Wee wee wee wee wee wee wee. Hello, pretty funny and welcome back to Desks and Dorks in your favorite designing creation podcast that has always in shape by you. We bring the best indie tabletop games. I'm Kyle Lott, I am the dork. I am joined today thankfully after I was like nine years in person Riley Parks. Maybe Ben, don't be fooled, folks. That was not an actual siren. That was just me. It was a shot. It was trying to figure out what was happening. Um, I
think we're talking about a topic. We are actually so as those of you who have watched the show. No, actually, we have a big thank you. Thank you again to everybody that made fear Within a huge towering success. Um, we have finished up with edits. We're actually the process of doing layout now, which is super exciting. Thank you to all the retailers. Thank you to all the packers. Thank you everybody to play tested it. Thank you to every person that I accosted in Sam's Club to talked about
my board game too. I'm sure you were very confused and did you do that? No? It was a costco Okay, a much more board game friendly clientele. But in a case, thanks again to everybody, and it was huge. Also, if you're a fan of the show, you might know our friend Graham against Graham has been on the show many times. Um,
oh my good lord. And so like every so often Graham, we're in a group chat with him and he will he called them his his his que pod drops, which is like, I'm having a really hard time keeping you straight face, but every songs and he'll be like, you guys need ideas. I'm an idea man. That's like the classic before Graham says something very like just interesting. And so he pitched us a bunch of different podcast ideas and I love one of them. It is called breaking and entertaining.
So I'm gonna give him his flowers, both for the idea and for the pun based title. See we're already next out of grand makes upun before I do. It's beautiful. But anyway, breaking entertaining what crimes make for exciting game design, and that is something that I am thrilled about as a concept. So we're gonna be talking about all kinds of stuff I get to talk about. Um, we are talking specific situations. I would hope at least
I am. I have a specific person, even a mine. I have some board games that I'd like to talk about, and I have some RPG concepts because we're also in the process of working on an RPG that may or may not involve criminals. Yeah, so this looks awesome for me. I'm excited as an RPG designer and a game designer in general because I think this is something that works really well. Um yeah, I think so are you
starting it? You want me to kick it off? All right? So first off, one of the reasons I love talking about this in general is I think if you are running an RPG session, and this is true for everyone, whether you're an aspiring dungeon master or whether you want to run other you know, more esoteric and you know, more niche board games, if you can connect to your audience, if you have some through line that goes from the fantastical world to the real world, it's going to make your game
immediately more engaging, especially when Riley almost breaks our work turner in the middle of a podcast. That's the best part in any case. So I like putting crimes into my RPG sessions in general. Now, a quick word of caution. If you are going to use crimes, please be cognizant of who you're playing with their safety tools. There are certain people who have a tolerance for like that grim Dark. You guys know what those kind of crimes are.
I'm not going to go into those, but always be cognizant when you throw something in there that you're being aware of the players that you're with and the safety tools that they might need to be comfortable and stay comfortable when you're in one of those sessions, like trust me, I get it. Some of the stuff is cool, and sometimes people are like, you know what I'm in for as grim and gritty as it gets. Some people like, nah, man, this is a fantasy game. I'm here to escape the
horrors of the real world. So I always like to keep my crimes light. That's a sentence I never thought I'd say. One of my absolute favorite ones to do, if I'm going to do anything, is grand larceny. Grand larceny in a board game, specifically some sort of heist. I want it to be as much like if you've ever how do I put this? If you're looking for a template, watch the TV show Leverage and just extrapolate
on that. But I love giving the PCs some sort of big mcguffin that they have to steal for whatever reason, whether that is a rare painting or a magical artifact or something along those lines, because what it lets you do is it lets the players kind of flex their creativity. I love being like, Okay, your first couple sessions are you literally casing the joint and figuring out what's there, what isn't there, who is who isn't around, what
the guard patterns are, what the security systems are in place. Like, it's so cool to just give your players a general like overview in a map and then watch them kind of systematically pick away the layers of defense around this.
I think it gives you tons of opportunities for great role playing, tons of opportunities for great strategic thinking, tons of opportunities for people who like to draw maps and just doodle and plan, And it just gives you tons of opportunities to be a badass, Like there's so many cool ways to be, Like I can break into this place. Watch me use spells or abilities or critical thinking to get into a location and get the thing that no one wants
me to get. I love it if you're looking for creative ideas for it. One of my all time favorites comes from the Dungeon Master's Guide, Too, which is no longer in print. You can at least the three five three five edition where it literally details as a potential adventure seed because like, yeah, you can do a painting, Yeah you can do an artifact. Yes, you can just do straight up gold. It talks about stealing saffron, like the spice because they're like, pound for pound, this is worth
more than diamond. Yeah, this town, right, which is great, so you can have it be something really unique. The group of players that I've am at with absolutely like loved it because they're like it was hyped up. The local thieves were talking about it. They were like, Yo, this is gonna be like the craziest thing in the world. You know,
we're gonna break in. It's this insane thing. And then they rip over open the tarp and it's literally spices, and they're like, wait a second, and their whole plan of smuggling it out goes out the window because they had just assumed it was like bars of metal, and so they had to like adapt on fly how they were going to get this stuff out. Another way. You can make it work, make the person that is guarding it or hoarding it have some sort of special thing, like, yes, you
could steal this big gemstone. However, if the big gemstone is like powering another care an innocent person's heart, because it's like a magic gemstone, that changes things a little bit. I love a big heist. Give me a big Higson. Speaking of band larceny, that's what I want. I want grand larceny. I'm gonna just actually listed a game that I'm sure you've played. It's a one page role playing games. Guns. No, it's a
it's Honey, It's Hoist. It's Honeycown twenty seventeen. You're gonna undertake the greatest height the world has ever seen. Two things. One, you have a complex plan that requires precise time. Two, you're you're a bear. I have not played Honey Heist, Dad shocks me. I have not played Honey Heist. Well you there you go. I need to play Honey. For some reason. You were talking about serious RPG stuff and Honey Heist game to mind, like, Honeyhist is a serious RPG. So I'm taking this
in a whole different route cut. Okay, do it. I'm talking about a specific crime. Oh like a like a like a like an actually named crime. Okay. Yeah. So first and foremost, I would like this game to be called The Gang of Gouals. My thought is, yeah, you're My thought is it could be two to four player potentially. I'm thinking actually a little more two player, almost mister Jack style. Oh okay, um, because I love that game. That's that's that's a game my wife
and I have played quite a lot. Um. And one of you plays as the police. Of course, one of you plays as the King of Goals. Okay, good old Rufus Cantrell. So it's fall nineteen o two. As a police officer, you've you have just uncovered a crime syndicate, not of boost gambling or other illicit activities. No, no, no, I guess I think I know who this is. He's like, he's a corp roter, right, yep. It's a gang of guals men who robbed
graves and sold their bodies to medical schools on the black market. So one of you, one of you plays as the police. You are going around researching for evidence, and you're taking statements trying to locate who these people are, where they based, where they acquiring their bodies, who would they be selling to next. As the King of Ghouls in your Gang of Gouls, you were trying to continue business us as usual, selling to these acclaimed medical
schools without getting caught. Oh my god. Okay, that's great. That's really good. That's really good. You could make that a really good RPG, or you can make it a really good pusher push. I wanted to be a kind of push your luck style, but honestly, mister Jack, that type of thing a little different. You gotta do some tweaking with that, but gosh, you could have some fun with that. On the topic of Mister Jack too, a couple other shout outs for crime based board games
in Scotland yard phenomenal. It's much more not toned down. It's a much more toned down version of mister Jack. It's a lot more family friendly. No mister Jack, pocket no no, no, no, no um. And I still love Court of Miracles, which is if you've watched the games that Intrigue, a series all about running a street gang in early early early France, like like like basically like whatever, whatever, Hunchback of Notre Dame
whatever that time period is. Um so is it? Oh God, now, dude, King of Goals will be sick, Gang of Goals, Gang of Cool. Do you think, Well, you play as the King of Goals, but it'd be called because I just think it sounds. How many times can we sound say ghouls in in like a twenty second time? Quite often? But before we do that, I guess a game I haven't played, but one that I have upstairs I want to play at some point.
Seventy five Nam Street you play is essentially Oh it's Street streetmes Street Nomes. Yeah, that's crime. I don't know if it's good or not by Seaman so maybe not. I mean most of the game it's older. It's a cool miny or not, I believe, Yeah, like when it was still branded. Even a lot of their like mass Market does because I'm assuming you got that at always because I got it always like for seven yeah, like
forever ago. Um, but even a lot of their stuff that like they went up, like wholesaling and fire sailing and shipping off there still pretty good good Like there's some good stuff there. Um. Okay, while we're on the topic of that, though, because the Nam's thing and also made me think of like one of my all time favorite board games, just The Godfather. I honestly think gang wars, like fantasy gang wars, are a really interesting way to spice up your game design. There's one thing that people know
that I love. It's asymmetry. And I think what's interesting about any type of faction based conflict is it lets you hone in on the differences and similarities between groups, and that can be really potent ground for if you are doing an RPG for storytelling, Why are these characters? Like is my gang of corpse Thieves much different than my gang of rum Runners which is much different than my gang that sells like hard drugs, right? And like, like what
are we fighting over? What do these characters value? And I think that's really interesting. It gives you an opportunity for a lot of pitched combat, which is kind of cool. Gives you an opportunity for some subterfuge. You can infiltrate different groups and play their groups against each other, maybe starts your own different type of group. Huge shout out of course to Blaze in the Dark, which kind of delves into that. But I think gang wars are
kind of cool. And that's an out of sentence I ever thought i'd say. But I think like a fantasy gang war is kind of a cool place. Who start, if you are looking on spicing up your game design in that way, if you're looking for more of a conflict based one that has some really good interesting like human quote unquote, because I don't always have to be human storytelling it angles. I think that's a great call. Okay,
that's that's another pick for me. I love love love. Whenever you get like real different factions than you start brawling, I think that's pretty cool. Ooh, I'm not just saying this because we looked up the night Shift board game, but like honestly like entertainment for a long long time, like running a red light district, like or a campaign in a red light district. And this was so there is a company. M gonna go ahead and throw
it content warning a ten plus not for what we're talking about. But if you've google this, Yes, there's a company called Exotic Cancer yep um that's play on Exotic Dancer. Yes, yes, because they have a game coming out on Kickstarter called night Shift, And you can assume what type of dancing you do, and that as far as we yeah, but uh yeah, I don't want to get lose anything by talking about it more. But we're
intrigued to see how that plays out. Well. One of the things that I think is really interesting is there's a period in American history where you have neighborhoods and sections of major cities where that type of work is allowed, right, And historically those were really beneficial things for a city because then it could be regulated, monetized. The people who worked in those things had rights,
which was great as opposed to now necessarily. But like one of my most like one of the best fascinating things for me to read about when I was a historian or like learning to become a historian was being like, what is this like, Like, I mean, the Bowery in New York was it was a huge thing. Like I would you know, give me like a tabletop RPG about running part of the red light district in the Bowery, That would be awesome. There was even I'm blanking on the name of it and
that stinks. I think it's the Sands, But it was a section of New Orleans that was like it was like all jazz clubs and all of that, and like when they shut that down, jazz woud up going everywhere. Yeah, so like there's some really cool stuff like you don't necessarily have to
think about like that. Like maybe we don't necessarily think about as like crime crime because like I don't necessarily but technically was yeah yeah, but it was at the time, right, And I think those are kind of interesting things and you could kind of play around with it, like, bro, I
want to be a half ork stripper. Be kind of fun. I don't know, I don't know, like what a what a fantasy Channel flagged us by saying that word what we were these we're know stripper like as a like stripper like a wire strip Yes, exactly, you got it, yep. But half I'm actually I'm not an electrician. I'm just an apprentice. You know. Make sure that you make sure that you, you know, saved us. You use some on your wire strippers to make sure that there's I
don't I think you took us back out of that safe territory? Is WD forty not safe anymore? Can we not talk about it? It makes things too loose, That's what it does. That's what it does. I'm missed you. Man, this is nice. It does. Um, what's your next one? Because I, oh, God, off on a tangent again. You and I went completely different because I was going specific crimes. Well I love it though, but that's cool because like I wasn't even thinking specific
crimes. I was thinking general crimes. Oh, god, crimes. This is a major crimes, major crimes. You know, you know what you get, you get major crimes. God, this is what it's like with two point like one brain selp. God. I don't not liking any of this. Um, I'll be honest with you. Yeah, Because, like I said, I was looking out completely different things. Okay, I'm going I want this to be a game. So like, what is the biggest most specific crime. Well, I mean, clearly the gang of Goals.
That's a really good call though, And I realized that there's a lot of these types of games out there, but I would like to see I think there's been a Huger surgeon in games like down Force. Oh no, no, no, no, where am I going? No running? Yeah, what is the origin of NASCAR Moonshine running, Moonshine run. It absolutely was, because it would add it keeps with that, but it adds, how do you want factions in your racing game? Because I do, I absolutely
do. Yes. You know, my great great grandfather was a shine runner, right. I believe that he was arrested several times. That's something to always be proud of. It. I agreed, um u. I fully think that you could have a lot of fun with a down force asque game, Oh my gosh, with factions and with goals. Essentially, instead of playing on a track, you're playing in a city. Okay, you have to pick up and you have to drop off, right, and you have
the police are investigating and following. Are the police a fact? Are the police of player control factor player control faction or alternative or the AI style card driven or player control faction at higher player counts AI at lower player counts, you could do that. You could do what uh yeah, yeah, that would be kind of sick. We could also make it a solo game. At that point. You easily could yeah, oh push, oh my god, push your lock, Like, how many runs do I want to do?
Yep? Yep, get some asymmetry, what kind of you make more money for the longer runs, but the more the longer run you do? But The issue is the longer than run, you have to do it in quicker times, right, So the faster you do it, the more like yep, do you want to maybe fend like you can reinvest in faster cars, which are really good. But eventually if you get cornered, do you
have to invest in firearms exactly? So then carries the risk if you're being being in car straighter for Oh my god, that's such a good call. Dude. Have you played Gang Rush break out? No, it's still in my attic though I know you had bought it and they got rid of it. Still, I think mine still, but I think mind's up still for
working signment might still be insuring. It makes me want to play Gang Rush again because Gang Rush was pretty solid, like it just was a game that was like, man, I don't think I'm ever gonna have It's so Gang Rush, if I'm not mistaken, is quite literally you're just like going across a bridge trying to get a farrio cart with machine guns. Yeah, but like and you can sabotage by dropping like shipping containers on people. It's hysterical,
like it's really good. Okay, that is there another like really hyper specific crime or like, because like Shine Running feels, it's not specific, it's more braun, but it's something I would like to see. I would love a Shine Running game. I would love a Shine running Oh my god, you could even make it like not the Captain is dead, but there was one where like every person is playing kind of their own mini game, but the different mini games all feed into each other. I'm blanking on it.
You know I'm talking about It's a space one. You've talked about it before. I believe there's like one person's playing an exterity game because they're flicking the pucks at the aliens. Maybe you haven't. They're like the weapons guy. And then one person is basically doing a sliding puzzle and they're the ones
in charge of like manning the ship's communication equipment. And then one person is playing I kid you not, this is a real game that exists, but like how cool to be to be Like one person is playing the driving game that's like Gang Rush. One person is playing like the drafting game, which is like building like your car. One person is playing like a freaking engine builder where you're making the like where you're literally brewing the hooch. Oh my
god, dude, I'll want to make it. It sounds so good, that's game it is, and they're all, oh my god, him blank out. If you're one of the people listening, unter, No, I love Cosmic Encounter, but it's not cosmic encounter. If you're one of the people listening to this right now and you know what the heck I'm talking about, please help me, please. Oh more specific crimes, though. I would love a John Dillinger game. Okay, like I would love a public
I would love a public enemy game. On the topic of moonshine running, I would love a public enemy game, or like a Bonnie and Clyde game. No, I want a public enemy, I want I want Dillinger. Yeah, Dillinger feels more like a folk hero than Bonnie and Clyde, who are just like murderers with really good pr I mean again Bonnie and Clyde and Juliet, but now, yeah, they really like murderers with really really really good pr Yeah, like really good jr. Really good, like the best
people at the best crime. Wait, way, you play as the Iceberg against the Titan God just okay, I mean I'm in it's just a rogue Iceberger. Whenever I think of Bonnie and Clyde, I think of leon I think of Titanic, and I think of Leonardo DiCaprio, and then I think, I go back to, well, the Iceberg did it. Well, the Iceberg did it. So that's a crime. Okay, hear me out, though, what if you're what if you're the game as you're a pr
team, a bunch of gangster like our Bonnie and Clydes newspaper people. We're just gonna make unsocial network. But about is this the better version of us? Probably the better version of on social network. I'm down with that. I'm okay with it too. I think this is a much better It is now a good time to announce it on social network. Beating out red Pan or Redemption? Did it really? Oh my god? It beat out? So hey, you know that bracket for like a year? I don't you
know the bracket? Oh my gosh. You know, it's kind of fun to think of that like that. We did start with that bracket. We did five games ago. Yeah, and literally five games ago. How does that feel? How does that? How does that like? Five games? Or you can go vote on this bracket, which all have to make but a new one apparently so and that's not housing it. I mean, how so how badly did Unsocial Network beat by a percentage small percentage which is so
funny because red Pant Redemption became a game. Well, but that's the thing. At least we don't have to make two red panted Redemption. That's very true. That's very true. So as Unsocial Network just gonna get rebranded as the Crimes Crime Coverage is a great, great name for a game. Riley that come on on. And to bring it full circle, you know the Clyde Barrow made of his own gun called a whippet gun. Right, we did it? Yeah, we did it. We did it. Um that
you've been breaking and entering entertaining. If you guys are also a fan of committing crimes, you can follow along at YouTube dot com, slash, desks and doors. You can listen in on any of your favorite podcasting apps such as Geo savon Google and Apple Podcasts. I believe we're still on Pandora and Spotify at least I would hope so and all of those other podcasting apps and sites. Interact with us on any of your favorite social media at desks and
dorks. Just Google Desks and dorks, you'll find us. We have a Kickstarter thing, and by that I mean you could just find us on kickstarters, Desks and dorks. Ye, look at After the Rain, look at a fear Within, follow along fear Within, ask cops at at the beginning, coming along really Well, we're just posting an update today. Yeah. Um, and eventually you should be able to get copies of Fear Within directly
from us. Yeah. That's like something we're actually thinking of a being that is the change that like I've been hitting on it on a couple of my videos. I think you have as well. But like yeah, because people are like, hey, you know, can we get After the Rain from you? And it was a kind of a longer time before we got to, you know, get with Indie Press Revolution. By the way, shout out IPR. You can go ahead and get yourself a copy after any night
are it. Also you can find out where we're supplied to see if we're at a store near you, and if we're not, you can go to your local game shop and tell them you would love for them to carry us. Also, shout out to uh Pandamonium, which carried us at carried us at Paxia which east. That's right, it was Paxiast. We were at Paxiast. Well, our book was at Paxias. We were not a Paxia No, um, so that was pretty cool too. But yeah, please
interact with us. Tell me why I'm wrong about unmatched. Most people do in the comments. Yeah, one day, one day, that's gonna be. One day that's gonna be like the greatest video. Well, like I said, one day you'll make I assume you're just waiting for tales too amazed to come out to make a new tier. Yeah, absolutely, I am, um, and I'm hopefully we'll get to try a couple of those, a couple more expansions, like I finally got to try what did I get
to try? I have not tried Genie, I haven't tried Udini. Well I assumed if you haven't tried the one, you probably haven't tried the other. But sometimes, like people will bring in their box set shot, I will try one play again. I tried Baywolf though and read Riding Hood since the last time that I made the Cheeralist. Those are both interesting. We're going to watal on about unmatched stuff. So if you are going to be here just for a rerregular skit longer that is actually done talking about it.
We're done talking about Unmatched for right now. The podcast is done by every Wait, no, we're not because I have a weird question. Well, yeah, that you wouldn't have forgotten. It's a weird question. Um what Okay, So this is inspired by the fact that I, okay, if you watched Gunbuster the ANIMECA anime Gunbuster or not, Now, wow, that's shocking because I figured you would all like I don't have time to watch shows.
That's fair. I'm not even caught up on Gundham, which I already meca, Like holy haven't even seen which Mercury in season two just dropped. I haven't even started it. Heard it's really good, by the way, it is from what I've seen. I've seen the trailers. Do you want? Do you want my crunchy role logging? I mean we could talk about this after the show, because you're gonna give it to the entire to everyone just dif. Yeah, that's fair because like I I'm watching Demon Slayer season
because I'm bind I was behind on anything else. Okay, what? Um? So actually this inspired because I thought about Gunbuster. I thought about the Ugio dual disc. Um if you could have one anime or let's do a cartoon. If you're you're not a oh that Gunbuster a tremendous older one like me, What anime or cartoon device for apparatus would you like to have? UM in the real world. We're going to assume that it has all of
its powers unless it is something world ending or reality breaking. So like interesting because you brought up the the like dual disc for Ugo. Yes, yes, it can make the Hologram monsters if you pay the dual disc. Okay, I don't want that, but okay, that's it I want. We're gonna we're gonna talk about Gundham, very surprise to anyone. Yes, okay, so Gundham came out with this meta but not even meta the fourth wall breaking TV show called UM. But there's a couple of them build fighters.
Okay, they like build Fighters. There's a couple other variations of it. Okay. What it is is you quite literally you stand in front of these like VR style tables and you put your gun to model that you've crafted and painted and adjusted inside of it, and essentially it's fully scans it interest and then you control it in a VR environment that's actually kind of really sick, and the weapons that it has everything are based on the way you model it
come to life. It's no ball mech, but like it's well, you know you can you can have the ball you Actually there's a there's one with a ball as a head. Yeah, exactly. So that that's what I want. I want a giant set up that I could just have Mecca battles at any given time. I like it. I know it's not as exciting, No, that is no, but I like it though. That's a cool one. What are you thinking? Um, I can't believe I'm saying this that. The more I thought about this question, I thought for sure
it was going to be the dual list for me. Yeah, because growing up like how dope is the dualist I've never seen you. I'm just gonna I'll make it say it's dope. I want Ben Ten's Omni Tricks. So that crossed my mind. I want Ben Ten's Omni tricks. How freaking cool would the Omni Tricks be to have in real life? If I could get
so much stuff done? Like, oh my gosh, the amount of stuff I could get completed with an Omni Tricks is great, and if on board, I could put it on shuffle like an iPod, just hit it and see what happens. You're not wrong, there's disadvantages to that. I think there are some. I'm sure. Yeah, because apparently Ben Ten's hip with
the kids again. He is. There's like a new season. I guess that's like somebody brought that up and I was like, you know, an Omni tricks in real life, Yeah, would be really cool, be able to turn this millions. Well that's it, folks. Thank you so much again for listening. Um, you guys are great. Yeah, thank you, goodbye bye