In this episode, I will be flying solo as I take you on a tour of some of the other game rules that are available for Mythras and well as providing you with a glimpse behind the scenes of the making of this podcast. So make sure your tables are in the upright position and fasten your seatbelts. Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 episode 25 - Flying solo through rules and supplements.
Hello and welcome to Mythras Matters, a podcast dedicated to the Mythras ruleset and all its supplements. As always, I’m your host, inwils, and welcome to June!
Summer is on its way and after just enjoying a long weekend because of a UK holiday last Monday, I am looking forward to the summer vacation when I get to concentrate, and probably catch up, on all my content creation and those playing sessions.
Have you ever wondered how this podcast comes together? Well, let me just give you a glimpse behind the scenes for a brief moment. Usually, someone will contact me asking to be on the podcast, or members of the design mechanism team put someone in touch with me to arrange an interview. Sometimes I have an idea that I would like to focus on when I will feature some of the players in my campaign. If interviews need to be arranged and recorded, I try to do this before the 20th of the month so that I can get the interview recorded and edited before I start to script the podcast. Sometimes, like this month, nothing makes its way into my inbox and so I start to think about how I can solo the episode.
Once the content is decided on, I script the whole podcast before moving across to Adobe Audition where I record each section. I actually give each paragraph/section a code, for example, in this month's podcast the sections are coded 25.1, 25.2 25.3 etc. I then record each section and save it with the code, making a note of anything I need to add using the section codes. Just out of interest this section has the code 25.4
I also use the script to provide a transcript of the podcast and the section codes are useful for setting the chapter markers in post-production. Once everything has been recorded, I try to do this in one session so that the volume of the recording doesn't change much - yes I know sometimes the volume is all over the place, but remember I'm no audio engineer as the variation might suggest!
Then it takes me a couple of hours to edit everything together and then apply post-production effects such as hard limiters for those moments when I get super excited and match loudness across all segments.
I don't produce the podcast in a day or even two. It's probably spread over the month, but the real work starts past the 20th of the month. Then, after an episode is published, I start work on the next one. I must say that I am so pleased that it is just once a month, if it was weekly, I would never keep up!
I hope that gives you a bit of an insight behind the scenes, let's move on and let me tell you about M-Space in the campaign up dates segment!
So you might have seen that we have decided to alternative the campaign we are adventuring in on our regular Saturday evening game. After we finished a long series of sessions with the fantasy setting, we have now swapped to space using the M-Space rules. The video with us creating characters has had more views than any of our fantasy actual play. I'm not sure if this is because of the character generation of the interest in the sci-fi campaign.
I'm trying a new approach to creating the character's background with this campaign, hopefully, it will work, I'm really lucky to have a group of players who are willing to try my unusual ideas!
One of the aspects of M-space that I am really looking forward to is the conflict system. I had playtested something similar with the social conflict rules in the Mythras companion and see where they might have originated from.
I might get this wrong since I have not actually played it yet, but essentially the conflict system is used where there is conflict to be resolved between two opposing skills. An example would be the classic stealth vs perception although I have used this to dig out a probe from a pile of sand! More on that later.
When a conflict is declared or started, the skills are decided on first and then a characteristic that will form the pool. For the stealth conflict, this would naturally be stealth, with an associated characteristic of DEX vs the opponent's perception skill with the associated characteristic of INT. The associated characteristic is the conflict pool for each opponent. Using opposed rolls the winner is decided and then 'damage' is done to the opponent's conflict pool. Once a conflict pool is reduced to zero, that opponent has lost. Now there are more rules for this system, but if you want to see them all, then go and buy M-Space - the hardback version is especially nice!
I have used this conflict system for a range of situations. To go back to the probe in the sand situation, the skill for the characters will be Brawn and for the probe, I decided that it would have a skill of 'stuck in the sand' of 25% - this was to reflect the possibility of the sand shifting and flowing back into the hole. The conflict pool for the character would be the average of their STR and SIZ, while the probe would have a conflict score of 50 - wait you might be thinking that is high, but I wanted it to reflect that it was buried deeply. The time for each conflict would be 30 minutes with the damage being 1d6 - the probe can inflict this as well. It's a stubborn probe!
I really liked this system to reflect possible conflicts but also the time periods involved. I have devised another conflict for cracking the code from the probe!
If you would like to see how it went - then do check out the actual play video on my YouTube channel, links in the show notes.
As we move from the fantasy setting to the sci-fi some rules have changed slightly or new rules implemented, such as the conflict pool rules, but essentially the system is the same. The players will be swapping their swords for blasters (pew pew) but the combat is the same, so we are not having to learn a whole new combat system.
I have heard a lot about the classic fantasy system for Mythras, but there are others that I have got the rules for but have never managed to put them into action.
One of my favourite ones, that I am keen to play and develop, is After the Vampire Wars - in order to tempt you, here is the blur from the back of the book!
Vampires have always been a favourite of mine, and I like the idea of the supernatural mixing with the mundane. It reminds me of the shadow hunter books and films. I also imagine that there will be legwork/investigation of the adventures. Although combat is always exciting, I do enjoy a good legwork session when information and clues are revealed and developed. I think this also allows for certain skills to be developed rather than all those points being ploughed into combat!
Luther Arkwright is another rule set that I have but not yet played. I've seen some of the graphical novels, and have even listened to a book on Audible (other audiobook services are available! I think!). Luther Arkwright reminds me of a game that I used to play at university when I was a student - you are all probably too young to remember the system, and it was quite niched. It was called Timemaster and I played a Greek Soldier who was excellent at acrobatics! I really enjoyed playing the game mainly since I think we had an excellent GM who lead us through the historical elements of the game. This would be my concern about player Luther Arkwright. Essentially I am a techie and have very little if any, knowledge of history. I am assuming that some historical knowledge and understanding is needed to really play these rules to the max!
I do use the supplement for some of the weapons since they slide into M-space very nicely. More about firearms later in the podcast!
Combining Sci-fi and mystery in the 1920s there is Odd Soot - here is the back cover blurb!
And if you have the urge to tackle more aliens then there is Worlds United
The Martians really did invade Earth in 1897? And again, in 1938?
Venus really is a lush jungle planet, where dinosaurs still roam?
Psionics are a reality? Crystal Technology an everyday fact of life?
Rockets ply the spacelanes between Mars, Earth, Venus and the asteroids?
The year is 1959?
Worlds United is a setting of Planetary Romance and Pulp Science Fiction. Your characters are adventurers and explorers, people of extraordinary abilities, with drive and ambition to match. Here, the gleaming alloy aircars of Gernsback era SF are a reality; one really can sail the Martian canals, or wrangle dinosaurs on Venus; and there truly are wrecks of Martian War Tripods standing fearsomely tall in the Smithsonian - and the fear that the Octopoid Martians, unseen for a generation, are once again drawing their plans against us…
Worlds United takes you into a 1959 with rockets, rayguns, dinosaurs, and rip-roaring adventure.
With superheroes coming into the Mythras Family with Destined, I think we only need a cyberpunk setting similar to Shadowrun and the family would be complete!
Has anything that I have spoken about grabbed your attention? It has then definitely check out the setting where ever you usually buy your Mythras books. And if you do play any of the systems then please do get in touch, I would really like to feature some of these alternative settings in the podcast.
You might have noticed that I left off Classic Fantasy - well that is another excellent addition to the Mythras family and it would be fantastic to do a complete episode on Classic Fantasy - so again, get in touch!
I am always looking for reviews or interviews with people. So if you are interested, you can email me at inwils@gmail.com or send me a message on the various forums I frequent.
Also, if you are interested, then remember you can watch me other content on my YouTube channel where explain various aspects of the game, post actual play videos and talk about GMing in my series the gibbering GM.
Likes, subs and comments are always gratefully received - and I try to reply to all the comments you post.
To finish off this episode, I just have some updates to share with you from Loz!
Mythic Babylon should be out this weekend! - you might have heard the pre podcast advert for this!
Also, a new combat module called Brace Yourself that deals with creature combat should be released at the June/July. If you want to hear more about the combat modules then check out episode 18 where I interview Dan True about the other combat modules.
And finally as promised, there will be an update to Mythras Firearms including a new layout, that will be released in June.
So plenty of excellent resources on their way!
And that’s it, another episode of Mythras Matters completed. I hope you have managed to endure my dulcet tones this episode. Next month's episode is still a mystery - so definitely worth coming back for!
So, until next time have a great month of gaming and I will chat again with you all in July
Until then I hope that all our opposed rolls succeed and provide you with a well-deserved special.
Thanks for listening cya - Bye!