near the lower end of the bar where you may have once rested.
James Introcaso:Thank you, you. I think you have surpassed and that is a good thing.
Snyder’s Return:But it has been so special to get the pair of you on speed you. With respect to all the fantastic things you're working on. I'd love to get you back on in the future. There's always projects always working on new things if you'd be willing to come back and join me. And I definitely wouldn't mind coming on Metal Gear. Is it solid in 2024? And beyond?
James Introcaso:Yes. Yes, we're building the guestlist. Rudy is coming on to He's excited.
Snyder’s Return:So if I can ask each of you just to remind us where we can find you on social media and everything you're associated with? That would be wonderful.
Rudy Basso:Yes, James is at James Introcaso on Twitter.
James Introcaso:And Rudy is at Rudy basso on Twitter, and Instagram. Yes.
Rudy Basso:So post dog pictures, you do almost exclusively who does? Dogs and food that's all about.
James Introcaso:That's what social media that's all social media should be. That would be incredible.
Snyder’s Return:So yes, I enjoy your dog and food pictures. The pizzas you put up sometimes are Thank you. I can't eat the legs. They look delicious. But it's been an absolute pleasure. And I really look forward to having you both on the show. Again, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. Thank you. 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, 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