Latest / TPOD- TTRPGs in Taipei / Episode 8: Solal talks about kitbashing minis and other crafts

Transcript

Episode 8: Solal talks about kitbashing minis and other crafts · TPOD- TTRPGs in Taipei

• Cam: Hey, welcome back to TPOD. I'm your host Cam. This week I brought on a friend of mine, Solal, who plays in our weekly Shadow Dark game and has been making minis for the other players in the game from mostly scratch, and so I wanted to know how he did it. And so I brought him on here to explain it. And if you're watching this episode of TPOD on YouTube, you can see Solal as he works on a new miniature, But whether or not you're into making or painting minis or whether or not you like theater of the mind combat or a tactical combat with dudes on a map, I think this episode's got a lot for ya. here's the interview. Enjoy. with me today is my friend Solal. we're gonna be talking about all sorts of hobbies inside of role playing. Is that right? Solal: It's your show, I believe you. You know me. Cam: What do we What okay, okay. I didn't know that I invited you on here to bring all this 'tude young man. No. Yeah, yeah, okay. I I guess I do. I guess I do. That's right. We play in a Shadow Dark game together and you've run some Bastionland that I've played in Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: and we've I think we've played some other various games in the last year or so. That's right. But yeah, today I want to talk about like Solal: Yeah, we played some other games. think the last one we played was May You Fish in Interesting Times, which was a fun time. Cam: I really enjoyed May You Fish and Interesting Times. when I I first started the Shadow Dark game, I have a friend that lives in Yilan and he messaged me, how is your game going? And I told him that like in the past, in my past experiences, the best role-playing games have been like Shared imagination multimedia projects. And and how very quickly this this Shadow Dark game that we play in had like turned into that. I was trying to learn to draw at the time and I'd like draw pictures and take and and and quickly after that you joined and were making crafts So can you tell me, you do A lot of crafts. What are we looking at, first of all? What is your camera angle of Solal: So the camera angle is, I was just trying out the webcam that I dug out of a drawer and realized it had perfectly like my little crafting station in view. So since we talked about maybe talking about minis and crafting in general, I thought I could do a little talking handshake where I have an excuse to keep working on my minis while we have that talk. Cam: That's perfect, so I'm hardly even disturbing you at all. Solal: you're giving me an excuse to feel more productive while doing the same thing I would be doing anyway. Cam: Dude, I listen to podcasts while I do so much stuff throughout the day and so I think yeah, Solal: Hmm. Cam: I'm I'm glad I'm glad hopefully can be that to other people and also maybe can start podcasting and doing stuff at the same time. I haven't I haven't gotten to that point yet. but you've made a lot of crafts. Solal: recording one while doing the minis is a first though Cam: Recording while doing minis is a first well here it is. W we got a an exclusive, a teapot exclusive. Solal's hands on camera. Solal: At least for me, it's a first. Cam: what minis are you working on specifically? Solal: Lately I've been trying to focus a little bit because I tend to start many many projects and get lost between the seven different things I have going at the same time. But I've been trying to focus a little bit more on some 40k minis, so Warhammer 40k, which is a sci-fi army game. So I've been doing some orcs with, I've been trying to make look a bit more sci-fi with some Mad Max junkyard aesthetic looking tech. Which is fun because I get to just slap things together and if it looks janky I can say it was on purpose. So I have a few that I need to put some finishing touches on. Cam: Okay, I don't know the rules of Warhammer, but you you you customize not only the paint job on these miniatures, but also like their their gear and what it is they're wearing and carrying, is that right? Solal: Yes, so the rules vary a lot because I think we're on the 11th edition of the game and there are many different systems. So rules change, but I mostly focus on the minis. you do usually you select different units, they can have different gear and so you can model that on the other minis. And usually they just come on to like you can build them as is out of the box, but I do like mixing them together like these ones. I didn't buy the official models. I bought orcs from a different line of games workshop game that is Blood Bowl, Ways, Fantasy, Fantasy Football, and decided to just slap Cam: Hm. I've heard of Blood Bowl, yeah. Solal: on some extra tech on them to make them look like the units I want to play in the game eventually. But yeah, you can, it can be quite straightforward where you just take things out of the box. take out the sprue, them as is, spray paint them and paint them. And then once you're done, have a cool item that will show pretty nicely, but you can have like once they're painted and then you try to fill as many as you can. at the beginning, I do enjoy the sort of what we call kit bashing where you bring parts from many different kits and just bash them together and just. reassemble them as you see fit. find that I like the liberties you can take, the avenues you have for being a bit more creative with what you do. That has been, I think, my favorite part so far of the hobby. Cam: Yeah, yeah. You've made custom minis for like the main characters in our Shadow Dark game. And I remember you saying that making the chainmail, like sculpting the chainmail for one particular character, took you a lot of hours 'cause you were like individually drawing the chains on there. How did how do you even do that? I I don't know. Huh. Solal: Yeah... I do have him right here. The famous hero of Minaren Kithir here. Cam: Uh-huh. Yeah. Solal: So yeah, this one, I had an old metal dwarf that didn't look quite how I wanted him to look because it didn't match the description of Yohann's character. So I made a mold out of that mini So these are what I use, either Milliput or some kind of epoxy putty. This one's from Tamiya. People tend to use green stuff a lot, but I think it's being discontinued because there was one factory in the US that stopped making it because art supplies were not profitable. But basically it's an epoxy putty where you have two parts in it. You mix them together and that gives you a polymer kind of clay that you can sculpt however you like. within a few hours it dries. Why not? It's not drying, it's a chemical reaction, it makes a polymer. It cures and becomes solid. So you have an hour or two where it's quite malleable. You can sculpt it however you like and then it dries solid. And that's mostly what I use. So yeah, I did, for example, for this one, I made a silicone mold of the Metal Mini, mixed some of the putty to fill the mold and had a base to work off of. But some of the parts... I needed to redo. I need to... The mini originally is just holding this hammer in front of him. So I had to remove that part, make the beard to hide the parts where I just cut everything, and do some detail to make it kind of look like a chainmail, so that I would have a complete mini at the end. Cam: It's funny that you mentioned the beard because I think at some point Kithir lost his beard. Is that right? In one of our sessions, he Solal: Yes, that's... Cam: Yohann was rather upset about it, and Solal: That is why at the end of the session I had one wish available and I made the wish, give him his beard back, because I spent too long Cam: Hehehe. Solal: sculpting that goddamn beard. Give it back! Cam: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like one use of the spell wish and you're like this dwarf needs this beard because yeah, it's too Yeah, way too Solal: He needs it. Cam: involved a process to make a new dwarf. You make silicone molds of them. okay, I I'm gonna ask you how you do that and you're gonna say, Well you just you cast Solal: Yes. Cam: it in silicone. But I don't understand still. Do you have like a do you like I don't know, how does it even work? Do you have like liquid silicone Solal: So. Cam: that you that you make a mold from or something? Solal: the same as the epoxy putty. it's a two-part Cam: Mm. Solal: paste. The texture of it is very... Like it's kind of like a gum, kind of... Kind of looking... Well, the light is too bright so you won't see it. But it does feel like fresh chewing gum, I guess? You take some of the... I forgot the actual... chemical name. One of them is the accelerator or the activator or something. But yeah, you mix the two 50-50 and then you have, this one is eight minutes until it cures completely. So you make your paste, you slap it around your model and then once it's cured, you cut the model out of the silicon mold and then you're just free to fill it back with whatever you want. It could be plaster, it could be... It could be Milliput or Epoxy putty. You're free to... I know some people like to do... They take plastic, like the plastic from their minis, and they melt it in acetone or like what we call plastic cement, like some glues that are actually melting the plastic and then fusing it back together as it dries. And they make a very thick plastic goo that they use to... I find it very messy because it's also full of acetone, so it smells really bad. You need good ventilation and protection. And it tends to melt my cutting mat, so I try not to use it. Cam: This is such an involved process. so you Solal: but there's a big element of DIY. Cam: you had a dwarf mini that you like thought this is a good starting place for Kithir. And so Solal: Yeah. Cam: you made a silicone mold of that and then cast that mold with this polymer, and while the polymer was setting, you like quickly made some changes to it. I'm guessing that you've been doing this for quite some time. Like you don't just say, You wake up tomorrow and think, I'm gonna get into making minis and you're you're like this you have to go and buy all this stuff and do that, is that right? Solal: You could. You could decide to start tomorrow. For Warhammer specifically, because that's where I started with making miniatures. I started when I was, I think, 11 or 12, painting some minis with my brother to play with friends at school. I stopped. 12, nearly 20 years. And then I guess more like 15. But it was during COVID, a lot of people were stuck at home and wanted to get back into anything to have to do at home. And there was a big boom in people getting back into wahanga at the time. And a friend of mine who used to play as well when he was a kid, convinced me to grab some minis and start making them. And at the time, because I was just grabbing whatever parts I could find secondhand here or there, I started kit bashing out of necessity because I didn't want to be buying a ton of new kits to just make a dozen miniatures because we playing a small scale skirmish game. So it was out of trying to make it for cheap without having to invest a lot in it with whatever tools I have. For example, for sculpting, you don't need a ton of materials. The midi puts you can find in any crafts, like arts and crafts store. It's quite easy to find. Most of the tools I use, these two, specifically this one, it's just a little, a little pick. Has been my work horse for two years now. I got it from a nail salon art supply store. Same Cam: Mm-hmm. Solal: for a lot of brushes you can find. Makeup sponges and makeup brushes are great for painting as well. So you can get creative with what supplies you find and get started with very little for very cheap. You can also go all in and decide you want to buy the whole range of fancy miniature paints that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. But you don't need to. You can start with very little. Cam: So for all of the characters that you made for our Shadow Dark campaign, did you all did they all start the same way as a as a cast mold of something else that you then use the the polymer and then sculpt into like the sort of right thing? Solal: No, most of them were just miniatures that I had that were mostly there. I only had to sculpt a few details to customize them. Some of them I didn't have to sculpt even for Jeanette's character. I almost had nothing to sculpt and then she lost an eye and I had to do an eye patch. But other than that, this one was mostly... as is. The dwarf one was the more involved version of kitbashing because it was mostly... the model other than the sword is basically 100 % putty that I mixed and sculpted myself. but some of them are just... I had a few spare parts, some minis where I could make a wizard and I decided let's make a wizard. Cam: Of course. Of course. so you say you have a a lot of projects always going on, so is it all like Solal: Yeah. Cam: sculpting the same Warhammer army or I mean guess not if it's different projects, right? Solal: Yeah, so different projects still a lot of orcs and goblins because I find myself going back to making orcs and goblins all the time. I have a problem where every time I start a new project I try to make a few goblins on this side so I have many of them that I need to paint now. But no, I like having different things going on at the same time. I feel like it really helps. when something starts to feel a bit too repetitive to have a different project just to feel like I'm doing something new where even if it's still sculpting I can be like okay the sci-fi orc with the Mad Max junkyard aesthetic isn't doing it for me so I'll go make a knight and do something more fantasy and something less At the same time, sometimes Cam: Well on go on. Solal: it's a bit difficult where having too many projects at once, it's hard to focus on one specific thing and I end up spinning too many plates and getting too easily distracted by the new project that feels... It's always more exciting to start something fresh and new than putting the finishing touches on something that's 90 % there. So I have to... Cam: I know that one hundred percent. Solal: exert some self-control sometimes, which is hard. Cam: Yeah. I think this is a a good point actually to to go into the broader realm of like crafts or other hobbies in the RPG space. 'cause I I personally am always trying to think, you know, what could I could I take the things that I've made, like GMing our game, could I take this and turn it into like a zine that I could publish? I don't I don't care to like make money, Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: but I just wanna like share the little bit of of stuff that I've put together. and so I started to do that and then I was like, well Actually now that I've started to use Affinity and now that I'm thinking and I've I've actually got these creative juices flowing, I sorta wanna make a system or, a setting or something and so I start doing that and then I think, Solal: Yeah. Cam: Well, this is too you know, and so I I'm always constantly jumping from thing to thing and never actually finishing anything. So that's that's something that I feel as well. But on the subject specifically of crafting, you've made other cool stuff for our game. I know that every time you at least write in a journal and the journal sometimes has illustrations that look like watercolor, but you also made more than one stamp for our game, is that right? Solal: I think I made... I think I only made the one, the one for the... the faction I joined. Cam: just one just one. I don't even know how to make a stamp, so to do it once is a miracle to me. I don't know how to make anything other than like a cake. And so so something like that I'm just like Solal: I can go on a little tangent for lino cutting as well, but it's fairly easy. you find some, I don't think I have any at hand right here, basically it's same. If you go to a craft store or like an art supply store, you can get sheets of linoleum. And then if you find some cutting tools like this, which it just looks like a little... I know if that's very visible. Maybe if I do something with this. It's like a little groove and you can cut some of the materials out and basically you carve out the negative of the image you want and then you roll some ink on top and press it down and you have your stamp. So it's... Cam: You have to be able to draw at least to make that happen. So that's already something that that puts a lot of people, including Solal: Yeah. Cam: myself, out of the Solal: To be fair, I don't like how I draw most of the time. I don't think I'm good at drawing. The Linocat style is very forgiving because it's very broad strokes. if you can, even if it doesn't look perfect, it matches the aesthetic of a woodcut or a Linocat print. So I... Cam: That's true, I suppose. Solal: defaulted to that for a little bit because it's a style that matches my technical inadequacy. To be fair, it's maybe a bit cliché to say it, but a lot of art is just you need to practice to get good at it. Cam: Of course. Solal: I say this, but I'm always very critical of what I make and I wish I could get the results right away, which I don't. So that's why I haven't been practicing arts as much as I should if I wanted to get good at it. Cam: I think for me the the small artistic like endeavors that I take, I usually know that it's not going to turn out spectacularly, so I accept its very human quality and and just say, okay, it's done now, you know, if I write something or if I try and draw something, I think, okay, it's not perfect, but I have done it. I have finished it and I'll try and put it out as it is. Or even recording music. I've played music for a long time. It's not, you know, exactly T T RPG related, but if I feel like okay I've going to record this, I know it's not gonna be perfect, so I just sort of put it out Solal: You could. You could start recording your own music for games. Cam: that would be kinda fun. I've actually thought about it for TPOD but I haven't yet. The song though is is by a guy that lives in Taipei, another GM Tom. Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: who yeah. I don't know. So that it's it's a cool song. the song that plays on TPOD. other hobbies that go on. Solal: Sometimes the saying is get it done first, then get it perfect. You have to have something first and then you try to perfect it. Cam: Yeah. I think it's good to work as a project too. Solal: That maybe with AI now, making bad human art has been more valuable than it ever was. Cam: I can agree with that. And for me, I think when I try and pick up a new skill, I I I'm very theoretical when Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: I approach things. I think, I want to read this book about it and like watch a million YouTube videos and never actually do it. but the things that I actually do get good at are the things that are just like, okay, I don't know anything about this, I don't have any of the right tools, but I'm just gonna make it happen anyway. And I feel like the Solal: Yeah. Cam: few times I've tried to do minis, so I've bought a mini. And it's like, this looks sorta like my character and I'll paint it and it always comes out looking like way better than I thought I could have done and so yeah. I always think it is fun. Solal: I think it's something that I find a lot of people struggle with, me included, is it's never been easier to find information on how to do things online. For minis you have, I don't even know how many, but you can find tutorials to like how to paint X number of things with X number of styles. And you have very, very talented people who show you their techniques and it's great to have all that available. And at the same time, it makes it hard to get started on things because you have an example of what to do exactly. So you don't really get to try to figure it out by yourself. And also you skip the phase where you struggle to get things done well. And I get into things having the expectations of getting it as good as what I've seen in the tutorial I'm watching. And it's hard sometimes to put myself back in the place where I'm like, no, I'm a beginner. Even if I have all the knowledge right away, because it's at my fingertips, I just need to Google it and find a tutorial on YouTube. I don't have the know-how yet and I don't have the practice. And that disconnect is hard to reconcile sometimes. Cam: So get it done first and get good at it later. Solal: Yep. Cam: That reminds me of a quote from a T V show. I think it's Adventure Time. Finn Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: is bad at something and Jake says, It's okay, man. Being bad at something is the first step to being kinda good at something. And that's usually what I tell myself when I when I try something Solal: You Cam: new and I'm really bad at it. I'm like, hey, I could be kinda good at this one day if I if I stuck with it. Solal: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. Cam: So you've been painting minis as you say since you were about twelve. you explained getting back into the kit bashing and the sculpting during COVID. Solal: Yeah. Cam: Have you always kept your hands busy with other crafts though? Solal: No, not really. did the painting when I was a young teen and then I stopped for a long time. Most of the art scene that I had was doing some music but it was like full school. It's not something where I felt creative really. I'm an engineer and most of my work is done on a computer. So I think I was missing a lot of that tactile part of just making something, whether drawing on painting or sculpting. And since I've got back into making miniatures and discovering that part of, I the sculpting I never did before until maybe a few years ago. And since then I've been really, really enjoying it. And I think it's something that scratches and itch that I didn't know I had until I started making miniatures myself. Cam: in role playing games we often have all sorts of tools to help the imagination of the table or to help bring people into the the mood. Why do you think that is? Like what is sort of the the point of that? Solal: Hmm... I don't know. The thing is, as much as I love making miniatures, the more I've been making them, the less I want to use them for roleplaying. It feels like it's two hobbies that, like I said, they scratch a different itch, and I found myself less and less wanting to use miniatures and maps during games. I enjoy more and more the theater of the mind set up. I don't know if you remember when I was running the mythic lesson end game. We ended up having basically nothing on the table. I didn't even have a DM scheme, was just reading my book. And it was story Cam: Mm-hmm. Solal: time at the table. And I was just... I found it... The fact that it's together, we come up with the story and I prompt you with whatever I come up with for the scenario. But how you react to the story prompts me to also improv and add on things. I find it more freeing to not have anything on the table rather than having drawn a map, putting minis on it and saying, this is how it should look. At the same time, do feel like sometimes, yeah, I know people who struggle with theater of the mind and they need to, they stop me and they say, Hey, can we draw this? Because I can't picture it. So I get how it could be a visual help. Something that just gives you some elements to go up to then picture in your mind what's happening on the table. Cam: I don't even necessarily mean tactical combat though. anything to help get Solal: Yeah. Cam: into the spirit. Like cosplay. I I have Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: I've made a big cloak a couple of years ago. And like I could wear that to a game, even if we play theater of the mind, and it would help put me in it. Actually there was a a time that I I played with some friends and one of them was like, we're gonna play D and D, I'll be right back and he went upstairs and I swear he just came down in like a bed sheet with a plastic sword. But he was like, I am my rogue His name is Red Danger and you you will refer to me as such and like Solal: Thank Cam: all the things I do today will be as Red Danger. I think that even the little aid of wearing his bed sheet and having the plastic sword was was the sort of thing that put him into that. I understand that to you, you know, minis is one particular hobby and the Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: and gaming is a separate hobby and that it is more freeing to play a game without like that sort of visual aid. I do think that that there is still some things probably that would help you get into that imagination. Do you think that's right? Solal: And the use talking about the bedsheets reminded me the mausritter with a game I played at T-POP where we had paper hats with mouse ears. And I don't know that it helped me picture being a mouse, but it really did set the mood for that game. yeah, I guess I didn't consider that when you asked the question. I also never really did anything, I guess, cosplay related or something like that. But yeah, for mood setting, do, yeah, maybe I should think about incorporating some of that more into my games. Cam: Actually Daniel has come on TPOD and talked about how the I think Solal: Yeah. Cam: the ears for him, especially in in the convention setting, give people like this sort of lower anxiety or lower what's the word looking for here? Solal: Hmm. Cam: not anxiety. What's the word I'm looking for l it lowers the ears sort of lower the inhibitions of the game, hm? Solal: Not as self-conscious. Yeah. Not as self-conscious. You already have mouses on your head, so... Cam: Yeah, yeah, not as self conscious. So it it sets the floor of like this is how this is gonna be. It sets the mood and and gets the inhibitions low at the start of the game. Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: So people are more like open to role play. Actually I I used to before I would start any session, I would do a p couple of improv games. And I haven't really thought about that in such a long time. Now I just sit down and start playing. But I think it's just to bring about more like imagination and lower the inhibition of the people that are gonna play. so with that in mind I I think Solal: I guess maybe it's something that I've struggled a little bit as a game master. I've... especially... It depends on the mood of the game, but I've tried running horror-themed games a couple of times, and it's sometimes very hard to get people in a specific state of mind where they allow themselves to be scared and to approach the game as something scary, where then there's something inherently silly when... playing pretend around a table and throwing dice. So yeah, maybe props can help. I guess the go-to is also putting some music, some ambience. Cam: I've I've run a horror game before Solal: But... Cam: and I think we lit candles and turned the lights off. But I I actually find It's interesting that you would say silly because to ask an oracle, you know, by by rolling a dice, is not unrelated or not different, you know, from like a seance in some ways. So while it's Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: silly to be scared around your kitchen table with your friends on like a Saturday night, it's not silly to turn the lights down low and and ask like a question of the spirits, you know, of of like what is behind the door or something like that. So I actually think that that that yeah, I I think that that horror gaming has like a place you know, is is something that that could be horrifying, could be scary in that way. and and instead it's I think people maybe often don't want to take that real like step into it. Solal: To be fair, when I say silly, I do mean it lovingly. I love silliness. We need to be silly. Cam: of course. Yeah. Yeah. We played the bird game less w what is it called? Meet you fish in interesting times. I know we like silliness, yeah. Yeah. And and I Solal: Yes. Cam: I agree. I'm obviously a very silly person. but but I I think that The more I do this show and the more I talk to people about it, I th the more I try and get to what it is that I like about RPGs and sometimes I sit at the table and I'm stacking my dice and I'm not paying attention and I'm bored to death. Even when I'm running the game, I I I get bored with it sometimes. But there's still something that brings me back, something that's like so that I like love so deeply about it. I'm trying Solal: Hmm. Cam: to get it what it is. Solal: I find it hard to put into words as well. For me it's very much the social element of it that brings me back to role-playing games. like I said, they have different edges that need to be scratched. The craftiness, like making things, I do the minis. If I want tactical, strategic combat, I tend to... find that less and less interesting in role-playing games. And I switched more to ball games and miniature games for that. And the role-playing parts, I think it's mostly the human elements. It's not just thinking of a story because I could read a book, I could just world-build on my own. It's making a story with people where I have their inputs and we play off of each other and... that. a connection about, in a way you get to know people in a manner that you wouldn't know them if you weren't role playing with them. You see a different side of them sometimes that is very interesting to see. And I feel like I made some connections playing role playing games with people that I wouldn't have the chance to meet otherwise. And I would have the chance to... probably become friends in the way that I became friends with them if we went up for playing D &D or Call Cthulhu with them. So I think that human, the social part is for me the main draw of open games. Cam: I I think you're absolutely right. And I think that it is a a form of actual play that Solal: Okay. Cam: that I don't I personally don't get in many other places and and I don't think I have since I was really young, since I was maybe a little kid on a playground or something like that. to to have absolute freedom that that is afforded by like a game where there are rules. There's you know, there's all the stuff that that like makes something a game. There's a sacred space where it happens and there's rules that we all agree on and it starts at Solal: to. Cam: a certain time and it ends at a certain time. But like for that time there is like a seriousness about the game, you know, it You're not gonna stand up and flip over the table and be like, fuck all y'all, you or whatever. i there is a seriousness about it. W it has some gravitas that it is something that's happening and there are enough restraints on it that it's not Everybody just free associate into something, but but there are some some rails and and we get to like explore that as a as a like group of people. So yeah, it is it is a very social thing and I think that that trying to like put together a story with people is mostly what I like about it as well. although sometimes I do like tactical combat. I th I find combat can get in the way and and sometimes as a GM. I know in in my in the the game that I ran online today, I like threw a monster at the players 'cause I like, stretch like we need thirty Solal: I always say that it's stretch, and it's a lot of work. But it's fun too. And it's a lot of work. And I'm going to go ahead and end it Cam: thirty minutes of time here for me to figure out something. So there's a monster here. And and I actually find that to be a really like hokey use of the mechanics of the game. Because I I want the story to just continue. I want to like explore the world. But I I think in some cases it's hard to get the people to like pf feel invested with with the fiat to create the world as they go along. I think a lot of times players want to to say like, No, you tell me what the monster looks like. You tell me what this happens, you know Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: and I'm just like, no, you know, I I think we're trying to tell a story together here. And I think that yeah, some people want something different out of the game or don't have experience doing that. And so aren't aren't always happy Solal: Yeah, Cam: to Solal: for that I found myself more and more if I want to be the game master and bring people at the table and we start a new game to set it in their minds right away that they have input on what the shared reality we're coming up with is to right away prompt them to just come up with something that exists in the world. It's like, where is your character from? Tell me. whatever story you want to tell me about the world that you come from, just to give them some, like a prompt for them to realize, I also can come up with stuff and I'm not just a spectator of that story. But yeah, it's difficult to... There is that image of like the game master, it's in the name, it's the master of the game. He's the one dictating what's happening. Breaking their barrier down and engaging the players and giving them some agency and something other than just that character, sometimes it's hard to make that happen at the table. Cam: Well, I think the culture of play is very heavily dependent on on the like hierarchical structure of the table. So there is some Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: people sitting around rolling dice and somebody is, the world, w who do you play? I'm an elf paladin. Solal: Yeah. Cam: Who are you? I'm the wizard. Who are you? I'm God. that's that's the the GMs like roll. And and I think that even in games that are more anarchic in in like the the play or the flow of play, it's still hard to escape that. So even when we ran May You Fish an interesting times the other day, I d I I think we were all equals at the table. Well but but anytime there was something that happened it's like okay so lol how do we play this game? 'Cause you brought it to us, but it's it's still hard even when the game is like we we're all birds answering questions about about our bird lives. it's it's like we default to asking the the person in charge how this game works. Solal: Yeah. I mean, for this one it wasn't as much, because the whole point of the game is, we're all... There's no game master for this one. Everyone is a bird and the whole point of the game is, through a series of questions that are prompted by the game, come up with a story for your character, what is their past, what were their relations with the other birds around the table. So the point of the game is already to be making up that story. Asking me, hey, what's up? What happened next in the pool? I don't see that as much as, like if it's like a different, it's a meta question about like, what's the, what are the rules more than, hey, what's the reality of our game? Cam: sure. Nobody asked you about the king or whatever, yeah, about about the the revolt of the world. Wait that's crafted Solal: Yeah Cam: by the players. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I I I want to sort of go back and say that I'm trying to connect the the last couple of points we made. So so I Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: think why it is that people like these aids like miniatures or maps or music or props or cosplay at the table is to get into this shared imagination and I of course it for the sake of of telling the most compelling and like trying to improv, trying to like search for the most compelling story that the people around the table can tell together. You don't want any of that stuff to get in the way and and I think we both can agree that like tactical combat can get in the way of making a story just for the Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: sake of the story, but all of these things to me serve the purpose of trying to get people into the same headspace. and so how Solal: I see. Cam: do you how do you if you are playing at a table with people who have like different opinions about tactical combat or miniatures on maps or or whatever, how is it that you try and synchronize into the shared imagination with those people? Solal: I know there's as many ways of playing role-playing games as there are players. Maybe, probably even more. There's no one way where I have to play role-playing games. So put five people around the table and you'll have five different opinions on what a role-playing game should be. I don't mind if personally I don't see the need for tactical maps and minis. and set dressing and all that to get into the headspace, I don't mind having it. So I don't... The goal is to share that experience with people and if they want to be dressing up and if they want to put music and set up candles around the table. I like it because that's also helping them get into the headspace to play the game. So I don't feel that it's just detracted. detracting from my experience either. I do feel like, the... I guess maybe it's a gripe I have with more classic systems like D &D where it feels like there's two different games being played at the table that have a different temporality. There's the role-playing game where we get to talk and time can move. However, it feels convenient to move it and then everything grains to a halt and it's like, now it's combat. And it feels like we're playing a different game at the table. That's why for tactical combat, I've enjoyed having it as a separate game. hey, now I'm going to put minis on the table and I just have to think about the mechanics of the game and scoring points. Whereas if we're having a game where we want to tell a story, you can make combat dramatic and you can make it impactful on the story, but it feels still like there's some degree of separation between that and the story. where the mechanics of the game take center stage a little bit and you can add on some dramatic flavor to it but it doesn't feel like the main event that's happening at the table so that's why I feel like I've I've wanted to try more role play, role play heavy games like the bird game we played, the Mayfishing, interesting things where it's all about talking. There's very little, very little dice rolling happening at the table. Do they have to be Cam: Yeah in the Solal: separate things? I don't know. Cam: Again, I I think it's the culture of play. It's it's the expectation that was made by Dungeons and Dragons that that's what it's about. And of Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: course, you know, it grows out of war gaming, which war gaming has evolved since, you know, nineteen seventy to be more interesting, I'm sure. but but It's just the it's in the DNA of Dungeons and Dragons that like there has to be fighting. But I I agree that sometimes like combat can actually grind the story to a halt. In the game that I ran today where I said I threw a monster at the players at one point just so I could stretch for a few minutes, there is another point in the very same session today where like the story had momentum and they walked into a room with with some monsters in it and I was like Damn it, now we have to have a combat. And and so the players actually talked their way out of it, thank goodness. Because I was like the story is moving and I don't want to like stop and have you fight some goons that you're gonna beat the heck out of, right? It it would be a waste of thirty minutes at this point to have a combat, even though there are like goons in here, you know, monsters that would that would be adversarial to you. there's like the it feels like something is happening and to to lose that to like go into combat would be kind of a shame. Solal: Yeah, to be fair, it's the same with role-playing or wargaming. There are some behemoth in the scene that everyone knows, that everyone knows D &D. Most people have played D &D or start role-playing with D &D because it's such a household name. With Cam: You pick a goodness. Solal: miniatures, Warhammer is also the elephant in the room where a lot of the people getting into miniature games have been getting in the scene with Warhammer. So it's hard to ignore, but it's part of the, you can't really avoid it because like we said, it's a social thing. I can't play a tabletop game, whether it is role-playing or board gaming without someone else at the table. So... There are popular games for a reason. I can recognize that. You will find more people playing D &D than you would find playing a random indie game that you've got in a zine somewhere. So I don't dislike them for that. I understand why they're here, why they're part of the history of role-playing games. And I forgot where I was going with this. Cam: Yeah. Well I mean they they're the sort of lowest common denominator and you can't you can't like fault them for being popular but but what it is that you Solal: Yeah. Cam: find exciting maybe about it is like something that they don't offer like in yeah as as well as other games do. Solal: Yeah, the main gripe I would have maybe with a game like D &D is how... how How do I say this? I've seen so many people be like, I want to play something sci-fi. How do I adapt D &D to play sci-fi? Instead of being like, hey, what sci-fi role playing game exists out there? Cam: ca yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What like native sci fi games are there? Yeah. Solal: I still play regularly. Once a month I have a D &D game that I play and I enjoy quite a lot. So I'm not saying D &D is bad. It's valuable for more than just the history of it and the entry point to role-playing games that it provides to people. I just wish sometimes we'd be more willing to try something. Cam: As a player in the Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: Shadow Dark game you you take good notes I mentioned this before. You take good notes and you and you sometimes make drawings from those notes Do you find that that helps with the narrative aspect of the game? Solal: I don't know if it helps the narrative aspect for me. I feel like it's more the getting invested in the game. It gets me excited and I need that energy to go somewhere. And getting into creative hobbies, making minis of the characters in the game or taking notes and doodling. It's more of a way to channel that enthusiasm into something and have an outlet for it. more than a prop to get me excited for the game. feel like the roles are reversed for this. It's more the enthusiasm comes first and it goes into the creative endeavors more than the other way around. Cam: I always appreciate seeing it as a as a game master, whether it being like drawings or or minis or stamps or whatever, you know, anything from any player. I I think that it it brings energy to the game to see the players like have done something. when I GM and and the players have brought something to the game like that, it like gives me more energy to create this well. So I I I I think that the storytelling aspect of the game is people trying to feel their way forward by making decisions. And that's that's what the game is. It's supposed to be characters at at odds, like making hard decisions and and like using those decisions to make actions or taking action. Solal: When I say for me the enthusiasm comes first and then I put it into whatever craft I'm doing at the time. I do see that if someone else brings something they made at the table, it kind of transmits the enthusiasm. It's part of the social thing. You see that someone got excited. and then made something out of it. And then that excitement is shared with the table. So in that way, I feel like it really contributes to what happens around the table. Maybe it's just that I personally look for the social element more than the immersion that I feel like contributes more to the group dynamic around the table rather than the immersion and getting involved in the story. Maybe that's the way I approach the game that makes it have that effect on me. So I guess maybe that's why I don't seek out props at the table, for example, for the sake of immersion in set dressing, but more I like seeing what people come up with. because this social element is what I'm looking for and what I'm craving in those games. Cam: so Lol, I I think we're just about just about done here, but I wanna ask a couple questions. What games are you playing in these days? What are you playing? Solal: Mostly, lately it's been... So there's the regular game we have with Shadow Dark that I've been enjoying quite a lot. And I'm not saying that just because you're here. I have been. There's Cam: Sure. Solal: the regular D &D game that's a classic that I've been playing for about a year now. It's been a lot of fun. I've tried doing some things more out of the classic fantasy genres. I've done a little bit of Mothership lately that has been pretty fun. I've tried some Cyberpunk because I wanted to play that system, well, in that setting for quite a long time and never got around Cam: Mm. Solal: to actually joining a game. And some Call Cthulhu, but that one wasn't as new of an experience. But just trying to get out of the fantasy genre a little bit and see. see different systems. I love trying new systems. Even if I'm not playing them, I love taking a new rule book and just reading the rules just to see what kind of feel they're trying to get at and how through the rules are they trying to create that feel. So trying new systems is always something I love a lot. Cam: I agree. I agree. That's why I'm always trying to get all of you to play Slug Blaster, even though maybe it it's not the most appealing thing to everybody. But it is so it is different than than elves and swords It seems like it's got good Solal: I'm still waiting to try it. You keep offering. Cam: Yeah, yeah. well one of these days, yeah. I've got the book in my backpack still. So so one of these days. Damn it, one of these days. Solal: Yeah. Cam: Yeah, I I think it is interesting that there are games now that do a much better job of of mixing play with narrative than like, you know, Solal: Mm-hmm. Cam: say D and D ever ever has even attempted to do. there's like a lot of games that like ask you, to make a story together. And I think that that is probably what I like most about playing games like this as well. Solal: Mm-hmm Cam: But anyway, thank for your time. I appreciate your Solal: Okay. Cam: your willingness to come on, Solal: I was looking forward to it. Cam: I'm telling you, I'm gonna make you be the co host, so you look forward to it now, but wait till it's every week, okay. Yeah. Solal: But I do feel like the hour went by quite fast. I feel like there's so much more we could be talking about. Cam: I'll talk to you later and and thanks for coming on, Solal. I'll see you later. Bye bye. Solal: Thanks for having me. Bye. Cam: It's a pleasure. Mm-hmm. So I want to say thank you one more time to Solal for coming on. Like I said, it was a great conversation. Stay tuned to TPOD. Next week, I'm going to have on a really special guest, and I'm really looking forward to it. And also, we've got some T Pop news to share, but I'm gonna keep it under my hat for just a few more days. So I'll be talking about The big T Pop news coming up in the next episode. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, please subscribe to TPOD on your podcast app of choice or on YouTube. go to our website www.tpop.run and leave a comment. Tell us that you're looking forward to T Pop 2027 Thank you for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye bye.