Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today has come before, but has now gone beyond river reborn in the ghost fire flames he brings with him a great many fables and tales of far off lands, from hell itself to Grand cities and continents. He helps craft a republic into the Republic. If an experienced explorer of law, wild lands and legends is what you're after the new have reached the exact right place. Here to discuss xandria talador A reborn and content creation for ttrpg is the wonderful, Mr. James. Hey, James, welcome back to the show.
James Haeck:May I am honoured to have such an introduction. Never before have I been lavished with such great praise. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be on the show.
Snyders Return:It's a pleasure to have you back. James. For those who haven't heard our first interview. Would you mind giving us giving a quick precis of of about yourself and what you've done up to this point, please?
James Haeck:Absolutely. My name is James hake. I am a predominantly 5g focused RPG writer. I got my start working with Geek and Sundry for the green Ronin tell door a campaign setting that Matthew Mercer and I did together. Well, I didn't get my start doing there. But it was sort of the first big breakthrough thing I did. And since then, I've done work with Wizards of the Coast on things like waterdeep, Dragon heist and boulders gate descend into a vernis as well as a continuing work with critical role on books like explorers guide to wild mound and tell Dora campaign setting reborn which is going to be coming out late this year 2021 or early next year, a revamp of the very first book I did with Matt Mercer,
Snyders Return:exciting stuff, exciting stuff. And we're going to dig into some of that in just a moment. But I'd like to click on the wrong window. That's never helpful. I'd like to sort of start with more where you are now so we can expand so you have you work with some some fantastic creators you some of the things you've done on when you will with DND beyond the encounters that we can various articles you've released. I've used many of them download hundreds of them. We'll get to use some of them all the time. And now moving on. Where do we find you? Where do we find you now
James Haeck:having recently moved on from d&d beyond many of my friends went to other companies are doing great stuff predominantly with codename entertainment but I received a an offer from the lovely folks at ghost fire gaming and Australian five e RPG company. My good pal Shawn merwin the Mad wizard merwin is also there doing lovely lovely RPG things you can see some of his work has actually been kick started already the grim hollow monster Grimoire and I believe his work is also there in Oh dear. I don't think I can talk about that one yet. Well, needless to say, Shawn is doing wonderful things there. I have been brought on to ghost fire as the head of fables a word for a new product line that has been bandied around a little bit within the ghost fire community. I've mentioned it on my own Twitter a couple of times as well. And yet fables remains shrouded in mystery It is not something that we quite have the opportunity to announce in full glorious fashion yet but I keep close and and if you know anything from my my history of work the things that I sort of em stated that I'd love to do more than anything. I think you can speculate on what exactly it is that fables is and why I'm so excited to be doing it.
Snyders Return:And yeah, definitely an aantal fable shrouded in just a little bit of mystery really keeps the excitement going. Yeah, brilliant and something definitely to check out when for announcements are made to support the the fibre line for goes via games. So rewinding, and yet moving forward in time, that's a weird dichotomy of things that are going on there. Tell Dory, what was it like when you first sort of CO created that? setting with with Matt and and how has it evolved and become reborn that we will see later this year, early next year?
James Haeck:Tell doray is my home. And several years ago, when critical roles first campaign was taking off into the stratosphere, Matt Mercer came to me saying I have been requested to make a campaign setting book for ffiv for this campaign setting. And I want to keep it all kind of within the critical role family. And at the time, I was an editorial intern for Geek and Sundry, who was primarily covering critical role because I had an RPG background. And I was, I said to me, this is everything I've been hoping for, you know, all throughout that process, I've been hoping to publish stuff under the Geek and Sundry letterhead on say the newly created dm skilled or otherwise with the ffiv licence, and I couldn't be more, more excited to start work on that project. And now, with the original territory campaign, sitting published and out of print, in fact, we, the folks at darington, press decided it was time to give it a new coat of paint and advance the timeline 20 years so that rather than being concurrent with critical roles campaign, one, Vox mokena, it was now concurrent with the time period of critical roles recently concluded campaign to the mighty nine. And I pulled skilled RPG editor Hannah rose into the project as well as a code lead, she's had good experiences with critical role before, and I knew she would be an excellent fit to tackle it. And together, we wound up doing a little bit more than a simple timeline update. We wound up art directing the entirety of the book probably doubling the amount of art. In the book, we wound up adding, I believe, six brand new subclasses in addition to the three that were originally in there getting some pretty significant updates might be a total of eight rather than total, I mean, five brand new subclasses, something like that. And overall doubling the page count of the book is so what was originally intended to be a very small sort of cleanup republishing project, transformed into a massive overhaul of the entire book. And so I would say in that regard, it has certainly earned its moniker of reborn, it was truly remarkable being able to come back to words that I had written years before and have this very sort of polarised experience in my mind of reading, something I'd written and being like, wow, I wrote that very derogatory. And then moments later being like, wow, I wrote that very surprised and positive. It's it's very strange, I don't think many writers have the good opportunity to return to work that they have previously done with so much more experience under their belt. You know, when I wrote the territory campaign setting with Matt, and speaking of more experience, Matt has had so much more experience in game design under his belt too, even though he wasn't super deeply involved in the production of the book, The subclasses are all straight from his mind. And so they are the foundation or the foundation upon which all of our playtesting and finagling and rebalancing began. Back in 2017, when that book was published, I, I had already had a couple of years, two years experience of doing fifth edition. But that pales in comparison to what what I have learned now, because in the intervening time, between tailboard being published and now you know, I've worked on many projects with Wizards of the Coast. I've worked with more stuff with critical role. I've done more stuff with cobalt press, I've done Encounters of the week, every week for d&d beyond. I mean, it's, it's, I've been through the gauntlet and I had I boned up on my d&d style, and balance and mechanics and ways of telling a story in an RPG framework. And it is truly It is truly remarkable, to have that gulf of experience in such a relatively short time because I really threw myself into the fire over the past couple of years and be able to look at an old product and see how that sort of new growth can utterly change something utterly rebirth it
Snyders Return:can't argue with a single word there. There's you prompted a question that I will ask you a bit later, to be fair, but if someone has someone who's maybe heard of or maybe seen some critical role been swept up in there, the, you know, exhilarating joy ride, the thrill that the show and the worlds that, that you and Matt have helped sort of bring to life in in your respective ways. If someone is maybe unsure of what tell Dory is or where tell Dory is where does it sit in its in its own geography of of fighty?
James Haeck:Yes, yes, look at me diving into the depths of detail before I even give the give the 30,000 foot view of the project. So tell doray is one of many continents on Mac Mercer's homebrew world of Alexandria the setting of critical role. Kaldor was the setting of critical roles campaign one Fox makina and it's recently been the setting of critical roles. Sister series, Xander Maria, unlimited, damned by the inestimable abria younger. And since then, critical roles campaign two has taken us to other parts of xandria. But in my mind, at least tell Dora the home of sort of classic fantasy stories on IG xandria will always be my home within the world. It is such a classic realm of what one might uncharitably call standard fantasy tropes, but that I think, possess a certain life and charm to them, and a little bit of subversiveness, I would say, that really make it an exceptionally strong starting place for new DMS, and still has a lot of depth for veteran DNS to sink their teeth into. Yeah. Oh, and also, one more thing. Just Just to just to refine something you said earlier, you said Matt and I created the setting together and I thank you for that. It's, it's it's an honour to be credited as a creator of the setting. And I suppose I've added to it in my own ways. But I really have to give all of the credit to Matt Mercer here. The way in which xandria was created, speaks really well to its utility as a tool for new game masters. Because Matt made xandria in the pre Critical Role days when for Liam O'Brien's birthday, the he wanted to run a DND one shot as sort of a birthday present for his pal Liam and all of the cast of critical role was there at that party of them only Matt and Tallis. And Jaffe had played RPGs at all before. And so in that way, tell Dory was designed to be a sort of introductory campaign setting to new players. And now it can serve as that for for new players and new game masters around the world. And that is the beauty of it.
Snyders Return:Absolutely. Absolutely. And you mentioned there that tall Dory is your home feels like home has that that draw that familiarity? The the the one the last that brings you back? So with all this rebirth, as you've said into reborn, what has been maybe your your favourite thing to do? If it I mean, this could be an incredibly difficult question to narrow down. But what has been one of the one of your favourite things to work on bringing this book to potentially a new audience.
James Haeck:There are so many things about this book that I am just tremendously proud of. Some of them were present in the original. For instance, I think the way that this book does plot books is as good or better than any RPG book I've ever seen. And maybe that sounds a little bit conceited of me, but I this is the way that I would want. RPG plot hooks done. And and if I don't have the ability to do things exactly the way that I would do them, then then then why am I doing this to, to explain what I'm saying, in the towel door a Gaza to chapter three of this book, we go into great detail about all of the various lands and settlements of the vast expanse of Tel Dora. And in almost every single one of these locations, the settlement town, village city, or distant ruin, we have a number of single paragraph plot hooks with a quick description of what level range they are suited to be played at. And then it gives, GM is just a little bite sized bit of information for them to create their own adventure based off it. So from the old book, we brought many of those plot hooks back, so some of them verbatim, some of them tweaked slightly to reflect sort of an increase in in design expertise that Matt and I have gained over the years. And many, many absolutely brand new ones, some for entirely new locations that we've created. And some just to reflect the changing times, territory has seen 20 years pass. And that means that the continent has changed rather a lot. And I would say that of the new stuff in this book, that time skip the you know, the original seed of this book that Darren compress, had planned for it still is the thing that I am most proud of, because it's it's such a expansive and far reaching thing. It has massive implications for so many different parts of the book of the lore of the geography of the political landscape of territory. You mentioned the building of a republic, and you're very, very generous intro here. And back when the original teletype campaign setting was being created, I really wanted to dig into the idea that tell Dora was a kingdom that was being transformed into a republic, no spoilers for stuff that happens in the midst of critical roles. most dramatic, arc critical world campaign ones most dramatic arc but tell the re undergoes the beginning of a tectonic political shift. And in the original book, I really wanted to lay the groundwork for what could this political shift mean, for a setting not everyone has to engage with intrigue in politics, if that's not the kind of story they want to tell, they want to do the standard sort of swashbuckling epic fantasy, then the The setting is is rife with material for that. But there is a great opportunity for people who want to do a more Cloak and Dagger intrigue driven political game, you know, Game of Thrones is on TV at that time. I mean, we're all very excited about it. But now, with a 20 year time skip, and the rather politically dense machinations of campaign to fresh on the mind. This was the perfect opportunity to dig into a lot of details about the new towel door that was rising from the end of campaign one, who is on the Tel doray Council who has done what to transform the internal political landscape, Patel Dory, what troubles are arising due to corruption and greed within the nascent Republic framework of this new of this new form of government for this land? You know, I think that these themes of political corruption and underhanded dealing will will resonate with anyone who is living in the modern era. The people have a critical role. I really respect them because they don't, they don't make it. They they don't try to hide what their what their beliefs are. Right? They were their ideologies on their sleeves, and they care a great deal about what they think is right for the world. And all all fantasy stories, all fantasy stories are political after a fashion they reflect the beliefs of their creators. And I don't think Matt or I really wanted to shy away from that. We wanted to create a landscape that could explore stories that felt relevant and immediate and applicable to the world that we're all living. And now,
Snyders Return:yeah, I will never be able to phrase a sentence any better than that in my life. So thank you. Thank you. That was That was amazing. And you know with this, this, the Gaza tear the plot hooks, the subclasses. And all these different mechanics and, and things, if you were to take a printed copy of the other one, the old one is out of print, as you mentioned earlier, if you were to take one of these, and hand it to a game master or a player and said, find, find something that excites you, outside of the things you've mentioned, what else what else sets the the the imagination on fire,
James Haeck:man, it's on every page. I will say that you mentioned subclasses. And I would go on to expand upon that and say that the player options within this book are truly outstanding. I'm really thrilled to get people's hands on the new player options within this book, as well as see some of the the new vestiges of divergence that have been detailed in this book. If you are not a critical role fan, then vestiges of divergence are a type of legendary magic item, native to the world of xandria remnants of an ancient war between gods and mortals in the prehistory of the world. And some of these items carry remnants of the power of that ancient age. And in modern times, they are found in a dormant state, still powerful, but something within them Thrums with power not yet unlocked. And if you grow close to this weapon, if you prove yourself worthy of wielding it, then its power evolves into further stages, they begin to dormant state and then emerge to an awakened state. And then when you have proven yourself to truly be worthy of wielding a vestige at its full potential, it enters its exalted a state and these states of power build upon each other, build on top of each other, so that you can have a signature weapon throughout the campaign that grows and changes with you. A concept that I think is found within many cool fantasy stories and games. And has in d&d, at least its roots back in a very cool third edition supplement called weapons of legacy that I that I just think it's the coolest, coolest idea, and I think Matt's vision has done very well. There were plenty of these vestiges in the original book. But we've gone through and tinkered with them brought their you know, these messages are supposed to be pretty unbalanced. They're supposed to be overwhelmingly powerful Yang, you use them, use them with caution, but we did want to make sure that their power is kind of sad, right. And and there weren't vestiges and we're just totally out of line mostly with other vestiges. We wanted them all to all to feel good. You know, if you get a vestige you want to feel like this is a life changing moment, if you get invested, it's just like, Well, you know, this is fine, then then the vestige is not nearly cool enough. And there's also I believe, there's one new vestige that you may recognise from campaign to it's a it's a sword called Star razor that has not been detailed statistically before, but now has all of the all of the stats that were used in game in campaign two, but man, man, I could talk about the cool player options in this book for hours and hours. I mean, there's a whole bunch of new brand new magic items completely separate from the vestiges there are feats that I think in the in the original release of the book were pretty unbalanced, both in terms of balance against like feats and the base ffiv game and unbalanced internally among themselves. And we've done a lot of tinkering and and retooling to make sure that these feats feel good and feel right, both internally and externally. And the subclasses man, you are going to have a field day with the new subclasses in here. You know, the original book had the path of the juggernaut barbarian who is all about hitting things so hard and I'm flying across the room like you're like you're an anime bruiser, and I love the feel of that, you know, every now and then mass sort of background in anime bleeds bleeds into his fantasy and the The sort of x anime nerd within me, just resonates with it's so hard. I say x animator, but I just started watching you know, Yahshua a couple of days ago so I guess I don't really have a leg to stand on. His his cobalt soul monk has undergone more more iteration than you could possibly imagine, especially because it's been up on d&d beyond. And the same goes for the iOS of the open sea Paladin. Both of the subclasses were used in campaign two for the monk bow and the multiclass to Paladin Ford. But in addition to stuff that you've seen before the three from the original plus that Paladin, there are very cool new ones as well the druid circle of the blighted it's a very fun one. The moon domain cleric delves into the power of Xander his two moons, kotha and ruidos. And I believe there have been some sort of conspiracy fan theories running around the internet regarding the power of these movements of rudess, in particular, and I'm interested to see what some of the true believers will will have to say about that there is a fair bit more discussion of the moons of xandria within this book. And the the question must remain. Am I just trolling them? Or do we have something else up our sleeve who can say? But the moon domain cleric, very fun fun mechanics. That's all I'll say on that.
Snyders Return:Look forward to having a look myself when the book is finally released. And as with moons, they go through phases, and come a new as it were, you mentioned a little earlier about a a change in your writing style. No, this is slightly off topic, but it's been sort of playing in my mind with with the first iteration of the book in the reborn. What is it that you felt has changed in your writing style or approach to content creation?
James Haeck:Hmm, very good question. The single biggest change for me is that I just know the style of fivey better. Fifth Edition is a is a game that has been described by the lead d&d designers as being coated with the English language. And as such, it's a very, it's it uses language in a very precise and yet also natural sounding way. And so I think the design of its style and language is actually quite deceptively complicated. Because it will use normal words to mean specific things sometimes. And new designers, it can take new designers of which I was one when I when I wrote the original tutorial Guide, which Matt Matt was one as well. It can, it can fool them with stock phrases, and, and words that mean specific things and, and you can wind up writing third party material that really, it may look like 5g, and it may have many of the hallmarks of 5g but it doesn't quite align with, with how things really work deep under the skin of the 5g engine, things just mismatch slightly bits of rules from older editions filter into your lexicon, you talk about, say, five footsteps or attacks of opportunity rather than opportunity attacks or something like that. That's a very benign example. Everyone knows that an attack of opportunity is actually an opportunity attack in the 5g rules. But there there are there are things that once you know to look for them in the in the sort of standard way of saying things in 5g will leap out at you is amateurish and wrong. When when you see them not not quite done correctly in a third party product. And so the main thing for me is that I become more discerning in the preciseness of my rules language, I sort of I studied up on my Jeremy Crawford into taking it all apart. But But beyond that, very sort of tangible This is something that I have developed, I would say in a much more intangible way. I've just gotten to be a better writer. You know, back when, back when I wrote the tailor a campaign setting with Matt. I was still in college. I was still still studying. I was a theatre major. I wasn't even I hadn't even taken any English courses at the time, which is like, you don't need English courses to be a good writer. But I was not particularly practised. And I was basically just in an overgrown homebrew creator, which is great. I embrace that that person who I was at that time and I embrace all sort of overgrown homebrew creators, they're awesome. These days, though, I have kind of forced myself to do the things that that are required of a professional, right? Do right every day, discipline yourself in that way. Really, really dig into why you'd like to write the thing? What are the things you'd like to write? And why do you like to write them? What sort of ideas do you want to express in your writing? What sort of stories do you specifically want to tell rather than just sort of loosey goosey letting it flow? And so I, I think that my individual tone has developed and and become a lot clearer and more precise. And the stories that you'll see in the original tell story guide, have a have more of a bite, or the story that you'll see in the in the reborn tell story guide, have more of a bite to them than the ones that were very sort of loose and undefined in the rich.
Snyders Return:Fair enough. And thank you for sort of explaining that the the change the process that you put in place. Good advice for new new writers and creators? For sure.
James Haeck:I hope that just as his book is good for new players in dmws new writers can look at this. And and you know, this is not a writing textbook by any means. This is supposed to be something you read for fun. But the way that I got to be a good d&d writer was more than writing. It was reading. It was reading all the time. And when I talk about d&d style and sort of brushing up on my Jeremy Crawford, part of that was yes, I did literally ask Jeremy Crawford for advice. You know, I interviewed for a job on the DND design team. And he was like, here's a design test. And then later he was like, Okay, well, here's all the things you got wrong. And I was like, Oh my God. But it was also voraciously reading. Not just fantasy novels, but also d&d adventure. It's in d&d books, because d&d is language is so very exacting, so very specific that reading all the time, and then taking notes and then using what you've learned to write your own stuff for the DMS guild or for a third party publisher that you've pitched yourself to or anything like that, you know, if there's if there are aspiring d&d writers listening to this right now who want to sort of go beyond that, that that thing I jokingly called overgrown homebrew just a few minutes ago, then there is simply nothing you can do better than then learning that exacting ffiv language and just reading those five v books and learning what it is you like, about what wizards does, or or what Darren compressed does. Or hell, what ghost fire gaming does, I'll just plug them all.
Unknown:please
James Haeck:learn about them, what you what you like about what they do, and find a way to do it yourself. really write with intention, and and write every day. And that and that is the way that you become? Well, I I won't. I won't be so be so arrogant as to say, a great writer, but you will certainly become a more practised one.
Snyders Return:Yeah, for sure. And sticking with the plugs just for a little bit longer. You mentioned there. Darlington press was sort of mentioned it before. For someone unfamiliar, maybe have sort of not made the link as to where Darlington press sort of fall in the sort of the hierarchy or the scale of things, and expanding on them just a little bit.
James Haeck:Yes, absolutely. derrington presses the game's publishing arm of critical World Productions. It is run by a magnificent gentleman named Ivan van Norman, who you know longtime deconcentrate fans may recognise the name of he is a huge gaming nerd. I knew him back in the Geek and Sundry days and there is no one in the world I think, who loves games quite as much or in quite the same way as Ivan. And so having him running the show and being behind games like kotova Krakatoa, which released recently behind upcoming things like Matt Mercer's sinned occult RPG and behind this tell Dory reborn project. darington presses is small but is a force to be reckoned with
Snyders Return:for sure and some of those things are at the syndicate one is something I'm definitely gonna have another look at I don't get to play board games liking photo too much at the moment but that's work related. For sure if people want to check out more stuff that Ivan normally is involved with hunters entertainment, go and check them out as well I will just leave a link or something in the description below which actually reminds me before I move on to the next sort of line of questioning that sounds like an interrogation this isn't the change where can we find you and everything you're associated with so I can put it in the links below
James Haeck:please? You can you can find me most predominantly on Twitter which is something something that I am trying to fix my my nasty nasty Twitter habits but if if you would like to find me there too much of the day at James J hake, on Twitter yes these these days in days past I would direct you to the DND beyond site but it's very strange now I don't have daily weekly releases anymore now I am radio silent for a long long month long stretches at a time so I recommend yes follow me on twitter at James Jake. And I would also recommend you follow ghost fire gaming on their various sites. They have a very active Facebook community ghost fire gaming on Facebook and on Twitter at ghost fire G is their their home on the twittersphere they also have an incredibly vibrant discord community one that I've been too busy with work to really dive into myself but wonderful people over on discord I've spoken with some of the mods over there and they run a really tight ship a lot of great discussion really well moderated to keep the nasty people out it's it's a lot of it's a lot of really good fun over in that discord from what I've heard
Snyders Return:amazing amazing oh and and
James Haeck:you can find a link to that discord, I should say on the ghost fire gaming website.
Snyders Return:I will put a link to the link in the description below to to yourself and the ghosts fi gaming stuff. For sure. So go and check them out and a few other things we've mentioned. And touched on the I was gonna have a tedious link between divergence but since you mentioned discord and mods and sort of community, how important has it been for inclusivity within the ttrpg own say community, I'm actually gonna stretch it to family because that's how it feels at times. How important has that been and develop, to sort of really open out this this hobby, the joy that we have, I realise you're employed within the hobby, but it is a hobby for us all to enjoy.
James Haeck:Well, I should say right from the beginning that that has always been of tremendous importance to me. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to get into RPGs in the first place. When when I was just a guy at home making use of homebrew content I was deeply immersed in the discussions about diversity and gatekeeping and inclusion and all of that that were happening in the RPG community around 2015 and the conversation has grown a lot since then we've seen a lot more women and people of colour and and and queer people enter the RPG space and really thrive and the work is not done of course you know, we see a lot of cases of harassment and exclusion and general gatekeeping happening all the time. But to see for instance, the the the hashtag summer of abria sweep through the tabletop sphere with masterful RPG performer abria yang Gar running not just Xander Unlimited, but also misfits and magic over on dimension 20 and just kind of be a be involved across the space to see so many great new voices who are not just the same old guard rising up and telling really fascinating new and interesting stories with their experience that you know people like people like me, just don't have warms my heart. That's always been a huge sort of like internal tension for me it's like you know, I want to be in the RPG space because I think I have good stories to tell. And because I love this and i and i would do this for the rest of my life I could and you know that that is in tension. I wouldn't say in conflict but it is intention with my my desire to well let's let's get new voices into the community let's let's make it so that it's not just a an old white boys club here in you know the Gygax created RPG space. And as I moved from being just a writer, just a freelance writer to being a manager of projects, a manager of RPG projects for things like for ghosts for gaming in particular. It's It's It's a goal of mine, to reach out to people who have stories to tell that, that I wouldn't otherwise, I think to listen to it, which is not to say, in case this wants to be sort of uncharitably interpreted, which is not to say no more white men in games. I am a white men in games, God's sake. But there there are a lot of people who have sick ideas that are people like, say Gabe Hicks who did work on Makoto, or people like in Gregerson and Sarah Madsen working around with the frost made and you know, what, what awesome designers who might not have really be considered 10 or 20 years ago, are doing amazing stuff now. And how do I get them on my team? That's the question I asked myself every day, how do I get these awesome new people? on my team? And? And that's my goal every day?
Snyders Return:Yeah, definitely. It's it's the sort of the sentiment that I, you know, I, the Royal I, the Royal we, we have stories to tell, but we do not have all the stories to tell. There is so much beyond our own knowledge and understanding that just the people you mentioned to just a fraction of what is out there to bring into the ttrpg space and community and enrich all of our lives. Absolutely, absolutely. So on that rather self inspiring note that we sort of touched on a number of topics and spoken about a lot. Is there anything that we haven't touched on yet that you would like to maybe bring up before we come to the end of the interview? James?
James Haeck:I, wow. we've, we've really gone through a lot today. Haven't we even talked about everything from Calgary to, to social movements? I love the breadth of the conversation we've had.
Snyders Return:Thank you. So yeah, the, you know, our, our conversation is just one of many happening across tables across virtual table tops in design studios, such as your own. So really, I can only say, thank you for highlighting it. And thank you for coming on. Once again, James, it's really appreciated that you set aside some time to speak with me,
James Haeck:I am delighted to be on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, you know, here Here is one more thing I'd like to say. Before we head out. It's not exactly a conversation topic, but it's more of a call to action to the people who are listening to the show right now. And it's this we are currently living through probably the worst pandemic any of us have ever seen in any guys we will ever see in our lives. It is one that isolates us from our friends keeps us in our homes, and generally makes it hard to be a part of this very social hobby that we love. And some of us, myself included have found ways around it we use discord or zoom or our social platform of choice to have games with people from long distance. And I just want to ask anyone who's listening to this. If If you play in Tel Dora, or in wild mount or in waterdeep, or in avernus, or in the grim hollow world of authorise as published by ghost fire, and you have stories that you have told in those settings that have given you joy in these dark times. If games have in any way touched your heart, and made it easier for you to be yourself and be a functional human being here within the strange world we're living in. Tell me, I hop on to Twitter at me at James Jake and just tell me your stories. That hearing your stories and the things that you do in RPGs brightens my life and being able to share those And see the way they differ and minute ways, from the stories of people who have played through the same adventure paths, and so on and so forth. That is what makes this all worthwhile, to me at least is to hear those stories and hear your own ways of telling them so let me hear
Snyders Return:for sure how you can find genes via the links in the description below this podcast. James's it's always a pleasure to have you on I'd love to have you back on in the future. For when faibles becomes properly announced and products come out from there and and all the other fantastic things you're working on solve which we weren't able to talk about during this interview.
James Haeck:I'd be delighted to talk about them when they're out in the wild. Yes, let's
Snyders Return:perfect. Right. We will sort that out. And we will deal with that. As when the time comes. James, as always, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much,
James Haeck:my friend. It's been a pleasure. I'll talk to you again.
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