GMBC ep40 - From Rocket Trees to Robotic Aristocrats: The Wild World of the graphic novel Saga
Brain K. Vaughn
Fiona Staples
Saga Graphic Novels
Speaker A
00:00:00.240 - 00:00:00.560
Foreign.
Speaker B
00:00:06.960 - 00:01:40.150
Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop role playing experience. Saga is a graphic novel series by Brian K. Vaughn with art by Fiona Staples.
Jonathan Mazur, John Corbett and Sean Murphy are back to discuss this NC17 punk rock space opera version of Romeo and Juliet.
With both magical rocket trees and robotic aristocrats, this story deals with the cost of war, pacifism in the face of defending family prejudice and social divides, and the true power of love between two people. Let's get into the conversation. There he is, Craig. The amazing Craig Craig. Brought to you by Craig.
This is the Game Masters Book Club and I'm here with three returning folks who are going to talk to you today about Saga, the graphic novel, the award winning graphic novel, the sci fi space opera. Sci fi space opera, punk rock, not safe for work. Amazing graphic novel.
So today we're going to have our Game Masters talk not only about the novel itself and about the things that are happening.
But since the romance between Marco and Alana is the primary driving force behind most of the action that's happening, we're going to talk also about romance in our games. So with that I'm going to pass it over to Sean.
Sean, do you want to introduce yourself to the folks and tell them about how you handle romance in your tabletop RPGs?
Speaker C
00:01:40.230 - 00:02:51.210
Yeah, sounds great. So I've been game mastering now in various forms off and on since the 70s. A brief break and then back into it again.
Wide variety of gaming types for period of time. When I came back again, I was just excited to try all the different types out there.
How I feel about romance in the game is really based on how the players feel about it. If the players are engaged and you know, it's not interfering with the scope of things, that's great.
And I had a game where two players, over the course of time the other players realized there was probably a romance going on, but it was happening off camera from the game.
The only real clues were whenever there was a battle, they were both curious, frantic almost at times of where the other one was and would forsake the other, defending the other companions in favor of the other person that they were in with. I will say that most of my romance games tend to be we're thinking about being romance, we're trying it out.
But that just may be a product of playing most of my games in a somewhat puritanical New England that is.
Speaker B
00:02:51.210 - 00:03:04.530
True New England, home of progressives and puritanical feelings about sex. Absolutely. So checking in with you, Jonathan, you want to introduce yourself to the folks and tell them about romance in your game.
Speaker A
00:03:04.690 - 00:04:48.160
I was actually pondering as you were talking.
I want to say I have always considered myself more of a player than a game master, but I guess I have been somewhat consistently running things since college. So on and off for 30ish years, there's. In the various groups I've had, there's rotation, so sometimes somebody else is doing it.
But I ran a pulp game in college. I ran a sort of a seasonal superhero game for about six or seven years since I've been in Virginia.
In terms of romance in the game, Well, I think what Sean said makes a lot of sense. It obviously depends a great deal on the players.
I was actually pondering the first time sort of it came up, and I want to say it was during the groups I was playing a superhero game with sort of immediately post college. So again, roughly 30 years ago, and it was two different players. And she's like, all right, I'll do this, but we have to be serious about it.
All right, you know, however you guys want to handle it. But I think that was really the only instance that I can recall where it was two different players and, and two different player characters.
Most of the romance that I've had in my games have involved player and an NPC that we even had one character got married. So again, if. If everybody's on the same page, it can usually be done and, and I think it can, can add dimensions to the storytelling.
Speaker B
00:04:48.560 - 00:04:56.240
John, do you want to. John Corbett, do you want to give it a role and tell people about yourself and tell them about romance in your campaigns?
Speaker D
00:04:56.800 - 00:06:31.610
All right. I am a artist and game master. I've been at it for about the last 40, 45 years or so.
Majority of my games have been Dungeons and dragons, maybe 75%, and the other 25 has been exploring other systems.
I think that when it comes to romance in the game, I think it's important to consider, like Jonathan was saying, the people that you're with, if it's a group that you've been playing with people, you know, then I think romance is a lot more easy to slot into your game if that's a thing that interests you.
If, however, you're getting together with strangers, which I know is a lot more common nowadays, you know, people are going online, people are meeting up at local gaming stores, people are being paid to dm.
If it's a situation like that, I would probably set up in my session zero that unless people specifically ask for it that it's not on the table because you could get into weird situations.
I wouldn't introduce it as the DM to the players or between players and NPCs and I wouldn't necessarily suggest that players do it because I think it's an unknown variable. If it's a group of people that you know or you've established in advance that they are into it, I think it's a fine component for the game.
I've had players do it just to check off their bucket list. This is back in the college days, of course. And then I've had players.
I was, I was a player once where another player was playing female character for the first time and they were kind of exploring what that was like and they got romantic towards my character and just went for it. So, yeah, I think it can be a good addition.
Speaker B
00:06:32.170 - 00:06:54.950
I agree with what everybody said so far. It is important to be sure that we are approaching our players where they want to be. And it's not the sort of thing you want to spring on people.
And I'm Eric Jackson and I'm the guy who's running the podcast and I've been playing since the Pleistocene. And I can remember my very first character, Exor Falcon Talon had a most.
Speaker D
00:06:54.950 - 00:06:56.710
First character name ever, by the way.
Speaker B
00:06:56.790 - 00:07:00.190
It totally is absolutely Xor. Is that.
Speaker A
00:07:00.190 - 00:07:02.790
That's an awesome name. Put me down for awesome names.
Speaker B
00:07:03.190 - 00:08:24.800
He's Xor. Fountains can tell him because this was. I was like nine and I thought Xor look like. Looked really cool. So that's the name I picked.
And then I had a nice, A nice person who was in my game say, oh, by the way, that's not pronounced Xor, that's pronounced Sore. And I was like, well, I really like Exor better. So I wrote in like a little E next to the Exor. And for a long time that was my character.
She was like Exur, Palan of Zeus. Exur had romantic things that were happening. And very often I've played characters who have had romantic backgrounds.
And in fact I'm playing a romance, at least off screen with an NPC in John Corbett's campaign right now. So I am very, I'm always very excited to have to have that represented.
But I also realize that most folks who are gamers are not also romance readers.
I've read a lot of romance and so I have a lot of storylines that are sort of floating around in my head that I would like to try out and see what would happen.
And I think that this book, this series of graphic novels might be a really interesting way to get people to think about romance in a role playing situation. Because it, at the rest of this story, just to allay anyone's fears. This isn't exactly a kissing book.
Speaker A
00:08:25.360 - 00:08:33.320
Yeah, I, I almost, I'm like, well, I guess we could call it a romance, but I don't know how it classifies itself.
Speaker B
00:08:33.320 - 00:08:44.160
Well, I was going to say technically, as far as I've read, and I've read, I think up to a graphic volume number nine, technically this isn't a romance. It has romantic elements.
Speaker A
00:08:45.000 - 00:08:47.480
Yeah, definitely romantic themes.
Speaker B
00:08:47.480 - 00:09:21.390
But in order to qualify romance as a literary genre has a very specific set of rules. They're only, there's, there's only two of them.
There need to be romantic elements and there needs to be a happily ever after or a happily ever after for now. And my impression from the way that the storyline is going at least up through book nine, is that the romance was not going to be very successful.
In fact, there's some hints right at the beginning that Hazel, who is our narrator in the book, that things are not going to go well for these folks.
Speaker A
00:09:21.550 - 00:09:32.750
Well, they're not going to go well for the relationship or they're not going to go like. Because there are, you know, no spoilers here. But they, there are people immediately trying to kill.
Speaker B
00:09:32.830 - 00:11:39.430
Yes, that's on page. That's on page two. So yeah, that's really not a spoiler.
Well, yes, I don't know if they survived and I know that they've been very cagey about it in the, in the series so far. Sure. So in that regard, I don't know that this is a happily ever after.
So I can't call it a romance because I will say if you are going to have a romance and you're going to tell a romance reader or anybody who reads romance that this is a romance, then you need to. Those are the two rules you have to keep to or else you will find yourself gutted and left in the streets.
Just to be clear, romance readers are fantastic people, but they are very serious about those two points. Never shall you cross those two lines or else peril you shall, you shall find. Moving on. Let's talk about the book itself.
Now that we've played out the romance part of this, let's talk about the rest of the book. Saga is a graphic novel which is a space opera, wartime punk rock. Romeo and Juliet. The Capulets have wings.
This is where the Capulets have wings and the Montagues have horns and the double Suicide is isn't an option because the winged Alana and the horned Marco have a child named Hazel. So they're on the run from the very beginning.
Through a universe of myriad species and the various hatred and discrimination that so often follows in those diverse settings, the heroes are able to see past the race, gender, sexuality, and even corporeality of the people who they associate with, while the villains shamelessly exploit these divisions. The art is amazing, the story is compelling, and the resulting synergy of those two is phenomenal.
And as I mentioned at the beginning, although this is a story about family, found family, and how families deal with war, this is an NC17 rating.
So if you're listening and thinking, boy, this sounds like a great book I should give to my kids, please, please read the books first and make your choices appropriately. With that out of the way, gentlemen, do you have other stuff to add? We'll start with Jonathan.
Speaker A
00:11:39.430 - 00:11:46.030
I was just going to say that we, for the purposes of the podcast, we were only talking about volumes one through three.
Speaker B
00:11:46.510 - 00:11:47.310
Absolutely correct.
Speaker A
00:11:47.310 - 00:11:53.630
Which I guess would be like one through 18 or something like that.
Speaker B
00:11:53.950 - 00:12:50.090
I believe it goes to chapter 18 is the last one in book three. I did make you guys read through three for a very specific reason.
There is a quote in chapter 17 that is done by our romance author who is in the story, and it's about children's stories. One of my absolute favorite quotes of all time, and I'm going to subject you to it right now. All good children's stories are the same.
Young creature breaks the rules, has an incredible adventure, and then returns home with the knowledge that aforementioned rules are there for reasons. Of course, the actual message to the careful reader is break the rules as often as you can, because who the hell doesn't want to have an adventure?
And that for me is one of the fundamental quotes of literature. So that's why it's. Honestly, it's 100% why I asked you guys to read through book three so I could get that quote in there.
Don Corbett, are there any themes or things that I missed that you want to bring up?
Speaker D
00:12:50.330 - 00:13:08.960
Well, I would add that it is. Although it is a space opera, it does have elements of magic. Not that those aren't in a good space opera, but not all space opera has it.
And the magic in this is a lot of fun. It's not omnipresent or overbearing. It's just a tool that gets introduced periodically. So I like that.
Speaker B
00:13:09.200 - 00:13:17.360
It's very Star wars in its use of the magic in that regard. John did you want to add anything about the story before we move to the mechanics?
Speaker C
00:13:17.680 - 00:14:26.600
Yeah, no, it's funny, I never have thought of this. I've read like you up to nine. I have the other ones I just haven't got to them yet. I've never thought of this as a romance series.
I mean, there's a romance that's going on, but I think it's about not found family, but family. Like they are a family. The core characters are literally a family.
You cannot get more family than parents and a kid and then the grandparents are involved and a lot of the other, you know, characters are coming in. Your ex. Fiance is, you know, ex family or ex pre family or whatever you want to talk about. So it's.
I'm happy to talk about romance and such, but I don't think of it as a romance. And other than these two characters are clearly in love, but they don't. But I don't know if that's not necessarily what I think of.
I think there's a romance.
They acknowledge that, I think when they say, as you quoted, the option of a twin suicide a la Romeo and Juliet left the moment the baby was conceived.
Speaker B
00:14:27.080 - 00:15:00.870
So there really wasn't much of an option there. And I. But I do think that it is their love that is the driving force behind what is happening in the book.
It is their relationship, the existence of their child is what a lot of the antagonists are very concerned about.
So in that regard, maybe it's just the result of a romance that took place earlier that we don't get to see or we don't see very much of in the first three. In the first three volumes. That that is a thing to call.
Speaker A
00:15:00.870 - 00:15:10.350
It a romantic adventure, you know, I mean, you know, there's no way you could look at it and say, well, it has no romantic elements. Because as you say, it's a Right.
Speaker C
00:15:10.350 - 00:15:31.630
That's why I'm saying romance, not romantic. I mean, obviously it's romantic. They. The moments he has. And I don't want to spoil anything where he. He doesn't actually like, how did he do that?
And it's because he has absolute faith that he knows this person so well that he knows that she will deal with the situation. That's a romantic, not romance.
Speaker B
00:15:32.190 - 00:15:34.110
I think. I think that's a good choice.
Speaker A
00:15:34.990 - 00:15:36.110
All right, I see the point.
Speaker B
00:15:36.110 - 00:16:03.480
Fantastic. All right, so we wanted to mimic this particular graphic novel.
And let me say I'm excited about the concept of potentially doing this because it is such a wildly creative and expansive universe. How Would you folks want to approach this? Sean, we're going to start with you. How would you like to evoke this particular graphic novel on the table?
Speaker C
00:16:04.140 - 00:17:22.130
So I think I originally was looking at Fantasy Flight, Star wars, and the attraction for that to me was, as we've talked about, it's a Star wars type thing. But Fantasy Flight also has this mechanic of some success, partial success, super success based on dice roll.
And that does feel consistent, like they have some big wins, but they also have some little. Little wins and some little losses. And some big losses. So there's an element to that. But, you know, I found myself going to D and D Spelljammer.
And it's not necessarily the best for interpersonal relationships, but in terms of being able to bring in magic, I mean, this ship is so much like the Druid ship from the. That's all made of wood. It has so much of the magic, swashbuckliness, different characters.
It would be able to incorporate those and the wide range of alien beings that Vaughn and Staples bring into it appeal to me in that way. And the mechanics are simple enough, I think, that you'd be able to focus on story more than mechanics.
Speaker B
00:17:22.210 - 00:17:35.690
Always the touchstone on whether the mechanics are going to help or they're going to get in the way. Always the. The final question. Jonathan, did you want to talk about your mechanical choice for evoking this particular graphic novel?
Speaker A
00:17:36.410 - 00:20:06.950
I should say, I guess that when I actually started reading the Assignment for. For this episode, I don't know if I knew what Saga was about before I picked it up.
And I just found it so very different from anything I'd ever really sat down and read before.
I mean, sure, it's possible to draw parallels to other things, but I was struck by just how many different varied elements were included in the story.
You know, you have mercenaries and assassins and an interplanetary war and the aforementioned romantic subplot and a living ship and robot people with televisions for heads and, you know, just. I mean, like, it was just kind of crazy. And I was reminded of the reactions I had when I first encountered. Started reading the.
The backstory in the Shadowrun Rules.
Not necessarily because that it's in any way really cyberpunk, which I. I think is what if you have to classify Shadowrun, that's, I think, what it's supposed to be. But that was a game that had magic and cyberware and fantasy races and a lot of Native American elements.
And I mean, it really did seem like all this in the kitchen sink and possibly, you know, A spare chest freezer too. I don't know.
When I started reading this, it just, it struck a chord as I don't even necessarily think that it's in a game that it's, it's necessarily a good thing to have like that many elements in it. But I thought, oh, just the variety of aliens and all this other stuff. I thought that might be one way to handle it.
And may I throw in a close runner up that I thought of after the fact, of course, the outgunned line of games from There you go. Two little Mike. It's an Italian game studio, but obviously they do this stuff in English too that has.
It's a modular system, but it literally has every kind of genre you can think of as sort of a add on thing you can add to it. So there is probably a way to do a space fantasy romance thing.
Speaker B
00:20:06.950 - 00:20:14.190
That's a good recommendation. John Corbett, would you like to talk about your mechanical inclinations for this graphic novel?
Speaker C
00:20:14.190 - 00:20:14.470
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:20:14.470 - 00:21:32.240
So as when reading this, I didn't see the characters, they didn't just jump out me as like archetypes. Like they didn't just say, oh, this is a fighter or this is a magic user.
Even though there are fighting and magic using elements, they all just felt like they were characters.
So I was thinking that for something like this, which is also space based and it has these characters flying across the galaxy, Scum and villainy from Blades in the Dark was a good choice.
I feel like you could build a set of skills for each character without worrying that they're, you know, this archetype or that archetype and you wouldn't have to get like bogged down in like pigeonholing people. And then for the different situations, the fact that you, you have like kind of a sliding scale, if you will, with position and effect.
So these characters in a situation like. Well, I'm not sure how to adjudicate it with this particular skill because how to set the difficulty. Well, look at the position.
What are they doing, what are they facing off against, that kind of thing. So it felt like a good fit. That and the fact that it's very kind of. It's light magic. It's got like Star wars magic with the Force.
But I also like the fact that ships are characters in scum and villainy. And I really felt like their home, their, their tree ship in Saga might have had that feel.
It had like a serenity, you know, this is our, this is our home base kind of deal.
Speaker B
00:21:32.640 - 00:23:52.740
Absolutely fantastic. That's a great recommendation. I'M gonna recommend because it's Sci fi and it's the one Sci Fi. It's the Sci fi I'm the most comfortable with. It's.
I'm gonna recommend Traveller. I think some of the life path system that you use to create the characters is random in that it's not point buy.
So if you have a point buy system you tend to have very specialized characters who have like one or two skills that are really interesting. I felt like these characters felt a little bit more organic and a little less like put together.
So in that regard I thought it was good and the non linear path of some of their backgrounds was pretty cool.
But actually the game that I would like to try this in and I have since purchased the game and I've talked about it before on the show, which is Stars without Number, which uses the same skill mechanics as Traveler does, which is a 2d6 roll against your skill thing which makes skills really much more predictable.
And I felt like there were characters who could do more predictable things there and then they have a more swingy D20 combat system more similar to D and D, making combat a bit more chaotic and bloody. And Saga is definitely chaotic and bloody as far as its combat is concerned. The thing that I really like about it is the system.
The GM part of the system where and the it's actually also for helping character when you're building the world out. Both as the GM and as the group, they have a really great system for like sector generation and factor creation.
And they've also got rules, specific rules for combining magic and tech that really matches up with Saga. So I would certainly if I were going to do Stars with that number, I'd probably set it in the Saga universe just so I could do both at the same time.
But let's be honest, we don't always get what we want as far as systems are concerned. And we going to have to be happy with taking something from this particular series and dropping it into our current campaigns.
That's the primary use of a lot of my reading is I. I grab things and I put them into my campaign. So my question that's going to go out to you guys and I'm going to start with with John Corbett.
What sort of things would you like do you think are portable from Saga? What sort of things would you like to just take and drop right into your campaign?
Speaker D
00:23:52.980 - 00:24:59.070
One of the things that jumped off the page to me that said like that would be an interesting mechanic was the story driven spell ingredients. The fact that when one of the characters wanted to cast an unbinding. He needed to have. He needed to reveal a secret as the component.
And I just thought that was really clever.
And not only does that require, you know, quick thinking or at least creative thinking at the table, it also allows you to reveal things that you might not otherwise be inclined to do to the other people at the table. So I just. That was a really neat element that I would definitely steal.
And then the idea of that living ship, which I talked about briefly before, this sort of rocket ship that comes from the rocket ship forest that they're flying around, it's kind of alive and kind of provides for them. And I don't know, I just thought that was kind of a. It reminded me actually a little bit of Farscape.
If you've seen that they were aboard a living ship as well. Allows for extra, again extra story vectors. You know, it's like, oh, why is this thing happening? Or why is the ship doing this weird thing?
You can come up with reasons or motivations that would actually apply to a living creature.
Speaker B
00:25:00.030 - 00:25:04.230
Thought about the Farscape interaction. That's fantastic. And that is a great show.
Speaker D
00:25:04.230 - 00:25:05.950
So yeah, definitely.
Speaker A
00:25:06.750 - 00:25:09.230
I was actually gonna use that as my medium.
Speaker B
00:25:09.550 - 00:25:13.790
I'm sorry. No, that's all right. We'll get it in there.
Speaker A
00:25:13.790 - 00:25:24.310
I only thought of it after the fact. I was like, you know what, what would probably work. But it's good, it's fine. I can speak to it or not, as you so choose.
Speaker B
00:25:24.310 - 00:25:27.270
Sean, do you want to jump in and talk about your portables?
Speaker C
00:25:27.910 - 00:27:12.380
So There are really two that I thought were interesting. One was that the PCs and you have to set this up as part of session zero.
They have a clear mission which is to get safe with their baby and they care about each other and it's pre baked in it. And you don't necessarily have to make that a romance per se, although it works in this case.
But if, if you're care if your players aren't comfortable with that, you could simply say you have a long standing bond. You're like your second grade friend who you've always been friends with.
Because I feel like a lot of games break down when players decide to create artificial stress between players rather than with their environment and without giving them a clear mission.
And a clear mission like that sort of allows for the game to come at the players rather than the players always have to say, I guess we'll go find this dungeon or we'll go do a thing. And then the second thing was the NPCs all have motives and flaws that people can understand.
If you read this book and you just skip the parts where they're talking about the background players and you wait till they show up again, like television head Guy. You don't have to know why he's there, but he's consistent while he's there and what he's doing.
And so making sure that as the gm, you understand going in, what it is that drives them, what their flaws are, what the reasons are, because it will give your players, as it does the readers of this book, something to hold onto as the cast gets bigger and bigger.
Speaker B
00:27:12.380 - 00:27:22.340
And it does continue to grow. Absolutely. And it's. It's ever, ever expanding, actually. Jonathan, do you want to talk about what you would like to lift and drop into your game?
Speaker A
00:27:22.740 - 00:27:28.100
Yes, but I'm going to preface by saying I don't know how I would do it.
Speaker B
00:27:28.260 - 00:27:29.220
Okay, fair enough.
Speaker A
00:27:29.460 - 00:29:30.390
I am and have been fascinated when I am running games, in trying to do various cliches, or I guess it's more appropriate to call them tropes now that one might see in television or movies or whatever. And the.
The thing that I thought was interesting, didn't notice it at first, but as we were going along, I'm like, oh, huh, all right, so we know that the kid lives, probably because we also have dead spirit characters. So, you know, I guess we can assume nothing.
But if she's the narrator and we're assuming she's a reliable narrator, which, you know, is obviously another question, then one can gather certain facts from that. I have, I guess, fiddled around with it as a player. Sometimes when I'm writing my background for.
For a, you know, a character in a game, I'll do it as like a biography that was written in the future or actually, I think Eric can speak to this the. In his DND game.
I started with this thing that, you know, was this long sort of illuminated manuscript kind of thing, like before this and that and the other thing. And, you know, when it lists all this stuff and then it goes back to the beginning of the. The character's background.
So I don't know how I would do it exactly, but I thought the notion of a narrator, like setting some of the story points might be interesting. If I may, a brief tangent on perhaps an example of what I'm talking about that I actually did that actually worked.
I'm assuming we're all familiar with the trope of a movie or TV show begins, and you're at what is clearly some sort of Men in Media Reese.
Speaker B
00:29:30.390 - 00:29:30.710
And.
Speaker A
00:29:30.790 - 00:30:46.920
And then you're clearly at a point of heightened conflict or something. And then it goes one week later, 72 hours earlier. You know, you're familiar with that one because it was overdone a lot in the 2000s.
But, but anyway, I, sometime in the 2000s, thought I would like to open a game that way. And I did. I, you know, I created a scene and you know, narrated it for everybody.
You know, it was like four weeks earlier or something to that effect.
And then, and this is the way I run things, so you can see why I'm saying I don't know how I would do it because I didn't know how I was doing it then. I'm like, okay, now all I have to do is get us back to that point. But how do I do it without forcing anybody to do anything?
It worked out swimmingly, but to be honest, right up until the 11th hour, I was like, I don't know how I'm pulling this off. Fortunately, it was a superhero genre and there were some mind body swaps that went on and so it sort of just fell into place later.
Speaker B
00:30:46.920 - 00:30:52.720
Yeah, you have to deal with timelines and timelines. Yeah, always finicky. Always the way that goes a lot.
Speaker D
00:30:52.720 - 00:31:06.040
Like your, your romance situation as well. You have to know your table like these players.
Like when you, when you did this superhero flashback, were the players actively helping you or were you. Did it succeed because you steered the ship?
Speaker A
00:31:06.120 - 00:31:23.930
It was a little bit from column like I think I, if I put a hand on it, it was simply in determining which characters switched with which. Yeah, it worked out actually pretty nicely.
Speaker B
00:31:23.930 - 00:32:13.810
But Jonathan mentioned that there are characters in this that are ghosts.
I've always thought that playing a ghost character or having ghosts that were available and were sort of hanging around the party could be really fun. In some games I've played characters who can see ghosts and so I was very excited about that.
I would recommend that if you're looking for some background or some interesting ways of incorporating that, there's a good supplement called Ghost Walk, which was for 3.5 D&D. I think that would be an excellent way to add a character like that if you're not certain on how to approach it.
There's definitely a lot of really interesting things in a way and talked a lot about like ways you have to deal with the fact that you're non corporeal and how do you deal with it and what are some special, you know, what are the, what are the exceptions and what are the rules and how does it work?
Speaker D
00:32:13.810 - 00:32:15.450
And why aren't you playing Wraith?
Speaker A
00:32:18.810 - 00:32:21.570
May I add a thing to that, Eric?
Speaker B
00:32:21.570 - 00:32:21.850
Sure.
Speaker A
00:32:21.850 - 00:33:06.330
I'm not familiar with the piece you mentioned, but there is also a bizarre indie game that I encountered, I don't know, a while back. It's called Spook show and the. The premise is simply that all of the world's intelligence agencies basically employ.
Yeah, ghosts because for the reasons you would think it would be useful to do that, but since the players are ghosts, it does go into a lot of what you were just saying about. Oh yeah, well, I can go through that door. That's great. But how do I pick up the.
Speaker B
00:33:06.330 - 00:34:27.180
How do I open the filing cabinet or whatever it is that you need to do? For sure. I also like the idea from a game master standpoint. There are a lot of competing groups. Not all of them are antagonists.
Some of them are people who eventually get folded into the party. I like the idea of competing parties and parties merging and breaking apart, where, let's be honest, the.
The continual greatest big bad evil creature in the room is our scheduling calendars.
It's nice to have that as a possible way of maybe, maybe running a little side campaign with some people on the idea that maybe eventually they'll be able to join the regular party or maybe only be able to join them once a month, whereas the rest of the people are playing four times a month. That would require spreadsheets on how to handle all that. And that is going to get a little. To get a little. Little difficult.
Last but not least, just because I have to say it, Lion Cat is my favorite character in the entire. In the entire series. Not surprising. I have many cats. I'm big Cat guy. But Lion Cat is on my list of like favorite characters of all time.
And I would love to just drop that character or that creature into any world I was running and have them go flying at least once or twice just for the fun of it.
Speaker A
00:34:27.479 - 00:34:32.599
Honestly, it's the kind of character that you probably could work into a number of genres.
Speaker B
00:34:32.839 - 00:35:16.740
Yeah, absolutely. And anywhere where you could have a sentient cat, you're going to be fine and then you're going to be in great shape.
Okay, so that is going to bring us to the aforementioned media. Saga has a lot of volumes, there's a lot to read, and it's a very big universe.
But maybe you're looking for something more than just the various volumes of Saga.
And if you wanted to find some thing had the same vibes as Saga and to find other inspiration from to sort of mix it up a bit so it's not just all the same. Where would you find that? Jonathan, you had already mentioned that you were looking at Farscape, so why don't you kick us off both with the.
Speaker A
00:35:16.740 - 00:35:57.040
Living ship thing that the others have alluded to? And also, it hit me later. I was like.
The first time I sat down or came into the room when somebody else was watching Farscape, it gave me a very similar feeling to what I had had when I started reading the book. In the sense that I'm like, what the heck is this? This is crazy. In a good way. In a totally good way.
But I. I had just never seen anything done that way, if. If that makes any sense. I don't know if it's a it was made in Australia thing or. Or just the. The people that were involved, but it's.
Speaker D
00:35:57.040 - 00:35:59.760
The Muppets, man, that. That's what made set it apart.
Speaker A
00:36:00.240 - 00:36:27.200
No spoilers on Farscape. There are romantic elements in that as well. And, you know, there are a lot of aliens and not everything follows the same rules.
And you could just as easily maybe replace magic with psychic powers and actually, it's not. It's not that bad a comparison, really. Pretty sure you can. I'm sure you can stream it.
Speaker B
00:36:27.630 - 00:36:30.590
And as John Corbett, you were saying something about the Muppets.
Speaker D
00:36:30.670 - 00:36:45.070
I was just saying that's, I think, the thing that if you were walking through the room and somebody else was watching it, that sort of would have stopped you in your tracks. That's what stopped me in my tracks.
I'm like, okay, they could have been as humanocentric as most of the other sci fi of the day, but instead they were like, let's make it weird.
Speaker B
00:36:45.630 - 00:36:49.950
So, Jonathan, did you have other media that you wanted to recommend in terms.
Speaker A
00:36:50.110 - 00:37:18.550
Of another mashup of genres? I thought the Hellboy universe, you know, whether it's the comics or the. The movies or the animated movies or whatever, that.
That often, you know, it's more of an occult thing than it is a sci fi thing. Throwing various genre elements into the blender and hitting frappe. There was an RPG game and. Or setting called Tour that's going back deep.
Speaker D
00:37:18.550 - 00:37:18.910
Good.
Speaker A
00:37:19.550 - 00:38:14.460
Yeah. Again, I have some of the books I've never played it, never ran it. I think it was reality, but wars or reality storms or something.
So you had like a pulp era Nile empire, like a cyberpunk.
I don't know if it was the Romans or the Aztecs or what, you know, so like, they just sort of, you Know, kept crossing a whole bunch of elements and I realized, oh, wait, there's actually something that's kind of like that now. Another indie RPG that just came out. It's called Shadow Scar from our Talsorian games.
The lead designer on that is Cody Pondsmith, who is the son of Mike Pondsmith, who did Castle Falkenstein and Crimson Skies. I think it's just cyberpunk, isn't it? Isn't it the.
Speaker B
00:38:14.620 - 00:38:15.020
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:38:15.020 - 00:38:45.200
So, I mean, he's done a whole bunch of stuff and I guess this Shadow Scar involves again, sort of various disparate elements and there's a. A strong, I think, ninja component to it. But. But yeah, there's.
There's all these different reality, timeline, multiverse hopping stuff going on in it. That was another thing that I thought, oh, well, that's, you know, again, sort of the smorgasbord of elements, I guess, that I'm thinking of here.
Speaker B
00:38:45.200 - 00:38:50.170
John Corbett, do you want to talk about media that you think resonates with Saga?
Speaker D
00:38:50.650 - 00:39:31.760
Yeah. So if you enjoyed the banter between Fiona. I'm not Fiona.
Between Marco and Alana and their comical attempts to raise this baby, I think you would love raising Arizona. I think it hits a lot of those comedic vibes that are present in Saga.
And then thinking about their relationship and just how into each other they are and how stacked against the odds they are, that immediately brought to my mind the true romance. Kirsten Slater and I want to say one of the Arquette sisters.
Those are two pieces which I think capture some of the interpersonal relationships that are present in saga. And I really thought they were evocative.
Speaker B
00:39:31.920 - 00:39:42.160
Excellent, excellent, excellent. And spoken like a true parent. Talking about raising Arizona, That's. Sean, what do you have that you think would vibe with?
Speaker C
00:39:43.460 - 00:40:56.200
The great thing about Brian Vaughn's work is that he has a beginning, a middle and end on the things that he controls. And so, you know, the why the Last man is another story where you start off with a character. It's a growing cast of characters.
There's side stories about the antagonist as well as the protagonist, and it leads to an ending.
I thought the chaos elements of this story, the sort of wild, you know, ideas coming out, reminded me a lot of Matt Fractions Casanova to some extent, but also is sex criminals in that, you know, here's two people in love. They are absolutely. In a romance, at least in the beginning, and then things change.
But the whole thing is about them having strange powers and how others feel about them having the strange powers. And then this is Kind of a long shot.
But I think everything, Everywhere, all at once is an interesting story about people, a family thrown into a strange situation and how the strength of that family, which is extended, the strength of that family carries them through to the end.
Speaker D
00:40:56.359 - 00:40:58.600
I think it's a better fit than you giving yourself credit for.
Speaker B
00:40:59.160 - 00:41:00.360
Yeah, that's a great fit.
Speaker A
00:41:00.760 - 00:41:06.680
Yeah, I was gonna say I. That was one of the ones that I saw, and I was. Damn it, I should have thought of that one.
Speaker C
00:41:06.680 - 00:41:07.680
Well, that's very kind of y'.
Speaker D
00:41:07.680 - 00:41:07.880
All.
Speaker B
00:41:07.960 - 00:43:31.680
For endlessly expansive universes that Saga evokes, I would recommend Becky Chambers, A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's a much softer story than Saga, but I do think it has that broad backdrop. It does have a ship family, although that is a found family.
It has Overcoming Prejudice. It has slice of life explanations of alien worlds. So it covers a lot of the same ground.
I would also recommend Chaos Station by Jen Burke and Kelly Jensen. The first book in the series is also called Chaos Station, so it's easy to find. This is a military, sci fi, male, male romance.
It has two wounded veterans, Felix and Xander, who are finding their way back to each other, despite a military complex sort of standing in their way. So you've got a lot of that. Larger forces are trying to keep former. Keep warriors who are in love with each other away from each other. So that.
But it also has some of the spiciness.
There's a lot of spiciness happening in Saga, so if you're interested in some more of that, I think you could find that in Jen Burke and Kelly Jensen's cast, Station. And I also have a movie which seems to be the way that this goes.
And that makes sense, perhaps because to match with Saga, which has all of these really great visual elements and also this great story, it makes sense that we fall into movies. The one that I felt really worked with it was the Fifth Element. Gorgeous visual imagery, great storytelling.
Again, we have war, we have soldiers, we have love, we have trauma, we have people coming together. I also recommend the soundtrack. I think it's a really cool soundtrack that goes with it.
If you wanted to have something in the background playing at your game, I think that could be really good.
Although mix it liberally with, like, something like the Clash or the Damned or the Ramones or something, because I do feel there's a really strong sort of edgier punkness to Saga than there is even in the dirty and occasionally grimy world of the Fifth Element. All right, so that brings us to the end of our discussion.
So I'm going to toss things back to my game masters here and see if there's anything else they would like to tell you about. I'm going to start. Start with Sean. Sean, I know you had something you wanted to let the people know about that's coming up in October, right?
Speaker C
00:43:32.800 - 00:43:49.920
Yeah. So there's. I. I live in Portland, Maine. There's a new convention called Katahdin Khan. Katahdin is the tallest mountain in Maine.
It's October 23rd through the 25th. I don't know if it's going to be any good or not, but I always want to promote local things when I can.
Speaker B
00:43:50.930 - 00:43:57.250
Great. Always, always good to help out a new con. John Corbett, I know you had something you wanted to talk about as well.
Speaker D
00:43:57.250 - 00:44:38.740
Yeah, I just, you know, because you're in it started dming again my decor on game just a couple months ago and a tool I wanted to promote that I found invaluable was dndspeak.com just an incredible resource. The fact that you can go there if you're running a fantasy roleplay game.
I don't know if it's any good for a sci fi or any other type of genre, but for a fantasy roleplay and in specifically D and D, it has just a vast, vast repository of lists. 100 Of this. 100 Encounters, 100 creatures, 100 treasures. And I just found it a hugely cool and interesting tool.
And I think I wanted to just for people who don't know about it, I want to get the word out.
Speaker B
00:44:39.700 - 00:44:41.220
Always nice to have a resource.
Speaker A
00:44:41.700 - 00:44:53.920
I believe that's the site that has the hundred reasons the big bad evil guy doesn't kill the players immediately list that I sent you her Jonathan, do.
Speaker B
00:44:53.920 - 00:44:55.520
You have anything that you wanted to promote?
Speaker A
00:44:56.400 - 00:45:04.320
So I will just go with, you know, support your local animal shelter and or cat cafe.
Speaker B
00:45:04.480 - 00:45:27.190
There you go. And I will continue to recommend. I'll continue to recommend the GM's Assistant app. I find it very useful for my games.
I record everything and then it does a nice summary. So I do recommend them. So if you're out there and you're like me and you're terrible at taking notes, please give them a shot.
They're relatively inexpensive and the guys who are running it are pretty nice.
Speaker D
00:45:27.430 - 00:45:31.990
Yeah. Eric shared with me the results of that. I can say they are really impressive.
Speaker B
00:45:32.150 - 00:47:00.510
And I'll just say thanks guys for doing this once again, you guys continue to bring really great thoughts, really great philosophy, really great ideas to this podcast and I am deeply deeply thankful that you continue to do this with me, so thanks so much. And that was Saga by Brian K. Vaughn with art by Fiona Staples.
Thanks again to Sean Murphy, Jonathan Mazur and John Corbett for making this episode amazing. Great work folks.
Join us in two weeks when Alex Jackel, Sean Murphy and I and Eller help us solve the mystery of how to play a classic English Village murder mystery when we review Ngaio Marsh's Scales of Justice. You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-square productions.com GMBC.
You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media on bluesky, at gmbookclub, bluesky Social, on Facebook at Gamemasters Book Club, on Mastodon amemasters Book Club, and on Instagram at Gamemasters Book Club.
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Later, gamers, and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.