GMBC ep48 - Siege and Strategy: How Redwall Inspires Epic Role-Playing Adventures
Redwall
Brian Jacques
Speaker A
00:00:00.240 - 00:00:00.560
Foreign.
Speaker B
00:00:04.800 - 00:00:51.900
Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where great young adult fantasy fiction becomes your next great tabletop role playing experience.
And welcome to the Abbey of Redwall, where mice, badgers and other anthropomorphic creatures live in peace until the bilge rats siege the abbey.
Only the sword of Martin the warrior, founder of the abbey, can drive the rats away.
And Matthias, a young abbey initiate, is determined to find it.
On his quest he encounters strange allies and deadly enemies, many of which return over the more than 21 book Saga of the Red Wall series by Brian Jacques, Megan Rodriguez, Lindsey Grove and Tanya Diet have arrived to guide us through this amazing series that was made for roleplay with its over the top villains, classic hero tropes and fabulous riddles and puzzles.
Let's get into the conversation.
Speaker C
00:00:52.140 - 00:01:35.040
This is absolutely the Game Masters Book Club.
Welcome everybody to another episode.
This time we're going to be talking about Red Wall by Brian John.
And we've got three brand new game masters here ready to talk about this particular book and how it can be used in TTRPGs.
So I'm going to have each of our Game masters introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their gaming journey.
And then we're going to talk about the book and then we're going to talk about mechanics and portables.
If you've been here before, you know totally what we're going to be talking about, but really what we're going to talk about is how you can bring Redwall to your gaming table.
So we're going to start off with Lindsey.
Lindsey, do you want to introduce yourself and tell people about your gaming journey?
Speaker D
00:01:35.600 - 00:02:10.420
Okay, so I'm Lindsey Grove.
I work for Geek Therapeutics.
I actually didn't play any kind of TTRPGS until Covid and I missed my friends.
So I taught myself how to DM and I honestly have probably DMed a little bit more than I've played at this point.
Catching up.
And I actually took that because then I went and taught all the fourth graders.
When we went back to school after, after Covid, I taught an entire class of fourth graders how to run and play their own games.
Speaker C
00:02:11.140 - 00:02:12.500
Megan, do you want to go next?
Speaker A
00:02:13.060 - 00:02:43.390
Sure.
I'm Megan Rodriguez.
I work for Geek Therapeutics with Lindsay.
I have been playing.
We tried when I was in fourth grade with D&D4E that just did not work out.
And then I got really, really into Dungeons and Dragons in 2019 and just kind of been going from there.
I started out DMing.
So I've DMed a little like a little bit More than I've played.
That's me.
Speaker C
00:02:43.950 - 00:02:47.550
That's you.
Tonya, you want to give us your gaming journey?
Speaker E
00:02:47.710 - 00:03:25.650
I'm Tonya.
I'm an ex nurse now.
Quit right before COVID thankfully.
I started with DND in the very late 70s, early 80s, during the satanic Panic.
So that was fun.
The first box set that I got my grandfather to buy me, he went straight to my mom when we got home and said, I think it's satanic.
You should probably talk to her.
So that was like, my first thing with that.
I actually didn't play until I was an adult because in that time, girls didn't play.
Speaker A
00:03:26.130 - 00:03:26.610
Yes.
Speaker E
00:03:26.690 - 00:03:53.500
You just didn't play.
No girl would admit to being interested in it and no guys would let you play with them.
So I spent all of my time collecting modules and reading them front like tatters.
They're tatters at this point.
And.
And I actually started out as a DM also because nobody seemed to want to do that.
They just wanted to play.
And I've only played like three games.
Speaker D
00:03:53.660 - 00:03:54.140
Wow.
Speaker C
00:03:54.620 - 00:03:57.340
So you.
You are definitely a forever DM.
Speaker E
00:03:58.780 - 00:04:03.660
No.
Lindsay's DMing our next game.
Speaker D
00:04:05.420 - 00:04:14.510
And honestly, like, that made me laugh that your mom was like, oh, it's satanic.
Because my mom said that to me, like, five years ago.
Speaker C
00:04:15.710 - 00:04:16.190
Wow.
Speaker D
00:04:16.750 - 00:04:21.790
When I was teaching the fourth graders.
And she's like, isn't that satanic?
And I'm like, oh, my God, what year is it?
Speaker E
00:04:21.950 - 00:04:22.350
No,.
Speaker C
00:04:24.910 - 00:07:40.330
I'm Eric Jackson and I'm the host of the podcast.
And I much like.
Much like Tonya, have been playing since the Satanic Panic.
My parents took sort of the opposite tack.
My dad was the one who purchased the game for me.
He was a high school math teacher, and a kid in his.
One of his math classes was trying to sell everything he had to try and get a car.
And so my dad was like, oh, look, a game that involves statistical probabilities.
He's a math teacher and graph paper and geometric solids.
I could use this to teach my son math.
And that.
So that is where.
That is where we started.
And then when the whole.
And when the whole satanic panic thing happened, my dad was like, well, why don't we just write a game where, like, you could be an, you know, like an altar boy in the church that'll show them that it's not satanic.
And so, like, literally, my dad and I wrote our road playing game together that was all about, like, the stations of the Cross, so.
So that would give you some idea, like, where how deeply ingrained this was in my past.
My my dad was always really supportive.
So was my mother.
She wasn't as big into the game itself, but she I still have a dice bag that she sewed for me.
I had she made many costumes that I asked for.
She Both my parents are very supportive in the whole Dungeons and Dragons realm and as a result I have a podcast today.
Isn't that who could ask for more, right?
Okay, so today we're going to be talking about a I think what we could definitely call a children's fantasy classic.
We're going to be talking about by Brian Jocks is about Matthias, a young anthropomorphic mouse who is a novice in the Abbey of Redwall.
There we go with the Stations of the Cross already we're doing great.
Which was established by a mystical warrior called Martin the Warrior.
The story begins as a one eyed bilge rat named Clooney the Scrooge siege to the abbey.
The many members of the abbey themselves, a variety of anthropomorphic animals, work together to hold off the siege, while Matthias embarks on a quest to find the Sword of Martin in order to rally the abbey and break the siege.
Matthias quest for the sword takes him to several other creature communities where he gathers allies and slays enemies.
Meanwhile, after several crushing defeats, Clooney manages to gain entrance into Redwall through vile extortion.
Matthias returns in time to prevent the destruction of Redwall with the sword and newfound allies to slay Clooney and drive out his forces.
The story is one of bravery and action tempered by pacifist teachings, but also youth over age destiny, destiny guided by a religious power and some very simplified representation of race, gender and how the world should be.
Red World is very simple in its message.
So simple in fact that it can be a bit strident and repetitive for me for an adult reader.
But many of its settings and characters can be great inspiration for the tabletop RPG settings.
And since a lot of the time we deal with these tropes that are very present in Redwall, I think it's really a great thing to talk about.
So that's what we're going to talk about first.
Tonya, did you want to talk about the themes from this and what is your favorite part of the book?
Speaker E
00:07:40.650 - 00:07:44.330
I think the biggest overarching theme is just the hero's quest.
Speaker A
00:07:44.490 - 00:07:44.890
Right.
Speaker E
00:07:45.210 - 00:08:27.630
And I. I mean Matthias obviously is the main hero, but when you read the story, there are several other characters that are supporting him that also have their own hero's journeys.
Because this is a group of Abby mice, they're pacifists.
They don't fight.
And several of them learn how to be tacticians and strategists and how to, you know, teach the other animals in the abbey how to fight when they don't really have those themselves, you know, And I think that runs through the whole thing.
Speaker C
00:08:28.590 - 00:08:35.110
I agreed.
The hero's quest is a huge part of this.
Lindsay, did you want to talk about.
Speaker D
00:08:35.110 - 00:09:28.540
Any themes, even though this is a children's book?
I have read this book so many times.
I read it first when I was.
I was a child.
I have reread it and reread it and reread it.
So I do think adults could enjoy it too.
It doesn't come off as too simplistic for me, but I've read it so many times.
I mean, I agree with the heroes quest.
I think some of the themes are also, like, community and telling what's right from wrong when it.
When it might be hard.
Like, they're peaceful Abby mice, but they.
They're in a position where they have to become a little militaristic.
I think there's also themes of government strategies, or, like, not strategies, government structures.
And, like, how those can differ and be accepting of those.
Because they meet, like a communist group of shrews in the woods.
Speaker C
00:09:31.740 - 00:09:40.859
Yeah, they're not.
They're not always happy to be.
Have met them because they're such a problem.
They're always like, oh, no, talk about, like, we don't have to agree first.
Speaker D
00:09:40.859 - 00:09:50.220
And he's like, yeah, but.
But they do end up working with the shrews, like, throughout, like the rest of the books.
So those shrews stick around.
Speaker C
00:09:50.820 - 00:09:51.540
That's awesome.
Speaker A
00:09:52.020 - 00:09:52.500
Yeah.
Speaker E
00:09:52.820 - 00:09:53.300
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:09:53.300 - 00:10:20.380
So they become, like, allies of Redwall and they show up in the other books.
So I think that.
I think that's really interesting too, because, like, there's.
There's a couple ways you can go when you.
You address political themes in a book.
And you can get like, this is not knocking his dark materials at all, but, like, you can get kind of, like, preachy about it, or you can be like, we're gonna coexist.
And I feel like Redwall leans heavily on the coexisting side.
Speaker C
00:10:20.780 - 00:10:49.170
Agreed.
Absolutely agreed.
Everybody is at least.
Yeah.
You've got your religious hierarchical sort of thing that's happening there, and you've got your kingdom with the sparrows.
Right.
And then you've got your.
Then you've got your commune, and then you've got your.
Like, there's militaristic rabbits and Cats floating around.
I'm not really sure what these guys are doing, but they, they seem like independent military contractors.
It's awesome.
They're just like, where, where did.
Why are they also military oriented?
Speaker D
00:10:50.600 - 00:10:53.800
Spoiler alert.
In a later book you go to the colony of the rabbits.
Speaker C
00:10:54.200 - 00:11:03.560
Oh, that could be really fun.
I'm very excited.
More stuff to read.
All right.
Anything about the themes you would like to talk about?
Speaker A
00:11:03.880 - 00:11:16.020
I like the building of camaraderie and encouragement amongst everybody at the abbey.
Because like Matthias is doing those puzzles with Methuselah.
Speaker C
00:11:16.180 - 00:11:16.660
Yes.
Speaker A
00:11:16.900 - 00:11:33.780
And just continuously like building up who comes into his inner circle.
Because then there's cornflower, there's basil, all of that.
So that's kind of the thing that I mostly enjoy about it.
And just seeing the big differences between like the rats and all the other animals.
Speaker C
00:11:33.860 - 00:11:40.100
Yeah, definitely the rats who live here.
And everyone else has different strategies for how that works.
Speaker A
00:11:40.260 - 00:11:58.160
Oh, yeah.
Once like Clooney thinks he's very like sly and going to win and just very determined in that way.
And there's a lot more happening in the background than he gives the people at the abbey or the animals of the abbey credit for.
Speaker D
00:11:59.360 - 00:12:03.360
And even his own people.
Because there's so much backstabbing among the rats.
Speaker A
00:12:03.360 - 00:12:04.480
Yeah, because he's a butt face.
Speaker E
00:12:05.600 - 00:12:07.400
Yeah, because he's a fascist.
Speaker D
00:12:07.400 - 00:12:07.840
Yes.
Speaker E
00:12:08.040 - 00:12:10.320
He's literally a fascist dictator.
Speaker C
00:12:10.320 - 00:12:19.000
He is definitely the bad guy.
He is a spinny eyed Disney villain who is out to get whatever he needs for.
Whatever he needs.
Speaker E
00:12:19.320 - 00:12:20.040
Exactly.
Speaker C
00:12:20.280 - 00:12:37.800
Okay, well, if we were going to take some of these ideas and we wanted to take this world of Red Wall and we wanted to put it onto a gaming table for folks to play.
What would be the best system that we could possibly use with this?
Megan, did you want to get started and talk about what you think would go up there?
Go ahead.
Speaker A
00:12:38.270 - 00:13:44.880
So I mentioned previously of like Animal Adventures, that TTRPG system, Steamforged games.
There we go.
Yeah, it's a 5e system, so it functions like Dungeons and Dragons, but it's very, very, very simplified for kids.
I actually started running it for my own child.
He's 8 and he had a blast with it.
It's all, all the characters are animals, so you have dogs, cats, rats, all of it just doing silly little adventures.
And Red Wall seems to kind of fit that for the younger generation because it's not overly complicated in what it provides in terms of like stories and puzzles and stuff.
Like even the riddles that Matthias and Methuselah are working through are relatively simple.
So I think that would be really good for, like, Redwall would be good in a basic, basic 5e system is to build up on that role playing and what battles look like and introducing puzzles and riddles to kids.
Speaker C
00:13:45.600 - 00:13:50.640
Great.
Tanya, did you want to talk about your mechanic?
What do you think will work for this?
Speaker E
00:13:51.120 - 00:15:39.420
Yeah, because I literally do not look at any other system except for Dungeons and Dragons.
I went with the young adventurers, Dungeons and Dragons, which is basically what Megan is saying about her system.
It's very simplified.
I actually sent this to my grandson, like the whole set of books.
It's extremely simplified.
No D20s.
You roll D6s for everything, including initiatives.
So it's basically, you know, pick a number between this and this for everybody, and you just line them up in order.
And the Dungeon master does the same thing for the monsters too.
So it's very simplified in that way.
And as well as they don't use AC, it's basically if you roll.
You roll a D6 to hit, and if you hit their character level, I think it's plus one, something like that.
You've hit them and they take one point of damage.
So your hit points are really low, but the damage is only one a hit.
It's.
It's very simplified.
So they're not doing all this math and adding in, like, well, what's my modifiers?
And they're not doing all of that kind of stuff.
One thing that really interested me with it is they also get all the players.
The kids get a book that talks about the monsters and, like, what their special attacks are and kind of let them see what these monsters do so that they can think of their own moves against them, which I thought was really cool, you know, just to give them that prodding to think of different ways of attacking different monsters and stuff.
But it's a nice, simplified version of Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker C
00:15:39.580 - 00:15:41.980
Okay.
Lindsay, how about you?
Speaker D
00:15:41.980 - 00:16:49.310
Oh, I've been thinking about this.
I'm glad I had think time, because originally, like, I really like.
It's.
It's Snowbright Studios.
It's Tea Time Adventures.
And how I describe it is it's like Agatha Christie meets Gilmore Girls, but with all animals.
So it has, like, the food.
There's like a snack pairing with everything.
But, like, the more I think about, like, how character development happens in Redwall, I really think a system like Masks or a magpie system would work really well.
That's very, like, character driven.
And you're.
You're making.
I played Masks a few times, and you're making, like, you're making your roles based on your.
Your strengths and weaknesses as a person.
And I feel like that plays into Redwall really well because it's about figuring out like who you are to be your own person.
Because Matthias is really on this quest to not be the next Martin.
I mean sometimes he is, but like.
But also to figure out who he is as a Redwall mouse.
Speaker B
00:16:49.310 - 00:16:49.830
Absolutely.
Speaker C
00:16:49.830 - 00:19:19.860
I think that's really cool.
Which leads a little into what I was going to talk about, which is the Warren by Bully Pulpit Games.
This is a non anthropomorphic animal.
So it's just animal animals.
It is loosely based off of Watership Down.
It's a powered by the Apocalypse game, which means that it has a lot of like here it gives you a sheet that gives you moves that you can do.
So I think it'd be really good for younger players because you could have have that.
It basically tells you like here are the three cool things you can do.
And so you've got a little script for how you can do your special maneuvers.
Like our like our rabbit who does the like the super cool kick and can be like invisible.
Like he has those definitely has like set moves that are for his character.
If you wanted to get a little crunchier and to go back in time pretty far, you could actually do Bunnies and Burrows, which came out in 1976 and is based again based off of Watership Down.
It's because that came out even before the Redwall books.
It has been republished by Frog God Games in 2019 in a more D20 friendly version.
So that's probably what most people would want to look at as opposed to the very ancient printed on a dot matrix printer booklet that I still have hanging around from the early 80s, which is how I have that, how I know that that game exists.
The Bees and Burrows also has very little combat, although there is Rabbit martial arts which is sounds really cool.
It also has shock and fear rules for like when large predators attack non predators.
There are rules for how they handle like oh my God, I'm being attacked by a giant viper or something.
And there's also some really interesting herbalistic magic and psychic abilities which I think would fit really well within Red Wall's ethos.
I think those are both kinds of magic that I think would, you know, we've already got like Matthias being guided by a sickle force.
And I could see some healing stuff or healing herbs or herbs that you could use to trick people with or something along those lines would be definitely all of that would fall within What Red Wall does.
So that would be my.
That would be my, my second one.
I'll just throw in the third one for free, which is the humblewood5e stuff.
I would recommend that more for if there's an adult out there who's like, you've said a lot of great things for kids.
What would I. I enjoy this book much.
Like Megan, you, the one who said you, you had read it 5,000 times, right?
Or was it Lindsay?
I messed that up.
Speaker A
00:19:20.340 - 00:19:20.859
Lindsay?
Speaker D
00:19:20.859 - 00:19:23.780
No, I, I've.
I've read this book like 5,000 times.
So.
Speaker C
00:19:23.780 - 00:20:17.680
Lindsay, you've read this book 5,000 times and you're, you're a D D player and you're an adult.
We all have great books that we enjoy from our kids, from our, from our, our childhood and that we'd like to play.
So I would recommend if you wanted to play straight D and D, but play this and you felt really comfortable with it.
The Humblewood system is really good at that as well.
It also is very anthropomorphic.
It started with birds, so you could definitely do the sparrow stuff.
But it did eventually move into all the mammals and the rats and the mice and all that.
So you can get all of that in later editions.
Okay, that was actually me talking.
So let's get.
Let's.
Let's have me not talk for some and let's talk about the cool things that we can borrow from this that we like to call our portable section.
We're going to see what's portable from Red Wall that we'd want to put into just a regular D and D game that we were going to be playing.
Megan, do you want to talk about what you would take from Redwall input into your.
Your ongoing games right now?
Speaker A
00:20:18.160 - 00:21:28.360
I don't have an ongoing game right now, but if I were to have an ongoing game, I think I was like, okay, so when you had message or message mentioned siege based stuff, I went through and started trying to understand the Warhammer 40K stuff because I've never played a Siege based game.
I didn't get it.
It's not my jam.
But just thinking about like opposing sides kind of creating a DND esque or like just generalized TTRPG like war games scenario where you can have a group of players play as the like rats aside the evil side and then another set play the good side and have, you know, the DM tell the story about it.
And I would be really interested to see how each side and the characters on each side would interact and try and get into like the abbey per se.
Like, how would you infiltrate this castle?
How would you defend this castle?
Like, what are the stories for the base heroes?
Like your party?
What are you wanting them to achieve to help protect the castle?
Things like that.
Speaker C
00:21:28.360 - 00:21:38.600
That does sound cool.
A siege oriented campaign could be a lot of fun.
Tanya, did you want to talk about what you wanted to port over from Red Wall to your games?
Speaker E
00:21:39.480 - 00:23:57.380
Yeah, mine is the same as Megan's.
I was looking at the siege aspect because I also have never done a siege warhammer.
I have been around people who play it a lot, and it's not my.
It wasn't my jam.
At least that kind of siege play.
It's not my jam.
But I looked around at how people have been running sieges for DND and I found a couple things that actually piqued my interest in it.
One was players against, you know, the dm, still players in the Abbey.
Especially that last battle, the final battle, when they tried to take the whole Abbey.
There's several points where you could set it up so that as the DM are, instead of doing a lot of fighting, they're running around to the groups of animals and telling them what to do.
And then the.
And then they're rolling to see if that's happening.
While the DM has split the horde into groups and they play each horde as a group instead of like a hundred rats that you have to do.
And so you can run them as a.
A group within the horde.
And then there's several spots where you can structure it because there's certain things that happen in that battle that make it so that you can structure it.
So the DM says, somebody runs up to one of your players and says they just wield a siege tower against the wall.
And then they have to go and they have to do that siege.
So it's like a challenge in the middle that they have to do.
So there's several points that you can do that where your people get to fight, but they're not fighting the whole thing.
And it's not taking 10 sessions to do a siege.
So it kind of interested me that you could.
You could group it like that.
Because my brain always goes siege.
Well, I don't want to run, roll for a hundred enemies at a time.
That's, you know.
So I thought that was a really interesting way to do it that I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own.
Speaker C
00:23:57.380 - 00:23:59.660
That is really cool, Lindsay.
Speaker D
00:23:59.660 - 00:24:37.150
Well, and I'm gonna go like completely opposite.
I'm gonna go all puzzles.
Like, I really Love the parts where it's, it's Methuselah and Matthias, like, figuring stuff out and figuring out how to do that.
So like, I'm, I'm running our next game, as they said, and I'm running Strahd for everyone.
So I feel like that there are so many old buildings in Barovia.
Like, I could easily, like, do some like.
Okay, if you, like, look around here, what kinds of things are you gonna find to help you out on your quest in the future?
Like, like puzzles built into rooms.
Speaker C
00:24:37.550 - 00:24:47.720
If she does not put a library in an old building and there is a book that opens a secret door, she has failed you.
That has to happen at least, has to happen at least once.
Speaker A
00:24:48.360 - 00:24:49.240
Most definitely.
Speaker C
00:24:51.160 - 00:24:56.760
You can totally, you can totally make it a puzzle to figure out which book it is, which I think would be really fun.
Speaker E
00:24:57.080 - 00:24:58.080
That would be amazing.
Speaker D
00:24:58.080 - 00:25:22.850
Well, and we are starting in Candlekeep, so I'm doing the adventure hook in Candlekeep, so I have options.
Just, it's just kind of like that in the, the environmental puzzles I really, really like.
So like building in something that would be like, like you said, like finding the hidden room or, you know, you have to do this to get the special item that you need.
Speaker C
00:25:23.090 - 00:25:51.850
One of the things I really liked about it is the whole progression to find the sword.
And there are little rewards along the way.
They find the scabbard, they find the belt, they find the shield.
Like it.
Even though the sword is obviously the thing that's going to win the day, but there's all these other little pieces that are building up to, that are useful and, and are going to be things that will, will work with the whole process.
But I like that build up rewards that are all connected to each other to create your sort of final goal.
I like that a lot.
Speaker D
00:25:52.010 - 00:26:18.260
Well, and it, it's not too frustrating because, like, I've played with kids a lot and a lot of times it's like, it waiting for that big payoff is really, really frustrating even for adults.
So if you build it in like that, like little pieces at a time, then you can build in the light rewards.
So then people aren't feeling like, oh, like, we have to do this again, we have to go through this again.
Because that can get really wearing too.
Speaker C
00:26:18.260 - 00:26:23.540
Absolutely.
And you want to give them setbacks, but you don't want them to feel discouraged.
So that's always tough.
Speaker D
00:26:23.540 - 00:26:23.940
Yes.
Speaker C
00:26:24.420 - 00:27:42.350
I'm just going to put in my last little piece here, which is that I love the villains in this.
I've already Talked about Clooney being like a Disney villain.
I love a villain who, who's just.
He's like, there's no redeeming qualities for him.
There's no redemption arc for this for Clooney.
It never happened.
There's no room for it.
It was not a thing.
It's just not going to happen.
But my actual favorite villain in this is Asmodeus, the villain who talks to himself and is very quiet and is just so sure of himself that he's.
That he can just tell you that he's going to kill you and keep moving towards you.
I love a incredibly confident.
I do like a crazy villain like Clooney, but I also like a really calm, super sure of themselves villain, which Asmodeus is.
It's fantastic.
That's the portables, which means that we are on to recommendations if folks.
Now, Redwall is a huge series and it has lots of things to read.
As has already been hinted at.
There are all kinds of really fun things that you can keep reading in this, in this series.
So go do that.
But if you, if you wanted to do something outside of the, the Red Wall multiverse, whatever it is that we're working with here, where would you go to find similar inspiration?
Tanya, what media do you think would really vibe with Redwall?
Speaker E
00:27:43.070 - 00:28:43.080
You know, I had a couple of things on my list and two of them sparked me pretty good just because of these semi religious aspect of being in an abbey and stuff and then having that hero's arc.
One was Dragon Age, the video game Dragon Age Inquisition.
But all of them actually, because they all have heavy themes of like heroes and religious things in it.
And I thought of one the other.
Just the other day, David Eddings wrote a series called the Ruby Throne.
I believe it's a three series.
There's actually two three book series, but only the first one's called the Ruby Throne.
But it is very similar because the character, the main characters in this book are of a quasi religious order.
But there's a huge hero's quest going on with that and the bad guys are bad.
So it's kind of like that Red Wall, but darker.
Speaker C
00:28:43.240 - 00:28:55.160
I like the Ruby Night series.
The one thing I absolutely remember is Sparrow Hawk specifically calling everybody neighbor because not everybody's your friend, neighbor, your neighbors.
Speaker E
00:28:56.120 - 00:29:06.320
Yep, everybody.
But it just.
Anything that has that kind of, oh, we start out in a cloister or an abbot or an order always draws me back to like those books.
Speaker C
00:29:06.320 - 00:29:11.720
Those are great recommendations.
Did you have any others?
I just, I didn't want to rule those out.
Speaker E
00:29:12.200 - 00:29:17.080
The only other thing I thought of was Skyrim, but so many things remind me of, like, this could be Skyrim.
Speaker C
00:29:17.240 - 00:29:20.280
All right, fair enough.
Okay, Megan, did you want to go next?
Speaker A
00:29:21.240 - 00:29:28.160
Sure.
I'm all over the place because I consume way too much different types of media.
That's okay.
Speaker C
00:29:28.160 - 00:29:29.160
That's what we're looking for.
Speaker A
00:29:29.960 - 00:30:28.150
I'm reading Dungeon Crawler Carl the series.
I just started the seventh book.
And that's just like, if you've read it, you know, you know that it's full of a lot of like, pop culture references, etc.
And how it functions like a game.
So that's always a really fun one.
And then with like, religious order and stuff.
I have been having this weird hyper fixation with the Dune series, which is always a good one.
And I know they have a tabletop RPG thing because I might have impulsively bought the entire thing.
It's the, like, balance between light and dark.
And you're the hero until you see yourself as the villain or.
Yeah, until you're the villain.
And that always speaks to me especially just there's so much that goes into the politics of Arrakis and the intergalactic system.
So that's always a really interesting one to kind of pull more war puzzle esque, like, strategies.
That's what it is.
I like strategy.
Speaker C
00:30:29.750 - 00:30:32.710
Yeah, Sounds good, Lindsay.
Speaker D
00:30:33.590 - 00:31:32.060
So I was a huge point and click adventure girly growing up.
So I would say like anything like King's Quest.
And honestly, like the.
The one that came out.
Oh goodness.
The Odd Gentleman made a King's Quest.
It released in 2015, really talks about, like the Hero's quest.
So King's Quest follows King Graham and then his offspring on his kind of journey from being kind of a commoner to becoming the King of Daventry and then maintaining like, his kingness.
But the Odd Gentleman game specifically talks about him as like a normal person and how he won the King's seat and all his kind of foibles.
And he's kind of clumsy like Matthias.
Matthias is.
But also, like with the puzzles, I also think any of the Dragon Age games, I think Veil Guard for me because there's just more animals in it.
Speaker C
00:31:32.140 - 00:31:33.260
Yay, More animals.
Speaker D
00:31:34.370 - 00:31:57.250
Yay, more animals.
Dragon Age Valgard, for me, kind of speaks to this.
But then as we were talking, I was also thinking the Witcher, because there's a lot of like, figuring out who you are.
And the Witcher orders are almost like religious orders.
So I feel like the Witcher kind of Scratches that itch too.
Speaker E
00:31:57.250 - 00:32:01.960
You know, as you were talking, Lindsay, you want to know what popped into my head was Fable.
Speaker D
00:32:02.600 - 00:32:03.320
Oh my God.
Speaker E
00:32:05.000 - 00:32:09.000
All Fable is is a hero's journey.
That is literally all that game is.
Speaker D
00:32:09.400 - 00:32:19.160
And like, it's so weird that I didn't even think of it because I've been waiting for that game to come out for like 10 years.
The new, the new Fable game.
Speaker E
00:32:19.320 - 00:32:20.760
The new Fable game.
Exactly.
Speaker C
00:32:21.400 - 00:33:37.560
I tend to be a book guy, so I am going to mention I'm going to try and get three books in here as quick as I can.
The Tamora Pierce Circle opens series is in an abbey.
We have characters.
They learn how to work together.
There's even a point where their abbey is under siege.
So it's a YA book.
So awesome.
That would be an awesome choice there.
I would also recommend Mouse Guard, which is the graphic novel by David Peterson that is very Red Wall ish and, and incredibly cool.
And then the third book, which I didn't talk about yesterday when we were in our pre game, but my wife reminded me that I should put in there is a Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher, which is a siege book.
There's a young baker and she's in a town and she figures out that she has some magic and the town ends up under siege and she, she uses her baking magic to help defend the town.
I won't spoil it, but it starts off with a in with her being able to animate a small gingerbread man and it goes from there.
So I'm.
She also has a sentient sourdough starter.
Speaker A
00:33:38.680 - 00:33:40.120
Oh God, that's epic.
Speaker D
00:33:40.200 - 00:33:42.720
Okay.
Like you, you've completely sold this book.
Speaker C
00:33:42.720 - 00:34:38.980
Fantastic.
I, I, I've read it a couple of times and basically anything T. Kingfisher writes is fantastic.
I would just, you can just auto buy everything that they write.
But that one.
If you're looking for a siege and you're looking to see how regular people with their own particular quirks and abilities can help defend their community, that's your book.
I would definitely do that.
It's tough to end on a sad note, but I do want to say that there was a Canadian TV series of the Red Wall books.
It covers, I think the first three.
It covers the Matthias, his son Mateo.
And I think they do a, I think they go back and do Martin.
I'm not sure what but there are three, three seasons and they're each a book.
And there was discussion that they were that Netflix was scheduled in 2027 to release new Episodes.
But it was recently canceled.
I was very disappointed to find.
Speaker D
00:34:38.980 - 00:34:50.490
I remember this.
So although if you can find this Canadian TV series because I just looked it up, it looks like the Hobbit animated look.
Speaker C
00:34:50.570 - 00:34:51.050
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:34:51.050 - 00:34:53.050
Which is like.
I love the animation.
Speaker C
00:34:53.050 - 00:35:25.780
It has a very Rankin Bassey kind of look to it in that regard.
And actually fun, fun fact.
The Hobbit is the Hobbit was done by, not done by the Rankin Bass folks as much as it was shipped over, over to Japan to do.
And that I though the name isn't on the Hobbit that those guys who did the Hobbit left that company and then went to form Studio Ghibli.
So technically, technically the 1970s Hobbits, Rankin Bass is one of the first Ghibli films.
Speaker D
00:35:25.940 - 00:35:34.910
I think I, I knew that because I, that is a.
Like before I even knew what Ghibli or anime was.
The, that Hobbit was my favorite.
I just watched it all the time.
Speaker A
00:35:35.150 - 00:35:38.110
Oh no, you're good.
I was gonna say that movie was terrifying.
So it's fine.
Speaker C
00:35:40.430 - 00:35:55.070
The first time I saw it on television, the first time I saw it on television, my, my I, I saw Gollum and I stopped watching at that point and I ran upstairs because I was like seven or something like that at the time.
It was very, it was on tv,.
Speaker E
00:35:55.790 - 00:36:00.260
But I missed it was on, on tv.
It was very good.
Speaker C
00:36:00.820 - 00:36:16.820
When my parents got their first VHS player, that was the very first professional purchase.
The first like, like real movie we bought was the Hobbit.
That was the very first tape I owned.
Speaker D
00:36:17.380 - 00:36:29.350
I mean, this is just confirming that I'm built weird and built different because like I loved all that Gollum stuff.
Loved it.
And again, it goes back to the puzzles and the riddles.
Like I love that he's there giving riddles.
Speaker C
00:36:29.350 - 00:36:35.910
Those are the classics, man.
Those are the classic.
Okay, any more media before we go on?
Speaker D
00:36:36.550 - 00:37:40.170
No talking about books.
It made me think of like another YA title that I really, really love.
I recently actually gifted a copy to Megan's son is the Gregor the Overlander series.
So before Suzanne Collins wrote the Hunger Games, she wrote a series called Gregor the Overlander.
And it's about a young boy in New York City whose dad has gone missing, has been missing for several years and kind of like Percy Jackson esque, he kind of like refuses to believe like something like he just left.
But it turns out that there's a secret entrance to an underground world in the laundry room of his apartment building.
And he falls through the.
The laundry room to Enter a secret world where they ride bats and there's anthropomorphic animals again.
But it's a really, really fun YA book that when I read it, didn't I.
It didn't feel to me that it was talking down to the young people.
Speaker C
00:37:40.490 - 00:37:42.570
That's great.
I've never heard of this series.
Speaker D
00:37:43.450 - 00:37:47.970
Nobody ever has.
It's so good.
I like it better than I like the Hunger Games.
Speaker C
00:37:47.970 - 00:37:49.610
Oh, wow.
High praise indeed.
Speaker D
00:37:50.730 - 00:37:51.210
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:37:51.370 - 00:38:14.250
All right, that means we are moving on to our.
Our promotional section.
So this is where you guys get to tell people important stuff that they should know.
And this doesn't necessarily need to be about gaming or anything.
It's just the important stuff that.
That our listeners should know that are.
That's happening in their world.
So, Tanya, did you have anything you wanted to tell the folks about?
Speaker E
00:38:14.650 - 00:38:55.610
So I live in a teeny, teeny tiny town in western Colorado.
And every September we have a festival called the Mountain Harvest Festival.
And it is literally a week's worth of just music and jam bands and all the festival stuff in the town.
But the highlight is we have some big bands that come through and play in our park on Saturday night.
So it's a.
It's a big deal around here.
So I tell everybody about it and I'll be vending there because I am weird and I play D, listen to metal and hand dye yarn.
Speaker C
00:38:55.770 - 00:39:00.090
So there we go.
So what are the dates on that?
And what is your town?
Speaker E
00:39:00.170 - 00:39:23.550
Oh, gosh.
The town is Peonia, Colorado.
It was supposed to be Peony, but somebody spelled it wrong and it got recorded at the post office when that stuff was like, really important.
So that's how it stuck.
It is September, I believe, 25th and 26th, Friday and Saturday are the main days this year.
Speaker C
00:39:23.870 - 00:39:33.930
All right, if we can get the episode out quickly, we'll see if we can't get that out beforehand and people can go see Tanya and buy some of our yarn.
If not, make your plans for 2027.
Speaker E
00:39:34.970 - 00:39:40.250
Exactly.
It's been going on for a long, long time.
Like 35 or 40 years now.
Speaker C
00:39:40.650 - 00:39:50.650
I love a good hometown festival.
It's the best thing in the world.
Lindsay, Megan, I know you guys work for the same place, so do you want to talk about that?
Speaker A
00:39:51.530 - 00:39:59.530
We will be at PAX west in September, so you can come and visit us at our booth with Geek.
Speaker D
00:39:59.530 - 00:40:00.810
With Geek Therapeutics.
Speaker A
00:40:00.810 - 00:40:02.410
Yep, Geek Therapeutics.
Speaker D
00:40:04.810 - 00:40:25.780
So we're a bunch of therapists that train other therapists to use geek media.
But then we also have a network of therapists around the country as well, with therapists in Virginia and Fairfax, Virginia.
Physical locations in Aurora, Denver, Colorado, Fairfax, Virginia, and Philadelphia.
Speaker A
00:40:26.180 - 00:40:28.500
Did you say Texas and Texas?
Speaker D
00:40:28.500 - 00:40:29.780
Texas is the main.
One.
Speaker E
00:40:31.860 - 00:40:40.260
Shouldn't forget Texas forgot to say that you guys also write books on the different video games that you all play.
Speaker A
00:40:40.659 - 00:40:42.500
True.
That's how we met Eric.
Speaker C
00:40:42.740 - 00:40:51.080
Yep.
I met them, you guys, at PAX east, where you were talking about your different.
The different books that you guys were writing about various video games, which was really cool.
Speaker A
00:40:51.150 - 00:40:51.470
Cool.
Speaker D
00:40:51.630 - 00:41:04.910
That is true.
And then also, besides what we do for work, Megan and I will be starting a horror podcast.
Do you want to say the name Megan since you came up with it?
Speaker E
00:41:05.310 - 00:41:05.710
Sure.
Speaker A
00:41:06.190 - 00:41:28.860
So it's going to be called Sessions After Midnight.
Yep.
We're gonna do horror media, whether that's video games, movies, books, television shows, and kind of just putting our own perspective on it.
Talking about things that stuck out to us, all that jazz.
Speaker D
00:41:29.340 - 00:41:42.380
Talking about how we relate to horror as our own identities as therapists, but then bringing on other people, too, to talk about, like, how their identity impacts the type of horror that they consume.
Speaker C
00:41:42.700 - 00:41:57.730
Fantastic.
Okay, when you guys do that, we are going to do a joint episode and we're going to read a horror book, and then we're going to talk about how, like, how we can.
How we can talk about different horror TTRPGs.
I think that would be fantastic.
Speaker A
00:41:58.530 - 00:42:00.290
Oh, my God, that'd be so much fun.
Speaker C
00:42:01.810 - 00:42:39.440
I was gonna say we did.
Where did Necroscope by Brian Lumley, which was like a vampire thing.
And then the other episode that we did, that is hard, we actually had a couple of horror authors on.
We had Tricia Wooldridge, who's a local author here in Massachusetts.
Her book was Where Monsters Prey.
And then we had Romy Stott, who is the president of, like, the New England Horror Writers association, but we had her on for her book, Nothing in the Basement.
So those of you who will be listening to Sessions After Midnight, feel free to check out episodes 37 and 36 of the game Masters Book Club, please.
Speaker D
00:42:39.830 - 00:42:43.590
I have some horror books that I'll put.
Put in our Discord channel.
Speaker A
00:42:43.910 - 00:42:46.070
Oh, same these.
I have way too many.
Speaker B
00:42:46.390 - 00:42:46.750
Sure.
Speaker C
00:42:46.750 - 00:42:55.190
And if you guys want to come back on and do that in the future, we're happy to have you.
Even if you.
Even if it's not with your podcast.
Well, we can just have you guys come back on and we could talk.
Speaker D
00:42:55.190 - 00:42:56.750
R. Oh, I would love that.
Speaker B
00:42:56.750 - 00:43:01.750
All right.
And that was Ritual, the first book in the massive middle grade fantasy series by Brian Jacques.
Speaker C
00:43:01.750 - 00:43:02.350
Heroic.
Speaker B
00:43:02.350 - 00:44:17.540
Thanks to Tanya Dreet, Michelle Rodriguez and the Lindsay Grove for completing the quest that was this book.
As promised, Lindsay, Michelle and Tanya will return in 2027 with the horror book the Reformatory by Tanner Reeve du and tune in to our next episode where Tom Watkin, Martin Wilson and Rich Davies check in from Perth, Australia to discuss Robin Hobbs, Ship of Magic.
You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-squareproductions.com GMBC.
You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media, on bluesky@gmbookclub bluesky social on Facebook @gamemastersbookclub, on Mastodon @gamemastersbookclub and on Instagram gamemastersbookclub.
If you've enjoyed the show, please like subscribe and comment on our episodes in your chosen podcast in space and be sure to share those episodes with your gaming community.
You've been listening to the Game Masters Book Club brought to you by me, Eric Jackson and K Square Productions.
Continued praise and thanks to John Corbett for the podcast artwork and Otis Galloway for our music.
Later, gamers, and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising Cap.