Speaker 1: Hi. This is John, creator of Tale of the Manticore. Today,
for the first bonus content of season three, I'm delighted
to share with you an interview I did with Trevor
Dvall of the hugely popular and influential Me Myself and
Die YouTube channel. As many of you will know, Trevor
is also the creator of the new similar RPG, The
Broken Empires. During our chat, we talk about his experience
and advice as regards solo RPGs, and also about his
new game. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much
as I did. Much thanks to Trevor for coming on
the show and talking about his craft and now for
the second time on Tale of the Manticore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show. This is way overdue, Trevor.
Speaker 3: The last time we were in touch was back in
my season one. I'm in season three now and my
seasons are two years long, so it's been like three
years I think since you came on to play a
Dwarf in Chief for me, and I got to say
thank you so much because at that time I was
kind of just starting out.
Speaker 2: I think I was about seven eight months in.
Speaker 3: I was going around begging hat in hand, for people
to come on and do vo work for me. You
and Professor Dungeon Master both answered the call. I'm sure
that it helped tremendously in the growth of my show.
Speaker 2: I'm in your debt.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to pick your brains about all things
Broken Empires and also solo RPG. So we're talking to me,
myself and die right now. Has your approach changed either
in major or minor ways, including lessons learned along the way?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Do you do anything differently now than from season one?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah? I mean how long have you got to
listen all the Yeah?
Speaker 5: So when I go back and I look at episode
from season one now, which isn't often but es personally
now with the Broken Empires, I have to go.
Speaker 4: Back and check the lore I've already established and then
you know.
Speaker 5: Uh, but when I go back, I'm like, oh boy,
that is so primitive. It is so primitive. But at
the same time, I think that's also what gives it
its appeal, especially in season one.
Speaker 4: Is it it's just it's just raw. It's just me
and a couple of.
Speaker 5: Cameras and some toys booming, some dollies around the table.
Speaker 4: So that was cool and that was really raw and
authentic and nice.
Speaker 5: But then as time went on, I thought, you know what,
I want to bump this up a notch. And every
season I would bam, bump it up a notch, bumb
it up. And so season two the big thing was, Ooh,
I got the I got the Dolly cam now, so
I had the camera going back.
Speaker 4: And forth and everybody was like, oh, does he do it?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 4: And then you know, I would change the background of
this sat a little bit.
Speaker 5: And then season three was a completely different set, and
then I added a bunch of more cameras, and then
season four it just got bigger and bigger and bigger,
to the point where like, if you look at the
production value of Season four, now it's really like.
Speaker 4: Epic Hollywood shot in terms of its music and effects
and everything.
Speaker 5: So it's got further and further away of I'm a
guy playing a game at a table in front of
a camera.
Speaker 4: More towards I'm doing a big show.
Speaker 5: But in fairness to myself, I always intended to do
the big show. It is I didn't know how to
finesse that to make that work. So I guess the
thing I've learned the most about it is. With all
of the bells and whistles of the production and all
that stuff, that's all fine and good, But in the end,
what people want to see is me interpreting the oracle
and rolling with the situation and interpreting the dice to
see what happens with the characters, because in the end,
that's all anybody really cares about.
Speaker 4: Honestly, just like when you watch a.
Speaker 5: Movie, you don't care about how well it's shot, unless
you're like a film director. Yeah, what you care about
is do you have a connection with the characters?
Speaker 4: Do you feel for the characters? Are you are you
with them on their journey?
Speaker 5: So in the end, all the bells and whistles don't
really matter, especially to the solo gamers, because if they're
coming to the channel, they're probably coming there to get
a sense of how, you know, a solo game might play. Sure,
and so to the season one is kind of the
best because it's as close to their experience as you
might get on my channel.
Speaker 3: Anyway, right right, And of course you're figuring it out
in season one to some degree, Like obviously by season four,
the pacing is faster, the tempo is faster, and I
imagine that comes from a place of your confidence because
you know what it looks.
Speaker 2: Like now on the other side, whereas when you.
Speaker 3: Start, well, there's a lot of experimentation stuff like that,
and you're kind of, you know, go through the growing
pains and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I think there's a tough question.
Speaker 3: But does the medium affect your methodology or does the
medium effect the way you play the game? Like is
doing it for a camera very very different from doing
it alone at your.
Speaker 2: Desk for fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: You know, as the man said, the medium is the message,
and that's that's true.
Speaker 4: There's been you know, people.
Speaker 5: Over the years have said, well it's it's great and everything,
but you always know that the main character is not
going to die.
Speaker 4: Well, well that's not true.
Speaker 5: But I understand why people feel that way because what
they see is a polished production and they assume, oh, well,
Trevor's never gonna let the story get derailed. But I
run the show exactly as I run a game for
my friends, which is I don't know the story.
Speaker 4: All the story is is what happened after we're.
Speaker 5: Done, and we look back and say, oh, I guess
that was the story, So I don't know where it's
going to go. I have no idea what challenges and
obstacles the character's going to do with. But but all
of that said, knowing that it is a show does
put way more pressure on me because the fact is,
you know, you can't pull a ned Stark execution very often.
You know, you get away with that once in a show.
You start to do that more often, people die. They
tune out because it's like, well, I don't want to
get invested with these characters because they're all dropping.
Speaker 4: Dead all the time, right, yeah, yeah, So I have
not yet had a character die in the show.
Speaker 5: That doesn't mean it can't happen, but it is a
balance between like what is for the show versus what
is best for the authenticity of the game, and that
is tricky. Luckily, I've never been dealt a situation where
I had to deal with it, like, I never had
a situation where the dice killed the character outright and
then I had to There was moments that approached that.
Speaker 4: Certainly, but we see that in the show.
Speaker 5: You know, there was an episode in season one, I
think it was episode ten, where Simon and company were
trying to they were fighting these cultists in the town
of Fundatrres. This giant title wave is coming in and
the whole thing is this ticking clock.
Speaker 4: And there's many moments in an episode where you can
see me going, Oh, we're all gonna die.
Speaker 2: Distress is real.
Speaker 4: Distress is real.
Speaker 5: So that does happen, but it never happened to the
point where I really had to deal with that. And
to tell you the truth, I'd like to say that,
like in season four, if Veil got killed now, because
the season is still ongoing, I haven't done a new
episode months because of the kickstarter, but I like to
believe that I Veil got killed now that I would
honor that and just pick up the story as you do,
Ala Georgio R.
Speaker 2: Martin.
Speaker 5: Right, just because ned Stark dies a spoiler alert because
that dies doesn't mean that the story doesn't, because yeah,
I know, and as it turns out, Darth Vaders Luke
Gonwarker's father hard to believe. I know, I know, but yeah,
it does have an effect and I have to be
careful with it.
Speaker 4: But I've never really been tested, so I hope I
never do. Right.
Speaker 2: Do you have a thing like in a table game?
Speaker 3: You might have I don't know, two or three combats
in a session, but you know they're mook combats and
they're low steaks. But in a season where you may
only have eight, ten, twelve episodes, do you think, well,
they've all got to be a little bit like higher stakes,
more critical, which makes the game like a bit deadlier.
Speaker 2: I'm asking because that's what I find what I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: Do you find that, like, would you put in like that?
You open the door, there's three goblins in there. It's
like it's almost a foregone conclusion, or at least the
stakes are low.
Speaker 2: Would you use that or would you just go nope?
It's all big all the time.
Speaker 5: For me, my style is the same as the style
in the show. I believe that a goblin with a
dagger is as much of a deadly threat potentially as
anything else.
Speaker 4: So I don't I don't believe in minions, I don't
believe in moos. I don't believe anything like that.
Speaker 5: So anytime that blades are drawn, there's a chance of death.
Otherwise it's not it doesn't feel real to me, right,
It's It's like, that's why I'm not into superhero stuff.
Speaker 2: But I'm not.
Speaker 5: Into which is ironic because I play so many superheroes
for Marvel and on TV and cartoons. But but in
terms of my game stuff, I don't. I don't have
any interest in superhero stuff. That's why I don't have
any interest in five E because five V is ultimately
a fantasy superhero game really add its core, and there's
no real threat to the characters unless the GM really
tries the dollar out. So for me, the default is
deadly threat all the time. Yeah, and that's scary. That's
scary when you're doing the show in the format that
I'm doing it right right.
Speaker 3: This is a question that's sort of a follow up
to that same idea of having the medium influence the gameplay.
I know, I know you do like featureless great playing,
but would you play game if there was no.
Speaker 4: Audience, not a full game like I do in the show.
Mostly I don't have time.
Speaker 5: And also for me, solo role playing as it existed
for me before I did the show was an exercise.
Speaker 4: It was an exercise in learning a system.
Speaker 5: It was exercise in teaching myself a combats like that's
what that's exactly what featured This great plane is is
exactly how I would teach myself a game when I
bought it, I would say, Okay, I've got Black Jay
of the Paladin and he's fighting an orc. How does
that look in this combat system? When I would play
it up. So it wasn't a lot of it wasn't
dialogue and moments of drama.
Speaker 4: It was just mechanics.
Speaker 5: The only time I came close to that was when
years ago, right around the time that I first discovered
the Mythic GM Emulator. I was so impressed with it,
mostly as an adventure design tool because I was like,
this is fantastic. That was the time in my life
as a GM when I was really into this idea
or I started to become into the idea of I
don't want to know what's going on and I don't
want to know the story beforehand. So this was this
beautiful tool that harnessed my imagination to allow me to
not have to know anything as a GM.
Speaker 4: So it's great, so free.
Speaker 5: So I discovered the saying was that this is so cool,
and you know, the author was talking about this solo
role play. I was like, well, I don't really know
what that is, but boy, this tool to you know,
come up with stuff.
Speaker 4: It's fantastic.
Speaker 5: And at the same time, I got together with a
few a bunch of strangers online on some forum and
we basically took a thieves World approach where we would
all use the Mythic Gym emulator with a system of
our choice. Somebody who's using gerps, I was using Savage World,
somebody else was using who the hell knows what. But
we were all running our characters in a shared world,
and so we would play the adventure solo and then
we would write it up in whatever form we wanted,
and then we would post that, and then people would
look at that and they would say, oh, I think
that kind of connects with the thing I did in
my game. So gradually you had this world developed. I
think it was called dal Dar Like. It was unapologetically
we were inspired by youth. And it was super cool
because we were organically creating this entire world from solo roleplay.
So it was all these people individually playing and all
working towards the same goal.
Speaker 4: It was really, really, really neat.
Speaker 5: But other than that, I don't do it at all
because I don't have time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got friends here. I played run games for
and play with.
Speaker 5: I've got friends in Vancouver and so I got people
in groups.
Speaker 3: You know, Yes, it's kind of ironic that you don't
really play so well outside of the show, but people
would probably come to you for advice all the time.
How do I play solo on my own with you know,
with no show?
Speaker 5: There are way better people to give advice than me
when it comes to song, Way, way way.
Speaker 4: Better people to give advice to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think what I learned from you really was how
to interpret that oracle. I'm one of those that part
of the audience. I was like, this is oh, I
love this part. Watching somebody interpret an oracle to me
is always a treat. It's so brilliant, right, kind of
really came up with an innovation.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say game changer because that's too cheesy.
Speaker 3: But it really is truly innovative and kind of genius.
Speaker 2: And I just found out it was based on the taro,
which I didn't know until very recently.
Speaker 3: I thought, that makes total sense. How did I not
see that before? But yeah, that's that's how it is.
Speaker 5: I would unapologetically use the term game changer because it
literally was the change the game for me. You know,
it was I had no idea that this was possible.
And again, just just as a tool to design adventures,
it's just magnificent, you know. And I'm not talking about
the other stuff. I'm not talking about the adventure crafter.
I'm talking about the core mythic GM emulator, the first
edition that I used for years and years, the old
blue book that on its own was just like, yes, amazing.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you also, what is next for
your show? I mentioned nothing for a little while, but
because you've got some other things going on. But when you, uh,
you know, when you saddle up again, what direction does
the horse go? I guess you're finishing up season four.
Do you have an idea of how many more episodes
there are?
Speaker 4: Do you?
Speaker 3: Do you see the end or is it a total
question mark in terms of how long it will take,
where they're going, what's going to happen?
Speaker 5: Well, right now, I kind of left the show right
at the beginning of what I would call the third
act if you were going to get that on there,
which I don't normally, but I can see the end.
In fact, there's a very strong case to be made
that the next episode will be the last episode, right,
just because everything's ramping towards that ending. Now, everything's driving
towards that final resolution whatever. It is. One of the
things I learned from iron Sworn, which again I shouldn't
say that I learned it from Ironsworn, but iron Sworn
certainly reinforced what I already knew this idea, and I
will say this the way that iron Sworn took the
concept and mechanized it in a very very specific way,
and that was the concept of vows, right. All that
was you've always got a thing, you're driving towards You've
always got a thing. So in season two, I feel
like season two is probably the most cohesive of the
seasons of my show, because it was always driving towards
that end goal, right, and so you could feel it
coming towards the end, and when Aarn was, you know,
getting closer to his quarry and discovery. There was a
lot of side quests, but they were always coming back,
always coming back to that. So that's where I'm at
now with season four, is we've had the big reveal
or one of them anyway, that drives back towards what
very much feels like a climax, But how that goes
that chubby.
Speaker 4: For the dice to decide. So if I had to guess,
I'll tell you.
Speaker 5: There's another unique thing about this is that you know,
I did season four specifically because I wanted to use
it to test the system. Well, the system has evolved
radically since since season one, so some of the stuff
that you may have seen in early episodes of season
four is quite different, like the travel system. The travel
system was was still kind of clunky and awkward and
a natural. Well, I've broken all of that down and
kind of come back to something. It's still the same
concept and it still has the same basic precepts, but
in terms of its execution, it's a lot smoother now
and it's more in line with the freeform creation that
I'm kind of known for.
Speaker 4: So part of me is.
Speaker 5: Like, while I should really take the opportunity to show
the viewers a little bit more of where the game
is now in the ladder or in the last episode
or two of the show, and that would mean necessarily
drawing it out, but I don't want to artificially do that.
So again it's this balance between I want to do
what's best for the show, but I also want to
do what's best for the game and just.
Speaker 4: Be authentic to the game. So it's it's that whole
thing right now.
Speaker 5: If I had to guess, I would say that the
next episode will be the last one and it could
happen to ice.
Speaker 2: Which is the beauty of course.
Speaker 3: And if I were to say something like season five,
is it like A can either confirm nor deny situation.
Speaker 4: At this moment.
Speaker 5: If you were to suggest I was to do a
season five, what I would say is that I'm really
eager to get back to the table, but with something different,
Like I think my next thing is going to be
and I don't want to say series, but my next
thing is going to be hitting Rangers of Shadow Deep
or Shadow Velve.
Speaker 4: It's not Shadow Dark, that's Kelsey's game anyway.
Speaker 5: It's it's a fantasy mini's game, but it's got this
cool story to it. And I did one episode for it,
this werewolf thing on the Channel, which was so much
fun and I always wanted to get to it. So
I think that's gonna be next for me is once
what's the Broken Empires is is sent to the printers
and I can take a breath. I think that'll be
the next thing is Okay, let's dive into something completely different.
I think that's what's neck in terms of season five.
In terms of the narrative of the show, I don't know.
I mean, honestly, there wasn't gonna be a season four.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: When I did season three, for me, that was like,
that was a perfect ending. Now, there were those cliffhangers,
you know, post credit scenes in season two, in season
three that suggested that there was something else happening. But
I would have been fine to just let that go
because season three wraps up in this beautiful little bow.
So I didn't want to do season four. But then
I thought, well, there is kind of a cool story
to tell about Vail here, and that's an opportunity to
take me into a completely different part of the world
in a completely different feel and cultural flavor and setting.
And also it'll be an opportunity to do something cool
and test the game in the show.
Speaker 4: So that's why I did it.
Speaker 5: But at the beginning I was very scared of it
because I was like, because I'll tell you something, man,
the worst thing you can do as an entertainer is
not know when to get off the stage. And so
to me, season three was like take the bow and leave,
always leave them wanting more.
Speaker 4: Right, So at this point it depends on season four ends.
Speaker 5: If it ends as epically as I hope it does,
then you know, I'm not going to say that's it,
but the idea of doing another season the way I've
been doing them, it's a tremendous amount of work and
a tremendous amount of creative energy I have to put
into it, and I do love it, but there's so
much more going on now.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess this is a good time to pivot
into talking about Broken Empires then, because this may be
a real career changing time period for what it is
a career changing time period for you, and I imagine
a lot of your time is going to move over
here now and you're going to be Trevor the game
maker instead of Trevor the video maker.
Speaker 2: You'll probably be doing a bit of both.
Speaker 3: Sure, but I'm guessing the focus of your attention is
going to shift or has already shifted. At what point
did you think, I know that you've probably had this
game building over a long time, as you sort of
pick your best mechanics and put.
Speaker 2: Together the thing that works best for you.
Speaker 3: But at what point is it, like, I'm making this
now as a product to put into the world. When
did you know like, oh, this isn't going to be
for me, this is going to be for them.
Speaker 5: Well, I guess the idea of putting it together as
a thing that other people could play came in twenty
twenty three at gen Con, which was the first time
I was there. I'd never been a gen gun before,
and I was brought there by Columbia Games, which was great,
but that's first time I met a lot of the
other YouTubers like Ben Milton of Quested East and Kelsey
Jyn and Professor dam all those people, and that was
a wild experience all on its own to be sort
of welcomed into that community when people knew.
Speaker 4: Who I was and they were like, oh my god.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I didn't think anybody paid attention,
but turns out that did. So. At one point we
were having dinner Kelsey and Ben and I and Ben said, so,
how's your subscribers right now? And I told him I
was At that time, I think I was at like
twenty five thousand or something so respectable, but nothing in
terms of YouTube subscribers, Like, I'm a drop in the ocean,
right still am I think I'm only at thirty seven
thousand or something, but small but dedicated audience.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean we are a niche in a niche
in a niche in.
Speaker 4: A niche exactly exactly. So he said to me how
many subs apps now?
Speaker 5: And like I said, I think it was about twenty
five thousand. And he said, oh, that's really good man.
He said, so what's next?
Speaker 4: And I said, I don't know. I'm just keep doing
what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: And he said no, he said, you have twenty five
thousand people who are basically a captured audience who are interested.
Speaker 4: In what you have to bring them.
Speaker 5: So your next step is to write the book and
sell it to them because they want they want that
from you.
Speaker 4: And I said, a book about what?
Speaker 5: He said, it doesn't matter as long as it's authentically
you and has something to do with the game obviously. Yeah,
he said, as long as as long as it's authentically
you and it's something that you feel as valuable, and
they're gonna want to support that because they're already your
core audience.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, so.
Speaker 5: I thought, oh, well, okay, so we talked a little
more about, you know, the incredible difficulty in getting that
off the ground and with kickstarters and the recoupitment of
investment and blah blah blah blah blah all that stuff.
But as I walked away from there, as I got
back home, I was actually super inspired. I was like, this,
this is an opportunity to bring people something that I'm
deeply passionate about, which is and it didn't have a
name at the time, but now it's called sim Light, right, yeah.
And what that meant was I love detailed games in
the ways that I like the detail. Like, for example,
you could look at Pathfinder two. Path Fighter two is
an extraordinarily detailed game, but it's not detail that I'm
interested in. Their detail is about mathematical balance and everything
is sacrificed on the holy alter of balance, and to me,
that's dull. I get very bored by that.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: What I mean by detail is detail of resolution that
helps the GM paint the picture instead of you know,
my classic example is you don't hit the orc for
five hit points. You stabbed the Orc in his right forearm,
which causes him to cry out and pay and drop
his sword.
Speaker 4: That is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 5: So I was always inspired by games like HarnMaster and
rune Quest and now Mithris.
Speaker 4: These were, you know, the simulationist games. That really all
I mean when I.
Speaker 5: Talked about simulationists, I mean it's it's more gritty and
it's more more detailed in terms.
Speaker 4: Of its combat resolution basically.
Speaker 5: But I didn't want to do just another simulation this game,
because I'm so inspired by all these other.
Speaker 4: New games too, Like The One Ring was mind blowing
for me.
Speaker 5: The idea that they were the first game that I
ever ever found that was able to mechanize social interactions
in a way that was both free flowing and satisfying
and made sense.
Speaker 4: So not both three. That was all of those things,
and it blew my mind.
Speaker 5: And then their their their journey system, their travel system.
They came up with a system that works beautifully for
Middle Earth. So it doesn't necessarily translate to other games,
but it was beautiful for Middle Earth.
Speaker 4: And I was so inspired by that stuff.
Speaker 5: I was like, well, what if I was to all
of these pieces from these games that I've played, and
I've played like hundreds of them over the years I've
been I've been doing this for forty some years.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So yeah, my friend now who's now my sort of
designer and production coordinator for this whole project, he said,
only you can do this, he said, look at it.
You do the Sage's library where you talk about all
of these games you've played in run over the years.
You are so well versed in all of these different
mechanics and different genres and different feelings and atmospheres and
different techniques of playing and GMing.
Speaker 4: And different styles.
Speaker 5: He said, only you could do this, to take all
of these things and to cherry pick the pieces that
you like from all of your years of experience and
see if you can make them work together. And so
I was like, oh, well, now I gotta do this,
you know. And so it's been a nightmare.
Speaker 4: In many ways. It's been a nightmare because you.
Speaker 5: Look at something and you could say, oh, yeah, that's
easily going to work in here, and then you put
it to the table and go, oh, yeah, that doesn't
work at all. So this is the past year and
a half has been. It's the hardest thing I've ever done,
for sure.
Speaker 4: It is. I mean, baby steps, man, Oh my.
Speaker 5: God, it's it's incremental, tiny, little half an inch step
forward every day as I tear out what's left of
my hair, trying to figure out how to make these disparate.
Speaker 4: Pieces work together.
Speaker 5: But yeah, gradually it gets closer and closer and closer.
And so right now the book is in kind of
great shape, like we were just we had a meeting
right before this about where the book is, and like,
there's a few rough edges in the magic system that
I'm still trying to you know, iron out a little bit,
but other than that, it's it's.
Speaker 2: There, like oh nice, feel good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But like I said, I'm so in it now.
I can't see the forest for the tree. So I
haven't been able to stand back and look at what
I have throught. You know, I haven't had a chance
to look at the creation and appreciate the work I've
put into it, because all I can think is in the.
Speaker 4: Deadline, gotta get it to the customer. It's gotta get it.
It's got to play test, got right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is there a part of the process that has either
been like surprisingly difficult or surprisingly fun that you that
because you're probably doing all these things that you haven't
done it before. I don't even know, because I haven't
done anything anywhere near the scale, but I imagine there's layout
and artists to deal with, and editors.
Speaker 2: And this and that and the other thing.
Speaker 3: Any surprises along the way in terms of what's being
fun or like a total.
Speaker 4: Headache every day, both good in bad surprises.
Speaker 5: I think probably the best surprise that I've found is
that the level of support that people are willing to
give to something if they believe in it. Yeah, and
I don't mean just the five thousand or forty seven
or however many people there were that bought into the
project and the case starter, but I also mean all
of the people that have come forward to help me
with advice or you know, like I can go to
anybody that I've made contacts with in the business and say, hey,
can you tell me how the whole tariff thing works
on imports from different countries?
Speaker 4: Does that mean? Or I can say, I.
Speaker 5: Can say, so, did you did you sell miniatures as
part of your package? And if so, how did that work?
Or I could say I'm having a hard time figuring
out how to balance this particular mechanic against this other thing.
And universally people have said, oh yeah, let me help.
Speaker 2: And some of them are your competitors.
Speaker 4: And some of them my competitors.
Speaker 5: But that's that's the great that's a great irony, is
that it really is a case of the rising tide
lifting all boats.
Speaker 4: Uh huh uh.
Speaker 5: There's there is no competition on what we do, not
really because and certainly there's no competition what I do
because my game is is I hesitate to say this,
but it really is kind of unlike a lot of
things out there, because there is no game that takes
the detailed simulation of what I'm doing and mixes it
with a lot of new school ideas and procedural stuff.
Speaker 4: From these new games.
Speaker 5: Because it's got the DNA of so many games in it,
so it becomes a holy unique thing. But so in
terms of competition, like I look at like Kelsey, for example,
she did Shadow Dark, theoretically we're in direct competition where
both RPG designers trying to sell a game, but Shadow
Dark and Broken Empires are about as far from each
other as you can get in terms of the type
of game.
Speaker 4: It is, right, So it's it's been fantastic there.
Speaker 5: Some of the more difficult surprises have been just the
overwhelming amount of creative labor it takes.
Speaker 4: To accomplish this.
Speaker 5: I knew it'd be a lot of work, but I
didn't know. I thought I knew, okay, but no, this
it is. And I'm not lying when I say this.
There is not a moment that I'm awake that I'm
not working on the game. Even if I'm sitting with
my wife having dinner. Right away, I'm like, wait a minute,
should the wound ib at E twelve? Now, No, it's
gotta be an, it's got to be a deten that
it's twenty four seven. So she knows, thank god. She's like,
I get it.
Speaker 4: Just just pick your game. Just I'll help you whenever
you want.
Speaker 5: But it has been just an exhausting amount of work,
and we are just at the beginning here, Like, there's
so much we have to do between now in March,
which is our kind of projected date to send it
to the printers.
Speaker 4: But I got a lot of help. I got a
lot of help.
Speaker 5: But I got great people on board, Like I reached
out to Tan, I reached out to Sean Tompkin. I
reached out to Jason Lutz, who's the uh Crater of
the Perilous Wilds, which is a supplement I use a lot.
Speaker 4: And I said, you.
Speaker 5: Guys want to come on and help me, and they said,
sign us up. So now I've got all these giant
like giants of the industry coming on board, working on
the solo section, working on the random tables for me,
and the stuff they're giving me is just like, oh,
it's it's like this massive burden off my shoulders because
I don't have to do any but because it's already
done so perfectly and I could just you know, put
it in the book.
Speaker 4: So it's been fantastic that way.
Speaker 2: That that sounds amazing.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be a fixture on the con circuit instead
of being like a VIP.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be manning a booth, aren't you. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's a step up.
Speaker 5: That's an upgrade because that means I have to work now,
you know, before I can't walk around, but.
Speaker 2: Wait, I have to buy my own dinner?
Speaker 4: What exactly? Yeah, it's gonna be.
Speaker 5: It's gonna I think it's gonna be a wild ride
over the next couple of years because we're hoping to
deliver the game in people's hands by October of next year,
and then from that point, Yeah, then it becomes taking
it to the cons and trying to you know, run
games for.
Speaker 4: People and selling it.
Speaker 5: That whole thing that you do it is it's at
least a five year plan going forward, for sure.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: My next question was going to be, like, because my
audience is pretty well verst in solo play, and so
it's like that niche within a niche within a niche thing,
and I'm sure that there's quite an overlap between my
audience and your audience. I wouldn't be surprised in the least.
So my next question was gonna be is there anything
for the seasoned solo player that you would like to
know about the Broken Empires? Well, if Sean Tompkins and
Ton of pidget Arc are having a hand in it,
that is something certainly worth knowing.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that we should add to that? Yeah.
Speaker 5: Something that Sean said to me in this process really
blew my mind. And this this actually weirdly reveals my
ignorance and naivete when it comes to the solo oplank thing,
because I had it in my head because it is
a very complex game compared to like it's there's ain't
no rules like OSRHU. It's stuff, There's there's complicated parts.
The goal is to try and make those complex parts
move as quickly as possible.
Speaker 4: Right, That's the holy grail. But I've said that.
Speaker 5: From the beginning that sim light means that you know,
on the spectrum between detail of resolution and speed of play.
I'm trying to find what I consider to be a
happy medium. But that's gonna be different for everybody. But
in my mind, because of the way I play solo
on the show, pace is very important, very important. I
gotta keep thinking moving or else I lose my creative
train of thought. Now, I naively assumed that everybody plays
that way, and Sean said something to be the blow
of my mind, because I thought I had to go
into the Broken Empires with two different core engines, the
normal engine you would use at the table with players,
and then the player facing solo friendly core engine that
was really dumb down the moving thing. And he said
to me, no, no, it's the same game. But I said,
what about the pace? He said, solo players are not
in a hurry. They can take as much time as
they want because they don't have players waiting on their choices,
and I went.
Speaker 4: I never even thought of that, because my solo play
is all about I got to get to the next thing.
I got to get to the next thing. So therefore
you gotta have a sits in the moves and this
one doesn't. This one's very complex. Oh that'll never work.
Speaker 5: And then I was talking to Tana and I said,
so you know, because because Tanna said, oh, yeah, my
favorite game is a Role Master. And I said, okay,
but when you play solo, though, surely you dumb it down.
Speaker 4: And and she said, no.
Speaker 2: Right, why would I do that?
Speaker 4: Why would I do that? And I went, so, I
had no idea.
Speaker 5: So that was a huge relief because it meant that
I didn't have to create two games, that I could
just create one game with really solid, standard kind of
solo tools that are designed specifically for the Broken Empires.
Speaker 4: But that was a massive relief right there.
Speaker 3: Right, that speaks to what we were talking about before,
whether you played differently with an audience there, because that's
where that pacing thing I think is coming from. You
have you have a perception of how your audience is
receiving your show.
Speaker 2: You want to give a good show.
Speaker 3: Therefore, tempo is up, pacing is up, there's no dead spots.
But as they said, when you're on your own and
you're playing for nobody but yourself.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the opposite. It's slow gaming. It's like
slow food, that whole fad slow gaming.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I wonder if play by post has this feel
to it. I've never tried it, but I've always wondered,
how does play by post work.
Speaker 2: Isn't it too slow to work? Maybe it's so slow
it works. I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe I mean that I've had the same thought.
Speaker 5: Actually, you know, because even when I GM, my pace
is up, man, like, I keep things moving. So when
you've got a complex system that demands a lot of
the players because they got.
Speaker 4: To know the rules too, like, come on, what do
you do? What do you do?
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 4: You've taken five seconds though you do nothing? Next next.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's it's it's it's a whole different way
of doing things.
Speaker 4: But it was a relief that I didn't have to
do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's put the show aside and the game aside.
Just you what are you enjoying right now? In terms
of movies or books or TV or video games. So
we're gonna send RPGs out of the room for a minute.
What are you personally enjoying that you're excited about and
that you wish more people knew about it?
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 5: I have to make time to watch a show because
otherwise my brain will just seize up with all of
the RPG stuff. So I have to specifically go into
the media room and go, Okay, I'm not bringing the laptop,
I'm not even bringing the phone in.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna watch a thing.
Speaker 5: And I discovered two of the greatest things I've ever
seen in the past few weeks.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 5: One of them was the Penguin on Max on HBO. Yeah, oh,
oh my god.
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 5: First of all, I had zero expectations for the show
because again, got a big superhero guy and I'm like, oh,
they're doing another sure, And then I watched the first
episode of this thing, and it's like The Godfather. It's
just this incredible, grounded crime drama that has nothing to
do with superhero stuff at all. It's just about character
and setting, and it's magnificent. It's magnificent from start to finish.
And what a finish. What an ending this thing has
I could not wait for Sunday Nights because I was like,
oh my god, I see the thing.
Speaker 4: So that was the first one. The next one was, uh,
that's got it just kind of a funny story.
Speaker 5: Actually, the next one was the show that I was
introduced to by a friend of mine, The Offer, which
is a series about the making of The Godfather and
true story, you know.
Speaker 4: And I had no idea.
Speaker 5: What happened in the making of this movie back in
seventy three or whenever they made it, seventy one, whatever
it was. And this series was just fantastic.
Speaker 4: That's so compelling.
Speaker 5: But what was really cool about it was that the
actors were playing these characters in it that seemed really
kind of like over the top. And I was like, what,
Like Gmai Rabi SI's in it, and he plays this mobster,
this well known mobs at the time.
Speaker 4: And you know, he's doing he's doing sort of this
kind of guy. I'm talking away like this.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, is he But then I heard like
some interview with this dude I had a court room
or something and showing off the guy. I was like
what And then this is the best part. So I'm
watching the show and I'm just loving the show. I
think there's eight episodes, ten episodes, and one of the
characters in it is this guy named Bob bob Evans
who's the head of Paramount at the time. And Bob
Evans was a real character and he was this actor nails.
Speaker 6: Him right, because Bob Evans was a real sort of
hip cat like this, Yeah, sort of. This was a
sort of adnoidal thing when to talk. Alis said, like,
I had a cold all the time. Baby, it was Bobby.
It's Bob Bevans here.
Speaker 4: So of course I'm watched the show.
Speaker 5: When I'm I'm doing Bob Evans impersonations back to Bob
Bevans at the show. So then the next day I'm
in a session for a video game and the director
says to me, hey, we've got this other characters like
ten lines.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a smarmy guy said, I got something
for you.
Speaker 6: So I go to the Bob Evans saying I'm doing
the Bob Evans say it was great, Bobby do this thing.
Speaker 5: So he's okay, that's really good. So we did the
thing and after it's over, he says to me, the
character you were doing.
Speaker 4: It sounds familiar. For some reason, I said, have you
seen the offer?
Speaker 5: And he goes, oh my god, you're doing Bob Evans.
Speaker 4: For as a voice actor.
Speaker 5: To be able to do that, to take something you've
just seen and to immediately use it the next day,
that's like the best day ever.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's good. That's good.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of a question that that if I can,
if I can get it into into into the segment,
I'll do it.
Speaker 2: Where do you find new voices?
Speaker 3: You're a professional of this, but is it a case
that you've always had this talent in now you're just
using it professionally, or or is it something that you've
you've built as a practice and a skill and you're
you know, there's a quest to find new voices, new characters, new.
Speaker 2: New ways to deliver, because I want to know.
Speaker 3: I just I'm really asking from a selfish place because
I need to find voices.
Speaker 2: But I am nowhere close to a professional.
Speaker 3: I can't do accents, I can't do impressions.
Speaker 2: What's your advice for people who have no talent at all?
Speaker 4: Well, that's a curvebon to answer your your first question.
The answer the answer is boat.
Speaker 5: I was born with this skill, and I've also worked
very hard to.
Speaker 4: To hone it to a fine age. But so, yeah,
I was born with a skill.
Speaker 5: But also like I was exposed to, like when I
was a little kid, I was exposed to lots of
different accents. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, and of
course we had the BBC and the BBC would put
on you know, the BBC Nightly Mules who would always
have the BBC, you know, and Monty Pyson was on
all the time, Betty Hill. So I heard all of
those accents as a kid, and they sunk in, which
a lot of Americans don't really get because they didn't
really grow up a lot of that.
Speaker 4: So for them, I don't quite understand your British accent there,
you know.
Speaker 5: But so I grew up with with an ear for
accents right off the bat, and then I just you know,
got into it.
Speaker 4: But I remember there was a time I was, I don't.
Speaker 5: Know, mid career, this would probably be I want to say,
maybe twenty ten or something, where you know, I was
in a bit of a rut and I was like,
I feel like I'm not coming up with anything new
I'm really bored of my character voices. I'm doing the
same thing thing, spinning my wheels, you know, And I couldn't.
Speaker 4: I couldn't figure out like how to break myself out
of that.
Speaker 5: And then I was doing a session with the great
Scott McNeil, who's a for anybody who knows the animation,
they would know Scotty's name. Uh. We were doing a show,
I don't remember what the show was, cartoon, and they
gave Scott a character and.
Speaker 4: Right away he started to go into this sort of
who is that? Not PG Barnum remember the name of
this character. But he was a guy.
Speaker 5: He was a very famous guy in the thirties and forties,
I think, And what Scott's stowing this thing and he's
playing the character and I was like, huh. So afterwards
I said to him where did that come from? He said,
I was watching these old movies the other night, and
what a source they are.
Speaker 4: And I went huh.
Speaker 5: And so I started going back, you know, going back
to the old did Jimmy Cagney that's Right's he you
already right that these guys because those movies up here
were those characters here are right? And I was like,
oh my god, it's a treasure trove. Just you know,
are you to go back to the you know, not
the charter, but but do you know the what was
his name?
Speaker 4: There? Events?
Speaker 3: And I know all these voices, I can't name that,
but I didn't know all of them.
Speaker 4: It's a wonderful life. What the hell? Well, you know,
I'm sure mister Potter, you gotta anyway. Whatever.
Speaker 5: So, so all of these old actors, right, they were
they were just this treag controve or like the you know,
the Peter Laurie he was he was big, you know what,
the Maltese folk and we've got to so they was
just he was just there waiting to be seized, and
that just opened the floodgates and that just like reinspired me.
So I guess the point of that story is to
say that you have to find something that excites you
and inspires you, and once that happens, you know, you're
you're sort of free to play again. Because that's the
source of all of this stuff. It's that desire to play.
And honestly, it's no different from that, you know, me
doing character voices in a show that it is for
me playing the game that it is for you playing
the game and tells the manacor it's about finding that
sense of what really inspires you and drives the fun
for you, you know, because as long as you can
keep going back to that, well man, it's always it's
always gonna provide you assessenence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's well anyway, thank you so much for coming up.
Speaker 2: This has been a lot of fun. I get long overdue.
How did I sleep on this? Anyway?
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining me tonight I can stop recording.
And a big thanks to Trevor de Vallo for coming
on the show.
Speaker 1: If for some reason you have not yet checked out
his YouTube, Show Me Myself and Die, or if you're
not aware of his game The Broken Empires, please go
out and find these things. They are a well worth
your time. Trevor is both a fantastic entertainer and a
great source of inspiration for solo play and RPG in general.
Highly recommend it. Anyway, We'll see you in the next
couple of days on the next episode of Tale of
the mandicor It's the Story We're Chaos. Roles