SWE #16 Knights of Mydista with Maxwell Allen Duncan

Embark with us and transmedia producer Maxwell Allen Duncan as we explore his story world The Time Realm through the first piece of transmedia content, the Knights of Mydista trading card game! 

Knights of Mydista: https://madaboutthis.media/knights-of-mydista/

This isn't your average trading card game; it's a portal to the world of Daer Lurra, where your victories the write history of a country named Mydista, and the characters you champion become the heroes of an ever-unfolding saga. Discover the six powerful factions locked in a dance of dominance and diplomacy, and become part of a story that transcends the table.

We spoke about the civil war and the factions & Adventures fighting for supremacy of a once untied Kingdom.  Most uniquely, Max intends on hosting annual tournaments that not only will host the premiere players of each faction, but pt them against each other to decide the fate of Mydista.  That’s right, the audience will decide major battle victories, who lives and dies, and ultimately the victor of the civil war!

The future transmedia outlets for Knight of Mydista are bright!  Join us!

Transcript

Jack Konrath: 0:04

Hello and welcome to another edition of Story World Explorers, where we're exploring the story world of the Knights of Mydista.

Frank L Konrath: 0:12

So the Knights of Mydista is a part of a larger story world the Time Realm created by Maxwell Allen Duncan, a good friend of ours and of the podcast, and we had a great conversation about Knights of Mydista, very specifically this trading card game in which you enter the Time Realm.

Jack Konrath: 0:28

Right, the Time Realm is a much broader story world, but we're focusing on just one little corner of it and the really cool part about this story world is that the audience actually gets a lot of say in how the story gets told.

Frank L Konrath: 0:41

That's right. So through different tournaments and different other ways of interactions, that play the game end up determining what happens in the entire conflict. So it's a great conversation. There's a lot of really cool factions and the characters that you get to play and once again, the tournaments sound like they're going to be a lot of fun to both watch, read and be a part of.

Jack Konrath: 1:06

And actually go to the tournament yourself like you're at a ball game and you're cheering on your favorite team, so grab yourself some popcorn.

Frank L Konrath: 1:13

Take a listen and enjoy. All right, great. Well, we are on with a very good friend of ours, maxwell Allen Duncan, transmedia former . He's a current transmedia producer God damn it. Current trans media producer, friend of, friend of the podcast, friend of the of the Konrath brothers. We got to meet you through Houston Howard was always a lot of fun. Houston always sends us really good guys that know what trans media is, what trans media is about. Today we were talking about your story world, the time realm, most specifically about the first entrance into the time realm Knights Mydista trading trading card game. It was very exciting. This is something that Jack and I have been working on independently, with Max as well, so we have a little bit deeper insight that we usually do. But, max, tell us about the time realm and then let's dive into this very exciting trading card game.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 2:04

Cool, yeah. So the time realm is something that I've been working on for now almost 20 years. It's kind of like everything that I've ever, every story I've ever wanted to tell but hadn't had the ability to do it, and it's kind of a culmination of like coming to understand trans media and coming to understand franchises and our connectivity, and realizing that all of these stories that I want to tell, even though they're different, they could all exist in the same world or the same worlds, which is what we'll get into. But really, essentially, the time realm is about an alternate Earth and two other planets that kind of exist within the same space but on different planes, and those planes start to merge together into one physical form. There's a lot, and so, in order to introduce it, we're going to scale it down a little bit and talk about just one corner of it, starting actually with the tabletop role playing game. So I've narrowed it down to nine different settings that I want to create over the next, you know, 10, 20, 50 years, and they're all these three worlds in different eras, and so you'll be able to play across space and time once you have like the whole set.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 3:40

So the first one that we're working on right now is also where the trading card game, the story of the trading card game, takes place.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 3:48

It's in a country called Mydista, on the planet of Daer Lurra, and the main conflict of the card game is that in the land of Mydista, the ruler dies and there's this kind of like power struggle between six different factions. They all kind of have a seat in the ruler's cabinet and now, with this vacuum, they're trying to fill in the space, and so these six different people groups sorry, these six different people groups are fighting for power. My goal is not only for people to watch and enjoy and read you know the stuff that's coming out but also to interact with it. And so I think one of the coolest things is this trading card game is not just because how do you tell a story with a trading card game? Right? The goal is to host tournaments for this trading card game, and the results of the tournaments dictate, kind of the history of the world and how this conflict plays out, and so the players will also, in a way, be playing a part in the creation of the story.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 5:15

And that's where we're starting.

Frank L Konrath: 5:16

Yeah, so that was a ton of information, so let's kind of break this down a little bit from the beginning. So, with the time realm, right, we have these three planets that are coming together right, they're existing on different planes. And a little spoiler alert you know, jack and I had already sat down with Max, we had gone through the time realm around this time last year and it got so big and so crazy and so confusing because there's so many different corners of a story world that really we need to be planning on. You know, expanding, expanding right, like you said, 20 to 50 years down the road, if everything goes right, this is the only thing that you ever work on right, and there's enough creative ingenuity within that story world because you could tell different types of stories. You know, like that, we know of, you know, on this alternate earth, that there are, you know, things that are happening that don't happen on this earth that allow for different types of stories to be told, with real life events morphing around that, such as World War One, world War Two and stuff not to spoil too much for you, but the within these. So it got so big right, and so let's talk a little bit about the trading card or that's trading card, the tabletop RPG, because, as everybody who listens to this podcast knows, we are big fans of tabletop RPGs.

Frank L Konrath: 6:42

We don't play tabletop RPGs. We enjoy reading the rule books of tabletop RPGs because of how much backstory you have to give. So each one of these planets, you have three planets. Each one of these planets has three eras in them, and that's how you came up with the number nine, right. Three times three is nine for our elementary school listeners that aren't in third grade yet. So we have nine rule books that are eventually going to be written right. And it's an important note that these you know the with, just with any sort of tabletop RPG, how in depth you have to be with those rule sets so that people can then make their own stories within those.

Frank L Konrath: 7:23

Once again, these nine different eras on these three different planets, which is a lot of fun. It's a really, really great idea. It's a great way for you to pace out your own story world. And we're literally talking, if you were to think about, like a three, three by three, like box right, with nine squares in it, and we're talking about the furthest left or furthest right. Bottom square is where the Knights of Mydista takes place. So it takes place very much on the very beginning of , the planet of Daer Lurra. So let's, let's talk a little bit about, like, setting the scene for the Knights of Mydista, for this trading card game. What is what is happening on just before the the clash between the six factions starts to happen? Excellent.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 8:15

So, in the creation of this planet, these six celestial star like beings come down and they start to create that, mold the planet and create life. The, the six beings, put together kind of a list of what humans should be. They develop the. What is essentially the magic system of is the human aspects, so the body, the mind, the heart, the soul and the spirit, and they all have different, like they're all. They're all obviously different. But my goal kind of, when we think of like personal health, a lot of times it's usually just physical, but there are so many different things about being a human that helps us, you know, stay alive, more than just our physical health or mental health or emotional health, our ability to interact with our people, our social lives and then our relationship to ourselves and like how we view ourselves, and so the magic system in that is kind of about keeping up those things and being healthy in all of these aspects, and to a point where if you are super healthy in these aspects, you you have some extra boons, some, some things that as a normal human you wouldn't be able to do. Another sense, you know, you obviously physical strength, for physical is the most easily understood one, and so they, these celestial beings, they create these different groups, these people groups. There's also, outside of this group, a, an entity that is about destruction. It's about you know nothingness about, like non existence, and it wants to change things and all to them and create isolation. Where, where, if, if a human being is isolated, it's hard to keep up with this. You know the social health stuff, you know things like it's targeting specifically all of those different aspects of humanity and causing suffering. And so we call them the outworlders. They're these like alien, monstrous beings that even just being around them like you're, you're, you're, if we're looking at like betrayal at the house on Humming Hill, it's a game. It has a sanity score, you know, and that's one of your, like your, stat points Just being around these things causes you to freak out and lose your mind and and all of these other things. It doesn't affect you, just just physically.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 11:36

And so, right before we get into this like power vacuum, part of the story, all of these factions are united there. They're one country, Mydista, is a united front against these outworlders, these monsters, and they've essentially come to a point where they've they've beaten them, they've pushed them back, they're, you know, on the outskirts of of everything and everything's kind of nice and fine. And so, whereas they were once a united front, this, this leader that I mentioned. This leader is some guy that comes from Earth, totally different planet. He just ends up on finding his way to Mydista and he can't get back.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 12:33

And so he, he's a World War I soldier, and he takes his knowledge of explosives, of tactics, anything he can, and helps them to fight off these, these outworlders. And then they race him up as as their, as their leader. They're like this guy's great, he's, he's from beyond our world, he's, he's helped us, he's saved us, he's our messianic kind of character, but of course he's human and he dies. And so now that they've raised up this one person to be their leader whereas before they were kind of a group group led Now this power vacuum happens and the leaders of each of these factions think they should be the one to take up the mantle, and so that's what kind of leads to this conflict that we see play out in the card game.

Jack Konrath: 13:31

So before this World War One soldier came. It was more of a government by committee and then, after they raised this one man up as king, they're like we can never go back to the way it was.

Frank L Konrath: 13:45

Right.

Frank L Konrath: 13:45

Well, I think that it was really what ends up happening, right, we've seen this play out in history a good deal in different times, and you know, max, when we were talking about this initially, like the start of Knights of Mydista, this internal conflict, the civil war between these six factions, which, once again, these six factions, represent six of the ideal qualities that you would find in a human being, right? So there you know the one. There is one that's the Tutio, that's very much about strength, and then there's Khari, that's very much about passion and friendship and alliance, and so you have these factions that are fighting each other. I think it's the same thing that happened after Caesar became dictator for life. No, I was just saying that that that's so.

Jack Konrath: 14:28

that's what happened, Like you know, so that's what happened.

Jack Konrath: 14:32

And then, as you were saying, it's like, it's almost like, because they're all parts of the same, of what makes a human being great. It's almost like they need all those aspects because, like you said, the the intellectual might be a little bit too cold and calculating, whereas the person who loves friends is too forgiving and doesn't understand. It's like, oh well, you know, they made bad choices, so they right. So that doesn't make any sense to give. You know, it's like the. If you know, the whole hen that baked the bread was like well, you didn't help me at any other points. Why am I going to give you the bread after I did all the work? Right, you know. So it's. It's interesting how they had this perfect system and then, of course, humanity had to fucking up.

Frank L Konrath: 15:11

It was like it's like they had a perfect balance to write. It was like, instead of before, before this World War One, which I love, the story about the World War One guy coming, but we're not going to spoil anything. It's one of my favorite things about Knights of Mydista that you don't like. You will know that the sky leader has died and that's what's causing the conflict. Right Is now who takes over? Right, as Alexander the Great said on his deathbed. When asked who will rule your empire, he said whichever one of you is the strongest, which caused no conclusions to come, and the you know the solutions and the Potomac Egyptian, it all fractured into a million different pieces and everybody all bunch of infighting. And so what? Yeah? So what I really love about it is that, like you know, the World War Two guys is a lot of. He's a lot of fun to be like. So the reason why the linchpin as to why the conflict started.

Jack Konrath: 16:05

I'm interested is why. Which one took the first blow, which one started the war? What? Like was it? Just he died, and then they're all like I actually don't like you. Or was there one person that was like I should lead and then like do we? Know how, the how, the what what was the sequencing of events that led to the Civil War after his death, or was there parts of it? Were there infighting already happening, leading up to the man's death?

Jack Konrath: 16:33

Oh, like jockeying for power Right, especially after he's on his deathbed, or and how long do the people on Mydista tend to live, and how old was the man? And do we name the man, as the man have a name?

Frank L Konrath: 16:45

Have you written all these questions down so you can address them accordingly?

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 16:48

in the order that you're going to ask. I will listen to the podcast numerous times. No, so what I like about this is leading up to the release of the card game. What I want to do, I'm taking a page. I'm not shy about it, I'm not right. I'm taking a page out of Overwatch's book.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 17:08

What I really liked about Overwatch's website was that they had all of the characters that you could play, as they had their own little stories, their little short animated short films, little short comics, you know whatever. I really liked that idea and so I'm going to steal it. And so, well further before the release of the card game, we're working on the website right now and I'm developing little short stories for each of the main adventures that you're able to play in the card game, and some of them will be talking about, you know, from their perspective, something that happened before, before the whole conflict started. Some will be after, you know, but we're going to explore that in individual stories about kind of the events that led up to the falling out and a little bit more exploring about the mysterious you know, soldier personally that leads up to this stuff. So while I don't have any concrete answers for you yet, that is being explored in those short, those character short stories.

Frank L Konrath: 18:22

Yeah, that's what's been a lot of fun too and that's a conclusion that, through some conversations, was the best way to kind of go about it, because you know we well, we're going to get into the card game, how it's played and such, and you know if, for those of you that are watching on YouTube, we'll even kind of show a little bit of like what the setup looks like and stuff like that. It's very well thought out. Max has done a great job, card layout wise, even just specifically about how you know we take attack points and this and that. So the man, I keep losing my train of thought. I just, I just look at the ground and I lose my train of thought.

Frank L Konrath: 19:01

We're talking about the short stories and the short stories right, the best way to do that because there are so many interesting like there are a couple of, like treasure cards or a thing, right, and there was while we were working on the great sort of Bali Nabaldi, as I like to say, I like to change names of things. You know, I was just writing, like you know, those little fun descriptions that you see on the bottom of the card right.

Frank L Konrath: 19:26

That just gives you a little context to what it is right. It doesn't doesn't mean anything for the card game itself, except if you're really interested as to what the sword is and I had it that you know the there was the original great sword and it's been lost to time and it was quenched in guardian blood and it was forged from a. You know, in this and that kind of stuff and actually making and, as we know from our conversation with Nick Jones, folkloric, just insights and really you don't need to think too hard about where the great sword came from. I don't. You know, max, when you had developed the great sword, it probably wasn't anything but just this gigantic, an actual great sword to hands.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 20:02

But when it shows, as a reference to to my D&D campaign, that I play right, right.

Frank L Konrath: 20:08

But it could be bigger, right, and it could show those and you know, even on the card game itself, with some of the things we have quirky conversations between two characters. This to show a little personality with the characters, right. And I love this idea of the short stories beforehand because then it's almost like a treasure puzzle piece type thing, right, it's like wait a minute. Well, celine said this about the World War one guy, but did he did that actually? Is that actually how he got you know? And then there will be eventually a trans media component that will tell the story of the World War one soldier because it's a very interesting story and his own motivations as to how he rate became the you know the right. Now, it's just that he knew how to make grenades. But, yeah, eventually you know his own personality, his own, you know, desires could come out a little bit like in man in the High Castle with John Smith, oh right, where it's like if you put somebody in a situation. Have you seen man in the High Castle?

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 21:13

I've not.

Frank L Konrath: 21:14

Okay, well, it's a dual like.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 21:18

I read for one of the parts, okay, but that's, I've read, so I've written one episode.

Frank L Konrath: 21:27

Okay, so, yeah, so essentially this character, john John Smith, he basically parallel universe one of the.

Jack Konrath: 21:34

Nazis win the war, and one where you know our timeline and how they're bleeding over. Essentially, the Nazis have figured out, or trying to figure out, how to go into parallel universes and conquer all that.

Frank L Konrath: 21:48

And so John Smith in the one universe where the Nazis won, he defected to the Nazis because he really enjoyed the military operations and he ultimately becomes the Reich master of the United States. Right, like he, he loved it so much. But then in the other side, in the, in the, in our world, he was like, oh well, good thing the war ended, because I don't know if I could have stopped, right. And now he's like a traveling salesman, and so what's interesting about that is, with the World War, with our character in Knights of Mydista and how he causes all this, like maybe if he had never come over, that never would have happened. He would have gone home, he would have raised a family, or maybe the outworlders would have taken over, right, and that too. And so that's a lot of fun as well, right, yeah, and seeing these characters evolve through this conflict.

Frank L Konrath: 22:33

Let's talk about the factions. We haven't talked about the factions yet. We have six factions. You'll see them on the screen. These are all cool looking, fun logos and such and with the little descriptors, and I'll let you just just run through all six of them, because I think that that, knowing the factions, and then we can get into the characters that are in those factions and what they tend to be better at and how that influences the card game.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 22:58

Excellent. So we have the Khari people. Their symbol is a heart or a rose. Sorry, we didn't change that. The symbol is a rose. Their colors red. They are the ones who are dealing with passion. Passion is their human aspect that they cling to. They favor romance and friendship above all things. This particular like conflict is very difficult for them because they are such social creatures. They have friends across the lines, especially all the soldiers across all the factions bond together in this, in this war against the outworlders, and now there's in fighting between factions. And so they're, they're facing their friends at the request of their families, and it's hard Right. And we have Tutio, as you mentioned before a favor physical prowess and endurance. They're all about maintaining their physical body and developing it to its maximum potential. And they're the inventors of competition which is really fun to play out. We have Elica a favor music and music and community and community with the natural world. They're very, very spiritual kind of, you know, hippy people. They're trade to trade right there.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 24:39

Trade yes, trade is big with them. And we have Gemyn. They are all about meditation, self reflection, very, very interpersonal, which then kind of causes them to be a little narcissistic. And that one is very close to my heart because when I took the quiz that I created, that's the one that I ended up getting, so that was kind of funny Setir.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 25:18

We have people who favor intelligence and mental fortitude above all things. They, they're kind of the the Zen mental, you know, philosophers and scholars of the group. And then we have Viggo, and these people favor repentance and forgiveness. This is their. They are kind of the people who are the most willing to serve others. And because I mentioned that there are five human aspects, but there were six creators, the sixth creator Vigo was supposed to to give them, give them a sixth aspect. It would have been providence, it would have been like protection, essentially, and he failed to do that, which is why people are immortal, and so his failure to do that has caused his people to desire forgiveness for that. They are seen as a reflection of his failures, and so a lot of what they do is just help others is their main goal, because that's what they can add to the conversation.

Frank L Konrath: 26:38

Yeah, gotcha.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 26:41

And so those are the six different groups that are present, and each of the groups they all have different character classes. Obviously, of course, this is based heavily on D&D. I've been playing D&D since I was 15. And so I love all of that stuff and I created these character classes. There are six of them, and so they bear similarities to traditional D&D classes, but I kind of consolidated it a little bit so that there's more concrete options.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 27:20

We have the chosen, who are the spiritual leaders, your paladins, your clerics and paladins. They're kind of the ones that are, we'll say, at most fault for the infighting, because they're kind of the ones bickering between themselves about what should lead. When the power guardians, the celestial beings, were in Mydista, these were the chosen people to speak to them, and they have the closest connection to the power guardians. Nowadays they're the clan leaders and they're the reason why everybody's fighting Savants. They're monastic magic wielders. While most of them are content to hide in their temples, they're dedicated to self-improvement on all aspects. Sometimes they can be found wandering and traveling to correct injustices, which is kind of cool. They're your monks, also kind of clerical.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 28:26

The vanguard are their hunters, archers, couriers. Some people are hired to be personal protectors. They're kind of your slick and sly, sneaky guys. The wayfarers are musicians, traveling merchants and guides. The world outside of Mydista is kind of dangerous and traveling to and from is risky, and so these guys are your guides, these are your yeoman, these are the ones that will travel with you, the good traveling buddies, and they'll play you a song. Soldiers, obviously, your fighters, barbarians. These guys are the front lines against the forces of evil. And then we have the outworlders themselves. So I talked about outworlders as these, like monstrous aliens.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 29:30

But also the name applies for any humans that are affected by alter magic. So you have your like, your witches, your warlocks, these kinds of people that like tap into this alien magic, that kind of are transformed by it, and they are also called outworlders. And for a lot of time these particular people were shunned by Mydista and are like nope, you're just as alien as the things that infected you. We don't want you around, you're gonna infect us, you're evil. But now that this conflict has become about control, some people have decided that these half human, half alien kind of things could be really good as weapons. These witches, we could really use them. I mean, hey, you're from my family, you know what you're family, right, right, right yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 30:40

It caused a lot.

Frank L Konrath: 30:42

It reminds me a lot of like recruitment of, just like physical specimens and sports. It's just like, oh no, we gotta go with that. I mean, look at him, he's seven feet tall. Like it doesn't even matter if he's never dribbled a basketball before. We have to have this guy on right, and so then it's a strategic type of thing. Or even in the fall of the Western Roman Empire, of most of the ranks were filled with paid mercenary groups. It's like you guys aren't Romans, but it's better than not having you right.

Frank L Konrath: 31:20

You know and so it's like that. It's interesting even that dynamic is kind of interesting about how you know, this whole war was fought against the outworlders. To keep them away, right, the true, pure blooded, if you wanna go that route, outworlders, right. And then now you have these guys that, like you said that they, I won't get corrupted by the power of what it is right, which you know, for whatever they do, they don't, it doesn't really matter, but that these chosen right, which you've alluded to, are the ones that are kind of causing this bickering back and forth of like no, we should be in charge, or you know personal goals which, once again, these are all just great stories as to like why you know certain facts entail each other. Or you know or don't like each other, or maybe they never really liked each other, or maybe they forgot that they liked each other.

Jack Konrath: 32:09

Yeah, I think well, because a lot of times the self itself is in conflict with other things. So the passion is always gonna be in conflict with the intellectual side of things. The friendship aspect is always gonna be a little bit more, is always gonna be in conflict with the fact that you don't know if this person is taking advantage of you.

Jack Konrath: 32:33

So there's a lot of times where it's like don't act on a. You know, don't act when you're angry. Don't go to the store when you're hungry, because you're gonna get a bunch of stuff you don't want.

Frank L Konrath: 32:42

Right right, right right.

Jack Konrath: 32:43

You can't always trust yourself.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 32:47

Yeah, and I like this, I like this idea, I like this idea and that's why, like all of this, even between other people could feel like inner turmoil, because it's like I understand this, but I also feel this and it's kind of hard to reconcile those things even just inside oneself as a human being Right, right, right. And so being able to personify those things into people groups and have that conflict there, I think it's very interesting.

Frank L Konrath: 33:15

Yeah. So let's wrap something, not wrap it up, but just let's put something in a category. So these character classes that you just said, right, we have the chosen, the wayfarers, those people, those six classes. Right, they, all of those exist across the entire faction. Right, each faction, it's not like Hari only have chosen and it's not like Tutti only have soldiers, though each faction does have, like, a more powerful type of class, right, so you can assume that Tutti is going to have the best soldiers, right? So when you're playing the card game, this is how we influence, or how the game influences, what you choose as your faction is going to be how you have to play them. If you try to play a magic attack forward, tutti campaign against somebody else, you're going to struggle, not because they don't have magic wielders, right, it's not like they don't have any savants or any wayfarers or any chosen, but it's just not going to be at the same level as, say, a Gemmon magic attack, right, just because of the faction traits and all these, the warriors and all like the chosen, and all these those character classes are all called adventurers in the card game. So they're called adventurers and they're right.

Frank L Konrath: 34:35

Now there are are there only two. There are two types. There are two types of cards. Yeah, there are only two types of cards.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 34:43

There are three types of cards three types of cards.

Frank L Konrath: 34:45

That's been a while.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 34:48

There's the adventurers treasure cards and the emblems.

Jack Konrath: 34:53

Oh right the emblems I forgot about the emblems. No, we haven't talked about.

Frank L Konrath: 34:58

the emblems are very important, so we have we. So we've talked about the adventurers card. We're kind of getting into the actual card game itself. So the adventurers are the ones that are doing the fighting right, like those are the guys that you're putting into attack positions and defensive positions, or a non, non leading adventurer? Gosh, what was the?

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 35:21

So there's the active position and then the passive position.

Frank L Konrath: 35:23

Correct, there you go, right. So in active positions and passive positions, and then the treasure cards and the emblems are attached to those cards. So go ahead and explain what the what the emblems are.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 35:37

Yeah, I mean I grew up playing card games. I played Yu-Gi-Oh so much as a kid and when I was old enough to have my own money I learned how to play a Pokemon and match it to gathering. Those are the big three in in card games and I love card games. I love like turn based strategy. But I noticed there's like this thing called power creep that is present in card games and I was trying to figure out how would I solve power creep? And I think that's kind of just where I started with this card game.

Frank L Konrath: 36:19

What is power creep for those of us who don't know?

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 36:22

So if you think about a Pokemon card, in 1997, charizard had 120 HP, right? Nobody knows that famous card that's worth like hundreds of thousands of dollars right now that we all know it has 120 HP. Well, as new sets come out that you want the new cards to be worth something, you want the new cards to be able to be used, and so what tends to happen is you add more strength, more HP, more attack power, and so now Charizard has like 900 HP, you know, and it's like now the old cards aren't usable anymore because they're weak compared to the new cards, and this is a thing called power creep. It happens in almost every card game ever with new sets, you want them to be stronger, so they're usable. And so my idea for how to combat that, along with the idea that I wanted it to be interactive, is that to tell a story behind it.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 37:34

These adventurers are here, they're fighting, and so the goal is, when we host a tournament, whoever makes it into the finals will take those two factions right, the cards that they chose to use let's say it's Ellica and Gemin the finals match, whatever happens in that match, determines what cards stay and what cards go for next year.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 38:07

So, for example, we're going to take that as this is, this is this one particular battle in history, and if, during the course of that match, certain characters die, like Garrett from Ellica, garrett is slain, his character is gone, he's dead, and so in the next set he's not going to be available anymore, because we're now setting points in history at this point. So obviously that means that the more powerful cards are usually going to make it to the finals, and that way the powerful cards can get banned over the story and then new sets will kind of come in and replace those. You know, right, the set is probably going to have this you know more of the same factions that had cards banned from them, and it's kind of a way to keep the old cards usable and to allow the players to interact with the story and create it Right.

Frank L Konrath: 39:27

And to still allow new characters to come in without having them need to be like. Well, why would I use this card over Garrett? I like Garrett. Oh well, garrett's dead. So here's, like you know, garrett's brother thirsty for revenge. You know, coming in and replacing it.

Jack Konrath: 39:43

And so, yeah, so I'm interested in this aspect of everybody, kind of you know the tournament and like so now how and how, like, if people die, it's actually you know, and the outcome of this battle of the card game is actually going to influence history, and then you could retroactively tell exactly how that battle happened via any type of story you want, right, right, so that's interesting. But now I'm trying to figure out how are we going to help? Well, not how are we, but how are you going to design these tournaments? Is it going to be like, okay, and now this year, this year and this year in Mydista, we have these eight different battles and all these three people are attacking each other and there's going to be like a little contest to see who who actually get to the end battle, who will decide who wins. Or are we going to have it so like it's only two factions are always going to be versing, so like, how much of the, how much of the setup is going to happen, so that maybe you can kind of get the you don't have to get the exact ending you want, but you can also ultimately boil it down to like, oh, this is what happened in this region at this time, in this battle with these two.

Jack Konrath: 41:01

These two people were the ones that actually met in this Valley of the Gorge, or whatever the hell you want to call it. These are the two factions that met, and that's because of the way these people were going throughout the tournament. This is just where these two, these two entities, met. And how many like? Because you have six. I'm imagining that you can only verse one V one at this point, unless there's some kind of battle royal thing that's going to happen and you can, and then there's like an alliance that happens against these two, and now it's two against one, so like. So how how are you planning on having each tournament actually have a story within itself, so that you can then?

Frank L Konrath: 41:43

you know, I also want to put into here just really quick, before we jump in here, that we were talking about the emblems and we've gotten onto tournaments. Just we just took a right turn.

Frank L Konrath: 41:55

So, maybe, maybe, just a little basis of of what the tournaments are, right? So let's just, let's just take a step back, right? Well, we'll talk. We'll talk about all the stories and everything too, but these tournaments are supposed to be like, like Max was saying, like points in history in which the card players themselves, the ranked card players I think that we honestly should have chess ranking kind of things right, like who gets to play in these tournaments that decide history. They better be the best players for those teams, right? How do you, how do you scale that? How do you do that?

Frank L Konrath: 42:28

So, these large tournaments that eventually, right, when the two best players say we go with Ellicott and Gemmon again, that they are these are the two best players for these factions, and this is a real battle. People can die, the stakes are real, right. So what are like? The tournaments themselves, right, are you know, ongoing? Some of them are going to be significant, right? Some of them are going to be significant for the history of Mydista and that allows the players themselves, the audience themselves, to influence the history. Decide what happens in this battle. We don't know, max doesn't know, right? We don't know who wins this battle at the end. Nobody knows it is not written. It will be written by the audience, right.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 43:13

And so I like that you brought that up, because the goal there is, obviously we're setting it up where, if we do like, like you said, do local tournaments, where that's when, if you win a local tournament, then you're able to enter the big tournament, right, right, and so it's a limited number of entries, right. But the idea behind it is we will have crafted a story to start the tournament to say, hey, this is, this is what everybody's after at this point, right, so if everybody claim, whoever claims this fort has has a huge swing in the battle, it's like sure, it's like, it's like playing risk. Whoever gets all of Australia's is got a good, you know, advantage, right, so tournament one the story is who somebody's trying to claim this particular location and they will have a huge advantage in the in the upcoming battles in the future, right, and then we will write multiple different stories depending on who ends up in the finals and who ends up winning, right, right, so we will be able to read Okay, so we just found out that Elica and Gemyn are here. We're going to read the, the one that we the pre written story for that particular matchup I like. All right, officially, this is canon. This is what is happening Match right and then the match happens and we will also have a pre written for whoever's victorious Right Of. This is what happens. This is how it goes and in the future, this is what's happening, and then what I plan on doing is obviously these, this finals matches pretty big For the story. We will then write out and create, like a short film or or whatever, depicting that battle as it is played out in the finals, turn right and so so to compete for that.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 45:30

I was trying to think of it when, when working on a franchise, think of it from the perspective of the player. To compete is to win a local tournament. Take your favorite faction up to the finals, decide the fate of your deck and everybody else who plays your deck, the future of them for the next year and potentially be half of the, the creative part of how that point in history plays out in a short film, right. So I take the, I take the test and I get gammon right. Yeah, I really like this character, celine. She's awesome and I read her short story. It's my favorite short story I've ever read. Yes, I want to play my deck with Celine as my lead and I want to take her to the finals and I won't win, and I want to see that victory depicted on screen. And that's that's. I, as a fan, as a, as a participant, as a consumer, have participated in the creation of this story, right, you know? And that's that chasing that feeling, that that feeling this is something that that we did together.

Frank L Konrath: 46:53

Yeah, yeah. And then how terrible you'd feel if Celine died. Yeah, you were responsible for it, but then you would be able to see that.

Jack Konrath: 47:01

But what I was trying to say is, like I think that these tournaments can be a very interesting storytelling device, like you could say, the goal of this tournament it's called the tournament is called the, the battle of bull run, yeah, the battle of the battle of bull castle, whatever you know, whatever it is battle of bull castle. But, like, we also have the idea of, like you know, that's the finals, you know, but who's going to make it to the finals? You can, it's like with anything. It's like there's a major battle, there's little battles that happen, that kind of get you up there. Skirmishes, skirmishes, that will happen each time.

Jack Konrath: 47:37

And so it's like, kind of like, as far as the storytelling, you set up the scene of how this is happening, how where these, all these factions start off, and you can go as a player into these things and be like I might not make it into the final, and and how many players does each team get? Is is another question I'm having. Like, because maybe there are alternate, like maybe if, if you win your battle against the one thing and they retreat, but you and you have some wounded people in your before the final happens, you can then give those to the people that make it to the final, or maybe there could be multiple players that get into the final. And then there's another big strategy thing.

Frank L Konrath: 48:18

Well, I just know, I know you're, but the end right, the end of, in terms, of the war aspect of it.

Jack Konrath: 48:25

it would be better not better, but it would be interesting if it's like oh, if there's three people on my team and they all have different adventures that they are using and we split that deck, or however it works, and if I win this, I can secure this side of the battle, which which then will help me funnel more of more troops.

Frank L Konrath: 48:47

I mean, I mean it's just, I mean it could be really much just that way, like you could you could have it with like all these battles then kind of like maneuvers on a battlefield Right.

Frank L Konrath: 48:59

But I think that the important, the important aspect to see, like how it actually is going to work right is, is questions that are going to come up and stuff. I think, like the first one might literally be like this is just a battle that's happening, right, because you know, I know this for a fact that you're the the idea of next generation of cards or at the next deck is that there are going to be things introduced to that next deck that isn't in the first one, right? So siege equipment and steeds and stuff like that that could dramatically change how those tournaments are played.

Jack Konrath: 49:28

Right, I'm just saying that I think like and this is obviously on on a on a larger scale, when you know maybe there can even be, like you know, a mountain that you're climbing, as in each, each, you know, each, each battle happens on a different part of this, like map that is already on the floor.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 49:47

You know, I see what you're saying. So if we look at like a, like a tournament bracket, yeah yeah, each each part of the bracket is a different location.

Jack Konrath: 49:56

Yes.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 49:56

It's a future thing.

Frank L Konrath: 49:58

Yeah, I really like that idea.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 49:59

Actually, that's really really cool.

Jack Konrath: 50:00

Really interesting.

Frank L Konrath: 50:01

Well, that way that would be a way to get like two players playing the same faction on, like if it was like, if you want to do five versus five, which might be a great way of doing it right, and it's. Those are like individual battles and because of how, like Khari wins here and then that means it's kind of outflanking Elica on this side, and that's important because of and maybe and right and and if how the people win could also be like.

Jack Konrath: 50:29

So like, let's say, every battle happens and there's, if you win the battle, you get to go one way. But if whoever wins the battle by the biggest margin gets the choice, it's like oh, I'm this people, I match up better against this than I do, the other team, that one, so I can choose to go this way. Well, that team has to choose a different way.

Frank L Konrath: 50:50

Yeah.

Jack Konrath: 50:50

And you kind of can you know it's, there's a lot of extra layers of strategy that go into that. Yeah, and that's kind of war, you know.

Frank L Konrath: 50:57

No, right, right.

Jack Konrath: 50:58

Yeah, so it's like it's very interesting and then just the, the, the storytelling that then can happen, even in the tournaments. You might actually get people to show up to the tournaments just to watch it like more than enough, like people could be cheering in their LL here.

Frank L Konrath: 51:14

Well, that's what you would hope.

Jack Konrath: 51:15

That's what you would hope Like but and if it's just like you know, just like you know, three people at a folding table, no, well, I mean, it'll definitely start, it's, it's no, I'm just saying, I'm saying I'm like it could be very much like 16 people in a row and you can have everybody like I mean there's going to be time, you know, like, yeah, like, but there's obviously going to be like commentation and stuff and concessions.

Frank L Konrath: 51:37

We're talking, we're renting out the entire McCormick place for this and the McCormick place is huge.

Frank L Konrath: 51:42

It had more than enough space to hold the entire Chicago Comic Con. I don't even know what it was called. It wasn't called Comic Con, but they had that, and then there was still plenty of space. Was it called Comic Con? I think it was. Anyways, we went there, it had already ended and we just walked through. We didn't even pay, and everybody's like how did you get here? Um, because we didn't have badges, and we're like, we just kept walking and nobody stopped us. Um, okay, so that I mean the tournament idea. It's such a great one because it brings the audience right into what it makes them decision makers in. In which way? Right, how they played, um, who who's in the next deck? And then also back to the character stories. Garrett of Elica dies, right, and then was like, who's this new character or new characters that come out that may not have been in the conflict, but now, because this character, right, we joke that his brother would come in and like, yeah, well, and that his, that his brother could be in.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 52:36

It is probably going to be in the short story. You know, right, it's it's it's his world, is his companions, it's his like life that we see in the short story and so they're like well, I, I remember in the short story he was going after this Did he ever reach that goal? No, right. And now he's out of the tournament forever, he's out of canon, he's officially died. How is that that goal going to be met? And now it's somebody else taking up the mantle of being like. You know, he wanted this and he never got to see it through. I'm going to see it through for him Right now. And these characters that are present, as you know, side characters in a short story, interacted with in the short story, can eventually be made into cards and stuff like that, you know they, they, they, they uphold the call of war.

Jack Konrath: 53:26

They like, yeah, my friend died, I guess I have to volunteer for this. This conflict is getting very real to me, you know right.

Frank L Konrath: 53:34

That's closer to home.

Jack Konrath: 53:35

Right, you know, and then you know you have like a lot of different ways to tell these stories too, which is cool. I was just thinking about. You know. Now we have, since we're going to be spanning I don't know how many years this conflict of modista happens, but you could be, you know, it could be a generation, and then you have these family lineages that are happening and it's like all the trees yeah.

Jack Konrath: 53:54

He died here and then that's what made him there. Then he ended up doing something else. I mean, I don't know how in depth you want to get to like their family life and how many children they have. And is it even possible, after the brother dies, that his son comes up and avenges him as like a 10 year old? You know, you don't want that guy to go war. Right, right, right you know, so it's very. There's a lot of deep storytelling that you get.

Frank L Konrath: 54:18

The tunneling that you can do. You know that you get there and but I think the really a lot of different medians too, right, I?

Jack Konrath: 54:24

think. But the unique part about it is that these card games are actually going to be influential in what happens next and where this is going. It almost gives it. It gives it like, like you know, there's the only reason why Madden keeps getting another, another game every year is because the Super Bowl happens every year and the roster's changed every year. And it doesn't matter how crappy the game is.

Frank L Konrath: 54:51

People buy it because they want to play as their own.

Jack Konrath: 54:54

I want to play as the team that I think should have won the Super Bowl, right, you know, last year, and this is kind of like you know, you are now giving it into the people that are trying to tell the stories. I mean, I'm sure that eventually you want to hire a bunch of actors to kill themselves in these super battles. You know, like actually make it work.

Frank L Konrath: 55:16

Actually, you know, actors kill themselves. They kill stuff, films. You know where it's like yeah, he died.

Jack Konrath: 55:21

I'm sorry, no one was able to save him. Where's the mage? Oh, the mage is another actor that can't actually do anything. Oh no.

Frank L Konrath: 55:29

And I think that I think what's what's interesting to is the you could you could call it a little bit of a media mix with how you know battle happens, and then you could show the battle in a different medium. But I think that it's so much more expansive to be able to see how these fights actually happened. You could know the end result, but it would be so much fun, but you know, to see like an illustration, a cartoon, the animation or live action or something to see how these battles happen, because really the guy who's playing the cards isn't going to be like oh, you know.

Frank L Konrath: 56:00

Garrett goes like I wish I could have seen my brother one less. You know that kind of stuff like lose that Right.

Jack Konrath: 56:05

You're adding a lot of you're adding a lot of story and dramaticism right within those live action versions. And then also, what we were talking about is that after the characters killed, you know, then all of a sudden you could have this wide scaping. You know series about this character, the decisions that made him go left versus right, that all kind of, were chosen by the people that were playing the game. But now get like, now there's an actual reason behind, a conscience behind it. Well, no, now there's not actually we salt and peppered it.

Frank L Konrath: 56:38

Yeah.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 56:38

Made it Made it Well. I imagine too, like like you play as your two to deck in the tournament and you make it through the first couple of rounds but you lose and you're out of the brackets, but then you see somebody playing that same deck, continuing on and going to the finals, and you're watching those characters that you have, that you've played this battle for that you know you have this kind of connection to continuing on into the finals and either winning or losing. The drama is there.

Frank L Konrath: 57:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 57:11

And and and. It's crazy, that's heartbreaking to be like. I didn't make it. If I had made it, I would have won that. Right, right, right, whatever.

Frank L Konrath: 57:20

I got screwed.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 57:21

Yeah, exactly, or or hell yes, the character that I played one, it was great.

Frank L Konrath: 57:28

Right, or one day I hope to be as I was running my splint.

Jack Konrath: 57:32

The barbarian tactic Right and that guy is the same tactic and that's what won the day, you know right Not to go back into like football, but like it could be kind of cool, Like when you're going through the bracket.

Jack Konrath: 57:46

Let's say one of your characters dies in the bracket but he's not in the finals, so he wasn't slain, Right. But because those are all things that we're trying to make into the story, maybe he gets if he dies in one of the lower brackets he's like injured, or you know, maybe he like a third of his hit points are gone. So now you're like oh, I want to keep this guy alive when I'm going into the final, so I don't want to play him the way I would normally play him, which could lead to a lot of interesting storytelling where it's like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he got injured in this battle. We don't know exactly how he got injured, but like in the movie of this battle, now we have oh, we had, like this arrow in his thigh and he wasn't able to charge the front lines in the main battle like he wanted to. He survived, but only because he got injured in one of those other battles.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 58:38

Yeah, I like, I like that idea. I think that it would have to be in like a digital tournament format so that that could be tracked a lot easier. Yeah, right, you're thinking about it like card wise. You know how, how to track all of those numbers. And would be crazy because I mean you're going to, you're going to lose party members you know, left and right as the tournament goes on. It has to be a really small tournament, or you know, there's only there's only 75 characters or something, something around that.

Frank L Konrath: 59:18

Yeah, there's not a ton of 72 adventures, yeah 72 adventures, so there's not a ton of adventures to do that just yet. Where, like each one would be, like the lower brackets would be so important. Yeah, there, I remember you telling me that like we were having conversations like. Yet in a in a future deck you would have the injured version of like for card, like injured glory in right, which is kind of interesting because you would use that card like has no hit points, but the passive ability of that card might still be worth, you know, taking it, so that, oh, maybe I take a maybe I take an arrow in the past position and die, but it was worth getting the passive ability.

Frank L Konrath: 1:00:00

So there's a lot of expansion in stuff that can happen within this game. You know we didn't get a chance really to talk about the treasure cards, but they work just like swords and spells that buff your character stats when you're attacking another character, and then the emblems themselves, which essentially turn them into or not turn them into, but become harness, the power guardian that they are, that their faction is connected to, and that gives them buffs of, you know, 10 HP and 10 attack and stuff like that, which is really cool, almost like a power ranger going into morphin time and they get into this and then they can use that, that buff, for, you know, three in game turns before it leaves and it has to be put away, which is a lot. It's a cool aspect to it as well and the emblems are going to be extremely rare, so it's not going to be emblem versus emblem or like you're not going to have all those in the deck. There'll be limits and such. We've touched on it a couple of times.

Frank L Konrath: 1:01:05

I want to make sure we get it in here the website, which is going to be a whole onslaught of the, where the short stories are. I sent Max sent something to you the other day, conan the Barbarian. I don't. I don't know how this popped up on my LinkedIn, but they had an interactive map, and by interactive it was just a map that had little points that you could click on and then it would pop up, which I think would be a really good idea for the Knights of Mydista website, absolutely so that you could see where these factions, these factions, are situated in different areas.

Frank L Konrath: 1:01:36

There's a lot of backstory that we couldn't really get into, and then so we have the website that's going to have a lot of fun stories coming up periodically that you can go and check out. The link will be in the description. And then also we've talked about the quiz to find out what faction you're in based on questions that Max has developed. How many questions were in that quiz?

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 1:01:58

I think it's 10 questions 10 questions.

Frank L Konrath: 1:02:00

It's still in development. Previously in the podcast, jack mentioned that you know, you maybe the passion and friendship faction, which is Khari, don't always get along with the intellectual and philosophical side, which is Satir, which they don't always get along. And ironically, those are the two factions that Jack and I got. So, just like those are the ones that we got, I had Khari and then Jack was Setir and Gemyn was Max, there was only one point away from a different one, wasn't? It Right. Yeah, we were all basically tied.

Frank L Konrath: 1:02:34

Right. So there's there's there's some bugs that still need to be worked on. I'm really excited about the quiz, though it's so much more in depth than what Hogwarts legacy did with the Wizarding world, with what house you're in, where it was essentially like, like I said, I wanted to fix power creep, I wanted to fix that terrible Pottermore to quiz.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 1:02:54

It's like you know it's like this whole franchise is built on fixing the bullshit of other franchises, Right.

Frank L Konrath: 1:03:02

And then, of course, unknowingly making other bullshit that somebody else is going to come and fix right.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 1:03:07

Like. This is the way that the world works.

Frank L Konrath: 1:03:09

So, yeah, the questions were really, really fun. You know there were a couple of them that we had to sit there and really think about which way you would go. And you know each question, each answer gives you certain points into each faction and then at the end you tally up how much you get and then you would get your faction. You don't have to choose that faction. Just like in Hogwarts legacy, everybody was looking Slytherin anyways, even though they were getting Hufflepuff. But it gives you a basis and an initial loyalty, which I think is really fun for a fan base to immediately go like.

Frank L Konrath: 1:03:41

You know what I am Satir, that's right. And then those guys are your guys. Ride or die. I mean the everybody who listens podcast knows we are Bears fans and that's a ride or die till you die, kind of thing, and it sucks, but that's what you are right. And so, even if your faction is not winning, you hope to God that somebody comes along and becomes the best player and is able to change your fates and your fortunes. So that's a lot of fun. Those are going to come out. And then, as if you don't already follow Story World Explorers on Instagram and then LinkedIn, definitely do so because as updates come up with all of the story worlds that we've had on the podcast, we share those. So if the, if when this comes out, the podcast isn't or the, the quizzes done yet, you will know about the quiz. Yeah, so any any final final thoughts, max on Knights of Middleston.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 1:04:36

I'm just excited to be working on it. I think we've had a lot of fun. I want to thank you both, because just talking about it over the years has been really informative and really helpful, because I'm a scattered brain, you know, and so, like I said, all of these things are coming from different places, right, and I think it's coming together really well, and that is in no small part to our conversations. So I want to thank you guys for being a part of this.

Frank L Konrath: 1:05:06

Of course, and as we say at the end of every podcast, anything that you need from us, all you have to do is ask, and if we can do it, we will help. Yeah, thanks for being here.

Maxwell Allen Duncan: 1:05:16

Of course. Thanks, guys.

Jack Konrath: 1:05:18

Thanks for adventuring with us in Trepid Explorers. If you want to explore more story worlds, don't hesitate to watch anything from our catalog that's right.

Frank L Konrath: 1:05:27

I would highly recommend Christian Nome, just because of the tabletop RPG, which actually, thankfully, he was the one that introduced us to that whole concept. But a lot of great stuff. If you want more story worlds that you're looking to explore, we have those options. And then educational stuff as well, if you want to learn more about transmedia and how to create your own story world. Thanks for watching, thank you, thank you, thank you.