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Sam Bassett

Samuel (Sam) Bassett is a Chicago-based game designer and founder/principal of Basenti, known for the board game Mischief of Faction and for designing and running megagames including Watch the Skies.

Sep 29, 2026

The Great Game

The Great Game

62: Watch the Skies: Legacy and Legends with Sam

Sep 29 · 1h 23m

Jack McNamee
Jack McNameeHOST
50:34
It might be a good leaping off point to talk about how the mechanics changed from session to session.
Sam BassettGUEST
50:42
Yeah, so what we wanted was...
Sam BassettGUEST
50:44
What I feared would happen is if someone played all three sessions...
Sam BassettGUEST
50:47
Playing Watch the Skies three times in a row back to back to back while Watch the Skies is awesome.
Sam BassettGUEST
50:52
That sounds probably a little bit old by the third time in 14 hours.
Sam BassettGUEST
50:58
So I wanted to provide three completely different feeling games as we went.
Sam BassettGUEST
51:04
And if you think about thematically in each era, you've got 1500, which is marked by exploration and travel, which is very scary and very risky at the time, very limited.

5 MINS LATER

Jack McNamee
Jack McNameeHOST
56:44
So what mechanical elements were different in game two then? Did it no longer have a travel restriction in that game?

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