We’ve had a copy of the Stargate RPG in our hands for a bit now, and we just can’t get enough of it! Dial the Gate welcomes aboard the Lead Game Designer, Mack Martin, to discuss his process, what went into the book, and to take your questions LIVE! Even if you’ve never played a tabletop roleplaying game before, come join us! You may find Stargate is just ingredient you’ve been missing.

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:37 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:54 – Welcoming Mack, Being a Sci-Fi Fan
06:42 – Stargate Role-Playing, Beginning the Journey, Writing the Book
16:42 – Aturen and Other Character Concepts
21:32 – Dungeons and Dragons and Game Masters
25:36 – Encounters (Moxy)
28:56 – Hurdles and Successes with the Game, Balancing TV Expectations with Gameplay
34:00 – A New System Lord
36:26 – Meeting Fans and Kickstarter Reaction
38:40 – Getting People Interested in RPGs and Feedback on Future Content
44:18 – Fan Questions, and Modules
48:38 – MGM Notes, Confusion with the Earlier Roleplaying Game, and Game Mechanics
55:51 – Standard Maps and Accessories
58:16 – Specific Gameplay Questions
1:00:13 – Wrapping up with Mack
1:02:42 – Post interview housekeeping including the website/book pictures
1:07:04 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome everyone to episode 110 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Thank you so much for being with us on this fine afternoon in Tornado Alley. I’ve heard a report at least 20, 25 tornadoes struck the Midwest last night. And I came home from work this morning at 3am, the power was out, and I was like, “I hope I can do the show today.” So I apologise for my frazzled nature, I already sent an email to Joe apologising for the last episode, because I was just all over the place. But we have another one for you, we have Mack Martin, who was the Lead Designer on the Stargate SG-1 RPG, he’s going to be coming on in just a moment here. Before we get started, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would make such a huge deal to me if you click that Like button. I know you hear it all the time, but it really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will help the show continue to grow. I mean, in one year we’re almost at 20’000 subscribers. My mind is blown. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend, and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops, and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes, and clips from this livestream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on the Dial the Gate and the GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As with all of our live shows, our guest is here in per… we do a group of live and pre-recorded episodes on Dial the Gate, just depending on availability of the person. This one is a live show, so if you are watching us through YouTube at YouTube.com/dialthegate, there is a chat window that is open right now. Our moderators are standing by so that you can submit questions to our guest, or to myself, about what we’re discussing, so this episode, which is the Stargate SG-1 RPG. So let’s not keep him waiting any longer, Mr Mack Martin, the Stargate SG-1 RPG, the Lead Designer. Welcome, sir!

Mack Martin
Thank you, thank you for having me!

David Read
Thank you for being on. How’s it going?

Mack Martin
Good, good. I’m having technical difficulties, so.

David Read
Welcome to my world! Several of my neighbors don’t have houses today, so, I mean, I keep thanking my lucky stars that I’m just having computer problems.

Mack Martin
Oh, where are you at?

David Read
I’m in north Nashville.

Mack Martin
Okay, and the hurricane hit?

David Read
Tornadoes.

Mack Martin
Tornadoes.

David Read
Yeah, it was absolutely madness.

Mack Martin
That’s nuts.

David Read
But, you know, we’re all here, so.

Mack Martin
I used to live at the other end of Tornado Alley, in Texas.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
I remember going down into the shelter a few times.

David Read
Yeah, it gets weird. I just keep on reminding myself, “Greater odds of getting struck by lightning, greater odds of getting struck by lightning.” This is also one of those irrational fears like flying, you know, that you just can’t help.

Mack Martin
No, look, the sky takes you away. What’s not to be afraid of?

David Read
I know! I don’t want to go to Oz!

Mack Martin
Absolutely. Mother Nature just decided, “Not that one. Fling!”

David Read
Right.

Mack Martin
What’s not to be afraid of?

David Read
I know, I keep hearing Jeff Goldblum saying, “Nature selected David for extinction.” Please not today.

Mack Martin
Not today, yeah. Tornadoes are inherently scary.

David Read
Absolutely. Mack, how long have you been a Stargate fan?

Mack Martin
Off and on, I would say since the original theatrical release.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
Obviously, I watched it all when it originally came out on TV. Anything with star in the name was basically must-see tv at my household. From Next Generation, to every movie, Star Trek movie, to… Stargate, we went and saw the movie, goodness… My grandma used to drop my cousin and I off at a place called the Birdcage Theatre in the summers.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
And over the summer, they had dollar movies, a bowling alley, an arcade and a comic book store, we were in heaven.

David Read
Yeah, just a place to put your kids away, they can go crazy over there.

Mack Martin
“Here’s 20 bucks, go spend the day,”

David Read
Yeah, you’re set.

Mack Martin
“Get a comic book, go bowling, see a movie.” It was real cheap. And the only sci-fi movie really playing at the dollar theater that summer was Stargate, but I don’t know if Austin and I would have gone to see anything else. We genuinely went and saw that every weekend for three months.

David Read
Wow! So it was practically in your DNA at the end of those three months?

David Read
It was, “Do we go to the comic book store now? Well, let’s check what time the next showing of Stargate is.” We went to plan our day around at least one sitting of the Stargate movie. Yeah, Kurt Russell was like a god to me all the way through my teenage years. What with Soldier…

David Read
Escape from New York.

Mack Martin
Escape from New York. You know, it’s funny, I hadn’t seen those when I discovered him with Stargate and then Soldier and then Tombstone, or maybe Tombstone and then Soldier. Yeah, I was in.

David Read
So, Stargate and then comics. I would imagine that when the Stargate comics hit the comic bookstore, you picked them up? Not so much?

Mack Martin
I wasn’t… Well, there was a few years before the comic books really started getting carried in the stores in my area. So I missed out on some of those at the beginning, but then I went and I caught up on them digitally.

David Read
Got it, okay.

Mack Martin
But again, this isn’t something I’ve studied. Certain IP’s I’ve worked in, I’d studied when I started, so I had to go back and rewatch it again when I sat down to write the book, obviously. That’s just part of the research.

David Read
So tell us about this journey through the Stargate role playing game, were you already a part of Wyvern at this point? Was this something that they brought you in for specifically for this title? Tell us about the impetus of this.

Mack Martin
It’s kind of a… well, it’s a bit of a personal story for other people, not really for me, but I’ll tell it from my perspective, I feel that’s fair. The original designer who had secured the license and had his original vision, Sam Loyer… Sam?

David Read
Sam’s his wife, so Philip, Phil.

Mack Martin
Philip, thank you. Phil Loyer. Shouldn’t have gotten that name wrong!

David Read
You’re good.

Mack Martin
I know him as General Loyer.

David Read
Exactly.

Mack Martin
I don’t know the General’s first name, he’s a General! I came into the project because he had passed away unexpectedly and they happened to know a friend of mine, David Hanold, who works at… I want to say he worked at Ninja Division [Publishing], and he recommended me to someone to bring the project home.

David Read
Okay. So, because of Loyer’s passing, they brought you in to carry that torch forward.

Mack Martin
Yeah.

David Read
Was that the first time you had stepped in for someone who had passed on?

Mack Martin
Yeah, honestly, it was. I mean, I’ve stepped in for people who have gotten moved to other projects, I’ve taken over other people’s projects before, but you’ve always been able to go and ask them questions.

David Read
Yeah.

Mack Martin
Now, thankfully, he wasn’t very far along. He had a good base built, he had a good vision document, but that’s where he was in the project pipeline. That’s early on in the process, so it was pretty easy speaking with the team and looking at what he had produced to figure out his general vision, but I also wanted to do the start…

David Read
Pardon the pun.

Mack Martin
Yeah, his gen… [laughs] Yeah, so it was on purpose. Very clever. But there was a lot we needed to do to really give it a personal vision, because he hadn’t added that yet. And a game like this, for an IP like this, for a fan base that deserves a good game, there needed… there was a lot that I still got to do. So, I still feel a lot of ownership over the project, but there was always this… I was taking someone else’s general vision forward.

Mack Martin
When were you brought in, at what point is this? What year was this?

Mack Martin
Oh…

David Read
How long is this been in development?

Mack Martin
2019?

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
Maybe late 2018?

David Read
Okay. So this is… you are the… how much of the book did you write?

Mack Martin
Every chapter, except for the Settings chapter.

David Read
Wow!

Mack Martin
And then I did a lot in the Settings chapter. A lot of the notes are me. Other people had notes, but I went through… one of the things you have to do when you’re working on these things is you have to get everything approved by the IP. And so one of the things that was my job…

David Read
Oh, the key holder, MGM.

Mack Martin
Yeah, MGM. And so one of the things, for instance, in the background chapter — a little inside baseball thing — is there’s little notes in there. The writers had all written them and they were all clever when you had them on the same page as what was being written, but then layout kind of moves things.

David Read
It shifts stuff around the page.

Mack Martin
Yeah, shifts stuff around a lot. So there’s a lot of massaging that happens there, but also one of the things that falls on me to do, because that is my job, is for the whole book I have to make sure it fits the tone of Stargate.

David Read
Correct.

Mack Martin
So, for all their major characters, if you’re talking about O’Neill, I had to go through and listen to the way lines were delivered, listen to the way he hits punch lines with jokes, because a person typically writes the way they speak. And I wanted O’Neill’s… when he writes something in a margin, it has to sound right so that when MGM sees it, they go, “Okay, that feels right.”

David Read
It shows like Jack’s voice.

Mack Martin
Yeah, you’re presenting him in a heroic way. He’s not saying something crazy, he’s being funny, right? I think at one point — maybe it’s him, maybe it’s another character — jokes that they were stuck in a place and the only thing they had to do was read the only book that was there and it was Infinite Jest. He’s like, “We need to fix that problem.”

David Read
Yeah, I’m going through the book right now. I’ve got the PDF version on the screen, and one of the things that… okay, come on… it’s not working for me.

Mack Martin
You got my swanky Special Edition, here.

David Read
Pull it up again for me, one more time. Oh, yes. The black leather bound version, which I think you can only now get at conventions. There’s just a few left.

Mack Martin
No, we ran out, we ran out of this.

David Read
Oh, they’re gone?

Mack Martin
I think they may be gone gone. Now, they may find… there may be another box or so. But we’re pretty sure they’re gone gone.

David Read
Wow. Well, I’m…

Mack Martin
I believe that’s what I heard last.

David Read
I sure am delighted that they did as well as they did. Yeah, I’m going through some of the notes here. The Asgard by Captain Rodriguez, so Rodriguez is one of the characters that’s been created.

Mack Martin
One of our arc iconics, kind of the way…

David Read
Exactly. It’s a basically a pre-designed character that you can essentially, from out of the box, jump in and play if you didn’t want to create one of your own.

Mack Martin
Yeah, and they’re all designed to kind of fit good Stargate, fantasy, stock characters.

David Read
Correct. And you’ve got a kind of a… there’s a clash here. I’m on, just for instance, page 221. If you will open your hymnals.

Mack Martin
Yes, I was gonna make that joke!

David Read
I love this!

Mack Martin
[inaudible] the Baptist boy in me.

David Read
Me too! I remembered reading this at one of the conventions when I was flipping through. Asgard perspective by Captain Rodriguez. The long and the short, she says… this is very much written by the perspective of a person who’s in the field and having to deal with a specific set of circumstances. “No matter how much the Asgard have come to mean to us, the bulk of our resources must remain focused on opposing Anubis.” ie, this is mid season six. “If we or other members of the Phoenix alliance can aid the Asgard we must do, so they are our friends, but we cannot risk everything to save them. We must remain objective, ensure our own survival.” And in the margins below, it says — there’s a note from O’Neill — it says “With all due respect, Captain, you are wrong. The Asgard are part of Earth’s family and that means no one gets left behind.” And I thought that that was really interesting because you’re introducing a character, wholecloth out of this book, and then you’re also introducing the voice of Jack as he would respond to her. And so tonally, you’ve got a continuing story pulled out of the broader space of season six, that might have been seen had it gone off in this direction. And so it’s very vibrant with the texture of the show.

Mack Martin
It also reinforces how important Jack O’Neill’s influence is on Stargate, because he’s a character with a moral core. And at the center of this adventure is that it’s about exploration and we’re dealing with a threat that we’ve discovered because of exploration. And it’s an existential threat, but it’s… these are explorers, even the military guys. And a character like Jack has that moral core, while he is sarcastic, while he does have all that pain from his life, he’s still a person who has a specific code of conduct.

David Read
Absolutely. And it’s interesting, I had the Stargate comic guys on last week and we made a very similar parallel observation, where it’s like everything that informs Jack O’Neill is informed by that… everything that that informs us of him is informed through that initial loss of his son in the film. So his humor, his sarcasm, his anger, all of these aspects of his mortal coil are a result of that transformative situation from the movie. So everything is informed from that.

Mack Martin
One of the things I noticed about the show on the rewatch is that consistency of character, not just — and continuity of character — we see him change over time, as he learns and grows. He makes mistakes, he owns up to them, we see the character become better and makes the show hold up. Because Stargate came out in a time where that sort of track narrative over, how many movies and seasons all together? Because he shows up in other stuff. It’s a character that we…

David Read
Continuum, and… it’s a lot of content.

Mack Martin
Yeah, and there’s a lot of continuity of that character, that the next step always make sense, to never have him do anything, at least doesn’t make… may shock us and surprise us as an audience, but it never feels incongruent with him as a character.

David Read
No. And I think we’re also willing to give him the benefit of the doubt a lot more, because of…

Mack Martin
That’s true too.

David Read
He could have said, “You know what? We’re done.”

Mack Martin
We’re along for the ride.

David Read
But, yeah, we’re kind of along for the ride and we’re getting the benefits of all of his experience, even if we have to put up with a few of his shenanigans.

Mack Martin
I keep seeing my hair at this angle. I look like a [inaudible].

David Read
Mad scientist. And I see you got a Grogu on your back.

Mack Martin
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Strapped to my chair.

David Read
The Aturen.

Mack Martin
Yes.

David Read
Were they something that you created? Were they something that was introduced before you came in, in the mandate? Where did the Aturen fall?

Mack Martin
They’re one of Loyers things.

David Read
They are?

Mack Martin
He and the team — this was part of getting the license — is one of the things they wanted players… we knew that players would want to do. One of the key ones was playing somebody with a symbiote. Like, that’s a fun new story, that’s a very Stargate story, that’s a thing that a lot of players can have a lot of different takes on and a lot of personal takes that are fun to play at home and explore that concept, right? I think one of the characters introduced is male, but he has a symbiote that’s always bonded with females, and so he has a lot of habits that he’s coming to grips with. And there’s a lot of… he’s questioning his identity, and that’s, that’s all subtext and…

David Read
What you can do with sci-fi.

Mack Martin
Right, right. There’s all these little things. And I gotta… someone else wrote that, so I don’t want to speak for that character, because it’s personal to them. But there’s a lot of personal stuff that you can do, especially at the table, for fun, stuff like that. And the Aturen are an extension of that philosophy. So, just like we knew people wanted to play symbiotes, we knew people would want to explore the concept of pacifism.

David Read
Right.

Mack Martin
And one of the things that I kept bumping into during gameplay is people were like, “Well, we need these feats for knocking people out with drugs and dart guns, because my character is a pacifist,” and I’m like, “A pacifist doesn’t drug someone against their will either.”

David Read
Yeah, no.

Mack Martin
That is violence. I know it doesn’t kill them, but that’s not… a pacifist isn’t “I don’t murder.” That’s a Batman thing.

David Read
Yeah.

Mack Martin
A pacifist is, “I do not commit violence.”

David Read
Yeah.

Mack Martin
Right? “I am not a violent person. I’m not going to harm someone against their will.”

David Read
Or take an action upon them, against their will.

Mack Martin
Exactly, yeah, and that’s the Noxian way. And so that’s what you’re exploring, so I kind of had to hold a line about how good we could make tranquilizers.

David Read
Yeah, I keep on going back to… what was it… Pretense. Where the only thing that Lya is willing to do is hide a weapon, but she’s not going to fire it, but she will hide it, because it may ultimately prevent greater damage from being done.

Mack Martin
And in a good game of Stargate, your GM should be challenging you in these fun little ways that you as a player can determine where your character’s line is. Right? We learn about this character when we find out “Well, when are they willing to drug someone? Is it when they’re violent enough a threat to others, like, are they willing to stop that? Or will they only try to protect them like by shielding with light.” Let them have that moment, give them that choice. Our tension system plays in a lot to that, because it allows the GM to kind of set a game around a character, because a TV show always opens on a character and a place of comfort. And we go through the story circle and how to build your game session like it’s a TV show, in the book, and a lot of that you can set up so that the GM is always kind of testing you. So that Aturen became, really, key to one of those fantasies that the role-playing role players can really play with, to get that Stargate story.

David Read
And it’s… go ahead.

Mack Martin
Oh, no, no.

David Read
It’s an opportunity for you to introduce a little bit more of a fantasy element, you know? Pointed ears and roleplaying fantasy games kind of go hand in hand, and if you’re going to do a sci-fi one, it gives the fantasy people an in. It’s like, “Okay, I can kind of get this. And oh, there’s a Stargate species that very much reflects this kind of direction.” You know? Because if there’s going to be any species in Stargate canon is going to do that, it is the Nox. But how do you get the Nox to cooperate? And I remember going a few rounds — not like combative or anything — with… who was it… was Brad and Kieran, at the time, over at MGM, we were trying to figure out, “How do we make this work, conceivably,” so that when they approach MGM legal department, they’ll be like, “Yeah, okay, we…” or, not the legal, but the story department, they’ll be like, “Yes, this fits, this is reasonable.” And I think the balance was great.

Mack Martin
Yeah. And the technique that we employed there is called sandboxing. That’s where we create something that’s used only in this sub-IP. That way, if they ever just need to be like, “Okay, well, we’re overriding that, it only overwrites part of a roleplaying game, not a show.” Right? It’s a way to segment out canon.

David Read
Okay. So, in addition to the Aturen, what were some of the other elements that you were excited to develop for this?

Mack Martin
For me, it was tackling the process of making D&D, which is a… fifth edition I really enjoy. I like the system a lot. There are quibbles I have with it, but I think that’s true of any GM of every system that has ever been.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
Who doesn’t? But I really wanted to tackle the idea of using it as a framework for a game that almost plays a little bit more like an indie game. I know it’s got Stargate on it, but I’ve learned a lot from games like Masks, where a big part of the gameplay about that is about adhering to the fantasy of being a teenage superhero. And it’s got mechanics that adhere to that fantasy. People are always trying to manipulate you and convince you to be a certain way and maybe they’re trying to inspire you, but it’s tugging your stats. And your stats change during the game, because you as a person change during the game. And maybe now you’ve changed enough during this moment to overcome an obstacle, or maybe you haven’t. It’s just a really interesting mechanic that lends itself to that fantasy. And when I was looking at mechanics for Stargate, it was always about “What is the fantasy of Stargate and how does a mechanic make that happen in a roleplaying game?” So, for instance, our game, unlike D&D, we only expect you to maybe get into one fight a game session. And if you don’t get into a fight in the game session, that is a success. Like, often combat is the last resort for characters on their mission.

David Read
Yeah, or the result of other things failing.

Mack Martin
Of other things failing. Although, sometimes it’s fun to have the T-Rex pops out of the woods and you’re like “Oh crap, we’re on a T-Rex world! Everyone grab the P-90’s. Can we take down a T-Rex?” Sometimes you gotta let the soldiers shine, you know?

David Read
No, absolutely!

Mack Martin
T-Rex’s are good for that.

David Read
But that’s the point. Everyone has their beat. Everyone has their moments in the spotlight, especially when you have a good GM. You’re going to — Gate Master — you’re going to have, hopefully, someone leading you who will recognize that everyone at the table really has to have at least one good opportunity to exercise their creative perspective and position and do something fun for that “episode”. If you’ve got a really good Joss Whedon on your hands, even if you’ve got a group of Avengers, they’ll all have their moment.

Mack Martin
Yeah, that’s the exact idea and you keep it flowing by time. You go through and you tie each character into the main thread line. Right? So it’s, “Okay, well, how are you helping this person? Like, your character’s there? What are they up to?” You just move scene to scene, you move through your story wheel and you tie everyone into it. And sometimes that’s got some action in it, and if you start off… I teach the GM, or I tell the GM to do a lot of telegraphing. So you tell them what the tension level of the story is by telling them what the tension die is, which affects a lot of mechanics so that things are more comical on a D4 on the comical “episodes”, and sometimes they’re more life-threatening, galaxy-threatening at the D12 end. So, if you’ve decided you’re going to give your Aturen soldier or your — not Aturen soldier — your Jaffa soldier a Seven Samurai storyline, but you’re gonna throw it on the comical that’s… that can be a lot of fun, that can, right there, it’s every scene it’s how does he completely trivialize defending this town against bandits, right? It’s a comical “episode”, it’s focused on him. He’s like in a Robin Hood area and he’s like, “I got this.” You just watch it to see the scene and the story goes… you know, you could do “episodes” like that and have a lot of fun with your players and then at the same time, next “episode”, shift right into D12’s, and the galaxy’s gonna burn if you don’t stop it.

David Read
One of the… Moxie. Is this something that was created for the game?

Mack Martin
Yeah, the term is used… it pops up in a lot of Wyvern games. We like this term because it kind of encapsulates a factor of characters that often is attributed to other attributes in weird ways.

David Read
Can you explain how this kind of fits in and repairs? Not repairs, but it’s a substitutions for…

Mack Martin
Addresses?

David Read
Yeah, some of the elements that would normally be in a game like this, that works more for Stargate?

Mack Martin
Yeah, so we have a lot of what are called encounters. It’s part of the encounter system. An encounter is a scene in which the player… any scene in which the players success is not assured.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
And that can be trying to convince guards to let you in to see some king on a backwater feudal planet. That can be trying to convince a jury that you’re innocent during a military trial. There’s so many stories you can tell in Stargate that have these moments where you have to convince someone and so we break down the idea into more than just the role playing aspects that we’re used to, because a lot of times players don’t think about it and they’re just intuitive, and that’s okay. But hopefully, your intuitive decision, you can look at our three options and see which one it is. So, you have to pick an approach during the convince. And so now it becomes an encounter, it becomes a moment where we’re regimented. Roleplaying is happening. People are making character decisions. They’re talking in character, but we’re going through a process. And so for that, Moxie is — I know it’s a long answer to get back to Moxie…

David Read
No, please.

Mack Martin
Moxie is the initiative. It’s how quick your character is to respond in those situations, it’s how confident they are, it’s how adept they are at getting the lay of the land in a social situation. Right? So you might… one of the player characters in mine is, he thought it would be hilarious to play a diplomat that had been conscripted into the Stargate from a world that was basically based on a Jane Austen novel. That the Stargate went to a ‘Jane Austen balls and will we marry Mr. Darcy’ world. And he was playing a man who didn’t want to get married, so he ran off to become a diplomat for them, but that’s where he’s from. So he’s playing, basically, Mr. Darcy, but in Stargate.

David Read
Yeah, that was his excuse to try to get away.

Mack Martin
Yeah. And sure, he’s not a pacifist, he’s willing to learn to defend himself, but he is not prepared for that. But you put him in a social situation, now the Moxie is, he’s going first, he’s leading the way, he’s in there, but then it’s also a dice roll. So, sometimes that guy’s not going first, someone else has been asked a direct question, and they’re going first. And they may have to stammer out an answer and the guy who’s got the high Moxie may have to come in and solve that situation, back them up. Like, now an encounter is happening and the story’s unfolding and player decisions are getting made and we get an opportunity to throw in the quips and write a scene together, like a writer’s room.

David Read
Obviously, you did not you did not write this thing, ‘an island unto yourself’, But when you were…

Mack Martin
Well, yeah, the background section was other people, but I did write every word of the rest of it.

David Read
But you didn’t do that… I mean, you were consulting people while you…

Mack Martin
Oh, yeah, no, no, it definitely didn’t happen in a vacuum, no, no, no, no. I have a lot of people who have design credit for great reasons.

David Read
Absolutely. What were some of the more sticky parts of this thing to create and what we’re just a breeze? Like, “Oh, I’ve got this firing on all cylinders. This is easy.” And then, “Whoa, I’ve got to figure this thing out and interpret it and take my time with it.”

Mack Martin
I think the hardest hurdle is the misconceptions about what certain terms mean.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
We as gamers have accepted certain terms that are broad, and they used to mean separate things. An example is, people often equivalate health and hitpoints, health points and hit points, but they actually represent different things.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
A health point represents “I’ve gotten hit by a bullet, I lose this many health points because my health has been damaged by this bullet that has struck me.” It’s a health bar that comes down, it’s used in a lot of video games.

David Read
Yeah.

Mack Martin
It’s used in a lot of roleplaying games. It’s a health bar. Hit points, originally — and we haven’t been using them this way in a long time — but originally, they came from Chainmail, they came from a war game. A hit point wasn’t a hit you took, it was a hit you didn’t take. That’s why fighters in D&D have a higher hit point, is they can block and parry more. Hit points are representative of that. It’s a hit. They negate it.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
And the damage would have been this much, so it takes that much from their hit… But a fighter, they might get hit on the arm, or they might get a little cut or a nick, but it’s nothing that’s going to impede them until they’ve been hurt down to zero. And I’m using that classic definition of hit points because they represent great movie hit points that make guns function thematically. A gun, in real life, you get hit by it, you’re probably going down, so we have thresholds. Until you’re at half hit points you are scuffed. You haven’t even been hurt. We call that scuffed. We have mechanics that work off of it. And then under that is wounded and that’s… you might be bleeding a little bit, you might have a sprain, but you are not down until you hit zero. And then we find out how bad it is with the rolls to see.

David Read
And also the fact of the matter is, you’re telling a story here. This is not designed to be real life, this is designed to emulate Stargate.

Mack Martin
A TV show, yes.

David Read
That’s exactly right. Wow, that’s just crazy.

Mack Martin
And that was a hard one to get past, because a lot of people’s balance feedback — which was really good feedback — but a lot of it came from the idea that they didn’t like that characters felt like bullet sponges. Like, “Well, how many times was Jack O’Neill shot at but not hit?”

David Read
Yeah.

Mack Martin
That was him losing 10 hit points. “Whoa, what was that?” You know? That got his attention.

David Read
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How hard is it balancing the expectations of a TV episode with a three hour gaming session where you’ve got to fit all of that in somehow and…

Mack Martin
That’s how the writers room technique comes into play, right? A two hour, or an hour long TV show is not written in an hour. Why would I expect my players to be able to figure out what their character would do as rapidly as it has to happen on the show, when Hollywood writers don’t do that, right? You’re trying to get that same consistency of character that we see in the fantastic writing of Stargate, right? When we watched the doc, either of them, the docs progressed through their storylines in Stargate. We’re invested because they have that consistency of character. We want that consistency in the characters we’re playing. And sometimes, if the GM is giving you something difficult to tackle, sometimes that’s a moment where you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know what my character is going to do.” And the other players talking to you about your character, because they’ve gotten to know it too, because they’re the audience as well as participants, as play actor. So it’s tricky to do when you’re not giving moments to stop and think “Well, what’s your approach? What’s Samantha Carter’s approach to legally defending her friend in court?” Right? “Here are the three options, what do you think you’re… now your character is doing that? What do you think one of those…” You know? “Are you going to tackle this using intelligence and be very logical and state the facts as you believe the facts are on your side? Or are you going to… you don’t think that the system is just and you’re being much more persuasive and confrontational.” You get all these options that are ways to nuance your actual lines that you get, you get to write… you get a moment to decide what line you’re going to write.

David Read
Can you give us — if I can take a left turn? — Can you give us a little bit… for for those who are thinking of playing, or those who are really big into the canon and the minutiae of the Stargate franchise, can you give us a little insight into the new System Lord that you introduced in this game?

Mack Martin
I can give a little bit, we’re talking about Wepwawet. I think I’m saying his name right.

David Read
Yep.

Mack Martin
That is Lee’s baby [Lee Alley].

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
Lee is in charge of our… what are called our “seasons”. We do “seasons” and “episodes”. We need to put them in quotes so that people know that they’re not TV episodes, because online, people might get confused.

David Read
Correct.

Mack Martin
If we call it season this, episode this of that, we will get really… so, there’s always quotes on ours. But we run our organized gameplay like a season, so there’s going to be 13 episodes and they’re gonna follow the system in our book so that you’ve… I mean, Lee’s obviously taking as many liberties as he wants with it, because it’s his, basically, campaign to run. And so I do not honestly know what he’s gonna do with Wepwawet.

David Read
Okay!

Mack Martin
We’ve had mechanics discussions where he comes to me and he’s like, “Hey, if I wanted a character do this, what would be a fun way to do it?” I’m like, “Oh, maybe this?” and he goes “Okay! We’ll talk some…” We got to finally meet for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, so that was a… he was a great guy to meet and we got to chat a little bit. I got to push him to do something he doesn’t want to do. He’s not going to do it, but I… so I can’t make fun of it right now, but…

David Read
Yeah, I get the impression that he’s kind of turning out to be kind of the Apophis for season one of whatever this game is going to turn itself into. I’m hoping that there’s gonna be some surprises there.

Mack Martin
I think there’s some coming, from what I’ve been told. I have an inkling, but you know, now I know the fear Tom Holland feels every time he’s on a show.

David Read
“Don’t make me say anything!”

Mack Martin
These are not my spoilers to give.

David Read
That’s right. Even if you could give a spoiler in general, it’s like, “Those aren’t even mine!”

Mack Martin
They’re not mine to give and what’s worse is, I’m gonna get it wrong.

David Read
Jeez. How was meeting fans at Comic-Con and how’s the reaction been to watching the stratospheric success of the Kickstarter?

Mack Martin
It’s been fantastic. I’m looking forward to, hopefully, doing more books soon and it’s just really got me fired up to crank out some Stargate. So, yeah, I’m really looking forward to hopefully doing some new stuff soon. Brad’s working on stuff, I don’t know what the minutiae of it is, as of now, but I know I would really like to tackle Atlantis and the rest of the seasons. I don’t know in what order we might do those or anything. But, I mean, all the fan stuff, they’re like, “What, are you going to do this next?” and I’m like, “Gosh, I hope!”

David Read
Absolutely. You know, that’s the thing about Stargate, it is such a wide open tapestry. Atlantis may be the next logical step, but it may not be. It may wait a while.

Mack Martin
Well, you know, you got to ask yourself, when every fifth fan who comes up and knows Stargate, you know, because it’s Comic-Con, so about 20% of the people are people like, “Oh, yeah, Stargate, awesome.”

David Read
Yeah, they’ve seen it.

Mack Martin
Right. They’ve seen it, they know it, they’re talking about it. A lot of people dresses as Jedi and Deadpool are like, “Oh, Stargate!”

David Read
Exactly. “I’ll get my picture with that gate!”

Mack Martin
Yeah, we got a lot of crossover with your San Diego Comic-Con geeks, and so when every, about, fifth person to come by just to be excited about Stargate is… about half of those are like, “Oh, so the next one’s gonna be Atlantis?” They’re all like, “I need my Momoa!” Thump, thump, thump the wrist, like, “Where’s my Momoa?”

David Read
No, they want that, they want that different kind of energy. I would love to see it go into Atlantis, but not necessarily the next one. I mean, if that’s what you guys want to do, then great, but I’m willing to play in your sandbox for a while.

Mack Martin
Right, yeah, we’re gonna have to see what Brad wants to do on that one, I think.

David Read
Absolutely.

Mack Martin
Brad and Wes have a pretty clear vision of where they want to go and I think we’ve talked about it and I think I know where we want to go, but I don’t want to speak for them.

David Read
Absolutely. What do you think… A lot of the people who are watching this have not played tabletop roleplaying games. What do you think is a good incentive to get them out there, especially the people, in the sense of the people that you’re talking to are Stargate fans, to get them interested in this.

Mack Martin
Especially if you’ve never… if you’ve got an entire group who’s never played, but this is the sort of thing that interests them, the idea that you’re going to order pizza, get some friends over, maybe your fellow Stargate nerds in your family — I know I’ve got a lot of those — and just run a game, like this is a one off, maybe it’s not something your group is going to do again, I think Stargate is a really good entry point. It’s using a current rule set that’s very intuitive — the fifth edition D&D rule set — but I’ve taught… I hope I’ve given instructions to the GM on how to do everything they need to do that are very clear cut, but that get them writing their own stories. And if they’re not comfortable with that, we’ve got our “season” coming out online, and you can just play through it at home and have a TV show that you’re playing through. And it’s kind of fun to write those characters and get the opportunity to play a character that isn’t just progressing as a person, mechanically, but also as a character. And you get to really make a TV show at home. It’s a lot of fun.

David Read
I think one of the interesting things that I’ve taken away from what you guys are doing is that there is an intent to get feedback from the fan base, in terms of what is happening in individual play sessions and collating that data together to help evolve the story for the living experience. Like, it’s actually going to influence and help shape the content that’s coming out.

Mack Martin
Player success that’s reported in to us matters and will influence… Yeah, Lee is writing it. He’s writing new “episodes” as he sees what’s happening in old “episodes”, like, how the success rates are going and the stories he hears from cons and that sort of thing. So a lot…

David Read
That’s just crazy!

Mack Martin
Yeah, there’s a couple of little easter eggs, where, if you look at it, you’re like, “Ah, he’s hinting that it was this table at this game.” We were at this one convention where it was really funny, and they had that funny line about a pineapple or something. And it’s obvious that he’s describing the pineapple group. I can’t remember the exact one, it wasn’t that, but he’s got a couple of little ones in there, where if you’re looking for them, you might see your group and be like, “Hey, I’m pretty sure that’s us!”

David Read
Absolutely. I think one of the things that we can also push home about a game like this is that you don’t have to all physically be in the same space. My best friend is now living 1500 miles away and I don’t get to see him more than one or two times a year, if I’m lucky. But we can still get together on Zoom and do things like sit down and play this.

Mack Martin
There’s several free resources online. Roll20 is free to everyone. There’s a subscription model on it, but you can play this on Roll20. We have a Stargate character sheet there and that’s a virtual tabletop as well. I know people who play it on Fantasy Grounds, and a variety of other virtual tabletop, but you could also play this game purely on Discord using a dice bot.

David Read
Dice bot?

Mack Martin
Yeah, it’s a bot that you bring into your Discord and it’ll roll the dice for you.

David Read
Wow. That is legit.

Mack Martin
You just have to invite him. And then you type in keys and it’s very easy.

David Read
It’s just an AI?

Mack Martin
It’s just an AI. It’s a bot you throw in there.

David Read
That’s so crazy.

Mack Martin
I mean, well, it’s not… I wouldn’t call it an AI. It basically has a series of math functions that it’ll do where it randomly generates numbers.

David Read
Okay, so it’s not an intelligence, per se, but it responds… It knows what it’s peddling.

Mack Martin
Yeah, you would do exclamation point, roll space one D six plus five. And it would roll that.

David Read
How long does it take to really figure this out and get going out of the box — if this is something that you’ve never done before — based on the guidelines that you’ve put in the book, if we’re following the book.

Mack Martin
If you want to do this, I would recommend a new GM to read through… he doesn’t need to read the entire beastiary, right? A lot of that is statblocks, you don’t need to read that. He can also skim a lot of the mechanics. You should definitely read Character Creation and the Background section, which is a fun read, and then the Gate Mastering section. And I think once he’s read, maybe, that 40 pages, it will hopefully make sense. There’s a big intro, we walk people through it, we’re not… it’s a very… it’s an instruction booklet, but it’s also one that I wrote from a very personal… like I’m talking to a real person instruction set. This is designed with the fifth edition writing style, which, a lot of fifth edition’s accessibility is because the writers of that book knew how to write it so that normal people could read it.

David Read
Yeah, and they’re wanting to broaden their audience.

Mack Martin
I’ve written games for rules lawyers too and there’s a very different way you write, and it’s about what the audience wants. And for this, the GM has a lot of power, we’re writing a show, it’s where… this isn’t a tactical war game, this isn’t something like Malifaux, where there are tournaments and it’s about that balance of inner play. And, guessing, bluffing, you know? That’s a whole different game.

David Read
Got it. I have a couple of questions for you from fans.

Mack Martin
Oh, fantastic. Oh, exciting.

David Read
I think we’ve kind of already addressed this. Martin Vranovsky, “Are there any full campaign modules planned for the RPG?”

Mack Martin
That’s something that we’ve definitely discussed. That would be more like a box set. I’m a sucker for settings like Ravenloft, though.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
If I’m going to do something like that — and again, this is big spitballing, just to give more of an answer then — we’ve talked about it. One of the things I think would be cool to do, and that’s the level of development it has, is a box set like Ravenloft where you go through the gate and we introduced you to a world, and it’s about exploring that world and going back to your gate and coming back to that world. And maybe doing something weird, like, that world’s rapidly going forward at times, and every time you leave to go home to resupply and stuff, they’ve advanced ten years, or…

David Read
It’s like Narnia.

Mack Martin
Yeah, they’ve got a Narnia problem, right? But yeah, we could do a lot of little fun stuff with it. I think it’d be fun to do a setting where you spend an entire “season” in this box, with this one map that we can do like a little box set on it with a map and stuff, do more than just to create a “season” adventure, but more of a little campaign setting.

David Read
That’s why I think there would be an opportunity to allow a chance to breathe between this and Atlantis and whatever you’re going to do next. If you want to make a… take a radical direction and really take us down the rabbit hole into Wonderland with with your approach on what an SG season… your whole team’s approach on what an SG season could truly be like, were it told in a bottle.

Mack Martin
Yeah.

David Read
Because I think they’re…

Mack Martin
Why are you talking about “bottle episodes”?

David Read
Right! But I think there’s… the Milky Way is huge. And there’s little pockets of it that you could get lost in.

Mack Martin
Plus, we’re talking about Stargate. If you want to get crazy at home, get crazy at home, right? Some of the most fun stuff I’ve done… I mean, no one’s mistaking this for canon, right? One of the campaigns I run… I ran a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles get sent to Ravenloft campaign once. Like, they were just playing the four brothers! We had a crazy fun time! You don’t have to get serious with this at home. If you want to get a little loose with it, it’s… you know?

David Read
But the fact of the matter is, if you want to follow the book and the living campaign with the “episodes” as they are in place, they’re being strict enough that were Brad’s Stargate to come back, they could run side by side and no one would be the wiser for any conflicting information. It would all just make sense.

Mack Martin
Yeah, it shouldn’t have any problems. Yeah, ’cause there’s… I don’t think there’s gonna be any overlap problem there.

David Read
Especially because we’re talking about, right now, season six, and you could jump the series ahead a couple of years, bring us up to…

Mack Martin
I want to make sure a book has enough stuff to be worth being a book.

David Read
Yeah, it’s its own thing.

Mack Martin
I suspect it’s about seeing how much we don’t have. It’s about looking at the rest of Stargate and identifying what we haven’t put in book and what we have, and deciding how many books of material is that really. Because I don’t want to stretch it out to stretch it out.

David Read
Yeah, just for the sake of it.

Mack Martin
Just for the sake of it. If there’s one more good book to get everything else, Atlantis… As many seasons as Atlantis does, they don’t add a ton of things the game doesn’t currently do. There’s stuff to add.

David Read
It’s a location change, and…

Mack Martin
Location change.

David Read
The characters, the enemies, you can play with them.

Mack Martin
Enemies, starships. There’s more space combat. There’s mechanics we need to add in, there’s a lot of little things that another book would do good on, but is that an Atlantis book that also catches us up on the rest of the season? Or is there a season book for SG-1, is there another book there? There’s a lot of things to take a look at, we just don’t want… I would hate to stretch that material too thin.

David Read
Understood. Keenan Mock — Hello Keenan — asked “Mack, great seeing you at SDCC. My question – did MGM have…” Sorry?

Mack Martin
No, I was just… that’s great. I was happy to meet everyone there.

David Read
Yeah, it was just terrific. I did the same. “Did MGM have any specific direction or objectives, or were they primarily providing notes to the content created by Wyvern?” Was there any set thing going on?

Mack Martin
I’ve worked with a lot of license holders in the past. They had specific notes, often things I never thought about because I’m thinking about writing a role playing game, things that they needed us to do to make their life not living heck. Like, look, we can…

David Read
Can you give us an example?

Mack Martin
I shouldn’t. I feel like… I think one example I’ve already given is making sure that we put “season” and “episodes” in quotes, because for the first time I heard that I’m like, “What? Who’s gonna confuse a role playing game for a TV show? They’re very different things.” And then I thought, “They’re not when you’re just writing about them online.” Like, if someone’s just perusing it, if the bots that go through… there’s a thousand ways our world works now that I had not even thought about, I’m like, “Oh, right, okay.” So putting it in quotes does a lot to make sure that everything makes sense when people look at it and know. And I’m like, “Can I do it in italics? Can I do this?” And they were like “Quotes is what shows up in this?” And I’m like, “That makes sense, okay.” They have to… so there’s there’s feedback like that, that happens on any project, right? I’ve gotten good enough at my job, I think, that I build these things knowing the IP well enough that… I get feedback, and they go through the process, but it’s usually nobody ever comes back to me with, “You can’t do that. What are you thinking?”

David Read
You’re already dialed in enough where certain problems are not going to manifest?

Mack Martin
Yeah, you’re never going to… I’m never going to introduce a Jaffa that is completely the antithesis of anything that would exist in the world, you know?

David Read
Absolutely.

Mack Martin
Not going to try and sneak a Wookie into the game.

David Read
Well, or a Jaffa that doesn’t have a symbiote pouch. It’s simply not a Jaffa.

Mack Martin
That would be a human.

David Read
It would be a human. Ra didn’t use Jaffa. I mean, they may have back sold that later on, but O’Neill says in the pilot, “There were no creatures like this on Abydos.” Ákos wanted to know, “Was your development team concerned at all that the Phoenix site in this content would be compared to the… or mixed up with the previous RPG from AEG 20 years ago?”

Mack Martin
It’s an unfortunate… it’s going to happen. I really liked that system, it was based, I believe, on the Spy… I want to say it was called Spycraft — maybe it was called something else — system. And I really liked that game. If I get mixed up with that, that sounds great to me. That’s good company to get mixed up in. It’s an unfortunate… I think it’s gonna happen because they’re both RPG’s set in the same setting. They are very different though. Yeah, same IP there, so, we are very different. Ours is a much more modern game. We’ve seen games change over time. I’m behind the times on one thing, so I’m gonna… I don’t know, I gotta figure out… I gotta figure that out. I got some guff at Comic-Con for the fact that our alien races have prescribed stat bonuses.

David Read
Why?

Mack Martin
Well, that is part… well, that… it’s a holdover, mechanically, from D&D, which has a holdover from old-school writing styles in the 50s, which had a lot of inherent racial bias.

David Read
I see.

Mack Martin
All orcs are evil and strong and dumb.

David Read
Oh, I see, okay, so expecations for them.

Mack Martin
And that was coded language.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
So, I think that’s a really valid point and I’m hoping a lot of GM’s can see that it’s very easy, at home, to be like, “Yeah, you can change where that bonus goes.” Like, “Yeah, you can be as smart, you know, you can be smart at this, that’s not a problem.”

David Read
You have to start somewhere and have… you have to start somewhere, but also you have to have your balancing and mechanic out. And you can’t just have everything be…

Mack Martin
I’m gonna be honest with you. The stats that those give, they make a difference on individual roles, they come into play. When we’re talking about a plus two, it’s a 5% change. Mathematically balance wise, the way our game works and the way combat works with number of hits to take down, players see hit points, but designers see number of hits to reduce the enemy to non-functional.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
Because that’s number of rounds of combat, which is a much more important balancing factor, because that’s what the players feel, even if it’s not what the players see. The players will get excited over a big crit, but if they only had five hit points, that big crit was as good mechanically balance-wise as a dagger, right? So, an important part of player expectations is balancing how long fights take and, honestly, the plus two, the very small bonuses that are like that can easily be shifted around and are very unlikely to affect the player character’s experience, only his perception of the character. He’ll see when that plus one mattered.

David Read
I understand.

Mack Martin
That will that will create ludonarrative for them, they’ll create a story in their head about what their character is experiencing.

David Read
Okay. Well, narratively, we’re building on those things as we move forward.

Mack Martin
Exactly. So honestly, the mechanic that a lot of players will think has to be there for that stat to make sense, for that math to make sense, when you actually look at the gameplay experience, that plus two is fairly minor and we can free that up to just be like, “Yeah, add a plus two wherever you want because you’re defining this character, not the default.” The defaults are probably more there for the GM to figure out averages across the society.

David Read
Got it.

Mack Martin
I try to express them culturally not biologically.

David Read
Okay. R Silk…

Mack Martin
They also be problematic.

David Read
R Silk. “Do you think MGM might use any of the ideas or storylines from the Living series to influence the next Stargate?”

Mack Martin
That would be a great honor, I’m not holding my breath.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
They’ve got writers who have their own ideas, and they’re the guys who get to play with their ideas.

David Read
That’s true.

Mack Martin
So, they’ve got guys who know what they want to do with stuff and that’s their job. If they see something we did, and they’re like, “This is awesome, let’s do it!” Then I’m honored. But…

David Read
Well, that’s the nice thing about the IP, once MGM owns it, they can take it in different directions, if they chose to. Jessiye Davis. “This may be a Brad or Lee question, but are there any chances of making some standard maps for the Living campaign or for Roll20? Other platforms?”

Mack Martin
We do have some standard maps available on the website.

David Read
Yep.

Mack Martin
You can build the Phoenix site, since you’re going to have a lot of stuff that happens at home, right? You might want to have that Phoenix site base and then it comes with… I want to say… there’s an out of force, the outdoors, on the flip sides? Maybe? I have to look at that, but we saw some small markups, which I really liked. Because people were just use… they were dry erase and we were able to use them on a smaller setup. But then, I think they’re pretty big, the files you get. So, we’ve got some available and it’s definitely something we’re wanting to provide.

David Read
Yeah.

Mack Martin
Thankfully, a lot of resources already exist for taking your Stargate characters to a place.

David Read
Absolutely. Yeah, the Stargate… at stargatetherpg.com. Those are available for purchase, as well as the individual “episodes”, and I’ll talk about that a little bit more after I’m off the line with you here. But there are various stuff out there. Just at stargatetherpg.com.

Mack Martin
Yes. And I think, right now, those are available in print, too. You can get them printed and sent to you.

David Read
Legit! Erika Stroem. “When will the game and bits be available in the UK?” They’re not available there now?

Mack Martin
Everything’s gotten… It’s on a boat! We’re really… yeah, we’re stuck in the same stuck everyone else is and we’re… as soon as we have a definitive answer, we’re definitely… I’m sure Brad and… it is a Brad or Wes question. But, yeah, there are issues shipping-wise that are currently with the UK and us out of our control. We’re trying to urge that along as rapidly as we can.

David Read
#COVID, people.

Mack Martin
Yeah, as soon as we can do anything about it, as soon as paperwork comes through, we can sign. I’m sure these guys are on it, it is their number one priority. They got that question a lot at ‘Con. So, I heard them discuss it a lot, it is definitely their priority.

David Read
There’s just a snowball effect from all the stuff that we’ve dealt with, so we have to deal with the cascade as it comes.

Mack Martin
We want it in your hands as bad as… it’s printed, it’s just we want to get it to your house as fast as we can. We’re very motivated.

David Read
I’m interested to see how you’ll handle this one because I have no… I have barely an inkling. Chris Sposato. “For Living series I feel pacifist characters should not have to gain attack specialist feats granted at levels 5, 11 and 17. Could other feats be chosen? Or could you create a pacifist feat tree?” Does that mean anything to you?

Mack Martin
Yes. So what that is, is…

David Read
I’ve only played a couple of these, I’m like, “What?!”

Mack Martin
So, the explanation for people who are like, “What did that guy just say?” As your character levels up, there are certain points where you start rolling more damage.

David Read
Right.

Mack Martin
You’ve gotten more hit points…

David Read
You become stronger.

Mack Martin
Yeah, you’re stronger, the enemies are stronger, and at those points, you get to roll more damage. And in our game, you get those automatically as you level up, you get that with one weapon type. Now, you can pick them up with your feats for other weapon types, but you get them automatically for one. That is simply a system that’s in place in fifth edition, and it’s part of the fifth edition’s curve. I don’t really consider those feats part of the character’s power, however, that’s a fascinating way to look at it and I hadn’t thought about that and maybe there are some fun things we can do with alternate versions of that. “My character’s got this trait so he replaces his automatic attack specialist feats.” I think that could be a really fun thing to play with in the future.

David Read
Okay.

Mack Martin
I think, honestly, I… the reason… yeah, that could totally happen. That’s a great idea, thanks for letting me steal that!

David Read
There you go!

Mack Martin
Great, now I gotta give someone else a design credit!

David Read
Chris Sposato.

Mack Martin
Yeah, no, let me write that down. I’ll never remember where I got that, we’re so far ahead of when I’ll be able to do that! But he’ll see it in print and hopefully be like, “That was me!” I’ll have to sign his book.

David Read
Absolutely.

Mack Martin
If he reminds me and says, “That was me.” I’ll have to sign that book and give him proof.

David Read
What are you looking forward to the most about the franchise and about the potential for this project to be renewed into Atlantis? What does the future look like, do you think?

Mack Martin
Can I be a… I’m so basic, because I’m just a Stargate fan at heart, I’m just a kid.

David Read
You basic.

Mack Martin
I’m so basic, right? “Give me a vanilla latte, please.” Oh, no, it’s pumpkin spice right now, “Where’s my pumpkin spice?” Anyway… edgy. I’m really looking forward to seeing where Stargate goes in the future — from MGM and Amazon — and seeing what comes of that. So many fans at SDCC were like, “So, what have you heard about a new show?” I’m like, “Guys, I’m a fan with you on this one, too.”

David Read
“What have you heard?”

Mack Martin
Gosh, I hope! “What have you heard? I haven’t been reading the rumor mill, tell me more!”

David Read
“My head’s down creating this book.”

Mack Martin
Yeah. That’s what I’m looking forward to is, if really, this pie in the sky dreams would be people start really liking the game, we start producing stuff and then there’s new content they’re producing and we get to do all kinds of fun play. And it’s like, there’s all kinds of pie in the sky stuff that I could dream about, but honestly, what I’m really looking forward to is getting the chance to do another book. I really liked the setting, I really think what we did holds up on its own. It’s designed to play on its own, and give you all the tools you need to figure it out in the future. But I have a lot of fun stuff I could do design-wise that I’d really like to tackle with another book, apparently, now replacing attack specialist tree.

David Read
Add it to the bottom of the list. Well, you’ve got a hell of a team.

Mack Martin
We really do.

David Read
It was a privilege to get to proofread it and watch it evolve. And it’s a privilege to have you on to finally discuss and I’m really glad you’ve joined me.

Mack Martin
Thank you so much for having me.

David Read
Absolutely, man. So let’s get another book out and do another one. So hopefully, MGM will give us a green light. I’m going to show off the website a little bit here, but I’m going to go ahead and let you go and thank you so much for coming on.

Mack Martin
Thank you for having me again.

David Read
Thank you Mack, be well. Mack Martin, Stargate SG-1 RPG Lead Designer. We’ve got… let me pull this up here. I’ve got the RPG, the roleplaying game, pulled up… website, I apologize, it’s cut off a little bit. But this is stargatetherpg.com. T H E R P G. And over here is where you can get the book that I have been showing on the screen today. This is a physical copy… I’m completist, so I like to get all the physical content that I can get my hands on. But this is the core rulebook that I’ve been showing on the screen today. So if you click on the store over here, you can get that and the Stargate roleplaying game. Also, there is a PDF version, this is the one that I’ve been literally showing on the screen, you can access it here as well. And this is available for $10. I like them both for different reasons, the physical copy because you can literally… there’s tabs on the side here so that you can — and they’re all color coded differently depending on the chapter that you’re in — so, I apologize for the slowness of the computer — so, you can see at a glance when you’re going down the side of the book, what section you’re in, but also with the PDF here, the advantage of that is that you’ve got this content tab, and everything is organized. And also indices. We all love indices and they are hotkeys, so you can click on something and it’ll take you to the page, so that’s really legit. You can also pick up from them — and I showed this a little bit earlier — some of these map tiles and miniature designs for 3D printing. This is one that Wes worked on himself, and it is one of the most detailed Stargate assets that you can print from a 3D printer. In my opinion it is extremely amazing. And so these are all assets that are available on stargatetherpg.com. This also is a space where you can meet other players and get involved in some gaming groups on your own. All right. Again, I appreciate Mack for joining us, this was truly a lot of fun. Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free and we do appreciate you tuning in, but if you want to support the show further, buy yourself some of our themed swag. We’re now offering t-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts and hoodies for all ages, as well as cups and other accessories in a variety of sizes and colors at dialthegate.com. From the merchandise tab, you can click on a specific design to see what items are being offered. Checkout is fast and easy, credit card or PayPal. Just visit dialthegate.com or straight to dialthegate.com/merch and thanks so much for your support. We are going to have one more week of shows next week. I’m thinking I’m going to do a last minute trivia episode, bring the trivia gang back, if any of them who wants to join us on the 18th. So, still, that is building the outline for the shows that we’re going to have next weekend. And also, the designer of some of the props that we have on the set is going to be joining me to discuss some of them in greater detail and we’re going to have an unboxing video as well that I’ve saved from earlier this year when I acquired some of these pieces, so looking really forward to that. Thanks so much to my Producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey, to my moderators today, I had… who did I have here in the chat… it was Sommer and Tracy and Antony. I appreciate you guys so much for making today’s episode possible. Big thanks to Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, our web developer, and a big thank you to Jeremy, our Webmaster, he keeps the site up to date as well. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in, one more episode and then we are off for a couple of weeks for the holiday season. I appreciate you so much for continuing to make this show possible and continuing to tune in. I’ll see you on the other side.