Two Hundred A Day - Episode 146: Plus Expenses #81

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

In this Plus Expenses we talk about: *It’s the official “crossover” Plus Expenses, James Garner handing off a baton to a wizard, feelings about ending Two Hundred a Day (but Two Hundred a Day will remain!), actually ending a thing, starting a new podcast: Unwritten Earths Symposium (https://unwrittenearths.fireside.fm/), how Plus Expenses will fit into the new show, the early days of Dread, building our new Discord so it’s a place where people play each others games, the experience of playing THAT game, learning new podcast skills, learning from The Rockford Files, goals for Unwritten Earths (http://unwrittenearths.com/), future Two Hundred a Day eps, *THANK YOU Two Hundred a Day listeners, hello new Unwritten Earths listeners, the Unwritten Earths Patreon (https://patreon.com/unwrittenearths), and pitching the Adventure & Hobbyist Annual. If this sounds good to you, come into the Symposium and let’s teach and learn from each other! This is a public episode of Plus Expenses, which is usually patreon-only. Thanks patrons! Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files (http://tinyurl.com/200files)! We appreciate all of our listeners, but offer a special thanks to our patrons (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday). In particular, this episode is supported by the following Gumshoe and Detective-level patrons: * Richard Hatem * Bill Anderson * Brian Perrera * Eric Antener * Jordan Bockelman * Michael Zalisco * Joe Greathead * Mitch Hampton's Journey of an Aesthete Podcast (https://www.jouneyofanaesthetepodcast.com) * Dael Norwood wrote a book! Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo123378154.html) * Chuck Suffel's comic Sherlock Holmes & the Wonderland Conundrum (http://whatchareadingpress.com) * Paul Townend recommends the Fruit Loops podcast (https://fruitloopspod.com) * Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app (https://rollforyour.party/) * Jay Adan's Miniature Painting (http://jayadan.com) * Brian Bernsen's Facebook page of Rockford Files filming locations (https://www.facebook.com/brianrockfordfiles/) * Brian Cummins, Robert Lindsey, Nathan Black, Jay Thompson, David Nixon, Colleen Kelly, Tom Clancy, Andre Appignani, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Holley and Dale Church! Thanks to: * Fireside.fm (https://fireside.fm) for hosting us * Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) for helping us record and capture clips from the show

All right, I am recording for plus expenses. Plus expenses. Mic check? Mic check. Wait, two years again? Yeah, you're good. Okay. Can you hear the plane going overhead?

Do you have a plane? I do, but I don't live right next to the sky like you do or whatever it is that's happening with your plane situation. Yes, I used to live close to the sky in Chicago and now I live close to the airfield In Washington, so there's for years we had to battle the plane noises, but you know, here we are here We are here. Yeah, this is this is the Yeah, we've been calling this the the crossover plus yeah the crust of this is marking our official point where we're transitioning our roughly bi-weekly recording schedule

from the previous seven years of doing 200 a day. Almost eight. It was December 23rd, 2016, according to Fireside FM. Yes, we dropped our first episodes we recorded them in 2016 and then we started dropping them into a second and they were backdated but yeah oh oh there I see that's what it was yeah so in my head I date us from 2017 because it was like December 2016 I think so anyway but we're coming up yeah anyway we don't need to do that math the point but we're coming up. Yeah. Anyway, we don't need to do that math. The point is we're transitioning from that podcast to a new podcast where we will.

We've found another excuse to continue talking and doing a podcast. Yes. Instead of getting therapists. So, but we have but but we will continue doing plus expenses because, you know, everything really, when you get down to it, has, you know, some expenses. What we're doing right now is a political cartoon with a firebird with a caricature of James Gardner hanging out the window and handing handing off a baton to you know, like the relay race like yes, yes. But I don't know to what Oh, like, like to to a wizard, to wizard. Okay, there we go. Perfect. Yes. He's ready to take on the next leg of the race. And clearly does not look like he's capable of doing it. Right. I like that Gardner gets to

drive the Firebird through. Yeah, the his part of maybe the wizard gets a flying carpet or something I don't know or the wizard gets in a van that's painted with another wizard on it Yes a van with that that that sweet sweet unwritten earth's Symposium logo. Yes A lot of lines a lot of lines. Yeah. Oh, no I do I do like a like a wizard on a van with like a different Painted with a with a painting of a diff of a cooler wizard. Yes, exactly

That's good. Yeah. Yeah, so bittersweet, huh? Yeah, as I say, I've been feeling some kind of way about it So this plus expenses we're gonna put it on the regular public feed for both shows. So if this is the first time you've heard this kind of conversation, we've done one of these before every episode of 200 a day for the last 80 something of those. There's like 86 or something on the I think we did one or two of them as public drops but like yeah they've mostly been a patron exclusive thing and then when we start the new podcast which is the unwritten earth symposium podcast where we'll talk about that more in a minute we're we're going to continue doing plus expenses though we think after that show yeah I've got some thoughts on. And I could share them now if you'd like, but let's, let's finish this. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, yeah. So, so this conversation, this thing, whatever this is, is the whole deal is the part where we just kind of like chat and catch up and talk about stuff we've been watching and share stories about about like what's been going on professionally or personally or whatever. Reminisce. Yeah. And some of that stuff is going to actually end up in the body of the new podcast. Yeah. Anyway, we've been talking on plus expenses about this transition since we decided to do it, which was like a year ago.

So it's not like it's a sudden new thing. And also we've had a lot of excitement about the new project. So that's been good. But yeah, sitting down to like watch the last two episodes of the Rockford Files, like the last one we did, which was the first episode aired. And then this one, which is coming out after

This plus expenses comes out which is the season finale final episode. Mm-hmm deadlock and parma, right? Deadlock and parma. Okay good. I just make sure I didn't I have never watched the wrong episode For this entire run and I've every single time I've lived in fear of watching the wrong episode. I did it. I made it through. Yeah, that was a little I felt like, I don't know, do it. Yeah. So like sitting down to like do the show notes and like watch that show definitely was a little, you know, it was like nice because like because of the new project, we've been concentrating on that so much sitting down to do 200 a day

has been like ah like getting like get to go back to it. Yeah, because I'm so used to it. But the last two have been a little more like oh man like I've been right. I'm enjoying the episodes but it's kind of it's felt like a little bit of a bummer just because of what it means. Yes, the ending because it's kind of it's felt like a little bit of a bummer just because of what it means. Yes, the ending. Because it's kind of like closing the last chapter of something.

And it's not the totally we're not totally shutting down 200 a day, as we've discussed on that show or on that page. At least we're going to continue doing some other things that are in the Rockford slash James Garner slash 70s detective genre. Yeah, just catch is catch can't right? We're not we'll probably do like a couple of years. Right, right, right. And so that you know that feed will remain because people find the show, you know, whenever the Patreon is going to stay live as long as possible, just to keep an archive of all of all the stuff that has gone on there, because, like for a while now, we've put a bunch of screenshots in each of our episodes and there's a listener like, you know, patrons have comments

and feedback and there's a little bit of discussion and stuff like that. So that's it's all going to stay. But yeah, it's like a big, it's kind of closing one door as we're opening, like simultaneously opening another, which is kind of a weird place to be. I don't know, how are thought, we got to save the emotions for the episode. We will have to get into this when we record the episode, otherwise it'll seem really weird that it's a final episode and we don't comment on it. But yeah, excited about the future and our future projects, while also bittersweet about it. It's really neat.

I was thinking last night about how not very often do I get to put, like, okay, so if you're here for the final Rockford trials episode and you don't know already, Nathan and I are tabletop role-playing game publishers. And so there's a feeling when you've finished a game and you've published it and you've shipped it, right? And it's like that game is done, but it's not. You gotta promote it. You have to run it at conventions. There's no end to that process.

Things will fade into the background. There are games that we've made that we just don't really need to support anymore for whatever reason. Like sometimes they do okay on their own and sometimes it's just like, well, that dog won't hunt. You know, like that kind of thing. Or even if you delist something, own, and sometimes it's just like, well, that dog won't hunt. You know, like that kind of thing. Or, you know, even if you delist something, like every so often it's like, okay, I'm just

going to take this out of my catalog. You get an occasional email every so often of someone who's looking for it or following a link and it's dead or has a question and is getting to you with it 10 years after the game came out. Yeah. But it's like, it's, yeah. So it's a tale. Yeah.

You know, through time, they just, anyways, but this, it's not like it's, like you said, we're going to be doing other things, but this just is kind of interesting that we do have an end to it, like it's going to be a body of work that we have done, and we're going to put a little bow on it today and, uh, and be like, there you go. Yeah. Everything after it is kind of an appendix. Right. But like that's the end of the last chapter. Yeah. And I say body of work when it's like the work is not a good term for it because

it's just fun. Like it was just something we've enjoyed doing and talking about. Yet again, we have monetized a thing that we should enjoy and turn it into work. Instead of doing things that make money for work. Yeah, so, but looking forward to the future, we did record, like you mentioned, we did record our first episode of the Unwritten Earth Symposium podcast, which is a mouthful now that I say it like that. I love it. And that was good and fun.

Yeah, we still need to find our stride on that one, obviously. So- Oh, but that brings up why I think it would be nice. So typically we record plus expenses before 200 a day. That's our pattern. We start with secrets. Right, right.

Yeah, and so where that has come from is when we would sit down to record in the early days, we would spend some time catching up first because we hadn't talked in two weeks or three weeks or however long it had been. Yeah, and I think at a certain point, I don't remember exactly how the idea came out. I think it was probably like what else can we do to give the Patreon some right additional value? There's some incentive there to do a patron thing. Yeah. So we were like, well, we're talking anyway, and we talked for like an hour or so like just to catch up, right? And we're like, we're talking anyway, but we are talking about

like, stuff that is relevant to, well, I guess, I'm not gonna say it's relevant to our listeners. But like, if we are mindful that'm not going to say it's relevant to our listeners, but like if we are mindful that we are talking to an audience when we're having this conversation, we can we can use it. We can use it. It's I don't know. I feel like we've people who listen to podcasts. You have this like I have this with some podcasts I listen to where I'm like, I just kind of like listening to these people hang out sometimes more than whatever the topic is of the podcast or sometimes like they do it for a little while or sometimes it's threaded throughout but yeah anyway I'm like

if people have that feeling about our show like I just like listening to these guys talk yeah we can do that in a structured little side bit just yeah just for that so that we spend the main show focused on The Rockford Files. So, the things that have changed is now Nathan and I are forming a business together, the Unwritten Earth Symposium. It's going to be that podcast but also game material. I may have overstepped my bounds here but on the Swords Without Master Discord, I did announce that we're working together and that part of our plans for the future is a standalone version of Swords Without Master. So you heard it here second. Yeah, no, that's not overstepping.

I think I've been saying we should do that. We're going to bring some of our older titles under this house into the symposium. We're going to do the podcast. We're going to do a Discord. We're going to do some of our older titles under this house into the symposium. We're going to do the podcast. We're going to do a discord. We're going to do new stuff. And then as my one liner for, and we should do new stuff is like, for example, doing standalone source without master is just like a slam dunk. Let's just do it.

Project like that can just be on the list. And when we do it, we do it. And yeah, anyways, this is exciting, but it also means that Nathan and I have to That can just be on the list and when we do it, we do it. Anyways, this is exciting, but it also means that Nathan and I have to talk more often, man. So we talk, we have a weekly meeting that we do. We have our weekly standup. That's a thing in business, right?

It is. I'm not standing doing it. You don't stand, but. I don't know, I do. No. Are we agile? Are we waterfall? What are we doing?

I don't know. Yeah, that's a good question. Let's hear from our managers. Anyways, part of what existed that started the plus expenses, that had it like a beforehand thing, no longer is there. We don't need to have these discussions beforehand because we're already having the discussions. Which means now we're free to do it wherever we'd like to. And my proposal to do it afterwards is that it gives us a chance to ruminate on what we talked about. Okay, right. When you do a Rockford Files podcast, you have an episode of the Rockford Files to talk about. When you do an Unwritten Earths podcast, we have invented little games for each other and the last plus expenses was the start of that. You didn't miss anything

if you weren't here for that because it was in the previously on in our unwritten earths. Yeah. So that show is more of a talking. There's less to hang our conversation on, right? Exactly. It's not, we're not reflecting on something that exists. We're actually talking about bringing, we're talking about new things in Unwritten Earths. So I think it actually would be beneficial for both

if we do the Unwritten Earths podcast, we record it, and then maybe the next week we record the plus expenses that gives us time to think about what we said if we want to like add other details to it. Okay, so here's an example, the real life example from what we just recorded. I flubbed the discussion about the Discord on the Unwritten Nurse podcast.

We were like, oh, and we're gonna have the Discord. And then we just didn't really talk. Like I tried to like explain what we were gonna get out of the discord and it was a little like well What are discords for you know like it was and I think I have a better story for it So may I pitch the discord to you now? I'm listening and we could either cut this and put it in the Episode if it's necessary or we could just leave it in plus expenses That's what I think the benefit of doing it later would be. It gives us a chance to not correct errors,

but just refine what we're saying. So I'm gonna start with a war story. And that is this past week, I was having a conversation with someone about the early days of Dread, and I was trying to figure out roughly how many people played Dread before it was ever published and I think it's in the thousands.

It must be nice. Yeah well here's the deal right starting in in the late 90s the very late 90s that was roughly when when the first conception of dread came about. So there was four of us that made up the impossible dream. We were all college buddies. And we would go to conventions. And at least half of us would run four games of dread at each convention. Sometimes more. And we would go to like three or four conventions a year. And that went on increasing in the number of conventions and whatnot until it was published in 2005? 2005, I think it's almost 20 years old. So we have two to four people running games

for six people at a time, although some people would come back and play the game over and over again until we figured out that we need to run the same scenario, otherwise they'll keep trying new. That's another war story. If you're going to a convention, run the same scenario over and over again. That way you encourage new people to play and old people will be like, oh, I played that scenario. I don't need to.

You also get good at running that scenario and it's like a really like tight, refined experience. And you're not wrecking yourself trying to come up with new scenarios every single time, because that was what we were doing in the beginning. And it was wrecking me. Like I would try and have like four new scenarios every convention that was. Anyways, the point is, uh, roughly six people, let's say two, that's two people running it each time, four, so that's eight times six is what, I had this in my head, eight times six is 48, and then like four times a year, so it's, and then five years, it was a half, 500 to

a thousand people or whatever, depending on like, there's a lot of variables in there, but it was roughly that. And then those people, a lot of them, when we finally had a physical copy of Dread to Sell, that first Gen Con we sold it at, there was somebody who bought it, who played a game of it with somebody who played a game with it,

who played in one of our playtests. There were people playing it out there in the wild. So the number gets big, it's at least a thousand, if not 2,000 or whatever. 2,000 is probably pushing it, but like a thousand. Aside from Dread being like a real easy elevator pitch, it's the horror role playing game that uses Jenga, bam. But I think that the fact that it hit that ground running so hard, I think,

is probably one of the major factors in why it's lasted. And so bringing this back to the Discord, that's what I want out of the Discord. I would like to build a community that plays other people's games. In the early days, we all played each other's games. And we still do that. But like, that was a huge thing. Like, Emily ran GiphyCon, which is just a convention to bring people together to play the games that they were writing. Like, that's all it was. It wasn't a huge convention. It was a nice little local one. But everyone there knew that they were playing a game that somebody either somebody there had crafted or a friend of a friend had crafted. Yeah, like kind of thing. That's my vision for the Discord is a like a community that's around playing each other's games for that experience.

Like, I want to be also very clear, like not a let's figure out how we're going to be the best play testers. It's not you just want people playing games. Right. And yeah, they don't necessarily need to be like new games or whatever. But we want it to be a place where you can bring something you're working on, have people play it. And then a year later, when you publish it, whatever venue you use to publish it, there's already a community people who are like, oh, I remember playing that.

And here's why it was so great. Yes. This is what I did in it. And and, you know, here's what you are. Things you could do in it or, oh, I played in this game. You should you should check it out because I think you will like it. Right. And I know that because I know you and I know the game. And I knew the game back before it was good. Right. Yes. Yes.

So I know exactly how better it is now. Yeah. There's this experience that and again, a convention experience. It's it's wild. I think how much of our like specifically you and me. I think our experience with conventions has been very similar, which is one reason like this is working for us. I'm going to go ahead and say that you're better conventions than I am because you're more personable in my opinion. Well if you'd stop punching people when you meet them.

I know if I just stop suplexing everyone. That's the problem though, It's the brand, right? Right. Yes. But there's this experience from doing a circuit of conventions and this all broke down during COVID, right? Yeah. And we're like, just now, like I just wanted to, I wanted two conventions this year and

the first conventions I went to since, since 2018 because I took a year off from conventions because I was burned out and then COVID. But why am I trying to articulate here? The experience of going to convention, you know, meeting people is always great. Meeting people at the game table is like the reason to keep doing this. Yeah, making friends through playing games is the best. is the best. The energy you get, another very important selling point is just if someone's playing your game, you're encouraged to write your game, right? Like if no, yeah, it's just playing it makes a great feedback loop for the creator. But then there's this also the sub experience I think for not just designers, but I guess highly engaged people, you know, like people who are very engaged in whatever

individual scene that's their thing. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's people who are on the Forge, if it's OSR people, if it's new school, like whatever. LARP is a huge community of, huge overlapping set of communities in the LARP space that I think have this happened. You play a thing and maybe it's a off books playtest or maybe it's on the, you know, it's a it's a regular session, but you walk in and you sit down. It's like, all right, I'm playtesting this thing, looking to get this feedback, whatever. And the story you tell other people after the convention is like, oh, yeah, and I played in this thing. Yes. And whether it's because of the experience of doing something that's like, oh, yeah, and I played in this thing. Yes. And whether it's because of the experience of doing something

that's like, oh, this is new, like, this is the first time I'm running this game. So like everyone at that table now has a story of, oh, I played in the very first session of this particular game. Or like this was like, again, like a secret game or like, you know, we got together in the lobby and played or went to this, you know, this person's like hotel room to play this game because they weren't sure if they could get it on the in the schedule or whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Or I signed up for the playtest session of this game and it does something special. Right. And part of that

is that experience of like being in on the ground floor. Right. That's part of the mix. But when that syncs up with a game that also speaks to you, those are like super memorable and really motivating. I mean, I will speak for myself here. Having that experience playing other people's games made me want to create that experience with my games. Yes. Yes. Yes, exactly. I playing games that haven't been like I want to like avoid the word play test here. And I just want to talk about playing games that haven't been, like, I want to, like, avoid the word play test here and I just want to talk about playing games that haven't been published

yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is, yeah, I've played some games that, yeah, are finished but just aren't published or are private or like whatever. Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, there was, I mean, I tell this story from time to time, but there was a, uh, a convention I went to where I did a play test of swords that was miserable. And I think partly because some people at the table were like, let's push the limits

of this system. That's not what it's designed for. It's not a... It's a high trust kind of... Yeah, it's not an automobile. You don't have to like survive a collision with a wall at certain miles per hour or whatever. They were stress testing it and there was no need to do that. And like afterwards I was depressed.

I was like, this game is whatever. And I kind of moped away from like, I think we did an okay job, but I did not have fun playing it. And I like it had this, it was a real nadir, right? Like it was a moment for that game where I was like, oh, this is just going back on the compost heap. I'm done. Maybe these ideas will surface some other time,

but I'm not gonna pursue this thing. I don't have the energy to pursue it. I don't wanna keep using the word energy like that, but whatever, I don't have the will to pursue it anymore. And a friend said, tomorrow morning, we're still at this convention. And he says, tomorrow morning, I'm going to run swords for you. And you know, let's get some people, I'm going to change this for you. And he did. And it was amazing. And it turned it around as the

maybe the only reason why that game exists right now. Like it was this this wonderful like, we're just gonna play, we're just gonna sit down and play, I'm going to show you what I love about the game. I want to facilitate that experience for other people. I don't know how to yet. That's the other thing. We're still figuring this out. It's going to be a work in progress, but like any design project, right?

Yes. We've, thanks to you, we're articulating our goal here. Yeah. So we're going to set up and we're setting up some structure to get started. And then as we go, we'll find out what's working and what isn't working. And you know, sometimes that means changing the goal, right? Like if we're like, oh, what is working in the discord? If it turns out that for whatever reason it's really helping this other thing happen, then this goal can be a sub goal. That's fine.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like we'll keep that goal, but it may not be the thing we're doing going to end up in like two years or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like, um, yeah, no, that's, that's great. Yeah. And so here's the thing coming back around. Uh, if you heard this on plus expenses, um, you ran on the secret, uh, but it might be that you didn't hear anything there. We cut it out. We put it in our main episode because I think that's one of the things we, we want to do is just kind of like ruminate, give ourselves time to ruminate and yeah, yeah, alter what we said before, just like, deliver a better primary

podcast, not at the expenses of plus expenses, but like, never at the expense of plus expenses. I'll probably I mean, I'll so I'll take a listen. So you know, behind the curtain, everything we do is heavily edited, because yes, both of us are not great extemporaneous speakers. We're just talking. There's no script. So when I listen back, if I feel like there's a good chunk of that, I can drop it in.

But I think I'll leave it here too because that's- Get the whole context. Get the whole context, yeah. Yeah. And so that might end up being an experience in plus expenses from time to time. You get the larger- The context for- The director's cut. Yeah, Yeah. So that that might end up being an experience in plus expenses from time to time. You get the larger the director's cut. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So this will be well. So one thought I had is that also those things will converge over time, like over time as we learn what yes, unwritten earths is going to be more what the rhythm is going to be and more what we want to talk about on that.

There'll be a little less revision, I think, and maybe a little more commentary in plus expenses. Yeah. So it'll those two things will align as we as we get better at it. It is wild that we go from almost eight years of a podcast to just a slightly different format. And we're like, we gotta relearn some things. Or not relearn, we gotta learn new things. It's a different kind of show.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, there's different kinds of podcasts. And I think you can kind of hear, okay, any podcast I've done, I'm basically just trying to replicate other podcasts in that space that I think are the good ones. Right? Right. Yeah. So different kinds of conversations need to have different structures underneath them. Yeah, I think we know that as designers. That's a game design. That's game design. Our good friend, our good, uh, friend, uh, Vincent Baker, uh, often refers to games as

conversations, right? Like the role playing games, tabletop role playing games, as conversations. We still have a crossover audience here. The next plus expenses, I think we'll, we'll be down to just people who know what we're talking about. We've talked about tabletop role playing games. Yeah. The other thing about plus expenses is it's kind of been our gaming podcast,

our secret gaming podcast for the gamers who also listen to to our Rockford Files podcast, because originally back in the day, our structure for that was talk about the show we like and the lessons that we take from it to apply to our craft. Yes. And then after about 20 episodes, we're like, these are all kind of the same lessons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Rockford Files, maybe that's a fun thing to do for a future Unwritten Earths podcast where we talk about the lessons we learned from the Rockford Files, like as a retrospective of it. Sure, sure.

But yeah, that was very fun in the beginning. And then we got to the point where I was like, it's got a set of things that does incredibly well that we can learn from. And then. And one of the reasons it does them incredibly well is that it does them over and over and over. Yes. In an episodic format. So we're like, OK, we're running out of things to dig into here, which is fine, because it just turned out it was fun to just talk about the Rockford Files and highlight our favorite

moments in it. Yeah, we get to do a little media analysis, we get to do a little history, I get to make screenshots. Sometimes there's a screenshot of some pro wrestling looking golfers that were just like, hey, yeah, this is the greatest thing ever. Yeah. Um, yeah. So for unwritten earth, the purpose of that show is to give us a place to talk about game design with the intention of designing some new games, potentially

designing a game together, uh, which was kind of the original, original thing. It was like, Hey, we're game designers. At some point, someone is going to be like, why don't you guys ever talk about game design on your podcast? It's like, well, because we're talking about the Rockford Files. But yeah, if we had a podcast that was like, let's design a game together, that was the original idea.

And then we kind of spun out this business out of that. I have a thing about role playing games where, and I get yelled at for this, and if you disagree with me, it's fine. You can yell at me like anyone. Nathan can, because he's right here on the hot mic. I can't. But like, if you're out there and you disagree with it, but here's the thing about role playing games and adults. This is specifically about adults as adults. It's very difficult for me to say, hey, you wanna come by my house Friday and we'll pretend we're in a spaceship? But it's very easy for me to say,

hey, this Friday you wanna come by and we'll play some Traveler? And like those are exactly the same sentence. So I think our podcast conception sits in that same zone. Like we're like, hey, you wanna. Wanna have a phone call every week where we talk about game design? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's like, that sounds like a lift. Wanna have a podcast? Ah. Now we're talking. Though one thing that's been happening and I think maybe this is a little bit of like, I don't know. I think there's a lot of factors, actually. But recently, one thing that I have noticed and thus have been trying to do

more is the designers who are kind of doing the most interesting things to me are ones that are having offline are hanging out with people, right? Are like intentionally are having phone calls, are doing meetups, whatever, not in a promotional let's go to convention context, but in a like, hey, you want to have a call kind of thing. And so like I, too, have been trying to do that a little bit more. And that has been that's had a real return. Yeah, that's yeah.

I'm just like keeping my energy optimistic, I guess. Yeah. So this is not to denigrate the idea of like, hey, maybe we should just have a call every week, which now we do, because we're talking about Unwritten Earths as a business that we're launching. Anyway, this is all neither here nor there. The point is, we're going to design some games, ideally, maybe one together, but also part of the little games that we've designed to put into the podcast are to try and trick each other into designing a game for the other person.

Yes. Like, ideally, at some point, we'll make something. We'll make something. But also, ideally, at some point, Epi will be like, oh, I had this idea for a game, I'm going to get working on it. I'm going to be like, oh, I had this idea for a game, I'm gonna get working on it, I'm gonna be like, yes, that's the game I wanted you to make. Yes. And vice versa. As we talk, I'm sorry, I'm typing because as we talk,

I realized something that we probably wanna do in a future, at some future Unwritten Earths podcast, I'm gonna talk about the process of organizing a coffee and game design. Oh, yeah, yeah. And like because like what you were saying, just fit right there. And it's we don't have to go into it here because like obviously that's save it for the show.

We'll get to it when we get to it. We'll get to it when we get to it. True facts. Yeah. So I guess since this will be on both feeds, if you are a 200 a day listener, first of all, thank you. It's been oh, it's been amazing. We will continue doing some of these, but, you know, sporadically. So on our list is Marlowe, the movie from 1969 with Bruce Lee and James Gardner as Marlowe, the Raymond Chandler, you know, protagonist. Yeah.

We want to talk about some Maverick, probably primarily the like con game episodes that like all the Rockford Files con game episodes were versions of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Richie. Oh, yeah. Richie Brockleman's private eye. Richie Brockleman, Private Eye. Yeah. Nichols, the show that did that. that kind of was the pre Rockford Files show that James Diner was in that Roy Huggins did that did not go well, apparently. What else? And then we've had some suggestions from from listeners,

you know, maybe some Magnum P.I. Yeah. There was someone on the Patreon throughout that burn notice is very it's kind of like a Modern modern, but you know, oh yeah, very been a long time We can't say it's modern anymore because it was out when we were I know it's like 2000 2000 2010s kind of we can check it out terriers Terriers. Oh that one's a good one. Yeah Terriers. Terriers. Oh, that one's a good one.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of future out there. Yeah. And because, you know, we like these shows and these movies and we like talking about them, you know, sometimes we might watch something and be like, ah, this doesn't really give us a lot to talk about, which is possible. Right. Then we'll change our conversation, I guess, to be a little different.

Yeah. I mean, like, we could just be, I honestly think that since we're not saying what the next episode will be at any moment, they can just be surprises when they happen. Oh, yeah. What not. It does mean just to peel back the K-Fabe a little bit here. It does mean we have to figure out a new April Fool's Day tradition. I know. Twenty a day won't cut it with unwritten... Twenty a day is over.

We finished twenty a day. Yeah, we did. The last episode was April 1st, 2024. Yeah. We will need to figure out a new April Fool's tradition, but we'll get there. We'll figure something out. We have time. TikTok.

Yeah, we'll release a TikTok on April Fool's. Yeah, yes, exactly. Anyway, thank you, 200 a day listeners. Anyway, thank you, 200 Today listeners. Yes, thank you very much. Heartfelt. I think we say this every time we talk about this topic, but like the fact that our like little side project has its own independent audience from GameStuff. It's wild.

It's wild, but it's been like really affirming. Like it's been a really positive thing. So thank you all. Yeah. And then moving on to hello new listeners, we have our new podcast. Welcome aboard. Welcome aboard. Yeah. Getting in at the ground floor on this one. We have our we recorded our episode zero, which will be on the feed. I think I'll

probably put them both out at like the same time. So yeah, so here a stammer and stumble around this stuff in that as well. But we'll figure out what we're doing. Not in the sense of like, what are we even doing here, but more in the sense of like, what's working? What's the rhythm that feels good? Because like I think part of that conversation felt really strong and like oh, yeah This is good. And then part of it was like this needs a little more something either We need to structure differently or whatever. Yeah, so that effort and all of the unwritten earth symposium is gonna be Supported by a patreon as well. Yes, and so that's gonna be patreon.com slash unwritten earths. We're going to have, what are they called on Discord? Rolls?

Special rolls? Yeah, there'll be rolls that'll be to indicate that you're one of the patrons. Yeah, so it'll be like patron specific rolls as like a little thank you for being part of that. But the Discord will be open to everyone. Yeah, yeah, more egalitarian than the roles, than the idea of roles would indicate. Yeah. So there'll be the some some special, I don't know, some little Bennies for being part of

the Patreon on the Discord. They'll be plus expenses will be patron only other than like this public every so often will drop a public episode. But generally it'll be patron only. And it comes out in between each episode of the main show. So you get twice as much podcast. If you're a patron at all levels, we don't gate it to a certain level. Yeah. Patrons will also there'll be some levels to automatically subscribe

you to our upcoming annual publication. More to come. But yeah, we're come, but we're gonna kick off on Written Earths with an annual publication collecting the best of whatever our librarians have been gathering in the Symposium Library over the past year into one all-killer-no-filler volume of adventures, of spells and gear and weird stuff maps locations enemies friends stuff that you can put into your games or use to run a game that doesn't necessarily need to be run with a certain kind of game but we will have tools for doing this particular adventure as a horror

adventure with Dread, or as a sword and sorcery adventure with Swords Without a Master, obviously. Or as a wrestling episode with World Wide Wrestling. It'll be stuff you can use in any game that you care for, but obviously, we have some some pretty decent experience pointing at our games. Right. Yeah, yeah. There'll be some specific support for how to pitch it, you know, how to put it in a certain vibe. Yeah.

And also they're going to be aesthetically the kinds of stuff that we write our games to support. Exactly. There will be some games that will be that they'll slot right into. And some games where it's like you can use them, but it's up to you to make sure that all the like, you know, mechanics sync up with what the adventure is trying to do or whatever. Yeah. So anyway, that'll be a standalone thing, but there'll be patron levels

to automatically subscribe you to that. So you'll just get it when it comes out. And we know that this is a high trust situation because we're just starting. So I don't begrudge anyone waiting to see what that looks like. Yeah, yeah. But we're going to have that there for We hope that you're pleased. We think you will be. We're pretty excited about it. Like, I don't get this feeling for things that don't. Right. Right. Yeah. And that's also not patron exclusive.

That's going to be a publication. This is getting you in on the ground floor, as we say, and also helping us gauge how much interest there is in this kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. BrassTax, we are publishers who need to make a living off of this. So we need to make some money publishing and selling our games. And it's very helpful for us to know roughly what the general interest is in it to decide how much art to buy from actual human artists,

or what physical form it's going to take. I mean, we know this. This is crowdfunding in a way. You've done Kickstarters. You know that the more that a Kickstarter makes, what physical form it's going to take. I mean, like we know this, this is crowdfunding in a way. You've done Kickstarters, you know that like the more that a Kickstarter makes, the more it can put into it. We're not gonna do like stretch goals and things like that. It's mainly we get to make a decision based on

what we can see the interest is and what's coming in about the product that we're comfortable making. Yeah, so that's one aspect. And then the other aspect is to build up this Discord community and get it to the place that Epi was so eloquently describing earlier, where it can be a space to, I mean, just, you know, just, just, if it's about games, but also a place to bring a game that you're excited about running, whether it's your game or someone else's, and then find a community of enthusiastic players who will then evangelize, for lack of a better term, because this is where all the good stuff, not all the good stuff, obviously, but this is where good stuff is happening. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we keep reiterating this and we probably should

call it quits at some point on the plus expenses. But Nathan and I have collectively almost a half century of experience in this industry. We have some answers, not as many as we'd like, but we'd like to share those with you. If you're making games, we'd like to help you out. We'd like to start conversations so maybe we can answer some questions that we have. The field is always changing.

Like the technology and companies that own the technology silos keep pulling the rug out from underneath us and, you know, sorry, not gonna get on that vibe. The point is- That's the kind of thing we talk about on Plus Expenses a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It is a try to think of like how not to be up here and highbrow about this. But like we want to teach and learn at the same time is what I'm saying. Right. You know, we have things that that we can tell that we can share about what has worked and what hasn't worked for us. And we'd like to hear from people about the same, whatever level you're at. I think this is a pretty common experience. It's certainly been true for me that one of the most effective ways for me to level up my understanding of something is to teach it to someone else.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's a virtuous cycle when you get into into those those loops. So it's the unwritten earth symposium and the it's kind of a fun title that hits both of our aesthetics. You know, but the symposium part is actually kind of important. Yeah, the idea, whatever, it's our venture. But we want to create a space that can be one of communal conversation that generates new things in the world. And I feel like that is what a symposium can do to get a little arty about it.

Or shines new light on old lost ideas. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah. You can go deeper on things you know, or you can discover new things or both. Yeah. Or do one by doing the other. So yeah, a lot of our metaphors that we use internally are, you know, we're a college of wizards and we are putting on this symposium. And so that's kind of one of our organizing principles for the whole thing. So yeah, we hope that you will join us. Come play pretend with us.

I think that sounds like a good a good sign off this crossover plus expenses. Do you have anything else for both of our both of our groups of friends? I'm looking forward to celebrating the Rockford Files with this final episode. And looking forward to see what what new adventures the future holds for us. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's a good place. Should probably end it there. Yeah.