Interview - Game Machinery - Defiant RPG

Today we turn our backs on our Destiny and learn to enjoy the finest things high-society has to offer as we learn about the Tabletop Roleplay Game, Defiant. I'm joined by the games creators Kate and Marcin of Game Machinery to explain this post-apocalyptic, urban fantasy game.

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Host: Adam Powell

Guests: Katarzyna 'Kate' Kuczynska and Marcin Kuczynski

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Transcript

Snyder’s Return : 0:28

Hello, and welcome to Snyder's return a tabletop role playing podcast today, we turn our backs on our destiny, and then learn to enjoy the finer things of high society as we learn about the role playing game defiant with Tate and Martin from games machinery, welcome.

Kate & Marcin : 0:49

Hi, thanks for having us.

Snyder’s Return : 0:51

Hello. It's an absolute pleasure. Before we get into the the game itself, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourselves and your history with tabletop role playing games and how you came to, to this point in in the present.

Kate & Marcin : 1:06

All right. Our history with role playing games began in high school. And that's the place we met within a couple ever since. And it's around 24 years and counting. So it's a lot of time. And we, I began playing role playing games in high school. And since we are creative people, we always write something designed programme, draw, or generally create. We try to we in high school, we began writing for a publisher role playing games magazine. Yeah, and later we decided to create our own role playing game. We published it self published it in 2004. It was a fantasy game in fantasy. Yes. I enjoyed Celtic, Celtic like setting. Yeah, so, um, a couple years later, it was 2010. Well, we actually sold the rights to this game a year ago. And I think it's going to be published in English. But I'm not sure about any details. So

Unknown Speaker : 2:19

is around 2012 we published another game and it was an urban fantasy. This time it was in a game about angels. It was called the armies of the apocalypse.

Unknown Speaker : 2:30

Yeah, just a side note. Both of those games were written in Polish because we are located in Poland. So yeah, so both both those games were originally in Polish.

Unknown Speaker : 2:42

Yes. And in the meantime, I began working at CD Projekt RED as a game designer for the Witcher one and the Witcher two video games. So I had the opportunity to see the business from the video games perspective. And later, we've decided To give it a try and to write games in English, and a game

Kate & Marcin : 3:05

to write a game, yes.

Unknown Speaker : 3:08

For starters, and about three years ago, we began the defiance role playing game project. And a year ago, it was it was a big step outside our comfort zone. And a year ago, I published my own small role playing game in English called reimagined fanfic role playing game. And it was quite well received so it was a confidence boost for us.

Kate & Marcin : 3:37

It was actually it was originally a gift wasn't it? That's That's true.

Unknown Speaker : 3:45

Grocery gift because we made the games for each other's anniversary gift and well, Kate's was Kate's was better so she got fish.

Unknown Speaker : 3:56

So yeah, and fast forward. A week ago we we published the our new game defiant role playing game. And it's our first big, big project in English. And it's while it's best selling on Drive Thru RPG so we're pretty excited.

Kate & Marcin : 4:16

It's amazing actually.

Snyder’s Return : 4:18

It's a bit overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, I mean a time of recording, you'd, you'd slip from the fourth to the but still the, you know, very impressive fifth selling or best selling title on Drive Thru RPG. So you must be rightfully proud of yourself.

Unknown Speaker : 4:33

I think I'm now personally responsible for half the web traffic on drive through cars. I'm refreshing the page, like every five seconds to see the number of copies sold. And I can tell you that as of this moment, we're free copies short of getting the electrum badge.

Snyder’s Return : 4:50

So after this interview for records, I will not do one one number closer to that. Thank you. It's not a problem I've seen I've had a look at it and we onto in just a second and just from the aesthetic from the front cover through to the sample pages that you put up and things like that it's it's an exciting exciting to me and I'm sure many others who have purchased it out there role playing game to take pine Would you like to introduce it as as yourselves and sort of introduces into the world of define for those who are yet to sharpen up that section?

Unknown Speaker : 5:26

Sure. I mean, there are, I guess two different layers to the game. I mean, there's the game itself and then there's the game as the project and best for the game itself defined as an urban fantasy, role playing game. It's set in the modern world kind of like ours. However, it is now ravaged by the forces of the Apocalypse, delta, the mundane the mortal people are not aware of this because there is a powerful spell hanging on for them. Making them believe that everything is kind of natural. You You get to play the role of defiance the supernatural creatures that rebel against the apocalypse where they were originally set to, to fight among us and destroy the world to fight among the apocalyptic forces but rebels against it and now they see sheltering their domains protected by powerful mystical seals.

Snyder’s Return : 6:21

And you played a part of defined our secrecy the royalty of the of the supernaturals, who are tasked with upholding the law and defending the domains from the apocalyptic forces. It's it's interesting that you you've rather than other role playing games, where everybody starts at the bottom and you work your way up to gain these proceeds, you've you've decided to put people right at the very top of the highest levels of society of the of the world you've created. What was your your thinking behind that?

Unknown Speaker : 6:53

Well, for starters, as you've said, many games that put the players in In this role of slowly getting higher status and climbing the social ladder, we wanted to focus on a different element of the world we wanted. We believe that it's also interesting to put the players, the characters in the place when they already have things, they can already shape the reality around them. They have their subjects their holdings, and it's a different perspective, it's a different thing to play.

Unknown Speaker : 7:32

I always wanted the players to have something of their own something to care for and to care about. For example, their holdings, it's very home, Every character has their own holding, and they can decorate it the way that we want. They can rule their subjects the way they want, they can set laws for them. And that this way, players can also show their characters through their holdings through subjects and also they have their place in the world. They're not just adventurers wandering from one place to another. They are not trying to accumulate wealth and experience points, they can focus on something else. And they can have something of their own.

Snyder’s Return : 8:14

Alright, but it's, you know, an intriguing prospect and one that I am sure will appeal and has already appeal to many games. And you've mentioned the world work where is this actually set? What's the, the lay of the land as it were?

Unknown Speaker : 8:27

Well, the GM and the players are free to create their own cities but you have a one ready to play province in the rule book called The bridge with Boulevard in the city of New Cleveland. So it's a it's a modern like city with with cars, corporations, I know coffee shops wherever. So so it feels like a normal modern city however, that since the players are supranational, they get to play the royalty they get to attend fancy supernatural parties on prop two intrigues or fight the apocalyptic forces.

Unknown Speaker : 9:04

And it's it's like a modern American city, I guess. But if the players would like to play in a different part of the world, it's fine to I guess you should think of it as a

Unknown Speaker : 9:14

as a Hollywood movie style American city like,

Snyder’s Return : 9:17

Yeah, of course. You've mentioned playing at the top, though there's, though you've put the players and the characters at that sort of higher end, there's still a social structure that they are, are part of, do you mind explaining that a little bit or as in depth as you'd like,

Unknown Speaker : 9:35

to a point that that's, that's another thing that we working on. Because when you play as outcasts or rebels, like adventurers in in a typical role playing game are then the social structure is sort of either above you or a bit beyond you, you're an outcast, usually. Here we want to focus on the social structure. We wanted to make the social structure important parts of the game so that characters need to uphold the rules need to, well bend the rules sometimes but they need to remember that the rules exist and they're that the social structures are in place.

Unknown Speaker : 10:12

Yes. And if they want to achieve the things they want, they need to do it in the confines, within the confines of the society. It's like in the court life, you can you can just go and do what you want you need to there are rules of etiquette. You can talk to anyone to anyone you want wherever whenever you want. So so we wanted to create a society that makes things difficult for the characters.

Unknown Speaker : 10:39

So yeah, you are sort of yeah Royals, but there are other Royals, there are also the executors who are there like local sheriff's who just make sure their lock law is upheld, even by you? Um, well, actually, one of the ideas behind the game was how to create a court like game but without defending clothes and the wigs and

Kate & Marcin : 11:03

fancy dances, things like that. Yeah, probably a little less prejudiced and say some but something sensory.

Snyder’s Return : 11:10

So the players in the game master sort of set the society up and and play as part of it and you've mentioned the executives who currently stands at the top of that sort of food chain who has

Unknown Speaker : 11:25

at the very top since the whole domain revolves around the sefirot the mystical seal that protects the city there is one defiance in the city that merges with the sefirot we call them the Hierophant and it's like them oh my god sorta. I mean, our it's not someone you interact with. It's it's like someone who sacrifices their life in order to become this higher being that is connected with the Sephora and understands its needs. And this is the the person who creates the laws the local laws called called the commandment Your

Unknown Speaker : 12:00

phone is the absolute absolute ruler but they are not the regular person you can interact with.

Unknown Speaker : 12:06

It's not like someone pushing their agenda on their on the lower members of the societies is more like a diety yeah

Unknown Speaker : 12:15

for for upholding the rules their executors and Archons Archons are more they for example there is an icon of justice who is poised to judge for the for the royalty since the Royals are judges for their own subjects so they're gonna have justice on the on the judges do the Royals or the ark on the blessings who manages the holdings and and the domain

Unknown Speaker : 12:47

resources pieces that define her but but since this is a bit more like court coat like or and, and the characters are more like Royals it's not like a corporation. Or a military style karaoke with

Unknown Speaker : 13:05

characters bosses?

Unknown Speaker : 13:06

Yeah, the characters do not have bosses above them. Yeah, they're just there are a few more powerful defiant in them in the city but they're not the same bosses

Unknown Speaker : 13:16

every defined royal lives in a province and in the book we describe the bridge with bulevar province and all the characters are from one province and there is a ruler of the province called called the princeps or preceptor but they they are not the boss of the characters. They just the first among the royalty in the province, sort

Kate & Marcin : 13:38

of like the local Governor's

Snyder’s Return : 13:41

Okay, okay. So you've mentioned this sort of structure and and how the players can come from the same province. So who can the players play as and who potentially could they meet within this within this world? Within the province or the wider, say new hair salon or

Unknown Speaker : 14:04

Yeah. Okay, so there are two four, let's call them supernatural species. We call them origins and defined. So the the four origins that the player characters and all the other Royals can come from. One are the angels. These are the angelic beings that have only recently been granted human bodies. they're new to the world to the human world, and to exploring it. They are the ones who rebelled against the supernatural leaders and this is, I guess,

Kate & Marcin : 14:41

the fallen angel. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 14:42

I guess there's the Paulina angels archetype. There the diva are the gods evolved, like the pagan gods evolved, who were asleep for thousands of years and have reawakened. Some of them joint they were actually are useful to the forces of the apocalypse to call the the mortals but some of them love mortals too much to to lead them to the bitter end so they decided to stick with the mortals instead. They're the infernals who used to be mortals thousands of years ago but were sentenced to live in hell because of dangerous ideas they had in their minds. And now they managed to sculpt escape to hell, however they came changed the thousands of years spent in hell change them into more demonic like now. And finally, the leviathans. The leviathans are the primal dragon beings that used to rule the world before any other supernatural shelter showed up here. And now they've been reopen, I guess, to terrain destruction on the planet, but some of them decided that they crave for more than just moods attraction. They want to see the world and taste the world. They join the ranks of the defiant

Unknown Speaker : 16:01

and there are, of course, the mortals in the city. But they're another very important part of the game. They're just a background I guess, for the diver, they are important as their followers and the players who choose to play they have more followers who worship them. But for forever defined models are not very important. And aside from royalty, they're just regular, defiant who live in the courts and the answer to your royalty and also low born and who are also defined but we have a very low power so in in a regular defence city, there are between couple hundred and 1000 or 2000 defiant and the rest are just regular mortals.

Snyder’s Return : 16:47

So there's there's a sort of a good mix of on the scale of defiant once a great levels of who is in the upper echelons and who is sort of Okay, well, we've spoken about the world and the law and the structure and who the players can be. How, how does the game play say if? If, like, later after this interview, I go and pick up a copy? What? What do I need to play in? And how, as either a game master or player do I go about

Unknown Speaker : 17:20

playing the game? Okay, so naturally the first thing you should do is to read the rulebook. We wrote it with both the advanced and the beginner gms and players alike. Hopefully, it's clear enough to to understand for only

Unknown Speaker : 17:39

their basic and advanced rule for the Game Master. So

Unknown Speaker : 17:42

yeah, we created two different sets of rules for the Game Master. The players all follow the same set of rules, but the game master have has two different sets of rules, which they can mix or use just one of them. One was made for someone who is either completely new to the game or Or even starting as the GM for the first time the advanced rules sort of expand the basic rules and give them more options more control over the game I guess. But price of having to prepare a bit more and be a bit more

Unknown Speaker : 18:17

conscious about

Unknown Speaker : 18:19

Yeah, I guess, and flexible during the game.

Snyder’s Return : 18:22

Okay, so so we we pick it up and read the rulebook? What else do we need? What? What? What was the mechanics behind it?

Unknown Speaker : 18:30

The mechanics? Okay. Are we based the mechanics on? Well, actually, you need the total number of 11 dice isn't it? 11 dice

Kate & Marcin : 18:39

is the six is the 810s

Unknown Speaker : 18:42

Yeah, we use the the sixes, the eights and the 10s. You have a pool of dice that depends on your Well, I'd like to say attributes but it's not really like that. It's a bit like in some games like fate.

Kate & Marcin : 18:55

Do you d especially in the city of mist which we love.

Unknown Speaker : 19:01

You will refer to having attributes, you have traits and you just add all trait traits that are applicable in the current situation.

Unknown Speaker : 19:10

traits are descriptive like athletic body or knows how to charm instead of just trying for dexterity with a number added to it. It's just descriptive traits and the players can creatively use those traits. If they can convince the table that this trait is applicable to the upcoming challenge, they cannot pass one or every title to the role.

Unknown Speaker : 19:35

So rather than have a strength of free, let's say, you can have athletic body and I know say you have to

Kate & Marcin : 19:44

specialise in in duels,

Unknown Speaker : 19:46

yes, specialises in yours and ruthless, ruthless, ruthless Carter. And so this gives you a tonne of free applicable trades, which means it's like you have an attribute attribute value of free so don't ask me attributes in the game.

Snyder’s Return : 20:02

It's more nuanced, more open to interpretation.

Unknown Speaker : 20:06

Yeah, yeah, we we encourage players to get creative with this. It's okay if they use the traits that they creatively come up with the idea of how

Unknown Speaker : 20:18

long as they describe what their character is doing, and how are they using the straight, it's totally fine. And for every trait, you can upgrade the dice from the sixth to the eighth, and then from the eighth to the 10th.

Unknown Speaker : 20:31

So normally you you roll three dice, and under the number of

Kate & Marcin : 20:36

every five and above is a success. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 20:40

So when you're rolling the six, it's only the five and the six, but on the D 10. It's everything from five upwards,

Kate & Marcin : 20:48

giving you way more chance of winning. So if

Unknown Speaker : 20:51

you have lots of trades, you can roll even free dance and if you don't manage to use any traits, you just roll for the success. Okay,

Snyder’s Return : 21:01

so there's a yeah good sort of swinging variation in the the abilities in the dice used, depending on how

Unknown Speaker : 21:08

sorry, don't come the the outcomes of the of the roll, which I never binary, it's not like you succeed or you do not succeed, I, you actually do not have either of these options you arm from,

Kate & Marcin : 21:22

you can have zero successes up to three,

Unknown Speaker : 21:25

up to four actually to the app usually up to three successes and zero successes, it means you're at the mercy I mean, the GM can come up with whatever they feel like doing because you failed. I mean, the GM can decide that you actually succeeded, but probably there are way more problems than then if you didn't try to change tall. Then there is a one success which is already a success. You did manage to do whatever you wanted to do. However, something bad happens along the way and you're probably in trouble. Yeah have a bit of a trouble. And then there is two successes, which is you generally got what you wanted. But it's slightly different. It's you almost it's like in the apocalypse world, I guess there's seven, nine or so you generally did succeed, but something is off something's not exactly as you want to family obligations,

Kate & Marcin : 22:18

the choice you have to make

Unknown Speaker : 22:21

and such. And then there are free successes, which means not only you did succeed, but actually something turned out even better than you wanted. So there is no clue. There's no option. Have you just got what you wanted? Yeah. So it can be a swing from sort of complications, right through to benefits. Yeah,

Snyder’s Return : 22:37

yeah. Exactly. All right. Well, you mentioned the city minister and a few others, what else has helped influence you and bring this game to fruition that people seem to be sort of picking up?

Unknown Speaker : 22:51

Well, there is city of myth. There is a world of darkness and I think it's obvious to anyone that urban fantasy Gender well it basically started with World of Darkness a role playing games.

Unknown Speaker : 23:06

Yes. So it's over the edge doesn't matter

Unknown Speaker : 23:12

houses of the bladder is also an inspiration for us yeah

Unknown Speaker : 23:16

we listed all the the major inspirations in the introduction chapter of the book. Because there are quite a few.

Kate & Marcin : 23:23

The iron sorne

Unknown Speaker : 23:24

is one definitely are a great game and you should definitely check it out. So yeah, there's been a lot I mean, our we did not consider ourselves to be extremely original, one of the kind creators. We do believe there are some original ideas or philosophies defined. However, we were strongly influenced by many, many games we play

Unknown Speaker : 23:48

for post, apocalypse world and many games powered by the apocalypse. Yeah, surely. Monster hearts and masks for example.

Unknown Speaker : 23:57

Love those games. I'm not sure how much of directing for We're on fire, but we play those two we play a lot and we love them both.

Snyder’s Return : 24:05

Okay, okay, so well you know it's good that you you've drawn on the strength of them and that has culminated in this this fantastic game you've published and put out and is available on on Drive Thru RPG if people want to maybe sort of check in with you and things work they find you on on your social media.

Unknown Speaker : 24:26

On Facebook, it's facebook.com slash game machinery and also on drive for just type defiant RPG into the search bar, I think I don't know if we have a special link for our

Kate & Marcin : 24:45

No no, it's just me. Hopefully it's easy to find on Drive Thru and we've got a web page game machinery calm.

Snyder’s Return : 24:54

Well, I'll put links to those down in the description below this podcast episode. Thank you So you have released this game you you've given us source and player options and some some well building options which were just the future of define take you if you've got more in the works is there things going on? Definitely.

Unknown Speaker : 25:12

Well, the thing we learned over the years, if I Polish games is that well, the game is alive as long as the creators are willing to create new content for the game to improve it or to build upon what has been previously published. And we've defined we wanted to focus on bringing new supplements to the game to new source books. We treat

Kate & Marcin : 25:39

we treat the rulebook as sort of a basic basic knowledge that is required to play the game and to to enjoy defined but there is much more

Unknown Speaker : 25:50

Yeah, but since it's already 600 pages long, we felt like we need to we need to stop at this point and

Kate & Marcin : 25:59

and Work on the rest of the material.

Unknown Speaker : 26:01

We want to release a quick start after some time because we want to be able to play it to try out the game before, before they buy. They buy the book and we're working on the first supplement. It will be called defiant legacy. And it will it will be focused on more on the family of defiance royalty, the succession rules becoming a beacon meaning if you want to have your own child

Unknown Speaker : 26:39

Yes, it was quite a challenge. It took us actually I think a few weeks of just discussing how can we make having children a fun experience in defiant I mean, it's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be role playing games. It's supposed to be exciting. It's not supposed to be boring or challenging. It's To be interesting. So yeah, we came up with different rules for different hope for how different origins

Kate & Marcin : 27:06

go for pregnancy. It's more of a spiritual pregnancy is

Unknown Speaker : 27:10

another physical one. And and there are some there is some knowledge about this in the rulebook but but the supplement will expand on this, and I think it's gonna be fun for the players because in fact every every royal has a spouse concert, and the players have marital themes

Unknown Speaker : 27:35

emerge is actually an important parts of the game. I mean navigating your marriage because it's usually an arranged marriage you it's like since we were basing it on the court courts rules called called social life. I guess. There are plenty of arranged marriages you do not necessarily need to like or know your spouse. But you have to work Some somehow make it work. This is someone who you're stuck with so you have to make the best of it.

Snyder’s Return : 28:08

All right, well, I died. And I like the sound of that and I look forward to seeing that coming out from you in in the future. You've mentioned a few things to do with sort of running the game and and aspects of it. So if you could offer some advice to the news or the New Game Master or new players coming in to your game, what advice would you would you give them other than reading the rulebook which is as you say, fairly standard for for this kind of game? What What advice would you give to to a new games Master?

Unknown Speaker : 28:39

Hmm, I would stick with reading the rulebook but but let me expand on this arm. If, if a new game master comes to define and wants to start playing to find if they have ever muslin ran the game before. I would urge them to read the book and read it with an open mind. I'm not saying it's the most original they've ever read. But we do have a slightly different than the mainstream philosophy of of running the game of the role of the game master. Not only that the rules themselves, because that's obvious, but we tried to create it fine. So that whole group is in charge of the game. Their Game Master is not the leader of the group. They're not the person in charge who has they're not even in charge of the story with game mechanics, such as the theme questions, which let the players influence the scenes by introducing new elements that have to do with their characters. That game master needs to learn this this new first approach approach I guess, I'm not saying that none of the games have ever done this before because clearly they did. But, but it's it's important to understand that this different approach But yeah, but so basically what I've just said is read the book. Please read the book.

Unknown Speaker : 30:07

For me, the important advice would be that role playing games are basically a dialogue. So don't be afraid to talk to your players to ask them for advice to ask them for feedback and participate in the in the story. Don't be afraid to voice your doubts or ask for advice. You're in this together as a group. And you're as the GM it's not your responsibility to do everything and to lead the horse whole group. You've got, of course, you've got your responsibilities, but but you you are in this together to have fun. And as for the defiant gamemaster, I would say don't try to think of a complex story with Complex plot just set the stage for the players and have fun watching watching them play. And

Unknown Speaker : 31:10

yeah, I think the running game of defiant is mostly about setting a stage and interesting stage we we created rules for that. And hopefully they work. I mean, we've seen them work but you know, seeing them we've asked present is the one thing we'd love to see groups that play without any of our influence just just after reading the book. But anyway, so we've created a role for this. So the GM is to set up an interesting scene and then just to watch the action unfold, watch the players influenced the scene, what the characters do their stuff and hopefully new exciting things come from this and you just go with it. So it's more about improvising than than creating a complex history beforehand.

Snyder’s Return : 31:55

Okay, so solver message of communication, support and trust effective Between the players and the

Kate & Marcin : 32:01

GM. Yeah, that's right. Definitely.

Snyder’s Return : 32:04

Well, that's a good message to have at the moment. I think. So, what so we've spoken about you were saying about people playing your senior mechanics work with with you sort of seeing and get out there to have others. What is your favourite aspect of of the game that you have created? What is the bit that sort of excites you the most? To find?

Kate & Marcin : 32:28

I think, yeah, I think we have two different favourite things about defined.

Unknown Speaker : 32:34

Well, I want to say about the question. Yeah, sure. Yes, same questions. I think it's, it's the most exciting thing for me. Every Every character has three themes like guide or warrior or jam, socialite, things like these and every theme has freeform questions. The players can ask whatever they they want. during any scene, they need to spend a point for that but but basically whenever they want, and for example, for the warrior character, the question is what fight is about to break out here for the gem character? It's how am I the centre of attention here

Kate & Marcin : 33:18

are what token of appreciation I might vote to receive?

Unknown Speaker : 33:22

Yes, I'm for the guide character. It's something like, Who here is my former student? And that way the players can introduce a topics that are relevant for the character to the scene, and it's not the gms responsibility to remember all right, this character is a guide, so I should think of some I should put some of his students to the, the attending the party. Now the GM says, alright, you're at the party, and the player can ask the question if they are interested in interacting with some of their students. And so this way, everything is about About the characters, it's not about the story. As we've said before, it's about the characters. And now the players have this fantastic tool they can use whenever they want, when they feel like the scene is not about their characters enough, they want to introduce an NPC or change this thing. So their character isn't the centre of attention.

Unknown Speaker : 34:24

Yeah, but actually, it was kind of problematic during the beta tests beta this cuz we we tried playing with some

Kate & Marcin : 34:34

inexperienced players,

Unknown Speaker : 34:36

players. Yeah. Yeah. There's a great experience with more mainstream games, I guess. But the product experience nonetheless. And they read for the they read for the theme questions. And they were like, Well, those those questions are great. They could change so much. I would loving them. But don't worry. We'll get players we want to ask them because we don't want to ruin your story and Yes.

Kate & Marcin : 35:02

So for the book, we really tried to stress that it's okay to ask the questions though. They're there. So you will so you would use them. Don't be afraid. Okay.

Snyder’s Return : 35:14

So that was that was your, your favourite aspect about you, man?

Unknown Speaker : 35:19

Well, for me are, it's probably the NPC mirror system. This is what we call it Anyway, um, this is from the GM perspective, are when GM creates embassies in defiance. He's supposed to create them in a way that each NPC mirrors one of the characters, it's like, creates a distorted image of the character. The philosophy behind this is pretty much the same as with the theme questions we want the game to be about the characters. So whenever the characters meet new NPCs they're supposed to see a distorted images and of themselves and say one of them is a I don't know whether you examples warrior. Oh, yeah, boy. Okay, so it's a basic sample. So one of them is a warrior and the NPC one of the NPCs they need should be a warrior as well. I mean someone who used to fight but hates fighting now or, or is a grizzled veteran or someone extremely pacifist who doesn't believe in violence in any form.

Kate & Marcin : 36:22

All right, young warriors are young,

Unknown Speaker : 36:24

aspiring warrior that wants to be just like the character when he grows up. So and this goes for pretty much all the NPCs the the characters are to, to meet during the game. We call this the mirror system. It's actually more like Nemesis and book I mean, in the real sense of the word nemesis, not as the archrival, but as someone who resonates with the character.

Unknown Speaker : 36:49

And the gamemaster creates mirrors for every characters for the themes. And of course, it should be customised to the to the player idea of the of the character But it works pretty pretty well and and it helps the gym to create interesting NPCs as well. So

Snyder’s Return : 37:07

absolutely, with the thing questions and the mirrors. You can I can imagine definitely how scenes that you the the gym would stage could shift massively to incorporate and change the ebb and flow of the game. idea. Yeah, no, it's I think it's wonderful. I think it's I think it's fantastic. I'm just a lowly role playing game player. But, I mean, I'm inspired. I'm inspired. So you've won me over? Definitely.

Kate & Marcin : 37:40

Oh, thank you. That's really nice to hear.

Snyder’s Return : 37:42

So am I right in saying that this is just online only there's not a physical book associated with this. You're not

Unknown Speaker : 37:50

Yeah, unfortunately know. What we have only limited time on our hands and the limited amount of energy. We're actually totally spent right now. Actually, I wanted to start the this interview by saying by complaining how tired we are and how much we had to do. But then I realised it's 2020. And complaining about having a little less time to sleep and a little more work seems pretty petty right now. So, so yeah, we are could you spend but it could have been worse, I guess.

Snyder’s Return : 38:21

You shouldn't undermine the pressures you place upon yourself. So, you know, you've put a lot of work into this. So don't Don't sell yourself short. You know, yes, there are other things going on, and we won't touch on them here. But if, if you've worked harder than you've potentially arrest and I can see the hard work across, you know, drive thru RPG and the samples you put out and the time you've taken to speak with myself today. So, you know, I think arrest is is well deserved.

Unknown Speaker : 38:51

Thank you. So anyway, back to original question. Since we have a limited amount of time and energy we can spend on our projects. decided to focus on only one version of the book. And since due to international laws that I did not entirely understand, to be honest, Kickstarter is not available in Poland. I mean, you can fund the project, you can support the project, but you cannot start your own project on Kickstarter in Poland. So rather than trying to create a company somewhere outside Poland in the EU, and we decided that we're just going to stick with electronic version only because Kickstarter would be the easiest way to get a printed, printed version to everyone. And just make the best possible electronic product we can. This is why I told I talked about 600 page layout. Yeah, it might sound a bit intimidating. If it were a normal a four two column book, it would be around 300 or 310 pages long. So

Kate & Marcin : 39:58

definitely less than 600 Pages just just to be clear, and

Unknown Speaker : 40:02

it's just optimised for the smartphones. And it's one column on

Unknown Speaker : 40:09

its one column, only the font is pretty big, pretty big. We wanted it to be clear and readable on smartphones and on PCs alike. But yeah, but but it's not something that would look good in print.

Snyder’s Return : 40:24

Okay, well, you know, you you've made a creative decision. And, and I think in this, this sort of, of on playing, online role playing and things like that, and the events in the world today that there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a electronic copy. And people should definitely not be deterred from picking up a copy of the game because of it.

Unknown Speaker : 40:46

We're actually working on an online support app for the game. But we're not sure how much time it's going to take but we'd love to have some sort of a multi platform, app or a web page with when you Can where you can store your play characters and then play online for role 20 or whatever other mean you choose. But with, with your character on your phone just with the list

Unknown Speaker : 41:09

of emerging programmers who can do things like that? Well, games, we'll see how it goes.

Snyder’s Return : 41:18

very skilled, very skilled.

Kate & Marcin : 41:21

Must.

Snyder’s Return : 41:25

Is there anything else you'd like to cover? In this interview? Anything you want more you want to say about the game, the law, the mechanics? Oh, well, Question two.

Unknown Speaker : 41:34

What I would like to do is to apologise actually because you happen to be the first person to interview us. And so it has fallen upon you to let us learn to give interviews in English. And I do believe that the next interviews will be better but you're the unfortunate one to to be the first so

Kate & Marcin : 41:55

thank you.

Snyder’s Return : 41:56

Yeah, thank you for that. It's an absolute pleasure. I've had it as a positive spin. I hope you've also had a positive experience. Absolutely.

Kate & Marcin : 42:03

Absolutely.

Snyder’s Return : 42:05

Pleasure. That's that's, that's lovely. And thank you for coming on if you'd like to remind everybody where they can find you on social media and where they can find your, your game.

Unknown Speaker : 42:14

Okay, so it's Facebook slash game machinery. If you want to find our Facebook page, if you want to buy the game, it's available on Drive Thru RPG only. So right now if you go to write new director RPG, you can see it on the main page. Hopefully, it will remain the best. So for some time to come and to be available. It's called defiance. So you can just search the store and find it anyway.

Snyder’s Return : 42:43

All right. Well, thank you very much for joining me today. I appreciate it. And I really want everyone to go and have a look and pick the game up if they feel it's something that they should run.

Kate & Marcin : 42:55

Thank you for having us. Excellent. Thank you for having us. It's been a pleasure.

Snyder’s Return : 42:58

It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of us or to get in contact with us, you can find us on Twitter at return Snyder. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and also if you wish to support the channel on patreon@patreon.com slash nice return. music and sound effects provided for this episode are from epidemic sounds.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai