0:04

Greetings listeners, and welcome to

0:07

episode 333 of the Game Design

0:09

Roundtable. I'm tabletop game designer Dirk

0:11

Neemeyer, joined today by my co-host

0:14

digital game designer David Herron, and

0:16

tabletop game designer Andrew Fisher, to

0:18

talk about his Decade Plus design

0:21

experience at Fantasy Flight and Earthborn

0:23

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1:01

Now, on to the show. Andrew,

1:05

it's great to have you on the

1:07

show. Yeah, thanks for having me. I've

1:10

listened to the show before, so it's

1:12

fun to actually get to talk to

1:14

you guys. For starters, maybe tell our

1:16

listeners a little bit about yourself and

1:18

your game design background. Yeah, so

1:21

my name's Andrew Fisher. I'm currently

1:23

the design director at Earthborn Games.

1:25

Our first game, Earthborn Rangers, came

1:28

out of the last couple

1:30

years. I'm also the lead designer on

1:32

the Cosmere role playing game right now.

1:34

Originally I was a play tester on

1:36

Chaos in the Old World by Eric

1:39

Lang. And then I was, we were doing

1:41

some in-person play testing and

1:43

I was, I was persistent. I

1:45

wanted to prove myself and I

1:48

was persistent and they eventually

1:50

told me to apply for this

1:52

new role-playing game opening they had.

1:54

And that's kind of how I got in.

1:56

And for the first few years there

1:58

I worked on the war. 40K

2:00

role-playing games. I was a designer on

2:02

the Star Wars role-playing games alongside like

2:05

Jay Little and Sam Greger Stewart and

2:07

others. And then eventually I kind of

2:09

got into more of the board game

2:12

design side of things. I designed the

2:14

follow-up board game, the Roon Wars miniatures

2:16

game for them, and eventually kind of

2:18

headed up the board game team primarily

2:21

focusing on app integrated board games. and

2:23

eventually became the digital director. This is

2:25

over the course of many years, became

2:27

the digital director at Fantasy Flight, where

2:30

I oversaw the creation of games like

2:32

Manchester Madness, Lord of the Rings, Journey's

2:34

of Middle Earth, and to set Legends

2:36

of the Dark, all of which are

2:39

games that need an app to kind

2:41

of run the game for you, and

2:43

we were trying to kind of blend

2:45

tabletop and digital games there. So I

2:48

did that for for many years, and

2:50

then. Maybe like a year after the

2:52

pandemic, I decided I needed a change

2:55

and went out into the wider world

2:57

and I've been working on a variety

2:59

of projects since then, but primary among

3:01

them is Earthborn Rangers and my role

3:04

at Earthborn Games. Wow, lots of cool

3:06

experience and you really took me back

3:08

to the past because one of the

3:10

games my old play group used to

3:13

play a lot is chaos, the old

3:15

world. Great game, and it's it's cool

3:17

that you got your start with that

3:19

one. I love that game and I

3:22

think you can see that DNA, you

3:24

know, there's kind of all of Eric's

3:26

spiritual successors in Blood Rage, Enk, and

3:29

Rising Sun, and you can definitely see

3:31

the DNA across them, but like, maybe

3:33

it's because I love War Hammer, but

3:35

I always felt like chaos distilled a

3:38

lot of those mechanics in a very

3:40

straightforward way that like, you know, I

3:42

thoroughly enjoy the other games in the

3:44

series, but I think chaos always... holds

3:47

a special place in my heart. It

3:49

might just be because I played it

3:51

so much while I was trying to

3:53

prove myself, but I love that game.

3:56

I'm not familiar with it. Can you

3:58

tell me a little bit about it?

4:00

Yeah, so it's kind of the, as

4:02

I said, it's kind of the progenitor

4:05

of that kind of Eric Lange series

4:07

of games. So it's a similar kind

4:09

of figures on a map type style

4:12

game with kind of strong asymmetry between

4:14

the different factions and then a focus

4:16

on kind of like. Oh I don't

4:18

know I wasn't prepared to articulate Eric's

4:21

design philosophies here but it's it's there's

4:23

a lot of like cooccupation so like

4:25

there'll be a fight phase but like

4:27

it's a lot about like to encourage

4:30

kind of multiplayer engagement it's less about

4:32

like I attack this territory and it's

4:34

very binary. who controls a territory instead

4:36

it'll be about like they'll usually be

4:39

victory conditions other than direct combat in

4:41

chaos it's spreading like the the taint

4:43

of chaos around the land but in

4:45

other games he takes other approaches but

4:48

so you often have multiple factions co-occupying

4:50

an area until one kicks the others

4:52

out often I think all of them

4:55

have multiple paths to victory as well.

4:57

So it's not like, oh, you just

4:59

have to conquer this. There's kind of

5:01

these different concurrent victory tracks that you're

5:04

trying to balance at the same time.

5:06

So it's dudes on a map, but

5:08

a little more interesting and nuanced. Okay,

5:10

I thought that was a good good

5:13

overview. Yeah, I don't like like I

5:15

said, it's it's it's been a while

5:17

and like I haven't played its oncright

5:19

as the final one. I haven't played

5:22

that one as much. I played a

5:24

lot more. blood rage and rising sun

5:26

because my buddy's got all the miniatures

5:29

painted so we'll play his copy. So

5:31

Eric Lange, terrific designers, you had some

5:33

good DNA right from the beginning getting

5:35

into sort of your own personal design

5:38

practice and as you talked about your

5:40

career so far, you talked about tabletop,

5:42

RPG, digital, you've kind of been everywhere

5:44

across all of these different disciplines and

5:47

our listeners of course across the disciplines

5:49

too. This is a little general, but

5:51

as you think across the disciplines, what

5:53

are some what are some things that

5:56

you've learned in one that you've taken

5:58

to others or universals maybe that you've

6:00

seen in design because of the privilege

6:02

you've had to do all. these full

6:05

different things. Yeah, that's an interesting question.

6:07

That's a good question. There's a lot

6:09

of lessons I've taken across. I'll answer

6:12

your question eventually, but one of the

6:14

things I've also observed too is just

6:16

how different they are. For a while

6:18

I worried that I was kind of

6:21

like turning myself into more of too

6:23

much of a jack of all trades

6:25

kind of situation by bouncing around because

6:27

A lot of these games, you know,

6:30

especially when you're talking like, we're talking

6:32

hobby market board games, right? So these

6:34

are very, a lot of these are

6:36

what we call lifestyle games, right, where

6:39

people dedicate a large amount of their

6:41

hobby time to these games. And so

6:43

their communities are very entrenched and it's

6:45

like a lot of their life. And

6:48

because of that, you know, like, there

6:50

are designers who will focus their attention

6:52

entirely on a given genre and they'll

6:55

know the nuances of the ins and

6:57

outs of. every game coming and going

6:59

and they know the community really well.

7:01

And then by bouncing around, one of

7:04

my concerns about that was this, you

7:06

know, not being as entrenched in a

7:08

given community, right? And like I kind

7:10

of got this experience of trying to

7:13

like dive into one and dive into

7:15

another and kind of learn what makes

7:17

that genre unique, right, and like make

7:19

sure, you know, you know, looking to

7:22

similarities, but also looking to what makes

7:24

that unique so that, you know, My

7:26

products don't get criticized for being like,

7:29

oh, this feels like a board game,

7:31

miniatures game, right? Which now granted, some

7:33

of FFGs do get that criticism. But

7:35

to actually address your original question about

7:38

similarities, I'd say a big thing I

7:40

took away. This kind of comes from

7:42

the app integrated game design. So an

7:44

interesting effect of working on both digital

7:47

and tabletop simultaneously. These products have a

7:49

very easy chance to get very kind

7:51

of scattered, you know, across like, you've

7:53

got stuff on your phone, you've got

7:56

stuff on the board, you know, like

7:58

what. should you do in either place?

8:00

And so you have to kind of

8:02

ask these kind of hard questions about

8:05

what is the digital side really good

8:07

at representing, what is the tabletop side

8:09

is really good at representing. And also

8:12

importantly, one of the things we kind

8:14

of observed through that is this, you

8:16

know, how much are you inputting stuff

8:18

into this phone, right? That's this downtime

8:21

that's very, uh, boring for

8:23

the players right it just feels

8:25

like they're doing work for the

8:27

game not like the game's doing

8:29

work for them and so because

8:32

of that we got very conscious

8:34

of where like all the different

8:36

mechanisms within the system and how

8:38

much they're how they're talking to

8:40

each other right and we had

8:43

to basically find the like 20%

8:45

of communication between mechanisms that was

8:47

getting us 80% of the results

8:49

and cut the rest because every

8:52

time these two sides of the

8:54

system have to interface with each

8:56

other it was incredibly onerous on

8:58

the players. And I found myself

9:00

taking those lessons and applying them

9:03

forward to how like it caused

9:05

me to think about the interconnectedness

9:07

of mechanisms within a system in

9:09

a way that I hadn't done

9:11

before or at least not done

9:14

unconsciously. And so I found I

9:16

take that those lessons to a

9:18

lot of places. Additionally on the

9:20

digital side, kind of a secondary

9:22

answer to your question is like,

9:25

I don't know what term people

9:27

throw around different like toyetic or

9:29

like the actual physical interfacing with

9:31

board game components. On the digital

9:33

side, you know, you can do

9:36

any kind of interface you want,

9:38

but often will want to kind

9:40

of mirror physical interactions and physical

9:42

affordances to make how you're interfacing

9:44

with those digital interfaces more intuitive.

9:47

And so actually that also. I

9:49

pulled from that in appreciation for

9:51

kind of the physicality of components

9:53

and the importance of how physical

9:55

board components can like inform, implicitly

9:58

inform. how people are interacting with

10:00

them. So I kind of focused

10:02

on my digital stuff, but like

10:04

I do think we spent so

10:06

much time thinking about this and

10:09

thinking about how do these games

10:11

justify themselves and what makes

10:13

them special that I feel like I took

10:15

a lot out of that and brought it

10:17

back into my other work. That makes a

10:19

lot of sense. It's really interesting. I

10:21

want to dig a little bit

10:24

more into the app integrated games.

10:26

I know Dirk. That was something

10:28

that like... we've been talking about

10:30

for you, like we've been doing

10:33

this for so long, it seems

10:35

like that has sort of come

10:37

and gone and not exclusively, but

10:39

it feels like, I want to

10:42

say it might have been the

10:44

ex-con game, might have been the

10:46

first one that I sort of

10:48

was introduced with and I think

10:51

Rob just released Dark Tower and

10:53

that had an app, but it feels

10:55

to me like... The general consensus

10:57

is the potential of that

10:59

was never really reached or

11:01

manifested. And I'm wondering, as

11:03

someone actually went through the

11:05

process of designing it, like

11:07

now being a couple of years removed

11:09

from doing that, what do you have

11:12

to say about that phenomenon? Yeah,

11:14

that's interesting. I mean, I think

11:16

some of the reason it's come

11:18

and gone not to like put

11:20

too much credit on our department,

11:22

but fantasy flight was outputting

11:25

a good percentage. At least of

11:27

games that require the app, right? Like

11:29

there's a lot of games. Yeah. And

11:31

I think this is some of where

11:33

to jump around in answer your question,

11:35

I think this is some of where

11:38

that's gone is that you'll see a

11:40

lot more supplemental apps, but not necessary

11:42

apps, right? And so you'll see app

11:44

integration, but like not as a required

11:46

component in the same way. But

11:48

to jump back, I think that our

11:51

department was outputting a good amount

11:53

of the games in the space

11:55

and fantasy flight like has been changing priorities

11:57

the last over the last few years and you know

11:59

they had the that led just to

12:01

the dark line, but they kind

12:03

of transitioned away from that a

12:05

little bit, right? I think they're

12:07

like, I know they still have

12:09

their app team there, and I

12:12

know they're working on things. So

12:14

we might not have seen the

12:16

end of it, but at the

12:18

very least, you know, like, they're

12:20

not releasing as much or as

12:22

frequently as they used to, so

12:24

there's just fewer in the market.

12:27

But at the same time we

12:29

were releasing stuff, you know, after

12:31

Xcom, kind of looking at a

12:33

madness era, it's a madness era

12:35

was a game. probably our most

12:37

successful app integrated game. You know,

12:39

we had competitors like the alchemists

12:42

and like World of Yoho was

12:44

another fully like required the app

12:46

type of game. And I think

12:48

the reason we don't see as

12:50

many of those like that require

12:52

the app is ultimately business wise.

12:54

They're not like the wisest thing

12:57

to make. Digital development is just

12:59

wildly expensive compared to board game

13:01

development. And but you're selling to

13:03

a board game market, right? So

13:05

your, you know, like Manchester Bandis

13:07

did very well, don't can be

13:09

wrong. And like board games that

13:11

pop off can do pretty well,

13:14

but your average hobby market board

13:16

game is selling thousands or tenths

13:18

of thousands of thousands of copies,

13:20

but video game development financially is

13:22

kind of relying often on selling

13:24

many more than that. And so.

13:26

The cost of software developers and

13:29

maintaining apps on multiple platforms and

13:31

keeping your X code up to

13:33

date and blah blah blah blah

13:35

is up here, but then your

13:37

board game like sales are down

13:39

here and so those are just

13:41

hard to justify, you know. Yeah,

13:44

that makes total sense to me.

13:46

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it absolutely

13:48

does. It's unfortunate because I imagine

13:50

that it's sort of maybe. hampered

13:52

your ability to sort of execute

13:54

on some of the visions you

13:56

had? Oh, it was definitely a

13:59

challenge. I will say that like

14:01

the team at FF... F G

14:03

who a lot of them are

14:05

still there like we did quite

14:07

a lot with just a few

14:09

developers right we were definitely constrained

14:11

by budget right we could not.

14:13

But like you know the classic

14:16

constraints breed creativity we found ways

14:18

around it and like you know

14:20

by using a lot of tools

14:22

like you know we did most

14:24

of our games in unity. We

14:26

used a finite state machine like

14:28

basically visual coding language so that

14:31

we could have the. tabletop game

14:33

designers who had never scripted their

14:35

lives make back-end data, right, like

14:37

actually do their scripting without having

14:39

to learn programming themselves. So I

14:41

think, you know, there were a

14:43

lot of very clever software developers

14:46

over there who managed to stretch.

14:48

We managed to accomplish most of

14:50

the things we wanted to, even

14:52

though we only had a few

14:54

people. Is there anything you talked

14:56

about obviously you gain knowledge about

14:58

engineering and software through your experiences

15:01

there are are there any ways

15:03

that aren't app integrated but ways

15:05

in which some technology integration with

15:07

tabletop you think might make sense

15:09

or do you think the economics

15:11

just aren't there and it's more

15:13

prudent let's say at least from

15:15

a business perspective to have tabletop

15:18

be relatively analog and have digital

15:20

be what it is separately? Oh

15:22

no, I totally think there's space

15:24

for that. Like I said, I

15:26

think we actually have quite a

15:28

lot right now. It's just all

15:30

in supplemental apps. So it's not

15:33

games that require the digital space.

15:35

But there are a lot of

15:37

folks like Kara Sentel Dunk who

15:39

was the lead designer on mansions

15:41

for quite a long time. She's

15:43

working at this studio that's doing

15:45

this really cool, that's doing this

15:48

really cool, like a jackbox game,

15:50

where... you all log in with

15:52

your phones and are controlling a

15:54

central board on the TV, but

15:56

it's like hobby market level tactics

15:58

game. Maybe the name will come

16:00

to me here in a second,

16:03

but no problem. But in addition

16:05

to that, like I was saying, a

16:07

lot of people are doing supplemental apps.

16:09

There's a lot of like apps

16:11

that augment the game games. So

16:13

I think we'll continue to see

16:16

it. I just think it'll take

16:18

different forms. I myself and Andrew

16:20

DeVaro over at Earthborne games. We

16:22

still want to provide a lot

16:24

of digital resources, but we've really

16:26

leaned more heavily into web. and

16:28

like web apps, just because they're

16:30

just way easier to support. You

16:33

know, if I put up a web app, like

16:35

that thing is going to still, and I,

16:37

and then I don't touch it, that thing's

16:39

still gonna be taking a while from now.

16:41

Whereas if I put up an app on like

16:44

iOS, yeah, I don't know if it'll be

16:46

there in six months, you know, without

16:48

like me paying a developer to keep

16:50

it healthy, right like next code, etc.

16:52

All right. So I think we'll

16:55

continue to continue to see.

16:57

lots of digital integration across

16:59

tabletop games, but maybe

17:02

not necessarily app integrated

17:04

games as fantasy flight presented

17:06

them for many years. When

17:08

you talk about apps as supplemental,

17:10

I get it conceptually, but can

17:12

you give an example of maybe

17:15

the game that you think best integrates

17:17

that and really in some detail

17:19

explain how that works what it's

17:22

bringing and why it's good? Gloom

17:24

Haven. I don't even know if I

17:26

actually don't know. I think they have

17:28

an official app now for Frost Haven,

17:30

I'm pretty sure. But like for a

17:32

long time, Gloom Haven's, Gloom Haven had,

17:35

I think it was a third-party

17:37

app, and it like replaces all of

17:39

the monster tokens, all of the

17:41

monster cards, like so much of

17:43

your token bloat can be run by

17:46

an app, and like you borrow your

17:48

friend's iPad thrown on the table with

17:50

that app there, and like it eliminates.

17:52

So much of your like maintenance, you

17:54

know, like that set up a huge

17:57

chunk of, you know, we had our

17:59

broken token. organizer or whatever with all

18:01

the tokens so much that could just

18:03

stay in the box as long as

18:06

you're using the app but you have

18:08

the physical version if you don't want

18:10

to use the you know some people

18:12

just don't enjoy they want they want

18:15

to do their play their board games

18:17

to escape or like they just don't

18:19

like staring at screens whatever their reason

18:21

a lot of people don't enjoy it

18:24

but you have the option there still

18:26

but honestly using the app makes your

18:28

live lives and the game experience so

18:30

much smoother. So that's like a good

18:33

example, but a lot of games have

18:35

those now, you know, various kind of

18:37

support apps, like most CCGs have like

18:39

deck building websites and things, you know,

18:42

like most people interface with deck building

18:44

digitally instead of by physically pulling out

18:46

cards, you know. I think of that

18:48

as something different though, like to me

18:51

that's not part of playing the game,

18:53

right? Like that's part of the deck

18:55

building experience outside of the context of

18:57

play. Gloom Haven is part of the

19:00

context of play though, right? Yeah, yeah.

19:02

Gloom Haven is part of play. I

19:04

don't know. I would argue that like

19:06

the ritual of deck building is an

19:09

important part of your product. I definitely

19:11

see like if we're sitting here talking

19:13

about like game systems as they occurred

19:15

during gameplay. Yeah, it's a semantic comment.

19:17

It's not. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, within the

19:20

ecosystem of the product, I'm with you.

19:22

Yeah. Yeah, like at Earthbourne, we've been

19:24

working on a lot of, you know,

19:26

we've got our Rangers is like this

19:29

cooperative card game and then we've got

19:31

a competitive one coming up and that's

19:33

like a big immediate request from fans

19:35

is, you know, like, how am I

19:38

going to be able to get engaged

19:40

with deck building and look at your

19:42

card pool and like. You know, thankfully,

19:44

like, there's a lot of enterprising fans

19:47

who are good web developers. And so

19:49

usually you release a card game and

19:51

you've got a fan made site within

19:53

like a day. But it is still,

19:56

like, I think, a fairly critical component

19:58

in their kind of play experience. It's

20:00

just a little outside of the game,

20:02

they, moment. on the gameplay. Yeah, that

20:05

makes sense. So Earthborn, you know, we've

20:07

had a couple of shows on Earthborn

20:09

already, but super interesting game. You're coming

20:11

in there sort of mid-flow, right? The

20:14

first version of the game was out.

20:16

I don't know, were you a contributor

20:18

on that or not? Oh yeah, no,

20:20

so I led the design on that.

20:23

So. Okay. Andrew DeVaro is kind of

20:25

the founder and creative director. He worked

20:27

with the Sadler Brothers, Adam and Brady,

20:29

to kind of create an original version

20:32

of the game, and then he had

20:34

Brooks, who's worked on, worked on Dissents,

20:36

worked on X-Wing for a while. Brooks

20:38

was working on kind of developing the

20:41

Sadler's original design, but Brooks isn't has

20:43

experience with card games or anything, and

20:45

it like wasn't quite meeting with Andrew's

20:47

initial vision, and so... that's when I

20:50

came on the team and so we

20:52

kind of took some of those initial

20:54

puzzle pieces and you know I kind

20:56

of led Sam Gregor Stewart did a

20:59

bunch of the writing Andrew was doing

21:01

writing and design and creative direction stuff

21:03

but I was kind of like the

21:05

design leader kind of bringing the team

21:08

together to bring Rangers kind of I

21:10

think and I think Andrew would agree

21:12

that like into alignment with kind of

21:14

his original vision. I initially kind of

21:17

came on just as a console to

21:19

offer him some advice. You know, he

21:21

felt like it wasn't lining up with

21:23

his vision. And so I came on

21:26

to kind of like offer some advice

21:28

as to how he could get there.

21:30

And then he basically said, can you,

21:32

can you, can you just come out

21:35

and do it? And so that's how

21:37

I got started with them. So there

21:39

was a version of the game, but

21:41

that was before we even went to

21:44

our initial Kickstarter. We kick started it

21:46

with a lot less of the game

21:48

design that a lot of modern kick

21:50

starters do and then designed to develop

21:52

the rest of the game over the

21:55

year following the Kickstarter to then release.

21:57

And we've now done a reprint kickstarter

21:59

that did very. well partially thanks to

22:01

some glowing reviews from shut up and

22:04

sit down and no pun included which

22:06

definitely helped us take us from like

22:08

a decent Kickstarter to like above beyond

22:10

our expectations. So that's kind of where

22:13

we're at now. Well, I mean, congratulations.

22:15

As you mentioned, it's been incredibly well

22:17

received. I was an early backer on

22:19

the first Kickstarter and I made the mistake

22:21

of giving it away as a Christmas

22:23

gift and I really want to play

22:25

it because it has a lot of

22:27

things in it that I will. I

22:29

know I will enjoy as a player,

22:31

but kudos. I mean, because it is

22:33

so well received. Obviously a wonderful game.

22:36

Well, yeah, thank you. I knew like some

22:38

people were going to love it,

22:40

but it's definitely a polarizing game.

22:42

We like, you know, we were

22:44

making kind of Andrew's vision and

22:47

like, he wanted this kind of

22:49

RPG like open, you know, open

22:52

world experience and we knew it was

22:54

going to be big and messy. and a

22:56

little bit like a TTRPG right and so

22:58

I was nervous I was nervous what the

23:00

reception would be right because like it is

23:02

it's it's a you know it's sometimes obtuse and

23:04

you've got to kind of you know it doesn't

23:07

have like a clear singular objective

23:09

like some card games you know take

23:11

your opponents life points down instead

23:13

it's like telling you to kind of set

23:15

your own objectives in the game and things.

23:17

And so I, you know, before we got

23:20

those reviews, I was like, I hope a

23:22

couple people love it. So I've been very

23:24

happy with how the game is done. When

23:26

we, when we first started, when you first

23:28

were introducing yourself, so I'm

23:31

going to paraphrase, I think you

23:33

said something like you, you'd worked

23:35

at Fantasy Flight for a while,

23:37

you wanted to sort of like

23:39

spread your wings and see, see

23:41

where else you could go and

23:43

you landed in Earthborn. So presumably

23:45

it means that there were something.

23:47

You felt you weren't able

23:49

to do it fantasy flight

23:51

and Ideally you've been able

23:53

to sort of like exercise

23:55

that initial sort of impulse

23:58

with your work at at

24:00

Earthborn. You wanna, am I

24:02

incorrect in my assumption or

24:04

is there, is there something there?

24:06

No, yeah, I think that's correct.

24:09

Obviously, like things like leaving a

24:11

job you've had for a decade

24:14

can be a little fraught, so

24:16

I won't get like into any

24:18

nitty gritty stuff, but broadly,

24:21

I, you know, I was in my mid

24:23

30s, like it is the time I

24:25

have a lot of energy for my

24:27

own career. And like, there were a

24:29

lot of kind of creative things

24:31

that I wanted to accomplish in

24:33

my career. And like, while fantasy

24:36

flight had been this amazing ground

24:38

to do a lot of really

24:40

cool work, it's also, you know,

24:42

part of Asmeday, part of this

24:44

really large company and like, you

24:46

know, has to focus on like,

24:48

specific kinds of games, you know, like,

24:51

these are, you know, business arrangements

24:53

where you have to like, you

24:55

know, your schedule is set. X

24:57

amount into the future and you're very

24:59

like, you know, it's a very cool

25:02

environment, but also one that is very

25:04

set by this broader business. And so

25:06

I wanted to be able to kind

25:08

of stretch out a bit and do

25:10

some creative things beyond that environment before

25:13

I found myself, you know, like. 10

25:15

more years down the line, you know,

25:17

with like a couple kids, I was

25:19

worried that by then I might not

25:21

be as like energetic to to dive

25:24

in and do independent things. So that

25:26

was part of my desire in kind

25:28

of moving on. I, you know, sometimes

25:30

you regret it like they're still

25:32

doing some really cool stuff over

25:34

there. But I think in the end,

25:37

I'm glad I did and got

25:39

the opportunity to work with a

25:41

wider variety of companies throughout the

25:43

industry. When when friend of the

25:45

show the friend of ours Rob

25:47

Davio when he left Hasbro and

25:50

started Iron Wall and was working

25:52

on Seafall he has sort of

25:54

talked about this idea of how

25:56

he had all these ideas and

25:58

all this creative energy and he

26:00

just put them all into this

26:02

one game, for better or worse, in

26:05

a lot of cases worse. And he

26:07

sort of talks about how that

26:09

game sprawled and got too big, and

26:11

he should have restricted, and he got

26:14

all that out. I think Earthborne

26:16

Rangers. It also could have been sprawling

26:18

out and gone in many different directions.

26:20

And I'm wondering, like, if you

26:22

can talk about some specific, like either

26:25

mechanics or ideas or just sort of

26:27

philosophies that you're able to sort

26:29

of exercise with Earth-born Rangers and talk

26:31

about what worked, what didn't? Oh yeah,

26:34

well, we, there's a lot that

26:36

got left on the shopping room floor.

26:38

You know, in some ways it's this,

26:40

you know, like, uh, kind of

26:42

darling game of Andrews, right. I think

26:45

that if Andrew could have executed on

26:47

every single idea that he wanted

26:49

in this game it would have been

26:51

too sprawling for people to access I

26:54

don't think he'd be mad at

26:56

me saying this I'm sure he knows

26:58

it I'm sure he knows it I'm

27:00

sure he knows it yeah but

27:02

like there's so many cool ideas and

27:05

like we've been trying to put them

27:07

other places like in other board

27:09

game designs and in future card games

27:11

but you know like we wanted to

27:14

like track your overall impact on

27:16

the environment over the course of the

27:18

total course of playing the game and

27:20

like change the environment based on

27:22

what you did like every creature you

27:25

killed will never come back and so

27:27

like if you are like going

27:29

through the valley in this way that

27:31

like kills things you notice this change

27:34

permanent change the ecosystem based on

27:36

your actions like we talked about like

27:38

a kind of squad management type system

27:41

where rangers who get too injured are

27:43

lost in the field and you

27:45

have to roll up a different Ranger

27:47

and go and find them and rescue

27:50

them. There's like there's all these

27:52

different like there's a lot of like

27:54

persistence to the world and reactivity to

27:56

the world like you know to

27:58

this conversation about app and a great

28:01

games complexity and back-end tracking that digital

28:03

games are really good at and

28:05

tabletop games aren't because they're onerous on

28:07

the player to track all this. There's

28:10

a lot of this stuff. We

28:12

have creative ideas on how to implement

28:14

it physically, but like to integrate all

28:16

of it would have taken what

28:18

is already a fairly large scope game.

28:21

It's like a card game and a

28:23

role playing game in one made

28:25

by like three people and turned it

28:27

into something maybe insurmountable for a team

28:30

as small as ours to actually

28:32

make well. So yeah, those are just

28:34

a couple quick examples, but I think

28:36

that's. A lot of them any

28:38

one of those ideas a lot of

28:41

them would have been very cool in

28:43

the game in a different version

28:45

of this game right like But I

28:47

think that if we had dumped every

28:50

one of these ideas into this

28:52

product It would have been worse off

28:54

for it. And so in some ways

28:56

I think Andrew By having myself

28:58

there Brooks there Sam there like the

29:01

rest of our team to kind of

29:03

help hone that design. I think

29:05

it helped keep it to something that

29:07

people ended up liking certain types of

29:10

people ended up liking quite a

29:12

bit. I'm I'm I'm as you were

29:14

talking I went through this this thought

29:17

process of like you're describing and

29:19

I was like mmm it sounds like

29:21

someone wanted to design a video game

29:23

and couldn't do it and then

29:25

you sort of talk about the owner

29:28

of stuff and then I started thinking

29:30

about where you are in your

29:32

career now and I My brain went

29:34

from being, oh, this sounds like someone

29:37

who wanted to make, you know,

29:39

a simulation video game, to this sounds

29:41

like a sort of dream role-playing game

29:43

campaign, right? Because in a similar

29:45

way, I think a game is master

29:48

or someone else. can reduce the burden

29:50

on the players for a lot

29:52

of those things that you sort of

29:54

deemed onerous. And I think whereas in

29:57

board games, I have to sort

29:59

of like codify ever. and I think

30:01

I struggle with war games that

30:03

I think should be

30:06

role-playing games. I really

30:08

have to come up

30:10

with like specific rules

30:12

to adjudicate every possible

30:14

outcome, which I imagine

30:16

just becomes unbearable. There's

30:19

a lot of hand-waiving

30:21

in the role-playing design.

30:23

You have a person who

30:25

can deal with blue haven.

30:27

And I'm wondering... with you're

30:29

now moving into into role-playing games

30:32

where do you see the different

30:34

strengths from what one sort of

30:37

like set of expectations and tools

30:39

that role-playing has versus you know

30:41

a board game yeah I mean

30:44

that's I think you hit on

30:46

one of the strengths of role-playing

30:48

games in kind of the question

30:51

which is you know the game

30:53

master themselves Or, you know, like, there's

30:55

obviously a decent number of role-playing

30:57

games with no GM, but it

30:59

kind of, it's basically like a

31:02

crowdsource GM where it's often, you

31:04

know, you kind of crowdsource the GMing

31:06

to the rest of the group. But like, you

31:08

have this kind of improv, this player who

31:10

is able to kind of come up with

31:12

things on the fly in this reactive way,

31:15

right? Like I think I mentioned in some

31:17

of the things we cut from Rangers.

31:19

one of the big things you know Andrew

31:21

always wanted more reactivity like you know like

31:23

he wanted it to feel like we're GMming

31:25

for you basically right we have this big

31:28

campaign guide that you read at different points

31:30

and we we wanted to feel as reactive

31:32

as possible and like that's just some of

31:34

what we strained against because to be as

31:37

reactive as somebody who can improv at

31:39

the table is basically impossible right

31:41

even video games that can hide all

31:43

the complexity on the back end are constrained

31:45

by the limits of not you know just

31:47

not having the time or foresight to

31:50

know everything somebody could want to do

31:52

in a given situation. So I do

31:54

think that's one big strength. I

31:56

think another big strength of role-playing

31:59

games is create... of expression on the

32:01

side of the players. Obviously, like

32:03

I think there's a ton of board

32:05

games and card games that give

32:07

players creative expression in a way,

32:09

but you're still playing in this

32:11

walled garden. You're still having to

32:13

express yourself even with emergent

32:15

systems in a way that the designer

32:18

has predetermined to some degree. And you

32:20

know, role-playing games have that a

32:22

little bit, but I think the walls

32:25

are greatly broadened. simply because, like, especially

32:27

modern role-playing games with a lot of

32:29

things coming out of the forge, you

32:31

know, are very, try to be

32:33

open-ended and just kind of like

32:35

very narrative focused, players can just

32:38

express themselves very creatively. You

32:40

know, I think Rangers comes more RPG adjacent,

32:42

but at the end of the day,

32:44

your moment to moment gameplay is still

32:46

a card game. And like, you know, like you

32:48

can't just go and do anything you

32:50

want. We give you a wide list

32:52

of things you can attempt and like...

32:54

you know, that range from suboptimal to

32:56

optimal. And so you could kind of

32:59

go goof off and you feel those

33:01

walls are wider, but they're not as

33:03

wide as like a full role playing

33:05

game. So I've talked a lot about

33:07

how role playing games are more

33:09

open and freeing, but I do think

33:11

that there is value in the

33:14

more curated experience like a

33:16

card game. Like one, you don't need

33:18

it for a lot of them, you don't

33:20

need a GM. So you can all kind

33:22

of. take on that player and you can

33:24

trust that like we have created the

33:27

system such that we think it's

33:29

going to tell you a good story

33:31

right like you don't have to worry

33:33

like have one player who has this

33:35

pressure of like coming like bringing the

33:37

narrative to a close like that's a

33:39

stressful like a lot of groups don't

33:41

have the person who wants to do

33:43

that and so you know we can be that

33:46

person for you I also think that

33:48

games that do the emergent systems

33:50

well which you know I think like We have

33:52

some successes. I think there's other

33:54

games that do emergence in other

33:57

more interesting ways as well, but

33:59

like. I think having like

34:01

more codified systems that then like

34:04

have these emergency actions that create

34:06

these story beats, those can feel

34:08

special in a way that a

34:10

TTRPG maybe doesn't. When you created

34:13

as a group, created all of

34:15

the ideas in front of you,

34:17

it's harder for them to surprise

34:20

you. Yeah. There's role-playing games that

34:22

can surprise you, but it's a

34:24

lot easier for us to create

34:26

a bunch of emergent systems and

34:29

have them do something that completely

34:31

shocks you because you aren't responsible

34:33

of creating them in the first

34:36

place. We are. So I think

34:38

there is value in these more

34:40

curated experiences as well for people

34:42

they appeal to. David, if you

34:45

don't like tabletop games that veer

34:47

closer to RPGs, I don't know

34:49

how you'll feel about Rangers. Obviously,

34:52

I recommend it, but. Well, I

34:54

mean, I think your point about

34:56

that Gloom Haven app, like, maybe

34:58

if I had played that, it

35:01

would have been more worthwhile. You

35:03

know, to me, it was, it

35:05

has always just felt like an

35:08

incredible amount of work for very

35:10

little payoff. And I think to

35:12

your. Yeah. Your earlier comment about

35:14

Rangers, like feel it, you know,

35:17

my story about, you know, some

35:19

of Andrew's vision for it, like

35:21

feeling like a video game, we

35:24

want to make a tabletop game.

35:26

I think Gloom Haven has some

35:28

of that as well. They are

35:30

like, absolutely. A lot of it

35:33

feels like video game style systems,

35:35

systems that benefit from the really

35:37

granular tracking and back-end information and

35:40

hidden information that digital does well,

35:42

trying to just double that one-for-one

35:44

on the tabletop. I hope to

35:46

some of our earlier conversation about

35:49

takeaways I've taken from app integrated

35:51

games and working with that that

35:53

we avoided this, you know, in

35:56

some of those cuts we made

35:58

with Rangers, but, you know, ultimately

36:00

some of our touch points are

36:02

video games and like some, you

36:05

know, I think that games capture

36:07

that branching storytelling GM-less being part

36:09

of that story experience in ways

36:12

that board games have been striving

36:14

to and I think we're one

36:16

of them that kind of strive

36:18

to capture that magical experience physically.

36:21

Yeah I think as someone who

36:23

who plays a lot of tabletop

36:25

games a lot of video games

36:28

a lot and you know role-playing

36:30

games as a player as a

36:32

over 30 years of Running games

36:34

to help up role playing games.

36:37

I I go to each one

36:39

of them for very different things

36:41

and and I find when they're

36:44

in the sort of the liminal

36:46

spaces and they're playing in there

36:48

You have to be very careful

36:50

because a someone who is littering

36:53

all of all three of these

36:55

options and and can at any

36:57

one moment. I can play with

37:00

any one of those that if

37:02

you are trying to tap into

37:04

the advantages of one of the

37:06

other spaces and you're you are

37:09

running the risk of doing so

37:11

at a at a at a

37:13

subpar level that you that you

37:16

end up saying I could play

37:18

this or I could just go

37:20

do one of those other things

37:22

get the same experience for less

37:25

less resistance. I'd like to talk

37:27

a little bit about role-playing games

37:29

because I think one of the

37:32

things that you just I think

37:34

really like hit that tweak me

37:36

is you said that the the

37:38

curated experience of something like Earthmore

37:41

Rangers can surprise more and I

37:43

think that that's super super interesting

37:45

and when you when you trigger

37:48

that I thought oh I totally

37:50

understand where he's coming from and

37:52

to me it has actually been

37:54

a a pivot of role-playing games

37:57

away from being, to have a

37:59

role-playing games away from being... surprised.

38:01

And what I mean by that

38:04

is starting, from my point

38:06

of view, starting around

38:08

third edition Dungeons and

38:11

Dragons, we saw a

38:13

move away from having

38:16

the players themselves

38:18

be surprised to the

38:20

players themselves being

38:23

able to Preordain

38:25

the fate of their characters and

38:27

you saw that by the movement

38:30

of magic items into the players

38:32

handbook the movement of where power

38:34

comes from into player selected choices

38:37

as opposed to things in the

38:39

dungeon the idea of feats and

38:41

you see the online conversation all

38:43

of a sudden Sounding a lot

38:46

like video games. Oh my character

38:48

had this build my characters

38:50

and I think That fundamentally

38:52

changed a lot of

38:54

tip-top role-playing

38:57

games. And I'm

38:59

wondering, your experience

39:01

with making so many

39:04

games, is there a

39:06

advantage on a business

39:08

level or on a design

39:11

level to put... less

39:13

surprise in the hands or to

39:15

remove the surprise for the player and

39:17

the player progression to sort of put

39:19

that in their hands and to lay

39:22

it out in a book that presumably

39:24

everyone at the table has. Is there

39:26

an advantage to removing surprise?

39:29

I don't necessarily think so.

39:31

I definitely see your point about

39:33

like the removal of surprise at least

39:35

from like mainline role-playing games as they

39:37

progressed, right? Few are random tables. you

39:40

know a lot of this I think

39:42

is done in the name of like

39:44

player empowerment yeah you know is exactly

39:46

the term that's thrown around a lot

39:48

you know or like quality of life improvements that

39:51

like streamline the experience and make things

39:53

simpler but I think you know like

39:55

and so I do see your point

39:57

kind of especially in the mainline role-playing

39:59

games I do think there's a

40:01

lot of tabletop role-playing games that

40:03

kind of buck against this trend

40:05

very purposefully from games that try

40:08

to evoke more old-school role-playing game

40:10

like Dungeon Trial Classics and things

40:12

that revel in the random tables

40:14

in the hyper-punishing play to some

40:16

of the narrative games that come

40:18

out of like the Forge PBTA

40:20

powered by the Apocalypse being a

40:22

big one, but like, you know,

40:24

a lot of those other games

40:26

which... focus on surprise through

40:29

spurring creativity, you know, where they like

40:31

Try to give the players a lot

40:33

of different prompts and like have those

40:35

players then Use their own creativity to

40:37

justify them and unify them and so

40:39

like they're basically surprised through their own

40:41

actions, right? And so that through their

40:43

own they get kind of surprised to

40:45

their own creativity and coming up with

40:47

how these things fit together and you

40:49

know, when like all of your fiasco

40:51

stuff magically clicks together like like you

40:54

can feel surprised by what you as

40:56

a group have just created thanks to

40:58

the help of the system. So I

41:00

do think there are games that have

41:02

tried to kind of capitalize on that

41:04

removal of surprise from the mainline product.

41:06

As far as like, and you know,

41:08

obviously like I touted as a benefit

41:10

of rangers that I think like, because

41:12

we are your GM, we are surprising

41:14

you. And so like obviously I see

41:16

value in that because we made our

41:18

product around that to a degree. But

41:21

obviously D&D has also seen a ton

41:23

of success and like with what you

41:25

know you categorized as like this kind

41:27

of removal of surprise. But I don't

41:29

know if I would attribute its current

41:31

success to that trend. I think it's

41:33

made it more accessible and kind of

41:35

streamlined that experience. which has definitely helped

41:37

with its current popularity and like I

41:39

do think that players enjoy

41:41

feeling like they

41:43

have a certain amount

41:45

of control over

41:48

the narrative arc of

41:50

their own character.

41:52

And like they're able

41:54

to kind of

41:56

tell a story. I

41:58

mean, look at

42:00

like a lot of

42:02

actual plays, like

42:04

in many ways, a

42:06

system that can

42:08

better enable players of

42:10

actual plays to

42:12

control their character's arc

42:15

and make it

42:17

really satisfying to watch,

42:19

you know, like

42:21

what a weird secondary

42:23

effect of those

42:25

actual plays. Like I

42:27

think you're totally

42:29

like, as you're saying,

42:31

and I'm like,

42:33

yeah, it does feel

42:35

like those are

42:37

designs that support watching

42:39

a game being

42:42

played. That

42:44

is, I don't even know.

42:46

I don't even know like,

42:48

but where's the chicken and

42:50

egg here because well, yeah,

42:52

yeah, right popular after five

42:55

you came out, right? Yeah,

42:57

there's but yeah, I mean,

42:59

like those actual plays are

43:01

these like weird, liminal spaces

43:03

of like their games. Yes,

43:05

they're nothing like any tabletop

43:07

roleplaying game I've ever experienced

43:10

in my entire lifetime, right?

43:12

Like they're there to me

43:14

they're more like a television

43:16

show, a slow television show. But

43:19

but and less less like a game

43:22

and I think trying to trying to

43:24

replicate it at my own table would

43:26

be I think it would be a

43:28

shame. It would be I think a

43:30

lot of players but what was there?

43:32

What was there? A lot of players

43:34

are trying to replicate it right now.

43:36

Yeah, like, oh, absolutely. Like a lot

43:39

of players, you know, they call the

43:41

Matt Mercer effect, right? Where like players

43:43

are trying to replicate. They a lot

43:45

of players their intro to D &D

43:47

is of is critical role. And so

43:49

they try to replicate that play experience

43:51

at their table. So it well, it

43:54

necessarily speak to what a lot of

43:56

people who, you know, grew up playing

43:58

Seconds or Third Edition. know

44:00

as the experience, it is

44:02

the experience for a lot of

44:05

what the market is though. So

44:07

I'm interested to know when you

44:09

are, when you yourself are

44:12

designing like a mainstream,

44:14

presumably trying to hit quite

44:16

big, I mean, one of

44:18

the largest TTRPG kickstarter with,

44:21

and I'm gonna say the

44:23

name wrong, so you can,

44:26

what's the pronunciation? Cause

44:28

cosmure the cosmure role-playing game.

44:30

Cosmure or not to brag

44:32

for a second. We are

44:34

the largest game Kickstarter of

44:36

all time. Largy game kickstarter

44:38

all time is a incredibly

44:41

mass market. Do you take

44:43

that into consideration? When you're

44:45

when you're designing it. Oh

44:47

like the idea. Yeah. And how does

44:49

that manifest in the design? I'm gonna

44:51

I'm gonna screw up the the pillars

44:54

here. We had like you know. I

44:56

talked about coming in on Rangers as

44:58

a design director there and like

45:00

you know taking and taking Andrew's

45:02

vision and trying to make a

45:04

game that realized what Andrew wanted

45:06

to make that was ultimately

45:08

that was a process of vision setting

45:11

right like downloading what Andrew

45:13

wanted and coalescing it into key

45:15

pillars that I can then use to

45:17

direct the like I listed a bunch

45:20

of other contributors you know like these

45:22

key pillars. We did a similar process

45:24

on the Cosma real playing game, right?

45:26

We, you know, I worked with Johnny

45:28

from Brother Wise and Brandon himself

45:31

to kind of set what our goals for

45:33

this game were, what we wanted them

45:35

to be, and like a lot of

45:37

them kind of were these balances. We

45:39

wanted to bring in some of that

45:42

like narrative innovation and player control

45:44

that you see from like, you know,

45:46

games with DNA from the forge, but

45:48

we also wanted it to be

45:50

accessible. to people, you know, to the

45:52

mainstream audience. You know, so we had all

45:54

these, we wanted it to be crunchy enough

45:56

to represent all the cosmure stuff, but also

45:58

narrative enough that like... these

46:01

new players wouldn't be completely

46:03

lost in this mechanical crunch.

46:05

So we set out all

46:07

of these pillars and then

46:09

those are kind of what we used

46:11

to guide, you know, like, you know, we're

46:13

putting out hundreds and hundreds

46:15

of pages of text and

46:17

rules. So we had a

46:19

decent number of different designers

46:21

working on this game and

46:24

this is kind of what we used

46:26

to guide them. And so to your

46:28

question, being approachable. two

46:31

players, you know, like to this audience

46:33

who has Come into the hobby through

46:35

actual plays and things

46:37

was a big consideration there

46:39

and making sure that we

46:42

could Like some of your

46:44

touchpoints for the game Very quickly

46:46

replicate what you're used to

46:48

from that is a big one

46:50

like the Cosby role-playing game. I

46:53

am very proud of what it's

46:55

where it's gone and what it's

46:57

become But as core it uses a

46:59

D20, right, which is like, I think

47:01

a lot of people see that D20

47:03

and they immediately go, it's a D&D

47:05

clone, but I think anybody who knows

47:07

role-playing games, who digs in anywhere past

47:09

that D20, immediately sees that the rest

47:11

of the system is doing very different

47:13

things that like, but that core is

47:16

still very accessible. You're throwing that die

47:18

and blowing up at the table when

47:20

you, you know, roll the high number.

47:22

That core is still the same so

47:24

you have that touch point right and

47:26

like there's lots of choices like that

47:28

where we wanted people who You know

47:31

read Brandon Sanderson love his

47:33

works watch critical role and

47:35

then want to have critical

47:37

role happened at their table

47:39

In Brandon Sanderson's novels we

47:41

wanted them to have a good time with

47:43

the game. So that was a big factor

47:45

to a lot of our decisions Well this

47:47

interview is just the first of two interviews

47:50

we're going to have with you and we're

47:52

sort of foreshadowing the next one because it's

47:54

going to all be about the cosmere role-playing

47:56

game as we wrap up this more

47:58

sort of general overview if you're really

48:00

interesting and impressive career so far, you are

48:03

still young and have a long way to

48:05

go. What is a piece of advice you'd

48:07

like to leave for our listeners and remembering

48:10

that they cross all of these different genres

48:12

of game design, different levels of experience? What's

48:14

something you've learned that is really valuable to

48:16

you that you think our listeners could benefit

48:19

as well? Oh shoot, you know, I've heard

48:21

you asked other people this question before

48:23

and I was always like, oh that

48:25

question so broad, how the hell would

48:27

I answer it? I did not, I

48:29

did not think of a good, a

48:32

good answer off the top of my

48:34

head. Let me think for a second.

48:36

It won't go on your tombstone, so

48:38

it's okay, you know, and you'll

48:40

get a second bite at the

48:42

apple. So, yeah, I can, I

48:44

can, I can more focused on

48:46

our refugees, answer to this question.

48:48

This is probably a pretty cliche

48:50

piece of advice and I'm sure a lot

48:53

of other people have given it but like

48:55

I've I kind of did an open call

48:57

recently for different design

48:59

submissions for earth board games and

49:02

I've been looking at a bunch

49:04

of different game designs and as a

49:06

result I've been talking to a lot

49:08

of people who are you know maybe not don't

49:10

have enough of a portfolio that

49:12

we're going to. publish them right away,

49:14

but they're asking me for advice on

49:16

how to do this. So I've been talking

49:19

to a lot of people who are kind

49:21

of newer into the design hobby. And so

49:23

I guess my piece of advice to people

49:25

is that idea that you've been thinking

49:27

of put it on paper and try

49:30

it, right? Like I think that like

49:32

a big thing I see constantly in

49:34

other designers and especially in myself

49:36

is getting stuck in your own head

49:39

and like wanting to think it

49:41

through. and make it perfect before

49:43

you actualize it. And almost always

49:45

after you actualize it, you see

49:47

a problem and all of that

49:49

thought was for not because the

49:51

problem overrides a bunch of the

49:53

thinking you already did. So whether, you

49:55

know, like, I'm sure a lot of designers

49:57

already know how to do this, but like.

50:00

Just make the thing. It's going

50:02

to be bad the first time

50:05

you do it and then just

50:07

make it again and make it

50:09

again. So like my advice to

50:11

people is just start working with

50:14

your hands as soon as you

50:16

can. Maybe a reminder to myself

50:18

as much as anybody. I like

50:20

it. We all need those sometimes,

50:23

that's for sure. Andrew, this was

50:25

terrific. Thanks so much and we're

50:27

looking forward to having gone again

50:29

soon. Yeah, thank you guys. Thanks

50:32

for joining us on the Game

50:34

Design Roundtable. Our guest this week

50:36

was Andrew Fisher. You can find

50:38

him at Andrewfisher Games.com or on

50:41

X at A. Fisher Games. If

50:43

you enjoy the show and want

50:45

to give us a bit of

50:47

assistance, consider heading over to patron.com

50:50

and searching for TGDRT. That's the

50:52

Game Design Roundtable and joining our

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50:56

In addition to checking out our

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51:08

I'm Dirk Neimire and I am

51:10

on X at D Neimire. My

51:12

co-host is David Heron, he's at

51:14

David V. Heron. Our producer is

51:16

Cody Harold, he's at Cody J.

51:19

Harold. The show's editor is Avery

51:21

Paiez, who is at Paradadachseud. Thanks,

51:23

and until next time, design well.