Interview - Daniel Kwan - TTRPG Creator - Wandering Blades

Today I chat with TTRPG Game Designer, Content Creator and Asians Represent Podcaster - Daniel Kwan.

We discuss the new (forthcoming) Wuxia-inspired TTRPG Wandering Blades, creating content for Asians Represent Podcast and much more.

You can find Daniel and all of his associated content via the links below.

Website:
https://beacons.ai/danielhkwan
https://beacons.ai/aznsrepresent

Twitter:
https://x.com/danielhkwan
https://x.com/aznsrepresent

Other:
https://danielhkwan.itch.io/
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAV8AqZgfhJvuOUHbBQoCZD7A-zdZozYl
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC72SWZ0tamtQeiQMn11YGOA

Calibration Tools:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/114jRmhzBpdqkAlhmveis0nmW73qkAZCj

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: Daniel Kwan

Sound Design: Adam Powell
Edited by: Adam Powell
Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

~~~~~~~~~~
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Transcript

Adam Powell (00:03.228)
Hello and welcome to Snyder's Return, a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today has taken a new stance when it comes to TTRPGs that bring us new heroes, martial heroes to be precise, for us to become. Join us as we meander along the rivers and lakes of underworlds and culture, as we learn what skills are needed to wander and represent oneself properly. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome game designer, TTRPG content creator, podcaster, and so much more, Mr. Daniel Kwan.

Daniel, thank you so much for joining me

Daniel (00:35.985)
Thank you for having me my god that was a that was a great introduction I think I said that the last time I was on the show

Adam Powell (00:40.102)
Thank you very much. Just possibly, and I appreciate it every time somebody likes the introductions I do. So no, thank you so much. But my thanks go out to you for joining me again. For those that maybe haven't heard our previous interview or are somehow unaware of who you are and your relation to TTRPGs, would you mind giving us a brief recap of how you yourself got into TTRPGs, please?

Daniel (00:49.862)
That was very good.

Daniel (01:06.108)
Yeah, I always assume that people don't know who I am because you know, it's it's a it's a big industry. There are lots of people. Yeah, my name is Daniel Kwan. I'm a Canadian game designer, podcaster, cultural consultant. I have been working in TTRBGs as a designer and consultant since 2017. I've self published a lot of games work for a lot of big companies. It's notable works include like Candlekeep mysteries for Wizards of the Coast.

Adam Powell (01:10.48)
they should.

Daniel (01:34.076)
The more recent Tian Xia books for Pathfinder, the Tian Xia World Guide got a Gold Any this year, actually this past weekend at the time of recording. Worked as one of the designers on Motherlands, was one of the preliminary designers of the Illuminated World Systems for Critical Role and Darrington Press. And yeah, now I'm kind of focusing on a lot of my own stuff. This is my first, I guess you could say large independent project since

Brass Rifle is the first game I

Adam Powell (02:07.049)
So before we go deep into Wandering Blades, you mentioned there Ross Rifles. What about you as a game designer, a content creator, have you learnt the most in your time since Ross Rifles through to where we are now?

Daniel (02:24.668)
Project management, 100 % project management. Ross Rifles was a great project because it wasn't necessarily all me, right? It was my business partners and co -creators, Patrick and also named Daniel. Actually, there's two Daniels and a Patrick on Ross Rifles. But a big one was like project management, making sure we had everything in place. So for Wandering Blades, I made sure that I had, you know,

independent contractor agreements already ready to go with all of the freelancers that I'm working with, particularly for like art and some of the writing made sure that I was holding myself accountable also to progress. Early on the process, I was working with like a co -designer who has exited the project, but making sure that, you know, we have like weekly sinks, meetings, minutes, agendas, everything, just to make sure that things were good. Also, you

This is with Ross rifles. It was self published entirely. So it was through my own company done as West games. This one working with the publisher plus one EXP to get this one done. another part of the project management is also making sure that I'm communicating and aligning with the publisher on their expectations and my own expectations of what the project is since wandering blades is exclusively just a Daniel Kwan

Adam Powell (03:49.902)
and are very excited, well one I'm very excited about, for those who are intrigued by the title and may draw their own mental imagery of, or their own sort of personal imagery or sense of what the game could be, just so we don't cast any dispersions or create some illusions, what is Wandering Blades and what was your inspiration for it, please?

Daniel (04:17.264)
Yeah, so Wandering Blades is tabletop role playing game of violent martial arts melodrama. In the game, players take on the roles of highly skilled martial artists who basically wander the lands to redress wrongs, help the downtrodden and kind of free the innocent from oppressive forces. It uses a streamlined system of my design inspired by a lot of old school Renaissance products to essentially enable

dynamic and lethal combat and helping players basically tell heroic and melodramatic stories that are inspired by Chinese wuxia media. So martial arts fiction.

Adam Powell (05:00.1)
So for someone that's like melodrama, not sure what that means or how that sort of sits with the general sort of storytelling tropes or conventions, what separates a melodrama from a conventional tale in that respect?

Daniel (05:10.502)
Mm -hmm.

Daniel (05:15.196)
You know, a lot of emphasis on camaraderie, brotherhood, reciprocity, reputation, a lot of hallmarks of Chinese martial arts media. So you think of maybe like over dramatic interactions between characters, fealty, themes of like reputation or face is a part of Chinese culture. All of those are a part of this game.

Adam Powell (05:45.54)
And if someone's like, OK, I think I know where this is going. Are there any touchstones you recommend that would be easy to get on a streaming service or the internet or the local library or wherever the particular reference may

Daniel (05:58.744)
On a streaming service, I hope these are on streaming services. Definitely in terms of, I think, mass sort of like availability, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is obviously a big one. One movie that I particularly love, particularly for its like action sequences and how stylistic it was, is a movie called Shadow. And then if you kind of go sort of

back in sort of the history of Chinese martial arts films, we're talking about movies like Come Drink With Me, Last Ra for Chivalry. More recently, if you look at films like Reign of Assassins or The Assassin or even older films like Dragon Inn, these are all sort of cultural touch points. One that you can actually watch for free on YouTube, one of the biggest inspirations actually, is a Chinese animation called Blades of the Guardians.

That's actually available for free officially on YouTube. Blades of the Guardians is like super violent. It's about very, very much like a lone wolf and cub sort of thing about this wandering martial artist named Daoma who rides around historical China with his like little kid. And he fights bad guys. Yeah, and then there were a lot of video games that inspired the game, particularly in terms of like the combat.

Adam Powell (07:19.578)
you

Daniel (07:26.234)
So whereas stylistically and thematically Wandering Blades is inspired by Wuxia media, the combat is A, inspired by Wuxia media as well, but also with the dynamism of like anime, particularly two pieces of animation, one called Sword of the Stranger, which is an incredible film, and another is a series called Samurai Champloo.

Adam Powell (07:42.844)
Hmm.

Daniel (07:55.59)
Then have video games like Ghost of Tsushima, Sekiro Shousai Twice, WoL Fallen Dynasty, and the upcoming Phantom Blade

Adam Powell (08:06.528)
I made note of several of those. I've seen the trailers for Shadow with the bladed umbrellas and the fantastic cinematography. That's just in the trailer. So I'm definitely going to check out Blades of the Garden and a few others you've mentioned there.

Daniel (08:12.516)
Yeah, exactly. it's incredible.

Daniel (08:21.864)
Blades of the Guardians is super cool. It's a man was, it's a comic. And then they made an animated adaptation, which is both really, really good. And those are just the ones that are really accessible, I guess.

Adam Powell (08:35.974)
Feel free to dig further into the genres and the touchstones there that have been referenced. And I will put links to a few of those down in the description below. Speaking of links, Daniel, before we get too far, where can we find you and everything you're associated with, please?

Daniel (08:52.478)
my God, folks can find me on pretty much any social media platform at Daniel H Kwan. That's Daniel H K W A N. Hey, you can find me there. And that will lead to all of my stuff, like my itch .io store, which is just Daniel H Kwan .itch .io or my website, Daniel H Kwan

Adam Powell (09:14.638)
All right, I will make sure they are down in the description below. So please go down, follow those links, support Daniel as I have done on itch. And I mentioned itch specifically because the quick start for wandering blades is available on there. moving into the game itself, you've mentioned sort of the the outline and alluded to some of the mechanics,

Daniel (09:29.958)
Yes.

Adam Powell (09:44.038)
For someone looking into this style of game, this game, and trust me, by the artwork on the cover, I want this game. They see it and they're like, okay, how does this game work mechanically?

Daniel (09:58.758)
Yeah, yeah. So the game is designed with the intent of being very, very simple, but strategic. All right, there are multiple systems within the game that kind of enable the kind of genre storytelling that we have. Like there's a reputation system, there are exploration systems, but at the heart of Wandering Blades is the combat. So it's a D20 system. So you roll D20 and you add attributes.

But the combat is designed to be very much player first, but also like highly tactical and highly lethal. So any combat encounter could end in the first round. The players could wipe out the entire opposition in one round where the players can find themselves up against somebody of immense power and they could even die themselves. And all of this is kind of mediated by a system within the game.

based on like Qi, sort of that Chinese medicinal concept, or the Chinese philosophical and medicinal concept. And Qi is this element of the game that enables characters to use martial arts techniques. It enables them to do extra things like parry 10 attacks. It enables them to like heal, act at a turn, do really,

incredible seemingly superhuman feats like you might see in like Crutch and Tiger, Hidden Dragon or

The idea is that there's no magic. Everything is seemingly supernatural but fueled by this mastery of one's inner sort of energy.

Adam Powell (11:42.505)
No, I love it. And so when someone goes on to itch and picks up a copy of this quick start, what can they expect to find within the quick start? there, are there pre -made characters or is this a little bit of character generation to help build out our wandering blade as such?

Daniel (12:01.798)
Yeah, so there is a pretty comprehensive guideline on how to make your own character. There's a fillable character sheet that you can get. There are two character classes in the Quickstart. The Yo -sha, which is kind of like equivalent to the European knight errant, kind of like the wandering vigilante. And then there's the Outlaw. Now, I designed both classes with the intent for them to be extremely variable in how you build them.

No two Yoshiha will be the same. The Yoshiha has, you get to pick a martial arts school that kind of creates a distinct fighting style for yourself. You get to pick like a signature weapon, sort of an undercover alter ego, a persona. The outlaw could be anything from like an assassin to like a black market merchant, to even like a spy. And so I wanted to, with all of the classes in Wandering Blades, kind of try to encapsulate as many of the genres

tropes as possible without making the game sort of unwieldy. So in the Quickstart, there's the two classes. Actually, before this recording, I was working on the third class, the final class, the Scholar, which is kind of a support class that I've been designing. But I could not refine it to the point that I wanted to for the Quickstart. So I kind of put that aside and saved it for the final game. So you'll have enough information to make your characters.

all the equipment you could possibly need, and all the basic game mechanics and combat mechanics. The save for one thing that I've actually just added recently to the final manuscript of the game, the combat mechanics in the Quickstart are pretty much what they're going to be in the final book. So rules for martial arts stances, how combat is even run, it's very player first, so the players always go first.

rules for things like parrying, dual wielding, everything like that. It's designed to essentially shot for shot, kind of replicate a lot of these martial arts movies in a way that is very, very simple and easy to sort of facilitate for a GM. And then there's, you know, some guidelines on social play, exploration and, you know, best practices on even running the game alongside an adventure.

Adam Powell (14:17.592)
Absolutely.

Adam Powell (14:25.944)
Amazing. Well, yeah, like all good quick starts, we have to have to understand how we learn through play in that respect. So fantastic that is there. You mentioned a little earlier, based on utilizing some OSR influences. So how is a character sort of fleshed out with respect to attributes?

Daniel (14:51.504)
Yeah, so in this game, we have essentially like four attributes. There are derived in combat attributes, but the four core attributes are strength, agility, focus, and intellect. Strength and agility, pretty straightforward. Focus kind of is a catchall for some of these mental fortitude, their discipline, determination, perceptiveness, wisdom, things like that. And then intellect is their knowledge of the world and their ability to solve problems.

And then from those four attributes, have things like hit points, chi points, dodge, and then we have some other non numerical things like, you know, their drive and keeps a connections, stuff like

Adam Powell (15:39.022)
You mentioned driving keepsake and that that rang a bell. Something that slightly and this and I mean this in a very positive way that reminds me of the the alien RPG with the signature item, a keepsake, something that is very special, very narrative, but special and personal to the character. How important was it to help the player and therefore the player character through having

Daniel (15:52.304)
Yes, something narrative.

Adam Powell (16:07.938)
mechanics like drive and

Daniel (16:10.288)
Yeah, I wanted to make sure that like, not like, I wanted to have killer combat in this game. Like that was a big goal of mine. But you can't just go fight to fight, you kind of need things to sort of drive the action. And a big part of sort of my approach to Wandering Blades was that I wanted a world that was dangerous. I wanted players to think about why they would even go into a fight. I wanted

danger to be around every corner, just like the real world. It's like you're not going to walk up to somebody and all of a sudden like challenge them to a fight because you never know who could fight right in the real world. looks can really be deceiving and especially you know, in the martial arts world. And so we things like you know, drive and connection and to another extent like reputation as well. I wanted players to be very careful about when they actually entered combat and why they entered

So while combat is very lethal and well thought out mechanically, I wanted to make sure that every single fight was compelling and cinematic. And the drive and connections play an important role in that. Not only in the setup, but also the melodrama that comes from

Adam Powell (17:27.182)
No, it's, I was going to ask about reputation next and how important it is to say Chinese culture and reputation is important across a variety of cultures, but particularly in Chinese culture and how that sort of plays into the themes of the game.

Daniel (17:47.002)
Yeah, reputation, like you said, super important to Chinese culture. Chinese culture has a really unique sort of feature in face. You've probably heard the term like, I want to save face. That's a big part of Chinese culture. It's kind of rooted in sort of systems of like reciprocity and respect.

And so I wanted to make sure that there were procedures within the game that enabled players to actually think about their place within the world, think about how they their interactions have meaning. so reputation was a way to kind of help the GM kind of determine how people reacted to the players based on their action in a really simple way. have there are three sort

major worlds in Wandering Blades. There's the martial world, the world of like the martial artists, the outlaws, stuff like that. There's the common world, sort of like the peasants, the artisans, the people that you might interact with on your adventures, the people who you may even help on your adventures. And then there's the court world, like the government, the imperial court, the nobles. And your actions have an effect on how people perceive you.

a single number doesn't necessarily capture the nuances of the different types of interactions you might have, especially within Wu Xia media. So in the game, reputation is based off of three numbers that are fluid based on your actions. And the concept of face sort of the systems of relationships, entanglement, and so like reciprocity are very much the reason why they're in the

and drive and connection are all also systems that reinforce

Adam Powell (19:47.572)
I was just as you explained it there looking at the the character sheet there's a form fillable character sheet available as well as one involving including the quick start fantastic to have these things and the way the character sheet is laid out and the way you're explaining reputation and and a few of the other attributes should we say is so beautifully laid out on on the character

Daniel (20:11.034)
Thank you. Really wanted the graphic designer, Johnny, did such a good job on it. One of the things that we really wanted to do is make sure that the character seat was symmetrical because symmetry is really important in Chinese culture. And so like he was able to really capture that with the sheet that we

Adam Powell (20:30.19)
And it is beautiful. And I highly recommend anyone that's interested in picking this game.

Daniel (20:35.066)
And it's only one page. It's just one page. It's not even double -sided, just one page.

Adam Powell (20:39.682)
And they are my favorite types of character sheets. Hands down. Yes. Yes, indeed. So, no, fantastic that it's all there on the on the character sheet. One page as I was going to praise you and thank you so much for because, as you say, things on the other side of the page will always be forgotten by me personally. Apologies for my players and GMs.

Daniel (20:41.71)
Yeah, because you forget about the stuff that's on the back.

Daniel (21:08.348)
I guess I should apologize too, I forget a ton of stuff on the back sides of my character sheets all the

Adam Powell (21:15.664)
However, so well -designed character sheet needs characters. And you must have play -tested and sort of combined certain elements of the attributes and things. Have you created a favorite build of the system? Sorry to throw that one at you, but.

Daniel (21:29.996)
my god.

No, that's okay. It's really funny. I've built up so many characters in my head. For me, it's like a media touch point. I really wanted to be able to make the main character of Blades of the Guardians, Daoma, in Wandering Blades. So he's a Yo -Sha, and that's kind of the way I build him. that's my favorite class, because that's the first one that I designed.

And that's the one that kind of kickstarted everything for me. I do a lot of in terms of like for play testing. do this exercise where I watch like martial arts media and anime as well and video game gameplay. And I try to break it down frame by frame to see if it will sort of match what I'm trying to achieve. And one of the things I've been doing is I've been playing through this game. It's game inspired by

sort of Japanese history, Ghosts of Tsushima. And the combat in Ghosts Tsushima can map one to one with the gameplay experience of Wandering Blades. And so I've been like, I've published, think, two of them on my itch page of like, hey, this is the breakdown second by second on how it would work in the system. And I plan on doing more of those, but I do, I consume a lot of media and try to say, well, how would this work with Wandering Blades? Quite literally by writing it down.

Adam Powell (22:58.32)
Yeah, I've got, well, long on my Xbox, spoiler I have an Xbox, fantastic. I'd love to sort of see how that ports across and experience it, not sort of directly, but my own interpretation of the character through the system and experience the world that you have created through the character inspirations that I have drawn from. that, does that make any sense? It made sense to me.

Daniel (23:03.772)
Good game.

Daniel (23:25.668)
Yeah, no, totally. If you if you like WoLong, you should look up the gameplay for Phantom Blade Zero. Phantom Blade Zero, I think it comes out next year. There is a fairly long gameplay video that you can find on YouTube, but it's another Souls like game, but really, really heavily leads in on that sort of like dark wusha with a little bit of a supernatural element to it. It's even more closer to wandering blades than the WoLong, which has a lot of

military type characters and stuff in it. But yeah, the two of those go really, really well on Ring Blades.

Adam Powell (24:02.584)
I will be sure to check that out. So we've mentioned some character creation, some options, whether you're the wandering blade, the night errant moving through or whether you maybe have less scruples through the outlaw route. We'll lead into that. You have provided us with a

Starter adventure. That was the words I was looking for. So what without sort of giving away any sort of plot secrets, what kind of sort of sequence of events that instigates that and what can we expect to sort of experience as we play through

Daniel (24:33.542)
Mm -hmm.

Daniel (24:48.656)
I really want Wandering Blades as a whole, as a product to be a toolkit for people. don't want to, I want to provide systems for people to tell their own stories. I don't want to tell them how to do it, which is a big kind of part of the design philosophy that I've kind of taken into it. It's very much like, here's a toolbox with all the things you need to tell violent martial art stories. Take what you want, use what you want to use, add what you want to add and have fun. It's kind of the approach that I've taken with this.

And with the introduction adventure, a heavenly treasure, I wanted to provide a pseudo, again, a toolkit for folks to tell a story with an ending that is entirely up to them. So the concept of the adventure is that a meteorite falls into the land of these like blacksmiths who have just moved to this small town. And this town is controlled by a corrupt magistrate who

instead of using sort of military or official means, polices the town using a gang led by his son. And the magistrate really wants the sword that the blacksmiths, this couple try forging out of the meteorite. And the core conflict within it is this contention over ownership of the sword. And so the players are essentially tasked with mediating this. It could be purely social.

it could be, you know, they could side with the magistrate, they can in playtesting, they can basically show up not like the magistrates goons, kill them in the streets and assault the magistrates compound. And things get really bloody. Or, you know, you could turn the gang on the magistrate. Yeah, it's a kind of an open ended sandbox adventure within a small village. And so in it laid out some

Adam Powell (26:29.446)
Hmm.

Daniel (26:44.54)
key NPCs that you might meet, some key locations like an inn, the forge, a big market and an ancient forest, and then provide a lot of details and a map of the magistrate's compound. With the idea being that the compound, which is a typical sort of historical Chinese compound layout, can be then ported into basically any sort of adventure you want that involves a fortified

Adam Powell (27:12.857)
Nice, it's brilliant. the forging of swords, there's a, I've read a little bit of Chinese history mythology. There's an old story of, tragic story in many respects about swords being forged and things like that. Have you drawn much inspiration from sort of the history and mythology?

Daniel (27:37.198)
yeah. The initially when I was writing Wandering Blades, I was making it actually like a campaign setting with like a lot of magic. It was actually what I was calling it the land of blades and it was being I was actually using it for my home D &D fifth edition game actually that ran for a couple of years. And it was inspired by a really specific and I mean, very specific period in Chinese history called the spring and autumn and warring states period.

And this essentially centered on one really small state called Yue that basically is right on top of the modern provinces of like Zhejiang and like Shanghai. It's actually where I did a lot of my archaeological field work when I was in grad school. And what's interesting about the state of Yue specifically is that they are one of the only

It's one of the only periods geographically and temporally in Chinese history where sword smithing was very well documented and where people actually named swords very, very much like, know, how people play fantasy TTRPGs naming swords like Excalibur and all of that stuff is very common. It's not actually super common in China, but in the state of UA, it was fairly common.

to the point where they have legendary swords and stuff that come from this particular time period.

Adam Powell (29:09.476)
Wow. That's amazing, but it's true. So amazing. Yeah.

Daniel (29:13.372)
But yeah, that was the inspiration for like a lot of, you know, the initial setting writing that I've done. I don't know how much of that will actually make it into Wandering Blades. Because again, I wanted it to be a toolkit, not so much. You must play it within this setting. But I've published some like offhand stuff on it on my itch as well, like Paradise Mountain, setting the one like Land of Blades, but I need to pare a lot of it down to make it non magical.

But yeah, there's some parts of my setting that make its way into it. But in general, it's kind of this anachronistic Chinese setting that kind of finds its way into the game through like the adversaries and some of the adventures and

Adam Powell (29:58.488)
sounds amazing and one I will be definitely looking out for and if someone has so far listened and even waited till now to be hooked by the idea, where do we actually stand fast to the quick start which is available now but when are we able to support a full project? When are we able to get going to be able to get our hands on physical PDF copies of the full

Daniel (30:25.756)
Full book, so we are aiming to crowdfund the entire game for October 2024. So we're to run a Kickstarter the entire month of October is the current plan right now, barring any delays. You know, it's going to happen in October. Ideally, you know, ending the weekend of Big

Adam Powell (30:48.352)
Well speaking of the bag on I was gonna say you must be keeping yourself very busy but there's cons and and so much more going on including your ongoing work hobby love with agents a agent to represent and so much more so What's it been like being kept busy by all these different creative streams and outputs

Daniel (31:02.064)
I don't know what it is anymore. Yeah.

Daniel (31:15.824)
you know what, feel like wandering blades is very much an opportunity for me to actually act on a lot of the advice that, that I give on Asians represent. And we talk about, you know, going out there and designing your own stuff and making the products that you want to, you know, see in the market. And I feel like with wandering blades, that's me doing it. Right. It was the same with, you know, Ross rifles, you know, candlekeep to a certain extent, but with wandering blades, it's like, this is the hyper violent.

game that I've always wanted. And I have big plans for Wandering Blades that I guess we'll see how the Kickstarter goes. But alongside the core book, I want to publish a zine that I'm tentatively calling, and this is the first place where I've said it, I want to call it Wandering Blades Hyperviolent Tales, with the intent of having adventures inspired by different Asian cultures.

so the concept is that, there is going to be an adventure with, a unique class that you can use for that adventure. and each adventure is going to be written by an Asian designer from a different Asian country. and so for instance, I really want one inspired by the movie Bahubali. I don't know if you've seen that movie. it's incredible.

Adam Powell (32:37.756)
haven't but I'm writing that

Daniel (32:41.926)
So Baobali is a Telugu, sort of this like epic action movie. And it is incredible. There's like, there's two of them. But the action in it is, like really over the top. It's incredible. And I want to use the Wandering Blades system to enable folks to tell other Asian stories where violence is kind of central to the story. And so that's one of like my goals is having

sort of this proof of concept zine, hyperviolent tales, be used to tell other Asian stories, kind of introduce like these sort of one -off unique classes to each story. And for this to potentially turn into, you know, another project, like a different Wandering Blades, maybe one set in, you know, Japan, maybe one set in the Philippines, but with a team, you know, from those regions.

Adam Powell (33:40.393)
Well, I'm looking forward to it. Korean would definitely be.

Daniel (33:45.446)
Korea is another one that I'd really like to do. But it's a matter of, I have to assemble a team and get this thing funded. what we're going to do is we're going to add new authors to the zines as stretch goals.

Adam Powell (33:53.712)
Who, what, where, when and why.

Adam Powell (34:02.748)
Amazing. Well, I will definitely back in that because that sounds right on my alley. Something I would really, really enjoy on top of the core game itself. I hate it to add. So that is looking to be kickstart or sorry, crowdfunded for October this year, 2024. you alongside your Asian Asian represents.

Daniel (34:14.587)
Hahaha

Adam Powell (34:29.67)
Colleagues have also looked at something else hyper violent recently that caught my eye and was good in educational entertainment. And that was your review of the Goblin Slayer TTRP or TRPG, which is I bought like three copies because it was like very cheap in Waterstones, which I guess like Barnes and Noble or whatever. I it's yeah.

Daniel (34:42.339)
yeah, the God Slayer TTRPG is so interesting. you bought one. That's awesome.

Daniel (34:54.104)
Okay. That's cool that they have it in like a brick and mortar bookstore. I've never seen it in a bookstore here in Toronto.

Adam Powell (35:01.551)
You're missing out. This thing's huge. Anyway, so.

Daniel (35:03.442)
I know I have the physical one and I had to order it off of Amazon. Yeah.

Adam Powell (35:06.782)
really? Fair enough. But you're going through the game mechanics on that and exploring how other people approach violence and source material in that respect was very educational. Have you got much more coming on the Aged and Represents podcast for us to enjoy?

Daniel (35:28.582)
Yeah, we've got a whole bunch of episodes. We're gonna do an episode on approaches to actually combat in tabletop RPGs. I actually have the seasons plan out. We're gonna do approaches to tabletop RPG combat. We're doing an episode interviewing some creators from the Tiansha character guide that's coming out at the end of August. I'm actually working on an episode right now.

kind of spotlighting another Asian indie RPG. So we did Goblin Slayer and I thought, well, what, I gotta go to the complete opposite. And so I'm reading a game called Floria, The Verdant Way, and it has one of the most unique magic systems I have ever seen on a tabletop RPG. And it's about, you have this like, part of your character sheet is like an 11 by 11 grid, and you start with these lines on it based on how you build your character.

and you actually draw lines and color in shapes to cast spells.

Yes, like a spell might have the requirement of a triangle. So you have to find a triangle somewhere on your grid to color it. It's really cool.

Adam Powell (36:30.577)
much.

Adam Powell (36:36.656)
That sounds really cool and I am looking forward to seeing those episodes when they come out.

Daniel (36:41.146)
Yeah, forgot that. And then we've got some other ones. One of my colleagues who's in the UK, Jeremy, who did the Goblin Slayer episode. He's got a game map of Monday with the company is a part of three sales studios. It's all about like mapping and ecology, which is really cool. We're gonna do an interview on that one. And we've got some stuff on like anime and like gotcha mechanics and voice acting and stuff like that. But our season will end on actually

at Big Bad Con will be the end of our season. And that will be our planned 99th numbered episode. We've done more than 100 at this point, but I own this mistake in that we like, I think we numbered them poorly initially. We used to do like one episode and then a bonus episode, but then the bonus episode really should have just been episode two. So we have a whole year's worth of episodes where the bonus episodes aren't counted towards the numbering.

Adam Powell (37:15.963)
Wow.

Daniel (37:39.292)
Which is totally on me.

Adam Powell (37:41.5)
It's all good. It's all good content. And that's the important thing. The fact that you're able to tie in the 99 to BitBagCon, fantastic convention.

Daniel (37:45.455)
I appreciate

Daniel (37:52.316)
It worked out. It worked out. I will say it happened to work out that way. Just like the the Jiangxi episode that we did happened to be episode 88, which is a significant number in Chinese culture, too. I think people think that I planned it out of some mastermind, but it just it's just a coincidence.

Adam Powell (38:12.622)
It's well, I always appreciate it. And happy coincidences is the stars have aligned and happy coincidences I'm all here for. You mentioned the Shenzhou character guide, the setting within Pathfinder. What's it been like to see that? Well, not only win a golden Emmy, as you mentioned, a gold Emmy, gold Emmy, and a little words, teeth, put them back in.

Daniel (38:15.42)
It's a happy coincidence for

Daniel (38:33.606)
Yeah.

Daniel (38:38.933)
That's a tough one though, that's a tough one, I get it.

Adam Powell (38:42.818)
So what's it been like to see the support and the acclaim that that project within the Pathfinder construct is received?

Daniel (38:52.752)
Yeah, I'm honestly just honored to be part of it, right? I'm just one person on this team of many. I think what's, there were no doubts about the quality of the product, but I think what's important about TianSha is that both the character guide and the world guide, which just won that gold any for best setting, is that the, really shows the market and it shows consumers and it shows publishers that projects

by Asian creators or can receive a claim. In the past, especially on Asians represent, we've talked about how there are products that rely on or capitalize on interest in Asia, but don't involve Asian creators. And we always talk about how like, this is how we would do it. And Paizo really gave the team an opportunity to actually act on

And what's really, you know, warms my heart is that, you know, Asians represent like our discord server and, know, just all of the interviews that we've done were a vector for getting people into that project, getting people into the industry, because there are a lot of people who worked on Tian Sha, who had not worked in the industry before, but they were found, you know, through the Asians represent sort of like community and network.

And so when I first saw the list of all the people who worked on it, I was like, my God, half of these people have been on Asians rep or part of the Asians represent team. And that was really, really wonderful to me. think when it was first announced, one person even ended up joking, did Piso just go on Asians represented to find people to work on it, which I absolutely love. And, you know, while all of those people, know, all those creators stood out on their, on their own merit. I'm really happy to have at least had

Adam Powell (40:37.314)
Ha ha ha ha.

Daniel (40:48.636)
part and, you know, creating visibility for a lot of people. So I think Tian Xia is really important for what it represents in that it gave it showed the industry that like our stories told by like Asian stories told by Asian people matter, and that there was a hunger for this and desire for it. And I guess second is that there's there's the power of community with like our podcast and

of that community that we've grown around it of not just Asian people, of people who just want to learn from others.

Adam Powell (41:22.342)
Absolutely. And so we can help others learn more about you and Asia Represents and communities and reach out to potentially other creators or supporters. Would you like to remind us where we can find you and everything you're associated with, please tell

Daniel (41:37.752)
Yeah, yeah, you can find me on social media on pretty much every social media platform at Daniel H Kwan. That's Daniel HK WAN. You can download Wandering Blades at danielhkwan .itch .io slash wandering blades. You can of course, you know, like check out my portfolio and all the stuff that I've worked on or get in touch with me via my website danielhkwan .com. And if you're interested in you

what's happening in Wandering Blades leading up to that Kickstarter and what I've got going on. You want to help me, you know, fund the, you know, the initial art and all of that stuff. You can follow the project on Patreon, just patreon .com slash Daniel H. Kwan. I've had a whole bunch of people who have just kind of been with me since the beginning of the pandemic, watching me sort of like slowly realize that I want to do Wandering Blades and who have been with me since like the very beginning.

And so I post a lot of updates there about what I'm working on with wandering blades. I asked for feedback and I share I need to this is actually a reminder that I need to put one out soon. I do videos where I kind of break down like my my design notebook I kind of for wandering blades went analog with how I've been designing it. And I've done everything pen and paper before transferring it to digital. And so I kind of I will be posting more videos

my Patreon, kind of breaking down what I've been doing with the design process and just what's in my notebook. Like old, old character sheets that I've taped to the inside with little notes on them. The map for the compound in the adventure. In the quick start, I drew out in at a convention, it's got like highlighter all over it. I think how I did the

Adam Powell (43:22.882)
wow.

Daniel (43:31.674)
The combat mechanic was just like this like messy series of notes. But I designed everything in this notebook and I kind of sit down, I'll play video games, watch movies, watch TV shows and read comics and I'll just like write down thoughts in this notebook. then hopefully I'll fill this out soon.

Adam Powell (43:49.596)
lies.

Adam Powell (43:54.222)
sure you will. I have every confidence in you. I will make sure there are links down the description below, so please go down, follow those links, support Daniel and all the fantastic things that we've discussed. If like me, you're excited for Wandering Blades, there will be a link to the crowdfunding, probably Kickstarter, down in the description below. So please go down, follow that link. If you're listening to this prior to, get the notification.

If you're listening to this during, just follow that link and back it. If you're listening to this afterwards, I imagine there'll be some sort of late pledge style thing going

Daniel (44:30.64)
Yeah, we're gonna have like a link that folks can sign up to be notified when the campaign goes live. That really helps us because it shows how much interest there is in Wandering Blades. And that link is gonna be ready soon. I'll make sure I get that to you. I'll put it all over my socials.

Adam Powell (44:44.806)
Perfect. So we will have that link and be able to follow it. So fantastic. We have covered quite a lot, especially about Wandering Blades, which I'm, as hopefully comes across, very excited for. Is there anything that we haven't discussed with respect to anything in the future or the project that you want to bring up at this point of the interview, Daniel?

Daniel (45:14.84)
No, I'm just super grateful for the opportunity to use your platform to talk about my work. you know, as always, you're you're a fantastic interviewer, like very prepared. If you have any feedback like you yourself, Adam, or if any one of your listeners likes Wandering Blades, read it or has any feedback on it, please feel free to get in touch with me. I'm super active on social media. If you have thoughts, if you have questions, if anything is unclear.

Please let me know. I'm very, very responsive to feedback, which is something that I think is really important to the game design process. And so there is a forum on the itch .io page where folks can request things or ask questions. And so I respond to all of those. Same thing with social media, messages, or even on Discord if we share servers and stuff like that. So yeah, I love feedback. And so if folks have any, please let me know. Even if there's something you dislike, I want to hear

Adam Powell (46:12.988)
Well, it's all part of the process, I guess. So with that positive feedback loop I think we've created there, it's been such a pleasure. And I can't wait to back this project myself when it goes live October 20, October 24. I had to stop myself because I nearly said the wrong month. I'd love to get, woo. Happy with that. I'd love to get you back on.

Daniel (46:33.915)
Yeah, sometime October 2024, probably October 1st.

Adam Powell (46:41.804)
show in the future. As always, it's always such a pleasure to chat with you and learn more about your projects and what's going on in the background and how your creative works are developing, if of course you'd be happy and willing to come back and join

Daniel (46:53.882)
You know what's really funny, you can't see it, but I actually wrote your name down in my notebook of lists of podcasts to reach out to for when Wandering Blades goes live. So I'll be in touch.

Adam Powell (46:59.942)
Ooh.

Adam Powell (47:07.74)
Perfect. Well, on that very cheerful note, thank you very much Daniel. It's been an absolute pleasure. can't wait to talk to you again in the

Daniel (47:17.126)
No, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Adam Powell (47:19.366)
Thank you.