hey everyone CJ here welcome to the
first episode of open the world map in
this new series I will be interviewing
Dungeons & Dragons in other T RPG
players game masters and game designers
from all over the world to investigate
the worldwide phenomenon of tabletop
role-playing games if you have ever
wondered if the Japanese prefer Dungeons
and Dragons or their own tabletop role
playing games or if Australians play the
game differently then stick around and
subscribe to the channel as I will ask
your question directly in this maiden
episode I will be interviewing
Australia's own Justin holiday game
master and designer of the Ennie
award-winning tabletop RPG for children
hero kids I will be asking him what the
tabletop RPG scene in Australia is like
and also how Australians play it
differently to Americans hey Justin how
are you I'm good how are you CJ yeah
pretty good yes okay so this is going to
be our first interview this is gonna be
our
around-the-world interview I'm gonna
interview everybody from all different
countries starting from a place I'm
really familiar with Australia because
I'm living here and of course
Justin I've met you before
you are a great game designer you have
created hero kids and other stuff and I
also saw you playing Dungeons & Dragons
last time okay as an Australian maybe
it's a bit of a stupid question but I
have to ask it do Australians play
Dungeons & Dragons yes we do we just do
it very badly or very different
actually we don't we do it I think um I
think you know often over the the 40
years that Dungeons & Dragons has been
around I think it's been very hard to
know how other people play the game and
you know because a lot of it is like
this kind of oral tradition of how the
game is played you know people pick up
the books and they they you know they
might learn from one person who's come
from one country to another or someone
who's travelled but nowadays when we
have so much actual play content on on
YouTube you know you can see that our
our traditional play is the same
everyone else's except that on YouTube
you know a lot of the there's a lot of
them or three theatrical kind of
approach to some of the actual plays but
you can see when you get the real ones
or you get podcasts about people playing
that they have all the same kind of
style of play that we do here and they
have you know all the same challenges
that we face whether we're game masters
or players or whatever so it's it's
really even though you know they're the
kind of the Hobby may have grown in
isolation here you know just from the
books or just from little you know a
little bits of learning and knowledge
transfer they've all kind of converged
into this same kind of global way of
playing role playing games even
like some American shows like critical
role or some other like Adventure Zone
those that were pretty popular in
Austria too isn't it
yeah yeah the kind of the revitalization
of dungeons dragons that we've seen over
the last couple of years you know those
shows have been kind of pivotal in that
and a lot of people are coming into the
Hobby now because they've been listening
or watching you know critical role on
Twitch or listening to the podcast
listen to Adventure Zone and other other
games as well so you know that that's
coming with certain expectations that
may be a slightly different from actual
table play but you know the experience
is very similar yeah I've heard a lot
about that it's like some people say
yeah what you see online is usually
different from what people experience
around the tables though yeah so before
all this show started coming in is that
is in certain really sort of an
Australian way of playing that you see
is getting changed no I think that um
that there's always going to be
different people who who kind of who
different parts of the game appeal to so
this could be so so I think I sometimes
think that things like critical role and
those things are performances and and
you know what the the performance is
different from the experience you might
have as a as a person who's
participating in a thing this is like
the difference between watching you know
professional sports people play a game
and you know amateurs like ourselves
playing the game or you know kind of you
know
you know semi semi-professionals so
there's a level of theatricality there that you don't get at a
normal table and you know at a normal
table you know when you're playing D&D
or another game you know you have all
sorts of kind of distractions and all
sorts of other things going on you know
when people play a home game you know
they're in their house they're thinking
about food there's dinner the snacks
there's all those sort of things whereas
when you're when you're doing a podcast
you know again for a podcast or a game
for live-streaming you have the
undivided attention of your players for
appeared for those you know 1 to 3 hours
so I don't think that there's there's
much different you know here in
Australia you know we've got the same
everyone has the same challenges
everyone you know from all the podcasts
I listen to everyone has the same
situations they're playing with the same
tools they're telling very similar
stories you know we just maybe have a
slightly different accent when we do it
one thing I have noticed though actually
is is that when I am when I'm
role-playing I I often fall into
different accents with my characters I'm
playing so I fall I fall into American
accent or other makes sense I find it
very difficult to roleplay in Australian
and I wonder if that's because all of
them you know so much of our media comes
from overseas has come it comes from
America or England or other places and
there's so little of it that we get from
ourselves so you know that's one thing
that that I do find challenging and
different about role playing here in
Australia compared to other it's always
some Scottish isn't it I guess you know
like sort of work I started doing that
you know what sort of like RPG creature
do you think should have an Australian
accent oh gosh Australian accent so I
mean maybe it maybe if you're doing some
kind of pocket a post-apocalyptic thing
you could you know you're doing if
you're doing Mad Max I think you could
stick with the Australian accent then
you know that's a that's a piece of you
know of media of you know of our
cultural identity that is global and
that you do associate or I associate
with Australian Asst whereas you know a
lot of other stuff
whether it's some kind of you know
medieval stuff you go for English or
Scottish accents these kind of European
accent you know if I'm playing a modern
scientist ort of thing it might you know
skew towards American accents if it's a
space thing I'm not sure how an
Australian accent in space oh it's very
strange yes and how about the like
logistics you know you know Australia is
really enormous ly large place it's like
and most of the population is located
around like a few cities and but still
it's a quite a distance to go from one
place to another maybe like a game shop
could be like dozens of kilometers away
so how do people find that games here do
people go to each other's houses more
often or do you find that more people go
to game shops well I mean certainly um
before five years ago everyone played at
home I you know I think you know and
then with the with the kind of
introduction of organized play through
the Pathfinder society and the dungeons
of dragons encounters kind of program
which probably are a bit more than five
years ago now but you know in that kind
of time period they started to to see
people playing at at games shops and our
other kind of organized locations
aside from conventions obviously where
you know we didn't even have well we
have a bunch of smaller conventions but
not like packs that we've had now for
the last five years where there's a lot
of play so before before this period it
was predominantly home games and that's
when you know you would you would meet
people at school at university at work
and you would gather together a group of
friends and acquaintances and and randos
maybe you know people that you've met
somehow and they would you know you
would bring them to your house and you
would play a strange strange game
together you know once a week or every
fan you play and yeah well it would I
mean in the bush you know you might that
might be a worry but you know certainly
we met through organized play
and that was one of the things that I'm
you know I wanted to when I started
designing role-playing games I wanted to
get more involved in the community
aspects of it and have more
opportunities to play games so I
actually you know this at the time a
friend of mine had started a shop up and
you know I thought okay well maybe we
can do organized play in the shop you
know they were looking for activities to
do and we played this was it after the
period of where Magic the Gathering had
been hugely popular and you know had
almost killed role-playing games for a
period of time and then you know sort of
magic had kind of the high tide was
starting to recede a little bit I mean
it's still hugely popular with Sun
taking anything away from but people
coming back to role-playing games you
know D&D 4th edition had an organized
play kind of scenarios and and materials
available Pathfinder Society also had
the same um so I had offered I offered
to set up organized play at the shop and
you know this was um you know they've
got the materials off farm Wizards of
the coast and you know we started
building from nothing at the game sell
oratory and over you know over a few
years we built up from me sitting at the
table wondering if someone would show up
on the night so having um you know at
our most successful nights we'd had we
had a hundred players there and you know
that 11 or 12 tables running it was it
was out of it was almost out of control
we had to limit it after that was there
was too much it was too hard to manage
so you know I think that nowadays you
have you have this mix of organized play
it shops because lots of shops are
offering organized play and there's even
some places here in Melbourne where
where we live you know there's a game
Zilla which has Monday night games at
our restaurant as well you have you have
good games and games laboratory offering
you know D&D and other games on multiple
nights of the week and that now you have
many more places to find home games as
well you have meetup comm which um has
you know looking for game kind of place
you have read up where you can go and
post about your games and whether it's
in the slash Melbourne or whatever your
city is or
lfg kind of forum there so there are a
lot more ways of finding games and
finding people to play with
um but you always have the same issues
of okay you know oh and you can play
online okay you know this technology
that we're using right here means that
people can play just from their house
they don't have to leave they can play
you know at night when the family is in
bed with people around the world so
there are so many more opportunities now
that you don't have to just be finding
and dragging your friends in to play and
some of these some of them are better
some of them were so I'm going to make
it harder or easier to find people that
you're going to gel with you're going to
work well with but once you get a good
game you know you want to keep keep keep
playing that for as long as you can yeah
and it's like it's the interesting thing
is that you know I find it lot of people
in America play in comic book shops
don't they it's like we don't have I
haven't seen any comic book shop that
hosts a D&D game nah
no and a lot of I mean a lot of those um
you know in their period where magic was
big a lot of those comic book shops you
know had magic and kind of you know
there was they kind of crossover there
of those curves but yeah I certainly
haven't seen the comic book shops here
doing D&D maybe it's a maybe because
they don't have activity spaces maybe
because they're they're you know they're
areas I mainly set aside for a stock and
you know selling people well you know
action figures these sites
what other RPGs you think are pretty
popular in Australia in Australia oh god
it's a D&D I mean look if its popularity
its DNA and its power fine and mainly I
went to I went to what was the game
Zillah the other night to see what they
were playing there and you know it's
sick what was going on and that was
interesting because they were playing
like someone was playing edge the Empire
like the Star Wars RPG someone else was
playing one of the I think was one of
the end of the world games like am no
one was playing D&D gnome was playing
path fight which was interesting because
I think that people you know if you're
gonna play Dendy and Pathfinder though
those people were at the big shops you
know playing the organized play
here at game Zilla there were there were
groups that were yeah yeah money
yes seeking out different experiences
and that was really interesting that
they were and you know they were playing
their own kind of homebrew stuff as well
so you know but that wasn't you know
that was like five or six groups there
on the night that I went so I don't
think there's anything particularly
different about the Australian
role-playing game you know market than
anywhere else you know
ninety percent of people are playing D&D
and Pathfinder and right now you know
it's probably sixty percent of them are
playing D&D
you know and and then that other 10
percent are playing you know whatever
else is out there which is it's kind of
a crazy market at the moment and it's
Frazee kind of an ecosystem of what's
being played so don't know why anyone
would design a game other than the
indian out but you know in Australia the
ring is there a lot of the TV shows and
the stuff we get here to come from
America isn't it it's like a lot of
cultural infusion from America but it's
there like something that's really
Australian that you saw a genre that you
know try to incorporate the DND
maybe people have RPG just yeah you know
you know like this is like the accent
thing earlier where you know I can't
play in my native accent when I'm doing
characters um but I think you know
definitely mad max you know the
post-apocalyptic is probably the genre
that is most associated with Australia
and could you know or maybe you know
maybe people could play they kind of arm
you know Australian crime thing again we
were thinking about this which we've
just had a new campaign in my home game
that we're going to start tomorrow night
so I really need to really think about
that a lot but we were talking about
where we would set it and you know it's
going to be a kind of urban you know
urban kind of modern thing with a bit of
magic units so and and I was trying to
think of okay could I set this here in
Australia and I'm like it will trying to
think kind of thing you know I want to
set it somewhere else because I want to
have
kind of other nurse about it and again
you know most with most of our media
coming from other countries it's hard to
think of you know games experiences in
that Australian way so definitely if I
was doing you know a Mad Max thing I
think I could do I could do Australian
accents in it but other than that I'm
I'm not so sure right story and yeah
isn't like the Western I mean the you
know they've been a few Australian
westerns you know I think that they're
they're they're problematic eras you
know you know because the the whole
settlement you know the the colonization
of Australia was and this is the same as
in the US the the settlement of the u.s.
these were these were all kind of eras
that had you know vast horrific Conan
justices so so yes you could probably do
an Australian kind of kind of Western
and there have been a few you know I'm
just thinking of films that are that are
Australian and and have that kind of
Western feel to them
was that the proposition and a few
others that have that yeah and the Ned
Kelly ones you know they kind of you
know the kind of bushranger thing
whether it's kind of need Kelly or the
kind of you know that Robin Hood s kind
of feel to it
but I don't think that I don't think
that we in Australia have built that
mythology around those stories you know
Ned Kelly is one example people watching
me not know what Ned Kelly is about it's
we had like robbers and started out that
they go around the bush they rob people
but at least a bit of our special cases
and he is a bit of a Robin Hood sort of
bigger who did you give the money did he
give him the money back though I'm not
sure well the other thing about Ned
Kelly is that he had he armed himself as
well he made armor out of big metal
plates and you know he was shot like 20
times or whatever when they finally
captured him and
didn't kill him and they hung him in the
end you know so did not end well for Ned
Kelly you know but I you know I think
that there is that there is a mythology
around Ned Kelly that is interesting but
certainly not to the extent of say Robin
Hood where there this outlaw character
and you know I think that Robin Hood
definitely has that kind of you know
stealing from the rich giving to the
poor that's something you can get behind
Ned Kelly I'm not sure ever achieved
that level of um you know giving to the
poor but you know I think that that's an
Australian thing about that that
Australian um you know standing up to
Authority and injustice and those sorts
of things which does come through in Ned
Kelly which is sort of there in in Robin
Hood as well you know where there's the
corruption of the police and you know
the the righteousness of some of
standing up to the police
you
