Teos Abadie
Appearances
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and then you know more sizable numbers of them maybe they're weaker and you could explain that like they've been frozen in the ice so they're stiff and they're not moving capably but maybe over time they will get faster and faster as they start approaching or there's some boss off in the distance that is
Mastering Dungeons
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making them be fully functional or whatever empowering them so you could do something like that that allows you to ratchet things up but you want that feel of of of things going on if you like chaos you could have some random things that happen right like fail a check something random happens like another system blows somewhere else or they find a zombie crawling out of a part of the decking right something like that and that could be fun too
Mastering Dungeons
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And that's a question of how much chaos you like. Like, if you like, let the chips go where they may fall out, how they do, you know, then you may be OK with like and everybody gets TPK or you have to run away. And so it's important to think about, like, you know, when you've got a movie director. You know that they know that at the end, everyone will get away.
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And then they show these videos and it's like the entire place just full of people. And people are cheering and going wild. I mean, it's like total rock star situation. And in fact, the videos I saw, they were like light shows and fireworks going off from around the where the players are seated. It's bizarre.
Mastering Dungeons
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And something I'll say is you can put in sort of stop, think through some stopgap measures that'll help you troubleshoot this on the fly. Right. So one I would think of that that can kind of be cool either way, but that at some point the ship could just suddenly burst forward moving and then stop again. So it moves, you know, 100 feet in the snow.
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which gives you the reason why nothing, you know, all these things aren't just overrunning the ship, like they managed to move it. They didn't get lift off, but they managed to move it. But maybe that calls for a piloting check or, you know, brace yourselves for impact and already take some damage. And you can adjudicate that on the fly. Like if this is going super easily,
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Well, they moved the ship 100 feet, so there's a little bit of respite from the enemies. But hey, everybody roll to see if you took damage. Everybody roll to see if your system suffered a setback that you're currently working on. So you've got to rejigger it, right? If you needed more, you could do that. So you can put in these kinds of stopgaps to get you back where you want.
Mastering Dungeons
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And similarly, you can do things that are on the threat side where you can, you know, have some way that if it's too easy, if it's too hard, right, you can calibrate it, have those little emergency bits there.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, I agree with that. There are... There are times when the dice just don't achieve what you want or not just even the dice, but the setup of what's there doesn't achieve what we want for a fun experience. And it's because of the dice swinginess. It's because designers aren't perfect and characters are valuable and players are variable. And there is no truth to design, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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If I design an encounter and And you then are running it. What I wrote isn't true. It's what I came up with at that time. And if I had worked on it another hour, it might have been different. Or if I work on it today, it would probably be different. Right. We it's just there. And I don't care if it's Monty Cook or anybody like whoever wrote that.
Mastering Dungeons
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it isn't perfect it isn't some sacred thing and any designer i've talked to that's at that level will tell you yeah i mean i don't it's not perfect change it if you want right make it yours and so there just isn't a truth behind the scenes to it the truth is the outcome it's the play that you have together and so if that's veering in the wrong direction i'm absolutely okay with changing and that includes shaving hit points off of monsters uh rolling something and saying it misses
Mastering Dungeons
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lowering the creature's armor class you know explain it in a narrative way so it makes sense right you know actually broke with that blow you break their their plate mail you know they they look like they're easier to hit now just you know explain what you're doing when it's when you would need to um but it's totally fine things i would not do you know don't
Mastering Dungeons
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make a critical hit or something like that that could possibly take someone out. Don't do something like that because that can lead you down a path that you'll regret and can seem cruel because it's not necessarily fun. Extreme peril is seldom fun when it's being done behind the scenes rather than
Mastering Dungeons
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I love it. I mean, this is great. Where can we take it next, right? Like, this is amazing. Like, yeah, it's great. I do not want to be, you know, the geeks in the basement and the, you know, ultra rare hobby that everybody's afraid of. Like, I'll take the mainstream. Like, bring it.
Mastering Dungeons
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surprise outcome for everybody um the other thing is when there are big exciting moments i will always roll in the open because that is itself fun right you know you are in this tough situation and the assassin's gonna get three blows against you and you are you know unconscious this could kill you let's see those dice right because it matters and and that is important to do i think in those big big moments
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Yeah, and at the end of it, what players are looking for is a confidence that this is going to be a fun game and that your style will be fairly consistent. I think they're less concerned about how you achieve that as more that you're going to pull it off. Something I do often that I think is a monster power in Forge of Foes is when...
Mastering Dungeons
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uh when the characters are just you know they they start off really strong they just start tearing into everything one of the things i'll do is as a reaction allow my monsters to attack back attack back if it's a strong monster right like a boss or somebody that looks like trained important feral you know super aggressive whatever and that will always surprise the players right because they're they're in this super upper hand moment but then they just get hit for some damage
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doesn't change anything, right? It'll really never change the outcome of the venture, but it's one of those, oh, and it creates excitement. It's that kind of gameplay thing. We don't change the story at a big level. It's just a fun interaction that makes them take it all more seriously and get into it and, you know, maybe spend bigger resources and so on to just dig into it more, right?
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And it's great when the ogre goes low in initiative and the mind flayer goes early, right? Like that just it's a better experience when that happens. It makes more sense. It delivers on the promise of what's there. And so, yeah, I will absolutely say a three for the super brilliant mastermind boss. No, that's going to go earlier.
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uh what did they say about undead tales yeah and important to note that by the time you hear this uh the embargo will be lifted for creators who got an early look at things so you'll start seeing some some things getting shared out there but these previews are by the official team and so they don't always show you the stats but they talk about things at the higher level
Mastering Dungeons
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one of the things we hear over and over again across all of these categories and it's true of the undead is new types right so we've got new types of vampires uh we've got things like crawling claws but also a crawling claw swarm which i think was also in fourth edition shadow dragons have another age variant so you can have different crs right so where they saw a monster and said you know you would want this to also face it at a different level of play then we get an extra version that's a different cr either lower and higher than usual
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Monsters with more capabilities, where they looked at things like, does this need some enhanced mobility compared to the 2014 version? And sometimes you get a table, they talked about this in one of the videos, where you can roll on. So for example, for the Banshee, why did this thing become a Banshee? And so they provide you a table you can roll on for some options.
Mastering Dungeons
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Since the embargo will be lifted by the time this video comes out, I'll say that in looking across these tables, Sean, and I don't know if you've looked at them or not, but I found some of them are great and some of them I'm like, this isn't a thing that I can use right now. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
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And we talked about this when we were reviewing the monster overhaul book, but you know, is a table really creating creativity at the moment when I need it? Or is this sort of the wrong table for the job? And sometimes I think these tables are so-so.
Mastering Dungeons
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That's interesting. Well, you know, again, since the embargo will be lifted by the time people hear this, one of the things that's really interesting is looking across all of these humanoids that they have changed out. And, you know, they kind of hint at it in these various videos of, oh, we made this this type for this reason, this other.
Mastering Dungeons
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But to me, what seems pretty obvious is that this sprang from The concept of what kind of things should we be killing and what kind of things should be what are monsters versus what are cultures. And so you do not find drow in the monster manual. You will find a drider. You will find lolf. You will not find a drow. You will not find an orc.
Mastering Dungeons
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And there's an interesting table that does these conversion things. And so like the stat block for the orc did not go away. It became the like thug, which is now not an orc. It's just a, you know, so it's like we didn't lose the monster, but it is no longer that humanoid that it was.
Mastering Dungeons
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and and so to me this is just a very concerted attempt to to change this which hey you know some people have been calling for um so kudos there you know recognition for the importance of that job um but it's also you know you lose the fact that if you want to battle with some orcs you're not supposed to in the 2025 methodology go and find some orc stats you're supposed to find
Mastering Dungeons
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other humanoid stats that could be what you know is it an elf thug is it an orc thug that doesn't matter right uh which is which is interesting and i'm sure that's behind a lot of these types being assessed as we're really not just thinking i think the primary driver was that right yeah
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah. 4E also had a young belay. The design quirk that I really stuck out with me was they discussed how the primeval owlbear, they were thinking about how they wanted it to glide out of a tree or off a cliff to attack you. And they said they went through various iterations of giving it some sort of glide kind of capability.
Mastering Dungeons
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And then they said, you know, what we did was give it a five foot fly speed so you can jump and then glide out of the fall. And I thought to myself, wait a minute. Is that really clear in the rules that if you have a flying speed, you can at the end kick it in? And I don't know that that's obvious. So we had a fun discussion on our Discord about that.
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But I thought that was a really wild design choice that I don't think is obvious without any text to support it.
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Well, I mean, so I had something a little bit like this. It wasn't mid campaign, but, you know, I'd been running a campaign. I finished that. I ran another campaign. And then it was like pandemic and busyness. And I had years off. Yeah. And so then it was like rebuild from the ground up.
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I'll like copy or cut and paste. I don't know.
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Yeah, so the Ennies have said, you know, it's too late to change this year because people have already submitted things. But for next year, we will not... allow products that contain AI. And they posted on their website saying, quote, feedback from the TTRPG community has made it clear that this policy does not go far enough.
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Generative AI remains a divisive issue, with many in the community viewing it as a threat to the creativity and originality that define the TTRPG industry. The prevailing sentiment is that AI generated content in any form detracts from a product rather than enhancing it. So that was a really nice statement.
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And they say in response to this feedback, the any awards are amending their policy regarding generative AI. Beginning with the 2025 to 2026 submission cycle, the any awards will no longer accept any products containing generative AI or created with the assistance of large language models or similar technologies for visual, written or edited content.
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Creators wishing to submit products must ensure that no AI-generated elements are included in their works. They can't change it this season, but they recognize the importance of celebrating human creativity that's at the heart of the community, and they thank everybody for the feedback and so on. So the full quotes in our show there. But yeah, what do you think of that, Sean?
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And what I found was really useful to kind of re-inject everything rather than start right back into a campaign and pretend everything was going as it had been before was to do a couple of one shots. And we did a number of them actually of various lengths that just kind of got us warmed up and excited and interested.
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Yeah, I mean, I know creators, Jeff Stevens was saying in a forum the other day that, you know, the DMs Guild is just suffering under the weight of all this AI generated content that, you know, you just you can't compete with. There's too much, right? It just drowns out all the other creations because it's so easy to say to something, hey, make me a wizard subclass.
Mastering Dungeons
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chuck it on there and see if anybody buys it, right? It devalues everything. And I think behind it, you know, we've talked about this before, all the issues of AI, but you've got all your water consumption, energy consumption at a time when we critically need to fight climate change. It feeds into all of this tech bro harmful culture, this crypto enrich yourself at the expense of others.
Mastering Dungeons
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We've got situations like the stability of Taiwan and all of the Asia Pacific region rests on how we look at generative AI and crypto and technologies like this. It's massively impactful, right? Like it could literally rewrite Taiwan, right? If not other places. And so it's just, it is fundamental, I think, to take a stance because of all of the associated issues.
Mastering Dungeons
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And it's larger than AI as a technology. It goes back to whether our governments and our and we people are willing to stand up to that kind of corporations first type mentality and even corporations built on a house of cards that we anyone smart knows it is right that it's just fake uh yeah yeah that's that that's that's the real issue for me is
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And so something to think about is sort of that approach, but maybe tailored to the fact that you're mid campaign, right? So you can do things like, hey, Let's do a reset. Let's go back and play with pregens the, you know, NPCs you helped out back in this important scene that you all enjoyed, you know, three months ago, whatever it was. And let's play those NPCs when they did the previous thing.
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It's pretty neat. You know, Kobold Press has had a back and forth on their blog recently with everything from how terrible the Dungeon Master's Guide is to really positive things. And I like this. I like this look where they're trying to inform you what their business is like so you have a better understanding of it and also in a way that can be helpful to other companies and creators.
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And so they break down how they approach Kickstarter and what it means, I think sort of in two ways. One is to say, hey, you might think that when you see us make hundreds of thousands or a million or whatever, that this is like we're swimming in money, right? Scrooge McDuck kind of thing.
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And so to educate us as to that's not the case, but also to say, hey, here are all the places where money goes. And you can understand that and maybe also think positively and feel trustworthy around, you know, you'll have trust in Kobold Press for their approach. So they talk about, hey, Kickstarter launched in 2009. We've had 32 projects since then.
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We've raised 15,000 from 306 backers in our first project, right? So low beginnings and then climbing higher. And they have a three-step process. Number one, fund design and development first. Number two, put the funds in escrow and spend as costs accrue. Three, count your chickens only after the game has shipped, which is kind of a funny way to say it.
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Sean, how are you doing? I had two things that really blew my mind. One was I got my little like catalog in the mail of like what the U.S. post office thinks you should buy stamp wise, the USA philatelic. And D&D is still prominently displayed in there. There's all sorts of like, you know, things and Year of the Dragon. They're, you know, transitioning to Year of the Snake.
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And then they go in and share an example of the project math. Do you want to chat about this? You want me to?
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Sort of the way a TV show does like, you know, go back and see, oh, that's how that ended up there. That could be a lot of fun, right? Something like that. That's just a one shot. So people don't have to pretend that they're right back in it and fully warmed up and all. It's a nice way to acclimate them with this kind of side one shot.
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Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really good accounting of a possible project. I think that in general, it is possible to do better than this example provides. But when you have an audience, when you have that reach, that...
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changes all the dynamics of it right when you print enough that your cost per per book printed goes down your profit goes up and now you can cover it um you can you can have enough actually to put a number of books that are in your warehouse and get sold over time so income continues you have your pdfs you continue to sell so income continues and you know so i think
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realistically cobalt press ends up with more than 18 000 because of the scale at which they operate but this advice is very important for the smaller company or the individual creator who may think that they're going to end up with a hundred thousand and the reality is for them at their levels of printing you're going to end up either having made very very little money if at all and we hear this all the time from folks or you
Mastering Dungeons
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ordered so much product in order to make a profit per unit that you now have a bunch of books sitting in a warehouse that may never get sold. And we also hear that from creators. So it's really dangerous to get that right when you don't have a huge audience that kind of covers up the mistakes. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
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It can fill in holes, create new mysteries, get people going with it. And especially there, the key that I would look at is. What about the campaign was something that really resonated with people and where they might have more questions, but sort of not won't be jumping right back into it. It's this kind of other side piece. What do you think, Sean?
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Yeah. And I think he even said like through the actions of the Silver Crusade. So they did such a good job that lycanthropy itself was sort of beaten back because of the sort of gods involved and so on, which is a neat way to look at it.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, so he has a neat way of saying, you know, the gnolls had turned away from their fiendish influences. So making them now fiends seems to sort of collide against that. But what he says is actually, he would actually lean into it harder and say that for those gnolls who are foes, they are truly, they have this fiendish spark inside of them. And so they are truly fiends.
Mastering Dungeons
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ravenous butchers who are out there fighting for whoever it is that they're aligned with, whether it's, I think he says, Rak-Tul-Kish in the demon wastes or the wild heart in the Eldin reaches. This is where he would learn and lean in and say, absolutely, these are fiends. But if you're gnolls of the Znir Pact, now those who are playable should be humanoids, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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Because they have turned back on that fiendish spark and sort of excised it out of their bodies. And this actually matches something that in one of the videos Jeremy Crawford talked about where he said that a monster's type...
Mastering Dungeons
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is not indicative of what it's like when it's a playable species and and and he gave multiple examples around this where he felt you know you can be different when and so really keith is happens to be on the exact same page here where he says when they're a member of this near pact and they are that kind of playable good guy well they're humanoids
Mastering Dungeons
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Well, they're defined. Now monsters have this little abbreviation. So we get scions of the gods and they can be found anywhere and their treasures are relics. They are the spawn of deities. While not gods themselves, they possess divine influence and powers related to their divine parents. And this was a preview that went out to one of the creators that they got to show it off on their YouTube.
Mastering Dungeons
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So we got to see the actual full page description. There is a table of features, 1D6 features, like Number one is balanced, naturalistic or suggestive of watching eyes. Or number six is morbid, menacing or monstrous or that embody the viewer's fears. Okay.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, and the first thing that I thought was interesting was it says medium celestial or fiend, then the type is Titan and neutral. So one thing I thought was, okay, you gave it an alignment... which I wasn't sure if this would be like the kind of creature that says typically, well, I don't see the word typically anymore for alignment. Uh, it's also not unaligned or varies. It's just neutral.
Mastering Dungeons
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Uh, and it can be a celestial or a fiend, which is an interesting way to do this. What else did you see?
Mastering Dungeons
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If this was the, yeah. In 2014, it was chaotic good 75% of the time or neutrally evil 25% and it was considered a celestial in both cases. So that's a change there.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, blessing its allies doesn't seem like the move it would make.
Mastering Dungeons
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no and i mean it's not like uh i don't believe we had the empyrean iota before this is a new again that sort of idea of a different cr and if we look at the empyrean itself which was also shown off in the video it does not have these spells before so it's not like they had to try to preserve it or something not that they took that approach but you know they decided to put this on here for this specific guy
Mastering Dungeons
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And it is weird, this idea that, like you said, it could be a celestial or fiend, but it's doing less restoration on you. What fiend sends its agent to do that? I don't know.
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And as an action for no reason whatsoever. Okay. Yeah. And the thing is, it's not like it doesn't have bonus actions. And that one's also interesting, right?
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And they did say lesser restoration as an action, so it's not like they didn't take the words to tell you when something is a different action economy type, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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Literally in the same stat block. They could have just said healing word as a bonus action. Right. And especially because it's useless. Well, and maybe it's because, no, I guess it doesn't matter because spellcasting is using wisdom.
Mastering Dungeons
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I think the bonus action thing is also interesting because all these words, healing word once per day, cast healing word, using the same spellcasting ability as spellcasting is useless to the average DM. You already said spellcasting uses wisdom up above. And none of that really helps me if I don't have healing word memorized and I don't know what it does.
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I have to open it up and figure out what the range is, how much it heals, do the math on how much it heals, right? Because I get my spellcasting bonus and all of that. Yeah, yeah.
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And I, I talk about this in a video this week. Um, it's especially hard if you think of the 2014 monster manual is a really good book. And when you think of like what needs to change, um,
Mastering Dungeons
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And that'll teach them. Jeff is in my home campaign, so he should be careful what advice he's sharing there.
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a small list it's a general sort of list rather than a specific one right most dms do not have a huge catalog of boy you've got to fix all these things it's a really good book and if you think about the things you might want to change you might say like oh more lore whatever but then you got to run into space issues right with any of these kind of big general things it's a tough it's a tough thing um
Mastering Dungeons
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I'll pivot and say I do like how they at times innovate with some pieces. And when we get to the Empyrean itself, not the Oda we just talked about, but the larger CR-23, it has a really neat thing with this sacred weapon action it can take. And you roll to hit. If you hit, you do some force damage. And then the target is stunned. until the start of the Empyrean's next turn.
Mastering Dungeons
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But the target can choose not to be stunned, and then it takes an extra 21 force damage that bypasses resistance or immunity. What do you think about that?
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Yeah, and it's nice. It's a sort of thing we haven't seen, I think, in 2014. At least I can't think of an example like it. I like seeing that sort of every now and then something that makes you go, oh, wow. And your players will react that way. They'll go, wait, what? Oh, that's interesting.
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Yeah, you know, it all can drive play one way or the other. I'm already hearing people in the Adventurers League talk about how the brooch of shielding has gone from, you know, the useless thing you carried around to, wait a minute, I must have resistance against, you know, force damage. So it's all, I don't know.
Mastering Dungeons
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And I get why we want, you know, every now and then we have a monster like the skeleton where it matters whether it's slashing or piercing or bludgeoning, but...
Mastering Dungeons
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so often doesn't and then we're just always talking about what could just be weapon damage but we have to list all three out and we say it right you know you take five slashing damage when it almost never matters right it's like this thing you have to do for those few exceptions yeah
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You've noticed the giant jump in initiative, right? Which I thought was interesting because so the 2014 Empyrean, you know, doesn't list initiative. That's a 2025 change. So it's the it's DEX is the same. It gets a plus five bonus added to something that would use the DEX in this case initiative. So it should be plus 15. But here it's plus 19, which is that's big.
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The other thing I noticed was the parenthetical 29. So they show you the plus 10 initiative on these monster examples, which I did not think they would do that. Some folks like that. We talked about initiative in the earlier segment. I don't like just adding 10 to it.
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I find that leads with a lot of monsters being all chucked into the middle because initiatives, while these are wild swings, they often end up all in the middle if you do that. Love the plus 10 method.
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Yeah, I'll try to hit it somewhat fast because it's an enormous stat block. Speaking of high initiatives, plus 16. The Ancient Gold Dragon is a CR24 monster, and it was kind of neat. It's a guy that all these links are in our show notes.
Mastering Dungeons
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So D&D Beyond had a web page where they talked about the Ancient Gold Dragon and used it as an illustration of what's going on in stat blocks in 2025, what each of the sections are meant to do and how they've changed them up.
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um the thing i wanted to know what the ancient gold dragon one is how it had changed from the ancient green dragon we saw before which as we mentioned the reactions are gone the legendary actions are back uh how it would do things like spells because it's got spell casting so one thing that happened that i'm really i'll just go since i just said spells let's talk about this right now
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Mordenkainen, when that redid Monsters, right, which was sort of a soft redo of Monsters, depending how soft will be your perspective. We got these blog posts talking about the mentality and Jeremy Crawford would talk through, hey, you know, if it's an attack thing, it's not going to appear in a spell list. It's going to be down below as an action.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And you now will know what to do and you can use it easily because you don't have to go look this up. And I thought that was brilliant personally for me. Not everybody agrees. But then when Mordenkainen actually arrived as a book, that was sometimes true, but sometimes not. And the version that was in the action wasn't like, help me know what it is, it was sometimes something different.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
It wasn't quite the spell and you couldn't counterspell it or dispel it or whatever. It was sort of weird. You know, it's like a spellish version. Well, here we get an example of how 25 is doing it, which is not like Mordenkainen's and especially not like that blog. So in our spell list, we have at will things, which includes guiding bolt in a level four version.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
We have flame strike once per day as a level six, as well as various other things that are sort of more tactical utility, word of recall, zone of truth. And these what this does is when you're trying to be effective as a DM, it forces you to look it up. Right. And see whether you want to use this both situationally. You know, what is the area of effect of flame strike?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
But also, should I do this instead of breathing or rending or whatever? And you've now got to look this up for all of your offensive spells, in this case to guiding bolt and flame strike. And sometimes these spells appear in these monsters because the point is to give them a ranged option. but you don't know that you don't know if this is a burst of damage or is it?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And while I say all paths lead to CR, they don't necessarily, right? I'll pause there. What do you think about that?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah, yeah. So I'm glad... Yeah, go ahead.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah. And so, yeah, the multitask is three rend attacks. You can replace one of those with a spellcasting to cast the level four guiding bolt or be your weakening breath. And I like that as a tactical thing, though it does make things quite complex because now you've got to consider all of that, right? Your rend is 28 damage total.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Your weakening breath is not damage but gives disadvantage in a 90-foot cone. So is that worth it? Your guiding bolt is going to do less damage than your rend, I think. It's either that or the same, but it's ranged. It's close. But you've got to look this all up and what's the range of it and what happens when I'll get advantage if I hit, you know, all these things. It's a bit messy.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And I, you know, I try to remember that a lot of these monsters, a little different with the ancient gold dragon, but in a lot of these monsters that have these kinds of features, they're not going to be around for that long. So do I really need all of these options? It's a bit complicated, right? I don't love it. The fire breath is huge, right? This is a 90 foot cone, 71 fire damage or half.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
that's an enormous thing and so the idea of you know all paths lead to uh the same dpr well you need to get that fire breath in and you want to make sure you focus that on as many characters as possible if they need a threat if that's what's going to be fun it's not the same as doing a rend right now maybe all path leads because it is one of those rounds you're doing it because it's a recharge five to six but but that kind of thing there is is um
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
It adds to all of this. The other thing is it has legendary actions, right? So you've got your multi-tack, you've got your rend, you've got your fire breath, you've got your spell casting, you look up, you've got your weakening breath, you look up. Then we've got our legendary actions. We get three of them or four if we're in our lair. So that's a nice way to boost the being in a lair.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah. I agree with you. And it's also a time when you could assess the campaign and say, hey, where are some things that weren't working that should just drop, you know, like that faction system I was using isn't working. Let's get rid, you know, not go back to that. Like, yeah, you can reset that way. Sort of like what Jeff said, but you murder parts of the campaign rather than the characters.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And your options are three. And they are banish, guiding light, or pounce. Pounce is simple. You move half your speed and get to rend. That's awesome because you get a little mobility if you need it. Your guiding bolt as well, if you can't get to anything, even with a pounce, I guess that's an okay option. But you'd pounce otherwise. And then you get banish. What do you think of that?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Well, Sean, we do get that text, and this is something that's 2025 specific, where at the end, when they do what would have been a 3.1, they say, failure or success, the dragon can't take this action until the start of its next turn. So that means banish, you can only use once per round, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
It's like alphabetical except the multi-tacks main thing or something like that. Wow.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
That's so interesting. Yeah. Well, and I do want to say that is fascinating because it contributes to that whole, you got to look all over the place to figure it out. I do want to go back and just say one thing about Banish, which is it's fascinating on a number of grounds in its tactical richness. One is it's DC 24, so that's rough. 120 foot range that a creature of the dragon can see.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
I was reminded when you were talking about TV shows and the recaps they give, I read an article that was talking about our memory and how it works and how today's sort of stream everything, binge watch everything really works against the way our memory works. And so if you think of like the old TV shows where, you know, it's Thursday night, the next episode comes out.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
When you fail, 24 damage and they are incapacitated and transported to a demiplane until the start of the dragon's next turn. When you get to that point, you now can choose to put it within 120 feet of the dragon at the target. So you can put them 120 feet up in the air if you're outdoors or ginormous cavern. You can put them above the lava. You can you know, it's really interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
You can put them in where you're going to breathe.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
right uh so there's a lot of tactical angle to this banish that i really love and someone who play tested a combat with this they said the banish is the thing that makes this gold dragon brutal because you can take out that big damage dealer and you can put them wherever you need to right yeah i mean if it's a melee person that can't move very quickly 120 feet away might be a problem
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
I don't believe there's anything prohibiting, you know, putting you in damaging terrain. I think there are some examples where it'll say something that suggests kind of indicates you can't put it in a place that's damaging or, you know, it's a safe and occupant. I feel like there's some wording I saw somewhere like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
yeah i mean i think it all counts i think you can put them you know in the air above the lava pit for falling damage and lava damage um sounds like a plan yeah the the what i also did here and and if folks check out my videos uh that i'll be putting out uh i've broken down i've gone through the ridiculous process of adding up all the damage for all these monsters
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And how you calculate this damage will vary on what you think about the area of effect, right? That 71 damage to each target. The old 2014 way was to say that even in that absurdly large 90 foot cone, that this flying dragon is only going to get two targets. There's no way I'm running this combat and only getting two targets in that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
So I calculate a little bit differently on the damage, and I'll talk about that in my videos. But when I calculated this DPR, it is an impressive 231. The 2014 guideline in the DMG for CR24 was 204. So this is, you know, about a 15% increase over the guideline. And the average found in published monsters for CR24 was only 120. So it's close to double what we found in the published books.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
um this was a thing that your brain wanted to hold on to and so you think about it and the next thursday comes along and the next piece when you binge watch all these shows in a row you kind of don't learn to hold on to it and that's how if you end up you know it's like been it just a year since the previous you know whatever season of the mandalorian or something and you're like wait what where did we end what happened so
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Forge of Foes also uses the guideline of around 204. So, you know, it is hitting harder than Forge of Foes, which is a fairly strong fight at high CRs. So that's really interesting, especially because your encounter rules allow for this dragon to be met earlier than it was under 2014 rules. So that could also make it even harder, right? You're meeting it at a lower level.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
So that's really interesting. How does that measure against the characters being stronger? Boy, hard to say.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Well, and that can be okay, right? Like, I mean, one of the big things about the Forge of Foes advice is we're telling you, you know, hey, for that difficulty your group is hitting, here's what you can do about it. And it just takes knowing where the new level is, right? We've got to figure out what that new math is so that we can work off of it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
The monster, understanding the monsters, the encounters, and the players, because all three have changed, and that requires then going back and retooling your approach. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah, I mean, I checked this person. Do they have exactly 10 daggers? Oh, that's a vampire familiar.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
The way to beat that is to force people to think of yourself, whatever, to think about it periodically. So if you can give them little bits leading up to your first session that get you back there, right? Like you could just write up quick scenes, right? To remind them of the locations, the NPCs, the whatever, the stakes, so that you start kind of, oh yeah, putting it back together.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
But but yeah, you know, it's not on every page like the last issue was, but it's still a number of pages. And they remind you that you can buy the stamps and the journals and the T-shirts and all that is still available, which is awesome. So if you need a gift, you know, if your birthday is coming up, it's amazing.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Please. And again, now that we can, by the time this airs, we can talk about it. So the vampire familiar at CR3 does 12 points of damage twice, so 24 per round. Right. The vampire itself is CR13 and does 49 damage per round.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
So that's one of the things that I've been scratching my head about the most in the Monster Manual. And especially because they talked about vampires on one of their videos and they highlighted how these are better. And I would like to know how my CR 13 is. The vampire does only 49 around, including all of what it does. And the Vampire Umbral Lord does 142. So there's a giant difference.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Maybe I'm missing something and I'm looking at the Vampire stat block wrong. You know, once everybody can look at it and you can tell me where I went wrong. The Vampire Nightbringer does 38. It's CR 8. I don't know what happened to those. So they may need the Vampire Familiar to come in and fight for them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Rather, you don't want to be there, sit down and try to resume as if, you know, everybody remembers everything when they don't.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
know maybe that's what's driving it um it could be that the vampire scene as a hit and run they do have some capabilities that are neat around that sort of hit and run type concept but you know how it is your players can surprise you with their ability to lock something down or prevent you from getting away and so and just also the idea to me is you have to be able to scare your players a bit hit them hard if you want to get away and run that's to me an encounter story type thing
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Not that the monster should therefore be weak at attacking. And the vampire itself, it's an enormous stat block. In fact, it might be one of two full page stat blocks in the book. It's one of the few. There aren't very many that occupy the entire page, nothing else on it. And for all that the vampire does that, it just doesn't deal a lot of damage.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And it's a legendary actions don't, you know, make up for it. It's rough. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
I'll go back and double check it because it's on my list actually to go back and make sure I didn't get this wrong because it just shocks me how low the damage is. But all of the vampires sort of felt that way. It's multi-attack for a vampire is to do an attack that does 15 twice and then an attack that does 19. And yeah, that does reduce your hit points, but yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And then maybe the idea is I'm just charming lots of people and, and, you know, that commanding you. So you aren't acting, but that's a lot of ifs. And I worry about that design.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
All right. So the Gargoyle is interesting because it was an absolute beast in 2014 because not only was it very capable, hit hard, did well, but it was taking, was it immune to non-magic items? Or was it resistant? I'll have to look.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Okay. So it was, but that alone, you know, that was really, really a big deal. And that is gone. I will say that, and I'm going to look at the Gargoyle 2014 and pull that up here. Yeah, so it was resistant to non-magic. That wasn't adamantine. That was a big deal to it. So it has gotten a small hit point bump, but not enough to make up for that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
It now has a flyby, which is new, so it can attack without drawing opportunity attacks. But otherwise, it's making two claw attacks for seven damage each as a CR2. And that is a small amount of damage increase over what it used to do. It used to do 10, but it now...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
you know loses that kind of defensive part that it had that was such a big part of it it also loses its false appearance which i thought was interesting To me, that's a very big part of a gargoyle. And I won't talk about how it should be called or grotesque, but people on my Discord have heard about it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
But I thought that was interesting because this is one of the ones that I was like, oh, gargoyles, man, you're going to be in fighting them for a while because of that half damage kind of angle. Which I also like because it meant that casters got to shine and that kind of thing and that's gone. Immunity to...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
non-magic uh you know where you need non-magic and you're either immune or resistant is essentially gone in 2025 what isn't gone are immunities and resistances and the number of monsters with them is enormous um so there's a lot of that you know most monsters have one or the other if not both which is interesting yeah
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
I don't... Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, but to me that is, I like that because to me it speaks to the gargoyle's nature as being an elemental. It is stone. It's like when the Gallup door, right, is just sitting there as a boulder. If it doesn't talk to you or open its eyes, it's a boulder. and there's no reason to see anything else there.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah. We had a hilarious thing where we wanted to show someone a Bridgerton episode. We were like mid- I think whatever the last season was. And we somehow ended up on the previous season and we watched easily 15 minutes before we realized, wait, wait, this is the wrong season. And we have seen all of this, right? And it's just like, wow, we retained none of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And it, and it doesn't need to itch or blink or breathe, you know? So there is no perception to be made. I would argue, I think it's great. And same thing with a mimic. A mimic is just so otherworldly that if it wants to be a chest or a sword or whatever, it can be, and you're not going to figure out what it is. And so I actually liked false appearance, but, but I get what you're saying.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
I think they don't. I think they have changed to address it in some other way that isn't the false appearance angle. I think the mimic, I'll look it up here. Which is interesting, right? And it goes to that whole 2024 versus 2014. You know, what are you trying to do with it and why? So the Mimic has now a bonus action shapeshift.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And this actually appears in a number of monsters with slightly different wording. But in this case, the Mimic shapeshifts to resemble a medium or small object while retaining its game statistics or it returns to its true blob form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. So now...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
you can detect a mimic right you can just look at it from afar and go i want to make a check and i guess i don't know what it would is it in that case making i guess i guess for the mimic it has stealth plus five in 2025 2024 so you would roll against that
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
I would take an action to make a... It's not study.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Search, action, which would be your perception versus study, which would be your investigation. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess. Yeah, you make that action and you would. But, you know, I don't like it, right? I mean, I think that The mimic should just surprise you because it's that otherworldly. And I think the gargoyle, you can't tell.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And you can shoot it with an arrow and you're going to damage that rock. And then you can decide as DM, does my gargoyle decide to reveal itself because it doesn't like that you're shooting it with arrows. But it also could just sit there.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
You know, I don't think that's an enormous issue, but it goes into that whole concept of, you know, they have made changes. They have gone through every monster and truly changed these all in ways big and small. And so you don't know what a monster will exactly be other than if it was the same name, it will still be the same CR.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
But aside from that, anything could have changed and you have to look at that new stat block if you want to run the new version. i will say one last thing which is i did pick up some 50th anniversary minis and uh you tell me is the fifth edition uh pit fiend better than the first edition pit fiend
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah, me too. Me too. I did, however, really, really love the one other one I'll show off is they had first edition versus fifth edition for this guy. So here's your first edition, right? Classic from the cover of the player's handbook. And then...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
But one of the other ways to remember is telling people, right? So the more that you tell people the story, tell yourself in the mirror, whatever, it'll start coming back to you. And that helps a lot.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Ooh, I've been looking at this monster manual a lot. So you can come to alphastream.org and go to the YouTubes and find me there talking about my opinions of this here book.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Well, I'm going to go to the local newspaper and put an ad in the classifieds to become a vampire familiar.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah, so a couple of thoughts. One is there's a fourth edition adventure that appeared in Dungeon Magazine issue 176 called Dead by Dawn for second level characters. And it involves kind of waves of undead coming into a temple and you've got to survive them until the light comes up. That's a pretty neat model.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
And I've also got a version that kind of does that as a free adventure, my website involving veg pygmies and other threats that are attacking you in the jungle. So I see this as a, you know, like if you were doing this for publication, there's a lot that can go wrong with it. And it is a very hard scenario to do this whole sort of.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
prep, set up, accomplish before all these bad things happen, to have it feel like the threat is right there. It's like the cinematic thing you're thinking, but that it feels that way gameplay wise is tough. But I think for a session, you know, where you're just shaking things up, I wouldn't be, you know, I mean, this is me, but I wouldn't be so worried about it. And I just go with it and have fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
What I would do is I would think about what feels realistic in terms of things they must do and engaging. And so I would probably think to myself, well, on a ship, you have to go to various areas to do things. You've got to warm up the doohickey and cross blah, the juba dupe, right? Insert your terms from one of those space games.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
So you've got to go to various stations and accomplish these things. And I think through if that doesn't work or if only partially works, what does that mean? And that could be interesting. Right. And then so that so there's success and failure in what they're attempting to do. And it feels satisfying and meaningful to go off and do these things. And so you spread out.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
Yeah, I saw some videos online and I thought, OK, you know, there's going to be like the like black fabric that they put, you know, at the end of the area to kind of hide a third of this area or, you know, an eighth something. No, no. It's like this tiny area in the center of Madison Square Garden where the players are.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Design Changes! (MD 226)
But if we're spreading out, then I've got to take that account into counterbalance. I would probably because I'm the kind of person who does use a spreadsheet for their encounter balance and encounter design. I would think about how can I have waves of foes that are interesting but are not going to overwhelm as I add these because I want to ratchet it up. So having one or two at first.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And so if you find that in your game, your passives are resulting in an unengaging game.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
and you still want to use the passives, you must make what they see engaging so that you're still on the right track or only use passives of Sean said, which is really what was intended back when the designers created it so that it's it's a way to solve a problem without giving away the surprise and seeing whether you find some clues. But don't remove that engagement.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Totally. And 2024 makes it almost, well, I don't know if it makes it more complicated. It's at least as complicated in 2024. And that 2024, by approaching things in a sort of piecemeal fashion of various bits, right? What is searching? What is the invisible condition? What is passive perception? But not telling you how it all works altogether. Maybe it doesn't the DMG.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
uh means that it's it's a little unclear and we're back to the same situation of you've got to decide how to run your game so that you get great engagement and and the sum of the parts must equal that whole of engagement that's when you know whether you're doing it wrong or right is whether your players are excited and engaged and and hopefully don't feel invalidated for character choices but their character choices aren't aren't stripping away that engagement
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
This is, you know, all week I've been dealing with very parallel things to this, though, in the environmental data world rather than the character builder database. But when you create databases of information that have a version to them and those things are used in an application and then you have another data set.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
and you're going to somehow retain the other one, there's trouble, there's challenges, there's difficulties. It's not simple. I don't care. I've never been on a project where this was simple. And so, you know, at the D&D Summit back last year, April, you know, more than a year ago, one of the questions that I and others brought up was, hey, how are you going to handle these two data sets?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Not to mention also the VTT, which is its separate question, but how are you going to handle all this? And we got kind of deer in the headlight responses. And that worried me. Now, since that time, they've obviously kind of looked at this. But, you know, we have not had another D&D summit since then.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And I point to this as an example of where D&D would be better off if it had these kinds of meetings with people and feedback with people to say, Get a sense of maybe how the community will react, because what they announced was just a change log. Hey, here's what's coming. You know, we're going to have going from 2014 to 2024. Various elements are just going to auto update.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And so if you're in your character sheet and you've got your 2014 character, hey, your spells, your magic items, they'll be the new version. And I guess they looked at this. What they said was they looked at this as like, cool, you're getting free stuff. And what users heard was, wait, I can't play 2014 in my character sheet. You know, the world has has ended for me.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I am very angry and I'm not making light of that. I mean, people were impacted by it. And to various people, this is not free. Awesome update. It's a problem. You're always going to have people on both sides of it. And there was a lot of iron line, including a lot of disinformation. So then D&D issued a clarification. But people were still very angry.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And where they've ended up with is going back and saying, okay, okay. And this came at like last night at, I don't know, it was very late in my time when I saw it. And so on a Sunday night, they issue a, hey, we're going to do it differently. We are going to have the ability that if you have a 2014 character sheet, that character sheet will retain the 2014 elements. And that's complicated, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Roll20, by the way, was loving this. They have talked about how, you know, oh, with us, you can choose what you want 2014 and 2024, to which I say not so fast, Roll20, because you're being very clear about how you can choose one or the other. But you have people on all sides of this, right? You're going to have people who want to say, hey, I do want to have mostly 2014, but some 2024.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
this is a mess it's a mess for roll20 it's a mess for dnd dnd as usual gets the giant spotlight and the giant internet ire uh i can only imagine the poor developers who probably had a meeting some time ago to set this all in stone talk through all the technical issues the reasons why a compromise was found this was the compromise and they come in on the office today and learn that they're gonna have to do a whole different level of work
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I pour one out for all of you. I know what it feels like. I'm sorry. There's no right or wrong here, but maybe Wizards should have things like D&D Summits to talk through things with people and not be blindsided when communities react this way. That's my point. What do you think, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Big hugs, my friend. Thank you. Yeah, it's tough. This is one of the things that... You have to somehow hit a certain age to really appreciate what it's like to to to either know you're on the threshold of that because you hear it through others or to start experiencing it. And it is it's tough. And all you can do is treasure every moment you have with people around you because it is so important.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So if you can get ahead of it, it helps. Because they could have, that change log was handled like a sort of techie kind of thing. I mean, it was a mix of it, but if you're gonna talk to customers, talk to your customers, this is the change we're implementing, here's why. It's super hard to do this stuff. It's super labor intensive. You know, here's and all the choices carry pluses and minuses.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
This is the path we're following. Test it out. We'll have a feedback period, something like that, you know, or test it internally with people, talk to people in user groups. There's no perfect answer here, right? I mean, and same thing with Roll20. I mean, I may want my 2014 character to fully update to 2024. I may want to mix and match options.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I may want to just create a 2024 character, or create a 2024 character that gets 2014 things. Should I expect that the tool gives me all those things? I mean, I work in an IT enough that I don't even know that anyone would give you that. It's hard and everybody's have a different flavor of what they think the tool should give for them. And so communications becomes super, super important.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And the moment I saw that first changelog, I thought, oh, this is going to go rough. And there's an there's a huge chance that in short order, they'll have to do something else. And the poor developers will have to carry that burden with whatever staff they have currently.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It's what makes life great. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, and the fault's not yours, employee, person who went through this, Dan, Dylan, anybody. I mean, all our hearts, huge hugs. This sucks. Yeah. But also it's just, you know, we as people who get hired must know this is the reality. And that's it's a shame because It would be a dream for most people to work at Wizards of the Coast if it weren't for these things.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
But these things are part of that reality. And it can happen at any time. And it's historically happened. It's happened at TSR, right? You listen to When We Were Wizards and it's these waves of layoffs and a lot of conversations on that podcast about it. It's remarkable and sad. And we had that regular, you know, December layoffs. 5E was able to get rid of most of that. But not always.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And the reasons are complicated. But I've seen this thing happen. I've had it happen at a company I worked for with 50 people. And someone was laid off. And then we were almost immediately reauthorized to hire again. And it's like, so do we tell them they have their job back? And they're like, well, can't they apply? I'm like, yes.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I mean, you know, and it's complicated why it all happens, but it happens. And it's not just wizards and it's terrible, but that's part of the landscape.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, it's a cool trailer, you know, just glimpses, but that'll be neat to see.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
No, the company that launched the ORC license so that companies can't change agreements, Sean, they wouldn't. Okay, wait a minute. In July, they said they would be changing their community use policy, replacing it with a more limited fan content policy, which of course also has some new great things to it, because that's how it always works.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And fans reacted against this because it really, not to get into too much in the details, but it put a lot of pressure on various projects, particularly projects that were using the first edition version of Starfinder. And this was seen as a way to try to prevent kind of 1E things happening until 2E was released. And so Paizo is now reversed course and kind of activating both policies.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So the new fan content policy will allow you to do some kind of new things like maybe create merch, but you will still also be able to use the old policy.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Because they hold all that power. Yeah. Keep places accountable. So two fun things, Sean. Universal Studios has what they're calling Fan Fest Nights for D&D. And this starts in spring 2025. They're doing Back to the Future, Star Trek, and D&D. And they did say a lot, but they'll be like immersive experiences and celebratory moments and themed food and stuff you can buy.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So details to come, but we've linked in the show notes to where you can... Keep an eye on it and even get email alerts for whenever it comes out sometime next year. And then in Rochester, New York, the Strong Museum of Play will have a D&D exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It lets you check out historical artifacts, early game prototypes, artwork, and even the history of controversies over the years. So that's interesting. You can create characters, monsters, dungeons, do a personality test to figure out your class. And this is neat. Be a dungeon master for a five minute campaign.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, yeah. I had a fun time reading Lucas Cockrum, who is a really nice guy I've hung out with at Winter Fantasy, and he is on our Discord as well. He has a blog series called the Giant's Bane blog, and he's been going through the Planescape series, and he actually has a product as well on the DMs Guild where he provides these insights, pulls them together as he goes through running the series.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And he started with his read-through and our advice that we did on our podcast, and then he's been putting this all together into... how he runs. So you can get the outline of it on Giants, thegiantsbane.blogspot.com. And then on the DMs Guild, you can also find his write-ups.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
To make money by having one exciting new thing. Wait, you said design goal. Sorry, that was my mistake. You know, that's an interesting question. Well, I guess what you'd say, right? And I held up the Complete Gladiators Handbook from the Dark Sun Complete Series of Second Edition because it has something very similar to this, as others have noted. It has a section about weapons.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And in it, it comes up with these ideas of when you are proficient or when you have a specialization, then you can do extra things with all your weapons, right? So you can have like an Al-Hulak. And when you're proficient, you don't have to worry about the downside of the weapon, which it has normally. And then you can use it two-handed.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And then when you're specialized, you can now like grapple this other person and ensnare them with extra bonuses and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
know in second edition various of these books had these kinds of things and the point of it was to true to create some tactical play some engagement uh and to reward kind of your choice especially as a fighter class to kind of focus on these particular weapons and show your mastery of them and sort of you know you're not just using a long sword you know how to do all these cool things with your long sword right and with your spear and whatever
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So it's a creation of engagement in play for those characters that use weapons. And if you take a step back, some of the argument was because spellcasters have lots of tactical great choice. Weapon people just stab and round after round. So this gives you kind of like the parody with the spellcasting class. Though I could say, and I'll shut up,
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
past third edition, your melee classes also have a variety of tricks through subclasses and whatever. So I don't know that you super aren't on parody already, but, you know, maybe that's part of the design goal still. What do you think?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Maybe we could say design goals don't muck up the works.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Though the rogue and the monk had other choices to make. And, you know, the paladin, but they're smiting. And, you know, so it's not again, it's not like you didn't have anything. But but yes, most rounds you were swinging that weapon, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And let me, if I can add one more thing, like a class will tell you whether you get them and how many you get, right? So the barbarian gets two at first level. It increases to third at fourth level. Then it goes to fourth for the rest of your career once you reach 10th level. So you have a number of these that you can have.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And sometimes spending your class, you'll have an option like you can actually wield one weapon, but apply the weapon mastery on others that can get kind of Trixie. But it's that idea of, yeah, you focus in on a certain number of of of weapons that then you gain their properties. And the table of weapons tells you what has a property. And then you can, you know, go from that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
the the idea is that tactical piece right so for cleave alone we can think of like okay now i as the player want to try to find clumps of creatures right i want to go up uh or draw to me you know several creatures so that when i attack one i might be able to hit the other right so a boss fight or the last creature or that one lone archer i don't really want to go after that i want to go over the like the several people together
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
which is maybe dangerous and might be fun in that way. But that becomes the kind of MO I want to do. And what often happens with these design wise is people will say to themselves, well, can I do that reliably? Because if not, I'm not getting my benefit that I am due. Maybe I'll choose a different property and they'll keep reading. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It's going on fumes. I have been working. I don't even know what a weekend is anymore. And I drew strength from my parents who wished me a happy birthday today. And today's not my birthday. I was like, We're on the same page, parents. I don't know what month it is, year, anything. You know, I'm just barely making it through. But it was very cute. They wrote really nice things.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Oh, go ahead. Well, it's interesting also to look at the design cost of these. We talked about that. Do you muck things up, right? So with Cleave, well, you've got to make an extra attack roll every round. Right. And but it's pretty easy to look up, but you've got to do that second attack. And then there's this question of all these interactions that is, you know, a little worrisome.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Gray's pretty simple in that if you missed, you just once you get through it, you will remember, oh, yeah, you know, three damage, right? You just you shout it out. I missed takes three damage from from Gray's move on. Not too bad.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, I mean, monks tend to use their bonus actions. A lot of classes do. And so if you need that bonus action to do things, then this nick quality on a weapon makes sense because now you get one extra attack on top of everything else you would have done and you still get your bonus action for additional attacks or whatever it is that you're doing.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So, you know, again, we're looking at sort of making another attack role with, I think, a little more decision making here. So it's even slower maybe than than Cleave was because it's a little more at case by case basis thinking. The other thing is there is plenty of confusion, as our Discord was pointing out, between the light property, Nick, and the dual weapon fighting feat.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
You have to read what am I really getting or not getting if I have various of these.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It's interesting they didn't go with your size or smaller, but yeah, fine, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, this is generally the kind of thing that people will not choose because it's so seldom useful.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It's useful if there's a pit right behind them or something like that, but usually you can't kind of punish them by going through a spell that they already took damage from, but it depends on the kind of application.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
you know on the wording of things but it's it's there's the kind of people where you go i don't know that this is going to help me much you could arguably what would be fun is i think of like two npcs that actually one of them has push and the other one has cleaves you can always push people together for the cleave to work but players generally don't do that kind of thing
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, I'll take a shot at it. So I think one thing is that in general, so a lot of the big conventions are run all by Baldwin Games. And so the number of slots, the approach to a day is pretty similar. And even outside of conventions that Baldwin Games runs at Origins, Gen Con, PAX... various comic cons, winter fantasy, even outside of that, the schedule ends up being pretty similar, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
My opinion is disadvantage. You shouldn't be giving disadvantage to things unless it's with something you've come up with a fun situation. Like I'm going to topple crates onto this creature. I'm down with that. Right. You spend your action for that. And it's a neat effect. I love the story of it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Maybe if it's a spell that does it, but you've got to be careful that, you know, you don't want it spammed all the time. Spamming is the biggest thing I'm worried about, because if I'm going to sap the boss and
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
constantly and always give disadvantage to the monster, it's gonna have such an unequal effect, but especially on a monster that takes like one big attack, then its next attack roll, it's huge thing to have disadvantage on it. And AC is already often through the roof on the person who's tanking this thing. So I just worry that this is not, it's the opposite of what the DM wants, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It's tough, and a lot of it depends on how your characters are using it. If they will just use it every now and then, it can be very different, right? But the same thing with this next one, slow, right? You hit the creature with this weapon and deal damage to it. You can reduce its speed by 10 feet on the start of next turn.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And it does say if the creature is hit more than once by weapons that have this property, the speed reduction can't exceed 10 feet. which is good, but you could maybe Ray of Frost it or something else. And, you know, and again, that's where it gets non-fun. It's one thing if it takes a little longer for the monster to get to you.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
In that you're going to get, you know, three to four games a day, and there are going to be some number of days, you know, depending on what your travel schedule is and what the convention provides. So like PAX, for example, has more days, but it actually tends to offer fewer adventures because a lot of it is focused on like learn to play.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
If the monster is never going to get to the party, that would be a problem, right? If this was a tactic that everybody employs, I'll hit it with Ray of Frost. You hit it with this thing. It'll never reach us. We will murder it before it ever comes to us. Yeah. Fun once.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
a group that played and within a few minutes they decided to all take topple and every creature was prone in every combat forever. The DM was just like, this is the worst.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
and and i don't mean to be negative right but it's not like you can't have fun with this and again the more that your players are doing this as sort of just fun things every now and then it's great but that's the thing about weapon master is it kind of encourages you to just do this all the time and always be proning everything and then begs that question well how could i abuse this right how can i take this to another level and that's where you can end up with the yeah and its strength is drained and it has to consume half its movement standing up so then i can uh you know this that and the other and
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So there may be only but so many adventures if like the folks who come over to PAX and I'll be headed to PAX this week. We do have some people who are hardcore AL and but, you know, and they often replay things because they're that hardcore. Because we're not offering new things in every slot. And that's where it gets tricky. And it can vary from year to year.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Too many cases can show up or someone's going to write a guide on it, right? Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Almost put it on an encounter refresh like 4E.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Well, we also didn't talk about Vex. Let's just quickly say Vex. If you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to the creature, you have advantage on your next attack roll against the creature before the end of your next turn. All right. Overall thoughts. None of these have drawbacks, which is interesting design wise. I don't object with that. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
But but it would be, let's say, balanced with 2014 if we said I can vex the creature, but I deal no damage this turn. Right. So I'm going to have advantage next round, but I dealt no damage or I didn't add my ability score or something, you know, some drawback to it that would make me choose. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I can topple the creature, but, you know, I give this I have give advantage to everybody because I put so much focus into toppling them. But there's none of that. This is just gravy. Take everything your character was doing before, you now get this bonus stuff and potentially quite, quite bonus-y if you put it all together.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
That means the monsters, which are already considered easy, have to do even more work for the challenge to be at the same level. Because in theory, what we want design wise is fun tactics, fun choices, engagement, but not that the players always auto win. So now some other part of the game will have to do that work for you to compensate.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So it's still the same challenge level and you're still having that engagement and that fun. And. the engagement and fun of these weapon masteries have to balance out with the extra time you're taking to run your character and the
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
the resolving of all of it both you doing it and it being resolved right oh that's right my monster is prone says the dm my bad let me remember to okay so no he didn't get to there uh they were back here and they so they can't reach you so they wouldn't have attacked you they'll attack this other person instead oh no you know what they'll take the range weapon out it's so easy for all that to bog down and one of the dangers of games is that we say it will be so much fun when we do all these things
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And yes, it is fun. Like it is. But at the end of the game, we feel a little dissatisfied. And it's because there's so much rigmarole that we didn't do the thing that we really love, which is creativity, fun back and forth, thinking in the moment, right? A lot of the games that are the best games bring those qualities to, yes, they have meaty, fun play and all that, but also the time to...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And as you mentioned, special events make it more complicated because what we want is special stuff. Well, the bigger conventions have more of that. So I find it's pretty similar. Like you said, if you can find a local convention, the nice thing there is, especially if you get to know your community, it's a lot easier to organize late night events.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
to dream and characters right like when we played mcdm's game i had a great time playing draw steel but i came up with a shtick for my character who was a warlord tactician type that he would call his mom for help on some magical telephone because he had no idea he's very new and so you know the first couple times i role played and someone in the you noted on the youtube video it was a funny concept of like uh mom there's like a guy in the other room what should i do you know like oh go you know use this power okay
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
But there wasn't kind of time to do that. Right. Partly it's being online, but partly it's because the game is so meaty that trying to work in the role playing takes, you know, a little bit of extra energy around all the tactics, at least until you learn all this stuff. But I love that stuff. That's the stuff I want in my games. And so they can fight each other, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So that's a long way of saying that I'm interested to experiment with these because I do like tactical play. I am worried that this is a load that will detract from my fun in a game.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I absolutely agree with you. It's hard because there's you can't get data to back it up, you know, and so it's tough. But I absolutely feel like you do. I have that feeling that one of the keys to 2014 success was that the rules are so elegant and they are basic. So you can play any type of game, whatever your impression is of fantasy.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
even if it's heroic superhero type fantasy, it could work with what 2014 gave you. As 2014 has gotten Tasha'd and on and on, and now 2024, it is more and more super heroic, whether you want it to or not. And it doesn't, you know, I was thinking actually in the shower today, I would have loved if mastery properties were an option. Yep. but they're baked in and there's no, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
extra slots and this is something we did all throughout living greyhawk we'll talk about greyhawk in the second part of the show uh we used to do things like i would go to bissell which was connecticut and i would play the offered slots and then i would play two midnight madness slots uh if not three and so the number of adventures i could play at a convention like that
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So if you want to play 2024, but you find that these are not creating the effect you want, or if a player game goes, God, this is so complicated. I just want to play a fighter. What happened? I was supposed, you told me it was the simple class, but I'm, you know, I used Nick and everybody got mad at me. And, or, you know, I used a SAP and, and, and, and then the DM seemed to not feel good.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
You know, what, what am I doing wrong? You know, it's just, it's, it's that load. That load is, is significant. And, And so hard to quantify, right? It's so hard to see why a game is great or not. But I've played a lot of third edition and fourth edition where players said, this is too much for me. And they didn't want to play anymore. And 2014 largely avoided that. Not always, but largely.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And now it feels like we're definitely headed in that direction. I agree with you. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And I think particularly our second show on Greyhawk was when we talked about living Greyhawk itself. The first one was the history of Greyhawks. I think it was our second show where we really kind of went into this.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
was huge because i could do all this before the convention or even on-site wrangling of you know impromptu dms who would run things for us and we would crank out you know i think at one convention i did 23 adventures 23 four-hour adventures uh which is not really possible if you do the math and that's because of various trickery things that we did to run very short very quickly it was just
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
The common problem back in third edition was the World of Warcraft hit one of the triad members and they disappeared just playing World of Warcraft. We laugh about how fourth edition was designed, but it was true that we were seeing this happen.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And again, just I want to say one last thing, which is the idea was really cool, right? Because if you take like, say, Adventurers League, there is an admin set that run everything. But nobody's trying to push individual storylines in that kind of level of detail.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And so breaking the world into these regional groupings with regional admins created a lot more capacity for like incredible play because all of these storylines had their own administrative team. And even if it was one person largely doing the work, you could have incredible stories coming out of some regions. Now, when it fell apart, it fell apart hard.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
But when it worked, it could do what you never could have just with a regular campaign, right? So Living Forgotten Realms had regions and it had some admins, but it works slightly differently. Couldn't quite do the same thing that Living Greyhawk had done.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And certainly with Adventurers League, you have a great team of admins, but you can't get that flavor that you would have if you had these regional groups and so on.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, Ontario and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, a couple other areas, yeah. Part of Canada.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, so we talked about like high folk. This is west of high folk where we talked about. So it's kind of like still close to the center of Greyhawk if you're looking at the map, but a little west of it. And what it does is control that sort of flow. If you were coming from sort of the Baklunish West and Zaif,
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
and the old areas there to the west you would have to go through Khet to kind of go through one of these narrow areas if you're not going to cross the big huge mountains you're coming through Khet and then you'll either go down to Bissell to the south or you'll go through mountain passes to get towards Voluna or High Folk to the east and that was a lot of the tension there's a lot of historic tension particularly with Bissell which is where you'd have to go if you wanted to go
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
through Ket and down into like the Sheldemar Valley towards Keeland, anything like that. You want to get to the ocean quickly, you're going either through Bissell or Voluna.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I wouldn't recommend it kids, but we were young and we needed these certs. You were 50, young and foolish.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, if you think about Moors invading Spain... It has that feel to it. And if you know, you know, kind of like the 600 or so years that the Moors ruled Spain, it has that feel with sort of how it took over Bissell and then retreated. It feels like that was sort of a parallel they were going for here.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And this is the kind of campaign or region that feels to me like an NPC. It's the kind of thing you put over somewhere so that you might have to deal with it periodically, but then go back to whatever you were doing. It doesn't feel like a place that I'd want to live in and launch adventures.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And when I look at, like you mentioned here in your show notes as well, conflicts and intrigues, it doesn't easily lend itself to things...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
adventurers want to do and how to operate within this society seems kind of difficult there's not a lot of support for it and i think kept struggled as a region in third edition during living your heart because that it had its conflict with bissell but it was hard to make that conflict interesting and not just were the bad guys right and one of i i only went to play in cat once but
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And I don't remember enough about the region, but, you know, one of the possibilities that you say, well, since Zaif was not a region, then you could possibly take on the sort of al-Akbar mystery and try to unravel, you know, why have we been so kind of zealous in our, say, taking over Bissell when we're supposed to be the good guys and serving al-Akbar, you know, and that could be more interesting to figure out why we've been going in a particular way.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And I thought I was... I know there was an Al-Akbar story track. I don't know if that was the core or if it was in, you know, maybe it was in this region. I don't recall. Yeah. Because I remember Abyssal hearing about it. But yeah. Anyway.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It was super, super loving. And then they said, oh, and we, you know, because they're in Europe. So they're like, I don't know, maybe they thought I'm ahead or who knows what happened. But either way, at the end of it, they were like, oh, wait, today's not your birthday. And so we had a good laugh.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And even resolve player action. So I'll try to tell this very, very quickly. But we had a situation where on the Yahoo group for the Jeff region, a person from another region started posting about how they're hanging out in town. And then they started saying the name. I forget.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
whose name it was but one of the demon lords over and over again and like the watch showed up to try to stop them and all this but they kept doing it and they were pretty powerful wizards so they were able to sort of like Well, what the triad ended up doing, our triad decided to create a gateway to hell in our favorite tavern or to the abyss.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And and then players were like, we want to find that wizard and hold them accountable. So then the two triads spoke together with the region this person was from and the region where it had happened. And they coordinated a strike.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
team attack on that player characters and sort of told him hey look there's a strike team coming for you we're going to resolve this which ended up with the player's character being bound in stone and presented to our king for you know deciding what to do with and yeah it was really very wild and fun and just the kind of thing that could happen just out of nowhere in in this living greyhound campaign right quite wild
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah. So this is kind of like if you're familiar with the Lord of the Rings concepts and, you know, we all sail off into the sea or Everest on the Forgotten Realms. It has some of that feel to it as a elven area with the following the Church of Sehanin, the highest cleric of Sehanin lives here. And we get a picture of dolphins swimming and a ship going across. But this is really far off the map.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It is all the way to the east on the edge of your map, this clump of large isles. These are not small islands that are kind of placed all the way east and south of the area, kind of east of Sundy. So it is not close to anything else.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
And that's deliberate because this sort of concept of like Lord of the Rings or Forgotten Realms that, you know, one would have to go out of their way to even hear about this.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, it's a weird region and hard to know. Again, one of those that you're like, wow, this is a real NPC region. Like, it's hard to know what you would do if you use this as your basis. Gee, what would you... There are...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
rebel humans here and there are half elves that remain from earlier times who have kind of conflicting agendas but I mean boy I don't know that any of this would be any fun it's a strange region and if you were to do something with it in 2024 I would want to change kind of almost all of this and maybe dig into that feeling of
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It is your Everest, right, your more elven place off the end and and and maybe that they welcome scholars from other just change it up somehow. I'd have a change to to get rid of this kind of species war aspect that, yeah, does not resonate today to me.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, it's a little weird for me because there's this whole idea of how profitable it is, right? But the problem is this is on the corner of the map. And the only thing south is the Amedeo jungle or the Amedeo jungle? No, the Piedmont land. Uh, so hip model land is down below. And so it's one of these ideas. It's very colonial in its, in its approach.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It doesn't super say it in this version, but you know, where's the, where's the trade and money coming from? Cause you're sort of far off. from where all the nations are. So what is it? Well, you've got to be extracting resources from the South and then fueling the racist Sewell Brotherhood. And so Scarlet Brotherhood, none of it is great. And, you know, it doesn't...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
and it's also just so far off to the edge of the map it's a little different when you say talk about the moon shades and you have a mix of things going on you you have some clear commerce between the mainland and the the forces and the moon shades and hey you also have some pirates and some other stuff that makes a lot more sense i think than this does uh unless you're just gonna super dig into a colonial kind of narrative so i would absolutely change the lordship of the isles to be different it's it's fine to have pirates but
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
It's positioning and story is kind of not fun for me.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
to help us out there like subscribe and do the things teos if people want to just push me aside and just look at your stuff where do they do that uh well they can find me at alpha stream.org though boy i've i have so many things i want to do and boy that day job relentless day job keeps getting in the way but let's say they want to get rid of me and find you where do they go
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I'm going to prove the world by making my own character builder that contains all of 2014 and 2024 until I realize I've run into IP infringement and copyright infringement, and then I will be sued, and then I'll close it all down.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Yeah, and the other thing is what your levels are, right? So if you're a first-level character, right, a new player bringing in a first-level character, well, that's one thing. But if you're trying to get mid-level or high-level play, then different conventions will do that differently, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
The Baldwin Games conventions try to give you a good assortment of that, and they are aimed at pleasing sort of the most players possible. So that benefits you if you have a wide variety of characters and levels so you can play everything that's offered. If you're either brand new or really established, well, then that, you know, will change things up.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I will share, if I can pull it up quickly here, yeah, a fun number, which is that at Gen Con... Dungeons and Dragons offered, through Baldwin Games, 15,815 seats of D&D. And so that gives you a thought of just how big that is, right? That's an enormous number of opportunities.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
If you have hard-pressed to rank them, I mean, the reality is your Origins, your Gen Con, those are going to have the most seats. um, winter fantasy is right there. And, and then the others, uh, will be less than that. Right. Uh, I'd have to look and see how game whole con compares. And I'm not entirely sure.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Um, but a big part of it, I would say they're close enough to what it translates to is a lot of opportunities to get to play. If you can find a slightly smaller convention, uh, your chances to land what you want are better, right? So Gen Con has a lot of seats, but a lot of people, a lot of to counter those lots of DMs.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So Winter Fantasy, it's probably a little easier to grab the particular seats you want, the schedule you want if you sign on that first day. Gamehole, same thing. Even smaller, more and more chances that you'll get exactly what you want, even if it's a little less. So it really plays off and there's no one answer that will really fit all this.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
Well, OK, in our in our timeline, not the listener timeline. Yeah. So, yeah. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. I still think one of the best jokes you ever did was when you told everybody on Twitter that I was turning 60 when I was like 45 or something. And a lot of people really believed it, which made me feel really good about myself.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
I think that's awesome. I love it, love it, love it. Very astute. What I would add to this is going back to, you know, what am I doing wrong? You're not doing anything wrong if you're having fun. What I would say to DMs to consider is the effect of sort of always revealing things, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So if you're gonna use passive perception and you're gonna say, hey, you see this, you see that, you see the other, that's fine. And if your notes are accounting for it, that's fine. And then we can think about what the kind of engagement is that you're generating. So if you are making the world interesting through this, then all good, no problems, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
So if you're constantly saying like, you know, hey, Sarah, you just saw this thing over there that looks really cool. It's a discarded weapon kind of wedged in the corner. This is neat, right? It's showing the world off. And if you describe a trap as something about those flagstones seems off, you're going to want to investigate that. And that's really cool, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
But what often happens at tables that kind of follow what you're talking about is they will say, you find a plus two sword, Sarah. Hey, Jeremy, over there looking, you see a trap and so you can avoid that. Now what you've done is removed the fun exploration from the game and you have solved the problems. Right. Right. And that is what players minds lead them to do. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Weapon Mastery and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 204)
They'll think, well, if I take the observant or the alert feed and I do this and then, you know, then I will see everything and I will never be hurt. Well, you will be hurt in your soul because the game becomes so boring that every trap is solved for you. And the point of a trap is engagement, not punishment. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, it's interesting to look at, like, I think second edition was really the time when we had the most kind of house rules and lack of uniformity out there, both because second edition itself had so much for it and all the oney stuff that people would use, too. But you found, you know, you couldn't be on a forum online, you know, on Usenet or wherever without. all kinds of house rules.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And then there were so many books and supplements that just had wild ideas. And so what would happen is if you went into the local pegboard at your local gaming store and you jumped into some person's game, the first thing you probably got was a house rules document. And it could be from any of those things. It could be something they found online, some product, some weird settings, some whatever.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And it has some actually really fun articles on the D&D movie. and on Stranger Things that are just kind of fun of their own right. But yeah, it's sort of like a pop culture look, like the pop culture history of D&D and the pop culture, what is important of D&D. And it's fun for its own ways for that. I also got the alternate cover Player's Handbook.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And that was what they enjoyed. And it could be just wildly different, you know, if they liked skills and powers towards the end of it, if they liked kits, if they liked and you name it, right? You know, some sort of wizard duels in Dungeon Magazine, right? I mean, anything's possible. Yeah. And it was so wild that you just it was like you feared it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
You feared showing up at another person's table because it was so disparate. And since then, rules have tried to be a lot more cohesive, standard, understandable to the point where I think in 2015, you know, there's also you hear a cry out of like there aren't enough house rules out there, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Or or homebrew is a dirty word because we've become a lot more communal in how we approach things, which is making a few tweaks.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
part of that is because the rules are very very good but you may be seeing a little more now as you at least people are saying that we'll see what they actually do but they're saying things like well i'm not gonna do weapon masteries i'm gonna do them this way or you know those kinds of things because i think the game is trying to sort of clamp down in a way that maybe isn't as clear to everybody or or so universally accepted for just working at any table right yeah
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And it does not, Goldfold does not come off in my hands. So they did their job right. Congratulations. We'll call that a...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I share your perspective. Mm-hmm. And especially because I am very scenario now driven, right? So as an example, if you come into town and you want that blacksmith to make something for you, I'm most certainly not going to use whatever player crafting rules there are. This isn't a character, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
This is an NPC and they will make that thing based on what I want it to take, based on the scenario, the timing, the whatever, and to make it fun.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And, you know, the last thing I want to do is say, well, OK, now this blacksmith needs to take a week of downtime and let's see if they complete three checks or whatever the thing, you know, they need to procure the materials like now, like it's going to be whatever I want it to be. And that's the kind of game that I prefer to run.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Some other folks, though, really want the whole world to always make sense. And where I think the designers are better off is when they can Maintain that separation. It is a game about your heroes, not about the whole world. But you don't want it to seem so out of whack that you go, well, this wouldn't possibly work in a real world. And I mean, let's all be clear.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
We're always maintaining that little shield of dumbness, deliberate, you know, dumbness to believe in the world, because there's just no way any society would function with wizards the way all of these function, these societies depict. Even Eberron, right? I mean, even that we choose certain places where we allow lightning trains and whatever to feel like, oh, yeah, magic had an impact.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But I mean, no, you would have slave trade wizards that are just sitting there casting an at will prestidigitation day in, day out.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
it would be horrible what our society would do with actual wizards would be horrible right and i don't want that in my game right you you start getting into reality with fantasy and it's it's not pretty and and you know i want to have a fun right fun game where we go and kill dragons so yeah and and then the second part of that is you know the the the
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
We'd like to retract everything.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah. And that's what I think, you know, 2014 does a pretty good job of it, of trying to step back a little bit from where third and fourth were of sort of demanding certain skills be maxed out, be whatever. I mean, third edition, it was like a it was like warfare, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Like characters and their players felt like I must hit some unbelievable DC because an unbelievable DC will come my way someday. And that was such a bad, that hot-cold model was destructive. It was combative. Fourth edition brought that back a bit, but skill challenges are important. Fifth edition, I think, has tried to be much more open about it, right? That sort of flexibility to say that...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
your skill system is a representation of your character. It's interaction with the environment. It allows for these scenes, these kinds of neat situations, and that there will be enough looseness in these numbers that in general, the DM can create a particular type of experience reasonably, right? And I think it does that fairly well.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, and we saw this at 2014 jumping right like yeah That was a case for 2014 for whatever reason at the last minute decided to make this change and suddenly Jumping was based on your score and no not a die roll in most cases And so then you could just see that well a five-foot put pit is now useless
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
unless something's going to push you in it right unless there's some trickery involved everybody can jump it automatically and you saw the first adventure designers even official products mess that up because it was hard to suddenly you had to know this right and then you started seeing reasons why there's a check and i'm curious whether this will happen with 2024 because if i look at what i see at least in the player's handbook i haven't seen the dmg yet but the player's handbook
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
tells me seems to say all locks, all traps, one DC. Yeah, that seems really weird. Anathema to most designers and how they think. So will we know what will designers do to explain why this trap is harder than the DC that's in this book? Because that's what the player was led to expect and might generate their character. If I can hit that DC, I'm done. End of story. Well, who knows right now?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
We'll see where this goes.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Well, Variety reports that this long gestating, as they called it, Magic the Gathering animated series has a new showrunner, Terry Matalas. Matalas received praise for the third season of Star Trek Picard, the sci-fi series 12 Monkeys and other projects. Before this, it was the Russo brothers in 2019 and then Jeff Klein in 2021. And then it has been just completely quiet.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And someone actually interviewed said, well, I think this is dead. But hey, out of nowhere, now the series has a new showrunner. And so, you know, maybe that'll bring new script writing or pilot proposals or who knows what, but more energy to the show. And, you know, the reason for reporting this isn't just that it's kind of interesting, but it's Magic the Gathering.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It's not D&D, but the D&D TV show is also in this sort of situation now. And there are things like there is the Transformers movie coming out. And these days, because of Hasbro, it can all be a lot more integrated, right? And how one does can mean how the next does. So if we have a super successful Magic the Gathering Netflix series, that may bring a D&D TV show.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
We saw Optimus Prime in the virtual tabletop demo, right? Against Driz Dwarden. So all of these things kind of can fuel each other. And so in some ways, you want to kind of cheer them all on a bit and hope that they can do something interesting with them because it could all tie into how D&D fares.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It's really cool. And, you know, this has been something Jared is like my better self. It's like I was thinking to myself, you know, I really want to comb through all these old materials and really remember what all this stuff happens in these various adventures and what Vecna does and to what extent the fifth edition adventure builds off of that or is something completely different.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But I didn't have to because Jared did all the work. Thanks, Jared. Thank you. He goes and starts way back with Eldritch Wizardry and in the original Dungeons and Dragons and the DMG where it's just basically two artifacts from this dead, famous person. And then we get like a cartoon and we get all other things. And, you know, some of it's conflicting backstory, as he rightly calls out.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It doesn't all make sense or jive, but Vecna lives as an adventure based in Greyhawk. Very cool. At the end of it, Vecna is defeated and then he ends up in the domains of dread and Cass is his neighbor and another neighboring Ravenlob domain of dread. Then he escapes and Vecna reborn with sort of a weird idea of how to get out of a domain of dread.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
uh divekna die was this huge adventure uh at the end of of one edition leading to the next and it's one of those things where when editions change often and maybe this is you know is is uh 2024 a new edition maybe this answers it and that we didn't have an adventure that really explained all the rules changed right but we sure do in other cases and one of the things that happens is divekna die
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
is all about Vecna finding how to get into Sigil and trying to rewrite everything. And it's the explanation of why, like in third edition, a plane like the Nine Hells can have a version for Greyhawk and a version for the Forgotten Realms.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
right uh he is expelled out from sigil but becomes a full deity fourth edition names as a as a deity for for an entire veil setting which was interesting and even things jared talks about like critical role where it's not canon right it's not at all the way that they fought vecna and kept him from being a god and then akon the cruel at the last minute uh steals the hand of vecna and gets away not canonical at all except for the fact that akon the cruel
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
does have the hand in Descent into Avernus, official fifth edition adventure, and the name Exandria is mentioned. So you're like, wait, maybe it was canonical? And then, yeah, Jared makes this great point that sort of Vecna actually has been, while he started as just two artifacts and as a Greyhawk power, became a villain that was very much tied into this idea of multiverses, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
From the Domains of Dread to trying to sort of change all these multiverses into being just a single one. Like, he's actually been at it for quite some time, and it was very clever of them to tie into that for 5th edition again.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And so, yeah, and he makes some comments like maybe the reason why the hand and I don't appear as artifacts in Vecna Eve of Ruin is because of Joe Manganiello's falling out with D&D over the Dragonlance TV series. It's really all of this blog is just fantastic reading. Really fun. Incredible. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, I think this is fun. And I appreciate the Bologna scale of things. But I will say, to me, what made D&D Bologna really awesome was it was Oscar Mayer.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
right and it was something that was in grocery stores in spain where you know your random cousin whatever family member is going to be in that meat aisle and go isn't that game that my you know whatever plays and and it creates this discussion right magic the gathering had the um what was it in the frozen food aisle like egos or something like that not too long ago oh the uh hat pockets
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Hot pockets. Yes. Thank you. Right. Like that's a great example. We're just random people are going to go like, oh, OK, this is a thing. And maybe go like, oh, that's that game I always wanted to try or that game I played a million years ago. And, you know, that creates a real change. Mythic meets, you know, hey, have some fun with that. But you're not in everyday store sales shelves. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
The D&D stamps. To me, that is the new high water mark. Right. Because. That is something in the UK and the US where random people are like, I went to my post office and I'm seeing that sign saying Dungeons and Dragons 50th year anniversary. That is the kind of, you know, exposure of the brand that is just, you know, you can't pay for enough to get that kind of thing, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It's like the 80s cartoon. It's just on everyone's TV. It's on everybody's stamps. It can just mail away. To me, that is the highest pinnacle we've ever seen. But I will take all of it, John. Even if I find today's dried meats to be weirdly overpriced, what happened?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
You can wash it down with the Beetle and Grimm's alcohol and then have the mimic chocolate bar that I got once to try and it was very tasty. There you go.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, you know, my group, we applied to do play testing, additional play testing. We were not picked. But they were kind enough to send us a discount on this. So I did actually pick this up already. It's $60 for that core rulebook, which comes not just the book, but also the 279 cards. That's pretty sweet. Maybe a very reasonably priced.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
I feel like everything Daggerheart makes is sort of like cheaper than it should be. And maybe that's on purpose. You know, I don't know. The limited edition has alternate cover cards, larger storage box, DM screen, character sheets, 120 acrylic tokens for 150, which again, pretty reasonable for compared to other products out there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It is interesting to see these companies that are this is starting to become a thing, right? We're like, if you don't kickstart, you still like preorder.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
if it's almost like it's like kickstarting when you know that you're going to fund anyway right it's an interesting approach and sometimes you see both like pre-ordering and kickstarting and so yeah companies will do all they can to kind of get the money in before the product actually goes out we've seen it with mcdm and with others i'm excited to see what daggerheart does uh what that the last changes they do um pretty neat stuff yeah
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, you have until October 22nd to ban it. Ban it? To back it. There we go. Don't ban it. I did think it was a neat concept, right? This idea, like, I think it's clever to say, hey, take whatever worlds you've got and bring them into the labyrinth as a sort of connective venture tissue. I thought that actually could have been something that D&D could have done more strongly with Radiant Citadel.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
You know, to really say like, look, use this. Here's how. So it seems like a smart thing. And one thing I noticed is like Richard Green worked on Parsantium as a world a long time ago. And like that is being added here. Right. So there's that capacity that you can add other people's settings, not just as stretch goals, but just in that concept of this is what it's meant to do. That's neat.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Absolutely. Yeah, you want to... You're saying, by adding this section, you're saying our players... will be better off if they have some understanding of the underpinning in the world. Some of that may represent just baseline knowledge, like a person, you know, in the Forgotten Realms should have some concept of other dimensions existing. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But also a little bit on the player side of the working of like, hey, there are a bunch of material planes or a material plane with a bunch of worlds in it. And I guess is the current way and and how you characterize that can be really important to the game. And sometimes when you know things too well, you forget how to share that information or maybe this is deliberate.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But if I look at, for example, the Feywild in 2014 and the Feywild in 2024, we go from a large paragraph to just this. I'm holding it up here for viewers, just the tiniest sliver. It's just a little paragraph that that shows up. And that is.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
you know all we say here is this vibrant idealized realm brings with brims with life and emotion which are most intense in the realm's domains of delight and i almost don't know what you said there like i don't know what domains of delight is you just it's capitalized so it's a place i guess or place is um vibrant idealized realm you didn't even say that there are fake creatures here though i guess that's in the name feywild
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Whereas the Feywild description 2014 is more of like what we might have thought about explaining of an ultra vibrant world with fake creatures. We get examples of the kinds of creatures, you know, music and all these kinds of things. And similarly with the Shadowfell, You know, the we get very little here.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
In fact, what we get is this the infamous domains of dread, which aren't mentioned in 2014 as well as sort of the few things that are here. But it's just wastelands, haunted ruins and domains of dread. That's your Shadowfell in this gloom haunted realm. But it does not explain things the way that they are as a sort of alternate version of reality or anything like that.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Well, you know, and Timely is today's headlines in that issue, Time magazine issue of Dungeons and Dragons. They look at all the kind of video games and they talk about this 1974 students in Southern Illinois University who develop a game for the Play-Doh computer system. They call it the dungeon.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And yeah, it's a really interesting shift of the design goal, perhaps.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah. And I think in the DMG is where you get more of the mapping to gods and and a little more about them and the physical image of what they look like and all of that. You know, there were a couple of different art pieces, but you get this concept of layers and infinity for some things like that.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And second edition deities and demigods takes it to a whole nother level with really interesting concepts on what the priesthoods are like and adds a whole dimension. I know Alex Cameron is a big fan of that book and rightfully so, because it adds just a dimension to it that is really, really fascinating of what the gods are like and these realms.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And yeah, and I think that continues on into third edition design as well.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And that domain concept is important in the Player's Handbook because third edition takes that second edition idea of priesthoods being different and says, okay, you will get domain powers, some small bonus for the domains that are associated with your god, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And they decide to add a boss battle because they wanted the game to have something big at the end, right? And sort of like the first video game boss battle that was like a D&D-themed game inspired by. And I think there is that to it, but I mean, yeah, as far back as you can think of of adventures, there are big boss battle fights. And I think it's evolved... you know, hand in hand, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But that's interesting. Yeah, go ahead. This is described as a best of God's pantheon, right? As a sort of more of an example. And I think Fortithian is trying to say. There are so many worlds to D&D, and so here is kind of Nentir Vale is going to use this best of of all the different worlds and pull them in together. And that's why all these are here, which is interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
I got a Japanese anime cry. It's great. I'm so proud of my son. I went to Santa Clara University for the first time. My wife had been there, but I did not go when they first visited. And it was amazing. Like, it was really good. The staff all said really nice, touching things. And the teachers seemed surprisingly competent and everything. And like, it was fantastic. Everything was great.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, it's really interesting to look at from a number of perspectives, like we could just do an entire show on this, but it is, it feels like, and maybe I'm transposing what they've said in other cases, but the design team, you feel like this was approached from the idea of this may be the last version of D&D. We don't know if this is going to be successful or not.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Let's kind of cover all the bases. So in the gods section, you know, let's tell you the difference between Greyhawk and Eberron and Forgotten Realms and so on. And for the planes, let's try to show the kind of variety of what's out there, because this book may need to support all of it. Who knows what else we're going to get away with creating is sort of how it feels like to me.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
You know, so maybe you'll be running an Egyptian themed campaign. Whereas I think the 2024 team can go like, yeah, we don't need to cover that. You know, we will be telling you what you play in and it's going to be successful enough. So we can just ditch all that stuff, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
No, in fact, I think 5th Edition tries to sort of explain them away. There are regions where they come together and delve into this. And in fact, the way that the DMG explains it, because we reviewed this in our DMG analysis, it's more like where these planes combine and with the material planes
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Where D&D has led the way in terms of how to depict the storytelling in a game, maybe.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
That's where this stuff is sort of you end up with like some oozy stuff or icy stuff or whatever, but it's not. They are not separate planes. Here we go back to that, which I've always liked those planes, so I think it's cool that they exist.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But but it's one of those, you know, how do you explain what these planes are and what it means to go from one side of it to the other or deeper into it or every one to look at it? And and they definitely chose a different path here than they had earlier on. And you have to wonder why. Is there some adventure coming that's going to make use of this like? It was just someone decided.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
I mean, I sometimes think of 2024, you could call it a lot of things. And boy, people seem to not want to just use one term. But, you know, while we're throwing around terms, opinionated 5E is one that I could live with because it has a perspective. Whereas you could almost call 2014, or I would argue this, unopinionated 5E should work for everybody, no matter what kind of campaign you run.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
This has a very like particular way towards it. And I don't know, I look at this information on the multiverse and it's like, I don't know what to do with it. Like, you know, they bothered to put in alignments for the outer planes, going back to that AD&D concept. But, okay, and I see Arcadia, for example, drawn here.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
right um but but also uh with the idea of these mechanics right which which are video very video gamey in form and and there's a lot of back and forth right well wouldn't it be cool if right but you can look at i don't know old deities and demigods or anything like that and and and look at you know there were deities they could just touch your magic item and drain it of all its power
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
I don't know, it sort of looks like a weird video game graphic-y kind of thing with some conical mountains and whatever's. And it just says lawful good, lawful neutral. I don't know anything about it. So why is it here? Like, if you're going to tell me so little,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Well, that's fine. But then I would say... take away this two-page thing here that tells me actually very little and replace that with something that's inspiring around the scope of adventures and how they can cross the plains and give me just some neat kernels of interest that will make me want to
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
both play in those things and be aware of the fact that this could happen as part of play and maybe want to make me DM, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And tell those kinds of neat stories that go beyond your... And yeah, maybe recast it as like the life of a hero can include not just, you know, saving your town or whatever, but it can span the realms and it can bring you to the home of your deity or the biggest villains and just... Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
becomes not a weight i just think this brevity has you know like if i look at 2014 the table with the alignments which you can debate how useful that is or not i know how you feel you know at least it tells me arcadia the peaceable kingdoms of mechanist the clockwork nirvana of you know akron the infinite battlefield of something that tells me what the why i'm even looking at this otherwise i'm just looking at stuff on a page that's meaningless
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
yeah and non-inspiring except that on dnd beyond right now you can go by planescape the book and see all and get get the answer to all of that yeah i could also get confused by it or you know i don't yeah i i could also buy the 2014 book and it'll tell me more i don't know i just think that they've gone to to brevity right with like the question that prompted this of you know what do we make of
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Or grant you wishes or whatever, right? The ability to be a boss beyond comprehension almost because it's so incredibly powerful. And so there's always kind of been that, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
This being so drastically reduced. Well, I think a couple of things. One thing is you've you've removed the gods entirely. And in some ways that makes sense because you're not trying to limit the scope of things. But you've also made it so that deities are further disappearing from play and importance and in consideration. And I don't know that that's fun.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
I would debate the fun of that and the service that it provides to the players, the benefit to the players to remove that. Similarly, with the planes of existence, I think that when you've distilled it down to this one page of text and an image, you've lost a lot of what made this interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yes, you know, sure, it can be in the DMG and stuff, but that's the book that people keep on saying they've never read. Right. Even DMs. And yes, there is a planescape setting, but then you got to go by that and read all those things. And, you know, how many people do that? We know the numbers are low on that. And so I just this was your chance. This was your chance to inspire and inform.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And I feel like it's right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and maybe that's it is that, you know, fifth edition 2014 being a new edition, it felt it had to declare what things were right. Um, like separate a bit from the dawn war of fourth edition and things like that. Um, and maybe 2024, uh, I might even say tricks itself into thinking, well, I don't have to say that because there's all this other stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But but I mean, this is your this is your first book for a new player. And so I think it does. I think it should give me what I need to know. Otherwise, then remove the entire section. Right. What you've told me here is guns don't matter.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, I mean, and I think you and I, we may sound further apart than we are, like you made a comment in the show notes that I totally agree with, which is like, you know, tell me what do gods in the multiverse mean to your setting? Right. So that you position then settings to tell you, I think that would be great. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Like that would be really neat because I think somehow what I see more and more at the table is only the cleric seems to care about their deity and actually very little. Like I'm seeing more and more of that. That's not always, but you just, you know, we're further, further away.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, for sure. I agree with you, Sean. I'll just add from my end that the other thing is you see it's patternistic in the same way that if you read an encyclopedia, we've said this is encyclopedic. You know, at some point you're like, I'm going to learn. I'm going to read everything in the encyclopedia. You may have done this if you're old.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And you at some point went, yeah, maybe I'm done or I'll skip this section. And it's the same way. These start resembling the approach that was taken to the book over and over again, even though they're different regions. It's, you know, this war and this clash. And how did I use threaten you? You know, how did I use hurt you? Please tell us. And what are you doing about it?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Which is probably, you know, not great. And it's like that. And it really does... continue the same pattern over and over again. So even though there are some really neat regions, like, you know, we haven't talked about Valley of the Mage. We've only addressed Voluna a little bit, you know, Verbal Bonk. Some of these are famous areas that tie into the history.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But I think as listeners, you get it. You get what's here. And if you are curious about the last few regions, we have three where we kind of wrote up we were going to cover and won't. And then we have the list of the others.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And so you can take our show notes and go look up anywhere on the internet, kind of, you know, backgrounds about those if you want to complete it or check out the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer yourself. But, you know, I think that, you know, if I can say to sort of wrap this up, Sean, and add your piece of what you think.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
One of the things we wanted to do with this series was answer the question that a lot of people will ask, which is, how is Greyhawk different from the Forgotten Realms or other settings? And it's different because I think it more closely ties to war games. the ideas of nations conquering one another, and this being a lot of the play that's in place, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It's been really fun for me to read John Peterson's Playing at the World, and I'm holding a copy of the second edition, because in fact, in this, they share that in one of the early diplomacy games that they're playing, they have these various variants of diplomacy, and one of them includes one involving the Great Kingdom. And it has the near div in it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And, you know, this is all parts that we've covered in Greyhawk because they start just using it, this world for the lake of unknown depths and the dry steps. And let's see, where's my picture? There we go. You know, this is literally the world of Greyhawk or part of it. And and just that's what's going on here. Right. It's an it's a coming from this background.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And what that means is there's an emphasis on world building. where everything is balanced on the tip of a dagger and can go one way or the other way, and there's going to be blood either way. And every region is like that, which is kind of amazing, right? The Forgotten Realms feels very stable.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Even areas that are set up for change or, oh, the king passed away or whatever, it still feels like, and the next 20 years could be just like this entry. Every Greyhawk region feels like next year is going to be totally different. Right. Or more likely to be different than anything else. All right. What do you think? Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Again, and then leaving you back at that steady state. Adventures do this too, right? You know, Tiamat shows up and then everything's fine. That's what novels often do to the point where the world then feels fleshed out and stable, right? Icewind Dale, all kinds of wild things happen in the novels of the Driz Dwarden series. and then get resolved.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
So now we're back to the steady state and the world feels very safe state versus Greyhawk. No, it's all right. They're about to explode, about to go one way or the other. And it can be, you know, what happens in one region. It's like dominoes for everything else. And that's kind of neat.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It also means that you have a lot of different possible stories you can tell based on what regions you choose and which aspects you lean into. Whereas the Forgotten Realms, you certainly have like climactic differences, climate, you know, architecture or whatever sort of cultural things.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But it feels like which nation you choose doesn't, you know, like if you are Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep, is it a huge difference? And I would argue it's not as great a difference as where in Greyhawk you sit.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, no, 100%. I completely agree. We have formalized things. And I mean, I think Jeremy Crawford has spoken to it, right? The idea that what Jeremy's trying to do, what the team are trying to do is to simplify life for the DM so the DM doesn't have to make calls. And if you go back and listen to previous team members for 2014, they were trying to make it so let's empower the DM again, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a real possibility that, For a future, I mean, I think the DMG for 2024 is likely to do very little, right? And I'm not saying it's bad. Like you could easily talk me into in a designer boardroom meeting kind of thing. We're all in the room.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
What do we do to say, hey, let's just take a couple of areas in Greyhawk and paint a broad brushstroke of what the world is, choose a couple of regions and explain to DMs how you can use that to create a cool campaign. Done. Let's use eight pages. Ten pages. Twelve. I don't know. Are they going to cover all this stuff? No. Not at all. But...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
you can use that as the springboard for either DMs doing this work or a future product where you could take this that we find in the Gazetteer and modernize it to have all of that potential we talked about, right? And to have really neat opportunities for the kinds of campaigns and stories you can tell because it's a world uniquely suited to that compared to the other settings. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
We didn't cover also here, Sean, just to make sure folks know that after this section of the glossography of the of the yeah, the glossography, I think it's called. Then you have a gazetteer of the Flores. Then you have the geography of the Flores. And this further fills in not just it goes beyond the regions, the nations.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
and into the hills the mountains the swamps the forests and all of them have varying amounts of stuff sometimes a little too encyclopedic you know what are the three types of main trees or whatever but often with really cool hooks as well and the again the potential for pivotal things right what is layering in these forests and what could suddenly be a big impact um yeah which is kind of cool
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
A player's guide, which...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah, and there's some great ones we mentioned, you know, the circle of eight before and the history and how they've changed membership, the the silent ones of Keelan you had mentioned. And, you know, one that I love near and dear to my heart is the old faith. And it's a great example of how you can have this intersection of the information that's in this book with the reality of play, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
So in my region, in the Living Greyhawk campaign that we've talked about of Jeff, this idea of the old faith that serves the Earth Mother Bayori, who is maybe the planet herself as a goddess. was taken and the idea of the flan people who worship the old faith was taken with the region of Jeff being conquered by giants, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
If you think of it against the giant series and all of that, and created a really neat concept. And Eric Mengi was one of the architects of this, who's a patron backer. Thank you, Eric. And thank you for creating this because what he did was say, okay, Baori, Halor, Obad Hai, and even Nerol, the god of death,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
are all worshiped by the flan in in certain aspects right like nerul as a god of decay and they're tied to the seasons right summer is palor and the fall is obad high and then winter is is nerul and the druids worship these aspects and they the old faith druids are often the lake in this area of jeff and with the monks and bards who protect them and you all of this can really come together to create fantastic regions
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Make the calls that are going to be fun at your table the way the game should play out. And those are very different views of the world. It's fascinating to me because 4th edition was super into that codification, right? It was almost like going back to wargaming roots where you would just, you know, you look at those diagrams of whether a thing has...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
That's the kind of thing that I would love to see in the DMG, that kind of instruction of how does one create a setting that is really cool for your players to explore and get to know, right? That's so much more important than a glossography or what these hills are or what this nation is, is what do I do with what you gave me and how do I create my own version of that, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Yeah. And then the chapter seven goes into deities and it's, you know, encyclopedic, though it has some nice aspects to it. And one of the things that I really love is the art. They don't do this for every god, but for a lot of the gods, they show off what different priests look like. Let me see if I can get for those viewing the video. There we go. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And it shows how much their dress varies, but through the artist trying to also show their mannerisms and beliefs. And it goes to that question at the beginning of the book, you know, like how is it important to explain, you know, religion in some way? Well, this is one of the ways you do that by showing just how different you can be depending on who you worship, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And how important this is to the setting to have these different beliefs and followers and so on.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
uh cover or whether it uh you know is in within range and whether it has um uh a combat advantage type thing right like all of that you know are you flanking like those things were so precise and it wasn't about your judgment and you can look at 2014 with like its stealth rules and it's like
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it was really and it was one of the better ones because of that. One of the campaigns that for all of its ups and downs really got a reaction out of players and tons of people who are very devoted to it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Absolutely. Well, I want to thank everybody who has provided feedback on this series. Now comes the time when you can tell us what you want to see us cover next. A lot of you folks have enjoyed our 2014 to 2024 comparisons. So we'll focus on that for now. But let us know what else you'd like to see. Maybe things that tie into future releases. Let us know. And thank you all.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Thank you to the Master of Dungeons supporters, Master of Realms. We give you a shout out in our show notes. All of you are vital to to our making the show and the masters of the multiverse who get this special shout out now.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Keith Amann of Monsters Know What They're Doing, Lou Anders from Lazy Wolf Studios, Craig Bailey, David Bastionson, Steve Bissonnette, Merrick Blackman, Calvin Bridges Avalos, Evil John, Will Doyle, Andy Edmonds at Nerdonomicon.com, James Fisher, Scott Fitzgerald Gray at Insane Angel Studios, Ben Heisler and Paige Leitman, Sean Hurst, The Mighty Jerd, Brian King, Jim Klingler, aka DM Prime Mover,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Chad Lynch, Paul Matta, The Mathemagician, Eric Mengi, Anna B. Meyer, Fantasy Cartography, and thank you for all that Greyhawk inspiration, Trey McLemore, John Mickey, Sean Molly, Falcon Neil, Tom Nelson of the Deck of Player Safety, Mighty Zeus,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Phil Wirt from the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo, Post Fiction RPG Audio, Robert Pasley, Vladimir Prenner from Croatia, Pugnus, Ozymandias Rex, Runner Rick, Chance Russo at Drago Russo, Andy Shockney, Krishna Simonsei, Josh N. Lewanica of the Tabletop Journeys podcast, and
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
you're hidden if sort of maybe your target is distracted or your DM feels like it or whatever, you know, and then people would maybe want more because that's a natural thing that people will want. But the game was ultimately saying, and you figure this out. And now we get into a situation where invisible doesn't even mean what you think it means in English. It's like a condition, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Talos the Storm Lord, Jerry Taloman from the D&D and TV podcast, Tres, Joe Tyler, Marcelo de Velasquez, the Valiant DM, James Walton, Graham Ward, Jason Ward from Accidental Cyclops Games, Javier Waziak, Chris Webster, and Walt Winfrey. Thank you all so much. You can find us at patreon.com slash mastering D&D and support us there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
If you can also give us a review on Apple podcast or whatever podcatcher listening device you are using. And you can subscribe to YouTube to see our fantastic faces. Sean, where do we find you? At Sean Merwin, wherever you get your socials on. Fantastic. Yes. And you can find the show at Mastering D&D. You can find me at AlphaStream.org. And Sean, what are we going to do now?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It's a thing. It's a state. That's an on off switch of the game. Right. And that is really very different.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Way beyond where I dared expect it would all feel like. Yeah, it seemed like he was fitting in well. And so now he just lives without us.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Well, and this ties into the next section of the question. Can I kind of go on to that? Please do. This is there is a community that seems to take advantage of loose wording or intentionally look for places to gain advantage by reading rules in a particular way. A 2024 example of this is opportunity attacks.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
The first two sentences in that section clearly stated that it applies to enemies and foes, but a rather large community is claiming they can do an op attack or an ally on an ally because the mechanical text
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
uses the word creature and they've interpreted enemies as flavor text and what this is if you haven't seen this little piece of ridiculousness it's the idea that you can take an opportunity attack to like cure your friend when they move by when they move out of here because it's i forget the exact technicality but it's like the wording Now, it doesn't say that they threaten you.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
It just says that they've moved out of your reach. And it doesn't say enemies in a particular place. It says creatures.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
So you could take like the I forget what is the Mage Slayer feed or whatever, but you could basically as an opportunity to cast a cure spell on your ally, which now can be abused because every time your allies need help, they can just move around you and they're away from you and cause this free healing.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And I don't know how you feel about this, Sean, but I think the more that you are nailing down things, it creates in the player this mentality that all exactness can be used, right? And so then they start parsing for this. And I sort of feel like this happens the more that you try to nail down things. It does. Right? Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
Right. Yeah, but what I think that is what you do get. So you can't kind of either way, you're going to get some people arguing whatever. And, you know, the Gamers movie had the beautiful example of like, you know, can I just set up a ballista, you know, or a crossbow behind, you know, to to just arm this thing up to then like sneak attack with it on this person in a tavern. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
The rules don't say I can't. And the DM is just like, I don't know that this feels wrong, but I don't know how to behave. And so here is this bro, you know, setting it all up to fire is huge. Yeah, you know, and that's the kind of thing you get. But but there is it is a thing that like the more that you claim in your game that your wording is perfect.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
The more that people will go, oh, well, if it's perfect, then then that certainly means I can do the following. Right. You have endorsed this when they're just words and we're all trying to do our best. Sometimes when it's looser, you just know it's clearer that we are doing our best with few words. And so we should figure it out. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
And what I do think is that the more that you are nailing things down. you are driving particular behavior interactions more and more versus creative use of things. I've had a lot of fun reading Playing at the World, which on one hand, this this revised version, it can be a little boring because it's a lot about the wargaming side of things.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
You know, it wasn't just a weekend for him because at the local Target event, I found the issue of Time magazine, the special edition. I read it cover to cover during the nights. And yeah, it's pretty neat. It's a very fun kind of it's like a look at history from a particular perspective, which I think is great. And it's fun and it has nice pictures and art and everything.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
But and I get why John's being very clinical, John Peterson, in writing this. In describing really where does D&D come from, right? And they're getting into things like the Bronstein rules where people are starting to sort of have campaigns and starting to have roles that they play in really interesting, funny ways.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
I mean, it could be we could do a whole show on this, but it translates directly to this idea of, you know, you get what you put in. When you tell people, hey, you get to play you as a character in this game, people understand that they are now an actual person, not moving just units dispassionately on the board as some country.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
They are now an entity, a person, and they start thinking differently and doing things differently. And at the far level, when you prescribe particular actions everybody can take, then people want to use those actions only. And that becomes the menu of operations, right? I mean, it's like fourth edition, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Gods and Multiverse! Final Greyhawk! (MD 208)
You give everybody at wills and encounters and dailies, and it's sometimes all they can see, even though they can do anything they want. And the game says, you can do whatever you imagine. Okay, well, let me see my menu of at will encounter daily. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Live from Gamehole: Create a Campaign With Us! (MD 212)
What did you see this week that piqued your interest, that you're taking home with you, that maybe surprised and delighted or dismayed you?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, and there's a gameplay angle to this as well, where if your players feel this pressure, they will have a certain type of play coming from them. And that will shut down what can be really fun When you have the freedom to just sort of go back and forth and try things, discuss things, do silliness, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Like that is obviously time consuming, but they're going to do this and talk about their character. My character starts coiling the rope this way and, you know, because that would be a tick on the clock. But we're not following ticks so they can have the freedom to do this sort of silliness and we can go back and forth or do some elaborate plan without worries.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
There is something to do that that can be really nice. And also, I'm a believer in actually having lots of roles. I like rolling. I see rolling as engagement. But I'm not saying every DM should do this. For my style of DMing and the way that I talk to my players and develop a rapport with them,
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
they they learn that these things will happen right that i will say to them well based on your question make me this sort of a check and then i will make up in my mind based on sort of how they did and what i know about their character what they kind of learned and the reason i do that is i want them to be constantly touching the game i want them engaging with it and i don't want them to worry overly about it so i want lots of checks and interactions
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I find that people rolling dice gets them into the game. So I just I want to see more and more of that. So I am constantly looking for roles and things. But I also don't allow 20 people to open a door. And so a game like Deadlands, where it does a nice job of saying there's a help system. And one of the players is actually very good at the table. She will often say, well, I'll help you with that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Sort of takes that help slot. Right. It reminds everybody at the table. Oh, yeah, we shouldn't just jump in and everybody do this. You know, we can take someone can take the lead and someone can assist. And that's it. Right. And so and so everybody kind of falls into line that way. And that ends up being a really nice for our group. Right. That works really well.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
There was a great player I played with in third edition who played a bard. And he would, like most bards in third edition, make bardic knowledge checks about just about everything. But when he would get it wrong, he would come up with whatever he believed was true. You know, here we are in the desert. Oh, these are the tracks of ice trolls. And everybody would say, ice trolls? Oh, yes.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
They're very dangerous. They fade over time, but they're very cold, so they last quite some time. These are their tracks. And we're like, okay, we're all tracking ice trolls. And the DM would just go, what is happening? We'd have a blast, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Well, distribution of how the books move around is a big complex beast, and it's like the hidden engine you don't think about, right? You go to your local gaming store and you pick up a book and you go, great, but you don't think about the fact that there are all these steps taking place of how that book got there. And these are all lifelines for various parts of the industry.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Diamond is best known for distributing comics, but they also distribute books and games and toys and miniatures and all sorts of stuff to all kinds of stores of different sizes, including your local gaming store, but also other larger places to convention suppliers. You know, you name it, all kinds of places.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
and when they file chapter 11 that means they are running out of money and they are facing imminent failure so they are asking for protection against their creditors right they owe money and they want to continue to operate while they attempt to fix it because the idea is hey everybody in in let's say the united states is better off
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
If we don't pay a bunch of people we owe money to, but remain solvent, then if we collapse, and we'll talk about sort of the whys of that, but that's kind of what's at the heart of this, right? This is an engine that runs a lot of our industry.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Well, so this comes from their approach during 2020. And Diamond has sort of bad and good sides to it, you know, reviled and hated in some ways over the years, but also admired because they often do things like let small businesses sort of accumulate some debt so that they can...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
get going and then pay off and so on so there's positive negatives to them but in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown phases diamond made the decision um the other thing that should say is they've sort of propped up the industry and did it by saying well we will take exclusive deals if you just deal with us and we distribute everything uh you know you comic book company right marvel dc
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
We will be your only distributor, but we will kind of run all this expensive stuff and handle the industry of moving all this around. And so companies largely said yes to this. But in 2020, when the pandemic was shutting down stores, Diamond said, we're going to lose money on this. So we're not going to distribute. We're not going to ship new comics to stores.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And if you're Marvel and DC and other places, you're like, I'm sorry. That's how we make money. And you have this obligation. You've got to do this. So what Marvel and DC did is cut ties with Diamond as being exclusive and began to find other ways to distribute. So other companies grew up, some already existed.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And this began to happen where other groups were there and no longer exclusive to Diamond. Diamond lost a lot of money on that. And it's only increased over time as more and more companies have ceased being exclusive or found other ways to do it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So here we are, and they're finding out that they've probably not changed the way they operated, probably an expensive way based on this previous way that they're making lots of revenue. Now they're not, so they owe a ton of money.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, there absolutely is. So Diamond owns what's called Alliance Game Distributors, which is the tabletop game distribution subdivision of Diamond. And what they've said is as part of this restructuring, we're going to sell that off. And so far, they have a $39 million what's called stocking horse bid from Universal distribution.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And the idea, what that means is that if nobody else beats that bid, they will get Alliance. So it will be sold. We know it will be. If someone bids more, Universal will get sort of a payoff for the fact that it wasn't them because they kind of came in, but they set the floor, if you will, for sort of bidding on it. So someone is going to own it that isn't Diamond.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So that's already a bit of a shakeup because you don't know what's going to happen with this. The other thing that's a big deal for the industry remains to be fully seen of how it's going to play out. So one of the things is we talked about these creditors, right? This is all happening because they owe a bunch of money. Well, Whom do they owe that money? So the biggest one is Penguin Random House.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Diamond owes $9.2 million to them because they function as sort of sub-distributor of publishers, where Penguin Random House is sort of the primary behind. So, you know, Penguin Random House is looking at losing tons of money, more than they make in several years, probably, in the comics and other tabletop areas. They also owe a ton of money to Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Wizards is a bit over $910,000. Hasbro is just over a million. They owe NEC, the company that owns WizKids, about $2.7 million. So if this bankruptcy goes through, a lot of these companies are not going to get paid, either partially or in full. And so you're looking at a company that, say, owns WizKids, losing $2.7 million out of nowhere. Will that change how Wiz could sell things?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Will it change how Wizards or Hasbro do things? Maybe, right? Hard to say. And the last bit of this is how it impacts stores. We have a Discord member. Thank you. I don't know if you wanted to be named or not, but they are an active participant.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And they actually went around, did some legwork for us in a major metropolitan area, spoke to a number of different stores, and they all actually seem to feel OK. They have a mix of distributors, and they weren't expecting major impacts.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But it's possible that some stores where they're kind of doing this sort of like, I owe you money, Diamond may actually reach out to them, say, you've got to pay up now. So it may put some pressure on some stores and stores may find themselves changing distributors, and they'll have to see how this once the RPG part gets sold, how that impacts things.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So this may take years to sort of play out its full effects. Interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Oh, there were some really, really great parts. As a buff of history that I am, I was buffed. Plus two to all my history checks. Ray said the goal that management gave him was to double the size of D&D in five years. And again, this is seven years into D&D. This is 2021, right? When he's coming in, seven years in, and he's being told to double the size
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But they actually did it not in five years, but in three years. And he says, I'm not going to take credit for it. The game was already on an upswing. But just shows you how often management gives you a goal that you can't hit, right? Or you have to murder yourself to hit. And they did it in less time, which is something else. He also said another piece about growth that I found just astounding.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Quote, we were selling about as many players handbooks every year This is fifth edition as we're sold for most of the whole third edition era. So every year selling. About as many players handbooks as in all of third edition. That's incredible, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
He talked about how every edition before 5e would have a fantastic first couple years, then sort of gradually taper off until it would hit point depending on the edition. But five years out, eight years out, whatever, where the sales have dwindled enough that we really have to do a new edition to sort of pump up the sales and start the machine all over again. That never happened with 5e.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I have a lot of thoughts on this. I think an important thing is to think back on the last time you were prepping or the average time you're prepping. And are you finding yourself doing something like madly trying to finish that handout, but you also haven't prepared some part of what you're going to run tonight? That's a clear indication that you're spending too much time on handouts.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
5e, the core book sales just increased every year all the way up through my whole tenure. So that's just incredible there. And he discusses a number of things of, cause Stan asks, so, you know, why did it grow? And he, he has a couple of, of, of things that are interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
He talks about sort of trying to shorten the campaign time and stance or says, well, you know, actually we've, we've had surveys at wizards that said the average campaign was, um,
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
shorter than you're saying it was so they had an interesting back and forth there if you're interested in that kind of topic um ray said a big growth was the diversifying audience which is something you and i have mentioned all the time and the way he broke it down quite simply was you know it used to be 80 male and at one point he said it was essentially 50 50. and that's basically doubling your audience
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Right? Yeah. And Ray also said YouTube broke down tons of barriers, right? All of a sudden, people who wanted to play could just easily learn how to do it and where to get started and all of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And the other thing that he came up with that was a sort of different way of saying things that I really appreciated, he said, when 5E debuted, D&D was kind of a low point. And he says, I liked 4th edition. I thought it was a true game. But we're sort of at this low point. And Wizards dramatically scaled down the size of the D&D team and sort of, you know, divested from D&D, I'm quoting here.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
There were actually real serious questions about, you know, are we at Wizards, are we still going to make this game? Like, is this a business we want to be in? And so a serendipitous thing that arose from that was that Wizards made far fewer D&D products because the team was so small, they could only manage to get a couple of products a year.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
What they discovered relatively quickly, two years into 5e, is that we're selling way more copies of those couple of products than we used to have those giant, you know, during the height of my freelancing at TSR, there were 60 products at least every year.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah. And Ray just really says that these extra products were just that were done back in the TSR days and second edition days, third edition days, even fourth, were just cannibalization, right? Eating up each other's sales. And he really breaks down that I had not thought of in this respect is that there's this publishing turnabout term where you have a front list driven business.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And the bulk of your sales are what you just released. So he says, and then if you publish too much, you're just killing off those sales because people are only paying attention to what's at the front. So he says, quote, the typical life cycle of a Dindy product would be 60 to 90 days. The book would come out, it would be around in the stores for a month or two.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Sales would sort of then drop off and it would more or less disappear. And unless it was a very major, you know, something like the Forgotten Realms box set. But most of the releases, that's what would happen. That's amazing. In 5e, it was a backlist driven business. He basically says 30% of the sales every year were new stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And this person, TentacleSquelchingWetley, shared on our Discord awesome examples of, and you can see it in our show notes, of the handouts they've been creating, which are amazing. And so if you're spending, to me, this is all like the cherry on top. You want to do all the things that are a great session, Then if you have time and inclination, desire, it'll pay off for you.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
the rest was the old 5e products so the bulk of your sales are coming from your backlist which is awesome because everything new you make becomes part of that and just keeps selling right and he points out that during his tenure like nothing really went out of print they just kept making it because it kept selling and when you think about that 60 to 90 day drop off
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
versus it keeps selling and all i could think was oh i would kill to know what is happening say last year like what did last year look like or the year before that i wonder if it's changed back right it would be fascinating to know whether it has changed to be a front list driven business again
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And if you could ever untangle why, or maybe it's just still doing well on the backlist, but it's different or, you know, you get the feel it's changed and I'd love to know how this plays in. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
He did. I had to ask something about it. Um, and then they didn't quite, in fact, they kind of laughed about, we're not going to answer the questions that were asked. You know, it's a good question, and people are a little uncomfortable about it is the way I look at it. But they gave me more than I'd hoped for, and thank you, Ray and Stan, for that.
Mastering Dungeons
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They also said very nice things about our podcast, which thank you for that. But on the OGL, Ray said, what started to happen was that D&D became so successful at Wizards and at Hasbro that it started to attract a lot of attention from other parts of the company. And you and I have talked about it, right? We had this time, I remember, where one of the quarterly results came out,
Mastering Dungeons
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Things are going great, Sean. Yeah, I'm having an absolute blast on this Monday. Let's see, what am I doing? Yeah, I did a lot of looking at monsters, and that was kind of inspiring. And I had an amazing, amazing game of Deadlands on Friday night where I really had to ponder, like, why is our group so much fun? Like, it was that good a session.
Mastering Dungeons
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And Hasbro said, you know, D&D and wizards are going to teach the rest of the company how to operate.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And they said, so Ray continues, one of the points of contention was the OGL and the role that it played in the overall ecosystem. And then he kind of distanced himself and says, I was not a fan of the OGL, you know, and that he was pleased with how they, what he said was reasonably quickly how they altered course.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
uh unfortunate how it rolled out but that they were able to kind of recognize this is a big misstep and let's undo it and i certainly heard that you know from my contacts it was issue one at hasbro for a while right and they were working hard to try to solve it once they realized that they had stepped in it and he says you know this is the nature of large organizations
Mastering Dungeons
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And that both D&D and Magic the Gathering are very strange businesses. Like they're not a thing you can just explain to a random executive who comes in. It's a very complicated thing. And even the people in it have trouble understanding how it works. So, yeah, it was a fantastic watch. So you can look for Stan and his YouTube channel or follow the link in our show notes. Anything else, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, I mean, like that whole idea of, you know, hey, maybe if we only have, you know, a couple of products a year, we'll sell more. Right. And even though fifth edition started that way, we've seen fifth edition try to accelerate the number of products and it has not seemed to pay off. And at least with the data that I analyzed and we talked about this on the show.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But when when I broke down the numbers from BookScan with the help of our discord folks, we didn't see We saw that, yes, there was some volume increase overall, but it did seem to have that effect of each individual product is selling less. It isn't just open up the spigot, put more streams of water in, you make more volume. It's not that simple. Some of it begins to cannibalize, it seems.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And it reflects what you ask when you ask fans and they say, I can't remember what was released last year or in what order things came out, or I only used one book the whole year. You start hearing that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Creating awesome handouts on top of that just takes it to that sort of next level category. Same thing with things like, you know, the right minis, awesome terrain, any handcrafted anything like that's all extra, but the rest has to be taken care of. I'll stop there. How do you think?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah. I mean, it's not that during fourth edition, people didn't want more martial power abilities, but there's a reason martial martial power two didn't sell well. Right. Right. And it's complicated. It goes back to that whole thing we're talking about, but it's, it's just, you know, you give people too much, it eventually starts hurting itself. Right. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Even if it isn't settings like it was in second edition, it, it still has that effect. And then I think, you know, hopefully fed tradition can figure it out going into the future so that we continue to see this growth that benefits everybody. We'll see.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
That basically matches the type of advice we see in the... in the Dungeon Master's Guide. I'll be curious if the levels of play go higher, whether they go to what the DMG says. The DMG actually surprises me, says that later it speeds up. So your higher levels go by really fast. And so I'd be curious whether they will do that or not.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I thought this was really interesting. Like, you know, normally it's sort of like, oh, you get X gold plus magic item. But here it's you can choose gold, a featured magic item or roll in an adventure specific short table for a random magic item. And that's kind of neat, though.
Mastering Dungeons
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I wonder if there's some base gold either way or what, how that because, you know, usually you need some cash to go around. But I thought that was a really interesting this idea of choosing through those three.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Who are those people? Never heard of their names.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, that sounds like a joke or something, but it's true. So a graduate student, I guess, published last year a sort of experiment they did. And what they did was they went out. You have to kind of follow the chain of these things. But basically, they went out to fan sites that have created data from transcripts of Critical Role actual play sessions.
Mastering Dungeons
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So this is fan-created, and the transcripts name each player and what they say, the Dungeon Master and so on. So they took that and used that to train an AI, along with the Sunless Citadel adventure created by Wizards of the Coast. And the experiment then aimed to have the LLM run the adventure for you based on what it had learned from how Critical Role all play together.
Mastering Dungeons
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This Critical World data set contains about 160 episodes and apparently has been used by other LLM projects as well. This is all from a Polygon article, and they didn't say who, what, but potentially for profit.
Mastering Dungeons
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when this was at least just an experiment at a university level and all of it raises the question of what is ethical use right what is copyrighted and at what point is it owned critical role owns their show of course well what happens with a fan transcript and can someone just take that and it isn't exactly clear and i can tell you what i think but there are a lot of lawsuits that are still ongoing on this topic right and and
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
you know, I don't know when D and D talks about, or the, the CEO of Hasbro says something like, you know, we're going to train AI on, well, what are they going to use? Right. And is somebody out there going to create a product based on essentially stealing copyrighted information and using, uh, who knows?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, this is the first time that WizKids has introduced this in their 44 mini set called Underdark Expeditions. It will feature
Mastering Dungeons
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a new quote dungeon glow effect and yes they made that one word and they removed the w and they are so happy with how clever a name dungeon glow is that they have trademarked it so i thought that was funny i laughed for quite some time but that's how i spend my evenings um this quote adds a glow-in-the-dark dynamic select parts of the figures And it's available in a variety of colors.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And the idea is that different parts would glow in the dark. We know that the gelatinous cube, myconid, gasp, or beholder in green slime all appear to have the treatment. There are probably others as well. Those are just the ones either named or shown in pictures. Personally, whenever I try to dim the lights, Nobody can see what the heck they're doing, and it just is disappointing.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So I basically never go with a low-light situation. Mood may seem great, but you got to see what you're doing. So I don't really need it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I mean, yes. Well, it means that it has to go in my bedroom. And I think we signed in our contract for wedding that if it's a glow, if it's a flump, I don't know where I'm going with this joke. I'm going to stop now. But I definitely will be buying this set because it does indeed have the third ever flump mini from WizKids. There is also an unpainted version, but Who's keeping count? Oh, I am.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But yes, it has a flump in it. And so that makes it an automatic must have, at least for that one mini. But otherwise, you know, well, we'll see how it does.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
They did separately say they are, you know, with the Monster Manual having all new art, they have a set of minis also coming out that will be based on the Monster Manual to have, you know, the majority of those or a good number of those captured in the in the new art style. And they've already been having new dragons with that art style, which maybe you like.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I wonder if they thought about adding something like an adventure with a torch or just a plain old torch mini.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I also saw Sean that, uh, empty black just released a, an adventure that I think you might've kickstarted for. It's now out there. So maybe we'll have that next week, but I'll just mention it now for folks who want to go looking for it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I mean, they should stop. There's no Flumph preview yet. So I don't know. What is even the point, Sean? What's the point?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Thanks for that. That was our main segment. Good night. Thanks for watching.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Take care. No, so Ian World actually has a pretty good thread. It's hard to parse it and there aren't links for it, but they've gathered a bunch of them in one place because these have been these previews have been scattered kind of all over the place. Some of them are in YouTube videos. Some of them are in the D&D Beyond website. Some of them are shown as images on blue sky.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So, you know, you kind of have to hunt around. But our show notes, if you are a patron member, have all those links in there as well. So you can pick them up. And it's been interesting because these previews actually started quite some time ago with the ancient green dragon and things have changed even since the beginning of the previews, which fascinating.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
this makes me think of the art pack for barrier peaks. There is a picture that I can, I can imagine when my DM showed it to me that has like a column and then it has, it looks like a buried laser pistol. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to find that. And they're like, Oh yeah, I don't think that's there. And I'm like, what do you mean? It's in the art.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, I waited. I'm still waiting by the phone for the call to say that I got to preview the Flumph. They're very busy at Wizards. I know they're going to call any moment and let me know that I should preview the Flumph. I did get a copy to help me prepare for videos I'll release later, which I greatly appreciate because why am I preparing, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But I'm not in that elite group, you know, so Ginny D and lots of other cool people, they've been able to show off these specific, as you said, they got like permission to release one thing in the same way that you may have seen. Like, I think Ginny D got to talk about bastions before anybody else got to talk about things. Right. So there's some preview things that happened for other books.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So with them and they're doing the same thing and saying, hey, you can share, you know, the Cyclops or whatever it is.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yes, there is. Until the 20-some odd. So it's like a week or so. Okay.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
What's nice about these previews is we can focus on this part, which is all publicly known. We can talk about it without upsetting our NDA side of our brains.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Well, if I were brand new to things and hadn't been following anything, the first thing I would see is this interesting layout that jumps out at me, which is the stats, strength, dex, con, et cetera, have these sort of slightly different color things with blocks. And then it has like a modifier and a save next to it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And like, so that was totally that sort of like, I was looking for that payoff. And, and I think that's a really good point that you make of the payoff will vary by player. But also, a lot of times, or let's say it's easy to fall into the trap as DM where the payoff is being actually made for you. I love my art project. I'm doing my art project.
Mastering Dungeons
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And so this is a before it would list the statistics and sort of normal text kind of fade into the background. And then you would if it had a boost to its normal save, you would see that. Right. And I guess they're trying to what they're trying to do is help you really break down the modifier versus the saving throw in case you need it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But layout-wise, I'd be really surprised if a lot of layout people would go like, yeah, this is great. It's also the thing that jumps out the most on the page. And I do not think this is the most important thing on the page. So that's the first thing that might jump out at you.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, our brains get used to it, right? So it'll all fade into the background. But ideally, your thing is intuitive to begin with. And it's fun. If you just want to have for fun, just go break out a 2E stat block or a third edition stat block
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
fourth edition and and just suddenly your brain would go like wait i used to know this and now i'm like parsing the fact that this is you know complicated and it is all of them are but i this stood out to me as a thing that you know you're going to notice this and it's different and is it better you know i you that's super arguable right which i take to heart one of the things that when i'm looking at 2014 versus 2024 i i take something that the third edition team said
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Is it demonstrably better? I'd say this is a no. This is arguable, right? And you're not in the business of arguably should be the answer. And what they were saying is you should be in the business of demonstrably better. This is a sort of weird. It's like a choice, right? Rather than, oh, yeah, you solved something. You always have people that feel otherwise.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But I don't think your numbers are going to be some high percentage of people go like, oh, yeah, this is obviously so better and intuitive. And if I wanted something to glow on the page, it would probably be the attack value. That's probably the thing I'm looking at the most that I need to jump out about all the text, right? Would be like attack and damage.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
That's what I might have put a glow up on it if you wanted things to glow. But anyway. Yeah, I agree. You know, we see the usual breakdowns of traits and actions as they were before. The thing that's interesting here is this ancient green dragon, which is a legendary monster in 2014, doesn't have a legendary section in this early preview. It has a reactions section. And this was a...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And it's really important for us as DMs to remember the payoff is for the players. This is why you're doing this handout. And so it needs to be tied to the rewards they will get, right? If I think of why Blade Runner's handouts were so effective, is that those really beautiful pictures that they include in there are things that reinforce the setting and pay off further actions.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I think this came out in August, and this preview does not represent what we see in the ancient gold dragon, right? So it shows you that in August, the team was still operating on this idea of we're going to remove legendary actions and we're instead going to make them reactions.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And we're changing things that we're maybe going to get rid of some things in 2020, 2014 rules that would remove the ability to use your reaction. Because otherwise, you'd nerf. What's the cantrip that removes your reactions? Oh, well, that's somebody I know. Yeah, I know.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Right. So, you know, the idea was, well, we'll remove that. So you don't just shock and grasp the big bad constantly to just remove all of their legendary actions. Right. Well, in the end, they went away from this, right? But this early example is fascinating because we get to see the idea of like you can take three reactions per round, but only once per turn. And so you could do that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
What's interesting is you could do this either on your turn because it's a reaction or you could do it off turn like you could with a normal legendary, but only one. You had to space them out. So it's almost like the same thing, but a different part of the action sequence. language, and so it had its own considerations to it. In the end, they abandoned this, and that's fascinating.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
That's exactly what we see here, right? Charming presence is when you end your turn. Corrosive miasma is either when you use your legendary resistance or if you are hit with a ranged attack and so then you do this thing. But yeah, if people are just attacking you melee, they get to shut down corrosive miasma from ever triggering. So yeah, it's interesting, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So maybe you can just... But yeah, it's a level...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
now you have to really be paying attention to this section right it's one thing to say that hey i need to remind myself when a player ends their turn i may want to do one of these things cross off my list it's another to say i need to watch out for every time someone uses a ranged attack or makes me make a save and i choose to you know like that's that's even more complicated thing so i'm glad they moved away from this but it is surprising to me because how you're designing your monsters is important
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And you apparently had not made up your mind at the time when you'd already printed the first two books.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Right. And that is also indicative of a team that's a little bit scrambling, at least in this regard. Right. And maybe not. Maybe, maybe team members would say to me, you know, we just made this one decision. Teos, don't make a big deal out of it. And that's possible. But to me, this is a fairly big thing to still be working through and maybe why monsters came at the end and in 2025. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Because there was still this kind of development going on.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
You describe the scene, you look at this thing, and then you get a picture when you ask for details. Is there a way that we could track the car? Well, you could try to enhance this image and you flip it over and like, oh, there's the license plate. That sort of thing, that kind of payoff
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Can I say another thing that we said? Absolutely. Well said, John. Another thing I just thought of is it has a spellcasting block. And in a recent video, Jeremy Crawford and Wes Schneider were talking in all these monster videos. And they were saying that... kind of dragons are often thought of as having possibly the ability to cast.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And so for the older ones, they've just gone ahead and done that. So they're all spell casters at the upper age levels. And so we get these cases. And here in this version, we see some Matt Will spells, including Charm Monster at an upcast level 5 version. Dissonant Whispers at a level 4 version. Twice per day Cloud Kill at level 8. There's also Gas, which is interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And then once per day, Modify Memory and Polymorph. To me, this is super fascinating because it seems to take a step back from what they did with Mordenhanans, right? Where they wrote to us blogs saying, if it's an offensive spell, it's going to be an action. If it's utility, it'll be in a sell list. Not even Mordekains actually did that. They broke their own rules in that very book.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But this seems to really step back because now not only do I deal with my three traits, my multi-attack, my rend, my poison breath, my three different reactions, I'm also looking up all of these spells. And while this is not as bad a spell list as 2014 spellcasters tended to have, it's still one, two, three, four, five, six, seven spells I in theory need to go
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
pick up and I'm either scrambling during the combat or that's additional prep time, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I think third was probably my favorite. The fourth is right up there. Third, I thought had really distinctive things. They also had the sort of like wing Buffett, wing Buffett, tail slap rates of many attacks. So you felt like these things were this is before you had legendary actions, but they could just tear into you in all these little ways that were significant.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And then they would have things like the white dragon could buffet snow up and like conceal itself so you couldn't see it, which when it was flying above you and you also couldn't see it was a mess. They could really easily like strafe you and do all this. That was significant. Frightful presence was an impressive part of what they did.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And fourth edition took that frightful presence to where like, you know, almost any dragon encounter was it shows up. It takes a round. It stuns you. It takes another round. So you just had to live with a dragon shows up and it takes two full rounds and now you get to go, which I actually really like. Not everybody feels that way.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But the way all the powers came in or the features, I didn't like feats on monsters in third, but both third and fourth, I felt like you really knew that this is what it is, right? Whatever it was, its presence was felt. This ancient dragon, it's solid. But if I think of what tells me it's a green dragon, well, OK, it can breathe air and water. That's fine. It has advantage on initiative rolls.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
That's fine. That doesn't tell me anything. The rend has poison to it. And this is, I think, something we'll see in a lot of these monsters, where it's sort of like, I attack and I do a thing. On top of my damage. So 17 piercing, 10 poison. So that's a little bit, you know, gives you a little flavor of what's behind it. Reminds you it's a green dragon. Its spell list has cloud kill. Okay.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
It also has some mind control stuff. And if we read the text, it tells us that green dragons are kind of the super schemers, corruptors kind of thing. Poison breath, of course, the breath weapon. And then we have the...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
reactions that grows of miasma if it gets to go off will definitely give you that feeling that this is a green dragon so yeah you know i would say that this does a pretty good job of of uh cementing that right which is a big thing i look at in monsters does this thing feel like what it's supposed to be i'd say here yeah oh absolutely absolutely uh
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, for sure. No, I like high initiative for monsters like this for sure. You know, I don't want to take apart the damage too much here comparison wise but we can do that with the gold dragon which could be interesting to do.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
It was just like, I don't know, whatever we're doing, like, let's not mess with it because, boy, we had some fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, I like the awe-inspiring idea, right? That just dragons are awe-inspiring. When they show up, you probably lose your turn or have fear or something like that. I like that, so I miss it not seeing there.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, I think this guy and we'll talk about the gelatinous Q, but both of them had, you know, they have features they had before because there is a sticky shield for the 2014 version. But the wording has been changed. And I don't know that it's vastly better. Again, like, is it demonstrably better wording? I don't know.
Mastering Dungeons
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It's not that it's, you know, I think I can figure out what's going on, but it is it is. It's not really fewer words. It looks pretty similar to me. Maybe it's a tiny bit. I don't know. It looks the same to me in terms of just eyeballing it. And, and it's, it isn't like an absolutely, Oh yeah, I read this and this makes perfect sense. And that sort of surprises me.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And the same thing with the gelatinous cube. When, when we talk about that one, like it just doesn't automatically seem to me like, Oh yeah, this is super a hundred percent clear and I'm all good here. I'm so glad you revised this. And maybe at this point it's worth saying like, If you had told me, hey, look, the D&D team is going to revise 5e, but it's not a new addition.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I would have thought, yeah, OK, so most of the monsters will probably be the same. Right now, you know, when they say that whole we've talked about this on the show, everything is new. Good grief. They really did like go through and try to it's almost like they didn't they tried to change everything.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah. And something we talked about with the examples that were shared on the Discord, they're pretty intense. And so to me, those kinds of handouts where it's sort of like lore information, journal pages, that kind of thing, those are actually really great to deliver towards the end of a session so that folks have something to look at in between sessions.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
They have tried to revise every little block here, and it's a miracle if one of them survived unchanged, right? So like the amphibious trait is the same, you know? But other than that, it's like they have tweaked every little block And again, I have to say, is it demonstrably better? And if not, well, why did you feel you needed to tweak this when it's not a new addition?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And I don't quite grasp it. I mean, the only thing I can think of is because we thought it would sell better that way. I don't know. Or maybe just like we really felt like we had 10 years worth of experience and every little block could use a tweak.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, and in this case, you know, that kind of wording of the weapon can't be used was in the 2014 version. And so they could have gone through and improved that, but they didn't, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But if you're going to be tweaking every little block of text and you did change this up, you know, why? Why didn't you? Yeah, I don't know. And maybe they didn't care about that or, you know, who knows? They're human. Maybe they didn't think about that situation. But yeah, it's interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, and that's interesting because a number, and we'll see this and there's another monster preview that sort of has this, but some monsters have gear and some don't. One assumes when they don't list it as gear, there's an endless number of sticky nets, I guess, right? But it's an interesting thing to say.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Because I find that anything bigger than like a paragraph of text At least half the players will not really read it. Although there'll be that one player that's like me that will consume this avidly and they may tell everybody and that's fine because if you have that player that you know will read it and translate it to everybody into a bite-sized chunk that everybody hears, that's all good.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
yeah and in fact like the strange spear that it has uh right you know it it is only melee melee but a lot of the ones that are range will just say like and it returns to you it's like you know but if it doesn't you know does it matter you know it's yes not listed as gear and yeah
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, which is good. I mean, I'm all for if a monster works well enough, You know, you don't have to mess with it. What we see also in this preview is the war horse skeleton, the minotaur skeleton, the flaming skeleton. And it was funny to hear Jeremy talk about, you know, and we brought back the flaming skeleton. It's like, yeah, okay.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
rollicking good times the character the players have like these really excellent characters and they're doing all the things really well it's all interlocking into complete absurdity and fun and yeah it's great that's great i got the chance to run 2024 officially for the first time running a play test of an adventure that we'll talk about later uh but i played some
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I had that in addition to go, but yeah, but you know, we get a few more types here and this is like an example of that idea of adding more to the, the monster manual that it's core. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So this example and some of the others, too, made me wonder, you know, going back to that at the summit where they were talking about how they were going, all books will remain in use and are valid with the exception of Tasha's and Xanathar's. Well, we're going to use so much material from those. that we will reprint those with new things in them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And we actually didn't see that much from Tasha's and Xanathar's make it into the core rules. And here's another thing where, and maybe this is deliberate because they didn't say we're going to reprint Mordenkainen's or anything like that. But I was just curious whether we would see one of the many cool skeletons we've seen in other books. And the answer seems to be no.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
that generally we're not going to pull a monster out of another source. Maybe we'll see some exceptions to that, but it doesn't look like they've gone through and said, oh yeah, let's pull in this really neat monster that appears in Mordenkainen's or in Van Richten's or any of those.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yeah, that's a good one. Let's do the Cyclops.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Yes, we had a lot of fun breaking this down on our Discord. And what I find interesting about the... There are a number of things I find to be really, really very interesting about the Cyclops. One is that we see a very different... approach to the lore of the monster, which we haven't kind of super talked about that angle of it. But one of the questions is, okay, what do you do
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
You've just really given a big payoff to that player. But if you really want everybody to read it, it's better done in between sessions where you have more chances that most of them will go back and read it just to see what's really going on here.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
You know, how do you handle your lore from one edition to the other, especially when it's not a change in edition in theory? And the answer is, well, we've changed a lot. Like there is a lot that's different here. And the Cyclops is a great example that because if if I were to say to you, you know, what do you think about it? Well, where do you go back when you think Cyclops?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
yeah yeah you're thinking jason argonauts you're thinking about you know uh this kind of dumb brute that can can't you know has to feel for you once it's blinded and stuff that kind of cat and if you go back and read the 2014 description you know of the cyclops it has and and i like this about third about fifth edition 2014.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Fifth edition said has those kinds of like generally three things sometimes four that are in bold Italic that tell you sort of the key things about the monster So here it says non-religious unsophisticated unwise And then it goes on to give you quite a good number of words and I forget what the number breakdown was But it's I did look at the word count and the word count is far higher on the other version here
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
we get the name Cyclopes and then it just says monocular servants of destiny. And then it says they're descendants of the gods using their mystical vision. And I'm like, what? And so are we suddenly saying that Dungeons and Dragons no longer has the kinds of Cyclops that we've been putting in all our adventures?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Because the whole idea that they said on the videos was we're working hard to bring forth that what these monsters are not necessarily mythology but in D&D, boy, we've had that. We've kind of had the mythical version, the Greek version in D&D and suddenly we don't. And they talked about the art being symbolic of the monster in D&D and when I look at the art that they showed off, it's Two Cyclops.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
One of them looks like you wouldn't even guess it's a Cyclops. You would guess it was like a cloud giant or something with robes and it's spell casting and weaving some sort of arcane whatever. And then you've got one wearing all these tattoos, chucking a rock and behind them. What looked like sort of like Greek architecture ruins.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And none of this is to me the cave sheep whatever that probably would have been used in your average D&D adventure. So I find that fascinating.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But it is so interesting that this idea of, you know, deliberately, like the fourth edition, the 2014 version is a very simple stat block. And what's interesting here is even the Cyclops Sentry, the lower CR one, which is the same CR as the old one, it has gotten a little more complicated. So the old one has poor depth perception and then a multi-attack with two great clubs.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
It has a great club and the ability to throw a rock. Now we have... those things, but also this limited foresight and it loses that poor depth perception. So it's a very interesting change here that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Well, I don't know. I'll disagree a bit in that I think that the point of it is this thing does more damage with its club in 2014. It gets to attack twice with its club, and it's going to be more accurate if it's at range than if it's at range.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
it's your choice the the the logic is here and you can decide whether you want to play up to it and it sort of creates that argonaut scenario where if you can get away from it Now it can't do a whole lot to you, right? And so you can play with that if you want, whereas a lot of monsters don't have those kinds of obvious flaws.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
To me, this was a good example of a monster with an obvious flaw that if you want to, you can play up. You can, of course, just have it be like the big thing that's going to smash you with a club. But to me, it had that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
So a possibility here, Sean, is that what the designers did, maybe even after a review, is conclude that the 2014 Cyclops kind of says, if you have one eye, you're dumb. Mm-hmm.
Mastering Dungeons
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and i think there's a fine line between that and the problems that involves and saying look if we have two working eyes we probably don't want to lose one right or if we have one we don't want to lose it which is logical right and and maybe they've gone a little far here trying to I think it's okay to have monsters that have limits, and they don't always have to have real world.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Think about it. Give them what they will use as fuel if you have that person. If you don't have that person, then yeah, that becomes helpful. Right. Yeah, so you tailor it to your players like that. And that's, I think, the biggest thing is just think about the time that you're using for prep and what's effective, right? Mike Shade does a really nice job of breaking that down.
Mastering Dungeons
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I can see why they... If that was the reason, I can understand the motive and even applaud it to some extent. But I think that in this case, sometimes a creature has a weakness, right? And it isn't always going to link back to our real world. I thought with a Cyclops in general, it worked. But, you know, there have been moves around vision and, you know...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
loss of auditory capability where there's an attempt to clean that up. And so maybe this is another of these cases.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
There is so little said, right? If I tell you one-eyed descendants of the gods using their mystical vision, they can witness how future events are likely to occur. The Cyclops Oracle gazes through history to learn hidden truths. Many share these secrets with those who aid them. The Cyclops Sentry serve their divine progenitors and oppose those who tamper with fate.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I don't really know what to do with that, Sean. It's really rough. Those descriptions could be for any number of monsters, and I wouldn't know what to do with them. I don't know. To me, this is too... Like, I have trouble imagining what to do with this. I mean, I can come up with something, right? But it's not, to me, it's not very grounded. It's very open. I don't know what a sentry can do.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Okay, so is a sentry seeing glimpses of the future? Are these all seeing, you know, or is it just the Oracle or... There's so few words here that I end up not knowing what this monster can truly do or is meant to do in a book that they have told me is supposed to ground me in the logic of D&D. Now, I don't know. Like, in the Forgotten Realms, do people now seek out Cyclopes constantly?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Are they revered and not fought? You know, like, hmm.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
what tells me that i mean they can literally like impose disadvantage on somebody they seem to have some sort of tide of fate and the gods apparently the gods that they used to shun they now actually somehow channel or you know like i don't you gave me so little here i don't know what this is i i i can understand that i can understand that i i i think i am adding my own
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
You don't want to forget about character goals because you're making a cool stained map because you could just explain where the location is. And watch your players. It's hard to do because we hate to assess things like that. But watching your players and seeing whether they seem excited by this or not and comparing that to the amount of time you spend.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
It's a lot of fun. And I hope it comes across, you know, we're a little gun-shy after, at least I'm a little gun-shy after Shadow Dark. This does not mean that, you know, don't think I'm going to have fun with 2024 monsters. Or, you know...
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
uh this is design analysis right and and uh i could be in a room with folks who are designing this if i were lucky enough to be in a room with folks who are designing this and i could share these things i could totally see myself going like oh okay okay you know let's ship it the way you did it you know like that's all possible but these are the questions that we would the kind of thinking we would ask if we were trying to analyze the design right
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
I would do things like mass combat systems or whatever and try these things out. And everybody would say, yeah, that's great. Don't do that again. OK. Or we like the other stuff better. Theater of the mind with this neat system. And they'd be like, that's cool. Could we have Forge next time again?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
You can find me at AlphaStream.org. From there, you can get to my YouTubes. I just published a blog article that I had before on themes and truths in your campaign. And now there's a video based version of it. You can check out there. Sean, where do we find you?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Well, I'm gonna go to matreon.com, that sounded amazing.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Well, and also, I think part of this question is whether each of those attempts are counting as a sort of magical, like a clock tick.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Things are going to happen if you have too many ticks, which I think is a big part of what's being discussed here, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
Better like random encounters if you're going to go down that road.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
And that's why Shadow Dark is really clever with what it does. It's got the torch, and darkness is bad. So you don't want to run out of your torch. The fewer times that happens, that's good. You stay in initiative so that you're all taking turns. You know, so generally things are moving through and there's this encounter check process and the torch. So there's this pressure.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Comparison! (MD 225)
But there is also this advice of, hey, sometimes you can just pause and resolve things because we're just in a room talking or we're, you know, resting or discussing options or or checking out the door. And maybe we don't care to do that in initiative order. And so it has a little bit of that freedom to pull off of that system when you want or when you suspect this would be a problem. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
But what I did see as I was opening them is every one of these little numbers over to the side was in fact unique for me. And I bought two of those packs of six from the Lego store. And probably by luck, they were two distinct units of six. And I got the full 12, all 12 with just buying two boxes. It was like the best collecting ever.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I think that's brilliant. If I pick up what you're putting down, it's that skills are meant to provide information, uncover options. It's engagement and interaction. It's not truly solving problems. It's not creating things. It's not attacking, healing, interacting with those parts of the game. It's not combat-oriented. It's not something that you don't want to drive behavior
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
to where someone feels they must maximize a skill and the only possible uh you know where you do see that is perception because you want to find hidden things and you see it with uh stealth and you see it with anything that whatever you decide is traps right that's that's you're going to have some you there's no better way to do it for the game so it just is what it is you're going to see that in the skill section but otherwise
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You know, just in the same way that maximizing your arcana skill isn't supposed to unlock the game for you. You know, same thing with medicine. We did see in 1D&D a early version where you can sort of use a healer's kit and medicine to heal. And when they were playing, sorry, not 1D&D, in D&D Next, when they were playtesting the 2014 rules,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
There was a version where you could use the combination of a healer's kit and medicine skill. And that was a little too strong, right? It was sort of like a potion of healing all the time. And so you saw people become a healer through the feat that juiced up the medicine skill. And it was a little much.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, I played Dragonbane not too long ago, and assuming we played it correctly with the starter set, one of the things that we all just went, wait, what? Was that when you bedded down each night for your long rest, you had to make a check to see if you essentially bedded down correctly. I forget the exact name of the skill, but it's a, you know, camping kind of skill. And...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
If you succeeded, then you got hit points back. And if you didn't, you didn't. And well, you know, immediately we're like, OK, we must all maximize this skill check. Right. Right. And it just becomes a cost to your skill points because you've got to have this. And, you know, in theory, it's I'm sure the designers are like, well, this is so fun.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You know, you'll you want all, you know, resting is tough in the wild. But what it does is it just tells the player, well, you got to dump points into this stat. No matter what, to get this, you turn to the skill to get it better. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
My wife thanked the gods of collecting that I often fall prey to. So it was great. So I got all of them, and they're pretty sweet. And, you know, we've got little, like, tieflings with a little pet dragon shooting out an Eldritch Blast.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to that talk. That's a neat piece, the short and long rests and how they change.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And they kind of iterate this, right? So they're kind of saying like, well, if we don't have a new monster manual, well, then you use the old one. But when you do, you use the new one. And they say, if a rule appears in a previous book, such as Tasha's or Xanathar's, right? This is very true of player character features.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
But if that has seen a rule update because that Tasha's piece was, say, pulled into the player's handbook as a new updated subclass, then you use the new core book version, right? That's the most recent version, the 2024 player's handbook. So you use that, not the Tasha's version.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff. So I might show them, you know, as we go, you know, here and there. Anyway, what was your weekend about, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And if it has not been updated, well, then you use the most recently published version, whether that's in Tasha's or wherever it might be. So essentially always use the latest version, which has always been the case in the past. And so, again, now this is happening and it's happening for 2024. And it's and it's effective today.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Well, by the time you hear this, September 17th is the date when 2024 is available for playwrights, general release. Everybody can have a player's handbook. And so therefore, everybody can use it at the table in their games from both the GM and player side. But there's a grace period.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, and then they give us some dates. So the DMG will be available for Adventurers League play starting November 12th. They point out, hey, magic items will be updated. So you may have a magic item that changes on your character and you'll use that latest version and there'll be specific guidance when this happens. 2024 Monster Manual will be available for Adventures League on February 18th.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
More specifics for that will come at that time as well. But we do get some information around that kind of gives us a look at how the monster changes will work because we get advice on previous adventures.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, and then, you know, your giant weasel and spider and stuff like that. Those are all there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
yeah um and then let's see what else they say oh dungeon craft so dungeon craft is the program by which adventure designers can create and publish on the dm's guild for the adventures league play uh and it says that from now until before release of the 2024 monster manual you should replace or you should reference the two 2014 rules where applicable applicable
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
and then updates to the dungeon craft program will be available after the 2024 monster manual release along with the srd 5.2 i didn't love the wording here it's a little i but i think what they're saying is hold off on 2024 for dungeon craft until the monster manual come out that's what i read so if we misinterpreted you know hopefully greg marks or someone else can can clarify
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
But that's what I understood, probably because of the SRD 5.2. Maybe, though. I mean, technically, the DMs Guild can use anything. But that's what I understood, Sean. Did you understand the same thing looking at this?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I'm holding up the Lego minifigs for the Druid and the Barbarian. And one thing I should mention about these Lego minifigs is they come with multiple heads. So like one female, one male. So you can decide whatever kind of face they have. And often they're also double-sided, so they can be like intense grin or happy smile for either. So that's kind of fun.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Well, I did have one thing that was kind of funny. I had a dream at night. At some point, we'll get to listener questions.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
So looking at these rules, Sean, I think it's all very reasonable. It's all very logical flow. And the only thing that I, you know, when I really step back and look at them was, well, what you didn't do is say, play with either 2014 or 2024. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
They could have chosen to do that, given that this is all fully compatible, which I mean, honestly, it kind of is, or at least close enough compared to any previous fully compatibles that have been attempted in the past. So, you know, should they have? Why didn't they? And my general thought is that the hardcore AL player would just try to maximize stuff, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
but i had a dream and i it was like i woke up like at four o'clock in the morning or something from this dream and the dream was that i had just finished work for catalyst game labs uh somehow updating shadowrun right and like i'd done my last bit of reference work and it felt so real that when i woke up in this like groggy state i was like wait do i need to turn that in Do I have this job?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And probably cause trouble at the table where you'd take both kinds of counterspell, for example. Right. And you would, you know, I'm going to do the stunning fist that I used to have on my monk, but then I'm going to take this other, you know, I think there would have been that sort of because Ale can draw out that sort of min max or there could have been some of that destructiveness in play.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
That may be why they did this. I don't know. What do you think about it?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, absolutely. 100% on everything you just said. I am pulling up the Lego Mind Flayer with its Intellect Devourer Companion, and I am using its mental powers to try to convince Wizards of the Coast to release a new campaign and retire the old one.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
There's no name yet, but it's on the penguinrandomhouse.com website. Link in our show notes. And it says, Journey to the domains of dread and face the fearsome Count Strahd Van Zorovich in his upcoming official Dungeons and Dragons novel. Or this upcoming.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
A group of adventurers must fight their way through a dark and twisted realm known as the domains of dread, where powerful dark lords rule over worlds filled with supernatural horrors. Well, that told me nothing, Sean.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
the the movie tie-in ones those are great yeah really really yeah that's done and the fall oh and i can't fall back i think they're called the fallbacks that was really good too so very fun very much what i would want from a dnd type novel light easily read by people of any age group most groups i i the the the ravenloft one is the one that attracts me the most to maybe
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And I really didn't know for like I was like, I got to remember when I wake up to find out whether I actually have to turn this in because but I guess I did it. And I'm like, I don't remember doing the work. And then I fell back asleep and I woke up and just laughed because it was such a hilarious, you know, no, I do not have this job, but. Somehow, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I mean, it's kind of funny listening to the interview. It's a, it's a lovely recording that kind of says like, you know, and then I went, you know, this is Louise can be the granddaughter who like kind of goes through his boxes. I mean, it was only, but so lost, you know, it's like, well, maybe we should go through grandpa's stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And they find the tapes that were believed lost for 40 years containing the 44 second theme song he composed. I mean, honestly, though, he shouldn't have hidden it underneath all his box of cables that, you know, that that's where they want everyone to go through those. I'm kidding about that. So, yeah, it's just 44 seconds, but it's beautiful. And the grandfather, I thought this was neat.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
In the interview, they say that he had composed various songs for Marvel, Transformers and other properties. And I forget the exact wording. It basically says this was what was like most requested by fans. Yeah, cool. So the music came out last week on YouTube. There's a link in our show notes. And it's gorgeous. Just 44 seconds.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
But it's that song that plays at the beginning of the carnival ride and through the end. And it's just it's lovely. It's fun to see it. And there's some nice pictures of the grandfather of Johnny Douglas composing and doing other things. And so it's neat. I like it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, this came from my daughter who said, OK, you got to listen to this. And she was right. So it is the recording. The podcast is in Spanish. It's a really nice piece done by Radio Ambulante and NPR with an episode called One Million Coins, Un Millón de Monedas. And if you can understand Spanish, I highly recommend this as a fantastic listen for for all kinds of reasons.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
There is also an English transcript that you can see from the link in our show notes. And what it's all about is how Venezuelans began to find the game of classic runescape online, a massive multiplayer game.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
as a way to make ends meet and we get a couple of different voices that talk through this experience they had including a couple who are in university in 2018 they begin to farm items in the game to essentially pay for college right and They slowly start making money there and good money. So they tell their uncle and their cousin and their mother in law.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And I mean, you name it and everybody starts going on to runescape and farming items. And there's places you can go and risky places you can go and, you know, the easy places. And so you've got to pick your poison of how much you're willing to risk, because in the game, if you get killed, everybody can take your stuff. And so you lose everything.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And so they often in because of their economic status, can't risk dying in game. So it's very interesting in that way. And then the economy in Venezuela goes through lots of issues and there are all these power outages. And the number of Venezuelan in-game farmers had grown so high. This is right around just before the pandemic and the early pandemic.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
that when the Venezuelans can't log in, the economy of the entire game crashes, right? It's massively affected. Prices skyrocket for everything. So, you know, everybody who's nice and wealthy can't just buy the super cool thing for cheap. Now they got to pay five times, 10 times the usual price. And instead of this bringing thanks to the Venezuelans, it brings lots of racist attacks against them.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And huge bully guilds kind of organize against the Venezuelans. And this culminates in a huge in-game war with Venezuelans and allies beating off these bully guilds. And then eventually the company steps in and stops all the battles, right? And then we get views during the pandemic of how critical this was. People...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
facing just, I mean, the complete destabilization of Venezuela and the impacts it has for all those. And so the farming becomes so massive that people have to move to other games, right? It's like it's kind of farmed out and the economy is not producing. So they jump from game to game. The culture sort of fragments a bit as they're all sort of searching different ways.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
But it's just it's such an interesting lesson, right, of what people in other countries where we might take for granted just playing a game for fun and people are doing it for subsistence. Right? Like, there are a couple, you know, that couple that's in university kind of shares, like, this is the only reason we made it kind of thing, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Like, because we're farming these items for wealthy players. And at the end, you know, they look back on it with, like, emotion of, like, you know, and I've kept my avatar in case my daughter wants it, right? And just, you know, even though it was work, right? But it's such a part of their identity having been through this. It's really, it's a great emotional end to the story, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
and really heartbreaking of what games can be for different folks so if you do understand spanish or if you're interested in the in the um um in the english transcript check out it's at radioambulante.org i will try to americanize it there yeah it's interesting that i've seen economists who will use
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I can't hear you. Oh, sorry then. Yeah, absolutely agreed. And, and, and fascinating that, that, this this this is an economy not just the in-game economy but that right country's economy right like that interplay is fascinating and and and scary at the same time we will now go to our creator corner where we get a new class for a new game
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Pesto has done some great work. He's one of their big play testers. So neat to see him take the lead on that creator license and put it to use.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, James Quigley on his blog pulls together a tremendous list of resources. He's got them itemized and categorized, everything from associations and conventions, how and where to publish, tools, all of this. So you can check out our link in our show or go to quigjam.substack.com. And then in our show notes, we have the direct link to it. But it's great. It has all kinds of stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I don't care how experienced you are, you'll probably find some link there that's useful or that you're thinking, yeah, I should keep this in my toolbar somewhere so I can get to it periodically and go to it. Very useful. Nice write-up. And he even links to something of mine, which is really nice.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Fantastic. Lady of Pain, last mini of the 12. There you go.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
It is. It's a fan wizard. This is what the little boxes look like. I'm holding it up. They're very small, kind of fits in your hand. It's not oversized packaging for once. Amazing. Well done, Lego there. And, you know, we reported back a few weeks ago that you could get these and that they we had heard that you can scan the barcode and know what's inside. And so I put that theory to the test.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
That's neat. And I, yeah. He numerically kind of ranks everything and, you know, plus and minus and how does it compare to advantage and disadvantage. And it's really kind of fascinating. But yeah, I mean, it does show that it's hard to balance these out, which is one of the things we talked about on the show.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah. And I want to add something to this, Sean, that goes back to those design goals, right? So absolutely, design goal is around this resource management and particularly hit points, but also its cadence of play. And this has been a critical thing for players, for GMs, and for designers, right? We heard a lot of discussion about this in third edition and fourth edition, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
if you are, you know, are you going to stop and rest and buff up and heal and all these things right before you open the door?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
every door right are you going to um uh save certain things for the big boss fight right are you going to have one fight sleep go to your next fight every time right or do you feel you can play forever right are you going to try to go to the dungeon not even get there and have to go back and rest right those kinds of questions that cadence of play is super critical
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
to how enjoyable the experience is and even what kind of experience it is.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
If you live through this, you may recall that going back to rest was weeks. It was at least a week. Because even spell slot, the other thing is that there were fewer spell slots and the number of them that could be used for healing spells. And so what would...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
even if you had a cleric in the party, you needed many days for all those spells to be cast and rehealed once per day to allow you to get back onto it. And of course, then get all their spells back that they wanted to adventure with so you could head out. And so even with a spellcaster or two in the party, you could be looking at a week or more to rest before you could get out there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And that was a very different cadence of play, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
dm made home stuff might yeah and your players would do things like layman's spells um the rope trick right those were critical to just like vanish so that the dungeon dwellers looking for you while you need a whole week to heal on level two might not find you right and also design wise there are often things like a weird grotto that none of the goblins would go into and well you clear that grotto out and you hide there as long as you can right
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I'll just say real fast, one last thing, which is that it's so interesting to me often when I look at old school type games, they do not return to this, right? They all kind of seem to agree. Yeah, no, no, you heal overnight or much more easily. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I didn't remember that at all. That's really funny. You did this research, and thank you.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You know and probably because what we did was we wanted it all away right a wand of cure light wounds There was a magic item crafting things it wasn't particularly hard to get to the level where you could craft this thing and Once you could you would just take a wand of cure light wounds with full charges and slowly burn through that Healing each other until you were ready to go the next day if not even right down there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And the amount of them was pretty high. So it wasn't usually a problem, but it was nice because it was a tool where when you wanted to do that sort of deep dungeon exploration or very difficult series of combats one after the other, you know, every time, even in combat, when that somebody is that leader is healing you, you, you know, hey, you spend a healing surge and get, you know, 10 hit points.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
cool if you have healing surges available. And if you started to run out, then that's where everybody started blinking and going, hey, this is really hard. What do we do? Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And it's just, you know, remark on just five minutes, right? We're talking about just that you can just Right. So really what it was that every encounter had your encounter powers because you could assume five minutes was possible. But that also gave you a tool as GM, as storyteller to say, no, you've got to run from this room to the next. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You've got to keep, you know, the poison gases in this in the dungeon, as Tom Walken famously did, or, you know, some other reason why.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
now you can't just regain your encounter power and then the game could actually really change which was a neat tool right if you wanted to have that pressure and and people would take it so for granted that you'd get your encounters back that if they didn't it was like oh edgier seed time right like okay all right now we're really resource managing big time because we you know our the scenario has alerted us to this special condition
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Well, we'll talk about that later. I'm just putting a pin in that because that fascinated me when I first saw it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And that's good because, you know, if you have a fight in the middle of night, right, you don't want to say and now start over your. But it's interesting they decide to add that hour. I mean, that's a new thing, that idea that like interruption equals and an extra hour. So if time is brief, you know, maybe that messes you up somehow and you actually can't deal with the rest.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You know, it's interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
It's a strange addition. I don't know that it needed to be there. It's like a sudden attempt at realism. But OK.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You know, something I miss just because people may not listeners may not know this, but in fourth edition, this was really like they did a lot of this. And in fact, there were a couple of times that designers took the phone lines. And I remember there was a particular day was like call and speak to the designers.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And I called in with a question about my crossbow rogue and Greg Bills and I think I think he he had said something on the Internet or something. So I was like, is Greg there to give me his opinion? And they're like, Greg doesn't like your your rogue using a crossbow. They don't think that should work. He doesn't like it is allowed, but it doesn't like it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And I remember just laughing like, oh, Greg doesn't like my ability. But I liked that there was that interaction back then to that level. I don't know to what level it exists today. But yeah, for sure, feedback makes its way and they see these things.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I mean, there was clearly a bit of a change in that we saw like Tasha's and those in Earth Arcana's around then would really heavily lean into all subclass features started becoming not short rests, but, you know, per day. And it almost felt like the short rest was disappearing, which begged the question, what about those classes that really use them?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And so we thought, you know, maybe in 2024, we're just going to see that all vanish. Right. Monk, warlock, whatever, like, forget it. Nothing's going to say short rest. But no, some things still do. There are fewer, but it's still there. And I think it is a bit awkward still. Like, it's a bit awkward where some classes you want to raise your hand and say, hey, everybody, can we take a short rest?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And lots of other classes or subclasses will say, no, why would I like what to keep going? Why would we take an hour? And I thought this, you know, the change, it used to be like 10 minutes and 30 minutes in the 2014 playtest packets. And then at the very end, I know it happened right before Vault of the Dracolich came out because we had to talk about it with the DMs.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
It changed to an hour in that very last packet. And that still, to me, feels too long.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
um for that kind of cadence impact it makes it it's hard to fit an hour break into the story of a lot of dungeons or other places where you may want to rest it's like if you can fit an hour you can probably fit an eight right if you can hide for an hour you can hide for eight kind of thing and you've got a good enough hidey hole that's gonna you know but
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
20, 30, that's a little easier to explain that, yeah, maybe you could hide out behind the crates and sort of heal, you know, something like that, but not an hour.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And anyway, it just it seems like a strange thing that they stuck with it and that they stuck with this sort of in-between state of many encounter things are gone that would refresh or many features are gone that would refresh to the short rest, but not all. And to me, all of this, and this ties into my previous pin about hit dice, regaining all of them with a long rest.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
There are fewer options here for the DM to apply pressure.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
so one of the things that would happen is if you wanted to run like a long sequence of say going through a challenging jungle and things are coming at you often right and you're resting you're getting half your hit dice back well only half and then the next day is tough and now you get half back right this creates pressure yeah and and it was a tool you could choose to use but you could also say nothing happens the next day and then you know eventually you got enough of your hit dice back that you're fine
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Now that that option isn't really there, right? All pressure must be applied in a single day or you're getting it all back. Same thing with ability scores, right? There were these questions of what happens with an intellect devourer or any number of things. And there were a lot of like, I don't know, I guess it's this.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And now it's clarified that, you know, if that shadow took all your strength away, you take that long rest and it all comes back. And that erodes those possibilities for pressure. It's not all bad, but it just creates, I think, fewer options for a DM and for the creation of a campaign, things like that.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah. And then what it says to me is, yeah, if there is no long-term erosion and pressure, then it's all really on the encounter, right? Or the day's encounters. And that has been hard for DMs with 2014. It's not been terrible. You know, it's certainly very, very playable. Very, you know, 5th edition is doing just fine. But it is hard. It's something that DMs complain about, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I don't know how to challenge my players. And that means this becomes the only way is that you must learn how to, if you want the challenge and the challenge would be fun, you must learn how to do it within the day.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, it's a little bit hard to sort of work through this. It feels like it's kind of unnecessarily trying to bring in their Native Americans. And basically everybody has fought against them and tried to take over their territory at great cost. And they're sort of on the last legs. And to me, this all just feels tragic in a real world context.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
yeah i love that i mean that's really what it is right the open is is generally competitive um even though there are many tables going through the same event and it's deliberately meant to be a sort of test and it harkens back to what the open was originally which was and i'm not entirely sure when the name open came in the first thing i have in my notes is in 1978 with what became shrine of kuotola
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And the only thing we get, thankfully, is a bit of hope at the end, though, in a kind of strange way, in that a former servant of Ayur's named Tang the Horrific No one likes that drink. Escaped Ayuz and gathered rovers to attack Ayuzite forces. Tang dies in this attack on the Stonehold, but they are able to get a bunch of horses and they're victorious.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
They burn down the Stonehold place they attack. They, for the first time, sort of have hope against Ayuz. And they're now negotiating an alliance with the wolf nomads. And, you know, thinking about the potential...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
of this zone right it's got plenty of issues but what there is here is the kernel of hope against evil i mean all of greyhawk we said this again it's always a powder keg it's always something that's you know on a fulcrum and you know can swing anyway this is a nation that struggled it's been beaten by oppressors and now this is where an alliance heroes that could all be pivotal towards turning it around that could make for a fun campaign if you framed it in the right way
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's interesting. You mentioned that given the next region of the Scarlet Brotherhood, The whole book, right? We said this being this book is said to be kind of rumors and widely known information. Potentially some of it could be wrong.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And they lean into it in this section because we don't even exactly know what the capital is like or exactly where it is in this area. And so things like the father of obedience who leads the whole Scholar Brotherhood, we don't get their class and level, right? It's a mystery, Sean. Yeah. I'm the GM. What do you mean? It's a mystery. It's a mystery.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
i have there it written of as an open i i'm not sure that's science i just have that word there uh but the first tournament which is what the kind of where it all came from was the tournaments began with the adventure you may have heard of tomb of horrors at origins one july 25th to 27 1975 at johns hopkins university that was that was the first tournament
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
So they control this vast Tildenot Peninsula, which is in the south, and it's hidden by the vast swamp, which they, I guess, sort of also quasi-control. And then they have a large island that they control. And the capital is somewhere in this peninsula. The Brotherhood also travels daily. They send ships to Hypmonaland, which is a sort of South American slash...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
african sounding place jungle you know forbidden lands lost lands uh all for reasons unknown we're told um and the idea was that back before the greyhawk wars the vast swamp meant nobody wanted to go in there and so you just felt like oh yeah the you know whatever we've seen from spending a few travelers oh they look like farmers and traders but boy they sure grow a lot of food
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And then the spies start finding out, well, it looks like maybe they worshiped Therizdun, the great destroyer, though it seems like that's just some of them in this sect called the Black Brotherhood.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And really what happens is that when during the Greyhawk Wars, they emerge and suddenly, as we talked about, you know, go through this enormous assassination attacks on various nations and turn everything around. We'll have an example of that later. That's when fear and paranoia, they become like one of the main worries other than Ayuz. here.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And they, in fact, in the entry, they say, you know, the only thing that has more enemies than the Scarlet Brotherhood is Ayuz, right? Or maybe it was the other round. Yeah, only Ayuz can count more enemies than the Scarlet Brotherhood. And they have a credible wealth and resources, we hear.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And while some nations have made gates recently, the idea is that they may be stronger than ever before, especially because this paranoia and fear, nobody knows who to trust because somebody within your own government may be secretly a member of the Scarlet Brotherhood. to which I say stop hiring so many Caucasian people. Anyway. Yeah, exactly.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
You know, thinking about potential, this is one of these places, it's like a setting backdrop-y thing. Because you can't just set a campaign in here with what they've given you. I mean, you can, but you'd have to make it all up. There's nothing here to be used. In fact, even to apply what's here to the rest of the campaign, nothing here is given.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Now, there is a whole other second edition book on the Scholar Brotherhood, but it's just, it's very hard to use this, right? We're just, when you're told there are secrets, but not what they are, that's the opposite of what a DM wants, I think. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And it introduced this idea of, hey, when we all play at a convention together, it's going to be competitive and see how far you can get. And this was a thrill. And yeah, that idea of like, you know, only going to play in day two if you were one of the best teams in day one. And at the end, there's a winner.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, they joined the Solnor Compact as a way to oppose the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Lordship of the Isles, who are under the control of the Scarlet Brotherhood. But they really, it's not out of friendship, it's out of fear of the Brotherhood. But I think there's some interesting potential here.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Like this could be a place where you could say, all right, if I want like a seagoing type campaign, I could have some fun here with these like,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
uh you know what is this cursed island about could that maybe be pivotal to uh the the uh turning you know fighting off our enemies and thwarting the squalor brotherhood um maybe it ties into the past of this island of course this was originally flan um so maybe the whatever is ancient there is flan and origin that could be interesting um and maybe you could find a reason for
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
an actual alliance, right? You're doing this to be self-serving, but maybe a reason to convince as heroes that your sea barons should join the larger efforts globally. You know, that could be a cool part of a campaign.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And around the third edition and fourth edition, I think even second edition era, the Open was an event at Gen Con that was very important to a certain segment of the D&D player populace. It was all separate from organized play, right? It was just its own thing. And you would get the pregens at a certain time. And sometimes you've made your characters, but usually it's pregens.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, I mean, in one night, the Scarlet Brotherhood takes out 27 out of 30 of the key nobles ruling the Sea Princes, right? So then half the country, even though they have like rebellions and back and forth, half the country is owned by the Scarlet Brotherhood or controlled by it. And then Killen gets involved.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
in in a sometimes in an alliance with others and sometimes just of their own accord what sort of potential do you see here for adventure it's such a perfect example of a greyhawk nation right in fact there is even a revolt within or infighting within the scarlet brotherhood as this black brotherhood that follows therizden led an armed revolt
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
uh that started the chaos that keelan took advantage of and and this was after discovering an ancient temple in the hill furnaces near the sea of dust and so it's just one of these great again it's a powder keg it's it's it's a thing that's you know it's it's not this isn't there's no stability here whatsoever and anything could chuck at one way or the other right so dm rich territory here you can say like well let's go with the black brotherhood and what they were finding in the sea of dust and why this led to revolt
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And let's, you know, kind of like what you're talking about in the previous region. Or maybe we're from Keeland and we're how do we hold on to the city we have and expand? Or I want to have an ocean going thing and lean into this whole pirate business. So how do I get the sea princes back on our side and an alliance with the merfolk and the tritons?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And what secrets are there under the water that could be there? And, you know, lost pirate, whatever. I mean, there's just so much that could happen. This actually could be a really fun thing.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
uh you know dump all that old slavery stuff and just focus on the piratey uh undersea ancient and and it has everything right i mean you've got deserts in the sea of dust hell furnace mountains the ocean i mean swamps and everything here it's a really could be a really fun campaign everything a young uh dm would want to put a campaign together yeah
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And I'm holding a piece of art that shows like a broken statue and shields on the ground and, you know, just war torn landscape devastation. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
So, I mean, I feel this feels like one of these places that's kind of backdrop. It does have some potential, but a lot of it is like this is the land that has always stood up and been this bulwark against evil. And it's been going for some time. In fact, there was a local warlord named Hal Madar the Cruel. And what did he find?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And there was, you know, some some fanfare around this. And the prizes could be fabulous. Like in the fourth edition era, people got things like, you know, custom iPods or you name it, you know, black, the huge one, each of the huge dragons to the top team. Like it was a lot. So it was a big deal. And then it disappeared for a few years.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
The artifacts known as the Hand and Eye of Vecna, and he conquered a whole bunch of territory before his subjects, his former subjects, bury him alive in the Kron Hills. And in fact, I think it was Vecna Lives takes us maybe back to even getting that from the Hand and Eye.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
um from the crown hills um the shield lands faces off against the horn society then i use uh lady katarina is preparing the knights to retake their lost land so if you love that kind of mass warfare
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
um and the idea that you know there are gonna be these huge military campaigns to retake lost land and what could heroes do to act as strike teams or and take you know like the near div is a really cool ocean a lake in the center of this place with admin fort on an island um you could uncover powerful artifacts and secrets in either the near div or the cron hills
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
take out key enemies and keep some dungeons. You know, there's a lot that could happen here. If you want to lean into that kind of backdrop of war, it's not my kind of campaign, but, but there certainly is that potential there. And if the shield lands could do well, everybody around that region would be better off against eyes, right? So it's, it's a fulcrum point for the larger area around it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Uh, it borders for Yandi and, uh, the bandit kingdoms. And so there's a lot that can happen, uh, uh that would strengthen everything if if somehow the shield lands could make uh make gains against ios i i think that's a great point if your campaign is going to be the war against ios
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I wasn't sure. This is Tasha looking really good with a cauldron and a book in one hand. Oh, nice. Or egg wolf. You know, you do. Mm hmm.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I never really went to the Shieldlands. It's Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota that played there, so I don't really know their storylines. Interestingly, the Sea Barrens were Italy, which is kind of cool. Yeah. The other areas, I think, weren't represented that we talked about. No, definitely not.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Find me at alphastream.org. Work has been completely busy, but boy, do I have ideas. Someday in the future. Lots of new stuff coming.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Well, not to make things emotional, but I'm going to spend all the time I can with my son before taking him off to college this week.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
uh and uh so i i bought these like big oh i think i can reach one uh this is what a box like you can buy a box of six and they look big okay so the boxes of six have a um this will be our mini review they have uh the same they look the same on the outside so you can't tell one box of six from another as far as i could tell like all the upc codes whatever the same Open that up.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah. Until then, we can only give fake reviews. I thought that there were too many ghouls. I thought that the Empire was not really well detailed in terms of, you know, I found it ghastly.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, yeah. That's a ghast, ghast, ghast. Also found that at the end, I couldn't believe that it was a giant chocolate monster with a nougat layer. That was unexpected as the big boss.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
I do not own it. I have not seen it. I can't talk about it. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Yeah, one of the reasons that you often see adventure designers not tell you everything is because they're trying to help you not give things away. We've seen this in fifth edition adventures fairly recent, right? We reviewed Planescape. There's another one out there. And what they're often trying to do is so that you can role play this NPC totally comfortably without giving anything away.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And then later you will get the reveal if you didn't read the whole thing and the players will get the reveal. And so that makes sense. And that's not terrible, but I would rather you just tell the GM as an adventure designer how to run this convincingly or what it is now, even though you know the larger truth and rather than hiding it. I also think that it's it's.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
While it's easy to come up with this sort of one-two punch of reveal, the truth is that it's seldom doing anyone any benefits because the players are now also cut off from all possibilities to uncover anything useful. And it's better to just adventure-proof the adventure rather than...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
Now you get like a barcode on the individual ones. And then there's like a little thing here that that's basically it's like the UPC code. And there's another thing next to it. That's the thing that I found was unique. And the brick scanner, whatever it's called, app did not do anything for me with that.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
hide things because you know what does happen if they cast a spell on this npc and you know detect their alignment was the oldest thing in the book right going back to many many editions right well i'm a paladin so i'm going to detect evil on the npc yeah they're evil or in third edition we'd always say are they wearing a hat right the hat of disguise like you just always ask are they wearing a hat well they've got a ribbon in their hair yeah right probably a hat of disguise you know
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E’s Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 207)
And I'm holding up a Strahd figure while I... Oh, yes.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, he has a nice conversational style in these posts. So he kind of frames the concept and sort of says like, you know, I've always hated exhaustion. This is what he says, right? I've hated exhaustion, but I really like death saves. And so what can we do to kind of like try to join the two and sort of solve the problem at hand?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And then he kind of speaks to you and says, hey, I'm going to ask you the following questions. And these questions are great because it does get you thinking a lot about what he's talking about. Also, because, you know, he has said he plans to put out an RPG at some point. Right. So he's actually actively constructing this and thinking through opportunities.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
But the questions he asks are what penalties should come with failed death saves? How many death failed death saves are enough? And then he says, I also stripped out the three saves and you are stabilized rule simply because I like the threat of death requiring active intervention by other PCs. Right. So you're not just going to do it on your own to stop rolling. Is that a good idea or a bad idea?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
That's a really nice point though, Sean, that a lot of times when we're designing, because we're being so thoughtful and we're engineering something and creating something, we can speak about it like it's the new law and like it is now sacrosanct and real and firm when it's anything but that, right? We're still at play testing.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
We're still in the rough stages and we should pose it more as questions and invite others to poke holes on it rather than building it up on a defended stance. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, so he says, you know, when your hit points reach zero, you're unconscious and dying, all right? When you become unconscious, everything, all effects, spells, features you control immediately end. You're no longer an enemy or ally for any effects, can't use actions or reactions, so that kind of baseline stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
When your hit points reach zero and you start dying, at the start of each of your turns while you're dying, so same as current in 2024, 2014, You have to make a death save. You must also make a death save each time you take further damage while dying. So that part is still there, which I think is interesting. To make a death save, roll a d20.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
If you roll less than 10, you suffer a failed death save. Otherwise, you forestall death for a moment. A death save is a special saving throw. Normal modifiers don't apply unless it specifically says it does. So here's what happens on the table of failed death saves. One failed, nothing. Two, nothing. Three, treat your bloodied hit points, your half hit point mark, as your maximum hit points.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Are we doing a live test? It's up to you. Do you want to hear the rest of it first? Do you want to think now? Like, I'm open.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
The official D&D Virtual Tabletop, according to one of their recent advertising emails. That was awesome.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, you'd have to. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. The thing I so I did think about that ally aspect, but I sort of discounted as this is early enough that, you know, I'm sure Michael go back and check on this because he's more than a competent designer. But you're right. It's a thing that you have to ask yourself, am I causing trouble by adding this? And what's the benefit of adding this?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
no ally no enemy thing and maybe he's going to dig in a lot more into that sort of rules angle elsewhere in the game and therefore this makes sense but you have to do that due diligence and go through everything to make sure it still works um yeah
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
it's also interesting the kind of all these features you end i was trying to remember where in 2024 5e it tells you that all that happens the only thing i see is being incapacitated your concentration is broken and maybe that's how they're sort of covering all of it so here you're kind of stating this and sometimes in stating it that's also you've got to look through all this like
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
features you control. So if it's a feature you don't control, it's still active. Someone else put it on you, that's okay. You know, you have to think through these things. The failed death saves is interesting, right? So the very clear thing is three failed saves was death. Now you get an extra layer, right? The third one is now half hit points.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
So here, you know, and then you're kind of like, well, why does that matter, right? And most battles with this even matter. Well, it's going to matter because, spoiler, Your failed death saves don't reset after an encounter. You're going to carry them forward. So that's why this is happening. And just at this point, what I immediately thought was.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
But taking damage when you are dying advances this track still. And I don't know for sure I'd have to play test and find out, but I would probably take that out because my that is the number one thing that I see that actually kills a character. is you have a death save, you take damage from a couple of sources, and you're out. You're done, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And that's the biggest problem, is just multiple sources of damage. That's very easy to happen, and if this track never resets, you know, being down and taking another point of damage, you're just, you know, two combats and you could be out of there. But, but that assumes that you're even going down in the first place and getting characters to go unconscious can be rare.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
As, as I think you said recently, so rare that, uh, people will say that their character's dead when they're unconscious, right? Because, right. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Right, so hearing what you're saying, this third failed death save that makes your hit points halved, that's actually pretty severe when you realize it continues past the encounter, right? Yes. That's like being hit by, you know, one of these life drain undead. Yeah. And the rest of the, you know, day is going to be like that. That's severe, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
You're now talking that every combat, if you go down, going down now becomes you don't actually want that third failed save. It won't kill you, but it will severely impact you for the end unless you can change that. Let's let's read the rest of these rules of your game. Yeah, go ahead. So or at least or at least take the next step. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Stabilize the creature automatically exceeds that saves until it takes any more damage, so you're not conscious right, but you're not dying You're not rolling you can't go forward, so it's a nice way to keep someone from going from you know one to three for example Okay, but if they take more damage now they And one thing that's not clear so you know you're so you're stable you take damage and
Mastering Dungeons
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Do I immediately roll a failed death save, or am I now back in the state where I make failed death saves?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Let's see. Well, dying is when you are at zero hit points. Yeah, stabilize needs to tell you whether you are no longer dying, but are on, you know, like something like that. So there's a little piece to work out there to make sure you know that. Yeah. All right. So how do you how do you remove a failed death save? Yes.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
While you are at your maximum hit points, you remove one failed death save and its effects after a long rest. Note that in the case of having two failed death saves, your maximum hit points are then restored to normal, requiring more healing to reach your maximum and then remove more failed death save.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
A little quickly written, but I guess the point is, so if you're at bloodied hit points because you're at failed death save, you have to first get to that total. then remove your failed death save. Now get to your maximum hit points and now remove those other ones is what I'm reading.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Because it means that you would need two long rests to be fully out if you had just two failed, just three failed death saves, I should say. So you have three failed death saves. Yeah. Yeah. So three failed death saves. You would have to first heal yourself. Someone have to heal you to your max bloodied HP. Your bloodied max. If you're not already there. Yep. Your bloodied max. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Now you got to take a long rest to cure that level. Now someone has to heal you to full and then you can cure the other two levels. Yep. Well, actually, each long rest is only one failed death save removed. So that's a lot of days.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, it's cool. I mean, I'm impressed at how much they keep kind of rolling this out, right? We'd heard some rumors that maybe there was something that existed from, you know, before the acquisition of D&D Beyond even that was out there, a virtual tabletop they'd begun work on. But
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And all of this goes away if like wrestler restoration removes all this or something, right? And it becomes a totally different equation where now you must have a cleric or if you do have a cleric, it's one way to play. And if you don't, it's another way. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, so this is the last part is most effects that grant exhaustion now grant failed death saves. There are likely exceptions that I need to work around, Mike writes, but the intent is to replace exhaustion levels with failed death saves.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
So, you know, you're traversing through the wilderness and there is this situation that would, you know, you failed some check and you're going to get a level of exhaustion. Well, really what you're doing is getting a failed death save.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I don't know whether you get to make that saving throw to see whether you get the level or do you get the level because you already failed to check, you know, like I failed against the avalanche. Do I gain a failed death save or do I make a death save to see if I get worse? Right. Not quite clear, but but it's an interesting effect. What do you think of this?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I always struggle with exhaustion and making you less capable of in a game that's all about you being capable, um, is, is rough and, and it, it can turn players off of interacting, uh, or make them feel like everything has become a slog and it is an uphill battle in a non fun way. Right. And so, so I'm always conscious of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
they have you know come out with a solid initial release and then added things and it's easy to say oh man hit point tracking like my other virtual tabletop does that and sure but this started as something you know really light and more like owlboy rodeo and they keep adding to it and integrating which is nice so here when you now add a monster it'll pull its stat block across and it collapses nicely so you can kind of hide all that and just see the name of the monster in the initiative order or you can show more and more of the of the um
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I, I, I, you know, I would want to play test this and I'm sure Mike will as it is with the
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
premise that i would want more than four failed death saves on this track and probably no effect for the first one but something minor for a second and either third or fourth that gets inserted in between either before or after three i'd probably want a new three or a new four just to make it a little long so that these exhaustion things can work and because i just worry that in many
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
If we're talking about three days worth of play, you know, if you're having the one encounter per day and you're doing a hard or like a very deadly type hard encounter to challenge characters, well, those death saves might kind of add up effect wise.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
if you're in a dungeon it could be brutal right where you have lots and lots of opportunities and you're going through all those things with say half hit points right that going down becomes really tough like level three becomes giantly a problem right you have half your hit points that's twice the opportunity to go unconscious compared to before and yeah
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I super agree with that. And the DM is happy, right? Because now you can threaten more easily versus so many times you can't. Even the paladin with the, you know, absurd, the paladin who's multiclassed and has shield and the absurd AC is now closer to being vulnerable and actually enjoy some fun for the DM. Yep, yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
It's really impressive. So, the website states, quote, free does not mean low effort. We put thousands of collective hours into these games. They are free because we are idealists, which I appreciate. They have a variety of RPGs available, all for free. There is a printable spinner that's provided instead of dice.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
So you can use like one of those like brass fasteners that you twist the kind of bottoms and other side. And then you can rotate these dials, these circular dials on flat paper and determine outcomes that way. So most of the books kind of have that as part of it.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Bull Press will cover all costs and will respond to requests sending printed books complying with prison codes directly to those facilities. Cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah. Yeah, I think it was talking about the Illidulf game, which is one of their many there that they have.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, it's pretty neat. So he has a two part series that he actually shared part of it on our Discord first and was conversing about sort of what he wanted to do with it with a second blog. So he compares the same character. I believe it's his wife's character that had to go through converting, I think, from 2014 to 2024.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And noting how the concept behind the character to just change it from 2014 to 2024 significantly changes the character itself and makes it hard to be exactly what that personality was. So he got into like, well, how do other systems transform the concept? And how do I like, for example, in Shadow Dark, where I'm all about my glaive, but Shadow Dark doesn't have glaive as a weapon.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
the stat block and you actually can click on like the attacks and the um uh you can click on skills you can click on things like that to roll the dice behind it right if it says d10 plus five is the damage roll you can click on that and off it goes and rolls it And that's really cool because before this, you had to do that over on something else, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
OK, well, I can call it this, but does that impact my play? And, you know, when I go into Cypher system and now I've got to come up with different mechanics and explain what I am or how do I capture that concept and then even Pathfinder. So it's really interesting to look through this. It's actually quite fascinating and speaks to really kind of key design concepts that change out a character.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, and it's open to folks who have alpha access, some creators and folks who backed their crowdfunding. And you may recall, we talked about this before, like a number of companies were part of that crowdfunding effort and working together to fund the whole platform. And so you can find what those companies are doing there as well. But it's neat to start seeing this coming along.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
It is, of course, a very, very tough thing to take on YouTube. And there are a number of groups who try. It is difficult to take on Twitch or any of these. But that focus on our hobby space is something kind of unique and interesting. And so we'll look forward to seeing how this progresses.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Like in through the plug in that allows D&D Beyond to integrate with like Roll20 or you could do it with being in Discord, right? But you had to kind of move it across that way. Now you can do it directly there. And for hit points, you can just kind of subtract how much it's taken or state what the current value is. But you also can customize the max value, which is kind of a nice handy thing.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
yes i have succeeded at being on a ladder and putting up lights i felled a christmas tree uh right after a family member said that uh well i guess we'll wait for you to cut that tree and i was like watch this and i sawed through that thing with dad powered ire in just seconds it was great and uh yeah we held the christmas tree it snowed and we saw a rainbow all while getting a christmas tree if that isn't that's
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
So, you know, it's funny. I'm usually not anxious. I'm pretty level. I, you know, like sort of shockingly, maybe we could say annoyingly. So like I'm kind of like, whatever, it'll be fine. You know, until because I'm not immune.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so there have been times when, you know, I can think of a couple like in graduate school where there was one time where I was going to speak about the wonders of our school. And I really liked our school. I had like 20 ideas to talk about. But we had like 15 people, all students talking. And I was last. When it got to me, there was nothing to say. And I should have said, I love our school.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Everybody's covered everything. You know, if you have specific questions, come up and talk to me. And instead, I tried to ad lib just magically hoping something would come to my head. And it was just like my brain started talking to itself. You know, I was in that 3D space of trying to say things out the mouth while thinking. And it was the worst. So I'm not immune to it, you know.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And sometimes when I go on specific types of shows or something, I'll get a little more nervous. So there are a couple of things that I've read about and that I think are helpful.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
um if you're doing a thing like an appearance or whatever if you can work out that kind of release of tension right of like kind of getting your body flowing can be really helpful to to keep you kind of feeling good to be in a positive mind space prevents anxiety build up um coming up you know having your plan be simple Right. So it's not like 20 things you need to remember, but just that simple.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I'm going to talk about this. Here's some points I can make. I don't have to make all of them. But, you know, something like that, that you can feel pretty if you feel comfortable about your plan and it doesn't feel overly convoluted, you'll usually do well. And I do that a lot for work meetings. Right. I don't have to cover everything. I don't hold myself to some high impossible standard.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Just something simple and streamlined like that will help me.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
some strategies as teos just said or some paths you can follow if things start going wrong we'll move in this direction and everything will be fine with dming right and i do a lot of you and i both do a lot of dming in public and so one of the things is just stay busy right so you don't sit there and create dead air time you want to just get into it and say okay everybody hey welcome here's what we're going to play i'm looking forward to seeing everybody you know let's start with me painting the scene and getting right into character introductions and okay now let's do this and tell me about that and you just
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
So you're able to kind of state this monster has this many hit points to begin with, and it's taken this many and just kind of track that as you go, which is very cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
One foot in front of the other keeps it all going, so there isn't that moment you have to sit there and go, oh my god, what do I do next? You just execute on that plan, keep yourself busy. Yep. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I love this, Sean. It's fantastic. yeah this is this is great and and i i mean i think everybody i would suspect everybody struggles with to some extent you know the more you play about thinking about this because you you of course have those moments where somebody who's so incredibly skilled makes an impassioned, you know, plea with all the right points and rolls a one.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so what do you do with that one? Right. And, and the, the, the, you know, a thing that you often hear and that you sort of want to do as well, you know, let's roll first and then role play. But, but actually while that works for combat, because all the questions are there,
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
It doesn't tend to work for role-playing scenes, kind of diplomatic type situations, because you often are thinking of the plan as you go or talking back and forth with NPCs or various players. So it's hard to do the role up front because sometimes you don't know exactly when to roll, right? So you do a bunch of construction and then you make that role.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so it's very hard process-wise to say, make me a role for this scene. Now, what it can actually do, if you do that, you shortcut the scene.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
right often because you well i succeeded i rolled a 20 so who cares you know i make a great point about the blah blah blah and now you missed out all the cool drama or you rolled that one or something else really low and now the player feels like they just go well i insult their you know so-and-so their partner and we're done here and and and again you miss out on the actual drama of play if you roll first right so it's it's tough it's a tough conundrum
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
you know to tease out exactly what is or isn't encouraged there I want to say if I recall correctly that it sort of has the like you know but consider other factors right which is what a lot of games do which is the easy way out of all this right because you're you for good reasons are afraid to dictate one of these choices that you've presented because all of the choices can it sometimes I think be the right choice
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And if your game tries to prevent it, then it creates a problem. But I will say that different games have different ways of exacerbating this problem, right? Like spy games are a great example where they will say and even like Star Wars and games like that will often do this where you're the pilot. You're the face, right? The charisma person. You're the gun person. You're the infiltrator, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
It gives you these very clear roles. And games from Shadowrun to Spycraft to Star Wars, they all have these kinds of things. And it cements this idea of this is what you're good at. others are not good at. But depending on the system, that may or may not be true to a lesser extent. And of course, the dice can still carry or the plan can carry.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And that exacerbates this issue of, you know, well, of course, we have to send the face in to convince the people to open up the door for us. But the person playing the face may not be clever at coming up with things on their feet. Right. And that that creates this problem.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah. And I think that is the you know, what is the right answer? The right answer is that you don't want to clamp down on it too much because it will other problems will arise that are worse. And so really, it's an ad hoc situation. Be aware of this and then play off of it in the way that will be most fun at that particular time.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Sure. Yeah. In the meat space, as you said, it can be hard. Sometimes conventions will, certain conventions will have like a play test area, which can be invaluable for game designers. A lot of board games do this. So they will go to these particular conventions that feature this to be able to run through tons of tables and they have some way of saying like, hey, come try new games.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's still really in a nice sweet spot. And, you know, we joked about this before, but, you know, when you create a company and you kind of assign departments and you're creating teams and you're giving people different colored shirts.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
So people know that they're not fully finished games and they're looking forward to that and providing that feedback. um there are groups online like discord channels like there is the um uh uh rising tide ttrpg group that is on discord you can find them uh on maston for sure maybe blue sky as well uh and join that server you can find people to play it to us people on our discord will um
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
put in requests to playtest, right? They will try things out there and say, hey, I want to run a thing next weekend who's available so that I can try this thing out. So just find some format where you're happy to be as happy as you can be to be and lowers that sort of anxiety and so on so that you can just find a group of people to kind of try through things and try it.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
It is always difficult to find people, but a lot of these places at least have people doing this often enough that you're not strange, right? You're yet another person showing up to people who are ready for this and prepared for this. And that's the ideal thing is find some group like that that fits your needs, where that's the expectation is this is not particularly polished, etc.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so when you say the D&D Beyond pillar and you say the virtual tabletop digital pillar, I forget the name of it, you know, like when you put people in different groups. they will do different things. And you, you know, if I were there or if I were advising somebody, if anybody's listening and you want a guy, you know, in the peanut gallery, here I am. You know, what I would say is,
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And, you know, the beginning of this sort of said, I don't do social media. And I would say that even if you did do social media, I would not recommend kind of typical social media for this because just like random people on Blue Sky or Macedon aren't necessarily going to be great play testers.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I would still say try to find the places where this is being done by others and join that because that's going to just give you a better result. It is great to get feedback from just random people, but you will get better results from people who understand playtesting and what's expected from it.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
The D&D virtual tabletop that is the 3D version sounds really complex, and maybe that's what it should be, right? A super complex, super amazing thing that you spend the time and you get the payoff of all that investment. Maps should be the opposite, right? The light, really easy thing. And if that's the way these pillars kind of shape up, I think they could both really coexist nicely.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
doing what you can't do in everyday life like that's something i see new people time and time again so achieving results but results that you can't you know in this imagined fantasy space right that i can ride a broomstick or cast a spell or whatever it is that you're coming from that you can now do that instead of seeing an actor do it or reading a book about it is a huge thing and so you want to show how easy it is to do that
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
You want something super simple. Maps has your back and it's easy integration and all that. If you start to get to that complexity, but you're not getting that absurd payoff that the virtual tabletop is promising, then that's where I think you're fighting each other rather than helping each other out.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, I love those. I shared on a recent show that the struggle we had a little bit with Savage Worlds and Deadlands. And Deadlands has this interesting story where it was the RPG, then Savage Worlds, and so to the point where now, the current version, you buy the Deadlands set, but you also need the Savage Worlds core buckets.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And then when you're looking something up, you're like, where do I look? And the best explanation was actually their quick guide, not the Deadlands book. So that's their point number one, right? That the best way to learn the game is to go get the free product. not the paid product. But even with that, now I have three things. I have the Savage World book, the Quick Guide, and the normal book.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And then I have to decide which do I look in? And sometimes we were looking in all three. And that bogged down play, right? And, you know, I'm about to run Savage Worlds again. So I've been prepping an adventure and I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not looking forward to this continual problem of which book has the rules how.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And with what's described here in this opening question of a system that's fairly complex and allows you to choose your approach to the rules, right, your rules modules or something like that, that's going to be even more critical.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so how can you, especially at this quick guide level, whether it's someone else running it themselves or you're explaining it, you're running it at a con, something like that. The players must be able to do that really quickly. And so the perfect showcase is almost like what Sean was saying about a choice around your character.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
If you could very quickly say, OK, we're going to play this game that I've made. Do you want it to be sci fi or modern? That's we've got many choices, but we're just going to choose those two things. Let's go with sci fi. OK, here's this very simple thing that we have. Here's this one page that captures all of the differences we're going to embrace because of that. And now let's play. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
That might be something that's doable. Right. For a new player to take on. Because when you ask about the entry points for D&D, why does it work so well? Because it fairly simply delivers on what people want out of the experience and then has more depth behind it. But the very basics are simple to grasp. They're iconic. They all translate. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
That's a good trick. You know, a lot of there's a lot of talk about why ideas come out in showers. Right. And it can be the simplest explanation is because when we're in the shower, we're not really doing anything else other than a thing that we can kind of do while only thinking. And so you achieve a flow state creatively, flow state, get it? See what I did there?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Anyway, you are more creative because you can kind of not worry about the fact that you're currently putting in shampoo or whatever it is, and you are thinking about the problem and coming with ideas. And too often when we should be in a creative mindset, we are doing other things that don't allow for that sort of flow state.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so what often happens is the flow state only comes when we have the deadline. I've got to run that game tomorrow. So I need ideas now. I just have to. So I turn everything else off and I focus. Well, that is the key. Turn everything else off and focus. And so a walk in the woods, a walk on the treadmill desk and those can often do that, too, because it sort of gets your body going.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And forgetting the other stuff sort of ties up your body functions into a flow state more easily so you can think through it. And so finding some way to get to that flow state is really good. One thing that I embrace very heavily is that idea that there is no muse, right? There's no magic that just shows up.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
you must do the work and so especially if you have to put out you know thousands of words it's one thing to create your your you know your dm session of course you got to do that that's all important but if you have to really like write a whole big thing the only way to do it is to make progress and you just must make progress and so what i often do to get into a creative state is i'll outline
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
because I start thinking about the problem and then I'll start writing a few things. And as those things get cohesive, I will naturally continue that and be more likely to enter into that kind of creative flow state where I just start pouring out the words and they come out. But. It isn't going to magically happen on its own. I must set it up for it to continue happening. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And so that's where the outlining, the working, the initial writing. And sometimes you may not particularly feel a flow state, but you just do the work. And at the end of it, there is the work. Right. Now you have something versus if you sit around waiting for some magic to really feel it or something like that. Well, you'll probably sit around and not have any words.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And you don't have to hit your head against the end of the wall when you're not making progress, right? If you're working on your session for the next gameplay and you started with ways to play off the PCs and you're not thinking of anything, okay, think about what the villains are doing. Do that for a little bit.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Now, maybe that actually creates an idea for the previous thing you were wrestling with. Or if not, you think about, well, what kind of factions could be involved? And you go, hey, you know, that player had an interest in this faction. And suddenly solving one problem, you set another, right? So moving around can help. You just don't want to not do the work, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
The common thing we do, and it happens back in school when we're doing homework, right, is they're like, boy, this assignment's hard. I better go get a cup of coffee and then I better get a sandwich. And then, well, what you aren't doing is tackling the problem, right? And you're waiting for that magic moment and magic moments don't tend to come.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
You have to do the work in one way or the other and find your way to constantly be doing that work.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Ooh, find me at alphastream.org. I'm trying to put the finishing touches on a blog post, but I also have all recent videos as well. Last time I discussed what the DMG teaches us to create, like magic items, spells, monsters, kind of, sort of. And I talk about what's there comparing to 2014. Where do we find you?
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I'm going to drink eggnog until I have to make multiple death saves.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And I always think that the funny thing is, is all companies and I work with a lot of companies on like interface type stuff around environmental compliance. But on the interface side of things, one thing that companies always forget is they always have a plethora of people in the office that don't actually use the product.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
At any point, you can show those people a product and say, this makes sense. And they never do that. They never actually ask these. They've got a number of people that could just say, hey, take this for a spin and tell me what you think. And they never do. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Because when you do that, that's where you see the basics that you can shave that time of coming up to speed, making it awesome, reinforce the things that work well. Right. Instead of just getting lost in features. So I know you've had those experiences, too.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, because that's what will make people really, really enjoy it. So, so far, so good. Good, good stuff on the D&D Beyond side so far.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, and it sounds like it has ended up with this sort of like immersive escape room-y type angle, right? So you form a party, you choose whether you're a rogue, druid, fighter, or wizard, and you explore a mysterious dungeon, starting with the Yawning Portal Tavern as a kind of getting started point.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
then you go into this mysterious dungeon you encounter iconic creatures there was art of a beholder you gather experience points so you're clearly doing something to kind of get rewarded and then you face a final epic confrontation and that takes about an hour it said in the faq
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And then you get to hang out as long as you want in the bustling, water-deep market and enjoy D&D-themed drinks and food. So we've got a LinkedIn announcement from Chatty DM. And then we have the events page where you can sign up. And it's already open, so you can go there now if you're in the Toronto area or can get there. It's www.vibrantstudios.events.en.dndimmersive. Looks great.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
Yeah, and this immersive experience said it would run for several months. So I didn't see an actual end date, but it may depend on kind of how well it does. So go there, show your love if you can, and I'm sure you'll have a blast.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And, you know, this is not in our show notes, but I recently thought I had meant to include in show notes, which is that the we talked about that D&D magazine in the UK that has had a number of issues and you get kind of fun things with it. It's a format that's used for a lot of products.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And I guess typically what's done with these kinds of things, it's a certain number of issues that that go out in this magazine. So it's reached the end of its run. And one of our supporters, Richard Green, who is an amazing designer, works a lot with Kobold Press, does his own world. He has been working on this. Will Doyle, who also supports our show, has been working on it.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And and I even got to see an issue which was flump featured flumps. That's fantastic. And so I got to see how good this is and what was awesome. This is where it ties in is with license things. It was very interesting to me when I opened up the credits page. Sure, it thanked, you know, Richard and others who'd been involved. But it had so James Hake is the editor. Right. Works with Ghostfire.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
And then it had a number of WOTC staff mentioned from sort of layout art marketing kind of effort. So it wasn't just licensed, but kind of like actually using the time of wizard staff as a sort of collaboration, which I didn't even think.
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
conceive of dnd sort of doing that kind of arrangement i thought that was really cool and sort of surprising because you don't hear wizards talking about this a lot maybe there is some promotion going on in the uk but i thought that was fascinating and so i wanted to share that but also say congratulations to richard green on an amazing run of that magazine yeah and i feel like that's i feel like since we're off on a little bit of a tangent let's continue uh that is one of the things that is interesting about
Mastering Dungeons
Listener Question Mega-Show (MD 220)
I hope all the bad holiday movies are making up for that.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
If you're not already there, find those items ultra quickly, you know, literally bring them to them, leave all the clues and have that big fight so you can get the payoff and wrap it up. And that's probably what I'd do is step one. And then step two is picking the campaign that's going to let you have that change that you want to it. What do you think?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah. Yeah. If you decide that you need a turn for the dark, then you could go back to that. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And seldom is it that you, you know, you'd be lucky if you had a really clear answer. Like you think about it, you go like, oh yeah, we absolutely want to finish the campaign or leave or whatever it is. Uh, you know, have different experiences within Barovia. You know, you're going to have to just choose one, right? Get some feedback from the players and go with it.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And either way, it'll be fun, right? Just like you've been having fun for a year, but you've also realized, well, this is not quite the kind of fun we want to have. So, you know, the same thing is true of any other choice you'll make. It'll probably be more. You'll ratchet up the fun to some level. Will it be the perfect choice? Who knows?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Well, you can watch a live play run by Jeremy Crawford, DMing an all-star cast. There are designer signings. There is a DMG panel where they'll talk about the design of it and what's in it. Learn to play adventures will be offered. Hunt for the Lost, Uni's Lost Horn will be there. A learn to DM workshop. I thought that was very interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And we reached out to Chris Tulak, head of organized play. And he said, yeah, they're kind of trying this out.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
in london and maybe if it's successful there'll be these learn to dm workshops at other shows too which i think is really cool i know at pax west a lot of folks have come up and asked across the years like hey you already kind of learned the dm workshop here so this is really neat there's also an anniversary special called scions of elemental evil premiering there
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, it's interesting. You know, when they say, like, continue the series, I think what they mean is there's these sort of anniversary specials are Sojkant, the Uni. This one. Was there another one already? I forget. But, you know, it's part of this. These releases to sort of celebrate the 50th. So, yeah, I'm really excited to see what this is like.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And hopefully we can also see it like on D&D Beyond later.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
They do try to focus on new things, but they often will mention things that already existed in 2014. Like one of my favorite examples is they go through and roll to create a settlement. And I was like, cool, cool. Wait, didn't Sean and I do this when we reviewed the 2014 DMG? And so I opened that section up as I watched the video. And there were actually some new things that they came up with.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
But a lot of them were right out of the same tables you and I rolled on when we were reviewing the DMG. So I think this is more of a review of the book as a whole versus just, hey, here's what's new.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, I mean, this is the end. Excellent sign. But also on the DMG topic, you know, alignment was discussed. And this goes to our earlier question. The book argues, and Perkins talks us through this, that action determines alignment. Alignment doesn't determine action. So if a creature's behavior changes, then the alignment can change.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And they give the example of a goblin that might initially be hostile and it's neutral evil. The party might win it over and talk it down from combat, teach it to change its ways. And if that behavior is over time different enough, then the alignment would change. And so, you know, I think that kind of speaks to this idea of like, you know, why aren't there consequences in alignment?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Because and the answer they might give is, well, we're not seeing this as a shackle to which you must conform, but rather the current representation of how to summarize what you are actually doing. So if what you're doing changes, then your alignment changes. That's an interesting take.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And again, the game itself is removed right before it used to be that some classes would say your alignment has to be an X, Y or Z or to worship this deity, your alignment must be A, B or C. And then alignment change would have actually had deep teeth in older editions because that would bump you out of whatever you were and you would have to atone or whatever. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
But but now there are no such restrictions. So, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Even then, right? I mean, I think we saw that in the original incarnation of Dragonlance in an Arthur Cana where they would say, like, well, to be a red wizard is to... But I believe a lot of that really went away, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, I thought that was interesting. And this also hits on some comments we've had on one of our earlier videos where we talked about DCs. And, you know, the tools section of the player's handbook has this very prescriptive, here are the tools and here are the DCs, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And in fact, if you're trying to figure out how to pick a lock, you find it by reading the lock section and that the DC of a lock is 15 and you use this check to try to open it. And it all sounds very static. Well,
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
that's the equipment section which is on page you know i don't know 100 and something if you go to page 10 page 10 will actually say that this book the player's handbook has dc's and that they are examples
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
but it's really easy to miss that right well this reinforces that because we apparently get not only information on doors which codifies approaches to to you know approaching the door dealing with the door and then stats on various doors and on various locks so we can see here that though the ph might make it look like there is one lock to rule them all here there are various locks of different types so
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I'm asking on behalf of a friend of the show. We will find out, right? But I mean, I think that's where... I end up saying, well, then why did you do what you did in the player's handbook? Because the player's handbook really kind of makes it seem like this is all very cut and dry in one way.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And then I wish the tools section would have just said, which it easily could in the text that's there, you could easily have said, you know, these example or typical or whatever DCs, feel free to vary, you know, your DM may vary them or they may vary based on the situation.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
That just would have saved everybody a lot of grief, I think, versus having to put two books together to figure out what the real answer is. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, well, I think that, you know, there have been some loud folks like the Alexandrian talking about how this is, you know, lacking. Maybe we'll see to whether they go to the extent that that pleases them, you know, on having dungeon procedures and things like that. So we'll see what's here and how different it is from what was already there.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I'm curious to what extent they will actually pull from things like...
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
wasn't Tasha's I forget there was one of the books maybe maybe it was Van Richten's one of them kind of gave us like all these planar tables and effects and I'm wondering whether they'll remember to go back and get that they probably will because I think James Wyatt worked on it but I'm curious to whether they pull in some of those things that are in other source books or if they really stick to more of the DMG yeah you would think the Planescape book was published recently enough that they would maybe find maybe stuff them if it was there
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I noticed the art, which includes pictures of the 80s cartoon characters. And I also saw I forget if it was this video or previous one art from the Fallbacks novel series. You could see their little pet companion audio was there. So, you know, it's kind of fun that they add this in some really nice looking art. And as you mentioned, Perkins rolls to create a settlement.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
They said that the siege weapons now include a keg launcher, which I thought was very Acquisitions Incorporated.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
It's true. They have an article out noting that Honor Among Thieves has become a global Netflix hit, despite not even being available in the US. So Netflix shows the weekly kind of listing of of top movies, the top 10. And various people look at this and parse it and so on. And there was an impressive three point two million viewers and seven point two million viewing hours both last week.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And it looks like this week as well, if I kind of put in the date of October 13th, placing it in ninth place on the list. And that is really due to limited number of EU territories. Like it was number one in Croatia and Serbia. Right. And like number four in Brazil. So just not every country has it. And of course, not the US. And yet still globally ranking ninth.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
So Screen Rant points this out as well. First, they praise the movie. They say, you know, I don't know what's wrong with humanity to have missed this as a great movie. And they say that, you know, it got all this acclaim from both from them and others in the past, gathers all the high marks received from various audience review platforms and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
It won this year and that all of this could encourage a second movie and that maybe it'll boost it in subsequent weeks higher, especially if it were ever to be on Netflix in the US.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, I mean, if you're new to Greyhawk, you may be surprised to find how much of what we might think of as D&D's lore comes from Greyhawk. I mean, I know I now delight in when people ask this question and you start just rattling off names and they're like, wait, wait, really? Like all of that? That... That's Greyhawk, not Forgotten Realms or not just some core D&D worlds. Like, no, no.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And the list of famous adventures. And just and so it's just a nice, very simple capture, quick capture. And it'll say, like, you know, who's a Sararac and who is Vecna and just all these little bits, not in any deep way, but just in a quick kind of giving you a feel for it. And, you know, all these aspects that tie back to Greyhawk. So it's fun, recommended read.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Well, 30 cultures that you can put in. And the real point is like, If you think of the 2024 rules where it really says like, OK, because you are a sailor or a guide or whatever it might be, you get ability points and you get these skills and you get this feat. And that may feel a little weird that like every sailor has this one feat, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And so really going into that nurture concept, right, saying like, well, what if we say that instead it's culture, right? So to quote from his product page, create a rogue from a maritime culture, a barbarian with an honor culture or a paladin from a corrupt culture or a fighter from an erudite culture. Better yet, be a bard from a body modifying culture and start the game with the tattoo kit.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Adorn your friends for fun and profit. And Keith was kind enough to do a sneak peek as he was working on it on our Discord and even kind of think through some options of, you know, should there be a hedonistic culture? And, you know, what does that mean? And it's really fun. It's a really neat approach to kind of change up the idea of what your background is, making it this cultural aspect.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
It's only five bucks. So thanks, Keith, for creating it.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
The fun of it is that it's a Groundhog Day type mystery. So you are traveling on this lightning rail train that Eberron has, and you're stuck in a time loop. And this is causing you to travel through Ravenloft rather than to get back to the destination you're trying to reach.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
It's an adventure for third to fourth level PCs, six to nine hours of play, high resolution maps of each train car, and you have to unravel this puzzle of why you're in this time loop and work it out by visiting the different train cars and things like that. Very clever concept, a lot of fun. I love Groundhog Day type adventures. Yep. Very fun. Good fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I mean, that's a really interesting question. Older editions, right, had consequences in various places. The idea that, well, it's either an envoy of your cleric, of your god, or a god that grants a cleric their spells. And so if you've misbehaved, you don't get spells.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah. Really, this is taking their their vast number of dungeon pieces they released over many different Kickstarters and pulling them together into one set with some really neat, awesome additions and giving new fans the opportunity to get back to get into this. Right. And say, OK, you know, I missed all that.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
How could I just get some cool sets right to make help me make the kinds of dungeons that I see people building with awesome Dwarven Forge? And so you can pick up three different types of sets. They have the kind of traditional classic dungeon, the dungeon of doom style, where they're kind of pillars on the walls that I like a lot or a new sinister paint scheme.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
So you can do that where they want to create a particular look for a certain room or section of the dungeon or because you won like over the others. And everything is discounted compared to the typical prices. Plus, when it's on their website, they tend to sell out. So this is like the time to pick it up.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And even if you don't want the full terrain builds and you're more of the kind of DM that puts a few things on the battle map, they have some set pieces that are just amazing. Like one of the new ones is like a serrated, you know, kind of jagged, daggery like stuff all around and an opening.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
You can just think of how much fun that would be to plop that down on the map and everybody goes, oh, man, we have to go in through that. And or, you know, maybe you're fighting around it or whatever it is. So there are a lot of those kinds of set pieces that you can just drop down on a battle map and have fun with.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Sadly not, but I'm sure you could build the Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom with it. I don't own all of Dungeon of Doom, not remotely close, and yet I can build almost anything from it with the pieces that I own. So a lot of times it really kind of works either way. Everything's modular enough that you can build the free adventures that they have on their website that I help write.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, find the campaign at gamefound.com. Vengeance Reforged.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
and you won't until you get better right and that is super fascinating with the paladin if they strayed from being lawful good they were no longer a paladin right they were stripped of their paladin hood and and the books would talk about this right
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Welcome back. You have exciting news?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Well, actually, even before that, can we have you introduce yourself to the show? Like, we know you well. We've been admiring your work forever. But tell us about you and your co-founder and kind of how it led to here.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And I think just those two examples alone, though there were probably a few others, really hammered home this idea of consequences to everybody who was a player. And you might not play a paladin, but you thought about that when you read that section.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I want to say, you said, oh, I've been working for six years. That is a six years that a lot of people have been working for 30 would like to have that across their 30. That's incredible. You did all that in six years. Wow.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And so this kind of encouraged that kind of behavior and that kind of table talk of like, oh, wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be, you know, chaotic neutral? What are you doing here? And then people, OK, I guess you're right. And it's kind of course correct, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah. Having another partner that brings in slightly different skills is super key for sure. I marvel at the people that have the skills that I don't. And I'm so thankful for that.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I love your, your emphasis on the visual side, my actual, and you said you enjoy seeing it. So I don't know why this is, but my biggest kind of fear I have in a project that, that I have a large control over is actually seeing the art. And I didn't know this about myself until it started happening, but I'd like get an email from the artist. I'd say, Oh,
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And like, I was afraid to click on it and I didn't expect that. Like, like it's my big, I've realized of all the things that might frighten me, seeing the finished art is like the thing I have the most trepidation about and anxiety about. And I'm not really an anxiety person, but like, yeah, like I click on that thing and I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
So a magazine, how did it come to be a magazine? I can imagine you're the kind of person who had a ton of ideas of things you could create. And magazines are a big part of D&D's history and RPG history. What led you to be a part of that?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Happy centennial, Mastering Dungeons.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
well and that tells me a lot because there are i've worked with companies that play test but they don't know what to do with the play test feedback and the value you put on it and and how you're talking about it being involved in the process tells me you really make use of it but that takes a ton of time it really does it really does it's a lot of time in spreadsheets it's also a lot of um
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Your magazine is quarterly. Process-wise, are you taking up the entire quarter creating it? Like I could see it taking that long.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, that certainly resonates with me. I had a number of years in graduate school and just after it where I was not running D&D, but I was living off of my Dragon Magazine subscription to feel like I was still in touch with it. Between that and old list server forums, I'm very young, you just can't tell.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
But it was, you know, like that just kept me feeling like I was still a gamer until I could again be a gamer.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
It was nerdy in a good way. I was impressed by it, too. I was like, oh, we're going here.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I've made it the backdrop behind our faces. So folks who are watching this on the YouTubes, you get the extra treat of seeing that art there, but everybody should go see the actual art that is on your website.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Nice. Great artist. Yeah. So the articles. Yes. Actually, one last thing. Do you have a preference with monetization cuts, whatever? Is it better to go to your website or to go to Patreon? Do you prefer one over the other?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Sounds so marketing. I mean, I feel like some chief marketing officer celebrates that. Hey, everybody!
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Awesome. I like that part a lot. That idea of then handing it over to the players so it's not just an NPC side thing. That's really cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
The art of the dwarves is really great with the star-like flesh that they have in the art is really something else.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
combat consequences seem fine but these other consequences are just less acceptable i mean i suspect it's a sort of societal thing right i mean i think if you've when you're playing like board games for the first time with a young kid right you know they roll something they don't like and they want to reroll it, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I love everything that Willy designs, but he also is particularly good at names and all of the names of all these NPCs are just excellent.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, yeah. Stratus and Mylar and Hylai and just all kinds of great... But they're also really fun. Like, what does he have? Denim isn't one of the characters. Denim Delph? That's just a great name.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Or they want to like, what if my arm were to just hit this die and change what it says, right? And they kind of look at you like, could I just? And you're like, no, it is what it is. And part of maturity is sort of growing up to accept that. And so I think that
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
in the context of dice of play of you know decisions oh you're right that meant i fireballed my party that's my bad you sort of accept those consequences because they are clear results of your actions but i think when it gets to things like this sort of renown infamy losing your access to spells you know warlock right did you stray from your patron right we could really go into that and actually could be very interesting novels do that you know like crazy um
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, this is what happens to an NPC when their parents change their room when they go off to college. It's just make a villain. It's a cautionary tale. You're helping people, Hannah. You're letting them know.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Fantastic. So, so issue one is jam packed. Uh, you must have some pretty interesting plans for the future as well. Uh, cause you said you're we're working like two, three issues in advance.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And or, you know, very emphatically. And I think that's where we, you know, that becomes a judgment call. It's not as black and white. And so when it's not so stark a line, then we have to reinterpret it and think, well, now it's my opinion that you have gone too far. And that, I think, is a little harder to take. And so, you know, why why did Wizards of the Coast go halfway here?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Fantastic. Love it. Wow. Yeah. Every DM wants that if you have a paladin in the party. That's great.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
It's been a pleasure. It's great to hear about about your your company, the excitement of this, the passion you're bringing to it. Just fantastic. Issue one looks amazing. Highly recommend folks go out and pick it up and sign up for all the future issues as well. We look forward to seeing it, Hannah. Thank you.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Folks who want to follow you and follow your compatriot Clara, where can they best go to kind of see what the two of you are up to?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Well, because to go full way is to leave a certain number of people dissatisfied as well. would be my guess as to why. And I think that if you talk to Chris Perkins or Jeremy Crawford, they would probably say, yeah, no, we don't want to have a rule for that. And in fact, we'll have a quote from Chris later in our news section that I think speaks to how they feel about this along those lines.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
I have been consumed by work, now consumed by GameHoleCon, but you can find everything I've done in the past at Game... No, AlphaStream.org. You know, that's how much game holes in my brain.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
uh my cleric was talking to this entity and this entity basically was saying i should worship it right and that it was almighty and do everything i'm saying and then i won't destroy you was sort of the underpinning of all this And so I really I mean, I couldn't say no to it. It was going to squash me. But I also I've decided my character was kind of intrigued.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
So I kind of dual dated for a while, let's say. And Kelsey was sort of smiling and laughing and a couple of the players were too. Right. And that kind of matters. The tenor, the kind of nature of it was a little sort of, you know, let's have some fun with this. We weren't trying to be super serious about this play. But, you know, at some point.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
She basically had a little conversation from my normal God saying, so, you know, what are you doing? Are you moonlighting? You know, are you? And I said, well, no, no, I'm not. I'm with you. But there's this entity and it is pretty powerful. It's not like you. But, you know, I got to I got to kind of, you know, kind of got to play it a certain way.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And she's like, all right, you know, I'm watching, you know, says my deity. And but it made that clear. Like if you stray a little further. The deity will be mad with you and there'll be consequences. And I thought that was a really fun way to do it. Right. But it would no rule would capture that back and forth. We had. Right. I think that if you want rules.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
You have to think about what they're trying to accomplish. Right. Like 13th age has the icon systems. And those can feel like sort of deities in some ways or factions that you're a part of, but they're larger than that. But you do have these relationships with them. And one of the things that the system allows for is that you can change over time, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
How close, whether you have an enmity with them or are you... you know, closely allied or neutral, that can change through play to represent those interactions that you've had. And that may result in something along those, you know, some kind of consequences directly in play, but also to your character itself. But but it's something that you work out over time. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
And it's both a framework and not super nailed down in rules. Right. That makes sense.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Yeah, I mean, you know, and that's where you want to have a feel of like, you know, should you literally say to everybody, hey, you all want to just change to a different campaign? You really can do that, right? I tend to think that you will probably want most groups would want some payoff for the investment you've done in this campaign and story thus far, especially with over a year down. But.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
There comes a time when you want to kind of nip it in the bud and get it done. And so what I would probably do is, you know, there are and this was brought up on our on our discord. There are ways to do Curse of Strahd in a day, right? Like people say, like, hey, one evening in October, you want to run Ravenloft or Curse of Strahd.
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Here's what you can do to get it all done and get all the items and, you know, finish off with a big battle. So you could, you know, look at some of those and find a way to just wrap it up. It doesn't have to be in a session, but maybe it's a couple of sessions and maybe sprinkled into those sessions. You add some things like some pretty funny ghosts, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Horizons Magazine with Hannah Rose! (MD 211)
Or something along those lines that lightens it up a bit and gives you starts getting you that some some some play that is a little more along what your group wants. But you may want to, you know, step A. Get get this campaign done really fast, like, you know, two, three sessions just charted out, you know, get into that castle.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
when and why or why not teos i rambled last time so you go first this time uh well my last game i ran was uh one of my favorite ways to run a game which is a vinyl battle map wet erase pens drawing out what's going on and doing it and the reason it's one of my go-to's and the thing i would generally advise to anybody to use if you're going to use minis is because This frees you up.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It frees up your headspace to do all of the other things that are great about the game, right? Role playing characters, blah, blah. You don't get locked into too much. If I have the time and I will make the most of it, then other tools are great, whether they're dungeon tools or tiles and tiles, Dwarven Forge, right, which is gorgeous. I love height.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I love things that players can move around and see what's on the other side of like that's super cool to use terrain and things like that. Love it, love it, love it. But it is a fun option and you've got to do that extra work to make it pay off. I have played tons and tons of online plays.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I used to, during fourth edition, play, I don't know, two or three games a week on Map Tool, which was an early VTT. I also played on, I don't remember what it was that we always played back then, but it was very text-based with, you know, kind of very simple moving stuff around. Yeah, I did a lot of that during Living Forgotten Realms and it was fine. I've done a lot of Roll20.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
In general, what I find is as a player, totally fine. As a DM, I find that the time I spend setting up online stuff exhausts me versus the time I spend, say, doing Dwarven Forge or drawing a battle map or laying down dungeon tiles. That energizes me. I don't know why. And I've heard people say the exact opposite for them. Right. So I think it varies by person.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But for me, setting up an online thing exhausts me. And so it doesn't it doesn't give it robs me of energy rather than giving it. So I tend to not do it. And it's just going to vary by person. I think Sigil looks gorgeous. I think that what I would want most out of it is ready to go drop rooms that I would just go kind of like a fully built Dwarven Forge thing, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Like take that really cool thing and let me just drop it down pre-built and join it with a corridor. And then if I'm going to add stuff to it, I can drop in features. I like that idea. That would be neat. But I want the minimum. I do not want to Lego build every piece. And I say that as a person who loves Legos in real life.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, it's got different glowing areas. Yeah, pretty cool.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I feel the same way. And, you know, I forgot to say kind of how I feel about digital like character sheets and stuff. I'd rather not have them. And a lot of my players do like them. I don't make a big deal if they want to have a laptop or an iPad at the table. It's fine. I don't care. But or let's say I'm not going to cause trouble around it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But I will say that I find that when they play on paper pregens, they are more present than when they are using digital tools, because there's some amount of headspace that's going towards that. Lower my hit points. Do but the debit up.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And the menus and the whatever is that takes a little bit more effort away from being there and looking each other in the eye and hearing the joke that someone else made or hearing the cool insight another person landed. Right. Those kinds of things happen more when you're just looking at each other. Sometimes I think that people's love for like indie games.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Some part of it is the fact that a lot of times we're playing those without any tools because none exist.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
and so we're totally in the middle of it right like you go to a convention game or whatever and you're totally into this thing and there's just the gameplay being paid attention to when we go back to what may be our root game we probably have all these tools and whatever's and thingies and we bog it down so that we're not in that immediacy right but we can easily have it it's always there to be had um again no issue with anybody who loves all these tools and has fun but in general
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
No, I don't really find that. To me, that's not the amazing part of the game. And if I think of 5E's resurgence, I think it's because it's what Rodney Thompson said in a video recently. It's the idea that the rules can recede into the background and the play carries forward.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
other side of technology that is useful that's helpful that brings you closer to the game so you know all over the place short answer whatever works for you and your group do that yeah and just you know pay that attention to to to think through hey this session were people focused on the tool or were they focused on the game and what would be more fun right yep
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
How would I know? How would I know, Sean? Where's the errata section of the D&D Beyond website? How would you know, Taz?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Well, I knew because Christian Hoffer, formerly of comicbook.com, I'm really sorry. And they laid off many at comicbook.com. He is now writing some posts on Ian World. And one of those was gathering various errata that people are reporting about that do not show up in the 2024 physical books, but show up in D&D Beyond.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And you and I have been around, we've seen some games, we've seen some additions. We know that lots of games come out and immediately need errata. This is nothing new. There are always things that, you know, the game is, it's like any IT system, right? It's perfect until some user touches it. And then you realize all the things that kind of pop.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And that's the way it goes, no matter how much playtesting you do. So there are a number of things that have changed. I don't have a problem with that as much as I really don't have a problem. I just to me, that's just the reality of games. But I do have a problem with the fact that I can't go anywhere official to find this list.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And if you're going to change stuff in the digital rules, wizards, I want to know it. I want you to tell me. I don't care if you change the italics, you know, italicization. Yeah, sure. I want to know. Like, I want you to tell me, right? We applied format changes or at least or something like that.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But especially if you're going to do things like say that shields now utilize that require the utilize action to Don or Doff. And that's not in my player's handbook. You need to tell me you made that change. The giant insect spell now clarifies its hit points and changes it on whether you're fourth level and above and that. You got to tell me any of this stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah. Yeah, and it's something we brought up at the summit. It's something that I've emailed them since then to kind of say, hey, this issue is still there, you know, and the most I've heard is something along the lines of like, oh, we're working on that. And it's not that hard. Bring the files over, you know, create a new file.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Someone's tracking this somewhere because someone's telling somebody to make these changes in D&D Beyond. So there's a document somewhere. Pretty that thing up.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
and get it out there so we have it maybe maybe they're waiting for the official launch release to come out when everybody has the book but if you're going to make it on dnd beyond it should be documented yeah no no argument there anything else about this uh yeah about this issue you want to mention
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
One thing that D&D Beyond did do is they put up a page that shows the differences between 2014 and 2024. It's not as detailed. It's not the same as what we covered last week that Tom Christie pulled together in a document. But it's focused and it's focused more on like D&D Beyond character creation. But it is at least a way to see some things that have changed.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Like it doesn't say all the feats that are new, but it does identify all the spells that are new, some changed items, some changed terms. So things like, you know, I had missed that starvation is now called malnutrition. I'm like, OK, you know, that's good for me to kind of put a pin in and a good document to have as a creator. So there are a number of these things that are useful.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But, you know, it's only a partial view. And I think it's fair to say and important to remember that there have always been 2014 elements that were not fully implemented in the character sheet in D&D Beyond. That's going to be the case of 2024 as well.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So, you know, I think most folks who are pretty there in these kinds of things in their assessment have said, you know, it's kind of like it was before. There's some things in the new classes that aren't there, some things that are. And that's all right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah. And thank you for Walt for that breakdown while also provided a, uh, what all the different articles are and the list of pages. So you can see that in our show notes, it talks about all kinds of things like, you know, making honor among thieves movie, you know, all this stuff, uh, stranger things, uh, biggest actual plays, you know, there's a lot of things there and nice articles all there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Though, I mean, I still, you know, I think we've hit baloney levels with what 5E has been able to do this last year. I mean, what did we have? We... We've had nerds, we've had Legos. Yeah, the Legos is really big. And there was another one that I remember thinking like, oh, this is this is this is what I was looking for.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I got I can't think of it now, but but I think we've surpassed the bologna levels because we have to think bologna was in Spain. And that's great. I love Spain. But but that's limited compared to sort of, say, the giant U.S. market of various things. And we have now enough examples like the stamps, for example. Right. Like Everybody walking into a post office seeing a poster of D&D stamps.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
as i did when i walked into my post office not too long ago that is amazing that beats baloney right there uh and so i think even if the pop-tarts didn't happen you know this this uh this has been really strong and and we are past the baloney levels so good job dnd true story something that's not baloney bald man games has an organized play survey that they've been sending out to people who play dnd and who go to conventions and maybe play organized play
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, it's really cool. MCM has often pondered, you know, exactly how to open things up. What's the best way to allow creators to create in that space? And they're doing this with the latest backer packet. Right. Drawsteel is not out yet as a game. So this is kind of a test, which I think is kind of smart.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So creators or backers where you have to be a patron backer, you can take that backer packet. and you can create with it. Now, it is important to notice that the license can change at any time, right? This is kind of a test of the system. You can't use art, but you can use literally everything else. You know, check to find print to make sure that I'm right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But the and we've got a link to the license in our show notes or you can go to MCDM productions dot com. but you can use proper names, right? You can use lore bits, all of that. You just can't use the art, but you can use the rules, the mechanics, all this stuff in the backer packet and create things for it. And that's really kind of neat, right? You can't use their logos.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
You can't say it's an official MCDM product because of course it's not, but you can see all of that. And there's a specific text that you'll put on the cover of your product to show that it is done through the creator license.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
but really neat so if you're interested in that go see the mcm productions website for the full information on it so where can you you can where can you publish this yeah you can sell this you can do free stuff you can you can do for sale things i think you can publish anywhere you want so uh again i'd i i've yeah only give it a quick once through read but my i didn't see any limits on where you can sell there isn't a dm's guild or anything like that like you could
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
A little suspicious, let's be honest.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
go and publish for the world of draw steel and use a famous personage and all of that as I understand it if it's something that's in that backer kit document then you can use it again I'd be careful if you want to go beyond that then you need to read it carefully like if I want to use something from a previous published product that's not a backer kit one so I'd have to read the fine print but
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It's a neat initial test, right? I think it's a nice way to do it. So you can see if, if folks are interested in it, um, you know, as a creator, you can publish something small, test the waters, see how, how the interest is there. It's kind of cool.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yes, I mean, it's really short, as we expect from from Shadow Dark, right? It's all brief and contained with the idea that you're going to add to this as needed. In general, what's going to happen is the DM is going to roll for weather. They're going to determine and share which hexes nearby are visible to the party and determine the danger levels of those places.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
PCs can then make checks as sort of tasks they take on. Sort of if you think of like one person's the navigator, that kind of thing. One person's foraging. And those things can provide various benefits, like giving you is it called luck token? I forget that whatever it is that can give you like rerolls and things like that. And then you based on that, you may change things. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So even the DM determine the weather, you can actually withstand it better. So the weather becomes one better for you. Right. So you can change things after the fact duty. If you succeed at your tasks, you can even lower the danger level because you're prepared for things. It's a kind of nice, elegant, simple system way to do it. Then you PC say, hey, this is the way I want to go.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
The DM rolls for random encounters every other hex, and you kind of repeat various steps over and over again.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
there are also things for camping which is nice addition so you can when you when you bed down for the night you uh the dm's gonna check for random encounters twice pcs have different tasks that you're doing so that can also affect things um and we get rules for traveling quickly making a hex safe like you want to clear the place out and make it non-dangerous uh and then ideas for the kinds of threats and counter tables that you would do and stuff it's pretty neat um yeah and there's things also like like um
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
what a hex will contain, whether there's an obvious thing to be found or if it's hidden and you must locate it. So a lot of nice rules. It's very similar to other OSR rules that are out there for hex crawling if you're into it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And I think a lot of it is really, you know, to what extent you love a procedure like this versus just saying, here's the story I'm going to put down for the party to roll off of or I'm going to play off of what the party does and just decide what shows up. You know, this is really a procedure, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
uh but and my players are mad at me and for murdering them in the gauntlet won't let me run shadow dark but uh but i yeah i i am curious to see how that works i've also been reading justin alexander's book which is full of very procedural type stuff that i don't quite jive with but for the reason that i don't jive with it i want to try it out and kind of understand it better so i can see where my view of that might exist uh and speaking of grim hollow stuff sean i picked up
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
These arrived in the mail. It's the the player kind of setting book for Grim Hall of Valachan Clans. And I'm also holding up the the adventure itself that comes with it. And these are really cool. The art and layout are just absurd. Top, top notch. And you've talked about some of the neat things that are in here before. But but I was.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I was kind of struck by a couple of things, and I held them up in opposite order. But anyway, when I look at the one that has kind of player facing stuff and campaign kind of rules, The use of maneuvers for classes is really cool and creative. We're all classes. At first, I thought, oh, this is just like a maneuver, like a battle master type thing.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But no, it's like druids have maneuvers and monks have maneuvers and sorcerers have maneuvers. And it really injects a lot of flavor into the play. And these all come through subclasses. Yeah. And then also there are some the way that you define your character has a really nice system where you.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Instead of and you've kind of talked about sort of really leaning deeply into what your species is, what you're doing is is defining what aspects of your clan you pick for yourself and you get a number of things that you get to do, like
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
you know being a gifted performer or being able to hide more capably and you you get a number of these and so you can actually like double down and do two things and now you're like better at it because you you get the second level hour you're born healer you gain proficiency metal skill a medicine skill but if you take two of these you become a war doctor and now you can do the check with advantage and so on and so forth
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And I really like that system for defining your character. And I think the player, it's the kind of thing that when I read it, I was like, well, players, if I drop this on my players, they'd be like, oh, oh yeah, I want to make my character now. Exciting stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
20 uh 280 almost 300 on roll 20 and then it leads into sales of the entire book or uh points back to the kickstarter yeah that's smart yeah really clever i love his newsletter for these kinds of insights and and even if it's just one data point it's a well thought out data point and there's a lot of you know a lot of downloads and experience behind it which is great
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
yeah i mean so pre-order is really unusual i don't know if it's ever happened before um i can't think yeah the dm's guild has allowed keith baker's company to to put this up you can buy it now and it's been up i think for a little more over a week um and the the actual product will arrive on september 17th one of the folks on our discord was saying hey maybe this is as a way to determine whether print will be available and which could be smart
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I was visited in Portland. Well, okay. He didn't come to see me, but James Intercaso was in Portland.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But it's already at Electrum and climbing, and I'm sure we'll soar once it's actually available. It is $33.95, which is not cheap, maybe in lots of people's eyes. But, you know, it is Keith Baker and his team. And Eberron's very popular, and he has often had the most popular things on the DMs Guild. for quite some time.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It details the western frontier, the contested land between the ancient kingdom of Breland and the rising nation of Droem. Quickstone is built for 5E 2024 already, which is pretty cool. It includes new species such as Harpy, Gargoyle, or Medusa. New feats, backgrounds, magic items, subclasses. There's an adventure. And so I looked over this advanced copy. It's 257 pages. Very pretty.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Art everywhere. Nice layout. Chapter 1 is really cool. It may be my favorite chapter. in that the character roles are really nice ways to tie the players into the setting. In fact, both chapter one and chapter two are very much created with the idea of like, you are a DM running this. Let's make this as good as possible for you by involving your players.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And so these character roles are story elements for your players that are going to make them more interested in this setting. There's great advice and elements to guide play and have ties to the land. There are things like the Western fields reinforced with rules for arcane duels and options to use like a wand or other item in addition to spells to like face off each other at high noon. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Kind of fun. And then we've been talking with Greyhawk about how do you make settings interesting? And what's cool about their Gazetteer is it's really all player facing. So it is written speaking to the player. And that's a really neat trick, right? Like you're not usually it's the DM that you're talking to. And so therefore, everything is like secrets.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But sometimes it's overdone and the history is not useful in this way. Everything is made so that the player gets the necessary information about this region, knows what's interesting, sees these things that are teases of what could be. And then the DM can decide to flesh that out. You know, whatever seems interesting. And chapter three is the town of Quickstone.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
There's some really neat things like, for example, groups that your characters can join with possible ties between the different groups or types of characters. Chapter four is player options. Chapter five is treasure. You can be a warforged. Right. So that's been updated. So you don't have to wait if you want to updated warforged. Here's Keith's version of it. You can play a warg as a species.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Chapter six has new monsters. These kind of have some fun features, like there's Demon Glass Warrior as a template with an example provided, but you can make anything into a Demon Glass Warrior. Chapter seven then has the adventure. So very cool. I would I would give this my endorsement. It looks well worth the money and a lot of fun. I like a lot of the ideas here.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
No, I'm enjoying this. Go ahead.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
If I were a creator, I'd recommend it as a way of studying this kind of product. It's pretty neat.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, I mean, so I think that increasingly what designers found is that it's a bit of a mess when everything is described differently, right? When the Medusa petrifies one way, the Gorgon another, the... You know, trap does it entirely different way. Everything's a one off and every designer is doing it differently. So it's a problem for the designers as well. Oh, well, I did it that way.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Oh, I did it this way. Right. And the play experience is a surprise and not necessarily for the better. It also means that these conditions are completely not balanced. So if you want players to do them in any way through a magic item, through a feature of their class, you start wanting to standardize it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Because now it'll work all in one way, the same way that you want to have climb rules be a thing you can look up. You want to look up what it means to knock someone prone and not have it be five different ways for five different features. So it becomes a standard block that designers can use, players can use, DMs can use. And now the DM knows what's going on.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
games like fourth edition did this a lot, right? Where you just saw that every power, it might just be damaged, but it might set you on fire, it might knock you prone, it might push you, slide you, you know, all these various things. And so having those as keywords is helpful to know what it means. Fifth edition pulled back a bit from fourth edition, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It made things a little looser, but still wanted that definition. So we see that with being hidden, for example, where it tried to dance in between the here is everything you need to know to decide whether something's hidden. And but DM, you make the call as to whether your target is distracted and whether the factors allow for hiding or not. They were trying to play in between both.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I think now we see in 2024 an attempt to be more codified. And so everything's in this rules glossary. And these are keywords that are supposed to be more stable and less about making call, which is in part a big change between 2014 and 2024 of whether the DM is making a call or And let's say the positive way. 2014 said, we want to empower the DM to take the reins of the game and make calls.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And 2024 is saying, we want to free up the DM from having to make calls all the time that'll get questioned.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I see the number in front of me in the show notes. Were you surprised by that? Yes, I was. That is way higher than I would have imagined.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
uh he and his lovely wife and so i got to see him we had a we hung out we we had a meal we uh chatted about the game industry and all sorts of fun stuff uh all of the exciting things about mcdm which we'll have more in the show later uh but yeah it was super neat he said he's like the nicest guy in the world right so it was just uh everything was pleasant and laughs all of that
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Right, like for example, we could say that more like along the lines of Shadow the Demon Lord, and I forget whether Shadow the Demon Lord has conditions per se, but in general, it's more like you either get a boon or a bane, right? Advantage or disadvantage type of option or a thing that has happened that we would view as negative with, you know, OK, petrified your turn to stone.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I mean, and the game might some games might say, I don't even need to define that for you. Look, you're stone. You don't get to do stuff. You know what's up. I don't need to tell you. And everything else is going to be like you either get a boon or a bane on one side or the other, and the DM can decide. And we're done. Yeah. Right. And maybe that's great.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But then also what it means is your character now just is doing these things. And so if I both knock you prone and I have something else I've done, well, I can't get, you know, double advantage. So there's not much interest. But if I can, you know, slide you four feet and knock you prone and charm you and deafen you. Well, now things are now I've got lots of options. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And that tactical juiciness is there.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, especially when you'd have area of attack things that would be like, oh, you know, you're on fire. And then another thing, you've got acid damage and also you've been, you know, charmed by this effect. And so, you know, you'd have lots of characters or miniatures with these things on there. And it was a lot to track. Many would say a little too much.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
No, I think you're right that in kind of core 2014 players handbook it seems really reasonable and play how these things happen right if you do an obvious like this is a spell that is you know causing vines to come up of the ground and you know bind you well you're probably restrained right uh you know something like that uh but Otherwise, the game was not heavy on this.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It wasn't like fourth edition. We felt like, you know, every other power was doing something to apply some sort of effect like this. I do like save ends. I miss save ends. I'll say that particularly for things like being on fire, acid damage, this kind of thing. I like just having that simple term save ends to let you know exactly what to do with it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
The the things that like sort of you may repeat at the end of your turn, you know, it's the saving throw at the end of your turn or start your turn. The language is unpredictable enough that you never know if a spell would have this or not. You almost have to look it up.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And it's funny watching even the designers like Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins run acquisitions in corporate games and they have to look this up. Because you can't count on it the way you could with fourth edition. And it's not as simple as save ends so you just could have on a character sheet, you know, S.A. at the end of it and remind yourself, no, you got to look at that.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
What is the wording? And they often would either call it wrong or had to look it up. And I thought that was pretty interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
so what did we get with 2024 as exhaustion rules to us yeah still death at sixth level uh and every level is minus two to d20 tests per level of exhaustion so it's more wide ranging but the minus two is probably a little more palatable to people at the initial levels so i'd argue that by level three your character your players are looking at the dm and giving them you know mean looks
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I don't you know, I don't love either version. We've talked about it. I find that in general, this is trying to do too much. You know, the end thing to me is that if I'm making a story about traversing the wilderness, I'm not going to just use exhaustion and make you do checks all the time. I'm going to have to create my own rule for how this all works specific to the adventure.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And that's literally the point of what I shouldn't have to do. And yet I'm going to have to do it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Either way, I think that to me, it's less about the math of it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
the mentality of it right like the way jeremy crawford will say i can't believe that people cared about whether their you know dwarf gave them a plus two to con or not and i'm like are you kidding have you met players right it's the mentality is the key and and and that's the thing is i'll have to see more tables play but i know that disadvantages on ability checks in 2014 caused players not to want to make a role and you can say that player is wrong all day long doesn't matter that's what it does to a lot of people
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And there's some point where this minus two is going to do the same thing. And it may be as early as minus four. I think minus two, most players I've played with, you know, OK, well, that's whatever. I'll do that. But at minus four, they start going, well, you make the check or I don't want to make a check or I'll go the long way around. And now player choice is impacted.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Player enjoyment is impacted. Minus six. I mean, that seems to me well into where players are just not going to want to play the game.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So let's go to Frightened. Now, am I right that that did not change either, or has it changed in some way?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
large conditions based on just stacking those well and i would guess that you know someone who wrote the 2014 version would say to the 2024 team well i did that because you've said can't approach and then you've immediately added the word willingly in the next sentence which is now an important part that they need to consider so it's not as simple as can't approach you it's just can't approach willingly but you know right so you get into that little trouble of
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Trying to define it, it's hard to try to and you can move so around the room such that you don't get closer, but you can't approach. You can't lessen that distance. That's where it's still going to have to read both. It's a nice reminder, but you might miss something if you're not careful.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Or bring it to you, right? If you can bring it to you where you are, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
You know, I guess I feel like it sort of doesn't matter. Like, I want to think that this is, to me, 5th edition was not trying to be this defined a game. And it was at its best when it played that, when it when it leaned into that, like we're not trying to nail down every little thing. And here we're trying to nail down everything.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And then, you know, now I'm wondering, well, can I take other actions? Can I take can I can I can I take a free action? I would say it would already was to me pretty clear you can't take actions. But now that you've gotten an added bonus action, now I really think that maybe I can do other types of actions. And, you know, it's just like, what do you want to nail it all?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
You know, like you can't sort of nail it all down. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So, you know, if I think about where alignment came from, it comes from this sort of like law chaos paradigm in novels. And it was at a point when the game kind of. was still very war gamey, just you get to play a character.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Tell me about Invisible, because this one I find very interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, hidden and all that. It's now sort of an underpin for being hidden. I think one thing here, this equipment you're wearing or carrying is also concealed because it doesn't say at the time of gaining this condition. It says to me that that question of like when I'm invisible and I pick up the thing from the table.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
is that visible or invisible right it's always fun in movies that you can see it and in novels too this to me suggests i can pick up a thing and it becomes invisible because it doesn't limit it drop something it becomes visible yeah
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And so having some simplistic way that you could say, I lean this way or that way, added a new dimension to the game that was kind of cool when otherwise there were nothing like that was going on. Not that we can't see like in I'm not going to get all ancient historical, but there are plenty of examples of people role playing and LARPing type behavior throughout early role playing game stuff. But
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
right if i drop something it's it's visible an effect that leaves me is visible but but the thing on my body and that's interesting because i would have thought otherwise but the wording of this and i don't know if it's if it's intended or not but now that you went and said it this way i end up thinking this and that's the danger of saying too much um yeah it's it's it's fine you know this is fine yeah i agree it's it's a it's
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And I communicate telepathically, right? Right. Am I witnessing things? Did I see what happened in the room? There's a lot there that I wish we knew a little better with both paralyzed and petrified.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
what a lot of people were doing is stabbing stuff with their swords so adding this is pretty sweet in the my early games of playing basic and ad and d alignment was this like really interesting piece that would lay on to everything else like like it would it would be an overlay over everything that you're doing
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah. What else? I think that. Unconscious. If I recall correctly, let me check and make sure this is true. So unconscious now says you're unaware of your surroundings. I don't know that it said that before.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah. And then again. An open question is. Go ahead while I look this up.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
do blank you know it's it's it's weird so yeah yeah it is weird uh the other thing is not in the list of conditions but bloodied now exists as a keyword where you have half your hit points or fewer remaining and that's one where it's like Okay. Hmm. Interesting. You know, to me, that's very much a condition, but they didn't want to add it as a, on the condition list. Okay.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
that the DM could kind of use to remind you of the fact that this is a role playing game, right? So they'd say things like your cleric wouldn't do that because you espouse these virtues and now you're trying to go this way. That doesn't make sense. It's not coherent.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It's interesting, right? Just a small area of the game with some small, subtle, but really signifies the design intent changing, right? Different approach to how rules should be used by DMs and what they should say or not say. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Let's do it. And let's start with the folks depicted in this art, which is holding up a picture that shows a sort of genie, married type character speaking to some folks who are all wearing turbans and that kind of attire that we would associate with maybe Middle Eastern cultures in our real world, even though we're in a fantasy world.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
um you know it would say that you cannot be like that paladin because the paladins must all be lawful good right and and are these paragons of virtue and law and whatever and so that adjustment constantly happened and you even had in third edition spells that would say you know it only damages these kinds of people right so the ethos was of this these alignment axes were constantly being drummed into the game
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And it reflects all of those kinds of issues, right? That somehow when Rome does things, oh, well, that's an ordered society doing things. But when Mongol raiders sweep through, well, that is a totally terrible thing, right? And, you know, it reflects this, right? The designers give them a chaotic alignment, right? Raiders and thieves. And it's like, okay.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
It's like they can't even read their own words about the lack of resources and how you have to move around and do a lot of gathering of resources rather than going around. And hey, they're attacking like every other one of these nations here, but they get the chaotic label. Okay.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
The horse lords, the Rohan of Lord of the Rings. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah. The other thing that's cool about them, but it's not super focused, as we've said, often this book
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
washes or brushes over the neat stuff right so there are these stone circles of tovag baru on the waters of udru kankar i mean that already sounds amazing and uh that's where these marriage that i showed in the picture have showed up and the married gave a gift identifying the next back loonish emperor to a bunch of traveling traders but the traders lost this gift and so the emperor was never recognized
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So that way there's a giant thing that could change everything. And then they don't really say what Tobag Baru is, but it's appeared in a number of other works. And it is the all that remains of the capital of the Baklunish Empire after the Invoked Devastation. It's a site of power. There are ties to Vecna in later adventures. And so there's a lot that can be done with this place.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And we're not really told about that. Yeah. And then we have a lot of prophecies of war, a possible son of the deity of Akbar provided his intrigues. There was the the the folks of some folks of these planes who are more aggressive, attacked, kept and held it until Keelan freed it. So there's a lot of interesting pieces here. If you could kind of reshape this and work on it.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
The coolest thing here is the archmage and witch Igwilv. She resides in the quote-unquote lost caverns, they say here, Sojkanth. Her or Sojkanth if you're Chris Perkins. Her armies of evil humanoids conquer Perenland with priests of St. Cuthbert trying to win it back.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And what actually turns the tide of battle is when she's, quote unquote, brought low when a great demon prince she holds captive escapes. And later there it's said to be grazed and her son is revealed to be Aya's. And so it's a big deal that she held Graz captive and consorted with him because this leads to Aya's being on the land. So really big oops for the rest of for anybody who's good. Good.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And they were used as sort of almost like course correctors of the type of play you were doing, which I think made sense for what the game was then. And I think that can still be fun. This is where you and I disagree in some ways. I think that, for example, if you were to dig into Dragonlance, I think that, you know, fifth edition, when it had its unearthed arcana, Dragonlance had these ideas of.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And then there are always rumors that Igwilv is coming back. This is all written before Tasha was also said to be Igwilv. I won't get into the super history of it, but you know, now we say, or at least designers say that Tasha and Igwilv are one in the same, which is always a little tough because she's made to be kind of good in more later products or good-ish or chaotic or whatever.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But she does terrible stuff back in Greyhawk, right? Like really, really terrible stuff is as dangerous as Ayuz or Graz or any of these uh demon lords that we would accept are through and through evil so yep it's a little history there uh
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And it says here his next goal is to conquer Selene, the Elven kingdom we detailed a few episodes ago. Highport is described as an interesting city. There's not a whole lot here to go on. But this city on the northern coast is the largest city in the Pomarge. And it's dark. It has all manner of inhabitants.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And one thing that's kind of neat is sort of like who's around during the day is different than the night. And so the night is this indication of where the city is headed as all kinds of evil humanoids or demons.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
have like sort of their own markets at night and so on and and everybody who's maybe goodish is closing their shutters and pretending this isn't going on which is an interesting idea yeah so you know this place is perfect for that you need to infiltrate this
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, or change it from within. The other thing, if you're looking for more traditional adventure, there's the Drakensgraab Hills and Sus Forest. They're just kind of named here. There's a section later that talks about, you know, hills, mountains and so on. But Drakensgraab means Tomb of the Dragon. And I mean, you just tell players that and everybody goes, ooh. There you go.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
alignment in various pieces. And I thought, you know, that could be really interesting to give it a shot in this day and age to say, OK, if we really say that to wear the black robes means this and to be a mage that wears the white robes means this and that to be this kind of knight means this thing. And we're going to dig into that. Now that's kind of cool, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I mean, it's kind of cool, but also sort of like we've already held, heard a number of cases of, and the King falls ill and the wife falls ill or some variation of that. And so in this case, it's Knowles in the bone March defeat the King's son. When they go off on a sort of mini crusade, the King falls ill right after that. And so now the, uh,
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
The I think it's the yeah, it's the lady, Evilly, the queen. She struggles to rule because her family is originally from Bone March, so she's not fully trusted by the people of Radek. And so they're in a very perilous position between trying to have peace with various tribes to the north. trying to deal with the Bone March and other forces around them.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
So great danger here, very, very much on the edge, right? Which is so Greyhawk, right? Everything is a powder keg waiting for one little bit to send it one way or the other, which can be a lot of fun if you like that kind of impetus for change.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I mean, the title Fiend Sage for the administrator, also pretty cool.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
You're joining the alignment club and it matters. And in interactions with NPCs, this will come up. And when you cast spells, it means and what you can access. And that's really cool if you go into it. But if you don't, you end up where we are today, which is I've done this at a table at a convention. And I invite anyone who wants to see how important alignment is in today's era to do the same.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
mean this is a really cool sort of overlooked region i think because it's so far off to the side but if you think about it with the north kingdom remnants with the uh you know elissa sunday uh scarlet brotherhood on wall kind of being to the south and southeast uh you've got the sea barons and the lindor isles to the east so you got a lot of oceany type fun stuff that can happen the uh hepmonoline down below there's a
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
lot that you can go off of here i would always rather be sort of in and you know partly biased because it's where i played the most in living greyhawk but i i really like that sheldemar valley region and of course being right by greyhawk is really cool but this is a really nice option for a campaign there's a lot here that you can work off of and easily add to without making any real changes and with that we will say adieu to greyhawk until next time
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Tell everybody to flip their character sheets over. Or, you know, not look at them or whatever, and then ask them, all right, tell me what your character's alignment is. Doesn't matter if it's a brand new character or level 20. People have no idea. I mean, there'll be one someone at the table who goes, of course, I'm, you know, whatever. Or they guess neutral good and it's accurate.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I have been slowly recovering from a work onslaught, but you can find me at AlphaStream.org. Someday there will be my PAX retrospective when I can finally write on my blog. Otherwise, find from there all the things that I'm up to. Sean, if I want to find you, where do I go?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
What are we going to do? Well, I didn't want to spoil it this early, but since you brought it up, I have actually started the paperwork to change your name to Sean the Invulnerable.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But a lot of times people have no idea now because we're no longer using that as a tool. Nothing in the game is reinforcing it. And role playing. We now have so many examples of how to do this that we just don't use it as a guide.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And that, to me, is my problem, to go back to the original question, is that it's the wrong tool for the job we want today unless we're going to do all this other stuff to it. And it's really clear that Wizards of the Coast isn't going to do that. And so if the official game isn't going to do it, at most you've got maybe some third-party product that would do it, but you're just...
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
This is the wrong tool. And as you said, it's better to ask questions that are really along the line of the axis that matters, which is the campaign story. Right. That's where you want to say, like, hey, this campaign is about blah. So here's what I want to know about your character. Right. You know, we are doing Storm King's Thunder.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
And how how do you feel about these various areas being attacked by giants? You know, what is it that you wish you could do? Uh, within this geographic scope, what are the goals of your character? How do you feel about this in time? You know, these kinds of things are much more important than are you neutral, evil, law, good chaos that they don't, you know, they don't align with story anymore.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I mean, every taste is good of James. This cannot be disputed.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
lean into other memes right we've got the the with a critical hit we've got other things like just lean elsewhere and let these go is probably there because we're just not using them in the game and and if you really really want them then you got to lean into the game and then they're not leaned into and so it's you're just better off skipping them now if it works for any one dm awesome you know like whatever works at your table works at your table there's no two ways about it but as for most tables yeah yeah yeah i
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
Yeah, I mean, it's been fun in the Greyhawk section, right, where we've looked at these various countries that are tagged as being a particular alignment. And on one hand, that's a little bit helpful because, you know, you're reading the description of yet another empire and you're like, are these good people?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
But then you realize that a lot of times the answer is based on these perception of like, oh, if you are nomads, well, of course, you're chaotic. It's like, really? Or maybe resource constrained. Yeah. Maybe I can't just stay in one place and grow crops. And so it's such an inexact thing.
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
I think also that alignment is primarily around guidelines, which means barriers and constraints, lines that when you break, we're supposed to do something. rather than facilitation of cool stuff your character can do. And that's where, to me, it's the biggest problem with it, right?
Mastering Dungeons
2024 5E Conditions and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 206)
If the shackles aren't going to be fun, and they seldom are because nobody spends the time on them to make them fun that way, then you're better off with other guidelines, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, the beginning of the encounter, if you think about movies or TV shows or whatever, the intro frames the situation, gathers the party, the protagonist together in some way so that they can develop a kind of rapport that they're going to need later on, either as the audience or in this case, each other, so they can know what they're all about and propels you towards that adventure.
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And the best situation is where you're doing one or multiple of those really strongly, right? So it can be like, hey, we have to go to Icewind Dale before the storm closes the pass. I mean, there's been this unusual cold and this is the last caravan you're getting paid to do this. That's not really the adventure itself, but it's a propelling reason
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Tells you about the world, about what's going on, sets you up for, oh, there's this unnatural rhyme and now you need to solve it or you're in a position to solve it. Right. So it sets you up for that and gives you a nice introduction. How do you all feel about traversing the North and whatever? So that can be a little distant from the adventure.
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But has that theme gets the players along that mode or can literally be like I remember Chris Perkins shared this one and I loved it. You know, you go to the tavern to get the job. And there's this person standing there at the table and then they fall forward onto the table, a dagger on their back. Right. Immediate weight. What's going on?
Mastering Dungeons
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Like you were talking about that creates, you know, this sort of curiosity and whatever and can tie into the story you're doing. Right. Yep.
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I mean, it's some pretty huge news. So just on the convention front, MagicCon is a big convention just by itself. And so now we're going to have D&D there run by Baldwin Games. The first time that we have D&D at this event, as far as I understand, this is February 21st to 23rd. And Tickets are on sale by the time you're listening to us.
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We've got a link in our show notes or mcchicago.mtgfestivals.com. But it's huger news because this is a brand new organized play program called Legends of Greyhawk.
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and that is something that we haven't had in quite some time an auxiliary kind of program and it has the feel of it being different new it's not part of adventurers league it doesn't follow it has its own rules right so that's really interesting yeah and there's an article on dndbn that provides a few details the campaign will use 2024 rules
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I think that what the campaign should do is take lots of forgotten Realm NPCs and move them into Greyhound.
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Yeah, steal some of those Forgotten Realms characters like Tasha.
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That is what we understand. So apparently they're like... Funko Pop, of all things, has some AI, you know, did you find a thing that's messing up yours? Is some website messing up your IP or somehow phishing or something like that? And apparently it misunderstood a fan page on itch.io that dealt with a Funko Pop video game.
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and included links to the actual website as being a sort of phishing thing. And this all result in claims that resulted in itch.io being down for a few hours. But the interesting wrinkle here is... Who's Funko Pop's CEO, Teos? It's Cynthia Williams, ex-president of Wizards of the Coast, which just makes us wonder, where will she strike next, Sean? Oh, so, so great.
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Yeah, I mean, you know, that's all fine. We'll see kind of what else they offer. But it's already leaps beyond last year's where beyond last year's, which was was kind of depressing. Last year just felt like one giant ad campaign. And what I like is they actually had a separate email if you sign up for their email list.
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with the marketing part of it that included actually a lot of savings off of various things you might be interested like for example the converse dnd shoes uh have a code d ampersand d cby that will get you 15 off the already really affordable converse shoes so if you've been like on the fence about that boy give this to somebody to get you a sweet pair of converse dnd shoes and uh and that's not bad and so if you're curious to that you know
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Their mailing list has a whole bunch of coupons that just went out and that may be somewhere on their website. So I will say this D&D Beyond 12 Days of Christmas is very hard to find if you didn't get like the email or a social media link. Like I didn't find it on their main web page, which is a bit of an oversight. So a link in our show notes or it's dndbeyond.link. forward slash days of D&D.
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But yeah, but an improvement over last year. And it's nice. This is fine. Like you don't have to go overboard, but giving folks an opportunity to catch up on those digital downloads they might have missed, get a few dice. That's great.
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Patrick Paladin's been just nailing it. It's been really nice thoughts about different systems, different things that people are talking about and how to implement them. And so this was just really cool. There have been, I think a lot has been written about sort of what sort of hex crawl system do you have and how often should something come up?
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And so I really appreciated this sort of, it's almost like a distillation of other thoughts and then their particular view on it was very useful to read.
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Yeah, really nice. It's a short piece, but frames it all really well as to why you may want to, whether it's a point crawl or however you're handling it, to just sort of say like, okay, we're going to travel through this and here's this fun part that you saw and let's not get bogged down in the system, but instead, you know, bring it down to montage school. Nice, nice.
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Yeah, like wing boots is an interesting one. So now it's a magic action to activate it. It has four charges and each charge lasts one hour and your fly speed is 30 feet instead of your walking speed.
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I thought that was a really good example of one where, you know, a number of little changes to make it, you know, you're still flying around, but it's in a different way now and you've got to use this magic action.
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um the cube of force is completely different each side casts a spell and all of that previous like blocks this kind of thing feature is removed from the item um rings of resistance you know like fire resistance cold etc those are now not attunement so you could actually have a lot of them and being this an adventures league reddit it's like hey you might find a character that has you know 10 rings or however many resistance rings they can come up with
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Because, hey, half damage from all these different sources, right? I thought that was interesting. The Robe of Eyes gives you 120 feet true sight now, so that's a big deal. And then Oil of Sharpness now permanently turns melee weapons into plus three weapons.
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Oh, that's that's a that's a stretch. But I mean, fey ancestry is you have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charm condition. Right. So it's all very simple. I would say it's a little blah for me. But, you know, sure, you could swap that. And, you know, in 2024, gnomes have dark vision, 60 feet. They have gnomish cunning.
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I'm glad to, which I think is awesome, right? Because you just see one hundred and seven thousand. You think, wow, that's great. I would, you know, I would kill to be the person that could get one hundred and seven thousand on their Kickstarter. Well, maybe, maybe not. So in this accountability report, he breaks down. What came in and what went out.
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And so including late pledges and drive through sales since it went live, the product has raised a combined one hundred and twenty four thousand. Even better, except for total expenses are one hundred and fifty eight thousand for a loss of nearly thirty four K. The largest costs, we have to start out with an interesting thing, which is we see actually a lot in projects.
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So the largest cost, $30,000 in debt from the previous Kickstarter. And so they had done this second Kickstarter hoping to recoup that initial debt.
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um they also spent 30 000 on illustrations and layouts this was clearly an expensive project you know they're trying to make a really nice project they had 20 000 for offset printing and freight 20 000 for packing and fulfillment 15 000 for kickstarter advertising which they said was really important 11 000 for print on demand bulk print orders and 10 000 for kickstarter fees so
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All of that adds up, you know, 10K here, 30K there. It adds up. Reflecting on the project, Robert says that customers take time to read a book and run it or talk about it. And so he thought, you know, sales from the product being talked about would be a lot higher.
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I actually thought the drive-through looked pretty strong at $15,000 out of $124K revenue, but he saw it as pretty small compared to the Kickstarter itself, which is true. So the real money is Kickstarter, and we've heard this before from others. Advertising is a necessary evil.
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There was a point where his credit card was momentarily blocked for some reason, and so he couldn't pay for ads, and his Kickstarter revenue just dropped during that part of the campaign until he got it back online and could again have Facebook ads. But the profit is really slim.
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He talks about he's a professor in college, and so he sees very plain textbooks, no art, boring tomes that sell for $120 to $160 to all these students. But an RPG product is way nicer and has much lower profit margins. And he points out that you can save on a lot of costs if you have multiple talents. If you can do the writing, if you can do the illustration, you can do the layout.
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So you have advantage on intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws. So to me, that could easily be a swap. But I don't know that, you know, that isn't your problem.
Mastering Dungeons
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It is expensive to hire people that do good work, and that's all very true.
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uh and then the gnomish lineage is either forest gnome and you know this minor illusion cantrip and you can speak with animal or you always have to speak with animal spell prepared and you can cast it without a spell slot a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus then Rock Gnome, you know, mending and prestidigitation.
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And then you can spend 10 minutes casting prestidigitation to create this tiny clockwork device. You're talking about armor class 5-1 hit point, a toy, a fire starter, a music box. And you can determine its function by choosing one effect from prestidigitation, which is kind of clever design, right? You're sort of moving that spell that you cast forward into the device.
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Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say my worst projects or the most challenging ones have been ones where the people giving me the work did not particularly know what they wanted or didn't tell me what they wanted. They'd keep secrets or they weren't quite sure or there were several departments thinking it over and maybe had slightly different perspectives.
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And that lack of understanding really messes it up. The best projects have been the ones where, you know, like Vault of the Dracolich, where we were all having calls, all the designer teams, myself being a developer, Scott being an editor, Mike Shea being a writer, and then all of us actually writing and developing and doing things and talking about it constantly.
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So we knew exactly what we were trying to do. Or when we worked on Acquisitions Incorporated with Scott, right? You and I and Scott, like just from the beginning, having a say in what this book should be, you know, you and I dreaming up a possible table of contents and then working on it with the Penny Arcade team.
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That means that when it came time to writing, we really knew what this project was trying to do. Right. And and that is such a big difference. Then, yes, you're going to do the right form for that function. Yeah.
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Yeah, for sure. There have been projects where, like when I worked on HeroQuest, where I had some wild ideas, but HeroQuest is a board game that plays a particular way.
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And whenever I would talk to the project manager about some of the wackier ideas, they would correctly point out, well, you know, that's going to kind of not... You could go that way, but just know the expectations won't support that. And so you'll be causing... you know, a brain twist on the sides of the players. I'm like, OK, you know, that's this is not the place for that.
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And so it can do that effect whenever you or another creature takes a bonus action to activate it by touching it. So that's your kind of robot, if you will. And there's a few more other fine points there as to what it does.
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So let's back that idea and come around it a different way.
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And it's you forget how many things in D&D sort of hinge off of the initiative system, including just what the character, you know, the player chose to do with their character when they wanted to get a high result on initiative. Right. And be dexterous and take the particular feat and whatever. And you throw in some other system and you've invalidated that. Right.
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And so but there are so many other ways as well where the game really works off of that initiative system and to change it. is to rub against those other elements, usually in a not so great way, unless it's for a very specific type of scene.
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You know, I think that if you don't like that rock gnome, right, we can look to sort of the forest gnome for their idea of what's going on there rather than necessarily pay advantage. But I don't know. What would you think looking at this?
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Yeah, the games are bigger than we are and the audience is bigger than we are. And it's worth kind of picking those design battles where you want to be really creative. So like with Fifth Edition Adventures League that I only wrote, you know, two adventures, but the ones that I did for the official organized play program, they were I deliberately wanted to do wild things with them.
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And the reason was that I was thinking about during third edition organized play, how I was so influenced by some of the wilder ideas we saw. Because, you know, you play hundreds of adventures and then you have those that really stand out. They don't necessarily have to succeed wildly, but they do something so different that you're like, oh, that was neat.
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You know, I didn't think an adventure could do that. And just the other day I got a review or I was seeing a review on this one adventure I wrote Howling Void where it was like, I hate prepping and running this adventure was the comment. And I wrote an apology and said, you know, I'm sorry. When I wrote this, I knew some people would really this would not work for some people.
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And I made that choice because the audience I was trying to serve was kind of more targeted towards the people who would benefit from something wild being in an adventure rather than every single table and DM out there. And I made that choice knowing that, you know, it might go that way.
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I will say I made the same choice when I wrote The Artifact, my other AL adventure, but I did that in a better way. So I think... people don't react that way. Like they don't have trouble prepping for it or playing it or running it because it's a better job at being different without being difficult. So I did better my second time around, right? In that way.
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Yeah. When they're prepping the week before the convention and go, oh, I really have to spend more time on this. Then it's harder. Yeah.
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uh players players like uh like patients lie and and know the danger of it right know that you're going to create something super complicated some people that you may be creating a worse experience now yes it's great that there are various shades of complexity right you don't want everything to be simple that's out there but but just know that you're running into that problem.
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And it's why I think in a lot of written adventures, or let's say official D&D 5e adventures, that complexity can be very low because I think they rightly fear that that will bounce off of a lot of people, and it's true.
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And was, so Zendrik Expeditions was first and then was Mark of Heroes after that?
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And which was the one that had the, that introduced factions? Because that was a big change too.
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Okay. Yeah, that was a big, I remember that being like sort of the first organized play campaign where people were talking about, hey, you know, I'm a member of this group and I have this, you know, agenda. And that was also a very interesting thing to play with, I'm sure. Yeah.
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Yeah. That's so super interesting. I mean, what a great, I mean, it's amazing, right? You got to see that. And it's, I'm sure part of the reason, you know, so much about organized play because you, you ran those campaigns. You were part of the fourth edition official campaign. What was that like? Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I certainly saw in fourth edition that those friction points where things were changing. And I mean, the truth is, it's really hard to know something at that moment for what it is, even if you have a strong understanding of the past. You can only make your best guess for where you think something will go.
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You know, I think from the beginning, I saw some issues with what Living Forgotten Realms is trying to do around regions and stuff and not to get bogged down in this, you know, for the show. But but seeing that when you change systems, well, this is going to have an impact. What exactly will be, you know, maybe I don't know for sure, but it's going to have an impact and it'll be interesting to see.
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And I think that bore true with Forgotten Realms that. that it was that way. But as you said, sometimes when we're doing something, you know, we just have to take that plunge because it's what being asked of us.
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If we like the job, we must serve it and try to do the best we can with it, acknowledging that, yeah, what we prefer may not be what's going to get the most people to play a game of D&D or whatever the higher calling is. Right. And like I've seen that not to jump to fifth edition, but in working like Emerald City Comic Con or PAX D&D events,
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There is a total difference between what I would like to play at a convention and what I would like to run or offer to people and what will do the greatest good at those conventions in terms of signing people up, serving the audience that's walking up.
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And when you meet those people, as they come in and tell you what they want and where they are in their life cycle of D&D, primarily very much at the beginning, then you realize, well, this is what they need. And that's different.
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Yeah. So, yeah, Living Forgotten Realms is obviously huge. And one of the early things is people would say, like, you know, this is going to be bigger than Living Forgotten Realms. I'm like, no, no, it's not. Like, let's be honest about this. I understood enough to know we're going to be small. And in fact, that's what we need to do.
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We need to be the niche for people who either want to play something else that's different. Or they don't particularly love what the main program is. So they want something else that gives them a different type of experience. So we've got the latitude to be different. In fact, maybe even the imperative to be a little different.
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but without taking ourselves too seriously like know that you've got to kind of carefully take care of your audience because it's a small one and craft a really good experience and so we broke a lot of rules but we did so with a lot of thought and one thing that we did that was really nice is you know you had folks like me who were
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know died in the wolf you know super trained on all the previous organized play campaigns had played all sorts of organized play but then we had folks like derek guter who were brand new to this kind of thing you know had only seen it from afar or like in the initial days we had like chris sims helping us who would ask like will players really like strip the furniture and try to sell it?
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And it's like, yes, yes, they will if they can gain from it. Like if you start allowing for this behavior will emerge and they couldn't really believe it. Right. But but they would also come with really fresh ideas as to how to, you know, and ask these great questions that would lead us down towards particular paths. And that was a great learning experience, you know, and thinking about
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Because we didn't have to do exactly what Living Forgotten Realms did, we could think about the way we build story arcs, the way we build player, what the characters do changes the story. All of that we were able to do. And it gave me tons and tons of knowledge as to overseeing writers, dealing with the writer who doesn't turn things in or turn something in that isn't great.
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Being a developer, right, which which was really neat, like, you know, giving it that extra polish to make it work. And coordinating things like art and maps and all of that, you know, there's just so much that I learned from that experience and then seeing it play and run and trying to support DMs and and seeing folks, you know, like Alan Patrick before he became a fifth edition admin.
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heritage system sort of splits it up so you get that um i think in previous editions we've had the the the kind of more earthy gnome can speak with borrowing animals and so you could look to something like that for inspiration um
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The way that kind of I found him was he was at working Winter Fantasy and he was like the marshal that was helping seat people for Ashes of Athos. And he said, hey, you know, I heard some complaints about a DM. So I sat at their table the very next slot to just see what was going on and then talk to them. And they're just over there in over their head.
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And so they're going to, you know, bow out next slot. And here's what we're doing to help it. And I just thought this guy's amazing. Right. Here's a person who is so. cares about it all being in the right places. And I think it helped lead him to eventually becoming an admin and so much more because he was that kind of person, right?
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And being at conventions like this, volunteering, helping, that's what happens. People notice that you're great and they give you opportunities and so on, which is awesome.
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Yeah, for pay. So I had done some third edition work with Living Greyhound, because we talked about last episode, but nothing had ever meant money. And so it was worth, and you in fact gave me the first adventure for part of a Theon series that I wrote for you, I think because you saw me kind of doing some stuff as sort of the hobby level. And so you invited me to write, which was super cool.
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And it was really fun getting to know you. I met you at Gen Con. I think you were taking a bite of a sandwich when I met you and had to wait for you to finish.
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But it was, yeah. So getting paid to do an organized play adventure was novel. Certainly not life-changing, but it was a novel. I'm actually getting paid and seeing my convention run at Gen Con. That was really cool. But what it did, and especially the Ashes of Athos work, what it did was lead to getting noticed, right?
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So like Chris Perkins played at my table through an Ashes of Athos adventure and he asked who wrote it and I said that I did. And probably because of that, a little bit later, I got a would you like to write a D&D encounter season? And I actually said no. I said, I'm going to frame this email because this is so cool and I'm so thankful you asked me.
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But I can't do that because Ashes of Athos is all consuming and there's no way I could do a good job on this. And I thought, well, maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot and that's the last opportunity I ever get. But it wasn't. I got a lot more opportunities after that with Wizards. But that really started my work for Wizards was the fact that I'd done these things.
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I love your idea of turning to the player and saying, hey, even if you just shove a bunch of books at them, like there's several Ghostfire gaming books at them and say, hey, what do you like out of this? But then come back and tie it into this fae essence in some way that would probably give you and the player a bunch of ideas that you could play off of, which would be neat.
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Well, you know, you've often been a mentor to me. And one of them was when I heard when you shared like your fourth edition stories of like writing before the rules were truly finalized. And then for fifth edition, I had a project. Well, both both the D&D next project where the rule sets were changing, Vault of the Dracolich, and then writing the first epic for Gen Con for Adventurers League.
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And, you know, I'm asking, OK, so how do I know? which monsters to use because they don't have CR values yet. And they're like, yeah, sorry. I'm like, okay. And then I just remembered Sean telling me about monsters in early fourth edition not being balanced yet. And so I was like, okay.
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If you're looking for like rooting your your the creatures in the game, like to say all gnomes are this. Then you might just sit there and explore that Fae thing. I don't think it's really about the Fae ancestry, but more something like, do you want them to be able to sense the Fae wild when it's nearby?
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So I just picked monsters that I thought were cool, ran a playtest with my home group that was all under NDA and TPKed them. And then I changed it and TPKed them again and changed it again. And then it worked. And I had to do that for every encounter because there were no CR values Nothing told you what monster was related to anything. They didn't have XP values either.
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The only thing I did have was from Rich Baker's work writing Lost Mines of Phandelver. I had those. So those contained CR values. And I could guess maybe roughly which other monsters were along that track. When the event ran at Gen Con, I was just crossing my fingers hoping it all worked. And I think so were folks like Chris Duloc. You know, I hope this works. And it did.
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What could be a thing that would make sense and tie into your campaign in a way that you want to support it? Something along those lines. Yeah, precisely.
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Yeah. What about since then? I mean, you've become full-time, you took all those lessons forward.
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Yeah, you know, and I think it's interesting how you can you just from year to year, you don't know what you're doing. You're just kind of trying to get some work or do whatever. But then then at some point you realize, oh, wow, I've sort of changed how I'm doing things. Right. And so I think initially I was you know, I wanted to do more organized play.
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I wanted to do more Vault of the Dracoliches. My work at Wizards dried up for unknown reasons. But then I started getting work with other companies. And really, when I look back at it, I've been really lucky. I've had really fortunate, you know, whether it's HeroQuest. I mean, HeroQuest is a game that's beloved by so many designers, was formative to them.
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And so many of them said, oh, you know, I'd kill you to work on HeroQuest. And that was my board game experience, right? But also kind of adventure writing in a different format. And working with groups like MCDM, you know, I feel very lucky to do that. And there's been a lot of great creativity there.
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But then also trying to do my own things and experiment a little with it, even while all of it has to be done for me because I have two kids in college and various other financial things like I can't stop my day job right as much as I would like to. That must continue. And so it all has to fit in around and be done at night.
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It's also led to, you know, like this podcast or experimenting with doing YouTube videos about me eating bologna sandwiches. You know, these are all things that I'm discovering as I try to. find how to make a difference. And I think that's what I go back to is, you know, I think of like why I did this. I do like designing a lot. I mean, I love it.
Mastering Dungeons
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But even more than that, what I like is to see that the game may be improved for somebody or that they have new ideas or are touched by it. And that's not only just through play. Right. So that's where I think like, you know, you and I doing this podcast and talking, breaking down
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
Concepts of the industry or the success in RPG series or whatever can accomplish that better than an adventure sometimes or accomplishes different things. And so I've changed up what I'm involved in. And I turned down a lot of work because I'm not necessarily looking for the shiny project.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
And as I mentioned last time, sometimes the shiniest of projects get canceled because they're a little too shiny. And so, you know, trying to find that how how can I help? this hobby out while having it be creatively awesome going forward. And I think as we get older, we start thinking like, and I only have but so many years of this left.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
You see the people that were mentors for you and that you thought of and you see, wow, they only have so many years left. So then you do the math and you realize, oh, I only have so many years left. And you start thinking about that as well, which is, I think, a whole new era that we'll be entering as we think about, OK, you know, do I
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
turn off the spigot or turn it down or change the way I approach things because of that, right? Like, I don't know. We'll see where that. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
I think D&D, I suspect, in fifth edition has gone towards this tinker concept somewhat to kind of, you know, honor a little bit of that story that's been out there. But also because things like speaking to borrowing animals is really hit or miss, right? Like you can see this at Adventurers League tables, organized play tables where, you know, you're playing a character over and over again.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
You can go to AlphaStream.org and from there you can find my YouTube channel where I do indeed talk about branded lunch meat. And do I eat a bologna sandwich from the 80s? No, but I LARP doing so, I guess. And while talking about the importance of branding.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
I'm going to create a time machine and go back in time and trade places with you and see what your career was like from the inside.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
And this never comes up because it's not a home campaign. It's just, you know, people don't usually write an adventure thinking about giving you a borrowing animal to talk to. But it can be amazing and super powerful if there are actually a lot of boring creatures around and you regularly can get tips from them.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
And if it ties into a animal creatures and stuff like that, that could really make you into almost a mini druid. It could be really valuable. So it really kind of depends on what you want to do. You've got the power here for it to represent your campaign. And that's what makes it awesome.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
Teos. I love this question, and it is a perennial question, and it's a perennial struggle for a lot of groups from both directions. And that's the thing I'd first start with is that, you know, not every player wants to be in character. And my first bit of advice is don't just push it. Lead by example, facilitate it.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
And if it's a thing where players are going to get more comfortable with playing in character and will come to it and let that happen, you know, help that along. But don't demand it or make a big deal out of it, because that will just make somebody feel uncomfortable if it's really not the way they want to play.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
um things that i do to facilitate this kind of interaction is to have a table tent for everybody with the pc names on them and you can just make them you know print card stock or thick paper of any kind on both sides and print or write their name their character names on it and maybe something like their class and species is often helpful sometimes background give that out to everybody at the tables and say so we can all use our pc names
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
right and that way you don't forget what everybody's playing and you as dm can use those names and players can choose to do that right and then when you when you uh are interacting with them as dm have your NPCs speak to everybody in character and switch characters often, always in that in character mode, asking pointed questions, right? What do you think, Presto? Do you agree, Sheila?
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
The more you make it personal, it becomes more efficient for the player to respond in character rather than always go back and add third person pieces of, Uh, my character says yes to them, you know, like that's extra words rather than just going, yes, we'll do that. And so the more that you're doing kind of important questions back and forth, it just is more efficient to be in character.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
It's the same thing I say to my family. Exactly. That's it.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the being in character is one part of it. Behind it can be if these are players who aren't really engaging players.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
with you right like I'm very lucky right now I've got this this home group that we've been playing and we're all having a blast and telling each other how much it's fun and it's in part because people really lean into the characters and they're doing really cool stuff I don't think that it matters so much that it's in character though that is important but it's that part that they're really engaging with the story making fun characters they could be describing them in third person and it would all be fine right it would still be super awesome
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
And so I think the thing is sometimes we have players that are just happy to not be very engaged, which is a separate issue. And that may be a barrier, right? Where you're just, boy, I don't love playing with them because they're, you know, they're distant from it. And they're just sort of moving around.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
Like I've played, especially in organized play games where people will be just knitting at the table. or playing a handheld video game while playing and yet would come session after session after session to the store or convention or whatever, they're clearly having a great time. They're not really the kind of player I want to have at my table. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Recent Game Design Lessons (MD 219)
And so as a convention DM, I don't mind running them. If they were in my home game, I would say, you know, I think we have different styles. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
and just go murder all these giants and unravel the secrets. So there's only so much to expand upon, right? Not that you can't make a big campaign out of it. In fact, it is a campaign because of its size, but nothing about it is making it feel vastly different than a one shot. And that is something you would have to bring to it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, no, so we don't have the second edition out yet, but the first one's out. And it has a, I forget the names of those now, something like dramatic play versus cinematic play. And one of them is, and it's actually great for this question, right? They thought about this, right? Because they're thinking, here's a game where you might die at any moment.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So doesn't that mean that you can't play campaigns? And so what they did is create two different modes of play. And in one of them, you are much more resilient and able to deal with things. But in the I think the dramatic system or whatever it's called. Sorry, folks, for forgetting this. I've played it a lot of times, but I forget the names. Yeah, but in that particular mode,
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
things will happen that sort of override your character, right? Like you just lose it because of fear or whatever. And you start gunning down your friends because the point is this is a one shot and it should end like the movies with wild things. And the Android in your party is probably against you, or at least you're afraid it is surprised. Maybe it isn't. It was last time I played.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And, you know, one of you will probably like I did blow up the ship and murder everybody because that contains the problem. And so the game itself did that versus having another mode where you don't have those same pieces to try to make it there.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
invite this longer term campaign without really digging into a particular type of story or a particular kind of play style and there are longer call of cthulhu campaigns right that are actually quite well known and well regarded but you know we were asking somebody like like this came up when we were discussing possible campaigns in my home group and someone said well you know i've got um uh
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Orient Express murder on the Orient Express. I forget the exact name of it. My memory is apparently blown today. But it, you know, someone said, but wait, I mean, Kala Cthulhu is always this rhythm of something's going on. I investigate, I find what it is, and I probably die trying to stop it. So how does that work on this train-long campaign?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And they're like, well, there are a lot of people on the train, so you can have other characters. And I'm like, OK, sure. I can die horribly finding something out, and then the next person on the train that I roll up can continue doing explorations. And I don't know that that's entirely true, so feel free to tell us how it really works when murder on the Orient Express.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, for sure, the game has this particular rhythm to it that makes it fantastic for short experiences and more of a challenge for longer ones, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, yeah. And we can see with things like when we talked about Daggerheart, right? The attempt that it made to not be just about these sort of one shots and just your powers while giving you thrilling capabilities for your characters. It worked really hard to try to say, and you will build the world together and you will lay down the seeds for what your character wants to do.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Oh, you're right. I missed that part. I'm going to have to find out who it was. Yeah, I think it's because this was our first show notes for the year. So apologies to the person who will be nameless for now, but I will hunt it down and put in the show notes. Pretty sure it was through YouTube, but I could be wrong. So yes, there was a question from a person who is wonderful.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Those are all things the game is trying to do to offset the sort of one shotness of maybe the build character system, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
No, I love the four that you use. That's a really nice capture of it. I don't know that I can add anything else that I haven't already said. I love the question. It's a fun way to think about it. And I'm curious how often someone creates a role-playing game or even a fifth edition variant without thinking through this question. So it's a very astute question as well.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
It's a lot of fun. I mean, I would love to own one of these pups. You can see how the dragon called Wrath can spit out pinballs. So the multiball is, you know, the dragon breathing on you, pinballs. The gelatinous cube has a magnet. So not only to roll through, but it can get trapped inside the gelatinous cube, right? Which is great. The board looks amazing. The video looks super fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
You choose a character at various points. It's one of these if you've played sort of modern pinball games, they often have like a video screen you interact with and do things. And so this creates massive, higher complexity that you can unlock. So you can choose a character which extends the benefits of things.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So like there's a metal barrier that comes up between where the ball would normally drain, and that's called the shield. Well, the wizard gets it more often because you cast shield to pull up this metal barrier.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
um the you choose where to travel so there's a sort of map on the board that you know you roll over and light up but then where you choose to travel will unlock different combinations um and uh one thing that's cool is the voices for this did you see this
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Speaking of thousands, the pro version is seven thousand. So I would say, folks, that's an appropriate gift for me. You can just stop there. But if you want to, you could also gift me the premium at nine thousand seven hundred.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And we don't need to worry about the limited edition, which is limited to seven hundred forty units and the thirteen thousand dollar price tag because it's apparently already sold out. So great.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, I mean, I would love this in my game room, but nothing is gonna validate my spending 7,000 on this.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, it was third place the last two years, and now it's eighth. So it just shows how folks have been waiting for this excitedly for quite some time. You want to do number seven, six, and five? Sure. Number seven is Coriolis the Great Dark by Free League, which I got to preview at Gamehole last year. Dolmenwood is number six by Necrotic Gnome. It was also number five last year.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And number five is Terry Pratchett's Discworld by Modiphius.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
It is legend in the mist by son of Oak based on the city of mist game engine. That was one I had to read about. I didn't know anything about it. So, so clearly I need to do my work.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Who has a lot of people he plays with all the time in D&D.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Lying. Yeah, I mean, it is. But it's also it's the art of saying what you're considering and you're almost fishing for the reaction from investors to this long before you might actually do something. And yeah, so we'll see whether anything ever comes of this. There was Shannon links in this article to a number of stories that talk about this. And actually, one of them I had not seen before.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
that went into kind of the types of dm assistance type tools that they're considering you know it's hard to say whether they really have anything back there that they're working on they seem to act like they do but it's hard to say um yeah i i don't make a whole lot of it uh in part because things that someone may make that we don't even know if they'll succeed i don't tend to worry about
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And I'd say that's because there is a big difference between saying, you know, we're going to provide DMS with tables of resources and, you know, a smart system where when you're looking for a particular type of story, it would give you links to all of the different products we've created that speak to that. Right. that's undeniably possibly cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Or like it could, that is something that we, I think we could all agree could be neat. It might work well. But when you say AI and you are a corporate head, I think we immediately assume based on data that this is probably hot air. Sure. And, and that they're just saying this as a,
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
You know, the same way they might talk about other business fundamentals, you know, where we glaze over during some investment speak because it's just nothing has to do with we're making cool toys. It's all, you know, leveraging the synergistic goals. And it's just hot air. Right. And that's the problem.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
When this title comes up, it's usually hot air that's just been bantied about to try to fish for interest in the company. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
He does a nice job of pointing out the challenge of being as a company pro fan and pro game with solutions like D&D Beyond while also needing to serve corporate interests and revenue goals. So he points out that new technologies change that balance and create new challenges for a company to balance those things out. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So having D&D Beyond or having the virtual tabletop are new challenges to how you blend that balance. Hey, I need to get books out the door, but also do things that fans want. Right. And that's an old school balance. We're used to seeing companies try to leverage.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So, you know, we generally like to say when when Tales of the Valiant came out with a monster manual, we don't then decry when Monster Vault 2 comes out. We go, yeah, companies are going to try to sell us another book. Right. And we don't hate them for it. We understand it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Well, now there are these differences when it's like, well, but I've got to do the D&D Beyond version and market that because it's higher profit and, you know, and so on and so forth. So he notes that, I think, very cleverly. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's Pathfinder and kind of where it is today relative to where it was before and so on. But I think even Monster Vault 2, which which we'll talk about later, we'll mention later.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But, you know, looking at where it is today, it's a slower uptick than, you know, not only because it's Monster Vault 2 versus 1, but also because I think, you know, that interest level starts going down when we get a little further away from the OGL outrage.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Not that it isn't still there and that conversing about it isn't valid, but that fans sort of change their perspectives a bit and new fans come and go and so on.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, that's awesome. Really cool to see, especially because of that international angle, right? That you can be kind of anywhere in the world and bring people together and make it cover your time and then grow that to be two, three tables. I forget what they mentioned in the piece, but that's amazing. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, so Ian World noted that there was a kind of casting call for new cast members that would fill this out, right, to make this event happen that's launching this spring for this D&D Fan Fest. The story focuses on Harpers and Xanathar the Beholder. And in fact, one of the casting call fits was for a performer to play Xanathar
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
where you have to push around this 30 pound beholder from a standing position, push it and pull it around as it does things. The casting call reveals that the D&D experience runs for about 45 minutes. The cast performs approximately seven times per night. That gives you a feeling of kind of what the experience is like. We've got links to that and the casting call itself.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
I forget exactly. It was something like that. And so you're not going to get, you know, rich on Xanathar. But I guess that's that's the problem. No word on whether you are called Stilgar. I don't know. Is that his fish still?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
I'm going to start with it was Chris G8989 via YouTube. There you go. Thank you. Thank goodness, Internet. Thank you, YouTube search capability. So, you know, I did a video on crafting, which did cover what the DMG says in the player's handbook for crafting magic items. Link in my show notes. Find it on my channel at the RalphStream.org. And it is more than bastions. So, Chris, good news.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
really cool to hear uh of this uh i hope it's super successful uh will talked about the idea that you know in horror you don't want to like you when you show a monster off then it becomes immediately less horrifying now that you've seen it and one of the things they do in the game is change up how it can appear or reveal itself i guess because it can take the form of other things so that it keeps this because you don't know even though you saw it once you don't know what it'll look like the next time
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
It's Sean Merwin's design tips. So last year, Sean posted a series of design tips. They have been collected with thankful permission by superstar Chad Lynch and are available as a Google Doc. Link in our show notes. Thank you, Chad, for gathering these together. Just a small taste of Sean Merwin's brain. What could be better than that, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, so as they did with the Player's Handbook and somewhat with the Dungeon Master's Guide, they have a series of videos that they're going to provide out as sort of live, quote unquote, feeds. They're pre-recorded, but fans can join in and watch them as they happen and all be in chat and that kind of thing.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
uh the first video was on tuesday an overview of the changes and design approach provided by jeremy crawford and wes schneider they both say their favorite books are monster books and so let me ask you you know i'll talk about kind of what the video said i want to ask you questions are monster books your favorite no they're not they are wonderful
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
There is actually a way to handle this per the rules, though you may or may not like it. The PCs can craft potions of minor healing and scrolls, as mentioned in the player's handbook. And they can also use the rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide to craft magic items of all kinds. The way it works in a quick brief summary is half the cost of the magic items sale cost.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Right, right. No, but that's a great point that I can think of RPGs where I don't super love the monster side of things. And that does impact how I feel about the overall game. Yeah. I would say on my end, I've only worked on individual monsters, never a whole monster book the way that you have. I'm holding the Grim Hollow monster book, Monster Grimoire, that you, this is your baby.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
I can't imagine that. What I know from speaking to others, you and other friends of mine, is it's really easy to skim over, to think that monster books are easy, like just collect a monster, it's stat books, it's lore, but it actually requires a ton of planning because the layout is tough. You don't want to go over a page. If you do, you don't want to be on the other side of the page.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
You want to somehow have a very legible stat block that is super exciting, but also all this lore And you need art for possibly every single monster in the book, which makes it one of the most expensive things you can create. Am I missing anything?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So Jeremy and Wes talked about a number of interesting things, and I'll hit on the things that kind of I thought we could mention. So one is they talk about the team. I think it was Wes who went into this. They work to describe monsters in the world, not just as static monsters to fight. And that part wasn't super wild to me.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Actually, the wild thing was Todd Kendrick said something who's ostensibly the interviewer, but at times expresses design thoughts, makes the strange comment that this is the first edition to do that. And I immediately thought of like second edition being full of these ecology entries and number of appearing and things like that. And some of that goes back to first edition.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
There've been a number of world focused pieces that we've seen fourth edition and like, you know, think of Nentier veils, monster manual, you know, all this. So I thought it was a very strange comment, but, but the team seemed to pride itself on having as compared to 2014, at least, done more work to paint how the monsters work within the world.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And the cost is based on rarity. And there's a table in the DMG for that. So half of it to craft it, and then you can sell it at the cost, which is different than mundane items where you're usually selling it at half cost when you found it in the dungeon, but full cost if you have a market for it, if that makes sense.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
work that doesn't pay off the way you think it might right it might be actually yeah yeah because you could be limiting things versus actually adding to it because now you said it's this not this other these other ideas you may have it's it's just these um yeah that's interesting i was thinking about it Because I think fondly of the 13th Age 1E, because I don't have 2E yet in physical form.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
The 1E 13th Age, both the bestiary book, which I'm holding, and the core book itself with its monsters, has some really nice things that I like. And I remember it came out, I think, just a little bit before or after. It was similar in timescale to when 2014's Monster Manual came out, I think a little bit before. And I remember liking both of them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Finally, they did a nice job of giving me story and ideas, lore concepts that I can play upon. And then in looking at 13th Age 2E, it does a lot of things that are definitely about making it useful at the table, right? Special things you can do. They have, you know, how to make them special monsters that are different than the core. There's a lot of toolbox approach to it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So that's what it's presuming here is magic items are sold at their actual cost, crafted for half. Your PC needs to be trained in Arcana no matter what, as well as up to one assistant who could help shorten the time, and they would have to be trained as well. The PC must also have proficiency in a tool based on the item type. So if you're making a ring, it's jeweler's tools.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
with then interspersed some of the monsters have a lot of like, here's how they fit into the world, but not all of them. And I actually thought to myself, this might actually be better, like not. And it was I wasn't sure what you would say. You kind of seem to be on the same side of like some monsters actually.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Maybe we just focus on these things as tools in the game rather than fleshing everything out, because you can think of those concepts. Maybe, you know, or at least not every monster necessarily needs the same approach.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, that's really interesting. They again talked here about all new art. But what I thought interesting was about this, every book has made the claim, every core book for 2025 and 2024 has made this claim of all new art. And then we found there's been some old art. So I expect the same here, but they emphasize the all new art. But what they did was talk about D&D specific situations.
Mastering Dungeons
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And they didn't quite say it this way, so I'll say it my way. So be aware these are kind of my words, not theirs, but D&D is no longer the only way you learn about a mimic, let alone a creature from myth, right? Like some folks would say, well, I saw Medusa in D&D before I ever, you know, read Edith Hamilton or, you know, saw Clash of the Titans or anything like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Can it even be seen? There we go. You know, a lot is going on. I have been... So yesterday I disassembled the entire Christmas apparatus of our house. It became a mundane home. I survived again being on ladders. We took our second kid off to the airport. So we are now kidless once more. I'm not going to cry, but it's, you know, it's always so. So we did it all at once.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And now you could have somebody who learns about a mimic through the delicious dungeon Netflix show.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
rather than, you know, D and D. So, so I thought this was actually kind of really interesting and I hadn't really thought about this way that providing the art in, as I'm thinking over the art as being, we must show what the D and D version is like and what this D and D monster is like in the world, because you may have ideas about ogres from, I don't know, Shrek, you know, and what is a D and D ogre?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And if the item casts a spell, you must have that spell prepared each day of crafting. Time and money are based on rarity. An uncommon item is 10 days and 200 gold. A very rare, just as examples, 125 days and 20k gold. So this may or may not be what you love as a system in particular, How the DM controls whether you can craft is a little tenuous here.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Um, which again, like you said, does put some limits in it. But in this case, it may be important to do because someone might think a mimic is an entirely different thing. And so showing in their case, they talked about, you know, the art which they showed off shows a ton of different types of mimics, right? A sort of room full of things that are all mimics.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting, that D&D may kind of need to do this more and more over time to exert what its version of it is, what I thought was super interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
the way that i think for other books like or other companies they show why theirs is a little different than the deed and d1 right so and here you've got to what establish what the core is um something else they brought up uh this is something that came up during monster monsters of the multiverse and apparently has continued on is that in 2024
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Any path you take, so whichever actions you choose for the monster, will reflect the monster's CR, not just the most optimal approach. And there had been a sort of, I thought, terribly worded article a long time ago where Jeremy Crawford kind of said, you know, we've realized DMs make mistakes and don't run our monsters the way they should.
Mastering Dungeons
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So that's why Monsters in the Multiverse is going to sort of make this all equated. Here they talked about it in a much nicer way about just saying that, you know, no matter what path you take, you'll arrive at the CR.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
um and i i credit mike shea on this because he had jeremy crawford on uh on a show long ago and asked him why one of the eladrin had such weak options for the weapon attacks and it does four damage and it's a cr10 monster and you know jeremy crawford was like well you know they don't really it's just showing what the monster can do but they wouldn't do that they would use their you know cone of cold or ice storm and what i thought about in the context of 2025's monster manual
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Whether what they've done, because they didn't quite state what they've done, does it mean that no matter what you do, the math target will be pretty much the same? So if CRX is supposed to be an average of blah, does that mean all paths lead to blah?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
or is the approach more flexible like crx can be between you know a and b levels of damage or maybe we don't care about spikes of damage and as long as most options lead to this then having one that's really high or really low we don't particularly care about you know i'm curious to what extent they've done this so i can't wait to see uh what the monster uh has actually done.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And how do you feel about this, having worked on monsters? How important is it for a monster to kind of have all paths lead to mathematical answer X?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So it says you decide as DM if the materials are available with the base chance being 75% in a city, 25% in other settlements. And if the answer is no, check again in a week. That's really different than 2014, Sean, where it said, hey, for a magic item, you decide if it needs, you know, the claws of a manticore and you've got to go on a quest to find that here. They're just taking that all out.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, you know, this brings up the question of how important it is for monsters to have various actions, because on one hand, depending on kind of who you listen to, a monster should last three or five rounds, and DMs will all have their own opinion of what their average is at their table, and sometimes it'll be eight rounds, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But if you hit for a certain target, like, you know, monsters should last three rounds, Well, they certainly shouldn't have more than three options is one way looking at it. Or actually, they should have a lot of options because I want to pick and choose the tactics of my options. Right. But but but tempered by the fact that we'll have three or four is the average.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Then as I get above four, things are going unused and that's prep time and complexity and so on. So I'm curious to what extent we'll find that these monsters have fewer options or that it's all captured in a multi-tack, for example.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
you know you throw your spear and you attack with your sword twice but that's kind of what you do and maybe there's one other little thing that you can do to juice it up and that might be okay but you do lose a little expression from having more options out there right or if the spellcraft crafting spell casting list what is it supposed to represent and should it have say just two choices
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Is that good or is that bad design? It sure minimizes prep, and I love that angle of it, but maybe there should be more.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But you could. You could say this is a spell. You could, if you wanted to.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
There's none of that specific ingredient stuff. And it's supposed to be what the player could argue if the read the DMG is. Hey, dude, my chance should be 75% that I can craft this this week. And if not, I roll again next week. So, you know, two weeks I should be able to craft this thing and or start the crafting and get my super powerful whatever I need to make my build of awesomeness.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Well, and I love that about fourth edition where they would give monsters these iconic things, right? The goblin was shifty and it could always, you know, use a minor action to, you know, move away without provoking. Right. And that kind of thing became a tell that all the goblins could do. And it was fun because the players would learn that and expect that. Right. And then. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And we see some of that right. Wolves that have packed tactics and some things like that. And so you see, oh, yeah, this kind of creature tends to get packed tactics, but there's not a lot of it. It'll be interesting to see how that happens. So one of the things that they did early on was say, you know, what's changed? And the answer was everything, right? You know, everything is new.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And they have the most, but what they said later to kind of qualify that of what has changed, because basically the blanket answer is all monsters have changed, which is something we saw in the other books, right? I thought 2024 would have some chapters of the DMG, other players handbook. That would pretty much be what they were before because they were great.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
No, things got changed, even if everybody loved them. Right. Everybody loved the rogue. The rogue still changed. Right. And everybody might have loved how something else worked. Well, it got changed. And this seems to be more of that. They said most monsters have a tweaked ability or a new thing. But as the CR increases, we can expect the monster to receive more and more changes.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
They also said there are many more types. So the vampire is now what they call a family of creatures. I don't know if that's a technical term or just Jeremy Crawford's word for it, but the vampire now has a low CR option, a high one, a middle one, and the vampire spawn.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And I wasn't clear whether that was in addition to what we consider today as vampire or not, but there's at least four of them, maybe five, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So, you know, you may have to have those discussions. And one of the things I did in the video is say, like, you know, a big part of this crafting is the process of talking to your players and working out a deal with them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So yeah. They mentioned various type changes. So gnolls are now fiends, which I can't help but wonder if that's just so we can slaughter them without thinking about it. Goblinoids are fae, which we saw in Witchlight. And there have been, I think, previous times in goblins were fae as well. And of course, they come from fae origins in our mythology.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
They said the Goblin Hexer is back from 4E, which probably was the only time in that video that they acknowledged 4th edition as an influence. Though to me, all of these things they're talking about have super 4E angles to them. They have a lower CR variant now, right? Which is, as you talked about, it's a very different thought process. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
2014 had this idea that a goblin is a goblin is a goblin. And it's just this thing in the world. And it's always at that CR. And so if you want more of them, you know, well, then it's a different type of story you're telling. Right. Because that's what it means to have multiples of them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And here they were specifically talking about having, you know, some DMs really love having a bunch of goblins for their characters to encounter. So here we have these lower CR so you can do that. And that is what fourth edition did. And, you know, so it's fun to watch the pendulum kind of swing back and forth.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And I'm looking at one ring here where they have, you know, for orcs, the great orc chief, the great orc bodyguard. They have, you know, orc guard, goblin archer, orc chief and orc soldier, right? A lot of these different varieties and trolls as well. There's not just the cave troll, but, you know, all number of sub variants and so on.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So it's something I think that a lot of RPGs recognize as a fun way to change things up and to have more flexibility around the stories you're telling, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah. Yeah. And that action is it makes a big difference. I mean, I remember any number of fourth edition fights where, you know, you drop in a particular variant and everybody goes, oh, it's doing what? And that makes it a really fun dynamic fight.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
um they mentioned that the organization is the recent push they've had for a true alphabetical order not by types such as giant or devils so you know if you're looking at a you know bug bears are under b and a casme would be under c not under devil and and so on so so that's all you know i guess a cloud giant will be under c right And there's good and bad to that, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
I mean, I thought the 2014 way it did giants and told us about the ordling and all that was really very useful. So I don't know. Do we lose all that? Maybe, you know, maybe that's one of the ways they squeeze some space out. Um, I don't know. How do you feel about that?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
um they talked about more monsters that use bloodied as a trigger which is interesting because we you know we saw a ton of that in fourth edition uh bloodied showed up in the player's handbook 2024 so we'll apparently see more that talks about that they also said or inflict exhaustion since we've changed the exhaustion rules and i thought oh i can see sean's face right now uh yeah it
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Spell casters will use some of the new 2024 spells, which is not a huge surprise. They talked about more monsters that are thought of as spell casters will have some form of spell casting blocks, such as most of the older dragons. you know, history has often said that they can cast spells and had different ways that represented that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So here they will have, uh, spellcasting blocks, apparently not the white dragon. Cause it's, uh, Jeremy made some joke, like still learning how spellcasting works or something like that. Okay. Or, or I see dragon.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Um, they mentioned specific monsters that have updates like the Terra ask no longer has to worry about people fighting. It's just a range. A number of species, uh, have art that depicts two genders. So dryad, hags, satyrs, the succubus and incubus are now two different creatures and each have art depicting both genders representing them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And then the usual thing, I kind of just close with this somewhat for fun. It's the biggest monster manual ever, Sean.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
once again yes well you know we have larger font and we have more art and over 80 monsters are being added and that makes me think to myself well what did you take out because somehow when you have larger font and more art you can't do it even when you add pages it's just so hard like just increasing font and art
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
will automatically be a massive page count right um so are there shorter descriptions are the stat blocks leaner i'm very curious to see what will have changed to make this all work um because just as we talked about with the layout of monsters you know an individual monster usually fitting on a page sometimes two That's your layout to work with.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
If your font and your art got bigger or more plentiful, what are you doing? Something has to go away. So I'm very curious. And, you know, folks may think we're just kidding about this. But just last year, last episode, I made a joke about the 2025 MM being bigger as I am today. And since then, I had a friend who gave me the size of the DMG. So here you go. The 2014 DMG.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
had 197,000 words, almost 200,000, 197. The 2024 DMG has 188K words. Bigger, more art. Just longer words. It's just longer words. They use longer words. That's all. Yeah. So, you know, you did lose some words in the DMG. It's actually pretty close, right? You know, it's just what is that 9000 words difference that you lost?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But, you know, the monster manual, I'm curious whether, you know, somehow we can it's a lot harder to do the word count for stat blocks like that. But I'm curious as to what it'll look like. It's probably easier to just compare like a single page of common monsters and see how it has changed.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But especially if you think about something like the goblin, if it's going to have three variants of the vampire, something's got to go right. we have heard that every monster that is in 2014 is in 2024. I think I remember someone saying that, saying that, um, so we're not losing monsters, but somewhere the words have to come out of the makeup for all that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Keith Aman of The Monsters Know What They're Doing.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Merrick Blackman. Calvin Bridges Avalos. Evil John. Evan at Nimble Company.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Andy Edmonds at Nerdronomicon.com. James Fisher. Scott Fitzgerald Gray at Insane Angel Studios. William Harshman of Runeforged Tabletop Gaming. Ben Heisler and Paige Leitman. Sean Hurst. Mark and Mary's Gaming Compound. The Mighty Jerd. JR of The Twilight Perspective. Brian King. Jim Klingler, a.k.a. DM Prime Mover. Chad Lynch. Paul Matta.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Sean Mollie. Falcon Neal. Tom Nelson of the Deck of Player Safety. Mighty Zeus. Bill Wirt from the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo. Frog Prince at Tentacles Squelching Wetly. Post Fiction RPG Audio. Robert Pasley. Vladimir Prenner from Croatia. Hugness. Ozymandias Rex. Runner Rick. Chance Russo at Drago Russo. Andy Shockney. Krishna Simon C. Spark from Dunor Games.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Josh and Lee Wanika of the Tabletop Journeys podcast. Halos the Storm Lord. Jeremy Talloman from the D&D and TV podcast. Trace. Joe Tyler.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
James Walton. Graham Ward. Jason Ward from Accidental Cyclops Games. Javier Wazniak. Chris Webster. VAC types. And Z. Walt Winfrey.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So what you been up to? What have I been up to? I have a video coming out soon that will be going through some topics. I've had my blog around getting started with campaigns with various role playing games, how to pick through them.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
I'm going to turn to the secret page in the Monster Manual they haven't talked about yet, where you find out that the real monster is you.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But I hope that answers the question. One last thing I'll add is the question that was brought up around, is this now bound into the optional system of Bastion? So no, it's not. How optional it is depends on how you want to read these words in the DMG. They are in the DMG. I mean, you are the DM, so you always control it. Everything is up to you.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
But your players may read the DMG and feel otherwise. With bastions, which is also one of those optional systems, but presume that you can give it to your players. Again, it's up to you to decide when bastions kick in and how they get it. But if they had it, what the benefit would be is getting that assistant that can help with the crafting.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
An assistant halves the time, so it'll speed up how often they can get things. Something that isn't covered in the rules that's really interesting is this question of if you have more than one assistant, which some bastions provide, can they help? And that's supposed to be a DM call on whether they can. So you could, if you want to make crafting faster, do that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
It was like the giant bandaid of like, you know, staring at the room that is empty, not only of people, but of Christmas accoutrement and joy. And then we watched all the things we wanted to watch without anyone interrupting us. So there's some, you know, Upsides, but the kids are already missed. How about on your end? What's going on? What's the deal?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
And if you don't, be prepared for your players to maybe suggest that and you need to explain how you feel about it.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
it makes it a little more odd. Agreed. Agreed. It used to be a little more of in balance. It was one of the options you could take, you know, is it really worth to have a chance to get an item and that might come with complications or rivals or whatever, when you could unlock secrets or train this companion you got or any number of other things. Um,
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
It's also worth mentioning that crafting has no failure chance in these rules. They didn't in 2014 either, but but it makes it all the more kind of an automatic thing you're doing. And there's no complications or rivals type things the way there used to be in 2014 with those rules for downtime. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that because I haven't thought about the player type angle, but it's true that you have the breadth to interact more along those various lines of what you like and to please them differently. A one shot is trying to create a very finite experience. Right. And so everything it's doing is coordinating along those paths.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
So it'll say something like you're on a mission to do blah and you must, you know, get to the temple and stop the ritual. And then we're done. We have done that. And so everything must drive towards that conclusion or we're going to end up feeling like, well, we never got to the ending. And so if the, you know, instigator wants to instigate off the
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
to one side and the, you know, explorer wants to go find the lore of something else. Well, we're not going to get to the end and that will. So normally players know we've got to get to this end piece. And even though we might tickle all of our fancies, we will still go towards that end conclusion. And because that one shots are great ways to show off a game, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Like I did a one shot of Deadlands before starting a campaign, even though it was a two session, three session kind of game. It was a way to kind of experience the setting and see if we liked it. And then we could go into something bigger. with something bigger, we can then aspire to do things like have plans that we independently are developing. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
You know, one player might want to do X or Y. Another one might particularly dig into this part of the story and setting and an adventure and expand it because they start doing things with it. Right. And so there are those opportunities to have a bigger experience and not everything you have, you know, going back to the specifics of this question. Not everything you have lends itself to that.
Mastering Dungeons
Monster Manual Previews! (MD 223)
Some adventures that we get don't have a lot of material to expand. Like if the if we think of, say, like against the Giants, right, the classic series, it really, truly zeroes in on each of the giant layers and very little else. We don't know a lot about what the kingdoms are thinking. The very few NPCs with the kingdoms and it's all meant to be left behind.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, so the video walks through a new encounters sidebar you can use to run the initiative on the maps VTT. And so essentially what you do is you add tokens to the map like you would before. for the monsters and for the PC PCs. But now you can then click on them and add them to the encounter sidebar. You get to see the token little image, which is very sweet, and then the names next to them.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then you can either use static initiative or click on auto roll and it'll roll the initiatives for those that you chose. The PCs can still roll before in chat and then you can assign the value you can group or ungroup monsters so that they can have one initiative for all the monsters you grouped or you can roll for them individually.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah. Who could have done that? I mean, they would have had need to know you at a certain level of comfort. And right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So you hit start combat and now that sidebar has the order for you and you can go through it. You can add more creatures and they go into a little pending area and then you can put them into the initiative. So if you want to surprise things because maps let you do things like, you know, you can set a creature to invisible and then when it comes out, you make it visible.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then you get that at that point, you could add it to the initiative, too, so that you don't reveal it. So it supports that. And one nice thing that's kind of cool is when you are in this encounter sidebar, when you're looking at that sidebar, it actually shows you the difficulty.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So like you put a red dragon, adult red dragon, and it shows high difficulty based on the characters, which is kind of neat. Turn order is preserved. So you could do something like go through a portal and switch to another maps window and then come back and it would still have that initiative kept. which is kind of neat. There aren't things like monster attacks or anything like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So, you know, that would still be done through your normal integration through D&D Beyond, either through the Discord or something like that. But, you know, but it's just really about that initiative order being able to add that there, which I thought was kind of cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
wait a minute. That's a great idea. I mean, you forgot that. Oh man.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, there's a whole ecosystem now of of, you know, any if you read the first series of novels in the first, like, say, six or nine, there is now so much of an ecosystem between all the different characters and NPCs and stuff. And they all have families and all that. So if you're into that sort of thing, like, boy, it just keeps adding layers through all of these, you know, additions to the saga.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, I did look at the little avatar and decorations. You know, Discord's free. So every now and then I'll buy one just kind of almost like like my yearly payment to Discord. They generally get in the way of whatever you're trying to do. But but they're kind of cool. And yeah, seeing like the dragon breathe fire and stuff, it's neat. It's worth a thought if you like to decorate things like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
A couple things caught my eye besides the history of it and how it's influenced various RPGs. There's a $1 pledge level that lets you get over 100 digital freebies, including the fourth edition of this game and many other source books.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then through the campaign, they sort of set a level at which they said, well, if we hit this, we will release the text of the core rulebook under the CC by SA 4.0 license. So this allows a creator to use the text commercially, but anybody who uses what you created must in turn use the same share alike license. So that means that what you create must also be shared, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So it's a continual sharing. Anything you make becomes open. So but that's really neat, a neat kind of take on it. So that means that lots of people could create for Ars Magica if they want. And already we have an example of the first major third party release, which is the Spanish language source book Finis Tere, El Tribunal de Iberia, focusing on the setting of mythic Spain and Portugal.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
If anyone doesn't know how hard you work, it's whatever you could imagine. And then just add a lot more to that. It's, it's, you know, add a Christmas bonus on top. Um, On my end, you know, I didn't do a bunch of stuff for a while because I was just working, working, working on the day job. And now I'm like on a tear creating videos. I'm all excited.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And this you've got about a week, a little less than a week on it. And by the time you listen to this, it ends November 14th, I guess, a week. All right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah. Rodney, amazing creator, one of the main people behind the math of 2014 5E, made Lords of Waterdeep along with Peter Lee. So he has the new mailing list. You can go to scratchpad-publishing.myshopify.com and you can sign up for his mailing list because...
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Rodney says that both Dusk City Outlaws and his Supers game Spectaculars are going to get reprinted and that there will be a new game that he's going to be kickstarting next year. So that's really cool. I love the idea of Rodney Thompson getting back into creating various games. And I love everything he's designed. So I'm looking forward to this.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I'm digesting like all kinds of like a friend of mine. Well, Jeff Mueller, who supports our show, we mentioned his work. He shared Forbidden Lands with me. And I've been eating that up, reading through it. That's been a lot of fun to read, which is a free league kind of gritty OSR style kind of game. That's cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So friend of the show, Dave Chalker, is one of the designers behind this board game, Thunder Road Vendetta, that has now become an RPG. And in the the game is like the board game is like a Mad Max style thing where it's all about you moving the cars on this play mat and ramming into each other and using all kinds of horrendous additions to your car to, you know, cause devastation.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And the RPG leans into this, creating an experience focused on wasteland post-apocalyptic driving. I immediately had to go back to this because it just sounds bonkers. And the kind of thing that I want to learn from, right? Very different from the kind of games on my shelf.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
It promises quick character creation, furiously fun over-the-top vehicular action, and ongoing campaign play where you build and maintain your settlement. So this is on Kickstarter through November 21st.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
thunder road vendetta rpg and it looks fantastic yep they go in like a little car and you somehow like move the car and the die is being rolled you can like lift the car up or something and it's yeah wild coming from from the the gentleman who had bro uh shark eat robot eating sharks uh
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, the Kickstarter looks really interesting. It ends November 22nd. The rules promise a feel-good game with fun ways to engage other than violence. It's an interesting concept. It's already more than doubled its 20k initial goal. And yeah, all of these options are sort of ways to have non-violent play using 5e.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
was a bunch of companies saying, wow, because I couldn't go to Gen Con as a company, I saved a bunch of money. I had all this extra time. I had all this extra energy. And it caused people to rethink things a bit. Now, I think they all have gone back to having booths anyway, or most of them. But it did cause folks to reflect a bit.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And I think that is really important to say, like, hey, conventions sound great on paper. But they do take your energy. They do require a bunch of time. You never you always think it's going to take less time than it does to prepare for them. It takes a bunch of money. There are ways to save on money, save on time.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
But overall, it's really easy to find yourself spending a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy. And that's not to not inconsequential. So it's worth kind of keeping in mind. And if you're a person who thinks, oh, I can't afford to go to conventions. Don't go, you know, or if you're like, I can't possibly do this because I have to get product out the door. Great. Keep stay on target. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Like like stay on your targets, whether they're financial or time or whatever. It's fine. But there are opportunities. And for those who are interested, then I think it's great to review, you know, what does game offer and and how we approach to what we did, what we learned from it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I see you at this convention, and you manage to have pep and vigor. I don't know how you do it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
in order to maintain all of this. I think Sean Merwin is secretly a time traveler sent back to save the world's role-playing games and cannot share all the technology that fuels him. He's an Android.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I say he, like you're not right here if I'm looking at you.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
and uh touchdown airplane what what do you do taos uh i get i get i usually get in flying from portland's terrible so it's like i have to either show up like very late in the day or very early and so i did the red eye i i grabbed the coffee i check in early i shower you
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then I go down to the lobby and immediately start seeing all kinds of cool people, which is great because the first day pre-con is like people day. And I'm an extrovert, so that's easy. And it's just wonderful. I mean, it's amazing how many people I know now in this industry and how awesome it is to see everybody. What's your first day like?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then someone says, what do you think? And you're like, I wasn't listening.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I have kind of the thing that happens to me more is that I will see somebody and I'll be like, oh, sweet. Well, you know, if I saw him today, I'm certainly going to see him several times at the convention. And for some people, that's true. Like, it's always great how you'll see certain people over and over and you're like, hey, hey, you know, and you just feel like I saw that person so much.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then I saw Dan Dillon, like as I was rushing to a seminar and I was like, oh, Dan, you're here. I can't wait to talk to you. And I never saw him again. I was like, oh, no, you know, and so you just never know.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
it's a fantastic event and you get to see the game hall right and I remember you know listening to you and Chris Nizak talk about your first trips to the game hall and the amazing collection that Alex Kammerer has and it is it's incredible and he's got you know Monty Cook's gaming table and then he has just all these kinds of neat things on the walls and all the dragon heads and just
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
copies upon copies of rare things right multiple versions of you know dragon number one from from dragon magazine and just yeah on and on right and and it's just so impressive to see that space and the love he has for the hobby is so clear there uh love that and then everybody who comes up is sharing their love for all these things
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
it's whether they're new or old it's it's great and and uh and yeah just seeing incredible people that make this hobby what it is is fantastic so you start out just super great great vibe
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, absolutely. Really nice. Gets everybody in a super excellent vibe, which this is a convention that has a really nice vibe in that way around around community. And so this I think both these events help establish that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
so i started to hit the ground running with dming the 50th anniversary game so i did not stay up super late because i knew i had to be on point to run a great game for for a table and i did i had a full table uh ran people through this one hour game uh that was all dragon the gold dragon themed and it's short there wasn't a whole lot to it there's a nice review of it uh on andy demps's website and he talks about his game whole experience so i ran that that was fun uh it used dwarven forged terrain which was great
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And from that, it was just, you know, it's again, it's always so interesting to run a one hour game and see what you can do with it. And I actually really like the format. Like, I love running one hour games because it is both hard thing to do. It keeps you focused. But I think it provides a lot of fun to players because because everybody knows that this time is short and precious.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And so everybody makes the most of it. So I had a great that's always for me filled with lessons around DMing when I when I do one hour games. And then I went immediately and ran to join Brewer's Heist, an adventure run by David Ewald, who has written for a number of things, including he wrote the book
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Of Dice and Men and of Dice and Men is this neat combination of sort of talking about his campaign and then the history of D&D. And it was fun because, you know, he describes his campaign setting and I found it really evocative. And I was always wondering, I wonder what his campaign will be like to play with him. And so this was a little bit of window into that with this.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
kind of story around tainted brew and a bit of a mystery. And then you kind of end up breaking into a place and trying to solve the problem. We had a blast. It was really good. Nice four hour game. You want to take a couple of things you did on Thursday?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, I've enjoyed booth work. I haven't done it for the RPG industry, but when I've done it for my day job quite some time ago, I did enjoy it. And it is kind of neat to watch every you get a good feel for attendees, right? Because you're watching the myriad of people that walk by and interact. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I went to a D&D history roundtable. So there were a bunch of one-hour seminars that had really brilliant people talking about the history of D&D. And this was just a general sort of how the game started. And it was John Peterson, right, who writes Playing at the World and all these amazing books that really... I mean, he's one of the best scholars on D&D. I love his writing.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And he's the same speaking. He has just... endless amounts of knowledge you can tap into on the history of the game. And he was joined by David Ewald and Mike Witwer.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And the three of them just it was a really great I mean, most of it was stuff I'd heard before, but to just hear them say it and the way they paint the picture of how D&D developed was just another kind of reinforcement of kind of understanding how this game began in such fragile ways and became such a juggernaut. And they tried to make it kind of all the way through them.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
It started with a heavy emphasis on the beginning, but they made it all the way through fifth edition in one hour, which is impressive.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So this was a little funny, you know, despite all my planning, I'm somehow I have like nine spreadsheets of any convention I want to attend. And at the end of it, something surprises me and I go, what? And this was one of those where I had two goals. You know, I might run a Coriolis campaign, so I want to really understand the rules. So therefore, I'm going to sign up for four hour adventure.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So one was it finished in about two hours, just a little over two hours that I didn't expect, but it just somehow ended early. The other thing is that was using the new Coriolis rules from the Kickstarter that's not out yet. And I think I could have found that out if I'd read more carefully and somehow I missed it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So I was like, oh, OK, well, you know, so I did not become more expert at it, but I did have a blast. And Coriolis continues to be an RPG that if you want like high science fiction, right? Like the stars and ancient civilizations and, you know, just big sci-fi topics in your game. This is a great RPG for that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And the game has a great, both editions have great premises around them and really fun dynamics. And you just, you get the feeling of what you're doing, right? When you're, We were crawling into an area that sort of irradiated and worried about what our suit would handle and what we would find.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And it just felt absolutely like you're in one of those kinds of movies or books and just dripping with cool sci fi stuff. Right. Just you just felt it very rock and very awesome. So I had a blast, even though it's only two hours and not the edition I was looking for. But yeah, it's still fun. How about you? It's funny.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
That's fantastic. Yeah, I love that. I heard some things about both that table and then another morning table where everybody just had a blast. And that was one of those events that I was like, how can I? Oh, I can't because I'm already booked for something else at the same slot.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I honestly had no idea how this event would go. It started as I think I'll do a seminar on creating traps. And then I thought, well, wouldn't it be fun if like maybe I had like something you could see, like maybe I have dwarven forge trains you can actually look at. I'm like, I don't know how you see that from afar in a seminar room.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And I was like, what if you're standing around the table and what if they're actually playing? And at some point I just was like, OK, stop and just do this. And I spent a lot of time, we talked about that, you know, before a con, you don't think of like I at some point I even said to myself, I'll keep it simple and I'll only do this for this event. Oh, my God.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I, you know, I made pregens with their own pregen one page character sheet. So it'd be easy to see. And everybody played rogues, but a different species. And and I use the 2024 rules so I could get to learn them. And then I took the Dungeon of Doom gauntlet that I'd done, which is a long trap filled corridor and a little bit of the room before it and walked through it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And we talked about the history of traps and we talked about, you know, why is this here? What's the intentionality behind the design? And we got to see kind of how it all plays, right? Because everybody's interacting and all six rogues trying to take turns, handle things. So I was really happy with how it went. From what you're talking about, that format of play to learn.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And I'm actually really excited to do it again for other parts of the game. Sure. As a way of, you know, like, let's play through this while talking about what's going on here, right? Whether it's role playing or it's, yeah, puzzles exploration, right? Like that could be fun, too, to do. So it's already in my brain that at Gamehole, I've got to do one like this, but different.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And I like the 12 people format concept. in that room that we ran it, which was a very quiet room. Thank goodness, because some of the other rooms are very loud. So if I can get that same room, I definitely want to do this again because I really enjoyed the format and I loved the feedback from people like the back and forth was really cool and the ideas and yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I first did a... I think I'm making it first. I did the making of D and D three panel. I remember this because I actually asked a question at the panel. So this was Peter Agason and, uh, two other fine folks, um, who were, were there. And, um, I asked a question about the OGL, which was actually kind of fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And because I had really wondered, right, like Ryan Dancy is always credited as sort of architecting the OGL. But if you listen to what Ryan said, it isn't what they actually did. And primarily that Ryan's plan really seems to have been like, hey, we're only going to make core books. and so my question was sort of you never did that plan why did you not do that actual plan
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And Peter Atkinson's first response, you know, who had been the CEO of Wizards of the Coast was, you know, like, we're not going to answer that. But then and I don't know why I'm blanking on his name, but the tweet. No, it was it was more guy who's played a business role. And I'm blanking on his name, but I'll think of it at some point. But he actually started to answer it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And the answer they ended up both giving because they did end up talking about it is. We expected the OGL to create for people to write the things we didn't want to write. And instead, they had done the same kind of intelligence we had, and they knew that core books is what sells money. So they started making essentially core book type stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And then there were obvious holes we had to fill and we couldn't just not do anything. We had to make all these other products as well and, you know, could never just leave it to others to do that and just live off the core books. But I thought that was really kind of neat. That is neat.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
What I heard from folks who attended it that they liked was that we kind of had points of disagreement with one another, which I think is very illustrative of, you know, it captures perfectly what this is all about, which is that there is no one way to look at this issue, especially the contentious things. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So you can try to think of what does the company actually think, which at least the team tried to speak to that and and how she saw it as a person who has to worry about the product she creates for various companies and whether somebody else can touch them or not.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
um we hit it from the angles of you know being a small creator and just you know it was really i thought that that kind of diversity in our opinions was useful it would have been nice if we talked a little bit about the the impact it had on the industry because it really is fantastic and i think that topic of say contrasting third edition and fourth edition
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
or fourth edition and fifth edition right those are really fascinating ways to look at the effect that these things can have especially around the popular game of dnd but but i think it was still i enjoyed it so that's why yeah what uh what did you do after that I went to play historical figures and the journey to the San Dimas High School Auditorium.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
hmm i you know there's something to the generic vanilla e life cleric light cleric storm you know whatever like those kinds of tempest whatever it's called you're like they're just very generic sort of like like almost like divine um uh what are those called the um like the God portfolios. Right. The right. There's a better word for it anyway. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And this was just absolutely wild game using the cipher system where we all got to play in Bill and Ted, the what's the name of the movie? Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Excellent Adventure. Thank you. I'm running into the name of the second one. In Excellent Adventure, the scene where Bill and Ted have to go off and get Napoleon and they leave everybody at the mall. That was the adventure.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
We had wild stallion guitar picks as our points we could spend to do cool things. And you had to stand up and say excellent and play the guitar, pretend to air guitar. If you if you wanted one back and which, of course, I felt compelled to do. It was just such a fun game, just being completely ridiculous.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I declared war on the Witch King because I saw that there was a skating rink park and I thought there had to be some Witch King behind it. And that ended up being the head of security. And we led a mob against the mall and there was a lot of blood spilled and it was just completely, completely excellent.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Great seeing Ben at the con and everybody from the Ghostfire team. There were really a number of folks there meeting Martin. That was awesome. Dante, incredible. Yeah, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I did a learn to play the one ring. I actually got three games of one ring in and two of them were the learn to play, which I guess Graham Ward helped write, which is super cool. And so he ran actually part of it in a hotel room one night. And then I got to play the learn to play, which also used it, which really helped reinforce.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
This is where I did succeed in playing the one ring and going through those mechanics. And I really enjoyed everything I saw about it. I later played a four hour adventure, which then was really cool to see the journey rules, the role playing.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
There's a name for the role playing rules as well, but they have a really neat way of choosing roles around combat exploration or travel and also role playing. That really works quite well. And I am jazzed to play one ring. That was great.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Um, after that, I went to a Chris Perkins signing because Chris Perkins, uh, is one of those introverts that like, if you don't go to the event that, you know, he will be there, you may never see him at the convention.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Um, and so I went to the signing and that's where I was able to confirm, um, as we reported at the show on what his new role was, uh, cause there'd been a lot of confusion as to whether he was leaving or what exactly was doing. So, so that was nice. And I got him to sign my Cursus Strahd book, which was, which was cool. Um,
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
um and then i went to a really neat event that had been organized um and funded through fantastic people um and this was a poc industry dinner and and it was really neat to to meet with folks from really diverse backgrounds with a lot of energy and desire to figure out this industry and find how to work within the space.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So those of us who were a little older, we tried to share knowledge and make connections and help create connections. I'll just go ahead and say now that then the next day there was a BIPOC mixer at Monte Cook Games. And so this kind of carried forward into that where we tried to also kind of have some influence and make connections and help people kind of do some really cool things.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And some of the things I heard about were really, really exciting. And I'm excited to see if they can happen. So that was a lot of fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I hung out with with Graham Ward, Jeff Shue, you know, a number of people from our Discord. So it was super fun to get together and play one ring, roll some dice and just, you know, talk. The sharing is a little loud, so it's very vibrant and exciting. But but it was just awesome to see everybody.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And and it's nice because you see enough people like like you'd see keep them on and then, you know, then we'd be at the food carts and oh, hey, and then meet up again. And so just every little one thing that's nice about conventions like this is when you have even a short touch point with somebody, it makes it that much easier to meet with them again when you see them. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And so I love that the more you go to these conventions and have these little touch points, you feel comfortable just hanging out and talking about things and asking questions, you know, getting advice from folks.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Everybody listening thinking that, you know, like that kind of sort of just like a columnar thing of like this is the general area of worship. Like it actually worked far better than I thought it would for 2014. And I think made it very easy to appeal. My preference would be I wouldn't say that you just only have that in a setting book. To me, what I would like is just a few questions that say, OK,
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And we got to share the news that you and Scott and I worked on a second mini Akink project, which was part of their Kickstarter to bring the Akink show back. And that went out to backers this last week. But it was backers at a very high level, like I think $300 on up. So they're also looking at ways to make this available for sale because there's some really neat features in this.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
They called it a module, but it's really it's like a mini source book that extends has ideas for franchises. It has ideas for for kind of campaigns you could run. It has neat spells, very funny spells and all kinds of stuff. And so we spilled some of the beans at the panel. But yeah, I'm excited to see how people like it. And hopefully.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
yeah so i played adn d uh sort of with ed greenwood um it's hard to talk about this game for a number of reasons uh i will say that i think if that anybody from wizards of the coast had been watching this game they probably would have been horrified at how black staff tower was portrayed and all of the people inside of it i was pretty horrified by everything i saw uh and i felt like every npc hit on me
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I still love Ed Greenwood, but it was not an experience I'd recommend. But what was one of the things that was interesting along those lines is it was an advanced Dungeons and Dragons game where nobody made a role.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
and i tried to at one point cast a spell but maybe ed didn't hear me or maybe he didn't want me to cast his spell so i just didn't um because i was trying to figure out what was happening i wanted to cast esp uh so it was it sure was not an ad and d experience it was uh it was an ed greenwood experience with all of that entails sure uh cool and uh
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
You're a life cleric. Pause and ask yourself, in this campaign, what does that mean? Jot down three bullets, right? You can literally have it like on a character sheet, right? If you're going to do like D&D Beyond, you're going to have custom character sheets. It's a cleric. Okay, here are your three bullets. Tell me. What's your life cleric really pushing? Like, what's the thing? Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
It was a great day. I went to the 5E panel with Mike Merles, Peter Lee, and Rodney Thompson. And just seeing all three of them in the same place was heartwarming. I love the design that they did for 5E and previous to 5E, their 4E design as well. And so just hearing how they approached the project was really cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I did a four hour Magnus Archives RPG by Monte Cook Games in the Monte Cook Games area. They've got a lovely play space there. That was fun. It was just sort of like a Delta Green, a little bit Cthulhu, a little bit investigative type mix. And we had a blast doing bad British accents and solving crimes that involve horrible amounts of insects. But it was cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
We set it on fire and called it a win. And then I play that four hour one ring that I talked about. And, you know, I really I love that experience, as I said. So one ring is high on my list. So Saturday was just one of those exhaustive wall to wall fun times for me. And it's that point where you suddenly go like, oh, wait, this con is about to end.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
But that's great because you had that energy of all this...
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I love Dante's mastery. You know, he's he's like, you know, I can send you the files and mastering dungeons live. And they were edited already. I'm like, oh, my God, this is just beautiful. Like I said to him, I'm a little worried that our live show sounds better than our recorded studio shows. But but we'll go with it. Yeah. I definitely got a lot of energy from this convention.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I felt like I made a lot of connections with people that I care about and some new folks that I had only met a little bit or on the Internet and I became closer to them. I definitely got back and I was like, OK, time to make videos, time to do more because it was just it filled me with energy. It's also coming in time with one of my one of my many day jobs has ended.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
So it gave me a little more time. But it's really filled me with energy. And part of that was folks being nice enough to say, Hey, I like success in RPGs or I love this book or, you know, asking me to sign something or any of that. And boy, that makes a big difference, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
When you just kind of remember why you're doing this, remember that when you do this hard work at the end of it is somebody feeling thankful for it. It makes us thankful. Right. And yeah, I came back super, super energized from it. For sure.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And so it might be like, well, I'm a life cleric. I'm all about vitality, rebirth and the why of it. Right. And just think about that. And boom, you're done. You're ready to go.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
now we could have a setting guide that tells me what those things helps me that with those bullets more and and i would love that too right and every now and then you're gonna have a weird campaign your darkson type thing where it's like well the rules are totally different and in that case we've got a maybe subclasses don't even fit the bill right it might not be good yeah yeah and
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I just put out a video looking at the Bastion system. And because I know I have thoughts and my thoughts aren't everyone's, I started with what's awesome about it. And tomorrow's video will be a little more critical and peel behind into it. So hopefully folks who just want to be like happy land can look at what's cool and how to make the most of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And tomorrow, if you want to peel back the layers and see that, then you can do so. So that's Monday and Tuesday. So by the time this comes out, they're both available.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
I'm going to see if you can use the new weapon mastery feats to dual read dungeon master guides.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah. I'll cover normal cover simultaneous. See which one's better. Roll for stress with a capital letter. Yes.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
If you will, whatever the kids do place tonight, a little bit later, we'll be Santa Claire playing the Billikens, my favorite mascot of all time. And I got not to switch away from important topics, but I'm dual fisting the dungeon masters guide. All right. Those, those I've got those. And then a lot of people have talked to have been picking up theirs.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Because you want to, like, on one hand... not require a phd in the claire in the god or campaign setting to have a fun game and 2014 does that really really well uh but you want to somehow allow the person who wants to have a phd in this thing to be able to or to write their own dissertation on who their god is and whatever or that the dm did that like for that to all fit together and yeah
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's a neat idea.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, absolutely. I know with adventures as a DM, I've had situations when I read an Adventurers League adventure, and one of them particularly stands out that I prepared it for a convention, and I thought, wow, this adventure is so lackluster. It was an investigative adventure, and it just seemed like each of the scenes was so, like there was nothing super engaging about them.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
But when I ran it, much to my surprise, the simplicity of it actually meant that it was therefore not confusing. And the players really worked with what was there. The right things were there. It actually worked really well. And I had a suit. It was probably the best convention I ran at that con. And it was backwards of what I expected, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And I think there's two levels to this question, right? Of like, when you read something... And you're not so sure about it, whether it's player or DM. One thing is that any group can have fun with anything. The worst rules out there, someone's having a blast with them. Right. So it's not about whether somebody can have fun, like always somebody can have fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
You'll find that person who thinks it's perfect. But. on the aggregate of all the people who are going to experience it, have you just created a big barrier towards it working for enough tables?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And I think that as you become more experienced game designer, you're probably a little better, not perfect, but you're a little better at assessing from the written word what the likely impact will be on an aggregate of tables, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Yeah, and I think one thing that is important, right, where I do put kind of hard pieces, you know, where I really will bounce off of something, if I was reading it and it's poorly written, then I just worry, like, if you can bother with the words, I don't believe that you bother with the mechanics. Right. Right. Or if you state assumptions that are sort of just demonstrably not true in the text.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
right and even wizards can do this in some of their products right where you make a statement but the next piece of the rule undermines it right or you listen to someone talk in an interview but the written page doesn't do that then you can worry about the design because there is a mismatch going on here that has not been properly baked addressed work through and here it is in the finished product right
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
And that's always a concern. Again, you could still have fun, but that is a weakness that you're pretty sure you can be pretty sure that there's a weakness there in that text.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
get this one see how it goes and then prepare for the flood of elemental evil themed content on the inside it is november i was gonna say it's october but i have to check myself uh before i wreck myself it's it's november sean so they're running out of time for you know 50th unless they're going to somehow carry this into the 51st but i will say that what i liked about one of the my favorite things about this is just you know and i would not be shocked if this is just
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on Gamehole Con ‘24 (MD 214)
Will coming up with these names, but the names for the parliamental cults, Children of Splintered Ice, Children of Suffocating Ooze and the Order of Falling Ash. And like, boy, just steal that and put that in your campaign because it just sounds like wonderful.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, I had some flakes this morning. In fact, just like 20 minutes ago. And so I think it's telling me that it's the time to migrate to winter fantasy for tons and tons of gaming. I'm excited to play a bunch of Dragonlance. And then... some Grim Hollow. Ooh.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So two thoughts that we didn't mention but are pretty critical. One is marketing. And we tend to make fun of marketing, sort of the evil entity and so on. And they do things like, say, you must put your Baldur's Gate and your Avernus Adventure and things like that. It's not without reason, right? It's because, well, we expected this video game to come out way back then.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And so having a tie in at that time would have been so perfect if actually the video game company had hit their schedule and it all had worked out right. Or things that were done around the movie. I heard things about the movie that was an entirely different D&D movie. that they were trying to do tie-ins, but well, let's just go ahead and get this done because it's not gonna work.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So just plans change, but marketing's trying to make the most out of those things, and the more that things are moving around, well, you end up doing things for what later seems like no reason at all. When it's pulled off, it's great, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
The other one here is that usually there's somebody at a very large company that's in charge of the whole print and distribution shipping type thing. And so if you think about there's a release date, whether it's a Kickstarter date or it's a two stores date or whatever, and the bigger you are, I mean, Wizards has to deal with this. And it's a nightmare, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Trying to get that many books printed and stuff. You need special agreements with very special printers and multiple points of entry in multiple countries even. But even at a smaller level, that timing, that's a real challenge. And so somebody who knows, okay, you're going to get me these print file ready at this date so that I can get it to the shipper. The shipper is ready to print.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
They'll save us that window. It all come out. That is a very tough job, too, because, of course, you know, everybody's going to want to say, I'm sure they can find another date. No. Right. And then the things like, well, if we wait too long, the price of shipping changes and our whole profit margin shifts and any number of things like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And so those people are all hugely important as well in the scheme of things.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I think you're on to the right of it. What I find is most useful at the table when I'm coming up with an NPC is separating whether this is a main NPC that they need to deal with a lot, like it's going to come up often. Or is this just sort of like a fun burst of something, right? The interesting villager, the quirky person at the tavern, something like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And to me, that's two different modes because the more quirky gimmicky fun, you know, that's more of a flashpan experience, flash in the pan. And so you just want to have something that captures imagination and is interesting. And you can still go to the same places, but you're doing it a little differently.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So you can pull someone from a movie or something like that or a novel, and that can be good inspiration. But you really are just sort of trying to create something that they will play off of. And so really what I'm doing with that method-wise is thinking of what's needed for the scene to facilitate, to interact between players and the scene, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
In this tavern, they need to accomplish the following things, right? They need to pick up these two clues. So what is an NPC that can be fun to interact with that can help them get towards those clues, but only when they interact? Right. So and what's the type of interaction?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Well, the interaction has to be around, you know, what the sea is like this time of year and what dangers are there and who knows what else. Right. And some demand of the players. And so that kind of back and forth. That's the method that I'm using of making it interesting and fun and quirky.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
The more that an NPC is going to be around, then I need, especially across sessions, I need to be able to track it. And that's where it's really easy to do something I've always done for years, but is also in Mike Shea's advice, is that idea of taking something from a novel TV show, whatever, and changing it in some way or mashing it or pulling an aspect and then into whatever your NPC vision is,
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And so it's things like, you know, the the like, like I played a character recently, but it could have been a non-player character that was based on Ho from Slow Horses. Right. This like super into himself thinks he's just the gift to God's gift to everybody, not just women. And, you know, above the fray and just and so having Being able to understand who they are, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
That's my method is find something that helps you do to really understand who they are so that across the sessions you can keep doing that. Even if the minor bits, you might not quite always get your accent or your quotes right. You know, you can do a lot of techniques around that too, but you know who they are. You understand who they are, their motives, their goals, their way of operating.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And resource-wise, one thing that I find is very helpful is things like Paizo has the Harrow deck, Blade Runner has cards that are included in the intro adventures, but a picture of your NPC goes a long way. Shadowrun had great NPC contacts in their books that you could use these really neat...
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
That also helps you, too, because the mental image, depending on how your brain works, but at least for me, that mental image really helps me remember who this person is and who I'm portraying to the characters and players. And the players see that visually as well. Right. It's this grimy fixer that's always in their shop, you know, tinkering with stuff. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And seeing the art that kind of shows that just sells itself. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, I don't see snow in the forecast. So that's that's something.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I want to think kind of peer into my brain of how I approach NPCs and scenes can take a look at Acquisitions Incorporated. The chapter, I think it's
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
three to three or four of the adventure where you go to luskin and i have a couple of scenes there with npcs and you can really see how i approach it through the design that we did there um especially when you go to the tavern that you need to get some clues in that tavern and you can see the the sort of bizarre type of characters i do that are more of that flash in the pan approach
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
that are meant to be interesting, right? You know, you're missing a finger and here's the stuff you're saying. And even the guy at the door is like the guard is a bumbling fool. You can easily talk into giving you information, right? It's those kinds of that's what I look for and what I tend to do.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Whatever he's getting paid, double it.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
There's a lot of potential there in what she is saying.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I mean, I was just seeing our friend who's always covering the D&D movie was saying that
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
it it may now fall out of being in the top 10 in a country in in like its last country it almost made it two entire years of being in the top 10 and streaming or you know something somewhere and it's done really well like i know it didn't do the box office they wanted at the time when no other movie was also doing the box office it wanted so you know but it's
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I'll tell you what drives me nuts, Sean, is that what I'm hearing is, oh, we're going to license out any D&D movies or TV shows. Yeah. And the reason we didn't have a good D&D movie for such a long time is
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
was because they had given it the license to a company that then gave it to another company and that company was either going to sit on it forever or as it started losing the ability to hold on to his license was going to make the worst cheapest dnd movie possible just to renew the license and hasbro had to sue slash give money to this entity and i think it was like part of cbs or something i can't even remember we'd have to go back and look at our show notes but
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
They had to sue and pay off this group to get the license back so that then something like five or six years could go by and we could end up with a movie we got. It's such a long, torturous process. And we're just starting the cycle all over again. So I hope they learn from those previous mistakes. It's fine to go back to licensing. But boy, you know, you need that and get it out there. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Because. What I do know is the D&D movie was great for getting the brand name out there. Did you make money on the movie itself? You know, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Probably used it as a way to sock in losses and it was great for you anyway. But please make another. Don't wait forever, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
It's so beautiful to watch the sausage being made.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
just tagging into the idea of licensing and games and things there was a Wizards of the Coast shared an upcoming game called Battle Maked or Marked Battle Marked and typo in my show notes thank you which uses the Demeo system for creating a cross platform online tabletop
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
kind of gaming experience you and your buddies show up as tokens on this map it's all kind of 3d ish and glowing kind of pretty dungeon looking map and you can go over to the chest and you get cards in it and those cards give you powers and you roll special dice to come up with things and so they're doing a dnd version of that uh there was a trailer about it you can check it out uh we'll see how that does but you know just another example of sort of
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
somebody has a system, they're doing games, and they want the D&D name for it, sure, you can get that licensed.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And Crawford had an explanation of like, you know, looking at the lore, you know, they've said they aren't half elves. And so we, of course, are perfectly capturing this now. And sure, five editions from now, we'll have an entirely different way of looking at it. But, you know, fine. OK, so, you know, one more species that are that are different.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And given that half elves are being pulled out, well, that makes sense to not have them.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Are we going to see the ship combat that Spelljammer never delivered?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
they mentioned that they are using the dungeon masters guide organizational approach for adventures and include several sample adventures. And I found that really interesting because I don't know that we've seen the DMGs, you know, kind of half page adventures thing receive amazing praise. Like I think, People have said, yeah, this is great to sort of show what your paper notes might look like.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
But is that a format we wanted to see emulated? And this is the first of two products we're being told that this will be the approach to it. And along with this comes the announcement that they're experimenting with a different page count and price point. Sounded like lower. But details were not given.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And so maybe the idea is this is going to be like a much leaner offering, like a mini book, a half book, something like that. And that's why you're not getting adventures. You're getting like outlines of things you could flesh out and run. It's not a bad idea, but it'll be interesting to see how how much that captivates people.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
If you look at the Eberron book, it had a bigger page count than more than most books. The original Last War. And it was it's I mean, a lot of people say it's one of the best setting books fifth edition has had because it has so much coverage to it from an adventure experience to the setting, to the player side, all of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah. And can I just do things? The Dragon Delves is also using this 2024 DMG approach of short type prep style adventures. So that's kind of fascinating there for these 10 short anthologies that they're not like full fledged adventures, apparently. Also, they're doing an art style of each anthology has its own art style. I think that's a neat idea.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
For this Heroes of the Borderlands set, they're playing with components and trying to, I think, sell you on the components that are in it. So like tiles that you mix and match to create characters, which is an idea we've bandied about on the show.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Like if you have a pre-gen and you have, you know, insert either block A or block B for your skills and insert block C or D for your, you know, choice of subclass or whatever, right? And so they're saying this is the quickest character creation system ever for new players. So we'll see how that goes.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, just the GeekWire, Polygon and Screen Rant all had articles. GeekWire had some interesting pieces there where it talked about how now that sort of Jeremy Crawford has a slightly, I think, elevated role and Perkins shifts over to sort of world creation and that this allows them to reestablish a world building environment with the idea that they could create new settings.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So that'll be interesting to see whether that comes out. And it wasn't just necessarily settings, but sort of new experiences, new, you know, beyond the idea of revisiting the past and having like an old setting book or something like that. They talked about bringing in Baldur's Gate three aspects to that Baldur's Gate section of the adventure guide. But also they were saying that.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
All of the experience of Baldur's Gate 3 and appeal of it was, according to Jeremy Crawford, brought in as the idea of having micro settings, various disparate locations that are still technically on the same world, which are different enough to serve as the home for entirely different styles of the D&D game.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And this apparently came from the reactions to Baldur's Gate 3, which I thought was really interesting. Awesome. The virtual tabletop came up. Do we want to just quickly touch on that? Go for it. All right. So GeekWire talked about how Sigil has been a little quiet, but that they did get to test it, look at it. And there are a couple of things that I thought were interesting here.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
They said is intended as many things, a world building tool, a visual aid, a hook for your imagination. But according to Cale Stutzman, the director of the game, it isn't necessarily a virtual tabletop. And that they quietly tested it at a recent PAX Unplugged. And there that people said... The more that it tried to automate Dungeons and Dragons, the less people seem to like it.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
That influenced an evolution of the tool from a sort of virtual D&D companion into an easy to use 3D map builder. So I thought there's a little bit more here that folks can read in our show notes if you're a Patreon supporter. But that to me is interesting. I felt like maybe the fact that it's being a little quiet, it involves a shift in approach. And this seems to suggest that's true.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So it'll be interesting to see where that goes.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
We kind of touched on that, but but very quickly that they do seem to suggest that there will be new campaign settings coming out because of the way that they've changed up. Jeremy Crawford being game director and Chris Perkins, creative director. But it's interesting to me that this seems to be a big push on their end, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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There's something going on here within Wizards, reading between the various quotes and lines. Something's going on with their idea of how they envision settings and what will be built in the future.
Mastering Dungeons
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And so I wonder if it's something a little more like we saw with that video game that has its own role playing game, whether they're going to try to do some sort of tie ins and larger things that that will be new, but maybe cross media in some way. So it'll be interesting to see what comes from here. There's going to be something different than just saying like, oh, we made the next Eberron, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
It feels like there's something beyond that coming here. I also note that there are new... Pause and step back, Sean. I was not expecting that the week that the Monster Manual is in gaming stores... All this news would distract from the Monster Manual. Like you and I would have been talking about the Monster Manual. And we're talking about all this.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Shouldn't they have waited at least one more week? But yeah, the other thing they said was there's a new Fallbacks novel. I really enjoyed reading the first one. A copy was provided to me, but it was absolutely great. I've given it on to someone to enjoy with their family. So there's going to be another one. I look forward to it.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I think that could be the basis of a great TV show or movie if they wanted to make something that has wide appeal. Really nice set of characters there.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, this is so cool. A number of folks in our Discord played samples of this, I think, at Gamehole and a preview of this and really loved it. And everything Ethan does just seems to be fantastic. I know you've tried out a couple of things and Um, so I absolutely, yeah, yeah. Uh, I am absolutely good. Sean is holding up fetch my blade. Um, so I'm absolutely getting this.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
It just sounds really cool. This idea of collaborative, uh, flashback creation and paving the way for the future heroes that are going to come and learning about what you did. That sounds like the kind of thing that can be a really fun evening of gaming. It's only $10 for the PDF 20 for print. Um, yeah, seems amazing.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
It's going great because this weekend brought victory of Duke over the Tar Heels, our hated rivals. I mean, not really. My best friend goes there. But anyway, you know, it was a big game. We dominated. It was great. And so this Mike Shea segment, I just want to say, go Duke. And then I got the new Monster Manual.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
This next story was one that I was kind of really struck by when I read it. Jared Rasher saying he's hanging up his review hat. And I would absolutely encourage folks to go to whatdoiknowjr.com and read this latest post on Changing Times. He reflects on how he's been writing reviews basically since the 3.5 era onward and how much energy it takes out of him and the mental health.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
thinking he's done around this and deciding to kind of step back. So I wish him, I know you do too, just, you know, a lot of recovery. Uh, and, and we give him huge thanks for all of the incredible reviews. I mean, talk about above and beyond just incredible reviews of products covering all kinds of, of areas of, of our hobby and just incredible. Thank you.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, I haven't checked them out yet, but we really appreciated Sasha reaching out to us via Mastodon with these. And Sasha pointed out that there are three videos up right now. Every Friday, there's a new video. And the second one about promise, progress and payoff, he said, is they said Sasha said is especially useful. So thanks for that tip. That's great.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And these are going to go on my list of things to check out.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
In fact, today's been a long show. We could really just start with maybe two. Maybe we get to three. Let's see how it goes.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Make sure it meets those standards and approaches that the company uses, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Well, I mean, I've got a thought which goes back to our very first listener question in the previous segment. You've got a schedule to hit. You've got art you're ordering. This book's coming out, what, in November? There's a very short timeline. So my guess is it's you fine tune is it.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
and and that's you know i did when you asked that question of whether this is new text i went back and looked at just four recent going back to 2017 because we had a break in an earth arcana four recent documents none of them had exactly this text they had a much shorter block but this block does mimic things that as an inside play tester we've seen variants of that over the years um
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
one thing that i will say that that disappoints me i heard somebody else say this i forget exactly who it was i'm not going to try to recall but um one thing that disappoints me about their approach to play testing is there's a lot of here's what it is tell us what you think and very few actual questions and that's something that i think they should do right where if they told us do you like this feature better than the 2014 version or would you like feature a or feature b
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I think they would learn a lot from that process. It's something that D&D Next did a lot. So maybe it was Mike Morales who was talking about this, but D&D Next really went out and said, here is an option and here's another option. Here's how skills could work or here's how skills could work. Tell us what you think about that. And it feels like the team's never asking us design questions.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
They're kind of just hoping we'll give it a five. You know what I mean? Or flag the one thing we are uncertain about, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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It would be cool if in the virtual tabletop, they had the ability to test the UA with an adventure and pre-gens.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
know that'd be really cool right you could just say here's run this right and because that's another thing i really liked about dnd next is that they would say here's this you know gnome under dark adventure and here are these new rules we're testing and then they would ask those questions and the surveys would say you know how did you like the skill system or whatever but you really were playing i mean i played most of those if not all of the dnd next
Mastering Dungeons
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uh play test packets or let's say a good number of them because they came with these adventures that you could run through it and see how you felt about it and and as you're saying then you had this real educated mindset where you got oh you know i didn't like how it read but actually it plays pretty well yeah yeah and so it says how to test how to play test this ua
Mastering Dungeons
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So that right there is a flawed premise. At the same time, Healing Spring, Silvery Barbs, we see cases where wizards did not comprehend the power level of things. And yet, time and time again, people would bring it up. And until Healing Spring was eroded, you had Jeremy saying, oh, it's perfectly fine on podcasts. Sometimes you should listen a bit on that, right?
Mastering Dungeons
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But while also that everything you said is true, there are some times when folks should stand up and say, wait a minute, this is going to be a big problem. And Wizards has a very bad track record. This includes D&D Next. It includes fourth edition playtesting.
Mastering Dungeons
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I've been on any number of internal forums where playtesters were saying this is a really big problem and it comes out exactly as it was in the original version. And it's like, please, sometimes you could listen to us. You know, like sometimes power level is a major impact on the game. Silvery barbs.
Mastering Dungeons
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Well, I'm going to be contrarian guy, Sean, because the next piece they say is, hey, the place to give us feedback is the survey. And to which I go, yes, except Jerry himself, Jeremy himself said on a video, you know, we realized that while the survey was one way, what we kept hearing was the other. And so we knew that people wanted something else.
Mastering Dungeons
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And so their own internal, your external public communications have said to us that they listen to other places.
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And so you have to wonder if I want a particular thing in the game, should I be on social media being loud and visible, which I don't think is what they want, but then they have to write better surveys because if their surveys are not giving the results they want, that's a survey design problem, which wizards has often had an issue with.
Mastering Dungeons
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So, yes, I do believe the place for feedback is the survey, but the survey needs to be OK with people beating you up. And then you're still going to, at the end of the day, put on your smart designer hat and carve a way forward. But better to ask the tough questions and get that actual feedback. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
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But the feedback is always like rate this feature from one to five as a player, as a DM from game balance. What are you asking me? Like, because you might say every attack you hit deals plus 4000 damage and players will go. That's awesome. I'm rating it five. You're preaching to the choir here. We need, and the main way for feedback is this thing.
Mastering Dungeons
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Well, okay, you know, you're going to get, all right, I'm done. I'm stopping at contrarian. Let's talk about these subclasses, Sean.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, right as soon as the campaign... Yeah, and also the idea of bards as sort of being... dovetailing into a setting because of the role they play for something else that's higher up, like the druids in the Moonshade Isles. But they need their bards who carry the lore, who tell the stories, who interpret what the druids are saying.
Mastering Dungeons
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And that's a very nice piece that's in the Darkwalker and Moonshade novel series and all of that. But really nice story behind that.
Mastering Dungeons
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Yeah, I would take it a step further that you can have development on something like adventures and then you're looking at it again, kind of like you're saying, it's not the micro of this sentence, but more like you were trying to, let's say something like you were trying to create an adventure that was about the apocalypse, but the apocalypse ended halfway through the adventure.
Mastering Dungeons
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I'm always a little tentative around these sort of like upfront, make this choice of what form you're in. You know, because it I don't know what adventure is my DM throwing at me. Do I know? Do I really know? Like, this is a little better. I think they've done a decent job here. So a good job, let's say, because Tale of Life, you can say, well, if the party's hurt, I'll swap in.
Mastering Dungeons
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I'll take a magic action to swap into Tale of Life so that I'm in extra hit point mode restoration. That's cool. But then the Tale of Gloam.
Mastering Dungeons
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to take disengage or hide that's a little more of like a character build thing it's i'd say it's kind of impossible to know this situation is coming up unless you absolutely know it's a stealth mission uh and then mirth is sort of your most effective most of the time because you can see somebody that succeeds on saving throw and lower it by the number on your die so you could just do that that's kind of your safe one right when in doubt do that
Mastering Dungeons
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Are these balanced? Is that good to have that choice be in advance? I don't know. What do you think?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, it's a little video game, right? You are in tale of life mode now. And so now whenever you... This trigger happens. Now you can only do this, but you can't do the other. You can't do Tale of Gloam or Tale of Mirth. And that means the player must understand the type of adventure or setting situation expected to know which to choose, right? And sometimes that'll work.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Is that really what you're trying to do here? Maybe we need to rethink this. You're kind of done halfway through. Maybe we should work on this a bit and refine it.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Like, you know, yeah, either you're playing a very roguey kind of build and so disengaging and hiding is something you want. Mm-hmm. but it's, it's a little, it's a, it's, or you know that this is a stealth thing, but if it's a stealth thing and I'm giving an inspiration die, do I really need to disengage and hide? That would be helpful in combat.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
But if in combat, is it really helpful for the bar to disengage or hide?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Everybody's heard, but I'm in Tale of Mirth mode, so now I really need to spend a whole action just to switch. Should I do that?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yes, because then you're locked down every time you're doing something. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, that's where I tend to fall. I would rework this. That would be my counsel. It would be to rework this to either make it simple things you can choose from under a comment situation, like when you roll your barding inspiration die, you choose one of these three things. Or the modes have to be super equal. Like if each mode was types of skills... Or something else like that.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And it felt really you could really even them up to where you wouldn't know which one is better and they're all going to help you out. Then that might make sense. But but yeah, I don't know. I would probably just do what you're talking about.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, it does. And I mean, I love a number of things about it. I love that it's because Moonbeam is one of these spells that's like an in-between spell. It's 2d10 radiant as a second level, which is not amazing.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
and it's a tall cylinder but five foot radius so it's hard to get multiple targets and it's concentration so it's one of the spells that it can be great but you know um and this making it a bonus action to begin with makes it like oh sweet and then this healing on top of it that's fun i dig it yeah
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And that's true of Moonbeam itself, is if you're not upcasting Moonbeam, then that 2d10 isn't as strong, but could be worth it with this. The problem is, of course, the default one is not going to be upcast, and so it's where you're going to spend a spell slot. They do let you spend a higher spell slot. It'd be cool if spending the higher spell slot also upcasts the Moonbeam,
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
and maybe increase the healing by another D4, and that would be really cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I'd rate it a 1 because it's not broken. Just kidding.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, I wonder if actually that could be something... if this almost could be what you could do for the earlier level of something like, you know, if one of them was a chance that would, you know, roll a die when you do bardic inspiration and maybe you don't expend it.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Or when you use bardic inspiration, you can teleport 10 feet and then later it becomes 30 feet or something like that that's a little more reliable and more helpful more of the time, right? That it's not so scenario dependent. That could be really neat. I don't know. Yeah, interesting. But I like what they're going with here, generally, like the teleport 30 feet would be really sweet.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
That makes it a lot more applicable. It's almost like at this point it became really useful, but now it's level 14 and we're, you know, mostly done with our careers or way past where careers often end, you know, statistically speaking.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, I'll break open my notes here. The cleric knowledge domain. I was when I saw the name, I was like, wait, that sounds familiar. And then I didn't even see the sidebar when looked in the player's handbook 2014. Sure enough, it's there. And then I came back and there's a sidebar telling you what's changed. But It has a similar focus as one would expect to the knowledge domain in 2014.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So this is one of those things where we did hear folks say like, hey, we're only going to have X subclasses per class in 2024, but you may see them show up again. Well, here we are. And the focus is similar. It's a bit stronger. So level three, before you got two skills from a list and you got two languages, now you get two tools instead of two languages. So very similar.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
uh there used to be something that when you you uh you could for 10 minutes gain a skill uh or tool that you had proficiency in now instead as a magic action you can expend one use of your channel divinity to manifest your magical knowledge choose a spell from the knowledge domain spells table if prepared as part of that action you can cast that spell without expending a spell slot needing material components
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
that's cool except now you've got to look up all the knowledge domain spells i guess they're not that many but yeah so because it's one of these subclass so that's fine yeah i guess that's reasonable um it's a short reasonably short list i guess so like at third level it's command comprehend languages detect magic thoughts identify and mind spike so you could
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Choose one of those and cast it with your channel divinity.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah. Yeah, that would be neat. No, you're right. It is amazing how hard it is for casters to run out of spell slots in 5th edition. And the level six ability is to have telepathy in a 60 foot distance and something kind of cool. You can contact a number of creatures equal to your wisdom modifier. So it's sort of a miniature various telepathic bond.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And if you if your total for an intelligent check is lower than your wisdom score, you can use that score in place of the total. So your wisdom score instead of so it's sort of like your wisdom is covering your intelligence weakness. So make that your dump stack. This replaces the older ability to read thoughts. And then at the end of that, you could sort of end read thoughts to do suggestions.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
So sort of like a multistage suggestion spell without expending a slot. I like the various telepathic bond kind of. I always think that's a really neat ability to have. What do you think, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
One thing that's a problem is 60 feet, to me, is a very short range. That's what's nice about raised telepathic bounds. You can stop worrying about the distance. 60 feet is, to me, way too short. I'd rather this be something like at least 120, but something big, right? Cover the immediate... being in a building, being in a sector of a dungeon like that should be covered.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Otherwise, what's the point? We'll always stick together. And one of the nice things I like about telepathy, two things. One is it can help you spread out and do things and stay in touch and experience things. So you can run it all without having to say, you guys don't know that, right? So I love that a lot.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And then the other thing is it doubles as a comprehend language, tongues kind of thing, because you now can... we, none of, no one understands what the blah, blah, blah is saying. Hold on. Let me use unfettered mind. Now we can all talk to it. Right. And that's really cool too. Or we, a number of us can speak to it and that's really useful. So, so I, I think it can, it can do a lot here.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
That's neat. Um, no, I don't know. I, I, I would tend to think because this is knowledge domain, I liked what they were trying to do with the read thoughts and suggestion. Um, And I always wish that D&D felt a little more comfortable doing things like saying, like, you can ask the DM for a clue, you know, about this. But I think just the game doesn't trust that this will be used well.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And that editing can be very like all you do is grammar or all you do is look at the overall flow of things. It can really vary. But often for major companies, it is still one or two people who are doing it. And I'll say one of the tricks here is doing things in the right process, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
But it's what I wish were kind of here.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
yeah yeah um yeah and your wisdom score is going to be a pretty darn strong floor yeah um i wonder if you know would would how would it work if you had something a little more like if you make a check to gain some knowledge and you fail you know once per day you can turn it into a success i
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And the other cover showing off covers is like the new influencer thing where you show off your Lamborghini and champagne. And I said, boy, I wish those things cost what a monster manual costs. But I'm glad to show them off. They're cool. I like them.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah. And so then you want it to be really rare and exceptional, but then that's the rare and exceptional thing is that they're saying I can do this, but, but that's where I do. I do have a problem with the always on nature of this. Like the idea that your intelligence check is always, uh, you know, an 18, for example, that's, Now, it never matters what the intelligence check is.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
They'll probably make it unless it's such a high check.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah. I'll make an investigation check always for the entire party because we know we're getting an 18 and then the road can roll on top of that or whatever. But, you know, we'll just always have this. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't love the always this way. I'd rather it be kind of clutch situational stuff. Yeah. And maybe focused on specifically trying to learn things or, you know,
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Because if, for example, you suddenly have someone step in, even if they're not the developer, but act like the developer after it's been edited and make a bunch of changes. Now it has to go back to editing, right? And similarly, if a writer were to come in and do something, but it hasn't been developed, then it might not be upholding the vision of that product anymore.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Or maybe just step even away from intelligence and just say that when you're trying to get information from a person, read a person, these kinds of situations where that feels like knowledge that you could choose, you could succeed. I think that'd be cool. Yeah. Level 17, if you get there, as a bonus action, this is called Divine Foreknowledge.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
As a bonus action, you magically expand your mind to the possibilities of the future, Sean. Not the future Sean. For one hour, you have advantage on D20 tests. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest, but you can burn a level six plus spell slot and then you could get it back. So an hour worth of advantage on D20 tests.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
This replaces the ability to read objects or an area to see events in the past around them, which actually like the creativity a lot as a DM of what that did. So, you know, I want to know what this object, the past of this object or who was in this room, which can, of course, spoil the murder somewhat. But I mean, you had some interpretation in it. What do you think about divine foreknowledge?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
And it really needs to be developed and edited. And so if you think of various cases where we've had, like, how did this end up happening in a book? This thing shouldn't have been here. It's problematic content or any number of issues. Well, probably those steps were skipped or jumbled up.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I've been doing all the videos. I did a silly unboxing, revealing the deep, dark secrets, the truth behind the Monster Manual. I broke down the math of the Monster Manual. Then I had my big takeaways video just came out today. So you can find that all on my AlphaStream YouTube channel or go to AlphaStream.org and find everything there. Sean, what are you doing when you're writing all the books?
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
I'm going to go down and try to establish telepathy with my family.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, and that process between art director and project manager is really critical the bigger you get, right? And the type of product. So if you're doing a monster manual, you know you need basically one art per monster. depending on your budget, what you can pull off. But that's sort of what you'd like to have. And so in that case, you actually need really strict control over the word count.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
All monsters are one page or a half page, whatever your standard is, or you set it up. Here are the list of monsters, and this is how many pages we're budgeting for each. And the art director needs to get going now to procure all that art because there's so much art that needs to go through all this process. your art director's got to be going just about on day one.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Once you've got that outline of what you're doing, and then the producer must ensure everybody's on track, everybody's keeping to the schedule so that it all comes together.
Mastering Dungeons
Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana! (MD 227)
Yeah, I think that's great. I saw your list and I was very impressed. It's really good. This is a topic that Scott Gray and I have been thinking about covering in the future to do a little video on how a book is made. And this touches a lot of this. This is kind of nice. What's my appetite for that?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
new advice in every chapter, tracking sheets throughout the book that you'll be able to download, encounter building changes, sample adventures and settings, expanded and revised magic items. In the chapter two glimpse, it looks like player types are more prominent now, which is one of the things we talked about when we reviewed the 2014 DMG.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And for chapter seven, treasure, it showed us treasure themes as being used in the monster manual to help color the types of treasure a particular monster will have. And that's a really neat idea.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, even as Madeus was smiling, which if you've watched the recent Akink episodes, you might know why. There you go.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
yeah it's it's tough uh they say you know we're still working on translations to spanish italian french and german and i'm like that's not exciting or positive other than that you will someday have them but you know it wasn't that long ago that they said we're redoing our whole approach to localization so that we can produce books in the other languages immediately everywhere in the world.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And that seems to have been abandoned. I know it's hard. So I mean, even back when they said they would do that, I said, wow, good luck with that. That's a very, very difficult thing to do. But they have now stepped back from like Japanese isn't on the list, for example. Right. And they've left out several languages that 2014 provided. And
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
They're going to be later, and so it feels like that battle has shifted and been lost somewhat, and that's a real shame. I hope that the D&D team will go back to localizations and global emphasis because I think that's a tremendous growth opportunity if they can figure it out.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
thank you again um if you admin thank you if you dm'd thank you if you played thank you it was so cool to see great people we had robert pasley from uh our patreon he was there yeah what an incredible guy he's running and and then he's like you want me to run some more and then you want me to keep running and then then he says you know i have dinner with my wife i should really go
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I was just going to say the folks who don't know, like this is a great, you know, if someone were to ask me, who should we feature that is maybe, you know, known, has some fame to them, but are really great people, great creators, like people you would just want to have in your home campaign. Excellent pick with the dungeon dudes here.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
The Lord of the Rings 5e. And on social media, they didn't say it here, but on social media, they showed pictures of various books from partners, including the Lord of the Rings 5e. So we don't know it's only that, like they've got Symbarum 5e, but at least the Lord of the Rings 5e appears like it'll be there, which is kind of neat because, you know, it's also just Lord of the Rings.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
So that's another opportunity that more fans will come in through that.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Well, first, I thought they were doing another dragon book. And I'm like, we just had the, you know, Draconomicon remade. But OK, it's an anthology of adventures and like, great. I mean, that seems fine. I you know, they sort of made it sound like, boy, we never have a dragon in a dungeon. And I just immediately thought of like countless examples of that that just went through my mind.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But I'm like, sure, it doesn't hurt. Like, this is great. You know, who doesn't like more dragons and dragons are fun every time an organized play scenario, learn to play thing has it, people get excited, right? They love that. I mean, I think I remember fourth edition, you know, had the demo with the dragon at the end.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And even though it often TPK'd them, it was such a blast for them to go up against a dragon. And so, yeah, this is good to have.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Lots of stories like that are just people going above and beyond where they needed to do that. And what else? Yeah, we got the anniversary special die. We had the uni and the hunt for the last horn preview of the 2024 rules adventure that I mean, players loved it. They had so much fun going back into the world of the of the 80s and comic, what do you call it, a cartoon.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
so dms can figure out how to do this if they're learning or even if they're know what they're doing sort of walk them through it yeah yeah and then there'll be a video just uh just the same way that stormwork isle had all those videos and a dedicated kind of website and on the youtube channel so there apparently will be a how to play video for this as well which will be helpful yep
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, and it's interesting because we have the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide already from many years ago. So, you know, what does this do that's different? And then they mentioned Baldur's Gate and you're like, okay, we already have a Baldur's Gate guide in the one adventure. We have the Mithdranor or the Icewind Dale content that was available before.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
both of these, you know, through D&D Next release products that then became 5e versions. But it's like, do we really need that again? And I was waiting that they were going to say, you know, and a Waterdeep, but thankfully not. Instead, it got a little more interesting with the Dalelands and Mythdranor and some of the others.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But, you know, hey, like Moonshades has been explored in such great detail by Baldman Games at their Organized Play Adventure series. And I thought to myself, you know, I don't know what's been out there, you know, more than 30 adventures. I'm sure maybe it's more than much more than that. And I know Eric Mankey will let us know. But, you know, did they care about that? I don't know.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Have they looked at that at all? Because there's been so much work done. Yeah, you've done work there. And yeah, so I was very curious what what they will do with the moonshades and Kalimshan especially. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And and they just, you know, played their hearts out and were super positive. And that was one really interesting thing is The entire weekend, I really had just one person who said anything about not being excited about D&D in 2024. And they weren't a player. They were just somebody kind of walking by. And everybody else was just so excited, so positive. They either didn't know anything about it.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
uh yeah i mean on what you just talked about that wasn't interesting to me because you know like many folks who demoed it at um pax unplugged and it's you know been featured a number of places it's had closed play tests i saw it first when i was uh part of the summit you know normally you're playing it in sort of a up above kind of mode and you're quite distant from things.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And boy, they zoomed in for the maximum shot of how beautiful everything is. I thought that was kind of funny because you would never play at that angle tactically, but it was it did show off how good the graphics are. They then talked about Danger in Dunbarrow, which is going to be the intro adventure.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And Chris Kao tried to beat Jeremy Crawford at the game of superlatives, calling it the best starter. Well, like the best starter pack that's ever existed in Dungeons and Dragons. And I thought, OK, you have my attention. Let's see if that's true. Tell me more. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
That's a clever thought because, and they showed examples of them, right? You can just take any image and, you know, so if you're playing someone else's adventure or something like that, you can take that image, upload it, and boop, there's your token of whatever that creature is that doesn't exist in some other form. So it's neat.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
right and then play a short adventure with that it doesn't include the full spectrum of an adventure from beginning middle and end and i wondered here whether they may be thinking of you know not just to get you started though of course it can do that and that's important but almost whether they want you to like play it maybe solo or in some other capacity because it had this feeling of like something you might play over and over again
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And in fact, then later that we're shown Drizzt, they say Drizzt fighting a robot, but it was Optimus Prime. Right. So that makes me think, OK, you know, Jess and Zio had talked about other properties. So are they going to bring in G.I. Joe and Transformers into Sigil through the Hasbro books that were written by Renegade? You know, it's. It was interesting, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I mean, they've taken the work to put this in there. Is that just for fun or because they own it and they can, or is this really something that's coming?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, and they walked through the level builder. The footage looked a little sort of sped up to me, but it did show impressive pieces like a cargo lift and a mine that can lift, you know, your miniatures, creatures up. That all looked really cool. The visuals are amazing. But, you know, there's always that question of how easy to build things, right? You know, Dwarven Forge looks amazing, too.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
which is kind of funny for those of us who just live this stuff. Yeah. Or they had a vague notion or they were really into it. Like one guy just he gets on his phone because we had a copy of the book there. He gets on his phone and he's like, can I call my friends? And we're like, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And sometimes it's really easy, but some of their pieces are quite complicated to put together. And you approximate that Lego level of intensity, which... can be a lot of prep, right? So it'll be interesting to see how that really is when the open beta comes out where people are truly building things within seeing.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And they talked about sharing being important, integrating with D&D Beyond characters, pulling flat maps into the maps application or into here, and that idea that there might be a marketplace there, right? That's always interesting as to what exactly that would look like.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
yeah and it's interesting he talked about you know sort of the the transition he's gone through of like sort of thinking about what it means when you kind of own a game or you're this big part of the game um that he and greg had worked on for so many years and he so he set up a relationship with mongoose and he works for them and works on the game through this you know license
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And he calls his friends and one by one goes through with them how their characters have changed in like the most excitement you can imagine. Right. So that was that was the world I was in for the last four days. And it was a lot of fun.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But he wanted to set things in place that he is not the bottleneck and he is not the sole decider. And so he clearly enjoyed the relationship with Mongoose Publishing. And so now they own it. And while he continues to work on the game, nothing rests on him being around for it to work. And it was very mature, very, very savvy. very good of him. And so it's a nice read.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
We linked it in our show notes because it's nice to kind of see, you know, someone think through that. And as we all get older, these are the kinds of things we have to think about for those of us in the old department.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, it's really neat. The author shares in this piece how much D&D meant to them as a young person who found the game that helped them identify who they truly were, come out of the closet, right? When you look at a piece of artwork and you go, that guy looks absolutely spectacular. Maybe I'm finding something out about myself.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And being able to walk into someone else's shoes can be just a great way to figure that out. And I've had the fortune of talking to folks like in high schools who've talked to me about how important D&D was for these kinds of reasons, right? Figuring out who you are and you're polymorphing. And you realize that both you and this other person at the table, boy, we really like changing shape.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
maybe there's something there to this. Right. And so you start finding that out and in a safe way to experiment with who you are and your gender, your your your your assumptions people have of what you should look like, all of that. Right. And so it's really neat. It's a nice article on that. And it's part of the overall
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
NPR series they've been doing to cover the 50th anniversary, which they were at PAX West. I had a lot of fun talking to the person who was there recording. They recorded a session of Union Hunt for the Lost Horn, which Jefferson Dunlap was running, and they interviewed DMs and fans.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
So I'm excited to see what comes of that and what I can hear about it, because it was really neat to talk to them and see them there.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
warmed the cockles of this cold uh heart yeah yeah because people are afraid to speak out right i think greg had clearly reached a point where he was so frustrated with where he was in the scheme of things which often i mean being in any kind of marketing communications area like that can be really really hard um But I'm really glad for him, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
As someone who's talked to Greg a number of times in the past, I'm really glad to see him go to somewhere else. It's a really huge shame that it can't be within Wizards because that's where he'd like. But one of the things that was fun, we try to go behind to the sources whenever we can. Well, I hold here the seal of the Secretary of State of Washington State because...
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
He came by and visited the area while at PAX. Twice, in fact. And one of the times I'd given him one of the anniversary D20s. And he came by and thanked me for it. And then started just chatting with me and a couple of people who were around there about a number of things, including how happy he was to have Greg and that Greg had reached out saying, I want to make a difference.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Like, I want to not be in some... Situation that feels like you're part of a megacorp, but that I'm I'm paraphrasing, right? These are not this is not a quote, but, you know, a place where I'm contributing and I'm making a difference. And so I want to be part of, you know, this sector now and work with the government and try to make lives better.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And so that had meant a lot to Steve Hobbs to hear that. He also shared with me a number of funny things. I won't repeat all the words, but he definitely has a strong preference for, let's say, healthy YouTube content rather than alarmist content. And he shared that with us in a way that brought tears to my eyes and also an appreciation for him.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Uh, and just, yeah, it's clearly, you know, he's a big fan. He loves playing. He loves running games. Um, so it was really cool to have him there. And, and I think that, you know, it looks like Greg's in good hands, right. And in a good place. So, so happy for him for that. I did talk to a couple of staff members of, you know, Hey, what do you think about Greg having left?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And the general tenor was awesome.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
sometimes people are in a rough spot and it doesn't it's not working out right that was kind of the feeling they had right it's not they didn't say to me yeah we all feel horrible right what is what they said was yeah and it's rough when one of us is in a spot that just is is butting heads and it's not working and and so we're really glad that you know while we're sad to see him go glad that he's in a place where he wants to be right
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for making us laugh on the social media. Very true mention. Absolutely.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
You have to be a master tier subscriber, but in a week you'll get it if you're hero tier under their new kind of way of encouraging you to pay a little more monthly. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, so the version of the free rules, I did check today so that you can still see the 2014 rules, which I appreciate. I was a little worried that 2014 might go away and be replaced by, but no, you can see them, which is nice because you can easily compare them.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
and one of the things the reason i was curious to compare it was what did they decide to include in the free rules compared to 20 of 24. so i checked feats because if my memory is correct the 2014 version has one feet and that's the case in the srd as well well and then i saw oh look we have several feats now in 2024 well that's great that's an improvement and then i saw the classes and i saw cleric fighter rogue wizard
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
and i thought wait a minute and i looked at the free 2014 rules and they have 12 classes right and everybody would complain why don't we have the artificer well now you don't have a warlock or a bard or a number of others so right you know hard to tell what this all means i i don't really mind this here
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
what the impact it has is when they release a 2024 srd as promised will this be the kind of difference that we see where they're saying yeah we're not giving you our bard at all in any form right
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
um and then that leaves you with a little bit of legal gray area as other companies have had of well can i make an artificer can i make a bard right an artificer is is you know an interesting writer warforged because those have general concepts and they have dnd concepts and digging into those dnd concepts is where you can run into ip challenges and so on so i didn't um you know we don't know what the srd will look like but i thought that was kind of interesting and worth you know starting up that discussion of hmm
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Is this indicating some real change that we'll see?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Ah, one quick addition. You are absolutely right, Sean. I'm looking at D&D Beyond, and it does say, and I'll pull it over here,
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
when the pup players handbook sees its wide release on september 17th there will be a full release of the dnd free rules including remaining base classes uh blah blah blah blah warlock as well as one subclass for each class there will be more spells and feats so you're seeing a preview that's just kind of a placeholder which is kind of smart i like that and that we will be able to retain the 2014 rules as well so
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I dig that. And then they just did do a quick note to say the free SRD rules are not the SRD, which you'd think you didn't have to say, but that has come up a lot. And that will be coming later once all three core rules are released, as they had said before.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
The other thing I did note, you know, we now have the words of the player's handbook digitally. And on the show, we've often wondered about the superlative claims that this is the largest player's handbook ever, Sean. And we know the page counts higher, but we also know the font is bigger and the art is bigger.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And you and I have said, boy, it sure would be hard to increase the art, increase the font and fit it in the book. So early analysis indicates this player's handbook has. fewer words than the 2014 version. We knew it, Sean.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah. Tom Christie of D20 Play, who recently ran that awesome draw steal game for us, he has put together a reference sheet capturing the changes in 2024. So we've got links in our show notes. And that link hasn't worked for everybody. It did not work. Worked for me the first time I tried it, but it's on d20play.com and you can check it out.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Also, he has placed it on the DMs Guild because of that issue. So you can go pick it up there and see this free guide of what has changed. He does a nice job. There's a version that has sort of like blue line differences and stuff. So take a look at that. It's a nice little way of seeing what has changed.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, absolutely. And it should be, right? I mean, I just finished a whole weekend of working with countless new players. I mean, we tried to count them. And it's complicated, right? And in fact, this came up on our Discord. Someone said, you know, what do you think about the new rules? And I said, well...
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
you know let's set that aside for a second and let's go back and say that for learn to play i have what i consider to be my favorite pregens to use for this event that we use when we do learn to plays and they're ones that almost look like the fourth edition pregens if anyone did the dnd encounters program they really streamline things because if we just give them a character sheet
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
it's really confusing. And so that tells you the mind of a new player, right? Too much is just super overwhelming. And so the more that you can distill it down, break it down step by step, right? Teach it a thing at a time. Like here's how to do skill stuff. Here's how to do combat stuff.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Here's how to, you know, the more you break that down, simplify it, give it in little bits that are digestible towards that emphasis of a new player, the easier it becomes for them.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
So it's not particularly long when you think of rules in general, right? That's a pretty reasonable read. And it's really hard for us, people like us who've been playing to properly assess that chapter. But I think it does a pretty good job of giving you what you need to know without getting mired in the details, which is accomplished by having a rules glossary. Right. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
It kind of gives you a high level view of the kind of things you're going to do. It has play examples. It has art and layout that kind of help you get that. The whole point that when you get to chapter two on page thirty three, now you're going to know what you're even talking about versus before creating a character with sort of an interesting opening because it said.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
here are these, you're gonna choose a race, and you don't even know what they're talking about if this is your first time reading D&D, and you're gonna have to go to the race section later to even figure out what the options are and choose and go back and forth. And so it's an interesting change.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, I mean, and the funny thing, fourth edition, right, was trying to solve the problem of the wizard is too different from the fighter, right? Makes all these choices. Where have we heard that before? So therefore, martial characters need something. So what if everybody has that wills and everybody has encounter powers and we're just coloring them differently? Doesn't that solve everything?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
go super deep here right so they mentioned like you may choose a different direction for your character if the dm is planning swashbuckling versus high c or swashbuckling high c's and versus greek myth i guess and um
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
so yeah totally right but also they don't say things like your dm might limit what options you can take or your dm may you know want you to start in a certain type of city they don't go deep on this right just a light bit which is fine to give you a feel for your dm has a say and affects things they also talk about the session zero
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
and that you may get together to do things like talk about do's and don'ts in the campaign and so on. And so that's, again, another thing that doesn't cover all of the possibilities, but at least helps prepare the mind of a new player for, oh, yeah, my DM matters, the campaign matters, and that's on.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
No, because people then say everything's the same. There's not enough variance. And so it becomes that difficult thing. How do you make it feel equitable to be a fighter or a wizard, right? It's fair, but it's not the same and it's not necessarily balanced. And even within a class, right? If every choice of what you can take is the same, then you don't feel rewarded for finding that thing.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
It does. I fight it. I struggle with it. I think because just, I mean, from the simple perspective, when I create a character, I always think of that, right? So I just think of like, well, I want to make, you know, orc monk or whatever it is, you know, and that's how my brain always approaches it. And I think most video games reflect that as well, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Like, you know, you choose to make a dwarf and then, oh, what class is your dwarf and so on.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
um because it it colors the whole experience right like you can think of the video game right if it if it said like make a a class we wouldn't have anything to look at because it'd be a nebulous concept out there and then we'd be like and what's your background oh you're a sailor and then it would be like and now let's have finally have a visual of this you know whatever it is a half elf of halfling uh whatever right like
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, and I get that. And we don't want to be mired in the real world's place where it definitely matters how you look and then your life is different for it. So we don't want to be mired in that. But also part of the problem is that this D&D doesn't know how to separate culture from what you look like, what your anatomy is.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
It also doesn't know how to deal with being an incredibly different physique from another and how that impacts things, right? I mean, that was all what the game was trying to simplify before. And now we're saying it completely doesn't exist, but also that it's not part of your concept of who you are. And I struggle with that.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
trait wise but don't tie it to this idea that because you are an elf you have to be this way because you are a dwarf you have to be this way yeah yeah i um i mean you know i don't i don't we could go on this forever right because it is such a deep thing from the the perspective of really the order of creating things for me i don't know that i'm i'm i'm making characters where
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And that's a thing that video games struggle with and role playing games struggle with. How do you reward the person for finding that thing if there is no thing? So there has to be a thing. And that causes all of this hullabaloo of, look how I found this thing and this loop and whatever, right? Magic the Gathering thrives off of it, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
it's a final step, right? And I don't, I have trouble believing I'll, I will approach it that way mentally. Because I do want to be part of the setting. And to me, that's a big part of it. It's part of how I will shape the personality I have is based on the fact that I'm a dwarven Smith or my whatever, I'm not just a Smith. And then all of a sudden, oh, And I'm a dwarven smith.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I've discovered this. To me, it's a far more integral piece that's going on and that I think about it. But, you know, I've talked to other folks who say like, you know, the first thing I'm thinking of is I'm making a barbarian. And then later I figure out what kind. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, and I get why they do it. Part of it is what you're talking about.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But part of it is also because they have moved all of these items to the background. then the mechanical weight is no longer on the species. And that means it should come later because it's not necessarily driving these things. And we still have, I mean, like if you look at 2014, it kind of makes sense mechanically, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
You choose the race, which locks in certain things like ability score bonuses, whatever, right? Right. and various features and weapons that you're proficient in and so on. And then you get the class and that fills out the rest of them. And then we do our final ability score thing so we can fill out the rest of the character sheet. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And you add a background on it because that's sort of just an extra little nice thing. Now we have to go and say, all right, you're choosing your class because that's now the highest concept we will go for, because if we didn't, we'd be really messed up. Right. So then we've then we go to our background and our background is going to add feats and all of this. But to me,
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I still don't quite jive with that, right? And maybe I will. But to me, we're saying too much about our character without knowing enough. Like, I don't feel like it lines up in the right way, except mechanically, right? To me, mechanically, sure, you're trying to say like, oh, here are your ability scores. So we got them through the background. So that's got to move up in order and so on.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But yeah, to me, it's not narratively in the order that I want it in.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
uh and shame on wizards for being the cowards not to put the axe to ability scores and not just use modifiers uh but yeah that's just my my little personal hot take there i was watching a video with with the designers of uh third edition and they're talking about how close they came to remove it i think it was something monty cook wanted to do and some of the others and you know at the end of it they just couldn't do it way back then right and we just we keep going forward
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Probably one edition will eventually do it, but it's not this one. There's still sort of too much out there that they're thinking of. And yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And one of my friends this weekend was noting that they also state that 30 is truly the cap, which was a little unclear from the way 2014 talked about things. Now you know that. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I believe it. So good packs. It was an amazing packs on a number of levels. I got to see that game. That was really fun. There were some very, very hilarious things like Omen drawn escaping the dad like duties of his business franchise by going to the bathroom and hiding there for an hour. And then Perkins sent him messages. So he's like getting the messages while he's on the potty.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
you can envision a lot of species that would tend to live in cultures, depending on the world and the setting, where these things would not be true, right? I can imagine elves not thinking that you're protective when you're muscular or whatever, you know, like when you're high strength, like, in fact, it could be very, you're protective when you are intelligent, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Would make more sense to me for your typical elven setting, right? And Yeah, and it's just, hmm.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I feel like I've been better attempts in the past to sort of say, what does a score signify that has said sort of, you know, it doesn't just mean this one thing. It can mean a number of things. It's sort of like charisma is a classic example. It doesn't mean that you're just
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
physically attractive you know it's not about whether you're a pinup it's all these other factors that help you inspire attention lead people get someone's ear right those kinds of things and and same thing with intelligence or any of these abilities and and so
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
that to me is more useful that could shape you thinking about what your what your ability scores mean to you than to state you know yeah this table driven by strength or what any ability being low or high yeah
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Because they're memes and it's part of the parlance.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Honestly, I think alignment came up in humorous conversations a dozen times this weekend, right? So it has that import, maybe even more so than ability scores, where we used to laugh more about, you know, I've got an 18 strength, this is my dump stat. I mean, alignment comes up a lot in talk.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And so I think there's just that fear of cutting out something that has, but it really has separated, right? There's the game part of it, and there's this other piece. What I would love to do is to have wizards put in the effort to try to make this mean something in today's game. Or then, yes, if you're not going to do that, then cut it, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And like we've talked about before, I would have loved if Dragonlance had said, you know what, we're going to really dig into what alignment can do for a game. Then it may be worth retaining, right? Or if you're going to show me how to link in, use your alignment to create cool stories, that'd be great. But if you're a new player and you just look, these two steps are rocky, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
The ability score, appearance, personality piece, and the alignment piece are... rocky for a player when the game no longer uses this in any way. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Well, it's like, and at the end, to make it even worse, we, I'll say this so you don't have to, there is a table that on based on your alignment, then you get associated traits, right? So that a rebellious person can be a result from chaotic or helpful come from, come from good. And I don't know how helpful this is. This is... Yep. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I like how the hit point dice very quickly switches to saying hit dice because they're just too darn long. Yeah. So the other thing that's worth noting is that we get this, you know, kind of never before seen picture of a character sheet. Right. And it's all numbered, which tracks to these steps. And there are a lot of fives here. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Because at the end is when you fill out like all of your spells and, you know, your spell slots and your weapons and your class features and, you know, all this you end up filling out later. So it's a little. You know, I don't know how useful it is. It's maybe somewhat so for folks to look at where, you know, like, okay, your coins come from step two and, you know.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Your wisdom comes from step three and so on. Okay.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Which is fine. I mean, I think that... What I guess, you know, what's interesting is that they've given up on trying to have some sort of a system there that drives role playing. Right. So the inspiration bond flaws, et cetera.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I mean, they were too much and they were didn't quite work, but it was an attempt to try to emulate indie games and have pieces there that would foster, like get you, encourage you to do something interesting. And I will say that when I look at this process, I don't see a whole lot. That really drives. creating an interesting character. Not that it's not possible.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Of course it is, you know, and there's some, there's, but it's not saying as some other, you know, 13th age, we've talked about the, what is your one unique thing? You know, what faction are you aligned with? You know, what enmity do you have in the world? Like there's, there's nothing going on like that here, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
It's, it's very D and D and it's sort of like, and now you have a character and it's up to play to determine how this pans out and whether you're a good role player or not.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I think that was their attempt. It was definitely an attempt. They thought, hey, maybe when people fill this out, it'll create creative, neat play, which is good. It may be a lousy system, but I think it... It probably did cause people to think about that, right? Because it's right there. You got to look at like, oh yeah, what are my personality things?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And you might abandon them, but at least you understand that because you read this, all characters have desires and goals and whatever. And you might not use the ones you wrote down, but you'll maybe play a little more that way. Here, you kind of don't have that, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see if the DMG touches on that in some way, because it could be campaign specific, but yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
yeah well yeah this ties into our earlier conversation about packs right there's there you can look at things through various parts of like i don't know lenses right yeah you can look at through a design analysis you can look at it through you know what i want out of a game as we did briefly with we had a race species type contrast um but at the end of the day this is absolutely uh
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
you know, two chapters, both the setup and then the actual character creation. And I think people really dig. And overall, if I think of all the people I met at PAX, they'll have a blast making cool characters of this process.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
uh where we go a little bit further into why this may be great or this may not be perfect for a uh setting in our 21st century yeah i mean absolutely right we start with the north kingdom and the first thing reading through all this description that i've hit was oh yeah here we go another monarchy another you know uh history of like this having been a part of an earlier kingdom. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And in this case, it's part of the the old great kingdom. And this is the north part, which, by the way, the north kingdom is to the east. But it's the northern part of what used to be that large great kingdom. And so that's why it's called that, even though it's really like it's just all on the eastern side, kind of near those islands that we talked about last episode. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And yeah, what do you think about North Kingdom?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, and this is another difference between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms is that Greyhawk, the gods are way more involved and the religions are there for a stronger presence and smash into each other more, right? Yes, religion is important in Forgotten Realms, but the gods, other than during the times of troubles, don't just really put their hand into it the way they do in Greyhawk.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
I have two thoughts about that that came to mind when I was saying that. One is we shared stories of things that happened at the table at PAX West, and there was a DM who shared that when they had the monster show up in their learn-to-play scenario, what did the paladin do? He says, well, I'm going to run into that other room and hide. Mm-hmm.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And so you don't see it. And Greyhawk is also setting written during this from a perspective of kind of a simulationist world that's very real. And so because it is, it therefore must be fully described. Right. So the army matters. So it must be fully described. And the theocracy matters and the history of the rulers. And that's bunk.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, of course, you can just say it matters, but you don't have to detail it all out and endlessly talk about it. And what it does, at the end of the day, that I think you and I have been talking about, is it means this is a fairly decently large section that doesn't really give you a lot to go with, right? Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
heir to the glory that was the great kingdom so you can play around with that a little bit but even then it's just put me in front of giants and dragons and let me let me kill them is where my mind keeps going yeah the the this setting and that's where i feel like this was written as a oh you know this is the historical truth and we must write about it and represent it versus thinking like players want to do much with this do dms want to do much with this if not
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Let's either keep it really short for those tiny moments when this will work, like you've got to go into there to recover this lost artifact from the fallen empire, or just let's write something else here.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Our next region, Nairon, I felt was a little bit like this as well. But I felt like it had some like saving bits that made it more interesting. Right. It's almost like how to take the previous one and give it a little more to it. Right. Because, yes, it has all these tensions.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
that's what happens when you don't know the game's balance right you can't say oh it's going to be a balanced encounter and in fact an intro level easy balanced encounter i've got nothing to worry about this is a game right that character is doing actually role playing their character and their own selves in quite a good way and you know if you were to say to them look
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But to me, the history of kind of why it is where it is makes it more more interesting with and the monarchy's issues are more interesting. What do you think? Right.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
It's just west of the North Kingdom.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah. And what I like, you know, and I wish they'd, they'd made this like, sometimes I feel like this sometimes because it tries to be encyclopedic, doesn't tell the DM, just, just tell the DM, Hey, here's some awesome questions. Right. Right. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And like, so one of them is the young, a younger brother tries to take over the moment that a, a, there's a sudden stroke to the older father, but was that magical mundane? Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
you know that begs the question becomes really interesting and then it's like oh you know the the older brother regains the power the younger brother disappears wait a minute where is he right something's going on and then oh so the young the older brother gets married and immediately the wife has a sickness and she's never been seen since after heat stroke and it's like
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
let me peel back the curtain. This is balanced so you'll have fun and you have zero chance of dying. Well, that would take some of the fun out of it. And that's what happens when things are too balanced.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And one other thing is, is sometimes they, you know, they don't point out like I remember the fourth edition Forgotten Realms guide. One of the things I really liked about it is it would take these little snapshots that it would use for the picture in each section.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And it would that is both visually grounding and it would help you imagine like, oh, there's this forest and this marsh and this thing and this coastline, because those are all the adventure sites. And it would give you little tidbits about them. And a more modern version of this is the Critical Role, both of the Critical Role setting books do a great job of doing that, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Of showing you, hey, all these cool features, if you base your campaign here, you'll want to do this, right? And here are hooks at both low level and high level because that stuff's awesome, right? Like you want to... How can it not matter that Realm War Bay is to the south of Nairon? But we don't mention it because... You're just supposed to look at the map and conclude.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But if you're really going to write fun things for the setting, well, then you want to know that.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
right and um the other thought i had was someone was talking about honey heist uh at the con and how you have these two stats and one of the things that even though you just have these two stats they can one goes up the other one must go down so that you upset that balance right and keep that interest you're giving up something you're not just getting and getting right and that's because of this whole issue
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
yeah um and and i think this was a region that did really well because of that i i was fortunate to play a few of these uh adventures which were written in the uk um and they were fun and they were neat and there were big scenes involving the scarlet brotherhood as these enemies there was a lot of subterfuge because of how the scarlet brother had those the spy network and everything but and there was a lot of like unify the people and um you know deal with the people who try to profit from war and so on and so
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
It was pretty neat. They could see what they needed to do, right? This is an area of the world that's very clear, has neat agency, neat, obvious action going on. And so, yeah, it was it was a good region. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, and that's where you can think, like, if you're really going to make this useful, you've got to address that, that, hey, you're a little far away from everything else. So, you know, what's under the waves, right? Things like that. What's, you know, a place like this would be really impacted by weather and climate and shipping routes.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And so, you know, a little more there would help you then also make that an interesting setting for players.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
No. This region was in Northern California and Nevada. And it was one of those regions that was hilarious to either visit or have their players visit your region because they would come in And they may either be like anti-Fultites or often they were they would role play being strict Fultites. And so they would be like, you must acknowledge Fultas of the blinding light.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And everybody just rolls their eyes like, oh, we've got a Fulton at the table. Right. Like, oh, my God. And and there was a lot of humor in that. Right. But also in character, it was very serious. And and yeah. And if you had ventured there, you had to be careful what you did or said. And you had to understand and quickly come up to speed on the rules so that you didn't run into trouble.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And there was a lot of burning at the stake and stuff like that.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, and that's such an interesting thing. I mean, you could almost apply that lens when you're when you're creating a world of what are places that we visit and don't stay in and what are places that we might start and stay in home base and right like, yeah, you wouldn't want to stay in under the watchful gaze of old dates for long.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
right so sean had to head out because of another meeting he had for a design meeting so i want to thank all of our masters of the realms our master of multiverse and master of dungeon supporters master dungeon supporters we greatly appreciate you master of realms you are in our show notes And Master of the Multiverse, you get this shout out. Shout out? Shout out. See, this is why Sean does it.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Keith Amman of the Monsters Know What They're Doing. Lou Anders of Lazy Wolf Studios. Craig Bailey. David Bastionson. Steve Bissonnette. Merrick Blackman, Calvin Bridges, Avalos, Evil John, John Carney, Will Doyle, Andy Edmonds at Nerdronomicon.com, James Fisher, Scott Fitzgerald Gray at Insane Angel Studios, Ben Hazler, and Paige Leitman.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Sean Hurst, The Mighty Jerd, Brian King, Jim Klingler, aka DM Prime Mover, Chad Lynch, Paul Matta, The Mathemagician, Eric Mengi, Anna B. Meyer of Fantasy Cartography, Trey McLemore,
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
John Mickey, Sean Molly, Falcon Neil, Tom Nelson of the Deck of Players Safety, Mighty Zeus, Phil Wirt from the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo, welcome, Post Fiction RPG Audio, Robert Paslick, great seeing you this weekend at PAX, Vladimir Printer from Croatia, Pugnus,
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Ozzy Mandis Rex, Chance Russo at Drago Russo, Andy Shockney, Krishna Simons, Josh and Levanica of the Tabletop Journeys podcast, Talos the Storelord, Jeremy Taloman from the D&D and TV podcast, Tres, Joe Tyler, Marcelo de Velasquez, the Valiant DM, James Walton, Graham Ward, Jason Ward from Accidental Cyclops Games, Javier Wasiak, Chris Webster, and Walt Winfrey. Thank you all.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
You can join these fine folks at patreon.com slash mastering D&D. And when you do, you'll be part of our community on Discord. Love that group there. If you can give us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to the podcast that helps other folks find us. And subscribe via YouTube, youtube.com slash at Mastering Dungeons.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And you will get to see our beautiful faces and help folks find us there. You can find Sean at all the places at Sean Merwin. You can find me at alphastream.org. And what are we going to do now? Well, I think I'm going to craft a setting where the first thing you do is choose your alignment and then you choose your species. I think Sean will really like that. I can't wait to show him this.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And then he casts create water, washes his hands and looks at the crowd and says, because I'm not an animal. It's just the kind of dad humor I'm here for.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
yeah and that's the thing is you know there yeah you need to adjust it for your group right we get this question uh asked often around forge of foes because in forge of foes we say hey here's how to make you know monsters more thrilling and you can give them monster powers and you can make a new monster or alter it to feed these criteria and then they say well wait haven't i made it harder
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
yeah you did and if that's a problem at your table then yes you can compensate but probably it's not a problem probably you came to this book because you want the game to be a little more thrilling a little more challenging right similarly if you're going to change up weapon masteries it's probably because you're a little worried about how that'll play given where you are today
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
But if you're running a campaign, you're thinking, gee, I wish my characters could, you know, the players on my table, their characters would hit harder. I'm like, great. No worries, right? Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
that's that's that's what we love about uh at kink yep and uh and let me just say the packs i mean i can't i don't know that i can share the full numbers of how many people came but it was twice as big as last year it was and and then some it was unbelievable we had two fire marshal
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah. And, you know, the easiest thing is to have a conversation with your players and say, I want to test out some variations of how we could run the game. The other option is to do it in world, right? Have some sort of thing like, you know, the enemy illusionist shows up and something washes over you. And now here are the things. Here's how your weapons work, right?
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
The strange arcane ore bathes you in energies. And for the next session, here are the rules that are in play, right? Yeah. Yeah. Just test it out, and then you can undo it very easily.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
Yeah, absolutely. And it was fun to see people in the videos that we knew. You know, one of my friends now has a kid and seeing the kid appear several times in the video like that was really neat. And and seeing, you know, some legends like Claire Hoffman there running a game at Gen Con. So that was really nice to see. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
And so what they started talking about started with the player's handbook itself, kind of getting people, I think, you know, excited for for this week.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
So it was a brief discussion of it being chock full of advice and they showed various pages and it was a lot of fun for me to pause and look and read. And those pages were great. And I spoke to a couple of staff who I trust for how they say things in an even keel manner that we're just talking about. This is the coolest DMG.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
One of them said the coolest DMG since the 4E, which I thought was hilarious, but I know what they meant, which is 4E's DMG was so good.
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
type incidents where everybody was working together to solve how do we handle the massive amount of people who are trying to run in and go straight for the D&D area. It was a sea of people and just shocking. And anybody out there listening, if you were one of the folks who came by and said hi and thanked us for the show,
Mastering Dungeons
PC Creation in 2024 5E and Greyhawk’s Regions! (MD 205)
that to attain that level is difficult right and they and they said you know this is at that level of that fourth edition dungeon masters guy just full of useful advice um and in fact all the pages i looked at like chapter one intro in the basics uh discuss what a dm does and we can make out a summary of various things that have changed including
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
You need to join a guild. I absolutely agree with that. I don't want to see you must choose your guild or you must choose your fighting brigade or whatever for each class. The reason deities are there... is because they are, historically speaking, such a huge part of a setting, right? What is a setting but a magical world dominated by gods? Almost all, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
There are only a few that really deviate from that. And so if there are these enormous powers at bay, then those are paramount, right? And when you are a cleric, I mean, we can't not know. You got to tell me who you worship, right? Or play off of that, right? Like in the Fallbacks novel, the cleric does not worship any one god. He makes deals with all of them.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And that's a fun way to do it too, right? You know, you're playing against type, that's fine too, but you've got to have an answer. And your answer can be, oh, I don't know, or whatever it is, right? But that answer is important because the roles that deities play in almost all settings should be huge, even though somehow we've strayed from that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And our main segment is going to talk about setting, which kind of links into a lot of what this, this is a nice warmup. It absolutely does.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Well, it's hard to say because, you know, we don't they didn't say like first day or, you know, some number of hours. But if we if we look at, you know, when the press release came out, it's been it had been roughly a week. So Tasha's we got some data from BookScan back a bit ago. And was it last June, something like that? Not this June, but the one before that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And in those numbers, it showed Tasha's with one hundred and twenty five thousand eight hundred and thirty eight first week print copies sold through the book scan series of outlets, big box stores, Amazon, things like that. I estimate that maybe Bookscan is 20% to 34% of print sales. We're just talking print here. So that's a lot, right? More than 125,000.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Add another 20% to that, so another, what, 24,000 or something like that. So 160, something like that. I don't mind math remotely, right? Check me at home. But it's a huge number, and Wizards is saying 2024 players' handbook is even higher. On the internet, you'll hear everything from revisionist folks saying like, well, of course it's that big.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I always knew it would be because, you know, if you think about it, there's so many players that, of course, they picked up the player's handbook. But those folks were probably saying two months ago, oh, nobody's buying this new book. The old book is how everybody's going to be playing and 2024 is dead. So you get a lot of variants on the internet.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
For Wizards to say that the Player's Handbook has sold three times as many as the 2014 version, that's great, right? Assuming that's all 100% accurate, that is fantastic. D&D has grown a lot since 2014, which is also amazing and fantastic and fortunate. And but we have to factor in that, you know, Sean, this is this is not like 60. It's another five.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And you can argue about how that's been explained to us or whatever. But the end of it is it's always tricky to have a new version, whatever it is, and convince people that, hey, everything is fully compatible. So you kind of don't need this. Boy, you really want it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
and if they really printed three times as many and are selling three times as many that's amazing and some darn good planning to have that match up of three times as many printed three times as many sold um there's some more data in this press release sean you want to chat about that
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And that is like an ever-touched-it kind of thing, but that's still an enormous jump in how many people they say have played it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, it's possible. I mean, if I look at my son during the pandemic, before including, telling me, oh, there's five groups in our high school playing D&D. That's a lot of kids at just one high school, right? And there are how many high schools in our city? Like, just a ton, right? And then a couple of other high schools where the kids have reached out to me in one way or another.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So, I mean, yeah, maybe. I don't know. It's a big jump. It's a surprising jump to me, you know, adding 35 million. But either way, a lot of people have played D&D, and I'm not going to quibble about that number too much.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
uh how many were there in 2022 13 million registered users now that interests me sean because 18 million is actually the number we had heard before right as you're saying so it's like We added 35 million ever played D&D. We didn't add to D&D Beyond. And I wonder if that, I mean, it's not been a long time, right? I'm talking about the Q2 2024 call.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
But at some point, there was a reason to adjust one and not adjust the other. That can just be different data sets. But, you know, maybe it means, I'm sure they would have liked to have increased that number. And so they probably looked pretty hard, is my guess, to increase it and couldn't. I don't know. Interesting. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So, you know, one of the things that people have been trying to reconcile is these numbers, which are fantastic from the D&D marketing group. And it looks like it came, you know, from the wizard side rather than the Hasbro side. Or, you know, kind of reconcile that with... whatever people imagine the edition should do, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And then what made it more interesting is BookScan sales data being shared again by Stephen Glicker on his YouTube channel. And this data came across as the first week being 3,773 copies sold in BookScan in the U.S., And, you know, it was done in a way that sure felt like it was being done for clicks. You can decide for yourself. A lot of drama.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And this is talked a lot about, you know, all over the Internet space amongst those little bubbles of us that talk about things like D&D online. I do think that number is really suspect. Right. But there's a lot behind it. The why of it. Right. Why is this number so low? It doesn't make a lot. And should we believe it? Right. So you can look at things to try to figure it out.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Like, well, you know, Amazon has one page for the 2024 player handbook, which is the same as the 2014 one. You buy the player's handbook and you choose the version. So that kind of prevents it from having its own rank. You can analyze it. Maybe that's also causing these book scan sales to be weird.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I mean, I noted when I looked at the previous book scan set data two years ago or a year ago, whenever that was, that data sometimes had things like critical role books would be like smushed together. You know, like there wasn't you couldn't get the new book. You had to see the green Ronin one. Right. And so like when things like that happen, it can throw stuff off. That may be why.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Why this number doesn't make sense is because we know like 3000 were sold at Gen Con in a heartbeat. We hear gaming stores all over the place reporting strong sales. Multiple reports of distributors running out of books that they can't give them any. Stores talking about how they convinced their distributor to give them their last 20. Things like that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
We also had a report from the UK book scan showing that those numbers are higher than that US number. That's like 3,800 or something like that. It's a little higher. And we know the population of the UK and the interest level in the UK is not what the US is expecting. There are reports on ICV2, you know, around this. So none of it really makes sense for the book scan numbers to be that low.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Why are they that low? We don't know. And there are a lot of people guessing. And I would just caution to not, you know, not go, oh, I saw this thing, therefore, right? Like either something major has caused book scan to lag behind in its reporting. And there's a whole bunch of numbers to add to this number. In which case, we'll see this eventually, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Eventually, when you look at what the first month sales or two months or three months or whatever, or lifetime, and you know it's been three months and you're looking at lifetime, you will see a more normal data amount come out of it. So hopefully we get somebody who shares that, you know, sometime for now and we can look at it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Otherwise, it means there's been a titanic, unimaginable shift of how D&D is sold. from normal print channels to other, you know, like everybody's buying it from D&D Beyond. And realistically, that just doesn't make sense, Sean, because it means like all of America has just shifted how it buys. That's not generally how those things happen. So it's an interesting, you know, riddle.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And we'll have to figure out why it's wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
But a little bit, I mean, again, this would be such a Titanic shift to suddenly say like, and no one's buying it on Amazon, right? Like, that's unlikely, right? No one's ever going to their Barnes & Noble anymore because everybody who previously purchased from a D&D Beyond is now. 3,700 is such a laughably small number. Yeah. You know, compared to like Tasha's, right? It had 124,000.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So you have D&D saying, Wizards saying, we sold more than 124,000 plus 20%. You know, and then to say, and even if they're counting digital, right? And you can, it's still... It seems 3700 is just it would mean, I don't know, you know, people have vastly changed their purchasing. And the thing is, we got to remember that, like the fans online are not representative of all fans, right? Like,
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
All those player handbook sales for 2014 didn't come from the few invested people we see posting on EN World, right? It's a very wide network of disparate people who buy in disparate ways. For them to all shift to D&D Beyond would be bizarre.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I mean, I kind of feel like I have to. I own the Spelljammer vinyl that came out previously. And, you know, I always I still don't have a physical copy of the Sharn City of Towers music that came during third edition and in the back of that book. So I need to get that one of these days because that's such an awesome piece. I think the Spelljammer wasn't quite as good as that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
It's fun, but it's sort of wacky. Maybe deliberately so. I think deliberately so. So, you know, we'll see how good this is. Hopefully we can do some, you know, little previews and stuff. There's not a link yet on when it comes out or where we can purchase it, but it's apparently going to be 50 bucks and you can get it on a double vinyl or digital. We'll see.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, yeah. I ran it back when it was being playtested, and then I was working with many, many DMs who ran it for many, many, many, many, many players at PAX West. It's a cool adventure. I highly recommend it. It's fun. Will Doyle and Stacey Allen wrote this. They write such good, flavorful stuff. And it feels like the cartoon, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I mean, one thing you know about Will and Stacey, they understand the assignment, right? Even if their assigners don't know it, they know it. And so you get a very cartoon-like experience. You've got bully wugs and you've got... you know, Kalak and Venger and angles going in and that are very fun and cartoonish. And, and yeah, I totally think it's a great one shot.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I will say the pregens have these magic items that are really, really strong. Not only are they, you know, 2024 characters, but these magic items, I mean, Bobby can create the Fisher with his, you know, hammer and, and, uh, The cleric Nico can like summon an angel multiple, multiple times, which is way too many. One would be fine or really too strong, maybe even.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
But so that that makes it really strong, which is fine for this one shot because you want the kid cartoons to win.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
um but if you do decide to make a campaign out of it you will want to fine-tune those magic items to not have a blow away or if you want to play this with their own characters realize that they won't have the magic items that make them as strong as as you have in this version there you go oh oh mini corner with teo sales
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Well, you know, WizKids has a weird lag time on everything. They'll announce a thing. It'll take forever to come out like the Vecna minis are just coming out now, which is like what? And I think the anniversary minis just came out like a month ago. So, you never know with them, but they announced a new visible box set with seven pre-painted minis based on the Baldur's Gate 3 characters.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
50 bucks gets you those seven pre-painted minis. If you've played the game, you can guess who's in it. Yes, they're probably there. There is also a blind box set featuring 40 new minis from the video game. This includes monsters and NPCs and all sorts of stuff. Each booster is twenty five dollars. It comes with one large and three medium or small minis. Those prices.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And, you know, you'd have to buy a lot of it to get all 40. So, you know, decide how you how much you love it. We've got a link to ICB2 there where we saw this announcement. Yeah, it's it's kind of wild. We've you know, I think folks have said, like, why haven't they done enough on Baldur's Gate three? And the truth is, we continue to see more and more of this come out.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Maybe it's a little later than you want, but here it is.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Wow. That was two really cool, conflicting questions. I think we have to put both of these folks in a cage match. That's the only way to do it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Thoughts? Yeah, it seems cool. You have $5 a month or you can buy each issue for $15. We know, you know, if you follow D&D, you're probably well acquainted with Hannah Rose, who's worked on Arcadia magazine for MCDM. Lots of D&D official projects, often as an editor. Clara Daly is a graphic designer who's worked for Darrington Press, MCDM and others.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
The two work together on Tal'Dorei's campaign setting Reborn, which is this puppy right here. And in an interview with Polygon, they talked. You can see the art that they are using that will be in this next issue. They said they're paying top dollar for articles with an eye towards creating sustainability for creators in the TTRPG space. They say they playtest in two stages for all of this.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
It's important for them to get the balance of things right. So, I mean, it's really cool. I think that magazines are great. Talking to folks on our Discord, you know, I think there's a mixed feeling as to how magazines work in today's era. I think quarterly probably is good. You know, even Arcadia, as good as it was, I felt like it was a little too much too often.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So I think fewer articles that are very good spaced out quarterly probably is the way to go. I hope this works. I'd like to see these kinds of things exist. Yeah. But it's hard. It's hard to to to get the people to enough people to derive that value from it. Right. Even though they'll all say how much they love Dragon Magazine and miss it. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
It's hard to get them to put their money where their mouth is.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, sure. It's really neat comment because sometimes you don't know kind of how a product comes to be. And so this quote says, great show. And I enjoyed hearing you talk about Keith Baker's new release Frontiers of Eberron. You may not be aware of this, but he developed and tested some of the material by running a mini campaign for his Patreon supporters.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Team two is in effect. Yes. Go Santa Clara. So what happens if Duke plays Santa Clara? Duke wins. Statistically speaking, historically speaking. So it's not too hard for me, but I cheer on both and either way I win. That's the way it works.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Character development and some aspects of story direction were built with input from questionnaires on Discord and Patreon. And then he ran online games with a revolving cast of supporters playing the main characters. I was lucky to play in a few of those games and have listened to all of the audio video recordings.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I learned an immense amount playing with an experienced and creative DM like Keith, but I'm most amazed that he managed to orchestrate a pretty great ongoing story in this way. I played a different character every time I was on and other people played the same characters in different sessions, but somehow it all came together. I look forward to seeing how the characters and story will be together.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Might have influenced the final product. And that's really neat, right? That it was sort of play tested live with the Patreon folks. I've been fortunate because Keith is in the town that I live in. We've played together a number of times and he's a fantastic DM, very quick on his feet, as good as they come.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And so I have no trouble believing how he was able to take this, spin it into really neat, you know, parts of this setting. So it's cool.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Fantastic.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
When you will get the actual book, you'll open it and you'll feel Sean's sleep somewhere in those pages.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And with that, the uni adventure that we mentioned earlier has some stat blocks, but it also has the cautionary text of these could change. So, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Probably culminating in third edition.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, so the point of the block and taking it away from that textual representation
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
is kind of twofold i think one is to provide the information in a way that is recognizable right you will always know what the top will be my name and then you know if it's fifth edition it's gonna tell me the size and the type and whether it's aligned to some alignment uh and then we're gonna get like some stat things like armor class and hit points and then it's gonna have like the ability scores and some senses and then at the bottom will be these various actions they'll be broken up into action type
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And all of this, as it becomes familiar, helps me run it. We can look at fourth edition for an even more kind of blockified, right, like parsed, segmented kind of approach to things. We can compare that to earlier editions, including Third, where Third would have a stat block, but it was full of so many words and things that you had to look up, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
The feats, for example, that this monster had, the class levels it had, the spell lists. And one of the big questions design-wise is to what extent are you capturing everything? Right. So it's really easy to run. Or are you reflecting the larger world of the game? Right. A wizard is a wizard and has these spells because that's what wizards do at this particular level that this monster represents.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Right. All of that can be design goals that you have to tug at and balance.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. So I think those are our design goals. And increasingly, I think, you know, DMs and players expect, especially DMs, that you're going to have this block, this definable thing, right? It's not a paragraph of text for D&D, especially fifth edition and kind of future editions. It's going to be this sort of block that breaks things up.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And it's because of those design goals that there should be some complexity, some richness to the battle. Though, in a lot of ways, we can look at how 5th edition stepped back from 4th edition, right? 4th edition had multiple interesting things per creature. A lot of the 5th edition ones don't quite stand up to your rule of the proficiency bonus minus X, minus 1, because...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
They are a little simpler, especially at the lower levels. They can often have not a lot that's interesting. It just does what it does. It's a little more like second edition, perhaps.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And D&D Beyond, yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, so what's really interesting is what jumps at you visually immediately when you look at this stat block is it now has the ability scores in these kind of color-shaded tables. And so it'll say strength, this is for an ape, strength 16, mod plus 3, save plus 3, int 6, mod minus 2, save minus 2, dex 14, and so on, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So it breaks this out, and almost everybody when they first look at it goes, wait, what is this?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
what is this what is it doing and and because it's now added right explicitly the saving throws so you don't have to you know think through the math of it as you did before when you saw strength 16 plus three now it stinks strength 16 plus three but also save plus three and in this table format i would say this is a questionable decision
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I'm just trying to be fair here, like trying to not be personal about it, but it's questionable. Questionable because from a graphic design, layout design, you are making this like the thing that jumps out at you at the page. And I think everybody would admit those are not the most important things in this stat block.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So you've somehow chosen to bizarrely color code this thing as if they're the most important thing when they're not. Yeah, it's not the end of the world, but it's a it's a strange opinionated move rather than what we would all agree. You know, what are we usually doing? Even though we are enjoying more complex stat blocks, we're doing our attacks.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And the plus to hit, the damage, the AC, the hit points, those are like your biggest obvious things you need. And yet we've chosen to highlight these blocks.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
use yeah and i mean when i look at the printed page right we know the 2024 book has a larger font But if I if I hold up the 2014 and look at like this bat, you can see those vertical or horizontal lines that are there. Those actually kind of make things a little big. So we actually end up with about the same space used for the bat.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Although I will note that the bat no longer has an echolocation or keen hearing line. So it's maybe not the best. Arguably, 2014 would be smaller with its smaller font. But it's reasonably similar, right? We didn't really truly gain a ton in the 2024 version, but we have this kind of complexity of that big giant stat block segment there.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yes, I join you in that. You know, we can argue that the ape in 2014 hit a little hard. But not tremendously so. I mean, you know, six is higher than maybe the four we might want and see as a sort of average. But...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I mean, it's amazing. I love both of these comments. I think that the question of what a cleric does for the game is really interesting. And the thing I can't get over is that I feel like it's changed and I can't exactly put my handle on why, but I feel like in the various campaigns that I ran or were run for me, deities were more important.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
it's it's not tremendously off and you know you could look at its armor class and hit points and decide whether on the balance it's fine i haven't done that analysis um for this guy but to then say well everything stays the same but we're going to take the damage down one for fists and then make this rock hit harder but only one in six rounds on average is really tricky. It's really swingy.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And I think, honestly, what I would look at design-wise is, I mean, I haven't run the math on it all, but not only have we changed how much it deals, but we've created this variability
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
that can be very dangerous in encounters and maybe that's fun right maybe you think that's fun i'd have to run the numbers to really look at how i feel about it of what i expect this to be over time but you know the more apes you have which with cr one half is easy to have a lot the more that you can get that recharge off and suddenly have a bunch of 10 hit point hits on your party
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
At a low CR, I would tend to think that's not desirable for the fun of the game, right? Because these are going to go up against low-level characters and have a chance to do some real damage.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, and it's interesting also, I just pulled up, you know, I've got a spreadsheet that folks on my Patreon can access and looking at that spreadsheet, a CR1 half, historically speaking for 2014, does seven damage a round, which is a little higher than we'd probably wish it would be. for low level characters. And if you look at what we recommend in Forge of Foes, then it becomes four.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And I think that, yeah, so it is good. We do think it's good to take it down a bit. But the method in which it's been done here, yeah, it takes away from it and creates a certain tactical type of play that to me is opinionated. If I go back to the ape in 2014, it's fine. You know, it's not on the big list of things to fix, move on, do something else.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
But no, we've taken a big pass at this and decided to change how it plays, which is really interesting. Yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah. So in looking at other monsters, did you see anything else that stood out along these lines for you?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And probably because while it makes sense, it's a creature that you can summon as a familiar and through a warlock. And so it becomes, you know, more of a problem in that sense.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah. Yeah, it is. They don't have a football team, but they have a basketball team. Their women's soccer is really strong. Yeah, I've already got like their games mapped out and stuff so I can cheer them on. I'm hoping for greatness this year.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And maybe it's that they were like, I mean, from all the angles, from the setting would make it more important, right? You'd run into a church and it was of this God and it was like a big part of play. And there were penalties for crossing your alignment or deviating from the expected way that you work. And...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Which is fine. I can see that being less about an opinion and more about we've looked at this game data and going back and forth on saving throws, how engaging, how fun is it versus the time it consumes. I can sign off on that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Especially, I mean, in this case, this DC 11 con save, right, is something that becomes quite a waste to roll, especially if you have higher level characters, right? Because the idea is that your plus five to attack because of bounded accuracy will still make the imp work if you have a bunch of them at higher levels.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Well, now you're doing all these saving throws over and over and over again to see if they hit a DC 11, which more than half of the time they'll probably make, and then just becomes a waste of rolling. So it especially works in this kind of case with a low CR creature, I think.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
that is an interesting idea, right? That we're giving you less to interact with and we're just going to give you a hit point boost. So in fact, it's interesting that didn't go from 10 to 20 and went to 21 for whatever reason, but probably just stat based, whatever.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And yeah, I agree with what Michael says, where like when you chose a deity to worship, well, suddenly that becomes highlighted in the world and the DM will probably riff off of that. Well, if you chose, you know, this God, well, this is the anti-God to them and that becomes a part of it. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, that is super interesting. It's. Yeah, it certainly makes. I mean, that's a different fight, right? That's a different fight. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
It's interesting. It's like, okay, I don't know that you needed to, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And so that's why I'm trying to reverse engineer. I'm going to disagree in a sense. Yes, but your job as a designer is to change them in an appreciably better way.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yes, but appreciably ceases to be right. Like at that point, we're talking about you pull a bunch of people and they're going to all go, yeah, most of us agree this is way better. I don't know that some of these changes we're talking about do that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I think that the setting can be a part that does that, but I would rather almost say, hey, it's Dark Sun, there are no gods, so just strike that from your character sheet, then... Create a place where to me domains are a little too separate from. The gods. And that's OK, but it ends up with this effect where there's almost too few hooks into the setting. And maybe if it was something like.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
What was a huge change was the giant spike. You know what I am seeing? I take it back on giant spikes.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
because it does say on web walker ignores movement restrictions caused by webs and it knows the location of any other creature in contact with the same web right so it does still know this is this is oh it still knows in the 2024 version it does know where it is so it's so they actually juiced up its perception but actually kept they just didn't make it another entry they walked it in they moved it into web walker cool all right i missed that
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
For the giant spider. Yeah, interesting.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I gotta say, I do like the idea of it not killing you at zero. I don't know. I liked it. I mean, I get the problem of it, but to me, what it does is when... When you make monsters interesting, the DM is going to think about fun ways to use it, right? So the idea that you can have in the giant spiders layer, the web matters. So you put the web in. There can be a stable...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
prisoner that's bound up in its in webs to be eaten later and we know that it's there but it's going to be sick even if you heal it right like to me these are things that can be interesting and if you don't like that well you use a different monster because in fact 2024 and 2014 both give you lots of spiders so you don't need to you know it's not like it's the only spider out there yep
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah. And, you know, my guess is what they did is they looked at the giant spider and said, you know, you're already flinging a web. That's your interesting thing. Let's cut the other things out. And so I can sign off on that. I'm not saying I hate this. I just think that actually that idea of being stable is kind of cool. Now, maybe you make a different spider with that. But...
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
but i think it's a neat concept i don't think it had to go well i mean being stable is fine but being paralyzed is you might as well be unconscious oh yeah because you're paralyzed yeah it's not just yeah yeah that's fair yeah okay yeah that's not fun all right to be on the back of the uh barbarian as he carries you she carries you around or they carry around for an hour yeah that's a problem
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I don't know, your domain is weather. And we saw ways to hook that into all the weather things in the game from what the climate is today to what people are growing in the small town to the priests and the whatever is the churches that are there. But I feel like that ends up not happening is the result of it. I don't know if you feel that way.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
What's your opinion so far? Okay. Let's assume 250. I agree with you. And I'll say why. So yeah, it is worth noting that a book like this, this is 13th age, right? It is a rule set and a setting, right? You get the pretty map and you get all the stuffs and... But you've got to teach the game, and then there's some chunk of it for the setting, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Then you have other things like, say, Matt Forbeck's Shotguns and Sorcery, right? And that is using 5e in this case, because this is the 5e version, and so you are adding to it, and yet it's still... Pretty much the same size, slightly smaller. And, you know, I could pick any number of like, you know, here's Deadlands, which does not include the Savage Worlds rules.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And it is slimmer, both smaller in its overall size and whatever. You know, so. But when I look at all this and when I talk to people, gamers of all kinds, they'll tell me like, yeah, I couldn't read all that. Mm hmm. And I agree that is an issue. We'll get to that, I'm sure.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's gotta be some reason why this is awesome to play and you need to make that really clear. And I think old school approaches were like, you just have 400 pages worth of proving why or 200 or 70 or whatever, but like, like your entirety of the page count was supposed to prove it over time. You can't do that these days.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
You've got to tell people up front exactly why and really play off of that, right? I think 4th Edition did a really good job where they would have these truths or campaign aspects. It would be like 5 to 8 in a bullet point or numbered list or something that would really break down what's special about the Neverwinter campaign setting or Dark Sun or Eberron.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And then DMs and players could just, you know, you could literally print that out, put it on the table, like... This is what we're doing, right? Tap the sign. This is the thing we do.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, that's smart that you bring that up because that was specifically, the idea was like, hey, D&D makes these suppositions. So if your campaign is going to change it or your campaign setting is going to change it, then you've got to really think through what that means for the game and do that, right? Like no gods, we talked about earlier in the show, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Whatever that might be, then you want to underscore that and play off of that and drive that home as a major theme.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
That's a really interesting question. I've been thinking about a lot because like the Eberron book that we reviewed, it really did a... Why are my show notes blanking in and out? They are. What was the name of the Eberron? It is called Frontiers of Eberron. Yep. So Frontiers of Eberron, you know, there is a whole chapter that's really player focused. that's a great way of achieving buy-in.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
So I think it's becoming more and more important to do that, sequester some area of this product and say, this is for players. Also allows you to take some of those pages as a PDF and say, here's your player's guide at kind of no extra real cost to you because you've sequestered it already. But that's really nice, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
That lets you have essentially a player's guide and a DM's guide all in one book if you need to.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for a number of reasons. One is that, you know, when you share with someone a map, you know, here's Tal'Dorei, for example, right? When you share a map, it starts inspiring, right? We've been talking all about Greyhawk and you look at those things and you want to know what's off the edges and what is in these mountains and the names of places, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Like hell furnaces, like it just starts inspiring you. And so, yeah, you do need to understand the world. And even if it's changed, right? So like if you've got something like the Gamma World role playing game, right? Like I want to know what happened to Seattle, right? And what happened to wherever, you know, part of the world we're in.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
If you're playing Call of Cthulhu to know like, well, what's my area of the world like? And yeah, it's good to also understand Boston and New Orleans. But what about, you know, my area of the woods? What's going on there in a particular area that we're playing in? And so as you establish that world, you give people a feeling of what they can explore. But I don't know about you. I feel like
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
The Forgotten Realms, it's really interesting. People will complain like, oh, it's just the Sword Coast. And we never are done with the Sword Coast. The Sword Coast keeps getting explored and built upon and so on in 5th edition. It's almost like you don't even need all these other areas because the Sword Coast is already really, really big. And I'm not saying we don't.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Don't misunderstand what I'm saying from folks out there listening. I'm not saying get rid of the rest of the Forgotten Realms. But... When worlds are so big, then it makes it less approachable. And it means it's really a long-term project. It's more than you kind of need. I think that a smaller world makes sense. Dark Sun, right, is just that table land section. And there's more beyond.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
But we're just focused on just these seven, nine cities. No, I'm blanking. Anyway, just a few, right? Like that kind of focused in lens can really work.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, I mean, it waters down that experience. And there are a lot of really nice settings, especially when I think settings are trying to be innovative, like it's an apocalyptic situation. It can be really beneficial to say, we are in the one last remaining place, and now we've got to venture outward. That gives you a real nice, cohesive start. Or even to say, where should we begin?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Like, maybe the world is bigger. It's Tal'Dorei or it's Forgotten Realms or whatever, but... You know, if we're all starting in Neverwinter, now we can have a really cool Neverwinter and radiate outwards and we can we can kind of change that up. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
We can we can have like a different focal lens for each of the areas like Neverwinter is very defined right around it, much more so the next two cities. And then we can get hazy and let DMs just have fun with that because it's not as critical and it's not that that super focus area.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
That's really true. One other possibility is you don't always need the map, as we might think of it. I'm thinking of Coriolis, and I'm holding up the book from Free League. Coriolis, which is a far science RPG, does give you a map of the major stars. And that's all well and good. But but we're not getting maps of every planet.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
We get just some descriptions and details because the fun of it is sort of more like Firefly or the expanse where we're going from place to place and we're finding things along the way and on the area. But you don't need the worlds. It's it's the pattern of play and the things that one will encounter. And so the emphasis is elsewhere. You do get that star chart, right? But you don't.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
It's not about the detailed level of that nations and mountain ranges and things like that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
yeah my heart wants to say no to you but my brain says yes in that i really do think that like some people say like oh you gotta you know dnd should pull out all this player option stuff and no it's it's selling much better by putting in a few subclasses or backgrounds at least to feed some spells some magic items That makes everybody happier.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And you've got to try to sell your adventure to more than just the person or your setting than more than just the DM or the one person at the table. You want several people wanting to buy it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
and and and a diverse crowd buying it so you absolutely need it from a from a business sense i think the key to try to make that better is to say how are these rules really supporting the play and and enabling that play rather than being just tack on stuff right like if um if we have airships in our setting it doesn't mean we need like airship combat rules right
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Because maybe it's just like sometimes you're fighting on an airship and sometimes, you know, it's two airships that are next to each other that crashed and you jump from one to the other. But we're not firing missiles like and we don't need all that complexity.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Maybe I'm thinking of, you know, there are a number of games that sort of have like, you know, blimps and stuff, but there are no blimp rules. And that can be fine because that's what the game's about. Right. But if it is about that, if you are doing Spelljammer, maybe you wanted some ship combat rules to have. you know, made that experience into what people expect and want out of it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, 100%. The more that your setting has something that's more interesting than just, you know, our nation likes, you know, purple clothing, the more that you need to explain that in play and give examples. And we hear this from players a lot, right? We heard it at GameholeCon when we recorded live last year, people saying, hey, for Planescape,
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
I want an example showcase to me why an adventure in Planescape is cool and what it should look like, right? What makes it unique compared to any other adventure? Dark Sun, right? If you're going to run a Dark Sun campaign, you may not immediately know like, well, how do I use things like running out of food and navigating and
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And so an adventure, even a very short one, can very quickly hit like hunger, thirst rules, navigation, Templars, defilers, cannibal halflings. And then you're just like, yeah, got it. This is how I do it. And from there you can run on Blade Runner.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
For me, I mean, reading the rules, I'm like, OK, how do I make a mystery detective adventure or campaign or whatever that I'm running that forces decisions around compassion and empathy versus organizational duty? You get these adventures and you go, okay, I have a better grasp now of how one might do that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, I mean, it really can be. And that's okay, right? Like, if that's your campaign, then that's great. Like, I would say that, you know, for Gamma World 4E, a really fun part of it is, like, the way you mix and match your character during creation to just choose these two things that you jam together, and that's your character.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And then the cards you get both, like, that are sort of salvage gear, right? You're fighting with a stop sign and whatever that might be. And then you find other gear as you go, you know, an old radio, you know, and the clever ways to use it. That's a big part of the play. And so you want to you want to lean into and highlight that because that's that's the game, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
All right, folks, we cut that down to the wire. I had something coming up where I had to go do something and Sean had to do something. So we're going to stop there for now. And maybe what we'll do next time is we will get into how one would create a setting. And we'll kind of do an example, just kind of playing around with these concepts.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And let us know what you think about this topic and where you'd like us to go. And speaking of you, we'd like to thank everybody who is a Master of Dungeons supporter. Special shout out to our Masters of Realms. You are mentioned in our show notes every episode. Thank you so much. And our masters of the multiverse get a special shout out. I will read the list in reverse order.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Walt Winfrey, Chris Webster, Javier Wazniak, Jason Ward from Accidental Cyclops Games, Graham Ward, James Walton, Marcelo de Velasquez, The Valiant DM, Joe Tyler, Jeremy Taloman, Talos from the D&D and TV podcast, Talos the Store Lord, Josh and Liwanica of the Tabletop Journeys podcast, Krishna Simonsi,
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Andy Shockney, Chance Russo at Draga Russo, Runner Rick, Ozymandias Rex, Pugnus, Vladimir Prenner from Croatia, Robert Pasley, Post Fiction RPG Audio, Frog Prince at Tentacles Squelching Wetly, which is a Stranger Things reference. Phil Wirt from the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo. Mighty Zeus. Tom Nelson from the Deck of Player Safety. Falcon Neal. Sean Molly. John Mickey. Trey McLemore.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Anna B. Meyer, Fantasy Cartography. Eric Mengi, the Mathemagician. Paul Matta. Chad Lynch. Jim Klingler, aka DM Prime Mover. Brian King, the Mighty Jerd, who I got to play with this last weekend. We had a lot of fun in the world of Coriolis.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Mark and Mary's Gaming Compound, Sean Hurst, Ben Heisler and Paige Leitman, Scott Fitzgerald Gray at Insane Angel Studios, James Fisher, Andy Edmonds at Nerdernomicon.com, Will Doyle, Evil John, John Carney. Calvin Bridges Avalos, Merrick Blackman, Steve Bissonnette, David Bastionson, Craig Bailey, Lou Anders, Lazy Wolf Studios, and Keith Amann of the Monsters Know What They're Doing.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Thank you all so much. You can find us at patreon.com slash mastering D&D if you want to support the show and help us do this work that we do here. You can find Sean Merwin at Sean Merwin on all the places. Find me at AlphaStream.org. Find us at Mastering D&D. And thank you so much. What are we going to do now?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
We're going to go pick our daughters and help that family member have the job interview and check in on many, many other things and then build the perfect campaign setting that reflects all that.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Yeah, I guess I don't feel like the rules, like if I say take a look at second edition or first edition and I compare it to third or fourth, I don't know that truly one is saying to a cleric or a paladin. I mean, I guess paladin is pretty arguable. Paladin definitely said that. Paladin is pretty hard to get past. But I don't know that it was like both sort of say like you have a deity, choose it.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
But then you end up in the domain of the setting, right? What are the deities available? Which are you choosing? You know, what does that matter? But to me, it's more that the the hooks that tie into that deity have become lessened, right? The spells don't care. The settings care less. The adventures don't care at all, generally, right?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
and and and so that to me has a negative impact in play in terms of the things that you interact with to the same extent that i would say that like if you choose to be a rogue and you are playing an urban game well that thieves guild will come up right and if for somehow we did a thing that caused it not to well that would be a loss right that's sort of how i feel about if it makes sense
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And that that's a way that you could make me happy and maybe answer both these questions to say like, hey, whatever your character class happens to be, what are your ties to the setting? And with clerics and paladins, there's a real obvious one there. Like, what is it that you are serving? Right. You are serving someone. You are bound to someone.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Just like if you're a warlock, you are bound through this pact. Well, your pact isn't a vacuum. It's not just some concept out in the ether. It ties into this setting. How? Yeah. Right. You're a rogue. Right. Hey, you're probably an independent, but maybe you had ties before. Or what do you think? What kind of organization would appeal to you? Right.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
Like you start thinking about them working on that. Now you create these ties either way. Maybe that's the thing we agree the book could do.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And fascinating that 2024... removes those pieces and i can and i don't disagree with that i mean i did not love bonds flaws and whatever so i'll get into that second but it doesn't add something to put those factors back in or reroute that energy to something else it just removes them which i definitely don't like right because you should have something that tells you
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
where your backstory comes from, what your factors are, the guide play, tie you into the setting, all of that. And again, I think that should be in the core, right? Like it's not just that a setting should say, hey, it's Eberron. How do you tie into this? Like, yeah, it should say that there too. But at the core level, it should say, hey, player,
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
look for how you you know how you integrate to this world into this game what is it you care about and the problem with bonds and flaws and ideals and all that one is there were too many of them so nobody could remember them right even your own player had trouble remembering them but five players couldn't remember each other's and the DM could not remember all five.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And I remember trying in the early days of Ventures League setting up, I had a spreadsheet kind of format and I would write down people's things. It was impossible to DM to all those things, right? Far easier is a game of 13th age, as I've said many times, where I could just say, what's your one unique thing?
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
And bam, I can write one thing down for each of those characters and everybody's playing off that. You can write it on a table tent, fold it up, see each other's things.
Mastering Dungeons
5E Stat Block Changes and Building the Perfect Campaign Guide! (MD 209)
and you're boom you're playing off that canton concept and then icons right in 13th age are these big group things that help you do that on a richer level of saying you know i am linked to the rogue prince and i am in enmity with the dwarves right and like and then and i'm neutral with the diabolist right and those things can just now be those seeds for play at the setting level whatever your setting may be
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And then you as a hero get some slight bonus as to your opportunity to carry this off. But you may have a skill or you may have a tool or you may have circumstances or whatever. And all of these things do something like they may give you more dice or they may give you a bonus to your role. or they may reduce the D.C. or something like that. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And Monty Cook games, you know, it all starts impossible and then it all gets whittled down to where you don't even need to roll is a funny thing to do in Cypher system. Right. And that's that idea. But D&D is architected differently. And while I think it's totally fine what's being done in this question, that's that's fun.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
You know, ultimately, what you're saying is, I just know you're going to make this because you're so good. So I'm lowering the D.C. of reality for you. But if the other player tries it, then I'm not. And that's that there are there are cases where I think that will cause some friction. Right. You gave the bar to pass, but you're not giving me a pass.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
You know, can be a little bit of a it can be strange. And you're kind of doing things to the curve of the math, which doesn't matter if you're having fun. But if if it were a policy, if it were a firm part of the game, I think would cause friction for various situations. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I kicked mine off by getting a copy of The Psychology of Dungeons and Dragons, Jamie's book from our host from the last show. A lot of people said they bought the book based on our show, which, wow, that's kind of cool.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, and it's about the effort and you doing it and the role playing that goes with it and all that rather than just, you know, it's not a random chance. And in fact, even when DMs don't quite think about the DCs they're assigning, you know, they really are often assigning probabilities that are almost always within reach because that's the kind of point of it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Now, the dice are also big enough, that giant D20, to be swingy. So sometimes you get that surprise and you deal with it and that can be great in some cases and sometimes it's abysmal.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, just awkward, right? It all hinges on this one diplomatic decision you make and you make your plea and you roll a one and okay, let's explain that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, I recall a living Greyhawk adventure in the Jeff region that took you into the Barrier Peaks Mountains. And those of you who think of that name will go, okay, well, there's a spaceship up there, right? And so a little bit as a joke, there was in a scene a metal door that you could possibly spot.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And then, like the fools that they are, the adventure authors and the admins and whatever, assigned a DC to opening the lock that they considered to be impossible. Which, of course, players then proceeded to hit at at least one table at the premiere of the adventure. The adventure had to be rewritten later because the reality is there was nothing behind it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And there were a couple of adventures that were like that, where someone would assign a DC thinking nobody can hit it, but they forget about all the, especially in third edition, all the stacking things that could lead to success. And, you know, like I've often said, if you don't want an NPC to be killed, you don't give it stats. Because as soon as you do, battle can be had, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But you need to just have it statless and describe it as having some way of, you know, getting away or something like that, because you just you can't you can't give somebody a DC because they will hit it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Sean, what this means is once again, Wizards of the Coast has invented the technology to fold space so that you can have more art, more subjects, bigger font. You can have your stat blocks now have this big row of blocks and multicolors for the saving throw bonuses and whatnot. That's amazing. I think this technology should be applied.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I call on Wizards of the Coast to release the keys to this technology that they have so that other companies can employ it as well. So we can exist on a different plane of existence. Yeah, this ability to pack more into a book with larger font and more images, it's incredible. I salute them.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. The headline of this video was how Dungeons and Dragons helped bring in over one billion. And the CNBC video interviews players, store owners, Wizards of the Coast staff to establish how D&D has grown as a brand. And there's some really cool stats on here. Baldur's Gate 3 grossed an estimated $1.7 billion on Steam.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But then later they say the game earned Wizards of the Coast $90 million in royalties in the last half of 2023 alone. So it's always interesting how billions become millions. And in fact, double digit millions is sort of impressive. Wizards of the Coast estimated 85 million people worldwide have played D&D since 1974.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
One thing that's really neat and different was they interview a Brooklyn store gaming shop that has brought in nearly 110,000 in 2024 from hosting D&D game nights alone, they say. And they host 20 D&D games a week. And they say that the D&D is 50% of their revenue, which is pretty unusual, and that it saved the store. And they talk about they started, I guess, right when the pandemic happened.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
hit so so it was a big you know difficult situation for them and that's the dnd has really helped them climb out of this uh they also talked to maya research a market research firm that estimates that 54 percent of dnd players are between 15 to 29 years old uh that includes you and i the uh brooklyn store says most people coming in have never played dnd before
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And in the video it says there's been a 320% rise in the tabletop RPG market since 2016. The graph starts with 50 million for revenue in the tabletop RPG area in 2016 and then gets to around 250 million in 2023.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Since 2019, they point out that Wizards of the Coast revenues, that's not just D&D, has increased 54% from $761 million to $1.5 billion in 2023, and then a slightly lower $1.2 billion in 2024. But still, $761.1.2, sizable increase across the years for Wizards, which is much more than D&D, but they say D&D is an active part of that. They then go on to quote a number of people talking about how
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
There are things outside of Wizards that are driving this as well, and maybe even more so. It's left as a sort of question. It's somewhat implied. And actual play is the big one they focus on. They mentioned Dimension 20's arena event where they sold out Madison Square Garden and something like 17,000 tickets. I'm not sure that's the actual number of tickets.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
That may be what Madison Square Garden seats.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
uh but they say you know something like 17 000 tickets at an average price of 119 that's impressive math and then more solid math one of the dimension 20 podcasts worlds without number has a patreon with thirty thousand eight hundred thirty thousand eight hundred members paying five dollars for roughly 150 000 a month that's coming in right 150k that's also what we're making
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
yeah yeah it's very close um yeah so you know and then that it kind of closes with this idea that the game's popularity comes down to community and sort of saying for wizards leaving kind of suggesting that for wizards for for the dnd brand and for those companies that are involved in it it comes down to that community that you can create and the excitement you can create that proves whether it's worth paying for and i thought that was a kind of a neat way to end it uh in this video
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. And the idea is if you think of like old timey life, You'd say like, OK, you know, the market, right, that in a traditional town back way when it doesn't matter what your social class is, you'd come to the market or you'd come to the tavern or something like that. You think of like, you know, an old Irish pub or something like that. You know, everybody in town goes there. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So these third spaces are places where anybody can meet. And what Dave's talking about here, which is a kind of neat idea, is saying, you know, a lot of times we might make fun of like starting in a tavern. But that actually makes a lot of sense because it kind of doesn't matter what your character backstory is. Coming to the tavern makes sense, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Versus if you said you all meet in the castle, the barbarian might say, like, me, the castle, why? And so it's talking about the importance of these sort of places and how they change over time. Like the US had a time when bowling alleys might be the third place or the mall, right? And now my kids are like, the mall? What are you even talking about? uh, cafes they might say would work now. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Um, and, and so these places can work as backstory locations that tie people together. Right. What did you all, uh, how has the market been important to all of you as a question you could ask the characters and they would probably be able to answer, right. Or in a more modern game, something like, you know, this cafe where everybody would gather something like that. Um,
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And so they're world building tools to think of these places, particularly as ways to appeal to many types of characters, even NPCs, and to create interesting plots feeding off of them by thinking through that. You know, these are places where people gather.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yep, yep, absolutely. That's one I often turn to whenever my voice starts to stray and I start becoming another NPC, trying to turn it back towards the original. I had a friend who had two old guy voices and they would often cross over and it was fun and we'd all smile when it became voice two, old guy two came into play. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Killer will become a different type of term.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Because Gygax read stories from Jack Vance and was enamored with it, as with various other parts of fiction of the day.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, I love how Jeff tackles weapons and the ideas behind them. So I wholeheartedly endorse it, having not seen it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, it's timely based on our earlier conversation. And so on EthanYen.com, Ethan talks about how different RPGs provide an approach to saying, hey, you're good at this, right, versus how somebody else may or may not be that good at it. And so he kind of puts together a chart that has four different boxes and the titles kind of go across intersecting on these two axes.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
One is whether you have skill ranks. So some RPGs will say you can improve your skills by having, you know, rank one, rank two, whatever it is, while other RPGs have a binary approach that say you have the skill or you don't. And skill ranks allow character definition. So there's some great positives, right? I'm a master tracker and varying levels of competency, right? I am okay at diplomacy.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And someone else says, well, I'm an expert at it, right? But the math can be intimidating or problematic. And it can mean that not having a bonus can shut down a player. I don't have a bonus in diplomacy, so I don't want to talk. Right. And so he talks about these issues and looks at that axis. Then on the other axis, he looks at having a list of skills to choose from and how this defines play.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So if you know you can pick a lock, maybe and we get into one of our earlier questions, that means that you think the only way to interact with a lock is to pick it. and forget that there you could bash the door or the chest or convince someone to open it for you or some other way of looking at it because you kind of turn to your skill list to solve all the problems in the game.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
If you go the other way, you have a free form approach to skills. Now you may be able to define what your character does, but that can also lead to some interactions not being covered. And I thought it's a really cool read to go over this. It made me think a lot about games like Gumshoe that have an alternate approach where you say yes,
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I am skilled at shooting, but everybody's rolling a D6 to shoot and everybody succeeds on a four. But what you're doing, maybe it's a three. I forget which one. I think it's a four. But what you get to do is to burn points to succeed when you want to. And eventually you'll run out of points and the points are equal to your skill ranks.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So if you have a six and shooting six times or six, you could give six pluses at any number of times until you run them out of them. And that kind of lets you be competent as in a spy movie, but only so many times. And someone who doesn't have very many points can still hit that one shot they need to hit. And that's a very interesting take on it, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Free League games we talked about that have that low threshold of success, but skills or... Equipment or whatever lowers that and makes it easier. 13th age feels a lot like D&D, but you get to say what your skills are on a very broad level. Like, you know, I am a master linguist or I worked in a royal court. I was a sailor. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And then your DM just says, yeah, OK, I'll give you, you know, a boost because of the fact that you have that skill background. Right. That the definition of your character is different. It was very interesting to think about this, and I love the way Ethan picks apart game game aspects, and this is definitely a good read.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And I have one last plug that I forgot to make, which is I've been playing this Ooh, Clank.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, so this is the Direwolf board game that's the sequel to the first part. It is an incredible game that is like Clank, if you know that game of trying to explore before the dragon comes, but also fully steeped in Acquisitions Incorporated and developing your franchise, this time around one that Jim Darkmagic is heading up.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
uh and then with lots of store and laughter like it's amazing my family's playing through it we just did like the first two missions the amount of laughing we do is incredible it really is so i so far highly uh recommend this as an awesome thing this was my gift for the family and uh it's been really great awesome awesome so that is our news and commentary segment
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
It's amazing what a huge year 2024 was like if all it had been was just post OGL. I think we could talk about that forever. But I mean, the DMG and the players handbook coming out with this revised 5e edition. And even that wasn't just that it was like. You had people saying like, oh, look at how low the book scan sales are.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And then you had other people saying, I can tell you for sure we have just reprinted more books than we ever could have imagined. Like the sales are through the roof, which shows you that things are changing, right? How the game is sold, where it's sold, how you can track it is now quite a confusing picture.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
even though one has to believe and i've we've you and i have talked to enough people behind the scenes that there are truly some big sales out there but you can't kind of track them in the traditional ways um and i don't know the dnd movie yeah the dnd movie i i think back about how important a dnd movie a good dnd movie was to players since
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. Amen. I mean, and again, this is one of these things, if the only thing that had happened this year was the D&D movie, that would be amazing, right? Like any other company would say, we're done here. This is all we ever need to talk about. And we'll talk about it all year long. And in fact, the D&D movie was a thing I remembered to put on this list as I was like coming up to record today.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I'm like, oh man, we didn't put the movie on here because so many things happened. Right. And part of it was the 50th anniversary. Yeah. And the release of, Really, there are a lot of shadows in between those bright lights.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And the 50th anniversary brought a Lego set right that I have over one of my shoulders, the US and UK stamps, which I think are the new high watermark, the new the new D&D baloney Converse shoes at really reasonable prices that you could customize. We've sadly, Sean, missed out on Pop-Tarts, but we I mean, the list of impressive things that have D&D brands is tremendous.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. Incredible. And we had these bright moments then, you know, while it wasn't 2023 in terms of the OGL and the Pinkertons, we still had things like the D&D layoffs, right, that came off of the Hasbro side where Hasbro was struggling mightily with its D&D, with its toy side. And that impacts D&D because you have to apply these layoffs across the company to
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
prove that your stock price should be higher or something. You know, capitalism is tough to explain. We had the D&D 2024 players handbook gathering all the steam around influencers want to talk about it and the company saying, hey, influencers make videos about it and then, oh, wait, but not that way.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And you've got to take down these videos because D&D is so big that it gets treated differently even by the influencers. So you had people who were producing scan capable, full page walkthroughs of the product, you know, and that's just something that other games don't have to cope with in the same way. And so then it was, you know, take down videos or blur them. No, wait, they're OK.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And, you know, a whole working through what its influencer policy had to be as a company, which was tough. Revenue wise, we were able to figure out D&D's revenue. And at least surprisingly, what I thought was not actually the numbers. Well, first, I was surprised the numbers actually resemble about what we had kind of estimated before.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But the surprise to me was that actually a lot of the other stuff like Baldur's Gate 3 or Monopoly Go, when you move away the billions, the reported and you go to the piece that Hasbro gets to keep. D&D actually holds up pretty well to that. That other stuff's more exciting and you can arguably leverage it with less investment and so on sometimes. But D&D...
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
is like those things in many ways without the giant numbers to throw around. But profit wise, pretty, pretty ballpark in that area. So I thought that was really interesting. And you can see, you know, our Q3 or Q2 shows where we break down that revenue, which I thought was kind of fun. We did see signs of D&D slowing.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
financially and it wasn't just dnd it was the hobby overall it was kickstarter drive through everything shows a post-pandemic slump but as you and i covered if you go back and look just a few years you know look at the pre-pandemic times we are way higher and kind of blindingly higher than You know, 10 years ago. Right. So so, yes, it's a slowdown.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But as we said, you know, it's not like the golden age has ended by any means. We're still in an incredible golden era compared to even just a few years ago. And it's only the pandemic that makes you feel like you're down figuratively and literally.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Happy New Year, almost. Happy New Year to listeners.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And in both the Kyle and Cynthia situations were awkward for the company, right? Like Cynthia left clearly unexpectedly. There was no transition game plan, nothing the company could possibly announce in a good way.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And while John Hype, by all accounts, seems to be a great hire and has and people internally speak highly of him, it was an unexpected transition that had to come in and maybe is somewhat related to Kyle leaving And how that was also handled very awkwardly, right? We were actually the ones who had to break the story by reaching out to contacts and saying, hey, we want to talk about this.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
It's becoming kind of obvious to us. Can you give us the go ahead to share this? And eventually Wizards say, yeah, we can confirm this and you can share it. So we tried to kind of follow our due diligence. And, you know, you and I know we try not to be journalists because that is not our true calling at all. But we at least tried to follow some process in that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But it was an awkward situation that shows the team kind of struggling at times in what should be and in many way was a great year. Right.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
In days even, I do, I recall during play that our high level adventures, and this could possibly be when I'm playing like a really, like 23rd level or something like that, but I remember we, um, We needed like I'd say more than a day and a half.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. And on the organized play side, you know, Ventures League has been declining in company emphasis, emphasis and company support. A lot of it sort of farmed out. We hear everywhere people saying, you know, what's up with this? And while we hear some exciting things like the upcoming Greyhawk organized play campaign, it still is yet to be seen what 2025 will look like.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Will it continue to be this thing that's at arm's length from Wizards, or will Wizards take an active hand in it? But I'm getting ahead of myself and looking to 2025. For 2024, we can simply say, hell, this was the year it was very clearly declining in interest and support and all of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And their approach was not to say, hey, you know, we've made a change to this digital product. Here's what the changes are. Right. Errata seems to be gone as a thing that they track. Oh, hey, look, there's extra art in the digital version, but we're not even going to bother talking about it. And apparently it's done for the map side of things and just
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
shows that there is this sort of splintering in emphasis at times tied to the different pillars, D&D Beyond or VTT or traditional. And you saw also reports internally of Dan Rawson talking about kind of wanting to get rid of paper, perhaps, was sort of the headline level. But then Jess Lanzillo saying, no, paper is critical to us. And I just got back from being at the printers.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I want to say like like it was it was weird how long it could take you when you were totally drained, especially if you did things like pilot a spell jammer, which back then required eating up all your spell slots when you sat on it. That was wild.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And we're not moving away from this anytime soon. We'll go wherever fans want us to go. And on the distribution side, clearly there's this emphasis on selling on D&D Beyond, and that's no surprise given the difference in what you make from selling at a store, at a Target, at a Amazon versus what you get when you sell your own product on your own digital storefront.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But the distribution ending with Random House with no other plan which you know what i hear internally is there had been a call for a plan but no plan seems to have appeared yet um jess lenzillo said that she would that there is an effort to bring the core books back into like target and walmart but as of this time they're not there yet
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And so this emphasis on D&D Beyond came with growing pains, even if it might create revenue in some places. And it's a thing to watch, I think.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. We saw Roll20 by Demiplane. Roll20 clearly trying to kind of shore up its ability to say, look, we're robust. We've got things going on. We've got a lot of energy on our end as the current biggest virtual tabletop out there. Other virtual tabletops did things as well to try to shore themselves up thinking the same thing. We saw third parties.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
begin to unleash the what they began in 2023, where the OGL became the energy and then kind of final impetus, the burst of energy to say, OK, we're doing this thing that we've been wanting to do. Right. So we heard MCDM and Cold Press both say we had long wanted to make our own game. Well, here we go. Draw steel from MCDM will be coming out. And that is not a D&D game.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
If anything, it resembles fourth edition, right? But it's not a 5E game. Cobalt Press released the Tales of the Valiant, which is a 5E offshoot, a strong Kickstarter success. And we saw games like Daggerheart and others that, you know, may be significant over time. So that'll be interesting to see kind of how that comes out.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
He's amazing to talk to. I love his creativity and the things he was able to confirm about the OGL, which he only scrapped the surface of. But, you know, him going back and confirming that in fourth edition, the OGL was, you know, this close to going through the same process we saw in 2023 was an interesting piece of the history puzzle.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And he was amazing. Right. And he had some really great comments about stewardship of the game and how it isn't, you know, just wizards and it's all of us. And that part alone was just absolute gold worth going back and checking out if you missed it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, and you know, even this week, I got two messages to our YouTube channel asking why we hated it so much. I don't know how to keep writing. We didn't.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I would argue that Shadow Dark is special in its connection to fans, right? Like there was one of the comments that we got this week was or may have been last week, but it was about that from those old series of videos was saying there is no ambiguity in how Shadow Dark is written. I don't know what's not.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
It wasn't this angry, but it was sort of like, you know, I don't know what's wrong with you guys. The rules are incredibly clear. And it was just so interesting to hear it. But when we talked about Daggerheart, you know, which is from Critical Role fandom, Nobody had those kinds of comments.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So there's something special about Shadow Dark and that link to the audience and what the audience wants from it that became very personal. And when we analyzed it, it really came off as criticism in a way that our analysis of Blade Runner or Daggerheart or other games did not come across. Or 5ED&D. Yeah, because we talked about the Planescape adventure and nobody said, you know, how dare you?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
It was really interesting. Yeah. And sorry to anybody because, you know, and we are, you know, we're not just trying to say like, you know, we're sorry that you felt that way. Right. That's not what I'm saying. We have thought a lot about how to come across better.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And so we're trying to be more cautionary in our explanation of here's what we're trying to do analytically and to explain like we really did like Shadow Dark a lot. We both played it a number of times. But yeah.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
wow and it just it was a great year i mean i for us as a podcast uh our biggest year for sure uh the discord was a wonderful place to be with everybody was amazing uh interacting it was really healthy we learned a ton from from our community um
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And it was really fun to, you know, because if you think it's not been long that we've been on YouTube or that we left the original network that we're on as a podcast or really started a Patreon that was our Patreon. So this is all still really new. And to see it start to grow is great. And we're really thankful of that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And it's something that we're actively kind of looking at, like, wow, how do we keep this being as good as 2024 has been?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And oh, yeah, I just I think I was going to say the same thing, usually, which is all right. Like, you know, looking back on 2024 a little bit from our perspective, you know, Sean, do you have any favorite like like what was your favorite D&D product or other RPG product or thing that you worked on or RPG played?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
A number of things. So book-wise, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing at The World, which was actually sent to me by a Discord member, thank you, who had ordered two by mistake and was kind enough to share that extra love with me. This was just great. I didn't think I would love it as much as I would, but I really did. We mentioned Graham Ward, The Last Caravan came in.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
That's a really fun game. I really like everything the One Ring is doing. And I have a video that came out today on talking about D&D's exploration pillar in the DMG and particularly the travel segment of it. And then tomorrow there will be a video talking about the One Ring system, kind of continuing that thought process over.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I'm still digesting the combat system, the exploration system, the diplomacy type system that they have there. It's really, really extremely good. And if I had to pick one book that I thought was like, oh, that's different this year, it would be this guy.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And I know I've been talking to my friends about this a lot, but the monster overhaul, which was shared on the discord, it was either Andy Demps or Graham Ward or somebody like that brought it up. Thank you, because I picked it up at Gamehole. And I've been just loving the creativity behind it and how it tackles monsters is really awesome.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And I could, you know, maybe you and I will do a whole show on it at some point because it just is so fun that I know we keep thinking about about what it does. D&D wise, for me, the product that captured the imagination, my imagination as a designer was the DMG itself.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
um because i think it did do it is a much better version than 2014 whereas the player's handbook i go back and forth and how about i how i feel about that new core book um there are things about it the capitalization alone that gets under my skin a bit uh there are things i like but you know weapon mastery there's a lot of give and take and how i feel about the player's handbook but the dmg while i can ask for more because of course
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Overall, I think it's a very purposeful, smartly done book. And I like a lot of what's being done there. And so I found myself making, you know, initially I didn't think I was going to make a single video about it because I was a little tired about the Blurgate type influencer stuff that had happened.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But as I began thinking about the book, I found myself wanting to talk about it because it's cool and it's useful. So I think that's probably my pick for the product of the year on the D&D side. Convention-wise, Gamehole really blew me away. That was awesome. I continue to be enamored by Free League products. It's not that they're perfect.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Um, but I have had so much fun playing, you know, Coriolis and alien and any number of, of games of theirs this year. I feel like I'm buying all of it. Uh, one ring, uh, it was just it, whether they take a game and add to it or it's their own game. Uh, and then I, you know, a friend lends me forbidden lands and I'm like, wow, that looks really neat too. And it just goes on and on.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So, so they're a company that I'm always looking at. Um, though I'm excited for things that are coming from other companies as well.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I think there is little doubt in my mind that D&D began to finally slow. The way all role-playing games always have in history, 2014 5e D&D somehow managed to not slow and instead grow. in the kind of only game that's ever done that ever in our hobby. And then it eventually became real and started to slow down as it had reached most people that were going to buy it.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And the question is, does this new edition you know, the 2024 version, does that, not addition, but, you know, version, does this new version, does that re-energize everything? And can it magically take us back to that hallowed land of increasing growth, perhaps bolstered by stranger things and other things like that? Or, will we get back to this decline?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And I don't think it'll cause anything to specifically happen this year for D&D, but this is the year when you would try to do that. You'd try to get the curve to keep going up
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
i want to say keep saying this word magically because literally nobody knows how you do that right like even the the 5e team isn't entirely sure how that 2014 managed to do that um yeah that's my biggest i don't know what do you think no i i agree i think you know we can try to give reasons for that continuing growth
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Maybe. Right. I mean, it had begun to go up even before the pandemic, which is, you know, like my girls has talked about, right? Like they expected, OK, year one sales were solid, good year two sales. Wait, higher. Right. And then the pandemic after that. So perhaps that artificially, like you're saying,
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, it's interesting to hear that Brooklyn TV's show that we talked about in the news segment, or the Brooklyn store we talked about in the news segment, how they are primarily bringing in new players. And when I run games at PAX, organizing the D&D presence at PAX or Emerald City Comic Con, it's primarily new players too.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So I know there are just droves, countless, I don't know, there are a magical number of people out there who want to actually touch D&D who haven't yet. And if we can get to them, well, that's your growth right there, right? That whole percentage of the number of people who are young that are playing our game, if you can keep accessing those young players, there is that possibility to drive growth
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But there is also the importance of the established base. The established base is always important and avoiding missteps is always big. And so can Wizards do that this year? Can they avoid those missteps? Can they please the existing fans to act as that sort of fuel that shepherds community that, you know, turns things, keeps things positive.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So when you're a new player that enters an online space, a community or whatever, you feel like you're joining a cool club, not a bunch of old, tired people who hate everything.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
One part, you know, 2014 of the many reasons that made the 2014 5E version so good was the fact that the books were great. The game was really, really good. It's hard to argue. And the release cycle was slow. And the release cycle was slow. Yeah, yeah, that's totally for sure. And I think that's critical.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But just the books being good, we will now this year in 2025 get the final core book, The Monster Manual. And we've seen new encounter rules. We've seen...
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
new approaches to creating the to tweaking the gameplay to increasing the power of characters now the monsters are going to come in that are apparently stronger and the encounter rules are tougher will all of that come together to make a really fun 2025 edition or will we hit issues and it's easy to dismiss that but you know Various editions of D&D have had problems.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Once you really start playing it and you start going up in levels and you start playing through the adventures, you find that there's some friction there that gums up the works, right? Whether it's too many actions in the action economy or it's the monsters are too hard or too easy. A lot of that comes together only once you can get all these three books.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
So I'm very curious how solid the rules really be. I think that plays a part in it. Yeah. On top of the other releases that we will see and whether that can energize people, because I feel like that and it's not unusual that when you have a new edition or version coming out in 2024, your other releases seem a little flat.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But Vecna is a product that in theory could have been really, really exciting. And didn't play out that way, at least at the level of the community that we see. And so I'm curious whether their upcoming products will see an audience response that's very positive.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. And it's got a different approach. It's focusing on specific regions. So we'll have to see how well that that works for people.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I had a funny thought last night as I was drifting off to sleep of, I wonder if there's been a situation already where a D&D designer pulls up D&D Beyond to look something up and goes, wait, is this the wording we're using? Oh, wait, no, that's a third party product that I just found in my search. How do I filter off this stuff that other people wrote?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Like, I just imagine that scenario because I bet if it isn't something that's happened already and it probably has, but if it hasn't, it's going to happen where at some point somebody on the team goes, what?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
is this the wording we use no it's not you know um and and but of course like as you said dms and players deal with that right we already had issues where like you know someone makes an uh an eberron you know mark as a feat and any number of things like that but it gets more and more to where you just you know what's going to show up at my table with all this integration um and will they allow smaller companies or just anybody to publish or will it only be the biggest partners
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
I could argue both ways, you know, but they either has impacts and. And so it'll be very interesting to see how that evolves in 2025. Yep.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, there was a fun conversation in our Discord, too, about what is magic and how do you represent it and what kind of storytelling you can do.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, there was a 2024 video that almost seemed like it was positioning the virtual tabletop as sort of the, you know, the steam of role playing games. And now it looks like maybe they've backed off from that approach. So maybe it's more D&D focused, at least initially.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
But how big those dreams are and how well all these features end up actually pleasing people, there's no question it's gorgeous looking. But is it really fun to play in that space? We're just in that early beta phase starting up as we hear people start to get beta invites. It'll be interesting to see what people report.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And so we've had various explanations over the years for Dungeons & Dragons, but the sort of prevalent Forgotten Realms one is this idea of the weave, and you're pulling it in sort of mystical strands, and by learning magic, you learn sort of how to pull on these strands and turn it into a spell like Comprehend Languages or whatever it might be, rather than it being...
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, I mean, BG4 perhaps being created in-house or by some other partner because Larian is not doing it. The Exodus video game is supposed to come out in 2026, but it has an RPG and clearly something that... The company is trying to create an IP around, so maybe that is something we see glimpses of this year.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Maybe there's a D&D game that comes sooner than that, but at least if there is, we haven't quite heard about that. But maybe they start talking about those other video game plans to get people excited and get investors excited. Whether... We get these bumps from the new edition, new version itself, from Stranger Things, from some other area that maybe translates into financial benefits.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
How Hasbro's overall finances impact D&D? Are the layoffs behind them, right? Can we get back to a more normal way of operating it? It's hard to know. These are all open questions that will be fascinating to watch in 2025.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah, there's always this question of whether everything must be D&D centric as sort of the core that has all of the numbers, all the revenue, all the growth, right? Like if you're a creator, do you feel like you can create for other programs and really be financially in a good place, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Right now, fifth edition is the obvious place, but for some small creator to launch a Kickstarter or a crowdfund of some sort.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
and whether that changes right would be interesting right could you see a situation where you know kobold press writes for dagger heart or for draw steel right or for a freely game you know or is it like no it's our game and it's fifth edition and that's it and is every company doing that that that'll be interesting um to to not just this year of 2025 but beyond that to see how it goes um but but i'm really very curious about how
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
that third party feel where we will be, because we've certainly shifted in 2023 and 2024 as to how companies are working with wizards. Always a question for me is, can wizards change how it works with third parties?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
It has long functioned as a sort of ivory tower better than thou, even when they mean well, like they kind of almost can't help but collectively coming off as, you know, we are the big brother, big sister. Let me show you, you know, what you can do for me versus a true partnership and a caring relationship. Right. Could that change in some way?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
for some other reason, right, it's not unlocking a set of runes or a pattern that you learned in a book. And now and now you can cast it whenever or or or that it uses up your life essence or some other thing like that. Right. There are various ways it could be, but it isn't. And I think
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
We know how tech companies are behaving. And so, you know, one just looks at the platforms one uses and wonders which one's next to do something completely absurd, right? At what point does Discord want its money? At what point does Patreon want even greater gains? And they all start changing the way that they do business and that forces creators to all do something completely different.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
We've seen a number of shifts in 2024 and I'm sure we'll see more in 25 and all of that sends everybody scrambling and make things different, right? Difficult. If YouTube changes its policies drastically, it could all go sideways or If it did something to say boost positive content and get rid of rage inducing algorithms, boy, that would be a complete sea change for our hobby, right?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Or even if the community itself said, you know, that's enough of this wild speculation and negativity. Stop. I'm not going to click on a thing that has a shock face on it anymore. You know how that could transform things if people were to lead it to, which is always possible.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
When I look at this question, what I think of is the D&D, as usual, is flexible enough to please most people in most of the time. So it works pretty well, which is why you see it pretty much emulated by other RPGs as well. It's surprising how close it is. It tweaks it, but it's still kind of that kind of slot like system. Or something similar. And very seldom is it just, you know, free form.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Keith Amon of The Monsters Know What They're Doing.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
William Harshman of Runeforge Tabletop Gaming.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Paul Mata. The Mathemagician. Eric Mengi. Anna B. Meyer of Fantasy Cartography.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Tres. Joe Tyler. Marcelo de Velasquez, the Valiant DM. James Walton.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Ooh, find me at AlphaStream.org. From there, you can get to my videos, which I've been doing a lot of on the DMG, including these two part series on exploration. Where do we find you, Sean?
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Uh, I'm going to finish clank, uh, legacy, uh, or at least get as far as I can before my kids go back to college. That's my plan.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Tell me what you do with your magic. Right. As you might see more in some movies and media like that. And I think the reason is that there's this conflicting desire between magic is a thing you do the way a barbarian does a thing. Or somebody else does a thing, right? And so it can't be so world shaking and freeform because nobody else in the party gets to do that either.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Or we'd have to all do weird freeform things, including the barbarian. And what you know, and we don't quite know how to handle that. So there's partly that. And also that because magic is supposed to be like, well, a lot of the game is combat. So it's the way you fight.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
It needs to kind of slip into that and then be utility things every now and then, just like the rogue and the barbarian do utility things every now and then. So it's trying to confine itself while being evocative and interesting and all these things. It's trying to do all that.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
And it actually kind of does it fairly surprisingly well, like when you really think of it like it's not bad, you know, we can cast our powerful spell and feel good about it. But now the next person gets to go.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. As foretold by prophecy, if Mastering Dungeons records its 222nd and 111th episodes simultaneously, car-sized drones will attack New Jersey.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. And if you did something more freeform, you'd probably have to have such a nebulous set and confined set of results that you, you know, you're still it's still a system that would try to and what do you call it? Like, like, like confine its its abilities. Right. You can't just say, like, what would you like to do with my magic? Well, I will shatter my enemies every time.
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Yeah. And we'll talk a little bit about this as well when we review Ethan Yen's blog post on skills. But there are a lot of systems that try to do this. The Cypher system from Monty Cook Games and all their kind of offshoot games tried to do this. The Free League games often tried to do this where they try to say they try to handle this right by saying,
Mastering Dungeons
Looking Back on 2024, Forward to 2025! (MD 222)
Everybody who tries to do this must hit this particular DC. And in the free league games, it's often, oh, you're rolling a D6. You've got to hit a four or something similar like that. So there's sort of a universal everything is hard level four almost always. And if not, the DM will announce it because it's strangely hard. Right. And and Savage Worlds is also like this as well.