Gadgetory

welcome back to the show everybody our guest today I'm very excited to welcome to the studio he is a game designer he is also a producer on tabletop one of one of my favorite shows because I'm gonna be on it next season he's also a host on geek and sundry a master of all things board games author of a children's book what is it you don't do I'm in van norman thanks for stopping by hey thanks for having me so that was a great intro god I should just put them on my bio yeah aster of all facets of all things i feel like i need that the sword of omens in front of me why don't say that so I'm very excited i as a as a fellow tabletop aficionado I'm very glad to have you here you first thing I want to ask you about is writing your own role playing game Oh God um so I wrote it with my buddy in college it's called outbreak undead at the zombie survival simulation RPG wow it's it's it's real world zombie real world zombie invasion well it's got different scales but what what people often like about it is is that you can accurately simulate any kind of zombie apocalypse in any type of some situation you want with any kind of zombies that you want to the degree of realism that if you take a 30 question personality test on our website it pops out your course that's if you to play yourself as a character Wow awesome nope an avatar system which there are some of them out in the world and there are some zombie games in the world but not really one that like makes them kiss my kisses ami we're talking about it sort of seems like a really great marriage of plague Inc pandemic and Dungeons and Dragons no I'm and in so it's and people always ask us like what's the difference between you and other role playing games and were like well there's not a game zout there that represent like the hack and slash of like the classic like I'm just going for body count right but then there's uh where can like The Walking Dead and which is just Fievel my survival service you stay at a farm a year right and sometimes your aural stay in house yes stay I I would love to play that because well I had a chance to play the end of the world games right that fantasy flat were similar in the sense that they do want to try to make they want to make us that you can make a custom care that might closely represent yourself but they're the way that they do character creation is is that you put a dice in a bag and then you you have your course that's laid out and then you everyone boats right whether or not you should have a higher lower state yeah that's you or not which is very interesting free political like you're you're a star a way to lose friends very quickly what do you mean I don't think of a four yeah we did the same thing mais at least hahahaha it's a good bit but we tried to do an arbitrary device cuz our test was designed by people who build test for psychological essays Wow oh interesting labs cuz my my partner who helped make the book with it has a background in psychology you guys go by like Briggs myers or and all up in specific crackers any other the IDS at the test the test is supposed to like um not lead you okay I'm not tell you that you're supposed to be doing any particular thing and it mixes the order up so that there's no real um question about whether or not that's going to it like that's the right choice right better situation like oh yeah that's the one I want to answer for the stat that I'm looking for yes yeah I get it I guess so it's it's a it's good because it doesn't give you it doesn't force an identity on you that you that you that you are personifying or that you wish to personify it's very neutral cool I want to ask you another question yes as a deep dive I wargaming question say I was so excited to introduce the two of these yeah because I knew they'd we got about site we did right away I want to ask you about this field asst yaris because the the biggest board game award in the world was given out last week or two weeks ago now so huge games up for the camera video which is sort of like the gamers game award time stories again I absolutely adore which is great pandemic legacy we have now the number one game on board game yeah it has been for a while it's like that's the jam right and then one thought it was going to win shoo-in but upset isle of skye one isle of skye and played ilex guy have you i have it and i haven't played it it was a pretty big maybe we should not oh you know sorry I have played it I'm sorry it was one of the games that we were actually reviewing for tabletop I have played it it's a great game yeah I hope so it's a really good game but their hopes but in all in in this man's one opinion embodying opinions seriously thought pandemic legacy was going to kill it yeah I did too I sort of assumed that that would that would when I saw you like traveled to Germany to accept the award yet but here's the said any this shows on his social media tour he's like I'm ready yeah yeah but it's uh I think that my only theory around this is that in Europe the board gaming circuit there is so vastly different the likes and desires and there are uh it's to the point of where there's like euro games and then what they're starting to call a Mara games or if you're a little snobby some people say ameri trash you know which i think is a terrible harm because all games are great in their own terms and ways and well you wouldn't call another game Eurotrash either well there you go there you go but the point is is that they are your acer different audience made for different audiences and Isles the sky as a lot more of a a robust kind of dynamic game may have been more alert and pandemic legacy while completely changing the way games have been done my old be fair risk legacy that at first but who cares who did it first it was a great game really expand yeah so yeah yeah I kind of feel the same way but what are you playing stuff now that you are you playing right now what's good to like what were the hidden gems out there cuz obviously the big games people have probably heard about but because because board games have seen such a huge resurgence right in parking lots a story and geek and sundry like we've seen a lot of that come back up I've seen now at target you can get you know ticket to ride and you get settlers of catan that was stuff you could not find at a regular retail store you had to go to a special board game store yet which are getting you know there were rare rare and now they're coming back you go to barnes and nobles you can buy miniature games they're back you can buy core rulebooks for D&D and even even a dark heresy which is the Warhammer 40k RPG like they exist in these places now yeah everyone to enjoy right and so the ones i'm liking right now the obscure one that's not new but it's one of my favorite games and I keep coming back to it over and over again is wrapped her it's a two-player game mmm that's a tactics it's a cat-and-mouse game in which you each have an active deck there's only nine cards in the deck and you have a raptor who's trying to protect her three babies and you have a team of scientists who are trying to capture the three babies interesting and uh well there's actually five babies in it but that's just being technical for the people out there maybe there's five babies in the set but getting off the street nurse you I've ever seen click but the the the reason I like it is because it's a two-player game which are rare and it has a high replay value and it's the ideas that you each put a card down that has a number value and just like war whoever has the lowest number wins and then if there's any difference between the numbers say like the scientists play two three and the Raptor plays a six the rapture gets three action points to move around the board um you know likewise the sciences get to do the same thing interesting and it's kind of a tug of war tactics that just really doesn't have what do they call it non symmetry sim non Simmons non-symmetrical tactics which means that they both it's not just two different factions that had the same thing and they're just pushing at it with different strategies they both have unique ways of controlling the board now with their cards and with their action points we find that grab matter rectal I love a good two player game cuz uh because you know my husband I have no friends somebody don't want a call to bring your buddy over right I know yeah that suppose you play a board game and it's like oh then I gotta get people to come to my house and it's like it's such a thing in LA to get people to come to your house because they're also spread out which is why whenever I'd host board games now it's like if you're hosting you're paying for food like that's kind of the qualifier if you gas to get over then the host gets to feed hose feeds I liked athletes yeah you drive post beats I like it what's a good rule you mentioned a new show you guys are starting right that is you described in a very cool way okay uh so we have two shows on geek and sundry one is our board game show called game the game which we do every Thursday I was on it you were totally how much fun we play again I'm miniature tiny kingdoms for all time you know that I just remember us speaking in very small voice good we have tiny epic Western now oh very nice which is something that will be doing a video on uh pretty soon I'm the but that's our board game sure like 60 episodes at this point and it's so fun it's with Becca right Becca Scott Kern's who is just a real backstabber that's not what I expected you to go she looks innocent and kind she looks like a beautiful medieval princess she will she will take you a vicious cheater this year unbelievable cheater I hope she's watching this factor skater and also uh one of the most ruthless board game players I've ever encountered and I love her for that girl ever for using extra board game yeah is the dexstar board yeah but then the show that we were talking about before getting on here is a weave a role-playing game show on Monday nights from seven until ? usually 10 or 11 which we're it's basically a certain set of characters that are jumping from RPG universe to RPG universe to our beach universe so it's kind of like sliders and quantum leap meets role-playing game interesting somebody get me Scott Bakula all right seriously here and what makes the show fun is that they're all the same characters so it's not you have a character to identify with as you jump our visitors yes max yeah cuz the Thursday night critical role show one of the reasons that people love it is because it's it's like they get so attached to the characters and the story kind of unfolds around them right yeah I really we can get invested you get invested in your favorite character or your favorite sort of storyline amongst the characters while still showcasing different role playing games things which was mine key thing I wanted to do I was like hey there's other things out there besides D&D yeah you know so we're playing World of Darkness right now moved on to werewolf the forsaken which is still part of world of darkness in the past we play like outbreak undead there was uh obviously there was a show a couple silly one-offs we did uh there's actually snakes on the plane a plane role-playing game I found in a wider net nice what yep so I love the idea of not only not only are you you know jumping into a new story a new venue a new time period perhaps but new systems there are completely new rule sets you learn each episode very challenging yeah like have to learn a whole new system like every three months or so or you every month to pay what it is and so we fill it in with lots of little things that have like a rule the rules are all fit on one page like everyone is John which we played on a national tabletop day great everyone is jon is or every PC is John one person but they all bid the players to take control of John's mind and they go and try to fulfill their their objectives while they have control of John's body but any point John could fall asleep wow they all have to bid for control over Johnny I could be knocked unconscious yeah John could slip and fall I mean there's so many things i can have too many things you can just fall asleep because narcoleptic it tired yeah yeah you just suddenly fall asleep didn't get enough sultan it is a hilarious system I gotta play that we let sugar level I love indie role-playing games cuz they're such wild I was playing a game cool ideas yeah right it's some things that you'd be like I don't know if this works but I like it yeah and even if you only take the time to do like one session with it yeah if you're getting that enjoyment out of it that's wonderful absolutely you know there's fake core which is gonna be featured on tabletop this year we had another game we call we played on table hook on misspent youth which is a really funny in the RPG in which you're basically playing like the the 1980s kinda was that uh Prime a disclosed documentary of the punks oh we call it something like if there was a chat in front of me right now they'd be like why are all the things they'll tell you on YouTube in the comments comments bishop post oh no you like Sid Vicious or something yeah the whole point is that it's supposed to be like a misspent youth youth culture rising up against an authority and the gym plays the authority and youth the youth culture whose part of this is trying to like work in this dystopian or system that they don't like and they have to go through like the character arcs that you often see in those kind of movies are those kind of stories a gattaca you know um having hard time recalling some the other ones right now but that kind of dystopian society right yeah uh it's fun Hunger Games the ideas that you the whole mechanic is is that when you when you when when the authority makes you mad enough you're supposed to grab your Dyson go I stand up and then you roll to see at what level like as its 1 through 12 yeah and if you land on that number if the authority has already grabbed that number then you can claim that number and be like I'm gonna use my ingenuity to get myself out of the system because each character has their own personification yeah but the authority claim that number previously and part another role the authority wins and then you have to find out how to how to go around it in the next chapter there's nothing quite as powerful to stand up against something in a roll dice yeah I stand up when we we're gonna wrap things up but when can everybody watch all of these shows like specifically give us the schedule it's got a lot going on so monday nights seven to eleven the forever verse is the show that's great Aang in which we jump from the system to system from universe to universe exploring all the wildness that RPG systems have to offer and then Thursday night game the game is from four to seven and that's all both on the geek & sundry twit show twitch.tv / geek & sundry and which by the way has a really nice chat room there's like nice super nice people in the chat there I was like it's it's a very strange like internet phenomenon that particular chat room really nice our community very welcome AZ funny great if you're one of those people come join us yeah because we'd like to have you i'm in van doren thanks you so much for being here man I could talk to you for like two hours and be that's fine it'd be so easy you're easy to talk to so risotto so are you um and then what's the book what's old look if you're going to gencon board gamers out there the ABCs of RPGs which is a children's book and activity book will be filled on that starting this gencon fantastic title you can't pick it up there because we have to ship at the backers first but if you want to come check it out look at it and then it's going to be shipping in September you came pre-order it right now in backer kit it's a 36-page full cover a is for adventure may you always be on one B is for book the source of all of our fun c is for creatures of all shapes and size D is for dice can you count all the sides well done yeah easy I just felt just in time where do you make us an audio book that we can in fact also yeah that's actually being done by Mary McKellen oh great yeah she's right and then the library bards did the sing-along song Oh perfect haha one step ahead he actually thank you so much for coming on the show and hanging out with us geek & sundry obviously they're right down the street from us we love all of our friends at Nerdist in geek and sundry so make sure you check out game the game because it's a blast and check out answers cuz it's so good it is really fun Swizz vanity oh my calm gonna be part of the fun you want your neck I'd like join one of the best moments in all four seasons of tabletop I'll tell you was it great that tabletop episode that I'm on is pretty amazing John hands anymore I could say who's there you can't say who's there John Ross now I was there Jackie Kashian which we had on the show a while ago we had Michelle morrow on the show will of course guess Game Master and then Travis Willingham Travis Willingham was there it was just the most fun i am telling you guys you can't wait for that show to come out but Ivan thank you so much for coming on the show we are going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back to tell you a little about everest VR I climbed Mount Everest in Brussels rowdy and what we're into this week and of course our phone target for the day so don't click weights tomorrow daily