One of the things that I’d not overly considered when I decided to step away from Malifaux was what would happen to Soulstone Train. The major downside of doing a podcast that is based around a single game is that changes to that game directly affect the podcast. As the two most regular hosts of SST, myself and Shane, were both feeling similar things about the new version of Malifaux, it was clear straight away that continuing without changes was not an option. This left me with a lot of thinking to do and also discussions that needed to happen with the other hosts.
The first question that needed answering was do we continue at all, the answer was of course, yes (I had after all just got an SST shirt made). To me, the point of our recording sessions isn’t to put out content that will get a lot of listeners, it’s to get together with my mates and have a laugh. Does that mean that we don’t care how many people listen to it? To a certain extent, yes. We record because we enjoy it and on 2-3 occasions we’ve not even put out the recorded material. At some point I’m going to put a video camera in the corner of the room when we’re recording and put it on YouTube so people can get a little peak behind the curtain. It is nice when people do choose to listen and provide feedback however if our listener numbers drop we wouldn’t even know (I’ve not once bothered looking at the analytics that podbean provide).
Once the decision had been made to continue, the next thing to consider was the format. This was a particularly difficult decision as not all of the guys were going in the same direction. As I’m a big fan of the multisystem podcast Lost Boys Radio, their format seemed like a good starting point for the development of the new SST. We are particularly lucky to have a really good gaming club (yorkgarrison.co.uk) and there are a few guys there that I’ve wanted to get on board for a while but it just hasn’t worked out due to it being Malifaux only.
Today is Friday, on Tuesday we record the first of the new format episodes and I have to admit, it is both daunting and exciting in equal measure. With the old guard we had developed a sense of structure and borderline professionalism that made me comfortable that the editing would not been too bad (not like the good old days of the Baby Jake era). New people and a new format bring with it a new set of challenges and a whole lot of unknown. I’m confident that these changes will be a good thing and hopefully we can bring something to gaming podcasting that isn’t already being done (Dungeons and Drunkerds anyone?!).
This first episode will have one of the guys on it that I’ve wanted to get involved for a while, he’s a twitter regular so he may be familiar to some people but I don’t want to spoil the surprise of who it is just yet. The one spoiler that I will give is that we’re about to start a D&D campaign and this individual is to be our dungeon master. Both myself and Shane have been working away on our character’s back stories with very different results (we may even read a bit out on the coming episode). As I’m a big fan of fluff and previously dabbled in comic book writing, I have really enjoyed this process and look forward to seeing how quickly my emotionally crippled paladin is killed off. We will hopefully have some regular sections such as highlights of the D&D campaign, ongoing Malifaux activity, journeys into other games (so far we’ve got Infinity, Bushido, Arcworlde, Freebooters Fate and Dreadball on the list), various board game reviews and of course, hobby updates.
If you would like to recommend a game to us that you think we might enjoy, drop us an email at soulstonetrain@gmail.com and let us know.
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