0:11

This is writer and game designer

0:13

Robin D. Laws. And this is game

0:15

designer and writer Kenneth Hite. And

0:18

this is our podcast, Ken and Robin

0:20

Talk About Stuff. Bandwidth brought to

0:22

you by Pelgrine Press. Stuff for you

0:24

to talk about in this episode

0:26

include... Skipping the Big Battle. Milton Bradley,

0:28

The Person. Journey Narratives. And the

0:30

Hopkinsville Goblin. Ah,

0:49

spring. Time for planting seeds and utter

0:51

carnage in the garden. Wait, what

0:53

was that last one? You heard me,

0:55

Robin. It's time for some good

0:57

old -fashioned garden warfare. Vicious

0:59

Gardens is the new card game where

1:01

you combine the joy of horticulture

1:03

with the thrill of being a total

1:06

jerk. Oh, okay. Hold on. I

1:08

thought you were talking about gardening. We

1:10

are! Because in vicious gardens,

1:12

you're not just planting petunias,

1:14

my friend. You're sabotaging others

1:16

in a cozy cutthroat competition.

1:19

Oh, okay. That sounds a bit

1:21

intense for my usual pansies and

1:23

peonies. Oh, this is way beyond

1:25

pansies, my friend. This is a

1:27

battle for garden domination. You

1:29

gotta sabotage your opponents, steal

1:31

their plants, and choke out their

1:33

prize -winning produce. So it's

1:35

a strategy game, but with plants?

1:38

You got it. because the best gardeners

1:40

are willing to get their hands

1:42

dirty. Okay, I'm strangely into this. Where

1:44

can I join in the horticultural

1:47

havoc? Vicious Gardens is

1:49

available now! Order yours at

1:51

atlas -games.com, then prepare for

1:53

the meanest, greenest garden

1:55

Malie ever! The

2:02

rattle of dice, the thump of miniatures,

2:04

the thump of more miniatures, the

2:06

thump of miniature tanks, the thump of

2:08

miniature planes. So many miniatures,

2:10

Robin. Also, there are Doritos.

2:12

Also, there's Peter Frampton. We're coming

2:14

alive. We're in the gaming hut,

2:16

but we're in the gaming hut

2:18

where a climactic battle is going

2:21

on. We're for once getting to

2:23

crack out that mass combat section

2:25

of the rules where for once

2:27

getting to endanger the characters through

2:29

shot and shell because we're going

2:31

to do the thing that games

2:33

don't often do. PCs, you

2:36

know, flea and smith, and they say, hey, FBI

2:38

and Coast Guard, you take care of that. Or

2:40

they call in the Special Suppression Forces in

2:42

Azotarists. Or if they're Delta Green,

2:44

they just call in an airstrike

2:46

and say, you go US Air

2:48

Force, take out that temple. But

2:51

what if What if you wanted

2:53

that scene to still be suspenseful while

2:55

they're sitting on the radio? What if you

2:57

wanted them to take part in the

2:59

clampdown? Well, I was thinking actually we're gonna

3:01

look at ways to still make it

3:03

suspenseful if they don't take part. Okay. All

3:05

those miniatures are on the table for

3:07

no reason. I just wanted to show off.

3:10

You may see the miniatures doing stuff,

3:12

but I think what we're looking at is

3:14

because if you're there in the scene

3:16

for the climactic battle, that's not a weird

3:18

thing. That's the regular thing. And it's

3:20

suspenseful. Yeah, but what if You've got authorities

3:22

or mercenaries or special suppression forces or

3:24

so forth to do your job for

3:27

you. And you get to skip out

3:29

of the final battle, which makes perfect

3:31

sense, especially in a lot of horror

3:33

settings. I'm a dilettante in a hobo.

3:35

I don't really think I can be

3:37

here for this tank fight. It's

3:39

not what you want to do in an F

3:41

-20 game, right? It's skipping the big fight. It's

3:43

like that's the reward, having the big fight.

3:46

But here, you've done all the

3:48

mystery stuff. You've done all the fleeing.

3:50

and you're going to call on, you

3:52

know, I don't know, Casilda or the FBI

3:54

to take care of things. How do you

3:56

still make that more than just sort of

3:58

an afterthought? And first of all, in many

4:01

sessions, just having that be part of

4:03

an afterthought is fine. You

4:05

can, you know, if there's a big climactic

4:07

escape from in's mouth, you just say,

4:09

yeah, and then later you call the

4:11

FBI and Months later, you hear that there

4:13

was a successful submarine raid and everything's

4:15

fine. Everything's great. You don't have to

4:17

worry about that. The government took care

4:19

of it. Right. And just like they're taking

4:21

care of this depression. Yeah. And even

4:24

that, of course, you're adding a little

4:26

idea that, oh, maybe we should have been

4:28

there ourselves. But what if you're just

4:30

on the radio when the air strike

4:32

is calling in? How do you make that

4:34

final bit, if not a full, fleshed

4:36

-out scene, how do you make that fun

4:38

and dramatic and interesting? I think the

4:40

first thing is if the player characters

4:42

are on the radio, they should

4:44

still be able to influence what's

4:47

happening. Maybe they're, you know, acting

4:49

as spotters for the artillery or

4:51

they're talking the pilots through the

4:53

weird hallucinations that they're going

4:55

into as they're flying in towards the

4:57

temple or something is going on where they're

4:59

still relevant. Maybe not dice roll relevant,

5:01

although that would be the best kind of

5:03

relevant, but some kind of relevant where

5:06

they're part of it as opposed to just

5:08

sitting on a hill munching popcorn and

5:10

watching the, you know, explosions go

5:12

off. And that can, that will

5:14

depend on the exact type of

5:16

intervention, but I do feel like If

5:18

the player characters look like they're

5:20

going to call on the FBI to

5:22

solve the problem, it's incumbent on

5:24

you as GM to think, how can

5:26

I keep it still sort of

5:29

their problem? And maybe the problem is,

5:31

did the FBI do a good

5:33

job? I don't know that I trust

5:35

the FBI. They can't stop Capone.

5:37

Why can't, what's this about? So

5:39

you, the way it's suspenseful is

5:41

the FBI guy shows up afterwards and

5:43

doesn't, you know, a debriefing and

5:45

the suspense is trying to get from

5:47

this tight -mouthed fed what exactly happened

5:49

and did they do it right

5:51

and did you remember the subbasement and

5:54

things like that and so the

5:56

suspense is actually the denouement and the

5:58

setup maybe for the sequel. Right.

6:00

Or you can flip that and it's

6:02

like the scene where you inform

6:04

the FBI of this where you're trying

6:06

to sell them on doing it.

6:08

And so the suspenseful element is, can

6:10

you make them believe that there

6:12

are deep ones in this town? And

6:14

can you make them follow the

6:16

correct precautions and make sure that they

6:19

do it right? And so that

6:21

can be part of it. And you

6:23

can leave that feeling, oh

6:25

yeah, we really won this assistant to

6:27

Hoover over and he's definitely gonna

6:29

do the right thing and he's gonna

6:31

make sure that they torpedo the

6:33

coral reefs as well as the town.

6:36

Or you feel that, oh no,

6:38

we've just sort of... not going to

6:40

get it right somehow. But I

6:42

think that the big solution, however you

6:44

do this, is to have them

6:46

be able to observe the attack by

6:48

the specialists while it is happening.

6:50

And so you are, you know, one

6:53

town over in Innsmouth and you

6:55

have your binoculars out, or you're watching

6:57

the prisoner exchange on the bridge,

6:59

or again, you're on the radio, but

7:01

there's some way to follow in

7:03

real time what's going on and either

7:05

the stuff that you prepared them

7:08

for pays off or doesn't so that

7:10

you know what's happening. You're following

7:12

moment by moment and you as the

7:14

GM can narrate both advances and

7:16

setbacks and you don't necessarily have to

7:18

even think to yourself, well, you

7:20

know, how this goes or what their

7:23

contribution will be will determine whether

7:25

it's a success or not. You might,

7:27

you know, determine whether, you know,

7:29

their roles or what have you influenced.

7:31

how many people die or how

7:33

secret it is or how smoothly it

7:35

goes off. But it may well

7:38

be that you're just introducing suspense, making

7:40

it feel exciting, making them feel that

7:42

something actually happened and was dealt with

7:44

rather than just throwing it away and

7:47

in line of narration without necessarily thinking,

7:49

well, this could go really wrong and

7:51

then there'll be a sequel. Although, of

7:53

course, you could do that too. Yeah,

7:55

if you're good at narrating... action or

7:57

techno thriller type action. There's no shame

7:59

in just doing that for like two

8:02

or three minutes, giving them a sense

8:04

of catharsis as they watch their actions

8:06

play out. Even if they can't intervene,

8:08

even if they can't redirect the bomber

8:10

at the last minute, they

8:12

will still have vicarious thrills in the

8:14

same way that when we watch a

8:16

movie, we get these vicarious thrills. Your

8:18

job is just to not make it

8:21

last 25 minutes. like a Marvel fight,

8:23

make it last two minutes like a

8:25

good fight. And the thing

8:27

that I've found that really works

8:29

is front load the suspense. So

8:31

in my fall of Delta Green

8:33

campaign, the player characters have

8:35

called in, I think, three airstrikes

8:37

total. And every time you call

8:39

on an airstrike, the airstrike doesn't just

8:41

happen the next minute. The

8:43

Air Force guy says, all right,

8:45

bombers will be over the

8:47

target in 12 hours. And

8:50

then they're like, oh, No, we have

8:52

a lot more than 12 hours worth of

8:54

work to come back. Oh, too late.

8:56

So they have to go and they have

8:58

to rescue the NPCs that they care

9:00

about or make sure that the bad guys

9:02

will still be on the button in

9:04

12 hours. They have to stay there and

9:06

keep them there. And so the suspense

9:08

is, are we going to be caught in

9:11

our own airstrike? And that is a

9:13

great way to focus the mind of player

9:15

characters is, no, this whole valley will

9:17

be full of napalm Sunday morning. Just like

9:19

you asked, hope everything's good where you

9:21

are. and then they have to work out

9:23

what that means. And by the time

9:25

they've sort of, you know, made their compromises

9:27

with which lovable NPC they have to

9:30

leave in the path of the bombers, they're

9:32

drenched with a fictive sweat, just

9:34

trying to rescue their own mission objective

9:36

and their own character objective from

9:39

the conflagration that they've Unleashed it's a

9:41

it's a good way to do

9:43

the suspense and then that narration of

9:45

the of the F104 is coming

9:47

in and leveling the valley has real

9:49

meat to it because they're like

9:51

Oh, oh, no, not the cook. Oh,

9:53

well there. Yeah, all right And

9:55

that's a good moment in game the

9:58

suspense can also turn on the

10:00

issue of how trustworthy Your mop up

10:02

forces are right. So if you

10:04

are watching from the other side of

10:06

the bay or looking at the

10:08

bridge And instead of seeing the creatures

10:10

being destroyed, but instead you see

10:12

them being loaded into vats or put

10:15

in crates or what have you,

10:17

then it's like, well, okay, the

10:19

creatures have been taken care of. They're

10:21

not a threat to New England or

10:23

Paris. But that seems bad to me,

10:25

the fact that they're being led away

10:27

by this force that I thought I

10:29

could trust. And maybe they didn't, because

10:31

I said they were just... And so...

10:34

then do you go and intervene or

10:36

do you, uh, so you can have

10:38

the thing where it's like, you know,

10:40

classic horror thing where there's an apparent

10:42

success and then there's that nagging note

10:44

of something going to come back and

10:46

you can either, you know, just leave

10:48

that dangling or it's like, well, do

10:51

we, once the submarines come to shore,

10:53

do we try and follow them and

10:55

see where they're taking the vats with

10:57

the deep ones in it? Or are

10:59

we just going to, you know, Call

11:01

this a partial success. What are we

11:03

going to do? And then so that

11:05

can be, you know, not whether your

11:08

mop up forces win, but what exactly

11:10

they're going to do after they win

11:12

and whether that's a good thing or

11:14

a bad thing. And are your hated

11:16

other side NPCs majestic or the guy

11:18

from the Department of the Interior who's

11:20

been messing with you? What's he doing

11:22

here? How come he's taking samples? Why

11:25

is he running through the rubble? What's

11:27

he putting in his pocket? And you

11:29

can use that to build up. you

11:31

know, the bad guy because the bad

11:33

guy is taking just as much of

11:35

an advantage of the situation as you

11:37

were and they've obviously got their hooks

11:39

into the good guys as well. So

11:42

it can be sure they did everything

11:44

just right but there was something that

11:46

could have been done on the scene

11:48

that we're seeing our rival slash villain

11:50

getting to do and it's thanks to

11:52

us that that happened and again that

11:54

creates that urgency of either making a

11:56

sequel adventure or just marking them down

11:59

for a retribution in a future. Right.

12:01

And how much energy you put into

12:03

this should probably be a feature of

12:05

how hard it was for them to

12:07

get to this point. So

12:09

if their escape from Innsmouth was fraught

12:11

and terrible and they're all down to

12:13

their last ability points, then you can

12:16

say to yourself, well, that's fine. We'll

12:18

just let the, you know, we'll have

12:20

one little moment where deep ones swarm

12:22

one of the submarines, but then it

12:24

dives and knocks them off. So there's

12:26

just, you know, they're just one, oh,

12:28

and then everything's fine. Whereas if they

12:30

got out of Innsmouth in a, you

12:32

know, a logical but unsuspenseful way, that's

12:35

when you might bring up the thing

12:37

of, oh, they're actually sinking the submarines,

12:39

what do you do? Or, you know,

12:41

they're departing with the VATs and find

12:43

a way of sort of balancing the

12:45

relative ease of their actual climax with

12:47

a a coda that becomes more of

12:49

a climax. Yeah, and that's again,

12:51

you know, reading the room. Do the

12:53

players really, really, really want and deserve

12:56

a win? If so, there's

12:58

no more satisfying win than B -52s

13:00

showing up over the target site.

13:02

Are the players maybe in the

13:04

mood for something darker or twisted

13:06

or messed up? Is that part

13:08

of the social contract? Is that

13:11

something that they've got an appetite

13:13

for? Well, the history of Military

13:15

and secret service operations is the history

13:17

of screw ups. So all kinds of

13:19

things can go wrong and it won't

13:21

even look like special pleading on your

13:23

part when it does. Right. Well, our

13:25

submarines have arrived to take us to

13:27

the next segment and I'm sure nothing

13:29

will go wrong during this exciting commercial

13:31

message. 1968.

13:47

Sinister influences threatened to corrupt

13:49

America from within and without. The

13:51

federal government establishes a new

13:53

agency for overseas covert action. The

13:56

Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous

13:58

Drugs, the BNDD. And within it,

14:00

the forces of Delta Green.

14:02

In the Borellis Connection, the new

14:04

globe -spanning mega -campaign for the

14:07

fall of Delta Green, you become

14:09

the mythos hunting agents hidden

14:11

inside the BNDD. Play eight linked

14:13

operations. As separate stand -alones. Or

14:15

linked into an epic hunt

14:17

for an infamous target. Escort a

14:20

sniper carrying a death warrant

14:22

for a San Warlord. Surveil a

14:24

Saigon drug summit. Track heroin

14:26

couriers on a flight. from Hong

14:28

Kong to LA. Investigate the

14:31

disappearance of an archaeologist working the

14:33

bozukepi ceremonial site. Smash a

14:35

Beirut drug deal. ID the actors

14:37

broadcasting the necronomicon from a

14:39

CIA -backed Munich radio station. and

14:41

waged the drug war amid France's

14:44

May 68 riots. Designed by

14:46

Kenneth Hyte. Written by Gareth Ryder

14:48

Hanrahan. The team that brought

14:50

you the Zoologyny Quartet and the

14:52

Dracula dossier. The Borellis Connection.

14:54

Gorgeously designed and horrifically illustrated by

14:57

Jen McLeary. A tale of

14:59

sorted intrigue. Cosmic horror. A desperate

15:01

action against the mythos. Now

15:03

available in Titanic Hardback. From specially

15:05

cleared gaming retail stores. And

15:08

the Pellgrain Press. Web Store. Now

15:10

also at the Web Store

15:12

as an instantly available PDF -only

15:14

purchase. The

15:20

old timey hats? the ruffled collars,

15:22

the many layers of clothing, the

15:24

uncomfortable shoes, and the elevated manner

15:26

of speaking tell us that we're

15:29

once more in the history hut.

15:31

And as we often are in

15:33

the history hut, we've gone back

15:35

to the century

15:37

to investigate the story of

15:39

Milton Bradley. Yes, the Milton Bradley,

15:41

unlike some famous brand names

15:43

that are the names of people,

15:45

is the name of a

15:47

real person. And it turns out

15:50

to be the name of

15:52

just an interesting person in history

15:54

and business history and cultural

15:56

history as well as in the

15:58

early days of board games.

16:00

And so Ken, you have started

16:02

at the starting square. You've

16:05

walled your dice and you've landed

16:07

on the 1836 square where Milton

16:09

Bradley was born in Vienna, Maine.

16:11

First, let me correct you. I

16:13

spun a spinner. There are no

16:15

dice. All right, of course. 1836,

16:17

Vienna, Maine, born to working class

16:19

parents. Milton Bradley named

16:21

after John Milton. His family is

16:23

descended from Puritans of the

16:25

Massachusetts Bay type, but they're

16:27

working class. They're not rich. So he

16:29

sort of has to scrabble around for

16:31

jobs. They get him off and on

16:34

into various colleges. He works

16:36

as a patent agent and

16:38

as a draftsman and eventually sets

16:40

up with the Wasson Manufacturing

16:42

Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. They

16:44

make railroad cars and then

16:46

they went bankrupt. in the crash

16:48

of 1857. But the

16:50

Pasha of Egypt did not know they

16:52

had gone bankrupt. And he wrote a

16:54

letter from Egypt and he says, I

16:56

want you to build all the train

16:58

cars for the Egyptian Railway service. And

17:01

so they got back together and cashed the

17:03

Pasha's check. So did he actually get his

17:05

trains? He did. He got his trains. And

17:08

Milton designed the bespoke train car

17:10

for the Pasha. And so the

17:12

Pasha gave him a little bonus.

17:14

He took that bonus. and set

17:16

up his own lithograph shop, the

17:19

Milton Bradley Company in Springfield, Massachusetts,

17:22

and got to marry his first

17:24

wife, Velona Eaton. But the

17:26

trouble with lithographs, Robin, is that

17:28

it's a swingy market. You

17:30

can overstock on a time sensitive

17:32

item. Exactly. So he's a

17:34

good Republican in Massachusetts, a good

17:36

anti -slavery guy like a descendant

17:38

of Puritans should be. So

17:40

he does tons of lithographs of

17:42

Abraham Lincoln. a rising Republican

17:44

candidate for the presidency. Republican

17:47

Abraham Lincoln. That's the problem is

17:49

that Lincoln won as a clean

17:51

shaven Republican and just like a

17:53

president immediately goes back on his

17:56

campaign promises and grows his beard

17:58

and all of the lithographs have

18:00

beardless Lincoln and foolishly Milton Bradley

18:02

had a money back guarantee if

18:04

you're not satisfied and people brought

18:06

in their lithographs and said this

18:08

Lincoln has no beard. Just draw

18:11

one on. No. And so he

18:14

basically lost a ton of money on

18:16

this and in desperation became a game

18:18

publisher. Yeah, the only reason to get

18:20

into games. That shows that shows that

18:22

life does not change from 1860 to

18:24

now. So in the winter of 1860,

18:26

he releases a game of his own

18:28

design or him and a friend named

18:31

George Tarpley. We're not a million percent

18:33

sure who designed it, but it's called

18:35

the checkered game of life. And it

18:37

was based on the new game of

18:39

human life. which was published in 1790

18:41

in England by John Wallace and Elizabeth

18:43

Newberry. John Wallace, perhaps, a

18:45

relation to another beloved game designer

18:48

of our knowledge, and The Mansion of

18:50

Happiness, which is another game by

18:52

George Fox in 1800. This is the

18:54

oldest game, by the way, for

18:56

which we know the name of the

18:58

designer. They were both very successful

19:01

in American editions, and unlike those games,

19:03

which were straight -up racetrack games, on

19:05

the checkered game of life, you

19:07

could move your piece in any of

19:09

the checker's directions. And so that

19:11

gave you choices and made the game

19:13

more fun for everybody. Right. And

19:16

Bradley, or his collaborators, departures from Mansion

19:18

of Happiness are very telling and

19:20

interesting. So Mansion of Happiness,

19:22

which is often found today in

19:24

suspiciously good condition, which suggests

19:26

that they Sold more copies than

19:28

people play. It wasn't something

19:30

that you played enough. Something that

19:32

your aunt would buy for

19:34

the kids and say, this will

19:36

give them moral instruction, and

19:38

the kids say, I'll bet it

19:40

will. Right. Because moral instruction

19:42

is exactly the point of Mansion

19:44

of Happiness. It's very overtly

19:46

religious, and it's harsh in both

19:48

its chrome, its theme, and

19:50

its gameplay. So there are

19:52

in American trash games, we're always American

19:55

trash games, I guess. So there's more chances

19:57

to be pushed back. then there are

19:59

to move forward and win. And

20:01

sometimes the, like the text for

20:03

some of the squares would be,

20:05

whoever becomes a Sabbath breaker, all

20:07

caps, must be taken to the

20:09

all caps whipping post and whipped.

20:12

That's W -H -I -P -T. And that

20:14

moves you back six squares. So

20:16

that's... One for each day of

20:18

the week that isn't the Sabbath,

20:20

I guess. Right. And the thematic

20:22

roots for this is a board

20:24

game. They go way, way back

20:26

to like Southeast Asia. There's Nepal's

20:28

Game of Karma. India's Gyanchapar, which

20:30

is both the wellspring for the

20:32

game of life and for snakes

20:35

and ladders also has this sort

20:37

of morally improving through life or

20:39

in that case getting shot back

20:41

down to be, you know, reincarnated.

20:43

And as you alluded to earlier,

20:45

there's there's a moralistic random device. Yeah,

20:48

he couldn't put dice in the game because

20:50

dice are tools of the devil. They're gambling

20:52

tools. So he had what then was a

20:54

T totem. like a little dreidel that you'd

20:56

spin around and it would fall down and

20:58

give you the side or it had a

21:00

piece of card punched onto it and it

21:02

would fall down and you'd look at the

21:04

top of the card. Yeah. That's not a

21:06

tool of the devil at all because the

21:09

devil is too embarrassed to use a T

21:11

totem. No. No one would gamble at that

21:13

because it looks naff. Then it became a

21:15

spinner in the reboot in 1960. But

21:17

don't worry, Robin. You're not worried

21:19

about salvation but about success. You

21:21

just want to get to a

21:24

ripe old age. That's the win

21:26

spot. This is Milton Bradley's big

21:28

thematic innovation. The American thing, it's

21:30

no longer you're saving your soul,

21:32

but that you are becoming successful.

21:34

So you're trying to score 100

21:36

points, landing on different squares. And

21:39

patience and charity, which features as

21:41

squares in the mansion of happiness, nowhere

21:43

to be found in the Milton

21:46

Bradley version. Truth is available as a

21:48

square in both, but in the

21:50

Milton Bradley version, landing on the truth

21:52

gets you nothing. Gets you

21:54

no points. Yeah, you get six

21:56

squares ahead to land on the

21:58

truth in mansion, but in life,

22:00

Zippo. So that's a beautiful American

22:02

commercial cynicism in there. There was

22:04

a square in the first edition

22:06

called Government Contract, and you landed

22:08

on it, and you got to

22:10

spin your tea totem, and on

22:12

a one or a six, you

22:14

got to go to big

22:16

payout and get a bunch of

22:18

points. And if you didn't get

22:20

a one or a six, then you

22:22

go to bankrupt square and then lose

22:25

points. And that was still too much

22:27

like gambling. So. He changed it so

22:29

that government contract just moves you to

22:31

big payout on the next go. Right.

22:33

And also, it undercuts the rest of

22:35

the message of hard work and persistence.

22:37

It's like, no, luck. That's what gets

22:39

you ahead in capitalism. There's

22:41

an instant lose square suicide, which

22:44

is right between ruin and fat office.

22:47

So that's something that a modern game designer

22:49

might not put in. And also, if

22:51

you get on the final square, happy old

22:53

age, that's worth half the point square. That's

22:56

worth 50 points. Milton

22:58

Bradley, perhaps working in an era before

23:00

game balance. Game balance. But, you know,

23:02

you have to get the other 50

23:04

points to get there, so it is

23:06

what it is. And hot sales. This

23:09

was big. Huge seller, sold 45 ,000

23:11

copies in less than a year. There's

23:13

many anecdotes of him showing up at

23:15

a store in New York and saying,

23:17

I have this board game and people

23:19

would look at it and play it

23:21

a bit and they would say, how

23:23

many copies can you sell me, you

23:25

know, give the number, I'm writing you

23:27

a check right now. So it's a

23:29

giant thing, keeps the doors open, huge

23:31

success for Milton Bradley. Another big year

23:33

for him in 1866, he releases

23:35

the Mary Opticon, which is like a

23:37

home version of the panorama. So there's

23:39

a painted scroll that you wheel past

23:41

a little window and you read the

23:43

script. And so instead of going out

23:45

to see the big panorama, you just

23:47

do it at home. And then he

23:49

also manufactured and sold Zoa Tropes. Which

23:51

are, you spin those around a light

23:53

and it makes a shadow. That's

23:56

basically where film comes from.

23:58

And he publishes and patents the

24:00

rules for croquet in 1866.

24:02

So huge year for him. The

24:04

next year, sadly, his first

24:06

wife dies. In 1868, he

24:08

produces the first children's jigsaw puzzle, the

24:10

smashed -up locomotive. Proving that children are also

24:12

eternal. Yes. And then in 1869, Mary's

24:14

his second wife, Nellie, and he has

24:16

two daughters. And this is probably what

24:18

gets him into the kindergarten movement. He

24:20

publishes a manual for kindergarten teachers and

24:22

becomes an activist in the kindergarten movement,

24:24

which to many Americans was the, let's

24:27

get our kids out of the house

24:29

before school starts. Just as soon as

24:31

we can get them out, let's do

24:33

that. And Mark said changing American economy

24:35

because you didn't need the kids to

24:37

work on your farm. He wanted them

24:39

out from underfoot. Right. Yeah, this is

24:41

for the urban crowd. In 1872, he

24:43

patents a Rummy variant on the game

24:45

Authors, which I don't know if everyone

24:47

in the world played Authors the way

24:49

that I did, but Authors is a

24:51

matching game. You match, you know, basically

24:54

such number of Authors and that's a

24:56

trick. In this, it's a bunch of

24:58

characters from individual books. They all have

25:00

points and it's a much more sophisticated

25:02

version of Authors. In 1879, he invents

25:04

the one armed paper cutter like you'd

25:06

find in an office even now or

25:08

a school. In 1893, he

25:10

begins publishing the perennial money loser kindergarten news

25:12

and it's because he believes so strongly

25:14

in kindergarten by then. Well, it works of

25:17

advocacy. You're not supposed to make money.

25:19

Yeah. In 1898, he releases the first fixed

25:21

colors set of crayons so that they're

25:23

all the same colors, no matter which

25:25

one you buy. That, you know,

25:27

beats crayola to market by, I think, four

25:29

years. And in 1906, He retires.

25:31

He's seven years old. He's been napping in

25:33

his office for the last several years,

25:35

and he would shut the presses down for

25:37

90 minutes during lunch so he could

25:39

get his nap in. And I assume that

25:41

his workers enjoyed that because that's like

25:44

extra lunch. But, you know, it's no way to

25:46

run a railroad. He dies in

25:48

1911. And in 1960, as

25:50

I alluded, Milton Bradley Company

25:52

publishes a new version of the Game

25:54

of Life. And in this one, it's even

25:56

more crass. You're in your pink car,

25:58

you're driving around, getting your pink babies, and

26:00

it's just about making money. And guess

26:02

who's on the money? Milton Bradley. And

26:05

so, in a way, that's

26:07

a lovely full circle for him

26:09

and his career. It captures

26:11

the suburban zeitgeist, again, a marker

26:13

of the changing economy and

26:15

an even better note of irony.

26:17

The 2007 reboot was

26:20

cashless. with a Visa

26:22

copromotion credit card for

26:24

each player. That's the

26:26

dystopic version of the game of life. Yeah,

26:29

if there's enough capitalism to make even

26:31

you get a silver expression on your

26:33

face, that's a lot of capitalism. Like

26:35

pure capitalism is play money with Milton

26:37

Bradley's face on it. I think we

26:39

all know that. Yes. Well,

26:41

now something is not at all

26:43

capitalistic and add another segment. Five

27:17

fresh new terrors await the

27:19

anti -mythos agents of your

27:21

Delta Green campaign in Arc Dream's

27:23

dead drop scenario anthology. In

27:25

Meridian, desperate youths gather at

27:27

a secret church. under an

27:29

inexplicable light in the Missouri

27:31

sky. Their salvation may show the

27:33

agent new meaning in madness.

27:35

In a victim of the

27:37

art, horrific murders strike a

27:39

quiet Long Island town. Unseen

27:41

powers give awful consequence to

27:43

evils unspoken and barely conceived.

27:45

From the dust sets the

27:48

agents on the trail of infant

27:50

disappearances in Brooklyn. Strange events

27:52

echo by night at a

27:54

construction site. The agents must

27:56

sift superstition and rumor from

27:58

a horror that lingers across decades,

28:00

across centuries. In presence a

28:02

young woman vanishes in Alabama.

28:05

She reappears in the same instant.

28:07

in Vermont. A door of

28:09

discovery opens to secrets more virulent

28:11

than the most appalling proliferations

28:13

of life. In Jack Frost, suitable

28:15

for use with the classic

28:18

1990s set Delta Green the Conspiracy

28:20

Source Book, Winter wipes out

28:22

an Alabama town. Did the military

28:24

hold the town in quarantine?

28:26

The characters join a sprawling team

28:28

of expert researchers from the

28:30

blackest reaches of government. The infamous

28:32

majestic project at its staggering

28:34

height as the 20th century stumbled

28:37

and died. Dead Drops also

28:39

features crucial background intel on the

28:41

little -known but pivotal Air Force

28:43

Office of Special Investigations. Available

28:45

as a full -color, 228 -page hardback,

28:48

228 pages. Or order

28:50

the PDF at

28:52

DriveThruRPG. Remember to rate,

28:54

review, and rive in

28:56

terror. Help this podcast pay its

28:58

rent on park place by pitching

29:00

in with such beloved Patreon backers

29:02

as James Candolino, Jesse

29:05

Lowe, Dreaming Johnny, Yaj

29:07

from Edinburgh. And Chris

29:09

Doyle. The

29:15

sense of rising action, the

29:17

constricting narrative tightness as we pass

29:19

through the door, and the fry -tags

29:21

triangle leaning against the wall welcome us

29:24

once more into the narrative hut

29:26

where beloved Patrick and backer Neil Barnes

29:28

asks, I've found the

29:30

typology of RPG Adventures

29:32

interesting, and this goes back

29:34

to episodes 563 through

29:36

569. It's the stuff that you set

29:38

forth in the Adventure Crucible booklet,

29:40

right, Robin? Yes, the Kraken chapbook. The

29:42

subtitle is Building Stronger Scenarios for

29:45

Any RPG. Right. But, continues Neil, I

29:47

think it would be very interesting

29:49

for you to look at some classic

29:51

adventures and stories and how they

29:53

fit into that schema. Is The Hobbit

29:55

or The Odyssey an example of

29:57

a journey, the missing sixth

30:00

adventure type? They both feel like

30:02

they can be translated into

30:04

an adventure pretty easily, unlike, say,

30:06

the Iliad. And Robin, do

30:08

you want a premise reject or shall I premise

30:10

reject? Well, I'm all set to do it.

30:12

So why don't you? All right. My premise rejection

30:14

is not that the journey is a bad

30:16

thing, but it's a campaign. It's not an adventure,

30:18

right? The Hobbit is a bunch of adventures. The

30:21

Odyssey is definitely a bunch of adventures. So

30:24

a journey is a great structure for

30:26

a campaign or can be. If

30:28

a journey is just an adventure, then

30:30

it's more likely either survival Right?

30:32

Or it's a dungeon, right? You're either

30:34

going through a string of bad

30:36

places in a hurry, or you're trying

30:38

to get out of a really

30:40

terrible place journey -wise, and that's your

30:42

adventure. Am I wrong, Robin? Tell me

30:44

I'm wrong. Well, of course, Neil

30:46

is not the only one to suggest

30:48

that there's a missing adventure type.

30:50

It's almost as though whenever you say

30:52

there are five types of something,

30:54

people say, I have invented the sixth

30:56

type. Right. Aristotle did it with

30:58

the four elements, which was real baller

31:00

of him. But I think if

31:02

you look at it, it's a hybrid,

31:04

as you suggest, of the dungeon,

31:06

which is not just literally an underground

31:08

environment, but is anything about moving

31:11

through and gaining control over a space.

31:13

The difference here is you're not

31:15

gaining control over the space

31:17

that you're moving through on a

31:19

journey, but you're still moving

31:21

through a series of places that

31:23

basically in, for example, the

31:26

Odyssey or in a way, also

31:28

the Hobbit, that they're just You're going

31:30

through a series of tests, or

31:32

you're going through a series of ablative

31:34

things to wind you down before

31:36

you get to the big thing at

31:38

the end. And so you could

31:40

look at Journey as a dungeon, where

31:42

the different locations where you deal

31:44

with problems, some of a combat nature,

31:47

some of a hazard nature, as

31:49

rooms in a dungeon. Or you could

31:51

look at it as a chain of

31:53

fights. And the chain

31:55

of fights is separated by learning

31:57

things, learning where to go

31:59

next, where the next fight is

32:01

also possibly hazards. So

32:03

as far as the scenario structure

32:06

goes, and remember, first of

32:08

all, that this was not about developing

32:10

a taxonomy of different scenarios. It's about

32:12

practically showing you how to make them

32:14

better. And I would argue that

32:16

you will have a better scenario.

32:18

If you think of it as either

32:20

a dungeon or a chain of

32:22

fights, then if you think of it

32:24

as its own separate thing and

32:26

have a series of tests, because that

32:28

will seem very linear. There's a

32:31

TV show right now that is very

32:33

much the literary structure of the

32:35

journey where the characters are moving physically

32:37

through a space, which leads them

32:39

to a series of tests that they

32:41

have to pass or fail in

32:43

order to keep going. That

32:45

shows Agatha all along. And

32:48

even as I show, that

32:50

structure is somewhat annoying and

32:52

shows, you know, a kind of

32:54

a lazy approach to obstacle

32:56

development and would very much annoy

32:58

a set of players because

33:00

it is so linear. And

33:02

the thing about a chain of fights

33:04

or a dungeon is it doesn't seem quite.

33:06

so linear so again the characters are

33:09

either choosing which areas to move through to

33:11

get to where they're going to the

33:13

big thing at the end or they're going

33:15

to places to learn things to tell

33:17

them where to go next. The

33:19

Hobbit as you point out is a

33:21

series of adventures but even if you sort

33:23

of collapse it into one thing it

33:25

would then have that sort of, you know,

33:27

now you have to pass this test,

33:30

now you have to pass that test, now

33:32

you have to pass another test, which,

33:34

although you can point to examples like that

33:36

in fiction, I think, again,

33:38

is unsatisfying in a narrative. And

33:40

you will note that when Tolkien

33:42

decided to do it again, but

33:44

way bigger in The Lord of

33:46

the Rings, he made it into

33:49

a very specific version of the

33:51

chain of fights in that it

33:53

has now become a chase. You're

33:55

being pursued by the Nazgul, which

33:57

is driving you toward the characters

33:59

through the narrative, especially early on.

34:01

And that increases the stakes and,

34:03

again, keeps the excitement going.

34:05

So I think that although arguably

34:08

the journey or as someone else

34:10

said, the adventure is something you

34:12

could put in the taxonomy that

34:14

you will get better, sharper results

34:16

if you conceive of them as

34:18

one of the other categories. And

34:21

from my own table, I will

34:23

say that if I do anything that

34:25

even begins to look like a

34:27

journey, one of my players will cast

34:29

a gimlet eye on me and

34:31

say, are we going up the Nile

34:33

again? Referring

34:35

to the legend that has been passed

34:37

down, I'm not even sure I have

34:39

a player who was playing in the

34:41

campaign, the Castle Falkenstein campaign where they

34:44

went up the Nile. Someone had such

34:46

a bad time that other people now

34:48

remember it. And it was so legendarily

34:50

terrible that people in my game now

34:52

still know that it is a sign

34:54

that Ken has sent you on a

34:56

bad journey. And so

34:59

we have successfully done

35:01

journeys. since then, but

35:03

it is very, very

35:05

fraught with fail points. And

35:08

the worst fail point of all, which

35:10

is not, oh, we've stopped and had to

35:12

turn around. Guess we don't get to

35:14

go on the stupid journey that we hated.

35:16

But the fail point of, there is

35:18

no way off this ride. We are stuck

35:20

on a literal mine car. there is

35:22

nothing off the tracks even, we just have

35:24

to keep going. And that

35:26

is just psychologically punishing to

35:28

players and it is eventually

35:30

psychologically punishing to a GM

35:32

who cares whether or not

35:35

their players are having fun.

35:37

And in the stories, it's

35:39

physically and psychologically punishing to

35:41

the characters because it is

35:43

sort of an arduous almost

35:45

sort of a self -scorging

35:48

experience in mortification that you

35:50

undergo in order to spiritually

35:52

qualify to succeed at the

35:54

end. And again, if we

35:56

want to look at Lord of

35:58

the Rings, the most arduous part of

36:00

that journey is all about Sam's

36:02

enormous sacrifice in carrying Frodo, the final

36:04

legs of the journey, into Mordor.

36:07

And that is therefore sort of a

36:09

spiritual thematic reason and is very

36:11

powerful. But your players do not want

36:13

to do that. Even Odysseus has

36:15

to take breaks, right? He stops off

36:17

with three different girlfriends on his way

36:19

back home to his wife, and he's

36:21

still a wreck when he gets to

36:23

Ithaca, and the players don't get to

36:25

dally with Calypso. They have to just

36:27

roll dally, and that's not as much

36:29

fun, I'm pretty sure. Right, and in

36:31

the source material, those iddles that break

36:33

up the suffering also don't have choice

36:35

points. Right, yeah. So you can get

36:37

the same sort of bang from what

36:39

you're doing as long as you adapt

36:41

one of these other structures that sort

36:43

of fights against the idea that you're

36:45

trapped in a dark ride, that your

36:47

spectator being dragged through and, you know,

36:49

you have to make a whole lot

36:51

of roles and suffer. And you could

36:53

also structure a journey as more of

36:55

a mystery where, you know, it's an

36:58

exploration where you're trying to find something

37:00

you don't know where it is. And

37:02

as you go along, you ask people

37:04

where you're the place that, you know,

37:06

you're looking for El Dorado, basically. And

37:08

And that too, I think,

37:10

gives the players more of

37:13

a sense that they are

37:15

moving the journey forward. because

37:17

they have to figure out where to

37:19

go next and what the best route

37:21

is. And by the very nature of

37:23

doing that, it's no longer a series

37:25

of tests that you pass or fail,

37:27

but a series of deductions you make

37:29

or choices. So if you have, well,

37:31

we can go through the desert, which

37:34

is very physically taxing, or we can

37:36

go through the forest, which is haunted.

37:38

At least then you have a sense

37:40

that the decisions you make impact

37:42

what happens. And as soon as you

37:45

do that, it's much more of

37:47

a dungeon experience than it is a

37:49

typical journey or quest. Yeah, the

37:51

quest, the Trump with the quest is,

37:53

it really is all about the

37:55

golden fleece, right? If you're not going

37:57

towards the golden fleece, then you

37:59

have implicitly failed. If you're not going

38:01

towards the grail, you have failed.

38:03

And, you know, the grail quest, you

38:05

know, again, is only achieved

38:07

by the guy who is too

38:09

pure and mighty to ever be

38:12

challenged by any of it. And

38:14

so, it's not a good story for

38:16

interactive play, traditionally. I mean, you

38:18

can make a quest work. People have

38:20

made quests work. I have made

38:22

quests work, but it requires a lot

38:24

of backstop and care

38:27

and, as you say, flavoring

38:29

like other kinds of

38:31

story, mystery being maybe the

38:33

classic example, go find the grail. Where's

38:35

the grail? I don't know. Look for it.

38:37

Where's unknown KDF? Go look for it.

38:39

That is at least something that, as you

38:41

say, the players get to make the

38:43

choices. They get to draw the map. They

38:45

get to say, well, it's either in

38:47

Castle Carbonac or Castle Perilous. I don't like

38:50

the name of Castle Perilous. We'll go

38:52

to Castle Carbonac and that at least sets

38:54

up know, a story that they've somehow

38:56

been complicit in as opposed to, yep, the

38:58

marshes are still dead, everything's still terrible,

39:00

you're still out of Lembus, Gollum is still

39:02

giving you crap, keep doing that, that's

39:04

just misery and no one wants to play

39:06

misery. Right. Well, let's put this segment

39:08

out of its misery and move on through

39:10

commercial to whatever lies on the other

39:12

side. Hold

39:31

the presses. Stop typing the teletypes.

39:33

It's time for another CarTas news

39:35

news bulletin. Gamers across the globe

39:38

are flocking to GenCon TV. GenCon

39:40

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40:41

It's time once more to wander

40:43

into that most ill -defined of huts,

40:46

so that's where we're not really

40:48

sure what's going on, because there's

40:50

strange paleoarchaeology and weird fake artifacts

40:52

in this corner, and somebody over

40:54

here is thinking up some weird

40:56

chronology, but if we look out

40:58

the window, oh, there's the alien

41:00

big cat. He's screaming on the

41:02

moor. That must mean when we

41:04

look over in the other corner,

41:07

we've got the gray alien, the

41:09

Nordic alien, they're sharing a kombucha,

41:11

and this time, They're leaning a

41:13

bit forward because we're back in

41:15

their UFO alien territory because beloved

41:17

patron backer Ross Ireland can wants

41:19

to know about the Hopkinsville Goblin.

41:21

So take us back to August

41:23

21st, 1955 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Yeah,

41:26

actually, the Hopkinsville Goblin is better

41:28

known as the Kelly Goblin because

41:30

he appears or They appear, there's

41:32

more than one, in Kelly, Kentucky,

41:34

which is a sort of, what

41:36

I want to say, unincorporated community

41:39

near Hopkinsville. The guy named Billy

41:41

Ray Taylor, this is 7 p

41:43

.m., so we're not quite at

41:45

sundown, we're at dusk in August.

41:47

He's an itinerant carny. He's visiting

41:49

his friends, relatives, Glennie Lankford and

41:51

family in Kelly, Kentucky. He sees

41:53

a bright streak of light in

41:56

the sky that goes behind the

41:58

tree line and he comes in

42:00

and he says, I just saw

42:02

one of them flying saucers and

42:04

everyone who knows him says, no,

42:06

you didn't. And that's hilarity for

42:08

an hour. But an hour later, eight

42:11

PM, and now we're at roughly at

42:13

sundown, a barking dog

42:15

attracts Taylor and his friend

42:17

and fellow Carney, Elmer

42:19

Lucky Sutton. That's Glenny Langford's son by

42:21

a previous marriage. They're Ken Robin. Right. I

42:23

wonder if Lucky means he was a

42:25

lucky boy, someone who runs games in a

42:27

carnival. He could have been. He could

42:29

have been. And they go outside and they

42:31

see a creature. And they

42:33

run back inside and they get

42:35

guns, a .22 target pistol and

42:37

a shotgun. And then they go

42:39

back outside and start blasting to kill

42:41

the creature. Right. And that's how you

42:43

know it's 1955 and not 2015 because

42:45

they don't have AR -15s. Right. Well,

42:47

they could if they would, but they

42:49

don't. It's just a simple Carney family

42:52

in Kentucky. And they run out. I

42:54

shouldn't say that. Glendale Angford is a solid

42:56

citizen. She's not a Carney at all. It's just

42:58

all of her relatives and kin folk are. Anyway,

43:00

they have a running gun battle with

43:02

these creatures, by which I mean they fire

43:05

drunkenly into the woods for three hours.

43:07

At one point, Taylor says his hair is

43:09

grabbed by a clawed hand, but the

43:11

creatures, when they shoot at them, they don't

43:13

seem to have any effect and sometimes

43:15

they'll be in midair and they'll shoot at

43:17

the creature and it'll just sort of

43:19

float to the ground or they'll shoot at

43:21

it on the ground and it'll float

43:23

back up to midair. It's very weird and

43:25

annoying. Yes. Running gun battle implies that

43:27

the Aliens are shooting back, but

43:29

they're just they're not floating around being

43:31

jerks and being difficult targets to

43:33

hit, right? According to some testimony, every

43:35

now and again, you'll shoot at an

43:37

alien and you'll hear a plink or

43:39

a bang as though it hit a

43:42

metal bucket. So put that into your

43:44

into your mix. So anyway, the the

43:46

problem dies down. I think Lenny Langford

43:48

is saying, stop shooting into the woods.

43:50

You're scaring the children. And so they

43:52

all talk themselves back into a state

43:54

of mild hysteria. They climb into their

43:57

cars and they drive, this is

43:59

six adults and three children, drive to

44:01

the Hopkinsville police station, which is the

44:03

nearest big town, to report

44:05

the incident. And they show up

44:07

at 11 p .m. So that's when

44:09

they report it. They describe the

44:11

aliens as goblins. They have large

44:13

eyes, reflective or shining

44:15

silver -green skin, maybe antennas. Long

44:17

arms, they have claw hands, they

44:19

have spindly useless legs. That's

44:21

mentioned a couple of times. They're

44:23

about four feet tall or

44:25

maybe says Glany two and a

44:27

half feet tall. They could

44:29

levitate, obviously, as I mentioned. You don't

44:31

need good legs to levitate. Nope. The

44:34

sort of excited report is that

44:36

as many as 12 to

44:38

15 goblins besieged this little cabin.

44:41

And so the cops are like,

44:43

well, 12 to 15 goblins, that's

44:45

a big problem. Also, drunken people

44:47

shooting to the woods near other

44:49

people's houses, also a big problem,

44:51

let's go investigate. Yeah, it's either

44:53

a 916 of drunken shooting or

44:55

a 1216, which is Goblin's. Goblin's

44:57

sighting. And apparently, this is a

44:59

slow day in Hopkinsville because four

45:01

Hopkinsville city police, five Kentucky

45:03

state troopers, three deputy sheriffs from

45:05

various counties around, plus four army

45:07

military police from Fort Campbell. I

45:09

feel like a poker game may

45:11

have been going on at the

45:14

Hopkinsville police station. Maybe it's always

45:16

generally quiet in Hopkinsville. Right. So

45:18

anyway, they all roll out. They

45:20

look around the farm. They find

45:22

a lot of expended shells, obviously. They

45:25

find one hole in a window screen.

45:27

They do not at the time

45:29

report a lot of empty bottles,

45:31

but one of the surviving state

45:34

policemen later talked to UFO investigator

45:36

Joe Nickell and said, if you

45:38

ask me, the goblins came out

45:40

of a can. So there

45:42

you go. They found no tracks. They

45:44

found no landing site. They did find

45:46

a luminous green glow on a nearby

45:48

wood fence, so spooky, but

45:50

no goblins, no monsters, no problem.

45:52

They said, well, looks like they've

45:55

been scared off by this armada

45:57

of police. And, you know,

45:59

there you go, citizen. Good work. They

46:01

go away. Cops come back the

46:03

next morning as a follow up. I

46:05

guess that's routine in Hopkinsville. And

46:07

the house is empty and a neighbor says, oh,

46:10

the aliens came back. The goblins came back at

46:12

three thirty in the morning. They were

46:14

scratching all over the roof and it scared

46:16

everybody again. So they just went to Evansville,

46:18

Indiana. So Mrs. Langford

46:20

comes back. Later, to

46:22

clean up all the beer cans that the

46:24

cops have found in her house, she

46:27

talks to reporters, she shoes off sightseers and

46:29

lucky lose. Her little daughter, Mary, who

46:31

had hid under the bed with the other

46:33

children, has trouble keeping her cat under

46:35

control, Robin. This is the big development in

46:37

the story of the next day. And

46:39

out of control cat. This has to be

46:41

elliptinia of the highest water. Something alien

46:44

must be happening today. Seven -year -old

46:46

girl can't keep a large cat under control.

46:48

We're going to do a segment later about

46:50

you keeping Warren under control, and I'll look

46:52

to you how. Right, yeah. It's a six -year

46:54

-old game designer can't keep a cat under

46:56

control. Anyway, there's no Air Force

46:58

investigation. That is a myth

47:00

that is spread later on. And Robin,

47:02

if you would like me, I can now

47:05

fun ruin this. I don't want you

47:07

to, but our listeners do. Right, yeah. Fun

47:09

ruin away. All right. The UFO is

47:11

the Kappa Signed Meteor Shower. There are like

47:13

seven other sightings of bright streaks in

47:15

the sky. It's the Kappa

47:17

Signed Meteor Shower. It's part of

47:19

the Perseids. It happens all the

47:22

time. The luminous patch on the

47:24

wood, probably Foxfire, just rotting wood.

47:26

It closed. That's how it works.

47:28

Once you boil down all the

47:30

reports, Only two goblins are ever

47:32

seen at the same time. Well, you

47:34

don't want to present a Target with you

47:37

just shoot in a general direction hit

47:39

a goblin, right? Yeah, the neighbors only heard

47:41

four shots So maybe not a three -hour

47:43

running gun battle who can say everyone

47:45

who was investigated this says oh You just

47:47

got scared by owls. The great horned

47:49

owl is by the way. He is scary,

47:51

right? Two -foot tall owl, which is not

47:54

small now Of course Whitley striber would

47:56

say that seeing an owl means you've seen

47:58

An alien not the other way around

48:00

real aliens and they erased your memory. Yeah,

48:02

but In this particular case, the stories

48:04

exactly match owl behavior and it turns out

48:06

right around sunset is when horned owls

48:09

get super aggressive if you're near their nest.

48:11

They do have spindly legs. They're known

48:13

to be jerks when you shoot at them.

48:15

They will grab your hair with their

48:17

claw if you're running around in the midst

48:19

of them. They float. And if they

48:21

don't, a tree branch will. And if they're

48:24

two feet tall and you think they're

48:26

four feet tall and also you've been drinking,

48:28

this explains their bulletproof nest. Anyway,

48:30

in the archives of Project Blue Book,

48:32

although as I say, the Air Force

48:34

did not investigate it, the Blue Book

48:36

team lists it as one example of

48:38

a hoax. They have a list of

48:40

hoaxes. Hopkinsville is one of them. And

48:42

this is probably because unlike the Langfords,

48:44

who are all pretty cool, Billy Ray

48:46

would just sort of go and talk

48:48

to any reporter and make up new

48:50

parts of the story. So if you've

48:52

heard anything more lurid and wild than

48:54

the sober to use a term of

48:56

art narration I just gave, it was

48:58

probably Billy Ray making stuff up in

49:00

the late 50s. And the newspapers sort

49:02

of added the little green men description.

49:04

As I say, there was a sort

49:06

of a shining silver green was mentioned

49:09

by one of the witnesses at one

49:11

time, but it was not part of

49:13

the canonical Hopkinsville sighting necessarily. Now,

49:15

increasingly, when we talk about an elliptonic

49:17

phenomenon, the question comes up, is there

49:19

a festival or tourist event? And there

49:21

was a Kelley Little Green Men Festival,

49:23

but it was a casualty of the

49:25

pandemic. So it has not been revived

49:27

since then. And it was for this

49:29

festival that the mayor of Hopkinsville brought

49:32

UFO investigator Joe Nickell, who by the

49:34

way is very good at his job

49:36

and a good writer, and he gave

49:38

him the key of Hopkinsville and he

49:40

brought like a big time believer ufologist

49:42

also down and I think the goal

49:44

was they were both going to investigate

49:46

the case and then they were going

49:48

to present at the 50th anniversary of

49:50

the Hopkinsville sightings. So this was in

49:52

2005 and so that seems like a

49:54

well done mayor and I feel like

49:56

there is a a sort of a

49:59

wild jaws situation where the mayor is

50:01

like trying to keep this Hopkinsville goblin

50:03

fest going. And it doesn't matter that

50:05

there's still weird alien mind erasing owl

50:07

creatures out there doing stuff. It's like,

50:09

no, no, no, we've got we've got

50:11

to catch up with Point Pleasant. They

50:13

put their cryptid and it made them

50:15

a lot of money. Let's get it

50:17

done. Yeah. At the one that was

50:19

canceled, they're going to have the original

50:21

owls show up right fest or everything.

50:23

So the idea of, you know, a

50:25

whole bunch of weird invading aliens out

50:28

in the woods that you have to

50:30

shoot at is inherently a scary scenario.

50:32

I mean, it's Lovecraft's Whisper of the

50:34

Darkness right there. Yeah. And so you

50:36

could have an incident where, you know,

50:38

people get drunk and engage in some

50:40

owl shooting and then the real goblins

50:42

show up. That's something the esoterrorists would

50:44

certainly do is take a hoax or

50:46

a hallucinated event and then magnify it

50:48

into a real event later. Or it

50:50

could be, again, the the cover story

50:52

for some sort of psychogenic thing going

50:55

on in the woods and it's just

50:57

being read as a little green man

50:59

and you can go from there to

51:01

reveal something even scarier. Right. And as

51:03

you say, the owls are a popular

51:05

part of the screen memory in modern

51:07

day ephological war. You can either go

51:09

that direction where they were in fact

51:11

attacked by some sort of EBEs that

51:13

put the owls down as the screen

51:15

memory and that way if they don't

51:17

quite match the description of the aliens

51:19

in your game that's cool or you

51:21

can go a direction where it's an

51:24

owl spirit that they're not attacked by

51:26

an alien at all somehow they've angered

51:28

the mother of the woods and she

51:30

sends her owls after you and you

51:32

know that's Athena when she's in a

51:34

bad mood or you know Bobby Yaga

51:36

or somebody has got owls to send

51:38

after you. You know, Potnia Theron, the

51:40

pre -classical goddess of nature used to

51:42

send owls to mess with you. Yes,

51:44

and owls are considered so disturbing in

51:46

certain indigenous North American cultures that you

51:48

will see there's an episode of Reservation

51:50

Dogs that had a content warning owls.

51:53

Content owls, there you go. Yeah, because

51:55

it's seen as they're sufficiently horrible. Yeah,

51:57

and they will mess you up. If

51:59

you've never seen an owl suddenly at

52:01

night when you were not expecting an

52:03

owl, you don't stop and think, oh,

52:05

that's an owl. You immediately say, an

52:07

angry ghost wants to eat my soul.

52:09

is the response. And of course Owl

52:11

Bears, they're not good. Yeah, Owl Bears. And

52:14

you can also, if you want

52:16

to, low budget but super good supernatural

52:18

horror movie Lord of Tears introduces

52:20

the Owl Man. That's by Lowry Brewster

52:22

from 2013. And you can derive

52:24

as much or as little of that

52:26

and move it to rural Kentucky

52:29

and set it in the 1960s of

52:31

fall of Delta Green if you

52:33

want to have a sort of a

52:35

creepy X -Files -y type episode in

52:37

the midst of your mythos hunting. And

52:39

if you're doing Fall of Delta

52:41

Green, hunting down owl creatures in the

52:43

woods, maybe that's Spore of Kothanurin,

52:45

our very own great old one who

52:47

we birthed on this very podcast.

52:49

Yep. Part worm, part owl, all scary.

52:52

Right. Well, now that we've gone

52:54

from don't worry it's owls to oh

52:56

no, it's owls, we can declare

52:58

yet another episode of Victoriously Completed and

53:00

we'll be back a mere week

53:02

from today with yet another one. Stuff

53:05

having once again been talked about, it's time

53:07

to thank our sponsors! Atlas

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53:12

GenCon TV, Dark Tower,

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and ProFantasy Software. Music as

53:16

always is by James Semple.

53:18

Audio editing by Rob Borges.

53:20

Support our Patreon at patreon.com

53:23

backslash Ken and Robin. Stave

53:25

off this podcast's final battle

53:27

by joining such backers as

53:29

Drew Eichols, Daniel Markweg, Manfred

53:31

Gabriel, Liz and Sisky,

53:33

and Robbie Carleton. Wear this show

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or drink it from a mug

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with Ken and Robin merch at

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kenrobin .dashry.com. Grab our latest design. Subtle

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tea is for people who forgot

53:44

their their battering ram. On X

53:46

he's at Kenneth Height. And on

53:48

Blue Sky he's robindelaws .biskey .social. See

53:50

you next time when once again

53:52

we will talk about stuff. You