Latest / TPOD- TTRPGs in Taipei / Episode 7: Śraddhāpa talks about writing and publishing TTRPG adventures

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Episode 7: Śraddhāpa talks about writing and publishing TTRPG adventures · TPOD- TTRPGs in Taipei

• Cam: I've been your host Vorthak and you've been listening to the Countdown. And of course my goblins and goblinets, what else could be the number one song of the week? You know it, you love it. It's the Tomcats with OG Blue. All right, well thank you very much, Worthek. This is your host Cam. You're listening to TPOD a show about community. This week I interviewed our friend Sradhappa who is a game master and student and writer of all things TTRPG here in Taipei. He came on to TPOD to talk about his upcoming setting, Corvorum, his upcoming bestiary, and all the work he's done on Dragon Bane and just other topics that came to mind. It was a great conversation. I'd say specifically if You are interested in writing your own adventures and publishing them, or If you're interested in making RPG content and trying to publish it, if you are interested in homebrewing your own monsters or your own setting or anything like that, I think you'll find just a ton of stuff in this conversation. I will say before we go on that this conversation again filled with technical issues. we had to cut the first interview because I got sick, and then the second interview I kept having connectivity issues, so it's all kind of stitched together, but I tried to leave as much it in there as possible so that you could hear every interesting thing that was said during this conversation, which again I thought was really great. So thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy the conversation. Right, my guest this day, my guest this evening is Sradhappa a PhD student in Buddhist studies and a published writer I guess not published writer for Dragon Cult Games. Dragon Cult Games entire Śraddhāpa: You Cam: company. Is that is that the accurate is that the the right thing to say about Dragon Cult? Śraddhāpa: Yeah, I mean I kind of I am Dragon Cult games but the main thing that I published so far is a couple of issues of a zine for Dragonbane and so I've written you know probably more than half of each of those zines but we've had a quite a few other writers have contributed articles, reviews, monsters, adventures that kind of thing so yeah. Cam: Yeah, yeah, Dragon Zine it's called, right? there's two two volumes out. Are you working on a third? Śraddhāpa: Yeah, that's right. Two issues. I'm working on a third. I'm hoping to have it out pretty soon. Cam: Okay. one name that I see as a constant contributor on here is KJ Montgomery. Is this is this just Śraddhāpa: Hmm. Cam: another Dragonbane player or is he somebody like who is this guy? Śraddhāpa: So yeah, she's a moderator on Cam: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Śraddhāpa: the Dragonbane Discord and yeah, she's published a few different things for Dragonbane and she's got a great newsletter, Watch While Games, covers all sorts of gaming stuff. So yeah, she's made some really interesting contributions and helped out with proofreading and that kind of thing. Cam: I I think it says you had an interview with K J and in that you said that that you had you wanted to run Dragon Bane and so you like looked through all these old adventures and you found one that had a bunch of necromancy in it. And so you you ran that and as a result you wrote a necromancy supplement for Dragon Bane as well, right? Śraddhāpa: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. that was kind of probably like the big classic campaign for Dragonbane called the Fifth Conflux. And Free League actually, hopefully early next year, they're going to be kickstarting a new version of at least the first part of that. So in English it's being called the brimstone sleep Cam: Hm. Śraddhāpa: and it's set in this kind of remote island up in the far north of the world and the PCs have to kind of track down this cult of necromancers that have taken refuge in this tower, you know, far away from civilization. And the reason it's called the Brimstone Sleep is because the main reason that there's a settlement there is because there are these sulfur marshes. And so, you know, you have this prison camp where sulfur is being collected. And then, you know, from there, it becomes comes this quite epic campaign. And so when I started running Dragonbane, because my first degree was in Scandinavian languages, and the author had made the original version of this campaign available for free online, which is fantastic. So the whole thing is just on a website. So I decided I would just try and run this just using the Swedish version. But yeah, one of the things that was missing at the time from Dragonbane was rules for necromancy. And that's now been rectified with the Book of Magic that came out just recently. So there's now official rules for necromancy, but yeah, I kind of made up my own ones based on the rules for earlier editions of the game. It was interesting to see what I came up with was actually quite similar to what Free League came up with. Cam: I was about to ask, Śraddhāpa: so I put that out as a free supplement. That was actually the first thing I published. Cam: Hm. I had spoken with you a while back about the about being in the RPGs and you mentioned that that you wrote a thesis about Lovecraft and and you got into Cthulhu that way, is that right? So so how did you get what took you Śraddhāpa: Yeah. Cam: to Dragon Bane? Was it just like, Hey, this is free and I can read the language it's in, or was there something else that got you there? Śraddhāpa: Well, yeah, I started off with Call of Cthulhu, know, was getting into Lovecraft that kind of got me back into RPGs. I had a copy of Cyberpunk 2020 when I was in my teens and, you know, was quite kind of fascinated by it, you know, I made characters and stuff, but I never really kind of properly got into running a game. I didn't quite get how to try and run again. I tried it once or twice, but... But yeah, when I was researching Lovecraft and I found out that there was a tabletop role-playing game based on Lovecraft, was like, I have to try that out. And that was around the same time I first came to Taiwan. you know, moving to a new country, you're kind of looking for a community, you're looking for ways to kind of meet people. And yeah, so I am partly by just posting online on the Facebook group. This was before. I don't know if Discord existed then, but it was at least I wasn't using Discord then. And also those fantastic RPG nights at Uchacha, those of us who have been playing TTRPGs in Taipei for a while will remember, unfortunately didn't survive COVID. And yeah, after playing mainly Call of Cthulhu for a couple of years, I just kind of wanted to try out a fancy RPG. And so I dabbled a little bit with Dungeons and Dragons 5e, but this was, it was like right around the time of the OGL controversy and that really put me off. yeah, I just happened to come across, I actually came across Forbidden Lands and Dragonbane. And so I bought the Forbidden Lands books and it was around the time of the Dragonbane Kickstarter. So I thought, you know, it looks good and backed it. And then it was only after, so it was kind of while I was... Waiting or it was maybe around the time the beta rules came out for Dragonbane Yeah, discovered this kind of all of the the PDFs for the the old Drakar of the Måned and dragons and demons as it was called in Swedish. I found all these PDFs online There's kind of been some debate about whether the people who put them up online were actually allowed to I think they've been taken down now, but and they're out they're all out of print anyway, so Yeah, so discovered all of this fantastic stuff from mainly from the 80s and about from the 90s. And see, I was actually running one of these old adventures in my Dragonbane game this morning. And so it's quite interesting running these older modules. The players were commenting that it does seem like a little bit of a railroad. And but, you know, we're kind of kind of enjoying it. Cam: Game design has changed a lot in thirty years, right? Does does the system of has the Śraddhāpa: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So yeah, some great adventures, but... Cam: game system changed a lot? I know that Cthulhu is basically like just straight one to one compatible. What about Dragon Bane? Has it changed? Śraddhāpa: Hmm Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's one of the great things about Call of Cthulhu can pick up a module from like 20 30 40 years ago and use it with the seventh edition rules and you know, there's very few modifications need to be made and So Dragonbane is not the current edition is not backwards compatible with earlier editions exactly But it's not really that hard to convert. I mean, you know this It's a skill-based game. Originally it was based on basic role-playing. The first Swedish edition was a translation of a KLCN publication called Magic World. I think it was series of different settings that used the basic role-playing BRP rules, which for anyone who's not familiar, you get a list of skills and they all have a percentage. and you roll a D100 and so if you have 43 in a skill then you need to roll a 43 LS on your D100 so it's really straightforward. Cam: Yeah, basic role playing is just call of Cthulhu but but fantasy or or basic like flavor. Śraddhāpa: Well, yeah, basic role playing is the rule system. So that's used for Call of Cthulhu, for Pendragon, for RuneQuest, and then it's using some other Chaosium games as well. But so I think it was originally made for RuneQuest and then also used for Call of Cthulhu or maybe the other way around. But yeah, those three games, Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest and Pendragon are the kind of classic Chaosium games that use that. Cam: Yeah, T Pop I'd actually asked you or I heard you mention, I forget what it was, but but you said you like games like Shadow Dark and Dragon Bane, so I wonder what what what attracts you to that more than like heroic sort of character based games. Śraddhāpa: It's difficult to say. It's just a matter of taste, think, and what kind of stories you find enjoyable. Also, there's different cultures around different games. I think in heroic fantasy, because you're you have an expectation that your character is going to last for a long time, you're going to develop them, from just being a very basic character to something very highly developed, very complex with lots of feats and abilities. And that kind of character building aspect is really important. It's one thing that a lot of people really enjoy about those kinds of games. And so I think what that leads to, the way that that influences the fiction and the narrative is people being more focused on their character. And so Cam: Yes, yes. Śraddhāpa: for me, I'm kind of less interested in my individual character. I'm playing as a player, I almost always GM, but I'm more interested in the story and the world. And if my character dies in a campaign and I need to make a new one, doesn't particularly faze me. Maybe that's coming from my first experience of being Call of Cthulhu, Different ways of structuring the rules lead to telling different kinds of stories. And I guess I just find the kinds of stories that you get with more old school style games just more interesting, more appealing to me personally. cam: So tell me about the things that you've published and and tell me about Corvorum. Śraddhāpa: yeah, so the first kind of fantasy RPG I got into was Dragonbane. I was just kind of looking to get into a fantasy RPG just around the time it was kickstarted. So I've been playing that since the beta rules came out. And right from the beginning it had a very open third party license. And this was also around the time of the whole OGL thing with Wizards of the Coast. So that was kind of what put me off D &D. So, you know, I always kind of had this thought in my head that in the back of my head, you know, that there was this third party license and this was this new games. There was lots of opportunity to kind of create stuff. I started off and there was a... on the Dragonbane Discord server, which is fantastic community Discord server. They started having monthly creator competitions. So I submitted some things to the first couple of those and I I got second place the first time and won the second one. So I got a bit of confidence, got bit of good feedback, but people seemed to like the stuff I was making. And then the first kind of supplement for Dragonbane I published, which was a necromancy supplement, that kind of came about quite organically because the first Dragonbane campaign that I ran was called the Conflux Saga, which is this kind of epic, like five-part campaign that was published for the earlier editions of the game in Swedish in the... 1980s and I think just into the 90s and the author had made this whole campaign available online for free. So because I read Swedish I thought well this is a great opportunity to kind of try running this this campaign. But especially in the first part necromancy is quite a key theme and at that time you know there was only the core rules had been published for Dragonbane. And so there was no rules for necromancy. So I looked at the, the rules for the earlier editions of the game and just adapted them and added some of my own ideas because I needed necromancy spells for this campaign that I was running. And then I decided, well, why not try putting this together, doing a bit of layout, know, just using some kind of stock images and, you know, images in the public realm and put together the supplement. And yeah, so that was kind of where I started. then with, you know, there was so much kind of interesting content on the Dragonbane Discord server. I wanted to try and create like a zine pulling together some of this content. So I kind of contacted people who'd written stuff and put out the first issue of Dragonzine. And then there's been two issues of that have come out and hopefully the... The third one will be out soon. And then Corvorum started, that also kind of came out of this, doing this necromancy supplement because I was kind of thinking, well, you know, I'm gonna put out this necromancy supplement, I'd like to have an adventure that kind of showcases these rules, know, that showcases the kind of necromancy and how that can be kind of a centerpiece of an interesting adventure. So I... wrote this adventure called the Necromancer's Apprentice. And Corvorum really came about just as a setting for that adventure. was just kind of thinking about, because I knew it was in a city and I had the main plot of the adventure, the main events, what was happening. And then I just started thinking about, where is this happening? I know it's in a city, but what's the city like? And it really just kind of... grew out of that. So this city is called Corvorum, the city of crows. so yeah, the more I thought about it, it's very much been the experience, you know, that I've heard other writers and world builders talk about that it's not so much, it doesn't feel so much like creating, it's kind of discovering, you know, you're kind of exploring the world through writing, through through games and as things come up you just realize when you ask the question, well, what's going on in this part of the world or what's this like? And the answers just kind of seem to come. It's more like discovering a world rather than creating it. So I decided to start working on what will hopefully be a series of books presenting this setting as a kind of city setting. And I started off quite ambitious because I love playing different kinds of games, different RPG systems. And especially at that time, I was just playing lots of different games and just really enjoying exploring different systems, different rule sets. So I decided I would run five parallel campaigns all in the same setting, each using a different rule set. to explore it. They weren't all gonna be weekly, it was gonna be five bi-weekly campaigns. So obviously that was too ambitious, but that was where I started. The first one, so I managed to get enough players for four campaigns. So that was using Dragonbane, Shadowdark, Cairne, and Daggerheart. And then after running those for kind of maybe like six or eight months, I kind of realized that the I felt quite happy running games using all those systems, but I realized that designing something that was really going to work in each of those systems, it required much more depth of knowledge and feeling for each of those systems. So I decided to narrow it down and focus on Dragonbane and Shadowdark because I felt most comfortable with those systems. And also from playing them, I've found that although the... the origin of the rules is quite different. Dragonbane is originally from basic role playing, whereas Shadowed Ark is from Dungeons and Dragons. But the way that things work, the of assumptions that you make, the kind of power level of things is quite similar. So I found that I could take an adventure that I'd written for Dragonbane, run it using Shadowed Ark and vice versa, and it really needed very little adaption. Whereas with Cairn and Daggerheart, know, I would have had to have overhauled things a bit more fundamentally. So, yes, I've been running campaigns in Corvorum for over a year now. And, just working on writing and developing the setting. So I delayed publishing The Necromancer's Apprentice because when I was kind of about to get, I was giving up to do a Kickstarter for it. and Free League announced they were going to publish a book of magic for Dragonbane, which obviously includes Necromancy. So I decided I would wait until that was published and update my Necromancy supplement and update the Necromancy Apprentice to kind of be compatible with those kind of official rules. yeah, so that's going to be coming hopefully quite soon. And yeah, I'm planning to do a Kickstarter for the first probably two or three Corvorum books sometime next year. cam: So your Kovorum books, they're going to be like setting books or adventure books? Śraddhāpa: Both, yeah, but I'm thinking of it primarily as a setting. So the first two books will be a book about the city and then another book about the undercity because another big inspiration for Corvorum was a campaign that I ran using the Halls of Ardenvul, which is this amazing mega dungeon written for Osric, which is a retro clone of AD &D first edition, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. cam: yeah, yeah. Śraddhāpa: But I ran that using Dragonbane and found it worked great. we played that kind of most weeks for a year and maybe explored 10-15 % of the Mega Dungeon so yeah it's amazing. yeah anyone who's looking for a Mega Dungeon I'd recommend it. cam: Hmm. Hmm. Well, you You told me about Corvorum a while back and it it sounded personal. it's is it based on on I don't know. I feel like you said it was based on a city where you where you spent time is when you were young or something like that. Isn't that right? Śraddhāpa: Yeah, yeah, well, I grew up near Edinburgh and so definitely the look of the city. when I've been back in Edinburgh visiting family, I've kind of gone around and taken some pictures of architecture. so, so yeah, it's definitely I mean, I'm not quite sure how the art is going to work. probably I'm going to see if I can maybe find an artist from Edinburgh or someone who does art of like, you know, Edinburgh buildings who can. maybe do a fantasy version of some of that architecture. But yes, I was just saying about the two Corvorum books, the first two. So one will be about the city and one will be about this mega dungeon underneath the city. Because one of the things I found with the Halls of Ardenvall was there's a bit of distance between the closest kind of town and the mega dungeon. And it's quite a dangerous journey. You have to kind of go up this cliff that's, you know, got this massive waterfall and it's slippery. And so it's a bit of an undertaking to get to and to travel between them. the Halls of Ardenvue and Gosterwick, which is the closest town. So I wanted to kind of try a setting where the mega dungeon was like right underneath the city. So you could, so you didn't have this track. So you could easily go into the under city, explore, come back out to the city, you know, rest, re-equip. And I felt that would, that would kind of improve the experience, at least for me. It's just kind of my preference. And I have lots of other ideas for. cam: I I do wonder how is it how is it that it doesn't really fit with Cairn? I understand it a big mega dungeon being weird for Daggerhart, but why not Cairn? Śraddhāpa: It's not so much that it doesn't fit, it's more that I feel that if I... I really enjoyed running Cairne. But if I'm going to write something for Cairne, I feel I would need to just play a lot more Cairne just to get more of a depth of feeling for the system so that I could create a version of Curve Warren that wasn't... Because I don't want to just make a version and then just swap out the sat blocks so I can sell more games to... people playing different rulesets. I want each, I want it to feel like it's really written for whatever ruleset. So I feel confident doing that for Dragonbane and for Shadowdark. And I may come back and do a version for Cairne or Daggerheart in the future, cam: so what is exactly the process? I mean, I know how to like write an adventure. but how do you prepare to put it into a document? when you write it, do you write it on your computer in some like a Google Doc or something and then later you export it or are you working in Affinity? Are you doing it on paper and then moving the paper templates to Affinity or something like that? How do you how do you like at least do the layout? How do you plan it and and it or do you just give this to an editor or something? Śraddhāpa: Well, no, I'm going to be doing the editing and layout myself. But no, I'm far from the layout stage. I mean, I have some ideas about kind of what I want it to look like and, you know, certain things that have kind of... know, influenced what I wanted to look like. But yeah, I mean, at the moment it's a bit kind of all over the place. You know, it's mostly like I have this Notion document. So it's kind of mainly Notion that I use. But a lot of it's just like notes and like lists of ideas and like if I'm good, because often things will come up while I'm playing and that's, you know, I feel like I'm kind of exploring the city myself by running these two campaigns in it. And it's like, you know, the partly I'm creating adventure hooks and I do have an idea of meta-plot, but it's also partly the players. It's like what the players find interesting, what kind of NPCs they want to interact with and what their goals are for their players. And so when the players want to do something, it's like, okay, I have to figure out what's there, or I have to figure out... something interesting what's going on in this part of the city or with these NPCs or you know if they go down this stairway what's down there you know I don't know but you know we ended the last session with the players saying let's go down this stairway and say okay that's a good place to end this session we'll pick up pick it up next week and then in the weekend between I kind of have to figure out what's what's down there you know and and yeah just making maps and dungeon scroll especially for the under city I mean it's The great thing about Ardenvool is the whole thing is mapped, so it's this whole series of huge maps. I the undercity of Corvorum is going to be too big to map. So I'm taking inspiration more from the Moria supplement for Free League's The One Ring RPG, because Moria is like, you know, this whole underground city. can't like create detailed battle maps of the whole thing. Well, I mean, you could, but it would be ridiculous. So I'm going to have more of like an overview map that's not detailed, but showing the different areas. And then there will be like locations within that that are that have detailed maps and then that leaves it open for for people to kind of fill in some of the gaps and you know if there's a particular dungeon they have they can just kind of make it part of the under city. I definitely want to have some kind of procedural generation tools so that people can just move from one location to the other in the under city and maybe make some rolls, maybe have some, there'll be some tables of random encounters that people can have as they're traveling between locations in the under city. But also, yeah, just have some procedural generation tools so that people can just kind of create a section of the under city using that. cam: so you're working on a bestiary based on Scottish folklore as well, I think with your brother, is that right? Śraddhāpa: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that's kind of like a separate project that really just came out of conversations with my brother. So it's a really nice thing, actually, because, you know, for both of us, our first kind of experience of RPGs was when we were, you know, teenagers, like growing up together. And we kind of came across the Cyberpunk 2020 book. And, you know, for a period we were quite into it, but we... We didn't really understand how to play the game. I think I maybe tried running one session. But it was mostly like reading the book and making characters. But yeah, we both kind of thought that was really cool. then both of us kind of in later life in our like 30s and 40s have kind of gotten into RPGs more seriously. So it's quite nice to kind of have that hobby in common again. And yeah, my... My brother is really into Scottish folklore. He's just finished a Masters in Fantasy Literature at Glasgow University. He's just starting on his PhD. So he really knows his stuff in terms of folklore and Scottish. folk traditions. So yeah, we're kind of talking about this idea of creating a Scottish folklore bestiary. because I think there's a lot of interest among people who are into fancy RPGs. There's a lot of interest in Celtic cultures and settings. But it seems like a lot of what's available is not maybe the most authentic. I think there are some that are quite good, that are quite authentic to the actual culture, but a lot of it's kind of a bit maybe Disney-fied or it's seen through this kind of, it's like an external interpretation rather than something that's more kind of authentic to the culture. So yeah, we talked about making something, you know, this collection of creatures that was really kind of authentic to the Scottish folklore tradition and finding ways of kind of translating that into, you know, creatures that would work in an RPG. but were also authentic to the folklore tradition and had the right kind of feel. So, you know, that's been a really kind of fun creative process, you know, kind of working together, creating these creatures. And, you know, the other interesting thing is we, although we both play RPGs, we play different systems. So he mainly plays Dungeons and Dragons, fifth edition. So he's been designing the monsters for Dungeons and Dragons. I've been doing it for Dragonbane, Shadowdark, Old School Essentials and Kaern. And then we've been working together on a Daggerheart version because we've both kind of been playing a bit of Daggerheart recently and really kind of enjoying their game design. So the plan is to have four versions of the book, one for D &D, one for old school games. with stat blocks for Shadow Dark, OSE and Cairne, one for Dragonbane and one for Daggerheart. I'm really excited we're working with this incredible artist. So we've commissioned several pieces from her that we'll be kind of using to kind of market the Bestiary so people can kind of see what they're getting. And then obviously, once the, you know, if the crowdfunding is successful, we'll commission the remaining illustrations. But yeah, the... Hopefully, you people will be able to see those soon hoping to probably launch the the Kickstarter next month and So see how people cam: it's next month. Śraddhāpa: will able to see these illustrations first Kickstarter. cam: is it already on Kickstarter so I can go sign up for updates on it? Śraddhāpa: No, no, not yet. But that's cam: Okay. Śraddhāpa: coming soon, hopefully in a few weeks. But yeah, I think when people see the art, because you know, when I've talked to people about the idea, a lot of people think it sounds like a really good idea, but I think when people see the art, then they're going to be pretty blown away. I'm pretty blown away by the art. cam: I have a friend that made a Shadow Dark Bestiary for Śraddhāpa: we're really lucky to be able to work with this particular artist. cam: it was all military units. I think it's called Dogs of War. And he went from like having this idea to Śraddhāpa: Hmm, that was cool. cam: kickstarting it and publishing it and in such a short amount of time, I was really blown away. Like I I think it was sort of all he did for about three months, and and I think about on the fifth month he had backed it and and and or had had successfully kickstarted and I thought, damn, that was so fast. because I I think you've been working on this for quite some time. how many monsters are gonna be in it? Śraddhāpa: I think it's about 23 something like that. cam: And I'm I'm guessing there's like folklore and and adventure hooks, like you said, and everything for each. So it's it's a it's got a lot of setting as well, is that right? Śraddhāpa: Yeah, I we don't want to make it too setting specific. maybe if it goes well, maybe we'll think about making a setting book sometime in the future. you know, it's more that there's kind of, I suppose, an implied setting in the way that the creatures function. But, you know, we just want it to be something where people who want a bit of that kind of folklore. flavor in their games can just take some of these creatures and put them into whatever game world they're playing in. It doesn't have to be a specifically Celtic or Scottish-inspired setting. cam: Sure, sure, sure. one moment. Well, I I want to ask you a couple of questions about just playing in Taiwan and and your time playing. So you do most of your playing online, is that right? Do you have any games in in person? Hmm. No, where do you play it and how often? Śraddhāpa: I just have... Yeah, yeah, mostly play online. I just have one in-person game every other week. And, occasionally we'll meet up with people and play in real life. But yeah, it's mostly online. play several times a week online. you know, it's been... At first I was kind of a little bit sceptical, but, you know, it's allowed me to play just so much more often. which I think especially as... As a writer and game designer, the most important thing is just to be playing as much as possible and playing other people's systems and adventures. my interest is not really in designing game systems, it's designing worlds and adventures for existing systems. So just kind of playing as much of those systems that I'm writing for as I can and just playing adventures written by really kind of great writers to get inspiration. Just as if you want to write novels, you have to read a lot of It's pretty basic. And you know, there's no way I'd be able to play as much as I do. cam: Do you spend a lot of time writing? Like on a daily basis, do you write a couple of hours? sorry, sorry. Śraddhāpa: it's more... certainly for Corvorum it's more... I'll write notes, I'll make maps and kind of building out the world in my head and making notes, most of it is not written down in a way that other people could read. It's just kind of there to support the structure in my mind. But yeah, I'm starting now to kind of organise my notes a bit more. And the other day, I made a list of all the locations I've kind of thought of and it's over 50 locations in the city, plus more in the under city. was quite pleasantly surprised. I hadn't realised, you if I tried to sit down and think of 50 locations, I'd seem insurmountable, but just through playing the game, you know, that's just the amount of locations that cam: It accretes. Śraddhāpa: have kind of come up in the game and that I've kind of got a few notes about. exactly. cam: Yeah, I was I was gonna ask what's the significance? god. Hmm. it mm. Śraddhāpa: But yeah, I tend to work in more intense bursts. But yeah, I tend to work in more intense bursts. I don't do, I'm not the kind of, you I'll do a little bit everyday person. I'm like the do nothing cam: Yeah, yeah. Śraddhāpa: for ages and then spend, you know, hours hyper-focused and do it all at once. Yeah. cam: Absolutely same. Same. Mm-hmm. I I would it's I want to ask what's the significance of of gaming to you. But you you started the last explanation with well, as a game designer and an adventure writer. but but on a on a more like personal level, is there some yeah what is the significance to you? I I know that you're also a PhD student, so so you must spend a lot of time in in like doing academic pursuits or following academic pursuits but but gaming seems to be really important to you as well. And and so is it it's more than just a job to you, i I think. Sorry, that's a question, Śraddhāpa: Yeah. cam: although it doesn't sound like it, yeah. Śraddhāpa: Yeah, no, it's a question. It's quite a deep question. I think there's a couple of things. I think for me, it's a way of engaging with story, with narrative, and particularly with myth. in a much deeper way. I mean, of course I enjoy reading, but for me it's like reading is always going to be... more superficial than exploring something through role playing, through collective storytelling, through being a participant in that storytelling. So I feel it allows me to engage with myths and symbols in a much deeper way, kind of intellectually, but primarily emotionally. And I think, I'm doing a PhD in religious studies. And for me, think that's a really important aspect of religion is that it's a way for people to engage with myth and legend and symbol, which are, I think, really important. You know, because. I mean, I don't want to get too much into psychology, but I did write. Well, actually, what got me into RPGs in the first place was writing an English literature thesis about H.P. Lovecraft and Carl Yule. and then discovering that there was a role-playing game about, you know, Lovecraft's, a certain Lovecraft's world. And I think the... One of the key insights of Jung and Freud and the early psychoanalysts was the importance of the unconscious. And a lot of people, I think, maybe try to live their lives as if the unconscious isn't there and try to live their lives as rational beings. But actually, the unconscious is what really controls us. There's an image someone told me once. It's like you're on this truck. It was actually the image you use was one of these road trains in Australia. It's like one cab and it's got several trucks behind it. So it's this massive thing barreling down this straight road. they have these straight roads in Australia that just go for hundreds of miles without a curve. And so they just, barrel down this road. So it's got all this momentum and that's the unconscious mind. And our conscious mind is like sitting on top of the cab. and just creating a story about what's happening but it's not in control at all so the unconscious mind is where all the power is all the momentum is that's what you know directs us where we're going to go in our lives and what we're going to do and then the conscious mind is really just telling a story about that and making up reasons. you know, can sometimes, if you're very self-aware, think you can occasionally catch yourself doing this, that you make a decision and then after you've made the decision, you make up a reason about why you took that decision. But the reason comes after the decision. So I think that was a long-winded way of saying that I think myth and legend and symbol is really important because that's the language of the unconscious. It's through engaging that we can explore the unconscious and I think understand ourselves, get to know ourselves on a deeper level. And so that's maybe a overly sophisticated way of thinking about why I play, why you know enjoy pretending to be an elf running around the forest killing things but yeah. cam: No, no. I I think it's a fantastic answer. I I I like I love that and and yeah. Yeah. Śraddhāpa: But, you and again, so this is the story cam: In fact my my only problem with it go on. Śraddhāpa: that my conscious mind is, so that's the cam: Yeah. Śraddhāpa: story that my conscious mind tells. But, you know, the truth is that I have this unconscious pool to be doing this that I don't fully understand, but it feels important. And, you know, my conscious, cam: Yeah, yeah. Śraddhāpa: rational, academic mind has created this quite sophisticated sounding reason about why this is a good thing to be doing. cam: Did I did I lose you? Did I disconnect? I think I'm still here. Śraddhāpa: You hear that? Can you hear me? think you're frozen. cam: I remember in in like two thousand fifteen when CERN was like really at its height. The LHC was at its height gathering the data for the Higgs boson particle. And there was like this month long period where anytime they would try and power it up, it would like power down and they couldn't figure out why. And NPR, you know, America's National Public Radio ran this editorial that was like, It's a black hole going back in time from the future to prevent like the end of the universe that they're accidentally creating. And th this this talk has been like that. It's it's like the universe doesn't want to be observed. there's a secret here that we're trying to discuss that that like the the universe is trying to prevent us circumlocuting or whatever. So we just we just can't talk about it. I don't know what it is. This this interview has been broken up about six or seven times. And so it's just it's so chopped up. but I I think we're about to land this baby. and so and so the last couple of things I wanna know, Sardaba, what games are you in now? What games do you run and what games do you play in? Śraddhāpa: So I'm mostly GM because I love GMing and cam: Hm. Śraddhāpa: I think I'm much better at being a GM than being a player. cam: I'm the same way. Śraddhāpa: One of the two games I'm a player in is the Daggerheart mini campaign that you're running and I constantly feel like I'm being a backseat GM. I'm like giving you suggestions. Well, yeah, that's true. cam: it's 'cause I don't know the rules of Daggerheart, so that's totally fair. That's that's okay. Śraddhāpa: But I think even if you did know the rules, I'd still be doing that, which as a GM myself, I know is really annoying. yeah. cam: Okay. No, no, you're good. Śraddhāpa: And the other game I'm a player in is a Warhammer fancy roleplay campaign, The Enemy Within, which is one of these great kind of... Epic campaigns, I think we're on book two of about five and we've been playing most weeks for a year. it's one of these kind of epic campaigns that I'm really enjoying getting to be in. But yeah, as a GM, I went through a period of just wanting to run lots of different games, try out different systems, different settings, which I really enjoyed. But... earlier this year. I started getting the feeling that okay I want to pair things down and just focus on going into two or three two or three games and more depth and So the three games I've been focusing on is Dragonbane, Shadow Dark and Call of Cthulhu So two fantasy games and then yeah Call of Cthulhu was the first first game that I The first game that I really played the first game that got me into the hobby And I've also been running a short campaign of the Blade Runner RPG with my in-person group, but we're going to be having the last session of that tomorrow and then start a new campaign which will probably be another Dragonbane campaign. cam: Sorry, I'm looking okay, yeah. And the last thing I wanna know is what's a you got a big bookshelf right behind you, right? I gotta ask for for one, if you could boil it down to one, what is what is an essential from Shraddhapa's appendix N that that you think includes some things, you know, some some themes that come up or some motifs that come up in in the games you like to play or influence you in some way? Śraddhāpa: So appendix N in the sense of fiction. cam: it c it doesn't have to be fiction, it could be anything. It could be a video game, it could be a book, it could be a a movie, but but what's something that that holds some maybe capital T truth to you that that like you think you you you maybe connect too often? Śraddhāpa: Okay, I was... cam: Maybe that tried to make it sound too deep. What's a book you like? Śraddhāpa: Okay, so I think in terms of fiction, know, not kind of RPG books, It would have to be something by H.P. Lovecraft because I got into H.P. Lovecraft when I was doing an English Literature Masters and I just kind of picked up this collection of Lovecraft stories second hand just for something, know, a bit of a kind guilty pleasure, kind of taking a break from the heavier reading that I was doing. And it just totally blew me away. And I think, you know, it's that engagement with myth, with legend, with the unconscious. And I think, you know, my favorite Lovecraft is the shadow over Innsmouth. So you know the great thing about Lovecraft is he wrote short cam: That's the fish people, right? Śraddhāpa: stories. That's a spoiler you know but yeah. It's much better if you... cam: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. shoot, okay. Sorry, I I'd like picked up a a Lovecraft reader like twenty years ago and read three or four stories and it's like, this sounds so archaic, I don't know if I can follow and that might have been all I ever read of it, so yeah. Śraddhāpa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so if I can, and if I can extend that to an RPG book recommendation, Chaosium, publish Call of Cthulhu, the RPG, they have just published a source book for Innsmouth, which is incredible. know, it's every Lovecraft fan's dream. So yeah, the Shadow of Rainsmouth. then if I can extend this a little bit, there's the radio adaptation. There's a podcast series called the Lovecraft Investigations. I think it's the third season is the Shadow of Rainsmouth. It's amazing. mean, if you're even if you even like Lovecraft a little bit, it's amazing. So yeah, that's that's for me. It's something just in terms of being a horror story, of being a setting, the kind of evocative nature of the setting. It's just something that I love and just kind of imaginatively keep coming back to and finding kind of challenging and disturbing as well. But I think I particularly like that story because of the ending, which I won't spoil, but it ends in a different way to most Lovecraft stories. And most Lovecraft stories, the theme is you have some person who's investigating. and they discover some of the truth, they at least glimpse the truth, and it sends them crazy, they can't cope with it, they end up dying or ending up in a mental asylum. And that's generally how the RPG Call of Cthulhu works as well, that's kind of the arc of what happens, and so that's the arc you enjoy kind of following your characters on. But A Shadow Rainsmith, it doesn't end like that, it ends in a different way, and I think there's something really interesting about that ending. So if you want to know more about what I think about the ending, you can download my master's thesis. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, if you... cam: I'll have to take a look at that again. okay, okay. Well I'll I I'll have to read Shadow Over Innsman's first and then I'll Yeah. Śraddhāpa: Yeah. Yeah, it's... If I can recommend one story, because it's not that long. That's a great thing about Lovecraft, he didn't write novels. I mean, A Shadow and Vowden Smith is one of the longest things that he wrote, but it's like less than 100 pages. So you can read it in an afternoon. cam: bad. I mean, I like reading, so no no length is bad. what I do wanna say is is when you're talking about myth and and legend and and like even if this is your your rational, you know, reasoning for liking games, I I do have some some questions about like why if RPGs are a good medium for that, because sometimes these games can be kind of tedious. But I think we're gonna have to save this conversation for next time. and so I hope to have you on again soon to to talk to you And and maybe you have you and Daniel at the same time to talk about myth symbolism and and like games and religion. I don't know. It's it's a big a big conversation I'm trying to to figure out how to have. but thank you so much for your time. And it it's like I was trying to say before, I I I I very much enjoy talking to you 'cause I just feel like everything you say I I could learn from and I could ask more questions sort of all day. but i it's really a a pleasure talking to you and and thanks for the patience with the the internet Śraddhāpa: Yeah, you too. cam: and everything. So yeah. See you next time. Bye bye. yeah, yeah, so it goes. Yeah. Śraddhāpa: technology. Okay, take care. Bye bye. cam: Bye bye. Cam: Thanks for listening. I just want to say thank you one more time to Sridapa as well for coming on to TPOD. We had so much more interesting conversation than I could put on here, but I just wanted to cut this down to be about writing and publishing for RPGs. Upcoming, there will be a special episode with Stradapa and his brother and their artist for their bestiary When the crowdfunding campaign starts and I think he said that'll be in the next month or two. So be on the lookout for that if you found this to be interesting. We're going to go into a lot more depth about how they made it, about how they commissioned the art and everything in the process of making the bestiary. So keep your ear to the ground out for that. And thanks once again for listening. I've been Cam and I'll see you next time. Bye bye.