Dead Letter Society - Vampire Pen Pals?!?!

Today we are chatting about Dead Letter Society! A game all about being vampire pen pals! You can tell so many different kinds of stories about hunger, love, trying to find yourself and any other struggles tha  comes from being a vampire. 

This game is all about sending letters and trying ro figure out what this secret society is! To talk alll about it is the creator Rori Montford!

Rori is a true lover of vampires and the designer behind Dead Letter Society and The Almac of Senguine Paths! While we dive deep into Dead Letter Society, it's creation and how the game works we also get to learn about the darlings that were killed, some of Rori's favorite games and we just get silly! So join us on this episode of The RPG Goblin!

Where you can get Dead Letter Society:

https://www.montfordtales.com/dead-letter-society/

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/433702/Dead-Letter-Society?affiliate_id=3124753


Where you can find Rori:

https://www.threads.net/@montfordtales

https://x.com/MontfordTales?t=AhtV3pOG7_k5xZRsJk00aQ&s=09

https://www.montfordtales.com/

Transcript

0:00

Welcome everyone to the RPG Goblin, a TTRPG exploration podcast. I am your host, Willow, and I am the resident goblin and the one who asks all the questions because I'm obsessed with these games. And the whole reason I started the podcast is because my mom was done with me talking about TTRPGs all the time, so you guys get to hear it now. In this episode we are going to be talking about a really really cool journaling game TTRPG called Dead Letter Society which I'm very very excited about and I just want to put at the beginning here the art on the cover of this book is so freaking cool and even if you even if this game doesn't sound interesting to you or or it's not up your alley or anything like that Just check out the actual book just to see the art because it's absolutely freaking gorgeous, but you probably will like this game though because it's really cool, but to talk about it today we have on the creator Rory Monfort. Rory would you like to introduce yourself to everyone and tell them what you do. Hi everyone. You'll do great. Hi, I'm Rory. I, say a lot of umms. It will have to be edited out later, unfortunately. This is a feature of me. I'm an illustrator, and I design role playing games ideally for low player counts, 1, 2 players that you can pick up and put down because I don't have a lot of time to play it, and I know I'm not the only person with that problem. Exactly that, though. Like, it is busy to be an adult. Like, there are so many things that you have to do. Sometimes you can't dedicate 4 hours to a session every week. Sometimes you just need something that you can pick up and play. And so, where can people find you to check out dead letter society and some of your other games, just so that Well, I have Dead Death Society at the moment. I have the pack, which is coming very soon. But excited about that. Thank you. Monfortales.com is the easiest way to get hold of me and what I'm working on. I am monfortales everywhere on social media. I don't think I've missed 1. If I have, someone should tell me because this is the age of diversifying social media. Oh, so true. Yeah. On so many. It's like, oh, man. How can I keep track of, like, 4, 5 different ones at the same time? It's impossible. It really is. Yeah. You just have to forgive yourself that. It's impossible. Mhmm. Do your best. Yeah. Focus on whichever one makes you the most happy, me, which isn't Twitter usually. Yeah. Fantastic beginning of the episode. Good lord. Yeah. I love it. Part of doing this is managing social media and its effect on you. And, actually, that's kind of an important point to do. Yeah. It is. It's it's it's its own rodeo, honestly. Like, it it really is. Like, I the podcast, Like, the podcast itself is a whole job. You know? There there's a lot of work that goes into it. And, like, the editing and the recording, like, yeah, that takes a lot of time, but I where. It's managing the social media. It's keeping up with everything and and making sure to, like, you know, keep active, which is fun and great, and I love it. Exhausting at times. Yep. And it could be time you could be spending doing other things that you really love as well. Exactly. And so there's There's a balance there that needs to be done. It's terrible. A really hard balance to find, and I don't think I have that balance yet. Yeah. Same. So here's an interview with 2 people who don't have a balance of social media, work life, and and normal life. Totally normal people because everyone's like that. So true, though. Like Yep. There's just so much going on. Like, again, being adult is really hard. But, yes, In this episode, though, we are gonna be talking about your game, dead letter society. And before we get, straight into it, I want to ask, is dead letter society your first game that you, have written. It is my 1st stand alone game. I've done a few bits and pieces for some third party d and d things. Mhmm. But it's my first it's it's my first thing. Like, staying with a capital t h. It's the first thing that's your own. Like, that that is all my own. It is my own, like, way of playing the game, and it's all my own art. It's all my own layout. It's all my own words. It was a big thing to finish as well, which was quite nice as a thing that was finished because I have other ideas, because I'm just sort of slowly working on. Mhmm. Boy, this one's done. No. I love that, though. And, like, that's the thing as well, like, to actually, like, complete a project. Like, there is a difference between having it on in the background. You know? I I was working on the podcast for a while before I even, like, actually, like, published it. So, like, once it was published, she was like, oh, wait. This is actually, like, a complete like, it's not a complete thing because obviously there's episodes what's coming out, but it's like an actual thing that exists now. Yeah. And so I I can I I could totally understand that same way? Important feeling to Have actually made that step to have a thing that is there for the people to interact with independent of you as well? And, like, love and and care about and, like, and and read and and play. Like, I I think that's one of the coolest things. I haven't designed any games, but as a game designer, I would imagine, like, the best part is people playing the game. She's like, oh, I did that. Yeah. I will I was at Comic Con, like, at the end of October, And a couple people just came up and said, I really enjoyed playing this. And I'm just like, that means so much. I mean, I would have been totally happy if it was just me who played it because I enjoyed I enjoyed making it except for the hard bits. How to play. I enjoy playing it. I mean, otherwise, I wouldn't have made it the way I did if I didn't enjoy playing it how it is. But it's just nice to know that, You know, you're not alone in your life sometimes. Yeah. And that other people want to, yeah, interact with it. I think that's so cool. They'll play it differently from me, of course. That's fine. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole thing about TTRPGs too is, like, People all have their different ways of playing and interpret interpreting the games and stuff like that. And, also, if people are listening and you end up playing dead letter Cite or you have already, please go tell Rory that you have and that you enjoyed the game because lift lift people up. Like, make her day, please. Like, that would be amazing. No pressure, guys. Well, well, no. None. None. A little bit of pressure maybe. Like, if if you enjoy it no. Because I think that's the best part is, like, especially smaller creators too. Mhmm. Like, you know, every single review that I get, I always get so excited. Like, any any kind of feedback always gets you so excited because that is something that is very personal, so I love it. And there may be a little bit of pressure to be nice. I love it. And so maybe to actually start getting into the actual game, I would like to start with, For people who are listening, who don't know what dead letter society is and and so forth, how would you explain what it is to everyone to see. Elevator pitch? Yes. The elevator pitch. Yes. Yeah. So when someone who doesn't know what dead diet society is comes across me, I go, hey. Vampires writing letters via a secret society? And then people either go, oh, or they go, nah. I like werewolves, and then they walk on. There are 2 people in this life, you know, who like vampires and people who like werewolves. There was a few who were like, no. I like I like goos. A question. Old ones. I went, yeah. I haven't finished that one yet. Okay. But, actually, that sounds really cool. Yeah. But yeah. So vampires writing letters to each other. Virus secret society. I mean, that is Yeah. That is the game. Mhmm. You use tarot cards. You can be 1 player. You can be 2 players. But you're vampires and you write letters to each other. Fire is the secret society. And, obviously, that's shady because that's secret. Of course, which was something that I really liked when I was going over the, not the, like, the preview of the game. I I enjoyed seeing, like, the different examples of, like, what kind of letters that you could be writing and stuff like that and that it's not tied into like, oh, these are specifically like letters of love or letters of like writing to your best friend or anything like that. Like, it could be anything, and so I am really curious of what initially gave you the idea to make dead letter society. I. I mean, in September or October last year, I was, Oh, what was I doing? I was working on ideas for a game about great Old Ones, an ocean horror. Right? I love it. And, I was just like tootling away at that and then I went In my brand, it went vampire, pam pals? Vampire pam pals? Wait. That was literally it. And then like Thirty seconds later, I'm, like, on Twitch, I'm going, vampire pen pals? And everyone else was like, vampire pen pals? Vampire pen about this. Then I put aside my other thing that wasn't quite working out yet and like, okay, how How am I gonna do this? And I spent a few months just sort of, like, trying different ways of interacting with because I knew he wanted to use tarot cards Yeah. Because They tell you a lot of inspiration just by looking at the cards, right? It helps a lot of storytelling just because you can see the picture. Mhmm. And so I knew I wanted to use tarot cards. I didn't know quite how I wanted to use tarot cards, so I spent about a month or two making it stupidly complicated for no good reason. Mhmm. And then I thought, hang on. No. That's not what I want to do. And then I changed to change it to how it didn't. Society. Yeah. No. That's the first. Much simpler, much more intuitive, and I think much more Freeing from a narrative point of view. I mean, it has to get complicated before it gets easy. Like Yeah. You gotta know. At one point, you were like, no. This is This is not working, and I'm just adding more stuff to it? Yeah. No. Just no. I'm curious to Kill that idea. Just kill it dead. It starts again. Do you have a do you have an example of one of these earlier, more complicated versions of the system? Oh, yeah. I mean, I had it was originally I was gonna make it Predominantly 2 player, so I didn't have a solo version worked out at all then. And I had something Essentially, you're dividing up into different piles and depending on which cards go into different piles, and you get to keep some back for yourself to trigger things later with them. Like, Am I making a board game or an RPG? So I think I accidentally made a board game. Hey. I mean, if you ever go into the board game, it's right there. It just it There was some there was something a little bit more meaty there to it. Mhmm. But also, it wasn't saying vampire pen pals to me anymore. Absolutely. No. I think that's fair, though. Like, it wasn't it wasn't filling that idea. The right game to go with the idea. Yeah. Those are kinda keep it so I was thinking about them. They'll just, like, go into something else at some point in the future. It's not a wasted amount of time, it's just not for right now. Yeah. And I love that even just the care into, like, what fits the game too. Yeah. Like, not making it over like, just because you thought and that's like, this is a term that I learned actually on the podcast of, like, killing your darlings. Like, not being so in love and, like, this mechanic has to be in the game, like, it has to be this way, being able to kill it off because it's, like, hey. This actually isn't good for the game that I want to make and other people to play or for even me to play, like, you know, your own, know how would it be for you to play, like hold on. Let me let me circle back. For you, when when you were designing this more complicated, tarot system. I'm curious, like, did you feel like even for yourself to play this game, like, was it feeling kind of unapproachable. No because at that point I'd only written bits of it down. They were just kind of doing Just sort of playing little bits here and there and trying to suss out whether I liked how that felt to play it that way or not. Mhmm. But it was getting too complicated. And at that point, it's like, okay. I can make a different game using this mechanic Mhmm. Or I can make the game I wanted and just kill this thing. Yes. So which which darling did I want to kill? And I killed the thing that Yeah. That I I killed the thing I think I should have killed. Yeah. No. I agree. I agree. Well, not not killed. I put it in stasis. I iced it. Yeah. You put it in the freezer for later. It's like, alright. We'll we'll we'll get to that at a different day. We'll get to that. No. I might actually be useful Well, coming to think of it, live live or there, it might actually be quite useful to go back to for the the the next thing that I'm sort of working at. Will that be a bit curious? So I will come back to that idea. Oh, no. That's exciting. In 6 or 8 months, you can say, was that that idea? And I go, Yes. Maybe. Maybe. Or was it no. It wasn't fit good fit for that either. Yeah. We will see in about We'll see. 7 to 8 months. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No. I think that's fantastic. And so I think, you know, talking all this about, like, you know, the tarot system and stuff, I think it's only right to actually talk about the actual tarot system that went into dead letter society. How does that work? It works kind of like you're reading The Fortune for your vampire. Oh I like it! Yeah, So there's there's 3 phases to playing dead death society. There's the writing the letters because you are vampires who write letters to each other via a secret society. Of course. There's the society phase, which is where the society part comes into it, in that you draw a major arcana card and The society's up to something, so I like to phrase it as you write letters then something happens to you, the society happens to you And then in the chronicle phase, the last one, you act on the world. I like that a lot. It's like you you take And you give back. And in the Chronicle Fairs, that's where most of the storytelling tarot kind of way thing happens, so you say what you would like to do, you draw a card, and then you figure out together from those prompts what actually happens. Cool. No. I like that. Actually, why don't we go kind of from the beginning here of, like, the different phases, kinda go through each Faye's in the process of, like, playing Sure. Through it. Yeah. Let's do it. Show it. I love it. So the 1st phase is the well, I guess, I I guess the question is, like, is there any kind of setup that is required for the game, getting it ready to actually play? Yes. There's there's the quick setup which is pick 1 of 6 settings as I've done all the legwork for you on the back phone Or you can actually sit down and essentially have a session 0 together and set expectations about what kind of game you're trying to play. Perfect. Because if you're writing letters and you're not talking in between writing those letters very much Mhmm. And 1 person wants to play a game about redemption and then they're the one who wants to go on the bloodthirsty rampage. You're not playing the right game together. Yeah. So It's gonna be it's gonna be interesting. It would be it would be A stressful disappointment. Yeah. A stressful disappointment. Yeah. I love that. I mean, what you do on your own, like, Journaling parts of the game? I mean, you don't have to share all of it. So theoretically, you could kind of muddle along, but it wouldn't be very good if 1 person is writing to you about how many people they killed last night and you're the one saying well, I kind of like this human and I don't want to eat them. Me. Alright. Yeah. I mean, like That doesn't that doesn't work. No. It's it's definitely not the same vibe. It's It's all about your own thing. Fitting the vibes. Everyone wants to be in the same area. The the setup for this is is pretty much Fit it's it's a vibe check. Mhmm. Vibe check. It's a vibe check. Make sure you want the same things out of a game. Talk about the kind of expectations you have going into it. Mhmm. And if you want to make a world together, so what are vampires like in your world, what's humanity like, what what society are you operating in? And you do that by choosing different keywords. And you choose a lot of keywords, and then you figure out together what those keywords mean. So I like that. Actually, that's something I I the more I've been, like, getting into more t t rpgs and stuff, one of my favorite things is using keywords for like building a world or like a location or like even n pcs like stuff like that because they're like so helpful and, like, they don't put too much in stone that, like, if you deviate from it at all, it's like, okay, how do you how do you interpret shady or how do you interpret dark, stuff like that. Like, I I think that's fantastic. It doesn't have to be the obvious way either. You can me to. Totally invert the expectations if you want to. Absolutely. I just like I like the keyword way of doing stuff because you can go it it can be all very tropey, but then with a few extra little a little, you know, tweak with some things. Yeah. Little little twist. To put on whatever feels feels right when you approach it. It it, like, lays down some groundwork that then you can explore and, like, actually, like, expand upon when you play the game and when you actually get into it of, like, okay, here's what dark means in this world, and so, actually, I love that a lot and I do wanna say I love as well the fact that you have pre written, like, worlds and, like, characters for people to, like, start with. It take time. Right? If you could because I do it and I have fun with it. And me and my partner, we sit here and I'm like, what are we doing with this and this and that. And I'm like, okay, well it's 2 hours have passed and we're like, okay, we might have some characters to it, I guess, but because we've just been, We've just been talking. Right? And it's been great to just sit and talk and that that's fine, but I mean, it's state night. Sometimes you don't have that time to sit and talk, So I was like, okay. We're just gonna jump right in right there with this list of things that vampires can do and idea of what kind of world you're operating in and then go from there. Yeah. I love it, and and it makes it easier as well for, like, someone to approach the game who that's been with. Yeah. You have an idea of what how my mind works anyway with with what's going on in there. Mhmm. Yeah. I I love that so much. You get, like, a little bit of the perspective from the actual designer you get you get. And then, also, again, it being easy. Like, okay. I can pick the like, I wanna try this game out. I don't know if I wanna make the commitment to do the whole setup myself. I can try out with just some prewritten things. If I like it and want to do something more. You have full freedom to do something more or you can stick with the pre written, like, it there's so many ways that you can approach it and I love that so much, so cool. Very cool game, I'm very excited, I love it. So I I'm actually curious before we get into, like, kind of the writing phase, is there a pregenerated characters or world that really sticks out in your mind of, I like, I'm super proud of that one. Alright. Like, I'm really excited about that one. That one makes you really happy. There's there's 2 that I particularly like. Mhmm. And yet, to my shame, I've not played with them very much because No. I have this me. Picture of them in my head of how I'd want a game with them to go, which is why I wrote them. And and I've got these all these pictures going on in my head of how they might fall out. Mhmm. My fear is if I play them and it doesn't go away. Because my playthroughs tend to go downhill dramatically because I just I just go for it. It's like Just dive head first into it. Dive head first into danger, at least in my solo games. Not so much Shindripe games. Yeah. But since smaller games, I much more dive headfirst into danger. Yeah. Cause immediate chaos. Yeah. But the 2 that I particularly like, one of them is generation ships. So far flung future, humanity's off into the stars on these Massive multi generation ships, and you are supposedly the 1 vampire stuck on board. Oh. And You need to eat. Mhmm. But whenever you eat, you make more vampires unless you kill them. So it's a bit of an alien kind of version. Like Yeah. The xenomorph style alien as you're there. You need to eat. You're agile and fit in all the ventilation shafts. And you can make more of you. Which ship make more of you, but then you've got a limited food supply. This is true. Probably gonna go wrong with this ship because you know that, Like, a shady corporation's really behind making this. Right? Because this is a dystopian future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that one, I'm I'm not actually afraid of playing that one out because that suits my I'm just gonna go for him. Yeah. It's just gonna crash and burn somewhere. And there'd be, like, 1 last lonely transmission out into space and say, oh, no. I messed up. That would be so good, though. That would be such a fun like, I I could imagine doing, like, kind of a solo, actual play type thing where you're doing, like, audio, And, like, the last 1 like, just having that little blip at the end, like, oh, no. I messed up. That would be so good. That's amazing. One that I I really like, is down entirely to Me reading far too much Agatha Christie. So it's the the the Tea Time Detectives Club Oh. Where you are so cool. It's it's a It's a cozy setting where you are vampires investigating murders and things and yes. I love it. It's like Brindlewood Bay, but vampires. With vampires. Yeah. No. That's so cute. So I like that one too. I would I wanna play that one with someone Mhmm. I think. Yeah. I think that would be really fun, like, because then you get to, like, work together and and stuff versus, like again, like, solo play, Super fun, very exciting, but sometimes there are ideas that work better with people than I want than just solo. The reason I wanna put that one particular to play it so that we can work together to have 2 separate murder cases that come together into 1 one linked thing that we then solve together. That's what that's the ideal thing that's going off in my head. Actually really cool. Yeah. That's really cool. I wanna play that. Hey. We can play that one together. Yeah. Let's start a dead letter society game right now on the podcast. No. Actually No. It's a terrible idea. It will go wrong. It'll go wrong, but probably in a great way. Yeah. Of course. Just like any t t r p g k. But I don't even have tarot cards to hand. No. And if I open Discord for the bot it's gonna go beep. No. No, in the future, in the future, no, seriously. No, that would actually be really fun because, like, again, I haven't played I've I've really wanted to play some 2 player games, with my partner and and stuff. We've never gotten around to it, you know, life is busy, stuff like that, but They always they they sound like a lot of fun, like that is really, you know, that's getting kind of to, you know, some really personal storytelling there too. Like, it's not a big group of people in 1 GM or anything like that. It is it is both of you working together, creating this world, creating this game, having your own characters and their perspectives. I love it. In a way, It's also one reason why I made this game the way it is because we have tried to play some 2 player games together in the past. Things like Cthulhu Confidential. It's dripping with all sorts of theme and vibe and it's just great But getting the 2 of us playing together, it just felt so intense. It's like, I need I need group Banter. Who is going to bantering? I'm terrified right now. Yeah. It was just a little bit a little bit intense. Mhmm. And This, the way that this game works and be able to just take your time and just sit back and so we play together at the same table Yeah. And chat us we play. I will And that works great because there's there's no pressure on you in the moment to, like, perform or figure out the clues or Yeah. Yeah. No. So I needed to make it that way to make sure I could play a 2 player game because otherwise, things were just it was yeah. We need a slightly less intense 2 player games in this house. No. I love that, though, because I think they're like, that That's a real thing, though. It's like, there are definitely different markets for what different people want to explore in these games. That's why there's, like I I think solo games are a great example. There are solo games that, like, get super dark because those are themes that people want to, like, kind of experience themselves. But then sometimes people just wanna play a cozy game where they don't have to worry about anything, and they they don't want a brain cell in their head. Like, let me talk about game for everyone at Some point in time. Exactly. And and there probably is. Like, just look on Itch, and you'll find something that connects to you or Kickstarter, which is dangerously addictive. Yeah. It's No comments. I love it so much. No. Which, did you actually release dead letter society through Kickstarter? I I wasn't, on Twitter and following you around that time, so I I I'm unaware of how that went out. Release it during zine month, and I did it on Crowdfunder, Which is a different platform. It was my 1st ever crowdfunding campaign. Like, how'd it go? I know what I'm doing. I'll try this one. Everyone seems to be doing it. Totally fine. And it was fine. Mhmm. It was totally fine. Yeah. And it funded. I made the game. It was great. And now we have an awesome game that you can go buy at Yeah. And then I did Kickstarter for Almanac because I wanted to see what the different platforms were like. Do you have a preference? I feel like I'm probably gonna try another one a different one again next to see. Not because anything's wrong with the other 2, but just so I get that full a picture before things get serious. No. That's so fair. Backer kit, here I come. Yeah. I think no. Case is the next thing I'm probably gonna look at and just see how that goes and just suss out where my games fit best. No. I I like the experimentation. See see what works because I mean, again, I've I've I saw that, you know, the Al Makan sanguine pass did fantastic. Is it? And so, like, I'm so happy with how well that went. I that was amazing to watch Yeah. Like, from the side. Like, oh my god. It's to do amazing, like, good job. I'm just like, guys. And then I get all squeaky. So if you maybe that's another episode we need to do. If you don't like vampires, there are werewolves in a different game. Because when I made dead death society, I really wanted to put werewolves in there. Mhmm. I wanted to make it not just vampires. I wanted to try and, like, craft it somehow so you could be any kind of supernatural creature, But that was just a step in looseness too far. Yeah. That's that's and it's I I I like that, though, because that that is fair because, you know, it is easy to add more things to a game, but then you kinda lose that base inspiration idea of vampire pen pals. Vampire pen pals was the idea. Yeah. And then I started thinking of words that you could make it werewolves and, yeah, you could just you can play dead at a society as a werewolf. You just have to ignore all the things about hungers me about drinking people's blood, but about transforming in moonlight or something like there's a lot of extra work that's being put on the person playing it Mhmm. Which isn't really fair. And werewolves deserve their own book, which is why I'm doing that. Yeah. And so it and I just had to sit back and say, nope. It's fine. If someone wants to play this as a werewolf Mhmm. They can fudge it so it will work. Yeah. I mean, people are gonna do it naturally. Like, it it it happens. Yeah. If it happens, it happens, this. I don't want to force it. Mhmm. I don't want to make it so dilute that you are even having to fudge it to play a vampire. That's that's that's not right. Yeah. So It's vampires booing through, but it's your definition of vampires. And Dracula turned into a wolf. Right? I'm old and dear, like You could you could be a werewolf vampire. Like, You can do whatever you want. Like, it's not fantasy. Vampire assessing and dead at society has you being able to transform into animals because it's the very Dracula centric style of game. I was going for with that one. I love it. I think that's so fun. That's a vampire. He's not a werewolf. That's to vampire. Yeah. Don't get it confused. I know they I know it makes it look cool, but don't worry about it. No. I love it. And so, actually, I got a little sidetracked of, like, actually talking about the, you know, the different, phases of the game. And so, you know, with the world setting up either creating your own with your own characters Yep. Or taking from the book. You make you make characters. You exchange character sheets and decide Some tasks or costs that the society wants from you? That's 1. Have some sort of buy in already there. Mhmm. And you also swear oaths that you have to break by the end of the game. Oh. Do you have any examples of ones that you've done to share with people? Oh, my example oh, Yeah. I have example else. If you give me 2 seconds to bring up some of my playthroughs. Absolutely. Let me see. The most obvious one is going to be from my playthrough as poor Edwina. She ran a radio station. It didn't go well. I will. She's not around anymore. Let's put it that way. Oh, no. That's how that's how badly it went. Me. What was my oath there? Oh, my oath there was I will never fall in love again. Oh. Yeah. That that that that got broken pretty early on. Oh. But then but then they died, so, me. To a heartbreak. What am I doing with that? This is devastating. It's it's it's so yeah. I I recorded all of that all of that for the the crowdfunded campaign. Mhmm. That's entire playthrough. I recorded this, and that's when I land up learn just how should pin subtitles for but I did it. -Oh, man, that was some editing. -Oh, man, I bet. No, that's so cool. Oh, my gosh. No. That's really fun, and and the fact of, like, that it can break early too. Like, it isn't something that you have to wait the entire game. No. No. You break it when it's right the breakage. Yeah. Of course. And, like and and as well, like, knowing that's gonna be something that is gonna be difficult for your character, like, okay, you know and that's also setting that's that's a part of setting the the themes when you start the game, like, okay, I'll never fall in love again, like, that sets the scene for kind of what what kind of things are gonna be happening within the game. I love it. And the kind of heartbreak you've already been through, which clearly has to feature as well. Yeah. Heartbreak, the game. Yeah, Heartbreak, the game. I love it. And so there's the oaths and there's the, about, application fees. Yes. In this particular playthrough, the society knows about Nick. You can guess that Nick is probably the human I then inevitably fell in love with. Of course. With all his life in their hands. All He knows about vampires, so they'll kill him if he gets found out. No. I mean, that's what I mean. What I said earlier I just go for it, I'm just like I embrace the tragedy in my solo games this I embrace the tragedy in my solo game no absolutely no I think that's a really again It all comes down to the themes of what you want to do. If you love the tragedy, embrace it early, like, that like, engage with those themes immediately. There's I mean, it's Kind of funny because I've I in my 1st D and D campaign that I ever ran, I had like a whole idea for like this villain and story that I wanted to do, but I didn't, like, come into the game with, like, introducing that yet and so what ended up happening is that the game kind of diverged into other themes and so I had to, like, scrap that whole thing that I brought in. But if you just, like, automatically go in the game, these are the themes we wanna play around with, these are the this is the type of story we want to do. It helps get everyone on the same page about it. I love it. That's so good, and so, how many times have I I'm curious because you you keep mentioning, like, the playthroughs. Have you played Dead Letter Society mostly me solo. Have you played it, quite a few times, 2 player? I've played it a few times 2 player with my partner. I played a lot solo. Almanac. I've played a couple times with my partner and a lot solo because solo is just easier to schedule Yeah. And he's a busy guy. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. It's it is a busy again, adulting is busy, and so if you have the time for the solo game, might as well do it, and, I guess, actually, I I am curious. You said that you originally weren't intending for this to be a 2 player and a solo game. Right? That changed when I when I thought, how am I gonna playtest this? Make it so so so convenient. That's so good. Literally the very truth of what happened there as well. I'm, like, ditching all these old rules. I'm, like, you know what? I'm gonna have to playtest this. Mhmm. I'm I'm kinda playing 2 characters during this complicated thing, and it's kind of working, but The flow isn't really there when you're trying to play 2 characters with this Yeah. Complicated thing that I concocted at the time, which is another reason why I was essentially Ditch as well. Like, this it's if you're playing this 1 person trying to play 2 characters with this system Mhmm. Your desk is covered in cards. Yeah. I can't see the notebook. This doesn't work. I there's only so much space that can be dedicated to cards. It to. Yeah and the way that I've written it there, yes I was playtesting it as 1 person with a lot of cards in front of me, but I didn't have a good way of making it work without a lot of cards in front of me. Mhmm. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah the way Dead Eye Society ended up, when it's solo variances, yes you just play it as if you're 2 people. Right and I have played it that way. Yeah. And it's just a lot more writing. Alright. That's that's like writing your own, like, epistolary novel. Yeah. I mean, it it works. It works, but but there is a lot there. Still fun, but it's a lot to take on, and not everyone wants to be able to take that on. Yeah. For sure. Because that was actually gonna be a question that I asked if if it was good if the solo version of the game was played as 2 people or if it was just, you know, taking on the 1 character. Yeah. So you can play it as 2 people. You can play it where you approximate the 2nd person's letter by drawing a major arcana card, look at the society event prompt and then just Make up the gist of it. Yeah. Or the way that I more recently quite liked playing it was the the 3rd variant of they never reply, So you rank, you don't get a response? So that's how I actually like to play it because then I get angry because they're not writing back Oh, suspicious because why aren't they writing back? Oh, that's really good. Then my radio operator, Vampire, is born Where she's sending messages into, you know, off on the on the on the radio waves, but she's not getting anything back from it. So then she has to go and investigate to figure out why, and then she goes a few rooms too far, asks a few too many wrong wrong sort of questions and then, you know, is no more. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. That kinda reminds you of, like, fire watch a little bit where you're, like, communicating over the radios and stuff, though, but then, like, that's, like, kind of the whole thing is, like, you know, what's going on? And then all of that. I like that question of what's going on. So at the moment, that's particularly attractive to me. At other point in time, Just having a little bit more feedback from what else could be going on in the world elsewhere is is nice. Like, drawing the cards and just Summarizing it to yourself? No. I like it. Or if I'm feeling like I really want to write a novel. Sometimes happens. If I wanted, like, a drama novel experience. If I want to write My vampire version of This is How You Lose A Time War? Then I will play a 2 player full on. But with 1 me. To player 1 me. 2 player 1 me, yeah. That's another meme. Okay, but that's like a I- I- I really love that, 2 player 1 me, because, like, I've- I've thought of, like, playing, like, like, interpret it or not playing like normal TTRPGs as a what as a solo game and, like, I can just think of, like, you know, sometimes, you know, most games you have, like, a party of of of player characters and stuff. And it's like, a party but me, but it's all me. Like, I am the only one here. The only thing you really need is a way to complicate your expectations a bit. Otherwise Yeah. You might just write a story. Right? Yeah. You just need something that gives you the GM's yes and, yes but, no but which is why there's gm emulators out there or random encounters or just mechanics that lead into naturally, providing those prompts, which the 1 game that I'm looking at doing this with absolutely does, so I'm very excited about that. No, but now that's that's so cool. I I love also hearing people's experiences with playing, like, solo and 2 person games too because, you know everyone's very familiar with, you know, the 1 GM in in a group. Yeah. And so hearing these other, hearing these other ways to play, I think, is just really, really school. Mhmm. Just cooperative games as well where you don't have the GM, but you have more people. Mhmm. I think that's also really fun. I agree. Yeah, no, I've I really wanted to play Wanderhome for that reason, especially, like yeah, let let's just see how this works, you know, I'm the forever GM. Him. I I I always have to run the games, which I love, but I just wanna see what it'll be like if I give everyone free rein to basically be the GM, like, quote unquote the GM. Once people get used to it as well. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's why you do slightly guided play and then like push them slowly push them into into a fully collaborative game excuse me, but, yeah, actually, we somehow got off topic again.-Oh, well. -Start the starting the game. Starting the game. Starting the game. If you if you're if you've gone through all the world building, the character creation, and you still don't have a good idea for how you write a letter Mhmm. There is a chronicle phase that you can add on at the beginning of the game, which gets you a little bit more into your character and what your motivations might be. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. But But then someone writes a letter. And while 1 person's writing a letter, the other person has their 1st interaction with the society. Oh. You're doing different people We're doing different things at the same time, so it can take a while to write a good letter, especially Given how out of practice people tend to be with writing letters Yeah. I know I go, Dear! Right. Where do I go from there? Where do I go from here? What do I want to write about? How do I want to present my character. That that stuff can take a bit of time. Absolutely. Someone else is going through the society phase, and there's nothing that stops you from necessarily just doing your own thing and sending letters out of phase with each other and stuff like that, except that it's not really fair to have a pile up of letters happening on 1 person. Yeah. So the recommendation is the recommendation is that you complete a cycle of the game at the a a similar pace with how you complete those individual phases. The pace you do that in is kind of up to you. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Don't don't send another letter before you've received a letter to read is the basic rule of it. Yeah. I think that even I mean, even in just the realm of actually sending letters, I think that's pretty I mean, yeah. Willow used to be that annoying person where they're like sending you 4 le oh no. That's my day never reply referring, doesn't it? So it's someone sending you 4 letters and the other person just like, I haven't even, like, picked it up yet from the postbox. It's like, oh, no. Sorry. That's that's that's for another game. No. You are all good. No. I love it. See? This is brainstorming. Like, oh, I need this. Brainstorming. I did good ideas come when you're having a good conversation with someone. Exactly. A good conversation where They want to hear about your ideas. I that's always the best time because then it's like, alright. You know, we can go back and forth. Hell, yeah. No. I I love it. And so the writing the letter phase, you know, you're going back and forth, writing each other's, writing each other letters, and so I'm curious from from your perspective. Mhmm. If you have any, like, tips for people who may not be who may not have played a journaling game for where they're having to write things out. Do you have any tips for, like, kind of easing people into it so that it seems more approachable? Don't be afraid. Just write. It will be okay. Hey, everyone. It's time for this episode's midpoint. It is time to just chill, make sure you have some water, and that you've eaten, and all of those fun things. I I just wanna say, hey. If you're enjoying this episode and you enjoy the RPG Goblin podcast, please make sure to leave a review. It's a fantastic way to show support for the podcast along with listening to episodes and also making sure to follow along wherever you listen to your podcast as well. All of that means the world to me, so I thank you if you've done that already and just all of the love. We don't have an ad swap today, but I wanna give you a bit of an update for the RPG Goblin, in December here. On 17th of December at 6 PM Eastern Standard Time in the RPG Goblin Discord. I am going to be hosting a live q and a Or you can come in and ask me all kinds of questions, and I will be recording it and later editing it for our episode for the 1st anniversary of the RPG a goblin, which will be in mid January. So that's really exciting. And along with that, on December 29th, There will actually be no new episode of the RPG Goblin. It is going to be the 1 week that we are going to be missing this year. But Instead, I'm going to be hosting the TTRPG party in celebration of hitting our November goal. There's also gonna be hosted in the RPG goblin Discord server that is going to be happening December 29th at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. And I am going to be having on a bunch of guests, and we are going to be giving away things about every 30 minutes along with PDF books of TTRPG games from Hatchling Games. We We are going to be giving away some dice and also some TTRPG accessories. So I'm really excited about that. And along with all of these fun things that'll be happening, I will also be having a huge announcement during this party, so please make sure that you're there. Again, both of these events will be hosted in my Discord server, the RPG goblin Discord server, which the link will be in the description of this episode or on social media. So please make sure to come in, Say hi, ask questions, and hang out where a bunch of cool people are, and you can talk about TTRPGs because it's pretty great there. Now thank you for listening to this episode, and let's get back into it. Div. If you have any, like, tips for people who may not be who may not have played a journaling game before where they're having to write things out. Do you have any tips for, like, kind of easing people into it so that it seems more approachable? Don't be afraid. Just write. It will be okay. I will. Like, To be totally serious with it, you can write anything you want in the journaling sections of these games. You don't have to share it with anybody. Yeah, I love it. No one needs to see it other than you. If you want to go through the prompts and just write one word answers to to things And that's all you feel like you can do at the moment? Just do that. Yeah. Play it easy. Ever needs to know. You'll write a let you'll you'll get a letter back from the other person. Mhmm. You'll take what you've written down so far, one word, 3 pages, whatever it happens to be. Mhmm. And then reply to them. Yeah. Ask them questions. Engage in a conversation. Engage in a conversation. Do the the the common deflection tactic of I don't know what to say, so I'm gonna ask you a Shouldn't said, how do you feel about what you've written on this letter? Or are are are you doing okay? Like, you know, like, We're we're not gonna talk about you asking, like, why maybe the paper's blood stay. It's fine. We're not here to worry about it. Nothing to worry about here. May maybe I've only written 3 words in my journal because a vampire hunter has taken over. It's trending more than enough to really good. To kill him. That's actually that would be, like, a little terrifying. Like, it's a little arc to do, like, that an actual vampire hunter takes over the letters and maybe it, like, tries to keep the conversation going. I do have a section on character death. Mhmm. Because Okay. So stepping back a little bit. So dead at society doesn't use stats, but it uses things. Mhmm. Right? So vampires are all about the things that they've acquired over centuries, right? So it's the the the physical items that they own, the the connections and people they know, the places they haunt, the, you know, People they betrayed in the past and the principles they sacrificed along the way and the ambitions that they have, which is like 6 things that are assets. Yeah. I love that accent. That you have that make you you. Mhmm. And during the game, you will develop them. You will add Tag things onto the descriptions of them. So if you find a key, you might decide later on you're developing an item. You might decide, actually, you know what? I found out what this key unlocks, and you might tag tag something like that item. You might also lose your items or forfeit your allies and rivals and all those things. And if you run out of assets, you're a destitute vampire and either you can bargain with society to just keep going for a little bit more, which is up to the other player, or he changed character. So there's a section of character death. Right? So also in my solo playthrough, if I wanted to play a few more, I might just go to the character death section and pick a new way of playing that vampire Yeah. Continuing the story. One of the things in there is just make a new vampire. The the society connects you up. Everything's fine. Just carry on. Another one is, yes, another vampire has found their way somehow to contact you. Are they a member of the society? Who They probably should be. If they're not, what's gonna happen? Yeah. And then the other thing is, did you run because a human found your letters? Are they trying to infiltrate the society? What are the consequences of this? Yes. Oh, no. That's so good. Yep. Because along with werewolves, I was try I was coming up with all sorts of schemes for how I could make this into some sort of, Oh, well, you could have a vampire and a vampire hunter, and then they could write to each other, and they could fall in love, and then they could meet. Okay. But, like, I wanna play that so bad now, though. I know. You could you can you can play that with dead light society, but it's not the only thing you can play with this Oh, yeah. No. No. For For sure, it is it is vampire pen pals, but, like, the idea of, like, specifically especially if you do that whole if there is a situation that comes up where 1 of the vampires die or or something bad happens to you. Or it's just narratively Yep. They should disappear. Yep. Yep. And then and then you have the vampire hunter come in, and then, like, maybe you don't even no. Maybe you Yep. Maybe you might get hints of, like, oh, how the letter is written, and that's where you can have, like, creative You might give some hints. You might Right with your left hand. I don't know if you write some physical lessons. Actually, I love the idea, and and I'm sure, like, you know, the the whole intended thing with this is that, because I I saw this, I think, in your itch page of that you don't have to wait forever for the pen pals. Like, you know, normally, if you're sending a letter, it takes a few days or however long for it to go through and all of that. But it would actually be really cool to do physical, like, pen pal letters, like Mhmm. Sending it to someone who's, like, you know, across the country or across the world. Like, that would be a lot of fun and, again, a lot of creative control that you could have there with, like, you could get nice red, envelopes and and do wax seals. Include some pressed flowers from your midnight garden. Yes. No. I love that. You do the tea one. You include a bag of tea in there. Like, oh, yeah. Do this. No. But that's even fun. Like, hey. Like, maybe, like, sending tea back and forth because, like, that's kind of a a You can trade assets in in this game. So if you find something you wanna give to someone or you can hook someone to ally that you know, and you take them off your sheet. You put them on theirs, and then the theirs to do with as they please. I love that so much. That's really, really cool. And so I love this. This is really fun. I really wanna play this. Of the so the writing phase, it does include so it's the, you know, starting you know, I guess, the beginning of the game is the writing phase. You start with writing a letter, and then it's just the letters back and forth. And so then the next phase is what we're like, you know, you send phase. You send your letter and it is time for the society. Yeah. Yeah. The society will come a calling. There will be people who have gone missing, who you would talk to, who would introduce to you, hints that maybe someone might be reading your letters maybe. Them. All sorts of things can happen then, and it's there to essentially help you Flesh out what the society is. Mhmm. Because there's so many things that it could be. There's many things it could be. In one game I played with my partner. We were playing vampire rail barons in the wild west. That's so good. And turns out, oh, turns out the The society was run by werewolves, the trapped families Oh. And get in secret inside information into the railroad. Yeah. Yeah. So that was something that we came up with between us because of the society events that we got and the setting that we were playing in. And there was just a moment we were both sitting there typing. We're like, you know what? We're like, I know what. Yeah. We use, like, brain for that. Like, yeah. You know? Yes. This makes a lot of sense. That's definitely what the society is in this game. That's so cool. I love that so much. Also, like, that's just a really good idea too, like vampires and wild west, like, where like, secret I mean, secret werewolf society that's Right. Like, nefarious intent, all of that. Like, do you have any other examples of some of the other societies that you've done? Because now I'm just, like, really, really curious of, like, what's evolved. A lot of them, I never really found that find out the true intent because something bad happens to me before I get to that point. Fair. Fair. Fair. I I tend I tend to play shorter games when I'm doing my solo games because I don't have a lot of time that I'm trying to fit them in. Yep. So when you're setting up this game, you'll say how many letters approximately you want to send to each other. Mhmm. Because that gives you, like, a narrative arc and timing for things. I like that. And I tend to pick a short, like, 3 letter game. So I have something that introduces things, something that lets me know how it's going, and something that's usually my last gasp into the world. Usually. Usually. Or it's like, see you. I'm going away. Like that. Depending on how things have gone, then then yeah. Mhmm. And so in that time frame, I don't often but I'm not too bothered about finding out the intricacies of what society. Oh, it's usually what am I dealing with in that moment that's that's there. So, I think in my my vampire, he was the radio operator. My best working theory there was that the society was probably something to do with aliens. Uh-huh. Yeah. Actually, I like it. I like it. Yeah. Absolutely. Me. It was definitely something shady. It was something radio tower related. There was so I had lots of clues that were sort of piecing together, But my gay I didn't continue my game long enough to flesh it into a solid thing, like, with the real power ones where we were like, okay. This is definitely how this society is working. Yeah. For sure. No. That's okay. But I I I kept it more open and fluid and yeah. More fun. Yeah. No. I Yeah. I love, though, the fact that it's, like, my working theory for a solo game where I was the only person playing and the fact that you have a theory for that. It's a theory. No. I I love it. I love it because that's one of my favorite things about playing TTRPGs is as a player, especially figuring out, you know, the what, you know, what is going on Mhmm. Grand scheme of things. And, actually, my monster of the week game, our last session that happened a few days ago, there are some big, There's some big revelations on some stuff, and I woke up the next morning to, like, a 3 page essay from one of my players in our conspiracy theory chat of like, okay. Here's what I think is going on. Yeah. I am I am the theorist in our game group as well, I think. I have so many theories about what's going on in the vampire the masquerade game. Oh, I mean, more vampires. It's great. I love it. More vampires. This game is almost me. Years old to say, wow. Long game. Yeah. I mean, we play, like, every week. Slow. So Oh, yes. We talk a lot. Gosh. I feel that. Like, every time enjoy it, though. Yeah. Every time I go with my gaming group, it's like we we have a discussion, and it's like, okay. Okay. We actually have to start now because I I love talking with you guys. It's great. But, also, I need you to figure out what's going on in this game because I want to talk about it with you. Like, I wanna bounce ideas off. Yeah. I think I think my partner's given up on that now. He's our He's our storyteller for for for vampire, and I think he has just given up on us, getting to the point where we're gonna figure it out, and he's just having fun now. Yeah. I mean, that works. No. I'm Oh, we figured it out ages ago, and he's just waiting for us to stop talking about it. Oh, to actually do something about it. Yeah. I have a lot of fun with it. It's all the guys. Like, you don't know what's happening behind the curtain. Maybe you maybe you flick and that's the that's the thing with having players that do, like, conspiracy theories conspiracy theories because, again, that whole, like, essay that I woke up to, there are points where I'm like, actually, you're really close. Like, you're like, there like, You've got some accurate points there and other ones where it's like, I don't even know where you got that idea from, but, like, that's interesting. Sometimes it makes sense, And sometimes it reveals a disconnect in what they are imagining and what they're trying to get across, which is Handy? Exactly. It it it is really good from a storytelling perspective. And there's even times where I've actually taken a theory that my players have, presented, and I'm like, Oh, that's actually true now. I I don't tell them. Who's the nest? Yeah. I don't tell them. I don't let them know, but, yeah, actually, that's that's shrew now because that's a really good idea. That was something that I didn't intend, but it makes sense. I can make it work and, like, it's fun. And then they're gonna feel really excited when it actually works. Good when it pairs up. Yeah. I think it's like, oh, I figured that out. It's session 5 like, the hell yeah. That's what I'm hoping happens at the end of our vampire game if we ever get there. I kind of hope you don't ever get there because I really like how characters. I don't wanna stop playing. It's too good. I don't want it to end. No. I love that, though, especially when you have just the game where you can just kind of be the people too, like I I enjoy games that are that do have a strong narrative, like, overarching story. Like, those are really fun. But also games that are a bit more personal where it is just the characters kinda playing out their lives. It's fun because then you just get, like, super connected with those characters, and it's like, I love you, and one day I will have to let you go. One day I will have to let my vampire go. She's doing so well for such a new vampire hat. Aw. I love, hey. Maybe one day it can become a dead letter society game. Who knows? Maybe. 1 I when you say that, one of the sample Characters in the modern day setting for dead dead society is written from my vampire, the master. Oh, that's so cool. Well, now you have to share. Who is this? Oh, what did I call what did I call her in in this one? That's a good question. Let me find let me scroll through this book. Where did I which one was her? What was her name? What did I give her? I think it was Madison. What do they call her? Yeah. Madison Madison Aspen. Madison Aspen. Like, yeah. She's Paris Paris Kensington is the the pseudonym she picked for for vampire, to to a city and a place. So Madison and Aspen are both places. I love it. It's great. But, yeah, that that's basically that character, And a letter from her to the right wider vampire society. I love it. No. That's so cool. And I love that You have a like, obviously, you like vampires enough that, like, you're playing a vampire the masquerade game. You just you wrote a vampire game that is, you know, all about, you know, the vampire pam pals. I I really want to make that the title of this episode. It could be. I mean, it's the I it's the exact words that popped into my head was Vampire pam pals? Yeah. Vampire. Like, a bunch of, like, existential shit. No. I love it. But, like, I love that, like, the love for vampires is strong. And then you, like, bring in those other experiences into this game. So there's that, again, deeper connection that people can, like, find out. Like, Again, the coolest thing about, like, indie game designers is that, again, they put a lot of their own things into the game, and it's just really cool. I love it. I also carry it on to the next game a bit because next game is werewolves. Mhmm. And in the preview, at least, I've got one setting in the preview for Almanac. And, I'm already taking I'm already GMing it a little bit too much and taking some of the m p c the sorry. The the pre gen characters for the vampires in Dead Earth Society Mhmm. And putting them as influencers in the werewolf lives and their hands. So I was like, okay. Okay. How complicated could I make this? Yeah. Hopefully not hopefully just complicated enough And not too complicated. Yeah. I mean, for people who get it, people who who do both games, like I want it to be an Easter egg, not take the whole thing. No. I think that's really cool, though, because then there there is that overlap. When people do play your other games, they're like, you know, I can tell I can I can see that's from vampire or not vampire the masquerade? What? I can see that's from dead butter society. I know what I'm talking about. There's vampires everywhere. It's fine. Vampires everywhere. Yep. But also you can play those 2 games together, so It gives you a little bit of a a link between the 2 things. It's not what I'm thinking. You could have werewolves going on one day. You can have vampires going on the next day, and just, like, switch it up. Just make sure that you don't get them confused, like, because I feel like that would be very 1 1 of the 2 probably can't go out during the day. Probably, but, you know Probably. Unless you're Dracula. Dracula could go out during the day. Yeah. The dead letter society game where you're playing Dracula, someone else is playing. Yeah. I'm sorry I've broken you down. No, you're all good. No, I just have way too much fun doing these. No. That's great. And so a little bit, swerving back slightly. So for the society phase, you know, you're figuring out who the society is and, like, kind of what their motivations are as you're drawing these prompts. And is it is it drawing from just the major arcana, or are you drawing from Okay. The society phase is just the major arcana. The chronicle phase is just the minor arcana. Okay. That makes sense to kinda separate the cards, make it a bit easier, and so do you have maybe an example, like, kind of preview prompt of one of the society, cards? Oh, sure. Of course I do. Yeah, let's Let me scroll back just a little bit more of my document. All good. I will share What's my favorite? See, that's always a great question. I've kind of told you a little bit about some of some of the ones there, but I think one of my favorites for actually Starting to think most all about what the society wants from you Mhmm. Is what I wrote for the Fool. Mhmm. Oh, that's good. If you draw the fool, you get to add information to an item, him a principle that you hold and declare an ambition that you want to pursue as part of this. Yeah. And the prompt reads, A letter arrives for you bearing the society seal, but with no mention of the sender. Within is a small square of a million paper and a carefully wrapped trinket. The paper bears the words, our dance begins, in a large, sprawling script. The trinket is something you thought lost, something of significant sentimental value. What thoughts run through your mind? That's really good. That's so spooky. Like Yeah. And me. It could be from somebody who's trying to just get in touch with you to the society but without the society knowing. Yeah. It could be someone high up in the society has a job for you to do at some point. It's it could be some cat and mouse thing that's going on. Yeah. I just It could be like a a long lost friend that maybe sent you this thing. There could be something sinister at all, But it's probably sinister. It's I mean, yeah, 9 times out of 10, probably. Yeah. I mean, like, if you're not claim the society sinister? Then what's the point of the society? That's that's the true question. They're just a glorified post office at that point. Actually Willow. Is just an aptitude. They're a glorified post office. Yeah. That's really good. I like that a lot. And, again, it just it like, some of my favorite things about some of these solo games that I've tried, are just, like, the openness of the prompts. Like, that is so open. It doesn't matter what setting you're in. It doesn't matter what the society is. It doesn't matter who you are. And, like, even the trinket, it's just a trinket. It doesn't say, oh, this is a key. It's like, okay. Well, like, why would I get a key if maybe I'm on a spacecraft that only uses, like, like, cards to, like, upload those for multiple settings. Yeah. Absolutely. I My hope is that I give enough guidance that your brain goes But not be so penned in that there's only 1 answer to the question. Yeah. Again, I mean, we just came up with several as we are just talking about If you're playing this properly, you have a world that you're playing it with. You have a character and the kind of things that they might like or be paranoid about. And you can have a bit more of an idea of, like, exactly what it could be. What kind of thing might happen. You might have an ally that you've been, you know, Talking to you up to this point and maybe you decide that the handwriting is theirs and there's something fishy going on. I don't know. It's not my. There's so many different So many different things. So many different ideas, so many different ways to play. Just make it your own. Have a blast with it. Yeah. Making your own, which is the other like, you were talking about advice to people who haven't played these kind of games before is Just follow your instinct. You can't play these games wrong. I love that. I love that. You can't play it wrong. You can't me. Wrong. No one's asking you to write a novel. No one's asking you to have to write in the first person perspective give or a third person perspective. No one cares about the grammar you're using. There's no exam at the end. And no one's spell checking you along the way. You can turn off the spell checker when you're playing a journaling game. I I choose to have my spelling errors. I mean, that's what I love. I mean, for me personally, in the solo games that I've done, I do it pen and paper. Like, that's personally one of my favorite ways to play TTRPGs to use in general. Even if I'm playing online, I'll usually print out stuff or or have physical items. And that's also why I like having physical books for things too because it's like, oh, I get to actually hold it. But a big reason why I do solo games as a journal instead of, like, in a doc is because It's like writing already kinda stresses me out to an extent. Like, it it's it's something I've gotten a lot better at and that I've gotten more comfortable with and that I enjoy more, and that's why in playing solo games. But if I'm having to worry about, like, spell check or or things like popping up every so often because I spelled it wrong, it's Like, I don't wanna deal with that right now. You know? No. I already have to deal with that enough as I'm typing things on Twitter, and then it's like, oh, you spelled this wrong. I was like, I didn't ask you. Were those moments when autocorrect has corrected the word you actually typed and intended to type correctly 3 times or something totally different? Yep. It's like, that's that's not what I wanted. Why why No. Leave it alone, please. Yeah. I I know I type strange words because I'm into strange TTRPGs or fantasy or or even just it's so silly. It's it's the most stressful thing, but that's why I love doing it as I love doing this pen and paper just because it it does help kinda let that go. Be like, I don't have to worry that I'm spelling anything right, and it is my own journal. You know? I'm not giving this to someone like, oh, hey. Read this game that I I played through. Who would struggle to read my handwriting. And that's it too. You can read it. Like, it's it's it's your thing. It's fine. I can guess. Yeah. No. I get that with words sometimes. Like, I look back at some of, like like, notes I've left for myself or things that I've written, and I'm like, mhmm. What is that? Like, what is that word? I I have no idea. Little up its thing here. There's probably an I or a t. The damn thing there is just yeah. When you're writing fast, at least when I'm writing fast, the distinction between my letters disappears into some squiggles with some up y down y bits along the lines And occasionally some dots, but sometimes they will dot across things to be like, hang on. No. I was just getting excited about writing that word. There's no I don't even know I's or t's or anything in it. What am I doing? Just Just wanted to enunciate it a little bit, like add more dots. Yeah. Underscore it or, like, go underline it. Sorry. Not underscore. No. I I love that so much. I I always I've been always very, like I've been pretty, like, neat in the way that I write, so it does take me a while to write, but I am atrocious at spelling anything. I'm atrocious of trying to figure out how to spell anything. And, again, I'm playing this game for fun. I'm not worrying about it. I'm not going to spell I'm not looking it up on Google or spell checking it. So it's fine. It works. So don't be worried about it, people. If you're if if you're nervous about the way that you write or or not being good at grammar or, like, putting together sentences that read well. That's not the point. The point is to tell a story with yourself and another person. Yeah. Have fun. If you're having fun, you're playing the journaling game correctly. Exactly. If you're not having fun, you should put it down and do something else. Yep. And and that and that may be maybe a journaling game isn't the isn't your way of having fun. That's why In that moment in time. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not. Maybe you wanna do something else. Exactly. Sometimes Sometimes you just wanna sit around with your friends to play a game and have fun. Yeah. Sometimes you don't wanna have it all be on you and and figure out, like, what does this weird prompt mean? Like, I love it. And so that's really cool. And I guess we've we gone over the prompt bits of the society phase and all of that. Is there any other elements that we didn't cover necessarily with the society phase? Oh, no. The society phase is fairly straightforward. I think it's Just taking everything that's happened to you so far and figuring out what does society want this time. Yeah. What do you want? It's like a it's like do you woe with me? Can't you just send my letters and be a glorified post office? Yeah. Please. And, hey. Maybe maybe a way that someone makes the game their own is by making it I mean yeah. I love it. So good. I love it. And so the next phase is oh, no. I forgot the The chronicle phase. Chronicle phase. Yes. Chronicle pages. Where you act upon the world, essentially, and pursue the things that your vampire is interested in. Yeah. Which is where you can get ideas of, like, what you end up writing about, I would assume. So that that does work in a very terror ish sense in that You have a question that you you want to ask or a problem that you're trying to solve Okay. And you phrase it is a is a how, a what, a where, or a why type question because they invite more verbose answers. Mhmm. You just censor it. Censor it? No. Censor it on how you act in the game. So So some of the examples I've given of how to phrase an intention is if there's a character called Jules the rat in your game, right, you don't say your intention of what does Jules the rat think of me? Because you don't you don't know that. Yeah. The question you might ask is how can I influence Jules the rat? And then draw the card and maybe you got some ideas from that about how you might go about influencing Jules the rat. Oh, that's fun, actually. And then and you mentioned a little bit before as, like, the tarot cards can even be, like, you know, kinda more fortune telly. Like, you can even reference what it means just from the pictures that are on it Yeah. Which is which is fun too because I know that, No. Different tarot decks have their own artwork even though they have, like, you know, their their themes and what the cards mean and all of that. They have different artwork and and what they put on it. Makes you think different things. Yeah. Which I could imagine you I could imagine if you play this as a 2 person game, maybe 1 person has a tarot, like, one tarot deck and someone else has a different one. Yeah. So maybe you can get some different interpretations on things. You could even play with, like, you could play even if you're playing solo, you could play with multiple tarot decks if you wanted to. Like, switch them up. Like, that's really fun. I like that a lot. That's who tarot cards more than dice because of that. You can get the same, like, statistical distribution Mhmm. With that, but you also have Built in inspiration. It's Yeah. More than just the number. Yeah. And you could even look into, like, what the card means, and, like, you could learn about tarot even further. Like, That's really fun. No. There's a lot of On each on each of the cards prompts that I have, I have 3 a 3 word, like, basic the idea of what the card is about as well. I like that. Yeah. So you can you can just sort of go with the gist of the Mhmm. The vibe of the card if you If all else fails. If all else fails. So for the fool, which I read to you earlier, that's I've I wrote That down is naivety, adventure and the unknown. Yeah, I love that. It was just another way of approaching how you Interpret the card. It's just yeah. I know I'm rambling. Yeah. No. You're good. No. And it helps support as well. It kinda helps support the people playing. Like, the fact that you don't need to know the cards, like Yeah. Like, already. Is there any way for people who may not have tarot cards. Is there a way to play without them? Perfect. Yes. If you like to play pen and paper, I have a random table at the back of the book. And you can either concoct your own way of rolling some numbers or you can drop a pen on it or whatever to pick pick a thing. Yeah. Or you could ask Google to roll you a d 56. There's an there's an awkward number of tarot cards, you see. And one thing I thought of doing is I roll a d 4 to pick a suit and then roll a to Whatever. Depict your card within the seat, but then that's a lot of rolling. Yeah. That's a lot of rolling. Like, I I'm trying to even think a way that, like, I would do it, but that's, like, tricky. Yeah. So the easiest thing to do is just to go and get a dice roller on your phone or something like that and then just have it roll the odd the odd dice. So I have a link in there to an online free dice roller so that people can easily do that. And if you tell Google to roll you 1 d 56, it will roll your 56 side to side the dice, so it's, like, pretty easy. Yeah. They can make dice that don't exist. Yeah. Alternatively, there is a Discord bot Mhmm. And that has all the prompts on it. They're very trusting like that. So wait. So you actually, like, made a Discord bot for the name? So my my partner is a software engineer. Oh my god. He made me a Discord bot. That's so sweet. I love that. Best. Sweet. He is the best. Do you have a link for that as well in the game? Yes. Perfect. So there's a link to it. There's a resources section in the game which has a link to Mhmm. A web page This is a QR code. There's, a link. It's a text document included with the PDF downloads, and deadlatter society.com, which is when all the information about the game is kept. Yeah. Has a section there on resources, including a link for how to get hold of the Discord buttons. I love that. Like that. That's so good. I haven't, like, heard any, like, games make actual bots for them or anything like that, so that's just really cool. So I think so I totally stole this ID from Alice is Missing. Oh. They have a Discord server template for playing the game. Oh, I didn't know that And Actually, I need to write that down because I've been really willing to play Alice is Missing. Oh, it's really good. It's really good. So they have a discord server template. So I started out by going right let's make a server templates for this game. So you'll have your letter channels, your journaling channels, and all that. And, like, actually, You know what? People can make this however they want to make it. I don't need to dictate channels. We just need cards. We just need random generations because if I dictate, like, service structure, then people couldn't invite the bot onto, like, a server they already have to play. And it's, like, all weird and you have to, like And figure it out. It's just I have a habit of trying to make things too complicated and then going, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. See? I did again. Being able to recognize it is important, though. So I have many years now of experience recognizing when that happens. Sometimes I still don't manage it. No. I love it, though. I love it. That's so good. No. And and, again, recognizing it and and knowing when when when enough is enough is good. But, like, I, again, Really liked that idea. And, again, I'm gonna look into the Alice is missing. Is missing. It's cool. Yeah. I have it on my shelf, and I've been, like, dying to play it, but, like, all my groups are online. And I have the role 20 version, but I wanted to, like, figure out how to do it in Discord that it would be nice, like, work well and smooth. Yeah. I I I got I got the the digital version Mhmm. Read it, and I thought, nope. I need to play this in person with people and the physical one too. Yep. Yep. Yep. No. It's it's a it's a beautiful box. It's one of my favorite. Like, I have it up with, like, my quick starts and and my bunkers and badasses thing. Like, it looks all nice on the shelf. Like, one day, I will play you, because that that again, that's just also really interesting PTRPG because, like, that was one of the first ones that like, like that and 10 candles were some of the first ones where it's like, oh, there's some, like, different than dice mechanics and, like, the standard again, like, one DM in in a group and all of that. Like Yes. Yeah. It's just Dread was Oh, yeah. Dread. Was my first, like, no dice sort of game. I love Dread. Dredd. It's very cool. I can only gm dread. I cannot play dread. I am very good at sneaking up behind and with someone and whispering horrible things in their ear as they're trying to pull a block from the tower. But But but I'm not very good at Jenga. I love that. There's we have been talking about Jenga in my house for, like, a few days now, maybe a week because my mom went to this party where they had, like, a big Jenga tower thing, And people were play like, being really crazy about, like, pull like, whipping out the pieces or, like, like like, hitting the pieces out and then, like, slamming it on top, and all I can think of is dread, and I'm like, that would be terrifying. That would be, like, the scariest thing, but also so freaking fun. And also I really wanna play dread now with those huge power. About this I do too. Because then you have that extra element of, like it's not just a little tower or anything. You have a whole big one in front of me back. The big tower. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's like that. And then, like, again, I can imagine, like, run like I said like, I actually don't really know a lot about dread. I've only, like, heard things off, like, from other people, but I've heard that it's really good. And I know about the Jenga and the tower mechanics and all of that. And, like, I didn't know that it had a for sure GM and, like, you just saying, like, running up behind someone. Like, is there, like, a I've run dread. I've run dread at, like, a local con convention once, and I was really lucky that they let me have an to room to myself for it. Oh. And at one point, I took my shoes off, and I turned out the lights, and I started walking around behind people talking. Evil. I didn't do anything to them. Yeah. I didn't do anything. I'm just walking around silently and then So they're on one side of the room and they're all staring at the tower in the middle of the room, which has got a horrible, horrible lean to it. And they're all alone on the space station with the creatures stalking them. And it's like, yep. Oh, no. I had I have I have a lot of fun dreaming dreads. Well, now I got a free ride. Fun. No. Though I haven't played this in way too long now. Well, now you have to play it again because, like, We're talking about it now. Get a big Jenga tower. Invite some people over, and then There's a slight complication now. We've got 4 year old asleep upstairs. And if a big Jenga towel falls down, he's gonna wake up. Okay. Someone else has to host the dress. Yes. No one else has to host. We have to figure out what to do about, yeah, many things. All the social media daytime. Yeah, exactly. It's just a really bright horror scenario, okay? Like, I swear it's scary. Like, yeah. No. Things can be scary in in in the sunlight. Things can be scary in the sunlight. It's all about the atmosphere you're trying to set, to tackle. Play a game that's happening at night, but people still do scary spooky things during the day. Yeah. For sure. You just you just make sure to lean into that specifically and not make it around the unknown and the darkness. If I am walking by myself in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the day, and I start hearing branches crack behind me. I'm still scared. Actually, that's a good point. A dread game in the middle of day set in the woods? Like Yeah. There you go. Right there. It's still you there's still that The unknown, and people are afraid of the unknown. Yeah. No. It We make up all sorts of terrible things to explain anything. This is so true, through, which is why, again, like, 10 candles works so good. Like, anything where, like, the unknown's the main mechanic. Like, you're Mhmm. It's automatically gonna be spooky because Yeah. You don't know funny enough. No. I love it. And so, actually, I'm thinking if, the chronicle stage, you know, your your your, you know, answering questions, is this usually something that's just, like, what, like, one thing, where you're kinda asking the cards one thing, or are you doing multiple? You get to do it 3 times. Mhmm. I think that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can do you can do more than that as long as, you know, you've talked about with the other person because you don't wanna You want I want. All the players do is their own their own their own thing. But what I want is it to be a a fair amount of attention that each people gets to give to their characters. Yeah. Absolutely. As long as you're both doing the same number of of what I call chronicle points, which is things that you spend to ask these questions, then it's fine. Yeah. Right. It's fine. You will cover more or less ground than you would in a what I what would be, like, the standard number of points game, but It's fine. As long as you're both doing the same thing, it should be good. Fine with me. Yeah. No. I like that. And even being able to do less because sometimes there may be situations where you don't need have time. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know yeah. We come and sit down to play, like, if you're doing it, like, in person with the person in front of you, which I like that idea too. You know, maybe we only have, like, 2 hours to do this right now. And that's okay. We'll we'll we'll And you can also play a bit, put it down, come back to it, put it over a few nights. Yeah. It's also works fine like that. One of the best things about solo games or not solo games, but, like, solo or even 2 player is, like, if you're on the same page of, like, okay. We'll just pick this up when we have the time. Like, I'm playing the solo game right now. I haven't played it in a few days even though I had, like, a, like, a week where I was, like, playing it, like, every day, but I've been busy. I I only have so many things I can do, and so being able to know yeah. Being able to know I can pick it up and and continue it again at any point makes me happy. I love it. And so now I'm thinking I mean, as soon as the chronicle phase is over, I'm assuming you just kinda it's like a place to be in the the letter first. Go back to learn. The chronicle first, you will pick up the letter that you've received. You'll read it at some point. You may act on the information that's in it using by, you know, doing the chronicle phase. Mhmm. You can do your own things. Get the letter, like, at the beginning of the chronicle phase. Full face. Beginning of it, or you can you can do that bit in any order. Okay. So if you've got if you're sticking to to 3 things that you're doing, then You can pursue 3 of your own things and then read the letter if you want. Or you can read the letter and then do the 3 things. Or you can do one thing and think, you know what? I should really read that. You know, they're they're maybe some people. The other player is still writing the letter. So you just do your 3 things, and the rest arrives when it arrives. Yeah. And I could even see, like, you maybe have only, like, like, one idea for yourself on what you wanna actually do in that phase, and then maybe you wanna wait for the letter to know if there's something else that like, maybe some ideas that spring from that. I love that a lot. This is so fun. This is great. Oh my gosh. I mean, I I guess, like, my question here is, like, is there any other, like, points, any other points about dead letter society that we haven't hovered because I think we're getting close to the end here. I mean, it's a pretty straightforward game, which I adore. It's It is honestly pretty simple, especially compared to the other thing that I wrote. It's very simple. It's 3 things Three things, 3 phases. You write letters. Mhmm. You see what the society wants, and then you do what you want. Yeah. And that's Kind of that's kind of it. If you've agreed on a number of letters that you're sending, at some point, you will have sent those letters to each other. Mhmm. You then do a chronicle phase. It's like an epilogue to wrap things up for your characters. I like it. Because some point someone will write that last the letter. Mhmm. And the other player might not have actually tied up all of these sentences they wanted. So it's just good you brought that opportunity to Say goodbye to the characters. Yeah. Love it. If you don't want to say goodbye to the characters, then you can just Keep going. I mean, I'm not your boss. Yeah. Write as many letters as you want. Write as many letters as you want. It's it's it's you it's Only your own words that you've gotta use. But Yeah. If 1 person wants to stop and 1 person wants to continue, then you can instead just Switch to playing a a solo game. Yeah. Then maybe they don't respond, and you could agree upon a, like, a thing of, like, why they're not responding and, like, why it would no. I like that. That's so fun. Oh my god. I love all these opportunities. I know you I literally wrote wrote down, like, to play this with my partner because, like, this sounds, Again, really fun to do. And, again, to go back and forth and just see, you know, what happens when you are vampire pen pals? What happens? Yeah. What happens? It's a holiday party. Yeah. God. What happens when your vampire pen passed? Exactly. Like, as we now know now. Willow. No. I love this so much. And so I think, though, we are at the end here, and there is, 1 question that I always like to ask people just because it's very fun for me, and that is with with dead letter society. I think specifically when you made it, what was the thing that made you the most excited about it? Why, you know, why were you in love with this idea? So sharing an idea with someone is hard. Very much. And I have ideas and I have a very vivid picture in my head of that idea. I don't always have the words to get it out. Mhmm. So the thing that made me go, okay, this is cool, is when I managed to actually get those words out and tell my partner what my plans were. Aw. And he went, that sounds cool. You should write that. That's so funny. Just that moment of just, okay. The idea has clicked enough Mhmm. That I can explain it. It was more garbled than your vampires writing letters to each other via a secret society. Right? For much more garbled than that, but still the idea came across. Mhmm. And he got it, and it was something he would want to play with me. And that's That's all I cared about. Mhmm. And in a sense, it all is it is still all I care about. Absolutely. Trying to make a game that specifically to please, like, strangers on the Internet is that's the rules I read. Oh, for sure. Yeah. No. Make the game for yourself. That I Make the game for yourself and There's probably gonna be other people out there who will want to play us. So yeah, that was it. That was it for me. That was the oh, I can kind of explain what I want to do here. And good. He likes it. Yeah. Cool. Let's do this. Yeah. Let's do this. And now you have an awesome game. You have a fantastic game that makes me really excited. And, obviously, other people are really excited and playing it and enjoying it too, which is amazing. And now you have Elmat coming out and, like, all of these things. And so that's just amazing. You can get dead letter society in Italian now Oh. For all the That was Italian vampires. Italian vampires. For pretty fun. Did you, like, get it, like I mean, I assume translated. Like, actually, now I'm curious. Hold on. Everyone, we're not ending the So, yes Oh. I I'm curious about this. I I I just I'm I'm really curious. I got an email from Narativa You do translations of games into italian and they translated it for me and they took my art and made it Different. What does that say? It's the same game. It looks a little bit different. Uh-huh. It's the same art. It looks a little bit different. Interesting. Yeah. That's cool. Again, for the Italian verifiers, I guess. Yeah. Gotta gotta spice it up a little bit for No. That's actually really cool. I love that. It's it's it's a it's a different book to what I meant Mhmm. But it's still a very pretty book. Yeah. No. That's so cool. Yeah. It's it's it was it was really cool just to see someone else have a a slightly different vision of what my game would be like and what would appeal to a different market No. And see what they made of it. Mhmm. It's like, ah, that looks pretty cool. Yeah. Good job. Good job, guys. And then, again, from a game designer perspective, I couldn't imagine how, like, exciting that is. Like, even, like, taking inspiration from a game or, like, you know, translating it and then making it, like, their own version with it because, obviously, there's not always gonna be direct translations for stuff Yeah. Whatever direction they wanna take it to. And I have big, long lists of keywords, so I actually feel little sorry for the translator. Here's a bunch of words. I guess Here's a bunch of words. I mean, I think it all comes down to if it's like a if it's something where there are, like, more single words or if, like, words make sense in, like, contact context and stuff like that where it's you know, how our language works. No. But that's so cool. Like, congrats on that. Like, that's really awesome. It was it was a it was just cool. Yeah. No. All like, congrats on all of us. Like, this is all seriously really cool. I'm very excited to actually get dead letter society. I'm getting a physical version because I refuse not to. Also, I've been seeing you work on the, I do have special community copies Yes. Just so people know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's touch on that, actually. If you want to play, but it's not something that you can stretch to right now, you can just send me an email or check Click on the itch page and there are community copies. I'll always give something away rather than have someone, you know, Get into difficulties over a game. Yeah. Which is so sweet of you. Like like, just thank you from from the people who are in those positions because that's because, again, everyone wants to play games, and that's a good way to just, like, you know, relax and just just relax. Be able to play games. Yes. I think games are a good thing. Mhmm. And it's not always where people's priorities are. Yeah. And that's Like, fair. Yeah. Totally. Sometimes you need to live. You know? You need to actually survive. No. Absolutely. No. I think that's that's great, which thank you for, like, bringing that up because I wanted to make sure that we did touch on that, and I may have gotten a little bit, from a moment a phone. So, no, it's been fantastic, and I think that you know, thank you so much for coming on. And everyone who listened, if dead letter society sounds great to you, Go check it out on Itch. The link of the the, the link to it will be in the description of this episode along with the link to the website, which has the physical copy on it or, actually, where is the because I I think I checked it out before the If you just if you go to dead letter the society.com that will redirect you to a web page with links to Itch, drive through and my online shop Angelo, the other places that have it in stock. Perfect. Yeah. And I'll just make sure to put those links all in the description below just so that it makes it easy for you guys to actually get the game because you should go and play it because this is really cool, and I'm really excited about it. And If you do play it, make sure to share your experiences with Rory here because she deserves to hear all the fun things about her game. Tell me all about your vampires. Like Yes. And if they fall in love Ambitions, betrayals, passions, deaths. Maybe not deaths. Yeah. Maybe maybe that's a little who's sad. That might be a little bit too much. No. But seriously, like, thank you so much, everyone. Please go check out Rory. If you would like, just at the end here, where can people find you? Those links, again, will also be in the description. But just for this one final part, where can people find you and support you? I am Montford Tales everywhere in this social media diaspora, And montfordtales.com is my website, and all of my links are on there. Awesome. And, I guess your email as well if people if you're open to people atmonfortales.com. Perfect. No. Seriously, though, thank you so much for coming on and talking about dead letter society. This was awesome. Thank you. Maybe we will have to talk about Almack, when it comes out because that would be really awesome and fun little follow-up too because I'd love to have you back on the show. So, yeah, thank you so much. This has been awesome, super fun conversation, and thank you everyone so much for listening. I hope that you enjoyed, and I guess that's it. Bye. Yeah. Awkward movements. Like, oh, this is weird. Movements. Bye, everyone.