Interview - Chris McDowall - Into The Odd Remastered TTRPG

Today I talk with TTRPG 'Into The Odd' creator, Game Designer, Content Creator, Podcaster, Publisher, YouTuber and Bastionland Press founder - Chris McDowall.

We discuss ttrpg Into The Odd Remastered, Game Design, COVID Lockdown Creations, Inspirations and much more.

You can find Chris and all of the Bastionland Press associated content via the links below.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/bastionland

Website:
https://www.bastionland.com/

Other:
https://www.patreon.com/bastionland
https://www.youtube.com/c/Bastionland
https://www.instagram.com/bastionland/
https://freeleaguepublishing.com/en/

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

~~~~~~~~~~

CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Chris McDowall - Bastionland Press

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

~~~~~~~~~~

Website:
https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?query=Roscoe%27s%20Chimkin&ref=search_box

Buy us a TTRPG Source Book: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SnydersReturn

Are you on DISCORD? Come hang out in our server! https://discord.gg/QgU5UNf Join us in the Snyder’s Return Facebook Group!

Visit https://www.patreon.com/snyders_return?fan_landing=true

~~~~~~~~~~~

Social Media:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReturnSnyder

Instagram -  Snyder's Return (@snyders_return)

Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

Snyder’s Return: 0:27

Hello and welcome to Snyder’s return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today asked us to visit the last stronghold in an ever changing world. There we will find a hub, a place of industry and not gatekeepers. Delving deeper both under the city and also into the world created, we find it goes beyond a first glance understanding it is both frozen in time and yet fluid in its own continuum. This may all seem a little strange, no. Odd, you could say. But I'm sure you're willing to lean into it doesn't matter if you're out for a walk on the iron coral. or strolling through the halls of glass and gold. My guest will guide us from the mundane to the arcane to the cosmic strange. It is a pleasure to welcome into the odd TTRPG creator podcaster YouTuber, blogger and bass general and founder, Chris McDowell. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris McDowall: 1:17

Hi, thank you for that. That makes it sound like I do a lot more than I feel like I do that makes me feel like I'm a you know, a one man industry. You

Snyder’s Return: 1:25

are a one man. And we'll get to that. And so everything that I've alluded to there in the introduction, and a little bit, but would you mind Chris telling us how you got into tabletop role playing games, please?

Chris McDowall: 1:38

Yeah. So like so many people that have sort of ended up in this hobby in the UK, I think it's quite common thing to start out with Games Workshop, especially to kind of this would have been in kind of the mid 90s I believe 9495. It's the classic story of a boy in the year above me at school when I was in year five. He was in year six. And he brought in a load of Warhammer stuff for like show and tell sort of thing. And it was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and had all these white dwarf magazines which were just full of like, the artwork and the dire armas. And even like the rules, I didn't understand that everything about it just like grabbed me. And like almost straightaway, it was like I knew this was gonna be like a thing for me with like, no real like precedent like I played like board games before, like Monopoly Cluedo sort of things. But this felt like something entirely different. So so that that kind of, you know, the miniatures side of things is what it is. But then as part of that, I picked up a copy of it was actually a handmade down from an older cousin, it was a copy of the Hero Quest board game. Oh, yes. And it was great. But think of the worst thing that could be missing from the handmade down box of a box of Hero Quest.

Snyder’s Return: 2:57

Probably the rules?

Chris McDowall: 2:58

Well, it was it was two things that were missing number one that was missing was the gargoyle miniature, which was like a demon. So that was gone. Someone had had that. And then the second thing that was missing was it had the rulebook, but it didn't have the scenario. But yes, it had all the adventures in it. So we had to play it. The two changes we had to make was when I played with a friend, one of us would essentially be a DM before we knew what a DM was. And we just sort of made up situations and scenarios. And because we didn't have the big scary monster that was like the boss of the dungeon, I guess. We just used to put down random and we had like this grim reaper, like little model that we had, like plastic is like kind of a cracker. But no, it probably wasn't. I don't know that crackers come with Grim Reapers. But it looked like it had come out with some McCobb cracker. And yeah, we use him a lot as like just this, this invincible monster that we would all be terrified off. And I sort of joked that that was like, that was like the day that I became a game designer, essentially, because having to fill the gaps. We made something that was that we probably had more fun with it than we would have if we actually had received an intact version of the rules. So from there, I kind of then eventually discovered Warhammer Fantasy roleplay and bounced over into d&d Eventually, and and then kind of snowballed from there, eventually ending up with various sort of indie games and OSR style games and eventually where we are today.

Snyder’s Return: 4:28

Yeah, where we are today is, although it seems potentially seems a long way from where you started the way you've described it. It doesn't seem very far at all. It's sort of a long process to get back to where you started almost.

Chris McDowall: 4:39

Well, yeah, I think the one of the things I try and do and I wrote this down once because I was I thought when I was having a bit of a not quite crisis, but I was feeling after I released into the art, I was kind of thinking, well, I want to have like a direction for how I want. I need to feel like have a sense of what I'm trying to achieve here by making these games And the It sounds very corporate and rubbish by thought I'm going to come up with like a mission statement. And like everything just for me, it's not going to be like on the front cover of a book or anything. But the thing that I came up with was to break the barriers between your imagination and your game. And I think that it's like the Holy Grail I've been searching for is, when I first saw a copy of white dwarf or I first picked up Warhammer Fantasy roleplay, there was a way that I imagined the game was going to go. And everything since then has always been a little bit of a compromise. In one way or another. There's been some pleasant surprises along the way. But I feel like so often we'll be, we'll pick up a new RPG, and we'll get very excited by it. But then there's something in the way when you actually try and realise that at the table. So yeah, I am always chasing that dream of how I imagined an RPG would be when I was sort of 10 years old, looking in confused looking very confused. Copy of wild fantasy roleplay

Snyder’s Return: 5:55

near enough. And so you sort of taken that corporate message. Have you got it up on the wall or something in front of you? Or is it just just something you keep

Chris McDowall: 6:03

in the back of it is I put it in a blog post. I was terrified to do that, because I thought people were gonna think I'm, I've got delusions of grandeur here. And, you know, but no, I keep joking that I'm going to do a strategy day One day as a company, which is just me and going to a lodge and but maybe next year, but yeah, it's it's it's more just sort of, like you say it's, I think it's good to have a kind of a direction. Even if you're kind of doing it in a slightly self deprecating way. I think it is good to have that kind of a goal in mind, no matter how humble is.

Snyder’s Return: 6:37

Yeah, absolutely. So sort of starting with your, shall we say, improvisation of Hero Quest? How did that go from? Where you were then to where you are now. So Bastiaan, Empress Bastion land and the Remastered? Or the the most current release of interview, which is the remastered versions? What was that journey?

Chris McDowall: 7:01

Yeah. So that's, I guess, his journey of about 25 years. So I'll try and I'll try and skip over the boring parts. Most of the teenage years, I would say were the boring parts. But the Yeah, I think the so when I came when I kind of went when I was very young, I kind of I knew about Warhammer. But I was only sort of peripheral. I was only sort of aware of d&d kind of on the periphery, as like this thing that I knew the name of, but I had never seen it in a shop. And I didn't know anyone that played it, but I kind of knew that it existed. And as such, I never I never played it when I was sort of younger, a teenager really until third edition came out. And I was about 16. At that time, I think in I think it was 2000 Was it DND history. Yeah. Yeah, it was around sort of 1516 Around the age where I was hiding these books, because I had illusions that I was too cool for this sort of thing. Of course, of course. So. So yeah, hiding them from from from friends. But but very much interested. And yet, when I got into third edition, I did have some fun with it. But the thing I started to realise is, like I said that that vision that had in my head of what this game could be. I felt like there were there was a lot of the game that just wasn't what I wanted to be spending my time doing, which was a lot of dealing with numbers. And I know the appeal, I can see the appeal. And I can see the appeal of a very rigorous rule system, but I wanted something that was a little bit more, I'm very impatient. So I wanted something that was a little bit more chaotic, perhaps a little bit more, a little bit more freewheeling a little bit more able to deliver on the promise of, you know, when you learn about RPGs, and things you'll learn is well you can do anything, you can try and do anything, there's no limits on what you can do. And then you get handed a book that is a book of limits on what you can do. And it's a balance, obviously, you do need solar so we're I kind of ended up as I I kind of drifted towards the rules light side of things. I'm gonna say something makes it sound very old. As I started to get more access to the internet, I was able to find more sort of a wider range of games perhaps than than d&d that I had available. And sort of like just free games that people would make and put up on forums and message boards and on their websites. And the thing that I liked about these rules light games is that they they felt more like what I wanted to be doing. But often those games, it would be you'd have a very rules like stripped stripped down system. But it didn't excite me in the same way as like d&d did because I was still drawn to, you know, d&d, you've got the big monster manual, and it just fills you with ideas for what you can do. And a lot of the stuff in the player's handbook in the DMG is like exciting and it makes you want to play the game. So I always wanted something that was kind of not didn't have all the rules that had the kind of streamline rules of something like like say, recess or microlight, 20 or all these, all these indie games that people were making, but also had the kind of To the rich kind of flavour of something like Warhammer Fantasy roleplay, or d&d, where it felt like a world that you wanted to explore. It wasn't, it wasn't stripping back on that front. So, so that soon became kind of my goal to make that kind of game. And that kind of eventually would have after lots of less than stellar attempts at making games into the odd kind of felt like the first one that kind of started to deliver on that kind of goal.

Snyder’s Return: 10:26

Okay, so when so you've gone through this process, you've tried sort of rules, light systems and things like that. When When did you start codifying that into what became into the garden and did bashley and lamb press exist before into the odd did or was was one the sort of the the output of the other.

Chris McDowall: 10:46

So the sort of the timeline on it is at the time, but when I was started writing into the art, I was really enjoying a lot of the creativity that was coming out of the OSR blogs, and the RSI community on Google Plus at the time. And there was a lot of really cool ideas on that. But I I still didn't really like even basic d&d. Like I will play basic d&d, and like old school essentials, and things like that, but I don't love it as a system. So I always thought I would want to try and it's a revolutionary idea I know, to make your own version of d&d. Yeah, it's groundbreaking stuff. But I always knew that I wanted to try and to try and do that, so that I could get involved with this kind of the creativity and the exciting stuff that was happening in this RSR kind of scene. But not the kind of tied to this system that I didn't especially have an affinity for. So into the odd started as a d&d Hack, essentially, like the name into the odd is a pawn on Oh, d&d, originally, and it wasn't so much drawing on the specific mechanics of d&d, even though there are some kind of touchstones in there, like the names of the ability scores and HP. But I was I was essentially trying to make a game that you could run like a d&d style dungeon in. And then from there, it kind of picked up its own identity as I kind of played it. And as I started writing about ideas for what the setting would be based around this game, and it kind of grew into this whole idea of the city of Bastion, and then this is weird underground, and being a little bit more kind of industrial era, and having horror and sci fi elements in there. And then it kind of that kind of grew into into the art, which, like every game I made, I essentially made it because I wanted that game for myself. And it's the game that I wanted to be playing with other people. So Paulo Greco, who still runs last pages publishing, I forget if Pelago in touch with me, or I got in touch with all of us, but we already kind of knew each other through the the ASR community. And we got talking about doing a about publishing it. And Sao Paulo said, you know, they will publish it through last pages. And it was a very kind of humble, soft back, you know, 48 page. Not not quite booklet, I guess, I guess nowadays, you would call it a zine, maybe a zine format, like 48 pages, I think it was. And, and yeah, it's sort of gradually started to build up a little bit of people seem to like it, and people seem to be interested in the things that it was doing that were different to other games. And, and that's what I really wanted. I never, I've never had any delusions that I'm going to make a game that everybody loves. But what I would like to do with every game that I make is make a game that a few people, it really clicks with them. And it allows them to do something they weren't able to do with other games, because that's what it was doing. For me basically, it was it it was allowing me to engage with games in a way that I found difficult with other systems. And yeah, so at this point, there's, there's no bastion and press at this point, I was working as a teacher, as a secondary school teacher. And, you know, after into the odd that five years later, I did electric Bastion, which was my big vanity project of I want to do a big, luxurious hardback book based on into the odd but just going completely off the wall with having, you know, 100 different dying packages and all this artwork and everything like that. And I did that on Kickstarter. And amazingly, that did well enough on Kickstarter that I was able to, at this point that my day career was kind of reaching a bit of a crossroads where I was, essentially a contract was finishing at a place where I was working so I reached a point where I thought well I can try I could try now to make a go of this and it might not be something that can do forever, but now is a good time to try this. And so since electric bash land is what allowed the Bastion unpressed to exist basically the success of that Kickstarter. And then after that, in terms of working with free League, I've actually done a little bit of work for free league before this. So before electric bastion and came out, and Neil's from freely got in touch with me He's saying he was a fan of into the yard. And he asked if I would do a stretch goal for forbidden lands. Yeah, so I wrote a dungeon for forbidden lands as a stretch goal. And he sort of said in passing, he said, Oh, if you ever want to do anything with into the art, like a second edition, you know, come and speak to free league. And at the time, I was doing electric bashing and myself. So I sort of said, Oh, no, well, thanks. But you know, I'm doing my own thing for now. And then after, after lecture bashing, I came out. There were still lots of people that wanted, I kept getting the same question, which was people saying, well, what's happening with into the art. And as far as I was concerned, I was kind of happy with working too hard was in my head, because I was doing electric Bastion, and that I wanted to do something different next, but then I thought, well, this is an opportunity to do if I could do this for freely, or it wasn't cement at that time, but I thought, well, if I if I do a definitive version of into the yard, then it feels right to give it that definitive version. And make the best version of that possible for the people that do really enjoy that initial game. So then, yeah, it kind of went from there. And and it all sort of started happening with really

Snyder’s Return: 16:10

well, the book, the the remastered version, I have it here that not only is the the content and the game itself, but the presentation of the book is beautiful, the artwork from your hand, no, who has worked on several projects for both 3d and others, just helps bring the story and the foundation of your game to life. It's, it's a highly recommend it. Well, before I go into praising just how much I love it, would you like to let people know where they can find you into the art and everything you're associated with? So I can put that down in the description below this podcast, please, Chris?

Chris McDowall: 16:46

Yeah, so So in terms of me, everything that I do in some shape, or form is available at Bastion and.com. So that's where you can find my blog, which I do every week. And it also has links to where you can buy electric Bastion land into the art and various other things I'm working on. And also has links to my Patreon discord, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, podcast, everything you could read off.

Snyder’s Return: 17:16

All right, well, I will make sure that the links you've mentioned there are down in the description below this podcast. So please scroll down, go and click on these links and support Chris and Bastian lamb press in any way you can, including Patreon, as mentioned, and YouTube and things like that. So those links will be down there, scroll down and go and check out this book. What not just this book, but this book is the one in particular we're talking about today. So being able to sort of see this, this artwork and be inspired by the content that you've you've put into this, what was the original game now This remastered version has been released? What were some of the elements that you really enjoyed putting into the original book that is now sort of more readily available to new fans of TT? RPGs.

Chris McDowall: 18:02

So just so I understand the question properly, he is saying sort of elements of the full design again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the big thing that I wanted to do with into the odd compared to so at the time, I guess I was comparing it to like basic d&d, or I don't think RSC was really around at the time. But that's probably like a fair thing to compare it to. And the thing that I really wanted to achieve. I mentioned before that I'm very impatient. And it's, it's in many ways, it's a weakness, but it's also when you're playing an RPG, I always like to feel like things are moving forward. So there's lots of things about it that are very quick. And it's so character creation takes about I've, I've been able to do it in about 30 seconds. But I think if you're teaching someone, you're probably talking about two or three minutes, if that it's very quick at making characters, it's very immediate in terms of, when you start the adventure in the game, you're kind of thrown straight into the situation that's in the game, in the book, rather, combat is, is is just quick enough without being too quick. So one of the things that people always point out is that there's no rolling to hit in this game. When you attack somebody, you just roll damage straightaway, which is kind of indicative of my design philosophy really, because I like to chop away things until until the thing doesn't work and then put that last thing back on. So removing to hit rolls was a moment where I sort of was really happy with how it was going. So you've got combat that is fast enough that you can get through a lot of a lot of whole lot of a dungeon in one evening. But not so fast that it's sort of over and you suddenly just randomly get whacked and you're out of the game. But But yeah, maybe it was just it's an it's an experiment in minimalism in rules and seeing how far you can strip back that kind of formula of a game. have kind of delving into somewhere dangerous? How much can you strip back without having it suddenly feel kind of arbitrary and weightless? And like, it's like, you're not sort of playing that kind of game? And it's, it's right on the bone? I've tried to I've always tried to sort of stay right at the extreme end of that spectrum, if that makes sense.

Snyder’s Return: 20:21

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I, having sort of read through, I really do like your, the combat roles in there. The the mixture of, so I'm gonna reference various elements, but the combat roles, I really enjoy that, you know, you're rolling damage, if it goes over their armour, or not, everything has armour, but you know, you take the data, and you can move on and the game progresses. The maps for the locations in in the book, that the dungeons, as we've mentioned, are beautifully illustrated. But they're not overly complicated. There's enough out there. But there's also enough simplicity to work through for the GM who's running the game. And the use of hex tiles effectively for the travel and exploration, I think is such a great mix of elements. Why other games? Haven't done this? I'm not sure. But so yeah, so slotting all these different elements in in together? Was that sort of challenging to make sure they all dovetailed in together? Or did you find it quite simple to sort of break them down in that respect.

Chris McDowall: 21:27

So the thing is, at the time when I was writing into the odd, sort of the first time around, so I shouldn't say the initial the first release of Intel was 2014. And I sort of started writing it around 2011. I think my first blog post about it was, and all the while while I was doing that I was playing a lot of play, I was playing a lot of it online, through Google Plus at the time, mainly with people who were sort of, like I say, more familiar with playing like basic d&d. So it was, it was a really good way of testing that style of game through a new sort of set of systems. Because, you know, I, it sounds obvious to say to test your game, but I think it is, I think playtesting is like simultaneously over emphasised, but also under emphasised, I don't I don't know exactly how I managed, I think sometimes people think playtesting has to be, I think the approach I'm trying to say is I, I go for a kind of natural play testing approach. Rather than putting it in some weird artificial situation where you're sitting everyone down, and you're running them through a very artificial version of the game, just so you can make the right types of roll and hit the right types of rules. I find I have tried that kind of pay test before. And I don't find it that useful. I think just bringing it to the table. That kind of testing of not sort of almost not treating it like a play test. But just running it as you have it has been really useful for me and I did a lot of that with into the end you you find problems that you wouldn't have found from sort of days of staring at the document, whether it's just to do with, you suddenly realise that you're doing something in running the game and you think, well, this should be this should be in the book, like I'm doing something. I'm doing some kind of procedure or something that isn't a rule. But somebody reading the book wouldn't know this. So I need to put that in as a little note for the person who's picking up the book. So I think that I found it relatively straightforward to get all those systems to dovetail together because it was being constantly put through this kind of, I was gonna say organic, but that's a terrible word to use. That makes it sound really pretentious. There's kind of natural playtesting I guess he as well.

Snyder’s Return: 23:38

Yeah. So with into the odd being this industrial period, electric Bastion line being a little bit further on a little bit different. What is what is next for Bastiaan? Lamb Preston, come bring to the table. You mentioned playtesting there. So I mean, I'm intrigued what's what's now on the on the sleet under under this process?

Chris McDowall: 23:59

Yeah, so I've with every game that I've done so far. And you know, two of them have either into the electric bass and had been my kind of big releases, I guess. But I've had like other little things that I kind of put together and put out and I've always wanted each game to be like it's self contained kind of thing. So to play into the art or electric Bastion, and you don't need to know that the other one exists. I think if you have both, there's probably things you can pull on from each. And there's some nice kind of somatic connections between the two. But I've always wanted them to be kind of self contained. So I originally I joke because the name electric masculine started as like a bit of a joke and then I ended up actually doing it. So I then joked that the next book should be called intergalactic Bastion, and that I should do a space version, which I did mess around with for a little while, but I couldn't quite get the idea to stick in my head. I couldn't quite get to grips with it. I'm sure it will be something I go back to at some point, but it's that that's currently not sort of something I've got to grips with But then the thing I'm working on at the moment is a game called primaeval. Bastion and, and I didn't want to just make like re skins at the same game like just for the sake of it and be like, Oh, here's the, here's the mediaeval one and here's the Renaissance one. And here's an ancient version of the game and, and just kind of go through and change the equipment list and call it a day, I wanted it to be something different. So enter yard was kind of born out of this. Like I say, this kind of dungeon crawling style of play. Even though it does do other things. It was very much born in the dungeon, electric bastion and was, it still has that kind of dwindles down, but it was more based around, more character driven, city based, weird like city exploration stuff style of play. And what I've felt like I was missing, and what I wanted to try some that focused on was something that really went big on this kind of idea of you spoke a little bit about hexes into the there is a little bit of a hex crawl in there. But I wanted something that kind of explored that kind of hex crawl, wilderness, exploring a wilder road without a wild a world without kind of trails and roads and obvious kinds of paths. So that's what's currently happening with primaeval. Bastion, and it's kind of the It's the history that never was a bastion. So I'm very keen to avoid having like a canonical timeline. So my the kind of vision in my head at the moment is this is the this is the version of the past that people in Bastion tell themselves is true. But if you if you walk in the right direction, away from Bastion, far enough, you might end up in that kind of mythic past. So it lets you get away with a lot when you say this is this is a mythic past, not the not the actual past. Which is Yeah, it's a fake past of a fake place. So really, I've got free rein to

Snyder’s Return: 26:49

Yeah, of your own creation. So absolutely. So I've had a look because the the Plater at the time of recording the play test of primaeval Bastion land was is available on your website and your blog post, which I've downloaded look through. And I have to say, the nights you have I know if people can get across to have a look. Before it's sort of if you listen to this in the future, and it's released as a full game. I hope you're enjoying it as much as the way it looks and as it is inspiring to me. Because the night some of the nights the moss night in particulars is caught my attention. But not only is the hardware beautiful, the nights and I realise it's a play test and things could change but it it just sings to me this this project you've got going on at the moment?

Chris McDowall: 27:34

Well, it's yeah, I'm having I'm having a lot of fun with it, I ran the first. First proper, I've done like, I've done the kind of rubbish artificial tests that I told you about where you literally like, sit and run a combat by yourself at the table just to make sure the numbers kind of work, which is I've said that it's not especially as useful, but sometimes it's kind of something you kind of have to grind through just to check something. But yeah, last night, actually, I actually did the first actual full, full sort of at the table play through with two people I know and two brand new people because it was a kind of a meetup club that I go to each week. And it it went about as well as I can expect to first playtests to go I feel like I feel like it has legs. But but that's the thing like I, I feel like you can you can fine tune the rules. And you can fine tune the procedures and the guidance. But the thing that you need to make a game work, I think is that that thing that gets somebody excited. So the fan you said, you know, you've seen this night and you thought oh that this is cool. I want I want to play this character. I think that's the biggest hurdle for a game. And there's so many games that I've read. And this isn't me trying to, you know, a slam against or sometimes you'll pick up a game book, and you'll look through it. And you think yeah, this all sounds really good. But I don't know what I want to do. Like, I don't know, I can't work out how this would work at the table. And that can be the sort of the hardest thing to do. So I'm glad that I've at least got a little bit of that going for it already. And and yeah, it's a long way off from anything yet but it's something I'm going to carry on carry on testing for sure.

Snyder’s Return: 29:01

It's something that I definitely going to be keeping an eye on for sure. So one potential customer for when it comes out. I I would say but you have explored other systems going through your your website, you release the doomed and ask the stars very different games to each other. So you have sort of done a sci fi based game at the Doom Cannes is I want to say it reads weird. It's just it's a different game to the others that you've released the sort of the setup and the format of it. What goes into what inspires some of your creative choices, I guess is the question. I'm trying to fumble my way to what what inspires some some of you, you mentioned sort of other influences. But what about games like those?

Chris McDowall: 29:47

So the doomed is a miniatures game. And as with so many miniature projects over the last few years, it was born out of lockdown because obviously During the first lockdown here in the UK, sort of just well, nearly no just over two years ago now. I hadn't touched a miniature in years if not, if not over a decade. But it was my it was my birthday in May. I've locked down where we are. And it was it was a full lockdown at that point in May. And my partner and I were running out of ways to be entertained indoors. So I decided to relapse to my 13 year old self, and bison games, workshop miniatures and some paints. And just think, well, this is a nice thing I can do indoors and it'll be a bit of fun. And you know, it'd be cool to see what miniatures are like nowadays, instead of the old metal things that I had to paint. And I and, and then it kind of spiralled from there to the point where I thought, well, I'll just buy one pack of miniatures. And then I thought, well, I'll, I'll buy a little bit of terrain, because you can't have miniatures, like, without terrain. And then I started looking at, like, free games that people make. And I thought, oh, there's a lot of cool, new miniature rules that aren't as complicated as the big books I used to have to wrestle with, when I was playing good workshop games. And then it was only a matter of time until I thought I could do better and decided to try and make this make something for myself. So the doom that is, is that essentially, that there are some plans for it in the future that I can't quite talk about just yet. But there will be something happening with it. And I'll hopefully be able to talk about that in the next few months. But But yeah, it's a very rules light game of, you know, you've got sort of maybe between four and six miniatures in your war band, and you are fighting some big horrible monster that you're ill equipped to take on initially. So yeah, that it's, it's another experiment to try and see what I could strip back. So there's no measuring. There's no stacking of bonuses, there's you can only ever get like a, there's only ever one modifier that affects that type of role. And there's no tracking of anything. So there's no having lots of different counters and status effects. Anything that happens is immediate. And it's very different to the miniature games, but I only wanted to do one if I could make it very different.

Snyder’s Return: 32:12

I mean, fair enough, it sounds like a miniature bliss to me, no pun intended. Because I've looked at again, not slamming all the games and other creators, but like, lots of games workshop and brought it out because it was too and then they brought out kill zone. And I thought well, maybe and then I've seen the roll. And I'm like, This sounds like the sort of thing that you can set up quick, get into, get through, enjoy, and then put away and just come back to a time and again, without having, as you say, counter status is track this, track that and worry about that. So it's, I will probably send you an email in what is now the future, but potentially the parser in listening to this to get you back on and learn more about that this doomed project, if you'd be willing to come back. Yeah, so brilliant. So between game design playtesting, the, I won't say organic, I doubt between sort of working on other projects, YouTube, Patreon or things like that. So I mean, YouTube, you got over 2000 subscribers, and I'm sure many people sort of come in and check out and watch your stuff. What's the what's it like to produce content over multiple platforms? You got your podcast, your YouTube, your blog? What's, how do you juggle all of that?

Chris McDowall: 33:30

I wouldn't know if I judge it, especially if I juggle it especially well, because the thing is, again, when so when I I've been sort of working on this on games Full Time now for a while, it was actually literally the week of lockdown. Sorry to keep bringing it back too much. It was literally the first week that I was due to go self employed and start working from home on my own. All of a sudden, it was this, you know, everyone I spoke to about it was like, Oh, you're so brave doing this, this thing? And aren't you going to be like, you're gonna go mad, like locked in the house all day on your own? And I was like, Oh, I don't know, I think I'll be fine. And then I started doing it. And literally everybody else in the country starts doing the exact same thing. So it was it was a strange start. But it was also this sounds like a terrible thing to say. But it weirdly normalised it for me as well. So it didn't feel like I was doing some strange thing because everybody was doing some sort of strange thing about that. But the so when I started doing that, all of a sudden, I thought, well, if I'm doing this full time, I need to be doing any doing everything I need to be like throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks. So it's you can't just sit and write games, but I certainly can't sit and write games nine to five because your creativity will start to run dry pretty quickly. You know Monday to Friday, I'm sure there are people that can do that. But I found that that is not the way that I operate. So so I just started trying different things. And I soon started to think well why am I why am I doing this? Like why am I doing like YouTube things talking about my games, and why am I doing podcasts? And the fact is I do do them as a sort of, you know, essentially a form of marketing, I guess. But mainly, I think it's just an interesting way to get some insight into, into game design, especially the podcast, because I always, it's always myself and the guest. And I try and let them talk than more than I do wherever possible. And it's, it's just a really good way to learn. So again, it's very selfish of me really. If I think I've ever reached a point where I feel like, I'm doing the the YouTube stuff, I'm just kind of going through the motions, and I'm not learning anything from it, or in doing a series of podcasts, I come away from a series just exhausted and thinking, I just feel like I'm working as an interviewer or something. I think that I would, I would stop doing it. So it's at the end of the day, even though it sounds like I'm doing lots of different things if I try and sort of make it all fold back to actually making games because that is the thing that I want to be sort of focusing on essentially, I've got I've got no illusions of becoming the next Matt Colville or, or Ben Milton or any of these giants, YouTube people.

Snyder’s Return: 36:12

I mean, makeover was is a big tall order to aim for. But exactly. I mean, can we can betray, I guess. So, you know, you mentioned there between game design, podcast, blog, Patreon, YouTube, and all these sorts of things. You keep yourself engaged with the content, but what about downtime? Do you have downtime as a solo content creator?

Chris McDowall: 36:38

Yeah, I feel guilty saying this. And like I say, for the first, for the first few months that I was doing this, I remember talking to my partner about it. And it was, it was like a Friday afternoon. And I've been doing this for a number of months. And I sort of went, I don't know why I went to her because she's not that she's not the sort of the shareholder of the company. The company is just me. But I went to her. And I sort of said, I was thinking maybe this afternoon, I might, I just bought some game on Steam at some new game. And I was like, I might take the afternoon off and like play a game. And she was like, why you're telling me and I'm like, I don't know, I just feel like I shouldn't be able to do this. And and then she said, well, in your last job, like how many days holiday did you get here and I was like, well, even even if I give myself the statutory minimum. Like I think having a Friday afternoon off to play a game. So I think I've now reached an equilibrium where you can sometimes I'm sure there are people who like I say can graft 12 hours a day, six days a week, seven days a week. And they could just keep on grafting and grafting grafting. But I think if I did that I would get less done than I would working a more moderate amount of time. There's no way of me saying this without sounding like I'm a slacker, but But I think, I think especially when you're trying to do something creative, taking that downtime. So that was taking an hour off and then writing for an hour, you can come out with more than you would have if you'd been sat at your desk for two hours trying to write for two hours. I'd say we're taking like a change of scene the the amount of times I've I always joke that the days that I my most productive days are the ones where I take my car in for like a service and I take my laptop and I have to go to like a Costa Coffee around the corner or something and just use their Wi Fi. Because it just the change of scenery sometimes inspires me to write a lot more stuff. And I'll sort of almost be sad when the garage brings me in says the car is ready to come and collect. But yeah, I think I think some downtime, for me is is essential for sort of making the making the uptime actually productive, if that makes sense.

Snyder’s Return: 38:43

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 100% So, yeah, it's good to find that balance. And I'm glad that a number of people I've spoken to are still saying how much they're trying to find that balance. So the fact that you've you've sort of got there on your own and not burnt yourself out in that respect is is encouraging for others, I think, to be fair, you know, other people that want to go into content creation that see these various people you mentioned like Matt Colville earlier who you perceive to be working 24/7 around the clock, but each everybody's going to find that that time for themselves as you mentioned. Yeah.

Chris McDowall: 39:21

And there's there's often like a bit of a weird pressure to like appear that you're you're always working and and I've definitely felt that kind of guilt because like I say like that that first time when I took an afternoon off that was like, No one can know about this. I've got to be like honestly checking my email. So if somebody emails me to ask about an order or something, they don't know that I'm I'm not at work. But it's like, like there's so many things a boring answer is it probably varies massively person to person. Yeah. But I think experimentation is the is the key to finding like what actually works for you. Of course,

Snyder’s Return: 39:54

you mentioned bringing things to the table and experimenting playtesting and Playing games. You mentioned running the first session of primaeval. Bastille. And do you use safety tools to do? How do you ensure that everyone at your table or the table you're at, is sort of involved engaged and sort of safe in that respect?

Chris McDowall: 40:16

Yeah, it's um, so for a bit of background I do, I do play with friends, from time to time, sort of like friends that I've known for like a long time. But because we're all kind of at an age now where people have got kids and we've fracture live in different parts of the country, it's like more and more difficult to like, get together with the kind of the people who are perhaps know best in the world. So most of my gaming now happens in in like, meetup places. So I'm lucky enough to live in I live in Manchester in the UK. And it's, it's got quite a vibrant kind of gaming community really. So, you know, I go to a weekly board gaming and RPG, meetup that has a higher attendance in some conventions, I've been to Utah, for probably a sort of arcade about 50 people, 60 people a week. And there's usually at least a few people who are there for the first time, and they're coming in, and they're sort of saying, Oh, I've heard about this through a friend. I've heard about d&d. Maybe they're on the road, maybe they're there with someone else. But you deal with a lot of brand new players, which is amazing, because you can learn a lot from running games for brand new people that don't have a sort of the same. I say this as someone who does have their own baggage, but doesn't come with the baggage of a someone who perhaps has been playing games for 20 years. And, and like I say, I include myself in there. So I can say that. But yeah, it's intuitive safety tools that if I'm running a game, sort of that I plan ahead of time, I will, if there are going to be if there is going to be content in there that needs a sort of content notes, I will put that in ahead of time. But to be honest, I tend not to read anything that has too many dark themes. And I have used the x card from time to time on the table. But I don't think I've ever actually seen it used I think I run a very light hearted table. And that doesn't mean that you don't have to consider these things. But I think I've been fortunate in the sense that I've not run up against running into too many problems. But but the good thing is there's so many there's so much guidance out there now that that yeah, it's certainly something to research sort of ahead of time before any again,

Snyder’s Return: 42:34

yeah, absolutely. Critical, we have covered a lot to be found looking down on my notes. And we've gone from into the odd, which is the reason you know, I reached out to you in the first place because of this beautiful book, please scroll down, follow those links and purchase either the hardcopy or the PDF from the various places listed below. And as mentioned before, ammo here again very shortly. And we've gone through eras and game styles and game types and things like that. Is there anything that we haven't discussed that you want to bring up just towards the end of this interview?

Chris McDowall: 43:12

I think one of the things I was thinking about. So I'm sorry to like reveal behind the curtain, but I am, you sent me a little bit of a kind of a, an idea of some of the things you might be asking about in the in the podcast, as we were asked, we were sort of talking by email before this. And I started looking at some I read one of the questions. And I actually kind of misread the question. And I thought I had a an answer that I thought I was quite happy with. And then I reread the question. I thought no, that's not actually what the question is. It's like a politician dancer. But I think one of the things I always want to stress to people is I'm aware that the new version is a very kind of shiny, luxurious. It's a very nicely made book on very nice paper. And it's got lots of very beautiful artwork in here. So even though it's got all this kind of luxury lining, the thing I always want to stress to people when they've asked me about making games is the barrier to entry to make a game now. It's not, it's not perfect, there are still obstacles to entry for people. But it's in a better place than it was in the past, which might not be saying very much. But I also think sometimes the barriers to entry are even lower than they might seem, especially when I can only speak to sort of the writing side of things really, although I have done some, obviously some publishing. But in terms of the writing, I think it's easy to think that to write this kind of game, you have to have some incredibly literary background, or you have to be some to be able to be able to call yourself a writer, you need to have some kind of academic background, neither of which I really have. And I think everybody has something in their lived experience that they can write about. And and if you draw on that it doesn't necessarily matter so much if you don't have that kind of hugely literary are hugely academic background. So I would really just encourage people to, to start writing about what they know start writing about the things that crop up in your head, no matter how silly you think it is. Because we have a broad enough audience now that somebody out there, it will click with them, and they will find something to connect with 100%.

Snyder’s Return: 45:22

While on that inspirational note, I guess a real kick in the backside for for everyone that's that's hesitating or questioning whether they could or they should. Chris, would you like to remind everybody where they can find you, please? And everything you're associated with?

Chris McDowall: 45:39

Yeah, so So as I said, everything from the podcast to the discord server to the Patreon and the video stuff is all on Bastion under.com, which is also primarily the blog. And the other thing I would encourage people to do is to write a blog. I don't want to see blogs die, because I think they are, they fill a very important niche in the kind of RPG RPG circles. And yet, you can check mine out at Bastion and.com.

Snyder’s Return: 46:05

All right, well, links will be in description below this podcast, please scroll down and follow those links. Chris has been such a pleasure to be able to get to chat with you talking through into the modern all your other projects and sort of publish content and everything you've got coming up soon. I'd love to get you back on the show to talk about primaeval Bastila that eventually sort of comes to fruition and the doomed when that comes into possession. But yeah, or even for a one shot if if you ever have some some time and I want to throw some dice, always. All right. Well, thanks so much, Chris. It's been a real pleasure to having the chance to speak to today. Cheers. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to www dot Snyder’s return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At return Schneider, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon and we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content out for for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you