Rich Lescouflair
Appearances
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
My name is Rich Lescaflair from Skydon Game Studios, creator of Esper Genesis and Phantasy Star Tabletop, and you're listening to Morris' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
52,000.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That is correct. Video game series.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, so it is my favorite video game series ever. I love RPGs and I was a video game, you know, kid. I was also a Sega kid. I had a Sega Master System, which is actually what the first game came out on. Hero was released in 88, and Japan was released in 87.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And the reason why it was created as kind of like a... I don't know if it was a response exactly, but back then, Dragon Warrior or Dragon Quest... whichever variation of that is, was like the popular RPG on the Nintendo. And so Sega wanted to make a kind of like their own, you know, RPG since that was getting to be the popular thing at the time.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So they got the team together, and then I remember reading about this, and that's why I was like, oh, that makes sense as to why I love this so much. They got the team together, and Sega said, okay, make something kind of like this game, but don't clone it. We want something that plays like an RPG, but not completely unique, and we're just going to let you go at it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
1977. 1977.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No actual oversight, not too much. So that team got together, and the two of us I think I actually was one of the assistants who was kind of like working as kind of just working through the job like an intern.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, her name was Chieko Aoki. And she came up with this idea and said, hey, you know, if we don't want a clone, she was huge into Star Wars.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And and said and said, why don't we make something like, you know, with a sci fi kind of thing with like a like a fantasy adventure thing, but put it in space on like, you know, a system of planets. And then you had Rieko Kodama. I remember this because I was talking about it recently because she just passed away a couple of years ago.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And she came up with this vision of how the art looked and how the characters looked. And even though the person who came up with the concept was credited as an assistant of the game, She was the one that came up with the idea. And the team was a really diverse group of half men, half women, and a lot of assistant work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it was pretty much not really heard of for something to do for game development. And they got to do whatever they wanted. So they created something that just blew the socks off of everything else, something like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
totally huge and that was and that's why like and they uh they did something like uh like like the first fantasy star game for example it's it's uh i get excited when i talk about it you were a big fan it certainly sounds i was a big fan yeah i was a big fan i'm getting that sense yeah the very first scene of the game and that's kind of what i wanted to to to get into
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
yeah like you know when the rpg stuff is like the very first scene it's it's like you the guy that you would expect to be like the hero of like every other game in the first scene he's he's uh you know he's he's dying he's on his deathbed they're like okay you know the big the big hero he's dying you know he he gets stabbed he's dying he gives you know he he tells his sister some game of thrones vibes going on yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. He, he tells his sister, Hey, like, you know, save the people and, and like, you know, rescue them from the King's tyranny. And then he dies. And then the sister who becomes like the, the big, like, you know, main hero character, which is also not. Yeah. Goes, goes. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Okay. I'm going to help the people by killing this guy that killed you. And then like, after I kill, I'm going to pick him up and kill him again. Like, you know, he's, you know, she's like this like big revenge story. And, and it was, it was really, it was really cool. All right, I'll stop gushing about that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Kings, you know, kings of planets. And like, you know, you had like these fantasy domed cities with spaceports. And it was like this perfect blend of sci-fi and fantasy. And then it goes and then what makes the series great is that its sequels follow the story generationally.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
you know like every thousand years like oh wow okay the story comes up and then like they tailor back to the original game and follow this flow of a storyline yeah that like once you get to it's like almost looking for a plot twist somewhere like you know late in the game you're like oh this is how this whole thing connects to to this game and you know that's that's another another element that i thought that was kind of unique
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I did. I started by contacting reps from Sega of America. And through them, I had an interview with the team in Japan Well, first I had to do a presentation because I felt like this is content that I'm a big fan, but the majority of the people that really knew a lot of this stuff either passed away or aren't with the company anymore. So I had to kind of put together like a...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Here's the game you own the rights to.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That sounds exactly it, yes. I actually had to explain to them, like, you know, the people I was talking to did not know what D&D was. And so I had to kind of put that together and say, okay, well, let me, let me put the, it was, it had to be, it was a PowerPoint. It put together and I'm like, it explains what D and D is first. And then goes into like, you know, what the, what fantasy star is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And the, and I kind of explained that like fantasy star was like a huge inspiration for the RPG that I already made, which was Esper Genesis. So I'm kind of bringing that full circle back to, you know, Phantasy Star, which was one of the licenses I wanted to go with.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes. The reason why I said powered by Esper Genesis is because it has a lot of the sci-fi elements that are unique, like the starships and the gear and all of that and rules that are not in standard 5e. Yeah. It's more of that than just like the core mechanics.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
sort of primer just really quick and then we'll go back to fantasy star just so people know the context we're talking really quick it's heroic you know science fiction you know powered by powered by fifth edition it has uh it has sci-fi like you know planets and gear and starships and robots and you know rules for like the matrix and like you know basically taking anything that you would you would see as far as creating something fantasy for dnd and creating something sci-fi
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes. As for Genesis-wise, when I originally designed it, I designed it so that if you really wanted to, you could put a dwarf in a starship. And it'll work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Now it's kind of, you know, it's going a little bit different now. You know, D&D is doing its own thing. So I am doing that as well. Yeah, fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No, that is also going to be standalone. Okay. However, I am going to design it so that if you really wanted to blow it out to other things, you can always take the Esper Genesis rule.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, there's also, there's a lot of, a lot of people like, you know, bash on it because of, you know, it's, it's, it's existing elements, but there's, there's so much you can do with it that a lot of people haven't tried. Yeah. Yeah. And they ask you, they're like, oh, why would you want to do that when there's other systems? I'm like, well, because everyone knows this one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
and because i know and because i know this one you know so because i'll sell 10 times as many books by using 5e yeah then i've been playing dnd for you know since my teens so like yeah so fancy star coming to kickstarter is it next year i know it's 2025 no kickstarter no kickstarter oh okay yeah that's that's no no no that's that is well that's actually part of part of my agreement Right, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Got it, right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Which is kind of like, okay, I understand from their point of view. From my point of view, it's like, what, you don't think this is going to make money? Of course it is. It's going to make a lot of money. But yeah, I do understand that's how they operate as a company is concerned with everything else.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
There's also an image thing, right? As a big company, if you've been around for that long and you're not really too familiar with the TTRPG space... Why would you need to crowdfund? A, why would you need to crowdfund? And B, do you want to put your official IP or your logo or something on someone else's...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I'm kind of looking at it from the 10,000-foot view and going, okay, it sucks, but I really want to do this project.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I did not put together a hard date because I learned my lesson from...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
from the last from the last project i still have a i i have a kickstarter that only now uh that we that we had actually established a skydon game studio we kind of we kind of took over the production and are and are getting things out but you know you know the kick the kickstarter is like well you know well over well over a year late on delivery and that was because we had when we originally concepted it we had put together kind of like a whole a whole thing like a a
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Actually, not long after we did our interview here, you know, one of my business partners, he unfortunately passed away.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And then like everything kind of like collapsed under our feet, you know, after that. And then, you know, time and like projects and like everything, like, you know, we were having issues handling a lot of things. And then... We had like the whole thing changed with the printing that became three times worth three times as expensive as it used to be. And and so I'm just kind of planning ahead.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Right. You know, I'm like, hope for the best plan for the worst. Right. You know, that's. Yeah. So we will be shooting to get this out by mid 2025. That's that is the that's the goal line. With leaving room for potential pitfalls.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's going to be a hardcover book. And I wanted to make it palatable. Palatable. Desirable, I guess, is a better word for both RPG players and Phantasy Star fans. I'm like a gigantic Phantasy Star fan. And so, like, even if, like, I didn't play RPGs, I wanted to make a book to be like, yeah, I want that book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, a lot of things that people haven't really, you know, seen or read about or seen, like, you know, So someone said, I read something recently. Well, I already got what I wanted out of it. I sent like a preview sketch of characters. Someone said something like, I got to see like my favorite, like official art for my favorite character from like 35 years ago. Wow. Okay. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Before that, I'm putting together, because we are not crowdfunding, I can kind of present the game the way that I want to. I guess that's the advantage. So I'm putting together a starter kit, like a starter adventure that's going to come out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Hopefully within the next couple of months. It's not going to be like a starter box. It's not going to be a starter box or anything. It's going to be digital, but it's going to be a, you know, since I'm making the game for... for both, you know, old RPGers and for fans. It's going to be, here's an intro adventure. Here's kind of like a starter on how to play with the rules.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it's going to be, you know, set in an event that happens during the very first game so that people that are getting into the game, they're already familiar with the scenario.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it uses the four main characters of the original game. that you can play while you're running the adventure. So I thought that was kind of a cool idea. I'll have that up there. And then the plan is for people that are getting into it that way, then maybe I'm going to offer probably special discounts for people that want to purchase the book going forward, people that are really interested.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So Fantasy Star Online is a different... So when Fantasy Star Online came out, they actually took the entire classic story and all the characters in Fantasy Star and kind of forgot about them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, it's like a whole different timeline and a whole different thing. I plan on introducing some Phantasy Star Online elements, you know, and some art and kind of like putting in some of those online elements in the gameplay as well without necessarily directly connecting the two because they're not really connected.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I do now. So when I thought about the original artwork, I was like, well, the original artwork is... Yeah, yeah. Well, no, no, no. I mean, it's great artwork, but the computer artwork, it's also very old. It's dated, yeah. It's not only that, but it's not even anything that I would be able to use for an actual production. Oh, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So, our lead illustrator for Esper Genesis, Santi Casas, he also happens to love Phantasy Star, which is probably why he didn't begin to love it. And, you know, he wanted to do all of, like, Kodama's characters, like, you know, Justice, because he really, really loves that, you know, the series. Yeah. he knocked it out of the park. Some of his art is already on the website.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
He did this rendition of Alice that I didn't even have to ask him very much. He just kind of did it. He's like, what about this? And I'm like, oh my God, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, just go and do that. He did the rest. We're on audio, but I can show you some stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I'm getting a real vibe.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. It kind of made sense because it didn't click until later on because when he did the very first character for Aspergillus...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
like our engineer like you know he sent it and i got so much like fantasy star vibes off of it i was like oh wow like this is great and then we kind of did esper genesis art kind of based off of that theme not understanding that i was already you know that that that we were already going on the same track with what we wanted to do i can't you're already on the same page already it's like yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Try and make it a bit more fancy. I can't share anything.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The nice thing about like JRPGs and video game RPGs is they kind of already give you a baseline to work from.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It is, you know, every character already has technically a class and levels and like, you know, so you kind of look at what gear they use and how they level and like what spells they have and kind of put together a, you know, and with a system that you already know, you kind of get together, oh, okay, hey, you know, I can make this work with, you know, X character.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's okay. You're not wrong. So there's an approach I'm going with because all of the games, they have the same species and characters and, you know, but obviously the, you know, the rules have, have changed as, as you progress in the game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So like, I, I'm going to adopt like one of the optionals that we put into Esper Genesis and the technician's guide where you're kind of creating a hero and you have like an identity and like an origin and then, and then that, and then that origin is,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
uh which your species is a part of i guess it's kind of what dnd is doing now but just a little a little bit a little different you know you can get like an environmental origin and then your you know and then your background and your and your bonds and then and then after that you can go to your to your class and the classes uh are are very they're 5e but they're very familiar to fantasy star you have your you know your hunter and then your
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
your scientist, your thief, your esper wizard, your mystic. Espers are like a huge part of the game. They're like a society of wizards and mystics that were protecting the planets against the dark force.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
background so you've got sort of who they're born as and then where they grew up sort of right right so so yeah where were you you know your your species you know can that doesn't doesn't necessarily dictate your culture you know it could just you know dictate your your appearance and then like your environment for example if you're on a heavy gravity world yeah exactly right right right these will add different yeah okay nice nice
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Happy birthday. Excellent. I'm trying not to set an exact date.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes. Actually, I put together our first mailing list for our group of what we call our pioneers, which were the people that signed up before August 15th. People that play Phantasy Star Online will recognize the pioneer moniker. If you know, you know. Yeah, exactly. But I, you know, basically sending out like, you know, hey, here's where we're at.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Here's, you know, some preview sketches that, you know, that we're doing. And I'm going to be talking about pretty soon, like the starter adventure, which I want to have out within like a couple of months. I know that the 2025 date is kind of like, oh, this is just kind of in this far-off future, and I don't really know what's happening.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And I'm like, no, I want people to actually see stuff and get excited about stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Thank you for having me on.