Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today has written an aid for gyms and DNS to ensure that our dungeons are not doomed to failure has released articles to inspire you, even when your world is grim and perilous, runs a publishing company with more than just a nod and a wink to the arcane covens and spellcasters. And it is an absolute pleasure to welcome Irene Bassett to the show. Irene, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I read before we go into some of your work and how varied it is in its nature and everything else you do. Would you mind telling us how you got into tabletop role playing games, please?
Irene Bassett:Oh, yeah. So back in high school, I had a friend who everyday like he would ask, Hey, do you want to come join the tabletop Club, which was run by the my precalculus teacher? And I was like, Nah, I mean, like, kind of like I was busy because it was in high school. And then one day, I decided to just go Yeah, you know what? Sure, I'll join. And I did and started playing you six adventures. I think I only did like one or two sessions with them before the game fell apart. But that was long enough to meet other people who introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. 3.5. So I've been playing since about 2012. Playing Dungeons and Dragons Pathfinder, I did a little bit of heroes Unlimited, like just character creation for that Vampire the Masquerade. You know, I like to experiment and play with different systems.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. No problem. And what is it you play most these days? So mostly, it's
Irene Bassett:between Pathfinder second edition. And this is why hander. I enjoy both of those systems a lot and have friends who play them.
Snyders Return:Yeah, yeah, I'm both really good systems. And so those are the games you choose to play. What about work moving into the tabletop role playing a theatre of work? How did you first get involved with that side of stuff.
Irene Bassett:So a couple years ago, this was probably 2018 2019. I don't remember for sure. I was running a bunch of games for some friends. And I was like, I need extra money on the side. So I started looking for looking into running games for people for hire, being a GM for hire, which I did for a little while on a stream called the tip of the abyss with abyssal gaming. And that sort of started my career in the tabletop industry was doing a live stream. That one lasted for a little while, I want to say, a year, half a year. And then we stopped playing together because issues and scheduling wasn't really working very well for anybody. But I had another group that I decided to run for as well. And then fast forward to last year, July 2020. That's when my career actually started taking off is why 100 went on role 24 for free, so it's like a player's handbook. So it's like okay, you know, this has been on my radar for a little while. So I'll check that out. And I actually I bought the core rulebook because I couldn't navigate the role 20 interface for at that time, it's much wider now. But at the time, I couldn't navigate it. So I just got the rulebook and then joined the discord server. And, you know, just sort of like not involved in the community there actually wrote and released my first adventure. I haven't released it yet. It's, it's gonna hopefully, it's gonna release in March. But while I was there circle writing for lo born, which is a fan magazine, sort of like the old dragon magazines. And as I was like, coming up with these ideas to things I would like to see in this binder, I got involved with like, talking to like Adam rose and Daniel Fox, and various other librarians because it's, it's called the cleaning content programme, the grim and perilous library. And I volunteered to run at Gen Con that year. So it was like a month after I joined the discord server. And basically, from there, like, I started writing this perilous tactics, just like sort of like a examination of tactics that you can use for your monsters and battle and combat, sort of like keep the moms the monsters know what they're doing. So I got really deep into the system mechanics itself, and was constantly asking questions and eventually, like, reached out by Daniel Fox and asked if I want to do some freelance work, and that's how I got into doing freelance work.
Snyders Return:You can't get a better better stop living from Daniel fox is an inspiration is the word I'm going to use. So you produce this stuff for lowborn and looking into the sort of the taxi side of stuff. So touching on that those entries you mentioned there. What has been your your favourite submission or piece of writing up until where we are today and projects in the future.
Irene Bassett:So for low born my favourite parentless tactics so far has been the bog beam if I had to break down went up into two parts because it was so huge, but it's, it's taught me a lot about writing how to write how to format things. And it was just it was really interesting monster in general, it really forced me to think how could this monster best use its abilities like its flavour text says that it's an intelligent, almost thinking creature that likes to do ambushes and traps. So that was sort of like informed to how I wrote their their tactics like a solo bog, we humans will, will basically pretend it's a boulder until it gets within a certain range to attack everybody because it has a trait that lets it flail around and hit everybody who is within like, one yard of each other. So that sort of stuff. And then doing it with the multiple blog humans is different, because they can do differently now. So that's been my favourite one of the World War articles that I've written so far,
Snyders Return:is certainly interesting. And you mentioned the yarns, which is not the usual distance measurement that people I identify with certain tabletop role playing games or phrases. So if you wouldn't mind giving your own brief description of via hander orders why hander game system and what it is about it that you enjoy so much.
Irene Bassett:So with as by hander, as you mentioned, they use yards for the basis of their measurement rather than five feet because primarily it's played in theatre, the mind and played with a battle map. And I have done that with a battle map. But you don't need to, you can do it theatre, the mind and yard is easier to remember than feet. So I believe that's reason why they use that. But it's why hunter itself is a D 100 roll under system. So basically, you get a percentile dice, and you have to roll underneath a certain percent. For example, if you want to attend something with a sword, that's going to be a martial melee skill based off of your combat bonus, if your combat bonus is a 50 and you have a rank in martial melee, that is going to be a 60% chance to hit it to hit with it. The thing I enjoy about this by Anders and it's a really much more clear to understand your mechanics like it's really well written with regards to mechanics and you know, your chances of hitting things which is like very important, because like in other systems like Pathfinder or d&d, you have D 20. And then you add a bonus and that bonus may or may not hit the target number you don't know but like I said, right hander you do know that and the action economy for the comic is combat is one of my favourite things, the action economy combat is very clear and very well thought out like you can attack action, parentless dumped action and a move action. But you also have three action points, you only spend one to make an attack or and want to make a perilous stun, but you can move as many times as you want. So it's very, I feel like it's a very well thought out system. And that's really what I like about it
Snyders Return:clearly, because because you've sort of submitted work for it and play it and enjoy it, which is a hallmark of a great game, not only does it inspire the creation of new content, but for you to come back to it and and play and enjoy it on a multitude of levels which which I can tell you clearly you do. But it's not the only piece of writing you've done. And you've started your own press show you see
Irene Bassett:Yeah, that's winking which press which would why with that the idea behind that is since Pathfinder, our pies, oh, rather, doesn't have a community content programme that I'm aware of. They have compatibility licences, which means like unlike the grim and perilous library where you submit things or the DM skilled resubmit things on Drive Thru RPG into dedicated section for that you submit these things under your own publishing framework, right, if I understand the licencing correctly. So the idea of that is to start working on building up Pathfinders stuff, adventures, mainly because that's what I really like. I like writing adventures and I like running dungeons, which is why I wrote the doing your dungeons essay, which you mentioned earlier. Yeah.
Snyders Return:I alluded to but if you're able to give a little bit more about it, and then I'll help signpost people in your general direction. So please tell us a little bit more about that essay.
Irene Bassett:Yeah, so given your dungeons, it's like a 14 page essay, which is about taking john Romero's level design tips and applying them to tabletop role playing game to me, I believe that you can learn a lot about dungeon design by studying video game level design. And john Romero is the lead designer, I believe, for the 1993 doom game, which is widely regarded as one of the best first person shooter games from that era. And it like influenced a lot of things including myself, obviously, because that's the brand name the essay after, but it's not just john Romero, who is a good example of this Janell j quase. Who is Hey, pronounce her last name. Janelle J. queens was actually a tabletop designer for Dungeons and Dragons. Way back in the I think it was a 70s. But she's moved on to doing video game design as well and actually has her own video game studio. And she was I think she worked on the Halo Wars realtime strategy game, which I drew a little bit of inspiration from that, which is where the basis of this comes from. Yeah,
Snyders Return:yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned there the winking which press and the logo and stuff so where is it people can can go and find yourself and find this content that you've you've mentioned so far,
Irene Bassett:what you can find that low born on the drive thru RPG, the grim and perilous studios, which is also known as the grim and perilous library, and we can watch presses also on a drive thru RPG so you can find it there as well as for myself and find myself on Twitter or on Twitch at dm Irene DB all one word, which it's for both of those so dm Irene DB for twitch it would be twitch.tv slash dm Irene dB, and for Twitter's just twitter.com slash dm Irene dB, I believe
Snyders Return:Well, I will make sure there are links to those in the description below. So please go and follow those links and support Irene other content you you create. So what is in the future of winking which press what's what's next on your release agenda for that?
Irene Bassett:Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm looking forward to starting to use making much press to start developing Pathfinder adventures and specifically dungeons because dungeon design is something that I really find interesting and enjoy doing a whole lot and Pathfinder second edition has some very great rules for that kind of stuff that makes it way simpler to design dungeons for
Snyders Return:so but on on that side of things. Is there anything else? So with Twitch, have you got anything coming up that we should be looking out for and or what is it you're you're playing and streaming on Twitch.
Irene Bassett:So right now I'm playing a lot of Val Haim, I believe that we have, I have a stream that I'm going to be playing behind with on another friend's stream. I think we do that. Every Sunday, I believe there Twitch is twitch TV slash the bards Gambit from our crack way out. But we play very high on Sundays at 7pm. Central Standard Time I believe it is. So that would be 5pm. Pacific Standard Time. So that's mostly what I've been doing. I don't have anything on my twitch channel right now, because I've been sort of taking a break from running my own streams.
Snyders Return:That's fair enough. So you mentioned there are a number of different game systems and intellectual properties and things like that, that that you you both played and experienced, enjoyed. Some you've continued with and left behind. So looking at an overarching sense, and you can narrow down to a single system if you choose. But where are you wanting the hobby to go next? Is there a particular setting you want a particular system to go to? Or is there something that you want brought into the community or something at a higher level to do with, say safeguards and rules and things like that?
Irene Bassett:Yeah, so funny. You mentioned that because one of the things that I've worked on with grimmond parents studios, it's the people who produce as why hander was the I believe it's called the intrigue, the darkness, which is a set of safety tools, which is specifically engineered towards zweite hander, and games that are powered by the lander. So I'm looking forward to more games, building that sort of stuff into their systems and including them and like the core rulebooks because consent and safety is very important to me. And when it comes to role playing games. As for like stuff for like settings, I don't have any specific settings, but I do want people are exploring like high fantasy settings, I want to see more like less standard mediaeval European fare like the Tolkien esque fare that we see nowadays. And more weird things like things where you can clearly tell but the magic system has affected and had an impact on how things are developed in that world. The best example for this I can think of is actually from the video game Morrowind which came out in like 2003 the there is a faction in Morrowind that all of their their wizards. So all of their high ranking wizards live in these towers that you can only get to their floor by casting the levitate spell. So you have to basically levitating fly up to them to talk to them. And they're like, these towers are all mushrooms. So like more stuff like that. I also would love to see more support for the for indie communities and indie creators that would be marvellous, like currently we have the same quest going on. That's, that's great for getting stuff out there for people. So more events like that would be awesome.
Snyders Return:Absolutely. This this so much amazing work out there that it's it's very much overshadowed by the big two or three depending on how you scale up the sizes of the of the game systems and the Business is behind them. So it's great to see so much support for the indie producers out there, and the smaller producers out there. So we've touched on your writing and editing and, and your enjoyment of certain games and things like that. And the fact that you you've run games, so you have the experience sort of running games in, in various situations. So if somebody is is intrigued and inspired by yourself and and and others in the community to take up that game running mantle, what advice do you have for them? First and foremost, we'll start with that question.
Irene Bassett:So the best advice I can give a, anybody who is new to running games is to find out your play style. Like find out what style works best for you, and what side works best for your table. There is what's known as the Mercer effect, named for the critical roles Game Master, Matthew Mercer, who like I've seen and heard stories of jams who are like, Yeah, I love this. I love Matthew Mercer's style, but I just I cannot do it. And it makes me feel awkward, especially if my players are also fans and sort of applying because of critical role. And the reason why I say to find and develop your own style is because like, it's okay to draw inspiration from people like Matthew Mercer, but at the end of the day, you are not Matthew Mercer, you are your own GM. And you're going to have your own styles and your own preferences and your own skill sets. Like for example, for myself, I know that I really enjoy doing dungeon delving games. So that's where I sort of tend to sort of search what I've strived to focus on doing now, I personally don't know if I can actually do a long running campaign. Like I like I know I can conceptually but it's just not as interesting as going in bi weekly going down into a dungeon and going and having my players be challenged by various different monsters. That's more interesting to me.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. As I said, there's no wrong way because I'm sure in the eyes of some that there is a wrong way and things to steer away from, hence the the safety tools we've mentioned. But yeah, everyone should have this style. And speaking of style, more in the writing and editing side of stuff. What if someone was looking to submit to say, the storytellers vault, the DMS guild or the grim and perilous library, what what advice would you give to a new writer sort of coming into this rich and fertile environment, these the tabletop community?
Irene Bassett:So my best advice for that is write what you want to see. Write what you want to what write what you enjoy, for example, and the grim and perilous library. I don't I think most of the adventures are assumed to take place in a human human centric setting. I don't like that I'm, I'm personally I don't like that. So what I do is I write my adventures to include not only the quote unquote regular pcnt ancestries, pirate garter ancestries, which was why 100 that's humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings and ogres. But also orbs, Grendel Scourge, zap, and Aslan. And I try and include those characters not only has non antagonists, but also as allies that the players can encounter and talk to. And there are some were their antagonists their antagonist, not because of who they are, but what they do that makes them the antagonist is, as far as I've like, I've seen other works, and they're perfectly fine with making the skirts, which are the red folk, you know, the enemies that they are in the book. But for me, like my first adventure, one of the main characters that kicks off the plot is a skirt. Zach, who was who was who was adopted by an ogre and a half link. So that's, that's the kind of thing that I like to do. Mm hmm.
Snyders Return:Certainly mixing things up there, which, which is great. And that is the the freedom I guess, of one being a writer and to writing for systems that allow for such freedom. Yeah, exactly. I appreciate you sharing that advice and sort of putting that over and hopefully, people listening to this and whether that's this week, this month, five years down the line or whenever they catch a snippet of this or other work you do and feel inspired that they do put pen to paper, or they pick up the the GM or dm screen and find themselves for the benefit of the table, the group and the community. Yeah, that's, that's that's the hope. Hmm, definitely. Definitely. Outside of the winkling press and and the stuff you've presented. Where are you hoping to be? What's your goals say the next 510 years
Irene Bassett:so for myself, I hope to be a full time Freelancer or working as an actual employee within the people top industry with a company like piezo because like, that is the Something that I like 10 years ago, I started this. If you told me 10 years ago that I was going to become a freelance editor for tabletop stuff I would have gotten. No, I'm not.
Snyders Return:And yet you are and moving on and moving towards that goal. And what is it about piezo specifically that that sort of catches your eye?
Irene Bassett:Well, with paizo I've been playing Pathfinder for such a long time that I know more or less the ins and outs of the system. Like I've had to relearn a lot of things for second edition, for example, but like, that's not that big of a deal. It's it's just happens to be it's my favourite system to write for. Like, I like reading. This is why hander. But there's why 100 doesn't really like do dungeon delving as well as it has Pathfinder does. Because what is why hander that's more of a narrative game, where you have scenes and stuff instead of locations, which is fine. It's a cinematic type of game, but like I said, I like to I prefer to write dungeon dungeons rather than writing long narrative arcs. And I feel that Pathfinder bedroom ports, that style of gameplay,
Snyders Return:would you dabble into star finder, if if a dungeon could be transposed onto a planet, or a desolate starship or starbase or something? Or would you prefer to stay within the fantasy side of things
Irene Bassett:for myself, I personally find that I write fantasy better than I write science fiction because my science fiction stuff tends to be science fiction, comedy stuff, or I think the only other science fiction thing that I've written that wasn't comedy was a was a noir style sci fi short story did for an anthology a couple years ago, called ubiquity, which is like UB, I qu, I see it why I did that. I did that and like it was interesting, but for the most part, science fiction doesn't really interest me that much outside maybe space operas and star finder, I believe has space for that. But it like I I'm more comfortable with Pathfinder and fantasy stuff.
Snyders Return:So what is it you do? You mentioned the writing, you've mentioned editing, running games, working within the industry and on doing some stuff on twitch? What is it you do for downtime? How do you relax and sort of draw yourself to centre?
Irene Bassett:So I actually like most of the things that I do that I do for work type stuff is also stuff that I do to relax myself. Like I mentioned Val Haim, that's been that's one of the things like I do that but I also strain that so for me, I really don't have an off switch. And it's it is a bit of a problem. But that's all right with me because I can it's just how I'm used to functioning so like I find my work to be fulfilling enough that I can not you turn myself off and me to recenter myself constantly.
Snyders Return:Ross what's the what's the phrase, find a job you love and you never work a day in your life, I think is the paraphrase. I'll say that in case I've got it slightly wrong. That's exactly it. Oh, there you go. My memory hasn't failed me yet. So spoken about a lot of stuff that you do the lowball spy hand or input your desire, should we say to, to sort of, and I'm sure it will happen just a matter of time, I guess work for piezo and, and all these sort of other really good things? Where is it? We are likely to see your name appear next.
Irene Bassett:So that's a great question. Probably. Let's see, I did do editorial work on the flames of freedom, which is a game that's powered by Spy Hunter. And that's coming out I believe it's coming out now in August. They because production schedules with books, they changed some things and it set it back but that's probably going to be the only thing. Biggest thing there would be that in the industry itself. And like I I do have an adventure coming up on the Coronavirus library called the beast of Jelena Meyer. I don't know when that's gonna come out yet, though, because we had to change it to a different cover. Because the drive thru RPG, unfortunately, I believe cover. Yeah. But that that should be coming out sometime soon.
Snyders Return:Hmm. Well, we'll keep an eye out for that. And again, I can try and put a link in depending on how it responds out. So the flames of freedom, powered by his right hander? Are you able to give just a precis of what it's about? There is a quickstart guide out there. So if you're able to sort of touch on and just explain that the theme of the game rather than going into to where you can't, as it were,
Irene Bassett:yeah, so flames of freedom. It's, I believe, the best way to describe it is that it's a historical game set in the sentence in 1776 in America, on the eve of revolution, so basically, you're playing as either as the rebels or the loyalists, depending on what story you're want to tell your historian, which is the game's version of a game master, depending on story your history wants to tell on what story you want to tell. So yeah, it's basically it's a historical American Revolution set game like you could probably slip fantasy into it. But like it's intended first and foremost, to be set to be played in the 13 colonies.
Snyders Return:I'm sure that will spark a lot of interest when he finally gets released to say that I'm pretty sure that kickstart up not kicks, I think it was kixeye. But there was a quickstart guide released was probably still available on Drive Thru so be sure to check that out. If the powered wise by hand the games have piqued your interest. I mean, it's been great. Would you like to remind everybody where they can find you in your content? Oh, yeah, sure.
Irene Bassett:So you can find me on Twitter at D marine BB. Me all one word on Twitch also at dm Irene dB. And you can also find me my stuff that I sell that I've written myself on the Wicked Witch press, which is Lincoln witch with a y, which is currently only on Drive Thru RPG. And if you are running why hander stuff, you can find me in the ground perilous library, writing low born reading adventures, you know, things like that.
Snyders Return:Alright, just before we sort of bring this close isn't a thing we haven't touched on that you would like to speak about anything to do with writing or editing anything to do with game systems or game mechanics or any other topic that you would like to bring to the fore?
Irene Bassett:Yeah, so like, feel free to like, if you're going to be designing game systems, or designing stories or reading adventures, don't be afraid to play outside of your genre. Like, I know, I mentioned that I don't really do science fiction stuff. That's not totally true. I do play cyberpunk 2020, which is helped me understand mechanics better for other games. look into how to understand why the mechanical choices are made the way they're made in the game. So like, even if you don't think you're going to be playing the system all the time. Try it out, at least do at least do a one shot and noon in a new system and see what you can learn from it.
Snyders Return:Yeah, great advice. Great advice. And thank you so much for your time. I appreciate your you're busy. You have a lot of commitments and things to be doing. So thank you so much for for firstly agreeing to speak with me and finding the time for us to do this interview.
Irene Bassett:I had no problem. And thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. No, it's
Snyders Return:been great. It's been great. And maybe if we can sort out we can have you back on the show in the future.
Irene Bassett:Yeah, I mean, sure. I would love to be back on the show in the future. Well,
Snyders Return:thank you. I mean, so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snyder's return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At Return Snyder, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon. And we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content out for for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you