Hello, and welcome to Snyder's return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today is one of the greats in the pantheon of games publishing, who transformed the tabletop role playing game industry by allowing us to explore strange new worlds without worrying about the Fallout, showing us how to bring some spice to the table by following the clues at hand and looking beyond the masquerade, putting us in the shoes of the displaced, dishonoured and the barbarous the latest offering pits our heroes against two evils simultaneously, the great old one, and the Nazi war machine. So grab your 2d 20 as I discussed acting Cthulhu with the tip of the spear modiphius founder and Achtung Cthulhu creator, Chris Birch. Chris, welcome to the show. Hi, that's it. Nice to be here. Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on. Yeah, no, absolutely. very poetic. Oh, thank you. So a lot of things sort of detail there in the intro. But before we get to that, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got into tabletop role playing games.
Chris Birch:So I remember my mom telling my brother and he was 10 years older than me. When I was eight. You got to get Chris out the house. Take him to that your friends on a Wednesday night. And which is where they would play Dungeons and Dragons. So I turned up not knowing, going out and we want to go and then turned up because it was all older people, of course. Well, actually, no, it's kind of cool because you wanted to hang out with the older people and they didn't really want to think. Anyway. So we were playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friend of theirs called marks or westoe became a longtime friend of mine and encouraged me in all kinds of gaming. So we played d&d, and that blew my mind. And he had this huge collection of what you would call Fantasy games at the time, which is really the catch all name. It wasn't called tabletop games, it was Fantasy games. And that was anything from hex based war games to traveller to you know, proper old school hex and chit war games and all the skier role playing games of the past. And then I moved on. In my teens I started Wargaming I started doing 15 mil napoleonics very badly painted, got my other brother out into ball games who still Wargaming and the brother got me into d&d Nick doesn't hasn't played a game in years. So became a war gamer in my in my teens, I would collect kind of friends d&d figures and gradually pieced together a large fantasy army that would create my own rules for and stories. And I learned how to play solo war games, because there was no one else to play with in my town. Which is why we do lots of solo war games now. And and then, I kind of lost when I was a college and I was simultaneously publicity secretary for Christian Union whilst I was also chairman of the gaming society, which I thought was really hilarious because this is this is in the late 80s. So you know, this is Christian world is like, oh, evil role playing games. And meanwhile, I was like, so the demon role 2d. I was like, it's just a game and that, you know, they used to, you know, churches, not great ones we complain, you know, oh, but it's a demon on the cover. And it's like, have you looked at that demon? It's really badly drawn original, the demon on the monster manual was just like your mate at school withdrawn. If that's what demons look like, really seriously, got nothing to worry about. So anyway, I remember some people coming around, some parents coming around the scope of the college, and I was jamming and literally as they came in, I just switched and went and then Satan said and looked horrified and backed out. So it was very funny. Anyway, so after college, having spent all the game society's budget on every game, all the games that the newly open Games Workshop in Birmingham, I kind of lost our last gaming for about 10 years because I became a rave promoter. So staying mad raves and booking bands and DJs till nine in the morning and standing around In, in darkened rooms, munching pills, and listening to repetitive music as the great quote goes. So, yes, I was Yeah, doing that in fields and clubs up and down the country for about 10 years and then kind of got, I remember coming back to acquaintances, this little game shop, used to be in near the British Museum. I cannot remember the name of it now. But I remember going in there after like 10 years going home to how games have changed. Now, it was still the same. They were still these big black and white books full of pages of text, hardly any images and the images were mostly bad. And thinking, oh my god, and then I discovered a little board game called zombies by Twilight creations. Just a brilliant funnel. It's, you know, beer and pretzels. Zombie trashing is hilarious. And I played it with the girlfriend then. And then I've kind of just gradually got back into it. I mean, whilst I said I'd been brave promoting, I had a friend. And we would occasionally get together at weekends and play ridiculously big games of epic 40k. or, or, or, or how Warhammer 40k with basically all the miniatures he had rather than going well, let's just since most battle, it was like, No, let's have the biggest battle. And we ended up right writing our own rules, just because we wanted it to be actually able to play the game in the day. And then we'd sit eating pizza and drink Coke into the wee hours dreaming up gaming worlds. And we always, we always had this dream that one day we'd start a gaming company, and cut long story short, I had the chance to meet Mike Pon Smith of tell saurian games and, of course, Mr. cyberpunk, and knowing that I was going to meet him for another project, which is bizarre, but we quickly scrambled together this game world and which was set in a artificially created solar system called modiphius. And he was very kind and said, Oh, of course, that's very nice. Thank you very much. And never had Wow, I, we became friends. But he never said anything about the game, which is a blessing. It's been very polite. So that's how the modiphius name came about. And, and then I just kind of played, you know, we play a few games, and then I kind of gradually got back in stuff. And I had then had a T shirt company, bouncing around the world, doing video games, clothing, and I was also I also helped cubicle seven, get the rights to Doctor Who. And because I was doing lots of licencing with video games companies and, and I also came across this fantastical British comics called stablizer by the Scottish, DC Thomson, which were kind of precursor to 2000 ad, and said, this would be great for roleplay game, it's got gorgeous art, because you know how all those role playing games are still full of atrocious art. And it's got brilliant, almost 2000 ACS D style art and lots of great covers. And they said, that's a great idea. Why don't you write it, so I did foolishly. And three years later, this 636 page monster was born, which you still see out there. I think it's a bit of a collection still stopped laser blasts, which is great. And, and that was kind of my trial by fire of creating a role playing game. Like, I think I think at the time, I was like, I'm not gonna make a game, which is like, endless, endless supplements. I'm gonna do it all in one book. And so no one gets ripped off. And so it just became ridiculously big. And, but it was good fun. I'm glad. I'm glad we did it. And, and then Kickstarter came along, and I'd been dreaming up ideas, which we'll come to, and and the rest is history. So I was quite long winded way of saying
Snyders Return:that is quite a history, not not at all. Living some of those moments, whether that was that was that was great. So you acquired or created the name for modiphius. And how did you bridge that gap between a single game of a weighty tome of 600 pages and and T shirt designs and things like that? Where did the step from there into being modiphius full time? How did you bridge that gap?
Chris Birch:Well, I mean, macduffie started is, you know, I was like, I remember I was with my wife, Reese. So she's from Belarus. So we were over there and she knew I was bored at the T shirts, been doing it for 13 years. And she said you know what, you know, why don't you think something else and we met this guy who knew these companies in Belarus that make plastic tanks which look really great. I was kind of thinking, oh, maybe we could come up with a whole range of tackle resell their tanks and crates for soldiers. And it's like, well, you know, started with massive business and then I started thinking about ideas. And I recently read mountains, the mountains of madness at the mountains of madness by HP Lovecraft. And because I'd read weird war and Sergeant rock comics as a kid having worked on my granddad's bookstore in Coventry under market I get paid in comics agathi so I just devoured them and Spider Man and etc, etc. So my head was full of like Germans and Nazis and demon infested tanks and stuff. So then having read that I literally the first thing because I love apocalypse stuff, and I love ancient ruins. I was like, Oh my god, imagine the Nazis were there. And bounces and stuff and ancient technology and all that cool thing. So it just spiralled. And then before I knew it was like, we had this kind of card base role playing game that one day I'll make hopefully, and me and the gaming group we did this we did at the mountains of madness just set as the as returning mission just at the beginning of World War Two with Nazis there and that put this expedition together and survive the the crazy weather and get to the ruins. And of course, we have big battles with Nazis and strange equipment and stuff. And out of that kind of came this idea for acting Kathy Lou and Sara Newton had her a bunch of adventures set around 1939 one called three, three kings. And she said she was looking for a home for it. And I was like, well, I've got this mad world I've come up with called acting Cthulhu. And she's like, Okay, well, let's do it for that. So we we published those in PDF on Drive Thru RPG, and I got great artists and Martin to work on it and me how cross is our kind of senior graphic designer now. It was our first first kind of member of Team can we all created it, and I you know, promoted it, and we sold 1000 copies. And then we did the sequel, and that felt sold a couple of 1000 copies. And it did really well in PDF and Chronicle city, a little little publisher at the time. There was a Mr. Branson, you know, did a few copies or in conventions and things. Anyway, long story short, Kickstarter, kind of suddenly, well had been going and, but wasn't in the UK. And then suddenly, at the end of the year was like, Okay, now you were opening in the UK? So I was like, okay, you know, it was first of all, we can do some miniatures. And I was like, actually, no, let's do the book, let's do the setting book and establish the universe. And then we can do lots of stuff. So I came up with all these characters and, and set them in this world and figured out the rest of the story. And did a Kickstarter thinking we, you know, we'd get about 10 grand, and, you know, I could you know, spend a day working from home every week on that or not on that. And it would pay for a few holidays. And of course, it got 177,000 pounds and we funded like 12 bucks. And it got bigger after that. So, you know, nearly halfway through I was like I can't do this in two days a week we're gonna you know, this is a company you know, let's be take this seriously. And then but right from the beginning, I was like, let's do it as a business his case this isn't just like, wow, we've made loads of money that's going to spend it it's like, let's be really careful. This is you know, we'll do another one of these maybe in another year to date with music Chronicles. But this is the beginning and let's you know, just get people in freelance as we need them and gradually grow and be really careful and try to you know, we're not going to be reliant on Kickstarter. Let's make sure we're selling in shops. So that that's how it started. It was mean return in a basement flat actually two streets away from where I am now. And me how doing our graphic design and chatting about cool game ideas and, and lots of other lovely people Lynn Hardy, he's now a calcium who's kind of line editor and lead writer on acting Theo Lou and, and Sarah Newton doing her adventures and all sorts of grinding Martin doing art when lots of other great people helping out Yeah, I've
Snyders Return:had the great pleasure to speak to Lynn. So it's a wonderful thing Britain
Chris Birch:absolutely makes really good, you know, sits down with a cup of tea. And it actually made cogs cakes and soul steaks, which is super simple, streamlined. steampunk game. Yes,
Snyders Return:yeah. And how far you've come and yet how far you've not come because you're just wrapped
Chris Birch:and how weird that it's locked down. has been a bit like going back in time because I was working from home with a Mac on my desk and you know, just kind of getting on with it. And it was kind of that the first few months lockdown were really weird because it was actually, most of the company were on furlough. And it was just like a handful of us keeping the lights on kind of doing stuff that needed to be finished not starting new work. And so there was hardly any meetings, it was just kind of mean return a few people doing things that were like, sort of like the old days, it's quite nice. You know, when when he didn't have loads on and it wasn't super pressured. But you know, she can't stay where you are, you've got to keep moving. And absolutely, we had everyone working pretty quick. And you have created acting Cthulhu 2d 20. So
Snyders Return:before we dive into the the new 2d 20 system and the Quickstart that you put out through drive thru and out for release, you establish the world how does 2d 20 act and Cthulhu differ from acting to Zulu from your first iteration?
Chris Birch:So Well, when we first started, I mean, I was also as well as just being Oh my god, tanks, Nazis, monsters, this is gonna be awesome. I was also thinking commercially, because I've been running, you know, being part of a big t shirt company, I set up 13 years and you're trained, especially in fashion, you're trained think commercials, how is this gonna make money? How are we going to do it? So I was doing lots of research on Kickstarter. And I realised World War Two things were big in the gaming world Call of Cthulhu things were big in the gaming world, it's so with savage worlds, I thought, why can't we put the two together because some people will like savage worlds. And some people will like call it feely. And I did some surveys. And it's like, well, that's like, you know, we could have two halves of the coin, that double the number of people for this. And, and it's and World War Two and kung fu is, is really separately popular. So that's four different potential audiences coming together. And also, you know, we were a new company, we didn't have time to spend a couple of years working on a rule system. And we wanted to start, you know, from the top like, with like, big selling systems, and not have to convince everyone that our new rule system was amazing. I mean, it's great making any real system and I would definitely do it if you're, if you're a designer, but you also got to remember that it's an uphill battle to convince everyone that your new system is the amazing thing for everyone to play. So so that was good for the time. And it gave us the, you know, Kaos in support, it gave us Pinnacle's support with savage worlds. Yeah, gave us a big fan bases of those games who'd be like, oh, new supplement, this is awesome. And, and obviously kept costs down because we didn't have to spend all that time on developing a new system. And the book didn't need another 200 pages of art and writing for the system. So that helped a lot. But, you know, now we've got our own in house system, it made sense to make that step. Because commercially, selling a supplement is about your sell about 1/5 of what you'll sell as a core book. So if you want to launch a new game, you really want to sell a callback, because otherwise, the person has got to get away, can I get the call, but Oh, and I think the guy there on the other side of the halls got one, or you hope that the shops got the call book for the other game in stock. When we licence out to the 20 down to people who want to do their own t 20. Games, we let them make core books because it's they will make more money selling it makes sense. Anyway, and also, I don't have to get anything approved, because of course, you're doing something with calcium, they want to see it and check it, doing it for our own world. We don't have to get anyone's approval. It's all around content. You know, we've changed some of the names of some of the gods and spells and stuff. It's all our world. And you know, we've actually got this, this isn't just a weird war game, it's actually a whole universe that we've created this universe called against the gods themselves. It's actually a vengeance story that starts way back in the mists of time when the outer gods and the Elder Gods were having that epic war, and it's going to stretch Far, far, far into the future, to Epic sci fi future, of course, where that battle, you know, comes to comes to a head. And right in the middle, we've got acting fairly and we're about to announce some other kind of gaming worlds set in that in that kind of history and timeline. Some familiar characters, and of course, all the gods the same and all the creatures and the same and, you know, you're, you're better kind of jump between games if you like. And so it's really exciting to kind of bring that universe to the front and sort of work on that. Which is what we've been beavering away for the last couple of years actually in in the background without telling anyone.
Snyders Return:Yeah. And and one of the the fruits of this labour so far as the Quickstart, you put out, would you mind sort of taking us taking us through that and touching on? What is the evil AdSense site?
Chris Birch:Um, I mean, yeah, it's a great you start off as agents can dropped off, you know, by plane. And, you know, there's, there's a whole storyline, I don't want to kind of give away any treats for players. But you know, we do quickstarts for all our games. And the whole idea is to give a bit of a taster of the layout and the core artwork and the style of the game. And also what the other reason that act and clearly Td 20 is a bit different, is the classic gaming interpretation of Cthulhu is that we don't matter, we're just under their toenails, there is no hope you're going to die horribly, you know, do it in a fun way, but you are going to go mad, and it's all hopeless. And you can't beat those gods, you can make them go away, we can't beat them in our acting theory in acting clearly. So the interesting thing because I did lots of research, I went to the Minsk War Museum, which is amazing place. In Russia, they really, really, really highlight the heroes who saved the day, because they had to there was like, you know, there's a little kid who every day would bring bread and milk and newspapers to the German captains and commanders in the officers mess in Minsk One day, he came and blew himself up and killed 30 because he had to, and as there's a piece of wood with these, with these scratched messages in from a squad of soldiers who were told to stop any and all enemy advancing down the road towards Moscow. And you know, it's front goes from the full squad down to this, like five of us left, there's three of us left, you know, this is me. And, you know, they were stopping all these tanks and trucks. And there's, in winter men schooling Museum, there's a big poster of how to stop a tiger tank. And if you don't have anti tank comes, and it literally is, if you can get a bullet through the exhaust vent at the end of its turret, then it can, it will wedge in there and stop the gun firing. And it will be out of action for a day. But probably a lot of you will die. But you've got to do it for the motherland. And, but there's and then they name all the people who did it. And then it's they go through in detail all these heroes that had these ridiculously crazy last, you know, heroic stands that you never believe in a minute, you know, it must be a movie script, but they really did it. Because they were so desperate. I mean, I just had to fight really hard. And I think it's something we've we've missed as the as the allies, we you know, we've got all these incredible heroes that we don't talk about like and we try and highlight them through through acting fairly. This like guy called Wild Bill, who is a Canadian, Native American Indian free peoples who was then Pathfinders. And on one mission, he killed every other German in his bunk to freak out. And mean just again, insane. Events, insane missions that sound like they, you know, straight out that Stallone movie. And he died penniless and broke and with that, and with a medal and, you know, forgotten and there's so many characters like that, that we've forgotten and don't really celebrate and yet by the Russians do really do. So that was one of the it's one of the interesting things is it when you when you look at you understand things from certainly in the Russian stories, they saw the Nazis as as undefeatable as impossibly powerful, and the resistance as meaningless as we seek a feeling. And yet, they still fought, and yet, they died. And they would, you know, willingly die, just to have that chance just to put another grain of sand in the Nazi war machine. Because eventually all those grains of sand would would have an effect. And it made me realise that our kind of approach to kulu is basically the same as the Nazis. So, really, that, you know, let's treat it differently. So in our acting field in our universe, of course, the gods are incredibly powerful and horrific, and, but actually, humanity is is horrific to itself. They don't actually need to make us much any more evil than we are already. They just need to, you know, point us in the direction. So we've got a lot more, a lot more of a kind of miniscule fraction of hope in our universe, and that we can take Fight back to the gods and we are we can come out punching. So it's a bit more two fisted and a bit more, it's dark and twisted, but fun, you know, and you've got a chance, you know, and you're gonna have to fight really, really, really hard. But you might be able to give, you know, nyarlathotep a bloody nose this time. But some of you will go down in the process, but it's not a completely hopeless cause. And that, you know, we do have there is an end the story in it. It's insane. The whole kind of storyline. We've got an also tragic and, and really, really tough. Lots of moral morally difficult choices along the way. But, but yeah, yeah. So that's, that's how that kind of research panned out. And it gave me a kind of new attitude towards that storytelling. Yeah,
Snyders Return:definitely. And you mentioned there some of the heroism sounds like it could come from an action film rather than than real life? How does? How does that end consumer the 2d 20? system? How does it let the plays live out that sort of cinematic narrative game that gives those morally ambiguous choices? Well,
Chris Birch:I mean, the TD 20 system itself, if you don't know it, so basically, into the 20, you'll often have two stats, it might be a stat and a scale, it might be two stats, effectively, you have a target number that you're trying to roll under, on both of those defences. 3d simple. And typically, if you roll under your skill, you get a bonus success, you could get between two and four successes. And let's say, shooting someone in the street across the road on a bright sunny day is one success. If they're running and dodging between cars, it's probably to success. If it's raining, and there's lightning, it might be three successes, and if you're currently drugged, and trying to wake up, and then it's probably four or five successes. So then there's various ways of getting more successes. You can buy extra dice, up to three more dice for a total of five d 20s. But the games master gets you pay for it with threat. And that you know, I do it with a pile of metal, you know, ancient metal coins. And it's, it's awesome because it's like, oh, no the one in the pile. So there is this impending doom building up because the players know that you can spend that threat at any time. You often as a GM you will spend it to patent power villains, monsters, special powers, you will spend it to bring in reinforcements to change the scene chain like you know, the walls start crumbling, and the temple around you starts collapsing as a big change. And some people can Oh, but that's not fair. But also if you think as a d&d, GM or any other GM, you can get you out the door. There's 1000 orcs there, haha.
Snyders Return:tough.
Chris Birch:It's like, well, that's not fair either. So actually, the cyst is great for new GM because it gives you this framework of what you can do. I mean, of course, you can still go Actually, I know I need an extra four monsters in this next room. That can be part your script. But you know, as the game plays on, if they buy dice, you could the world pushes back a bit. And there's this great sense of drama as the pile builds. But also you gotta remember that it is to play as one crazy stuff to happen to them. You if I'm if I'm buying extra dice, I'm saying I want more action. In Star Trek, if you make most Star Trek crews, when they go out, they're equipped with a type one phaser. But you can take a type two phaser if you believe the mission warranty if they're the danger level is high. So by taking a type two phaser you're giving the GM threat you're saying this mesh is going to be dangerous, isn't it GM and James like yeah, hell yeah. If you take a type three phaser type three phases are supposed to be able to take down, you know, huge buildings, even cities but insanely powerful that you give them even more threat. So this, this kind of, it's a kind of great conversation between the player and gym because it's, it's this way for the players to go. And let me just come back to how you spend those actions. Because let's say you go, Okay, this, this is going to take four successes. I'm trying to shoot the guy dodging in the rain, and so yeah, okay, right. I'm gonna buy three dice, some rolling five dice, and then actually I get the critical success on a couple of them. That gives me two successes, and I get another couple. So I've got actually got six successes. I've got One spare, I can bank that in what we call momentum. So another player can use it for their next task, you've shouted, always behind the car, or you've like get, you know, get in, we have got to stop him. So it just isn't, you know, the senses. It's giving people encouragement, it's your, your benefit. The other way you can do this is we're in a crowded bar, the Nazis just arrived. And it's like, they're coming for you. So it's like, okay, the gym? Or what do you want to do? Okay, well, I really want to, I'm going to, I'm going to push the table in their direction to catch them off guard, I'm going to jump on to the bank, the pillar and swing rounding bottom in the face, and then really want to leap out the window. It's like, Well, okay, it's, you know, let's start with, you know, swinging around the pillar, you know, you're gonna need three successes to attack him and do that. But you get five is like, okay, brilliant. Well, you know what, I want to land on his head, stab him in the face, and jump out the window. So basically, the extra successes let you do the cinematic funds, I was doing a gaming music Chronicles once, and they were in a power station confronted by some monstrosity. And one of the guys said, I'm going to run at him. And then and there's like, oil over the floor is like, and at the last minute, I'm just going to like, fall on my back and slide under him and cut the creature open from underneath. And he got like six successes, it was crazy. I was like, You totally killed that thing. Like, it's like falling apart looking very, very surprised. So that's the fun of the two defence system, it lets you get cool successes that you can do more with and you can classically just use extra successes to do more damage, to do it more quietly to do it quicker to hit another target, there's obvious bends, but I will often recommend people like what do you want to do? What what what cinematic cool stuff do you want to pull off that feels like it's straight out of a graphic novel. And anthelios kind of each version of the game is slightly different. It's it's not a carbon copy with some different pictures, we kind of reengineer it a bit like a car companies like it's still got a carburetor, and it's still got a spark plugs or whatever, you know, still got those basic components, but they're tuned differently, you know, a four wheel drive has got more power a sports has got more acceleration, you know, a, etc. So we try and really rethink the system, and they still got that core of roll two dice, against a combination of numbers that can be quite different from time to time. And then, you know, we've got some very interesting kind of magic traditions that sort of follow ancient cultures and, you know, kind of somewhat driven by the Elder Gods, you know, because in the world, you got the outer gods, who are the kind of chaotic evil, to use that time to kind of terminology, you know, the big bads, you know, the nyarlathotep, your stuff of cathedrals, etc. And then you've got the Elder Gods, who often in in our universe are in bodied by the, you know, the ancient gods of humanity, and they appear in different forms over time, you know, whether it's, you know, Zeus, or Venus, or, you know, any of this sort of, you know, Celtic and Norse gods, etc. So, we've got all those, those sort of those lines of power that we kind of work with. And, you know, the magic is a little bit, you know, darker and dangerous. And, you know, especially if you use kind of eldritch magic, then that's even more dangerous, you got to be quite careful. So, yeah, I think it's, I think, I think it's a great, it's one of the best interpretations of 2020. So far,
Snyders Return:yeah, it's very sound, and you touched on the music there and having a quick look through the Quickstart. There's three different ways of sort of utilising that that magic, three ways to learn it. So giving a player some flexibility. So would you mind sort of just touch on on those a little bit more? So Well, it,
Chris Birch:I think it's, you're referring to the, you know, the fact that you could be someone who's kind of a researcher of scrolls and pick things up along the way, but, you know, it's, it's the kind of Professor like our professor dedmon is one of our main characters. You know, you've kind of read a load of books in universities, you found some scrolls in ancient teams, you've picked up some old spell books and studied them yourself and kind of found your way to a certain path through the magic. And then you've got the kind of learned, you know, taught from birth, you know, or taught as part of a cult or school, to learn certain stream of magic and, you know, to give you that Solid backgrounds, you know, all the traditions, you know, all the all the things that need to be done. I forget the other one.
Snyders Return:The dabbler.
Chris Birch:Oh, that was it. Yes, that's the person who's lychee fat, you know, they found a couple of spells and gay, I guess this will work. And that word looks like an owl. So. So you kind of take a lot of risks, and maybe you got lucky one might not get lucky again, nine sound sounds great. And giving that variation to play a creation and moving forward. And so with this magic system, this cinematic universe, or cinematic feel to the universe, you're creating with the 2d 20 system with sort of acting Cthulhu in the middle, when, cuz I'm excited. So I'm going to ask you now, when can we expect to get our hands on the what's next, not beyond the Quickstart. When does the core book, The 2d 20 core book come out for this? Well, it's we've got a player's guide and games masters guide that's coming. That's on pre order at the moment. And those are coming in the summer. And there's some very pretty dice sets, there's very nice Black Sun black, black, black, black, dark is black die set, with the Cassini symbol on it, our little Kathie Lee head, and then a blauer crystal blue crystal set, which is the kind of blue crystals that natural coveting and searching for in the in the world. And then there's a great GM screen. And then we've got a campaign called the forest of fear. That's in work as well, which is, if you've played the acting theory, tactics game, that is part of the storyline of forest affair, which is setting the art ends and there's like a big, big, big ruins. They're deep in the forest and other cool things happening. And then we've got a bunch of PDF adventures launching through the year. One just came out today. First of the free pakhtunkhwa feeling missions. She is free might be better to tell you in a moment. Here we go. Operation Vanguard spiration Vanguard first, cd 20 mission beyond it's an unholy secret awaiting on scallan Island. So you set the gym, the player's Handbook, or the players book at the game master book or on pre order. So where where can we go to find we'll do the social links as a as a report so people can go and find them. So where can we find those? Where can we find modiphius and everything that you guys are involved with? Well, the obvious places, the main web store is modiphius dotnet. You can see our regular community stuff pop up on facebook.com, forward slash modiphius. Ford slash modiphius, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube will get you to all the places. We have regular blogs, appearing most weeks covering the different games, whether it's June or acting fairly or Star Trek and Elder Scrolls and Fallout and so on. So yeah, there's lots of good information coming out. We have a pretty busy forum, on the website as well. And you want to come and ask questions and find out more stuff.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. I'll make sure there are links to those in the description below this podcast. So thank you for detailing those. You mentioned. There are a couple of other IPS projects and properties. Would you mind sort of touch on those briefly, please?
Chris Birch:Well, we've got the fallout Rob Td 20 roleplaying game that's on pre order at the moment as well. It's coming out in the summer. We have cash. Well, I mean, obviously there's not to do with Td 20 but with we have the elder scrolls and Fallout miniature games that are just launching their new ranges fallouts just launching its New Vegas range based on the on the big game. Elder Scrolls is about to launch it steam and shadow range, which is the dwemer and the Dark Brotherhood. So if you like your miniatures as lots of cool stuff. We just had a fantastic new solo gaming release, which is a kind of RPG light solo war game called Five parsecs from home which is a sci fi procedurally generating campaign game, super simple system creates this whole campaign from scratch as you go and uses any miniatures you've got. And so if you like games, like Rangers of shadow deep, and that's the kind of sci fi version, we've actually just expanded ranges, another date with a call creature contact. And, gosh, and then we're about to like say we're about to announce the kind of the expansion of The same university act and Cathy's in as more news coming on next month, we'll start teasing some information about it. So yes, there's a lot. A lot going on at the moment. Yeah.
Snyders Return:And with so much going on, how is it you blacks? How do you unwind with all these projects and systems and promotions and intellectual properties are being dealt with and handled? How do you sort of step away?
Chris Birch:Well, really, if I right game ideas. So because you know, once, in a big commercial business, lots of things are beavering away. And it's all big projects. But, you know, my passion is creating games I did. So I'm really passionate about narrative game design. About You know, my, the, the, my big goal at the moment is to, is to create a miniatures game, where it be more fun to lose the game. Because you learn more about your character before because you learn more about your campaign, you unlock other secrets, and I think co operative or gaming is, is miniature gaming is really going to be one of the big things for the future, both people walk away from the table happy at the end of game. And it's way more fun, I think, playing with friends against the game, and, you know, going on these great challenges, so that that's one of the things I'm personally kind of working on. You know, I spend time kind of working on the kind of our own IP ideas. So, you know, might spend a few hours at the weekend. You know, just doodling away ideas for storylines, or you know, or new you rules concepts is a fun thing. I think anyone who's into into games and games design has no books full of if I ever had a games company, this is what I'd made the lesson if you always keep thinking one day, we're going to make that and then you just before you know, you're kind of, gosh, nine, nine years in. So I've actually got the first game idea I came up with before Well, first serious idea was a thing game called city, the dead, which has been on board game geek, I think for 10 years. And we're finally making it and it's a kind of zombie kind of the night before Dawn of the Dead. Okay, so but it's, it's, that's no secret. It's the kind of the idea that's been on boardgamegeek. So it's a fun little game I'm kind of gradually working on at the moment in the background as well. Yeah, we've got to kind of more more more assigned to the project now. But otherwise, I play video games with friends, we're playing Borderlands two with our gaming group who can't meet, which is hilarious and great fun. He just gets all the just the guns that awesome fun. I'm playing Assassin's Creed origins. For fun as well just finished Odyssey. So love really great deep storytelling in those games. And, you know, I love you know, like, we all kind of just pick up new games and learn the rules and not play it. Because, yeah, yeah. So I think that's the best pastime we've all got is is buying a new game and reading it.
Snyders Return:Enjoying the reading? Yeah. And which actually leads into one of the questions that sort of came to me while you were speaking that, you know, where do your influences come from? And what other game systems have you brought? Read, as I just mentioned there, and you thought I really loved that mechanic or I really like the system or this is triggered something in my mind that I'd love to put down my own spin on.
Chris Birch:I mean, you know, I I try and play abroad. I mean, I play games are like, there's a lot of people go, oh, there's all these games you should play as a designer. I just play the ones I like. Well, first of all, but I try and I look for interesting mechanics if I see someone you know, often you see those threads on Facebook like oh, I'm looking for what's a cool Co Op fancy dungeon crawl. And then occasionally someone goes Oh, you've got to get this game and there's like 10 people have liked that once again, check that out. And maybe I buy it. Maybe I just watched and reviews. What is it about that? That people love so much that they've they've hyped it? I mean, how many dungeon crawls Can you have? There's just so many of them. And yet we all keep buying them because I guess it's it's d&d light isn't it? It's like it's that kind of dungeon crawl experience without having too much broken I mean, I love zombie side because you know, I used to crack out we'd play Black Plague the fantasies on besides because because some days I'd come home from work. I was just like, my brain is melted. I just can't do role playing tonight as a GM But let's play this because it's just so easy. And it but it still has that satisfactory fun feeling giving lots of monsters collecting stuff. And, you know, trying to escape. And so, I mean, I also dig around with lots of indie games. So I'm always on the lookout for unusual indie games. So I, I look at, you know, reviews and again, you know, I look through RPG net, what people are talking about, you know, what are the, you know, interesting new miniature game releases, especially solo and cooperative, anything that's narrative, you know, seeing if people are kind of pushing the envelope a bit. And I, you know, I'm just intrigued to see what what pops up. It's also important to have a really good background in all the old classics, you know, things like gamma world, metamorphosis, alpha paranoia, which you might get Oh, but the mechanics a bit old. It's like, it's it was the concepts, you know, the things that made that unusual and different. And, you know, the, the rules there, I mean, think about d&d was literally millions and millions of people. And they couldn't make enough. And it spread, because it was very easy. It was very easy to get to learn to play and very easy to teach, there wasn't a lot of rules. And yeah, we've all made it. So I mean, how many, how many supplements can you make, and there's a commercial reason for making supplements because it funds more development, it funds the team and people, you know, people like having books about fighter, I want to be a fighter, I want to everything, I want lots more rules for fighters, because we just like, a lot of times just want to read it. And I'd love to know how many people actually use it. But, you know, in, you know, the early days, it was a, it was a rule box, and then just endless adventures, lots and lots and lots of adventures. And then there was the, you know, they had the, you know, the Masters Burke and the and the other expansions. But you know, it was relatively simple. So there's a certain degree of, you know, it's, you've got to have that background knowledge. It's a bit like doing art, you're gonna know your art history, where does it all come from? Why are these games I mean, d&d was basically a historical war game that and then they started adding monsters. And you know, and you can see those, the, their influences trickling down through time. And, you know, what are the games that changed things up, you know, vampire, when everything was like, oh, we're all fancy heroes. Now. Now we're all sad. Vampires, and life is terrible. And then paranoia was just like, let's just take the Mickey out of everyone. You know, and it's just all stupid. And we're just going to be, you know, make ridiculous jokes all the time. And, and but now, you know, you've got so many great, you know, there's the whole narrative where, you know, that's not it that's never roll dice, and no, no dice. Let's have lots of crunchy combat rules. And let's, let's make it really about storytelling. And let's give the players more control. And now GM even says, all these things pulling around, and then you've got to look, again, commercial head. Because there's one thing being an indie designer, you know, you just want to do stuff. That's cool, which is great. And it's a bit like, being an indie film director, you can make your passion project and do anything you like, if you pay for it, and we get to work for free, that's fine. But if you want to do the big commercial project that brings in the big money, you've got to think, well, he's our big star, we need a big name director can't be me. because no one's gonna trust me, we need a big name, director, big name, producer, you know, who's the, you know, we need a great script. And, you know, it's got to be a commercial story. And, you know, so we, you know, we also I think, well, what's, what are the commercial games that are doing really well doing right, you know, great art, great layout, great writing, great editing, great community, you know, having a big community behind you. says all sorts of things that go into making game but I mean, the fun of it is in that research, and I kind of try and act like a sponge. And it's a bit like when I was a fashion designer, when I was kind of dreaming up new collection, and just go everywhere. I'd go to all the shops and look at everyone else's clothing. What are they doing? Oh, this brand is doing lots of horrid t shirts. This brand is everything's black with neon purple prints, you know? And then I'd look at catwalk shows. That was like really looking forward a couple of years. And then you'd look at trend reports like, oh, there's a big thing about hora t shirts next year or we saw that there's another story about loads of people doing stuff about UFOs and aliens and things. And then you just go to art galleries and just see what was on the walls because this is stuff that's inspiring other people as well. And he just, I would just kind of soak everything up. I do that with gaming now I just look at lots of games. And I look at what people are talking about. And it's sometimes it's just scanning through what are the titles of all the chats on the open forum and RPG net and on dakka dakka. What are people rabbiting about? And then it's after a few months, you kind of just start to pick stuff up, you've read a few games, and it's something clicks and you go, I've got it, you know, we're gonna do next. And then all you can do is just do that a lot. And you gradually the more you open your mind to cool ideas, and interesting things happening around you. And it's not just about gaming, it's like, you know, I mean, zombie games always going to be big, but you know, are is is the geek world sort of turning towards sci fi more fantasy is a big trope that's always popular games. But, you know, maybe it's leaning towards this, you know, type of sci fi? Or maybe there's a kind of, you know, another set of trends, you know, that you can see emerging out of the geek world, you know, so yeah, it's a lot of things really.
Snyders Return:Well, yeah. And you mentioned, they're soaking up like a sponge and trying to see what's coming next, from a more overall overarching perspective, with the ttrpg. community, ever changing, ever evolving? Where do you see the community going? In the future, both with respect to your own sort of ideas, and for modiphius as a company,
Chris Birch:I think Well, we're hoping to do more of our own IP, we've done a lot of licence games in the last nine years. And acting cathedra is a return to doing our own stuff. And you know, having built up a big fan base and community, we're hoping to introduce some cool ideas and hope that they like them. And of course, we'll still be doing other big licence games for what, you know, ongoing. But we're trying to be more and more of our own storytelling, because it's, it's what's fun. And the great thing is you don't have to get it approved, as I mentioned, by anyone except me. And, I mean, in terms of the community. I mean, there's game ideas. There's lots of great game ideas, but there's rarely anything like, Oh my gosh, no one's done that before. It's just, I mean, when we launched Td 20, I was very open. It's like, wait, this is not you know, this is not the game that you've been waiting for. This is not going to change your world. This is a lot, a lot of great ideas that are already out there just did a different mix. And we think it's fun. And we think it does the things we want to do better than others, but you decide. Anytime someone says this game is it's got the most unique mechanics never seen before. I'm like, Yeah, okay, right. Because it's there. No, I mean, it's, um, I think, you know, I think there's a definite move to simplify rules and to get the language so unique. Well actually one of the things we're trying to do with our next this new project is I want to open a role playing game and start playing now. Not to go guys can you just like I don't know play a card game for half an hour while sorry character creation because and then we can start like no, that start now. Why can't we have that the other problem with role playing games is he had these beautiful books is full of art this world and the GM is like, Oh my god, this is going to be so much fun. The players don't really get it they have read the book with you there you know and that's why something like role playing Star Trek or Star Wars is so good because you can go you see a star destroyer they immediately know what you're talking about. You see a bunch of Klingons they know what you're talking about. So when there's this amazing new role playing game with all this cool world and you go you see a bunch of clogs, it's like I don't know what do they look like? Yeah here on page 70 but don't look at the rest of the page
Snyders Return:cover the cover the start block? Yeah, no.
Chris Birch:So I think that's one of the disappointments I always felt in games is awesome ideas but really hard to communicate to the players and get them into the game awesome ideas but really hard to get playing because he just wants to get playing and and so that's what I'm one of our next projects is is writing the introduction rules in such a way that you literally can start playing we just start reading, okay, okay, you need to do this. You need to do this and we can we learn as we go. One of the things I think is I mean a lot of people enjoy the session zero cash creation kind of poring over the creating your current and How do we know each other? Which is great, but a lot of people, and I'd say I think there's a very large percentage of our hobby, don't really know that, you know? Well, some of us know what to expect, you know, there's gonna be, we're gonna have to pick some skills, we'll have to pick some talents or traits, good, our abilities and our gear, maybe the archetype or your professional never. But I think there's a very large chunk of players don't really know they just kind of follow along and do what the players that know what they're doing. Show them to. And wouldn't it be great if if they didn't have to choose their talents and traits or whatever, in session zero. And one of the one of the this new game world we're doing, which we're going to reveal soon, we've got a mechanic, which lets you choose stuff later on down the line. Because let's put, remember, imagine those moments, there's always a moment in a movie, where you pan around the campfire, and you close in on Julie. And Julie says, Well, I didn't actually say I was a wizard. And I want to have those moments where she stopped Julius Julius players started off going out guest a guest, the magic character looks fun, but I don't really know. And then having played a couple of sessions, she's like, hey, this sucks, I want to pick up a gun and shoot people in the face. That's way more fun. So, you know, we've got this mechanic where you can go well, I didn't actually say I was a wizard to any of you I've, yeah, I've kind of got a bunch of books. And, you know, I know this, I picked up a couple of spells, but actually, and pulls out the big guns. Good thing, you know, now those monsters are attacking, because I've just been pretending all this time, or I didn't, you know, I was afraid of picking up the gun again, because of acts that happened in the past, you know. So I want I want players to be able to change their mind or not have to make important decisions that they might regret later on. And just kind of figure out this kind of actually comes from my first stablizer Adventures role playing game where we actually had the kind of character creation in progress, where in fate, you know, you've got that pyramid of abilities where you can have, you know, the top one is like, amazing, plus five, and below that it's expert plus four and good. plus three, or whatever. And so I would say, okay, you're running along, nice jumping a car he wants to be who wants to be the driver? And then Dave goes, Oh, no, I really want to be the driver. I love cars, I will how good you want to be. So I want to be expert driver. Okay, right driving in, you know, one of your, you know, the level two, the tier two. And they would just figure out the characters, they went. And I took a whole group of non gamers through star blazer with a blank character sheet, and they just filled it in as they went. And they were amazing. Some of the best characters I've seen created, because they just like they kind of filled in the gaps as they, as they realise that character was that thing. And until they were that thing, they were just this sort of vanilla, they were all similar. So we're trying to do the same thing with a little bit more context. So you kind of pick up a story a background, because you know, when that movie cast assembles, you kind of get an idea that someone might be a wizard, but you don't really know. But all you've seen is they do something with the magic spells he just to kind of assume. And so we want the players to feel like they're in that in that movie where the audience thinks they're mad at us, or the people around the thing their magic user, but what they don't know is actually that they were a gladiator. And they just, you know, something terrible happened, and they refuse to pick up that awesome gun in 10 years. But now things are gonna change, you know, because there's going to be that firefight moment where she goes, Well, you know, and she's because she's got she's realised, shooting bad guys in the face is way more fun than spells, you know.
Snyders Return:So
Chris Birch:that's a very, very long winded way of saying that I think the waiting is going to go, it's going to be easier to get to play. I think rules are going to be more elegant and simple, but yet deep. And the way we present games, I mean, when we started acting theatre was one of the first gaming books that was full colour. And lots of them are still black and white. And now everything's black and white, everything, you know, Kickstarter, we have to thank for so many gorgeous looking books. And of course, you know, all there's a million different virtual tabletops that all do things differently. Different levels of complexity, I think that will, you know, you'll see simpler and simpler versions are just, you know, it's a bit like have that wistful thinking when you think back to a phone that could just, you know, just send text messages and actually had a signal and did that really, really didn't do anything else. So I think, you know, they'll, you know, there'll be a lot of simplification so that we get rid of all the barriers between beautiful new people kept joining our industry and just being able to play and not being confronted by giant boxes of bits or piles of real books or where you've got to, you've got to read this 37 pages to join in our game and figure out a character you know, or here's a character sheet completely filled in, and it's like a maths test, you know. So, yeah, I think, you know, that's kind of, but I bet you if he came back in 10 years, a lot of the books would look the same. We like big, beautiful books full of stats. storylines, so now, you know, and if that's what you like, is nothing wrong with it.
Snyders Return:We've spoken about a lot. We've covered a lot of topics, especially the the action kazoo 2d 20 stuff. So thank you for that. Is there anything that we haven't discussed that you would like to bring to the floor just before we close? No, I don't think so. I think we've probably covered a lot. Yeah. Well, if you would like to, would you like to recap where we can find modiphius on online, please?
Chris Birch:Yes, modiphius dotnet. And forward slash modiphius. At your Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, places.
Snyders Return:As I said before, make sure there are links in the description below. Chris. It's been an absolute pleasure learning more about yourself. modiphius act and kazoo 2d 20. And everything else you guys doing? Great. Thanks a lot. Yeah, it'd be great to have you back on the show in the future or one of your one of your team for speak on other projects in the future if you'd be willing
Chris Birch:to have some babies I had a product he could talk in depth about. For RPG, he's also got his own game, the spy game, which is awesome new ffiv modern day espionage game. And He kind of looks after all the game lines and development. So yeah, that'd be a good.
Snyders Return:Absolutely keep in touch. Okay, great. Thanks. Thank you very much. All right. Bye. 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 alpha for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you