Ed Greenwood - From TSR to Modern Day - Choosing Words, Building Worlds

Step behind the screen with Ed for a candid tour of how believable worlds get made. I sat down with Ed Greenwood—prolific author, longtime library worker, and creator of the Forgotten Realms—for foray into worlds and words, from TSR to modern day. Here I thought I knew what a Librarian was. That's the first word. I stand corrected - Ed practically grew up in libraries, but he is not a librarian. Along the way, we get TSR art‑department antics, last‑minute page‑to‑press rescues, and stories from his youth.

Ed gives us a tour of some his work, past and present. He shares his time-defying schedule and project list, including the D&D 50th anniversary convention circuit. He takes us back in time with personal stories from his youth, and firsthand stories from his trips to TSR. These are wrapped in the history of the evolution of game production. From art, to layout, to sending to print – which meant something different back then! 

Words change, and worlds evolve. We explore world building and how simple logistics—food, waste, water, and roads—quietly shape settlements and the stories of their creation. Ed also gives examples of words that might have fit a setting, but with modern context , the original meaning has been lost.

If you’re a Forgotten Realms fan, are interested in RPG design, fantasy writing, D&D lore, or just want to make your homebrew world feel like a place with morning markets and midnight sewers, this conversation will give you tools grist for the mill.

Subscribe for more RPG community talks, share this episode with your worldbuilding crew, and leave a review. Tell me what you do to make your setting come alive!

Chapters

• 0:00 "Not a titled belted librarian, but I often play one in the workplace"
• 7:30 Lawnmowers and other stories
• 11:50 Isekai Realms, Conventions, Legacy Of Worlds, And Elminster
• 18:30 Juggling Projects And Last‑Minute Rescues
• 25:30 Dragon Magazine Deadlines And TSR Production
• 36:10 Art Rooms, Reference Tricks, And Spellfire
• 44:20 Old-School Art Vs Modern Polish
• 51:30 Strict Writing Limits Force Clarity; And Keep Peace At The Table
• 1:00:30 Trade Routes Shape Cities And Stories
• 1:11:20 Building Worlds From The Bottom Up

Transcript

[00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:17]
 (Music)
[00:00:01:17 - 00:00:39:17]
Speaker 1 (Sara)
 From the Realms and beyond, I think all librarians have a bit of magic. I'm Sara, your host, and this is a Role to Play, an RPG community podcast. This is the first of three parts of an interview with Ed Greenwood. Ed is our guide as we unpack some cultural and world building history, both from this world and in D&D. Part one highlights include art, writing and layout, TSR versus modern day. The 50th anniversary of D&D, world building tips such as trade routes, culture and settlements, Cinnabar and other words, what's in a name and more.

[00:00:39:17 - 00:00:41:23]
 (Music)

[00:00:41:23 - 00:00:45:14]
Speaker 1
 Ed Greenwood is a prolific author,

[00:00:46:15 - 00:00:55:16]
Speaker 1
 a librarian, long term librarian and- Library worker. Library worker, okay, I stand corrected. I called you a librarian previously.

[00:00:55:16 - 00:01:02:09]
Speaker 2 (Ed Greenwood)
 Yeah, the word, but librarians get, they're touchy about that. I'm a clerk.

[00:01:04:08 - 00:01:12:08]
Speaker 2
 I've worked in libraries since April 1974. And I have university degrees, but I do not have a library sciences degree.

[00:01:13:17 - 00:01:26:06]
Speaker 2
 I have a tech certification and stuff, but I'm so old that I'm older than the current tech certification. They have a thing called Excel, which has nothing to do with the Microsoft program.

[00:01:27:10 - 00:01:28:19]
Speaker 2
 But I'm older than it.

[00:01:30:07 - 00:01:30:08]
 (Laugh)

[00:01:30:08 - 00:01:45:06]
Speaker 1
 Wow, okay, so unravelling that, what I'm hearing is that you've been a librarian before there was a designation for a librarian. And you didn't do the training to be a librarian, so you're a clerk.

[00:01:45:06 - 00:02:01:19]
Speaker 2
 Yes. Wow, wow. I think they now call me an information assistant, whatever they use for the designation. But yes, and I have in fact been a chief librarian with a title and everything. And I have run libraries, but not as a librarian.

[00:02:03:06 - 00:02:15:18]
Speaker 2
 Well, back in North York, now Toronto, Toronto, there was a shotgun in amalgamation So yeah, I'm not a librarian. I'm not a titled belted librarian, but I often play one in the workplace.

[00:02:16:18 - 00:02:16:18]
 (Laugh)

[00:02:16:18 - 00:02:19:00]
Speaker 2
 David, how's that? I think that's accurately.

[00:02:19:00 - 00:02:24:16]
Speaker 1
 Wow, I find that kind of baffling.

[00:02:27:02 - 00:02:45:14]
Speaker 1
 I've heard about this, that before there were designations and trainings and certifications and all that, that you could just take care of people and call yourself a nurse and therefore you were a nurse. And you're that kind of a librarian and then the credentials crept up around you and ignored you, they didn't even grandfather you in, that's-

[00:02:45:14 - 00:03:06:12]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, I mean, I get mandatory like health and safety training. You have to be recertified on the health and safety officer. So I think it's every three years they say, you have to recertify. So you sit in front of a computer and talk to people halfway around the province. And then they say, here's your certificate and away you go again. But aside from that, yeah.

[00:03:08:20 - 00:03:11:14]
Speaker 1
 Wow, okay, well, that's interesting.

[00:03:13:09 - 00:03:14:11]
Speaker 1
 It's like being a prof.

[00:03:14:11 - 00:03:37:12]
Speaker 2
 You know, there are profs at universities that it means you're a tiny member of the faculty and you get tenure or not and you made it this way. And then there are instructors and then there are lecturers and then there are people that just show up. And I'm sort of like the person that shows up. “Hi class, we have a real live writer here today.”

[00:03:38:23 - 00:03:39:00]
 (Laugh)

[00:03:39:00 - 00:03:40:09]
Speaker 2
 Sort of back up, so I'm on that.

[00:03:41:11 - 00:03:49:15]
Speaker 1
 Oh, that's wow. Okay, well, so a librarian clerk, library clerk. Library clerk. Library clerk, all right.

[00:03:49:15 - 00:03:59:18]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, I was a reference clerk for, I don't know, 12, 14 years. And then overnight they transmogrified me into an information assistant.

[00:04:01:06 - 00:04:05:04]
Speaker 2
 So I guess I get a new cape, a new spandex. I don't know.

[00:04:05:04 - 00:04:07:18]
Speaker 1
 When did that happen? I don't know.

[00:04:07:18 - 00:04:08:15]
 (Laugh)

[00:04:08:15 - 00:04:21:12]
Speaker 2
 I came in one day and it was on the electronic pay stubs that we don't get pay stubs anymore. We just automatically sent to us. Oh, I'm an information assistant.

[00:04:22:14 - 00:04:24:14]
Speaker 2
 Wow, don't feel any different.

[00:04:26:08 - 00:04:26:08]
 (Laugh)

[00:04:26:08 - 00:04:27:22]
Speaker 1
 Well, that's so interesting.

[00:04:28:22 - 00:04:35:10]
Speaker 1
 Yeah, the library has changed all around you. Last time you said you were older than dirt, now I'm starting to see why.

[00:04:36:15 - 00:04:42:22]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, when I was a child, the world was sepia and white and everybody jerked when they were direct.

[00:04:45:00 - 00:04:45:02]
 (Laugh)

[00:04:46:07 - 00:04:48:22]
Speaker 1
 The movies document this phenomenon. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:04:50:05 - 00:05:13:20]
Speaker 2
 When I started my lawnmower, well, it wasn't my lawnmower, it was my dad's lawnmower. You pulled a cord, which you wrapped around it yourself. Oh. It wasn't built into the lawnmower. Oh. You put the little knot through the thing you wound around and you pull and then you pull and then you pull. And after 10 minutes, he took a pity on me, came aside with one yank, started it.

[00:05:13:20 - 00:05:14:16]
Speaker 1
 Oh my gosh.

[00:05:14:16 - 00:05:15:23]
Speaker 2
 Because I wasn't strong enough.

[00:05:15:23 - 00:05:17:00]
Speaker 1
 How old were you then?

[00:05:18:18 - 00:05:21:13]
Speaker 2
 Six, seven, eight, whatever. Really? Wow.

[00:05:21:13 - 00:05:22:08]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:05:23:17 - 00:05:27:06]
Speaker 2
 Well, you did tour. You did tour.

[00:05:27:06 - 00:05:28:22]
Speaker 1
 Uh-huh. With serious machinery.

[00:05:28:22 - 00:05:40:12]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. That lawnmower was a, yeah, that was, it was a lawnmower. It was, they'd never be able to sell it today because the whole front was an open lawn. You could reach into the blades.

[00:05:40:12 - 00:05:42:11]
Speaker 1
 Oh my God. Yeah.

[00:05:44:02 - 00:05:45:02]
Speaker 1
 Well, I'm glad you survived.

[00:05:46:08 - 00:05:59:14]
Speaker 2
 I didn't have to sharpen it. I just said, "Dad, it's not cutting very well." And he would pull the little wire off the spark plug, flip it over and go, "Oh yeah." And he'd start going at the blade with a file. Oh, wow.

[00:06:00:17 - 00:06:06:07]
Speaker 2
 Wow. And he'd be going, "Dad, should you be doing that?" He goes, "Still have all my fingers." And he'd go on doing it.

[00:06:06:07 - 00:06:10:22]
Speaker 1
 Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Did he, did he, did he always have all his fingers? Okay.

[00:06:10:22 - 00:06:14:00]
Speaker 2
 That's good. Mm-hmm. There were some fathers who didn't.

[00:06:14:00 - 00:06:14:21]
Speaker 1
 Oh my goodness.

[00:06:14:21 - 00:06:22:20]
Speaker 2
 Yes. I, I, one of my best friends in school, his dad, who was a vice president of CIBC in open commerce court downtown.

[00:06:22:20 - 00:06:23:13]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:06:23:13 - 00:06:27:05]
Speaker 2
 Was missing all the figures on his hand. Oh my God. Yeah.

[00:06:27:05 - 00:06:28:00]
Speaker 7
 Lawnmower?

[00:06:28:00 - 00:06:45:23]
Speaker 2
 No, I, I, I, power tools, shop tools, so forth. But I never found out the details because it wasn't considered polite to ask. Probably not. We also had a shop teacher who had a finger that was permanent like that. And he'd say, "You, what are you going to do?" And after class we'll go,

[00:06:47:03 - 00:06:51:20]
Speaker 2
 "Because we had no idea. Because this thing whispered, "You! What are you doing?"

[00:06:53:08 - 00:07:27:23]
Speaker 1
 Wow. That's, that's, that's crazy. Wow. Okay. So this is a long winded roundabout introduction, but you're also like said, prolific author and the creator of the Forgotten Realms. I just wanted to throw that in there because it's like just a little thing that you've done. Mm-hmm. And last time that we got together, well got together here anyway, you were, you had a whole bunch of projects on the go. You were super busy. And I thought maybe, maybe we could just like recap, tell me like what's top of mind in terms of projects for you right now.

[00:07:27:23 - 00:07:30:13]
Speaker 2
 Ooh, that's the hard bit. Okay.

[00:07:31:22 - 00:07:36:21]
Speaker 2
 Let me be formal about this. This year is the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons.

[00:07:38:04 - 00:08:31:07]
Speaker 2
 So every year the Adventurers League, which is the organized play component of the Wizards of the Coast, they used to be called the Role Playing Gamers Association or our PGA. I'm a charter lifetime member of the RPGA. No idea what I am in the Adventurers League. Anyway, I have a spine story, a story that continues all through the year. And this year, the spine story is what we've been recording just out of the year with Tommy Gofton, Legacy of Worlds, with Luke Gygax playing Melph, from Greyhawk, Keith Baker playing Merrix d’Cannith from Eberron, Elisa Teague playing in this case Elise from Ravenloft.

[00:08:32:15 - 00:08:44:07]
Speaker 2
 We have a roving cast of guest stars, and I play Elminster from the <Forgotten> Realms. And we recorded only two and 26, something like that, episodes in eight days back in January.

[00:08:45:23 - 00:08:52:04]
Speaker 2
 Okay. Well, in every major convention in the circuit this year, so we've already done Gary Con.

[00:08:53:15 - 00:09:01:15]
Speaker 2
 The next one will be Origins in June, then Gen Con, then Dragon Con in Atlanta, and then Game World Con in Madison, Wisconsin.

[00:09:03:06 - 00:09:34:16]
Speaker 2
 Examples of Adventurers League players will play adventures related to Legacy of Worlds and what the results are at their tables will determine a plot of the celebrity side quest that we do streamed live. So another extra session at each of those conventions. So putting on Elminster costume and showing up at all these conventions, that sort of dictates my timetable. And that I'm doing my usual the <Forgotten> Realms videos.

[00:09:35:20 - 00:09:43:16]
Speaker 2
 So I batch record like 20 of those at a time. And I'm also working on some future projects.

[00:09:44:17 - 00:09:49:03]
Speaker 2
 But I'm also writing adventures for conventions.

[00:09:50:14 - 00:10:25:20]
Speaker 2
 On top of that, I'm doing my usual four new elements for the Patreon of Fate the Norns, in which we detail Ath-Cliath or Auk Clive. Viking Rule Dublin. We're continuing with book two of the detailed deep dive of the city. And I have to keep doing that each month. And on top of that, I'm writing a story for an anthology called Surviving Strangehollow. There is an artist, Emily Hare, in the UK, who paints beautifully quirky, cute, weird monsters.

[00:10:27:06 - 00:10:42:20]
Speaker 2
 And for years, she's been doing this. And she came up with the name Strangehollow, which is from where all of these monsters come from. So we've decided to make it a fifth edition D&D setting and have journals,

[00:10:43:22 - 00:10:44:14]
Speaker 2
 stories,

[00:10:46:12 - 00:10:54:00]
Speaker 2
 adventures, monster hunters, accounts, everything, and put it in an anthology. And that's sort of on the docket right at top of mine.

[00:10:55:23 - 00:11:16:03]
Speaker 2
 I'm also their group of gamers based in Brazil, but everywhere who are doing the ticking mile worms in the North Dragons, and they're doing adventures for each dragon. So I'm just writing four words for each of those. But there's like, I don't know, 38 or something. So there's a lot of four words to do.

[00:11:17:09 - 00:11:24:11]
Speaker 2
 And I'm just trying to remember how many things there are down the side. There's a couple short stories I owe people.

[00:11:25:21 - 00:11:28:12]
Speaker 2
 Including a Realms short story, which is seriously overdue.

[00:11:30:20 - 00:11:47:04]
Speaker 2
 I'm just trying to think my way down the desktop in my computer, where all these things are waiting in a neat row of stuff I've got to do real soon now. Oh, I've done an essay for Goodman Games for one of their pencologies, and I'm waiting to hear back about it. Oh, there are.

[00:11:48:11 - 00:11:51:12]
Speaker 2
 I have reached the stage of what's the next fire I have to put out.

[00:11:53:00 - 00:12:34:12]
Speaker 2
 For instance, tomorrow, I have to have a studio call. And I will be I don't want to spoil it, I will be playing two major characters in the realms in a podcast called is a chai realms. From the is a chai being you put yourself into a fantasy setting. So it's as if you stepped into Middle Earth or Narnia, just the way you are now, we're in a closure, we're in now and he wanted to say, how would you fit in? What would you do? So the conceit of this is that you get yourself put into all sorts of things. The last time I was on this particular recording, which is the dungeon, Scrawlr's one, they were doing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I was playing the male librarian.

[00:12:35:23 - 00:12:36:15]
Speaker 2
 Yeah,

[00:12:39:04 - 00:12:52:00]
Speaker 2
 that was like Rupert. Yes, I was Rupert. And I was Rupert just before a particularly bad thing happened to his lover of the time. Oh, no. Just before that episode. And of course,

[00:12:53:07 - 00:12:59:13]
Speaker 2
 the players who were fans of the show knew it. And we're trying to head off what happened on the show.

[00:13:00:15 - 00:13:08:17]
Speaker 2
 And can you or can you not? Because we're all just students. And we're not any of the important ones you saw on the show. We were the students from the background.

[00:13:09:17 - 00:13:15:23]
Speaker 2
 Just in the classes. Except for me, I was Rupert. That was fun. Yeah.

[00:13:17:04 - 00:13:20:07]
Speaker 2
 The short answer is I've lost track of all the things.

[00:13:21:12 - 00:13:35:08]
Speaker 2
 And just right now, on top of mind, I have to turn on my computer, sit down, look down the left hand side of the computer. Oh, yeah, I have to do that. Oh, yeah, I have to do that. Oh, oh, I suppose they want that by tonight. So I sit down. Okay.

[00:13:38:04 - 00:13:41:03]
Speaker 2
 So that's what I do. I'm the demon in gaming.

[00:13:42:12 - 00:13:45:00]
Speaker 1
 The demon in gaming. I called you the patron saint.

[00:13:45:00 - 00:13:46:02]
Speaker 7
 Well, okay.

[00:13:47:02 - 00:14:15:02]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, but yeah, the same sounds like I'm rescuing everything. And maybe maybe I am. But demon into sort of like, like a printer's devil. You know, the old saying, when you screwed up something in print, it was the printer's devil that done it. And while I'm sort of the demon in because I somebody says, can you give me like 5000 words to go with this picture of life by four o'clock this afternoon? And I just go in and write something for them. They go, thank you.

[00:14:16:03 - 00:14:42:07]
Speaker 2
 And that's the other thing. The one I almost forgot to tell you about. There is a role playing game from Beachhead Beach House games, which is to beach on cult star here. Oh, yeah, and it's an introductory role playing game for people who've never played role coming games before. So D&D has always had a steep learning curve. And it doesn't matter if you play alternatives. Most of them have steep learning curves, too.

[00:14:43:15 - 00:15:21:10]
Speaker 2
 It's gotten better with this vision. Because it's probably the first edition that was designed to be learned easily. Whereas all the previous ones, the best way to do it was, I'll never mind just come and sit at the table, watch what we do. You'll pick it up. Because it was so complicated. There were so many things to remember. Well, this is a starter, literally called start here, or PG. And a friend of mine, long term friend of mine, Jennell Jaquays was supposed to write part of the game and died at the wrong moment. So I stepped in to write her bit, which was Wizards and Wranglers.

[00:15:22:11 - 00:15:42:10]
Speaker 2
 And now I'm stepping into Pinship for two other pieces of the game. So I stayed up for the four in the morning last night writing part of one of them. So I could give poor Tim, who's racing to get this ready for GenCon, something to edit rather than blank pages.

[00:15:43:16 - 00:15:53:20]
Speaker 2
 So there's an awful lot of the last minute rescue thing, which I'm used to because years and years ago, when I became a contributing editor at Dragon, what that meant was,

[00:15:55:10 - 00:16:12:05]
Speaker 2
 I'd be at the library, the book banks library, you know, in North York. And a FedEx guy would wander in with this thin envelope, one of those little letter envelopes and just hand it, sign here, and I'd go and I'd open it. And it would be a photocopy of a piece of art.

[00:16:13:11 - 00:16:18:04]
Speaker 2
 Ed, can you write something for this and send it in this return envelope, which is inside this one tomorrow?

[00:16:19:17 - 00:16:33:14]
Speaker 2
 Because we need something to go with this piece of art. So I'm used to that. It's not the best place to design deathless games, which are going to be classics in the field and collected years later. But it's the way that all too often it happens.

[00:16:33:14 - 00:16:35:13]
Speaker 1
 Do you have an example of one of those that you wrote?

[00:16:38:02 - 00:16:56:01]
Speaker 2
 There is a Realms product called Cult of the Dragon, which is a second edition book, which is – just peering here. I don't have it. No, no, no. I wondered if you had any of the similar. No, this the slender perfect bound black cover, second edition.

[00:16:57:11 - 00:17:14:06]
Speaker 2
 Secets of the Harpers is one. Yeah. Okay. So that one was done in a weekend because Julia Martin, who was then head editorix, followed me at the library and said, "Hey Ed, I need like about 30 pages of spells.

[00:17:16:00 - 00:17:47:22]
Speaker 2
 Could you give me 30 pages of wizard's spells?" And I said, "Sure, don't even want some colors." So I know Eric Boyd is doing those because she called around. So we all wrote like Fury, sent them, and she put them together on the weekend so production could have them first thing Tuesday morning. She managed to stall them for one day by saying, "I'm sorry, I had a meeting." The meeting was sitting at home rather than her office so she couldn't get interrupted putting together everything we'd sent and seeing what she could.

[00:17:49:03 - 00:17:57:22]
Speaker 2
 Okay, I need illustration here because this section is a little short. We've got no time to fix anything. By the way, in those days we all did our own layout.

[00:17:58:23 - 00:18:09:05]
Speaker 2
 TSR would mail you a form and you would draw where the maps and the illustrations were and then you wrote a huge long detailed art order that the art department promptly ignored.

[00:18:09:05 - 00:18:21:00]
Speaker 1
 But the layout was done manually. So you had to have everything, I don't know how the type setting would be done. Like now there's programs that manage all that.

[00:18:22:20 - 00:18:44:00]
Speaker 2
 I can't answer that because I know what we had to do, which was good old fashioned waxer and cut and paste, but TSR had a mainframe and we were typing stuff for the mainframe with codes like bracket BB end bracket title,

[00:18:45:00 - 00:19:04:16]
Speaker 2
 bracket EB, begin bold, end bold. You were typing in codes for... Oh, cool. Your setting codes, your keylining codes, we were typing in and everything was... Our printout was found through the paper. Gosh knows what the mainframe was because all the people who worked at TSR at that point

[00:19:05:21 - 00:19:42:13]
Speaker 2
 were working on terminals that looked like the streamlined side mirror of a sports car. So they curved. And then they had a curved... The screen was flat, but they had a curved thing that fitted around your head. So you thrust your head forward into this thing. And then the base of this thing just was tacky plastic and it came down into a keyboard. So the keyboard wasn't adjustable. It was part of the monitor and these were all going into the terminal. So you've walked in and it looked like...

[00:19:44:19 - 00:19:59:08]
Speaker 2
 There's a famous back cover of a rock album by Alan Parsons Project called Ammonia Avenue. And on the back, there's all these trays full of cat litter and all of these scientists in lab coats are buried face down.

[00:20:00:12 - 00:20:04:10]
Speaker 2
 Well, that was the thing you got. You walked into TSR and everybody was...

[00:20:05:14 - 00:20:14:02]
Speaker 2
 Their faces were being swallowed by the computer as they typed away. Later we went to personal computers, but at the beginning, no.

[00:20:14:02 - 00:20:15:08]
Speaker 1
 That's crazy.

[00:20:15:08 - 00:20:34:06]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Everything about gaming is crazy. Everything. You do it in your basement. You build things. And then these days with 3D printing and so on, you can actually make prototypes that are amazing as opposed to, "Oh, we can never afford to make that."

[00:20:34:06 - 00:20:36:07]
Speaker 1
 Right. Right. Right.

[00:20:37:14 - 00:20:45:12]
Speaker 1
 And I'm stuck on the visual of what these computers look like and all of this about programming an archaic text editor type to do your print layout.

[00:20:46:14 - 00:20:47:06]
Speaker 7
 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:20:47:06 - 00:20:50:02]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. Because TSR was advanced and had mainframe.

[00:20:50:02 - 00:20:52:18]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. It was crazy.

[00:20:54:01 - 00:21:00:00]
Speaker 2
 And TSR at that point was in 201 Sheridan Springs Road. Don't worry if I'm not there now.

[00:21:01:04 - 00:21:12:19]
Speaker 2
 But the other half of their building was their printer anchor house. Wow. So they had to send files to the printer by putting them on diskettes and walking across the building.

[00:21:14:08 - 00:21:14:20]
Speaker 1
 Wow.

[00:21:14:20 - 00:21:17:15]
Speaker 2
 Because the mainframe couldn't transfer things.

[00:21:17:15 - 00:21:21:02]
Speaker 1
 And sorry, what year did you start working at TSR?

[00:21:21:02 - 00:21:22:18]
Speaker 2
 Well, I never worked there on staff.

[00:21:24:03 - 00:21:28:15]
Speaker 2
 This is the old story. If I would visit them once a year, Gen Con time for a bunch of reasons.

[00:21:29:21 - 00:21:31:23]
Speaker 2
 And that would have been 1987.

[00:21:33:03 - 00:21:33:10]
Speaker 1
 87?

[00:21:33:10 - 00:21:58:09]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Wow. I started writing stuff in 1986. But the annual visits that lasted for decades started in 1987. So I would show up and they stick me in design department meetings and stuff. And I'd go to lunch and dinner with all the staffers and I would hang out.

[00:21:58:09 - 00:21:59:10]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:59:10 - 00:22:03:09]
Speaker 2
 Because I was a gamer and this was Mecca. You know.

[00:22:04:22 - 00:22:12:15]
Speaker 1
 Wow. Wow. Okay. No, that's just that's really cool. So would you see the artwork too as it was coming together? Like you. Okay.

[00:22:12:15 - 00:22:13:16]
Speaker 2
 Oh, yeah. And in fact,

[00:22:14:17 - 00:22:41:11]
Speaker 2
 the occasional thing like Spellfire, it's like Clyde Caldwell FedExed me, a black and white photo photocopy full size of the cover for Spellfire. And said “I spent two days painting treasure for this.” What he was telling me is “I'm not making any changes. I don't care. I don't make any changes.” That's funny.

[00:22:42:13 - 00:22:49:14]
Speaker 2
 But yeah, when I was visiting the art department at TSR was paradise.

[00:22:50:23 - 00:23:07:17]
Speaker 2
 And you'd say, Oh yeah, because they were Playboy things stuck all over the walls. Well, yeah, there were. But there were also like they had a dead bird. They had feathers they'd gleened. They had all sorts of leaves. Some of them preserved. Some of them not. They had a little bucket of dirt.

[00:23:09:07 - 00:23:54:23]
Speaker 2
 And it was starting to grow mold that that green moss. They wanted all this. They had pulled old pieces of art with lichen on them. They wanted all of these things to be so they could actually see what thing and they had all sorts of little lights. This is before all the tech that you were playing with to set up for your own. It was old school. So it was these heavy cast metal lab things with rings from Bunsen burgers and stuff that polls with rings. So you would set up an alcohol lamp underneath the Bunsen burner. Well, they had repurposed those polls and they would they had claimed light flashlights to them because in those days you couldn't go to a hardware store and buy a clamp clamp.

[00:23:56:02 - 00:24:03:01]
Speaker 2
 Clamp lamps came in with Ikea and the invasion from Europe of hey, you know, you can actually just clamp all that.

[00:24:03:01 - 00:24:05:21]
Speaker 1
 Oh, well, now you just ordered from Amazon.

[00:24:05:21 - 00:25:41:03]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, but in those days they were literally they take flashlights at all angles so they could get what is it? What is the side of a bird's face with its feathers look like when it's backlit by the rising sun? So you put an orange gel filter from a stage and lighting crew in front of a flashlight stick it behind the dead bird. Put the dead bird in a clamp, shoot past it. Oh, so the it picks up the light like this. Okay, because they had to paint it and the actual paintings that were just getting into acrylics. So the original paintings pop. Like if you look at the cover of the original cover, I'm not talking not the reissue that just came out, but Spelljammer way back in the second edition. It's largely black cover because the top two thirds of the cover has to be left as background for them to write spell jammer. Oh, right. Yeah, but when you look at the box and you bought the box, it's drab by comparison. It's 15 to 25% dollar because of the screen. Same reason if you take an old newspaper and photocopy it because you need the clipping all the photographs turn into black squares because it's that much darker. The screen is that much darker. Well, the acrylic originals are just bright, brilliant. And you'd sit there and stare at the easel and go, wow, I want this. And then you would buy this Spelljammer box segment.

[00:25:42:04 - 00:25:44:08]
Speaker 2
 It wasn't right.

[00:25:44:08 - 00:25:45:12]
Speaker 7
 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:25:45:12 - 00:25:50:18]
Speaker 2
 Anyway, yeah, I think the art department is great. And some of the people in it, they were crazy. They're all crazy.

[00:25:52:18 - 00:25:57:22]
Speaker 2
 I mean, no, the artists were they'd run through the halls of the cubicles with katanas and stuff.

[00:26:00:03 - 00:26:42:13]
Speaker 2
 And I remember distinctly there one of the artists Fred Fields, he went downstairs, grabbed one of the secretaries, one of the pretty secretaries from the secretary of law, not one of the fellow game designers who would be used to this sort of foolishness and dragged her upstairs by the elbow and she's going, what's going on? And he says, I chose you because you're pretty. And she goes, OK, what's going on? So he then marches her into the cubicle and says, look at that poster over there. She goes, OK. She goes, now screen as if the poster is attacking you. And he goes, she goes, what? He just wanted her facial expression of oh, my God, for a horror cover.

[00:26:43:13 - 00:27:13:12]
Speaker 2
 But he wanted a pretty woman, this hair colour and sort of this shape of face, because that's all he had left in his artwork. He would usually start with the face. You start with the face and the hands, the two most difficult things, and you paint around them. In this case, he'd been given a line box and look and it already dictated everything. So he had this little space left. It was like, I have to do a back person. But he said, OK, just this because he didn't have a camera.

[00:27:13:12 - 00:27:14:17]
Speaker 7
 Wow. Wow.

[00:27:14:17 - 00:27:21:14]
Speaker 2
 Andy. Wow. He didn't have time to go home and get a camera because he needed to finish this piece of art by two or three that afternoon.

[00:27:21:14 - 00:27:22:15]
Speaker 1
 Wow.

[00:27:22:15 - 00:27:23:09]
Speaker 2
 Because there was a meeting.

[00:27:23:09 - 00:27:24:13]
Speaker 1
 I think you're all crazy.

[00:27:24:13 - 00:27:28:10]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, exactly. So seeing as having this secretary go,

[00:27:28:10 - 00:27:29:23]
Speaker 7
 if she did it.

[00:27:29:23 - 00:27:35:01]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, of course she does it. And of course, in the middle of it, somebody else comes into the cubicle, come talk to him and he goes,

[00:27:36:02 - 00:27:37:10]
Speaker 2
 you're at it again, I see.

[00:27:39:02 - 00:27:43:08]
Speaker 7
 Wow.

[00:27:43:08 - 00:27:44:12]
Speaker 1
 Wow.

[00:27:45:18 - 00:27:49:12]
Speaker 1
 Well, that is that is this, I guess, this is somewhat commonplace.

[00:27:49:12 - 00:28:10:12]
Speaker 2
 It was somewhat commonplace. In fact, if you there's a game, a card game called Spellfire. And if you look at all the special booster packs that was put out in the last year of Spellfire, they're all people from TSR wearing some weird costume, standing in a field. And then they just make a character around that.

[00:28:10:12 - 00:28:11:04]
Speaker 7
 Oh, wow.

[00:28:11:04 - 00:28:23:18]
Speaker 2
 So if they had anything Renfaire or medieval or anything just really weird, like their their their ants make stoles, make wrap, make stoles around their head as if it was like a hairdo.

[00:28:24:22 - 00:28:28:08]
Speaker 2
 Then they take their photograph and then that would be a Spellfire card.

[00:28:29:13 - 00:28:30:15]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, so there's lots of them.

[00:28:30:15 - 00:28:31:08]
Speaker 1
 Wow.

[00:28:31:08 - 00:28:32:00]
Speaker 2
 Yeah.

[00:28:33:01 - 00:28:36:00]
Speaker 1
 Wow. You really had to work at it in those days. Wow.

[00:28:36:00 - 00:28:38:08]
Speaker 2
 That's it was OK.

[00:28:39:13 - 00:28:53:00]
Speaker 2
 I I didn't work there as a staffer, but because I was like Father Confessor, like I told him last time, we talked when they phoned. Plus these visits, I got a pretty good idea of what it was like to work there.

[00:28:53:00 - 00:28:53:09]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:28:53:09 - 00:28:55:05]
Speaker 2
 And it was this zany family.

[00:28:55:05 - 00:28:56:00]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:28:56:00 - 00:29:10:14]
Speaker 2
 So yeah, it was fun. There are all sorts of stories I probably shouldn't tell you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There were there were funny fun stories.

[00:29:14:12 - 00:29:14:23]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, there.

[00:29:16:16 - 00:29:21:01]
Speaker 2
 OK, here's one that I can tell because it's on to risque or anything.

[00:29:22:14 - 00:29:30:02]
Speaker 2
 Another horror cover that we're doing for a horror novel, Ravenloft novel. And the guy says, yeah, but

[00:29:31:02 - 00:29:36:20]
Speaker 2
 I don't want to do a mummy with bandages all over. That's just so I need something new.

[00:29:39:01 - 00:29:48:16]
Speaker 2
 And so again, in this case, it was one of the fellow game designers. And she said, oh, don't worry, I know what to do. And she went to the ladies washroom and she took out her.

[00:29:49:19 - 00:30:01:07]
Speaker 2
 She doesn't she didn't wear heavy makeup, but she had all the stuff in her purse. OK, so she put Alice Cooper style black around her eyes and I'll let it down her cheeks. And then she took white

[00:30:02:16 - 00:30:20:22]
Speaker 2
 foundation and she she just dabbed with gum Arabic. OK, I have a mustache and beard all around her her lips. Yeah, she put gum Arabic and then she just put foundation like this. So it's like there's a white crust all around her mouth. And then she just walked in. What?

[00:30:23:07 - 00:30:35:21]
Speaker 2
 And so he goes, don't move. He starts painting because, you know, it's like you're trying to get a look of a shambling undead. Yeah. So they were doing stuff like that all the time.

[00:30:35:21 - 00:30:36:07]
Speaker 7
 Wow.

[00:30:36:07 - 00:30:40:22]
Speaker 2
 And then, of course, it was always lunchtime. So they go out for a burger still with.

[00:30:45:00 - 00:30:58:13]
Speaker 2
 I'm sure the the populace of Legion even got used to that. It's sort of like the people Lord of the Rings, you know, trying to cover their costumes up because they weren't supposed to show them. But, you know, they were trying to get a shake or a burger.

[00:30:58:13 - 00:30:59:01]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:30:59:01 - 00:30:59:18]
Speaker 2
 Yeah.

[00:30:59:18 - 00:31:00:11]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:31:00:11 - 00:31:01:07]
Speaker 2
 Yeah.

[00:31:01:07 - 00:31:02:03]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

[00:31:02:03 - 00:31:13:01]
Speaker 2
 It's one thing when you're a Arragorn. It's a different thing when you're an Orc in full makeup with blade through your head. And you're standing in line at a burger joint and say, “I’d like fries with that.”

[00:31:15:08 - 00:31:29:18]
Speaker 1
 Gosh, that's so that's that's funny. Wow. You know, I was I've been thinking this a lot lately, looking at some of the older works and, you know, watching a documentary about about the D&D art and then looking at the old books.

[00:31:30:21 - 00:31:37:21]
Speaker 1
 And even like Mountain of Mirrors, they interviewed Daniel says recently and you know, his mother, Rose, wrote the

[00:31:39:00 - 00:32:15:06]
Speaker 1
 endless quest series and it was was it Easely? or no, it was Elmore. Elmore did the the cover for Mountain of Mirrors. And I just I just I just love that. I love that cover. But not just that one, but all the old art, like there's something about it. It's different like and it's I mean, it's varied. It's not all the same. You can tell that different artists do different pieces. But I find it generally speaking, I find it much more compelling. I don't know if it's just because I was exposed to it previously. But when I picked up like the the player's handbook for five.

[00:32:16:06 - 00:32:33:07]
Speaker 1
 I really tried to to like the art. But there's like, I mean, there's pieces in it that I do like better than others. But on the whole, it's like it doesn't it doesn't stir me. And I like art. I mean, I really like art. But I don't feel as moved by the by the new art as the as the old.

[00:32:33:07 - 00:33:07:00]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, OK. I'm not sure because I think the answer to that is different for all of us. But almost all of the new art has a certain elevated level of polish and looks. It's all really good technically. But it is sometimes too good in that it's gorgeous color and so on. And a lot of the old art that we remember is black and white line art or point realism or a combination of. And you think you almost think you could do it yourself.

[00:33:07:00 - 00:33:08:12]
Speaker 7
 Some of it. Yeah.

[00:33:08:12 - 00:33:12:13]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. So I mean, there's there's more it's it's more of a moment.

[00:33:12:13 - 00:33:13:03]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:33:13:03 - 00:33:21:10]
Speaker 2
 You know, it's like what is it? Will it look like here's a picture that looks like it was sketched? By some guy doodling on a pad because it was.

[00:33:21:10 - 00:33:21:15]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:33:21:15 - 00:33:24:10]
Speaker 2
 I mean, it's more accessible.

[00:33:24:10 - 00:33:25:17]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:25:17 - 00:33:28:18]
Speaker 2
 And it's also the first depiction.

[00:33:28:18 - 00:33:29:11]
Speaker 1
 Right.

[00:33:29:11 - 00:33:30:18]
Speaker 2
 If you're an older gamer.

[00:33:30:18 - 00:33:31:01]
Speaker 1
 Yeah.

[00:33:31:01 - 00:33:47:06]
Speaker 2
 That's that's that was the original. Everything else is an interpretation. Yeah. Newer gamers coming today. They don't know that's the original. It's just like, oh, that's a crappy sketch of a builder. No, no, no, no. That's a builder. You don't understand. That's how we first saw it in the way. Right. You know, yeah.

[00:33:47:06 - 00:33:47:19]
Speaker 1
 Yeah.

[00:33:47:19 - 00:33:48:20]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:33:48:20 - 00:34:26:11]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. No. Well, I guess I don't know. I guess it's just it's a personal taste. And I just feel like there's something special about the about the old work. And even just looking at some of the old books, I was looking at some of them recently and I thought this this writing is actually really good. Like it's just the instructions, some ideas. Keep in mind of how to structure a game and all that. In some ways, actually, I was I'll confess, I was really impressed. I wasn't expecting it to be. I wasn't expecting it to be that well thought out and that well written. You know, I would have thought that what's been coming up more recently would be far superior, but I don't feel

[00:34:26:11 - 00:34:36:23]
Speaker 2
 it's not necessarily a steady progression because the other thing that's happened in that time is electronics pixels.

[00:34:38:01 - 00:35:06:03]
Speaker 2
 Whereas the really old stuff, there was no Internet. There was no other way of sharing the stuff. Word count was like ironclad. Oh, we couldn't we couldn't afford another page. Right. So you had to say what you needed to say succinctly and they had been at D&D long enough to know that the rules lawyers, as in people who are going to argue about the interpretation of what you wrote in the rules.

[00:35:06:03 - 00:35:06:13]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:35:06:13 - 00:35:27:05]
Speaker 2
 Oh, but that could mean this. Yeah, it could mean that. But raw rule as written is this. Right. So you were trying to be very precise in your meaning without going on for pages. I say, except if the door is open before it starts, then you want to be really clear to.

[00:35:28:07 - 00:35:50:09]
Speaker 2
 To avoid arguments at the gaming table, right? Because arguments, the gaming table can bust up friendships. They jolt you out of the immersive experience of a role playing game into arguing about rules. So you want things to be so clear and so ironclad that there's no thought of misinterpretation. It's just obvious what it means. So you can pay attention to the story.

[00:35:51:10 - 00:36:02:13]
Speaker 2
 And because pixels didn't exist, it had to be squiggles of ink on a page. And you the publisher had to pay for that page. You had to fit it in and get it all in there.

[00:36:02:13 - 00:36:04:07]
Speaker 7
 Wow. Wow.

[00:36:04:07 - 00:36:18:16]
Speaker 2
 And there were tricks. I mean, that's the reason Volo did a lot of our guys. He's an unreliable narrator. So I get shoved. Volo's guy to the north gets shoved down my throat. I say, I can't fit the north into that.

[00:36:19:20 - 00:36:48:19]
Speaker 2
 So I just have he's not allowed into silvering them because something he did so he doesn't cover silvering. Oh, it's just a page. And so it was how I got out of it by having a colourful narrator who had his own hijinks, bad behaviours. So he could be banned from places he could be arrested and thrown out. And he would just wouldn't cover them because it's his guide, his travel guide. You know, so and that's how I managed to get around the fact that no guys, please.

[00:36:49:19 - 00:36:52:12]
Speaker 2
 I need few more pages than this to do this topic.

[00:36:53:16 - 00:36:56:20]
Speaker 2
 It's like, OK, I need you to write me a book.

[00:36:58:00 - 00:37:03:12]
Speaker 2
 I got to life life, the universe and everything. And I'd like it to be 16 pages long.

[00:37:04:19 - 00:37:07:14]
Speaker 2
 What are you going to put in 60 pages? There's too much.

[00:37:08:19 - 00:37:17:16]
Speaker 2
 There's too many courts of gallons to pour into that pint pot. What do I put in? Well, I put out. OK,

[00:37:18:17 - 00:37:20:05]
Speaker 2
 breathing, breathing is a good one.

[00:37:21:12 - 00:37:36:20]
Speaker 2
 You know, then you go, you need to eat. You need to drink because you'll die of, you know, thirst before you die of starvation. And when you eat and drink, you have to poo. So you see what I mean? You're reduced to just the essentials. What do you put in? What do you leave out?

[00:37:36:20 - 00:37:37:05]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:37:37:05 - 00:37:52:20]
Speaker 2
 And you want to avoid those situations. But that is why the writing had to be really succinct. It had to be well-written because there was no expanding. And it was not the pages were not made of rubber.

[00:37:52:20 - 00:38:05:19]
Speaker 1
 Well, OK, so that's kind of like, you know, writing a report where you've only got so much space and this is going to the executives. And like, there's like you're going to make that fit whatever you need to say within that amount of space.

[00:38:05:19 - 00:38:35:02]
Speaker 2
 Because you know, they're not going to read anything longer anyway. Yeah, they're not going to turn the page. They're just going to read what's on the cover. Make sure that and with the old style of journalism writing, you know, what's important goes at the beginning, which is and where this was most noticeable. If you go back to a Toronto newspaper of the 1960s or 70s or early 80s and in the sports section, when they're writing about the latest game, the Maple Leafs play.

[00:38:36:06 - 00:38:37:07]
Speaker 2
 It's not chronological.

[00:38:38:23 - 00:39:10:03]
Speaker 2
 It's leafs lose 6-3 to Bruins. So-and-so scored two goals in a 6-3 row to the least. And then then it talks about who got most assists. Then it talks about if nowhere in it will it start at the first period and then say first, they scored, then the Leafs scored. Then a bad goal was let it and it won't tell you the game in chronological order because they're doing what's most important because the ref it's going to get cut off by an editor when he runs out of column inches. Again, no pixels.

[00:39:12:01 - 00:39:18:11]
Speaker 2
 Finite space. So you put the important stuff at the top and then descending importance rather than chronological.

[00:39:19:16 - 00:40:41:16]
Speaker 2
 And although that's the rule of journalism or was then, it can be really confusing, particularly if you're sitting in history class as a young kid who knows nothing about the topic and they're trying to tell you, say, the history of England by the reigns of all the kings and queens. It's a lot easier to do it in chronological order. Uh-huh. Yes. Then you can tamp it down in your mind. OK, so Alfred the Confessor and then OK, 1066, the northern dormant conquest, and then William Rufus and you move on. You know, you do things in order and then you can slot things into each rain. In which rain did they that they come up with the spinning wheel? You know, which rain did they start the Industrial Revolution? In which rain did they? Oh, so people are moving to the cities and the cities are wildly expanding instead of like everybody living on the farm. And you can slot them into rains and then you can mentally remember with a tag. Oh, OK, Second World War, Winston Churchill. But yeah, who is the king and queen? Got it. You know, you see, it becomes a ladder upon which you can mentally remember things. So chronological is good. But it can't always be the way you write things. And that's the same in gaming, too. You have to get the critical things down and you can go to the detail afterwards.

[00:40:41:16 - 00:40:43:13]
Speaker 7
 Right, right, right.

[00:40:43:13 - 00:40:47:18]
Speaker 2
 In the same way that there are gamers who write histories of the Roman Empire.

[00:40:49:00 - 00:40:51:10]
Speaker 2
 And they talk about which legion.

[00:40:53:05 - 00:41:09:04]
Speaker 2
 I had to administer which geographical area, and then they talk about how the legion was organized militarily in which how much of it was mercenaries and so on and so on. And then they talk about the meddling of whoever was emperor at the time.

[00:41:10:09 - 00:41:20:17]
Speaker 2
 But they're taking it from the OK, this is what you have to know to understand why the Roman Empire ruled this bit and then retreated and left it for the locals to take over.

[00:41:20:17 - 00:41:29:03]
Speaker 1
 Right. But you know that that's what happens. You don't know that these are the pieces that you need to talk about to set that up. But if you're creating a world to start with.

[00:41:30:20 - 00:41:49:15]
Speaker 1
 I mean, I was talking with Devin one day about this and he was like, he's a history buff and he was talking about, you know, one thing leads to another and then has all these impacts. And he was actually it's in the first episode of my podcast. He was talking about a trade route, so discovery of discovery of North America to avoid taxation.

[00:41:50:17 - 00:42:31:18]
Speaker 1
 Basically like that being the root cause. But then all of these things happen. And he talks also about, you know, even in a D&D setting, you can have different kinds of metal and like and then that changes this. And you see it in history as well. Like I've, you know, just I'm not a history buff. I'm getting more and more interested in history. But you can see how, you know, one one area is conquered and then there's a change in technology. I mean, that changes things that that suddenly they get the upper hand. And like it never looks the same. It always changes. It's always an innovation that causes things to be different. And then that affects the world. Sure. So you have to have like, I guess when you're writing a world,

[00:42:32:23 - 00:42:38:23]
Speaker 1
 you either know what all that is and then you share those key points like straight up or like, how do you do it?

[00:42:38:23 - 00:42:44:12]
Speaker 2
 Like, well, these the there's the critical thing because you can go top down,

[00:42:45:12 - 00:43:19:18]
Speaker 2
 which is a lot more work and a lot of time sink. You know, I'm designing the planet of a solar system. I stop there or you can go bottom up. Yeah, I'm designing this village because we're going to start play right here with this dungeon next door. Yeah, and then I'll design outwards. And that second one is a lot less work and to be unsaid and usually ends a lot more satisfying play because the design work is going into the stuff you see. Right. It's the difference between I designed this huge empty, dirty palace.

[00:43:19:18 - 00:43:20:08]
Speaker 7
 Right.

[00:43:20:08 - 00:43:46:19]
Speaker 2
 All right. Sumptuously set set deck to these six rooms that you're going to live in in the palace. And then you think, wow, this is a really nice palace because everything you touch, everything you see is palace grade detailed instead of loads and loads of empty quarters. You can walk in for miles. Boy, this is an impressive big building. It must have been a lot of money. OK, the same way. If you're doing, say, the history of North America.

[00:43:47:20 - 00:44:08:09]
Speaker 2
 What most people don't think about because they get it, get lost. It gets lost in faces and names and dates and then events, big events like prohibition or whatever, you know, or this war, that war, the Great Depression. You know, but because we're used to it, we don't look at.

[00:44:09:12 - 00:44:29:11]
Speaker 2
 Trade routes and the fact that you need to eat and you will starve if you don't have enough food late by for winter, because we don't have supermarkets in in colonial or pioneer or frontier times. Yeah. So you have to have ways, which is why in Ontario, there were cheese factories.

[00:44:30:18 - 00:46:03:05]
Speaker 2
 Every half day's travel while farms because you turns your milk into cheese to have something to eat in the depths of winter. Whereas now there's a milk marketing board and we control how many cows there are to keep the price of milk high. And there's no wastage. And therefore the cheese factories went away. And now cheese is really expensive. Whereas before Mr. Chief, because it's how everybody turned their excess milk into something they could use. And also what is lost with us is if you look back at pioneer times when you're looking at basically not unspoiled by human hands, but a lot more like nature than we see today, because not everything was asphalt paved, you're looking at North America. All the natural trade routes run north and south. The Mississippi stuff like that. The mountain ranges, the Rockies, the Appalachians, they run north south. The only major east west one is something called the Great Lakes. It's the so that affects the importance. Why do you think we had the Erie Canal? Why do you think we had all this expensive stuff? To get around the Niagara Falls and so on with a well and canal. It was because, oh, my goodness, this is a way of getting right into the heart of the continent back out again and getting stuff shipped all over the world. So, yeah, trade routes become important. If you look at things just locally where we are. OK, let's think of Muddy York, the capital of Ontario.

[00:46:04:23 - 00:46:11:12]
Speaker 2
 And we have Yonge Street, the longest street in the world, going straight north. And curving around. Yeah. OK.

[00:46:13:00 - 00:46:32:18]
Speaker 2
 Why did Toronto grow in the way it did? The first thing they did, it grew towards Lake Simcoe up along Yonge Street to the east, where it's now Lake Scugug. That's a manmade lake. It was just marshes and mosquitoes, marshes, disease and mosquitoes and hard roads.

[00:46:32:18 - 00:46:33:07]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:46:33:07 - 00:46:36:00]
Speaker 2
 Hard to build roads because everything's marshy.

[00:46:36:00 - 00:46:36:15]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:46:36:15 - 00:46:51:20]
Speaker 2
 You look to the west, the Niagara escarpment is like a wall with one gap, the Brony Creek gap, which is what the 401 now goes through. Where Milton is, where the Kelso, right? Let's make point Kelso. And you know, and that was the only way through.

[00:46:53:03 - 00:46:53:14]
Speaker 2
 For railways.

[00:46:54:18 - 00:46:55:05]
Speaker 7
 Oh.

[00:46:56:05 - 00:47:11:03]
Speaker 2
 And if you commute, OK, later on now, if you're commuting into Toronto, if you commute from the west, you're driving into the rising sun. Yeah. And you're driving home into the setting side.

[00:47:11:03 - 00:47:12:10]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:12:10 - 00:48:08:00]
Speaker 2
 OK. So these sort of things, which are pretty basic, yeah, control things. You know, really, OK, why was that overcome? Well, it was overcome from politics and so on. And because we had a particular government in which a lot of the people in the government lived around Brampton, they created Bramalee out of nothing and they they bought up the land. So they were enriching themselves as they developed. So that was an artificial. So you put those things together and then you could see how things happen in any world, whether it's a fantasy setting or a real life. Oh, so interesting. So you put you and that becomes part of the history of your world. If you have, for instance, elves, you know, the traditional elves living in a great forest and they don't want orcs or goblins in it. Yeah. And they defend it. That has an effect on settlement. On what you mean, is there a road to the forest?

[00:48:09:00 - 00:49:01:05]
Speaker 2
 Remember, Tolkien's road through Markwood. Almost nobody ever took it because you died. Spiders went. Yeah. So I mean, that affects where settlement is. It affects how things grow. And so you just you you look at what a Buddhist or a Taoist would call the interconnectedness of all things. And you say, OK, if if this, then this and you just work out, OK, there was a famine. OK, people would die out or they'd have to. They had a choice of dying out or leaving. So they would be on the move. They'd resell somewhere else. Where would they go? And you check your hole. They can go down this river. Well, that's the easiest way that because you can just lash to you. Fell two or three trees. You lash the logs together. You've got a raft. You go down the river because you want to take, you know, some of the stuff you had with you. If you're a Smith, you want to take the anvil with you. Oh, and it's heavy.

[00:49:01:05 - 00:49:01:15]
Speaker 1
 Yeah.

[00:49:02:20 - 00:49:15:00]
Speaker 2
 So I mean, you can do that when you're doing creating your fantasy setting. And if you if it works down at that level, you know, where does the food come from? Where does the food go to? It works down at that level.

[00:49:15:00 - 00:49:15:11]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:49:15:11 - 00:49:41:20]
Speaker 2
 Then all the window dressing and coming up with grand names and a cool map can follow pretty easily if you've done the basic work of what is the world around me? Yeah. And I I came up with a format years ago where we were doing Forgotten Realms Adventures, the name of the book for second edition. And I was asked to bring us all the cities of the world. So I would say, here's the city. There is this population.

[00:49:43:08 - 00:49:53:01]
Speaker 2
 What the ICs? So that's the architecture. Is it mud roads? Is it cobbles? Right. What are the buildings built up? What does the IC? Who rules?

[00:49:54:10 - 00:49:55:06]
Speaker 2
 Who rules?

[00:49:55:06 - 00:49:56:02]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:49:57:16 - 00:50:09:18]
Speaker 2
 So therefore, and then imports and exports. What does it need? Yeah. Can it feed itself? No, we can't. OK, it needs to import food. OK, what are the people in the city export in order to pay for that food?

[00:50:10:20 - 00:50:16:22]
Speaker 2
 And if it's nothing, then I guess they sell slaves for their work, their ability or indenture themselves.

[00:50:16:22 - 00:50:17:11]
Speaker 7
 Right.

[00:50:17:11 - 00:50:42:11]
Speaker 2
 Because, you know, you know, if there's no other product, you are the product in his own form. Like, you know, people are just going to out of the goodness of the hurt sailed dangerously across the seas to give them food for nothing. They can have something to do in return. Or if you were subsistence level, you can say you're in North America. You can ship furs, pelts to Europe and return. You can ship textiles,

[00:50:43:19 - 00:51:14:11]
Speaker 2
 woven fine cloth back to you. Oh, it's that sort of stuff. You can make crude weapons and tools. You have blacksmiths everywhere. If you want something really intricate like clocks, femme bergie eggs, stuff like that, they come from the sophisticated country that is privileging all of your resources, your raw materials. Wow. Which is why England doesn't have the great forests that we used to have. We hardly have any forests left because ships of the line needed wood.

[00:51:15:22 - 00:51:21:22]
Speaker 2
 And you clear cut across the I mean, almost all of Ontario was clear cut.

[00:51:21:22 - 00:51:22:13]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:51:22:13 - 00:51:29:03]
Speaker 2
 At one point or another, if you go to old Gunkland Park right now, there's bits of it around the canoeing lakes that look beautiful.

[00:51:29:03 - 00:51:31:10]
Speaker 7
 You get beyond the height of land.

[00:51:31:10 - 00:51:32:22]
Speaker 2
 They've logged it.

[00:51:32:22 - 00:51:36:11]
Speaker 1
 Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah. I've actually heard them. Yeah.

[00:51:36:11 - 00:52:05:22]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. So I mean, it's like because there's this endless insatiable. We need the stuff. It doesn't grow back fast enough. Yeah. Yeah. So and OK, that's our real world. But yeah, you could just as easily do the Marvel Comics thing, which they did for Black Panther vibranium, which they just made up. Of course, it's now something everybody wants. Right. So it's they're willing to fight and kill to get it to control the country. And you can do that. Your fantasy world, you set up something.

[00:52:07:09 - 00:52:19:11]
Speaker 2
 There was a fantasy author years ago who didn't realize what Cinnabar was. So they swiped the name, which sounded really cool. Had it be something else that was rare and precious in their world. And there were fights for Cinnabar.

[00:52:19:11 - 00:52:19:19]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:52:19:19 - 00:52:22:18]
Speaker 2
 You know, and it's like you can do that in a fantasy setting.

[00:52:22:18 - 00:52:38:12]
Speaker 1
 Now, yeah, I think I read about that recently. Like Cinnabar, what it really is, are you talking about the about stone, the crystal? Yeah. And then in your reference, you're talking about the red metal and the Cinnabar that is the cure. Do you want to? You can say it's much better.

[00:52:38:12 - 00:52:44:02]
Speaker 2
 But there are so many different ways of doing it. There was an earlier one where Cinnabar was supposed to be this special

[00:52:46:01 - 00:52:47:22]
Speaker 2
 substance that was both a scent.

[00:52:48:23 - 00:53:06:14]
Speaker 2
 And a dye that you could rub into your skin and so on. But it was also had health properties and had magical properties so you could make him young again. You know, when they say, you know, this moisturizing cream will take away your wrinkles and you'll have like, you know, 20 years younger.

[00:53:06:14 - 00:53:07:19]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:08:23 - 00:53:16:06]
Speaker 2
 Wow. And so various people have picked up on the name that sounded cool and made it be different things in their fantasy setting.

[00:53:16:06 - 00:53:16:16]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:53:16:16 - 00:53:28:12]
Speaker 2
 And it doesn't, you know, matter what they used it for, other than that is now establish a precedent of that sort of our means or, you know, and again, that's the danger of not

[00:53:29:19 - 00:54:08:22]
Speaker 2
 paying attention. Yeah. So Cinnabar can be different things in different people's fantasy. And really, in this particular case, it means something that is rare and precious and therefore important and therefore treasure and therefore to be fought over or try somebody tries to control it. And they're very rich if they do control it and they have powered influence. And the only thing you have to know is when you're treading into fantasy as opposed to reality. No, what is the stuff you'll find in the encyclopedia where these days we could be versus what somebody has written in their fantasy book?

[00:54:09:23 - 00:54:24:02]
Speaker 2
 And it really doesn't matter other than you know what the truth is and you know what the fantasy precedent is in the same way that you wouldn't want to call your hero in a fantasy novel, Sorrow.

[00:54:24:02 - 00:54:25:13]
Speaker 1
 No, yeah,

[00:54:25:13 - 00:54:34:04]
Speaker 2
 because that sort of take it. You know, it doesn't matter if anybody can use the name in the same way that it became

[00:54:35:09 - 00:54:55:05]
Speaker 2
 unfashionable to call your child at all, particularly if your last name was Hitler. And it didn't matter if that was a perfectly legitimate family name for your family. Yeah, yeah. It's like, don't do it, because now there's associations with it. And the same way you need to know the history of if somebody does something

[00:54:56:11 - 00:55:03:22]
Speaker 2
 that is significant. And I'm now talking about, say, Frank Herbert's Dune or the Lord of the Rings.

[00:55:05:17 - 00:55:11:17]
Speaker 2
 Things from there. You wouldn't want to repurpose into your fantasy novel because people will

[00:55:12:18 - 00:55:22:12]
Speaker 2
 have to bring associations with that name or word that you don't necessarily want to have. So it's not a question of plagiarism or whatever.

[00:55:23:12 - 00:55:27:13]
Speaker 2
 It's a it's a case of you're giving the wrong impression.

[00:55:27:13 - 00:55:28:05]
Speaker 7
 Right.

[00:55:29:13 - 00:56:27:10]
Speaker 2
 You can borrow things for the same purpose. George Lucas borrowed stormtroopers and say, oh, stormtroopers these nice ladies who just before a storm and they cover all the plants and peg down because because we have an association with that word that doesn't fit what you want. So, of course, that's the thing. When you're creating a fantasy setting, you want things to feel right to your audience, so you have to be aware of what your audience expects, what they like and don't like, what's going to trigger them. And of course, now we have currently all this various controversy and people about evil races and gender roles and so on and how you're portraying people. And that you have to be it doesn't matter what's right or what's wrong. You have to be mindful of how particular words or particular things will be taken, you know,

[00:56:28:13 - 00:56:30:03]
Speaker 2
 perhaps the way you realize. I mean,

[00:56:31:05 - 00:56:45:17]
Speaker 2
 mine for for Waterby, I had a street in the dock board called Slut Street. And of course, that had to be changed immediately. DSR was horrified. You can't put blank sight. And you see.

[00:56:47:09 - 00:56:48:01]
Speaker 2
 British people.

[00:56:49:06 - 00:57:30:22]
Speaker 2
 Of a certain age, Slut had nothing to do. With sex. Oh, really? Slut meant a slovenly hardworking drudge. Oh, couldn't afford good clothes and couldn't afford to keep clean because of the nature of their work. So in the same way you can see. And we used to see this all the time when I was a young kid in Toronto, Italian construction workers getting on the street car car after a day of working on construction sites for the hard hat, a lunch bucket, and they were filthy covered with dirt. They were covered with dust and they stay from their own sweat and all the oil grease and stuff. And they drove home on the street car.

[00:57:30:22 - 00:57:31:09]
Speaker 7
 Right.

[00:57:31:09 - 00:57:32:21]
Speaker 2
 You know, that would be a slut.

[00:57:32:21 - 00:57:33:16]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:57:33:16 - 00:57:45:22]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Now, in the British connotation, that meant a woman. Not not all purpose and all genders. It didn't mean prostitute or loose woman at all.

[00:57:47:00 - 00:57:49:16]
Speaker 2
 And if you look at the dictionary, you'll see that meeting

[00:57:50:19 - 00:57:52:03]
Speaker 2
 as sort of the fourth meeting.

[00:57:52:03 - 00:57:52:16]
Speaker 7
 Right.

[00:57:52:16 - 00:57:58:00]
Speaker 2
 The the meaning that most Americans associate with slut while he's talking about prostitutes.

[00:57:58:00 - 00:58:06:00]
Speaker 1
 Oh, no. No, I'm not. Yeah. It's interesting. As words do change at times, sometimes they turn around and mean the opposite of the original. Sure.

[00:58:06:00 - 00:58:06:13]
Speaker 2
 Like sick.

[00:58:08:00 - 00:58:08:04]
Speaker 2
 Yeah.

[00:58:09:06 - 00:58:13:03]
Speaker 2
 So that's. Well, you know, when I was a teenager, sick man, it was terrible.

[00:58:13:03 - 00:58:14:03]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:14:03 - 00:58:17:12]
Speaker 2
 Now it's simply what were the term gay?

[00:58:17:12 - 00:58:18:04]
Speaker 7
 Uh huh.

[00:58:18:04 - 00:58:31:09]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Which had nothing to do with sex. Yeah. In the gay 90s. Yeah. You know, in the Victorian days, it meant gaiety. It might mean flirting, but it had nothing to do with

[00:58:32:11 - 00:58:34:07]
Speaker 2
 homosexuality or anything else.

[00:58:34:07 - 00:58:34:14]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:58:34:14 - 00:58:51:00]
Speaker 2
 And now you read the word, you go, that's sort of unfortunate, that context, because now we put another association on and it's just that's something you have to be mindful of when you're writing. But it's also something we have to remember not to pillory

[00:58:52:00 - 00:58:54:13]
Speaker 2
 writers from another age.

[00:58:54:13 - 00:58:54:18]
Speaker 1
 Right.

[00:58:54:18 - 00:59:06:10]
Speaker 2
 You know, read your stuff and say, we can't print that. Right. It's casting. Yeah. It wasn't. It wasn't at the time. And they didn't mean it that way. And you have to be mature enough to see things in context.

[00:59:06:10 - 00:59:07:13]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:59:07:13 - 00:59:27:09]
Speaker 2
 Because you have to be able to be accepting of the fact there are the ways to view society. I mean, there are billions. Yeah. And I don't think that most people would be comfortable with what was, say, in the Gore books by John Omen, where he's postulating that women are owned by men.

[00:59:27:09 - 00:59:27:21]
Speaker 7
 Hmm.

[00:59:27:21 - 00:59:32:13]
Speaker 2
 They're not all sex slaves, but they're property of a man.

[00:59:33:15 - 00:59:36:09]
Speaker 2
 And it's like it's not something that most readers are going to agree with.

[00:59:36:09 - 00:59:36:18]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[00:59:36:18 - 00:59:43:04]
Speaker 2
 But I agree with it or don't agree with it. He explored it in his imaginary society and all of its various

[00:59:44:05 - 00:59:48:05]
Speaker 2
 consequences and permutations. And so the.

[00:59:50:16 - 01:00:02:04]
Speaker 2
 Sociologists should be able to take a step back, disassociate their emotions and read what he wrote and go, Hmm. So that's the implications if you do that.

[01:00:02:04 - 01:00:04:15]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. You know, you know,

[01:00:04:15 - 01:00:34:16]
Speaker 2
 I don't think I like those consequences, but but that's what fiction has always done. It's held up a mirror to real life and said, but what if this happened or what if you could blast somebody with magic? We get rid of those a-holes. You don't have to hurry, you know, because I can just blast them. Next time they put say a line on television, boom, it's coming at them. And then it's OK. What are the consequences if people can do that? Yeah. You know, again, fiction allows us to explore that. Yeah. Without killing our neighbors.

[01:00:34:16 - 01:00:39:12]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I know what you mean, because like I did a

[01:00:40:13 - 01:00:57:10]
Speaker 1
 it was short lived by a book club with with the local gaming community and we were reading while everyone else was reading like a Pokemon. I'm a little slower. And I found some books that I wanted to like continue and keep reading. But there were some books on the list that were older and.

[01:00:58:17 - 01:01:16:08]
Speaker 1
 We looked at them and like, wow, this did not age well. This isn't the the awesome book that I remember when I was a teenager. It's like I didn't realize that it was so sexist or racist. Or whatever. How would we would however we would view it today as being wrong in some way that

[01:01:17:15 - 01:01:44:19]
Speaker 1
 it was just part of society back then, like that you just didn't notice. It's not that that author was particularly necessarily one way or the other. It's just that that's how it was. And it's hard. Yes. Would have been hard to have seen it at that time. And I guess, you know, I just think I believe that is also a caution. Anyone writing today or looking at those older books and think, oh, well, I'm superior. That's not going to happen to me. I can judge them, but no one will judge me. That's not true.

[01:01:44:19 - 01:02:06:20]
Speaker 2
 The future will judge you. Yeah. And and yeah, one of the saddest things I see in discourse because I'm a member of CIFFWA, you know, I vote for the Nederless and stuff and I see all the back and forth stuff. There are writers starting today in the field who are proud of the fact they've never read Heinlein as a mob. Herbert and Clark. Oh, really?

[01:02:06:20 - 01:02:08:19]
Speaker 7
 Those old white guys, you

[01:02:08:19 - 01:02:30:13]
Speaker 2
 know, they were sexist. They didn't understand women except just sex objects, blah, blah, blah. OK, you should still read all their stuff because you're turning up short stories with plots that are unintentionally crude from those guys. Because they did all the important plots. You should read what they wrote and write something different. Yeah. And learn from what they wrote.

[01:02:30:13 - 01:02:31:04]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:02:31:04 - 01:02:35:15]
Speaker 2
 You might say it's trash. I never write like that. This is sexist. This is garbage.

[01:02:35:15 - 01:02:35:23]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:02:35:23 - 01:02:39:07]
Speaker 2
 But read it and go, oh, OK, I won't make that mistake.

[01:02:39:07 - 01:02:39:22]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:02:39:22 - 01:02:50:03]
Speaker 2
 But do read it. It's the same way of, oh, history started with me. The old joke about, you know, why did I flunk history class? Well, they asked about a lot of things that happened before I was poor.

[01:02:51:04 - 01:03:08:03]
Speaker 2
 Which was like history started with me. Nobody else on the planet matters. You know, and you can't you can't do history like that. You have to be able to appreciate other people living their own lives in a completely different setting to us and what it would be like for them.

[01:03:08:03 - 01:03:08:18]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:03:08:18 - 01:03:10:17]
Speaker 2
 What is it like if, you know.

[01:03:11:18 - 01:03:17:10]
Speaker 2
 A ship sails and, you know, there's going to be no more ships until the spring.

[01:03:18:11 - 01:03:35:00]
Speaker 2
 We were on our own now. If we start, we start. And that happens. It still happens in some of the northern communities in Canada when it's going to ice up, OK, not so much the last few years. But there have been things like, OK, when that ship sails, that's it. Yeah, our own to spray.

[01:03:35:00 - 01:03:35:16]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:03:35:16 - 01:03:50:01]
Speaker 2
 And if something goes wrong with you, like if you need your appendix out, somebody's going to do it on a kitchen table with a knife talking on the front because there's no doctor, you know, you know, and you think about it that way. That is, oh,

[01:03:51:07 - 01:03:56:09]
Speaker 2
 it's all on how you look at life because all we're really doing will be any stories.

[01:03:57:11 - 01:04:19:10]
Speaker 2
 What we were telling them around the campfire or we're telling them in the bar whether we're writing them down and making people pay for a book. We're really talking. We're looking at life and what is entertaining about life. You know, those idiots did last week, you know, and of course, funny is different for everybody.

[01:04:19:10 - 01:04:19:23]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:04:19:23 - 01:04:22:06]
Speaker 2
 And there's humor that works of the moment.

[01:04:22:06 - 01:04:22:15]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:04:22:15 - 01:04:25:02]
Speaker 2
 There's humor of human nature.

[01:04:26:22 - 01:04:44:12]
Speaker 2
 And then there's humor that depends on you knowing the people, you know, right. If if you don't know Aunt Maud, then Aunt Maud getting drunk or having something ridiculous happen to her like, you know, suit poured over her head on.

[01:04:46:15 - 01:04:48:04]
Speaker 2
 Doesn't isn't funny.

[01:04:49:11 - 01:05:01:07]
Speaker 2
 You can sometimes get the sense of it. And there was a family story about one of my aunts who was a slept in and was always last down on the farm

[01:05:03:05 - 01:05:14:16]
Speaker 2
 table where everybody was eating breakfast and she would carry down the oil line because it was left for her. The last one. OK. And she'd always be half asleep and she'd go down to share stuff. Don't don't eat the bottom.

[01:05:15:21 - 01:05:20:16]
Speaker 2
 And the other family members of the table will call up. Is the lamp OK?

[01:05:20:16 - 01:05:21:14]
Speaker 7
 No.

[01:05:24:04 - 01:05:37:14]
Speaker 2
 And you get the humor, even though you've never met this woman, she's been dead for years. In fact, everybody in that story who was around the table is getting gone now. But you get the human. That's a human nature.

[01:05:37:14 - 01:05:38:11]
Speaker 7
 What? Yeah.

[01:05:38:11 - 01:05:50:00]
Speaker 2
 But when you think about it, that lamp was expensive and hard to replace. Oh, and she was late down to start the farm day. Oh, you know, so it's on her. You know,

[01:05:51:15 - 01:06:00:08]
Speaker 2
 but but I mean, that's the sort of when we're storytelling work. It's how we look at our own lives and other people's lives. Yeah. With little touches.

[01:06:00:08 - 01:06:12:12]
Speaker 1
 See, even in that story, like is the lamp OK? Like I took that with humor, like, of course, you're OK. So I'm only asking about the lamp because I assume you're OK. Right. But it could have been like, no, really. Yes, the lamp. OK. Yeah.

[01:06:12:12 - 01:06:23:08]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, what they were hearing is the huge crash. Yeah. Because they heard the huge crash just about every morning as she as she missed the last step. You know,

[01:06:24:12 - 01:06:25:22]
Speaker 2
 there was a is the lamp OK?

[01:06:25:22 - 01:06:27:01]
Speaker 7
 OK. OK.

[01:06:27:01 - 01:06:28:00]
Speaker 2
 But I don't care about you.

[01:06:29:20 - 01:06:33:14]
Speaker 2
 But I mean, we can get the humor that you would situation.

[01:06:33:14 - 01:06:39:22]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So I think just tying that together a little bit, I think that

[01:06:41:01 - 01:06:54:20]
Speaker 1
 maybe we don't look at everything in a conscious way to say that, oh, well, the 401 is here and this is where the like the trucks go. And this is how everything is moving. And I know that this came from China. So it came on a big ship and a container and, you know, all that.

[01:06:55:21 - 01:07:23:19]
Speaker 1
 Take that into the fantasy world. We don't need to know all of the details like that. But if there is if we look at a map or we hear a description and there's something there that implies, oh, this is the big city and you're just in this little town, we can like, you know, almost like just second nature unconsciously super oppose that. Of course, there's trade routes between these two places. So you can you can play a lot with with with that and have those things occur. And in fact, I think that the more that you can

[01:07:24:22 - 01:07:33:18]
Speaker 1
 put in those places like this is this is where the wool comes from. And this is, you know, then it's a it starts to make sense without having to think it's.

[01:07:33:18 - 01:07:40:18]
Speaker 2
 Look what George did with David's songs. His fantasy version of London.

[01:07:42:00 - 01:07:44:09]
Speaker 2
 In Westeros is King's Landing.

[01:07:46:08 - 01:07:47:11]
Speaker 2
 Landing. Oh.

[01:07:48:17 - 01:07:52:02]
Speaker 2
 Like it's a wharf. It's a dock. Oh, all this stuff comes there.

[01:07:53:04 - 01:07:59:00]
Speaker 2
 King's Landing. Oh, so it's important. Well, is it two words? Right. Right. He's painted the picture.

[01:07:59:00 - 01:07:59:17]
Speaker 7
 Right.

[01:07:59:17 - 01:08:12:08]
Speaker 2
 Even before you look at a map and go, oh, that's London. As you look at it, you know, it's so. Yeah, there's there's there's ways of doing it. But yeah, everything should serve your story. And, you know, anyway,

[01:08:12:08 - 01:08:43:10]
Speaker 1
 I just I just imagine that that would be like if you're trying to create a world night and I get like a lot of people will start off with, OK, we're starting here in the tavern and then we're going to do a homebrew world. And it's going to like maybe have some ideas in mind and then it all starts to appear. Hopefully if you have those ideas in mind already, then I guess, you know, it will be easier to tie those important elements together. But if you're really just starting from scratch, then I would think, you know, where do you draw from? You draw from history or like because I think that's going to be a pretty big shortcut to.

[01:08:43:10 - 01:08:51:13]
Speaker 2
 Well, being mindful of the cycle of things, the food and the food and the trade routes.

[01:08:51:13 - 01:08:51:19]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:08:53:00 - 01:09:10:23]
Speaker 2
 Means you don't fall into one of the two traps of world. One of them is my world is a collection of the seven wonders of the world. Niagara Falls, the highest falls you ever see, the highest mountain. It's got goblins on it and it's purple. You know, and these things, you know, it's a listing of

[01:09:12:02 - 01:09:16:04]
Speaker 2
 unique salient features that you have no idea what's in between them.

[01:09:16:04 - 01:09:17:00]
Speaker 7
 Oh, yeah.

[01:09:17:00 - 01:09:18:21]
Speaker 2
 And the other one is

[01:09:20:07 - 01:09:30:04]
Speaker 2
 the trap of the endless genealogy, which is what I call the bigot problem because of the Bible, the beginning of the Bible and so on, so bigots, so on, so bigots, so on. Now,

[01:09:31:04 - 01:09:39:20]
Speaker 2
 the Bible has it in there for legitimate reasons. You have wandering nomadic tribes in the desert. This is how they were recording.

[01:09:41:10 - 01:09:54:23]
Speaker 2
 Who was really related to whom? This was like their record. They didn't have municipal roles, births and deaths. And so the bigots were was that for them. But if we're doing it for a fantasy setting,

[01:09:57:02 - 01:09:59:15]
Speaker 2
 it may become important later.

[01:09:59:15 - 01:10:00:08]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:10:00:08 - 01:10:03:18]
Speaker 2
 When you've sold hundreds of millions of books.

[01:10:04:19 - 01:10:07:20]
Speaker 2
 Who was who was the bad princess?

[01:10:07:20 - 01:10:08:09]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:10:08:09 - 01:10:10:11]
Speaker 2
 Five hundred years ago.

[01:10:11:22 - 01:10:21:15]
Speaker 2
 And did she have any children while she ran away? We never found out. Oh, it turns out that she was a lover of this magician who became a lich and she's still around.

[01:10:22:15 - 01:10:31:05]
Speaker 2
 Then it becomes its own story. But don't fall down the rabbit hole of detailing these family trees of these royal on royalty or nobility.

[01:10:32:05 - 01:11:27:16]
Speaker 2
 When it's five hundred years in the past and doesn't have any bearing on her story you're telling right now. He can fill that in later. I want to know is the story right now. So I really want to know if I'm stuck in this house. I don't care that the land is really owned by a merchant consortium who pays taxes to the burgers and the burgers remit them to the. I mean, you don't even know that. Yeah. I need to know as I need to go now. Where do I go? How do I go? And what happens to it and what's the etiquette? Like if I climb up on the countertop to pull in the sink and the countertop breaks off and falls and the lady that comes running in, she's going to probably be not too pleased with me, particularly if she was expecting me to pull the sink because there's another place in the house or out back. So that detail becomes immediately important.

[01:11:27:16 - 01:11:28:07]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:11:28:07 - 01:11:28:19]
Speaker 2
 To the story.

[01:11:28:19 - 01:11:31:08]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. No, but you're in custody where you are.

[01:11:31:08 - 01:12:22:15]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. And then the the the archaeologists will tell you, oh, yeah, you always want to find out where the houses were because people threw away things they broke. They would get in trouble for it. Like if you were a servant, you smash the China. You threw it down the hole in the toilet. Oh, so nobody could find out. Or if you were the landowner and you were smoking clay pipes and the clay pipe broke, you just tossed it down the toilet with everything else to get rid of it. Because you were buying a new one, you see. And so if you can find out where the house was, you go through all the things you can find out what people ate, how they live, because all the garbage is down the other. So so many things like that would become important. So doing the the bottom up. I say that way in this context, but doing the bottom up detail. Yeah, it becomes way more important than which

[01:12:23:21 - 01:12:33:03]
Speaker 2
 black sheep uncle was kicked out of the court 400 years ago. Unless the black sheep uncle or his descendants are part of your story right now, then it's important.

[01:12:33:03 - 01:12:35:09]
Speaker 7
 Yeah, they are. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:35:09 - 01:12:40:00]
Speaker 2
 You are detailing for the sake of detailing. Yeah, not for the sake of storytelling.

[01:12:40:00 - 01:13:10:08]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. But I think you have a point there. And I know that it's like you and I even did a thing on on the YouTube, on the YouTube channel about been sewers and how does all that work? And I guess if you're like, you know, deep enough into the story, like it could become a distraction like you said, oh, well, how do they do that? How does that work? There's got to be some plumbing and, you know, even in some ancient sites, there's some really interesting like war works in play.

[01:13:11:20 - 01:13:16:18]
Speaker 1
 Yeah, so I can see how that can be important. Otherwise, it breaks it, it breaks immersion.

[01:13:16:18 - 01:13:18:08]
Speaker 2
 That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:13:19:22 - 01:13:27:19]
Speaker 2
 The Rose is a unique case. Yeah, because I've been detailing it for 56 years now. Yeah. And the gamers always want more.

[01:13:27:19 - 01:13:28:10]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:13:28:10 - 01:13:36:00]
Speaker 2
 But what I always say to people, because I constantly get, why do I need to know that for? Yeah. Who cares? Yeah.

[01:13:37:07 - 01:13:39:21]
Speaker 2
 If you don't use it in your game or your stories.

[01:13:39:21 - 01:13:40:10]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:13:40:10 - 01:13:46:13]
Speaker 2
 And don't read it. Don't worry about it. You don't have to collect everything. You don't have to read everything. You don't have to be up on everything.

[01:13:46:13 - 01:13:47:00]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:13:47:00 - 01:13:55:03]
Speaker 2
 And there are now some hard working fans creating the F.R. Wiki that will do it for you so you can look up the heraldry of San Diego.

[01:13:55:03 - 01:13:56:20]
Speaker 7
 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:13:56:20 - 01:13:58:18]
Speaker 2
 We will set it forth.

[01:14:00:12 - 01:14:04:23]
Speaker 2
 You don't need the detail if you don't want it for your purposes, but just.

[01:14:06:03 - 01:14:29:21]
Speaker 2
 Somebody's done it so you can take comfort of the fact, oh, it's been done somewhere. But your realms at your gaming table doesn't have to match the publisher. So if if you don't own that book, you know, if you don't have time before your play session, yeah, to look up what herbs they use when you have a bum rash to get rid of it.

[01:14:31:04 - 01:14:40:08]
Speaker 2
 They'll just make up something at the gaming table. You don't need to. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, somebody has to grab it all before you. Yeah, it's down there.

[01:14:40:08 - 01:14:40:20]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:14:40:20 - 01:14:45:11]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. And I I'm not like

[01:14:46:19 - 01:14:48:07]
Speaker 2
 ashamed of that. It's like

[01:14:49:07 - 01:15:22:08]
Speaker 2
 if you want super detail and lots of it and the lore piled up deeply, there it is. There are other worlds that are really only a few names and a sketch map. And that's fine. Yeah. If you read, say, Lynn Carter's phone, or books, they started is very simple and just a hand sketch map by him in a mass market paperback. So it's a tiny map. These basically are showing you where the cities are. They're fighting each other. Yeah. So you get some idea of where they are in relation to each other. But

[01:15:23:09 - 01:15:43:14]
Speaker 2
 after the Carter was dead, somebody did a miniatures war game set in his world. Then suddenly they had to know how many troops this place. What the what the roads were like. Did you have to use airships or ships like naval ships to to convey? Or were there actually roads? And then they had the need to start detailing. So they did.

[01:15:43:14 - 01:15:44:07]
Speaker 7
 Yeah.

[01:15:44:07 - 01:15:59:15]
Speaker 2
 So the world setting only has to be as detailed as the story needs of the moment. And if you know you're going to do a series or you're going to sit around a gaming table and play anything, then your needs are deeper than one short story.

[01:16:01:21 - 01:16:25:04]
Speaker 1
 This concludes episode 11 of the a role to play podcast. You'll find all the links to keep up with Ed at Ed Greenwood dot net, including Patreon, Discord, Facebook and the DMS Guild. Or sign up to get tweets from the adverse on X. A role to play is an untamed dandelion production. Thanks for listening. Until next time, make a wish. Dream it true.