Russ “Morrus” Morrissey
Appearances
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Good work, good work. That's impressive. Dedication. The fun thing is when you still blame traffic.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I can write a bit and I can do layout a bit. Yeah. But not well. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, tools like that are really, really, really helpful. And I don't want to use Home Brewery because I don't want all my books to look like the indie books.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, I'm a big fan of having a layout artist. No problem goes away.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Anyway, news, news, news. Let's have a look at some warnings. Did we all see Deadpool and Wolverine?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Such a fun film. It is. I'm not going to spoil the film.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
But if I were to do so, I would be tempted to play the Deadpool adventure. Oh. Which is apparently a very silly, laugh-out-loud, funny adventure for Marvel Multiverse broadband. It's called Deadpool Roleplays the Marvel Universe. Mm-hmm. and it looks awesome.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I mean, I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to play a superhero RPG, because I've played them before in the past, and they've never really been my bag. I love watching the movies, but for gaming, they're never... But I feel like I want to play this. I feel like I want to play a very silly Deadpool Marvel multiplayer game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Well, I'm looking at this review by Rob Weiland, and he says that not only is this laugh out loud funny, he also says that this is the strongest Marvel multiverse role-playing game adventure that they've brought out. Wow. Full stop.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Wow, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, that would have been reading the entire review out. Okay, okay. He just says it's a very good adventure as well as being incredibly funny.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, there's a full review on it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It feels like a real labour of luck.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I'm kind of curious, how does that work then? So they download it from... I downloaded the program. No, I mean from the customer point of view.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Good. More news, more news. Anyone else got some news? I've got a couple of bits of D&D news. Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Should we talk about some D&D then?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
There's only bad news. Is it good and bad? Okay. One of them isn't great. The other one is just neutral, I think. neutral and bad let's start with neutral okay let's go on the sliding scale so neutral so next week on August the 27th that is next week isn't it that is next week on a Tuesday what is it today I don't even know what it is today Thursday It is next week. Okay. It's Tuesday then. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
On Tuesday. Okay. There's going to be an event called D&D Direct. They did this last year, I think. It's an official live streamed event.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Taking place at 9am PDT, which is 5pm for us. Mm-hmm. And they're going to talk about two things. Well, they're going to look at the Player's Handbook, which is kind of out now, so I think people know what's in there. But for those that haven't seen the Player's Handbook, they're going to look at that. But they're going to talk about the future of Dungeons & Dragons.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
And they're going to talk about the Project Sigil and or Sigil 3D virtual tabletop. Ooh. Which is going to be unveiled very, very soon, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah. We saw them using it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
But the beta itself is coming soon. So what they say, so for the future of D&D, they say they'll be unveiling an outline for the future of D&D, the 2024 core rulebooks, and what awaits your heroes in addition to those core rulebooks. So I guess we're going to hear about some more releases later.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I like Owlbear Rodeo.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It's just really simple.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I've seen bits of it. I didn't sit and watch the entire thing because it was long.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It's basically a stage actual play in a theater. Oh. It was at Gen Con. They're playing the 2024 core rules. Okay. And then for the first half, they do it the traditional way, just, you know, they're sitting around and rolling dice and using books and pens and paper. Then the second half, they bring out laptops.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I assume that must be your adventure then, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, they say it's coming soon. There isn't a date yet, but they say it's coming soon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I haven't. I just wouldn't have the time, to be honest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Wales is also famous for dragons as well. Caves and dragons.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Okay, well, the less well-received news, shall I say, shall I put it like that? Yes. That's what most put it. The more discussed news is how D&D Beyond is going to be implementing the 2024 rules and how it will handle access to the 2014 rules. Wow. So they basically posted a roadmap. Is that the right word term? Yeah. Something like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. About what they're going to be doing. Yes. So the short version is you will still be able to access the 2014 basic rules and core rule books if you have them. So they won't disappear from your library if you have them. Yeah. And you will still be able to make characters using the 2014 player's handbook.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
And existing homebrew content won't be impacted. So that's kind of the three good things. So the 2014 rules will be marked with a legacy badge. But the only things that are going to be staying there with this legacy badge are classes, subclasses, species, background, feats, and monsters. So, no spells. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, unless they accidentally missed that out, but it seems unlikely that they did. So there's a few bits and pieces that aren't included, which basically means if you're playing a 2014 game using a 2014 character, using a legacy class and subclass and species, but things like your spells and certain other elements of the game that aren't in that list. Yes. are still going to be updated.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Whether you want to or not. On your character sheet. Your spell's going to change.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Do the D&D Beyond character sheets show the details of the spells, or are they just a spell name?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I think we should do some news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
That's not on the list, so I guess so. Eek. Wow.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Although we do know that the D&D cartoon magic items are going to be in there. Interesting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Like the energy bow and things like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
But stuff did happen. There was stuff. I want to do a quick Brandon Sanderson update, though. Oh, yeah, it's ending next week. Yeah, ending next week. It is just about, it's just over $9 million. Wow.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
The other thing that's going to happen is tooltips across the board are going to reflect the 2024 rules, not the 2014 rules, even if you're playing a 2014 game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
That's a choice.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It's interesting you have to have two modes. You can't have a toggle just and switch between 2014 and 2024.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Yeah. The other thing is all the monster stat blocks will be updated for 2024 format.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Might not be the worst thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. I haven't... Yeah, I mean, they're not updating all the stat blocks to 2024 monsters because they're keeping the legacy 2014 monsters. Yeah. So it looks like they'll have two of each monster.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
They can use both versions. As far as I can make out, as I understand it, unless I've misunderstood this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
yeah so why not do this with spells as well but but but as as i read it the monsters well yeah why not do this as well yeah the monsters will all be had the 2024 layout presumably just because they just have one monster template or something like that but um i see you'll be able to use a 2040 monster it has a new layout okay um
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I think it is an improvement. I think it's more functional. I just don't think it's as pretty. I don't think it looks very nice. I don't like that blocky bit, but hey.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Why don't we play a little game?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Avatar was $9.5 million, and it has a week left to go. So I think it's going to overtake Avatar today to become the biggest TTRPG Kickstarter ever. And then it's just a question of how far does it go then?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Especially on that Twitter thing. It's very, very, you know, level-headed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
That's a long time ago, but yeah. Hello, Monty. Right, have we got any more news?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I've just spotted Prime Video. Amazon Prime Video have a new animated show called Secret Level. And it features 15 episodes and their stories set in the various worlds, including Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer 40K...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. What's it called? Secret something? And other things that I don't know and video games that I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, well, the list is Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons and Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World Atomum, Pac-Man. You're supposed to say Pac-Man.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Just running around a maze being chased by ghosts.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
While eating pills.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. We've got Mega Man, New World, ATM, Pac-Man, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, and Warhammer 40,000. Wow. Wow. Okay. Two of those are tabletop role-playing games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It's not out yet. Sorry.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
December the 10th. Sorry, I missed that key bit of information. It was... Yeah, December the 10th. You've got a couple of months, three months, four months, some months, a number of months that is plural. I will put the pitchfork and torch down.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I have heard a rumour, and I don't know how true it is, that the D&D one features Tiamat. Nice. I don't know how true that is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
you're not getting a lot stronger the strongest female character yeah yeah right I think that might be the news mm-hmm
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Tell us, if you will, what is a shadow dark?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
because darkness and light is very much a theme of the game so um just for those i think most people listening would have tuned in already knowing who you are and what what this game is but would it be fair to say that your game is kind of an osr style game with some more modern trappings to it is that a fair description oh absolutely that's what i would call it too Okay, excellent. Lucky guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
So you kickstarted this, what, last year, was it? Yeah. And did over a million dollars. That's incredible.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
And we mentioned earlier in the show, it's one of the only two Kickstarters to have done that without including a ton of miniatures and plushies and T-shirts and pins and badges and stuff. So it's just for the game. So that's a singular club of only two. Only two people have managed to do that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, I think it definitely speaks to how some of these Kickstarters, people are fans of maybe Avatar, or they're fans of maybe Brandon Sanderson, and they're collectors of all this stuff. This speaks to how people, I think, really wanted that game, that specific experience that you're offering. So I was kind of thinking, how would you describe that?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Say to a 5e player who maybe hasn't played many other games, how would you describe how that experience differs to your standard kind of 5e style game?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
32,473.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It just went up as I watched it. Wow. Wow. So, um,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Mm-hmm. yeah um because i i kind of noticed that obviously it reminds me very much of earlier editions of dnd and that's obviously you know deliberate um what one thing that really striked me is the the visual style of the game and the layout choices that you've made sort of topics having their own page each each topic is like one or two pages with a big kind of bold header and um
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Just flicking through the book, just from an ease of use in a player navigation point of view, I think that's a really, really strong choice. And it's thematically strong as well as being incredibly useful. So I was kind of thinking, how did you come to that style of layout and how it looks and the kind of iconography that you've kind of gone with?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, same with me. Yeah. So can you speak a bit about the element of light I noticed in the game? So one of the concepts of the game is like a minute in the game is a minute in real time and vice versa. So the game runs in real time unless you specifically say, okay, an hour is passing while you rest or a day is passing or a week is passing or whatever.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
But otherwise, a torch will last an hour and that will be an hour of real time at the table.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
So...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
So you've got a minute to take your turn sort of thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, so it's not like it's six seconds. If it takes you five minutes to go around the table, then the round is five minutes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I mean, I've used turn timers in the past just to say, come on, you get a minute to decide what you're doing, otherwise we're going to move on. But I've never tried it with things like torches and stuff, and now I really want to. I really do. I mean, I think that's a really clever idea. And I think that's just something I'm just going to bring into my games going forward anyway now, to be honest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I can see how it would create the tension at the table. Yeah. I can see how that would work. I mean, yeah, I'm just going to start doing that. Not just for that, for other things as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
You light an actual torch.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
And when the torch goes out, the torch goes out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Great, yeah, let's go. It's my name on the podcast.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. You don't need an Excel spreadsheet.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
That's exactly it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
You'll be like, I don't even know this guy.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Look, I won't play a game unless it has advanced trigonometry and calculus and calculus and rocket science in it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
While we're being timed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah. So, a million dollars on Kickstarter for Emmys. This thing took off. It did. you said earlier in the show that you only expected it to do like 10 grand on Kickstarter oh yeah so this presumably was a big big surprise for you when it really took off and did a million dollars I mean how did that feel
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Anyway, a week to go. I'm guessing 12 million is my... I think...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. A million dollars. It's incredible. But, I mean, how do you adjust to that then? So one minute you're a creator making a small game which might, like, make 10,000 dollars on Kickstarter and, you know, and suddenly a month later you've got a million dollar Kickstarter, a big, big fan base. What sort of changes does that bring about? Or do you just carry on as normal?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
What's... What's the difference?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah. Especially when you've already costed it in a certain way.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, we've been there. There's always going to be. We made a mistake.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, it's going to be a lot. Would you like to make a guess, Kelsey?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Although, although, somebody will complain and somebody did.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
13. Okay, we've got two on 13. 13 million, not 13,000.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, the social contract kind of.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Right, right, there's...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Which I find kind of weird because it's really easy to be a killer DM.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
So all this success came as a surprise, you know, the million-dollar Kickstarter for Enies. But what do you think that says? What is it about your game that you think has, like, caught people's imagination? And what's caused that success? What's drawing people in?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It is incredible. It is what? I just, I check it every day. Do you? I haven't backed it because, you know, the Cosmere stuff. Well, I just haven't read any of the books. It's not, you know, it's not my, but I'm just fascinated by the Kickstarter and I just really wanted to do well and I don't know why because it doesn't affect me at all. But, you know, I'm just like egging it on. Come on, come on.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
And this is why people hate it when adventurers come to town.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, yeah, I mean, who really wants to go crawling through caves and, you know, it's not a fun way to spend your time, is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I am not one of those people. I mean, neither am I, if I'm honest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get eaten by a dinosaur or something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, there's two ways you can look at it. You get some people who just get jealous. Yes. And then you get the other people who are just happy that this thing is happening. And I'm in the latter group.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I noticed that looking at the spells, you compare their equivalents.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
from shadow dark to say well any sort of later version of dnd they are much more concise much much much more concise so i was i was going to ask about like your approach to that so when you look at a spell that um is traditionally sort of like a page and a half text and you've managed to distill it down into two short paragraphs how
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I'm pleased to say.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Or not making things more complicated than they need to be at the table.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I think that also adds to the fact that maybe magic can be slightly unpredictable that way as well, depending on what the GM decides at the time.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
What's interesting is if you look at the top, the list of top TTRPG Kickstarters, the top four are all not D&D. Wow. If you count this one, the top four are not D&D. So the top four are, so this one, Avatar Legends is not D&D. Gloomhaven Grand Festival was not D&D. Which we...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
saying i know how to do these things this is my history these are the skills that i've already accumulated so it's a definite difference in approach there during the break we were um talking about the ennies because you've won four ennies for this game and you mentioned that you were there at the uh at the ceremony how was that winning four ennies i mean i assume you
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It came as a bit of a surprise. How much of a surprise? Did you have a prepared speech, for example, or not?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. I mean, how does it feel walking up the first time up on that stage to collect an Emmy?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, hopefully you'll experience it again because I'm sure you have things planned. Can you talk a bit about that at all? Oh, yeah. What's in the future?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, yeah. I was looking through one of them this morning. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Well, that's not entirely true. But the third one was the MCDM. But I will say that Shadow Dark is one of only two Kickstarters, the other being Coyote and Crow, to do it without all of that extra stuff. Oh.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Are we hoping for another million dollars? That's the question.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. When did you start working on the game? Because obviously the Kickstarter was last year, but presumably its genesis was prior to that. So how long has it been gestating?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
There's only two that have done it without all the dice and the shirts and the plushies and the... Board games. Yeah, yeah. Stuff. So, yeah, Shadow Dark 2023 and Coyote and Crow in 2021. The only two that have ever done that. Wow. That's why... An exclusive club.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Can we talk about the aesthetic just briefly? I mean, we need to wind up in a minute because it's nearly four o'clock. But the aesthetic you've got, I mean, I mentioned it earlier, the kind of quite a striking aesthetic, but you've gone with this sort of black and white, quite solid, bold aesthetic. Can you talk a bit about why you chose, you know, I mean, you could have gone like...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
full-colour page spread art and all this sort of stuff. But you went for this very striking, bold aesthetic, which I think really, really works for the game. But can you talk a little bit about why you chose to make it look like that as opposed to what's more common these days?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Yeah. And you definitely succeeded in that. Absolutely. Thank you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a real, real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, that's it for this week. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us. Next week, we have Rich Leskufla coming on to talk about his new game, Fantasy Star. Looking forward to that. Yes. But until then, thank you so much, everyone. Goodbye and see you next week. Bye.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Bye. Bye.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
That was just the character wonderfully. But it probably means something in Tarrasque.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, it's probably the Tarrasque equivalent of Shakespeare.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I didn't get into this industry to make plushies.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Pencil cases, that's a different thing. I really put into it to make pencil cases. That's what I want to make.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Anyway, that is... That's the Brandon Sanderson news for the week. Next week, we'll get a report on what it actually did and find out that I won and I guessed correctly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
We'll see. That's definitely what will happen. Time will tell.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
I'm just looking at the same announcement that you are. I don't know, Kelsey, have you... Do you follow Paizo much? Have you followed this one?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, so they had a community use policy for years, and they replaced it with a fan content policy.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It was so that you could make merchandise using Paizo IP.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
rules mechanics and character generator tools and online databases of stuff and that sort of thing okay which a lot of people make as fans don't monetize but make it as fans as part of the community yeah and just the path builder I think it affected that sort of thing is why people didn't like it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
This week, Morse, PJ, and Jessica are joined by Kelsey Dion to talk about Shadow Dark. In the news, D&D and Beyond addresses the 2024 update, Secret Level is a new animated series from Amazon featuring D&D and Warhammer 40k, Paizo brings back the community use policy, and more! This week on Morse's unofficial tabletop RPG talk!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a. Russ.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah, this wasn't an OGL type situation. No, not at all.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Paizo is always like... I feel, been a bit more plugged into the community than Wizards has been for a long, long time. It's probably just a scale thing, partly because Wizards is so much bigger and stuff. But I think just on a company culture level, I think they are more kind of plugged into the community as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
At one time it was larger. Yeah. But we're going back sort of 10, 15 years when Wizards was a lot slimmer than it is now. Not these days at all. I think Wizards is enormous in comparison now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
But, yeah, I mean, Paizo's not small, though. It's the second largest, you know, TTRPG company on the planet.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Small-port TTRPG companies.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Although, although interesting, they no longer have offices.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It was a couple of years ago. They closed their offices in Seattle and everyone is remote working now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Like various, like senior Paizo management and designers moved across country to different locations, you know, because apparently Seattle's really, really expensive to live in. And very wet. And very wet.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
312 | Shadowdark with Kelsey Dionne | D&D Direct, Paizo Content Use Policy, Secret Level Animated, and more!
It just strikes me as strange, though, imagining Paizo as not having offices, because in my mind, they've always been a big office-based, big four TTRPGs, office-based company. And now they're not. They're...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
316 | Split the Hoard with Marc Kenobi | Revised PHB Released | Ravenloft Novel | ElfQuest RPG
This week, Morse and Jessica are joined by Mark Kenobi to talk about Ian Publishing's new board game, Split the Horde. In the news, the 2024 Player's Handbook is now available for purchase, the ElfQuest RPG is returning, a new Ravenloft novel is coming in 2025, and more! This week on Morse's Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, well, it's all the sun type that you brought with you. Well, I'm looking out the window and I'm not seeing an awful lot of sunlight, to be honest. It looks a bit greyish.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
This is the British Steve Jackson. I have met and interviewed Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson at Dragon Meat a few years ago.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
No, British Steve Jackson, sure. So the British Steve Jackson wrote the books, or co-wrote the books. The US Steve Jackson is now, who runs Steve Jackson Games, GURPS, all that stuff, is now going to publish them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, well, in that case, cheers, Kev. Cheers, Esther.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
There's also been, well, no, it's been available here in other markets, but it's just not in the US. But there's also been lots of revivals in different formats because there's like mobile apps of the books you can get these days. And yeah, I remember them coming out about four or five years ago, which were kind of cool. I think there was a reissue of the book. No, there was a D&D event.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Hey, should we do a podcast? Yep, we've got a big load of Dungeon Master's Guide information. Yes. But we'll save that to the end. Let's start off with some non-D&D stuff. Actually, let's start off with some stuff in that there city known as Ankh-Morpork.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Oh, this was like 15, 20 years. There's a company producing D&D. This is the D20 boom era. So D20 adventures based on the books as well. This would have been like mid-2000s, I think. Interesting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
And then, of course, we had the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
D20. The meteorite destroyed the D20. There was a D20 bust, wasn't there? It boomed and boomed and boomed and then the market imploded. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Are there some Discord features? Does it make use of Discord bots and stuff like that?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I'm aware they're there, but I've never actually used them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Anyway, let's throw you back to D&D. We could go back to role-playing games. Chris Perkins. Oh, yeah. He has been product lead for official D&D books for coming up to two decades now, at least. Yeah. Yes. Well, he is no longer going to be the product lead for official D&D books. In fact, the Dungeon Master's Guide is the last book that he'll be working on as product lead. Ah, interesting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
On that there disc world.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
He's not leaving the company, apparently. It looks like, and we don't know 100% for sure, but it basically looks like he's moving into a more sort of overall sort of creative role rather than being a product lead on specific books.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, it looks like it's kind of a broader job that he's moving into. But yeah, I mean, this is going to be the last one where you'll see him credited as the product lead.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
No, no, no.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Mmm. It is doing all right. What's the news? I haven't heard. Well, it hit a million dollars on its second day. Woof. Yeah, it is currently well over a million dollars now. It's over a million pounds, so it's probably about 1.3 million dollars now. And it's got 20 days to go, so it has done incredibly well. Wow, that is like rocket ship level.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I have no idea. I have no idea. I imagine someone must be doing it in the interim because they are still putting out social media stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. Anyway, yeah. I'm not supposed to be it. You know, he's moving up, I guess. I guess he's moving up to a broader sort of more overseeing role over D&D. I'm guessing. I don't know for sure. I'm guessing. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Weird Science. W-Y-R-D, yeah. Yes. Not like the 80s movie. Oh, with Kelly Brock.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
That would be very, very different.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Moving swiftly on. Have we finished? Okay. I think that's it. No. Have you got some more? No, I've got more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
There's more. More. Give us more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Interesting. 11 pages, basically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, it's basically, you know, some introductory chapter in the other one tells you how to read a monster stat block and all that sort of stuff. But it also tells you about some of the new stuff. So like you just said, the horde monsters, heroic monsters, and the ones which we can level up with you, whether they be foe or ally.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So that could either be a companion or a familiar, or it could be sort of like the kobold that you defeated keeps coming back.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
And also some of the little tiny, tiny tweaks we've been making as well. I mean, and I'm not going to lie. Some of these were inspired by the new D&D stat block, which was not a bad pick. So one of them was the new D&D stat block has initiative pre-calculated for you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
now obviously in level up you can't really do that because anything can be an initiative role but what we've done is we've taken what we think is the three most common things that will be initiative roles which is a dexterity check a wisdom perception check or wisdom insight check and the most three common ones and we've just put an initiative line just with those three on there and the average score so you don't even have to roll them you can just use them straight out yeah and i've actually been using that because it just
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So it launched on Tuesday, like all Kickstarters do. And, yeah, it's only, like, just over three weeks. But, yeah, doing really, really well. It's quite a mouthful, though. Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG, colon, Adventures in Ankh-Morpork. Doesn't trip off the tongue.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
and there's nice distribution with players going ahead of some monsters and behind others yeah it's kind of fun um yeah so what else we do in the saving throw line instead of just the ones that you're proficient in the monsters proficient in them including all of them just so it's there at a glance rather than you having to look at it realize that it's not there then look at the ability score which is admittedly a microsecond but every tiny little thing you can do just to reduce doesn't it
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
We posted a review of the Player's Handbook today. You might think, wait, wait, didn't you do that a month ago? And the answer is yes. We also posted a review of the Player's Handbook a month ago. So originally we had a sort of first impressions review up a month ago. We now have from Beth Rimmel. So now the book's been out a month and it's been plenty of time to properly...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I guess, but I bet it will just be referred to as the Discworld RPG. Fun, for sure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
got her teeth into it and things like that. A proper deep dive review, which went up today. So if you're looking for like a really, really crunchy review that really goes into the book, this is the one. This isn't like, you know, someone got the book, flipped through it and then whacked a quick first impressions review up. This is a really in-depth one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Exactly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. Right. I think we're probably out of news up until the DMGs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, yeah. So it's going to cost you £50 to pick up the core rulebook and the dice. I don't think you can get the core rulebook without the dice, which is interesting. £100 for this whole Game Masters set, which includes an adventure and a screen and all that sort of stuff. And there's some other bits in between, and there's PDF equivalents and stuff as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
The Dungeon Master's Guide. On the horizon. It is coming very, very soon. It is coming on November the 12th. If in mainstream retail and two weeks earlier than that, which would be October.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. So two weeks away, less than two weeks away. Yeah. In US local game stores.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So it's very, very close. And as last week and the week before, Wizards have been putting out videos and information and lots. Basically, the whole publicity machine is in full drive. Yes. So basically, we've got this week's DMG update, I guess this is. And this is going to happen every week until it comes out, pretty much. Okay. Where even to start this so much? So there was a press event. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
It was over a week ago, but it was... a week and a half ago. It was embargoed until I think it was Tuesday or Monday or something like that. But there was a press event. Christian and Beth from Ian were both in attendance at this press event. And they kind of went into a fairly sort of like large overview of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So we've got a number of sort of videos to dive into about specific aspects. Mm-hmm. But what we also have is kind of quite a big sort of broad overview, which Wizards of the Coast presented, Chris Perkins and James Wyatt presented at this press event. Mm-hmm.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
so where to start with this so they started by talking about the sort of overall design goal of the book okay one of the key things that they wanted to say was that creating an adventure for home use doesn't have to be a whole load of work and in order to help with that they've tightened up encounter creation
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Well, we don't know specifically. They didn't delve into the actual numbers or anything like that. So I couldn't tell you that. All they've said is they've tightened up combat encounter creation to assist with the goal of making an adventure for home use easy. They're not allowed to work. So what that actually means in terms of the actual numbers, we don't necessarily know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Their design goal, yeah. I mean, they've also got, like, the DMG has five sample adventures, and they're not big, they're like half a page to one page. They're little adventures. Little adventures. Just to show, they're kind of just to sort of show DMs how... you know, how easy it can be given the right tools to come up with a, you know, adventure for the evening. Yeah. So it has that. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
But it's also, you know, it's not just sort of like telling you what to do, but it's also like showing you what an adventure sort of looks like, how easy it can be to put it together. So, you know, you could spend a load of time prepping an adventure. You don't have to. And you can put together a one shot, they say, in like an hour or two quite easily. Yeah.
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That's certainly longer than I generally spend putting together a one-shot.
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An hour or two.
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But yeah, powered by the Narrativian system, their brand new Wolves Light narrative game system, which we went into... Did we go into it last week or the week before? Quite recently, anyway.
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Oh, yeah, you just nick plots and characters.
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So that's a hindrance of plots. But with NPCs, that's actually a secret bonus. Because basically, if you're nicking an NPC from a TV show that the players are vaguely familiar with, at least, they will subconsciously fill in the gaps and it will feel like a much more rounded character than it actually is.
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Yeah. And it works really, really well. It's like a really stupid example. You just whack Clint Eastwood and you just have this sort of stranger talking in a slightly Clint Eastwood-y voice and acting a bit Clint Eastwood-y. They'll put in the gaps because they know who Clint Eastwood is. It probably depends how old they are, I guess. But, you know, people my age would know who Clint Eastwood is.
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They'll make the orc with no name.
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Yeah. Interesting, interesting. Yeah, it's archetypes in a way, I suppose. Using archetypes they're familiar with, but the archetypes are ones that you've stolen from TV.
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Yes, we're not talking soggy books.
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And I think last week, and we weren't able to answer last week, but now we are, like, what sort of advice does the DMG have? And last week we were like, I'm sure it has some, but we don't know. Yes.
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This week, we can tell you what advice it has. Tell them all. Okay. So, it's front-loaded with all the advice. So, that's all in the beginning. So, the first and second chapters. So, the first chapter is kind of like an overview. So, it's got the following sections. Like, what does a DM do?
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Things you need. Preparing a session. How to run a session. Every DM is unique. Ensuring fun for all. So that's the sections in the first chapter.
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Probably.
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It wouldn't surprise me. It might be session two.
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And then we've got chapter two, which goes into some of the more sort of nitty gritty stuff. So it's got stuff like meeting player tastes and group sizes, having multiple DMs, resolving actions, character advancement, talking about the three pillars of D&D, that sort of thing. Okay. So there's something interesting they did with this advice. They ran it all past a bunch of celebrity DMs.
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Yes. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, because... It'll work. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I imagine that the... No, thinking about it, no. Because I was going to say, imagine in the core rulebook it will have a list of basic difficulties for different things. And it'll say, right, this one is a D8, this one's a D4. But it's not because you... No.
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Matt Mercer, Deborah Ann, well, people like that. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. Target audience. Yeah. Well, that's also, you know, a sensible thing to do because that means those people will talk about it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. So I'm looking at a table right now. So I'm looking at part of the first chapter, and it's got stuff about the tiers of play, local heroes, heroes of the realm, that stuff. Yes. And it's also got a table called Adventure Situations, one for each tier. So it's 1D20 for each tier. So there's a level 1 to 4 table and a level 5 to 10 table. And then each of them is just kind of a plot hook.
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So 20 random plot hooks, one for each tier.
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I don't know if I understand. I like this about organisation, though. And this is what I'm getting the sense of, is that this book is organised better for a new DM. The stuff is where you need it to be. Nice. Not scattered about. That's the kind of way I feel it's looking.
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last week's episode yeah last week's episode because we went into quite a lot of detail about but that's the dm toolbox which has all the different sort of like bits of rules that you might need doors firearms explosives traps fear mental stress poisons yeah all that stuff the a to t of dungeon design yeah Yeah. Yeah. And this is like alphabetical. So they do this twice in this book.
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They've got an alphabetical toolbox of rules. They've also got a alphabetical law glossary later in the book, which is like D&D law.
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Yeah, which I don't think that was really in the prequels. I mean, there was bits of lore scattered around.
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Yeah, because you choose the dice you use based on how well you link your trait to the action.
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Well, we're going to get into this in a bit, but there's a big emphasis on Greyhawk in this. I think the lore section is pretty much everything. So I think if you look at it, it will tell you what Dragonlance is, it will tell you what Greyhawk is, you know, that sort of thing.
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The players can discover it in-game, but the DM... Well, that's how I felt as a DM.
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I'd never run up and got an Elms Adventure because I don't know it well enough and other people will know it better than I do.
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I think we talked about established settings many times.
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Yeah, anyway. There's also a whole lot of stock maps in there. They're black and white maps. And they said they chose that style deliberately, sort of like pencil style black and white maps.
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Because they're examples and they want GMs to look at it and think, oh, I can draw maps as well. Yeah. Rather than really high quality. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a good idea, actually. I think that, you know, it looks pencil and paper like on graph paper almost. It's on a gridded paper. And I think that's a good idea. So, yeah, and there's a bunch of those.
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Yeah. And it's like just a law book as well. Just describing them.
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There's like an appendix full of those, a bunch of generic maps. You can use them or they're just inspiration saying, look how easy it is to make a map sort of thing. And, of course, we've got the wire referred to as a monster manual, a little monster manual with traps. The trap section has a whole bunch of – I mean, I think the original DMG had a dozen or so, I think.
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I can't tell you anything about the design of the traps, unfortunately.
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Yes, how to use them. How to use traps, yeah.
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100%.
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Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, and so what else have we got? We've got tracking sheets. These will also be available for free on D&D Beyond, but they're in the book.
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Yeah, the ones with the cutesy artwork for NPCs, bastions, magic items, things like that. So there's a bunch of those sheets in there. What else have we got? Greyhawk, the chapter on Greyhawk, which we'll go into a little later because they put out a whole video about that. And the short adventures are all set in Greyhawk as well.
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That chapter with the short adventures. It's all set in Greyhawk as well. So that's that. Magic and treasure. We kind of went into that last week as well. It was a big old chapter, about 100 pages long of magic items and treasure.
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they say they've tightened up every magic item. I don't know what that means exactly, but I guess just every magic item. Yeah. Basically make more fun and eliminate confusion was basically the goal there. Fair enough. Reasonable, I guess. And rules for creating your own magic items as well, which we already kind of knew about and talked about last week.
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No, there's the crafting rules, wasn't there?
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Yeah, all right. Chapter 8, Bastions, which, again, we talked about last week or the week before, went into quite a bit of detail about, so we don't really need to do that again. Basically, you get a Bastion at level 5, and you can just put facilities in it, which, you know, might be like a lab or a pub or a whatever. Yeah, very XCOM. It upgrades players. Yeah, it's XCOM. Yeah, it's XCOM.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you played XCOM, Bastions are XCOM.
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Why didn't I think of that? That's an excellent metaphor. Bastions of Hexagon.
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I saw.
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Then we've got the Law of Index and the Appendix, which we made... You know, I talked about earlier, I don't know what exactly is in it, but apparently Wyatt's daughters were some of the test cases to help them detect what should be in there and what shouldn't. You know, what players might take for granted or what a sort of veteran might take for granted, which a player might not necessarily know.
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That sort of thing is in there. Mm-hmm. They also mention, like, if something's not in the lore index, it's covered somewhere else. Because the example they used was Asmodeus. Isn't in the lore glossary, but he is in the cosmology section.
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I would have put a reference to him in the lore glossary as well. I don't know.
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That's kind of it. There's a mini-adventure that is going to be coming called Scions of Elemental Evil, Greyhawk-themed. It features the cartoon kids, the D&D cartoon kids, levelled up to fourth level, and that'll also be on D&D Beyond at some point. Ooh. But yeah, that's the overview. That's kind of the broad overview of it.
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And we can go into details on various things now, but that's kind of the broad overview. Especially a book designed as a toolbox for newer DMs.
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Yeah, so shall we look at a few things in a little more detail then? I mean, Greyhawk is the big topic this week. but let's start with something smaller the adventuring day yes I heard it had ceased to exist kind of so originally the recommendation was six to eight encounters a day yeah six to eight medium encounters per day that feels too much for me
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Medium encounters, easy encounters, hard encounters, different points, and you had a number of points worth of encounters per adventuring day, if I remember the 2014 one correctly.
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Well, this is how these work. They're kind of quite basic. So the DM determines an XP budget, experience point budget, based on low, moderate, or high.
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based on how difficult they're aiming for, and the level of the characters in the party. Yeah. They spend that budget on creatures to craft an encounter. Right. There is no multiplier based on the number of creatures or the number of party members. That was always... Just a bit of advice saying that... Dreadfully unclear. Yeah.
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Adding extra creatures or party members can make for more complications, but I think it basically assumes a standard party size and a sort of equalish number of creatures, I guess. Oh! I don't know that bit for sure. They're not doing well here, but okay, crack on.
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Then, but they don't have any mention of the term adventuring day, and nor do they say how many encounters you should have in between long rests.
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There's no reference to that at all. It's sort of like 2014 has the six to eight medium encounters thing. Yeah. This one goes to an approach where it talks about encounter place and talks about frequent short rests. Because there has been a shift in recent D&D books towards short rests, hasn't there? Yeah.
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The other thing about short rest as opposed to long rest is that short rest use resources, hit price and things like that. As long rest don't. Long rest, like, reset. You know. And they're like, respawn, we're good. Yeah, sort of thing. Whereas short rest are using resources. Yeah, yeah. They have a different place in the adventuring day. Very much so, yeah. Yeah.
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So, yeah, so the adventuring day's gone, basically, is the sort of, like, top-level takeaway from that. It just talks about encounter pace instead. Yeah. Sort of more simple rules for designing encounters.
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Well, that's the 15-minute adventuring day that people talk about, isn't it? It's the adventure for 15 minutes, then you take a long rest.
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They specifically said it's designed for one shots as well. Yes. Very specifically. All right.
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old school D&D the idea was you'd have your base camp sort of like a village and a dungeon outside and you'd have to go back to the village in between excursions to the dungeon and that was your equivalent of long rest yeah yeah that makes sense because you go to a safe place to rest because if I'm in the middle of an unsafe area I'm not going to have a nap
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I've backed it, yeah, yeah.
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I mean, what we did in Level Up was we introduced the concept of havens. Yeah. So while you can have a long rest, if it's not a haven, it's not as useful. And a haven specifically defined as somewhere safe where you can have a nice rest without any fear of the elements or any fear of being attacked. You know, somewhere probably haven-ish, I guess.
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Yeah, my rule of thumb is if you have to put a watch on, not a watch, a watch, a stand guard. If someone has a stand guard, it's not a haven. I don't think that's a rule of thumb. I think that's just the rules.
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Glad to be here to remind you. It was three years ago. I can't remember what I wrote.
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I think it's basically going to be like a coffee table Discworld book as well, which I think would just be fun to read and browse through. Yeah. That's the main reason I backed it. I mean, you know, since we've basically seen the rules, we know the rules.
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It's not going to change that much. It is the same game. It's just different advice. I mean, it is D&D 5e, you know. It's not an entirely new game.
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Yeah. Well, we know the marketing reasons why it's referred to as it is. But anyway, that's a side. We've been into that a million times.
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Before we do that, because Greyhawk's a slightly bigger topic. Custom backgrounds.
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So the DMD contains the rules for creating custom backgrounds.
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Okay. I mean, basically, just make it up.
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Yeah, so what you do is you choose three abilities.
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Strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma. You choose a feat. You choose from the origin category. The feat has to be an origin feat, not any feat.
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And to be honest, I know the Discworld setting reasonably well, so I'll probably just run it now, to be honest.
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All right. That's it. That's your custom background. But at that point, I kind of feel like, what's the point of making the background? Why not just include in the rules? Everybody just does those things. Yeah. And describe your background how you want.
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I don't know. I feel like these background rules are so freeform as to just...
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I think it would be a nice product. Yeah.
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So the DM can present background specific to their world. Yes. But just handing that to the players, it's like, okay, well, in that case, everybody just... Choose three abilities, a feat, two skills, a tool, and some equipment then. Okay. You know, the background serves no purpose.
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How was that going? So ability score boosts have moved from species to background. Good.
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Yeah. So, yeah, so you choose three and you can either increase, I think, as of course, this is right in front of me, you can either increase three by one or one by two and one by one, I think. Okay. It's the only combination you could do, actually, isn't it, with three?
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah. Okay, fair enough. No, you can't do plus three to one, yeah? Yeah, yeah. That would be a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So that's custom backgrounds, anyway. Okay. So now we can talk about Greyhawk.
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Jess has been waiting for this moment. Clearly excited about Greyhawk.
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Okay, so Greyhawk is, I guess, they say it was the first campaign setting. I think Blackwall was technically the first, but it was certainly the first published as a product. So it was like Gary Gygax's home campaign in the early 1970s. Oh, cool.
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But I don't think it was like till 1980 or so that it was physically published as a product. And that product wasn't a big one. It was like, I want to say pamphlet. It was more than a pamphlet, but it was kind of a booklet and a map, kind of. It wasn't big. And kind of it was very much left for the DM to fill in the gaps.
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So you'd have a map and you'd have sort of like some details about areas in the map, but the details about them might be a sentence or two. It would say who ruled it and who lived there sort of thing. But it's kind of like this land is ruled by a necromancer. Yeah.
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Yeah. And then it kind of, you know, kind of leaves the DM to fill that in.
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Now, obviously, later adventures kind of like visited bits and pieces and filled them in anyway. But it is quite straight down the line D&D.
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Yeah. But, you know, it's a setting that's got no sort of like hooks. Hooks is the wrong word. Gimmicks. That's the wrong word as well. I know what you mean.
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It's like standard.
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Everyone has, like, Magitek and Dragonlance has lots of dragons and lances and Ravenloft is horror.
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What they also talked a little bit about is it kind of made a lot of the tropes of D&D.
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And then when you look back at it, it's very tropey, standard D&D. But it's kind of awesome that's where it kind of came from.
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Yeah. Yeah. So it has a bit of that going with it as well.
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You're very welcome. At present, they're kind of like, they don't have any current intention to return to Greyhawk. Okay. Outside of this. So, as you said a minute ago, Jess, they've opened it up on DMs Guild for third parties to make stuff for Greyhawk. Yeah. And fill in the gaps. And that kind of leans into the whole concept of Greyhawk, where the DMs would do that anyway. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Which kind of, I suppose, could be a bit odd, because you'll then get different interpretations of different areas and things in DMs Guild. I suppose that's fine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
But bear in mind, a million dollars is a lot of money to us. It's not a lot of money to Wizards of the Coast.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. So looking at what's in that 30-page chapter, so it's a sort of gazette, but it focuses on the city of Greyhawk.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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and the surrounding areas. And it kind of says that as you get further away from the city, because Greyhawk's a big setting as well. If you look at the map, it's enormous. There's loads and loads of locations. But the city of Greyhawk's kind of like the central hub, I guess. And as you get further away from that city, they're more vague about what's there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So they're quite a bit of detail about the city, a little less about the surrounding area, a little less about the bit beyond that, and then, you know. So they said they kind of did that because they also said that's kind of how, you know, that's an approach to designing a world is you start off just designing the bit you need, like the village and the dungeon or whatever.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
And then as the players, the characters grow up and everyone needs to venture further, then you start filling out the world. You don't necessarily have to write Lord of the Rings before starting your campaign, right? to develop Middle-earth before starting your campaign. You just sort of need what you need and expand from there as you need to. And that's something I've done a lot.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
It's a hell of a lot easier. A hell of a lot easier. And also, you might end up detailing a far-off town which the players might never visit. So that's kind of why they did that. So the city itself, it's basically like a campaign hub. And those sample adventures in Chapter 4, they're all set in Greyhawk or the surrounding area. City of Greyhawk or the surrounding area. Yeah, yeah. Hmm.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I mean, yeah, we're talking 30 pages here. So there's a map of the city. Not so much, yeah. Yeah. We've got descriptions of a few places the characters might visit. So there's the magic item shops and libraries and three taverns and temples and things like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, and the sort of, like, world map has, like, they've added, like, locations that D&D over the years has visited that weren't originally there back in the 1970s.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, Wampum Mountain, the Ghost Tower of Inverness, the Lost Caverns of that place. Yeah. Sojan, Sojan, whatever it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, that sort of thing. So they've sort of been added onto the map. It does say that it takes quite a few liberties with the setting, but remaining faithful to the spirit of the setting. Interesting. And the impression I get of that is basically modernised a bit. Helpful. There's a balance of NPCs who showcase the diversity of D&D worlds is the phrase they used.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Well, the rule of thumb generally is what you do in your first day is like a third of what you'll do. Yeah. I think that's changed a little bit with the way people have gotten much better at pre-loading Kickstarters these days.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So they're saying it's not all men. All white men, yeah. I think that's what they're saying.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
indeed what will you come up with next like having more than one demographic in a fantasy world yeah yeah yeah and I guess basically sort of like the style of it as well has like probably been modernised a little bit because people play a little differently now to how they used to as well yeah people play wildly differently now yeah people are worldly differently to each other yeah from back then yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Good for you. Tell you what was interesting, though. Back before the internet, when basically you played these games in isolation and didn't really know how other people were playing them, because the internet wasn't there, and you didn't necessarily know other people that played. Yeah. These days, it's like you just go online and you can –
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I see people talking about it and stuff like that. You've got a good idea of the broad range of ways in which you could play D&D. But when people played and all they had was the rule books to go by and developed their own gaming styles based on just that, with no advice, no examples...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
You'd find that one group of players and another group would play very, very differently and have no idea and would possibly, if one crossed over to another one's game, they'd be like, I don't understand what's going on here. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
That's kind of also what Adventurous League and stuff is for, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah, so you go from one game to another without any confusion.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
They really know how to do a big launch. So it skews it a little bit more towards the beginning, and you don't quite get that full U-shape anymore. You get a reverse J instead. Yeah. Because of that front skewing. But, yeah, so I reckon it might do two.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I know people like that, but they also take it one step further. They won't even play collaborative board games. The ones where you're all on the same side. Those ones. If they're not adversarial, they won't play them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. I find that very, very irritating.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
The mechanical advice is different. That's different to just telling people how they should act or what their character should do. If it's like a... It depends on the context.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
A few million.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I mean, so, yeah, we've got the map of the city there. We've got the diversity of the city. The backgrounds in the player's handbook apparently all map to locations in the city.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So that if you take a background in the player's handbook, there is a place in that city that you could conceivably say, yes. Like, you know, I don't know, town guard, whatever. It's an obvious one. And the example they use in the video. But any background in the player's handbook fits in that city. You won't take a background and then find, oh, there's no place for it. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
There's three sort of, what they call, three iconic D&D Greyhawk conflicts, they call them. And these are Elemental Evil, which is a sort of classic faceless adversary. We've got Ayaz, or Eaz, the evil Cambrian demigod, who has a whole kingdom in Greyhawk named after him, and he rules that. All right. And dragons, apparently, is the third one. Evil dragons. Which, yeah, fine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
No, because it curves and goes up again, and the L just is straight.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. Well, that's it. That's basically all we know about Greyhawk for the moment.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
We'll get more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
We'll definitely get more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I mean, these videos are coming out. How do you now feel about Greyhawk now, then, Jess? Now you've heard a little more about it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
because that's what I don't want to deal with so yeah good not really a strong opinion but it's the one I have because that's what I can give you yeah I wonder how popular the sort of DMs Guild stuff is going to be and how much people will put in there because I think with Greyhawk you can pretty much take anything you've written and just slap the word Greyhawk on it and it will fit in there somehow yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. Easily enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. That is all for this week, yes. That is all for this week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Comic Sans. You know what? That's fine. No problem. Look, I didn't say it wasn't good. Jess woke up this morning and chose violence.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Goodbye for now. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. See you all next week. Same bat time, same bat place.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yes. So on Wednesday nights, I am currently in a game of, is it Vasen? V-A-E-S-E-N.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Okay. Well, that is the game I'm currently in a game of.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
By three leagues. Yes. So the original Vasen slash Vasen was set in Sweden. Yes. Sort of like late 18th century Sweden with lots of folklore and stuff. Then they pulled out one set in the British Isles, which I don't have, but I definitely want.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I has yeah you can borrow it wait thank you you're welcome I'm not using it right now you can borrow it so they did one set in the British Isles and now they are bringing out versions set in Prague well Central and Eastern Europe including Prague it says nice nice
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
So this brings in mythic monsters such as Baba Yaga, vampires, because we're talking like Prague, Ukraine, Transylvania and stuff like that, written by Polish and Ukrainian writers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I'm quite enjoying this game of facing that I'm playing, Vassen, whatever it's called. Let's go with Vassen. Whether it's right or wrong, let's go with Vassen. The game of Vassen I'm playing, I do want to play one set in the British Isles, but that's not all they're bringing out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
They also are bringing out another one set in, well, this one's set in Stockholm, so it goes back more to its roots, but this is called City of My Nightmares. It's a full-length campaign, which also includes a starter set.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
You know, with character sheets, dice, a short version of the rules sort of thing. And an intro adventure called... Called... The Haunting of Castle.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Gil and Crutes. Gil and Crutes. Jake Gyllenhaal. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a. Russ, and with me this week is... PJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Rockland.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
I don't know. I really don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Stockholm. Oh, yeah, I don't know how that pronunciation... G-Y-L-L-E-N-C-R-E-U-T-Z. Gynonkreutz. I'm saying Gynonkreutz. It's probably wrong. Yeah, why not?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Hmm. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
It is a bit, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Okay. Commentary. Social commentary. You should be writing a Terry Pratchett book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Oh, yeah, yeah, it's totally that, yeah. Like, the adventure that we just finished... I don't think we had a single fight in it. We investigated, solved how to deal with the problem and did so. But I think someone pushed someone over once or something to get through a door or something like that. But other than that, there was no combat in that adventure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Yeah. So it's very investigative. Very much so, yeah. It's basically there's a monster doing something somewhere. Go and investigate what the monster is. Figure out how to solve the situation and then do so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Okay. Anyone else want some news? I feel like I've been talking a bit. Hey, do we like Call of Cthulhu?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
That's a little different.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
That's tomorrow. Can I be there by tomorrow?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Oh, November.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
It does look cool. So each game is played inside a prison cell. Interesting. Okay, three hour, one shot Call of Cthulhu adventure. Professional dungeon master, it says, which I think is... That's not what they call them in Call of Cthulhu. Professional keeper, yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
320 | More DMG Previews, Discworld RPG Over $1 million, Chris Perkins No Longer Production Lead, and more!
Well, they might as well just call it a Dungeons & Dragons adventure then, in that case, if that's what they're going for.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
315 | Romance in RPGs with Sam Parks | Hasbro CEO talks AI and D&D, PHB pre-orders cancelled by PayPal
Mm-hmm.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
315 | Romance in RPGs with Sam Parks | Hasbro CEO talks AI and D&D, PHB pre-orders cancelled by PayPal
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a. Russ. And with me this week is...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
315 | Romance in RPGs with Sam Parks | Hasbro CEO talks AI and D&D, PHB pre-orders cancelled by PayPal
This week, Morse and Jessica are joined by Sam Park to talk about romance, and you've got Shane Mail. In the news, Hasbro CEO Chris Cox talks about AI in Dungeons & Dragons, a PayPal error cancels some players' handbook pre-orders, Discworld RPG is headed to Kickstarter, and more! This week on Morse's unofficial tabletop RPG talk!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
319 | DMG 2024 Preview, New Dragonbane Campaign, D&D Movie Finds New Life on Streaming, and more!
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ aka Morris or Morris aka Russ.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
It's £35 for the board game. £15 in shipping. And then you can get two of them for £65. Actually, that's £75.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Anyway, yeah, that looks pretty cool. Yeah, I thought so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I'm tempted as well. Whether I get a chance to play it, that's the problem.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Live on the show?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I used to have all the fighting fantasy books, and I've still got Warlock of Firetop Mountain, but I think that's the only one I've got now. Do you know what happened to them?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Ooh, right. Next bit of news. We all are, I take it, familiar with the organisation PETA. Not Peter, PETA.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
So they're a somewhat controversial organisation, anti-animal cruelty, but I'm not as familiar with this as probably you might be, but make some ethical choices which a lot of people really, really, really disagree with.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah. Well, they have popped up in the RPG news sphere because they have released a 5e supplement. Certainly a little one. It contains three subclasses. Okay. So it's a little more of a leaflet than a supplement, I suppose. Okay. I mean, it still counts. I mean...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Well, it's free PDF. Always good price, yeah. The three subclasses are a Oath of Animal Liberation Paladin, a Warden of the Wild Ranger, Warden of the Wild Ranger, not Warden of the Wild Ranger.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Oh, yeah. Yeah, and the Circle of Empathy Druid. Fair enough. Yeah. There's also a couple of new spells, one of which opens any cages or restraints on animals. And the other one gives a crimson mark to those who hunt or otherwise harm animals. Yeah, so anyway. Anyway, anyway, anyway. That is a thing that's happened. And I know that PETA itself is definitely a controversial organisation.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah, organisation. But, you know, it's news, so we have to report on it. And we have now done our duty and done so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah, that's true.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
No, not at all.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
There's two reasons to.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
They're playing their own characters, I take it, the ones that they voice.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
That seems like the sort of thing you would do that at, because the VTT looks a bit like Baldur's Gate. It seems like a good place to showcase it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Oh, we're on to actual news now?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Are you going to get them as a collector's thing because you play the game?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Do we need one?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Okay. 80s cartoons. Voltron. Who remembers Voltron?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Well, I don't remember Voltron. So it was a cartoon like in the 80s and apparently there's been spin-offs and different ones ever since. And there is going to be a tabletop role-playing game of it by Catalyst Game Labs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I mean, this is launching next week, so really, really soon, and it uses a new system, which they call the Dice Core system, but I don't know anything about the Dice Core system, and they haven't revealed anything to my knowledge.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
also with i but also it's right yeah i'm torn rest torn no no i get it i get it it's whether or not you get use out of it and would you get 99 pounds of use or 74 in this case pounds of use out of it well uh maybe
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Warhammer 40k always feels to me like the sort of thing I would like, yet I've never...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
gotten into it not through i've tried to and it didn't grab me just it's just never yeah really happened i think the only warhammer 40k i've ever played is one single and this is the tabletop battle skirmish war game thing not the role-playing game one single game of that and that's it that's all i've done yeah i suppose depends on who you're mates with
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
And that's on sale?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
It's like $200 or something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah, well, they have a lot of big bills to clear. So it's definitely, you know, just because he's now clear of cancer, which is amazing news, doesn't mean it's time to stop supporting him.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
But of course. January the 15th. We'll probably have another Kickstarter. So. Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen in January.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah. Right then. Mongoose Publishing, you know, they acquired Traveller recently.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
So they acquired Traveller. It was a couple of weeks ago we talked about that, wasn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I remember this. But now they've also acquired Twilight 2000 and the 2300 AD role-playing games. so Twilight 2000 yeah originally in the 80s it's a post-apocalyptic game set after World War 3 and 2300 AD is set three centuries later and like humanity has like recovered from the war and is now out in space doing space stuff
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
So Mongoose has been publishing 2318 material since 2007 under license, but they now own the property. Nice. Free League currently produces Twilight 2000. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And Mongoose has indicated that even though they now own the property, that arrangement, they expect that to continue.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
A little bit. We don't know. We don't know. One fewer line on a spreadsheet somewhere.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yes, also made the Level Up Advance 5th Edition logo for us.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I do not love it. There's a whole load of, well, not a whole load, a small handful of licensed D&D bits and pieces coming up.
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So one of them from Penguin Random House is a book, a pocket-sized book called Dungeons & Dragons Pocket Expert. And it's just like this pocket-sized book just full of like lore and facts about D&D.
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Yeah, it tells you what a Mind Flayer is. It tells you what the Forgotten Realms are, what the difference between a rogue and a ranger is, that sort of thing. So it's very much a sort of top-level, basic introduction to what D&D is, I guess.
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$7.99 is coming out. next week written by stacy king you know yeah it sounds exactly like that stocking for the type christmas thing yeah yeah okay yeah one thing on this list i am excited about though
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The other thing is a bunch of book tabs. Oh, like bookmarks. So these are like tabs you could just put in your book. Yeah, like bookmarks you can put in there. There's a P8. Well, there's one for each of the Player's Handbook and DMG, the new 2024 ones. The Player's Handbook one has 12 tabs. The Dungeon Master's Guide one has 24.
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Yeah. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has added the term dungeon crawler. Oh. Which is now officially a word, I guess. Hmm. A dungeon crawler is a real thing. Nice, nice. It defines it in video game terminology.
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Certainly one of those I really, really... One would be annoying to run out of. One of them I really, really, really don't want to run out of.
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But I think it predates video games, definitely. Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yes. But only the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Yes.
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Hmm. we have not discussed well yeah there's the big news about the Dungeon Masters guide Dungeon Masters guide that we're leaving for last I don't have any other news beyond that so the only other thing I've got is one Kickstarter that I noticed oh yeah so this is called the zombie road We're playing a game by Dragon Mount Plus. And the fun thing about this one, it's on GameFound.
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It's not on Kickstarter. It's on GameFound. And the fun thing about this one is that you play yourself.
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Well, I don't know how that works exactly. I don't know how they get the statistics of yourself. Oh, gosh, yeah. I've got no idea. It uses a D6 system.
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And it's mainly thrilling one-shot missions carried out in a single session, it says, rather than long campaigns. But basically, you play yourself in a Walking Dead-style post-apocalyptic zombie world. You're a small group of survivors.
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Yeah. I really want to know how the stats of you yourself are determined in this game. I'm looking through the page and I can't... See it there. But that is... Yeah.
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Dragon magazine posted an article years and years ago, probably in the 80s or so, on how to work out your own stats. And it was quite sort of very old-fashioned and deterministic. But it was things like, take your IQ and divide it by 10. And that's your intelligence score. I don't know what my IQ is, though. It was, what can you bench press? Divide that by 10 and that's a strength or something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I can't remember.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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but um um yeah for each stat they basically had a basically a a test i guess um where you derive your actual score i don't know how they handled like charisma and things like that i can't remember now but um how many friends do you have you don't have two fingers friends loser get out
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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The shelves were empty, weren't they?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Malek the Maleficent here. If, like me, you're enjoying this podcast, please consider subscribing on Patreon for exclusive bonus content every week and the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing you are helping to keep the show going. Subscribe at patreon.com slash maleficent.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I mean, that's fair. I mean, you can't live without it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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like that now the things i do all right all right don't forget patreon.com slash morris can i go now i found that dragon magazine article so oh yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yes, so that Dragon Magazine article, it was the eighth issue of Dragon Magazine. It was called So You Want Realism in D&D.
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This week, the podcast is sponsored by the Imperial Bank of Botherton. If you have a mountain of gold coins looted from an unfortunately deceased goblin tribe, or a cache of valuable gems liberated from a sadly-demised commune of bugbears, you'll find no better place to store it.
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Absolutely not. LAUGHTER But this is how they did it, okay? Strength. Military press as much weight as you possibly can. Divide the number of pounds you lifted by 10. The result is your strength score.
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I am not entirely sure. Uh... Overhead press. Oh, really? Yes. Oh, right, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Shoulder press. It's a shoulder press.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Apparently. Yeah, shoulder press with a bar. There you go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It doesn't say deadlifting, sorry. It doesn't say deadlifting. Dexterity. Run 440 yards. What? subtract your time in seconds from 80 and the result is your dexterity rating.
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Yeah, or like... Have someone throw things at you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I'm just a messenger. I'm just a messenger.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Constitution. Figure out the number of consecutive number of months you have gone without missing a day of school or work due to illness. The number of months is equal to your constitution rating.
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But that means if you miss one day, suddenly your constitution score goes down to one. No, it goes down to zero. And then you have to rebuild it up again a month at a time without taking a day off.
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So, July, August, September, October. So your constitution score is four.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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No. Intelligence. The most recent IQ test you've taken divided the result by 10. That is your intelligence rating.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I did a couple at school.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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We need to check something, can you please?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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yeah um the thing about iq tests is it just measures how good you are at iq tests and if you do a few of them you they're the same sort of puzzles and you start to get good at those sort of puzzles the questions are very like neurotypical and culturally based as well so if you don't have the cultural context then yeah you can get different ones these days i think
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Are you a robot things? And you have to identify fire hydrants. But it's like... I think I'm a robot. Yeah, it's like, but we don't have those. So basically you're testing my knowledge of American films now as to whether or not I'm a robot, basically, because... You know, we have those.
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Yeah. Wisdom, though. Calculate the average number of hours you spend playing D&D or working on your D&D campaign in an average week.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Christmas, that's the final one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Count up the number of times you have appeared on TV or have had your picture printed in the newspaper. Multiply this number by two.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Still charismatic. You're not going to appear on Cops like 18 times.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Oh, yeah, yeah. This conversation is very, very silly. Okay, shall we get on to this Dungeon Master's Guide stats?
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So the first one was kind of an overview. It's called Everything You Need to Know about the Dungeon Master's Guide 2024. To be honest, a lot of it was stuff we already knew. Okay. We have, like, covered a lot of...
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tidbits and bits of information about this like over the year so it's pretty much i mean we we already know what the chapters are and what's in each chat we know so much stuff about it at this stage so i think this one was more for people that haven't been like following every breadcrumb of information up until now yeah it's kind of an overview but it didn't show a lot of new art and some of the art was really nice
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I did like the art. Yeah, I mean, let me show you the art. Yes. Here we go. Yeah, I've got the link. Have a look at that. So we've got a new map of the planes. We've got Bobby the Barbarian and Hank the Ranger avoiding a trap and arrows as arrows come out of the wall at them. Yeah. We've got a nice picture of a walled city with a port of some kind outside it.
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Hmm. Yes, it is, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Like some kind of fey dragon maybe or something. Hmm. If it is a dragon.
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Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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As someone that spent a lot of money on one encounter.
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Yeah. But here's an overview of the DMG. It mentions that the Bastion system is going to be in it from Erna Tharkana, and there's a whole separate video about that we can get into in a second. There's going to be a DM's toolkit arranged in alphabetical order, going from, apparently, alignment to traps. Mm-hmm. The whole gamut from A to T, right? Yep. So basically it's a glossary.
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I mean, like, there's going to be a rules glossary in the Player's Handbook. There is. There's going to be. It's out now. A rules glossary in the Player's Handbook. So I guess it's similar to that, I guess. 400 new and improved magic items.
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Stuff like Greyhawk, which we know about. The crafting rules are in it. A lore glossary. A full chapter about the D&D cosmology.
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Yeah, it's got a lot of sort of generic GMing advice in there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Not hitting it. It's quite interesting when you compare it to the AD&D 1e DMG, which is basically a big tome of rules that the players aren't supposed to see. And it even says in front of it that players shouldn't be allowed to look at these rules in this book. And it's just like all the rules. It's not advice-y. No. It's written in Gygaxian prose, so it can be quite dense to pass at times.
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I remember when I was a kid, I'd sit in my bedroom and there was a section on invisibility. And I'd read it and reread it and reread it and reread it, trying to work out exactly how invisibility works. And it was like half a page of text. Yeah. trying to pass that half-painting test, trying to work out exactly. And I don't think I ever did figure it out.
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Still to this day, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Okay.
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I think these days probably people will go straight to Google, type in, how do I play D&D, and will be presented with 10 quadrillion videos, though. So it's definitely easier now, I expect, to find the stuff you need.
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Everyone, including the GM, should be having a good time.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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If GMs never say no to anything, that brings us nicely onto the Bastion system.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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There's a line in the thing about the Bastion system that's got a few people up in arms.
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Hmm. well i'll rewind slightly and then we'll get to it let's give it some context we've got to lay down the bed before we plant the flower okay okay so the dungeon master's guide is introducing a new bastion system
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correct tell me more yes so this is basically the equivalent to our stronghold system yeah in level up yeah yeah so basically characters can build a base of operations that's how it works so you can acquire a bastion at fifth level okay And then each week of game time, the Bastion has a Bastion turn, and you can give the Bastion an order.
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So I haven't got the exact details of this, or whether it's got things like you have to be at the Bastion, or you can send a pigeon, or whatever. I don't know how that... But each week, I assume you just control it, and you've got someone running the Bastion back at home when you're not there. Some sort of steward. Yeah. Alfred the butler.
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And so the Bastion will take a turn and can, like, take an action. And it might be crafting or recruiting or research or trading or something like that each week. Right. Also, Bastions contain special facilities. Yeah. So you've got your Bastion. And then at fifth level, when you get your Bastion, it has two special facilities.
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And then every few levels it gets some more up to six at 17th level. Right. Special facilities. And these are kind of like things like armories and workshops and laboratories and stables and menageries and stuff.
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Within your bastion. There's about 30 of them, and you can choose from them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Don't know. Okay. That's the answer to that question.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I have no idea. No, absolutely no idea. We don't know. All right. We don't know. But there is a line in there that says that the Bastion stuff is basically for the players to do. Yes. Nice. And it's completely off limits to the DM. Okay. Well, yeah, fair enough.
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Some people have gotten quite upset about that. They're saying, what, so I can't put a plague or have someone attack the Bastion or I can't do anything like that. It's designed as a player side thing that the DM apparently can't get involved in. Why would you put that in there?
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I think there was some comment about the phrase used as a knife against the players or something. It's not supposed to be used against the players. Got it.
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Surely sometimes you want sort of like the neighbouring lord has taken offence to you and has sent troops to start raiding your bastion or something like that sort of storyline. Does it prevent that? Or I don't know.
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And it might just be advice as well. It might not be a rule.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Um, Pinkertons.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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We don't have all the context. We don't have the text. All we've got is a comment by one of the designers in a video. And that's literally all we've got.
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It might not even be in the book. You might just be talking about the intent.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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You know, I don't know. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Well, fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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That's pretty much it. That's it pretty much so far. I mean, it's going to be something every week pretty much from now until it comes out in November, which isn't far off, to be honest, isn't it? What, six weeks away when it comes out?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Or even earlier if you're in America and have a local game store.
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Yeah, when is it? So it comes out November the 12th on general release. Right. And it will be two weeks earlier in US local game stores. So that'll be October the 29th. So that's really soon. Yeah, that is recent. Three weeks. Just over three weeks. All right. Well, with that, I think we're probably done then, aren't we?
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We are so done.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Hmm. So they might end up having to change their URL, basically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Your charisma is the square root of two.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah. All right, let's get out of here. Bye-bye. See you all next week. Bye-bye.
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Apparently I now have to read this to you. This is the official podcast of Morris' unofficial tabletop RPT news, which you can find at enworld.org. You can find show notes at morris.podbean.com or wherever you found the podcast. If you feel like they deserve it, you can support the show on Patreon. In return, you will receive exclusive bonus content. Just go to patreon.com slash Morris.
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If you're interested in his babbling nonsense, you can follow at Morris on the Twitter. Send your emails to morrispodcast at gmail.com. Not all of your emails, just the ones you want us to see. That's it. I'm bored now. You can go away. Shoo! Off you go. Goodbye. Get out of here.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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If I'm time-travelling and I want to find out information about the future, I don't think information about the D&D Dungeon Master's Guide is probably going to be my first point of call.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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And lottery ticketing is definitely on that list.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I think we should list what last week's lottery tickets were, just in case that happens now, and one of us finds ourselves back in time. Then that person can then dig up this podcast.
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and that sort of thing they quite like the .io domain but just to let you know it is potentially in the trap so I thought that was interesting and yeah there you go oh yeah alright Discworld Discworld Discworld we talked about it last week we did and then the quick start has come out during the week and a trailer in fact and I have looked at the quick start so now I know how the Discworld RPG works please tell me because I haven't had the chance I haven't made the time to look at it I am a world leading expert
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The Imperial Bank of Botherton's vault is guarded by nuclear bear owls, and its adamantine doors are enchanted by the greatest mage in all the... Oh, wait, I think there must be an error. I'm the greatest mage in all the world. Who is this pretender? Who? Who? I demand to know!
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along with everybody else who's looked at the PDF, in how this world RPG works.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah. So, interestingly, there isn't a lot more to it than what we said last week.
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I mean, it's sort of like a 60-odd page, or was it 40-page PDF. So there's quite a lot of stuff in there, but half of it's an adventure, which looks pretty cool. It's members of the Watch, and you're investigating a crime. I think it's a break-in. You're investigating a break-in. So half of it's an adventure.
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There's a bunch of pre-generated characters at the back, and then the rules, obviously, are the first. And then there's a whole what is Discworld and what is an RPG bit at the beginning. And then the rules bit is pretty short. So, yeah, so these traits are things like the watch is a trait in there. So you're a member of the watch.
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You can put on that trait and, you know, it means you probably have a sword and you can probably get the ear of the watch commander or, you know, things like that. Other ones are sort of like troll born to loving parents or, you know, it's a whole load of stuff that can be traits. It's like they're usually sentences rather than just words.
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There's loads and loads and loads of stuff that could be a trait.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's very... The PDF has lots of footnotes in it. Very, very tragedy as you read through it. It very much, very much encourages on...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
the silly and the absurd and it just says the more silly you are the more absurd you are the better especially when it comes to explaining why your trait is relevant the more ridiculous you can be the better it also very specifically says this game is designed for one shots it's not really set up for long term play that makes sense
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah, so it's like play it in between two campaigns in something else. But it's really, really not a game designed for proper campaign-length stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
yeah yeah i mean it all does i mean the system itself is very very very light it's like about as light as you can get with a with a game system yeah unless yeah unless you're going as light as dread or something which is the jenga tower thing it feels like there's a lot of chaos maximization yeah it is very much is the gm impressed yeah basically and yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, the other interesting thing was there's no combat rules in it, which they pointed out last week, but there's no combat rules in it. No, no way of resolving a fight. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I guess so, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
There's no robots in this world. There could be. It could be golems. But there's other games where combat is just one roll. Not all games have you moving 30 feet at a time. They literally say that. You're not going to move 30 feet at a time and roll to hit and do some damage and reduce hit points. You're not going to do any of that stuff at all.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I guess to me, I really like it. It's a gorgeous PDF as well. It's very pretty. It's evocative. It works really well. It conjures up the spirit of Pratchett, in my opinion, well, in the writing style, with the footnotes, the art, everything. All does that. The adventure seems to... I'm not going to spoil the adventure. I'll just say it's an investigation into a break-in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
It covers a bunch of different locations, silly situations and feels Pratchetty to me. Hmm. So, yeah, I like it from that point of view. I mean, the system itself, take it or leave it, it's not much to say about it, really. But, yeah, I like it. I mean, I think I'll back it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Just because I like the look of it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Please hear it. I wonder if it'll be another million dollar one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Monty Python 1 did, this might.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Tell you what, if you tuck in a load of Discworld slash Pratchett collectibles in there, that'll explode.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
Oh, yeah. And the trailer, of course, as well. It's quite fun.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
The trailer just has the turtle, elephant and discord combination swimming slowly across the screen while the narrator attempts to narrate something, but the music keeps swelling up and you can't hear the narrator and he starts getting upset and says, turn the music down. It's funny. Yeah. It's a little thing, but it's funny.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
I'm not sure what date exactly really soon though really soon
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
318 | 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Preview, Discworld RPG, D&D Accessories, and more!
think it's like in the next couple of weeks oh nice okay i'm not 100 sure the problem is this is a piece of information i did know and i've forgotten it i feel like it was october i think october was the month i had in my mind is is kind of yeah i feel like mid-october but i must emphasize that's just a feeling that's what we believe in our hearts all right okay we'll look out for that and we'll let you know on here the week it comes out so you'll be aware so you will not miss it yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's true. Well, maybe your bones will need lotion now that they're exposed to the elements.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That does actually look fun. I mean, I think I'd probably enjoy playing a one-shot of that, just playing as an undead. Yeah, that does sound fun.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
All right. There we go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
All right, shall we get on to this D&D news?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well... You're not exciting. You're not exciting. What's the problem? I am excited. It's just that it's a lot of it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Pretty much all did, yeah. All right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. So on Tuesday, D&D Direct was a sort of live streamed, pre-recorded video event that went out on Tuesday evening, our time. I think it was like 10 a.m. in America. And basically it was about half an hour long and it covered three broad topics. It took a look at the upcoming 2024 core rule books. It talked about Project Sigil, the 3D virtual tabletop.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it talked about the future of D&D in general in terms of what books are coming out in 2025 after the core rule books. So those are three things it talked about. I don't think we need to go into the core rule books yet again. I think, you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
We all know what's in them. Yeah. Yeah. We don't need that. We can just sort of go on to... What should we do first? Should we do Project Sigil or shall we do the future, the 2025 books?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Do a Sigil first.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
A Sigil.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So you talked about Project Sigil for about 10 minutes. They showed a lot of very, very nice clips from it, like swooping cameras over graveyards and towns and miniature builders where you put together your digital minis and the level designer where you're adding rooms and floors and walls and traps and things like that. It all looked super, super, super slick. Way more slick than it looked.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
in that demo that they did, like, was it a month ago? Whenever it was. It was at Gen Con, wasn't it? About a month ago. So it looked way more slick. I don't know whether that's because it's come along a bit further or whether that's just some selected, like, pre-rendered, you know, not actual gameplay type stuff or not. I'm not entirely sure. But it did look super slick. I will give it that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
This week, Morse, PJ, and Jessica are joined by Rich Lescoflair to talk about Phantasy Star. In the news, lots of big Dungeons & Dragons announcements, including the D&D Direct Recap, new Forgotten Realms sourcebooks, a Prodigal Sigil update, and more! This week on Morse's Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So it's going to come with an adventure called Danger in Dunbarrow, a free adventure which you can play. And that kind of introduces the 3D tabletop to you. You can bring in, I mean, this is what you would expect anyway, but you can bring in any character from D&D Beyond.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But there's this mini maker. It lets you design your digital miniatures. And they showed a few quick clips of that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Basically, you add your clothes and your hair. It's like when you make a character appearance in a video game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It was like that. But it's literally a 3D miniature that you're making.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No, I mean, it was literally just like a second. Yeah. And one shot of one mini.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
There's people... Well, this is... I don't know if it's the answer to that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I couldn't say what my idea was. Fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. I mean, they talk about, like, stylistically, these assets, as they call them, they say they're designed to make it feel like you're buying, like, a high-end miniature. Ooh, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Ooh. A real one?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, well, no, they haven't said anything like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
My guess is there's going to be obviously a whole load of stock miniatures. Monsters and things like that. There'll be lots and lots of those and you can buy and collect those. Almost certainly. I don't know whether you'll get any for free. You must get some for free.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I don't know. Or maybe each adventure you buy will come with whatever miniatures it needs. I don't know. That's probably how it works. But I'm guessing that when you design a mini using this miniature generator, you can design it, but then you have to buy it once you've designed it. I would guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, I think they said there's going to be like a tryout sort of mode that you can try it out for free. So I assume that's going to be like a limited functionality or limited time.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, I mean, Jess, you were saying last week, I think it was, about how for you the sort of link between this and Baldur's Gate in experience is of interest to you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
They mentioned that as well. Ooh, what did they say? So they basically said, you know, it's like someone who's played Baldur's Gate will come along and see this and it won't be totally unfamiliar to them. And that's kind of the idea behind it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I guess it's bringing... So people who are used to video games will kind of... Yeah. Yeah. There's touchstones that they'll recognise.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. So there's other stuff. So there's going to be a lot of plug-in locations which you can just grab and use or mod as you wish. There are things like a graveyard, a mine, a town, that sort of thing. Yeah. So you can just grab those and then you can just change them or put stuff in them or take things out or whatever. But each comes also with like a pre-made story.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
which you can ignore it completely you don't have to use it but if you just wanted to grab a graveyard put it in there and just run the pre-made story you've just got a little sort of you know mini adventure there ready to go and you could presumably build an entire campaign just out of all of these different locations and their pre-made stories
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
yeah and i imagine as they go by you combine your adventures which will have all this stuff in and yeah yeah and the idea is you also you could you're supposed to share content with others okay so if you create stuff you should be able to sort of share it whether that's on a marketplace or whether that's just literally hey i i made this and you just send it to them and they use it i don't know
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to tell, really. I mean, there's a whole level builder. And they've described it as the best miniature set that you could have. And you just snap together different kit pieces. And it kind of looked to me like, basically, what you have there is a digital version of Dwarven Forge.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
is what it kind of looked like to me. And you're snapping all these things together digitally to make all these different dungeons or whatever. But also it's not just dungeons like Dwarven Forges, it's like graveyards and towns and all sorts of things.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So that looks kind of cool. Like quite Neverwinter Nights-y. You know how that was tiles?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
You put different tiles together.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So, on your Mac...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Oh, okay. I was going to say, it's not going to be on Mac at first.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes. Yeah, it's going to be starting on PC. They're going to have other platforms later, including mobile and console. So they basically want it on every platform they possibly can, but it's starting on PC, apparently.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, they showed some clips of some secret doors and traps going off and a lift that literally went up and down between levels and a camera which kind of swooped in around them. I don't know how much... A lot of this was quite fancy camera work. And I don't know how that will actually...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
but we'll talk to Rich in the second half of the show the first half of the show as usual we are going to talk about some news and there's a lot let's go it's a big big news week where shall we start what's that thing Oh, well, most of it is D&D, so let's do the non-D&D stuff first, and then we can dive into the D&D stuff. How about that?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
They also showed a little quick thing of Drizzt fighting Optimus Prime.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's Drizzt O'Urden, the Dark Elf, from the Forgotten Realms, fighting Optimus Prime, the Transformer, from not the Forgotten Realms, from Cybertron. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, the shot was some over-Optimus Prime's shoulder, so you could sort of see the back of Optimus Prime's head and shoulder, and drizzled down on the ground, looking quite small. Yeah, yeah, it's like a bit of a discrepancy.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Other little bits and pieces. If you have artwork of your own, you can just put 2D tokens on there. Flat 2D tokens from any artwork. And also you can use 2D maps. If you've got a 2D map from an older adventure or something, you can just write that one there. So basically you'll see that 2D map in a sort of isometric point of view, but it will still be flat.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And your tokens will be flat on that map. So it will look like a map with tokens on it on a table sort of thing. So you can do that rather than having to build the old 3D models and all that stuff. But I think the goal is to have you collecting virtual minis and things like that is how it's going to go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Because one of the things, they're going to give you a free digital gold dragon mini to kickstart your Project Sigil collection if you pre-order the 2024 physical and digital core rulebook bundle.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So that, I think, kind of shows where that's going. So it's going to be very collectible, I'm guessing. That's the sense I'm getting.
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 mean, with D&D Beyond, you get like, if you pre-order this, you get free dice. Oh, it's not the concept of getting something free.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
We don't know what sort of money we're talking at the moment. What does a miniature going to cost you? Is it going to cost you 50 cents? Is it going to cost you $10? Who knows?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's really interesting to see if a small miniature and a large miniature cost the same, given that because they're digital... It doesn't actually matter. It doesn't actually make any difference. It's just what size you set them to. So whether they're going to charge you more for a dragon than a goblin, when in fact they're both basically digital assets.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
All right, if you're doing it on that, what if you've got a goblin that's like an alchemist and totally loaded down with tons and tons of stuff and a dragon that's got nothing?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Get an alchemy dragon, obviously. But what I mean is, in that case, the goblin has required more work, so should the goblin cost more than the dragon?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's how we are in Hampshire.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Anyway. That's Project Sigil.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Well, they did say you could have played other games on it as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The impression I got was they meant that in the sense that you can put a miniature on a map and move it around and roll some dice and have it not handle the rules for you. And then basically you can play any role-playing game on it because it's not doing the rules.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Someone pointed out to me, I On Wednesday night at your club, in fact, another 3D virtual day. There are a couple of them out there, but one that's coming on Steam. And I had a quick look at the trailer for it on Steam. And it looks pretty much like it's a third party one by, I think, a French company. I can't remember his name. I can't remember his name. But a French company.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it's going to be free to use. So I'm not sure how it gets monetized, but it looked as good as this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It was the amazing thing. So, you know, there is going to be competition out there. Yeah. And if there's free competition out there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And again, it's just... Game finders into it as well and things like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And linking it with D&D Beyond. It's basically going to become the default way of playing D&D When you're not in person, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, like you say, that's the whole free market thing there, isn't it? It's about getting the price right. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Talking about hype trains and success. Oh, yes. Okay. Quick segue here into the biggest tabletop RPG Kickstarter ever.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
People on this podcast are currently. I'll talk about D&D Beyond, by the way. Do you remember we were talking about how bells were getting changed last week?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
They've gone back on that. So last week, for those who might have missed it, so last week we were talking about how D&D Beyond was going to be handling the 2014 rules going forward. And for most things, they were going to be like a 2014 and a 2024 version. Mm-hmm. which you could choose from. And the 2014 one would be my legacy. But spells were notably missing from that list.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it basically meant that everybody was going to have to be using the 2024 spells, not the 2014 spells. Yeah. They've backtracked on that now and basically said, sorry, we've heard what you said and we misjudged that. Now, yes, you're going to be able to choose between the 2014 and 2024 spells.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So the Cosmere, Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG has finished now. Yep.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The thing that I just found really odd about that was, why just spells and not everything else? Why wouldn't it all be all or nothing? Why nearly everything except spells? That's what made it weird.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's what they're doing now, isn't it? You can choose.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Like, cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Right, anyway. There's some other D&D news. There's some other stuff that's coming out next year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Oh, let's do that first, then. Okay, let's do that one first, and then we'll do the books. You were intrigued by this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Intrigued.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Intrigued.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It overtook Avatar towards the beginning of this week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's the interesting thing. Like Wizards of the Coast is going to be selling 5e Lord of the Rings to you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
He's fascinating. Go back 50 years or 40 odd years, DSR was being sued by the Tolkien estate for having hobbits, Ents and Balrogs and had to change them to halflings, treants and badels.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. But yeah, that is interesting. Those terms were well and truly tabled, were they not?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, like Lorraine Williams passed on the rights to Middle Earth back in the early 90s saying it wasn't worth it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I know what you mean, and I've seen other people say that. I get exactly what you're saying there. It does seem a little odd, but it's not like they stopped selling 5e stuff, is it? No. They continue to...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But Jess, if Wizards came to us and said, do you want to put your five e-books on D&D Beyond? We're not going to say no, are we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Cobalt Press is there in Seattle. They all know each other. There's a bit of that involved.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Do you remember the university-decried OGL 2.0 that they tried to introduce a year or so ago?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Oh. When they were cancelling the OGL, they were doing great. The OGL 2.0. Oh, yeah. Paying Wizard of the Coast fees and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
we'll cry yeah i remember that okay well that's this you know they didn't need to cancel the otl they just need to make a platform that people wanted to use instead yeah which they've done they've come up with a platform that people want to use and instead of forcing people to do that people are coming to them and saying please let us do that yeah so you know people will be begging to pay
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
PJ, you know the question.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what percentage it will be. It's fine. I mean, DMs Guild is 50%. Yes, DMs Guild is 50%.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, most probably. But also this involves them actively writing code for each of these things.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So on GM's Guild, Wizard of the Coast doesn't have to do anything. You upload your PDF and start selling it. Wizard of the Coast has to do nothing. On this, you have to send Wizard of the Coast your files. They have to painstakingly code each thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, but that's because the items in the App Store are siloed, though. They want the items here to literally work with D&D Beyond. So if you've got, like, a new class, for it to work with D&D Beyond, it has to actually be coded, doesn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, okay, yeah. But that also then means telling people, giving people access to the D&D Beyond code.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It depends also how D&D Beyond is being designed. Is it being designed with all these hooks that makes it easy for you to code stuff that hooks into it? Hmm. Because we've spoken to people that were on the D&D Beyond Design team years ago, some of whom went on to Evil Genius Games and then left Evil Genius Games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And the impression I got was that it's a little bit, not as bad as Roll20, but it is kind of sort of like a little cobbled together and aging now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, certainly the situation at the moment is that Wizards codes each thing to send to them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So whether that will ever change, I don't know, but that's certainly the current situation.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, the reason, because, like, we, you know, as you know, are working on Level Up Gateway, which is similar to DMD Beyond in concept. And when you say we... You're paying some smart people to do this work. I am not personally coding it. Alexander is, yeah, very, very competently coding it. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But people do ask, you know, will third-party products be usable on it? Hmm. And we've just kind of like, we're like, we would like that. But from a technical point of view, that means that third parties will have to learn how to code the plugin module for your thing. It's not just a bit of text. A class isn't a bit of text. It's a whole thing that does stuff. It's a computer program.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's not like you can upload a PDF and it will just start working.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's an average of $276 per backer, by the way.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
yeah sensible yeah anyway anyway that's the third party stuff so yeah so yeah I'm definitely interested in the concept of wizards selling Lord of the Rings now which is kind of fun that's cool yeah well I gave a games workshop before they became Warhammer and worked on that as well So, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I wonder if that will tie into the 3D virtual tabletop, Project Cigali, and then you'll be able to get, like, 3D models of Gandalf and one around Middle Earth. Someone will build Middle Earth on that. I don't know. Would that happen?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The Shire. The Shire would be a nice one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
My eyes glaze over. But you know what the best one would be, of course? The Mines of Moria. And there is a big... It has now been mapped by Free League. So in theory, presumably, they could take that adventure and...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
You could fight the Balrog on the bridge at Khazad-Dum. That'd be amazing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
All right. Well, that's Project Sigali. Yes. So we've got some books. We've got some books coming next year. Many books. Discuss. Yeah. So the first of these books is called the D&D Dragon Anthology.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's a working title, apparently, but it's a book with 10 adventures which feature dragons in dungeons. Interesting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Old choice. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I don't know whether it's going to be old stuff reprinted or some of the anthologies they've done or whether it's going to be brand new. I've no idea.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
You've got a whole chapter in the Dungeon Master's Guide, yeah. So maybe there'll be new stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, that gold dragon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, it looks amazing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, that's also the fact that it's close to you and they're far away. Some dragons are big and some dragons are far away. Some dragons are far away, yeah. There's that Tiamat. There's a big old Tiamat there. It's like totally wrecking a town, which is quite awesome. They've got a gorgeous red dragon. They do be like that, wrecking town. Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But we don't know much else about that other than that there's going to be a... It's coming sometime in 2025. It's a dragon anthology of adventures featuring dragons in dungeons.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Yeah. Right, next coming out next year is a brand new starter set, which is currently named Heroes of the Borderlands.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. So it's like nearly one and a half times what Avatar did in terms of dollars. but it's only about 60% of what Avatar did in terms of backers right yeah there's a lot less backers it's a much higher it's a more than twice as much average pledge is what's done there and a lot less merchandise as well there's a lot of stuff there's a lot of books there's a lot of books say that yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No? Oh. The 2024 browser. What they used in the video, an awful lot, was a reimagining. This is a reimagining of the Player's Handbook. And we have reimagined the Monster Manual. It's like lots and lots of kind of like... approximate synonyms for edition without actually using the word edition.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Anyway, so this new Starter Set, it's set in an area called the Borderlands.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Is it the sea?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No. No. I think it's two lands that border each other because there's a keep on those borderlands. Famously so. There's a keep on the borderlands.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Next to the caves of chaos.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Some people are energised by chaos. Some people like it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I'm not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Yeah, so Heroes of the Borderlands is a working title. It's got character creation in it, which starter sets haven't had before, I believe. They've just had pre-gens in. Is that correct, as I recall?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's got intuitive, component-centric character creation. I don't know what that means. It's a long word. Component-centric, would you say? Intuitive component-centric.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
these components and you put them onto the character sheet and it just works yeah yeah like little cards in the right shapes i would love to be able to do that with just like you just grab your heritage and you grab your culture and you grab your background you just put them down and there's your character it's a little it's a hand of cards
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But it wouldn't quite work because then you'd just be looking on different cards for different things which should be together. So it wouldn't quite work. But I like the idea of it. Yeah. But then you'd have combat bits on each card and you'd have exploration bits and spells on different... It wouldn't quite work, but... I mean, it's not impossible.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, we've seen them. They're fairly similar to the old ones with a few tweaks. Yeah. So anyway, this set reimagines B2, the Keep on the Borderlands, a classic D&D adventure, by splitting this adventure into three self-contained booklets. And they are the Caves of Chaos, the Keep on the Borderlands, and the Wilderness. And there will be a how-to-play video accompanying the release.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it's all about apparently teaching people how to play D&D this set. That's its goal. It's an onboarding set.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, maybe electronically via the medium of an onboarding video.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I mean, basically they should just send that one that she did with The Punisher and just tell everyone to watch that. It's really good. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so that's coming next year. I don't know when exactly. I think it's like summer-ish next year. They didn't say specifically when.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But they're saying that we're really leaning into using components to teach people how to play.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's a thing they're doing. They're getting all component-y.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is now not only the biggest tabletop RPG Kickstarter ever, it's the biggest gaming Kickstarter ever of any kind.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
mats cards online arts yeah great ideas then again i remember fantasy flight games and like warhammer and it was so many components and the game was so over-engineered and like i had so much space in front of me and it was so confusing it just didn't work for me at all it was too componenty yeah it was massively over over-engineered for a role-playing game
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
it had as many components as a board a complex board game would have and it's like this is i've got cars and tokens and all sorts of things in front of me i mean it's too much too much stuff well one a lot of people do like stuff Yeah, I know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes, you are not wrong. PJ is correct.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No, you are not not wrong.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
We should move on swiftly. The really, really big news I'm going to get to last. I'm going to do some littler bits first.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Wow. Bigger than any board game or video game. Okay. But also, it's the third biggest Kickstarter ever. I believe number one. I believe by a watch. A watch? Okay. And Brandon Sanderson's own other Kickstarter, which is the number one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Lego collectible minifigs coming in September.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
They have done them before. These are new ones. But they've done them before. We haven't seen these particular ones before, I don't think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, no, that's ringing a bell with me too, to be honest. We've got the Lady of Pain there, we've got a Mind Flayer with an Intellect of Arrow, we've got, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Tasha is there. It's basically a whole lot of iconic D&D stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I mean, they're coming out September 1st, so that's like this coming week, isn't it? When's September 1st?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Sunday. Is it? Oh, okay. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Possibly, possibly. What else is there? Yeah, there's an exhibit at the Strong National Museum of Play.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Which is going to be Dungeons & Dragons 50 years... Well, it's basically a 50th anniversary thing, basically. Mm-hmm. This is opening in September, located on the first floor of the museum, and it features a timeline of the game's development, early artifacts from D&D's design, and a look at the influence that D&D has had on video games and culture.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
This museum was founded in the 60s by Margaret Woodbury. I don't actually know where it is. I am going to quickly look up where it is, because that article fails to mention this crucial piece of information.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I'm guessing America, but it's in Rochester, New York, United States.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Fair enough. So that's a thing that's happening. And then finally, we've got a Magic the Gathering secret lair drop. So this is apparently, and I don't really know Magic the Gathering, a crossover between Magic and D&D. And there's a whole load of cards being shown with things like Beholder's Innovation Ray and Beholder's Disintegration Ray and Monster Manual and Akerarak the Lich.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The Archlich, or Aserarak, however it's pronounced. The Archlich.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It says, when Acererak the Archlich enters, if you haven't completed Tomb of Annihilation, return Acererak the Archlich to its owner's hand and venture into the dungeon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I guess so. I guess so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So that's that. And then finally, Forgotten Realms. I forgot about those. So there are going to be two Forgotten Realms hardcovers in 2025. Exciting. There's going to be the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. One for players, one for, obviously, Dungeon Masters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Yeah. So Brandon Sanderson has the first and third biggest crowdfunding projects ever.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, Greyhawk's going to be in the DMG, I suppose. At least one chapter of.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I guess. Yeah. So the two books, the players one will have, well, player options, basically new subclasses, feats, backgrounds, spells, new kinds of spells, they said. I don't know what that means. New types of spells. And various factions, like the Harpers or the Red Wizards of Tay. That's going to be the players book. And the DM's book is going to dig into various different parts of the realms.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And this is interesting. So what they're doing is different areas of the realms are going to be designed for a different play style. So you've got Baldur's Gate for urban fantasy, Icewind Dale for survival horror. There's the Moonshade Isles, which will be for fairy stories and conflicts which can be resolved without violence.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And there's also going to be a giant elven mega dungeon and the land of Kalimshan. And each one is basically a totally different kind of play style. So yes, that's those two books. And we don't know much more about that other than they're coming out late next year. So we're probably talking like November-ish or something.
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
The artwork is always gorgeous. So it's going to have five, basically five in-depth setting guides. Baldur's Gate, Kalimshan, the Dale Lands, Moonshade Isles and Icewind Dale. Each for a different play style.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's the Dungeon Master's book. So yeah, if you want to know more about the Forgotten Isles, that's the way to do it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Right. And that is pretty much the D&D news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That was quite a lot of news, wasn't it? It was more than your average amount of D&D news. How do we feel about it all? Anything we're excited about?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Sorry. That's my happy, happy JoyJoy take.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
There was one last bit of news I wanted to mention very quickly. Yeah, okay. Very quickly. So you remember last year, io9 shuttered its tabletop gaming news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And people like Lynn Kredega and others lost their jobs at io9.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Linkin Deku, of course, being famous for having very, very well covered the OGL crisis a couple of years back.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Then earlier this year, Dicebreaker closed down.
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
Now there's a third one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So Comic Book News used to quite robustly cover D&D and a bit of other RPG stuff. They have been laying off a lot of their journalists, a lot of whom are posting on Twitter saying, hey, I am unemployed and looking for work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And it looks like the Comic Book News is no longer going to be covering tabletop gaming news either. So that's the third one in under a year. Major outlet where tabletop gaming news could be found. They're going down like dominoes. And I'm not 100% sure why. Well, has Ian World...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But we're a very different model. They make their money off of that. We don't make our money off that. But my suspicion is because two of those were due to buyouts. So Dicebreaker was part of a much larger buyout. And the people who, the entity that bought the company that owns Dicebreaker, Dicebreaker wasn't the part of it they were interested in. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And comic book movies has just been bought by another company. And following that, the tabletop news stuff gets shuttered. So there's kind of a pattern here. Yeah. But I think what it is, is if you're running one of those sites, and this I don't have an insight into because I only cover tabletop RPG news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
If you cover movie news and comic book news and tabletop RPG news on the same site, I imagine you are going to see a massive, massive difference in viewer figures for those three topics.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Massive difference, like an order of magnitude difference. Yeah, at least. And a new owner would look at that and go, why are we spending these resources writing these articles which get one-tenth of the views that these other articles do? Can we please just write those other ones from now on? Thanks. I think that is probably what is going on, at my guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
On a comic book news, the main D&D correspondent was Christian Hoffer.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
who coincidentally, I'm not saying it's connected in any way whatsoever, but coincidentally has written two articles for Ian Rod this week, as it happens.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
What are the chances? What are the chances? Sorry. Anyway, and that is it. That's the news. I think we're done. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes, let's go and talk to Rich Luscaflair back in time about Phantasy Star.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So we have a special guest with us here this week, Rich Lescouver from Skydawn Games, who's here to tell us all about the upcoming Phantasy Star. That's Phantasy with a PH, Star, tabletop RPG, based on, I believe, a video game. Am I correct?
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
You know me and my relationship with video games is not a strong one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Interestingly, apparently Firefly was based on a Traveller campaign.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
What's the actual game about? It is very sci-fantasy. The original game was very like, you know,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. So how did you end up getting the license to produce the official tabletop RPG? I assume you contacted Sega? Who owns it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Always wanted to go there. Yeah. Yeah. So it's going to be powered by your Esper Genesis game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Which in turn is 5e powered itself. Is that correct?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember you came on like two years ago. Three years? It was a while ago. Maybe three or four years ago. Before we were doing Level Up Press, it was quite some time. Sorry. Yeah, but you came on to talk about Espigenesis then, and we can probably put a link in the show notes if anyone wants to go and listen to that episode again and sort of get a recap on Espigenesis itself.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But do you want to just give us a really, really quick
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I think it's probably one of the first 5e sci-fi games, I think. It's been around a while now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's fair. So Esper Genesis is a standalone game, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
You don't need the core D&D. Do you need the Esper Genesis books to play Phantasy Star, or is that also standalone?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, there's some things that I think, like, you know, people say they're using 5e, and I think that's not the best fit. But I think for, like, for really sort of heroic science fantasy, I think 5e is a really, it's a solid choice, solid choice of a system to use for that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, yeah. I think from what I understand, Mark Miller was concerned about legacy and succession is the word he used. Sure. And obviously they've worked together for a long time and there's trust between them and obviously they trust Mongoose to take good care of his baby, as it were. So, yeah. And they didn't actually want to announce this either.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, some IP holders don't like using that. I think Disney won't let anyone use Kickstarter with any of their Star Wars stuff or Marvel stuff or anything like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I think it's possibly an element that some of these large companies don't necessarily understand Kickstarter as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
For people I've spoken to, it's kind of like there's too much of an overlap between crowdfunding and investing in the mind of somebody that hasn't encountered Kickstarter before.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
yeah yeah so so you know i think there's like a slight concern they don't really understand what what the what the actual relationship is between a kickstarter packer and a you know because because there's some talk on kickstarter that you're investing in a product as opposed to you know and i think i think some of that terminology can possibly put you know maybe some larger companies i don't know i can't speak for them
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So traditional release next year. When next year? Is there a date planned?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The reason they had to is because the news, the original suggestion was that Mark wanted it not to be announced until he had died. Oh, wow. Not that there's any suggestion that he's ill or anything. I don't know if he is or not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
What product should we be expecting? Like a hardcover book? Is there adventures coming?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So it's going to be part of a coffee table reference book as well. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So we've got a hardcover core rule book. What else have we got in the plans? What's in the oven?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, yeah. Touched words, yeah. Which they were quite happy about, because they'd been talking about this for years. They signed the contracts in January of this year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Right, because you're him.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And then the suggestion was, you know, the chances of keeping this secret for, you know, decades, or however long it is before Mark Miller passes, were slim. So they decided, okay, in that case, we'll announce it in 2027 on Traveller's 50th anniversary. But part of the process is there's a lot of third-party publishers and they had to be informed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, like low-res pixelated stuff. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Oh, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
The listeners will just have to listen to us going, ooh, an artist.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's probably a setting here. I can see there's some art on the website already.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So we talk about who you play in a fantasy dialogue in terms of classes and things like that. What are the player options we're talking about here?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And because this was happening, because people were being told, people who were licensing Traveller in various ways, not just the game, but anyone who was licensing Traveller for Mark, for Mark Miller, whether they were doing art or this or whatever they were doing, had to be informed that Mongoose was taking over and they would no longer be licensing it from him, they'd be licensing it from Mongoose.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Well, this sounds really exciting. I mean, just like more sci-fi options for 5e is exciting in itself, just because I feel like my first love has always been sci-fi before fantasy. I've always loved it. It's always been calling to me that fantasy is so much more popular in tabletop RPGs than fantasy is. Yeah. So, you know, every time there's a new sci-fi game, I'm just like, I'm there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I'm looking at it. I'm checking it out. So I can't wait. I'm going to be checking this out for certain next year. So what would you admit next year? Summer-ish? Probably late summer. Late summer. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And that turns out to be quite a few people. It became really clear that the news was going to become public. There'd be just too many people knowing about it at that point. And so they decided to announce it now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Very cool. Yeah. I mean, your love for the setting and the games is really apparent. It's really coming through. And I know the sort of level of detail and care that you put into Respa Genesis, and that's a beautiful, amazing game. So I have absolutely no doubt that this is going to be fantastic. Yes. I can't wait to see it. Me neither. So on that note, I think we probably need to wrap up now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
So thank you so much for joining us.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, and do let us know when that adventure comes out because I'll be digging that up for sure. Absolutely. And, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's it for this week. We will see you again next week, same time, same place. But until then, let's all go and have a weekend.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Au revoir. Bye-bye. Au revoir.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Lots and lots of different travellers over there. There's this mega traveller and there's loads of them. I've got like two or three of them. Nice, nice. I don't know if you can see them on the shelves behind me, but yeah, up there. I've got two or three of them up there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I mean, I don't know the system well enough to run it. I'd have to bone up on it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Is to run it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. The thing is, for me personally, my version of Traveller is what's always new.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I would rather run that just because that's my game and I made it the way I like it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah. Traveller, massive influence on why what's all this new system. Traveller came up with, invented the life path system, character creation system, which I like immensely. Yes. And it was also famous for you're able to die during character creation.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Right, well, we've got some Dungeon World news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
That's also changing ownership. vaguely know about this but not enough to actually say so it has been purchased by luke crane so luke crane you would know from burning wheel and mouse guard and was also head of community at kickstarter for some years so the game has been purchased from the original creators adam I never know how to say this last name. Kerbal, is it? Kerbal, Kerbal. K-O-E-B-E-L.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And Sage Latara. Okay, yeah. And there was some accusations of sort of like poor behaviour on the parts of Adam Kerbal.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I believe so, yeah. I believe that's what it was.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, well, there was a little bit more controversy later, so then... Crane was currently head of community at Kickstarter, was at the time head of community at Kickstarter, and attempted a Kickstarter campaign for something called The Perfect RPG. And this is a couple of years ago, like 2020, 2021, something like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And one of the creators on there was Adam Kerbel, which there was a big old backlash about that. And that resulted in Crane having to resign from his job at Kickstarter.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Right. So this is like three years later and now Crane is now purchasing the very popular Dungeon World from Kerbal and Laftora along with another business partner. I don't know who that is. And they're making a new edition of the game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I'm assuming that the original creators are not going to be involved. I've got no information either way. I'm assuming not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Synchronised shrugging, yeah. That sounds like an amazing sport. I can't wait to watch that. Could be worse, could be broken. Yeah, so that's the news, basically. Cool. That is the news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's Powered by the Apocalypse, isn't it? Dungeon World. Yeah. I haven't played Dungeon World, but I've played Powered by the Apocalypse, various Powered by the Apocalypse games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
It's a story game. Yeah. It relies on tropes.
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 mean, I don't know what they're going to do. Are they going to move away from that system? Are they going to change the system? Are they going to keep the system? I don't know what they're doing. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, I'm sure so. Yeah, so that's that news. Okay, what else we got? Legend of Vox Machina Season 3. Critical Role's Amazon Prime cartoon show. They've got a season 3 out now?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
There's a trailer for season 3. It has just been released.
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
Didn't we watch the first episode for this podcast? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm misremembering that. We did, didn't we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, so season three is going to be on Prime Video on October the 3rd. There we go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yeah, yeah. So the show kind of adapts the D&D campaign played by Critical Role. Yes. Although it makes some changes and stuff, and it takes out the sort of D&D IP stuff and replaces it with other stuff. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. Those who are fans of Critical Role should tune in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
And didn't they have, they had a kick, yeah, I just remember, yeah, they had a kick, a $10 million Kickstarter for the first season, didn't they? And then Twain picked it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
No, no.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
But probably not a million miles away from it. Yeah, yeah. $10 million isn't that much. Well, it's $14 million, I suppose. Yeah, I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
More than $4 million away from you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Yes, that is happening. Okay. So I think that's most of the non-D&D news that I've got.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
There's a lot of D&D news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' own official tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
313 | Phantasy Star with Rich Lescouflair | D&D Direct Recap
I know which one of those I'd want to be. Ooh, is this based on skin tone or based on coolness? Well, if you're a skeleton, you've got no flesh. That's true. If you're a ghost, you can't touch anything. If you're a zombie, you're just walking around and rotting. And if you're a vampire, you just look cool and dramatic. So vampire wins every time, surely? I would argue that you suck, but...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
317 | Free D&D adventure based on 1980s cartoon | PHB fastest selling D&D book ever, Mork Borg video game, and more!
Hello, your editor Dale here with a quick correction. The TTRPGs for Accessibility Gaming Charity Bundle on itch.io is available for 23 days, not 23 hours.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
317 | Free D&D adventure based on 1980s cartoon | PHB fastest selling D&D book ever, Mork Borg video game, and more!
It appears PJ just misread the label on the timer from when they saw it because most of these bundles run for only a few weeks while this one has been ongoing for a month already and has been featured in my freebie sales and charity bundles column on IanWorld. So you still have plenty of time to jump in on this bundle as it runs until October 20th.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
317 | Free D&D adventure based on 1980s cartoon | PHB fastest selling D&D book ever, Mork Borg video game, and more!
This week, Morse, PJ, and Jessica talk about all the week's tabletop RPG news, including a free Dungeons & Dragons adventure based on the 1980s cartoon, the D&D Players Handbook for 2024 is the fastest-selling D&D book ever, Mork Borg is getting a video game, and more! This week on Morse's Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, we're trying to put this on a Kickstarter. We need to say... Something is compatible with both versions. And we're trying to come up with an eloquent and quick way of saying that. And at the moment, the best we've got is like a statement, a sentence going, compatible with both the 2014 editions of D&D 5th edition and the 2024 edition. And it's like, it's too clumsy and awkward.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
If you just go compatible with all editions of D&D or something, it just sounds like you've got a rules neutral product, doesn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
A quote system neutral product, which is basically a D20 thing with no mechanics really.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I'm sorry, I do apologise. I realise I sound very sniffy. I apologise. I'm not being sniffy about such things, but they're not
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
what i would expect from a book advertising itself as compatible i'm not expecting law i am expecting mechanics i'm expecting crunch and that wouldn't be able to deliver yeah yeah um so yeah so i think for i think really good customers for players dms um what do we call our what do we call the audience we can't call them clients that's me with my favorite the people that listen to the podcast
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, like the people who are buying D&D books. Gamers, I don't know. Players. Nerds. Yeah. For fans of the gaming systems, then, yeah, this is confusing and it's not very helpful. And I can imagine it's going to lead to problems onboarding people into the hobby.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Because if someone turns up at a gaming club clutching their brand new 2024 Players Handbook and people are like, well, I ain't running that. I'm running 2014.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
or someone turns up they've gone into a hobby shop they've seen two players handbooks neither of them says this is the new edition or the old edition on it you don't know they just say Dungeons and Dragons so you pick which cover you prefer yeah yeah so they're like oh well I like the picture on that one I'll pick that one up and they've got the 2014 one they go along to a gaming group with their brand new character they've made up and everyone's like playing the 2024 rules and it's like I don't know yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I imagine, call me old-fashioned, but maybe this 2014 stock is going to get discounted. So, you know, people will go and buy stuff and think they're getting something relevant, and they're just not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I really do believe the clarity of just using an edition number would have been so much better.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, it would have been so much better for fans, for consumers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
It would be better for us. It wouldn't necessarily be better for Wizard of the Coast, I get that, because it would have meant that for the last two years they'd have sold less stuff. I get that. I understand why. I still... Which it wasn't that way.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, I mean, it's had a chilling effect on sales, and now it's just like, okay, great.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. But anyway, look at this list of changes. I mean, it's quite useful that they put that list of changes there. They haven't said what the changes are. They've just said what's been changed. So it's not like they've sort of said, you know, barbarian has... Oh, that's annoying. It doesn't say that. The barbarian's third level feature has changed from this to this. It's just said, you know...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, you know, we had to. I was touched. It was a thing of beauty. Right. Anyway, shall we get cracking? Yes. Hey, I played Vason on Wednesday. Oh, how did you find it? A game that I have wanted to play for ages. And it's my first time. Is it my first time playing Mutant Year Zero Engine, isn't it? Yeah, that's what it's called.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, but it just says it's been revised.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. The subclass is Path of the Berserker, three revised features, but it doesn't really tell you what they are.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. I don't want to read a book. It's just pointing you to what's been changed. I think that's fine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. It's stuff like removing the automatic exhaustion if you use the berserker's class feature, which was previously a problem. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that article is on D&D Beyond. You can go and have a, you know, if you are, basically that article is there if you are migrating from 2014 to 2024. It's a helpful tool to help you do that. I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, and also you can grab the three rules, the three basic rules now, and character sheets. You can grab the character sheets now if you wish to do so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Shall we have a look at the character sheets?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah? For me, it's something... Let me give you a... Here you go. Hang on a second.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, maybe, but I think accessibility does include things like whether people can read it and get access to it. Gating people out without consulting an accessibility consultant is a choice that a multi-billion company can make.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
But you know what, for me, I like that because the different shapes and colours call things out to me. So different people definitely visually work in different ways.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, I mean, absolutely different strokes for different folks. Although, again, like...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
make more than one yeah and label them as such I mean that would be yeah there's already like fan created ones out there already and there will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those so yeah the D&D ecosystem does mean that everyone will be able to choose a character sheet it'd be nice if more than one came from Wizards themselves I guess yeah with again a budget for things like accessibility thinking about good design principles and yeah they could do different ones but
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
and leave aesthetic. And that would be like, that would have been a really amazing nod to accessibility, which would give people something to use straight from the Wizards site. And it would also, I imagine, lead to a big boom in creativity on people creating things. They'd be able to use these as templates and do whatever they wanted to prettify them up. Yeah, as it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
We have one that looks very similar.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, it's down to two pages rather than three. So it's been condensed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
It's been rearranged a little bit. My sense of aesthetics is mildly perturbed by the way the ability scores are arranged.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Over there on the left. They should be in two even rows or columns.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
So I quite liked it. It was the Swedish folk horror set in like the late 1800s. Yeah. And basically all the myths and legends are real.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
So what's interesting is... So I'm assuming from that, they're definitely not going with you can use any skill with any ability score. No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Locking in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Because they've literally listed each skill underneath the appropriate...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
And they've taken out some of the passive skills, which actually I agree with. You don't have passive insight on that sheet. You don't have passive investigation. Because those were very strange things conceptually. Yeah, I always did. They've got passive perception. You have to have passive perception. That is like a linchpin rule almost.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
If you kick out passive perception, then suddenly a lot of adventures don't work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
It's not as essential as it used to be in 2014, because in this one, you're rolling your stealth check versus a static 15. But in the 2014 edition, you'd be rolling versus passive perception.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. I mean, the thing with passive perception is about saving dice rolls. So basically, if you remove passive perception, the DM will just be asking for perception checks constantly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah.
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Whereas with passive perception, they just know how perceptive people are. Yeah. And most DMs will basically just memorize the highest one in the group because that's the one that will really matter. Yeah. And, yeah.
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Yeah, like if monsters try to ambush someone, then someone said, yeah, my passive perception, I've got wisdom five, I've got passive perception, I've got the alert feed, my passive perception is like 20. I know what's going on. This person does not enjoy ambushes. I will let them spot ambushes before they occur, and then they can be happy. I think that's fair enough, yeah?
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So werewolves are real and various Swedish monsters and folklore and stuff. It's all real. So we've only had one session so far, but so far it's been really good fun.
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Yeah. I mean, you still do that without passive perception. It's just that you're making perception rolls, which is just more clunky. Again, it's like slowing down.
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But anyway, they have got passive perception, so anyway, it's a moot point.
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Yeah, well, it's actually a really valid question. So thank you for asking. One thing I noticed, I mean, I can't see the whole shoot, but it does look like it's probably not on there, is how one gains inspiration.
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Well, yeah, I think they've removed the boons and flaws and things. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Well, yeah. They've renamed it heroic inspiration. I honestly can't remember how they're handling inspiration now. I know we've discussed it before. We do know because we've talked about it before, but it's gone from my mind.
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I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I think you might be thinking about destinies and level up A5E.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Okay, heroic inspiration. Okay, let's have a look. What's changed? So, inspiration is a rule that the DM uses to reward you. Blah, blah, blah. Yep, we know that. If you have expiration, you can expend it to... Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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how do you get here we go in the 2024 rules heroic inspiration functions similarly to the 2014 rules the primary difference being that a player can use it to re-roll any role in the game doesn't say how you gain it oh it's handed up the DM there are also new mechanics that allow players to earn inspiration in other ways for example the new champion subclass has an ability called heroic warrior that grants the character heroic inspiration at the start of a turn if they don't already have it
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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So you were right. Yeah. Well, that's true for the fighter champion subclass.
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It basically sort of codifies how it's been run.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Because like, you know, not that I'm bitter, but like, you know, playing to your bonds and flaws and doing stuff that puts you at a disadvantage. because that's playing to your heroic traits, flaws, bonds, it's supposed to gain you inspiration. And people just didn't seem to like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It never caught on, really.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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No, no.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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For some reason, it just never caught on.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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For me, it's strictly cash. You pay for your inspiration.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Russ has got a different sort of vibe going on but Jessica that was how it was in 2014 as well it was either you got it based on doing something awesome at GM discretion I was like oh like Savage World Benny's Bish Bosh I know how this works that's great or it was doing the role playing aspect and they seemed to have removed the doing the role playing aspect no no it's still there I think that is that as well I think it's just a bit vaguer it's not like you have to do it specifically according to these bonds and flaws it's just up to the DM
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Yeah, but it was always up to the DM. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like this, an NQ inspiration, or it's up to DM, which would necessarily include if you did something cool.
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Yeah. I think it's just fairer to people to let them know what's expected of them. But that's probably due to an article I was seeing about What was it? It was how autistic people quite enjoy D&D and they've got role-playing games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Having clear guidelines about what it is you're supposed to be trying to do in a social situation
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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And if you don't know what to do, hitting with your axe is always a valid option.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It was only five before, which is a lot.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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You just write the name of the spell.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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But also, I think that ties into how they expect people to be playing online an awful lot. Yes. And on the D&D Beyond character sheet, you're just going to literally just click on it and it will pop up.
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That's... Kind of how they expect that to work, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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They've got quite a big space for species traits as well. Actually, it's called species traits. I think you're only going to fit names of things in there, really, though, again.
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custom character sheets because that's always... Someone's already released on EN World a form-fillable one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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They just took that one and form-fillabilified it, which is helpful.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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There's also campaign tracker sheets that are going to be coming at some point as well because they're in the DMG, I believe, so they won't see them for a bit, I guess. Do you remember we saw those and they had the cutesy artwork around the edges?
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I think the aesthetic is kind of... Cuter. Yeah, generally cuter in these books than in previous ones.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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They were, like... They were heavy, heavy cute.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
No. No. It's already getting erratic, by the way, to play a Sandbrook.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, there's not a massive amount yet. So the giant insect spell contains a hit point clarification. They had the wrong amount in there. Shields now require the utilize action to don or doff. The Gliath's powerful build, they say, the advantage is on ability checks to end the grapple condition, not saving throws.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
The true polymorph spell no longer runs out if the target's temporary hit points run out. And the telekinetic feat now grants an increased range to the use of Mage Ant. Oh, nice. So, yeah. I mean, say it's a rafter. So basically what this is is the player's handbook on D&D Beyond. It's where it differs from the physical book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Mm-hmm. So they haven't released an Arata document, but there are just some things on the D&D Beyond where it's slightly different, and people have noticed these, and I assume that's going to be collated as Arata for the book at some point.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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That's my guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. Anyway, what other news have we got? I have something that isn't D&D.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I'm wondering if you're now talking about the exactly same adventure, because this one involves a number-chopping business as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I mean, yeah, it's a little bit of a proto- kickstarter at the moment but you will recall a couple of years ago there was a game that was teaching you how to learn sign language oh yes inspirals and they got overrides as well yeah that's right yeah well they have just come out of left field and said hey how would you like to recreate ulysses 31 and other such games On the Broadway game table.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, yeah, Ulysses 31.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Ulysses, Ulysses. I can't remember the words.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Definitely. But thank you for the musical saying all the same.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, I'm not familiar with the system, but what caught my eye was the absolutely stunning artwork. There's a chap who, Alex Connolly, does Acid Concepts. He was the chap who did a lot of the art for Salvage Union, which was Penny Lines. Beautiful, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that was, like, really, really solid aesthetics. And, yeah, he's done, like, what looks like a really bang-up drop here, so...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I know Fernando Salvatore also has done some artwork on this as well. So I don't know the details, but by goodness, it's going to be a pretty book. No two ways about it. Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's currently at Notify Me on launch. So it's not even a proper Kickstarter. Well, it's on Kickstarter, but it's not... The pre-launch page. I thought I'd shout it out just because it's...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It would annoy creatures in the forest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, they're going to be back at it, basically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I agree entirely.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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There's only so much information you can put in one graphic and one subtitle, you know?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I was going to ask, it sounds like you know a little bit more about Paragon because I can tell it's done by John Harper and Sean Nitler. I've never actually played Paragon, or even really heard anyone talk about it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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There's a British Isles version as well, isn't there? Yeah, I've got that one. Free League as well, same system, but there's one set in the British Isles with all the...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Argo, tabletop RPG inspired by Greek mythology. A thing I like. 80s cartoons. A thing I like. Classic anime. Eh, not so much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Right. Anyway, news, news, news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I am now apparently a cartoon fan.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Look at me. Hey, you know, you can now get an official D&D drink where you have been able to before.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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You can get a stout or a bourbon from the New Holland Brewing Company.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It's called Dragon's Milk, yes. Okay. It's called D20 Brew Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout and also an Origin Meadcast Bourbon Whiskey.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Now you know. Now you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Sure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Remind me never to eat custard that you've made.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It's not the first time. There was a Quest's End whiskey line for Matthew Lillard.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
It was not referred to as milk. You're correct. It was not referred to as milk. Yeah. Yeah, fine. Anyway, you can get that. Okay. We've said enough about it, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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So Tabletopia, do you download it or is it in browser?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah. What else have we got? I've got a Pathfinder NPC core rulebook. Okay. What are this? Which I think is hyper useful. So this is coming out in March. It's for Pathfinder, obviously. Nice. And it basically contains hundreds of stat blocks for NPCs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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And that's basically the book. It's a monster manual for NPCs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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And I think it's just super, super useful. I think that's the sort of... If I play Pathfinder, that's the sort of thing that I would consider top-tier useful in terms of books.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, there isn't one for D&D like that, is there?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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There is for us.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I don't know if it's called or where to find it. Yeah, it's not official, but it's out there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, that's fair.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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$70 of your American dollars. Well, there we go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I think it says more about British people not liking children that much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, yeah. I don't know anybody that likes Battlescape 3, do I? Do I know anybody that likes Battlescape 3? I don't think I do. I don't think so. Not that I'm aware of. No. We should probably move on. Yeah, yeah. No one's interested.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I'm talking about so I'm not I don't know what that is you can tell me about that in a second if you like but I'm talking about the way Baldur's Gate 3's D&D rules differ to the actual Fibre Drop rules in some ways is that the 2014 or the 2024 rules Well, I assume the 2014 rules because they didn't have a time machine. But Larian talked about how that came about.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Which is interesting. And what apparently they did, and this was Nick Petchanin, the design director, when they were making the game. They said basically they were homebrew rules. They said they literally combed through forums online looking for common homebrew rules and just used them. Yeah. Yeah, and that's just how that happened. Wow, okay. Which I thought that was kind of cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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So things like the fourth relationship, that's based on pilfering from homebrew.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, well, they've got things like, let's have a look. So, well, you know the game better than I do, but the speed at which you can drink potions was altered basically based on common homebrew rules that people use.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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People being doused in water, taking more damage from lightning and cold damage. Just various things like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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The Kraken? That's going a bit overboard, isn't it? Yeah, I mean... You could have started with a little pixie or something, but no, you went straight to Kraken.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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That's native to the Divinity Original Sin 2 engine though, so fair play to them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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That is quite cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Spam healing potions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Throw healing potions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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The next step is going to be a repeating potion launcher where you just load it up with healing potions and just fire it at your party just to heal them up really quickly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Maybe you should just turn it into a hose.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
do you know what I've been doing this week I have been approving the Monstrous Menagerie 2 manuscript I know and I'm so pleased very excited I've been really strict with myself and just like I'm not going to start looking at this book until Voidrunners is done much to my joy Yeah. Otherwise, yeah, no.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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So finally, finally handed off the final sort of last bit of Voidrunnery stuff that I have to do. So I started looking at Monster Manager 2 and it's looking awesome.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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It's looking so awesome. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah. I could believe it. I mean, I've only written a couple little bits for it. But the pictures I put in, I did not think would get accepted for some of it. The ones I thought, oh yeah, I'll do this. I'll put some other ones in as a laugh. And Paul was like, no, no, I don't want your boring, sensible pictures. I want the really messed up stuff. I'm like, okay.
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Yeah. And there's also a couple of little tweaks as well. So, you know, the tools that you get with every monster in Monsters from the Natural, you know, you get like the tables for Legends and Lore and Names and Signs.
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It's just kind of like, that escalated quickly. Zero to Kraken in under 10 seconds.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Those little tools. So you've got all that on there. So you did the Legends and Lore bit where you roll to see what information you get. Yeah, yeah. Paul, who obviously is the lead designer on Monstrous Menagerie 1, Paul Hughes, and 2, has added false information for bad rolls.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Which I think is a cunning idea.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Although presumably you still know when you've made a bad roll.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, player and character. Unless you copy Pathfinder. Well, I mean, that's a good way to do it, build tension by asking people to do that. But if you're untrusting, you could still copy Pathfinder in the second edition and have a closed roll. Yeah, you could do that. Give me a good modifier. What's your token modifier? Yeah, yeah. You can absolutely do that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
And then roll it and say, you think this, you think this, you think this. Good times. Enjoy separating them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. The other thing we got in there is, one, there's a much higher emphasis on higher level monsters. Yes. Good. Which is nice. It's a lot more skewed towards higher level monsters. Because we've got a lot of CR1 to like four monsters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
So we've got a lot of much higher level monsters. And also because people have been playing for a while now, we expect they're more likely to be,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
so there's that there's a lot of epic like and some unique named ones which is cool but we also got these rules for what are called um horde monsters oh h-o-r-d-e not h-o-a-r-d yeah and these you could use a horde to protect a horde always valid exactly yes yes Yeah. And these are basically for large groups of monsters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Okay, anyway, let's do some news, shall we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
So we've got the squad template in Monsters Monotree 1 for sort of like a group of like four or five sort of thing. Yeah, it's quite effective. But this is for much larger groups of monsters. Oh. And the idea is that horde monsters, the kind of designs for like... They're kind of like minions, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
They're designed to be quite easy to cut through and let you show off a bit, but still be challenging en masse.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So it's like when you meet the Archlist and its horde of...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Stuff. Cool. Stuff happened this week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and things like that. Or you could have multiple hordes. You want to throw a hundred zombies on the table, go for it. We've got you covered.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Very much. And this is going into layout now as well, which is cool. Yeah. So I'm starting to get quite excited about this one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Although I do want to do an NPC book like Pathfinder's done. I just think that's really useful.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I like to keep it succinct. But, you know, Greg Taito?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. Anyway, there's that. And the other thing I just wanted to quickly mention is we did a September dev update for Level Up Gateway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Because we're putting that update out each month now just to say how we're doing. And the current goal is to get all the classes up to level five on there before we let people tinker with it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
And we're about halfway through. I keep saying we.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, the royal we. Alexander is about halfway through the classes now. Been working on spellcasting classes in the last few weeks. So Wizard is now up to level five as a sorcerer and cleric are both up there as well. All the spells are in. It is just so cool. I can't wait till people get to start tinkering with it. Cannot wait.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Oh, there will be. Yeah, there will be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Communications Director over at Wizards of the Coast, or should I say, former D&D Communications Director. Because Greg has left Wizards of the Coast. Wow. Okay. For a job as Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington Secretary of State's Office. So he's gone from gaming to politics, basically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. Anyway, there's an update on that over on the Level Up website. The latest update.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Lots of nice screenshots and pretty pictures. Sounds amazing. Anyway, and that's that really.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I think we're done.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I think we might be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Sweet.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Let's do that, yeah. Let's have a nice, wet, rainy weekend.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Bye for now. Bye. Yes, and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Because I was just wondering, can you get milk out of a dragon without nipples?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, I guess maybe then this dragon milk might not be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
You just missed them. It might be like cats all hidden away, but on the scales.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Maybe they have to have them built into the scales, like the bat nipples in the George Clooney Batman film.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Oh, okay, so they sort of like slip up and pop out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Washington Secretary of State's Office. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's cool. I don't really know enough to say...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, no, I mean, he was like nine years at Wizards as communications manager, co-hosted the Dragon Talk podcast while it was on, the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast, which was around for a couple of years.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Pioneered a lot of ideas, like the teaser for the trailer for the preview for the spoiler for the announcement yeah um yes the previews of the spoilers of the teasers of the yeah yeah yeah it's like had that going on um yeah i had i had i i can see that he might be quite tired especially this past year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, he certainly had a comment to make, which I'll get to in a second.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Oh, okay. Am I anticipating things? I know I'm anticipating something. But I want to say his boss, his new boss, Steve Hobbs, appeared on an episode of Dragon Talk a few years ago and is a D&D fan, interestingly. So I guess there'll still be lunchtime D&D games going on, even if they're at the Washington State Secretary's office.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Same as the chip. I hope I'm not getting mauled by a dog. No, Marvin. Marvin, no. We're busy. We're busy.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yes. Yes. No, come on. Off you go. Off you go. But you did have something to say.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Oh, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of assholes. Which is... Direct, shall we say.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
He did clarify... He meant shareholders, not his co-workers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
aren't your decisions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
You know, but you are kind of getting a lot of the flack for it because you're the one doing the talking.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
So I imagine that can be quite wearing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Didn't they wheel out some guy? to talk to people after the OGL fiasco. The apology tour, as it was called. Was that someone else?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
That was someone else, yeah. So they went around, I think it was like a half dozen or so YouTubers doing interviews, basically apologizing for the OGL crisis. It was an odd choice because it just felt like an apology tour. It just felt a lot. It was an interesting way to approach it. Interesting. Anyway, yeah. So there's no word on whether there's going to be a new communications manager.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I assume someone else is going to step into that role at some point.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
But as yet, I don't know who that is. I wonder whether, you know, things will change a little bit. Whether a different style of how Wizards communicates with its fans will come along. I don't know. I mean, everyone... I don't know Greg Titor myself. Never met him. But everyone that I've spoken to says he's a great guy. Yeah. So... But we shall see, I guess. Time will tell. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. So your Players Handbook's now officially live on D&D Beyond. Yeah. The new one. 2024 Players Handbook. Yeah. Along with character sheets and the free rules.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. Basic rules. There's certainly been a lot of comment produced. I think TRPGBot was able to get a summary of the various changes that's been out already.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Well, that's on D&D Beyond. So D&D Beyond posted a full list of the changes in the player's handbook.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. RPGBot does something similar but different in that they list the changes and they look at the implications of these changes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I always have a lot of time for their analysis and stuff because even if I don't necessarily agree with all of it, I do find it to be quite intriguing and it's definitely a consistent point of view, which I can totally respect. That's a big list. That's a lot of changes. Yeah, yeah, there's a big list and a lot of changes, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Classes, backgrounds, species, spells, stat blocks, feats, equipment, rules, new terminology, everything.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, yeah. I guess probably the thing that's struck my, caught my attention, caught my eye the most As you know, I'm quite interested in making gaming accessible to as many people as possible, working to do that sort of thing. And one of the people that I'm talking to is Wormworks Publishing, my chap Dale over there. And he had quite some things to say about the new Player's Handbook.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
For instance, he liked some of the work they've done in the artwork, especially the artwork is top class. There's a lot of recognition of face differences, body proportion differences, or even things like a pigmentation variant, like vitiligo, which is where you might have, say, a black person, but they've got patches of white skin. So that's a really common form.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
So yeah, in terms of artwork, they're doing well and they've even got some disabled characters in the artwork. Mm-hmm. which made the rest of it somewhat more problematic because there didn't appear to be anything like mobility aids, which was a concern. There's no recognition within the book. Like, you know, like what if you have crutches? What if you have a wheelchair? No combat wheelchair.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah. I mean, not even a combat wheelchair, just like a regular one. I mean, it's not like, you know, as you say, the combat wheelchair, Mustang's art has had that out for ages. So it seems like a bit weird that there's,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ, and with me this week is... PJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
nothing in there yeah because pathfinder adopted that didn't they yeah okay yeah i mean that might be the that might be the thing but yeah and obviously in advanced fifth edition there is also a wheelchair available in the equipment list as well yeah there's like not really not really much in the way for neurodivergence either which seems like a bit strange strange choice for
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
players recognizing themselves but probably the thing he felt most strongly about and i have to say i do i do quite agree with him is uh the complete removal of any mixed mixed heritages oh have they because we were wondering what they were going to do about that yeah is it completely gone then there's no rule for it or anything well like things like half or health and half or walk
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
have had sort of like problematic racist connotations yeah and they're gone yeah and they are gone like with Tasha's Cauldron for Everything they had a paragraph or two about adopting like you know ways to do it and obviously as you know I I've written a whole damn book about it. I'm likely to write more because it's something I feel very strongly about.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
But he's kind of mad about the 2024 core rules because they only allow pure-blood people groups effectively gamifying miscegenation laws. They say what, sorry? The 2024 core rules allow only pure-blood people groups effectively gamifying miscegenation laws. Miscegenation is a term which means that you can't
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
In the real world, to talk about if a black person married a white person, some people would call that miscegenation, which is a very racist term and is not okay. It's like saying mixed races are not allowed. Obviously, we're talking about a fantasy game and mixed species or mixed heritages are our ancestries, I think is the term they use. Ancestry, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, but there's no acknowledgement of that and there's no distinction between biology and culture.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
We knew that split wasn't in there earlier, didn't we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Yeah, but they seem to have really doubled down on it and there's no suggestion.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I'm afraid I don't have the player's handbook because I am but a British person. I'm a person in Britain, so it would not be accessible to me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
No, apparently not. Apparently not. I'm definitely getting the vibe more and more from this sort of thing that... It really isn't for me. I don't think this new edition is for me. They're not really catering to my interests, which are like, actually, we should make it more accessible for people, and if people have a mixed heritage, they are welcome in the gaming space.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
Delighted to be here on this sadly wet, cold, and chilly September afternoon. And joining us also today, the weather not dampening hers for it, she's quite happy to sing, dance and possibly give a little twirl around the floor. It's the only.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I mean, they do on the article point out, I mean, this is, obviously, it's not in the book, so it's not in the game, but they do say half elf and half orc from the 2014 book are still usable.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
And they kind of specifically point that out. They've got a list of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven subclasses, two species and three feats from 2014. Yeah. And they basically, these, that's interesting. These are still usable from 2014. That's only like 10 items. Yeah. 12 items out of the entire player's handbook that are still apparently usable in 2014.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I think at this point the changes to spells, which are effectively class features, that ultimately spellcasting that as a class feature... and the spells that are available, they have undergone such major changes, especially with things like healing, that it really doesn't feel like saying it's the same edition has any validity. Sorry, I'm not trying to...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
I feel it's a mistake to claim it's the same edition because I would have expectations based on that. It's a completely new book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
314 | 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, Greg Tito leaves Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder NPC Core Book, and more!
From cover to cover, it is a completely new book. It's not an updated, revised book. It is a completely new book. And I think it's kind of really hard to say it's not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
A Few Technical Issues!
Hello folks, it's Morris here. So we've had a few technical problems with this week's podcast, as you may have realised. We recorded it as usual on Friday, and normally the podcast goes out on a Saturday or Sunday. But we've had a few issues, a few technical issues. We do have the recording, so we hope to get it out at some point soon, and we'll keep you posted.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
A Few Technical Issues!
But there's a few behind-the-scenes technical issues going on right now. Yeah, catch you soon. Bye.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
All the table top are outplaying us. We aim to amuse and we aim to enthuse. And Morris is unofficial. Table top RPG.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
But cool. So in this one, I guess they're going to be dealing with some dragons, I guess. What are the names of them?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
well dungeons and dragons it leans into the theme while so that makes sense that's coming out july 29th and it's being written by jolly jolly johnson is that the same person that wrote the first one i think so i seem to remember not being able to pronounce the name then as well is it pronounced like rally i guess it is jolly johnson it's spelt like rally
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
You can read. I've seen you do it. More than once.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
How about you? I had a quiet week, but I did get a brand new James Bond watch this morning. I mean, I arrived this morning. I've been waiting for this for ages. I am so, so excited. You can't really see it properly there, but it is gorgeous.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
At least twice, maybe three times I've seen you read. It's amazing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Shall we move on to the not at all D&D news?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
But still RPG news. And then after that, we can go back to the big D&D news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Go on then.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I've actually changed my opinion on this as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Yeah. So... I mean, say what the NEs are doing, and then I'll say what my thought on it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Is that a brief summary? If your product contains any AI...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
kind of applauded that decision. And generally, as a principal, I agree, because I am very, as you know, anti-generative AI. I think it generates slop, it plagiarizes, it's just slightly off-topic. So, what's a chat GPT company, OpenAI, was complaining that the new Chinese AI app was plagiarizing their work. which I find highly, highly ironic.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Because I am now James Bond, because I've got the watch.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That's how it works.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
The app.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, no, there's a new Chinese one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, and they made it for a fraction of the price the open AI made ChatGPT.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And it seems to be as good as or as close to as good as. And then ChatGPT is complaining that this Chinese app has plagiarized their stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, karma, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, so the stance now is that if your book, your product contains any AI-generated content, it's not eligible at all for the awards. As an overall goal, I applaud because I don't want AI stuff You know, awards are for people, not for computers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't need to give my Mac an award. Thank you very much. I don't need to give my iPhone an award.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It probably will now. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah. Well, they are all getting AI now, so I don't know. But as people pointed out in various places online, that can actually inadvertently... hurt artists in certain ways so I'm kind of a mixed opinion now so you're an artist you get contacted by a company to do the cover for their new book And you spend months doing this amazing cover. No AI at all. You paint it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
No, the world's most famous James Bond. Just in case you didn't know, I'm going to turn up in a flashy Aston Martin DB5 and order a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred, just in case you're in any doubt as to who I am.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
You do all the, you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
You know, you pour your heart and soul into it. You make the most amazing piece of work. And you cannot wait for this to be entered into the NEs. And you might get an award. And wow, how amazing would that be?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And then suddenly, because the company has put a piece of AI-generated content art inside the book, a bit of AI generated text inside the book, suddenly your art, you are no longer eligible for an award for something that you didn't do. You had no control over.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. So that could happen. And also there's a lot of situations that we've seen even like Wizards of the Coast get caught out by this, where they find out after the event, that AI art was used and that an artist slipped in some AI. So what happens then? What happens then?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Does everyone get their awards taken away because suddenly someone discovered one of the pieces of art in the book was AI generated?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Did the writers get their awards taken away?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
uh yeah well yeah i mean the um the pushback on that then is if an artist does that and then makes your inner you know your product is now ineligible for awards you've got even more to complain because it's not just a case of having to replace the art and all this sort of stuff or deal with the aftermath of that it's also but you've now made our product ineligible for awards by doing that yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So hopefully. I mean, I don't think artists tend to slip things in often.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I think there's a problem that there's two problems, actually. One is that people see an imperfection in an art piece and therefore decide it's AI. Like humans, human work never has imperfections.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Anyway, we've got some RPG news to talk about this week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So that's one thing. The second thing is they use these tools and it will go, oh, there's an 89 percent probability that this piece of work was generated by AI. But these tools aren't great.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's like loads of false positives.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's an awkward situation to be in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I'm glad I don't have to make that decision anymore.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Absolutely. I mean, the main reason I stepped away from the awards was after 18 years of it,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
like every year there would be something that was out of your control or whatever or and it's just getting shouted at constantly about how corrupt and incompetent you are it just was just too much after 18 years yeah when you're trying to do something nice yeah yeah i'm just trying to do something nice i don't even get any money out of this i don't you know
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We're going to do a D&D sandwich.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We're going to do a D&D adjacent sandwich where we talk about a typical role and a novel and some movies and stuff like that. And then we'll do some non-D&D stuff. Cool. And then we'll come back and we'll do a whole load of big D&D news that came out this week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It makes a nice short list, doesn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Anyway. Right. Do you know what Legacy of Kain is?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's a video game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
But there's going to be a TTRPG of it. Okay. As I understand it, it's about vampire hunters, I
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Well, let's get in the TTRPG, and it is on back of it right now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's using Morkborg, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's doing really well as well. It's, what is it, a quarter of a million pounds, so it's probably about $300,000, I imagine, with a whole month yet to go. So this could be a Approaching million dollar one as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. I don't know about Legacy of Kain to, you know, really talk about it any more than that on a video game. That's it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. It looks gorgeous as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's utterly gorgeous. Who's making it? It's being made by Lost in Cult.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. I don't know them, but Lost in Cult, an award-winning book publisher, creative design studio, and creator of visible things. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So this is going to be like the official encyclopedia of Legacy of Kain as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So a two book set, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, I think it's two books, I think. Don't hold me to that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Talking about being sued. Apparently we're not being sued. Put your mind at ease.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, I had a chat with our lawyers and the outcome, what's the word I'm looking for? Outcome.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
The outcome of that was we have nothing to worry about.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ, and with me this week is... It's me, Jessica from EN Publishing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We're all just goblins.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I am a goblin with a nice watch, at least.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Oh, well, which of those four things catches your eye?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
When are we throwing cats at you?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Right. Gotcha. All right. OK. Right. So I spotted this. And really, really, Peter should be here for this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
However. It was just us talking about cats, the conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy. Did you get it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, it's good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's very clever, yeah. So this is up on that there Kickstarter. It's done very, very well. It's £50,000 so far.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
OK, so Critical Role is wrapping up their third campaign. And this looks like it might be the final one in Exandria, but maybe not. So on February the 6th, there's going to be an 8.5 hour episode. Oh, wow. That's really long. 8.5 hours.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
You're basically like James Bond or something, but you've also got psychic abilities.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And you can't let the humans know that the cats really rule the world.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I guess, possibly, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It does really look fun. It does look fun.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's on Kickstarter. You can book it for the next two weeks. It's from Black Book Editions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Is it a system? They're a French company, Black Book Editions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. What system is it? That's a great question. I'm really glad you asked it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I think it's a custom system.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Cats have four abilities. four physical abilities, four mental abilities, and luck, and a whole load of skills.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There you go. That's all I know. That's all I know. And you wrote D10.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Yeah, it does look cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, it would be really good if we didn't mention it, I guess, wouldn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Funded.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Done 2,200 pounds as a month ago. So I thought it was kind of fun. So you just use a point-based system and you build everything. You build cultures, you build feats, you build things using a point-based system.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's apparently compatible with 2014 and 2024 5E as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's the next Thursday, it ends.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Okay. Go back it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Not you. You can if you want, but, I mean, for people.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Oh, we've got National D20 Day.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's only in America, apparently. It's National D20 Day.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's a work day.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're calling this the conclusion to this chapter in Exandrian history and the dawn of a new age.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Apparently it's for TTRPG enthusiasts across the nation. But I guess that means America only, so it's not us. Oh, well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Well, it's a holiday for Americans only. And it's to celebrate December the 20th as National D20. It's a proposal to do so, to be fair. It's not been announced by the American government or anything like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
No. It's a proposal to call for TTRPT enthusiasts across the nation, that nation, not our nation, that nation, to come together and recognise December 20th as National D20 Day, a celebration of the iconic 20-sided D20.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There you go. I don't know whether it will happen or not, but... Why not?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, well, it's a change.org petition. So you go along and sign it. There's 128 signatures on it so far.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't know. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
What, National D20 Day? Yeah. Well, I'd have to go to America first because I'm not allowed to celebrate it here.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's not like an expensive endeavour. So I'd go to America with a D20 and then when I got to America I'd roll a D20 in America I'd find the biggest D20 I could find in the whole of America and I'd roll that and then The result is going to tell me how my next year until the next National D20 Day is going to be. So if I've got a 20, I'm going to have an amazing year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And Exandria, of course, is the world that the Critical Role Lifestream is set in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
If I've got a one, I'm going to have a rubbish year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's like the Bill Murray thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Groundhog. Groundhog Day. Yeah, it's like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's what the big D20 says.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So... This third campaign coming to an end, there was a whole big plot where some, like in one of the moons, one of Alexandria's moons, there was a god-eating entity.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I think it might be. Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yes. So we've got the proper D&D stuff now. Okay. It's quite a lot of it as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
everyone goes to it oh right everyone gets to the oh right i see yeah yeah everyone so the whole world so oh no it's a national event so just the nation that's just america yeah but so everyone in america rolls the g20 if anyone gets a one everyone gets goes to work no i don't know how that works
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Or America.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
All right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I'll do that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they'll go along with that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Where should we start, Russ? Let's start at the top. Let's go through it in order we got them here, just because that's easiest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Okay. Number one. Why Dungeons and Dragons isn't putting out a campaign book in 2025? They are kind of.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. So by campaign book, it's like a big hard. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. So there isn't one coming out in 2025. And I think that's the first. Is that the first year that hasn't happened? I think it is. Yeah. So just for context, there was a big old press event. at the beginning of the week. And Christian Hoffer from EN World went to this. This was at Wizards headquarters in Seattle in America. And people from various outlets presumably went as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And they had to get rid of it. And there were a whole bunch of sort of cameos and characters from the previous series came in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
our Christian Hopper went and reported on and asked questions and had a sort of a few minutes with various designers and Jeremy Corbyn and people like that as well to ask them questions. So that's where all this comes from. So why D&D isn't putting out a campaign book in 25?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
The answer to this was, because it is a question that people have been asking, there is loads of adventure content coming out in 2025. But in this year, it's lots of smaller adventures. So we've got the dragon book, which we're going to talk about in a second, has 10 adventures in it. There's the new starter set, which has an adventure in it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
The Eberron book, which we'll talk about in a minute, has adventure in it, or more than one adventure, I think. The Forgotten Realms book has adventures in it. So there's lots of adventure content coming out this year. Yes. but they're trying out smaller adventures that you can plug into your game rather than one great big massive one. And that doesn't mean to say they're not going to do it again.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Like next year, there might be a great big adventure again. Who knows? That's what they're doing this year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And then the players sort of got to play the characters that they were playing in previous seasons as cameos in this one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, maybe. I mean, historically... D and D modules were small. There'd be like 32 page booklets with a sort of DM screen cover wrapped around them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That was the thing. That's what they were.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They weren't great, big hardcover adventure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
In fact, until dragon dance came along, I think the idea of an adventure path is that was kind of the first big adventure path. And even that was like 13 small adventures released sequentially. It wasn't a big hardcover probably got compiled later. I'm sure it did.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Um, But yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's not unprecedented at all. And I used to use those and you grab them and you shove them in your world. You just play this adventure and shove it in there. You might have to change some names or something, but other than that, you just use them like that. Episodic kind of stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Rather than great big long arcs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. But also, Wizards are going to be talking about campaign settings.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So we know that this year there's two Forgotten Realms books coming out, a player's guide and an adventure guide. But they've also announced now an Eberron book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Well, it's called Eberron, Forge of the... I never know how you're supposed to say it. Artificer or Artificer. Artificer. I don't know. That one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah. It's one of those words that just... Artificer. You never use in life, do you? So you only ever see it written down.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, the Artificifer.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. So that's coming out in August. Mm-hmm. It's going to include the revised Artificifer class.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's going to have new backgrounds and feats.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
A revised Eberron species. So the ones that we've had before in Eberron Rising from the Last War. And also the new Koravar species. I don't know what a Koravar is. I think it's probably an Eberron thing that people probably do know. But I don't.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't know what a Koravar is. K-H-O-R-A-V-A-R, it's spelled. So this was by James Wyatt. But also, Eberron designer Keith Baker was involved with this. So Keith is back waiting for Eberron, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah, they haven't said much else about it. We haven't got a cover-up for it either.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. They're doing a four-part one, a small four-part miniseries, I suppose. It's called Exandria Unlimited. Oh, no, Exandria Unlimited Divergence. Sorry, colon Divergence.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We've just got this image, which obviously people listening can't see, but people watching can see it, which has a whole bunch of everyone's characters, basically, including a... Oh, what's the word?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
What is the word for the robot guns? Warforged? Warforged, that's the word, yes. I knew that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah. And one that looks like Doctor Who, second to the last there. That looks a lot like David Tennant dressed in a trench coat. I don't know. Do you not think?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Well, that's coming out in August.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There's also a mystery book coming out in October.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They haven't told anyone what it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We don't know what that is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Can't guess what it might be. I just haven't even got a vague guess what it could be. Maybe it's going to be like a rule book, like a... Is that what goes with...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
No, that's the dragon book, which we're going to talk about in a sec.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I'm too excited. So, yeah, it's going to be a mystery book in October. I don't know what it is. There's no possible way to find out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's like Mission Impossible and, like, break into... Well, you have a James... ...do a thing through the skylight and drop down and hover just behind someone's computer upside down while they're typing on this new book and read the book upside down. And then when they hear you and turn around and wonder what noise it was, you go...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Spin-off series, if you like.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
You want to talk about the dragons? Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We knew there was going to be a dragon anthology book. Yes. We already knew this, but we didn't know what it was called. We now know what it's called. It's called Dragon Delve. And it's going to have ten short adventures, each of which features a different type of chromatic or metallic dragon. So there's five of each, so I guess one each of those.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And this is about the Divergence. And the Divergence, apparently, is when all the gods of Exandria ran off, disappeared, because there was a big old war between the Pantheons, so they all decided to, you know, get involved. And then this is going to be like four weeks, starting on February the 13th. And it's a one-off miniseries. And there's no plans yet for a fourth Critical Role campaign.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, I mean, there's a massive amount. The adventures range from level one to 12. Nice. They're quite short. But what's interesting is each of the adventures has a different artist with a different style. And you're putting these up on the screen now. I am.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Because generally, like, Wizards books tend to have quite a similar cohesive style. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
But what they've done this time is they've got 12 different artists, each with an entirely different art style. And each adventure is illustrated differently. So the one that you're throwing up there, it's sort of black and white one. This is like angular green dragon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Comic book art kind of style. Is it, I guess? It could be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There's going to be an art section in it, because dragon art over the years, the 50-odd years D&D's been around, has changed a lot. Dragons look very, very different to how they used to. So there's going to be an art section showcasing dragon art across the 50 years, which is kind of cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. What else? They talked a bit more about the Forgotten Realms books.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, they talked about circle casting. So this is when you got a whole bunch of... Circle casting has existed before.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Previously, basically, if you had a whole bunch of spellcasters, they could... It would take them about an hour to cast a spell or whatever. And sort of cast it as a ritual. And basically, they could basically upcast a spell and make it better or make it permanent or, you know, do stuff with the spell.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah. So I don't know exactly what's going to happen with it here. It might be the same or they might have some other sort of way of looking at it. But basically, it used to be just
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
boosting spells or giving them permanent effects or giving it additional effects or you know so you i don't know like a giant fireball that's like massive i don't know that's a stupid idea that's a stupid example but you know i mean it's like yeah um yeah i mean they did mention in this press conference that um one example was making the spells effects permanent and so temporary which is kind of one of the sort of big ways you can use it
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So I guess it's going to be similar to how it was back in 3D. I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. What else did they talk about? They talked about Heroes of the Borderlands, which is their new starter set.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Returns to the Keep in the Borderlands, which is a sort of iconic D&D location going back many, many decades. So it's set after the original Adventure module. Time has passed since that. And they've got this interesting idea, which we've talked about doing this before.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So, you know, we don't know whether this is the end or if there's another one coming or if they're going to go and switch to Daggerheart and do something else. We don't know that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They're using tiles. We suggested cards. But using tiles that you mix and match to create a character.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So we've talked about this before. But it looks like Wizards are actually doing it. So I don't know how this is going to be implemented. But... I guess you sort of like pick a species tile and you pick a class tile and you pick it. Yeah. And that's how that works. Yeah. Sounds cool. I'll be interested to see how they do.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It was also going to be designed so that multiple DMS can run this game, this adventure, this campaign.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Right, what else do we have? Then we've got the Forgotten Realms books. Those Realms That Have Been Forgotten.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So there's new backgrounds. There's new feats. There's eight new subclasses, which they previewed in Unearthed Arcana just this week. And these will link to different parts of the Forgotten Realms. And the subclasses are the College of the Moon for the Bard.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We've got the Knowledge Domain for the Cleric. You've got the Purple Dragon Knight for the fighter.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So this has changed, actually. So the Purple Dragon Knight, originally the Purple Dragons, it didn't refer to Purple Dragons. It was basically an elite sort of knight in the army of, I think, Cormier or somewhere like that in the Forgotten Realms. Okay. Okay. And they were called the Purple Dragon Knights. And the army were made up of soldiers called the Purple Dragons.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So it wasn't actually dragons. However, however, I did look at this subclass. I had a quick glance at it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Totally changed it. And it is now about having a companion dragon, an amethyst dragon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. It's hard to tell because, I don't know, Daggerheart obviously is their baby and they're going to want to promote it and stuff. Yeah, obviously. But also, you know. people watch it for the D&D as well. I don't know. Do they watch it for the D&D? I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Correct. Which wasn't what it was before, but that is what it is now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's quite a confusing name, otherwise.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I can't remember. Okay, all right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I said I glanced at it. I glanced at it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We've also got the Oath of the Noble Genies, which is for the Paladin. We have the Winter Walker for the Ranger, which is kind of like an Icewind Dale themed subclass. We've got the Scion of the Three for the Rogue.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's like scone or scone.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
The scone of the three.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Spellfire sorcery. So Spellfire is coming back for the sorcerer.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Spellfire was kind of like, it's like the raw magic of the universe.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Nice. It's happening to like the raw magic. And what you can do is you can absorb spells coming at you and like thing effects back at people, as I recall.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, you can manipulate the raw energy, the magical energy of the universe.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. And then finally, we've got the Bladesinger for the wizard.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I remember this correctly. An elven fighter mage is what they used to be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't think they're saying that's what it is now. It's just saying it's a wizard that can use a blade and kind of uses the blade in the casting of spells, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't know how it's changed from what it used to be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It's like a fire hose and stuff, but they're washed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So this Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide, it sort of dives into five different parts of the realms.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So those are the Moonshade Isles, Icewind Dale, the Dale Lands, Calimshan and Baldur's Gate. Got it. And each area will have short adventures associated with it. So the rest of all of that adventure content we were talking about are going to be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So that's kind of cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So circle casting we mentioned, didn't we? Yeah. So, new campaign settings.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They haven't announced any new campaign settings.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They were kind of talking about Eberron and revisiting Eberron. Jeremy Crawford was talking about revisiting Eberron. And then Jess Lanzillo, who is the VP of the D&D franchise over at Wizards, said that we can really now establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms, but we're also looking at creating new ones again.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So it says that's something they are working on.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So we need to do that Mission Impossible style mission and go and find out what that is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Me?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I haven't got a James Bond watch, damn it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Damn it. I can't argue with that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, the terms and conditions of the contract. I can't get out of them. Exactly. All right. Anyway, anyway, what was I saying?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That's interesting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. I mean, what was the last new setting that they did? Was it... Oh, gosh, I don't know. I think, like, Nintir Vale in D&D 4th edition. I'm going to guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
But then in Critical Role's favour, though, anything that has to face Critical Role in it does better as well. It's whether or not that is good enough to compensate for the lack of... I don't know. I hope so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Radiant Citadel. Yeah, the Radiant Citadel.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There's three of those, actually, yeah. So there's Radiant Citadel.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There's the Stairway to Heaven, or whatever that was called. What was that one? Stairway to Heaven.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. Or whatever it's called, yeah. The Infinite Staircase. Was it the Infinite Staircase?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Close to NeverEnding. The library one as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
What they need to do is to make it like everyone was like substantially different. an evolved life.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Like new iconic kind of, you know, images and new mechanics and things like that. So I think it's going to have to be something like that in that, you know, it couldn't just be a region of forgotten realms. It's got to be something substantially different.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I mean, maybe, I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I mean, this is Spelljammer, I suppose, but they haven't done like a Starfinder type thing, have they?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Okay. Right. We talked about the movies, didn't we? The potential movies. I think we're kind of done now. There's except for a free adventure that's coming.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Someone's just asked in the chat there, which is making exodus sci-fi. Yes. Yes, that is correct. But I don't think it's D and D. I don't think it's a D and D setting. Yeah. But yes, Wizards is making... It's a video game, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And they're making a TTRPG to go along with it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
But I don't know enough about it to really comment any further.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
As far as I know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Well, my guess is they're going to do another D&D one and they're going to do a Daggerheart one as well. That's what I think they would do.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Anyway, so free adventure. Nice. February the 4th, which is what is it today?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Monday or Tuesday?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, so Tuesday this will be. No, I know today's not Tuesday. I wasn't sure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Well, yeah. I didn't lose track of days. No, maybe the 4th is Tuesday. Or if you're in the future, it was Tuesday.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Or if it's Tuesday, it's today.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Okay. So this is going to be a digital-only adventure on D&D Beyond. It's going to be free. As long as you're a registered user of D&D Beyond, you can grab it on February the 4th. And it looks like it features an evil red wizard conspiring to overtake the Western heartlands.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, it's a single-session adventure, compatible with 2024, compatible with their D&D Beyond Maps stuff. You know, they've got their sort of integrated VTT now. And you can grab that on Tuesday for free.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
There we go. That's it. We have now, I think, done the news pretty much apart from those videos, which you have watched and I have not. So you can talk about the videos.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
To be honest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That's quite a cool idea.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
What kind is the curse, did they say?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Playing apparently 50 hours of tabletop RPGs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Like stripy ones, because you get stripy ones, don't you?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
So that was kind of... Link to all three of them in the show notes though.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
hmm you've checked you get a blood test to see if you are in fact fae i am not no they can do that on the nhs you know they'll check whether you're fae it just takes six months on the waiting list or something okay fair enough um yeah right okay i think i think we're done
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Oh, there's also, awkward to mention, Beth. from ian world wrote her official monster manual review which is on the site it's very long one yes um but it's very in-depth and very good so um we'll stick a link in the show notes to that too yes and that's definitely definitely worth reading yes so that's a real in-depth review because she's got her early review copy of it yes there we go Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Shall we? Shall we go and do the weekend?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Thank you to those folks who came and watched us live and were in the chat and talked. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I know it's not the best time for America, but...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And if I try to do it, like, at midnight tonight, so it's a good time for the Americans, I'd probably end up getting divorced.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. All right. Goodbye, everybody.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Sayonara.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
All the Tabletop are outplaying us, we aim to amuse and we aim to enthuse, and Morris is unofficial, Tabletop RPG, Chara! Woo, doggy! Ha!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, possibly. Anyway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Universal FanFest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
The kind of thing they do.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Because we've talked about this before. So this is the Universal Studios Hollywood. And they're making an attraction and they're called Universal Fan Fest. And there's loads of them. There's like a Star Trek one. And there's, you know, all different sort of franchises. But, you know, we're talking about the D&D one here.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
yeah um and it has like an adventure and there's a great big xanathar puppet you can interact with yeah we did mention this weren't they hiring somebody to operate it Yes, yeah, there was a job advert for someone to get inside the puppet, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And it's being made, like, along with Jim Henson's Creature Shop as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah. But what they haven't actually done yet is officially...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
announce it like we know all about it we've seen the description of it we know that about the the big beholder we know what it is but they haven't actually announced it until now they just like finally kind of officially announced it and the tickets have gone on sale oh okay well that makes sense yeah yeah so basically you have to um join the harpers
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And then you've got to foil a plot by Xanathar, the Beholder, which will have an actor inside, recently hired, who is capable of carrying X amount of weight consistently all day. And save the city of Waterdeep. Does that sound fine?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, my brother goes to. He went to the Blade Runner one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yes, indeed. Did you have a good week, Jess?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah. I think I'd like to do that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Sorry, I've asked you a question you don't know. I don't know, Jess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I'll tell you what. There's got to be a date.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Universal Fan Fest nights. Okay, here we go. It's a ticket page. Universal Fan Fest nights.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, well, I'm looking at it right now. So there's a Star Trek one. There's Back to the Future one, the D&D one. Here we go. Get details.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Soundstage 15 at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. I suspect we won't be going to that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They range from 74 pounds, dollars, sorry. Okay. 24 of those American dollars. All the way up to, if you want, like, the really, really sort of VIP tickets.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
They vary.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We live in Hollywood rich, aren't they? Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That's how it works.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Let us know, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I'm intrigued. There's a Star Trek one I want to go to as well. They do a Star Trek one where you can walk around the Enterprise, and I'd like to do that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Okay. Do you want to do one now?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Feels like so long ago in a different lifetime.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
You had to come out with, like, Howl's Gate Goblin mode.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, well, yeah. They sort of said they're exploring the possibility.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
And that got cancelled. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That got cancelled when they sold, Hasbro sold E1, which was their TV studio.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what they do. I think, looking at what they were saying, it looks like they're exploring the opportunity of various different studios, like talking to different studios and opening it up a bit and seeing if anyone's going to buy it and, you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, I enjoyed that too.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
We did have a meeting about flumps.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
It wouldn't surprise me if we saw another cartoon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Maybe not a movie, but a cartoon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Maybe an animated movie.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I would be unable to watch it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, I can't watch that nation.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I mean, I didn't know it was a meeting about flumps. You ambushed me with the flumps.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
I do. I've got one last bit of D&D and Chaser news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
That is the fullbacks... this was a novel last year penguin random house published it um 2024 and it was about a group of kind of misfit adventurers just wandering around they're not like the best adventurers but they were the adventurers that that like waterdeep got and um i remember us yeah i remember the initial press release so what yeah okay yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah, so the first novel was called Bound for Ruin. And the second one, this one, is called Dealing with Dragons. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, so the description of it is, the fallbacks might not be Faerun's first choice for saving the day, but if the money's right, they'll get the job done. In this ragtag band of adventurers, each member plays a vital role.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Tess, the disciplined elven thief, Anson, the courageous fighter, Lark, the cunning bard, Baldrick, the wily cleric, Kazrin, the inquisitive wizard, and Uggy, their pet monster who eats garbage.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Yeah. So in the first one, they defeated this big old lich, apparently. I haven't read the book. Spoilers, but okay. Yeah. Yes. Sorry.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Well, I don't know if it's going to be new art, is it? I presume there's so much Discworld art out there, they'll just use the existing art, I would have thought.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Did you realise you were supposed to pick three? And I think you've listed half of this list now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
That is so like my dogs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Are the big ones on there? Not necessarily ones that I voted for, but I'm curious about. We've got Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
We've got the Daggerheart. Yes. They're probably the two biggest ones on there. I assume a lot of people will vote for those.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
In fact, I can see the votes now. I can tell you already that nothing has zero votes. I'll tell you that much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I will tell you off mic.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. So anyway, yeah. So you can vote. You can go onto Ian World. You can vote. You've got to be logged into the site to vote. You can vote for up to three games and we'll announce the top 10 in January.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, a super ignore. Wouldn't ignore him like a normal cat. Like... Even more ignoring because it's super powered ignoring.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You can try. We get to score it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Thank you. It went a bit seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, really. It took two steps. A good Segway only takes one step.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I find it really does do lots of classes, doesn't it? I find it really likes its lots of classes mode.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Just the second edition. Wow.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I don't know what that is. What is The Impossible Lands?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Does that mean you don't know? Okay. Shall I look it up? I don't know either.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
A land still scarred by a war between two undying archmages and their respective nations, reality defies the rules binding the rest of the world. Cities crafted by wishes, fields harvested by the walking dead, magic warps and twists with an undefinable will. There you go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. I wonder how many classes Pathfinder 1 he had. So Pathfinder 2, he's got 25 and it's still a relatively new game. Pathfinder, I'm going to Google this as well. Pathfinder. Official.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Classes. Pathfinder reference document. No, that's just the core classes. I don't know. I don't think I'm going to find this. Oh, Pathfinder, 123 plus classes. My goodness.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, it makes sense that you'd need definition between classes, because in 5e... Anti-paladin, the ninja, the samurai, the hunter, the investigator, the skull, the slayer, the swashbuckler, the war priest, the mesmerist, the occultist, the psychic. There's lots of them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Someone put this meme on Facebook and it was... So the scene in The Trader is Superman's injured. He's lying in the middle of the Arctic. He whistles and Krypton comes running and rescues him. And then they did the same scene, but if it was a cat. So Superman's lying there. Injured in the Arctic. He whistles...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I mean, there's a lot of similarities. Like the world, the tone, not the tone, the genre is pretty much the same. All the classes have the same names and all the monsters are monsters you pretty much know from, you know, so it is... I could see why people think it, but like for me, I'm very, you know, I have opinions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I think it also comes from the fact that Pathfinder 1E was basically D&D 3.75 if it really was. Oh, 100%. So that's probably where that comes from. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ, and with me this week is... PJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I might pick it up when it hits early access because... Oh, for people who've finished Baldur's Gate 3 seven times in a row... Look, Russ, one does not simply finish Baldur's Gate.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
And then you just see this cat just sitting there going, and then the next scene is just a skeleton.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I have picked it up. I've had Baldur's Gate 3 on my system since it came out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yes. We have to do that. Hooking of Bonesgiftly, by the way, made by their company, Larian. Yes, yes. Larian has made an advent calendar. Ooh. a Alarion Studios advent calendar. And each day you go into the little window door, whatever it is, and you get a little puzzle, which is like a scene from one of their games. And then you get a little prize.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Well, that I don't actually know because I haven't done it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Each puzzle, basically, there's only... I don't know which ones it's done so far yet, but I know that things like they make what? They make Baldur's Gate 3. They make what? Divinity, Original Sin.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. So they make a whole load of stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. Shadow Cursed Lands, Divinity 2's The Red Prince, something like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Oh, I found out what the first day's prize was. It was a YouTube video with a holiday wish from Larian's offices. People at Larian saying happy holidays to you. That's very kind, yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I don't think it's going to take you a weekend.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I thought you'd be pleased.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
We do. So for people who are, A, vegans. Yes. This is a Venn diagram. Okay. For vegans. Vegans. B, who like D&D. And C, are temporarily experiencing a footwear shortage.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
May be interested in this vegan D&D footwear.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I mean, I don't know whether they test you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
All right, shall we do some RPG news? Yes. Shall we, shall we? Because it's time. It is time, folks. It is time. It is that time of the year. That time of the year that comes around. This year. Well, it's that time as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
If you could resist the bacon sandwich, then you could have the shoes, yeah. But it's coy footwear. which is a vegan British footwear brand.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Okay. And there are eight D&D-themed footwear pieces, including the Glabagool Gelatinous Cube Wedge Mary James, the Draco Scale Chunky Stomper Boots, the Uncanny Dodge Rogue Military Boots.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Nice. So there we go. Vegan D&D themed footwear. What color are they? They vary. A variety. Depending on the item in question.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
The gelatinous cube things are just like enormous, great, big, green platforms, it looks like.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. I mean, enormous, really enormous.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. Anyway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I remember him talking about that a while back. It was kind of in development, kind of an idea that he'd had a while back. So this is the outcome of that idea, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yes. Without having that sort of, you meet the big boss and then it's dead one round later situation. Yeah. Or you're like, well, I'll cast Force Cage. No. Moving on. Yeah. But I've told my stride story enough times about how they kicked his ass at like sixth level or something. That'll happen. Yeah. Yeah. Players. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. I don't know what I meant to mention. Remember we spoke last week and we were talking about the new European legislation stuff? Oh, yes. The general product safety regulations. Yeah. So, I do have a bit of fairly good news. If you sell via drive-thru RPG, either by PGF or via print-on-demand, You're not the vendor. It's not your problem. Yeah. Drive-thru RPG is handling it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Don't worry about it. So it's utterly, it's totally not a problem. And the same will presumably be true for the people who sell via itch and things like that. I haven't looked at that. But again, itch is selling it, not you. So I imagine itch will be in the same position. They will handle it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I think the difference there is Amazon have two ways of doing it. One is that you can drop ship. But if you're drop shipping, and drop shipping basically means they buy it on Amazon, but you still stock it and send it from yourself. You are still the person sending the thing. So you're responsible for it. Whereas like on DriveThruRPG,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
a print-on-demand book, they are printing it and shipping it, so they're responsible for it. Yes. I think that's the difference.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
For all the people who just sell and drive through RPG, it's not a thing that they need.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, it turns out it doesn't. There was a big rumor going around that it did. It doesn't.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, that's not how that works.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
That is a bad idea.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Okay, let's go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
The Artichoke, yep.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
It doesn't really...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's the, yeah, it's the first on the Tharkana for 20 to 2024 rules. Yeah. Yeah. Presumably that means it's going to be in a book coming soon. I don't know which book, but in a book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, maybe. But yeah, like you say, it's not a massive, massive change. They put out a video on it. So you can watch the video and they talk about it a bit. It's still a half caster. It's still just making magic items. What else to say, really?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
It looks like a gremlin, basically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
dnd they're not well defined but yeah it's uh not to that i i read i respond with this image which i i've just given you okay i need to download it yeah should i trust files from this sender absolutely not no you will be pleased you saw it
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
We're looking at a different picture. Okay, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, yeah. I was looking at a picture I didn't send you. There we go. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
That's not how eyes work, yes, I understand.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
No, because only a few people know how to make it, I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Maybe we grow up.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You know, Keir, I got some news about that Modiphius bunch.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
They are making a new dark sort of fantasy horror medieval TTRPG. On the brink of a biblical apocalypse. Goodness. Biblical apocalypse. Yes. So it's called Doom Song. Mm-hmm. And there's only a limited number of copies available, or you can get it by PDF. And it's the world's teetering on the edge. So it's called Payne-y-me. Payne-y-me. A nation. The word Payne with Y-M-E on the end.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
And they called it A Nation of Saints and Sinners of Foul Heresy and Undying Devotion.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Thank you for saying that. The dead are being turned away at the gates of hell, giving them no choice but to return to the world above. The players must subdue them, inspired by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, medieval folk horror, European mythologies. Oh. kind of fun. It's got a sort of fantasy horror system with they say there's a unique character creation in there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
That's how you're going to die, Jess. I'm going to be bound into that doll when I die.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You use a D6 and a coin to generate a character's entire history. Hmm.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
And then the D6 to choose the traits associated with it. Of course, you're 50 quid. There's only 50 of them left. 300 book, leather-bound hardback, embossed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Is it just the deluxe edition? What's thermo leather? Thermo leather?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Right, okay. Oh, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Makes sense. Makes sense. What if I do want to accidentally summon something?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
But I don't want to deliberately summon something. It's got to be an accident.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Right, okay. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. It looks interesting, doesn't it? It's got a black and white kind of interior layout as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Old school kind of thing. It is interesting. There's only 50 of them left, though, so if you want it, you've got to get on there first. It's only a limited number.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Okay, can I tell you a story then? Is it good? Once upon a time, there was a website called Level Up Gateway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
And it did an update so that fighters and wizards can now be up to 10th level. The end. Was that a good story?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, well, the current dev work is getting all the classes up to 20th level, because they were all up at 5th, and now Wizards and Fighters are up to 10th, and then they'll all go up to 10th. Available for alpha testers. Yeah, yeah. That's incredible. Great news. Another cool little update there is now you can now toggle your character to private or public.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
So if you want to show people your character, you can. You can send people a link to your character and they can actually see it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Anyone can see it, yeah, publicly. Unless you set it to private, in which case they can't.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. I'm still working on my Middle Earth collection.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Extended or regular?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Come on. They are so good. Which is your favorite of the three?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You know how I know that Marvin wasn't at this buffet?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, no, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I'd actually consider that, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Oh.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, that's what I meant. That's what I said.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You put it just inside the front door, so it's the first thing that people see when they come in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. There's one thing we're going to do on Gateway is a copy button so that if someone's got a public character and you like it and you want to use it in your game, you can just duplicate it and use that character. Oh, that's nice. So basically the Gateway also turns into a massive repository of pregens. That is very cool. And then we'll put our official ones on there as well. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
So people can just grab those and use them. there we go exciting times little quality of life little things that you can add that don't require a massive amount of work to implement but just do make a difference
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I don't know what the character sheet will look like on Gateway. I mean, the printout will. I know what the actual screen looks like, but... Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, so...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, mine certainly are.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
No. Anyway. Do we have any more news to cover?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
It won't be all of our last podcasts of 2024 because we're not going to be here next week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
We like to keep our listeners happy. Sorry, I'll take it back.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
We'll return in 2025. The first one in 2025 will probably be the top most anticipated RPGs for 2025. I can say.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Am I allowed to finish my sentence now?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, I don't even know what dates are anymore.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I thought Christmas was next Thursday, right up until yesterday.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I got halfway through and then was rudely interrupted.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
It's often funny when someone recognizes you by your voice, though.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
The Hollywood thing, they always say, nice to see you. Because that can mean either nice to see you again or nice to see you the first time. And it's vague enough. You just say that to everyone because they never know in Hollywood whether they've met someone or not before because they sort of see them on, you know, there's this acting community and they sort of see them on screen so much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
And they, did I meet that guy at the Oscars three years ago or not? And this sort of thing. Or have I just seen him on TV a lot? And you just go, nice to see you. And everyone just says that. And it kind of,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Well, it's just not the same the second time around, is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
The one he does, or used to do.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I mean, the drama's gone.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Act surprised like you've never heard this before. Okay, so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
So, are we coming back on the 3rd or are we coming back on the one after that?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
It's so professional.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Did you know it is time? It is that time of the year. The time of the year when it is time to vote for your most anticipated tabletop RPGs. Of the coming year, and for those who don't know, I assume it's fairly common news, but the coming year, they're calling it 2025. This one is 2025. It makes sense. Yeah, it's a good planet. It makes it sound sequential. Yeah, it's good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
All right, then. Bye-bye, everybody.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
So 2025's most anticipated RPGs. We took the nominations over a period of two weeks. I haven't actually counted them. I think there's more than there's ever been.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
There are many. Yeah. And voting started yesterday and goes for two weeks and ends on January the 2nd. And you can vote for up to three of those games. Nice, nice. I'll tell you what I voted for. What did you vote for? I voted for Alien Evolved Edition from Free League. I voted for the Ars Magica Definitive Edition from Atlas Games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
And finally, I voted for one which I, well, since I backed it in the Kickstarter, I should really be anticipating it. Otherwise, that would be a really, really poor life decision. You do make those. Right, well, thank you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
I've been regretting it every since.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yes, the third one I voted for was Terry Pratchett's Discworld Adventures in Ankh and Warp Op.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yes, that was my three. I mean, looking at that list, if you guys had to pick three, what would they be? I mean, this is the first time that you've seen the list and it's very long.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You are the Mina Harker to Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You are the Buffy to the angel.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
You are the high school girl to the twilight.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
So you are the Igor to... You could be Igor.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah. I mean, yeah. How's that? Yeah. I spent most of the last 24 hours squeeing over crypto in the new Superman trailer. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
But you, they're kind of more like medium-sized bugs, aren't they?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
So Stars Without Numbers, the space one. Cities Without Numbers, the fantasy one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
There's this bit that whenever we're out with our dogs and stuff and we call them, they are not elegant dogs. So they run towards you, but it's like a herd of elephants charging at you. But there's this bit in the trailer where Superman whispers for crypto in the middle of the Arctic. And then you hear... And then you see this cloud of just like... Snow just... Closer and closer.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
329 | 2025 TTRPGs, D&D Artificer, Pathfinder's Necromancer & Runesmith, Baby Goblins, Vegan Shoes
Yeah, but the French aren't necessarily playing the French. They might be French players, but they could be playing those silly Americans.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ, and with me this week is...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
It's not everything's gone. Nobody's getting any money. Goodbye. It's not great. It's not great.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Lesser of the two evils sort of thing, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. Should I do something a little bit more cheerful?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
QI. We all know what QI is, don't we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
The TV show currently hosted by Sandy Toksvig. Oh, okay. Panel show basically about obscure knowledge, quite interesting facts and information. That's right. Yeah. Well, they mentioned the Diana Jones Award.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Which is a niche thing to actually mention, yeah. So the Diana Jones Awards is one of the tabletop gaming awards. Happens every year just before Gen Con and it's awarded to one person, company, game, convention, event, concept, as has happened before each year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
very very generous people okay shall we dive into some news because we've got a big week this week mainly about the upcoming dnd monster manual that's the big topic this week um because the whole publicity machine's kind of geared up now and it's all coming out like the big old fire hose of sort of monster manual news has been sort of spraying all over the internet but before that i thought we could do a couple of bits of non-dnd news
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yes, the actual award statuette, that pyramid there with the burnt copy inside it got lost in the post, basically. Missing, presumed eaten by a moose. Yes, yeah. I think it was going from Canada to America. I can't remember exactly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I'm just wondering if somebody somewhere has found it or come across it somehow. Don't know what it is. Thought that was quite nice. And they've got it on their mantelpiece somewhere. No idea what this thing is. And it's just sitting there in some mantelpiece in North America somewhere.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Unless QI were to release the official QITT RPG.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I have no idea how that would work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
What other news have we got? I've got something that might cheer you up. Yeah. I like things that cheer me up.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Anyway, anyway. Yeah, no, this looks awesome. This does look awesome. What's this? The insatiable undead gigantosaurus roams the desolate tar fields of Lodros. Wow. Hunting fresh brains.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And then do the Monster Manual stuff afterwards. How does that sound? Like a plan?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So because everyone's and going directly up against the monster monster book going directly up against the monster manual as well. So it's doing really well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Okay. Right. Let's start with... Well, this is an interesting one. So there was an article recently by Polygon, which got a bit of pushback on social media.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I wasn't going to back anything in January.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Wow. I noticed that some of those dinosaurs appear to be glowing slightly. All right.
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You've picked up on the segue, have you?
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So wouldn't it be great if you could have miniatures that glowed slightly? Well, yes. How useful would that be?
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Yeah. So these are a set called Underdark Expeditions, because I guess it's quite dark down there. So if you're going to glow in the dark, you might as well do it in the Underdark.
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Glow in the Underdark. Yeah. And it's going to have like gelatinous cubes, flumps, hook horrors, gas balls, things like that. And they're all going to glow in the dark. Nice.
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It's everywhere. It's on YouTube, on Facebook, and it's on Twitch as well. I'm not sure if it's on Twitch. It's around places.
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kind of in two minds about it i get why there was pushback but i also get why the situation is like it is being you know i publish news as well so i get it but basically it was um a longish article mainly talking about some of the missteps that dnd has taken over the last few years ogl um you know various controversies they've been involved i mean if if i might
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I can describe it. It's like a beholder, but instead of eye stalks, it's got mushroom stalks.
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Well, this set has 44 go in the dark miniatures. So between 4 and 16? Hmm?
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That's a new take on randomised collectibles. You don't even know how many you'll get.
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What you don't want to do is put these around your bedroom. Because you would never get to sleep at night with like 44 glow-in-the-dark, basically horrific monsters just staring at you while you're trying to sleep. That would never be happening. But anyway.
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So shall we take a quick break? Yes. And then when we come back, we'll do the Monster Manual. We are back! So, I've got some good news for you, Jess.
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Yeah, you're going to like this. Oh. So, we're about to talk about the Monster Manual.
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But, before we do that, there was a press event by Wizards of the Coast, mainly about the Monster Manual. And Beth from EN World went to this press event, and it started with a presentation by Jess Lanzillo, who's the VP of D&D Franchise and Products over at Wizards of the Coast.
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and before this is before they dove into the monster manual they just talked about what the business of g d in general briefly there were a couple of tidbits in that one of which mentioned your favorite thing in the entire world i do know what you're talking about now yes yes please carry on though so about escape three this is the way we talk about boulders gate three this week on the podcast as we do every week
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Yeah, we found some circular way to get around to it. But there's going to be some new subclasses.
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I know. I don't know what they are or when that will be. Apart from it will be 2025. But it's happening. How happy does this make you feel?
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I would find that very frustrating, I think.
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I thought it would make you happy.
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We talked about another couple of bits and pieces before talking about the Monster Emanuel. Oh, yes. The Monster Emanuel. So the 2014... Coral books way back 10 years ago in 2014. Yes. So over three years sold the same as the 2024 Coral books have today. Wow. Which is astonishing.
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No. Okay. um that is something you could probably dig into and find out but um i don't know how many books that is i'm thinking like a couple of warehouses for you know definitely more than four
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Maybe eight or nine books, maybe. Oh, that many? That many.
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Yes. What's under copper? Tin. There is nothing under copper. anyway yeah i thought that was interesting um um they they say that the things that they credit to this massive growth is things like stranger things they credit honor among thieves the movie to it um okay obviously has uh helped grow the audience i know when you say like one of among these i mean on cinema scales it didn't do that well
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But that doesn't mean that on D&D scales, that wasn't a lot of eyeballs seeing stuff about D&D that would not have normally seen stuff about D&D.
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It was presented as a mainstream Chris Pine Guardians of the Galaxy-esque comedy, wasn't it? Yeah.
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Yeah. So also, this is quite interesting. They mentioned that they have 85 plus million global fans. Notice this is not 85 plus million players. This is people who have seen the film, who've interacted with the brand in some way, watched Stranger Things. All the different ways you can interact with D&D. Novels, films, TV shows, cartoons, video games.
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Well, it's the article more than the headline.
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it's a number as good as any yeah well i mean how many people played baldur's gate three for example they're all counted that's a good few million i'm sure oh yeah absolutely just that one game on its own let alone all the other things that that's just me playing it many times that's just you playing it 85 million times yeah yeah this is talking on multiple computers playing them all simultaneously on tactician mode that's just what she does to relax nowadays
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It's like all these walls just filled with different walls of screens, all with different instances of Baldur's Gate 3.
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That's not the sort of thing we do. We're so professional.
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I just want to do the last little stat that they threw in there. Okay. The last little stat was D&D Beyond now has more than 19 million registered users.
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Considerably more than Level Up Gateway. Yeah. But that's only because Level Up Gateway is just in private alpha testing.
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Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm being invaded by dogs yet again, as often happens on this show. So there's a general look at sort of the current state of D&D and it's a critical look. It's a D&D's not doing great at the moment kind of look in terms of controversies and things like that.
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That's a lot of people. I mean, that's not subscribers. No. Not necessarily paying users. There's a free tier on D&D Beyond, and that'll be the bulk of it. 19 million is a lot.
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that is a lot yeah yeah i mean my account's a free account i haven't got a i'm not a subscriber i think i have one i haven't used it in years but i used to so maybe and i bought the thing i bought the dragon lance book and that's it you do like to lance dragons i do like to lance a good dragon no a bad dragon i like that's evil dragons
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I don't like to announce the good dragons.
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Right, where are we? Let me get the Monster Manual then. Okay, let's do the Monster Manual. Ta-da! A lot of information about the Monster Manual.
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I don't even know where to start. It's like this fire hose of information here.
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I think this is going to be a little bit scattered, but hey.
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Correct. And that's, is that a mainstream release? So it will come out two weeks before in hobby stores in America.
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this soon very soon yeah um yeah so um they had this big press event and they went through the monster manual with people from various outlets youtubers all sorts of different people were there as a big thing um and they went into quite a bit of detail so um they reiterated like the 85 new monsters that are going to be in there
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in addition to the ones that we're familiar with already, bringing up to a total of 500 odd. There's a lot of monsters. There's a lot of monsters. And some of these were sort of like the primeval owlbear, which is a really nasty version of the owlbear. The blob of annihilation. Which sounds nasty. The Vampire Nightbringer, which I think is an even more powerful vampire.
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Is that the Blob of Annihilation? No, that's the holder of some kind. That's an under-beholder. I don't know.
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Looks a bit cute, to be honest. Looks a little bit cute.
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Yeah. Except that beak is jagged.
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Yeah. Anyway, anyway, anyway. And the haunting reverend. We can see the art for that. That's the house. The haunting revenant.
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No, there's a piece of art that's like a revenant that's a house. That's it. Ah, yes. I love that piece of art. That is amazing. We've basically got a house where two windows are glowing as eyes and then the bottom half of it is like opening up like a mouth.
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Then it goes on to talk about indie creators and kind of criticizes them for, and I quote, sitting in their own little corners of the internet and wringing their hands. rather than being heard. Which was a phrase which a lot of indie creators did take exception to.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one thing they said about this is that there's a lot more high level stuff in here compared to the 2014 book. So I've still got all the usual low level stuff that the 2014 book had, but they've added a whole bunch of high level stuff. I guess the, I mean, I know that sometimes like D&D did get sort of like criticism for not supporting high level play.
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And there's that sort of chicken or the egg situation. Is that because people don't play it or do people not play high level play because it's not supported or what? I don't know the answer to that. We've got a question. Oh, people are watching. Amazing. Yeah, they are new monsters. Yeah, there are new monsters like this Haunting Revenant that you can see on screen right now.
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It's a brand new monster. Jonathan Nassar asked that question. Are the monsters just old monsters but with different templates applied? Yeah, yeah, 85 new monsters. I mean, I imagine some of them will be variants, to be fair.
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I suppose that counts as a version of an existing monster, I guess. I guess. But that Haunting Revenant, I love. I love that. It's just amazing. I want to use that in my... I just like... Just the art. I just want to use that monster.
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I'm assuming it's got speed. Oh, no, it's got speed. At 30 feet, it can move. It can be cased by a house.
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Yeah. One of the other things they've done, and this is a brilliant idea, I don't know where they got it from, but they've included tables of random fluff text to be applied to each creature. For example, the gelatinous cube I'm looking at right now, you roll D6 and it says what's floating in the cube.
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It could be a chest or a recently trapped mimic or a key to a nearby door or coffer, a remarkable weapon in need of repair, a skeleton belonging to a famous adventurer, a tablet bearing a mysterious message. So it's like contextual tables of information along with each monster. It's an amazing idea.
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Do you know, I don't have actually seen any evidence that there's knowledge checks in there. There might be but I haven't seen them if and they haven't been mentioned.
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Yeah. So we got here, we got a... So we previewed the Ancient Gold Dragon, I think it was last week, but we only had the left half of the stat block last week. We've now got the full stat block and also some notes about how it's different to the old one. And this is like the stat block format. You can see the different... I mean, we've covered a lot of this stuff already, to be honest. Yeah.
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But it's all kind of compiled into one kind of image. So you can see the initiative modifier at the top there. which is a very useful idea. I like that. You can see the new layout, the stat modifiers and the saves. You can see how traits and actions are separated into different sections with headers now. Different phraseology, like they're using the term D20 test.
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Every indie creator would love to have their...
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One thing that I have noticed is spells are So if you look at these stat blocks, all it does is tell you that they can cast a spell, but you still have to go and look it up somewhere else.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you see this dragon. You see this dragon. You can see what spells it's got, you know, detect magic and guiding bolt and things like that. But you've got to go and look those spells up elsewhere.
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uh content on polygon and other sort of uh are they mainstream they're not sort of mainstream in the sense that the daily mail is but they are a lot more yeah yeah um so i i use the word mainstream then uh mainstream um sites they would absolutely love to have their stuff featured on sites like this and frequently they do send out press releases and things like that to these main sites
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I don't think there's anything wrong with them taking, you know, learning lessons from other, you know, mediums.
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It's just that sort of, like, infographic.
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Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, I think there's been a few different, like, Bloodied is back. in the hit points. I don't think, they don't actually mention it in the stat block there, but bloodied as a condition is back. We know that. And that's at half hit points. And like in 4e and level up advanced 5e, it doesn't do anything itself.
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It's just a trigger for other things, which possibly an ability that can only be used when bloodied or something like that. Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah. There's one other thing they're doing. Like, each entry has a little kind of byline. Each monster has a byline. Just kind of like a one sentence that tells you what the monster is before it delves into the whole page of fluff text. So, for example, the gargoyle is a sculpted sentinel hidden in plain sight. And I think that's quite useful and quite cool.
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Yeah, we're flashing through on the screen a whole bunch of stat blocks here because I put a little compilation together of all of the different stat blocks that have been previewed so far. There's been like, I don't know, like eight or 10 of them or something so far. And we'll put a link in the show notes. So wherever you're watching this, we will put a link in the show notes.
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You can go and see these actual stat blocks, because there's quite a few of them. And you can sort of see how these things actually manifest. Just Digital Alchemist Q, for example, that little table I was referring to. Yeah.
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Yes, yes, yes. And there's a lot. Sorry, Jess, go on.
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So one thing they said about their approach to the artwork is in the 2014 book they had what's called hero shots, which is kind of like you see the monster but not on a background, not in a context. It's just a monster. In this book, every monster is shown in a context. So it's like doing something or is somewhere. So it's not like just the isolated image of the monster.
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I don't know if that's better or worse. It's just a design choice. Either way is fine. I mean, the artwork does look amazing.
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They're more dragon like than Dragonborn, aren't they?
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That is one hench red dragon.
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Wow. I'd ruin your day, wouldn't it?
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What is interesting is that everything is in alphabetical order in this book. It's not like before they had NPCs and animals in separate sections. They literally just put everything in alphabetical order. So if you're looking for a cultist, you just look at C in the book. You don't go to the appendix and then look in the NPCs and look for C there.
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Or if you're looking for, say, a Maralith, you're now looking at M.
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Which I can understand the joys of that and so forth. I think for some things it makes sense. Some things like oozes, for example, they call those out. Like, if you're looking for a Celestinus cube, do you look under G or O? So now you look under G, not oozes, and then find Celestinus cube within the oozes section.
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What that does mean you can't do, though. You can't have an overall section on devils introducing the concept of devils and hell and all this sort of stuff and then delve into each devil because you'd have to repeat that in each devil then in that case. So I'm not sure how they're handling that.
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I'm pretty sure they're doing that.
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Yeah. So the NPCs, for example, they talk about pirates as being a new sort of category of NPCs. And what they're saying is they're trying to make sure that the NPCs represent different tiers of play. So you've got like pirates, pirate captains, pirate admirals at different CRs for low level and high level characters.
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So whatever level you are, you can have an adventure themed around baddie pirates, if that's what you want to do.
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Baby Bulette, the land shark.
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I don't know how cute you would be.
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We can talk about the animal lords, yeah.
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Yeah, you've frozen and you've disappeared. We've lost Jess and she's back. Anyway, you're back.
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So previously there would be things like, and I can't remember their names, but it'd be like the cat lord and the wolf lord and things like that. Looks like they're sort of making them more sort of three generic ones here to cover larger categories. I'm not sure how they're doing it exactly. But they're kind of like the epitome of an animal type.
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Maybe not even that more than the manifestation of the not the God of perhaps. Yeah. I mean, they're not manifestations of gods. Okay.
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Yeah. yeah yeah sounds cool yeah yeah so yeah like like just said cr20 hanging around in the beast lands which is a outer plane yeah yeah but well they still want to play fetch that's the question um depends whether it's the cat or the dog yeah that's play fetch too russ if you don't know that then your cat doesn't pay your cat your cat doesn't talk to you russ Occasionally talks to me.
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Thank you very much. My cat doesn't talk to you. That is true.
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My cat hides whenever people come round. And there are some people who do not believe that we have a cat. But we do have a cat.
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I mean, Rascal is kind of more like Enworld. It's more of a niche indie sort of size site rather than like the polygons and IO nines and the really big sort of pop culture, proper mainstream size.
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So we're looking here at a beholder, which is like a sort of undead beholder with a glowing red eye in the centre. And then the eyes around it aren't on stalks. They appear to be just flowing orbs kind of around it. I'm assuming they're supposed to be the eyes, but they're not connected by flesh.
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I've got to say, the artwork in this thing is gorgeous. It is really nice.
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You are not American. It's Minotaur.
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They talked about alignment a little bit as well, which is interesting. So what are they doing with alignment regarding sentient creatures?
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So they are keeping alignment.
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um um but what they are saying is that um even though there's an alignment in there what they say in the introduction is this doesn't mean that every creature of this type is that alignment it's a suggestion and it sort of says in introduction it's a suggestion if you want it to be different it's different it's you know it's whatever you need it to be for your encounter if you're seeing your scenario of your adventure whatever
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Yeah, we've got the whole orcs and evil controversy last year or the year before whenever it was and you know so people do are invested in that as a topic so whether you explicitly say it or don't for better or worse does matter because people do care whether you say it or not.
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So, Jeremy Crawford talked about neutral, actually, because neutral... It kind of used to be a stance rather than a lack of alignment. Like Druid would be neutral and it'd be like Switzerland. It would be like we are carefully balancing the good and the evil and not joining one side or the other. It's a deliberate choice and stance.
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Whereas neutral could also mean they don't have an alignment whatsoever. It's just they're unaligned.
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So it's been different in different editions. Here, they're definitely going like that. Neutral basically means kind of whatever you want, really. But in the past, neutrality has been an actual alignment. Yeah. On the sort of moral axis, which is good to evil. Neutral was actually a thing that you chose to actually choose to be a manifest. Yeah.
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Well, yeah, I mean, like, as I said, I can see it from the other side, because we at EN World, we will get like dozens and dozens of sort of, I'm not sure what the word is, but you know, press releases, reach out to us dozens and dozens of times a day. And there's just literally no way we can cover it all. It's just impossible. It is a firehose. It's so much stuff.
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Yeah, that's what I'm saying there. That's different to unaligned, I think. Unaligned means you don't have an alignment. Neutral means you do have an alignment and it is proactively neutral. You're going out of your way to be neutral.
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But no, that's how it used to be, is what I'm saying. Now they're saying it kind of just means Well, I'll read the quote. How about that?
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So Jeremy Crawford, he said this. So our humanoid creatures and stuff, it does still have a suggested alignment, but it's one that you never saw in 2014, neutral, because in the old days, neutral really just meant whatever. And so we've really embraced that.
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And we give you guidance in the new monster manual that when you see neutral, that is especially an invitation for you as a dungeon master to decide. So that's kind of what it's saying. I see. It's whatever alignment you want it to be. So that revenant, the haunting revenant there could be good. That's true.
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It's like the Batman of haunted houses.
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It's like if Wayne Manor followed Batman.
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I will. I will use it in my game. But it's a thing that I will do. Right. What else? What other news about... We've got quite a lot of bits about the Monster Manual, kind of all just sort of like all over the place. Did we want to go through those stat blocks quickly or not?
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Okay. So this is the... Where are we? Here we go. The Empyrean Iota.
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Yeah. So this is a new monster. Not seen this one before. But as I understand it, it's a very, very sort of low-level monster, which is kind of a mote of thought, almost. Yeah. It just kind of floats around as a concept or a mote of thought. Is it a celestial or something, is it? Yeah. Celestial or fiend. Ah. What kind is it? Let's have a look. So it's got a bonus action of a healing word.
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It can cast Bless and Lesser Restoration. Nice. And also it can do radiant or necrotic damage to you. And basically it can just float around. It's a little CR1 creature. Yeah.
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Anyway. This is the gargoyle and the gelatinous cube.
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So you can see both of those have context tables.
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As you can see. So the gelatinous cube has stuff that it's very small. It's got stuff that you might find floating in the cube. The gargoyle has gargoyle sculptures. The gargoyle is sculpted to appear like, and then six different things. And it's got where the gargoyle's located. The gargoyle conceals itself amidst, and that's a D8 table.
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so you can roll between those and just i mean this is all right i i i like made jokes earlier about where they got the idea from because obviously we did all that in our books ages ago um but i'm not saying they shouldn't do it and i'm not saying that we were the first to do it either no no and it has been in dnd books before so you know i was i was joking but um i think i think it's i think it's good stuff to put in there i think it's important stuff to put in there because it's just stuff from the gm digital the dm just fresh out the encounter or the
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. So that's the adult green dragon you've called up there, Jess, which is the first one we ever saw, I think, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. Yeah. So what else have we got? So this is the Kiwatoa. We've seen that one before as well. That one, the skeletons and the Kiwatoa, we saw about nine months ago.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So the Kewa Toa, you can see on there, it's got like deity features. So you roll D10 twice to find out what its head and what its body is like.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
it's all these kind of contextual things that they put in there i mean looking at it it looks like each um monster only has like one or two things like that usually one in the case of the gargoyles too so it's not like we did where you've got the signs and you've got the treasure and you've got the um names and you've got all the all the different things that we put in there the idle behaviors yeah the knowledge tables and stuff like that so step towards what we did yeah yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a tactics entry in these monsters, unless it's buried in the fluff text. It doesn't seem to be there at all.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, I think it's a useful thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, like kobolds making traps and putting a gelatinous cube in the 10-foot pit, that sort of thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
for context people listening on the podcast as opposed to watching as we're live streaming for the first time ever and we've got we didn't really announce it um but a few people have have discovered that we're doing it and uh making comments in the chat so we're trying to we're trying to make this as interactive as we can so that was a comment from bane tbc um who commented in the chat i mean we talked about that earlier didn't we the um spells are just listed as spells they can cast and you kind of have to go and look all that up
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Which I'm really surprised by.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
What else have we got? With the vampire familiar, we've got called up there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So not a lot to see there because you've only got the stat block itself and the art. We haven't actually got any of the fluff text or the tables or anything with that. But you can basically see it's CR3, a medium or small humanoid. I don't know what to say about this. It's a very basic stat block. Low-level vampire sort of thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So we got two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah. Eight stat blocks have been shared so far.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, the alternate edition for hobby stores.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, yeah. I do like those alternate edition covers, to be honest. I haven't got any of the 2014 books yet. I think if I get them, I will try and get the...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. Well, what else have we got to talk about, about the Monster Manual? Is there anything else?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, more monsters is always useful. If you've got 85 new monsters in there, why not?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And even a five, ten grand marketing campaign isn't much. It's not a lot of reach.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I'm interested to see how they handled that, because I feel like things like devils need an overarching... Like a framework.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And if they're not doing that... I don't know. Well, maybe they've done it for some things and not other things. Maybe. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
How do you mean? So it would go ooze comma gelatinous cube and also gelatinous cube.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And if it did that in the appropriate place in the index, that would go a long way to alleviating that, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I've had to do it myself a couple of times. I don't like doing that. I do not like it. That is not a fun job. It takes so long. Especially when you're talking like a big sort of 500 page book. Yeah. And you're going through it word by word. Oh, it's horrible.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. But I was just going to say, just from this article about indie games mentions D&D something like 20 odd times and then mentions one indie game, Mothership.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
That's in there. Definitely. They talked a bit about that. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
but if you've just got to see ours this is a table does it it's really easy yeah i'm not saying it's not in there i don't know it's we don't know just because they haven't talked about it yet doesn't mean it's not in there i mean it might not be in the next month is going to be littered with more information as the release is coming up so i'm sure next week we'll have something more to share as well yeah yeah so i mean it is going straight on to dnd beyond
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Like on day one release and do it into that. So that will help with the counter building to an extent, I imagine. I mean, speaking as fans, what's your first impressions of the book? I think it looks gorgeous. I really think it looks like a great book. All the three books as to what I'm interested in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I don't want to compare it to stuff that we published because I just think that feels a little bit... Oh no, this isn't me comparing it to that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
It looks like a better monster book than the first one. It looks prettier.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So it's prettier. I think they've done some good stuff with it. I think they've made some things are a bit odd, like the way the spells are listed. The fact that they made a nod towards including sort of encounter and world building tools in the monster entries, but not gone anywhere near as far as I'd like.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
They basically, like a little token nod, they'll include a little table with like what a gargoyle looks like. But I wish they'd gone further. I wish they'd gone further.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
What's it doing? What are signs of it? Little encounter tables for each one. And they haven't gone that far, which I guess I suppose I shouldn't complain because that still gives us our USB.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And it's kind of like the article itself is an illustration of the problem because it's not talking about indie games. It's talking about D&D with one mention of Mothership.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And to be honest, monsters are a dime a dozen, aren't they?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. Well, I guess we'll find out soon. We'll find out more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I think I wasn't sure whether to pick up the other two. I think I will pick this one up. I think I will in the alternate cover. I just think this does look like a nice book. I mean, would I buy this over the dinosaur book we talked about earlier? That's the question. And the answer is I would buy the dinosaur book first.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Right, I think we're probably done for today, aren't we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
But last week, we recorded it, but we didn't stream it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
But it is available live on YouTube and... Anyone else? Or is it just YouTube? I'm not sure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
It's an amazing game. It's a fantastic game. But the point is, the article should be filled with references to indie games, given the subject nature of the article. But it's not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So you can... Yeah. You can literally join in the show and make comments. And those who have been watching have seen it within flashing comments on screen as well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So it's just kind of fun just having people join in a little bit.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And of course, it'll still be available in the usual audio format. That's not changing. This isn't changing that in the slightest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. This is an additional thing, not an instead of thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I think we are done. Oh, look, see, look, someone, look, I'm going to show that comment. See, someone's just commented. Hello from 7.30 PST as I head to work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, it's early. It's early.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
oh yeah yeah michael shannon there says so as it happens this is the first time we've done this live excellent yeah yep it is first time we've done this live yep and nothing was set on fire so we take that as a win yeah i think you know we're kind of learning as we go it's going to change a little bit yeah as we learn how to do it yeah absolutely i think we we're having fun aren't we we're having a nice time on that note shall we leave
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, let's get out of here. Let's go and have a weekend.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
From the news publishing point of view, I also get it because people don't read the non-D&D stuff. You put up, I mean, we published quite a lot of non-D&D stuff because we kind of feel like it's our mission. That's our job. But the non-D&D stuff, people don't read it. You know, I mean, some people do, obviously.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Hmm. That would be quite good fun if it turned out that you were in fact a robot.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
But, you know, in terms of scale, like a D&D article will get a hundred times the eyeballs that a non-D&D article or more, a thousand times the eyeballs that a non-D&D article will.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. I mean, that is the nature of it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
So I get it from all sides. I just feel that the article was just totally off.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
We are talking about a news site here, though, not a publisher.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I mean, it's the publisher's job to mention the competition and to put everything into a context and to make sure that they cover the whole story.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
We are but one-tenth of a percent of the pie that is D&D.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
If that. If that. And that's just how it is, unfortunately.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. Right, shall we move on?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Don't get me wrong. With the advent of crowdfunding and things like that, it's an amazing time to be an indie rager.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
And there's also more creators out there than ever before as well. So, of course, it's also harder to stand out from the crowd because there's so much competition out there for basically eyeballs. And it's not just other creators that you're competing with. You're competing with the whole of the Internet. You're competing with cat pictures and you're competing with all sorts of things.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, exactly. Or you could combine the two, which we might talk about a little later, D&D and cat pictures.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
I'm not sure I particularly recognise a fawn ear as opposed to a cat ear.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Your biological recognition deficit decides for us.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Size-wise, yes, but because they'll be scaled up anyway, won't they? They're not going to be cat-sized cat ears.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
All right, and then we'll move on to a slightly more cheerful thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah. So Alliance owes a lot of people a lot of money. Yes. Oh.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
um so in the tabletop gaming segment i mean obviously diamond is a comics book distributor mainly yes um the alliance part of it is a small part of the whole um but it owes wizards the coast nearly a million dollars wow um hasbro separately to wizard the coast um because you know obviously comics toys all sorts of stuff that they handle uh over a million dollars wow
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Catalyst Game Labs, which is Battletech, Shadowrun, things like that. Nearly half a million dollars. There's a whole bunch of tabletop gaming. I know they own Paizo some money. They own... Monty Cook Games was on the list, something some money. So there's a... A lot of sort of mid-tier tabletop RPG companies are going to be affected by this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like things like Penguin Random House, they owe like nearly 10 million and things like that. So I like the tip of the gaming. You look at the full list of the sort of top 30 creditors. Now, some of them are way, way much bigger. That's so it's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
You can't relate it to anything. You can't relate it to your house or your car or anything like that because it's so much bigger than even those things, which are the biggest things that you will ever own.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
331 | Epic D&D Monster Manual Preview
Yes. So Chapter 11 bankruptcy isn't the worst type of insolvency. It's one that could be used to restructure and things like that. It's not the worst situation it could be.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
All the Tabletop are outplaying us We aim to amuse and we aim to enthuse And Morris is unofficial Tabletop RPG
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
We have news. So I watched, have you checked it out yet? Secret Level on Amazon?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. I mean, it's a thing. It is a thing. I think it's a thing. I think it's just going to be the way of the world going forward now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I wonder if they offered you a downloadable option so you could download the file and store it somewhere. But I guess they're worried about people distributing it then, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I just want to come up with a legal way to do it. And then, you know, I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, it's just a file server which is geared towards media videos, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's like a pretty Dropbox or Google Drive, but geared around medias for the in-built players and just looks prettier. That's basically what it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So I've watched three episodes of it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. I don't really need it these days. Partly because most of my stuff is stored in the cloud. which, as you say, is a risky thing to do. Anyway, we're kind of, like, drifting a bit off RPGs, really, aren't we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, right. Which ones have you watched?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. But anyway, so that was Secret Level on Amazon Prime. But the other TV CT RPG-related thing, although I suppose it's more sort of wargaming-related, Henry Cavill's Warhammer 40K show, which has been talked about for a couple of years now. And the last I'd heard, I was under the impression it had kind of gone away. It wasn't happening. But it's now happening.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's now officially a go at Amazon. So they acquired the rights two years ago to produce this show. And in the last two years, Henry Cavill's kind of mentioned it occasionally, but that's about all we really, really heard. But they've actually announced that Although there's no show running yet, the show is going to be co-produced by Vertigo Entertainment. And it is a go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, no, there's like 10 episodes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Henry Cavill's Warhammer 40K show is a go. It is going to happen at Amazon. Exciting stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Amazing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like Warhammer 40K, we mentioned it earlier because of the secret level thing. And I'm not like super familiar with it, but it's got like multiple tabletop role-playing games associated with it. Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, that sort of stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, the D&D one's the first one, but there's about, there's 10 on there on Amazon. So I watched three of them. I didn't watch them in order. I just watched the ones with the names I recognised, basically. So I watched the D&D one. I watched the Warhammer 40K one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. And that's all done by currently by Cubicle 7.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And of course there's the tabletop war game, which is massive.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I'm interested. I'll probably give it a try. I'll probably watch it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, yeah. Now he collects the miniatures. He paints them. He does the whole lot, doesn't he?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, totally into it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So who or what would he play in it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Because then he'd just be covered in armour with a big helmet and you'd never see him.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Mm-hmm. He has been a Superman.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Well, my understanding of Warhammer 40k is, it's like, you know, it's basically, like law wise, as big as something like D and D there's so many different stories or things, approaches you could take to it, which would make entirely different shows. Hmm.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And I watched the Pac-Man one. That is, that Pac-Man one is... That's something else. That is weird.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But then again, TSR produced hundreds and hundreds of novels back in the 80s, so there's a lot of those too. So maybe they're probably about comparable, maybe. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, I'll watch it anyway. I'll give it a try. What's the worst that can happen? Well, I watched that Secret Level episode and I didn't hate it. Admittedly, it was just like 15 minutes of two space bogeys killing a lot of things.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I suppose.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I don't think I've watched it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I know of it, but I don't think I've ever seen an episode of Sharp.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I've read a couple of Flashman books, yep.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, they were fine. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't carry on reading all of them because there's quite a few of them, aren't there?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I read a couple.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I enjoyed them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Right, right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, maybe that should be my gateway into Warhammer 40k, should be the novels rather than the games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
The thing is, I always feel like I would enjoy playing Warhammer 40k in a tabletop war game if I didn't have to do the whole miniatures collecting and painting side of it. Just not interested. I don't mind collecting the things.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, just not interested.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I'd have to try it. I don't know. The only couple of times I played it, Literally, I was given an army to play and it was a very small army that fitted on a table, a smallish table, and the game lasted like an hour or so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It was pretty small. And I quite enjoyed those, you know, that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I mean, I had no idea what in the law was, what any of these like characters and creatures and figures and units were just weird names. And I was like, just, just give me a brief, brief idea. And he was like, these are the tanky ones. These can be fast. And that's okay. Fine. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No, no, I won't spoil it. I'm just saying it is weird. It is something else. It is. Wow. Yeah. All right. But the D&D one was pretty good. I mean, they're like 15 minutes each. They're short.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, what other news do we have?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
That's this coming Monday, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Is this one of the one page RPGs? Yeah. Yeah. I believe so, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Cool. And that's on Monday night. So how does that raise money for charity? How does that work?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Five nights? And you're on all five or just one of them?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I, Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a. Russ, and with me this week is... Peter Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, maybe I'll come along just to make your life miserable.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
animated obviously, but the animation style is it's like, doesn't at least the ones I saw don't do that sort of uncanny valley movement thing that I hate so much, which makes it really hard for me to watch animation. The movement seems reasonably okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, there's that thing about itch.io. This week. Funko Pop.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. So ish.io is like a fairly major platform which distributes a lot of tabletop RPGs, like thousands of tabletop RPGs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
yeah yeah and um it got taken down earlier this week yeah because funko pops automated copyright systems detected some kind of copyright violation spoke to itch.io's hosting providers own automated systems which took down the entire itch.io platform. Basically, two robots talked to each other and took down a major gaming platform without any human intervention.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, well, apparently there's three different stories going on and they all contradict each other. Like, Franco's saying one thing, itch.io's saying another thing, and the hosting provider, whose name I've forgotten, is saying something different. And they're all claiming that they tried to talk to the others but got no reply. All of them are saying that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, so I guess the truth is somewhere in the middle. Who knows? I don't know what actually happened. But... But itch.io was down. It was only for like a few hours. It wasn't.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So apparently there was like, there was a, there was like a single kind of like fan page on itch.io that got sort of like, I don't know, which, which triggered it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Or, or something like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. I don't know. It's very, very silly. But the fact that no humans were involved in this, this all happened without the involvement of humans, was quite annoying.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And there's a lot of people saying it was AI. There was no AI involved. That's just like the press being a bit hyperbolic. It was systems. Not all systems are AI. But Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess, you know, humans make mistakes as well as systems do. So, you know, the fact that no human got involved isn't necessarily a guarantee it wouldn't have happened.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But it would be nice to think that, you know, like YouTube has these copyright strike things that happen without human intervention as well, doesn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, part of me just thinks it should be illegal to do that without any human oversight at all. It shouldn't be possible for that to happen.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
If you're going to do something that directly affects a person, at some point a human has to be involved in that process. Yeah. And there might be a lot of, like, looking for and clicking, but you know what? Well, it's about cost, isn't it? People just don't want to pay people to do that. When an AI, well, not an AI even, a system can do like 100 a minute.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, there's this weird kind of weird way people run and walk and stuff. in a lot of animated stuff. And it doesn't matter when it's like really low fidelity eighties cartoons, because everything just looks cartoony. But when they're starting to approach attempts at sort of vague realism and movement and it's off, then the uncanny valley sets in. And then I'm like, that's not how people run.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, the thing is, UK companies come back and they say, it's not financially viable for us to do the right thing. But in that case, your business isn't financially viable. If your business can only exist... by doing the wrong thing, your business is not financially viable.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Because if the stockholders demanded you do something actually illegal, then... Yeah, no, obviously, you know, your responsibilities are different. Yeah, to not break regulations. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I don't think that's that much of a big ask, just to say that a human gets involved at some point before action is taken against somebody. And, all right, so you have to hire 1,000 people to do it, but you're a multi-billion dollar worldwide corporation. So, yes, do that then.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, anyway, it happened and you know, I suspect more and more of this stuff is going to happen. And, you know, maybe, maybe at some point the law will catch up or maybe it won't. Is it in the right people's interests or that, you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, should we talk about what characters people are building on Level Up Gateway?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Because we've got hundreds of characters have been made on there now. Over 700 characters have been made on there since it launched last week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I mean, it's only, you know, it's only open to the alpha testers from the original Kickstarter. So it's open to a very small segment of... That's not strictly true.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And their groups. Yeah. Yeah. So we pulled out the data of what people are building, which is fascinating. So have you seen this or... Okay. Well, I can tell you in advance that the most popular character type is a human wizard from the cosmopolitan culture with a destiny of excellence. Okay. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. And then it gives you a few skills, a few culture and history skills, I think. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
They don't bounce like that. They don't, you know, they don't. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So bearing in mind, there's only the adventures, great heritages in there so far. No, that's not in there yet. So human obviously at the top, but there's no surprise there. When D&D Beyond does these things, humans at the top as well. Guess what's at the bottom?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Gnome.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Gnome. People don't like the gnomes. In fact, people don't like short heritages at all. Because the bottom three... A gnome, dwarf, and halfling. So people don't like short carriages for some reason.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And it throws me right out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Maybe. Yeah. Well, in order, so humans are most popular.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Then elves, correct. Yep. Third is plain touched. Yeah. Dragonborn. Correct. Dragonborn. There's only one left now. Oh, orcs then. Yeah. And orcs, yeah. And then the halfling dwarf and gnome. It's quite interesting. So if you look at the top one, humans, 32% of characters are human. That's a lot. That's nearly a third of characters are human. Gnomes, 4%. It's over seven times as many.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
People really don't like those gnomes. Oh well. Poor gnomes. And then we go on to the cultures.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Now this is a little more different because there's a lot of cultures.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. So if we just look at the top few. Cosmopolitan is the top one. Then we've got Dragonbound, Circus Folk, Imperial, Lone Wanderer, Collegiate, High Elf, Godbound, Wood Elf, Forsaken, Mountain Dwarf, Caravaner, Settler. I might need to turn it the other way through.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No, it's quite a gradual line, that one. There's no great big sort of, like, humans definitely bump up on the heritages. But this is quite a gradual line, this one. So, I mean, it goes from 0.4% at the bottom to 7.5% at the top, though. So it's a steep, I guess that's quite a steep line, isn't it? That's 14 times as many.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So 5% and over, right. It's just there's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There's only 6 getting 5%. So we've got Cosmopolitan, Dragonbound, Circus Folk, Imperial, Lone Wanderer, and Collegiate. Interesting, none of the kind of O5-y ported ones, you know, like the High Elf and the Wood Elf and the Mountain Dwarf and those ones, which were the ones that got ported over, none of those are in the top five there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I don't mind it if like the style of it is so out there that it doesn't, the uncanny valley doesn't kick in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's a fun one, though. I like that one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, we already said the top one was Wizard.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Want to guess at the bottom, the worst one, the one people don't like?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No, no, that's second.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No, that is one, two, three, four, five. It's fifth from bottom, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ninth from top.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
all right one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve one two i can't i can't count one two three four five six seven eight nine yeah you've got 14 classes you've got artificer artificer's not on that so we've got 13 classes okay the gpg stuff gpg zero doesn't make it in there not yet no we've literally only the adventurous guide classes and only up to level five yeah so where are we
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. I think it's, I don't know, like the Star Wars ones. I find hard from the way people run about and stuff because they, they see this quite sort of 3d modeling. I wouldn't say realistic. They're very angular, but, but they do this kind of 3d modeling sort of body hinged at every point thing. And it just doesn't work for me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Should I put you out of your misery? Bard is at the bottom.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Bard closely followed by druid.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I'm surprised.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So the wizard's at 15.7%, quarter's 16%, and your bard is down there at 4.5%. So it's not as steep as some of the others, but it's still a good sort of just over three times as many. Five times as many. No, three times as many. Yeah, three times.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's interesting, the top five has four of the four sort of like traditional cores. So Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, Cleric are kind of like the traditional four core. And the top five is those four, those four plus the Adept. It is interesting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, well, it's the only one to break into those top four. Yeah, well, top five, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, so the cleric's at 7.4%, and then the adept's at 8.1%. So the adept is above average, the cleric's slightly below average.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, so that list in total goes wizard, fighter, rogue, adept, cleric, herald, warlock, ranger, marshal, berserker, which surprises me. I would have thought that would be way higher. Sorcerer, druid, bard.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But it's all pretty exciting, so yeah. Well, when you compare it to D&D Beyond, when they do this, fighter's always at the top. Human fighter is always the top one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
As we've got human wizard.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, I think it also tells us that people are just kind of trying out and trying different builds and they want to check out the spells.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
How the spell system works. I think there's an element of that in there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. All right, and the final thing is destinies.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So that started with excellence at nearly 20%. At the bottom end is dominion at 4%.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Excellence, devotion, knowledge, revenge, underdog, metamorphosis, chaos, wealth, dominion.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Anyway, anyway, so I saw them. So I saw, I saw the D and D one, which was pretty good. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Tia Matt is in it. Cause that's the trailer. Yeah. That's pretty good. I quite enjoyed it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
yeah yeah sure i'm finding though on gateway it takes me like two minutes to make a character so quick and so easy even in a system that's ostensibly more you know more in depth and more complex yeah it's it's i'm not doing it in two minutes yeah no i mean it's really nice i'm talking level five characters here not like a level one one in two minutes i've done that you know
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, you meet your level one character, then you level it up. Because we were playing in our Thursday night game last night, got to the end of the session, and the GM's like, all right, should we just leave like half an hour to level up? I think we need half an hour. And then like 45 seconds later, everyone's like, yeah, I've done it. It's so quick and easy on Gateway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And this is going up to level three as well. It involves choosing an archetype as well in that 45 seconds. So it's such a difference having this platform.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I am pleased with it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, yeah. I've got a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
What, with, like, Gateway? No. No one's been involved with D&D Beyond.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, gosh, go on then.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, right. Yes. Yep.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. These things are like snippets, aren't they? Because they're like 15 minutes. They're not entire stories. They're like a part of an adventure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I mean, yeah, I don't know how all of this is going to shake up. There is regulations about how you have to have a representative in the EU. not in your own country, they've got to be in the EU, who's basically a representative of your company regarding these things and how that's going to work.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I suspect that bit won't be that much of a problem because I think it will be an extra cost, but I think it will be a small one because what you'll get is just people who are just a representative for 5,000 companies.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
pay them a token amount because because it's rubber stamping ready it's it's never going to come up you know you know it's like like if you're doing if you're doing like pgs they're never gonna have to do anything yeah yeah like their job is just collect money off you every so often you'll just yeah you'll just get you'll just say companies in the eu that will just like take a sort of like minimal fee annual fee and
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, but you'll get competition with that. That'll go down.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I can see how that would be an issue. I wasn't actually familiar with that aspect of it. You brought that to my attention, to be honest. Yeah, yes, it is squirreled away.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, well, that one and the Pac-1 are both very gory.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I mean, I'd have to look into it. I'm sure there's probably a way around it, but I'd have to look into it and see. As I said, I've literally just heard about it this second.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I'm telling you, the Pac-Man is out there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, we'll have to wait and see, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, you don't need AI for a translation service. Google Translate's been around for donkey's years. That's not AI. It's just a...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, yeah. I'm not saying it's going to be good. I imagine it will comply with the regulation, but I'm sure it's not going to be good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, I assume what you could probably do, I mean, again, I'm guessing because I literally have not seen this regulation, but what you could probably do is you could put it out in English. You could basically say to people, look, this is an English language book. You buy it in the English language. The regulation says, I have to provide a translation for you. So here it is. It's crap.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I'm not going to spoil it for you. You'll probably see it at some point, and you can tell me what you think, but the Pac-Man one is out there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But still, it meets the thing. But don't look at it. Don't read it. Read the English language book. If you can't read English, don't buy it. I guess it's what you have to say to people.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
You know, the only reason that translation is there is to meet the regulation. It's not expected to be used.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's not great. It's not great at all. But I think that's... I haven't seen the regulation, so that's my instinctive response to how you would address that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Well, I'll dig into that and maybe like in the next show we could talk about it in a bit more detail once we both have actually, because I'm kind of so much guessing at the moment.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Tell you what is more exciting. Lego is exciting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Lord of the Rings is exciting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Helm's Deep is exciting. These are all things that are exciting, yes. There is a 150,000-piece Lego Helms Deep with an entire Rotorim army. Which sounds really awesome, and I really do kind of want it. I mean, it's got over 1,700 figures to depict the battle. And then 150,000 piece of like the Helm's Deep kind of diorama.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So I watched those three. Anyway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And it's got ladders and walls and towers and siege engines and the cliffs that go, it's gorgeous. I mean, oh man, I, you know, it's got the Uruk High, it's got the elves on the walls. It's got the whole lot. It's got the whole lot. It's enormous. It's so big. I don't even know where I put it, but I want it. Thanks. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
There's also a Barad-Durr one as well, which is, there's only 5,000 pieces there, but that exists as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I am sure. Yeah. Anyway, slightly, slightly more cheerful.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Not, not for something like this, I don't think, no. This would take so long to make and you would need a room to make it in.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I do want it though. I don't even know how much it costs. I don't even dare to look. There's a minus tariff as well, I think, but I can't see the price. I don't know. I don't know how much it costs. It's just probably a good thing. Probably a good thing that I don't know how much, because I'd probably get very sad if I found out how much it costs. It's probably hundreds, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
For Space Marine power fantasy type things, fighting off like hordes as they do a mission, basically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It looks amazing though. Anyway, I thought it was slightly better news than European regulations stopping people selling PDFs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Right, what else have we got? Darker Heart. They've revealed the covers of the core set. which is pretty cool. There's like a box which has the cards in it. There's dice. There's a GM screen and the covers sort of like a golden purple kind of swash across the front of the hardcover. It looks very pretty, although it looks like a chocolate, a box of chocolates in my mind.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I look at it and I think Quality Street.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Take a look. I am thinking this looks a lot more like a box of chocolates than a role-playing game, but here you go. Have a quick look yourself. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Does that not look like a box of chocolates?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Milk tray is what it looks like, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
similar thing yeah let's hope something important is why death watch is probably the best or the best like games versions of the ip there is this one bit where a large vehicle crashes into one of the space marines and just bounces off that's like okay i'm not that familiar with warhammer 40k i didn't realize they were quite that powerful but still okay oh yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It'll be really interesting to see how well this does.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, I'm sure it will.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
A lot of people keep saying it's a D&D killer. It's not going to do that. It's not. But it is, I think... Well, you know what I mean. It's not going to be a rival to D&D. But it is going to be probably one of the top leading non-D&D RPGs, I would imagine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But yeah, good stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, it's going to be, I would guess, it's going to be sort of probably not quite, probably not quite Call of Cthulhu. I think if you go, it probably goes, I guess, D&D Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, probably. I guess. So I reckon it's going to be around Savage Worlds-y kind of level.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But it's going to make its mark on the RPG landscape, though. It's going to be a thing, for sure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's got its hope and its fear dice, hasn't it? Yeah, I'm kind of interested. I'd be willing to give it a try and play a game of it and find out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But you know who's not here? Actually, the list of who's not here is pretty long.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Do you know there's an Evil Dead 2? kickstarter for 5e yeah not evil dead but evil dead 2 specifically uh like that would actually make more sense to me than you might expect yeah okay and so yeah it's on kickstarter it's got like nine days to go it's something about it's coming up to 40 000 pounds or about 45 000 dollars
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
nine days to go it is from it is from lynn vander studios who i'm i'm not familiar with but they've done board game stuff like puffy and divinity and cowboy people dragon ball z you know stuff like that so i've done a whole lot of stuff like that so they got like a good track record yeah in the board game market i think they're probably you know quite well known i'm just not personally
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
know anything about board games so but yeah there's a lot of sort of big board game licenses but this is this is their rpg wing yes yeah so it's gonna be interesting so they've done like three kickstarters in total so they did one which is legacy of mana 5e one which is called imaria animaria 5e but i got cancelled because it didn't get funded And then this one, Evil Dead 2 for 5e.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So, you know, zombies, another zombie game. I mean, it's been a few zombie games recently, I feel like. I mean, if I'm looking at the, like, page previews, it's gorgeous looking. Very, very pretty, proper, like, blood splattered pages for color art. It looks very nice.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, it's cartoony, cartoony art.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, well, I suppose Pac-Man isn't really, like, it's not a current thing, is it? Nobody plays Pac-Man now. So I guess the Pac-Man's really aimed at adults who remember it from when they were kids.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. I am a little surprised. I would have expected this to have taken off a little bit bigger than it has. I mean, it's doing okay. Don't get me wrong. It's not like Evil Dead's quite popular, is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, a lot of the stuff isn't books, though, I suppose, I guess, but still.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I've got to say that adding VAT afterwards is not the customary way you do it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
You include, yeah, you include sales tax in product prices.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. The other Kickstarter I thought was interesting. Mongoose had got a, this was on a packet kit actually, not Kickstarter, have a traveler one, but this is an audio book of a traveler supplement. Which is interesting. I mean, it's not done massively. It's only made like $3,000. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. No kids today play Pac-Man, do they? I mean, maybe they do. I don't know why. I don't know why I'm saying that. I don't know what kids play. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But it's the audiobook of the Third Imperium, one of the Traveller's Supplements, professionally narrated.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And I just think it's really interesting that they're doing this. Because it's not, audiobooks of role-playing game books isn't a common thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But maybe it should be. Yeah. Would it make a big difference? Well, you can't use an audiobook as a reference in game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But you can read it initially.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But it comes with soundscapes and music and all that sort of stuff as well. Yeah, yeah. Which sounds useful.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Hmm. Yeah, well, there's a company called Audio RPG, apparently. I've not heard of these guys, but they produce high-quality audio books of your favorite role-playing rules, source books, and adventures.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So... Pretty interesting. Yeah, I was trying to think how I would use that. I think... I don't know. Can you listen... Can I listen to rules being read out? I don't know that I could.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, then I wouldn't hear it because I'd be sleeping. I mean, it's an accessibility thing, of course. That's good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes, or Pac-Man, for that matter.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
you just couldn't you couldn't use it as a reference in any way though that's the thing yeah it's like sometimes it's about getting the whole of the rule set yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
They are reference books. They're not novels, you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I don't think that's actually why. People access information in different ways, don't they? I don't think these days I could do that. I think as a kid, I did. I used to, but these days I don't think I could do that. I'd look up the bits I need. Definitely.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the only, the only, the only form of doing it that way is that, that I think it's harder to pick up a new system by doing because you don't know that you haven't read bits.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
If you, if you don't, if you don't know they're there, if you know what I mean, if it's like, if you're using a, a source book for sort of like 5e or something, you know, that the archetype chapter, what that's going to contain, you know, what the spell, you know, that sort of thing. You know how that works. You don't, you don't need to be told what the structure means.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
But yeah, audio books, audio books for RPG source books. Yeah, fine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's an excellent idea.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I mean, Pac-Man with any blood, but you know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
.rpg .org Excellent. That's pretty sweet. I backed a Kickstarter for a dice-like product. I have been trying to cut down on, on Kickstarters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Although I did back that DC heroes, new DC heroes box set. And I backed Discworld and I backed Sly Flourish's City of Arches. I backed quite a few recently. Damn it. I failed. Anyway, so this one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. So, so this one is called Cardi Hedron. And basically, it's like a credit card-sized thing with little wheels on it, and each one of those is a different dice, D4 up to D20.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Just to say, it's not, it's not cutesy.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's about 9 million people long.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, little spinners, just on a credit card-sized piece of metal. I thought it was quite a cool little idea, so I pledged for one of them, and I thought I'd just stick that in my wallet, and then I've always got dice on me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I mean, they're not ideal. If I need to roll, like, 12d6, it's not great for that, because it's like one spinner for each die.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Exactly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, okay. Well, let's start with the good news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
All right, comedy news. All right, let's start with the comedy news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Financial Times, try unlimited access. I can't.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, some beholders. Gotcha. Yes, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Not Pac-Man.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, not Games Workshop, that's for sure.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
To illustrate this article is to include a picture of D&D.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I would be surprised if this actually turned into a new version of Pac-Man and they made a game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well done.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well done.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I don't care. They probably don't care that much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's not like it's taking away business from them, is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I suppose.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
You're talking about Neil Morrissey, obviously. The actor. Who else could you be talking about? I can't think of any other Morrisseys. There are no other Morrisseys.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
I don't know other Russells either.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Russell Brand and Neil. No, no, no. Oh, wow.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Well, the thing is, if you Google my name, I do tend to come up.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
first because of that combination of russell and morrissey or russ morrissey but you also get a lot of russell brand and you also get a lot of the smiths morrissey morrissey coming up which are two people that i don't want to be mistaken for yeah don't grow your hair long don't grow my hair long and don't take up a music career and become super brexity
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Especially on the music career bit, because I can't. Not really, but you're into the Brexit.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Anyway, yeah, so what was the sad news then?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Okay. So what is a safe play space?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
No.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And that's something they've traditionally provided, is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Oh, fair enough. I can't remember it well enough. I remember the dwarf going... It was like Flash super speed stuff.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Huh. Oh, okay. That's sad. That is sad news. You're correct. It is sad news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. All right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Who knows? I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I think we're kind of coming to the end of the news unless you've got any more. That Voltron RPG isn't taking off the way I thought it would either as well. Voltron and Evil Dead, two licenses which I thought would be quite... I mean, it's doing okay. Again, don't get me wrong. It's $86,000 with 10 days to go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, but this is Catalyst Game Labs and they're quite a big company probably used to bigger projects.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, or maybe it's the time of the year. It's just before Christmas. Maybe that's what it is. I mean, our Kickstarter just finished and ours didn't seem to be affected by the time of the year. We came in at like just over £100,000 or like $130,000, I think. I'm not sure what it is in dollars. It got fulfilled last night within one minute of funding of the Kickstarter ending. As is our way.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
As is our way.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Have you got that one yet?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes, you're waiting for your contributor's copy. Yes. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
There's one dungeon, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was interesting. There's 10 episodes. It's on Amazon Prime.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
My group totally stomped Xeroth.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
About that, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. So what are your plans? What's your next gaming plans?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Wow, that's a lot of gaming.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Fair enough. Right, I think we've probably come to the end of the show. We're out of news and it's coming up to Christmas. The poll for favorite, most anticipated, sorry, RPGs of 2025 will be up. probably over this weekend, early next week. It's just a question of me, like, going through the thread and putting them all into the poll. So that will be up soon.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I'm probably only going to watch those three, because I don't really know what the other seven are, to be honest. I don't recognise the game names. I thought I'd have to check it out, but I just went to play it out. Yeah. Well, they're all, they're mainly video games. There's only Warhammer and D&D that are tabletop.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So you'll be able to sort of vote over the Christmas period, and then early January, we'll be able to announce the winners right here on this show. How exciting.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Wow. And then it'll be 2025. How did that happen? Amazing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. All right. Should we get out of here? Should we go and have a weekend?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Okay. We should have Jess back next week. Yeah. And we've also got possibly some exciting format news early next year as well. We're going to try it ourselves first and see if we like it first. If that's okay, then we'll announce some possible exciting format news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. All right, let's get out of here. All right, then. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, you might. I mean, you're more familiar with video games. You might at least know what they are. You can play them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
That's what I was trying to say. So, elves. Elves, elves, and elves.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
That, I suppose, would be more accurate.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Okay. So, Free League.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
They're Lord of the Rings game. They've got two of them. They've got the one ring and they've got Lord of the Rings role-playing. The One Ring is a bespoke system. Lord of the Rings role-playing is 5e. But they're basically two concurrent game lines running alongside each other.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Have released two books, which are essentially the same book, but with two different titles, one for each game line, so you don't get them confused. One is for the One Ring, the other is for 5e. And they're all about the elves of Middle-earth.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, their middle of stuff is gorgeous. It really is. So we've got realms of the three kings, three kings, three rings. That does look like a cater. Realms of the three rings is for the one ring and keepers of the Elven rings is for Lord of the Rings role-playing. They're essentially the same book, just the stat, the mechanical bits are different.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Exactly, exactly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, I mean, they've been doing that since they took over the Tolkien stuff from Cubicle 7, haven't they? They've split it into the two and just kind of every book they release two versions of it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yes. Yeah. Jess is away and it's just us this week, but I'm sure we'll move along. It'll be fine. Nothing could possibly go wrong. I mean, it's a, it's a scientific fact that nothing has ever gone wrong in the history of the world ever. So we're probably fine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, yeah. They've got different covers, different cover art. And yeah, so basically, both books have got the same chapters. So the first chapter is called Where the West Elves Still Linger. And this talks about Lorien, Rivendell, Linden, the elf lords, that sort of thing. So it's the setting lore stuff related to, yeah. And then we've got an adventure, it looks like. A dark adventure awaits.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And we've got the details of Sauron's schemes against the immortal folk, including new events, enemies, and characters for the players to encounter, which sounds fun. And then we've got landmarks, which is basically 12 locations, sites of interest.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And then we've got the rules of lordship, which is guidelines for creating and playing elf lords, which apparently have some sort of like 10-level prestige class that you can take at level 10 to become an elf lord. In the 5e version, obviously.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. But, you know, gorgeous as ever. You picked up the Moria book, didn't you? Last year. Was it this year? Whatever it was.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Was it as gorgeous as I hoped?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
You haven't opened it, have you?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. I'm probably still going to pick that up at some point, just because... Warrior's like the OG dungeon, really, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Well, yeah, that's the problem. I don't think I can get that separately, which is slightly annoying because I would really like that. But, hey, what are you going to do? Nice map of Moria. Oh, well. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, Lord of the Rings is now on D&D Beyond, so I imagine quite a lot more people are now being introduced to the 5D version of the One Ring at the moment.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
So on my forum, one of the three leagues people posted in that thread about about the D&D beyond implementation because people like several people ask what happens if really loses the license. to the content on D&D Beyond.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Right. Should we make a podcast? Anyway, let's make a podcast. Because we have news.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
And they said it was their understanding that while Wizards of the Coast would no longer be able to sell the content on D&D Beyond, if you'd bought the content, you'd still have access to it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
It's about as close as we're going to get to it, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. The problem with physical things is I don't have any way to play them anymore. I don't have a DVD player. I don't have a Blu-ray player. My computer doesn't have any slots in it to put anything in it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Have they?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I couldn't play it. If you handed me a DVD, I couldn't play it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Actually, I did see, you know, you get those like lists of gadgets for Christmas sort of thing. I did see like a little DVD player, which was basically the size of a DVD. Tiny little thing. And it was only like 20 quid. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
328 | Amazon's Secret Level, Elf Books for LotR, WH40K TV, Voltron, Evil Dead & More
Yeah. And you just plug it in via HDMI or something, I guess. Or maybe you can connect it to your Wi-Fi network. Don't you even have to do that? I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
and dragons one and we've mentioned this before um on the show but um it's like a event and you go it's immersive so you you go and you uh in this one um uh xanathar the beholders up to up to you know no good what as he tends to be yeah um going looking at things with all these little eyes and his big eye and um you know that's always important
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And you have to basically assist the Harpers in dealing with Xanathar.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I mean, you have to go to Canada or something, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. So, yeah. So it's going to be a big puppet, is the beholder. This is the news bit. It's going to be a giant puppet. Nice. That's a big one, yeah. So at the moment, Universal Studios is looking for a performer to play the Beholder.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
You do have to. Right. So these are the requirements. The performer must be able to operate a push pull articulated creature with both hands from a standing position and push and pull up to £30 of suspended weight at a time for about 45 minutes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes, they're involved.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Just like a chew toy. You don't balance it on your head, no.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Like a seal.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. I have a dog intrusion yet again.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
well as we expect with this show yes yeah one of the rules one of the rules of all of our things is that pets are welcome on screen absolutely yeah um right so anyway so so that's that's that's that one there's also one that's um a star trek which is the enterprise d bridge which i would quite like to go to yeah but again it's in a different country so it's not going to happen fair enough yeah which is you know
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
But still, still. Anyway, we've got a pinball machine for those people who like playing pinballs.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
didn't get anything i got a telescope that's not that's quite nerdy but not not ttrpg nerdy fair enough fair enough i still think it counts yeah yeah very happy with that yes that's a good quality nerd
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I've never really seen the attraction of pinball myself. I've tried a pinball like once or twice and just kind of... It's not for me, I don't think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
There's pinball wizards out there. People like them. So there's a pinball machine called Dungeons & Dragons The Tyrant's Eye. It costs $7,000. Wow. Yeah. I mean, we don't know much else about it. They put a little sort of like teaser video up.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
But there's no image of the actual thing, yeah. But the CES electronic show in LA is going on, I think, about, is it now it's going on? This week, I think. I'm not sure when.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
No, fair. But it's likely that it will be shown off there, I expect, or at least announced or something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I expect so. Yeah. What else have we got? D&D Dark Alliance. We'll just flip through these quite quickly, because they are kind of periphery stuff. But D&D, the video game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
We covered this last week, didn't we?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
slot machines. So, you know, you can go and play like Star Wars slot machines and all these different sort of like IP slot machines.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
There's no D&D ones as well, basically. That's not what it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I guess so, yeah. I mean, these slot machines aren't usually in places where children could just wander around.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Here, we're very used to seeing them in pubs. Most pubs will have a slot machine or two in them. It's a very common thing over here. I don't know. I assume not so in America because they've got much stricter gambling laws, I think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I mean, these IP-themed slot machine things aren't a new thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I've never used a slot machine. And it's not that I particularly object to their existence. It's just that I look at them, and I think, I have literally no idea how that thing works. It is very confusing to me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And then some things spin and then something goes or something or I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
yeah i think that's probably most of the dnd news yeah yeah the only thing is dnd stuff well the only other dnd news was i don't know if i want to talk about it but the mainstream news learnt that oh yes yeah yeah so yeah so do you want to cover that well it's just not even news really it's news about news it's kind of yeah
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
sloan okay so we we've known for what a year or more that dnd was changing um race to species in terminology maybe two years we run up for ages so it's not news to us it's old news yeah but suddenly in the last couple of weeks mainstream news suddenly caught wind of it
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Something like half a dozen, like eight or nine different mainstream news outlets, The Guardian, The Times, I think like the New York Times did as well. And a whole load of them, loads of them, Daily Mail even got in on it and all just suddenly started posting about this one topic. Well, there's no topic that's not news because it's over a year old.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. We are back after a two-week Christmas and New Year break. I hope we're all feeling appropriately festive out and ready for a super exciting new year of TTRPG news. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a. Russ, and with me this week is...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I suppose it's kind of one of those things that in our little bubble, which is the online... getting in community we've known it for so long and we you know obviously understand why and it didn't need explaining to us it was obvious you know things like that it's hard to sort of like get outside that bubble and see what people from the outside looking in yeah see these things as
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
So it's just interesting that it exploded just now just cause nothing happened to like cause that there was nothing. There's no announcement. There was nothing new coming out in the last few weeks that would have If they were going to do it, it would have been back when the Player's Handbook came out, shortly.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Well, my theory is one outlet, major outlet, it might have been the New York Times, but I can't remember which, started it because, you know, festive period, slow news. They had that one on the back burner. It had been waiting for ages or something. Posted that, and then all the others went, oh, look, click-based e-type article. We can use that too.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I don't know whether that's what happened or not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
You have sections of your newspapers, though, don't you? You want the entertainment page to be full, as well as the current affairs page, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I haven't seen it. I want to see it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I think it's time for someone else to talk about some news. My voice has been on here quite a bit, so someone else have a go.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I think like a big full tabletop RPG or like a one-page game
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. I was thinking that you're not going to get like three big hardcover books and learn how to play D&D while sitting waiting for your plane.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's not a bad idea.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yep, it's done. It's ready. So basically it'll be our customary, very quick fulfilment. PDF straight away as soon as the campaign ends. Print order ordered as soon as funds clear.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. That's exciting. I believe there's another person here on this very show. Right now, we've got the Kickstarter coming up. Who could that be? Is it Marvin, my dog?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
We have to do in that pets book, we have to put our pets in it. Absolutely. Art versions of our pets. Yeah. Our specific pets. Sweet. Definitely have to do that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's just like adding to your collection of tiaras.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Thank you very much.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
People will stop just walking into you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
There were other crowdfunding campaigns?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
That's one that I saw, yes. I liked the look of that one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I like the style of it, basically. I like the look of it. I haven't heard of this artist before. But there's 30 of these things, apparently, or more than 30, 30 plus. In fact, it says 30 plus, then it says a collection of 40. So it's 40 hand-drawn maps. Three different themes, suitable basically for any tabletop RPG. And it's basically a collection of sort of hand-drawn, old-style battle maps.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
You can get them in black and white or that sort of parchment colour. They each come in two different versions. You can have them with or without objects on them. Oh. And you get the collection on them. It's from someone called TPK Compass. New to me, but the full collection you get just for five euros, that is. You can get the full collection in black and white.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Seven euros, the full collection in papyrus. Is it papyrus or papyrus? Papyrus. Papyrus.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Like the font. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are digital. They're... They're for use on VTTs and things like that. Yeah. And they've got, like, caves. They've got three basic categories. They've got caves, temples and castles, and a category called a blend of both.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I also got socks as well, but I can't show them to you because I'm currently wearing them.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
So there's lots of add-ons. This is their third Kickstarter. Nice. Nice. Yeah, I like the look of those.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. Good spot. And that style always appeals to me. I've got the nostalgia, I suppose, for it. But it doesn't appeal to me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And I don't really feel like doing acrobatics right now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
That was me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Tell us, Russ, why do you dig giant robots? You know, it's for one shots. It's We Dig Giant Robots. Sorry, I'm being molested again by this dog. Marvin, Marvin, I do appreciate your desire to be included on this podcast. And we do always welcome pets. But I am talking right now. We're trying to talk right now. Would you be so kind as to bugger off?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Amusing, though, that would be for everyone involved.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Anyway, so We Dig Giant Logos is a rocking mecha one-shot RPG. It's designed for one-shots, quick little games. This is the first Kickstarter from Kay Arroyo.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
In tiny, tiny writing. More light. I'm sorry. I am very much being Bissette, big dog. We're so professional here. That's enough, Marvin. Go and find Hudson and play with Hudson. Action, comedy, rock and roll, big cars, giant mecha, that sort of thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. This looks fun. And like we do, this was apparently already written, play tested and laid out. So the digital release will go out super quick.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Pathfinder!
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I think we should because we have three weeks of news to catch up on.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Akashic dragon.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Akashic. A-K-A-S-H-I-C. I don't know what that means. I'm not familiar with it, but I do know that it's called an Akashic dragon.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's going to be interesting to see how it comes out, because there's been a lot of big playtests recently, public playtests of Starfinder 2nd Edition.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And presumably all of that's being fed into Paizo's, you know, machine, giant machine, which is crunching away with all its gears and cogs, and it's going to spit out the final version of Starfinder 2nd Edition, because that is how tabletop RPGs are made. And, yeah, I'll pick this up. I hope I get a chance to play it at some point, but I'll pick this up.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Let's start with the Monster Manual. because the monster manual is coming out very very very soon yeah i know that um some people have advanced copies of it already with an embargo and there's a big press event on monday which means there's going to be a whole load of news articles coming out about the Monster Manual sort of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, next week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
The Treasure Vault, is that a book of magic items and stuff, is it? Sounds like it from the name. Yeah.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Do you think I should just like give up and just let Marvin take my place on the podcast?
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
That seems to be what's happening here.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
This is going to be news to me. Come on then. What is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And this was released on the 1st of January, New Zealand time.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Oh, so it would be pretty difficult to beat that then, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Oh, yeah. I'll take your word for that. Right. More news. What have we got? We...
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
But before we do that, very quickly, because I think that's going to be our sort of finishing thing... We've got some news about the Origins Awards. Very quickly, the Origins Awards nominations have opened up, announced by Gamma, the Game Manufacturers Association. So the Origins Award nomination 2025 will happen on January the 9th. When is that? Is that today? That was yesterday.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
That was yesterday. OK. That was yesterday.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Beth and Christian from Ian Royal are both going to that, along with probably people from lots of other outlets and stuff. So that's exciting. So was it... kind of, you know, preview promotion juggernaut has started to gear up. Videos have started coming out. The articles have started coming out, all in preparation for the release.
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even later into this podcast yeah um the categories have been changed yet again um this year they are oh i don't want to list them well there's lots of categories yeah yeah listing all the categories isn't fun podcasting but um the categories have changed slightly yet again um kind of trading card games and trading card game accessories have kind of been left out this time oh yeah
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which is interesting. It sucks to be trading card games, which also very strange choice. Yeah. I mean, they're still valid for like product of the year and things like that. But as a separate category, they're no longer there. Oh, weird.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. So basically there's a link you can make your nominations for the origins awards via that link and the finalists get announced i think it's at the end of february ish and then of course the winners are announced at origins game fair in the summer yeah yeah
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's various places you can go. You can go there. I don't go there because I don't use Reddit.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. There's Discord. There's the Facebook group, which obviously you can no longer use because you're no longer... Yes. Mark Zuckerberg is no longer... For no good reason. It's like... You've been zucked, apparently. Yeah. And there's the EN World Forum as well.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Let's take a break and then we'll come back and we will talk about the 10 most anticipated tabletop RPGs of 2025. We are back and we have got the top 10 tabletop RPGs of 2025 to talk about. Amazing. How exciting. It is exciting. Yeah. So we do this every year. And what happens is I do it on EN World and I've done it since 2014, I think. So this is like the 10th year.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And what we do is we get the entire community to nominate whatever tabletop RPGs they're excited about in the coming year. So Table Top RPGs, which they have a, let's say, a reasonable belief will be released in 2025. Sorry. Because 13th Age was in the most anticipated list like two or three years in a row. Yeah. And some other things happened as well in the past.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
So, and they kind of were going out over the last week or two, but obviously we weren't here. So back in December, right at the end of December, in between Christmas and New Year, in fact, I like to call the Crimbo Limbo.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's hard getting games out. Anyway, so basically something like 40-odd different games were nominated. There's a few criteria. It has to be a standalone game. So it can't be an adventure. It can't be a supplement. It has to be a standalone tabletop role-playing game. And We had about 40 nominated. Then the big old poll went out for people to vote on those 40 or so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
That went on for about two years over the Christmas period, including the Crimbo Limbo, as it is officially known. And then I compiled the top 10. And we can now count them down from 10 to number one. which are the most anticipated tabletop RPGs for 2025. Do you remember what last year's was? And we sat here this time last year and did this same thing.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Well, close your eyes. Do you remember? Oh, it's on the screen in front of me. I still can't remember. So last year it was Shadow of the Weird Wizard.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. So let's find out what this year's was then. So how do we want to do it? Should we count them down one at a time?
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. So should we start at number 10 then?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Number 10 is from Poiseu Publishing, Starfinder 2nd Edition.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I'm excited, too. I'm excited.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Does the modularity of it feel more suited to a sci-fi game to you?
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Starfinder is obviously the, I say sci-fi, it's not sci-fi, it's science fantasy, isn't it? Because it mixes the magic in as well. Yeah. From Python Publishing, it's like the twin game to Pathfinder. It's set in the same universe. Like Galarian is the Pathfinder world.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
For reasons that should be obvious. An announcement from Wizards of the Coast came out saying that the monster manual will have 85 new monsters in it. Very nice. Over 85 new monsters. So I could even 86 new monsters or even 87 new monsters or 7,249 new monsters. You can't tell, but it's over 85. We know that.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
and it's a world in starfinder but i believe and i'm not 100 like up on the law it's like vanished or something in the starfinder universe i think or something like that people are going to be shouting at us now why don't we know this well i haven't played a lot of pathfinder or starfinder i played one pathfinder like intro starter module just so i could
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experience the game and see what it's about but i haven't explored beyond that but i know a lot of people really love it so i'm not surprised that it's in the top 10 yeah yeah um yeah i mean yeah it was going to be in the top 10 i actually thought it would be a bit higher to be honest okay i'm only going to show how much people are looking forward to these other things all right well shall we segue on to number nine then let's do number nine then oh one i'm looking forward to
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
yeah because you you played the original one haven't you russ the first edition of this i played one session about two years ago at the first edition um for those listening we are discussing alien yeah um yeah i might have to say what we're talking about yeah so alien evolved the new second edition of alien basically from free league um i've i'm looking forward to it i mean i don't know necessarily what changes it's going to make or whether it even needs any because
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Let's carry on. Peter, you're going to like this one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, yeah. For those who aren't familiar with 13th Age, how would you describe it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Interestingly, 13th Age First Edition came out 10 years ago, 2014, and it was in our first... list of these yes the first time we did this and it won yes so back in 2014 13th age first edition was the most anticipated ttrbg of that year yeah yeah
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
That's not just new monsters. Obviously, it's got all the old monsters as well.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, this is the third year running. To be fair, other games like Conan from Aditya's, I think, was in the top ten, like three years running as well.
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It does happen.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, I think that's a little unfair on 13 days this time because the Kickstarter was only this year.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
The old monsters plus 85 new ones. About 500 in total. Wow. That's a lot of monsters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Free League again.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Free League always does well in these things.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, they tweak it for each one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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I don't know much about this one. I'm just glancing at the Kickstarter page for it right now. So it looks like you're members of the Explorers Guild and you undertake dangerous missions flying around into different, you know, places in the sci-fi future. Yeah.
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There's a metropolis called Ship City. You know, I'm literally reading this off the Kickstarter page. I'm not familiar with the setting at all, but I have heard of it.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I will describe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. Basically about 20% of the book is new monsters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
This is basically second edition, isn't it? They're not calling it second edition, but I think this is basically second edition.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think Guardiola's affected by that, though.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, and I think the trend these days is to not say edition. Oh, okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I like an edition.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Oh, no. The surprise is ruined.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Sixth place is Dolman Wood. So this is set in the British Isles. Well, sort of inspired by the British Isles.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And new art.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And all the fairy tales and folklore of the British Isles. So it's kind of dark and whimsical.
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It looks fun. Again, I mean, a lot of these things, I'm not super familiar with them. I've been aware of their existence, but I've never delved into them. And what I like about this list is it kind of curates a list of things for me to check out.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's not necessarily a list of the best things or anything like that, but it's a fun list of things that maybe you've heard the name of or haven't heard of. And it's like, hey, check this out. You might like it, which is how I use the list.
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330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Basin, maybe. Basin, yes. Yeah, that's what I was just going to say.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And Basin has a British Isles version as well. They do, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's all very... If you have a welcome, Matt, and it says welcome, is a vampire allowed in your house?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. But vampires usually come in through the window anyway, don't they? In most of the Dracula films I've seen, he turns up at someone's bedroom window.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I was going to say, I was just looking at the list of characters you can play. This looks fun. So you can be a proud goat-headed breggle. You could be a starry-eyed elf stepped straight from the fairy. You could be a tricksome Grimalkin cat fairy. A worldly or hapless human. A fungus-riddled mossling. Nice. Or a capricious bat-faced wood group.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes. Yeah. So you could be basically a goat, a cat, a human, a fungus or a bat.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I guess, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I can't argue with that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Anyway, thanks on the list.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's not out already. All I played was the demo on the Kickstarter.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
But yeah, I had fun playing that. Basically, there's a free PDF starter adventure slash starter kit rules thing on the Kickstarter. It was about 30 or 40 pages or something with adventure and rules synopsis and some pre-gen characters, which is what I played. But yeah, it's set in Ankh-Morpork, which is the big city in Discworld. It's sort of... How do you describe it? It's parody slash...
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whimsical kind of surrealism comedy satire set in a fantasy world basically by the late great Terry Pratchett I enjoyed the game I played of it I ran it immensely it's very rules light rules light almost to be non-existent but it was fun I felt it captured the feel of Fitzgerald reasonably well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I didn't feel like I was sitting there in an audition trying to be as funny as Terry Pratchett when I was running it, which is the main concern I would have going into something like this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
wow yeah that'd be yeah but what you find is the game itself and the adventures provides you with that material i think as a player i'd want to be the straight man in that comedy routine because i guess the setting and the situation is ridiculous and common well that's the thing none of them none of the characters in terry pratchett think they're comedy characters do they no no no they're all played as straight men
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. I mean, these are all images from, because they put an hour-long video up earlier this week, and these are all screenshots from that, so there's loads and loads and loads of them, because they, you know, in an hour they showed a lot of art off. But there's like over 300 new art pieces in this book. It's not just the old monster manual with slightly adjusted stat blocks and 85 new monsters.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I think like Avatar was.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
For a lot of people. Absolutely. Okay, next.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
So this is Matt Colville's game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Matt Colville's game company who they did like four and a half million dollars on Kickstarter for this.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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That's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's what, the third biggest, is it? I would guess. So Cosmere would have been number one, Avatar number two, Drawsteel number three. I'm guessing it's the third biggest. What about Bloomhaven, if we're counting that? Oh, fourth biggest. Fourth biggest, okay. Fourth biggest, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
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Yeah, definitely in the top five. It is without doubt in the top ten.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
This is science. No. What? Well, yeah, massive, massive Kickstarter. They've got massive, massive playtests, public playtests going on. This is a fantasy game, but it's very, as I understand it, tactical in nature. Drawing inspiration, I think. It's not a D&D clone and it's not a D&D spin-off or anything, but drawing inspiration, I think, from D&D 4E and that tactical kind of nature of the game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
But what they do have is negotiation rules as well, which is interesting. I don't really know how they work. but there's rules for negotiation and the NPCs are stats like patience and interest. So I don't know how that works exactly, but I guess they're kind of like maybe hit points or something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Like they run out of patience or they run out of interest in what you're talking about, I guess, depending on your roles or something. I'm making that up. Don't assume that's what it is, just because I said it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, yeah. And the MCDM stuff always looks gorgeous as well. They spend a lot of money.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And they make a lot of money on their Kickstarters, but they pay people a lot.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It's completely redone.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And they get really great art and it all looks lovely.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. And Matt Colville's got a big sort of YouTube following.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And things like that. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
All right. Let's move on.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Go on. You do this one. You haven't done one yet, I don't think.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes. There's been lots of public playtests and things of this one as well. So people pretty much know what it is. And there was a lot of demos of it at Gen Con, I believe, last year. This is the one, they have the two G12s and the Hope and the Fear die, I believe.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I think you're right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
D12s, yes, I believe. Yeah, so this is their big old fantasy I mean, people keep calling it a D&D killer. It's not going to be a D&D killer. It's going to be on the terms of 2D&D, but it's not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, yeah. One interesting thing about it is the dragons. So they showed off the ancient gold dragon. We've seen the ancient green before, I believe, and we've talked about it here on the show. I think we saw another one. I can't remember. But just this week Wizards was sharing on Facebook the ancient gold dragon. Not the whole stat block, just kind of like the first, I guess, half of it. But
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. That'll be interesting. And that's... An introduction to the world, the wider world of...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes, and my dogs think that also.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And this is going to do really, really well. It really is. It's going to be big.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Okay. So, let's dig a hut from Critical Role, Darrington Press.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Next is a big one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
It is the biggest Kickstarter ever in TTRPGs. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Oh, I can't remember now. It was...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Although it's interesting because Avatar did really, really well. Have you really heard it mentioned since? But we mention it when we ever have.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, but you'd expect to see people online talking about it, the games they're playing, asking questions about it and things like that, which isn't happening particularly, unless I'm just missing it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
James Cameron's Avatar movies, which are enormous and make billions and billions of dollars, and yet they don't seem to penetrate the cultural zeitgeist for some reason.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I mean, can you read that? It's quite small, but... Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
The thing with Star Wars, though, if you take out the Jedi and you take out the Empire... You're left with Guardians of the Galaxy. And this really struck me when I was watching Skeleton Crew. I'm really enjoying Skeleton Crew. It's great. It's amazing. It's great. But it occurred to me that there's no Jedi in it and there's no Empire in it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Basically, if you told me I was watching a Guardians of the Galaxy set I believe you, because it was indistinguishable without those iconic Star Wars elements. There wasn't the music, which is another big Star Wars thing. There wasn't the iconic Star Wars music. It's got its own music, but not the Star Wars music you know. It hasn't got Jedi. It hasn't got the Empire. So basically...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
it felt like Guardians of the Galaxy. And that's not a criticism. I'm just saying those are the things that, to me, make something less generic and more Star Wars specifically.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Let's find out. What is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
This is something that I wasn't really familiar with. Legend of the mist or legend in the mist. Um, so, um,
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
it did really really well um partly because it just had a very very recent kickstarter so people are excited about it now it's one of these things these lists is that the timing if you've got a big kickstarter going on at the time um people are going to be excited about it yeah at that moment um so um this is i'm going to describe it as a rustic fantasy tabletop rpg based on the acclaimed city of mist um
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Again, I am not personally familiar with it. It's from Son of Oak Studios. I mean, it looks great. It looks great. If you like, like Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, Princess Mononoke. Is that how you say that?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Mononoke and things like that. That's the kind of inspirations for it. It looks gorgeous. It's got, you know, it did very, very well on Kickstarter, made nearly a million dollars on Kickstarter.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I've got to admit, offhand, I can't remember what the older one was like. So I can't compare it in my head. Do you offhand... I do not. We have failed as a podcast host. Yeah, we should quit now. Okay, end of the show. Well, it was a good run. Yeah, but I mean, you can see the first half of the stat block, basically, as far as the actions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
yeah it's got tons of stuff with it as well this one this is um this is one of those big kickstarters with dice screens and cards and and special editions and cloth maps and art cards and tokens and yeah so much stuff but it's all really gorgeous i love the art style it's all really really nice looking Yeah. That was the most anticipated tabletop RPG of 2025.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Well done. Well done indeed. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think about this? Is that sort of what you expected to see? Any big surprises there for you? Anything that you're surprised isn't on there?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Whether that's sort of like an IP that you've licensed or one that you built yourself.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Like MacHulk with NTDM, of course, has built that brand up himself. Whereas obviously Cosmere is licensing the brand from Brandon Sanderson.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes. But yeah, no, I thought Starfinder would be a little higher in the list. That was my one surprise. I didn't think it would be number one, but I thought it would be a little higher in the list. So, you know, Pfizer's popular and big and Starfinder's cool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Part of it, there's an element of how much did publishers get their fans mobilised to vote as well. I mean... I know that if you look on that City of the Mist, what was it? Legend of the Mist Kickstarter, they put out an update asking fans to vote. And I know the Brandon Sanderson folks, who was producing that again? I forget.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
uh wise games yeah um they i i know at least i saw some social media stuff from them asking people to vote i don't know if they did anything else so it is a little bit there's an element of like mobilizing your fans to vote which how many how many people did vote uh i don't know exactly but thousands thousands wow i couldn't tell you i could do offhand though no that's fine and and like was it close or is it just like and son of oak is just like miles ahead of everyone else or um
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I don't think there was any super, there was like a reasonable spacing going down the top 10. Yeah, I don't think there was any sort of like, if it had been another day, that would have been a different list type things. Okay.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah. But I generally find whenever you get a big poll like this, and it can last two weeks or a month or whatever, once you've gone past the first day, it doesn't really change. Like the numbers go up, but the numbers all go up proportionally the same amount. And that I tend to find, it's like with Kickstarters, you can predict how it's going to do from its first day.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
And these things just don't really change. So a lot of these things, you could just do a one-day poll. And to be honest, if you do a 30-day poll, you get pretty much the same results, just with bigger numbers. Because proportionally, they all go up the same amount. So anyway, things that I've observed over the years. Well, why representative samples work, though, because you see it in live action.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
You literally watch as sort of like sort of 500 people vote. And then once 10,000 people have voted, the percentages are still about the same. And you say, oh, you can really see why you don't need the 10,000 people, because 500 is a perfectly good representative sample and won't give you a different result. And it's kind of unintuitive, but that is how marketing research works, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
A whole industry is based on that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Going way off topic here.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
There's obviously another whole load of it on there, which we haven't seen yet. Yeah, I mean, you can see the new stat block layout, which we've seen before with initiative at the top.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I'm very excited about that. My new car around. It's been so much fun.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
They can try.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Zuckerberg can try. Well, on that note. I suspect. Yes. we are going to be talking a lot about the Monster Manual.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I suspect that's going to be the big topic next week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I guess we will. Yeah, let's go and have a weekend.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Bye. Goodbye, everyone.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yes. An idea which we stole for monsters from treasury too. That does make sense. Absolutely. And, and the new way they show the the ability scores and saving throws, which I still maintain is more useful, but isn't as attractive, but utility over, over, you know, visuals, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
you not think you know i find it a bit harder to read to be honest um but yeah okay yeah i mean it's just what you're used to really yeah yeah yeah a lot of that is yeah but yeah there's other little bits and pieces about the monster manual there i mean next week is going to just it's going to explode there's going to be
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
There's going to be tons and tons of it. We had some information about, so, hags, medusas, or was it medusae? What's a plural of medusa? I like medusae. Medusae and dryads. Now, some of these monsters that have typically been portrayed in media as female, Not always in D&D, actually.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
There have been examples of these as male and female in various adventures and I think a couple of older Monster Manuals and things like that. But I think probably for the first time for 5e, maybe. But hags and Medusas are going to be featured in both genders. Okay. Not just female. And there's also going to be artwork featuring male and female versions of hags, triads, satyrs, Medusas again.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
The dancing was especially good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I mean, there was like Prince of the Apocalypse had a male Medusa in it. So it's not like the first time it's ever happened. But I think in the Monster Manual, the 2014 Monster Manual certainly didn't have these.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
So... Is that how D&D hags work? I don't know. I don't think it's... Is it not? I don't know. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
You might be right. You might be right. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
You know what else is now fae? Goblins are now fae. Okay. Makes sense. Which is interesting. And gnolls are now classed as fiends. Which I don't think is a new thing. I think that's been done before. But again, not in the 2014 Monster Manual.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Baldur's Gate 3, that game that I have yet to play.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
In fact, we'll do it soon. Let's do it in the next month or so, okay?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Because otherwise we'll just keep having this conversation every week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, we'll do it in the next month or so. Okay. You are going to get to watch Jessica and I playing Baldur's Gate 3. You'll get my genuine reactions.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
about how much I'm enjoying it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
How great it is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
How interesting these druids are, and I wish they would talk some more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Okay. Anyway, I think that's probably it for the Monster Manual for the moment. Next week, obviously, is going to be a big old Monster Manual week.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
Yeah, and we're going to have a lot of information to share about it then.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
I apologise, I'm being slightly molested right now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
any other news items we'd like to discuss um many many many many news items there's a whole let's actually stick on d and d for now okay um because there's a whole bunch of sort of peripheral sort of D&D use. So this is sort of the game itself. This is things like we've got like the Universal Fan Fest Night, pinball machines. We've got gambling licenses. We've got D&D Dark Alliance servers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
So we've got a whole bunch of stuff kind of to talk about, which is all kind of around the
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
330 | 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs, D&D Monster Manual News, Mainstream News Discovers 'Species'
To be fair. And we will. But let's start with Universal Fan Nights. Fan Fest Nights. It's an event that Universal Studios in Hollywood are holding. And these are connected to various franchises. So there's been a Star Trek one and a One Piece one and things like that. But they're doing a...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Amazing. Right, so this is a really, really, really, really quiet week for news this week. So we'll cover the news in about seven seconds.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, that's our problem. Inside a magazine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, so per article, basically. So we put out four to five articles per month.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Fair enough. How was Apple doing it before?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
There's like insights or something like that. There's a tab on there, insights or something like that. And you can see the different platforms people are using.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Tabletop RPG, yes, obviously, in the world.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
To be fair, something like DriveThruRPG has the exact same rule. You can't.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. And you get to the point where the hardware doesn't change enough from year to year.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, yeah, I'm like a once every two years. I used to be an every year person. I'd upgrade my phone. Now it's once every two years because there's just not enough different. Yeah. Like a slightly better camera and a slightly faster processor.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
yeah so yeah so the majority of this show we're going to be talking about dnd 2024 and in particular the dungeon master's guide the 2024 dungeon master's guide so we'll be talking about that a lot but before we do that let's quickly get the seven seconds of news out of the way shall we i might be able to do a little bit more than seven seconds i picked up some bits and pieces you know maybe you just talk really slowly that will spin it out a little bit
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, I'm just looking at that now. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. Hey, this world gets other-ended.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
What was the score on the door? In pounds, basically 2.3 million pounds. I don't know what that is in US dollars. Let me quickly stick this into Google and find out what that is in US dollars.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Oh, just short.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. So that puts it at like number seven or eight in the million-dollar Kickstarter club. Mm-hmm. Quite high. Anyway, actually, let me check exactly where it comes. $182 average per backer. Was it $2.9 million? Yeah. 2.9 million puts it at number seven.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yes, in the top 10. In the top 10. I mean, there's been 2 million. There's been 16 that have done 2 million. And obviously there's been 41 now, including this one, that have done a million or more.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And especially given how rules-light it is, a non-gamer will probably get a lot of value out of that. There'll be a lot of basically setting lore content, I guess, and art.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I would imagine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I don't know. Maybe it is an entire book. I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
That collector cover is killer. Yeah. Was that a segue?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I just bought the basic one. I kind of wish I might upgrade that. You could probably upgrade. That is a pretty cover, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
The thing is, I don't think I'll probably play it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yes, what was that, your David Attenborough impression?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Hmm. So shiny. Well, if that is all of the non D and D news, unless anyone can think of anything that we've missed.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
That's true.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
He's my hero. Yeah. Well, he's got a cape and everything.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yes, Tuesday. Five days from now. Five days? Four days. Five days. Four days. It depends when they're listening to it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
That is also true.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, everything is relative, I suppose.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I mean, there's one thing to point out here. Only one of the four of us have the Dungeon Master's Guide. Because it's not here yet. It's not in this country yet. Not until the 12th. Really?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I'm sure that'll work. Yeah, that'd be fine.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
No, no, no. If you hold it up to the camera, Wizards of the Coast will take the video down.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, a.k.a. Morris, or Morris, a.k.a. Russ, and with me this week is... PJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild Roleplayers.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
That means we can't play at conventions with people we don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet. Maybe. Apparently.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, you haven't actually told me what a D&D game section is.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Was that just very good?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Do you know we never actually intended that to be a Game Master's Guide, though?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
What I kind of found in 2014 D&D was certain types of characters would have advantage on almost every attack.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
The main thing you can tell is how many pages have been devoted to each target. One of the things that struck us was we looked at what was, as far as we could tell, from the... Oops, I'm sorry. That is... Don't worry. As far as we could tell, the social were like one page.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And that was it in the entire book. And given that D&D is supposed to be three pillars. Yep. Yeah, combat, social, and exploration.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
talking about the topic advice you know I don't know it's like social interaction in a game if it's a third of the game in my mind probably deserves
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I think that's excellent. I think looking at that table of contents and saying how to prep a session, how to run a game right at the start of the book.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Does it talk about homebrew campaigns at all in the intro?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And one of them is having a chapter of game masters advice in it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I guess they come from the point of view that their business is selling those published adventures, though. So maybe they kind of assume that that's, I don't know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I guess part of that, though, is because the way people learn how to play a game now isn't so much by reading games.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I want to say 11. When I was 11, we and four of my friends started playing D&D. We didn't know anyone else who played D&D. There was no such thing as the internet. We couldn't go and look up how to play D&D. There was no advice anywhere. At all. So basically you had to pretty much come up on your own with what a D and D game. You don't even know what a D and D game looks like. Right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I mean, you know, if that's from a really broad perspective, unless someone shows you.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Nobody really knew what to do with these things. Yeah. I mean, my first role-playing experience was, because I didn't get D&D first of all, I got a Warhammer Fantasy Battles boxed set bought for me by my dad, I think, for my birthday or Christmas when I was 11. And I took it to school to show my friends. And I was like, look at this thing, this game my dad's bought me.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And they're going, what is it? And I go, I'm not really sure. But that's a little... So we opened it and there were these three black and white books in there and some dice and things like that. But it was a tabletop battles game. Now, Why are we saying that you don't necessarily know what a role-playing game looks like if no one's shown you?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
You also don't know what a tabletop battle game looks like if no one's shown you. And we took those tabletop battle rules and somehow we played a role-playing game with it without even realizing that's not what we had. Because we'd never seen either. And somehow we interpreted that as a role-playing game, which was really weird. I don't know how we came up with that. But that...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It didn't have a section on, this is what a tabletop battle is. This is how a tabletop battle game tends to run and what it looks like and what you're doing in the game. It just launched into the rules. And I think the same thing, like I've heard people say to me, what is D&D really, though? What do you do? I mean, do you dress in costumes and talk in silly voices? What exactly is it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. I think a Dungeon Master's Guide, its primary function, tell you how to run a game.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
From scratch, like assume you know nothing and tell you from, you know, you are the Dungeon Master. This is what that is. This is the things that you'll be doing. This is what you're responsible for. And then go into the whole prepping a session, doing all that. And then also making your game better. Advice. Basically, tools, advice and tools are the other thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It's like it's not a competition. Yeah. Why would you not necessarily assume if you weren't told otherwise? Right. It's not the players versus the DM.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I think there's an element of some gems kind of also want to write a novel. That's right.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, let's do a best and worst bit then.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
So let's start positive.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Let's start positive. What would you say the best? Say two or three things. It might take a while, but best things about it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
What are the monster building guidelines like in?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
But we're also saying, because like in the introduction, it tends to assume we're using published adventures. Maybe they're kind of assuming you're just using published monsters and tweaking them. The DMG isn't, they're not viewing it as a homebrewing book, I guess.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, I guess this is not the Forgotten Realms pantheon they put in there, I guess. What's that? This is not the Forgotten Realms pantheon they put in there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I think a lot of people are like that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Is there anything about this book that kind of says you do need to buy it? Or could you just get by with the old one?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, that's why you have tools, though, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, I use milestones. I think most people do.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
So we're talking about those adventures. Yeah. Given that probably the purpose of putting adventures in a DMG is to show you how to do specific things. It is. Do they do a good job of that? No. Okay. My opinion. So, you know, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I was hoping there'd be, like, an adventure that showcases combat, an adventure that showcases exploration.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, yes, it's ongoing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Jess, were you going to talk about Blades in the Dark?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And it's like, I don't know why they cast it more often than the wizard can cast.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, and also by doing that you're putting a gate on it for the... GM to use if they need to.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. But overall, it sounds like it's definitely one of the best GMGs for a while. Like the, the fourth edition DMG was actually pretty good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It had a lot of advice in it. It was very advice. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. The first edition DMG. Who remembers that?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, this was definitely better than the 2014 one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. And when it comes to advice, not even just D&D books. Yeah. There's so many good sort of good advice and ideas in different games. I think it was, was it you last week, Peter, who said that the concept of a session zero, which is very familiar to all of us, and pretty much everyone does it in their games, but it's never mentioned in D&D because it's not something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
So that stuff is in there.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. Just having just general proficiency in the manipulation of the core rules in different configurations is probably more valuable. Yes. But also some examples would definitely help with that, wouldn't they? Just an example saying an ability check doesn't have to be just one. It could be three. You could ask for some different ones from different characters. You could ask for the, you know...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
One thing we were wondering about, the chase rules. I've heard they're not good.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
you like blaze in the dark as well russ like you like the the clock system and stuff like that when you've played um i played blaze and yeah it's fun i feel like in the last couple of years i've played an awful lot of sort of d6 like i said i'm sort of going off d6 is about i've played so many d6 games i feel like in the last couple of years they're all starting to feel a bit the same
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. I mean, I was trying to think what we were saying about it, but we sort of saw, was it a preview, a video preview or something? Of Chasing? I can't remember now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Oh, we looked at 2014 Chasing. Yes, that was it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It wasn't there. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
You know.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And I'm starting to go a bit off them now. I'm looking for a bit more variety. I kind of feel like I'm playing the same game all the time. I mean, rules like D6 games, there's a lot of them out there. And they're starting to kind of blend in my head a little bit now.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Probably more so in narrative games, I think, probably rather than more mechanical ones like D&D.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Is it generally this is good or generally this is bad?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
There was also some talk about bastions being off limit to the DM as well. And I don't know how strongly that's emphasized in the book or not.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
And the idea that I love, love, love his maps.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
We've seen loads of times.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, so is my awkwardly cheerful engine. Except for that one, that one's awesome. Well, that's the thing, a year ago, I loved D6 dice ball games. I think I've just played too many of them now. I think I've just, I need to calm down and play something different.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It's like a hand-drawn style, isn't it?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, yeah. And also, there's so many more of his maps, like you just said, online.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Right. Hey, it is now four o'clock. We need to wind up. I need to eat something.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It is always a pleasure, Mike. You know you're always welcome on. Oh, thank you. So next week we will have Paul Hughes on and Paul is going to talk about Monstrous Menagerie 2, which launches on Kickstarter on Tuesday. Please go and back it because we want this one to do well.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I think it is going to do well, but we want this to do. And, you know, we realize it's very late in the year and it's coming up the whole and all this sort of stuff, the timing and stuff like that. So please go back. It would be wonderful if you did.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, I'd like to tell you that it's beginning to look a lot like Critmas.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It's so good. And if you didn't get the first Monstrous Menagerie, you can pick that one up at the same time.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, I think what we're quite pleased about is from what we've seen of the new Monster Manual, it does look like Monstrous Menagerie 1 still has value.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
So Critical Role has got a Christmas album coming.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
You want a goblin, you've now got...
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Although we did choose, we did like adopt one idea. You know, they pre-calculated initiative in the new ones.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I thought that was a nifty little tool.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Uh, no, I don't think so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It's called Winter's Crest. This is a thing. I had not heard it. It exists. It's not going to be like the Star Wars special, is it? Well, it's four musical tracks. Winter's Crest Festival Time, Silent Mind, Twelve Days of Grogmas, and It's Critmas are the four tracks. I can't tell you any more than that. To be honest, I haven't heard it. All I know is that this is a thing that's happening.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Do you know what? I don't want to say for certain right now, cause I'd have to look and I'm going to in front of me, but I don't think so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I don't think so.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Like, yeah, no, yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I think it's awesome. You've got a squad of five goblins and each of those five goblins is completely, oh, it's a little harder to run.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
But just conceptually, it's kind of cool because they're just like different type goblins of the same, you know? Hashtag not all goblins.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I think we should call full time on this podcast. In fact, we should go and enjoy our weekends.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I can't wait to hear it.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Thank you, everyone. And we'll see everyone next week. Same time, same place.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
You can stream it right now. It's on Spotify. You can go and listen to it right now if you want to.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Covering slaves. Merry Christmas.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. Probably even fast.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Even though it's only just November. Buster. They're talking about Christmas.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
I saw Christmas things in the shops in September.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
It made me unreasonably angry.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah, well, I think there should be a rule, no Christmas before Halloween.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, there's that as well. But I wouldn't be surprised if I went into a shop tomorrow and saw some Easter eggs there. I mean, what's that? It's only four months away. Right, so we're us. Right, so. Anyway.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
You're not going to cost me more money. Is there a barrel log at the bottom of the mountain? That's the question.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Mike's going to buy.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
No, I had already bought this one.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Which one's your monster?
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Yeah. Layout hasn't quite got that far yet because W is right at the end of the alphabet. Oh, yeah. I'm working from the front. Yeah.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Fair enough.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
As is the way.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Okay, so we have mentioned it before, but as a brief summary, essentially Apple is... for people that use the Apple App Store Patreon app is going to insist that Patreon pays them 30%. Yeah, if they subscribe through the app. If they subscribe through the app, which is basically Apple's standard. Tyler Fisher, like, you know, everyone.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, so basically what that means is if you support a Patreon and you did so via the Patreon app on the Apple app store and subscribed to the Patreon via that, um, you'll probably, assuming the creator doesn't decide to suck up the 30%, which they probably can't afford to do, going to be paying more on Patreon for that.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
Well, luckily you're on a podcast which is explicitly designed for exactly that one thing.
Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
323 | Diving into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide: Insights and Analysis With Mike Shea
unsubscribe on the app, go re-subscribe via one.