The challenge - to use the words Kickstarter, Romance and Irradiated. It took some time to come up a way to use them all, but here we go. “Hi Gareth – thanks for joining us on our podcast today.”
“No problem Stuart. I’ve been listening to ‘What’s New?’ for years, so it’s a real honour to be here today.” “Great stuff, Gareth. So, first – as you’ll know, we ask all of our guests this – how did you get into gaming in the first place?” “Well, Stuart – I’ve been a gamer for many, many years. I first started back in high school, where somebody brought a copy of Dungeons and Dragons in. We were all mesmerised by it – the options of what we could do, the pictures of the monsters – it was fantastic! And since then, I’ve been gaming. In fact, I’m still with the same group that started together back then.” “Really? The same group over the last 20 years? From high school?” “Absolutely – we got into gaming together, and we’ve stuck together. Some of us went off to university, but the gaming there wasn’t the same, so we came back together again.” “Great – and what games do you like to play?” “Well, as I say, we started with D&D, and that’s what we enjoy most. We’ve been through the editions, but we always go back to 3.5. We tried others that are based on D&D – you know which ones I mean – but none of them quite scratched the itch the same way. So we dabble with other games, but we always come back. It’s been our great love, and our romance is still strong.” “What about outside roleplaying? Do you do boardgames, or card games?” “Yeah – we do some board and card games. We like cooperative ones mainly.” “Cool. Cool. So, we’ve invited you along to talk to us because you have a Kickstarter running at the moment. Would you like to talk about that at all?” “I’d love to Stuart. It’s a roleplaying game written by myself and my gaming group. Whilst we love D&D, we sometimes want to try something a little different – like science-fiction, or superheroes. So, we’ve written the game we wanted to play. The Kickstarter is to get the money for production and art and stuff – the game is already written, so there’s no risk to backers.” “It’s a science-fiction D&D?” “Yeah – with superheroes. You see, in our setting – we call it Taltalla – the world was mostly destroyed by nuclear war. Some cities have been cleaned up, but a lot of the world is still quite irradiated, and monsters come out of those. Our heroes, usually superheroes, which is why they can still use magic and stuff, go out into the irradiated parts, kill the monsters and take their stuff back to their own cities where it can be used.” “So, it’s a setting?” “Yeah – but with new rules too. We’ve got guns and bombs and things. We’ve removed any restrictions on multiclassing, so you can truly create the character you want, who can do anything you want. Obviously, we have vehicles too, like planes and helicopters, for those heroes that can’t fly.” “I see. Anything else changed?” “Well, we’ve taken away a lot of the classes, as I said, and made a lot of the abilities into feats that you can buy when you’ve multiclassed the right way. So we don’t have paladin, for example – if you build a fighter/cleric, you can then buy feats that let you get the bits of paladin that you want. We’ve simplified and streamlined it that way.” “Are you sure? A huge list of feats that used to be class features doesn’t sound simpler to me.” “It is. Really. When you actually use it, it’s much easier than balancing all the classes against each other.” “OK – anything else.” “We’ve added new races. Now you can be a mutant or various types of aliens, as well as the usual standbys.” “And what about the future? Assuming Taltalla, or ‘Crusader’s Call’ as the full game is called, goes well – what’s next? Is there a pipeline?” “We have some setting books planned, which detail different parts of the world. A bestiary of new monsters. And some adventures. Those are all stretch goals for the Kickstarter campaign. After that, we’re also playtesting a board game set in Taltalla that one of my friends has written – that’s really cool. And one of my other friends has written a novel set there.” “So, sounds like you’re all really leaning into it.” “That we are.” “What about some of the criticisms the game has received so far? Some of the comments on Kickstarter haven’t been very complementary. Some people are calling your game a fantasy heartbreaker.” “Well, I think that’s a bit harsh, and the label can’t really apply. I mean, the game isn’t fantasy – it’s post-apocalyptic science fiction with mutants, superheroes and aliens!” “Well indeed. Thank you for joining us, Gareth, but that’s all we have time for. We all wish you the very best of luck with the Kickstarter, and the rest of the line.”
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Flash FictionSome shorter fiction, usually based on some kind of challenge. Archives
October 2021
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