Eddie Bartlett seems to have finally escaped all the Carnage in the Casino and is back to help you Meet Yer Maker! To be upfront, I’m a bit biased towards this one as I’m writing some stretch goal content (assuming y’all are helping us make sure that we get there!). Eddie is one half of Long Con Press, which puts on an awesome convention every year and typically kickstarts a new adventure at the same time. Plus, there’s a podcast! I hope y’all are ready for a funnel with an awesome twist! I got the opportunity to play right up until that narrative swerve and it was awesome! So enjoy the interview.

This adventure provides a fully mapped town, complete with descriptions of all the keyed locations. Do those tend to get used in the course of this adventure? Or is that meant to be a bonus for the Weird Frontiers judge who needs a new town?

Yes, it's a bonus. I'm a huge fan of the Village of Hommlet that leads into Temple of Elemental Evil, because of that starting village. It's so perfect to start an adventure in, and I have started so many there without ever using any of the other dungeon material. I felt like another starting Weird West town would be a great resource for Judges.  Additionally, there is a very good possibility Largo Vista will be visited again in the sequel if there is one. I usually have a continuation in mind, it's just a matter of what project calls to me loudest.

There's quite a twist in this adventure. I've been a part of one playtest and watched another group figure it out when the twist happened. You spoil as much as you like, but I'm curious what the range of reactions has been. Could you tell us a bit about that?

This adventure has got the best reception of anything I've written and maybe even out of anything I've run! When I heard your response to it, I was like "Ok, I've got something good"! haha Everyone in the local area playtesting has said, "When do we start the full campaign of this?" So many of my fellow independent publishers have said "I wish I wrote it first!" It's very high praise.

I think it's such a good adventure starter, it can branch out in so many directions after this. I hate to give any spoilers, so if you want to play this in the near future, stop reading. Judges only ahead.

So, the big twist is that our Weird West villagers are not just villagers. When the gang rides into town to rob the bank, most if not all, PC's are killed. But death is just the beginning. They awaken in a repair facility, where they realize they aren't human, they are robot entertainers playing a role in a park. This is one of my favorite parts getting to combine Weird Frontiers and Umerica (Yes, David Baity and Reid San Fillipo signed off on this one! One of my best life moments!) So, the start is Weird West and the rest is Post Apoc escape from the lab. Finally in the end you can take the PCs into any other DCC-compatible world as they all exist as other parks, or you can adventure further in the "real world".

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You've got a great puzzle in this adventure where the PCs have to crack a code. Puzzles and riddles can be loved by some players while they're hated by others. What'd you do to make sure this puzzle runs smooth?

Loved by some and hated by others, that is for sure the truth! Call me somewhat traditionalist, I like a puzzle/riddle in the adventure. Carnage in the Casino hit that as well. This one started life as yet another cryptogram, which I think has been done to death. So for this, I wanted to try something different, but it required playtest and playtest to ensure it was the right level of difficulty, easily understood, and was fun. I have had great responses to it. I broke it up into pieces so everyone at the table can work on it at once, instead of the typical, the puzzle inclined player takes all the info and works on solving it while the other players zone out bored. So, for the puzzle haters, you still have the option to ignore the puzzle while another player does it, but this one is a little different so give it a try. Haha One of my friends says these are the board game designer coming out in me, so that's probably true. The next one might get a simple card game I recently created placed in it. Something new, something a little different to keep the adventure fresh.

Long Con Press is like a tag team duo of you and Matt Gullet. Each year, y'all tend to kickstart an adventure around the time of Long Con. The high tier pledges get people exclusive games, plus tickets and rooms to the convention. I'm curious how y'll juggle running a Kickstarter and running a convention at the same time! I bet there's some great synergy there, but how much work is it?

Haha, it is great synergy, but it is a LOT of work. Timing our Kickstarters (and we swap out years between us, to not flood the market) with The Long Con is great. When else are we going to be in the forefront of people's minds as when they are interacting with us every day of the convention? This year, there's going to be even better synergy as some backers will get some rewards before the Kickstarter closes out! Conventions are always work because everyone has a problem at some point that is of high priority to them, without knowing that there are so many other fires we're trying to put out at the same time! haha, I think the Kickstarter ongoing at the same time just adds another level of anxiety to the process. haha

Thanks for taking the time to share about Meet Yer Maker! Anything else that you'd like to share with everyone?

Yeah, thanks for the interview, and watch this space. I hope John Watson and I can chat on a topic you are familiar with "Dungeon Dwelling Creatures" here soon. Thanks to all our Long Con family out there, none of this would be possible without your support.

What do you think about genre-mixing twists in adventures?

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