Intro

It's finally happened! Cameron of Rise Heroes Rise! is on Goblin Points. It's been a long time coming. Too long some might say. We talk about running games, publishing them on YouTube, the Draw Steel community and Cameron's crowdfunder: It's Complicated!

I'm Jon de Nor and we're talking Draw Steel, the game where YouTubers and podcasters never miss.

Interview

Jon de Nor: Welcome to Goblin Points, Cameron!

Cameron Baker: Hello! Thank you for having me.

Jon de Nor: You're almost a person that needs no introduction. But still, we need an introduction. And also how you ended up in the Matt Colville/MCDM milieu.

Cameron Baker: Mm. Mhm. Well, I'm Cameron Baker. I run the Rise Heroes Rise! YouTube channel. And how did I get involved in the MCDM sphere? My gosh. It was...I've been trying to think about that. It was sometime between The Chain and Dusk, I think. Somewhere in between then it was, a running the game video that I watched...I don't remember specifically which one, but it was definitely one of those that got me hooked because I was already in, you know, running 5e a lot and needed advice. And, yeah, that just got hooked ever, ever since then.

Jon de Nor: We have to start off with your YouTube channel, Rise Heroes Rise!, the, should I say, the foremost Draw Steel actual play channel on YouTube?

Cameron Baker: There are other ones. There are other ones that are really good there. But, yeah, yeah, I suppose.

Jon de Nor: But you started running really early in development, didn't you?

Cameron Baker: Yeah. So I started running when they first released the kobold packet, like The Tower of Coins and Swords, that one.

Jon de Nor: Yeah. Yes. That sounds about right.

Cameron Baker: Yeah. Yeahm I ran that for, like, Renée and Gerard and a few others. And it never saw the light of day. And then I started the channel in earnest in November of 2024. With The Fall of Blackbottom, the very first version of it. And just started running weekly ever since then, or, you know, pretty close to weekly ever since then.

Jon de Nor: And sometimes multiple times a week. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Yes. Yeah, sometimes multiple times a week. Yes. I don't know how many I've run the most in a row. I think maybe four nights in a row I've done...? Or in a week, at least, in a seven day stretch, I've done, of Draw Steel. Yeah. Between an adventure that I was running or two and then some danger room episodes. Yeah. Some something like that.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah. Probably touch on that because you're both doing, like, small adventures that are a few episodes, I should say, or maybe like 3 to 6, 7, 8 episodes, but also you're doing the like one-offs that are just danger rooms. What's the...what makes you decide which to go for? Or rather, like, how do you end up doing either?

Cameron Baker: Usually when MCDM releases an adventure, I like to run those, because they're fun adventures. And if I'm being honest, they get clicks, right? They get attention. And I am always starved for attention. So I, you know, I'll run those, or a cool idea that I have, and those are kind of mandatory, right? And people like listening to stories. And then if there's a new class, or if there's a new feature with the Codex, I like running the danger room episodes because those are also fun, and they're relatively easier on, like, the workload and whatnot. They're easier to edit, they're easier to prep, and they're, you know, you can get a bunch of different people on there because it's not as long of a commitment as 4 or 6 weeks.

Jon de Nor: When you do edit the episodes down, do you always...because I've played in some of your games, at least, at this point.

Cameron Baker: Mm. Many.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, it might actually be many. (laughter) When you edit the episodes for YouTube, they don't necessarily correlate 1-to-1 with play sessions, do they.

Cameron Baker: No. No, not always. Sometimes the story should, you know, break when there's a good, like, cinematic moment, I think. And sometimes when I'm prepping, I'll have like certain chapters of the story, certain moments that I think, okay, this is probably when we should take a break from the session or whatever. And, you know, oftentimes, like with T.O.A.D.S., you took about three sessions to get through my first batch of notes, which, you know, happens all the time. But, you know, it was, I think, great stuff that we got to in between then.

But, yeah, then I edit them together when mostly just on vibes, but also my own personal taste of like, hey, I think this is when we need a break. This is when, this is the cliffhanger that I think we should leave people off on. Yeah. So it's not exactly one for one, no.

Jon de Nor: I've noticed you don't keep each episode a certain length either. It feels like you're don't necessarily pay much attention to how long an episode is. It just needs to be the right length, not necessarily a certain length.

Cameron Baker: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I know, if people are going to watch it, they're probably going to watch the whole thing, and it doesn't matter how long it's going to be, most of the time. But I do like 90-minute episodes. I like that length. But there's no need to get married to that specific amount of time. You can branch out. You can do, you know, different lengths, yeah.

'Cause some people do like, you know, 3-hour episodes, because they think, "Oh, wow, I'm getting a lot more this week than I did last week," or whatever. I don't know, I don't try to read the minds of the people who watch my channel. That would be terrifying.

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Cameron Baker: That would be just sickening. I don't know, I don't think I would get any sleep.

Jon de Nor: Speaking of branching out, I guess because you've been experiment with playing other games than Draw Steel on the channel, and you're planning to do more of that. I'm both wondering, what other games are you planning to include, and also why? (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Yeah. Well, I mean, so many different games, any game that really has a good thesis statement that has something that catches my eye. Doesn't have to be...like the Alien RPG, which I love running. It doesn't have to be something that's set in a particular world with an IP. It could be, anything like, I really want to run Huckleberry or Slugblasters. Those look really cool and unique. And they have their own genre unto themselves, kind of, you know? Or at least it's, you know, Huckleberry is a Western, and that's really cool to run in, right? Everyone has that sort of fantasy of being in a Western, having the saloon doors and, you know, meeting in the street at high noon, that kind of stuff. It'd be interesting to tell a story with that frame, with that kind of setting, you know?

Jon de Nor: Are the plans on running other games on your channel part of, like, a strategy to recruit, viewers from outside the Draw Steel community, whhich I suspect most of your audience is part of at the moment?

Cameron Baker: I would imagine that, yeah, they are. I don't think so, no, not really intentionally. A lot of these places, or a lot of these games, they don't have the same kind of...gosh, how do you...like a Discord server or a place to post these live plays. They don't have that anywhere to speak of. Like the Shadowdark one that you ran for the channel.

Cameron Baker: I was looking at the Shadowdark Discord server, or whatever the company is that makes it, Arcane Library or whatever.

Jon de Nor: Yes.

Cameron Baker: And it might have been my own ineptitude, but I couldn't find any place to actually post them. And so these other games don't really have those, those places other than the Alien RPG. I think I've found a Discord server that branches out. But it's not like a whole strategy. It's just, hey, I want to play these games, and I'd like to record them because I want a memory of them. So I think it'd be fun to post them on the channel, right?

Jon de Nor: Yeah, you talked a bit about that when I interviewed you for the Blacksmith's Guild.

Cameron Baker: Oh, really?

Jon de Nor: The previous issue that they did, we talked a bit about the fact that you started recording your games to keep them almost as a memory or...from your previous games. And at that time, I remember not thinking too much of it. And since then, I've gone back and watched some of the games that I were in that you recorded and posted on YouTube. And I totally get what you're saying now. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's at the very least a great memory to have, even if, like...I've run so many of these games, I can forget some of these moments. Watching it back is genuinely entertaining. And even just through the editing process. Again, the Shadowdark video, I was laughing so hard when playing it, when editing it, when watching it back again. It was such a joy. And I know in a few years when I watch it back again, I'll have that same experience. Yeah, it's definitely, definitely for that.

Jon de Nor: I actually remember thinking after, when watching — because you gave me a rough cut of the episode to watch — and I remember thinking, I totally forgot a lot of the time that the camera was there because I...I'm not usually in the videos. And I remember thinking, oh, man, I should have done more reactions, because you guys couldn't see me either. So I could have done a lot more with the camera as we were playing. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Yeah. I mean, you bring up a good point: when you forget the camera's there, that is the magic. That's when you hit your stride. Like those are always the best moments. Because you know, some people can be kind of camera-shy. At this point, I don't think I can be, really just through the nature of it. Or they're very nervous about, or self-conscious about, how they look when they're on the screen or how they sound and all that. And I had that horribly that at the beginning. I couldn't edit myself. But at this point I just, I don't know if it's ego or what it is, but I actually find, I actually enjoy it.

So, you know, again, that's a topic probably for, for my therapist, but, it's...(laughter)...but it's genuine fun. But those moments when you forget that you're recording, those are the best moments. Those are the best moments. Those are the, you wish that you could have those moments, you know, that it could be just that. But of course, you know, the logistics of it kind of prohibit that most of the time.

Jon de Nor: And speaking of recording, how...because you do play a bit, like, offline, or not on screen, I guess. How different are your not-recorded games versus your recorded games?

Cameron Baker: I'll be honest, I don't...I can't think of a non-recorded game. I think you...at least of Draw Steel, I think everyone has watched all of what I have run. With the exception of a couple, I think a couple of playtests that you were in. There...i's the same. It's just...I don't know, I feel like I'm much more performative when the camera's running, and that's...for better or worse, that is a reality. You know, I feel like I'm personally giving it a little bit more, and maybe some of the players are as well, but I think that's probably the big difference. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: Keeping on the recording track for a bit. Have you found that the equipment of the other players have posed any issues or made things more difficult than you maybe had wished? (laughter)

Cameron Baker: I mean, every so often, yeah. I mean, I edit out all the times that I say, "Hey, Jon, there's some background noise," or whoever, "Nomad, there's background noise," or whoever it is, you know, there's always someone. I cut those bits out. I've gotten to the point where I'm recording my own audio and the audio of the players on different channels, basically, so I can cut out the audio whenever I need to.

But yeah, I mean, it's those little moments here and there, but it's...mostly, mostly a non-issue. I would look into — I'd fight all the time with OBS, but I would look into, really, if you're planning to do it on your own, either running a software like what you use, or using, like, really studying how OBS works and how you can record on different channels and whatnot.

Jon de Nor: Because you're just recording — for the other players, you're just recording Discord directly, is that it?

Cameron Baker: That's correct. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: Yeah. Okay. They all get mixed into like one channel. You can't filter out individuals.

Cameron Baker: Yeah I know what you — the software you're using, that is probably not a sponsor so I won't say it, but the one that you're using is great because it's, you know, it records all of them individually. So I probably should use this, but, you know.

Jon de Nor: You've played on the Codex for almost as long as it has been available, I think.

Cameron Baker: I think, yeah. One of my players had it — got into a playtest and then like immediately referred me to it and then, yeah, it was, it was very early, very early in like January or February last year. 2025, yeah.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, that...wow. How has it been using the Codex for this long?

Cameron Baker: Ooh. It's been like a dream to be honest with you. I ran using Foundry, which I'm not a huge fan of. And I also ran using Fantasy Grounds, before Robin Baggett made their own module of it. And before there was a module, really, for Draw Steel in Foundry. And it has been so much easier. You have a great foundation with the Codex, even if it's not all the levels are implemented. And I don't have a great understanding or knowledge of how to code in the Codex. But I know that if you, you know, make a certain ability, it's really easy to implement some abilities and just, you know, crank up the numbers and dial whatever their characteristic scores are.

It's really easy, and it has the foundation of all the, how movement works, all that stuff. I feel like this is just now an advertisement for the Codex, but it is literally just so easy to run using it, because it just has that, you know, foundation level of...it understands how the game is played. Yeah. And it's also great for sound effects, like there's a lot less audio editing that I have to do. It's good. It's, you know, very easy to run for Draw Steel. Absolutely.

Jon de Nor: As a Director, that runs a lot on...or, I guess, only on a VTT when it comes to Draw Steel, I do have some questions from my patrons, as always. And one of the question is actually, if you have any tips when running, Draw Steel on a VTT. And I guess you kind of mentioned it, that the migration to the Codex helps with just having the system work with you instead of against you, I guess? (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Yeah, yeah.

Jon de Nor: But do you have any specific tips on how to prepare like a session or an adventure in a VTT?

Cameron Baker: Any tips? I'm not sure about any tips. Just trust the system. Trust the Codex. It knows the game better than you and everyone else at your table, and it's certainly smarter than I am. So, I don't know, it might be as smart as, some of your listeners, I'm not sure, but is...

Jon de Nor: We'll have to pitch it against Jonas Tintenseher. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: For sure. For sure. Yes. And if they're listening to this podcast, they're already very smart, so who knows? But it's just, yeah, just trust the code. They have wizards over there at DMHub who are, you know, who have made magic, basically.

Jon de Nor: Do you use any of the new features that have been introduced somewhat recently with, the journal stuff where you can prepare encounters and all that? Have you experimented at all with that? Or are you using some other technique?

Cameron Baker: No. Usually what I do — and I'm sure that's all very useful for if someone's running and they're not recording, but having the journal on the screen is difficult for the recording. And that's the only real reason. I've used it for one of the, when we tested the first batch of the Encounters book encounters, I used it for that. And it worked really, really well. Yeah, I could see myself using it, but it kind of gets in the way when I'm recording. And I usually just put my notes on a Word document and just read from there, usually, regardless. But from what I have used, really useful.

Jon de Nor: When you're running, you've both run, as you mentioned, official adventures that have been published by MCDM, and I think you've also run a few adventures that have been published by third parties. And if I'm not mistaken, you've also run an adventure you've just made yourself. Do you have any preference between them?

Cameron Baker: Well, they all have their own...hm. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. If I'm prepping an adventure myself, I know that story back to front. And I know what the real struggle is, and I know where I want the characters to eventually end up and which fights are going to be the biggest, you know, most cinematic moments.

So...and it's easier for me to adjust it midway through and say, okay, well, we're going to cut this bit from the adventure and we're just going to carry on here, because they've kind of already, you know, I don't want to repeat another story beat that they kind of already hit earlier, you know? And if I already know it, there's a lot less prep I have to do actually writing it down on the Word document.

Jon de Nor: Sure

Cameron Baker: Sure. And then you said, like, third-party ones. I want to run more third-party ones this year, because there are so many great ones that actually excite me. So with those ones, I have to read the whole thing, and I'm...again, I can't read, so it's difficult, but it's...you do have to kind of memorize it to a certain extent and have a good understanding of, like, what the story is first, before you implement it into the Codex to, you know, whatever degree I need to and all of that.

So you do have to learn the whole adventure, or in chunks. Which is alright, and many of the stories are worth digging into and they're fun to read. So, it's really just that difference of, how intimately do you know the adventure? And if you make up your own adventure, then, you know, very intimately, because it's your idea.

But yeah, there are some adventures that, like, The Great Thaw of Gryzmithrak Spire, that's such a fun adventure because it's a bunch of little kobolds running around, being crazy little cultists. And that's a really, really fun adventure, and inventive, and something that I wouldn't have thought of, I don't think. It's cool, and it's easier because they have fully realized a whole story. So you don't have to...a lot of it is, you know, when you're prepping your own story, you have to start...you've got to figure out what it is. You got to figure out what the bad guy is, all these things. And you can be inspired to make that stuff. But it is a lot easier if you can read something and say, okay, that's, I like what you're doing here. Thank you for prepping this whole thing for me, basically. Yeah, it's, I really enjoy that. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: This is probably going to be a difficult question, so I'm just going to preface it with that...it's coming from one of my patrons. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Uh-oh. Okay, okay.

Jon de Nor: Not to throw them under the bus. But is there an adventure that has been your favorite to run?

Cameron Baker: Oh. Mm. I like the ones...I like the ones that are...this is a difficult one. This is a difficult one to answer, because I like telling a story with my players. And I like it when everyone's having fun at the table. And when we hit story beats that come naturally, as opposed to ones that I have written down, or whatever...so The Delian Tomb had, for my money, the best ending, I think, we've had on the channel. It was just so much fun. And it was, a lot of it was just all of us riffing off each other in, that final session and certainly in the last 30 minutes or so, that of that final session, it was great. It was phenomenal, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

But I think the one that I've had the most fun as a Director was probably The Cave of High Weirdness, for kind of the same reasons. I would have nitpicked, you know, I can go back and I can nitpick, you know, all the encounters and you know, what the real motivation of the whole adventure was all day long. But that group playing together, and, you know, all the way through, it was like the ending of The Delian Tomb, but just the entire adventure. And so I really, I really enjoyed that. Yeah, probably The Cave of High Weirdness, yeah. And also because it was another original one that I thought was...that I'm actually proud of, the end boss and all that. I was pretty proud of that adventure.

Cameron Baker: Yeah.

Jon de Nor: Where did that adventure come from? I mean like, what was the inspiration behind that adventure?

Cameron Baker: Well — and spoilers, but — I like gelatinous cubes just fine. I like them just fine. They're perfectly fine monsters. But if you can put essentially an elder brain with tentacles in it inside the gelatinous cube, I mean, come on, just, you can't get any better than that. Actually, I lie. I should have put a crown on top of it. And then it would have been better. Yeah, that would have been — or a tiara, or something like that. Yeah, that's the only way that I would have improved that. The visual design of that final monster. And then the art, too, to back it up was incredible.

Jon de Nor: Did you commission art for that adventure? The maps?

Cameron Baker: Yes. Not the maps, that's all Cze and Peku and then someone else, I believe, for that first map. But yeah, Juliene Manzoli, who up to a certain point did a lot, or all of, the character art for a lot of the videos. She did just an amazing job on that one. I don't think she is in the tabletop RPG space. And so I throw a bunch of these weird ideas at her, and she nails it every time. So, yeah, a lot to her credit.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) But you've been you've been really good at commissioning art for, like, a lot of characters because that's all on you, isn't it?

Cameron Baker: Yes. It's all on me, yes. It's something that I think if you're not going to show the players' faces, you need to see what their character looks like. You need some kind of — you need a face to the voice. And I know that most of the players probably don't feel comfortable being on camera, and I get that. I totally understand that. Even when I started, I wasn't 100% comfortable on camera. But you do need that face, so you need art, and it needs to be good art. You know, it needs to be...it needs to be good art. And good art is also expensive, but it's totally worth it because you're employing someone and it's going to look really, really cool.

Jon de Nor: I have to say, it feels like you're making it both harder on yourself and also more expensive on yourself by having so many different characters. (laughter) Wouldn't it be easier to just have like a smaller cast of characters?

Cameron Baker: Yes, yes! Yes, it probably would have been easier, but I'm greedy, I'm greedy. I want all of these players at the table. Yeah, just having three people, that's not enough for me. I need more, I need more so you can bounce off each other and all that stuff. And, yeah, sure, it is expensive, but it's completely worth it, even if it's just a hobby. Even if, you know, the channel doesn't make any money on, you know, ads or whatever, it's totally worth it to look back and see that beautiful art of, like, Ild, your character from The Delian Tomb or, you know, and just, or Darzok from the same game, Robin's character and have that face to the to the voice. That's 100% important. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: I have to admit that having the character art informs so much of the character, too, just playing that character, because it gives me...when I see the art, some stuff just immediately snaps into focus, like, of course this is how their personality is or how they behave or how their etiquette is or whatever. That informs so much sometimes for how I feel like the character...who they are!

Cameron Baker: Yeah, that's the magic. You can come up with — for another adventure coming up soon, you know, everyone submitted their art, submitted their pitches for what their own character should look like. And they, you know, included examples of this actor, or whoever, this character, or other pieces of art. And that's all well and good. That unto itself, that looks really cool.

But once you actually get the first draft, the sketches, and then once they put, you know, shading and color and all that into it, that's when it really takes shape, and that's when the magic really happens. I think that's probably my favorite part of the whole process is getting the first bits of art and just seeing...and I'm like, okay, wow, this is going to be amazing. It's all coming together. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: You've used a lot of different monsters in your adventures. Have you had any Malice abilities that have been like a highlight of those adventures?

Cameron Baker: Sure. I am notorious for forgetting about Malice during a combat, because I'm not a tactical, tactically minded Director, really. And I know, hey, that's one of the pillars of the game, Draw Steel. But it's just, you know, that's not who I am. So I will often forget about my Malice. But, I love goblins. I love them because they're, you know, sneaky little guys. And so I love Swamp Stink, which is, you know, that's just fun. You get to fill the map with, like, you know, this green haze, and it stinks a lot. And I like that they're stinky little guys. I like that.

Jon de Nor: As a player, I really dislike that. (laughter) It's really annoying! (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Of course, of course. And that's the other half of it, is that it also annoys the players. And, you know, the Director supposed to do that. That's what Malice is for, right? It's to annoy the players, right? And then I like Goblin Mode because I like the idea of all the goblins with Scooby-Doo legs where they just, you know, turn into whirling dervishes, the bottom half of their bodies, and just running around. I like that. Yeah, I just like goblins.

Jon de Nor: You say that you're not really tactically minded. As someone who's run a lot of monsters, I want to ask you this, because I have a theory that while you might find other TTRPGs that are tactical, I think something that is...not necessarily unique, but that Draw Steel really promotes, is that the game doesn't only allow you to be tactical, but it kind of forces you to be because of how abilities are designed. Do you find that to be true for the monsters?

Cameron Baker: Oh, yeah, yeah. Just like the Codex is smarter than me, the game Draw Steel is smarter than I am about itself. Like it can basically run itself if you put the right monsters in there, it's very easy for those monsters to act tactically with or without you, with or without your input. (laughter) So yeah, for sure, I've found that. Multiple times. I ran a dwarven encounter for you in the game that I'm running now. And I saw a couple things, a couple things were like, oh, wait, oh, no, okay, yeah. These dwarves know how to be a dwarf better than I do. Probably because I'm not a dwarf, but yeah, and that's it. All the time that happens all the time.

Jon de Nor: I feel like I see this a lot for the hero abilities from the classes, that...for example, the Tactician is maybe the best example where some of their abilities are basically, "I do nothing, you do everything," where they just tell their allies to do the work for them. And I know that there are other games that do the same thing, specifically Fourth Edition with the Warlord class, or subclass, I guess. I don't actually remember or know.

Cameron Baker: It doesn't matter. Warlord. You could play a Warlord in there and then...and it did that.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah. But it feels like Draw Steel kind of turns the knob to 11, and goes full ham on...there's so many things that kind of rely on having allies to play off of, where abilities will...basically doesn't work if you don't include them.

Cameron Baker: Yeah, yeah. I think — I've played a Tactician in one game, and I built the whole character around them shouting at their allies and saying, "Hey, you do this, you do this, you do this." And I'm not sure if I had a real power roll, or a main action, I should say, that required a power roll attached to it. I think you can build an effective Tactician doing that, and it's still so much fun because you're giving a lot of people extra turns or extra actions and that kind of thing. Yeah, that kind of build could be really, really fun. Yeah. And it's the same as those monsters, right? You can be tactical by accident, or...it's actually kind of amazing, you know.

Jon de Nor: That almost sounds like a challenge because, Matt mentioned during the development of Draw Steel that they imagined a version of the Null that was based on only doing reactions. They basically didn't have their own turn. They only acted in reactions to other creatures. And now I'm thinking, is there like a subclass for the Tactician that is basically no power rolls? It's all just commanding.

Cameron Baker: That would be cool. Oh, you're getting my mind buzzing. Let me make a couple of notes here.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) I'm just thinking, you know, you put a few custom kits in there for them to choose from specifically that are more oriented towards commanding instead of attacking directly. I don't know, that actually sounds kind of fun.

Cameron Baker: You could even make it that their opportunity attack is not them attacking, it's someone else attacking. That'd be cool. I mean, Draw Steel is all about establishing a good foundation of rules and then just breaking those rules all the time. So yeah, you could do that It'd be really fun.

Jon de Nor: Maybe we should edit this out and keep it for ourselves. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Maybe, maybe, maybe. (chuckle)

Jon de Nor: But speaking of keeping things for ourselves, there is something that we should share, which you actually announced, like, a couple of hours before we started recording, which is that you're doing a crowdfunder pretty soon, actually, and it's already going when this episode goes out.

Cameron Baker: Yes. As of right now, the plan is, February 10th, we will launch or have launched. If you're listening to this, It's Complicated, which is a crowdfunder on Backerkit aiming to design and test and put into a PDF, 100 more complications for Draw Steel as a like, third-party document. And, yeah, make it, you know, make your characters even weirder and messier than they already are.

Jon de Nor: People always want more weird. That's been my experience. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Exactly, yes! "Make it weirder" is always my approach to things. Like that's how we how I came up with, you know, The Cave of High Weirdness. Yeah. Make it make it weirder, make it, you know, messier. And that's what we...that's what I'd like to do with It's Complicated if it funds, of course.

Already, on the cover, the amazing cover by Inge, we have, what, an orc with a tentacle arm that you can have...we have someone, another — I believe a hakaan, made of a strange translucent goop..and then we have another fella off to the side that has the Profile of the Chimera with the three chimera heads sprouting from their shoulders...and, you know, that's only the tip of the iceberg, I think, with how weird we want to get with it.

Jon de Nor: Well, it'll probably be in the description, but you're also recruiting people from the Draw Steel community to contribute parts of the...or, I assume, complications.

Cameron Baker: Yes! Yes. I want as many people to contribute as possible. I want, you know, this to sort of be...I want it to be basically everybody's project, you know what I mean? Like the community's project as well as, you know, putting the Rise Heroes Rise! stamp on it. I want it to be, like, everyone's contributed to it, and it's kind of their...everyone has their own signature attached to it.

Jon de Nor: This is kind of beside the...your specific crowdfunder, or maybe something about the Draw Steel community as a whole, or like the third-party community around Draw Steel. But I feel like there is a lot of that going around where there's a lot of collaborations.

Cameron Baker: Yeah.

Jon de Nor: And I don't know if I...it feels kind of unique to Draw Steel, at least to me. I'm not part of every TTRPG community, so I don't really know how common it is, but I feel like there's something, let's call it special, that's in the community where you end up with all these collaborations.

Cameron Baker: Oh, yeah. It's definitely special. It's great. I'm always, you know, I think a lot of the time with this kind of stuff, and even talking to other people outside of the community about it, they don't quite understand how close-knit this community is, how we're genuinely rooting for each other to do well with crowdfunders and whatnot. They see it as much more competitive, and maybe that's because that's what most of the industry is, right? But it really is like a very close-knit group of folks creating stuff. And, you know, obviously starts from the top down, from MCDM.

But then it also...a great font of inspiration is, you know, Jams of the Timescape doing such an amazing job — such an inspiration seeing all of those, for this latest one, all the ancestries. You can't escape, they're inescapable, the Jams of the Timescape. It's amazing. You know, folks fostering that kind of environment that gives me, who just basically does videos, it gives me just, you know, all the inspiration and confidence that I need to, you know, put out my silly little document. You know what I mean? That's, that's...it's genuinely inspiring to so many folks. And I can only really speak for myself, but I know it's a bunch of other people as well that are inspired by each and every new project. And, yeah. And it builds confidence as well that your project has hope, has legs, you know.

Jon de Nor: Jumping back to the videos you make, and we talked a bit about the huge ensemble of different characters that are being played in all of your adventures, but you also have quite a big, like, a roster of players that are kind of regulars in your game in different combinations. Where do those players come from? I mean, how did you end up recruiting them for your games?

Cameron Baker: Oh, God. I think I started in the MCDM community. I started looking for folks specifically for the first time I ran The Fall of Blackbottom, and then the next adventure that I ran, I looked for another crop of people, and some of them carried over. I think Renée and Gerard definitely carried over. And I found folks like TicTac and Nomad and some of the mainstays. And then I just look for people that are also creating, like Paul Ligorski, yourself, The Dice Society, you know, other folks in this community who know Draw Steel, you know, and then...yeah, that's kind ofm, that's kind of how I've found folks. Yeah. Just other people who are creative in the space, yeah.

I'll tell you, I haven't had, obviously, any real duds or problems, you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to call anyone a dud, right? But I haven't had anyone. I haven't had any problem players, really, by just going back to the MCDM well.

Jon de Nor: I feel like that says something about the community that MCDM fosters, especially in their Discord server. As someone who's the, organizer behind Jams of the Timescape, one of the organizers, inheriting the community from MCDM gives us so many, like, shortcuts. There were a discussion in the Jams Discord server just the other day, someone mentioning how great the community in there was. They came in completely fresh to publishing something, making homebrew and publishing it. And people were responding with feedback, with motivational...not speeches, but trying to motivate them. And they just mentioned that it was such a great community, and I kind of feel like we cheated and just kind of inherited people from MCDM? (laughter)

Cameron Baker: It does feel like cheating, doesn't it? It feels like very ethical cheating. It's great. But it, yeah, it really does feel like cheating. It feels like a cheat code has been unlocked, and even in the chats that I've been in with you and other folks in the community, other creators, it's unlike anything I've ever seen from a creative standpoint. It is the absolute dream to be a part of something where you're allowed to be creative. You're allowed to be creative, I guess, in the community, and there's other folks there who, you know, really are on the same wavelength as you, and have the same, you know, are interested in the same things and root for each other. Again, rooting for each other is something...I think that that's the secret sauce, is everyone rooting for each other to do well, because the rising tide raises all boys.

Jon de Nor: Yeah, I think that's true. And I kind of want to hear your thought on this, kind of, very adjacent to this, which is...yeah, how do you think MCDM has been towards the third-party creators in their community? And how do you feel like they've...how do you feel their relationship to, like, creators in their community is?

Cameron Baker: Their willingness to open the game up entirely for, you know, Stawl and Forge Steel, two amazing pillars of the community, healthy ways of creating characters, amazing ways of making characters. You wouldn't have those apps. You wouldn't have all of that, and make it so easy to make characters without that, without that license. And it's obviously a big risk to do that from a business perspective, right? If you open up the game, there's...it can be, anyone can do whatever they want with it, which is scary, I'm sure, but I think they have a lot of confidence in the creators in the Draw Steel third-party creators to be respectful of it and have a certain, I want to say, like, a certain bar, a certain bar for the quality of product that they're going to put out.

And it's always good when they, you know, promote these folks, when they promote, you know, Stawl, or any of these things — hearing Rise Heroes Rise! come out of Matt Colville's mouth when he's on stream is amazing. It's great for my ego. I can't imagine! It's just so good. But — and that's another, again, another conversation for my therapist — but it's very, very reassuring that, hey, I'm doing the right thing. I must be doing something right if...or I've backed the right horse. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that feeling. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: I always ask my guest to bring some kind of recommendation when they come on. So now I'm excited to hear what you've brought.

Cameron Baker: Yes, I've brought so many things. I've brought so many things.

Jon de Nor: Yes!

Cameron Baker: Yeah, I've...I have several bullet points. (laughter) So, in terms of...I know that your listeners, they like, Draw Steel, so they like tabletop RPGs. I have sort of filtered all of my recommendations mostly just for you folks listening. Because I care. I have...for YouTube recommendations, if you haven't listened to it, listen to The Dice Decide. It is a great actual play of...it's 5e, but it's really, really high-quality and has an amazing cast. They're all sat around a table. This amazing, sort of like, dungeon set that they've made is incredible. And it doesn't get enough attention. It does not get enough attention, it's amazing.

Also, Fables D20 is another great one, a variety of games. And another one that has a great cast. They did the Alien RPG; when I was first prepping that one, or prepping to run one of those adventures, I watched them, and the DM is amazing in that one.

Obviously High Rollers is great. They do, you know, great work all around. But you've probably heard of them. And then Mystery Quest is another one that is fantastic. They have a great variety of casts, and they play a great variety of games as well. They play, I don't think they've ever played 5e. I think they do just a bunch of different types of games, like Mothership, or they did the Alien RPG as well. That's how I found them. And I think they've just done Shadowdark as well.

And I have some movies as well. And these are not my favorite movies, but they're ones that can, like, really inspire great adventures and ones that I rip off all the time. First is Pirates of the Caribbean, amazing action adventure. Amazing...if you just follow, a lot of these movies, you just follow what the hero needs to do. That adventure alone will spawn so many great sessions. Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, any of the Indiana Jones movies, especially the one with the aliens because it can get weird. The Mummy is amazing. The Mummy is amazing, it's a romance story about two undead gods, basically. That's so weird and so amazing.

Jumanji — I was thinking specifically the Welcome to the Jungle one, which would be so much fun. I want to play that adventure because it's so cool. You know, you just get dropped into a video game. That's so cool. You can frame that with a number of different systems. Predator, where it changes, genre halfway through is incredible. Ben Hur, because that is a huge epic. You could do that as a solo play, or you could do it as, you know, a bunch of, heroes around the table. Obviously Mad Max — I already have a Mad Max story idea or adventure idea in my head that I that I would love to run.

I don't have any books because I can't read. So I don't have any of those. I have tabletop RPGs that I want to run, but I have not yet run. Mothership, which looks really cool. It's obviously horror. Sci-fi has a great visual design. It's on my shelf, it's ready to be run, but I just need to, you know, get myself in gear here. Huckleberry, back to, you know, the Old West. It is super cool. It has, again, a really, really cool visual design to it, that I want to run.

Slugblaster, I think we've already talked about, you know, kids on skateboards, Stranger Things and Rick and Morty sounds so awesome, sounds so dope, I want to run it tomorrow. And then Stars Without Number, which is another, you know, space fantasy. And it looks incredibly dope. It looks, you know, spaceships and all that stuff. I'm a huge nerd, so yes, I want that. I want that injected into my veins.

And then for board games, I've brought, Red Dragon Inn. It is, to date, I believe, the only game that my brother and I haven't ripped apart to make better. It's really robustly designed, and it's really well-designed as well. Yeah. Super fun.

Jon de Nor: That is an impressive list. (laughter)

Cameron Baker: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Jon de Nor: I haven't played Red Dragon Inn, still, but it's on my to-play list for board games, definitely. I've...it intrigues me every time I hear about it.

Cameron Baker: It's super fun. It's super fun. You really get into character. You really...each character is different in how they interact with other characters. And, it's just so much fun. You should go get a copy, play it, play it immediately. That's your homework, Jon. That's your homework.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) Cameron, it has been fantastic to finally, finally have you on Goblin Points. It's been a really long time coming. So it's been a blast.

Cameron Baker: Yeah! Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. It was really fun. Thank you.

Outro

Thank you again Cameron for coming on. It's always a great time to chat. While it did nicely coincide with the launch of the crowdfunder It's Complicated!, which by the way is only a couple of hundred bucks away from funding as I record this, I had an ulterior motive. This episode drops on February 15. February 14 last year, was the day I played my first session with Cameron on Rise Heroes Rise!

Cameron contacted me after I'd featured Rise Heroes Rise! on Goblin Points and asked if I'd like to join for a one-shot. I eagerly agreed and we played together on February 14. As a career GM, who's always the one running for my table (by choice), Cameron's allowed me to really get to play on the other side of the screen. That's been such a fantastic gift for the past year. Thank you Cameron!

I want to thank FoxTrick, Faan, Antan Karmola, tootallferne, and The Dice Society for submitting questions for Cameron.

If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on tips@goblinpoints.com.

Links to everything, including this script can be found in the show notes, and on goblinpoints.com.

If you want to support my work, you can become a Patreon member. As a paying member you can submit questions for upcoming guests. You also get access to premium features on Stawl. Stawl is digital tool set for playing and running Draw Steel: digital hero sheets, looking up monsters, or read the core rules. Go to Stawl.app. S-T-A-W-L-dot-app.

Next episode is on the 25th. I'll be joined by SurfingBird, who's the designer behind the Scion class and founder of the Draw Steel Brewery server.

See you next time. Snakkes.

Cameron of Rise Heroes Rise!: It's Complicated! (The Crowdfunder) | Interview

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