Ewen Update and Podcast From Another World

Hey guys. I wanted to update you on what I’ve been up to, though there hasn’t been nearly as much as I’d like. The physical medicine doctor (a spine specialist) said I’m recovering from the herniated disc nicely, but I ended up with another issue where I’m fatigued a lot of the time, and I’m still seeing doctors to try to figure out what’s even going on and fix it. 2019 has not been terribly kind to me so far, and it’s mainly because I have so many amazing people supporting me that I’ve been able to keep going. (Extensive use of the Headspace meditation app is helping too by the way.)

For inspiration for Kageshima Declassified (the Kagegami High supplement I’ve been working on) I ended up starting to read William Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horse, which is a worrisome and highly influential conspiracy theory text that more or less originated the “New World Order” conspiracy theory. I’m going to have a lot to say about the book whenever I finish it, but I haven’t been in the mental state to even watch Last Week Tonight, much less to delve into Cooper’s nightmares. Probably the thing I find most interesting about BAPH is how although Cooper was dead certain that there was a sinister NWO preparing to take over and institute a totalitarian world government, he just couldn’t accept the idea that people with the means to do so wouldn’t form a conspiracy and make plans to keep the world from falling into chaos, even if they accomplished it in inhuman ways.

For a while now I’ve been working a series of grunt contract jobs for Silicon Valley tech companies. My friends have heard me rant a lot about the dumb nonsense that involves, but there are kind of a lot of jobs that would involve doing more work than I could physically handle for half the pay. I still need to seriously look for a better permanent job when I’m able, and I’m mentioning all of this mainly because being exposed to internet stuff from the inside is making me want to start a YouTube channel, albeit one that sort of satirizes internet nonsense, sometimes in ways that won’t make sense to people who haven’t been overexposed. I don’t know if/how/when I’ll get around to it, but I’ll definitely let you guys know first.

Podcast From Another World

Podcast From Another World is a small RPG I’m working on that’s inspired by the Hello from the Magic Tavern podcast. HFTMT is an improv comedy thing where the lead host is a fictionalized version of himself who fell through a portal behind a Burger King in Chicago and wound up in the magical land of Foon, where he befriended a wizard and a shapeshifter/talking badger and started doing a weekly podcast thanks to the wifi signal coming through the portal. I fell behild by literally 70 or so episodes, and recently binged my way to getting caught up. (And I’m looking forward to Season 3 starting next month.) Following that inspiration, Podcast From Another World is going to be kind of an improv exercise as much as an RPG.

To expand the setting a little and make room for more originality, it takes place in the town of Portaly in Pastoria (on the continent of Westeros from Dragon World, though you can use or ignore that fact as you see fit). Portaly is home to an obnoxious number of (mostly unstable) portals, and thus has quite a few residents from other worlds. That means that in addition to a bunch of fantasy tropes, you can have the occasional jetpack-wearing sci-fi type or Old West gunslinger. I’m working on a set of Archetypes that let you quickly flesh out a suitably silly character, with a Human podcaster and that week’s Guest (which can be just about anything) being assumed, and other players picking from options like Wizard, Talking Animal, Atomic Ranger, and Weird Monster. I’m still inordinately pleased with myself for how for a Guest character your choices for the question “Are you evil?” are “No,” “Yes,” and “Eh.”

I’m stepping into somewhat unfamiliar territory in terms of making an RPG/improv hybrid thing, and I suspect there will be some difficult lessons in playtesting. It’s really interesting working on a game where for the most part sound is canon, and it leads to all kinds of things that wouldn’t come up in a more traditional RPG. I need to look into ways to set up a suitable soundboard too.

At present the two actual mechanics in the game are Reveals and Annoying Points:

• Reveals are basically prompts to develop your character more. You put a die with the 1 side up on your sheet at the start of an episode, and then move it to the next number each time you do something specified in your Archetype. When the die reaches 6, you pick something to reveal and reset the die.
• Each player gets 3 Annoying Points per episode, and they let you do some things that mess with the other players, like introducing or killing a minor NPC or prompting a player to list 5 of something. I have no idea if these will survive playtesting, but they kind of formalize the way improvisers will needle each other in certain ways while performing.

And yes, I am indeed including an appendix with some d66 tables to help move things along, with stuff like names, sponsors, distractions, and treasures.

Anyway, that’s about where I am with the game. Progress has been slow while I’ve been clawing my way back to health, but I like what I have so far.