Episode 3: We Have a Kickstarter!

We have a Kickstarter!

We take a break from RPG stories this month to talk about Odd Jobs, our first anthology of 11 micro-settings - weird and wonderful worlds to explore, each with a campaign you can play in a month! Our micro-settings are system-neutral, which means you can play them in whatever system you like best. This episode, we share some of our favourite systems, and matchmake them with our micro-settings.

To get your copy of Odd Jobs, back our Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/macguffinandco/odd-jobs-0

Website: https://www.macguffinandcompany.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MacguffinAndCo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/macguffinandcompany
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/macguffinandcompany

Edited by Lowri Ann Davies
Transcription by Luna Zephyr

Transcript

 [Intro plays, an upbeat, arcade game-like tune.] 

SASHA Hi! Welcome to another episode of “No One Wants to Hear Your RPG Stories,” the podcast where we talk about RPG design, gameplay and misc through the medium of our RPG stories. 

JONNY But not this time! 

SASHA No, not this time. 

JONNY Because we’re actually talking about the systems for our micro-settings. Anyway, hi, I’m Jonny. 

SASHA [laughs] And I’m Sasha Sienna. And together, we are— 

BOTH MacGuffin and company! 

JONNY I was trying to do it as like a synchronous kind of thing— 

SASHA (simult.) Yeah, I see, I know, but it’s surprised me and then I was like, “Oh, what’s happening?” Should we try it again? 

JONNY No, let’s continue. SASHA Oh. Okay. 

[Both laugh.] 

SASHA So yeah, as Jonny says, today we are doing something a bit different because [pats their leg] that’s the sound of a drum roll on my leg— we have got a Kickstarter live right now! When you’re listening to this! 

JONNY Assuming you’re listening to this when it comes out. 

SASHA Which is in April 2021. If you're listening to this in April 2021,we have a Kickstarter out right now. And it is Odd Jobs, an anthology collection of our first ten micro-settings, or twelve if we hit some stretch goals— 

JONNY Ooh! 

SASHA It’s going to be beautiful, it's going to be a hardback book that smells good, and it's going to have some lovely art and maybe even some great bonus content if we hit that stretch goal as well. It’s going to be so good, we’re really excited about it. 

JONNY You are so into the theoretical smell of our book. 

SASHA Who doesn't love a new book smell? That’s why they call it “new book smell.” 

JONNY Yeah, alright, I’m also into the smell. 

SASHA Anyone who gets a book and doesn't immediately sniff it is suspect. 

JONNY What are they doing? So first off, we want to talk a little bit about what we mean when we say “micro-settings.” So, most RPG settings are these huge wonderful expansive worlds, full of all sorts of different factions and potential stories and adventures. You know, you talk about Forgotten Realms, and there are years and years and years of potential games that could be played in that. And we think that's too much. 

SASHA Well, that's putting it a little bit strong. 

JONNY Yeah, okay, maybe. But fundamentally, most of these games do come with the assumption that you are going to be diving into them for a year long epic campaign and those are wonderful. 

SASHA Oh, yeah, we love really diving deep into campaigns, but what we really want from our RPGs is to tell a satisfying story. And the number of our RPGs that we look at and go “Oh, I want to play that,” but when is too high, so one thing we really wanted to do with our micro-settings is give people a satisfying world, something that's compelling, that they can dive into, but where they can tell a complete story in a month of regular RPG sessions. 

JONNY Yeah, three to four sessions with loads of little adventure seeds and NPCs and stuff, and if you want to expand it out to a longer campaign, something that’s close to eight, nine, ten sessions, you can! One of the ways we’ve done this is by focusing on creating a world but focusing on a very specific part of it. What I always think of as a comparison is sort of— if you think of Discworld, as a setting, then a micro-setting is more like the Night’s Watch, you know? A specific group of people within this huge, expansive world just diving in a little bit deeper, getting a little bit more specific and saying “Well, what’s their specific story?” 

SASHA And one thing as well that we should mention about our micro-settings is that we don't actually write them for a specific mechanic; they are what we call “system-neutral,” or “system-agnostic,” and we've done that for a couple reasons. One is because it makes them much quicker for us to write so that means we can write more of them, but also because we’re really aware that when groups are deciding to play a new game, one of the biggest barriers that they often say is, “Learning a whole new system is off putting,” and we don't think that it necessarily should be. Honestly, a load of indie systems are really easy to learn, like— dive in! Do it! But we do appreciate that it is a barrier, and while there is some preparation needed to make sure that the characters you're creating in micro-settings that we put out will fit into the character sheet of say, the system that you’re using, we think if you are really familiar with the system, it allows you to just pick something up and go. 

JONNY If you've only ever played D&D, you can spec them for D&D. If you really love Powered by the Apocalypse, you can build yourself a little playbook for them. It’s a little bit more front end work, but we think that it gives them a huge amount of flexibility. 

SASHA And while all of our micro-settings can be run in pretty much any system, we do think that there are some that are a particularly good fit for all of them or for specific ones, and what we really want to talk about today are: which are our favorite systems for which micro-setting. 

JONNY Now, to be clear, we’re not going to be going through point by point all the micro-settings that we’ve done, or that are on offer for Odd Jobs, you can find a lot of details about them on our website, or our Patreon, or the Kickstarter page itself. The reason for this is we actually did do a recording earlier where we tried that and it just felt like— it took like ten minutes to get through them all. 

SASHA It was a ten minute advert and no one wanted to listen to it. 

JONNY And don't get us wrong, this episode is also an advert for our Kickstarter, please go back our Kickstarter, but you know, we don't want it to be that sort of advert. Also, if you're listening to this in the future and you're like “ April 2021? Ah, but I’m in April 2025!” We might have put out a huge number of new micro-settings but this still will be relevant to that. Also hey, maybe we’ve revolutionized the RPG industry and there are micro-settings everywhere, everyone’s doing it, it’s really cool! I’ve lost the train of thought, but anyway, we’re not talking about the specific micro-settings we’re not just going through them point by point. 

SASHA Did someone get stuck in April 2025? 

JONNY Yeah, I got stuck in April 2025. 

SASHA So, before we dive into what our favorite systems are, if you're not already familiar with our micro-settings, we recommend that you go to Kickstarter and Google for Odd Jobs— or rather, Kickstarter search “Odd Jobs MacGuffin and company,” or you google “MacGuffin and company Odd Jobs,” or “MacGuffin and company Odd Jobs Kickstarter” or you go to our website, www.macguffinandcompany.com, or you check us out on Twitter @MacGuffinandCo or on Facebook at MacGuffinandCo, and you will find a link to the Kickstarter. 

JONNY Did someone get stuck on the Internet? 

SASHA Someone may have...Anyway, go check out our Kickstarter, there's a load of details for our micro-settings there, and we’re really psyched about it. 

JONNY Oh, also, our first two, Ghost Ship and Twisted Rails are available for free on our website if you just want to be like, “Oh, I’d just like to read one and see what it’s all about.” That’s you. That's what you sound like. 

SASHA That was uncanny. You are so good at impressions. 

JONNY So, what system do we want to start talking about? 

SASHA Well, I think let’s start with some of our favorite systems that we think work with a lot of our micro-settings because there are a few standbys, if you like, that we keep coming back to. 

JONNY Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. 

SASHA If you had to pick one system, to run all of our micro-settings in, Jonny, what would you pick? 

JONNY I mean, if I was doing it for all of them, it would probably be Fate. It’s got that sort of freeform character focus that a lot of our micro-settings are very character focused. It's a lot about collaboration, lends itself to more lighthearted and chaotic games which again, some of our micro-settings lend themself to that sort of slightly chaotic feeling. 

SASHA Especially when I think you run them as oneshots, because they all do have the ability as oneshots and I think there are a few that really can lean into some chaos there, like Not Far to Bermuda. 

JONNY Oh, yeah, you generally run Not Far to Bermuda in Fate, I think. 

SASHA Yeah, I always use a stripped down version of Fate Accelerated or Fate Condensed— it used to be Fate: Accelerated, now I tend to use Fate Condensed because that’s the updated version. But I find that having the Aspects in Fate really fits in very well with Not Far To Bermuda, specifically, but I think you'll find a lot of our micro-settings in general, because for instance, in Not Far to Bermuda, one of the things you have to decide about your character is exactly what your job is, so you play hospitality staff on a cruise liner that's been at sea for nearly a year. 

JONNY (simult.) It’s stuck in the Bermuda Triangle. Spoilers. 

SASHA Well, it’s not explicit. [Both laugh.] 

JONNY It’s called Not Far to Bermuda! 

SASHA It is called Not Far to Bermuda. And so you have to choose what your job is out of like, bartender, poolside entertainer, or midafternoon lounge singer. You know, something like that, and that kind of thing works really well as an Aspect in Fate. And then we always give a selection of character archetypes, the kind of people you might find in this world, so for instance, in Not Far to Bermuda, you might find “gap year student gone wrong” or for instance, in Atlantis City, you might have “long-term bartender who’s been there for thirty years” and I think all those things map really well onto Aspects in Fate. 

JONNY (snickering) Sorry, I'm just enjoying the— all of the micro-settings and you picked the two and you're like, “You could be a bartender, or a long term bartender—” 

SASHA (simult.) Or a bartender... Okay, so I— yes, I see what I did there, and just so you know, we do have a lot of other kinds of characters you can play— 

JONNY (simult.) You're going to have to play a bartender. 

SASHA I mean, for instance, you could have one of your Fate Aspects if you're playing MIX: Missing In X-mas be “sentient gingerbread man...” 

JONNY Yep! And also, one of the good things about the Aspects system— 

SASHA Who is a bartender. [Both laugh.] 

SASHA Sorry. 

JONNY Just serving up eggnog at the North Pole. I mean, you could. 

SASHA Not just at the North Pole, I mean, you go everywhere. 

JONNY I think another good thing about the Aspects system is it means it doesn't need to be quite so frontloaded in adapting it to the system because during character creation you can use those Aspects and everyone can be involved in taking this very basic Fate system and customizing it to the game because everyone’s involved in creating those Aspects. 

SASHA Oh absolutely. I think what you said about it being really lending itself well to lighthearted and sometimes chaotic games I think is true, especially for oneshots but I think because Fate is so character focused and so collaborative, it really does give that good foundation for if you want to dive deep into more character stuff like self indulgent angst in Primetime Colosseum, for instance. I think there's really that scope for it in Fate, if that’s something you want to focus on for the campaign. 

JONNY Also, if you're happy with a little bit more front-end work, powered by the apocalypse is always an amazing go to for any sort of short run story focused game. I mean you can sort of see this in most Powered by The Apocalypse systems, the experience tracker is clearly focused on these shorter, tighter campaigns. 

SASHA You know, it’s interesting you say that Powered by The Apocalypse is story focused, because I would say it's very structured and character focused? But I would say it's actually more session focused than story focused. 

JONNY Interesting. I think my feeling is— because I'm quite structuralist in my approach to story, I find the way it conceives of moves and of timers and yeah, this particular— it is very structured in terms of how it'll do a session. I find that dovetails very nicely into how I conceive of RPG storytelling, but you know, your mileage may vary with that. 

SASHA I think for me, structure is a part of it, but I would say that in our campaigns and our micro-settings, the structure is there already? 

JONNY That's fair. 

SASHA I would say that what Powered by The Apocalypse is bringing you is basically the framework for how an RPG sessions itself as a medium works? 

JONNY (simult.) Which is really good, actually. 

SASHA Which is really helpful especially for new GMs. 

JONNY Yeah, and if you want to take an adventure seed and flesh it out, it gives that structure that you can do that for very easily. 

SASHA (simult.). Oh, yeah, absolutely. Brilliant for that. 

JONNY It is a little bit more work upfront because for some of them you would need to find an existing powered by the apocalypse system or hack or create your own playbooks, which is a bit more work, but I’ll be honest: I really like putting together powered by the apocalypse playbooks. 

SASHA I mean, it’s fun. That's what you find fun. But there are so many different playbooks out there now, so many of which are just brilliant. It shouldn't be too hard, I think, if you want to just find one that kind of fits? 

JONNY Yeah, I mean, Storybrewers, awhile back, put out something called “Alas for the Awful Sea.” Its about being a ship sailing around the Northern islands of scotland and england and its set in the 19th century and its very character full, very kind of grim. And I think it actually worked really well for Ghost Ship, you know? I think all those different archetypes especially the way that you have your role, like the captain, or the boatswain, or the surgeon; and then you also have your role within the crew, like you're the kinsman who has family everywhere, or you're the lover, who is pining after someone, and I think that could actually thematically map really well onto Ghost Ship which has a lot of those same sort of— 

SASHA Themes? 

JONNY Yeah! A lot of that same feeling, if that's what you want to lean into.

 SASHA Yeah I think those are two of my favorites and they are very collaborative and story-focused, but I think if you're looking for something that I might think of as more traditional, or a little bit crunchier, the one that I would always go to is Savage Worlds. 

JONNY Well, Savage Worlds, in some ways it still feels like our system— 

SASHA Oh, 100%. 

JONNY We don't actually play it all that much these days, but— 

SASHA It’s baked in, you can’t get it out. It’s been ten years for me and probably longer for you. 

JONNY It was the system that we played our first game together in and it was the one that all the people that we brought in over those initial years, we were playing Savage Worlds campaigns. So, it's very deep in us. 

SASHA I really rate it actually, for if you want something that is traditional structure or has a bit of crunch for our micro-settings specifically, I think it's a really good one to look at. It's got this very dynamic pulpy feel, and while there is tactical combat, it's very quick and pacy and punchy and I think that really works very well with what our micro-settings are about, you know? They're about character and I really like the Edges and Hindrances system that you have in Savage Worlds for bringing a character to life in a quick easy digestible way. 

JONNY Also, it is setting-neutral, you know? There are a lot of settings for it, but you know, if you just bought it... 

SASHA (simult.) It is setting-neutral. You can pick up the core Savage Worlds for— I don't know how much it is in the US— but here it’s less than fifteen pounds. 

JONNY I will say there is a new version that I haven't checked out yet, so i don't know if our knowledge of how cheap it is remains good. 

SASHA Hang on a second, I’ll Google it. 

JONNY To be clear, they have recently brought out a new version of Savage Worlds, which, full disclosure, I haven't played. I’ve heard they made a few mechanical tweaks which I’m not happy about because I'm a grumpy old man who knows the system inside out and [unhappy sounds] they’ve changed it. But it’s definitely worth a look, especially if you like a slightly more pulpy feel, and I think it would work really well on Twisted Rails. 

SASHA Yeah, I think Twisted Rails would work really, really, well— I might actually suggest it as well for Wizard’s Staff? 

JONNY Really? 

SASHA Yeah, I might, simply because I think its certainly in its pulpier interactions, it really lends itself to that larger-than-life cartoony style, which I think would work very well for it. 

JONNY No, I can see that. 

SASHA And plus, you can get a softcover version of the rules for less than a tenner, in terms of pounds. Less than ten pounds. 

JONNY I think that’s the old edition though. 

SASHA Do you know what? I thought it was the old edition but I’m looking at it and it says it's the newest edition? 

JONNY Well… 

SASHA Not sure. 

JONNY We trust you to do your own research. 

SASHA Do your own research. But yeah, you can get a softcover version of the Explorer’s Edition for less than ten pounds in the UK. And you can get between ten and twelve micro-settings to go with it for thirty-four pounds if you back our Kickstarter. 

JONNY What? 

SASHA I actually think it’s a really good deal. 

JONNY I think that is a really good deal. Also, we wouldn't be doing our due diligence if we didn't mention Dungeons & Dragons, fifth edition. 

SASHA That’s true. 

JONNY I’ve always been one of those roleplayers that’s like “Ugh, Dungeons & Dragons, can't believe that it’s synonymous with the hobby, blah blah, there’s so many other better systems,” but fifth edition is actually pretty good. 

SASHA I think it does a certain kind of roleplaying well for sure. I think a lot of the reasons people say its popular or think its popular actually aren't the case. I think it's popular because Wizards of the Coast put a lot of money behind it and have a lot of money for marketing that a lot of their competitors simply don’t. It’s still very good for what it is, definitely. 

JONNY And it does have a certain magic to it. 

SASHA Yeah, and you can’t ignore that loads of people already know how to play it and one of the reasons we made our micro-settings system-neutral is so that people can use a system they already know. 

JONNY So, I think if you're playing a D&D game, you're probably going to end up in a little bit more combat than something like Fate or Powered by The Apocalypse, because that is what a lot of the system is focused towards. So its probably best for those systems where fights are probably going to break out. So yeah, Twisted Rails, Duskhollow PD— 

SASHA (simult.) Primetime Coliseum, I would definitely use it for Primetime. 

JONNY Or, what if— I’m thinking of a D&D Guardians, actually, where there’s just a lot more straight up demon combat. 

SASHA Hmm. 

JONNY Just hitting them with antique maces and stuff like that. Maybe MIX: Missing in Xmas. 

SASHA I mean the thing is, people have hacked D&D for a lot of different kinds of settings, right? 

JONNY Lots of different stories, yeah. 

SASHA So there'll be resources out there. I would say that I think mapping one of our settings is more work than it is for a lot of other systems. 

JONNY Largely because there are so many important numbers for D&D. 

SASHA Because there's so much of D&D, you know? 

JONNY And you need to have a think about what all the numbers are going to be within this micro-setting. And that can take time. But again, it’s time that I think a lot of people really enjoy spending. The number of my mates who are really into D&D fifth edition, and they love to be like, “I’m taking this TV show I really like—” 

SASHA And just statting up all the characters. If you like doing that, you will love playing our micro-settings in fifth edition. 

JONNY Oh, and there is one more system, we should probably mention even though it doesn't technically exist yet. 

SASHA Depending on when you listen to this, if it is April 2025. If it doesn't exist by then, then we’ve real fucked up. 

JONNY Oh, I’m so jealous of you, 2025. 

SASHA Well, we don’t know what it’s going to be like. 

JONNY Actually, we don't know. Maybe the slugs have taken over. 

SASHA Hopefully you'll be able to go outside. Anyway— 

JONNY Oh my god… Just getting real for a moment. 

SASHA Yeah. Yes, so we are working on a simple quick streamlined system that is designed to be played online. And it’s scheduled to be coming out for Patrons in the second half of 2021, so later this year. And then probably a wider release, maybe in 2022. 

JONNY We’re aiming for it to be very flexible, probably 2d6 based because those are dice that most people have available. 

SASHA And there’s so many online rollers for 2d6. 

JONNY And just trying to keep it so there's as little as necessary as possible collective bookkeeping. Fewer stats to keep track of, fewer “I need to make sure we’re all in the right positions” and much more— easily teachable, very quick oneshot focus. 

SASHA Which means that if you're trying to run particularly a oneshot, but also a campaign of these micro-settings that are very story-focused, very character-focused, then it will be a really easy job to just smush those two things together. So do look out for that, or if you’re really in the future, just look for it. 

JONNY Also, if you are in the future and it turns out that everything we've said about it is wrong and it’s very much a table-based tactical d100 system, sorry. [Sasha laughs.] 

JONNY So those are some of our favorite, can-adapt-realistically-to-any-of-these micro-setting systems, but I think there are a few that we quite like for specific ones? 

SASHA Yeah, so you were talking about running a fifth edition Guardians? And I really had to stop myself from jumping in to interrupt you because there's two that I think are brilliant for Guardians depending on which way you want to go with it. 

JONNY So, Guardians is: you are bad nuns in a south of France convent in the 1970s and there is a pit to hell in your convent that is gradually waking up. 

SASHA Yes, so there’s two ways you can play Guardians, and you can either lean into the cosmic horror, in which case I think the Cthulhu hack is really good. 

JONNY Yeah, I think Cthulhu hack could work for it. 

SASHA Or, you could make it a farce about bad nuns, in which case it’s got to be Fiasco. 

JONNY I think you actually made a small playset for a Guardians Fiasco at some point. 

SASHA I did! And I don't know where I put it, i don't know where I’ve saved it, I’ve lost it. 

JONNY But just some of the— rolling to see what you got kicked out of your old convent for— like, did you run an underground gambling ring, did you fake some religious visions— it was chaos. 

SASHA It was so much fun to put together, I really want to do another one, or rather try and back engineer it so I can keep hold of it.But it does not take that long to make Fiasco playsets, and it's really good fun. 

JONNY I think you could also do a really great Fiasco for Not Far To Bermuda? 

SASHA Oh, that would also be brilliant. 

JONNY Or MIX: Missing in Xmas? 

SASHA Yes! I mean, the thing about Fiasco is that it doesn't tend to lend itself to happy endings, so if you want a very good Christmas, maybe don’t go with Fiasco, but if you don't mind a disaster Christmas, then it would be a very good shout. 

JONNY Oh, and speaking of: Fiasco very much goes with “Oh, this is a Coen brothers movie,” and I think Atlantis City— 

SASHA I was just going to say Atlantis City! It’s got all the right aesthetics I think. But yeah, I think if you are familiar with Fiasco, you’ll be able to pick with micro-settings would work really well with it, if you're not familiar with Fiasco— again, it is a very cheap corebook to pick up, and creating your own playsets is really easy. 

JONNY Actually, I think all the ones we’re talking about in this point, where we’re like “Oh, this one mapped specifically onto this one,” they're all pretty cheap, actually. Because you mentioned the Cthulhu hack— 

SASHA The Cthulhu hack you can get for like a fiver. And it's genuinely way more versatile than you think. 

JONNY So the Cthulhu hack is based on the Black hack which is based on first edition D&D. But it’s got a real investigative focus, it’s got this really good gradually depleting resource mechanic, for what's called your flashlights and your smokes, which is what you're looking at and who you're talking to. And also, it’s one of those systems where you're not expected to be in combat a lot, or when you are in combat, it’s very dangerous and you can die very quickly, which is why I think it’s a really good one for Duskhollow PD. 

SASHA Oh, do you know what, I wouldn't run Duskhollow in anything else. You know what else it’s really good for? Ghost Ship.

JONNY Yeah. Yeah, anything that is long periods of investigation and discussion and character work punctuated by very significant and brief moments and peril of action? Cthulhu Hack works really well for. 

SASHA Sorry, I know we’ve already moved on, but I've just had another thought: you know what else Fiasco would be good for? 

JONNY What? 

SASHA Startup Culture. 

JONNY Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about Startup Culture! So Startup Culture is going to be Kickstarter exclusive, just to nip that advertising in there again. And the idea is— so you know that kind of metaphysical thing that a lot of settings have— like the Warhammer universe actually uses a lot of this. 

SASHA Or Terry Pratchett does it brilliantly. 

JONNY So like the idea that belief actually powers gods and gods are to one degree or another created by belief? And the idea of “Well, if that's true, then you're going to have a lot of different cults trying to kickstart their new god.” Get a lot on board. Pyramid schemes, but in a good way, probably. 

SASHA Pyramid schemes but for deities. That doesn't necessarily mean they're in a good way. 

JONNY Yeah, okay fair enough. But like, pyramid schemes but in the— no because they were tombs, not temples. That's fine. Lowri, leave all this in, it’s gold. But yeah, so the idea is you are a new cult trying to kickstart your new god and make a killing on the god market because obviously belief has become a commodity that can be traded. 

SASHA I really think Fiasco would work very well. 

JONNY Oh I think Fiasco would do an amazing game of Startup Culture. 

SASHA Okay, so, another game that I think would be really good for Startup Culture or— okay, we’re getting into games that are more effort to try and map onto a micro-setting or maybe you don't want to take the whole thing but you want to take a piece. But I think you could do something really special with Startup Culture and Paranoia. 

JONNY Ooh, yeah, you actually could. Paranoia would take a lot of effort to map onto a micro-setting but you could get a really cool game out of it. 

SASHA Yeah, imagine Friend Computer but being the god of your org. 

JONNY Oh my— I hadn't even clocked that. So, the idea of Paranoia: it’s sort of a comedy game set in a future dystopia run by Friend Computer who is a malfunctioning god-computer and you are all clones who are trying to get each other done in for treason. 

SASHA Instead of treason it could be heresy, or something. 

JONNY And it’s all backstabbing and chaos and I think that could make it really good. 

SASHA I think it could be really fun. 

JONNY Yeah that could be amazing for Startup Culture. I think it could also work for—? 

SASHA Maybe Guardians? 

JONNY Yeah, maybe Guardians, maybe Wizard’s Staff? 

SASHA It would take both of those games— I mean it’d take all of those games really— in a particular direction that isn't necessarily how we wrote them? But I think the worlds and the story structure could still very much work. 

JONNY Proposition: Not— BOTH Not Far to Bermuda! 

SASHA Captain Smollett being Friend Computer. Oh, that would be so good. 

JONNY Also, can I pitch you on Startup Culture...Blades in the Dark? 

SASHA Also Atlantis City. 

JONNY I’ll be honest, the reason I say Startup Culture in Blades in the Dark is because we literally have an ongoing Blades in the Dark game where— 

SASHA I mean you can play a cult! But also a gang.

 JONNY But also a gang! So it works. I think it would be a slightly different flavor to Startup Culture, less sort of wheeler-dealer and more in the shadows criminal enterprise. But I think it could really work. 

SASHA I think so too. So I’ve just been looking at our RPG shelf, and there are a couple on here, while we’re in the zone, just occurred to me: Do you know what would be really great with those as well? Bubblegumshoe could be a really fun one to run Not Far to Bermuda in as well. Thinking of what the campaign is, Bubblegumshoe would be cool. 

JONNY I mean, to be fair, any of the GUMSHOE systems— 

SASHA Yeah, any of the GUMSHOE systems, and you would want to kind of change Bubblegumshoe particularly, but the thing about Bubblegumshoe is that it is focused on teens and kids, and I think if you were the kind of gap year hospitality staff in not far to bermuda, if you were a group of eighteen year olds fresh out of your A levels, you'd want to grow Bubblegumshoe up a little, but I think that could be fun. 

JONNY That could be a real fun game. 

SASHA And a game that I haven't seen very much talk about online but I really like is Black Code. 

JONNY Oh, Black Code is fun. Black Code is a biopunk game— you know what cyberpunk is? But it’s much more about a future where bodies are interchangeable and you can have all sorts of different frames you can be— you can be a mechanical person, but you can also be a really weird bug person and it goes into all the different sort of— you can just do some really weird interesting stuff with it that I think a lot of that sort of cyberpunk doesn't really engage with. 

SASHA I think it could be a really fun spin on Twisted Rails, and again, this is another one where you'd want to twist either the game or the micro-setting. One or the other would have to change a little, but combined they could make something really special. 

JONNY Also, the tagging system in Black Code actually makes it surprisingly versatile. 

SASHA Yes! 

JONNY The tags in the book as written are very specific to that game, but it’s very easy to create your own and I actually think it would make for something really interesting. And anything that's a little bit weird where you can play lots of different sorts of being— Wizard’s Staff, maybe! 

SASHA Oh, Wizard’s Staff! And you know what I was just thinking, I would love to see the tagging system used as wrestling moves in Primetime. 

JONNY Oh, that would really work. That’d be really cool. 

SASHA It’s one of those ones where you'd have to do a lot of work upfront to actually slot them together but it could be so fun.

 JONNY So I think that’s us runthrough most of it. 

SASHA I feel like that's enough to be getting on with. We've been talking for quite some time, and I feel like we’ve given a game for every setting, and we’ve talked about quite a lot of systems. 

JONNY Yeah, i think we’re probably about done. Sash, the end, do you have anything you want to plug, maybe? 

SASHA Yeah! So I actually have a Kickstarter open right now? 

JONNY What? 

SASHA Yes, it’s for an anthology of micro-settings, like the ones we’ve been talking about today. It’s called Odd Jobs and you can find it on Kickstarter! Please go back our book, it’s going to be so good. I really think this is a very good project and I want everybody to have their hands on a copy of it and have a lot of fun with it. 

JONNY Same. 

SASHA Other things as well, we have a Patreon: www.patreon.com/macguffinandcompany. 

JONNY To be fair, I think you covered a lot of this earlier when you were going through the entirety of our internet presence. 

SASHA Yeah, all the places that I said before. You can follow me on Twitter personally @SiennaSasha! 

JONNY You can follow me @jonnywaistcoat. 

SASHA And you can email us at hello@macguffinandcompany, and you can like subscribe, rate and review this podcast! 

JONNY Do the podcast things! 

SASHA Great, so next time on “No One Wants to Hear Your RPG Stories,” we will be having a special guest! 

JONNY A special guest? 

SASHA A special guest!

JONNY Whomst? 

SASHA Our guest will be Grant Howitt. 

JONNY Grant Howitt? 

SASHA Of Rowan and Rook Decard and also of Grant Howitt. 

JONNY What, the guy who did Spire and Goblin Quest and Honey Heist? 

SASHA That very same! We’ll be asking him your questions and talking to him about RPGs in general, next time, so keep an ear out. 

JONNY We’ve actually already interviewed him, this is out of order. 

SASHA (simult.) We actually did that earlier. 

JONNY I really want to just say something that in retrospect and it comes out, you'll be like, “Jonny saw the future!” 

SASHA We’ve given the game away. 

JONNY We have now. Sorry. Sorry, everyone. 

SASHA What we can spoil now is that it’ll be a fun chat. JONNY It’ll be a great time all round. So until then—

BOTH Bye! 

[Outro theme plays.]