Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
319 | DMG 2024 Preview, New Dragonbane Campaign, D&D Movie Finds New Life on Streaming, and more!
Sun, 13 Oct 2024
This week, Morrus, PJ, and Jessica talk about all the week’s tabletop RPG news including more previews from the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, Path of Glory campaign for Dragonbane, Dungeons & Dragons movie gets second life on streaming, and more! -------------------- News [2:36] Ghostbusters Live RPG event to raise funds for charity https://www.enworld.org/threads/ghostbusters-live-rpg-event-to-raise-funds-for-charity.707261/ [6:15] Free League releases Path of Glory campaign for Dragonbane https://www.enworld.org/threads/free-league-to-release-path-of-glory-for-dragonbane.707213/ [12:24] Alien 2nd Edition crowdfunding campaign delayed, will now include Alien Romulus material and incorporate fan feedback https://www.enworld.org/threads/new-edition-of-alien-rpg-includes-romulus-material-but-kickstarter-delayed-to-2025.707246/ [15:19] Monsters, Horrors, and Abominations on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/periaptgames/monsters-horrors-and-abominations [16:24] Chaosium launches Companions of Arthur community content program for Pendragon 6th Edition https://www.enworld.org/threads/chaosium-launches-pendragon-community-content-program.707257/ [19:50] Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves gets new life on Netflix https://screenrant.com/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-among-thieves-movie-netflix-top-10/ [22:45] Ars Magica Open License https://atlas-games.com/arsmagica/openars [25:50] New details about the Universal Studios Dungeons & Dragons attraction https://www.enworld.org/threads/universal-studios-hollywood-releases-new-details-about-dungeons-dragons-universal-fan-fest-nights.707229/ [27:56] Expanse Transport Union Edition on Backerkit https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/green-ronin-publishing/the-expanse-roleplaying-game-transport-union-edition [28:37] Mists of Akuma 5e+ Eastern Fantasy Noir Steampunk on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/verantheacodex/mists-of-akuma-5e-eastern-fantasy-noir-steampunk-bonanza [31:01] Triumph of the Tusk Player’s Guide for Pathfinder 2nd Edition https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6wmp2 [32:04] Magnus Archives RPG https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/the-magnus-archives-roleplaying-game/ [34:16] DM’s Toolbox in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-new-dm-tools-in-the-new-dungeon-masters-guide.707247/ [59:17] Crafting Magic Items in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide https://www.enworld.org/threads/magic-items-crafting-in-the-new-dungeon-masters-guide.707208/ -------------------- Please support us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/morrus Don’t forget to join the Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1033145023517295/ and join us on Discord at https://discord.gg/VAuxX8M Ask your Listener Question on Twitter, email [email protected], or contact us on TikTok at TikTok -------------------- Hosts: Russ “Morrus” Morrissey, PJ Coffey, and Jessica Hancock Editing and post-production: Darryl Mott Theme Song: Steve Arnott Malach the Maleficent played by Darren Morrissey Check out all the media content from EN World at http://enliverpg.com
I'm Craig Campbell from Nerdburger Games, and you are listening to Morse's Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk.
This week, Morse, PJ, and Jessica talk about all the week's tabletop RPG news, including more previews from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, Path of Glory is coming back to Dragonbane, the Dungeons & Dragons movie gets a second life on streaming, and more, this week on Morse's Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk.
For some reason, Gentry's Marvelous Exotic Zoo has seen fit to sponsor this podcast. Gentry Zoo claims to have the most dangerous collection of dinosaurs, aberrations, oozes, demons, devils, vermin, monsters, magical creatures, animated constructs, automatons, elementals, and Cthulhus. Enter at your own risk.
The estimated survival chance is approximately 50%, and that sounds very reasonable to me. Maybe I can pick up a new familiar.
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ aka Morris or Morris aka Russ.
And with me this week is... PJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers.
Right. As ever. It is a delight to be here. Joining us also, a mysterious figure. Some say that she's a remnant of 18th century French nobility. Others, that she's secretly a pretty, pretty princess pony. All I know is that's one hell of a cutie mark. It's the one! It's Siri!
It's me, Jessica from EN Publishing. What an intro. What?
I feel like when I was out of the room, I missed part of a conversation or something because I have no idea what happened.
I think that is a reference to, because I'm very attractive, I have a pimple patch on my face.
Oh, I see.
And it's a little hot.
A beauty spot.
So it could be like a beauty spot of the French aristocracy. Or I could be in My Little Pony with it.
i saw it i didn't want to mention it i just assumed you had leprosy so i don't i just had just a spot anyway as if about our personal appearance we talk about the tabletop rpg news which is what the listeners came to hear okay let's do that okay what should we start with shall we start with ghostbusters oh yeah i don't know about the ghostbusters it seems wrong not to to be honest tell me about ghostbusters what's going with ghostbusters
Well, you know that the 1986 Ghostbusters RPG is probably my favourite RPG.
I do. The awfully cheerful engine is based on it and it has a foreword from the creator.
It is a game that I consider the most perfect example of synergy between topic, tone and mechanics. It's absolutely perfect in that respect. Anyway, anyway, anyway. There's a gaming podcast that does sort of paranormal and spooky gaming stuff.
Cool.
Called Bob After Dark. Bob After Dark. Yes. I see. And for Extra Life, which is the children's charity, children's hospitals, specifically Children's Miracle Network hospitals in this case, Bob of the Dark will be playing the Ghostbusters RPG live. Oh. At Chicago's Sony Wonderverse, which I had to Google to find out what that is.
I think it's like a cinema slash events venue where they do things like themed food related to the thing. And they sort of do experiences as I understand it.
So they're doing an actual play on stage, it sounds like. Yes, I believe so. I believe it's on stage. Will it be streamed, Russ? That's the question.
It will be streamed on their Twitch channel.
Oh, so you can watch on Twitch or attend in person.
Yeah. So Sony Wonderverse hosts these things called Taste Sip Experience themed events. And this is one of them. And it includes dinner and drinks and various activities and stuff.
Oh, nice. So if you're local, that could be, yeah.
Yeah, and the people who are going to be in it come from various Ghostbusters cosplay groups around the US.
So they're going to be dressed to impress.
Yeah, so someone from Windy City Ghostbusters, Circle City Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters Virginia, South Carolina Ghostbusters. I'm going to read the whole list. But there's a whole bunch of people who I assume could be playing in cosplay. One would hope so, given the fact that they're cosplayers.
I mean, yeah, I imagine that's what it is.
You'd be disappointed if they didn't, wouldn't you?
Yeah.
If you've got the kit already, it seems a shame not to. Yeah, yeah. Although sitting on a chair with a proton pack on your back could be awkward. I imagine it might take it. Possibly.
And a stick in the boiler soon.
Yeah, possibly. But yeah, so this is happening on Saturday, October 19th. Chicago's Sony Wonderverse raising money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.
Oh, that's nice. It's a nice cause. But yeah, that's nice. And if people aren't in Chicago, you can watch online and you can donate online as well. So if you're not, if you can't attend the event, but think, hey, that's a groovy cause, I'm down for that.
Yeah.
That's all linked on the end world.
Generally, my experience when they're streaming these things, they like to throw in the opportunity that you can throw in a bit of extra cash in order to have something hilarious happen. I've seen them once they do that, yeah.
I don't know if they're doing that specifically, but...
It's a good idea. Yeah, you can do things like, oh, you can pay to give them advantage on a roll or a re-roll on something as well.
Well, Ghostbusters has the ghost die. So if you roll the ghost on the ghost die, something bad happens. It'd be fun if maybe they got the audience to choose that or something. I don't know.
Yeah, maybe. Well, we shall see on October 19th. Perfect for a spooky season.
Next. Who would like to go next? Who else has some news?
I have news.
Okay.
So this week, Free League announced they're resurrecting the classic Path of Glory campaign for Dragonbane. So this originally was like a three-part trilogy campaign and the original Swedish version of Dragonbane, which I will not say the Swedish version of the name because I will do it wrong. And it's like, it's on, okay, I'll give it a go. It's Drakorokdemona. The accent's completely wrong.
Oh, Drakons and Demons.
We've just lost our entire Swedish listener base.
I'm really sorry. I know it's bad. I apologize. But anyway, so originally... This campaign was in 1985 and 1986, and it was like a three-part thing. It's been upgraded for the current edition of Dragonbane, which is out, and it's been condensed kind of into one book. So Free League have worked on it, and the original author, Roger Underhagen, they've been involved as well.
And it's being released on November 12th. But my press preview copy arrived literally yesterday. So I haven't read the whole thing cover to cover because it arrived yesterday evening.
Yes.
But I have flicked through and read it and I have some thoughts and opinions I'd like to share with you if you're interested.
Go for it. Yeah.
So first of all, it's very pretty because it's freely. So it has some gorgeous maps and images. I'm going to check with the Press Embargo if I can share these images on the Eon World site maybe. Just take some pictures of it if people want to see. But yeah, it's very pretty as you would expect. It's got some nice maps and cartography and words.
But the main thing I like about it is at the beginning, it gives you an introduction is really nice and short. So it has like the history of the area. So you know roughly what's going on is across just two pages, which is great. Now, obviously, there's more lore and information you can get from other places if you're interested.
But this is like this is what you need to know, which is great for me because as a GM, I don't want to sit down and do loads of homework. But it gives in two pages. This is roughly what's going on. It also gives a two page overview of the whole adventure, like generally what's going to be happening, the key points and the epilogue.
So you know the entire arc across two pages, which I also really like having the summary. And then each of the sections is in three sections. It's laid out really nicely at the beginning. It has a one-page summary of the section, which you can't see because I've got my camera blurred.
but it does and it has a really small chart which has all the information with questions and answers because it's kind of like an exploration so they're going into an area and exploring bits and pieces and those are different people they can get information from NPCs or from items or from stuff
and for each of the things they're like it has the question like what are the three i'll tell you the three keys anyway what the three keys and there's an answer of what they are and then it says who knows and it has links to all the people in the page numbers of where they are so as a gym it just tells you all the different ways you can see that information and because it's an exploration they can kind of go anywhere in any order and it's just really it feels really nice to prep and it also comes with some handouts of a big foldy map which is gorgeous
In full colour.
In full colour. And online they have for free all the digital downloads for your virtual tabletops and all the stuff like that. But just as a new BGM, it just feels very friendly laid out, really accessible. And I also really like that in the adventure when you come across the NPC, again, you can't see it because I've got my camera blurred.
It has the stats and the things in that section of the book so I don't have to flick back and forth. to a bestiary section. But yeah, overall, this looks like a really nicely structured campaign. It looks quite accessible for newbie GMs like me. It works the ways I like to run games. The actual contents of it, I haven't read it through thoroughly, so I can't speak to the adventure.
But yeah, it looks really nice in the sense that players are given an area to explore and they can kind of just go off and do what they like, which is quite nice. But it gives the GM all the tools to kind of manage that and know what you're doing. So it looks really nice.
So it's got kind of a sandbox vibe to it.
Yeah, I mean, there is definitely a structure of what's going on and what they're trying to do, but I think it would feel a bit sandboxy to the player because it's like, here's this whole area, what are you going to do? And it looks like there's lots of different ways to get the bits of information, so it won't feel railroad-y. So yeah, so it looks really nice to me.
So the Dragonbane Path of Glory. So it's coming out on November 12th. And digital versions you can pre-order on the Free League website. But it looks like a really nice adventure path. I've not played Dragonbane myself. I've got it and it's on my list to play. But I'm actually quite tempted to use this adventure path to play it with because it looks really, really friendly to run.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's very much coming across really strongly to me. It does sound very friendly. Dragonbane itself is. I only played it, but it was pretty simple. No particular hard things. It's like a roll under a D20 versus a stat. So, you know, kind of ridiculous-esque. But no, this sounds like a really, this is the sort of standard of adventure which I would look to pick up.
Yeah.
Because if I, you know, I'm not a newbie at GM by any means, but I am very lazy. And like, if I am running a pre-written, I don't want to be working Yeah. Like, you know, like that's why I'm wearing a pre-written. If I wanted to work, I felt invested in working hard. I would literally do it myself. I have all the tools.
Yes.
Yeah.
But sometimes you just want to run an adventure and have some fun. And it sounds great for that. So amazing.
So this is my initial thoughts on it. I'm going to read through proper because I'm actually quite interested. And if I'm allowed to, I'll share some pictures on EN World as well. But I'll just have to check if there's not an embargo where I'm allowed to. I think I can, but I'll check. And when I can, I will. So if people are interested.
Have you agreed to an embargo? If you haven't, there's no embargo.
That is true. But if there was, maybe there's an email sent to me where they said, hey, we're sending you this. Can you not talk about it till then? Not that I agreed, but generally if people send me stuff and they ask me to not say until X date, I try to do that. Because then they'll keep sending me more books.
Yeah. This girl has her eye on the Book to Journalist pipeline.
Yeah.
Talking of Free League, sticking with Free League, there's another great game that they produce. They produce, as we all know, the Alien RPG.
Yes.
And there's a second edition coming.
Yeah, I think we mentioned that previously.
We have mentioned it a couple of times.
But it's been delayed, is that correct?
Yeah, so originally it was going to be hitting Kickstarter this fall. But they have delayed it now until spring 2025. Okay. They say it's because, I mean, there's like 10,000 followers waiting for it. Yeah. There's like loads and loads of people waiting for this. It was going to be a big one. Yeah. It's not popped off yet, but...
yeah they say that since they announced it back at Gen Con in August yes they've had so much feedback and ideas and you know people saying how they'd like the second edition to sort of change from the first edition from fans yeah yeah that they and they want to bring so many of those ideas to the table that they've decided to delay it until 2025 so that they can incorporate you know a whole bunch of that feedback they've been getting oh that's great which I think is kind of cool
I think that's a really good idea.
Yeah. It's not like people have seen the second edition. They played the first edition and they said, oh, it would be really good if you did this in the second edition.
While you're there.
Yeah.
And that's exactly what second edition should be.
Like taking advantage of the feedback and make it really good.
And the other thing they're doing with it is they're going to be including content based on the recent Alien Romulus movie. So there's going to be information about the mining colony Jackson Star.
Yep.
And new weapons like the F-44 AA pulse rifle. And ships like the USCSS Corbellan IV mining hauler. Things like that. So it's going to have alien Romulus stuff in it.
Right. Well, that does sound like one for the fans of the franchise.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I've had a bit of experience with that. Played a Star Trek game, which was using it to help us have some parasites around. So that was very cool. Did enjoy that. Yeah. All the trauma dice in action. Yeah. Oh, that's free legal, yeah.
I am keen to play this Alien RPG. I have the starter box set, which is on my list to run, but I have not done it yet.
There's a new starter box set coming with the new edition.
I know. I haven't played the first one yet. It's been on my list of things to run for, like, a couple of years. I have a pile, a shelf of shame behind me, which has four box sets that I have not run yet that is on my list to do, and I'm putting it there to try and shame myself to do that.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Yes. More news. I have a little bit of news. Okay. It is called Monsters, Horrors and Abomination.
Is that just a description of this podcast?
Hey! And which of us is which? Who's the monster? Who's the horror? And who's the abomination?
Well, that's for the listeners to decide.
Tips on horror. What this is, is Ben Minnett from Periapt Games, who did the Life Path character creation for 5th edition characters, based over in New Zealand, has launched a whole bestiary. 210 pages. Pollock Warriors, Singing Parasites, Primeval Lizard Gods, and something called Rule Eaters. Unsettling Monsters for D&D 5E is the description. So that hasn't launched yet.
So if you want to be notified... then you can join in the queue for notification. I saw it and I was like, oh, that's quite good.
Cool, cool, cool. Yeah.
All right.
What else have we got? Tumbleweed. Tumbleweed. It is a quiet week. It is quite a week. Chaosium? Yeah. There's more. Chaosium has launched a community content program for Pendragon. So community content programs are those things on DriveThruRPG. DMs Guild is the
big one yeah with a business of the coast but lots of other publishers have them as well yeah and they're all under different names but basically they're all the same thing basically you can create stuff for a company's games the company takes 50 of the um revenue and you're kind of free to use their ip that's kind of how those things work they've never been a fool they're not your adventure
Yeah, they're not all exactly the same as each other, but that's basically the idea. So Chaosium has launched one. They're calling it the Champions of Arthur. There's already 15 third-party titles available on it. Oh, wow. Okay. And yeah, so if you want to write and sell stuff for Pendragon 6th edition, it's got to be 6th edition. You can't write for previous editions on it. You can do so. Nice.
It's quite cool. It's got a few restrictions. So only 6th edition. You cannot put any non-Arthurian material on it. So no alternate settings or other mythologies in the rules or anything like that. So it's got to be Arthurian. Cannot use AI stuff.
No art or language generators.
Yeah, that's good.
But they do have art packs.
Sorry, who were you just going to say? Sorry.
Sorry, you go ahead. I just got excited.
Yes, they have provided several art packs that you can use. Free art packs. So you can use those with your creations. And yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff on there already. So if you want to write your Pendragon, go ahead and do it.
I think that's really good. I'm glad the fact they said no AI art, I think is fair enough. But then I think it's really good that they've provided the art packs that you can use. Because then I know some creators can't afford to pay for art in that. And that's the reason a lot of people say they use AI. So that's given them a way to not use it.
It's like, okay, you need art, but you don't have any. Here's some you can use that's not. that's within our guidelines and doesn't use AI. So I think that's a really fair way to have that role in place.
I think that's kind of standard with the community. Because, like, DMs Guild does that. We do that. I think most companies do do that. Write a whole bunch of art that you can access.
It's good, though.
Yeah, yeah. So...
I'm just glad there is an alternative because I can see a world where they're like, you can't do that. And some people are like, well, what do I do then? Because I... It's literally just me writing my ideas. I don't have a budget to, you know, pay artists.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good. I mean... There are things you can do. There's like Free Art on Pixabay, Creative Commons has stuff. Library of Congress has like a trillion pieces of art. There's a lot of open source art. There is. It's just not necessarily the vibe, the look or feel, the aesthetic that you're going for. But yeah, you can do stuff. Black and white tends to be a bit easier to be honest. Very good.
I don't have anything more to say on that, but I'm just interested to see. I haven't played Pendragon, actually, but I've heard lots of good things. It's one of those things, a lot of games I know that are like, oh, I love Pendragon. But I've not played it, so I don't have any comments or thoughts.
So, you know Dungeons & Dragons' Honour Among Thieves? The film? The film.
We all went to go see it together.
Yeah. It didn't do all that well at the box office. Not the best time for it to be launched, but it happens. I mean, it got a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score. So, you know, people liked it. But it didn't do so well at the box office. However, it's having a second life on streaming. I bet, yeah. And it's doing really, really well on Netflix. It's on Netflix? Yeah, it's in their top ten things. Oh, cool.
Which is pretty impressive. So, it's number nine. Yep. It's not available in the US, apparently. Oh. So this is not even with the US.
But, wow, cool. Very cool. The thing is, it's a good movie. It is a good movie, yeah. It's put together well. I can imagine a lot of people being super annoyed at Hasbro, which, you know, shared... It wasn't that, though, because mainstream audiences don't know about that sort of thing. And people who do know about it might be like, well, you know what?
The last five Dungeons & Dragons movies were pretty terrible. There have been five? Really? There's a number greater than one. I thought there was only three. I thought there was only five. Wow. Well, anyway, the previous ones. I might make it five. Previous ones have ranged from terrible to terrible.
truly abysmal so having something with a coherent plot with like a running through line with like symbolism foreshadowing actual jokes that are actually funny jokes that are funny was the best joke in it is still where the paladin walks over the rock that that was pretty good joke I mean, everyone's got like a favorite. My bit's the bit where the, what do you call it?
The brain eaters or whatever they're called. Just walk past them and ignore them.
So rude. Yes.
I'm like, oh, that's so relatable. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a tubby dragon in. What more do you people want? Yeah.
Yeah, that was a good film, and I'm glad it's doing well on streaming.
Yeah.
I guess probably there isn't going to be a sequel, but it would be lovely if there was. Yeah, yeah.
I would probably watch a sequel to it, which is as close to a glowing endorsement as you're going to get.
I agree. I would watch a sequel.
I would definitely watch a sequel.
Yeah, yeah. 100%. So there you go, Hasbro. If you make a sequel, not only will we go watch it, we'll also talk about it on the podcast. If that's not reason to do it, I don't know what is.
That sort of marketing push.
I don't know what will persuade them, if not that.
No, no, no. Talking of community content and all that sort of stuff, we didn't mention it, and this was actually last month. And I meant to mention it each week, and I forgot every single week to mention it. So it's now like three weeks late. Nice. Oh, it's Magicka. Yes. Oh, amazing. Has become open licensed.
Smooth move from Atlas Games. Good work, John.
Yeah. The game system and setting will be released under an open license via a crowdfunding campaign. Sorry, crowdfunding campaign for the SRD, I guess. I'm not sure how that works exactly. And what you get as your reward if there's going to be an SRD, because that would be free by definition. I don't know. I don't know. I guess we'll find out.
Is that raising money to pay somebody to write the SRD?
They are.
Because that does take some editing and work. Because I know we've been doing that for Level Up and we've had to pay people to do that and bring it out piece by piece.
It's cheaper than creating something new. Yeah. But you're paying for something to be bought into creation.
It's not crowdfunding expensive. It's not cheap. It's not crowdfunding expensive.
Yeah.
But I think, looking at this, so it looks like the text of the core rulebook is going to be under a Creative Commons license. Right. As an early stretch goal. So it's going to be part of a stretch goal. All of Miles Ashaker's fifth edition source books may also be released during the campaign as stretch goals. There's 40 or more of those. And the campaign starts on October the 15th.
Oh, next week. Okay.
Oh. Yeah. I think. Ah, here we go. This is, it's like burying the lead a bit. Okay. So the, if you're having fun, it's actually for Arse Magica Definitive Edition.
Okay.
Which is a 600 full-colour page rulebook and the.
Got it, got it.
All this stuff is stretch goals. Six. There we go. That's the bit of information I was missing.
That makes sense.
Okay.
Okay. That sounds good.
Yeah. But wow, 600 pages. So it's going to be on Backerkit. That's going to be on. Right.
Launching next week. Nice.
Yeah, yeah. The Ars Manicica Definitive Edition with an open license as one of the stretch goals. There we go.
So that's not actually an out-of-date piece of news because the campaign isn't launching until next week. So really, it's quite timely to tell the listeners about it now.
Let's just say I did that deliberately. You did. I timed it perfectly.
Goodness, you are such a...
I didn't forget at all.
He's a master of social media.
That's the word. I couldn't think of it. I couldn't even think of what to say, PJ.
That's okay. Thanks for having my back. That's very of us.
Okay, cool.
Right. Any more news for any more news?
The main news I have, but I don't know if we're saving this to the end, was some more info we got about the new DM tools in Dungeon Master's Guide and magic items and crafting.
Yeah, there's the DMG stuff. I thought we'd leave that to the end again, like we did last week.
Are we at the end?
Well, that's the question. Are we at the end?
I have nothing more this week, PJ.
I'm out. Got nothing. Do you remember we talked about Universal Studios doing something called Universal Fan Fest Nights? I can't remember whether you mentioned it or not.
I can't remember it, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
We talked about a lot of stuff, man. It's weekly. It's a lot.
Yeah. So this is happening next year. And part of Universal Studios Hollywood is going to turn into Waterdeep.
Nice.
Oh, okay. Yeah, all right. I'm listening. And then basically you have to embark on a D&D adventure with fellow Harpers to save Waterdeep from Xanathar.
Nice.
I'd feel quite stressed doing that. It sounds like it'd be fun. I mean, I do remember, like, I went there about eight years ago, really heavily into immersion. Like, really heavily. Like, when you're queuing up for things, they've got, like, little repeating video messages which are telling you, okay, adventurers, you're going to be doing this, that, or the other, and, you know.
all of the walls are made to look like you're in a location, like where you're going to be. Yeah, yeah. A real focus on immersion, which I particularly value, so I was quite impressed.
These Universal FanFest nights, obviously they haven't just got D&D.
Yeah, yeah.
That's just one of them. But also there's like a Star Trek one where you're on the Enterprise D bridge set.
Nice, nice.
There's a Harry Potter one. You know, so all different things. Haunted houses.
Cool.
Yeah. I'm sure there's probably a Star Wars one. I'd be amazed if there wasn't. And a Marvel one. I'd be amazed if they didn't do that.
Don't Disney own? No, it's Universal Pictures. Universal Studios. Universal Studios. So they don't have that. And Disney has Star Wars and Marvel. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. The Expanse role-playing game, Transport Union Edition from Green Ronin. That ends next week. Oh, how's it doing? We have mentioned it, but I thought I'd put a little reminder in there. So that one's on back of kit. It's done a quarter of a million dollars. Doing really well. Five days left. Looks awesome. It's got miniatures. It's got some spaceship miniatures even.
Looks pretty cool.
It does, yeah.
Is that using Space Age? It's using the Adventure Game Engine system. Nice, nice, nice. Which is their house system.
Good times. I have enjoyed reading the X-Factors.
Oh, and our friend Mike Myler has a Kickstarter going right now. It's Mists of Akuma 5E. Eastern Fantasy, Noir, Steampunk, Bonanza. I feel like Mike Myler's done a lot of Mists of Akula, Eastern Fantasy, you know, our Steam Bank bonanzas. I'm not sure. It very much rings a bell like Kickstarters that he's done before. So I assume this is... Oh, so this is... It's different in some fashion.
Okay, so this is five. Yeah, there are five of them.
Oh, so it's the series, yeah.
Yeah, and he's bringing them all together. Ah, compendium. Yeah. Well, we've got Mists of Akuma, which is the setting. Right. We've got Beyond the Great Divide, which is an adventure path, 3 to 16. Mm-hmm. We've got Sobering Vignettes. Is it Vignette? Vignette.
Vignette.
Vignette. Volumes 1 and 2. There's mini encounters of monsters and stuff. Mm-hmm. And 2099 Wasteland Campaign Setting Generator. Okay, bit of a sharp left turn there. Yes, yeah.
Is that just an add-on that is a product that's in the range maybe?
I guess so, yeah. But this is basically updating and revising these books, basically. Right, right, right. Nice. And that's got a week left to go. But that's 5E Eastern Fantasy Noir Steampunk.
Right.
It's a very specific genre.
But, you know, there you go.
Yes, yes. But if you are a fan of... Those things. Or is it... Mist of Akuma. Yes, Mist of Akuma. I'll just say Mist of Akuma. Use the proper name rather than the description. That's the best. So if you like Mist of Akuma, then good news, you can pick them all up in a definitive edition or a compilation edition.
And it's true that the core rulebooks of D&D will not provide you with that genre.
That is true. This is also true. Yes. Cannot argue with that. Yeah.
But what will the core rule books, for example, the new Dungeon Master's Guide of D&D bring you?
Well, well, well. Will it provide you with amazing advice on how to frame your game with D&D? Apparently.
Amazing? I can't tell you because I've not read it. But will it provide you advice? It certainly will.
Well, yes. It certainly has those sections in the book. Let me go. I cannot tell you whether or not the advice is amazing or not. But I can tell you that there is advice in the book. There's definitely advice.
I just haven't read it. That's not me being sassy or rude. I haven't read it to pass an opinion on it yet.
Also, there's another very couple of quick news item bits. Nice! I'm shocked. You want to be an orc in a Pathfinder?
Not particularly.
Not really. If you did want to be, you could play the Triumph of the Tusk adventure path. Oh, okay, right. And there's a free player's guide out now, which is PDF. Yeah, every adventure path they put out a free PDF player's guide thing with player options and background stuff.
That's smart marketing because then the players can pick it up and go to their GM and be like, please run this. Please, Mum, get us this.
Well, they used to do that. They did that with Wizards of the Coast, with the Elemental Evil Players Companion, which is a source of much Genasi, Arakokra, and some other full thing. I think it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty good, but they stopped doing that, so I haven't really seen those in a while.
No, no, no. Another thing is Monty Cook Games' Magnus Archives RPG.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
They had a big old Kickstarter last year. But that is based on a horror podcast about a secret archive and occult stuff. Yeah. They did a crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit for like two million last year or something. But it's going to be available generally, I think like next week or something. Really soon anyway. Nice. There we go. I've done the news now. There's no more news. That's it.
We're finished. None that we are aware of anyway.
Malek the Maleficent here. If, like me, you're enjoying this podcast, please consider subscribing on Patreon for exclusive bonus content every week and the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing you are helping to keep the show going. Subscribe at patreon.com slash morris. Staring at me like that now? The things I do. All right. All right. Don't forget. Patreon.com slash Morris. Can I go now?
Christian Hoffer, who is one of our columnists, has a copy. DMJ. And we'll be posting some articles next week. On EN World.
So there we go. There will be the opinions to answer your question there, PJ.
I see. I don't know specifically what he's going to write about, but there will be stuff.
Probably tabletop RPG news related to the book.
But today we're talking about magic items and crafting, and we're talking about the Dungeon Master's Toolkit, the DM's Toolbox, sorry, which is an alphabetical chapter listing various topics in the DMJ. So which of these two would you like to do first?
I would vote for DM's Toolbox because I got the vibe that this book was going to be more helping and encouraging DMs.
This isn't the advice chapter.
Oh no, this isn't.
This is the rules chapter.
So what is a DM's Toolbox?
But I think the way this is introduced is more this is how you use the tools.
Was that fair?
No?
I don't know how it's introduced. I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is that it's an alphabetical chapter with a bunch of alphabetical topics. And the topics are things like creating monsters, fear and mental stress rules, chases, firearms and explosives, traps, alignment, character death, dungeon quirks, settlements...
mob rules hazards marks of prestige so a whole bunch of stuff like that little basically little modular rule systems for various things in alphabetical order a lot of which were in the 2014 dmg but kind of scattered about or in other books yeah so this is more an organizational reordering yeah but of course we know they're rewriting every word of these books anyway so So that's what this is.
It's basically, I guess, a chapter of optional rules.
I would be interested to see what the chase rules are, because after immense amounts of banging my brain against the problem, I'm pretty much of the opinion that you really need to adopt a modal approach, and that a chase is a separate mode from a combat mode.
Oh, I agree, absolutely, yeah. I think a chase works better if it's more narrative than miniature-based.
Oh, yeah, miniature-based chase would be 30 feet, 30 feet low.
I don't know how the DMG's doing it. No, no. I know how I like to do it, and that will basically, you'll be going from basically obstacle slash set piece slash environment to scene to scene, and each side will be making checks like, oh, there's a wall in front of you. So each side's making checks to do that and things like that. To deal with it and so forth.
Fierce of the Mind feels very strong. And you give the chase E...
control over where it goes so you'll sort of go okay so you've got two choices now you can turn left and you'll be going through the crowded marketplace or you can carry on straight over the broken bridge and you know so they get to sort of like guys which option and which which still checks or whatever focusing on the chasey the hunted rather than the hunters yeah yeah and then all you basically need is some kind of scoring system to work out how far behind the other guys are yeah and there's millions of ways of doing that but
I don't recall the 5th edition DMG having what I'd call good chase rules. There were rules, certainly. No one can deny that, but I didn't find them satisfying or to do what I like. I can only tell you two things about these chase rules. Okay.
The first is that they take up two pages.
Two pages? All right.
And the second is that they distinguish between wilderness and urban chases. Nice. Makes sense. That's all I know. I know nothing else other than that.
There are chase rules in the 5e rule thing. I have them up if people are interested. So what the current edition does, not the new one. Do you want me to go through those?
If you want to.
Okay. PJ gives zero Fs.
Sorry, in the current 5e, 2014.
In the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So the first is set up to determine where everyone involved is located and how far apart they are. Then determine initiative. Then track the movement. There's no opportunity attacks allowed. So no one can use opportunity checks against anyone else and things. And you have to track exhaustion.
So you can use the dash action a number of times equal to three plus your constitution modifier for each dash action. After that, you must succeed a DC 10 constitution check or take a level of exhaustion. And your speed becomes zero when you reach level five. Yeah.
I think that it would be fair to say that the 2014 edition of was envisaged as having Exhaustion play a much larger role than most games of 5e that I've seen or had actually had it play. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think there was definitely two camps, at least.
I think what's interesting about Exhaustion is it's like a non-scaling version of Hit Points.
yeah so heat points continue to go up and up as you go up in levels but exhaustion always has just those five stages and that's it yeah no matter what level you are and it has the same effects whatever level you are so um yeah yeah and it's also quite harsh as well no yeah yeah it really it i i mean like it makes the game much harder so if you're throwing it towards the end then
that can really affect the game.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's all those interesting things with survival versus exploration.
Yeah.
Which I think is a little distinction worth borrowing.
I mean, what we did in A5E is we stretched out the seven stages to make it less harsh.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it doesn't completely debilitate you quickly. It takes longer to do that.
And that makes it a little less of a... There's a series of choices to get you to that place so that it feels like there's a bit more player agency and control over it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So other things. So we've got... So I don't know how each of these things... I know that everything's one to two pages long in this toolbox.
Yeah.
So we've got... And this is only some of the stuff. Rules for creating monsters. Yeah. Fear and mental stress rules.
Interesting.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
Well, mental stress, I'm going to guess, is what they used to call madness. Yeah. Yeah. And they've renamed that.
Yeah, that's probably better. Yeah. Hopefully got the sensitivity readers in. Yeah, mental stress is a thing. Yeah.
And then fear, I don't know how that works, but I guess.
As in the condition?
I don't know. Presumably not, I suspect. Well, are we happy for me to engage in some baseless speculation?
Yeah, I mean, there's a heightened condition. We know that, but I don't think that's what they're talking about here.
Yeah, I think this might be something that I'm familiar with from Games Workshop. Some creatures caused fear and others caused terror. and basically that would affect whether you could approach them.
Oh, right. Yeah. There's something in Demon's that used to do that as well, like Dragonfear was a thing. They don't do it now, do they, in 5e? Well, not as far as we're aware.
Possibly it's an additional rule. Yeah, with this 24-ish. And Death Knights did it as well. Yeah, just to bring that back to maybe if you're doing something like Ravenloft or something, having foes that are too scary to approach. Rather than, oh, there's a phone over there. I will just lamp it for 300 hit points.
Yeah.
I like the phrase lamp it as a side note. I lamp it.
Yeah.
I'm going to keep that in my pocket for later.
Yeah.
My next game.
With my blessing. Enjoy. Enjoy. Oh, of a phrase you might like, panel beat.
Oh, I do like that.
I know.
Yeah, it's good, isn't it? I play a fighter, so I need lots of different ways to say I hit it, really. Because that's what I do.
Yeah, I'll go panel bait it into the ground, which has a definite, I grab it and I repeatedly bonk it. I have multi-attack as a fighter. Isn't that what you do to straighten out dents in a car? That's called panel beating, isn't it? Yeah. It's a monster's head as well. I think it's great.
I mean, my fighter doesn't do that, but I suppose one could, yes.
Your fighter causes dents instead.
She does, yes.
Wave the monster. Sorry. So we've got chases, which we already knew about.
Yeah.
Firearms and explosives, a couple of pages on them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because they're not in the sort of player's handbook basic weapons list. No, no.
Because people have views on gunpowder in games. Yeah. And the only thing I can tell you about people's views on gunpowder in games is that everyone disagrees with everyone else pretty strongly.
It's really interesting. You jump over to a different fantasy genre, like Warhammer, and it's like a big thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And that's fine. So it all totally depends on basically your assumed universe.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, 100%.
So firearms and explosives will be discussed in the 2024 DMs. Yes, yes, yes. DMs, guys, so we'll know what they think about it then.
So we also have traps are in this section.
I love a good trap.
I mean, as far as I'm concerned, Paul Hughes has pretty much nailed that. But I'm interested to see what they come up with.
I'm assuming, given that each of these things is one to two pages, I don't think you're going to get many traps there. Doesn't sound like.
I wonder if that's guidance on the approach to making them, as opposed to, here's a list of traps.
Maybe.
Well, that, I assume, would be a better use of the space. It's like, hey, this is how you approach it, and...
Well, there aren't that many in the 2014 rules either.
But I imagine a lot of traps are given in Adventures, because that's the kind of style that Wizard of the Coast does.
So analysis of how to use traps.
That's what I would like, yeah. Because I think sometimes people can... You don't want it to be... They're basically given as hit point taxes.
Yeah. I'm talking about you.
Or we'll just send the rogue in, and they'll do it.
Or the barbarians because they have hit points. Traps are most fun when they end up being a group activity. Generally, I don't think you should hide the trap. You should let them know it's there and let them think of ways around it. And inventive solutions are fun.
Yes.
Unseen hit point taxes aren't fun. Oh, yeah. Walk along, fireball goes off, you take 30 damages. Yeah.
Because as a GM, I can just do that. I'm like, I just decide that I'm going to take 20 hit points off you because I can. That's not fun. Who's that fun for?
No. There's no choice to be made, is there?
Yeah.
Exactly, exactly, yeah. Yeah.
And, like, traps as puzzles are just... They're just fun. They're just more fun. Yeah. Tell the players to trap there. Let them find the trap.
And the challenge is... Ideally, with some sort of baiting. Like, you know, you could just ignore the trap, but it's a shiny thing, isn't it? Mm-hmm.
You can tell this treasure chest is trapped, but if it's got a really good trap in it, there must be really good loot inside because someone's really trying to protect it. Go on, poke it.
Yeah. Anyway, so traps. Yeah. What else have we got in there? Character death. So apparently they spent a couple of pages talking about the topic of character death and different ways that you can approach that.
in the sense of what happens afterwards do you do memorial services in your game yes is character death permanent do you want to like send them to another plane when they die you know what happens to the equipment what happens you know all the different things and also I guess there's basic just sort of player management stuff like what happens to the player if a character dies like part way through a session you know I think yeah I mean there's all sorts of things because like from the prosaic
Do they just have to sit out? Because I was reading online, someone was saying, I went along to a session, had my character in the gym, killed my character at the start of the session. So that evening didn't happen for me.
Was just watching some other people play D&D, yeah.
Went home, because there wasn't even a chance to watch other people playing D&D. That sounds abysmal. And then some people are very invested. I've forgotten how invested people get into characters. But one of my players on Wednesday, due to unfortunate amounts of crits being rolled at them, was like, oh no, my character.
And then they rolled and they managed to get two death saving throw failures, which was not good. Not ideal. No, no. So it was like they're not really shifted the focus of the game. They were getting up and pacing around. They were so wound up about it. Which, like, I guess I'm just old and jaded. Because I'm like, oh, wow.
I think it's really good to have that section in the book because I think it's something that some people don't think about as a thing and then you get to the moment where it happens and like you say some people are upset about it or it causes issues or people have different expectations of how it's going to be handled whereas if as the GM you've thought about it in advance you can just let your table know and be like hey this is what's going to happen because like when I run a one shot during the session I say hey are you guys happy for me to not
pull punches and that your characters may die at the end of the session and generally most people say yes in a one shot and if I'm doing a campaign where there's a high likelihood that your character may die I make that very clear from the beginning just so there's that expectation that And I have some spare character sheets ready to go.
So if it happens at the beginning of a session, like you just mentioned, PJ, I can be like, here, jump in and be this NPC for this session. And the next week you can decide if you want to carry on with them or create someone new. But it means you've got something to, you're not just sat there watching everyone else role play, clutching your old character sheet, weeping.
I mean, some people, that may be their idea of a fun time and they can do that. But for my understanding, it's not other people's. But I think a lot of new GMs won't think about these situations until they're in it. And then that's when you can get issues.
yeah I mean because it takes time to make even a simple character like a 5e character I've made like dozens of them because like I've made lots of what's it pregens for various adventures league games it takes at least 20 minutes yeah and that's with I mean all the rules yeah yeah first level character see I was using level up gateway last night oh yeah yeah because our whole group got to use it for the first time for an alpha testing
as a super early alpha test.
Yeah.
You know, it's pretty buggy and stuff. It's not ready to let everyone beat a tester yet. But it's amazing stuff. But the process of making a first level character, literally, I can whip one up in like two to three minutes. And that's me taking my time. It's so quick and easy.
I think that's true on D&D Beyond, in fairness, as well. It would take me five minutes. If I'm not really thinking about it, a level one character, I'm just like making something and I'm not trying to think what would be interesting. Yeah, you can do it real quick. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, spamming out. I refer to pen and paper. Oh, yeah. At that point.
You have to write stuff out and calculate stuff.
Yeah, if you're doing it pen and paper and you're trying to make an interesting character, like you're actually thinking about it, like not just going, yeah. Well, you know what I mean?
I think maybe we have different, we could talk about that a little bit.
Well, I mean, like a character that someone's going to enjoy playing because you've put some thought into what feats and options you take for maybe some synergies and things. If you're doing that, that's going to take longer than just picking whatever. One would hope.
I have. The design space in 2014 5th edition isn't sufficiently big that that is a huge problem to choose from the correct answers. That's probably true. In Level Up, the design space is somewhat larger.
That's true.
I've done the calculations a couple of times and it's definitely in the millions. And yeah, which one's the best ones is the subject of much debate. And I don't know, basically.
No, this is a subject based on game style and all sorts of stuff anyway. Yeah. Some games, social skills just might be irrelevant, you know.
It depends on your GM as well, because I had a GM who, if you wanted to invest in skills, because the type of things they did, they did a lot more encounters and skills challenges just because of the balance of the game. Whereas if there's another GM which is more combat focused, then that would kind of go to waste. So it just, yeah, it depends.
But also the best character make is one that's slightly incompetent, because it's always fun.
That's your preference.
That's my preference. I want to be a little bit... Not quite the right character for that. I want to be, you know, Frodo holding the ring being like, why am I here? Why am I the one doing this? I just think that's fun. Maybe Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit inspired me quite a lot when I was younger as my early fantasy references.
Because you're good-hearted and dedicated to resisting corruption.
Yeah.
Which is the Augustine school of morality, which I haven't really thought about in so long. Like Manichean, you've got good versus evil. They have a fight. Good should win, technically, whatever. I don't know. Whereas Augustine, it's like it's resisting evil. And by resisting evil, you're killing Gollum, which Gandalf shouts out in the first book. Like, it's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him.
Well, maybe Gollum's got a point. We'll have to wait and see. And then at the end, Gollum turns up and Drawn by his evil to the evil's ring, evil destroys itself, which is bang on for Tolkien. And that's what we've heard. I've read a great essay about that.
Yeah, it shows.
Anyway, moving on. Going through this chapter, we've also got a section on alignment.
Interesting.
And they said that they're trying to make it clear that actions determine alignment. Yes. Not alignment determines an action. So your alignment is based on what you do. Yeah. It's not like I'm lawful good, therefore I act lawful good. It's I'm lawful good because I act lawful good. Interesting. Is what they're trying to say. And they say that you can change alignment if you change your actions.
I get that. I don't generally like alignment too much because it's, you know, I say human beings, and I know not everyone in this is human, but you know what I mean? They're generally more complex than that grid. And I think if you're role-playing an interesting character, they're not going to be quite that two-dimensional.
To be like, I am good, and I'm doing good things because I am good, and I am evil, so I'll do this evil thing. It's like, eh.
Yeah. I think some kind of destiny system would work, maybe. You know, where you've got different motivations...
I'd actually like the level of take of, if you're a being from the angelic planes, you probably are likely to be good. And if you're from one of the other places, abyss or hell, you're probably likely to be evil. And then you have Cowboy to come around and say, ooh. aye, your brain looks so tasty. And that amuses me.
But even that isn't like set in stone. So if you just look at sort of real world mythology, like the classical example of evil in real world mythology is obviously Satan, who was originally an angel. Yeah. So, you know, not even all angels have to be good, really. You can have an evil angel.
Yeah, the good guy of Genesis.
Anyway.
I can continue. No, anyway. But anyway, so... The DMG is going to determine how actions determine alignment and not vice versa.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know how it's going to do that, whether that's just like a paragraph where they just sort of say that.
Okay.
I don't think there's going to be rules.
I'll read it and see, but I'm generally not a fan of alignment things for the reasons we've just tangentially discussed.
what else we got so we've got a big table of dungeon quirks dungeon quirks yes so some of it is like basic stuff like who made it like did giants make it and everything's on a larger scale yeah like all the chairs are like six feet tall or whatever or maybe is it built on top of a cloud or you know or a volcano
Or in a volcano, or underwater, or, you know, basically ways to, themes that you can apply to a dungeon, I guess.
Just to give it life.
Which basically change the nature of that dungeon. Yep.
Yeah, it's like world building, isn't it? Giving it a reason for being there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we've got environments, probably the same sort of stuff that's in the existing GMG, like underwater, hot, cold. Being the three classic environments. Yes, those are the three. The three Greek classic environments.
Hot, cold, and water.
Underwater, hot, and cold.
Is it hot or cold underwater? We cannot know.
Oh, wow. That's when you mix them, you see.
Under hot water or under cold water.
Oh, gosh.
So you're saying you were adventurous to find themselves in hot water?
Okay, anyway. What else is in the book?
Before we waffle off. We've got settlements, including a settlement tracker and a way to roll up random settlements.
Mm-hmm. This feels very Fallout adjacent, where you're... I've not played it, but as Alan said, it's supposed to build up settlements and support them and so forth.
Some people have that in campaigns when they wander around the world. They wander into a little place and they care about it and get ties and links. And then as their adventure progresses, things happen there. So that's, yeah, cool, having rules for that.
There's a video where they actually roll up a settlement on the video. It was Chris Perkins and James Wyatt from Wizard of the Coast.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't watch through that bit of it. I kind of scrubbed through that bit of the video as they did that because I had a time limit. But yeah, and settlements can have quirks. I think I caught them saying one of them was this settlement has lots of magic users in it or something. Are you sure? In the same way that dungeons can have quirks, so can settlements, I guess.
I mean, something that I thought was a very good idea when I heard about it was the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons had the points of light setting
yeah you'd have the settlements that acted as um like little oases of civilization and beauty and peace and order and you'd be trying to build them up so maybe that would be good for a reason yeah i mean that's what it is yeah yeah yeah it never really went very far that set and i remember it i don't think it was even named yeah i think point to light is as far as i got but i i was like so i i i
had a couple of very short games which fell over pretty quickly which is kind of i think it was that's kind of quite tolkien-esque isn't it points of light it's like yeah most of most of middle earth is just wilderness full of nasty stuff but then you've got the shire here and you've got rivendell there and there's brie in between them and you know and but most of it is yeah
Large amounts of empty space and algorables.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so settlements. What else have we got? So we have hazards... And they listed a few hazards with colourful names. I can't remember, but they were like, it's like a fireball fungus or something. I can't remember what they were. There was a bunch of fairly colourful sounding, cool sounding hazards that you can drop in. Mob rules. So this is interesting.
So this isn't like swarms. Okay. This is like, if you've got a whole load of monsters. Yeah. It's rules to basically, rather than controlling them individually, you average out how much damage they're going to do.
Yeah, yeah.
And simple rules to do that. So just to save time.
Nice.
Yeah, I mean, like MCDM, flee mortals, level up, possibly entails the value. I don't know how to check. Well, yeah.
So if 20 archers are firing at you... The DM doesn't have to roll 20 times. You just average out how many you're likely to hit and how much damage you're going to do on average. Sounds good.
That would mean it's a more auto-hitting witch, wouldn't it?
A little. A little, yeah. But, you know, it's a trade-off against the time it would take, I guess.
Yeah, I like the level-up approach of making a deck saving throw against that sort of thing, with the DC being based on the number of shots.
It's basically a fireball. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And then we've also got Marks of Prestige. So these are non-monetary, non-XP awards. So they're like deeds or medals or titles, that sort of thing.
Reputation and all that, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Letters of introduction, that sort of thing. Ooh. So that's the DM's toolbox. It's chapter three of the 2024 Thunder Masters Guide.
It's coming out next month, so we'll get to see the whole thing then. Or we'll read more about what an EM will next week.
Christian Hover's got one. There's a presser event.
Mm-hmm.
which I assume will have an embargo on it for those who attend. And we've got a couple of people going to that. We've got Beth and Christian are both going to be at that. So we'll have a few articles and columns about that too.
Nice, nice.
So, yeah, yeah. We'll know all about it soon. Right, right, right, right. That was one of the two things. Yes. The DM's toolbox. We still have to go the crafting and magic item rules.
Let's talk about magic items!
And crafting. Oh, is it crafting magic items? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So they've got extended crafting rules and lots of new magical items in the new DMT. Yes. So one of the things they have done is divide treasure into different themes. And different monsters can have different themes of treasure. And these could be like arcana or gems, relics, implements, armaments. So it's easier to pick.
You want to stock an armory, it's very easy to go to an armaments table, for example.
So keeping it tier-appropriate.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's anything different to what's already in the rules anyway. You can pretty much shoot weapons or potions or rings, that sort of thing, can't you?
Like, if you're using D&D Beyond, if you're using their books, it's a lot more fiddly because there's different tables which can be accessed at different times according to if you're doing random rolls. And it's not massively clear, in my experience from looking at them, what tier is for what. But, you know, it's like That was like, I don't know, eight years ago for me to be messing around with.
So, you know. possibly things have changed yeah is it something you've looked at Jessica?
it's not really that much to be honest because I I mean I don't play a huge amount of D&D 5e and when I have like we've had the odd shopping episode and I've kind of the GM's done what sort of things are you looking for and I'll make sure I have those items shortlisted and I haven't so I haven't I've never been one to pull through kind of looking at things like that and I haven't run a 5e game so it's not something I've had to manage on the other side so yeah
Yeah.
And you've never really been into cyberpunk?
I have not. No.
Which seems like a weird suggestion, but one of the best things about Cyberpunk is just the pages and pages of interesting things you can buy. Yeah, it's just so much stuff.
I mean, to be honest, I'm not as interested in looking at magic items and things like that. That's not the thing that I find exciting, is exploring and finding it. I like getting them, because generally what happens is the Games Master will have an epic fight, and in the treasure hall you find this thing, and...
so happens to be an item that would be useful for one of the players and like that's fun um but yeah i've never been one to yeah trawl through magic items and want to buy things and stuff like that for me it's always been i hate the idea of and i'm lazy so it always happens in my games but i don't like the idea of just sort of oh Yeah, you can just go and buy, you spend your treasure.
Here's the list of magical items. Just go and buy anything up to, I don't know, this town will show you anything up to 400 gold or something like that. But I don't like doing that because it's totally unimmersive. I'd much rather they go into a specific shop and there's a shopkeeper there and they're talking to the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper's going, oh, I've got this lovely sword.
What do you think of this? And that sort of thing. But it's work intensive. That's the problem. Work and time. I'm too lazy.
And not everyone enjoys the shopping episode as well, more importantly. Yeah. Do people find it fun?
What if you try and mix the shopping in with the adventure and encounters and challenges and things? I suppose you... I don't know.
Like having rumours be part of it. Like if you go round... Like, you know, if you're really... delving into, like, sort of a hub-based game. You've got, like, the magic, the various, like, vendors of alchemy, magic weapons. You can go and talk to them. You can do, like, you know, computer game style. Yeah. But they've got, like, instead of repeating the same thing, they have the rumours as well.
I kind of like the idea, you don't do a shopping trip. Yeah. You're like, okay, we're doing shopping now. You're playing the adventure, and the adventure happens to lead you through a bazaar, and there's this interesting stall, and the stall owner calls over to you. Or you're investigating a crime, and you go into the shop to ask them questions, and it's a potent shop, and while you're there...
maybe you you know so it's like part of what's going on it's not just right shopping trip time yeah yeah it's an underutilized part of the game i don't want to screw you i think i think i think you're right it's just it's work intensive it's work intensive and it's time intensive it's like is it delivering bang for the buck like we spent table time on this has it been exciting well the other option is no shopping yes no shopping at all yeah there are no magic shops yeah
Every bit of magic item is given to you or it's treasure.
Yeah, yeah. Loot.
Or you can make your own.
That's 2014. Or you can make your own. Wow, 2014. Steering back. Can you make your own magic items?
Yes. So in the player's handbook, you can craft potions and scrolls. So the DMT expands that to all the other magic items. The non-consumables, yes. Yeah, so you can craft any magical item in the DMG as long as it's not an artifact. You can't craft that. But anything else, in theory, you can craft it.
You might not necessarily have the resources or the skills to, but in theory, you can craft any magical item.
How would I do this?
Yeah, so... Is there a dice roll? Yeah, so you've got tools proficiencies, you've got the arcana proficiency, and you've got spells. And they're basically three components, plus whatever material components you need.
Oh, shit. Sorry, I don't mean to sigh quite so heavily. It's just, well, it's just like that means that to engage with that as a player, you have to be aware that these options are on the table to craft stuff. And then you have to make sure, if that's something you'd be interested in, that your character has the arcana proficiency or a tool proficiency or something like that. I think it's both.
You need both. You need both. So you need to set yourself up to really...
like almost dedicate your character to it before you can engage with it i don't think yeah i don't think crafting is something that most people probably want to do in their games it's it's it's there for a certain you know i mean people enjoy crafting in computer games um and i i know i can enjoy crafting in computer games it's just the circumstances are exceedingly rare that i do so
Let's see how this works.
So you need the Arcana skill to start with. Magic, check. I mean, you can craft non-magical items as well. This is just a magical item start. So you don't need the Arcana skill to craft a hammer. But you need the Arcana skill. And depending on the magical item, you need the appropriate tool. Yep. One of the examples they got was a wand of magic missiles. So for that, you need your khanoskel.
You need woodcarver's tools to make the wand. And then you need to know the spell. In this case, magic missile. Feasible. So you need those three things.
Right. So...
straight away unless you invest the feet into it this is not a game that you get to have they do say that multiple people can contribute work together okay and so well you need to because otherwise that's a lot of skills yeah yeah yeah so basically then it's a question of gold and time and this is determined basically by the rarity of the item yeah so this is something you could give to your players and say crack on and sort it out yourselves yeah
They don't need to make a skill check.
Good, because I really don't like skill checks. I don't know if you have to make a skill check. It says you have to have the Arcana skill and you have to have, like... A tool proficiency. Proficiency. But it doesn't say whether or not you have to make a skill check.
It doesn't look like a role. It looks like it's just time. So they measure the amount of time it's going to take.
Yeah. And this is basically measured in person hours. Yeah, yeah. So the more people you have working on it, the shorter time it takes.
Yeah, yeah. So Wonder Magic was sold pretty easy to crank out. If you want something legendary, then that's going to take a while.
I feel like this is a niche rule set. Like you would have to create a character who does this. And that can make sense. You could be like, you know, I have a dwarf and blacksmith and that is their thing. So they're going to make stuff like this. And sure.
There is a collaborative element.
Mm-hmm.
where characters can bring their, you can have multiple people, that's what I said, which I feel is pretty essential. So yeah, okay, it's a crafting system, it's pretty basic. Does it say anything about materials?
Not specifically, it's just as golden time, so I guess it abstracts the materials. Yeah, yeah. In Level Up, we've got every single magic item has specific crafting components that you have to obtain. This, I'm guessing, doesn't.
Yeah, I mean, I think, to be fair, if you're not interested in the crafting, which is fair, you can just pay full price.
Mm-hmm.
But if you're interested in the crafting and you're interested in the components, you can have like a little mini quest to find it.
Yeah.
And, you know, depends upon the game you're playing. So, you know, it sounds okay. Yeah. I mean, I like to do a mini quest to get the right component.
Yeah, I do like that.
Oh, yeah. Sorry, I'm talking about The DMG. Yeah. You just need gold. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. It'll work. Sounds good.
Yeah. That's basically it, really. It looks pretty simple, unless there's a lot of nuance to it that they haven't revealed yet. Then magic items themselves... Not necessarily ones that you craft, but ones that you find. Also have quirks and randomly determined histories and creators and things like that, just to make them more interesting. So you wouldn't just get a wand of Magic Missile.
You'd know who created it.
Morris's Magic Missile.
You'll know which culture has created it. That's a holdover from the 5th edition, 2014. Yeah. which I really liked. I had a lot of fun with that. If only my players had been interested in reading the stuff. I wrote stuff on an index card, and they just, on the back, wrote what bonuses it gave them. I was like, oh, okay.
I mean, and yet this is the thing. Yeah, some people just aren't interested in that.
But I think part of that goes, also that goes to how the game treats magical items. Like D&D...
They're a dime a dozen.
They don't make you do that, but I bet if you went and played The One Ring and someone gets a magical short sword, I bet they'd be interested in that. Yeah, it's got a name and a history. Because it's different and it's rare. But in D&D, you know... They're not rare.
For better or worse, magic items are just... I'd say to a certain extent, it almost becomes a class feature. Like a magic sword at fifth level is pretty much essential because... that's when you start encountering magic resistance or resistance to non-magical weapons. And then you're like, well, I guess I'd best use my magic sword then. Yeah.
Yeah. So yeah, use magical items. So randomly determined stuff. So it can determine the creature type that created it, like a dwarf, an aberration, a giant or whatever. It's history. It might have been part of a religion. It might be a symbol of power. It might be a prophecy or something like that.
And they get a bunch of minor properties and quirks just to, like, round them out and just... It's all standard stuff. You've seen all this before in every game in the world. Every fantasy game in the world does that. I mean, well... No, I know what you're saying.
But, yeah.
Yeah.
It'd be nice to acquire things with a bit of personality. But I mean, it's nice with the flavor text, but I guess for me, it's not really connected into the core game. So it's like loses a bit of value.
It becomes like something that accretes on to what you're trying to do rather than being like a real... It's nice to have it, but it's not... If you don't have it, then it's very optional, is what I'm saying. And I don't know, it'd be cool to have a game where like these... really fed into the main narrative, which you can do, but again, it takes actual work.
But maybe they've got some of that in the section on the install box. We shall have to wait and see.
Yeah. Well, we'll find out. We can really find out more every single week up until it's released.
Yeah, yeah.
Seems likely. Pretty much. Yeah. Well, that's it for the DMG for now. Yeah. I think that's it. I think that's the news. I think we're done.
That is all I have to say this week about Tabletop RPGs.
I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye.
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Most ciders I've tried have sort of gone... Bit sweet for me.
You tried the orchard ones.
I haven't tried a lot of them because I don't like cider. You don't try all of the ciders. You try and find if there's one cider.
PJ, I think what he's saying is he's not going to come with you to the Apple Festival.
It's fine. Russ doesn't understand about dry ciders. Yeah.
What do I understand about dry ciders?
I don't like cider. You come from the New Forest. How can you not know about cider? Soap? Doesn't mean I like cider.
Apparently. Anyway, on this note, should we end the podcast?
We should. We should. I don't bid you good day.
Good day. I say good day. Enjoy your cider.