344 | New D&D SRD, Dire Wolves Resurrected, Yet More Tariff Talk

Music. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris' unofficial tabletop RPG talk.

I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ, and it's a bit crowded this week, because with me is... PJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild roleplayers and also Homebrew and Hacking tabletop RPG design. Joining us also well let's put it this way when she hits the beach I get flashback to Helm's Deep it's the one, it's the only.

It's me Jessica from EM Publishing I have returned, from two weeks away and yes I have been on a lovely sunny Caribbean island and I'm still the wife's person stop stealing my joke, you're both stealing my joke now because you knew I was going to make this joke about your tag, Well, yeah, I don't tan. I'm the whitest person, you know, and when I go to the Caribbean, because I have family over there, so I go for a bit, I basically dress like a beekeeper the entire time, just completely covered.

Yeah. Because I just don't tan. So I'm there with my Factor 50 every day, even when inside SPF. It's that Welsh heritage. Yeah. Did you know SPF goes up to 100? I did not. Yeah now I do I guess I can't is that just like a sheet of cardboard.

No I also then have the beekeeper outfit on top right but yes I have returned and I am here to hear all about the tabletop RPG news because the last two weeks I also didn't watch the news because, I wanted a break from the world because before I went on holiday, the whole tariff situation happened. Yeah. And it's continuing to happen. While you were away, it got worse. But we'll get into that in a minute. We've got a tariff.

We've got another four weeks in a row now, another tariff segment to go through. And I hope that's not coming too tedious for me on this thing because I'm not more talking about it. But it is happening and we do have to talk about it. It continues to be relevant.

Yeah. Yeah. But before then, before then, shall we talk about the brand new D&D SRD? Let's do it. Let's do it. The system reference document 5.2 is finally, finally live. As promised by Wizard of the Coast a year ago, they said that it would appear after the Monster Manual came out. And that's?

One system reference document. so this is for those who don't know basically a developer tool so it contains all of the, not all of the rules but a lot of the rules of of dnd with a lot of these sort of ieps stripped out so you know all the forgotten realm stuff stripped out so it's just it's just the rules and then that's put that's released out it used to be under the urban gaming license now via creative Commons so that third parties,

like us and many, many, many others, can make products powered by 5e, basically. So, has anyone looked at this yet? I have not. I've had other things on my mind, I'll be honest. So, a couple of notable things. It's got a few things removed from the 5.1 SRD. Oh, okay. It doesn't include, for some reason, the bastions section. We're not entirely sure why. And also, this is quite interesting. So in the 5.1 SRD, there were a couple of bits and pieces that were, I guess, accidentally included.

So there were things like the word strad was in the 5.1 SRD. They've been removed for the 5.2 SRD. They are no longer in there. That doesn't mean that the 5.1 SRD is... You can still use it. You just have to use two SRDs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. The 5.1 SRD is still out there, still valid. You can still use it. There's a couple of other things removed. The term deck of many things has been removed. Sean J says, anyone here with Dave Thornover's trademark legal challenge?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're literally about to talk about that. So the deck of many things has been removed. So this is interesting. So about a year ago, two years ago, I think it was in 2023, Wizard of the Coast applied for a trademark. Let's see if I can find the... There we go. This is the trademark for the deck of many things.

Oh, okay. And according to the current SRD, in the sort of creator notes, it says that things like the Deck of Many Things and also Orb of Dragonkind have been removed from the SRD in order to, and the words are renamed in SRD 5.2, only to avoid using protected trademarks still referred to as Deck of Many Things

in official products. Okay. So we've got this trademark okay as you can see from that it was applied for in 2023, it is not yeah it's still pending as you can see from there but you know sometimes these things just take ages um but it applied for as a trademark was a year before srd 5.1 was released so it's two years ago in common but it's an old trademark application but it was updated as you can see as recently as April 14, 2025.

Okay. Weeks ago. So it looks like Wizards intend to trademark up to many things an orb of dragon kind. Oh, okay. So deck of many things so they can produce it as a product, I assume. I mean, they've been doing that for years, producing decks of many things, but I guess they want to protect it now.

And orb of dragon kind, I guess, same? I don't know what they'd be producing there, but... Big orb? Big orb? I don't know. I mean, put it this way, if you could have a glow-in-the-dark orb or one that you could use to, you know, sort of like as a remote or something like that, or some other, like, you know, internet of things, access to various parts of your house, that wouldn't that be quite cool? Like a gesture-powered orb. That would be pretty cool. That would be pretty amazing.

Yeah. It would be even better, though, as if it actually summoned dragons. I mean, it depends upon... Depends upon your neighbourhood ordinances. I'm pretty sure I would get in trouble if I summoned dragons to my house. Or maybe they'd be baby dragons. Like a pseudo-dragon. Why does it make you worse? Why does it make you worse? They're not going to land on your house and squash it, at least. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully not. I mean, they are the size of horses.

I'm not sure how strong my roof is. But the thing I know about babies is they produce a lot of poop for us. That's the only reason. I have not gotten anything. A horde of baby dragons, and they're carnivores. So it'd be like your cat, like a cat's poop, but much larger. And presumably, what's it? Well, Peter, dragons are magical creatures, and we don't know for a fact that they poop. But we don't know that they poop. I'm just sitting here listening to this conversation thinking a week ago I was

on a beach, and now I'm here. Because of my dragon poop. So, yeah, why not, why not, why not? But anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. I'm just saying that I won't be out there with a shovel. Okay. Fair. So this trademark then. Yeah, back to what we're talking about.

So we end up in this interesting situation where how does a trademark and the creative commons interact? So what is the point of trademarking something that's already been put into the creative commons by a previous SRD?

Presumably you think therefore it would have no effect so I've done that's my assumption I've done some digging on this but let's get to that in a second because I want to show you something else that is now in the 5.2 trademark, SRD so this is page 5 of the, 5.2 SRD can you see anything there that you think that is on that screenshot, that you think maybe they would not want to put out into the creative commons. Is it D&D? Yes. The term D&D is on there.

So you see they've taken care to change DM and Dungeon Master to Game Master. They've carefully done that because Dungeon Master is a trademark and they don't want people just using it. What they have got is D&D in there. Ooh, yeah. That's interesting.

Opposed to using the dnd which is yeah so dnd is also a trademark yes first like duck of many things like dungeon master dnd is a trademark so what we need to then look at is how does a creative commons license and a trademark interact now the license itself contains the words, patents and trademark rights are not licensed under this public license. Oh, so if you trademark it, it makes the commons void? Yes. So it looks like if you trademark something, it basically means that it's removed.

So a deck of many things, despite being in Creative Commons now, once it's trademarked, license will no longer apply to the check of many things because it's trademarked but is that clear in the system reference documents and the creative commons that which what is and isn't trademarked because if i'm a third party creator i might go to the srd to the creative commons think this is what i can use and i might use it i might not go around looking at all the trademarks to check sure and i think

the if that ended up in court i think the judge would turn around to say why didn't you go around and check that you weren't using trademarks? I mean, the onus would be on you to do that. Because I'm tired and busy. There's a tariff war going on. I'm trying to make games. Sorry, but yeah. So the onus is on you to make sure that you're not using a trademark you're not entitled to use. You can't just say, oh, I didn't know. But in our case, does the trademark apply retroactively?

Well, who knows? Because if I've answered the order of events, they released deck of many things under the srd and now they're applying for a trademark.

And that seems to me like a horse bolting the stable door after the horse is bolted well that that we don't know we don't know we do know that dnd was trademarked long before it went into the creative commons yeah and we do know the hundred master wars and things like that's that's all safe yeah i can see that being like like sort of one of those things although i would say that there is an onus upon if you're releasing the a creative commons document that you don't,

release such a thing and then i could say it being used like to trap people by unethical actors which i know sounds absolutely ridiculous but very much and a lot of effort to trap somebody yeah i i don't i'm not saying just for the avoidance of doubt that this is what hasbro are intending and doing but patent trolls do exist mm-hmm, So, like, I could see that being a thing, but I would say, I would be, yeah, I don't know.

I think it would be like, if you're using something like D&D, or trying to use D&D, say, well, it was in the SRD, so that's good enough, then that's probably not going to fly, because that's so well known. But some of the other things, so, I mean, is Strahd in the Creative Commons or not? The word Strahd, yes. Not the backstory. not the image of him, nothing like that, but the word, the single word, strad, is in the creative comments and he's got a trademark. So that is, that's Clicker.

That is Clicker. So you can, you can, you can use the word strad. You can't like grab the stat, his stat block or pictures of him and put that in the book, but you can use the word strad. I mean, like getting a vampire, making a stat block, these are not insurmountable obstacles. Yeah.

It's like, give me give me give me 20 minutes on open verse and uh yeah in the chat right versus the world says there should be a period of appeal prior to establishing a trademark there is but we've missed it on this one well presumably because this was three years three years ago presumably the opportunity to challenge establishing a trademark after the fact is that yes that is also there so yeah it's not like these things completely irreversible and unappealable and So,

you know, you can, you know, that's how Wizard of the Coast got the TSR trademark back off of new TSR, for example. So, there is nuance to this, though. So, the words are patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this public license. So, we're talking about trademark rights. So, the trademark rights is basically the right to use it as a trademark, which is different to just using it in your book.

Now you can actually already use, trademarks in your book or your novel you can have a character in your novel drinking coca cola and you won't be sued by coca cola, well you might be but they'd lose you can you can do that, you can utter the words. It's not like when someone owns a trademark no one's allowed to mention they exist that's not how it works so I imagine they'd say thanks for the free advertising. Presumably. There's this whole thing with product placement in films and stuff

where they actually pay for it. So, you know, it's the other way around. So, you can write in your book, there was Dungeons & Dragons and D&D and stuff, and say this is a book designed to be compatible with Dungeons & Dragons. You can stick that in your book, and that's fine. The trademark rights is basically about you representing yourself as the owner of that trademark or that the owner of that trademark is in some way endorsing your product or using it as a trademark.

So, if you put on the cover of your book, a big G&D logo, you're using it as a trademark, which is the right that the Creative Commons doesn't transfer. You don't have the right to do that. But you do have the right to use the word, and you didn't need it to be in Creative Commons to do that. Does that make sense? Yes. I mean, the common example that people often use is if you go and pick up a phone cable, on the packaging, you'll have a list of all the different phone models.

Let's say samsung an iphone or whatever that it's compatible with they're all trademarks and it's perfectly legal for them to put those trademarks on the packaging and saying that this product is compatible with those objects with those trademarks with those brands that's fine as long as they're not pretending they're apple or pretending they're samsung and this is an official iphone product or an official you know so you can't do that and the reason we don't do that And it only occurred

to me this week why we don't do that, because we've been trained through 25 years of the open game license, which no longer applies because we're talking about the Creative Commons license now, the open gaming license specifically forbade you from doing that. So if you use the Open Gaming License, you could not use or include any trademark without written permission.

The Creative Commons License doesn't say that. So the only reason people would think it might be an issue is just because they've been trained by the OGL for 25 years into a habit of carefully avoiding use of trademarks. But now we're on Creative Commons, you can literally put on the front cover of your book, compatible with Dungeons & Dragons.

As long as it's not laid out in a way that implies it's an official dungeons and dragons product yeah of course i am not a lawyer and i'm most definitely not your lawyer and this is not the advice no the only danger for that is i think that could get you in murky grounds because wizards could turn around and say the way you've presented it implies this and then it becomes a legal battle you can be you can be very clear because you can put that and uh is a trademark of wizard of

the no infringement intended. And that is the standard phrase you put on stuff. And it is, you know, every court case has always said, yes, that is extremely clear. There is nothing to answer here. You know, nobody is going to read that and be confused. Well, somebody will read it and be confused, I guarantee. But yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. So that seems to me like maybe breaking the OGL was a bit of a boneheaded thing to do.

I guess. I mean, the Greater Commons Flushance is more permissive than the OGL ever was. I don't think I was ever on their roadmap and plan to do the Creative Commons thing. That was purely a reactive VR thing because of all the backlash. So, yeah. I think it was just, yeah. It's what had to be done after everything. So, yeah. Yes. Yeah. But still. So, who's Dave's form of all then? Right.

So, that is, I've only glanced at it. That is someone who is challenging the deck of many things trademark, and the challenge is based on the fact that the creative commons license and i don't know whether this challenge would work or not but the creative commons license specifically says that you cannot put further restrictions on the use of the content that is licensed so you can't put something to create a commons license and say yes but don't do this with

it you can't it's creative commons or it's not you can't restrict people tell them how they can use it tell them where they put it you You can't tell them you can put it on the inside of your work, but not on the cover. You can't do anything like that. You can't put any restrictions on that.

As far as I can make out, Dave Thormivore's case, it's not a lawsuit, it's a challenge to the trademark by the trademark lawyers, is that adding a trademark or applying for a trademark is adding a restriction to the usage of that content. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense to me as somebody who knows nothing about trademarks or law. I think basically what you then have is you have two bits of the Creative Commons license, which kind of conflict with each other, just ever so slightly overlap.

One saying patent and trade, you know, specifically saying patent and trade rights are an exception. And one saying you can't add restrictions. So I don't know. I mean, I don't feel we should be lecturing Hasbro to create the Magic the Gathering about the stack, but it does feel like you needed to apply for this trademark before you released it into the Creative Commons. I don't know. That seems like that's going to be the legal opinion. I don't know that the

order of operations is relevant or not. I don't know. That's a good standpoint, though, PJ. I like the Magic the Gathering stack reference. It's good.

But it does kind of sound like, yeah, just like registering a trademark or something does sound like a way to snatch something back from creative commons yeah yeah very much against the spirit it'll be interesting to see what happens but that does look like a strong case and uh because it is creative commons there is quite a lot of vested interests that will be having things to say so you know exciting stuff i guess more to come has uh events

develop yeah yeah yeah yeah well uh sean jay has just put in In the chat there, here we go. Dave Thummelport did attempt to appeal with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, but he missed the initial request period. So he's taken it to a next step with an appeals board, but that can take years. We probably won't hear anything anytime soon, I guess. Well, in several years, when we hear about it, we'll update you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So anyway, SRD 5.2, now out there. Yeah okay so for people who were waiting for that in order to start making third party content there you go you didn't need it but there you go you did the start of approval it's there, I feel some rare spells coming on for advanced fifth edition.

Yeah yeah yeah well i'd obviously do some changes but yeah yeah yeah so other things that are missing from it i say missing just aren't included so there is the 5.1 had a whole between adventures section which is gone because the five because gnd 2024 doesn't have that in the game um half orcs half elves gone obviously because they're not in 2024, yeah yeah yeah and a couple of you know a couple of other sort of like verbiage changes and and stuff yeah but by and large it's

pretty much the same as what was in 5.1 just the 2024 version of those those words so presumably it's got the 2024 spells in and so forth yeah yeah new classes and features yep so we've got a whole list of what's been added on their web page for the dnd beyond pay for it and there's a big old list of what's been added and it's yeah it's all the classes and uh it's all the stuff all the stuff that's been added not bastions more lego more lego,

but not bastions i don't know why not bastions i understand why not bastions. Uh yeah that is tricky one although maybe they have plans to do a book on bastions Maybe they realised that A5E strongholds are better and they thought, let's just let them do that instead. Use that, because that's already out in the page of comments. I'm sure they're deeply familiar with our work, yes. I'm sure, I'm sure.

Well, you say that, but one of the things I noticed when I was doing my last book was that the 2024 heritage, are now very much in line with, the general way that heritages and cultures and so forth have been updated and that they're bang on alongside A5E. So that's pretty good in terms of like, you know, points cost and so forth there, you know. Okay. I don't think, I don't think that they're entirely ignorant of the work of Level Up Advanced Swift Edition, but you know, I don't, I don't.

I imagine they're vaguely aware of the various sort of spinoffs that exist. I don't know how much they'd have paid attention to them. Yeah.

I don't think you've got them quaking in their boots but there's definitely, yeah no but there's definitely a lot of, similarities although there's definitely some influences I would say that are maybe there but yeah that's okay it also might just be it might be just because those are things that the gaming community wanted so it, you know so they're just leading into that and it's yeah. Alright All right, so we've got a lot of Tara's stuff to talk about.

Hooray! Before we do that, can I show something off? Yeah, go on then. Hang on, let me put this on just me, because I'm going to need the whole screen to show you this. Oh, that's just me. How was that just me? I don't know how to change it. I was not your one. How did I change it? I did, don't worry, I'll do it. That's why I'm back. This, look at this, enormous. This thing is basically a portable gym. It's so heavy. when it arrived, I was shocked by how heavy this thing is.

This brick is literally the weight of like four or five bricks. It's enormous. Oh my god. Look at that. My arms are actually tired now. That's how heavy it is. For those at home, Russ is holding up a large piece of gym equipment, which is masquerading as a box set. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a lot of stuff in it. I'm definitely going to be neat.

I mean, put it this way. you're going to want to be at home to receive this part this parcel this package it is not it is 100% not going through your letterbox and if you're if you've got one of those postal workers you like to throw things over the fence make sure there's nothing breakable on the other side of the fence yeah you want like a trampoline or something maybe a dog flap because this isn't for a cat flap either this is like a serious bit of kit so amazing i'm feeling excited

i wanted to unbox it on the show, but it's so big that I literally let this desk... So, I came up with a cunning plan. I did a unboxing. I took some photos. How cunning is that? So, would you like to see that? Yeah, like a fox. Yeah. Look at this. Right. That's it on my kitchen counter there. It's a lovely book. What is it? There's like four books in there? Yeah. Three hardcover books. There's a GN screen. And there's a box full of like 20 plus double-sided poster maps and sheets of tokens.

But I've unboxed it all down so you can see the details. Okay. So this next image, this is, I've unpacked it there. Look. Yeah, we can see Escape from Death Player, Void Runners Codex, a very nice-looking GM screen, and Maps and Tokens box, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of stuff going on here. I'm impressed. And here, this is a look at the maps and the tokens. So there's, I think it was 21 double-sided poster maps. So that's basically 42.

And the box I'm going in is a book-style box. It's made to look like a book, so it slots in. Which is why you initially thought there were four books. That would be it. What? Okay, so I can see the tokens. There appear to be some absolutely gargantuan ones. Are they like dragons or something? Yeah. Yep. I think it's a voyage dragon, that one, I think. Ah. Well, you should always avoid dragons where possible. Because of the poop. Yeah.

Exactly. Oh, I don't even want to think of what poop a voyage dragon would do. Yeah, because they're not the... Look, they're big. Yeah, yeah. I mean, your car's in serious danger. Drops in. So here's a look at some of the poster maps there. As I said, there's 21 of these, double-sided, so 42 maps. Oh, that's lovely. Loads of Starship deck plans, all with the minis on.

So these could be used for Void Runners, but you could use them for any other space RPG you have as well, just as a nice thing to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then this is a space poster map. So basically in space combat, it uses zones. So that's an example one where you can see that there's a bunch of different zones on there. Yeah. And that's probably the space station. The void. Something else. Nebula. Nebula, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then we have, that's an example of a Star Trek deck plan.

Oh, okay. Got like an octagon with like a couple of rooms, conference rooms, so forth, off-site. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bridge, basically. Starship bridge. Right, right. So it's a ready room and so forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there's 20-odd of these. So you can build an entire sort of USS Enterprise-sized starship out of this. And there's deck plans for sick bays and anger decks and crew quarters and mess halls and basically everything you can think of, you know, labs.

Weapons rooms, cargo base, everything. Loads of those. These are the tokens. Lots and lots of them, as you can see. Lots of different scales because some things in space are massive. To summarise. What is the psychedelic thing that looks like it's bigger than the Void Dragon?

Do you know what? I can't actually remember what that is. I do know it, but I can't remember the name. Some kind of space amoeba. Yeah. That is big and there's a lot of the regular cards we've got those little star fighters that I'm seeing the spaceships, there's spaceships on there as well it's the brainstorm the brainstorm thank you.

Another look at the general set there there's a maps and tokens box that they come in does look like a book very sneaky, love it, then that's how it looks on the side yes so like the actual books themselves have a black spine with the writing on and the maps and tokens box is a purple spine so there we go, yep and that's the back of it yep no I mean what a beast yes it is a beast of a time there we go looking forward to getting my copy Yes. Very, very proud of that.

As the comment says, looks really nice and has an expensive tariff fee. So, shall we segue into talking about tariffs? We have to. I don't have to pay a tariff to deliver it to me because I live in the UK and we don't have tariffs in it because that's a big impediment to trade. And the UK government hasn't taxed on us for this particular purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right then, let's have a look at these tariffs then.

So, first of all, should we talk about a company that is suing the US president briefly? Yes. Have fun. That sounds fun. Yeah, good for them. Yeah. So, Stone... Is it Meyer? Meyer? Stone Meyer Games. Meyer Games. So they do, I'm sorry, you. Yeah, yeah, I don't know them, so what are they? Well, they do my favorite board game, which is Scythe. Yeah. And they also do Viticulture, Wingspan.

Ah. So these are, they are a really big gaming company. Yeah. And to give you an idea, they have 200,000 units of reprints going out of things currently. So they're that scale of business. And they're also a really cool company. I like the way they run it. Jamie, their CEO who owns it, has a really good blog and shares a lot of information for newer, smaller creators. So it's an interesting thing to look at generally anyway.

But yeah, and they're also cool because they're joining a lawsuit to the US government. I mean, as I understand it, lots of people are. We're talking about this one just because it's a game company and we're at TTRPG Newsletter. I mean, they're not mincing words, are they? Yeah. We are joining a lawsuit that will challenge the unchecked authority of the executive branch for imposed tariffs.

Yeah, so they're basically saying... ...idely by what our livelihoods and livelihoods of thousands of small businesses and contractors in the US, along with the customers whose pursuit of happiness we hold dear, are treated like pawns in a political game. That's not a very strong language. That's obviously not the lawsuit, that's just a blog. No, no. Yeah, yeah. But that is like, this is...

Unprecedented quite frankly like you just don't see that sort of thing coming out of like the america anything to do with american politics well this is a lawsuit which has a lot of different companies involved with it they've joined it and it's not all gaming companies um this you know companies from yeah yeah small basically small what they call small businesses big big to us but small businesses all across the u.s yeah if you're importing stuff from outside the U.S.

Into the U.S., then you probably have a vested interest in being part of this lawsuit. Yeah. I mean, you need to be in the U.S. to do that as well because basically, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think at the moment, the law firm has said that they now have too many clients on the case, so they're not taking new clients, but they have a form which you can provide information if you're a company suffering for this to give them information that they can use in their case.

So whilst you cannot be there they're not taking on more clients for this case because they've got too many you can provide them information so they can say look we got information from x number of companies yeah yeah i mean what they're basically saying is that the u.s president does not have the power to unilaterally put these tariffs in place that's basically the core of the case and that's what that's what they're challenging um i can't comment on the.

We are neither Americans nor lawyers, so this is out of our wheelhouse. And we are definitely not American constitutional lawyers. Indeed, indeed. It's for the import code that would be under tabletop games, which impacts role-playing games because the Voidrunners Codex we just talked at will come under that import code because it has token maps and things. So that's why it's not just board games that are affected.

It'll be role-playing games if any part of it isn't a book for any reason so you'll start a box set or if you have a game that has accessories or unique components like cards for part of its mechanics that might come under this code and be affected by tariffs yeah i mean we did a big segment on that last week but basically it is looking like sorry no it's all right, they're going to be okay I do know that Chris Burt from Modifius imported some books in just like in the last week or so,

and they went they went through okay but that remains the case you know but we'll find out in a few weeks because the Monstrous Menagerie 2 and the Gate Pass Gazette 2024 annuals are due to arrive, due to arrive in a couple of weeks in the US so we'll let you know how that goes.

Oh i feel so bad to you guys like this is just such a nightmare it's so stressful yeah yeah i'm not too worried about those two i think they'll be fine it's things like the void runners codex which obviously the full 145 tariff i'm at the moment i plan as we discussed last week is to ship them probably in case something unless something changes you know um this thing does, change on a minute-to-minute basis, ship them to the UK, here in the UK, keep them in our warehouse here,

and wait for the situation to... Because basically 144% tariff isn't a tariff, it's an embargo. You cannot ship to this country at this moment. There's no point even calling it a tariff at that point. There's a ban on imports. Yeah. So basically, we'll ship it to the UK until the embargo is lifted and we're allowed to ship it to the US. Yeah, yeah. Essentially. But it's the only way to look at it, really. It's like, there's nothing to be done. This is not like a structural thing.

This isn't like the shipping crisis where no one could get any containers because they're all being held up like being clean. That's coming. That is coming, though, because there's backlogs. There are backlogs. There's bad things being held in China and not being shipped and things. It's going to happen again. There's going to be a shipping crisis again, even if when the tariffs go away. Yeah, because a lot of things are arriving at port in the US.

And because the rules have changed quite quickly and things are unclear, things are taking longer to process. Because obviously, imagine you're there with your clipboard doing your job. It's going to take you longer to figure out what's going on, what the rate should be, send invoices out.

People that get the surprise invoices might need some time to find the money to pay them which means it sits there a lot longer so the whole machine slows down and and also of course you've got containers and containers or product held in china or like we're doing we're going to be holding stuff in the uk but as soon as tariffs go away everyone's gonna like ship ship to america quick quick quick and everyone will be doing exactly the same thing and they won't be able to because there won't

be enough shipping we're just gonna have to get a load of suitcases and get on a plane i reckon i reckon it's like you're like message in a bottle just stick them in a suitcase pack them into the sea and i'm sure that they'll just wash up in the right place the void runners will just sink you've shown us the weight of them those things aren't floating their way across the ocean they're gonna end up not even if we put a little sail on them Yeah.

Not even an anglerfish is going to be able to find them. Yeah, it's just going to go down faster than the Titanic, man. It's not a feasible plan. But yeah, many industries are suing the president over this. It's about the fact that it's wartime tariffs, but the country's not technically at war and things like that. But these things take a very long time, so hopefully the situation resolves itself before... These things need to come to light, but we shall see. I mean, yeah.

What would be lovely is if, well, it's not going to happen. It happened quickly enough that we can actually ship those void runners straight to the US instead of to here, because even then we're paying an extra boat ride for the really, really heavy things, which is going to cost a few thousand, you know.

Well, I mean, I can't promise anything, and we won't discuss the details, but there are other things going on in american politics where people have made proposals or done applications and then there has been pushback and then they have rescinded these, proposed ideas quite quickly so possibly it might work out okay that me being optimistic though so So enjoy it. Mark it on your calendars. You know, celebrate the anniversary, 25th of April next year. On this day, PJ was optimistic. Yeah.

When I look at another company who's been affected by this, so Simon is a fairly sizable company in the industry.

That's just counting the minis. Yeah. They basically said that they are going to stop crowdfunding and developing new products until this blows over that makes sense because their products are really specific tooling for mass production because their miniatures are really high quality really detailed and there's not infrastructure outside of china to do that at the scale that As we spoke about last week with Gloomhaven, they had a $1.2 million shipment sitting in port in China.

The tariff on that, 145%, would have been another nearly $2 million when it arrives in the US. So they have said that they've got to hold that back. They can't send it because they can't pay too much. You don't have that in pocket change, do you? Yeah. Oh, goodness, yeah. I'll go find that down the back of the sofa. Yeah. No. Yeah. It's not like, you know, your open AI or something where it's just like, oh, yeah, we've earned another couple of billion dollars. Let us abominate. Mm.

Yeah. But, yeah, tariffs continue to tariff.

Yeah. Well, one company that is badly affected by it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wizards of the Coast, because they had a Hasbro investor call this week, where they had to update all the investors on all the situation, and the tariffs was a big part of that. Yeah. And so while a lot of Hasbro's toys and Magic the Gathering, no, Magic the Gathering they're producing in the US, but most of D&D, they said D&D is barely affected by the tariff situation.

The only thing that will be affected by it, they said, is Heroes of the Borderlands, the upcoming starter set, which is a box set of tokens and cards. Which is what will be done in China. Yeah, that's made in China. So that will be affected. But pretty much everything that they print at the moment, book-wise, is done in the US. So their upcoming US release schedule for D&D books is going to be badly affected by this tariff situation. So they're pretty much okay, apart from that box set.

Yeah, I expect they'll be seeing some rises in costs because of importing of materials, like inks, paper, and so forth. Yeah, yeah. But nothing like a finished product tariff, which is what, mid-range, basically anyone smaller than D&D is facing. Yeah. I thought that sort of imminently upcoming stuff that already had been printed. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They've got a longer lead time than, say, we have. Yeah. On this show. Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, good for them, I guess. Lucky them. They'll be fine. Well, that's good. I think that's the indie company everybody was worried about. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Hasbro will be okay. Well, that's all right then. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, there we go. That is tariff news. Except I imagine their toy arm is going to be catching it in the short. I would imagine so, yeah. I imagine so. Yeah. That's not going to be fun. But their toys have been declining in sales for a while anyway.

If we remember looking at the research, Magic the Gathering, D&D, does okay. Yeah, the toys have been suffering. Yeah, yeah. Just a bad tariff news. That is bad tariff news. Do we have good tariff news? Is that possible? We've got some good news.

Let's cleanse our palates. With a picture of my two dogs looking out of the window for reasons. Why does Marvin look so sad? He always looks weird when you take a picture of him. I'm not sure why. He doesn't like his picture being taken. He looks weird. I think Marvin's, well, there's a golden retriever. What's the other one? What's the retriever? Collie Stash Retriever. Oh, yes, of course.

Okay. But whilst we love seeing a picture of your dogs, Russ, why on this Tabletop RPG News show are you showing that? I just thought it would cheer us up after having talked about terrorists for five minutes. Nothing to do about science? Well, we could also show a picture of some other vaguely dog-shaped things. What do you think? Yes. Would you like to see that? Object objects? Yes. Guess what those are. Well, I know, so I can't guess because I know the news story.

Well, they look like some of the, I've got to say, they're some of the worst wolves I've ever seen. They're absolutely dire. There's a couple of, like, little puppies being held up. They look very cute. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're not strictly dire wolves because dire wolves aren't strictly wolves. I mean, yeah. Well, yeah. So Colossal Biosciences, which is an awesome name for a company, Dallas-based biotech company, announced last week that they had successfully de-extincted the direwolf.

However, a lot of scientists say, well, technically, no, you haven't. But it's still cute enough that I wanted to show the picture and mention it anyway.

And it's very D&D related because D&D has direwolves in it. So there you go. That's my excuse for showing a small picture of some tiny little wolf-like copies. And now we know where George R. R. Martin has been directing his efforts for the past several years. Oh, I'm all right with that. They look very cute. Yeah. So there's been three of them, apparently. Two male pups were born on October 1st in 2024, and then a female one was born on January 30th, 2025.

Nice. They are cute little white fluffy creatures. Yes. Yeah. I wonder how big they'll grow. Because direwolves, they're just massive wolves, right? Yeah. I mean, there's more to it, obviously. Yeah. Are they going to be like Irish wolfhound size? I don't know. I don't know.

No. I just have to well we'll know in a couple of years like wolves take what two years to go to full size I think they're like dogs I mean is your question Jess will you be able to ride one because the answer is almost certainly yes will they be taller than Jess is the question, oh definitely who isn't.

Because I'm a five foot one at the shoulder yes oh come on I mean that's fine, that's fine all right do we have any, well just but think of the poop, anyway what other news do we have in the tabletop rpg scene for this week, well i've been talking a lot peter i think that you mentioned a podcast what i say podcast for kickstarter is that that's the word i was looking for, that does seem like the sort of thing I mean there's a I mean since I put some

stuff up there's been a couple well there's only one I've got a slide for there's only one I've got a slide for you are not responsible for my late night buying habits. Yes well this is the one that you told me about before today this is what I told you about before today yes so what we've got coming up is one for the Shadow Dark RPG, called The Devoured Labyrinth. What it is, is a collection of 31 two-page dungeon crawls, gauntlets, and adventures. And that is absolutely perfect.

It's a bunch of pre-created adventures that you can run Shadow Dark with. I'm like, yeah, that's actually really useful. Like, if you don't know how to run Shadow Dark, then this is a good way to go.

Yeah this is third party this is sword compass creations it's not it's not it's not launched yet it's uh got notify me on launch which is a button that i've just been clicking so i'll be looking forward to that but yeah there we go the devoured labyrinth for the show dark rpg, there is also a current a current running kickstarter which is all of which is the best tree for savage worlds which i am super excited about because for me

i do really like running savage worlds but one of the things i've always struggled with is like the best trees and knowing like what monsters to get because i'm very basic i like my uh i i i like to have things all I like my food pre-chewed if you will.

It's a baby bird up to you exactly like if I wanted to do homework then like you know, what's going on and what it is is the Simply Savage Best Street for Savage Worlds, which has already funded and which I am quite interested in not just because, it's a not just because it's the best street for Savage Worlds but because of the way they've done it uh what what we're looking at is they have all of the they're following best practice i would say in that everything fits on one page they've got

all the rules that you need for monsters put on there like normally we've got these things called edges which are a bit like feats but where a monster has an edge uh instead of having to remember and go cross-reference it they put it straight in which is very much like a5e has the spells has a part of the stat block And one of the things which I also found very attractive, which made me go, oh, go on, I will pull the trigger on that one, is that they've got a star rating from one to three,

from least to most complex Toronto. Oh, that is... Yeah, a complexity. Very cool. Yeah, yeah. And so I was like, I'm down. I like this idea. So it's raised $5,600 or $200 goal, 13 days to go. But yeah, no, I'm very excited about it. And what it's doing is it's already using the print-on-demand to be distributed and thus sidestep the tariffs that way. So, yeah. Makes sense. Yes, yeah. Otherwise, we are discovering it.

It's a big drive. Yeah. It probably wouldn't matter anyway if it was a book, but still. Yeah, well, Good News Drive through RPG. It does seem to buy distribution. It does, yeah. They're running their 30%. What can I say? Right. I spotted Kickstarter 2. Ooh. Right. So I'm not 100% sure about this. I like the idea of it. I'm not sure whether in practice it quite works for me, but this is called Kickstarter RPG.

And it's kind of a box which opens up and there's a whole bunch of sort of like battle maps which open up and little bits of wall segment and 3d terrain you can put on top of it and tokens so it's kind of like a sort of they call it an all-in-one adventure kit so it's magnetic, it's got the maps and it's got minis and terrain and you can open it up and you can flip through the trains to various different maps,

magnetic maps, and then put the little magnetic minis in the magnetic 3D terrain on top of it. Yeah. So it's like classic minis with small magnets in the bottom. It looks really cool. But it is very small. It's not the usual mini scale that you'd have for D&D. That's my only reservation there. It's 7, 8mm tall, so So I don't know, if you're backing this, will you be able to see what you're looking at? Some people are young, so they would.

Yeah, depends on your price, I guess. I mean, it's $99. $99 for this, for this set. Nice. It does look beautiful. A miracle. Mentorization. Yeah. No, I mean, I've also seen that, but I was like, oh, no, I'm not touching that. I'll just lose half the bits in no time. I'm sure your dogs will enjoy the tasty treat. Yes.

I think I would back this if it wasn't quite as pocket as it is if it was a bit bigger I think I'd be tempted but I think it's just a little too small I mean definitely if you're I don't know travelling, with a group and you want to just break out that break out that game yeah I mean, it's a very nice idea I do really like it perfect if you get trapped in a lift, You could be like, oh, well, we're trapped in the list. At a game convention. Trapped in the list at a game convention.

Well, fortunately, I happen to have a trap with me. Where are you going? Yeah, but you've got trapped in the list at a game convention. There's bound to be someone in the list with you who knows all of the D&D rules off by heart, verbatim, and can basically perform the function of a walking rulebook. I mean, why would you attack me like that, Ralph? What did I do to you? Come on, man. Right, anyway. You have to just play D&D with it.

You could play any number of other games because other games are available. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, what else have we got? We have got some upside-down Stranger Things miniatures, and we've got some Pathfinder, Starfinder stuff. What would you like to hear about? Oh, I love a good monster, so hit me up with Stranger Things, maybe? Stranger Things miniatures, okay. Let me find the slide. So I flip through. Here we go. There it is.

So that's only some. That's one, two, three, four, five, six of the, I think there's about 40 miniatures in total. Let's have a look. No, it's 18, not 40. I completely will. So it's a Stranger Things miniature set by WizKids. It's going to hit retail in October 2025. 18 different figures, pre-painted plastic ones. Some are large, some are small. And they come in sort of like booster packs and things.

I don't know if they're animized or not. But for this at home, what we've got is we've got Dechner with various pentacles coming out, joining him to a couple of pillars. We've got an egg, which really reminds me of an alien egg. Yes, you could definitely have an alien RPG too. And then they have that little weirdy newt thing that was in the latest season of Strings Things, a demidog, demogorgon, and of course, the most terrifying monster of all, A Haunted Grandfather Clock.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And they've got a whole lot of war as well. I mean, you know. Yeah. Maybe it represents the evil that is the passage of time. Relatable. Okay. Yeah. Right. So, that leaves us being... They look quite good. Oh. They do look good. They do look good. I like that they're painted, because I will not paint minis. No, me neither. Me neither. Me neither. Let's have a quick look at some Starfinder stuff. And I think we're pretty much done then, to be honest.

It's quite a short week. But there's two things going on in Starfinder-wise. First thing is that up on screen there is a preview from their Galaxy Guide. And the Galaxy Guide has a chapter called High-Tech Adventures. Yeah, so they have a bunch of genre-based chapters. Things like fantasy, horror, dystopian, weird campaign. So this is a high-tech adventures. So it tells you, it's Avengers that put technology and magitech right at the center.

So they're going to feature a lot of space stations and lots of androids and cybernetics and things like that. So they've got a chapter on just different genres of, I mean, they're all sort of related because it's Starfinder, not Pathfinder. But, you know, you've got some like horror or whatever, different genres. So this is one of the chapters, such a quick preview of it, which I think is pretty cool. I haven't actually seen this book.

I think it looks like it would be a good resource for anyone running. Just a look at this. What's the advice for anyone running sci-fi-esque campaigns? If you're using the Voidrunners Codex, maybe this might be useful. I don't know how mechanic-heavy it is. It does look really cool, though. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, you're about to segue, sorry. Yeah, the other thing they've got is a playtest for two new Starfinder classes.

These look quite cool. These do look quite cool. If I can find the correct slide, I knew it wouldn't be adjacent. Of course it won't. Why would you make your life easy? Why would I make my life easy? What the problem is you've got to search for this tiny little thumbnail and peer at them and try and work out what a slide is. Sometimes they're a bit murky and you can't necessarily see the detail.

I think that's it. i can't actually tell i can see there's something green and brown so i guess that's it you got it yeah okay yeah that's i'm not sure i'm looking at it looks like there's some sort of alien doing a bit of under under the spaceship repairs on some oh is that a car with huge wheels it's still a more attractive vehicle than the test than the cybertruck i'll that and then I never chat with a person with a huge backpack doing some sort

of I don't know like magical glowing stuff or technological glowing stuff so what you're going to say is a mechanic the one on the left, and a technomancer the one on the right I don't know they are. So the mechanics are martial class does things like have turrets pop out of the ground and repairs things and mines. Mines and turrets and robot companions are some of the big things that the mechanic does. And the Technomancer is a spellcaster who basically combines technology and magic.

Those fancy technological things. It's absolutely amazing on the German club scene, 100%. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. So that's a public playtest. You can go and playtest those now up until May the 30th. So you've got about 9th, roughly a 9th, if you can playtest those. There's a survey. You can go and give them survey reports. And, you know, give them playtest feedback. And they'll come out in a book later,

I guess, this year. Yeah, that's great I mean, certainly, I do find that A very nice aesthetic that I'm seeing there Yeah. Right, I think we're Pretty much done And I'm sorry that you've got anything that I've missed, No The only thing would be To bring up the UK Games Expo live Podcast recording that we'll be doing in a month's time, I guess. We will be doing in the very early days. It's getting close now, isn't it? Yeah. So that will be on Friday the 30th of May at 2pm at UK Games Expo.

We'll be there. The three of us will be there. We will record a podcast live in front of an audience. Yes. We've done it for two years in a row now, so this will be the third time we've done that. It's always fun. and if nothing else somewhere you can sit down and eat your lunch exactly yeah, it's at 2pm which is the same time we normally go live and it's in the dice room which is the same room we're always in.

And has been big enough every year, despite being offered a room 10 times the size originally. And I had to explain the scale of who we are and be like, no, we're not going to fill. We're not going to fill. We're going to tour them of 500 people. No. No, we will not. I mean, you know, like there were definitely less seats than there used to be. So, yeah.

There's empty seats than there used to be. Yeah. Indeed. and also general Ian publishing stuff at the UK Games Expo we have our stand there and you can collect your rewards there if you've let me know in advance for like the Monstrous Monastery 2 and things like that if you check the updates if you want to pick them up in person yes yep we're going to be there for another fun pack four days well three days four days plus set up of absolutely exhausting work yes,

see you there yeah see you there please come and say hello to us, but don't corner us and talk to us for 45 minutes while we're trying to sell books. Russ would dearly love to hear about your level-up character and all the ins and outs of how it works, is what he's saying. I know. Understand that we are working and we are trying to sell books to people, and if you talk at us for 45 minutes, that's probably several people we failed to sell a book to.

Unless you wish to buy a book, Russ would love to sell you a copy. I'm going to say hi to us, but try to keep it in five minutes or so. People under 45 minutes Yeah And if you want to hang out with us For 45 minutes or more Come to the live show Yes.

That'd be pretty sweet Or in the bar In the evening Yeah Or that Promises, Alright Right I think we're done I think we're done I think so too Yeah I failed to mention Early on I've got to get into the habit Of doing this right at the start Of the show We're live streaming, 2pm on Fridays UK time that's 9am Eastern time YouTube, Twitch and Facebook we're live streaming this so if you're hearing it only hearing the audio you

can come along to YouTube, Twitch or Facebook and join in join in the chat, we'll sometimes throw your comments up on screen and answer things you said, and it's always a good fun it's always good fun we gaze upon our faces and we can only apologise we've got 20 lovely people watching right now which is nice woo, Yeah, so thank you for joining us. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. That's it for the week.

All right. Goodbye. It's good news, Jess. You came back from the Caribbean, complained it was too cold. But the good news is we are having a mini heat wave next week, and it's going to be 26, 27 degrees. I know. I'm excited. So you can work on your tan, then? Yeah. That's me, always working on that tan. Yeah. All right. Shall we get out of here? Let's go. See you next week Bye bye. Music.