Transcription - Social Links - Links to projects
In this episode, we are joined by James Introcaso creator of the Burn Bryte RPG. James gives us some professional insight on working on several projects at once, the joys of collaboration, and the creates an NPC for you to use in your games that is fleeing from Giant Space Squids!
You can find Phoenix Dawn Command here: https://www.phoenixdawncommand.com
Be sure to head on over to www.thebardpodcast.com to check out our other shows, tabletop products, and some sweet merch!
Guest Links:
https://www.burnbryte.com/
https://worldbuilderblog.me/
https://twitter.com/JamesIntrocaso
http://www.jamesintrocaso.com/
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=James%20Introcaso
https://dontsplitthepodcastnetwork.com/
https://dontsplitthepodcastnetwork.com/table-top-babble
https://www.podchaser.com/creators/james-introcaso-107a4XhxEn
TRANSCRIPTION
Devin: [00:00:00] Hey friends, Devin again for the Bardic Babble podcast. The show where we interview creators about the things that they create. On today's episode, we have the creator of the Burn Bryte RPG, a fellow podcaster, and a Dungeons and dragons, fifth edition collaborator, James Introcaso and be sure to stay tuned towards the end.
James and I worked through another character building exercise. And this one has James building a character with a fossilized dragon egg in their pockets. Okay. I wonder what he's going to do with it. So stay tuned. [ad break]
On today's episode, we have a fellow podcaster, an award winning tabletop game designer, and an Emmy nominee. Joining me today I have James Introcaso. How are you doing today, James?
James: [00:01:26] Hey. Hey, I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me here. I'm really excited Devin.
Devin: [00:01:31] For those of us listening in that might not know exactly who you are. Can you just give us a, a quick introduction?
James: [00:01:39] So my name is James Introcaso and I am a blogger and podcaster. And game designer, I've written seven hardcover books with wizards of the coast. I shouldn't say I've written them. I contributed to them. I wrote some of the things for them, but many people work on those books to get them out on time.
And that sort of thing. I have an original role playing game that just came out called the Burn Bryte, and I have a blog worldbuilderblog.com that won an ENnie, a couple of years ago. And I also am one of the cofounders of The Don't Split the Podcast Network, which is a podcast network that is actually going to be going away at the end of December because I do too much game design stuff and can't run a podcast network anymore.
Devin: [00:02:28] That's really unfortunate. Unfortunately, it does happen.
James: [00:02:31] It does. It does indeed.
Devin: [00:02:33] So James, as you know, uh, I wanted to chat specifically about Burn Bryte, uh, the new RPG that you've created. So can you just kind of dive right into that and, uh, tell us a little bit about it.
James: [00:02:44] Yeah. So Burn Bryte is an original science fantasy role playing game that was built for the Roll20 platform.
So Roll20. Is the publisher on this, right? Like they commissioned me and three other designers, Jim McClory, Cat Cool and Darcy Ross to all work on this together with them. And the idea is that. You know, it's a, it's a role playing game that you can play at the table without Roll20, probably you still need Roll20 to access the rules and everything like that.
Um, but it is totally possible to be played in a physical space without Roll20, other than using it as a book to look up the rules. However, Roll20 does make the game a lot easier. Some of the mechanics and that's kind of thing. It facilitates you playing the game. The game relies a lot on maps. It plays to Roll20 strengths because it was designed for them.
So the idea behind this, the game, right, is that it is a science fantasy game that takes place in the last galaxy in existence. So there is this phenomenon that has been going around, uh, basically closing in slowly on this slide galaxy in existence, it's called the burn, this bright orange sort of Borealis effect.
That as it touch is things they disappear and are never seen or heard from again. So as planets disappear beyond the burn or spaceships or people, um, that's it, they like blink out of existence. So your galaxy, the Alexis galaxy is the last galaxy in existence. And right now what's happening, right? Is there are all these displaced people, right?
All the people who were at the edge of the galaxy, this thing, the burn has already started coming in and devouring, planets, and peoples and things like that. So many people have fled the burn and now they have nowhere to go, right? Resources are getting scarce now. So people are terrified of what is going to.
Become of then and their, their livelihood and everything else as, uh, as the burn continues to, uh, you know, devour planets that are food sources or have a lot of minerals that they need or that kind of thing. Meanwhile, there are like greedy corporations that are taking advantage of people's panic and jacking up the prices for things.
And, uh, you know, reserving spots at the center of the universe, which is the most desirable place to be. Cause it's the last to go. Right? Um, they, uh, there are Wars being fought over the center of the universe because of that. So that is the idea. It sounds like a really bad place. Right. But, but inBurn Bryte, you play heroes.
Who are there to save people just because it's the end of the world is no reason to start acting like a jerk. It's no reason to stop caring about other people. And so the idea in Burn Bryte is like being kind and having hope in the face of the impossible and insurmountable odds. Um, so that is sort of the, the basic elevator pitch for Burn Bryte.
Devin: [00:06:00] Is there a magic system at the heart of Burn Bryte.
So that's
James: [00:06:04] a great question. So at the heart of Burn Bryte, it's a skill based system. Um, so Burn Bryte does have magic, right? It's a, it's a science fantasy setting and magic powers technology and spaceships. And, uh, there are majors that perform like rituals.
That's kind of how most spell casting is done is through like complicated rituals. Uh, so there isn't a lot of what we would think of as like D&D sort of instantaneous spell casting that immediately happens. And there's a ball of fire or something like that. Um, there is like a bunch of people getting around a spaceship and waving their hands around and chanting and, and, uh, having different spell components to imbue that spaceship with magical power to make it work right.
That's sort of where the magic comes from. Uh, in Burn Bryte, uh, everything, your character has 18 skills. And when you have to overcome an obstacle, you use your skills to overcome them and unlike other role playing games, right where, so if, if we're playing D&D and we have a pit and I say, Hey, you've got to cross this pit, right.
Make an athletics check to jump across. Instead in Burn Bryte, we let the players pick the skill they want to use. And so every skill has a die size associated with it, right? Uh,
the bigger that dye, the more sides it has, the more skilled you are in that area, the better you are with the skill, the more likely you are to succeed. Right. So if you have a D 12 skill, you're really awesome with it. You can't be anything better if you have a D4 , you're probably like not great with it. And so then what happens is you tell the DM, I would like to cross this, this pit using my athletic skill or.
I'd like to cross this pit using my engineering skills, right. I'm going to figure out where I can kick off the wall. Uh, like if, if you're in a, in a chamber, right. And you picture this pit, uh, there's a wall on the side, I'm going to figure out where I can kick off the wall using my engineering skills so that I sort of double jump across or I'm going to use my melee skill.
And hit my Sonic weapon on the ground so hard that I'm able to ride the sound waves across the pit. Right. And real Gonzo stuff, if you want to get into it. And so the idea of that is that you, then you pick the skill, right? And then your GM sets a complexity for that skill complexity. It could be as low as two could be as high as seven.
It's usually two, three or four. And then they, you roll that number of dice, right? And you roll the, the kind of dice that your skill has. So if you have it, the 12 skill and the complexity is three year old, 3d 12, and then you look at the result. If you have any matches on your die, if you roll any doubles or triples or anything like that, you fail the skill, otherwise you succeed.
So that's sort of the basic mechanics at the heart of Burn Bryte is, is skill-based. And letting really letting the players try to justify to the GM the skills that they want to use.
Devin: [00:09:13] Very cool. So how long was development on, on Burn Bryte?
James: [00:09:18] It was over three years. Um, so Roll20 came to me, I guess, in the middle of 2016.
And we started sort of coming up with ideas for what it could be Roll20 already had a lot of other games on their platform. But they wanted to get into doing their own thing. Kind of like how Netflix right. Has when they started, they had like everybody else's programming and then they started to get into their own original content, Roll20 to sort of dip their toe in the same thing and see like, what can we do here?
Is there a space we can fill. We, we really like science fantasy and science fiction, what can be done. Uh, and I had already worked with them in the past on some other things. And so they contacted me to help work with them on that. Uh, and then, you know, we, it took us about a year or so to put together a system and we, that whole time were play-testing internally.
And then we had another longer playtest with Roll20 pro and plus subscribers. And they gave us feedback. And then we went back in and really revamped a whole bunch of things based on their feedback. So, yeah, it was, it was a over three year process, all told.
Devin: [00:10:29] So did Roll20, give you guys like a, a pitch deck.
Did they say they wanted Sci-fi with elements of fantasy, specific dice components, something original, or were you and your team really. Left to your own devices and, you know, just checking in with them on occasion for updates and such.
James: [00:10:51] So it was, or the latter, we did have a meeting with Roll20 CEO where they said we'd really like to.
Do something with science fiction. And that was basically it. He didn't have an idea for what he wanted to do. He wanted to leave it open for, for us to, uh, to come in with ideas and stuff. And so we came up with that idea and we, you know, we were pitching along the way, some things like, Hey, what do you think of this story?
What do you think of this? And so that was how the process went.
Devin: [00:11:18] Very cool. So let's circle back on Burn Bryte and just a little bit other than. Developing Burn Bryte. You've got your hands in a bunch of other projects. You've got the podcast, the podcast network. You have the world builder blog. I also hear you do a lot in, in television and television and film.
James: [00:11:39] Yes. Yeah. So I, uh, I'm a. Promo writer and producer for TV. And actually I also occasionally write and just started doing some narration for some sciency type shows. Yeah. So I do that. I'm also a DMS Guild adept. Uh, I just started writing a Zweihander book, um, which is like more grim, dark. Medieval fantasy RPG.
Um, so I'm, I'm always doing a lot of different things. Uh, so it's, it's fun. I really like writing. So I usually end up doing a lot of different stuff.
Devin: [00:12:13] So how do you, how do you keep all of these, these projects and wearing all of these different hats in, in balance? What is your. What is your process for balancing all of these different projects at any one given time?
James: [00:12:27] Yeah, so I, I'm very fortunate and, and lucky because I am able to do a lot of this work full time because I'm freelance. Right. So I worked for at national geographic. For a long time when I was getting started in the RPG world. And then I went freelance and now I work with other people writing and producing commercials for them.
But I can also to sort of balance my schedule. Right. I can look at my schedule and say how much TV stuff do I want to have, how much RPG stuff do I want to have. And I can juggle that around and shift things around some I'm really very fortunate that I have found a career in the gig economy that works for me and is flexible.
Right. Um, so that's one part of it. The other part that for me, it works right now is I don't have any, I don't have any children. Um, so, so I don't have, you know, parents that is like another full time job on top of what people are doing. So anyone who is a parent, my hat is off to you. You're continuing the human race.
Kids are amazing. And, and you are awesome. Right. But me personally, I don't have any kids. So that also affords me a lot of time. And a big part of my life is playing games, right? Like when you write games, you should be playing them because it helps you understand them better. And I am fortunate enough to have a partner who really enjoys playing games too.
So I, a lot of this is, you know, that, that I am lucky and privileged in many ways. And so I'm able to do that. The other thing is when I first started doing this, I did a lot of working very long hours, working on weekends, working at nights, getting very little sleep. And I do not recommend that because you're not, uh, like you're, you're getting a lot done.
When you do that, but it's not necessarily happy. Right. So, you know, I, I always recommend that people sort of work at the pace that, that works for them. And it took me a while to figure out the balance, but I did make figuring out the balance of priority because I, I like seeing my friends and family too, and I don't want to be cramped over a keyboard all day doing stuff like that.
So for me, you know, a lot of it is I wanted to figure out how I could break off on my own. I made a business plan and then I did it. So that I would have the free time to focus on all the things I wanted to focus on. Um, so, and I recommend people, you know, look at that. And if you are in a career where you can go freelance, because you want to be able to focus on some other things, make like a smart plan and, and, you know, uh, do what works for you and, uh, and enact it, but like take the time, do research, talk to other freelancers and see what you can do.
Devin: [00:15:07] I really liked that the, you need to. Consume the products, the things that you want to create, I myself listen to a lot of podcasts and that helped me get better at interviewing. What would you say is your favorite off the beaten path RPG or game?
James: [00:15:24] Ooh, you know, there are a lot, but one of my favorites is a game called Phoenix Dawn command.
And, uh, it's a game by Keith Baker, who is the creator of the Eberron on campaign setting. And he released this game that, you know, it's like a medieval fantasy type game. It's a role playing game that you play with decks of cards and all the cards you need to play are included in the set. And what's really cool about it is.
You play a heroic character who has, you know, some magic powers imbued in them, but you level up by dying, right? And you only have seven lives. So every time you die, you get closer to the end of your story. But you're also getting more powerful. So there's this interesting tension as you're playing the game, right?
And, and scenarios in the game are designed to be very hard because the expectation is that you will die and you will have moments where you heroically sacrifice yourself. So the rest of your party can live and get away. And that kind of thing, it is a really, really great game that, uh, I, I wish more people would check out, uh, so that I had more people to play.
It's called Phoenix, Dawn command.
Devin: [00:16:38] I will be sure to link that in the show notes so everybody can check that out. It sounds awesome. Have you, have you personally had the. The opportunity of working with Keith at all.
James: [00:16:51] I did actually get the opportunity to work with Keith. I contributed to everyone run rising from the last war.
And so I got to work with Keith A. Little bit in that I had, you know, like basically got to ask him questions that he responded to and that kind of thing. He's also, I've interviewed him before and, uh, and, and chatted with him at conventions and stuff. He's a very, very. Lovely brilliant creative guy.
Devin: [00:17:14] So now let's just, let's jump into a time machine and go back a little bit.
How did you get your start for writing for wizards of the coast and in Dungeons and dragons specifically.
James: [00:17:26] I started podcasting during the D&D next playtest right, because there weren't that many D&D podcast, if you can believe it or not. And there weren't that many people really talking about the news.
There was one show called the Tome Show. It did a lot of D&D news and interviews and stuff. And so I wanted to know more about the playtest. I wanted to consume everything I could. And so I got in touch with Jeff Greiner and I said, Jeff, I have this idea for a show, you know, can you give me any advice?
It would be a weekly news show where we had a panel discussion about the, the D&D next play test stuff and whatever other D&D news came up. And he said, would you like to do your show here on my established show that already has an audience and people listening to it? And I said, Holy moly. Yes.
Thank you. That is very generous. And it was very generous of him to put me in front of his audience that he had spent at that point 10 years sort of building up and creating. And so I was on that show and I thought. I've always wanted to design, right. I've always wanted to write stuff. And now I have this audience that I can point to another thing.
So I pointed them towards a blog that I started that was started as like, this is what my home brew world is going to be when 15, it comes out, it is very much changed. And even the, the world I played yeah. Has changed a lot since then. Now it's about game design advice and kind of whatever in the industry, I feel like writing about.
But that's how it started. And I had a lot of fifth edition D&D creations on there. Right? Cause it was for a fifth edition D&D world. So monsters that I was going to put in my world and, you know, feets and spells and magic items and things like that. And when the DMS Guild came about, I said, Oh, this is a great chance for me.
I have all this stuff on my blog that I've created. What if I move it over to the DMS Guild? I know that Wotc said they're going to be looking for writers there. Right now I have an advantage because I have things that are written, right. Um, other people are probably just starting to write, I could get this up fast and while there's not much stuff in there, so I could make a, make a splash, maybe a little bit.
Right. And that's what I did. And that stuff that I put on there took off and was noticed. And I'm fortunate because if I did that today, The quality, like I basically put up Word documents that I had turned into PDFs right now. The, the quality of DMS Guild stuff has risen. The quality of my own stuff has risen to a, but it would never be noticed today if I, if I had put it up, you know, now that the DMS Guild has been around for four years.
So, but then it was noticed and, uh, and that got me some gigs working with the Adventurers League. And then from working with the adventures league, I got a message one day from Chris Perkins that said, Hey, you know, do you have anything that I could look at? I've been talking to some people and your name came up.
And I was like, uh, yeah, here's the latest, Adventurous League adventure that I wrote. And he took a look and then he said, would you like to come work on this book? And I said, yes. And that book turned out to be Dragon Heist. So that was the first, uh, Wizards of the coast hard cover that I worked on.
Devin: [00:20:32] Very cool. Very cool. So how many total credits do you think you have now between your personal works? D&D Kobold Press, everywhere that you, you work? How many credits do you think you've accumulated?
James: [00:20:44] Oh boy. So I know that on the DMS Guild I have over 40 and then, you know, so, so if we're counting DMS Guild stuff, I have easily in the, I think sixties credits probably.
Because then I've got, yeah, I've got a couple with Kobold Press got a bunch with, so I did this the other day cause I had a resume. So I'm going to, I'm going to pull it up here while I'm talking to you. So, yeah, it looks like I have about eight 80 credits. So, uh, yeah, because I, I do, you know, a credit and we should be clear, right?
Like this is not me writing a whole book all the time. Sometimes it is me writing, you know, like a, a 30 pager or something longer. Um, but oftentimes it's me contributing several thousand words to a project that might be much, much larger than that. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's a, I've got a, got a lot of credits there.
Devin: [00:21:35] When you were a kid. Did you ever foresee yourself working in, in tabletop RPGs and game design, maybe when you were in college, where specifically setting a path for yourself, or was it one of those things you just kind of, you picked it up one day, you fell in love with it, and here you are.
James: [00:21:52] It's something that I always wanted to do, and I never knew how to go about it.
Right. So when I was a kid playing games, I really wanted to do it. And I even designed, uh, I like hacked some systems to create other games. You know, I created a, a modern role playing game with a hack of a game called the fantasy trip. That was sort of GURPS precursor that I used to play as a kid. And a, and I created a Legacy of Kain.
3rd edition D&D hack one point. Um, so there, there were things that I was working on, even as a kid, I'm sure if I went back and found them, I'd be like, Oh no, these are awful. But, so that was always part of it. And in college I used to. Try to get internships with wizards of the coast.
And I was a kid who lived in New Jersey and I was like, I don't know what they're going to do. If they take my resume, I have no idea how I'm going to get to or live in Seattle. Right. But I was determined and I applied every time an internship came up and I like, they never even called me. I think probably because they saw my address was in New Jersey and they were like, what is this?
This kid can have an unpaid internship here and will never work. And so I had thought about it for a long, long time and, and always wanted to get into it. And, uh, and then, you know, I never had any idea. I pitched to Dungeon and Dragon magazine a couple of times when those were still a thing. And I was always rejected.
I wrote some writing tests for the adventures league and I got rejected there. So I had a lot of rejections before I actually ever did anything. And the way I did it was by. Doing it on my own. Right? Like, like I blogged and that's how I started to get recognition was like, Hey, I'm, I'm just going to put my ideas out here, see what people think and share them on forums and social media and Facebook groups, things like that.
And, and then that is how I was able to kind of get out there. So everybody's got a different, especially this day and age, right? There's so many different platforms and ways to share. What you want to do and what you're working on that I think everybody's got a very different path.
Devin: [00:23:59] Yeah. And it's, it's interesting how, and I don't want to use the word saturated, but how big the industry has gotten, you have, uh, itch.io, the DMS Guild, DrivethruRPG and stuff like that.
It's cool that you got to get into the, uh, into the market when, when you did. Now speaking specifically to collaboration, you've gotten to work with some of the biggest names in the industry. You mentioned Perkins, you mentioned Baker, who are some of the other Titans, uh, that you've gotten to work with in, in the industry.
James: [00:24:36] I worked with Jeremy Crawford. I worked with Adam Lee. Who, uh, was the lead on descent into Averness and he's not like as active on social media necessarily as the other guys are, but he is a great dude and, and does a lot over there. I've worked with, I worked with Kate Welch, uh, when I worked on Ghosts of Salt Marsh, I worked with Wesley Schneider on Mythic Odysseys of Therros. So all of those guys I've worked with and I really enjoyed working with, I think are great people and great humans. I've worked with Chris Lindsey a lot. I've worked with, I'm working with Daniel D. Fox right now. So he's the Zweihänder guy I've worked with Matt Mercer.
Cause I worked on the Explorer's guide to Wildemount. I worked with and I'm currently working with Matt Colevile of MCDM productions. So, so those are some folks that I have. I've game designed some stuff with you'll notice that all of those names are, are white dudes. And so hopefully the industry is going to change a little bit and we'll see that there are big names who are not just CIS straight white dudes.
Right? Well, they're not all straight white dudes, but, but they're all CIS white dudes.
Devin: [00:25:52] With all of the changes and more diverse members of the community coming forward, especially in the Twitter sphere. Is there anyone specific that you would, you would like to work with in the future?
James: [00:26:06] Yes, definitely. And there's people I have collaborated with who I think are great as, as well.
Like, you know, I, when I think about Titans, right? I'm thinking about the people with like thousands and thousands and thousands of Twitter followers and people who do this kind of full time. So, Oh, I've worked with Tanya Depass, who I would say is a Titan and is incredible. Uh, she is, she is great, you know, and I've gotten to work with great people who I think will have very big names and, and already have rising stars, McKenzie Dayermas, Lisa Penrose, Celeste Conawhich.
I'm working with Jen Vaughn, Gabe James, who is a rising star right now, uh, Gabe Haris. He is amazing, really, really incredible writer, TK Johnson. These are all people that I am super privileged to work with. Jess. Ross is a, is another person who I'm excited about. There are people who I want to work with too, who I haven't gotten to yet.
Chris Spivey is somebody I would aspire to, to work with and to design, like he wrote Harlem Unbound, which is just this amazing system, really, really well written book and is just a great, great human as well. That, that I would really. Like to work with Daniel Kwan, Collete Quach, Allie Bustian. So, yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of names of a lot of people that I want to work with and, and I'm trying to, uh, have reached out to, and that sort of thing.
So I would say, uh, RPG Twitter is a place that is becoming more and more diverse by the day. And people should really go check that out. There's been a zillion lists in the last month of diverse and amazing game designers and podcasters and dice makers and other people that you can, uh, can go and follow.
You know, all you gotta do is do a little Googling and you'll find some great lists.
Devin: [00:28:08] Awesome. That's a good list of names. I will add as many of them as I can to the show notes. Without getting too heavy now to kind of stay on the same foot with a collaboration. I have two kids who one day I aspire to bring into gaming as a hobby and, you know, potentially have them see, you know, the more business side of game design.
And you did the inverse of that. You brought your, your dad in.
James: [00:28:42] That's right. That's right. I brought a man child instead of a child, so yeah. Yeah. I have a project that I'm working on finishing up right now called My Dad's Monster Manual. This project was his, so my dad has a very active imagination. And so this project was me taking the art from the monster manual and putting it in front of my dad.
And saying, what do you think this creature? Right? Like we would just look at the picture, no name, nothing else, no stat block, anything like that. And he doesn't know D&D very well. And I would say, what do you think this creature does? What do you think it like it's lore is what are, what are its habits?
Where does it live? What does it want? And what do you think the creature's name is? Right. And I would write these things that he would say down, I was recording our sessions and then I would go back and do a writeup and a stat block for the creature in the style of the monster manual. And I've been sharing them on my blog world builder, blog.com for a little bit and on Patreon and stuff.
And it's been a lot of fun. It was really, really fun to write something with my dad and, and work with him. Not every creature in the monster manual will be there. One, because like my dad knows what a dragon is. Right. If he looks at a dragon, he's going to say that's dragon. He's a, he's not a D&D guy, but he is a fantasy guy.
So there are some things he knows, like, you know, orcs and that sort of thing. Then some other things get cut. Cause he guessed exactly what they are. Right? Like you look at a Magmanand you pretty much know what a Magman is about. Right. It's, it's a fiery little creature that loves to set things on fire.
And so he got that one right on the nose. And then the other thing is like, you can only look at so many Slaads and come up with so many stories. Right? So like I did one Sladdi with my dad, I didn't do every single Sladdi because it would have been like, Oh, that's like what I said before, but this one's blue.
So, you know, that was, that was kind of the idea. So it's going to end up being between like 80 and 90 creatures when all is said and done and, and it will be out on the DMS Guild, uh, hopefully within the next couple of months. So the plan is to make it like a print product so people can have it on their shelves.
But yeah, it's, it was so much fun working with my dad and my dad is really excited. He asked me about it whenever I talked to him on the phone or see him.
Devin: [00:31:10] Now, did you guys bond over a lot of the early Sci-fi? Maybe some. Uh, fantasies, Star Wars, Tolkien, anything, anything like that when you were younger?
James: [00:31:22] Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, my dad is read the Hobbit to me out loud when, when I was a kid and he never, he never played D&D with me as a kid, he actually has once now an adult, but he was always encouraging of it. He was never, my parents were never worried about Satanism or anything like that. And my mom would always be like, well, you know, like, You could be going out and doing drugs or something like that.
So I'm glad to know you're in the basement with all your weirdo friends playing your elf games. Right. And so that was always a thing that he encouraged and he liked to talk about it, like would say like, Hey, what's going on? And he definitely did like fantastic movies. Right. And, and novels really loved Stephen King and, and genre and stuff.
My dad was never a big sports guy still is not. And I think as a result, I am not a big sports person either. You know, I don't really follow any sports teams or anything like that. So, so that was big part of it. Gaming was never a big part of his life, but genre fiction and films and things like that absolutely were, and he loved to share them.
Devin: [00:32:33] Very nice. Have you gotten him to come around to, to gaming as a whole? Do you guys do any. Any longterm sessions, one shots when he's over for Thanksgiving or anything like that now?
James: [00:32:45] Yeah. Yeah. So we did, I did run the beginning of The Lost Mines of Phandelver for him and I think he probably would play again, but I don't know.
So I played like with him and my mom and my sister, and I don't know about my mom and my sister having as much of an interest in playing it again. So I would like to get him. Again to play. And I think if we were going to play again, I would probably pick something that is a little simpler to understand and lets people rely on their imagination more.
Cause he really wanted to think outside the box. Right. So something like, like a powered by the apocalypse game I think would actually be right up my father's alley.
Devin: [00:33:26] Now to kind of just round us out on the business side of, of game design and the things you do specifically, is there a piece of advice that you would like to bestow on the new wave of content creators?
The pandemic made it more accessible for people to get into game design, podcasting, blogging, people found an ample amount of time to get into these things. So, what is one piece of advice that you, you would bestow upon these new content creators?
James: [00:33:57] Yeah, so I think the biggest thing, one of the biggest things you can do is to write everything I do is kind of the creative.
And I think, you know, this Devin, cause you know, you, you make podcasts. I think one of the most important things is whether you are working with someone else or whether you are doing it on your own, you need to make sure you're giving yourself deadlines to do right. Like I hear, I always hear this advice of like, go make the thing, do the thing.
And I think that's good advice. What's hard about that is like, it doesn't really say anything, right? Like if, if everybody knew how to make a game, they would. So, so you need to know how to start. You need to know how to do your research and that kind of thing. But giving yourself a deadline, I think is also important because perfect is the enemy of done, right?
And so like, things are done because Hey, the deadline is up and, and, and we need to put it out now. Very rarely do we spend the time to say, like, this is now perfect. And can go out into the world, goes out into the world because you want people to hear it because you want people to consume it because you need to get paid for it.
Um, so like games, I could still be tinkering with Burn Bryte. I easily, easily still tinker with Burn Bryte. I could still be tinkering with Dragon Heist or my very first blog post. Even I could still be tinkering with. Because I'm sure there are things that I would change or that are imperfect, or that could be approached in a different way.
And I want to try it to see what that would look like and giving yourself the deadline means that you'll actually get those things done and you, people will want to work with you more because you hit your deadlines. You'll build your audience faster because you're putting out content on a consistent rate.
If you're doing it for yourself, right. And so giving yourself deadlines, sticking to those deadlines, that's really good. And also making those deadlines manageable, right? Like, yes, putting out a blog post or a podcast every single day or even every single week is great. If you can do those things, I can't put out a blog post or a podcast every single day.
I barely get them out once a week, right. And so it's important to say. I'm going to set a deadline and it's going to be something that I can meet. And that way I'm going to have my rear end gear about getting this out there. And again, if you're, it's good to have some way to hold yourself accountable. So having a blog and your blog readers expecting every Thursday, you're going to have a post for them or every other Thursday or the first Thursday of every month.
Whatever schedule you decide is really, really important in keeping yourself. Making content and getting it out.
Devin: [00:36:44] I can't even begin to imagine a one a day podcast release schedule that just, that just gives me anxiety thinking about it.
James: [00:36:53] It really does. Right? Like, I, I look at people who do like, you know, like newsy or politicsy podcasts, right.
Who come out five days a week. And I just, who my hat is off to those people. But usually that is their job. Like their full time job doing that. So, you know, that's, that's a different story.
Devin: [00:37:13] Are you good to do the character creation exercise real fast?
James: [00:37:18] Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. And then for you and the listener, if this is the first exposure you have to this exercise, I'm just going to run it down real fast.
Devin: [00:37:27] Essentially what we do is we provide the guests on our show, a backpack, a proverbial pack of items, traits, tools that they will then build a character out of. And then through the items that they are given, they flush out this character, a setting around the character and a plot to move that character through that setting.
It's simple. It's great. It's a lot of fun. We got to do it on one other episode with Gabriel Hicks, highly suggest going, checking that out. But for this one, we have pre drawn the items for James and I'm going to list those out real fast for him. All right. And in this first pack, we have a singular fossilized dragon egg, a pair of runners gloves, a camouflage Cape, a trespasser, which is a key or a device that allows the user to access locked areas.
And our character's trait is they are a nervous around the opposite sex. So do you need a couple of minutes there, James?
James: [00:38:33] I feel, I feel good. Let's uh, let's jump into this. I'm I'm ready.
Devin: [00:38:37] Alright. Let's get at it.
James: [00:38:39] Okay. So I think here, here's my thought here, right? We've got this fossilized dragon egg, we've got runners gloves, which to me is like a very sort of, uh, almost modern type thing to, to have.
And it feels very like steam punky that you're wearing gloves while you're running. Right. And a camouflage Cape, a trespasser key, and someone who is nervous around the opposite sex and stuff. So for me, I I'm picturing a character. And my thought is that she is in a post, the apocalyptic world. Where's something I'm going, let's say like these, these giant space, squid creatures came.
And destroyed like a fantasy world where there were dragons and L and things like that. But this is the poster pocket elliptic fantasy. Now we're in, sort of horror world after these giant space squids have taken over. And so she is a, a runner, right? Most of the survivors live in bunkers underneath the earth.
But they need people to go out and get the supplies that they need. And so she is one of these runners and she goes, that's why she's got her camouflage Cape and her trespasser key. Right. It helps her move through the, the surface world where the space squids are still like hanging out in the sky, watching things.
And they have minions, right? If a space squid touches someone with one of their tentacles. They serve the space squids. They had sort of like Zomba, fication and mind control. And so she uses it, these things to, uh, to run through, you know, ruined buildings, all this ancient fantasy world that has collapsed the fossilized dragon egg is one of her pressures because Dragon's like stood the best chance of fighting these space squids.
And she's hoping that maybe she can. Use some magic to this egg catch a dragon and maybe bring back a dragon to help fight off the space squids. And that's like a hopeful thing that she has that she doesn't really tell anyone, but cause everybody else is kind of like, this is how the world is now. There, there is no hope.
Here you go out there. You find supplies, you bring them back, you deliver supplies to people. That's, that's how this works. Right. But she is always when she is out on a mission or running, looking for texts, tomes ways that, you know, research that she might use to turn back this giant space, squid threat, and she fears the opposite sex because she, actually was raised in a bunker that had only women in it.
She's never really interacted with men. Before. And so whenever she meets a man, it is like, Whoa, what is this person? What is this creature that I have never really interacted with someone like this before? So that is, uh, her reasoning for fearing the, a, the opposite sex. So, yeah, so that I think is our, and we got to give this character a name, obviously.
Right? So I'm going to say. Her name is going to be apropos of nothing. We'll say it's Lucinda.
Devin: [00:42:12] Awesome. I love it. Have you ever read the Dragonriders of Pern series by, uh, Anne McCaffrey?
James: [00:42:20] .Oh no, I have not.
Devin: [00:42:22] They're a fascinating little story. I highly enjoyed them when I was younger. If you get a chance to circle back on them, there's a few books in that series.
James: [00:42:30] Yeah.
Devin: [00:42:30] Now I love listening in on that exercise. You could really feel that you were. Building on it as you went really gaining momentum and flexing those creative skills that you've honed over the years. And I hope the listeners at home, you know, got a little insight into, you know, the ease and expertise that, uh, you, you leveraged there to create that.
So now other than that amazing exercise, Where can we find you on social media?
James: [00:43:01] So, yeah. Yeah. I am on Twitter at James Introcas, uh, worldbuilderblog has a Facebook page and worldbuilderblog.com. I also own Jamesintrocaso.com where you can find more of like my TV work and stuff over there, as well as the role playing game work that I've done.
Devin: [00:43:20] Awesome. I will do, I will list all of those in the show notes so everybody can find you. And then what is the website we can find burn right on.
James: [00:43:30] So Burn Bryte.com. If you want to check out Burn Bryte or roll20.net, we'll also get you there. So, but yeah, Burn Bryte.com B R Y T E.
Devin: [00:43:39] Awesome. And thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about Burn Bryte, your past experiences, and just having a conversation with me.
Listeners. If you are not following James, I highly suggest you rectify that and head on over to Twitter and follow him there. He's a powerful force of good and doing a lot of great things for, for the industry.
James: [00:44:01] Thank you so much for having me Devin. And if you are not following Devin, you should, because this is a good human right here.
So thank you so so much for having me.
Bri: [00:44:12] Thank you for tuning into this episode of bardic babble. Bardic Babble is a part of the Bard podcast networks, family of shows. You can find bardic Babble and all of our other shows at thebardpodcast.com. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe for updates on new episodes.
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