Mayday Plays - A Conversation with Felix Isaacs: A Firefly's Journal | Part 3

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Get access to our ad-free, unedited discussion with Felix by subscribing to our Patreon @ http://www.patreon.com/maydayrp At any level, you can hear Felix give a ton more advice, including answering Patron submitted questions. This summer, Mayday will produce our most ambitious actual play yet: an epic Wildsea campaign, diving headfirst into a world where nature claimed victory and the ironroots run deep. 🌿⚙️ Before we begin recording, Sergio (your Firefly) sits down with Felix Isaacs (the creator of The Wildsea) to uncover the roots and philosophies behind the game’s design. Together, they explore its indie success and the evolution of the game. Felix shares tips to running improv-heavy sessions that lean into the weird, horrific, and wondrous, while Sergio gains valuable insight into crafting a Wildsea campaign with Mayday that’s as evocative and unforgettable as the setting itself. Whether you’re a new Firefly or a seasoned wildsailor, this is your chance to hear from the mind behind the madness before Mayday’s story sets sail. Make sure to subscribe to get updates on your favorite Mayday shows: https://www.youtube.com/@Maydayrp?sub_confirmation=1 -- 👕 MERCH: http://ko-fi.com/maydayrp & https://mayday-merch.printify.me/products 💵 Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/maydayrp 📰 Join our newsletter: eepurl.com/iIVUjo 🎙 Listen to us: 🟣 Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mayd…ys/id1537347277 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXoqpSpMssSP9Vka3Z?si=97a6a19d71cf4be0 🟠 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mayday-roleplay 🌟 Other Socials 🌟 🐦 Twitter: http://twitter.com/maydayroleplay 📸 Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/ 🔴 Website: http://maydayroleplay.com/ 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maydayroleplay 👾 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/maydayroleplay 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maydayrp Thanks for your support!

Hey everyone, Sergio from Mayday here. I am thrilled by the opportunity that I have today to chat with one Felix Isaacs, the talented mind behind The Wild Sea, a game that we here at the Mayday channel plan to run as a fully produced audio and video actual play. Felix, welcome to the channel. Hiya, I'm here. Um, Felix, I consider myself kind of lucky because it's a very rare treat to be able to sit down with the creator of your new favorite TTRPG obsession and pick their brain in an effort to prep for my upcoming campaign, so thank you for taking the time.

That's right, you just need to choose, uh, kind of small time RPGs then you get them all the time loads of us crazy Just sitting around in our dressing gowns doing nothing. So, you know, I think I think I've cracked the code for sure. Yeah So Felix just to kind of bring you up to speed on what I'm doing for my game Part of my prep over the last couple of months has been running patrons of our channel through an original Wild Sea Reach of my own that I call Riven Wake. And I'm getting close to that time where I'm going to transition from running patrons, you know, just kind of casually to running the members of Mayday for our recording.

So I'm looking to integrate any wisdom you can offer as the game designer with my experience so far as a Firefly. But before we talk shop, I am curious, kind of as to your perspective on the game's journey so far over these last couple of years since you released it. I mean, it started as a very successful Kickstarter. I believe you won an any for the work as well. Only a silver, but I'll count that. Hey, that's something. And you have a very dedicated, growing fan base of folks

that like to play the game. Talk to me about what is it like to watch the game evolve from an idea in your head to now there's a community that just kind of has it and is doing their own unique thing with it. OK, I guess there's kind community that just kind of has it and is doing their own unique thing with it? Okay, I guess there's kind of two answers to that one which is quite personal one Which is a lot more public on the public side. It's really lovely Watching something grow beyond the bounds of what you ever expected it to be

It's back in the the earliest days. I had no concept of being published or anything like that really. I was just going to probably release it for free digitally in black and white when it hit about 100 pages, which is a far cry obviously from the 360 page full color thing we published. But it grew mostly because of the community early on. And there were definitely some changes, some tonal changes as well, and a few content inclusion changes as well.

There were certain things that were in earlier versions of the Wild Sea that I think were holdovers of my upbringing in TRPGs, things that I just saw as standard, and then realized like i already actually have to have those there or i don't have to have that that element of that tone that i can kind of shape things in my own world as i like which was nice um so it's all good and very little makes me happier than watching or hearing about other people making their own stuff in the wild sea in

the world of the wild sea i think it's lovely or even just reinter stuff in the wild sea, in the world of the wild sea. I think it's lovely. Or even just reinterpreting what I've made in the world of the wild sea. It makes me really happy. However, the flip side of that, and the more personal one, is it's intense. There's a lot of pressure that comes with making new stuff now. Because if I'd made... Well, not even back when I was writing Storm and Root, which was the second book, I had the feeling that most people didn't really care much about canon.

Because the wild sea in general is very anti-canon as a setting. Some elements are always there, and others get kind of messed around. And the book itself, and me as a person, tells you ignore what you don't like, use whatever you want, I don't care. You know, it's how it goes. But I realized, maybe as or towards the end of writing Storm and Root, that there were lots of people who knew more about the wild sea than I did. Because I just wrote the words, and I don't often read my own

books back. I'll use them as play aids, but I don't just sit there and read them. Especially once they're done, I'll do kind of proofing and stuff and some bits get read a hundred times to try to make them work, but the final versions just don't get read very much by me. But of course other people, they do focus on these things. And having to write new stuff, you do occasionally go, have I written something that's too close to this before? Have I done this in some other way?

Was that other way better than this? Are people expecting more? Like it's a weird thing to be beholden to, that the possible opinions of strangers. Yeah, that's a unique perspective I didn't think about that there is this, at least maybe you, even if you put it on yourself, this expectation of either to do bigger, better, or to just stay consistent with what you've done in the past. And I've always viewed all of your material, Storm and Root included, as a continuation

of that idea of, hey, look, use it, don't use it, but it's there for you to get inspired by at the very least. Yeah. Well, you know, now it feels like the Wild Sea walks this line between kind of gonzo adventure and weird fantasy. What happens at a table where players might have kind of a wildly different take on the world than the Firefly. You know, I guess my core question is how should the Firefly manage the tone if the players are kind of pulling in wildly different directions? Should we just kind of go with the flow no matter how bizarre? It's good to find a balance, but it's not always possible. The Wild Sea as a setting, it does invite kind of kitchen sinking.

You can really throw most things in there. One of the earlier games I played, this is way back in 2020-ish, I think, involved finding an old nuclear submarine stuck in the tangle, a pre-verdant artifact, essentially. If I was running the wild scene now, which I don't get chance to very much unfortunately, but I wish I got to do it more, then I would not be drawn to that kind of thing

in a way as much because it defines pre-V life too much. But if players still wanted to do it, I would still completely go for it. If only some players wanted that kind of definition, that is a tougher thing to do. I'll always thank, as publicly as possible, Rick, the head of playtesting for the Wild Sea, and Mythworks employee now, for doing the unsetting questions, coming up with the concept of unsetting questions. Because they can help getting everyone pulling in the same kind of direction by setting some tonal expectations. But because they only happen at the start of a session, if you've got people pulling in different directions, the only

way I've found to kind of manage it without just breaking game flow and going, hey, we're pulling in different directions now, which sometimes you have to do, is to bring in essentially an extra round or two of uncertain questions. Even if it's not even for a journey or a start or you can do it mid-scene. You can even do it with like, you know, you're interpreting this thing, how does your character interpret this, et cetera, et cetera. It's just a way to get everyone thinking in a more kind of metaphysical space, not to sound like an ass, but like it is a way to, you know.

I actually appreciate you bringing that up because without realizing it, I find that I actually do that myself. There are sometimes where I'm unsure about how to proceed or what might be ahead of them. And so I throw it to the group. I say, hey, let's do a round where everybody adds an element to this hazard or to the settlement

or whatever the case is. And I do find that it helps kind of bring everybody together like you said, so that's a- I think a lot of it is just because humans and role players, I guess in particular, paradoxically in a way are very social creatures. If someone says, well, I think this has this, it's unusual, not impossible, but unusual

that the next person's prompt will be diametrically opposed to that. Like they will often go along with it in some way at least, which can get people pulling in the same direction, even if it's kind of like, you know, someone's going Southeast and someone's going Southwest and someone's going dead South, at least they're all heading roughly South. I've been thinking a lot about the rules obviously as the firefly, learning

them, trying to master them. I think I have about 90% of them down in the sense that I don't have to reference the handbook, but there are still those kind of less commonly used rules, things like pressure or scrutiny that I do have to kind of pause, go back to the book and read through them as I run them. Have you, as the person that designed these rules, have you got any shorthand or any advice on how to kind of reference these mechanics and maybe either memorize them or bring them into play naturally? Rules wise, there are some rules that I use pretty much all the time when I play the game that aren't in the book, because they didn't exist back then. They have developed. So I guess it's not a useful answer for you, but a lot of what I do when interacting with,

especially the kind of more niche rules, is I will just wing it with a different set of rules that's emerged over the past four years. Not horribly different. A lot of it still comes down to the kind of six, five, four, three, two, one mechanics or two things to do with tracks and gauges are implemented more now as well because they only really came in in Stormwind and gauges can be really useful. But there's also a lot of kind of social facing rules or social facing quote unquote rules that I use more these days. Like splitting up who gets to define what part of a particular scene or event where

otherwise I would be flipping to a page in the book to check something. Instead it's like, well, in this case, you can tell me this thing and you can tell me this thing. Or even simple stuff like everybody roll off the highest person you get to decide this, everybody else, something bad is going to happen. Simple things like that, they're useful abstractions because they mean that you get to keep play flowing, you get to get play flowing, you get to get people engaged, you get to have people rolling dice, which is always good, especially simple

rules, always good. And you don't have to open a book, which is even better for kind of nice clean flow stuff. But again, it's a terrible answer for a designer to give. How do I best use your rules? I'll ignore them. Well you know what honestly it's kind of refreshing and encouraging because I do feel like I understand the rules, I get what we're doing with the D6 mechanic and then scrutiny comes along and kind of says things like okay steal the five and the five means this you know when they roll and I get it but it's harder to memorize. So it's good to know that the designer of the game says if you don't get it, you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

So I'm all on board with that. But I do think I wanna try to use it because I think maybe the key is to find my version of it, maybe a streamlined version of scrutiny or pressure, whatever the case is and then just kind of go with it that way. There is one mechanic that I initially struggled with, not because it was difficult to understand,

that is the journey mechanics. The journey mechanics are very straightforward, but you need to, at least in my opinion, you need to understand something about what the journey mechanics are trying to do, which is it seems like the journey is trying to elicit this kind of emergent group exercise where everyone at the table is framing the progress. And I think that is different than more traditional RPGs where the DM, the GM comes up with, let me throw these random

things at the players and have them react to it. And I like more what the journey is trying to do, which is everyone at the table come up with it. But how should I handle a journey if the engagement of the players shifts? So for instance, maybe one session they're very engaged in the journey, but maybe the next they're a lot more laissez-faire. I mean, I've had players say, I don't need to make a watch roll this round. And reading the book, it says the watch roll really defines what they find, et cetera.

So if the players kind of shift their attention to it, is that a situation where I just take control and throw something crazy at them? Or should I kind of pause the game and say, hey guys, this is what the game is. So we need to kind of come together again and realign ourselves with the spirit of the game. I think that the table and especially the attitude of the table should trump the rules and the interpretation of the rules almost every time. So I would say go with your table if they become unengaged or disengaged from certain aspects of the game, phase those aspects out even if it's only

temporarily. So if it's like how you don't want to make watch rolls, fine, just don't either the either let the firefly make roles roles or do journeys without some watch roles and just mark off like, hey, you see a thing on the side. Yeah, it's it's a thing. See another one over there. That's fine. Right. You're at port. Let's get on with the next bit. Because that's a thing that happens occasionally is the journeys themselves, I really should have, again, hindsight 2020, I should have done a more narrative heavy version of journeys that had less of an element of

randomness. Because players can choose to do it by making discoveries, but there isn't really a mechanic for the Fireflies to do that, unless you just take things into your own hands and decide what to do yourself. I would have liked to mechanize that in some way, because oftentimes a journey is like, we're going to find some cool stuff and eventually we'll get to a destination, but every now and then you just want to be somewhere else

for the story to keep happening. But every now and then, you just want to be somewhere else for the story to keep happening. Sure. That can happen. And I didn't really take that into account very much, because we didn't play too many longer campaigns. A lot of the games we played are either one-shots or kind of one to six-ish sessions long.

But I've had reports of people now doing like 70 or 80 session long chains of wildsuit games and at that point you don't need random rolls for every journey. Sometimes the Firefly should be deciding what's there or should have an idea or some kind of input other than just going well it's dangerous or not dangerous. Sure or the players at this point have kind of become very familiar with the reach that they're in and they know three days north is this particular settlement, that kind of thing, so that's what I'm hoping for in my game that will create some stuff, but there's also some stuff in there that the players will become familiar with. It would actually be a good additional way

to use charts to bring those in in that kind of situation. Because charts are one of the most underutilized resources. Obviously salving the specimens are the kind of bread and butter of crafting and a load of random role-based stuff, action-based stuff. And whispers are always showy and impressive, or almost always showy and impressive. Charts are more mundane but useful,

but they're not often used outside of those journey scenes. So if I came up with new, more useful, maybe more narrative ways to use those charts to kind of speed those things along, could be a useful system. Do not take this as I've got one in mind. I'm literally going off the top of my head here. I just think it would be a...

Oh, for sure. I mean, I find that charts are very valuable when wild sailors are trading in port and things like that. So it is a kind of useful item to have, but I see what you mean that finding other uses for charts would be smart for a Firefly to do. Do you have any advice to maintain that weird factor that I think you really nail in the the core book, specifically when a firefly is maybe homebrewing their own ideas? Is there a philosophy in mind to keep that kind of weird factor going? Yes, I did this a lot when I'm running the game and I enjoy it when I see other people doing it every now and then take a step back from planning and just plan the seed of something the the most basic seed of something and

Don't let yourself dwell on what that might turn into then run it and take it if you're happy with improv which Wilds he tends to draw people that enjoy improv in some way. Once you're familiar enough with the rules, don't plan out everything ahead. Because I like prep anyway, but specifically for some things, don't plan anything for it apart from that very start, let it develop as it is played. So it's a surprise to you as much as it is to everyone at the table. Yeah, for sure.

That is probably one of the funnest aspects of this game is throwing it to the players or coming in kind of half-baked with an idea and just seeing what they do with it. It's been very rewarding. As you know, we are producing a Wild Sea actual play that we're very excited about and it's very important for me to get into to get the players into character to keep them in character to kind of maintain that verisimilitude that an actual play I think an effective one can maintain and this even goes when discussing mechanics which can be a challenge for certain games and I'm curious if you have any experience and any advice for keeping players in character, especially when they are talking about the mechanics

to support role play instead of kind of breaking the role play. That's one of the few things that I don't have a massive amount of advice or thoughts on because again, convention games, you can't softly softly it sometimes. You have to break the inertia of things just for a little bit to bring in the mechanical side of it. Oddly enough though when I have played with, again, Rick, head of play testing, when he's been the Firefly and he's played a lot more wild than me, he is good at that kind of thing. But I can't tell you what his secrets are because I've never quite understood them myself.

But I have watched him very, very subtly break telling a story to bring in, this is how this thing works and then slide back into the story so gently that people don't really know that they've just had a thing explained to them. It's definitely a skill of his. Yeah. Which one I don't have, unfortunately, which is useless for you. How do you do this? Oh, well, this other guy does it really well, don't know how.

Sorry. That's OK. Maybe I'll talk to Rick. But I mean, I've run about 10 to 11 sessions so far of different games and it does seem like Trying to avoid answering out of character questions is a good start, right? So sometimes a care a player might ask how tall are the ceilings and I'll say could you ask that in character and they Might describe their character walking into the room and staring up at the ceilings and wondering how tall they are that might Elicit a better response. So things like that I've been trying to work.

Yeah, one of the, for that particular kind of thing, those kind of breaks in like, how does X work? What is Y? Especially with world stuff, bounce that question directly to another character that it's relevant for. So for example, how tall are the ceilings, says someone playing like an Arden, and they just example, how tall are the ceilings, says someone playing like an Arden,

and they just go, how tall are the ceilings? You can turn to an Ectus player and go like, your spines on your head, do they scrape the ceiling or not? Because that brings in that kind of, it puts it right back into the world and right back onto someone else to decide. Because especially when it's that kind of detail,

doesn't often matter. Unless the height of the ceilings is really a thing. And the other one, I suppose I will give you one tip, and it's an awful tip, but I do use it all the time. There is only, no, there are only two distances in the wild sea. One of them is, and technically it's even, it's shown in the rules as well with CQ and

LR. Right. But that's also how I think of non-combat stuff. The distances are you can touch it or it's a stone's throw away. Because no one knows how far a stone's throw is. And it varies so much. So people say, how far away is the dog? You get spats stones throw.

That sounds pretty good. Oh, it's really useful. So people say how far away is the dog you get spats stones throw That's pretty good. Oh, it's really useful because then every now and then someone will go like It was ages away there and it's like yeah, it's an act just throwing the stone or like Oh, it's an iron bound like catapult arm stone goes really far and again, you can bring it back into the world and make a little joke of it, but oh I it's it's born out of my absolute hatred of not even distances that have find and useful sometimes but my hatred of precise times in tabletop role-playing games when something's like how long does that take well it takes 12 minutes that 12 minutes of real time or 12 minutes

of in-game time 12 minutes of in-game time oh right so just some time there because no one's counting 12 minutes of in-game time. Oh right, so just some time then. Because no one's counting 12 minutes of in-game time unless you have timed combat rounds. And in the most popular game with timed combat rounds, that would be hundreds of rounds of combat that you're never gonna do until you're level 20. I think that's actually a pretty good tip because that is something I'm trying to do

is to abstract things and to also throw them back to the players where they decide how much time it is or just kind of making their decisions on their own instead of coming to me constantly. How long is it? How big is it? What is the threat? I'm trying to get the players to just decide because it does seem like this is leading me to my next question that a big part of the game is this collaborative, let's come up with it together, everyone at the table has almost as much influence as the GM, I mean you have that the dragonfly mode which is very much that. But of course because this is not the traditional RPG method of everyone at the table having a say, it's a little difficult for new players to wrap their head around this concept of, oh, I can just come up with the answer. Do you have any advice on maybe how to unlearn or how to help players unlearn those traditional RPG expectations

of who gets to do stuff? Yes, I do. I'm on video, am I? You are, yes. Yeah, great. Give me a second. This is, by the way, partially Wildty related, but also sort of the Wildty. Things like this. This is Three Hunters by Ryan Kahn. It is one of the best micro games I've played. It is two, basically two pamphlets.

You can do a session of Three Hunters in a couple of hours, I mean you could speed through it and do it faster but a couple of hours is what I put aside for it. Recently Ryan, Rick and I did a about six or seven hour run through a Three Hunters which is fantastic. Anyway the reason I'm talking about Three Hunters specifically is because it's on the shelf and within Izzy reach, but the concept of microgames in general, especially microgames in which the GM role is shared, they are amazing training tools for not just the wild sea, but for tabletop games in general. And microgames are so underplayed for the level of creativity they have and the cost they are. Like what this is, it's a couple of dollars, it's nothing really in terms of like the amount

of info you get for the dollars you're spending. It's a price of a couple of candy bars, that kind of thing. And you get a tool that is, even if you never play it, and there I do have a few migraines that I've played, even if you never play it, you get a teaching tool that throws out almost all of the preconceptions of large table-based RPGs. Because Three Hunters, everyone shares the GM role in a different way. In the various scenes you're doing one person is an active character, one person is kind of... and

then the other two people are co-GMing but they may take different parts, they may take a different role of that co-GMing. That kind of thing gets you thinking about the information people can be relied upon or expected to give off the cuff, which is really, really useful to know as a Firefly, because you're often doing that in the Wild Sea. But also, it gets you used to giving up that power of GM-ness, which can be really hard. Especially if you have a plan. It can be hard to let especially if you have a plan. It can be hard to let other people mess that plan up

with their ideas because it's not like you can't say no, but you have to at least do a no and if you want things to keep flowing. Or no but, I suppose. Great advice, play other games and experience what other games are trying to do. I think that's good advice. I do think one of the things that appealed to me about the Wild Sea is that it feels

written, it feels codified into the game, this idea of everyone has the ability to have as much influence in the game as they want to. Oh yeah, 100%. Well Rick is a Lyric game maker, Ryan is a micro game maker and I am a big book maker. And it was Rick, Ryan and I who did most of the early playtests of the Wild Sea. We are all people that are incredibly comfortable in the GM seat because we are all our various groups across the countries, because we're all from three different countries, we're all our various groups, forever GMs. So I have been trying to not just grok the rules, but kind of honor the Wild Seas

collaborative spirit, and I've been trying to keep the campaign planning light, which has been a great benefit for me as a GM because I do come from a bit more of a background where I try to think of this big epic arc and have the players weave into it. And I'm really enjoying the flip side of that, of maybe coming up with one or two things from the book, maybe coming up with something myself

and then just seeing what the players do with it. But even then, I really want to try then just seeing what the players do with it. But even then, I really want to try and leave room for the players to kind of fill in the gaps once this campaign gets started. So I'm curious as to what your opinion is of how much prep is maybe too much prep for the Wild Sea? Do you have any advice for maybe prepping for a session and still leaving room for the players to do their magic? I think prepping for a session and still leaving room for the players to do their magic?

I think prepping for a session is too much prep, personally. Prepping for a scene, I think, is the perfect amount of prep. Okay. But not just one scene, if this makes sense. I would happily prep for an opening scene, because I think that's very important. And I think it's also equally important to let players take that opening scene because I think that's very important. And I think it's also equally important to let players take that opening scene and kind of go off where they want to with it. So I wouldn't prep for anything after that initially, but I would prep for a future world

or character or NPC event, which I desperately want to happen. And I would think about how to bring the story back in from a few points towards that event. Railroading is not fun, but it is occasionally essential to the telling of a coherent story. But the most generous you can be with that kind of railroading is you can give them innumerable tracks that just happen to lead back to one intersection and then spread out again and then happen to lead back to one intersection. And this is not the start of the next session or shouldn't be the start of the next session.

It could be sessions down the line. It could be you don't know when it's going to happen. But think of it as the concept of it's kind of Chekov's gunning, your future scenes. You set something up in that initial scene and you go, at some point, that's going to come back, whether they know it or not, that's going to come back. Yeah, you even mentioned like cuts and things or excuse me, if they roll poorly, you could save that failure for a later time. Oh, yeah.

That is reassuring to hear, because that is kind of my approach to the upcoming campaign. I want the players to do whatever they want, go on whatever seeds that inspire them. But I do have this idea of kind of a large scale antagonist that becomes relevant and using what the players know and how the players have kind of defined that antagonist, you know, knowingly or unknowingly to create it and to kind of Integrate it into their story. So I'm glad to know I'm kind of heading in the right direction with with how I prep the game Yeah, I think it's it's actually it's a lot more

Useful to prep wise than what's in a lot of ways to the wild sea because if you know the why, if you know why something is happening in terms of how it relates to the world then you've got a solid footing. The what is much more fluid. You can fiddle with that on the fly. It's much harder to generate a good solid why on the fly though. Just of asking the the guy that's written the book are there any hazards or any settlements in the wild sea that you think are especially rich storytelling potential but maybe get overlooked or you haven't seen the the audience talk a lot about any hidden gems that might offer unexpected hooks or unexpected depth?

So I am a massive fan of the Ectus in general. I think they are my favorite bloodline in the wazi. I love the Ectus. I love being a big cactus. I've played Ectus, I've played Ectus hybrids with other other bloodlines. Yeah, it's just, it's my go-to. I love playing Ectus. And so the Icturine as a place, 100% my favorite reach. Also, the reach that is used the least from what I understand, because it's the one that, in the core book at least, it's the one that strays the furthest from sailing the rustling waves. And when you've got that buy-in to this is what the wild sea looks like, okay, it's big trees, you sail onto a big trees,

I've internalized this. So then go, actually it's cacti with living sand dunes. It's, oh, whatever. Like, it's the one people just kind of, but even if you're not gonna use the ictarine, I will say, I think because it's used, oh, whatever. Like, it's the one people just kind of, but even if you're not going to use the victory, and I will say, I think because it's used the least, I think elements of it are under utilized. One of them being, of course, in the victory is cactus drilling, essentially, but drilling rigs and oil style drilling rigs for iron roots. It's such a useful way of getting crews to take their first dip beneath

the waves if they are shy of doing that kind of thing. And one of the easiest sub kind of surface things to do is a drilling rig drilling into the side of a tree. It's just yeah. It's a great idea for sure. I think I've written it down because it's not something I've utilized yet. What I have utilized is trying to create settlements that do function, is that maybe a settlement that comes up and down from the sink or ones that can only be found in the sink. So I'm glad to hear that I'm following that train of thought. Yeah, that's good. Is there an aspect of the wild sea that you still haven't seen captured in an actual play that you kind of wish someone would explore? Yeah, now I think there is, but it's not one that I would suggest people explore

because it would take a very specific group which is the true horror of the waves because tonally it's a bright horror book. But if you remove that tone and go to even past cosmic horror, maybe down towards body horror, which there are certainly elements of. Oh, yeah. If you lean into that heavily, I would love to see other people's take on how far I can push this while still maintaining a world-appropriate tone. Because anyone can go like, oh, actually, pimples, they rip everyone's bones out and eat their parts. Like, you know, it's,

it's kind of, you might as well just play Doom. I don't know. But doing it in a way that still works for the wild, so you're doing it in a way that feels graphic and brutal, but still gels perfectly with like, also, I'm playing a jelly guy with some bones, like that kind of stuff. I would love to see that. But again, it's not a suggestion of something that you should do, because it would take not just a very specific group, but a lot of buy-in from that group, and a lot of kind of tonal agreement from that group. Yeah, a lot of folks willing to take on illnesses and element injuries that maybe are not as fun to play out, but I see what you mean. That'd be a lot of consequences, a lot of mire, a lot of bad stuff happening.

Right, exactly. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I mean, we do have our background is playing Delta Green for a couple of years, so we are used to that kind of horror. They get... Call of Cthulhu was my intro into role-playing games. I played one session of D&D 3.5, and then I played about three solid years of Call of Cthulhu. Yeah, I think the body horror stuff is a lot of fun. I think maybe the body horror stuff is a lot of fun. I think maybe showing other wild sailors affected by it is maybe a good way of kind of scaring the players or adding that tension. And we'll see, a lot of my players don't mind taking on things like illnesses or injuries and things like that, so maybe we'll be able to scratch that itch for you. Well, oddly enough, it's actually, it's one of the the leftovers of the kind of grimey early era of the wild sea is the concept

of the under crew having their own tracks. If they're officers then they're a single person with multiple boxes on a track and you fill those boxes they get injured whatever. If they're a group those original tracks really were that person's dead. Like if that really were, that person's dead. Like, if that track gets marked, that person is dead. You can hire them back, hire a new version of them at some other port or get a replacement or whatever. But yeah, it was based on the whole Sunless Sea thing.

If you've ever played Sunless Sea, brilliant game. And because Sunless Sea had its limited crew spaces on the ships in Sunless Sea, and there were multiple kind of in-game world events where it would be like, yeah, you just lost three crew members. And the game would very happily tell you, like, yeah, he's gone over the rail, you're never going to see him again. And then the game just carries on, and it's like, oh, okay, I don't feel good about that.

But that's how the undercrew are made and designed. And of course, the way most people play, they don't have the undercrew as entirely deathless or immune from harm. They often have the undercrew absorbing harm in some way is one of the things that they're useful for. But they very rarely have them just dying. Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion to use the Undercrew to show the horror or

be affected by negative repercussions and things like that. So that's a great suggestion. Or even having them retire. It's one of those things, again, I've never seen that happen in a game, but it would happen in real life. The marking of a box on an Undercrew's track, it might not be that person dying or being grievously injured. It might literally just go, no, I'm done.

I'm done. And then they leave at the next port and they don't look back. That's a loss still. That's a very, very good suggestion. I love that idea of the players have just done something wild with their crew and some of them are just like, we're out of here. Well, Felix, thank you again for taking the time to chat with me. It's really been a pleasure kind of digging in, getting advice from you, from the man himself. I do feel like I am walking away with a lot of inspiration and a lot of wisdom about how to make my game

memorable. Felix, why don't you talk to us a little bit about what you're up to these days, what you're working on, and maybe where we can find... If we like the idea, where can we buy a copy ourselves? Yep. Myth.Works, the Mythworks store, is where to get physical stuff. You could also get digital stuff there and from DriveThruRPG, but I personally like going to itch.io slash Felix Isaacs, or however you do the address for that, I don't know actually. And as to what I'm working on now, I'm just finishing up Pico, which is a game about tiny bugs

riding cats, much cuter than the wild sea, although still odd, weird, and occasionally horrific, just much more cheerful, I guess, and silly. And yeah, after that, I have a project with a world builder, Sam Carr, which I can't talk about too much yet, because the parameters of the project are still being discussed. But it's, I guess, watch the Felix Isaac space if you like Studio Ghibli type stuff and also horrific ever expanding mazes. It's a, yeah, it's a, it's one of the few, it will be the first property I'm working on that is not my own world. And it's because I saw the world building stuff that Sam was doing with this world and I was like, god damn, that's good.

So yeah, that would be my first joint project with another writer and it would be my first not me IP thing. So that's a big step. That's exciting. Yeah, it's good to see that you're continuing to use your skills and your creativity. So that's awesome. We're excited for it. Oh, yeah, because I'm doing other wild stuff throughout it. But that, of course, I suppose I should mention that as well. Tigers on the Wire is an adventure about tigers or the lack of them. And then Tooth and Nail, it's all about, you know,

settlements and mounts, building your own settlements and riding out into the waves without a ship. Basically, it's the book of those ships. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. I'm excited for that one. Well folks, those of you watching, listening, if you're excited for our run of the Wild Sea, please stay tuned. It will be coming. We're going to be recording it this summer. Our campaign is coming soon, like I said, and we can't wait to show you what grows from the seeds of what was planted here today. So until then, I'll catch you on the lignin time,

my friends. Cheers. If you enjoyed my interview with Felix, there is an hour long unedited version available by subscribing at any level to our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash mayday rp. you