Intro
I'm joined by Leo Hojnowski. He's currently running a crowdfunding campaign for his adventure Keep on the Road to War. It's heavily inspired by Red Hand of Doom, but Leo's "plussing" it: it's not just Red Hand of Doom, but Draw Steel — Leo's also adding to it, standing on it's shoulders to build higher.
Almost poetic...
I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.
Interview
Jon de Nor: Welcome to Goblin Points, Leo!
Leo Hojnowski: Hey, so happy to be here! Thanks for having me.
Jon de Nor: Excellent, yeah. So give us a bit of an introduction of who you are, and also how you came into the MCDM/Matt Colville community.
Leo Hojnowski: Sure thing. So I've been in the RPG space for about ten years now. But it took me about a year to graduate from reading D&D greentexts like Sir Bearington into actually running. And I can thank Matt for that, because I saw you're going to run a game tonight for your friends. And I took that personally and ended up running a game in the back room of my chemistry teacher's classroom.
And since then, I've tried all sorts of systems. Fifth Edition, PactDice, GURPS, Worlds Without Number. I love the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and GURPS, and I could go on and on. But I just, I'm really passionate about games. And I got such a fantastic response to sharing my GM notes, like I often do for whatever I'm running, that I thought, let's make something of it.
Jon de Nor: Yeah! And that's kind of why we ended up here, basically. Because you're about to run, as we're recording this, you're about to run a Kickstarter, or crowdfunder, for your adventure, which you've called Keep on the Road to War. Which is a kind of an adaptation of Red Hand of Doom. Is that correct?
Leo Hojnowski: That's right. So Red Hand of Doom was the big starting point of inspiration. I've ran it three times now in radically different circumstances and different settings. And a few months ago now, just after finishing my master's dissertation, and going to a 24-hour RPG marathon and being in that fugue state of sleep-deprived, I downloaded all of my notes onto a Google Doc and just sent it away online.
And I got a really positive response from that. And since then, over the past few months, I've been kind of tweaking it. I'd say it's kind of "Ship of Theseus" at this point from Red Hand of Doom. If you've run the adventure, there's a lot you're going to recognize, but there's also a lot of brand new stuff and things that have been remixed.
Jon de Nor: It was a...you originally called it Jade Hand of Doom as a nod to the original. Is that right?
Leo Hojnowski: That's right, Jade Hand of Doom, from Ajax's infamous magic item which broke the Teeth of the Dragon. But, this one is going to be Keep on the Road to War, because it's going to be covering the first part of the notes that I posted online. It's going to be a third-level adventure, containing 17 Victories.
Jon de Nor: Alright, oOkay. I'm someone who's only heard about Red Hand of Doom, people talking about it. I've never played it, and I've never read it. So I'm kind of wondering, could you give, like, a brief introduction to Red Hand of Doom and what kind of made you — both what made you want to run it in the first place, and then run it two more times, apparently? (laughter) And then want to kind of make an adaption of it for Draw Steel. What drew you to The Red Hand of Doom originally?
Leo Hojnowski: Sure thing. So, kind of a copout answer. Matt's what drew me to The Red Hand of Doom originally, which I think is what a lot of people will say. He was talking about it on his stream, and so I decided to run it. And what I discovered was, it's a wonderfully politically complex adventure. A lot of the adventures I was finding was, you go into a crypt, and you kill everything inside, and you get the treasure at the bottom. Red Hand of Doom puts you in the shoes of a group of heroes who are helping to defend the region from the encroaching hobgoblin army of the titular Red Hand of Doom and their draconic allies, including the god Tiamat.
So I ran it for the first time in high school. It was the first-ever long-running campaign I did, and I used the Strongholds and Followers supplement. My players actually ended up claiming and repairing a ruined keep that you find in the first part of the adventure. And then because there was an encroaching army of hobgoblins out to get them, they figured out how to lift it up into the sky and carry it with them across the rest of the adventure, like a balloon.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: So the second time I ran it was for some of my online friends in my own original fantasy setting. And we ended up getting about halfway through it; ended up having to end for scheduling reasons. But by then, I knew a lot more about Timescape lore. So I was starting to introduce ideas of...I think I made the bad guys in that version of the adventure the dusk elves rather than hobgoblins.
Because it being such a political adventure, with lots of different factions with their own competing interests, means you can adjust those variables and see how that changes. So now I've come to the third time I'm running it, when I — I knew I was going to run a Draw Steel game since it was the "Unnamed MCDM RPG", but only as we were starting to approach the release date did I know it was going to be Red Hand of Doom and swapping out the hobgoblins for war dogs. Although I have adored hobgoblins as a bad guy, and seeing them in Dusk with the caustic, explosive blood only enhanced my infatuation. So anyone who feels similarly about either 3.5 or Draw Steel hobgoblins, you're in for a treat, as the cover suggests.
Jon de Nor: You started posting some of your notes from the campaign on the Discord, way back in like July of last year, I think, if memory serves. And you got a lot, as you mentioned, you got a lot of feedback and interest from the community from that. And those are now the notes that kind of are the backbone of what's becoming the adventure?
Leo Hojnowski: Yes, I'd say so. They've changed a lot since then, but I am still working off of that general mould. So anyone who was supporting me from the very beginning might have an idea of what's going to take shape, but you're going to have some surprises in there, too.
Jon de Nor: Keep on the Road to War is the first section of — or rather, it's an adaptation of the first section of Red Hand of Doom, you say.
Leo Hojnowski: That's right.
Jon de Nor: And this time, it's set in Omund's Ferry, is that correct?
Leo Hojnowski: That's right. So Omund's Ferry is a unique village that I've made, with some new NPCs. The idea being this is the village that sprung up to support the construction and supply of Castle Omund, the keep of the legendary king of Omund's Land.
Jon de Nor: In addition to adapting the adventure, you're also including a lot of other stuff in the — because you sent me a preview of the backer page, I've taken a look at...and you're also including complications and titles and treasures. What are the inspiration behind those extra bits, in addition to the adventure?
Leo Hojnowski: So I am really lucky to have a group of players who are just as obsessed with Orden lore as I am. So making their characters with them, and using that lore as a jumping off point to add to the mechanics of the game, is really what inspired those options. So, for instance, I have one player who...I'll have to be careful about how I send this to my group because this is a secret. If my group is watching, skip a minute ahead! But who is a war dog turncoat, who is working with the party despite having been brought back from the dead. And so he has a complication which links him to Ajax, and to the other war dogs.
So I — that's something I'm trying to do across my whole design philosophy of grounding you in this geographical area you're charged with defending. So what ancestry you play, what class you play, and extending that to complications and titles, is going to have an impact on how the world around you reacts.
Jon de Nor: I was also intrigued by one of the bullet points on the page, which says, "a reactive, living story which responds to the backgrounds, ancestries, and choices of the heroes." And I was intrigued! What's behind that bullet point? (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: Ah! You're trying to get make me give away all my secrets, Jon. But what I will say is, one really evocative line — I'm going to paraphrase Matt — of, "Once, the human kingdoms traded with elves and dwarves, and now there is only suspicion." That immediately got the gears turning in my head. So, for instance, if you arrive in Omund's Ferry with a party full of time raiders, they're going to be really suspicious that you're up to no good.
So that's just one example, but there are things that you can do in town to make later events happen differently. And I love that feeling of your choices rippling out in difficult-to-predict, sometimes unexpected ways. That is something that I'm drawing from a lot of my big influences into this. I love how The Banner Saga does it. I'm a big fan of the Telltale games, for instance.
Jon de Nor: Yeah, you did list those as inspirations in the, on the backer page. You mentioned Banner Saga, and of course, Red Hand of Doom. But also, what I noticed was Fallout: New Vegas and Tyranny from Obsidian Entertainment, which are also...which I'm a big fan of! (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: I have yet to meet anyone who has played Fallout: New Vegas and doesn't want to rant about it. And of course, that's been my handle online since I was 12. So, I'm a superfan as well. And similarly to what I was saying earlier about factions, and those being different elements of the formula that you can swap out, that is what's really key to the reactivity. And then Tyranny, of course, handles moral complexity in such an interesting way. And I'm hoping to represent that in Keep on the Road to War.
Jon de Nor: This is a 3rd-level adventure. And you mention on the backer page that it can be used as a continuation of The Delian Tomb. Are there any suggestions on how to kind of tie together the ending of The Delian Tomb and Keep on the Road to War?
Leo Hojnowski: Definitely. So I think the biggest advantage to starting with Delian Tomb is it grounding you in the Omund's Land setting. Because just as important as any proper nouns and mechanics you're going to be picking up is the sense that this is a shattered land. So taking that as, taking the information that's going to be in Keep on the Road to War as a kind of explanation and elaboration on why goblins are able to torment this isolated town, why Dalrath hasn't responded to stamp this threat out on their own. Why there's a camp of bandits dwelling in a fort nearby. Those kinds of explanations gain added context when suddenly the scope pulls out. And rather than being local heroes, you're now regional ones, and you understand that these kinds of dynamics are playing out all over Omund's Land. And not only that, they're playing out by Ajax's intent.
Jon de Nor: You also mentioned that this is only...or at least the plan is, this is only the beginning. That you're you're already...I don't know if it's just working, or if you're planning on, a follow-up adventure that kind of continues the story after this, after Keep on the Road to War.
Leo Hojnowski: That's right. So I am planning a follow-up adventure. The manuscript at this point is about 40% of the way through, and it will continue the story. I also really want to make your decisions ripple out across these adventures. So I'm sure that, if I am fortunate enough to fund not just this adventure, but also what comes next, there are going to be elements in the adventure that say, if your group did this in Part One, well, you can anticipate this.
And as this moves on further and further, we're going to see these effects start to snowball such that no two play experiences are going to be exactly the same. And for groups that are going to be starting later on, you can expect a kind of default play state. I mentioned Telltale and Banner Saga as an inspiration earlier, and...so it would be something comparable to what they do.
Jon de Nor: My main reference point to that kind of storytelling is Mass Effect, which tried to do some of the same, but I feel like they kind of fell short when you kind of realized it was all an illusion. (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: Mass Effect very nearly went on my inspiration list and then came off of it for that reason.
Jon de Nor: As you're adapting this adventure from — and I think I keep harping on the adapting part, and I don't mean to rob you of any creative credit — as you're working to using this adventure in Draw Steel, and now writing the adventure for Draw Steel, is there any part of the D&D version that is hard to kind of convert or to kind of bring over, or that you've had to kind of reinvent as part of the process?
Leo Hojnowski: Of course. 3.5e and Draw Steel are different games with different systems. And whenever I see a system that isn't implemented in Red Hand of Doom, that logically would be if it were written for Draw Steel, then that's a challenge that I have to jump into and see how those rules are going to be applied. I find that process one of the most fulfilling parts of the creative process, so it's difficult for me to call it hard, but it definitely is what takes the most work.
So, for instance, I want you to be able to recruit retainers and artisans. I have some pretty developed ideas of how respite is going to work, because, of course, you can't do the 3.5 version of a long rest. Wealth scores, Renown scores, applying those into Keep on the Road to War is some of the most fertile ground for where I've made the biggest changes from Red Hand of Doom.
Jon de Nor: We did a bit of chatting before we started recording, and you mentioned that Wealth and also the Renown score is one of your...maybe the part that intrigued you the most when Draw Steel became a thing, or rather the MCDM RPG, as it was known back then. Have you found them to be useful when working on this adventure?
Leo Hojnowski: Oh, definitely. There's going to be multiple moments where Wealth and Renown can be gained. I love using them for degrees of success — maybe you saved the day, but you don't save your pocketbook. Or you could have saved the day a little bit better, and gotten more famous out of it. Those are some levers that I love to pull. But beyond that, I like it as an abstraction of wealth that can be used as shorthand, so that the game can respond as a living world, and talk to a player with high Wealth or high Renown differently from a player with low Wealth and low Renown, and lend that to a feeling of it being a living, reactive world.
Jon de Nor: Ah, I see. Do you actively use them for...I should, I always want to say, like, a class system in the old British manner, (laughter) where it very much kind of informs how people behave towards each other?
Leo Hojnowski: Yes, definitely. Main difference being, your Wealth and Renown can go up and down. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: Yeah. (laughter) As far as I've understood, you're working with an artist, for this adventure? Not as much as...like, she's an active participant in the project.
Leo Hojnowski: Yes, she is. So we were introduced by a mutual friend. Her name is Matilda White, and you can find her work at awallofclimbingivy.squarespace.com. And I was absolutely wowed. The first anecdote I heard from her, actually, was that she was going to be gifting a painting to Guillermo del Toro to celebrate the release of Frankenstein...
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Leo Hojnowski: ...which instantly brought me on board. And she has been a great contributor of aesthetic sense, of the kind of vibes and tone...I'm handling all of the writing and design, but, for instance, if you've seen the absolutely gorgeous cover, the idea of formatting it like a kind of classic cover with the border and the stony background was her idea. My favorite little detail is the hobgoblin across the back of the carriage that has the ballista spear sticking out of it. That was completely her. I just said, "pulp fantasy," "dark fantasy," "Dragon magazine," and "I love hobgoblins," and she blew me away.
Jon de Nor: Has she any — how should I put it? — experience, or has she done much, like TTRPG/fantasy stuff before, or has she experience from like, other genres?
Leo Hojnowski: So, to my knowledge, this will be her first time working on a commercial product, let alone an RPG commercial product. But we met through the Cambridge Roleplaying Tabletop Society. So she does have a background in RPGs, but this is kind of those two worlds meeting.
Jon de Nor: Okay, yeah. I have a bit of a difficult question for you. This is one that I always get. I have a patron who insists on asking every time, and I don't always bring it up, but you're going to be subjected to it, which is, if you were to interview yourself, what question would you like to be asked? (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: That is a difficult question, and it's one that I often ask, when I get the chance to probe someone. So, game sees game. You know, actually, I am going to try to judo redirect this one. So we'll see how it goes, and, unnamed patron, let me know how I did.
So I'm someone who...this is going to be my first published product. So I'm new to the Backerkit space. New to charging for my RPG content. If I were in the shoes of a potential backer, I would be wanting to ask, what background do you have in making RPG content?
Jon de Nor: Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Leo Hojnowski: And to that, I would say, for as long as I've been DMing, I've been making little adventures, NPCs, systems for the different RPGs that I'm running. I spent many a free period in high school uploading to r/dndbehindthescreen of various, like, aristocratic vampire families, and eccentric researchers studying the mushroom people — that's another favorite monster type of mine. MCDM, if you're listening, if you can make, like, russet molds even cooler in Orden, that would be...you would have even more of my affection than you already do. And more recently, making whole character classes.
For instance, I'm a big fan of PactDice, and one player wanted to invade dreams and, kind of Freddy Krueger-esque, sink the people of the dreams she invades down to Hell. And I had such a fun time collecting inspirations, and molding that into a class. But I kind of come from a tradition of these things just being on Google Docs and Reddit posts that you share among your friends in the community, and tweak each other's work, rather than publicizing it. So that's really the big leap that I'm taking here.
Jon de Nor: Red Hand of Doom is multiple parts that amps up the tension, I assume, from what you're saying. And this, Keep on the Road to War, is the, like, the first part of an adventure series, basically, that you're doing. How many parts are we talking, and how far does this go? How many levels? How many...you say you end up saving Omund's Land. Is that where the adventure or the story arc terminates or, how far do we go?
Leo Hojnowski: So current thinking is five parts, five levels. I'll say, I didn't promise anything about saving Omund's Land!
Jon de Nor: Oh, sure. Defending, maybe?
Leo Hojnowski: That sounds like rebel talk to me.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: But yes. So it's looking like it's going to be a level per adventure, going from level 3 to level 8. And as I learn more about this whole process of releasing my work to a professional level, I'm hoping to pick up the pace on each additional adventure.
As far as what comes after that, well, who can say? I would love to write for high-level Draw Steel? Because you get to do some absolutely bananas thing. But first, I just want to accomplish what I set out to do with my original Jade Hand of Doom notes, which was around the really incredible experience I got out of Red Hand of Doom in the equally incredible Orden lore, which I've really fallen in love with, and also still can't say five times fast.
Jon de Nor: (laughter) You're planning on shipping this adventure in just a few months, basically. I see on the Backerkit page, it says June 12th. Is that an actual date that you're aiming for, or...?
Leo Hojnowski: That is the date that I'm aiming for. So all of the text is complete, as is the cover, as you've seen, and the artist is hard at work getting some other interior art done. As I've said, this is my first time shipping a commercial product, so while I will push as hard as possible to hit that date, you are along for the learning experience with me, a little bit, with this one. But I feel very confident about being able to hit that, not least because this is something that I've been working on for months prior. Since I posted my notes, as you mentioned, back in July.
Jon de Nor: Actually, speaking of those notes, because I was reading through the thread where you were sharing updates on how the campaign was going and how the players choices kind of informed what's coming next. And from what I could gather is that other people were kind of taking your initial notes and then building their own stuff on top of them with their own inspirations. Have you gotten any inspiration from what others have done with what you started off with, and kind of make that back into your adventure?
Leo Hojnowski: To an extent. It's made me consider other vantage points. So, for instance, the user Big Bad Banana is running using my notes, and shared how Delian Tomb is a great thing to integrate with this adventure. And that was an angle that I hadn't considered prior to then. So using the creativity that the community has, to build on my work and then, yes-anding that, so it's just kind of a back-and-forth collaborative experience, is definitely something I'm mindful of. And that's something I'm really excited for — if I am to release this in five parts, of seeing the reaction to Part One, hearing people go, "Oh, I would love to hear more about what the hawklords of Hawk's Aerie are up to. What do they eat, for instance?" And so I can I can throw that into Part Two.
Jon de Nor: Doing five parts across five levels...it almost puts you in competition with Crack the Sun! (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: In collaboration, I prefer to say. We're all trying to build the community. I am, for one, really excited to play Crack the Sun. I'm probably going to start a whole new table just to do it. I've heard that they are also loosely inspired by Red Hand of Doom for Crack the Sun. And I don't think I'm the only one. I think there's a handful of other people releasing Draw Steel content. So I think it's going to create a really nice, like...the first thing I thought of was Spider-Verse. The different Red Hand of Doom palettes, with people looking at what inspired them in that adventure and combining it in new ways with what inspires them in Draw Steel.
Jon de Nor: I do kind of wonder, with Red Hand of Doom being one adventure that's referred back to as a really good D&D adventure — and I've not only heard Matt say that, but also people outside of the MCDM sphere — I do wonder, are we missing out on the Draw Steel version of that kind of adventure, when we're just remaking Red Hand of Doom all the time? Or is maybe Red Hand of Doom just a retelling of an older story that we don't know of?
Leo Hojnowski: Well, I think when we look back at these seminal adventures, it is in one part the content of them that we remember, but it's more the innovations. So the designer boxes that explain thought process, I think you can see the DNA of them when you're reading Delian Tomb, and there's a part that says, here's how you should maneuver the enemies in tactics. As far as it being a story that's being told over and over again, I think that you can see an encroaching army that you need to defend the people from, and rally different communities to your banner in order to help, across the scope of fiction.
The first thing that comes to mind is Storm Giants' Thunder, which I haven't actually played, but I've heard that is a similar type thing. My inspirations: Fallout: New Vegas, Banner Saga, Tyranny. So that is, I think, a lot of what ameliorates my concerns, and also why I made the decision to make this more of, a "Ship of Theseus" type adaptation, which I think MCDM has, as well, with Red Hand of Doom. At least, I don't remember any crashed spaceships in Red Hand of Doom. I might have might have skipped over that chapter.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: But I think that if you're looking for a 1-to-1 adaptation where you fight the Kulkor Zhul, and the various other terrific bad guys in Red Hand of Doom, those are out there. I found a couple of really fantastic ones in the community. That's not exactly the product that I'm working on. This is taking the innovations of a broad scope, and a world that responds to your choices, and thinking of, how can we look at that in a MCDM lens?
My favorite example of that, and one that I put a lot of thought into, like I was mentioning earlier, integrating MCDM systems, is, there's a big travel component to how I'm handling this adventure, allowing you to see the full scope of Omund's Land before you get into the thick of what the adventure is all about. In Red Hand of Doom, I believe you start in the town of Drellin's Ferry, or just arriving to it. So getting you to care about this region that's imperiled comes after the fact.
And, tangent on a tangent, I think that's another great reason why you might want to start with Delian Tomb, because it just extends that. So that later, when you get to see the full veranda of what Omund's Land has to offer, from the teeming patrician metropolis of Blackbottom to the ruined wastes of the Protectorate of Zyll, to the foothills of the mountains, you have that epiphany, I'd say, of what Omund's Land is all about.
Jon de Nor: That's really interesting, on how this is different from the original adventure. That will be something that I think others will find interesting. Why would you go buy Keep on the Road to War when we already have Red Hand of Doom at home? (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: Right.
Jon de Nor: You do mention that there is a bit of traveling. Do you have any systems that you are implementing in Keep on the Road to War for traveling? Because Draw Steel is very hands-off when it comes to, how do you get from one place to another? You just kind of do! (laughter) And maybe there's a montage test. Do you have anything special for moving between the locations, or is it handled in that more Draw Steel way where it's kind of hand-waved?
Leo Hojnowski: So I have put some thought into special systems for travel. A lot of those are being built up really heavily in Part Two, but there are things to keep track of in Part One, time being a really important factor. So how you're crossing distance is something you'll want to consider. You're always going to be at a disadvantage if you're traveling on foot compared to the guy you're trying to beat, if he has a three-ton bird of prey to ride around.
Jon de Nor: (laughter) That makes sense, yeah, yeah, yeah. When it comes to time tracking, there have been some experiments in both the community and with The Delian Tomb from MCDM to use respites as a way to...advance the world state, I guess, where every time you take a respite, the world advances in some way. Have you experimented with something similar for Keep on the Road to War, or are you going in a more, let's call it "classic" sense and just counting individual days?
Leo Hojnowski: I would say leaning more the former, and also adding my own original spin on it. So with a game — an adventure, rather, where travel is a big component and you're in the shattered, chaotic land, of western Vasloria, getting to points of safety and being able to respite there become a lot more important. If this village of Omund's Ferry suffers a terrible fate, you're not going to be able to respite there in a way that you would be able to long rest in a burned shack, for instance.
Jon de Nor: That's interesting. So you might end up in a state in the adventure where it feels like Omund's Ferry is kind of like the safe haven that you come back to and use as a base. But you're saying that might...it's not a given that Omund's Ferry...how should I put it, survives?
Leo Hojnowski: Omund's Ferry is imperiled, and the more stress that it's under, the less productive your respites there are going to be. So I'm experimenting with a morale mechanic, which influences downtime activities that you do there. And this could be as extreme as people in Omund's Ferry getting killed. And now a useful NPC that, before, was providing you a service, just isn't around anymore.
And that's part of what I was hitting on earlier, of this being a narrative that responds to choices, of, I love tying narrative and mechanics back into one another. If you want to put together a magic item which is going to deal with all of the war dogs on your tail, well, you better have an artisan that's capable of making it for you, and you better be making the decisions, that will keep that artisan safe.
Jon de Nor: I know that Matt and James have talked about introducing extra mechanics to the game through adventures when, instead of having...there was a lot of talk about, during the development of Draw Steel, whether or not that would be stronghold rules, warfare rule, from those previous books that they released. And the message that we kind of got back from Matt and James was, "Not really, and when we need those kinds of rules, we'll include them in the adventure instead of where they're actually needed, instead of just using them or trying to present them in a very generic way," which they argue won't necessarily work.
So I'm really intrigued when you're introducing kind of new mechanics for the adventure, because at least to me, that has the opportunity to give the adventure kind of more flavor to make it more substantial, I guess, because it feels more like this adventure because of these specific mechanics that it brings with it. And a morale mechanic sounds kind of like something that would differentiate this from any other adventure, basically.
Leo Hojnowski: Absolutely. Similarly, what I said about a broad scope and an army attacking, for me, a big part of the fantasy of being a Tactician in battle is commanding a squad. So I am experimenting, with rules to, similar to a retainer, have a squad of minions that you can command. And their loss — unlike a Summoner, who still has the advantage of being able to pull more from Hell or the grave — these are real people who are, if they die in battle, gone. You did not get them to safety. But it's still a very potent tool for you to use to solve an encounter.
Jon de Nor: Oh, that's...that would be a really cool addition for a Tactician, specifically, to be able to do even more Tactician-ing. (laughter)
I always ask my guests to bring some recommendations for my listeners, so now I'm excited to hear what kind of recommendation, or recommendations, you've brought.
Leo Hojnowski: I brought a fair few. So if you have to stop me, just turn the recording off and I'll keep rambling while to myself.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
So, I am a huge fan of Pact. It's a web novel by a author called Wildbow. His most famous work is Worm, which, if you were terminally online in the early 2010s, like I was, you are probably familiar with it. Pact is a urban fantasy horror book, about a young man who inherits his family's estate, along with all of the terrible things that come with it, from enemies to curses to a knowledge of magic and the obligations that comes with.
And once you've read Pact, I would love if you joined me on the Parahumans Discord server. The author, Wildbow, is not only very active, but also regularly putting out updates to PactDice, an RPG based in the same system, same fantasy setting. And it is such a great place if you're looking to get into game design, to make your bones, because it is a rapidly evolving system and there's so many different corners of the setting where you can release a design doc and get a dozen different people using it in their games almost immediately. So I found that super fulfilling.
I'm also going to give an actual play, The Film Reroll. It is my favorite actual play of all time. They use GURPS to play through movies as RPGs, and as the host says, completely ruin them. So for instance, in E.T., they accidentally blew up the moon.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Leo Hojnowski: So things can go in all sorts of directions. And I've actually stolen their formula for some of my home games. So I'm about to run a GURPS game of Princess Mononoke. In terms of TV, I have been shocked by how much I've enjoyed A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I think, like a lot of people, I had Game of Thrones fatigue. I didn't really find a lot for me in House of the Dragon, but A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a simple, well-told story. At least, I haven't seen the last episode, so by the time this goes out, they could have completely...I'm going to avoid a more explicit metaphor. They could have done a bad job.
In terms of movies, my favorite movie of all time is A Trial of the...or, pardon me, The Trial of the Chicago 7. It's by Aaron Sorkin on Netflix. It's a dramatization of the Democratic National Convention in the 1970s, I forget exactly what year. And it is funny, incisive. I'm a big fan of politics, political games, political intrigue, so that's why it appeals to me, but I think there's something there for everybody.
Music-wise, I always work to Masayoshi Takanaka. He's a jazz-funk fusion artist who has some really awesome beats that are just so chill to vibe out to. And finally, a book that I read this year is A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's some classic sci-fi. It is about a order of monks after a post-apocalyptic or, pardon me, apocalyptic nuclear war, in which most of civilization is destroyed. They're trying to preserve knowledge. And it's set centuries after the war, when most of that has faded into obscurity. And it actually ends up reading a lot like a medieval fantasy book, because it's a order of monks preserving fantastical knowledge, which the outside world has no knowledge of.
Jon de Nor: Wow. Those are some really...that's a wide spread! (laughter) From Japanese jazz fusion...(laughter) I don't even remember! To, Dunk and Egg and, post-apocalyptic sci-fi.
Leo Hojnowski: Yeah. I contain multitudes.
Jon de Nor: (laughter) Nice. It has been a pleasure, Leo, to have you on Goblin Points. Thank you so much for coming on.
Leo Hojnowski: Likewise! Thank you so much for having me.
Outro
Thank you so much for coming on Leo. I must confess, I've not read Red Hand of Doom, but hearing Leo talk about it. I should maybe check it out... Or I could just wait for two Draw Steel interpretations of the adventure.
I want to thank Antan Karmola for submitting questions for Leo.
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Next episode is on the 25th. That's an interview with Gub of Look Out Behind You Studios and Triglav Games.
See you next time. Snakkes.