Adam Powell (00:02.859)
Hello and welcome to Snyder's Return, a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today has been looking, searching, wandering to find the perfect TTRPG experience to bring to our tables. Have they manifested it into reality? Let's answer the call and chat with TTRPG game designer and successful Kickstarter, Shaun M. Vale. Shaun, welcome to the show.

Shaun (00:28.652)
Thank you very much for having me, Adam. Great introduction.

Adam Powell (00:32.011)
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. I'm glad I've got you on. But before we go into the sort of the meat of the interview and why we're having this chat today, Sean, how did you yourself get into table? It's all role playing games, please.

Shaun (00:45.932)
Hmm, I'm probably a little bit more recent into TTRPGs than a lot of your guests you've had recently. I say recent, it's probably just over 10 years ago now. Somehow missed it all through childhood and sort of came into it. A married man with my own house sort of thing. But yeah, it was just a case of I had a few friends who were...

So into the fantasy genres of books and films and whatnot and we've obviously heard about this D &D thing and we thought we'd give it a go. I ended up being the DM because nobody else wanted to. So I actually DM'd her D &D for about two years before I even actually played as a player, which was kind of fun. But yeah, and loved it.

Adam Powell (01:38.507)
Oh wow.

Shaun (01:44.012)
which has carried on ever since really.

Adam Powell (01:47.403)
All right, and so did you stick with D &D or have you tried a number of other systems? Because this will sort of link into why you're chatting with me today in that respect.

Shaun (01:58.924)
Hmm. Yeah, I still DM D &D, but definitely widened the net since then, that's for sure. I played a lot of like World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade mainly, Dabbled in Fate, Call of Cthulhu. If you're the little ones like Aegon, a friend introduced me to that last year, I think it was a fabulous little game.

But yeah, I just really, really enjoying the whole tabletop aspect to it really. And I just love the fact that you can play them online as well. Even without a tabletop, it's just a really great way to make friends. I've made so many friends through tabletop gaming as well. So I'm very glad I got into it.

Adam Powell (02:48.907)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Definitely, definitely. So you tried out these number of systems and Agon is a great game. I love it. So I will second that as a great title. But how did that enjoyment that sort of straight into the DM chair or GM chair as you moved into different systems and then through these different, when did that turn from an interest in an enjoyment of the hobby to wanting to become a...

Shaun (02:56.204)
Mm.

Adam Powell (03:16.843)
creator, a game designer that you have become for, Wandering's Call.

Shaun (03:20.716)
Hmm. Hmm. I think almost immediately sort of picking up D and D back then I was home brewing before I even really knew what that was called before home brewing actually is. Um, I've never run a pre -made adventure until a couple of years ago. So I was straight into my self home brew world, so to speak, which was truly awful back then.

Adam Powell (03:32.235)
Hmm.

Shaun (03:50.604)
Looking back, I think, oh goodness. So things have improved a lot in the last 10 years. But I've always been a writer. I've always been creative. I've released a few sort of homebrew classes and spells and whatnot over the years. And I think just the next logical step was to, you know, make a whole new system.

Adam Powell (04:08.235)
Okay.

Adam Powell (04:14.507)
which you have done. So wondering is cool. What was your, what was the initial spark to actually create that game as opposed to anything else in that respect? And what was it like putting the system together, the game together, the world in which it inhabits?

Shaun (04:16.14)
Mmm.

Shaun (04:30.412)
Hmm. It was a it was an amazing process to be honest. I wrote it with my very good friend Robin Storm. He's the kind of law master of the system. And yeah, just to just create this this new thing with it with a friend is the best feeling. It actually originated from him, from Robin. He had an idea for a story.

about young people who have powers to do things, but they were sort of shunned in society. Excuse me. And we wanted a way to kind of showcase that idea. I know Rob is not really a writer. He's a phenomenal sort of creative person, whereas I've been writing for a very, very long time. So he sort of collabed and...

Adam Powell (05:10.443)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (05:27.627)
Hmm.

Shaun (05:28.812)
We actually made it into a play, originally. That was a few years ago now, maybe three or four years ago. It sort of bubbled along. And by this point, I'd homebrewed a couple of classes in D &D, the Distorter and the Soulwalker, which, again, was kind of all about stealing.

abilities and warping the world around you. And then eventually we got just talking about this idea more and more. I think I made an add on or I can't remember the exact term in in fate core, like an extra for being able to like, use your internal some sort of internal power to to change the world around you. Fate cause a great little system.

Adam Powell (06:12.363)
Yeah.

Shaun (06:24.236)
But you know, you sort of, you take ownership of something and you're like, maybe I want this to be mine. So the next sort of logical step was I asked Robin, he's like, you know what, fancy making a brand new TTRPG. And it was like, yeah. And yeah, that's what Wandering's Call is. It's all about using your soul to change the world around you.

Adam Powell (06:39.211)
Hmm. And.

Adam Powell (06:48.107)
Yeah, it's a fantastic system. I have the core rulebook that you kindly gave me as a sort of a run through. And I've got a character sheet open on my screen to write. And it's such a... It doesn't defy sort of description and explanation, but it takes on some heavy themes and heavy...

Shaun (07:00.78)
Mmm.

Adam Powell (07:18.155)
sort of genres and things like that. So what's it been like bringing those themes into a role playing game and then designing the game system around producing the types of games you want marshals and their players to experience at their tables?

Shaun (07:35.692)
Hmm. Yeah, we, we, we've both, myself and Robin enjoyed systems like World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu a lot before. Uh, they obviously deal with a lot of, uh, sort of darker side of fantasy in two quite different ways, but we've both enjoyed that a lot over the years. Um, and yeah, we, we just wanted our own sort of take on it. Um,

And it's been really good actually introducing it to people who've maybe only sort of dealt with the sort of higher fantasy sort of we're all heroes kind of games like D &D and Pathfinder, et cetera. Some sessions have been challenging more than others because of that sort of mental shift people have to do. But I think within like half an hour max, people have kind of got on board with the theme and...

Adam Powell (08:16.235)
Hmm. Hmm.

Shaun (08:36.684)
the sort of role -play that comes out of that slightly darker side, I think it helps pull you out of yourself and into your character because, hopefully, anyway, that your experience in real life is not like your character. I hope so, anyway, for most people. Yeah, it's just stories you wouldn't really get to tell otherwise in a sort of safe environment.

Adam Powell (08:44.555)
Yeah.

Adam Powell (09:05.131)
So we mentioned these heavier themes and sort of the separation between the player and the character and all those sorts of good things, which the core book goes into sort of wonderfully to help ensure that separation exists. But for those that are unaware, that haven't checked out, well, first of all, we'll find we'll help people find you. So where can people find you yourself and wandering school on social media and on the Internet? Please, Shaun.

Shaun (09:11.916)
Hmm.

Shaun (09:34.957)
Hmm. Yeah. Wondering to call. Basically all, all social media, Instagram threads is mainly where I hang out, put them on Facebook, et cetera. Just find wandering's call. I think we're just at wandering's call. wanderingscall .com is our website and store. It has a lot of their sort of little bits of background to the story and what a wanderer is and so on.

or on YouTube and Twitch as well. Again, just wondering his call. And you can find me personally on Instagram at Shaun M. Vale.

Adam Powell (10:16.459)
All right, well, I will make sure those links are down in the description below. So please scroll down, follow those links, support Shaun support. Wanderings cool. Pick up this TTRP, the fantastic TTRPG for your gaming table and your group. That's all right. So Wanderings cool then for those that maybe haven't quite sort of picked out the what it actually is, the world it exists and what sort of.

Shaun (10:28.044)
Thank you.

Adam Powell (10:45.035)
The themes it goes into. What is Wanderings Call, please?

Shaun (10:48.524)
Hmm. So, yeah, I want to call this a very sort of role play thematic TTRPG, where one plays a wanderer who has this strange instinct in their brain that literally forces them to wander, hence their name. And throughout the game, generally speaking, you come across strange and paranormal events.

that you seemingly have to fix. So the game's a lot of exploration and a lot of talking with ghosts and things like that. So it's very much a discovery, exploration, investigation type game. There is combat. You can always hit stuff if you really want to. Sometimes that's really not advised, but you can.

And yeah, no one really truly knows the origin of this wandering, as it's called. At times it seems sentient, because it always seems to take you to places where you're needed, or the times it seems random. But there's a lot of... it's not quite a religion that the wanderers have, but that they have this kind of respect for this thing in their mind, which is...

which is drawing them to places. And as a GM, that's a really useful tool for putting player characters where you want and need them. The system's designed for not so much one -shots, but like each session to be its own little contained adventure. So the wandering doesn't take you to a specific room, for example. So it's not a railroading mechanic by any means, but it's a...

Adam Powell (12:30.379)
Hmm.

Shaun (12:48.844)
a really nice way of setting up at the beginning of a session like, you've been drawn to this place, sort of thing. But in the game, you use the power of your soul, your soul power, which is a very, very limited resource. And you can basically do anything with it, given enough power. So you can change your own body, so you can make yourself faster, stronger.

Adam Powell (12:54.283)
Hmm.

Shaun (13:18.316)
throw huge claws or turn your skin to bark or steel or whatever but you can also do sort of external effects as well so you'd like mind control or throwing fireballs or whatever it's a totally open sort of magic system. Oh yeah, it's all built around the sort of narrative aspect of just finding spirits of...

Adam Powell (13:24.971)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (13:38.443)
Thank you.

Shaun (13:45.932)
people who are hanging around and helping them out really.

Adam Powell (13:49.547)
All right. So soul power, you mentioned it there, but going through the book soul power, it is very powerful, but that finite resource has a very.

Shaun (14:02.923)
Mmm.

Adam Powell (14:03.435)
a heavy consequence when you drain your reserve, as it were.

Shaun (14:09.964)
Indeed, yeah, you're literally using yourself as a battery to do the things around you or to yourself. So yeah, it's, you can use this power, but it's gonna have that consequence. You start to feel like lethargic and sort of a bit lost and things that you start using your soul power. Now that doesn't particularly have a sort of mechanic in the game, but...

Again, it's just an extra little tool to make role playing a little bit more fun. And the, the Marshall as well, it gives them another little tool just to sort of poke players and go, you're feeling dreadful now. Are you sure you want to be doing that sort of thing?

Adam Powell (14:56.779)
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that caught my eye about Soul Power was if it's drained to zero, the character or the NPC in that respect dies. That's kind of it. And it gives a very sort of...

Shaun (15:04.012)
Yep.

Adam Powell (15:12.971)
finite and.

Adam Powell (15:18.027)
Terminal, I think that's the right word, sort of, yeah, basis for this system.

Shaun (15:18.796)
Hmm, no, we can be Yeah, exactly and it sort of makes the It makes that power mean something It's not something you can just throw sort of around willy -nilly. You've just got a you got to pick your moment and I think again from a sort of narrative roleplay perspective that

That just makes the scenes hit so much harder. It's like you're giving this piece of you up maybe to save your friends or yourself or to finally let this spirit go that's been trapped in this building for 300 years, clearly very distressed.

Shaun (16:04.908)
So yeah, it feels rubbish, but it feels good at the same time.

Adam Powell (16:09.483)
So to elicit these responses from the characters and all that sort of, and within the group and within the safety of the table that the gamers that are playing.

Shaun (16:21.739)
Ahem.

Adam Powell (16:25.003)
If, say, someone was to take that martial, that GM role, well, is the martial role as it's referred to in the core book, what can they find in the core book? And how do the mechanics work? How does the game work mechanically?

Shaun (16:40.172)
So each character has a set of stats basically like any other game, we call them cores. So it's your brawn and your fitness and your intelligence and all that. Each one of those has a number of pips, very similar to things like World of Darkness.

And if you want to make a skill check, for example, all you do is you count how many pips you have in the relevant core. So if you're trying to hit something, you would use brawn, for example, and you roll that many D6s. So if you have a six in brawn, you would roll six D6s. On top of that, we have specialties, which are the skills in this system.

Adam Powell (17:16.331)
Hmm.

Shaun (17:35.276)
If you have a relevant specialty to what you're trying to do, you gain an extra dice. So it just helps the probabilities a little bit. And then on top of that, each specialty, you can gain again, pips in it. And instead then of adding more dice, they are actually classed as like automatic successes. So it's a sort of hybrid dice pool system. And what it means is,

Adam Powell (17:58.955)
Okay.

Adam Powell (18:02.507)
Hmm.

Shaun (18:05.42)
If you look at the maths and the probabilities, once you get past about 9, 10 D6s, adding more doesn't really give you that much more of an advantage. So adding the automatic successes on top generally means if you're better trained in something, you are more likely to succeed than someone who isn't. There's still a lot of chance and probability in there, but generally speaking.

Adam Powell (18:17.163)
make sense.

Adam Powell (18:29.419)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shaun (18:35.884)
if you decide your character is really good at something, they tend to be. Yeah, it's... I'm really against things like natural ones in D &D on a skill check, meaning you'd like throw your hammer down a cliff or something. It's like, I've studied this for 20 years, I should never do this ever, sort of thing. So...

Adam Powell (18:41.291)
I mean, that's fair. That is fair.

Adam Powell (18:58.635)
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. Yeah, not a massive fan of critical fumbles myself, but each system has their place and everybody sort of uses them as they choose to. But as mentioned, this game does not have that, which is good. And you can utilize your soul power to sort of add into these pools and things and vary the way that the...

Shaun (19:05.772)
No.

Shaun (19:14.796)
Absolutely.

Adam Powell (19:26.955)
the checks are being made and things like that, can't you?

Shaun (19:28.876)
Yeah, you can either just straight out pips with soul power, or you can give yourself some sort of modification to make things easier or do more damage, etc. So if you are trying to say punch someone, you can tweak your body with soul power to make your skin like super hard or your bone super hard. So you maybe do more damage when you connect. That sort of thing.

Adam Powell (19:58.859)
So with that melee sort of exchange, we'll call it, being sort of that's the way physical things work. We mentioned sort of magic and spells, but they're not called spells in this game. They're manifestations. Would you mind taking us through that system, please?

Shaun (20:05.772)
Hmm.

Shaun (20:19.852)
Hmm. Yeah, excuse me. So yeah, we don't, we wanted to get away from those sort of terms, magic and manifestations as well. So sort of ground it a little bit more because it's set in like a modern day world as well. Modern fantasy. Where each wanderer has their own sort of unique awakening, it's called.

And this represents where their kind of main power lies. It's how their power is sort of manifested and awakened in the first place. So whenever you're creating a manifestation, you use soul power. That's kind of the cost of doing all these crazy magic. But if what you're doing relates to your awakening, you either get a free soul power.

so you can make it more powerful just because it's what you do or you get the whole manifestation for free. So you either knock up soul power off or gain one, depending on what you want to do. It depends on the situation. So again, it just helps your character feel a little bit more sort of special, gives you a bit more speciality. But technically, any wanderer can do any manifestation. It's like super, super open.

And what we found in playtesting was that was really good, but for some players that's a little too open. Some people kind of can't see the wood for the trees and they think, oh, what can I do? There's just too many options. So that's why in the book we've got a few pages of sort of examples. And you can literally just use them if you want, but it gives you a good idea of what you can and can't do.

Adam Powell (21:54.059)
Okay.

Shaun (22:15.948)
And yeah, if you want to just make more powerful effects, you just pump more soul power into it and you can literally level buildings and things, given enough soul power, lift cars and mind control a whole room of people. That's gonna take a lot of soul power, but you know, you might just need to.

Adam Powell (22:28.651)
Yeah.

Adam Powell (22:40.075)
Well, given that these are the protagonists we've been speaking about, the Wanderers who have had their awakening, what about the antagonists within the setting? How can the Marshal use them to sort of play and pull with the characters' emotions and their...

Shaun (22:47.084)
Hmm

Shaun (22:52.428)
Mm -hmm.

Adam Powell (23:04.075)
aspirations or just their goals in that moment.

Shaun (23:07.66)
Hmm. So we, we have a few sort of antagonists in the book. There's sort of most common ones. Wonders will come across are what are called left behind. And these are, yeah, these are the traditional ghosts, poltergeist type things. People who are not.

passed on to whatever comes next for whatever reason. And generally speaking, people don't hang around for good reasons. So there's usually something going on which the group has to kind of figure out and sort of convince the spirits to go on. And some spirits are more dangerous than others. Some are just like a...

semi -translucent thing that's just hanging around, but some are very corporeal and very angry and very dangerous. But additional to those spirits, sort of main very scary things are called followers. And they literally follow you as wanderers. They devour your soul. They are extremely powerful. They can only do what we call internal manifestations.

so they can't like shoot fire at you, but they can make themselves incredibly strong. They're enemies that most of the time you panic and run away from. They're like real scary.

Adam Powell (24:44.907)
I do like on page 15 of the core rule book, there is the followers rhyme. It is relatively short. I can read it if you're happy for me to potentially butcher this beautiful rhyme. Here we go, let's try this. Creep and run, the followers come. Flee and fly or else you'll die. Fear and dread come in their stead. Don't be brave or there's your grave.

Shaun (24:50.54)
Yes.

Shaun (24:56.972)
Oh, absolutely.

Adam Powell (25:13.771)
Evil and dark, now here's this hark, when followers come, you only run.

Shaun (25:19.148)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (25:20.779)
which is, you know, it, you don't need much more to tell you how ominous these followers are. And that's, that's just a, there's a rhyme on page 15 of the Coral Book. It's beautiful. It's sort of set against a very sparse, but sort of thematic page and all that sort of good stuff. So yeah, it's, it's a fun and inspiring edition within the book. And it's one of the things I had to pick out and definitely sort of shout out. So.

Shaun (25:39.148)
Hmm.

Shaun (25:45.26)
Thank you.

Shaun (25:49.644)
Hmm.

But yeah, on top of like followers and things, there are a lot of other little bits and pieces as well. It's one of those that the lore of Wanderings Call is like super core to the enjoyment of the game. So I don't want to divulge too many details, but to sort of give little hints, there are other types of people out there that aren't Wanderers, but aren't fully just human either.

Adam Powell (26:12.651)
Of course.

Shaun (26:23.692)
that have their own special abilities. There's ravens. Ravens are very important to Wanderers and the sort of wider strange people community in this game. And yeah, even plague doctors sort of get a look in as well because if you have ravens, I mean, and weird spirits, you kind of have to have plague doctors really.

Adam Powell (26:52.939)
I mean, yeah, absolutely. So once someone has got the core rule book, they've read through, they're going through character creation, they've taken on the role of the marshal, or someone in the group has taken on the role of the marshal, they're going through character creation, which is sort of assigning pips across to generate your core skills. Is there anything in the book where...

Shaun (27:01.324)
Thank you.

Adam Powell (27:19.979)
Is there something in the book to help them then jump into the game as like a springboard into actually establishing their own sort of wandering thereafter?

Shaun (27:31.116)
Hmm. Yeah, a couple of things really in the very back of the book. We've actually included two adventures. One reasonably short sort of couple of hour session, one a little bit longer. And that literally has everything a new Marshall would want to run a little game. But I would say looking at the book over half of it, just over half of it.

is basically GM sort of martial tips. I've put in sort of lots of advice on how to construct story arcs, things like that. Let's say I've been writing a long time and no matter the medium, stories tend to follow a similar kind of structure, whether it's a book or a film or a TTRPG session, the certain things you can think about.

There's lots of advice in there as well about, you know, the standard advice of don't over plan and this, that and the other. Um, but just with that one book, we're pretty confident, even if you've never run any game before of any, any system, you should be able to get a nice little session going. Even if it's just one or two, excuse me, one or two scenes doesn't have to be complicated to tell good stories.

Adam Powell (28:56.267)
Absolutely. So to help marshals tell good stories, do you have any more sort of useful advice just to get into wandering school if someone's like, it sounds like it's for me, but you know, I just, so any hints or tips just sort of building on what you've already given us there, just from your own experience.

Shaun (29:17.548)
Hmm, um, so general advice really is don't worry about making mistakes Like in any game really but particularly in this one because it's so often you're dealing with people like in in -game People are flawed people make mistakes like in -game. So as a as a marshal You're gonna make mistakes to you. You're presumably a person as well. So, you know, I

it just just just roll with it. It's a really sort of forgiving system in that regards.

Yeah, it's a really good one for sort of developing listening skills as well. As a marshal in this system, you can set up a scene and then just see where the players take it because it is just a little bit more open. And as you sort of learn to listen, you pick up on what players are saying and doing and always have a pen and paper.

or pencil and paper just jot down what people are saying and gives you ideas of where to take the scene next.

Adam Powell (30:30.219)
Good bit of practical active listening going on there for sure.

Shaun (30:33.196)
Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. It's

Adam Powell (30:37.099)
So now this game is being created and is available and for purchase website and all those sorts of good things, which we'll throw links in again at the end. What is next for you? What is next for Wandering's Call? What is in and down the pipeline, shall we say?

Shaun (30:41.516)
Ahem.

Shaun (30:45.388)
Hmm.

Shaun (30:59.692)
Hmm. Yeah, so many ideas, not enough time. So yeah, we want to try and get the book out to sort of a wider audience really. That's always tricky with sort of indie budgets and whatnot. We just released another adventure a couple of weeks ago. So yeah, the pipeline is to make a couple more adventures.

We also have a sort of supplement to go over the other peoples that I mentioned, that are not humans.

Shaun (31:41.804)
which will be hopefully coming this year. And we have a 1 .1 release, which should hopefully be coming by the end of the year as well. Because obviously, while we did a lot of play testing, as soon as you hit the print button, you realize, oh, I should have put that in. It goes with any project ever. So what we're going to do is...

Adam Powell (31:50.442)
Alright.

Shaun (32:07.148)
This will be towards the end of the year. We'll release a free sort of upgrade pack So if you've already bought the like first edition, you don't need to buy the 1 .1 again. So I Think that's sort of it for this year. We want to do some streaming as well of some actual plays I think it'll be really fun

Adam Powell (32:19.211)
Okay.

Adam Powell (32:27.275)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (32:32.235)
Yeah, for sure. It sounds like it could really work. Some of the heavier tones can really create that emotional gravity within a scene. Absolutely. So you have created this game, and you're working on it. You mentioned there, Adventure released recently. The character sheet and the cheat sheet and things are available to go on the website and download.

Shaun (32:44.46)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (33:01.931)
So does that mean you've now got a bit of downtime? Do you get time to relax? Or are you constantly working? Or do you go to the gaming table to relax? How do you unwind from the creative process? Or do you?

Shaun (33:21.324)
Ooh, I, uh, there's one thing I struggle with is, is unwinding cause I enjoy the creative process so much. Um, but yeah, I, I play in a couple of games, um, which is great to, to unwind, but, uh, uh, generally I just chill out and watch other people be creative when I'm trying to unwind. So, um, alongside wandering's call that I am doing, I'm also developing a second.

TTRPG at the moment, a lot smaller one for a charity bundle, which will be coming next month, I think. So yeah, and when I'm not doing that, I'm either lapping or making lap equipment. So yeah, it's just all about the creativity, really. So try squeezing some reading books here and there if I can.

Adam Powell (33:57.547)
Okay.

Adam Powell (34:07.339)
Oh wow, cool.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Go on.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

That's all good stuff. Definitely all good stuff. So you mentioned there sort of planets and games and are there systems that you haven't got the chance to play yet you would be excited to play or things that have sort of influenced you away from, we've mentioned a few earlier, the world of darkness, Call of Cthulhu and others, fate, you mentioned. Are there other game systems yet you're excited to play but haven't had the opportunity yet?

Shaun (34:22.284)
Hmm, let's try.

Shaun (34:40.46)
Hmm.

Shaun (34:49.388)
Oh goodness, yeah, this below is the top of my head. Actually, there's a system I saw played on YouTube. The mystery quest guys, Tom Clark, this is the DM called Brindlewood Bay. It's a sort of you play old ladies who are in a sort of murder mystery club, but they actually go around solving actual mysteries.

and there's like weird Cthulhu elements in it as well, it's just very really unique and I'd love to have a go at that one. Again it's quite rules light and it's all about that fun narrative and if a player comes up with a fun idea then that becomes reality sort of style which I really love.

Adam Powell (35:44.331)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I've heard good things about Brindlewood Bay, absolutely.

Shaun (35:47.212)
Hmm I think the top of my head that there's so many that we really are in a sort of golden age of TTRPG's I think there's so many systems out there now. Mork Borg actually that's another one I've not had chance to play yet. You're probably seeing a trend in the games I like to play. That's another kind of sort of post -apocalyptic sort of grimdark type thing isn't it?

Adam Powell (36:08.843)
You

Adam Powell (36:17.003)
Yeah, yeah, but there's nothing wrong with having a penchant for certain themes and styles of play and things like that. Absolutely not.

Shaun (36:22.604)
Absolutely.

Adam Powell (36:28.075)
So we have discussed your introduction into TTRPGs, the creation of Wandering School, what Wandering's Call is and how we can engage with it and sort of a few of the game mechanics involved with it and all things in and sort of coming down the pipeline with respect to yourself and Wandering's Call. Is there anything at this point in the interview that we haven't spoken about that you want to bring up now?

Shaun (36:33.676)
Mm.

Shaun (36:58.444)
Hmm?

I don't know to be honest. I think we've hit a lot of points haven't we? I just want to be the salesman really but all I want to say is that the lore is incredible and I can say that because I didn't write most of it, it was probably not. But yeah if you like that sort of slightly strange...

Adam Powell (37:21.675)
Hmm.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Shaun (37:31.82)
sort of almost real, but what's that like uncanny valley type stuff, then you'll love this law.

Adam Powell (37:37.227)
Hmm.

I certainly want to check out, certainly want to check out. I've written a couple of notes and things I personally wanted to go back to. You mentioned right at the start you were home brewing. What was your homebrew world like and has any of your homebrew sort of eventually turned into something more than just bad ideas as you called it at the start?

Shaun (37:42.444)
Mmm.

Shaun (37:51.052)
Mmm.

Shaun (38:04.076)
Yeah, my first foray into home brewing the world wasn't very good, but luckily the world I'm home brewing now for my campaigns called Erdana is pretty nifty, I would say. That was actually my first Kickstarter before Wandering's Call. I did a campaign setting where...

I'd realized sort of three years into a campaign, it's like, goodness, I have a lot of notes here. So I thought, yeah, let's make it into a book. How hard could it be? Spoilers, it's quite hard. It takes a while. It's not so much difficult as books are, books take a lot more work than you think reading them. You got a lot of holes to sort of fill in, a lot of editing to do.

Adam Powell (38:44.491)
the

Adam Powell (38:52.235)
Yeah.

Shaun (38:59.628)
because people can't see into your head so you have to get it onto paper. So yeah, I'm really, really proud of that world now and I do hope maybe next year to release a second one of that because that campaign that originally sort of stemmed that book's over now, finished last year. So we're on a different continent now. So it's given me the opportunity to build up whole new cultures and things.

Adam Powell (39:03.659)
Absolutely, yeah.

Adam Powell (39:17.931)
Okay.

Adam Powell (39:25.163)
Oh wow.

Shaun (39:27.756)
Yeah, that book's available on my website as well.

Adam Powell (39:28.235)
Nice.

Adam Powell (39:32.363)
Well, I will get links again from you just in a moment, but I wanted to ask you mentioned the Distortor and the Soul Walker. Are they available through your website? They're available drive through RPG. Where, where DM's go? Where are they? Where do they exist for purchase or do they exist?

Shaun (39:39.82)
Hmm.

Shaun (39:49.708)
Yep, they're currently only on my website, but they will be very shortly on DMs Guild and itch. That's one thing I've been doing in the last couple of weeks is just pushing content out to various other sites. But yeah, the Soulwalker. Yeah, I think that was the first ever full class I homebrewed. And again, it was all about taking over.

recently deceased people's bodies and stealing their abilities and stuff. So it was quite different.

Adam Powell (40:27.051)
I can certainly agree with that. I can certainly agree with that. Shaun, where can we find you, your good self, at Wanderings Call and all the things you're associated with on social media and on the internet, please?

Shaun (40:28.876)
You

Shaun (40:42.124)
Yep, Wanderings Call, so the wider team, you can find it at wanderingscall .com. Again, most social media sites out there, Instagram, Facebook, threads, just if you search for Wanderings Call, will pop up. You can find me personally at shawnmvail .co .uk or on Instagram at shawnmvail.

Adam Powell (41:09.771)
All right, well, I will make sure there are links down the description below. So please scroll down, follow those links, support Shaun, support Wanderings Call, pick it up, find yourself or become a marshal and run Wanderings Call. It is a great system, D6. So you probably have enough of those in your respective houses or can pull together from board games and all that sort of stuff. So great, great system. Shaun, it's been so fantastic to get.

Shaun (41:20.3)
Hmm.

Shaun (41:28.172)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (41:37.867)
chance to chat with you today. I'd love to get you back on the show in the future to speak about more Wanderings Call or other projects that sort of come out of the creative pipeline that we've mentioned thus far. If you'd be of course willing to come back and join me.

Shaun (41:42.828)
Hmm.

Shaun (41:52.076)
No absolutely yes absolutely.

Adam Powell (41:56.203)
Well, it's been an absolute, yeah, no, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure to have the chance to chat with you today. So thank you so much for joining me.

Shaun (41:56.428)
I think. Great fun.

Shaun (42:04.652)
Thank you very much for having me.

Snyder’s Return

Interview - Shaun M Vale - Wandering's Call TTRPG

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